Neither the Gnostics nor any other unbelievers can understand this life, because the life is in Christ and therefore is hidden from their view. The New Testament is unsparing in its condemnation of the gossiping tongues which poison truth. Then you have a happy relationship. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. The duty of the parent is discipline, but it is also encouragement. It becomes something which is entered into not merely for the convenience of the husband, but in order that both husband and wife may find a new joy and a new completeness in each other. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing here into heaven, this same Jesus is going to come again" ( Acts 1:11 ). thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1992); John A. McLean, "Did Jesus Correct the Disciples View of the Kingdom?" A blaze of light springs up among the hills; the storm ceases; the gloom is . The children of Israel made a tragic mistake thinking, "Well, we are God's chosen people, and we can live like the nations around us." The truth in Christ is not merely that God came down to man in love, but that man, the believer in Christ, is now dead and risen in Him. It is necessary to mortify sins, because if we do not kill them, they will kill us. In the light of that Cross the world's wealth and ambitions and activities are seen at their true value; and, the Christian is enabled to set his whole heart on the things which are above. And in us, poor feeble souls, why should not this peace rule in our hearts, to the which also we are called in one body? The rule for the wife: submit yourself unto your own husband. The very fact that I have accepted Jesus Christ, the whole concept is that I have renounced the life of the flesh. It makes a man grow continually in grace and knowledge until he reaches that which he was meant to be--manhood in the image of God. Fornication and uncleanness must go. (433) See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. It is interesting to see that from the beginning the Church was a singing Church. And, to anger, is not in the original text. Actually, I have seen something that I think is a terrible evil. The life of a Christian is hid with Christ. (i) We have seen repeatedly that the early Christians regarded baptism as a dying and a rising again. "Let no man judge you" is the exhortation. "All" the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Jesus. Let His peace rule. This is to be spiritually minded (Romans 8:6), and to seek and desire a better country, that is, a heavenly,Hebrews 11:14; Hebrews 11:16. Can we speak it, remembering that he will hear?" Colossians 3:2 ESV Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 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. Seek marks the practical striving; set your mind, the inward impulse and disposition. Colossians 3:2 Vincent's Word Studies Set your affection () Lit., be minded, think. The Christian forbears and forgives; and he does so because a forgiven man must always be forgiving. It was not the Father, but the Godhead. How is it to be done? 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 way to right action is to appoint Jesus Christ as the arbiter between the conflicting emotions in our hearts; and if we accept his decisions, we cannot go wrong. She trusts my judgment; she trusts my wisdom. Mortify them, kill them, suppress them, as weeds or vermin which spread and destroy all about them. And you should be seeking those things which are above where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God. John said, "If a man says he loves God and yet hates his brother, he is a liar" ( John 4:20 ). 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. In it there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free man. One of the best tests of any action is: "Can we do it, calling upon the name of Jesus? At the second coming of Christ there will be a general meeting of all the saints; and those whose life is now hid with Christ shall then appear with Christ in that glory which he himself enjoys, John 17:24. It is used of wine which has grown mellow with age and lost its harshness. This He was pleased to begin in resurrection from the dead. II. It is not at all, " since ye continue." It is most true in its place; but it addresses rather the sense of responsibility than the communion of affections of the children of God. He was minister of both, and of the latter, it would seem, in a peculiar and weighty sense: not merely as ministering to the church, but as the instrument that God has employed to make known to us its character and calling more than any other. 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. We have to loose everything, and then he is going to take off. That's not a wise thing to do. Verse 1 Paul described himself as an *apostle of Christ Jesus. The whole direction of the Christian ethic is not to ask: "What do others owe to me?" That which is hidden is concealed; the world cannot recognize the Christian. Is it all we want to draw from Him? Thus the most perfect harmony reigns between all the apostles; but Paul was emphatically minister of the gospel, and minister of the church. He divested himself of one kind of life and put on another. Slaves, obey in all things those who are your human masters, not only when you are watched, like those whose only desire is to please men, but in sincerity of heart, reverencing the Lord. But the apostle meant not so much to administer consolation to these Colossian saints as to caution them. But they are to be the people in whose midst the glory of Jehovah will take up its abode. And this the apostle was doing, and particularly for one that came from them. The mystery is now revealed, even the relation of Christ and the church; the actual testimony of God's counsels in Christ to those who compose His body. It will be noted that this section is far longer than the other two; and its length may well be due to long talks which Paul had with the runaway slave, Onesimus, whom later he was to send back to his master Philemon. All the privileges and rights belonged to the parent and all the duties to the child. And the reason is because Christ sits at the right hand of God. He is in effect saying that his Christianity must make him a better and more efficient slave. Paul could think more deeply than any man who ever tried to express the Christian faith; he could travel along uncharted pathways of thought; he could scale the heights of the human mind, where even the best equipped theologian finds it hard to follow him; but always at the end of his letters he turns to the practical consequences of it all. That my life be so completely bound up and centered in Christ that He is my life. Things which the world thought important, he will no longer worry about. 