 It’s something we do all the time. Each day, we go to our closet or dresser and pull out what we will wear for the day. We may or may not think deeply about the clothing we wear each day. Some of us have uniforms for school or work that dictate our options. Others of us have days off where we get to put on our favorite t-shirt and sweats as we hang around the house. Clothing. When we turn to the scriptures, we find that the clothing metaphor is an important one, particularly in two ways that I think are deeply connected. Baptiezd, or "Clothed" in the Holy SpiritAt the end of Jesus’ ministry, he instructed His disciples to be clothed with power from on high. As followers of Jesus in the Pentecostal tradition, we rightly see this as Jesus’ promise of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. He was getting ready to leave earth and prepare His disciples for life after His ascension, and he told His disciples to wait for the right clothing for their mission.
We find here that Jesus connects witness and power. The clothing of the power of the Holy Spirit was an essential element of the disciples’ witness in the world. It was so essential that Jesus told them not to leave Jerusalem without it. They needed to wear the Holy Spirit's power if they were going to effectively live for Christ in the world. Clothed with CharacterThe baptism in the Holy Spirit is so often emphasized as a power for ministry. Gifts, power, signs, wonders—things rightly seen throughout the story of the church in Acts. And yet, there’s an interesting connection that comes through the apostles’ instructions in the epistles. Multiple times, as Paul was writing the churches, he picked up on this metaphor of clothing to call the believers to live the life Christ makes possible. In Romans 13, as he’s instructing the church to live in a way that honors the new day brought in by Christ:
In these verses, the instruction “put on” comes from the same Greek root as “clothed.” Paul might have said, “The day is at hand, so let’s dress for the new day. Let’s dress like Christ.” Be clothed with the character of Christ. Put on Christ. I find it interesting that the same word that Christ uses to describe the empowerment of the Holy Spirit for witness is the word used here to describe the putting on of New Creation life. Clothe yourselves with the character of Christ, living in light of the New Creation in Christ. A New IdentitySee, when we come to Christ, we take on a new identity. We become sons and daughters of God. And when we declare that change to the world in the waters of baptism, we take on a new identity, a new clothing.
Once again, we see the idea of “put on,” clothed. Paul teaches that in the waters of baptism, we are clothed with Christ, we are given new clothing, if you will, that identifies us with the resurrected, New Creation life that Christ has made possible. This is why Paul would talk about the fact that anyone who is in Christ is a New Creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul seems to call believers to remember their clothing when they live out their lives in this world. In Ephesians and Colossians, Paul uses the same language to describe putting on the new self:
“Renewed in the spirit of your minds…renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” The call to renewal begins in our thinking, and it begins in thinking in line with our original creation in God’s image, to represent Him and live for Him in this world. As we are renewed in our thinking, it changes the way we think and the way we live. The renewed mind produces a renewed life that dresses differently than it used to. We are to put off the sin, corruption, and desires of the old life and begin to live in line with the New Day, the New Creation that Christ has brought about. A New PowerSo how are these two ideas of the clothing of New Creation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit connected? I believe the infilling or Baptism in the Holy Spirit is empowerment for renewal. It’s not simply about signs and wonders, gifts of the Spirit, and verbal witness, though those are important. It’s a divine empowerment and transformation to live like Christ. It’s clothing that looks like Jesus, aligns with our baptismal identity, and radiates Christ’s New Creation to the world. It’s transformational.
James Mongomery Boice, in his Bible Studies Magazine in May 1989, offers the best definition of the understanding of the meaning of the Word baptize, especially as it relates to the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Pulling on a pickle recipe from Nicander, a poet and physician who lived in 200 B.C., Boice notes how Nicander said that the cucumber was to be dipped (bapto) in water before being “baptized” in the vinegar solution. This baptism would bring about the permanent transformation from cucumber to pickle.[1] What if this is the picture of being “clothed” with the power of the Holy Spirit? A permanent clothing in New Creation life that empowers us to live in the light of the day? An empowerment for holiness? A transformation of who we are? As we step into a new year tomorrow, I want to challenge us to look at our clothing. What are we wearing? Has the power of the Holy Spirit transformed who we are? Have we “put on” Christ? Have we truly been “clothed with power from on high?” Perhaps this day is a day of reflection. Am I dressed like the New Creation? Let’s check out our closets, metaphorically speaking, examine our lives, and make sure we’re dressed like the New Creations we are in Christ. Let us make sure we’re clothed with God’s transforming presence. Let’s make sure we are living in the light of holiness that He has made possible in the empowerment of the Spirit. [1]James Montgomery Boice, Bible Studies Magazine 21(5) (May 1989). https://www.bibestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/baptizo.html. This common definition and picture is widely attested all over the internet. A little research has seemed to indicate that Bible Studies Magazine was a monthly magazine published “The Bible Studi Hour,” Dr. Boice’s teaching ministry. Older issues are seen on Amazon and other web sites, but I have yet to come across the May 1989 issue.
