Starting Point
Before delving into the subject of a Twofold Life: Flesh and Spirit, it’s essential to understand the foundational concept of how God views mankind’s condition. Briefly, God tells us that because we have broken His laws (sinned), we are separated from Him. That’s why we don’t see Him as He is right now in this life. Furthermore, because our Creator God is perfectly just, He cannot allow any sin to go unpunished. This puts mankind in an impossible predicament because the only just punishment for sin is eternal separation from Him in a place called Hell. Once we pass from this life, all of us will stand before God for judgment and sentencing because every one of us is guilty of breaking His laws. God calls this eternal separation from Him eternal death.
However, God tells us in the Holy Bible how we can avoid being eternally separated from Him in Hell. God Himself carried out a plan in which believers are rescued from the punishment due for their sins. Specifically, Jesus’ death on the cross and subsequent resurrection accomplished this rescue. This deliverance from eternal punishment for sin is granted to those who 1) believe in Jesus and His plan of salvation and 2) change the way they think (called repentance) to align with the one true God. God calls this deliverance from eternal separation “salvation.” When we are saved, we are literally born from above (born again) to spiritual life. Just as we all have physical life, believers also have spiritual life once they are saved.
The above will help frame the subject of this article. In this article, we will look at one very important aspect of what happens when we are “saved” and that is our “twofold” life.
Twofold life
The Twofold Life: Flesh and Spirit can be a challenging concept to understand, even for mature Christians, but it is a foundational truth. Understanding it will help you understand why we struggle endlessly with sin.
God illuminates this concept of a twofold life in John 3:3, where Jesus says,
“…I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
Being born again makes us twofold living beings.
In my previous post “Spiritual Journey” I graphically depict how believers in Jesus become twofold alive beings when we are born again. Let’s take a look at a couple of Holy Bible verses that illuminate this twofold alive existence:
“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit,
and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh,
for these are opposed to each other,
to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
“I want to do what is good, but I don’t.
I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong;
it is sin living in me that does it.”
Desires of the Flesh
The “flesh”, as used in Galatians above, is a cognitive framework (it’s not our physical body). It’s all our faculties, affections, and desires that run contrary to God. The Holy Bible explains that the flesh is “in bondage to sin.” The flesh is fully in servitude to sin. Sin is its master. It’s why we do what is wrong. It’s ‘who’ we are before we are saved.
Desires of the Spirit
When we are Born Again, God tells us in Titus 3:5 that the Holy Spirit “saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” This word ‘regeneration’ literally means a new life has begun; thus, we now have a twofold life. In this new spiritual life, the Holy Spirit strongly guides us to resist our fleshly sinful desires and tendencies. The Holy Spirit focuses our thoughts on spiritual matters. The Holy Spirit acts like a guiding voice within a believer. This new life, guided by the Holy Spirit, is ‘who’ a person is once they are saved.
Twofold
The flesh and the Spirit are contrary to one another. Like light and darkness or fire and water, they are contrary in their nature, actions, and effects. There is not only a conflict between them, but a raging war is maintained between them.
Responding to the conflict
When believers sin (break God’s law), we often feel sadness. And rightfully so, because sin is behavior that opposes God’s attributes. But we need to look at the bigger picture before we become downtrodden and feel hopeless when we fail.
God tells us in Galatians 3:19 “Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised.” The “child” was Jesus. Romans 10:4 “For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God.
When you respond to the conflict by trying to behave in accordance with God’s laws what are you really doing? 1) you are trying to honor God by being obedient to His laws—and that’s good. But 2) you are trying to make the flesh (where sin resides) behave with the same objective as the direction you’re receiving from the Holy Spirit. As we learned above Bible verse, your flesh will not desire what the Spirit does (they are opposed to each other). It cannot. Your flesh and your Spirit will always be at enmity with each other. Thus the conflict is endless.
It’s hopeless then?
No, don’t feel hopeless as you of try, and fail, to be victorious over sin. That’s the wrong way to look at it. God’s new covenant (the New Testament) with mankind is literally a paradigm shift away from the legal requirement to keep the law.
God tells us in Romans 7:6:
“But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”
In the New Testament, God’s new covenant (new agreement) with mankind gives us freedom from our need to perform. We have been released from being held accountable for our inability to keep the law. Our accountability, our punishment for sin, was fully covered by Jesus when he took our sin upon Himself as He went to the cross to die for us.
In Old Testament times, people were “bound” to the law, like a marriage binds a man and a woman together. But when Jesus Christ died for our sins, that bond was broken—we were released from having to obey the law. It’s different now. Now we are now directed by the indwelling Holy Spirit to do what is right. We live in the Spirit – meaning a life that is guided, empowered, and characterized by the Holy Spirit.
So I can sin all I want?
The answer is Yes and No. If you’re struggling with sin it’s very possible that God is showing you something that you need to see in order to grow. If you one day make a commitment to yourself to stop some particular sin you will most likely find yourself doing it again. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” But if God allows you to see the error of your ways, if he slowly changes the fundamental essence of who you are, you will be far less anxious to repeat it. Your conviction to not sin is not a “flash in the pan” – it is change to the fundamental way you think of the sin.
So, you could sin all you want. BUT, you won’t want to. A preacher named Adrian Rogers once said “I sin all I want to. The thing is, I don’t want to. I don’t want to sin. Nothing would make me happier than to know I would never sin again.”
When we are born again our Spirit is going to live on with God forever. It’s a done deal delivered by God Himself. Our salvation is a gift from God. So don’t fret and question whether you’re saved or not. If you believe then you are saved. The weakness of the flesh isn’t going to stop your salvation.