The Renewed Inner Man

There is among most people a shameful ignorance regarding the teachings about the inner man, its existence, its characteristics, patience, and its freedom in worship.

It amazes me that there are people in Christendom who are completely unaware of the inner man. Such people must not know whether they are pagans or Christians, believers or unbelievers, nor are they, it seems, aware of what Paul reminds us of in 2 Corinthians 13:5: Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

If there were no new inner man, what use would the excellent secret of the new birth be? Is not a new man born during the new birth? And this same new man is indeed an inner man and not an outer man. It is the renewed image of God in us, as Paul writes in Ephesians 4:22-24: You were taught, 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 true righteousness and holiness.

This renewal in knowing God according to His image is the inner man in which the knowledge of God is renewed.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18: But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The image of God, or the inner man, grows daily, and the Holy Spirit builds upon it daily, renews it day by day, and we grow and increase in the knowledge of God. This is what Paul desires and prays for in Ephesians 3:16-19 and in Galatians 5:25: To live and walk in the Spirit, that is, in faith, in the knowledge of God, and to put off the old carnal life and take on the new spiritual life, which is a gentle spirit.

Peter writes in his first letter 3:3-4 about the manner of conduct and behaviour of holy women, that it should be in a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.