All right, so tonight we're going to do another open study. If you want to find this study later on our sermon audio page, this will be titled Open Study Number 91. And this is a single question we're going to be tackling tonight. It's a big one. It's an important one. It's an interesting one. And it's one that I've actually addressed before, but it was a long time ago. So we started doing these open studies, gosh, some 17, 18 years ago. And because we don't, of course, we've got 91 now with this one, we've got 91 open studies, but we don't do them all the time. They're kind of interspersed between other study series that we do. But this one I did address. I look back in my records. I did address all the way back in 2007, which was 17 years ago. Certainly wouldn't expect anybody to remember that particular study. And I have addressed this, you know, these parts of the answer to this question woven into a few other studies, but haven't in any number of recent years done a fully developed study on this question. So the question is this, do Christians, born-again Christians, have two natures? And of course that's a yes or no answer to that question. And I'm going to be taking the position that definitively no, born-again Christians do not have two natures. But I take that position with with confidence based on my own personal study, but a bit of trepidation at the same time only because there is a long-standing theological tradition. in relationship to this particular question. And some of the truly greatest Bible teachers throughout church history have taken the other viewpoint than the one that I hold and do believe that New Covenant believers, born-again believers, true believers in Christ in the New Testament exist or live their lives with a dual nature, a double nature. So what I want to do is just briefly describe that viewpoint, and then we'll dig into why I'm personally convinced that that is not the biblical teaching on the subject. And it's really important, I believe, for the benefit of your own growth in the Lord, your own progress in your personal sanctification, that you come to the same viewpoint if you're not already there. you come to the same viewpoint that I have come to in this particular study. So in terms of summarizing the traditional viewpoint that Christians do have two natures, the idea is that when a believer is saved, when they're born again, they of course have already lived their life up until the moment of their salvation. possessing an old, fallen, sinful nature. What happens in salvation is not an end to that old, sinful nature, but it's simply the adding on now of a new nature, but the new nature is now existing in parallel with the old nature within the heart or within the soul of the believer so that, in a sense, we have like a spiritual split personality as believers. We have a nature that is opposed to God, a nature that's opposed to the right ways of the Lord, opposed to the words of the Lord, opposed to the will of the Lord. But we also have a new nature that is, of course, in love with God, in love with his word, in love with his ways, and dedicated to following his will in a greater and greater way. But because both of these are functioning, both of these influences are functioning at the level of nature, that the believer's experience is a deeply divided experience. So that in a sense, in terms of sanctification, in terms of progression and growth in the Lord, we're in a experience of taking one step forward and then taking one step back. And then we take a step forward and then we take a step back. Every step forward would be motivated by the influence of the new nature and every step backward would be motivated by the influences, the continuing influences of the old, fallen, sinful nature. So the analogy that's commonly given to describe this experience is that the believer, in a sense, has like two beasts living within them. The two beasts are like two animals that are hungry all the time. The believer's job is to identify the difference or the distinction between those two beasts. One beast being the old nature, one being the new nature. Whichever internal beast is fed more, that beast is going to grow stronger and is going to tend to dominate the other beast. So if the believer feeds their old nature and the inclinations of the old nature by continuing to act like the old man acted, then the old nature is going to take predominance and is going to drive the actions of that believer. And if they tend to feed the new nature more, that new nature is going to eventually grow stronger and then you will begin to make actual progress in your sanctification before the Lord. But the viewpoint reduced to its essence, to me, is somewhat similar to the, and this is not a Christian perspective, it's not a Christian program, though there are many churches in the modern era that have expressions of this program within the life and ministry of the church. We do not and we don't for an important reason and that's how many of you are familiar with what are called now in our culture 12-step programs. 12-step programs generally started with the idea of the struggle with alcohol addiction. but they've broadened out to drug addiction, sex addiction, now shopping addiction, and whatever other behaviors any human being can become addicted to. Generally, there are these 12-step programs that grow up around them. The idea of the 12-step program is, as you go through these 12 steps that are part of the process of this program, The goal of the program is to gain control over the impulse to do the wrong or unfavorable behavior. But in the 12-step program, the very the very beginning of the steps identifies, like for instance with addiction to alcohol, it requires the person entering the program and for them to make any progress through the program to say, to publicly admit to themselves and then to admit to others that are in the program with them, I am an alcoholic and I will always be an alcoholic. The point of that commitment in the 12-step program is to