Now, new birth having been carried into effect with any given person, there is produced within that which is born of the Spirit, and is spirit as to its nature. This is contrasted with flesh, the nature we possess as born of Adam’s race. This new spirit-nature is called the “inward man” in Romans 7:2222For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (Romans 7:22), and as prompted by that inward man, the believer “delights in the law of God.” In that same chapter, verses 7-25 are the detailing of an experience and marked by the constant repetition of the pronouns “I,” “me,” “my,” consequent upon the distress occasioned to the speaker — the “I” — by the conflicting desires of the two natures — “the flesh” on the one hand, “the inward man” on the other. But amongst the lessons learned in the course of that experience is this, that God (and therefore also faith in us) recognizes only the new spirit-nature; the old is utterly worthless. In it is no good (Rom. 7:1818For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (Romans 7:18)), and in the cross it has been condemned (Rom. 8:33For 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: (Romans 8:3)).
The horticultural process of grafting is a good illustration of this point. The gardener selects a stock sapling that is quite worthless in itself and condemns it by cutting it hard back till only the stump remains. He then inserts the twig of value, let us say some dessert apple. When once the graft is effectively made, he no longer in any way owns the old nature. He always speaks of the tree by the name of the engrafted twig. It is the same tree as far as its identity goes. The two natures are there as experience will prove, but the new nature is the dominant nature and the acknowledged nature of the “born-again” tree.
F. B. Hole