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Standing and open our Bibles, we're going to turn this morning to 1 Corinthians 3, and look at verses 1 to 9. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1, it says,. 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 were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving only in a human way?
And when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not merely being human? What then is Apollos? What then 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 one will receive his wages according to his labor.
For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building. Father in heaven, I thank you for these words, and I pray today as I seek to give an exposition of them, and to clear a misunderstanding which has often surrounded this passage, and has long been used to create false teaching and false doctrine from this passage, and a myth that has arisen within the church over the last hundred years.
I pray Lord that you would keep me tied to the post of the Word, that you would keep me from error, that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit, and that you would use this message to convict the believers in the room, to convert the unbelievers in accordance with thy will, and use this opportunity Lord, as a time of genuine worship in the Scriptures.
Lord, worship doesn't end when the music ends. Lord, we continue to worship now, as we study your Word together. In Jesus' name, Amen. The Bible makes it very clear that within the world, there are but two types of people.
The saved and the lost. The saved have been born again by the Holy Spirit, and follow Jesus Christ. The lost remain dead in their sin, and have no desire for the things of God. Now some might consider that a very simplistic world view.
Some might say that if we divide mankind only into two parts, we are being overly simplistic in that we have a narrow-minded view of the world. But I want to tell you that it is the biblical world view.
We can go back into the Old Testament, and we see this division stated for us. You go to Daniel chapter 12, and it says, speaking of the end of the age, it says, Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, and some will awake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
At the end of the age, there is but two types of people. Those who awake to life, and those who awake from death to death. Matthew 25, Jesus speaks and says the same thing. He says, When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all of the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne, and before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people from one another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
Only two categories. In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus talks about two gates. He says, Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
And the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Notice only two gates. Only two ways. There is the wide gate that leads to destruction, there is the narrow gate that leads to life, and there's no other gates.
And last week, as we were looking at chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, as we've been taking a verse-by-verse study of this book, we noted that there were only two categories that Paul placed men in. Either a man was a natural man, and Paul tells us that the natural man receiveth not the things of God, they are foolishness to him, for they are spiritually discerned.
He says that to us. He says there's the natural man, which we identified as the lost, or the unsaved, the goat. And he says there's the spiritual man. There is the man who is born of the Spirit. No third category.
Yet in some theological systems of thought, there has arisen a third category. And it is the category of the carnal Christian. And you'll notice by the title of the message today how I feel about that category.
The title of the message is The Myth of the Carnal Christian. The myth of the third category could be how you identify this message. The carnal Christian is defined as one who professes Jesus as Savior, but refuses to profess Him as Lord.
He professes Jesus as Savior, but refuses to submit to Him as Lord. And that is to say a person can be legitimately saved, but also continue to live their life in the very same manner that they did before they were supposedly converted.
And the argument goes something like this. No matter the sin or practice thereof, the person is saved, because sometime in their life they quote-unquote made a decision. This doctrine is especially prevalent in churches that teach the message of once saved, always saved.
Now I want to clarify. I do believe that once a person is genuinely converted and born again of the Holy Spirit, that that person is saved forever. I don't think a person goes in and out of salvation up and down as it were like salvation is a yo-yo.
So I do believe in once saved, always saved in the sense of the barest bones way of explaining it. I don't use the term once saved, always saved. I call that OSAS. I think it's a little, you know, O-S-A-S, once saved, always saved.
I think it's a little too simplistic. But I will say this. The doctrine of the carnal Christian arises out of that need to force that belief. I also believe that many who think they're saved are not, and that's the problem.
I think that many people who come to church and believe that they're saved have a lifestyle that testifies to the opposite. In the doctrine of the carnal Christian, the lifestyle bears no testimony to the state of the person's soul.
Because in the doctrine of the carnal Christian, you can live as you did when you were lost, and there's no expectation of change. And as I stated, that's why I think it's a myth. Yet, there is a question that arises.
Well, where did this myth come from? Where did this myth arise? Well, I have found in the study, and I've spent several weeks on this, because this is actually the message I've been, not necessarily dreading, but I've been coming to this message with a bit of fear and trepidation, because I don't want to say something wrong ever, and this is a passage that I believe a lot of wrong has been said about.
So I wanted to be very careful. I'm sticking closer to my notes this morning than I normally do, because I want to be very, very careful in what I say. But as I was studying, I found that this myth can be traced to three specific major areas of influence.
The first is the Schofield Reference Bible. Now, I'm not throwing out all of the Schofield Reference Bible and saying that it's all wrong, so don't come to me afterwards and sing the praises of Schofield.
