Members of Earthly body are Dead

We're gonna look at Ephesians. Or Ephesians. I've got it on my mind, folks. I was there. Yeah. Colossians chapter 3, verses 5 through 7 today. And the first word there is therefore, which marks a transition. It's a transition from doctrine to application, from truth to practice, and from info to life. Verse five begins with the so what part of Colossians.

Based on the previous doctrinal content, and here's a summary of everything we've had up to now. The preeminence of Christ and our union in him. That's the basis for what we're going to be looking at today. Chet McCauley has a good outline of Colossians. Here's the first two points to bring us up to where we are.

The glories of Jesus Christ or the image of the invisible God. Chapters 1, 1 through 2, 3. The union with Jesus Christ or in him we are complete. Chapter 2, verse 4 through 3, 4. Next is the character and conduct of our life in Christ. And Macaulay gives us this heading to that, the conduct of believers in Christ, or putting off and putting on. Verses five of this chapter through four, verse six.

A summary of this again, our life in Christ is a spiritual life with a soul in a body. Now this is something I've been studying quite a while now, and I think one of the things in my life the Holy Spirit has done is open up my eyes to see that who I am is not what you see. I'm in this body temporarily. When I look at you, I don't see you. I see the body that you're in. Because we are spiritual in nature, and we have a soul, and we're in a body. Isn't that something?

It's quite a way to look at reality, I think. We have character and conduct that is unique to the church age. Our spiritual life that we have is unique to the church age. We live each moment by faith in all of the things of God, which are revealed to our spirit. Notice it's to our spirit, not to our soul. To our spirit by God's indwelling spirit, through or via the word, the Bible. The part of us that is immaterial, right? That relates to other people or everything in our environment. And the spirit is the part of us that relates to God as well as to the spirits that are in everybody else. That's so far where I'm at. This is a work in progress of understanding.

Sorry, I hope that helps a little. In the first four verses, there is a basis of our Christian life. I want to review this real quickly, only from the standpoint of knowing the basis, we can build another stone on it. So like Peter says, now my beloved brethren, let me stir up your pure hearts by way of remembrance, okay? It is our union with Jesus Christ and this is the most compact presentation of this truth in the whole Bible. It comes in four parts. We are raised, and it's using the phrase, you be risen if you be risen. It's that first class which assumes it to be true.

But it's a past fact. We died. You are dead. That's an Aorist tense again, past fact. We are hidden. Your life is hidden, is the wording. That's a perfect tense. Something that happened in the past, but the emphasis in the perfect is there is abiding results. We will be revealed. This appears with him that we will be in the future. It's a future tense, and it's a future fact, okay? I'm going to do this like Chuck McCulley did, okay? It's a repetition.

Due to our union with Christ, when he died, we died with him. Due to our union with Christ, when he was raised, we were raised with him. Due to our union with Christ, we are presently hidden with Christ in God. Due to our union with Christ, we will be revealed with Him in glory.

This is our past, present, and future position. It's fixed. It's a union with Christ. Ephesians 4 through 7, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. That's the Ephesians passage that I had on my mind this morning. It parallels this, doesn't it? It's a little bit longer though. It's not as short. And it adds some information.

Okay, let's see here. There we go. Now, verses one and two have two commands that apply to how we are to respond in faith to the truth of our past, present, and future union with Christ. By the way, this is how Paul writes. Gives doctrinal truth, and then he gives application truth.

Seek and setting. Seek is examining carefully the things above where Christ is sitting. Setting continually your mind on things above. And why did he give these commands? We asked this last week. I've got this answer myself. Because union with Christ needs to be learned and believed by carefully examining and focusing on the things of God in God's word. And ultimately, it will be made clear through our spirits by the spirit of God who's in us, right? I mention this because I've got something to go over with you in just a few moments, okay?

So what and where are the things above? In the previous context, the things above are the preeminence of Christ and his effective finished work for us by salvation from sin and by uniting us with Christ. His work is done, therefore he's seated because redemption is finished. Remember the priests in the New Old Testament? Daily they stood making offerings. They never sat down in the temple. Christ, pictured here seated, is what we're to focus on with these commands, where Christ is seated. And the emphasis there is He is adequate. He is done. Everything in redemption is done. Isn't that a wonderful truth? And it's commanded here that we, in this application, examine carefully these things about Him being seated.

