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Who’s Fighting Who?

Last week we observed that love prompts our labors, love is an ongoing and constant debt, and that love is the source of obedience while obedience is the product of love. Today we are going to discover what it is that screws this whole thing up. Is it our old sin nature come back from the dead to haunt us or is it something else?

Are we, as Christians, actually dual natured (possessing two natures) or do we only possess a singular natured (possessing one nature rather than two)? Some pastors and theologians teach we have an old nature in Adam and a new nature in Christ co-existing at the same time. These two natures fight one another for control of the Christian and the key to victory is said to be the nature which is better fed and exercised will become dominate. So we are encouraged to starve and ignore our old nature in Adam and to feed and exercise our new nature in Christ in order to gain the victory.

If this view is correct, the Christian is involved in a spiritual civil war. The two sides of you war with one another. Some very well-known pastors present that very case.

Here’s how the pastor of one of the largest churches in California explains it.

“Paul explains that, as a Christian, you have two natures within you. There is a new nature that's talked about in Ephesians. This was given when you became a Christian. The new nature wants to do what is right. The new nature wants to please God, to live for God. It's earnest, sincere. Your new nature that God gave you when you became a Christian really wants to do what is right.

But the Bible says that you also have an old nature, the nature you had before you became a Christian. It didn't die when you became a believer. You still have it.

You have two natures in your life. A new nature that wants to do what's right and an old nature that wants to go the old way.

Galatians 5 says there is a conflict between these two natures. There is a civil war in your life if you're a believer. Part of you is the old nature, wanting to do your old ways. Part of you is your new nature wanting to do your new ways. They are in conflict with each other so that you don't know what to do. You have to learn how to win the battle, the civil war in your life. The old nature is still in every Christian trying to keep the new nature from taking over and there is no peaceful co-existence. It is a walking civil war.”

If you have been a Christian for very long you have probably heard this conflict described in one of several ways. One way to describe it is as we have just observed:

  • Old Sinful Nature versus New Creation Nature

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! NIV

Rom 13:13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. NIV

  • Old Self versus New Self

Eph 4:22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off yourold self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. NIV

  • Inner Man versus Outer Man

Rom 7: 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. NIV

Basically everyone is trying to explain why we as Christians, indwelt by the Spirit still struggle with sin. And a very commonly accepted way to explain it is that we possess two natures. So is that what happened? When I became a Christian did God add a new nature alongside my old nature making me dual natured or did He get rid of the old nature when He gave me the new? Am I divided at the core of my being into two natures; one good and one evil? Am I a house divided?

And if my old nature in Adam was crucified with Christ, according to Paul in both Romans 6 and Galatians 2, and I was given a new heart and a new spirit as a new creation in Christ, how does this civil war occur? How can my old nature be dead if it is fighting my new nature?

Well there is a fight going on, but I don’t think the best way to view or describe the fight is to say your new nature is battling your old nature. The real players in this little melodrama are revealed today. Truth be told, in one sense, it doesn’t really look like you’re actually in the fight at all…you are the battlefield.

Gal 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

One of the main problems with grace-based theology or grace-based sanctification is that it is hopelessly vague. So Paul’s answer to the biting and devouring of one another in verse 15 is the seemingly vague advice of living (or walking) by the Spirit in verse 16. Somehow these fleshly desires to bite and devour are prevented by walking in the Spirit…whatever that means?!

As I mentioned last week the word translated “sinful nature” is literally the word “flesh”. Every time you see the word “sinful nature” in the NIV it is always their translation of the word “flesh”. I prefer to just call it what Paul does…the flesh. What is the flesh? The flesh is the condition in which man operates out of his own resources, doing things his own way. Flesh is what we depend on to get our needs met when we aren’t relying dependently upon the Spirit. It is the programming or pathways in our brains left over from previously being in Adam.

