“Basic Christianity, Part 12” by Romans
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We are continuing in our Series, “Basic Christianity.” Tonight, we are going to review and examine what the New Testament has to say about what we, as believers and Christ followers lack within ourselves, and must “put on.” There are a number of things named in Paul's epistles, some of which we are familiar with, but one in particular that we will get to later, has never been mentioned in any sermon I have ever heard, in spite of its power and potential. But I want to go first to, perhaps, to a place we may not expect to see included in a study such as this, but as I hope you will see, has great significance.
Gen 3:7: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:7-8).
In response to their sin and resulting shame, Adam and Eve made and put on aprons. But when they heard the voice of the Lord, they hid themselves among the trees of the garden. Their fig leaf coverings failed to alleviate their fallen state.
Of this, Matthew Henry writes, “The ultimate consequences of the transgression. Shame and fear seized the criminals, ipso facto - in the fact itself; these came into the world along with sin, and still attend it. 1. Shame seized them unseen, Gen_3:7, where observe, (1.) The strong convictions they fell under, in their own bosoms: The eyes of them both were opened. It is not meant of the eyes of the body; these were open before, as appears by this, that the sin came in at them...
{T}hey saw the folly of eating forbidden fruit. They saw the happiness they had fallen from, and the misery they had fallen into. They saw a loving God provoked, his grace and favour forfeited, his likeness and image lost, dominion over the creatures gone. They saw their natures corrupted and depraved, and felt a disorder in their own spirits of which they had never before been conscious. They saw a law in their members warring against the law of their minds, and captivating them both to sin and wrath.
The text tells us that they saw that they were naked, that is, [1.] That they were stripped, deprived of all the honours and joys of their paradise-state, and exposed to all the miseries that might justly be expected from an angry God. They were disarmed; their defence had departed from them.
[2.] That they were shamed, for ever shamed, before God and angels.
They saw themselves disrobed of all their ornaments and ensigns of honour, degraded from their dignity and disgraced in the highest degree, laid open to the contempt and reproach of heaven, and earth, and their own consciences.
Now see here, First, What a dishonour and disquietment sin is; it makes mischief wherever it is admitted, sets men against themselves disturbs their peace, and destroys all their comforts. Sooner or later, it will have shame, either the shame of true repentance, which ends in glory, or that shame and everlasting contempt to which the wicked shall rise at the great day. Sin is a reproach to any people.
Secondly, What deceiver Satan is. He told our first parents, when he tempted them, that their eyes should be opened; and so they were, but not as they understood it; they were opened to their shame and grief, not to their honour nor advantage. Therefore, when he speaks fair, believe him not. The most malicious mischievous liars often excuse themselves with this, that they only equivocate; but God will not so excuse them.
(2.) The sorry shift they made to palliate these convictions, and to arm themselves against them: They sewed, or platted, fig-leaves together; and to cover, at least, part of their shame from one another, they made themselves aprons. See here what is commonly the folly of those that have sinned.
[1.] That they are more solicitous to save their credit before men than to obtain their pardon from God; they are backward to confess their sin, and very desirous to conceal it, as much as may be. I have sinned, yet honour me.
[2.] That the excuses men make, to cover and extenuate their sins, are vain and frivolous. Like the aprons of fig-leaves, they make the matter never the better, but the worse; the shame, thus hidden, becomes the more shameful. Yet thus we are all apt to cover our transgressions as Adam, (see Job 31:33). 2. Fear seized them immediately upon their eating the forbidden fruit, Gen_3:8.
Observe here, (1.) What was the cause and occasion of their fear: They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. It was the approach of the Judge that put them into a fright; and yet he came in such a manner as made it formidable only to guilty consciences.
Fury is not in him. Nor did he come suddenly upon them; but they heard his voice at some distance, giving them notice of his coming, and probably it was a still small voice, like that in which he came to enquire after Elijah. Some think they heard him discoursing with himself concerning the sin of Adam, and the judgment now to be passed upon him, perhaps as he did concerning Israel. How shall I give thee up? Or, rather, they heard him calling for them, and coming towards them.
(2.) What was the effect and evidence of their fear: They hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God - a sad change! Before they had sinned, if they had heard the voice of the Lord God coming towards them, they would have run to meet him, and with a humble joy welcomed his gracious visits. But, now that it was otherwise, God had become a terror to them, and then no marvel that they had become a terror to themselves, and were full of confusion.
Their own consciences accused them, and set their sin before them in its proper colours. Their fig-leaves failed them, and would do them no service. God had come forth against them as an enemy, and the whole creation was at war with them; and as yet they knew not of any mediator between them and an angry God, so that nothing remained but a certain fearful looking for of judgment.
In this fright they hid themselves among the bushes; having offended, they fled for the same. Knowing themselves guilty, they durst not stand a trial, but absconded, and fled from justice. See here, [1.] The falsehood of the tempter, and the frauds and fallacies of his temptations. He promised them they should be safe, but now they cannot so much as think themselves so; he said they should not die, and yet now they are forced to fly or their lives; he promised them they should be advanced, but they see themselves abased - never did they seem so little as now;
he promised them they should be knowing, but they see themselves at a loss, and know not so much as where to hide themselves; he promised them they should be as gods, great, and bold, and daring, but they are as criminals discovered, trembling, pale, and anxious to escape: they would not be subjects, and so they are prisoners. [2.] The folly of sinners, to think it either possible or desirable to hide themselves from God: can they conceal themselves from the Father of lights?
The fear that attends sin. All that amazing fear of God's appearances, the accusations of conscience, the approaches of trouble, the assaults of inferior creatures, and the arrests of death, which is common among men, is the effect of sin. Adam and Eve, who were partners in the sin, were sharers in the shame and fear that attended it; and though hand joined in hand (hands so lately joined in marriage), yet could they not animate nor fortify one another: miserable comforters they had become to each other!”
Later in the same chapter, we read of God's response to their sin. At once, it is a literal response, but also a picture of our future Salvation, accomplished through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).
In the Sermon Bible, we read: “Genesis 3:21: An ancient interpreter of Scripture has not scrupled to declare that there are in the Book of Revelation as many mysteries as there are words. True as the words are as applied to that wonderful book, they are truer still in regard of the first three chapters of Genesis, above all in regard of this third chapter; for this assuredly is the most important chapter in the Bible.
Among all its mysteries I must limit myself to the one contained in the words of the text. These words have a sense upon the surface, but also a sense below the surface. As a record of the kindness of God they would indeed be precious; but how infinitely more precious when we read in them and draw out of them what better they contain even than this; when they reveal to us the deeper mystery which lies behind!
The whole mystery of justification is wrapped up in the details of this story. I. We have the fact as in a parable that man is utterly impotent to bring to pass any satisfying righteousness of his own. He can see his shame, but he cannot effectually cover or conceal it. The garments of our own righteousness are fig-leaves all, and we shall prove them such. Let God once call to us, and we shall find how little all these devices of our own can do for us. We shall stand shivering, naked and ashamed, before Him.
II. While we thus learn that man cannot clothe himself, we learn also that God undertakes to clothe him. As elsewhere He has said in word, "I am the Lord that healeth thee," so here He says in fact, "I am the Lord that clotheth thee." He can yet devise a way by which His banished shall return to Him.
III. We note in this Scripture that the clothing which God found for Adam could only have been obtained at the cost of a life, and that the life of one unguilty, of one who had no share or part in the sin which made the providing of it needful. We have here the first institution of sacrifice; God Himself is the institutor. It is a type and shadow, a prelude and prophecy of the crowning sacrifice on Calvary.
Are not the lessons which we may draw from all this plain and palpable enough? (1) There is no robe of our own righteousness which can cover us and conceal our shame. (2) That righteousness which we have not in ourselves we must be content and thankful to receive at the hands of God. (3) Not Christ by His life, but by His life and death, and mainly by His death, supplies these garments for our spirits’ need.”
