Spiritual — Carnal
It is written that the carnally minded cannot comprehend matters that are spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. — 1 Corinthians 2:14
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. °Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. — Romans 8:6-7
The carnal minded, who thinks himself spiritual, reads this passage and concludes the “law of God” here is the old covenant Decalogue: The Ten Commandments, ignoring the context.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
°For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: °That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. — Romans 8:2-4
It is the New Covenant law of faith and the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that is THE “law of God” in this context. The result of this “law of God” is to be freed from the previous “law of sin and death” that Paul further describes in 2Corinthians chapter 3 as the ‘ministration of condemnation and death, engraven in stones.’
Only one law was ever “engraven in stones.” But the carnal mind cannot comprehend this and the consequences of it. The carnal mind that is desperately trying to insulate itself, cannot and will not, on its own, ever come to admit it is wrong. Such a person needs the law of sin and death to be “God’s law” of life, due to the investment such people have in that law.
The result? One’s beliefs are used to understand the scriptures, instead of allowing the scriptures to establish their beliefs.
There ‘was’ a law that dealt with carnal people, led by their corrupt flesh, that rightly, justly, condemned them for what they are, being sinful flesh; a law rife with physical rites and rituals that later were to be revealed as typology of Spiritual things, even so revealed in the previous writings of the prophets who spoke of a circumcision of the heart and not just the physical rite done in the flesh.
With the present law of faith and the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, there remains those who, being led by their pulls of the fleshly desires, cannot comprehend this law, resulting in their faithlessness in this regard; a sin of the mind, soul, and heart; a spiritual sin. The sin of faithlessness; “lawlessness” in relation to this spiritual law.
The carnal mind is an evil, iniquitous mind, heart, and soul. Only God can change it, and the change begins with belief; faith; TRUST in God, solely and completely.
Otherwise, such people remain as they are, reliant on the false hope of a law designed to condemn evil works and the evil people who produce them, who steadfastly resist the Holy Spirit, even as did those Pharisees in the Sanhedrin who condemned both Jesus and Stephen, using the old covenant law of sin and death to do so.
Jesus referred to the law as “their” law; not His law. He attributed that law to Moses; not Himself or the Father.
The stiff-necked and rebellious today simply ignore what does not fit into their established belief model.
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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )
Acts 17:11
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