THE PUTTING ON OF THE NEW MAN

^[p. 179] THE PUTTING ON OF THE NEW MAN

Ephesians 4: 20; Ephesians 5: 1, 2

FER The idea of “new man” is a man of a new order; it is a short term to express a new order of man.

Ques As “the truth is in Jesus” — is it not putting off the old man and putting on the new?

FER Yes, the having done so.

Ques Where is the putting off in Jesus?

FER The real putting off the old man was vicariously in the death of Christ, and only there. We have been pretty much accustomed to speak of the end of the old man in the cross, and I suppose justly. The defect has been in failing to see that the principle that brings in the new man comes out in the cross.

Ques. How is that so?

FER The new man is what is formed by the expression of divine love in the cross. The source and spring of the new man is the love revealed in the death of Christ. The old man was brought to an end in righteousness in the cross. Then the love of God revealed there was the principle from which the new man sprang. The new man is created after God, after God as revealed in love.

Ques What is the difference between having put off and putting off?

FER In the former the truth is accepted; being renewed in the spirit of your mind, the truth as in Jesus is accepted. It is not exactly practical, but the foundation of practice; the mind has accepted it, you have been taught it.

THR It is looked at in an experimental way.

Ques Is the “old man” a collective thought?

FER Well, the “old man” is one ^[p. 180] order of man, and the new man is another order of man, a different order of man. You may get the idea of what is collective or corporate in the expression: “To make in himself of twain one new man”.

Ques Then it is a new kind of man?

FER Yes.

Ques Do you limit the new man in that way to the cross? Does it not come out in His Person, though fully demonstrated at the cross?

FER We only get at the heavenly through the cross. “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly”, but this is only through what is revealed in the cross. It was not enough for God to close up the one man in death. The point was, what was to be formed after the ending of that man; and in the very place where the old man was ended, there the formative principle of the new appears.

Ques Do you look at the perfect devotedness in the cross of Christ as bringing out the new man?

FER I meant rather that the divine love brought out at the cross is the formative principle of the new man.

Ques That forms the new man?

Ques Does the new man come out in the death of Christ, or in resurrection?

FER The new man must be formed on the ground of resurrection.

Ques You see at the cross the elements which make up the new man?

FER Yes, the love of God; and then the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to us. That is the first allusion to the love of God in Romans. Then the apostle puts the two men in contrast, Adam and Christ.

Ques Would you say the new man is begotten by the testimony to the love of God which we get in the cross?

FER Yes, you are rooted and ^[p. 181] founded in love.

Ques Does it not come out in Philippians 2?

FER That is personal to Christ. I should not take up the new man in that way. The point of that passage is Christ’s perfect obedience.

Ques Is the new man a different thought from the second man?

FER I think the one is moral and the other historical. The second man is out of heaven, that is, the new man morally.

Ques Would you apply the term ‘new man’ to Christ? Should it not be the second man?

FER No, I should not; it should be the second man.

Ques Is the thought of the new man that the life of God is expressed in man?

FER Yes, in a moral sense.

Rem You could not rightly speak of the new man in Christ, because there was no old man there.

FER There was the revelation of what would form the new man, the love of God.

Ques We are formed in the new man in the measure in which we apprehend the love of God?

FER Yes, I think so. Do you not find it so in yourself?

Ques When we have the word ‘in Jesus’ is He not alone?

FER Yes.

Ques I suppose you would say the moral traits of the new man came out in Christ personally?

FER Yes, but more. All the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Him. He was not merely after God, but He was God. Now the new man is after God. You would hardly speak of Christ as being after God because He was God.

Ques Is “which is renewed in knowledge after the image”, etc., the putting on of the new man?

FER The point in Colossians in regard to the new man is knowledge. The new man is said to be renewed unto clear knowledge “after the image of him that created him”.

Ques What is the difference between the use of the term ‘new man’ in Colossians and in Ephesians?

FER You do not get the full idea of the new man in Colossians; you must, I think, go to Ephesians for that. In Ephesians it is “created in righteousness and true holiness”. In Colossians it is “Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him”.

Rem You said some time ago, the new man comes out down here.

FER It must be so. The expression ‘new man’ would have no force in regard to heaven.

Ques You would say it came out in Christ down here?

FER The point is rather that it comes out in the saints.

Rem It would not exclude the fact that all that was morally perfect in man came out in Him.

FER He is the beginning.

