The Three Types of People

There are three types of people on earth today.

First, the natural (the person who yields in everything to the human reasoning of the soul (the self-conscious capacity), not thinking there is need for help from God.

Second, the carnal Christian, one who functions in the flesh, one that is sensual, controlled by animal appetites, governed by fallen, ruined human nature, instead of by the Spirit of God. The carnal Christian is described as the one whose lusts are those that have their source in man's corrupt and fallen nature and who allows the flesh a place that does not belong.

Third, is the man in Christ, who according to Christ can do nothing without Him (Jhn. 15:1-5), who continues in His Word and experiences the effectual reality of it with the resulting freedom (Jhn. 8:31-32,36), and one who lives experientially in the heights of being in Christ above everything to the eternity of the eternities (The epistle of Ephesians). That person is one who is more than a conqueror in the love of God in Christ (Rom. 8:37).

Thank God when we fail or fall, we cannot fall out of His love in Christ, where He Himself has placed us. Thank God He has given us an understanding that is true because we are in Christ who is true. Only this continual understanding can keep us that are His from idols. (1 Jhn. 5:20-21). An idol is every object outside of Christ, that man's mind cleaves to and sets up a place for satan (Eph. 4:27).

Whatever is not of Christ is an idol. The self-made man of the world, in the Christian experience, will always compete with the man in Christ (2 Cor. 12:2).