Chapter 9
The Carnal Christian
According to those who embrace the extreme position of OSAS there is a type of Christian who behaves identically to the unsaved man. They call that type of person, a carnal Christian. Such a person is described in different ways:
Descriptions Of A Carnal Christian
And so, sometimes out of ignorance or whatever it might be, they attempt to gratify and meet those needs the same way they did before they were saved, and therefore, you can’t tell a carnal believer from a lost man. That is, you can’t tell the cold from the carnal because the truth is, they’re both acting the same way. Now, one of them is in Christ and one of them isn’t. One of them is lost and the other one is in Christ. One of them knows about God and knows him in the experience of salvation; the other doesn’t know him at all.[1]
The ‘carnal’ Christian is . . . characterized by a ‘walk’ that is on the same plane as that of the ‘natural’ [unsaved] man.[2]
As far as overt behavior is concerned, a carnal believer cannot be distinguished from an unbeliever.[3]
Our thesis is that the carnal Christian is characterized by a consistent regression of their spiritual life. . . . The carnal Christian is characterized by rejection of the Christian faith. If you stay on the road to carnality long enough, you will apostatize. That is, you will fall away from the faith. You will wind up denying Christianity. You will wind up looking like the rankest of sinners. Okay? Can a Christian go so far to become a rank sinner in his actions? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, a Christian can.[4]
Aside from the gospel, Chuck Swindoll would want to convince non-believers that the carnal Christian resembles non-Christians.
And it may surprise some of you to hear this because you weren’t perhaps raised under this theology. Fourth, the carnal Christian resembles non-Christians. If there is one truth I would love to be able to convince the non-Christian of it’s that truth aside from the gospel. I don’t know how many non-Christians have told me, well if it weren’t for the way so and so acted, and he says he’s a Christian, then I could believe. Wait a minute. If there are any non-Christians here, you are surrounded by Christians who have flesh and at times, we operate like mere men. Verse three closes, verse four closes, are you not mere men. In fact the text reads according to man. The construction means according to the norm or the standard of ordinary man, just like those that haven’t been born again. Do you realize the scandal I am declaring? If given full reign, our flesh will come across exactly as those who are not even born again. That explains how a Christian can steal and lie. That explains how a Christian can lack integrity and commit adultery and turn against the very things he or she once taught.[5]
So according to this popular teacher a carnal Christian resembles non-Christians by sinful acts such as stealing, lying, lacking integrity, committing adultery and turning against the very things he once taught! Sadly others have been teaching the same way, yet they seemingly go unchallenged.
The third type of person is the carnal man. . . . he is dominated by the sinful desires of his inner self. His behavior is similar to that of the ordinary, unsaved man. . . . To an unsaved person or to an untaught, critical Christian, he will look like an unsaved person and may even be called such.[6]
Paul can only mean that these carnal Corinthians lived like unsaved men. That clarifies why the word carnal can label both unbelievers and believers, simply because the lifestyles of both are the same. The cure for the unbeliever’s carnality is salvation; the cure for the believer’s is to grow in the Lord (italics his).[7]
Carnal To have the characteristics of an unsaved life either because one is an unbeliever or because though a believer, one is living like an unsaved person (italics his).[8]
Robert B. Thieme also states that a carnal Christian behaves like an unbeliever. He cites David at the point of 2 Samuel 11 and Saul for most of his life as illustrations of this:
The behavior pattern of a carnal Christian cannot be distinguished from that of an unbeliever (1 Cor. 3:3). As far as God’s word is concerned, you may act like an unbeliever; but if you have believed in Christ, you are still a believer—a believer in status quo carnality—out of fellowship. This principle is important in understanding the prodigal. A BELIEVER OUT OF FELLOWSHIP ACTS LIKE AN UNBELIEVER. In fact, he is sometimes worse, as illustrated by David at one point in his life (2 Sam. 11). David was a believer; yet he behaved like an unbeliever. Saul, too, was a believer, but he acted like an unbeliever most of his life (capital emphasis his).[9]
Besides knowing about the carnal Christian principle to understand the Prodigal, as Thieme wrote, Chuck Swindoll made a similar assertion about one’s understanding of the carnal Christian:
Let me clarify something because many, many in the family of God have no room in their theology for the carnal Christian, which creates tremendous confusion. If you don’t understand the carnal Christian, you will begin to believe that you have fallen from grace. You will believe that you have been born again and then you will think later when you do these number of things, you have not been born again.[10]
According to Swindoll, one may have a misconception about falling from grace unless he understands the OSAS carnal Christian teaching!
