The New Creation (Part 2): Derek Prince Sermon (Transcript)

Full text of Derek Prince’s sermon titled ‘The New Creation (Part 2)’

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TRANSCRIPT:

Derek Prince – Bible Teacher

In our previous session, I spoke about the new creation, its totality, its completeness, that it affects every area of a human personality: spirit, soul, and body.

The spirit that was dead in sin is brought back to life in God. The soul that was in rebellion is reconciled and brought into submission and obedience, and the body becomes a temple for the Spirit of God to dwell in. And the Spirit of God can impart sufficient life to keep us strong and active and healthy until our life task is completed.

Now, out of the truth of the new creation, we’re going to go on to study two persons that relate to this new creation: two of the most important persons in the New Testament, and yet neither of them is ever given a name. They are simply known as the old man and the new man, or the old person and the new person.

And as I say, although they are not named, they are extremely important. And really, we cannot receive all that God has for us in the Christian life until we understand the nature of the old and the new man and God’s plan for dealing with both.

And my experience as one who travels very widely and ministers to Christians from many different backgrounds in different nations, many Christians really don’t have a clear picture of the nature of the old man and the nature of the new.

THE OLD MAN AND THE NEW (EPH. 4:17–24)

So let’s turn first of all to Ephesians chapter 4, and we’ll read verses 17 through 24.

Ephesians 4:17-24: “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding being darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”

That’s a picture of man in rebellion, cut off from God, going his own way, plunging into deeper and deeper darkness. But Paul says, if we have come to know Jesus, that’s not the course that our life is going to take.

And he says: “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you’ve heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:”

And Paul is writing to people whom he believes to be Christians, but he says, it may be that some of you have never really grasped this important truth; you’ve never been taught. And as I said, my experience is that there are multitudes of Christians who have come to the Lord, been born again, and yet have never really been taught the truth that Paul presents in the next few verses. So let’s read those verses, keeping this in mind, asking ourselves, have I appreciated this? Have I apprehended this? Is this at work in my life?

Now this is as the truth as is in Jesus. Now, verses 22, 23 and 24: “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man, which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness.”

Paul there talks about the two men: the old man, the new. They are completely opposite to one another. The old man, he says, is growing corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. The actual, the Greek says the lusts of deceit.

The new man, Paul says, was created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. But the Greek says, in righteousness and holiness of the truth. And so if you take the more literal translation, you have the old man is the product of deceit. He’s the product of Satan’s lie. The new man is the product of the truth of the word of God.

So the old man is corrupt because he’s the result of a lie from Satan. The new man is created again in holiness and righteousness, which are the products of the truth.

So the important things to lay hold of are the results of Satan’s deception and the results of receiving and obeying God’s truth because they produce these two different kinds of persons.

The old man is growing corrupt. We spoke about that in the previous session. The result of sin in the physical body is corruption. The corruption really also extends to man’s inner personality. His mind becomes corrupt, his attitudes become corrupt, his desires become corrupt. The keyword that describes this old nature is corrupt or corruptible. It’s decaying. There’s no permanence in it.

Mind transformed through Spirit of Truth

And then Paul speaks about a transition. In verse 23, he says, ‘be renewed in the spirit of your mind.’ We have to change the way we think. You see, you cannot think wrong and live right, and you cannot think right and live wrong. A lot of Christians are trying to live right, but they’re thinking wrong. And the result is they never really come into the victory that God has for them.

You keep your finger there and let’s look for a moment in Romans chapter 12, Romans the 12th chapter. Paul says in the first two verses…

Romans 12:1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

So Paul says, we have to hand ourselves over to God. We have to present our bodies to Him. As the Israelites in the Old Testament brought the sacrificial animals, sheep, an ox, whatever it might be, and laid it on the altar, and it was killed and offered as a sacrifice, Paul says, in the same way as believers in the New Testament, you bring your body and lay it on God’s altar. But there’s just one difference: it’s alive; it’s not killed.

So you present your body as a living sacrifice to God for His service. You hand it over to God. When a man presented a sheep or an ox or whatever it was under the Old Covenant, when he put it on the altar, it was no longer his; it belonged to God.

And when we offer our bodies a living sacrifice, place it on God’s altar, it’s no longer ours; it belongs to God. We don’t own it; He owns it. We don’t control it; He controls it. We don’t direct it, He directs it. We don’t decide what it will eat, He provides. We don’t decide what it will wear, He provides.

Now, that sounds frightening to some people. The truth of the matter is: God can take much better care of our body than we can without Him.