MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Colossians 3:9-11
The New Spiritual Nature.
In the primitive Church it was customary for the new converts, after putting aside their heathenish vestments, to array themselves in white garments, that they might indicate, in the most public manner, the great change which had taken place. It was perhaps in allusion to this custom that the apostle bases his exhortation. A courtier would not dare to insult his sovereign by appearing before him in squalid and tattered garments, but would be specially studious to attire himself in a dress every way suited to his rank and character. So the believer would not dishonour God and disgrace the religion he has embraced by exhibiting the vices and passions that characterised his former unrenewed state, but is the more solicitous to magnify the grace of God in a life of outward consistency and purity. In the former verses the writer has insisted on sanctification in its negative aspect—the mortification of sin, the putting off the old man. In these words he deals with sanctification on its positive side, and shows that it is the putting on the new spiritual nature, in which the believer is ever advancing to a higher knowledge. Observe:—
I. That the possession of the new spiritual nature implies a complete change of the whole man.—“Seeing that ye have put off the old man, with his deeds, and have put on the new man” (Colossians 3:9-10). The believer has a twofold moral personality. There is in him the old man—the sinful principle; and there is in him also the new—the God-like, spiritual nature. Whatever we bring with us from the womb of our mother is the old man; whatever we receive by the grace of the Holy Spirit is the new. In the great spiritual transformation experienced by every believer there is a twofold and coincident operation—the putting off of the old and the putting on of the new; there is an act of renunciation and unclothing and an act of reception and investment. This change is complete; it pervades the whole man, ruling every power, fashioning the character, and inspiring the entire life. This change is divine in its origin and outworking. Man has no power of himself to effect the renewal of his nature. It is “not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” It is the triumph of divine grace, and to God only all praise is due.
II. That the new spiritual nature is ever advancing to a higher knowledge.—“Which is renewed in knowledge” (Colossians 3:10), which is ever being renewed unto perfect knowledge (Lightfoot). The present tense is used, and it is indicated that the new spiritual nature does not reach perfection at once, but is in a state of growth and development. The realisation of the new life in man is bounded by the amount and character of the knowledge he possesses, and by the clearness and tenacity with which that knowledge is apprehended and maintained. The experience may be below the actual knowledge possessed, but cannot be beyond it. Whatever degree of holiness the soul attains, it is still susceptible of advancement. The process of renewal is continually going on, as the statue grows, under the chisel of the sculptor, into a more perfect form of beauty. The knowledge referred to is the true knowledge of Christ as opposed to the false knowledge of the heretical teachers. The process of renewal increases the capacity of the believing soul to appreciate the knowledge of divine and heavenly realities, and the increase in the knowledge of the highest things reacts advantageously on the renewed nature. The higher we ascend in the knowledge of God, the more like Him do we become.
III. That the new spiritual nature is refashioned after the most perfect model.—“After the image of Him that created him” (Colossians 3:10). Man was originally created in the image of God, that image consisting in a moral resemblance—“in righteousness and true holiness.” Christ is Himself “the image of the invisible God,” and conformity to Him is the pattern of our renewal, the all-perfect standard towards which we are continually to approximate. The moral image which we lost in the fall of the first Adam is more than regained in the second Adam. Redemption places man on a higher platform than he would have occupied if he had retained the moral condition in which he was originally created. It brings him nearer to God, gives him a broader and more sympathetic insight into the divine character and purposes, and makes him more like God. In the spiritual region into which the believer in Christ is transferred all minor distinctions vanish. Not only do they not exist, they cannot exist. It is a region to which they are utterly unsuited, and cannot therefore be recognised.
IV. That the new spiritual nature is superior to all earthly distinctions.—
1. It is superior to all national distinctions. “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew” (Colossians 3:11). To the Jew the whole world was divided into two classes: Jews and Gentiles—the privileged and unprivileged portions of mankind; religious prerogative being taken as the line of demarcation. But such a narrow distinction is antagonistic to the broad and generous spirit of the gospel. Let a man be but renewed in Christ Jesus, and it inquires not as to what country he belongs.
2. It is superior to all ritualistic distinctions.—“Circumcision nor uncircumcision” (Colossians 3:11). It matters not whether a man is born in a Christian country, and brought up in the midst of the greatest ecclesiastical privileges, or whether he is cradled in the darkest paganism; in either case a change of heart is absolutely necessary. No branch of the universal Church can claim the exclusive right of admitting souls into heaven; and it is intolerable impertinence to insist upon the necessity of ceremonial observances in order to salvation—as was the case with the false teachers of Colossæ, and as is the case with the pretentious ritualism of the day. “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”
3. It is superior to all political distinctions.—“Barbarian, Scythian” (Colossians 3:11). Like the Jews, the Greeks divided mankind into two classes—Greeks and barbarians—civilisation and culture being now the criterion of distinction. The Scythian was the lowest type of barbarian. Christianity acknowledges no such distinction. Whether gathered from the most refined or most barbarous nation, all are one in Christ Jesus. The gospel has broken down the narrow and arbitrary classification of the race, maintained the right of all nations of the world to be classed as one genus, and replaced the barbarian by the more humane and unifying title of brother. Max Müller writes: “Humanity is a word which you look for in vain in Plato or Aristotle; the idea of mankind as one family, as the children of one God, is an idea of Christian growth; and the science of mankind, and of the languages of mankind, is a science which, without Christianity, would never have sprung into life.”
