And it’s basically telling us in verses one to four: live now from the perspective of, or live in keeping with, the glory to which you have been raised in Christ. Live a life in keeping with what your new experience in Christ is. Now, beginning with verse five, we have many specific points of application. We have those gospel-shaped reminders throughout, but the burden of the chapter here is to give us these exhortations.
Now, from chapter 3 verse 5 all the way to chapter 4 and verse 1, we have these specific points of application, and he is contrasting here in broad sweep the old versus the new: the old behavior versus the new behavior; the old speech, the new speech; the old relationships, the new relationships; the old categories, the new categories; the old attitudes, the new attitudes; the old ambitions, the new ambitions; the old ideals, the new ideals and motives, and so on. So, old versus new is the overall perspective now of these exhortations.
In verses five to nine—at least the first part of verse nine—he gives us a list of vices that we must eradicate, put to death: sexual immorality, mistreatment of Christian brothers, and so on. And then verse 9b through 11, we have a reminder again of our new creation in Christ. You’ve put off the old man, so put on the new. And then verses 12 to 14, he gives us positive virtues that we must cultivate; put on these things. It has primarily to do with our treatment of others.
So, verses five to nine: vices that we must eradicate. Verses nine to 11: a reminder again of our new status and experience in Christ. And then verses 12 to 14: the virtues that we must cultivate. Well, that’s where we want to go this morning. We probably won’t get past verse 11.
Verses five to 11 then: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”
The Vices That We Are To Avoid
All right, first of all, the vices that we are to avoid: verse five and verse eight. Verse five: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness. Verse eight: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk. So here are some vices that we must be rid of.
Now, I don’t think here that we should understand Paul as addressing problems that are specific or unique to the Colossian church at all. These are general marks of the world that the Christian must put aside. He calls them that in verse five. These are just earthly things. We have other similar—what I call vice lists—in the Apostle Paul in several different places. Romans 1 has some, 1 Corinthians 5, Galatians 5 lists the various vices that mark the old life and the old nature and all of that. And that’s what he’s doing here. He’s simply saying in broad strokes—but specifying two categories of sins that we’ll talk about in a second—that these are things that mark the world, those who are lost. You’ve put on the new man, you’ve come into Christ, and so it should be marked by something better.
And notice again in verse five, the “therefore.” An inferential conjunction. “Put to death therefore”—that is, because of what you have experienced in Christ. You’ve been raised with him, you’ve been seated in the heavenlies, you have a coming glory. Because of all of that, he says, put to death what is earthly in you. And here he lists them. Specifically: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. He says these things are earthly in you. The literal expression here is “your members that are on the earth.” You might remember that from Romans chapter six, where you use your members of your body—your various body parts—for sin or for God. And that’s the idea here.
Now the overall concern in verse five is sexual sins, sexual immorality. That’s the term that used to be translated more as “fornication.” It’s a broad term for any kind of sexual sin. “Impurity” is just another broad term: moral defilement of any kind. “Passion”—I think the idea there is not just the passion itself, but giving vent to those passions, an unrestrained passion. “Evil desire”—that’s lust, desire for what is forbidden. It probably has here the connotations of sexual immorality as well, since that’s what goes before and behind it here. Sexual impulses, I think, is the idea. Evil desires.
And then “greed” or “covetousness.” That’s an inappropriate desire for something that’s forbidden, viewing things as though they should be yours. And particularly here, I think again, having regard to sexual desire. And then he says, “evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry.” That’s a familiar concept in the Scripture: that sin is idolatrous. It’s something that deserves further exploration. We should spend some time with that sometime to track down how the Bible speaks of sin as idolatry and why. The short version is: sin is idolatry because it’s something you have put ahead of God. He has forbidden it; you say, “I’ll have it anyway.” That essentially is idolatry. You’ve put it ahead of God. Insofar, then, as we refuse to eradicate any sinful practice, it’s idolatrous. We’ve put it ahead of God.
So verse five, he says, put it to death, kill it—a complete break with the old life. The idea is completely eradicate this from your life. And the metaphor he uses is “kill,” “put to death.” This is what traditionally has been called in Christian theology the doctrine of mortification, the mortification of sin. The Puritans expounded on this better than anyone ever has in the history of the church. In particular, John Owen, the Puritan—the Prince of the Puritans—is famous for his lengthy exposition of this. The bottom line here is that the positive cultivation of holiness, godliness, and practical godliness is never enough. It must have the corresponding putting away, killing, and eradicating of sinful behavior. Put it to death. Kill it. Get rid of it. And the category he uses here is that of killing.
