Differences Between the Two Natures.

Introduction:

            In the first section, we learned three very important truths.

 

The Necessity of the Second Birth

            First of all we saw the necessity of the second birth. Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” It is absolutely essential that we be born again to enter or even see the Kingdom of God. We will see why this is so in this section.

The Difference of the New Birth

            The second thing we learned was that the flesh birth and the spirit birth are two separate births. You cannot do anything with or to the flesh to bring about the new birth. Baptizing it, making it behave, promise, work, join, feel sorry, confess, or turn cannot bring about the new birth. The two births are like Siamese siblings that are merely step brothers, and of different parents. Just as a child cannot behave to bring about the birth of a brother, so the actions, attitudes, or intentions of the flesh cannot cause the spirit birth to take place.

When my wife, Julie, and I were married, we chose a name for our first daughter, if we ever had one. We chose April, because we were married in April, and the middle name of Charity, because that is the Biblical word for “love.” Five years later April was born. She is now a wonderful wife, mother, and daughter. She was also a wonderful child, but when the other kids came along-wonderful-not so much. She liked being an only child, and never forgave the other siblings for being born.

Actually, she is a pretty good sister, too, but I am sure you did not find the exaggerated assessment of her relationship between her and her siblings hard to believe. The point is the good or bad behavior of a child does not affect the birth of another child, especially in the case of strangers. So it is with the birth of the spirit. It is not brought about by the actions or inactions of the flesh.

The Natural Results of Sin

            Thirdly, we learned the method of the second birth. Jesus told us exactly what must take place to bring about the second birth. In John 3:16 we see that God did all the work to bring the spirit birth about. He did the loving, and He did the giving. All we do is receive it by believing.

Everything that man, who is a sinner, touches, becomes corruptible. Sin is like an atomic melt-down. When the atomic reactor in Chernobyl melted down, everything around it was corrupted by the radiation. That is how it is with sin, except there is no limit to the reach of the corruption of sin. When the first sin took place, it was like the explosion of the death star in Star Wars. However, the pulse of sin radiated out into the universe until it immediately corrupted the whole universe. Each sin that we do is still doing that today. At the moment of the first sin, everything began to die. Everything began to wear out. Everything began to deteriorate. The second law of thermodynamics took effect for the first time. You see, God did not create the earth a void according to Isaiah 45:18. “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; He created it not in vain (void), He formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” However, when sin came into the universe, the sentence of death passed upon all of creation. In Romans 8:21-23 God says:

“The creature (creation) itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the  Spirit,  even we  ourselves  groan  within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.”

 

The Payment for Sin

            So God made what seems to be an obvious statement. He said, “The wages of sin is death,” in Romans 6:23. However, by making this statement, He effectively separated the penalty for sin from the sinner. Man sins, but the payment for the SIN is death: not the payment for the SINNER is death. Therefore, Jesus could remove the sin from the sinner and pay for it some other way. The only problem is the payment for sin is still death, because sin still causes death, which is eternal separation from God. The only thing that destroys sin is death.  Sin is like   a   cancer   that   will, eventually, destroy its host. However, when the host dies, so does the cancer. Somebody had to die to destroy sin, and if the death was going to cover all of the sin of all mankind for all time, the dying one must be eternal. Furthermore, that eternal one must be from outside the realm of the corrupted dying universe or else they would be under the influence and penalty of sin. That eliminated everyone but one person, and that is God Himself. So, God came to earth as man, took our sin upon Himself, then He died to pay for that sin. He effectively destroyed sin Himself, because an eternal being and only an eternal being can make an eternal payment in one moment of time.

 

Jesus Made the Payment

            Being eternal is not quite the same as being everlasting, although the two terms are used pretty much interchangeably in the Bible. An eternal being does not just live forever. He, actually, lives outside of time. After all, time is a creation of God, who is eternal. In other words, Jesus lived in all time at all time. That is how Jesus, an eternal being, could make an eternal payment in one moment of time. Then, after He finished the work of dying and paying for all sin, He came back from the dead. The only thing that He requires of us is that we trust  His  death payment.  You do not even have to understand everything that He did to get you to heaven. That is a good thing, because I mentioned some pretty deep stuff for the Bible student that does not have to be understood or even believed. You must simply trust Him to get you to heaven. You need to believe that whatever it took to get you to heaven, He did it.

