A Critique of the “Exchanged Life”

By Matthew L. Blackmon and Robert A. Pyne

[Robert A. Pyne is Professor of Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Matthew L. Blackmon is a Ph.D. candidate in Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary.]

In certain pockets of evangelicalism the “Exchanged Life” has become an increasingly popular model of sanctification. Some concerns surrounding it have been addressed in other publications.[1]However, no direct summary and assessment of Exchanged Life theology has been available, and many recent inquiries on the subject have prompted further consideration. This article discusses basic principles of the Exchanged Life position, followed by some critical observations. It is hoped that this response will encourage a fruitful and continuing conversation.

Many believers have found both satisfaction and encouragement through Exchanged Life theology. This article is not meant to diminish that experience or dishonor the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. It is, however, written with the conviction that Christian spirituality should be more God-centered, more realistic, more hopeful, more liberating, and more delightful than that which Exchanged Life theology describes.

The language of the Exchanged Life is often traced to J. Hudson Taylor.[2] After a particularly difficult time he experienced a spiritual awakening. “It was the exchanged life that had come to him—the life that is indeed ‘No longer I.’ Six months earlier he had written, ‘I have continually to mourn that I follow at such a distance and learn so slowly to imitate my precious Master.’ There was no thought of imitation now! It was in blessed reality ‘Christ liveth in me.’ And how great the difference!—instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another.”[3]

It is unclear whether Taylor actually advocated the ideas now associated with Exchanged Life theology.[4] However, his story remains the pattern for many in this movement: discouraged by an inability to obey God, a dedicated but frustrated believer finally understands the implications of a simple truth and lives thereafter in victory. The hope of such a transforming discovery continues to fuel Exchanged Life teaching. When believers find that their experience of spirituality does not match their expectations, they often feel they must have missed something. Exchanged Life theology offers an explanation of their struggle and promises a way forward.

Exchanged Life theology defies strict definition. Doctrines not unique to this movement are sometimes included in its popular-level descriptions, and the “Exchanged Life” label is claimed by a number of persons and ministries whose teaching evidences significant diversity.[5] While some of that diversity is discussed in this article, it is important to note that not all of these individuals or ministries would affirm the Exchanged Life precisely as summarized here. However, most of them do share a number of basic ideas. At the risk of oversimplification the distinctive teaching of Exchanged Life theology is that believers will experience victory and happiness in the Christian life only by recognizing and living out the reality of the inherent change already produced in them at conversion.[6]

Basic Elements of Exchanged Life Theology

A New Reality

Exchanged Life theology offers an answer to the Christian’s ongoing struggle with temptation and sin. Believers simply need to understand and give expression to the new reality that came about at conversion. That new reality might be described in a variety of ways: believers have a “new identity,” a “new nature,” a “new spirit,” or a “new heart.” However, unless believers affirm and act on this new reality, they will continue to sin. “Understanding our identity is absolutely essential to our success in living the Christian life. No person can consistently behave in a way that is inconsistent with the way he perceives himself. Next to a knowledge of God, a knowledge of who we are is by far the most important truth we can possess.”[7]

And what is the truth about “who we are”? Drawing on the language of 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Ezekiel 36:26, Exchanged Life proponents argue that at conversion an individual becomes a fundamentally new creature. “Paul says those who have trusted Christ have become a new creation. The root of the word ‘creation’ is ‘create.’ The word doesn’t mean to improve something already in existence. It means to bring something out of nothing. God didn’t simply change you when you were saved. He created a new person! You aren’t the same person you were before you became a Christian.”[8]

In the words of Stanford, “The old is not changed, but exchanged for that which is altogether new.”[9] He adds,

[2 Corinthians 5:17] speaks of our position, not our condition. Our condition will develop from this completed position by means of our reckoning faith. When we arose from the dead in Christ, we were created anew, cut off from the old source of life by the Cross, and joined to the new Source in the “power of an endless life.” “Old things are passed away”: the old man is passed away, as far as the new life is concerned—separated by the death of Calvary. “All things are become new”: everything is new in Christ, for we are a completely new creation. It is not that the old life is changed, but crucified, and exchanged for the new life.[10]

Exchanged Life proponents disagree as to the substance of this change. As will be discussed later, some argue that believers have two “natures”—one new and holy and the other old and sinful,[11] whereas others contend that the old nature no longer exists and that believers have only a new nature. Proponents on both sides would agree, however, that the “exchange” experienced at conversion is not just a legal consideration, a fresh mental perspective, or a reformed way of life. It is an inherent, substantial, and personal transformation. What a person formerly was has changed at conversion. As Evans explains, “When you were born again, God deposited within you a new nature that wasn’t there before, a nature that is now the core of who you are.. .. So if you have trusted Jesus Christ for eternal life, the very life of God is the core of your new reality. God places His essence, which is spirit, at the center of your being.”[12]

Edwards adds, “Something happened to our deepest internal nature.. .. The intrinsically wicked part of us is now offset (not removed) by an intrinsically perfect nature belonging to God Himself. Our condition has changed as well as our position. We’re now thoroughly renovated saints.”[13] And Needham writes, “Contrary to much popular teaching, regeneration (being born again) is more than having something taken away (sins forgiven) or having something added to you (a new nature with the assistance of the Holy Spirit); it is becoming someone you had never been before. This new identity is not on the flesh level, but the spirit level—one’s deepest self.”[14]

In order to understand the significance of these statements, one needs to recall Martin Luther’s slogan regarding justification: the believer is simul iustus et peccator (“at the same time righteous and a sinner”).[15] Against the Roman Catholic understanding that justification is a process by which sinners are transformed into righteous persons, Luther argued that believers at conversion are declared righteous while remaining sinners. Such a declaration could come only on the basis of Christ’s righteousness, credited to the believer by grace through faith. Following Luther, Protestants have consistently maintained that believers do not become righteous in justification, but are declared righteous. They remain sinners, but they are counted righteous in Christ.[16]

Exchanged Life theology diverges from the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith by arguing that believers have been made inherently righteous at conversion. They are not “righteous, yet sinners.”[17] They are “thoroughly renovated saints.”[18]

Such a radical assertion seems contradicted by the fact that believers do not experience life as one might expect saints would live it. Christians regularly come face to face with personal mortality and often struggle with doubts, fears, and temptations. They entertain perverse thoughts. They sin willfully. How, then, can they be described as “thoroughly renovated saints”? Exchanged Life theology teaches that one’s real self, the true or essential self, is distinct from these experiences. Deep down inside, the believer’s spirit has been wholly transformed, even replaced.

Evans speaks of the new nature “at the core of who you are,” the “center of your being.” Edwards calls it “our deepest internal nature,” and Needham, “one’s deepest self.” Hall refers to the exchange of an “unregenerate human spirit” for “the new man.” Such expressions localize and thereby limit the believer’s transformation. The radical change that is supposed to have taken place at conversion is restricted to a particular (albeit the “deepest”) part of one’s being. As a result, the change in the believer’s nature may not be obvious in his or her experience, for the only part that is truly changed may remain hidden from view. This explanation depends on a trichotomous model of human nature.

A Trichotomous Understanding of Human Nature

With few exceptions Exchanged Life proponents divide human nature into three parts—a trichotomy.[19] Solomon writes, “Drawing on the language of Scripture, we might say that man is a spirit, that he has a soul, and that he lives in a body.”[20] Solomon pictures humanity as a tri-unity, as illustrated in the following chart.[21]

Introducing a glossary of terms on the Exchanged Life, Solomon comments, “All of the definitions assume that man is constituted of three parts—spirit, soul (personality), and body. Attempts to force the definitions to fit another model will result in confusion.”[22] McVey declares, “Like God, man is a triune being. God exists in three persons while you consist of three parts: body, soul, and spirit.”[23] And Hall contends that “man is a tri-unity composed of a spiritual part (the spirit) a psychological part (the soul) and a physical part (the body).”[24]

Given the argument that believers are inherently and utterly changed at conversion, the trichotomous model helps explain the sense in which believers have been made new. One might reason as follows: “We obviously did not get new bodies at conversion. Therefore, if I am a new creature, I must be distinct from my body, which is not really me.[25] In the same way, if I am a new creature, why do I not realize who I am? Why do I instead generate thoughts, emotions, and choices that are anything but holy?”

