Aren’t we a sinner saved by grace?
Identity of two natures: sin and spirit
The problems with this:
Scripturally
Rom 8:3,
Logically
The problem with this duality is it will always assume a resistance in the host or person. I can never fully love God, because there are two parts to me. I can't fully surrender because there are two parts to me. If God does say he crucified the old man (nature of sin) and yet we live with it still, then either the crucifixion of our sin nature didn’t hold and God was not strong enough to separate it, or somehow through its own power sin resurrected itself from the death and brought back the sin nature into us and everyone else who comes to Christ. Romans 6
Spiritually
If this duality is true, there can be no true victory in Christ. There can't be true healing, restoration, or hope. Once a sinner, always a sinner. With the truth of that how could one enter the kingdom with a nature to sin? God cannot abide in sin, so how could WE ever be in his presence. Yet he says in John 14:23 that all 3 members of the Trinity will make their abode in us. How could that be possible if we have a sin nature and God cannot abide in sin?
1 John 5:1 and 1 John 5:18
The true characteristics of the flesh (sarx)
Taught since birth how to find meaning outside God. Started in the garden in Genesis 3. It can be trained through the spirit, but our flesh is the leftovers of our past stuck in our mind. It isn't who we are, but the hauntings left over in our brain. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
2 Corinthians 5:1 NIV
God likens it to a tent, not a being. Because as soon as this tent is destroyed, WE (the existential position) the true self will be in a new tent or edifice in heaven with the Lord.
Abiding and the flesh
So when we abide, we walk in Jesus' love. We desperately read his word because it is our breath of life. We hope on his every promise. Our identity is wrapped up in Him.
In these lives if I had a girlfriend or wife that Every time she messaged me I read, reread, and cherished the words. I would be desperate for her to call, speak, show up, text, social media post about me or to me. If I hung on every promise she gave me as of it were the most precious thing I could imagine. I would shortly find my identity in her. I would start to realize without her my life would have no meaning, purpose, or flavor. It would be meaningless (as Solomon might say).
Let's apply that same level of devotion to the Lord. That is the essence of deeply abiding. When we do that our meaning comes from him. Not from someone else. Not from a tragedy, loss, or trauma. Not from what someone else might tell me. But from him. If in the above fictional case my beloved told me I'm handsome, then some lady passed me on the street and said I was ugly, how could I ever believe the lady on the street. Or if someone else told me I could never find someone who would love me because of who I am, yet my beloved would show me love and reciprocate it each day, I would count them a loon. When we abide in the Lord, the flesh may bring back memories of finding meaning outside of God as its own defense mechanism, but ultimately in our spirit we make the choice. And as our identity becomes so enraptured and intertwined with the Lord we can then start to train our flesh that where it found meaning and purpose before (outside of God) is not acceptable. Instead we point to meaning in the Lord. Therefore, the implications are that drugs addiction no longer drives us. Sex no longer is the desire of our flesh. Control no longer plagues our actions. Surrender and submission don't become dirty words, and dependence on Yahweh actually becomes a natural response.
THIS IS ABIDING.