22 Dec 2022
We have noted that union with Christ means all the privileges in the union are made over to us in Him. Our new identity is determined by what Christ has done for us, and not by any of our contributions. Through faith, an instrument of reception, we become new men and women in Christ, people with a totally new identity.
What follows is that we need to get rid of everything that is not in line with our new identity – all that belonged to the old life in Adam; we must then grow in the graces that are the characteristics of our new life in Christ. Notice the two aspects: the negative is to expel what is of the old life and the positive is to put on the graces of the new life.
However, this process is a long drawn one; we live in a fallen world, with an unresurrected body, and the prince of this world is the devil who seeks to destroy us – he would use all available means (with his minions, the negative influences and attractions of the world, spiritual attacks, deceptions and pride) to dislodge us from our pursuit of sanctification and godliness.
Thankfully, God knows we need much help – the Father and Son sent us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to be our teacher, our guide, our enabling, our Lord, and God provides the church and brethren for us to grow together in Him. The Holy Spirit transforms us from the ‘inside’ and this blossoms into a godly life on the ‘outside’; the Spirit uses God’s revelation in the Scripture to show us what is desired of us as God’s children and as His church.
We must realise that the inner realities of motivation, purpose and desire that prompt and energise our actions are just as important as the performance of the actions themselves, viewed from the outside. God assesses all our actions from the inside as well as the outside, as Jesus tried to teach the Pharisees, albeit without much positive response from the latter. The Lord Jesus labelled the Pharisees as ‘white-washed tombstones which look good on the outside but in the inside, there are dead bodies’ – this is a warning against ‘legalism’ that concentrates on the external rules and requirements without the inner realities which matter to God.
We need to put off the the old, i.e. putting to death the old, and putting on the new, consistent with our new identity in Christ.
In our private life, and in the hidden recesses of the mind, and in the way we use our bodies, the old lifestyle needs to be put off. It needs to be put to death. We must deal specifically with definite sins which in fact constitute idolatry, and not just deal with them generally.
Sins may not just be in the form of obvious impurity or immorality – they may present as manifestations which we may consider as ‘weakness’. For instance, the Apostle Paul wrote that we are to put away ‘wrath’ and anger. Christians should not fly off the handle and extract vengeance, or explode into a rage. The root cause of impatience and exasperation lies in our response to the providence God allows in our lives. Exasperation spells spiritual danger – it is in fact a negative reaction towards God and His sovereign purposes in our lives.
We also need to put on what is consistent with our new identity in Christ: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, peace,forgiveness and love of Christ. In seeking to do this, we must have Christ’s Word indwelling us. We are to live in fellowship with one another making Christ’s glory pre-eminent (see Colossians 3:1-17).