One of the main reasons for trusting Jesus Christ as our Savior is that we should live above this sin-defiled world. When Jesus saved us, He did not immediately take us to heaven. Rather, He allowed us to continue to live in the “here and now” because christians play a very vital role in the world. In His high priestly intercessory prayer to God, Jesus prayed, “I do not ask that you take them [Christians] out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world” (John 17:15-16).
Salvation means “deliverance from sin and its consequences” and comes about by having faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of past, present, and future sins. Because sin has separated the human race from God, there had to be a way to bring about deliverance from the consequences of sin. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death, but the Gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Salvation requires a “new lifestyle,” which involves changes in our words, deeds, and thought processes. On that basis, we say good bye to the old lifestyle. The Bible states, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:27). Hence, we must put off the “old man” with his deeds” (Colossians 3:9) and that is the old lifestyle. And we “put on the “new man that is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (Colossians 3:10).
The Apostle Paul identifies the changes that result from the new lifestyle, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:12-13).
It is impossible to put on the new lifestyle with the old lifestyle still intact. Hence, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Truly truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). This means there has to be a definite change from the old lifestyle (how we were born) in order to be right with God. Jesus also stated, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh [how we came into this world] and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again” (John 3:6-7). (italics mine).
By accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are “dead to sin” and alive to God. The Bible declares, “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him [Jesus Christ], that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7). Before we trusted Christ as our Savior, sin controlled our lives. Now we have received a new nature and the power to live for God.
So then, salvation brings about the required change when we “put off” the practices of the sin nature (the “old man”), which is replaced by the “new man,” that is, being in the world but not of the world’s system). Why not “put off and put on” and be assured God’s wonderful salvation?