The Secret Of Romans 7 Part 12

INTRO: There is a subject I could have taken up earlier, as it begs for treatment. But it dawned on me more after I passed through the section where it begins and then thought I would take it up in verse 18 because verse 18 makes a very important distinction in this subject. The subject is the dual nature of the Christian.

I suppose you will have heard of the white dog and the black dog story. The story goes something like this. There was an old Indian Chief of some American tribe. A missionary visited there quite often. The chief came to faith and one day the missionary asked the chief how it was going. And he said something like this: "It is like two dogs inside me. They are always fighting." And the missionary asked which one was winning, to which the chief replied, "The one I feed."

The Christian has a dual nature. The non-believer does not have this. We might think he does because he has a conscience as well as the Christian. But the conscience is not one of the two natures. Paul introduced us to these two natures in verse 14. He said that as a Christian he was carnal. He was fleshly and he was sold under sin, that is, he was a slave to sin still.