"Carnally" and "Of the Flesh"

Romans 8:5‑6; Romans 8:13; 2 Corinthians 3:3  •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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W. J. F.
2. What is “fleshy” in 2 Cor. 3:33Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. (2 Corinthians 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. 7:1414For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. (Romans 7:14) to the received reading which only differs by one letter. So do the oldest copies in 1 Cor. 3:11And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:1), though they give the form “fleshly” or “carnal” in ver 3. In Heb. 7:1616Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. (Hebrews 7:16) they prefer “fleshy” or at any rate the Greek form for the material. Yet in Rom. 15:2727It hath pleased them verily; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. (Romans 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.