Colossians 3 - PUT OFF, PUT ON

Colossians 3 - PUT OFF, PUT ON

A. Put off the old man.
1. (Colossians 3:1-4) The basis for Paul’s practical instruction.
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
a. If then you were raised with Christ: Paul here begins a section where he focuses on practical Christian living, with the clear understanding that practical Christian living is built on the foundation of theological truth. Because we know that Jesus is really raised from the dead, then our identification with Him becomes real. It is only because we were raised with Christ that we can seek those things which are above.
i. The idea of being raised with Christ was introduced back in Colossians 2:12, where Paul used baptism to illustrate this spiritual reality. Now, seeing that we are raised with Christ, certain behavior is appropriate to us.
ii. “The opening verses of chapter 3 sustain the closest connection with the closing verses of chapter 2. There the apostle reminds the Colossians that ascetic regulations are of no real value in restraining indulgence of the flesh. The only remedy for sinful passions is found in the believers’ experience of union with Christ.” (Vaughan)
iii. Because we were raised with Christ, we should act just as Jesus did when He was resurrected.
· After His resurrection, Jesus left the tomb. So should we - we don’t live there any more.
· After His resurrection, Jesus spent His remaining time being with and ministering to His disciples. So should we - live our lives to be with and to serve one another.
· After His resurrection, Jesus lived in supernatural power with the ability to do impossible things. So should we - with the power and the enabling of the Holy Spirit.
· After His resurrection, Jesus looked forward to heaven, knowing He would soon enough ascend there. So should we - recognizing that our citizenship is in heaven.
iii. To emphasize it even more, Paul added the phrase, sitting at the right hand of God: “This phrase, particularly in its allusion to Psalms 110, focuses attention on the sovereign rule which Christ now exercises. The command to aspire to the things of heaven is a command to meditate and dwell upon Christ’s sort of life, and on the fact that he is now enthroned as the Lord of the world.” (Wright)
b. Set your mind on things above: The best Christian living comes from from minds that are fixed on heaven. They realize that their lives are now hidden with Christ in God, and since Jesus is enthroned in heaven, their thoughts and hearts are connected to heaven also.
i. “The believer is to ‘seek the things . . . above.’ The word ‘seek’ marks aspiration, desire, and passion. . . . In order to seek these things the mind must be set on them.” (Morgan)
ii. “Love heavenly things; study them; let your hearts be entirely engrossed by them. Now, that you are converted to God, act in reference to heavenly things as ye did formerly in reference to those of earth.” (Clarke)
iii. “ ‘Earthly things’ are not all evil, but some of them are. Even things harmless in themselves become harmful if permitted to take the place that should be reserved for the things above.” (Vaughan)
c. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory: The promise of the return of Jesus is not only that we will see His glory, but so that we also will appear with Him in glory. This is the revealing of the sons of God mentioned in Romans 8:19
i. Christ who is our life: In another place, Paul wrote for me to live is Christ (Philippians 1:21). Here he shows that this idea was not just for special apostles, but for all believers - Christ who is our life. Sometimes we say, “Music is his life” or “Sports are his life” or “He lives for his work.” Of the Christian it should be said, “Jesus Christ is his life.”
ii. On that day, all will see the saints of God for what they really are, not as they merely appear to this world. “Paul, the prisoner, an eccentric Jew to the Romans and a worse-than-Gentile traitor to the Jews, will be seen as Paul the apostle, the servant of the King. The Colossians, insignificant ex-pagans from a third-rate country town, will be seen in a glory which, if it were now to appear, one might be tempted to worship.” (Wright)
2. (Colossians 3:5-7) Put to death the things that are against God and part of this world.
