What does the Bible say about renewal?

But around us is a scene in opposition to us and to God. "The age," not "the world," is that which we are not to be conformed to. In a sense it is the world, but this seen in its control of the whole scene through which we move. The age is never Christian, even though Christianity is fully come, and we may be now living in lands which are called Christian; yet the god of "the age," as the word really is (2 Cor. 4:4), is Satan. The strongest possible expression is used. He is not merely the prince, but the god of this age, and we can understand the difficulty that all this presents for us and the need we have of power working with and through us, greater than our own. Another thing. — it was in this age that we had our part naturally, and we need actually to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that is, by our minds being made entirely anew, in order to escape from it. "Renewal" is here not that which we need as realizing the wear and tear of things, the mere refreshment and revival of strength, but the actual production of another spirit and temper altogether. We need, therefore, as is plain, the word of God as that which alone can expose the subtle influences which are all around us and deliver us from the plausible deceptions which are abroad. "The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit," a "discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." We need the double edge of it, the one for ourselves, allowing our thoughts and intents to be searched out by it; the other for what is objectively before us. How blessed to know that the proving of the will of God which will thus be effected will realize how good, acceptable and perfect that will is! There is an experience here which every soul in the least divinely taught knows well, an experience which has in it the most wonderful encouragement. How can we tell rightly what the divine way is except as we walk in it? Who that has walked in it, whatever the apparent severity of its requirements, but knows the blessedness of this?

Romans 12:2 is most helpful in giving us a right perception of the will of God: “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Which is better, to know the will of God or to prove it in experience? Certainly the latter! But how may we prove it? On the negative side, by not conforming to the world: on the positive side, by being transformed by the renewing of the mind. The world's principles as to wise action are always those of expediency, material benefit, and present comfort. If one is offered an attractive job with good salary a long distance from an assembly, he will likely accept it quickly if he is conformed to the world. If he is transformed, he will honestly put the Lord's interests first, for his renewed mind is reasoning from the Lord's viewpoint. Then he will prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. This is the vital principle. If our minds are in this way renewed we shall be accustoming ourselves to learning the Word of God. When learning the will of God in greater things, these lesser things will also find us more discerning as to His will. As we read it, God's Word will often be seen to apply in certain cases of concern, for our instruction and encouragement, especially as our hearts are exercised to learn.

"But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God." We have briefly glanced at the negative side of the second verse — non-conformity to the world, separateness from its maxims and its ways. We now come to the positive side — the renewing of the mind. This is all important. It is the renewal of the whole inner man; the deep springs of the heart which only the eye of God can see. He looks for the renewal of the understanding, affections, and will. Our old ideas which ruled the mind before we knew God and His Christ must all be given up, and new thoughts, new motives, new objects, new feelings, new intentions, as springing from our one new object — Christ in the glory — must have full sway over all the faculties of the mind, as well as over all the members of the body. There must be a complete transformation within and without, by the renewing of the mind. The Christian is a new man in Christ, "which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Colossians 1:10.

