Colossians 2:6-15. His victory, our conquering power.

Colossians 2:6. “As you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord – so walk in him.” The daily life of the Christian is to be lived out, experienced “in Christ.” The experience of salvation is the opening of faith and trust in God through Jesus Christ. Faith in him is primary and essential. It is that faith that is alluded to by “receiving Christ” and it is absolutely critical to continue to exercise faith in Christ throughout all our life from that point forward.

There are three considerations here in reply to the question, “How, then, did we receive Christ Jesus, the Lord?”

1.) Faith, trust in Jesus, in his redeeming work (life, death, resurrection), and in his Person. The content of faith in Jesus Christ and his work for us.

2.) Receiving Jesus Christ, “the Lord” may be pointing to the submission of the Christian to the Lordship of Christ, not merely receiving him as the Savior. Much has been made of this distinction (Lord or Savior) but is it not abundantly clear that he is both? But receiving Christ Jesus the Lord and living with him as Christ Jesus the Lord is instructive to our faith in the way we should live every day. He is Lord of our lives the day we were saved. He is Lord every day we
“walk” with him.

3.) Calvin sees in this call “so walk in him,” a hearkening back to Isaiah 30:21, “This is the way, walk in it.”

We have three metaphors given in the text to explain what it would mean to have steadfastness of faith (a result of “walking in him”).

1.) The first is to “walk.” The metaphor is representative (as noted above) of living one’s life. It is a continuous exercise, not a starting and stopping, a beginning and ending over and over, but an unending journey. This is not the life of a sluggard, but it is being intentional, directed toward a goal, and being purposeful in walking with Christ every day. The emphasis is doing the same sort of activities repeatedly (praying, studying, loving God, serving people, etc), and approaching these tasks with a view of doing them for the rest of our lives, step by step, day after day. It may be good to remember that “walking” was the chief form of transportation in that day and that virtually all travel was done in this manner. Walking was the way you got anywhere and it was a difficult way to travel. This is the metaphor for the Christian life that appears throughout the New Testament (Romans 6:4; 8:4; 13:13; 2 Corinthians 5:7; 10:3; Galatians 5:16; 6:16; Ephesians 2:10; 4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15; Philippians 4:17, 18; Colossians 1:10; 2:6; 4:5.; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; 4:1; 4:12; 2 Thessalonians 3:11; 1 John 1:6, 7; 2:6; 2 John 1:6; Revelation 3:4; 21:24).

2.) The second is to be Rooted. An agricultural term referring primarily to the roots of a tree, but other plants as well (compare Psalm 1, tree planted by rivers of water …). The root is set in Christ. The tree is not merely stable because of the root-system, but all its nourishment comes from the root-system. There is a living connection, a dependency upon Christ, through whom your life, your strength, your sustenance, and your purpose and direction flow.

3.) The third is to be built up. An architectural term referring to the foundation that is lain for a house (see Calvin, 178, on Colossians 2:7).

The walk, the root, the foundation lead to the firmness, the steadfastness of the faith that the true believer has. This has come into their lives through Epaphras, “just as you were taught.” He was a faithful teacher and he gave them everything they needed to grow into maturity of faith in Christ.

“Abounding in thanksgiving.” This was the result of that walk, that good root, and that firm foundation.

A warning follows.

2:8 “See that no one takes you captive by deceitful philosophy (see next paragraph on the translation) according to human tradition.”

The phrase, “philosophy and empty deceit” is to be considering one idea, “deceitful philosophy.” The Greek has a definite article before “philosophy” and no article before “deceit” with those words liked with the connective “and” (kai), modifying “philosophy” with the idea of deceit, or making it “deceitful.” The NIV catches this (other translations, as well), deceitful philosphy.”

Human traditions spring from within the minds of men. They are rules and practices that men invent (perhaps with noble motives) to help men relate to God more effectively, more closely, or to qualify men to stand before God and to be accepted by him. The problem is that God has forbidden any approach to him that he does not authorize. It doesn’t please God for us to invent our own religion. He alone opens the way to him. And he warns people over and over again with the most terrifying language to only approach him in the ways that he has established, namely, through Christ and those signs and seals of worship that point to him and his work, and in no other way.

The human traditions are related to the “elements of this world.” This phrase is a phrase from the philosophers of that era and it seems to represent a notion in ancient — developing and very early– Gnostic thought that the world was evil and that God was good. (Some scholars don’t write “Gnostic” for this seems to give the notion that this was ripe and finished, so they write it “gnostic” implying that this was just beginning to gain some traction in the ancient world.)

In this gnostic (or Gnostic) scheme, God had to create many steps or intermediaries to make it possible for us (evil) to relation to (good) God. Paul picks this up as representative of the attempts of men to work their way to God. The elements of the world, the strategies of this world, whether it be through circumcision (as a universal rite to earn favor with God) or lack of work on the Sabbath (somehow distinguishing people as worthy of God’s favor) but all the while missing the true nature of God and the work of Christ in redemption. Christ comes to this sinful world, he comes in the likeness of sinful man and for sin, and the philosophers completely miss the miracle. They try to redefine Christ’s incarnation as a philosophical leap, not God becoming a human being and being born in a manger in Bethlehem. The miracle is missed, and the elements of this world seek to silence the work of Christ, his incarnation, his redemption, and his God-hood.

2:9, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Paul takes on the Gnostics in hand-to-hand combat. Christ as the fullness of God would be impossible for the Gnostic because God and the material world were completely alienated from one another. But Christ comes to the Earth, is born of a woman, dies a sinner’s death, is raised by the power of God, and now reigns in Heaven with the Father and the Spirit. The Christian message is not what men think up. It is what God has done.

2:11–12 “In him you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands …” The rite of entry into the Jewish family was circumcision (for every Jewish male). But now there is a “circumcision” a rite of entry for everyone, for male and for female, and for Jew and for Gentile. The circumcision was not about physical cutting, it was now about baptism. God has changed the rules for inclusion in his nation, his people, his covenant. It is now by faith in Christ and the sign and seal of that inclusion is no longer circumcision, it is water baptism.

The incorporation into Christ is seen in our dying with him and being raised with him in baptism. This through “faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.” So it is faith, not rite, nor parentage that brings us to a relationship with God. It is faith in him who raised the dead, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Redemption applied.

2:13–15 This listing of God’s work in redemption from this section is thrilling to any believing heart:

God made you alive together with Christ (through baptism)

God has forgiven all our trespasses

God has cancelled “the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands … setting them all aside, nailing them to the cross.” The Cross of Christ is where our debt to God was cancelled.

He conquered all the powers of this world (“the rulers and authorities” meaning the demonic and all forces who stand against God and his Christ) and demonstrated their defeat by shouting their true, evil, nature and illuminating their shame for all to see. He did this by triumphing over them in the Cross of Christ Jesus. Sin, death, and hell, are defeated foes. Christ is the Conqueror.

(more to follow on Sunday)

Bible Study

Colossians 1:21-2:5. Christ brings his people to maturity.

Colossians 1:21-2:5 Christ in them.

1:21 – Their former condition and their current life in Christ. There are three sets of triplets in this section of Colossians.

Before coming to Christ.

1.) Alienated (1:21)

2.) Hostile

3.) Evil deeds

Now their standing in Christ by redemption in his blood.

1.) Holy (1:22)

2.) Blameless

3.) Above reproach

The quality of the life of the believer in Christ.

1.) Stable (1:23)

2.) Steadfast

3.) Not shifting from the hope of the gospel

The recipients are described before their faith; after they believed; and the hope for their completion (“perfection”) as they live the Christian life until death.

1:22, “but now” (in the ESV, “and he now”) describes the break-point between what they were before their believed and what they are now.

The change came about through the work of Christ in which “he has reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (1:22).

To these triplets is added the condition or test of the validity of their faith, “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel …” (1:23).

Afflictions of their behalf. 2:1-5.

There is a shift in 2:1-5. Paul is concerned about the way the church was facing this disruptions and doctrinal challenges of their day (see below a discussion about Gnosticism). Notice the aspirations Paul lists for his friends at Colossae:

(2:2) Discouragement — he wants their “hearts to be encouraged.”