recognize that you're always going to be in danger of falling back into the old pattern of addiction. So it's important to just recognize You are who you are. You are a person addicted to this behavior, a person addicted to this substance, and that if you allow yourself any indulgence in that substance in the future, you will be recaptured by it and you will be just as much a prisoner or a slave to that habit or to that behavior as you ever were. So there's no freedom. There's no ultimate freedom from that behavior. It's just an acknowledgement of a permanent enslavement to it. And the goal is simply to gain as much control as possible to not continue to behave in that particular way. When we're dealing with the issue of our relationship to sin, and that's really what this question of nature comes down to is, What is our current relationship to sin, now that we've been saved, compared to what our former relationship to sin was before we ever were born again or before we ever came to know the Lord? I believe there's a much more definitive perspective that's laid out for us throughout God's word. That perspective is taught and, you know, laid out for us in the Old Testament, but it's certainly clearly revealed and emphasized in the New Testament. And that perspective leads me to my answer, do Christians have two natures? I want to give a definitive no answer to that question. So I I will say it this way, a born again Christian, someone that truly has been born again, we're not talking about in this particular scenario, we're not talking about someone that attends church, we're not talking about someone that owns and reads a Bible, we're not talking about someone that participates in worship service, we're not talking about someone even that prays regularly, we're not talking about external activities of Christianity alone, but someone who truly from their heart has had the experience that Jesus described in Nicodemus in John chapter three, and has been born again. A born again believer has one single nature, not a dual or double or two natures existing within him at the same time. So where did this other viewpoint, this dual nature viewpoint come from? I believe it's a function of two things. I think it's a, a function of a wrong perspective about the key word in that question, what is the nature of a person? So we're going to dig into what the meaning of nature is in a moment. And second, I believe it's largely a function of a wrong understanding of a key passage in the New Testament, an important passage, a deep passage, but one which has been interpreted differently by different Bible teachers, and that differing interpretation generally falls along the same lines as this question that we're answering, and that's different viewpoints of Romans chapter seven. So we'll take a look. Obviously we won't have time to do a full-fledged exposition of Romans seven tonight, but we'll take a look at some key portions of Romans seven as it speaks to this particular question. All right, so first let's dig into the idea of nature. What is the nature of a person? What is the nature of a thing? The dictionary, and I think the dictionary is pretty much right on target with an accurate definition here. The dictionary describes nature as the essential quality of a thing, or in the case of a person, we're considering persons here, that would then be the essential quality of a person. So the question as it pertains to whether Christians have two natures is we're asking then the question, do we have in our after new birth experience in life, do we have two essential qualities that are existing in some kind of tension within us that are pulling us in two completely opposite and competing directions at the same time? And the answer to that is no, not biblically understood. All creatures in all of history, this includes human beings, it includes animals, and it even includes inanimate things in God's creation because in a sense you can say that a stone has its own nature. It's the nature of stone. All creatures in God's creation with one singular exception, and I'll highlight that exception in just a moment, all creatures I'm convinced, have a nature, a singular nature, and can only have one nature. Because to say anything has two natures is to, in a sense, twist the meaning of the term into something other than what it actually is. In other words, you can't essentially be two things at the same time. You can only be a single thing at any one time. Now, in the beginning, And of course, you know the story. I don't have to go back through the story. We don't even have to turn back and read it. In the beginning, God created human beings in the Garden of Eden. He first created Adam. forming him from the dust of the earth, breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. And we're told in Genesis 2 that as a result of that breath of life that entered Adam, he became a living soul. And then later in the same chapter, the Lord put Adam into a deep sleep. We were just recently revisiting this as part of our Christ in the Old Testament study. He took a rib from Adam's side. He formed that rib into a woman. And we have the first two human beings. Now the question is, what's the nature of these new creatures that God has made? And do they have a single nature or do they have a dual nature? Every theologian, even the ones that hold the opposing viewpoint to what I'm teaching on tonight, Every theologian says that Adam and Eve, in the beginning, in the garden, before chapter three of the book of Genesis, before the great event, great in the sense of its impact, not great in the sense of its goodness, but before the great event in chapter three of the fall of humanity, the fall of mankind, the first sin committed in the garden. Before that event, Adam held within himself a singular nature. What would we call that nature? It's simple, he had a human nature. Eve was taken from his side. She was made into a woman. Does she have a different nature than Adam? No, she shared the same nature. She had a human