1. Here again is an admonition for Christians to follow up their
faith by good works and a new life, for though they have forgiveness
of sins through baptism, the old Adam still adheres to their flesh
and makes himself felt in tendencies and desires to vices physical
and mental. The result is that unless Christians offer resistance,
they will lose their faith and the remission of sins and will in the
end be worse than they were at first; for they will begin to despise
and persecute the Word of God when corrected by it. Yea, even those
who gladly hear the Word of God, who highly prize it and aim to
follow it, have daily need of admonition and encouragement, so strong
and tough is that old hide of our sinful flesh. And so powerful and
wily is our old evil foe that wherever he can gain enough of an
opening to insert one of his claws, he thrusts in his whole self and
will not desist until he has again sunk man into his former
condemnable unbelief and his old way of despising and disobeying God.
2. Therefore, the Gospel ministry is necessary in the Church, not
only for instruction of the ignorant--such as the simple, unlettered
people and the children--but also for the purpose of awakening those
who know very well what they are to believe and how they are to live,
and admonishing them to be on their guard daily and not to become
indolent, disheartened or tired in the war they must wage on this
earth with the devil, with their own flesh and with all manner of
evil.
3. For this reason Paul is so persistent in his admonitions that he
actually seems to be overdoing it. He proceeds as if the Christians
were either too dull to comprehend or so inattentive and forgetful
that they must be reminded and driven. The apostle well knows that
though they have made a beginning in faith and are in that state
which should show the fruits of faith, such result is not so easily
forthcoming. It will not do to think and say: Well, it is sufficient
to have the doctrine, and if we have the Spirit and faith, then
fruits and good works will follow of their own accord. For although
the Spirit truly is present and, as Christ says, willing and
effective in those that believe, on the other hand the flesh is weak
and sluggish. Besides, the devil is not idle, but seeks to seduce our
weak nature by temptations and allurements.
4. So we must not permit the people to go on in their way, neglecting
to urge and admonish them, through God's Word, to lead a godly life.
Indeed, you dare not be negligent and backward in this duty; for, as
it is, our flesh is all too sluggish to heed the Spirit and all too
able to resist it. Paul says (Gal 5, 17): "For the flesh lusteth
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh ... that ye may
not do the things that ye would." Therefore, God is constrained to do
as a good and diligent householder or ruler, who, having a slothful
man-servant or maid-servant, or careless officers, who otherwise are
neither wicked nor faithless, will not consider it sufficient once or
twice to direct, but will constantly be supervising and directing.
5. Nor have we as yet arrived at the point where our flesh and blood
will joyfully and gladly abound in good works and obedience to God as
the spirit is inclined and faith directs. Even with the utmost
efforts the Spirit scarce can compel our old man. What would be the
result if we were no more urged and admonished but could go our way
thinking, as many self-satisfied persons do: I am well acquainted
with my duties, having learned them many years ago and having heard
frequent explanations of them; yea, I have taught others? It might be
that one year's intermission of preaching and admonition would place
us below the level of the heathen.
6. Now, this exhortation in itself is simple and easy of
comprehension. The apostle is but repeating his exhortations of other
places--on the fruits of faith, or a godly walk--merely in different
terms. Here he speaks of putting away the old man and putting on the
new man, of being "renewed in the spirit of your mind."
"THE OLD MAN."
7. What he calls "the old man" is well known to us; namely, the whole
nature of man as descended from Adam after his fall in paradise,
being blinded by the devil, depraved in soul, not keeping God before
his eyes nor trusting him, yes, utterly regardless of God and the
judgment day. Though with his mouth he may honor God's Word and the
Gospel, yet in reality he is unchanged; if he does have a little
additional knowledge, he has just as little fear, love and trust in
God as heretofore.
8. Such a life and such conduct should not be found among you, says
the apostle; you are not to continue with "the old man." He must be
put off and laid aside. Your former manner of life, inherited of
Adam, consisted in disobeying God, in neither fearing, trusting nor
calling upon him. Again, in your body you obeyed not God's
commandments, being given to lust, pride, insatiable greed, envy,
hatred, etc. A life and walk of this nature is not becoming a
Christian who is regarded as, and truly is, a different order of
being from his former self, as we shall hear. Necessarily he should
walk differently.
9. In this respect a Christian must take heed that he does not
deceive himself; the true Christian differs from the hypocrite. True
Christians so live that it is apparent from their lives that they
keep God before their eyes and truly believe the Gospel, while
hypocrites likewise show by their walk that their pretensions of
faith and forgiveness of sin are hollow. No proof is seen in their
lives and works showing that they have in any wise mended their
former ways; they merely deck themselves with a pretense, with the
name of Gospel, of faith, of Christ.
10. Now, the apostle has two things to say of the old man: that he
corrupts himself in error as to the soul and in lusts as to the body.
Paul portrays the old man--meaning every man without true faith
though he bear the name of a Christian--as in the first place given
to error: coming short of the truth, knowing naught of the true
knowledge of Christ and faith in him, indifferent alike to God's
wrath and God's grace, deceiving himself with his own conceit that
darkness is light. The old man believes that God will not be moved to
vengeance though he do as he pleases, even to decorating vices with
the names of virtues. Haughtiness, greed, oppressing and tormenting
the poor, wrath, envy--all this he would call preserving his dignity,
exercising strict discipline, honestly and economically conducting
his domestic affairs, caring for his wife and children, displaying
Christian zeal and love of justice, etc. In short, he proceeds in the
perfectly empty delusion and self-conceit that he is a Christian.
11. Out of this error proceeds the other corruption, the lusts of the
body, which are fruits of unbelief. Unbelief causes men to walk in
sinful security and yield to all the appetites of their flesh. Such
have no inclination toward what is good, nor do they aim to promote
orderliness, honor or virtue. They take desperate chances on their
lives, wanting to live according to the lusts of their flesh and yet
not be reprimanded.
12. This, says the apostle, is the old man's course and nature. He
will do naught but ruin himself. The longer continued, the greater
his debasement. He draws down upon himself his own condemnation and
penalty for body and soul; for in proportion as he becomes
unbelieving and hard-hearted, does he become haughty, hateful and
faithless, and eventually a perfect scoundrel and villain. This was
your former manner of life, when as yet you were heathen and
non-Christians. Therefore you must by all means put off the old man
and cast him far from you; otherwise you cannot remain a Christian.
For glorying in the grace of God and the forgiveness of sin is
inconsistent with following sin--remaining in the former old
un-Christian life and walking in error and deceitful lusts.