The Disease of Division
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
If you have your Bibles, turn with us to 1 Corinthians Chapter 3, for our lesson this morning in the Word of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, we're gonna look at verses 1 to 9, a very familiar portion of Scripture to students of the Word of God, a portion that has been used as a basis for understanding much of what is taught regarding the Christian's behavior. In fact, the whole third chapter really is loaded with some very, very pertinent, important things, regard to Christian life. In our continuing study of 1 Corinthians, we come to chapter 3, in the middle of a section on division in the church. We've entitled this particular message "The Disease of Division," or if you will, "Carnal Christians."
Just to introduce the thought, I was reading a book entitled "New Life" written by Michael Green, and in the book he said that a friend of his came to him and explained to him his attitude toward his new found Christian life in these terms: "It is rather like a cyclist, who, when he has climbed a long hill, feels he should be able to freewheel down the other side. It is not until he reaches the top that he sees his task has only just started, and that the road winds on with even steeper hills than the one he has just climbed. When people accept Christ, they tend to think it is freewheeling from that point, but then they discover it is only the beginning."
You look at the Christian life, and I look at the Christian life, from our perspectives. So did this young man. But the interesting thing about it, from all of our perspectives, the Christian life is not easy. It is difficult. And maybe when you first became a Christian, you thought that it might be freewheeling. And somebody told you that if you'd come to Christ, he'd solve your problems. And He does do that. If you come to Christ you have peace and joy, and the answers to life. And you did and you do, but in spite of all of that, it's not easy. The Christian life is difficult. In fact, maybe it's harder to live now then it was before you were saved. Why? Why does a young Christian find that he thinks he might be able to freewheel it, and then as soon as he gets into the thing he finds out there's greater difficulty all the time? Why is it not easy to live a Christian life, with the power of God within us? Why is it difficult to do the thing we know we want to do, to do the thing that is right to do, that God says to be done? There are two reasons, and really everything can be reduced to these two. Two things make the Christian life difficult.
No. 1, you are going against the grain of the world. You are trying to breathe different air than exists in your atmosphere, and that isn't easy. You are finding yourself like a spiritual salmon. While everything else is floating downstream, you're fighting the current. You keep slamming against the wall of worldliness, just trying to break through. You aren't swimming the way the rest of the fish are swimming. You are going against the current, and it isn't easy. The world is geared to go a certain direction. You are going the opposite way, and that makes it hard. Now that's the external pressure.
Secondly, the internal. You are also going against the grain of the flesh, your own humanness. Paul put it this way in Romans 7: "I love to do God's will so far as my new self is concerned. But there is something deep within me in my flesh that is at war with my mind, and wins the fight, making me a slave to the sin that still is in me." That's the internal. You see, men are born sinful. That's because they're born of sinful parents and it goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. Because we are born with a tendency to sin, with a domination to sin, this creates a problem. Salvation comes - now watch- and when we are saved, God breaks the back of evil, neutralizes, in a sense, sin, gives us the Holy Spirit to subdue sin, but he doesn't remove the tendency to evil that is in our humanness. And so with all of those things that he does, we still, though the triumph is ultimate, struggle on the path to that ultimate triumph.
So you see Satan has two things that he works on in the life of a Christian: the world, that's the external; the flesh, that's the internal. And those two things make it very difficult. We are going against the grain. We are breathing different air than exists in our atmosphere, we are spiritual salmon going against the stream, and secondly we have within us a tendency to evil. And though the Spirit of God is there to subdue that, ultimately and practically, it is still there and it rears itself and though we win the battle, ultimately we lose a lot of skirmishes on the way.
Now that's why the Christian life isn't easy, and the Christian has to watch for two things. We have to look outside and watch the world. You have to look inside and watch the flesh. And incidentally, sometimes they are very closely connected because the world becomes the thing that tempts the flesh. But Satan uses these two avenues to get to us: outside and inside.
