Nature's Way

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A UAE Falcon

Bill and I drifted into a business partnership around 1978-ish. In the early days, Dad and I spent an inordinate amount of time each week responding to a recurring question: Do Christians have one nature or two? That is, one new nature or a combination of a new nature and an old, sinful nature?

By the mid-1980s, Dad and I were answering the one-nature, two-nature question monthly. By the middle 90’s, maybe once a quarter. Further, by this time, major-league messengers with mega-platforms were teaching one-nature theology. The theological tide had shifted.

In what I realize now was a shortsighted victory celebration, I concluded, Well, that battle is won. We can turn our attention to other matters.

Ha! A theological distinction crucial to the Gospel’s transformative work is not territory Satan writes off.

Not long after the twenty-first century dawned, there was a resurgence of two-nature teaching. Today, this is once again the default to explain why Believers sin when they don’t want to.

Is there a more plaintive cry than Paul’s in Romans 7: “I don’t understand. Why do I do what I don’t want to do?”

The two-nature teacher answers that it’s because of your residual sinful nature.

For example, here’s Paul David Tripp:

“Our wrong desires and behaviors exist because evil is a matter of our nature, hardwired in our spiritual DNA as human beings from birth. I cannot escape my evil, which is part of who I inescapably am. Confess that sin is not just what you do; it is who you are.”

Brother Tripp, like others who embrace two-nature theology, elaborates that there is cause for hope and change in our lives because of our new nature as Believers. Then, switching back to the other side of his mouth, he quotes from Jeremiah, “[Can] the leopard change his spots?” and explains the impossibility of this because the leopard’s spots are not fur-deep, they are DNA-deep (13:23).

UAE desert

The rationale goes like this: When you are lost and separated from Christ, your nature is old and sinful. When you get saved, your nature is twofold, both old and sinful and new and righteous.

Thus, the dilemma: Can you change your sinful ways? No. Sinning is what you do because you are sinful by nature. Your sinfulness is like the leopard’s spots. It’s in your DNA. But you can hope and try and labor against your old, spotted self because you have a new nature in Christ. Try. Try hard. There is something new along with something old. Hope. Rededicate yourself to hoping. But. Can the leopard change his spots or the sinner his sinfulness?

Tripp teaches, no. It’s not possible for the leopard to change his spots. Then he concludes his leopard analogy with this: “Celebrate that because of Christ, you are spotless!”

Which is it? It’s not possible to be naturally spotted and spotless simultaneously.  Two-natured theology is doubletalk.

Nevertheless, this is the two-nature answer to the heart-cry in Romans 7: “If I’m a new person like Romans 6 declares, then why do I keep behaving like an old, lost person?”

What do the one-nature folks say?

You are new in Christ.

The one-nature view is that a Christian has one nature and it is new. Here’s Paul writing in 2 Corinthians: “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come” (5:17).

Great. But how is the question of Romans 7 explained?

If you still have a sinful nature, you wouldn’t be bothered when you behave like a sinner. Therefore, in order for the new man in Christ to sin, he has to be deceived into behaving contrary to his new self (ref. Rm. 7:14ff).

Here’s the deal: When you examine the implications of two-nature teaching, it diminishes the work of Christ on the cross to the degree it makes His death, burial, and resurrection irrelevant. The Bible says you are new in Christ. But if you aren’t really new—you’re old—then scripture is bluster and the work of Christ window dressing.

The idea of Jesus’ work being redemptive and finished is conceptual at best. All salvation does is create a civil war within you. In reality, it is physical death that delivers you from your old self and leaves you righteous before God.

This view of nature’s way leaves you hopelessly mired in sinfulness with no meaningful recourse for victory or even progress beyond what self-discipline and resolve might produce.

In two-nature theology, there is lots of Jesus talk. But in practicality, death is your deliverer from civil conflict, not Jesus.

So, why do folks cling to two-nature teaching?

Sharjah of UAE

I think they may feel presumptuous, or hypocritical, because their actions and theology don’t align. I think they may fear that if they are literally the new people Romans 6 describes, then freed from their shackles of guilt and shame they would rush headlong into rampant sinfulness and sinning. They may fear the loss of [false] humility for no longer being a rotten sinner. Maybe they fear the heresies of perfectionism, or the irresponsibility of Gnosticism, or antinomianism, or license. Maybe they don’t want to lose the excuse of a sinful nature and accept the responsibility of relying upon the Spirit.