 

Condition to Receive Christ’s Payment for Sin

            When we choose to trust Jesus’ death on the cross as the complete payment for our sin, then we can know we are going to heaven. God says, “You that believe on the name of the Son of God may know that ye have eternal life.” in I John 5:13.

When we trust Jesus that way to get us to heaven, we are born again spiritually. In this section, we will see some vast differences between these two births, why it is impossible to get to heaven by the works or lack of sin of the flesh, and why it is necessary to have the second birth.

 

The Flesh Birth

In John 8:44[1] Jesus tells the Pharisees, “Ye are of your father the devil.”

Now, here again, it is important to know a little bit about the background of the verse. You might think of the Pharisees as a really bad nasty bunch of hypocrites, and from God’s point of view you would be right. However, from an earthly view, the Pharisees were likely the most humanly righteous people to live on the face of the earth[2]. Their religion permeated every aspect of their life. God had given six hundred thirteen laws in the Old Testament, and for every law God gave they had added three more…and were still adding[3]. God had said, “Remember the Sabbath Day.” They had added, “Do not wear shoes with nails in them on the Sabbath. Do not walk over a mile. Do not build a fire. Do not travel more than one floor at a time on an elevator. Do not turn on a light switch.” God says in Romans 10:2:

 

“For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”

 

In Acts 26:5 God inspired Paul to write:

“After the most straitest (sic) sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.”

 

The point is the flesh, which is of its father the devil, appears to be very religious. Doing your best and being better than the rest will not help you be born again.

Secondly, we see from this verse:

 

“The lusts of your father (the devil) ye will do.”

 

The Fall of Satan

            Now what are the lusts of the devil?

In Ezekiel 28:17[4] we see the very first sin that was ever committed. We see in Verse thirteen that Satan was in Eden, the garden of God. We also see that he was a created being. He was not born. I say this so that you can see that this is talking about Satan and not some man. In verse fifteen we read that God created him perfect. God is not the author of sin. In verse fourteen we see that Satan was an anointed cherub, and God had set him above  the other angels. Because of these things and the beauty that God had given him, according to verse 17, he sinned by his heart being “lifted up.” The first sin was pride.

In Isaiah 14:12-14[5] we see the first manifestation of pride when Lucifer stated the five “I will’s.” If you look closely at these five “I will’s” you will find that all five of them were commendable. They are the things that God wants for us. The problem is Satan wanted to do them his way, when the fact was that God had “set him so” according to the passage in Ezekiel.

It is for this same reason that trying to work for salvation is so insidious. Isaiah 53:6 tells us:

 

The Fall of Man

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way, and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

 

You see, before we are saved, we are trying to do something to earn salvation. Proverbs 16:25 says:

 

“There is a way that seemeth RIGHT unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.”

 

That way is by trying to get to heaven our own way. This is the way of pride. This way is the way of depending on human works rather than solely on the work of Jesus Christ. The first characteristic of the flesh is it wants to be religious in order to gain credit for salvation itself. That is why God said in Ephesians 2:9 that salvation is:

 

“Not of works lest any man should boast.”

 

In Romans 3:27-28 God says:

 

“Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: But by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

 

To get a little bit ahead of ourselves, I would like to see the next step to which the flesh leads. In Romans 1:21-32 we see the downward digression to which the flesh leads. In verse 21 God says:

 

“When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

 

Without the belief that God gives salvation as a free gift without any works of man, the flesh takes  credit  for   salvation   by   human   works,   and   is unthankful. In verse 25 God shows us where that leads:

 

“Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator.”