This was precisely the problem that the Corinthians had. The problem the Corinthians faced was this: they had been able to avoid neither the world, nor the flesh. They were succumbing to the world; they were succumbing to the flesh. And as a result of that, all kinds of sins were occurring. And from the beginning of 1 Corinthians, to the 16th chapter, is just dealing with one sin after another: Sins that were issuing out of this inability to deal with the world and the flesh.
Now one of the sins that was creating problems in Corinth was division. Division is a sin. Now I hasten to add that no sin is an isolated sin. Sins are always combinations of other sins. Just file off that somewhere on your computer. It will come up once in a while. There's no such thing as an isolated sin. Sins are combinations of other sins. And in Corinth, division was not an isolated sin that existed in a vacuum. It was a product of other sins. Pride, envy, jealousy, etc., etc., create division. But division was a very serious thing and Paul knew that if he could correct division, he could take care of a lot of other things. So he spends a tremendous amount of time on division.
Now he says to them, in effect: "Your division is caused by two things." Now what are the two things I just told you cause sin? Worldliness and the flesh. Division, first of all, in the church at Corinth, was caused by worldliness.
Now we think of worldliness, usually, as things you do, you know, playing cards, getting drunk, you know, whatever you categorize as worldliness in your little category. But that isn't really what worldliness is. Worldliness is simply buying whatever the world's philosophies are, whatever their attitudes are. And in the case of the Corinthians, it wasn't that they necessarily behaved like the world - they did do that - but that isn't the issue here. It was that they were following the world's philosophies. They were defining things, in an ultimate sense, by the world's definitions. And you see, Paul says to them from 1:18 through 2:16, the end of the first chapter and the whole second chapter, "Your problem is you're divided because you are buying the world's philosophy. Everybody brings into the church philosophies of the world. You can't agree because you all have your own different worldly philosophies and you've got discord."
That was their first problem. First cause of their division was their worldliness. They were still hanging on to old worldly philosophies they'd been taught by their worldly philosophers before they were saved.
But there's a second reason. The second reason for their division is in chapter 3, and that is the flesh. The second reason that they were divided was because instead of functioning in the Spirit, they were functioning in the flesh. And whenever the flesh functions, watch this, one word will characterize it. Inevitably, it starts with "s" and it ends with "ish": selfish. Division is manifest selfishness and that's what carnality always is. Carnality says, "I will do what I will do; I don't care what God wants me to do. I will work in the flesh, do what my body says, my nature says, regardless of what God says."
So carnality and worldliness were creating the division in the church. They were buying the world's philosophies and they were behaving in the world's patterns. Selfishly, internal, fleshy desires were overruling the statements of the Word and the revelation of God. So you see, folks, perennially, the enemies of the Lord's work are the world and the flesh, both in the collective and corporate base and individually.
Now in our text, Paul is going to tackle the disease of division from the standpoint of carnality, from the internal, from the standpoint of the flesh. This really is the key if you can overrule the flesh, you can also overrule the world.
You kind of have to feel like Paul's a doctor here. Maybe he'd been hanging around Luke so long he felt that he was sort of learning everything Luke knew, and he sort of sees himself as a doctor. But he's sort of a spiritual physician, and he's in the business of diagnosing. He is absolutely the greatness spiritual diagnostician there ever was, apart from our Lord. This guy could see through the symptoms of what was going on and get the issue better than anybody.
You know the word "diagnosis" - some of you are doctors and you use that word a lot - the word "diagnosis" - you can throw this in your file - comes from two Greek words: dia and nosis. Nosis is the Greek word "to know" and dia means "through." It means, "to know through something," and that's what "diagnosis" is. You look at the symptoms; you go behind the symptoms through to the real problem. You have diagnosed the problem. You have seen through the superficial to the real problem. You know through the problem.
And this is what Paul did. Incidentally the word is used in the book of Acts in reference to Paul's defense before Agrippa, and him being able to make a proper diagnosis of what he was saying. But here we find Paul diagnosing the Corinthians all the way through the book. He says, "This is what you do; here is what it looks like; here is what is causing it; and here is how to cure it." He is a spiritual physician all the way through 1 Corinthians, diagnosing, then describing symptoms, and then offering cures.
