April 23, 2025 - Ephesians 4:23,24 - "Putting on the New Man"

Ephesians 4:23,24

"and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

The apostle Paul wrote these words not as a call to self-improvement, but a declaration of the transforming grace of God in Christ Jesus! This is not a command to reform ourselves by the strength of our will, but a gospel command to behold and rest in who the LORD Jesus is and what His coming in the flesh fully accomplished for that people, that the Father sent Him to save.

First, the apostle tells us to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” This renewal is not a work we initiate as saved sinners. It is the sovereign operation of God the Holy Ghost, Who takes the truth of Christ crucified and risen and writes and reveals Him in the heart. This renewal begins not with our efforts, but with the life-giving work of the Spirit of God in the heart, whereby our eyes are opened to Christ. Dead men cannot renew themselves. Grace must come first, and grace must do all. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are Life" (John 6:63).

Second, Paul adds: “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”  Many read this verse as describing an inward moral change—a new nature implanted in the believer at regeneration. But that interpretation shifts the focus from Christ’s finished work for the sinner to a supposed work within the sinner. And yet, Christ alone is our righteousness, holiness, and life (1 Corinthians 1:30). This "new man" is not the sinner himself renewed, but the Man Christ Jesus, the new representative man, created in time through the incarnation, in righteousness and true holiness, to accomplish all that the first man, Adam, failed to do.

1. The New Man Is After God – In Perfect Likeness

Paul says this "new man" is "after God", that is, in God's image. That phrase echoes Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Adam was made in the image of God, yet he fell and marred that image. But Christ, the Second Adam, came as the express image of God (Hebrews 1:3). He is the perfect man after God. He is God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16), in whom there is no sin (1 Peter 2:22), and who alone fulfilled God’s righteousness in true holiness. Thus, the “new man” is not the believer’s new moral condition, but Christ in His humanity, the perfect Man according to God’s eternal purpose.

2. The New Man Is “Created” – A Reference to the Incarnation

Paul uses the word “created” (ktisthenta in Greek), emphasizing a divine act of origin. This is not a spiritual renovation within man, but an entirely new creation itself in the Person of Christ. As Isaiah prophesied: “The LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man” (Jeremiah 31:22). That is the virgin birth—the creation of a man, not by natural generation, but by the Holy Ghost. This Man—Christ—is the new creation made righteous from conception as the God/Man, without sin, so that He might fulfill the law as the representative of His people.

3. “Put On” the New Man – Union with Christ, Not Personal Renewal

To “put on” the new man is not to put on a new behavior or nature, but to put on Christ Himself. Compare this with Romans 13:14: “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ…” This is the gospel call to lay hold of Christ and rest in Him and His finished work by God-given faith, and "to be found in Him, not having our own righteousness " (Philippians 3:9). The believer is exhorted to look away from self and to rest in Christ alone, Who is the New Man, the Righteous One, and the only Standing of the elect before God. Psalm 24:3-5 describes that One who alone can stand for His people before God's holy law and justice. He must be perfect and without sin. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation."

4. Christ, the Second Adam, Is the New Man of Ephesians 2

Paul already laid the foundation for this in Ephesians 2:15: “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity... for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” Here the “new man” is clearly Christ Himself, making peace between Jew and Gentile in His own body through the cross, and more importantly reconciling both to God. He is the new Man, the true Israel, the true Adam, the One in Whom all God's people are made complete (Colossians 2:10).

Christ Alone Is the New Man

To interpret “the new man” in Ephesians 4:24 as an internal moral nature confuses the gospel. Righteousness and true holiness are not conditions within us—they are in Christ alone (2 Corinthians 5:21). The "new man" is not created in the sinner, but created for the sinner—in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, Who fulfilled all righteousness and bore the curse for His elect. Let us, therefore, put Him on trusting not in anything wrought within us, but in Him Who was made flesh to redeem, justify, and perfect all whom the Father gave Him from eternity.

“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14)