We are the subjects of divine mercy. We deserved nothing, but we are enriched with practically everything. If the sense of divine mercy takes possession of our hearts, then we shall see that our bodies, which were the vehicles in which sin wrought and dominated us — that were used by us to express all our sinful wilfulness — we must now present as a living sacrifice, something wholly and livingly devoted to God — to be absolutely at His disposal, set apart for Him and His service and acceptable to God, seeing it is our reasonable and intelligent service. In the sixth chapter, where we get very similar truth, I believe we get the verb yield used in a twofold way — first, the Kingdom as an accomplished fact, absolutely yielded, then secondly in a more present sense, going on yielding. Has a moment ever been reached in our histories when we have been brought to the point of presenting our bodies a living sacrifice — something now devoted to God — set apart for His use, never to be recalled? It is our only reasonable service. That is the body — the next verse speaks about our mind. Be not conformed to this world — be not fashioned according to this age. You say, He is going to talk now about our dress. Well, Suppose I do! I know we are very largely the victims of the fashions, yet we should be careful to dress as becomes godliness. But after all it is not primarily a matter of dress, it is a matter of the mind. "Be not fashioned according to this age: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We get down beneath that question to a more fundamental matter. Be not fashioned in your mind according to this age. There are terrible fashions in the mind regions — the scientific world is full of fashions. Scientists seem to be the greatest devotees of the goddess fashion that you can find anywhere. No Parisian fashions exert their sway over minds in the way that the scientific fashions do. We are not to be fashioned according to this age, but rather transformed; we are to be non-conformists in this sense, not reformists — but transformed by the renewing of our minds. God begins at the citadel, in the very centre of our beings. Some may say, Be practical and tell us how to get our minds renewed. Soak them in the Word of God prayerfully, in dependence upon the Spirit of God. As we progress and prayerfully study the Holy Book it is wonderful how our minds get shaped according to God. We unlearn our own thoughts, we begin to imbibe divine thoughts. Thus our minds are renewed and we prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, we say, it is such a perplexing thing to decide, what is this will of God? The point here is not that you may discover, but that you may prove the will of God. How do you prove a thing? You put it to the test. A person tells you that if you put certain chemicals together they act in a certain way — you prove and test it and it works. It is not mere theory, it is proven in every day life — it is a practical proposition. In the same way you and I are to prove what is the will of God, and as we prove what it is we shall discover it is good, acceptable and perfect. We shall of course learn incidentally that our own wills are bad, and imperfect and very disastrous. Naturally we love our own wills — you and I are to have our wills removed that we may prove and carry out in practice what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. How much is our Christianity purely a theoretical thing? How much have we proved, experimentally proved, the blessedness of the will of God? We shall experience it if we present our bodies a living sacrifice to Him, and if our minds are not dominated by what the world thinks.

Since the divine instructions to us are that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds, we may well enquire how we may get our minds renewed. The answer is, by getting them formed according to God's thoughts and forsaking our own. And how shall this be? By soaking them in God's Word, which conveys to us God's thoughts. As we read and study the Word in prayerful dependence on the enlightening of the Spirit of God, our very thinking faculties, as well as our way of thinking, become renewed.

Verse 23. "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind." It is by his mind that a man is led; while his mind, in its turn, is governed by some ruling object. Self is that object to the natural mind to the renewed mind it is Christ. To live no longer to ourselves, but unto Him who died for us and rose again, is the desire of the inner man. But intuitive desire is aided in its struggle against the contradictory tendencies of the flesh by positive exhortation. The development of the mind of Christ within us is to be effected by obedient watchfulness on our parts. The meekness and gentleness of Christ are habits not to be acquired in a day, though the germ of every practical grace lies hidden in the life we have in Him. Mind and conscience are in a close moral connexion. By the renewal of the one, the other is maintained in purity. "Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind" (Rom. 14:5) is a maxim of practical conduct, which cannot be too deeply impressed upon us all.

Verse 24. "And that ye put on," etc. To put on the new man is to put on Christ. For as the old man is the first Adam, so the second is the new. Yet there is a difference, inasmuch as the new man, which we are exhorted to put on, is but an image of that God who has created it. It is as the First-born from the dead that Christ is demonstrated to our faith, in His glory and perfection, as the New Man. To put Him on, therefore, is to walk in the power of His resurrection. This putting off the old and putting on the new is to be a matter of practical habit. With the writer of this epistle, both death and life were daily experiences, through faith. A daily death to himself was the condition of his more abundant rejoicing in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 15:31). As to the moral characteristics of this new man, they are summed up in the statement which declares it to be created in righteousness and true holiness. The whole verse, and especially this last expression, has an antithetical relation to verse 22. To the lusts of deceit, which ruled the old man in his natural corruption, is now opposed "the holiness of truth." In the Lord our Righteousness we are to walk worthy of His name, not belying in our ways the confession of our lips. Christ, who is Himself our Sanctification, becomes thus to the believer through the Spirit, the standard and power of a godly life. We are to walk in Him (Col. 2:6).

The washing of regeneration cleanses subjectively, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit - has Its essential nature and characteristics - but the renewing of the Holy Ghost leads us into the whole sphere of that new state of things into which Christ is entered as risen and now gone up on high. And though we must be born to have life, and have life if born, yet eternal life is only known in redemption, and the scene and state into which redemption brings. Hence though we have put on the new man (kainon) in putting on the risen Christ, yet there is an anakainosis through the Holy Ghost in bringing us into the apprehension of the new creation (kaine ktisis) where all things are new (kaina).

