Christ Clothing a Kneeling Man in a White RobeBible World
3:27Galatians 3:27
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
To be baptized into Christ is to be joined to him and identified with him and with those who follow him through faith in his death and resurrection, professing belonging to him and separation from the world in covenant to walk in new life. All who are so baptized have put him on and by faith in him are children of God, children of one heavenly family. To put on Christ is to be clothed with his righteousness, the wedding garment prepared at infinite cost that alone fits a person for the gospel feast and the kingdom, so that outward profession without it leaves one unfit. It is thorough conversion in which Christ and his Spirit dwell within, planting the soul in him and changing spirit and word and act into likeness to his character. In him all distinctions are swallowed up in oneness, and those clothed with him contradict their profession when they pursue vanity and worldly pleasure, for they are called to walk as he walked, separate from the world and reflecting his meekness, love, and holiness in daily life.
Baptism and Covenant Meaning
Baptism into Christ joins believers to him, placing them in him and identifying them with him and with those who follow him through faith in his death and resurrection. Christ himself was baptized as an example although wholly righteous, and baptism does not mean that outwardly faultless people have no need of repentance and belief. Those thus joined are to do their part by separating from whatever would degrade them or draw them away from what they ought to be, and as they separate they receive strength to grow up into Christ as the living head and to see the salvation of God.
Baptism is a profession of belonging to Christ and of being dead to the world, marking separation from the world and a covenant to walk in a new life with him. Those who have put on Christ in baptism contradict that profession when they pursue vanity, display, worldly pleasure, and vanity in dress and conduct, and such a course grieves Christ and brings reproach upon God's cause. Having received forgiveness and the offer of Christ's righteousness, they are accountable to live by the light and privileges received, not cherishing or setting up idols in their hearts nor returning to the world's ways.
By baptismal vows a person is solemnly pledged to be a servant of Jesus Christ and to be clothed with his righteousness. This makes each soul individually answerable to God to love him with all the heart, to do his will, to recognize and fear and serve the Lord so that the light remains as undiminished glory, and to carry out the living example of the Lord Jesus. That pledge stands in contrast to self-exaltation and refusal to work in harmony with God.
As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and by faith in Christ Jesus are all the children of God, children of one family of heavenly extraction. This sonship means keeping the soul fully guarded against the adversary leading into strange paths and full of the light and grace and life that heaven supplies, living lives that declare sonship to God. It means following the laws of heaven instead of the customs and policies of the world, and as his purchased possession putting away envy and evil surmising and evil suspicion, loving one another as he has loved and helping one another press onward and upward.
Those baptized by the Holy Spirit put on robes of righteousness and take their place at his feet to learn from him. By faith those baptized into Christ may be clothed with his righteousness, and as they behold Christ through the enlightenment of the Spirit they are changed in character. In him they find fullness and grace and pardon.
Those who receive Christ by faith have put on Christ, and they trace and share how the Holy Spirit has led them. That leading includes longing to know God and Jesus, searching Scripture, praying, and receiving his words of forgiveness. Being thus clothed with Christ's righteousness is a covering to be earnestly prayed for on behalf of others.
The verse belongs to the truth on the law in Galatians that stands unchanged and will bear investigation and criticism without falling. Every person must investigate that truth in the Scriptures for themselves and be able to give a reason for it with meekness and fear. When truly held it sanctifies believers and produces a Christian spirit and fruit after Christ's order in openness, frankness, and truthfulness with one another rather than disunion and bitterness.
Righteousness Christ Provides
To have been baptized into Christ is to have put on Christ, and to put on Christ is to be clothed with his righteousness. That clothing is the wedding garment prepared at infinite cost for every soul who comes to the feast, and no one can enter the gospel feast or God's kingdom without it, relying on own merits. A person may accept the invitation and appear to be a believer, yet outward profession alone does not make anyone fit, and claiming to be Christian without change of character does not mean having put on Christ. Every one redeemed by his blood is to disrobe earthly, citizen's dress and for the sake of the Christian name put on the robe of Christ's righteousness, bringing matters up to the Christian standard so that honor is given to God and not to man. Those who choose their own standards instead of God's standard have not put on Christ and do not know him as personal Saviour, for merely claiming to believe in him is not enough.