Ques Do I understand that in the death of Jesus the old man was ended, and that what was revealed of God there is the formative power of the new man?

FER Yes; that presentation of God is the formative power of the new man.

Ques What do you mean by the formative power of the new man?

FER The new man is formed by the revelation of God’s love.

Ques In that way the new man becomes the image of God?

FER Yes; you could not get a stronger expression than we get here. It is created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth.

Ques What is the force of having put on?

FER The truth of it is accepted in mind. Thus you have put it on. It becomes the foundation of ^[p. 183] practice, but all is learned in the cross. I think we have hardly paid enough attention to the cross. You learn every divine lesson in the cross. You can never get to the end of what is seen there; and the more you consider it the more profound you see it to be, and the more the practical power of it. The cross is increasingly wonderful to me.

Rem The more what flows from the cross is apprehended the more your soul is deepened and formed on the foundation of the cross.

FER When people come to the cross in the first instance it is the question of their responsibility that affects them, and how that has been met. We did not come to it at first to learn the great moral lessons revealed there, nor could we learn these until we receive the Holy Spirit.

Rem The first was relief and the second revelation.

Ques Then the putting off the old man and the putting on of the new is the result of divine teaching?

FER I think so. It is essentially teaching in love. You get as you go on a deeper sense of the love of God. The more you become acquainted with that love the more you respond to it. The wonderful thing is that by it you get everything that is given in the way of holiness and intelligence.

Ques In what way do we get holiness?

FER If you become acquainted with the love you are conscious that it is a holy love, you find there is nothing in the flesh to answer to the holiness of God, and indeed the holiness of God is repugnant to the flesh. Then, if you learn that, you see the necessity of being free from the flesh.

Rem You get in Thessalonians, “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another ... to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints”.

FER Yes, that establishes the connection between love and holiness. Every Christian would admit God’s love is a holy love, the cross is the proof of that; and as you become acquainted with a holy love, that must promote holiness; and the more holiness is promoted in you the more you shun unholiness.

Ques Would you say it is thus formed?

FER Yes, the new man is created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth. That is, you are in the full light of God’s love and being in that light you get a judgment of things which is really after God; that is, in righteousness and holiness.

Ques Is the discipline of the Father in love in Hebrews 12 to this end?

FER It is all confirming it. He speaks to you as to children, that is, in the language of affectionate interest. He promotes holiness by chastening.

Ques What is “quickened together with Christ”?

FER It is that we are made to live together with Christ in the presence of divine love. The secret and spring of it in God is, “His great love wherewith he loved us”. The source is divine love, and the object of the quickening is the satisfaction of that love. I do not understand how love can be satisfied if we do not answer to it; we should be perfectly responsive to the love. The source of all God’s dealings with us is His love, and the end that we may be perfectly responsive to it in His own habitation.

Ques Are we to take it that this instruction is not given to the saints in general? Could what is here said to the Ephesians be said of the saints generally?

FER I think a great many saints would not be prepared for it. The apostle does not address this to others because they were not prepared for it. I do not think he would throw it broadcast before everybody. He could not speak wisdom to the Corinthians.

Ques That divine teaching had not gone on with all?

FER ^[p. 185] No. The apostle addressed saints according to their capacity for receiving the truth. They were able to receive the teaching. He was divinely instructed in his teaching.

Ques We can hardly suppose that the apostle would have addressed that to the Galatians?

FER It would have been no use except to content them with their bad state.

Ques But it was there for them if they were prepared for it?

FER But the great bulk of Christians in Christendom are not prepared for it.

Ques You would say he was here speaking wisdom to them?

FER Yes; he said to the Corinthians in contrast to that, “I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual”.

Rem You said the other day that the great bulk of Christians do not know even the forgiveness of sins.

FER I do not think I said that.

Rem I think what was said was misunderstood. What was spoken of was the consciousness of forgiveness rather in contrast to the knowledge of forgiveness by faith. It was said the bulk are not in the consciousness of forgiveness.

FER I know there are those who have forgiveness of sins by faith. They accept Scripture as the word of God and rest their faith on that, but the consciousness of forgiveness is another thing. You get the consciousness of forgiveness in the presence of divine love.

Rem “Perfect love casteth out fear”. There is a great difference between believing things because they are written in the Bible and believing them as coming from the mouth of God.