Now, I’m going to talk more about this doctrine of mortification probably next time. Paul doesn’t develop here in any specific terms or any detail how to mortify sin, how to kill it. But as we work through the passage, there are some clues to “how to,” and I’ll pick those up; it probably won’t be until next week when we do that. But keep this idea in mind: killing sin. How can I get rid of these vices in my life? And we’ll pick that up as we move through the passage further.
Verse six then, he tells us, “On account of these”—that is, these sins that he’s just listed—”the wrath of God is coming.” On account of these sins, the wrath of God is coming. Now, there’s a doctrine that is absolutely despised today. I mean, this is one you just can’t believe. It’s so “incorrect,” the idea that God could be angry with someone because of his sin and that God would actually judge someone or condemn someone because of their sin. It’s not just unpopular; it’s just despised and even a ridiculed doctrine today. It’s just rejected out of hand.
Of course, it comes from a very high view of man and a very low view of God and no view of sin. But everywhere in the Bible, we see that God is a holy God, he’s a righteous God, he has created us in his image, and the very relationship demands that we live according to the standards that he’s given to us. We must in our lives reflect his righteousness, his standards of conduct, his holiness. And everywhere in the Bible, we see that because God is a righteous God and a holy God, there is a holy revulsion against all that is contrary to Him. And when His creatures disobey, it is a serious capital offense against God, and His righteousness demands that it be punished.
Ultimately, this takes us to the very meaning of the cross. Sin must be punished. It is a deep offense. This, of course, takes us—and this is what Paul has in view—to the final judgment that is coming, that there is a hell to pay for sin. We find this all through the Bible. We find it in the Old Testament with the flood. We find it at Babel. We find it in the prophets warned of over and again with the day of the Lord that is coming. Paul speaks of it in Romans 1 at length. And of course, it comes to a climax in the book of Revelation when Christ returns and stamps out his enemies and uses that vivid language of Christ, the triumphant warrior, coming and stamping out his enemies and the blood flowing for 200 miles, four feet deep. And he’s a picture of a wine press, and he’s stamping out his enemies in the wine press and their blood. It’s just an awful picture. The Bible could hardly be more plain in the way it warns us about the wrath of God coming against sin.
Paul’s point here then in verses five and six is to say that surely anyone who names the name of Christ must be rid of those things that are bringing the wrath of God. We can’t have anything to do with that kind of behavior.
Verses seven and following then, he makes explicit the old versus new contrast. “In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.” In these, you too once walked when you were living in them. That’s the mark of the old life, and you used to be that way. But verse eight: “But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another.” So we have another list of vices here, and here they have to do with personal relationships.
Now, this “you once, but now” is an interesting and effective rhetorical device that Paul uses. He uses it several times in his letters. You used to be that way, but now. You have come to Christ, and in Christ, things are different. So there’s the old versus new, and it speaks of the radical change that every believer has undergone in union with Christ. That’s the way things used to be, but that’s not the way things are today. You’re not today any longer the person that you used to be.
Back when I was in college, often my wife and I would drive up to a church out in the country where a friend of ours was pastor. He’d come from a country church, a small church. He had come from a rough background. And he, once in a while, would sing a song for the congregation. He’d get his guitar and he’d sing. And I can’t say the song was deeply theological or anything like that. But it was a wonderful song of testimony that he—because of his own testimony and his own relation to the words of the song—could barely sing without breaking down. And the chorus would go something like: “Thanks to Calvary, I don’t go there anymore. Thanks to Calvary, I don’t do that anymore. Thanks to Calvary, I’m not like that anymore,” something like that. And each verse would paint some picture of the old life, but then the chorus would come: “Thanks to Calvary, I’m not like that anymore.” And it’s really a powerful thing, and that’s exactly what Paul is talking about here. There’s been a great change that has come about in Christ. These sins that mark the old life—they’re the old life. And the new life needs to reflect something much different.