A trichotomist distinction between soul and spirit enables Exchanged Life proponents to explain this experience. They argue that mind, will, and emotion—the capacities they associate with personality—reside in the soul.[26] However, believers do not get a new soul. They receive a new spirit (or perhaps a new heart).[27] Therefore believers are not aware in their minds of the transformation that has taken place in their spirits. They need to be taught the spiritual secret of who they really are, and they must then express this reality through the soul and the body to experience true Christian spirituality. “God starts with the spirit because our spirit is the portion of our being that makes us conscious of God. When God breaks us and sets us free in our spirit, then our soul by which we are conscious of ourselves and our body through which we are conscious of the outside world will fall in line.”[28] Hall illustrates this priority of the spirit.

People function in three major areas of life: the spiritual, the psychological, and the physical. These are each distinct and different. The nature of a person must be considered in both a primary and a secondary way. The primary nature is the basic essence of who a person is and is spiritual. The secondary nature of a Christian is the way he normally thinks, feels, and chooses to act and is the psychological functioning. Therefore, within the nonphysical the distinction between the spiritual and the psychological must be maintained. The spiritual is the real essence of who people are. The psychological (i.e. soulical) is an important part of a person and is to express the life of the spirit. The physical is the vehicle for the expression of this life in a physical world.[29]

A New Identity

In the trichotomist language of Exchanged Life theology the real or deepest self is the spirit. It is the essence of who the Christian is, and it has been made new in Christ.[30] Having received a new spirit, the believer is a new creation in Christ.[31] As McVey explains, “The person who was born when you trusted Christ is a spiritual being.”[32] McVey also puts it this way: “You aren’t the same person you used to be before you became a Christian. You have been made into a brand new person (2 Corinthians 5:17) who has been created as one who is totally righteous (Ephesians 4:24). You are now holy (1 Corinthians 3:17), not because you did anything to deserve it, but because righteousness has been given to you as a gift (Romans 5:17). You still have the same body, but a new you lives inside!”[33]

This “new you,” this new spirit, yields a new identity in Christ. Such an identity, McVey says, is impossible for those who do not know Christ, because they lack a regenerated spirit. “The human spirit is the essence and core of our existence. Before we trusted Christ, we had no meaningful identity because our spirit was dead. But when we trusted Christ, the Spirit of Christ came into us and we gained an identity grounded in Christ.”[34] He writes further, “Before you trusted Christ you had no spiritual identity. That is why unsaved people struggle so hard to make a mark in this world. They are hungry for an identity. But a satisfying identity can never be found at the level of the soul or body.”[35]

In this view a believer can say, Because what I am (my spirit) has changed, who I am (my identity) has changed as well. According to Evans this is “the greatest truth a Christian can discover.”[36]

Continuing Struggles with Sin

Exchanged Life proponents teach that a fundamental change has taken place at conversion, resulting in a new identity for the believer. Perhaps paradoxically they also reject the idea of “sinless perfection.”[37] However, there are some differences as they attempt to explain the source of a Christian’s continuing sinfulness.

One view is that the believer’s inclination toward sin has not been supplanted by the new, regenerate spirit.

Many Christians view their conversion as something like a car wash: You go in a filthy clunker; you come out with your sins washed away—a cleansed clunker.

Such cleansing indeed happened when we became Christians, but so much more transpired as well! It’s as if, right there between the power wash and power rinse cycles, a brand new engine was dropped into the car, plus entirely new wiring. Of course the old engine is temporarily left in, and we can choose (foolishly) to operate by it and to live like the clunker we were. But we don’t have to—because of a revolution that’s happened within us.

It’s a revolution we learn about in what I believe are some of the most powerful yet badly neglected realities in all the Word of God.[38]

If believers got a new engine, how is it that “of course the old engine is temporarily left in”? The meaning and application of his illustration is rather elusive. Evidently the renovation is not as thorough as some of Edwards’s other language implies. He states more directly, “In bestowing this gift [of the new heart] at conversion, God doesn’t remove our old heart. When we trust Christ for salvation, our sinful nature is not removed but offset. Till the day we die there will always be a godless, proud, innately wicked part of us that will never be improved over time. Yet within every believer there will also be a godly, righteous, Christ-adoring inclination that can never be destroyed (although it can be stifled by other passions).”[39]

Many Exchanged Life proponents disagree. They argue that the “old nature” is eradicated, having been exchanged for the new.

McVey contends that it died at conversion.[40] This is also the view of the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries, whose doctrinal statement reads, “Each believer partaking of eternal life (Christ’s life) was united with Christ and thus was spiritually crucified, buried, raised and enthroned with Christ. The old man died at that point in time.”[41]

Though they disagree about the continuing existence of the “old nature,” Exchanged Life proponents consistently argue that a believer’s sinful inclinations are foreign to his or her true self. After all, if one’s “deepest self” has been made wholly new, then sin must come from a different source.[42] Using the language of trichotomy, Hall reminds readers that the new spirit remains saddled with the old soul and body. “Since the ‘old man’ has been replaced with the ‘new man’ the conclusion could be that the Christian is now made new. This is true spiritually but not true psychologically or physically.”[43] Evans states the matter even more directly. “As long as we are on earth, sin will be an issue for us because our new nature, the real us, is still housed in a body contaminated by sin.”[44]

Given such dualistic language,[45] one might expect that Exchanged Life proponents would interpret the apostle Paul’s language of flesh and spirit as a conflict between the sinful body and the purified spirit. However, they are more likely to speak of the flesh in terms of selfish thoughts or emotions—old habits of the soul opposing new inclinations of the spirit.[46] Again this makes sense from the perspective of a three-part human nature. The spirit, they say, has been changed already at conversion, and the body will be changed only in the future. Any present struggle toward change must find its locus primarily in the soul (with its theoretical faculties of mind, will, and emotion).

According to Edwards “the great issue in Christian living is not how to get ourselves fixed but how to get our new nature released.”[47] If that new nature is restrained by the old habits of the fleshly soul, it will be released through the cultivation of new thoughts and behaviors. Evans describes the process as follows. “Before we were saved, we were so accustomed to sin that it wore a groove into our hearts and minds, like a river cutting a gorge through a rock. What we need to do is make some new grooves. That’s why the Bible says we have to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (see Romans 12:1–2).”[48] The believer needs to understand the reality of this transformation and trust it to be true in his or her experience.

Appropriating Christ’s Life

The realization of the Exchanged Life begins with a Christian’s knowledge of his or her true identity, but this truth must then be embraced by faith. “The link between the facts of the exchanged life and the experience is faith. Just as a person becomes a Christian through faith, so victory in the Christian life is realized through faith. Jesus Christ is your life. Appropriating the truths of the exchanged life is the necessary step to experiencing Christ as your life.”[49]

Evans distinguishes between believers who experience Christ in this way and those who do not. “How can two Christians have Christ in them, and yet one be consistently victorious in the spiritual life while the other is consistently defeated? The difference is that Christ is the first Christian’s life, while He is just in the second Christian’s life.”[50]

How does this happen? How does one allow Christ to become his or her life? Part of the answer is willful surrender,[51] but such surrender must be ongoing.

