Let us turn again to God's Word and turn into the chapter we were in this morning in Colossians. Colossians 3 and I'll read from the end of verse 9 through verse 10. Colossians 3 the end of verse 9 and have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

This morning we were considering a previous verse, verse 5, and I sought to say something with regards to the mortification of sin. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry.

as we said then mortification is a negative term really a putting to death what I really want us to do tonight is to consider the opposite side of the coin as it were the positive which is really sanctification that's what we have in verse 10 and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him here where reading of the restoration of the man, how the apostle reminds the Colossians that that image that was there when God created the man needs to be restored, renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created in God's great work in creation was very much that that he accomplished on the last day the sixth day and after that the creation of man we read those words that God says at the end when he declares all of the creation to be very good and the evening and the morning were the sixth day God looks upon the work reaching its climax really in man who is made in God's image and after God's likeness and yet how alas that image was so short-lived how soon did Adam and Eve transgress and so We only have to come to the third chapter in Genesis and we have the sad solemn history of the fall of our first parents.

We read those words in Ephesians 4 and verse 24 that he put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. The new man which after God, after the image of God, after the likeness of God it's the restoration then of man after his awful fall into sin and as we said this morning when that new life comes into the soul of the sinner the amazing thing is that there is an immediate death he dies he dies to what he was and that's what we have here in verse 3 isn't it he are dead or ye dies. It's the Aorist tense. It's an action, a once for all action. When the sinner is born again of the Spirit of God, he dies. And his life is ended with Christ in God. And we said this morning how there's that sense in which he dies to the world and the ways of the world. as Paul reminds them there in verse 20 of the previous second chapter where for if she be dead with Christ, if she died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, from the elements of the world, the ways of the world the believer has died to that old life and the believer has also in a sense died to what he was in that life, died to himself Galatians 2.20 I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live but not I but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me

we were speaking then this morning of that mortification that spoken of in verse 5 and I said there now we have to distinguish two things really, we have to distinguish between the believer's standing and the believer's condition. What is his standing? What is his status? Well, he is dead to sin, he is dead to the world, he is dead to that that would condemn him, even the Lord of Gods. The language of Paul when he writes in the epistle to the Romans, there in chapter 6, How shall we that are dead to sin, he says, live any longer therein? We died to sin. But then also the language that we have, that remarkable language in chapter 7, verse 4, he says, Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead.

that we should bring forth fruit unto God for when we were in the flesh the motions or passions of sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death but now we are delivered from the law that being dead wherein we were held or as the margin says being dead to that wherein we were held that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter mark those words we serve in newness of spirit he says not in the oldness of the letter we have to avoid any idea of legality if there's anything that we do it's all by the grace of God it's all what God has done in us and our complete and utter dependence upon God for all that grace if we are to continue in the ways of God, and to be those who would be mortifying the deeds of the body.

If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, Paul says, ye shall live. All the believers standing there. He has died to sin, he's died to the worlds.

But then the believers condition that's the difference we have to mark his standing is one thing his condition is quite another thing because although a new creature a new creation in Christ he has an old nature the old nature is there Paul knew it again there in Romans 7 we've referred to it so many times the wretched man that he was or wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death? the all nature was the body of death to him it's that which is born of the flesh, it's flesh and it's never anything but what it ever was but that which is born of the spirit is spirit

but how these are contrary one to the other Paul says you cannot do the thing that you would the flesh lusting against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh what we see in the Shulamites the spouse the spouse of Solomon the bride of Christ of whom Solomon is a type what would we see in the Shulamite as it were the company of two armies that conflict and how the believer must therefore engage even with himself and mortify mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth we refer to the words of the Lord Jesus this morning those words in Matthew 18 where he speaks of the arms and the legs and the hands and the eyes of a man if our hand offend us cut it off if our eye offend us pluck it out and I said he's not suggesting we're to indulge in self-harm not at all to understand that in a spiritual sense, as we see here, what are these members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

And see how Paul then goes on, he presses these things home really, in what he goes on to say there at the end of the ninth verse, he says you have put off the old man with his deeds mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth put off the old man with his deeds so here we are to notice surely again what must be done with regards to his condition in verse 8 he says now you also put off all this we have another list anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another seeing that you put off the old man with his deeds it's interesting it's a different figure now that he's using it's a figure taken from our clothing really taking off our clothing, removing our garments the old nature, the old nature is spoken of in those terms things that we have to take off, disrobe ourselves of these things as it were

Think of the language of the Psalmist in Psalm 73 and verse 6. Therefore pride compass them about as a chain, violence covereth them as a garment. These things have to be taken off, removed.

It's interesting that we should have that particular figure of removing garments because it reminds us that sin is not basic to our human nature. Sin is not basic to our human nature. Sin is an intruder. It's not natural to sin really.

When God created, as we said, He comes to the end of that great work on the sixth day and God saw everything that He had made and behold it was very good it says not just good it's very good and it's been completed with the creation of this creature who is made in the likeness of God and all is very good

man in his pristine state is a real man Sin is not natural to our human nature in that sense, is it? It's like a garment that's put on. The preacher says in Ecclesiastes, Lo, this only have I found God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions

of which what men have done it's what men have done they have perverted and they've forgotten the Lord says Jeremiah our sins even the sins that are spoken of here in verse 8 are like garments put on put off all these he says

but of all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth lie not one to another seeing that you have put off the old man I'm not wanting to minimize what sin is in any sense of the words I don't want to minimize sin, sin is a terrible thing and a grievous offense to God

and I'm not wanting to suggest any ability that man might have to put these things off. He cannot do that. Sin is very much a part of us, isn't it? What we read there in verse 5, they are members which are upon the earth, they are part of our very existence now, as a consequence of the sin of our first parents.

We're all born dead in trespasses and in sins. But I say again that sin is not that that is natural to us when we consider man as he was initially made. He's made in the image of God. He's a real man, he's Adam. He's a sinless man.

But look at the language that we have here in this ninth verse. What's being put off? Put off the old man with his deeds. Three things we read of a man. A man, and that reminds us surely of the totality of the sin of this particular creature that God made upright.

In Romans 6 we read of the old man as the body of sin look at the words there back in that sixth chapter of the epistle to the Romans and what Paul actually says knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that is with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin

the old man is identified with the body of sin it's one and the same thing in one bit he calls it the old man in the next he refers to it as the body of sin in Romans 7 and verse 24 he uses the expression the body of this death the body of this death how man, you see, in all that he is as a man now is totally deprived that's the first of the famous five points, isn't it? total depravity doesn't mean that the man that every man is as bad and as wicked and as evil as he possibly could be it means that the sin has permeated every part of his being as a man it's everywhere, it's what he is and how God sees it, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every imagination of the thought of his heart was evil continually we read in the days before the floods there in Genesis 6-5 every imagination of the thought of his heart evil It's said that that's a real Hebraism. It indicates just how the sin has permeated all that the man is.

All the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. What do we mean, or what does the scripture mean when it speaks of the carnal mind? It simply means the natural mind. and mindlessly is enmity against God it rebels against God it rejects God the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked says Jeremiah who can know it? it's a rhetorical question who can know but the answer is there isn't it? the Lord searches the heart, the Lord knows the spirit that is in man I the Lord search the heart and try the reins

this word then that we have here in verse 9 the man but then also we're told he's an old man put off the old man it says if the word man reminds us of the totality of his sin it's all that the man is, he's a sinner old reminds us of the antiquity of his sin it's almost we might say as old as creation because so soon after God had made the man and made every provision for the man and set him in the paradise which was the garden of Eden and put that man to the test oh alas how soon he fell and how he ruined all his posterity and so David has to acknowledge Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. The sin comes down and down and down and down the generations. From one generation to the next generation. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. It matters not, you see, who our parents were, how gracious our parents were. The grace of God doesn't run in a bloodline. We're all born in that awful state, the antiquity of sin, it goes right back to Adam and Eve, to the beginning.

And so we read here, of what's to be put off the old man, with his deeds. We have the totality of his sin, it's all that man is, the antiquity of his sin, it's old, but then we read of his deeds his deeds, the activity the sort of life that he's living and pursuing in nature old age brings more inactivity, doesn't it? as we grow older we're not as as fit, as healthy as we were when we were in our youth our strength begins to decline and so on and so forth and yet the strange thing is that's not the case with sin that's not the case with sin, it's the very reverse the more practiced we become in the ways of sin sadly the old man and his deeds I remember a gracious old minister saying to me many years ago, you know, the sins and the temptations of an old man are no different than that of a younger man. In fact, I would go farther and say, the older we are, the worse it is in some degrees. This is why there must be this mortifying, this putting off the deeds of the body.

What are we? of solemn words that the Apostle uses in the third of Romans where he is quoting from the Old Testament, quoting the language of Psalms 14 and 53 as it is written. There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no not one. their throat is an open sepulcher and so on how solemn it is that it should be not only stated but underlined and then underscored a threefold cord that's not easily broken it's there in the Psalms 14 and 53 it's there in Romans 3

all the activity of sin you have put off the old man with his deeds but let us come to the putting on the putting on of the new man which he goes on to speak of in verse 10 if the mortifying of sin is the negative surely here we have the positive isn't this sanctification and a put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and sure enough it's not enough is it just to give attention to the one aspect the negative aspect, the mortification it's not enough to do that and to neglect the positive that would be following doesn't the Lord himself make that so clear in the gospel? remember the words of the Lord Jesus when he speaks there in the language of Luke chapter 11 and the passage at verse 24 and the following verses

Luke 11 24 he says when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man He walketh through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. He saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter in and dwell there. And the last date of that man is worse than the first."

