What does it mean to put on Christ in Romans 13:14?

Verse 13 reminds us that this light means honest transparency of life and walk — no deceit or covering up — an affliction that we all too easily acquire and too proficiently dare to practice. But that is the very essence of the darkness, as are those vices immediately warned against in this verse — rioting and drunkenness, clambering (licentiousness) and wantonness, strife and envying.

“But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” The context here clearly decides the meaning for us. There is another line of thought altogether in Galatians 3:27, which tells us. “As many of us as have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ.” Baptism thus is the putting on of Christ as an outward profession — the external assuming of His Name publicly. But here in Romans 13:14, it is no initial ordinance, but the putting on of Christ in the practical daily conduct of life. We have been told to cast off the works of darkness, then to put on the armor of light, and now to put on Christ. Is it not clear that this implies that to actually put on the armor of light we must put on Christ? Thus moral uprightness, honesty, kindness do not in themselves constitute the armor of light, for the vital centre of the whole matter is the confession of Christ. If the Lord Jesus is not seen to be the regulating power of the life, all apparent goodness and morality very soon find their level as mere self-righteousness, and are not the armor of light at all.

Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ then is the positive practical power for good. On the negative side we are told to “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” How important a matter this is! It is not warfare or contending against the flesh. This would soil me as effectively as indulging the flesh. But I am not to feed it: make no provision for it whatever. It is there, and all my energy or zeal will never eradicate it. But let me turn away from it simply. If I do not feed it, it will not thrive; while the spiritual nature, being fed with the milk or meat of the Word, will be that which grows and thrives. Solemn for us to think that in whatever measure I make provision for the flesh, in the same measure will it cause me trouble. If we deliberately put temptation in the way of thieves and robbers, will they not take advantage of it?And there is no thief more despicable than the flesh.

First, "Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness". All the works that characterise men walking in ignorance of God are to be cast aside. In another Epistle the Apostle describes those living in darkness as "serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another" (Titus 3:3).

Secondly, the Apostle says, "Let us put on the armour of light". All that marks the coming day — the day when Christ reigns — the submission and obedience to the Lord (1-7), the righteousness that owes no man anything (8), the love that works no evil to his neighbour (10), are to be put on by the believer as protective armour against the darkness.

Thirdly, the Apostle says, "Let us walk becomingly as in the day" (N.Tn). In spirit in the day we are yet, as to fact, in the night. The world in darkness may give itself up to "rioting and drunkenness", "chambering and wantonness", "strife and envying"; but the Christian is to have no part in such things. This should call for the deepest exercise, for we may, indeed, keep clear of the grosser evils of darkness its drunkenness, and lasciviousness and yet fall into strife and envying. Have we not too often allowed ourselves to be drawn into strife, and given way to envying! Does not the Apostle James warn us that "bitter envying and strife" in our hearts is the root cause of every scene of disorder amongst the people of God. "For" he says, "where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work" (James 3:14-16).

Fourthly, we are exhorted to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" and "not take forethought for the flesh to fulfil its lusts". Not only are we to have done with the things of darkness, but to put on the character of Christ, and thus be invested with the beauty of the One Who is coming to reign: It is to become evident that we walk in subjection to the Lord, and are marked by the graces of Jesus Christ. Thus we shall become a witness during the night of His absence to the One who will usher in the day. Instead of taking thought of the flesh, and how to gratify its lusts, we are to take thought of Jesus, and seek to shine in His beauty.

Nor has he only to purify his way. He is called to put on the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 14). To cease merely from sinful practice, is to present our souls as the objects of Satan's aim, whose temptations are not ended till we rest with God. To hide himself in Christ is the only safety of the saint. The flesh will have provision for its lusts where the soul is not full fed on the satisfying portion of the bread of life. We have to put on Christ. Already we are in Him. We are planted in His likeness before the living God. But we are called to walk up and down in this present evil world in the holiness and power of that name. To put on Christ implies a divesting and denying of ourselves. A daily death to the world and its desires must precede and accompany a living to the Lord. But the confidence of faith, which knows and trusts that blessed name as the proper fountain of its peace and joy, thinks that a gainful loss which must be foregone in order that the fuller light of life may shine.

We are certainly in the darkness. Do we not feel it? But the works of darkness we are to cast off, like filthy old clouts, and we are to put on "the armour of light." We are to be enveloped in the light which belongs to the day, to which we belong. The believer is to be shining and luminous in the midst of the darkness, and the very light we wear will prove itself to be armour. The shining Christian is by his shining protected and preserved. In one word, we are to put on the character of the Lord Himself, instead of catering for the desires of the flesh.

With what power should these words come to us! And with what urgency! If the night was far spent and the day at hand when Paul wrote, how much more so today. It is indeed high time to awake out of sleep and array ourselves in our shining armour. Only we must always remember that the "putting on," whether of verse 12 or 14, is not the assuming of something wholly external to ourselves, but rather putting on something from within, rather as a bird puts on its feathers. We saw this in principle, when considering Rom. 12:2.