(2:2) Being pulled apart — he wants them to be “knit together in love.”

(2:2) At risk of missing the whole of the Gospel — he wanted them “to reach all the riches of full assurance.”

(2:3) Threatened with Gnostic faith changing the meaning of the gospel — “in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (gnosis).”

(2:4) Risk of being “deluded” — “be fully taught, to know the truth of Christ.”

Paul shared the difficulty of his current life, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake …” His imprisonment was part of his sufferings. But it could be his strivings on their behalf in prayer and the concern he had for them to finish well and not be “deluded” or that they may not finish unto the end (teleion), to maturity.

The purpose for which Paul “struggled” so for these people was so that their hearts would be “encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance.” His struggle would result in their assurance and love.

2:3 – All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The Gnostic or (“insipient Gnostic”) religion was growing in this area. They held that matter was evil and that spirit was good. If God (spirit) was to communicate with matter (bad), he had to create many stages and steps between spirit and world by which he would communicate. The goal would be to gain, even in earth, the knowledge of the spirit (God). This was a philosophical religion that worked against the claim that God became flesh, that God would come to this planet and that God would die for sinful people and love them with all his heart.

Gnosticism stood against many claims of the gospel of Christ. Paul was not dealing with Gnosticism as a threat to the Christian gospel, he saw the gospel as vastly superior to any form of Gnosticism, so much as he was using the motifs and language of the Gnostics arguments to present the Person and Work of Christ to these people in terms that were important at that time. He also seemed to be laying out some strategies by which the Colossians could present the claims of Christ to those who were familiar with the Gnostic ideas (and other competing notions about God there would come up from competing religions and philosophies that came into conflict with the claims of Christ in the Christian Gospel).

2:4 – “So no one may delude you with plausible arguments.” The Greek culture was filled with arguments. The Socratic method of questions and answers was in every corner of the culture. In schools, in pagan worship, in philosophers who traveled around (“itinerant philosophers” they were called), so it would be expected that the new faith of Christianity would be subject to many objections, questions, and queries. Some in the new church were led astray and turned after other religions; or they sought to wrap the claims of Christ around some other religion or philosophy. Much like today, people take what they have and they often blend Christianity into it.

In Haiti it is common for many Fetishites try to use some of the elements of Christian worship (particularly from the Roman Catholic mass) and attempt to incorporate their symbolism and worship. In mainline Christianity, a dominate political party may influence official policies on abortion or gay marriage more than Christian tradition or the creeds of the church. In both cases, there is a break from the message and the understanding of the Christian message because it is incorporated into an alien system. Christianity, may have many denominations and church government systems, but there is always a connection about the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, from Greek Orthodox, to American Charismatic. The faith in Christ and the cross is the same. The Gnostics (or “proto Gnostics” or “insipient Gnostics” – scholars don’t know what to call the group) were active in the area and they tried to define Christ in Gnostic terms. Paul was addressing some of these assertions in Colossians, using some of their language and pouring Biblical truth and Christology into those concepts to establish the glory and identity of Christ and to explain in common terms the meaning of redemption and salvation. Just like we should do today with our modern culture and vocabulary.

Paul is confident. 2:5, “to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.” These nouns, “good order” and “firmness” are borrowed from the Roman legion. They are terms that describe the order of the army and their fitness for duty. Paul’s imprisonment in Roman and his daily interaction with the Roman guard gave him new words to describe what the church is like when people in it move toward maturity (“perfection”).

Summary.

When you have faith, you have faith in Christ.

It begins a process of spiritual growth, unto maturity, or “perfection.”

It establishes new relationship with others who are also “in Christ.”

It gives you wisdom and understanding of yourself, God, and the universe.

It places a burden on you to tell others about Christ.

It directs your life toward order and stability.

It focuses more and more of Christ.

Bible Study

Colossians 1:1-5. Faith, love, and hope.

Colossians is about the supremacy, the all-superior nature of Christ, and his impact and influence in the lives of those who know him.

1:1 — Paul’s greeting identifies him as laboring “by the will of God.” It is easy to throw that line around, but for Paul’s apostleship and the validity of all he wrote in the New Testament, it is a matter that must either be affirmed or denied.

If he was the Lord’s apostle to the Gentiles, if Jesus Christ appeared to him and commissioned him to take the Gospel to non-Jewish people across the known world, then his words and life must be given a more serious consideration than a man who was self-deceived or insanely impersonating a man on a mission for God.

Perhaps the most definitive defense of Paul (from a human perspective) is from those who heard him and who knew him, and who believed because of his life and the brilliance of his presentation of Jesus Christ. Perhaps his ability to teach and to direct them to Christ and then to take his place as their brother, and “faithful brother” with those who believed, is most revealing about the nature of Paul’s religion. He was just one of many who knelt in worship before Jesus Christ as the Beloved Son of God. “Grace to you and peace ….,” he said.

1:3 — It is odd to our minds that Paul would thank God as he remember these friends in Colossae. It would be more to our liking that he would thank God for people, rather than while remembering them to be moved to thank God — as though it were God who was first and most importantly involved in what Paul observed in those people — God was working and moving within them. We thank God for people, he thanked God for God. His prayers for them resulted in him worshiping. We do it very differently today, spending our time lauding people rather than in praising and thanking God. When we thank God for people, we are really (are we not?) thanking people. Certainly there are times to be very grateful and to express thanks to people and there are occasions in the Bible when that happens, but the kind of thankfulness to the God of salvation, who is working in peoples’ lives, seems more rare today and it ought to be recovered as a more focused way to pray to the God who is working decisively in peoples’ lives.

Paul remembers their faith in Christ Jesus (1:4), and for the “love you have for all the ‘saints’.”

Paul’s love for them seems focused on what God had done in them. It was God who gave them faith (see Ephesians 2:4-6). It was God who made them alive. It was God who sent the Savior. It was God who drew them into his love. It was Christ who dwelled in their hearts. It was overwhelmingly God’s work that Paul saw in them, and it was God who was to be thanked.

“And because of the hope laid up for you in Heaven (1:5). Hope is a promise about the future. A secure hope is a promise made by someone who tells the truth and who has the capacity to keep his/her word. The hope of the believer is basedon the truthfulness of God and the power of God to do what he has promised, therefore, it is a secure and reliable hope. The Christian hope is a secure as the nature and Person of God, as reliable as his nature, and as sure as the promises of his Word.

Hope is important because of the death and disease, the tragedies and effects of sin, that come into all our lives. Without hope, all of these trials (which are normal and to be expected in every life) would lead us to despair. A superficial hope based merely on ungrounded optimism or a happy outlook, cannot sustain us when grave difficulties come.

Hope comes from God — hope is “laid up for you in Heaven” 1:5. The Protector of our hope is Jesus Christ. He holds our hope. He makes our hope secure. He places our hope in Heaven and he guards our hope with his irresitable and supreme power. We have no substantial hope in ourselves, at all. Christ gives us his life, his victory, his resurrection, his God-sized perfections, and his Word that we may have hope in him.

Faith, love, and hope.

In Colossians 1:3-4 the trinity of character traits: faith, love, and hope appear. These three traits show up most famously in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (ESV). Here in Colossians 1, they are mentioned once more, not aspirationally, as in 1 Corinthians 13, but as a report on the lives of these first century believers’ lives.

Faith is central to our life with God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (ESV) Ephesians 2:8 reminds us that “by grace you have been saved through faith….” Faith begins our relationship, our connection with God.

Love.

The second quality in the trinity of traits is love. We notice that the order in 1 Corinthians is different. But the order may not matter as much as the content of the concepts. There is a progress from faith to love to hope, considered chronologically. Faith comes, then the love for God and the love of people follow, then the hope of Heaven is realized by promise and then experienced through death.

The love of Christ for his people in redemption is without comparision. It is the grandest, the most glorious love that could be known. Yet, the love of the Father for the Son is promised to be shared with those who are the disciples of Jesus Christ (see John 17:24-26). God’s very love within himself he deems to share with those for whom he would lay down his life.

