You are a New Person in Christ
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Galatians 3:27
In Romans 6:6, Paul wrote that our old self was crucified with Christ. This was a decisive and definite act in our past. In Colossians 3:9-10, Paul exhorts us to stop living in the old sins of our past life, “Since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self.” Paul makes a similar point in Ephesians 4:22–24: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self . . . and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
In Romans 6:6 and Colossians 3:9-10, Paul clearly teaches a definitive past action, which happened the moment we were born again. However, the Ephesians passage implies a continuous action on our part. The old self was crucified with Christ (positional sanctification), but as believers we have to do our part in putting off the old self and putting on the new self (progressive sanctification). This is not an exhortation to do again for ourselves what Christ has already done; rather, Paul is saying that we are new people in Christ who must become in practice what God has already made us. We must have the resolve to not let our “former way of life” impinge on who we are now.
In Galatians 3:27, Paul says, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” The term “clothed yourselves” is the same word translated as “put on” in the above passages. It means that we are to “put on Christ.” To clothe yourself with or to put on a person means to take on the characteristics of that individual and become like him or her. Paul says we are to “clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). This spiritual transformation has a decisive beginning, but it is not final or complete. The process of putting off the old self who was in Adam and putting on the new self who is in Christ is the sanctifying process that makes real in our experience what has already happened at salvation. In other words, we are to become by God’s grace the people He has already made us.
The transformation of a caterpillar illustrates this spiritual metamorphosis. This earthbound creature is led by instinct to climb as high as it can by its own strength—usually on the limb of a tree. There it sows a little button that forms an attachment for the cocoon it spins around itself as it hangs upside down. The caterpillar then ceases to exist, and a miraculous transformation takes place. The caterpillar has “crucified” itself in order to be “resurrected” a butterfly. The caterpillar gave up all that it was in order to become all that the Creator designed it to be.
The caterpillar can’t take any credit for becoming a butterfly any more than we can take credit for the work of Christ, which is imputed to us by the grace of God. Imagine what would happen to the growth of the new butterfly if it chose to believe that it was still a caterpillar and kept on crawling instead of flying. The butterfly would never reach its potential. Neither will we if we fail to put aside the old self and embrace our new life in Christ.
A few questions to ponder:
Because we have been “raised with Christ,” on what are we to set our hearts and minds? How do we do that practically in our daily lives?
How is putting our old self to death both a past action and a continuous action?
What does it mean to “clothe” yourself with Christ? What spiritual transformation occurs when you do this?
What part of your former life do you need to put off?
In what ways are you still living like a caterpillar instead of a butterfly?
Neil T. Anderson is the founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. He began the ministry in 1989 and continues to spread the message of freedom to this day.