Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 4:17-24.
Ephesians 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former
conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Paul uses here an inspired metaphor, based on taking off and putting
on clothing.
First, in v. 22, he exhorts the Ephesians believers to “put
off…the old man.” This is a call to put off the old way of life, the way one
lived when he was unregenerate.
When you get your clothes soiled and dirty, you take them off
and you put on fresh and clean clothes.
Paul then exhorts, “And be renewed in the spirit of your
mind” (v. 23). In Romans 12:1-2 Paul urged believers not to be conformed to
this world but to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Paul
then exhorts in v. 24: “And that ye put on the new man….”
Taking
off the old man is one part of the transformation, but it is necessarily
accompanied by a second part: putting on the new man.
Some
theologians rightly speak of the necessity of both mortification (putting
to death the old ways) and vivification (coming to life to the new
ways). We need both.
R.
C. Sproul offered the following thoughts on this passage:
Once I have been made alive to God through his divine initiative,
quickened by his regenerating grace, my heart now throbs with spiritual life.
There is now a radical discontinuity between my new self and my old self. It is
not a total discontinuity. A link
remains between the old and the new man. The old man has been dealt a death
blow, his destination is certain, but he is not yet dead. As Christians we are
to feed the new man with all the means of grace that God has appointed and at
the same time starve the old man denying him the occasions for sin (Ephesians,115-116).
The
saved man not only gives up swearing, but he uses his tongue to bless.
The
saved man not only gives up lust, but he gives his mind to wholesome and chaste
thought.
The
saved man not only gives up gluttony and sloth, but he takes up health and
diligence.
Paul
emphasizes here that the new man is a work of God’s creation. God made the
world by his fiat power, and he makes new believers by that same power: “which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
In
2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul likewise states that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new.”
May the Lord help us, in this age,
continually to put off the old man and put on the new man, until the time when,
by God’s grace, we enter into the state of glory.
Grace
and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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