BIBLE VIEW OF THE CARNAL MIND – CONTINUED

     II. THE NEW TESTAMENT. If we pass to the New Testament, the testimony of the Spirit affirming the doctrine of indwelling evil is just as strong and even stronger than it is in the ancient Scriptures.

     Jesus said, "That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7:20-23). The source from which the evils enumerated proceed is within the heart. Evil is always from within, and has its primary source in an innate bent to sin.

     Paul accepts the theory of the depravity of the human heart. He says, "What then are we [the Jews] better than they [the Gentiles]? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin" (Rom. 3:9). Neither Jews nor Gentiles are exempt from this universal law by which they inherit the depravity of their common parent -- Adam -- "they are all under sin." Again, in the same chapter, Paul says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). The reason why we all go astray and sin is because our hearts are by nature prone to evil.

     In the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul states the case thus, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that [margin, in whom] all have sinned" (verse 12).

     Notice five points in this text: (1) "One man," Adam, was the cause of sin entering into the world. (2) Death came by sin, not only physical, but spiritual death. The infant inherits death, entailed upon him by the transgression of our first parents; if he dies physically in infancy he escapes eternal death only through the blood of Jesus. (3) This death is universal, for "in Adam all die" (1 Cor. 15:22). (4) Adam, as the great founder of the race, is responsible for the inheritance he has left us. (5) No matter how holy a parent may be, his child will be born with the carnal nature, for "in Adam all die." Thus Adam is found to be guilty of entailing on all humanity for all ages the initial depravity of their natures, and our immediate parents are responsible for this depravity only in so far as, by their particular sins, they direct and intensify it according to the bent of their own evil natures.

     "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression" (Rom. 5:14). Although from Adam to Moses there was no code of laws, and, as a consequence, men did not "sin after the similitude of Adam's transgression," which was the deliberate breaking of a set and known law; yet the spiritual death, brought in by transgression, reigned. Although sin is not imputed where there is no law, yet sin, as a principle, even before the law, reigned in the hearts of fallen men. Carnal "death" reigned, and was never conquered until the law of the Spirit of life showed a more excellent way. The rest of the fifth chapter of Romans continues the argument, showing that sin or carnality came as a result of Adam's transgression.

     Paul continues his thought in the sixth chapter, saying, "Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." While, as we have already said (chapter 1), the expression, "old man" may be made to refer to the old sinful life, yet it most surely does also refer to the "man of sin" -- the carnal man of the soul. In another place the apostle fixes the time of the destruction of the body of sin, referring it to the time of heart circumcision. "In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2:11).

     In Romans seven Paul says, "For when we were in the flesh, the motions [passions] of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death" (verse 5).

     1. The apostle does not refer to the corporeal flesh of man, for the persons he was addressing still possessed that, while the "flesh" to which he referred was a thing of the past -- "when ye were in the flesh." But he did refer to his past sinful life which was backed up by a sinful nature.

     2. Law is not the cause of sin; it only reveals and condemns the state of affairs which already exists. Moral wrong existed before the law was given, for ignorance of God's law or of moral qualities cannot do away with the intrinsic evil character of an act or disposition, but moral wrong or immoral acts could not bring condemnation until the law revealed the will of the Lawgiver by laying down rules of conduct, and even then it did not condemn until men, in the face of light, either did what it prohibited or neglected to fulfill its positive demands. That is, the law does not condemn a person because of his inherent tendency to evil, but only because of his actual sins.

     3. The law commanded purity of life and heart, but the "motions of sins" or "passions of sins" -- which were seated in the soul and which were revealed and condemned by the law -- in opposition to and hatred of this law took advantage of our fleshly appetites and through them "brought forth fruit unto death."

     Again, using a rhetorical figure by which he substituted the first person singular for some expression which would include all mankind, Paul confessed his duplicity and laid the blame to sin that dwelt in him, and declares that although he delights in the law of God after the inner man (as any repentant man does), yet, he adds, "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." Here he speaks of the carnal nature as "another law" and "the law of sin." Then lie breaks out with that doleful cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" A carnal mind, dwelling within, unrestrained by grace, but which its possessor sees and vainly attempts to conquer without divine aid, can fitly be called a "body of death."

     The apostle again says, "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). The "carnal mind" is that unrighteous inhabitant of every unsanctified breast which bitterly opposes the supremacy of the divine mind.

     Scattered throughout these five chapters as well as the rest of the epistles are numbers of passages which refer to carnality as an evil principle of the soul, until the doctrine of its existence and of its unholy nature is fully established.