To experience what God has provided us in the exchanged life, and to walk in victory over the power of indwelling sin (Romans 6:1–14) we must resolutely trust in what the Bible says about our union with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. As we continue to appropriate His life rather than relying on ourselves, Christ meets our inner needs and gives us His joy, peace, power, and a deeper walk with Him in the midst of life’s difficulties and problems. The focus of our attention is shifted from ourselves to Christ and those He has put into our lives for Him to love through us. That is the RESULT of the exchanged life. By an ongoing trust in Christ as our life, we can trade our total insufficiency to live the life the New Testament describes for Christ’s total sufficiency to live it in and through us.[52]

Evans states the point simply. “So in order for you and me to live the Christian life, Christ must live his life in and through us while we get out of the way. That’s what we mean by the exchanged life.”[53]

Believers might be induced to “get out of the way” and come to a place of willful surrender through a process of “brokenness.”[54] Through personal failure in their efforts to stop sinning, many come to realize the insufficiency of their own resources and turn to the sufficiency of the indwelling Christ. “Many Christians have not come to know who they really are in Christ. The Lord then will work though their situations to bring them to the end of their own resources. When the Christian is broken of self-will so that it is no longer I but Christ, he begins to live out of his true identity and begins to find victory over the power of his propensity to sin.”[55]

Brokenness, according to Evans, is “the work of God by which He strips us of our pride and self-sufficiency so that the beauty of the life of Christ will shine through.. .. True brokenness is God striking a blow at the flesh in such a graphic way that we have no strength left to fix ourselves.”[56]

This expectation of brokenness is closely associated with the Exchanged Life interpretation of Romans 7. This passage is thought to present, through the experience of Paul, the normative picture of a Christian’s exhausting struggle with sin, which culminates in the victory described in Romans 8. Stanford remarks, “Throughout all this legalistic and fleshly failure, the Father is working out His eternal purposes. He is using the principle of law to bring the believer to the end of Romans 7: ‘Oh, wretched man that I am!’ Thus the Christian is prepared for the wonderful exchange of faith—that of turning from the old law-bound nature to his new life of grace in the Lord Jesus. By the Spirit he will be brought from the realm of the [old] law of sin and death into that of the [new] law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2).”[57]

In Exchanged Life theology the believer must come, through brokenness, to understand his or her new identity and to rely on the resources of the indwelling Christ. As a result he or she will increasingly walk by the Spirit, doing what is right without a struggle. “Being in Christ Jesus, the believer no longer has need for the law as a governing principle—he can now live by nature, effortlessly and naturally.”[58] Hall summarizes this point succinctly. “Exchanged life counseling is focused on the true spiritual identity of the Christian. By coming to understand this and living out of it the Christian’s life can begin to change. This change may be dramatic or it may be gradual. Either way the choice for growth has been made through the decision the Christian has made to appropriate his union with Christ.”[59]

Exchanged Life theology has certainly been an encouragement to many believers. It seems to offer both biblical and practical explanations for their experience, and many testify that it has helped them greatly in their struggle against sin. At the same time others have found Exchanged Life teaching confusing and unrealistic, even burdensome. How might this model be evaluated?

A Response to Exchanged Life Teachings

The problems presented by Exchanged Life theology are numerous and complex. However, several issues are especially significant.

Sharing the Secret

Exchanged Life proponents rightly resist personal claims to a superior Christian experience,[60] but they maintain that the “exchanged life” is the essential key to Christian spirituality. They affirm that without apprehending the truths of the Exchanged Life, other Christians will never experience life in its fullness.

Outsiders may feel disrespected by such beliefs, but a greater concern must be expressed for those insiders who become deeply discouraged. If they honestly try to live out the message of Exchanged Life but continue to struggle spiritually, they can only conclude that they have failed once again. Perhaps they misunderstood the truth or failed to appropriate their new identity. In any case the problem is theirs. The Exchanged Life doctrine itself, presented as the key to spiritual vitality, is not in question, according to its proponents.

Those feeling this burden should take heart. It is not their fault that the technique does not always work. Not only is the spiritual secret of Exchanged Life theology not the key to Christian spirituality, but the search for any such secret is misguided.

A Faulty Anthropology

A thorough response to the Exchanged Life view of human nature requires more space than is available here. Stated simply, however, Exchanged Life theology relies on a compartmentalized model of humanity that is biblically and scientifically suspect. This approach ultimately minimizes responsibility for personal sin and confuses sanctification with enlightenment.[61]

The Bible uses a number of terms (e.g., heart, soul, spirit, mind, gut) to describe the inner thoughts and emotions of humans. A more complete study of these terms, offered elsewhere, yields a number of conclusions relevant to Exchanged Life theology.[62] Most significantly the words have slightly different shades of meaning, as in modern usage, but they do not denote distinct parts of an individual.[63] For example “soul” and “spirit” should not be regarded as separate entities. The importance of this point cannot be overstated. If humans do not have distinct immaterial parts, then one cannot distinguish between good parts and bad parts. One cannot distinguish between enlightened parts and confused parts. One cannot say that some part has been made wholly new when there are no parts.[64]

Again not all trichotomists hold to Exchanged Life theology. However, without the anthropological foundation of trichotomy Exchanged Life theology loses its most distinctive message. Whatever else may be said about the change believers have experienced at conversion, it cannot be described as the complete renovation, replacement, or regeneration of some constituent immaterial part of the individual. Again there are no such parts. For this reason the new birth should be understood relationally, not ontologically. Just as spiritual death consists primarily of alienation from God (Eph. 2:1, 12–13), regeneration is an individual’s entrance into an everlasting relationship with God through the presence of the life-giving Spirit (John 17:3; Eph. 2:17–19). Therefore any reflection on the believer’s new condition in Christ should be Christ-centered, not self-centered. The definitive question is not “Who am I,” or “What is my identity,” but “Whom do I love?”[65]

More conventional approaches to Christian spirituality reflect this emphasis on love by anticipating an ongoing change of heart—the transformation of one’s affections.[66] The concept in Exchanged Life theology that the believer’s heart has already been transformed[67] yields a spirituality that is very rational. The believer’s problems are ultimately resolved through enlightenment and mental assent. Subsequent to conversion, nothing needs to change except one’s mind.

Such confidence in the redeemed human heart points to another anthropological problem: too low a view of personal sin. Best disagrees, arguing that Exchanged Life theology takes sin very seriously. “Understanding our true identity in Christ is key to avoiding sin, not engaging in more of it. The believer who understands his identity, when confronted with temptation, is able to say, ‘That’s not who I really am. That’s just my flesh. It may want to do that, but it does not reign over me, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, I can choose to act in accordance with who I really am and how my inner man truly wants to act.’ ”[68]

On the other hand one does not take full responsibility for sinful actions by essentially saying, “That was not really me.”[69] Self-justification inevitably calls for a scapegoat.[70] It makes little difference that the scapegoat is in this case internal, just as it makes little difference whether someone faults “the flesh” or a demon.[71] Either way, the sin was caused by something foreign to one’s true self, and even confession carries an element of blame.

By focusing on willful disobedience and blaming it on something other than one’s true, righteous self, Exchanged Life theology pays too little attention to sins of the heart.72 Given the traditional maxim that the essence of sin is pride, this is a serious oversight. Add Luther’s contention that the ultimate form of sin is the unwillingness of the sinner to be regarded as a sinner, and the problem is compounded.73 As Niebuhr stated, “The final proof that man no longer knows God is that he does not know his own sin. The sinner who justifies himself does not know God as judge and does not [sense the need for] God as Savior.”[74]

If the believer is now righteous, with no need for further transformation, there is no more need for grace. On the other hand a stronger view of sin, one which recognizes sin’s continuing presence in the deepest affections of the believer and its expression in self-interest, leads to humble confession and an ongoing dependence on the grace of God in Christ.

Problems with Justification

As noted earlier, Exchanged Life theology diverges from the traditional Protestant understanding of justification by faith by arguing that believers have been made inherently righteous at conversion. It is true that believers are to some extent changed. They believe in what they once saw as foolish (1 Cor. 2:14). They trust one whom they formerly disregarded (2 Cor. 5:16). Those who were enemies of God now love Him (1 Pet. 1:8). Exchanged Life theology, however, overstates the degree to which believers have been changed. God’s new creation work has begun (2 Cor. 5:17), but believers are not yet wholly new.[75] Believers can rightly say, “We are not what we were,” and also that “it has not appeared as yet what we shall be” (1 John 3:2).

