because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able {to do so,} Romans 8:7

The Mind Set On The Flesh – How are you doing in your fight for sinless perfection? Are you winning the battle every day or have you suffered defeats? Are you a sanctified soul or a carnal Christian?

Do these questions bother you?  They should.

Somewhere along the way, Christianity embraced the Greek metaphysics of the body/mind/soul split. When this alien concept crept into Christian thinking, it eventually led to the postulation of a carnal Christian, the believer who has confessed Christ as Savior but does not live with Christ as Lord. This is the person whose life is characterized by actions that do not glorify God but at the same time claims God’s forgiveness and acceptance. The “carnal” Christian has a body under sin’s control but a soul that belongs to God. What? Does that mean God saves only part of this person? Does that mean that what happens in my body doesn’t really matter as long as my soul is saved? A careful reading of the Bible endorses none of this Greek nonsense, but it certainly is a popular way of explaining behavior. Perhaps we need to take another look at Paul’s famous comments about “carnal” Christians (the King James translation of this phrase).

The critical Greek word is phronema. This word covers the entire translated phrase, “the mind set on”. Phronema means “what one has in mind, purposes or thoughts.” In this case, Paul says the purpose or thoughts of this mental condition is sarx, the flesh. This should remind us of the passage in Genesis 6:5, “the intent of the thoughts of the heart.” But notice that the Hebrew equivalent does not suggest a split spiritual state where men confess God but act disobediently. In the Genesis equivalent, the thoughts of their minds were given over to evil and, as a result, God brought judgment upon the earth. These were a long way from the “carnal” Christian bifurcation we find today. In Genesis, intent and purpose in thoughts leads directly to judgment, not excuse. In the ancient world, if your mind was filled with purposes of the flesh, you were not standing in God’s grace. You were not redeemed. You died in the flood along with all the other evil people in the world because the mind whose purposes and intents are determined by sarx is the enemy of God. In Hebrew thought, this is yester ha’ra run amuck.

Paul is a Jewish Messianic rabbi. Do you suppose that he entertained the Greek tripartate division of human beings (body, mind and soul)? Not likely. Paul’s anthropology was homogenized; the neshama or nefesh was one person all mixed up together embodied in this world. God doesn’t save the soul and leave the body to rot. That’s Greek, not Hebrew. So, if Paul would never have accepted the division of human being into parts, then how could he possibly suggest that spiritual existence could be divided between the carnal and the spiritual? If the purposes and intents of my mind (read neshama or nefesh) are filled with hostility toward God, doesn’t that force us to conclude that such a person is not redeemed? After all, this person is an enemy, not a humble seeker. This person is dominated by the yester ha’ra, not struggling against the evil inclination in order to be obedient to the Lord.

Does that mean that Christians are only those who no longer experience the fight for personal holiness? Of course not. That fight goes on for a long, long time. But the person who isn’t fighting probably isn’t domesticated to God. I am either motivated to obey and struggling to do so, or I am capitulating to the evil inclination and comfortable with the result. I am either fighting for God or fighting against Him. There are no fence-sitters in this war.

Topical Index: yester ha’ra, sarx, phronema, mind, body, soul, Genesis 6:5, Romans 8:7, carnal