Sermons from the Epistle to the Colossians

RECONCILED!

COLOSSIANS 1:21-24

AUGUST 1, 1999

How do sinful people enter into a right relationship with God? That is the whole message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the question that a person begins to ask when he comes to grips with his separation from the Creator.

The trouble man faces is that he thinks he is capable by some measure of personal strength to put himself into a right relationship with God. Yet every attempt to do so only ends with frustration and ultimately, damnation. It is only by what God in Christ has done for sinful men that we can be reconciled to God.

Our text is a miniature of the entire gospel message. What does it teach us about being in a right relationship with God?

I. Alienation

The word "alienate" carries strong connotations. One dictionary defines it as "to estrange; to withdraw, as the affections; to make indifferent or averse, where love or friendship before subsisted." We use the word "alien" to refer to those who are strangers or outsiders. The proposition of Scripture is that apart from the grace of God, all of us are alienated from God.

After setting forth the "Christ Hymn" of 1:15-20, in which the Apostle glories in Christ as the beginning and focal point of both the creation and the church, he calls attention to the present situation of the Colossian believers. He is helping them to work through the matter of assurance and directing them away from the false teaching of those who were seeking to turn them away from Christ. He first reminds them of their alienation from God.

1. The common condition

Paul writes, "And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds," to show the common condition of all men. He speaks this in the past tense in reference to the Colossians since he seeks to affirm the work of Christ among them. But in typical Pauline fashion, he reminds them of what they were without Christ. The believer must never forget where he was and from what Christ saved him.

How broad does this brush of truth stroke humanity? All men are found to be in the same boat spiritually: sinners who are at enmity with God. Paul comments in Romans, "Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:7-8). Here Paul shows that there is a set disposition against God in all those who have never been born of the Spirit through faith in Christ.

This is a difficult thing for an unbelieving man to accept, especially if he is of a religious nature. Men will admit to a few petty sins along the way, but to say that they are alienated from God because the whole bent of their nature is against him, is something he cannot accept.

One of the great Christian women of the 18th century was Lady Huntingdon. She was involved in supporting mission work, especially in helping George Whitefield, the great evangelist, in his work. She would also set up evangelistic gatherings through her circle of the aristocrats in Britain. On one occasion she invited her friend, the Duchess of Buckingham, to hear George Whitefield preach at her home. Here is the reply that the Duchess sent to Lady Huntingdon, which reveals how much the sinful heart rejects the divine assessment of our sin. ...It is monstrous to be told, that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting; and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with the high rank and good breeding [quoted by Kent Hughes, PTW: Colossians & Philemon, 39].

How widespread is this human condition? "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one" (Romans 3:10-12). The repetition of "none...not even one" helps us to understand that it is not merely the non-religious or pagan-minded who are alienated from God, it is all men outside of Christ. This is seen in...

2. An inward disposition

Note the language used to describe this condition: "alienated and hostile in mind." The verb tense of "alienated" implies 'a settled alienation or estrangement' from God. It was not a passing problem that slipped into a person's life then quickly passed away. It is a problem that is rooted in the whole inward disposition of a person which he cannot himself remove. "Hostile in mind" could be translated as 'hating in the understanding'. There is an inward bent in all humanity to hate the law of God, to hate the revelation of the character of God, to hate the truth of the gospel. Can we admit that?

How is this seen in the Scripture? We need only look at the Gospels and see the encounters of Jesus with the religious leaders in Israel. The Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and priestly leaders were men who had given their lives to spiritual devotion to the law of God. They were well-versed in the Scriptures, exacting in their obedience, and pious in their attitudes. Yet look what Christ said of them. "I know that you are Abraham's descendants," i.e., as far as the physical relationship goes, "yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you." Here were the religious men who knew well, "You shall not kill" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Yet their passion was not for following Christ but putting him to death. They seethed with hatred toward Him. Why did they want to kill Jesus? Because he told them the truth. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father....You are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies....He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God (John 8:34-47 selected verses).

