Ephesians 2:10

2:10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them. ¹ 

Psalms 51:10

51:10 Create for me a pure heart, O God! ² 

Renew a resolute spirit within me! ³ 

Ezekiel 11:19

11:19 I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them; ⁴  I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies ⁵  and I will give them tender hearts, ⁶ 

Ezekiel 18:31

18:31 Throw away all your sins you have committed and fashion yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! ⁷  Why should you die, O house of Israel?

Ezekiel 36:26

36:26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone ⁸  from your body and give you a heart of flesh. ⁹ 

Romans 12:2

12:2 Do not be conformed ¹⁰  to this present world, ¹¹  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve ¹²  what is the will of God – what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.

Colossians 3:10

3:10 and have been clothed with the new man ¹³  that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it.

Titus 3:5

3:5 he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit,

[2:10]  ¹ tn Grk “so that we might walk in them” (or “by them”).

[51:10]  ² sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s motives and moral character.

[51:10]  ³ tn Heb “and a reliable spirit renew in my inner being.”

[11:19]  ⁴ tc The MT reads “you”; many Hebrew mss along with the LXX and other ancient versions read “within them.”

[11:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “their flesh.”

[11:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “heart of flesh.”

[18:31]  ⁷ sn In Ezek 11:19, 36:26 the new heart and new spirit are promised as future blessings.

[36:26]  ⁸ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive (see 1 Sam 25:37). In Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a).

[36:26]  ⁹ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is responsive and obedient to God.

[12:2]  ¹⁰ tn Although συσχηματίζεσθε (suschmatizesqe) could be either a passive or middle, the passive is more likely since it would otherwise have to be a direct middle (“conform yourselves”) and, as such, would be quite rare for NT Greek. It is very telling that being “conformed” to the present world is viewed as a passive notion, for it may suggest that it happens, in part, subconsciously. At the same time, the passive could well be a “permissive passive,” suggesting that there may be some consciousness of the conformity taking place. Most likely, it is a combination of both.

[12:2]  ¹¹ tn Grk “to this age.”

[12:2]  ¹² sn The verb translated test and approve (δοκιμάζω, dokimazw) carries the sense of “test with a positive outcome,” “test so as to approve.”

[3:10]  ¹³ sn Put off all such things. The commands in vv. 8-9 are based on two reasons given in vv. 9-10 – reasons which are expressed in terms of a metaphor about clothing oneself. Paul says that they have put off the old man and have put on the new man. Two things need to be discussed in reference to Paul’s statement. (1) What is the meaning of the clothing imagery (i.e., the “have put off” and “have been clothed”)? (2) What is the meaning of the old man and the new man? Though some commentators understand the participles “have put off” (v. 9) and “have been clothed” (v. 10) as imperatives (i.e., “put off!” and “put on!”), this use of participles is extremely rare in the NT and thus unlikely here. It is better to take them as having the semantic force of indicatives, and thus they give an explanation of what had happened to the Colossians at the time of their conversion – they had taken off the old man and put on the new when they trusted in Christ (cf. 1:4). While it is difficult to say for certain what the background to Paul’s “clothing” metaphor might be (whether it is primarily Jewish and comes from the OT, or primarily Gentile and comes from some facet of the Greco-Roman religious milieu), it is nonetheless clear, on the basis of Paul’s usage of the expression, that the old man refers to man as he is in Adam and dominated by sin (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22), while the new man refers to the Christian whose new sphere of existence is in Christ. Though the metaphor of clothing oneself primarily reflects outward actions, there is a distinct inward aspect to it, as the rest of v. 10 indicates: being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Paul’s point, then, is that Christians should take off their dirty clothing (inappropriate behavior) and put on clean clothing (behavior consistent with knowing Christ) because this has already been accomplished in a positional sense at the time of their conversion (cf. Gal 3:27 with Rom 13:14).