Carnal Zeal

Here’s some thoughts related to the issue of obedience: At the heart of the Lord Jesus’ gospel is the denial and death of self. So, what happens when a man refuses to truly deny himself but still wants to glory in his moral or legal obedience to God?

He won’t even realize that his fleshly, unproductive arguments with people actually are expressions of disobedience to God.

The saddest irony is that the legalist doesn’t seem to be aware that he is breaking God’s laws – he is glorying in his obedience to the law, and therefore denying the very reason the law exists.

In refusing to deny himself he is breaking the law. By harping on about the law he is in fact breaking the law.

Fleshly, self-motivated zeal can even lead people to lie and twist things around, give disingenuous answers, bcos carnal zeal makes a man blind to his own sin, and carnal zeal is the expression of the self-life, and Jesus said unless a man deny that self life he cannot be His disciple.