I've entitled this message, The
Two Natures of Believers. Believers have a birth, a natural
birth, from their father Adam. and believers have another birth,
a birth which is from God. And that's why the Lord Jesus
Christ was telling Nicodemus, wasn't he, that you must be born
again. You must be born again. So this
is a very, very critical statement, a very, very critical understanding. And because it's so critical,
it is something which is given to us throughout all the scriptures.
And I pray that like the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, that
the Lord would cause us to hear His voice. And so I'd love for
you to follow along with me. I'll repeat what I said earlier.
The new birth occurs just like our birth is the creation of
life. And it's the creation of life. All of you women that have
had babies, it's the creation of life. But the creation of
that life comes from something outside. It's the seed. It's
the seed. And that word seed is the word
sperma in Greek. And it's something that comes
from beyond the natural person. We received a fleshly nature
from our father Adam and in reality as much as some Some of the worst
excesses of sin can be dealt with. The reality is that all
of God's children know what it is to cry out, O wretched man
that I am, O wretched man that I am. This fleshly nature remains fundamentally
unchanged and generally what people consider to be this notion
of progressive sanctification, what really happens is that gross
external sins are swapped for internal ones which are even
worse because a self-righteousness about the things that we have
and the things that we've done and the things that we've conquered
is far more dangerous in reality than what is seen by the world. So this new birth begins a new
life, and the new life wasn't there before. And when the new
life comes, there's a new conflict which only exists where the new
creation has brought life from beyond this natural existence. And so is it significant? Of
course it's significant. The Lord said of those apostles
and that one night when he asked them to do something for him,
can you watch and pray? Can you watch with me? And three
times he came back and he found them sleeping and he says, the
spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. That word
weak means without strength, without ability. That which is born of flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. You must be born again. You must have this seed from
God to see the kingdom of God. And you must be born again to
enter the kingdom of God. As John the Baptist said to the
Lord Jesus in that last sermon of his, he must increase and
I must decrease. There is in the scriptures as
we read in Ephesians chapter 3, he prays that God would grant
you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened
with might by his spirit in the inner man. And the result of
having this inner man is that Christ may dwell in your hearts
by faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be
able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and
length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ.
This new man, the inner man, is the one that knows those things,
that you might be filled with all the fulfillness of God. What is the inner man? It's the
only believers. have an inner man, an inner man. It's called in the scriptures,
the new man. the inner man, the inward man. It's called the hidden man of
the heart. It's called the new creature.
It's called the new creation. It's one that was not there before. But also in the scriptures we
read of the old man. It's called the flesh. It's called
the carnal mind. It's called the sin that dwelleth
in me. It's the wretched man that I
am. It is the body of this death. And the thing that's difficult
for believers, and particularly difficult for trained theologians
to come to understand, is that there are two separate natures
in everyone who is born again. There are two separate natures
in every believer. There is the one that you're
born with, and there is the one that you're born again with,
the one that you're born from above with. It's the old man
and the new man. And the thing that's challenging,
of course, is that from the perspective of the believer, the two natures
come to our awareness through one consciousness. They are there in all believers,
but they come through one consciousness. And probably the best example
is the one that Todd uses, is that you have hot and cold water
and they both come out of the one tap. Rob and I have played
around with steel long enough to know that you turn on the
acetylene torch and you light the acetylene and then you fiddle
with the oxygen and all of a sudden you get this remarkable flame
that comes of the joining of the two. We have two separate
natures that come from the one consciousness. And people will criticize those
who claim this and say that it's an excuse for sin. We need no
excuses for sin. We need no assistance for sin.
The issue is, is this what God says? Is this the truth as God
reveals it in his word? Does the Bible teach this word? The question that we have to
answer in the affirmative all the time is, has God said? And
yes, he has said. It's no excuse for sin, the fact
that we have in this body, as we live in this world until we
go to glory, we have these two natures. It's no excuse for sin
at all. There is no sin. John writes,
he says, I'm writing these things that you sin not. No child of
God and no preacher sent by God would ever encourage anyone to
sin in any way at all. But what it does, these two natures
give us an explanation for the ever-present sin that plagues
every born-again believer. As I said, it's designated in
so many ways in scriptures, isn't it? The new man, the inner man,
the inward man. as the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
marvel not at this, let's just hear what God says about these
things. In Romans chapter 7 Paul says
in verse 22, I delight in the law of God after the inward man. And then in verse 23, he said,
I see another law, another operating principle 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, a wretched man that
I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death. Paul
was speaking as an apostle. He'd been on missionary journeys,
he'd planted churches, he'd been saved by the Lord for 20 odd
years when he wrote that. Paul is speaking of these two
separate men which live in one being. So it's God's truth. And it's
necessary. It's necessary for us just to
state it. And it's necessary for us to
state it again and again because it's God's truth and it's stated
all the way through the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. And
we just let God deal with the results of what His words come
down to this earth and they return to Him having achieved what He
says they will achieve and what He wills. So people say you are
splitting hairs, but this is necessary. Is it necessary for
belief? Believers believe God. I love
what Paul said in defense in Acts chapter 24 when he was being
harassed by those Jews sent from Jerusalem down to Caesarea. He says he believes all things,
Acts 24, 14, all things written in the law and the prophets.