This righteousness clothes the believer and its presence within is revealed in pure and holy conduct, seen in words and life. It is needed to withstand prevailing impiety, with faith in Christ shown by works, laboring for eternal life not in own strength but in the strength of the risen Lord. The righteousness is provided and imparted by Christ to every repentant, believing person, not made by human effort. Through obedience to God's law he formed a perfect character, and when a person submits to him the heart, will, mind and thoughts are brought into harmony with his, so that the believer lives his life and God sees his perfect obedience rather than the person's sin and failure. Those who finally overcome temptation are so clothed as they obey God and determinedly meet the conditions in his Word.
Being thus clothed with Christ's righteousness leaves no relish for sin, because Christ works with the believer. Such persons may make mistakes, but they hate the sin that caused his suffering.
Inner Transformation and Knowledge
Putting on Christ means having Christ and His Spirit dwelling within, being planted in Him and growing in likeness to His character. Without this inward dwelling, people remain slaves of sin and Satan. Only a life hidden with Christ can lead those debased by sin into new life with God.
Putting on Christ means abiding with Him continually, not merely touching Him briefly or seeking Him for occasional blessings. This abiding presence encourages and strengthens the mind. He bears the weight of every burden, so that necessary duties become light.
Putting on Christ is thorough conversion and receiving the Spirit of Christ rather than merely professing religion. It is coming into right relation with God permanently, never laying Him off again or returning to half-heartedness. His Spirit stamps mind and character with the heavenly and divine through the molding, refining influence of the Holy Spirit upon the features and the whole character. As soon as a person puts on Christ the change is seen in spirit and word and act, and a heavenly atmosphere surrounds the soul because He abides within, revealed even in the countenance.
Being clothed with Christ is not a temporary profession adopted at will and then discarded; believers are to remain clothed with His righteousness, representing His character in words and actions. In this change pride and envy and evil-surmising and the haughty, self-sufficient spirit leading to self-exaltation are crucified. The Spirit and mind of Christ abide instead, and followers reveal the graces of His character and fruits of the Spirit. This reformation by sanctifying truth makes them acceptable to God, gives the pure holy character required for heaven, and prepares them for translation.
God's purpose is that everyone baptized into Christ possess the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ expressed in character. This knowledge is the highest education, an exaltation above everything esteemed on earth or in heaven. It is the key that opens the portals of the heavenly city. God's servants must set this high calling before baptized souls.
Putting on Christ is associated with a changed, enlarged mind receiving higher education and sharing heavenly truth with others. Even those brought into the fold at the eleventh hour are accepted if earnest, and the Lord works through them. Putting on Christ means relying on Him in faith and wearing the robe of His righteousness openly and decisively. This living trust enables patient endurance, looks to Jesus rather than expecting too much of finite people, and is an experiential knowledge of His grace with continually increasing faith. It means taking His mind and being yoked with Him.
A person cannot produce goodness or righteousness by own power, but when fully given to God the Holy Spirit teaches self-denial, taking up the cross, and following Christ. Loving God above all and neighbor as self are the principles on which the law and prophets rest, and when obeyed a person is bound to God through obedience. Taking on His character and becoming a true representative is possible through His help and leads to a life planned in harmony with His will.
Those who receive and are sanctified by the truth have put on Christ, are united with Him, can represent Him in words and actions, and have power to reveal the truth to others. Those who belong to Him are to put on His holiness and purity, maintaining a distinct holy character and following His example. Those baptized into Christ are to put on Christ by laying aside rebellion against God and taking on a life shaped by Christ, living in service rather than self-pleasing.
Now putting on Christ means relinquishing every idol so God reigns supreme and putting away indulgence of selfish passions and lusts with an undivided heart yielding service and affections to God alone. It is necessary to faithfulness in the solemn trust of a shepherd of the flock, for without it a person may profess godliness and appear a shepherd yet finally prove otherwise. Those who put on Christ do God's will and abide forever, while a divided heart easily sells the birthright for selfish gratification until repentance comes too late.
Unity and Love in Christ
Belief in Jesus transforms character, so that through his grace those once dead in sin display the fruits of the Spirit and share in the divine nature. In him Jewish and Gentile believers are one, as are bond and free and male and female, made members of one body rather than divided by these distinctions. As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ and by faith in him are all the children of God, children of one family of heavenly extraction.
