God aside. God has been pleased to call the church a body; and so in truth it is. Why be found running from the substance after the shadow? Little did the Colossians conceive that their endeavour to add to the truth of the gospel was in reality to detract from His glory. Their desire, we may be sure, was as well meant as any mistake can be. The wife is to submit to the husband. It pertains to a life in this world to say, "Touch not; taste not; handle not." Such is the only sure root of all blessing, and in this above all is real faith and spirituality shown. Never will it be received, either by the world's religion, or by its philosophy. Analysis. Everything which could break the heart of a holy man from day to day he passed through. Thus it is from the first the expression of a most needed truth, which remains the comfort of grace throughout the whole Christian career, and is therefore never repeated. 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. Of God He is the image, not exactly in an exclusive, but assuredly in the only adequate sense. THE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS OF THE CHRISTIAN ( Colossians 3:18-25 ; Colossians 4:1 ). Therefore, we should not be guilty of these things. Seek marks the practical striving; set your mind, the inward impulse and disposition. His grace has qualified us now for His glory: such, as far as this goes, is the clear meaning of the Holy Ghost. It is the word used when Jesus said, "My yoke is easy." There was no such notion as only caring for the saints in his own particular place. And now He is risen from the dead, the beginning of a new order of existence altogether; and as He is the Head, so the church is His body founded, indeed, on Christ, but on Him dead and risen. The word he uses is the word for putting off clothes. Mortify them, kill them, suppress them, as weeds or vermin which spread and destroy all about them. On no such ground, nor on all together, was He the firstborn. There Jew or Gentile is all alike, and those who believe the gospel are by the Spirit united to Him as His body, Here the Gentiles in particular have Him in them, the pledge of their participating in His heavenly glory by and by. Thus the most perfect harmony reigns between all the apostles; but Paul was emphatically minister of the gospel, and minister of the church. But the distinctive character is that He is "the beginning, the firstborn from the dead" not merely the firstborn of, but the first-born out of. "You must not only seek heaven, you must think heaven" (Lightfoot). If there was one thing the ancient world needed it was mercy. The epistle to the Ephesians views the saint as already blessed by God in heavenly places in Christ. There was no hindrance to the flow of the Spirit in unfolding the truth. Indeed, the trappings which men so cry up are a positive hindrance to Christ; and in the precise measure in which they are prized, they reduce their votaries to slavery, and the faith they profess to zero. It is not to be found in tradition, still less in philosophy. That's not a wise thing to do. The Revealed Jesus, the treasury of all wisdom and knowledge (2:2-3). David gave this proof of his loving the house of God, that he diligently sought after it, and prepared for it, Psalms 27:4. Who and what is the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption? 3:9b-13 Strip off the old self with all its activities. When we not only believe with the heart, but are ready, when called, to make confession with the mouth. These things at first sight appear far apart, but they are not so in result. CHRIST OUR LIFE ( Colossians 3:1-4 continued). It is not, as in the Ephesian epistle, the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints, but closely resembles a comparatively lower line of things which comes before us in the first epistle of Peter. . Were He among the Jews, it would be the introduction of the promised earthly glory. A blaze of light springs up among the hills; the storm ceases; the gloom is . Everything which would keep him from fully obeying God and fully surrendering to Christ must be surgically excised. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the, set their affections on the things that are above. Set your affection - Margin, or mind. Greek think of - phroneite. He might well, therefore, say (and what a serious occasion for the Colossians that it was needful to say it as an admonition!) "All" the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Jesus. (3.) Verse Colossians 3:2. The better a parent is the more he must avoid the danger of discouraging his child, for he must give discipline and encouragement in equal parts. The fit time and suited speech, always in grace, not without faithfulness Godward, how good and needful they are! Paul says things which must have amazed both sides. The treatment of the idiot and the simple-minded was unfeeling. But assuming that the parents love the Lord and you have a Christian home, children, obey your parents in all things; this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Satan knew well what he sought in alienating many a Christian from this blessed man of God, and in carping at his ministry, and the testimony he was given to bear. The soul prospers when we have clear knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. God is the Creator, man the creature, and in the presence of the Creator the creature cannot feel anything else but humility. The apostle in like manner in the next verse opposes the "things above" to . You've risen with Christ. It is, however, evident from what has been remarked, that the two letters do in the most remarkable manner correspond to each other; the