31
The New Man
(Eph. 4:20-24)
But ye have not so learned Christ;
If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
We have
all seen “before and after pictures,” where the before picture is, for example,
an overweight or bald person and the after picture is the same person now slim
and trim or with a thick head of hair. The pictures, of course, are designed to
sell us a new diet pill or fitness machine, a magic formula for hair
restoration, plastic surgery, and so forth. My son once made the observation
concerning an “overweight” commercial that it always seems that in the after
picture the person is also beautifully tanned; I’m not sure how that applies to
the product their selling.
While the
Apostle Paul isn’t trying to sell us anything, he does show us dramatic before
and after pictures in Ephesians 4:17-24. As examined in our last study, in
verses 17-19, Paul shows us what we were before Christ came into our lives: our
understanding was darkened, we were alienated from the life of God, ignorant,
spiritually blind, past feeling, and were living in lasciviousness,
uncleanness, and greed. Not a pretty picture. This was the old man; old,
as mentioned in the last chapter, is palaios, which means “old in the
sense of worn out, decrepit, useless.”[1]
In verses
20-24, however, we see a truly beautiful “after picture.” Using the same
approach as in our last study, let us now gaze upon the “New Man.”
I. What The New Man Is (v.24a)
the new man
As the
term “Old Man” is not actually used until verse 22 but is clearly in view in
verses 17-19, likewise the term New Man does not appear until verse 24
but is clearly seen in verses 21-23. We recall that the “Old Man” was all that
we were positionally in Adam, the guilt, penalty, power, and dominion of sin.
Therefore, the New Man must quite obviously be something totally new,
something quite unique.
New translates a very significant
Greek word, kainos. Another word translated new is neos, which
“refers to something new in time, to something that recently has come
into existence.” In contrast, kainos “refers to something new in quality,”
as it would be distinguished from something that is old and worn out.[2] This word is used, for example, to
refer to the “new tomb” in which Joseph of Arimathea laid the body of Jesus
(Matt. 27:60). It was not a new tomb that had recently been hewn from the rock
(which would be neos, new in time), rather one that had never been used
and was therefore new in the sense of quality.
The New
Man, then, is something that has not existed before. Using a descriptive
Latin word, one commentator writes that the New Man “is more than a new habitus,
it is the life principle itself which produces the habitus.”[3] Habitus (English, “habit”)
describes condition, character, dress, or appearance, so the New Man is
more than that, more than a new habit, dress, or appearance; he has been inwardly
transformed, which is what produces the new character and new habits.
A key
verse to understanding this truth is II Corinthians 5:17, which we have
referred to several times throughout this exposition: “Therefore, if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things
are become new.” As one would expect, new is again kainos. The
Christian is, therefore, a “new creature,” not new in the sense of time—as
in the date he received Christ as Savior—rather new in quality, a
creature that has never existed before, a creature with a new character.
Spiros
Zodhiates brings out a key truth concerning kainos as it is used in this
verse, that it “metaphorically [speaks] of Christians who are renewed and
changed from evil to good by the Spirit of God,” that they have “a new heart, a
transformed, saved heart.”[4] A similar Hebrew word (chadash)
is used for new in the Old Testament and is, in fact, translated kainos
in the Septuagint. It appears in Ezekiel 18:31, for example: “Cast away from
you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new
heart and a new spirit.” Chadash is used to indicate something new in an
obsolete sense, never seen or done before” as in “a new song of praise God’s
people will sing to Him (Ps. 33:3 . . .).”[5]
It is precisely because kainos speaks of new in quality,
something that has never before existed, something transformed, that we made
the point in the last chapter that it is inaccurate to use the terms “old
nature” and “new nature.” As one commentator rightly observes, “The old man
is not converted, he cannot be; he is not renewed, he cannot be. He can only be
replaced by the new man.”[6] While we
often use the term “converted,” it’s really not the most precise term. More
accurately, we have been transformed into something that has never before
existed. At salvation the “old man” was done away with, and created in its
place was the New Man, “which after God is created in righteousness and
true holiness” (v. 24b). This is the “divine nature” of which we have been made
“partakers” (II Pet. 1:4, see below). The “new nature” has not be tacked onto
the “old nature”—that is not what Scripture says—rather the “old man” has been
done away with and the “divine nature” has been put in its place.
