The Christian Looks at Himself

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the
life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They
have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice
every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you
have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old
self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful
desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self,
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
 -Ephesians 4:17-24

Beloved Kinney,

All over the Pauline epistles is the contrast of the old man vs. the new man. Many
Christians have interpreted these two “persons” as an internal war inside the believer.
Like, “my old self and new self are against each other in my heart, and that’s why I
struggle with sin.”

But Paul has in mind something different. The old man and the new man are not
concepts that describe what’s taking place on the inside of Christians. They are
descriptions of who we were in union with before becoming a Christian (old man, i.e.,
Adam) and who we are now in union with after becoming a Christian (new man, i.e.,
Christ).

Here’s how Anthony Hoekema puts it in his book The Christian Looks at Himself…

…‘old’ man refers to the old age in which man as incorporated in Adam
is a slave to sin, whereas ‘new’ man designates the new age in which
man as a member of the body of Christ is now liberated from the
slavery of sin and is free to live to the praise of God. (pg. 44)

This has profound implications for how we, as Christians, view ourselves. Again,
Hoekema says…

Our self-image as Christians, therefore, must be of ourselves as those
who have decisively rejected the old self or old man (the total person
enslaved by sin), and have just as decisively appropriated the new self
or the new man (the total person ruled by the Spirit)…We are to see
ourselves, therefore, not as partly old selves and partly new selves, but
as new persons in Christ. (pg. 45-6)

It is so important, as Christians, to view ourselves in the right way, according to the
correct identity. We are not sill in the old man, Adam. We are in the new man, Jesus
Christ. That’s who we are!

Think of how this will help you in your fight against temptation toward sin. If you believe
you are still no different than when you were a non-Christian, you won’t have the power
to fight sin. But if you believe you are new in Christ, that will give you strength for the
fight!

Believing you are a new person in Christ also helps fight discouragement over
introspection. It helps fight for joy and love for other Christians.

Believe who you are in Christ. That will give you strength for the fight.

Love,
Pastor Josh