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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
A Reproof of Spiritual Pride.
The marks of carnal men:
v. 1. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
v. 2. I have fed you with milk and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
v. 3. For ye are yet carnal; for, whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men?
Paul has held before the Christians of Corinth the wonderful blessings which belong to all believers through the Gospel, and which should be used and exercised by them in a proper way. To his great sorrow, he is obliged to state that the Corinthians whom he addresses do not yet measure up to the standard which should be found in those that have the proper understanding. But to show his confidence in them, he addresses them also in this section as "brethren. " His words are harsh, for he connects his reprimand with the statement that the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: And I, consequently, was not able to speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. He implies that he might well have expected by this time that he could address them as men that were governed in all things by the Spirit of God. Instead of that, however, he finds that he is obliged to speak to them as men that follow the thoughts of the flesh, that are governed by their unregenerate nature, by the old Adam. As to little children, to veritable babes in Christ, he must speak. Note how the addition "in Christ" softens the harshness of the censure and pleads with the better knowledge of the Corinthian Christians. But the rebuke stands: they are indeed children of God in Christ, but as yet without the experience and maturity which might justly be expected of them. This thought he drives home with an emphatic comparison: Milk I gave you to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet equal to t. He was obliged to give them nourishment suited to their age for the entire length of time that he was with them on the second journey. He could impart to them instruction only in the rudiments, the fundamentals, of Christian knowledge. See Heb_5:13-14. They made such slow progress in Christian knowledge that the apostle could not go beyond the simplest and easiest truths in his instruction. But the matter would not have been so serious if now, after an interval of several years, they would have been able to receive solid food and to go on to perfection in knowledge. However, even at the present time they were not yet strong enough in spiritual apprehension, they had made no progress in proportion to the expectations of their teacher. And the more presumption they showed in their party spirit, as though they had been graduated from the elementary department of Christian doctrine, the sharper was the reproof of their teacher telling them that he could not consider their promotion. And the reason he flatly tells them: For yet are you carnal. They were still governed by considerations of their flesh, of their unspiritual nature; they permitted the desires of the flesh to control their actions instead of yielding to the gentle leading of the Spirit. There was still jealousy, dissension, wrangling among them, which are essentially works of the flesh, Gal_5:20; they permitted partisan rivalry to hold sway among them. And that was proof positive that they were carnal, that their unregenerate, carnal self, Rom_7:1-25, had gained the ascendency. And so the conclusion, which Paul puts in the form of a question, was right, namely, that they were conducting themselves as unregenerate men are apt to behave under like circumstances, Rom_8:5, that they were conforming to the average person's irreligious condition.