Before his death, Winston Churchill placed great importance upon his funeral arrangements. He requested the services of two separate buglers. After the benediction of his funeral service one of these buglers was elevated on the right side of the balcony. This particular bugler played “Taps”, the universal signal that the day was over. After this there was a long silence which was followed by a bugler on the other side of the balcony who played “Reveille”, the signal of a new day beginning. It was Churchill’s way of communicating that while we say “Good night” here, it’s “Good morning” up there!
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believes in Me, though He were dead, yet shall He live” (John 11:25). When a man steps out of the grave of sin, he steps into new life. This partly means that he says, in effect, “Good night” to sin and “Good morning” to holiness. We could say that the believer grows into holiness by following new covenant requirements, which are established for the new life in Christ. These requirements are obviously found in Scripture. The Apostle Paul deals with such a thought in Colossians 3.
In Colossians 3:5 Paul is transitioning into the practical section of this Epistle. The word "Therefore" marks this transition. This word says much. By using this word Paul is pointing back to everything that he has written so far (theology concerning the Gospel), and is saying in effect, "Now because of the Gospel, this is how you need to behave". In fact, he spends the rest of this letter telling the Christian how to behave. Other examples of Paul spending the first part of a letter on theology (who we are in Christ), and the second half of a letter on practical issues (how we are to behave because we are in Christ) are found throughout the New Testament (most notably Ephesians and Romans).
God does care how the Christian lives. The Gospel affects one’s life greatly, if it is truly the foundation of that life. Belief will always affect behavior. Doctrine will always impact duty. Paul affirmed that receiving the grace of Christ in salvation was never a license to sin (Romans 6:1-2). It does mean something to follow Christ. In fact, Christ Himself said so (Luke 9:23).
In verses 5-11 Paul gives two vice lists followed by two lines of reasoning. Very simply, vices are bad practices (i.e. sin). Vices are obviously in contrast to virtues (Paul will speak about these in vs. 12), which are good practices. Thus, a vice list is a list of bad practices to avoid. In giving two vice lists, Paul is calling the believer to put away the sins listed therein. Paul also gives two lines of reasoning as to why the believer should avoid these sins. Let’s just look at vss. 5-7 first. In these verses we find the first list of requirements for the new life followed by the first line of reasoning for the new life (for these requirements).
I. The first list of requirements: put to death sins of sensuality (vs. 5)
The key phrase found in vs. 5- “put to death the members of your earthly body” (NIV)- is important. Paul is commanding Christians to “treat as dead” certain body parts. Obviously, this is a metaphor similar to Christ metaphors (Matthew 5:29-30). Paul is not talking about literally hurting oneself. Rather, he is allowing the various body parts to represent the sins listed in vs. 5. Why? The most natural answer is that different body parts carry out the sins in vs. 5. He is using a figure of speech to arouse attention. He is commanding Christians, therefore, to get rid of everything about their Christian walk that comes into conflict with the Spirit of God that now indwells them because of the Gospel. The Gospel saved them from those sins; therefore they ought not to practice those sins.
The new nature, which is granted to the one who places faith in Christ, does not immediately eradicate (kill) the power of sin in the believer’s life. That will not come until later (Romans 8:23). In Romans 6:6, Paul says the Gospel will prevent us from being “slaves” to sin in this lifetime. But that does not mean that there will not be a real, experiential struggle with sin until Christ returns.
This is good news though because the Bible tells us that we don’t kill this sin by simply trying harder. We kill it by the power of the Spirit, which now indwells us if we are indeed resting and trusting in Christ (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:16). So we are commanded to put to death sin, but we are given the ability to do just that because of the Gospel, that is manifested in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! This “power over sin” even includes power over sexual sins, which we often view more offensive than other sins. Paul says the power over sin that the believer possesses begins with power over “immorality”, which refers to any type of illicit sex. But this power also works against the other sins listed in vs. 5: “impurity, passion, and evil desire". These sins focus primarily on unclean, sexual thoughts. God is concerned just as much with the inside of a believer as He is with the outside. And just in case sexual sin is not a struggle for you (inward or outward), Paul lists “greed” as the last sin in vs. 5. Greed is literally the same thing as “covetousness”. To covet something is to desire to have it with an unquenchable thirst. The Greeks would define coveting as a desire that could not be satisfied. They illustrated coveting by saying that it was like filling a bowl up with water that had a hole in it. No matter how much water you tried to put in the bowl, it would never be full due to the hole. When one covets something, he is willing to hurt anyone or anything to feed his selfish desire. The only problem is, he does more hurting than he expects because he never gets “full”.
At the end of vs. 5, Paul refers to “greed” simply as“idolatry”. Greed is idolatrous because it seeks one’s desires over God’s; love of self over love of God; and rule of self over rule of God. In short, it replaces God with self on the throne. Thus, self, becomes the object of worship instead of God. This makes "greed" idolatry. Greed is the root of all sin because all sin begins with what one desires. So Paul is really talking about all sin in vs. 5 by including greed.
The believer must be actively engaged in killing the sin in his life. As the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter was noted for saying, “Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you…kill it before it kills you”! This is the essence of what Paul is saying in vs. 5.
In the next post we will look at point #2- the line of reasoning for why the believer ought to put sin to death.
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