Ponder a
moment what things become new. First, and foremost, there is a new
meaning to life. Before Christ came into us, there was no meaning to life,
nothing to live for because spiritual death awaited. I once heard someone sum
up life this way, “Life is hard and then you die.” What a depressing view of
life this is, but it is accurate for the unbeliever. Only Christ can give us
meaning to life. There are countless other things that become new: desires,
purposes, loves, motives, goals, values, relationships, attitudes, activities,
knowledge, will, and on it goes. The old ways are not “reformed,” rather they
are done away with and replaced with the new ways.
This same
truth appears in Romans 6:4: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into
death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness [kainotes] of life.” Why
do we walk in newness of life? Because we have a new life!
One of the
most important verses on this subject is II Peter 1:4, where we are told that
we are: “partakers of the Divine nature.” Again, this does not mean that the
believer has two natures—again, Scripture does not say that. Rather, the
“Old Man” (all that we were positionally in Adam) died and was replaced by “the
Divine nature.” May we also strongly emphasize that neither does this mean that
we never sin; it does not mean sin has been eradicated from us. We do still sin
at times because the “flesh” dwells within us. In Romans 6 Paul tells us that
we are positionally dead to sin, freed from it. Then in chapter 7, as noted in
our last study, Paul tells us that we still struggle with the “flesh” (the
selfish propensities that reside is us). But he goes on to say in chapter 8
that we can have victory over the flesh by the Holy Spirit Who dwells within.
To fully
understand these truths, it must be understood that the Old Man (falsely
called the “old nature”) is not the same as the “flesh.” Making these terms synonymous
is why there has been so much confusion on this subject. The Old Man is
gone! We are now the “New Man.” We have been transformed and are
continually being transformed by “the renewing of [our] mind” (Rom. 12:2). It
is because we are “partakers of the Divine nature” that we can live holy. May
we put the matter this way: sin still resides in us, but it no
longer reigns over us. It did reign over man before Christ died;
man could not help but sin. But because of Christ’s death, we no longer have to
sin. As mentioned in the last chapter, We do not have the inability to sin,
but we do have the ability not to sin.
As also mentioned in the last chapter, some argue
that the distinction we’ve made here between the two views—that is, “old
nature” and “new nature” verses “the flesh” and “the divine nature”—is just
“semantics.” But may we again submit that so called “semantics” are important
because words mean something. It’s because of semantics that many key doctrines
today are being diluted, disregarded, or even denied. We must be absolutely
precise when we are speaking of Truth. The preacher who does not do so
betrays his calling. And the truth is that there are not two natures in the
believer, which implies that we were only half regenerated. Rather we have been
transformed, the old man being replaced by the new man We
still sin not because of the “old nature,” but because the new spiritual man is
still in the old body and must still contend with the infirmities of the
flesh.
II. The Characteristics of the New Man (vs. 20-24)
But ye have not so learned Christ;
If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Recall a
moment the characteristics of the Old Man from our last study:
Intellectual Deficiency, Spiritual Debility, and Moral Depravity. The
characteristics of the New Man are in direct contrast and are the exact
opposite of those of the Old Man: Intellectual Ductility, Spiritual
Durability, and Moral Decency.
Intellectual Ductility
(vs. 20-21)
But ye have not so learned Christ;
If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
Ductility means “capable of being fashioned
into a new form, capable of being molded or worked.” God wants the believer to
be “ductile;” He wants us capable and willing to be formed and fashioned into
the image He desires.
Verses
20-21 picture what we might call “the Schoolhouse of Christ,” in that they
provide us with three principles of education with Christ at the center: He is
the Subject, the Schoolmaster, and even the Surroundings.
