Where Did the Carnal Mind Come From?

Where the carnal mind came from may not concern us so much, and we need not dwell long here. There are those who would tell us that the carnal mind is not a reality, and does not exist. They would tell us that what is called the carnal mind is merely an imagination, or a delusion of the mind; that if we would cease thinking there is such a thing, it would no longer be. Others would tell us that what we call the carnal mind is merely the animal remains in man. They would have us believe that we have "evoluted" through the various stages of animal life, and in each stage of the "evoluting" process part of that animal nature clung to us. What we now call the carnal mind is nothing else than a little mud-puppy nature, a little snake nature, a bit of the skunk nature, some of the ass nature, some bear nature, etc. When one kills another, he is merely displaying the bear nature; when one is stubborn, he is displaying the ass nature; when pride is paraded, he is showing the peacock that is in him; etc.

Now all this sounds quite eloquent and, as far as we can discern, there is only one thing the matter with it; that one thing is that it is all a lie. The premise is a lie, and, naturally, the conclusion cannot be otherwise.

The fact of the carnal mind existing in human hearts is too evident to need to be discussed here. The evidences are on every hand. It manifests itself everywhere. Sorrow and disappointment meet men on every turn of the road because of the presence and the doings of this soul poison. Wrecked homes, blighted lives, war and bloodshed, broken and bleeding hearts, all because the carnal mind dwells in the hearts of men.

The carnal mind did not come from God. God is good and from Him can proceed no evil. In Genesis 1:26 we read, "And God said, Let us make man in our image." In Ecclesiastes 7:29 we read, "God hath made man upright." When man came from the hand of God, he was pure and undefiled. As God is good, man was good, for he was created in the image of God; not a physical image, but in His moral and spiritual image.

The carnal mind is not the outcome of evil environments. as the Pelagians teach. The evil tendency in man is not there because we are surrounded with evil. Environments are often the cause of the evil within manifesting itself, but the evil nature was there before the environments called forth the manifestations. A person may "crawl up a miff tree" when he cannot have his way about things. Now he would not have become miffed had the environment not prevented him from having his way. Thus the environment called forth the manifestation, but something that is not cannot manifest itself. If there had been no evil something within, it could not have manifested itself.

Some have erred by supposing and teaching that the carnal mind is the result of a sinful life. They would have us believe that man acquires the evil nature within by committing sin. The more sins one commits, and the longer he lives in sin, the more of the carnal mind does he acquire. The trouble here is that they have the program reversed. A sinful life is the result of an evil principle within, but never the opposite. The story is told of a boy who found some snake eggs. He took them to his home and set them under a hen, thinking that by having a hen hover those eggs they would hatch chickens. But they hatched snakes. They did not hatch snakes because of any environments thrown about them, but because the snake nature was within the eggs.

The carnal mind came direct from the devil. In I John 3:8 we read that Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. What constitutes the work of the devil? Is it our stealing, lying, blaspheming, etc.? Not at all. Those are our works. The devil will never be called upon to give account for the things I have stolen, or for the oaths I have uttered, or for the lies I have told; but I myself must answer for all such deeds in the day of judgment unless I have them blotted out by the blood of Jesus. The wrongs that I have committed, I must face. The devil will never answer for any of them. Those things are taken care of in the fifth verse of this third chapter of I John. There John tells us that Jesus was manifested to take away our sins. There he deals with the transgressions that I have committed. The eighth verse speaks of destroying the works of the devil. What is the devil's work? It is planting the seeds of depravity in the human heart.