Belonging to God's family calls the baptized to live as God's children, keeping the soul fully guarded against the adversary leading into strange paths and full of the light and grace and life heaven supplies. They are to live lives that declare sonship to God, following the laws of heaven instead of the customs and policies of the world. As his purchased possession they are to put away envy and evil surmising and suspicion, and to love one another as he loved them, helping one another to press onward and upward.
The call to put on Christ means those who belong to him should show his character in conduct by working together in order, unity, and mutual love under God's supervision. Putting on Christ is lived out by faith in Jesus and by reflecting his selfless character, turning from self-centeredness to reach out to others. That reaching out works with benevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, and concern for their good.
Those who have put on Christ are to live as people whose character and conduct reflect him, showing in work and relationships consideration, love, kindness, and brotherly tenderness, so that their influence becomes useful and trustworthy. Those entrusted with working for God among people who are untrained and undisciplined must let words, spirit, and actions reflect his tenderness, pity, and compassion and not mislead them. They are to go clothed with Christlike meekness. Those truly transformed by Christ, with Christ and his Spirit dwelling within rather than remaining slaves of sin and Satan, do not despise anyone he has purchased with his blood, regardless of race or prejudice.
When all are thus thoroughly converted and receive the Spirit of Christ rather than merely professing religion, they come into right relation with God permanently and reveal it in unity among workers and in employing every capability as true missionaries for Christ. Then God himself teaches and leads and guides to a wonderful work like the disciples receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, showing the salvation of God.
Separation and Holy Living
Baptism into Christ is a profession of belonging to him and being dead to the world, and those who have put him on contradict that profession when they pursue vanity, display, worldly pleasure, pride, and fashions in dress, custom, and conduct. Such a course grieves Christ and brings reproach on God's cause, for to keep a desire to imitate the world while professing to have put on Christ is in practice to put him off. Just so soon God ceases to acknowledge such persons as his children, and they become children of the world and of darkness, strangers to grace and strangers to the meek and lowly Jesus. Those who truly know him walk worthy of him, separate from the world like their Master, laying aside pride and conformity such as ribbons, laces, and collars, with the single object to glorify God and gain the immortal inheritance, unmoved by the laugh, jeer, and scorn of unbelievers.
Having received forgiveness and the offer of Christ's righteousness, the baptized are accountable to live by the light and privileges received, under a covenant separation from the world to walk in a new life with Christ. They are not to cherish or set up idols in their hearts nor to return to the world's ways. Those baptized into Christ have come out of darkness into light and bear his badge of truth and obedience, living by the holy principles shown in his life, where light means righteousness and darkness means unrighteousness. Clothed with him they seek his righteousness and are governed by the elevated and holy principles he expressed, having no fellowship, communion, participation, partnership, or union with worldly parties but letting political questions alone.
Connecting with Christ pledges a person to walk as he walked, hidden in him, clothed with his righteousness and imbued with his Spirit, with likeness to Christ as the watchword in disposition rather than likeness to father or mother. It requires crucifying self not now and then but daily, bringing physical, mental, and spiritual powers into subordination to God's will, doing all whether eating or drinking with self out of sight and God's glory in view. There must be thorough overcoming without compromise of all inherited or acquired peculiarities, love of esteem, and pride of opinion, accepting no excuse for not meeting the divine standard, making God's glory and perfection of Christian character the aim in order to be like him who lived not to please himself and to have symmetry of character to stand before the Son of Man. Putting on Christ means choosing his influence and following him in humility and dependence on God rather than seeking worldly recognition or relying on worldly influence for success. Those whose souls are of value with God must put on Christ by being clothed with humility, becoming poor and of a contrite and humble spirit and trembling at his word, breaking off cold Phariseeism, so that God who dwells in the high and holy place will dwell with them and look upon them and reveal his glory in them until their faces shine.
Growth, Faithfulness and Witness
Being baptized into Christ brings present testing and proving and requires doing one's part by separating from everything that would drag down, degrade, make unfit, and keep a person from becoming what ought to be and from what God intends. To those who so separate, strength is given to grow up into Christ as the living head and to see the salvation of God. Baptism joins believers to Christ, and this call to separate applies to whatever would draw them away from what they ought to be.
Putting on Christ is a daily need, and without it medical missionaries are not clothed with His robe of righteousness. It belongs to preparing to enter the heavenly courts, with influence refined, purified, and sanctified. Every student should so give himself to the Lord that by and by he may sit with the angels in heavenly places with Christ.
