Carnal Carnival

What separates the believer from the unbeliever? For certain it is the blood of Christ, but there is something else - something immediate in the very worldview of the believer. While the natural man pursues the desires of the flesh, the spiritual man pursues the desires of the Spirit. Paul the Apostle says it well in Romans eight:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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 his Spirit who dwells in you.

St. Paul is preaching what was once thundered from a thousand pulpits - the damning effects of carnality. The word is perhaps obsolete, but no word perhaps captures better the intended meaning. The natural man - our flesh, our body, our life apart from the regeneration of the Spirit - lives its life seeking out its own pleasures. And such were we, but we have been washed; we have been sanctified! If then the Spirit lives in us, let us live spiritual lives, lives lived after the spirit, a life of growth in Godliness. Why are we then still carnal?

I am talking here of individuals, but more so of institutions. We are surrounded by an evangelical culture that is largely carnal. On one side of the road you have fundamentalism. How carefully they walk! A rule of man they apply to every situation, determined to make themselves holy unto God through physical rules. And they are carnal. For when we orient our Christian life toward physical restraints - do not touch, do not taste, do not handle - we again enslave ourselves to the flesh. For those who think otherwise, I present exhibit A: the pious Muslim cleric, who lives a life of asceticism and tithes of all that he has, prays seven times a day, and gives alms to the poor. He is doubtless a better man for it, but he is damned to hell. These are all works of the flesh, and working for the sake of works is carnal. Good works in the flesh do not a Christian make. On the other side of the road, you have the witless carnality of evangelical rock stars who peddle carnal desires in the skin of Christian teaching. But is it Christian to tell professing believers what sexual acts they may perform in their bedroom? I say that it is not. I say that all such false teaching is feeding the flesh. The spiritual man does not strive to sanctify his sexual cravings. The spiritual man strives to please his savior, to savor the Spirit of God, to bring glory to God and to serve others. Both sides of the road are carnal, and both are littered with the bodies of those who have fallen to their death off the straight and narrow.

If I sound strident it is because of the seriousness of this issue. Paul, inspired by the Spirit to guard the Roman church from damnation, says it plain. Those who live according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh. Those who live according to the spirit, set their mind on the things of the spirit. Can you set your mind on sex and be living in the Spirit? Can you set your mind on clothing, or coffee, or pyrotechnics and be living in the Spirit? Paul says no, and I am obliged to agree with him. But this is no mere choice, as if some believers live lives set in the flesh, and a few saints are granted the grace to live in the spirit. Quite the contrary. Paul says that to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life. To entirely root out the possibility of misunderstanding, Paul presses on: The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God: those in the flesh cannot please God. And here Paul exhorts his readers - this should in no way characterize them, for they have been born of the Spirit, have God's spirit within them, and are pursuing spiritual things.

In like manner, I exhort my readers: do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For the one that sows to his flesh will reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will reap life everlasting. Do not allow yourself to be rooted up and tossed about by your carnal desires. Neither dress code nor music standards nor sex nor worldly success can ever, ever save your soul. Don't let these carnal concerns hinder you from pressing on toward the mark of your high calling in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.