Colossians 3:9-17 (vv9-11)

Read .

Here our basic idea of this passage is how believers are to relate to one another.

How do we relate to our fellow Christians?

All that Paul here urges upon the Colossian believers depends upon his basic assumptions concerning the nature of the church.

A careful study of the language he uses will show that he sees the church as the ‘new creation’, a renewed society requiring a fresh way of living (9–11).

Here there cannot be the same divisions the world knows since Christ is all, and in all.

Paul also uses the age-old titles of Israel, God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, in order to complete the picture of this new society,

for he sees the church as the ‘new Israel’

where a standard of mutual love is demanded as befits God’s people on earth (12–13).

We’re going to focus upon vv9-11 this evening.

This is about to get really practical for us.

Let me ask you a question. How do you change your mind?

The Bible calls a spiritually immature mind a fleshly mind ().

The Bible calls a spiritually immature mind a carnal or fleshly mind (). A carnal mind evaluates problems and pressures from a purely human perspective. It will make evaluations like the following:

A fleshly mind evaluates problems and pressures from a purely human perspective.

It will make evaluations like the following:

“That’s one more crummy thing I have to do this week. I’ll never make it.”

“I think this requirement is stupid, but if that’s the only way I can get what I want, I’ll put up with it.”

• “I think this requirement is stupid, but if that’s the only way I can get what I want, I’ll put up with it.”

• “This kind of stuff always happens to me! Doesn’t anybody care?”

“This kind of stuff always happens to me! Doesn’t anybody care?”

“I’ve got enough to worry about already. I don’t need this!”

• “I’ve got enough to worry about already. I don’t need this!”

• “He can’t get away with that. I don’t have to take it!”

“He can’t get away with that. I don’t have to take it!”

Can you imagine Christ handling any of His pressures with responses like that?

Most Christians who realize responses like these are not right will “tell God they are sorry.”

Then they “try to do better” and usually do not continue very long in their new resolve.

The reason that they can’t continue “to do better” is clear from passages like , , , and .

The mind must be renewed. describes the process.

The believer must

1. Stop the old practice—“ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent...”

2. Humbly realize he cannot handle this by himself—“humbly,”

3. Meditate seriously on the Word—“receive … the implanted word” and

4. Do what the Word says—“be doers of the word.”

A believer must continue to meditate on the pertinent passage of Scripture until two things take place—until,

first, he cannot forget what he has learned; and,

second, until he is becoming a consistent “doer” of the new way of handling pressure ().

Why do this? Why does God command us to “stop doing” certain things and command us to start “doing” other things?

Berg, J. (2001). Basics for Pressured Believers: Looking at Pressure Biblically. The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Number 3, Spring 2001, 19, 38.

In the New Testament, Jesus teaches that we are more valuable than other creatures in the created order, and He assures us that our heavenly Father watches over us (; ).

There are also later references in the New Testament to the fact that believers—through the process of sanctification—are being conformed to the image of God in Christ.

Believers are progressively recovering more of God’s image in Christ.

speaks of believers: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.…”

Those who trust in Christ are renewed in the image of God. Paul exhorts his readers in to “...put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.”

Believers, who are being renewed in the image of God, are expected, therefore, to live as renewed people: “...put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. ” ().

The import of these New Testament passages is that God’s goal of redeeming men and women in Christ

is to make them more like Christ, who alone is the perfect image of God.

So what are we told to put off in v9?

— Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices

The focus on sins of speech that comes as the climax of v. 8 is reinforced by a new command: Do not lie to each other.

Lying is certainly a notable example of the inappropriate speech that Paul wants us to banish from the church.

Moo, D. J. (2008). The letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (p. 264). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

The community of God’s people.

Think of God’s moral law. What’s the 9th commandment?

You’re not to give or bear false testimony against your neighbor (Ex. 20:16).

Listen to this: — “Do not steal. Do not act deceptively or lie to one another.

Then just a few verses later: — Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.

To lie is to not love. This is sin.

This lying is to be put of, because what has come to us in power? (1:5-6). The gospel of truth!

Because after all, what is the end for all liars ()?

But here in our context, look at the reason given for us to avoid the vices listed in v5 & 8 as well as the “lying” in v9.

It’s because when we were born again, something happened to us.

— “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices (v10) and have put on the new self....”

This is glorious. The same verb in v9 of “put off” is the same word used in 2:15 used to describe God’s disarming of the power of the powers and authorities.

And is a Greek word associated with “stripping off” the sinful nature (2:11) that takes place in “Christians circumcision.”

Several times in scripture this word in v9 “put off” is used in connection to taking off clothing.

— Jesus took up the question and said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead.

— They stripped him and dressed him in a scarlet robe.

And other places.

The same is true of the verb in v10 to “put on”, which refers to the donning of clothing (14x’s in the gospels, Acts, and Revelation).

A change of clothes is a rather natural symbol for a change in life or situation

Think of the baptism just described in chapter 2.

Moo, D. J. (2008). The letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (p. 266). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

Baptized people symbolize the radical change of life associated with baptism by taking off their normal clothes and then, after their baptism, putting on fresh, often white, clothes.

