Believing in Christ Himself, supposes that I have, more or less, come to an end of myself; that I have bowed to the humiliating sentence of Scripture upon my nature, and that I own myself to be lost in the sight of God. So that, when one receives Christ, he has still his old nature, not only body, soul, and spirit, but even “the flesh” – for this, too, he has still, and it may be, alas! the occasion of many a slip and sorrow, if he be unwatchful. Besides these, there is for the believer a new nature that he had not before.
We must take care that we put things in their proper places. It is the Word brought home by the Holy Spirit that produces faith, and this not by mending the first, but by revealing the last Adam – Christ. God has come down from heaven to accomplish this great purpose – to give me this new life – to deliver me from sin and self: and how is it done? It is the Holy Spirit who effects it by the Word of God, which makes Christ known to the soul.