The Nature of Man
A Study - By Arthur J Licursi
The title I’ve given for this paper is actually an incorrect statement. There was no innate nature in man as he was created; that is no nature that is of man his self, alone. Man was created with a body, soul, and a human spirit, but as yet Adam had no nature to govern or guide him, because he was yet incomplete (Col 2:10). It would take Christ to indwell man to complete the creation of man, as he was intended to be. The Bible tells us man, and all the creation, was created “very good;” that is Adam was created unsullied and, having a human spirit, was created “very good” for the ultimate purpose of God. It was for God’s eternal purpose that the man he had created had a human spirit (Zech. 12:1) and was thus had a proper organ with which he could one day receive the “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2) as His life and nature. God’s life and nature could be imparted to man.
“Nature,” in Greek is “phusis,” defined by Strong’s as “growth that comes by germination, as a genus,” “natural production by lineal descent.” In other words, a nature comes by a father’s input, the DNA of his sperm. We should note that Adam was not birthed of God; he was created, and thus had no father and no fathered nature. We who are now regenerated are born of God and now bear His divine nature within our spirit (John 1:13, 2Pet 2:4).
All of us, since Adam, do have a nature at our physical birth. I personally, Art Licursi, was born with the same fallen Serpent nature that had infected Adam’s seed. That infection bore the self-for-self, Sin nature to Adam; it became Adam’s governing nature and the nature of we who are of Adam’s lineage. That fallen nature became mine through the many generations of mankind, ultimately via my physical father, Joseph Licursi.
The nature of man is that which automatically prompts, provokes or stimulates man, to regulate his manner of living. By their nature dogs spontaneously bark and birds spontaneously fly, etc. Man, created without a nature of his own, initially had no governing nature within him, to prompt him. Without a nature Adam was easily tempted by the Serpent. It is thought by some theologians that it was only a matter of a few days after creation that Adam fell to the Serpents snare. So, it is believed that Adam was natureless for only a very short time. Since that day, mankind has a nature.
The fact is that in the Bible we have the account of (2) two very different natures that may be in man, to spontaneously prompt and provoke every man to live in a certain way.
* The first nature to come to man came by the trickery of the Serpent. The first man, Adam, became a slave, unwillingly, to the fallen Serpent nature (Rom 7:17-23).
* The second and last nature (1Cor 15:45) is Christ’s very own self-giving nature. It is part and parcel of His very life given to man, that life which a man must receive willingly, by a free will choice.
Neither of these natures is of man’s own self. These are facts that can only be understood by considering the make-up or anatomy of man, according to Scripture. Read these verses carefully.
Ephes. 2:2-3 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 (manner of living) 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.
2 Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
The Torment of Not Knowing the Truth
Our ignorance of these facts of truth is what sets up Christians for receiving the accusations of our enemy, Satan, the accuser of the brethren, thus being deceived by him. Ignorantly, we may believe the thoughts or inner voice that we may hear within. These may be evil thoughts we may have toward others, jealous, hateful, or self elevating thoughts, and take them as our own thoughts – when all the time these thoughts are not of us, but of the evil one (Rom 7:17, 20). After having such thoughts, we may have chosen to follow those thoughts and do something self-elevating, self-loving, to lie, or do something evil toward another; then the situation may blow up, … so we then blame ourselves, then hearing voices within that condemn us, perhaps saying, “Your no good!”, or “Your no Christian.” This scenario is designed by the enemy of our soul to prompt us to consider dropping out of our seeking to walk with the Lord. This paper is meant to help us discern that the voice and impulse that we may have followed was not of us.
You, like most honest people, may be able to relate to the foregoing scenario that I have described here, but then you may say, “Is there hope for me? Is there a Scriptural basis for hope in the light of this scenario of my failing again and again?”
The answer is yes! We have such a hope. Paul said “Christ in you (your spirit)” is “the hope of glory” (Col 1:27) for the Christian.
First let’s understand that our sins and terrible failures, the things we may do after having received Christ and His salvation by efficacious work on our behalf on the cross, has nothing to do with who you really are in Christ. We may have chosen to follow that prompting of the Sin nature that indwells in our physical flesh; we nevertheless were not the originators of that thought or prompting (Rom 7:17). What we do does not make us who we are. We are Christ’s (1Cor 3:23), we have been bought with a price (1Cor 6:20), and Christ is now our life (Gal 2:20).
The problem for most Christians is that they just don’t know, and therefore do not believe the glorious complete salvation the Lord has provided us. First, we must know that we are eternally saved by grace through the act of faith in our receiving Christ and this makes us also the children of God the Father. Enjoy the truth of these verses and let them sink into your soul.
