[March 6th, 1865.]
The analogy between matter and mind is so great and obvious that terms expressive of the state and acts of the former are used to express those of the latter. This is a principle on which all languages are constructed. To see, to perceive, to apprehend, all express bodily actions, but they also express acts of the mind. This is not arbitrary. When we see a thing, we know that it is and what it is. So when the mind knows that a thing is and what it is, it is said to see. The invisible things of God are said to be seen. This usage, of course, pervades the Scripture. Hence, as we might expect, the words, death and life, are transferred to the soul.
In relation to the body, death implies,
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Entire ignorance or the want of power to perceive the things of sense. It neither sees, hears nor feels.
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It is shut out from all enjoyment.
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It decays and becomes offensive.
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It is absolutely powerless. All this is included when we speak of the death of the soul.
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It is ignorant of the things of God.
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It is incapable of enjoying them.
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It is corrupt and offensive.
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It is perfectly helpless.
On the other hand, life is the opposite of all this. The life of the body supposes its capacity to apprehend the objects around it, to enjoy them, the absence of decay and the possession of activity, etc. The life of the soul in Scripture language includes.
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Knowledge, or right apprehension of divine things.
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The enjoyment of them.
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Holiness or purity.
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Activity and power in the sphere of the spirit.
What the apostle asserts is that the carnal mind is death in the sense stated, and the spiritual mind is life.
The carnal mind (phronema tes sarkos) means that state of mind which is the effect of our apostacy or the product of our corrupt nature. In other words, our corrupt nature manifests itself,
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In ignorance.
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In alienation, hatred, want of capacity to enjoy the things of God.
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In moral corruption, or the exercise of all unholy thoughts and feelings.
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In utter inability to alter this state of things. Whereas the , the state of mind produced by the Spirit, includes a. Knowledge. b. Love and happiness. c. Holiness. d. Activity and power.
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This is the simple and comprehensive truth here taught. The first remark suggested by it is that men mistake in regarding punishment and reward too much as positive inflictions; that is, something imposed or given from without. The death of which the Bible speaks as the wages of sin is mainly a subjective state. No greater misery is possible or conceivable than that which would follow from a sinner being left to himself. His inward state includes all the elements of misery; just as Milton makes Satan say, “Myself am hell.”
It is true that the circumstances of the righteous, their associates and their surroundings minister to their blessedness. So doubtless will it be with the impenitent in the opposite way.
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The wicked, those who are carnally-minded, are lost. They are now in a state of perdition, not hopeless and final in this world, not left to themselves; but still they are in that state which, if not radically changed, will issue in eternal death. So, on the other hand, believers, the spiritual, are saved. They have eternal life. The Holy Spirit in them is a source of spiritual and eternal life.
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The decision of which of these two classes we belong to is not determined by anything external, our being in or out of the Church, our professing this or that faith, our outward deportment, or the reputation we have in the world, but simply and solely by our inward state. If the things of the flesh, i.e., adapted to our sensuous, physical or corrupt nature; if, in short, the things seen and temporal, the things to be professed and enjoyed in this life are the things which engross our thoughts, fix our desires and fill our hearts, we are in a state of spiritual death, from which nothing but the power of Him who can raise the dead can deliver us. On the other hand, if the things of the Spirit—God, Christ, heaven, the kingdom of the Redeemer, the spiritual interests of men—engross our minds, then we are spiritually-minded. This is a matter on which it is vain to attempt to deceive ourselves. We cannot make death life.
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From what is said above, will appear the duty both of the carnally-minded and of those who hope they have the Spirit.
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