Old Self Put Off and New Self Put On
Colossians 3:8-11 · Andrew Molloy · Jul 28, 2019
Colossians (2019), No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261915443409

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Does someone want to read Colossians 1-11 for us? If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our light, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, unkindliness, inordinate affection, evil conspicuousness, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake of God cometh on the children of disobedience. in the which ye also watched some time when ye lived in them.

But now ye also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Thanks, Regan.

And I have this little, just as a visual, Colossians 3, 1 through 4, wraps up the doctrinal section that Paul has. He was giving them all this information, the Colossians, on who Christ is, that he's above all things, he created all things, all things were created in him, by him, and for him, and then that they had died in Christ, they are co-died, co-buried, co-resurrected, and all these things in chapter 2. And right there in the blue, that's kind of highlighted, is where he wraps up all the doctrinal section. Then following with verse 5, on to verse 11, is he has an application section. In light of who you are in Christ, therefore and he gives commands, he gives imperatives.

Consider your members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire, greed, which amounts to idolatry and things like that. And that Roy covered five and six and seven last week, right? And now we have eight there that's highlighted. So in verse eight, Colossians 3, 8, but now you also put them all aside anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

I've covered this before in a verse I had in chapter one, I believe, but that word put away is apoptithomy, or put aside, and it's a direct correlation to what they would think of as taking off a shirt or clothes. You put aside your shirt, you lay aside your blouse, you lay down your coat, you cast aside. I stained a deck a couple weeks ago and I got more of the lower deck than on the actual deck itself and my clothes. Oh, and I was staining a soffit. and I spilled all that linseed oil all over my clothes. So what I did was, when I was done, I cast my clothes aside. In fact, I put them in the dumpster. So that's the figure of speech that Paul is using here, to put those dirty rags aside.

The same word is in Acts 7.58, apatithme, when Stephen was just about to be stoned, and the Pharisees laid aside their robes at the feet of Saul. They laid aside, they apatithmed their robes, gave those to Paul, and then they proceeded to stone Stephen. So that's the figure of speech.

And then I have three verses A little cut off at the bottom, but 1 Peter 5.5, Revelation 3.18, and Revelation 19, verse 8. And those are texts comparing deeds to clothes.

In 1 Peter 5.5, you younger men likewise be subject to your elders, and all of you clothe yourselves with humility towards one another.

Revelation 3.18, I advise you Laodiceans, that's the letter to the Laodiceans, so just upriver from Colossae, right? Jesus Christ himself is talking to the Laodiceans. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may become rich, and white garments, so that you may clothe yourself. And it goes on.

Revelation 19.8, It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the linen is the righteous axe of the saints." And that's the church that it's talking about. So clothing in fine linen. So it says here that these linens or clothes are a righteous axe, aren't they? And that's the analogy that Paul is using here.

Colossians 3.8 we're still on, and what we are to put aside, here's what we're casting off like a garment.

We're casting off anger, wrath, and malice. Anger is orge, wrath is thumos, or heat, It's a passionate, angry heat, and it's boiling up from your soul. So it's anger taken to a new level, a little new level, and manifesting itself. Malice, I think the same word for malice is for evil, kekhia. And that's doing evil against someone, but in a vicious and vindictive manner. And it has the added element of really having ill will towards someone. So not only lashing out in wrath, but really doing it to hurt them in a bad way. Ironside says these are three generations of anger. Anger cherished and nursed begets wrath. And if not judged, the wrath begets malice. And no matter how grievously you are wronged, he says, do not yield to the devil or malign or seek to harm the one who caused the anger in the first place, even if it begins with a righteous anger.

And of course we know there is a righteous anger and God has righteous anger, Christ had righteous anger, and we can too. And Macaulay had a said something about that and that's, how do you know it's righteous and then how do you know you... which is hard to do, right? So he said, he gave a two-part kind of a test.

