AM Bible Study Group; April 17, 2013
Colossians 3:5-11
Theme: Having trusted Christ as our Savior, we must ‘put off’ the sins He died to save us from, and lay them aside.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Praise God that the Bible doesn’t teach us that we must be perfect and sinless before we can be saved. Who could be if it did? Nor does it teach that we will be completely sinless while we live upon the earth. In fact, the Bible teaches us that, for as long as we live, we will always have to struggle with the reality of sin. But what it does tell us is that “repentance” is an essential response to the gospel (Matthew 3:2; 9:13; Mark 1:4, 14-15; 6:12; Luke 24:46-47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30-31; 20:20-21; 26:19-20; 2 Corinthians 12:20-21; 2 Timothy 2:19; 2 Peter 3:9). To respond to the gospel without genuine repentance from sin is to only respond part-way to it; because the whole message is “Repent and believe the gospel”.
As we saw in our last study, we are saved by being united with Jesus in His death and resurrection. And that union with Christ is to be the basis of a transformed life. That’s why Paul begins our portion of Scripture with the word “therefore”. He’s pointing back to what has happened to us in Jesus as the basis for what he’s about to tell us to do. Having trusted Christ and having been united to Him—having died with Him, and of being raised up with Him—we are to put off the sins He died to save us from and lay them aside.
I. WHAT MUST BE ‘PUT OFF’ (vv. 5, 8-9).
A. Paul writes, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (v. 5). And then, in verse 8, he tells us, “But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another …” (vv. 8-9). These two verses obviously don’t give us a complete list of sins to be put off from our lives. If a complete list had been given to us, we wouldn’t be able to lift our Bibles! But the sins that Paul here mentions are broad enough to take many, many things in their scope. In verse 5, he highlights sins that have their primary focus on what goes in in our hearts. And in verses 8-9, he speaks of sins that have their focus on our relationships with other people.
B. If you were to look all these things over carefully, and compare them with God’s Ten Commandments, you would plainly see that they openly violate His specific commandments. They are actions that are in absolute defiance of God’s standards of holiness. We are all very guilty of them; and we could never, in this life, be completely free of them. Even in Christ, we will still at times stumble and fall. But it would be a very wicked and sinful thing to willingly cling to these things, or justify their continued existence in our lives, or to refuse to repent of them. It’s especially wicked when, at the same time, we say we have faith in the price that Jesus paid on the cross to free us from them.
II. WHY THESE THINGS MUST BE ‘PUT OFF’ (vv. 6, 7).
A. Paul says, “Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience . . .” (v. 6). They should be “put off” from us because they are the cause of the outpouring of God’s righteous wrath for sin upon this world. Paul spoke of such things in Romans 6:20-21, and said, “For the end of those things is death” (also see Romans 6:23). God pours out His wrath upon unrepented sin. And so, we should “put off” from ourselves—as quickly as we can—those things that provoke God to pour His righteous anger and wrath on the “sons of disobedience.” We cannot walk with Him and have those things in our lives at the same time (see 1 John 1:5-6).
B. Paul also points out to the Colossian believers that these are the sorts of sins “in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them” (v. 7). They used to be the manner of life we too walked in when we were living apart from God’s grace. In Ephesians 2:2-3, Paul describes people who are characterized by such things as “children of wrath”. What a horrible thing to have been! And what a horribly inappropriate thing it is for a professing believer to be characterized by the sort of things that characterize “sons of disobedience”! When we look at the cross, we can plainly see that the wrath of God has already once been poured out in a dreadful display because of these sins. If God poured out such terrible wrath for our sins on His own Son as our Substitute, how then can anyone expect to escape that wrath if they cling to them and refuse to turn from them? No wonder God—in love—calls us to put such things off!
III. HOW THEY’RE TO BE ‘PUT OFF’ (vv. 5, 8, 9-10)
A. You’ll notice that Paul says, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth” (v. 5). Jesus put it this way: “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two fee, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire” (Matthew 18:8-9). Jesus wasn’t saying that we should try to solve the sin problem through physical means—amputations and self-imposed blindness. Rather, He’s telling us is that if even something very precious were to us causes us to sin—even if it was something as precious to us as our eyes or our hands—then we should sever it from ourselves. It means killing sin at its root in our lives.
B. He also says that we’re to “put off all these” (v. 8), as if they were an old set of grave clothes that are no longer appropriate for us to wear as saints who have been raised up with Christ. Paul says that “you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him . . .” (vv. 9-10). It’s as if we are to take off the old wardrobe of “sin”, and put on the new “resurrection wardrobe” of a man or woman who has been transformed from within. So often, people try to simply “stop” doing something; but fail to put something in its place. This leaves a vacuum. One of the greatest and most effective ways to put sinful practices and behaviors out of our lives is by replacing them with a whole new practices and behaviors (see Ephesians 4:22-32). Putting sin to death at its roots in our lives; and practicing the putting-off of old behaviors and putting-on of new ones—this is how we are to “repent” of sin in our lives.
IV. WHY IT’S TRUE THAT THEY CAN BE ‘PUT TO DEATH’ AND ‘PUT OFF’ (vv. 10-11).
A. Paul says that, as an essential part of our salvation, we have put on—not just merely new clothes—but “a new man”. We are new creations inside. This new man “is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (v. 10). As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” he redeemed us for good works (Titus 2:14). Our entire inner-being has been changed into the image of Christ; and so, our outward life is to now match this inner change.
B. What’s more, what stands as the basis of this passage is the truth that Paul affirmed in verse 1-4—that is, that we’ve been raised up with Christ, and that our life is now hidden in Him. Jesus isn’t a dead Savior, who is far away and powerless to help us. Rather, He is a living, powerful Savior. We’ve been raised up with Him, and our life is hidden in Him. Paul says, in verse 11 that we are being renewed in the image of Him who created this ‘new man’; “where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all”. There is no difference. This all-powerful, all-mighty Savior, Jesus, has taken up residence in us. He lives in us; and is able to help us to become anything He wants us to be.