The Old Man and the New Man

… I will read three passages from Scripture, the first from Joshua 4, the book of Joshua chapter 4. I am reading from the New Translation. Joshua 4 and verse 1, And it came to pass, when the whole nation had completely gone over the Jordan, that Jehovah spoke to Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, one man out of every tribe, and command them, saying, Take up hence out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests' feet stood firm twelve stones, and carry them over with you, and lay them down in the lodging place where ye shall lodge this night. And Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had appointed of the children of Israel, a man out of every tribe, and Joshua said to them, Pass before the ark of Jehovah your God into the midst of the Jordan, and lift up each of you a stone, and put it upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, that this may be a sign in your midst. When your children ask hereafter, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall say to them, That the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. And when it went through the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever. And the children of Israel did so as Joshua had commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, as Jehovah had spoken to Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and they carried them over with them in the lodging place, and laid them down there. And twelve stones did Joshua set up in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant had stood firm. And they are there to this day. And then one more passage from the New Testament, the epistle to the Ephesians, and chapter 4. Ephesians 4, verse 22. Namely, you are having put off according to the former conversation, the old man, which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts. And being renewed in the spirit of your mind, and you are having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness. Thus far, the word of God. The subject of our lecture tonight is, or are two points, the old man and the new man. I think that this subject, the old man and the new man, is maybe a subject which is a little bit neglected in Christianity. But it is of such an importance that it might be useful to give some moments to the occupation with this not only important but also wonderful subject. The old man, to start with. Sometimes it is said, well, my old man is still stirring. And there you see the necessity of this teaching, because if you look at scripture, you will look in vain for any activity of the old man in the Christian. There isn't any, and there can't be any. Because the old man, as the 12 stones in Jordan, is put away. That is very clear, because in the Old Testament, in these types, there were 24 stones. 12, each for the 12 tribes. 12 were put down under Jordan. The water went across them. That is the end of the old man. And 12 were put on the other side of Jordan, in the land of Canaan, on the other shore of the Jordan. And that is man in resurrection with Christ. But what has been raised? The old man, no. The new man, that is what has been raised. Nothing else. So as Christ has been raised out of death, he is the center of it all. Because when he died, our old man died. That's Romans 6. Romans 6, verse 6 says that our old man was crucified with Christ. Very clear. And the apostle can say, so if you have died with Christ, to sin. But also if you have died to Christ. Read Romans 6. It is very clear that the old man has been done away. Has been done away. At the cross of Christ. For everyone who believes in him. So to say my old man is stirring, shows in principle, I think many of us, I myself have said it. But I'm aware that it was wrong to say my old man is stirring. He's down in Jordan. Look at, can you see them? These 12 stones which are in Jordan? No, they are there until this day. The writer could write Joshua. But they are invisible. Done away with. And why? Because the old man is our sinful position before God. I don't say our sinful state. Because sin is still there. And that is what was the problem. Because we always say, many say, my old man is stirring. It's not the old man, it's the flesh. And that's a very big difference between the old man and the flesh. That is why I say, the old man, which is only said of people who believe in the Lord Jesus. No unbeliever could say my old man has been crucified. Only from the viewpoint of believing in Christ. The believer can say our old man has been crucified with Christ. So it is, to give a definition, the position of the sinner before God. But looked at from the standpoint of him who has believed in Christ. He can say our old man, nobody else. Because only those who believe in the Lord Jesus have been united to him. By his death and in his death, they have been, as Romans 6 says, by baptism we have been planted together in baptism with Christ. As if we were one plant, so we have been buried with Christ. That is the teaching on baptism of Romans 6. It is the burial of somebody who is already dead. Because you only bury dead people, not living people. That is why Romans 6 says, our old man has been crucified with Christ. That is the judgment of God on the place of shame. The Israelites had to put off the shame of Egypt when they were circumcised in the country. They always carried this shame along with them. They had not judged themselves, their flesh. But the crucifixion of Christ was a judgment and it was at a place of shame. And that is where our old man has found his end. He has been crucified with Christ. Thank God for it. Because as we shall see, it had to be crucified. It had to be done away. Because there is in the old man, in myself even, as Paul said, there is no good. This is a very important thing to acknowledge. That there is no good in natural man. Not the slightest. This is quite a subject. Because one could say, look