FER Yes; but I am supposing genuine faith which brings justification; but besides that, we should ^[p. 186] have the consciousness of forgiveness in divine love. We should have the consciousness that it is absolutely impossible that God who loves us perfectly and is forming us by His love can impute sin to us. He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. In Ephesians 1, after speaking of predestination and acceptance in the Beloved, it says, “In whom we have redemption ... the forgiveness of sins”, that is, the consciousness of it.

Ques Would the reception of the prodigal be an instance?

FER Yes, I think so.

Rem I often say in preaching, do you enjoy the forgiveness of sins?

Ques Is learning Christ a progressive thing?

FER I do not think it is put in that way here. You are supposed to have done it. “If so be ye have”. The teaching is supposed to have been accepted.

Ques What is being renewed in the spirit of your mind?

FER That is a point of the greatest importance because it is through the mind you take in everything of God. But to enter into things entirely outside the range of thought of the natural man, you must have the renewing of the mind, else you would have no faculty.

Ques Is it done once or is it continuous?

FER I could not tell you. It is characteristic.

Ques Is it not that your mind is introduced into a wholly new order of things?

FER I think you have the mind of Christ, a complete and radical change in the power of apprehension, in the thinking part of your being. I think the faculty is there, but the faculty is renewed.

Ques Does that mean the faculty is the mind taught by ^[p. 187] the Spirit?

FER No; it is more than that. The mind of man even subject to the Spirit could not take in divine things.

Ques Is it in contrast to the natural man in Corinthians?

FER Yes; he that is spiritual, not he that has the Spirit, discerns all things. For discernment you want the man characteristically spiritual. Then we have the mind of Christ.

Rem That would be progressive. You go on learning from Him.

FER Yes.

Ques How is the new mind connected with the new moral being?

FER I think the mind is the eye of the heart. The mind is the eye by which all is taken in. There must be the faculty that understands to take things in, so that you can appropriate and assimilate them, or they could not form a part of yourself. For this you must have the mind.

Ques How does the conscience stand in relation to that?

FER Conscience is not mind, but conscience would keep you consistent according to your intelligence. Conscience will always keep pace with divinely-given intelligence, otherwise you would fail to be consistent with it.

Ques Why do you think that expression, “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind”, comes in between the putting off the old man and the putting on of the new?

FER Because you cannot take in the new things except by the renewed mind.

Ques Is the new mind the new moral being?

FER Hardly. By the new mind the new moral being is illuminated. The moral elements of the new being are really of God — love, holiness and righteousness.

^[p. 188] Ques What do you understand by having put on the new man?

FER It is stated abstractly, “as the truth is in Jesus”.

Ques Is the truth as in Jesus what God has effected in Jesus for Himself?

Rem What has been effected in Jesus is the putting off the old and putting on the new. It is objective in Him, but in you it is subjective. What is so beautiful to me in the renewing of the mind, is that it produces perpetual juvenescence — it never grows old. It is the word ‘new’ that signifies what is always in freshness and bloom.

FER I have no doubt it is the outcome of new birth. New man and old man are objective terms. The renewing of the mind is subjective, and follows on new birth.

Ques Would verse 23 be a kind of parenthesis explaining how we take it in?

Ques You must have the capacity to take it in. You would say here, would you not, that it supposes one beyond the new birth, and having the Holy Spirit?

FER Yes, quite so.

Rem It goes on the line of the new birth or subjective work.

Ques Would you say the foundation of the new man in the saints is new birth?

FER I do not apprehend it that way. I think the foundation of apprehension is the new birth, but as to the new man you must entertain the thought as an abstract idea. I cannot find the idea in the concrete shape. You cannot speak of Christ as created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth.

Ques Are not the Gentiles brought in here in contrast, “in the vanity of their mind having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God ..”.?

FER They are renewed in the spirit of their mind. You have, in regard to the new man, to entertain a new idea.

Ques You cannot actually point to the man?

FER No; you have to apprehend the thought abstractly.

Ques Then, being renewed enables you to entertain it?

FER You must have the new birth to get at the apprehension.

Ques Would you say it is what the Lord did when He “opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures”, Luke 24?

FER I think the Lord began the work of the Spirit, but there had been a good deal effected in the disciples before the Lord gave them understanding. In that chapter the Lord, to a great extent, takes the place of the Holy Spirit.

Ques Why does it not say “new men”, and not “a new man”?

FER Because it is a new order of man; new men would be an entirely different thought, and then the difficulty would be to find them.

Ques Would the new man be the same as the life of Jesus in 2 Corinthians 4?

