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In 2022, Florida endured a one-two punch from a pair of hurricanes. Ian made landfall in Cayo Costa on September 28 as a category 4 hurricane. Just six weeks later, Nicole made landfall in Vero Beach on November 10 as a category 1 hurricane.
Nicole went over much of the same ground as Ian had, and that ground was still very saturated. There was nowhere for the water to go, and a lot of flooding resulted.
Though my house was spared major effects, it is on a crawl space, and during big storms a lot of water collects there. Since it’s not good to have a bunch of water sitting under the house, I have to get under there and pump it out. I sometimes have to stay under there for a few hours, constantly moving the pump around.
The whole time, I’m lying in disgusting, dirty water and mud. I’m wearing a rain suit and rain boots, but it doesn’t matter. I still get soaked and filthy. Once I get out from under the house, I want nothing more than to remove those clothes and take a shower and put on some clean, dry clothes.
There is perhaps no better feeling than getting clean and dry after being wet and dirty. It makes you feel like a new man.
Paul draws on this dynamic when describing the Christian life in Ephesians 4:17–32. He tells his readers
to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (vv. 22–24)
This is the foundation of Christian ethics. We are transformed. We are made new. We put on the new man and we put off the old man, for the old man is dead. There is no point in trying to hold on to the old man. The old man is corrupt, decaying, putrid.
Trying to hang on to the old man would be like if I wanted, after crawling around under my house for hours, to keep my filthy clothes on. There is nothing good about the old man, and once we understand that, we will want to strip it off as fast as we can.
The previous clothing is no longer fitting or appropriate to those who are in Christ. When we take off one thing, we put on something else.
We are given pure vestments or clothing, a new covering that allows us to stand before God (see Zech. 3:1–4). That covering is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone (Westminster Shorter Catechism 33). Over the course of the Christian life, we increasingly grow into that covering.
Through the work of the Spirit, our hearts, minds, and desires are transformed as we more and more die to sin and live to righteousness. As we do, we continually put off the old man and put on the new man, looking more and more like the new creations that we are (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 5:17).