This doctrine has significant implications for the assurance of salvation. Since believers undeniably sin after conversion, the Reformers argued that not even redeemed individuals could stand before God in their own righteousness. Too much sinfulness remains. If any are counted righteous, it can only be on the basis of the righteousness of Christ, foreign to them but credited to their account by grace. This is the basis of assurance. Believers, knowing that they are still sinners, can still have confidence before God because of Christ.

Under the Exchanged Life model believers are taught that sinful thoughts and actions do not spring from their true selves. Those who question that idea, rightly recognizing their own sinfulness, may be forced by the system to doubt their salvation.[76] After all, if believers do not have such inclinations in their deepest selves, those who do must not be believers.

The traditional Protestant doctrine of justification has another advantage over the Exchanged Life view. If believers are declared righteous and yet are sinners, and if personal transformation takes place progressively over time, then discontentment with the current state of one’s spirituality should be expected. As Luther put it, “We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13), are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.”[77] Believers do not struggle with sin because they have yet to learn how to express their true righteousness, finally allow Christ to live through them, or learn the techniques of walking in the Spirit. Believers struggle because they themselves—not just their practices, but their very hearts—are not yet what they will be.

That reality does not justify sin, but it does temper one’s expectations.

Bonhoeffer applied the doctrine of justification to life in community. “Not what a person is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community.. .. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both me and my brother.. .. This remains so for all eternity.”[78] Because the community of believers is grounded in a shared experience of justification, not perfection, forgiveness constitutes doctrinal reaffirmation. “[My brother’s sin should] be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ. Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother. .. teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together—the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.”[79]

Bonhoeffer’s statement raises another issue worth noting. Exchanged Life theology offers an extremely individualistic approach to sanctification that does not do justice to the New Testament’s corporate language regarding the new humanity of believers (Eph. 2:13–22; 4:24–32; Col. 3:10–17).[80] Christian spirituality, again speaking in the first person, is not about my identity, my true self, my victory, or my discovery of a secret through which I can be happy. It can only be practiced in the context of a community.

The Wrong Questions

Struggling believers often embrace Exchanged Life theology as a strategy to be more consistently obedient to God. Someone asking, “How can I overcome my sin?” is taught to answer it by asking additional questions about himself or herself. “What is my identity?” “Am I a saint or a sinner?” “What does the real me want to do?”

But such questions continually focus attention on oneself.[81] If sin is characterized by self-absorption (homo incurvatus in se),[82] it is difficult to see how questions and affirmations about oneself can offer an adequate solution. Nowhere does one see the radical shift of gaze that is so desperately needed. With a continuing focus on self, even in the name of virtue, one may persist in forsaking God.

Instead, as those called to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, believers should turn away from themselves by considering the central question, “Whom do I love?” David wrote, “They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light” (Ps. 36:8–9). Asaph said, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth” (73:25). In the same spirit Jonathan Edwards wrote, “The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean.”[83]

A Final Word

The authors know firsthand that many believers have been encouraged by Exchanged Life theology. Yet this article has been written because of pastoral concern that those believers will be left ill equipped by a shortsighted approach to spirituality that cannot withstand sustained examination. The authors are convinced that a perspective other than that of the Exchanged Life is significantly more encouraging, more helpful, and more deeply refreshing.[84]

May believers who have rejoiced at the thought that they are saints rejoice more fully that in Christ they are accepted by God while yet sinners.

May those who have experienced mixed motives while telling themselves that their deepest desires are truly good rest comfortably in the grace of God while acknowledging that self-interests taint even their best actions.

May those whose spirituality has revolved around the question of who they are be challenged by the question of whom they love. Even more so, may they never exhaust the question of who Jesus is, and may they rejoice that He continues to intercede for them. May those who have been hoping to express their new selves hope instead for the grace that will be experienced at the revelation of Jesus Christ, acknowledging that “it has not yet appeared what we shall be” (1 John 3:2). In the end may believers seek to be transformed by the Spirit while both seeing and delighting in the glory of God (2 Cor. 3:18). Jonathan Edwards summarized these truths well in these words: “In the creature’s knowing, esteeming, loving, rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged, his fullness is received and returned. Here is both an emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, are something of God, and refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and he is the beginning, and the middle, and the end of the affair.”[85]