John 1:12 But as many as received him (Jesus Christ), to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
1 John 3:1a Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: …
John 6:37All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Ephes. 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Romans 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Romans 6:15b … we are not under the law, but under grace? …
How can we say we are saved and have received Christ into our being in the light of the evil thoughts and actions that may sometimes flow through us?
First we must see that our “Standing” and our “State of being” at any given time may differ greatly. Our standing “in Christ” is fixed, sure, and unshakable, because we did nothing to gain our salvation except to freely receive Him and His salvation. Since we did nothing to gain salvation then there is nothing we can do to lose salvation. Our salvation and sonship is the gift of the pure grace of God in “the dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph 3:5).
The truth is that our human spirit was filled with Christ’s life the moment of our regeneration (1Cor 6:17); we were fully equipped for living righteously (Col 1:9-10, 1Cor 1:30). Yet, we were not changed or renewed in our soul-self at salvation; we still possess the same fallen soul mind with its ideas, beliefs, habits and history, via the past experience in this world. We received a body from our natural mother and father, as passed on originally from fallen Adam, with Sin as a nature indwelling it, and our soul’s mind became the “mind of the flesh” (Rom 8:6-7). Our spirit was all at once regenerated the moment we received Christ; yet Paul tells us we need to become renewed in our soul’s mind (Eph 4:23, 2Cor 4:16, Rom 12:2), and that our “body of sin” (Rom 6:6) will one day will be exchanged for incorruptible bodies (1Cor 15:53).
The fact is that, even as Christians, these bodies of ours still now contain “Sin” as a nature (Rom 7:23). Sin is the nature of the evil one. He is the one that “sinneth from the beginning.”
1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
The fact is that the nature of our fallen physical bodies is, “of the devil.” Yes, we have a new desire – to love and serve the Lord according to our new Christ nature in our spirit (2Pet 1:4), yet, at the very same time, we still have another “nature,” that fallen nature of Sin, himself (Eph 2:2-3), in the members of our body (Rom 7:23). That fallen nature wars against our desire to love and serve God. This is to conundrum or dilemma of living that every Christian must endure.
Therefore, while our standing is secure in Christ, our state of being at any given time may be terrible, self-loathing, self-hating, while living in a state of heaviness, darkness and dread. But this is unnecessary. The cure is to know the truth and the Apostle Paul gives us the information we need.
How can this be?
Let’s go back to the beginning and see man as he was created, then see man as he is as being of the race of fallen Adam, and then now see the regenerated man as he may be living on this earth “in Christ,” as he was intended to be.
Man Takes On the Spirit of Anti-Christ
We have seen that at creation, man was created as a natureless container to one day receive, take in, and contain the very life of Christ (1John 4:13). Man was created as a container, such that God’s life would have a living expression through which God’s nature, then being multiplied, may flow out. Our soul’s faculties, with its mind, emotion and will, are to be the vehicles through which God’s life would become expressed. God desires to flow His mind through His children’s minds, His will through ours, His emotion through ours. Today, having received the Spirit of the only begotten Son of God, He may flow out through our mind, emotion, and yielded will, as we yield to His moving to prompt or restrain us from within.
Note that in Scripture believers are likened to living vine branches (John 15) as they abide in union with the vine tree (Christ), also as a temple in which God dwells (1Cor 3:17), and as living members of His body, of which He is the Head. It is the Head that directs the body (Eph 5:30). All these are really containers, for bearing His life and presence.
The Power of Believing “Words” & Belief
This topic deserves a paper of its own but I’ll just touch upon its truth and importance here. Adam’s fall, along with the entire human race, demonstrates the power of the words that we believe. Jesus said, John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. From this we see that words are used to convey spirit and life.
Dear Christian friends of mine, Peter and Peddie Dodds, who I had met on my trips to South Africa, were recently slaughtered there. I often recall Peter saying, “Words are the currency of the spirit.” I agree, words convey the unseen power of the spirit realm, they hold the power of life and death, according to what we believe. One day I believed the words I heard and I was regenerated by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and receiving His Spirit words are vital to life. Conversely, the Serpent’s words hold the power of death, which was conveyed to Adam as the federal head of the entire human race to follow. This is because the Serpents words were diametrically opposed to the words the Lord had spoke to Adam. The words that we receive and believe (trusting in them by acting upon them) are vital and effectual. From this we can see why it is that our salvation comes only by a trusting belief in words of the God-breathed Scripture as they are anointed to our hearts by the Spirit, when read or spoken.
