What the Bible Really Says About the Old Sin Nature

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, now we're ready to go, and once again we'll come right back to Romans chapter 3 and pick up where we left off in our last program. Once again, we just want to give you a quick reminder for those on television of the booklets and the VCR tapes that are available. We want you to feel free to call on your 800 number or drop us a note. We usually like to do is just send you out a table of contents that gives you the topic headings of all the various lessons, all the way up from Genesis 1 until now we're in the book of Romans. And again, I think most of you realize we do not have an office staff per se. My little wife takes care of most of that kind of stuff, the phone calls, and she sends out the materials and so forth, so I just share with the class here in the studio how much I appreciate my helpmate, and the Lord has blessed me with a good one. All right, now then let's go on to Romans chapter 3 once again, and we finished up with verse 22, that the only remedy for the old Adam is for God to move in, in His omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient way, and put old Adam to death so that we're rid of him so far as his power and his influence, and so that we can get on with life with a new nature, a divine nature. Now way back in Genesis I used the circles, and that's usually the way we head the lesson, just the circles. A lot of people probably don't know what we're talking about until they've studied it, but I've put them on the board during our break time, and we're going to go back and we're going to look once again at the whole scope of the human makeup, and how it pertains to us today in 1995. Let's look first before we do that at verse 23, where this is the crowning conclusion of everything that God has said in the first three chapters for all, everybody, like we've been stressing in the last three programs, every one of us. I don't care how good a home you came from, I don't care how good a Bible-preaching church you've been in, we still have to recognize that until God does something, we are falling short of the glory of God. We're sinners, we're sons of Adam. All right, now then let's go back, if you will, to 1 Thessalonians, turn ahead rather, to 2 Thessalonians, no, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Now I want you to drop down to verse 23, and of course I'm still in Paul's letters, remember Thessalonians, and so the Apostle Paul, by inspiration, writes in verse 23 of chapter 5, "...and the very God of peace sanctify, or set you apart wholly, completely, and I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." God's whole spirit and body will be preserved, kept, just like putting fruit in a jar, blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, that part of us that is going on into eternity is not just the soul. It's not just the spirit. We are going to go into eternity a complete entity of body, soul, and spirit. That's what the Book says. All right. Now let's go back to the beginning. Let's go all the way back to Genesis chapter 1. I didn't intend to do this, but we just had a question at break time, and I think it behooves to answer not only her question, but there's probably a multitude of others that have the same one. Back in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, a verse you all know very well, and God said, "...let us," that's a plurality word, it's a plural pronoun, as it should be, "...Elohim said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them," that is created being man, "...have dominion over the fish, the sea, the cattle, the earth, and so on and so forth." Now verse 27, "...so God created man in his own image." In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, created He them. Now when God created man in His image, the first thing you've got to understand from Scripture is, God was not in the form of a man. That isn't what it means. It didn't mean that He was going to make somebody who looked like He looked, because what was God? Spirit. The triune God is still Spirit. And so the triune God does not say, we're going to make a creature that looks like however a spirit looks. So they're talking about something that is spiritual, and it's eternal, and it's that part of us that is invisible even today. And what am I talking about? The personality. Now I've got the circles on the board, and if you remember when you were with me back in Genesis we used the circles, and over 20 years of teaching I guess I've had more people have commented that they have had more enlightenment from this teaching than almost anything else I've taught. When God created Adam then, He made him a trichotomous being. He was a three-part being, not a trinity, but a three-part being as Thessalonians laid out, body, soul, and spirit. Now the body is just simply the outer tent, the outer covering, and normally I just use the body as the exercise of the five senses. That's all it's really good for. It's temporary, like a tent is temporary. It's here today, gone tomorrow in the overall picture. Then inside that temporary tent now we have the things that are eternal, and it's in this area where we are made in the image of God, not up here. God never had a body with the five senses that He could pattern us after, but here He did. He was a personality comprised of mind, will, and emotions. I'll be in perfect accord with Psychology 101 when I call this the personality, or the true person. That's in the area of the mind, will, and emotion. Now I know there are some differences of opinion in here, and I don't mind that. I'm just looking at the broad picture to give us a real good overview of why God deals with us the way He deals with us, and why He calls it the old man, or the old sin nature, and why He has to be put to death. Then the third part of Adam was the spirit part of him, and it was in the area of the spirit that Adam fellowshiped with God. He had communion with Him. Now in the area of the mind, and the will, and the emotion, and in this area of spirit, they are so closely intertwined, it's hard to separate them, but the Scripture says they can be. Hebrews 4.12 says, the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, and is able to divide us under the very soul and spirit. So there is a difference. Now I'll admit it's pretty hard to define them, but I'll just put it