Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 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. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
~Romans 13:10-14
“But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ”. How do you do that? When you read a passage like this, and you are spending time daily in the Word, you will be reminded of like verses. Those words “put on” are the ones that stood out to me today. We see references to this concept of “putting off and putting on” throughout the epistles in the New Testament. Let’s take a look at how this works.
As we accept the work of Jesus at the cross on Calvary, the Bible promises that when we are “in Christ” we are a new creature (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). Being a new creature, we ought to look different too. As covered in our daily passage from Romans 13, Paul admonishes the Church at Rome to “cast off the works of darkness” and to “put on the armour of light”. Paul also talks about those “works of darkness” elsewhere in Scripture. I like to look at them in Galatians 5.
While addressing the Church at Galatia, Paul uses a little different terminology. There he contrasts the “works of the flesh” with the “fruit of the Spirit”. Relating it back to what he wrote to the Church at Rome we can see that the works of the flesh are the same as the works of darkness and the fruit of the Spirit as the armour of light. It is impossible to be involved with the “works of the flesh” when you are “walking in the Spirit”, because as we are reminded in Galatians 5:17:
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Take a look at the comparison below as further explanation of today’s Romans passage and the very popular Galatians passage:
Romans 13:10-14
Darkness (flesh) NOT “in Christ”
rioting and drunkenness, chambering, wontonness, strife and envying
Light (Spirit) “in Christ”
wake out of sleep, walk honestly, as in the day, put on the Lord Jesus Christ
Galatians 5:19-26
Darkness (flesh) NOT “in Christ”
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, Desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another
Light (Spirit) “in Christ”
Not under the law, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh. We live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit
Putting on Christ is to put on that New Clothing. It is to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, Whom is in the heart of every believer at the moment that they believe the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation (Eph 1:12-14). Putting on New Clothing is choosing to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit when He is telling you that what you are about to do would not please the Lord. Putting on New Clothing is to adjust your lifestyle to resemble something that would be pleasing to the Lord when that is necessary. You do this because you love the Lord. You do this so that when people look at you as a new creature, you illuminate the Christlikeness that is the will of every one of God’s children (Rom 8:29; Rom 12:1-2; 2 Cor 4:4).