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.
a. Therefore put to death your members: Therefore points back to our identification with the risen and enthroned Lord Jesus mentioned in Colossians 3:1-4. It is because we understand this fact that we can put to death the things in our life that are contrary to our identity with Jesus.
i. “The verb nekrosate, meaning literally ‘to make dead,’ is very strong. It suggests that we are not simply to suppress or control evil acts and attitudes. We are to wipe them out, completely exterminate the old way of life.” (Vaughan)
ii. We put to death in the sense of denying these things and considering them dead to us and us dead to them. “To gratify any sensual appetite is to give it the very food and nourishment by which it lives, thrives, and is active.” (Clarke)
iii. There is importance in listing and naming these sins as Paul does in this section. “It is far easier to drift into a sin which one does not know by name than consciously to choose one whose very title should be repugnant to a Christian.” (Wright)
b. Fornication, uncleanness, passion and evil desire: Each of these terms refers to sexual sins. Covetousness is simple, but insidious greed, and nothing less than idolatry. There is no way that Jesus would walk in any of these sins, so if we identify with Him, we won’t walk in them either.
i. Fornication: “The word here translated sexual immorality refers to any intercourse outside marriage; in the ancient world, as in the modern, intercourse with a prostitute would be a specific, and in a pagan culture a frequent, instance of this.” (Wright)
ii. Uncleanness: “A wider range of meaning than fornication. It includes the misuse of sex, but is applicable to various forms of moral evil.” (Bruce)
iii. Morgan lists three ways that covetousness is terribly destructive:
· “First, it is idolatry, in that it only obtains when man thinks of life consisting in things possessed, rather than in righteous relationship to God.”
· “It is also a sin against others, for to satisfy the desire, others are wronged.”
· “Finally, it is self-destructive, for these wrong conceptions and activities always react upon the soul to its own undoing.”
· Morgan added: “And yet, what ecclesiastical court ever yet arraigned a church-member for covetousness?”
iv. “Every godly man seeks his happiness in God; the covetous man seeks that in his money which God alone can give; therefore his covetousness is properly idolatry.” (Clarke)
c. Because of these things: The sins mentioned previously are part of the way the world lives and not the way Jesus lives. Every Christian is faced with a question: “Who will I identify with, the world or with Jesus?”
d. The wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience: These sins invite the wrath of God. Because the world loves this kind of sinful lifestyle, they don’t come in humility to Jesus. As they continue in these sins, it adds to their condemnation. One sin is enough to send anyone to hell (Deuteronomy 3:10), but there are greater levels of condemnation (Matthew 23:14).
i. In part, the wrath of God comes as God allows men to continue in sinful - and therefore self-destructive - behavior (as in Romans 1:24-32).
e. In which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them: These sins may mark a world in rebellion against God, but they are in the past tense for the Christian.
i. Simply put, the Christian should not live like the sons of disobedience. A true Christian can not be comfortable in habitual sin.
ii. Paul says that Christians once walked in these sins. It is possible - though tragic - that these sins should occasionally mark a Christian’s life, but they must not be a Christian’s walk, their manner of living.
3. (Colossians 3:8-9) Removing other traces of worldliness.
But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds,
a. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: The sins Paul next lists (anger, wrath, and so forth) are regarded by many as “little” sins that Christians may overlook with little danger. Paul challenges us to put off the old man in every area of our lives.
i. “Put off all those old habits, just as you would discard an outworn suit of clothes which no longer fitted you.” (Bruce)
b. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie: Each of these sins are primarily committed by what we say. When Paul calls the believer to a deeper obedience, he tells us to bridle our tongue (as did James in James 1:26 and James 3:1-9).
i. Nevertheless, it is also possible to lie to one another without words. “It is easy to distort the truth; an alteration in the tone of voice or an eloquent look will do it; and there are silences which can be as false and misleading as any words.” (Barclay)
c. Since you have put off the old man with his deeds: The more notorious sins of Colossians 3:5 are easily seen as incompatible with the nature of Jesus. But these “lesser” sins are also incompatible, so put off these sins also.
i. In this section (Colossians 3:5-9) Paul showed two high priorities in Christian living: sexual morality connected with a right attitude towards material things, and simple getting along in love with one another. It is easy for a Christian community to compromise one for the other, but Paul (by inspiration of the Holy Spirit) insisted that they both have a high place in Christian practice.
ii. You have put off the old man with his deeds means that in Jesus Christ, the saints of God are different people. Therefore, “When a tide of passion or a surge of anger is felt, it must be dealt with as the alien intruder it really is, and turned out of the house as having no right to be there at all, let alone to be giving orders.” (Wright)
B. Put on the new man.
1. (Colossians 3:10-11) As we put off the old man, we must put on the new man.