at all the progress in technology and science and medicine. Is there no good in it? Naturally, it is good. There are many good things in this world in the sense of utility. But morally, that is the question. Somebody who has made the finest invention in medical science. And is not a believer, he will be eternally lost. Because it is quite a subject. But we cannot enter into this. But this shows that the old man is not looked at his features in science or in knowledge. But morally. And morally, everybody who does not believe in God is a sinner and therefore eternally lost. That is why the old man, our position as sinners before God could not be accepted. Can we imagine that somebody with a sinful nature would feel at home in the Father's house in heaven? Impossible. One brother said long ago, it would almost be hell for him. For a sinner to be in the holy atmosphere and love of God the Father, who is too pure in his eyes to look at evil. For a sinner, heaven would be unbearable. But on the other side, it is inconceivable that God could be content and satisfied to have persons in his presence who still have an evil nature. It had to be done away with. And it will be done away with. The position we have left, because the old man has been crucified, therefore we can say we have died with Christ. But we haven't died bodily, corporally. We are still alive. So this shows that this I is the old man. He has died or she has died. It is never said in a plural because the old man is the same in every person. Sinful. There is no difference in the old man. Our old man, it is said. Having put the old man, not your old man, but the old man because the character of this old man, even if there should be the vastest amount of differences between natural men, races and cultures and civilization and riches and beauty and ugliness, it's all nothing. God looks at us only morally. And he says, I can begin, do nothing with this old man. He has to be done away. Crucified, died and buried. That is in Romans 6, the very clear signification of baptism that the old man has been buried with Christ. And why I have explained it? Because there is no good in natural man. Why? Because the first man, Adam, in contrast with the Lord Jesus, the second man, was seduced, had himself, let himself be seduced by Satan. He preferred to follow Satan instead of obey God. That is where the character of the old man began. The old man is not found in the Old Testament. This expression couldn't be introduced before the new man was there. As long as there was no new man, there couldn't be an old man. And we could go further. Before there wasn't a second man, there couldn't be the first man. Adam was the first man. But he could only be called so after the second man, the last Adam, had come into this world. And that is the Lord Jesus, who took the form and figure of the first man. He came in likeness of sinful flesh. He did not come in, the word is exact, the scripture is exact. The scripture does not say that the Lord Jesus came in sinful flesh, which would be, what do you say, would be blasphemy, thank you, would be blasphemy. But he came in likeness of sinful flesh. He took, as it were, the place of this first man, of which we now know it is the old man. He took that same place. He bowed down, stooped to take this place. He went so far to take the judgment of that man whose form he had taken voluntarily. Philippians 2. He stooped down and took the place of sinful man. And then the second man took the judgment on himself, which had to fall on the first man. This would mean for the first man, and we all belong to this race, that if we do not believe in the Lord Jesus, we would be eternally lost. But then the second man came and took upon him this judgment on the first man and died under the strokes of the wrath of God upon sin, our sin, my sin. And when he died, the old man, the race and position of natural man before God, took its end. Our old man was crucified with Christ. And this shows that there is no good in natural man. Beloved, why do I stress this? Because in our modern days, even among Christians, there are so many who say, but there are good things in man. There are even Christian teachings who say, there must be a little bit of good in man so that God can start His work of grace. So there must be a germ of good in every man where God can start His work of grace. But it is wrong. Absolutely wrong. There is no good in man. And therefore, there are two epistles which make that very clear. Romans say, living in sin, and no man can be justified by the works of the law. And Ephesians, dead in sin. One living in sin could be said, well, there might be some good in him. But one who is dead in sin, you know if you have a dead corpse, excuse me if I use that, but Scripture does it, if there is a dead corpse, you cannot make him move. He cannot move his smallest finger. He is dead. And that is what Scripture says about man. There is no good in man. And that is why the old man had to be judged and entirely to be done away with. And it is very important that we see that. But then somebody might ask, but if I died with Christ, I don't feel it. I don't feel that I died with Christ. My old man, okay, that's the position. But if it said, I died with Christ, but this I is the old I. You don't feel it, that's right. But you can believe it. And that is why it is so important. Perhaps many say, well, I don't feel it myself, so I can't preach about it. I don't know why this teaching is very little taught. Even in our writings, you find very, very little on the subject of the old and the new man. Because you don't feel it. But you don't feel that you have a new nature, the second thing, either. The second thing, the new man, either. Let's go back to the types. We see that Joshua had to put 12 stones representative of the whole people of Israel. It was not one stone, the old man. This wasn't so clear, but there were 12 