Adam, by the deception of the Serpent, as an yet natureless vessel, believed the Serpents words and, contrary to God’s words, acted upon them by taking into his self-being the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil along with “the spirit of error (1John 4:6)” Why was eating of this tree so significant? First, it was contrary to God’s explicit instruction to them. But also, Eve had considered that partaking of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would make them wise, “as God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). By this, Adam and Eve had been tempted to consider independence from God. They expected that by gaining such knowledge of good and evil they could become independent from God; they could be “as god.” God acknowledges that this exactly is what happened saying, “the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil (see Gen 3:22).” So yes, they gained that knowledge which ended their innocence, evidenced by their hiding from God, but they also had gained a fallen nature that was contrary to true good and evil. Thus every man is born into this world in a catch-22 (trap); every man knows what is right, but has a nature contrary to what is right. We all know by the indwelling “knowledge of good and evil” when we are going contrary to God – everyone knows (Rom 2:15). What actually occurred was that Adam, by believing and acting upon the Serpents words, had taken into himself the nature of the Serpent, the self-for-self, self-loving spirit and nature of the Serpent that “sinneth from the beginning” – the Devil.
Our Faux Father – The Devil
Now we can understand why it is that Jesus would speak to the religious leaders of Israel in His day as follows. John 8:44a Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts (desire) of your father ye will do. They were only doing the will or “lust (desire)” of their faux father – the Devil. Jesus is thereby saying they had no nature of their own – they simply lived and expressed the fallen nature that came to them via Adam, the federal head of all humanity. To expect righteousness from an unregenerate person would be like expecting brain surgery from a plumber – he is just not properly equipped to do surgery. The unregenerate man is not equipped to do genuine righteousness.
Thus, the race of mankind is forever infected with that fallen Sin nature of the Serpent. Every baby born into the word today is infected with the nature of Sin. That sweet child or grandchild has the Serpents Sin nature. You will note that lying came quite naturally to them, without any training. The Devil is thereby the faux father of all mankind today. Thankfully, we who have been regenerated, born of God’s Seed, Christ (Gal 3:16, 1Pet 1:23), have a new righteous nature desiring to govern us from our spirit, if we but yield to His automatic, innermost, promptings.
Ignorant people blame God for the evil in the world since they fail to see him who is the usurping father of all mankind. The Devil is a created being, he cannot be a real father; since he is not capable of procreation, he is not a life-giver, he has no life to father by, but his words have infected fallen humanity forever. He only has a death-life to pass on. He is a usurper, taking the man who was created with the intent of being a living container for the life and nature of God.
Religion’s Source
We can see that religion is rooted in the knowledge of good and evil. It promotes man’s self-effort to find, serve and please God. Yet the Sin nature would actually encourage this. The Sin nature and legalistic religion make man a failure in his self, and promotes hypocrisy. The Serpent is opposed to the reality of the living Christ who is the genuine righteous life in every man who receives Christ. So, religion with its laws, go hand in hand with the Sin nature to make you fail; in fact the “law” is the power of Sin (1Cor 15:56b). Satan does not mind you “trying” to live godly; he knows you cannot do it in your self. By offering the substitute of religion’s self-effort program, Satan can sidetrack you from coming to know the truth of God’s unconditional love and grace that are now yours in Christ. Thankfully, we are no longer under the law but grace (Rom 6:14b). Knowing this truth helps to disarm Satan’s sin nature.
It was religion that called for the crucifixion of Jesus. Today many “worship” Jesus Christ as though He were a dead historical leader, as though he is not alive within the believer, and so they should try imitate Jesus and follow the words of Jesus of Nazareth, in their own self-strength. This is trying to substitute the imitation of Jesus for actually living by His life now in us. Why settle for trying to copy Jesus, which is hopeless, when we have Him actually and literally present in us, desiring to live through us?
This idea of religion, to imitate Jesus, is more evil than you may think. John calls this nothing less that “the spirit of anti-christ.” This denial of the living Christ living in each of us as the members of “the Church which is His body” (Eph 1:22b-23a), makes His life in the believer “of no effect” (Gal 5:4). Denying that He has come to live deep within our flesh bodies, within our spirit, at the core of our being, is “the spirit of antichrist.”
1 John 4:2-4 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come (erchomai, spoken in the middle voice, “is presently come”) in the flesh is of God: 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come (erchomai, spoken in the middle voice, “is presently come”) in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he (Christ) that is in you (indwelling you), than he that is in the world.
