Our new life in Christ reviewed
Ephesians 4:20-24 · Roger Henderson · Aug 19, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 31
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191136241

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So last week we talked about our old life in Adam and it was on the title The Gentiles and this week we're going to look at our new life in Christ which is really pretty pretty amazing. So I'd like to have someone to read if someone could read we're going to go back to 4.1 the first verse in the chapter and then read 17 through 24. So verse 1 and then 17 through 24 in chapter 4.

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk with me to the location from which you were sought. And this I say therefore, that it is testified in the Lord, that you may henceforth walk not as other men talk, but with the idea of their minds having their understanding of the Garden. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. How far? 224. Great. Thanks, Tom. Okay, so the chapter starts off with what's called the worthy walk and then there's kind of a digression, basically 2 through 16 and then we came last week and we talked about walking as the Gentiles walk or as unbelievers walk and today we're going to talk about how did we move from Adam to Christ. How did God accomplish that?

So, actually, let's look at this outline which I used last week. So, the old life, when we reviewed it, it's pretty, you know, not real uplifting, basically. You know, you look through those verses and you see that we're not to walk as the Gentiles walk and the futility of their mind, their understanding is darkened. They have no life. moves over into their conduct, their moral state. But then we're going to see a sharp contrast as we move into starting in verse 20. 20 through 24 kind of divides into two parts. What happened to our old life or the old man? And what's this new life in Christ all about? What's the new man all about? Pretty cool stuff.

Kind of foundational, really important to understand this. And I think this passage, 22-24, coupled with Romans 6 and some of the other places are just key to understanding, well, what is my Christian life to be like? What happened to me? And so we're going to see that. And I would say it's challenging.

Fortunately, most of you guys here have been exposed to this before. Some people are just being exposed for the first time. I had one person say, well, I've got a split personality then. And so they just, you know, some people just totally think, well, this sounds weird.

But it's in God's word and we're going to try to go through it carefully. And hopefully we'll see that this chapter is not asking, you know, these four or five verses are not asking us to do something. They're asking us to remember what's already been accomplished. And we're going to see that. But there's some discussion about that too.

Actually this is great for me because I never actually taught these verses before. I missed it somehow in teaching Ephesians. I missed these verses in teaching it before the last time. So this has really been neat for me. So basically here are the verses we're going to go through. So we'll just kind of jump right into it.

But you did not learn Christ in this way. So this is in contrast. You know you obviously He's saying, you didn't learn this like when I talked to you about the Gentile unbelievers. You didn't learn Christ in that way. Basically, the you here is emphatic. It's an emphatic pronoun. You did not learn Christ in this way. So it marks off a contrast with the unsaved Gentiles, which we talked about last week.

And also, one little thing. I'm collecting information. You talk to people that don't really know the Lord and they'll say, well your religion or what you believe, and they want it to be, how can I say, it's just book knowledge. It's just a wall of facts on a piece of paper, like you learn chemistry or you learn something. It's so much more than that.

We're learning about the person of Christ. And so he's going to talk to us about that. and you did not learn in the main verb. So he's contrasting, and it's a fact. It's a fact in the Christian life that you didn't learn the way the Gentiles learn in that negative sense. And learn is this word, it's actually, and actually Verden's done a little bit of studying, this is actually one of a series of words that actually, to learn as a disciple, if you kind of trace through the word disciple, this is one of the words that you come across that to learn as a disciple. The definition I have from Vines doesn't exactly address that, but it talks more about the fact that it's not simply the doctrine of Christ, but Christ himself. the process not merely of getting to know the person but applying the knowledge we have and to walk differently as the rest of the Gentiles. You know what's interesting is you look in these dictionaries and they wind up giving commentaries. And so you may not agree with the commentary. So don't feel bad if you look in some of these dictionaries.

This is Vine, which I like. It's online and also in paperback or paper. Just to digress here, when I first started studying, which is going to go back a few years here, can't believe her, but I used just a paper copy of Vines. I'd go through, I'd look up the words, oh that's the word so and so, and I'd look down through it, but now it's just great. You can just cut and paste these things in here and it's just wonderful.

