One new man is created in Christ who now stands before God representing all men. The result of the new creation is here named, in a phrase popular in Ephesians and Colossians, as the nature of this new man to see himself totally and unconditionally in the light of God\’s act of creation in Christ, as his workmanship (Eph. 2:10).

The new man can be \”put on\” as a new self, who no longer has anything to do with the old. Where the old man was characterised by acts which destroy fellowship with God and with other men, the new is marked by a new knowledge, emanating from the will of God.

* This knowledge allows the new man to become truly an image of his Creator in acts of neighbourly love (Col. 3:10-12). *The new man\’s condition of being \”created after the likeness of God\” (Eph. 4:24) means therefore that he is created so as to match up to God. He accepts the rightness of his gracious verdict upon us (in righteousness); *he is separated for his service (in holiness); and lives in dependence upon him who is the truth, i.e. Christ (in truth). The drive of man to establish himself by his own efforts, even when these efforts are religious in character, belongs to the sphere of the old man. Yet there is a place for good works.

For God has not only created the new man. He has created us for good works which he has prepared beforehand that we should live in them (Eph. 2:10). Hence our works are nothing to do with obtaining grace or salvation its the fruit of the NEW MAN IN CHRIST!