Ruth: 1:20-21; The doctrine of bitterness, part 9 - the spiritual life is the only life vs. selfish ambition.

Title: Ruth: 1:20-21; The doctrine of bitterness, part 9 - the spiritual life is the only life vs. selfish ambition.  

 

Let's go back to Col 3 and read our passage in context.

 

Paul turns from general exhortations to those addressed to particular individuals, wives, husbands, children, fathers, servants.

 

The husband must first love the general exhortations in this passage before he can love his wife as Christ loves the church, having peace in his soul, rather than bitterness, even when she is behaving badly.

 

Tonight is a reminder of who we are to be in Christ. This is your life.

 

Col 3:1 If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

 

Paul bases his exhortation to seek those things which are above, not on an unfulfilled hypothetical case, but upon a fulfilled condition.

 

Col 3:2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

 

Col 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

 

Did you know that you died? By death you were separated from the former life.

 

Rom 7:2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.

 

Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man.

 

Rom 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.

 

Rom 7:5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

 

Rom 7:6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

 

Death was definitely a legitimate ending to a marriage and the right the remarry. The old husband, the old life, has died.

 

If the believer just died, then the story is tragic, but that is not the end. The believer has been given life. It is called a hidden life, but don't take that as if Christ were hiding it from you. The Greek word also means secret or shielded. The new life is in Christ and is protected by Him. It is between you and Him and so is secret to the outsider only in the fact that he can't interfere with it. Christ has shielded the new life in Him and that life is in heaven with Him, but such a life is lived in time since Christ is in you.

 

Your new spiritual life is no longer in the sphere of the earthly and sensual, but is with the life of the risen Christ, who is unseen with God.

 

Col 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

 

It is not enough to say that the life is shared with Christ, the life "is Christ." Your future is set in being revealed with Christ in ultimate glory.

 

If Christ is our life and our future, then His interests must be our interests if we are to have any at all.

 

Since this is so…

 

Col 3:5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion [pathos - pathology (disease)], evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

 

False religions fail to check sensual indulgence, which reeks havoc on soul and body. The main attack against Christianity in the area of Colossae was Gnosticism, which was engulfed in sensual desire, and the consequences of that could be seen in them.

 

The carnal man is dead and the power of doctrine can make that a reality in the believer's experience if it is mixed with faith in the inner man. The NASB fails us a bit here by translating nekroo as consider dead. We could easily imagine that considering being dead and being dead are two different things.  

 

Nekrosate oun ta mele ta epi tes ges = Put to death therefore the members which [are] upon the earth. There is no considering. The aorist active says: "By a once and for all act, put to death your members."

 

God doesn't mess around. And while it is true and acknowledged by Him that growth and maturity take time, the attitude of the believer should not compromise this standard. The aorist tense of nekroo is abundantly clear command by God, and the active voice means that it is up to us to do so in our own conscience. Kill it now!

 

"Now that you are new men and women in Christ, says the apostle, live like new men and women. You have said good-bye to your old life; therefore have done away with all those things that were characteristics of it. You have died with Christ; act and speak and think therefore so as to make it plain that this "death" is no mere figure of speech, but a real event which has severed the links wich bound you to the dominion of sin." [FF Bruce, The Epistle to the Colossians]

 

Col 3:6 For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come,

 

The wrath of God will never come upon a believer, but since those who will feel His wrath do nothing but practice these things, why in the world should we even entertain them?

 

A false interpretation of the application of grace to the Christian way of life is the conclusion that if I will not be judged and I will not be the recipient of God's wrath, then I have the option of following after the flesh. In other words, I get a free pass. However, as Paul states here, in Ephesians, and in Romans, "you have laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self."

 

God doesn't use discipline or suffering, which would surely come, as motivation in these passages. Instead He states to us the fact of who we are as new creatures.

 

Rom 6:1-2

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

 

This has been a theme that the Holy Spirit has impressed upon us this past year.

 

Col 3:7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

 

Col 3:8 But now you also, put them all aside [aorist middle]: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

 

"put aside" - aorist middle imperative of apothithemi = to place away from yourself once and for all.

 

Col 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,

 

"Do not lie" is in the present tense = "stop lying to one another." Lying had been going on.

 

Col 3:10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him

 

Col 3:11 — a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

 

The renewal of the new creature is only done by the true knowledge, not falsehood. "no distinction" - New Covenant in His blood.

 

Not only have the barriers that separated man from God been demolished by Christ, so has the barriers that divided human beings from one another by religion and race and nationality. Outside of Christianity, those barriers stand as high as ever.

 

What does it mean to renew the new creature? It means to keep him active in terms of moving and thinking and working. The new creature without a steady diet of the doctrines of the word of God is like a complex machine without fuel to keep it going.

 

Vv. 5-11 refer to the "put off".

Vv. 12-17 refer to the "put on".

Vv. 3:18-4:1 refer to "be subject".