Is the Christian Dual Natured? (part 3)

It seems that everyone who has read and participated here would agree with one of two views of the situation that the born-again Christian finds himself in. Either A) we are dual natured … the person we were before salvation is still around, but there is a new creation beside him that is a spiritual creature with the divine nature as its source. Or … B) The person that we were before we were born again is truly dead ... dead as a doornail ... and all that remains of him is the body, the flesh. This “flesh” also consisits of non-material “mind” because we can still have the thoughts that we once did and we can still remember the things that we did and thought etc … before we were saved. (Maybe there isn’t really such a difference between these two views, I am still not sure. It seems like it may be a matter of “semantics.”)

I gave my scriptural support for my belief that the old nature is still there, alive inside of me. I want to also present some scriptures that say that he is dead and that it is only “sin that dwells in the flesh” that causes the imperfection with Christians.

Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. (Rom 7:17 )

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (Rom 7:23-25)

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. (Romans 6: 4, 6, 11)

My dear brother likes to say that the old nature is truly dead because, “how can you survive crucifixion?” Well, that is an interesting question. I would say that, no matter what some popular Hollywood movies have tried to suggest, a person can indeed NOT survive that horrible process of execution. I sincerely don’t think the verse is to be taken literally. I believe it is saying that our sins were there with Christ when he died in our place ... not that we were actually crucified. Is this not a literary device? However, I respect the person that sees it the way my brother does. I like the next verse and I think it explains the last passage:

Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6: 11)

Doesn’t the word “reckon” sum it up? We are supposed to think of our old selves as dead to sin. We are to count ourselves as “not made for sin” anymore. Sin is not our life, it is not our purpose as a believer. This is a Christian discipline that Paul is speaking of.

He speaks of this Christian discipline of the mind in other books also:

Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. (Col 3:9-10)

For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Gal 6:8)

Then again, this passage could challenge my thinking:

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Rom 8:6-9)

Let me conclude with this verse:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

That is such a beautiful verse of Scripture. Christ lives in us, having loved us and sacrificed himself ... having taken our sin out of the way. We should reckon ourselves dead to that which crucified our Savior. Amen. the END