0 Comments
 One of the most interesting aspects of the Christmas story is the way in which the incarnation takes place among the vulnerable. Once again, we see how the incarnation brings God’s presence into the most broken places of human experience. Over the past couple of weeks, we have looked at some of the beautiful truths of Emmanuel and the meaning of God’s incarnate presence. Today, I want to continue looking at Jesus’ incarnation and particularly his identification with the persecuted and the mistreated. See, on the heels of the worship of the Magi, Jesus and His family are displaced due to acts of political violence and danger against children. In this story, Christ becomes an exile due to an act of violence against infants. I want to suggest that Emmanuel understands exile and infanticide, two major issues facing our nation today. Exile Emmanuel understands exile. Exile is defined as “the state of being barred from one’s native country, typically from political or punitive reasons.”[1] There are many reasons why someone flees their native country, often because they find their life in danger. Even today, millions flee their homeland because of impending danger. These exiles are often a source of great political discourse. Should we welcome them? Are they welcome? Why? When? Where? How? Questions that surround the issue of welcoming refugees and exiles in our modern world. I want to suggest to you that the Christmas story shows us a Christ who can identify with those exiled from their homeland because of threats to their life.
Jesus and His family are exiled from Israel because of the threat of Herod, who began to seek his life and wanted to kill him because He threatened Herod’s political power. Notice the leading of the Lord, here. An angel showed up to Joseph and told Him about the coming threat and their need to flee. Divine agency was behind this displacement. How would you feel if you needed to move? Many different issues cause people to be displaced. Even in our nation, severe natural disasters such as tornadoes or floods can displace people from their homes, even if it’s just for a time. Some in other nations face violence like Jesus and His family, and they must flee to safer locations for the sake of their life. Sometimes, people are forced to flee jobs, relationships, and other situations that are not safe for them. And I think the Christmas story reminds us that Jesus knows what it is to be displaced. He knows what it is to be an exile. He knows what it is to flee His homeland for safety and live in another land. What’s interesting to me is the way that exile identity becomes central to Christian identity. Look at what the Apostle Peter wrote:
Peter highlights the fact that Christians are often exiles in a foreign land. And if you’ve grown up in church, you’ve probably spoken of this reality. “This world is not my home, I’m just passing through.” That statement is a recognition that you are a foreigner living in a land that is not home. You are an exile. Your citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), but you live in this world. You are in this world, but not of it (John 17:16). We, as believers, are a people living in a foreign land. I think the challenge for us this Christmas is to recognize that Jesus, Emmanuel, is with us in exile. He is with us in displacement. He understands what it means to live in a land where you don’t quite belong, to leave behind the comforts of home for safety in the leading of the Lord. He knows what it is to live in exile. How should this change our perspective on exiles? When people are fleeing persecution and danger, how should we treat them? Should it make a difference when we realize that our Savior was exiled and that we are exiles? I believe it should. Emmanuel is the God of exiles. Emmanuel understands exiles. Infanticide Not only is Emmanuel the God of the exiles, but He’s also the God of those who have experienced all-out attacks on their people, particularly their infants. Once Herod realized that He had been outsmarted, he set out to kill all baby boys two years old and under. Herod threatened an entire generation because He was trying to thwart the threat of God’s Kingdom. See, Jesus was a threat to his political power, and thus, He must be eliminated. And so, we see an entire cross-section of Hebrew boys eliminated because of the political ambitions of their leaders.
Sound familiar? This was not the first time a move like this had been done in the history of the People of God. If you remember the story of Moses, Pharaoh had gone after the infants of Israel due to their multiplication. It was out of that story that Moses was put in a basket and rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. But an entire generation was killed because a political leader wanted to protect their power and influence. Lest we think that we are a more advanced and sophisticated society, I suggest that the same ambitions that lead Pharoah and Herod lie behind the present-day abortion industry. What would drive a woman to abort the baby growing in her womb? What would lead a couple to end the life they created just as it’s getting started? Is it not that threat the baby makes to their own power and agency? Is it not the baby’s threat to their ambitions and goals? I in no way want to downplay the difficult decisions that couples face in their pregnancy journey, yet I want to challenge us to consider the political and spiritual implications that lie behind the decisions we make. Emmanuel understands the difficulties of less-than-ideal births, less-than-ideal parents, and relationships. Emmanuel understands the pain of women losing their children. Emmanuel understands the cultural pressure that seeks to abort the next generation to protect their power and influence. Emmanuel understands the weeping of mothers and fathers whose children have died in infanticide. Emmanuel understands. Perhaps you’ve had an abortion and now weep over what you’ve done. Emmanuel understands. Emmanuel is with you in the pain and weeping of a cultural moment where millions of the next generation are being extinguished. Emmanuel UNderstandsEmmanuel understands what it is to be an exile, and He understands the pain of a culture of death. He understands when a culture seeks to extinguish the next generation and knows what it is like to flee such a culture, living as an exile from your homeland. Perhaps the lesson for us this Christmas is to embody Emmanuel. What if we chose to live as exiles in a foreign land? What if we chose to reject a culture of death and come alongside those weeping for the next generation? What if we identify with the vulnerable like our Savior, and become His presence in this broken world? What if we walked alongside those displaced from home? What if we walked alongside those battling the culture of death? What if we became a living incarnation of the presence of Jesus, the God of the Exile and the God of the Vulnerable? Let us remember, this Christmas, that Emmanuel understands.
