New Nature

Jeremiah 17:9

“The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

THIS is a very strong and clear statement from the Lod God concerning the heart and spirit in anyone estranged from Him. Adam and Eve had deceitful and desperately sick immediately after their rebellion against God’s clear warning. They lied, blame-shifted and tried to hide from the One Who alone could be life within them. Sin had its immediate effect on them and the whole human race. 

But God…what a statement of hope. But God didn’t leave us utterly estranged, lost and doomed, He promised those fort two rebels that He was going to intervene with a miraculous birth and Lucifer would have his head crushed in complete defeat.

What was to happen to people after Jesus Christ was raised from the dead? What would happen when people believed God, put their trust in the Risen Savior, turned from sin and turned back to God for forgiveness and the power to live a radically new life? He told us through Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 36:26

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

There is preaching and teaching that has been promulgated for way too many years that states that Christians, being born again actually have two opposing NATURES in them waring to make it impossible to obey the Lord save for His indwelling power. Folks, that would describe a follower of Jesus Christ as some kind of spiritual schizophrenic. That is not true.

IF your heart was still deceitfully wicked, the Holy Spirit would never come to indwell you. The Lord God, the Holy Trinity cannot abide where spiritual death is still active. Where the Light of Christ comes, spiritual darkness has to flee.

 Let’s look at the counsel of God’s Word through the Apostles to explain what God has actually done in a follower of Jesus Christ.

Colossians 3:10

“…you have put off the old man with its practices and have put on the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.”

In the New Testament, the “old man” and the “old nature” mean the same thing. Too many accept that because they can’t SEE it yet, it must not BE yet. God’s creation shouts out to us that that is a fallacy. An Oak Tree is in an acorn. A mature adult lives in the embryo the very second of conception. They just haven’t yet had time to come to maturity. All that is necessary for that to happen has been placed in them by God, their creator.

Colossians 2:11-15

“In Him, that is in Christ, you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by cutting away your sinful nature, by the circumcision of Christ in, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith the powerful working of God, Who raised Him from the dead.”

When the old nature was cut away, it was not folded up and stuffed in your spiritual back pocket. God removed you sin (not in part but the whole) as far as the east is from the west. You bear it no more. It was nailed to the cross and defeated. NOW, by Jesus Christ living His life in you by the Holi Spirit, you are being transformed to become what you already are in Christ Jesus: a new creation.

Deuteronomy 30:6

“The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.”

It is the action of God, the salvation of God that gives us new hearts, new spirits that can respond to Him in love and obedience. What God asks of us are the very things that make for life and by His grace will cause us to be our best selves; to live life as He intended us to know it.

2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Anyone who is IN CHRIST, born again, not by human effort not the exercise of human will, but born of God. Born as new-born babes who will, by the Holy Spirit grow up, as God’s Word declare, into the fullness that belongs to Christ. How?

Colossians 1:27

“To even no Jews God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

BECAUSE Jesus has come and made His permanent home within you, ALL God has promised CAN be entered into and live, not in theory, but in actuality. Because Jesus lives in you, all God has done for you is NOW being lived out within you. You will grow in grace and be transformed by the Power of the Holy Spirit!

You have a new spiritual DNA, a NEW NATURE, it is the spiritual DNA of the Triune God! You really do have a new heart and a new spirit where the Holy Spirit now dwells if you are a flower of Jesus Christ.

Colossians 1:13-14

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in Whom we have redemption by His blood, the forgiveness of our sins.”

God has brought us out of death and brought us into His Life. That is reality for the believer.

Philippians 3:3

“For we are the true circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”

The believer relies on what Jesus Christ has done for them. We put no confidence in any human attempt at making ourselves acceptable to God. The fruit of you salvation, the righteous character God requires, holiness, is produced in your life by Jesus Christ. He gives us the grace, wisdom and power to obey and do what God asks of us.

Ephesians 3:20-21

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

It is His power working in us that causes us to grow up and mature into what God has already made life within us. Babe in Christ grow up into mature followers by God’s grace and power. We can rely on Him for that daily.

Ephesians 2:18-21

“For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the Cornerstone, in Whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”

If the Lord Jesus had not given you His life…His holiness, His righteousness, His truth, His salvation, His faith, His Word, Himself, you would have no access to the Father. No one comes to the Father except by Jesus Christ alone. We are who we are in Christ because of what Christ has done.

Ephesians 2:19

“So, then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…”

Saints…people set apart by God…God’s holy family, made holy by God’s doing, becoming more and more holy because of what the Holy Spirit is living out within us. You were once sinners, separated from God, aliens and enemies, but now God has reconciled you to Himself through Christ Jesus’ work on the cross, His death and His resurrection.

Now as God’s holy people…you are not mere sinner, but have become by God’s grace, saints who still sin because it was how your character was developed in going your own way. Your old nature made sure of that, even if you were veneered with a layer of religiosity and “church-ianity”.

