Bible Studies

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Our Two Nature’s

Jan 30, 2003
By: Rick L. King

As a human being, our Creator has given us two natures. We have a carnal nature and a Spiritual nature. Our walk on this earth is a choice as to which one we will allow to rule and follow. This article goes in to the meat of the Word that will help us to understand the differences and how to overcome. Jesus said that the truth would set us free, free indeed. Knowledge is power. The carnal man uses knowledge for self. The spiritual man uses knowledge to die to self, that he may find true life.

Galatians 5:
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Flesh- 4561 sarx sarx sarx (Greek translation from Online Bible lexicon)
AV-flesh 147, carnal 2, carnally minded + 5427 1, fleshly 1; 151
1. the sensuous nature of man, "the animal nature" without any suggestion of depravity with cravings
which incite to sin
2. the flesh, denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man apart from divine influence, and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God

If the flesh refers to our flesh as our outer covering, then the body in itself can not sin. If we were dead, the body is still here, yet it does not sin (James 2:26). The body cannot act independent on its own. The body only carries out what the mind tells it to do. Every action the body does is initiated by a thought. These thoughts come from the Holy Spirit, our spirit, or a demon spirit. Our mind is where we make a choice in what we choose to think on. Our mind is not designed to be a storage facility; it is just to be a place of decision. The word flesh is translated as our carnal, sensuous, earthly, human nature. It is our carnal mind. We are told to be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace (Romans 8:6). We are also told that the carnal mind is enmity against God (Romans 8:7). And that they that are in the flesh cannot please Him (Romans 8:8). These works of the flesh (carnal mind) are against God and cannot please Him. This is our sin nature, the part that indulges in fleshly appetites. This is the area of man that the devil works on. He works on our senses. He worked on Eve’s senses in the Garden of Eden, as this is where the demonic can and will gain an open door to enter. Consider these two statements. When we have a choice and are in control of whether or not we allow a thought of let’s say of adultery, then we do not have a demonic adulterous spirit. On the other hand, if adultery controls us and no matter what we do this desire is continuous unless we give in to it, then we most likely have a spirit of adultery within us. The best way to know is does it control us or do we control it? We are told that to whom we yield ourselves servants to obey, we are a servant to indeed, whether of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness. (Ro 6:16). He that commits sin is of the devil (1 John 3:8). If we are yielding to sin, then we are yielding to the devil. If we are yielding to obedience unto righteousness, we are yielding our minds to right thinking. Being a servant means that we have a master. If our master is the devil then he is ruling or being our Lord in whatever area that we sin. If Jesus is our Lord, then our thoughts are into obedience to His thoughts, and we do not sin (give place to the devil). Many will say that these works are just the flesh without realizing what and where the real root of sin is. We all have a sin nature. It is our carnal mind. Yet as we yield and follow after the spiritual mind, we will not sin. Walk in the spirit and ye will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (the carnal mind) (Galatians 5:16). This is our only defense. God gave us a defense but we must chose to follow and obey the Holy Spirit to have victory over our fleshly carnal mind of whose nature is sin. The more Jesus increases, or the more we yield to the Holy Spirit, then the more we decrease, or die out to our carnal nature. Our nature becomes a spiritual nature, which then is pleasing to God.


Works of the Flesh word translations from the Online Bible Lexicon
1. Adultery- have unlawful intercourse with another’s wife
2. Fornication - illicit sexual intercourse
3. Uncleanness - the impurity of lustful, luxurious, profligate living 1b1) of impure motives
4. Lasciviousness - unbridled lust, excess
5. Idolatry - the worship of false gods
6. Witchcraft - one who prepares or uses magical remedies, a drug, spell-giving potion, sorcerer
7. Hatred – enmity, cause of enmity
8. Variance - contention, strife
9. Emulations - an envious and contentious rivalry, jealousy
10. Wrath - passion, angry, heat, anger forthwith boiling up and soon subsiding again
11. Strife – contention, a self seeking pursuit, selfishness, or self-promotion
12. Seditions - dissension, division
13. Heresies - dissensions arising from diversity of opinions and aims
14. Envyings – ill-will, jealousy
15. Murders – slain or slaughter
16. Drunkenness- intoxication
17. Revellings – rioting


All these fruit come from the carnal nature of man. They are all self-seeking in nature. The spiritual nature has faith, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, meekness, temperance, etc (Galatians 5:22-24). The bottom line, as we are “in the spirit”, these problems will not exist (Galatians 5:16). These are the fruit of the carnal nature, not the spiritual nature.