He says, this is how I worship God. I worship God by believing
all things. Therefore, unbelief of anything
God says is not worshiping God, and we're here to worship God. So here we have these two men
designated the new man, the inner man, the inward man, the hidden
man of the heart, the new creature, the new creation. It's all one
that wasn't there before. And it's fundamental. It's fundamental
for us to understand these things so that we can understand what
happened in the garden. It's so true what's been said
so often, if you're wrong on the fall, you're wrong Well, most people, they think
that Adam fell over and broke his little finger in the garden.
But Adam fell, when Adam fell, he fell spiritually and he died
spiritually and he died spiritually instantly and he has no spiritual
life in him. He has plenty of carnal life
and we know what his carnal life was like, was to go and do, start
working as busy as he can to cover his own shame and hide
from God. See, the Bible teaches. that
Adam and all his children are totally depraved. Every aspect
of their character is fallen. Their understanding is fallen. Their affections are fallen.
Their will is fallen. Man is completely unable to do
anything to save himself. And the Lord made it so clear,
didn't he? He said, no man can come to me. He said to Nicodemus
this. Nicodemus wasn't an immoral man
outwardly. Nicodemus was a religious man,
a righteous man in his own eyes, and a righteous man in the eyes
of all that religion around him. But you must be born again, and
you can't see the kingdom of God. You don't even know what
the kingdom of God is, Nicodemus. And you certainly can't enter
the kingdom of God unless you're born again. No man can come to
me, says the Lord Jesus, unless the Father which has sent me
draw him. To deny the two natures necessitates
that people say that grace takes the old man and does something
with it. He takes the old man and he polishes
it up. But the Lord said to Nicodemus,
he says, flesh gives birth to flesh, and it can never rise
above that. And spirit gives birth to spirit,
and spirit can never fall below that. You must be born again. Now just for one moment, cast
your mind across all of the scriptures. Is there one example of one of
the saints of God for whom we have a lengthy biography who
ever, ever exhibited anything other than the fact that he was
both at the same time a child of God and blessed in love by
God and at the very same time a sinner who does things that
are just shocking. Shocking in so many ways. You think of Noah and you think
of Lot. You think of Moses. You think of David. His last
public act was to number the people, and Satan inspired him
to number the people. He didn't need to know how many
people were on his side. All he needed to do was know
that one person was on his side. If he had gotten on his side,
it didn't matter whether he had three soldiers or three million
soldiers. It didn't matter a squirt. And he was told that it didn't
matter, and he was told not to do it. And a plague came upon
the nation of Israel and 70,000 of them died. And it was stayed,
it was stayed at the place of sacrifice in Jerusalem. David didn't speak about progressive
sanctification. None of the saints of God spoke
about them progressing more and more in their own personal holiness. And it also, there's no understanding
without these two natures, there's no understanding of the truth
of the fall of man and there's no understanding of the nature
of the new birth. The new birth, as we have said
so often, is fundamental to see and to enter the kingdom of God.
To be born again, to be born again is to be born from above.
That's what the word says in John chapter 3. And there is
a spiritual life in that birth that comes from heaven. It's
something that God implants into his people in their conversion. Listen to what John says in John
1, verses 12 and 13. As many as received him gave
he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name, which were born not of blood, Not through their
lineage to Abraham or anyone else, nor the will of the flesh,
nor of your own free will. There's no such thing in the
Scriptures as free will. Nor of the will of man. Not a
whole bunch of people getting together and organizing themselves
into some way to get someone to make some profession of faith.
They're born of God. They're born of God. It's a spiritual
creation that wasn't there before. You didn't decide to be born
this first time, and God decides when you're going to be born
the second time. Why do people think that their second birth
is going to be by an act of their will when their first birth had
nothing to do with it? What sort of will did you exhibit
in that? A new heart is given, isn't it? A new heart. He doesn't say he's
going to take out the old heart and improve it. Ezekiel's valley
of dry bones didn't need improving. They didn't need to act upon
their free will by taking the first step or making a decision
or coming down the front and praying a sinner's prayer. They
needed life. They needed life from above.
