The Bible is very clear that the Spirit of God dwells in us.
Our contact and confrontation with Satan and his demons are not from within us,
but rather external. Not from our Born Again spirit. Satan and his
demons are in the world. They are not in us and can never be. “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them because the
one who is in you [The Holy Spirit] is greater than the one [Satan, demons] who is in the
world” (1 John 4:4).
Understand
who the Christian (a Born Again person)
is: He is a New Creation, a
brand New Man;
he was never set free from sin or from Satan because he was never in servitude
to sin or Satan. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "if any man is in Christ, he is a
new species of being that never existed." Everything about your life, right from
the moment you received Christ, is brand new. You have a brand new life that is
not subject to the devil, demons, sin, and its consequences.
The terminology "New Creature" is from the combination of two Greek words: New = ‘Kainos,’ and Creature
= ‘Ktisis’
(pronounced as “ka-he-sis”). By combining the two words together we have; ‘Kainos Ktisis’. The New Creation has no past life. He
has no past record of sin(s). He has no old habits. This is because the moment a
person becomes Born Again marks the beginning of their New Creation life. It is
called New
because; it never existed before now. How difficult it is for the sense ruled
man or the religious mind to comprehend this reality. The new creation has no
Adamic or sin nature. He has no old habits. We are New Creations. We have no Adamic nature, no Old nature, no sin nature,
no Old man. Satan only tricks our mind through our
thought life, by impersonating the old man, thereby giving us the false
impression which makes us think the old man is still alive and in us. This is
one of Satan's subtle stratagems against us. Satan controls people's minds by subterfuge.
Of
course we still experience sinful thoughts in our mind, as a result of Satan's trickery; and these thoughts
trigger off lustful desires in our mind, which in turn instigates our body. All of these are Satan's
strategies to try to impose on us the false impression that we still have the
sinful nature, and that it is still at work in us. But nothing could be further from the truth.
These are all lying vanities of Satan. He is able to carry out these
manipulative acts on us because our mind and physical body are not the part of
us that get Born Again. Only the spirit of man gets Born Again.
Get this clear, the sin nature does not only resides in the
spirit of man but is actually another name for the old spirit of man. Therefore, the sin nature is another name for the old man. The Old man or sin nature is a spiritual
entity associated with the fall of man and can reside only in the
unrecreated human spirit, who is also referred to as the sin nature, old nature, or Adamic nature. In other words, the sin nature is a spiritual entity, that resides only in the spiritual
realm, not in the mental or physical realm of our bodies. That is to say, it does not reside
in the mind or physical body of a man. Nevertheless, its presence in the spirit
of man corrupted both the mental and physical realms of man. It corrupted both
the mind and the physical body. Therefore the sinful thoughts that we experience in
our minds or the sinful feeling that we still experience in our physical bodies
are simply the effects of the corruption (damage)
caused in our mind and body by the Sin nature which was removed in us in the New Birth. They are not the sin nature
itself. Now that we have been Born Again, the sin nature is forever gone, but
the corrupt effects it created in our mind and the physical body is still there. This is because our mind and physical body don't get Born Again. This explains why we still have those negative thoughts and feelings.
Therefore, anyone preaching or teaching that Believers still have the sin
nature simply doesn't know the truth. The sin nature left behind in our mortal
body and mind its negative or corrupt effects, prior to it's being expelled in
us at the New Birth. God confirmed this truth even in the Old Testament. He
said He would give believers in Christ a spirit or a new heart, and the old
heart of stone, He would remove. "I will bring them together and make them
like one person. I will put a new spirit in them. I will take away that heart
of stone, and I will put a real heart in its place." (Ezek. 11:19, Easy to read version).
"I'm
going to give you a new heart, and I'm going to give you a new spirit within
all of your deepest parts. I'll remove that rock-hard heart of yours and
replace it with one that's sensitive to me." (Ezek.
36:26, International Standard Version).