4. It is superior to all social distinctions.—“Bond nor free” (Colossians 3:11). The diversities of condition which divide men in the present world are unknown in the sphere of this spiritual renewal. The grace which changed the heart of Philemon the master also renewed the soul of Onesimus, his slave; and often the bondman is the first to enter into the liberty of the children of God. Here the rich and poor, the nobility and peasantry, meet together, and form one common brotherhood.
V. That the new spiritual nature recognises Christ as everything.—“But Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11). All belongs to Him; He originated and sustains all, and He is in all. He is everything to the believer—the source and centre of his life, the ideal after which he continually aspires, the possession by which He will be enriched for ever. The believer is a living, speaking, acting expression of the Christ within him. Christ, without the exclusion of any nation or sect, unites all; and so, through His indwelling in all, is Himself all.
Lessons.—
1. Christ is the Author, Pattern, and End of the new spiritual nature.
2. To put on the new spiritual nature it is essential to believe in Christ.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Colossians 3:9-11. Religion a Change of Life.
I. Evident by putting off the old nature and its sins (Colossians 3:9).
II. By putting on a new nature renewed after the divine likeness (Colossians 3:10).
III. Superior to all conventional distinctions (Colossians 3:11).
IV. In which Christ is everything (Colossians 3:11).
Colossians 3:11. Christ All and in All.
I. Christ is all and in all in the realm of creation.—The vast fabric of created things sprang into being at His word. Out of nothing He created all that is. The distance between being and no-being is so great that nothing short of infinite power can cause that to be which never before existed. The heavens are “the firmament of His power.” He made the stars, kindled their brilliant fires, fixed their rank, regulated their motions, and appointed their mission. He formed the earth, robed it in vestments of ever-changing beauty, and endowed it with unfailing productiveness. He fashioned man after the model of His own illustrious image, freighted him with faculties of wondrous compass, indicated the possibilities of his career, and the character of his destiny. Christ is the grand centre of the magnificent systems by which He is encircled, and which He has grouped around Himself by the exercise of His creative hand. On Him their continued existence every moment hangs.
II. Christ is all and in all in the sphere of providence.—He sustains and governs all. Close as population follows on the heels of production, food never fails for man and beast. Study the sublime epic on the divine preservation furnished by Psalms 104, and consider how the history of human experience in all ages confirms the truth. Christ controls all the forces of nature. The sweep of the heavenly bodies, the surge and re-surge of the tide, the eccentric course and velocity of the wind, the departure and return of the light, the roll of the dreaded thunder, the recurrent phases of the seasons, all are obedient to His nod. He is predominant among the spiritual agencies of the universe. He restricts the power of the great enemy of man. He restrains the flow of evil. He governs the complicated passions of human hearts, and makes even the wrath of men to praise Him. He guards, guides, and delivers His Church. The greatness of His providential power is seen in His accomplishing the mightiest results by insignificant instrumentalities. He is conducting all things to a glorious consummation.
III. Christ is all and in all in the work of redemption.—He suffered to the death on behalf of the sinning race. He was a voluntary victim. He was unique in His person—comprising in Himself the divine and human natures. As man, He met all the necessities of sinful and condemned humanity; as God, He answered all the requirements of the divine righteousness. While the greatest modern philosophers are puzzling their minds with an endless variety of methods for recovering man from his lapsed condition, we behold the problem solved in the life, sufferings, and death of Christ. That was a method of redemption that would never have occurred to a finite mind; and it is now beyond the range of the greatest human intellect to fathom. Christ, and Christ alone, could redeem. In that sphere He is all in all, or He is nothing. His work of redemption is an entrancing expression of the tenderest, deepest, most mysterious love.
IV. Christ is all and in all in the kingdom of glory.—He is the Head of all principalities and powers in the heavenly places. They depend on Him for life and purity, they obey His slightest word, they adore His infinite majesty, they delight in His hallowed fellowship. Christ is also Head over all things to the Church, which is His body; the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. He is the central attraction and source of bliss in the realm of glory. The redeemed cast their crowns before Him, and chant His praise in ceaseless anthems. If Christ were absent, heaven would lose its greatest charm.
“I love to think of heaven; its cloudless light,
Its tearless joys, its recognitions and its fellowships
Of love and joy unending; but when my mind anticipates
The sight of God incarnate, wearing on His hands,
And feet, and side, marks of the wounds
Which He, for me, on Calvary endured.
All heaven beside is swallowed up in this;
And He who was my hope of heaven below,
Becomes the glory of my heaven above.”
V. Christ is all and in all to the believing soul.—He appears as the great Emancipator; He delivers from the power of darkness, and translates the benighted but groping soul into the kingdom of light. He gives rest to the weary and heavy laden. He comforts the mourner. He defends and succours the tempted. He is the refuge in every time of distress. All the wants of the soul are anticipated and abundantly supplied. He will conduct safely through all the changeful scenes of this life; and finally invest the soul with the imperishable splendours of an endless future. Christ is the great necessity and the all-satisfying portion of the soul.
Lessons.—
1. Christ is supreme in all spheres.
2. Christ is the great need of the human soul.
3. Faith in Christ brings the soul into a personal participation in the divine fulness.
Christ is All and in All.
I. The essential glories of Christ.—He possesses all things.
II. Christ has purchased all blessings for us.—All temporal and all spiritual blessings.
III. All blessings are treasured up in Christ for the eternal use of His Church.
IV. He will keep His family in the possession of all good for ever.—W. Howels.