nature as well. It was, in both of their cases, a non-sin-tainted, non-sin-affected, what we could call a pristine human nature. And theologians have tried to come up with different terms to describe it. One of the terms that's used is they had an innocent human nature. Meaning a nature yet undefiled by sin. Then, of course, what happens in chapter 3 is Adam takes of the fruit that God commanded him not to take from. He disobeys the Lord. He eats of the fruit. His wife eats of the fruit. Together they fall into sin. And having fallen into sin, the Lord addresses them. He holds them accountable. He judges them. He ejects them from the garden. And now we consider as they're walking out of the garden, What has happened to their nature? Is their nature unaffected by their sin and by God's judgment, or is their nature impacted by the sin that they have committed and the judgment that God has pronounced upon them? The answer to that, rightly understood by all theologians, is simply that their nature was affected. They still have what we would call a human nature, but it's a different kind of human nature than it was before the sin. Before the sin, it's a pristine, innocent nature. Now that they've sinned, we now describe it as a fallen human nature. But is it any less human than it was before their sin? The answer to that is no. It's just as much a human nature as it was before as it is now after. but it is twisted, it's warped, it's affected, and how deep does that effect of sin upon their nature go? It goes as deep as the nature itself goes so that theologians in the generations that follow throughout the course of church history. I've tried to come up with various terms to describe it, but the idea being that this is a nature now that is fully fallen. There's no part of human nature affected by the fallen sin that is unaffected by that sin. There is no pristine remainders or remnant of sin. It's not like After Adam sinned, 90% of Adam was a fallen nature, and 10% of Adam was an unfallen, still remaining pristine nature. It's all corrupted, it's all fallen, it's all desperately, his entire nature is desperately in need of redemption and salvation. All right, now, let's fast forward, even though, of course, there were many throughout the Old Testament time period that, by the saving grace of God, were saved by the Lord. But let's fast forward to the time that Jesus is having that conversation in John chapter three late at night with Nicodemus, and he introduces to Nicodemus the concept of the necessity of being born again. And the idea of being born again being a new beginning point in life. The concept of a new birth is simply that something entirely brand new is taking place in that experience. So the question is, having been born again, Of course, for those of us that have come to know the Lord by the saving grace of God, that is our shared experience. That is the life-redefining experience that identifies us as true Christians versus those that only claim to be followers of Christ or claim to be Christians. For a person that's born again, the question is, Our essential nature, the deepest quality of who we are before the Lord, is it just as much in rebellion and resistance and disobedience to the Lord as it always was, only to have a new part added to us, which at the same time competes with that old fallen nature and motivates us to want to please the Lord, do what's right in the eyes of the Lord, and obey him. so that we're, throughout the course of our Christian life, bouncing back and forth between the two poles of our nature's fallen and now redeemed and trying to find a way to be more redeemed and to avoid being as fallen as we previously were. All right, so with all of that as our backdrop, let's look at some passages of Scripture together. Let's start in the book of 2 Corinthians. I'm going to be reading a familiar verse in chapter 5. 2 Corinthians 5. The verse that I want to focus on is, of course, verse 17. It's a fairly short verse, but super important in its implications. Paul writes, therefore, If anyone is in Christ, now to be in Christ we understand as describing we have a true saving relationship with the Lord to the extent that we have been introduced into Christ himself. We are now made part of his body. We have a living relationship with him by the grace of God. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. We recently visited this verse as part of our Christ in the Old Testament study, and I emphasize that in the original text the words, He is, are added by the translator to try to help the passage flow a little better. But the way that Paul originally wrote it is a little bit more direct, and it's a little bit more, I think, comes across with a little bit more impact to read it the way he actually wrote it. And he wrote it more like this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, a new creation. And some would add the word behold. If anyone is in Christ, behold a new creation. But the emphasis is on What has happened in our introduction in salvation into Christ? What has changed about us? And what has changed about us is something just greater than us. It's not just, and the reason why we want to drop those two words, he is, is by adding those words, he is, it tends to emphasize that this is simply a verse about our personal experience of salvation. And it does describe our personal experience of salvation, but it describes more than our personal experience. It describes what Christ accomplished in His work. And of course, His work is His sacrifice for our sins on the cross. And how great was that sacrifice, and to what extent was the issue of our sin dealt with by his sacrifice on the cross. And then he didn't just die in the cross for us. Of course, he rose again from the dead. And in his resurrection, now Paul is describing that what he has accomplished in his sacrifice and then his resurrection from the dead is that he is now identified as the beginning point of a new creation. It's not just He is referring to you and me. We are a