The Meaning of the Word Carnal

 

There is a prevailing assumption that the word carnal is exclusively sinful, but its biblical usage ranges from the wholesomely natural to the sensual, but not necessarily sinful.

Of the eleven times that our English text uses the word carnal, at least five times it has no connotation of anything sinful or depraved.

• Hebrews 9:10 calls the Mosaic ordinance governing the every day life of Israel, "carnal ordinances."
  

• Hebrews 7:16, the divine commandments under which priests were inaugurated were called "carnal commandments."
  
• In 1 Corinthians 9:11 it speaks of the remuneration given to minister of the gospel---this would include housing, food, and clothing as "carnal things."
  
• In Romans 15:27, speaking of the need for the congregation of saints to support the ministers, he says, "For if the gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal tings." In other words, it is the duty of the congregation to see to it that the preachers have plenty of carnal things to assist them in their ministry.
  
• Obviously, the word carnal means natural, tangible, earthy. As Paul said concerning the flesh, "For though we walk in the flesh [nothing sinful here; just the natural state], we do not war after the flesh [that is, Paul does not enter into spiritual battle depending on the natural resources of mind and body]: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal [as in the natural resources of human flesh], but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; (2 Cor. 10:3-4)

Adam was created carnal. All descendants of Adam are carnal. All earthly mammals are carnal. Jesus had a carnal body, ate carnal food, lived in a carnal house, and provided for the carnal needs of others when he fed them carnal food and healed their carnal bodies.

The word carnal can be used to describe the composition of a person or a thing, or it can be used to describe one's orientation. To be carnal in composition is not sinful; it is just natural....fleshly. but to be carnal in orientation is to prefer the fleshly and temporal over the spiritual and eternal, which state of mind is sinful. Until we get our glorified bodies, the brain (physical substance) will always be carnal, but the mind is not carnal unless it is a mind set on fleshly gratification; then it is a carnal mind (Romans 8:7). Any believer still living in the flesh (still alive) has a carnal body, but he is commanded to walk after [an act of the will] the Spirit and not after the flesh. In so doing he is not carnally minded; he is spiritual minded. That is, the believer in the carnal body does not set his mind on carnal gratification, and so does not walk after the carnal flesh.

A spiritually minded believer puts carnal money into an offering plate to provide for the carnal needs of the missionary. When a church makes rules to govern the earthly actions of believers, or a parent makes rules to govern the children and the household, they are carnal commandments. Jesus had carnal flesh, but He was not carnally minded; that is, His mind was yielded to the spirit and as such he was a spiritual man.

Three occasions only contain the six negative uses of the word carnal, all by Paul (Rom. 7:4; Rom. 8:7; and 1 Cor. 3:1-3). If the carnal state is the natural man residing in a natural body, why does Paul speak of it as synonymous with "sold under sin" or why does he say that "the canal mind cannot please God"?

Adam was a composite of two planes of reality, one carnal and one spiritual. Obviously, God had created a balance wherein Adam could find expression in both areas without conflict. But only one force could sit in the driver's seat. God intended for the human spirit to live in fellowship with God and so exercise control and discipline over the carnal act of eating....he rejected God's authority and so made a decision to live by the flesh. Adam had chosen a new master, and so God stepped back and gave Adam over to his choice. From that point forward, Adam and all his descendants became wholly carnal in orientation.....given over to the flesh. The flesh itself is not sinful, but by preferring it over the will of God it becomes our master, our god.

I am carnal, Paul says of himself (when under the law). This is a statement of inability, of being out of favor with God, totally in touch with fleshly passions. I am immersed in my own bodily lusts. I am a slave to the dictates of lust. I am sold under sin. As a slave is helplessly sold to the highest bidder, Paul, speaking on behalf of all natural men, speaks of his slavery to carnal (fleshly) passions on the natural body.

The carnal man is the natural man, and so is left to his own pitiful resources. "But the natural man receiveth not the tings of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14)."

The remainder of this chapter [he speaks of Romans 7] is testimony as to the helplessness of a carnal man. this is not a current testimony. He is speaking of his own experience, and thus as a representative of all mankind. It is common practice in both speaking and writing to speak in the first person, as a representative al all, on matters that are universal.

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Michael Pearl Romans 1-8 Verse by Verse, (No Greater Joy 1000 Pearl Road, Pleasantville, TN 37033) p. 139,140