Note for example in which says, — For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.

And, of course, Paul has already associated in Colossians the believer’s transition from the old life to the new with baptism (2:11–13).

Moo, D. J. (2008). The letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (pp. 266–267). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

So it is quite likely that Paul would associate the “taking off” of the old self and the “putting on” of the new with baptism

—baptism, however, being understood, in typical Pauline fashion, as inseparable from faith.

Moo, D. J. (2008). The letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (p. 266). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

Only believers are baptized.

Believers are to take off their old selves because of what’s said in — For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin,

So this new creation, then, is a society where the barriers that separate us from one another in this world are abolished (verse 11).

Here there cannot be the deep divisions, national and traditional, tribal and geographical, social and cultural, that largely distinguish us from one another.

There’s only one hope for the smashing down division and separation (1:20).

Lucas, R. C. (1980). Fullness & freedom: the message of Colossians & Philemon (p. 147). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

The dream of breaking down the walls of separation (in a church, or marriage) can be earthed only when,

among a given community of people,

Christ is all, and in all.

Christ is all means, simply, that Christ is all that matters.

Yet there is evident reference here to the troubles at Colossae.

It was not going to be sufficient to bind them together in an unbreakable unity so that Christ should be in all God’s believing people.

It was also necessary that Christ should be ‘all in all’ to each member of the church, sufficient to supply every need for living and teaching, if true spiritual unity was to be maintained.

Only if, in the vivid phrase of , Christ was ‘everything to everyone’

could community bonds be strong enough to hold them all within one fellowship.

How can slave and master find common ground?

Or the unrefined Scythian from northern Greece relate to the sophisticated freeman of Athens?

But Paul is convinced of the power of Christ, not to bring people together while remaining just what they were before,

but to change them so that a genuine meeting of mind and heart is achieved.

See, it’s not just that Christ is in us all (as v11 says) but that Christ is our all!! Christ is our life (v4).

Obviously the Jew cannot remain the person he was if Christ becomes all to him;

nor will the proud Greek debater any more mock at the finality of the resurrection.

In short, this kind of Christian unity is the result of genuine spiritual revolutions in individual lives,

where the old nature with all its prejudices and hatreds is put off, and the new nature put on.

This is the language of regeneration, or as Paul describes it here and elsewhere, new creation.

Not that Paul teaches Christian people simply to rest in that mighty initial work of deliverance (1:13),

for the God who began His work in them continues it by constant renewal as they increase steadily towards mature knowledge (1:9),

and so grow to be more like Christ who is the image of God (1:15; 3:10b), their creator.

Think of what destroys social harmony: — Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

Which was part of our old life (v7) — But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

We cannot be practitioners of seeking Christ and fellowship with Him while engaging in these sins.

So we avoid those sins which displeases God and which bring His wrath upon people and it’s there that we discover the possibility of real fellowship with each other.

The text uses the phrase “one another”. — Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices — bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. — Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

So while we’re doing these particular things to one another, look at what’s happening in v10.

— and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

This renewal is an ongoing process that begins at conversion, but which continues as the deeds appropriate to the old way of life are increasingly renounced and those appropriate to the new life are embraced.

There are echoes here of Paul’s teaching in that believers are to be transformed by the renewing of their minds.

There is a definite goal in mind—namely, that believers should increasingly resemble their Creator;

in other words, that the ‘image’ of God, marred at the Fall, should become increasingly apparent in those who are Christ’s new men and women.

Paul goes on to make a startling point, which again suggests that he had the unity of the church in Colosse very much in mind.

New life, a new humanity, where each individual has as his goal the increasing recovery of the image of God, also involves new relationships.

In Christ the old distinctions that divided people of different races and social backgrounds ought to disappear.

‘Greeks’ and ‘Jews’ (3:11) did not mix because of Israel’s dietary laws.

The Greeks regarded themselves as civilized people and other nations were ‘barbarians’.

The ‘Scythians’ were by common consent the most uncivilized people in the ancient world.

Yet in Christ ethnic hatreds can be mastered.

The section closes with the dramatic and triumphant declaration: ‘But Christ is all and in all’ (3:11).

The word ‘but’ indicates a change of mood.

Having listed a number of different categories into which the human race is divided,

Arthur, J. P. (2007). Christ All-Sufficient: Colossians and Philemon Simply Explained (p. 155). Darlington, England: Evangelical Press.

Arthur, J. P. (2007). Christ All-Sufficient: Colossians and Philemon Simply Explained (pp. 154–155). Darlington, England: Evangelical Press.

Paul notes that, for all the tragic reality of discord, while it is sadly true that

humanity is split up into mutually hostile races, classes and sexes, ‘Christ is all’.

He is all that matters and his greatness makes the divisions of mankind pale into insignificance.

Furthermore, when he takes up residence in people of different kinds, when he is ‘in all’,

the things that divide people are of far less weight than the great reality that unites them.

Lucas, R. C. (1980). Fullness & freedom: the message of Colossians & Philemon (p. 148). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Lucas, R. C. (1980). Fullness & freedom: the message of Colossians & Philemon (pp. 147–148). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.