The necessity of love for eternity.

If Heaven were to exist without love, re;ationships, long, long, relationships between those who were there would be exhausting and disappointing. It would be more like Hell than Heaven. Love is necessary for eternity because only when love has been made perfect can people live with God and with one another for ever.

With the love of God and the love within God’s peple being perfected in glory, the experience is too great for our imaginations — we have never known perfect love on this Earth. The only taste we have is found in the descriptions in the Word of God about Heaven and the world to come, We have never been perfectly loved by another human being, except Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God. But in this broken and sin-assaulted world, we have trouble even remembering the love of God in our hours of trial and through our disappointments in other people.

All the more, we see that the love of God’s people, even the love we experience while living here on earth, and without the vantage place of glory, this love in God’s people is an incredible love and a love that has solidity, constancy, true motives, and astonishing beauty. The love “for all the saints” is a worthy and wonderful love that should be experienced in every faithful church, and in the lives of every faithful believer.

We are to love like God loved because “God has poured out his love into our hearts” by the Spirit who lives within us (see Romans 5:5).

Hope.

Biblical hope is expectation of a future. It is a gift yet to be received, but faithfully and securely promised. It is a portion that we are fully assured that we will receive. Hope rests in promises that are absolutely certain to be kept.

The hope laid up in Heaven refers to the promises Christ himself has made by his own words – and he cannot lie, seeTitus 1:2, “in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (ESV)

The hope in Heaven is protected by the resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead. It is assured by his Kingly power, from the One who is seated at the Right Hand of God on the Throne of Heaven. He is the Ruler over All. His promises are kept as no other promises. They are more sure than any other promises that have ever been made.

Paul concludes this introduction: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the Gospel.” (1:5b).

Faith, love, and hope. The centerpieces of the Gospel of God.

Bible Study

Finally, rejoice.

Is this a well-wish, or a goodbye?

Paul is facing death. He has probably months, if maybe 2 years before he is killed by Nero. He writes to his dear friends, to call them to faith, to encouragement them to measure everything by Jesus Christ, and to remember what they learned about living for God from him when he was with them.

Paul often called his followers to live as he lived. Every pastor should live this well, and be so bold.

The church was being assaulted by bad teaching. There was a lot of confusion in the air. There were people being torn apart by the internal debates about the Law and what to follow in the Law and what is now “fulfilled” by the death of Christ.

Paul writes from prison, his eyes are on his people. He is not calling for attention or sympathy, he is calling his people to rejoice!

Philippians 3

3:1 “Rejoice” is a word of encouragement. Or it can be a greeting. It can mean, “Rejoice,” “Celebrate.” Or as greeting, or salutation, it can mean, “Farewell”, Goodbye.” In this context, it could turn in either direction. The call to rejoice fits. Telling them “Goodbye,” in the light of the closeness of his death, also fits.

He could be covering both wings with one word. Paul is saying “good bye” and he is also sharing his unflappable joy with those he ministers. The typical Greek greeting in “caire” “xaire” (here the 2^nd person singular, vocative, “Hi” in English) is the same word translated “rejoice” in Philippians 3:1. Something to ponder: Was he saying “good bye” or simply “rejoice”? Or both?

The reader who is paying attention would ask, “Why Paul would say to his friends that “calling them to rejoice” “is no trouble to me”? How could calling them to rejoice ever be “trouble” for someone? Unless they were severely handicapped incapable of writing or in great pain.

Why would it be trouble to Paul or safety to the people to whom he is writing? The word “trouble” in this phrase, means “irksome” or “tedious.” But why would it be trouble, or irksome, or tedious to call people to rejoice? If there were a hint of “farewell” in his first phrase, it could be that though he is facing an imminent death, the over-powering love he has for his people is so strong that it is no disruption of his few remaining days, of his weeks before his execution, to be reminded of his dear friends, and to have the honor of calling them to rejoice. It was neither too much for him to take the time, it was a worthy interruption to his difficult days and he desired to send them his final greetings to them in spite of his circumstances. He cherished them more than his comfort and more than thinking about his coming sufferings.

We see that these letters were not written in a protected cloister, but in the reality of prison and trials an impending torture and death. So the context here, as always, is everything. Lightfoot says that the words seem aimed as some actual or threatened evil (Lightfoot, Philippians, ad loc). Paul appears to hear the call to “rejoice” as being in some manner out of kilter with the current situation of the Philippian church. He writes to their situation, not his own.

Walking through the verses in Philippians 3.

3:1 “Finally.” Paul is pulling together the last section of this letter. Here he says, “Rejoice.” This comes up in 2:18 (“rejoice”) and 4:4 “rejoice, rejoice” 2x.

Rejoicing is a theme.

Rejoice appears across the book of Philippians (all ESV):

Philippians 1:18

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice,

Philippians 2:17

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

Philippians 2:18

Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

Philippians 2:28

I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.

Philippians 3;1

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Philippians 4:4

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Philippians 4:10

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.

The language of family.

“Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.”

He speaks of Epaphroditus as “my brother” in 2:25.

But he speaks of Timothy in 2:22 as “my son.”

“Children of God” are mentioned in 2:15.

“My beloved” in 2:12.

When Paul begins the letter in 1:12, he says, “I want you do know, brothers.”

He calls the Christians “saints in Christ Jesus” in 1:1. If he calls “God our Father” in 1:2, then we all are brothers and sisters.

The warnings.

There is a pattern in Paul’s letters of “warning against prevailing danger” at the end of his letters (Lightfoot, Philippians, ad loc.)

1 Corinthians 16:22 there is a reminder of the Lord’s coming and the ethical requirements for us who will stand before him.
Galatians 6:15 Paul summarizes his argument in the midst of the circumcision controversy, “circumcision is nothing; uncircumcision is nothing –“
1 Thessalonians 5:14 – he confronts what was a “spirit of restlessness” (Lightfoot), “the idle, the fainthearted, the weak.” And adds a command, “Be patient with them all.”

The threats were fierce and those who opposed them were without moral constraint. In Deuteronomy 23:19 people were called “dogs” who engage in godless worship practices, some of which were most detestable. Paul here refers to the Judaisers as “dogs.” Those who required obedience to the Mosaic law as a pre-condition of coming to faith in Jesus Christ were seen as just as evil, just as confused and misled, as those who worshiped false gods. It is a searing denunciation. The dangers were strong and those who opposed him were fierce enemies, like dogs would be.

The Gospel compared to anyone and everything.

Paul remembers his heritage, his training, and his practice. He was without peer in his seriousness and commitment to the faith of Judaism. And he was dead wrong. He presents his turn-about as “whatever he considered gain, he now counts as loss.” This is a reflection of Jeremiah 9:23-24, where the same idea is presented in a much different context.

This conflict is laid out so that Paul can bring his own experience in coming out of Phariseeism and being a persecutor of the church (even imprisoning several and perhaps killing some Christians before his conversion).What a statement to be made by a man who once resisted and terrorized Christians!

The case is made, Philippians 3:3, “We are the circumcision.” We are the true people of God, not they. We are the people of promise, not they. We are those who obey the Law and fulfill it, not they. We are those who received the Lord’s Christ, certainly not they. We are the ones who worship God in the Spirit, not they. We are the true people of God, not they. This is a bold statement of the singular place of Christians in the Kingdom of God. Only by Christ alone. Only by Faith alone. Only by Grace alone. Only by Scripture alone. Only to God be the glory, and to him alone.

Christians have faith in Christ. “We put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3b). These principles apply in one overarching theme: The Gospel is our greatest value. We treasure what God has done for us in Christ more than anything that we could ever do in our service to God or in our sacrifice, or in our family heritage, or in our zeal for God. All of that means nothing compared to the grace of God and the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Philippians 3:4-6 – Paul’s Curriculum Vitae.

He was circumcised on the 8th Day, as required by the Law of Moses.

He was born of the tribe of Benjamin. This was one of the few tribes that survived the Exile and was one of only two surviving tribes (with Judah, not considering Levi that didn’t have an allotment of land, but dwelt with the other tribes).

