02.01. Part 1

There seems to be an increasing amount of teaching today, particularly among the vocal "covenant" theologians and their sympathizers, that the old nature is "eradicated" by the new birth, leaving the believer with no biblical explanation for the presence of sin in his life.

George Cutting explains the "new-creation" position of the two natures in the believer—the "new" being righteous and holy (Ephesians 4:24), without even the possibility of sin (1 John 3:9); the "old" entirely corrupt (Ephesians 4:22), but "positionally" crucified (Romans 6:6). Understanding this distinction is especially important in our day —ed.

Part I

THOSE who have much to do with the difficulties and exercises of the newly-converted, are constantly hearing some such expression as this: "I thought I was saved once, but I now begin to fear that after all I’ve only been deceiving myself. Not only do I feel no better in myself, but, if anything, even worse than before I professed to be converted."

Now, in such cases, one generally finds that it is not so much their sins that trouble them, as the heart-sickening disappointment they feel, as more and more the truth is forced upon them, that their new birth has not only effected no improvement in their evil nature, but that that nature seems much worse than before their conversion. Then comes many a fruitless effort to improve it; but, alas! only to end in deeper wretchedness than ever. In such a state of soul Satan finds but too fitting an opportunity of hurling his terrible darts. He suggests that they are only miserable hypocrites, professing to be what they know they are not; that they had far better give up the whole thing, come out in their true colours, and own that they have never been converted at all!

Oh, what intense soul-agony do such assaults cause, when, as yet, true liberty is unknown! and only those who have really passed through such exercises can have any conception of their untold bitterness. It is with a desire to encourage and help such that this little book is sent forth.

GOD’S FACTS AND OUR EXPERIENCES

Many believers pass through the sorest distress because they are continually searching their own hearts for evidence that they have been truly [saved]. "When I compare my daily experience with the plain truths in. God’s word," such a soul will say, "I begin to fear that I am not born again at all. For example, I see in the first Epistle of John three absolute facts stated about the one who is ’born of God,’ and I cannot answer to even one of them, do what I will.

1st. He does not... and cannot sin. (1 John 3:9).

2nd. He overcometh the world. (1 John 5:4).

3rd. The wicked one toucheth him not. (1 John 5:18).

Now, in the face of such a scripture, I am bound to confess—

1st. That I can, and, alas! do sin.

2nd. That instead of my overcoming the world, it constantly overcomes me.

3rd. That the enemy has defeated me times without number—thus he does touch me.

"Is there any wonder, therefore, in the perplexity or even the alarm that I often feel in contemplating such a scripture, in the face of such an experience as mine?"

Well, it must be confessed there is not; but let us say for your comfort that those who are "dead in their sins" never experience such conflict. It is only converted ones who really desire to answer to the thoughts and wishes of God. The unconverted "desire not the knowledge of His ways." They have "no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3:18). But let us return. We have been noticing one impossibility; viz., "Whosoever is born of God cannot sin." Let us also look at another (Romans 8:7-8), "The carnal mind" (literally ’mind of the flesh’) "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." Mark well these important contrasts:

1. The one who is "in the flesh—as "born of the flesh"—"cannot please God."

2. The one who is "born of God cannot sin."

It may be well here to state what is meant by "the flesh" in the subject before us. It is the evil or fallen nature, in every child of Adam, poisoned by indwelling sin. It is the real source of every sinful action performed by him.

TWO DISTINCT NATURES IN ONE PERSON

We have seen, that at our natural birth we get an evil nature, so evil that God says it is impossible to make it subject to His holy law. It "cannot please Him." "Behold," says the Psalmist, "I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalms 51:5).

Then, at our spiritual or second birth we receive, through the sovereign operation of the Spirit by means of the word of God (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23), another nature entirely, a "divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). The blessed Lord puts it to Nicodemus in a few words thus: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). So that the believer actually possesses two natures; viz., "that which is born of the flesh," and which, because of its very nature, "cannot please God;" and "that which is born of the Spirit," which from its essential nature "cannot sin, because it is born of God." In Romans 7:1-25 you will find these two natures distinctly mentioned side by side. See, for example, Romans 7:25.

