daq said:
You speak as if the "old man" is already gone while the "new man" is already an accomplished fact in every believer; yet in so doing you misrepresent the passage from Ephesians which you have quoted to support your statement. We are admonished to PUT OFF the old man and at the same time PUT ON the new man:
Ephesians 4:22-24 KJV
22. That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Exactly. I am glad you quoted the passage. In it, Paul states that the old man is certainly part of us and is to be put off. As well, the new man is certainly part of us, as he states that the new man WAS created (is created, depending on you r translation). Do you think it is we who do the creating? If any man is in Christ, he IS a new creation. That which is born of the flesh is flesh (the old man), and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (the new man).
I do not speak as though the old man is gone. I speak what the bible says, that the old man is declared dead, crucified with Christ. And since he is not gone in reality, therefore he is 'positionally' dead. In other words, God, who calls things that are not as though they were, has already placed the sentence of death upon the flesh. and considers the old man to be crucified with His Son. The part of us that is born again is our spirit. This is that which carries the righteous nature of God, and that which we are to put on.
So we can see that we carry about in our being, both natures. We have the sin of Adam and the righteousness of God. And our flesh lusts against our new spirit, which are at odds with one another.
When we sin, it is the old man that is held responsible, who is doomed to die. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And when we bear fruit, it is of the new man. I can assure you that every Christian does both to one degree or another. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the glory may be of God and not of us (2Cor.4:7).
The travesty is the confusing of our instructions to bear fruit with that being what qualifies us for everlasting life. The penalty of the law is death. The wages of sin s death. But through faith in Him, we have passed from death to life, having everlasting life, and will not come under judgment. All three of these facts are mentioned in one verse, John 5:24.
Therefore, as the subject of the op is the law, we are no longer under the penalty of the law. Whatever obligations we have to live a moral life, this is no longer punishable by death nor rewarded with life. We are not under law but under grace.
As Children of the most high, the law is not enforced in us by threat of eternal death, but by chastening, as all children are chastened and corrected by their parents. As well, the thing which brought us into this son-ship was not obedience to law, but it was the humility of accepting the free gift of life by way of the work and sacrifice of Jesus. God gives grace to the humble. The parable in Luke 18:10-14 should remind us that we are never going to get away with presenting our works or our life to God for justification.
We are saved because God is good, not because we are. In fact, in Math 20:1-16, we are given a story of they who were hired at different parts of the day. At the end of the day, they who worked all day were incensed at the master for rewarding they who were hired last, with the exact same pay. After all, they did only a fraction of the work and were given the same as those who did the majority of it.
This story has nothing to do with when a person gets saved. It is about the goodness of God. It is also about man's tendency to want to justify himself and/or compare himself with others. In the end, the Master asks..."Is your eye evil because I am good?"
If God desires to save a humble sinner who is asking for mercy, knowing he doesn't deserve it, that is His business (Luke18:10-14).
If He desires to humble a proud man who is thinking he deserves to be rewarded for his efforts, then that is also His choice.
There is no law that was given that can give life nor that can declare a man righteous by it ( Gal.3:21). If we keep law, it is for other reasons,
and not,....
(never) to justify us before God.