What is the 'Old Man'？ — Tim Conway

The Old Man and the Call to Put Off Sin

Ephesians 4 .17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They're darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.

They become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But, that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus.

To put off your old self or your old man, the word is anthropos. It's man. I know a number of the newer translations like to stick self in there. I think their intent is to try to help us, but I don't think it's necessary and I don't necessarily think that it helps us.

It's old man. That's how we were taught in Christ as the truth is in Jesus. To put off your old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new man created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, therefore having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we're members one of another.".

And on he goes until the end of the chapter. Now, Paul develops a very logical flow. You see it. In verses 17, 18, and 19, Paul, first of all, he reminds us of the kind of life we used to live. And then what happens?

Verses 20 and 21, he tells us that to learn Christ is to learn not to live the way we used to live any longer. That's what we learn. Then he brings out the specific truths in Jesus that we do learn if we're going to succeed in doing that which He's calling us to do.

And in verses 22, 23, and 24, he gives us in broad terms what this looks like. This truth in Jesus that we learn that convinces us not to walk in our former manner, Gentile life. And then when you break into v. 25 -32, he gets specific.

He keys in on some specific things that are reminiscent of putting off the old man and putting on the new, being renewed in the spirit of your minds. I want to focus primarily on verses 22 -24 and primarily 22 today.

But let's just pick this up in v. 20 again. But that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you have heard Him. There's no about there in the original. Heard Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus.

Here's that truth. 22, to put off your old man which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. So, questions. I have questions. Here's some. See if you can answer these.

The Old Man and Christian Sanctification

Is Paul teaching? These are the things we need to come to grips with. Because I'll tell you, this, what we're looking at right now, has to do with Christian sanctification. This old man. This has everything to do with sanctification.

We need to understand Paul's teaching and write if we're really going to go after the quest for holiness, for purification. These are the questions that pop up in my mind. Is Paul teaching that as Christians, the old man is still with us and needs to be put off?

Or has the old man been already put off? Or, am I partly as a Christian, am I partly old man and partly new man? Or, sometimes am I old man and sometimes am I new man? I guess the question is this, what relationship does the Christian have to the old man?

Or maybe even a more basic question, what is the old man? Those are good questions, I think. Now, the thing is if you look at the commentators, if you look at the theologians, if you look at the scholars, if you look at pastors and preachers, you're going to find that there is disagreement.

They are all over the place with this. So, we don't have to get too worried when that's the case. Why? Because we have God's Word. And we can look at it and we can seek. Here's the thing, even when you've got a bunch of guys and scholarly guys and guys with high IQs that differ on something, the truth is, well, yeah, that may lead us to believe that there are some things that are difficult to figure out about this, but you know, most of the time, although some things are difficult to figure out, there are also some things that are not difficult to figure out.

And a lot of times, if we just take the things that we actually can figure out and run with those, we'll be miles ahead. So, there's three references in our New Testaments to the old man. This is where we get our direct information.

There are some indirect places we might go to that don't specifically mention the old man, but they might come into play because they have to do with the flesh. Of course, that's one of the questions that comes up.

How does the old man relate to the flesh? Well, if there's any relationship at all, then some of the things that have to do with the flesh may have to do with the old man too. So, indirectly, there may be some verses that we could look at, but here's the thing.

There's three places where we directly have a reference to the old man in our New Testaments. And so, we want to look at those. And of course, the first one is right here. First one's in Ephesians 4, verse 22.

The way that we have learned Christ, what we have been taught in Him is this. To put off. It's an infinitive. To put off. You see it there. To put off your old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.

The Old Man as the Former, Corrupt Self

Now first, first, what can we glean from this? First off is this, the old man. Now Christian, this has to do with you because it's you who are the old man. Yeah, when they say the old self, well, that's why they say that.

Because they don't want you to think about some old man like, you know, some old man sitting over there in the corner that has nothing to do with you. This has everything to do with you because the old man is you.

But, is it you now? Well, look at what he says. He says, which belongs to your former manner of life. This is the old you. It's the person you were formerly before being born of God and becoming a new creation.

Isn't that what Scripture says? We are new creations in Christ. The old, and you know, you could put man in there. Paul's just kind of abbreviating that right there. The old is passed away. All things have become new.

