al of human life, fellowship in 'the life of God.' Instead
of that a life of uncleanness has prevailed, made into a regular
business[3], and pursued with 'greediness,' i.e. an entire disregard
{181} for others' rights--such a life as is only possible where all
true human feeling and good taste has been quenched. Men have become
'past feeling.'

As regards the relation of this black picture to the actual facts,
enough has perhaps been said above. At least St. Paul's picture is
given as a direct challenge to the experience of those to whom he
writes; and it is not blacker, at any rate, than the picture given by a
philosophic contemporary at Ephesus, who calls himself Heracleitus.
And on the black background of this 'former manner of life,' this 'old
man' or old manhood--a life ruled by lusts which are not only morally
evil but deceive and mock those who yield to them, leading, in fact, to
nothing but corruption and death, a 'waxing corrupt after the lusts of
deceit'--St. Paul sketches in the new life in Christ. To become a
believer is to submit one's intelligence to learn a new lesson, to
study Christ; it is to yield one's self to a 'form of teaching[4]' in
order to have one's life refashioned in marked contrast to old and
abandoned ways of life; it is to imbibe a new principle in the heart of
one's rational being, 'to be renewed in the spirit of one's mind'; it
is to put on deliberately, as a man puts on clothing, {182} a new
manhood, Christ's manhood, which is 'according to God[5],' that is, is
based on His own life, and is His 'new creation' in righteousness and
holiness. And this righteousness and holiness can never deceive us by
false promises, because they are rooted in 'truth' or reality.

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk
as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened
in their understanding, 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 gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all
uncleanness with greediness. But ye did not so learn Christ; if so be
that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus:
that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old
man, which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit; and that ye be
renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which after
God hath been created in right