“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9
“The carnal man.” This is not a phrase you are likely to pick up in mainstream conversation. Carnality is a hidden scourge that influences all the evil of the world. It is a silent killer, a masked murder, the infectious cancer that plagues mankind. Carnality is the natural man, the sinful man, the fallen man. It is the inherited inclination to rebel against Almighty God. We received this toxic gift through the fall of Adam.
Simply being a member of mankind qualifies you into this condition, and soon you find this condition manifests itself in outward sins. The covetousness is within before the stealing is without. The hatred is within, and soon, the strife will be without. We will cheat, lie, and slander; we will promote and exalt ourselves. We will defraud and degrade our neighbor, seeking our own gain over his. We sin. Mankind commits sin, and sin will forever enslave those who practice it. All the while, the devil will convince us that we are completely in love with it. In love with the very disease that will condemn us to a destiny of eternity in hell. Is this the fate of all mankind? It would have been, had it not been for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to save us from all sin. He can save us from the sins we commit and the carnality that causes us to commit them. He can deliver from stealing and covetousness, hatred, wrath, malice, envy; from the innermost unrighteousness in the furthest recess of your heart. He can deliver from all sin. Christ can indwell and make holy. The love of self is potent within man, and only when we admit to ourselves that we are broken, can we be saved. For us to have peace, joy, righteousness, and holiness; Jesus must be the Lord of our lives. However, he cannot be Lord if we want to be. Carnality is rooted in the heart of man and out of the heart proceeds all the issues of life. Men make up the world, therefore, the world at its very core is carnal. When we turn to the world for comfort and healing, we find only more pain and brokenness. That which we desire to help us, only hurts us. Salvation can only come through Jesus Christ, because when we repent, and ask the Lord to come into our hearts committing ourselves to Him only then can we have the Holy Spirit inside and be free from carnality. Salvation cannot come from the created, only the Creator.
Carnality is not subject to the law of God, because it only wants to be God. Eve wanted to be like God and so she sinned, as did Adam. Christ is the gift offered to abolish the carnality that was inherited by mankind and save us. Holiness is not obtained through process or progress, through discipline or merit, it is by grace, through faith. By faith, Jesus Christ (in the person of the Holy Ghost) will cleanse the heart of a repentant man and sanctify him, change him, and keep him free from sin.
