Colossians 3:5-7. 5Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
One of the dangers of telling Christians that they are no longer bound to “cause-effect” living is that we are left with Christians who are wondering how to live. For many, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under them when you try to replace living from Christian principles with living from the person of Christ. When performance and scorekeeping are taken off the table, what are we left with? How do we even know where to go next as Christians? Religion is our default.
So if it’s not about religion then what is the Christian life about? Are we supposed to just passively sit by and wait for Jesus to return? What is the Christian’s ongoing disposition in Christ?
Paul answers with two metaphors: 1) Sin killing – Put to death therefore what is earthly in you, and 2) Clothes changing – But now you must put them all away…seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.
Once again, here we see the basic difference between law and gospel. If law takes us from what we do to what we must become, then the gospel takes us from what we have become to what we do.
You have died…therefore put to death what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
You have put off the old self and have put on the new self…now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
You see what we do always flows out of who we are. We can’t be saved into the transforming love of Christ and passively stay the same. Yes, we passively rest in God’s love, but that love inside us will not stay passive. Like rain that flows to the sea, it will flow powerfully out of us as a stream of living water. It will actively love others by putting sin to death and putting off the old self.
Therefore, if we truly love the family of God, our brothers and sisters in Christ, we will put to death the earthly sexual sins that rage inside of us – sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Then, if we truly love the family of God, we will also put away (like changing clothes) the earthly speech that rages forth toward others from our mouths (or our socials) – anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk…Do not lie to one another. Just like our inner passions, our outer speech is devouring the body of Christ and harming the fellowship of the Spirit. How on earth can we love each other as brothers and sisters if anger, wrath, malice, slander, and lies are flowing out of our mouths? We can’t. So like Lazarus coming out of the tomb, let’s take these zombie clothes off, and put back on our resurrection robes.
Does all this sound like the same old rule-following to you? It’s not. It’s the opposite. It’s not law-keeping to find love; it’s living out of the Love that has found us. It’s living as the new self. Living in to live is Christ.
You: What do you need to actively put to death in your heart today? What speech do you need to put off?
You in Christ: Why is it so important to begin with who we are before looking at what we do?
Christ in you: How might the Christ in you live out his sexuality? What might his speech sound like?
To Live is Christ 