“THE OLD AND THE NEW”
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 14)
August 9, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Put off your old self, which belongs to your former way of life and is
corrupt through deceitful desires, and . . . be renewed in the spirit
of your minds and . . . put on the new self, created after the
likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:22-24 (ESV)
At the risk of dating myself, I’d like to recite a few lines from an
old Bob Dylan tune that seems to characterize the time in which it was
written and our time as well:
“Come gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth saving,
Then you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone;
For the times, they are a’changin’.”
“The times, they are a’changin.’” Things have always changed and they
always will. Some of us feel uncomfortable with many of the changes
taking place around us, especially when it seems that most of them
aren’t necessarily for the better. Sometimes all of these changes
make us feel as if we no longer belong in the world of today as we
look back on “the good old days” when life was a lot less complicated.
In today’s Epistle Paul talks about change too, but not the changes
that are a part of living in a fast-paced society like ours. He’s
talking about the dramatic change that has taken place in every sinner
who through Baptism has grasped in faith the salvation won for us all
by Jesus Christ. He talks about our “old self” and our “new self” and
how we, using the Spirit’s power at work in the Gospel, ought to put
off the old and put on the new. This is not a mere duty; it is one of
the blessings of salvation. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit
that we actually live the faith that we confess with our lips and
believe in our hearts. But if we are to live the New Life that is
ours in Christ, we must first hear and understand what the Word of God
says about the “old self” that we must “put off” and the “new self”
that we are to “put on.”
The “old self” that Paul tells us to “put off” is our sinful nature.
Luther called it the “old Adam.” It can be defined as that part of us
that always wants to sin. It infected human nature when our first
parents fell into sin and it has been passed on to all of us. No
matter how long you’ve been a Christian or how spiritually strong or
sanctified you may be, the “old Adam” is something that you’re going
to have to contend with for as long as you live. Because we are
baptized into Christ, the “old Adam” is defeated, but that doesn’t
mean that it’s totally dead. Itstill raises its ugly head every time
that we are confronted with temptation. As one pastor so aptly put it
(if you’ll excuse his colorful language): “Baptism drowns the ‘old
Adam,’ but he’s a damn good swimmer!” This “old Adam”--this sinful
nature that is ours from the moment of our conception--is the “old
self” that Paul tells us to “put off.” God’s Good News for us is that
in Baptism we have been given the power to turn a deaf ear to
temptation even when it arises from within ourselves.
This “old self” has a tremendous effect on us. It alienates us from
God because God and sin are incompatible. God cannot tolerate sin and
sin cannot survive in His presence. When you choose to be in harmony
with sin rather than in harmony with God you are hearkening to the
voice of your “old self.” When you can’t let go of past guilt even as
you hear God’s gracious Word of forgiveness, you are hearkening to the
voice of your “old self.” Luther had this problem in the monastery
until the kindly Dr. Staupitz, his superior and confessor, told him
bluntly: “Brother Martin, God is not angry at you; you are angry at
Him. It is not God who won’t forgive; it is you who won’t be
forgiven.” Our “old self” does everything possible to keep us captive
to sin. When you give up on trying to please God because you figure
that it’s no use, you are hearkening to the voice of your “old self.”
When you hesitate to make changes in your life because some sins are
just too much fun to give up, you are hearkening to the voice of your
“old self.” Our captivity to sin has been broken by the sacrifice of
Jesus at Calvary. Our Baptism into His death has made you and me dead
to sin--no longer hopeless or without resources in our daily struggle
with sin.
But “put[ting] off” the “old self” is only half of the story. Christ
didn’t free us from our “old self” just so that we could stand around
being spiritually naked. He has also enabled us to “put on” the “new
self.” This “new self” is the image of God first given to us in
creation and lost because of sin, but now restored in us by the
perfect righteousness of our Savior. Even though our sin has
alienated us from God, because of what Jesus has done for us in His
sacrificial life and death we are once again in fellowship with God.
We have no need to be afraid of Him or to keep our distance from Him.
The Gospel shows us that God loves us--that He forgives us and accepts
us as His own--that His Spirit is at work in us so that we might be
the people that He created us to be in the beginning. Paul writes to
the Corinthians: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The
old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
In Christ God has wiped the slate clean. We have a new beginning in
Christ every day--a new opportunity to glorify God in our lives. And
in Christ we also have the power to do it.
When you were baptized in the name of the Triune God, His Holy Spirit
began in you the process of restoring the image of God with which you
were created. It’s a process that will never be completed in this
life. As long as we live in a world of temptation and sin we will
never be perfectly conformed to God’s image, but in His means of grace
He gives us the strength that we need to grow. Every day of our
Christian life we ought to be able to say: “I’m closer to what God
wants me to be than I was yesterday, but tomorrow I’ll be even closer
still.” But it has its ups and downs. This process, which the Bible
calls sanctification, is finally brought to completion at death, when
God graciously takes us out of this world of temptation and sin and
conforms us perfectly to His image through the mercies of Christ.
In Baptism we are called to part ways with the past: past sins, past
guilt, past disappointments and failures. We are called to forsake
all of these in order to pursue something better: the New Life that we
have been given through the redeeming life and death of our Savior.
It is a call to “put off [our] old self,” corrupted by sin and
powerless to change, and to “put on the new self”--the perfect
righteousness of Jesus Christ, given to us by the Holy Spirit. That
same Spirit answers His call for us by daily drowning everything old
and evil in us in the water of our Baptism, so that “we . . . might
walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.