New Man
Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology [1]
Older translations use the expression "new man" to render the Greek words neos anthropos [ΝέοςἌνθρωπος], which actually convey the idea of new self or new human with no reference to gender. Later, politically correct translations reflect this fact with greater accuracy. For example, the New Revised Standard Version and the New International Version translate the words as "new self" in Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10 .
The appellation "new man" is not used in the New Revised Standard Version and appears only once in the New International Version where the expression is used in Ephesians 2:15 to refer collectively to the church, the body of Christ, which is an amalgamation of the many diverse and often discordant elements of society. Converts to Christ, whether Jew, Greek, male, female, slave, or free, have become part of one new person, the body of Jesus.
Speaking of Jews and Gentiles as disparate entities, Paul declares that Christ's "purpose was to create in himself one new man ("humanity" NRSV) out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."
John McRay
See also The Church; New Self; Paul The Apostle; Union With Christ
Morrish Bible Dictionary [2]
An expression descriptive of a moral condition or order of man which has come into view in Jesus ( Ephesians 4:21 ), and the character of which is described in that it is created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth. In His death Christ broke down the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile to create the two in Himself into 'one new man,' reconciling both unto God in one body by the cross, there remaining thus as before God no longer Jew or Gentile, but a man of an entirely new order. 'The new man' stands in contrast to 'the old man,' which represents the corrupt state by nature of the children of the first man Adam. This having been put off, the believer has also put on 'the new man,' the state proper to the Christian a new creation in Christ. The new man being created is thus entirely new (καινός). In Colossians 3:10 Christians are viewed as having put off the old man with his deeds, it being replaced by the new (νέος) man, which is renewed (ἀνακαινούμενον) for full knowledge; hence Christ lives in the saints, and His moral traits are developed in life in the one body. Christ is everything (for the old man of every kind is excluded) and is in each saint. For the difference of the two Greek words see NEW.