First, Christ is the Subject of
study. Verse 20 is in strong contrast to verses 17-19. The words ye have not
so learned Christ literally say, “You didn’t come to know Christ in this
way.” The term learned Christ appears only here in the New Testament and
refers not to learning things about Christ, but knowing Christ
personally. We can, for example, learn much about any historical figure,
such as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, by reading books about them, but
we could never “learn them” because they are dead. In contrast, we can
actually “learn Christ” by a personal relationship.
To
illustrate, when we say a person learns a trade or learns a sport, they don’t
just learn about it, they learn it. They learn its history, its
practitioners, its principles, its fine points, those little “tricks of the
trade.” The result is that they know that trade or that sport. Likewise, to
“learn Christ” is to learn Him, His life, His ways, His purposes. Paul
is, therefore, saying, “You didn’t come to know Christ through the
characteristics of the Old Man. It’s impossible to know Christ personally while
living the life of the Old Man; the two are incompatible and contradictory.”
Christ,
then, is the subject of all our learning; to know Him is ultimate knowledge.
May we all fully grasp the thrust of Philippians 3:10: “That I may know him.” Let
us remember Paul’s great knowledge, not only spiritual but secular. Through the
revered rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), Paul would have received a thorough
education, including the classics (note Titus 1:12, where he refers to
Epeminides). But he never lifts up such knowledge as important. Rather, after
years of education and then thrity years of ministry, he declares, “That I may know him.” In
the surrounding context (v. 8), he says everything else is “dung” by
comparison. Nothing can equal the knowledge of our Lord. This should be the desire of every believer, and if it is not,
there is something dreadfully wrong. This leads to the deeper truth of verse
21.
Second, Christ
is the Schoolmaster because ye have heard him. Several modern
translations seriously err here. The NIV is clearly wrong with “you heard of
him,”[7] and the NRSV and NLT read “you
have heard about him” (NLT, “all about”), as does the ESV, which while
growing in popularity is at its core simply a rehashing of the corrupt RSV. The
words “of” and “about” are wrongly inserted with no Greek support whatsoever.
Our AV translation renders exactly what the Greek says in good English, ye
have heard him (“Him ye heard” in the Greek text)—not about Him or of
Him, but Him—that is, we have heard Him speak. What a
thought! We constantly hear advocates of modern translations say that doctrine
is never affected by such differences in translation, but such statements are
ridiculous. There is a vast difference between hearing of Him and
hearing Him.
What Paul
is clearly saying, then, is that while the Ephesian believers had not been
taught by Christ in person, that is, while he was physically present, He
was no less their teacher as He speaks through His Word by the power of His
Spirit. Christ is, indeed, the Schoolmaster, still teaching us from Heaven
through His indwelling Spirit. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (Jn. 14:26).
What a truth that is! Through His Word and Spirit, our Lord Himself continues
to teach us.
Third, Christ is the Surroundings;
that is, He is the context, the environment, in which all this teaching occurs.
Specifically, this environment is the truth [that] is in Jesus. This is
the third of six occurrences of the word Truth in this Epistle (1:13;
4:15, 21, 25; 5:9; 6:14). As we’ve seen, God is the source of Truth, and
Truth cannot be found outside of His revelation. Truth is in Jesus,
as our Lord Himself declared in John 14:6—“I am the way, the truth, and the
life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Think of it! Truth is
the environment for learning, and Jesus is Truth. Why are
children and young adults learning evolution, Humanism, and other such
philosophies? Because they are being taught not in an environment of Truth
but an environment of lies. Only in environment of Truth can we learn
Truth.
There is a
subtlety here that is often overlooked. We should notice that Paul uses the
name Jesus here in a way he has not done before in the entire letter. He
just used the title Christ in verse 20, so why Jesus here?
Additionally, while he uses Jesus elsewhere in the letter, it is always
in conjunction with other titles, such as “Lord Jesus Christ” (e.g., 1:2) or
“Christ Jesus” (e.g., 2:6-7). While some commentators see no importance in this
and just call it a “stylistic variation” that has no “theological
significance,”[8] that is an error. The change in
title is simply too obvious not to be deliberate.