FER That is what came out in Christ down here.

Ques What is the difference between the having put on the new man, and putting on the characteristics of the new man?

FER The having put on is an act of mind. You have reached that point. There are a great many points which God has reached in fact, which we have to reach in mind; for instance, “crucified with Christ”. We are not actually crucified with Christ, but we have in mind to accept it. The same in regard to the new man. As a matter of fact, the new ^[p. 190] man has no absolute existence; it is an abstract idea, but you have to reach it in mind, to put it on, before you can carry it out in practice.

Ques You mean to carry it out in practice in detail?

FER Yes.

Ques Therefore, having put off is a subjective thought?

FER The having put off is a subjective thought — but the new man is objective. If the new man is not seen as an objective thought you would confound it with the flesh.

Rem You look at it abstractly, but subjectively as to what has become new in you. It is always fresh.

Ques Our “having put off” — what is that?

FER That is the mental apprehension — you have reached it in your mind.

Ques Is that the result of having learned Christ?

FER Yes.

Ques You see the truth exemplified in the death of Christ, and then you grasp that in your own soul. That is putting on the new, is it not?

FER What is true in the cross is true for every Christian, but not always true to him.

Ques That is, that every Christian has not come to it in the spirit of his mind?

FER Just so.

Ques Then when he has come to it, it is the effect of divine teaching, not something learned in Scripture?

FER All depends upon the subjective state. It is only thus you can understand it. An unconverted man could not understand it at all. It is only in virtue of the subjective work of God in the soul that you could understand the thought of the new man. It is outside the whole range of human experience, that is certain.

Ques Would it be right to say you get the exemplification of the new man in Christ?

FER No; it is making too little of Christ. He ^[p. 191] was more than man. All the fulness of the Godhead was there in the complete setting forth of God. All the qualities of the new man came out in Him. Morally, everything in Christ was new; but I do not like applying the term ‘new man’ in any sense to Him. It tends to obscure the great truth of what He was here. I could not say He was “after God”, for He was God.

Ques But if I want the exemplification I find it in Christ?

FER Why say it? There was a great deal more in Christ. There was the exemplification of God in Him. The new man does not come out until the old man is ended. You must see all connected with the flesh gone judicially.

Ques In what way do we learn Christ, where it says, “If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus”?

FER I think it is the Christ. I suppose He has His own way of teaching. What is learnt is the basis of practice. As regards Christian walk, neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision, but new creation. New creation is the rule to govern practice down here.

Ques You said our apprehension of the love of God is the start of everything?

FER Yes; but I do not say there is not something in us antecedent to that. New birth is so. But I am certain that the first real breath of life is the heart’s response to the love of God.

Ques You are not now speaking of new birth when you speak of life?

FER No. New birth is not identical in Scripture with life. If it were you would connect life with the subjective state of the believer instead of with Christ.

Ques It is necessary to make this clear, because people speak of a person when he is just born again as ^[p. 192] having life.

FER The mischief in that case is, you are more or less connecting the thought of life with the subjective state and losing the sense of its being in another Man. Every blessing characteristic of Christianity is connected with another Man, and you have to pass over in experience to that Man if you are to enjoy anything of real Christianity. That was the difficulty four or five years ago. Many never apprehended the idea of eternal life being objective. They took it to be subjective, and hence they never got away from the first man at all; and if they had carried their point as to eternal life being a state in the soul, all would have been gone. We should have lost the truth of eternal life altogether.

Ques Will you please explain that again?

FER I say, the thought of eternal life was taken up as a subjective idea — something in you. J.B.S. said the question raised was whether we were in eternal life, or eternal life was in us. The statement of Scripture is, “God has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son”. Thus we see eternal life is in another Man, and if you enter into it and what is properly Christian, it is because you have passed over to that Man. If you talk of its being in you, you have lost the whole thing, for it is not so presented.

Rem It was putting life into a man not yet out of death.

FER Yes, quite so.

Ques Does the apostle take up the special characteristics of the old man here (verse 25)?

FER He takes up two or three features — lying, for instance. In this country we are free to a certain extent of this vice, but in other places, eastern countries especially, lying is as natural as truth is to us. It is perfectly natural to the old man.

Rem The old man is a lie.

FER Yes; but speaking truth is more than “putting away lying”. When it says, “Speak every man truth with his neighbour”, it does not refer simply to speaking true things, but speaking “truth”.

