Often we feel as though we have two people living inside of us – a good one and a bad one. Unfortunately, this has also historically been taught to Christians
The Lie of “Two-Dogs” Inside Us
Some people may tell you your old self is like a ferocious dog living inside of you, terrorizing you and other people. It controls you and makes you commit all
The Two Natures Debate
Spiritual Heart Transplant Do you ever feel as though two equal powers are inside you with completely opposite desires? This is a common feeling, which seems to explain how
Two Nature Teaching Has No Power For Adultery Temptation (Part 1)
My pastor friend, Roger, called me frantic one day. He had just gotten off the phone with another pastor named Alex whose marriage was on the rocks. Sherri, Alex’s wife,
Do Christians Have a Civil War Raging Inside?
Do you ever feel like there are two equal powers inside you with completely opposite desires? One part wants to serve God while the other part seems more comfortable entertaining sin. Is there a civil war inside us?
Do Christ Followers Have a Sinful Nature?
The short answer is “No” but it’s greatly misunderstood. How about you personally, how would you answer that question before reading the remainder of this blog?
If you consider some of the sins you commit, you may conclude that you do. In that case, you would be using your behavior to determine your conclusion. God uses birth, not behavior, to define who you are.
When you hear, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace”, you have often heard it so often that you probably nod your head in agreement without giving it much thought. However, you cannot find any New Covenant scriptures which proclaim that you are a sinner as a Christ follower. You may say, what about where Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15? This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. If you start reading in verse 9 and then to 17, you will see the larger story he is using to make this statement. He is saying that because he persecuted the church before he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, he is the worst sinner ever and if God can save a sinner like him, He can save anyone.
When I played basketball in high school, I set a record for the most rebounds ever in the history of the school. A rebound is when you grab the basketball after it hits the backboard or rim and doesn’t go in the basket. To my knowledge, I still hold that record a few decades later. Though I have graduated from high school and no longer attend there, would it be a fair statement to say that I am the “chief rebounder” at my high school? Yes it would be though I am no longer a part of that school. It is simply a part of my past, just as Paul being the chief of sinners was a part of his past, though he says it in present tense.
Another issue is that you may have been told most of your life that you have two natures as a Christian. The old nature and the new nature. However, Romans 6:6 is very clear that your old nature died once and for all on the cross with Jesus. It’s no longer in you. You only have a new nature – your identity in Christ.
One more challenge you may find is that you grew up reading the New International Version Bible. I like it too, except where they translated the word flesh as sinful nature. That is very confusing because the old nature is dead and removed. However, God did not remove the flesh from the Christ follower. In addition, the old nature and the flesh are not the same. So when you see in places like Romans 8 that we are dealing with a sinful nature, it’s easy to make the assumption that you have one. To the NIV’s credit, the newest version changed 95% of those back to flesh, which is more accurate.
Rejoice today! Though you and I certainly act in a sinful way, you do not have a sinful nature! You have the new nature where Jesus has made His home in you! And you have the flesh which is not the old nature or the sinful nature. Galatian 2:20 says it died and no longer lives, my paraphrase.
“Why is this so important?” you may be asking? Because it goes to the very heart of the Gospel about what really happened when Jesus died on the cross for us and when we died with him. It goes to the core of who you really are deep within. Are you both a sinner and a saint? Or, are you a saint who sometimes sins? According to Romans 6, you are a saint who sometimes sins. When we teach this truth to people here at GLI and they have embraced it, we’ve watched God change them. Why? The truth always sets you free! Will you believe the truth today so you can live freer in your own life?
Believe it! It’s the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
Do Christ Followers Have a Sinful Nature?
The short answer is “No” but it’s greatly misunderstood. How about you personally, how would you answer that question before reading the remainder of this blog?
If you consider some of the sins you commit, you may conclude that you do. In that case, you would be using your behavior to determine your conclusion. God uses birth, not behavior, to define who you are.
When you hear, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace”, you have often heard it so often that you probably nod your head in agreement without giving it much thought. However, you cannot find any New Covenant scriptures which proclaim that you are a sinner as a Christ follower. You may say, what about where Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15? This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. If you start reading in verse 9 and then to 17, you will see the larger story he is using to make this statement. He is saying that because he persecuted the church before he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, he is the worst sinner ever and if God can save a sinner like him, He can save anyone.
When I played basketball in high school, I set a record for the most rebounds ever in the history of the school. A rebound is when you grab the basketball after it hits the backboard or rim and doesn’t go in the basket. To my knowledge, I still hold that record a few decades later. Though I have graduated from high school and no longer attend there, would it be a fair statement to say that I am the “chief rebounder” at my high school? Yes it would be though I am no longer a part of that school. It is simply a part of my past, just as Paul being the chief of sinners was a part of his past, though he says it in present tense.
Another issue is that you may have been told most of your life that you have two natures as a Christian. The old nature and the new nature. However, Romans 6:6 is very clear that your old nature died once and for all on the cross with Jesus. It’s no longer in you. You only have a new nature – your identity in Christ.
One more challenge you may find is that you grew up reading the New International Version Bible. I like it too, except where they translated the word flesh as sinful nature. That is very confusing because the old nature is dead and removed. However, God did not remove the flesh from the Christ follower. In addition, the old nature and the flesh are not the same. So when you see in places like Romans 8 that we are dealing with a sinful nature, it’s easy to make the assumption that you have one. To the NIV’s credit, the newest version changed 95% of those back to flesh, which is more accurate.