In Isaiah 14:12 we read, "How art thou fallen from heaven. O Lucifer [literally day-star], son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!" By the injection of the virus of sin he weakened the inhabitants of earth. As the nations are composed of individuals, it was by the weakening of the individuals that he weakened the nations. We well remember the first Ford car we ever owned. When we first secured that car it would pull up every hill, in that part of the country, in high gear. After twelve or fifteen months it would not do so. Later it would scarcely pull up some of them in low gear. We were quite worried, for we were quite sure that the Ford was worn out. We had examined every part that we could think of examining, but could find nothing wrong. One day we lamented to a friend that our Ford was worn out. He asked why we thought so. We related its behavior to him. He asked. "Have you looked into the explosion chamber to ascertain whether or not it has any carbon in it? We had never thought of such a thing and frankly told him so. We did not know that a gasoline motor would collect carbon in the explosion chamber. Then he told us about taking out certain bolts and lifting off the top of the motor. We followed his instructions and found great scales of carbon. We cleaned it all out and replaced the cylinder head, and to our surprise that Ford pulled the hills in high gear just as easily as it did when it was new. The carbon had caused premature explosion of the gas and thus had dissipated the power of the motor. What the carbon was to that motor, the carnal mind is to the soul. It dissipates the energies of the soul, and often have we noticed the "premature explosions." Through the carnal mind as his agent the devil will misconstrue the meaning of the sublimest scriptures, and thus cause one to lose the import of the great promises of the Bible, and power is dissipated. He will make spiritual healing mean only physical healing. The great spiritual mountain peaks of the Bible are made physical and material molehills. As a sunbeam that has traveled in a straight line for ninety-three million miles strikes a flaw in the window pane and falls obliquely on the floor, so Satan will take a great truth that comes direct from the eternal throne of God, inject into it some of his own philosophy, and cause it to fall diffused upon the screen of our spiritual vision. Ten thousand possibilities cluster about every soul; but through the carnal mind the devil weakens that soul, and God's plan is marred.

He has weakened the usefulness of many by injecting a human, sentimental sympathy or pity for a soul under conviction. Instead of getting down to the root of the trouble, they will pet and sympathize with the convicted soul. They will pat him on the cheek, etc., instead of helping him to see his great need and the sufficiency in Christ Jesus, and urging him to confess things out and make wrongs right. Thus that sentimental pity has weakened the usefulness of that person who should have been able to rescue a soul from the clutches of Satan. One of the most disgusting sights we have ever beheld is to see a soul at an altar of prayer, his heart bowed down with sin, and then see Sister "Soothingsyrup" come and kneel in front of him and try to help him forget his grief.

Others have been weakened by being caused to believe that the thing to do is to urge the seeker after salvation to "take it on dry faith." Or they will urge, "Believe, believe the Lord." We have seen some who apparently accepted salvation (?) in that manner, and usually saw later that they were living it "on dry faith," and, as a rule, quite dry.

There are conditions to be met that are antecedents to the act of faith, without which it is impossible for a soul to exercise faith unto salvation. It is true, the Bible declares, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." But it also declares, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" A prerequisite to faith for salvation is repentance. The message to Israel was ever repentance. John preached repentance. Jesus preached repentance. Peter took up the same message of repentance. John the Revelator preached repentance. Repentance is to salvation what the foundation is to the house. Real repentance naturally brings the soul to the place where he can believe for the salvation of his soul. The seeker should be urged to repent with all his heart and soul, for if he does faith will not be difficult. Jesus said, according to Mark, "Repent ye, and believe." The soul that refuses to repent and obey God will find it impossible to believe for salvation. "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people," declares God through the prophet Jeremiah. Hebrews 5:9 tells us that Jesus "became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." Acts 5:32 reveals the fact that God gives the Holy Ghost only to them that obey Him.

Dr. A. S. Keen, speaking of faith, says, "There are states of heart which render faith impossible. An impenitent heart, a willful heart, or an unconsecrated heart, is incapable of believing unto salvation. To say to a soul in the heyday of sin, or to an unawakened heart, or to an enlightened child of God who refuses to give himself wholly to the Lord, 'Believe and thou shalt be saved,' is to expect him to do what he cannot do. His state of heart is obstructive to faith. No man can believe unto salvation when he will, irrespective of his condition of heart. There are essential antecedents to the exercise of faith. The attainment of these is the way of faith" (Faith Papers, pp. 9,10).

It was a sad day when the devil took that walk through the Garden of Eden and planted in the hearts of our first parents that deadly contagion of sin, called the carnal mind. From that sad day, the day when God lost His only representative on earth, "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man."