new creation. It's that Christ has begun a new creation. And because we are introduced into Him in salvation, we have been given as much a part in the new creation as Christ Himself has. So the idea is we are now, because of our salvation, because of our new birth, we are in the new creation. Now it is true, and we don't want to disregard this. It would be foolish to do so. Are you and I still part of the original creation that began in Genesis chapter 1, which is the creation of this natural world that surrounds us, the natural universe in which we live. Are we still part of that even though we've been born again? The answer is, of course. We still live in a natural world. We still live in a natural universe. That is unchanged in terms of our physical locality. But what he's talking about here is what's happened inside of us. What's changed internally, not just what's changed externally. And what's changed internally is a new creation has already begun. So we have not so much two parallel natures at work here, but two parallel creations. A natural creation at this level, and above it, and superseding it in terms of our core spiritual identity in our salvation experience, a new creation. Now, the original creation has a specific and definitive endpoint to it. And that endpoint is going to be at the second coming of Christ. in which the old universe as we know it is going to be rolled up like an old garment as various prophetic passages describe. And God is going to make a, what's described in the book of 2 Peter chapter 3 and also described in the book of Revelation, God is going to replace it with a new heavens and a new earth, an entirely new physical creation. But the point here is that spiritually speaking, we are already part of that new creation, even though physically we continue to live our life in this fallen natural creation. So there is a parallel of old and new in our experience, but not old and new nature, but old and new creation. Now, let's read on. We didn't finish the verse. Now the question is, because Paul isn't mincing words here, he's not waffling and saying the old is kind of here and it's kind of not here. What does he say about the old after he says there is a new creation? What does he say about the old element? The old has passed away. A strong and bold declaration. Now, if he's talking about the old creation in terms of natural physical creation, then we've got a problem. Because we've just all agreed that we still continue to live in this old natural physical creation. The creation that God started in the beginning, in Genesis chapter 1, still continues to this day. And it will continue until the second coming of Christ. So if he's talking about that, the old hasn't passed away. And so now Paul is kind of veering off into some strange new doctrine. So what is he referring to if he's not referring to the old natural physical creation? What is he talking about? The old creation aspect of who we were before we were introduced into Christ has passed away. Something about us that was old has passed away. Not it continues on and then new is just slapped on top of it, and now we've got this kind of glued together old and new thing going on within us. He's saying if we're in Christ, A new creation has begun and we're part of that new creation internally, spiritually, at the core of who we are. And the old element at our core has passed away. And behold, at the end of verse 17, the new has come. So there is a replacement. that's taken place in our salvation experience, in the new birth experience. Old is replaced with new. It's not old and new at the same time. Is that part clear from the passage? It can't be old and new at the same time, or else Paul would have had to say, the old hasn't yet passed away, but the new has come. He doesn't say that. And it's super clear that the old has passed, the new has come. Now, I did mention that there was an exception to this principle about single nature. I made the declaration at the beginning of our study that out of all of the creatures in God's creation, humans included, that every single creature that God has made has a single nature and a single nature only. But I said there's one single exception to that principle and that rule. And that single exception, as we might imagine, is Christ himself. Christ is the only human being in all of history, and this is true today and it will remain true forever and ever, that has and holds within himself a double or a dual nature at the same time. And it's described as a mysterious thing to us in Scripture. It's called the mystery of godliness in one of the passages in Timothy. where Paul is teaching about the incarnation of Christ. But what is the dual nature of Christ? It's not a dual nature of fallen and yet redeemed at the same time being glued together or married. What are the two natures of Christ? And Steve has taken us through material that should help us to be super clear about this in our study through systematic theology. Christ is identified, rightly so, theologically so, As fully God, he is completely divine in his essential nature. But when he incarnated as a human being, he became human. He took on human nature, but his taking on human nature in no way diminished or obliterated or altered his divine nature. And it is mysterious to us. That's why the scripture uses the terminology of mystery. The mystery of godliness in the incarnation is that one person, Christ, is at the same time fully divine and fully human with those natures not being mixed. If they were mixed, what would happen? If his human nature were mixed with his divine nature, what would be the result? He would be less than divine. You would have a half-god, half-human individual, kind of like Greek mythology, where Hercules, the great hero of Greek mythology, was the son of the great god Zeus. And so he had a divine nature, but he was born of a human female and is described in Greek mythology as being half-god and half-man. Greater than man, in his supreme strength, but less than Zeus, less than