Notes

1. See for example Robert A. Pyne, “Dependence and Duty: The Spiritual Life in Galatians 5 and Romans 6, ” in Integrity of Heart, Skillfulness of Hands: Biblical and Leadership Studies in Honor of Donald K. Campbell, ed. Charles H. Dyer and Roy B. Zuck (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 144–56; David G. Moore and Robert A. Pyne, “Neil Anderson’s Approach to the Spiritual Life,” Bibliotheca Sacra 153 (January–March 1996): 75–86; idem, “Tripping Over the Steps to Freedom: The Theology of Neil Anderson,” Stulos Theological Journal 7 (May–November 1999): 37–52; and Robert A. Pyne, Humanity and Sin: The Creation, Fall, and Redemption of Humanity, Swindoll Leadership Library (Nashville: Word, 1999).
2. In 1853 J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) sailed to China as a missionary. In 1865 he founded China Inland Mission (CIM), now OMF (Overseas Missionary Fellowship) International. Whether he fully advocated what is now known as Exchanged Life theology deserves consideration but is outside the scope of this article. However, his involvement with Keswick theology is instructive. Though Exchanged Life theology is not the same as Keswick, much of what has been proposed by Exchanged Life proponents remains strongly associated with Keswick theology and the broader Higher Life movement. For a brief overview of Keswick theology see J. Robertson McQuilkin, “The Keswick Perspective,” in Five Views on Sanctification (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 151–83. For a more complete history of the Keswick movement see Steven Barabas, So Great Salvation: The History and Message of the Keswick Convention (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952). For additional information on J. Hudson Taylor see A. J. Broomhall, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century (Sevenoaks, UK: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981); Roger J. Steer, Hudson Taylor: A Man in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Shaw, 1993); Howard Taylor, J. Hudson Taylor: A Biography (Chicago: Moody, 1965); Howard Taylor and Geraldine Taylor, Hudson Taylor (Singapore: OMF, 1988); and Roger Steer, “Taylor Takes Gospel to China’s Interior,” Christian History 52 (fall 1996): 10–18.
3. Howard Taylor and Geraldine Taylor, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret (Philadelphia: China Inland Mission, 1932), 112 (italics theirs). It is interesting that although the Exchanged Life is attributed to J. Hudson Taylor, the term was apparently coined by Howard and Geraldine Taylor.
4. Taylor reportedly remarked to a friend, “God has made me a new man! God has made me a new man!” Taylor’s explanation is an apt summary of the basic anthropology of the Exchanged Life, but in context it refers more to his discovery of this “spiritual secret.” The 1990 Discovery House edition of Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, edited by Gregg Lewis, omits the explicit language of the “exchanged life.” This was apparently more an editorial decision than a rejection of Exchanged Life theology (Gregg Lewis to Matt Blackmon, April 14, 2005, “Hudson Taylor revision,” personal email).
5. Versions of Exchanged Life theology have been labeled the Abiding Life (Andrew Murray), the Victorious Christian Life (Ian Thomas), the Interior Life (Hannah Whitall Smith), the Normal Christian Life (Watchman Nee), the Miracle Life (David Needham), Life on the Highest Plane (Ruth Paxon), the Grace Walk (Steve McVey), and other more generic terms such as Victorious Living, the Christ Life, the Christ-Exchanged Life, the Rest of the Gospel, Christ in You, the Grace Life, and others. Exchanged Life theology is posited both by individual proponents as well as more organized associations and parachurch ministries. The Association of Exchanged Life Ministries, includes thirty-one member organizations. Contemporary advocates include Neil Anderson, Freedom in Christ Ministries; Tony Evans, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas; Dwight Edwards, former senior pastor of Grace Bible Church in College Station, Texas; Charles Stanley, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia and Bible teacher on the syndicated radio program In Touch; and June Hunt, Hope for the Heart. Some advocates of Exchanged Life theology use other forms of ministry to teach this viewpoint. Charles Solomon, Bill Gillham, and many others advocate Exchanged Life theology in the context of counseling (or, as Solomon calls it, “spirituotherapy”). David and Denise Glenn teach it along with parenting skills in MotherWise and FatherWise. Ruth Myers, author of the popular “31 Days” books, offers Exchanged Life teaching in a devotional format (Christlife: Embracing Your True and Deepest Identity [Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2005]).
6. The distinctive features in this definition of Exchanged Life theology may be found in two articles from the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries’ statement of faith: “We believe that salvation is the gift of God brought to man by grace (apart from any works) and received only by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose precious blood was shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of sins. Upon receiving salvation, the person receives eternal life, and becomes a partaker of Christ’s life. He becomes a new creation and obtains a new identity as a child of God.” “Each believer partaking of eternal life (Christ’s life) was united with Christ and thus was spiritually crucified, buried, raised and enthroned with Christ. The old man died at that point in time. The results of co-crucifixion must become an experiential reality to each believer as he chooses to walk in the Spirit and not after the flesh if he is to walk in victory. Sanctification, then, is Christ living His life out through the believer. This is not teaching passivity, sinless perfection or the deification of man” (italics added).
7. Steve McVey, Grace Walk (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1995), 40. Also Richard Hall writes, “The heart of the message at Exchanged Life Ministries is our union with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. This is often referred to as the ‘exchanged life’” (Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling [Aurora, CO: Cross-Life Expressions, 1993], 57).
8. McVey, Grace Walk, 42–43 (italics his).
9. Miles Stanford, The Complete Green Letters (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 144 (italics his).
10. Ibid., 220 (italics his).
11. Hall attempts to clarify this language. “Of the many definitions for the word nature, two fit the subject we are addressing. The most common definition we will call the primary or broad definition. This definition points out that nature is the special combination of a person’s attributes which determine that a person is a human being. Attributes are the qualities or characteristics that can be ascribed to a person. This definition is used when making basic distinctions’ [e.g., ‘human nature’].. .. The less common definition we will call the secondary or narrow definition. This definition relates to the innate disposition of a person that affects the conduct. Disposition is the controlling mental or emotional qualities that determine a person’s usual way of thinking or acting. This definition is used when referring to psychological functioning” (Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 11). He concludes, “When both definitions are used the conclusion could be that the Christian has two natures that are not equal. One is primary essence and the other is psychological and expressive” (ibid., 13). However, the present authors believe that this “secondary” sense, while not lacking historical precedent, is confusing and unnecessary.
12. Tony Evans, Free at Last: Experiencing True Freedom through Your True Identity (Chicago: Moody, 2001), 29–30.
13. Dwight Edwards, Revolution Within: A Fresh Look at Supernatural Living (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook, 2001), 87 (italics his). See also 54.
14. David C. Needham, Birthright: Christian, Do You Know Who You Are? (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1979), 61. See also idem, Alive for the First Time: A Fresh Look at the New-Birth Miracle (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1995), 106. Needham sees this most fully in the context of the New Covenant: “There is one thing above all else that marks [the Holy Spirit’s] work in the New Covenant age. The Holy Spirit is now installing in God’s people the actual, risen life of Jesus to the degree that his life is their life. To receive Spirit is to receive Christ” (Alive for the First Time, 105–6 [italics his]). Hall states, “The Bible is clear that the ‘old man’ is what died. What then is the ‘old man’? Broadly the ‘old man’ is what the Christian was before being saved. Specifically the ‘old man’ is the unregenerated human spirit. Spiritually the Christian died with Christ and was resurrected with Christ a ‘new man’ i.e. a regenerated human spirit. Through death and resurrection the Christian becomes a new creation; the old has gone, and the new has come” (Foundations of Exchanged Life Theology, 68).
15. See Wilhelm Pauck, Luther: Lectures on Romans Newly Translated and Edited by Wilhelm Pauck, Library of Christian Classics (London: SCM, 1961).
16. Protestants have historically believed that Christians are made righteous progressively in sanctification, which is distinct, but inseparable, from justification. See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1960), 3.11.14, 23; and 3.16.1. Alister McGrath states, “This insistence upon the distinction between the forensic pronouncement of justification and the process of regeneration or sanctification can be illustrated from every major writer from the Reformed and Lutheran schools during the period known as Orthodoxy. Indeed, the distinction is so characteristic of Lutheran and Reformed Orthodoxy that it can be regarded as the cardinal feature of Protestant doctrines of justification.. .. The fundamental difference between Roman Catholic and Protestant doctrines of justification must be considered to be the concept of righteousness involved. For the Catholic, justifying righteousness is the inherent righteousness infused by the action of the Holy Spirit; for the Protestant, justifying righteousness is the alien righteousness of Christ, imputed to the believer, which is never his own” (“Justification—‘Making Just’ or ‘Declaring Just’?: A Neglected Aspect of the Ecumenical Discussion on Justification,” Churchman 96 [1982]: 47–48).
