III. It is further to be noticed that this new creation has to be put on
and appropriated by us.
The same idea which, as I have already remarked, is conveyed by the
image of a new creation, is reiterated in this metaphor of putting on
the new nature, as if it were a garment. Our task is not to weave it,
but to wear it. It is made and ready.
And that process of assumption or putting on has two parts. We are
clothed upon with Christ in a double way, or rather in a double sense.
We are 'found in Him not having our own righteousness,' but invested
with His for our pardon and acceptance. We are clothed with His
righteousness for our purifying and sanctifying.
Both are the conditions of our being like God. Both are the gifts of
God. The one, however, is an act; the other a process. Both are
received. The one is received on condition of simple faith; the other is
received by the medium of faithful effort. Both are included in the wide
conception of salvation, but the law for the one is 'Not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy He saved us'; and the
law for the other is--'Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling.' Both come from Christ, but for the one we have the
invitation, 'Buy of Me white raiment that thou mayest be clothed'; and
for the other we have the command, 'Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
make not provision for the flesh.' There is the assumption of His
righteousness which makes a man a Christian, and has for its condition
simple faith. There is the assumption of His righteousness sanctifying
and transforming us which follows in a Christian course, as its
indispensable accompaniment and characteristic, and that is realised by
daily and continuous effort.
And one word about the manner, the effort as set forth here; twofold, as
I have already pointed out--a negative and positive. We are not
concerned here with the relations of these amongst themselves, but I may
remark that there is no growth in holiness possible without the constant
accompanying process of excision and crucifixion of the old. If you want
to grow purer and liker Christ, you must slay yourselves. You cannot
gird on 'righteousness' above the old self, as some beggar might buckle
to himself royal velvet with its ermine over his filthy tatters. There
must be a putting off in order to and accompanying the putting on. Strip
yourselves of yourselves, and then you 'shall not be found naked,' but
clothed with the garments of salvation, as the bride with the robe which
is the token of the bridegroom's love, and the pledge of her espousals
to him.
And let nobody wonder that the Apostle here commands us, as by our own
efforts, to put on and make ours what is in many other places of
Scripture treated as God's gift. These earnest exhortations are
perfectly consistent with the belief that all comes from God. Our
faithful adherence to our Lord and Master, our honest efforts in His
strength to secure more and more of His likeness, determine the extent
to which we shall possess that likeness. The new nature is God's gift,
and it is given to us according to His own fulness indeed, but also
according to the measure of our faith. Blessed be His name! we have
nothing to do but to accept His gift. The garment with which He clothes
our nakedness and hides our filth is woven in no earthly looms. As with
the first sinful pair, so with all their children since, 'the Lord God
made them' the covering which they cannot make for themselves. But we
have to accept it, and we have by daily toil, all our lives long, to
gather it more and more closely around us, to wrap ourselves more and
more completely in its ample folds. We have by effort and longing, by
self-abnegation and aspiration, by prayer and work, by communion and
service, to increase our possession of that likeness to God which lives
in Jesus Christ, and from Him is stamped ever more and more deeply on
the heart. For the strengthening of our confidence and our gratitude, we
have to remember with lowly trust that it is true of us, 'If any man be
in Christ he is a new creature.' For the quickening of our energy and
faithful efforts we have to give heed to the command, and fulfil it in
ourselves--'Be ye renewed in the Spirit of your minds, and put on the
new man.'
IV. And, finally, the text contains the principle that the means of
appropriating this new nature is contact with the truth.
If you will look at the margins of some Bibles you will see that our
translators have placed there a rendering, which, as is not unfrequently
the case, is decidedly better than that adopted by them in the text.
Instead of 'true holiness,' the literal rendering is 'holiness of
truth'--and the Apostle's purpose in the expression is not to
particularise the quality, but the origin of the 'holiness.' It is 'of
truth,' that is, produced by the holiness which flows from the truth as
it is in Jesus, of which he has been speaking a moment before.
And we come, therefore, to this practical conclusion, that whilst the
agent of renovation is the Divine Spirit, and the condition of
renovation is our cleaving to Christ, the medium of renovation and the
weapon which transforming grace employs is 'the word of the truth of the
Gospel' whereby we are sanctified. There we get the law, and there we
get the motive and the impulse. There we get the encouragement and the
hope. In it, in the grand simple message--'God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto
them,' lie the germs of all moral progress. And in proportion as we
believe that--not with the cold belief of our understandings, but with
the loving affiance of our hearts and our whole spiritual being--in
proportion as we believe that, in that proportion shall we grow in
'knowledge,' shall we grow in 'righteousness,' in the 'image of Him that
created us.' The Gospel is the great means of this change, because it is
the great means by which He who works the change comes near to our
understandings and our hearts.
So let us learn how impossible are righteousness and holiness, morality
and religion in men, unless they flow from this source. It is the truth
that sanctifies. It is the Spirit who wields that truth who sanctifies.
It is Christ who sends the Spirit who sanctifies. But, brethren, beyond
the range of this light is only darkness, and that nature which is not
cleansed by His priestly hand laid upon it remains leprous, and he who
is clothed with any other garment than His righteousness will find 'the
covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.' And let us
learn, on the other hand, the incompleteness and monstrosity of a
professed belief in 'the truth' which does not produce this
righteousness and holiness. It may be real--God forbid that we should
step into His place and assume His office of discerning the thoughts of
the heart, and the genuineness of Christian professions! But, at any
rate, it is no exaggeration nor presumption to say that a professed
faith which is not making us daily better, gentler, simpler, purer, more
truthful, more tender, more brave, more self-oblivious, more loving,
more strong--more like Christ--is wofully deficient either in reality or
in power--is, if genuine, ready to perish--if lit at all, smouldering to
extinction. Christian men and women! is 'the truth' moulding you into
Christ's likeness? If not, see to it whether it be the truth which you
are holding, and whether you are holding the truth or have unconsciously
let it slip from a grasp numbed by the freezing coldness of the world.
And for us all, let us see that we lay to heart the large truths of this
text, and give them that personal bearing without which they are of no
avail. _I_ need renovation in my inmost nature. Nothing can renew _my_
soul but the power of Christ, who is _my_ life. _I_ am naked and foul.
Nothing can cleanse and clothe _me_ but He. The blessed truth which
reveals Him calls for _my_ individual faith. And if _I_ put _my_
confidence in that Lord, He will dwell in _my_ inmost spirit, and so
sway _my_ affections and mould _my_ will that _I_ shall be transformed
unto His perfect likeness. He begins with each one of us by bringing the
best robe to cast over the rags of the returning prodigal. He ends not
with any who trust Him, until they stand amid the hosts of the heavens
who follow Him, clothed with fine linen clean and white, which is the
righteousness of His Holy ones.