_THE NEW NATURE WROUGHT OUT IN NEW LIFE._
"Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have
put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the
image of Him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman,
freeman; but Christ is all, and in all."--COL. iii. 9-11 (Rev.
Ver.).
In previous section we were obliged to break the close connection
between these words and the preceding. They adduce a reason for the
moral exhortation going before, which at first sight may appear very
illogical. "Put off these vices of the old nature because you have put
off the old nature with its vices," sounds like, Do a thing because you
have done it. But the apparent looseness of reasoning covers very
accurate thought which a little consideration brings to light, and
introduces a really cogent argument for the conduct it recommends. Nor
do the principles contained in the verses now under examination look
backward only to enforce the exhortation to put aside these evils. They
also look forward, and are taken as the basis of the following
exhortation, to put on the white robes of Christlikeness--which is
coupled with this section by "therefore."
I. The first thing to be observed is the change of the spirit's dress,
which is taken for granted as having occurred in the experience of all
Christians.
We have already found the same idea presented under the forms of death
and resurrection. The "death" is equivalent to the "putting off of the
old," and the "resurrection" to "the putting on of the new man." That
figure of a change of dress to express a change of moral character is
very obvious, and is frequent in Scripture. Many a psalm breathes such
prayers as, "Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness." Zechariah
in vision saw the high-priestly representative of the nation standing
before the Lord "in filthy garments," and heard the command to strip
them off him, and clothe him in festival robes, in token that God had
"caused his iniquity to pass from him." Christ spoke His parable of the
man at the wedding feast without the wedding garment, and of the
prodigal, who was stripped of his rags stained with the filth of the
swine troughs, and clothed with the best robe. Paul in many places
touches the same image, as in his ringing exhortation--clear and rousing
in its notes like the morning bugle--to Christ's soldiers, to put off
their night gear, "the works of darkness," and to brace on the armour of
light, which sparkles in the morning sunrise. Every reformatory and
orphanage yields an illustration of the image, where the first thing
done is to strip off and burn the rags of the new comers, then to give
them a bath and dress them in clean, sweet, new clothes. Most naturally
dress is taken as the emblem of character, which is indeed the garb of
the soul. Most naturally _habit_ means both _costume_ and _custom_.
But here we have a strange paradox introduced, to the ruining of the
rhetorical propriety of the figure. It is a "new man" that is put on.
The Apostle does not mind hazarding a mixed metaphor, if it adds to the
force of his speech, and he introduces this thought of the new _man_,
though it somewhat jars, in order to impress on his readers that what
they have to put off and on is much more truly part of themselves than
an article of dress is. The "old man" is the unregenerate self; the new
man is, of course, the regenerate self, the new Christian moral nature
personified. There is a deeper self which remains the same throughout
the change, the true man, the centre of personality; which is, as it
were, draped in the moral nature, and can put it off and on. I myself
change myself. The figure is vehement, and, if you will, paradoxical,
but it expresses accurately and forcibly at once the depth of the change
which passes on him who becomes a Christian, and the identity of the
person through all change. If I am a Christian, there has passed on me a
change so thorough that it is in one aspect a death, and in another a
resurrection; in one aspect it is a putting off not merely of some garb
of action, but of the old _man_, and in another a putting on not merely
of some surface renovation, but of a new _man_--which is yet the same
old self.
This entire change is taken for granted by Paul as having been realised
in every Christian. It is here treated as having taken place at a
certain point of time, namely when these Colossians began to put their
trust in Jesus Christ, and in profession of that trust, and as a symbol
of that change, were baptized.
Of course the contrast between the character before and after faith in
Christ is strongest when, like the Christians at Colossae, converts have
been brought out of heathenism. With us, where some knowledge of
Christianity is widely diffused, and its indirect influence has shaped
the characters even of those who reject it, there is less room for a
marked revolution in character and conduct. There will be many true
saints who can point to no sudden change as their conversion; but have
grown up, sometimes from childhood, under Christian influences, or who,
if they have distinctly been conscious of a change, have passed through
it as gradually as night passes into day. Be it so. In many respects
that will be the highest form of experience. Yet even such souls will be
aware of a "new man" formed in them which is at variance with their own
old selves, and will not escape the necessity of the conflict with their
lower nature, the immolation and casting off of the unregenerate self.
But there are also many people who have grown up without God or Christ,
who must become Christians by the way of sudden conversion, if they are
ever to become Christians at all.
