Two Natures

If you have repented, been baptized in Jesus’ name and filled with the Holy Ghost, and you are still tempted, this is for you. Many new believers are discouraged by it. They thought they would never be tempted again, and then the old pulls come back, and the questions follow: Am I really saved? Did I really receive the Holy Ghost?

The answer is in one verse: “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:17). You now have two natures fighting over the same body. The battle you feel is not proof that something went wrong. It is proof that the new nature is alive. A dead man feels no war.

Picture a person as a tree, and follow it through seven men.

1. The natural man

This is every one of us as we are born: one nature, and its branches grow by themselves. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest”: adultery, idolatry, hatred, strife, envy, drunkenness “and such like” (Galatians 5:19-21). We “were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Ephesians 2:3). “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

2. The repented man

When the natural man turns to God, repents and is baptized in Jesus’ name, the tree is cut down and his sins are washed away (Acts 2:38; 22:16). But a stump left alone sprouts again. Jesus warned of the house that was “empty, swept, and garnished”: the unclean spirit comes back with seven worse, “and the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45). Repentance clears the house. Something has to fill it.

3. The born again man

When he receives the Holy Ghost, a new nature is grafted into the old stump. It is the nature of Christ Himself: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). We become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Paul used the same picture: “thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in” (Romans 11:17). This is the new birth, “born of water and of the Spirit” (John 3:5).

So the born again man has two natures: the natural one he was born with, and the spiritual one God grafted in. Paul knew the war well: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind… O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:22-25).

Now he has a choice

Both natures want the same body. Whichever one is fed will grow. “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:13).

4. The carnal man

He chooses the old nature and drifts back into the life he lived before. The old branches grow back around the graft: sin, criticism, jealousy, pride, love of ease, the cares of this world, an empty seat at church. Paul wrote to such believers, “I… could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ… For ye are yet carnal” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).

5. The reprobate man

If the old nature is fed long enough, the new nature is smothered out. Scripture gives this warning soberly: those “made partakers of the Holy Ghost” who fall away cannot be renewed “again unto repentance” (Hebrews 6:4-6; see 10:26-29). It is why we are told to “exhort one another daily… lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).

This is a warning to keep going, not a sentence to fear. If you are troubled that you may have crossed that line, your very concern is a sign the Spirit is still drawing you. Read What Is the Unforgivable Sin?

But he has another choice

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

6. The overcoming man

He cuts off the branches of the old nature before they can choke the new. “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” (Colossians 3:5). “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God” (Romans 6:11).

And he is not doing it alone. Jesus said:

The Father is the husbandman. He does the pruning, and He prunes with His Word: “ye are clean through the word.” Our part is to abide in the vine. The branch does not make fruit by trying harder; it bears fruit by staying joined to the vine.

That Word is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). When Jesus was tempted, He answered every time, “It is written” (Matthew 4:4). And the pruning must go on, because the old roots are still there, and suckers sprout when least expected. You will not be tempted beyond what you can bear: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

7. The spiritual man

Now the new nature grows, and it bears fruit: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:24-25).

The spiritual man never feels he has arrived. He keeps pressing on, aware of his own need, seeking God for more of His Spirit: “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

Where art thou?

Now we see why so many fail: they do not know how to deal with the two natures. And now we know the secret of victory: walk in the Spirit.

The first question God ever asked a man, in the garden, after the fall, was this one: “Where art thou?” (Genesis 3:9). He still asks it. Not to shame you, but to find you. Wherever you are on that tree, He wants you to bear fruit.

And if you have not yet begun, the way in is the same as it has always been: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38).