So what is a Christian life like in a positive direction? I got this from Chet McCauley, and this is sort of the summation of where we were going with this, okay? He says, daily mental occupation with the adequacy of Christ is the primary And he emphasizes it, and I like to emphasize that I really agree with that, that this is the primary characteristic of our walk with God today. Okay? Daily mental occupation with the adequacy of Christ. So how do we come to know about his finished work?

In 1 Corinthians 2, there's a passage in verses nine through 13 that says, it is written, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them to us by his spirit, that's how. Notice the red at the bottom there in this slide.

The Holy Ghost teaches, that's the Holy Spirit is teaching. Notice the phrase right after that, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. And that's where our new spirit enters in, doesn't it? Holy Spirit teaches through our spirit all the spiritual things. When Roger teaches or somebody else teaches and the Holy Spirit brings something about Christ sitting to our minds, we can compare that with what he has given to us. That's the process of how we come to know about his finished work. How do we come to know about his finished work?

Answer number two, John 16, 12 through 15. I have many things to say to you, and this is Christ talking, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me, for He will receive of Mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine, therefore it said that He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you. Now have we got it yet? No. The passage says He's going to show it to us. Okay? This is from Hal Malloy and I'm not going to say a word. In Christ's glorious presence, Christ's life is my life. Christ's desires are my desires. Christ's glory is my glory.

Christ's will is my will. Christ's mind is my mind. Christ's obedience is my obedience. Christ's righteousness is my righteousness. Christ's abode is my abode. Christ's rest is my rest. Christ's sufficiency is my sufficiency. Christ's image is my image. Christ's things are my things.

Christ's love is my love. Christ's compassion is my compassion. Christ's suffering is my suffering. Christ's hope is my hope. Christ's good is my good. Christ's victory is my victory. Christ's riches are my riches. Christ's wisdom is my wisdom. Christ's commandments are my commandments. Christ's peace is my peace. Christ's thoughts are my thoughts. Christ's ways are my ways. Christ's inheritance is my inheritance. Christ's liberty is my liberty. Partial list, by the way, of the 26 things that we share with Christ in his presence. Where are we? Our life is hidden with Him, right?

Right now. Now, here's the next section here, and I just want to use these four connectives, if, for, and, and when, to introduce the basis of why, in verse five, there's therefore. Therefore, Marx's transition, as we earlier said, from fixed realities above to the conditional realities below, from faith in the supremacy of Christ and our new position in Him, to faith that God is making our condition reveal His life through us. Remember that. It is not our life. It is His life that is alive in us. The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

And Colossians 3 through 4, 6 answers this basic question. So what does this have to do with me? The reason for the mental command, seek and set, seek being external, set being internal, is so that we may grow in our understanding of our union with Christ. And this is the proper response There's two of them, to focus, examine, trust, and think on the things above in heaven, and to not focus, examine, trust, and think on the things below on earth.

So now we come to verse five. For you are dead, you died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Verse four. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify, therefore. Mortify is a word, is an aorist active imperative, is a command. To put to death is a literal meaning of this word. You put to death. Verse 3 says, you died.

Do you notice that? So how am I to kill what's already dead? Isn't that a logical question to ask here? Why is God commanding me to do something that just a few phrases and words ahead of that he told me is already done? Well, there's a reason for that. One of the answers is, who we were has died with Christ. And who we are now is living, hidden with Christ in God.

So based on that, that is echoed, by the way, over in Ephesians 4, 22 through 24. There we're told that we have taken off the old man and put on the new man. And we're gonna get to that in verses nine and 10, I think it is, here in Colossians as well. Well, I just put that up there, didn't I? Verse five, therefore, This is the conclusion.

Because we can't kill what's already dead, we must conclude or believe that who we were and this body on earth are dead, separated, liberated, cut off from any enslavement to sin. That's what this verse is saying. When we believe that all we are is free or dead to the life of sin, we also believe that God is adequate to present in trust all of the parts of our body to Him. In other words, if we are now dead to the life of sin, so we're no longer a slave to it, That gives us the liberty to present our body as an instrument of God. And that's what he says in this verse, 12.1 of Romans, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Notice it's a living sacrifice, with Christ in God, alive, holy, separated unto him, yes, but also separated from the life of sin. And that's acceptable unto God because we share Christ's acceptance to God. Wonderful verse.

Verse 5, mortify and then therefore your members which are upon the earth Your members as malas, your body parts, and a lot of people don't think of this as being eyes, ears, tongue, etc. But it also includes that, doesn't it? What we see, what we listen to, what we think. and how we use the rest of our body members is all included there. And it's located on earth now. It's not a heavenly body that we're presenting, it's an earthly body that we're talking about. Is the body evil? That was a problem. and in need of our self-control as some were teaching in Colossae. That was happening, wasn't it?

No. 1 Corinthians 6.19 says, what, don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God?

God's made each church-age believer's body a temple. That's a fact. And the word temple there is Neos, holy of holies. the dwelling place that reveals Christ. Each one of us is a dwelling place reserved to reveal Christ intimately. Why? Well, the veil's been broken down now, torn. And that, when that happened, meant God was coming out from the Holy of Holies to indwell believers in the person of his Holy Spirit. What a wonderful truth that is.

Now another answer is no, 1 Corinthians 6.13.

Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God has made our body to be for himself, not for fornication. And another answer, no, is Galatians 5, 16 and 17. Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary, the one to the other.

We'll get to this in the worship hour later, but basically only God's spirit, notice, is adequate. And that's why this verse is teaching us here. Only God's Spirit is adequate to handle our sin nature, and we should trust Him to do so, as well as to keep us occupied with the things of Christ, risen, risen. okay things above where he is sitting at the right hand of god so again in verse five your body is separated liberated from the enslavement to your fallen soulish nature i don't know if that's a word soulish but it fits doesn't it it's a description of our fallen nature it is the soul So why do Christians continue to sin? This is a pretty logical question here, right?

Well, in Hebrews 11, 6 it says, without faith it is impossible to please God. Anything that is not of faith is sin. We sin, this is a summary again of Chet McCulley's thing, we sin because we do not believe in the adequacy of God who has created us unconditionally free from the enslavement of our body by our sin nature.

And he's given us himself to control the sin nature and also to show us Christ risen. What a wonderful combination of things God is doing, isn't he? His adequacy is so complete. In Colossians 3, 1 through 4, the seek and set commands demand that we should continually be occupied with Christ's absolute adequacy. Another answer, before acts of sin, be it thinking, speaking, or doing, there is, and I believe I could add the word always, the sin of unbelief in God's adequacy.

Now if we sin, when we acknowledge his adequacy, we are confessing sins, per 1 John 1.9. Notice, He responds to that by forgiving us and cleansing us, restoring fellowship. God not only is adequate for our salvation from the slavery of the sin nature, but when we choose to sin anyway, He gives us a bar of soap. He says, if you will acknowledge my adequacy, I will forgive you. and cleanse you. Okay? That's not who we are, is it?

When we sin. Who we are is a spiritual being. Who we were was a soulish, controlled by our soul being. What's the source of our unbelief in God? This is where we're going. Ezekiel 18, 20 says, the soul that's in it that shall die. Our fallen soulish nature produces all of our doubt or unbelief in God. And that verse is very clear about that. In Isaiah 64 6, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Our soulless nature produces only sin. Even what seems to be good is good to us, I should say, is sin. Now this is the dethroned, taken offline, soulish sin nature. And notice I use the preposition of the old man. Sin nature is not the old man. But the old man has a nature. It's a sinful, soulish one.

How do we come to believe in God? In Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, it says, let us run with patience the race that is set before us. looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of the faith. Christ has come to us with his good news message to believe and be born spiritually alive and to be placed in him. Our new spiritual nature is then taught of God so we can believe him and grow as his new man. How did we come to believe in God? He set the race before us. He put Jesus in front of us, that He Himself died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day. And a little bit further on he says, and he's coming again. He was seen of over 500 and he's coming again.

What a gospel good news message that is. And if you're listening on the tape or the internet, and you have not done that, everything we've said so far is probably confusing. But if you will believe that simple fact, Christ died for your sins, my sins, personally, substitutionally took the penalty that he was buried, showing that his body really died, and that God raised him from the dead. so that he's alive today, sitting with a finished work next to the Father in heaven. You too will have a new spiritual nature, you too will have put on the new man, and you will be able to understand these things, because the Holy Spirit will reveal them unto you, just like he's doing it to us.

