Robert Reymond On the New Creation and New Man

Robert Reymond is another author that I really appreciate. I recently studied through his A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith with a group of friends, and was very much rewarded by the effort. Here is a quote from Reymond's book Paul: Missionary Theologian, which is a work dealing with the missionary labors and theology of the Apostle Paul. In this section Reymond is explicating the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification; the influence of John Murray upon his thought is apparent:

The Christian a Spirit-Wrought New Creation

From the point of view of the center and direction of the Christian life Paul speaks of the Christian as being, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, a new man (Col. 3:9, 10), a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), with a new life in Christ (Gal. 2:20). This is a radical and absolute perspective, so radical and absolute that the language of death and resurrection may be used (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20). Nothing in our experience short of repudiating the faith and returning to and abiding in sin can or will let us forget this truth. Paul urges us to 'consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 6:11; 1 Cor. 1:2; 6:11; Eph. 5:26). Our new life depends on the work of Christ, through union with him in his death and resurrection, being applied to use by God's Spirit. In and by this Spirit-wrought union we personally experience and appropriate in us that representative work for us (a personal spiritual union symbolized by baptism, Tit. 3:5, 6).

Putting on the Spirit-Wrought 'New Self'

The Pauline indicative concerning the core of our being must be manifested throughout our body and during our life through the self-conscious activity of being dependent upon the presence and power of the Father and the Son through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Thus of us Paul says: 'By the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body' (Rom. 8:13). We are consistently urged to repudiate the practices characteristic of our old man because we have put him off in Christ and we are to put on the characteristics of godly living that are true of the new self (Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:9-10). This activity comes about by letting our minds be renewed or instructed from the perspective of God's Word (Eph. 4:23; Col. 3:16; see Rom. 12:2) and by being filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). The correlation of the responsibility of the Christian and of his dependence upon God is perhaps best described in Philippians 2:12-13:

So then, beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for [his] good pleasure.