“We’ve been deceived” Understanding the NEW MAN – Part 1

There is an underlying message in the New testament that every Christian must fully understand in order to walk into the new creature that God has given them when born again. The new testament talks about the “old man” and the “new man”, or the old self or the new self.

Paul in Ephesians 4: 20-24 says, “But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus…”

Notice that Paul is talking to committed Christians and yet he leaves open the possibility that they may not have heard the full truth concerning their position and identity in Jesus. And I believe that the same is true today for many sincere Christians who have not yet understood the truth in regards to the difference between the old man and the new man.

Paul then goes on in verse 22 admonishing them “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness”.

So he makes it clear that they are two “selfs“. The old self and the new self. And the Word tells us to take specific action about these two selves. To PUT OFF the old self and to PUT ON the new self.

Obviously, in order to do this, we must be able to identify those two. In order to do that, we have to understand the origin and the nature of the old self. It is summed up in the word that Paul uses in Ephesians 4:22. He says “the old self which is corrupt through deceitful desires and lust“. There are 3 key thoughts here: corrupt, lust and deceit.

Let’s start with the word deceit. The origin of the old self is deception, the old self is the product of deceit, specifically Satan’s deception. It’s the result of man heading Satan’s lies.

If we go back to the record of man’s creation, the origin of man’s history in Genesis, you will recall that after Adam and Eve have been created, God gave them a warning that there was ONE TREE in the garden they were not to touch or to eat of, the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil.

God said to Adam and Eve very solemnly “in the day that you touch that tree or eat of it, you will surely die”. In the next chapter Satan, in the person of the serpent, comes to the woman Eve, and tempts her. In essence, temptation is to ignore God’s warning and to disobey what God says.

And in persuading Eve to do this, Satan brings forth his lie. The LIE is the direct negation of what God has said. God said that you will surely die. Satan said you surely will not die. This is found in Genesis 3:4 “the serpent said to the woman you surely shall not die”. Now that’s a direct lie and it’s that lie that negated God’s truth which gave birth to the old self.

The old self is the product of deception of Satan’s lie. We need to know that Satan’s primary activity against the human race is always deception. In Revelation 12:9 Satan is called the “great dragon, the devil, Satan who deceives the whole world“. 

To be continued…