Sometime ago, I came across an article by E.W. Bullinger entitled, “The Two Natures in the Child of God”. The article awakened in me the need for a book that discussed this subject, from the perspective of the Church of God. Therefore, I have undertaken to make this offering.
The reader should understand that Bullinger was a Protestant and therefore, saw things with their eyes. The Protestants came out of Catholicism where one earned his salvation by works. They could see that the bible taught the opposite – salvation by grace. However, the Protestants have never been able to differentiate between the constituted Law of God common to both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and the law of justification – temple rituals – required only in the Old Covenant.
One can easily observe that the Protestants jumped from the Catholic ditch of works for salvation (justification) to the opposite ditch of antinomianism. Today, we are reaping the results of this teaching: lawlessness everywhere. We are on the brink of the breakdown of our society because of this antinomian teaching.
The older Protestants had scruples and undoubtedly never realized where their antinomianism would lead. They accepted that a given community had the right to set down constituted laws and require them of their neighbors. However, the succeeding generations of antinomianism began to realize that if God did not require them to keep His law there was certainly no reason they should keep man’s law. Their teachers assured them of their salvation regardless of their actions.
As time proceeded, the Protestant perspective of eternal salvation without any requirements for the human led to relativism taught in the “schools of higher learning”. The idea of relativism is that what might be wrong for one person is not necessarily wrong for another person, or what might be wrong today is not necessarily wrong tomorrow. Another idea born in that period was that of evolution: the hypothesis that the human species evolved from nothing. The more intelligent scientists realized that something does not come from nothing and conceded that there was some sort of a first cause.
The last half of the twentieth century saw the rise of prosperity and secularism. This resulted in a drain from the Protestant pews. The parishioners finally made the connection that after assuring their salvation – nothing furthered required – they had no need to attend church or make any monetary payments to their leaders. They were free at last and could live life with abandon with their leaders’ assurance of their eternal salvation. The allurements on the outside were greater than the inducements on the inside. The church had reduced the parishioners to quite spectators. If one was to be a spectator, a sports game seemed more exciting where one could at least scream for his team.
The twenty-first century has seen the rise of those religions that require something of their parishioners, such as some of the more practical Protestant branches and non-Christian religions such as Islam. Because of the change of the times, the Protestant religion has become obsolete – especially among the liberal worshippers. The modern Protestant religion has reduced itself to little more than a first- cause.
Much of our society has abandoned the church even as a first-cause, realizing that if the church requires nothing of one, nothing is exactly what one gains, from such an endeavor. Some few Protestant branches have returned to the Ten Commandments with an exception clause for the fourth commandment: One day of rest in seven rather than rest on the seventh day.
One can find the truth concerning man’s responsibility in the teaching of the Two Natures, from the perspective of the bible. Moreover, one understands with these instructions how man can be responsible to God’s requirements. I have used no quotes from Bullinger. However, I have constructed an examination of his work to get out this important message to God’s people.
God has provided a second nature to make possible what is impossible otherwise – living by the Law of God. Those who do not have this second nature will argue all the day long that this work is in error, for the carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. It is fruitless to argue with someone who has only the Adamic Nature. This writing is for those who already have Two Natures or want to acquire the second nature. It is my hope that this writing will inspire its readers to a deeper understanding of why they exist and how they can rise above the spectator endeavor of the secular churches of today.