Being baptized into Christ means putting on Christ as an individual work done in union with Him, putting on His qualities of character to represent Him in all words and actions. It requires willingness to follow on to know the Lord, walking humbly before Him and being taught by Him daily. When this is done the Holy Spirit works through the person, giving power to show the world and represent to the world a better way.
Those who have put on Christ display His character in words and actions, especially humility and the grace of humility. A claim to sanctification without obedience to God or conduct that reflects Christ does not show that a person has put on Christ, while genuine likeness makes others recognize His goodness and glorify God. Putting on Christ is expressed in a life reflecting His character as people learn from Him, become meek and lowly, follow His footsteps, fulfill His requirements, and have lives conformed to the truth. As they behold Christ they are transformed in character, reveal the Saviour and His character to others, do the work He did, and make His grace known, with Christ going before them as their righteousness.
Putting Him on in words, in spirit, and in actions does not lead to feebleness and inactivity, to self-love and self-pleasing, but to recognizing duty toward God and taking up responsibilities toward fellow men that the law of God defines, loving neighbor as self with all service merged into the life of Jesus Christ. This noble life of obedience and service makes believers partakers of the divine nature with the inner strength of piety that animated Jesus, so that Christ lives in them, their life reveals itself as part of His life, they wear His yoke and lift His burdens, and transformation of character makes His yoke easy and His burden light. Putting on Christ is shown in practical life by loving fellow believers, learning His meekness and lowliness, and disciplining self to give up wrong habits and control harmful thoughts, feelings, and words, for zeal and energy without Christlike meekness avail nothing. Wearing His yoke means learning from Him and doing the Word, not merely hearing or preaching it.
Putting on Christ in meekness and lowliness of heart, weeding everything harsh and condemnatory out of speech, enables parents and teachers to represent Him in all dealings with children. Church members are to welcome Christ into their hearts, and every minister and worker is to put on Christ and have His mind. Doing so is their greatest triumph and equips them to care for the souls He bought with His blood. Those who have put on Christ resist constant temptations born of selfishness and covetousness, strengthened by the grace of God, and work out heaven's pure principles before a world that watches professing Christians for inconsistency.
To be baptized into Christ is to be joined to him and identified with him and with those who follow him through faith in his death and resurrection, professing belonging to him and separation from the world in covenant to walk in new life. All who are so baptized have put him on and by faith in him are children of God, children of one heavenly family. To put on Christ is to be clothed with his righteousness, the wedding garment prepared at infinite cost that alone fits a person for the gospel feast and the kingdom, so that outward profession without it leaves one unfit. It is thorough conversion in which Christ and his Spirit dwell within, planting the soul in him and changing spirit and word and act into likeness to his character. In him all distinctions are swallowed up in oneness, and those clothed with him contradict their profession when they pursue vanity and worldly pleasure, for they are called to walk as he walked, separate from the world and reflecting his meekness, love, and holiness in daily life.
Baptism and Covenant Meaning
Baptism into Christ joins believers to him, placing them in him and identifying them with him and with those who follow him through faith in his death and resurrection. Christ himself was baptized as an example although wholly righteous, and baptism does not mean that outwardly faultless people have no need of repentance and belief. Those thus joined are to do their part by separating from whatever would degrade them or draw them away from what they ought to be, and as they separate they receive strength to grow up into Christ as the living head and to see the salvation of God.
Baptism is a profession of belonging to Christ and of being dead to the world, marking separation from the world and a covenant to walk in a new life with him. Those who have put on Christ in baptism contradict that profession when they pursue vanity, display, worldly pleasure, and vanity in dress and conduct, and such a course grieves Christ and brings reproach upon God's cause. Having received forgiveness and the offer of Christ's righteousness, they are accountable to live by the light and privileges received, not cherishing or setting up idols in their hearts nor returning to the world's ways.
By baptismal vows a person is solemnly pledged to be a servant of Jesus Christ and to be clothed with his righteousness. This makes each soul individually answerable to God to love him with all the heart, to do his will, to recognize and fear and serve the Lord so that the light remains as undiminished glory, and to carry out the living example of the Lord Jesus. That pledge stands in contrast to self-exaltation and refusal to work in harmony with God.
