Christianity Oasis Forum

[Netchaplain]

For the Christian, once we have learned that all of God’s chastisements (trials) are for learning, and never for punishment arbitrarily (Heb 12:10), believers can ever rest assured in “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Phl 4:7). We, knowing that our path is often difficult realize all is for “instruction” and guidance (and continues to manifest learning even from our sin nature). Also, considering that all is used “for good to them that love God” (Ro 8:28), there shouldn’t be anything of which to keep us “troubled” and “anxious” (John 14:1, 27; Phl 4:6); especially upon considering the admonishment (or command) of “casting all your care upon Him” (1Pe 5:7)!

The souls of individuals are influenced mostly by the human nature (“old man”), so much so that apart from rebirth, it “rules” and “dominates” the soul’s decisions (Ro 6:12, 14). Only the Christian has two natures, and it’s the a new nature (“new man” - Eph 4:24; Col 3:10) which makes one a “partaker of the divine nature” (2Pe 1:4) and is what controls Christians (Rom 7:22; Eph 3:16); and as one Bible commentator explains concerning the partaking of Christ’s divine nature—“not essentially, or of the essence of God, so as to be deified, this is impossible, for the nature and perfections of God are incommunicable to creatures; nor, hypostatically and personally, so as the human nature of Christ, in union with the Son of God, is a partaker of the divine nature in him; but by way of resemblance and likeness, the new man or principle of grace, being formed in the heart in regeneration, after the image of God, and bearing a likeness to the image of his Son, and this is styled, Christ formed in the heart” (Gal 4:19 - J Gill; https://www.christianity.com/bible/comm ... /2-peter/1 ).

As it should be well known, only those who do not apostatize manifest the indwelling of the Spirit of God, for He alone insures believers in avoiding departing from the doctrine of the Christian faith; and what they depart from is only the doctrine of faith and not faith itself, demonstrating the absence of the “work” of God (Phl 2:13) in the soul. The Spirit of the Father and of Christ is the primary source of Christians assurance of being “the children of God” (Ro 816)—He being the Creator of the new Life (Jhn 3:3, 5, 6, 8; Tit 3:5) and Author of the Word of God (2Ti 3:16; 2Pe 1:21).

It is the “new man” or new nature—“which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” and “is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created it” (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10) that God uses to keep us from willing after the “old man” or original nature (hence not sinning willfully - Heb 10:26; Ro 7:17, 20). I believe this answers to the “seed” (new man), by which believers “do not” and “cannot sin” (1Jn 3:8, 9), e.g. “So then with the mind I myself (new man) serve the law of God; but with the flesh (old man) the law of sin” (Ro 7:25). Thus our sins continue to derive from the old man, and the righteousness from the new man; and it’s comforting to know we are no longer considered to be after the old man (Ro 8:9)!