Old Man/New Man, Part 1

Review: Cardinal Blessings and Definitive Sanctification

0:03 In our Lord's Day morning meditations, we are presently examining the teaching of the Word of God with respect to that which I have entitled the Cardinal Blessings of Salvation in Jesus Christ. Since Ephesians 1 and verse 3 states that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,

0:29 It is evident that union with Christ is the only sphere in which the manifold blessings of salvation come to us as needy sinners. But the same scriptures which teach this truth, that is, that union with Christ is the only sphere in which we enjoy every spiritual blessing, the same scriptures teach us that these blessings are distinguishable

0:59 Blessings. Each blessing suited to a particular dimension of human sinfulness and need. I generally have very little sympathy for acrostics which try in some clever way to set out spiritual truth, you know, where you take the letters of the alphabet or a certain name. But there is an acrostic which often comes back to my mind that contains a wealth of biblical truth. It takes the name Jesus, J.,

1:29 E-S-U-S. And from that sets forth this simple statement, Jesus just exactly suits us sinners. And in a very real sense, that's the whole teaching of the Word of God. That in the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior, Jesus just exactly suited to us sinners.

2:00 having examined some of these blessings that are all in Christ but are distinguishable one from the other, we have come through that aspect of our teaching in which we examined calling and regeneration. Those are the blessings in which we are quickened to spiritual life and enabled to embrace the offered Savior. Obviously then, calling and regeneration are blessings in Christ

2:30 suited to our deadness in sin and to the disinclination of our hearts to salvation and the offered Savior. If there were no regeneration imparting life, no effectual calling enabling us to embrace the Savior, there could be no enjoyment of salvation. But having been called and regenerated, the Scripture tells us we are then justified and adopted. And justification, of course, is the answer of God to the problem of human guilt. For in justification we are given a perfect righteousness by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. And in adoption the problem of our alienation from God is resolved. For adoption means that we are placed as the sons and daughters in the family of God.

3:27 And now we have moved on in our consideration to a beginning of our study in the doctrine of sanctification, another blessing that is ours in Christ, but distinguishable from calling, regeneration, justification, and adoption. And I remind you, these distinctions are not the imposition of theological science upon the Bible. They are distinctions that arise out of the Bible, and they are the very way in which God has purposed these blessings in Christ Jesus for His people. Thus far in our studies of the doctrine of sanctification, I've suggested that we need to understand that God's sanctifying work is not only central in the purpose of salvation,

4:20 but is broken down into three major categories. It is as a massive mountain with three great peaks, definitive sanctification or sanctification begun, progressive sanctification or sanctification continued, and climactic sanctification or sanctification completed. Then last Lord's Day, we put aside our wide-angle lens, and we put on our zoom lens, and we zoomed in on this matter of definitive sanctification, this element of God's sanctifying work in Christ on behalf of His people, in which there is a radical break with the power and the dominion of sin.

5:09 And what we did last Lord's Day was simply to look at that passage, which is the most strategic passage in all of the Word of God with respect to definitive sanctification, namely Romans chapter 6, in which the entire teaching of the passage is bound up in the question of verse 1 and in the answer of verse 2. Shall we then continue in sin that grace may abound?

5:38 God forbid, how shall we that have died to sin live any longer therein? And as we sought to come to grips with the teaching of Romans 6, this much I trust became clear, that the people of God are described in Romans 6 as those who have died to sin. And this death to sin is real, It is a death to sin that is always joined to the emergence of newness of life and results in a practical manifestation of the breaking of sin's dominion and power in the life of every believer. Furthermore, I trust it was evident that on the basis of the teaching of Romans 6,

6:27 We are to think of ourselves and we are to act self-consciously as Christians in terms of what grace has made us. And because we are dead to sin in union with Christ, Romans 6 says, Reckon it to be so. And on the basis of that, reckon it to be true that you have risen to newness of life. On the basis of that reality, yield your members instruments of righteousness, unto God. Now this morning we come to another passage which teaches this same basic truth of definitive sanctification. That is, that the sanctifying process, the process by which we are delivered from the dominion, the power and pollution of sin, begins with this radical breach with sin. Romans 6, the most pivotal passage in all of Scripture.