There is another powerful motive for the believer, the nearness of that day when all that is not of Christ must be detected and pass away. "And this, knowing the meet time, that already [it is] time for you to be aroused out of sleep; for now [is] our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, and the day is drawn nigh. Let us cast away therefore the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. As in daylight let us walk becomingly, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and lasciviousness, not in strife and envy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and take no forethought for the flesh for lusts." (Ver. 11-14.) For the earth the Sun of righteousness is not yet risen; for it the believer, though he has Christ the true light for himself, knows that it is night still. Yet daylight has dawned and the morning star arisen in his heart. Hence he sleeps not as do others; or, if he should, judges it as sin, for he is in the secret of the Lord and is charged with the gravest mission of love and holiness in the witnessing of His name as he passes through the world. Man slumbers heedless of danger, spite of solemn and reiterated warning. His evil conscience forbids his crediting the grace which is in God; his self-complacency blinds him to the moral beauty of the dependent and obedient Man, as well as to his own need of such a Saviour and such a salvation as God urges on him; and so he sleeps on till he perishes, waking up too late to the truth he has rejected and the grace he has slighted irreparably then. The believer with his soul saved already looks for a salvation worthy of Christ and of His redemption at His coming; and, though the interval may seem long sometimes, he knows that it is ever growing nearer. The works of darkness are therefore wholly incongruous and must be cast away. In such alas! the Gentiles used to walk when they lived in them; even as the Jews under the law occupied themselves with dead works. But now, dead to them, Christians would put on the armour of light; and though the day be not yet, they as children of it would walk comelily as in its light. What have such to do with revels and drinking bouts, with ways of lewdness and lasciviousness, with strife and envy? Are they not the blessed saints of God in full view of the speedy coming and day of the Lord? How suitable the call to put on the Lord Jesus Christ! As we have Him inwardly our life, may we wear Him outwardly, cherishing Him as our all, and make no provision for the flesh with a view to lusts. This were to revive the old man already crucified, to have believed and to hope in vain.

This "putting on" is, of course, clothing: we have it elsewhere as an exhortation, — "put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." (Rom. 13:14.) Here it is evidently practical; and clothing often stands for practical righteousness, — always, I believe for something wrought out, as is a garment, thread by thread.

But when we speak of putting on Christ, this garment which covers the shame of our nakedness is, of course, nothing self-wrought. We are hiding ourselves in Another; we are arraying ourselves in a comeliness not our own. And this, we see at once, is the idea in baptism: we are immersed unto Christ. Self is owned as ruined, undone, and Christ is sought to as a refuge from self, a Substitute and Representative before God; before men also our glory and our hiding-place.

The general truth that the Christian has even now clothing given of God and suited to his new relationship is clearly stated in scripture. Thus the prodigal (when he turns to God and finds in Him the Father and in a truer and fuller way than before he turned aside) is clothed for the first time with "the best robe," yea adorned throughout with honour. We are exhorted in practice, not only to cast off the works of darkness but to put on the armour of light, and, yet more generally, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 13:12, 14); as in principle all the baptised are said (in Gal. 3:27) to have put on Christ. So in Eph. 4 we are viewed as having put off the old man, and put on the new man; while Col. 3 exhorts us to put off the vile ways of both violence and corruption, as we have put off the old man and put on the new. The N.T. truth no doubt goes more deeply into our need and our blessing. Still the O.T. figure of attire is kept up.

By our baptism we have, as a matter of profession, put on Christ. Had we submitted to circumcision we should have put on Judaism, and thereby committed ourselves to the fulfilling of the law for justification. Had we been baptised to John's baptism we should have put on the robe of professed repentance and committed ourselves to believe on the One that should come after him. As it is we have, if baptised to Christ, put on Christ and committed ourselves to that practical expression of the life of Christ which in the next chapter is spoken of as "the fruit of the Spirit." As sons of God, having now the liberty of the house, we put on Christ as our fitness to be there.

But then, he does further and other service in this same cause. He goes on to tell us the glorious things faith works and accomplishes in us and for us. "After faith is come," he tells us in Galatians 3:25-27, "we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For we are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ." Here are precious deeds of faith! It dismisses the schoolmaster; it brings the soul to God as to a father, and then it clothes the believer with the value of Christ in the eye and acceptance of God. And "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6). And "we are redeemed from under the law" (Gal. 4:5). Can any more full and perfect sense of an immediate dealing between Christ and the soul be conceived, than is expressed and declared by such statements? We are brought from under the law — the schoolmaster, and, with him, tutors and governors are gone; we are "sons" at home in the Father's house, and have the rights and the mind of the First-born Himself put on us, and imparted to us! Can any condition of soul more blessedly set forth our independence of the resources of a religion of ordinances, and the poor sinner's personal and immediate connection with Christ Himself?

And this is shown by the fact of the new place into which God has put His people now, "sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus;" the school of law is not the proper place for us. That does not mean that we are not to profit by the lessons which the law taught, of course. We may profit by the lessons which we learn in school without being under the schoolmaster; but under the schoolmaster, no one says "Father." The place of sons as such is manifestly somewhere else than at school. This, then, has come for us, for "as many of us as have been baptized to Christ have put on Christ." Christ is, according to the truth announced in baptism itself, the One in whom we are, therefore, before God. It is His perfection, His beauty that is seen upon us. Nothing else is seen, no earthly condition, no place of privilege beside. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Manifestly, if each one of us is in Christ, Christ must be the same for each and all of us. There can be no distinction here. For distinction, we must look away from Christ; but if then we "are Christ's," then "are we Abraham's seed," in the fullest way identified with the very One in whom the blessing was to be, identified with the very Heir of blessing, and therefore heirs according to the promise, "in thy Seed:" that is Christ, in whom we are.