And have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
a. Put on the new man: The phrase Paul used was commonly used for changing a set of clothes. We can almost picture a person taking off the old and putting on the new man in Jesus.
b. Who is renewed in knowledge: Because the new man is renewed in knowledge, he is hungry to know what God says in His Word.
c. According to the image of Him who created him: Paul is clearly alluding to Genesis 1:27, where it is said that God created Adam in His own image. Nevertheless, now that first Adam is seen as the old man who should be put off and discarded, now that we are created after the image of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
d. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free: The new man is part of a family, which favors no race, nationality, class, culture or ethnicity. It only favors Jesus, because in this new family, Christ is all and in all.
i. This work of the new creation not only deals with the old man and gives us the new man patterned after Jesus Christ; it also breaks down the barriers that separate people in society. Among new creation people it doesn’t matter if one is Greek or Jew or circumcised or uncircumcised or a Scythian or a slave or a free man. All those barriers are broken down.
ii. “He therefore adds to barbarian the Scythian as the extreme example.” (Peake)
iii. All of these barriers existed in the ancient Roman world; and the power of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ broke them all down. Especially powerful was the barrier between slave and free, but Christianity changed that.
· “In times of persecution slaves showed that they could face the trial and suffer for their faith as courageously as freeborn Romans. The slave-girl Blandina and her mistress both suffered in the persecution which broke out against the churches of the Rhone valley in A.D. 177, but it was the slave-girl who was the hero of the persecution, impressing friend and foe alike as a ‘noble athlete’ in the contest of martyrdom.” (Bruce)
· “In the arena of Carthage in A.D. 202 a profound impression was made on the spectators when the Roman matron Perpetua stood hand-in-hand with her slave Felicitas, as both women faced a common death for a common faith.” (Bruce)
2. (Colossians 3:12-17) Life of the new man.
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
a. Therefore, as the elect of God: The new man is elect of God. This means that God has chosen the Christian, and chosen him to be something special in His plan. “Elect” is a word that frightens some, but it should be taken both as a comfort and as a destiny to fulfill.
b. Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility: Each one of the qualities mentioned in this passage express themselves in relationships. A significant measure of our Christian life is found simply in how we treat people and the quality of our relationships with them.
i. “It is most significant to note that every one of the graces listed has to do with personal relationships between man and man. There is no mention of virtues like efficiency or cleverness, not even of diligence or industry - not that these things are unimportant. But the great basic Christian virtues are those which govern human relationships.” (Barclay)
ii. Tender mercies: If something is tender, it is sensitive to touch. “The apostle would have them to feel the slightest touch of another’s misery; and, as their clothes are put over their body, so their tenderest feeling should be always within reach of the miserable.” (Clarke)
iii. Kindness: “The ancient writers defined chrestotes as the virtue of the man whose neighbour’s good is as dear to him as his own. . . . It is used of wine which has grown mellow with age and lost its harshness. It is the word used when Jesus said, ‘My yoke is easy.’ (Matthew 11:30).” (Barclay)
iv. We can say that humility (which was not considered a virtue among the ancient Greeks) is the “parent” of both meekness and longsuffering. Meekness shows how humility will effect my actions towards others; I will not dominate, manipulate, or coerce for my own ends, even if I have the power and the ability. Longsuffering shows how humility will effect my reaction towards others; I will not become impatient, short, or filled with resentment towards the weaknesses and sins of others.
c. Forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do: We are told to live forgiving one another, after the pattern of Jesus’ forgiveness towards us. Understanding the way Jesus forgave us will always make us more generous with forgiveness, and never less generous.
i. When we consider the staggering debt Jesus forgave for us, and the comparative smallness of the debts others have toward us, it is base ingratitude for us to not forgive them (as in the parable Jesus spoke in Matthew 18:21-35). “The forgiveness they have received is used to enforce the duty of forgiving others.” (Peake)
ii. When one thinks of how Christ forgave you it should make us much more generous with forgiveness.