| Back | Contents | Next |
{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians are Described
Positively
Their Makeup, Constitution: Formed After Image of God}
Precisians are made and cut out exactly according to a specific pattern: they are born of the Spirit, born of God, and bear the express image of their Father upon them (Colossians 3:10). Renewed after the image of Him who created them, they are newly made from what they were. There is a mighty change worked in and upon them. We are metamorfoumeqa [transformed, form of metamorfow, metamorph¼½: to be transformed (cf. metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly)] (2 Corinthians 3:18). We are transformed into God’s image. In our first birth, we were brought forth in the image of our first father. Adam sired a son in his own image (Genesis 5:3). That is a fleshly and earthly image. The first man was of the earth, earthly, and such are all his natural progeny: an earthly offspring. He who is born of the Spirit is brought forth in a spiritual frame. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). He who is born from above38 is of a heavenly nature, as well as newly created. The change that Christianity makes on people is not the low and inconsiderable thing that some people make it, consisting only in some little reformation of lifestyle. Rather, it consists mainly in the renewing of the soul after the image of God and the forming of Christ on the heart, or inner person. There will be a second change at the resurrection in which our pitiful bodies will be transformed into the likeness of Christ’s glorious body. Likewise, this first change is a transforming of our vile souls into the likeness of His glorious Spirit. Christians are temples of the Lord, and just as Moses made the Tabernacle exactly according to the pattern shown on the mountain (Exodus 39:32), so these spiritual temples are made just as exactly according to their pattern. They are letters from Christ, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, and this not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of fleshly hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3). Carnal39 people plead strongly for their Christianity; even though they are ignorant, unbelieving, earthly, and sensual; they plead that they are all Christians, disciples, and people of God. Indeed, there is some kind of profession40 (such as it is) among them: a profession of faith and a profession of repentance. But it amounts to little more than barely saying, “I believe, I repent, I am sorry for my sins.” And this must pass for Christianity. But, as Christ once said to the tempting Jews, “Whose is this image and inscription?” (Matthew 22:20). Where is the divine stamp and impress? Where is your likeness to Christ? Is there not still the visage of the old person? Is there not the old pride, the old envy, the old enmity against holiness, the old guile and falsehood, and the old lust still spread over you? Is this the image of Christ? Christians who are truly such are precisely formed according to the pattern of Christ. They have face for face, limb for limb, and grace for grace. All the grace that is in Christ is truly, though not yet perfectly, copied out upon them. Though the characters may be partly blotted and obscured by reason of the remainders of corruption, they are still there: the same mind and the same heart that was in Christ is in them. A true Christian is a copy of Christ. As He is, so are we in the world (1 John 4:7).
This inward change, this forming of Christ upon the heart, is the very soul and life of Christianity. It makes no more sense to call a body without a soul a person, than to call a person who does not have the Spirit of Christ a Christian. Let no one count himself a Christian from any outward privileges, much less from any outward paint of Christianity, but from the inward imprints of it upon his heart. You hope you are a Christian, but where is the image and inscription of Christ upon your heart? Do you not find, not only an unlikeness to Christ, but a dislike of Christ,41 [that is] an inward loathing of the holiness of Christ, and a rising of your heart against the strictness of the holy life that He requires? Do you not find a savor of earthliness and fleshliness42 having dominion and rule in your heart? Do you not find inner underlying energies tending altogether to looseness and licentiousness? Is this your likeness to Christ? Do you not find an emptiness of the light, life, love, and grace of Christ in your soul? Whatever you have of Christ on the outside, you have nothing of Christ inside. Do not deceive yourself. God is a spirit and His eye looks first on the spirits and souls of people. He loves truth in the inward parts. He loves holiness in the inward parts; he is a Jew who is one inwardly (Romans 2:29), and he is a Christian who is one inwardly. He is not a Christian who is only outwardly so. Yet further, just as he is not a Christian who is not inwardly so, neither is he a Christian who has merely some of the inward parts of a Christian and does not radically have all of the graces of Christ in him. He who has faith and does not have charity, he who has the light of a Christian and does not have the love, he who has the desires of a Christian and does not have the conscience of a Christian, and he who lacks any one of the vital parts of Christianity—he has nothing at all. A thorough Christian is conformed to the pattern of Christ throughout. And thus you have a description of Scripture Precisians by their makeup, or constitution.
38The reference is to John 3:3: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (NASB). The Greek ἄνωθεν (anothen) may mean “from above,” or “anew, over again.” It is the editor’s considered opinion that the Scriptures intend both ideas, and thus both meanings apply in this and similar texts.
39carnal: of or pertaining to the body or its appetites. A carnal person is one who only has the natural body and soul, but is not indwelt with the Holy Spirit, who is given to all true believers. The term is also used of genuine but weak Christians who are living for the things of the world and not for Christ.
40profession: from profess: to declare openly and freely. Hence, Christians were often called “professors.”
41This refers to a dislike of Christ as He is revealed to us: Lord, King, and Master, not any of the false characterizations of Him that are so common.
42fleshly: carnal passions and appetites, in contrast to spiritual passions and appetites. (The contrast between the flesh and Spirit does not imply neglect or contempt of the body or the physical, but it is a question of who is your master.)
| Back | Contents | Next |