Two thousand years ago Jesus of Nazareth walked in human flesh; today He walks in our flesh bodies, since we are the members of “the body of Christ” on earth today. No matter how religious we may appear, whenever we live our lives, ignoring the Christ who lives in us as our life and Lord; we then are anti the Christ who lives in us. This then is “the spirit of antichrist.” When we live religiously, legalistically, trying to do what we think may make us to look or sound religious or righteous, we actually are making Christ in us “of no effect” in our living. We thereby deny Him who is the righteous One in us the opportunity to live through us as He wills, however that may be.
The Facts
Every Christian needs to know and trust the fact that Christ literally lives in their human spirit as their new life, as their new, legitimate, and overcoming life and nature in their being. This fact is always true, even in the face of our many failures.
Romans 8:8b-10 … ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 10And if Christ be in you, the body is dead (lifeless, useless) because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
1 Cor. 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Col. 1:26-27 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
The fact is that we now possess Christ and His overcoming, limitless, life, never to be lost. We need to see Sin as the powerless squatter in our bodies of flesh (body of sin, Rom 6:7), who actually has been overthrown, rendered powerless. We have Sin as a nature, Sin is in the flesh. Sin, as a noun here, is as a personality, a nature that has dominion over man (Rom 6:14), it lords it over every human (Rom 7:18). “Sins” are simply the automatic and normal fruit or outworking of that nature of “Sin.” I capitalize “Sin” here to accentuate the fact that this is the nature of a personality, of the Devil, the one “that sinneth from the beginning (1John 3:18)”
Though Sin has usurped all mankind as the offspring of Adam through whom the infection of Sin has passed to all his offspring, to every generation. Sin, by our death on the cross (in Christ), has been rendered powerless in every man who receives Christ and lives by the spirit (Rom 8:13).
But, if Sin is powerless, then why do we still hear to the voices and promptings of Sin?
Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
We need to know, believe, and trust the truth of Scripture. Consider this as a way to explain why we still may hear the voice of Sin within us. It is as though the old captain of our being, Captain Sin, is now condemned and restricted to the brig (our body), he has no more authority over us, but he can still try to bark out orders by the thoughts he imparts to us as “vain imaginations.” (Paul says 2 Cor. 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.) Since Captain Sin has no more authority or power over us, we need not to listen to his barking; we need to know he is powerless over us and that Christ is our real life (Col 3:4a).
Paul knew the faculties of our minds had been twisted along with our emotions, and our self-loving will. Paul tells the Christian we need to be renewed in soul, with its leading part, the mind, to do the will of God. Ephes. 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
How can Sin be made powerless toward us?
You need to listen and consider these Scriptures carefully to catch what I’m about to share here.
Romans 6:6-7 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (kartargeo, made of no effect), that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Romans 6:3-4 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized (immersed) into Jesus Christ were baptized (immersed) into his death? 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
What I’m about to share here is a FACT of Bible truth that applies to all who have received salvation in Christ. The fact is we are crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6, Gal 2:20a) and now we are now alive by our unbreakable union with the life of Christ – now Christ is alive in us, as us. Contrary to the mistranslation of the word “kartargeo” in Rom 6:6 rendering it “destroyed,” when kartargeo should be rendered “made of no effect” or “nullified,” please know that Captain Sin is not yet “destroyed,” or in the pit of hell. Captain Sin is alive in our flesh, in our “members” (Rom 7:23). We are the one, as our old independent self, who is dead, crucified with Him (Rom 6:3, Gal 2:20). Thus, we who are dead in Christ have the benefit of thereby being freed from the power of sin, from Sin’s dominion (Rom 6:7). Satan cannot rule a dead person. Captain Sin can lie and try to deceive you into thinking you are an independent self, but you cannot make it on your own, by your own effort, you are no longer your own (1Cor 6:19), you have been bought with a price. You are dead and your life is with Christ in God (Col 3:4a). Do you see it? Sin shall not have dominion over us any longer. The truth is now known – Praise God, we are dead as independent selves, we are free!
Jesus did a thorough job on our behalf.
* Jesus Christ died to pay for the penalty of the sins that were actualized in and through us, while we were deceived.
* Now we see that Christ died also “as us,” to free us from the power of Sin.
* One day, at the rapture, we will be freed from the presence of Sin, when we exchange these corruptible bodies for incorruptible bodies.
Now, our life, and our hope, is in Christ. His life, in fact, is our new life. Thus we see that man was created natureless, but we were born into the world with the Sin nature that dwells in our members. Yet, simultaneously, we may receive Christ and have the life of the resurrected Christ in our spirit as our new and overcoming life. Being impotent, natureless, we had no strength against Captain Sin, but being dead with Christ and trusting His Spirit of life (Rom 8:2a), we overcome the lies of Captain Sin by simply knowing and believing the truth of who we really are – sons of the living God.
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