Progress in being “transformed by the renewing of the mind” can only be ours when we are at peace with God through the work of Christ, being reconciled to Him through the death of His Son. Where doubts still cloud the mind, how can there be advance in the knowledge of divine things? The exhortation, or rather beseeching, to thus respond follows the teaching which gives us this divine assurance. At the very start, when God began His work in us—the work which He will carry on and complete—a renewing of an eternal character took place with us. That was done once, and done for ever. In we only place it is named in Scripture it is said to have taken place in the spirit of the mind (Eph. 4:23), and a different word is used for renewing, ananeō, for it is new in an abiding sense. In Romans 12:2 it is anakainōsis, to be renewed in a fresh way. In the former scripture three things are stated concerning us: (1) We have “put off the old man”; (2) “Being renewed in the spirit of the mind”; (3) “Having put on the new man” (see New Trans.). These things have taken place; but the renewal according to Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 4:16, and Colossians 3:10 still goes on. This word is used five times, the other two being Titus 3:5 and Hebrew 6:6.

This renewal of the Holy Spirit spoken of in Titus 3:5 is still going on; but if a man professed the faith of Christ and apostatised, we are told in Hebrews 6:6, it is impossible to renew him again to repentance after he has outwardly partaken of the great benefits spoken of in verses 4 and 5. The fact is he was never a true believer at all, and his own course proves it. Those, however, who are true children of God are to make progress in the direction which the Word of God indicates by the renewing of their minds. The Apostle Paul tells us that notwithstanding all the labours and afflictions which were his, he experienced a daily renewal. “Though our outward man perish,” he writes, “yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16); and what he says immediately after gives us the secret of this: “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” The latter engrossed his attention, for Christ is the Centre of them all.

In bringing these remarks to a close we must turn to Colossians 3:10, where we have the divine Objective of this great work of renewal, the Objective too which is to be before the hearts of all those who are the happy subjects of the renewing of the present time. Again, as in Ephesians 4, it is said of such, “They have put off the old man and have put on the new”; but it is added as to the new man, “Which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free: but CHRIST IS EVERYTHING, AND IN ALL.” There it is! Our renewing is according to the image of Christ. No lower standard is put before us. He Himself is the image of God. Notice again how this renewing is connected with the mind. The reading should be “renewed into full knowledge.” How important it is, then, that our thinking should be in the divinely indicated direction. How many allow their thoughts to go far astray. The Apostle warns us of those who “mind earthly thing”; and he fears lest by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craft, so our thoughts should be corrupted from simplicity as to CHRIST, for it is to Him we are espoused by divine grace (2 Cor. 11:2-3).

But we have got beyond our psalm. The psalmist realizes at least, as has been said, that God's face — God Himself — is his one necessity; and that one sin discerned by the holy Eye would be impossible for Him to go on with. Does he not realize something of what the ashes of the sin-offering mean, by which just now he has been in reality asking to be purged? We, at least, know this well. But along with the need of sacrifice, there is need of an initial work also; which none but God can effect; — which needs nothing less than the power of the Creator: "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a steadfast spirit within me." And we have learned that we are "created in Christ Jesus unto good works; which God hath before prepared, that we should walk in them" (Eph. 10). He does not speak formally of the new birth; nor was this clearly known until New Testament times; but he despairs of any effectual change by any effort of his own; he; like the apostle; with a groan of anguish turns from an impractical "body of death," to find a Deliverer outside himself altogether. To possess a "clean heart," for such as he has discovered himself to be; God must "create a creation;" and for the psalmist as for us, the light of heaven must be made to break out in self-revealing, God-revealing power; over the yeasty confusion of the barren and restless deep. O blessed and beauteous Light of heaven; though Thou showest us but the fury of the untamed swell of passion and unrest! Even so communion has begun, if fitfully, with God. The soul begins to side with Him, even against itself; and there, I suppose, a "clean heart" has begun. But a "steadfast [or fixed] spirit" goes beyond this, just in the removal of that fitfulness: the heart being at rest for communion as the calm lake mirrors heaven. But we miss here the Christian how of this: the need is felt, but the manner of accomplishment is not known.

Then, will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall he clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you; and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.