{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4303","native_reference":{"book_number":560,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":22,"verse_to":22},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Cyprian</b>: That he who has attained to trust, having put off the former man, ought to regard only celestial and spiritual things, and to give no heed to the world which he has already renounced. In Isaiah: \"Seek ye the Lord; and when ye have found Him, call upon Him. But when He hath come near unto you, let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him be turned unto the Lord, and he shall obtain mercy, because He will plentifully pardon your sins.\" Of this same thing in Solomon: \"I have seen all the works which are done under the sun; and, lo, all are vanity.\" Of this same thing in Exodus: \"But thus shall ye eat it; your loins girt, and your shoes on your feet, and your staves in your hands: and ye shall eat it in haste, for it is the Lord's passover.\" Of this same thing in the Gospel according to Matthew: \"Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewith shall we be clothed? for these things the nations seek after. But your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.\" Likewise in the same place: \"Think not for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for itself. Sufficient unto the day is its own evil.\" Likewise in the same place: \"No one looking back, and putting his hands to the plough, is fit for the kingdom of God.\" Also in the same place: \"Behold the fowls of the heaven: for they sow not, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of more value than they? \" Concerning this same thing, according to Luke: \"Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning; and ye like unto men that wait for their lord, when he cometh from the wedding; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may open to him. Blessed are those servants, whom their lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.\" Of this same thing in Matthew: \"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where He may lay His head.\" Also in the same place: \"Whoso forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple.\" Of this same thing in the first to the Corinthians: \"Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body.\" Also in the same place: \"The time is limited. It remaineth, therefore, that both they who have wives be as though they have them not, and they who lament as they that lament not, and they that rejoice as they that rejoice not, and they who buy as they that buy not, and they who possess as they who possess not, and they who use this world as they that use it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away.\" Also in the same place: \"The first man is of the clay of the earth, the second man from heaven. As he is of the clay, such also are they who are of the clay; and as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly. Even as we have borne the image of him who is of the clay, let us bear His image also who is from heaven.\" Of this same matter to the Philippians: \"All seek their own, and not those things which are Christ's; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and their glory is to their confusion, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven, whence also we expect the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall transform the body of our humiliation conformed to the body of His glory.\" Of this very matter to Galatians: \"But be it far from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.\" Concerning this same thing to Timothy: \"No man that warreth for God bindeth himself with worldly annoyances, that he may please Him to whom he hath approved himself. But and if a man should contend, he will not be crowned unless he fight lawfully.\" Of this same thing to the Colossians: \"If ye be dead with Christ from I the elements of the world, why still, as if living in the world, do ye follow vain things? \" Also concerning this same thing: \"If ye have risen together with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God. Give heed to the things that are above, not to those things which are on the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ your life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.\" Of this same thing to the Ephesians: Put off the old man of the former conversation, who is corrupted, according to the lusts of deceit. But be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, him who according to God is ordained in righteousness, and holiness, and truth.\" Of this same thing in the Epistle of Peter: \"As strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; but having a good conversation among the Gentiles, that while they detract from you as if from evildoers, yet, beholding your good works, they may magnify God.\" Of this same thing in the Epistle of John: \"He who saith he abideth in Christ, ought himself also to walk even as He walked.\" Also in the same place: \"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Because everything which is in the world is lust of the flesh, and lust of the eyes, and the ambition of this world, which is not of the Father, but of the lust of this world. And the world shall pass away with its lust. But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even as God abideth for ever.\" Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: \"Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new dough, as ye are unleavened. For also Christ our passover is sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not in the old leaven, nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.\"<br/><i>— Treatise XII Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: The \"old nature\" whom he tells them to put off has, in my opinion, been aged by wickedness. For, going constantly astray in his former way of life and in the desires of waywardness and acting like a beast in works of corruption, he himself suffers corruption and decay.… But the Word of God kills in such a way as to make the dead one come alive. He then seeks the Lord whom he did not know before his death. He does not corrupt but kills the old man. … As the outer man decays the inner man is renewed.