Colossians 3:1-17--Put On the New Self

Put On the New Self​
3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

---

Paul now addresses the issue of how we should live our lives in the here and now until we reach heaven.  There are so many things around us that could ensnare and easily entangle us Coas the writer of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 12:1.  We are instead to fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter (or Finisher) of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).  Likewise, Paul here tells the church in Colosse seek after the things "above where Christ is" (heavenly things) and to not be fixated on earthly things.

This is not to say that we look upwards so much that we forget the gospel work in the here and now--Paul will correct the church in Thessalonica for this in the epistles to the Thessalonians, but we must first be citizens of the kingdom of God and swear full allegiance to Christ and His kingdom, as that is where our residence and destiny lie--with Him in glory.

We see another one of the great passages about what Christians cannot be (we'll see others in I Corinthians, and we saw lists like this in Galatians and Ephesians).  I'd say that this topic of how life in Christ being controlled by the Spirit and not by the flesh and how that makes us look and act different from the world is probably one of the biggest topics that you can find throughout the entire New Testament, but definitely in the Pauline epistles.  Many don't like these passages because they seem to tell you how to know that someone is not genuinely saved and that's not something we like to think about.

So, what are we to put to death so that these things have no more control over us?:  Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires and covetousness (which is idolatry).  That last one seems new to us as Paul doesn't seem to address that much in the other epistles, so we can only guess that this church had an issue with materialism and worshiping "stuff" (not simply money).  When we look to stuff to make us happy and find our meaning in it, that stuff has taken the place of God.  We covet the things we don't have believing that they will fill the God-shaped vacuum in our hearts.  Stuff will never provide us with the answers to origins, meaning, morality, destiny and identity that we seek.  Only God can give us those answers.

We are also told to put away things like anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk (swearing, cursing, foul language and dirty jokes), and we are not to lie to each other because lying is the language of the devil, but if we are in Christ who is the Truth, that we should be full of the Truth and should be truth-tellers.  We should put off these things because Christ died to save us from these things and to buy us out of our slavery to sin.  We should all be made in the image of our Creator so that there will be no more distinction between Jew and Gentile, man or woman, slave or free, but we will all be made into the image of Christ (who is the exact and perfect image of the invisible God) so that we might fully reflect His character and nature and glory to the whole world.  We should let His desires become our desires and His will become our will.

So then what should our new character and nature look like and what should living in accordance with this new nature look like?  We first need to remember who we are and what we are called to be.  We are beloved (loved of God) and we have been made holy (set apart) and blameless through Christ and we are who we are because we were chosen before the beginning of time in Christ not because of our own goodness, but because of the goodness of God who desired to redeem a people for Himself that would make His name great.  We should therefore reflect God's character and nature and demonstrate His attributes to others in the way that He has demonstrated them to us.  We should be known as people who are compassionate, kind, humble, meek, patient, forgiving, and bound by the bond of love which makes us one in Christ (so that there is harmony in the body of Christ).  We should have the peace of Christ guarding our hearts and minds so that we are not controlled by fear as we have faith in the one who can speak the world into existence, and at the sound of His voice the raging storms will cease.  He is the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills (He has wealth beyond our imagination) and there is nothing impossible for Him and He is the Good Shepherd who not only laid down His life for His sheep, but makes everything that gets to them pass through Him first--He will not let anything get to us that isn't for our good and His glory, even if it is painful.  Because of this we are to give thanks in all things and be known for having an attitude of gratitude and living a different as we can sing songs of praise to the Lord for who He is and what He has done even in life's darkest moments because nothing can steal our joy from us.

In Christ we will learn the wisdom of the Word instead of the wisdom of the world.  We will be filled with this knowledge and understanding of who God is and what His character and nature is as the Holy Spirit lives in us and leads us into all truth.  We encourage each other and teach and admonish each other with the wisdom of the Word.  We sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs in both private and corportate worship and the praise of God is always on our lips.  Most importantly, we exist so that everything we are and everything we do is for the glory of God alone.  It is Him what we are serving and worshiping as we seek to make His name great among the peoples and nations of the earth.  He alone is worthy as we will see sung by all the saints in the book of Revelation in the seven-fold Hallelujah.


Revelation 19:1-8
English Standard VersionRejoicing in Heaven19 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
2     for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
    who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

3 Once more they cried out,

“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”

4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” 5 And from the throne came a voice saying,

“Praise our God,
    all you his servants,
you who fear him,
    small and great.”

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”--

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.