First, what's the object of your anger? So if it's a good thing to be angry about, like sin or someone, you know, beating up your kid or something at the baseball diamond, which I guess happened a couple of weeks ago here in Denver, that would be a righteous anger. The object is the first thing, and then the second thing is whether it's controllable. Can you control it? Can you be angry and then then let it go. And that's that verse, do not let the sun go down on your anger, right? Which means have an arc, a temporary arc, and just don't let it boil up into wrath, and don't let it kind of metastasize, I guess, to malice.

The fourth thing that in 3.8 that the Colossians are to put aside is slander, which is, I have the Greek word there, blasphema, blasphema, blasphemia, and that of course translates to our English word blasphemy. And if you think about it, you can blaspheme, blaspheme God, of course, or blaspheme men, right? How do you blaspheme against men?

Well, that's just like, you can do that on the internet. So that's speech meant to damage their reputation, you know, in an ill and vindictive manner. And it's character assassination. So that's how you blaspheme men. And of course, it's easy to blaspheme God by You can think of all sorts of ways that people in this day and age blaspheme God. One, tell him that he didn't create the universe and things like that. Abusive speech, we are to put aside and cast off. And that's low and foul speech.

Then I have this statement, since all these are the characters and qualities of the old man, the old self, and we could throw in there the flesh, they are likened to old dirty clothes or habits, and they are not fit to adorn the new man, right? Because what our deeds should be, what our what our act should be is fine, fine linen, or in like Revelation 19, fine white linen.

And it's interesting that habits in Old English meant clothes too. So if you think of a nun, she wears a habit, all right? And that's her work clothes. Or if you take your car to a garage, the mechanic wears a mechanic's habit, which is overalls, right? Coveralls. And so they used to refer to habits as clothes, but now it's your deeds. So that's interesting that he uses the cast aside for the garments and the relationship to the word habits there.

3.9 Colossians 3.9, do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices.

And lie, I put up the Greek word because I like putting up Greek words that I recognize that form other words in English, and that's pseudome. And you can see the word is a pseudo or false in there. And it's in the middle voice. Does anyone know Why do you think it'd be in the middle voice? Do not lie to one another. Or do not lie. Instead of the... What other voice could it be in? Right.

But it's in the middle voice because I think the one who is lying has an interest in the outcome of the lie, right? Yeah, for his benefit. Of course, he really wants to make it a good lie, so that has the greatest benefit. So he's very interested in crafting that lie, and that's the middle voice. You're really taking an active part in it, and not just doing it because someone told you to, right?

And I have this under 1b. Is lying or the lie the most elemental and basic foundation of all sins? You know, is it the oldest? What would you guys say? I thought it was five, but I think it was Satan. Oh, I didn't think of that, but that... And also, he lied too. Yeah. He lied to Eve. But I was thinking in the garden... But who made first, is the question. Or who made the first heir?

Well, it was Satan, the serpent, right, who lied about the two trees. the origin of sin, you see that it was because of Satan's pride. And the text says, and sin was found in him. It's sort of like pride, sin, that was the result of his pride. So maybe it began, pride began with Satan, but the first, really the first sin with man was that lie. But Satan was lying to eat too. Yeah, right, right, yeah, right.

So that Psalms 58.3 kind of supports it.

The wicked are estranged from the time of the womb. they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Now, do infants speak lies? Or do toddlers speak lies? No, I was thinking about this, and I think they do. You think of a little small child who is hollering and whining and crying, but really there's nothing really going on, right?

Yeah, they're just trying to get attention, which is, isn't that a lie, you know? When they're not in peril or danger? Maybe, because we were watching our twins yesterday for 20 months, and they were doing just fine eating their lunch and everything, and then mom walked in and they both started crying. They wanted her to pick them up, so she did, yeah. Right. And we always think, why don't they just ask nicely? Yeah.

