Albert Barnes Commentary Ephesians 4:24

"and put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth." — Ephesians 4:24 (ASV)

And that you put on the new man. The new man refers to the renovated nature. This is called, in other places, the "new creature" or the "new creation" (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), and refers to the condition after the heart is changed.

The change is so great that there is no impropriety in speaking of one who has experienced it as "a new man." He has new feelings, principles, and desires. He has laid aside his old principles and practices, and in everything that pertains to moral character, he is new.

His body is indeed the same, and the intellectual structure of his mind is the same, but there has been a change in his principles and feelings which makes him, in all the great purposes of life, a new being.

Learn, then, that regeneration is not a trifling change. It is not a mere change of relations or of outward condition. It is not merely being brought from the world into the church and being baptized, though by the most holy hands; it is much more. None of these things would make the declaration "he is a new man" proper. Regeneration by the Spirit of God does.

After God. kata Theon. In respect to God. The idea is evidently that man is so renewed as to become like God, or the Divine image is restored to the soul. In the parallel passage in Colossians 3:10, the idea is expressed more fully: renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Man, by regeneration, is restored to the lost image of God. .

Is created. This is a word often used to denote the new birth, from its strong resemblance to the first act of creation. Its meaning is further explored in connection with 2 Corinthians 5:17.

In righteousness. That is, the renewed man is made to resemble God in righteousness. This proves that man, when he was made, was righteous, or that righteousness constituted a part of the image of God in which he was created. The object of the work of redemption is to restore to man the lost image of God, or to bring him back to the condition in which he was before he fell.

And true holiness. The marginal reading, as in Greek, is holiness of truth—standing in contrast with the lusts of deceit (Greek) mentioned in Ephesians 4:22. Holiness properly refers to purity towards God, and righteousness to integrity towards men, but it is not certain that this distinction is observed here. The general idea is that the renovated man is made an upright and a pious man, and that therefore he should avoid the vices which are practiced by the heathen and which the apostle proceeds to specify. This phrase also proves that, when man was created, he was a holy being.