R. C. Trench, Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey, p. 118. References: Gen_3:21.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year, vol. iii., p. 181; B. Waugn, Sunday Magazine (1887) p. 210; L. D. Bevan, Christ and the Age, p. 209.
Albert Barnes writes, “The word rendered “put ye on” is the same used in Romans 13:12, and is commonly employed in reference to “clothing” or “apparel.” The phrase to “put on” a person, which seems a harsh expression in our language, was one not infrequently used by Greek writers, and means to imbibe his principles, to imitate his example, to copy his spirit, to become like him...
So the Greek writers speak of putting on Plato, Socrates, etc. meaning to take them as instructors, to follow them as disciples. Thus, to put on the Lord Jesus means to take him as a pattern and guide, to imitate his example, to obey his precepts, to become like him, etc. In “all” respects the Lord Jesus was unlike what had been specified in the previous verse. He was temperate, chaste, pure, peaceable, and meek; and to “put him on” was to imitate him in these respects;”
At this point in the Commentary, there is a cross-reference I would like to review and examine: “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:21-23).
Of this, the Sermon Bible writes, “1 Peter 2:21: The Great Exemplar. I. That which strikes us first in the example which Christ has left is its faultlessness. We are startled by His own sense of this. He never utters one word to God or to man which implies the consciousness of a single defect. Read the lives of the great servants of God in the Old or New Testament—of Abraham, of Moses, of Samuel, of David, of Elijah, of St. Peter, of St. Paul. They all confess sin. They all humble themselves before men. They implore the mercy of God.
Think of any great man whom you have ever known, or whose life you have read. He has feared God, loved God, worked for God through long years; yet he is full of the sense of his inconsistencies, of his imperfections, pervading his life and his conduct. He is profuse in his acknowledgments of his weakness and of his sin. Nay, if he were not thus willing to confess his sin, you yourself would question his goodness, for what he says is, as you instinctively feel, no more than the fact.
But Jesus Christ reproaches Himself for nothing, confesses nothing, regrets nothing. He is certain of all that He says and does. "I do always those things that please the Father." In this sinlessness He is, although our model, yet beyond our full reach of imitation. We cannot in our maimed and broken lives reproduce the complete image of the immaculate Lamb. The best of men knows that in his best moments he is beset by motives, thoughts, inclinations, from which Christ was utterly free. "If we say that we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
But this does not destroy—on the contrary, it enhances—the value of His ideal example. In all departments of thought and work the ideal is, strictly speaking, by man unattainable. Yet man may never lose sight of the ideal. In the Gospels ideal human life appears in a form of flesh and blood. It is the ideal, and, therefore, it is beyond us; yet it is not the less precious as a stimulus and guide to our effort at self-improvement.
II. And then, again, we are struck by the balance and perfection of excellences in our Lord’s human character. As a rule, if a man possesses some one excellence in an unusual degree, he will be found to exhibit some fault or shortcoming in an opposite direction. Now, of this want of balance in excellence, of this exaggeration of particular forms of excellence, which thus passes into defect, there is no trace in our Lord. Read His life over and over again with this object in view, and, unless I am mistaken, nothing will strike you more than its faultless proportions.
III. Consider, again, a feature which runs through His whole character: its simplicity. In nothing that He says or does can we detect any trace of striving after effect. The number of men of whom anything remotely like this is true is very small indeed. The effort to create an impression is the result sometimes of timidity, sometimes of vanity, but it always impairs moral beauty, whether of speech or work.
Our Lord always says what He has to say in the most natural and unpretending words. His sentences unfold themselves without effort or system, just as persons and occasions demand. Every situation offers an opportunity, and He uses it. He attends a wedding; He cures a paralytic; He stoops to write upon the ground; He eats with a Pharisee; He raises a corpse to life; He washes the feet of His disciples, just as it comes, just as is right from day to day, from hour to hour, from minute to minute.