Now in verses eight and nine, the overall concern is anger issues. I think we still need exhortation on that, don’t we? Anger issues. So verses eight and nine: anger, wrath, malice—those are attitudes or dispositions, harsh feelings toward others. Anger, wrath, malice, malintent. The next three have to do with talk that arises from those attitudes. “Slander.” You know what the Greek word there is? Blasphemeia. You heard that word before? Blaspheming. Blaspheming one another—that is, speaking evil of one another, slandering one another, speaking ill of someone, speaking reproachfully against someone else. Don’t slander one another. “Obscene talk”—and I think the idea there is not just dirty talk. I suppose that would be covered too, but given the context here of personal relationships, I think it has to do with abusive talk, harmful talk, what we call gossip.
And the idea of gossip is not just whether or not the thing you are saying is true or a lie. Gossip is often used as a synonym for lying. But that’s not necessarily what gossip is. Gossip is just speaking evil of someone, saying something about them that’s harmful and abusive. It hurts them; it hurts their reputation. So he’s speaking here of Christian speech that must be marked not only by truth, but also by kindness. Be helpful in your talk to one another. And then “lying”—don’t lie to one another. And I think this may be included here in this list because lying is rooted in an attempt to gain an advantage over someone else and therefore it’s at odds with Christian love and kindness.
One commentator here reflects on these and he says—keep in mind now these: anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, and lying—”Gnawing anger can strain lifelong relationships.” That’s an important observation, by the way. Gnawing anger can strain lifelong relationships. I’ve seen it in the church with regard to people who have been long friends. Sometimes it’s against the pastor, sometimes it’s someone else in the congregation. And something gets in the craw, and they dwell on it, and they dwell on it, and it seethes, and it simmers. And before you know it—before you even know they’re angry about something—they’re almost hateful. You wonder: what has changed? What has happened? Paul’s saying, don’t let that anger simmer. Get rid of it. It’ll sour relationships.
Anyway: “Gnawing anger can strain lifelong relationships. Wrath can explode, throw off all restraints, and utter ill-considered sentiments that can’t be taken back. Malice leads one to do and say things that harm one’s neighbor. Slander hurls abuse at someone without caring how much distress it causes. The gossip spreads like wildfire behind people’s backs. It’s impossible to control the damage. It makes life virtually unlivable for the victims, and it just proliferates anger.”
I suspect that we don’t think enough in these terms of our responsibility as new creatures in Christ to have the right attitudes. And sometimes it takes struggle, but have right attitudes toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s going to happen that someone is going to rub you the wrong way. They’re going to say something you disagree with, do something you wish they hadn’t done. You’re going to get rubbed somehow or other from a lot of people. And it becomes incumbent upon us to work at watching our attitudes, maintain a right attitude, and certainly watch the way that we speak toward one another.
I think we would do well to reflect on the stress that the Bible places on our attitudes toward one another and our responsibility in how we speak with regard to others—the way we speak to others, the way we speak about others. Paul talks about these things often. We can get rubbed and we can harbor a bad attitude. And that bad attitude that you harbor against that person—because he said whatever, or because he hurt your feelings, or because he actually did commit some kind of offense—and you harbor that bad attitude, and it festers, and it’s going to sour the relationship, and it’ll hurt the fellowship of the body.
And what Paul is saying here is that kind of attitude, those kinds of attitudes, that kind of speech—that does not reflect the “eschatological behavior,” can I say that? That we will have in heaven, verse 4—that position in Christ to which we have already been raised in Christ and seated with Him in the heavenlies, which, verse 4, we will ultimately realize in full in Christ when He returns. This kind of thinking and these kinds of attitudes, this kind of speaking doesn’t reflect the life of the eschaton that we have already entered in Christ. We must work at that. It needs—brothers and sisters, this requires active effort on our part. It is not natural to just let it go. We feel like we have to get our pound of flesh to satisfy it. And we’ve got to let it go and learn how to be kind and forgiving. Quell our anger, stifle our wrong speech, and be kind to one another.
The longer I live, the longer I’m in church relationships, the more I realize how valuable this virtue of kindness is. Anytime you have been on the receiving end of someone who is kind, you recognize how valuable that is. Kind in their speech, kind in terms of generosity to you and doing things for you, helping—kindness is just an extremely important virtue. And that’s what Paul is enjoining on us here.
Now, just because it’s related so well, I’d like you to look up, all of you, if you would, look up Romans chapter 12 and verse 10. I’ll have someone read it, but I’d like for all of you to see it with your own eyes. This is just such an important verse for relationships in the church. Romans 12 and verse 10. All right, I’ll read it, Romans 12:10: “Love one another with brotherly affection.” All right, that by itself is worth some expounding. He trips over himself with the love language. Love one another with brotherly affection. Cultivate a kind of loving affection for one another because you’re brothers. And then notice the last half of the verse: “Outdo one another in showing honor.”