1 Corinthians 3:3
Let’s take a close look at 1 Cor. 3:3, the primary passage used by Charles Stanley, and others, as the basis for this carnal Christian teaching. Verses 3 through 5 are cited so that the context can be easily seen:
For you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? (NKJV).
Please notice that it was envy, strife and divisions and those alone, which made Paul address them as carnal, as verse 3 labels them. Furthermore, all the envy, strife and divisions were over their favorite gospel preacher, according to verses 4 and 5. (See also 1 Cor. 1:12 and 3:21,22.)
To read into carnal and openly teach, as the aforementioned OSAS teachers do, is to dangerously distort the image of true Christianity. By fabricating this new type of Christian, who is behaving just like the darkened, Godhating, hellbound, Christrejecters, multitudes are being deceived. Some are even re-opened to the greatest possible danger of being thrown into eternal fire, yet are unaware of it.
Besides the immediate context of 1 Cor. 3:3, this OSAS concept of the carnal Christian is also refuted Scripturally by the following:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9,10, NIV).
First, Paul stated by question form the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9), then told us in the next verse how to identify someone who is wicked from their behavior. The sexually immoral, drunkards and the greedy, among others, are included in this group and will, therefore, be excluded from the kingdom, unless they turn from their sins. No exception is made for one who previously believed on Christ. This is the true grace teaching, according to Scripture.
Expel The Wicked Man
Second, Paul demonstratively used this 1 Cor. 6:9,10 gauge regarding a sexually immoral man who was attending their Christian gatherings in Corinth (1 Cor. 5:1-5). In reference to him, Paul taught excommunication:
. . . Expel the wicked man from among you (1 Cor. 5:13, NIV).
Paul, who could not see that man’s heart, could tell by his present, sinful behavior (sexual immorality) that he was wicked and therefore unsaved.
In contrast, Chuck Swindoll teaches something diametrically opposed to what Paul said of this same man:
In this case, we see it was incest. A man was living with his father’s wife. Not his own mother. The way it’s written suggests that the father had married again and the guy is now shacking up with her. He’s living with her, in the church, a member of the family of God.[11]
Paul’s advice regarding this man, who apparently was previously saved, was totally unlike the advice to those never saved—though both need salvation:
Hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord (1 Cor. 5:5, NIV).
Notice, as long as that man’s sinful nature was dominating his behavior, he would remain unsaved, just like the Prodigal when he was in wild living. Compare with Rom. 8:13. Paul knew the problem was his sinful nature and that it needed to be destroyed. Hence, he said hand this man over to Satan.
It appears that a faulty understanding of what was to be destroyed has led to a misunderstanding here. The typical OSAS interpretation is:
An extreme case of the “consistently carnal Christian” seems to be found in 1 Cor. 5:5. Apparently a member of the congregation was involved in an incestuous relationship with his mother-in-law! (5:1). Paul hands this carnal Christian over to physical death, but he notes that he will be saved at the day of the Lord Jesus.[12]
Obviously, the Corinthian congregation had only one known sexually immoral person in it at that time, whom the others were to expel from among them. If there would have been others who were known to be sexually immoral, they too would have been treated like that man. To imply the whole Corinthian congregation was carnal and, therefore, sexually immoral is powerfully refuted by this.
Furthermore, 1 Cor. 6:11 reads:
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (NIV).
Notice those carnal Corinthians were not drunkards nor sexually immoral anymore, etc., as clearly indicated by the past-tense word were in this verse referring back to verses 9 and 10! This again shows an all-important difference between what the OSAS teachers are saying and what God says, as recorded in the Bible.
To believe the OSAS teachers regarding the behavior of a carnal Christian would also violently contradict important key verses such as 1 Jn. 3:10:
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother (NIV).
John’s test to know a child of God from a child of the devil was a present-tense behavioral one and not just a testimony of a past moment of belief on Christ. See also 1 Jn. 2:3,4.
1 Corinthians 5:11
Another vital point regarding the issue of carnal Christians needs to be made. 1 Cor. 5:11 says:
But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
This verse also clearly refutes the view that a carnal Christian behaves indistinguishably from the unsaved. Paul made a clear distinction here between the carnal Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:3, KJV) and those who were brothers in name only, as mentioned in 5:11. Paul told the Christians at Corinth not even to eat with such people who profess salvation but behave wickedly.
In other words, the Corinthians who were labeled carnal because of strife and divisions over their favorite gospel preachers were told not to even eat with those who professed to be saved but were sexually immoral, drunkards, greedy, etc.
Without a doubt, the latter were not present-tense possessors of eternal life (1 Cor. 6:9,10 cf. Rev. 21:8). There is a clear distinction between the carnal Corinthians and those with whom they were not to associate.
1 Cor. 5:11 proves that even the carnal Christian could not be in any of the sins cited there. Consequently, for the OSAS proponents who embrace a view of the carnal contradictory to the Biblical account, there is also a major problem with this verse and the aforementioned descriptions of the truly saved. Perhaps this is why 1 Cor. 5:11 and 1 Jn. 3:10 seem to be rarely mentioned from the pulpits in our day.
This carnal Christian question is a watershed issue, since it really affects the definition of a Christian and, therefore, who will ultimately be saved. To be wrong about this is to be wrong about who will be excluded from the kingdom of God and thrown into the lake of fire.
It has even been taught that under the heading of a carnal Christian one can fall away from the faith and cease believing:
As argued elsewhere, it is possible for a truly born-again person to fall away from the faith and cease believing. He is called a carnal Christian and will be subject to severe divine discipline.[13]
MacArthur, who disagrees with the carnal Christian teaching as held by Stanley, Swindoll, Evans, Ryrie, etc., comments on this subject:
Who knows how many unregenerate persons have been lulled into a false sense of spiritual security by the suggestion that they are merely carnal?[14]
Unfortunately, because of his OSAS theology, MacArthur can’t go the needed step further and mention people who were once saved, then afterwards became spiritually dead and lost through sin, like the Prodigal (Lk. 15:24,32). Such people were not always unregenerate, nor are they carnal Christians, but such need to be saved again. Repentance for them is needed for salvation’s sake! They too have been lulled into a false sense of spiritual security not only by this carnal Christian concept, but OSAS as a whole!
No Essential Difference
While MacArthur criticizes the popular carnal Christian teaching, he also wrote the following:
But wait. Doesn’t Scripture include examples of believers who committed gross sin? Didn’t David commit murder and adultery and allow his sin to go unconfessed for at least a year? Wasn’t Lot characterized by worldly compromise in the midst of heinous sin? Yes, those examples prove that genuine believers are capable of the worst imaginable sins. But David and Lot cannot be made to serve as examples of “carnal” believers, whose whole lifestyle and appetites are no different from unregenerate people.[15]
By teaching such, MacArthur limits the definition of the carnal Christian to whole lifestyle and appetites, thereby suggesting an occasional act of sexual immorality, murder and the like will not negate one’s salvation or even render such under the grouping of those who are never really saved to begin with. This is also shown through his past teachings of a Christian committing suicide. In other words, such a one can die an unrepentant murderer through suicide and still be saved!