this way for ease of understanding. I'm going to call the soul, the mind, the will, and the emotion, the personality, the spirit, is that core of our very being wherein we had fellowship with God, or Adam did, and wherein we as believers have that restored. Now the moment Adam sinned, the moment he showed his disobedience, this personality, this mind, this will, this emotion, became immediately what kind of a nature? Sin. It became a sin nature. That's all it could think of. At the same instant, what happened to this spirit and God relationship? It was broken, and you know why it was broken? What happened to the spirit in Adam? Come on, I'm not tricking you. It died, didn't it? So now Adam, after the fall, is nothing more and nothing less than the body with its five senses, temporary, it's going to die someday, and it did, that old sin nature which made up his personality, and no relationship with God. It was broken, because that entity of his innermost being is now dead, it's non-functional. Now I'm not going to call it annihilated. You remember way back I used the illustration of our storage battery in a car? Remember that? And I still think it's a good illustration. That spirit of Adam died like a dead battery. Human elements could come in and try to clean it up and fix it up, and again I'll use the word veneer it, but it's still dead, and it's just like your car battery. If we get out there and one of you have a dead battery in your car, we're not going to go get a basin of soap and water and wash the outside of the battery. What we're going to do is find some outside power to regenerate it, and that's exactly where Adam is. He is spiritually dead, and it's going to have to take an outside power to regenerate it. There again, that's why good works can't do this. Now as I've said so often, it's hard to explain our plan of salvation from the Old Testament because it's a whole different economy. So now if you can skip with me mentally at least, all the way from Adam up to where we are on the backside of the cross, Christ has now died. He has now fulfilled all the demands of God on sinful men in the person of Christ on the cross. The Holy Spirit is just moving upon the population, convicting men by the Law, as we saw in the earlier program, of their need of something, because they can't do it on their own. So along comes the Apostle Paul, and he lays it out so plainly, and that's why we're going to take our time coming through these books of Romans and Ephesians especially. Now the Apostle Paul comes along and he shows us that our root problem is not what we're doing, it's who we are, and who are we? Sons of Adam. And every baby born into the world now is in the same place that Adam was after he fell. They come in in that sweet, innocent little body with its five senses. Lying with them is that personality, but it's a sin-bent personality. Now it can try to clean itself up as we've seen and we've experienced in the last couple programs, but until God does the things which only God can do, it's all for nothing. Now the first thing we'd like to point out is in this area of what I originally called the soul back here, the personality, is that all three of these are, number one, invisible. Right? But are they real? As you sit out there in front of me, are you going to argue that you don't have a mind? No you're not. Are you going to try and tell me you don't have a will? Are you going to try and tell me you have no emotions? You mean you never laugh? You never get sad? You never get upset? Sure you do. Why? Because you have a seed of emotions. Can you find it? No. No, you can't find it, and I don't care how you look for it, you never will. So if we're dealing with the invisible, then we're dealing in what realm? Spirit, not physical. We're dealing in the realm of the Spirit. Now since this mind, will, and emotion that was created in Adam came straight from the Creator Himself, is that thing going to last 100 years or 200 years and disappear? How long? Forever. Forever, because you see again, we're dealing in the Spirit. So that personality, that mind, will, and emotion is going to live somewhere forever. Now I know the lake of fire won't be living, but nevertheless, they're going to be there. It's not going to end. Don't you ever buy this stuff that says that there's an annihilation. Scripture doesn't say it. Every Scripture verse I know concerning the wicked in their doom says forever and ever and ever for all eternity. Because it is an eternal, created thing from God. All right, so what's the dilemma? Every one of us now, as sons of Adam, are born with a body in which is dwelling this personality that is sin-bent, anti-God. You don't believe me? Let me tell you what the Scripture calls us, other than what we just saw in Romans 3. Come all the way back to Romans 8. Oh, I know good people would like to say, now Les, that's not me. I'm too good. That's not what the Book says. The Book says in Romans 8, starting with verse 5, and again, this isn't deep. You don't have to go to seminary for four years to understand these three verses. They're as plain as day. Romans 8, verse 5, "...for they that are after the flesh..." Now the word flesh here again refers to old Adam. Those who are living under control of old Adam. This three circles right here. No spirit, a body of flesh, it's functioning, it's normal, but they're under a personality that is sin-bent. So they that are things of the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. So we have two types of people in that verse. Boy, let's come down to verse 6. "...for to be carnally or fleshly minded is death," spiritual death. That's the end result, and death in that regard is simply separation. Separation from God, not an annihilation of existence, but a separation from God. So to be continuously carnally minded, to be fleshly, to remain in the old Adam, is a spiritual separation from God, not just for this life, but forever. Now verse 7, now watch this, "...because the carnal mind," this mind that is still in old Adam, "...the carnal mind is..." What's the next word? All good people like to say, no, that's not me. Oh, yes it is. I don't care who it is. I don't care how good. God sees their mind as His enemy. What is hard language, isn't it? This is tough for people to swallow. "...because the carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." Boy, now that's hard to swallow. To think that you