In other words, that's who you were. But that's not who you are now. That's formerly who you were. And that's why you should no longer walk as a Gentile because you're no longer a Gentile. You're no longer the former Gentile you.

So you shouldn't walk that way. Belongs to your old manner of life. This is the man I once was, but which I am no longer. The old man is corrupt. Now this is an interesting word. It's a verb participle.

When you think participles, oftentimes you can think putting an ing on the end of it. Well, when you say corrupting, you've got this idea of something in process, in progress. And you know what? You'd be absolutely right in thinking that.

The New King James actually translates this, the old man which grows corrupt. The old man is in a process of growing further and further, decaying, putrefying. And another shade in the meaning of this word corrupt is it's actually, it can be translated corrupt or destruction.

It's the idea of you are disintegrating in your corruption. You're moving towards destruction. More and more polluted, advancing rapidly in the direction of destruction. This is moral corruption. The result of what?

The deceitful desires or lusts of deceit. You know what corrupts us? You know what rots us? Is the old man, is that man who is given to deceitful desires. Deceitful. Those desires lie to him, but you know what Scripture says?

He loves to believe a lie. Men love to have sin lie to them. And what's the great lie? I mean, Scripture speaks about the deceitfulness of sin. Anybody know where? Hebrews 3. And then the Scripture also says that our heart is deceitful.

Anybody know where? 17. Yeah, I mean, sin is deceitful. Our hearts are deceitful. We're just contradictions. And the thing is, sin comes to us. Sin lies to us. Sin presents itself to us as a friend. Sin presents itself to us in a way that flatters us.

It promises everything. That's what sin does. It promises us, you need me to make you happy. But it's a liar. And you see, the thing is, we go after it and all it does is corrupt us. And it's corrupting and it's leading in this direction.

The old man that we used to be, you know what it was like? You were getting worse and worse. You were not getting better and better. And that's what Scripture says. Evil men grow worse and worse. That's what we were doing.

That's what the old man is. This old man is never stationary. The world around us is moving. You look at people. You look at people in the midst of which we live. They're all in motion. You know the motion of the Christian?

More and more. It's like brighter and brighter until the full shining of the fullness of noonday. We're moving in that direction. Our life is like the sun rising higher and higher to noonday. Whereas the world around us, they're disintegrating.

It's a spiral. Nobody is static. But it's what we once were. So this old, deceived, lusting, corrupting man belongs to my former manner of life. But here's the thing, is Paul indicating that that old man is never present in my Christian life?

Can he come back? Or has he been here in part the whole time? Or is he gone? You know what's interesting to me is I was reading something about this old man from Martin Lloyd-Jones. And Lloyd-Jones preached through Ephesians and he preached through Romans.

And you know what's very interesting? He preached through Ephesians first. And so when he preached through Ephesians, he basically described it like this. He described it like you're the stage driver.

And you've got two horses leading the stage. One is the old man, one is the new man. And then you're kind of separate. That's how he identified it. But you know what's very interesting? When he got later, like maybe 10 years later, he preached through Romans, he didn't talk that way anymore.

You know why? Because he saw a truth in Romans that convinced him that old man horse isn't there anymore. And I want to show you the text that convinced him of that. Go to Romans 6. Romans 6 and verse 6.

Union with Christ in Death and Resurrection

We know. I hope we do know. We do need to know this. Massively important. You see what Paul is doing is he's building a theological argument that we need to take. We need to take the truth of it. And it needs to register in our brains because if it does, it'll really help you fight this battle.

He says we know. He's assuming we do. Maybe a lot of us don't. We know that our old man was crucified. Let me just interject right here. The King James Bible is the only translation that puts it in the present tense is.

That actually is not the best rendering. This is an aorist tense indicative verb. It does imply a past event that has once and for all taken place. Now, if you're in doubt at all, if you've got your King James Version and you're in doubt at all, I'm going to prove to you from the context.

It's a once and for all, a done deal. The context itself proves it. But I want you to see this. See, some would say, ah, there it is. Crucified. You see, Jesus was on the cross for six hours. Crucifixion is a very slow process.