stones. He had to put them in Jordan, and everybody could see them and see the water rush across the stones so that they never could come above the water again. But they couldn't feel anything. But the same thing was true as to the Passover, which speaks of the forgiveness of sin, the sparing from the judgment of God. When the firstborn sat in their houses, after having put the blood on the lintel and the doorposts, did they feel anything? They didn't feel anything. Perhaps they were trembling, trembling inside the houses and hoping, hoping, and perhaps doubting whether the angel, whether God would pass the house. But if they trusted the Lord, if they trusted his word, which had said, the word of him who had said, if I see the blood, I will pass over you. If they trusted that, they could be in peace. They didn't feel anything. And when we came to the Lord, we trusted in his word, but not before because we felt anything except the burden of our sins, but we trusted in him. And then the peace like a river came into our hearts and consciences if we remember the moment of our conversion, which is good sometimes to do. God did not ask the people in vain for no special reason to celebrate the Passover every year. It was the memorial of the saving grace of God in Egypt. But it was not based on the feeling. It was based on faith. And that is the same thing as to our old man. You don't feel that you have died, but it is important to take this second step, not only to know that your sins are being forgiven, but that your old state and your old position has been done away. That is very important because we see that in Ephesians, this is practiced. We don't see it in Romans. It is said that the old man has been done away with, but then you read chapter 7. Oh, miserable man that I am. This person has not appropriated by faith that fact that the old man is crucified, although the teaching is there. The teaching was there and still the person in Romans 7, born again as he was, I have delight in the Lord of God, no unbeliever would say that. And when we were in the flesh, no unbeliever could say when I was in the flesh. He is in the flesh, but a believer isn't. And still this believer in Romans 7, it wasn't Paul. No, it wasn't Paul. Paul is speaking of somebody who was once without law. Was Paul ever without law? I lived without law, but when the law came, I died. So he is speaking about, today one says, a virtual person. A person who has been born, was born before the law came, and who crossed all history of the world until the work of Christ was accomplished for him. He had once lived without the law, then under the law, and then until Christ came. This is not applicable to any single living person. It is an ideal, well not so very ideal, that's why I prefer virtual person. It is not a real person. It is a person imagined to have lived through all the ages of time until the word of the Lord of, until the Lord of Jesus, who accomplished his work for us. And then he represents somebody who has not realized that his old man has died. Miserable man that I am. Who will deliver me? And he is already a believer, but he has not seen the force, the impact of the work of the Lord on the cross of Calvary. He has done with the old man when he was judged, when he was crucified, our old man was crucified with him. I am no longer thus in a position of a sinner. But I sin. I don't feel anything. Well that is something else. That is the flesh. And many Christians who say my old man is stirring, they should better say my flesh is stirring. Because the flesh is not, is judged, has been judged also on the cross. There is no doubt about it. And when Paul says when we were in the flesh, he says the state, that is the state, the practical state in which we have been, that is finished, is done away, done with. But the flesh is not in my body, but it is inseparably linked with the mortal body. That is why it is called flesh. Because the mortal body also consists of flesh and bones. And the word flesh by the Spirit is being used to indicate that the flesh will be there as long as we live. But only that long. The moment the Lord Jesus will come and take us up, he will first change our bodies. Wonderful fact. The flesh will not go into heaven. This position the old man has been done away with. The flesh has always also been judged. And we can judge it. But we don't do it very often. And that is why we come into situations where even true Christians can say miserable man that I am. Who will deliver me of this body of sin? But then knowing only that the old man has been done away with, buried in Jordan. Although it is interesting, actually these 12 stones in my eyes should be in the Red Sea. Because there it is that Christ was judged in our place. There it is where the world of which we heard in the former lecture, where the flesh, where Satan were judged. And when the flesh was judged, it was the old man. Everything which was under the influence and realm of Satan found its judgment in the Red Sea. And that is why the Red Sea speaks of deliverance from every aspect of the realm of Satan. And now Israel was in the desert. But the Red Sea is actually what shows us the judgment of God and the deliverance of the believer. But there we see nothing. We see no judgment in the Red Sea actually. The only thing is that Moses lifted his rod and the sea was cleft and the people could march through on dry shod. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, who could see him? Was there any witness of his agony? Was there any witness, human creation witness of the judgment which befell him? No. There were only three hours of darkness. And that is perhaps hinted at by the fact that Israel went through the Red Sea at night. The Red Sea shows us as Jordan and as the Passover. Passover, Red Sea, Jordan. These three types, and we could add the brazen serpent, they do not show us the work of Christ on the cross as such, objectively. But they show us the appreciation, the understanding and the appropriation of this work by the believer subjectively. And we see that the Passover, forgiveness of sins, is always the first thing we accept by faith. And then the second is that we see that in my flesh there is no good. We understand that the old man has been judged and done away with. And then comes the desert. And there come all these trials in our earthly and daily life where so often we must say that we have failed, failure. That is the image, the picture of somebody who has believed in the Lord and who could say that he hadn't been or wouldn't be in it. Believed in the Lord, seen the completeness of the judgment and still something lacking. And that is the second point, the introduction of the new man. When Israel crossed the Red Sea, they had not yet reached the goal, the aim which God had proposed himself. He did not say, I will deliver you out of Egypt to put you in the desert. No, he said, he didn't even speak about the desert. God spoke of a land, of a country flowing with honey and milk, milk and honey. That was the blessed place where God wished to introduce his people. And the desert was not in his counsel. The desert was the consequence of the failure of the people. We all know that. And it is a real and very graphic image of our Christian life with so much failure. But God did not want to keep his people in the desert. He wanted to introduce them into the country of Canaan, this type of the heavenly places, where we have been blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. That is the place, not heaven as the Father's house, as the ultimate goal of Christian life, but heaven as the spiritual place in which we can live even today, while we are on earth in this desert. And that is one big difference between Israel and the Christian. Israel was first in Egypt, type of the world. Secondly, in the desert, type of the earthly circumstances in which a believer has to pass through during his life on earth. And thirdly, Ephesians 1 verse 3 says, that we, not we will be blessed, but that we have been blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenlies. So that means that the three spheres which Israel passed through or touched, one after another, we are in at the same time. We cannot go out of this world, 1 Corinthians 5 says. And that is Egypt. But as the Lord said, they are in this world, but they are not of this world. That is our place in Egypt. We are here, different from Israel, but we do not anymore belong to this place. Secondly, Israel was in the desert after they left Egypt. So the world, the earth, from this point, the world as the creation, the world has two different meanings. The world as creation, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, that is the world as creation. We can't leave it either. But it is different from the world as a system which has been introduced and constructed by Satan for the people in this world. So secondly, we are in this world surrounding us and characterized by the earthly circumstances. Our work, our family has nothing to do with this world under the Egyptian character. But it is the circumstances in which the Lord has placed us which are not always very friendly. And that is the desert. But thirdly, God has placed us in Christ, has made us sit together in Christ, not with Christ yet, but in Christ in the heavenly places. How can that be? This cannot be for the old man. He has died the moment we left this world. This cannot be for the flesh, which we still carry along with us. As one could say, the remaining limbs of the old man. And that is why Colossians 3 said, kill, mortify your members on this earth. These are the limbs, to say it with human words, the limbs of the old man. They are still there, that's the flesh. We cannot kill the flesh. But we can keep ourselves dead to flesh. That's quite different. The judgment has been done by God. But we have to put ourselves in the same place and accomplish this judgment of this old character, this old state of ours, in the same way as God has done it in Christ. And recognize that there is not even no good in the old man, but that there is no good in the flesh either. And this is what God showed Israel in the desert, what he taught them in the desert, what they had to see was also answered by the cross of Christ in the type of the brazen serpent. That was in the 40th year of their wanderings through the desert. They had still to look to Christ as the one who took upon him the judgment which befell them, namely the fiery serpent speaking of Satan's activities by our own flesh. And then they come to Jordan. And this introduces not death, but life. Jordan is a type of the resurrection. But what I said in the beginning, what was raised there, what was raised when Christ was raised, not the old man, what was raised is the new man. The resurrection is not as naturally the same as the creation of the new man. We see that in Ephesians 2, this wonderful epistle. We find in chapter 2 that verse 3, 4. But God being rich in mercy because of his great love wherewith he loved us, we too being dead in offenses, has quickened us with the Christ, we are saved by grace, and has raised us up together and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. So there are three things. We have been quickened together with Christ. Now this shows that this is not exactly the same thing as being born again. Being born again is also receiving life and being quickened. There's no doubt about that. To be born again means that we have received a new life. But being born again is not necessarily connected in scripture with believing in Christ. Historically, historically, today it is. But there were people in the Old Testament like Abraham of which we heard this afternoon. Was he a born again man or not? He was. He must have been. Because as I said, could anybody who has only got his old nature be in