That's the whole army of God that represents all of the Church
and the Lord Jesus Christ in that valley. They needed, like
all of us do, they needed life from beyond. And it's so important in the
whole issue of sanctification. Salvation is a new creation.
Many people change their lives. and we ought to be thankful for
it. Many people who are alcoholics give up their alcoholism. Many
people addicted to pornography give up their addictions. Many
people do all sorts of things and give up their addictions. And many religious people changed
much about their lives. That was one of the things that
the Jews were so proud of, wasn't it? They went overseas. They
weren't just sitting in Jerusalem. They traveled over land and sea
to bring people back and get them to be circumcised and get
them to join what they thought was the worship of God. They
changed their lives, those people, in remarkable ways with great
sacrifice and personal cost. And the Lord Jesus said in Matthew
23 that they're twice the child of hell as they were when they
were living in the gutters and in the idolatry of that world.
Salvation, salvation is a new creation. Salvation is a new creation. If any man be in Christ, says
Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, if any man be in Christ. And that's
one of the most common designations of believers in all of the scriptures,
is to be in Christ. They're called saints, they're
called believers, but almost most of all they're called people
who are in Christ. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creation. He's created, according to Ephesians
4, created in righteousness and true holiness. Created by God
in righteousness and truly holy. His workmanship, by grace you
are saved through faith and is not of yourselves. It's the gift
of God. Created in his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has ordained that we
should walk in them. So it's not a changed old creation. It's a new creation. Something
that wasn't there before is there. To deny the two natures is to
deny that the new creation is the creative act of God. God alone creates. to deny the two natures is to
misunderstand the earthly abode of this new creation, isn't it?
I love, and we quote it often in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6, this
is speaking of creation. It's using the very first words,
the first creative words of God in the scriptures. For God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But, verse 7, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels. Earthen vessels. Just jars of
clay, just like Adam was made from the red earth. So this treasure,
this new nature, this salvation, this Christ in you dwells in
an earthen vessel. It's housed in this body of clay,
in these sinful bodies. body of flesh. And why? At the end of verse 7, that the
excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. The excellency of the power belonging
to the new creation. Not the creature of clay, but
entirely belonging to the Lord. Therefore there's no boasting.
There's no boasting about what man has done. There's no boasting
due to men because of their activities.
What a comfort to know that the scriptures describe us as we
are in this life. What a comfort to know that God
speaks the truth about who we are and what we are. How often
have you thought, how can God call me a child when I have such
evil thoughts, which are so dishonouring to the one that I claim to love
and obey? How can I be saved and I keep
committing the same sin over and over again? How can I be
saved, especially when I hear those who proclaim that they
have overcome sin? So it is no more. I heard a man
speaking the other day, and he said, I've overcome this sin,
and I've overcome that sin. Another one pops up, but I overcome
them. I'm overcoming them. We have a friend in this town. My trustee might be a friend.
I'd love to have him as a fellow. But he says that he's reduced
all the sins in his life and he's only got one left. He had
so worked on his sanctification over the years that he's only,
well this was some years ago, he's only had one left. Little did he know that God requires
perfection. It must be perfect to be accepted,
not doing your best. He hadn't overcome any of them
whatsoever, had he? All he'd done is swap external
things for internal pride and self-righteousness. The other
fellow says that he lives without sin so much of the time and he
just has the occasional slip-up. Your sins aren't occasional slip-ups,
brothers and sisters in Christ. The only possible solution for
your sin is that God the Father would put them on His Son and
then pour out the infinite wrath of a holy God upon those sins
and take them away. And here we are having people
calling them occasional slip-ups and they're getting themselves
better and better and better. As I said earlier, nothing any
child of God does to others should ever be an encouragement to sin. There is no excuse. There is
no excuse. But this truth from the word
of God that these vessels, these earthen vessels remain earthen
vessels until these earthen vessels are put back in the ground from
whence they came. And then all of a sudden we only
have one nature. The true nature. Just like all
of our brothers and sisters in heaven, they just have one nature
now. The struggle is over. It gives an explanation, it doesn't
give an excuse, but it does explain what it is to live in this world.
