Diametric Differentiation

by Miles Stanford

Let us distinguish yet further between the old life and the new. One important distinction is that sooner or later the healthy believer realizes that he is not alone in his body. The condemned Adam-nature [OSN] from which he was delivered at the Cross is nonetheless in residence, and as sinful as ever.

Unless we see the extent to which the Cross separated us from the old, we will not be able to keep clear of the enslaving flesh and walk freely in the Spirit. Our Father positionally separated us from the Adam-life [OSN] by our crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In that we have two distinct natures seeking expression through the means of our as-yet-unredeemed body, we must keep them separated in our thinking. In itself the old nature is ever strong to do evil; only by the indwelling Spirit is the new nature strong to bring forth righteousness.

The Spirit and the Old Nature

The sinful nature dooms the sinner, and defeats the believer. The growing Christian is sadly aware of the many ramifications of the flesh that fester within. "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like . . ."(Gal. 5:19-21).

The progressing advancing believer not only discovers the characteristics of the fallen nature, but he comes to know and experience its overpowering strength, despite the fact that he is a new creation in Christ. The fallen life within is undergirded by the power of sin, the body, and the world. "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Rom. 7:23).

In time, the defeated believer realizes that the Holy Spirit is the one who is commissioned to deal with the old man. "But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire [idea of hot pursuit] against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: for these are in opposition to one another: so that you may not do the things that you please [from the new man]" [Gal. 5:16, 17).

Although He could do so, the Spirit does not deal with the fleshly life by means of His own strength. He doesn't have to. He depends on what God has already done about the old man. And so should we. The key to deliverance from the works of the Flesh [OSN] is not our strength, as we must ultimately learn. Freedom comes by means of explicit faith. As we reckon, consider as true our identification with Christ, that is Calvary's crucifixion of all that we were in Adam, the Holy Spirit applies that finished work to our life thereby holding it in the position of death, inoperative. [Rem: positionally we died to the sin nature, we were separated from its power.]

The Spirit and the New Nature

While the Spirit draws on the death of the cross to render the old nature powerless, He ministers the life of Christ to render the new nature productive. He works according to the principle of life out of death.

"For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 4:11).

Only the believer who has repeatedly gone down in defeat under the relentless power of the Adam-nature can appreciate the necessity of walking in dependence on the Holy Spirit. It is the faithful Spirit who gives growth to our new-creation life, slowly manifesting the very image of its Source. This growth is evidenced by the fruit of the Spirit as set forth in cluster form in Galatians 5:22 and 23.

We might give some thought to the first segment of that fruit of the Vine, which is love. Obviously this love is that of the Lord Jesus; resident in His nature, and therefore in our new nature. We are to reflect this love, as well as all the other characteristics of His life, in order that we may intelligently depend on the Spirit for their development in us.

Before considering how to pursue love, we must understand how we are not to walk. What are some of the characteristics of the old nature that we are to shun? It does not suffer long; it is unkind: it envies, vaunts itself or brags, and is usually puffed up. It behaves itself unseemly, seeks its own. is easily provoked, and thinks evil.

This Adam-life within [sin nature] rejoices in iniquity, and does not rejoice in the truth; it refuses to bear all things, believe all things, hope for all things, endure all things. Quite the contrary. And it always fails! Why be occupied at all with such a foul brood?

How are we to follow after or pursue love? We are to see where God has positioned us, and live there. By means of our crucifixion and resurrection with Christ our Father has released us from the old life that cannot love properly, and brought us into union with the life of the one who is Love. "Your life is hid with Christ in God." "God is love" (Col. 3:3; 1 John 4:8).

As new creations in Christ we no longer have to yield to indwelling sin; in fact we are commanded to stop letting it rule, since the cross has freed us from its power (Rom. 6:12). But we are responsible to abide in Him by faith, in order that His love and righteousness may be manifested to this needy world through us. Much of the how to escape the old and become established in the new is embodied in Romans 6:11-13 (NASB).

(1) "Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."

(2) "Therefore let not sin reign [stop letting sin reign] in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts."

(3) "And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."

I make choices daily as to what ground I am on, as to what is the basis of my life on that day: either to be dominated and defeated by indwelling sin, or to be freed and growing in the Lord Jesus Christ. There can be no neutrality. The Lord Jesus has made it very clear: "No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other....He that is not with me is against me" (Matt. 6:24; 12:30).