The New Man of the Non-Christian is the Christian's Old Man - 05
Say What?
The origin of both the believer and unbeliever is their humanity. All people are made in God’s image. This is incredible. It is something no one can cast off. It is something believers and unbelievers have in common.
There was a greater realization of the beauty of being made in God’s image. Our first parents felt the joy and contentment of it. But then they mucked it up by their sin. And since then, we have all been born wearing their stupid new, designer, autonomous lens sunglasses.
It’s worse than that. We are all born wanting to wear them.
Thankfully, God intervened and adopted some people and un-cemented the sunglasses from off of their faces. These are called His people. They are the Christians. The Christian can now see without the yellow lens, but it certainly takes a while for a Christian’s eyes to adjust to the brilliance of light. In fact, adjusting to this new seeing ability lasts a lifetime.
Perhaps a better metaphor is to say the Christian has been unshackled from the cuffs that held him captive. His old autonomous mind and reason have been broken-up. This is what Paul means when he writes, “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”1
With either metaphor, for the believer’s ability to see and make sense of the world, over the unbeliever, it is “Advantage Christian.” or “Game-Set-and Match, McEnroe!”
Cornelius Van Til refers to the post-Eden, fallen Adam, as “the new man”. This is not to be confused with Paul’s use of the new man as a description of the Christian after conversion.
Van Til calls the fallen man the “new man” in contrast to the original glorious man in whom God’s image and purpose was still whole. Then Van Til tells the Christian to challenge the Non-believer by appealing to the original man that somehow lingers within.2
This is what Van Til writes:
“One knows that there is hidden underneath the surface display of every man a sense of deity. One therefore gives that sense of deity an opportunity to rise in rebellion against the oppression under which it suffers by the new man of the covenant breaker. One makes no deal with the new man. One shows that on his assumptions all things are meaningless.”3
It is important to remember this commonality whenever we communicate with non-believers. We share something important. It is the most important part of our humanity. We are made in God’s image! They want to suppress this. We want to call it out. This becomes a huge tension factor in the teaching and learning process. Believers should lean into it.
So then this is what the commonality and the difference is between the Christian and the Non-Christian.
Non-Christian: Original Man (God’s image) ——New Autonomous Man (lingering sense of deity) ——- Cemented sunglasses
Christian: Original Man (God’s image) —— Old Autonomous Man ——— New Man in Christ with sunglasses removed (but ever adjusting to the light).
Romans 6:17-18
“Somehow lingers within” are my words. In trying to explain Van Til’s thought I do not want to misspeak. He is intentionally exact with how he says things in regard to fallen man and regenerated man and the image of God in man. So, any misrepresentation of his quote is on me.
Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis (New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1998), p. 441