Colossians 3
v.1-4 – In these verses, Paul describes that the moral conduct of the Christian is not how he earns favor and salvation from God, but it is the consequence of his relationship to God which is obtained via faith in Christ.
v.1-2 – This rising of Christians with Christ into newness of life is regarded as an accomplished fact and not as a future blessing. In Christ, eternity has invaded time, making salvation a present experience as well a future hope. This theme is shared in John’s Epistles and his Gospel. In Matt. 6:21, Jesus remarked that where our treasure is, there our heart would also be; Paul is remarking that Jesus is our treasure, he is enthroned in heaven, and our thoughts and hope ought to be there.
v. 3 – Because Christ is with the Father, the Christian’s destiny is there, as it is bound up in Christ.
v.4 – Our destiny, though, is a hidden destiny. But, a time is coming in which that which is hidden will be revealed. In verse 4, we have the only mention of the Eschaton and Paul pictures it as the revealing of what is hidden rather that as the apocalyptic ending of one age and the spectacular beginning of another. In other words, when Christ returns, those who belong to him will share in his glory, openly.
v. 5-11 – We died with Christ and have been raised with him. Therefore, we need to become what we are. We need to put off the old life; we need to put on the new man. If we have become a new man, really become one; if we have put off the old life, really put it off. The metaphors that Paul uses here relate to someone taking off dirty and defective clothing and putting on imperishable and clean clothing. Paul lists a number of vices and ends his list with covetousness and defines it as idolatry. The Greek word that Paul used means, “ruthless and aggressive self-seeking,” this refers to the passion and desire to constantly have more. It’s labeled as idolatry because the seeker makes gain and materials his god, which is just as much idolatry as making for yourself an image of a bull or a man and bowing before it. Paul then mentions a topic which is not so popular in discussion, nor is it very well understood today – God’s wrath. The idea that God is wrathful is typically countered with the fact that God is loving; people just do not understand how a loving God could display wrath. This, among other things, explains how people, who attempt to call themselves Christian, live in such a way that makes it impossible to believe that they are Christians. However, if one drops the wrath of God from theological discussion then it becomes impossible to understand this God whom we worship and seek to know. We must never sever God’s love from his holiness; a great way to describe this coupling is – holy love. It represents God’s holy and inevitable reaction to evil in any way, shape, or form. What this holy love (wrath) is not is an emotional reaction that emerges from irritation; it is also not an out of control reaction. In other words, it would be a mistake to compare this holy love (wrath) of God with the typical anger of man. One theologian describes God’s wrath (holy love) in the following way: “…imaging the horror a good man feels in the presence of stark evil, and then multiply by infinity”. Romans 1:18 – 32 brings a fuller discussion of this topic; and I would highly recommend speaking about it in great detail.
In verse 8, Paul provides for us another list, but this list comprises some sins of the mouth and of the mind: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk. Anger and wrath may sound similar (however, I feel that I differentiated them well in the above paragraph), but anger, especially with man, is a swift reaction or a sudden fury; wrath typifies a settled disposition (either toward something or someone). Malice describes an eagerness to harm someone. This whole list, combined with lying (v. 9) is to have no place in the life of a Christian, for these practices are to have died with the old man.
v. 11 – The be one with Christ means that we are united in Christ to those who also belong to Christ; there is to be no divisions in this new life. A phrase that reveals to us how radical this is to be in ideal practice is this,
“Here there is not…Scythian,” A Scythian was a rude nomad from the northern steppes; they typified the “savage” and they were hated, not trusted, and unwanted in cities. An equivalent today might be an Islamic jihadist, an ex-pedophile, thief, prostitute/stripper, etc. Once one belongs to God then, like Paul states, the old man is done away with. This needs to be true within the minds of those in the Church. We need to understand that God radically unifies that which the world separates once they belong to him.
v. 12-17 – In the previous section Paul describes some things that are not to be if we are a new creation. In these verses, Paul describes some things that we should expect to see within the new creation of a Christian – a child of God in his hands.