 

Of course, the creator is God. Who is the creature that is worshipped? It is man. Salvation by works is self-deification. When man believes that he is the highest authority, form of evolution, or closest thing to god, he begins to believe that whatever he decides to do is all right. He no longer is accountable to anyone but his own conscience. From that point in verse 21 unto the end of the chapter you see the depths to which man’s flesh will fall.

Let us look at how Satan got mankind to commit the first human sin. In Genesis 3:1-6 God reveals how Satan got man to sin even in a perfect environment.

In verse one we see that first of all Satan questioned God’s Word when he said:

 

“Yea, hath God said?”

 

When you question God’s Word, you can bet that that attitude did not come from the spirit. It came from the flesh, and the flesh came by it naturally, because it learned it from its father, the devil.

In verse three, we see where Eve was tricked into adding to God’s Word when she added “Nether shall ye touch it.” When someone claims to have a new, special, or additional revelation from God, you can be sure that that did not come from the spirit. That is the way the father  of  the flesh  works to deceive our flesh. The flesh loves to be a little more godly, more blessed, more religious than other men whereas the Bible says:

 

“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory (All glory sought by man is vain); but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves,” Philippians 2:3.

 

Finally, in verse 4 Satan made an outright lie when he said:

 

“Ye shall not surely die.”

 

However, they did.

Did you notice the rest of verse 44 of John chapter eight?

 

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

 

The lying and securing of the death penalty for Adam and Eve were just in keeping with Satan’s character. Our flesh has those same characteristics. Lying (unless it is for a good cause) and harming others (unless it will make us look better) are characteristics of our flesh. Wait a minute! That is not right! Lying is always wrong, as is harming the reputation or welfare of others.

Back in Genesis 3:6 we see the three areas that Satan used to tempt Eve.

 

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her; and he did eat.”

 

These three tools of Satan are labeled in I John 2:16:

 

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh (The tree was good for food), and the lust of the eyes (It was pleasant to the eyes), and the pride of life, (a tree to be desired to make one wise), is not of the father but is of the world.”

 

Wait a minute! Did I hear something about pride again? You will also hear more about the lust of the eyes in one of the following sections. Lust of the flesh is of the devil.

What about the spirit? In I Peter 1:23 God says:

 

“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”

 

The Spiritual Birth

            This verse is telling us two things about the new birth.

First, it is incorruptible. That means it will never age, get sick, die, or rot.

Second, it is born of God. It says that we are born again by the Word of God. That does not mean by the Bible, although according to II Timothy 3:15: it is “The Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” It is talking about Jesus. In John 1:1, 14, 18 God says:

 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

 

If that does not convince you that the second birth is of God, look at Galatians 3:26:

 

“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.”

 

In I Corinthians 15:50 we see the significance of the incorruptible quality of the spiritual birth, because the Bible says:

 

“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

 

Corruption and Incorruption

            Before we approach the truth about corruption and incorruption, we need to address the first part of the verse. God points out very clearly that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. We need to understand what the Kingdom of God is, and what it means to inherit a kingdom. Of course, the Kingdom of God would be that which God rules. That should be obvious. What does God rule? What is His domain? God rules all of eternity and everything in it. So  when the  Bible  speaks  of  the Kingdom of God it is basically speaking of eternity in God’s domain. We might view that as eternal life. Obviously, there is a lot more to it than that, but that is what the Kingdom of God is, essentially.

 

How to Inherit a Kingdom

            Second we need to understand how to inherit a kingdom. Inheritance is not obtained by works or goodness. There are many good people that have never ruled in a kingdom, and there are a great many wicked people that have. Inheritance does not come by behavior, but by relationship. There are four things that must take place before someone can inherit a kingdom.

We Must Be an Heir

            First of all, the person must be related. When I was a teenager, there was a pretty rich man named Howard Hughes. One day he died, but I did not inherit a thing. That is because I was not related to him. That is why we need to be born again. Our first flesh birth is not of God, but is of the devil. However, as we have learned, when we trust Christ as our Savior, we become sons of God.