one presenting the Head, the other the body. We want them to get all A's. If then you are risen with Christ [If you are risen with Christ going back to buried with Christ in baptism, now risen with Him], seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God ( Colossians 3:1 ). And the tragedy is that many people have become so habituated to unclean talk that they are unaware that they are using it. It is a quite different state of things from what could be gathered from the Old Testament. Think what he wants to do is stupid. Colossians 2:2-3 New International Version 2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. THE CHRISTIAN WORKMAN AND THE CHRISTIAN MASTER ( Colossians 3:18-25 ; Colossians 4:1 continued). Colossians 3:3. What believers must do now, enabled by the Holy Spirit, is to fight the good fight of faith by focusing upward rather than downward and "around-ward". Hence the spending of heart and thought that "every man" might be thus built up in the truth, and especially the heavenly truth of Christ, which was entrusted to his stewardship and ministry, "warning, every man and teaching every man, that we may present every man full grown in Christ." Every thought of man is vain in the presence of His wisdom. In this context it is much more likely that what is forbidden is slanderous talk against one's fellow-men. It matters little how well taught the saint may be, nor how he may know the moral beauty and the unfailing wisdom of the word, if positive fruit be not increased: if the spirit and power of worship abound not, there is something altogether short, or wrong. Now, again, my life is the reflection of what I am and what I believe. C. F. D. Moule well describes it as "the opposite of the desire to give.". The stronger our faith, and the warmer our love, the more will our comfort be. And so, are you walking after the Spirit? It therefore has characteristics of a letter by Continue reading "Commentary on Colossians 3:1-4" There is a present witness of the victory of Jesus. We remember, for instance, the tragic question of Mary Lamb, whose mind was ultimately unhinged: "Why is it that I never seem to be able to do anything to please my mother?" Christ on earth was a blessed pattern of forgiveness and forbearance. True, and known to some from the first, the Spirit would brook no hiding of it in order to meet the daring of men and the subtilty of the enemy, who were taking advantage of the lower glory of Christ, so as to deny all that was higher His deity and eternal Sonship. Every Christian is crucified unto the world, and the world is crucified unto him,Galatians 6:14. If the latter, it had got to Laodicea, whence the Colossians were to procure it in their turn. One of the great effects of Christianity is that it destroys the barriers. The stronger our faith, and the warmer our love, the more will our comfort be. The word for slander is blasphemia ( G988) , which the King James Version translates blasphemy. Away, then, with every pretence to add to Him; away with all possible expedients to give lustre to Christ! The point Paul is making here is this. Now the word which Paul uses to say that our lives are hidden with Christ in God is part of the verb apokruptein ( G613) , from which the adjective apokruphos ( G614) comes. There must be in his life a radical transformation of the will and a radical shift of the centre. Do you say, Yes, but why not God create by the highest as an instrument? II. 81-82; and John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord, pp. Nevertheless, he lets the Colossians know what he went through for their sakes and other saints who were before his heart, even though unknown in the flesh. When the soul has been in peace weaned from all else, and found all its joy and boast in Christ, it can then hear more freely. It is our privilege that we have risen with Christ; that is, have benefit by the resurrection of Christ, and by virtue of our union and communion with him are justified and sanctified, and shall be glorified. It is in baptism rather than in Him. But now the work is done, and the atonement is accepted before that new life is given me in Him risen. Their foolishness and their unteachability never drive it to cynicism or despair; their insults and their ill-treatment never drive it to bitterness or wrath. The Christian will have all the desires of the new man gratified. How we want them to be better than we were. 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. The apostle, however, speaks of his service in these two respects: the gospel, which is universal in its aspect to every creature under heaven; and the church, which is a special and chosen body. The love was not natural affection; it was love in the Spirit: but this is very far from the rich place given to His personal presence and action elsewhere. In Christ all these barriers were broken down. Without Him all sinks at once into dissolution. These two are tied together. They had really themselves slipped away in heart: no such hope had found favour otherwise. Such a man finds life and all that it means in music, in sport, in work, as the case may be. What is there here to make us fond of it? As we know, the church is built on the foundation, not of Paul, but of His holy apostles and prophets. Set your mind -- Greek think of - phroneite. . That my life be so completely bound up and centered in Christ that He is my life. e Grace to you and peace from God our Father.. Thanksgiving and Prayer. 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.". Of His holy apostles and prophets weeds or vermin which spread and destroy all about them the! 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