17. “The Big Lie in the church today is that you are nothing more than a ‘sinner saved by grace.’ You are a lot more than that. You are a new creation in Christ. The New Testament calls you a saint, a holy one, a son of God” (John Eldredge, Wild at Heart [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001], 144). “When a sinner gets saved, he does not become a sinner saved by grace. He becomes a saint who sins” (Bill Gillham, Lifetime Guarantee [Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1993], 93). On the other hand the idea that believers are “sinners saved by grace” is a popular restatement of Luther’s simul iustus et peccator. One must not treat so dismissively an idea that was at the heart of the Reformation. The authors know of no Exchanged Life proponent who would knowingly deny the Protestant understanding of justification. In fact Needham is quite explicit: “I am judicially righteous, positionally righteous” (Alive for the First Time, 57). And Hall writes, “At salvation a person is justified. He is declared righteous on the basis of the work of Christ on the cross.. .. Justification is the judicial act of God whereby the sinner is declared righteous on the basis of the righteousness of Christ (Romans 3:21–30; Galatians 2:15–21). This forensic act includes the remission of sins (Romans 4:5–8; Acts 13:38, 39) and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 5:17; Philippians 3:8, 9)” (Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 65–66). At the same time, however, Exchanged Life advocates go far beyond the traditional Reformed perspective on justification. Needham, for example, explains, “This new identity is not on a flesh level, but on the deepest level of one’s inmost self. This miracle is more than a judicial or positional act of God. It is an act so actual that it is right to say a Christian’s essential nature is righteous rather than sinful” (Alive for the First Time, 73). McVey writes, “You are righteous and holy. You have received the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17). The Lord Jesus is your righteousness. When you received Him, your spirit was filled with righteousness. What you are at the spirit level determines your real identity. When you do not behave righteously, you are being inconsistent with who you are” (Grace Walk, 45 [italics his]). Ray Alton is more direct. “When Jesus rose in righteousness from His grave, you also rose from the grave with Him as a righteous being” (“The Gift of Righteousness,” in The Grace Life Handbook, ed. Scott D. Brittin and Barry Grecu [Marietta, GA: Grace Ministries, 2000], 168 [italics added]). He continues, “Not only are you given righteousness, but you are also made righteous through Christ” (ibid., 172 [italics his]). John Best summarizes this point in this way: “Because we have been given a new spirit, created in the likeness of Christ (Ephesians 4:24), we can truly be said to be righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21)” (Resolving Misunderstandings of the Exchanged Life [Richardson, TX: Exchanged Life Ministries of Texas, 1996], 12). The Exchanged Life position seems in many ways similar to that of Andreas Osiander, whose teaching on justification Calvin strongly opposed. Calvin wrote, “But as Osiander has introduced a kind of monstrosity termed essential righteousness, by which, although he designed not to abolish free righteousness, he involves it in darkness.. .. But although he pretends that, by the term essential righteousness, he merely means to oppose the sentiment that we are reputed righteous on account of Christ, he however clearly shows, that not contented with that righteousness, which was procured for us by the obedience and sacrificial death of Christ, he maintains that we are substantially righteous in God by an infused essence as well as quality.. .. [He] introduces a substantial mixture, by which God, transfusing himself into us, makes us as it were a part of himself. Our being made one with Christ by the agency of the Spirit, he being the head and we the members, he regards as almost nothing unless his essence is mingled with us. But, as I have said, in the case of the Father and the Spirit, he more clearly betrays his views, namely, that we are not justified by the mere grace of the Mediator, and that righteousness is not simply or entirely offered to us in his person, but that we are made partakers of divine righteousness when God is essentially united to us.. .. [In] the whole of this discussion, the noun righteousness and the verb to justify, are extended by Osiander to two parts; to be justified being not only to be reconciled to God by a free pardon, but also to be made just; and righteousness being not a free imputation, but the holiness and integrity which the divine essence dwelling in us inspires” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.11.5–6). One may hear a disquieting echo of Osiander in Ruth Myers: “In our innermost self, we’re now one with Christ’s Spirit, for ‘the person who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him’ (1 Corinthians 6:17 AMP). In our spirit we’ve been permanently fused with His own Spirit, and through this union all the other truths about who we are in Christ become realities” (Christlife, 100).
18. Edwards, Revolution Within, 87.
19. It should be noted that not all trichotomists accept Exchanged Life theology. However, Needham seems to be the only Exchanged Life advocate who does not teach trichotomy. He holds to a “proper biblical dualism to man” advocating a “spiritual personhood” while refusing to allow for the devaluing of the body (Birthright, 87–97). Yet he becomes a functional trichotomist by allowing some distinction in the immaterial component, arguing that believers have a “deeper level of self,” the spirit (Alive for the First Time, 106).
20. Charles Solomon, Handbook to Happiness, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1999), 14. Though Exchanged Life theology has no “founder,” Solomon is as likely a candidate as any.
21. Charles Solomon, For Me to Live Is Christ (Sevierville, TN: Solomon, 2000); online at http://gracelifemi.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/formeto-live.pdf. Drawing on the work of Solomon, Gillham notes, “Each individual is, of course, a whole, but the Word teaches that the whole person is composed of three integrated parts: spirit, soul, and body” (Lifetime Guarantee, 70). The soul is “your personality—mind, will, and emotions—your unique version of them” and that “[y]our body is the vehicle here on planet earth that houses your soul and spirit” (ibid., 70–71).
22. Charles Solomon, Gems and Jargon: A Glossary of Terms Used in Sharing the Exchanged Life (Sevierville, TN: Solomon, 1980), iii.
23. McVey, Grace Walk, 43. John Woodward notes that “Exchanged Life counselors have found that the tripartite nature of man (as spirit, soul, and body) is crucial to clearly communicate the precise truths of the believer’s union with Christ” (Man as Spirit, Soul, and Body: Implications for Exchanged Life Counseling.
24. Hall, Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 14. Hall also writes, “Man is a spiritual being having a unique personality (i.e., soul) and physique (i.e., body). God always deals with the person as a whole person rather than with only one of the aspects of his makeup” (ibid., 63). However, if humans are spirit but only have soul and body, there remains an imbalance in priority between the three parts.
25. Popular Exchanged Life teacher Bill Gillham would then be justified in referring to the body as one’s “earthsuit.” “The earthsuit is simply a vehicle through which my soul interacts with the earthly environment” (Gillham, Lifetime Guarantee, 71). He credits C. S. Lovett with the term “earthsuit,” although he gives no reference.
26. McVey, Grace Walk, 43. Solomon states it a little differently, namely, that the soul is self-consciousness, the spirit is God consciousness, and the body is the means of relating to the world and one’s environment. “In summary, we relate to others through our soul, to God through our spirit, and to our environment through our body” (Handbook to Happiness, 16).
27. “The transformation of the believer in the change of dominions over him through dying and rising with Christ is further seen in the biblical concept of having a ‘new heart’ ” (Robert L. Saucy, “ ‘Sinners Who Are Forgiven’ or ‘Saints Who Sin’?” Bibliotheca Sacra 152 [October–December 1995], 407). “The Christian has been radically changed in his relationship to sin and righteousness from what he was before salvation. And this change is more than simply positional or judicial consisting in the forgiveness of sin and the imputation of righteousness. It includes a radical change of nature. The Christian is a new person. He has a new heart which is the real identity of the person” (ibid., 411).
28. Evans, Free at Last, 173.
29. Hall, Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 15. Hall describes regeneration as leading to a progressive change in the soul (understood as mind, emotion, and will). “Regeneration is the implanting of the principle of new life in those who are saved (John 10:10; 1 John 5:11, 12; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ezekiel 36:26–27), which results in the process of changing man’s disposition intellectually, emotionally, and morally (Ephesians 2:10; 4:23, 24)” (ibid., 66).
30. Exchanged Life proponents typically regard the human spirit as dead prior to conversion. For example, “Your spirit was dead when you were born into this world and remained that way until the Holy Spirit gave it life through the new-birth experience” (McVey, Grace Walk, 43). This death is usually understood in a relational sense—unbelievers are dead to God.