fully divine. So subject to things that Zeus is not subject to. That is not describing the nature of Christ. The nature of Christ is a dual nature in which he is fully God and fully human at the same time. But he's the exception to the two nature concept. So where in scripture do most find this two nature concept described. I will say this, I've studied all of the Bible multiple times and more than once I've gone through scripture looking for definitive passages that speak to this question of whether or not we have two natures. This passage, Romans 7, that I referenced earlier, let's turn to Romans 7 now, is typically the passage that most would place the great emphasis on. This is where we get this idea in Scripture. We'll look at a couple of key portions in Romans 7. Again, we won't have time to do a full exposition of the entire key portion of the chapter, but I will say this. The word nature never occurs. in the book of Romans chapter 7. So you can shoehorn the concept of dual natures into Romans 7, as many well-intentioned theologians have done. You can find two natures there if you look for them. But that's not what Paul actually teaches, and he does certainly specifically does not use terminology that leads us to that conclusion. All right, so you all are familiar, I don't have to read the whole chapter, you're familiar with the kinds of verses that lend themselves to the idea that we probably do have two natures. A new and redeemed nature, but we've got this old and fallen and sinful nature, and they're both functioning within us at the same time. And Romans 7 describes that because the man describing his experience, and of course it's Paul, that's writing this. He's describing his own experience. The man describing this experience is struggling. He wants to serve God, but he ends up failing. He wants to do what's right, but he ends up doing what's wrong. And at a certain point, he becomes so frustrated with it. He basically says, what am I going to do? I just can't help myself. I'm going to end up sinning. So what's the point really of Romans 7? Let's read very beginning of the chapter. It's helpful, I think, on key passages like this to understand the full context of what's being addressed. I think this is an overlooked passage even though it's right there in the same chapter. Romans chapter 7, verse 1. By the way, in chapter 6, Paul did a masterful and detailed study about how the believer who has been born again has been set free from sin. There's been a definitive change in our relationship to sin. But he stops here at the beginning of chapter 7 and he says this, Or do you not know, brothers? For I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. He goes in the next few verses into describing what happens when a married person dies, and he's using the concept of the death of a marriage partner to illustrate what has changed in our spiritual death in being identified with the death of Christ to our sins on the cross. But he says right up front in verse 1, who his target audience is in this specific portion of the letter. Who is he speaking to? in chapter 7 of the Book of Romans. Is he speaking to all Christians that will ever read it? Of course, in a sense, yes. All of Scripture is written for our benefit. We can read it. We can learn from it. We can understand it. But we must understand it in its appropriate context. Paul sets it in a specific context here. He says, Do you not know brothers? As soon as he says the word brothers, He makes sure that they understand what he's thinking of when he says the word brothers. He says for him, speaking to those who know the law. Who was it that knew the law? The Jewish people. He's speaking in this chapter to the Jewish people. What is he speaking to them about? He goes on in the rest of the chapter and he shares a personal story, a personal testimony. And it's a heartfelt testimony because it's Paul's own testimony. The question is, is he testifying about his present struggles with sin And at the end of our study, I'm just going to reassert that we do have present struggles with sin, no matter how long we've been in the Lord and how much we've grown in the Lord. I continue to struggle with sin, and you do as well. But is that what Paul is describing in this chapter? Is he describing, here I am an apostle, and he's writing this letter. You know, he's been an apostle of the Lord for some 20 to 30 years by the point that he writes this letter. He's grown tremendously in the Lord. He's a super fruitful servant of the Lord. He's an appointed apostle of the Lord to the Gentiles and has been faithful in the carrying out of the mission, the special mission and assignment the Lord has given him. Is he saying to these people under the law, let me tell you how I continue to struggle with sin to this day. So much so that I live an ultimately frustrated life. because by the time we get to the end of chapter 7, the person that is sharing the testimony is sharing they are so frustrated in their struggle against sin, and they're continuing to fail in that struggle that they see no way out unless there is some future deliverance for them. Is that his present testimony as an apostle of the Lord? And the answer is no. What Paul is sharing in Romans 7 is the story of his experiences of Pharisee. A Pharisee who was zealous for the law of God, a Pharisee who was zealous to serve the Lord, but a Pharisee who was not yet born again. He would not be born again until Acts chapter 9 and the whole experience on the road to Damascus in which the Lord appeared to him, revealed himself to him, and transformed him at the essential nature level, making him an entirely new person. No longer Saul of Tarsus, the persecuting Pharisee, the one who persecuted the church and was the great enemy of the church, but now one of the great leaders of the church in the great Christian movement that we call the gospel. All right, so with that backdrop in 7, let's look at a couple of key verses that are usually the focal point of this concept that we must have two