Introducing Colossians 3:9-10

7:27 This morning we take up the first of three or four very vital passages which confirm, amplify, underscore, and adjust the teaching of Romans 6. And it's the passage found in Colossians chapter 3, verses 9 and 10. Colossians chapter 3, verses 9 and 10.

7:58 seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him. Lie not, seeing ye have put off the old man, and have put on the new man. Now, if we're to understand to any degree of accuracy the teaching of these two verses, we must begin, first of all, with the larger setting in which they come to us. They come to us in the setting of the entire development of the Apostle Paul's concern for the Colossian Church. As with so many of the letters of the New Testament, the focus of the content of this letter is

Larger Context: Person, Work, and Union with Christ

8:53 was dictated in terms of a heresy that was impinging upon the church at Colossae. In other words, the pastoral passion of the Apostle Paul gives birth to the direction of this letter. Certain false teachers had been propagating a certain form of heretical teaching in the Colossian church or in the environs of the Colossian church.

9:22 and concerned that the people of God not fall prey to the influence of this teaching, and also concerned to extricate from the teaching any who had bought it, the apostle wrote this particular letter. Now as he deals with the heresies that were plaguing the church at Colossae, he does so by emphasizing three fundamental truths. Truths that center on who Christ is,

9:52 Secondly, truths that center on what Christ has done. And thirdly, truths that center on the implications of who Christ is and what He has done in terms of Christ's union with His people and His people's union with Him. Now, please don't let that go by you as just a mouthful of preacher's talk. If you get hold of that concept...

10:21 There's a sense in which it is the principle that will unlock almost the entirety of the teaching of the New Testament on the Christian life. Paul combats the errors and the heresies that were impinging on the Colossian church by concentrating on those three things. Who Christ is, what he has done, and the implications of that for his people who are in union with him.

10:49 And again and again you will find that pattern in the New Testament. For most errors of doctrine and of practice grow out of an attack upon the true doctrine of the person of Christ, the true doctrine of the work of Christ, and the implications of the believer's union with Christ. And to the extent that we are well-grounded,

11:16 In the biblical teaching concerning the person of Christ, the work of Christ, and union with Christ, we will be kept in the language of Ephesians 4, from every wind of doctrine and from the slight of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. And so, here in the book of Colossians, he concentrates particularly in what is now divided as our first chapter, on the person of Christ and the work of Christ. and some of the richest teaching on who Christ is and what Christ has done is here found in Colossians 1. Then, beginning in chapter 2 and verse 6, the focus of concentration, not exclusively, you don't chop up these things into ironclad categories, but the dominant focus is upon this third category of the believer's union with Christ. Notice the language. "...as therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord,"

12:14 So walk in Him, that is in union with Him. Rooted and builded up in union with Him. And established in your faith, even as ye were taught abounding in thanksgiving. Now notice how he's going to now attack the heresy. Take heed that there shall be anyone among you that make it simple.

12:38 Foiled of you through his philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world. Now he comes back to Christ. For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and in union with him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power. Now notice the emphasis of union with Christ. In whom? In union with whom?

13:06 You were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands in the putting off of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, union with Christ, wherein ye were also raised with Him, union with Christ, through faith in the working of God who raised Him from the dead. And you being dead through your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did He make alive together with Him, union with Christ. You see the dominant emphasis? Without seeking to open up the meaning of all of that, I want you to feel something of the larger context in which Colossians 3, 9, and 10 come to us. Having asserted then, in union with Christ, we are buried with Him. In union with Christ, we are alive in Him. He then draws out the implications.

14:03 Verse 16, let no man therefore judge you. Verse 20, if ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why as though living in the world do you subject yourselves to ordinances? And from verses 16 to 23, he draws out the implications of union with Christ in his death. To use the phrase that Dr. Ferguson used all week, Paul teases out of that statement some of the implications.

14:34 are united with Christ, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and in whom you are complete, here are the implications. If you died with him, this is what it means in terms of the heresies that were impinging upon the church at Colossae. Then in chapter 3, verses 1 to 4, he says, here are the implications. If you've been raised with Christ in union with him, if then you were raised together with Christ, now here are the implications.

