Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ." He did not try to crucify himself nor did his crucifixion take place at some special point in his spiritual experience through some act on his part. It did not take place in Damascus, Arabia, or even when he was caught up to the third heaven. But the death of the old "I" took place on the Cross when Christ died there.
This truth becomes easy of apprehension if you but remember that God sees every person either "in Adam" or "In Christ." He deals with the human race through these two representative men. When Adam died the human race died in him. You died in Adam. So did I. Through that spiritual death "the old man" found birth and usurped God's place on the throne of man's life. But Christ came as the last Adam to recover for God and for the race all that had been lost to them through the first Adam. Christ died and the race of sinners died in Him. The old "I" in you and in me was judicially crucified with Christ. "Ye died," and your death dates from the death of Christ.
The perfection of God's grace is marvelously manifested in this glorious fact of co-crucifixion - the sinner with the Saviour on the Cross. It needs only the perfection of man's faith to make it a glorious reality in his spiritual experience.
The Christian's Choice - Self or Christ
There are two kinds of Christians, easily identified and clearly distinguished from each other. The question may be asked, "How can there be two streams from one fountainhead which flow so widely apart?" We must get an answer to this question if we are to choose to be spiritual Christians and live consistently as such.
The Co-Existence of two Natures in every Believer
Every Christian is conscious of a duality within himself. Part of him wants to satisfy every demand of self. Part of him longs for the rest of the promised land, another part lusts for the onions, leeks, and garlic of Egypt. Part of him grasps Christ, part of him grips the world. There is a law of gravitation which pulls him sinward while at the same time a law of counteraction pulls him Christward.
The Scriptural explanation of this duality is that every believer has within him two natures: the sinful Adamic nature; and the spiritual Christ nature. The first Epistle of John gives us a clear unfolding of this truth.
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (John 1:8).
If any Christian, however full-grown, says he has no sin and is entirely freed from his old nature, he deceives himself. He does not deceive his family or his friends, least of all does he deceive God. He only deceives himself. In the next verse God makes provision for the sins of Christians.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
The "sins" and "all unrighteousness" mentioned here are those of saints.
If there is "no sin," then the believer "can not sin." Every stream, however tiny, must have a source. The apostle John knew well that some people longing after holiness would be tempted to go beyond Scripture, so he uses very drastic language by way of warning.
"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him (God) liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:10).
The gross,fleshly sins may have gone from us, but what of the hidden sins of the spirit; the harsh judgment, the secret irritability, the wrong attitude, the unkind thought. Then what of the sins of omission. I am more afraid of James 4:17 than of almost any verse in the Bible. It tells me that sin is not merely an act or an attitude; but it is an absence. It is what I do not do that I know I should do. Who then is without sin?
In every believer is the old nature that can do nothing but sin. Inherent within it is a threefold inability: it cannot know, obey or please God. By physical birth we possess this God-ignorant, God-defying, God-displeasing nature which is bent on the gratification and the glorification of "self."
In every believer is a new nature which cannot sin. Inherent within it is a threefold capacity: it can and does know, obey and please God. By spiritual birth we possess this God-knowing, God-obeying, God-pleasing nature which is bent on gratification and glorification of Christ.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 4 - "The Conflict of these Two Natures in Every Believer")
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