He was an extremist in the keeping of the Law. He was a Pharisee.

He was zealous, even a persecutor of the Church.

With regard to his righteousness under the Law of Moses, he was blameless; there was no one who could accuse him of failing to keep the Law.

Renunciation.

Philippians 3:7, “Whatever gain Ihad, I count as loss for the sake of Christ.”

Philippians 3:8, “I count everything as loss …”

The renunciation of all achievement, all status, all earned righteousness, all rights are all counted loss. The renunciation of our achievements, our status, our importance, our religion, come into our lives because Christ becomes more and more dominate, supreme, beautiful, and glorious to us throughout our lives, the more we walk with him and love him more and more.

His renunciation.

Follow the perspective of Paul as he describes his faith through the verbs from 3:8-3:11

I count everything as loss. I have suffered the loss of all things. That I may gain Christ. That I may know him. That I may become like him. That I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

There is a complete shift in Paul’s understanding, his view of himself. There is a new values-system, which Christ as the focus and sole end point.

Keep the goal in mind through all of life.

The goal is clearly set out in the personal call to this followers in the verbs that he chooses in 3:12-21.

I press on (3:12), “Forgetting what lies behind and straining to what lies ahead.”

“Let us hold true to what we have attained” (3:16). The holding true to the principles of faith and obedience, following Christ, laying everything aside, all is assured by the call to “hold true.”

“Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (3:17). The practical example of the devoted life impacted many believers in the early church. They showed them how to live.

The last, “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (3:20). The physical return of Jesus Christ or the ascension of the believer be with him as our death is comfort and encouragement to live for Christ and to serve him, “whether we live or whether we die.” That is an unfamiliar call in today’s church.

The same power that transforms our lives is the same power that will transform all things and bring them all under his dominion and Kingship forever. What happens in us is connected to what Christ does to the whole of the Universe.

Bible Study

Christian unity and the “mind of Christ”

Philippians 2:1-2

With Paul, you have to pay attention to how his argument is built. One good way is to keep tract of the verbs. See how they interact one with another and you will have a good sense of how he is building his thoughts. His writings require quiet and concentration. You will not succeed in understanding much if the TV or music is playing. Paul gives a list, as he often does, of qualities that are important in the life of a Christian. He is focusing especially on concepts that reside in our thinking, since this is obviously the theme of this part of Chapter 2.

Complete my joy … have the same mind … have the same love … being in full accord and of one mind … count others more significant than yourselves … look not on your own interests … look on the interests of others … have the mind of Christ. Thinking the same way is important. Having the mind of Christ is the goal.

The workmanship of God

The work of God in those filled with grace makes them unafraid in opposition, content in the leadership and presence of God to “comfort and to guide,” and assured of good fruit and usefulness in their labors for God, “for God is at work in you … ” They learn, therefore, to rejoice over every complete proclamation of the Gospel regardless of the motives of the preachers. Let God sort them out. If the Gospel is being proclaimed it is a good thing that the message about the love and death of Jesus Christ and his victory and salvation is told to more and more people. Motives are sticky. Truthfully, are your motives really all that pure?

Proof of his workmanship — graces in the lives of those who believe.

These are operations that are present in every believer’s life and they are there because God is doing these things in us. He presents a set of graces that come into our lives, grow within us, and these are the source of much that happens in us, as we live in the Body of Christ. These traits and actions are the benefits that we receive from the Body of Christ and they are the ministry that we offer to other Christians with whom we are connected in the Biblical Local Church.

“If there be any …”

It is a bit ambiguous in English to say “if there is any” because it could mean “if there were any, but we are not sure about that … ” In this use of the phrase, the meaning is that we have a degree of uncertainly or there is a low probability these qualities may or may not be present in the local body of Christians. In this first understanding of the phrase there would not be certainty that they thing that is referred to actually exists at all. You might say, “If there were any winning lottery tickets in my pocket, we could retire.” But the chances of that are slim.

But there could be another way to take the phrase, “if there be,” to be a first class condition. It is like this: “if or since this is true, then we should take the following actions.” Example: “If we have a flat tire, we need to change it as quickly as possible.” This is not puzzling about whether or not we have a flat tire, it is charting a course for what to do since we are experiencing the tiring going flat.” This makes sense of the phrase we are studying.

Paul is not wondering whether these things are true or not (“do we have comfort?” “do we have fellowship?”, etc.) , he is giving instructions about the how these principles work because they are present in us. This little phrase means here: “Since it is certainly true that these are gifts and graces are most important in our lives, let us pay attention to them and take these actions because these qualities matter and we have them.” This is the way this “first class condition” was intended. This is a strong way of charting a course of action based on real gifts and graces that we have received from God in the Church of Jesus Christ.

If there be any encouragement. Philippians 2:1. Encouragement means to have someone come alongside of you in a time of testing, trial, or grief. It was the common practice to have an attorney or friend, some family dignitary or influential person to come and “stand alongside” of an accused and to speak on their behalf. This is one use of the term. It can also describe someone who can assist you, help you understand something important, or stand with you in your legal defense in a trial or legal proceedings.

We understand the work of encouragement most clearly because this is the chief work and it is the Name give to the Holy Spirit by Jesus in John 15. The work of encouragement is a primary work of the Holy Spirit of God and he is called the “Comforter” which is the same word used here. The ESV: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26 ESV).

We see that the ESV, uses the title “the Helper.” But is that the best translation? Here is the phrase in Greek: “ὅταν ἔλθῃ ὁ παράκλητος …” In English: “But when the Helper comes …” (ESV). The word we are looking at is παράκλητος, paraklêtos [sounds like the bird, parakete, but with an “l” and ending in “os”; no relation in meaning, just something that will stick in your brain forever]. But the “Paraclete” is much more than a “Helper.” There is skill or relationship implied in this help, an expertise or commitment necessary for help and comfort to come. He stands in defense. He comes alongside to help. He is an advocate (an attorney at law) for the defendant. He is one who comforts in distress and meets our needs in crisis. He brings our case before the Father. He reveals Jesus Christ within our lives. Much more than a helper to applaud or merely assists us when we are tired. Much more than a helper. A Comforter, An Advocate, An Intercessor, The Protector, The One who Prays on our Behalf, and The Counselor (as in lawyer and as in one who gives us counsel). Helper is not rich enough and the linguistic reach of the word is not broad enough. But we see that the work of encouragment is the work of the Spirit, but he involves us in this important work as well.

If there is any comfort (Philippians 2:1). Comfort refers to aid or assistance from another person when you are in distress. This is a word for what a person needs when there is great confusion, emotional pain, or a shock or loss has occurred. The comfort is what is needed after you have experienced a death or loss in the family, or gone through a long and difficult trial or a terrible accident and you need encouragement, strength, wisdom, and help to recover. You have experienced something that has come into your life with such force that it has turned everything in your life upside down. At that moment you need others to come and comfort you so you can be restored. Comfort of this sort is not superficial nor if it for trivial events or small matters.

If there is any fellowship (participation or sharing). This is the key word in the New Testament that describes the internal relationships and connection within the church. There is a sharing of life and a connection that comes when we experience and have in common the same commitments and loves. What is more, we also participate in one another’s faith so that my faith is helped by your faith. You are helped by others also, and when the time is right, your faith is also encouraging and supportive of them. We not only share, we participate in and have fellowship, team spirit, and we share an esprit de coups within the body of Christ that is strengthening (see Acts 2:42, where this work, κοινωνίᾳ appears) and that permits the Body to work with great effectiveness and power. This participation or sharing is crucial to everything that happens in the local church. If sharing and fellowship is poor, the church will not be impactful. However, when one Christian is successful or blessed within the church, all in the church share in that blessing. When one is hurting or grieving, all in the church participate in that loss or trauma. We share our lives with God and then we share them with one another.

If there is any affection. This is an important word for the local church. It is about the love and strong emotions that we have in defense and protection of one another. This would be like the reflex of a father or mother when their child has been hurt or treated unfairly. The response is viseral and deep. This is the deep-felt love and concern that Christians share with one another because of our connection by faith to the same Lord and Savior. We share our lives and we care about what happens to each other. This is an intense and liberating relationship to have. It is also a wonderful experience to experience with people who care deeply for you and who can shout about it and celebrate their affection for you with joy in the presence of God.

