At Kingdomscribes Emil and Shell Swift posted an interesting discussion about Christians and “dual nature” (God is Usually NOT Subtle). Very good stuff. Here’s my response…….
Emil,
Great post!
I concur that people who have trusted in the righteousness of Christ are one person with one nature which has been “renewed from above”. Dualism of nature is out the window.
This fallacy of a dual nature has been sustained in recent Christian thinking even by bad translation. In Romans 6 the NIV translates (emphasis added);
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
What the NIV translates as a verb — go on sinning — is not a verb but a NOUN — ἁμαρτίᾳ. The phrase is ἐπιμένωμεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ — “we shall be on remaining” “to the sin”. “Sin” as a noun is not a state of “doing” but rather a state of being or residing – just as you live in the state of California and I live in Arkansas, so to live in the country of “Sin” is an impossibility because “death” has removed us from that jurisdiction of Sin.
The older translations get it right, even though people still didn’t understand the subtleness of Paul’s argument against his detractors and accusers of antinomianism. ASV;
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?
You rightly draw attention to the contrast of “old man” and “new man”. The place where Paul makes most of that contrast is Col. 3:9-10;
…lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him:
“Old” is easy to understand—old, in the way and worn out.
“New” is νέον – recently born, young, youthful – from where we get the prefix “neo-“ as in “neophyte” or “neologism”.
νέον is an adjective of an idiosyncratic word to further define “new” — ἀνακαινούμενον – a derivative of καινοs – to be changed into a new kind of life in opposition to the old and former.
OK, I’ve got the word-nerdiness out of my system for now…
I also agree that God’s major M.O. is usually not very subtle, and, related to that reality is that our distinctions can often be too subtle. We find ourselves in this present age living the life of the Spirit with a significant reality of ambiguity. We are certainly “new men” and “new creations” which have been transported out of the domain of Darkness and into the Kingdom of the Son – yet we are “new men” in the same old bodies. What we truly are has yet to be fully revealed and made manifest. We do have the power to choose not to sin, and we do have the freedom to choose to sin.
The question put to us each day by the Uniquely Human Son of God is, “What will you do with the freedom I have delivered you to?”
V