Immediate Context: Put to Death and Put Away

15:02 So you see, again, the doctrine of union with Christ is to the forefront in his thinking as he draws out the implications. Now that's the larger context of our text this morning. Now briefly, what is the more immediate context? Well, it begins with verse 5. Put to death, therefore, in the light of all of this rich teaching of union with Christ,

15:30 Death, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry, for which things sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience, wherein ye also once walked when ye lived in these things. But now do ye also put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth, lie not one to another. Now do you see the immediate context

16:01 of this glorious statement, ye have put off the old man, ye have put on the new man. The context is that of an exhortation that focuses upon these two duties in every believer. Put to death and put away. Verse 5,

16:21 We are to put to death our members, that is, the sins which come to expression in the members and faculties of our body and soul. We are to put to death these things. And then he names what we would call the grosser sins of the flesh, fornication, uncleanness, passion, and then the gross sins of the heart, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

16:49 Then to underscore the necessity of putting those things to death, he says, remember, these are wrath-producing sins. These are the sins that characterized you in your old life. Then he admonishes them to put away, verse 8. But now do he also put them all away. And he deals with these sins.

17:13 Sins that are characterized by what we would call the passions of the Spirit. Anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth. The passions of the Spirit and then their expression through the lips. Now the immediate context of this statement that we're going to examine. You have put off the old. You have put on the new. Is an exhortation to put certain sins to death.

The Vivid Imagery of Undressing and Dressing

17:43 and to put away certain sins. Now then, that brings us to the fundamental reality asserted in verses 9 and 10. And as I attempt to open it up briefly, I want you to notice three simple things. First of all, the imagery of the passage which is vivid, the analogy which is profound, and then thirdly, the tenses which are decisive. Look at the text. Ye have

18:13 Put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man that is being renewed. Now the imagery, I say, is very vivid, and it's something to which the youngest child here, who can understand even half of my words this morning, can relate. It is the imagery of what you did when you got up this morning. You still had your pajamas on. So if you were going to get dressed, for Sunday school and church, you had first of all to get undressed with reference to your night clothes. And the language of this text is exactly the language any person would use when he said, I went home and I undressed. I took something off. And then I put something else on. I took off my night clothes. I put on my Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. So it's imagery that

19:09 that is very, very vivid. The imagery of undressing and of dressing. And that's precisely the language the apostle uses by the direction of the Holy Spirit to set forth this amazing truth of definitive sanctification. He is talking about a spiritual undressing that is always coupled with a spiritual dressing. So the imagery is vivid. You should have no problem understanding that imagery.

The Profound Analogy of Old Man and New Man

19:38 But now secondly, the analogy is profound. And the analogy is bound up in the words old man and new man. Now the word man is not used with the word new in the original, but it is understood. So we have the analogy of the old man with his deeds, whom we have taken off, and the new man that we have put on.

20:08 Now what is the old man in this analogy? Well, the old man is nothing more or nothing less than the unregenerate man in the entirety of his life and existence under the dominion of sin. So when Paul says, you have put off the old man, he uses the word man to describe the totality of their humanity.

20:38 And he says it is that totality of humanity in the oldness of the bondage of sin. Notice verse 7. Having described certain sins that were to be put to death, he says, wherein ye also once walked when ye lived in these things. The mark of the old man is that he walks and he lives. He moves.

21:08 and has his being in the realm in which sin dominates. Now that may have a vast variety of expressions in terms of some people who are blatantly and openly immoral, foul mouths and eyes full of adultery and dishonest and nasty and churlish. Or they may be very polite, lovely, good, sweet, religious, moral, upright people. But this they have in common.

21:37 They are still in Adam. They have not come into the realm of the reign of grace. They walked, they lived, they have their being with nothing more than what they were furnished with in Adam. The old man then is unregenerate man in the entirety of his being under the dominion of sin. Now what is the new man?