As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and by faith in Christ Jesus are all the children of God, children of one family of heavenly extraction. This sonship means keeping the soul fully guarded against the adversary leading into strange paths and full of the light and grace and life that heaven supplies, living lives that declare sonship to God. It means following the laws of heaven instead of the customs and policies of the world, and as his purchased possession putting away envy and evil surmising and evil suspicion, loving one another as he has loved and helping one another press onward and upward.
Those baptized by the Holy Spirit put on robes of righteousness and take their place at his feet to learn from him. By faith those baptized into Christ may be clothed with his righteousness, and as they behold Christ through the enlightenment of the Spirit they are changed in character. In him they find fullness and grace and pardon.
Those who receive Christ by faith have put on Christ, and they trace and share how the Holy Spirit has led them. That leading includes longing to know God and Jesus, searching Scripture, praying, and receiving his words of forgiveness. Being thus clothed with Christ's righteousness is a covering to be earnestly prayed for on behalf of others.
The verse belongs to the truth on the law in Galatians that stands unchanged and will bear investigation and criticism without falling. Every person must investigate that truth in the Scriptures for themselves and be able to give a reason for it with meekness and fear. When truly held it sanctifies believers and produces a Christian spirit and fruit after Christ's order in openness, frankness, and truthfulness with one another rather than disunion and bitterness.
Righteousness Christ Provides
To have been baptized into Christ is to have put on Christ, and to put on Christ is to be clothed with his righteousness. That clothing is the wedding garment prepared at infinite cost for every soul who comes to the feast, and no one can enter the gospel feast or God's kingdom without it, relying on own merits. A person may accept the invitation and appear to be a believer, yet outward profession alone does not make anyone fit, and claiming to be Christian without change of character does not mean having put on Christ. Every one redeemed by his blood is to disrobe earthly, citizen's dress and for the sake of the Christian name put on the robe of Christ's righteousness, bringing matters up to the Christian standard so that honor is given to God and not to man. Those who choose their own standards instead of God's standard have not put on Christ and do not know him as personal Saviour, for merely claiming to believe in him is not enough.
This righteousness clothes the believer and its presence within is revealed in pure and holy conduct, seen in words and life. It is needed to withstand prevailing impiety, with faith in Christ shown by works, laboring for eternal life not in own strength but in the strength of the risen Lord. The righteousness is provided and imparted by Christ to every repentant, believing person, not made by human effort. Through obedience to God's law he formed a perfect character, and when a person submits to him the heart, will, mind and thoughts are brought into harmony with his, so that the believer lives his life and God sees his perfect obedience rather than the person's sin and failure. Those who finally overcome temptation are so clothed as they obey God and determinedly meet the conditions in his Word.
Being thus clothed with Christ's righteousness leaves no relish for sin, because Christ works with the believer. Such persons may make mistakes, but they hate the sin that caused his suffering.
Inner Transformation and Knowledge
Putting on Christ means having Christ and His Spirit dwelling within, being planted in Him and growing in likeness to His character. Without this inward dwelling, people remain slaves of sin and Satan. Only a life hidden with Christ can lead those debased by sin into new life with God.
Putting on Christ means abiding with Him continually, not merely touching Him briefly or seeking Him for occasional blessings. This abiding presence encourages and strengthens the mind. He bears the weight of every burden, so that necessary duties become light.
Putting on Christ is thorough conversion and receiving the Spirit of Christ rather than merely professing religion. It is coming into right relation with God permanently, never laying Him off again or returning to half-heartedness. His Spirit stamps mind and character with the heavenly and divine through the molding, refining influence of the Holy Spirit upon the features and the whole character. As soon as a person puts on Christ the change is seen in spirit and word and act, and a heavenly atmosphere surrounds the soul because He abides within, revealed even in the countenance.
Being clothed with Christ is not a temporary profession adopted at will and then discarded; believers are to remain clothed with His righteousness, representing His character in words and actions. In this change pride and envy and evil-surmising and the haughty, self-sufficient spirit leading to self-exaltation are crucified. The Spirit and mind of Christ abide instead, and followers reveal the graces of His character and fruits of the Spirit. This reformation by sanctifying truth makes them acceptable to God, gives the pure holy character required for heaven, and prepares them for translation.
God's purpose is that everyone baptized into Christ possess the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ expressed in character. This knowledge is the highest education, an exaltation above everything esteemed on earth or in heaven. It is the key that opens the portals of the heavenly city. God's servants must set this high calling before baptized souls.