The old man, this is how the reasoning goes, the old man was put on the cross the day I was born again. And he will remain there somewhat losing strength, losing energy, slowly dying until I go to glory.

Now some reason like that, that I would say if you reason like that, it may be because you have a King James Bible and you're taking the is to mean that the old man is currently crucified right now. But, like I say, just a little bit of research will tell you, show you that the aorist tense indicative verb is always meant to refer to something that is a past event that is once and for all taken place.

Now, here's the thing. Let's look at this verse again. V. 6, we know that our old man was crucified with who? Him. Who's Him? Christ. And you see, the issue is that he's been arguing for ever since the beginning of this is the Christian cannot continue in sin.

Why can't the Christian continue in sin? Not because the Christian is crucified and now whatever he was is slowly being put to death. The reality is that just as Jesus Christ died, so have we died. When it's talking about crucifixion, we've been crucified with Him.

But the reality is He died and we died with Him. If you don't get to the death part, then you're not really seeing the unity, the union that we have with Christ that Paul wants us to see. The reality is we didn't just get crucified with Him.

We died with Him. We got buried with Him and we rose with Him. That's the reality here, brethren. And if you have any doubts whatsoever, just read v. 6 with me. We know that our old man was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died.

You see the issue? He's not implying that this is a crucifixion process that is ongoing. He's assuming we got crucified with Christ and we died. That's the issue. So, now, here's something interesting.

The old man was crucified. Let me tell you something. This isn't just an aorist tense indicative verb. This is also a passive verb. You know the difference between an active verb and a passive verb? What's the difference?

The difference is this. Who does the crucifying? When it's passive, it means it's been done to us. It means we didn't crucify ourselves. You know what it's saying? God killed your old man. God came in and did it.

God put the knife to his throat or the spikes in his hands and feet and the spear in his side. God did that. God put him up there. God killed him. And we walk now, look at v. 4. Look at the end of v. 4.

How do we walk now? In newness of life. And you know what? Lloyd-Jones saw this and he said whatever Ephesians might teach, this is clear. That old man has been crucified to death. The result of that old man being crucified is what?

That it might bring the body of sin to nothing and that we might no longer be enslaved to sin. You see, the question on the table is this, what does v. 6 say? Can Christians continue in sin? And the answer is no.

They cannot continue in sin. Well, you might picture it like this. Picture the old man. I picture the old man, he doesn't stand upright because he's corrupt. I see him down there like an animal on all fours.

And sin is the slave master. And he leads him around on a leash. And you know what the leash is? Deceitful desires. That's what it said over in Ephesians. And you know where you see that? You see that right here in v. 6, v. 12.

You look at v. 6, v. 12, you get the picture of it. Now I recognize in v. 12, he's telling us what we ought not to let happen. But what he's describing is what in fact did happen when we were nothing but the old man.

Sin did reign in our mortal bodies and it got us to obey the desires or the passions of the body. Not of sin, of the body. That's it. The body of sin. And we were led around on that leash, that leash of lust and desire.

Oh, it may not have taken all of us into the gutter. It may have taken you into higher education. It may have taken you into religion. It may have taken you a lot of places. But your pride, your desire, the thing that made you feel good, the thing that made you feel important, the thing that gave you worth in life, and all the time it was just sin leading you around on that leash.

The body of sin. But you know what the picture is here? The picture is that sin seeks to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey our body's passions. But what happens? The old man is crucified. And your body of sin is now governed by a new you.

And here's the thing. You have the same bodies. And you know what? The appetites are still there, but it's a new you. Old things have passed away. That old man is dead. That body is now being governed by a new you.

So that you know what needs to happen? Verse 13 needs to happen. You surrender your members as instruments of righteousness. And in verse 14, sin no longer has dominion. I mean, you're now in that realm.

That's the reality. Okay, one other place in Scripture where this idea of old man comes up. Let's look at it. It's found in Colossians 3. Somewhat a parallel account or parallel teaching to what we have in Ephesians, but it is different.

There are some subtle differences here. Colossians 3 .9. Do not lie to one another. Now notice this. Seen that you have put off the old man with its practices. Now that's a very interesting way to reason.

