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.
BE renewed, says St. Paul, in the spirit of your mind—in the tone,
character, and habit of your mind. And put on the new man, the new
pattern of man, who was created after God, in righteousness and true
holiness.
Pay attention, I beg you, to every word here. To understand them clearly
is most important to you. According as you take them rightly or wrongly,
will your religion be healthy or unhealthy, and your notion of what God
requires of you true or false. The new man, the new pattern of man, says
St. Paul, is created after God. That, is after the pattern of God, in
the image of God, in the likeness of God. You will surely see that that
is his meaning. We speak of making a thing after another thing; meaning,
make it exactly like another thing. So, by making a man after God, St.
Paul means making a man like God.
Now what is this man? None, be sure, save Christ himself, the co-equal
and co-eternal Son of God. Of him alone can it be said, utterly, that he
is after God—the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of his
person. But still, he is a man, and meant as a pattern to men; the new
Adam; the new pattern, type, and ideal for all mankind. Him, says St.
Paul,—that is, his likeness,—we are to put on, that as he was after the
likeness of God, so may we be likewise.
But now, in what does this same likeness consist?
St. Paul tells us distinctly, lest we should mistake a matter of such
boundless importance as the question of all questions—What is the life of
God, the Divine and Godlike life?
It is created, founded, says he, in righteousness and true holiness.
That is the character, that is the form of it. Whatever we do not know,
whatever we cannot know, concerning God, and his Divine life, we know
that it consists of righteousness and true holiness.
And what is righteousness? Justice. You must understand—as any good
scholar or divine would assure you—that St. Paul is not speaking here of
the imputed righteousness of Christ. He is speaking of righteousness in
the simple Old Testament meaning of the word, of justice, whereof our
Lord has said, ‘Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you;’
justice, which, as wise men of old have said, consists in this,—to harm
no man, and to give each man his own. That is true righteousness and
justice, and that is the Godlike life.
‘And true holiness.’ That is, truthful holiness, honest holiness. This
is St. Paul’s meaning. As any good scholar or divine would tell you, St.
Paul’s exact words are ‘the holiness of truth.’ He does not mean true
holiness as opposed to a false holiness, a legal holiness, a holiness of
empty forms and ceremonies, or a holiness of ascetism and celibacy; but
as opposed to a holiness which does not speak the truth, to that sly,
untruthful, prevaricating holiness which was only too common in St.
Paul’s time, and has been but too common since. Be honest, says St.
Paul; for this too is part of the Godlike life, and the new man is
created after God, in justice and honesty.
And that this is what St. Paul actually means is clear from what
immediately follows: ‘Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man
truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.’
What does the ‘wherefore’ mean, if not that, because the life of God is a
life of justice and honesty, therefore you must not lie; therefore you
must not hear spite and malice; therefore you must not steal, but rather
work; therefore you must avoid all foul talk which may injure your
neighbour; but rather teach, refine, educate him?
It would seem at first sight that this would have been a gospel, and good
news to men. But, alas! it has not been such. In all ages, in all
religions, men have turned away from this simple righteousness of God,
which is created in justice and truth, and have sought some righteousness
of their own, founded upon anything and everything save common morality
and honesty. Alas for the spiritual pride of man! He is not content to
be simply just and true! for any one and every one, he thinks, can be
that. He must needs be something, which other people cannot be. He must
needs be able to thank God that he is not as other men are, and say,
‘This people, this wicked world, who knoweth not our law, is accursed.’
If God had bid men do some great thing to save their souls, would they
not have done it? How much more when he says simply to them, as to
Naaman, ‘Wash, and be clean.’ ‘Wash you,’ says the Lord by the prophet
Isaiah, ‘make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my
eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well, seek justice, relieve the
oppressed,’ and then, ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be
white as snow.’ But no: any one can do that; and therefore it is beneath
the spiritual pride of man. In our own days, there are too many who do
not hesitate to look down on plain justice, and plain honesty, as natural
virtues, which (so they say) men can have without the grace of God, and
make a distinction between these natural virtues and the effects of God’s
Spirit; which is not only not to be found in Scripture, but is
contradicted by Scripture from beginning to end.