Putting on Christ is associated with a changed, enlarged mind receiving higher education and sharing heavenly truth with others. Even those brought into the fold at the eleventh hour are accepted if earnest, and the Lord works through them. Putting on Christ means relying on Him in faith and wearing the robe of His righteousness openly and decisively. This living trust enables patient endurance, looks to Jesus rather than expecting too much of finite people, and is an experiential knowledge of His grace with continually increasing faith. It means taking His mind and being yoked with Him.
A person cannot produce goodness or righteousness by own power, but when fully given to God the Holy Spirit teaches self-denial, taking up the cross, and following Christ. Loving God above all and neighbor as self are the principles on which the law and prophets rest, and when obeyed a person is bound to God through obedience. Taking on His character and becoming a true representative is possible through His help and leads to a life planned in harmony with His will.
Those who receive and are sanctified by the truth have put on Christ, are united with Him, can represent Him in words and actions, and have power to reveal the truth to others. Those who belong to Him are to put on His holiness and purity, maintaining a distinct holy character and following His example. Those baptized into Christ are to put on Christ by laying aside rebellion against God and taking on a life shaped by Christ, living in service rather than self-pleasing.
Now putting on Christ means relinquishing every idol so God reigns supreme and putting away indulgence of selfish passions and lusts with an undivided heart yielding service and affections to God alone. It is necessary to faithfulness in the solemn trust of a shepherd of the flock, for without it a person may profess godliness and appear a shepherd yet finally prove otherwise. Those who put on Christ do God's will and abide forever, while a divided heart easily sells the birthright for selfish gratification until repentance comes too late.
Unity and Love in Christ
Belief in Jesus transforms character, so that through his grace those once dead in sin display the fruits of the Spirit and share in the divine nature. In him Jewish and Gentile believers are one, as are bond and free and male and female, made members of one body rather than divided by these distinctions. As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ and by faith in him are all the children of God, children of one family of heavenly extraction.
Belonging to God's family calls the baptized to live as God's children, keeping the soul fully guarded against the adversary leading into strange paths and full of the light and grace and life heaven supplies. They are to live lives that declare sonship to God, following the laws of heaven instead of the customs and policies of the world. As his purchased possession they are to put away envy and evil surmising and suspicion, and to love one another as he loved them, helping one another to press onward and upward.
The call to put on Christ means those who belong to him should show his character in conduct by working together in order, unity, and mutual love under God's supervision. Putting on Christ is lived out by faith in Jesus and by reflecting his selfless character, turning from self-centeredness to reach out to others. That reaching out works with benevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, and concern for their good.
Those who have put on Christ are to live as people whose character and conduct reflect him, showing in work and relationships consideration, love, kindness, and brotherly tenderness, so that their influence becomes useful and trustworthy. Those entrusted with working for God among people who are untrained and undisciplined must let words, spirit, and actions reflect his tenderness, pity, and compassion and not mislead them. They are to go clothed with Christlike meekness. Those truly transformed by Christ, with Christ and his Spirit dwelling within rather than remaining slaves of sin and Satan, do not despise anyone he has purchased with his blood, regardless of race or prejudice.
When all are thus thoroughly converted and receive the Spirit of Christ rather than merely professing religion, they come into right relation with God permanently and reveal it in unity among workers and in employing every capability as true missionaries for Christ. Then God himself teaches and leads and guides to a wonderful work like the disciples receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, showing the salvation of God.
Separation and Holy Living
Baptism into Christ is a profession of belonging to him and being dead to the world, and those who have put him on contradict that profession when they pursue vanity, display, worldly pleasure, pride, and fashions in dress, custom, and conduct. Such a course grieves Christ and brings reproach on God's cause, for to keep a desire to imitate the world while professing to have put on Christ is in practice to put him off. Just so soon God ceases to acknowledge such persons as his children, and they become children of the world and of darkness, strangers to grace and strangers to the meek and lowly Jesus. Those who truly know him walk worthy of him, separate from the world like their Master, laying aside pride and conformity such as ribbons, laces, and collars, with the single object to glorify God and gain the immortal inheritance, unmoved by the laugh, jeer, and scorn of unbelievers.
