Paul's Epistle to the Colossians
4/21/19
Tom Lowe
Lesson VC1 - Put On The New Man, Renewed In The Image Of Our Creator (Colossians 3:10-11)
Scripture: Colossians 3:10-11 (NIV)
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Lesson VC1
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
When a man becomes a Christian, there ought to be a complete change in his personality. He puts off his old self and puts on a new self. We very often evade the truth on which the New Testament is adamant; that when a person becomes a Christian there should be change occur in their life and this change will be progressive. This new creation is continually renewed {2]. It makes a man grow continually in grace and knowledge {3] until he reaches that which he was meant to be ? manhood in the spiritual image of God {4].
There is another new creation that I want to mention, the Church is a new creation. Paul declares that Jesus is the Author of the created world (Col. 1:15-17). Everything was made by Him and through Him and for Him. He sustains creation by His own power and holds everything together. Jesus has first place (preeminence) over all creation. He is also the Head over the new creation, the Church (1:18). This is a society of men and women who have been supernaturally created through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
The new creation is the result of Christ's deliverance from the fall of Adam. In the Garden of Eden Adam lived before God in a state of righteousness. However, he acted in disobedience, and the result of his sin was disastrous for mankind. His entire nature was transformed. He became a self-centered individual instead of being Christ-centered. His sin also affected the entire human race. All men now bear the nature of Adam?sinfully depraved and spiritually separated from God. This change has transformed the way we as humans relate to one another. Human society is terribly divided in many ways: language, culture, geography, tradition, and religion. Christ, as the second Adam came to reverse the curse caused by Adam and to create a new society of people. The walls that separated humanity have now been broken down (v. 11) through Christ. God has created a body in which all believers enter and become a part, regardless of one's background. Christ is all that matters now!
11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
One of the great effects of Christianity is that it destroys the barriers. In it, there is neither Greek {5] nor Jew {6], circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian {1], slave nor free man. The ancient world was full of barriers. The Greek looked down on the barbarian; and to the Greek, any man who did not speak Greek was a barbarian, which literally means a man who says "bar-bar." The Greek was the aristocrat of the ancient world and he knew it. The Jew looked down on every other nation. He belonged to God's chosen people, and the other nations were fit only to be fuel for the fires of hell. The Scythian was notorious as the lowest of the barbarians; the Greeks said he is more barbarian than the barbarians and a little short of being a wild beast. He was proverbially the savage, who terrorized the civilized world with his bestial atrocities. The slave was not even classified in ancient law as a human being; he was merely a living tool, with no rights of his own. His master could either beat or brand or maim or even kill him at his whim; he did not even have the right to marry. There could not be any fellowship in the ancient world between a slave and a free man.
In Christ, all these barriers were broken down and this short passage shows the barriers which Christianity destroyed.
(i) It destroyed the barriers which came from birth and nationality. Different nations, who either despised or hated each other, were drawn into the one family of the Christian Church. Men of different nationalities, who would have leaped at each other's throats, sat in peace beside each other at the Table of the Lord.
(ii) It destroyed the barriers which came from ceremony and ritual. Circumcised and uncircumcised were drawn together in the one fellowship. To a Jew, a man from any other nation was unclean; when he became a Christian every man of every nation became a brother.
(iii) It destroyed the barriers between the cultured and the uncultured. The Scythian was the ignorant barbarian of the ancient world; the Greek was the aristocrat of learning. The cultured and the uncultured came together in the Christian Church. The greatest scholar in the world and the simplest son of toil can set together in perfect harmony in the Church of Christ.
(iv) It destroyed the barrier between class and class. The slave and free man came together in the Church. 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. In the presence of God, the social distinctions of the world become irrelevant.
"Christ is all, and is in all," that is, He is absolutely everything, everything that matters. Because Jesus Christ is the Savior of all believers, He is equally the all-sufficient Lord of them all. A verse like this reveals to us what the true Christian society ought to be. How far we fall short of its ideal in practice, the racial controversies in so-called Christian countries bear this out.
When Jesus becomes everything to everyone, there is the potential for incredible unity in the midst of extreme diversity. His love binds together believers who naturally would hate each other. As the old life with all its prejudices and sin is put off, believers are being united through continuous spiritual renewal in the knowledge of Christ. We are a new creation living new lives for a new Master.
Regardless of former status, a believer is raised with Christ, possesses divine nature, and is led by the Holy Ghost. Regardless of the color of his skin, the religion which he may have practiced, his background from the standpoint of being savage or civilized, bond or free, when a person believes on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, that individual becomes one of us who belong to the body of Christ: "YE ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS.
Summary
In this passage the apostle confirms the universal relevance of the Gospel to people of every race and national background. Paul is saying that racism has no part in the nature that has been renewed by the imprint of God's character. This strong statement on the universality of the Gospel is especially interesting in light of conditions in the Colossians Church. In these few words, Paul speaks directly to the Jewish and non-Jewish circumcision question. And he also takes a swipe at Gnostic arrogance towards the uneducated by his reference to barbarians and Scythians. To the religiously arrogant Jews (who thought all Gentiles were "dogs."), and to the aristocratic and snobbish Greeks, the barbarians and Scythians were the lowest forms of human life. In his brief reference to "bond" and "free," Paul undoubtedly added shock to shock as he made the point that in God's sight there is no difference between a slave and a free person. Slaves in the first century had no rights at all but in God's new society there is no recognition of class. This reference to slavery is also quite significant in view of Paul's letter to Philemon, who lived in or near Colosse, in which Paul made an appeal on behalf of Onesimus a runaway slave.
In a few words, Paul has let his readers know that in Christ, all the barriers that divide people are down. Christianity is a barrier destroyer ? all people are equal before God ? Amazing Grace!
Special notes and Scripture
[1} (v. 11) (v. "Scythian" (v. 11) is the name of a rude, warlike nomad from the northern steppes; he typifies the savage. These ancient people invaded the Fertile Crescent in the seventh century BC. Noted for their savagery, they were the most hated and feared of all the so-called barbarians.
[2} (v. 10) “Renewed”: see Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18. This Greek word describes a new quality of life that did not exist before (see Rom. 12:2; Eph 4:22). Just like a baby is born complete but immature, the new man is complete but has the capacity to grow.
[3} (v. 10) "Knowledge," as used in verse 10, means a deep, thorough knowledge, without which there can be no spiritual growth or renewal (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Pet. 2:2). When Paul writes that believers are being continually "renewed in knowledge," he assures believers of the wonderful, full, and complete knowledge that God has promised those who take His way.
[4} (v. 10), "In the image of its Creator." It is God's plan that believers become more and more like Jesus Christ, the One who made them (see Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; 1 John 3:2).
[5} "Greek" (v. 11) is used here for a Gentile or non-Jew.
[6} "Jew" (v. 11) refers to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac.
