A Scriptural-Spiritual Lens for Resolve in 2022 - Part Four
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Introduction
Introduction
Gary Millar, “Our identity in Christ is one of those critical truths that, if grasped early in our Christian life, will avert all kinds of problems and issues later on. In Christ, we get to know the God of the gospel, Father, Son, and Spirit. He is the God who speaks to us — not least about ourselves. For in the gospel, God tells us that we are already his, secure in Christ, and that having set us free from the power of sin, he is utterly committed to transforming still sinful people like us into the likeness of Jesus. Therefore, we can become who we already are.”
PRAY
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.
We resolve in the newness of Christ
We resolve in the newness of Christ
And have put on the new self - Not only does Paul say the Colossian have put off the old self with its practices, he reminds them they have put something on. He calls them to remember they have put on the new self. The image is of clothing and getting dressed. They have clothed themselves in the new man. The language is definitive as something which took place in the past.
We ask, what is the new man? The idea of the new man is significant in reference to the old. The old man was full of what one writer calls, “destructive corruption”. R.C.H Lenski describes the new man, “The new man is “new” (νέος) in the sense that he did not exist before, that God created him, that his being then began in us.” Paul is highlighting the conversion experience of the Colossians.
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
The new man occurs when God saves a person from death to life by the Gospel of Jesus, the Son, through faith empowered by the Spirit of God.
Practical Application
Practical Application
Have your experienced the new self in Christ?
Saints, think on your conversion and the wonder of new life in Christ?
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That is not all according to the Apostle. A person becomes new man, which is a one time reality, but there is an ongoing process as well.
We resolve in the power of Christ
We resolve in the power of Christ
Which is being renewed - The new man is being reestablished in a like-new or improved manner. The important things to note about this word. First, the action is continuous and ongoing. A.T. Robertson writes, “It is a continual refreshment of the new man in Christ Jesus. Second, the action or the power of the renewal is provided by someone other than the Colossians. It implies that God is constantly powering the renewal.
Paul further defines the nature of the renewal. In knowledge - There is a restoration of knowledge. This renewal unto knowledge. This word translated knowledge carries the following idea; this is an understanding which emphasizes a personal acquaintance with the content of what is known. Well, what does that really mean? There is a transformation by what is understood. The next phrase reveals the meaning more clearly.
After the image of its creator - The renewal unto knowledge is working on the Colossians. It is restoring the image of God. The likeness of God. It is making them god-like. This is a reference to Genesis and the creative work of God.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Practical Application
Practical Application
Is Christ being formed in you?
19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!
Are you applying the means through which God makes you like Christ?
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
We resolve in the identity of Christ
We resolve in the identity of Christ
Here - Where? Paul is referring to the new man. It is important to remember the new man is corporate. It is a group. It is a body. They are those being shaped by the knowledge of Christ. Before we work through Paul’s list of what is not is the new man, listen to some other place where he does something similar.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
These passages tell us that when are person becomes a Christian, begins to be a follower of Jesus, is born again, gets saved, or any other suitable and biblical description of conversion, there is a radical identity change that occurs. Let me remind you of Paul’s words in...
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
What we will see in the following is that all other major identifying markers are not in the new man. They do not exist and they are no longer vital.
There is not Greek and Jew - The Jew, Greek distinction is this. The Jews or those who were by physical lineage from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are contrasted with the Greek. The Greek from a Jewish perspective was anybody that was not Jewish. In other places they are called Gentiles. For the Jew, it is us and everybody else is the other, the outsider, pagan, or some one for which we must disdain.
There is no Circumcised and uncircumcised - This is also are reference to a religious practice which was distinctive the Jewish. If you recall in Genesis 17, God called Abraham to establish the practice of circumcising the male children on the eighth day of life as the sign of the covenant.
26 And David said to the men who stood by him, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
This in a sense, is a biblical delineation, but most of the Jews were holding it in arrogance. What ought to have brought humility before God and a gracious disposition toward others, instead was held in exclusive, separatism and pride. However, in the new man, this is erased.
1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
The is no Barbarian, Scythian - Paul’s list goes on with a pair of distinctions that no longer exist and highlight the disappearance of perceived ethnic superiority. First, a barbarian is a speaker of a strange, unintelligible language. Its first usage was of the Medes and the Persians as enemies of Greece. The Greeks viewed these others with contempt. In fact, the word itself makes fun of speaking a different native tongue. Bar-bar, bar, bar, bar, bar...
Scythians were inhabitants of Scythia (located in part of modern Russia). These were the most savage of the Barbarians.
Herodotus, a Greek historian from the 5th Century, describes the Scythians as living in wagons, offering human sacrifices, scalping and sometimes flaying slain enemies, drinking their blood and using their skulls for drinking cups. When a king dies, one of his concubines is strangled and buried with him and at the close of the year, fifty of his attendants are strangled, disemboweled, mounted on dead horses and left in a circle around his tomb.
14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
All ethnicities and cultures need Christ and there is none which are essentially or inherently closer to God than another. Furthermore, when anyone is in Christ, he has a new ethnicity and culture.
There is no Slave, Free - The final pair focuses on socio-political position. A slave is one who is in subjection to another’s will. This person is the property of another by law. It could have been because this person from a prisoner of war or they could be working to pay off a debt. The slave was the lowest station in the society. The free is one that possesses a high degree of self-determination and independence politically and socially.
But Christ is all - In contrast to all the possible worldly distinctions whether sinful or otherwise Christ is all. Jesus is everything. It is all about Jesus.
14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
And in all - In the new man, Christ Jesus dwells in everyone, exhaustively. All of the new man possesses all of Messiah Jesus.
22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Practical Application
Practical Application
How are you identified and how do you self-identify? As you are being made more like Christ, the other distinctives disappear. Are you increasingly identified with Christ and his true people?
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.