The Old Man and The
New Man |
|
John Respess - 1883 |
From THE GOSPEL MESSENGER Devoted to the Primitive
Baptist Cause
J. R. Respess, W. M. Mitchell, Editors
We have
never professed to know the deep things of God, or to be
able to explain them; and to define precisely the change in
the man by the new birth is doubtless far beyond our
ability. We know but little more about it than the blind man
when he said, One thing I know, that whereas I was blind,
now I see. But that there is a change in the man by the new
birth the scriptures clearly teach, and in what it consists
is our present inquiry. The scriptures abound in figurative
expressions that were never designed to be construed
literally; and to so construe them would involve us in
inextricable confusion. For example, the words of Jesus in
John iv., saying: 'But whosoever drinketh of the water that
I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I
shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up
into everlasting life.' Now, we know that Jesus did not
refer to natural water, or natural thirst, or natural wells,
only so far as they represented spiritual thirst, and
spiritual water and wells, which they can at best only
partly represent. He did not mean that there would be an
actual well of natural water in a man, but he meant to
represent by natural thirst spiritual thirst for heavenly
grace, and by natural water, that grace as given by him in
the gift of eternal life, and by the well of living waters,
the unfailing character of his grace, as unlike natural
wells going dry in. summer, and failing in time of greatest
need, but like the living water, his grace would be affected
by no changes of times and seasons, but always in summer as
in winter, wet or dry the same and sufficient.
The
spiritual people of God are called Zion, and it is said when
Zion travailed she brought children; and we know the church
and Christians are meant by Zion, and that no church ever
brought an actual child of flesh, blood and bones; but that
she does conceive by the Lord we all believe. She sorrows in
mind, deplores as Hannah her barrenness and deadness, and
cries unto the Lord as a woman of sorrowful spirit, and that
spiritual joys are born to her. And not to be too tedious,
the Saviour, in John viii., said to the scribes and
Pharisees who boasted to him of Abraham as their father that
they were of their father the devil; but we know he did not
mean that was not their fleshly father, or that the devil
was their fleshly father for the devil never had a fleshly
child; but that he meant that in their opposition to the
truth taught by Him, and believed in and loved by Abraham,
that they manifested the Satanic spirit of hatred to God and
his truth that has ever characterized the devil, and were,
in that sense, the devil's Children, and not Abraham's Old
and New man are New Testament figurative expressions; such
as Ye are the temple of God; a spiritual house; and lively
by stones; the outward and inner man, etc.
The
words 'old man' are used in the Old Testament, but only in
their literal sense, and refer to the years of a man's
natural life, as when Zacharias said to the angel: 'I am an
old man, etc. The old man there being the real old man of
flesh and blood, and not the old man we are charged in the
scriptures to 'put off;' nor is the new man were told to
'put on' a real man, a distinct person, but the works
prompted by the new nature, and commanded in the word. But
whilst the figurative old and new man are not used in the
Old Testament, the Christian warfare was well known to the
ancient saints; for Christians have been comforted and
encouraged in all ages by the struggles and triumphs of
faith recorded in the sacred pages for them. Could we find a
man who had never sinned, but was as good as Adam before he
fell, we would find a man with no old man or new man either,
but simply a good creature of God.
Our
blessed Redeemer had our nature, but not its depravity, save
by imputation; and whilst, as his children, he had two
natures in one person the nature of God and the nature of
man he had no old man in his own person to contend with, as
we have. It is this depraved nature, that is conceived in
sin and brought forth in iniquity not so much the man, but
the nature, because conception and birth are not of
themselves sinful, man having been commanded to increase and
multiply, and it is not therefore sinful to marry wives and
beget children; but, being depraved our offspring is
conceived and brought forth sinful. When a man is born again
(we would not say born over) he, the man, becomes a new
creature, but not a new creature in flesh and blood, for, so
far as flesh and blood are concerned, he is the same
creature, but as woman in pangs of travail is delivered by
birth, so he is delivered by faith, and rejoices in the
truth. He is born of the Spirit, for God is a Spirit. He is
new in spirit, new in hope, faith and love, and the works of
faith. He is new in his views of truth, of God and himself;
old things have passed away, and he is one spirit with the
Lord, and hates what God hates, and loves what God loves;
and hates what he once loved, and loves what he once hated.
The old
man is still, however, left; but the Christian man; the man
himself as a Christian lives by faith. It is the same man
who is thus changed, who has now in spirit partaken of the
divine nature; that now has struggles and hates his own
depravity who once had no such struggles. It was the same
Paul who, after his change loved unto death the same
truth that he before hated unto death. If it was not Paul
himself, who was it? It was the same Gadarene who, one day
was a fierce, wild and ungovernable savage, that sat the
next day meekly at the feet of Jesus as a little child. He
was the same man of flesh and blood the same in size,
features and stature that he was the day before, but not the
same in spirit; yet he had the depravity of nature to
contend with until the struggle should end by death. He was
a new creature; and what sort of a creature? Why, he was a
'wonder' from the Lord of hosts; a man with two natures the
old man and the new man such a being as no man Could be who
had never sinned and been born again; both a creature and a
child, both created and begotten, both of God and of man.
The warfare is itself an evidence of new birth; that the new
reign has begun in the man; that the change has taken place;
that the very identical man in whom this conflict is going
on is a child of God and an heir of heaven. He is the one,
the lost sinner, who is interested in salvation; we know of
no other man, or creature, or being, interested in
salvation.
