After taking last Sunday to comment on the failed prediction of the end of the world, I am returning to Colossians. In this chapter, Paul begins to tell Christians how they ought to live until that end comes.
Colossians 3:1-4
Textual Introduction: Paul is making a transition here. It’s an important one. He has made his argument for the superiority of Christ as Savior and the superiority of the salvation Christ offers. Now he is opening the way to talk about the superiority of the life Christ inspires.
This passage concludes the formal doctrinal portion of the letter and marks the introduction to the practical portion of the letter. But, of course, just as there were practical lessons in the first two chapters, there will be doctrinal truths to be discovered in the next two chapters.
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Have you heard reference to a “paradigm shift?” The term describes those occasions when circumstances demand we change our whole way of thinking about events or issues.
Such a paradigm shift occurs when we receive new information which causes us to look at circumstances in a different way. Here’s a simple example.
Let’s suppose you stop one Sunday morning for a cup of coffee at a favorite fast food restaurant. At another table there is a father and three young children. The children are yelling at each other, running around the table, and generally making themselves obnoxious. All the while the father just sits there; he doesn’t offer to correct them, nor does he seem to be aware of the chaos they are causing. You can’t help thinking how irresponsible he is and that you would have never let your kids behave that way.
At this point one of the children knocks over a chair which clatters so loudly it brings the father out of his stupor. He quickly urges his children to sit down and eat their breakfasts before they get cold. Then he turns to you.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “they’re usually much better behaved but they’re tired. We’ve spent the night in the emergency room so I thought they might be hungry. I’m waiting for my folks to come take care of them. You see, my wife, their mom, died suddenly this morning and I don’t think they understand what’s happened.”
Now, if you have any kind of sympathy for the human condition, your whole way of thinking about those unruly children and that distracted father will change. That change is a paradigm shift.
When Paul wrote the Colossians about their being dead to the old ways of thinking about how one attains God’s favor, he forced them to make a paradigm shift.
Like most of humankind, the Colossians believed that somehow their own efforts were what would win God’s favor. So, even after they had accepted the gospel, it was difficult to give up the ways of thinking which placed such great store by what one eats, the holy days one observes, the denial one could make to show depth of devotion. Paul wrote them to help them recall that great paradigm shift which occurred when they first grasp the concept of God’s grace.
In this passage Paul is showing them why they should never return to the old way of thinking. To do so, he challenges them to keep focused on Christ, the Triumphant Christ who shares the highest honor of heaven.
By focusing on the triumphant Christ all our attitudes and actions should change.
I
AS WE KEEP OUR FOCUS ON THE TRIUMPHANT CHRIST
WE WILL EXHIBIT A NEW INTEGRITY IN OUR LIVES.
The last chapter ended with a discussion of “earthly things” like diet and drink. There Paul argued that the Colossians, and all of us, are freed from the domination of any religion based on self-effort by the fact that we have died with Christ. Now he takes the next step.
Just as Paul assumed the Colossian Christian’s were sharing in Christ’s death, he also assumes they are sharing in Christ’s resurrection. Their death with Christ meant they were free from having to respond to the demands of the old ways of doing religion. Their resurrection with Christ means they could respond to the wonderful potential of the life which was theirs though Christ.
So he instructs them, “Set your hearts on things above.” Just as they once showed a preoccupation with earthly things—food and drink for instance—now they are to be focused on “heavenly” things. The specific focus of their attention was to be the Risen, Ascended, and Triumphant Christ.
In saying that “Christ is seated at the right hand of God” Paul is not inviting us to picture Christ as simply sitting around heaven waiting for his next scene on the stage. The “right hand” suggests a place of honor and authority. This is Paul’s way of underscoring the power of the Triumphant Christ, not to mention his taking yet another shot at any false teachers who might have tried to demean the role of Christ.
Spiritually, Christians have a share in his life and victory. We don’t have to live as though chained by fear, guilt, and slavish taboos. We can live in a brand new way.
We begin to live this new way when our thinking changes. Nineteenth century commentator J. B. Lightfoot, whom I never found to be particularly succinct, is succinct at this point. He says, “You must not only seek heaven; you must think heaven.”
This concept is so important that Paul essentially repeats himself in verse 2. The language suggests that the task of keeping focused is a demanding one. The temptation to allow our focus to wander is always there. Like the Colossians we always face the temptation to become preoccupied with the outward trappings of religion. Even the most ardent believer may fall prey to them.
Although Tertullian was one of the second century’s most ardent defenders of orthodox Christianity, he fell prey to the appeal of the heretical group known as the Montanists. He apparently saw this group’s legalistic lifestyle as a way to forestall what he perceived to be the growing moral laxity in the church. Because his focus changed, Tertullian became a bitter critic of those he once considered his spiritual brothers and sisters. Because his focus changed he lost all opportunity to actually change the church for the better.
When we are faithful in keeping our focus on Christ our lives will be transformed. Once again F. F. Bruce speaks to this.
“Don’t let your ambitions be earth-bound, set on transitory and inferior objects. Don’t look at life and the universe from the standpoint of these lower planes; look at them from Christ’s exalted standpoint. Judge everything by the standards of that new creation to which you now belong, not by those of the old order to which you have said a final farewell.”
While Paul will offer details describing this new way of living in the rest of the letter, for now we can simply say that new life is truly “thoughtful.” That is, our attitudes and actions are not shaped by prevailing moods in our culture. They are shaped by the standards of heaven.
Paul puts it another way in the opening verses of Romans 12. There he tells his readers, “don’t let the world force you into its mold, instead let your lifestyle be changed because your minds have been transformed.”
