Now, it ought to be obvious that the carnal mind (as Romans 8:7 says) is enmity against God. It lacks a quality for understanding the truth of God. Anything that is at war against God is not going to be open to accepting the Spirit of truth, nor the Word of truth. But such a mind, indeed, can come up with clever arguments that do nothing more than blur the situation.
Even though this person may be highly intelligent (having all kinds of letters behind his name, and before his name) - it does not mean a thing when we are dealing with spiritual things. And what is going to happen inevitably is that the person is going to come up with part of the truth, but they are not going to get enough of it, because they are not subject to it. It will be hidden from them. They simply do not have the tool that is necessary.
And thus it is that people of, we might say, lower intelligence level - but they nonetheless have the right childlike attitude and they have the Spirit of God, they have repented, they are obeying God as best they know how - these people will see it and get it.
God knows it; and a person having the Spirit of God can know it too. They can see it in themselves. But we have to be careful, because that spirit (that mind, that heart) still lurks in each of us. It can blur the matter too, because it wants to stick with that which is carnal.
There it is again - those who love Him. That is tied to understanding the Bible. A good understanding have all they that do His commandments. In verse 9, basically what He is saying is that the things of the spirit are not discerned by human intelligence on its own. God is not saying that intelligence is not needful; but He is saying there has to be a quality (an entity) that is added to that human intelligence - because it is simply not carnally, or physically, discernible.
Put this together with what Paul has already said. Everybody, all those who have not been called, are under the penalty of death. They are the carnal-minded. And even those of us who have been called still have carnal minds that we need to improve or actually Paul tells us to kill it. Mortify the flesh, mortify all those urgings of human nature to be selfish and to turn against God's way. So from Adam's day to this very second, people have sinned, early and often. In sinning, they have become guilty and subject to death and the wrath of a just and righteous God.
Even one sin—just one sin!—puts us on the negative side of the ledger. One sin and we might as well just do the perp walk because we are guilty. What is worse, one sin makes us enemies of God because we have given in to the enmity of the carnal mind against God. One sin and we are in rebellion. And He can come down on us with His wrath anytime He chooses, and we have no recourse because we are guilty.
So, humanity has a rebellious nature against God and His law to the point that man, as it says here in Romans 8:7, man cannot be subject to God or His law, neither indeed can be. That is astounding! Carnal humans cannot do the things that please God. Because they are full of sin it taints everything they do. In fact, even if they have a desire to square the debt of sin with God, humans can do nothing to correct the situation. Not a single thing can they do to get on the good side of the ledger. They owe a debt they cannot pay.
We have to remember that the carnal mind is alive and kicking within us. Even though we are baptized, and even though we have the Spirit of God, it is still there. It is exerting its influence. Romans 8:7 says that it is enmity against God.
You might remember the apostle Paul, who was certainly well-schooled in the Scriptures, as far as the Hebrew people could give to him. He studied under the feet of Gamaliel, it says. He was certainly a man very intelligent and incisive of mind, a man of conviction and determination. And yet, that same man had to be physically blinded and thoroughly humbled before he could see God. Even though he had a command of the Scriptures that few people in life ever have at the time of their calling, he had that command, yet he could not see God working in the infant Christian church at that time.
Christ, in a reproach, a mild rebuke, said to Paul when He converted him on the way to Damascus, Paul, why are you kicking against the goads? That is a question that we need to ask ourselves as well. It is telling you something there - that the carnal mind will reject the evidence that God gives, even though it is suffering with pain. It will reject the evidence. So God's calling, God's Word, God's predisposing so that we can see - so that we have that ability to identify with His Son - is of no avail unless His Word becomes integrated within us.
Chief Justice Earl Warren was quoted as saying, "Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress; but they regard the things the government does for others as socialism." Now, speaking of socialism, Marx and Engles and other founders of Communism were aware of this ambivalence that we have toward government. And it was their theory that these constantly changing and mostly antagonistic attitudes toward government would gradually disappear if everyone just had what they needed in a classless society. Well, it failed. And it failed because there is a Devil who hates government with a passion, unless he is the one who is exercising the supreme authority.
Because of this, we find the statement in Romans 8:7 that "the natural mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." It will not be governed by God, is what God's infallible Word says.
Whether we are in authority or under authority (and we are always under authority), each of us—male or female—has an almost overpowering unwillingness to live within the limits imposed by the "governor." Remember that! What I have done is simply rephrased, or paraphrased, Romans 8:7. "The carnal mind [the natural mind] is enmity against God." And, as we saw in last week's sermon, He is the Ultimate Source of government. So, the civil governments of men derive their authority from God—as does the authority within the family structure also derive its authority from God.
Paul is quite clear that it is not the law of God that brings into captivity. Protestantism generally holds that Paul teaches that the law was nailed to the stake, yet Paul himself says he delights in the law of God. Those two ideas don’t work together. Back in verse 16, he says the law is good, and in verse 14, he says the law is spiritual. In the next chapter, he says it is the carnal mind that is hostile to God’s law, which means it is also hostile to the God from whom this good, delightful, spiritual law originates. The carnal mind serves a different god.
So, humanity has a rebellious nature against God and His law to the point that man, as it says here in Romans 8:7, man cannot be subject to God or His law, neither indeed can be. That is astounding! Carnal humans cannot do the things that please God. Because they are full of sin it taints everything they do. In fact, even if they have a desire to square the debt of sin with God, humans can do nothing to correct the situation. Not a single thing can they do to get on the good side of the ledger. They owe a debt they cannot pay.
