My dear brothers, do you have the experiences we have mentioned? Do you want to know the reason for them? Do you want to overcome? May the Lord bless what we are discussing today so that we will learn to grow in His grace.

Before we speak of our present condition, we should first understand the kind of person we were before we believed in the Lord. After that, we will speak of our condition after we believed in the Lord. We know that we are persons made up of three parts—the spirit, the soul, and the body. The spirit is the organ with which we fellowship with God. Animals have no spirit. Hence, they can never worship God. The soul is the seat of our personality. Our will, mind, emotion, and sentiments are all functions of the soul. The body is our outward shell. Although man has become fallen, he still possesses these three parts. After man is regenerated, he still has the same three parts. When God created man, He created him with a self-consciousness; man was a living creature with consciousness. He had a spirit. Hence, he was different from other lower kinds of creatures. He had a soul. Hence, he was different from the angels of light, who are purely spirits. The center of man was his spirit; it controlled his whole being. It controlled his soul and his body. Man was living totally for God; the emotions of his soul and the demands of his body were all headed up by his spirit, and they were for glorifying God and worshipping God.

But alas, man fell! This fall did not annul any of the three elements in man. However, the order of these three elements has been upset. The condition in the garden of Eden shows us clearly that mankind rebelled against God; his love for God ceased, and he declared his independence from God. Genesis 3:6 says, "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food [this was the lust of the body, which comes first] and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired [this was the love of the emotion in the soul, which comes next] to make one wise [this was Satan's suggestion, `And ye shall be as gods, knowing' (3:5); this was the spirit rejecting God, and man satisfying the cravings of the soul and the body; this comes last]." In this way, man fell, and his spirit, soul, and body were all affected. The spirit became subject to the soul, and the soul was controlled by its many senses. The body developed many abnormal cravings and lusts, which enticed the soul. Originally the spirit took the lead. Now the body takes the lead to satisfy its lusts. In the Bible, this lust of the body is called the flesh. From this time on, man became flesh (Gen. 6:3). This flesh is now man's nature after he sinned; it is now his natural constitution. Our nature is the life principle or constitution that directs our whole being. Since the time of Adam, everyone born of woman bears this sinful nature; all of them are of the flesh. After understanding the origin of the flesh and how the flesh is just our sinful nature, we can now consider the character of this flesh. We cannot expect this flesh to improve. Human nature is hard to change. In fact, it will not change. The Lord Jesus said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." We should focus on the word "is." That which is born of the flesh is flesh. No matter how much a person reforms, improves, and cultivates himself, the flesh is still the flesh. No matter how much a person tries to perform charitable, benevolent acts, send relief aid, love others, or serve, he is still the flesh. Even if he can do all these things, he is still the flesh. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." Since it is the flesh that is born, it will be the flesh that will result. No man on earth can change his flesh. Neither can God in heaven change man's flesh, that is, man's nature.

Since God saw that it was impossible to mend, improve, or change man's sinful nature, He brought in the present wonderful way of redemption. We know that the Lord Jesus died for us on the cross at Golgotha. We also know that when we believe in Him and receive Him as our Savior, we are saved. But why does God deliver us from death to life once we believe in His Son's name? If this believing does not involve an exchange in our life, which is different from a mere change, will not God be delivering a man who is still full of sin into heaven? There must surely be a profound message here.

After we have believed in the Lord Jesus, God does not leave us to walk according to the old sinful nature, that is, the flesh. He sentenced the Lord Jesus to death because He intended, on the one hand, that the Lord become sin for us, and on the other hand, that the old Adamic creation be crucified with Him, so that He could give us a new life. When we believed in the Lord Jesus as our Savior, God gave us this new life with its new nature. "Through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust" (2 Pet. 1:4). At the time we believed, He dispensed into us His own life, the life of God, with the nature of God. This nature is entirely new; it is totally different from our old sinful nature. This nature does not come from an improvement of our old nature. This mysterious transaction took place at the instant we believed in the Lord Jesus as our Savior. This is regeneration, which is to be born from above and to receive God's life and nature. This regeneration is not something that man feels. Rather, it is the work of God's Holy Spirit in our spirit, recovering our spirit's lost position and installing God's life in our spirit. "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). All those who have genuinely believed in the Lord Jesus have the Holy Spirit working in them in this way. Those who believe only with their mouth or their head are not regenerated. All those who have believed with their heart are saved (Rom. 10:9) and are surely regenerated.