Questionable thought has always crept into the Christian church. Among the believers of Paul's date men such as Hymenaeus and Philetus postulated ideas that Paul said "will eat as doth a canker" (2 Tim 2:17). In the advanced Christian church one such controvertible teaching takes the contour of a doctrinal half-breed recognized as the "carnal Christian."

Trumpeting this carnal Christian argument environing the sphere is Dr. Tony Evans. All of the quotations from Dr. Evans contained in this article are excerpted sincere from his pamphlet. In opposition to historic Christianity Dr. Evans gathers his carnal Christian impression from three solitary verses in head Corinthians stage three:

"Brothers, I could not label you as spiritual however as worldly-mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not even ready for it. Indeed, you are all the more not ready. 3 You are much worldly. For in that there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting akin mere men?" 1 Cor 3:1-3

"It is possible," insists Tony Evans, "to be on your bag to heaven on the other hand be of no earthly fine owing to you compromise your faith...notice that Paul calls them brethren." At the bit of this rebuke Paul did comprehend these Corinthians in the family of believers. From this passage, however, Dr. Evans continues his slide down a slippery slope of unsupported claims. Cogitate Dr. Tony Evans' carnal Christian:

"Simply defined, carnality is a spiritual community in which a born-again Christian knowingly, willingly, deliberately and persistently lives to please and serve self rather than Jesus Christ."

[The carnal Christian] "is a ill Christian, attempting to grasp one foot planted in two mutually-exclusive worlds."

Because Paul called the Corinthians "brethren" and "carnal" (or worldly) does it supersede that they had the possibility to at the end such and yet enter the field of All powerful as Tony Evans assumes? The go back is plainly - No. Carnality was not an choice for the Corinthians or for us. Paul's rebuke to the "carnal" in 1 Corinthians 3 is also clarified successive in the corresponding jotter (though Dr. Evans does not mention it):

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the county of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the sovereign state of God." 1 Cor 6:9-10

The "carnal Christian" isn't taught in the bible and not still a trace of this solution may be seen in any confession or teacher that I admit studied. It's not constitute in the Ante-Nicene writings, the Westminster Confession or the Baptist Confession of 1689. Neither is it fashion in the works of Luther, Arminius, Calvin, Edwards, Whitefield, Wesley or Finney. Dr. Anthony T. Evans' "carnal Christian" is fantasy not theology.