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and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:24 NASB
Put on – We have often heard expositions of Paul’s metaphor along the lines of wearing new clothing. In fact, the verb here (endyo) is used literally of putting on clothes in a number of passages. Of course, here it is metaphorical. Just like going to the closet and picking out the suit for the day, Paul wants us to think of dressing in God’s best as we walk in His ways. The idea is simple enough. The execution isn’t.
For most humans (perhaps all), the past isn’t so easily altered. Of course, some behaviors can be changed without much effort. I can choose to drive a different route to work. Not a problem. I can choose to wash the dishes immediately after eating. I can choose to read instead of watch the television. But the more ingrained the behavior, the more difficult it is to alter. Just try crossing your arms from the other direction and see how hard such simple actions are. Why? Because they have become an automatic feature of our existence. When traumatic events disturb our sense of normalcy, altering how we view the world, real change becomes very difficult. This is most typically observed in traumatic health issues.
“The understandable longing is for restored normalcy—a return to life before the illness or the diagnosis. But there is no going back. Once we are confronted with our mortality and the vulnerability of human life, we are forever changed. Even in the instances where disease is eradicated, the only ‘normal’ that can be attained is what is referred to as a ‘new normal’—a normal that accounts for the limitations wrought by illness or disability but is nevertheless full of new possibilities. And it is in the midst of this new normal that healing can begin. When we are no longer gripped by the desire to go back to who we once were, we are willing to explore who we are becoming and, perhaps, who we were intended to be in the first place.”[1]
We need to remember that Paul’s exhortation is about traumatic change. He isn’t talking about simple alterations. He’s talking about radical reconstitution of our identities, and in that regard, it is a mistake to think that conversion is instantaneous. We don’t just go to the closet and grab the “God suit.” Why not? As Terry and Sharon Hargrave note, “because the wounds of past identity are inconsolable.” The change in direction might occur in a moment, but rebuilding who we are takes a lifetime. As we discover in the story of Jacob, the “old man” sticks around. After Jabbok, both Jacob and Israel are characters in the rest of Genesis. You and I might be done with the past, but the past isn’t done with us yet. That takes the rest of our lives.
So what watchword goes along with Paul’s use of endyo? Hupomone! You can guess its meaning by looking at 2 Corinthians 1:6.
Topical Index: endyo, put on, hupomone, patient enduring, Ephesians 4:24, new man
[1] Miyoung Yoon Hammer, “Restore,” in Fuller Magazine, Issue #6, 2016, p. 33.
For those in a hurry. Strongs #5281
Hupomone- in the NT the characteristic of one who is not swerved from deliberate purpose and by loyalty to faith and piety even during the greatest trials and sufferings.
That’s the definition. My feedback? Yes. Exactly. Do that.
And some advice from Rabbi Nachman.
(Link removed) Please just give people enough information to be able to find what you’d like them to find without posting a link.
Thank you. Mark
Such a powerful word of encouragement.
Van der Kolk stated the essence of trauma is helplessness. I’m wondering if it isn’t the same as embedded fear. How often does God tell us “Do not fear”? Freedom, for me, has come in releasing the old fear that constricts & binds. Growth is happening as I continue to reject fear and walk in trust. My adult mind often rationalized away the past, but my physical pain began to heal when I returned to and re-wrote the childhood perceptions that had first established the lie. Endurance is the daily choosing.. “I set before you life and death.”
What is the use of so much pain? So much learning? Experience – literally, “knowledge of good and evil” is a different way to learn. Obedience is one way to come into agreement: “one mind”. Obedience is agreement with the truth – God’s will – up front, as it were; before the fact. Obedience is experience, too, which also is remembered (reinforced). Experience of evil, however, is how you agree with the truth (way in which life is found) AFTER the fact.
Memory is important, or we would just do it again. History that is forgotten is repeated. The experience of pain (or pleasure) produces a special memory all its own – what we call now “cellular memory”. Our very bodies retain this information. You can forget what you learned in school but not what you learn by experience. Touch a hot stove once and the nervous system is primed. Next time the message will not even get TO the brain before the nerves themselves react because they ‘know’ what to do.