[1]“Exile,” Oxford Languages,” Available from: https://www.google.com/search?q=exile+definition&oq=exile+definition&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDc5NDhqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8; accessed 24 December 2025.  How Christmas Gets PoliticalAs we continue looking at the story of Christmas through Matthew’s gospel, I find it interesting that Matthew gets political. When most of us think of Christmas, probably politics is the last think on our minds. I mean, what advice do most people give about attending family gatherings? Don’t talk about politics or religion! What if I told you that Christmas inadvertently requires both? Christmas is a political story. The Pursuit of the KingAs you continue reading the story of Matthew’s gospel, he turns toward a familiar part of the Christmas narrative, the visit of the Magi. Shortly after Jesus’ birth, he is visited by a group of Magi from the east: Matthew 2:1–2 (ESV) Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Notice the initial question after the birth narrative and declaration of Emmanuel, God with us: “Where is He who has been born the king of the Jews?” A King. A Leader. A Politician. The Magi come to Herod, the acting ruler of the Jews, and ask about the king. Where’s the king? These magi had seen within the stars the sign of the birth of the king, and came to find him. Scholars have noted that probably what happened was a sign in the sky bringing the planets Mars and Jupiter together, something that happened three times in 7 B.C.[1] Jupiter was thought to be a royal planet, and Saturn the planet of the Jews, so the conjunction of these two in the night sky was thought to signal that a new king of the Jews was to be born.[2] Michael Green suggests, “So this conjunction of planets, giving the impression of one very bright star, would have meant to the competent astronomer that a new age was beginning, in which the sovereignty of the world would shift to Judea.”[3] They came searching for a new political leader who was thought to be coming on the world scene. A Threat to Power Herod, hearing news of the king, is intrigued, and not in a good way: Matthew 2:3–4 (ESV) When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. Herod is troubled, a fitting response when you hear that your replacement has been born. This is often how humans respond when they discover a threat to their power. They, too, become troubled and seek to understand how to keep their power and control. He sends the wise men on a mission, “Go, find the child, and let me know where He is that I, too, can go and worship.” Was that really what was in Herod’s heart? Was that truly his desire? He also seeks the timing of Christ’s birth to calculate his age. Herod wasn’t seeking to adore the King; he was agitated at the threat to his throne. Adoration or Agitation?The Magi go on their way, and finding the child at home with his parents, they fall in worship and open their treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They are filled with adoration in the presence of the new born King. They worship. After they arise, they are warned in a dream to return home another way because of what Herod had planned to do to the Christ child.
Herod, on the other hand, is filled with agitation. When the men do not return to him, he begins a murderous plot to kill all males born within the past two years. Herod is agitated that there might be another King who might take his power, sovereignty, and control away from him. He responds with violence and infanticide. Mary and Joseph are warned in a dream to flee to Egypt to protect Jesus’ life. All of this is inherently political. Who is the true king? Who wields true power? Who deserves worship and adoration? Christmas is inherently political because it announces the birth of the King, the King of all the World. It brings us all to the point of decision where we must decide. Will we respond in worship and adoration or agitation? See, there’s really only one response when you come face to face with the reality of Christ’s Kingdom. You can fall in adoration and worship, or you can try to maintain power and control over your life. Christ’s Kingdom is a threat to our selfishness and pride. It comes in to announce that we are no longer in full control over our lives, that we are not the kings and queens we think we are. There’s only one King, and His name is Jesus. We must check ourselves, lest we respond like Herod. In agitation, do we seek to eliminate the threat to our power and control? Do we fight the sovereign right of Jesus to rule and reign over our lives? Do we seek to track down all the ways He threatens our power and tighten our grip on the reins? Or do we respond like the Magi? Do we bow down in surrender and worship? Do we open our treasures and offer ourselves sacrificially to the King of kings and Lord of lords? Do we bow in adoration to the only One worthy? This Christmas, we are faced with a question. When we encounter the reality of the New Born King, will we respond in agitation or adoration? Will we worship or worry? Will we give Christ our allegiance or some other king and kingdom? Christmas is inherently political. Who has your allegiance? [1]Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 10. [2]Ibid. [3]Michael Green, The Message of Matthew: The Kingdom of Heaven, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 69.  Grace in an Unlikely Space. If there’s one thing that has struck me this holiday season, especially as I consider the Scripture’s Christmas story, it’s the reality of grace appearing in an unlikely space. One thing we celebrate every year is the coming of God in the flesh, the incarnation, or enfleshment of God. One of the most beautiful words that captures the depth of this moment and the miracle it celebrates is the word, the name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Matthew borrows this Old Testament prophecy to explain what was going on some 2,000 years ago when the virgin Mary and her fiancé Joseph had a series of angelic encounters, and supernatural experiences leading to a miraculous pregnancy with the Christ child.