So, point C underlying, do you see the restrictive clause in this verse? Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices. I think there's a restrictive, or what I call a restrictive clause, and that is to one another. So he's really talking about lying to other members of the body, right? Of the church. But he's not saying that It's okay to lie to people outside the church, of course, but he's really specifically addressing the body of Christ and your fellow believers.

And I have that example, Ephesians 4.25, Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor. for we are all members of one another. And that specifically is to members of the body of Christ, and even a local assembly, isn't it? I heard Ron Merriman gave an example of way back when at this church, so some woman way back when, years, 45 years ago, 40 years ago, Her and her husband, and I'm sure she's gone now so I can give the example, it's not a bad example anyway, but her and her husband had a friend in the church and this friend controlled, just was controlling so the friend would arrange for them to go to movies, to the symphony, to the baseball game, just So they were all doing the three of them together.

And this lady did not like that because this friend was controlling. Was this anyone in the room by the way? We're not that old. So she went into Ron and counseling, and she said, you know, this person just controls our lives. And so Bron said, well, why don't you tell them that, hey, cut it off, say, you know, we like you, but hey, we got to end it because you're controlling our life.

So she did. And this friend kind of never heard from this friend again. And the husband and the wife, they went on their merry way and everything was great. And then the friend came back into their life and she sent them a note, a nice note, saying, oh, something about a poem about friendship. And so then the wife went back to Ron and said, I got this note from this old person. What should I do? And should I tell her, well, we're glad to get the note? And Ron Merriman goes, well, were you glad to get the note? And the woman said, no. And then Ron said, well, then why would you tell her? So you see how that is?

She's lying to this other believer. She's kind of got this approbation lust. She wants to be approved by this other friend. She doesn't want to let him down. So this sort of gives you all permission to just to everyone, tell it like it is. So I thought that was a good, I couldn't think of my own example. I like the old saying, before you say something, is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Yeah, right. And what we should be doing is, Put it positively, we shouldn't be lying to one another, we should be truthing it to one another, right?

As in Ephesians 4.25 or so, truthing it to one another. So instead of speaking falsehood, truth it to one another. So this woman should have said, I almost used someone's name in this room. Betty, hey Betty, we don't want to see you anymore. We're sorry. So that's the scriptural thing to do.

The question I had was, in verse 5, and Roy covered those sins last week, verse 5, those are mortify, those sins, right? Mortify your members, and it's stuff like evil concupiscence, right, Roy? Things like that. And they all have to do with sexual sins, right? And that's why I purposely missed last week, because I knew my mom would be in the audience, and I didn't want to cover those verses this week, so I So I took these verses, these anger verses, which are much more palatable. I really had to be down in Tempe. But it's amazing how the Holy Spirit just works those things for the good, really.

So in those sins, and it's 3-5, And 3.6, really 3.5, those evil concupiscence and things, the evil desires, greed. Paul says to mortify those, but in our verses here, 3.8 and 3.9, these anger verses, malice, wrath, he's putting aside. So why the difference? That's the question I had during this couple of weeks here that I was on this. And I don't, I really don't have the answer, but I have a guess.

And the guess is that mortify is related to the members, right? The members of the physical body. And those are the ones that, you know, the head and shoulders, knees and toes. So you can mortify the members of your body your actual physical body, but it's inappropriate to mortify sins that are in your mind, right? Anger, wrath, malice, because those are sins of your disposition. Those are disposition sins. They're in your psyche, in your soul.

So I think that's the reason. So mortify the physical, put aside as old, dirty rags the stuff going on in your head. Does that make sense? Is that a good theory? Or does anyone... I know you're going to be stuck with it until the time God takes you home, but just switch it off to a lonely signing and ignore it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. I don't know if this works or not, but I was just thinking, it's kind of, you push those things aside by pushing the good stuff in, and it kind of pushes it aside, maybe, and pushes it to the background. Yeah, it might be stronger than that, though. In that, by the way, what, are you really mortifying your sins or your old man? Are you really doing that?