A man once said to us 'that if you get to heaven it will not
be John Respess,' to which we replied that 'if it is not
John Respess, it had as well be Bill Smith, as far as we are
concerned,' and it had; for it is this very person, John
Respess, who longs for eternal life; this very sinner who
hungers for holiness, and this very one who hopes to realize
it and praise God for redeeming grace—for saving a poor
sinner. With all due deference to others, we cannot construe
the scriptural expressions in reference to the old and new
man literally, and make of them two distinct men, when in
fact they are (the old and new man) more properly two
natures or Spirits in one man or person. It has been said
(Elder T. P. Dudley's famous Circular): ''Whence these
various distinctions between the old and new man, if indeed
there are not two men?' And 'Two distinct births of two
distinct elements necessarily produce two distinct beings.'
Now to argue from such a premise as this, will confuse the
minds of God's feeble children and cause estrangement and
contention. But we would say that two distinct births in
God's children no more necessarily produce two distinct
persons in them than the birth of Christ of the seed of
Abraham necessarily produced two distinct beings in Him. But
no one believes that he, the adorable Redeemer, had two
persons, but that he, like his children, had two natures in
one person, the nature of God and of man.
Therefore, we do not understand that God begets in sinners,
even his chosen people, any actual children, or that there
are any actual fleshly children of the devil; but that the
old man is the corrupt nature of fallen man, and the new
man, the new nature begotten in him of God; so that instead
of being two distinct persons, he is one person with two
natures:
And
though there are two distinct births, they are altogether
different in character, as much as the natural water and
natural well differ from the spiritual water and well; and
it would be as sound reasoning to make the spiritual well
alike in shape and form to the natural well, as to make the
spiritual birth like the natural birth. The Spiritual birth
is designed to represent the change in spirit and character,
and no being is brought forth by it any more than a being or
person is brought forth by the travail of Zion. But the
meaning of the old and new man is clearly defined by the
apostle in his letter to the church at Ephesus, 4 th
chapter, and also in his letter to the church at Colosse, 3d
chapter. He writes to the church: That ye put off concerning
the former conversation (or conduct) the old man which is
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in
the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man,
which after God (or of God and like God) is created in
righteousness and true holiness. In this sentence Paul
speaks of both the old and new man; the one to be put off,
the other to be put on, as if we were putting off one coat
and putting on another in its place; and it is not,
therefore, a person to be put off and put on, but a life to
live.
The
church was composed then of Gentiles by nature, and hence he
said to them: 'I testify in the Lord that ye walk not as
other Gentiles;' that is, as Gentiles who had not been made
Christians, and 'who walked in the vanity of their mind;
whose understanding was darkened, and who were alienated
from the life of God through ignorance that was in them,
because of the blindness of their hearts; who being past
feeling, had given themselves over unto lasciviousness with
greediness,'' meaning that they, as Christians, were not to
live as others, or as they had formerly lived themselves,
but to live now as Christians, or children of God, those of
another spirit; and in that way put off the old man, and put
on the new man. Because they had been taught better; they
had learned Christ, 'if so they had heard him, and been
taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.' 'Wherefore, putting
away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor; let him
that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working
with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to
give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edifying. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you,' [this is
the old man,] 'with all malice; and be ye kind one to
another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God
for Christ's sake forgave you.' [This is the new man.] 'Be
ye, therefore, followers of God as dear children; and walk
in the love as Christ hath loved us and hath given himself
for us; but fornication, covetousness and all uncleanliness,
let them not be once named amongst you, as becometh saints;
neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting,' etc.
To live
this way is to put off the old man, and to put on the new
man. And what a warfare it is! And to accomplish it how
necessary that we should every man be in his place in the
camp, with the whole armor of God on! because that which the
Spirit prompts, and the word requires will find more or less
opposition in our corrupt nature, the one being contrary to
the other, so that we cannot, of ourselves do what we would.
Therefore, the idea that the 'old' and the 'new' man are two
distinct beings, is not scriptural. It has also been said by
gifted brethren that, as living souls were created in and
simultaneously with the first man, Adam, and being born of
him necessarily partakes of his nature, so were all
quickened Spirits created in and simultaneously with the
last Adam (Christ), and that they (quickened spirits) all
being born of him, as necessarily partake of his nature,
etc. If we get the idea the language conveys, it means that
Christ was created as Adam was, and that these quickened
spirits, whatever they are, were created in him, and that in
the new birth they are born again and not the man. But the
scriptures say, 'the man must be born again,' not quickened
spirits. And if Christ is a creature of God, and not God the
Son, it would be idolatry to worship him as God.
We know
it is said that we are created in Christ Jesus unto good
works, but that refers altogether to the work of Christ in
our hearts. And the elect of God, those redeemed and saved
sinners, will have something to praise God for in heaven
that no unfallen and unsaved being could possibly have. But
we are not yet perfected, but wait for the final change; we
see now through a glass darkly, and know only in part; but
the time is fast coming when we shall see him face to face
and know as we are known, and shall attain to the full
stature of men. Now we press forward to the future, and
shall at last be crowned with fullness of joy at his right
hand. So our new nature is not a distinct being, but it is
our God given nature as our faith, hope and love, and is
evidence that we have eternal life and shall come off more
than conquerors through Him that loved us and gave Himself
for us. Bless His holy name! Like the leaven hid in the meal
until the whole shall be leavened, so shall His people be
saved. Nothing of them will be lost but their sins and
corruption. 'If the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit
that dwelleth in you.'--Rom, viii. What is written is
written in the interests of the truth of God and the peace
of his regenerated people, and may the blessings of God rest
upon it.
|