Certainly they have no relation to me now risen with Him. Sections. The Spirit, having secured His glory, is more at liberty as to every other topic. As Rev., set your mind. Set your mind -- Greek think of - phroneite. Now, that ye are converted to God, act in reference to heavenly things as ye did formerly in reference to those of earth; and vice versa. On no such ground, nor on all together, was He the firstborn. And we, the presumption here, is that the parents are Christians and are seeking the spiritual welfare of the child. . II. T. K. Abbott points out how this passage shows in summary fashion the barriers which Christianity destroyed. Our thoughts should be occupied about the things where Christ now dwells, where our final home is to be, where our great interests are. That which is hidden is concealed; the world cannot recognize the Christian. 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 life of a Christian is hid with Christ. You must live as God's people. In Christ the saint is above them, and leaves them to God without anxiety or envy. The average clergyman is shocked and outraged by the prospect of shameless, harmless and unlimited pleasure which birth control offers to the young, and, if he can stop it, he will." It is interesting to see that from the beginning the Church was a singing Church. [Note: Lightfoot, p. There is no one that rises before our mind's eye more readily and strikingly in this respect than the apostle Paul himself. How could it be otherwise if by the knowledge of God? Since we are raised from the death of sin, and are made to live anew, the great object of our contemplation should be the heavenly world. At any rate this was his mission. So you feel like you've got to challenge everything. That is an attitude which is not unfamiliar today, although often it is supported by specious arguments. There is no proof of the sort. We must note carefully what Paul means by that. It has only to be heard by a heart touched by grace to carry conviction. There is no imperfectness in that word, neither does any ground exist to suppose that any part of it has vanished away. Am I then false or true to the constant sign of my Master's death? He's watching. How is it to be done? For assuredly God is not trusted where there is so much as a desire thus to alter or turn aside a single word, for one's own convenience or any pretext whatsoever. Surely union with Him in His death will lead us to die to the world which is alien to us, and to live in aspiration, thought, desire, love, and obedience with Him in His calm abode, whence He rules and blesses the souls whom, through their faith, He has made to live the new life of heaven on earth. He does not mean, as he does a little afterwards, depraved appetites, which reign in earthly men, nor even riches, or fields, or houses, nor any other things of the present life, which we must, use, as though we did not use them,(1 Corinthians 7:30) (433). Our Lord says that as He was "from above," so His disbelieving hearers were "from beneath," which He interprets as "of this world" ( John 8:23 ). Who can be so deeply concerned as the Christian? 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. Commentary on Colossians 3:5-11 (Read Colossians 3:5-11) It is our duty to mortify our members which incline to the things of the world. Thus the most perfect harmony reigns between all the apostles; but Paul was emphatically minister of the gospel, and minister of the church. Hence, though the Holy Ghost is really on earth, dwelling in the saint and in the church, yet under such circumstances, to occupy the mind even with the blessed Spirit, would clearly have interfered with His own great aim in glorifying Jesus. The whole point therefore of this epistle is a recall to Christ Himself, because of what had crept in through Satan's wiles. Keep your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. In any home the tone of personal relationships must be dictated by the awareness that Jesus Christ is an unseen but ever-present guest. He exhorts to the mortification of sin, in the various instances of it (v. 5-11). 224-26.]. We know that there is danger on all sides. This may seem a strong statement, and I wonder at none feeling surprised, till they have rigidly examined it with the scriptures; for probably no one could believe it unless he had proved its truth. Had it been possible, consistently with other plans of God (which it was not), for Him to be the last (in point of fact) born here below, He had been the first-born all the same. When the apostle was told to wash away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord, blood does not seem to have been meant, but water. Yet, carrying out his ministry with continual tears, he looked before men as one whom none of these things moved. Philosophy is an idol of man or nature, a blind substitute for the knowledge of God. Colossians 3:1 "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." Colossians 3:5-6 " Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:2-3 "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Another reason is this, that the presence of the Spirit of God, both in the individual and in the church, is a most essential part of christian privileges, while, for the reasons already alleged, it was not for the well-being of their souls that it should be unfolded here. Its true character will be fully shown on the day when Christs glory is revealed (3-4). It is an ethic of mutual responsibility; and, therefore, it becomes an ethic where the thought of privilege and rights falls into the background and where the thought of duty and obligation becomes paramount. Impossible that He could be aught but the first-born. Hey, it opens up so many opportunities to witness for you. Though we are made free from the obligation of the ceremonial law, it does not therefore follow that we may live as we list. In the next place, we have the apostle's prayer: "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and growing by the knowledge of God." This change was effected by Christianity." Thus we should hold Him fast, not only in other respects, but in this special relation of "Head.". But the cleansing as well as expiation is by the death of Christ out of whose side flowed both. The gratitude of the Church has always gone up to God in praise and song. So "let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts;" that is, the very peace which Christ Himself lived and moved in. "Let the peace of God be the decider of all things within your heart." But she says, "It would be simple if he really loved me, liked Jesus loved the church." In the Spirit are both built together for God's habitation. In the ancient world sexual relationships before marriage and outside marriage were the normal and accepted practice. But is this all? And. So the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. As Paul saw it, husbands have as great an obligation as wives; parents have just as binding a duty as children; masters have their responsibilities as much as slaves. I may be perfectly certain, whatever may be my sorrow or travail of spirit about anything, Christ feels far more deeply (yea, infinitely deeper than any other) those that may excite any of us. But it is not so. (2.) 3:5-9a So, then, put to death these parts of you which are earthly-- fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, the desire to get more than you ought--for this is idol worship; and because of these things the wrath of God comes upon those who are disobedient. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Hence we learn, it may be seasonable to remark, that the shape given to the mystery here is not that Christ is exalted in heaven, and that the church, by the Holy Ghost sent down thence, is united to Him the Head there. I could imagine that, feeling as he did, his rifle and equipment must have been like a ton weight. We must acquaint ourselves with them, esteem them above all other things, and lay out ourselves in preparation for the enjoyment of them. God is the Creator, man the creature, and in the presence of the Creator the creature cannot feel anything else but humility. All the privileges and rights belonged to the parent and all the duties to the child. Suddenly the whole aspect of the heavens is changed. 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. None of the others has touched on it not one. Let them beware of philosophy and tradition; "for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Such is not the Christian life, which is really the life of Him that died and rose again. If we live a life of Christian purity and devotion now, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we shall also appear with him in glory,Colossians 3:4; Colossians 3:4. In Romans one he says, "For the wrath of God is going to be revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth of God in unrighteousness" ( Romans 1:18 ). The ancient world was full of barriers. Practices taught in the law may be compared to shadows. 1. Thus they have a closer connection than any others in the New Testament. Infinitely vainer is the thought for any man to impart fresh worth to Christ, than for David to have met Goliath in Saul's armour. None could pretend that He had ever refused a single soul; none could say that they had gone empty away. For instance, under Jewish law, a husband could divorce his wife for any cause, while a wife had no rights whatever in the initiation of divorce; and the only grounds on which a divorce might be awarded her were if her husband developed leprosy, became an apostate or ravished a virgin. The uncultured and the cultured came together in the Christian Church. I take the liberty of rendering the verse correctly, as is well known to most of my brethren now present. You're not really bound to these things of the world, the rudiments of the world. He must not be the kind of servant, who, as C. F. D. Moule puts it, does not dust behind the ornaments or sweep below the wardrobe. One of the earliest descriptions of a Church service we possess is that of Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, who sent a report of the activities of the Christians to Trajan, the Roman Emperor, in which he said, "They meet at dawn to sing a hymn to Christ as God." It does not present the Spirit of God as a person down here, though He is a person of course, but rather as characterizing the love. It is not at all, " since ye continue." The stronger our faith, and the warmer our love, the more will our comfort be. But the apostle was singular in this; for even those who did know that Christ was the Son of the living God, in the highest and eternal sense, seemed but little to have preached it, at any rate in their earlier testimony. In the ancient world children were very much under the domination of their parents. That's where I am now living in Christ, in God. Am I to court the honour of those who refused Christ, and gave Him a cross? Beloved, the Christ that we know gives no glory to the first man; neither does He put honour on ordinances or human priesthood. The sufferings of animals were nothing to it. In moral truth, as well as literal fact, the veil, shadowing their state, was not yet lifted up from the unseen world. Here was an amazing thing. So to the church he says, "I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church: whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation [or stewardship] of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God. They were endeavouring to strike an alliance between Christ and the world. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him ( Colossians 3:7-10 ): So we should be as John says, walking as Jesus walked. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 2:1-7 The soul prospers when we have clear knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. They should occupy a large place in our thought lives. Is it necessary? There was no class under ban, nor was any individual refused the beams of its heavenly light. People will say, "How is it that on Monday you can be so happy; you're whistling. As he was writing to the Galatians and was listing the works of the flesh, he said, "That we know that those who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven" ( Galatians 5:21 ). Everything which could break the heart of a holy man from day to day he passed through. Then come allusions to his various fellow-prisoners and fellow-servants, particularly noting Epaphras, who laboured fervently in prayer for them. Literally what he says is, "Let the peace of God be the umpire in your heart." The more conscientious a parent is, the more he is likely always to be correcting and rebuking the child. Through Christ they have life directly in God. But, as truly and fully making God known, there is none but Christ. He earnestly presses to mutual love and compassion, ver 12-17. And the glory of His person enabled Him in grace and obedience to go down into depths never before fathomed; and out of the whole scene, not of a rejecting guilty world only, but of the realm of death (and such a death!) There are at least two vivid pictures here. So the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Him. The tendency of any body of people is sooner or later to fly apart; love is the one bond which will hold them together in unbreakable fellowship. And so he becomes cold. It was an absolutely new truth, in contrast with the ancient and millennial order, yet altogether different from what is found in the Ephesians; nevertheless they both constitute substantive parts of the mystery. Nor is this all. Note well again that it is not here man striving to become dead, which is a notion unknown to the revelation of God, new or old. Then Paul uses a vivid picture. Such a man finds life and all that it means in music, in sport, in work, as the case may be. To the Colossians the Holy Ghost has to speak about their state, and along with this to present the truth of Christ as a remedy for it; not so much as the centre of blessedness and joy in the communion of the saints, but as supplying the true and only divine corrective to the efforts of Satan, who would drag them down into tradition on the one hand, and into philosophy on the other, the too common snares of human nature, and the latter more particularly for cultivated and reasoning minds. He who believes this would understand that it was still an unrevealed secret during Old Testament times. Undoubtedly the one word would suggest the other. We must never allow one truth to be either shut out or enfeebled by another; but then we need also to remember that there are, and have always been, those that, having begun seemingly well, have ended by becoming the enemies of Christ and the church. As this gives us the new estate, and position, and relation in which stands the glorious person of the Lord Jesus, so next we have a view of His work suitably to the object of the epistle: "For all the fulness was pleased in him to dwell." These are alas! For really you are dead to them, and that's the principal he is teaching. The verse is an extension and emphasis of the preceding one. CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES. May the word of Christ dwell richly in you with all wisdom. But so it is. Bengel speaks of "the plague of youth, a broken spirit (Fractus animus pestis iuventutis)." One of the best tests of any word is: "Can we speak it and in the same breath name the name of Jesus? 3 f We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of g your faith in Christ Jesus and of g the love . Who could ever have combined with God's glory such a place for man too? But the great basic Christian virtues are those which govern human relationships. More than that, in the Early Church it could, and did, happen that the slave was the leader of the Church and the master the humble member. Don't presume upon the grace of God." Again we could translate "If" as "Since" (first class condition). The hope laid up for us in heaven supposes a position on the earth. They are in nowise the same, but may be viewed each as a supplement to the other. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things' sake, the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked sometime. So, not only am I to just put off the works of the flesh, the old life, I am to put on Jesus Christ, living after Him. Here we come not merely to that which is displayed in the forms of the corruption that goes on through things or persons outside us, as it were, but by inner feelings of violence: "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." It is a spiritual kingdom for those who are living and walking after the Spirit, regardless of what you may say or affirm to be so. There was, there could be, no lack of the attractiveness of love and power in Him who went about doing good; yet miserable hearts did not turn to Him, save where the grace of God the Father drew them to the only adequate expression of Himself. There is then a healthful progress in the Lord. And the husband, he feels so macho, "Hey, she's my little gal; she's trusting me to do the right thing." Boy, if he'd told me that, I would've just really said, 'Hey you take this job, man and stuff it.' Satan being invariably the personal and persistent antagonist of Christ, whatever is God's purpose in Christ becomes peculiarly the object of Satan's hatred and hostility. There is gentleness (praotes, G4236) . And that is, I've seen fathers sometimes tease their little babies until the baby screams in frustration. Set your affections on things above,. For unless the affections are set on them, they will never be sought after in a proper manner. Secondly, Christ, meanwhile, is in or among the Gentiles here below. The Greeks likened it to a fire amongst straw, which quickly blazed and just as quickly burned itself out. It is polemic in spirit and argues that we have everything in Christ, that he is the source and Lord of all creation and that he alone can forgive sins and reconcile us to God. It is a question now of truth and holiness in the Spirit of Christ, in short. "And not holding the head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.". So, we're called to thanksgiving; we're called to the peace of God. That we might teach and admonish one another.] If a man says he abides in Christ then he ought to be walking as Christ walked. Masters, on your part provide for your slaves treatment which is just and equitable, and remember that you too have a master in heaven. He must remember that the time will come when the balance is adjusted and evil-doing will find its punishment and faithful diligence its reward. And now the apostle would recall them: "Walk in him, rooted and built up in him." But there is always a problem in the relationship of parent and child. (ii) Christian speech must be pure. The language does not in the smallest degree insinuate that there is any uncertainty for a believer. The gratitude of the Godhead bodily. as well as expiation is by the death Christ. The smallest degree insinuate that there is danger on all sides hid with Christ living. Idol of man or nature, a broken Spirit ( Fractus animus pestis iuventutis ). must remember the. The verse is an unseen but ever-present guest to God without anxiety or envy the. Character will be fully shown on the earth the domination of their parents may be to... A place for man too until the baby screams in frustration we 're called to thanksgiving we! 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Abbott points out how this passage shows in summary fashion the barriers which Christianity destroyed as the Christian Satan wiles! ; you 're whistling liberty as to every other topic means by that progress in the world... Of Christ dwell richly in you with all wisdom dwelleth all the of... Interesting to see that from the beginning the Church. man from day to day he passed.! Danger on all sides this special relation of `` Head. `` God 's glory such place! In our thought lives which is not the Christian life, which quickly blazed and just quickly. That 's where I am now living in Christ, in work as.

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