the presence of God? No. Could God accept a person in his sinful state as a sinner in his presence? No. He must be born again. That is what the Lord said to a Jew before his work was accomplished. And he said when Nicodemus asked, how can this be? He said, thou art the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things. You should have known them, he said, because they have been predicted in the Old Testament in Ezekiel and also in Jeremiah. That a new heart and a new spirit would be and pure water would be poured over the souls and hearts of the Jews of Israel and they would be born again. That is why the Lord said you cannot enter the kingdom of God without being born again. And he said this not to a Christian or somebody who lived in the Christian area but to a Jew. So to be born again is not necessarily in Scripture something which is connected with believing in Christ. But being quickened together with Christ is the consequence of believing in Christ. This goes, to be quickened together with Christ goes further than just being born again. Although the result having new life is the same. But being raised together with Christ goes further still. Abraham could not be raised with Christ. Because being raised with Christ presupposes that the Lord Jesus has accomplished his work. And that is why being raised with Christ is only applicable to believers in the Christian area. And this shows us now, beloved brothers and sisters, the positive side. We have not only by faith accepted that our old man has been crucified, has died and has been buried with Christ. We have been buried with him. But on the other hand God has created something new instead of it. He has given us the life of Christ by quickening us together with him. He has placed us into a new surroundings, into a new world as it were. Not that Jehovah's Witnesses new world. But he has placed us in a new surroundings. It is, one could say, the beginning of the new creation. We are, as James says, and all the writers of the New Testament speak in the same sense, we are the first fruits of his creatures. The new creation will not come in the millennium. That will be the restitution of all things. That means that God in this world, in this present world, will recreate the original paradisiacal state on the basis of the work of Christ which goes much further, which is not new creation. The new creation will come in after the end of the millennium. When all the whole first creation will be burnt up and then a new heaven and a new earth will come in which justice will dwell and that eternally. And in this new heaven and on this new earth there will be creatures, not angels only, but there will be believers. And these believers of the present time are being called the first fruits of his creatures. When Paul speaks to the Corinthians who lived in this world, more in Egypt than in the desert and not at all in the spiritual realms, he said, if somebody is in Christ, there is a new creation. And if he writes to the Galatians, he says, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile but a new creation. All these things about which these Christians were battling and striving, the law or not the law, he says, in Christ there is a new creation. Nothing of the law belongs to the old creation. It came from God but it addressed itself, it was addressed to natural men. So this new creation is the place or is the thought of God which he wants to introduce to us and says, wants to tell us, you are new creatures. And these new creatures are characterized by that expression, the new man. The Lord Jesus was the second man. He was never called the new man, but he was the second man, the man from heaven, who went down in the place of the first man, took upon him the judgment on the first man because he had this place. And then by his death and resurrection he created the new man, one new man. And Ephesians 2 is the first time where this is said, where the new man is mentioned and he said that he took from the Jews and the Gentiles, the Greeks, the unbelievers, the heathens, he took them and by his death he created out of them one new man. That is the new type of man of which the Lord Jesus is the prototype, just to say so. He was the man when he came on this earth, he was a totally different man. He only accomplished the will of God. It was his meat, his food to do the will of him who had sent him and to accomplish his work. He could say, nobody could accuse me of one sin. He lived as a just and a loving man on this earth. He was in his life on earth, the second man, the man from heaven. But could natural man have any connection with him? No. It was impossible because he was, although come down on the level of the first man, he had no connection, no relation whatsoever to the human race to which he had come. He had to die in our place, he had to take upon him our judgment and had to be accepted by God, which was quite clear, by his resurrection. And then came to light the new man. Not Christ is the new man, he is and remains the second man from heaven. But the new man created by God and through Christ is the representation of everything we find in the Lord Jesus as man on earth in humility, represented in ourselves. And that is what God has meant us for. He did not only want to take things away, but he has blessed us and I think the new man which we have received, which we can put on is one of these wonderful blessings which find their center in Christ. When the Lord says to the disciples, learn of me, for I am humble and, what does it say, in Matthew 11 verse 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. How can a man learn from the Lord? There are people in this world who say, yes, the Lord Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, was a wonderful man and if he would all act as himself, the world would be quite different. But who can? Can the natural man learn from the Lord? Have they learned