Question: 1. Is there any difference between “carnally” and “of the flesh” in Rom. 8:5, 6, 13, &c.?
W. J. F.
2. What is “fleshy” in 2 Cor. 3:3? AL.
Answer: 1, 2. It is the same word and sense in Rom. viii., the mind of that flesh which is enmity to God, and came into man’s moral constitution through Adam’s sin. But “fleshy” means the different fact of the physical material, consisting of flesh, in contrast with stone; and the critics prefer it in Rom. 7:14 to the received reading which only differs by one letter. So do the oldest copies in 1 Cor. 3:1, though they give the form “fleshly” or “carnal” in ver 3. In Heb. 7:16 they prefer “fleshy” or at any rate the Greek form for the material. Yet in Rom. 15:27 the word for “fleshly” or “carnal,” is read; so that this would seem capable of both applications, whereas the other is confined to the material sense.