“That ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephes. iv. 24.
1 These words express very strongly a doctrine which is to be found in every part of the New Testament, that the Gospel covenant is the means of introducing us into a state of life so different from that in which we were born, and should otherwise continue, that it may not unfitly be called a new creation. As that which is created differs from what is not yet created, so the Christian differs from the natural man. He is brought into a new world, and, as being in that new world, is invested with powers and privileges which he absolutely had not in the way of nature. By nature his will is enslaved to sin, his soul is full of darkness, his conscience is under the wroth of God; peace, hope, love, faith, purity, he has not; nothing of heaven is in him; nothing spiritual, nothing of light and life. But in Christ all these blessings are given: the will and the power; the heart and the knowledge; the light of faith, and the obedience of faith. As far as a being can be changed without losing his identity, as far as it is sense to say that an existing being can be new created, so far has man this gift when the grace of the Gospel has its perfect work and its maturity of fruit in him. A brute differs less from a man, than does man, left to himself with his natural corruption allowed to run its course, differ from man fully formed and perfected by the habitual indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Hence, in the text, the Apostle speaks of the spiritual state which Christ has bought for us, as being a “new creature in righteousness and true holiness.” Elsewhere he says, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new. Elsewhere, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Elsewhere, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Elsewhere, “We are buried with Him by baptism into death; that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” [2 Cor. v. 17. Rom. xii. 2. Col. iii. 3. Rom. vi. 4.]
What then is this new state in which a Christian finds himself, compared with the state of nature? It is worth the inquiry.
Now, first, there ought to be no difficulty in our views about it so far as this: that there is a certain new state, and that a state of salvation; and that Christ came to bring into it all whom He had chosen out of the world. Christ “gave Himself for our sins (says St. Paul), that He might deliver us from the present evil world.” He “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.” He came “to gather together in one the children of God, which are scattered abroad.” “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” [Gal. i. 4. Col. i. 18. John xi. 52; i. 12.] This is most clear. There can be no doubt at all that there is a certain state of grace now vouchsafed to us, who are born in sin and the children of wrath, such that those who are to be saved hereafter are (to speak generally) those, and those only, who are placed in that saving state here. I am not going on to the question, whether or not there is a visible Church; but I insist only on this, that it has not seemed fit to Almighty God to transplant His elect at once from this world and from a state of nature to the eternal happiness of heaven. He does not suffer them to die as they were born, and then, on death, change them outwardly and inwardly; but He brings them into a saving state here, preparatory to heaven;—a state which the Catechism calls a “state of salvation;” and which St. Luke denotes, when he says, “The Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved;” [Acts ii. 47.] that is, persons called to salvation, placed in a saving state.
No one ought to deny this; though in this day, when all kinds of error abound, some persons seem to have taken up a notion that the world was fully reconciled all at once by Christ’s death at the very time of it, and wholly transferred into a state of acceptance; so that there is no new state necessary now for those who shall ultimately be benefited by it; that they have but to do their duty, and they will be rewarded accordingly; whereas it does certainly appear, from such texts of Scripture as have been quoted, that there is a certain state, or kingdom of Christ, into which all must enter here who shall be saved hereafter. We cannot attain to heaven hereafter, without being in this new kingdom here; we cannot escape from the miseries and horrors of the Old Adam, except by being brought into this Kingdom, as into an asylum, and there remaining.
And further, this new state is one of “righteousness and true holiness,” as the text speaks. Christ brings us into it by coming to us through His Spirit; and, as His Spirit is holy, we are holy, if we are in the state of grace. Christ is present in that heart which He visits with His grace. So that to be in His kingdom is to be in righteousness, to live in obedience, to breathe, as it were, an atmosphere of truth and love.