We have looked at God’s desire for our sanctification and the obstacles to His objective. May those very obstacles move us to God’s provision the Holy Spirit.
Let us not kid ourselves we are no match for the flesh, the world or Satan!
The Holy Spirit John 16:7-15
The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, draws us to Christ, and when we accept Christ as our Saviour the Holy Spirit regenerates us (born again),baptizes us into Christ, indwells (comes to live in us), seals us and fills us.
Born again or regenerated John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
His indwelling
Romans 8:9 But ye are not
in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of his.
1Corinthians 6:19
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy
Spirit which is in
you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
The Holy Spirit has brought to us a new nature, one that is Godward
2Peter 1:3 According as his divine
power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given
unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust.
The Holy Spirit has made us to be a new creature, creation.
2Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any
man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new.
The new nature is a favorable disposition toward God. It consist of the love of God written in the human heart. The Holy Spirit places it inside the believer at the moment of regeneration. The new nature is the internal, and therefore the superior way of God administering His eternal absolutes. The Holy Spirit is working through this new nature; He never works through the old man or our sin nature. (It is dead)
Here we are with a new nature that knows God and at the same time, we still have our old nature, which continues to sin? Why did our Father after condemning the old man in the death of His Son allow that crucified life and nature to reside in His re-created and risen ones?
1. To reveal the depths of sinfulness from which we were saved. (grace)
2. To teach us to count ourselves dead to the old, and alive in the new.
3. To teach us to abide in the Lord Jesus, above.
4. To teach us to walk in the Spirit, below.
5. To glorify the Father and manifest the life of His Son.
6. To give us good cause to watch for His appearing.
7. To give us a greater appreciation of eternal glory.
The Spirit and the old nature
The key to deliverance from the works of the flesh is not strength. Freedom from the flesh comes by explicit faith. As we reckon on Calvary’s crucifixion of the Adam life, the Holy Spirit applies the finished work of Christ to that life, therefore by holding it in the position of death or inoperative. Romans 6:11; Galatians 2:20
Romans 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto
sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Galatians 2:20 I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
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 us to render the new nature productive (alive).
He works according to the principle of life out of death.
John 12:24 Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall
into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it
die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
The death of Christ on the cross is to be gloried in, my death
The resurrected Christ is to be glorified in my living, alive (His life in me)
It is somewhat hard for us to think that our old man is dead, because we still see him cropping up and causing us trouble. We try to deal with this problem in our own strength and when we do we always fail. We must see our need of the ministry of the Holy Spirit if we are to see victory over sin in our lives.
The sinful nature dooms the sinner
The sinful nature defeats the believer.