It seems very natural and often feels very comfortable to us because we are so familiar with it. When you got saved your memory wasn’t erased and you retained all those memories about how you got your needs met before you were saved. When you got saved your emotions didn’t reboot and all the fears and insecurities that drove you previously remain intact.

The flesh remains with us in our physical body even though at conversion our human spirit is united with the Holy Spirit and we have a new identity in Christ. Our spirits are saved but our bodies are still awaiting their redemption. Paul says in Romans that sin retains a place to launch attacks against you in your body. More on that in a moment…for now consider the following:

We came into the world with certain basic needs. Among them are the need to be loved and accepted and to have value and worth. The moment you are born, you are driven to get these needs met. The unique ways in which you try to meet your basic needs for love, acceptance, value and worth apart from Christ is your "flesh pattern." Your flesh pattern is the unique ways that you have lived by prior to Christ and depended on to meet your needs.

Your flesh pattern is often determined by the messages that you received about yourself as you were growing up. These messages helped shape who you became independent of Christ with the only your personal resources to you to cope with life. These remembered and relied upon flesh patterns are the primary thing that hinders us from growing in grace and knowledge. Why is that? Because our flesh patterns make us self-reliant and self-directed rather than Spirit-reliant and Spirit-directed. Now follow me closely:

17 For the sinful nature (the flesh) desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature (the flesh). They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

Now for some reason when we get to this verse some commentators on the passage introduce the two nature theory into the text. I would suggest to you that this theory reads into the text what is not actually there. Nevertheless, here is their explanation.

“Paul explained that each Christian has two natures, a sinful nature received at birth, inherited from fallen Adam, and a new nature received at regeneration when said Christian became a participant in the divine nature. Both natures have desires, the one for evil and the other for holiness. Thus they are in conflict with each other, and the result can be that they keep a believer from doing what he otherwise would.”

Now let’s take a closer look at what the text actually says…note there are three actors mentioned in this little melodrama:

The Spirit

The Flesh

You

Note it says that “they” are in conflict with each other as something different from you. You are not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the new man as some introduce within the text…the Spirit is a person separate from you. Paul does not say your spirit is fighting with your flesh he says the Spirit is fighting with the flesh. That’s why when the fruit of the Spirit is produced it is the Spirit’s fruit not yours. All you’re doing is allowing the Spirit to produce His fruit through you. In the same way, you are not the flesh. The flesh is something different from you just like the Spirit is someone different from you. And the deeds of the flesh are produced by the flesh and they are the flesh’s deeds not yours. Are you seeing this?

Am I saying we can avoid personal responsibility for our sins? No! We are responsible for whom we allow to be in control because of who we are depending on for production. If I allow the Spirit to be in control the Spirit will produce the fruit of the Spirit and if I allow the flesh to be in control the deeds of the flesh will be produced. I decide what is being produced by whom I am depending upon and in that sense I am responsible for the production.

Isn't it interesting that it appears from this passage that we never get to do our own will. We think we do, but we don't. As a Christian you either do the will of the Spirit or the will of the flesh. All you and I get to do is choose whom are we going to allow to be in charge as we interact with the world. Whenever we operate through one, the other is shutoff. If we choose to operate through the flesh, we shutoff the Spirit. If we choose to operate through the Spirit, we shutoff the flesh. If we allow the flesh to be in control the deeds of the flesh will be produced through us. If we allow the Spirit to be in control the fruit of the Spirit will be produced through us.

Originally as we are all born in Adam and thus spiritually dead to God, we are forced to live out of our resources. The flesh is fully in charge of us at that point. There is no conflict which is why some non-Christians are perfectly content with their lives…everything is in complete harmony. The desire to have our needs met is so great that it consumes most, if not all, of our energy; we become solely focused on satisfying those cravings. We become thoroughly and intensely self-centered in our quest for love, acceptance, value and significance.

When a person is born again; he receives the life of Christ. He is no longer the same type of human, possessing Adam-life, but is a child of God, acquiring the new life of Christ, and thus a new creation, and in my opinion at least, possessing a new singular nature in Christ.