Now he comes to the disease of division, and that's an ugly disease....really ugly. And it's very, very contagious. You can have division at the church at a small level, and boy, that thing can spread. Not only does it affect the church but it affects the world, because an un-united church, a divided, wrangling, fighting church looses its ability to testify. And so division is a very, very
serious disease.
Now Paul's going to give three things. It's a simple outline. Follow along. The cause, the symptoms, and the cure. The cause of division, the symptoms of it, how it manifests itself, and the cure for it.
No. 1, the cause. Let's look. I want you to hang in with me, because this is a very important passage and we must make clear some very basic theological principles. The cause is in verses 1 through 3a: "And I brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." Now here he tells them what was causing their division. It wasn't just environment; it wasn't just worldly pressure. It was the weakness of their own flesh. "I couldn't speak to you as spiritual, but carnal." And here he introduces the problem.
Now let's notice the verse specifically. He says "brethren." And by saying that, that is a term of love, affection. It's also a term of equality, so he identifies with them on an equal level. But in addition to that it's sort of a softening of the rebuke. Also, indicates to us to whom he speaks: Christians. He speaks to Christians but he says, now watch this, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual." The word "as," folks, is very important. "I couldn't speak to you as if you were spiritual. You are brethren, you are Christians, but I can't talk to you like that."
Now, the term "spiritual" is very, very important. When we use the term "spiritual," we use it in many ways. The world talks about the "spiritual" world and what do they mean? They mean the occult, don't they? We talk about someone who is "spiritual" and we mean a guy who is really moving in the Spirit, a guy who is "spiritual" as opposed to carnal. Or when we say a "spiritual" man, we may just mean a Christian, as opposed to a natural man. We have to be careful how we use it, and we want to know how Paul uses it here, so watch. This demands some careful observation.
The word for "spiritual" is numaticoi, or numaticas; icas is the ending. Anytime you see an icas ending - most of you saw an icas ending, you wouldn't know it was an icas ending - but anyway, an icas ending, at the end of the word, it means "characterized by or controlled by." So numa means "Spirit." So numaticas means, "Spirit controlled by; controlled by the Spirit."
So here is somebody controlled by the Spirit, a spiritual man. All Christians are numaticoi. All Christians are controlled by the Spirit. Did you know that? There is no such thing as a Christian not controlled by the Spirit. Now not all Christians obey the Spirit, who is in control, but they are all controlled by Him. Sometimes you may have seen a little diagram that shows a Christian, and it's got himself on the throne and the Holy Spirit down at the side. Can't happen. Once you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit takes over the control of your life. He remains in control of your life until the day you die. He will always be in control of your life. The only issue is whether or not you're submitting to His control.
And I'll tell you something else, in a minute, that may help you to understand this. I'll explain it in broader terms; just introduce it here. The Holy Spirit will control you to the end that He wants, whether you cooperate or not. But you should cooperate. It's a lot less painful. Okay?
Now, all Christians are spiritual. You say "How do you know that, John." Verse 15 of chapter 2. Let's go back to 14 and see the contrast. "The natural man" - now who is the natural man? The unsaved man. A sucacoi: controlled by - there's _______ again - controlled by suca, his own soul, his own humanness. He receives not the things of the Spirit of God. He's not even sensitive to spiritual things. He's on the outside looking in and not even knowing what he's seeing. So the natural man, in contrast to the natural man who can't know the things of the Spirit, verse 15 says there is a spiritual man. He can discern all things. Now there, my friends, the term "spiritual" refers simply to a Christian. Simply to a Christian, not to a special kind of Christian; not to a good one as opposed to a bad one; not to a mature one as opposed to an immature one. Just to a Christian, period. All Christians are spiritual as opposed to natural. That is, what used to be controlled by the human nature, we are now controlled by the Holy Spirit. That is true of every Christian.