"So then, with the mind [i.e., the renewed mind, or, as we have been expressing it, the new nature] I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh [i.e., the old nature] the law of sin." Then, again, Romans 7:22-23, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind," etc. A simple illustration here may be helpful. A farmer’s wife, having placed a hen upon a sitting of duck’s eggs, found, at the end of a week, that the greater part of them had been destroyed by some enemy of the hen-roost; upon which she made up the sitting with hen’s eggs. When the hatching-day came round, the hen, of course, found herself responsible for two distinct broods of little ones. This, however, caused her little or no trouble, till one day she discovered, to her dismay, that the little ducklings had taken themselves off to a pond close by, and so delighted were they with their first excursion on the water, that her loudest clucks and most urgent calls alike proved fruitless to bring them back to dry land. The chickens, on the contrary, shewed not the slightest inclination to venture into such an element, and would have been miserable enough had they been forced into it.

Here, then, were two distinct natures, with entirely different tastes and habits. That which came from the duck’s egg had the nature of the duck, that from the hen’s egg the nature of the hen; yet both were hatched in the same nest. Now, all the farmers’ wives in the world, with all the men of science at their back, could never change the nature of a duck into that of a chicken. The duck would still keep the nature of a duck, and the chicken the nature of a chicken. A thousand times more distinct are the two natures in a Christian, and this because of the different sources from whence they are derived. One is from man—lost, guilty, fallen man; the other from God, in all the holiness of His sinless nature. One is human and polluted, the other divine, and therefore undefilable. So that every evil thought or deed of the believer springs from the old nature, while every good desire, or godly deed, finds its source in the new. For example, you may remember the day when you had a desire to retire to your quiet room alone for prayer. That desire came from the new nature. But while upon your knees, perhaps, some wicked, wandering thought came into your mind. That was the outcome of the old. But now comes another important enquiry, viz., IS THE OLD NATURE IMPROVED BY THE NEW?

There is but one answer: Nothing can improve the flesh. It was tried in every possible way, from the fall of Adam in Eden to the cross of Christ at Calvary. And what was the result? Why, just this: God’s holy law was willfully broken, when He came righteously demanding obedience from man. His Son was cruelly murdered, when He visited this world in grace to man. Indeed, instead of the presence of a divine life improving the old nature, it only manifests its utter badness. Just as making a poor beggar the present of a new coat by no means improves the appearance of his old, thread-bare, dirty waistcoat, but the very opposite.

Then, it may be asked, if my old nature can neither be forgiven, nor improved, two difficulties at once present themselves.

1. "How can I be delivered from it ?"

2. "How do I get power over it?" In considering these difficulties, it will be well to notice the important difference made in Scripture between...

"SIN" in the flesh and "SINS"

Very frequently, the evil principle, born in us naturally, is simply called SIN, while the evil actions, words and thoughts which are the consequence of possessing this corrupt nature, are called SINS. You will see the distinction in 1 John 1:8-9 : "If we say that we have no SIN, we deceive ourselves," etc. And again: "If we confess our SINS, He is faithful and just to forgive us our SINS." This distinction is of the greater importance when we find in Scripture, that while, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, God does forgive our sinful deeds, i.e., our SINS; yet He never forgives SIN in the flesh, but "condemns" or judges it. Let me seek to explain how this is.

Suppose you have a child who has naturally a violent temper. In a fit of passion, one day, he throws a book at his brother, and breaks a large pane of glass in the window. Well, upon penitent confession of the naughty deed, you would be free to forgive him. But what about the bad temper that made him do it? Do you forgive that? Impossible! You detest it, and, if you could, would get rid of it—thoroughly rid of it. You utterly condemn it.

Now, the bad temper [though, in itself, only one feature of an evil nature] would answer more to indwelling SIN; while its evil activities, in hurting the brother and smashing the window, would answer more to the SINS. And so I repeat, though God does most freely forgive the believer’s sins, He never forgives the indwelling SIN. Condemnation is the only thing He can righteously apply to it—death is our only way out of it (See Romans 8:3). "God, sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin [i.e., a sacrifice for sin], CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH." In the earlier chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, the apostle is occupied in showing our deliverance from SINS; but in Romans 6:1-23 he shows how we are delivered from SIN. For example, in Romans 4:25 he speaks of Christ as having been "delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." And the blessed consequence of His having been thus delivered is, that those who believe on Him are righteously forgiven—are "justified"—have "peace with God." But, as it has just been said, in Romans 6:1-23 he is treating of deliverance from sin, another matter entirely. "He that IS DEAD," he says, is freed [or justified] from SIN" (Romans 6:7, margin.).

Now I think you will, in figure, get a glimpse of the difference between these two things by comparing the cleansing of the leper in Leviticus 14:1-7 with that of Naaman in 2 Kings 5:10-14. In the first Scripture I ask you to notice that; the poor leper, totally unfit to do anything for his own cleansing, has simply to stand by and see all done for him. The bird "alive and clean," is dipped into the blood of the slain bird, and then let loose into the open field; that is, the poor leper beholds a "living," "clean" one going down into death for him, an "unclean" one. The bloodstained substitute then soars on high, and the lips of the priest pronounce the leper clean.

Thus hath "Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). And, therefore, not a spot can be found upon, nor a charge brought against, those who believe on Him. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7); and "BY HIM all that believe are justified from all things." (Acts 13:38-39).

But, in the case of Naaman, it is not another going down into death for him; he must himself go there (looking at Jordan as a figure of death). The happy result need not occupy us now. Suffice it to say that, speaking figuratively, all that he had been as a leper was left behind in Jordan’s flood. And thus Scripture teaches, that not only did Christ go down into death for the believer, but that, like Naaman, he himself has been into death. "You are dead," or, more correctly, "You have died." (Colossians 3:3).

There is, however, one great difference between our deliverance and Naaman’s. He was delivered from the presence of the plague; whereas we shall never, while here below, be delivered from the actual presence of "indwelling sin."

Thus all that we are by nature, as well as all that we have done, has already been dealt with on the cross; and He who there bore our condemnation said, "IT IS FINISHED." Who then shall condemn us? Nay, is THERE ANYTHING LEFT TO CONDEMN? Nothing. Does Satan bring our sins before us? We have neither to deny nor excuse them; faith can simply answer, "Christ died for them." Is it the sinfulness of our nature that he would harass us with? Faith can but add, "And I died too." But now comes a practical difficulty with many. The writer once heard a believer pray most earnestly that "he might feel that he was dead with Christ." But does God ever speak about our feeling dead? Never. He says, "Likewise reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). We are expected to believe that in Christ’s death we died, simply because God says so, and not because we feel dead, or ever will. God Himself clearly states the fact for us, and says, "You are dead" (Colossians 3:3), and He expects us as simply to believe it, as we do that Christ died for our sins. God reckons our Substitute’s death as our death, and the reckonings of faith will always agree with His.

Thus our old standing, as children of fallen Adam, came to an end before God at the cross; or, as Scripture puts it, "Our old man has been crucified with Christ" (Romans 6:6), and we are now connected in life with the last Adam—the risen Christ; or, as it is expressed in Romans 7:4, "Married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead." As believers, we have been brought into a new position altogether. He who took our condemnation, by being made sin for us upon the cross, is now risen out of death; and since God sees us "IN HIM," we are necessarily beyond the reach of condemnation.

"Death and judgment are behind us, Grace and glory are before;

All the billows rolled o’er Jesus, There they spent their utmost power.

Firstfruits of the resurrection, He is risen from the tomb;

Now we stand in new creation, ’Free’ because beyond our doom."

* * *