We're fine. But not everybody gets everything right, and this is an area that I think was wrong. The Schofield Reference Bible quotes, and I quote, Paul divides men into three classes. Natural, the Adamic, unrenewed man.
Spiritual, the renewed man. And carnal, the renewed man walking after the flesh. So Schofield says in his notes there are three types of people. There's the saved, there's the lost, and there's the saved who acts like he's lost.
That's the third category. That's not two categories of men. That's three. Another person who popularized this teaching was named Louis Sperry Schaefer. Now again, I am not downing Louis Sperry Schaefer as a theologian, but I think in this area of teaching he got it wrong.
He says in his book, he that is spiritual, he says that there are three classes of beings. There is the natural, the unregenerate, the carnal, who identifies as the babe in Christ who walks as a man. And three, the spiritual man.
So again, creating a third category. And later another group called Campus Crusade. And again, I'm not bashing Campus Crusade. A lot of good was done through Campus Crusade. But Campus Crusade created a track based on the teachings of Louis Schaefer, which had three categories of people.
The saved, the lost, and the carnal Christian. And here's the thing that really got me. I looked up that track this week. I actually looked at a photograph of it. And I examined it. And it has this. It's got a picture of a throne.
And the lost person has himself sitting on the throne. The saved person has Jesus sitting on the throne. And the carnal Christian has the lost person sitting on the throne and Jesus standing next to it.
It was the oddest thing I'd seen. And I encourage you to go look it up. Google carnal Christian track of Campus Crusade. You'll see it. And I thought, what an interesting perspective. That there would be this third category of person who maintains himself as lord of his life.
And yet is still saved. He maintains himself on the throne. And yet is still a believer. I take issue with that. The doctrine of the carnal Christian teaches there is not two classes of men, but three.
And I want to read to you a quote from Ernest Reisinger. Ernest Reisinger is a preacher. And he wrote an article for the Founders Ministry. The Founders Ministry is a Reformed Southern Baptist group. And he writes this.
I want you to hear this quote closely. The carnal Christian teaching was invented to accommodate all of the supposed converts of modern evangelism. The non-lordship teachers had to have some way to explain the thousands and thousands who are the products of evangelism that leaves out biblical repentance from their evangelistic message.
I'm referring to those who make decisions, walk aisles and make professions of being Christians, but their lives have never been changed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they do not love what Christians love.
They do not hate what Christians hate. They act, think and live like non-Christians. But their teachers have to have an explanation for their unchanged lives. Thus they produce an unbiblical category called the carnal Christian.
And it was invented by non-lordship teachers. We have thousands of people being saved at these events. And we're saying, everybody here is getting saved, but nobody is getting changed. They're making decisions, but they're not changing as a result of that decision.
Then you've got to come up with a reason. You've got to come up with an answer. You've got to come up with some type of explanation. So the explanation becomes the doctrine of the carnal Christian. The third category.
Now the reason why I'm addressing this controversial doctrine, the reason why I'm talking about this today is not just because I wanted to talk about this, but because this is the passage that they use to argue for the third category.
1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4 specifically, is the passage that is used to prove that carnal Christianity is a real thing. They argue that Paul creates a third category. And I plan to show you that's not the case.
But before I do that, I want to provide you, and this is sort of the outline, I want to propose three reasons why I reject the doctrine of the carnal Christian. I want to give you three reasons why I reject the doctrine of the carnal Christian, and then we'll read the text and examine it.
But I want to give you these three reasons as the introduction. That other was the introduction to the introduction, just so you know. Everything I've said up until now is the introduction to the introduction.
And now we're at the introduction. Three reasons why I reject the doctrine of the carnal Christian. Number one, it contradicts the rest of the New Testament. It contradicts the rest of the New Testament.
If we take the carnal Christian doctrine, that there's a third category of man who lives like a lost person, but is in fact a saved person, that runs in the face of the rest of the New Testament. And the Bible does not contradict itself.
One of the great confidences that we have, because of the inspiration of the Bible, is the fact that it maintains an internal consistency. God doesn't speak out of both sides of His mouth. And as such, we can know that the Bible will not give us contradictory information.
Those who claim the Bible is inconsistent are always proven wrong when the passages are interpreted in their context. As a result, we interpret the Bible in one place, we must remain consistent when we interpret it in another place.
This is called the analogy of Scripture. In Latin, it's the analogium scriptorum. It's the comparing of Scripture with Scripture. I don't know where that came from. But we compare the Bible with itself.
And if we have an interpretation of one passage that disagrees with the clear interpretation of another passage, then we have either misinterpreted the first one, or we've misinterpreted the second one.
