Put On the New Self As we lay aside the old self, we exchange it for something new: “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:23–24). Colossians 3 and Romans 6 characterize this exchange as a union with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, which can also be described as the death of the “old self” and the resurrection of the “new self,” who now walks in “newness of life.”