Having received forgiveness and the offer of Christ's righteousness, the baptized are accountable to live by the light and privileges received, under a covenant separation from the world to walk in a new life with Christ. They are not to cherish or set up idols in their hearts nor to return to the world's ways. Those baptized into Christ have come out of darkness into light and bear his badge of truth and obedience, living by the holy principles shown in his life, where light means righteousness and darkness means unrighteousness. Clothed with him they seek his righteousness and are governed by the elevated and holy principles he expressed, having no fellowship, communion, participation, partnership, or union with worldly parties but letting political questions alone.
Connecting with Christ pledges a person to walk as he walked, hidden in him, clothed with his righteousness and imbued with his Spirit, with likeness to Christ as the watchword in disposition rather than likeness to father or mother. It requires crucifying self not now and then but daily, bringing physical, mental, and spiritual powers into subordination to God's will, doing all whether eating or drinking with self out of sight and God's glory in view. There must be thorough overcoming without compromise of all inherited or acquired peculiarities, love of esteem, and pride of opinion, accepting no excuse for not meeting the divine standard, making God's glory and perfection of Christian character the aim in order to be like him who lived not to please himself and to have symmetry of character to stand before the Son of Man. Putting on Christ means choosing his influence and following him in humility and dependence on God rather than seeking worldly recognition or relying on worldly influence for success. Those whose souls are of value with God must put on Christ by being clothed with humility, becoming poor and of a contrite and humble spirit and trembling at his word, breaking off cold Phariseeism, so that God who dwells in the high and holy place will dwell with them and look upon them and reveal his glory in them until their faces shine.
Growth, Faithfulness and Witness
Being baptized into Christ brings present testing and proving and requires doing one's part by separating from everything that would drag down, degrade, make unfit, and keep a person from becoming what ought to be and from what God intends. To those who so separate, strength is given to grow up into Christ as the living head and to see the salvation of God. Baptism joins believers to Christ, and this call to separate applies to whatever would draw them away from what they ought to be.
Putting on Christ is a daily need, and without it medical missionaries are not clothed with His robe of righteousness. It belongs to preparing to enter the heavenly courts, with influence refined, purified, and sanctified. Every student should so give himself to the Lord that by and by he may sit with the angels in heavenly places with Christ.
Being baptized into Christ means putting on Christ as an individual work done in union with Him, putting on His qualities of character to represent Him in all words and actions. It requires willingness to follow on to know the Lord, walking humbly before Him and being taught by Him daily. When this is done the Holy Spirit works through the person, giving power to show the world and represent to the world a better way.
Those who have put on Christ display His character in words and actions, especially humility and the grace of humility. A claim to sanctification without obedience to God or conduct that reflects Christ does not show that a person has put on Christ, while genuine likeness makes others recognize His goodness and glorify God. Putting on Christ is expressed in a life reflecting His character as people learn from Him, become meek and lowly, follow His footsteps, fulfill His requirements, and have lives conformed to the truth. As they behold Christ they are transformed in character, reveal the Saviour and His character to others, do the work He did, and make His grace known, with Christ going before them as their righteousness.
Putting Him on in words, in spirit, and in actions does not lead to feebleness and inactivity, to self-love and self-pleasing, but to recognizing duty toward God and taking up responsibilities toward fellow men that the law of God defines, loving neighbor as self with all service merged into the life of Jesus Christ. This noble life of obedience and service makes believers partakers of the divine nature with the inner strength of piety that animated Jesus, so that Christ lives in them, their life reveals itself as part of His life, they wear His yoke and lift His burdens, and transformation of character makes His yoke easy and His burden light. Putting on Christ is shown in practical life by loving fellow believers, learning His meekness and lowliness, and disciplining self to give up wrong habits and control harmful thoughts, feelings, and words, for zeal and energy without Christlike meekness avail nothing. Wearing His yoke means learning from Him and doing the Word, not merely hearing or preaching it.
Putting on Christ in meekness and lowliness of heart, weeding everything harsh and condemnatory out of speech, enables parents and teachers to represent Him in all dealings with children. Church members are to welcome Christ into their hearts, and every minister and worker is to put on Christ and have His mind. Doing so is their greatest triumph and equips them to care for the souls He bought with His blood. Those who have put on Christ resist constant temptations born of selfishness and covetousness, strengthened by the grace of God, and work out heaven's pure principles before a world that watches professing Christians for inconsistency.