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ephesians 4:22</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"That ye put away as concerning your former manner of life, the old man.\"</p><p>That is to say, It was not on these terms that thou enteredst into covenant. What is found among us is not vanity, but truth. As the doctrines are true, so is the life also. Sin is vanity and falsehood; but a right life is truth. For temperance is indeed truth, for it has a great end; whereas profligacy ends in nothing.</p><p>\"Which waxeth corrupt,\" saith he, \"after the lusts of deceit.\" As his lusts became corrupt, so himself also. How then do his lusts become corrupt? By death all things are dissolved; for hear the Prophet, how he saith, \"In that very day his thoughts perish.\" And not by death only, but by many things besides; for instance, beauty, at the advance of either disease or old age, withdraws and dies away, and suffers corruption. Bodily vigor again is destroyed by the same means; nor does luxury itself afford the same pleasure in old age, as is evident from the case of Barzillai: the history, no doubt, ye know. Or again, in another sense, lust corrupts and destroys the old man; for as wool is destroyed by the very same means by which it is produced, so likewise is the old man. For love of glory destroys him, and pleasures will often destroy him, and \"lust\" will utterly \"deceive\" him. For this is not really pleasure but bitterness and deceit, all pretense and outward show. The surface, indeed, of the things is bright, but the things themselves are only full of misery and extreme wretchedness, and loathsomeness, and utter poverty. Take off the mask, and lay bare the true face, and thou shalt see the cheat, for cheat it is, when that which is, appears not, and that which is not, is displayed. And it is thus that impositions are effected.</p><p>The Apostle delineates for us four men. Of these I shall give an explanation. In this place he mentions two, speaking thus, \"Putting away the old man, be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man.\" And in the Epistle to the Romans, two more, as where he saith, \"But I see a different law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.\" And these latter bear affinity to those former two, the \"new man\" to the \"inner man,\" and the \"old man\" to the \"outer man.\" However, three of these four were subject to corruption. Or rather there are three, the new man, the old, and this, man in his substance and nature.<br/><i>— Homily on Ephesians 13</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: The \"old man\" includes all born as earthly men in their old nature. It is this \"old man,\" this ancient condition of humanity, that is put off in Christ. Although his body continues, he nonetheless undergoes a change to new life engendered by living baptism. What he was has been \"put off.\" His old life is renewed by the holy water and the copious mercy of the anointing. He becomes new rather than old, whole rather than corrupt, fresh rather than enfeebled, an infant rather than an old man, eternal rather than ephemeral.<br/><i>— ON Psalms 91.12-13</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: The apostle clearly identifies the old man. For he \"put off the old man which belongs to your former manner of life,\" not with respect to the decay of any substance. For he is telling us to put away not the flesh but those things that he has elsewhere shown to be oriented to the fleshly way of life, indicting not the body as such but its works.<br/><i>— ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 45.6</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: When the apostle enjoins us \"to put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and to be renewed in the spirit of our mind; and to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,\" (they maintain) that by here also making a distinction between the two substances, and applying the old one to the flesh and the new one to the spirit, he ascribes to the old man-that is to say, the flesh-a permanent corruption.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: But the apostle mentions a very clear mark of the old man. For \"put off,\" says he, \"concerning the former conversation, the old man; \" (he does) not say concerning the seniority of either substance.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: And just as we acknowledge that that which according to its former conversation was \"the old man\" was also corrupt, and received its very name in accordance with \"its deceitful lusts,\" so also (do we hold) that it is \"the old man in reference to its former conversation,\" and not in respect of the flesh through any permanent dissolution.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Since, therefore, he makes the image both of the earthy and the heavenly consist of moral conduct-the one to be abjured, and the other to be pursued-and then consistently adds, \"For this I say\" (on account, that is, of what I have already said, because the conjunction \"for\" connects what follows with the preceding words) \"that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,\" -he means the flesh and blood to be understood in no other sense than the before-mentioned \"image of the earthy; \"and since this is reckoned to consist in \"the old conversation,\" which old conversation receives not the kingdom of God, therefore flesh and blood, by not receiving the kingdom of God, are reduced to the life of the old conversation.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Nay, rather, by the virtue of contemning food He was initiating \"the new man\" into \"a severe handling\" of \"the old,\" that He might show that (new man) to the devil, again seeking to tempt him by means of food, (to be) too strong for the whole power of hunger.<br/><i>— On Fasting</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"0182305d6c5cd3db1b1f5b0354df4c226ecb12203454c68e74af464b42cd436d","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4303,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"7484316f9d639f97c5b6b6c54f3943c2b7735eb8844c0f503a5d95a015f688b5","translator":null,"work":null}