It does explain what it is to struggle in this world. It does explain that sin is ever
present with us. See this truth, this truth about
the fact that the earthen vessels are earthen vessels, allows us
to be honest. It allows us to be honest with
God. I can come to God as a mercy beggar. God, have mercy upon
me, the sinner. And I come to God again and again
and again, not as one deserving a reward for my achievement,
but as one just pleading his mercy yet again. Here I am. I'm like the prodigal. I'm returning
again. The father comes and runs to
greet and wraps his arms around the prodigal. I can be honest. I can be honest with God. I don't
have to run from God when I sin. I can run to Him. And I can be
honest with myself because I don't have any self-righteousness about
which to boast. I've got nothing. I've got nothing. All I have is the Lord Jesus
Christ and nothing else. Also, this truth allows us to
be honest with my brothers and sisters in Christ, and it allows
us to be kind and tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God,
for Christ's sake, not because of your doing, God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven you. Why would I want to present myself
as being above my brothers and sisters? I'm here as a sinner. I'm here as a sinner. A fellow
sinner with you other sinners. But I'm here to tell you about
a Saviour. He came into the world to save sinners. He came into
the world to save sinners. Sinners. Why would I want to
present myself above anyone in sanctification when I know what's
in my own heart? It's so much easier, isn't it?
As the scriptures say, you esteem others better than yourselves.
If you know what's in your own heart and you don't know what's
in the hearts of your brothers and sisters, you can esteem them
much higher than yourself all of the time. And why wouldn't I have any reason
for forgiving them when I have been forgiven so much? We love
much, don't we, brothers and sisters in Christ? We love much
because we've been forgiven much. And that much is before us all
again and again and again. So we're living stones. God made dirt. And we build it
together into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit. And I can
be honest about this because the real me, the real me is the
new man in Christ Jesus. The real me before God has perfectly
obeyed the law of God. He's loved God with all of his
heart and all of his soul and all of his mind and all of his
strength and he's kept every one of God's laws perfectly to
God's satisfaction. I've loved my neighbour as myself
and I've done it all and I did it all 2,000 years ago. And that's
the robe of righteousness that all the saints are wearing all
the time, aren't they? It's that beautiful robe that
we are dressed with. The old man was put to death. The old man was crucified with
Christ 2,000 years ago. I live, I live, but the life
I now live, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. Who makes you to differ? Who
made you to differ from another? What do you have that you did
not receive? What do you have that God did not give you? Now if you did receive it, if
you did receive it, why do you glory as though you had not received
it? Who made you to differ? God.
God makes us to differ. But he makes us to differ because
of what he's given us and not because of what we've earned.
The Lord Jesus stated this truth in John 6.63. He said, It is
the Spirit that quickeneth. It is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. Let me say it again, because
we don't believe it, and we don't live as if we believe it. The
spirit, it's the spirit that gives life, the quickener. The
flesh profits nothing, nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit, and they are life. Creation is God's work and God's
alone. I want us to go through our scriptures
and find this extraordinary, comforting, biblical truth. throughout the scriptures. In
the first illustration of it is in Genesis Chapter 1. All
things are in Genesis. If all of your theology is not
found in Genesis, then you've got to go looking further into
Genesis because it's all there. All the foundations are laid,
isn't it? God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw the light, it was good, and God divided the light
from the darkness. There is a light, isn't there,
which comes, a spiritual light. And God divides the light darkness.
And God called the light day and the darkness. He called night
and the evening and morning were the first day. God separates
the light from the darkness. We read last week just briefly,
but we'll look at it again now in Genesis chapter 25. Isaac
entreated the Lord for his wife. You might remember the remarkable
story of Rebekah by the very hand of God himself being brought
to Isaac as his wife, but Rebekah couldn't conceive. And she, like
so many throughout the scriptures of women who travailed in barrenness
is a picture of the church. where there is a barrenness,
there is a wilderness that we wander through, and then there
is a life that comes, and the life is a life that comes from
God. Always it's a life that comes from God. It pictures the
church in this world, and it pictures the new birth. And the
Lord was entreated of him, Genesis 25, 21. The Lord was entreated
of him, and Rebekah, his wife, conceived. And the children struggled
together within her, and she said, if it be so, why am I thus? How many believers have said
that? If I'm a child of God, why am I thus? And she went to
inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said unto her, now that
life's here, now that you have life in you, there are two nations
in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from
their bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other,
and the elder shall serve the younger. This is the struggle
that happens, isn't it? Paul speaks of it in Galatians
chapter 5. He says, The flesh lusts against the Spirit. It
continually lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against
the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other, so that you
cannot do the things you would. There is, in the new birth, there
is the beginning of a struggle. An unbeliever doesn't have that
struggle, because he only has one nature. The struggle begins
at birth. The struggle continues. Having
begun at birth, the struggle continues throughout this earthly
life. Nicodemus needed to be born again.
