Remember being taught that there's a good dog (your new nature) and a bad dog (the sin nature) inside you and that whichever one you feed the most will be strongest? I used to teach that, but the fact of Scripture is that we have only one nature and that's the righteous nature of Jesus Christ. We still sin, but not because it's our nature to sin. It's because of the power of indwelling sin, which the Apostle Paul said is in our body. (See Romans 7) People who argue that Christians have two natures usually think the flesh and the old sin nature are the same thing. They aren't. If you're interested in more detail on this subject, check out the chapter called "A Dead Old Man" in my book, Grace Walk. In the meantime, here's a great video that shows what having two natures would look like. Do you really think you have "a good dog and a bad dog" living inside you? If so, you must often feel like this poor guy :)
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Steve,
ReplyDeleteGreat Video! This was one of the truths I learned through my Advanced Discipleship training at Crosslife International in Vero Beach Fl. My sister actually gave me the "Two Wolves" story when I was going through some difficult times in my life. So I believed this for some time. Now that I now the truth about only being able to have one nature, when I share this one question always seems to arise;
"What about the war between flesh and spirit, could this analogy be use in this sense?"
What do you think?
poeticpast@yahoo.com
Yes, I think that would be an accurate example of flesh and Spirit :)
ReplyDeleteHilarious makes for a good visual
ReplyDeleteOne nature but 2 voices - God's and the enemies' The enemy loves to place thoughts and then make us believe they came from us and then watch us on his video screen of the natural.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, Steve.
ReplyDeleteI think the erroneous thinking of two natures is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of God. That is Jesus loves us and is pleading His blood before the Father to appease His anger. This makes God a schizophrenic. This in turn puts us into a state of confusion as to which God we are dealing with. In other words we accept this lie about God and make it our own.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic blog and the flesh vs. spirit analogy is outstanding Steve. Dave
ReplyDeleteIt is like what Dr. Steve said about the two trees in the garden, the tree of knowlege of good and evil and the tree of life. The enemy has our focus on what you can or cannot do. If you get in that battle you will lose every time. But if you eat from the tree of life, self is not the focus. If we could stop all the bad and do all the good, we would still be up the wrong tree. It was never about rules, it was about relationship
DeleteDr. McVey's teaching on the two trees have opened up
ReplyDeletethe problem between flesh and spirit, rules or relationship We empower what we focus on. If we could stop all the bad and do all the good it would still be all about self. Trying to fight the flesh and surpress evil is futile. That is where the devil wants us. We find ourselves up the wrong tree.