Ephesians 1:1 Paul states that those who are followers of Christ Jesus ARE God’s holy people. Imagine that! Ephesians 1:11 declares we are united with Christ and have an inheritance from God.

Ephesians 2:4-7

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Christ Jesus and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

God has done for us far above and beyond what could have ever asked or imagined.

Ephesians 3:17-18

“…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Jesus has made His home in you. He’s not just walking with you; He lives His life within you. The truth is, Jesus Christ IS your life.

Galatians 5:24-25

“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.”

When Jesus was crucified, He bore our old nature to the cross and it was mailed there. When St. Paul refers to “the flesh”, he’s not speaking of our physical bodies, per se, but that old education and training we received from the old nature. The flesh is NOT the same as our old nature. It is the residue that remains imprinted on our mind, will and emotions, even our bodies.

We must understand that the impetuous of our old sinful habits and ways was nailed to the cross and we owe no allegiance to that old way of living. When someone went to be crucified, people knew they were not coming back. In the same way, we don’t have to continue to live on the old “auto-pilot” of the flesh, we can NOW walk in the Spirit!

We can follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in the whole of life. We have received a new life. We didn’t just need a cosmetic make-over. We needed a new life because the old one caused us to be dead in our sin…dead…dead.

Galatians 3:27

“For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Jesus Christ was not put on like a jacket you could put on and take off depending on the circumstance. This “putting on” is like putting on a new skin. Like the dry bones in Ezekiel 37, we are put back together, because we were disjointed and as dead as dead could be, lifeless.  God put us back together, clothed us with muscle and sinew with new skin and the breath of Life, the Holy Spirit. 

Galatians 4:6

“And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

It is BECAUSE God has made us Hi children, His heirs, joint heirs with Christ Jesus that He has filled us with the Holy Spirit, enabling us to call God our Father, our Abba, or Daddy.

Again, 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself…”

Our being reconciled to God was the singular work of God. He did this because of His love for us. We have an expectation based on God’s own Word, His promises that we will not stay the same, but will continue to have our lives transformed by His life within us.

The giving of God’s glorious and splendid Law exposed the crookedness of our old lives and defined the death that was at work within us, but His work in us by the holy Spirit is even more glorious.

2 Corinthians 3:7-8

“Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?”

We should have a good expectation, not wistful thinking but hope in God, of greater glory, ongoing transformation in this new way of living by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is continually giving life to us in Christ Jesus because we belong to God as sons and daughters.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

Once again, just because we haven’t seen or experienced the fullness of what God has in store for us and is working in us doesn’t mean it’s not a reality. God has given us new life and we are growing up into it by His grace and power that creates our faith and inspires our love for Him.

That is why we never give up.

2 Corinthians 4:7-18

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So, death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So, we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Growing pains and the reality of spiritual warfare and the ongoing process of the renewing of our minds by the Holy Spirit are not always pleasant but are always hope-filled. Our trajectory in life is changed and how we live is no longer to be determined by the ethos of world we live in. We can live differently, thought at a cost, because of Him Who lives His Life in us.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15

“For the love of Christ now controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.”

We are not our own. With a new heart, a new spirit, a new life, we belong to the Lord in two ways. We are His by right of creation and by right of redemption. He is Lord. We are not. We need reminding of this daily.

1 Corinthians 6:19

 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with the price of His Son’s blood. So, glorify God in your body.”

Because you belong to the Lord Jesus and because wherever you are the Kingdom of God IS, because He dwells in you, it is not surprising that you are always a direct threat to the kingdom of darkness. Our strength for the ongoing battles comes from the Lord Who never fails to be with us and demonstrates His victory through us.

Ephesians 6:10-12

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Jesus Christ is your armor. He is the Truth, He is your righteousness, He is your salvation, He is the Gospel giving your life stability because of what He has done and Who He is IN you, He is the faith by which you live, He is the living Word of God your sword. He is you living armor that is never taken off. You are soldiers who live in your armor. He IS your new skin!

1 Corinthians 1:30-31

“And because of Him (the Lord God) you are in Christ Jesus, Who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Galatians 2:20

” I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in my physical body, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”

I have quoted from the King James Version above, because it properly translates “the faith OF the Son of God”. The Greek word is in the genitive tense, which is the tense of ownership, telling you WHOSE faith Paul says he was living by.

When the Holy Spirit came to live out within you the Life of Jesus, did He leave out some aspect of Who Jesus is? The answer is a resounding, “NO!”

Jesus lives in you with His righteousness that He has imparted to you and is forging in you. He came with His wisdom, His obedience, His holiness, His love, His resurrection power, His mercy, His kindness, His justice, His truth…all that He is He lives in you. His faith is NOW the faith you live by. It is not weak or limited, but needs to be exercised in faith, trusting His power to save, heal and deliver. Remember, “The secret hidden for so many ages is now revealed. It is CHRIST IN YOU, YOUR HOPE OF SHARING IN GOD’S GLORY.”