The demonic always works on our carnal nature. The demons can not enter into our spiritual side. Their power is derived through our carnal sensual nature. They always work on our senses. When they come into us, they come in to our carnal area. Their goal is to gain control over an area in us and become a stronghold in our mind (2 Cor 10:4). The demonic in it self is powerless over us. Jesus took away the demonic spirit’s power. The only way it gains power is if we feed it. We feed it by yielding to its suggestions and acting on them. It may start as a little speck of a demon spirit with no power, but after we keep allowing it to talk to us and we act out what it suggests, it can become a giant or a stronghold within us. At this stage it controls us. It is like an addiction, if you don't feed it you become miserable. The demons are pacified as we do what they want; they then will be quiet awhile. The problem is they will return that same sin sick desire over and over. They will bring other demons in as their goal is to bind you and hold you captive and in prison, spiritually. Their desire is to establish their kingdom in you. You will find that you seem to not have any control over them so you yield to them to quiet them down awhile. That of course seems the easy way to stop the problem except it is always only temporary. The permanent solution is admitting the problem and casting the spirit out. Many are so full of pride (which usually is a spirit also to keep them from admitting truth to be set free); they would rather just keep wrestling with the spirit rather than admit that they have a demonic spirit ruling them. We are told that we do not wrestle against flesh (the carnal mind) and blood, but against principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12). If we deal with the demonic spirits, our mind can then get back to a freedom of choice again. We will be free to reject or accept the devil’s lies.

We are told to not use our freedom for an occasion to the flesh (Galatians 5:13). In other words, we will get tempted. Our senses will say this looks so good. Yet we will learn the price of giving in to the temptation. It will bring spiritual death in that area of our lives as it separates us from God’s presence just as it did to Eve when she sinned. A good way to determine if something is sin in Gods eyes is that when you yield to whatever it is and act upon it, does it take you out of Gods presence? Do you feel separated from God? God is till in the Garden, as He didn’t leave. He will never leave or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). Sin causes us to leave God. Sin is taking a direction towards satan and his demons instead of staying and walking in the spirit with God. Sin therefore is making satan Lord of that area of us as we are serving him. We are told that whatever is not of faith is sin (Ro 14:23). Faith does not come from our carnal fleshly nature. It only comes from the Holy Spirit, as it is one of the fruit. This is why God said that they that are in the flesh cannot please Him (Ro 8:8). The conclusion then is this.

Walking in the carnal flesh cannot please God. It is enmity against God. The works of our flesh are selfish in nature. They are always doing things to please self. These works are the open doors for the enemy to come in and attack us and eventually control us with a stronghold of lies in our mind. Walking in the Spirit on the other hand, is always not about self, it is about others. If we research about love, we find that love is not self-pleasing. God is love, so when we walk in God’s love it is no longer about us, it is about others. The bottom line is Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Ga 5:16). This alone is the walk that pleases God. This walk allows the fruit of the Holy Spirit to manifest through us. This is Jesus walking in us.

Our journey with Jesus is about dying out to self. Paul said that he dies daily (1 Cor 15:31). Paul was dying out to his fleshly carnal nature. Most of the struggles we face come as we are learning to not yield to our carnal nature but to our spiritual nature. We go down many roads and seem to need to get to the end of them to realize that what we really desire does not come from our fleshly lusts. Life comes only through the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that gives life (2 Cor 3:6). We find that our flesh produces no good thing. We find that as said in John 6:63, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” As we yield to the Spirit we realize that we have power over all of the enemy. The attacks that we use to face seem to be powerless against us. We learn how the enemy attacks and why, so when he comes with his temptations, we either just ignore them or say as Jesus, get thee behind me satan, thou savourest not the things that be of god but they that be of man (Mathew 16:23). We must learn that what Jesus said is true. Our carnal mind is against God. It becomes an offense to us just like it does to God. We have learned where true life comes from, the things of the Spirit of God only. If we have ever felt like a yo-yo this is why. Areas of us that have allowed the Holy Spirit to rule will produce good fruit. Those areas that we are still dying to, still produce the struggle and will not yield the fruit of the Spirit until they are crucified with Christ.

We all are on this journey. Some have more areas crucified than others do. Thank God that He does not wait till we are perfect to use us, but our life here on earth is a journey to find the one true God that produces real life in us. Just never give up. Just like a child that falls down and skins their knee and sits there and cries. They eventually get up and go again. We must do this spiritually also. God gave to us an advocate so when we sin we can be forgiven (1 John 1:9). That advocate is Jesus. If we will just learn to get back up quickly and not wallow in the pain or sin and then just run to Jesus and ask Him to forgive us, we will be back on course again. Just realize that we all sin. We all fail to walk in the Spirit. We all are learning. Little by little we learn to make choices that please God and not self. I pray that we learn these truths of the Word so when we fail we will not allow condemnation and all the guilt, but we will just repent and ask for forgiveness and keep going again and again till we find the sin no longer has power over us. The only way to win is to focus on walking in the Spirit. We must do the things that cause us to yield to the Holy Ghost. This is called prayer, worship in spirit and in truth, study of God’s Word, and praying in the Spirit. If we will make this choice we will find new freedom and power in the Holy Ghost. This of course is a choice. Choose ye this day that ye will serve. It is our choice. We can walk in the Spirit as we choose to do so. It is a battle over our carnal nature, but we can win daily as we persevere.

Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Ga 5:16). We win if we choose too! Jesus gave to us everything to win!

Just a little side note:
Notice how Jesus gives us Grace to change. Knowing these truths should help us to give that same grace to others to change also. They are in the same battle that we are. Just because we have gained victory in one area that another hasn’t, they may have gained victory in an area that we haven’t.



Copyright © 2007
By: Rick L. King
No portion of this may be reproduced or used without written permission from the author.
Please contact me at [email protected] if you have a need for this writing. Thank You.

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