Eph 4:23-24 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 23. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind ] Their old mode of living was to be abandoned; a new one to be assumed. The mind is to be renovated; and not only its general complexion, but the very spirit of it; all its faculties and powers must be thoroughly, completely, and universally renewed. Plautus uses a similar expression describing deep distress, and answerable to our phrase innermost soul :- Paupertas, pavor territat mentem animi . Poverty and dread alarm my innermost soul. Epid., l. 519.

‏ Ephesians 4:23-24

Verse 23. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind] Their old mode of living was to be abandoned; a new one to be assumed. The mind is to be renovated; and not only its general complexion, but the very spirit of it; all its faculties and powers must be thoroughly, completely, and universally renewed. Plautus uses a similar expression describing deep distress, and answerable to our phrase innermost soul:-

Paupertas, pavor territat mentem animi.

Poverty and dread alarm my innermost soul.

Epid., l. 519.

Verse 24. Put on the new man] Get a new nature; for in Christ Jesus-under the Christian dispensation, neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Therefore ye must be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

Which after God is created in righteousness] Here is certainly an allusion to the creation of man. Moses tells us, Ge 1:27, that God created man in his own image; that is, God was the model according to which he was formed in the spirit of his mind. St. Paul says here that they should put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, or, οσιοτητι τηςαληθειας, in the holiness of truth. Both certainly refer to the same thing, and the one illustrates the other. From the apostle we learn what Moses meant by the image of God; it was righteousness and the truth of holiness. See Clarke on Ge 1:26. It is not this or the other degree of moral good which the soul is to receive by Jesus Christ, it is the whole image of God; it is to be formed καταθεου, according to God; the likeness of the Divine Being is to be traced upon his soul, and he is to bear that as fully as his first father Adam bore it in the beginning.