Now we must consider a crucial point. Why is there a person in man? A man is not a machine, because machines do not have a person. However, human beings have a person. The importance of being a human being is that human beings have a person. Without a person, I am merely a body. My body is not my person. I am a man because there is life within me. This life, however, is also related to a person. Hence, in order to be a human, our life must be expressed through a person.
Our person is our personality with our ego, inclinations, preferences, and thoughts. Our body is an outward organ that needs life. A tree has a visible trunk and also life within, but a tree is not a human being. As human beings, we not only have life but also a person. This means that in addition to having life in our body, we also have a personality, a person. This is what makes us different from plants. Plants have an outward form as well as life within, but they do not have a personality, a person. A human being has not only a body but also life and a personality. This personality is our person. We are human beings because of this crucial distinction: we have a person within us. Without a person, we are not human beings. Likewise, since the church is the new man, it needs a person. If the church were merely a Body, it would need only life. However, since the church is also the new man, the church needs a person.
The church needs to have a person, and this person is Christ. Christ is the person in the church. In order for Him to be our person, He needs to make His home in our hearts. For this reason, we need to make room in our being and allow Christ to occupy us and be our person. Galatians 2:20 says, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me,” and Philippians 1:21 says, “To me, to live is Christ.” These verses indicate that Christ desires to be our person.
Ephesians 4:22 says, “Put off, as regards your former manner of life, the old man.” The former manner of life refers to our old way of living and contacting others. If a person lives a secluded life, whether or not he loses his temper, loves or deceives people, or honors his parents has no meaning, because he has no community, no human interactions, no social relationships, and therefore no manner of life. Our former manner of life refers to the kind of life we lived and includes our contact with others, our social activities. Hence, to put off the old man means to put off our old manner of living, that is, the living we had in the past in contacting and dealing with others.
When we take Christ as our person, we can no longer live the way we lived in the past. Since we have put off our former manner of living, we can no longer seek worldly pleasures, such as social clubs. Our former manner of life, our old life, whether it was related to a social club, a society, or a certain community, has been put off. To put off the former manner of life is to put off the kind of living we had in the past.
Verse 24 says, “Put on the new man.” To put on the new man is to put on the church life. Verse 23 says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” The expression the spirit of your mind is difficult to understand. Even the translators of the Chinese Union Version did not render it correctly. They translated verse 23 as “that you be renewed in your will power”; they missed the two words spirit and mind. Without spiritual knowledge it is not easy to understand the meaning of “the spirit of your mind.” The Chinese Bible translators, probably due to their inadequate experience, could not understand the special terms used by Paul in his Epistle.
The Bible reveals that our regenerated spirit needs to be strengthened, and then it will spread outward to all the parts of our soul. The leading part of our soul is our mind. Hence, our spirit spreads first into our mind to saturate and occupy our mind. Then it spreads into our emotion and our will. As a result, Christ will occupy every part of our mind, emotion, and will. This is how Christ makes His home in our heart. Eventually, our mingled spirit will not be limited to our spirit but will spread into our mind. Hence, we have the expression the spirit of your mind. It is in such a spirit that we are being renewed.
If our spirit cannot spread into our soul, it will be restricted within us. When our spirit is restricted, it cannot become the spirit of our mind and cannot do the work of renewing. It is only when our spirit spreads and occupies our mind and becomes the spirit of our mind that it becomes the renewing spirit. It is in this renewing spirit that we are renewed. On the one hand, the renewing takes place when we put off the old man, the former manner of life. On the other hand, the renewing takes place when we put on the new man. The putting off of the old man in verse 22 comes before the putting on of the new man in verse 24. In between these two verses is verse 23, which says, “That you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” The fact that this verse is in between the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man indicates that the way for us to put off the old man and put on the new man is to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. In other words, to be renewed in the spirit of our mind is to put off our old man in our former manner of living and also to put on the new man. To be renewed in the spirit of our mind is to put off our former manner of living and to put on the church life.