anything? They said, crucify him. Now there are very modern people who say, no, no, he is crucified, we don't have to crucify him a second time, but we can learn of him. You can't learn of him. Not the natural man, he can't learn of him. He hates the Lord. He hates the Lord. And he has to believe in him and to see that he is a lost sinner for eternity, to believe in him and accept his atoning work. And then as a newborn, as one who has received life from God, who has received the life of Christ, who has put on the new man, this new man is like a baby. The new man is not omniscient. A baby has life. In our families we see that, but this baby has to learn all his life, all her life. And it is the same with the new man. We don't, as born of Christ, as born of God, as having put on the new man, this new man does not know everything, he is not omniscient, he has to learn. And here we see, from whom? From the Lord. Learn of me. And these characteristics, lowly and humble, are not the characteristics of the natural, of the old man. And if the Lord says by Paul in Philippians, Philippians 2, verse 5, For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Here the apostle is speaking of the mind, the thoughts, the mind of the second man, the man from heaven. And what was it? It was humiliation and obedience. Let this mind be in you. It is not a natural man. A natural man cannot approach to God by having this mind in him, because it is just the contrary, the mind of the flesh is contrary to the mind of God. And if we see a third passage, 1 Peter, First epistle of Peter, chapter 2, verse 21, where Peter says, For to this have ye been called. For Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you a model that you should follow in his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when reviled, reviled not again. When suffering, threatened not, but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins. Here we have two things combined, which we must very well distinguish. Here it is said on the one hand that the Lord has given us, has left an example for us. But then there are things mentioned in which he is an example, reviled, not reviled again, and suffering, he threatened not, there he is our example. But when it is said that he has borne our sins in his body on the flesh, we cannot say that he was our example there. There he was in atonement alone with God. And the same is true in Philippians, where his atoning death is not even mentioned. He was obedient unto death, but not in atonement, because in atonement he cannot be our example that this mind could be in ourselves. I say this just to explain that we have to look at scripture very closely, but we see here in these three passages the instructions of Christ for the new man. This new man, which according to Ephesians 4 we have put on, that shows that we have really in faith realized that we have not only found forgiveness of sin, but that we have also found and accepted the judgment of God in Christ on the old man, and have put off the old man. You see, this is only explained in Ephesians and Colossians. In these epistles, which introduce the Christian into the blessed sphere, which God has prepared for us even now during our earthly lives. But if we are not clear about the total judgment of God on our old man, we have not identified ourselves with that judgment in having put off. And I think it is a thing which goes on continually. It is one thing to see that our old man, our old existence, our old position before God has no legitimation of existence before God, and in our life, and neither in our own lives. We must not excuse ourselves and say, well, this is my character. What we say is, well, this is my old man, and I don't change anything on it. Put off the old man. And then only, then only, we can realize in our faith what we find in these 12 stones on the other side of Jordan, which are there as an everlasting witness of the work which Christ has accomplished, and God has accomplished in him. And that we appropriate, appreciate and appropriate to ourselves and say, well, I know what wonderful results the work of God by Christ has for me. I know that my old position has been done away, that I have been placed in a new position, that I have been placed in reconnection, not only relation but in close connection, well, in union with Christ. And now I can by faith and wish by faith to put on this new man, to live in following Christ, to live in the wish to represent in this world nothing but Christ, and thereby to please him and our God and Father who can find pleasure in nobody else and in nothing else than that which resembles and which mirrors Christ. And that is why we find this only in the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, these epistles which to most Christians are the most difficult epistles. But why are they so difficult? I think the reason is what we have had after this tonight. It is the non-comprehension, the non-acceptance by faith of this radical end of the old man, no excuse, and the total introduction of something of which man in his little brain can never dream, that a new man has been created and that we as believers have been able and are able to put this new man on, and which this new man is nothing else and nobody else than Christ but not as person in his characteristics. The new man has the characteristics of the person of Christ, but it is not identical with his person, but it is Christ, as Paul says, Christ in us. Not we, only we in Christ, but Christ in us. That is the new man. May the Lord give us strength and joy in realizing these not, even not easy truths, but I think they belong to those part of the truth of God which are the most elevated, the most precious and the most glorious because again and again they present Christ, the delight of the Father to our hearts and as the center of our own lives. May we sing to close the hymn number 81, the five verses of 81. …