Now there can be no doubt that such notions concerning religion do harm;
that they demoralise thousands,—that is, make them less moral and good
men. For there are thousands, especially in England, who are persons of
good common-sense, uprightness, and truthfulness: but they have not
lively fancies, or quick feelings. They have no inclination for a life
of exclusive devoutness; and if they had, they have no time for it. They
must do their business in the world where God has put them. And when
they are told that God requires of them certain frames and feelings, and
that the Godlike life consists in them, then they are disheartened, and
say, ‘There is no use, then, in my trying to be religious, or moral
either. If plain honesty, justice, sobriety, usefulness in my place will
not please God, I cannot please him at all. Why then should I try, if my
way of trying is of no use? Why should I try to be honest, sober, and
useful, if that is not true religion?—if what God wants of me is not
virtue, but a certain high-flown religiousness which I cannot feel or
even understand?’—and so they grow weary in well-doing, and careless
about the plain duties of morality. They become careless, likewise,
about the plain duties of religion; and so they are demoralised, because
they are told that justice and the holiness of truth are not the Godlike
and eternal life; because they are told that religion has little or
nothing to do with their daily life and business, nothing to do with
those just and truthful instincts of their hearts, which they feel to be
the most sacred things about them; which are their best, if not their
only guide in life. But more: they fall into the mistake that they can
have a righteousness of their own; and into that Pelagianism, as it is
called, which is growing more and more the creed of modern men of the
world.
Too many religious people, on the other hand, are demoralised by the very
same notion.
They too are taught that justice and truth are mere ‘morality,’ as it is
called, and not the grace of God; that they are not the foundation of the
Divine life, that they are not the essence of true religion. Therefore
they become more and more careless about mere morality,—so careless of
justice, so careless of truth, as to bring often fearful scandals on
religion.
Meanwhile men in general, especially Englishmen, have a very sound
instinct on this whole matter. They have a sound instinct that if God be
good, then goodness is the only true mark of godliness; and that goodness
consists first and foremost in plain justice and plain honesty; and they
ask, not what a man’s religious profession is, not what his religious
observances are: but—‘What is the man himself? Is he a just, upright,
and fair-dealing man? Is he true? Can we depend on his word?’ If not,
his religion counts for nothing with them: as it ought to count.
Now I hold that St. Paul in this text declares that the plain English
folk who talk thus, and who are too often called mere worldlings, and men
of the world, are right; that justice and honesty are the Divine life
itself, and the very likeness of Christ and of God.
Justice and truth all men can have, and therefore all men are required to
have. About devotional feelings, about religious observances, however
excellent and blessed, we may deceive ourselves; for we may put them in
the place of sanctification, of righteousness and true holiness. About
justice and honesty we cannot deceive ourselves; for they are
sanctification itself, righteousness itself, true holiness itself, the
very likeness of God, and the very grace of God.
But if so, they come from God; they are God’s gift, and not any natural
product of our own hearts: and for that very reason we can and must keep
them alive in us by prayer. As long as we think that the sentiment of
justice and truth is our own, so long shall we be in danger of forgetting
it, paltering with it, playing false to it in temptation, and by some
injustice or meanness grieving (as St. Paul warns us) the Holy Spirit of
God, who has inspired us with that priceless treasure.
But if we believe that from God, the fount of justice, comes all our
justice; that from God, the fount of truth, comes all our truthfulness,
then we shall cry earnestly to him, day by day, as we go about this
world’s work, to be kept from all injustice, and from all falsehood. We
shall entreat him to cleanse us from our secret faults, and to give us
truth in the inward parts; to pour into our hearts that love to our
neighbour which is justice itself, for it worketh no ill to its
neighbour, and so fulfils the law. We shall dread all meanness and
cruelty, as sins against the very Spirit of God; and our most earnest and
solemn endeavour in life will be, to keep innocence, and take heed to the
thing that is right; for that will bring us peace at the last.