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Eph_4:23. Positive side of that which is truth in Jesus: that ye, on the other hand, become renewed in the spirit of your reason.
ἀνανεοῦσθαι ] passive, not middle (renew yourselves, Luther), since the middle has an active sense (1Ma_12:1; Thuc. v. 18, 43; Polyb. vii. 3. 1, and often). The renewal is God’s work through the Holy Spirit (Rom_8:1 f.; Tit_3:5), and without it one is no true Christian (Rom_8:9; Gal_5:15), consequently there can be no mention of ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ . Respecting the distinction between ἀνανεόω (only here in the N.T.) and ἀνακαινόω , recentare and renovare, as also respecting ἀνα , which does not refer to the restitution of human nature, as it was before the fall, but denotes the recentare in reference to the previous (corrupt) state, see on Col_3:10.
τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν ] The genitive is at any rate that of the subject; for instead of simply saying τῷ πνεύματι ὑμῶν ,[241] Paul makes use of the more precise designation in the text. But the τῷ πνεύματι may be either instrumental or dative of reference. In the former case, however, we should, with Oecumenius, Castalio, and others, including Ch. F. Fritzsche in his Nov. Opusc. p. 244 f., and Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 28, have to understand the Holy Spirit, who has His seat in the νοῦς of the man on whom He is bestowed, and through whom (dative) the ἀνακαίνωσις τοῦ νοός , Rom_12:2, is effected, so that now the old ματαιότης of the νοῦς (Eph_4:17) no longer occurs, and the καινότης , which, on the other hand, has set in (Rom_4:4), is a καινότης τοῦ πνεύματος . Comp. Tit_3:5. But, in opposition to this view, we may urge, first, that the Holy Spirit bestowed on man is never in the N.T. designated in such a way that man appears as the subject of the Spirit (thus never: τὸ πνεῦμα ὑμῶν and the like, or as here: τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν ); and secondly, that it was the object of the apostle to put forward the aspect of the moral self-activity of the Christian life, and hence, he had no occasion expressly to introduce the point, which, moreover, was obvious of itself: through the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, there remains as the right explanation only the usual one (dative of reference), according to which the πνεῦμα is the human spirit, different from the divine (Rom_8:16). Consequently: in respect of the spirit of your νοῦς , that is, of the spirit by which your νοῦς is governed. The πνεῦμα , namely, is the higher life-principle in man, the moral power akin to God in him, the seat of moral self-consciousness and of moral self-determination. This πνεῦμα , which forms the moral personality of man, the Ego of his higher ζωή turned towards God, has as the organ of its vital exercise—as the faculty of its moral operation—the νοῦς , that is, the reason in its ethical quality and activity (comp. on Rom_7:23), and puts the νοῦς [242] at the service of the divine will (Rom_7:25), in an assent to the moral practice of this divine will revealed in the law and a hatred of the contrary (Rom_7:14 ff.). But, since this Ego of the higher life, the substratum of the inward man—the πνεῦμα , in which the νοῦς has its support and its determining agent—is under the preponderant strength of the power of sin in the flesh non-free, bound, and weak, so that man under the fleshly-psychical influence of the natural character drawing him to sin becomes liable to the slavery of immoral habit, the πνεῦμα τοῦ νοός needed renewal unto moral freedom and might, which consecration of power it receives in regeneration by means of the Holy Spirit, in which case, however, even the regenerate has always to contend against the σάρξ still remaining in him, but contends victoriously under the guidance of the divine πνεῦμα (Gal_5:16-18).
[241] He might have written, as in Rom_12:2, merely τῷ νοῒ ὑμῶν ; but his conception here penetrates deeper, namely, to the fountainhead of the vital activity of the νοῦς , to the inner agent and mover in that activity.
[242] Bengel excellently puts it: “Spiritu mentis: 1Co_14:14, Spiritus est intimum mentis.” Delitzsch consequently errs (Psychol, p. 184) in thinking that expositors have here neglected to seek instruction from 1Co_14:14.