Don't lie. In other words, put off lying because you have put off the old man with its practices. You've put off the old man practices, the old mannish ways, and yet what is one of the old mannish ways?

Dishonesty. And yet, he's appealing to them. Well, it's like Paul. Well, which is it? Have they put it off or have they not put it off and need to put it off? And Paul would say yes. So, now here's what's interesting about this verse.

This isn't passive for one. You see, the crucifixion, the crucifying of the old man, that's passive. That's done to us. And that's crucifixion. This is different terminology. This is a different picture.

That's crucifixion. This is putting off. That is done to us by God. This we do. You can see the verb. Put off. Seen that you have. You did this. You put off the old man. This is something we do. Now, I would have you think about this because I think it's a good way to see it.

God crucifies the old man. That's regeneration. And you walk in newness of life. We put off the old man. That's not passive. That's active. We do that. And that's sanctification. I think if you see the difference between that, that can be helpful.

Now, this is past tense in Colossians. Something that Paul assumes the Colossians already did. And yet, he says in v. 8, "...but now...". Now! Okay, you did that, he's going to say in the next verse, but now, you need to continue to do something.

You need to do something now. Now. Now. So what? Is this incomplete? Or is this not complete? Now, they still have work to do. "...Now you must put them all away...". Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.

Well, these are the practices of the old man. Do not lie. Do not lie. But wait, they already put off the old man with his practices, yet lying is precisely one of the old man's practices. It's almost like you feel this tension.

I think this is a lot of the reason why you get scholars and they're all over the place because they feel this tension and some run with one side of the tension and one run with the other and some try to keep balanced.

Let's go back to Ephesians 4 .22. Ephesians 4 .20,. "...But that is not the way you learned Christ.". Now that's past. That's past tense. That's not the way you formerly learned Christ. Assuming that you heard Him.

That's past tense. "...And were taught in Him.". That's past tense. "...As the truth is in Jesus.". But all that past tense Jesus taught you kind of language is this. Infinitive. "...To put off your old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.".

In Romans 6, Paul's clear. Our old man has been crucified and is dead. Colossians 3 .9, Paul asserts the Colossians had already put off the old man. Here in Ephesians, Paul affirms that any genuine Christian who has been taught of Christ, that Christ is going to teach them to put off the old man.

So is it complete or not? Did it happen already? Is it something I keep doing? There is this tension. In fact, go back to Colossians. Keep your finger right there in Ephesians 4, but go back those few pages to Colossians 3 and I want you to see something.

Ephesians 4 .25 and Colossians 3 .8. I want to compare these. In Ephesians 4 .25, "...therefore having put away falsehood.". Do you all see that? Okay, this is this tension that we feel. If Paul's speaking to us in this fashion, we've already put it away.

I mean, that's the assumption. You put it away. "...Therefore having put away falsehood.". But now when you look at Colossians 3 .8, now you must put them all away. What? Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another. Do not lie to one another. Wait, Paul, you told me that I've already put away falsehood. Now I know he's speaking. What are you going to take? Are you going to say, well, you know, the Ephesians put it away.

The Colossians hadn't. No, I would say we need to take both these verses and be able to compare them together and have them speak to us. I don't think he's saying, well, that church, they finished with lying.

This church over here, they still had a problem with lying. No, I think what you feel is this tension, this reality that you've put away. You've formerly put away, but now you need to continue to put off.

Why would you even talk like that? Well, brethren, I know this. You may remember the days when the Emancipation Proclamation was given by Abraham Lincoln, President of these United States, freeing all the slaves.

But do you know that the slaves often had to be reminded again and again and again? In fact, a lot of the slave masters had to be reminded again and again and again of the way things truly were. And a lot of the slaves had this disposition to go back under the old thinking that they were still slaves, that they were not really free, that they really couldn't do the things that they freely desired to do.

They had to be reminded. Or I remember this, years ago, when I started going into Romania, I remember Sorin saying the church here in Romania still acts like they're under communism. You know, during the years when the Romanian church was under communism, they were simply trying to survive.

Now they're free. Now they ought to be looking out. They ought to be going to the Orthodox people and evangelizing them. They ought to be looking beyond their own country and thinking about evangelizing the rest of Eastern Europe.