Right, yeah, it's already been done, and up there, just a few verses up, it'll say that. Where does it say you've died to? Verse 3. Okay, thanks, yeah. For you have died, and yeah, there it is. So, it's already mortified, it's already at the cross, your old man has went into death with Christ, and you've went into death with Christ. So he did the mortification. He did the killing. He did the killing on the cross.

Even though we're commanded to mortify, what we're doing, and what Macaulay said, and it's not too clear in the text, is we're treating as dead those sins. Treat as dead is what it is. That lines up with Romans 6, doesn't it? To reckon yourself dead sin. So you're confessing, saying the same as what God says about these sins. They're dead, they're mortified, and you should too. You should just follow suit. And that's what you're doing. Putting aside. Okay, 310.

Since you have laid aside the old self and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. So now we have put on the new man or the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. I have under point one, do you recognize Charlie Brown that we always used to use? I haven't seen him in a while. But there's kind of... and Vani, you were asking last week a little about the soul or the spirit or something. So we'll cover that a little this morning.

So man is in three parts. He's body, soul and spirit. And you see the soul up there in his forehead area and his spirit is down in the lower right. His his, and his soul is top, his body is his physical head there, represents his physical head and his body. So you have the soul, body and spirit.

And I like what, who refers to the, T. Austin Sparks refers to these as organs. Not physical organs, but spiritual organs in a way, your soul and your spirit. Your body is a physical organ, obviously, but your soul and spirit are, he refers to those as organs, and I like that term for this.

So which one relates to God and the things of God? Which organ? The spirit, right. The spirit is the only thing that can relate to God, Point B, point C, which organs or which one of the body, soul and spirit relates to the cosmos or the world or to other people? And that would be the body and soul, right?

So I know all of your, those are your bodies out there, but I know your souls too. We kind of know each other, and Roy brings this up a lot, we know each other on a soulical level. We just know each other's souls, in a way. If, I guess, Roger, if your soul entered Roy's body, I would seem that Roy's a little off today, or vice versa. I think you can recognize people's souls. I'm sorry, I have a question. I'm just trying to comprehend this. Is that like your personality? Yeah, yeah. So your spirit has no individual personality? I wouldn't say that. So you have a spirit, but your spirit is... I don't think scripture ever says that your spirit has any of its own personality.

Because the world uses your spirit a lot. That kid has spirit, whatever. But what they mean is that person has soul. In your soul is your mentality, your senses, your conscience, your will, your emotions. just whether you're angry or sad or calm, just everything is packed into your soul. That's how you relate to the world. So that's your soul. Your spirit, and even unbelievers have a spirit, but a spirit is like, I think of it maybe a blank canvas, but you have a spirit.

But when you're saved, That's where the Holy Spirit, that's where He resides. He goes there, and at the minute you're saved, you have a new nature, the new man, and He's in your spirit. And He's on the spirit side of those things. The other side, of course, is the sin nature and the flesh.

I think this is a really good, it's a time-tested sort of illustration, is it not? Another important thing is what you're showing. This is a conditional view. There's actually a positional view, which I like. There's a conditional view of Charlie here. So the positional view is that there's no switch. Right, okay, yeah. So he has a positional... And look at this. So I...

Yeah, see, my conditional guide. But what I did there is I I changed those to what Paul is talking about, putting aside the nature and putting on the new man there. And it's still kind of a switch. So yeah, I think I'm talking right now about conditional. And yeah, I'm working out here. Some people, you know, Have a problem with that picture. Right. So I'm not trying to. Oh, exactly. Right. And I know that. Well, I'll talk to you this after class, but I noticed a mistake. And there's some cool things. Yeah.

Why do you think that. Why do you think Paul uses. lay aside the sin nature, put aside the sin nature, and then he uses the analogy, put on the new nature, as in clothes, instead of like Galatians, walk in the spirit and you shall not carry out the lusts of your flesh. And he uses walk. And prior to that, is that my dad who did that? The walk. So, why the difference there?

