New Self, New Clothes
Proverbs 20:12: “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.”
It’s the morning; everyone in the house is rushing around getting ready. Your child emerges from the shower, and you find that he is wearing the same clothes he had on before showering. The same clothes he had on all day yesterday, and apparently the same clothes he slept in. Your response is “Go change into clean clothes.”
Ephesians 4:22 (NIV), “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.”
Just as you would not let your child wear dirty clothes on his clean body, Christ has cleaned you of your sins, and He is saying, “Go change into clean clothes!” Put away the old ways, old habits, and old responses. God is calling us to new.
We know God as creator; He created all things, both the physical and spiritual. In Proverbs 20:12, we read that the Lord made ears and eyes and gave them each a purpose. It is important to know here that this passage is speaking also of a spiritual hearing and spiritual sight. His desire is for us to use what He has given us for the purpose He created it for. He expresses this desire over and over again in His Word. For example, Proverbs 22:17 (NIV): “Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge.”
So why does Proverbs 20:12 say that the Lord has made a spiritual hearing and seeing? What is He wanting us to hear and see?
The oddest occurrence I have seen in my boys as a mother is their sudden aversion to showers after becoming pre-teens. As toddlers, they loved baths, but now, as pre-teens, entering the start of their teen years, showering has become such a dread for them. Maybe it is the transition of baths being more like a pool and showering being more of a chore that has caused such opposition when I remind or direct them to go shower. However, the most common argument in response to the directive to shower is “…but I am not dirty!”
What has caused my boys to not see their uncleanliness, or at the very least smell it?
Matthew 13 starts off with Jesus telling the parable of the sower, and by verse 10 Jesus’s disciples ask Jesus, “Why do you speak in parables?” Jesus’s response in verses 11 through 13 is: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.” What does Jesus mean by saying that people can see, but also not see, and hear, but also not hear? Following Jesus’s conversation with His disciples, He says in verse 14 that this very occurrence is prophesied about in Isaiah. In verse 15 of Matthew chapter 13, Jesus explains the problem, but in verse 16 He proclaims something over the disciples.
Matthew 13: 15-16 (NIV) “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”
What is the difference here between those who can see and those who cannot?
Romans 3:23 (NIV) says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
This passage in Romans tells us something about ourselves: We are dirty. Isaiah 64:6 puts it this way, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” We know this is true because when we read the commandments of God given to us in Exodus, we see that we do not and cannot measure up to such standards. James 2:10 goes further to explain that even if we break just one of the laws, we break them all, because they are all together a standard. A standard we will never meet. This shows us that we are unclean, giving us eyes to see what we may not have seen before.
So the law is like a mirror that shows us our uncleanliness
But do you hear from God? Maybe you are unsure if you were given these spiritual ears to hear what the Lord is saying to you. John 10:27 is clear about who it is that has these spiritual ears that the Lord created. This verse says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:” One important question when reading this passage is: who is speaking? Read the whole chapter 10 of John, and you will see that Jesus is speaking here. Jesus is saying that those who follow Him, as a sheep follows a shepherd, will hear His voice.
On Spotify, in the podcast The Gospel of Christ Ministry, Pastor Arthur Reece said in his sermon named The Hearing Ear And The Seeing Eye, “God accompanies His word when it is being preached…God gives the hearing.”
The Lord who created the hearing ear is the one who gives the ability to hear with it, and God is still speaking. Revelation 3:21-22 says, “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
The Lord made the hearing ear to hear what He is saying to His sheep, and He made the seeing eye to allow us to see our shortcomings and the ability to see how He is making us new.
Romans 3:24-26 (NIV) says, “and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
Freely! It is freely that Jesus gave of Himself so that through His sacrifice we can be made clean! Because we now have the ability through Jesus to be made clean, we also now have the capability, freedom, and responsibility to put on “new clothes” after becoming clean. This is done only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we were given after Jesus ascended back into Heaven.
Acts 1:8 (KJV) says, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses”
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV) says, “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Galatians 5:16 (NIV) says, “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Ephesians 4:17-32 walks us through the expectations of these “new clothes” that we are to put on (as verse 24 states). Verse 17 starts off by saying that “in the Lord” we must live, act, and respond differently than those who are not “in the Lord.” “In” here means that we trust in Him, accept Him as God, Savior, and the leader of our life. Verse 19 explains that we must be sensitive and not hardened towards sin against the law. For example: one commandment is not to lie or “give false testimony,” so we should be bothered when saying something that is not true. Another command is not to commit adultery. Oftentimes, movies or shows portray adultery as normal. There are even moments where the main characters are praised for such relationships. Our new nature reminds us that we should be bothered by this. Verses 20 to 32 in Ephesians 4 go on to describe how we must put off the “old self” and put on the “new self.” Keeping in mind, as Galatians 5 teaches us, we are unable to do this without walking in the Spirit, as He is the only source of power that will give us the ability to deny our flesh desires and wear the clothes of the new, clean self we were saved to be.
Ephesians 4:25-32:
Put off lying, Put on truth
Put off stealing, Put on hard work
Put off corruption, Put on edification
Put off bitterness, Put on kindness
Put off wrath, Put on tenderness
Put off anger, clamour, and evil speaking; Put on forgiveness even as Christ has forgiven you.
Live with your New Clothes Put On
