Well, this morning, as you can
see, the title, Do Believers Have Two Natures? And I got the
idea of this message from Brother Gary Shepard back. He had a message
probably eight, nine years ago on this particular subject, and
I thank him for it. And I'm going to deliver this
message this morning, Do Believers Have Two Natures? This is something
that some of you might not be familiar with, but it's out there in the sovereign
grace circles. There is a belief that, contrary
to what we believe, having to do with this subject here. Now,
this morning in our Bible study, I had a message on God's lost
sons and how God saved them by His grace. Now we're going to
look at the state of these sons that have been saved by Christ
and brought to life by God the Spirit. We're going to look at
their state. We know that God's elect standing,
and Bill has preached on this the last couple of times, having
to do with just standing before God, which doesn't change. It's been there for everlasting,
where He put us in Christ as our substitute and surety, and
He loves us with an everlasting love. That never changes, but
our state before God does. Now, He elected us in Christ
as surety, And He came in time, Christ did, to pay our sin debt,
to redeem us by His grace. So now we will deal with the
state of a believer after regeneration and conversion. And we'll ask
the question, once regenerated and converted by God the Holy
Spirit in the new birth, do believers have two natures? It's sad. It's a sad thing that men and
women in our day are so gullible, so unconcerned for the truth,
that they just simply believe only what preachers say or what
their favorite preacher might say. And sadly, many preachers
capitalize on this for their own gain and their own glory.
And their followers become like people in that fairy tale called
the Emperor's New Clothes. When the wicked men told the
king and all the people they had made a beautiful garment
for the king, but only certain people could see it. When the
truth was, they hadn't made him a garment at all. But because
of the pride of the people and the king himself, everybody said
how beautiful that garment was. including the king. But there
was a little boy in the crowd, and when the king went by, and
honest like a child, the child said, he's naked, just plain
naked. And that's the way it is oftentimes
with people when they are told things in religion. They just
believe them. They just believe that's the
way it is. And if anybody comes along with the truth, they're
locked into a place of pride, locked into a place of pride
and self-will, and they refuse to admit the reality of it. It's
the hardest thing for people to do, to admit that they've
been wrong. Somebody said, sin's like a prison
cell, but pride is the lock on the door. So oftentimes, men
tell people how things are, and they show them things that they
cannot support from the Bible. So they'll use some man to back
up their belief by saying, well, so-and-so said it, so-and-so
believed it, so-and-so wrote about it. But true faith is based
on what you know to be true according to God's word. You only believe what you have
read and seen for yourself from this book here. That's faith,
God-given faith. Faith not because a preacher
said it or a writer said it, but because God said it and it's
plain and black and white in the word of God. And this is
also true with all, with what you believe about the nature
of man. and especially what you believe
about the nature of a believer. Does a believer have two natures? Does he have what some have called
old nature and a new nature? And I would ask you simply, what
does the Bible say about it? Not what Dr. So-and-so says or
Brother So-and-so or the most respected persons and preachers
that we know. The answer is only to be found
in what God says. And the truth of the matter is,
if we have to run to men to see what we believe, we're going
to always be deceived. If I got to go and check with
this book, or that commentator, or that preacher, or this preacher,
to see what I believe, then we're really in trouble, because men
are fallible, and I'm fallible. All men are subject to error.
We only go to these old writers, and even preachers in our day,
in order to see what they say concerning certain scripture
and doctrine. But we always compare what they
say with the word of God. We just don't stick with what
they say. We here at Eager Avenue Grace Church, over the last 35
years or so, that most of us have been here, We've seen a
lot of different doctrine that has been taught in so-called
sovereign grace circles. And we've been ridiculed over
the doctrine of imputation. But within the past few years,
some well-respected preachers within the sovereign grace community
have been promoting the idea of believers having two natures,
of which one is divine. one of the main texts that they
used 2 Peter 1 for. Whereby are given to us exceedingly,
exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might
be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption
that's in the world through lust. This is the subject this morning.