So why the change? Greek authority Kenneth Wuest explains it this way: “Jesus is used rather than Christ; the historical rather than the official name. The life of Christianity consists in believing fellowship with the historic Jesus, who is the Christ of prophecy.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones, however, said it best:
Paul
is really say that we must not think of salvation in loose, vague terms; we must
not talk about some great cosmic Christ who exerts an influence upon men in
this world; we must not hold on to salvation merely as an idea and as a concept
and as a thought. Not at all! The Apostle says we must think it all out in
terms of Jesus. Now this Apostle of all men is fond of using the full
term the Lord Jesus Christ, but here he says, “as the truth is in Jesus.”
And for this good reason, that the Christian is not saved by a philosophy of
redemption; he is saved by that historic Person, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God![9]
I was especially struck by that last statement: “the Christian is not saved by a philosophy of redemption.” Indeed, it’s not a philosophical concept or even a theological doctrine that saves us, rather the person of Jesus. Every philosophical school and every religious system is built merely on ideas. Christianity is found on the person of Jesus.
May we also add, countless attacks through the ages have
been on the person of Jesus. His Deity and humanity have always been
battlegrounds. Heretics by the scores and cults by the hundreds have denied the
“Historical Jesus,” and they are still doing it today. But the New Testament
mentions the name Jesus by itself, as here in this verse, some 612 times
(AV). Why? Because it is the name of salvation. Jesus (Iesous)
is the human name of our Lord and means “Savior,” that is, “He shall save His
people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). The Greek (and Latin) Iesous
corresponds to the Hebrew Jeshua, which is equivalent to “Joshua,”
and means “the Lord is salvation.” That is why men must attack and destroy Jesus;
with Him intact, they must deny themselves, deny their religion, deny their
works, and trust Him only for salvation. And that they will not do.
So, the
first characteristic of the “New Man” is Intellectual Ductility. We now
have a new mind. We have learned Christ because of the “New Man,”
because of God’s Word working in the mind. God wants to mold our minds because
the world today is working overtime to try to mold them into its image.
We’ll see
more of this in our next point.
Spiritual Durability (vs.
22-24a).
That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
And that ye put on the new man,
The Old
Man is indeed corrupt, and, as we said in our last chapter, a
characteristic of the Old Man is “spiritual debility” (weakness,
feebleness). But, as verse 22 declares, it is this is, as well as our former
conversation (Old English for “previous behavior”), that we put off
at salvation because it is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. As
one commentator observes, the tense of the verb for which is corrupt
(Present or Passive Participle) yields the idea of “corrupting himself,” that
man is “working steadily at his own ruin and destruction.”[10] Of course, most people do not
deliberately desire to destroy themselves; people don’t, for example, step in
front of a moving train. But while they do not do this consciously, they are
doing it nonetheless.
There is
no better example of this in all human history than the fall of the Roman
Empire. In his classic book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
the famous 18th Century historian Edward Gibbon held that
Christianity was the chief cause of Rome’s fall, that “it destroyed the old
faith that had given moral character to the Roman soul and stability to the
Roman state.” World-renowned historian Will Durant, however, rightly points out
that while there is some truth to that charge, “the growth of Christianity was
more an effect than a cause of Rome’s decay” (emphasis added). He
goes on to say that her fall was not an event but a process that was spread
over 300 years. Many nations, in fact, have not existed as long as it took Rome
to fall. No truer words have been written than Durant’s introductory statement,
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has been destroyed
from within.”
Durant
continues by outlining in several pages the many contributions to Rome’s fall.
One contribution was economic. Centuries of mining had lowered the supply of
metals, and deforestation, erosion, and neglect of irrigation canals greatly
affected farming. Other economic problems were the growing dependence upon
grain grown in the provinces, collapse of the slave supply, more importing of
goods than exporting, stifling taxes, and several other factors.
Another
contribution was biologic, the massive decrease in population caused not only
by pestilence, revolution, and war, but more so from family limitation. Such
limitation was not voluntary through contraception, abortion, and infanticide,
but also involuntary through sexual excesses that lowered fertility. As poverty
grew, infanticide grew to terrible proportions.
