God defines the carnal mind as enmity against God (Ro 8:7); it’s the disposition of hatred itself, being alienated from the life of God. (Ep 4:18) It’s not merely having enmity against God: the carnal mind is enmity itself. Enmity, animosity, hatred … this can’t be reconciled to God by definition, so God doesn’t try to fix this part of us: He crucifies it. (Ro 6:6)
Call it our old man (Ep 4:22), or the flesh (Ro 7:18), it’s the part of us that’s unlike Christ, in love with darkness, walking in lies, committed to sin. (1Jn 3:9) Christ isn’t redeeming this part of us; He’s delivering us from ourselves. (Ro 7:24-25)
The substance of this carnal mind, this contrary disposition, the body of this death (Ro 7:24), this evil nature within us, is the holding to, clinging to and trusting in the lie that God isn’t good, that He isn’t treating us the way we ought to be treated, that we know better than God what’s good for us. (Ge 4:13)
Every single sin, from the very first one (Ge 3:5), is rooted in this same simple lie: we keep on choosing this deceit as if it were true (Ps 119:118), acting it out in innumerable ways. This is our carnal mind, our flesh, our old man; it will never change (Ps 81:15), so it must die.
How do we participate in and cooperate with our own deliverance, in destroying this body of sin? (Ro 6:6) We come to know, believe, trust and obey God, acting in truth — only this sets us free. (Jn 8:32) We’re transformed by the renewing of our minds, how and what we think (Ro 12:2), continually realigning ourselves with the goodness and love of God. (Ep 3:17-19) We do this by humbly an prayerfully continuing in God’s Word. (Jn 8:31)
In other words, we relentlessly pursue the truth, we buy the truth, at any price required, and we never sell it (Pr 23:23), never settling for the lie, never preferring it, and we obey the truth we know, all of it. All truth is rooted in God, in Christ (Jn 14:6): there’s no darkness at all in Him. (1Jn 1:5)
The primary source of truth we have is Scripture, particularly Torah: God’s Law — this is God’s plumb line (Is 8:20), identifying, revealing and exposing the carnal mind. Just as Christ is the perfect incarnation of God (Jn 14:9), Torah is the consummate written embodiment of God’s nature and character. (Ps 119:18)
Both the carnal mind and the spiritual mind are identified in particular by their response to Torah: the carnal mind cannot be subject to Torah (Ro 8:7) and the spiritual mind delights in Torah. (Ro 7:22) It’s that simple: two natures at war within us. (23)
When we believe the lie that God isn’t good we act this out by distrusting His commands and insisting on doing things our own way, deciding what’s right and wrong for ourselves apart from God. (Ge 3:22) This brings us into captivity to the law of sin operating within (23), taken captive by Satan at his will. (2Ti 2:26)
The part of us that does this is the body of lies we’re harboring within us, all manifestations of this same, basic concept that God isn’t good. Whenever we find a law in Torah that we don’t love and obey as well as we can, we’re walking in the lie. Finding this within us, in any way shape or form, is to spot the carnal mind, to identify it.
When we find darkness within the protocol is straightforward; start obeying the truth as well as we can, walking out the truth of God’s goodness, holiness, justice and faithfulness with whatever will we find within to do so, asking God to quicken us with His Word (Ps 119:50), replacing the lies with truth (Ps 119:29), giving us repentance to acknowledge the truth (2Ti 2:25) that God is good, that His judgements are right (Ps 119:75), aligning our hearts with His Commandments (Ps 119:32), and with Himself.
All lies are malignant cancers, but feeling distant from God, alienated from Him, mistrustful of Him, bored with Him, doubting He loves us, that He’s faithful and just and good — this is ground zero, the fountain from which all other sin springs. This is violating the law of love, not loving God with all our might. With laser focus we ought to level the light of scripture on this darkness, meditating in the truth until the lies disperse and vanish. (Ep 3:19)
This isn’t a one-time thing: it’s a life-journey, one hour at a time, and God is always ready to show us the next step, whenever we’re ready to take it (Php 3:15) as His love is perfected in us. (1Jn 4:12)