There must be a harmony within the Bible. And Paul clearly, and here's the thing, it not only disagrees with the New Testament, it not only disagrees with the Old Testament, it disagrees with Paul himself.
And I think if there's anything I want to ensure, that's I interpret Paul with Paul. All right? And what does Paul say? Well, go over a couple of chapters to chapter 6 of the same book, of the same book, chapter 6, 1 Corinthians 6.
We read this, Brother Evan read this when he came up this morning, and this was our opening passage. But just in case we've forgotten what it says, verse 9, 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9 says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. Notice it uses it as the past tense, such were some of you, not such are some of you.
There's been a lifestyle change as a result of coming to Christ. You were washed, you were sanctified. You're not perfect, and I'm not arguing for sinless perfection. But I am saying this, if you came to Jesus and a change didn't accompany that coming, I would question whether or not you came to Jesus.
And that's what Paul is saying here. He's saying that I don't care where you came from. Some of you came out of the most deplorable conditions. And he says that. He says some of you were sexually immoral, some of you were idolaters, adulterers, some were homosexuals, some were thieves, some were greedy, some were drunkards, some were revilers, some were swindlers.
But that's what you were. That's not what you are. The very same thing can be seen in Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 verse 10. You don't have to turn that. I'll read it to you. It says,. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, and we're always going to have that battle with the flesh, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness, and if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit that dwells in you.
You have the Holy Spirit of God. You have been given a new Spirit if you are in Christ. And though you battle with that flesh, and we're going to talk more about that later, even though you battle with that flesh, you have a Spirit in you that's calling you to repentance.
This is why Hebrews 12 tells us that God disciplines those who are His. And if you are without discipline, then you are an illegitimate child. You do not have a Father in heaven if you are without the discipline of that Father.
I mean, it's so clear. You cannot find this idea that God is just going to allow you to continue on willy-nilly unconcerned in carnality without a call to repentance. And that's the doctrine of the carnal Christian.
So I think it contradicts the other writings in the New Testament. That's my first reason. Number two, the doctrine of the carnal Christian fails to distinguish between true and false faith. You know the Bible talks about false faith?
You know the Bible talks about faith that's not real? You know this passage, James chapter 2. What does it say? What good is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not works? Can that type of faith save him?
Faith without works is what? Dead! But what does that word dead mean? It means not alive, not real, not genuine. Faith without works, faith that does not have accompanying works is not real faith. It is simply an ascent of the mind.
In fact, James says this. He says, So what's he saying there? He's saying simple ascent of the mind or simple belief like that is not faith. Because demons believe that. Faith is a faith that changes our life.
Jesus said, On that day, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. What's Jesus talking about? These people called out to him, right? They used his name. In fact, it says they did miracles in his name, but they never departed lawlessness.
They maintained their carnality even in their profession. And thus, when they faced the Lord, they faced the Lord lost. We see examples of this. Judas was a false convert, wasn't he? Three years with the Lord and he was a false convert.
Simon Magus in Acts chapter 8, excited about hearing about this new thing and to be baptized. And Philip baptized him. Then in comes Peter and expresses a concern about his faith when he says, Can I buy the power of the Holy Spirit?
And what does Peter say to him? Your heart's not right. You haven't been changed. You're still in the gall and bond of iniquity. That's called a false convert. Here's the thing. If a person can be a genuine Christian devoid of the submission to Christ, that's what carnal Christianity teaches.
How do we account for the Bible's testimony of true and false faith? How would we know the difference? So that's my second argument. My third argument. First, I say it contradicts the rest of the New Testament.
Two, it fails to distinguish between true and false faith. But number three, it makes church discipline impossible. The doctrine of carnal Christianity makes church discipline impossible because we would have no grounds upon which to discipline anyone because their argument could simply be, Well, I'm just a carnal Christian.
What's church discipline? Some of you might not even be familiar with this. Some of you may have come out of churches that have never practiced this. Church discipline is given to us by Jesus. He says if there's a person who sins, you go to that person privately and you try to restore them.
If they refuse to be restored, then you go with them with two or three witnesses and you try to restore them. And if they refuse that, then you bring them before the church and you have the church try to restore them.
And if after those three times they continue to remain in their unrepentance, they continue to remain in their sin, then they are to be excommunicated. The term actually, Jesus says, he says to be treated as a Gentile or a tax collector, which in Jewish society or Jewish community meant they were to be put out of the assembly.
And you say, wow, that sounds barbaric. That sounds middle age type stuff to excommunicate someone. Sounds kind of rash, kind of harsh. But that's Jesus Christ. This is why I say the people who say, oh, I love Jesus, but they don't really know him because they don't read a lot of what he said.