As far as the truth is concerned, We have no old man, no sin nature, no Adamic nature of the first Adam. No old nature, no stony heart. All of that is forever gone, blotted out forever. This truth is contrary to what religious-minded preachers erroneously imagine and falsely teach. They say that the reason Believers err is that we still have the old sin nature in us. That's a lie of Satan. If this were true then it means the New Birth is just merely a physical or mental change. But we know it's not something physical, nor is it mental change, but a total spiritual recreation. The Old Things that have passed away, refer to the Old Man and its Old sin nature, and habits. The bad habits we see some Believers exhibit today don't come from within them. They don't come from the Born Again spirit. They are all external. They come from the unrenewed mind and the pressures of the world around us. Another truth that kills the idea that the sin nature is the primary cause of sin is that; how come Adam was able to sin when initially he had no sin nature? Are we to say that Adam had a sin nature and that was why he sinned? of course not! We know that he never had a sin nature prior to his sinning. The sin nature came at the moment he sinned. That was when he died spiritually and his spirit transformed and became the old man. Therefore, if Adam sinned before he had a sin nature, then it means it's very possible for someone to do wrong without having a sin nature, as is the case with Believers. This means that it's not necessarily the sin nature that makes a person sin or do wrong. It's the free will of man acting on incomplete knowledge. Adam's knowledge was incomplete. And based on that incomplete knowledge, his free will acted. Therefore, we can understand why it is possible for a person to do wrong even without having had a sin nature. But the case of the Believer in Christ is different from that of Adam, in the sense that when Adam sinned his spirit man died, and received and became the nature of sin. This happened because Adam's original human spirit before the fall was simply the perfect natural human spirit without the righteousness of Christ. It did not possess the righteousness of Christ and therefore was corruptible by sin. The Believer, on the other hand, is different from Adam. We have a spirit that has been recreated and possesses the righteousness of Christ, and according to the word of God is incorruptible by sin or wrong deeds. (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 1: 23). Theerefore the Believers Born Again spirit cannot be destroyed, corrupted or touched by sin nor any act of wrong doing. This is because our Born Again spirit lives in Christ, in a dimension that is beyond and unreachable by sin. Our Born Again spirit can not and does not perticipate or engage in sinful acts. (1 John 3:9).
Understand this also, if Adam sinned prior to his receiving the sin nature, how awkward it is for some to claim that the sin nature is the thing that makes a Believer sin. On the contrary, Adam sinned, not because he had a sin nature, but because he acted in his free will having incomplete knowledge. Had he eaten of the tree of life earlier, he would never had fallen, nor would his spirit have become corrupted. Moreso, he would have gained a complete knowledge, and his free will would have been in total agreement with God's will. Today, in Christ, our propensity to err is not because of any sin nature. We have none. Instead, it is simply because of the unrenewed mind. Our Born Again Spirit has perfect knowledge in Christ, but due to the unrenewed mind, this perfect spiritual knowledge is not always expressed outwardly. Our mind and body are still in their imperfect forms, as a result of the defect created in the natural world by Adam's fall. Our physical body is not necessarily the problem, it's the unrenewed mind. It is because of this that we often err in our walk with God. Our mind and physical body would have to be changed when Jesus returns. As Believers in Christ, our mind and physical body are not the sin nature, nor the old man, nor the Adamic nature. The real problem is not the Born Again spirit, nor is it the physical body. The real problem is the unrenewed mind.
It
just doesn’t add up to think God would give birth to a New Creation that is
subject to Satan! James 1:18 says, “Of
his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of
firstfruits of his creatures.”
We
are literally born of God; we are His legal and vital offspring, with power and
authority to cast out devils. We are one with God (1 Cor. 6:17); we have His very life, and are in His class of
being! This is who the Christian really is! He’s been raised together with and
made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above all
principalities and powers.
Many in the so-called deliverance ministry misunderstand who we are because they misunderstand the redemptive work of Christ and the New Birth. The Bible very clearly says that Christ’s work on the cross was sufficient. Further deliverance is not necessary. To teach otherwise gives the impression that Christ’s work is incomplete. A lack of proper understanding of redemption and new birth truth is the reason many preachers fumble in their teaching and preaching. But the word of God cannot be bound. Truth must prevail. One of the saddest facts that we have to face today is that the Sons of God, men and women with God in them, men and women with the very Nature of God, are walking "as mere men of the world." (E.W. Kenyon). This is so because they do not know who they are (our identity) in Christ. Sin Consciousness has given us a wrong picture of God and a wrong picture of the New Creation. It has made us see God as a holy, just, austere, and unapproachable Being who is ever on the alert to discover sin in us and condemn us. That conception has made us afraid and caused us to shrink from Him. The conception is wrong: He is a Father God. Sin consciousness has also given us a wrong picture of who and what we are in Christ as New Creations. It has created a devastating religion out of Christianity, making us cower where we ought to take a solid front. As we await the return of Jesus Christ, the world is about to witness the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ from the rubbles and shackles of organized religion, to manifest the fulness of Christ, more than ever before. For when the world grows darker, the Church shines brighter.
The New Creation is
complete in Christ, perfectly cared for, perfectly loved. In the presence of
such great Scriptures, as 2 Cor. 5:21,
we should repudiate every thought of weakness and Sin Consciousness,
rise in consciousness to the level of our place in Christ, and who we are and declare our freedom. The sin problem stops
being a problem the moment we know or understand what we are in Christ. Sin consciousness is a problem
only to those who are ignorant of who they are in Christ, their rights and privileges, and their place
in Christ.
Prize Chukwuka
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