Welcome, Readers, to Renaissance Woman and another installment in my study on the Whole Armor of God.

I am still firmly planted in the first part of verse 14 of Ephesians Chapter 6: “Stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth…”  I had intended to see what all I could glean from studying “having girded your waist” but, as I continued to read the entry for “truth” in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology, I read a few things that struck me:

“Paul believes in the power of truth…To encounter the truth as it in in Jesus leads on to transformation of life, in which the believer turns away from old deceits (Eph. 4:21, 22)”…Paul’s statement in [2 Corinthians] 13:8, ‘We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth’ may just possibly refer to truth as a synonym for the gospel, as R. Bultmann maintains, but more probably conveys the idea that the power of truth is such that openness to truth, whatever its consequences, can only further the cause of Christ and the gospel.  Truth is demanded of the Christian as a corollary of his union with Christ and status as a new creation.  In 1 Cor. 5:8 the Christian celebrates the festival of the new life with sincerity and truth, banishing all impurity and deception or dishonesty, just as the Jews banished the old leaven from their houses at Passover time…The new life is to be untarnished; free from anything that spreads corrupting influences by virtue of its impurity or duplicity” (Brown, Pg. 886)

I have only quoted bits from the entry but I think the point the writer is making is clear: we who know we are in Christ are to live differently.  I don’t know of any believer who would disagree with that.  I don’t disagree with that.  However, as I read through this entry, I found something important was missing.  Further down on page 886 I did read “because the believer has put on the new nature” but that was the only reference I found that remotely referred to what Paul expressed when he wrote, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).  This got me thinking: what do we mean when we speak of a transformed life? 

I think every believer is in agreement that Jesus Christ is the absolute truth.  I do find there are two ways in which believers relate to the truth that is Jesus.  These can be summed up as those who live from and those who live to.  “From” and “to” affect how one defines living a transformed life.  As I read through the entry for truth in my dictionary, I find letter c: “the quality of being in accordance with experience, facts, or reality; conformity with fact.”  For those living “to”, a transformed life is one where we have done our best to align ourselves with the teachings of Jesus and the way the Bible says to live.  Those living “to” are living for the day when they will either die and go to heaven to be with Jesus or receive their reward when He returns to establish His kingdom here on earth. 

I use to live “to”.  I can only speak for myself but I found it be a life-draining struggle of attempting to modify my behavior to be acceptable to God.  Not Jesus, because He died for me so I was already accepted by Him.  The Father was iffy though and there was always a chance I wouldn’t behave well enough nor put on enough of the new man that I’d escape the Father’s wrath.  Perhaps I’d squeak my way into heaven but my garments would be smoking.  There was no definitive answer given to the question “can a person lose his/her salvation” and so I lived with the sneaking suspicion I could blow it bad enough that not even Jesus would speak for me. 

This time of my life was spent with no understanding of the Holy Spirit.  Lip service was paid to this…entity but there was no understanding of who He was, how He was at work in my life, and I had no idea how beloved I was.  I can still remember the day when I sought out my mother and said how much I desired to learn about the Holy Spirit.  She replied, “me too!”  Of course, neither of us had any idea how to go about it other than to start reading passages about the Holy Spirit in the Bible but our ignorance was no deterrent.  Everything Jesus said about the Holy Spirit in John 14:16-17 & 26 and John 16: 7 & 13-14 is absolutely true: the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, the Helper, the Comforter, the Teacher, the Guide, and the One who abides with us forever. 

Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and you are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19).  The Holy Spirit witnesses from inside of us this is so.  The Holy Spirit is our constant companion.  There is no separating ourselves from the Holy Spirit and therefore there is no circumstance or situation we can experience where we do so alone.  The Holy Spirit is our teacher and Jesus’ words are the truth: the Holy Spirit does not speak of Himself or on His own authority but teaches us who Jesus is, glorifies Jesus, and shows us the truth that everything that belongs to Jesus is also ours.  The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the Oneness that is our God and is also ours in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit teaches us to live “from”: from the life of Jesus Christ within us because, to quote Paul again, we are joined to the Lord and one spirit with Him. 

That is how I define living a transformed life.  It is not behavior modification but is rather a life transformed as the Holy Spirit continues to open my eyes to all that Jesus is in me and I in Him.  This is the meaning of a transformed life I find in the Bible:

Romans 8:29: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be confirmed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

1 Corinthians 15:49: “And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.”

2 Corinthians 3:18: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Galatians 4:19: “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.”

Ephesians 4:13-15: “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ”

Ephesians 4:20-24: “But you have no so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Colossians 3:9-10: “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”

I agree with the statement “To encounter the truth as it in in Jesus leads on to transformation of life, in which the believer turns away from old deceits” but would rephrase it like so: Encountering the truth which is Jesus Himself revealed to us and in us by the Holy Spirit results to a transformation of life as our lives are conformed to His.  Perhaps some of you reading this have spent your Christian lives living “to” something that will happen at some future date and have never thought of living “from”.  Perhaps you are like my mother and me and have no idea about the Holy Spirit.  No matter.  Ask and the Holy Spirit will teach you.  You may find the Holy Spirit has already been teaching you: you simply haven’t recognized it. 

There’s a scripture in James I love: “or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?’” (James 4:5).  The truth of Jesus-risen, ascended, and dwelling is us-is not something reserved for special people who have made some sort of commitment or are extra holy in some way.  This truth is for you.  The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously for us to know the Father is in Jesus, we are also in Jesus, and we have been brought to complete unity.

Until next time, may the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ open the eyes of our understanding-flood us with light-that we may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.

May we live transformed!

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References                         

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 3, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967, 1971, Page 886

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s new World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1972, 1976

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Walker, Allen G., Koine Greek Textbook, Volume II/III, 2014-2018