The Apostle proceeds to say of his Ephesian converts, “but _ye_ have not so learned Christ”—“if so be, that ye have heard Him” (or rather, as the phrase may properly imply, _forasmuch_ as ye have heard Him) “and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus.” And what had they heard, as necessary to their salvation by His name, and what is the truth they had been taught?—“that ye put off, concerning the former conversation (the former life and conduct), the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts” (the worldly principles and the sinful habits above described, to which you were addicted before your conversion); and “be renewed (or made new) in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;” the change thus produced being so great and important as to be compared to a new creation; the inner man being totally different from what he was before. It is said, moreover, that the new man “is created _after God_ in righteousness;” this is fully explained by the same Apostle, in his Epistle to the Colossians, where he is treating on the same subject; he there speaks of the converts being renewed “after the image of Him who created them.” {211} At the creation of Adam, God is represented as saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” that is, in perfect innocence and purity. Thus was Adam formed, perfectly upright and holy: by disobedience his nature was changed; he became sinful and unholy; and this change was entailed upon all his posterity. The object, therefore, of the new creation is to restore in us, as far as we are now capable of it, that image of divine righteousness, which man lost by the fall. On considering, then, the holy nature of God, we are at once made acquainted with that change, in the natural man, which the gospel teaches and requires; we are brought to perceive and acknowledge that “true holiness,” which as Christians we are bound to desire and attain.