We Have Both a Sinful Nature and a Divine Nature

A few weeks ago I shared a conversation with someone on the very topic of today’s article. We live in the intersection of two worlds; this world and the world to come; and we possess both a fallen nature and an Imago dei nature. Keith Giles is an author, podcast host, house church pastor and blogger at Patheos.  This is our third time highlighting his writing here at C201.

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Our Divine Potential

The question usually gets framed as something like: “Do you believe that humans are all born in original sin?” or “Do humans have a sin nature?”

For me, the problem is in the question itself. It assumes the answer before anyone can really consider all the variables.

As an example, we could factually say that every human being goes to the bathroom on a regular basis. So, does that mean that humans are poopers by nature? Well, yes, but is that our identity? Is that who you are?

Of course not. The fact that everyone poops is not a reflection of their nature, or their character. It’s just a fact. People poop. But, who we are is so much more!

So, the fact that people have the potential for evil, or even that we all sometimes act in ways that are selfish, or unforgiving, or hateful, or harmful, does NOT mean that this is who we are by nature. Why? Because these same people – you and me – are also constantly doing things that are thoughtful, and kind, and selfless, and compassionate, and good.

In other words, we all have the potential for both good and evil. We are no less born with a sinful nature than we are with a righteous nature. Everyone has the potential for either, or both, at any given time.

The Good News is that we also have the potential to share in the Divine Nature of Christ:

“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:3-4; NRSV)

This is the other reason I reject the notion of Original Sin, because it keeps us in a pre-Christian state of mind where we are hopeless and helpless to overcome our darker tendencies. The Good News is that Christ empowers us to live (abide) in the life of Christ and learn to participate in his Divine nature.

In other words: We all have the potential for both good and bad thoughts/actions, but if we abide in Christ we can start to experience our Divine Potential.

The emphasis, then, is not on our sinfulness, or our tendency to fail, but on our awesome ability to be like Christ (which is the whole point of the Gospel of the Kingdom).

We are not only called to walk as Jesus did, we are empowered to do so, and have been given “everything we need for life and godliness.”

So, rather than fixate on our sinful potential, the shift we need to make is to focus on our divine potential.

You are not a sinner, even if once in a while you sin. You are a child of God who is made in this Divine image, and you have been given everything you need to grow into this new nature today.

You have a Divine Potential. Start living in that reality as soon as possible.

Why not right now?

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Christianity 201 is a melting-pot of devotional and Bible study content from across the widest range of Christian sources. Sometimes two posts may follow on consecutive days by authors with very different doctrinal perspectives. The Kingdom of God is so much bigger than the small portion of it we can see from our personal vantage point, and one of the purposes of C201 is to allow readers a ‘macro’ view of the many ministries and individual voices available for reading. Please click through on titles to read articles at the site where they originally appeared.

Justification, Regeneration, Divine Nature, Witness of the Spirit

Blogger Rick Roehm brings clarity to some basic doctrines from the blog Christian Blessings. “The intent … is to first bring clarity to the Biblical terms Justification, Regeneration, and Witness of the Spirit unused in everyday language and second, to confirm an actual Christian experience and its relation to the scriptural reference given…”

Biblical Justification is a pardon granted by God upon the soul of man who trusts in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. After repentance and trusting in the death of Christ alone, God’s justice declares a sinner innocent from all sins committed in the past. Justification by Grace removes the guilt of sin from the human conscience. In a judicial sense a believer is declared righteous by the Justification of God through faith alone in the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. God’s Justification deals with the acts of sin and not the inherited sinful nature.

• Acts 13:38-39…Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

• Rom 3:24-25…being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past

Regeneration is the Spirit’s restoration of the human soul that saves a believer from eternal death and separation from the mercy of God. A justified man right in the presence of God is passed to life through regeneration. Life in the New Testament is two fold: First, a present life consisting of holiness of heart and obedience to God: Second, to an inherited eternal life which follows death to the physical body beyond the grave. Washing of regeneration, an inward work of the Holy Ghost is granted to a believer by the Mercy and Grace of God through Justification.

• Titus 3:5…Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

• Titus 3:6-7…Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

When a penitent sinner is cleansed from all sin the moral make-up is also restored in Christ. The Holy Spirit re-creates the inner being of a believer through the new birth. This re-creation includes a Divine nature. The mind, conduct, and desires of one born of God are conscious to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. This person knows God from the heart because of communion in the Spirit. Unlike the sinner, a regenerate man has strength to stop sinning and quit doing wrong as consciousness to the presence of the Holy Spirit takes away sinful desire. The divine nature produces a new desire to live holy and without sin as a child of God should.

• 1 John 3:9…Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.

• 1 John 4:4… because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

Through God’s regenerative work the Holy Spirit bears witness with the spirit of man. This union confirms in the heart of a believer that he’s a child of God and his sins are forgiven.

The witness of the Holy Spirit testifies Christ inwardly to a believer and brings to knowledge a life of holiness and obedience to God. Every believer has this witness in himself.

• Rom 8:16…The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God

• 1 John 5:10…He that believes on the Son of God hath the witness in himself:

Partial Depravity

Nobody likes to think of themselves as “depraved” but one of the things Calvinism has brought us is the phrase “total depravity;” it’s actually the “T” in the “TULIP” acronym.

Catholics say that we are born with “original sin;” though to see to widespread nature of different types of sinful acts is to know there’s nothing original about it.

The “Four Spiritual Laws” begin with premise that “Man is sinful and separated from God…”

But what happens after conversion?

Much of the Apostle Paul’s writings discuss the dual nature; the fight put up by the desires of the flesh.   James talks about “double mindedness.”   In the epistles at least, we get a picture of the spiritual warfare raging all around us; the accompanying tension between where we are positionally in Christ, and where we find ourselves pragmatically in the world.

But on Sunday mornings, nobody wants to admit this.  That’s probably why in surveys of “crazy hymn and chorus lyrics” people always vote for:

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it;
Prone to leave the God I love.

I mean seriously, what terrible advertising for the Christian life.   Nobody wants to admit to that propensity to sin.   And as for depravity, Dictionary.com defines it as “moral corruption” and there are people I know who don’t know Christ that I would regard as “upstanding morally;” so I don’t think too many Christ-followers would even want to say they were depraved before they made Him lord of their lives.

This past week I was driving my car and my mind wandered into less than stellar territory.   (More about thoughts in tomorrow’s post.)   Please don’t try to guess or read too much into this, but after the thought had flashed through my brain — okay, it actually parked there for about five minutes — I thought about how people are, and how I am, always just a few mis-steps away from conceding to my human nature and its way of thinking.

But we are also possessed of a divine nature.   I want to end this the way the song quoted above ends; with a prayer for redemption;  this was my prayer for the beginning of this week, and it’s not such a crazy hymn lyric, either:

Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.