How could it be otherwise if by the knowledge of God? Thus the striving of the apostle was by no means only in the way of evangelizing. It is a question now of truth and holiness in the Spirit of Christ, in short. At the second coming of Christ there will be a general meeting of all the saints; and those whose life is now hid with Christ shall then appear with Christ in that glory which he himself enjoys, John 17:24. Besides, when men, thus slur over its true force, and would extract consolation where God intends warning, it is a proof not of firm but of weak faith. Such a man finds life and all that it means in music, in sport, in work, as the case may be. Thus, even if there be not actually formal praise, the Lord looks for thankfulness of heart, as counting on love in everything. It lies at the bottom when we think of the wants of the saints of God here below. Can you say that Christ is my life? The slave and the free man came together in the Church. Paul begins with a heart of pity. They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead.". Paul returned to his thought about the believers union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Colossians 2:9-15). And that is, I've seen fathers sometimes tease their little babies until the baby screams in frustration. He always ends with an uncompromising and crystal clear statement of the ethical demands of Christianity in the situation in which his friends are at the moment. It is necessary to mortify sins, because if we do not kill them, they will kill us. Now that he has come, the shadows are of no further interest. And this the apostle was doing, and particularly for one that came from them. So the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The thing which settles any master and servant relationship is that both are servants of the one Master, Jesus Christ. Neither the Gnostics nor any other unbelievers can understand this life, because the life is in Christ and therefore is hidden from their view. Of course it is not at all being dead to what a man had as a natural life in the world. [Note: Vaughan, p. It was his confidence in their love; and this is shown not merely in his desire to hear about them, but in the conviction that they would like to hear about him. Lit., be minded, think. Satan is allowed apparently to go on as if he had won the final victory; but God brings the truth of what He has done into the heart where Satan had most of all deceived before. It appears to me then that, in writing to the Colossians, the terms employed by the Spirit of God afford clear evidence that their souls at Colosse rested on by no means the same firm and lofty ground as that which the epistle to the Ephesians contemplates; and the apostle consequently could not appeal in their case to the same mighty motives which at once rose, by the Holy Ghost's inspiration, in the apostle's heart in writing the kindred epistle. We may proceed to trace now the course of the Spirit of God in this deeply instructive epistle. When she knows she is loved supremely, she is secure, and she feels that security, and thus anything my man does is all right. If He is, the fulness, you are made full in Him, "which is the head of all principality and power." Yes, but Christ is "all" as truly as He is "in all." As the waters close over him, it is as if he was buried in death; as he emerges from the waters, it is like being resurrected to a new life. The science of language is a new science and the desire to know other languages a new desire. The New Testament is unsparing in its condemnation of the gossiping tongues which poison truth. It doesn't mean that he's saying it doesn't matter how you live. Worldly lusts are to be denied, the deeds of the body are to be mortified, carnal desires are not to be gratified and indulged, provision is not to be made for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts; and particularly the vain philosophy of Jews and Gentiles, the traditions of the elders, the ceremonies of the law, which lay in earthly things, in worldly observances, the difference of meats and drinks, keeping of days, months, and years, new moons, feasts, and sabbath days; the rudiments of the world, the commandments and doctrines which were of the earth, and lay in not touching, tasting, and handling certain things that are on earth, and which perish with the using, as opposed to the doctrines of the Gospel, and ordinances of Christ, which are from above, and come from heaven, and have a spiritual and heavenly use: and which is the sense chiefly intended, though it is best to understand the words in their largest compass. Yet there is nothing more common; it is precisely what men, and sometimes Christians to no small extent, are doing now very generally; and what have they gained by it? He has annulled the power of him that had the power of death that word so terrible for the heart of man, and most surely foreign to the mind and heart of our God and Father, but a stern necessity that came in through rebellion. She trusts my judgment; she trusts my wisdom. Immediately after this Paul goes on to lay down a series of ethical principles which make it quite clear that he expects the Christian to go on with the work of this world and to maintain all its normal relationships. Of course the Ephesian saints were so; but here it is expressed. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. And that is not enough. Upon all such things the wrath of God must fall. And the glory of His person enabled Him in grace and obedience to go down into depths never before fathomed; and out of the whole scene, not of a rejecting guilty world only, but of the realm of death (and such a death!) He it is, the Holy Spirit of God, who we are warned not to grieve. It is exactly the same line of thought as that of Jesus when he demanded that a man should cut off a hand or a foot, or tear out an eye when it was leading him into sin ( Matthew 5:29-30). Colossians 3:2 ESV Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. It is used of wine which has grown mellow with age and lost its harshness. In a sense Paul is saying--and saying truly--that some day the verdicts of eternity will reverse the verdicts of time and the judgments of God will overturn the judgments of men. There is the sin which the Revised Standard Version calls covetousness (pleonexia, G4124) . There was much that was blessed at Colosse; and the apostle loves to give full credit for it. 2. Next we enter on the apostle's thanksgiving. It is false and ruinous, whether it leaves Him out or brings Him in whether it denies the true God, or makes everything a sham god. Everything which would keep him from fully obeying God and fully surrendering to Christ must be surgically excised. It was amongst these things that you once spent your lives; when you lived among them; but now you must divest yourselves of all these things--anger, temper, malice, slander, foul talk which issues from your mouth. That is the meaning of all that seems good in the world's piety. Mark and Luke, although they were not apostles, were surely prophets. in the singularly energetic language of the Spirit of God here called the members of the man. For don't be deceived, if you are living after the flesh, you are not an heir of the kingdom of God. 1. But He is the Christ that God raised from the dead and seated in heavenly glory. The apostle exhorts us to set our hearts upon heaven and take them off from this world ( v. 1-4 ). Seek marks the practical striving; set your mind, the inward impulse and disposition. Paul narrowed himself to no local ties, nor should we allow such a thing for an instant. Look busy." Thus is seen first of all, in virtue of the dead and risen Christ in whom they believed, that they were quickened and all their trespasses forgiven, two things here strikingly united together. Like others, they may have reasoned that if Christianity had done such great things in the hands of fishermen, tax-gatherers, or the like (who could be of no great account in the world's scale, or in the schools of men), what might it not accomplish if it were but arrayed in the wisdom of philosophy; if it possessed the ornaments of literature and science; if it went forth on its career of victory with that which attracts the feelings and commands the intellect among humanity? The Colossians, like others, would have liked this well enough; it is just what they were about, and the very thing that the apostle is here correcting. They use freely His name; they in word and bodily exercise do Him no small reverence; but without faith all is vain. When we not only believe with the heart, but are ready, when called, to make confession with the mouth. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. And so he lists these things and he says, "Look, the wrath of God is coming upon the earth because of these things. We must not dote upon them, nor expect too much from them, that we may set our affections on heaven; for heaven and earth are contrary one to the other, and a supreme regard to both is inconsistent; and the prevalence of our affection to one will proportionably weaken and abate our affection to the other. Not Adam, but Christ is the standard Christ who is God as well as man; "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." But the apostle took every pains to, show how great was the love of Epaphras for them; for his faithful spirit knew some little of that which the apostle knew well, that the more abundantly he loved, the less he was loved. This is a very good general rule: "Be as much in earnest for heavenly and eternal things, as ye formerly were for those that are earthly and perishing.". No matter how clever and religious those laws may appear, they will not succeed in controlling the desires of the body (20-23).Because they have died to sin, Christians are not in bondage to things of the world as the Gnostics are. But this is not at all the divine way of dealing with the Christian. Christ, and Christ alone, has truly represented God to man, as He alone was perfect man before God. His master could thrash or brand or maim or even kill him at his caprice; he had not even the right of marriage. Under Roman law a slave could not possess any property whatsoever and here he is being promised nothing less than the inheritance of God. There is no feature of the present day more remarkable than the success with which Satan is massing as it were, his forces, bringing together at the very same point, where they are wanted, these two parties; that is to say, the heavier arms of human tradition, and the lighter ones of man's philosophy. That's not a wise thing to do. This is the kind of peak of devotion which we can only dimly understand and only haltingly and imperfectly express. There was no hindrance to the flow of the Spirit in unfolding the truth. 177. Were He among the Jews, it would be the introduction of the promised earthly glory. It is a spiritual kingdom for those who are living and walking after the Spirit, regardless of what you may say or affirm to be so. Hence, as the apostle Paul was one on whom God set particular honour in developing the mystery, and communicating it in inspired words also, so he was more than any other called to suffer the consequences in this present evil world. . Since we are raised from the death of sin, and resurrected to a new life, our contemplation should be on the heavenly world. The guilt which a broken law charged on the conscience is gone by an act infinitely more glorifying to God than the personal righteousnesses of all the men that ever lived, not to speak of the conscious pardon which is also secured to those who possess it. You come to that space from time to time in the prophets. Like a mine of unknown and inexhaustible wealth, the treasures of wisdom are all in Him hidden, but not in order to remain so; they only need to be explored for you to attain "unto the riches" in them ( Colossians 2:2 ); but until you, Colossians, press after attaining the full knowledge "hidden." Long ago Aristotle had defined praotes as the happy mean between too much and too little anger. He it is finally who gives vigour for all the holy conflicts we have to wage with the adversary. Here we come not merely to that which is displayed in the forms of the corruption that goes on through things or persons outside us, as it were, but by inner feelings of violence: "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." Indeed we may say that Paul presents the gospel as the display of divine righteousness beyond all, while he alone develops in his epistles the mystery of Christ and the church. It becomes something which is entered into not merely for the convenience of the husband, but in order that both husband and wife may find a new joy and a new completeness in each other. They may seem to be far as the poles asunder; but in point of fact, there is nothing that more shows an energetic spirit of evil at work in the world than the way in which he marshals and combines these two armies, that outwardly look enemies to each other. Somehow or another, freethinkers and superstitious men coalesce in reality. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Masters, on your part provide for your slaves treatment which is just and equitable, and remember that you too have a master in heaven. 1. Mortify them, kill them, suppress them, as weeds or vermin which spread and destroy all about them. And this is the truth that is so offensive to flesh in every form. Then Paul uses a vivid picture. They might come for what they could get; but at length they would not have Him or anything He had to give on any terms. This cannot be forgiven by all who cleave to the first man, on the side either of ordinances or of philosophy. Colossians Greeting. But still there is growth supposed. (b) So he calls that show of religion which he spoke of in the former chapter. In short, the only reason we can even obey the commands in Colossians 3:1-2 is because we are now positionally dead to the world and its magnetic attractions. "You must not only seek heaven, you must think heaven" (Lightfoot). thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1992); John A. McLean, "Did Jesus Correct the Disciples View of the Kingdom?" The apostle exhorts us to set our hearts upon heaven and take them off from this world, ver 1-4. The mystery is now revealed, even the relation of Christ and the church; the actual testimony of God's counsels in Christ to those who compose His body. ", All the blessedness that Christ has procured is for those that believe; but this of course supposes that they hold Him fast. It is rather "your mind;" for here, however important the state of the heart, it is a question simply of the whole bent and judgment. Thus the mystery includes, first, Christ as Head above, we though here being united by the Holy Ghost to Him glorified. Most of all this was the case in slavery. He applies the truth to the case in hand after this: "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven us all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us." Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. There is no scale of angelic beings forming a ladder to link Christians with God (18-19).Having been set free from the bondage of sin through Christs death, Christians should not get into bondage again by becoming slaves of religious regulations that people want to impose upon them. And as this was so blessed and novel a truth, the apostle states his own earnestness about it "whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ.". Suddenly the whole aspect of the heavens is changed. The treatment of the idiot and the simple-minded was unfeeling. It is somewhat startling at first sight to realize such a fact, but if it be a fact as I unqualifiedly assert is it not of great moment to understand it? Our affections should not be fixed on houses and lands; on scenes of fashion and gaiety; on low and debasing enjoyments. One of the best tests of any action is: "Can we do it, calling upon the name of Jesus? In view of the freedom that Christ has won for them, the Colossian believers must not listen to those who try to force them to obey the rules and regulations of the Israelite law. When a man was dead and buried, the Greeks very commonly spoke of him as being hidden in the earth; but the Christian had died a spiritual death in baptism and he is not hidden in the earth, but hidden in Christ. There are many nice shades in detail; but I have referred now to that which is the principal point whence the two lines of truth diverge. We are offered two realities; things above and things on earth. In other words, it's not what you say which really counts; it's how you're walking that counts. "Let no man judge you" is the exhortation. ( Matthew 11:30). So "let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts;" that is, the very peace which Christ Himself lived and moved in. Christ who is my life. Christ will appear again. "Know this," he said, "no whoremongers, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. He died this is the point here and therefore I am dead too. Brethren, the Christ that God has made known to us is the Christ that man scorned, cast out and crucified. The apostle exhorts us to set our hearts upon heaven and take them off from this world (v. 1-4). Who ever appealed in distress, and did not find in Him bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering? Montgomery was famous as a disciplinarian--but there was another side to him. We must never allow one truth to be either shut out or enfeebled by another; but then we need also to remember that there are, and have always been, those that, having begun seemingly well, have ended by becoming the enemies of Christ and the church. ", It is no use denying the plain truth "when ye lived in them;" it is blessed to know that we are dead now. Utterly impossible that man should see Him who is invisible: he needed one to bring God down to him, and display His word and ways, and Christ is that one image of the invisible God. Our head is there, our home is there, our treasure is there, and we hope to be there for ever. The verse is an extension and emphasis of the preceding one. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him ( Colossians 3:7-10 ): So we should be as John says, walking as Jesus walked. Then you have a happy relationship. 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