Page 133 - Ephesians

can understand that, you are going to see the liberating principle.
He’s talking about a direction of life. Why does the Holy Spirit
tell us this? Is it to scare us and make us feel condemned? Is he
trying to say, “You see where you’re headed if left alone?” Is that
what He’s saying? “You must overcome sin. That’s why there’s a
struggle. That’s why there’s a battle”.

You know the answer. A million times no! It’s not what He’s
saying at all. The key to understanding the principle is in verse
22. The expression in the KJV says, “Put off.” “Put off the old
man”. The New ASB says, “Lay aside the old self.” Verse 22
says, “Put on the new man and the new self.” That’s the key!
Put off, and put on. Let me show you two things about that and
then I’ll give the principle.

First of all, there’s a difference between putting off the old man,
and conquering the old man. There’s a difference between
laying aside something, and beating it into submission. Every
honest Christian recognizes that though he is saved, he’s not
done with sin yet. Even though we know the Lord, we still host
the principle of sin. There’s still that bias, that bent, that desire
and impulse. This is what inspired the great hymnist Robinson to
write this stanza, in the classic “Come, Thou Fount of Every
Blessing ”,
“O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to
Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I
love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy
courts above.”

In the next chapter, we will find God’s “blessed solution”, to our
hopeless dilemma.