The Love of the New Man Christ Whom We Have Put On

To love oneself is not selfish or even wrong, provided we love the new man Christ whom we have put on, and not our sinful old man Adam, whom we have crucified. "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 ... Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering ..." (Coloss. 3:9,10,12).

Our new self is Christ: he is unselfish, he is loving towards God and man. To hate Christ - our Savior whom we have put on - would be wrong. Rather, Jesus Christ is he "whom not having seen, you love" (1 Peter 1:7-8). As for our "old man" Adam, him we have crucified ("our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with" - Romans 6:6) and must crucify ("put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry" - Coloss. 3:5). This is what Christ means when he says "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate ... his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26). He is speaking here of the old self, the old man, the one who was buried with Christ in baptism. This is why the Holy Fathers say that self-love a fundamental sin -- they are referring to the love of the sinful old man, with its passions and desires.

Fulfilling Christ's commandment, we hate our old man, whom we have crucified and who no longer lives, if we live in Christ, if we are alive in Christ. As St Paul writes: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). And we love our new man Christ, through whom we are united with the Father and the Spirit and have obtained peace with God, having put to death our old man who was at enmity with God; and in whom we have peace and unity also with one another and are members of one another. We love our new man Christ, willingly and lovingly putting him on, and we do not struggle against him, but we have rest, saying:

"Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you [O God] have delivered my soul from death [for the old man is dead, the new man Christ lives], my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living ... What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people ... O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your handmaiden; you have loosed my bonds [freed me from the old man]. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, And will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem" (from Psalms 114 and 115 in the Septuagint bible; 116 in other bibles).

The healthy Christian is at peace with his new self, the sinless Christ whom has put on. This new self he loves. But he continues to struggle against sin, and the old man that sins. There is an ongoing struggle: we hate and we must put to death our sinful old man - nailing him to the Cross. Yet that old man is not our true self, for "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me ..." There is a struggle in our members between the old man and our new man, but only the new man is our true self. St Paul speaks of the struggle: "For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do ... But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me ... For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I do not will to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I do not will to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me" (from Rom 7:14-19). Thus the sinful "old man" whom we must put to death, is not our true self, but one to whom we have died, in order that our new man may live in Christ. The old man must die, that the new man may life.

For "... unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (John 12:24-25). The life we must hate is the old man, whose life is the life of this world, that is, the life of the fallen and sinful world with its pride; this "old man" is not our true self. At the same time, Christ gave his own flesh, his own life, for the life of the world (John 6:51) - yes, the very same world - in order that it might live: yet not in sinfulness, but cleansed, renewed, redeemed, and restored to God: the new "life of the world" that lives in Christ. 

St John of Kronstadt contrasts the proper love of self (love of the new man) with the improper love of self (love of the old man). First, love of the sinful old man: "The root of every evil is a self-loving heart, or self pity, self-sparing; it is from self-love, or excessive and unlawful love for oneself that all the vices proceed: coldness, insensibility, hard-heartedness towards God and our neighbor, wicked impatience and irritability, hatred, envy, avarice, despondency, pride, unbelief, gluttony, the love of money, vanity, slothfulness, hypocrisy." Second, the righteous love of the self, which is the love of the new man: "Love your neighbor as yourself; for by loving your neighbor you love yourself, while by hating your neighbor ... you hate your own soul before all else." These words presuppose that we are one with our neighbor, which is only true insofar as we are speaking of Christ into whom we have both been baptized, whom we have both put on, and in whom we are one.

Again, he explains that the improper love of self is only the love of the old, sinful man, not the love of the new man: "Whoever will save his life shall lose it. That is, whosoever wishes to save his old carnal, sinful man, shall lose his life: for the true life consists in crucifying and mortifying the old man, together with his deeds, and putting on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Without the mortification of the old, carnal man, there is no true life or eternal blessedness" (Spiritual Counsels of Father John of Kronstadt, 1989, p. 111, 187, 158.)

In the same way, the Philokalia teaches that self-love is the "origin and mother of evil" (St Maximus the Confessor, First Century of Various Texts, 33). This evil self-love is the love of the sinful, carnal old man. But the same self-love, when purified, because the true self-love, that is, the love of our true self, the new man, Christ whom we have put on. This self-love draw us towards God: "[T]hrough desire - through a passion of self-love which has been purified - we should be drawn in longing to the one God ..." (ibid, 32).