To be renewed in the spirit of our mind is to live the church life, which is the life of the new man. Putting off the old man and putting on the new man are to be renewed. This renewing is accomplished in the spirit of our mind. Hence, we must allow our spirit to spread, to subdue, and to occupy our mind and even our emotion and our will until our spirit controls all the parts of our soul. This is to be renewed. Then we will spontaneously live in the new man; that is, we will put on the new man and live the church life.
In every locality we should exercise to speak concerning the church as the Body and as the new man. We should also tell the saints how to live the life of the new man. We should begin to speak in this way. Wherever we are, we should speak concerning the church as the new man, concerning Christ being our person, and concerning putting on the new man and living the life of the new man.
In Ephesians 1 the desire of God’s heart, His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, is to have an economy according to His will. Verses 22 and 23 speak of the church as the Body of Christ. Chapter 2 says that the church is the new man, and chapter 3 speaks of Christ making His home in our hearts. Chapter 4 speaks of putting on the new man and living the life of the new man, and chapter 5 speaks of being filled with the Holy Spirit in our spirit. Ephesians is a profound book, and we can pray-read it many times.
We must practice speaking the truths in Ephesians until we are clear concerning how to take Christ as our person and how to put on the new man. We must also have many experiences of these truths. Doctrines are useless. When we have life and experience and an understanding of the truth, our speaking will convey the truth to others and supply them. This will make us useful. Hence, we must exercise to speak, seek experiences, and gain an understanding of the truth. We should be able to speak these items of the truth in a clear way. May we all exercise in this way.
Many Christians do not understand these items of the truth. Few Christians know that the church is not only the Body but also the new man. Few Christians understand the difference between the new man and the Body or can explain that the Body is a mere organ with life but that the new man must have a person in addition to life. Even fewer can explain that to put off the old man is to put off our former manner of life, and to put on the new man is to put on the church life.
The most popular and authoritative version of the Bible in English is the King James Version. It was authorized by the King of England in the 1600s. In the 1800s Bible scholars acknowledged that some portions of the King James Version did not match the original text. Furthermore, new manuscripts had been discovered that were more trustworthy than those used for the King James Version. The scholars knew that the original text of the Bible was copied by hand, and as a result, some manuscripts were inaccurate. Since the manuscripts that were used for the King James Version were inferior to those that were discovered later, the King James Version needed to be revised.
Several items must be considered before translating the Bible: the study of the original languages, the study of the ancient manuscripts, and the study of translation. Since numerous manuscripts of the Bible are available, archeologists determine which manuscripts are authentic and the most accurate. The study of translation is concerned with the best way to translate the text. In order to translate the Bible, one needs to know the original languages of the Bible, one needs to consult various manuscripts and understand the manuscripts of the Bible, and one needs to know how to translate the Bible, because there are many special terms in the Bible. In around 1870 Bible scholars from both England and the United States felt that there was a need to revise the King James Version, so they proceeded with a revision. However, after the revision, the British and the American scholars had some disputes over a few points. For example, the American scholars were in favor of using the title Jehovah, but the British scholars did not agree. They wanted to translate Jehovah as “the Lord.” Therefore, the British scholars published the Revised Standard Version, and the American scholars published the American Standard Version. The text in both versions is almost identical.
Recently, the American scholars felt that the English in the American Standard Version was not current. They therefore revised it and made it more suitable for readers of modern English. This was not a new translation; it was only a revision. In this revision, however, they changed new man in Ephesians 4:24 to new self. This rendering is very misleading. This explanation concerning the translation and revision of the Bible shows that it is not simple to understand the Bible. The translators of the Chinese Union Version translated the spirit of your mind as “will power.” This makes it very difficult for people to understand the meaning of the original text.
We must understand the spirit of your mind. When our regenerated spirit, indwelt by the Lord, is strengthened, it will spread into our mind and control, occupy, and saturate our mind. Thus, it will become the spirit of our mind. It is in this spirit that we put off the old man, our former manner of living, and put on the new man, the church life. It is also in this spirit that we are renewed.