The last in the list is sympathy. If there is any sympathy. This word also appears in Romans 12:1; 2 Corinthians 1:3; here in Philippians 2:1; Colossians 3:12; Hebrews 10:28; and Hebrews 10:28. For a similar term see Luke 6:36, and James 5:11. This is the merciful and compassionate concern for others, emphasizing the care that we provide for them, the contact that we maintain with them in their lives. This care often flows out of the ministry of God’s Spirit through us. The Spirit gives us the experience of his comfort, that we, then, pass on to others (see 2 Corinthians 1).

Paul has already prays with thanks over these Christians who were living in Philippi, both for their partnership with him in the Gospel (1:4f), and for their love (see 1:9f). Now in 2:1ff., he wants his joy to be complete (J.B. Lightfoot, ad loc. Philippians). Faith, Love, Joy.

“Have the same mind.” This could be seen an an invitation to cultish obeisance and rendering our personal thoughts and understanding as unimportant or unvalued. Having the same mind can mean something very unhealthy when it is about making people have exactly the same opinions about everything, and/ or having an uncritical acceptance of the leader’s thoughts and directives without review or right of refusal.

But the Christian seeks the same mind, by pursuing Christ together. We have a similar mind-set because we experience the same Lord Jesus Christ. We love what he loves, more and more and his desires and will become first and foremost in our lives. So we are finding new ways to serve and glorify his name that come because this essential unity that Christ has created within us, not that was imposed upon us. Our faith and obedience unite us in common values, common goals, and common motives. In such a community there is great creativity and freedom. There is love that rules over matters of taste and style and method and unity over essentials of faith and life.

[A short footnote. This is the same set of principles that were popularized by the Puritan pastor, Richard Baxter, but they are to be accredited to Marco Antionio de Dominis (1560-1624), the Latin of this aspiration is: In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. Translated into English: “In essentials, Unity; in non-essentials, Freedom; in all things, Charity.” A good and balanced statement of unity within the Body of Christ. This statement also happens to be the motto on the seal of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which adds to their seal the phrase, “Truth in Love.”]

Having the same mind means that our thoughts are captured by the greatness and by the lordship of Jesus Christ working in us. This is not a call to uniformity. We do not walk together just to be alike. But we walk together because we really love each other. Our call to unity in Christ, focused on his glory, give our lives for his service and it directs us to go wherever he wants us to go. Paul is insistent that this unity be present and he repeats the call several times in this section (see 2:1, 5). This is laying the foundation for the humility of service and to have the mind of Christ. These go hand-in-hand. The love you have for other believers in Christ is dependent on the content of your thinking about Christ and the decree to which your mind is becoming more and more aligned with the mind of Christ with others who are experiencing the same wonderful, matchless gifts from God. “Have this mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus” is the goal.

Bible Study

Grace from one to another

Both Ephesians and Philippians were written about 60 AD when Paul was imprisoned. He was in Rome. He loved the people in Philippi. They loved him and they were praying for his release from prison.

Paul was not so much concerned about his freedom as he was about his boldness.The entire first chapter comes to a focus when he says that his concern was “that I will not be ashamed” “whether I live or die” (see 1:20). His chief concern was not to be ashamed “in the day of Jesus Christ” and to finish well.

Handing off the people in Philippi to other leaders and giving them the duty, the responsibility of living lives that bring honor to God, Paul encourages them by the principle that they are not doing the work of spiritual growth; they are not doing the things that effect change and character in them. It is God who is working in them (1:5).

The principle that God is working in them does not mean that their lives will be easy or pain-free. He begins here with the story of his opportunity with the Praetorian Guard in Rome and that, apparently, ALL of them came to Christ. What an amazing thought! That the entire guard heard the Gospel and came to faith through the imprisonment of Paul. Paul shared with the Philippian church that the Gospel has been advanced in Rome, and that he has been defending it against those who were opponents of it. The promise that God is working in you both to do and to will his good pleasure, is tied to the sobering fact that we are called to do difficult things and to submit to circumstances over which we have no control, but God will use us and empower his Word and spread his Gospel through our faithfulness to him who is working in us. This theme goes through 1:20 where Paul flatly states that believing and suffering go hand in hand.

So Paul calls the people for great boldness in their lives (1:14). In 1:13-18 Paul uses a series of comparitives, The Whole, The Rest, Some, Later, Former, Everyway, Pretense, and then Truth. This is a clear way of showing that not everything goes the way we want them to go. But that God is working everywhere and we should be on the lookout for the things that God is doing, and not be surprised if there is opposition or failure, flattery or poor motivations, all the while lining up against faithful, God-filled, obedience, and fruitful people who are God’s workmanship. But in this world there are always, the rest, some, rivalry, and pretense. Be on guard.

Verse 1:17, Paul shares his chief motivation: That Christ is Proclaimed. What a wonderful statement of purpose! Paul rejoices in the proclamation of the Gospel and in it he rejoices.

The prayers of God’s people work together with the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit of God. “Through your prayers and the help of the Spirit” this “will turn out for my deliverance.” The phrase “for my deliverance” is “ἐν τῷ σώματί μου, “for my salvation.” So the deliverance could be his release from prison, that is a kind of salvation. Or it could be his death and faithful testimony about Christ, and that is also a kind of salvation, the Heavenly kind. He wants to be unafraid and full of courage (1:20) for his day of trial.

Paul’s confession

“To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul understands that the Gospel of God is a life and death, Heaven or Hell proposition. There is nothing more important. Nothing is more urgent. Nothing is more wonderful or hopeful than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He can say, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Christ is his life. If he dies he only gains glorious access to his Savior without the impediments of sin.

Are you torn between wanting to die to be with Jesus and wanting to live so you can work harder and harder doing more and more difficult tasks for God? Paul was (1:23).

Practical exhortation.

“Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ” (1:27). Paul prays that they would not be frightened by anything or anyone. Paul was certainly not afraid. It is fair to say that if you are afraid of anything, there is a deficiency in your faith.

Your have been graced. It has been given to you by Jesus Christ (ὅτι ὑμῖν ἐχαρίσθη τὸ ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ). The word “given” is the verbal form of the word “grace” that is so important for the Christian faith. Paul is saying that “It has been graced to you.” “It is by the working of his grace in you… that you should not only believe in him but to suffer for his sake.” (1:29). Grace becomes the power, the reason, the controlling direction within us that allows us to engage in great faith and to endure terrible suffering.

Grace that comes to you works in you. That grace leads you, protects you and delivers you. But it doesn’t keep you safe from conflict, opponents, or suffering. To think otherwise is to have never have read the New Testament. People who believe pay a dear price to be faithful. And they consider the Gospel to be worth their sacrifice and their lives, if need be.

Bible Study

Redeeming our warfare

A study of Ephesians 6:10-23.

Introduction from Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ sermons on Ephesians 6 (The Christian Warfare). “Finally” engages the attention of the reader, calling for a review of all that has been said before in the book of Ephesians. The statement in 6:10 is the summary of the entire argument.

The last section is divided into two parts, 11-12 and then verse 13 to the end, the specifics.

Chapters 1-3 lay out the fundamental themes of the Christian faith. Those chapters describe Who a Christian is, What a Christian is, and How they have become who they are.

In the second half of Chapter 3, it is, quoting Lloyd-Jones, “The glory and the exalted character of the Christian life,” (12). That you might be filled with the fulness [the British spelling] of God and experience the privileges that belong to such a life (12).

What follows is the appeal to live in a manner worthy of your calling. Continuing in Chapter 4, “walk worthy of the calling by which you have been called.”

Chapter 4:1-16 is the Church. Then practical instructions through 6:9.

The final section is broken simply down into two sections: 6:10-13 a General Exhortation. 6:14 to the end, the Particulars of how to go about doing what is set forth in 10-13.

