saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?" Four
times the apostle uses that word carnal. In the wisdom which the Holy Ghost
gives him, Paul feels:--I can not write to these Corinthian Christians
unless I know their state, and unless I tell them of it. If I give
spiritual food to men who are carnal Christians, I am doing them more harm
than good, for they are not fit to take it. I cannot feed them with meat,
I must feed them with milk. And so he tells them at the very outset of the
epistle what he sees to be their state. In the two previous chapters he had
spoken about his ministry being by the Holy Spirit; now he begins to tell
them what must be the state of a people in order to accept spiritual truth,
and he says: "I have not liberty to speak to you as I would, for you are
carnal, and you cannot receive Spiritual truth." That suggests to us the
solemn thought, that in the Church of Christ there are two classes of
Christians. Some have lived many years as believers, and yet always remain
babes; others are spiritual men, because they have given themselves up to
the power, the leading and to the entire rule of the Holy Ghost. If we are
to obtain a blessing, we must first decide to which of these classes we
belong. Are we, by the grace of God, in deep humility living a spiritual
life, or are we living a carnal life? Then, let us first try to understand
what is meant by the carnal state in which believers may be living.

We notice from what we find in Corinthians, four marks of the carnal state.
First: It is simply a condition of protracted infancy. You know what that
means. Suppose a beautiful babe, six months old. It cannot speak, it cannot
walk, but we do not trouble ourselves about that; it is natural, and ought
to be so. But suppose a year later we find the child not grown at all, and
three years later still no growth; we would at once say: "There must be
some terrible disease;" and the baby that at six months old was the cause
of joy to every one who saw him, has become to the mother and to all a
source of anxiety and sorrow. There is something wrong; the child can not