Do believers have two natures? This morning I'm going to be
going over some some of the scriptures that certain groups of preachers
use in order to prove the point. So if you would, bear with me
as I jump from scripture to scripture. And I want to say up front this
morning, at the very beginning, that I believe that you must
be born again by the Spirit of God. Jesus said, except a man
be born again, he cannot see and he cannot enter the kingdom
of God. You must be born again. There
must be a supernatural work of God's Spirit in your heart. If you never receive that, you
will never believe the gospel, and you will never lay hold of
eternal life. This is what Paul says in Romans
8, 9. Paul says, you 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's none of His, it is absolutely
necessary that the Spirit of God do a work in us. Absolutely. Just like Christ
did a work for us, the Holy Spirit must do a work in us. But Christ
also said something else on the occasion when He was speaking
about the necessity of the new birth. He said, John 3, 8, the
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it is cometh, and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit. That is to say, there is an element
of mystery in the Spirit's unseen work in an individual Some preachers
may write books that tell you how to be born again, but Jesus
never wrote such a book. He said the work of the Spirit
is a mysterious work, an unseen work like the wind. You can't
see the Spirit, but you can definitely see its evidence worked out in
the believer. One of the examples of what people
use to give as why they believe believers had two natures is
that Christ had two natures. They say, well, Christ had two
natures. He had a human nature and a divine nature. Therefore,
two natures can be in the same person at the same time. Yes,
but Christ took on himself a human nature without sin. Man did not participate in the
birth of Christ. But the truth is, the nature
of Christ and the nature of God is one. It's one and the same,
and it's not a conflicting nature. But it's a holy nature, a perfect
nature. Though Christ, a divine person, possessed of a divine
nature, was made flesh, or became a man, the divine nature in him
was not changed into a human nature. nor the human nature
into a divine nature, nor a third nature made of them both. Was
this the case, the divine nature would have been changeable. But
it was not. There is a common saying concerning
this subject, which is Christ remained what he was, which was
divine, and assumed what he was not, which was man. And what
he assumed added nothing to his divine nature, he was only manifest
in the flesh. Christ was God in human flesh.
We who have been given God's spirit do not have a divine nature. We're not little gods. I believe if you search scriptures,
you'll not find one time when you'll see the phrase new nature. But then you don't find the word
sovereignty in scripture either. So therefore, something can be
a reality and actually not have the word or the terminology in
scripture that men choose to use. But because everybody lately
seemed to stress so much importance on this new nature, if you investigate
closely, what you find is that every reference to nature or to natural, had to do with
the old nature that we inherited from Adam, except for two. Every
time you find the word nature in the New Testament or natural,
it says something like this, the natural man receiveth not
the things of God, or we were by nature the children of wrath. Everywhere in the Bible except
two, and in those two places, one of them is used in relationship
to the nature of angels. He took not on himself the nature
of angels. And in the other verse, it has
to do with a reference to God himself. And when you examine
the so-called proof text, you'll find out that many of the proof
texts are simply just taken out of context. You better beware,
as our pastor said, of proof text taken out of context. You better read the context. You better read the context that
they're in, and oftentimes the proof text don't prove what man
is saying at all. Often it proves just the opposite.
But the real thing that tells me that this is not an old nature
and a new nature, is found in Romans 6.6. I think the consensus
is that when Paul uses is in this verse here, in the King
James in Romans 6, the better translation is was. All right,
verse six. Knowing this, that our old man
was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. Now the important
thing here is that Paul says that our old man was crucified
with Christ. How long has it been crucified
with Christ? Well, it's been over 2,000 years.
So we can't say that this old man and a different old man there,
the old man was crucified with Christ a long time ago. If you're a believer, the old
man doesn't exist anymore. The old man is not what we are
anymore. We are new men and women in Christ.
The new man is not a new divine nature. It's our connection with
Christ in the covenant of grace. And it's evidenced by our new
spiritual state after the new birth, after regeneration and
conversion. When Paul writes in Romans 6.6
that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, he was
speaking of the fact that our connection with Adam and sin
and death, along with the demerit of our sins, the body of sin,
was destroyed as God's justice against us was satisfied completely
by the death of Christ at the cross. Therefore, the old man
is crucified. And we cannot be condemned. We
no longer serve sin, not in the sense that we no longer sin or
have a nature of flesh which is still in us, but in the sense
that we no longer sin by seeking salvation by our works. We now
believe and rest in Christ for all the righteousness in life.
And with those texts, honestly, And in their context, being interpreted
and being defined as they are, where do they say or what's left
to suggest that we have a new nature? Well, what about those
references where we find old man and new man? They are all
given to remind us of what we are to depart from and what we
are to aspire to because we now, after being born again, we now
see our position in Christ. Prior to that, we didn't see
that. We're in darkness. We're lost.