There were
also political causes. No longer were there great Roman statesmen, just petty
despots who taxed the people heavily to support their luxury and abuses. Most
Romans lost total interest in government because they had no way of expressing
their will except by violence. As a result, patriotism disappeared and people
just became absorbed in their business and pleasure.
Perhaps
the greatest contributor, however, was morality, simply because there was none.
Besides what we’ve already mentioned, urban congestion and uncontrolled
immigration thrust together a hundred different cultures that conflicted. Moral
restraints disappeared and sex ran riot everywhere.[11]
I hope the
reader has already observed that had we not mentioned that this description was
of Rome, we could easily think we were talking about America.
Most of the elements are there. Like Rome, America is corrupt, that is,
she is “corrupting herself,” and we can only wonder how much longer she will
stand.
It is for
this reason that we are to put off any resemblance to the Old Man.
The expression put off (apotithēmi) is taken from the picture of
taking off a garment and is in the Aorist Tense showing a once-for-all putting
off of the Old Man. As we would take off old worthless clothes and never
use them again, we take off the Old Man.
Commentator
John Phillips recounts the time when he read the following words in the window of a dry cleaning establishment: “If
your clothes aren’t becoming to you, you should be coming to us.” While that
was a clever slogan, it’s not what Paul is saying here. We don’t send our old
garments out to be cleaned; they are not becoming to a Christian so we take
them off forever. That is precisely what is the problem with so-called “moral
reform.” You cannot change people’s lives until you first change their hearts.
We cannot mend the Old Man; he must be transformed into the New Man.
Many have
the mistaken idea that the Old Man is put off sometime during our
Christian walk, but that is false. The Old Man was put off at
salvation—the old garment was removed. The application of this is that a person
who claims to be a Christian, but whose life has not changed, is not truly born
again.
A question
arises here. As we saw in our last study, Romans 6:6 declares that we are
already dead to sin, that the Old Man, all that were in Adam, was
destroyed. So why does Paul now say to put off what has already been
destroyed? The answer is simple: Romans 6:6 is positional, while
Ephesians 4:22 is practical; the first is doctrinal, the second experiential.
Paul is saying, “I want what has happened positionally to be true in your
experience.” Yes, we are dead to sin because of what Jesus accomplished in the
past, which is exactly why we now willfully don’t act like sinners anymore. We
are not the Old Man, so we must not act like we are.
Martyn-Lloyd
Jones offers a good example. After the Civil War, and the freeing of the
slaves, many of those slaves forget they were free or just didn’t know how to
act free. Though free, many of them continued living like slaves in the same
servile and fearful attitude as before.[12] Likewise, while the old man is
positionally dead, and while we are as free through God’s declaration as the
slaves were free by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, sometimes we
don’t live like it. Many have never been taught what the New Man is. We
must therefore, put off the Old Man. What parent has not said to
their adolescent, “Quit acting like a baby?” Are they really a baby? No, and
that’s the point—they’re not so they shouldn’t act like one. As Paul says later
in Romans 6, as a result of what God has done positionally, we are to live it
practically: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should
obey it in the lusts thereof” (v. 12). In other words, you are dead to that Old
Man, so never allow that behavior to reign in your living.
Verses 23
and 24a go a step further to show that when we take off the old, we put
on the new. The Old Man is corrupt, worn out, and moth-eaten, but
the New Man is unique, whole, and complete.
To make it
all practical, how do we go about putting off the Old Man and putting on
the New Man? I would offer three suggestions.
First, REMIND yourself of who and
what you are. As each day begins, remind yourself that you are a child of God,
that you are, indeed, a new creature in Christ, the New Man. Remind
yourself that you are a “Christian” (Christianos). Originally meant as a
term of derision given to followers of Christ (literally, “of the party
of Christ,” cf. Acts 11:26), “it soon clearly became a name which those called
by it felt honored to bear.”[13]
While many today claim to be Christian, may we be reminded what that term
really means. That one step
will help us face temptations, discouragements, and challenges.
