Is Carnal Christian a Proper Category?

1 Corinthians 3 and the Question of the Carnal Christian

Welcome back to our daily Bible reading. My name is Keith Foskey, and I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church. Today, we are going to be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter three. We're gonna be looking at verses one to 23.

So 1 Corinthians chapter three, verses one to 23. This is part of our daily Bible reading. Our daily Bible reading is available at sgfcjacks .org. We're reading through the New Testament one chapter a day, and we're doing it in the order that we believe that the books were written.

So I'm gonna read the chapter, and then I'm gonna make a few comments, and then I'm going to pray. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still in the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers.

You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's spirit dwells in you?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise, for the wisdom of this world is folly with God.

For it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness, and again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future, all are yours, and you're Christ's, and Christ is God's.

So ends the reading of 1 Corinthians chapter three. Now, this particular chapter has had an interesting history in the sense that it has caused some discussion and division in the church, and what do I mean by that?

Well, the beginning of this chapter, Paul addresses the Corinthians, and he says that he's addressing them not as spiritual, but as carnal, and this has led to the doctrine that was popularized in the last century, the doctrine known as the carnal Christian.

Now, the doctrine of the carnal Christian is basically this, that a person could be, that there were basically three types of people. There was the unbeliever, the unsaved, or the unregenerate person, and that there was the saved spiritual person, but that somewhere in the middle, there was this category of people that were saved and yet still living like they were unsaved, and they became known as the carnal Christian, and this has led to what I think is a very severe and ultimately a dangerous false understanding of the Christian life, and that is that one can be a Christian without experiencing a life change.

One can be a Christian without experiencing a renewal or repentance. In fact, some people have even dropped repentance from their presentation of the gospel and saying, no, repentance is not part of the gospel.

It's simply believing, and that repentance is not part of that. I would disagree. I would say that repentance and faith are two sides of the same spiritual coin that we turn from our sins and we turn to Christ.

That's the act of faith, and that is also an act of repentance because repentance means a change of mind and a change from one to the other, and so it's a changing from unbelief to belief, and that in itself is a repentant act, and of course, we believe it's all a gift of God.

Repentance is a gift from God. Paul says this when he's talking to Timothy. He says to be patient when you're dealing with someone because God may grant them repentance leading to life, and so we see that as an example of repentance being a gift, and of course, faith is a gift.

We see this in Romans where Paul says he has given to each one a measure of faith, and so we see that as a gift, and of course, Ephesians 2 tells us it is by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourself.

It is the gift of God, and the reference there is the reference to all of it. Grace and faith and salvation is all a gift from God, and so it's all a gift from God, but it's a gift that changes us, and the idea that someone can continue living in carnality and have no life change, and yet still be a Christian is really something that's foreign to the New Testament, but the people who believe that often cite 1 Corinthians chapter three where Paul here addresses the Corinthians as carnal, but something that we need to understand that when Paul says this, he's not giving them in any way a pass.

He's not giving them an encouragement. He's saying your behavior is carnal, and that is not right. That should not be. I'm having to speak to you not as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, and he's not saying that's an okay third way.

He's not saying that's a way that we ought to be. What he's saying is this isn't the way it should be. It shouldn't be that as believers that we function and operate in the flesh. I mean, if we look at other passages of scripture such as Galatians five, where it talks about the difference between the spirit and the flesh, it's always the goal of the Christian life to be operating in the spirit, and if there are times when our flesh is in a sense wanting to be fed, it's hungry, and we have to deal with the temptations and the appetites of the flesh, and even Jesus said the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and so I just want to encourage you today to not be fooled into believing that a carnal life, a fleshly life is the right life for the Christian.

The Christian is to live a spiritual life, not a life that is marked by carnality, and there's a lot more in this chapter that we could discuss. He goes on to talk about the divisions. He says this one great thing here about he planted a polished water, but God gave the increase.

That's a great reference to how we understand evangelism. When we go out and share the faith, again, faith is a gift, so when we share the faith, someone who says I believe, we know that's God who's doing that work in their heart.

It's God who's doing that work in their life, so for someone to come to faith in Jesus Christ is a miracle of God, and it's God who's giving the increase. As much as the farmer who plants the seed and the cultivator who waters the seed is responsible for their duties, neither one of them can make that seed grow.

Only God can make a seed grow, and when God gives life to a seed, it bears fruit, and so going back to the first part of the chapter when he talks about the carnal Christian, or the difference between the person being carnal and the person being in the spirit, is that the person who is carnal is a person who's not bearing fruit, and the reality as believers, we should be bearing fruit for the kingdom, and that should be the mark of our faith.

Now, that fruit doesn't save us any more than any good work would save us, but that is the outward working of a life that has been changed, so again, I would encourage you not to fall into the trap of believing that there is a proper third way called carnal Christianity.

I don't believe it. I don't think the text backs it up. I think if anything, if a believer is operating in the flesh, then that is a sign of a need for repentance. I think that's what Paul is saying here.

I think he's chastising the Corinthians. I don't think he's encouraging them in their carnality. I think he is ultimately saying that what you're doing now is not what you should be doing. You're a Christian, and that means that we are not to be those who are marked by carnality, but ones who are marked by a positive and Christlike spirituality, so that is my encouragement to you today, and hopefully this will be an encouragement to you as you go through the text.

Remember, again, to be reading with us daily, and if you have questions about what you read, feel free to send me a message. Again, you can look at our website, sgfcjacks .org, to get our reading list, and you can message me through Facebook or through our website.

May God bless you, and let us pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for this time to get to look at your word. I pray that through this study, there have been encouragements. I pray that ultimately, Lord, for those who may be living outside of Christ, that they would understand that there is no other way, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved except the name of Jesus Christ, and Lord, that they would be encouraged to turn to him today, to turn away from sin, and to turn to Jesus.

And Lord, we know that only you can give that increase, so we leave that work to you. And I pray it all in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. Well, again, thank you for joining us today, and until I see you again, may God continue to richly bless you.