Chapter 6:10-13. The battle is not about teaching people to live moral lives. The battle is not about raising children who are successful and responsible. The church is not to be engaged in matters touching simply on race relations or poverty or women’s rights or social justice. Rightly understood, all these matters are impacted by the Christian faith. But apart from the fulness of Christ, there is no point to engage in any programs of societal betterment, or social improvement. Families or businesses cannot be helped by moral instruction apart from the life-giving Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. To propound that the church is just an agency of societal management or a force to restrain human evil is to do great harm to the glorious vision of the Church of the Living God. We are much more than a society for the improvement of civilization. But where the Gospel is proclaimed and believed more nations have been rescued from the effects and consequences of sin than any other influence in human history.

Notice that the instructions given in Ephesians are not a curricula but a series of commands.

Chapter 6:10 — the life of the Chirstians must be lived in the strength that God provides. Our frailty is profound. We sin and slip, then we soar and reign. The heart of Ephesians (to choose one verse) is 3:18, “that we may be filled with the fulness of God.” His power is working in us (3:7). We are “alive together with Christ,” 2:5. The “power that raised Christ from the dead” is at work in us who believe. Therefore, we are to “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” Our strength is not sufficient to stand. Our power is not able to engage the enemies of God. Our abilities are not able to withstand an assault on those who would scheme to destroy our assurance, fill us with fear, throw us into confusion, deny the power of God, or disconnect us from the presence and power of God.

The command to be strong in the Lord contains a calculation regarding the strength that the Lord has and a comparison of his strength with our own. We would not, in our moment of trial, want to depend on another human being who was as weak as we are. We would want someone who was capable, able, sufficient for the moment of trial to deliver and to give us aid and assistance. We do not trust God like we would trust in or admire another human being. The strength of the Lord is without limits. It is holy and wise, pure, kind, full of grace, redeeming, and great (and much, much more).

The reason we need the strength of the Lord is that our adversary, the Devil, is working schemes that are designed to hurt and to maim us, our faith, and our standing before God. The Devil works by schemes, he orchestrates events, he stacks the blows to your heart so that there is no light impact on you, rather it is that the blows become all you can do to endure them and to survive their assault.

It is when we are being attack by the schemes of the evil one that we need God’s power, if we are to survive. The easy-to-face-and-conquer temptations need no additional strength. You manage them well. But those are not in view. It is the powerful succession of events, one after another, that requires the power and presence of God in your life to live through them to the glory of God.

Not all sorrows are schemes. Not all problems come from the Devil. Not all sin is originated from the Evil One. Some of our sin comes from within us. Some of our problems come just by the nature of our fallen world and the mistakes of people, governments, politics, or leaders. People are fallible and they sometimes fail and fall and it can fall on us.

The schemes of the evil one last for enough time to accomplish their work. They are not easily dismissed. They are not settled in a day. You are tempted to give in, to give up, and to stop trying. Your obedience is severely challenged. Your heart is at risk of losing hope. There is a challenge that comes against the promises of God, the goodness of God, and the love of God. There is offered to you something you desire, something you long for, hope for, something precious in your heart, that is put at risk, but if you will deny, pull away from, or reject the promises of God, they will be yours.

The temptation is tremendous at this point, you cannot stand in your own power and strength. You are not able to reason or to have wisdom needed to see through the schemes. The schemes always contradict, contravene, or conflict with the will of God for your life. And the confrontation is deeply felt and terribly divisive within your heart and soul.

Schemes can be in the form of relationships that discourage you and that wound your heart. Such relationships may be held apart from your heart for a while, be over time the incessant power of the discouragement, the negative frame of mind, the insipient evil behind the words and promises of the relationship, bring hurt and sorrow that is deeply felt and that is difficult to overcome. It is a scheme.

Schemes work against the way your think about your life and about you see God and his place in you. Ephesians 2:2 reminds you that you know what it was like to “walk in darkness.” You know full well what it was like to live apart from God, to disobey his will, to be separated and alienated from God. But no longer. Now you are brought close, you are filled with the fulness of God. You know the power of the resurrection, and much more.

The Devil seeks to blind your eyes (2 Corinthians 4:4). Blinding the eyes means that we cannot see nor can we trust in, the truth of God, his presence, his power and redeeming love. People who are blind (who live in darkness) live their lives apart from God. They deny the God who made them and they live as though there were no God (a-theists, “no-god”).

Schemes can appeal to our pride as in 1 Chronicles 21:11, where David was stirred by Satan to “count the number of his people” when God specifically instructed him not to. David wanted to measure the strength of his army and the size of his nation. But God wanted David to trust in the God. The simple admonishion to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” is contrary to any trust in the size of an army or in the strength of the nation. But David ordered the nation to be counted and God was very displeased with him.

Lloyd-Jones summaries the schemes of the evil one in these areas: Assurance of faith (doubting one’s faith is true, or holding a false faith while thinking you are a Christian); Cults (false teaching); Self (the seat of human sin); Quenching the Spirit (wilful disobedience that offends the Spirit of God within) ; Temptation and Sin; Discouragement; Worry and Anxiety (fear is a great power in the evil one’s hand); Truth versus False Zeal (doing wrong things for the right reasons, or doing good things without the proper motive-set); and Worldiness. These topics are broad and very diverse, and you can see how varied the schemes may be. They can fall in many areas of the heart, the mind, the spirit. They can come from a misunderstanding of the Gospel (zeal). They can be fed by worry and fear. They can entice us to embrace the things of this world instead of pleasing God in how we live our lives. Be on guard!

In chapter 6:13ff Paul gives us the specifics on how we are to be strong in the Lord. The list includes these matters:

Truth, Righteousness, Gospel, Faith, Salvation, the Word of God, and Perseverance. These are matters that do not require great learning to understand. They rest at the center of the Christian faith and they can be understood as to the meaning of each term, by a young child.

Bible Study, Uncategorized

Redeeming relationships by Christ’s power and Lordship.

Ephesians 5:22-6:9 is often presented in sermons or in church retreats as a marriage seminar, a child-rearing seminar, or advice for serving under a bad boss, or how to be a good one.

The seminar approach to this section overlooks something that, once you see it, the section is never seen just as good advice about marriage. It becomes amazing teaching about the love of Christ and his personal life in the Body of Christ, the Church.

Wouldn’t it be odd for Paul to write this incredible letter about the work of Christ, the person of Christ, the power of the resurrection, the fullness of God, and much more, and to take almost a chapter to fall back to some seminar teaching about marriage, parenting, and submission to employers (masters), that, perhaps, he’d neglected to give the church(es) while he was in the area? He wouldn’t do that. His purpose in this section (5:22ff) is to tell us more about Christ. He is challenging us, helping us, and giving us practical examples of what we ought to do, from the family and from work relationships.

I don’t think 5:22 is a new paragraph, but a continuation of the previous paragraph. In the Greek text the word “submit” is left out in 5:22, because the principle of submission is so strongly stated in 5:21. Verse 22 needs verse 21 to make sense. Let’s keep them together. No new paragraph at Verse 22.

We know that Paul thinks in complex sentences and long paragraphs, so we need to follow his thinking down the long path. Christ is said to “shine on” the church ( back in 5:14), Christ is the Sun that rises on his Church – what a beautiful picture. Futhermore, the Church is to be “filled with the Spirit (5:18), and then the rejoicing Church is led into worship with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (5:19). Then, and this is where our section begins, they are told to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5:21). The fear (Greek phobõ) of Christ is the reverence, awe, and respect that Christ has in and over the Church. His presence in the Church (the Body of Christ) is intimate and a strong connection, a bond that can’t be broken, like marriage perhaps. His love for the Church is redemptive and life-giving. This section, over and over, in this way then that way, it is repeatedly, and wonderfully about the love of Christ for his Church, his love for us who love him.

The principle that is carried into the practical instruction beginning in 5:22 is that Christ defines and directs every relationship we now have. The emphasis is not on marriage alone. It is about Christ as the core of our walk (life) with God and at the core of every relationship we have.

The instruction about marriage, considered as a marriage seminar, is meaningless if the teaching about marriage is separated from the person of Christ (who he is) and work of Christ (what he did and what he is doing in his people, the Church). Paul is building a case for Christ as the Lord of the Church.

