The Antibiotic for the Old Nature
The Antibiotic for the Old Nature
There is a word which holds out great hope to many suffering from physical ailments, and there is a principle in this word which illustrates admirably one of the greatest truths in the Word of God. The word antibiotics has been derived by doctors from antibiosis, meaning "an association between two or more organisms which is detrimental to one of them." The best known of the antibiotics is penicillin; another is streptomycin. The prefix anti means "against" and the root word bios (as in biology and biography) means "life." Against the living bacteria, other living organisms are released in the body which fight the disease-bearing bacteria. Good life fights evil life. The life in penicillin feeds upon the life of some disease-bearing bacteria and destroys them. In test tubes, streptomycin has destroyed the bacilli of tuberculosis and leprosy, and the bacterium of tularemia.
The great spiritual illustration that can be shown is the principle of warfare between the flesh and the Spirit. We have an old nature of sin. Left to itself, it grows and multiplies like the splitting of bacteria and the spread of malignant tissue. But when we are born again, the life of God is released in us as an antibiotic. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that ye would" (Gal. 5:17). The life of the Holy Spirit within is the antibiotic that fights against the living death of the old nature.
This is clearly expressed in the eighth chapter of Romans. If we follow the Greek, leaving out the last ten words of the first verse and then going on in the continuing tense, we read, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law (the antibiotic) of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:1, 2). If we will deny ourselves those fleshly lusts which feed the old nature and give ourselves the food of the Word which nourishes the new life of the Spirit, we shall be "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man" and shall be "filled unto all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:16, 19).
1. When in battle your sense of the enemy is always heightened because of the life and death nature of war. How heightened are your senses to the work of the enemy, so that you might not perish?
2. Would you consider the internal battles we all face an apologetic situation? Why or Why not?
3. What does Dr. Barnhouse say we should do when we are conflicted and quarreling with ourselves?