22:03 Well, the new man is the regenerate man in union with Christ, quickened and raised with Christ. The new man is the man in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, the great head of the new humanity. Now, it's important for us to grasp that Paul does not say you put off an old nature and have a new nature that in some way is existing alongside the old nature. No, no. He uses terms in which the analogy is profound. It's speaking of the totality of what you were in sin and the totality of what you are now in Christ. So the imagery is vivid, undressing and dressing. The analogy is profound. It means nothing less.

The Decisive Tenses: Once-For-All Action

22:59 than a picture of the totality of what we are as old man or new man. Now the tenses are decisive. The apostle uses a form of the words when he says, put off and put on, which point to decisive, once for all, definitive, non-repeatable activity. Notice he does not say...

23:28 you are putting off and putting on as though it were a present process. Nor does he say you should put off and put on as though it were a present duty. Nor does he say you may put off and put on as though it were a possibility.

23:52 In other words, he does not use the present tense, the imperative tense, or the subjunctive tense. But look at your Bibles, dear believers in Christ, and let the Word of God come in its own native power to your mind. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off, once and for all,

24:23 decisive, a definitive undressing, unrepeated and unrepeatable. You have undressed once and for all with respect to the old man. You see it? It's there in your Bibles. Ye have put off. And furthermore, he says, ye have put on. Not you are in the process of putting on. You ought to put on. You may put on.

24:53 You have put on the new man which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him. So as certainly as Romans 6, 2 describes the fundamental characteristic of a Christian in these terms, we who are such as have died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? fundamental characteristic of every believer, he has died to sin. In this passage, his fundamental characteristic is described in this language, he has undressed with respect to the old man, he has dressed himself with respect to the new. Now, if you have any respect for the Word of God, you cannot help but see that this is the plain

Conclusion One: Every Believer Has Put Off and Put On

25:51 The obvious, the unavoidable sense and meaning of the words that are here before us. Now that being so, what conclusions are we to draw from the text? Well, let me set before you three very simple, but oh how vital these conclusions are. Conclusion number one. Every believer has put off the old man and put on the new.

26:21 Every believer has put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man. When Paul addresses the believers at Colossae as those to whom he makes reference in chapter 1 and verse 3, we give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus,

26:51 and the love which ye have to all the saints because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, as he describes all the believers in terms of faith, hope, and love, so he can describe every believer, not ideally or theoretically, but realistically, as one who has put off the old man and has put on the new man.

27:19 He has no shred of thought that we have two levels of Christians. Some who have merely believed but have yet to put off the old man and put on the new. And some who have gone a second step or to a higher level or to an advanced story of Christian experience and can be described in this language. There is not a shred of evidence in this passage that there is any

27:49 other Christian, but the Christian who has put off the old man and has put on the new man. Therefore, there is no remnant of teaching in this passage or any other to conceive of a Christian who lives, who thinks, who acts, who wills under the dominion of sin. So you see what this does to the whole so-called carnal Christian teaching? It's been a long time since I've taken a poke at that terrible teaching. But you see what it does? That teaching which says the majority of Christians are still living under the dominion of sins, but Christians they are because they trusted Christ.

28:35 This is not the apostolic perspective. He says of those in chapter 1 in verse 3 who have faith in Christ Jesus that they have come into a union with Christ which has brought them into the virtue and the power of His death and resurrection so that they have died and risen with Him. And to change the terminology, in union with Christ, they have put off the old man. They have put on the new man.

29:05 Furthermore, this passage clearly teaches under this first conclusion that every believer has put off the old man and put on the new, that there's no idea that the Christian is both old man and new man at the same time. How could you ever find that in this text? He doesn't say you have added to your old man the new man. He says the only way you could put on the new was to put off the old. God doesn't have anybody dressed with two men at the same time. You put off

29:36 To put on. And everyone who's put off has put on. And there is no teaching in the Word of God that a believer is both old man and new man at the same time. You see, the very word man speaks of a total entity. How can I be two men at the same time? It's utterly impossible. Either I'm an old man in Adam, under condemnation, in death...

30:01 Or I'm a new man in union with Jesus Christ. Now granted, you have many questions. Well, what's the nature? The new man is not perfect. That's right. This very passage teaches that. And there are problems in working out what it is to be a new man. Granted, this very problem as well as the rest of the Word of God teaches that. But you see the teaching of this passage. The believer is not old man and new man at the same time. This passage is nonsense.

