HOW TO NEVER SIN AGAIN
The Old man.Degenerate Spirit. Soul ruled old man.Flesh.
What is unregenerate man?
What is his makeup and nature?
First, we have to understand what man is.
You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body.
1 Thessalonians 5:
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The wording of this verse is very specific. There are three parts: Spirit, soul, and body.
Some confuse the spirit and the soul, and even think them to be the same. This verse shows them to be separate. Also Hebrews 4:12 reveals that the two can be "divided asunder". The verse also demonstrates the difficulty in discerning the difference between the two.
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
That the body is separate from the spirit and soul is evident in that we see that when the spirit is separate from the body, it is present from the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:
8 We are confident, [I say], and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
The Fallen Nature
John 8:
44 Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Here in a nutshell is a declaration of the nature of fallen man. Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, but this is true of all. He was stating a fact about all unregenerate mankind. Unregenerate people are all children of the devil. If you are saved, you were a child of the devil before you were born again. Jesus is talking about the heart.
Look at these other statements about the nature of the unregenerate:
Ephesians 2
1 And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation 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.
The spirit that lives and works in the unregenerate is that of the devil. They are children of the devil and are "by nature the children of wrath". They cannot help it.
Look at what Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah 17:
9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?
The word "desperately" wicked here means incurably wicked.
And this also:
Jeremiah 13:
23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
The man with the unregenerate heart cannot change his nature any more than a leopard can change its spots. Even his efforts at righteousness is as filthy rags before the Lord:
Isaiah 64:
6 But we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Jesus knew well the fallen nature of man, and spoke concerning it.
Matthew 15:
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
So what did you do as a fallen man with the nature of the devil in you? You dared not walk in accordance to the desires of your unregenerate spirit. If you had done that, you would have been like the devil incarnate, doing every evil and wicked thing that your fallen nature told you. You would have murdered, looted, and sinned every imaginable sin, and shortly either been killed, or caught and jailed.
So what did you do?
You did is what we all did, and what all unregenerates do. You learned to live out of your soul. You lived according to carnal rules and regulations. You lived by fear and guilt. You kept your fallen spiritual nature under the control of your soul, which was trained with religious and social rules. Odd as it sounds, you walked in the flesh! You walked according to the rules of the soul and body. You reacted to fear of pain, fear of punishment, fear of rejection. Guilt and condemnation was used to control your life and actions. You lived by "dead works". They were not pleasing to God, but they did prevent you from committing the most grievous and harmful sins. The "old man" of scripture is the man that is soul ruled. It is the man that is dominated by the soul, by fear, by guilt, and by condemnation.
Man is lost, not because of any decision he has made, but because of the fallen nature he was born with. He is acting out his own nature. He cannot help doing what he was born to do. His sins are just the fruit of his fallen nature. Even his attempts at doing good are filthy rags before God. If God is to save man, he must do more than just pluck him from the fires of hell. He must do more than just forgive sins. He must do more than simply redeem him. He must remove the incurably wicked spirit of the devil that is in him, and replace it with a new spirit that is righteous and able to do the good works that are required by God. The ultimate goal of salvation is not to just save man from hell and punishment, but to recreate him in the image of God, with a divine nature that can commune with and please God. If this was not done, then we would be nothing more than cleaned up sinners, who were still incapable of pleasing God.