Where did this inward disposition come from so that it seethes with hatred toward the living God and the revelation of the gospel in Christ? Paul points back to the scene in the Garden of Eden when Adam fell into sin as being the starting point of this inward disposition in man. Romans 5 tells us, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--...by the transgression of the one the many died....The gift is not like that which /came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation....by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one....So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men;...For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners (5:12-19).

Paul adds yet another description of this inward disposition of man in Ephesians 4:17-19. Here we see the actual effect upon the mind apart from Christ in man's sinful nature. For this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

Words like "futility, darkened, excluded, ignorance, hardness, callused" help us to understand that man is not just in a weak state, he is helplessly separated from God! That is his natural disposition. Does this describe your own present condition? Note that what is inwardly true of a person will eventually result in outward manifestations.

3. An outward manifestation

The word engaged is added to the NASB translation since there is only a prepositional phrase following the announcement of their former alienation and hostility, "engaged in evil deeds." The sense of the Greek
is that the alienation and hostility in a person's understanding is manifest by an indulgence in evil deeds. What is inside will come out, Paul is saying.

With the Colossians, in a very pagan setting, this might have come out in an indulgence in sensual sins or covetous. In our own setting, it might be seen in arrogance or pride, in anger or revenge, in lust or impurity, in boasting or self-centeredness, in selfishness or abusiveness. Unfortunately, there seems to be no limit on the propensity for the human heart to display its sinfulness. We were reminded of this once again by the terrible tragedy in Atlanta when an angry man shot to death innocent people after killing his own family. How can anyone do such a thing? This is the capacity of every human being. We do not like to admit it and certainly think that we are incapable of such heinous acts. Yet it is only the restraining work of God's Spirit in our day that keeps the entire globe from being filled with the chaos witnessed in Atlanta this week (II Thess. 2:6-7).

One early Baptist pastor, Charles D. Mallary, expressed it with great clarity. The scriptural doctrine of depravity is not that every man is as bad as he possibly can be, for there may be indefinite progression in guilt:--nor that one man is necessarily as wicked as another,--for there may be as many shades of depravity as there are sinners in the universe. But it teaches us that man, by nature, is destitute of all holy principles and desires; that there is nothing in his character which is pleasing in the sight of God; that being alienated in his heart from God, corrupt in the very fountain of action, in the temper and spirit of his mind, all the actions that he performs, even those which are in themselves excellent and lovely, are still the service of an alien and a rebel, and consequently an abomination in the sight of heaven. Every imagination of the thought of his heart is only evil continually [quoted by Mark Coppenger, "The Ascent of Lost Man in Southern Baptist Preaching," Founders Journal, Summer 1996, p. 6].

But Paul's intention at this point is not to dwell on what they were apart from Christ. Instead, he wanted to focus on the grace shown to the Colossians through Christ and his reconciling work.

II. Reconciliation

Just as the strong force of "But God" in Ephesians 2:4 expresses the transition from our spiritual deadness into true life, the Apostle uses another forceful term, "But now" ("yet He has now"). The Greek has the two words in the emphatic position to show that the great shift occurs, from "the kingdom of darkness" into "the kingdom of His beloved Son." The statement of verse 22 points to the God-centeredness of the gospel. The focus in the gospel is never upon what man is doing to save himself or to help out in his salvation. It is ever upon what God in Christ has done for helpless sinners!

1. Divine intervention

I prefer the translation, "But now He has reconciled you in His fleshly body through death." We must think upon the divine intervention in our salvation. None of us came up with the idea that we needed to be saved on our own. None of us sought after God without him first working grace in our hearts. None of us called out to God for mercy without Him first intervening graciously in our lives. I believe that I Corinthians 1:26-31 carries much the same idea. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD."

This is the very same thing which our Lord taught in his earthly ministry. It was the intervention of the Father that was necessary for anyone to come to faith in Christ. "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me," Jesus stated. Then he added, "It is written in the prophets, 'AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me" (John 6:37, 45). Salvation is not man's great idea! It is an act of God from start to finish.

The Scripture illustrates this in a number of ways. In the story of Paul carrying the gospel to Europe, with Lydia being the first convert in Europe outside the city of Philippi, the focus of the work was not on Paul but on the Lord. Acts 16:14 tells us that Lydia "was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul." In Paul's first missionary journey as he traveled in the southern Galatian region, we read, "When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed," here is God's intervention, "to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48). When Peter announced the promise of salvation through faith in Christ during his Pentecost sermon, he added, "For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself" (Acts 2:39). Again, here is divine intervention, a God-centeredness in salvation.