Oh, we need both sides of this coin. What is the answer, you see, to what he's put off? It must be that he's put on. And what he's put on? Well, again, there's a striking similarity, isn't there? It's a man. It's a man. And they've put on the nude. The man is there in italics. obviously brought over from what he's been speaking at the end of verse 9. It's that new nature really that's being spoken of. If the man is in the Lord Jesus Christ, he's a new creature. He's not only at a natural birth, he's had a spiritual birth. He's born again of the Spirit of God. He's a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that grace reaches to the totality of his being as a man, all that he is as a man.

Again, look at the language of the Apostle when he writes in the last chapter of 1 Thessalonians 5.23, the very God of peace, he says, sanctify you. or his prayer for the Thessalonians, the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. All that the man is is to be sanctified. That's what he's saying there. And that's, as I said this morning, that's That's the real man. That was the case, wasn't it, with the apostle when he comes to the end of that seventh chapter in Romans and he's lamenting this whole nature and the good that he would, he was not doing, the evil that he would, not that he was doing and he feels it, he feels the conflict. And what is the answer? Always cry, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And he looks to Christ. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the Lord of God, but with the flesh the Lord of sin. Who is Paul here? It's the I myself. It's the I myself. so then with the mind I myself, the real me, I'm serving the Lord of God but with the flesh the Lord of sin is no schizophrenic, there's no sprit personality here it's a new man of grace and so as he is a man so is no we thought in verse 9 of the old man, now we have the new man

it's a fact isn't it that we're not born with grace we're not born with grace at all that's the contrast that we have in these verses putting off the old man with his deeds putting on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him says Paul It's that contrast that we have all the time between the old nature and the new nature.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And that's why it all begins, of course, where there is that new man. It's regeneration that stands behind mortification and sanctification and that sinner who is born again of the spirit of God is immediately sanctified in one sense because God has separated him to himself from all eternity he was chosen in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world he was set apart to salvation and that's the basic meaning of sanctification is it not? a man is separated to holy usage to the service of God and that's what the Lord will with his people

he is sanctified at the beginning really in his regeneration when he's born again of the Spirit and he receives that new nature that divine nature that can never see all the wonder of what God does in regeneration and Christ says marvel not that I said unto you ye must be born again what is it? it's an almighty change It's what's spoken of there at the beginning of Ephesians chapter 2. It's quickening, quickening from the dead. It's being born of the Holy Spirit. Born of the Spirit says the Lord Jesus Christ there in the third chapter of John. It's that life that is given from above. John the Baptist says a man can receive nothing except it be given him from above. It is altogether the gift of God.

It's that spiritual resurrection that we have here at the beginning of the chapter. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. There's a resurrection here, there's resurrection life, isn't there? The exceeding greatness of his power to us will do believe, which is according to his mighty power which he wrought in Christ. when he raised him from the dead oh what an exceeding great power is that that comes into the soul of the sinner to make him a new man and then also we have the deeds of that new man the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him he is renewed now this is the participle is in the present tense it's in the passive voice it's not what this man is doing it's what is being done to him and in him he is renewed he is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and he goes on doesn't he, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarians, hidden, bond or free, but Christ is all and in all

how remarkable it is, a man is not just left to sustain the spiritual life himself No, there is a renewal. A renewal is renewed day by day. Look at the language that we have back in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians and there at verse 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 And verse 6, the inward man is renewed day by day. He's renewed day by day. That's how God works in the soul of His people. Or there's that restoration of the divine image that's being so evidently spoken of in the language that he uses renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him that divine image, that that was lost lost in the fall and now restored in the Lord Jesus Christ it's all Ultimately, to be found only in Christ, in Him alone. As we see at the end of the 11th verse, Christ is all and in all.

It's life eternal, says the Lord Jesus in His great high priestly prayer, addressing His Father, life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. putting on the new man then, the restoring of the man from his lost estate. It's a mighty work of grace, it begins in regeneration. There must be that new life, that divine life in the soul, and then what will follow there will be that mortifying the deeds of the body, that putting off the old man. there'll be that sanctifying put in on the new man, there'll be that growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.

How Paul makes these things so clear, so plain in the chapter that we read. It's a remarkable chapter when we read the writings of this man. I know in the earlier part of his epistles time and again is dealing with such profound doctrine great truths are set before us but when we come to the concluding part of the epistle again we find a great Profundity really in what Paul has to say with regards to the way in which this doctrine is to affect the lives of those who have come to that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Mortify therefore your members, he says, which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. He hath put off the old man with his deeds, and hath put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free, but Christ is all and in all, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of myrtids, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man ever quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity.

" Oh, that's Christian love agape. Put on love, which is the bond of perfectness or the Lord's grant that we might know such of the grace of God as he comes and works that great salvation in our souls. The Lord be pleased then to bless his work. Amen.