Conclusion Two: Every New Man Must Deal with Remaining Sin

30:30 If that's true, and if this passage is true, that teaching is nonsense. The words of John Owen are right. He said, if the death of Christ for sin has not become your death to sin, you are yet dead in your sins. And there it is. That's the first conclusion we derive from the text. Every believer says, Has put off the old man and put on the new. Second conclusion is this. Every believer as a new man in Christ. Must continually deal with remaining sin. Every believer as a new man in Christ. Must continually deal with remaining sin. Now this anticipates mountain peak number two. But that's alright. Can't deal with one without sin.

31:25 casting some shadows on two because they're all part of one sanctifying process. Isn't it interesting that this statement of putting off and putting on came in what context? A context commanding believers to deal with remaining sin in terms of two verbs. Put to death and put away. Do you see it? This statement does not come in isolation.

31:54 This statement that the believer is one who has put off the old and put on the new grows out of an exhortation. Verse 5, put to death your members which are upon the earth. And he opens up the possibility that a Christian as a new man in Christ can even descend to a sin of fornication, of uncleanness,

32:22 of evil passion and desire and covetousness, that a person who is a new man in Christ can indulge in anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of his mouth, and even lying. Now, if it's impossible for new men in Christ to indulge in these sins, why the exhortation to put them off and put them away?

Conclusion Three: Fight from the Perspective of the New Man

32:53 So you see, the Word of God is so balanced. And this great passage teaches us as surely as every believer is a new man in Christ, secondly, every believer as a new man in Christ must continually deal with remaining sin. But then thirdly, and here is the heart of the passage, and may God the Spirit come with power to bring it home to our hearts. Every believer

33:23 new man in Christ, dealing with remaining sin, must learn to do so from the conviction and perspective that he is a new man in Christ. Let me give it to you again. Every believer, as a new man in Christ, deals

33:49 remaining sin, that is putting to death and putting off, must learn to do so from the conviction and perspective that he is indeed a new man. There has occurred a definitive break with sin. Now notice how the apostle brings those things together. Having given the exhortation, put to death your members, verse 8, now put them all away.

34:18 Anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth. Lie not one to another. See! The exhortation is based upon the reality asserted in the remaining part of the text. Children of God at Colossae.

34:42 Wage irreconcilable warfare against every dimension of remaining sin, both in its grosser forms without and within. Sins of the heart and sins of the mouth. Sins of the hands and the other members of the body. See, deal with your sins in their remaining manifestations, in the full consciousness and confidence that

35:10 That you have put off the old man, you have put on the new. That's the argument of the apostle. In other words, the imperative, what we are to do, put off, put to death, is based upon the indicative, that is, what we are. Since you are new men and women in Christ, be what you are.

35:34 Let this become, as it were, the spiritual climate in which you live and think and breathe as you wrestle on with the problems of remaining sin. Let me give you what to me is one of the most vivid and classic illustrations of this. Most of you have heard the name of Augustine, or some say Augustine. He was a great leader in the early church. That group of churchmen often referred to as the church fathers.

The Augustine Illustration and Application

36:04 Augustine had a very godly mother who prayed for him. Her name was Monica. But in spite of her instruction in prayers, Augustine became a very wicked, profligate, immoral man. And in the course of his years of sinful immorality, he had more than one lover.

36:25 And then God in grace arrested him and used in particular the text Romans 13, 14. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. And as that text was brought home with power to Augustine's heart, he was marvelously converted. Broke off his immoral relationships. He was, in the language we use in our day, at that very time, living with another woman, shacking up with another woman.

36:53 And God gave him grace to cut off those sinful relationships and manifested that indeed he had become a new man in Christ. Well, on one occasion after his conversion, he happened to be in a certain place. And one of his former lovers came into his presence. And seeing Augustine, thought him to be the man that once indulged his sinful passions with her. But he seemed indifferent to her.

37:21 There was no light of lust and inordinate desire in his eye. And disturbed by this, this former lover and paramour said, Augustine, it is I. Don't you recognize me? And Augustine turned and said to the woman, Yes, I recognize you, but it is no longer me.

37:53 See what he was saying? You see what he was saying? She looked at Augustine and the only Augustine she had ever known was Augustine as an old man in Adam, dominated by his passions and his lusts.

38:11 A great change had occurred, and now that man stands before her. The same shape of his face and his form and his eyes. The same capacities for the immoral relationships that were nursed before. Well, why now is he not moving towards her with a desire to accomplish and fulfill inordinate and sinful passions? Why is he putting away fornication and uncleanness?

38:38 He says, don't you recognize me? I have all the capacity to respond to all of those passions which I once responded to. And Augustine says, in essence, yes, and the potential in terms of my remaining corruption is all within me. But I am not the Augustine you last saw. I am a new man in Christ. And in this situation, I'm determined to be what I am.

39:11 Having put off the old man, having put on the new, he put to death that potential sin of fornication. Do you see it? Child of God, that's the whole thrust of the emphasis of the Word of God. But someone objects and said, wait a minute, Pastor Mike, doesn't this sound a little bit sort of like mind over matter stuff?

39:36 I mean, it is sort of like the athlete who goes out there and psychs himself up and pumps himself up and tells himself, you're the greatest, you're going to put the shot the farthest, you're going to throw the javelin the greatest distance. Isn't it sort of self-psyching? No, no, my friend. It has no more relationship to that than bananas to blocks of gold. What this is, is the God-ordained framework of realizing in your experience that the sanctifying power of Jesus Christ. It is the God-ordained method of bringing you and me to enjoy in our experience the liberating power of the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. But you say, I don't feel like a new man, and I don't feel...

40:32 old man has died. It has nothing to do with your feelings. It has to do with redemptive realities that are far beyond the reach of your feelings. Though blessed be God, feelings will often tag along and make the realities a blessed and glorious thing. At any given point in my Christian life, in the presence of sin, all I may feel is the stirring of my remaining corruption. All I may feel is the powerful magnetism of a former paramour, not literally, but that thing which was so much a part of you and me in our days when we were old men in Adam. All we may feel in a given moment of temptation is the tumultuous, disturbing power of indwelling sin being drawn out by external temptation. And it's at that point, dear Christian, we must learn to say, I have put off the old man. I have put on

41:39 And in the strength and power of what I am in Christ, I refuse to yield to that solicitation to evil. Is God making it plain to you? Is the Holy Ghost taking the truth and bringing it home with some consciousness of power and clarity to your mind?

42:07 I believe, and it grows out of hours and hours of agonizing pastoral counsel, that perhaps one of the greatest areas of difficulty for the true Christian who wants to be holy and longs to be like Christ and longs to be done with remaining sin is the very fruit of grace in him under the subtle, foul influence of the accuser of the brethren becomes the very thing that the enemy uses to discourage him and batter him down and to tell him he is no Christian. If you are a Christian, how can it be that you can feel any stirrings of desire to any dimension of the old life? My friend, the very fact that that disturbs you is the evidence that you are no longer living and walking in them.

43:02 When we lived and walked in the passions and lust of our flesh, we did in the language of Scripture drink iniquity like water. In the language of Romans 6.20, we were free in regard of righteousness. Apart from a few smitings of conscience here and there and some fleeting thoughts about the hell that may have awaited us at the end of it, it was no cause of grief and pain to us. And you see, it is in that very situation that we are feeling within us

43:32 The powers of the new life. When we are grieved that we are not more grieved over our sin. The very grief that we are not more grieved is the fruit of grace. The very fact that we are disturbed that we are not more disturbed. Is the work of God's grace within. It is the power of new life in Christ operative in us. Oh Christian get hold of this third grade principle from the text.

Closing Exhortation and Baptism Application

44:01 Every believer, as a new man in Christ, must learn, must learn to deal with remaining sin from the conviction and perspective that he is a new man in Christ. Well, we come around full circle to where we began as we conclude this morning. We've been looking at this first great peak of God's sanctifying grace.