natures because Paul says that he did at the moment he was writing this letter. The first is in chapter 7 verse 14. And I wish I did have time to go through each of these verses one by one because all of them are making a critically important point and comparison. But here in verse 14, this is what Paul says. For we know that the law is spiritual. And again, he's sharing personal testimony. The question is, what's the timing of the testimony? For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh sold under sin. What is he describing? He says, I am of flesh. That is a declaration of nature. What am I at the most essential level? And then what does it mean to be sold under sin? What is that describing? It's describing the slave market. of the ancient world and being put on display and being sold to the highest bidder. In this case, theologically, spiritually, Paul's experience was sin had bid the highest for him and had become his master, and he was a slave to sin. Now, is that the present testimony of the Apostle Paul some 30 years into his walk with the Lord? The answer is no. We'll come back to Romans 7, but just turn one chapter further into Romans, chapter 8 now. And I don't have time to fully develop the transition between chapter 7 and 8. But if chapter 7 truly was Paul's personal past testimony, Chapter 8 is his personal present testimony, and he is inviting us to understand and to comprehend that this is our present testimony if we have been born again like he was. So now we're in chapter 8. Let's look at verse 8. Paul says, Those who are in the flesh cannot How does the word cannot function in terms of the meaning that it implies in this verse? How does it function here? It's a declaration of impossibility. He's saying those who are in the flesh, it's impossible for them to please God. So I will just ask you this, even if it were true, it's not, but even if it were true, that the born again believer has two natures that are inside of them at the most deep core essential level. I am opposed to the things of God and I am in support of the things of God at the same time. But even if that were true, would it be accurate for me to say it's impossible for such a person to please God? Is it impossible for any Christian then to please God if we all have this double nature? The answer is no, of course, it's possible for us to please God. The New Testament letters are filled with exhortations to walk in a manner pleasing to the Lord and it's portrayed as a real possibility and not just a real possibility, but an obligation on our part to live and to walk and to behave in a manner that's pleasing to the Lord. So it's fully possible for us to walk in a way that's pleasing to the Lord. So what does that then imply about whether we're in the flesh or not? We're not in the flesh or else we could not please the Lord. He says it in verse 8. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And then he goes on in verse 9 to clarify, make sure we're not missing the point. You, however, are not in the flesh. but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. In other words, to be in the flesh means that you don't belong to Christ at all. Now I know there's traditional Christian terminology that goes along these lines. Yeah, yeah, I said something I shouldn't have said. In that moment I was just in the flesh. And that's a traditional Christian way of describing our momentary lapses into sin. But does that agree with the teaching of the apostle Paul under the inspiration of the spirit of God? He's saying, if you're in the flesh, you cannot please God. And if you're in the flesh, the spirit of God does not dwell in you and you don't belong to God at all. So now we've just established that. Let's jump right back to our key verse in chapter seven and reread it. Verse 14, Romans 7, 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. So which is it, Paul? If you're describing your present story, your present experience, your present testimony in chapter seven, and you're describing your present testimony in chapter eight, which is it? Are you in the flesh or are you not in the flesh? Are you of the flesh or are you not of the flesh? If we read chapter 7 as present testimony, we run into a huge problem as soon as we get to chapter 8. Because both declarations cannot be true at the same time. It's an either-or principle. So it was true that in his experience as a Pharisee, before his new birth, he was of the flesh and sold under sin. But in his new birth, he is no longer in the flesh but in the spirit because the spirit of God has come to dwell in him and has done such a dramatic and powerful transforming thing within him in the new birth that it's no longer proper to describe him as being essentially by nature's description in or of the flesh. All right, let's look at one other key verse in Romans 7. And as I said, I wish we could look at many of them, but we only have time for these two tonight. Romans 7, now verse 19. And again, these are the verses that are typically relied upon to emphasize we must have a dual nature as believers. But they misread the portion in its intended context. Verse 19, Romans 7. Again, personal testimony, but timing is all important. Paul writes, for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I, key phrase at the end of verse 19, what? Keep on doing. All right. So there are those with good intentions that say this was Paul's present experience, even as he was writing the book of Romans, that his experience was he doesn't do the good that he wants to do, but he does the evil that he doesn't want to do. And he keeps on doing the evil that he doesn't want to do, which implies what? An ongoing pattern of failure. All right, let's jump over and we're going to revisit just briefly in the book of 1 John what David taught us back when we went through 1 John passage by passage some time back. We're going to look in 1 John chapter 3. 