Josh White just walked 10 days across northern Spain with a backpack, a beard, and a group of college buddies he hadn’t seen in 20 or 30 years. By the end, he says, “my body just said, I’m done.” He was dizzy, exhausted, and a little scared. And when he stood up in the pulpit at Grace Bible Church of Phoenix on August 30, Josh White brought the same question he had been mulling on the Camino into Colossians 3:12: what does it actually look like to put on the new self?
The image Paul gives is clothing. You wake up, you choose what to wear, you put it on. Some of you grabbed whatever was clean. Some of you planned the night before. Either way, you were deliberate. The new creation in Christ isn’t a passive thing you received once — it’s something you keep putting on, day after day, the way you put on clothes before walking out the door.
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
— Colossians 3:12-13
Be Intentional
The first word Paul uses is a command: put on. Not “drift toward,” not “consider maybe.” Put on. The Greek is the same word you’d use for picking up a shirt and pulling it over your head. It’s active. You know what you’re doing and you’re doing it on purpose.
Paul uses this “put on” language all over his letters. In Romans 13:12, “let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” In Ephesians 6, “put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” Same verb. Same picture. You don’t drift into holiness any more than you drift into a clean shirt. You make a choice, you reach for it, you put it on.
“The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
— Romans 13:12
After 10 days and 100-plus miles in Spain, Josh was covered in sweat and dust. The last thing he wanted was to put those clothes back on. So he changed. That’s the picture: the new man doesn’t keep wearing what the old self wore. He puts on something different.
Be Identical
The second thing Paul tells you to put on is your identity. You are God’s chosen one. You are holy. You are beloved. That isn’t a future hope — it’s who you are right now. He chose you before the foundation of the world. He set you apart. He put Christ’s righteousness into your account. Your sins are forgiven. You belong to him.
This matters because the rest of Colossians 3 is a list of behaviors that don’t make sense without it. Why would a lying, angry, slanderous person stop lying, get angry less, and refuse to slander? Because they’ve been given a new name. They aren’t that person anymore. The old man lived for himself. The new man has been imputed with someone else’s righteousness.
Josh’s group on the Camino gave themselves a nickname: the Holy Horde. Thirty-something pastors and ministry leaders walking across Spain together, leaning on each other, finishing the route. The name captured what Paul is getting at: a group of people who know who they are and walk accordingly.
Be Relational
The third thing this passage teaches is to be relational. You can’t put on compassion by yourself. You can’t bear with one another alone. Every command in this paragraph assumes there are other people in the room.
Josh walked with guys he hadn’t seen in decades. They sweated together, ate bread together (his beard caught most of the crumbs), and on day 10 arrived in a city where his mind and body finally agreed: I’m done. The guys he was with noticed before he did. That’s what new-creation community is. That’s the “and” that holds the whole list together.
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”
— Colossians 3:5-6
The list of what to put off is just as specific as the list of what to put on: anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying. All of those are about me — what I want, what I can get, how I can protect myself. The new self, by contrast, is for the other. Intentional and identical both manifest themselves in relationships, or they aren’t really happening.
So What?
If you’ve trusted Christ, you don’t need to earn a new identity. You already have one. You’re holy. You’re beloved. Christ has put on you what he earned. So tomorrow morning, when you pick out your clothes, do the same for your soul. Deliberately put on compassion, patience, and forgiveness toward the person who wronged you last week.
And don’t try to do it alone. Get in a life group. Walk the Camino with someone. Be part of a Holy Horde. The goal is for the outside world to see something different in the church and want to know what it is. That’s the put-on.
Scripture References
- Colossians 3:5-6 — Put to death what is earthly in you
- Colossians 3:12-13 — Put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiveness
- Romans 13:12 — Cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light
- Ephesians 6:10-11 — Put on the whole armor of God
- Romans 15:5-6 — The God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony