Often brought forth by advocates of Reformed Theology is that Free Grace theology, by allowing for the possibility of perpetually carnal Christians to be saved, is denying the new birth. However, this argument is flawed as it is born from a rather unbiblical understanding of the two natures of the believer.
The Bible does not teach that our old nature is changed or totally taken away at the moment we are born again. Instead, we are given a new nature which we are told to walk in. However, the old nature still remains in us, and we have the ability to choose in which nature we want to walk in. Notice how in Ephesians 4 Paul gives to saved Christians the command to walk in the in the new nature, as he writes:
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
The fact that Paul is giving this as a command, implies that the Christian has a degree of choice to walk in either. This distinction between the flesh nature and the spirit nature is put together clearly in Galatians 5:17 which reads:
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Thus, we have two natures in us which are constantly in conflict, the reason why some Christians can be carnal is that we still have the flesh, and sometimes people unfortunately choose to live in the flesh rather than the new nature. We this happening in the book of Corinthians, where it names Christians who live carnally:
1 Corinthians 3
3 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
Notice how the same people who are called "carnal" are also called "brethren". Thus they were saved, despite walking in the flesh. I like how the Baptist Evangelist and Pastor John R Rice described the conflict of our two natures, as he wrote:
Now a Christian should live a consecrated Christian life but that does not automatically follow. People who are saved will find, like Paul, "When I would do good, evil is present with me . . . . So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:21,25).
Every saved person still has the old carnal nature and often-times has the same kind of temptation he had before. Some people who have truly been born again have a desperate fight to quit tobacco, and some have never seemed to get the victory over that or other bad habits. Some Christians have never learned to trust the Lord enough to bring tithes and offerings, and some have never learned to win souls. When a baby is born, he is not born grown. Being born is one thing; growing is another thing entirely.
So the thing to do is to take for granted that people are saved when they trust Christ for salvation. Then one should set out to teach them to read the Bible daily, to learn to pray about their daily needs, to confess their sins and failures and grow in grace day by day. It is as foolish to expect young Christians to be good Christians by themselves as it is to expect a child, born in the family, to automatically be a great credit to the family without any rearing—whether they are spiritual babes or physical babes. I assure you that unless people are taught to be consecrated Christians, taught to read the Bible and pray, they are not likely to be good Christians, even if they are truly born again.
SOURCE: Dr. Rice... Here Are More Questions, by John R. Rice, pg. 76,77, Sword of the Lord Publishers; ISBN: 0-87398-157-X
However, do not believe something because a man said it. Test all doctrines by the scripture, which clearly shows the distinction of our two natures.
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