and I, before the Lord and His grace saved us, that was us. We were enemies of God, even though most of us, I'll bet, were living pretty good lives. We were good citizens. We were respected in our community. But so far as God was concerned, we're enemies. We're nothing more than what Romans 1 showed us. So what are we going to do? We have a dilemma. The Scripture has said, "...since day one the soul that sinneth shall surely die." That is spiritually. It's going to end up in the lake of fire. But God gave us a loophole, and it's not a little one. It's so big that the whole world could walk through if they would just believe it. So now what does the Scripture say? Now you're in Romans, come back, oh, where can I go? Chapter 6 in Romans, like I said, you caught me completely off guard on this lesson. This is off the top of my hat. This is just to answer a question that came up at break time. But these are the best ones. Romans 6, verse 5, "...for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, then we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." Now I have to take verse 6 before I can comment on verse 5. Knowing this, see now here's where believing comes in. Here is where true biblical believing comes in. We know. How do we know? The Book says so. That's faith, see. When I can say, yes, I believe this, hey, it's plain as day. Well, how did it get plain to me? Oh, that's an act of God responding to my faith. I'll never forget several years ago, I had a fellow come into my class, and he was a reprobate. I'm not kidding you. And he just couldn't fathom so much of this stuff. And I used to say, well, when you ever become a believer, you will, and he'd look at me and he didn't know what to say. But one day he came up to our kitchen, and I was thinking this morning, our kitchen has probably accomplished more than a lot of church studies. But he came up to our kitchen one day, and we were sitting there at the kitchen table, and we led that old boy to the Lord's, to the Roman road. And what a change in his life. And then all of a sudden he could comprehend the Scripture. And he told me just a few weeks ago, he says, you know, when I lay down to go to sleep, he said, I go to sleep reading this book. Because he said, I can't get enough of it. And before that, he couldn't get any of it. Well, that's where we have to come to, see. Knowing this, verse 6, that our old man, who's that? Old Adam. See? Listen up here, in the circles, the body, and that mind, will, and emotion that's still sin bent. That's old Adam. All right? Knowing this, that our old man, our old Adam, is what? Crucified. What does crucifixion do? It kills. It puts to death. Okay. What was the first law? The soul that sinneth shall surely die. So how are we going to fulfill it? By identification with his death. And the best way I can put it, and I've put it this way for years to people, when you can believe that when Christ was hanging there on the cross, he died your death, and so God saw you on the cross in the person of Christ. As he laid in the tomb those three days, God saw you and I in that tomb. When he rose victoriously over sin and death, God saw you and I in resurrected life. Now that's identification by what? Faith. Faith. All right, now here's the good example. Knowing this, only because the Word says so. You can't feel it. You've never experienced it. No one ever has, except by faith that our old Adam is crucified with Him, that that body of old Adam, see now I'm substituting old Adam for the word sin every time, that the body of sin might be destroyed. Now you go back into the Greek, the word destroyed doesn't mean removed and annihilated, it means knocked out of commission. It's lost its power. In other words, if I could go back to the main fuse box, I could pull the lever and all the lights would go out, but the power is still there. All somebody has to do is go back and flip it back up and the lights come back on. All right, now that's what has happened to the old Adam. He has lost his power. That henceforth we should not serve old Adam. Got the picture? Because that's exactly where the unbeliever is. He's living to satisfy the desires of old Adam. But the believer now has let God put old Adam to death by crucifixion, but He didn't leave us that way. He didn't leave us in the grave. He gave us what? New life, resurrection life. Let me show you another verse. Keep your hand in Romans, we're not through here. Oh boy, we're running out of time. John, Gospel of John, Gospel of John. I think I want to go back to about chapter 12, John's Gospel, chapter 12, drop down to verse 23. Boy, we've got to do this quickly. John's Gospel, chapter 12, verse 23, "...and Jesus answered and said, The hour is come..." Now remember this was just before the crucifixion. "...the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." What was he talking about? His death, burial, resurrection. Now we identify with that. Okay, now let me quickly put the circles on the board and see if we can make some sense out of it. Here we have the cross, and as we saw in earlier programs, the Law convicts us that we are sinners, we are nothing but lawbreakers because of our condition in Adam. So then the Holy Spirit, oh bless the work of the Holy Spirit, He somehow or other recharges right here. The moment we believe, He recharges our spirit. He comes in in the person of the Holy Spirit and dwells with us. But old Adam is reckoned right there on the cross. He's now satisfied the demand of God that he die because he was a sinner. But immediately, immediately God puts opposite to take over a new nature, see? And it is a created act again of God. It is a divine nature. And then with the regenerated of our spirit, the two working in consort are going to have its influence on the physical body. Now where does that leave us? It leaves us with a royal battle because even if God does consider old Adam as crucified, and we know He does, God reckons him as dead. But in experience, where is He? I've still got mine. I know you do, but I still do. But like I told somebody in one of the breaks this afternoon, the best way I can reconcile is that when Christ died and rose from the dead, what did He do so far as Satan was concerned? Defeated him. But is Satan alive and well? Yes. And so we have to reckon that old Adam is dead, he's crucified, but he's still with us. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.