Eph. 4:22-24 ... "In reference to your former manner of life, ... lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit ... and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."
The greatest change that can occur in a person's life is being converted into a Christian. The pre-conversion state is here called "the old self," while the post-conversion state is called "the new self." In other words, the individual leaves one identity behind and acquires a wholly new one. It is as though yesterday you were one person, but today you have become someone quite different. You may look the same, talk in the same voice, and express the same mannerisms, but there is something very different about you. In the latter fourth century in the city of Hippo in North Africa, there was a young man named Augustine. He was a playboy, given to the immediate gratification of any lust that swelled up within him. He was intimate with the prostitutes of the city and loved their company. He went to Milan, Italy, to advance his education and there met Ambrose, a devout Christian scholar. He was able to penetrate the mind of Augustine and influence him to become a Christian. Augustine's life was then totally changed. When he finished school, he returned to Hippo. One day, as he walked down a street, a former friend and harlot saw him and called to him. Augustine did not respond, but hurried on his way. The woman ran after him, calling repeatedly. Finally, she yelled, "Augustine, it is I!" Without looking back, he answered loudly, "Indeed, but it is no longer I!" He was not the same inner self as she last knew him.
So radical is the transformation in becoming a Christian that it may be compared to death and resurrection. In Rom. 6:3-5 we read, "All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." Being converted to Christ involves death to your former manner of life and the attitudes that supported it, and rebirth to a different manner of life directed by new attitudes adopted from the mind of Christ. In fact, this conversion can even be described as miraculous, for it produces a "new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Only God has the power to create, and so only God can create the "righteousness and holiness" that come to characterize the Christian. In the act of conversion, which according to Rom. 6:4 (and other passages) occurs in baptism, God works to destroy "the old self which is ... corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit" and then to create "the new self" by being "renewed in the spirit of [his] mind."
These fundamental changes that take place with a person's mind and soul are invisible to human sight, but the resulting changes in his behavior are soon apparent to others, as Augustine's were to the harlot. In Eph. 4:25-32, this transformation in conduct is described in several particulars. First, a lying tongue is exchanged for truth, which is the only basis upon which fellowship can be built and then maintained (v.25). Second, one gains control of his anger and cancels it before the day is out, thus denying the devil the opportunity to tempt him (vs. 26-27). Third, rather than take advantage of others to dispossess them, one strives to earn his own living and even have something extra to share with the needy (v.28). Fourth, the convert to Christ cleanses his mouth of corrupt speech, replacing it with words that are good, edifying and graceful (v.29). One day I was talking with a man about a mutual friend who had been converted one Sunday. He worked beside this man in a factory and had noticed quickly "a remarkable difference even before he told me he had given his life to Christ." It was this man's habit to use foul speech constantly as he worked, but that Monday he did not use a single wicked word. Fifth, the "new self" in Christ dispenses with his former disposition to be bitter, wrathful, angry, loud, and verbally abusive. Rather, he builds a new disposition to be kind, tenderhearted. and forgiving. He is so overwhelmed that God for Christ's sake has fogiven him of his sins that he finds it not difficult to forgive others when they irritate him.
The goal of the one who has been created anew as a Christian is to please God who granted him this delightful condition of life. Sin grieves the "Holy Spirit of God," and in the vast debt of appreciation he owes this Spirit, who has "sealed [him] for the day of redemption," he devotes himself to avoiding sin (v.30). Pleasing his Savior is now this greatest satisfaction, and unto that purpose he gladly devotes the remainder of his life.