That was a digression, but I thought it necessary. What's the source of production for our new spiritual nature? In 1 John 3, 9 it says, whoever is born of God does not commit sin, for his seed, that's the source of any production of our spiritual nature, for his seed remains in him. Indeed, he cannot sin, because he is a born of God one. And I've sort of summarized that by saying, only God-born spirits do not sin.

What do they do? They reveal his righteousness. This is the enthroned, put online, spiritual new nature of the new man. Okay, so now we've got all these terms. Mortify, consider dead therefore your members which are upon the earth. Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. So Gail, here we're getting to it. Consider your body parts dead to two kinds of internal sin nature sins.

And this is repeated in Ephesians 5.3, Galatians 5.19 and 20 and also James 1.4, believe it or not. 14, excuse me, James 1, 14. Sexual sins is the first of these two kinds of internal nature sins.

Fornication. Now this is a summary word meaning all sexual immorality, uncleanness, moral impurity, doing things that pollute life, inordinate affection, bad desires, passions, lusts, Evil and bad desires. Let me go up here. Evil concupiscence, okay, that's what this is. It means bad or evil, and this kakos, by the way, if you look where it occurs, this evil, is not only bad, it is not only contrary to God, it takes pleasure in seeing others do bad and leading others in doing bad. And so that being tied to the word concupiscence here and that strong desires really puts a compound on it, doesn't it?

It's an intense burning passion, evil intense passions. And then the second one is mental sins. One is sexual, done with the body's body parts that are internally motivated by these things. The mental sins, however, are covetousness. And this is a desire to have more, primarily at its meaning. And this which is means that it is idolatry. Idolatry is worship of idols versus God worship. The lack of a mental acknowledgement and gratitude of God's adequacy to create will lead to worship of idols instead of God, and then sexual immorality.

Where do we find that? The Holy Spirit wrote that through Paul in Romans chapter 1. And verse six now is next. For which thing's sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience? For which thing's sake is the ahas, which means because of these sins.

The wrath of God, orge, is a strong indication of decisive, thoughtful, That's strong indignation, I'm sorry. Decisive, thoughtful anger. And I want to contrast that with another Greek word, thumia, which is anger that flames up from emotions. Thumia is another place we use the word patience, which is macro thumia, which means he's long-fused, okay? But sumia by itself means it's anger that flares up with emotions, from emotions, not by the word used here, orge, strong indignation, decisive, thoughtful anger.

It takes a process of time for this kind of anger to occur. Cometh, and that is in the present middle indicative verb form, is coming now is what that's saying. Okay, what happened? There it goes. On or upon the children, which are sons or children, of disobedience. Disobedience there means willful. Willfully being unpersuaded to obey. In form of rebellious. And it has the idea of they know the truth, but they willfully ignore it, rebel against it.

What intensely angers God? When and how does God show this anger? Remember, this is an anger, this is an anger that is decisive, it is thoughtful. Romans 1 verses 18 to 32, the Holy Spirit has revealed this, and I think this is a key passage in understanding what intensely angers God. It says, the wrath of God, and that's Orge, is revealed, and that's present, from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. They have the truth, but they hold it in unrighteousness.

They reject it. Wherefore, God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Verse 26, for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, and I've skipped a little bit, which are against nature. It's homosexuality that's being pictured. Verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. Three times it says God abandoned men to their sin nature's natural production.

This is how God shows his anger. The when is being revealed. I've repeated the verse 18 here. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Three times it says God abandoned men to their sin nature's productions. Wrath is orge, is revealed, is present tense, is being revealed or uncovered.

And then I've summarized this using the blue to highlight the red in the slide. The sin of denying the continuous revelation of God's adequacy in creation always angers God to the point of abandoning men to the results of his own fallen sin natures, sexual and moral decay, and mental occupation with earthly things. Well, that's hard to go through. But that's true, isn't it?

In the witch, among whom, verse seven, in the witch also walked sometime, you also walked sometime when you lived in them. The in the witch is among whom, refers to the unpersuadable ones. You also is the Colossian believers. Walked means to walk or tread or walk around.