1 John 3 starting in verse 6. I'm going to read through verse 10, and I'm not going to spend as much time just because I'm getting to the end of my time and I wanted to make a couple of other points here, but I think this will be obvious. Romans 7, Paul's saying, I want to do good, but I don't. I don't want to do evil, but that's what I do, and I keep on doing it. Now, what does John describe as the distinction between a true believer and someone who only thinks they are. 1 John 3, 6. No one who abides in him, that's in Christ, they're in Christ and they're abiding in him. No one who abides in Christ keeps on sinning. Key phrase from Romans 7 is, I keep on doing evil. I can't help myself. I just keep on doing it. Romans 1 John 3 says, no one who abides in Christ keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Meaning they've never really been saved at all. Little children, let no one deceive you. Meaning that this is a warning that this is an area where people can be deceived. Even believers can be deceived about this principle. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God, and again, the essential experience is you must be born again in order for this to be true. But no one who is actually born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot That's a statement, a declaration of impossibility. He cannot keep on sinning. It doesn't mean he can't sin, but it means he can't continue to sin over and over and over again. There's some new and greater influence within him that overrides all of the old influences. He cannot keep on sinning because he's been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. All right. Now at this point, let me just offer three parallel descriptions that I think will help clarify. We're talking about whether you could have two natures at the same time. So I'm going to make three two-thing comparisons. They're spiritual things and they're things that are emphasized in Scripture. And I think the answer to these three things will be even easier and more clear than the answer of whether or not we have two natures or a single nature. And I'm going to attach a passage to each of these. I won't have time to go to each one and develop it. Is the believer, after they're born again, I'm talking about born again believers, is the believer both spiritually dead and alive at the same time? So we're made alive, new life in Christ, but Is it proper to describe my present experience as at the same time I'm both spiritually alive but I also remain spiritually dead? Because my old nature was a dead nature, was it not? Ephesians chapter two, first five verses. Again, we won't read them, but for your notes, I'd recommend that you take your time to read them on your own. The description, the brief description by the Apostle Paul is describing the common experience of all fallen human beings. And that is we were spiritually dead in our sins, in our trespasses. Living in our old nature, we were dead. So is it possible now that I've been born again to be both spiritually dead and alive at the same time? The answer is no. I was dead, but as Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 5 emphasize, now I've been made alive. No longer dead, only alive. Now, how alive am I in terms of how consistently am I walking in that new life? That's an issue of sanctification. That's an issue of growth in grace. That's an issue of growing in the likeness of Christ. But I'm not growing from deadness to life. I'm growing from life to greater expression of that new life. I was dead. I'm no longer dead. I'm now only spiritually alive. Next description or comparison. Is it proper to describe a believer—and of course this one, many in the wider Christian community would be comfortable with saying both things at the same time, but I'm going to emphasize only one of these descriptions applies to us now—is it proper to describe a born-again believer as both a sinner and a saint? We all know in our sinful track record of the past, before we were saved, the Lord rightly labels us and characterizes us as sinners. The question is, is it proper, now that I've been born again, to label me today as a sinner? It's true that I am one who sins, but is it true that I'm one who is characterized by a life of sin so that the label of sinner is an appropriate description of who I now am? The Lord has added a new label to us. We didn't earn it. We don't deserve it. but it's an accurate description of the awesome transforming power of the cross and the resurrection. And to say anything less than this only ultimately diminishes the impact of the cross and the resurrection. And that is we are now called by the Lord himself saints of God. Not saints in the old Catholic sense of super Christians, but saints in the sense of the meaning of the word in the original language, which is holy ones, dedicated to God ones, ones who have been set apart from the rest of fallen humanity and dedicated to the purposes of God and now belong uniquely and specially to him. So we are called saints, but are we called sinners? So I did, for my own benefit, A few years ago when I was meditating on this divisive issue, this theological issue, I decided to do a single focus study through the entire New Testament on this one question. Starting in the book of Matthew, ending in the book of Revelation, is the new covenant born-again believer ever labeled a sinner in the New Testament? And there is not one single place where we are labeled as such by the Lord. There is a place where Paul, referring to his own testimony, again, not a testimony of his present track record, but of his past before the road to Damascus, before his new birth, referred to himself as the chief of sinners. But he was describing his track record when he was persecuting the church, not describing his track record as an apostle of the Lord. So there is no present tense place. There's no verse. There's no single passage that I was able to discover anywhere in the New Testament that describes us as present tense, identified as sinners, characterized by life of sin. But there are multiple passages. We won't take the time to read them. Most of them are