Occasionally, it is asked whether a redeemed person only has the new nature or also an old nature – called “flesh” in the Bible. In other words, whether he has two opposing natures until the Rapture. This question has a significant impact on our life of faith.
The Meaning of “Flesh”
It now seems necessary to take a closer look at the various meanings of the term “flesh” in the Bible. The expression “flesh” does not always mean exactly the same thing. Only the context makes the individual meaning clear. Now, we should not expect to find the New Testament use of the word “flesh” in the Old Testament, as if it were already understood in the Old Testament to mean the source of all evil in us. For as long as man was still being tested by the law, man’s corrupt character and condition could not be fully revealed.
Often, “flesh” simply means “people,”humanity,” and i “mankind,” or “n many cases, it encompasses the whole animal creation. We also find this use of the word in the New Testament: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), i.e., the Lord Jesus, the eternal Word, became man, He took on real humanity. In connection with the fall into sin, however, the term “flesh” gained an additional meaning in the Old Testament and is very often used as a symbol of the weakness and inadequacy of the creature, e.g:
- “My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is flesh” (Genesis 6:3; cf. Job 7:17-18; Psalm 144:3).
- “All flesh is grass” (Isaiah 40:6).
- “And He remembered that they were but flesh, a breath that passes away and does not return” (Psalm 78:39).
- “What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:4).
- “So that all flesh would perish together” (Job 34:15).
- “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength” (Jeremiah 17:5).
This use of “flesh” is also continued in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus says: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).
It is only in the Gospel according to John that we find the term “flesh” for the first time as a designation of the evil, corrupt nature in man—our sad inheritance through the Fall. It is the evil source in man from which all his evil thoughts and deeds spring. “Flesh” is used in this sense in John 1:13, for example, where we hear about the “will of the flesh”, from which the new birth does not emerge.
Two Natures
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:6)
The one born anew possesses two natures, the old and the new. It has often been objected that we do not find the expressions “old nature” and “new nature” in Holy Scripture; this is true. But we do find the thing itself. Understanding it contributes greatly to the strengthening of young converted souls. Let us therefore think about this a little.
Every believing Christian has experienced two births: the bodily birth and the new birth. Through the first he became a child of his parents, through the second a child of God (John 1:12-13). Corresponding to the two births, we can rightly speak of two natures, of two sets of moral characteristics that the believer has: One set corresponds to the earthly life, the second to the divine life. As children of Adam we have and manifest the human nature, as born-again children of God we possess and manifest the divine nature. In addition, we must distinguish between our nature as human beings (for God created man in sincerity at the beginning, Ecclesiastes 7:29) and our nature as fallen human beings. So when we speak of the “old nature”, we mean the latter. However, we will always retain our human nature as such, and we will also remain the same personalities—regardless of the changes in soul and spirit through rebirth or of the body at the resurrection.
Even a butterfly does not have just one form of appearance: it first had to go through various stages. At first there was only an egg, later a caterpillar, and later still a chrysalis. And then one day this colorful butterfly took to the blue skies! We can certainly distinguish between the nature of the egg and that of the caterpillar or chrysalis etc.; nevertheless, it is the same being or creature that always retained the nature of an insect. So it is also important for us to learn to distinguish between our “human nature” and the actual personality that is responsible before God.
Now it is often a great, confusing difficulty, especially for young converts, to have to recognize in themselves two such completely opposite sources, two such completely different natures side by side. Two examples from the divine textbook of creation may help a little here. Have you ever seen a field of wheat in the wild? No, there is no such thing: wheat fields only exist where there are people. Man’s heart is by nature like an uncultivated field that can produce nothing but thorns and thistles. If good fruit is to come forth, life, seed of the right kind must be planted in the soil. In the new birth, God plants the new nature in us through the seed of His Word (James 1:21; 1 John 3:9), which is perfect in itself as His gift. But evil, the old nature, still exists in us, just like thorns and thistles in the field in which the wheat is sown.
Or let us take the example of a peach branch grafted into a wildling. The wildling as such is of no value to the fruit grower. It may produce fruit one day, but it is inedible. If this is ever to change, all the digging, fertilizing, and pruning will not help: new life must be breathed into it. This happens through an intimate connection with the budding branch of a “noble” tree. Once the life connection has been established by grafting in the peach branch, the fruit grower no longer calls the tree by the name of the wildling, but by the name of the noble tree from which the budding branch was taken (1 John 3:1), because he has become a partaker of the nature of that tree. The fruit grower then also cuts off all the old shoots (Romans 6:11; Colossians 3:5), for if he were to allow them to grow, they would only produce worthless fruit again, bearing their old character.
Now, all this illustrates the words of our Lord: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
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