Carnal and Spiritual Christians

What you may hear

Adult class, or a men’s group:

“There are really three kinds of people — the natural man, the carnal Christian, and the spiritual Christian. A lot of folks get saved and then stall out. They’re going to heaven, but they’re carnal. What they need is to surrender fully and let the Spirit take over.”

Sometimes with a name attached: the second blessing, the deeper life, full surrender, getting victory.

Why it matters

The scheme creates two classes of Christian and puts a second event between them. Whatever it is called — surrender, filling, victory — it functions as a second conversion, and the first one is thereby demoted to insufficient.

It also mislocates the Christian’s actual experience. The believer who finds sin still in himself is told he has stalled, when in fact he is describing what the Christian life is: the old Adam and the new man in the same person until death. Diagnosed as a stall, that experience produces either despair or pretending, and congregations that teach this get plenty of both.

And it relocates assurance again — this time onto the second event. A man who cannot remember surrendering fully now has two dates to be unsure about instead of one.

What to do instead

Refuse the two tiers outright. There is one kind of Christian: a baptized sinner who lives by forgiveness. Say it plainly; the relief in the room is often visible.
Name the experience correctly. Finding sin still present is not failure to advance. It is the accurate diagnosis the Catechism assumes when it prescribes drowning the old Adam daily.
Put growth where it belongs — in the ordinary means, over a long time, mostly unfelt. Not in a crisis, not in a decision, not in a conference.
Ask what the person is actually struggling with. “Carnal Christian” is frequently the language someone reaches for when they mean a real and specific sin. Deal with the sin. Take it to the pastor if it needs him.
Do not offer a technique. Every fix for this problem that comes in steps recreates it.

One line you can actually use

“There’s no advanced class. There’s the font, the Word, and the Supper, and you’ll need all three until they bury you.”

If the student asks

“But some Christians obviously are more mature. Isn’t that real?”

It is, and denying it makes you sound foolish.

“Of course it’s real — some people have been carried further and it shows. What isn’t real is that maturity comes from a second event you have to unlock. It comes from years of hearing the same gospel. The most mature person you know didn’t surrender harder than you. He’s just been fed longer.”

The confessional citation

Binding:

Augsburg Confession XVI — the gospel does not overturn ordinary callings and civil life; the article rejects locating Christian perfection in forsaking them. The two-tier scheme is the same instinct in a modern accent.
Augsburg Confession XXVII — against the claim that a special state or discipline constitutes a higher Christian perfection. Written about monastic vows; it lands squarely on the deeper-life scheme.
Small Catechism, Holy Baptism, Fourth Part — daily contrition and repentance; the old Adam drowned daily, the new man daily rising. Decisive: daily is a description of every Christian, not of the stalled ones.

Supplementary, not binding under the AFLC standard: Formula of Concord VI on the third use of the law; Luther’s simul iustus et peccator is the phrase people find most useful once they have this.

Scripture: Romans 7:15–25; Galatians 3:3.

What not to do

Do not deny that sanctification is real. Overcorrecting into “nothing changes” is its own error and leaves the class with a gospel that makes no difference.
Do not use simul iustus et peccator as permission. A man justifying a persistent sin by quoting Luther needs the pastor, not a Latin tag.
Do not mock the vocabulary. “Full surrender” is often the language of someone who is genuinely serious about God and has been handed the wrong map.
Do not diagnose anyone’s tier while refuting tiers. The temptation to say “that’s just carnal-Christian thinking” is the scheme reasserting itself.