Does the Believer Have One Nature or Two? (Part 4)

Originally published as a single article in DBSJ 2 (Fall 1997): 81–103. Used by permission.

This installment continues our study of the believer’s struggle with sin, focusing on “flesh” vs. “the Spirit.”

Galatians 5:16–17

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

It is universally recognized that this passage describes the believer’s battle with sin—the flesh against the Spirit. Though Paul sometimes uses flesh (σάρξ) for the physical aspect of man, it is widely conceded that in this passage we find Paul’s well-known “ethical” use of the term—fallen human nature. Longenecker explains:

It has often been noted that σάρξ used ethically has to do with humanity’s fallen, corrupt, or sinful nature, as distinguished from the human nature as originally created by God…. Translating σάρξ as “flesh” in ethical contexts (as KJV, ASV, RSV) has often encouraged ideas of anthropological dualism, with the physical body taken to be evil per se and the mortification of the body viewed in some manner as necessary for achieving a true Christian experience. In reaction to such ideas, various translators have tried to give to the expression a more interpretive and descriptive rendering.

Probably the best of the interpretive translations are those that add the adjective “corrupt” or “sinful” to the noun “nature” (i.e., KNOX, NIV), thereby suggesting an essential aspect of mankind’s present human condition that is in opposition to “the Spirit” and yet avoiding the idea that the human body is evil per se.¹

Paul’s use of “flesh,” or “sinful nature” as the NIV renders the term, in Galatians 5:16–17 is viewed by two-nature advocates as a direct reference to the believer’s old nature—his continuing tendency to sin or rebel against God. Those who argue against the two-nature view would not refer to the flesh as a nature, yet they still define flesh similarly. Packer, for instance, says:

Believers find within themselves contrary urgings. The Spirit sustains their regenerate desires and purposes; their fallen Adamic instincts (the “flesh”) which, though dethroned, are not yet destroyed, constantly distract them from doing God’s will and allure them along paths that lead to death (Gal 5:16–17; James 1:14–15).²

Galatians 5:16–17 does not say that there is, in the believer, a struggle between the old nature (flesh) and new nature, but between flesh (old nature) and Spirit. However, Lenski, following Luther, among others, has understood “Spirit” as “spirit” and interpreted it as a direct reference to the new nature.³ But this view has found few supporters, and, as Fung observes, “is highly unlikely in view of the Spirit-flesh contrast Paul develops elsewhere (cf. Rom 8:4–6, 9, 13), particularly in Gal 3:3, and in view of the clear reference to the divine Spirit in both the preceding and the following verses (5:16, 18, 22, 25).”⁴

Because Paul’s language speaks specifically of a struggle between the flesh (old nature) and the Spirit, does that mean it is invalid to characterize that struggle as also one between the old and new natures? It is interesting to read Calvin’s discussion of Galatians 5:17, where, in the same paragraph he speaks of the “Spirit” as both the “Spirit of God” and “the renewed nature, or the grace of regeneration.”⁵ While, as Pink observes, “we must distinguish between the Holy Spirit and the principle of which he imparts at regeneration,”⁶ and while it is almost certainly true that Paul’s contrast in Galatians 5:16–17 is between the flesh and the Holy Spirit, we should not attempt to drive a wedge between the Spirit himself and the new disposition (new nature) he imparts at regeneration. Stott concludes: “By ‘the Spirit’ he seems to mean the Holy Spirit Himself who renews and regenerates us, first giving us a new nature and then remaining to dwell in us.”⁷

Even those who oppose the two-nature viewpoint strongly affirm that the Holy Spirit works in conjunction with the believer’s new disposition. Warfield, perhaps the greatest foe of the two-nature view, says that in the process of sanctification the work of the Spirit includes “the development of the implanted principle of spiritual life and infused habits of grace,”⁸ and, in addition, “holy dispositions are implanted, nourished and perfected.”⁹ As was previously observed, Packer says that while “believers find within themselves contrary urgings, the Spirit sustains their regenerate desires and purposes,” and Packer ends this sentence with a reference to Galatians 5:16–17.

So, it may be concluded that the struggle which Paul describes in Galatians 5:16–17 as being that of the flesh against the Spirit is no less a struggle between the believer’s old and new natures.