Experience of evil is HOW we will never do it again, but the trauma it causes is only half of that experience – we still have to learn FROM that trauma before we are safe from ever having it again. What kind of experience do we need to stay safe from evil? We need to release the hold (“slavery”) it has on us by completely processing the experience. That processing is the other half of it. Without processing it – the Bible calls this “overcoming” it, we are still stuck in the middle of the experience of it.
Only people who have faced and “overcome” have processed it properly Essential part of “overcoming”? The Bible says “by the blood of the Lamb”. Yeshua must suffer in our stead. As long as we insist – through lack of trust – on suffering our own selves, through that bitterness, guilt and shame – we are not availing ourselves of that blood. The experience is still killing us, by means of our memory of it. Sins past get replayed constantly in brain and body in an attempt to get them resolved. The only way to release this past – which is literally death because it keeps us from living in our present (just ask any PTSD sufferer) – is to face and overcome that past – that death – by invoking the help of the death (and life represented by that blood) of our Saviour. Then He will experience it FOR us. By those vicarious stripes we are healed, though, as Skip points out, the scars remain for Him AND us so that we will remember, and never repeat.
How do we then avail ourselves of the precious life-giving blood? Forgiveness in three dimensions. We need to seek God’s pardon, our own pardon and the pardon of, as well as for, others all of which we must ask for at the Throne through teshuva, or, reversal of action. Its no good getting burned by the stove if we refuse to take our hand off if it. Forgiveness is how.
Forgiveness is a blood transfusion.
P.S. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” contains the key to the trauma sin causes, for sin is never a private (one way) affair. Sin is the breaking of connections BETWEEN. A wrong has been committed that involves more than one. Forgiveness, then, must be employed as the vital reconnector. Sin ties us (“debt”) to another with death. We are bound to the corpse of those who sinned against us until we forgive, as we are likewise bound to those we cut off life (refuse to love) from.
Forgiveness restores us back to the tie of love, or, life, but God can only do half of that forgiveness; we have to do the other half of the restoration of love. Love, like sin, is also never a private (one way) affair.
Thanks for this post… As you have taught many times ‘faith’ is not a noun (something I possess) but a verb (something I do). In faith we ‘patiently endure’, two steps forward one step back, desperately relying on Him until the end.
P.S. Thanks again, Skip, for taking the time and the effort to come to Spokane.
And hupomone > patient endurance – is from hupomenō > to stay under (behind), that is, remain; figuratively to undergo, that is, bear (trials), have fortitude, persevere: – abide, endure, (take) patient (-ly), suffer, tarry behind.
So, we are to stay under, remain in, bear with, have fortitude in, persevere in, abide in, endure SUFFERING???
I say YES! But not just suffering for suffering’s sake, not just to remain a victim, not just to stand far off, to hid, the maintain an excuse for our addictions, not just for self-pity or the pity or consolation of others and not just to avoid the risks of life and love and obedience!
So, I ask myself, what does it mean to, or how does one “put on the new self” and what does that have to with “enduring suffering patiently”? And what does this “putting on the new self” mean in terms of “the old man sticks around” and “the past isn’t done with us yet”, and WHY?
Well, the preceding verse helps give me further understanding – “be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
AND put on the new self—created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” [Eph 4:23-24]
I can’t put on the new man without being renewed IN THE SPIRIT OF MY MIND!