Freedom is heavy. Responsibility weighty. Relationships take work. The person with a split nature has an excuse for evading all of these. The person with a new nature desires to dig deep into each.

Better to cling to crummy theology and live like a worm than embrace biblical theology and the grandeur of transformation in Christ. For the two-nature theologian, the Gospel of grace is only conceptual. For those made new, the Gospel is the amazing grace Yancy describes as a banyan tree filled with birds singing Mozart.

When Christ was resurrected, you were resurrected with Him.

Here is the root question: In Romans 6, Galatians 2, et al, it is clear that when Christ died, something in you died as well. So, what died?

The biblical answer is the old self, also called, your old man, and your self as a descendant of Adam.

When Christ was crucified, your old self was crucified with Him. That part of you that was sinful by nature because of your lineage in Adam—this is laid out in Romans 5:12ff—was dealt a fatal blow. When Christ was buried, your old self was buried with Him. Then, according to the early verses of Romans 6, when Christ was resurrected, you were resurrected with Him, a new creation through Him and in Him. Of this, scripture is crystal clear.

This leaves two questions:

First: If scripture is so clear, why the nature debate? Answer: See six paragraphs earlier.

Second: Is your co-crucifixion with Christ literal or figurative? Meaning: Did your old, sinful nature actually die with Christ or is this a biblical manner of speaking?

If figurative, then your earthly identification with Christ is meaningless because it does you no earthly good. Listen to sermons. Study your Bible. Guilt. Shame. Inspiration. Discipline. Training. All the tools of religion are at your disposal, but it’s all static chatter until you die. Only then does what’s figurative become true.

But if Romans 6, and Paul’s declaration in Galatians, “I am crucified with Christ,” actually describe who you are—now, in real time—then the reality of Christ as your life can be experientially real every day of your earthly life.

In this case, as a Believer, you are a living demonstration of Christ’s redemptive work. This is the Gospel applied, embraced, demonstrated, and relevant.

Do you still commit sins?

But if you believe you are possessed of two natures, then a civil war rages within. You can possess great theological information, but redemption will always be afflicted with the doubletalk of, “I’m spotted, I’m not spotted.”

The Gospel applied in the lives of the Redeemed is Satan’s worst nightmare. Why? Because the KEY to the Gospel applied is the life and work of Jesus exhibited daily in His people.

Either the transformation of the Gospel is theoretical or it is literal, practical, and applicable. Either Jesus is an idea and death is the actual delivery mechanism to God’s eternal promises or Jesus makes new people and lives through them right now.

Given this, it is no wonder there is such contention in the spiritual realm to discount
the thoroughness of Jesus crucified, buried, and resurrected. Two-nature teaching has plenty of nice words about Jesus. But in truth, if the old self still resides within the Believer, then Christ failed miserably in mankind’s most fundamental need, i.e., to be accepted by God.

If you are not delivered from your sinful, spotted nature, spiritual freedom is a pipe dream until you die. Only when you breathe your last will death deliver the spotted you to heaven. Then, standing outside the pearly gates, death will complete what Christ couldn’t. You will finally, and truly, be made spotless.

Never mind that nothing spotted gets into heaven and death has zero power of redemption for spots. If Christ’s incarnation and sacrificial work were insufficient to fix your current condition, then redemption demands something greater than what Christ attempted.

If true, then you and I are of all people most to be pitied.

My reading friends, there is NO way Jesus’ redemption left you afflicted with inherent sinfulness. There is NO way Jesus left you distant from God with a residual sinful, rebellious nature. If this is the Gospel, Jesus failed utterly.

In truth, He came from heaven so that through Him we who were far off could be brought near.

Do you still commit sins? Of course. But you hate it when you do because sinful behavior is not representative of your true nature. There is a big difference between committing sin because I’m deceived and committing sin because it is my nature to do so.

Note: For more on this topic, see Lifetime Guarantee by Bill Gillham. To see more on this topic in a novel, see No Mercy by Preston Gillham.