The Christian, who lives in a world which defines good religion as a set of culturally acceptable attitudes and tame behaviors, could choose to live in light of those expectations. Those Christians who stay focused on the Triumphant Christ know they can’t be content with the culturally acceptable.
II
AS WE KEEP OUR FOCUS ON THE TRIUMPHANT CHRIST
WE WILL EMBRACE A NEW VISION OF OUR FUTURE.
(3-4)
As we keep our focus on Christ we will not only begin to think differently about the here and now, we will begin to think differently about the future. In short, we will face the future with a sense of anticipation and security.
1. Paul wants the Colossian believers to face the future with a sense of security as they live for Christ in their world. He writes, “your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” There are at least two valid implications we can draw from this statement.
* Paul is saying we have a resource for living which others, who aren’t “in Christ,” can’t understand. He tells them that their “true life is a hidden one in God, through Christ.” (Phillips) Those who took so much pride in the external elements of religion, while claiming to have exclusive access to the eternal, invisible realm, don’t even have the privilege or spiritual attainment of the humblest Christian. That humble Christian has a living, spiritual link to Christ.
* Paul is saying that we are secure, that no matter what may occur in our earthly lives, we are spiritually secure.
Inside his compound in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden believed he was safe. After all, he had lived there for years and no one had bothered him. No one even knocked on the door to offer a copy of The Watchtower. This might have gone on in the next decade but one night the Navy Seals dropped in. His hiding place wasn’t really that safe.
Yet, the believer’s true life is “hidden in Christ in God.” There it is safe and secure, completely safe and secure. Though the believer’s physical body may experience harm or death, his soul is secure.
John Newton expressed this thought in one of his hymns:
Though many foes beset your road,
And feeble is your arm,
Your life is hid with Christ in God,
Beyond the reach of harm.
2. Paul wants the Colossians to face the future with a sense of anticipation.
The reference to the Second Coming is an appropriate one this month because Christians have had to deal with yet another of a long line of those who believed they had cracked the code—where no code exists—and discovered the best kept secret in history: The secret timetable for the end of history. Such people have apparently forgotten that, at the hour of his Ascension, Jesus Himself said, “It is not your business to learn times and dates which the Father has the right to fix.” (Williams) It wasn’t any of the church’s business then and it isn’t the church’s business now.
Still, the excesses of some should not prevent us from looking forward, with anticipation, to all that will be accomplished on that Day. Two aspects of the event are important to us:
1. We are told that “Christ…shall appear…” That is, Christ will show himself openly as who he is. There will no longer be any doubt in the minds of anyone regarding his identity. The troublesome teachers at Colossae had denigrated him, suggesting he was inferior to a whole host of angelic beings; at his appearing their teachings will be shown to be utterly false.
Those who dismissed him as a neurotic fanatic will be proven wrong. Those who dismissed him as a failure because of his crucifixion will be proven wrong. Those who dismissed him as merely a good man who said a lot of good things will be proven wrong.
2. We are told that “You (the Colossian believers and all believers) will appear with him in glory.” Phillips renders this “you will all share in that magnificent denouement.”
Elsewhere, Paul reminds us that, at the Second Coming, we shall be changed to be like Christ. This will be through the miraculous work of God, not through our own efforts, even though Paul will call us to strive to live in the light of that vision.
This verse is one of many in the New Testament which support the sometimes forgotten doctrine of glorification. This doctrine says, in essence, that when God’s work of redemption and salvation are completed in us, we will be like Christ.
Last week, we observed the anniversary of the opening of Star Wars back in 1977. Pat and I were living in New Orleans when it opened and we took Philip who was only a few months old. Being “impoverished” seminary students we went early for the “early bird” tickets. The next day the movie was such a hit that there were no more reduced prices to see it anywhere in the US. We were among the rare breed of Americans who went to the opening day of any of the Star Wars franchise and paid bargain prices.
Most of you in my generation and, I suppose, the next generation know that before there was Star Wars there was Star Trek and you will recognize the name of actor Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy played the First Officer and Science Officer Spock on the TV series and in several of the movies derived from the series. Spock, with his pointed ears, his incessant logic, and his love-hate relationship with human emotions (the by-product of having a Vulcan father and a human mother) was one of the series’ favorite characters.
The role was an actor’s dream and nightmare; everywhere he went he was recognized, something any actor craves, but he was recognized as Spock. Years ago Nimoy published a book entitled, I Am Not Spock, trying to distance himself from his best-known character’s persona. Then, a few years ago, Nimoy published another book entitled I Am Spock, in which he claims that at least some of Spock’s qualities are part of his personality.
The Bible tells us that our innermost being will live forever. What makes you, you, and what makes me, me, will survive death and be recognizable for eternity. At the same time, we are told that at the conclusion of God’s work of salvation we will be like Christ. How can this be?
Leonard Nimoy’s situation is a feeble analogy. People look at him and see both Nimoy, the actor and director, and Spock, the logical scientist and devoted friend of James T. Kirk. In the same way, the doctrine of glorification teaches that somehow, throughout eternity, people will be able to look at you and see you and, at the same time, see Christ. That’s the glory of glorification.
That hope is kept alive in our hearts by staying focused on the Triumphant Christ.
CONCLUSION
Does all this talk about staying focused on heavenly things not earthly things tend to create Christians who are “so heavenly minded they are of no earthly use?” Some might think so but that is not the intent of this passage.
By focusing on Christ we have the grounds by which we may make the decisions we must make to live in our world. It changes the way we treat one another and how we respond to the needs we see. C. S. Lewis once wrote:
A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
Since we’ve mentioned heaven, let me make one final point. All the other religions in our world offer heaven to good men and women, only Christianity offers it to sinners. That offer is at the heart of the paradigm shift inspired by the gospel.
Have you accepted the offer?
