The Creation and Renewing of the New Man
Ephesians 2:14-15 tells us that Christ Jesus “Himself is our peace, He who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition, the enmity, abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might create the two in Himself into one new man, so 
making peace.”
The one new man is a central figure in the new creation brought forth in Revelation 21:1. This new man has Christ Jesus as his peace, a peace unseen in the old creation.
Colossians 3 speaks about the practices of the old man and our experience of this new man. Verse 10 says we “have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto full knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”
Christ created the new man on the cross and we put on the new man through our believing and baptism. However, the reality of the new man has not yet saturated our being. This saturation, the renewing in Colossians 3:10, is lifelong.
An illustration: if I, as an adult, move to a different nation, I “put it on” when I arrive there. But it takes many years for me to “be renewed,” to be aligned with the culture, the customs, the language, and the food. The new man is richer than any human culture so it takes a lifetime to absorb it fully.
We are now in the renewing of the Spirit so that our whole being might correspond to the new man. By this renewing we grow to fully match New Jerusalem.
Photo courtesy of pixabay.com.
Posted by Don on April 4, 2022
