I believe it is a serious misunderstanding to think of the believer as having both an old and new nature. Believers do not have dual personalities…there is no such thing as an old nature in the Believer.

Salvation is not a matter of improvement or perfection of what has previously existed. It is a total transformation. In the moment of the new birth is not simply that one receives something new but that he becomes someone new…The new nature is not added to the old but replaces it. Biblical terminology, then, does not say that a Christian has two different natures. He has but one nature, the new nature in Christ. The old self dies and the new self continues on and they do not coexist. The Believer is a new person. He is no longer the old man but is now a new man created in Christ Jesus. I have a disagreement with the view of an internal conflict that many Believers hold to. Also, this is opposed to what God says, that there is but one nature in the Believer.

Explaining that the Believer has but one new nature is not playing a game. The point is that God’s Word teaches that the power of sin is broken in the life of the Believer. We must believe this is true and we live a victorious life in Christ.

A Christian has a difficult misunderstanding of having both an old and new nature. There is no ‘dual personality.’ To assume a dual nature could lead one to excuse all kinds of sins by blaming them on the old nature. What we must do is accept the responsibility for accepting Satan’s temptation to sin. However, we are charged by Christ to follow His example.

Salvation is union with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection that can also be described as the death of the `old self’ and the resurrection of the `new self,’ who now walks in `newness of life.’ This union and new identity clearly means that salvation is transformation. It is not an addition of a new self to an old self. In Christ, the old self no longer exists.  2 Corinthians  5:17.

Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ,” That is to say, my old self is dead and no longer exists. Also, have you ever seen a dead person in a casket? What is so very different from that lifeless body lying in that box from who you are?  No explanation is needed here.

Paul explains to us in Romans 6 that the old nature before salvation existed in a state of habitual sin. The new nature, however, describes the regenerate man in a life of righteousness and holiness honoring to God. And accordingly, our old nature is dead.

Some believe 1 John 3:6,9 means our new nature cannot sin, but our old nature still does. But those verses say nothing about the old and new natures and make no mention of two natures being in a Believer. The Apostle says, “Everyone who resides in him does not sin; everyone who sins has neither seen him nor known him.” ‘does not sin’ is a present tense verb meaning the action carries on. There is one new nature that has the possibility of sinning, that is, falling into temptation. The source of sin is not the old nature, but sin must come from Satan and be deposited when the Believer accepts the temptation to sin.

I know when I sin I am personally involved in the activity. My new nature possesses the possibility of sinning and I am unable to partition my existence. Yes, the new man and the new nature have the capacity for sin and the possibility of not sinning, too. I am to blame for my sin. Paul clearly states in Romans: The old man is done away with, is destroyed and “dead to sin” means that the sin nature is removed. Will I sin? Absolutely, but I sin because I choose to. A view of two natures coexisting in one person is unbiblical.

No matter how radical our outer transformation at the time of salvation may be many find it difficult to comprehend that we no longer have a fallen sinful nature and that our new nature exists without it.

(I do not accept a view of salvation that brings the Believer a new nature, but the old nature remains, and the Christian life is a battle between two resident natures. Nor do I see Paul’s statement in Romans 7:14-25 as his Christian life after the Damascus Road event. He does not teach that a Christian has two natures or two personalities. There is just one saved person, just as there was one lost person.)

The existence of the old self and the new self in one person, no doubt, is contentious. Many hold that at salvation Believers receive a new self and keep the old self. Salvation thus becomes an addition, but not a transformation. This is not consistent with biblical teaching. At salvation, the old self is done away with. We find this in 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Romans 6:6. Therefore, salvation is transformation—the old self is gone, replaced by the new self.

Arguing that Believers somehow contain both an old and a new self is debating that the one is partially regenerated and unregenerate. My question is simple, “Are Believers spiritual ‘half-breeds?’” I do not think so. There is no Adam and Christ ‘in us’ at the same time. Therefore, it is just as impossible to be an old and new self. There are no 1957 Chevys and Caddys in the same vehicle at the same moment in time. ‘Not happening.’

Scripture does not support a dualistic point of view. Romans 6:6 clearly instructs that our old self was crucified with Christ. The person we were before ‘Christ in us,’ is no more. Our nature has now changed and completely transformed.

Paul writes, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  And continuing in 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

I do not agree with what Scofield taught and is being accepted by most that all Christianshave the old Adamic nature, and the Divine nature received because of the new birth. He taught these are equal but opposite realities that operate in every believer. This monologue can continue for a very, very long time. But enough is enough.

Jesus is Lord.