So you can get to the information a lot quicker. And it's the Christ, the very person of Christ. And this is the continue in our walk. So a couple of verses that I can highlight that. Could someone read 2 Peter 3.18? Great, okay. So this is a little bit different word. Grow, it has the idea, actually it's to increase. Increasing grace. Actually, it might be better off if we just raise those up. I didn't do that. I probably should. Think about it. That might be better.

There we go. You were raised up in Christ. There you go. And you can probably do the same Tom if you wanted to. In the back there, just pull up the... It wouldn't bang there. It's up to you. I think I lowered the windowsill. Okay, that's good. It talks about growing the grace or increasing the grace or the learning about the Lord Jesus.

The other verse here is in Colossians 2.6 Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in Him. It uses this word walk to conduct your life. So as you received Him, how did you receive Him? You received Him by faith. So how are you to walk? You are to walk by faith, right?

It doesn't change. You don't all of a sudden say, well I came to the Lord by faith now. Give me those rules so I can know what to do. Just give me ten rules and I'll be able to do this. No, we have to exercise faith. Think about it, that's probably the hardest part in the Christian life. I'll be honest, we don't really want to live by faith. It's hard because you think, this may not work out. This situation, whatever it might be, may not work out the way I think it should work out. That can be scary, but the Lord says, I want you to trust me and rest in what I provided for you.

But you did not learn Christ in this way. You learned him as your walk by faith. If indeed you have heard of him and have been taught in him. So two things show up here. If indeed is assumed to be true. You could say, if this is the case, you heard of him, so the first thing you heard of him, so you had to hear him, you had to hear him to believe really, to hear, to understand, to comprehend, and this is in the Aristant's past point fact, it's a fact that you heard him, and that's going to be the first piece of information, and a couple of verses there, one in Colossians that talks about It says, since we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and then it goes on to say, you heard in the word of truth the gospel, so we came to know about the Lord Jesus by hearing about who He is and what He's done, about His person and His work. So we have heard Him, and that's a fact.

And then the Romans passage talks about How would you hear without a preacher? Someone has to tell you or you have to read that you have to to hear about the word somebody has to tell you about that and then part two You've been taught in him. You not only heard him, but you were taught in him and notice it's in him You know you were taught in him and that's key Having been taught to instruct by by word of mouth Once again, it's a past point fact and this is you know You receive the teaching. You receive the teaching. And the Colossians verse is kind of good.

Could someone read Colossians 2.7? Remember, you get points for this. In heaven. In heaven. Not here on earth. I'm joking, obviously. For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel.

Did I read the right one? Colossians 2, 7. 2 and I read 1. That was a good verse. I like that verse. Okay. Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as ye have been taught, abunding therein with thanksgiving. Great. Okay. So it says, now being built up in him, established in your faith, just as you were taught or instructed So the Lord wants to grow in grace. He wants not only to hear about him, to know about him, to know the facts, but to learn about him, to be instructed in him. So it's so much different than the other picture of the Gentiles. So a couple of points that kind of occurred to me.

You've been taught in the past and continue to be taught in the present as we walk by faith. You can't be taught well, if you will, if it isn't by faith. If you come to Him by faith, you can't be taught well if it's not by faith. So it's all wrapped up in our trusting and resting in what God has provided for us.

And then the other point is, this teaching is in Him, in your living union with Him. That's literally what in Him means. So it's a relationship. And we learn about him that we're doing today. We're going to learn something about what happened to our old man and what who we are in a new man. We're going to learn something about that today. And that's going to that's going to he's going to teach us about that through his word and through the Holy Spirit showing us that.

OK. Thoughts on these points here. I'm sorry. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in chapter three verse 10 as we might and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith. And I was recently studying that and I was thinking, man, I always think of faith as like this binary thing. But Paul uses it in a way that's talking about our understanding and appropriating of his doctrines.

That it's not just, we're saved. We're saved and then the fullness of who we are in Christ. That's why it's two-part. You've heard of him and have been taught in him. want to just say, well, I'm saved. Don't tell me the details of anything else. And it's sad to see that. I just want to have assurance of my salvation. I don't know how they can have assurance of their salvation, but anyway, that's my opinion. But they just want to hear about Him, but they don't want to be taught in Him. And the other part is you have to have someone that is able to teach them in Him.