Ephesians 5:21 — the principle of submission to one another out of reverence (fear) of Christ.

5:23, The church should submit to Christ as a wife submits to the husband she loves (there is no absolute or unconditional submission to human beings taught here). The principle of the church’s submission to Christ is illustrated by the wife following and submitting to her husband. The priniciple is that a submitting wife illustrates the way the submitting Church loves Christ. The church is not an example for every wife to submit to any husband. The comparison to Christ and the church falls apart completely at that point. But in the marriage seminars, that is clearly the message. They say that a wife should submit to her husband (any husband) because that is the way the church submits to Christ. But that is very different from showing by practical example that a wife’s submission illustrates the way the Church must obey Christ. To flip it back the other way doesn’t work. 5:22 doesn’t go on to explain the many ways the wife submits to her husband, it goes on to explain how Christ is the head of the Body of Christ and is himself its Savior. The primary principle is that the church shows how the wife submits, but even in the Greek text, AGAIN, the word “submit” is left out, and the word is implied from the phrase, “as the church submits to Christ. It continues, “so also wives in everything to their husbands” omitting the word “submit.”

The point is that the main focus for a Christian is Christ. That is essential and critical information for us. This section focuses on the relationship between Christ and his Church. The illustration, the analogy taken from marriage helps us to understand what submission should be, but the force of Paul’s teaching is for the Church to be in subjection to Christ.

The marriage relationship is impacted by Christ. As we are subject to Christ as the body of Christ, we can begin to understand real submission to one another, and to one another who are married. It isn’t that out of the marraige relationship that are taught about submission. It is that being in the Church of Jesus Christ that the Lord teaches us so much about submission — Christ’s submission to the will of his Father, his obedience unto death. His Lordship over the Church and his demand that we obey him if we love him – that is how we learn to submit in other relationships because we are members of a submitting-to-Christ Body. We learn about submission because we know Christ and see his life before the Father. And we learn to submit to him as Lord. Lordship demands our submission.

The marriage seminar is over (as great a need as there is for better marriages). This is a seminar about Jesus and his people. This is what we need today. Not a bunch of suggestions for relationships, but a relationship that is incredible, with God, by Jesus Christ. That’s what we need!

5:25, Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her… ” The husband’s love for his wife is to reflect the love that Christ has for the Church. The illustration is not giving 50 ways to love your wife. It is setting Christ as the lover of the Church and the husband submits to the King of the Church and learns about love from the Lover of the Church.

The seminar on marriage would stop and tell the husband how he should love his wife. But a much bigger point is how greatly Christ loves his Church. Just reading through this section, notice who is mentioned again and again: it is the Lord, then Christ, followed by Savior, then Christ again, and again Christ, then he shifts over to “he” (Christ), and again he (Christ), back to Christ, and once more Christ. The emphasis, let’s say it again, is not on marriage. Marriage is an analogy, an illustration of the way Christ loves his people. When that is kept at the center of this passage, these verses become a song of praise to the King and Master of the Church to which we belong.

This is what Paul says about this very section in 5:32. If you are teaching the marriage seminar on this section, this verse doesn’t fit in very well, because you’ve been giving 8 ways to make your marriage better, and this passage is giving you great reasons to trust Christ and love him with all your heart. Paul gives his take on what he wrote in this section about Christ, in 5:32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.” The illustrations from marriage could get us off the central theme, maybe that’s why this section is almost always a marriage seminar. But it is is so much more.

Ok, I’ll admit there is much in the marriage relationship that is picked up on in the union between Christ and the Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ (Revelation 19:7). But the lesson for us HERE is that we are the Bride. Christ is the one who loves us. We are in submission to him. He is our Lord. Our loves and marriages find their meaning through the person and work of Christ. But Christ’s love is not helped by the wife who submits or by the husband who loves. Christ is the one these pictures are telling us about.

To let the text speak, OK, marriage is important. But it becomes much clearer how we love and care, how we submit and follow, when we have Christ at the center of our lives as part of the Body of Christ, the Church. Christ living in us, Christ filling us full of the fullness of God! The Church is the focus of the love of God. The focus, the center of his redemption. We receive the fullness of Christ to dwell in us (see Ephesians 3:19, “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (ESV), all these great principles not only make our marriages outstanding, they make our lives amazing and God-filled.

Paul was not lauding a good husband, he is extolling our glorious Savior for his amazing love for us who believe. John 17:22-23, “that they may be one,” Jesus said. He wanted our unity to be not merely about how great our kids are or how wonderful our marriages are (and those are great things to want), but that people have a significant connection with God by Jesus Christ. Something that is able to make a husband love better, and a wife to trust her wonderful husband more.

Ephesians 5:22ff is about Christ first and most. When we grasp that with our minds and hearts, and begin to live as the Body of Christ, our connection with Christ becomes stronger, and that connection changes everything.

Bible Study

Redeeming words and walk.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ sermon on Ephesians 5 takes a long time to make an important point: The church is not a morality club. The church does not call people to be good for the betterment of culture. We are called to live holy lives because it reflects our connection with our Holy God. We are not in the least concerned about living moral lives merely to help our children or to make our world a better place. Our goal is lofty. Our goal is to bring honor to God — the God we love and worship now, and the God we will serve and worship for all of eternity. The Christian life attempts to make real and substantive now what will be the reality of our life with God when we die.

Ephesians 5:3 and 5 repeats three classes of sins that must not even be named among those who believe: sexual immorality; all impurity; and coveteousness. Christians are called away from sexual immorality. Jesus famously called the people of his day, “this sinful and adulterous generation” (Matthew 12:39; 16:4; Mark 8:38). He called them this because they were, as in our day. Today our generation (every generation) is a sinful, an evil, and adulterous generation. But Christians are not to live this way. Christians are to be pure in sexual matters. We are to be careful about the relationships we enter into. We are to be honoring to others, remembering that a woman or a man with whom we have an affair has family, friends, and people who love them. Our sin will not remain private. Every adulterous act is brought out into the light. It is the nature of the case that no adultery, no uncleanness goes undiscovered. Certainly God sees all we do. We cannot hide our sin from him. But more than that, our faith in God is devastated by such actions. We hurt the lives of other people. We destroy or severely damage our Christian witness. We are not unlike the people of this age, doing the very things that will bring the wrath of God upon the sons and daughters of men.

Paul goes further: “such things as must not even be named among you, as is proper among holy ones” (Ephesians 5:3). An obedient church would not spend any time dealing with the adultery and uncleannesses of its people. They would not be matters that come up. The focus of the people is on God and his worship. Their energy is on pleasing and serving him, doing his will, training others, reaching the lost, caring for those in need. They don’t have time or need for adultery. Such things, for the obedient and the faithful, are not even named. In the faithful church adultery is not even discussed among them in a corrective or disciplinary way. Imagine a church where there was no adultery.

It is important to notice that Paul repeats the same language and warning twice in just three verses. In 5:3 and in 5:5 the same words are used. Beginning in 5:5 there is a stern warning: “Everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Verse 6. Let no one decieve you with empy words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Verse 7. Therefore do not become partners with them.” Paul repeats the warning about the three sins,”adultery, impurity (uncleanness), an covetousness” and the shows that these sins are not merely unseemly, but they are disqualifiers from entering the kingdom of Christ and of God.

In the age of grace we quickly apply the forgiveness of sins to every sin and to any sinner. The adulterer caught in adultery may come before a church board or pastor and confess their sin in order to be restored or to have their guilt assuaged. But does the pastor tell them that they cannot inherit the kingdom of Christ and God? Does the board of the church identify this sin as exclusionary and a mark of God’s ultimate judgment?

The church is made up of former adulterers and filthy and idolatrous people who have been saved by the grace of God. The church is filled with people who used to do these things, but who no longer do them. The excuse that the person is addicted to sex or that they couldn’t help themselves does not stand against the categorical condemnation of these sins. These sins are not part of the Christian’s life. They cannot be part of the Christian’s life. They must not be so alien to the Christian’s experience that there is no need to mention them in the fellowship of true Christian people.

Harshness of the condemnation of these triple sins.

In the day of cheap grace we find that any condemnation is unacceptable. We find that telling anyone that their sin puts them beyond the grace of God seems too harsh and we are hesitant to tell them that what they did excludes them from the kingdom of Christ and of God. But is this not what Paul says?

The Gospel of Christ is transformative. If it is not transformative — if peoples’ lives are not changed — it is not the gospel that is at work in people. If a person continues to sin (Romans 6:1) and depends on the grace of God to restore and to restore and to restore, they have not understood the grace of God. Paul erupts in Romans 6 with an invective, we could say he is swearing, cursing, better to say he is absolutely condemning those who say they should keep on sinning that grace might abound. He cannot stand the thought of those who would excuse their bad behavior because God is gracious. They have not understood nor do they know the transforming grace of God. “May it never be!”

But ask an adulterer if they are willing to stop it for their love of Jesus Christ — ask them if they are willing to stop that the purity of the Church may be protected. Ask the adulterer if they are willing to stop so that they might grow in faith and in faithfulness to God. If they are a Christian they will stop it. They will hate what they have done. They will see the damage they have caused. They will know that God’s honor, God’s law, God’s character were assaulted by their sin. They will break away from the adultery and they will find the grace of God sufficient, abundant, competent to change their lives and to free them from the sin that entrapped them.

“Because of these things (these three sins) the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6). How can a Christian continue to do what brings the wrath of God upon those who will spend eternity in Hell?

Redeeming our walk.

Ephesians 5:8, “You were darkness … now you are light. Walk as children of light.” How do children of light live their lives? “It is found in all that is good and right and true … and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” The good and the right and the true are the things that we ought to be doing and focused on as we live our lives. Good. The things that mirror the nature and character of God. Right. The things that measure up to the moral character and the law of God. True. The things that are based on the existence of God and his involvement in every event of our lives. We form our choices based on the revelation of God’s Word and seek to make decisions not on human wisdom but on the wisdom of God’s Word. How different is this from the adulterer! He does what is bad, and wrong, and a lie. We begin to see how completely different the lives of Christian people must be. Good, Right, and True – Versus – Bad, Wrong, and Lying.

The instruction could not be clearer. The issue now becomes, “How will I live as a Christian?”

Bible Study, Philosophy of ministry.

Redeeming Prayer

Redeeming Worship means that we do the things we ought to do, and that we don’t do the things we mustn’t do when we come to worship God.

When we turn our hearts, our eyes, our minds toward God, worship should become God-centered. All that we do in worship is about God, it is for God, and it is constrained by God’s direction for the event. There is perhaps nothing more arrogant, nothing exceeds the presumptuousness of one who determines what he will do in worship as an act of praise or in a design to give God glory, and doing so without considering what God has said about how he should and must be worshiped. We, like the followers of Aaron at the foot of Mt. Sinai, melt our gold and contrive our devices and concoct our forms and our limericks, we silence the voice of God, melt out golden bobbles into an altar and dance merrily around the Golden Calf, thinking all is well, because it is done is in the name and for the sake of worship.

Praying to the Golden Calf

Our worship doesn’t fail so miserably as the Israelites, but we are prone to the same kinds of sin. We substitute what God has commanded for actions that we have invented. We are quick to dismiss the confession of sins as too obtuse or old-fashioned and our sins are unconfessed before our holy God. We set aside the reading of God’s Word because our focus is on new believers or seekers whom we hope to reach for Christ, and we starve believers in the pew and leave them spiritually emaciated, like those in the death camps, scarcely skin and bones, spiritually, because we have chosen to entertain or dazzle rather than to strengthen, feed, inform, mightily comfort in trial and sorrow, or fully prepare for battle those who are Christ’s.

First prayers

The content of the prayers in Ephesians opens a door into the spiritual life of the Apostle Paul. Some have said that a man at prayer is the most accurate representation of the condition of his soul and it is a point at which he is the most honest and the most God-focused.

Ephesians 1:15-17 — It was their faith in Christ (1:15) that moved the Apostle to pray for the people to whom he is writing (Ephesians was probably a circular letter to many churches in the Lycus Valley of Asia Minor, so there were many church-recipients of this letter). Their faith in Christ was the beginnning point of his prayers for them. We should pray differently for people who are Christians than for those who are not. Our prayers for Christians must be about the knowledge of God and our need to grow — “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened” … “the hope to which he called you” ‘the riches of the glorious inheritance” “the greatness of the power at work in you” — all these prayers were for those who believed. The prayer was so that they might understand and walk in the great provisions that God has given them.

When people come to Christ, often all they know is that Christ died for their sins. They may not know that God desires for their hearts to be enlightened, for their minds to be instructed, for the greatness of power to be experienced, within their very lives. But to these ends, Paul “makes remembrance of them” in his prayers. He not only knows about them, but he chooses to remember them in prayer.

The pastor’s duty is to teach and preach, but it is also to pray. To remember to pray for his people. The pastor who does not pray for his people ought not to pastor them. This would be like the shepherd who allows the sheep to go hungry or to be eaten by wolves, who allows any other flock to envelope his own, or to permit thieves to take the sheep to expand their own flock.

The good shepherd prays for his people. He prays for them to know God, to know about God, and to walk with God. He prays that they might be given the Spirit of God to teach, to reveal, to open the Word of God. And he prays that the people of God would live by the power that raised Christ from the dead, and not in their own failing power.

The pastor prays honestly for his people. The Law of God exposes the thoughts and the intentions of the heart and the pastor knows their sins because he knows his own, as Scripture informs us.

But the prayers are not purely theological, dealing only with matters of heart and head. The majestic prayers in Ephesians lead us to live for Christ. “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” These prayers for good works come from the Apostle of Grace. Paul prayed for the truth of our life with God to be translated into our daily life with God and how we live for God. There is a context for these good works — they were “prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (2:10). The workmanship of God, making the dead alive — teaching them about their spiritual riches and the certainty of their life with God forever (“inheritance”), this workmanship was given to us by grace, through the Spirit, so that our lives would be lived in these truths, in these realities, and in this power.

What a horrible waste to have the power of the resurrection poured into our lives, working in us a redemption that takes away all our sins and then to live in utter defeat, to know no peace, and to never experience the provision of God, the life of God, or the passion for God. That our lives would never be touched or changed or corrected or helped or made right because we are “his workmanship,” would be a tremendous failure.

Ephesians 3:14-21. Pulling the main verbs out of the prayer, here is a simplified sentence from this prayer:

“I bow my knees before the Father … that he may grant you to be strengthened with power by his Spirit … that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith … that you may have strength to comprehend … and to know the love of Christ … and be filled with the fulness of God.”

This is very different from praying for traveling mercies for MaryBeth and Homer as they go back up to Ohio, or Aunt Judy’s broken finger. Intercession and petitions are part of our prayer-life, but they only make sense after we have appropriated the grand gifts of God for our lives. When we are filled with the fulness of God, then when we turn to pray for Aunt Judy, we will pray for much more than for her broken finger, but for her heart to be filled, for her life to be dominated by the Spirit of Christ within, that she might comprehend the dimensions of the love of God. How much better our prayers are, when we first pray for the grander themes, the higher aspirations, the glorious content that God desires to pour into our lives. Then we are his workmanship. Then we can know and be filled with the fulness of God.

	dwelling under His w… on Colossians 1:21-2:5. Christ br…
	Redeeming our warfar… on Redeeming our warfare
	Lois Gates on Some theses about the nature o…
	wthomaswarren on Redeeming worship
	troberts649 on Redeeming worship

Glorious Savior Church

Everything we do captured by glory.

Category Archives: Bible Study

Colossians 2:6-15. His victory, our conquering power.

Colossians 1:21-2:5. Christ brings his people to maturity.

Colossians 1:1-5. Faith, love, and hope.

Finally, rejoice.

Christian unity and the “mind of Christ”

Grace from one to another

Redeeming our warfare

Redeeming relationships by Christ’s power and Lordship.

Redeeming words and walk.

Redeeming Prayer