The Act of Unmaking: When the Soul Sheds Its Grave-Clothes

Only twice in all of Scripture does this sacred verb appear — apekdýomai — yet in those two utterances, heaven and earth are turned inside out. The first time, the Apostle of the Gentiles writes to the assembly in Colossae, and with this single word he paints the very anatomy of redemption: “In whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the putting off (apekdýsei) of the body of flesh” (Colossians 2:11). This is no mere undressing. This is the soul’s great unmaking of the old creation, a divine surgery performed by the Messiah Himself. The verb carries the weight of a man tearing away a garment that has grown into his skin — a garment woven from the threads of the fall, stitched with every transgression.

The Middle Voice: A Wound You Choose to Receive

The Master of language, the Holy Spirit, chose the middle voice for this verb — that strange grammatical space between active and passive. In classical Greek, apekdýomai meant to strip someone else, to despoil an enemy in battle. But the New Testament transforms the word utterly. Here, the subject performs the action upon himself, yet for his own benefit. Paul writes to the Colossians that in Messiah “you stripped off (apekdysámenoi) the old self with its practices” (Colossians 3:9). The middle voice reveals a mystery: you must actively choose to be passive. You must will your own unclothing. The sages of old taught that the serpent’s curse was that he would eat dust — but dust is what he was. So too, the old self clings to you because you are made of its substance. To shed it is to ask for a new skin, a new nature, a new creation. The verb’s derivation from apó (away from) and ekdýo (to strip off) speaks of a complete separation, a removal so total that nothing of the old remains clinging to the soul.

Despoiling the Principalities: The War Behind the Womb

Here is where the word becomes a battle cry. In Colossians 2:15, Paul declares that the Messiah “stripped off (apekdysámenos) the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, triumphing over them through the cross.” The same verb that describes your personal sanctification describes Christ’s cosmic victory. This is the great mystery: the cross was both an unmaking and a despoiling. As the Messiah’s body was stripped of its garments, so the spiritual rulers were stripped of their armor. Jewish tradition holds that when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, he exchanged his golden garments for plain linen — a stripping away of glory to stand naked before the Glory. But on Golgotha, the true High Priest was stripped by Roman soldiers, and in that nakedness He despoiled every principality. The early church understood this as the great exchange: His nakedness became your covering; His stripping became your clothing; His defeat became the victory that unclothes the powers of darkness.

The LXX Bridge: From Joseph’s Robe to the Messiah’s Tunic

When the translators of the Septuagint sought a Greek equivalent for the Hebrew pashát (to strip, to remove a garment), they chose ekdýo — the root of our word. In Genesis 37:23, the brothers of Joseph “stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him.” That tunic was a father’s gift, a sign of election and favor. To strip it was to deny his identity, to reduce him to a slave. The Hebrew pashát carries the sense of a violent, public humiliation. Yet the same verb appears in Leviticus 6:11, where the priest must “strip off his garments and put on other garments” before carrying the ashes of the burnt offering outside the camp. Here the stripping is liturgical, holy, preparatory. The LXX uses ekdýo for both — the violent and the sacred. Your apekdýomai in Messiah holds both meanings: the violence of putting the old self to death, and the sacredness of preparing for the new. Joseph’s tunic was dipped in blood, but the Messiah’s tunic was gambled for by soldiers — and in that nakedness, He clothed the world with salvation.

The Apostolic Pattern: Clement’s Cry to Cast Off the World

The early church father Clement of Rome, writing to the Corinthians in the generation after the apostles, picked up this very verb as a call to holiness. He urged the believers to “strip off (apekdýomai) all hypocrisy and every evil desire” — using the same middle voice Paul employed. The apostolic tradition understood that this stripping was not a single event but a daily discipline. Just as the high priest washed and changed garments before every service, so the believer must continually put off the garments of the old age. Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom, wrote of being “ground by the teeth of wild beasts” so that he might become “pure bread of Christ” — a stripping away of everything that was not Messiah. The fathers of the faith saw in apekdýomai the very shape of discipleship: you cannot run the race wearing the grave-clothes of the old life. The verb demands a continual, intentional, painful shedding — but the pain is the pain of a snake shedding its skin, which is the pain of growth.

The Messianic Fulfillment: Naked and Triumphant

Every Greek verb in the New Testament that speaks of stripping finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Messiah’s Passion. When the soldiers cast lots for His garments, they performed the most literal ekdýo in history — stripping the Son of God until He wore only the flesh He had taken from Miriam. But the deepest fulfillment is in Colossians 2:15. There, the same verb that describes your sanctification describes His victory. The Messiah apekdysámenos the rulers and authorities — He stripped them off, despoiled them, unclothed them of their power. How? By being stripped Himself. The early church saw in this a divine irony: the nakedness that shamed Adam became the weapon that defeated Satan. As the ancient sages taught that the serpent was stripped of his legs in the fall, so the Messiah was stripped of His garments on the cross — and in that stripping, He unclothed the serpent’s head of its sting. Death itself was stripped of its terror at the moment the Messiah breathed His last. Your apekdýomai is not merely your act — it is your participation in His act. When you put off the old self, you are entering into the very victory He won on the cross.

The Call to Unclothe: A Charge to the Congregation

You have been stripped in Him. This is the scandal of the gospel: you do not undress yourself by your own strength — you are already undressed in the Messiah’s finished work. But now you must choose to remain unclothed of the old. Every morning when you wake, the garments of the fallen world are laid before you: fear, resentment, lust, pride, the love of money, the thirst for approval. Your calling is to refuse them. The middle voice of apekdýomai calls you to an active passivity — to will what God has done, to choose what has been given. Let the words of the Apostle ring in your ears: “Do not lie to one another, since you have stripped off the old self with its practices” (Colossians 3:9). The verb is aorist — a past action with present consequences. It is done, yet you must live it. Go now, and let the wind of the Spirit dry the wounds where the old garment clung to your soul. You are naked and unashamed, clothed in Messiah alone. Walk as one who has been despoiled of death and robed in resurrection.