Randall Stevens

Andy gives Red a nutshell summary about the later stages of the spiritual life, where the “New Being” is created from on High.

Under the guise of a “fake identity” that he “made up,” through knowledge of the “system,” Andy proceeds to give Red a symbolic depiction of the Scriptural “New Man.” The “New Man” is the miraculous Spiritual Self that God creates “out of nothing,” out of “thin air” when a dedicated interior life is adhered to. To be “Born Again” in the deepest sense is to become this “New Being in Christ” that the New Testament speaks of:

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:22-24).

Dietrich Von Hildebrand adds: “All true Christian life, therefore, must begin with a deep yearning to become a ‘new man’ in Christ, and an inner readiness to ‘put off the old man’ – a readiness to become something fundamentally different.”