Clothed in Christ

by Brian Thomas

William Shakespeare was not the first to observe our propensity to judge a book by its cover. Writers ancient to modern have put their personal spin on the old proverb: vestis virum facit (clothes make the man). For example, in Mark Twain’s short story, The Czar’s Soliloquy a Russian aristocrat looks at his sad naked reflection in a mirror and ponders the nature of his authority apart from his royal apparel. He asks rhetorically, “What is a man without his clothes?”

One realizes that without his clothes a man would be nothing at all; that the clothes do not merely make the man, the clothes are the man; that without them he is a cipher, a vacancy, a nobody, a nothing…There is no power without clothes. 

It would be easy to dismiss this as superficial. After all, we have been told that it is what’s on the inside that counts, right? It turns out, that Twain may have been on to something. Several recent studies have proven the psychological and performative benefits of clothing in daily life.  

One study surveyed over five hundred of the world’s top companies to assess the impact of dress in the workplace. The findings concluded that continually relaxed dress ultimately leads to relaxed manners, relaxed morals and relaxed productivity. Swiss Bank, UBS, raised some eyebrows for their legendary forty-four-page employee dress code, where they note, “The garment is a critical form of non-verbal communication.” So much for casual Fridays!

Two Northwestern University researchers coined the term “enclothed cognition” to describe how clothing systematically influences a wearer’s self-understanding based upon the symbolic meaning attached to particular garments. In one study, college students repeatedly scored higher test results when wearing a white lab coat in contrast to performing the same battery of tests without it. The study’s co-author explains that some articles of clothing are rich in symbolism. For example, the robe of a judge signifies justice, an expensive suit signifies power, and a white lab coat signifies attention to detail.

These findings shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Dressing to impress can certainly influence how others see us, but what is perhaps less obvious is how it can affect our self-perception and resultant behavior. The theory is called “symbolic interactionism” in the social sciences. When we surround ourselves with objects that symbolize a particular role, our sense of identity begins to interact with those symbols, and we unconsciously begin to behave in ways we expect a person who wears such clothes to behave. 

CRUCIFORMITY

Enclothed cognition is also true of a Christian’s self-understanding when we recognize how God has covered us. Just as justification is a matter of death and life, so too is the sanctified life. The two are inseparably linked. It is the daily crucifixion of our old naked self in Adam and the rising of our new clothed self in Christ. The death of the old comes through the gift of repentance; the resurrection of the new by embracing our identity as God’s forgiven children over and over again. Rinse. Repeat. Paul uses the image of taking off and putting on to describe this repentant cycle. We take off our old sin-soiled garments that represent our past life and put on our new clean clothes reflecting the way of the cross. 

Though Paul had quite the religious resumé from which to boast when he self-identifies, he does so as one dead to the law and crucified with Christ:

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:19–21)

The implication is that before he met the risen Christ, Paul found his worth through works of the law as a zealous Pharisee. His identity was shaped by strict adherence to the law. But now he has “died to the law,” which is to say, he has died to it as the means of his salvation. He has been freed from the condemnation of the law as a sinner before God as if he had already died and been judged. Christ’s past is now his past; Christ’s life is now his life. And this is true of every believer, dear reader, including you. 

The cross is not merely one aspect of the Christian life that we accept and then move on from as if there are other more important spiritual endeavors to tackle. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). In other words, our very lives are to be shaped by the cross. To follow Jesus in the way of the cross means to open oneself to the contempt of the world as we strive to love God and neighbor. 

Michael Gorman describes this with the word “cruciformity.” A cruciform life means that our sense of identity is determined by our relationship to the cross of Christ. The cross is not only the means by which we are saved, but it is also the means by which we truly come to know and trust God. God does not remain hidden and aloof from His creation but desires to be known exclusively through His crucified Son. As polymath, Blaise Pascal, put it: 

Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves by Jesus Christ alone. We know life and death by Jesus Christ alone. Apart from Jesus Christ we know not what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.

Clothes literally “make the man” when they are Christ’s clothes. This is true even when we fail to wear His clothes properly on account of our sin. This is objective and comforting good news, particularly when we find ourselves staring into the mirror of own moral failure. Harold Senkbeil notes: 

Looking at my own life I am only too aware of my sin and failure. But as far as God is concerned, my sinful nature is dead and gone. He sees only the new man in Christ—perfect, whole and complete. This is reality but it is a hidden reality…this calls for faith. Our real identity as new men and women in Christ will not be obvious until He comes again. When he appears, then our holiness and worth and value will be apparent to everyone—including us! But not yet. Until then we live by faith, recognizing that the Christian life is a hidden life.

Although we already possess eternal life now, we do not yet experience it in full. For now, is it hidden under and shaped by the cross as we eagerly await this incredible promise: “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:4).