My title for this Study, “The Nature of Man” is actually as misnomer. For there was no innate nature in Adam or of Adam when he was created. Adam was created and formed with a body, soul, and human spirit, to make him a vessel fit for God. Initially, Adam had no nature to govern or guide him, he was incomplete. A human’s completion comes by having received “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:2, Col 2:10), making him a partaker of the “divine life” of Christ (Col. 3:4) and thereby a “divine nature.” (2Pet. 1:4).

The Bible tells us man, and all of the creation, was created “very good;” that is Adam was created faultless and having a human spirit as the God intended receptacle for God’s indwelling; that man could thereby receive the “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” in his “spirit of man” (Zech. 12:1) to be man’s life and righteous guiding nature. Christ’s indwelling Spirit completes a man as he was intended to be (Col. 2:10).

The word ‘nature,’ in Greek is “phusis,” defined by Strong’s as “growth that comes by germination, as a genus (as that kind),” “natural production by lineal descent.” In other words, a nature is derived of a father’s input by the DNA of his sperm. Adam was NOT born of God, he was created, thus he had No father and therefore Adam was originally was without a fathered nature. We who are believers have been fathered, “regenerated” (Tit. 3:5), “born of God” by His “Seed, which is Christ” (Gal 3:16, 1Pet 1:23) bearing His life and nature. (2Pet. 2:4).

All of us as sons of the first Adam, received his fallen sin-nature at our physical birth. I personally was born with the same fallen Serpentine nature that had infected Adam, as do all Adam’s lineal descendants. That sin infection gave us the self-for-self, prideful nature of Satan. This then was the governing nature of we who were as the descendants of Adam. That sin-nature became mine via my physical father, Joseph Licursi, passing Adam’s Sin-nature to me … in my “body of flesh” (Rom. 8:3, 6:6).

The nature of humans today, whether Satan’s Sin-nature or Christ’s life and nature is that which inwardly automatically prompts, provokes or stimulates man, to regulate his manner of living and choices. This is as it is with the nature of dogs to bark and birds to fly, etc. Adam was originally created without a nature of his own, initially he had no governing nature within him, to prompt him. Without a nature, Eve was easily tempted by the Serpent. It’s thought by some that it was only a matter of a few days after creation that Eve and Adam fell to the Serpents snare. Adam was natureless for only a short time. Since then, all mankind has the Sin-nature guiding them from within their “body of sin” (Rom. 6:6).

The fact is that in the Bible we find that there are two very different natures in believers, vying to spontaneously prompt and provoke every man to live in a certain way.

1. The first nature in man came by believing the Serpent. Adam, thereby became a captive, as a slave to the fallen Serpentine Sin-nature (Rom 7:17-23). Paul calls it our “Old Man” (Rom. 6:6).
2. The second nature is Christ’s very own self-giving nature which is part and parcel of His very life given to man, that life which a man must receive willingly, by a free will choice.

Neither of these natures is of man’s own self. This truth can only be understood as we consider the make-up or anatomy of man, according to Scripture. Read these two sets contrasting verses carefully.

Ephes. 2:2-3 Wherein in time past ye (Gentiles) walked according to the course of this world (Gk. cosmos, fallen world), according to (Satan as) the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: ³Among whom also we all had our conversation (manner of living) in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

2 Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye (Jewish believers) might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Paul writes to the members of “the body of Christ”: Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.