31. In using this simple summary the authors are aware of the fact that different Exchanged Life proponents use their own terms for the essential change in one’s being at conversion. For most writers the terms “old nature,” “old man,” “sin nature,” “first Adam,” “fallen man” (or humanity) are synonyms referring to the preconversion “essential” or “real” part of a person, that is, his or her spirit. So in conversion (or regeneration) the old nature is replaced (or exchanged) with the new nature, the old man with the new man, the sin nature with the new nature, the first Adam with the Second Adam, and spiritual death with spiritual identity in Christ. McVey notes, “Before you were saved, you had one nature. It was the sin nature, sometimes called an unregenerate nature, the Adamic nature, the natural man, or your old self. The essence of your existence at that point is that you lived in Adam. You were totally dead to God. Since you trusted Christ, you still have only one nature, but it is not grounded in Adam. In fact, you are now dead to Adam. You are in Christ and your nature is the disposition of Jesus Himself!” (Grace Walk, 56 [italics his]). Evans explains it this way: “You must understand that when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and became a new creation in Him, your sin nature was put to death. Christ has destroyed the power of sin in your life. The old you died at the cross” (Free at Last, 43). Emphasizing mystical union with Christ in a way that is again reminiscent of Osiander, Best uses the terminology of spiritual identity. “At the moment of our salvation, God took us out of spiritual death in Adam and transformingly put us into union with Christ. He exchanged our old identity as sinners in Adam for a radically new identity in Christ. We are now not just sinners saved by grace; our essential nature and identity is that of new creation saints in Christ. Our union with Christ is so real, so vital, so complete, so trans-historical that the old us (our spirit) in Adam died, and was buried. The new us (our spiritual identity) is now raised up in union with Him. We have been set free to live as ones who have been recreated in Christ’s resurrection (Romans 6). This is God’s doing. He traded our old identity in Adam for a new identity in Christ” (“What Is the Exchanged Life?” [n.p.], [italics his]).
32. McVey, Grace Walk, 43 (italics his).
33. McVey, Grace Rules, 171–72. For similar teaching see also Steve McVey, Grace Land (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2001), 165–70.
34. McVey, Grace Walk, 68.
35. Ibid., 43.
36. “What Christian leaders say about the exchanged life message,” available online at
37. “This does not teach passivity, sinless perfection or the deification of man” (Hall, Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 64). The same line is usually included in Exchanged Life doctrinal statements, including that of the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries. See also Best, Resolving Misunderstandings of the Exchanged Life, 1–3; 7–9.
38. Edwards, Revolution Within, 5 (italics his).
39. Ibid., 54 (italics his).
40. McVey, Grace Walk, 57.
41. “Doctrinal Statement,”
42. This is part of Stanford’s critique of Needham’s “one naturism.” “The eradication aberration produces insuperable problems, not the least of which is the problem of how to account for sin in the life of the believer, who purportedly has but one divine nature.. .. Sins must have a sinful source. What he is saying is that the life of Christ within is capable of producing sin” (Miles J. Stanford, “Needham’s Need” [n.p., 1994], 6–7 [italics his]. Most Exchanged Life proponents trace this sin to the flesh (see below). Neil Anderson, however, suggests that thoughts and actions inconsistent with one’s transformed nature may come from demons. For a critical discussion of this idea see Pyne and Moore, “Neil Anderson’s Approach to the Spiritual Life,” 78–80.
43. Hall, Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 68.
44. Evans, Free at Last, 51.
45. The disassociation of the self from the sinful body is reminiscent of Gnostic dualism. “Historians gave the name ‘Gnosticism’ at first to a group of Christian heresies which appeared towards the end of the first century. These various and numerous heresies had in common their rejection of the Old Testament and especially of the biblical doctrine of creation. The world is neither created nor governed directly by God, but by inferior blind powers that do not know God. The Yahweh of the Bible, creator of the world, is only the chief of these lower powers; he created without knowing the true Good. The world is not of God (directly), and the soul, a spark of the divine, is not of this world. The soul, enslaved in this world, can be freed, become conscious of its origin, and ascend to God only by grace of gnosis, the supernatural knowledge brought by the divine Savior” (Simon Petrement, “Dualism in Philosophy and Religion,” in The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, ed. Philip P. Wiener [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973–1974], 2:42. The present authors are not making a formal connection between Gnosticism and Exchanged Life theology beyond the strong disjunction between body and soul (or spirit). As Peter Nagel explains, “Gnosticism is characterized by a radical anticosmic dualism that distinguishes between an infinitely lofty and transcendent world of light, remote from everything earthly, and this present material and evil world of darkness” (“Gnosis, gnosticism,” in The Encyclopedia of Christianity, ed. Erwin Fahlbusch et al., trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 2:418). He continues, “In keeping with the Gnostic view of the world and humanity, Gnostic ethics is marked by hostility to the body and striving to escape from the world” (ibid., 2:419). Though Evans formally rejects the Gnostic notion of the body as inherently evil (Free at Last, 53), he comes close to understanding “flesh” in material terms. “The Bible refers to this corrupt shell we’re living in as the ‘flesh.’ Before we go any further, it’s important for you to realize that this is not the old sin nature, which has been done away with, but the sin-ravaged bodies we will inhabit until Christ comes for us” (ibid., 51 [italics his]). “While you have a new resident, Jesus Christ, you still reside in the old house of your sin-contaminated flesh. It has the same old spiritually leaky windows and stained walls and beat-up doors. As long as you are in this flesh, you will still be susceptible to desires and habits that don’t please God” (ibid., 66–67). “When you sin as a child of God, it’s not the real you sinning because your sin nature is dead. It’s still possible for you to sin because you are living in a sin-contaminated body, and you’re still responsible for your sin” (ibid., 45).
46. Needham provides perhaps the broadest (and least helpful) definition: “Flesh, according to John 3:6 (and enlarged upon in the epistles) is everything that humanness is apart from the new birth” (Alive for the First Time, 101). McVey states, “Every person has developed his flesh-life in order to get what he wants out of life as much of the time as possible. Don’t think of flesh as skin, but as personal techniques for meeting your own perceived needs, apart from Christ” (Grace Walk, 28 [italics his]). Solomon uses “flesh” and “self” interchangeably for the “control center of a believer who is living out of his own resources” (Handbook to Happiness, 17). Hall likens flesh not to a component of a person’s makeup, but rather as a “way of living” (Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 61). Gillham concurs, drawing from Philippians 3:3–9 to create his definition: “Flesh refers to the old ways or patterns by which you have attempted to get all your needs supplied instead of seeking Christ first and trusting Him to meet your needs” (Lifetime Guarantee, 17 [italics his]).
47. Edwards, Revolution Within, 9 [italics his].
48. Evans, Free at Last, 45.
49. McVey, Grace Walk, 76 (italics his).
50. Evans, Free at Last, 68 (italics his).
51. “The answer to the infestation of sin is to exchange my life for Christ’s life, to let Him be my life. That means I say, ‘Lord, I want You to be my life’ ” (ibid., 61).
52. Best, “What Is the Exchanged Life?” (italics and capital letters his).
53. Evans, Free at Last, 64.
54. “If you want to know the fullness of Christ, you need to experience the beauty of brokenness” (ibid., 182).
55. Hall, Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 69.
56. Evans, Free at Last, 170.
57. Stanford, The Complete Green Letters, 154.
58. Ibid., 156 (italics his).
59. Hall, Foundations of Exchanged Life Counseling, 65.
60. For example John Best writes, “We do not teach the absence of sin in a believer’s life or what others have called sinless perfection. To teach sinless perfection would be to blatantly teach a lie.. .. It is not that we no longer sin, but the power of sin is broken so that we do not have to sin” (“Resolving Misunderstandings of the Exchanged Life,” 11).
61. For example Best writes, “The process of sanctification is that of bringing the soul into conformity with the spirit, which is who we truly are” (ibid., 12).
62. See Pyne, Humanity and Sin, 101–23. These conclusions are based on observations such as the synonymous parallelism between “soul” and “spirit” in Job 7:11; Isaiah 26:9; and Luke 1:46–47; the apparent interchangeability of those terms in sets of Scriptures (Gen. 35:18 with Matt. 10:28; Acts 7:59; 1 Cor. 7:34; and John 12:27 with 13:21; and Heb. 12:23 with Rev. 6:9; 20:4); and the use of both terms to describe willful desire and emotion (Deut. 2:30; Ps. 78:8; Mark 2:8; John 13:21; Acts 17:16; 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Pet. 1:22; Rev. 18:14). One should also note that worship cannot be the sole domain of the “spirit” when it is also enjoyed by the “soul” (Ps. 103:1; cf. 62:1; 146:1; Mark 12:20).
63. For example as a reference to one’s breath, “spirit” often describes one’s inner inclination or emotional state. When the kings of the Canaanites heard that the Israelites had crossed the Jordan, “their hearts melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer” (Josh. 5:1). They did not lose part of their humanity, but one might say that in their discouragement they “had the wind knocked out of them.” Also when Jacob’s spirit “revived” at the sight of Joseph’s wagons (Gen. 45:27), he became more optimistic and was breathing more easily. When David’s enemies were attempting to kill him, he lamented that they were pursuing his “soul” (Ps. 143:3). This is not his psychological self, to be equated arbitrarily with “mind, emotion, and will.” They were after his life! He was distraught (“my spirit is overwhelmed within me; my heart is appalled within me” (v. 4), and he yearned for God with all his being (“my soul longs for You, as a parched land,” v. 6).
64. For scientific discussion of the lack of clear division even between immaterial and material in this life (let alone divisions within the immaterial), see Gary Marcus, The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexities of Human Thought (New York: Basic, 2004); Matt Ridley, The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture (New York: Perennial, 2003); Ric Machuga, In Defense of the Soul: What It Means to Be Human (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002); and Warren Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Maloney, eds., Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). For additional discussion of the theological implications of these ideas see Robert A. Pyne and Joni Grace Powers, “Still Being Human: The Image of God and Embodiment after the Genome” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Philadelphia, November 2005).