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. Paul goes on to list some of the things which the Colossians must cut right out of life. Such is the only sure root of all blessing, and in this above all is real faith and spirituality shown. They defined it as the sinful desire for what belongs to others. It was in no wise the old thing, elevated by the glory of Him who had deigned to descend into it, but a new state of things, of which the risen Christ is both the Head and beginning; as it is said, "Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.". 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. 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. (ii) It destroyed the barriers which came from ceremonial and ritual. Yet He has absolute peace, never broken or ruffled for an instant. Things above are unseen and eternal, while earthly things are temporary and passing away ( 2 Cor. His function was to fill up the word of God, "even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.". The two words are orge ( G3709) and thumos ( G2372) , and the difference between them is this. 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. Max Miller was one of the great experts of the science of language. Let us look briefly at each of these three spheres of human relationships. "Watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak." When the Christians unite in breaking bread, they show forth the death of Christ till He come. If there was danger, certainly it was love to admonish them; and in this spirit he therefore says, "If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled.". As for the apostle he lays before them another point. This is the kind of peak of devotion which we can only dimly understand and only haltingly and imperfectly express. Neither completeness in Christ, nor joyful sense of heavenly relationship, nor heed to our own relations in this life, should weaken for an instant, but rather minister to an increased sense of the need and value of depending on God. Before we begin to study the passage in some detail, we must note two great general principles which lie behind it and determine all its demands. It was not wonderful that he said in Colossians 1:1-29, "If ye continue in the faith rooted and grounded, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel." He gets cold.Two rules: wives submit, husbands love. It is exactly the same line of thought as that of Jesus when he demanded that a man should cut off a hand or a foot, or tear out an eye when it was leading him into sin ( Matthew 5:29-30). 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." But does this so much as resemble the provision of grace for the Christian? There was much more than this. But I must repeat that there is not a single apostle who so much as speaks of being justified by faith, except the apostle of the Gentiles. Yet most people today have never heard of John Gill. Have you renounced these hidden things of the world? He is the only divine source, sphere, and means of real growth for the soul. There was no such notion as only caring for the saints in his own particular place. The Christian should never forget that he will give account for every idle word he speaks. But there is a contrary danger. Without Him all sinks at once into dissolution. The Higher Aspirations of the Soul. But alas! How we want them to be better than we were. Resources . It is, therefore, a sin with a very wide range. "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Such prohibitory commands had their day; but the time of reformation is come. The master must treat the slave not like a thing, but like a person, with justice and with the equity which goes beyond justice. The essence of idolatry is, in fact, the desire to have more. The Colossians from their dabbling with tradition and philosophy were in danger on this side. Impossible that He could be aught but the first-born. It doesn't mean that he's saying it doesn't matter how you live. The life of the Christian is hidden with Christ in God. First the apostle brings in all things as a whole, the universal creaturehood, earthly and heavenly; thus giving us an adequate notion of the perfect triumph of God at the time when it seemed as if Satan had completely succeeded through man against the counsels of God. Leave me alone." (Read all of Colossians 3) Complete Concise I. Having Christ among them, heavenly glory is their hope, even to share with Him that glory. He will go on using the things of the world but he will use them in a new way. 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. The language does not in the smallest degree insinuate that there is any uncertainty for a believer. I could imagine that, feeling as he did, his rifle and equipment must have been like a ton weight. The life of the Christian is hid with Christ in God. 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?" CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES. But there is far more than that: "If ye then be risen with Christ." The epistle to the Ephesians develops the body in its rich and varied privileges; the epistle to the Colossians brings before us the Head, and not only this, but the glories of Him who holds that relation to the church. So the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The word signifies to mind them, and think on them, to favour and approve of them, to be affectionately desirous of them, and concerned for them; for where the treasure is, the heart should be; and as the saints' best things are above, their minds and affections should be there likewise; their contemplation should be on those things, and their Do not be uneasy at the talk of critics: it is natural for dealers to cry up their wares. In Romans the emphatic point is simply death, because the argument of the apostle in chapter 6 does not admit of going beyond the truth that the baptized believer is alive from the dead not exactly risen, but alive unto God. His labours were not merely indefatigable, but accompanied by the sorest trial and anguish of spirit, as well as continual detraction with public hatred and persecution. There is death and burial of all we were; but there is here at least resurrection with Christ death and resurrection. Our affections should not be fixed on houses and lands; on scenes of fashion and gaiety; on low and debasing enjoyment. A short greeting Paul began most of his letters in this way. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. he was minister of both. Yes, Christ is in all, and Christ is all. Sections. The Scythian was the ignorant barbarian of the ancient world; the Greek was the aristocrat of learning. The story goes that a French merchant purchased an enormous 112-3/16-carat diamond. THE CHRISTIAN WORKMAN AND THE CHRISTIAN MASTER ( Colossians 3:18-25 ; Colossians 4:1 continued). Further, this change is progressive. Christian life and growth come from God through a direct relationship between the believer and Christ. 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. The word for slander is blasphemia ( G988) , which the King James Version translates blasphemy. All things were created by Him, no doubt; but they were created for Him also not by Him for the Father. Here the candy, ha, ha, ha, ha." 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