NEW FOR OLD

The believer in Christ is a new creation, 2 Cor.5:17, eternal life, the divine nature, in flesh. This new spiritual form of life is described in Scripture as the “new man”, Eph. 4.24 and Col.3:10 and being spiritual it is unseen, clothed or veiled in a body. Says the apostle to the Corinthian saints, “The things which are seen are temporary but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor.4:18). The believer is seen, from the divine standpoint, as being “in Christ”, 2 Cor.5:17, completely and fully identified with Him who was eternal life veiled in flesh. To natural man He was Jesus of Nazareth and only to faith was He recognised as the Christ, the Son of God; He was concealed in a body and we are identified with him, hidden with Christ in God, Col.3:3. The new man cannot be seen with the natural eye, which is why he is described as the “inward man”, 2 Cor.4:16, in direct contrast to “the outward man”, the physical body. New life, born-again life, is spiritual life and spiritual life is unseen life, for it is eternal in character, 2 Cor.4:18.

Whereas the believer is “in Christ”, he was formerly unregenerate “in Adam”, the failed old order of humanity. Thus, the ‘Adam nature’ in the believer is referred to as “the old man”, Rom.6:6, a nature that no longer exists in God’s sight, having been superseded by “the new man”; we have died so far as the old nature is concerned and are alive to God in a new spiritual form of life.

Some have mistakenly thought that “the new man” is a reconstructed or improved Adam but “new man” is the divine name given in God’s Word to a new spiritual creation; it has no reference whatever to natural manhood.

Again, some would make a distinction between “the old man” and “the flesh” but it would appear that they are one and the same. Paul writes in Rom.7:18 “……in my flesh there dwells no good thing”, certainly something that is true of “the old man”, which is why it had to be crucified with Christ, Rom.6:6, while in Rom.8:9 he says, “You are not in the flesh but in the spirit …….”, again equally true of “the old man” or old nature.

So the believer, though outwardly still a physical human being, a natural man to his fellow men, is a new spiritual being in God’s sight, divine life in a body, as was the Christ, alive to God in a new form of life, relating spiritually to God who is Spirit.

In Col.3 he is seen as one who, in embracing salvation, has once-for-all (aorist) done with, “put off” the old man and once-for-all acquired, “put on” the new man, affirmation on his part of the fact of new birth.

In Eph.4 the requirement is to recognise the effects of the work of Christ in salvation and so here the exhortation to “put off” and “put on” is a conscious renewing of the mind to intelligently understand what God has done.

It is not a conscious natural act on the part of a believer as clearly, on the one hand he cannot do a work that only God can do and on the other, Eph.4 cannot be seen as a contradiction of Col.3. Again, the idea that a believer can “put on” some outward identity of the spiritualnature is plainly contrary to the concealed nature of spiritual things, Col.3:3, 1 Cor.2:14.

We see, therefore, that there are two forms of life operating in one body in the believer, “the old man” at the natural or secular level of life and “the new man” at the Christian or spiritual level of life. In the believer, “the old man” has been put to death in the death of Christ, finished with in divine purpose, and we are required to reckon it to be so in our spiritual walk Rom.6:11. “(The) old things (of the flesh, the old man) are passed away, behold (the) all things (of Christianity) are become New” (2 Cor.5:17).

The believer who walks by sight in spiritual life rather than by faith says that his old nature is alive because he sees that it is so, but in so doing he sees what God does not see, not realising that he is no longer alive to God in that form of life. The believer is a new creation, a spiritual being, a new (spiritual) man – new for old.