His Life...

2Co 4:7-10 (Darby)  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us,
every way afflicted, but not straitened; seeing no apparent issue,
but our way not entirely shut up; persecuted, but not abandoned;
cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body
the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body;

When a believer accepts the grace of our Lord Jesus in being his substitute on the cross, although he may remain woefully ignorant of his being crucified with Christ he is given God's life nonetheless and has his spirit quickened. This imparted new life brings with it a new nature as well. Hence there now exists both two lives and two natures in the believer: the soul life and the spirit life on the one side, the sin nature and God's nature on the other. These two natures--old and new, sinful and godly-are fundamentally unalike, irreconcilable and unmixable. The new and the old daily strive for authority over the whole man. During this initial stage the Christian is a babe in Christ because he is yet fleshly. Most variable and most painful are his experiences punctuated by both successes and failures. Later on he comes to know the deliverance of the cross and learns how to exercise faith in reckoning the old man as crucified with Christ. Triumph over the sin nature is like a door we step through by faith, One step taken and you are in, triumph over self is like a pathway: you walk and walk for the rest of your journey. The problem of two natures is resolved through reckoning by faith, the problem of two lives remains. It is as we deny ourselves (self life) daily that our soul is available to express the new nature. The old nature is a partnership of the soul and the body. The new nature is a partnership of the Spirit and the soul. May the Life of Jesus be manifested in our soul and body as we join ourselves to Him.