Which is so key of the earlier verses. Exactly. Right. Right, exactly. Okay, so now this is cool. Just as the truth is in Jesus. This is just a, you know, cool. Okay, is, we're going to define is. Only much better. Much, much better. Much, much better. Is, is this Greek word eimi? The state in which someone or something continuously exists. We saw this in other classes earlier, I think. Christ is the truth and continuously exists as the truth.

Which is just key, just key. Other verses that talk about this, just wonderful verses. Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. And you can take a look at those, and I know Vern likes to point this out too. I am the singular way, I am the singular truth, I am the singular life.

Just amazing, amazing thoughts, amazing things to contemplate about our Savior. And it goes on, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. And then John 17, 17, Sanctify them in truth. Your Word is truth. So just amazing things that we've heard of him, we've been taught in him, just as Jesus is the truth.

Just so much contrasting to what the false things they were learning from their roots, their Gentile roots. So he kind of makes that in reference, he's going to kind of go back and focus for a bit before he gets into this really neat part. That in reference to your former manner of life, as concerning, former is the idea of before, or former. So basically he's saying here that this former manner of life, and there are some verses that talk about this former manner of life.

Could someone read the Galatians 1, Galatians 1.13? For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure, and tried to destroy it. Paul is going to attest to himself. He says, my former manner of life was really terrible. It was awful. I persecuted the church of God.

In that 1 Peter passage there, it talks about, As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance. And just to let you know, and I think I pointed out last week, God realizes that men in ignorance believe a certain way. And he understands that.

So now we're going to transition to the interesting part. That in reference to your form and manner of life, you lay aside the old self. So what do you think? Off the top of your head, what would you say this is conveying here? And actually, old self could be rendered, I'm not sure why the word for self is anthropos, it's man. Old man is probably better. So if you just are reading this, maybe you read it for the first time, so what would you say Your first thought about this little phrase here. You have a choice. OK. All right. All right. Well, OK. OK. All right. But but it conveys it kind of conveys that you there's some action involved. Most likely. Right. I don't want to drag this out too much. Let me just go down here and stop there.

It turns out, and I'm not a super Greek person, a little bit I've learned, hopefully it's been helpful to me, helpful to you. That phrase there, the way it's structured, it can be translated either in imperative or command translation, or it can be Translated in an indicative or a statement-of-fact Translation it turns out that this passage in 22 and also in 24 are both in the same camp and there's a guy Put his name at the bottom of the chart there Wallace And Vern uses that a lot. Anyway, so this was kind of helpful to me I had not actually gone through this in this much detail. So he kind of points out that that you can translate.

The way it's translated in the American Standard says, you lay aside or put off the old self or old man. So that's kind of the imperative or command or something that Paul's asking us to do. And he actually points out from that text, you can't decide which is correct. So you're left with, I have to go someplace else.

So he says, or you can translate it in the indicative or statement of fact that's saying, you have put off the old man. So that's a Wallace translation, I'll call it. Then my old buddy, Wiest, here, came through for me here. He was the only one I could find. There are probably others. And actually, there's going to be a third one here that agrees with this. You have put off, once for all, the old self or old man. What I like is what, and Chafer seems to agree with this too. Chafer says, this is not a command for these saints to do something which was not yet accomplished.

It is seen when two other passages, Romans 6 and Colossians 3.9 are examined along with this.

So what he is saying here, and we are going to do this in just a second. He is saying, you look at this verse here, and I assume he He knew the Greek. He understood that there was this, you know, it could be one way or the other. And he says, let's look at the other verses to determine what might be the correct translation here.

All right. OK. And Wallace is the guy that has this, where I got the imperative translation and the indicative translation. So does that make sense so far, that we've got these two options here? And I didn't actually realize that was the case. He said, you really cannot tell which is the correct. It can be either. And he goes on. He says so and so. There's a whole page full of this. He goes on. So and so says this. And so and so. And he just goes on around this.

And I said, man, I'm getting really confused. So anyway, what I like here is before I show you those two verses, if I look at this from what we read in scripture and what Schaeffer kind of shares, The indicative or statement of fact trend seems to fit better. It just seems to fit better with what I understand from the rest of scripture. And I'm hoping that you'll agree with me.

You don't have to, but I'm hoping that you'll kind of say, well yeah, isn't he telling us to remember that you have put off the old man? He's not asking, so how am I going to accomplish putting off the old man? If he actually is asking you, how am I going to accomplish that? we're gonna see it took Christ's death on the cross to do that how am I gonna I can say I'm gonna I'm gonna remember I'm gonna put him off I'm gonna put him off how am I gonna do that so anyway I mean the indicative seems to fit so much better with the you know scripture so let's look at the two verses here and I use the Weiss translation because it really helped in kind of some nuances here okay Romans 6 6 knowing this experientially, or based on Noah's Gnosko, the know of experience, that our old self, or old man, was crucified.

Actually, what it means, what it says, that word literally is co-crucified. When Christ was crucified, and this is one of the amazing identifications, when Christ was crucified, we were crucified. I mean, wow. If you haven't understood that, seen that before, it's just so incredibly important. That we were crucified with Christ.

But he's not going to give us details about that. He's going to say your old self or old man was crucified with him once for all. It only happened one time. And we see that in order that. So here's the reason. Here's the reason why you were crucified with Christ.

That the physical body dominated by the sinful nature might be rendered inoperative or better disconnected, taken offline. It doesn't say that sinful nature was eradicated, it just says that it was cut loose or put to the side. It's still there, it's still hanging out, with the result that no longer are we to be rending as slaves habitual obedience to the sinful nature. So with that verse there in mind, and if you go back to the Ephesians, you just say, it seems a lot more appropriate that he would be reminding the Ephesians believers of this fact here. And then there's the Colossians passage, and this is more talking about your practice. Do not lie to one another, since you have, I add the have, laid aside the old man or old self with his evil practices.

So, it seems in those three passages, the Ephesians, Romans 6.6 and 3.9, it seems like it refers to something that God accomplished on the cross, and we were there, we died with Him, our old man was crucified with Him, so it's something that He accomplished, and He's asking us to remember that. So, this is how God's grace operates. It's because the old man has been put off that we are to abstain from their form of evil ways rather than by abstaining from evil ways that the old man might be put off. Just so much as we learn is that Grace asks us to remember what God has done and what Christ has done. And that allows us to live the Christian life.

If we flip it around and we try to perform, say, God, look at what I'm doing. I didn't open my mouth today. I didn't say anything. I did it for half an hour or whatever it is. No, we're to remember that He has accomplished this and that we can live in light of that and we can live the Christian life based upon what Christ has done. Which I think is a proper order of how to see ourselves in Christ.

I think in a complimentary verse to Romans 6.6 is Romans 6.11 where he says, Reckon yourself. That's good, that's good. Reckoning is your, you are, that is the remembrance that Christ did the work. Right. Reckon yourself then is not, you know, make yourself good, it's recall or account. Yeah, it's an accountant term. You put it down as true, you're an accountant and you put that down on my ledger.

You know, I count as true. I count this fact as true. That I was co-crucified with Christ. for the purpose to release me from my sin nature. Not to eradicate it, but to release me. With the result that I am no longer a habitual slave to the sin nature.

I have a picture at the back. All these pictures are great. My brother Hal had some tremendous pictures and I love them. And Vernce has some neat pictures. In trying to get a picture, it's hard to to accurately get scripture into a picture is what I see. And so they're helpful. So hopefully the last picture we'll do right at the end, we'll try to address some of that.

So thoughts before we move on here? release me because I mean I think we're a big part of my understanding is like even though I am to remember these things have happened I really have to rely on the Lord to change me if I'm trying to remember or if I'm trying to do it then it's me and I just have I don't know, I feel like there's such an aspect of, he's the one who's got to like, help me remember, change my brain, change my mind. That's the job of the Holy Spirit, right? He brings to our remembrance, he causes us to remember.

We're convicted, we're convicted of things, you know, here I did that again, that same path I always go down, we're all the same way, that's the same thing I do over and over again, I'm tired of doing that. No, that's great. That's super. So let's go on.

So now he's going to describe this old man or old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit. This is what the old man is like. What's interesting is, God didn't, you know, we're going to see, He doesn't want to deal with the old man anymore. He's, you know, this is it. That's why He gave us a new life in Christ. That's why He gave us a new man. Because the old man is... So now we're going to talk about the old man for a little bit here.

Which is being corrupted. The one being corrupted. Signifies to destroy by means of corrupting. Bring into a worse state. The lust of deceit. If you go down through this you'll see that it talks about that lust excited by deceit. Remember lust is a word for desire. It's a strong desire and actually there can be in scripture it's used in the sense that there can be a good use of a strong desire. There can be desires that are good but many times lust is used in a sexual sense. and it has a very negative connotation.

Could someone read Galatians 5.16? Yes, I say that you walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Okay. Or lust or desire.

Okay, so basically he's saying as we walk in the spirit by faith, moment by moment, as we're doing that then we You will not carry out the desires of the flesh. That's God's way of having victory over difficulties we have or sins in our life is to walk in Him. That's His prescribed method to conduct your life and walk in Him and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. And then the Ephesians passage here, Ephesians 2, 3, that's earlier and it says, describing that you all formerly lived in the lust of your flesh and the desire of the flesh. So for a moment here he's gone back and he's described the old man, the old self. So now we're going to move on toward the description of the new man.

Yeah, go ahead. Just an observation. You should be very careful doing what I'm just about to say out loud. Okay. Epidemia is a compound word. Compound words should never just be taken literally. You should look at it in context of Greek things. But the compound word in this case is actually kind of reflective. It means the heightened passions.

Okay, good. And I think it's one of those things where you think of lusts and I know that when we think of lust, we think, well, I've just got to control that myself. I'm going to control it. I'm going to pull myself up off my bootstraps, which is so critical of the Galatians 5.16. Since you lay these things aside, you don't have to be a slave to this heightened passion. I feel like even though we've laid the old man aside, I do feel like the old man will try. Especially in the beginning. It kind of tastes like heightened. Like a heightened sense of, no wait, I'm in control.

No, no. The flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. It is a non-negative contention. But part of the thing that makes this a little bit difficult with understanding with pictures is that you have like three or four terms that seem somewhat synonymous but like scripture doesn't exactly treat it that way. Go ahead. Well the whole issue seems to revolve around what we feed into the ground here a lot, but position. Right. Christ did that. Right. Of the cross. He died and I'm in Him. But what would be the converse? It's not that I just die myself. What would be the results of that without Christ having performed that work? Me just dying myself would be futile.

So it's very positional. It is. Exactly. Position is key in that part. That's why it says we have or you have died. It's like acknowledging a fact that has happened. That's true, that's true. Well, I was going to point out here that we have three or four terms.

We have the old man, we have the sin nature, we have the new man, we have the new nature, we have the flesh, Those set of terms will be addressed at the very end, but it makes it hard because you say, God says he's done with the old man, but we still have a sin nature. We see that, so that's still in play. That's why it's important to trace through carefully. I'm not going to be able to answer all those questions, but it's good to keep in mind that there are terms that seem like they are synonymous, but not necessarily.

And hopefully we'll see that in a second here. OK. And that you be renewed. OK, he said, first of all, he said, which is being corrupted in accordance with the left of the seat. And then it goes on. And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

And this is really neat. This is something that I had not really. And you be renewed. you are being constantly renewed, present tense, that's the ongoing process, and it's in the passive voice, renewed in the passive voice, to make new, it's Anna, it's a compound word, Randy Horne, Randy's favorites, compound word, Anna, no, no, no, I know, I'm just giving you a hard time here, so you have Anna, which is back or again, and Kainos, which is new, it's new in quality, it's not like I get a I get a brand new car, it's more that this is a new quality. This is new and quality.

And that's important. We're going to see that. In the spirit of your mind. So it says we're to be renewed, not just in our mind, but in the spirit of our mind. And I think that's just really interesting. Weiss kind of picks up on that. The renewal takes place, not in the mind, but in the spirit of it. And I'm thinking, wow, in the spirit of my mind. And I think it's important that we realize that. Go ahead.

I don't really understand what it means when it says, the spirit of your mind. I don't quite get what that means. Okay, let's say it's not. You would agree that's not the Holy Spirit, right? Because it says the spirit of your mind. So it's us. It's a believer, right? Let me see if I can give you the verse here. So this verse says, But I say, walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. What I'm connecting up with here is the fact that we're a spiritual being.

We have a spirit. And when we're walking by faith, our spirit can learn. And that spirit, it's just not our mind. It's God in us. It's the spirit of our minds connecting up with God. He's in me. So that's what makes it that I am to be renewed. He's going to teach us, not just in our minds, but in the spirit of our minds. I thought that was just a really... I don't claim I really have my arms totally around this, but this helps a little bit. Because as I walk by the spirit, I'm conducting my life in this fellowship with the spirit. then I won't be susceptible to these desires of the flesh, because my focus will be on Christ. So that's where I came to the conclusion about the Spirit of the Mind.

There's a parallel passage here. But though the outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. Well, it's not exactly parallel, but it uses the idea of renewed day by day. So it's this process of being renewed in the spirit of your mind. As you daily are taking in, the spirit is communicating with you through your mind, through your spirit. I don't know.

Another cross reference is 1 Corinthians 2.14 where he says, but a natural man does not accept the things in the Spirit of God for their foolishness in, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually a prey. Excellent, excellent. And I always wrestled with this because I didn't understand any of what you're going over here. There's so much.

I mean I feel like this is just, this is like 101. This is like the old man, the new man 101. Is this term and this tried to be illustrated in your picture? Well, I saw this picture and I thought it helped in terms of the old and new man. The spirit of the mind, actually that was a piece, that was a gem.

I said the spirit of your mind, wow. And actually I came across a quote I lost my quote. Anyway, in the spirit of your mind, that really addresses the fact that we're just not taking in information. It's the Holy Spirit in our lives, working in our mind, that allows us to understand who we are in Christ, what's happened to us, how we should walk, how we should conduct our lives. It's a spiritual operation, not just gathering facts. And that spirit of the mind, I think, picks up on that really well.

I have so many questions. Well, good. So you get to teach the next class. I know. I've got homework. You've got two weeks. So let's go on. So now we're going to transition and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God and has been created in righteousness and holiness. So once again, you look at that and you say, boy, it almost seems like I better get my marching, I've got to put this thing on and get busy here. But, and put on the new self or new man, so how Reese renders it is like I said before, in the statement of fact, or in Dick, you know, you have put on once for all the new man. That's an accomplished fact.

That's already happened. The believer isn't in the state of the old man. He's in the state of the new man. That's the state he's in. And kainos is the key word here. Not new in a point of time, but new in quality. This new quality man. The new man is totally different in quality than the old man. Because it's Christ in me. It's his life in me. It's a totally different kind of thing.

And Colossians 3.10 says, it has the statement of fact tenor here, and put on the new self, new man, and have put on the new man or new self who is being renewed to true knowledge according to the image of one who created him.

So Colossians 3.10 has it in the statement of fact So, I think it fits well with Ephesians 4.24 as a statement of fact.

2 Corinthians 5.17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. So, new creature kind of is akin to this new man. Old things have passed away, behold, new things have come. Alright, so he goes on and he kind of describes, so here's the wonderful attributes of this new man. It's amazing.

The likeness is not in the original, so it's really the one according to God, or better, according to what God is in himself. That's what this new man is like, according to what God is in himself. Created after the pattern of what God is, that's what Wiest says.

And in Ephesians 2.10, which is back earlier, it says, For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared, that we should walk in them.

So, we are his workmanship, having been created, and created in Ephesians 2.10 is the same created here, the same idea, having been created in righteousness and holiness. So if I just kind of zoom down here. Having been created is to create and form in a spiritual sense, regeneration or renewal.

In righteousness is the idea of His imputed righteousness and holiness of truth is a true holiness. So both these things are something we can never accomplish ourselves. It's in righteousness and His holiness. That's why it's totally from God. The 521 passage is very familiar. The very end of that says that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So it's His righteousness, not our righteousness. And holiness of the truth.

I'm just going to zoom the picture here if you're ready for this. So this picture, what Verne tried to capture here is he tried to capture, he says, Adam and Christ at the top. But what's good is here, he kind of defines, here's the definition for the old man. The old man, all of who we were in Adam. And the new man is all of who we were in Christ.