And Jesus was very firm on this idea of church discipline. Paul reiterates it in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 when he says there was a man who was sleeping with his father's wife, which was his stepmother.
He was having an illicit affair in the church. And Paul says, why have you not dealt with this guy? Why have you not brought to bear the weight of church discipline on this man? But why couldn't that guy simply say, hey, yo, I'm just a carnal Christian.
I'm just living the dream. I'm saved and lost at the same time. You see why I have a problem with it? You see why I think it's a myth? Because number one, it doesn't agree with the rest of the Bible. Number two, fails to distinguish between true and false faith.
And number three, we wouldn't be able to exercise any level of discipline if that were true. Because there would be no expectations. Now final reason, this is not the fourth reason, but this leads us into our exposition.
The final reason why I disagree with it is because I don't believe it's what Paul's saying. I think it's a misinterpretation of the text. So now let's go to the text with all of 10 minutes that we have left.
But we're going to do it. You don't have anywhere to go, I hope. This is important. This is what we need to know. These are the things we need to know. Because I believe if you rightly interpret this passage, you'll understand it's not teaching about a third category.
It is teaching about behavior that needs to be repented of. It's teaching about behavior that isn't a righteous category. It isn't a right category. It's a category that needs to be rejected. And I'll explain what I mean.
Because I think to rightly understand chapter three, you have to understand chapters one and two building up to it. Because Paul has been challenging the Corinthians from chapter one about division in the church.
He chastens the church for their factions. He said, some of you say I follow Paul, some follow Apollos, some follow Peter, some follow Christ. We've been talking about that for several weeks, right? Now he says it again.
Look down at verse four. He mentions the I follow Paul, I follow Apollos. That's still the context. Those who have associated themselves with spiritual leaders in the church are exercising what I would call a sense of spiritual superiority or spiritual pride.
And he goes on to tell them that they were not chosen because of their wisdom, their power, their noble birth. God chose them because they were lowly to demonstrate his strength. That's what chapter two is about.
And he tells them that he didn't come to them with worldly wisdom. He came to them with the wisdom of God, which the only reason they understood it at all was because they'd been born of the spirit. Because if you're not born of the spirit, you won't understand the wisdom of God.
That's what he talked about in the latter part of chapter two. And he makes a distinction in chapter two between the spiritual man and the natural man. That's the believer and the unbeliever respectively.
And he doesn't make a third category. Then we get to chapter three. And in chapter three, what we see is him again making reference to spiritual pride in verse four. And he says this in verse four. He says, by saying I am of Paul or I am of Apollos, are you not being anthropoi?
Anthropoi is where we get the word anthropology, those things. It's the word for human. Are you not acting human or natural? Are you not acting like a man rather than a spiritual man when you behave this way?
But the portion that's most hotly contested is where Paul talks in verse one through three about the word flesh. He says, brothers, I could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
That first term flesh there is sarkinos. It comes from the root word sarks, which means flesh. And sarkinos or sarkinois means characterized by the flesh. I can't speak to you as spiritual people. I have to speak to you like you're lost people.
I fed you with milk, not with solid food because you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for you're still of the flesh. That word is sarkikoi and that word could mean unregenerate. Meaning you are, as it were, behaving like the unregenerate people.
For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving in a human way? Now, as I said, I don't think Paul is creating a third category here. I think he is chastising the church, this church, the church of Corinth, for behaving like lost people.
He is telling spiritual people that they are wrong for acting and behaving like lost people. It's not a legitimate category. It's a category of rebuke. You understand the difference? It's not a legitimate thing.
It's an illegitimate wrong thing. And here's the amazing thing. In our modern world, no one wants to be told they're wrong. They can be doing the most outlandish things. That guy in chapter 5 who was having an affair with his father's wife.
No big deal today. He'd be on Jerry Springer to have national recognition. Nobody today wants to be told they're wrong. The response to everything is, don't judge me. But Paul is not afraid to pass judgment here.
In fact, when he gets to chapter 5, you know what he says? He says, why haven't you passed judgment already? I shouldn't be making this judgment from afar. You're right there. You should be doing this right there.
And he's saying to them, you all are acting like lost folks. To the point that I can't even talk to you like you're saved. I got to talk to you like you're children. You need to grow up. Well, that's harsh, pastor.
Paul's way, he's saying you shouldn't be this way. Can I say this to you? Can I say this clearly to you? It is never, ever okay for a saved person to act like a lost person. Amen. That doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.
In fact, we know it will. It does. There are times when we forget ourselves. We allow ourselves to demonstrate that we're not yet perfectly sanctified. And guess what? It isn't right. And when it happens, we need to deal with it.
