“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2)
When I first got saved, a friend of mine referred to me as a “Baby Christian”. I didn’t like that characterization and have become very careful about how I use labels, especially when I use one to describe a new Christian. Labels can be judgmental and damaging. Neither of these is consistent with God’s Word.
In spite of my bad experience, labels can be very helpful. They often promote understanding and enable us to relate with one another. Even Jesus occasionally used a label to make a point. He once told a group of Jews that the lost do not hear God’s voice because “You do not belong to God.” (John 8:46) But of the saved he said, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” (John 10:14)
It comes as no surprise to Christians that people are either lost or saved. But did you know that there are two types of Christians? That’s right. The Bible reveals there are spiritual Christians and carnal Christians. It even provides instruction to both types about how to grow in the Lord. Can you recognize the group to which you belong?
All of us would like to think that we are spiritual Christians, but many of us do not measure up to the spiritual Christian that the Apostle Paul described in 1 Corinthians. Spiritual Christians, according to Paul, “Have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.” (1 Corinthians 2:12-13)
The spiritual Christian does not do what comes naturally, but rather what comes supernaturally. He has what my father-in-law refers to as “liberty”. In other words, the spiritual Christian enjoys the freedom that comes from examining the spiritual truths of God and making moral and spiritual decisions that come from following God. As Adrian Rogers puts it, “He is liberated from natural thinking and his value system is completely different from those who do not know Christ and are marching toward hell. The spiritual man sees the world from God’s perspective. The world doesn’t understand him; they think he’s weird or crazy. They can’t understand why he doesn’t plunge into sin with them. He stands out to the rest of the world as different. He is alive to God and dead to sin.”
The carnal Christian also does what is unnatural. He is saved, but he isn’t changed. Paul referred to the carnal Christians as “babes in Christ” and said, “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly…I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.” (1 Corinthians 3:1-2)
Unlike the spiritual Christian, the carnal Christian does not have the ability to do what the mature Christian can do. Rogers describes the carnal Christian this way: “He can’t walk spiritually, war spiritually, or work spiritually. That’s why Paul tells them he couldn’t speak to them as adults. They were spiritual babies. He can’t take the meat of the Word, so he’ll have to be given some baby food. Like a baby, he requires somebody else to do everything for him. He can’t teach, but has to be taught. He can’t serve, but has to be served. He can’t even read his own Bible regularly, so he relies on the pastor to read it to him on Sundays.”
Like most of us, I see both the spiritual Christian and the carnal Christian where I live and worship. So did the Apostle Paul, who once said, “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. What a wretched man I am!” (Romans 7:21, 24)
The hope in the Gospel is if a great man of God like the Apostle Paul began his walk with the Lord as a carnal Christian, those around us who have yet to mature still have a chance. Don’t give up on them. Like Paul, they, too, can grow into the Christian that God wants us to become.
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