These are the study notes from the 2nd internet conference delivered on 3/8/09. Dr. Jim Brettell set up these bible classes using his internet expertise and his network of pastors and believers. Many thanks to Dr. Brettell. These concepts will be rewritten in the Transformation Workbook as it progresses.
Old Man – New Man: Lesson 2
The Old Man belief/behavior system opens our understanding of the difficulties of the Christian life after salvation and why we still consistently operate independently from God. The beliefs that each of us programmed into our OM were built when we were separated from God and simply seeking to find our way in life. All of us were simply looking for a way to have others love and care for us and to feel good about ourselves. We were seeking to meet the needs God designed us to have, yet without Him to meet them or even guide us about how to go about meeting them. The OM is the system that each of us constructed to make sense of our human experience and to find happiness in the harsh environment of the devil’s world, w/out God to help us. You might recall, before God was a daily presence in your life, you had another system you used to make life work for you, the OM. As we take off the OM within us, we are able to choose the NM in Christ so that the mind of Christ becomes the motivation and operating system we use to relate to life in the devil’s world.
Introduction
Important Questions & Considerations
1. If the Old man has been crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6) why do we still struggle with OM beliefs, selfish motives & have difficulty with relationships?
2. If the old has passed away and we are a new creation in Christ (2Cor 5:17) – why does the old way still have so much power in the lives of so many believers?
3. If the love of God has been totally poured out (perfect tense) into the heart of a believer (Rom 5:5), then why do so few truly experience His love and why do so many still feel unloved and even unlovable?
4. If the power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us (Eph 1:19-20), why are we so weak, dominated by worldliness, materialism, anger and fear?
Christian Delimma
After salvation, spiritually growing believers become aware of a major inconsistency in their lives. Believers who do not grow remain oblivious to almost every spiritual issue except overt sinning. We read the promises about the abundant life and the admonitions to live the obedient life but we soon realize that we don’t have the capacity to produce it. We want to live the life the bible describes and we try our best to do so, but we consistently come up short. This “hypocrisy” might be the primary impression the unbeliever has about the church. Our inability to produce Christ like character in spite of our best efforts also creates an inner conflict in the soul. Most of us think we should be more spiritually inspired, be loving deeper, be feeling less anger or fear and we believe that everyone else is a more successful Christian. This is the inner experience of every growing Christian and this situation deserves an explanation.
Different denominations seek to explain the discrepancy between how we “ought” to live and how we actually do live with different biblical interpretations:
Charismatics – 2nd blessing that empowers the believer to be like Christ
Legalists – try harder: obedience, bible reading, prayer, church attendance & involvement
Lordship – decide to make Christ Lord of your life
Doctrinal – more knowledge of the truth, more information – Gnosticism
The questions and considerations above must be addressed and answered for us to understand what God really expects of us after we are saved. The Doctrine of OM-NM explains why we know how to live, have been given the power to live and yet fail to live the Christ centered life. This doctrine explains why we are still enslaved to our sin patterns after salvation and offers us a means of destroying the body of sin that we no longer live as slaves to sin (Rom 6:6).
Rom 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin;
Positional – API – OM crucified with Christ – simple past event
Practical – purpose clause – hina – purpose of crucifying OM with Christ
APSubj – future potential – potential point in the future – OM can be done away with
PAInf – Infinitive shows results – that we are no longer slaves of sin
· OM being crucified occurred at salvation as part of our union with Christ
· Doing away with beliefs/behaviors of OM has not fully occurred yet – potential
· Most believers & perhaps all to a degree still struggle with slavery to a sin patterns
The means of developing the capacity for the abundant life is connected with doing away with the body of sin so that we are no longer enslaved to sin. As OM is taken off (Eph 4:22), the NM can come online so we can use it to operate
This rest of this study will discuss the following concepts:
a) The distinction between the sin nature and the OM belief/behavior system
b) What is the OM BB system & what are some of its characteristics?
c) Why did the whole human race build this system & how did we build it?
A. Distinction between the sin nature & the Old Man belief/behavior system
What is the sin nature and what is the Old Man?
Sin Nature – phusis – natural bent, tendencies – that which one naturally does;
Rom 11:24 – wild by nature; Eph 2:3 – by nature, children of wrath; 2Pet 1:4 partake of the divine nature through the promises of God – NM has divine nature
We are not told the exact characteristics of A/E’s created nature. The following is my view of their original nature and what happened to it when they sinned.
a. Man was created with a human nature that naturally wanted to grow in knowledge, intimate love and devoted service to God.
b. Eve did not tempt herself to sin; her temptation came from outside of her
c. Sin corrupted their nature to naturally love and serve self, independent of God.
d. Sin nature causes us to put self first: self interest, self love, serving self
e. Sin nature corrupts the development of our belief system so that we believe that our needs are primary over God’s or anyone else.
f. Sin nature is not the immediate source of temptation or sin; it is a nature to serve the needs/desires of self that corrupts our ideas making sin a reasonable course.
g. The significant impact of the sin nature is its corrupting influence on our beliefs and relational strategies.
Old Man – the belief and behavior system that every human develops under the influence of the sin nature causing us to view the meeting of our own needs as primary.
a. The SN is inherited – the OM is built and developed
b. The SN is a genetic corruption – OM is a thought and idea system
c. The SN is biological – the OM is both biological and psychological
d. The SN is involuntary – The OM is involuntary but chosen by volition
e. The SN came from Adam – the OM comes from each of us
f. Adam is responsible for SN – OM is not our fault but our responsibility
B. What is the Old Man?
Man’s status and situation at birth based on Adam’s sin.
