Christian Living

The New Nature—Too Good to Be True?

by J.W. Phillips
05/30/25
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The New Nature—Too Good to Be True?

Once the new nature is received and then later explained, we are stunned by this teaching, startled to say the very least.

This is understandable, because the “self” we’ve long known is still on the scene. It didn’t disappear.

However, for believers, that old “self” is no longer our true self, not even partially so. Qualities associated with that self can still manifest, though it doesn’t need to; because our true self, the new nature, can radically impact our soul where the flesh loves to roam.

The flesh can be consistently sidelined, but it won’t be rendered extinct—Dead! Gone! Existing no more!

You see the problem? We are well acquainted with that self! And because it sometimes gets its way still, we identify with it, and think it is still us, when it isn’t.

Unless we let truth eradicate our error, Satan will exploit this error, big time!

Consequently, when this new life—indeed, divine life, the essence of your new nature begins to manifest, you may be tempted to wonder, “Is this really me?”

In a flash, the devil will leap on the scene to tell you it isn’t you. He’ll argue, vehemently, that this change of behavior will soon go away, and that the divine invasion is only temporary.

In the devil’s ongoing attempts to get you to doubt the reality of your new nature, he will accelerate accusations against you, trying to trigger a fastidious search for all that is wrong in you.

With each possibility cited in this campaign, he’ll seek to pockmark your soul with blemishes—too many to deny and too severe to cover up.

Then magnifying all this with his mirror suddenly thrust in your face, he will say, “This is you! See it—and don’t try to deny it! The record doesn’t lie!”

Oh? And is this what God would say?

There are several passages in Scripture that offer a remarkably different accounting; and when reading them, even the believer is surprised, if not somewhat perplexed.

For example, Romans, chapter 4, verses 20-22, makes a statement about Father Abraham that seems to make no sense at all.

He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith and gave glory to God, and being fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to perform. And therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Upon reading these words, it is we who are tempted to waver … stagger … and stumble.

Talk about revisionist history! How could the Lord say such things about Abraham?

Had an on-the-spot reporter questioned this assessment, she would have asked, “What about Hagar? Do you remember the way Abraham and Sarah panicked, and how they decided to get their long-promised offspring through Sarah’s handmaid?"

Why, the Middle East is a boiling political cauldron today, all because Abraham and Sarah wouldn’t trust God to fulfill his promise!

And very likely, our on-the-spot reporter would also bring up that episode recorded in Genesis, chapter 17, where God showed up in person one day to assure Abraham that he was going to be a father of a nation.

And how did Abraham respond?

The Bible tells us that Abraham fell on his face and laughed!

Little wonder, too. With Sarah being a half-century beyond childbearing years and Abraham himself being a hundred years old, this message from God seemed preposterous!

Abraham didn’t stagger at the promise, you say? Why, he fell over backward and howled at it!

More than once we see these eyebrow-raising assessments from the Lord that cause us to wonder how statements like these could be made.

In the Old Testament, for example, we are told David was a man after God’s own heart. He was? This man who committed adultery—and murder! —and then lied about it for a whole year?

This man with seven wives, who was hardly a great father, and had to face out-and-out rebellion within his own family? How can a man like this be singled out for such a high compliment?

In the 17th chapter of John’s Gospel, we see Jesus giving yet another astounding assessment when he said of his disciples, “They have kept your word.”

They have?

What about their panic during the storm, and their pettiness in the Upper Room, and their scattering when persecution came, and their unwillingness to relate redemptively to those of another race?

How are we to account for evaluations like these?

Actually, there is only one way to account for them, and it is this: When God saw the deepest deposit in the hearts of Abraham, David, and these disciples, he recognized what was of God, and what through eternity would endure, and then with the breath of kindness he blew the rest away.

The record doesn’t lie, you say? No, but the record can be expunged by the blood of Jesus!

For he who is gracious enough to remember our sin no more will see what the Accuser doesn’t want us to see—our true self, our new nature! And on that basis, he will extend Heaven’s warmest welcome, offering astonishing accolades no saint ever thought would come.

What God does in these assessments is precisely what we ought to do, too. Instead of becoming a part of a Satan-inspired scrutinizing of the record, we should look for the good, marking out those times when the new nature in us did manifest, and when faith was released, and when our circumstances were changed, and when the Lord was glorified.

Not for one moment should we retain in our memory what God has forever removed from his. Learning the lesson of past failures is all that is required.

What we must not allow is for these memories of past sins to undermine our current understanding of self.

Just know, now and always, that while the facts the devil assembles against us may be correct, his interpretation of what those facts mean is not at all correct.

If we saw ourselves as God sees us, the Accuser’s attempts to stamp our self-image with his incriminating indictments would be thwarted.

What we now see would greatly encourage us to be who God says we really are.

In the most profound sense, once we receive the new nature, we are, ever and always, much more than ok!