SERMON XXIV.
THE LIKENESS OF GOD.
Ephesians iv. 23, 24.
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Be renewed, says St. Paul, in the spirit of your mind—in the tone, character, and habit of your mind. And put on the new man, the new pattern of man, who was created after God, in righteousness and true holiness.
Pay attention, I beg you, to every word here. To understand them clearly is most important to you. According as you take them rightly or wrongly, will your religion be healthy or unhealthy, and your notion of what God requires of you true or false. The new man, the new pattern of man, says St. Paul, is created after God. That, is after the pattern of God, in the image of God, in the likeness of God. You will surely see that that is his meaning. We speak of making a thing after another thing; meaning, make it exactly like another thing. So, by making a man after God, St. Paul means making a man like God.
Now what is this man? None, be sure, save Christ himself, the co-equal and co-eternal Son of God. Of him alone can it be said, utterly, that he is after God—the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of his person. But still, he is a man, and meant as a pattern to men; the new Adam; the new pattern, type, and ideal for all mankind. Him, says St. Paul,—that is, his likeness,—we are to put on, that as he was after the likeness of God, so may we be likewise.
But now, in what does this same likeness consist?
St. Paul tells us distinctly, lest we should mistake a matter of such boundless importance as the question of all questions—What is the life of God, the Divine and Godlike life?
It is created, founded, says he, in righteousness and true holiness. That is the character, that is the form of it. Whatever we do not know, whatever we cannot know, concerning God, and his Divine life, we know that it consists of righteousness and true holiness.
And what is righteousness? Justice. You must understand—as any good scholar or divine would assure you—that St. Paul is not speaking here of the imputed righteousness of Christ. He is speaking of righteousness in the simple Old Testament meaning of the word, of justice, whereof our Lord has said, ‘Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you;’ justice, which, as wise men of old have said, consists in this,—to harm no man, and to give each man his own. That is true righteousness and justice, and that is the Godlike life.
‘And true holiness.’ That is, truthful holiness, honest holiness. This is St. Paul’s meaning. As any good scholar or divine would tell you, St. Paul’s exact words are ‘the holiness of truth.’ He does not mean true holiness as opposed to a false holiness, a legal holiness, a holiness of empty forms and ceremonies, or a holiness of ascetism and celibacy; but as opposed to a holiness which does not speak the truth, to that sly, untruthful, prevaricating holiness which was only too common in St. Paul’s time, and has been but too common since. Be honest, says St. Paul; for this too is part of the Godlike life, and the new man is created after God, in justice and honesty.