But keeping in mind the divine intervention in salvation, we must see how He accomplished this work. This is where we focus upon the reconciling work of Jesus Christ.

2. Act of reconciliation

Reconciliation, as we saw in an earlier study, refers to the bringing together of two estranged parties. In the case of our relationship to God, it is a matter of God's righteous hostility or anger against sinners being removed and the hostility of wicked men being removed so that they truly love God, while God welcomes them as sons. The act of reconciliation in this case is the payment of a price necessary to remove the hostility from both sides, God's and man's. "Yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death."

This text tells us that the death of Jesus Christ was not an effort on God's part to bring us to a sympathetic understanding of God and being moved to repentance as we view the death of Christ. He declares that an actual work of reconciliation took place through the death of Christ. The estrangement and hostility was a reality. It could not be removed simply by divine declaration, for that would not have satisfied the righteous hostility of God toward sinners. The stress of reconciliation "is on the activity of God" [Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 235]. It was God the Father who purposed to redeem sinners. It was God the Father who, out of great mercy, sent his Son in the act of the Incarnation. It was God the Father who was "pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief" (Isa. 53:10). It was God the Father who acted through his Son to propitiate or satisfy his justice by delivering the eternal blow of his wrath upon Jesus Christ on the cross.

God the Son gladly bore the burden of our guilt before the wrath of his Father. Note the emphasis in this text, first upon the "fleshly body" of Christ and then upon his "death." The false teachers in Colossae were intimating that Jesus Christ did not take on an actual body but only appeared to be physical or human. Paul is insistent that a phantom could not face death! There was the necessity of God the Son becoming a man in order to face the judgment due to men. He did so that he might die an actual death on behalf of those who would believe. As Leon Morris writes, "Each time reconciliation is mentioned we have a reference to the means....Thus it is clear that reconciliation is closely tied up with the death of the Lord, and the implication is that this death really did something by way of removing barriers" [235].

The writer of Hebrews speaks on this same matter by referring to the inadequacy of all the Old Testament sacrifices. He writes, (Hebrews 10:5-10) Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, "SACRIFICE AND OFFERING THOU HAST NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY THOU HAST PREPARED FOR ME; IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN THOU HAST TAKEN NO PLEASURE. "THEN I SAID, 'BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE ROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME ) TO DO THY WILL, O GOD.'" After saying above, "SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN THOU HAST NOT DESIRED, NOR HAST THOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them" (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, "BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO THY WILL." He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Have you rested your faith and trust in Jesus Christ's work of reconciliation? It is only through his bloody death on the cross that the enmity and alienation between us and God has been removed. By faith, we receive what he has already accomplished.

3. Accomplishment in reconciliation

Lest we get the idea that salvation is just a decision relating to our future eternity with no consequence on our daily lives or effect upon our personal ethics, Paul writes that "He has now reconciled you...in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach." In light of the carelessness in Christian living which seemed to be threatening the Colossians, Paul explains that the work of reconciliation has a clear-cut aim. "Present" is the same word used in Romans 12:1 when referring to the Christian presenting his body to God as a living sacrifice. So the sacrificial element has some bearing on this term, especially when you consider the words "holy and blameless and beyond reproach" describing the sacrifice. But the key to understanding this is found in the phrase, "before Him." The Greek is literally, "right down to the eye of'. So, to what does he refer in this presentation?

I think we must certainly give consideration to the idea that one day Jesus Christ will present his bride before the Father "in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless" (Eph. 5:27). So there is a future look in this statement, pointing to that time in which we all stand before the Lord. How are we to stand before Him? We are to stand in the effects of reconciliation, with the work of Christ alone being our merit before the throne of God. As such, we stand holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

Having said this, I believe it is important to see the present implications in this statement as well. Does the Lord save us so that we might live unto ourselves in whatever ways we desire? His saving work in us actually changes us. There is a new dimension to our lives of holiness in thought, speech, and conduct. Of course this is not perfected until we stand before Christ. But the work of sanctification goes on nonetheless. The basis for the moral, ethical, social, spiritual changes in the believer is in the reconciling work of Christ. That is our foundation. Now we are to build upon that foundation in daily living through the power of the Spirit and revelation of God's Word.