Compassion and kindness describe the Christian temper in the mind; humility, meekness, and patience describe the outflow of the Christian’s behavior toward other people. The forgiveness that we show to others is to be as nearly equivalent to that which the Lord has shown to us – this, indeed, is a great task, requiring that we truly put our pride, will, and desires in the background. Binding all of these things together is to be love. Paul describes this love as a belt that was worn at the time to hold your clothes around your body so that they weren’t too loose as to flow too far away from your body. See Romans 13:10 and 1 Cor 13:13.
“The peace of Christ,” is to rule (the context of the Greek word used here refers to an umpire) the hearts of the Christian – this is the peace that Christ brings – but it only comes when we are obedient to our risen Lord. Why is this? Perhaps, because when we are obedient to God then what charge can man or demon bring against us? If we are truly doing the will of God then when we are persecuted, they are, by default, persecuting God and he will be our defender, our sustainer, and our advocate. But when we deny Jesus, when we are embarrassed by him, then he too will deny us before the Father.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” this is the Gospel. This dwelling within us refers to it making its home within us. Attention to the word of God is not to be a fleeting experience during the week, whenever we can get around to it. For the word of God to make its home within us, it needs to be tended to on a regular basis. If this is done then we will be able to counsel one another according to Christian wisdom and not worldly wisdom. The Greek word theopneustos is used to describe the word of God; it means, “God breathed” or “the breath of God” or “from the mouth of God”. It also is used to describe the Spirit of God. More interestingly, in the LXX, it is used to describe the breath the God breathed within the nostrils of Adam, which brought life to his newly formed body. This one word wraps up many necessary features of the Christian life – the Holy Spirit (theopneustos) is given to live within us. The Word of God, or Christ, as Paul describes it (theopneustos) is to make its home within us; in other words, we are to know it. Also, we are made new, we have a new life, much like the life that God originally gave to Adam; what is the wellspring of this new life? Theopneustos is to be the source of the ongoing vitality of this new life – the word of God – theopneustos.
We are also to be grateful. This really should be the default position of the Christian. Gratefulness needs to season everything that we do, think, say, and lay our hands to doing. We should be a people that know that if God were not with us then we could do nothing at all. We should be a people that know that if God had not intervened in the direction of our lives that we were dead – I say again, we were dead. We weren’t going to die in Hell, we, according to the testimony of Scripture, were already dead until God breathed life into our nostrils. One of the ways that we express this gratefulness is to sing God’s praise. The people of God have always been characterized as a singing people – they have always sung songs of praise and thanks. When the Church fails to sing in this manner, the marks of decay quickly become evident. Some early hymns of the Church can be found here: Luke 1-2; Rev 5:9-10, 12-13; Rev 11:17-18; Rev 15:3-4; Rev 9:6-8; Eph 5:14; 1 Tim. 3:16; Philippians 2:6-11.
Whatever we do or day we are to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus”. In Paul’s day, a name had potency; it stood for the personality; it carried the sense of that person’s authority. Therefore, when Paul tells them to do all in the name of the Lord he means that they are to invoke his help whenever you act; we are to act in his authority; we are to let his will be expressed in our deed and word. This requires, however, that our will and wishes be in line with that of the Lord’s – this requires a relationship, which is derived through time invested with him in prayer, in his Word, in meditation to him.
v. 18 – 4:1 – The Christian Household.
If Christ is truly worshipped upon the family altar and served in the lives of his people then we need not be troubled at the Christian future of any country. The relationships between husbands and wives is to exist with reciprocal duties. Husbands are to be gentle in dealing with their wives – being head of the household does not give us warrant to be the tyrant of the household.
Colossians 4
Being that the bulk of this chapter is personal greeting of Paul, I will only deal lightly with this section.
v. 5 – Paul invites us to be alert for chances of personal witness of God’s work and power within our lives to outsiders.
I find it interesting that Paul wrote this letter from prison, yet when he asked for personal prayers from the people of God, he never, not one time, asked for release from prison. Rather, he asked that the Lord would grant them open doors for the witness of the gospel… He was less concerned with his personal issues, putting his trust and dependency upon the Lord (even in this moment), he moved forward with singular concern for the spread and maintenance of the Gospel and care for God’s people.