But you know what? They were still in survival mode. And one of the things that Sorin said was getting the people to think that they're no longer under communism is really difficult. Why? Because you get these mindsets.

You get this instilled in them. This is the same kind of thing here. Paul is coming along. You know, we'll say things like this. Quit acting like a baby. That's what he's doing here. Quit it. Quit acting like a baby.

Who do you say that to? You know what? I never said that to my children when they were one year old. Why? Because they were babies. Babies act like babies. I say that to my 16 year old son or to his 16 year old daughter.

Quit acting like a baby. Why? Because they're not babies. That's the kind of thing that we have going on here. You ought not to act like a baby because you're not one. Don't behave like that. Stop with the old man.

This is what Paul's saying. He's saying you put it off, but then he says stop it. Lay off those old mannish aspects. Why? Because that's not who you are. Be what you are. Realize what you are and be that.

It's precisely because the old man is dead that you can put him off. He no longer is in command. He no longer defines you. That's the issue. So, are you ready for the practical part of this? The put off?

Actively Putting Off Sin

Let's not pass it. But you know what? We can act like it is. And this can be one of the greatest killers to sanctification that we can encounter when we deal with sanctification as though it is passive.

I want us to be clear about something. Putting off the old man is something that Paul is telling the Colossians and the Ephesians that they do. Oh, I know it's past tense with the Colossians, but it's something they did.

Putting off these old mannish ways are something they must do. It is something He is appealing to them. It's not something done to us. It's not something done for us. It is specifically you are to put away.

You are to put off. That's the language of Scripture. Put off the old man. Put away falsehood. Put away bitterness. Put away wrath. Put away anger. And you know what Paul never says here? What you really need to do is pray about it.

What you really need to do is fast about it or seek counsel over it. Now look, you need to hear me right. Say, oh, he's telling us not to pray about this, not to fast about this. I always knew he had error.

There it is. I knew something was wrong. Listen, you know as well as I do that Scripture talks about praying without ceasing. But you need to listen to me and you need to hear not what I'm saying so much as hear what Paul is saying far too often through the years as I have been a pastor in this church.

People use prayer as a crutch in a bad way and in a wrong way. I can tell you, I have seen people make horrible decisions in their life. But they say, I prayed about it as though that just certifies that what they're doing has God's approval.

I prayed about it. And so, you can't touch me now. No counsel that is against this is going to stand because I prayed about this. That's one way I've seen prayer used wrongly. But there's another way.

You've got some sin in your life. There's something wrong. And you say, well, I know that I have this thing in my life that's wrong and it's dishonoring to God and I'm asking God to take it away. And you see, that sounds very Christian, noble.

And I'll tell you, so often it is nothing but false piety. I'm praying about this sin in my life. And you know what Paul would say? You go ahead and pray about that. But if you're ever going to live a sanctified life, you better come to the place where you put that off yourself and stop sitting there.

You know what happens. Somebody prays about it. Well, I prayed about it. And now they sit there. I prayed about that bitterness. I prayed about that lack of forgiveness. I prayed about my laziness. I prayed about this, that, and the other thing.

And then you sit there. And I know what you're waiting for. You're waiting for this feeling of power. You wake up and it's like now you're the spiritual Superman and you feel it coursing through your veins.

And it's like power is just exuding. You're going to see some light emanating from your face when you look in the mirror. But that's how we are. Oh, I'm going to feel this. Paul says you might want to examine v. 17 -32.

You'll notice I'm not really charging the people that they need to pray more. Where do you see prayer at all there? Paul doesn't tell you to pray about dishonesty or bitterness or laziness. Does he? He doesn't.

You know what? He goes straight to the point. And he says you, Christian, need to get that out of your life. Period. Get on with it, man. That's what Paul is saying. Paul doesn't say to the Ephesians, well, you have certain people in your church with old mannish tendencies.

Some of you aren't speaking truth to one another. Some of you are giving to sinful anger. Some are letting the sun go down on their anger. Some are giving advantage to the devil. Some of you are not laboring very diligently and giving.

Some of you are grieving the Holy Spirit. Some are bitter and slanderous. He doesn't tell them to go start a special Thursday evening prayer meeting. You know what he tells them? You put that off. Stop it.

He says, oh! That doesn't sound very spiritual. Having the Thursday night prayer meeting sounds spiritual. Yeah. But you know what? You come back a year later and who are the people that are running well?

Who are the people that are the godly examples? They're the ones that stood up and looked their sin face to face and said you're coming off. And you go to battle against it. Versus the guy that has the prayer meeting every Thursday night.

And a year later, he's just as pathetic and wrapped up in his sin as ever. Why? Because God doesn't say pray. You know, it's like, here's God. God's saying to you, take it off. And you say, help me take it off.

And He says, Paul's under inspiration here. Take it off. Oh, would you please help me to take it? Take it off. Can you imagine if your child was doing that? What would you do? Most parents would eventually become frustrated with that and they'd take the child in as rebelling and spank them.

If you as a parent said to your child, take that shirt off right now. Would you help me to take it off? You have arms. You can take that off. You're equipped to take that off. Oh, but I need power to take this off.

I need help to take this off. Take it off. But you see, we feel so pious and so holy and so, you know, oh, I'm a man of prayer. I pray about that sin all the time. Yeah, how long have you been praying for it?

The last 20 years? Well, why do you still have it? Because you never took it off. You see, that's the way Paul's talking. We need to come face to face with this. There's something... it's definitely active on your part.

Almost aggressive. There's a violence about this and there ought to be. There's a lot of procrastination. There's a lot of false piety. We get people who struggle with the same thing over and over and over.

They pray. They ask others to pray. But Paul comes along and simply tells them, stop. Are you a thief? Stop. And work with your hands and give. Are you grieving the Spirit? Stop it. Are you bitter? Are you unforgiving?

Put it off. Quit doing that. Stop acting like a baby. Because the truth is you're not a baby. You know what the truth is? You're God's man. You're God's woman. And He's telling us to act like it. And I know you're going to declare to me, oh, I'm so weak.

I'm so frail. I'm too pathetic. Too inexperienced. Too newly saved. Too dark a season. My righteousnesses are filthy rags. My heart's deceitful. No one's good. What's the answer to this? You're a new creation in Christ.

Old things are passed away. If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. If you live according to the flesh, you're going to die. Let me ask you this. Are you a Christian? You say yes.

Does Scripture teach that if you're a Christian you have the Holy Spirit? You say yes. Case closed. You have the Holy Spirit. By the Holy Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body. If you're a Christian, you've been born again.

You say, but I'm weak. Well, yeah, I'll grant you without Christ you can do nothing. But you have Christ. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Is He the one strengthening? Yes. But you can do all things through Him.

You're not without Christ. You're not without the Spirit. Don't you recognize God is your God? He's the Almighty. He's with you. He says He'll never leave you or forsake you. He empowers you. It is God who causes you to will and to do of His good pleasure.

You have the power. Do you believe that? You see, when all you do is pray and you don't put it off, you don't believe that. You're not believing God. You're not trusting God. Christian, you know what the reality is as a Christian?

Your sins aren't burying you any longer. They're not on top of you. They're not crushing you. You're on top. You're in the place. Look, if God is telling you to put it off, you know what? Have you ever known God to command you to do something that He's not going to empower you to do?

You can take every commandment of God as a promise that He is going to help you, that He is going to be with you. Those sins, they're not burying you anymore. You're on top of them. The way to solve this problem is not perpetual prayer.

It is to think. Who are you? What is this sin? There's a place to look at this and recognize I am not that old man. Yes, back when I was lost, I held grudges. I was a thief. I was this. I was that. I was immoral.

I was drunk. I was self-righteously religious. Fill in the blank. You can look at those things now and recognize that is not befitting of a Christian. That is not walking worthy of Christ. That is not new man kind of conduct.

And if it belongs to the old man, Paul says put it away. And he's not assuming you can't do it. He's assuming that that's exactly the way to live this Christian life. But you want power. So you pray. You wait to feel it.

But does that happen? That's not the way it happens. Put it away. Put away lying. Put away anger. Put away stealing. Put away dishonesty. Face the facts. If you do not put these old manish ways away, face it.