To patiently stay under, remain, bear, have fortitude, persevere, (etc.) in suffering, I must do THAT. I must BE RENEWED IN THE SPIRIT OF MY MIND. How do I do THAT? As Isaiah exhorts his hearers to do:
“You keep in perfect peace one WHOSE MIND IS STAYED ON YOU, because HE TRUSTS IN YOU. [Isa 26:3]
In a sense, we do seem to be required to stay under, remain, continue to bear and have to persevere in our former sufferings, but I think that is so, like Messiah learned obedience, we too will learn the obedience of the faith not just by staying under, remaining, continuing to bear and persevering in the things we suffer, but by staying under, remaining, continuing to bear and persevering in THE RUACH, BEING RENEWED IN THE SPIRIT OF OUR MINDS, by practicing “putting on the new self”, by KEEPING OUR MINDS STAYED ON HIM, TRUSTING IN HIM…..THROUGH the things we suffer.
“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Ruach set their minds on the things of the Ruach, for the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Ruach is life and shalom.” [Rom 8:5-6]
When our “emotional trauma memories” are triggered, when they are consciously or sub-consciously recollected, when we feel the threat, the fear, the hurt, the pain, the anger triggered by current, momentary or ongoing events of our lives, we must be truthful and honest with ourselves, feel and acknowledge those emotions, accept what is happening (and what has happened in the past). BUT…..we must not give in to letting ourselves be controlled by them. We must not let them control us but we must also not repress THEM. We must NOT mistrust YHWH, be afraid, be self-reliant, stand far off from YHWH and hide. We must, instead, fear Him, trust in Him, and draw near to Him so HE will draw near to US, and get the help of the Ruach, that we may keep our minds stayed on Him while we are persevering in getting His perfect love that casts out all fear, binds up the broken hearted, and sets the captive free. We must know the truth, be comforted, validated, built up in our most holy faith, be encouraged and reassured that our shelter and safety is in Him.
We must “be RENEWED in the SPIRIT OF OUR MINDS…..BY HIS SPIRIT, THE HOLY SPIRIT.
We can’t “put on the new self” just through being self-reliant, by self-analysis, self-effort to control ourselves, not feeling the emotions, turning to some false comfort, some false salvation, some false escape, some “letter of the law” form of religious obedience. Yes, we must be obedient, but the obedience is first having faith in YHWH, turning toward Him, drawing near to Him, asking for and receiving the Helper, the Comforter, the Ruach of Emet (the Spirit of Truth). The obedience is first “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Messiah”. And the “old man sticks around” and the “past isn’t yet done with us” because, the truth is, we aren’t yet truly done with the past, and we need to practice “putting on the new man” by the exercising of our faith toward Messiah, toward YHWH, until we consistently bear the fruit of the Ruach in response to those things that formerly triggered us. THEN we are renewed. THEN the new man has been put on. THEN we have learned obedience through the things we have suffered. THEN we are conformed to Messiah and Messiah is formed in us.
Thanks for the extended analysis of hupomeno. I would only add that this is NOT a cognitive process. Yes, it involves the MIND, but it cannot be only about the mind since it is the BODY itself that stores the trauma, pre-cognitively, pre-verbally. We are in need of EMOTIONAL healing, not just rational control, as I point out in my book The Hidden Beast.
My communication may be lacking clarity for you, sorry. But my focus is not only about the cognitive. It’s also not only about the body. Or only about the emotions. But it definitely IS about the Ruach Ha Kodesh in the process, and truthfully, it’s about all of the above, though I understand you are trying to emphasize the importance of the role of emotions, and your insights are excellent. Thanks. I do believe there is a working of the Ruach in this process that seems to be lacking though in what you share or reference from others’ works.
Thank you for this timely post, Dr. Moen. The word that is my life right now is “reset.” Like a badly healed bone, Yehovah is having to reset who I am (or I should say, my perception of who I am) because of “bad breaks” in the past. It’s having patience with the process that is the hardest for me! 😀
Heather C , Me thinks we are all being reset, the bad breaks are why He chose us and looks for our return home, daily, anticipating. We need Him every breath, every step, every moment. It was Terry Hargrave that said something like “in relationship there is both the damage and healing” the hard part is walking out daily with other or others. Father is ever near, and longs for the abiding presence with Him, Is it true that only as I love Flesh and Blood in this world can I abide with Him,??? “Walk before me and be Holy” cognitive?