Can the Carnal Mind Be Destroyed?

Can the Carnal Mind Be Destroyed?

This is a very profound and all-important question. The picture thus far considered, while a real one, is a very dark one. The image in which God created man has been marred. God has been grieved times without number; and man, while created for glory and honor, has been a blight and a curse on the earth. Hopelessness and despair are depicted everywhere. The world is strewn with awful human wrecks; and, though many human remedies have been devised to deliver him from the awful disease of sin and to alleviate the dread consequences of it, all the schemes and plans of man have been fruitless and of no avail.

Many have been led to believe that the carnal mind can never be destroyed, and that as long as we live in this dark vale of tears we must battle with this awful monster, and, although sometimes we are victors, we must take many defeats and setbacks. To think of life and the Christian warfare thus is certainly discouraging, and that kind of preaching has led many to despair.

To say that the carnal mind cannot be destroyed casts a tremendous reflection upon the ability and willingness of God. If it cannot be destroyed, then either God is not able or He is not willing to destroy it. If God is not able to destroy it, then sin is greater than grace, the devil mightier than God. To say that God is not willing to destroy it is forever to impeach His goodness. But, thank God, there is balm in Gilead, and there is a Physician there. This awful, deadly disease of the soul can be cured, and the soul can be made whole and sound through and through. Hallelujah!

Rev. John Paul says on this point: "No one would deny God's ability to make a holy man; no one would dispute that He is willing for all people to be holy. With these two promises, who have good ground to hope that, upon investigation, we may discover that provisions are made for the sanctification of our souls.

"It is true that, according to the economy under which we live, man's optional powers interfere with the plan of God; but nothing else may interfere. The captive soul may be very helpless, but God can help. The dye of sin may be very deep, but Omnipotence can remove it; the tendencies of earth's atmosphere may be sinward, and hellward, but God can break the power of canceled sin, and change the issues of the heart; the moral miasma may rise in such density that a foghorn will be necessary to keep us off the breakers, but the Lord wills to preserve us from all evil; He wills to preserve our souls; He wills to 'preserve thy going out and they coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.'"

Not only can the carnal mind be destroyed, but it must be destroyed before man can serve God with the highest efficiency of which he is capable.

History gives us the record of how Rome labored for seven hundred years to conquer the nations of earth. Carthage was its most formidable foe. She stood out against all of Rome's plans and schemes for more than a hundred years. Hannibal seemed to make the Roman cause forever defeated, and many said that Carthage could not be destroyed. They had resigned themselves to the fate of allowing their rival and foe to live on. Their own fate thus became to do the best they could under the circumstances. They fought on against their enemy, Carthage, sometimes victors, and sometimes defeated, and always in dread lest their enemy would approach from a new and unannounced approach, only to add to their misery and reproach. But there arose in Rome a senator, Cato, who believed that Carthage could be destroyed, and must be. It is said that he never closed a speech in the Roman senate without declaring that "Carthage must be destroyed." This finally caused the Romans to take courage. They armed themselves, went to the siege, and soon declared themselves victors. This victory was not only temporary, but a victory that has never ceased to be a victory.

When we see Christian professors, carnal Christians, and see in them the symptoms of this awful disease manifesting themselves, and sometimes even see the surface eruption on some that profess to be sanctified, we are almost brought to say that "Carthage" cannot be destroyed. But, thank God, there is absolute deliverance from this inner foe. Soon after Satan had diseased the human race, God promised, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Here God promised One who would be able to cope with this disease. In I John 3:8 we read, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."

In Romans 6:6 Paul declares, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him." To be sure, crucifixion always causes death. No man has ever been crucified but that he also died, unless he was removed from the cross too soon. We doubt not but that many have started in to have the "old man" crucified; but when the nails began to prick, they quickly changed their minds and stayed the execution. After that they would naturally have to put up some kind of an alibi for him. This, no doubt, is a reason for so much in defense of the "old man."

In Ephesians 4:22-24 Paul exhorts the Ephesian church to "put off ... the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ... and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." We cannot think that Paul was merely mocking these Ephesians, or giving them exhortations that could not be carried out. In Colossians 3:9, 10 Paul tells us that the Colossians had done what he exhorted the Ephesians to do. "Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Here we have undeniable evidence that the "old man" can be destroyed, and that the divine image, which was lost in the fall, can be restored. "Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." W. B. Godbey says, in commenting on the above verses, "These verses speak of the old man eliminated suddenly and completely, and the new man instantaneously put on, involving the reception of the divine image lost in the fall. In this paragraph we have a beautiful variety of expression, all fulminating instantaneous death to the old man of sin, surviving in the heart of the regenerate. While we have this variety of expression, in two instances ordering us to kill and utterly remove the members of old Adam -- i.e., our evil temper -- in two other instances the man himself is specified. Of course these statements are substantially synonymous. When you kill all the members, you kill the man, et vice versa." When old Adam dies, all is over.

In the exhortations to the Ephesians we have a clear exegesis of our creation in the image and likeness of God, and Paul tells us what that image is. It is righteousness in harmony with God's revealed truth.

"It is not human righteousness arising from our good works, as a corrupt clergy would vainly tell us, but the righteousness of God in Christ imputed unto the truly penitent sinner, who, in utter desperation and profound realization of his utter meetness for hell-fire, casts himself on the mercy of God in Christ. Then God freely forgives him for Christ's sake alone, imputing to him His own righteousness, procured by the perfect obedience of Christ, both active and passive. This is the image of God; i.e., harmonization with the divine character" (W. B. Godbey).

We need not spend any more time in endeavoring to show that the carnal mind can be destroyed. God has said, "Be ye holy"; and if God requires that we be holy, it seems almost foolish to argue whether or not it is possible to attain that state. St. John declares that "if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

When God declares, "Be ye holy," every God-fearing man will certainly be driven to his knees, and seeking some promise on which to hang his hope. He will plead for help to get into the fountain that was opened for sin and uncleanness. Nothing but man's optional powers can interfere with the plan of God.