Rem Let us say a little about the positive side. Truth is really the setting forth of God.

FER We are bound to profit one another. We are rather guilty, I think, in failing to speak truth to one another.

Ques Is that the “good to the use of edifying”?

FER Yes; I see my responsibility to speak truth, but often fail to carry it out. To speak truth one to another, that is for edification.

Ques Would not that limit conversation a good deal?

FER Yes; but there would not be much harm in that.

Rem It would quiet unholy talking.

FER But you feel that you cannot suddenly break into it, you are often not enough in the truth yourself. If your soul were in the good of the truth, it would not be so difficult to speak of it to another.

Rem “They that feared the Lord spake often one to another”.

FER Yes.

Ques When it says, “Speak every man truth with his neighbour”, to whom does it refer?

FER Your neighbour is the person next to you.

Ques Is it the thought that there you expose yourself most?

FER It may be so. It is the person you come in contact with.

Ques Must it be necessarily a saint?

FER Yes, you are neighbours, members one of another.

Ques It is not merely responsibility that would do it, but love?

FER Yes; there again I feel it brings you back to the death and resurrection of Christ. I know no ^[p. 194] truth that is not expressed there.

Rem Please explain that a little.

FER All truth is set forth there. The death and resurrection of Christ is the full revelation of God, and the expression of His will in regard to man. You get the full light of God in the cross, and in the resurrection the full expression of His pleasure is found in regard to man.

Rem I was thinking of Zechariah 8 in reference to the neighbour. It says in verse 16, “Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates”. And then he changes their fast days into feast days.

FER The expression in Ephesians is evidently a quotation from that.

Ques Do not we often accept as truth what we are not in a position to say we are in?

FER Very often, I think. Ephesians is a wonderful epistle from beginning to end, and the prominent feature is the setting forth of God in the saints down here; that is the great thought in it. To illustrate this, you will find the great point in the prayer in chapter 3 is that we might be filled unto all the fulness of God. The idea of the church is that it is particularly the vessel for the setting forth of God in intelligence and love. Then there is the same thought of the setting forth of the life of God in the new man. The new man is after God, and for God, that the life of God may come out in him. Then in chapter 6 the saints come out against the powers of evil, in the armour of God, in the characteristics of Christ, when He comes out as the Word, and in the power of God to deal with the forces of evil. He comes forth with the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness and the sword of His mouth. Now the saints come out in the armour of God to deal with what is hostile to God down here. Thus the point of the epistle all through is the presentation of God in ^[p. 195] the saints.

Rem That is, all is to be to His pleasure.

FER It all shews the greatness of the place the church would have had if it had kept its first estate.

Ques “The ages to come” — is that down here?

FER No; the truth reaches on to that. A point in the epistle is, that you cannot come out to be for God here unless you have first gone in to God. It is thus in regard to the heavenly city. The saints have first gone into heaven and then come out as the city.

Ques Does not the assembly meet the conflict in heavenly places?

Rem It is the influences down here of the spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.

Ques With regard to “image”, what is the difference between Adam created in the image of God and what we have in Colossians, “after the image of him that created him”?

Rem Christ is the image there, I take it. In Genesis it is, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. It does not say He made Christ so. But it says, “Who is the image of the invisible God”. Then we have the new man which is created “after the image of him that created him”, which is Christ.

Ques But in man being made in the image and likeness of God, what is the difference of signification between the two words?

FER I think there is a double meaning in the word ‘image’. It conveys the idea of what is representative in the way of authority, and what is representative morally. Adam was not made in God’s likeness merely, but was set here the centre of reverence and authority.

Ques Thus God was represented in that man down here?

FER Yes. All creation had to look up to Adam as the representative of God down here, but the thought of image in the New Testament is more moral.

Rem If it is a true image it must be a likeness;

^[p. 196] though it may not be so. Take, for instance, the image of the Queen on a sovereign.

FER Image is sometimes, however, a stronger word than likeness when used morally.

Rem Then it is because it is like the thing. In Ephesians it is “likeness” and in Colossians “image”.

FER Adam was not made after God in righteousness and holiness of truth, he knew little or nothing about the love of God. He knew a gracious beneficent Creator, but God did not come out in the revelation of His love. For us it is, “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”. You are so like Christ, you bear His image.

Rem Image, I think, means very exactly alike.

FER I think so sometimes. It is the intensification of likeness. J.N.D. used to refer to the saying in regard of a picture “that is the very image of my mother”.