The spiritual reality of participating in His death is great, for through it we have actually become something new. You may not know it, feel it, or always experience it, but the day you came to Christ your old nature was removed and replaced with Christ's life. We believe the Scriptures that Christ was crucified for us. Do we not also believe the same Scriptures that teach we were crucified with Christ? God has created something completely new inside of you. This is a spiritual reality, not just positional truth. That is your true identity.

I don’t really, to be honest like the concept of positional truths because I feel it removes the impact of what the Scripture is actually saying. For many of us who grew up with certain biblical principles taught as positional truths all it ever seems to practically mean is “a positional truth is a truth that doesn’t feel true”. The Bible doesn’t present things as positional truths it only presents things as truths and to reclassify those truths as positional undermines, I think, the real impact what the Bible is saying is supposed to have on us.

So getting back to my point, since our bodies are not saved yet there rages within us a battle between the flesh which operates through our outer man (the body) and the Spirit which operates through our inner man (the changed human spirit). The outer man is dependent upon the legalism of self-effort. The inner man is dependent upon grace through faith. In other words, faith relies solely upon the Spirit of God as both the agent of salvation and sanctification. Law-keeping relies solely upon the flesh.

What exactly does Paul mean when he says, “… you may not do the things that you please”? I think he means the same thing he means when he says in…

Rom 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? NIV

In Romans I think the word “sin” appears 46 times. Now here’s the weird part…only twice is the word “sin” used by Paul as a verb. Every other time he uses the noun form of the word “sin”…that 44 to 2 for those of you who are not so good at math. What’s a noun? A noun (Latin word meaning “name”) is usually defined as a word denoting a thing, a place, or a person. Now look at what Paul says in Romans 7 again. He personifies sin and describes it as something separate from himself just as he does with the flesh here in Galatians. Maybe you don’t get it yet, but do you at least see it?

The Galatians are intending upon resisting sin by submitting to the Law. However, Paul has demonstrated that the Spirit doesn’t empower men who are under Law. Consequently, if you are under Law your only power source is the flesh. To place oneself under the Law is to place oneself in a position where only the power of the flesh and the desires of the flesh are available and operative. Trying to overcome sin with Law is something like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. All it does is multiply the problem…it certainly will not reduce it.

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. NIV

In summary, Paul emphasized that a godly life is not lived led by the rules of the Law but is a life led by the Spirit. Only Christ saves; only the Holy Spirit sanctifies…the Law does neither. When we’re led by the Spirit, no law is necessary to restrain us.

There are no formulas for the spiritual life.

Did you notice that inGalatians 5there are no formulas or techniques for living or walking by the Spirit? Paul only commands us to “walk in the Spirit” without providing us with a procedure to follow and frankly it’s frustrating. My temptation would be to now provide you with what Paul does not…to tell you how to walk in the Spirit.

But there must be a reason no procedure is offered and I think I finally know what that reason is. If Paul had offered us a check off list of a procedure or formula to follow I think I know what would happen. I think we all know what would happen. We would walk by that procedure or formula and not by the Spirit…the Spirit’s leading is more mysterious than any formula could ever capture. We’re not following a procedure we’re following a person and a person often changes how they lead, but a procedure is always the same. When Jesus was talking with Nicodemus He said:

John 3:8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." NIV
This verse contains a wordplay which is not adequately captured in English. The Greek word for “wind” and “Spirit” is the same word. Jesus says the work of the Spirit is invisible and mysterious like the blowing of the wind. Man cannot control the wind and neither can he see the wind. However he can see the effects of wind. Jesus says the effects of the Spirit are as undeniable and as unmistakable as the effects of the wind…and just as mysterious. While Paul does not tell us how to walk in the Spirit he does tell us how we can know if it’s happening (i.e. the effects)…but he does that next week.