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Eph_4:24. Observe the change of tenses. The laying aside of the old man is the negative commencement of the change, and hence is represented as a momentary act; the becoming renewed is an enduring process, the finishing act of which is the putting on of the new man, correlative to the ἀποθέσθαι ,. Hence ἀποθέσθαι , aorist; ἀνανεοῦσθαι , present; ἐνδύσασθαι , aorist.
τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον ] As previously the old immoral state is objectivized, and objectivized indeed as a person, so is it also here with the new Christian moral state. Thus this new habitus appears as the new man, which God has created ( κτισθέντα ), but man appropriates for himself ( ἐνδύσασθαι ), so that thus moral freedom is not annulled by God’s ethical creative action.
κτισθέντα ] not present, but the new moral habitus of the Christian is set forth as the person created by God, which in the individual cases is not first constituted by growth, but is received, and then exhibits itself experimentally in the case of those who, according to the figurative expression of the passage, have put it on.
κατὰ Θεόν ] Comp. Col_3:10; not merely divinely, and that in contrast to human propagation (Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 289), but: according to God, i.e. ad exemplum Dei (Gal_4:28). Thereby the creation of the new man is placed upon a parallel with that of our first parents (Gen_1:27), who were created after God’s image ( κατʼ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος , Col_3:10); they, too, until through Adam sin came into existence, were as sinless ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ὁσιότητι τῆς ἀληθείας .[243]
ἘΝ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΎΝῌ Κ . Τ . Λ .] belongs to ΤῸΝ ΚΑΤᾺ ΘΕῸΝ ΚΤΙΣΘΈΝΤΑ , expressing the constitution of the new man created after God; furnished, provided with rectitude and holiness of the truth (on ἐν , see Matthiae, p. 1340). The truth is the opposite of the ἀπάτη , Eph_4:22 and like this personified. As in the old man the ἈΠΆΤΗ pursues its work, so in the new man the ἈΛΉΘΕΙΑ , i.e. the Truth κατʼ ἐξοχήν , the divine evangelical truth, bears sway, and the moral effects of the truth, righteousness and holiness, appear here, where the truth is personified, as its attributes, which now show themselves in the new man who has been created. The resolving it into an adjective: true, not merely apparent, righteousness and holiness (Chrysostom, Luther, Castalio, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, and most expositors), is arbitrary and tame. And to take ἐν instrumentally (Morus, Flatt) is erroneous, for the reason that righteousness and holiness form the ethical result of the creation of the new man; hence Beza, Koppe, and others thought that ἐν must be taken for ΕἸς . ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΎΝΗ and ὉΣΙΌΤΗς (comp. Luk_1:75; 1Th_2:10; Tit_1:8) are distinguished so, that the latter places rectitude in itself ( ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΎΝΗ ), in relation to God (sanctitas); τὸ μὲν τοῖς θεοῖς προσφιλὲς ὅσιον , Plat. Euth. p. 6 E. See Tittmann, Synon. p. 25, and the passages in Wetstein. With special frequency the two notions are associated in Plato.
[243] Comp. Ernesti, Ursprung der Sünde, II. p. 135 ff., in opposition to Julius Müller, II. p. 487, who calls in question the identity of contents between the κατὰ θεόν and the original divine image.