p. 98 | THE CARNAL MIND by Jos. Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 28, 1878

THE CARNAL MIND.

By Jos. Clarke

“BECAUSE the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 8:7.

The word carnal is defined by Webster to mean fleshly, sensual, lewd. In Col. 2:18, this mind is called the fleshly mind; in 1 Cor. 2:14 it is termed the “natural man [who] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God;” and as in Rom. 8:8 it is said of the carnal mind that those who possess it cannot please God, so 1 Cor. 2:14 says that the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to the natural man. To unfold this principle of righteousness has been the design of God from the time of Adam’s fall to the present moment. He has sought to bring heavenly or spiritual things to man’s notice in such a way as to draw him away from his own corrupt propensities and evil dispositions, and so affect his heart as to change his tastes and inclinations, weaning his affections from earthly, sensual, and selfish objects, and centering them upon such objects and aims as would tend to purify and elevate the soul. Man would thus be enabled to see clearly his true relation to God and his fellow-men; and nothing short of such a change can possibly bring him to a just and clear conception of his condition before God. The man of leisure and of learning may spend his life in study and deep thought; he may search all the books of philosophy and history, and yet he will remain in darkness so long as he remains outside of the regenerating influences of the Spirit of God.

A beautiful path has been opened up to man through the love and compassion of the Creator. Though fallen and corrupt, he may turn from the bondage of the carnal mind to the freedom of the spiritual mind. “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” This glorious freedom from bondage to sin and the carnal mind is brought about by the grace of God in changing the natural desires and denying them, and giving, in their stead, those illuminating and life-giving principles which purify the heart, and make the man, once corrupt, vile, and perverse, a fit temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Many, as did the Pharisees, interpret the sacred writings incorrectly, for want of the help of the Spirit of God. They mistake the meaning of the sacred writers, only because they are ignorant of the influences of the Holy Spirit. When Paul, in 2 Cor. 5:17, says, “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” he alludes to this very point,—the death of the carnal mind and the establishment of a different state of things in the heart. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” How can any sane man suppose that this passing away of old things indicates the abrogation of the moral law,—the very law which first humbled the sinner, and caused him to fly from the city of destruction to the cross of Christ for the removal of the heavy burden which sin, the transgression of the moral law, had laid upon him?

Christ, in the sermon on the mount, said, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” That is to the same point; the carnal mind is so partial to itself that it cannot make proper distinctions, and, being unenlightened, it gropes in its own darkness. But when the Spirit of God dwells in the heart, there is light. God, who is the author of all wisdom and light and knowledge, moves upon the heart of man, and straightway darkness is scattered, and clear light shines. The man once savage and fierce becomes meek and lovely; the heart once the receptacle of vile and blasphemous thoughts becomes clean and pure; hate is changed to love, and where once were all the vices, now bloom the Christian virtues, a lovely group of principles which beautify and ennoble the present life and insure the future.

Jos. CLARKE.