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Dr. John M. Asquith

The Carnal Mind and the Word of God

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be, Romans 8:7.


The 19th century was a banner time for evangelization and missions. While the churches labored to bring the word of God to the world, the world plotted to undo the word of God. The concept of the two celled creature became popular in academia. In their minds, this imaginary creature became the distant ancestor to all multicellular life on earth.

In other words, men began to be taught that the one celled creatures of earth evolved into two celled creatures which eventually evolved into four celled creatures, which themselves evolved into eight celled, sixteen celled creatures and so on and on it went. It doesn't bother these people that even though our microscopes can easily detect one celled creatures, and even though one celled creatures are easily detected in the fossil record, our imaginary great grandfather, the two celled creature remains a myth. They never existed. Likewise the 4 celled, 8 celled, 16 celled, 32 celled 64 celled and 128 celled creatures remain myth. They are a necessary ingredient for rejecting the bible and so they are taught as reality.

There is a bible principle that explains that. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end, Ecclesiastes 3:11. As part of the fall of man, God altered men's ability to reason about how the past affects the present by putting the spirit of the world in the heart of carnal man. The spirit of the world perverts man's ability to reason out the facts that he accumulates.

The ability to put men in outer space, heal disease, or to split atoms is unaffected. None of those disciplines entails understanding God's work from the beginning to the end. But, understanding how man came to be upon earth is affected. Understanding how the fossil of a trilobite could be buried on a mountain top is affected. The spirit of the world in men will always get it wrong when trying to cypher out the beginning to the end.

Part of the miracle of the new birth is that God has undone that defect in the new nature that he places in the inward parts of a believer. Now we have not received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, 1st Corinthians 2:12. Our origin as a species is freely given to us from God. Therefore it is despised by the carnal mind of man. Likewise, the promise that God would preserve his word is given in the word of God. Such a promise necessitates the carnal man to reject it.

The giving of the word of God is documented in the word of God itself. The promise of its inspiration is well told and the record of its growth is given. Because its origins and the tale of its preservation up to our present day is foretold and documented in the bible, the carnal nature of man rejects it. The spirit of the world perverts men's thinking. Men grope through the thousands of manuscripts from throughout history and like a room university full of humanists sifting through the fossil record, they fail to grasp the part that God plays in preserving his word.

These men are not stupid. To the contrary, they are usually very intelligent. They are also blinded by the spirit of the world in their hearts. Even a man born of the Spirit of God will get it wrong if he follows his carnal mind instead of the word of God. Mark Ward of Logos Software has recently magnified himself as a voice of reason on bible translations. He readily admits that the word of God says one thing, but the facts say another. In the Detroit Baptist Press, May 2020 edition he published an article called Which Textus Receptus: A Critique of Confessional Bibliology He had this to say:


After years of attention given to KJV-Onlyism, it is my opinion

that all of its major camps are accepting one presupposition that is

according to the principles of God's preserving providence. For the Textus Receptus had to be translated in order that the universal priesthood of believers, the rank and file, might give it their God-guided approval”

[In my opinion, this presupposition is not illogical. It is a plausible

read of the jot-and-tittle promise of Matthew 5:18.] But when one looks

into those jots and tittles, perfect preservation is simply, demonstrably,

not what God has given us. (Brackets and coloring supplied by me.)

When various witnesses disagree, it is not proof that all are lying. One could be telling the truth. When various manuscripts disagree, it is not proof that all have error, but the spirit of the world that God has hidden in the carnal nature of man finds variations in manuscripts to be proof that none are accurate. In actuality, the above quoted article is a well written take down of the concept that the King James Bible is not necessarily correct, but the Textus Receptus from which it is translated is perfect. Despite his hostility to the King James Bible, Mark Ward did a service when he popped the bubble of those who cling to the Textus Receptus in lieu of a perfect English Bible.

The King James Bible as represented by the Cambridge Text 1920-1985 is the perfect word of God and conforms exactly to what is written in heaven. There is absolutely no need for a Greek Bible any more. A paleontologist has no need to even get out of his chair to understand how life originated. The bible could tell him. Mark Ward has no need to get out of his chair to find the word of God. He probably has a copy of a King James Bible on his shelf. The spirit of the world won't let either of them rest there.

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