Now, mark this. That is a positional statement. Remember how often we've talked about position in practice, that a Christian positionally, before God, is perfect. But in practice we don't always live up to what we are. When God looks at you, He sees you as if He were looking at whom? Christ. He looks at you, He sees you in Christ. In fact, in 1 Corinthians, He says to the Corinthians: "You are holy ones." And then he proceeds to tell them how rotten they are. Well what's he saying? He's saying before God, in Christ, positionally, holy. Practically, you're rotten. You're not living up to what you are. This is why we believe that you don't lose your salvation, because your practice never affects your position. Those are two different things. You have to make a distinction in Scripture. The practice of an individual - for example he says, "Now are you sanctified," then he turns right around later to the Corinthians and says, "Now cleanse yourselves from filthiness." Well you see, positionally before God, they are pure, they are in Christ, they are righteous. When God looks at you, does He see sin? He sees absolute righteousness. You're covered with the righteousness of Christ. Is there sin in your life? Yeah, practically. See your difference between your practice and position.
Now, the word "spiritual" here is used of your position. Before God, you are a spiritual person. You are under the control of the Spirit. You are characterized by the Spirit. As opposed to an unsaved person who is not, and thus he can't know God's truth at all. You can. You can know the word. You can discern the Word. You can read the Word. You can study the Word. You are controlled by the Holy Spirit.
The word then, "spiritual," is used in the New Testament to speak of this positional aspect. Just as an illustration, look at verse 6 of chapter 2. Now when I say the word "mature," what kind of Christian do you think of? You think of a mature Christian right? Somebody who really knows the Word, ______. Did you know that every Christian is mature? Every single Christian is mature. You say, "Wait a minute." Why do you keep telling us to grow up to maturity then? Well I'm using it in the practical sense, but positionally you're all full-grown. Did you know that? When you became a Christian you were a whole thing. There's no one who's a half Christian. Never met a half Christian, not even a three-quarter Christian. As I told you, my grandfather put it simply: "There's only two kinds of people: the Saints and the Aints, and either you is or you ain't." There is not any half way about it. A Christian is somebody who's a Christian. And he's a total Christian. That's why 2:6 says this: "We are speaking among them that are telaois," that are grown up ones, that are mature ones, that are total ones, that are mature. So there, maturity is used positionally. Elsewhere it is used practically, isn't it, as illustrated in Ephesians? We oughta mature the body. We are to build it up.
So you see the words of Scripture sometimes speak of our position, sometimes of our practice. So then, "spiritual" is used in 15 to speak of our position. It is also used that way in 1 Peter 2:5 where he says, "All Christians are a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices." That's us, in our position. We always don't act like a holy priesthood, do we? But we are positionally.
Further, let me show you Romans 8, because I think it illustrates the point. Romans 8:6, here's a distinction: "To be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life." Here he equates, watch this, spirituality with life. Who has life? Christians. Who then is spiritual? Christians. He even says in verse 9, "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." Well who's he talking to? "If so be the Spirit of God dwells in you." Whoever the Spirit dwells in. Well, you say, "Who does the Spirit dwell in? Some Christians?" "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is of Him." Let's go backwards in the verse. If a man has the Spirit, he belongs to Christ, right? If the Spirit of God dwells in you, you are in the Spirit, and not in the flesh. That is saying no Christian is in the flesh; all Christians are in the Spirit.
So you see, there's a positional thing. Even though we're in the Spirit, we can do the deeds of the flesh once in a while. But here he's talking about our position, not our practice. In fact, in verse 4, he says, "We do not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit." All Christians walk after the Spirit, positionally, in our position before God. Look at verse 14, Romans 8: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." How can you tell if you're a son of God? If you're led by the Spirit of God. All sons of God are led by the Spirit. Therefore, all Christians are spiritual, led by the Spirit. That's all he's saying.
Over in verse 26 - and here's this idea: "The Spirit helps us in our weakness." Even when we goof it up in practice. "We don't know what to pray for, but the Spirit makes intersection for us with groanings that can't be uttered, and God," verse 27 says, "hears those prayers" and the result, "we know that all things work together for good." Did you know something? That stuff in your life - hold on to your hat - is going to work together for good, whether you cooperate or not. Did you know that?