Rejoice today! Though you and I certainly act in a sinful way, you do not have a sinful nature! You have the new nature where Jesus has made His home in you! And you have the flesh which is not the old nature or the sinful nature. Galatian 2:20 says it died and no longer lives, my paraphrase.
“Why is this so important?” you may be asking? Because it goes to the very heart of the Gospel about what really happened when Jesus died on the cross for us and when we died with him. It goes to the core of who you really are deep within. Are you both a sinner and a saint? Or, are you a saint who sometimes sins? According to Romans 6, you are a saint who sometimes sins. When we teach this truth to people here at GLI and they have embraced it, we’ve watched God change them. Why? The truth always sets you free! Will you believe the truth today so you can live freer in your own life?
Believe it! It’s the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
Do I Have a Civil War Inside of Me?
Do you ever feel like there are two equal powers inside you with completely opposite desires? This is a very common feeling, which seems to explain how we struggle to live a life which pleases God.
For example, when a sexually lustful thought enters your mind, it’s not that you know you shouldn’t do that, it’s also in your new heart that you don’t desire to do it. (Ezekiel 36:27) Yet, there seems to be a sinister opposite desire to do it, though you know you will regret it.
Another example would be when a thought of not measuring up enters your mind. Though you know God loves you and you want to stand on that reality, there is this other thought which urges you to agree that you don’t measure up and to either give up, or try harder.
What or who is this other player inside of us? Is it the old nature, a.k.a. your old identity in Adam, or is it something else?
Romans 6:6 tells us, Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.
The Greek language here, is much clearer than what we read in English. The verb, was crucified, means that our old self (nature) was crucified once and will never rise from the grave to haunt us ever again. It was left in that tomb where Jesus was buried.
Here’s our problem. When we read Scripture, we see that something called the flesh is what we battle with. And, if you are like me, I was never taught that the flesh and the old nature were different, but they are. The old nature is gone but the flesh is not. To muddy the waters ever more, the New International Version Bible translated the flesh as sinful nature, which sounds a lot like old nature, doesn’t it. (They did correct most of that in their most recent edition.)
The old nature (old self or old man that remained in the grave) was the deepest core of who and what we were in Adam. This is what made us sinfully rotten to the core. (Jeremiah 17:9) It died and was replaced with the new nature a.k.a. our identity in Christ. (Ephesians 2:6, 2 Cor. 5:17)
The flesh is strategies we have developed from living, as if we are separated from God, though we are united with Him. We had some of these before we were saved but we may have developed new strategies since then.
I remember a good pastor friend of my saying, “So what? This is just semantics. It doesn’t really matter.” Actually it matters a lot. Here is why.
Because we only have one nature, our identity in Christ, our new normal is a heart that desires to live a loving, holy and righteous life. It’s not to sin, contrary to popular opinion. This means it’s normal for you to live a pure life, rather than a sexually lustful life. It’s normal for you to live with a Biblical self-esteem, rather than a fleshly one of trying to measure up. None of us will ever do this perfectly, but it is still the deepest desire of our new heart, that is our true identity – our identity in Christ.
Believe it! It’s the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
Do I Have a Civil War Inside of Me?
Do you ever feel like there are two equal powers inside you with completely opposite desires? This is a very common feeling, which seems to explain how we struggle to live a life which pleases God.
For example, when a sexually lustful thought enters your mind, it’s not that you know you shouldn’t do that, it’s also in your new heart that you don’t desire to do it. (Ezekiel 36:27) Yet, there seems to be a sinister opposite desire to do it, though you know you will regret it.
Another example would be when a thought of not measuring up enters your mind. Though you know God loves you and you want to stand on that reality, there is this other thought which urges you to agree that you don’t measure up and to either give up, or try harder.
What or who is this other player inside of us? Is it the old nature, a.k.a. your old identity in Adam, or is it something else?
Romans 6:6 tells us, Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.
The Greek language here, is much clearer than what we read in English. The verb, was crucified, means that our old self (nature) was crucified once and will never rise from the grave to haunt us ever again. It was left in that tomb where Jesus was buried.
Here’s our problem. When we read Scripture, we see that something called the flesh is what we battle with. And, if you are like me, I was never taught that the flesh and the old nature were different, but they are. The old nature is gone but the flesh is not. To muddy the waters ever more, the New International Version Bible translated the flesh as sinful nature, which sounds a lot like old nature, doesn’t it. (They did correct most of that in their most recent edition.)
The old nature (old self or old man that remained in the grave) was the deepest core of who and what we were in Adam. This is what made us sinfully rotten to the core. (Jeremiah 17:9) It died and was replaced with the new nature a.k.a. our identity in Christ. (Ephesians 2:6, 2 Cor. 5:17)
The flesh is strategies we have developed from living, as if we are separated from God, though we are united with Him. We had some of these before we were saved but we may have developed new strategies since then.
I remember a good pastor friend of my saying, “So what? This is just semantics. It doesn’t really matter.” Actually it matters a lot. Here is why.
Because we only have one nature, our identity in Christ, our new normal is a heart that desires to live a loving, holy and righteous life. It’s not to sin, contrary to popular opinion. This means it’s normal for you to live a pure life, rather than a sexually lustful life. It’s normal for you to live with a Biblical self-esteem, rather than a fleshly one of trying to measure up. None of us will ever do this perfectly, but it is still the deepest desire of our new heart, that is our true identity – our identity in Christ.
Believe it! It’s the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
