Ephesians likens this responsibility to changing clothes.6 Spiritually you are a new person,7 therefore you need new spiritual clothes. Take off the old, dirty rags of sinful living. Put on the bright new suit of holiness.
…to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24).
Colossians begins a similar section with the death and resurrection you shared with Christ. “You…been buried with him in baptism, …raised with him through faith…” (Colossians 2:11-12). As a shining new person, you cannot live like the old person you once were. Therefore you actively “put to death” the old person’s sinful ways.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God… Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:1,5).
Paul then shows that this newly raised person needs new clothes. We see something similar when Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb. John 11:44 says, “The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’”. In the same way, our old rags of death need to be removed. Notice how this change of spiritual clothing involves both the past and the present.
But now you must put8 them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth (Colossians 3:8).
“… you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:9-10).
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience… (Colossians 3:12).
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony (Colossians 3:14).
Remember the story told by Jesus: An evil spirit left a man. Later it returned to find the man like a “house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.”9 So the evil spirit brought seven more wicked spirits…. “And the last state of that person is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:45). Our Lord was showing that a thorough cleaning is not enough. Life must be packed with good and put to use, otherwise rebellion against God returns worse than ever. In the spiritual world, as in nature, a vacuum must be filled. Life will not remain a blank page. Either we let God write our new story,10 or the devil will return to write terrible things on our lives. That is why each item to be “put off” must be replaced by something to be “put on.” Look at examples in Ephesians and Colossians.
6. Research Subject – Spiritual clothing: Job 29:14; Psalm 30:11; 45:3-8; 132:9,16,18; Proverbs 31:25; Isaiah 52:1; 59:6; 61:10; Romans 13:12,14; 2 Corinthians 5:4; Galatians 3:27; Colossians 3:12, 1 Timothy 2:9-10; 1 Peter 5:5; Revelation 3:4,18; 12:1; 16:15; cf. Genesis 3:21; 35:2; 41:14; 45:22; Exodus 19:10; 28:2-3; Deuteronomy 29:5; Zechariah 3:3-5
7. Ephesians 2:5,10; 4:24; Colossians 3:10
8. Lit. put off, lay aside; Paul continues the same picture, using the same term as in Ephesians 4:22.
Picture: Take off the old clothes of death!