Focus: Old and New

Text: Eph.4:22,24

"That yet put on...the OLD man... And that ye put on the NEW man..."

Jesus Christ was born into our space and in our human flesh, that is, He shared in our common humanity. But there is a mighty difference between His body and ours as Paul reveals in Rom.8:3.

"...God sending his own Son in the LIKENESS of SINFUL FLESH..."

The body of Jesus looks very much like our sinful flesh, but it is not. He incarnated in our flesh, but not our sinful flesh. His body resembled our sinful flesh, but it is a sinless flesh. The body that the Father prepared for Jesus was our original and authentic flesh, exactly the one Adam had before he sinned.

After Adam sinned he lost his original, sin-untainted body, and got a sin-soiled body instead.

Man only regains his original flesh through spiritual rebirth. By spiritual rebirth the new is born and the old begins to lose control or dominion. As the new evolves through imbibing new attitudes, the old devolves due to inherent sin or inborn sin nature.

The point to note clearly is that Christ took our original flesh in order to make it possible in us. The new is born within the old and its system, and it takes constantly yielding to God to be able to set aside the propensity of the old.

Let us give up the old and embrace the new. A new you is possible and realizable in Christ. The new is capable of developing and maturing through grace and application of Spirit-taught doctrine. Give the new man in you the chance to dominate the old man. Let the new man in you grow and glow. Amen.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter