We Must Embrace the Inconceivable – Part 1

18 Jul We Must Embrace the Inconceivable – Part 1

Blog Series

Moving from Checkers to Chess

Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective

Well, congratulations! You’ve completed exploring the first step in mastering the five steps to unleashing the power of an eternal perspective: “You Must Believe the Unbelievable.”

 As we’ve seen, there are three parts to believing the unbelievable:

1. You must believe that God exists in spite of the fact that he cannot be proved.
2. You must believe that God is good in spite of rampant evil in the world.
3. You must believe that God loves you in spite of the fact that he doesn’t make your life go better.

Once you’ve come to believe in those challenging but well founded realities, you are now ready to explore the next issue we must come to grips with in Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective:

Step 2. You Must Embrace the Inconceivable

There are three parts to embracing the inconceivable:

1. You must accept your redeemed inner man as being holy and righteous.
2. You must accept your inherent and infinite worth as a child of God. 
3. You must pursue God as your only source of ultimate happiness.

Today we’ll look at part one, accepting your redeemed inner man as being holy and righteous.

Christianity’s most perplexing lifestyle question

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a dark and sinister novel, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, and considered one of the 100 best novels ever written. In it, Stevenson writes, “Man is not truly one, but truly two. In each of us, two natures are at war—the good and the bad.” Then, to make his point forcefully, he tells the disturbing story of Jekyll and Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll, a tall, handsome physician in London, becomes obsessed with the idea of good vs. evil, and experiments with various drugs and comes up with a concoction that changes him into another person with another body dominated by the evil side of his character. This evil self, he calls Mr. Hyde.

As Mr. Hyde, he gives himself full freedom to indulge in whatever bad behavior he wishes, and then changes himself back into Dr. Jekyll, who remains his cordial, philanthropic self. But there’s a hitch. Dr. Jekyll gets addicted to this evil side of his character and takes the potion more and more often.

Then it becomes more and more difficult to change back into Dr. Jekyll as his bad side takes over. He knocks down a little girl on the sidewalk and steps on her, he murders an acquaintance in cold blood, and indulges in whatever evil fancy he chooses.

Finally, in the body of Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll deliberately takes a lethal dose of poison, because he knows that his evil side has gotten total control, and his good side cannot control it anymore. The only hope to avoid a complete giving over to evil is to kill Mr. Hyde, even though Dr. Jekyll knows that he will be killing himself, too.

Mercy! What a foreboding idea!

Does this describe the plight of Christians, as well? Are we really “two” completely different selves battling within ourselves for supremacy – one serving God and the other serving self? Many people think so. But that is not what Scripture teaches.

A closer look at the Bible can clear up the muddle.

When we understand our true spiritual nature, it helps us see ourselves more completely as God sees us, and since we tend to act consistently with our self-perception, it helps us live more righteous lives. This is an important truth to grasp.

So, let’s unpack this.

Christians are Spiritually Born Again in the Inner Man

A Christian is one person… spiritually born again (1 Peter 1:23).  In light of that, Ephesians 4:24 says, “put on the new self which, in the likeness of God, has been created in true holiness and righteousness.”

In his commentary on Ephesians, John MacArthur has written:

Biblical terminology… does not say that a Christian has two different natures. He has but one nature, the new nature of Christ. The old self dies and the new self lives; they do not coexist. It is not a remaining old nature but the remaining garment of sinful flesh that causes Christians to sin. The Christian is a single new person, a totally new creation, not a spiritual schizophrenic. It is the filthy coat of remaining humanness in which the new creation dwells that continues to hinder and contaminate his living.”  

Paul says in Romans 7 that his inner man (the redeemed new self):

• No longer sins (vs. 17)
• Wants to do good (vs. 21)
• Joyfully concurs with the law of God in the inner man (vs. 22)
• Serves the law of God (vs. 25)

In contrast, he says of his outer man (the unredeemed body/brain):

• Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh (vs. 18)
• Different law in the members of my body (vs. 23)
• I serve the law of sin which is in my members (vs. 23)
• Who will set me free from the body of this death? (vs. 24).
• With my flesh, I serve the law of sin (vs. 25)

In five different places, Paul puts sin in the outer man… the flesh, the body, his members, and again, his body and flesh.

Again, MacArthur writes,

So righteous is this new self that Paul refuses to admit that any sin comes from that new creation in God’s image. Thus, his language in Romans 6-7 is explicit in placing the reality of sin other than in the new self. He said. “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body (6:12) and “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin” (6:13).  

So, the battle between doing right or wrong is a battle between the redeemed and righteous true self (inner man) and the leftover power of sin in the body/brain that is still corrupted and programmed to follow sin. But we are not two equal selves, one good and one bad, battling each other.

Christians Still Battle Sin in the Outer Man

However, there is still a battle going on… but between the true spiritual “us,” and the power of sin in the fallen body in which we are still housed.

The great task of the Christian life, then, is for the inner man to gain increasing mastery over the outer man, which requires two things.

First, it requires our understanding that this is a slow and challenging process. There are many passages of Scripture that tell us we must “grow” in our walk with the Lord (1 Corinthians 3:6-7, Ephesians 4:15, 1 Peter 3:18).

This is disappointing. We wish we could “poof” to spiritual maturity, like the frog who is kissed by the princess and is instantly and completely transformed. But we can’t. It doesn’t work that way.

Second, it requires that we cooperate with God in the process of growing spiritually so that our inner man gains increasing mastery over our outer man. Growing is not all-God and it is not all-self. It is God and us working together.

Philippians 2:12-13 says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work within you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Notice that it says, “work out your salvation,” not “work in your salvation.” He is not implying that we have to work for our salvation. That is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Rather, we “live out,” or demonstrate our salvation by how we conduct our lives.

This idea is reinforced in Romans 12:2, which says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

This passage tells us that we can be living demonstrations of the fact that God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect, but only if we are transformed, and we will only be transformed as our mind is renewed. So the inner man gains mastery over the outer man as our mind is renewed.

Conclusion

God still holds us (inner man) accountable to grow spiritually… to gain increasing mastery over our body/flesh (outer man)… but the sin of the outer man does not threaten the salvation of the inner man.

It looks like this: Now that we are saved, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we cooperate with God in the process of growing spiritually. God works in us, “both to will and work for His good pleasure.” Then, we respond to the work of God in our lives by being faithfully obedient to Him.

So, while there is a battle even after being born again, that battle is not between two natures within one body, as proposed by Robert Louis Stevenson. Rather it is the battle of the one true you against the sin that still resides in the flesh. Essentially, the battle is against the old programming still residing in the brain.

Knowing that we – the true “us” – are spiritually born again, in the likeness of God in true holiness and righteousness, can strengthen us to help the new inner man gain increasing mastery over our outer man as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:18)

Next week we’ll look at Part 2 of Embracing the Inconceivable: You must accept your inherent and infinite worth as a child of God. I look forward to seeing you then.

Get a Moving from Checkers to Chess At-a-Glance-Overview: Click Here

As we have been studying these concepts for quite some time (including in some prior blog series), and I am excited to now be connecting all the “moving parts” from those posts and combining them into a “spiritual game plan” in this “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ 5 Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective” series.

For an overview of the game plan, so you can see at a glance where we begin and where we’re headed, I’ve created an overview/outline you can download for free: Click Here

For the full discussion of each of the steps, begin with the first post in this series, Moving from Checkers to Chess, and then continue with the following posts thereafter.

In case you’re new here, below are two resources I’ve created for additional help in your Christian discipleship journey:

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