found in the introductions of Paul's letters as he's writing to the various churches, like to Corinth and to to Ephesus and to the Philippian church and the Colossian church where he refers to all of the believers in the church as saints of God. So the third comparison is this. Is it possible for a born-again believer to at the same time, and this is a reference back to Romans chapter six, which we briefly touched on earlier. Is it possible for a born-again believer to be described as both at the same time a slave to sin and yet having been set free from sin. Can you be both? Can you be a free person in relationship to sin and a slave to sin at the same time? The answer is definitively not. You're one or the other. And prior to new birth, prior to the redeeming power of the cross and the resurrection, we were all slaves to sin. And now because of the power of the cross and the resurrection, We have been set free from sin. Not a little bit free, not mostly free, but free from sin. Now, one last thing to address, and that is, then how do we account for sin in our present experience as believers? I've already mentioned that it is true that even as a Bordigin believer, we do sin. How many of you, within the last week, sinned at least one time? Might have been a thought sin, might have been a word sin, might have been an action sin, a behavior sin. And we don't even have to stretch a week. There's no doubt, if we were evaluating ourselves, our hearts, our thoughts, and our behaviors, and our words from the past, ultimate standard of God's evaluation, I'm sure we all fell short at least once today, if not more than once today. But how do we account for that? One way to account for it is to say, well, you've got an old nature that's still active within you, and you've got a new nature too, but there's this constant tug of war, and every time you sin, the old nature is winning the tug of war over the new nature. The other way to account for it is this, and this is the biblical way. And that is, while we have a new nature, meaning the Lord has done a spiritual heart transplant in us. We understand this from important prophetic passages that were anticipated in the Old Covenant and now are the reality of the New Covenant. That when we're saved, the Lord removed the old heart of stone that was within us, and replaced it with a new heart of flesh. You familiar with that prophetic imagery? He doesn't say, so now you have a heart that's half stone and half flesh. It was all stone, and now it's all flesh. Flesh not being in a natural sinful sense, but in a soft, yielding, and tender sense of fleshly compared to stony and hard. So we have a new nature, but that doesn't mean everything about us is new. What isn't new, and this is obvious, in a physical sense, we haven't received our new bodies yet. We will, by the grace of God, at the second coming of Christ, we will be raised to the same kind of new, resurrected, glorified body that Jesus himself lives in now, and ever since his resurrection. We'll be given the same kind of body. So our body is not new, even though our nature is new, our heart is new. Our body is just as old as it ever was, and as we are all experiencing, getting older by the day, wearing out by the day. But there are other elements within our being that are not as new as our new nature. For instance, we have old habits. Every single one of us have habits that were formed before we were redeemed. We have old perspectives. Perspectives that were formed when we lived with an old nature and a perspective was formed and hardened within us. Now we have a new nature. We've come to Christ, but we still have to deal with that new perspective. And so what does the Lord tell us? For instance, in Romans chapter 12, we need to be transformed by the renewal of our mind. And he's talking to new people with a new nature, but they need to have a mind renewal added on to their nature renewal. So new habits replacing old habits, new perspectives replacing old perspectives, new old memories that hang on from the old life and the old sinful behaviors. old tastes for things, you know, and being accustomed to the enjoyment of certain sins that were experienced before we were ever born again, forming a taste within us that has to be addressed, has to be dealt with, and has to be transformed by this ongoing renewal in our experience of sanctification. I don't have time to take us there, but let me give you two passages that teach us about this ongoing sanctification renewal process, renewal of habits and perspectives and memories and tastes. Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 10, super helpful. Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 through 25, which describes in detail in language that's somewhat similar to Romans 7, but now a little bit different and in an important way very different because it's describing the opposition of old influences with the new influences. And so we have a battleground that we experienced, but it's not a battleground between natures. It's a battleground between influences. And then where that passage ends, and I'll take us to the Galatians passage. I just want to read the very end of it and we'll end our study here tonight. Galatians chapter five. So in this portion, starting in verse 16, he's describing this struggle. that born-again believers experience because of these contradicting influences that are at work within us. But then he ends it with this, verse 24, And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit." So while there is this battle of influences that we struggle with, we have, past tense, in a definitive sense, we have crucified the flesh so that our victory and our continuing progress in sanctification is ensured. ushered. We'll stop our study on this question tonight. Like I said, I'll be heading to Africa over the next few weeks. David will be back next week to pick up and restart the study through the book of Esther. He'll be beginning in Esther chapter 5 if you want to read ahead for that. God bless you tonight.