Scripture Queries and Answers: Difference Between "Carnally" and "of the Flesh"; Fleshy

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 6
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.
A. 1, 2. It is the same word and sense in Horn. 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 anyrate 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.
*Third Lecture.