Overview
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As a risen people enjoying the life of Christ we have a new object for our minds. It may be good to examine how much time we actually spend being occupied with the things which are above.
What do we know of heaven and the place of exaltation where the Lord Jesus is now enthroned?
People in the world wonder where our pleasures are and what our life consists of. Christians are an enigma to unbelievers! However, one day we will come out of heaven with Christ when He returns to set up His visible manifested kingdom in this world that, today, has rejected Him and us. Then the true nature of what it means to be linked with a glorified Man will be made evident to all.
Thus, in a world that is so concerned about “image projection,” we as believers endeavour only to present the image of our exalted Lord.
Colossians chapter 3.1-11
Risen with Christ
At the end of chapter 2 Paul reminded us that we died with Christ when He died. Now we are instructed that we were also raised with Christ and as a result our ambitions are completely changed. We are to demonstrate an earnest desire for heavenly things, being occupied with the truth that the Lord Jesus is on the right hand of God. The right hand is the place of power and privilege. Could it be that our minds are more often directed towards the horizontal outlook of this world rather than the more spiritual vertical sphere. We are to have elevated thoughts because we are linked with an elevated Person in glory. We died, and the self-life, living for earthly temporal pleasures, no longer appeals to us.
Our actual life is not evident here on earth, it is lived where Christ is and hidden in God from the eyes of men. However, our life will be seen one day when the Lord Jesus Christ returns in His manifested glory. Paul anticipates that day in 2 Thessalonians 1.10 “When He shall come to be glorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe.”
Having dealt with the occupation of our minds, Paul now turns to the mortification of our members in verses 5-8.
Paul deals with three categories of sins which may be summed up under the following headings: immoral lusts (verse 5), injurious actions and inappropriate language (verse 8).
We have to put to death any of these sins whenever they raise their heads, and we must be ruthless and relentless in attending to them. They include: illicit sexual intercourse; impure thoughts; lustful passions; evil desires; and the basic root that covers all of these, namely the sin of covetousness. This is literally “the desire to have more,” and reminds us that the flesh is never satisfied.
Covetousness is called idolatry because it dethrones God and displaces Christ in our affections, in order to pursue what the flesh craves for itself.
For the practice of these sins, the retribution of God will fall on those characterised by unbelieving disobedience. These sins once belonged to the past life of the Colossians, before they were saved, but now their behaviour is different.
Next, Paul instructs them that they are to discard and be done with behaviour that disturbs and damages other people. Wrath means a settled indignation fermenting in the heart, anger is the furious outburst of temper like a fire bursting out in the straw! Malice is the perverse inclination to cause harm to someone, slander is to revile, and filthy communication is abusive speech. Along with all these, lying, which is really any kind of falsehood, is to be discarded once for all.
The old and the new man
Paul reminds them that the old man has been put off, and the characteristics just listed all belong to the man we once were in Adam. There is therefore no place for these in the expression of the new man created by the Lord. The new man is renewed in knowledge and represents Christ, as well as resembling Him in reflecting His image. The ultimate purpose of God for us is that we might be “conformed to the image of His Son,” and the inward work of accomplishing that has begun with the creation of the new man.
In this new creation there is no place for racial, religious, cultural or social boundaries (verse 11). Paul asserts that there is only Christ, who is all and in all. He is everything that is required and He is in everything that is worthwhile.
Next time: Respect and Relationships