EPHESIANS: You Were Taught
EPHESIANS Number 50
Ephesians 4:22–24 (KJV)
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
The Truth that is in Jesus and is taught to us by Christ is that we put off the old man, the old self. We no longer find the decaying rags of the life we had in the world suitable. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God now. We are children of the King. We are holy ones, saints of God.
Lust, fleshly desire, is very deceiving. At first glance it can seem appealing. If we don’t look too closely, it can appear to be what we want. It can momentarily feel fulfilling, but it’s all a sham. Like a Hollywood movie set, behind the beautiful facade is nothing but empty space and rough braces to keep the fake beauty from falling flat.
That’s why we are told that transformation comes from mind renewal. Here in verse 23 Paul says that we were taught that we need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. In Romans 12:2a, he put it this way, “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”.
Mind renewal comes from growing in Christ. It’s what Peter urges in 2 Peter 3:18 when he calls us to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord. It’s very important to us. The world and fleshly desire have a sort of gravitational pull on us (thank you, Tim Chalas for that imagery) that never stops. We need to be energized if we are to overcome that kind of gravity. Fortunately, we have a limitless eco-friendly power source. The Spirit of Christ is a dynamo within us. We are powered by the Son.
In addition to taking off the grimy, decaying, old rags of the flesh, the Truth that is the Lord Jesus teaches us to put on spotless, durable, new clothing of the Spirit. The new man, our new self was born when Christ entered our hearts by faith. Our hard cold old heart was removed, and a soft warm new heart was transplanted in its place. We were immersed into Him, dying to sin and all that went before, and we were raised to completely new Life. Romans 6 talks about this, and 2 Corinthians 5:17 sums it up in a sentence, saying, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