III. Continuation

In a day of multiplied professions of faith but sparse Christian living, how do we know when someone has truly been on the receiving end of the reconciling work of Christ? Paul says that it is a simple issue: they continue on in Christ. They do not shrink back into the world; they do not abandon the gospel for some other religious persuasion; they do not quit living as a Christian. Those who have been reconciled continue on in the faith. How does Paul explain this?

1. In the true gospel

First he makes sure that the Colossians know he is not speaking something new to them or making their situation an exception to everyone else. No, the true gospel had been spoken to them just as it had been
spoken to others. What applies to others through the gospel applies to the Colossians as well. He tells them that this gospel was something "that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister."

The emphasis he makes is that the gospel is something which is proclaimed in real words by real people and which must be understood in order to be believed. In contrast, their opponents were speaking of some kind of mysterious experience which they could not clearly explain. Paul said, "Not so with the gospel!" It is truth which you heard, proclaimed propositionally, not only in their hearing but throughout their world. Perhaps Paul takes a forward look to the gospel's proclamation in all creation under heaven! Actually, this is a Hebraism which pointed to the expansiveness of the gospel at that time-frame. On top of it, Paul said that he was made a minister of the gospel. So this was not something with which he was only vaguely familiar. It was his life and calling from God, to proclaim the gospel. So the apostolic message was heard in order to be believed.

This is why we must give great attention to understanding the gospel and proclaiming it in its fullness. The truth of who Christ is and what he has done needs to be declared so that sinful men might believe and be saved. If our goal is only to elicit a decision without a corresponding understanding and faith, then we have abused the gospel.

2. Positive evidence

Paul points out that the reality of truly being reconciled is that you will "continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast." The conditional sentence, "if indeed you continue," could be translated, "assuming that you continue." In other words, Paul assumes this to be true of them. He was not writing to cast doubt on their salvation but to help them understand the nature of true conversion. When you are reconciled to God the effect of reconciliation shows up in the way you go on living your life. This is perseverance on the part of the believer or steadfastness as it is often termed. The word "continue" points to a continuous action and could be translated as "persist in or persevere."

What do you "persevere" in? The answer is "the faith firmly established and steadfast." The words are somewhat awkward to translate into English. They convey that our faith is first "solidly founded," built upon Jesus Christ; then "settled," fixed upon Jesus Christ alone. "Faith" points to the active exercise of trusting in Jesus Christ and his merits. So what Paul is saying is that the reality of genuiness is seen positively in having your anchor set upon a sure faith in Jesus Christ. It is solidly founded and settled upon Jesus Christ and no other. Perhaps this is one reason the biblical writers typically speak of "believe in the Lord Jesus" in the present tense; it is a continuation of faith not a momentary blip on the screen in one's life. You have been so affected by trusting in Christ and the wonders of his gospel work that you continually rest in his sufficiency.

3. Negative evidence

Paul states the same thing negatively, "and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard." Hope is an optimum word in the New Testament to describe the relationship we have with Christ. It is a confident expectation that what Jesus Christ secured for us in his death and resurrection will be totally fulfilled in the glory of his presence for eternity. So Paul questions the Colossians, 'Are you trying to move away from the hope, which is an anchor for your soul? Are you becoming enamored by the illusions of the mystics among you? Stick with the gospel. Rest in Christ. The sure hope is in him alone'.

The picture given in someone moving away is an instability of moving from one place to another to another. The gospel does not offer multiple hopes but "the hope of the gospel." It is not about satisfying man's temporal whims, but providing the richness of an eternal relationship to God through Christ.

Conclusion

Do you know the reality of being reconciled to God? If so, then it is evidenced by your continuation in a sure and stable faith in Christ. You are not trying to find life anywhere else; not the world, material possessions, pleasure. You are anchored in Christ alone; and from him you will not budge!

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