44:31 definitive sanctification, a radical break with the dominion and the power of sin. We add to the teaching of Romans 6, 2, we who are such as have died to sin, the richness of Colossians 3, 9, and 10, we have put off the old man, we have put on the new, and where the all of this come from? Look at the concluding words of the passage that we've been studying this morning. You have put on the new man that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him. Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all. And in all they became new men

45:28 When they came into union with Christ. And in that union with Christ. They became part of the new humanity. Where all human distinctions and barriers are gone. As to spiritual privilege. And as to spiritual responsibility. Other distinctions are not gone. Men are still men. And if they are husbands. They are to be the heads of their home. If they are wives. They are to be submissive to their husbands. You see the feminist.

45:57 Take a passage like this. You see, in Christ all distinctions are gone as to spiritual privilege, not as to structures of home and society. Kings are still to rule as kings and we're to honor them and submit to them. But in terms of spiritual privilege, once we put off the old man and put on the new, we do so in union with Christ and in Him and with Him, become part of the new creation, the new humanity in which there are of these distinctions. Christ is the great head, oh may I say it reverently, pours down from his own head into the meanest member of his body, into a believing king upon his throne, to a believing beggar in his hovel, all of the grace and plenitude of power and redemptive dynamism that he himself has provided for his peace.

46:58 In Christ, Christ is all. So you see these Colossians who said, oh yeah, we've got Christ, but now we've got to get a little something here from philosophy. Got to get a little something here from religious asceticism. Got to get a little something from over here. He said, no, no. If only I knew who Christ was, what Christ has done, and what you are in Christ, you would never look beyond Christ for anything, for life, or for practice. Oh, may God, by the Holy Spirit,

47:28 So speak to some of you sitting here today. You're still old men. Oh, you may only be 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 17, 19 years old. But you are old men. You are yet in Adam. Why? Because you've never put off. And my friend, this putting off is not something that happens unconsciously. Though it is God's almighty creative power, notice verse 10, you have put on the new man that is God.

47:57 created or being renewed, I'm sorry, unto the knowledge after the image of Him that created Him. Though it is creative power from God's perspective, it's power that operates in regeneration and calling so that the putting off is our activity. Ye have put off. That's what repentance and faith are. The putting off of the old, consciously, deliberately saying,

48:27 I am determined to be done with the reign of sin, the rule of my own life, my passions and pride and ambition, contrary to the will of God. I am determined to stack arms, yet put off the old. And then faith is a putting on of Christ. That's the very language used in Romans 13, 14. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, in which I take Christ in all that He is to be mine.

48:56 His righteousness as my righteousness. His unfettered access to the Father as mine in the grace of adoption. His Spirit to be the Spirit that indwells me and enables me to be what He commands me to be. Oh, if you're out of Christ, my friend, you are yet an old man. And there is no way to put on the new but to put off the old.

49:23 Come to Christ in repentance and in faith. Put off the old. Put on the new. And of course this should have great significance for those of you who are to be baptized two weeks from today. Because in the previous context you remember he says it's in the very ordinance of baptism that you bear sacramental witness to this reality. Buried with him in baptism.

49:51 raised with Him through faith in the operation of God. What are you declaring in your baptism? The old has been put off in the death of Christ. The new is mine in the resurrection of Christ. And in union with Him, I am a new man, henceforth determined to be in every aspect of life what I am. Let us pray.

Closing Prayer

50:28 Oh, our Father, we have sought this morning to penetrate into those glorious gospel mysteries that are indeed the very things that angels desire to look into. How we praise you that by your grace and power many seated in this auditorium this morning have put off the old man and have

50:58 Put on the new. Help each one of us as new men and women in Christ to be what we are. To say with Augustine, it is no longer I. O God, in our relentless and unending warfare with remaining sin, grant that we may fight from the posture of triumph as new men in Jesus Christ.

51:28 O by your Spirit, write these truths upon the heart of every one of your children and be pleased to use them as the very means of drawing others to the knowledge of your dear Son and of His salvation. Hear our cry. Receive our praise for the sense of your presence. Receive our thanks for your holy and infallible Word. This blessed lamp to our feet is and light to our pathway. Hear us, as together we bring our praise, as together we plead that your word may effectually work in every heart. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.