What I think it is, is I've read this a couple times, and I mentioned this once, and that is Paul, for some reason, never mentions the Holy Spirit in the book of Colossians, except just once, in chapter 1, just briefly. So the Holy Spirit, for some reason, wanted to be invisible in this book. And then I was thinking and thinking why that would be. I think it is because... So Paul had to write to the Colossians without using walk in the Holy Spirit. Because the Colossians had a problem.

They had a trip wire in that, remember, they were putting angel mediators between them and God. So they were looking at angel worship and putting mediators between themselves and God. And they were taking on legalisms So, what I think is that the Holy Spirit knew that if He was mentioned in the book of Colossians, that they would glom onto the Holy Spirit as maybe an intermediary between them and Christ, or them and God, and then they would be spiritists, you know what I mean? They would become, and what do you get when you do that? You become charismatic, right? So I think that's the reason, but I can't say for sure. And I answered point E. Can Colossians lay aside the old self and put on the new self? Can that be applied to this illustration? And that is yes.

So Colossians 3.10 still, body, soul, and spirit.

And I just want to define the terms here. The body is soma. the living body of both men and animals, and can be animals. The soul is the Sukhe, and it's the seat, and Regan, to answer your question maybe, this answer is better, it's the seat of your feelings, your desires, your affections, aversions, your heart and soul, and things like that. And then the spirit is Nyuma, and this is my I had to cobble together a definition, because I couldn't really find a good definition. One of the guys never really defined it all in one fell swoop.

So I came up with the vital principle, or an organ, like T.S. Austin Sparks says, the vital organ by which God's life is animated. The seed of the new man, the Holy Spirit's dwelling place in the heart of a born-again one." What do you think of that definition? It kind of works, I think.

And the Spirit, and this is mentioned several times in scripture, that only Spirit can worship Spirit, and God is Spirit. So, God is not soul, God is not body, but he is spirit. And he created spirits, those are angels, right? Angels are purely spirit. But with man, he created them body, soul and spirit.

And then, we're still on Colossians 3.10, there's the old man versus the new man. And let's define those terms. The old man is, and this is Merriman, what you were apart from God's grace in Christ, or everything you were in association with the first man, Adam, as the head of his race. How do you like that definition? Someone kind of summarized it. All who you were in Adam. Yeah.

Old man and new man, those are post-fall, right? Post-fall terms. Because before the Fall, there was no old man. Before the Fall, there was no new man, as far as I can tell. There's only Adam and Eve, and they were body, soul, and spirit. And then the old man entered in after they sinned. The new man is all that we potentially are in Christ, by grace, by the operation of God, through spiritual baptism, into Christ. It's our new association with the last Adam who is Christ. How do you like that definition? That's pretty good.

Point 1 under B, only the new man is capable of receiving divine instruction. The new divinely imparted nature of man is the one who receives this instruction and this ministry from the Holy Spirit. Number two, the new man is created. Does that make sense to everybody? And how do we know that the new man is created?

It's really easy, actually, if you read the verse. We're a new creation of Christ. Right. We're a new creation of Christ, but according to the image of the One who created him. So is the One created, or is it the new man? It's the new man, isn't it? That's created. And the One is Christ. So you're recreating Christ. The new man is also the Neos man and the Kenos man, down at the bottom, under point three. So he's new in time and new in quality. That's another way to describe the new man. New in time, new in quality. Kainos. How do we renew the new man? Let's look at that, the renewal of the new man. Yeah, OK. I'm checking on time here.

