Paul tells us that it is not circumcision nor uncircumcision that matters, but the creation of the new nature. It is essential that we explore the meaning behind what he said. When we refer to what someone will automatically do, we call it his or her nature. Selfishness, they say, is basic human nature. In other New Testament passages, the authors go into detail on the nature of sinful man: we have the bad fruit of the bad tree coming to light in such passages. In other passages, the Spirit Nature, or New Nature, is given a detailed description, and this is the good fruit of the good tree. By using the word nature, we acknowledge that it is not something we so much choose to do, but something we automatically do in our daily lives. So whenever someone is selfish, we say, “He couldn’t help it – it’s human nature.” When we are locked in the sinful nature, we cannot help it but to live lives highlighted by bad fruit. When we become new creations – when we become owners of a new nature – we cannot help but to live life in the Kingdom as God would desire us to live – and how God originally fashioned us to live.

Paul brings the reality of the sinful nature and the spirit nature to par in his letter to the Romans. Chapter Seven finds the pen striking a remorseful tone as he dwells on the sinful nature within him and the sin that resides there. He speaks of how he wants to do what is right, but cannot, and how he wishes not to do what is wrong, but feels powerless not to. I have oft returned to these words in moments of frailty after succumbing to sin, looking to identify with one of the greatest followers of Christ in written history; yet whenever I continued down his laments, I was startled by the break in the sorrow and the exuberance with which he penned: “Who shall deliver me [from my sinful nature]? Thanks be to Jesus Christ our Lord – He is the answer!” The answer to deliverance from the sinful nature is found in Jesus Christ. I stumbled over this verse for so long, wondering how Jesus was the answer, wondering what I was missing (remember, these words became rote for me whenever I caved in to sin), wondering why the Answer wasn’t so evident in my life. Now I understand what Paul is saying: The answer that Jesus Christ gives is simply a changing of our nature, a changing of our instincts; we will be conformed to the instincts and nature of Christ.

What counts, then, is whether or not our natures have been changed by Jesus Christ. In the sinful nature, what came naturally was, obviously, sin and its counterparts and the attributes of a life lived apart from God. In the new nature – the new creation fashioned after the nature of Christ, fashioned as how God originally intended life to be lived – we find that instead of sin and its counterparts coming naturally to us, the holy life – the life built upon God and interaction with God in our daily lives (for this is Kingdom) – comes naturally to us. Where before we had to work to be good, in the new nature we will have to work to be bad. Where we had to work to do good deeds, we will have to work to commit sin. As holiness is, in many ways, alien and foreign to us now, so evil and all its subdivisions will be alien and foreign to us when our natures are changed.

It is when our nature is changed that our lives are changed – Jesus’ words make sense and we look at the Sermon on the Mount and exclaim, perhaps with surprise, “Hey, that’s me!” It is the same for all the other great texts exemplifying the attributes of a new character: we will say, “Look! He’s writing about me!” And when our eyes lay upon those texts detailing the sinful nature, we will wonder how anyone could act that way or be that way, and find it completely unbelievable that anyone could live life apart from God.