The old man is our connection with Adam in the fall. It's evidenced
by natural and former state as unregenerate, dead in trespasses
and sins, and in unbelief. One of the main things that we
do is we walk in the spirit. and in the new man is that we
stop seeking salvation by our works and we by faith continually
look for Christ, for salvation. Well, the one scripture that's
often used is right here in 2 Peter 4. Now, I can tell you without
a shadow of a doubt that I've seen this phrase in this verse
made up of just a few words here quoted by certain preachers and
given as proof texts over and over again in support of our
having a new nature. Here it is, 2 Peter 1.4, whereby
are given unto us exceeding great promises, precious promises,
that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. Well, here it is, partakers,
of the divine nature. That's what a lot of them use.
We are protectors of the divine nature. That's given as a quote,
a proof text, that we have a new nature. I may not be sure of
a lot of things in this world, but I'm sure of one thing. Anybody
with a divine nature is divine. He's divine. That's right, the
word divine means of or like God, or a God, or a deity. I don't know about you, but I'm
not God, nor am I a little God, nor a little Jesus. There has
only been one man with a divine nature, and that is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you mark that down. He had
a divine nature. He has right now in heaven a
divine nature. Well then, what does that mean
when it says or refers to partakers of the divine nature? We need
to look a little further. Now if you look everywhere that
partakers is used in the Greek, the word partakers is defined
as associate, companion, partner, or fellowship. Now, a pastor
has talked about this a number of times, having to do with what
does for takers mean. And the way it was used in most
of those places in scripture, it was used to express things
people have in common, such as this verse in Acts 2.44. And
all that believed were together. and had all things in common.
What do we here at Agar Avenue Grace Church have in common?
We have the true gospel. Therefore, we can fellowship
with God and each other around the gospel, which identifies
the true God and the true Christ of scripture. We come here that
we might have fellowship with a divine nature, with God himself. And we do this as we're able
to sit down and hear this true gospel that identifies God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. You can't have
fellowship with God apart from that, apart from knowing who
He is. Turn over and look at 1 John
1, because here in 1 John, the word fellowship here is close
akin to the word partakers. As it is translated here, the
word is used in 1 John 1 quite a few times here. It says, that
which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also
may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. And these things
write unto you that your joy may be full. This then is the
message which we've heard of Him and declare unto you God
is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have
fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not
the truth. But if we walk in light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship with one with another. And the
blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us of all sin. Now when Peter writes what he
writes in 2 Peter 1-4, He talks about us being made
partakers of the divine nature. But he says something before
that. And this alone ought to tell us something about what
he means here in verse four. This is why it's so important
to read the entire context of scripture in order to see what
the writer's talking about. In this case, Peter's talking
about the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. I can remember
early on in my search for this true God, people would throw out proof
texts. And it got where I had to not only go back at the beginning
of that verse, but a lot of times you had to go back even further
than that, the verse before or even quite a few verses before,
to see what he's talking about in context. Well, 2 Peter 1,
2 says, grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power
hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called us unto glory
and virtue, whereby given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises, that by these, now, by these what? Exceeding great
and precious promises. What is that if it's not the
knowledge, the knowledge given by God of the gospel? If it's
not the word of God, in other words, we hear from God as he
is through the gospel and we hear how he is and we learn about
him and we can commune with Him. And we know the way that we can
have fellowship with this God. If you don't know anything about
Him, and if you don't know anything about yourself, it's impossible
to have fellowship with God. But in 1 John 1 verse 7, it says,
But if we walk in the light, As He is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another. In the blood of Jesus Christ,
His Son cleanses us from all sin. We have fellowship with
God if we walk in the light. And sadly, most people take that
to believe that we conduct ourselves in a proper way, or we don't
tell any lies for a week, or we don't do anything bad for
a week, or we kind of clean ourselves up, we're walking in the light. We can have fellowship with God.
Not so. That ain't so. The only way we
can have fellowship with God, and the only way we can walk
in the light, is to walk in the light of the truth of the gospel,
as it is in Christ Jesus. He is the light of the world.
We can only have fellowship with God, who is divine, on the basis
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one and the only one
that we can both agree on. We can't have fellowship with
someone that don't believe the gospel. Look to this true God. He is the one and only one that
we can both agree on. Look at John 14.9. Jesus said unto him, Have I been
so long with you, and yet thou hast not known me, Philip? He
that hath seen me hath seen the Father. I don't claim any new
nature. I've only got one nature. And
it's not a good one. It's amazing to me that some
of those who claim a new nature, they sure have a funny way of
showing it. I only have a sinful nature. In other words, there's
only one nature that's natural to me, and that's the natural
body, the nature of sin. That's the only thing that's
natural to me. Anything I believe about Christ is supernatural,
brought on by God the Spirit. You see, the light and the truth
of these exceeding and great promises that we have in the
gospel that tell of Christ. They tell of His bloodshed. They
tell of His righteousness. They tell of everything being
in Him and believing and seeing this. Believing and seeing it. I can have fellowship with God
who is divine. Well, what happens when we're
born again? We are indwelt by the Spirit of God. We don't get
a new nature. We got a new resident, which
is the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Godhead.