Now, ordinarily, a competitive spirit in the church is the last thing you want. It’s going to ruin relationships. And here’s a kind of competition that Paul commands. Just think how this would transform our relationships. Outdo one another in showing honor. “Well, I can show you more honor than you can show me.” “Well, I’ll see about that.” Imagine how that would transform a church. Well, it’s related to Colossians 3, so I turned to it. I think that’s one of those passages—I don’t know, maybe we ought to put it on the wall as we walk in at church or something. It just seems to me that that’s just one of those great verses that ought to inform our relationships always.
The Old Self And The New Self
All right, back to Colossians, verse 9b. This explains for us why these sins must be avoided: “seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.” There’s the great change that has come in Christ. The old self has been put off. And you have, in this process, put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Again, we have the old versus new. There’s a decisive change that comes about when we come to Christ. In union with Christ, the old man is put off, the new man is put on. Now it might be here—and some have suggested this; I don’t think there’s any way to prove it, in fact, I’m pretty sure there’s not—but it might be that Paul has in mind here a ritual in the early church associated with baptism. Now, we know this from the second-century Christian church. We don’t know of it sooner than that. Doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before that, but we don’t know of it before that. But the ritual that they would have, at least by the second century, is that when a person came to Christ and was baptized, after the baptism, he would change his clothes and put on white to symbolize this idea of a newness of life that has come about in Christ.
We have something like that in Galatians that we’ve seen recently on Wednesday nights in our Bible study, Galatians 3:27: “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” And so this ritual of putting on white clothing after the baptism was to symbolize the radical change that had come about in Christ and that baptism signifies. It’s not far from the imagery Paul has in Romans 13 and verse 14, where he commands us, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Well, I don’t know if that’s in mind here, if that was practiced this early or not, but in any case, Paul is here speaking of that radical change that conversion to Christ entails. And he’s saying here overall: stop behaving like that. That’s the old life. You’ve stripped yourself of that old life. In Christ, that’s been stripped away. Remember we saw that in chapter two? That’s been stripped away; put on the new clothing.
So you’ll see then we have a change of metaphors. In verse five, the metaphor was killing, putting to death sin, a complete break with the old life, the eradication of sin. Put sin to death, kill it. But now we come to verses eight to 10 that we’ve been reading here, and he changes categories or metaphors, and he’s speaking now of a wardrobe. There’s an old suit of clothes that you used to have, and now there’s a new one. Verse 8: “put away,” take off, lay aside; “but now you must put them all away.” And what is it you should put away? Take off anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and you have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
So the metaphor now is of a new wardrobe: taking off the old clothes, putting on the new. Generally, the idea is the same as verse five, killing. The idea is to be rid of the old behavior, the old way of thinking. Take off that old clothing that belongs to the old life. Put on the new clothing that’s suitable to who you are now in Christ. And so the gospel entails a new look, a new kind of behavior.
Now, I think when he has all of this putting off and putting on imagery, I think the category is that of the old creation and the new. That’s why he says in verses nine and 10, he speaks of the old self and the new self. This is the old creation versus the new creation. In the Old Testament, we have the old creation. It was made; it was fallen. We have, particularly in the Prophets, but often in the Psalms as well, this anticipation of a new creation that’s coming, a new heaven and a new earth. And sometimes it’s represented in the Psalms and the Prophets in graphic terms of the fruitful earth and bringing forth fruit and yielding fruit in various kinds of marvelous ways. That’s the new creation that is coming, and Isaiah calls it the new heaven and the new earth.
We come to the New Testament and we have that same anticipation still intact. And that finally comes to culmination in the book of Revelation. But what we also find in the New Testament is that there has been—just like we saw in verses one to three—there’s been an inaugurated new heaven and new earth. The new creation has come. “If anyone’s in Christ, he’s a new creation,” 2 Corinthians 5:17. It has come now, but not yet. It’s come in part, not completely. We’ll see it completely later on. Paul speaks of that. John speaks of that. But still, that new creation has been inaugurated in our experience in Christ. That has come to us because Christ himself has been raised into the new creation and we are joined to him, verses 1 to 3.
So, you have put off the old—it’s been buried, you’ve died with Christ—and now in Christ you’ve been raised to the new creation and it needs to be marked accordingly in the way that we think, in the way that we behave. So here, the old self and the new self: these are two very different eras of redemptive history, but they overlap now in our experience in Christ. We’ve died with Christ; we’ve been raised with Christ into the age to come. And again, with all of this then, the idea is that of enablement. We’ve got provisions for what is commanded. Genuine obedience, genuine godliness doesn’t come from a bare command. It comes from a transformed nature. Just like the apple tree doesn’t bear fruit and give apples because you’ve told it to—its nature produces it. So also in Christ, we have been transformed, and now the responsibility is ours to live accordingly.
All right then, verse 11. This new creation entails a deep, radical change of identity. “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all in all.” We used to have in that old life various ways of categorizing humanity. Paul is saying they don’t matter anymore. What matters now is Christ and the oneness that we have in him.
So Greek and Jew—that’s the fundamental division of humanity. Same with circumcised and uncircumcised. Barbarian—that is a word that was used for someone who didn’t speak Greek and so therefore was considered uncivilized. Think here in terms of class warfare, sort of looking down your nose at that uncivilized barbarian. Or Scythian—that’s one who is considered savage and ruthless. Or even slave and free—two categories in society. Christ is all in all; those things don’t matter here.
So what he’s saying is that in Christ, those old barriers, those old divisions—they don’t apply here. They applied there; they don’t apply here in Christ. So think in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality, social class. Those things don’t apply here. Paul is saying we are a new humanity in Christ. And here then he puts the death to the idea of any kind of racism, any kind of cultural superiority because you are “more refined” than that, or class snobbery, ethnic pride—none of that applies here. There are none of those kinds of status distinctions. What matters here is this new humanity in Christ. We’re all rescued sinners, alive and free in Christ, sharing the same faith, sharing the same hope. And those old categories just don’t apply.
Now, all of this here is spoken of as the experience of every believer. You’ve put off the old, you’ve put on the new. That’s true of every Christian, every one of us. Now you might have noticed that it’s not equally true of every one of us. And that’s what Paul takes up next in verse 10. It’s not yet complete. It is “being renewed.” You’ve put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Being renewed in the knowledge of God—that image of God that was defaced by the fall is now being renewed in a progressive way.
But yet it has come; there has been a fundamental change to everyone in Christ—everyone, everyone in Christ. Every one of us can say we’ve been raised with Christ to a new life. Every one of us can say that the Holy Spirit has come to take new dominion over my life. And he’s pointing me and moving me and urging me, directing me to a new place and a new direction. And we all are somewhere on that chart—whether it’s way up here or down, we’re all pointing that direction. And the new man that we have is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Now, it might be good here to make a mention of the popular teaching that’s been popular for the last couple of generations about the old and new natures, popular in Keswick theology, Higher Life theology. I’m sure most all of you have heard it: the idea that when you become a Christian, you receive a new nature, and now you have the old nature and the new nature. Sometimes it’s described as the black dog and the white dog, and now your decisions are these two natures that you have fighting against one another, and you’ve got to let the white dog win over the black dog, and you have these two natures.
I get what they’re after in all of that, but I don’t think it’s consistent with what Paul is saying here. Paul is not saying here that when we come to Christ, a new nature is added. He’s saying that we ourselves are changed. The nature that we have—the human nature that we have—has been renewed, been raised with Christ, become someone new altogether. And progressively it is being renewed in our pursuit of Christ. And I think it is more helpful to recognize those categories in that way. The difference is—and there’s the nuance with it—our natures have been renewed in Christ. We don’t have two; we have one, and it’s been renewed in Christ. But with this catch, this nuance: there’s the now and the not yet. And it’s being renewed progressively as we continue in our Christian life.
So the Christian responsibility then is to eradicate the remains of that old man, put off its behavior, its wardrobe, if you will—all of its values, its speech, its attitudes—and we are to work to make very evident that we are, in our behavior, in life-changing ways, this new man in Christ. And I suppose by way of context, we should point out how different this is from what Paul was criticizing in chapter two, as though spiritual attainment could be attained by “touch not, taste not, handle not”—this external approach. See what the gospel does? It changes who we are in Christ and it directs us to live accordingly.
All right, I think that’s as far as we can go this morning. Wonderful passage of Scripture. Any questions or comments?