Ephesians 4:22 Commentary and Bible Study

Here is the call of Christ. Now it works at two levels and to really benefit from this passage you have to see the two levels and apply it to both of them. The illustration is that of putting off dirty, old clothing, and of putting on new clothing. The old clothing which is taken off is not work clothing that is taken off at the end of the working day and then put back on again the next day. This illustration involves clothes that you are never going to put on again. Maybe you have been involved in an operation which resulted in your clothes becoming really filthy. This overall is so soiled and foul you are going to take it off and get rid of it, and you will never put it on again. Having taken it off and rejected this contemptible item, you will put on something clean and better and different. That is the illustration. By the word ‘man’ Paul means the sum total of our character, the expression of what we are to those around us, our behaviour as a whole in every situation in which we might find ourselves.Now it is applied first of all to conversion and secondly it is applied to the ongoing Christian life. The same illustration works for both, but in a different way. When you come to Christ and you are unconverted, it is as though you will put off the old soiled clothing of your former life. You will put it off and put it away entirely. But the trouble is, you cannot do it yourself; as an unconverted person you lack the power and the willingness to do it. God must bring your soul to life for the first time and enable you to do it. You come to Christ like an infant. Now, mothers will have different ideas about this but roughly speaking infants under two and a half cannot dress themselves, and so the parent has to dress the child. It is like that for us. When you first come to Christ, you are wearing the old clothes of lying and cheating, of loving your sin, and believing that it will make you happy. That is the human heart, it is full of sin and corruption, and you cannot change it. So like the infant God must do it all. When you first come to Christ, putting off means that you are ashamed of your sin and you repent of it and you call upon God and you renounce the old life. You trust Christ and his shed blood, his taking the punishment of sin for you to secure your forgiveness. You reject it, you disown it, you turn your back upon it. But God must get rid of it, you cannot.But once you are converted the illustration is fulfilled in a different form. You have to put away the old clothing day by day because sin is still within you. The Puritans called it indwelling sin; we call it residual sin. The old nature, although suppressed, is still there deep down inside you, trying to express itself, wanting to take back its throne, and you have got to take off all the traces and evidences of the old nature and repent of temper or dishonesty or any uncleanness on a daily basis. You are not an infant any longer; you have to – the Bible word is – mortify those deeds, put them to death. But you are not alone. God will help you if you pray and he will strengthen you and enable you.