The Self According To GOD

 "I say to you, then, and with insistence I advise you, in the LORD: do not imitate the pagans, who live an aimless kind of life.

But it is no for this, that you have followed CHRIST.  For, I suppose, that you heard of HIM, and received HIS teaching, which is seen in JESUS HIMSELF.  You must give up your former way of living, the old self, whose deceitful desires bring self-destruction.  Renew yourselves, spiritually, from inside, and put on the new self, or self, according to GOD, that is created in true righteousness and holiness." - Ephesians 4:17. 20-24 

(The old self and the new self.  This image of Paul opposes two kinds of life that co-exist in every society and in a certain sense, in each of us.  Conversion has not installed us in a state of perfection; even if we are at peace with GOD in a very real sense [Romans 5:1] unity is not in us.  We experience temptation and struggle; our decisions both small and great lead us in one of two directions, either the old self hopelessly ruined and a slave of selfishness, or a person transfigured by love.

The self according to GOD.  GOD created Man in HIS image, but the one who is truly this image is the risen CHRIST, conqueror of sin and of death.  Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, Man is both the CHRIST and humanity at the same time,  and it is each one of us at our place in the "Body."  All that we admire in CHRIST is also for our benefit.

The white garment that adults put on at baptism denotes the change of life that they are beginning.  This renewal may also take place after a retreat or when GOD unexpectedly makes us abandon a routine Christian life devoid of ambition.  Then we put on CHRIST with rediscovered faith.

Paul immediately points out some of the moral requirements of this daily renewal: frankness, sobriety, cleanliness of language and imagination.  Christian faith does not allow us to live in a carefree way, as did the oriental religions in the time of Paul.  There much was said about renaissance and knowledge of mysteries, but nothing about the slavery of sex and the evil of social life.

Old self, new self correspond with other expressions of Paul: "according to the flesh" or "according to the Spirit" [Romans 8:5]; "children of darkness" or "children of light" [Ephesians 5:8]; "slaves of sin" or "persons free in CHRIST" [Galatians 5:1].)

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