In the phrase εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν, the preposition cannot signify the instrumental cause of the renewal, but it denotes the final purpose. The new man is renewed “unto knowledge.” The meaning of ἐπίγνωσις may be seen under
Ephesians 1:17; and in this epistle,
Colossians 1:9;
Colossians 2:2. And that perfect knowledge has a close connection with God, for it is characterized as being-
κατ᾿ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν—“After the image of Him who created him.” A large number of expositors connect the clause directly with the participle ἀνακαινούμενον, the image of God being the pattern after which the believer is renewed. Meyer joins it more closely to εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν, but the meaning is not materially different. The likeness is renewed after the image of God, and the special feature of that image selected by the apostle is knowledge. The knowledge of the renewed man corresponds in certain elements to that of God. Other features of resemblance of a moral nature are referred to in the parallel passage,
Ephesians 4:24. That image is said to belong to God the creator, not Christ, as was supposed in the early church, and as is understood by Müller. A peculiar exegesis is adopted by a-Lapide and Schleiermacher, the former making τοῦ κτίσαντος the object of the knowledge; and the latter thus explaining the image-
so erneuet, dass man an ihm das Ebenbild Gottes erkennen kann.
But what creation is referred to? Is it the first or the second creation? Many incline to the first view, as if the apostle meant that man is brought back to that likeness which God gave him on the day of creation. So Calovius, Heinsius, Estius, Schoettgen, and De Wette. But though this be a truth, it is not that precise form of truth conveyed by the apostle's language. It is not of man generally, but of the new man that he speaks-the new man renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him who created him, to wit, the new man. The apostle does not say-who created you. The new man is the converted spiritual nature, not the man himself in proper person. It is this creation of the new man, not that of the man himself, which is ascribed to God. Thus, the parallel passage in
Ephesians 4:24 says expressly—“the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” This new nature is of God, and not of self-development. All creation is indeed from God, and this new creation is no exception. The new man is not the ethical symbol of a mere reformation which a strong will may achieve; nor is it any change of creed, party, or opinions, which is the result of personal examination and conviction. These are but as statuary, compared with living humanity; for however close the resemblance, there is always, in spite of highest art, the still eye and the motionless lip. Yes, God's work is a living power, something so compact and richly endowed, so fitted to our nature, and so much a part of us as to be called a
man, but at the same time so foreign to all previous powers and enjoyments as to be called the
new man.
As the first man was made by God, and in His image, so is this new man. The special point of resemblance stated is knowledge. This may have been selected, as an allusion to the boasted knowledge and proud philosophy of the false teachers in Colosse.
Colossians 2:2. There are, it is true, many points in which our relative knowledge shall never, and can never, resemble the absolute Divine omniscience. But as the Spirit is the source of our knowledge, no one can predict what amount of it, or what forms of it, He may communicate when the mind is freed from every shadow and bias, and is surrounded with an atmosphere of universal truth. Human language is necessarily an imperfect vehicle of thought, and it may then be dispensed with. “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face,”-our conceptions shall resemble God's in fulness and truth; for no dim medium of intellectual vision shall shade or disturb our views. Immediate cognition shall also be our privilege—“now we know in part, but then shall we know, even as we are known.”
In accordance with that strange theory by which Müller would account for the origin of sin-a theory at once above the domain of consciousness and beyond the limits of Scripture, he denies that there is any biblical warrant for the idea that man, having lost the image of God by the fall, has it restored to him under the gospel by the renovating influence of the Spirit of God. His notion of a pre-temporal state, in which man fell, when, how, or where, he does not say, necessitates him to the conclusion, that when Adam fell, man lost nothing, but that there was only awakened in him the consciousness of a previous want and deficiency, so that sinful principles already within him acquired universal dominion over the human race. A transition, on the part of Adam, from an absolutely pure state into one of sin, is not, he holds, necessarily contained in the inspired record. “The narrative of the first sin, as well as the description of that condition which preceded it, does not of necessity lead us to any further idea than that of an initial state in which sin has not yet made its appearance,” and does not imply, “that Adam through his fall implanted in human nature a principle previously foreign to it.” Müller's inference, of course, is, that it cannot be properly said that the Divine image is restored to man, seeing that on earth, at least, he never possessed it. The passage before us, and the parallel passage in
Ephesians 4:24, certainly affirm that the new man is the reflection of the Divine image in some of its features. They do not indeed affirm, in as many words, that he becomes possessed of the same Divine image which he once enjoyed. But the statement is virtually implied. Had man never this Divine image, and does he enjoy it for the first time through faith in Christ? “The new man,” Müller says, & ldq uo;is the holy form of human life which results from redemption.” Now, not to say that the very idea of redemption, reconciliation, or renewal, implies a restoration to some previous state in which none of them was needed, there being in that state no penalty to be ransomed from, no enmity to be subdued, and no impurity to be cleansed away-let us see what revelation teaches as to man's primeval condition and his possession of the Divine image.
