Articles
Clothed With Christ?
Are you clothed with Christ?
It's imperative that we appear before God on judgment day, clothed with Christ. Scripture tells us very plainly how we do that, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26, 27), Paul was talking to Christians here, to the church in Galatia, who had been baptized and added by the Lord to His church. John said God sent Jesus to atone for our sin, and now we can stand before God one day “arrayed in white robes” as those who “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:13, 14).
Paul helps us further understand what changes in us, once we put off the old and take on Christ “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
Jesus isn't something we obtain so we can hang [Him] in our closet, in a figurative sense. He is what surrounds us, as Job notes “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban” (Job 29:14).
When we decide to follow Christ, we put on Christ in baptism. Then, clothed with Christ, we diligently work at being like Him to the best of our ability. The old man of sin is done away with, we have a new birth, and we put on a new man. "Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life..." (Rom 6:3-4)
Today, as we look into the mirror at ourselves, looking from head to toe, are we still wearing filthy spiritual rags because we have not come to Christ for the cleansing He offers through burial into His blood? If so, there is no better time to take that step, put on the new man, casting off the works of darkness and putting on the armor of God. We need to put on the Lord Jesus Christ!