The most important and useful acts follow on with the most trivial and ordinary. There is no effort, no disturbing or pretentious movement. All is as simple as if all were commonplace. It is this absence of anything like an attempt to produce unusual impressions which reveals a soul possessed with a sense of the majesty and the power of truth. Depend upon it, in the degree in which any man becomes really great, he becomes also simple.
IV. And one further point to be remarked in our Lord’s example is the stress which it lays upon those forms of excellence which make no great show, such as patience, humility, and the like. As we read the Gospels we are led to see that the highest type of human excellence consists less in acting well than in suffering well.
The ancient world never understood this. With them virtue was always active force. Yet the conditions of our human life are such that, whether we will or no, we are more frequently called upon to endure than to act; and upon the spirit in which we endure everything depends.
Our Lord restored the passive virtues to their forgotten and true place in human conduct. He revealed the beauty, the majesty, of patience, of meekness, of uncomplaining submission. Experience has shown that Christ’s Divinity is no bar whatever to an imitation of His life as man. And this imitation is not a duty which we are free to accept or decline.
"The elect," says St. Paul, "are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son of God." If there is no effort at this conformity, there is no note of a true predestination.
We cannot enter into the designs of God in giving us His Son if we are making no effort to be like His Son. Like the law, the life of Christ is a schoolmaster to bring us to the cross of Christ.
After gazing at Him we come to Him out of heart with ourselves, emptied, happily emptied, of self, crushed by a sense of our utter unworthiness to bear His name, to wear His livery; and He once more stretches His pierced hand to pardon, and offers the chalice of His blood to strengthen our souls for such work as may remain to make them more like Himself.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 1091.
References: 1Pe_2:21.—R. Balgarnie, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 407; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 152; Ibid., The Life of Duty, vol. i., p. 218; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 354; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 91.
1 Peter 2:21-22: Christ our Example. I. While our salvation is specifically described as the effect of our Lord’s greatest obedience—that is, His death—yet, viewing the subject of redemption generally, our salvation is the fruit of His whole obedience. This is apparent from the plan itself of salvation, as revealed to the enlightened mind of a Christian in the Scriptures of truth. It was necessary that the High-priest of our profession should be holy, harmless, undefiled; that of Him, the Victim who suffered for us, it should be asserted and proved that He did no sin, and that guile was not found in His mouth.
II. His history has been before the world for more than eighteen hundred years. For eighteen hundred years the world has frequently made the attempt to imagine a faultless character; but no faultless character has ever been exhibited to mankind but that of our Jesus. His charity, His piety, His purity, His fortitude, His self-possession, His self-denial, His self-government—all prove the perfection of His character and confirm the judgment of His very enemies.
They could not even ground condemnation on the frivolous accusation of the false witnesses, but condemned Him at last for that fact which is the very foundation of our hope: they condemned Him because He declared Himself to be the Son of God, thereby, as they correctly and logically reasoned, making Himself equal with God. The Lord Jesus was condemned for asserting His Divinity.
III. He is now held forth to us as an example, that we should follow His steps. The precise point marked out for our imitation is not obedience simply, but obedience attended with suffering. Our virtues are never to be trusted until they are tried, and they are never tried without suffering. The Christian, then, will bear his trials thankfully.
He will thank God for removing from his heart even that which rends his heart asunder, because he knows that God does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men; that He only sends affliction to effect for us or in us some ulterior blessing; and that it is good for us to be afflicted, affliction working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
W. F. Hook, Parish Sermons, p. 226.”
As we wrap up, tonight, I want share with you what Paul says we need to put on which, as I said in the opening, is something I have never previously read or heard quoted in any Commentary or Sermon. We have heard of putting on the whole Armor of God, found in Ephesians 6, but the Apostle Paul speaks, here, of another armor we need to put on: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” ( Romans 13:12).