 

The Testator Must Have a Kingdom to Inherit

            Second, there must be something to inherit. When my dad died, while he had lived comfortably in his life, he did not leave a great deal behind. We ended up putting most of his funeral costs on our credit card. While he and I were closely related, I did not inherit a great deal. In the case of God, there is an eternal kingdom to be inherited with infinite riches. How do we know? We know, because He tells us.

 

The Testator Must Die

            Thirdly, there must be a death before anyone inherits something. Hebrews 9:16-17 tells us, “For where a testament (Last will and testament) is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.” Now we see another reason why it was important for Jesus to have died.

 

There Must Be a Will

            Fourthly, there must be a will. I had an uncle in Vero Beach that was considered very well off. He died, and I received nothing whatever for an inheritance. Why not? I was related. He had something of value to inherit. He died. So why didn’t I receive an inheritance? I was not in his will. I suppose he left everything to his own children. How do we get into the will of God? John 6:40 tells us:

 

“This is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

 

How to Receive the Inheritance

We Must Believe in Christ

            So to be in His will, we must see the Son and believe on Him. Remember what it means to believe on Him. That simply means to take God at His Word. Believe that what He promised about eternal life is true. What did He promise? He promised that if we would believe on Him, we have eternal life. In John 6:47 Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.” That is His promise. It is conditional simply upon our believing it.

 

We Must See the Son

            “But when John 6:40 says ‘Seeth the Son’? How do we do that?” some might ask.

What do we say when we understand something? “Oh, I see.” Do you see what I mean? Do you see? So we must understand some things to know what to believe. What things?

 

Two Things We Must Understand

There are two things that you must understand. You must understand who Jesus is and what He did. Who is He? Jesus is God the Father who came to earth in the flesh. What did He do? He did everything it takes to save and keep you saved when He died on the cross and came back from the dead thus paying the complete penalty for all of our sin.

I heard one person say, “It says that we “may” have everlasting life. It does not say we “do” have everlasting life.

The word “have” is present tense. So, we have eternal life right now, if we have trusted Christ to save us. The word “may” expresses “permission” as opposed to the word “can” which expresses ability. By saying that we “may” have everlasting life, it focuses on God’s action rather than using “can” which would focus on our own ability. The bottom line is we do not have the ability to obtain eternal life, because we cannot do it by our own fleshly efforts. Therefore, we must be born again spiritually, and that is an act of God.

 

Differences of the Two Natures

            Back in I Corinthians 15:50 God tells us that corruption cannot inherit incorruption. This is not talking about the wickedness of the flesh. It is talking about the characteristic of the flesh of aging, getting sick, feeling pain, dying, and rotting. That is why the flesh cannot inherit something eternal. It cannot live long enough to inherit it. On the other hand, we have already seen in I Peter 1:23 that the spirit is born of incorruptible seed. The second birth will never age, die, or rot, so it will last forever, and is, therefore, well able to inherit something incorruptible.

So we see that the flesh is a work of the devil, while the spirit is born of God.

We see that the flesh is corruptible, while the spirit is incorruptible.

The flesh is characterized by pride, and tries to earn eternal life by its own works or righteousness, while the spirit trusts in God’s way of salvation.

The flesh is born when we come into this world, whereas the spirit is born when we trust Christ as our Savior.

There are two separate births.

They have two different origins.

They have two different outlooks.

They have two different methods of salvation.

They have two different durations.

And they have very different characteristics.

In view of these facts, we begin to see what could be an expected result of these differences in I John chapter three:

 

“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. V1

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. V2

And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure. V3

Whosoever committeth sin trangresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. V4

And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. V5

Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him. V6

Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. V7

He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. V8

Whosoever is born of God doeth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and He cannot sin, because he is born of God. V9

In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” V10

 

In verse one we are made to understand that God is talking about being born again. “Behold what manner of love.”  What  did God do in His love? In I John 4:10 we see:

 

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

 

Satisfactory Payment

            “Propitiation” means “satisfactory payment.” It refers to a full payment. If I were going to buy a car, I would have to come up with enough cash, someway, to make a down payment, and then I would have to make monthly payments until the debt was paid off. That is not a propitiatory payment. Propitiation means that God is completely satisfied with the payment that has been made. In the way I would have to buy a car, if I would miss a payment, the car could be repossessed. The way Jesus made the payment for our salvation would be like paying a complete cash payment for a car. Nobody can repossess it. Jesus satisfied the demands of a holy, righteous God when He died on the cross. Nobody can repossess our salvation.