When a Roman citizen wanted to designate his heir, he would hold a ceremony where he would adopt his own flesh and blood child. In Roman jurisprudence (which is what is used in present-day adoption proceedings in the USA) you could disown a natural-born child, but you could NEVER disown an adopted child. Can you see why the Lord had Paul write that we have been given the spirit of adoption? God is telling us we are eternally secure in His love.

Romans 8:15-17

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.”

Thus, it makes all the more sense as Paul keeps writing in Romans chapter eight.

Romans 8:31-39

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?  Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the One who died—more than that, Who was raised—Who is at the right hand of God, Who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing in all creation can separate a follower of Jesus Christ from the Love, the complete salvation of God. That means that not even you foolishness to fall into sin can separate you from Him. God factored in our stupidity when He called us, redeemed us, and delivered us from sin’s dominion into the Kingdom of His Son, our Savior and Lord.

Romans 8:3-4

“For, God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in His human body, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

The flesh, as I’ve written before is not the same as our old sinful nature. It is the leftovers, the old education retained in mind, will and emotion, the inclination to go our own way even thought that “way” resulted in spiritual death and separation from the goodness of God. The flesh is a tangled mass of urges and passions that try to collude with sin in an attempt to keep it alive in our mind, will, emotions and bodies.

We DO NOT have two opposing nature warring within us. The old nature has been cut away, a spiritual circumcision. You and I have habits of sin, inclinations to try and draw meaning and purpose from things that cannot provide what they seductively insinuate that they can. The truth is that sin will never save you. Sin will never fill any void in your live. Sin will never fulfill anyone. It only digs deeper into the life is a person to siphon off any residual goodness, leaving one with deeper cravings for that which did not satisfy the first time.

Our battle is between the Holy Spirit within, and the residue left behind when the old nature was cast off by God, the flesh. Sin is a cheat and a lie. We need to believe God’s Word, to learn to trust the Holy Spirit in all of life.

Romans chapter eight makes it clear that if you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, you can be controlled by the Holy Spirit and can resist the flesh and the satanic lies that you need more of the poison that once killed you.

Romans 6:1-11

 “How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.  We know that our old nature was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Paul makes it clear that the Holy Spirit has put the believer into the death of Christ Jesus, where our sin, all if it, was dealt with fully. Jesus died as us. The Holy Spirit has put us into the Resurrection of Jesus, into His resurrection life that is eternal. We now know that (Paul writes) our old nature has been crucified. It ain’t coming back, It’s dead. It has lost its power to rule over us. We do not have to yield to it as if it had any residual “right to us”.

Romans chapter six tell us what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, His finished work now being effectively lived out in us by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 7:4-6

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the One Who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”

In Romans chapter seven verses 14-24, Paul is telling the Christians in Rome and us the futility of relying on our own human ability to try and keep God’s Law with perfection.

Romans 7:14-24

” For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. [This is not the description of a Christian] For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my old nature. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me a slave to sin that is still within me. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Paul makes in clear in Romans chapter 6 that we are NO LONGER slaves to sin, because of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. He affirms this to the church at Rome in the last verse of chapter seven restating that we don’t save ourselves. God does through Jesus Christ.

Romans 7:14-24 has been called “the Magna Carta” of Christian sloth, as if we just can’t do any better than strive and fail. We are, after all, ONLY human.  What a whining excuse to not trust the Holy Spirit, to not be willing to humble ourselves under His Mighty Hand and rely on resurrection power rather that feigned religiosity.

Romans 7:25

“Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.” But, not anymore.

Jesus died as me. Jesus died for me. Jesus lives in me transforming me. Jesus lives through me carrying on His work of Holy Spirit ministry.

Romans 8:1-17

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 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. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

We have a new life to live that is being lived out in us and through us by the Holy Spirit. We have much to learn and more to become as what God has done in us is brought to bear by the Holy Spirit in actual living.

We have peace with God…NOW!

Romans 5:1-11

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Are you in need of strength for the battle and for following Jesus? Paul tells us that we have “access” into the limitless grace that we are now standing in because of where God has put us: IN CHRIST! We can live and breathe without fear, even though we will feel afraid, we don’t live in fear, but in grace.

God’s saving, redeeming, healing, empowering, delivering, revelatory, comforting Love has been poured into our lives. The Greek term is “like a flood” it has been poured out. Jesus stated clearly that the Holy Spirit within us would be like a massive artesian spring rising within and overflowing in us. We are not to quench that flow by falling back into the lie that we have to make it work by human effort or ingenuity.

God is for us. We have a new nature. The Holy Spirit is dwelling in us living out the Life of Jesus in us giving us meaning, purpose, power and grace to enter into all God has for us. And then, through us display His love for the world…His mission of reconciliation.