Have you ever stopped to consider where this God came from? Have you ever admired the stopping points of grace in this Christmas story? For I fear that sometimes there’s a level of scandal and political incorrectness that we might scrub from the story in our polished narrations of the incarnation of grace. If we look at it, however, the incarnation meets humanity in the midst of great brokenness. Christ came, not in the polished white-picket fence life of the middle class in the West, but in the brokenness of scandal and political upheaval of the 1st century Middle East. Think with me, if you will, about the first movement of Matthew’s telling of the story. Disobedient Immorality Feel this as you read these words of the great evangelist:
When Mary was engaged, before they consummated the marriage, Mary found herself pregnant. For the Judeo-Christian worldview, Mary gave off the appearance of grave immorality. She was pregnant outside of wedlock. She was found to be with child. To make matters worse, there’s a sense in which the scandal goes to the next level, because Joseph, her fiancé, was not the father! Is that where we would expect to find the incarnate God? Is that where Emmanuel meets us? Relational Unfaithfulness
When word comes to Joseph that his fiancé was pregnant, he responds as many might respond, with a desire to break off the relationship. Matthew carefully chooses important language to let us know that Joseph was a man of character, a righteous man. He was a man of God! And so, desiring to treat his beloved with honor and respect, and not willing to subject her to open shame, he plans a quiet divorce. You see, in the first century, engagement was a serious commitment of a man to a woman, and unlike dating and engagement in the modern West, breaking off an engagement required filing for divorce. Joseph had in mind to divorce her quietly. The marriage contract had already been drawn up, they were legally joined, and to break off the engagement, they needed to go through the pain of divorce. Here we come face to face with the realities of relational betrayal. For all Joseph thought, his beloved had been unfaithful. How else would she be pregnant? How else would she be with child? Joseph was well aware of the necessary processes for a child to be conceived, and so he would’ve been wrestling with the idea that the woman he had selected for his wife had chosen to be unfaithful. Emmanuel came to dwell in a story that gave the appearance of unfaithfulness. A Divine Encounter
It was as Joseph encountered the presence of God through angelic visitation that he heard a word about God’s work in bringing forth the Messiah. God had conceived this child supernaturally through the Holy Spirit; he had nothing to worry about. This Child would be the Savior of His people. He would be the deliverer from sin. Emmanuel: THe Miracle in the MessEmmanuel, God with us, was God with us in the midst of the scandal and in the midst of the pain. An angel met with Joseph. There, in the feelings of shame and sadness, the questions, the embarrassment, and there he encountered the grace of God.
Now, on this side of the story, we see the supernatural miracle of the virgin birth and the obedience of Joseph and Mary to God’s divine plan. But put yourself in their shoes. Would you say yes to God if it meant the appearances of disobedient immorality? Would you say yes to God if you had to bear the open shame of an unfaithful spouse? While Joseph and Mary would’ve seen the miracle, the World would’ve only seen the mess. While Joseph and Mary embraced the miracle, many in the World would’ve gossiped about the mess. While Mary and Joseph encountered the divine in the midst of a miracle, the world would’ve shunned them for their disobedience in making a mess. I wonder, this Christmas, if maybe there’s a miracle to embrace in the messy areas of our lives? Could there be, in this story, an invitation to embrace the miracle when the world sees a mistake? An invitation to embrace the miracle in what the world calls a mishap? Maybe your life feels a bit messy today. Maybe this Christmas, all you can see are your mistakes. But maybe, just maybe, Emmanuel is inviting you to meet Him in the mess. To embrace Him in the chaos, to honor Him as Savior, and to encounter Emmanuel even when your life feels like it doesn’t qualify for divine visitation. For that is who He is, Emmanuel, God with us, with us in the mess. |
Dr. jake TrueDr. Jake True is a chaplain, pastor, and scholar in Southern Illinois. He loves exploring Pentecostal learning and discipleship, with an emphasis on the role of the Spirit in education. Archives
February 2026
Categories |
RSS Feed
|
The Pentecostal Teacher
|
Contact ME |