Not create artificial categories to satisfy our conscience. We don't need to say, well, I'm just a carnal Christian and let it go. We need to see sin for what it is and repent. Beloved, that's the danger of the carnal Christian doctrine is it provides an excuse for the supposed believer to live an ungodly lifestyle devoid of any responsibility for it.
Repentance. If there is a legitimate category where you can live in sin and it not be a problem, then where then would be the call to repentance? When the church looks like the world, it's no longer the church.
And I want to tell you, the church looks a lot like the world today. I don't just mean externally and the lights and the smoke machines and all that. That's a product of a bigger problem. That's not the problem.
The problem isn't smoke machines. The problem isn't tight jeans and people who are more concerned with image than they are with truth. That's the product of the problem. That's the symptom of the bigger problem.
When the church promotes a carnal Christian doctrine, it's promoting a church that will look like the world. And that's what we see. And Paul absolutely repudiates that teaching. He says such behavior is immature.
Such behavior is of the flesh. Such behavior is wrong. A person living like the world with no discernible change in their life since coming to Jesus has no reason to have any confidence in their confession of faith as anything more than empty words.
So friend, if you're here today, I want you to know you don't get to get by with a third category. You are one of only two people. You are either saved or you are lost. And if you are saved, I know that you're not perfect.
But I also know this, if you are saved, your heart has been changed and you have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you. And even though you battle the flesh, Paul says we will in Galatians chapter 5, there is a key to that statement.
It is a battle. If you have no battle, if sin characterizes your life, if you live for the flesh, in the flesh, driven by the flesh, it is likely because you are still of the flesh. And perhaps your need is to genuinely repent and come to Christ.
Because I want to tell you something, I believe not everybody at Corinth was saved. I don't think everybody in Corinth was saved. Even though Paul says brothers, I say that to you all. I say beloved, I call you brothers, but I don't believe everybody's here saved.
I don't say that to hurt your feelings, I say that because it's the truth. Not everyone in Corinth was regenerated. Just because he calls them brethren doesn't make them regenerate. Some of them were behaving in the flesh because in fact they were of the flesh.
And I'm convinced that churches today are filled with folks who believe they're saved and are still lost. And many of them are relying upon the doctrine of the carnal Christian to soothe their consciences.
Beloved, if you're justifying your sin rather than repenting of it, I encourage you today to examine your heart because that's what carnal Christianity does. It justifies sin rather than seeing it for what it is.
An offense and an affront to a holy God and a thing of which is worthy of repentance. You could be carnal still. I don't believe all of you are. I believe there are many of you who know the Lord. And as I said, you're not perfect Christians.
No one here is. But I'll tell you this, only you know your heart. Paul says that in chapter 2. He says no one knows the spirit of a man except that man. You know your heart. You know your heart. And if you are relying on some myth of a third category to satisfy your heart rather than simply rejecting that repenting of your sin and coming to Jesus, then I want to pray for you now and I want to pray for everybody in this room.
For the believers, I want to pray that we would understand that we are not perfect but that God has given us the Holy Spirit and He has called us to be conformed to Jesus Christ. And for the unbeliever, I want to pray that God would give you His spirit today.
Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this passage. I thank you for this study. I pray that it's been useful. I pray first and foremost, Lord, for those here who are saved. Father, I don't want to send people out from this congregation today worried about something of which is untrue.
I don't want believers to go about questioning their faith simply because they battle with sin. But Lord, I want them to see their battles with sin as reasons for being confident that you have changed their heart.
Because had you not, they wouldn't be battling, but they'd be justifying. So I pray, Lord, first for the believers. I pray, Lord, that they would have confidence in you. That they would see you working in their life.
That they would see every time they have this battle with sin, that they would see the need and desire to repent that would well up. When they have moments where they engage in something that they shouldn't do, I pray that they, Father, would immediately recognize what it is and that they would recognize the need to repent.
And Lord, they would do that. But Lord, for those who came today who know not you, whether they be young or old, Lord, because age is not what makes a person saved. And length and time in the church doesn't make a person saved.
But you, by the power of your spirit, giving someone new life and giving them the spirit and giving them the ability to repent and believe, that's what makes a person saved. And Father, for those who do not have that, for those who came today who are unsaved and who need to be saved, I pray, Lord, today that they would be convicted and that you would draw them to yourself.
That they wouldn't look for an aisle to walk or a card to sign, but that they would look to a Savior to grab a hold of and to call out in faith, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, and to find in Christ all of the riches of grace and forgiveness.
Father, would you work in us today? Draw your people unto yourself. In Jesus' name, amen. We're going to stand and sing now as we prepare our hearts for communion.