This operation has been portrayed as "putting off the old
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This sword can cut off the lusts of the flesh as well as the lusts of the mind, and make men willing to undergo the sharpest operation for the mortifying of sin.
5. THE New Man IN Curist
This operation has been portrayed as "putting off the old man and putting on the new" (Eph. iv, 22, 24). The corrupt nature is called a man, because, like the human body, it consists of divers parts, mutually supporting and strengthening one another. It is the old man, as old as Adam, from whom we derived it. It is subtle as an old man. But in all God's saints decaying and withering as an old man, and ready to pass away. It is said to be corrupt—for sin in the soul is the corruption of its faculties, and where it is not mortified it grows daily worse and worse, and so tends to destruction.
The new man must be put on. It is not enough to shake off corrupt principles, but we must be actuated by gracious ones. By the new man is meant the new nature, the new creature, which is actuated by a new principle, even regenerating grace. This enables a man to lead a new life, that life of righteousness and holiness which Christianity requires. This new man is created, or produced, out of confusion and emptiness, by God's almighty power, whose workmanship it is, truly excellent and beautiful.
6. REGENERATION NOT BY WoRKS Moving back to chapter two of the Epistle to the Ephesians we learn that our faith, our conversion and our eternal salvation are not the mere products of any natural abilities or of any merit of our own. 'Not of works, lest any man should boast"' (verse 9). God Himself is the author of this great and happy change, and His great love is the spring and fontal cause of it. 'God who is rich in mercy"' (verse 4).
Man who is "dead in sins"' (Col. i. 13) has no power of life in himself. A state of sin is a state of spiritual death. Those who are in sin are dead in sin. As the death of the body consists in its separation from the soul, so the death of the soul consists in its separation from God and the divine favour. As the death of the body is the corruption and putrefaction of it, so sin is the corruption and depravation of the soul. As a man who is dead is unable to help himself by any power of his own, so an