Because the carnal mind is enmity against God
These words contain a reason why the issue of carnal mindedness
is death; because the carnal mind, the wisdom of the flesh, is
not only an enemy, but enmity itself against God: against his
being; it reasons against it; it wishes he was not; it forms
unworthy notions of him; thinks him such an one as itself; and
endeavours to bury him in forgetfulness, and erase out of its
mind all memorials of him: it is at enmity against his
perfections; either denying his omniscience; or arraigning his
justice and faithfulness; or despising his goodness, and abusing
his grace and mercy: it finds fault with, and abhors his decrees
and purposes; quarrels with his providences; it is implacable
against his word and Gospel; especially the particular doctrines
of grace, the Father's grace in election, the Son's in
redemption, and the Spirit's in regeneration; and has in the
utmost contempt the ordinances and people of Christ. This enmity
is universal, it is in all men in unregeneracy, either direct or
indirect, hidden or more open; it is undeserved; it is natural
and deeply rooted in the mind, and irreconcilable without the
power and grace of God. It shows itself in an estrangedness from
God; in holding friendship with the world, in harbouring the
professed enemies of God, in living under the government of sin
and Satan; in hating what God loves, and in loving what God
hates; in omitting what God commands, and committing what he
forbids; it manifests itself in their language, and throughout
the whole of their conversations.
For it is not subject to the law of God;
carnal men are subject to the law's sentence of condemnation, but
not to its precepts, by obedience to them; there may be an
external, and which is a servile obedience to it, but not a free,
voluntary, internal one, and still less a perfect one: the carnal
mind is so far from an obedient subjection to the law, that it is
far off from the law, and the law from that; it hates and
despises it, thwarts and contradicts it in every instance, and,
as much as in it lies, makes it void; which fully proves the
enmity of the carnal mind against God; for hereby his being is
tacitly denied, his sovereignty disputed, his image defaced, his
government withdrawn from, and these persons are declared, and
declare themselves enemies to him:
neither indeed can be;
without regenerating grace, without the power and Spirit of God,
unless it is written upon the heart by the finger of God; for
carnal men are dead in sin, and so without strength to obey the
law; and besides, the carnal mind, and the law of God, are
directly contrary one to another. Where is man's power and free
will? no wonder the carnal mind do not stoop to the Gospel of
Christ, when it is not, and cannot be subject to the law of God.
Hence we see the necessity of almighty power, and efficacious
grace in conversion. It is Christ's work to subject men to the
law, and which is done when he justifies by his righteousness:
agreeably to which the Targum on ( Isaiah 53:11
) ; paraphrases it thus:
``in his wisdom he shall justify the righteous, that (atyrwal) (Nyaygo adbevl) , "he may subject many to the law".''And in ( Isaiah 53:11 ) , the transgressors he hath subjected to the law.