Why should such sudden change be regarded as impossible? Is it not a
matter of every-day experience that some long ignored principle may
suddenly come, like a meteor into the atmosphere, into a man's mind and
will, may catch fire as it travels, and may explode and blow to pieces
the solid habits of a lifetime? And why should not the truth concerning
God's great love in Christ, which in too sad certainty is ignored by
many, flame in upon blind eyes, and change the look of everything? The
New Testament doctrine of conversion asserts that it may and does. It
does not insist that everybody must become a Christian in the same
fashion. Sometimes there will be a dividing line between the two states,
as sharp as the boundary of adjoining kingdoms; sometimes the one will
melt imperceptibly into the other. Sometimes the revolution will be as
swift as that of the wheel of a locomotive, sometimes slow and silent as
the movement of a planet in the sky. The main thing is that whether
suddenly or slowly the face shall be turned to God.
But however brought about, this putting off of the old sinful self, is a
certain mark of a Christian man. It can be assumed as true universally,
and appealed to as the basis of exhortations such as those of the
context. Believing certain truths does not make a Christian. If there
have been any reality in the act by which we have laid hold of Christ as
our Saviour, our whole being will be revolutionized; old things will
have passed away--tastes, desires, ways of looking at the world,
memories, habits, pricks of conscience and all cords that bound us to
our God-forgetting past--and all things will have become new, because we
ourselves move in the midst of the old things as new creatures with new
love burning in our hearts and new motives changing all our lives, and a
new aim shining before us, and a new hope illuminating the blackness
beyond, and a new song on our lips, and a new power in our hands, and a
new Friend by our sides.
This is a wholesome and most needful test for all who call themselves
Christians, and who are often tempted to put too much stress on
believing and feeling, and to forget the supreme importance of the moral
change which true Christianity effects. Nor is it less needful to
remember that this resolute casting off of the garment spotted by the
flesh, and putting on of the new man, is a consequence of faith in
Christ and is only possible as a consequence. Nothing else will strip
the foul robes from a man. The moral change comes second, the union with
Jesus Christ by faith must come first. To try to begin with the second
stage, is like trying to begin to build a house at the second story.
But there is a practical conclusion drawn from this taken-for-granted
change. Our text is introduced by "seeing that;" and though some doubts
may be raised as to that translation and the logical connection of the
paragraph, it appears on the whole most congruous with both the
preceding and the following context, to retain it and to see here the
reason for the exhortation which goes before--"Put off all these," and
for that which follows--"Put on, therefore," the beautiful garment of
love and compassion.
That great change, though taking place in the inmost nature whensoever a
heart turns to Christ, needs to be wrought into character, and to be
wrought out in conduct. The leaven is in the dough, but to knead it
thoroughly into the mass is a lifelong task, which is only accomplished
by our own continually repeated efforts. The old garment clings to the
limbs like the wet clothes of a half-drowned man, and it takes the work
of a lifetime to get quite rid of it. The "old man" dies hard, and we
have to repeat the sacrifice hour by hour. The new man has to be put on
afresh day by day.
So the apparently illogical exhortation, Put off what you have put off,
and put on what you have put on, is fully vindicated. It means, Be
consistent with your deepest selves. Carry out in detail what you have
already done in bulk. Cast out the enemy, already ejected from the
central fortress, from the isolated positions which he still occupies.
You _may_ put off the old man, for he is put off already; and the
confidence that he is will give you strength for the struggle that still
remains. You _must_ put off the old man, for there is still danger of
his again wrapping his poisonous rags about your limbs.
II. We have here, the continuous growth of the new man, its aim and
pattern.
The thought of the garment passes for the moment out of sight, and the
Apostle enlarges on the greatness and glory of this "new man," partly as
a stimulus to obeying the exhortation, partly, with allusion to some of
the errors which he had been combating, and partly because his fervid
spirit kindles at the mention of the mighty transformation.
The new man, says he, is "being renewed." This is one of the instances
where minute accuracy in translation is not pedantic, but clear gain.
When we say, with the Authorised Version, "is renewed," we speak of a
completed act; when we say with the Revised Version, "is being renewed,"
we speak of a continuous process; and there can be no question that the
latter is the true idea intended here. The growth of the new man is
constant, perhaps slow and difficult to discern, if the intervals of
comparison be short. But like all habits and powers it steadily
increases. On the other hand, a similar process works to opposite
results in the "old man," which, as Paul says in the instructive
parallel passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 22), "waxeth
corrupt, after the lusts of deceit." Both grow according to their inmost
nature, the one steadily upwards; the other with accelerating speed
downwards, till they are parted by the whole distance between the
highest heaven and the lowest abyss. So mystic and awful is that solemn
law of the persistent increase of the true ruling tendency of a man's
nature, and its certain subjugation of the whole man to itself!