65. Love for God is the central command of Scripture, and love for others closely follows (Mark 12:19–21). Love is thus the fulfillment of the Law (Rom. 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14) and is the first-mentioned fruit of the Spirit (v. 22), and the most distinctive mark of the believer (John 13:35). Augustine regarded love as the controlling force in one’s behavior. Comparing love to gravity, he wrote, “A body by its weight tends to move towards its proper place. The weight’s movement is not necessarily downwards, but to its appropriate position: fire tends to move upwards, a stone downwards.. .. Things which are not in their intended position are restless. Once they are in their ordered position, they are at rest.. .. My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me. By your gift, we are set on fire and carried upwards: we grow red hot and ascend. We climb the ‘ascents of our hearts’ and sing ‘the song of steps’ ” (Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick, 13.11). That Augustine was premodern in his understanding of gravity is obvious here. It should also be noted that “who I am” is a thoroughly modern question, but one that Augustine’s understanding of the soul anticipated. For further discussion see Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989); and Phillip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
66. In On Loving God Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) described spiritual growth as an advance through stages of love toward a sincere love of God and others. Similar treatments may be found in Lombard, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin (Richard A. Muller, “Sanctification,” in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], 326–29). Calvin wrote, “We confess that while through the intercession of Christ’s righteousness God reconciles us to himself, and by free remission of sins accounts us righteous, his beneficence is at the same time joined with such a mercy that through his Holy Spirit he dwells in us and by his power the lusts of our flesh are each day more and more mortified; we are indeed sanctified, that is, consecrated to the Lord in true purity of life, with our hearts formed to obedience to the law. The end is that our especial will may be to serve his will and by every means to advance his glory alone” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.14.9).
67. Ezekiel’s promise of a new heart (Ezek. 36:26) is part of a broader promise of Israel’s restoration that includes other features not yet realized (vv. 22–36). The New Covenant promises begin to find their fulfillment in the New Testament, but none of the benefits are yet fully realized. From this perspective, Exchanged Life theology offers an overrealized eschatology.
68. Best, Resolving Misunderstandings of the Exchanged Life, 15–16.
69. Exchanged Life theology’s reliance on terms such as “nature” and “flesh” does little to overcome this difficulty. As David Dockery notes, “Few words are more dangerously ambiguous than ‘nature.’ Because of this there has been considerable misunderstanding of the phrases ‘old nature’ and ‘new nature’ (see Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22; Col 3:9). Numerous popular explanations of Paul’s doctrine of the Christian life argue, or assume, that the apostle distinguishes with these phrases between two parts or natures of a person. Following this misguided thinking is the debate as to whether the ‘old nature’ is replaced by the ‘new nature’ at conversion, or whether the ‘new nature’ is added to the old” (“New Nature and Old Nature,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne et al. [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993], 628). Such “misguided thinking” also partly explains the diversity among Exchanged Life proponents’ understanding of those terms. Dockery writes the following about the proper usage of those terms in their biblical contexts. “The interpretation that ho palaios anthropos [‘the old man’] and ho kainos anthropos [‘the new man’] refer to parts, or natures, of a person is wrong and misleading. These terms rather designate the complete person viewed in relation to the corporate whole to which he or she belongs. Thus these terms are better translated as ‘old person’ and ‘new person.’ The translation ‘old self’ and ‘new self’ (NIV, NRSV) is too individualistic, since the idea certainly means the individual Christian (Rom 6:6), but is much more than merely individual. ‘Old person’ and ‘new person’ are not, then, ontological but relational in orientation. They speak not of a change in nature, but of a change in relationship” (ibid.). Dockery continues, “The ‘old person’ is not the sin nature which is judged at the cross and to which is added a ‘new person.’ The ‘old person’ is what believers were ‘in Adam’ (in the old era). The ‘old’ points to everything connected with the fall of humanity and with the subjection to the distress and death of a transitory life, separated from God. Within the context of Paul’s theology, this concept carries with it deep undertones of God’s wrath and the wages of sin. The ‘new person’ is what believers are ‘in Christ’ (in the new era). Paul directs us to the completely new, to the salvation and healing that believers receive when they are crucified with Christ and raised with him” (ibid.). For additional support for the view that “old man” and “new man” are corporate expressions in Paul see Darrell L. Bock, “The ‘New Man’ as Community in Colossians and Ephesians,” in Integrity of Heart, Skillfulness of Hands: Biblical and Leadership Studies in Honor of Donald K. Campbell, 157–67; Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 378–81; and Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1990), 143–44, 287–88.
70. Ted Peters, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 161–92.
71. On demons as an explanation for a believer’s sinful thoughts or impulses see Anderson, Victory over the Darkness, 172; idem, Released from Bondage, 205; idem, The Bondage Breaker, 75–76; and idem, Victory over the Darkness, 165–66.
72. Describing the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification and its expression in various forms of Pietism (ultimately leading to the Keswick, Higher Life, and Victorious Life movements), Muller wrote, “These last movements are all united by the hope of attaining a perfect holiness through Christ in this life.” This was made possible through a revised definition of sin. Up through the Reformation, sin had been regarded as “a defect fundamental to fallen human nature.” Wesley and the holiness movements that followed him “can only define sin as known, conscious, or voluntary choice contrary to the law of God” (Muller, “Sanctification,” 4:330–31).
73. Reinhold Niebuhr, Human Nature, vol. 1 of The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1941; reprint Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964), 200.
74. Ibid.
75. Believers obviously did not receive new bodies at the moment of conversion, nor did most believers experience a radical change in their personalities. Exchanged Life theology can assert that Christians are genuinely new creatures only by saying that body and personality are distinct from one’s self.
76. The same criticism was directed toward Osiander, whose understanding of justification, as already noted, was in many ways similar to that of Exchanged Life theology. David T. Mensing wrote, “When Osiander spoke of ‘justification by faith,’ he meant that man by faith receives the divine nature of Christ into his very being, which then creates an essential change in man, a righteous quality, a basic holiness, according to which man becomes inherently just and enabled to do what is right (as Adam and Eve were righteous and holy according to God’s indwelling image before the Fall). This ‘justification’ was viewed by Osiander as a gradual process rather than a completed act, and that necessarily leaves the sinner unsure of his salvation as he examines his life and finds it still full of imperfections and the ‘filth of the flesh’ ” (“The Osiandrian Controversy,” Concordia Lutheran [May–June 1996].
77. Martin Luther, Let Your Sins Be Strong: A Letter from Luther to Melancthon, Letter no. 99, August 1, 1521, trans. Erika Bullman Flores, in Dr. Martin Luther’s Saemmtliche Schriften, ed. Johannes Georg Welch, vol. 15 (St. Louis: Concordia, n.d.), cols. 2585–2590, available online at http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text-/wittenberg/luther/letsinbe.txt.
78. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein (New York: Harper and Row, 1954), 25.
79. Ibid., 28.
80. See also Bock, “The ‘New Man’ as Community in Colossians and Ephesians,” 157–67; and Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 90–93.
81. This seems true despite Best’s assertion that “the focus of our attention is shifted from ourselves to Christ” (“What Is the Exchanged Life?” n.p.).
82. Jonathan Edwards wrote, “The ruin that the fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in his losing the nobler and more benevolent principles of his nature, and falling wholly under the power and the government of self-love.. .. So soon as he had transgressed against God, these noble principles were immediately lost, and all this excellent enlargedness of man’s soul was gone; and thenceforward he himself shrank, as it were, into a little space, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself to the exclusion of all things else.. .. God was forsaken, and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself.. .. But God, in mercy to miserable man, entered on the work of redemption, and, by the glorious gospel of his Son, began the work of bringing the soul of man out of its confinement and contractedness” (Charity and Its Fruits, Sermon 8, “The Spirit of Charity, The Opposite of a Selfish Spirit,” available online at http://www.jonathanedwards.com/sermons-/charity:charity%208.htm). See also Matthew Jenson, “Homo incurvatus in se: A Relational Understanding of Sin and Its Systematic Implications in Augustine, Luther and Barth” [Ph.D. diss., University of St. Andrews, forthcoming]).
83. Jonathan Edwards, The Christian Pilgrim (or, The True Christian’s Life a Journey towards Heaven), in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Edward Hickman (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 2:244.
84. For a more positive presentation of Christian spirituality as it is understood by the authors, as well as further discussion of this topic, see www.lifespaceonline.com.
85. Jonathan Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1:120.