A true understanding of the doctrine of the two natures in the believer

is vital to a well -balanced Christian walk and witness.  Many readers will

know the booklet The Two Natures in the Child of God by Dr. E. W. Bullinger.

It is a classic, and should be studied by all who want guidance in this

important truth.  However, we feel that, in order to get a complete picture,

a consideration of the soul must be given.  While it is right to say every

believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has two natures, yet these two natures do

not sum up the whole of his personality, for he has a body and five senses as

well, and of necessity these play a great part in his daily life and service.

Let us now consider what the Scriptures teach concerning the two natures.  It

is humiliating to realize that every human being, however fine in character,

has inherited from our sinful first parents, Adam and Eve, a corrupted

nature.  This is described in several ways in the Word of God.

While this word is often used of the literal flesh of the body (e.g.

Gen. 2:21) and also of this present life (the life that I now live in the

flesh, Gal. 2:20), it is used in the sense mentioned above, namely the seat

of corruption which is passed on to the whole human race by fallen Adam.  Of

all writers in the New Testament, the apostle Paul uses it most frequently in

this sense:

'And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins ...

among whom also we all had our conversation (manner of life) in times

past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and

of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others'

(Eph. 2:1 -3).

'And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the

affections and lusts' (Gal. 5:24).

This is another aspect of the old nature and deals with its thinking.

Paul uses the phrase in Romans 8:7 and the margin gives the literal reading,

'the minding of the flesh'.  All such thinking, however refined and

attractive it may appear, is stated to be 'enmity against God' and not

'subject to the law of God' (verse 7).  Like water, it cannot rise above its

own level, and it is utterly impossible for the flesh, or its thoughts and

ways, to comprehend the things of God.  Sin has darkened the human mind (Eph.

4:18) so that,

'The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for

they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they

are spiritually discerned' (1 Cor. 2:14).

Closely linked with the carnal mind is the heart which by nature is

deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9).  The Lord Jesus Himself

'Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,

fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies' (Matt. 15:19).

This is another Scriptural name for the sinful nature of man, and it is

peculiar to the apostle Paul's writings: