In fact, Thayer gives their definitions as the same, "to direct ones mind to a thing, to seek, or strive for" (658). We should be like a dead thing to it, unmoved and unaffected towards it. Occasions of sin must be avoided: the lusts of the flesh, and the love of the world; and covetousness, which is idolatry; love of present good, and of outward enjoyments. They are not indeed to reign with Him: this was by no man and at no time promised to them. But He is the Christ that God raised from the dead and seated in heavenly glory. The Revealed Jesus, the treasury of all wisdom and knowledge (2:2-3). Simple, isn't it? Somehow or another, freethinkers and superstitious men coalesce in reality. And what was to be done? That which is hidden is concealed; the world cannot recognize the Christian. For the baptized soul confesses that the grace of God gives death to sin in Him who died and rose again. Am I to forget His glory in the presence of God? "Even as Christ forgave you." He was a minister both of the gospel, and, as is said a little later, of the church two very different spheres, seldom united in the same individual. Paul goes on in Colossians 3 to talk about the present life, exhorting to put off the old life because those in Christ have died and have been raised with Christ. Because the wife feels the love and the security and she knows, "Hey, he's my man." If, as men have fabled, spiritual beings sprang forth ready armed, as well as in fulness of wisdom and vigour, it would not be Christianity. He exhorts to the mortification of sin, in the various instances of it (v. 5-11). Nor is there to be unwatchfulness, but consideration in love of those without. As this epistle then is not said to have been addressed to Laodicea, we may gather that it was either from that church, or, if apostolic, going its round from one assembly to another. Of course the Ephesian saints were so; but here it is expressed. Let them beware of philosophy and tradition; "for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Sir Arnold Lunn, in Memory to Memory, quotes an incident about Field-Marshal Montgomery from a book by M. E. Clifton James. Man, my head aches so bad I can hardly see. He uses the same line of thought in Romans 8:13: "If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live." Further, we see how Christian love delights to communicate and to hear. The needed and only remedy was to turn the eyes of the saints from other objects, even their own privileges, and to fix them on Christ. In the which you also walked sometime, when you lived in them. In the presence of God the social distinctions of the world become irrelevant. The expression "brethren," though of course flowing from Christ, brings forward their relationship by grace to each other. The Christian must kill self-centredness and regard as dead all private desires and ambitions. They have pressed other truth, which is incompatible with anything else but justification by faith; he asserts it often and openly. 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." III. Christ will appear again. In any home the tone of personal relationships must be dictated by the awareness that Jesus Christ is an unseen but ever-present guest. The Christian must put off anger and temper. The very fact that I have accepted Jesus Christ, the whole concept is that I have renounced the life of the flesh. Nowadays to mortify the flesh means rather to practise ascetic discipline and self-denial. For none of these reasons, though He was all this, and more. We may be content to be hidden while He is hidden; but He is not always to be out of sight. But not a few of those that were baptized from early as in later days turned out untrue to the glory of Christ. Our affections should not be fixed on houses and lands; on scenes of fashion and gaiety; on low and debasing enjoyments. To receive it as the faithful blow of our best friend in His own word may not seem the readiest way toward comfort; but the comfort that we get in the end from Him who thus smites is both real and stable, and rich in profit to the soul. It is a liberty founded on death, displayed in resurrection, known in the Spirit. It remains, however, that He is the first-born of all creation, because he is the Creator of all things, above or below, material or spiritual: "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible." Tradition never manifested the true God. There is a present witness of the victory of Jesus. 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. Next we enter on the apostle's thanksgiving. As the withering evils of Satan came in, the value of that which their hearts clung to formed an increasing part of their testimony, until at last the full, undiminished, and even brightening truth of His divine glory was brought out in all its fulness. The essence of idolatry is, in fact, the desire to have more. Who has done so? Because He was the greatest, the best, the holiest? To the virtues and the graces Paul adds one more--what he calls the perfect bond of love. Certainly they have no relation to me now risen with Him. Pleonexia ( G4124) is basically the desire to have more. We have here a description of soul-prosperity. NIV Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. We must not dote upon them, nor expect too much from them, that we may set our affections on heaven; for heaven and earth are contrary one to the other, and a supreme regard to both is inconsistent; and the prevalence of our affection to one will proportionably weaken and abate our affection to the other. But does this so much as resemble the provision of grace for the Christian? No right-minded man, as such, could take for granted that others would care to know about his affairs any more than be theirs, unless indeed in case of a relation, or a friend, or a public and extraordinary personage. There is scarce anything more offensive than a child who looks, talks, and acts the old man. 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. require us to pronounce on evil ways in order to look into this evil doctrine or that; but the apostle speaks now of the saints in their ordinary and normal manner. Seek those things that are above. "He is the head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh [for so it runs] by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen.". 209.]. He is all, and He is in all. And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans." I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me,Galatians 2:20. And now the apostle would recall them: "Walk in him, rooted and built up in him." No one, no thing, can add to Christ's power, lustre, or value in any one respect. And the tragedy is that many people have become so habituated to unclean talk that they are unaware that they are using it. The guilt which a broken law charged on the conscience is gone by an act infinitely more glorifying to God than the personal righteousnesses of all the men that ever lived, not to speak of the conscious pardon which is also secured to those who possess it. As the waters close over him, it is as if he was buried in death; as he emerges from the waters, it is like being resurrected to a new life. C. F. D. Moule well describes it as "the opposite of the desire to give.". 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. And you just went ahead and did it. It is the law in a new and impossible shape. But now the work is done, and the atonement is accepted before that new life is given me in Him risen. It is born and nourished from above; and the perfection of its life is reserved for that state. The Christian forbears and forgives; and he does so because a forgiven man must always be forgiving. He only is the constitutive power of the unity that we are exhorted to keep. Colossians 2:9-10. It influenced him deeply and habitually in all the anxieties of love. He judges everything in the light of the Cross and in the light of the love which gave itself for him. He lives in us by his Spirit, and we live to him in all we do. In fact there was not even the thought of striving to be dead before the death of Christ came; and when He died, the Spirit in due time revealed not alone that He died for us, but that we died in Him. (iii) Paul then turns to the greatest problem of all--the relationship between slave and master. So he says, "If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Had they prayed more, the result might have been to better purpose. He is the only divine source, sphere, and means of real growth for the soul. Accordingly the path of Christian duty is grounded on these wondrous truths. He will, for instance, set giving above getting, serving above ruling, forgiving above avenging. The apostle in like manner in the next verse opposes the "things above" to . Their motives were far from good sometimes. And. "For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea." There is a certain kind of constant criticism which is the product of misguided love. We may proceed to trace now the course of the Spirit of God in this deeply instructive epistle. As Paul said, "For me to live is Christ," and I love this powerful statement.] There is a figure especially characteristic of the divine nature morally considered I need not say light, as we are told more fully in the epistle to the Ephesians. Do not lie to one another. Every Christian is crucified unto the world, and the world is crucified unto him,Galatians 6:14. The soul prospers when we have clear knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. But that for which they were opposed to him was the very thing for which, most of all, they should have owned their debt under God. Here was an amazing thing. Colossians 3:1. It is somewhat startling at first sight to realize such a fact, but if it be a fact as I unqualifiedly assert is it not of great moment to understand it? As also, looked at individually, the Christian is a son of God, so there should be a growth up to Christ in all things. Proud, fallen nature is satisfied even by these efforts to put down the body; whereas God would have the body to have a certain honour in its own place, and that of the Christian is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Indeed we may say that Paul presents the gospel as the display of divine righteousness beyond all, while he alone develops in his epistles the mystery of Christ and the church. The apostle addresses the Colossian Christians in terms substantially similar to those which are addressed to the saints at Ephesus. What a spring of power is the love of Christ Truly charity is "the bond of perfectness." We must and do judge all things as they are. 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 ). There were evils to be corrected, dancers to be warned against; but if he thinks of that which the Father has in view for them, and of them in view of His glory, less he could not say, neither could he say more. It need hardly be said that they were equally true, and each in its place most appropriate, but not all equally elevated. (i) The Christian ethic is an ethic of reciprocal obligation. 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. Such is God's word, and are we, or are we not, entitled to say so now? Pleonexia is one of the ugliest of sins but while it is quite clear what it means, it is by no means so easy to find a single word to translate it. It's just, "Fathers, provoke not your children, lest they be discouraged." It is heavenly glory that is waited for, but only in hope. If you look at the saints individually, He is the seal and the earnest. Knowledge and faith make a soul rich. B. Lightfoot reminds us that one of the greatest tributes paid to Christianity was paid not by a theologian but by a master linguist. Most of all this was the case in slavery. You're not really bound to these things of the world, the rudiments of the world. "And be ye thankful. 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. It was not so in the Ephesian epistle, where one of the richest developments of divine truth precedes any particular allusion to the saints in that city. And if we are dead to the earth, and have renounced it as our happiness, it is absurd for us to set our affections upon it, and seek it. Its true character will be fully shown on the day when Christs glory is revealed (3-4). Yet even this did not reconcile man to God, but the very reverse rather; it proved that man was irreconcilable as far as he was concerned. Colossians 3:2 says, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things," or, as the NET puts it, "Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth." To set one's mind on something is to choose to think about it, influencing one's goals and guiding one's course of action. Here we have the mingling, I apprehend, of natural man's philosophy, and religions man's tradition. Where sin brought man, grace brought Christ. He does not even say worthy of Christ, but "of the Lord." Any marriage in which everything is done for the convenience of one of the partners and where the other exists simply to gratify the needs and desires of the first, is not a Christian marriage. You're living in a new dimension of life, the spiritual dimension of life. That is, he brings in His authority, for there can be no mistake for the Christian more profound than to suppose that the presentation of the Lord as such is the more elevated for the saint. When the slave was past his work, he could be thrown out to die. The Colossians, like others, would have liked this well enough; it is just what they were about, and the very thing that the apostle is here correcting. He gets cold.Two rules: wives submit, husbands love. Some of old were not Jews nor Gentiles, but baptized men and women. Colossians Greeting. Our affections should not be fixed on houses and lands; on scenes of fashion and gaiety; on low and debasing enjoyment. They were endeavouring to strike an alliance between Christ and the world. They may seem to be far as the poles asunder; but in point of fact, there is nothing that more shows an energetic spirit of evil at work in the world than the way in which he marshals and combines these two armies, that outwardly look enemies to each other. And when we turn them into positive commands instead of negative prohibitions, we find three laws for Christian speech. While that would be awkward speech in our culture, such repetition was then a way of laying emphasis. NASB Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth. The Christian ethic is one of mutual obligation, in which the rights and the obligations rest with every man. No doubt Simon the Pharisee was a good man; but Jesus was more than good, he was chrestos ( G5543) . There are no enemies so deadly as those who, having received enough truth to over-balance them and to abuse to their own self-exaltation, turn again, and would rend the church of God, wherein they learnt all that gives them power to be specially mischievous. As he says, "having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether it be things on earth or things in heaven.". Paul sometimes spoke of the "hidden wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 2:7; see also Colossians 1:26; 3:3). But he adds: "If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled;" and we must not weaken this. He it is who has now revealed the mystery that was kept hid through ages and generations. He is answerable to God, just as his workmen are answerable to him. 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. 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. Such is the only sure root of all blessing, and in this above all is real faith and spirituality shown. There was no such thing as a code of working conditions. One of the best tests of any word is: "Can we speak it and in the same breath name the name of Jesus? In this passage Paul speaks of the things of which the Christian must divest himself, and in Colossians 3:12 he will continue the picture and speak of the things which the Christian must put on. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Different nations, who either despised or hated each other, were drawn into the one family of the Christian Church. He it is who fills the saints, guarding them from the excitement of the flesh, and guiding into that holy joy which issues in thanksgiving and praise. While He lived, this work was wholly unaccomplished. Every right-minded person revolts from it as a lusus naturae, and a piece of affectation or acting. So the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Him. Upon all such things the wrath of God must fall. But they are to be the people in whose midst the glory of Jehovah will take up its abode. He does not say "against you," because, in truth, the Colossian saints had never been under the law and its ordinances; they had been Gentiles. He earnestly presses to mutual love and compassion, ver 12-17. As Rev., set your mind. But there is a crowning quality: "And above all these things put on charity," because this is, as nothing else can be, the fullest sign of that which God is Himself, the energy of His nature. J. No doubt we may detect the flaws of man's negligence, not knowing how to treat with becoming care the precious deposit of truth; but there is nothing more. Christian speech must be kind and pure and honest to all men and in all places. If a divine person was pleased to appear here below, and to bring in unimagined goodness and power, dealing with every need and every one with whom He came in contact, and who sought or even accepted His gracious action, it might have been supposed that man could not resist such unhesitating love and unmeasured power. The Christian will see things, not as they appear to men, but as they appear to God." 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