1. Man is born empty within, needing to be filled – needs Jn 7:37-39
2. Man is born separated from God, who alone is essential for +H – Jn 7:39
3. Man is born with a sin nature that enslaves him to sin – Rom 6:6
4. Man is born into the devil’s world which is designed to deceive – Eph 2:1-3
5. Man is born into a family of sinners who will can’t meet his needs
6. Man is born with no knowledge and has to figure it out for himself.
7. Man is born spiritually blind and unable to understand spiritual things 2Cor 4:3-4
8. Man develops a corrupted belief system aligned with worldly values Rom 12:2
9. Man seeks to meet his needs using his corrupted system- failure & pain Phil 3:1-4
10. Man’s failure and pain causes him to implement defense systems – Col 3:21
11. When man comes to Christ, his psychological state is corrupted and hopeless.
Old Man – Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22; Col 3:9 – the ideas, concepts, principles built as a system into the heart of the unbeliever that determine his views, attitudes, feelings, relational strategies and behaviors.
a. The OM is a belief system, a way of thinking about self, God, others & life.
b. OM is mankind’s self devised system for meeting his needs without God, w/out truth, in the devil’s world.
c. OM is the sum of the conclusions we reach about life on our own, w/out God.
d. The OM is built from the conclusions we reach from personal life experience.
e. Personal conclusions that are believed become part of our belief system.
f. W/out God, we are on our own to figure out how to find a little happiness and protect ourselves from the harsh realities of the devil’s world.
g. Sp death & blindness render us incapable of understanding truth from a spiritual perspective – only divine establishment principles
h. OM is a human system built on human viewpoint, based on human ability from personality & intelligence and operates independently of God.
i. OM continues to be built until we stop being influenced by anyone but God.
j. OM is not removed at salvation, but brought into the Christian life and remains our core operating system until its ideas are rejected, one at a time and replaced with NM ideas.
d. Characteristics of OM
a) OM operates on 2 primary directives – pursue pleasure and prevent pain
Pursue Pleasure – false belief that gratification of desires through pleasure = +H
Eph 4:22 – OM is corrupted by deceitful desires – false belief that gratification = +H
2Pet 1:4 – divine nature (NM) enables us to escape the corruption in the world by desire
· Pleasure, gratification, sense of fulfillment, success, victory, completion
· Gratification of sinful pleasure ß à Human good through success
Prevent Pain – false belief that pain is to be avoided at all costs through whatever means are practical or available
· Soul pain from primary love relationships – parents, peers, mates, children – use of psychological defense mechanisms – denial, repression, projection, addiction
· Physical pain from injury, disease, abuse – medicines
b) Core motivation in both OM & NM is desire – driven by desire
Eph 4:22; 2Pet 1:4 – OM is driven by desire, deceived & corrupted by desire
Gal 5:16-17 – conflict of desires between flesh and Holy Spirit
· Desire is the expression of normal need – love, sex, approval, acceptance, success
OM – Desire flesh deceives – gratification = +H à strategies for fulfillment
NM – Desire of Spirit – pleasure of God’s presence; desire for word, spiritual experience
OM – false strategies à failure à disappointment/pain à anger, fighting Jam 4:1-3
· Anger – frustrated desire à fight, manipulate others to change them
· Fear – not getting desire or losing what we have – fear of loss
NM – Godly strategies à supernatural peace, content, love à healthy relationships
· Peace – sufficiency in Christ; confidence in the future; never leave or forsake
c) OM is focused on earthly, worldly, temporal goals and possessions
OM ideas built w/out God and so are focused on gratification in this life
NM ideas built on Phase 3 eternity with God – frees us from details of life
d) OM measures success or failure by comparing self to others.
2Cor 10:12 – commending one another based on self-comparisons
· I am better than others – I know more, do more, etc
· Paul – Phil 3:4 – more reason for confidence in the flesh – better than others
NM – compares self to Christ & views self in Christ apart from human accomplishments
C. Why & How We Built OM Belief & Behavior System
a. All mankind is born separated from God because of Adam’s sin Rom 5:12.
b. All mankind is designed with needs we are compelled to have met.
c. Our deepest needs can only be met by God Jn 7:37-39.
d. Separation/God leaves us with the only option available – look to people
e. OM BB system is built around the core idea that man can meet man’s needs.
f. Man fulfilling man creates the illusion of independence from God
g. We are also born knowing nothing, needing to build a system of ideas that will enable us to meet our needs and make our way in the devil’s world.
h. We build our ideas one at a time, based on our own conclusions out of our human experiences, relationships and environment.
i. We build our ideas from the personal conclusions we reach based on experience.
j. Any conclusion that we believe and use to operate becomes part of the system.
k. The OM belief and behavior system is built by faith – by believing concepts
l. Any idea that is believed and integrated into the system works unconsciously, under the level of awareness, influencing every other idea in the system.
m. We build our ideas about relationships using concepts of conditional love/regard
Love to be loved; give to get back; evaluate self worth from what others think of us; base worth on human characteristics – looks, personality, ability
n. We build our ideas w/out God’s presence to fulfill our souls or His guidance from truth to steer us into right thinking.
o. The OM system is man’s attempt to solve his own problem of being born alone in the devil’s world, without God.
The system we build is need driven, man centered, self advised and uses conditional relating to determine self worth. It is built independent of God and pleases Him in now way and not at all. It must be done away with and replaced with the ideas of the NM in Christ as taught in the NT scriptures.
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