THE CHRISTIAN'S

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

John Edmund Haggai

PART 5

 The Battle and the Believer

 C.  The Spirit nature is equally as hostile to the flesh nature as vice versa.

For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you cannot do the things that you would (Galatians 5:17).

Instead of "you cannot do the things that you would," the better translation is, "you may not do the things you would."  That is to say, the Spirit nature is here shown to be the aggressor resisting the power of inbred sin and delivering the believer from being victimized.  However,

The passage in Romans 7 reveals the believer under the domination of the flesh though theoretically and sentimentally in favor of the Spirit.  Actually, he is there shown to be the yielding slave of sin as far as the Spirit-domination goes.  He is "wretched" only in his weakness to get beyond anything better than mere theory and sentiment.          

In Galatians 5, the Apostle Paul shows that the new man asserts his claims, walks in the Spirit, in surrender to Him, with the assurance that in so surrendering to the Holy Spirit he will realize victory.

          (2)  Absolute triumph is possible.

However, the new believer must understand how to deal with this hostility between the two natures and how to appropriate the re-enforcement of Heaven to his Spirit nature.

(3)  The proper food is required.

Just as man is sustained physically by the food he eats, just as he is responsible to see that the proper food is taken, so it is mandatory that the spiritual man be fed and sustained by that food which is proper to spiritual nourishment.

 D.  The New Nature, the Spirit nature, begins as a babe and needs nourishment.

Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby (1 Peter 2:1-2).

(1)  The new nature is like a weak baby needing nourishment.  It is a new life, comparatively speaking, to the old life of the flesh.

When the Lord Jesus invaded history, He lay upon the human breast of Mary.  He was a baby.  Even so now He comes at the beginning of the Christian experience to lie as a baby in the breasts of those who profess His name.  No believer should be surprised then if he discovers in the beginning that the old nature seems to be stronger in him.  The old nature is identified with his very body, and with a world which is under the domination of sin.  The new Spirit nature, like the Lord Jesus, finds the human body as an inn filled with the animals of the flesh.

It was by the miracle of God that Christ came into the world.  It is by a miracle of God that Christ is wrought in the believer today.  Just as at the physical birth of our Lord He seemed to be the incarnation of goodness but of weakness, even so now the Lord Jesus must grow in the believing soul "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."  At the beginning of the believer's heavenward life, the Spirit nature - the "Christ in you" nature - is as a babe.

1.      How does the believer participate in the battle between the two natures?

2.      What food does the believer require?