The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 521

THE OLD MAN AND THE NEW fied, slain, it

481

Instead of expecting anything good of him,

and buried.

should be our glory to die to him and be rid of him. Neither does the new man go from strength to strength.

not being put together legs

but, since

;

be a real

man

we

little

by

little

until

are to live forever in the

born in us.

And

He

is

he can stand on his own

new

creature,

it

must

as such he can not increase nor de-

he only slumbers in the germ and must arise. But my person, as by faith I stand in Christ, must go from strength to strength. That person was once born in the old man, and therefore was born in trespasses and sin, and is a child of wrath by nature. And he would never have come out and escaped from That he could not do. He was identified the old man of himself. with the old man so completely that the latter was his very ego. He had no other life or existence. But in regeneration a change took place. By this divine act our person is in principle detached from his former ego in the old man. The root was notched and, by the constant action of storm and gravitation, the severed parts separated more and more. Our person is no longer identified with the old man, but opposes him. Even tho he succeeds in enticing us again to sin, even in the yielding we do not what we jvill, but what we hate. Only hear what St. Paul says " The good which I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." Wherefore the child of God must not be identified with the old crease

;

:

man

after regeneration, for this opposes the plain teaching of the

He

Word.

the old

is

God's child he "

is

man no

Old things are passed away, behold

In this, and nothing less,

passed from death into

is

life.

— not

all

in part, but wholly.

things are

cause of his glorying.

He

As

more, but wars against him.

become the new man

is

become new." His person

is

kingdom

of

translated from the

darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. He is so fully identified with the new man that, while still living in this world, he is already set with Christ in heaven, where his citizenship is, and

where If

his life

the

is

hid with Christ in God.

word of the Psalmist does not refer to the old man nor whom, then, does it refer? The Scripture answers

the new, to believers,

old

:

their person, their ego, which, being detached

man and opposing 31

him,

is identified

with the new.

to

to

from the They go

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