Nicodemus thought that his religious obedience was equivalent to righteousness
that could be accepted of God. And I love what Paul says after
he says about that struggle, that you cannot do the things
that you would. He says, but if you be led of
the Spirit, if the Spirit of God is leading you, you are not
under law. You're not under law. The solution
for the religious person like Nicodemus and all those he led
was to put people back under the law, and the more you put
them under the law and the more keenly you observed it, the less
sin that there would be in their lives. For the child of God,
for the child of God being put back under the law, is to be
turned away from Christ. And Galatians says that Christ
profits you nothing if you go back there. Sins shall not have
dominion over you, says Romans 6.14. Why? Because you're not
under the law, you're under grace. You're under grace. A believer
has a struggle that an unbeliever has no notion of whatsoever.
That's why it's called the hidden man of the heart. It's hidden
from this world. See, every believer, you cannot
do the things you would. Every believer would love God,
and he would obey God, and he'd live for God, and he'd live for
his glory in this world, and he would never sin again, and
he'd love his brothers and sisters. that he finds this opposition
within himself constantly, battling this spiritual nature. And it
works both ways, doesn't it? Your flesh would commit every
and any sin, but it's prevented by the new man within. They lust
one after the other so that you cannot do the things you would.
The children of God are children who do not lie about God and
about themselves. It's also pictured in a parable,
the Lord's Parable. You might recall the parable
of the wineskins. No one puts new wine into old
bottles, else the new wine will burst the bottles. They made
wine, they made the skins. the skins and sewed them up tight
and they put the new wine in the skins and the new wine in
the new skins and the new skins allowed that wine to expand as
it fermented. But the old wine skins are perished,
aren't they? No man put new wine into old
bottles, else the new wine will burst the bottles and be spilled
in the bottles sure perish, but new wine must be put into new
wineskins, and both are preserved. So the new wine must be put in
new wineskins. God does not pour his grace and
his spirit into the old man, into that old heart. He gives
a new heart. The pure heart spoken of in the Beatitudes, blessed
are the pure in heart. It's the new heart that God gives,
the new heart that believes the gospel, the new heart that loves
God, the new heart that looks to the Lord Jesus Christ, the
new heart that believes. You need a new heart to believe
the gospel. New heart. And the new heart
sees and owns the sins of the old. Paul had no notion that
he was a sinner until he was born again. He had no notion
that he was a sinner. He thought he was a righteous
man. He said he was obedient to the law of God. A new heart
owns the sins of the old. Only a new heart sees the old
man as nothing but sin. Only the new heart sees the old
man as wretched. And that was the experience of
the thief on the cross beside the Lord, wasn't it? The first
time in his life, even though he'd been a sinner and nothing
but a wicked sinner so publicly all of his life. On the cross. when he was born again, when
he was saved. What did he say? We're getting
what we deserve. We're getting what we deserve. And all of a
sudden, not only did he see himself, but he saw the Lord Jesus in
a whole new light. He said, Lord, this is the king
of the universe. He's got a kingdom. What a remarkable
act of faith. What a remarkable act of belief.
What a remarkable transformation in him. The new heart is the Lord's creation. The new heart is the Lord's to
give. In the parable of the soils,
a sower went forth to sow. We're sowing right now, aren't
we? It's the Gospel that's sown. You can read about it in Matthew
Chapter 13. The Gospel is the Word of God
that's sown into this world. And some fell on the paths. We've
seen it fall on the paths so often, have we? And some fell
on stony places. It's that heart of stone in Ezekiel
36 that has to be removed. And what happens to the seed
that falls on the stony place? They hear the word and with joy
receive it. How often have we seen people
and known people who receive the word with joy and receive
it and yet It endureth for a while, and
when tribulation and persecution arise because of the Word, because
of the Word made flesh, because of whom the Lord Jesus Christ,
by and by He is offended. What was the problem? What was
the problem? He has no root in himself, is
what the Lord is saying. No root in himself. See, the
root which sustains the spiritual life before God's is God's to
give. And what he gives, he sustains. It is that vine that all the
branches are attached to. That vine that's pruned, but
that vine that is fruitful. The good ground is the new heart
into which the Lord pours his spirit to understand and to create
bearers of fruit. This seed produces fruit, the
fruit of faith, the fruit of life with God. Let's take a break. and enjoy a cup of tea and some
fellowship and we'll come back and look some more. Thank you.