Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:17-24 ESV).

Do you ever feel as if you are two different persons? Back in the nineteenth century, Robert Louis Stevenson explored that idea in his short suspense novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In an effort to become a better person, Dr. Jekyll, a mild-mannered man of science, develops a potion that can separate his good self from his bad self. What happens instead is that his bad side turns out to be much more evil than expected. At night he becomes Mr. Hyde, a mysterious and violent man who thinks only of his own desires. Once Dr. Jekyll realizes his own evil, he clamps down on his Mr. Hyde, resolving not to take the magic potion anymore. But Hyde has become too strong. In despair of ever changing himself for the good, Dr. Jekyll commits suicide. In our reading today, the Apostle Paul speaks of the same struggle in different terms. He uses the terms of “old self” and “new self.” One of the great issues of life is how we can change permanently and deeply so that we look more like Jesus all the time. Paul admits that he has struggled with this very thing: For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:17 ESV). If the Apostle Paul has this difficulty, what are we to do? How are we going to fend off this voracious enemy within us? How do we get rid of Mr. Hyde? Our reading gives us a direction. Here Paul says it requires “the truth that is in Jesus” (v. 21). His reference is the power of the cross. At least part of that is in the truth that the “Mr. Hyde” within us all has been defeated once and for all time through the grace of God’s restoration of relationship by Jesus’ death. Sin and death hold no real power over us any longer. That power only comes through a personal knowledge of Jesus; and, that knowledge can only come through a consistent exposure to the Scripture. I all we know about Jesus is that which we hear in a twenty minute “talk” once a week, we won’t get to know Him very quickly. There is much more we can learn about how the power of the cross creates that truth in us. But today let’s give thanks that Christ can change our old self into a new self that honors him just by getting to know him more!