If I want to get into this problem that Merriman encountered, the problem If you read the text, it's hard to decipher this renewed to a new knowledge according to the image of one who created him. The problem is the word is ice, renewed to a true knowledge, so that the word to is ice, and that means renewed unto a true knowledge, or renewed into a true knowledge, or renewed towards a true knowledge, or renewed for a true knowledge, or renewed among a true knowledge. Because that's the word ICE. So it doesn't make sense, doesn't it? You see that in point A? So ICE, it's an odd little verse. It's an odd little word to use. So, is the goal of the renewal to get to true knowledge? And Merriman says no, and here's why. Ice can be translated AT or AT in Matthew 12, 41.

Christ says that the Ninevites, yeah, Ninevites, right? Ninevah? the guys from Nineveh, they repented at the preaching of Jonah. So they repented ICE the preaching of Jonah. They repented at the preaching of Jonah. Under point three I have the NIV translate it, translates the verse, and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. So that's how they translated that ice phrase. And that's a little better. So to sum up, what the solution that Merriman gives under B is that ice can be translated because of.

So you read it in Colossians 3.10, you read, since you have laid aside the old self, in verse 9, and have put on the new self, who is being renewed because of true knowledge according to the image of the One who created them. And doesn't that make more sense?

And so if you look at Matthew 12.41 up there, it makes sense that the Ninevites repented because of the preaching of Jonah, right? That's why they repented. In fact, before I didn't have that, I truncated the verse there, but Early in the verse, there's the word because. So that's how Merriman came to this. And I'm only bringing this up because you see Wiest, he has kind of something different that's sort of, to me, it's a little confusing.

Constantly renewed with respect to a complete and perfect knowledge. Lightfoot has, which is ever being renewed unto perfect knowledge. And those are fine, too. But I like Merriman's, I like what he did with this, and just substituting in because of. It makes me think of the verse, we're to grow in grace, we're to grow in grace in the knowledge of the Savior. Oh yeah, right. That kind of fits with that. Yeah, well with Weiss says and Weiss' version? Actually with yours too. Okay, are Merriman's? Growing in grace. And renewing is anakinato. It's continual, durative, and it's passive, isn't it?

Isn't the Holy Spirit the one doing the renewal in our inner self, in our spirit? Now let's look at this because of the true knowledge. What is the true knowledge? It's epinosis, isn't it? Epignosis is an intensified form of knowledge. It's intensified because you personalize it. So it's a knowledge that really sinks down deep into your heart. And you really have an intense interest in this knowledge. And it's not like gnosis that the Colossians have. That's just bland, that's gnosis about everything, knowledge about everything. But true knowledge is this word epinosis. So how do you get epinosis?

It's through doctrine, isn't it? Systematic order teaching of the Word of God. And Paul in his two letters to Timothy, this is a resounding theme, isn't it? It's like He uses the word doctrine, sound doctrine, teaching, a lot, to Timothy. And that builds up knowledge. That's your true knowledge. So, we have that, under point, I can't even see that now.

Point two, we have, you're renewed again and again according to the image of the one. And according to is katha, Katha expects a norm or a standard to follow it. So it's that measurement of what you're renewing to. The measurement of what you're renewing to is the image of Jesus Christ, right? That's the standard or the mold, if you will. That's your mold that you're trying to match, is the image of Jesus Christ.

And under point B, down there at the bottom, Which two verses come to your mind when you think about renewing your new man as being renewed because of true knowledge according to the image of one who created him? How are you growing in the image of I have it there in point one.

2nd Corinthians 3.18, does anyone else kind of think about that verse? We are transformed into the image from glory to glory, right?

And then in Ephesians 4.23, we have basically the same verse we've been working on here in 3.10. that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self which is in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

But those two verses come to my mind when I think about Colossians 3.10. that you are growing in the image, and in 2 Corinthians 3.18 you're metamorphosizing, aren't you, into the image of Christ? So I have a couple of summaries at the bottom here from Merriman. I kind of derive these from Ron Merriman.

The new man needs continual and durative renewing by the means of true epignosis. And the epignosis is the only way that the new man can be renewed. And he goes into this, I won't go into it, but he says it's restrictive. The true knowledge is the only way in which the new man can be renewed. And it's going towards the image of Christ, isn't it? Epinosis comes by way of sound doctrine, which God provides for the growth of the new man.