Westminster’s “Nevertheless” Clause
But should we really be surprised by MacArthur’s teachings? After all, he refers to the Westminster Confession as truth.[16] Its nevertheless clause, under the heading of the perseverance of the saints, is as follows:
Nevertheless they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins; and for a time continue therein: whereby they incur God’s displeasure, and grieve his Holy Spirit; come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts; have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.[17]
That sounds very similar to the Stanley-Swindoll-Ryrie definition of a carnal Christian, but remains ambiguously indefinite about the time period one can continue in grievous sins. It should also be noted that David, when in adultery and murder, is cited by the Westminster Confession of Faith as an example of one who did “fall into grievous sins; and for a time continue therein.” The implications of this Reformed confession is clearly a license for immorality, for if David remained saved while in those sins, we can too!
Again, though MacArthur sharply denounces those who teach the existence of a carnal Christian, as defined by a person who is acting indistinguishably from the unsaved, yet he would have to say that David was acting just like the unsaved for at least a year when an adulterer and murderer, and was still saved all along! Regarding David while in murder and adultery, MacArthur wrote:
. . . in his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51. He was not afraid of losing his salvation . . .[18]
Hence, because of his belief in OSAS, MacArthur’s moderate position is essentially no different for the David-type of adulterer-murderer than the extreme position of Stanley or Ryrie. The only difference for them centers around whether the known adulterer-murderer was genuinely regenerated in the first place or not, but not if a previously saved person can live like that and remain saved.
Finally, one must also wonder how long of an extended time period of sinful living it takes to become lifestyle for MacArthur and others who embrace his OSAS position! If it means that one never returns to God, then all Christian suicides would be under that category, but somehow they still remain saved, according to OSAS theology.
Also, Saul never returned to God after the Spirit of the Lord departed from him (1 Sam. 16:14). Certainly for that man, who was previously saved, his years of sinful living to his death would be categorized as lifestyle!
Ponder This...
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Notes
[1] Charles Stanley (Atlanta, GA: In Touch Ministries, 1982), Spiritual Vs. Carnal: Study in 1 Corinthians, audiotape #8, PQ092.
[2] Lewis Sperry Chafer, He That Is Spiritual (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, rev. ed., 1967), p. 21 [quoted from The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 24].
[3] R. B. Thieme, Jr., The Prodigal Son (Houston, TX: R. B. Thieme, Jr. Bible Ministries, 1974), p. 8.
[4] Tony Evans, The Characteristics of Carnality, audiotape CA 100B.
[5] Chuck Swindoll, Clearing the Hurdle of Carnality: Selections from 1 Corinthians, audiotape CHH 5-A.
[6] Robert Glenn Gromacki, Salvation Is Forever (Chicago: Moody Press, Third Printing, 1976), pp. 173, 174.
[7] Charles C. Ryrie, So Great Salvation (Victor Books, 1989), p. 62.
[8] Ibid., p. 155. In theology, this could be called antinomianism.
[9] Thieme, The Prodigal Son, pp. 7, 8. [Notice, in OSAS theology (extreme position) a believer is a person who once believed in Christ.]
[10] Swindoll, Clearing the Hurdle of Carnality.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Joseph C. Dillow, Reign of the Servant Kings (Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., Second Edition, 1993), p. 321. [Comment: See chapter entitled, We Demolish Arguments, objection #7, for explanation of this OSAS argument.]
[13] Ibid., p. 199. [Dillow‛s book is used at Dallas Theological Seminary.]
[14] John F. MacArthur, Jr., The Gospel According to Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1989), p. 129.
[15] John F. MacArthur, Jr., Faith Works (Word Publishing, 1993), p. 128.
[16] John MacArthur, Jr., Saved Without a Doubt (Victor Books, 1992), pp. 151, 152.
[17] Westminster Confession of Faith, Of the Perseverance of the Saints, Chapter XVII, paragraph 3.
[18] John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (Word Publishing, 1997), p. 788.