It is to be observed that this renewing is represented in this clause,
as done _on_ the new man, not by him. We have heard the exhortation to a
continuous appropriation and increase of the new life by our own
efforts. But there is a Divine side too, and the renewing is not merely
effected by us, nor due only to the vital power of the new man, though
growth is the sign of life there as everywhere, but is "the renewing by
the Holy Ghost," whose touch quickens and whose indwelling renovates the
inward man day by day. So there is hope for us in our striving, for He
helps us; and the thought of that Divine renewal is not a pillow for
indolence, but a spur to intenser energy, as Paul well knew when he wove
the apparent paradox, "work out your own salvation, for it is God that
worketh in you."
The new man is being renewed "_unto_ knowledge." An advanced knowledge
of God and Divine realities is the result of the progressive renewal.
Possibly there may be a passing reference to the pretensions of the
false teachers, who had so much to say about a higher wisdom open to the
initiated, and to be won by ceremonial and asceticism. Their claims,
hints Paul, are baseless; their pretended secrets a delusion; their
method of attaining them a snare. There is but one way to press into the
depths of the knowledge of God--namely growth into His likeness. We
understand one another best by sympathy. We know God only on condition
of resemblance. "If the eye were not sunlike how could it see the sun?"
says Goethe. "If thou beest this, thou seest this," said Plotinus. Ever,
as we grow in resemblance, shall we grow in knowledge, and ever as we
grow in knowledge, shall we grow in resemblance. So in perpetual action
and reaction of being and knowing, shall we draw nearer and nearer the
unapproachable light, and receiving it full on our faces, shall be
changed into the same image, as the moonbeams that touch the dark ocean
transfigure its waves into silver radiance like their own. For all
simple souls, bewildered by the strife of tongues and unapt for
speculation, this is a message of gladness, that the way to know God is
to be like Him, and the way to be like Him is to be renewed in the
inward man, and the way to be renewed in the inward man is to put on
Christ. They may wrangle and philosophize who will, but the path to God
leads far away from all that. It may be trodden by a child's foot, and
the wayfaring man though a fool shall not err therein, for all that is
needed is a heart that desires to know Him, and is made like Him by
love. Half the secret lies in the great word which tells us that "we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," and knowledge will
work likeness. The other half lies in the great word which tells us that
"blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," and likeness
will work a more perfect knowledge.
This new man is being renewed _after the image of Him that created him_.
As in the first creation man was made in the image of God, so in the new
creation. From the first moment in which the supernatural life is
derived from Christ into the regenerated spirit, that new life is like
its source. It is kindred, therefore it is like, as all derived life is.
The child's life is like the father's. But the image of God which the
new man bears is more than that which was stamped on man in his
creation. That consisted mainly, if not wholly, in the reasonable soul,
and the self-conscious personality, the broad distinctions which
separate man from other animals. The image of God is often said to have
been lost by sin, but Scripture seems rather to consider it as
inseparable from humanity, even when stained by transgression. Men are
still images of God, though darkened and "carved in ebony." The coin
bears His image and superscription, though rusty and defaced. But the
image of God, which the new man bears from the beginning in a
rudimentary form, and which is continually imprinting itself more deeply
upon him, has for its principal feature holiness. Though the majestic
infinitudes of God can have no likeness in man, however exalted, and our
feebleness cannot copy His strength, nor our poor blind knowledge, with
its vast circumference of ignorance, be like His ungrowing and unerring
knowledge, we may be "holy _as_ He is holy"; we may be "imitators of God
as beloved children, and walk in love as He hath loved us"; we may
"_walk_ in the light as He _is_ in the light," with only the difference
between His calm, eternal being, and our changeful and progressive
motion therein; we may even "be perfect as our Father is perfect." This
is the end of all our putting off the old and putting on the new. This
is the ultimate purpose of God, in all His self-revelation. For this
Christ has come and died and lives. For this the Spirit of God dwells in
us. This is the immortal hope with which we may re-create and encourage
our souls in our often weary struggles. Even our poor sinful natures may
be transformed into that wondrous likeness. Coal and diamond are but
varying forms of carbon, and the blackest lump dug from the deepest
mine, may be transmuted by the alchemy of that wondrous transforming
union with Christ, into a brightness that shall flash back all the glory
of the sunlight, and gleam for ever, set in one of His many crowns.