And then he goes on, he had some other points in here about separated from different things, but a key part here is that the old man, the old man only had one nature, he had his sin nature, his fallen nature from Adam. And that controlled him totally, there was no, he had no other He couldn't act outside of that. He had to act in concert with his sin nature. But the new man, the new man in Christ, has a new nature, but his old nature is still there, but we're separated from it. Our brother Hal, he spent a lot of time trying to show how these two guys coexist.

Not well. Hopefully the sin nature. But the thing is, if you don't If you don't allow that you have two natures in the believer, then you become the problem is, where does my sin come from? What's producing the sin in my life? And some bodies of believers, and probably most, want to X out that sin nature. They don't want that to be in that picture. And boy, when you go down that path, then you've got to do mental gymnastics about how in the world, why are Christians... Christians shouldn't be sinning then. And they are, unfortunately.

Is this condition and position the same? Well, and that's one of the things... I would say that it is only in the sense that when we are with Christ, our condition will no longer have the same nature. Right. Well, you're saying in the glory? Well, I would say right now, in Christ, this shows that we have our new nature, we have a sin nature, and we know there's a war that's going on. But we're still attached to this physical body occurring.

When we go to be with the Lord, we no longer have a body. So the sin nature, thank you Lord, goes with the body and it's gone out of the picture. So this is where it gets to be kind of, you know, you got these terms, old man, new man, sin nature, new nature, and how does this all operate? And scripture does, you know, read the Weiss translation again, and his translation does an excellent job of saying, well the reason you died on the cross with Christ was so he would separate you from this sin nature. It doesn't say it's been taken offline or rendered inoperative. It's still there. But now you can be under control of the new nature.

So Romans 6.6 and 6.11 too, about counting upon that, is just key to understand the dynamics of what's happening as a believer. But like I said, this is a beginning point. Actually, Mike and I have actually talked with Vern. I'd like to see him maybe in the next After You're Famous with Axe, move on into maybe doing more in this arena.

I just think we, you know, I feel like this is just an hour, right? Or less than an hour. And we just, this is 101. We just got there, 101. I'd like to, you know, let's go through and do more of this. Let's go back and come back, go back over it again and again until we, so we have it, you know, in our hearts, in our minds about, because it's important. It's important that we, that we don't discount the sin nature.

Circling back to the spirit of our minds, one of the consequences of the fall is that Adam became spiritually dead. He was separated from God. He wasn't physically dead, he was spiritually dead. And we believe we have a new spiritual life and a reconnection and therefore the Holy Spirit can then influence our minds and influence the way we think so that our thoughts are after God's thoughts.

And in seminary, all the people would say things like, we've got to think God's thoughts after him. And it always felt like this weird robotic or just a recitation thing. But as I've come to know 2 Peter 3, that I'm growing in the knowledge of grace and who we are in Christ, the renewing of my mind is the Holy Spirit saying, no, you're mine. The Holy Spirit saying, no, this is who you are in Christ. And so I'm thinking God's thoughts after him about who I am in Christ. I'm not thinking God's thoughts after him in a robotic, I've just memorized Bible verse. It's a relationship defining thinking. Sorry. No, that's good. That's fine. That's great. That's great.

So actually what's going to happen when Randy teaches, the next verse says, therefore, based upon what we learned in these verses here, therefore, And then he tells us to do something. Therefore, what does he say, Randy? He says, Therefore, they shall all speak to each other the truth. So he says, based upon the fact that you now have this new arrangement, you're a new man, this is what you should be doing. He's not saying, do this first so you'll become that.

And that's why, once again, I think the statement of fact or the Taking it out of the command kind of thing is key. If that's something I have to put off the old, put on the new, you're going to waste all your time trying to do that. You're going to wear yourself out. He doesn't want you to wear yourself out. He wants you to believe it. It's been done. And he wants you to understand what's the dynamics of all that. How does that work? This was this was cool.

I mean, this is one of the ones that that I think that's why I decided to do the vacation thing here I want to teach this so much that I just Okay, well, let's close it we thank you father thank you so much for the wonderful truths that we have Lord pray you'd help us to understand these want this wonderful and place we find ourselves with this new nature, your very nature, your very life in us, Lord. Even saying that seems beyond what we can even imagine, but you declare that in your word, that we were co-crucified with Christ, that our body of sin might be rendered inoperative. That way we could serve you, and walk with you, and learn of you. We thank you for our time today, in Christ's name.