And then, what Merriman did, and this was years ago, I heard a tape of his, and he mentioned this point B under the conclusion, and I was driving in my Audi, and then my Audi ate this tape, in Colossians, and I never got to hear the end of it, but it stuck with me for years and years, and finally a couple months ago, The Audi is crushed. It went down to... I donated it to a junkyard.

But what he said is that epinosis is like protein. So you take in knowledge, you're taking in protein, and that the Holy Spirit... I might have mentioned this before, but the Holy Spirit takes in that protein, synthesizes it, and then builds your new man. So knowledge is the protein of the new man. I like that analogy.

And the Holy Spirit is the one who can synthesize it and he knows what proteins you need to get you where you are, to grow, grow your new man. And then Merriman says that then it becomes muscular. When it's muscular it can flex and it can act out in the spiritual stature and according to Christ himself. And on and on the believer will expand his ability to be an image bearer of Christ, a bearer of Christ's image.

But I really like that protein analogy. How do you get protein in the real world, physically? Milk and meat. And doesn't Paul in the Bible say a lot of it, I was giving you milk but you should move on to meat. So protein. So I really like that sound doctrine is the protein and it's the building blocks of the growth of the new man.

And that's how you can be continually renewed in the image of Christ. Oh, gee, I didn't even get to 311. 311, let's do it real quick. And he's just... He's just categorizing the renewal in which there is no distinction between Jew nor Greek, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all and in all.

He's giving these classifications between Greek and Jew, and that's a national classification. Circumcised versus uncircumcised is really Jew versus the rest of the world who aren't circumcised. That's a religious classification. And I think it also has a racial distinction to it because only Jews are circumcised and that's a racial distinction with the rest of the world.

Barbarians and Scythians are just those who aren't Greek, who don't speak Greek. They speak foreign languages. They are uncivilized. They are usually from the coasts. They're seafaring. They're Goths. They're the Nordic people, Norwegians, I guess. And Scythians, I spelled that wrong, should have a C in there, but they're the worst.

So those are cultural distinctions. And then slave versus free is an economic distinction to Colossians 3.11. But what he's saying is that in Christ, and I have this at the bottom. in our new man, in Christ, and Christ is the one in whom we co-died, we have been co-buried, we have co-risen, we have our only recognized identity by God, through Christ, because nothing of religion matters, we are complete in Christ, and we are hidden in Christ, and double hidden, we are not only hidden in Christ, but we are hidden in God. In our new man, Christ makes all those distinctions in verse 11, null and void. Christ is all and in all.

One last thing, compare to Ephesians 3.28 up there. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

What's the difference between our Colossians 3.11 and Ephesians 3.28? Who's missing? If you're a caveman, you can figure it out. And it's male or female, right? Our verse is saying much more than what 3.28 is.

I think Ephesians 3.28 is really talking about ones in church, in the body.

He's talking about the body, whereas Colossians 3.11, I think it's the new man.

So 3.28, he's talking about members of the body.

There's neither male or female, slave nor free, but in Colossians 3.11, In the new man, I think it's bigger than that, more expansive. In the new man, there's no distinction between those classifications of people. And I think that's because of that phrase, Christ is all and in all. That's a big phrase. That's a meaty, big phrase. And it kind of relates to Colossians 3, 1 through 4, that Bob covered. We are hidden in Christ and we are complete in Christ. OK. OK, now we're done. I ran out of slides. So any questions? Should we close up?

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for, again, for the study of Colossians. And we just pray that you'll help us to grow in our new man day by day and that we have a renewal and there's a purpose to learning all this doctrine, this systematic doctrine that we do here at this church, Lord, and that is to renew that old man and to grow in the grace and the knowledge of You and be with us this day and this week and we pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.