What is carnality in the Christian life?
Carnality is temporal death - separation from fellowship with God. Every time we as Christians give in to temptation and sin, we enter temporal death. It is not a loss of salvation but a loss of fellowship.
Carnality is the opposite pole from spirituality, and Scripture describes the pair in several ways: filled by means of the Spirit versus controlled by the old sin nature; in the Spirit versus in the flesh; the energy of the Spirit versus the energy of the flesh; in fellowship versus out of fellowship.
The remedy is confession and correction, and the danger is delay. When we sin we can always get back on track by confession. But the longer we refuse to confess, the farther adrift we go, and the harder it becomes to turn away from the distractions and entanglements that are so attractive to the natural man. Carnality left unchecked by confession leads into the more dangerous and destructive state of spiritual retreat, or reversion.
Source: The Basics The Basics, Unit 3 - Carnality (pp. 3, 129, 145) · Read this lesson in the book →
What this answer is about
Related questions
- What is spiritual death, according to the Bible?James 1:15 · The Basics
- What does the Bible teach about carnality in the Christian life?James 1:15 · The Basics
- What does the Bible teach about temptation, including its sources and how to overcome it?James 1:15 · The Basics
- What does the Bible teach about spirituality?James 1:15 · The Basics
- What is the biblical teaching on temptation and testing?Romans 8:2 · The Basics
- What is the goal of a Christian's life, and how can it be achieved?Romans 8:2 · The Basics
- What does the Bible teach about the soul, including its strengths and weaknesses, and how it relates to spiritual warfare and the filling of the Holy Spirit?Ephesians 5:18 · The Basics
- What is the Bible's teaching on confession and its role in the Christian life?Ephesians 5:18 · The Basics · Lesson 1–1: The Problem—Sin
Scripture this answer rests on
Where this is taught in the book
Scripture is not BTBM’s to license: the references above link to Blue Letter Bible (NASB95), and the verse text shown on this page is served by BLB under their own license and terms.