But as I said earlier, it's a lot better to cooperate. Listen, your life is so controlled by the Holy Spirit. He so rules that your life, that because of you, with you, or in spite of you, it's going to work out together for good. I'm glad, but I'd rather be in on it, because other wise I'm winding up in Hebrews chapter 12 getting chastised.
Don't you see? Every Christian is controlled by the Spirit positionally, walking in the Spirit, positionally he is spiritual, as opposed to natural. In fact, Galatians 5:25 says, "All Christians live in the Spirit." That is our life, isn't it?
So Paul says in 2:15 - say, "When are you going to get to the third chapter?" I'll be there in a minute - in 2:15, he says, "You are spiritual, you are characterized by, you are controlled by, you are walking by the Holy Spirit, as opposed to the natural. That's what salvation did for you. It gave you God's Holy Spirit to control you. Now, in spite of the fact that you are positionally spiritual, practically you're not living spiritually, so I could not speak unto you as I should have been able to speak unto you, as to spiritual. In fact, I have to speak to you as I would to carnal, as unto babes in Christ." So he says "I couldn't speak to you as spiritual." They were spiritual but he couldn't talk to them like they were. You see? The word "as" is important there.
"Spiritual" sometimes means practical. In here it does. I wish you were as spiritual in your practical as your position, right? Sometimes the word "spiritual" is used that way. Galatians 6:1, the brother's overtaken in a fall, "He that is spiritual restores such a one in love." There it's talking about a certain level of a Christian. I should say, a Christian who is walking in the Spirit, practically, who is practicing his position. You pick out the Christian who isn't practicing his position, you see? So "spiritual" in 6:1 of Galatians is used to contrast two kinds of Christians. So you see it just depends on the passage. Now here he's saying your position is spiritual, 2:15, your practice isn't, 3:1.
"Now I have to talk to you as unto carnal," he says. And here the Greek word is sarkenos, not icas ending, but an enos ending. And an enos ending means "made of." "I'm talking to you as if you were made of flesh." Down in 3, when he says, "You are yet carnal," he uses icas. "You are controlled by the flesh, but I have to talk to you as if you are made of it." He says in effect, "You're so messed up I gotta deal with you like I was dealing with a bunch of unbelievers." Wow. Carnal, it's the word flesh. Sarks. It is used in this reference to refer to the basic nature of man, to refer to that which is subject to sin, his edamic self, his rebelliousness toward God, his self-centeredness, his proneness to sin. And when you were saved, that was not eradicated. It doesn't dominate you anymore. It's been neutralized. You can use it or not use it, but it's still there. And he's saying, "I have to talk to you like you were carnal." He doesn't say man's dominated by the flesh; he says "I gotta talk to you like you're unsaved, like you are sarkenosis, made of the flesh." Fleshy-that's the definition of unbelievers.
Now to illustrate that this is the way "carnal" is used, all you have to do is go back to Romans 8 again. And you don't need to turn to it; I'll read it to you. Romans 8 says this: "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, and they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit." Now here he's talking about a saved and an unsaved man. And he calls an unsaved man "somebody minding the flesh." Verse 6, "To be carnally minded is death." Why? That's an unbeliever, isn't it? Verse 8, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh." You see, he's distinguishing a Christian and a non-Christian and here he doesn't call a non-Christian natural, he calls him carnal. He doesn't say man is carnal. He's functioning on his flesh. But he can say to a Christian: "When you do the things you are doing, you could be defined by the same term. You're not natural anymore, because you do have the Holy Spirit and no Christian is ever called natural. But you are carnal, because you are functioning on the basis of the flesh." And you know when a Christian sins, there's no difference in quality, and there's no difference in definition between his sin and the sin of an unbeliever. Did you know that? If a Christian lies, is that a different quality of sin than an unbeliever? Christians sin better sins, huh? We have a higher level of sinning. If anything, what? It's worse. You see the sin is sin, and the same flesh that functioned before you were sav