 

Now We Are the Sons of God

            In verse two we see that we are sons of God, now. We do not have to wait until we die to see if we attain sonship and receive our inheritance. That makes God our Father. God is a perfect Father. What would you think of a father who kicked his son out when he messed up? God would not do that.

 

Our Spirit Birth Does not Sin

            Verse 6 tells us:

 

“Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not.”

 

Wait a minute! I sin. In fact God has just finished saying in I John 1:8:

 

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

 

So how can God say two chapters later that if we abide in Him we sin not? God is talking about the spiritual birth. The flesh does not abide in Him. It has its abiding in the devil.

It goes on to say:

 

“Whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him.”

Our Flesh Sins and Does not Know God

            Wait a minute! I sin. Does that mean that I do not know the Lord? That statement is talking about the flesh. The flesh only knows things five ways. It knows things through seeing,  hearing,  tasting,  feeling,  and  smelling.  We  have  never known Jesus in any of those fleshly ways. So, here God is talking about the flesh that sins and cannot know God. Spiritually, we can know God, and only spiritually. We can “see” Him as in Psalm 34:8. God says to “taste and see that the Lord is good.[6]” We “hear” the LORD as He speaks through His Bible, and we can “smell” Him as the Bible describes His garments of “myrrh, and aloes, and cassia,” in Psalm 45:8. He says in Acts 17:27 “They should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him.”

Verse 8 God shows us that:

 

“He that committeth sin is of the devil.”

 

Our Flesh Is of the Devil

When we sin, does that mean we are of the devil? This is talking about the flesh. The flesh is of the devil, and, consequently, it sins. It goes on to say in this verse:

 

“For this purpose the Son of man was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”

 

Our Flesh Will Be Destroyed

            What? Is God threatening to destroy me if I sin?  This is still talking about the flesh. I do not want to spend eternity in this old aging, aching, sinning body. I am looking forward to the resurrection of a new sinless body. That is what this is talking about. This is a wonderful promise, not a terrible threat.

 

Our Spirit CANNOT Sin

 

Verse 9 has been misunderstood even by some fundamentalists. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin;” I have heard it taught that this should say that whosoever is born of God does not “practice” sin. Let me tell you that we do not need any practice. We just sin naturally. It is the natural thing to do for the natural man which is the flesh. However, the spirit does not commit sin. This is written in the present tense, which is a continuous tense. In other words, we do not commit sin now, or any time in the future. “But wait a minute! I sin!” you might admit. Yes, and you will sin until the day you die. That is what the flesh does. However, when you sin, it is not your new birth that does it. The rest of the verse tells why:

 

“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he CANNOT sin, because he is born of God.”

 

Why It Is Impossible for Our Spirit to Sin

            I do not often tell about my weaknesses. I am afraid that the devil, who is not omniscient, and cannot hear my thoughts, might find out and tempt me in the area I mention. However, there are a few weaknesses that I inherited from my father. I cannot fly, and I cannot breath under water without some outside help. “That’s no weakness!” some might say. But the birds fly, and fish breath under water, and I am a whole lot better than a bird or a fish. So why can’t I fly or breath under water? It is because my father could not do those things. Therefore, it is impossible for me to do and silly for me to try.

That is the way it is with the spirit. Since it is born of God, it has the characteristics of God when it comes to sin. God cannot sin (James 1:13[7], II Corinthians 5:21[8]), and so His children (our spiritual birth) cannot sin. However, the devil’s child (our flesh) can and does sin.

