Thursday, July 19, 2012

Ephesians 4:24


Copyright Ó 2012 J. Neely
Ephesians 4:24

24 And [kai] that ye put on [enduo] the new [kainos] man, [anthropos] which [ho] after [kata] God [theos] is created [ktizo] in [en] righteousness [dikaiosune] and [kai] true [aletheia] holiness. [hosiotes]KJV-Interlinear

24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. NASB

The old self, or the old man, is the sin nature.  That is the source of your sin and evil within you.  And even though you have that weakness within you, you still have volition and the ability to make the choice between good and evil.  So, you cannot blame your failures and faults on anything but yourself, because in whatever it is that you think and do in life, you choose those thoughts and actions.

Your new self is the righteousness and holiness of truth as defined here.

Truth is the sum total of the Word of God, together with its mandates, principles, precepts, morals, and so forth.

Righteousness is the perfection of ones life apart from sin and evil.  It is the absence of faults, the absence of taints, the absence of blemishes, the absence of all that is corrupt and so forth.

Holiness if the combination of righteousness, which is perfection, and justice, which is the washing or cleansing away of all of the filth of sin and evil and human good.

Recall that human good is not divine good.  Human good is only an extension of human arrogance, wherein the person presumes that they possess some form of good within them, apart from that of God.

Holiness is accomplished by only one way and that is by means of the Cross.  And that is the work of Christ, which is not your work.  Faith in Christ is that means of salvation that satisfies justice, the justice of God.

Therefore, in order to put on the new man, you must be saved.  This never applies to unbelievers.

Once saved, which is accomplished when you first believed in Christ, then your life is still exposed to the sin nature, which is in your body.  So, you still commit sins, and in order to clean them up, you do so by means of confession.

Confession is the proprietary method of believers only and is used to get them back into fellowship and the spiritual life.

When you were first saved, you were forgiven all your sins as an unbeliever, and you were entered into fellowship immediately.  But after salvation, you sinned again and that took you out of fellowship.  So, in order to regain that fellowship status, you must confess your sins, your current sins since the last confession, and that places you back in fellowship.

Fellowship is the place of the spiritual life.  It is the place where your spiritual life functions.  It is the place of righteousness and holiness.  And that is where all of your spiritual activities function and become a credit to you.

When you study Bible doctrine while in fellowship, you enhance your spiritual life and begin the learning and understanding and using process of the spiritual life.  Your thoughts and beliefs are transformed into the correct thoughts and beliefs and activities of your life, and that is the entire process of changing out the old for the new.

The former things, your life under the influence and control of the sin nature, need to be replaced by the new things, that of Gods word.

The former things, destroy you and your life, making your life meaningless and worthless. 

The new things, are the mode and method of the completion of your life into that which gives you meaning and purpose, and fulfills that which God intends for you.

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