The Father is active in saving us, the Son is active in saving
us, and the Holy Spirit is active in saving us. He dwells every
person that's born of God. God is said to be our God and
our Savior. God the Holy Spirit is not a
feeling, it's a person. Listen to Romans 8 beginning
verse 9. But you 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. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is alive because
of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. And all that is said here,
the two things that are spoken of, is the flesh and the Holy
Spirit. Nothing is said of a new nature
within us. Well, they say, what brings about this change in us? What brings about the fact that
one day we don't believe and the next day we believe? Or one
day we hate God and the next day we love God? And all these
other things. I suggest to you, it's not a
new nature. It's the Holy Spirit that indwells
us. Over in Galatians 5, you'll notice in these verses here,
the only spirit that is mentioned is in capital letters. Somebody
said, well, Paul's talking about the conflict between the old
nature and the new nature. I don't think so. Not if he writes
this in Galatians 5. This I say then, walk in the
spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the
flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary one to another, so that you cannot do
the things that you would. But if you be led by the spirit,
you're not under the law. And then down in Galatians 5.22.
But the fruit of the spirit is love, peace, joy, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, Against
such there is no law. And they that are Christ have
crucified the flesh and the affections and lusts. If we live in the
Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. Now, when he's talking about
this struggle, he's talking about two contrary things. There's
not a third person in there. He doesn't say that there's a
struggle between the old nature which is here called the flesh
and the new nature and the spirit. He says there's a struggle between
the flesh and the spirit. Capital letters, Holy Spirit.
It all boils down to this, what I am by nature and what God has
made me through the spirit of grace. The fruit of the spirit,
think about it. Fruit grows on trees. Which tree
is it? The spirit's tree. The fruit
of the spirit is love, peace, joy, long-suffering, gentleness,
and all these things. Not the fruit of the flesh, not
the fruit of a new nature. You see, the work of God's spirit
is one of revelation and one of preservation. He keeps us
in all that we're unable to believe, all we're unable to do that is
right, All that we're unable to do of good works, whatever
it is, is the Spirit working in us. And I do not doubt that
if the Holy Spirit did not dwell us, did not continue to save
us, we would show ourselves for the nature that we have. Suppose
if you say we have a new nature. Would you like the Holy Spirit
to just withdraw from you and let your new nature take control? I sure wouldn't. We as believers,
like the Apostle Paul, we have no confidence in the flesh, in
what men call a new nature. If you're telling me, if you're
meaning the work of the Holy Spirit that indwells the believer
when you talk about that new nature, I won't break fellowship
with you. But if you mean in some way you
have a sinless nature in you that cannot sin, we just might
have a problem. I believe that rather than a
new nature, we have a third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. And the wellness and any good
that comes from us is the Spirit's work. And besides, the real question
is not what we believe about that nature of man, The real
question is, is what think you of Christ? Why would somebody
make an issue of this thing, of believers having two natures?
Why would they even bring it up? Think about this thing. Why
would they not just speak of the glories and the wonders of
Christ as my Savior? We must dwell on Christ. It is
so sad to see what sinful men will do. and what extremes they'll
go to just to say that they have a sinless nature within. They will even go to the extreme
to make the sinless Christ contaminated by making him a sinner in some
mysterious way and then say that the believer has a divine nature
and call this doctrine Absolute substitution. We've heard that
preach years ago. Now this is what I believe this
morning. And I'll tell you something, if you can show me different
from God's Word, I'll stand corrected. And I'll believe you. But until
then, saying that a believer has a new nature is just like
the men that told the king that they had made a new garment for
him. It sounds good to the natural sinful man, but it's not true. Not true in the Word of God.
I don't feel threatened if you believe that. I don't feel threatened
one bit, but I'm going to believe it until God shows me something
different. I want to believe what God says
in His Word by the Holy Spirit. that dwells in me, not what men
say. Let God be true and every man
a liar. I pray that God will bless the
preaching of his word this morning. Thank you. Amen.