According to Romans 7:18, not only does the flesh sin, thus demonstrating a huge difference between the spirit which cannot sin and the flesh which can and does, but the flesh cannot do any good. God says:

 

“I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”

 

Our Flesh and Spirit Are Opposites

            Not only are the flesh and spirit different; they are opposites. They  have  different   parentage,  life spans, desires and characteristics. Understanding these things can make understanding what would otherwise be confusing passages of Scripture as we have just seen in I John 3.

Another confusing verse that becomes very easy to understand when we understand these two births that are working in the life of a believer is I John 5:18:

 

 “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”

 

As we have already pointed out, God says in I John 1:8:

 

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

 

As you can see, John includes himself in this verse. John had been saved for at least 60 years when he wrote that verse, yet he included himself in this statement and used the present tense. In other words he still sinned, but in I John 5:18 he says that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. Is there a contradiction here? Of course not! He is speaking of the new nature. Can Satan touch a saved man? We know of a man in I Corinthians 5:5 that committed fornication with his father’s wife. God said:

 

“To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”

 

The Devil Can Destroy the Flesh of a Believer

Satan would not only touch his flesh, but he would destroy it. But Satan could not touch this man’s spirit because it was born of God. It would remain saved until the day of the Lord Jesus.

In I Corinthians 2:14-16 God says:

 

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

 

So we find that the natural man, the flesh, or old cannot even understand the  things  of  the  spirit  or  the  mind  of  Christ. How does the flesh learn? By the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling and smelling. We cannot understand about spiritual things by any of those senses.

In I Corinthians 6:9-20 God tells us:

 

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

 

It Is Possible for a Believer to Commit Fornication

It has been taught that believers will not do any of these things after they are saved. Let me remind you that the man of which we spoke in I Corinthians 5:1-5 was a fornicator, yet God said that he was still saved in verse five.

Others have rationalized that believers will remain saved, but those who sin in this manner forfeit their inheritance. That is, actually, doctrinally sound, but that probably is not what God is talking about here. The reason we would believe that is because of the way he describes them in the next verse.

 

“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

 

These things are not obtained by a good life or by investment of what God gives us in this life. These are provided by God upon faith alone in Christ alone apart from works. So then what does it mean?

Those actions mentioned in verses 9-10 are performed by the old nature. The new nature cannot do those things. However, when we are born again, we still have the old nature, and the old nature can still sin, so if we yield to the old nature, our life can still be characterized by sin. The old sin nature that is controlling that believer’s life will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The warning is clear. If you yield to the flesh and allow it to control your life as did the fornicator in chapter five, you will lose everything for which you have worked, and will probably even lose your physical life as well; but you are still sanctified, justified, and washed in the name of Jesus, spiritually.

 

What We Should Do

            Now that you see the necessity of the new birth, if you have never trusted Jesus Christ to get you to heaven, I would encourage you to trust Him, now. All you have to do is believe that Jesus is God the Father who came to earth in the flesh to pay for all of our sins. Trust Him. He is trustworthy.

 

 

QUESTIONS:

1-What must a person do to be born again? __________________

2-What are the two things a person must believe to be born again?

A- ______________________________________

B- ______________________________________

3-What is the basic characteristic of the flesh?_________

4-What are the three things that led to the fall of Adam and Eve?

A- ___________________________________________

B- ___________________________________________

C- ___________________________________________

5-What four conditions must happen before a kingdom can be inherited?

A- ___________________________________________

B- ___________________________________________

C- ___________________________________________

D- ___________________________________________

6-What are the three areas of temptation?

A- ___________________________________________

B- ___________________________________________

C- ___________________________________________

            [1] John 8:44 “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

            [2] Carl F.H. Henry, Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, (United States, Canon Press, 1973) pp. 508-509.

            [3]  “Talmud,” The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia Vol. III,  p.1695, 1908 edition.

            [4]  Ezekiel 28:13-17 “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God… the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God…Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness.”

            [5]  Isaiah 14:12-14 “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!  how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”

 

[6]  Psalm 38:4 “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”

            [7]  James 1:13 “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”

            [8]  II Corinthians 5:21 “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”