Second REPUDIATE what you used to
be. When we truly see the character of the Old Man, when we see the
destructive results of it, when we see that it is offensive to God, we will
want nothing to do with it. As Paul challenged the Romans, “Put ye on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts
thereof” (13:14). The Greek behind “provision” (pronoia) speaks of
forethought and intention. In other words, we have no intention to gratify the
flesh, we give no forethought, no plans on how to go about fulfilling the
flesh, we do not allow the wrong thoughts to linger, we don’t dangle before our
eyes what we know will tempt us to sin.
Third, REMEMBER the Word of God.
As our Lord quoted Scripture for each of His three temptations, it is always
the Word of God that will give us victory. The word renewed is ananeoō. At mentioned earlier, the word
“new” in this passage is kainos, which refers to something new in quality,
not neos, new in time. Here, however, ananeoō, which appears only here in the
New Testament, is a form of neos, so the idea is “to make new in time
again,” that is, as John Eadie puts it, “restoration to some previous
state—renovation.”[14] Further, the verb is a Present
Participle and should be translated “being constantly renewed.” The same truth
is found in Romans 12:2; we are to be “[continually] transformed by the
[continuous] renewing of the mind.” The words in the spirit [i.e., attitude]
of your mind remind us that the first two characteristics of the Old Man,
as we saw in our last study, both involved the mind. The same is true of the New
Man. What gives us spiritual durability? What gives us spiritual
strength? A CONSTANT RENEWING OF THE ATTITUDES OF THE MIND. As theologian and
commentator Charles Hodge puts it:
The
spirit of your mind, therefore, is its interior life—which the mind, heart, and
soul are ways of showing. Therefore, that which needs to be renewed is not
merely outward habits or ways of life, not merely transient tempers or
dispositions, but the interior principle of life, which lies behind everything
that is outward, phenomenal, or transient.
It cannot
be emphasized enough that God wants our minds. Our minds are the most important
part of us, for the mind controls everything else. Tragically, the number of
Christians that live in the emotions is growing exponentially. Much of Christianity
today appeals to the emotions, “felt needs,” and, frankly, the flesh. How then
is the mind renewed? It can only be renewed by one thing—a constant involvement
with the Word of God.
Moral Decency (v. 24b)
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
What a
contrast this is with the “moral depravity” of the “Old Man” (v. 19)! Consider
three manifestations of the “New Man’s” moral decency.
First, there is righteousness.
This refers to our dealing with our fellow men. Verse 19 says that the “Old
Man” is “past feeling,” that men can do things to one another without feeling
any remorse or guilt. But the “New Man” treats others rightfully. As we’ll see
down in verse 32, in directly contrast to being “past feeling” the “New Man” is
“tenderhearted.” In place of a heart of stone is
Third, there is “truth.” The word true
is not an adjective in the Greek, rather a noun; it literally reads “in
righteousness and holiness of the truth” and is in direct contrast to the word
“deceit” in verse 22. What is it that characterizes the “Old Man?”—deceit. What
characterizes the “New Man?”—TRUTH. It is Truth that produces righteousness
and holiness. As our Lord declared in His High priestly prayer:
“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (Jn. 17:17). How are
people sanctified? Is it through making them feel good, appealing to their
“felt needs,” or entertaining them? No, they will be sanctified only through
truth.
To
conclude our study, it is sweet to think of a man named Lazarus and how he
illustrates the principle that is before us (Jn. 11-12). Lazarus was dead; he
had been dead, in fact, for four days. He even had on the “evidences of
death”—the grave clothes. But our Savior came to the tomb and, after raising
Lazarus from the dead, said to those present, “Loose him and let him go.” What
a picture! “Take off the evidences of death; take off the evidences of the
grave!” This is what happens to the one who comes to Christ. Having removed the
grave clothes of the “Old Man,” we put on the “grace clothes” of the “New Man.”
In the verses to follow (25-32), we’ll see more of what living this new life
involves.