The Expositor's Bible tells us of this, “{I}t is already the hour for our awaking out of sleep, the sleep of moral inattention, as if the eternal Master were not near. For nearer now is our salvation, in that last glorious sense of the word "salvation" which means the immortal issue of the whole saving process, nearer now than when we believed, and so by faith entered on our union with the Saviour. (See how he delights to associate himself with his disciples in the blessed unity of remembered conversion; "when we believed.")
The night, with its murky silence, its "poring dark," the night of trial, of temptation, of the absence of our Christ, is far spent, but the day has drawn near; it has been a long night, but that means a near dawn; the everlasting sunrise of the longed for Parousia, with its glory, gladness, and unveiling. Let us put off, therefore, as if they were a foul and entangling night robe, the works of the darkness, the habits and acts of the moral night, things which we can throw off in the Name of Christ;
but let us put on the weapons of the light, arming ourselves, for defence, and for holy aggression on the realm of evil, with faith, love, and the heavenly hope. So to the Thessalonians five years before, (1Th_5:8) and to the Ephesians four years later, (Eph_6:11-17) he wrote of the holy Panoply, rapidly sketching it in the one place, giving the rich finished picture in the other;
suggesting to the saints always the thought of a warfare first and mainly defensive, and then aggressive with the drawn sword, and indicating as their true armour not their reason, their emotions, or their will, taken in themselves, but the eternal facts of their revealed salvation in Christ, grasped and used by faith. As by day, for it is already dawn, in the Lord, let us walk decorously, becomingly, as we are the hallowed soldiers of our Leader;
let our life not only be right in fact; let it show to all men the open "decorum" of truth, purity, peace, and love; not in revels and drunken bouts; not in chamberings, the sins of the secret couch, and profligacies, not-to name evils which cling often to the otherwise reputable Christian-in strife and envy, things which are pollutions, in the sight of the Holy One, as real as lust itself.
No; put on, clothe and arm yourselves with, the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself the living sum and true meaning of all that can arm the soul; and for the flesh take no forethought lust-ward. As if, in euphemism, he would say, "Take all possible forethought against the life of self, with its lustful, self-willed gravitation away from God. And let that forethought be, to arm yourselves, as if never armed before, with Christ."
Matthew Henry adds to this: “'What we must put on.' Our care must be wherewithal we shall be clothed, how shall we dress our souls? (1.) Put on the armour of light. Christians are soldiers in the midst of enemies, and their life a warfare, therefore their array must be armour, that they may stand upon their defence - the armour of God, to which we are directed. A Christian may reckon himself undressed if he be unarmed. The graces of the Spirit are this armour, to secure the soul from Satan's temptations and the assaults of this present evil world.
This is called the armour of light, some think alluding to the bright glittering armour which the Roman soldiers used to wear; or such armour as it becomes us to wear in the day-light. The graces of the Spirit are suitable splendid ornaments, are in the sight of God of great price. (2.) Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. This stands in opposition to a great many base lusts, mentioned (see Romans 13:13).
Rioting and drunkenness must be cast off: one would think it should follows, but, “Put on sobriety, temperance, chastity,” the opposite virtues: no, “Put on Christ, this includes all. Put on the righteousness of Christ for justification; be found in him as a man is found in his clothes; put on the priestly garments of the elder brother, that in them you may obtain the blessing. Put on the spirit and grace of Christ for sanctification; put on the new man; get the habit of grace confirmed, the acts of it quickened.”
Jesus Christ is the best clothing for Christians to adorn themselves with, to arm themselves with; it is decent, distinguishing, dignifying, and defending. Without Christ, we are naked, deformed; all other things are filthy rages, fig-leaves, a sorry shelter. God has provided us coats of skins - large, strong, warm, and durable. By baptism we have in profession put on Christ. Let us do it in truth and sincerity. The Lord Jesus Christ. “Put him on as Lord to rule you, as Jesus to save you, and in both as Christ, anointed and appointed by the Father to this ruling saving work.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Basic Christianity, Part 12.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on November 4th, 2020.
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