Life On The Highest Plane
Carnal or Spiritual
The Corinthian Christians should have been full grown; they had been Christians long enough to have become spiritual adults but they were mere "babes in Christ." They should have been strong, healthy, meat-eating grown-ups; instead they were weak, milk-drinking infants. They did not measure up either in stature or strength to what they should have.
Nothing on earth could be sweeter or more perfect to loving parents than a baby in babyhood but oh! the indescribable heartache endured by the parents if that precious child remains a baby in body or in mind. Nothing on earth sets the joy bells of Heaven ringing as the birth of one into the family of God but oh! what pain it must cause the heavenly Father to see that spiritual babe remain in a state of protracted infancy!
Which are you today, dear believer, a spiritual babe or an mature adult? Are you still in infancy in spiritual things o are you full-grown? To answer the question it may help to ask and answer another. What are the marks of a babe? A baby cannot serve himself but is helplessly dependent upon others. He may give enjoyment to others but he cannot help them. A baby absorbs attention, he expects to be the center of his little world. A baby lives in the realm of his feelings, being entirely governed by them. If all goes well, he is pleased and smiling but he is exceedingly touchy and if his desire is crossed at any point he quickly lets it be known in lusty remonstrance. God's Word shows that the carnal Christian bears these self-same marks.
Hebrews 5:12-14, "For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But solid food is for grown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil."
The Christians to whom this epistle to the Hebrews was written were evidently carnal Christians also. They ought to have been teaching others yet they themselves still needed to be taught even the elementary truths of spiritual experience. They, as well as the Corinthians, should have been able to eat meat but they were still content to feed on milk. They were able neither to help themselves nor others. They were incapacitated through their protracted infancy either to receive the deep things of God or to impart them to others.
Perhaps Paul puts his finger upon the reason for the stunted condition of the Corinthians Christians in the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians. He teaches us that the spiritual man knows the deep things of God through the discernment made possible by the Holy Spirit's illumination. The spiritual man is one who, delighting in God's Word, devours and digests it. By feeding upon it he grows in stature and strength.
But the Corinthian Christians were very evidently not of this type. They were following human leaders, esteeming lightly the wisdom of God and exalting highly the wisdom of men. They were substituting fodder for food and attempting to satisfy hunger on husks. Consequently they were still "babes in Christ," - weak, emaciated Christians.
Much the same condition prevails today in the churches of Christendom. The average professing Christian is not going first-hand to the Bible for food expecting the Holy Spirit to give him the strong meat of the Word. He is looking to human teachers for his nourishment and gulps down whatever is given him. He is a spiritual parasite living on predigested food, consequently he is underfed and anaemic. In this weakened state he is open to all forms of spiritual disease. He is an easy prey for temper, impurity, pride, bitterness and selfishness and because of his close relationship to other members of the body of Christ, the result is often just such an epidemic of sin as existed in the Corinthian Church. It is a life of barren fruitlessness.
Luke 13:6-7, "He spake also this parable; a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I came seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?"
John 15:2, "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."
The influence of the carnal Christian is always negative. The carnal Christian occupies a pew in church on the Lord's day indicating some love in his heart for the Lord and devotion to Him but he is unable to bring with him any member of his family or associate in business or friend because of the inconsistency of his life before them during the week. He is a branch of the Vine but a fruitless, hence a useless, branch. It is a life of adulterous infidelity.
James 4:4, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
1 John 2:15-16, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 3)
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