It's an aorist verb, means it's a fact. This actually is true in the past time. Sometime in the past is what that really means. When, it's denoting a time, you lived, and that's from zao, a verb in the imperfect indicative. Imperfect means continuous action in the past time. You were living. Okay? In them, in these things, sins. Are there examples of God's adequacy for all things? Yeah.

Colossians 1 through 4 is all about this. The entire book is the total supremacy and adequacy of Christ. And verse 7, which we're looking at, is an example of God's adequacy to create new men from sinners. Before the Colossians became believers, they lived just like all unpersuaded ones. They continually did these moral and mental sins. That's a fact. but it's also an example of the total supremacy and adequacy of Christ, that He can take and create a new man out of that. That's why ecclesia, the church, is called out once. We're called out by His adequacy. He's adequate to do that. Okay, I've got some applications. These are from verses one through seven, so forgive me, so overlapped a little bit.

That our Christian life is one of being occupied with the things relating to Christ's adequacy as he sits at the right hand of God because he has finished all redemptive work for all time. What a great application that is for us. that based on the adequacy of Christ and His finished work and our death to sin with Him, we are to consider it true that all we are now, including our body parts, is dead, is liberated from our sin nature's rule and its productions. that our sin nature produces the wrong use of sex by the body and the wrong use of the mind by occupation of things of the world instead of with who he is, God, and how great he is, totally adequate. That before acts of sin, be it thinking, speaking, or doing, there is the sin of unbelief in God's adequacy, which leads to enslavement by our sin nature. That all believers in Christ were producing these sins before choosing to believe in Christ as Savior. Only Christ can create the new man we are.

Now, I really depend on the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. So in conclusion, I've given us this in the New American Standard Version for these verses. Let's read it together. Therefore, I want to hear you. Therefore, If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it's because of these things the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and to them you also once walked when you were living in them.

This is an overview of the internal productions of the sin nature which we covered today in verses 5 through 7. Next week the external productions of the sin nature are given in verses 8 and 9a. And then following that, the facts relating to having put off the old man and having put on the new man in 9b through 11. And then based on our new man's nature, the exhortation is given to put on the characteristics of the new man toward these things, one another, ourselves, our family, God in prayer and unbelievers. That takes us up to four verse six. And then there's Paul's final remarks, greetings and exhortations in verse seven through 18 of chapter four.

That's it. Are there any questions, observations that you would like to add? I'm amazed. I went through this and it took me 21 minutes, but here in the room it took the whole time, didn't it? It's amazing, no matter how much we Take our body and give it to Christ for His use.

When He's in charge, things flow together. One thing I have not mentioned to you that came out of this to my mind, and I believe it's from the Lord, everything in scripture is interrelated. Every word. Every putting a dot on an I, every crossing of the T, using English as an example, not Hebrew, is by his design. The Old Testament is revealed in the New, and the New explains the Old. They are fit together like a glove by the Holy Spirit to focus us through these instruments of words, speech, on Christ risen and seated, and trust Him that He's adequate. The other thing that was really impressed on me is, how come I sin? I sin because I really don't believe that God's adequate. That he has given me the Holy Spirit within to control this sin nature. I don't have to control it, I can. Right? He does. Do I believe that? Is he in charge? Yes. That's what he says.

I'm back at that idolatry thing again. I think we're seeing more and more actual idolatry being practiced around the world and increasing in our country. our sins and our doubting of God's adequacy, trying to be in fellowship or out of fellowship, where am I now? You know, am I in or out? And do I need to confess or not? Those things, they're actually a form of idolatry.

They are. They are. Because we're looking at ourselves, aren't we? Well, and that's no worse than what the others are out there doing. They're putting something else in this place. In all things, He is to have the preeminence. Our confession, our turning back to Him, and just being grateful for who He is. Right. That's acknowledging His adequacy, right? Right. Being grateful acknowledges that. Yeah.

Thank you, Roger, for giving me this chance to just be one small part of the ministry. Let's pray together, okay? Heavenly Father, we know that we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, and today we've been blessed with a looksee into your thinking regarding who you are and why are you seated, and our relationship to that personally. and how intimate you are to share all these things with us so that when we look at you we can really trust you to protect us and to bring us together as new creations into your presence in eternity where we're going to look at you and recognize you because we'll be like you in the form of spirit beings with eyes that can see you. It's gonna be a magnificent experience. Sure looking forward to it, Lord. Thank you for these things in Christ's name, amen.