"Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren. we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free." -Galatians 4:30-31
This is the third entry concerning the old soul and the new soul. The scripture that I just referenced from Galatians is speaking about Ishmael (son of the bondwoman) and Isaac (son of the free woman). For those of you who may not know that story I'll paraphrase it. God came to Abraham and told him that he would be the father of many nations and that his descendants would be more numerous than the sand on the seashore. Many years went by and Abraham and Sarah still had not conceived, so Abraham and his wife Sarah came up with an idea to "help" God accomplish his will for their lives. Abraham would take Sarah's servant Hagar and lay with her. They conceived a child and named the child Ishmael. Eventually when Abraham was 99 years old he and his wife conceived and had a son and named him Isaac. Ishmael was not the son of promise, so he didn't get the blessing of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Isaac was the son of promise and the son of a free woman, so the blessing of the covenant that God made with Abraham flows through the lineage of Isaac.
The story of Ishmael and Isaac can be directly correlated to the subject of old soul vs. new soul. Ishmael represents the old soul, and Isaac represents the new soul. When it says to cast out the bondwoman and her son, it is speaking of the root (Hagar) and its fruit (Ishmael.) For the son of the bondwoman will not be an heir with the son of the free woman. So this poses a few questions. First, what does Hagar represent, and second what does Ishmael represent? I'm glad you asked! Hagar represents the law. Ishmael represents the old soul. So if Hagar represents law and Ishmael represents the old soul, then Sarah represents grace, and Isaac the new soul. So now we reach an em pass. There are 2 roads we can take. Either we can follow the road that leads toward the law and the fruit of the old soul, or we can choose to take the path of grace and receive the fruit of the new soul.
So, we see then that the old soul and new soul can not live together. If the fruits can't live together, then the roots definitely can't live together. Law and grace, old soul and new soul, can not survive together. The old nature can't access the new nature, and the new nature can't survive in the old nature. In order for a plant to live and flourish it must be in the correct environment. If you place something out of its environment it will not survive. If you were to take a palm tree and plant it in Antarctica would it survive? If you expected it to, then you would be what we in the business call off your rocker. There is no way that a warm climate tree would survive in the Arctic! Thus, law and grace can not possibly cohabitate together.
So here's where I find myself on this revelation of the old and new soul. If I find myself slipping back into the old soul, it is usually because I am placing myself under the law and the list of requirements that the law demands. No, I'm not keeping feasts and sacrificing animals and that kind of thing, but I sometimes fall into the trap of stumbling and then believing that I somehow have to make up for the sins I've committed so that I will be acceptable to God. I focus so much on not sinning that the very thing that I'm concentrating so hard not to do is exactly what I fall victim to! Instead of focusing my eyes on Jesus and what He did for me, I am focusing my eyes on my sin and how if I don't keep myself holy, God won't accept me! What Jesus did on the cross covered all sin! At the time of His sacrifice our sins had not been committed yet. So the wrongs that we have done, and the wrongs that we have yet to do, have already been covered under His blood and under His grace!
I started this blog out by quoting the book of Galatians. That whole letter is basically intended to teach the believers in Galatia that the teachings they were allowing to come into their body were causing them harm. They were abandoning a teaching of grace that Paul brought to them and were slipping back under the law. In fact Paul says at one point that they had fallen from grace, which is to say, back into the law! If you want to keep the law you must keep the whole law and what it demands. The law demands perfect personal perpetual obedience. No slip ups ever! Not one! For them to slip back into keeping the law, that meant that they were totally nullifying the teaching of grace that they had come under! Chapter 3 of Galatians starts of with Paul saying, "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" He wrote some letters to a church in Corinth that had some CRAZY stuff happening in it, and people were doing some pretty ridiculous things, but never does he call them fools. Most of us would believe that bad behavior is worse than bad belief. God sees bad belief worse than bad behavior. If you believe wrong then you will continually behave wrong, but if you begin to believe right, then your behavior will follow your belief!
So what am I saying? Have you ever tried to get rid of weeds? When I was growing up, I was in charge of mowing the grass. I actually enjoyed it, but I didn't want to do it every week. I used to set the blade as far down as it would go, so that I would cut the weeds down as short as I could humanly get them! They would continually grow back though. I would sometimes get frustrated because they would get so big so quickly! I didn't realize this simple principle back then: If you get rid of the root, you'll get rid of the fruit. The life source for any plant comes from its root system. If you continually take the fruit off, all you're doing is taking the result of it's life away, you aren't actually taking the life from it. However, if you take the root out, then the plant will surely die. I could cut those weeds down as far as they would go, but if I left the root in the ground they WOULD come back!
So if you keep getting rid of the old soul, or you stop doing the things that live inside of the old soul, but you continue to base your life off of keeping rules and regulations, then eventually the old soul will creep back in and take over. If you kick the devil out of his house and he comes back and finds it in order, then he will come back and with room mates. So the easiest way to stay in the new soul, and to walk fully in it is to stay under grace. We need to get to an understanding that nothing that I do can get me any closer to God, and that nothing I can do will ever make God love me any more or less. God loves me perfectly because, as a blood bought Christian, He sees His son when He sees me. So throw out the bondwoman (the law) and her son (the old soul). Law and grace can not live together, if you try and live in both then they will nullify each other. If you try to live under the law then you have to live perfectly, but if you live under grace then it draws you closer to Jesus the one who DID live perfect and allows us to have everlasting communion with Him. If you try to live under law and grace, then the law makes grace totally irrelevant and cancels it out.
Just like you can't put new wine into an old wineskin, you can't combine law and grace together. An old wineskin is brittle and isn't malleable, so when you put new wine into it you will burst the wine skin and lose the skin and the wine. The old wineskin represents law. Brittle and unmoving. New wine is grace. If you try to practice the belief of grace inside the workings of the law then it will destroy the law and you will lose grace. As you go throughout the week, ask God to show you where you need to submit fully and walk under grace instead of trying to control Him by living under the law and impressing Him with what you can do. Remember the root of the old soul is the law, and the root of the new soul is grace.
