Puritan Reformed Conference: Thursday, August 22, 2013
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Michael Barrett is Academic Dean and Professor of Old Testament at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is a minister in the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. Formerly, Dr. Barrett served as president of Geneva Reformed Seminary. He earned his doctorate in Old Testament Text with a special focus on Semitic languages. His dissertation was titled A Methodology for Investigating the Translation Philosophies and Techniques of the Septuagint. For almost thirty years, he was professor of Ancient Languages and Old Testament Theology and Interpretation at Bob Jones University. Dr. Barrett has had an active role in the ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church since its inception in North America. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and has published numerous articles in both professional and popular journals. His other published works include Beginning at Moses: A Guide to Finding Christ in the Old Testament; Complete in Him: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Gospel; God’s Unfailing Purpose: The Message of Daniel; The Beauty of Holiness: A Guide to Biblical Worship; Love Divine and Unfailing: The Gospel According to Hosea and The Hebrew Handbook. Dr. Barrett and his wife, Sandra, have two sons and five grandchildren.
Colossians 3:1-17
Many Christians have a problem with the Christian life. Faith loses its attractiveness and disillusionment sets in. Christianity is a set of rigid beliefs. Every new seminar seems to be an effort to capitalize on the Christians dissastifcation and failure to understand what the Bible says about the Christian life.
The Scripture connects what we believe with what we do, our creed and practice, linking what we believe with our living. he truths of the NT that gripped the hearts of first century Christians never seem to cross the minds of Christians in the 21st Century. When Christians ignore
Christians define their Christianity in terms of a decision they made in the past. The power of the gospel and the truth of the gospel must influence and direct our Christian life. It is Christ his cross and the completeness of the gospel that must interfere with life. It is the cross that must stand int he way of every sin, to point us to piety. It is right thinking that produces right living. If we can learn what it means to think right about the gospel, then we are on our way to living right.
Paul expounds the completeness of Christ – His humanity and deity – and then our completeness in him – v. 10 Our completeness is defined in terms of our union with Christ – how we meditate and apply and live in the reality of our union with Christ that gives meaning to living ourt our faith.
Living Out of Faith from the Inside and the Outside: The Principles and the Practice of the Christian Life
There is nothing more practical for us than Christian truth – as we understand doctrine we have the basis for living out what we believe.
The Principle of Christian Life (The Hidden Life)
The opening four verses expounds the theology that is essential for the Christian life: our union with Christ that is equally true of every believer. Every genuine believer is equally united with Christ but nit every believer enjoys their union with Christ.
The Fact of the Hidden Life – v. 3 “For ye are dead” – indisputable fact: you died. This past death must refer to something that is spiritual, mystical – spiritual truth that surpasses human comprehension. We are taken to the mysterious union that every believer has with Jesus Christ in His death on the cross. Over and again the Scripture makes it clear, and makes that remarkable statement – “I am crucified with Christ,”
Christ is our federal representative head, standing in the place of all those who are united in him. On the cross satisfaction for our sin was secured, where the connection to sin was severed. We should look down on sin and the old life from the vantage place of the cross. The sin that is so alluring when in our face loses its appeal when the viewed from the old rugged cross. Although we died, our life has been hidden with Christ in God. This mystical death did nt produce a lifeless corpse. Union with Christ union with his death always produces resurrection with Christ. Since this is a fact – since you have been raised with Christ – then on that basis there is a community with his death that always results in a community with his life. The form of the verb speaks of a constant “staying hidden” with Christ. When we died with Christ we were at that time hidden in Christ and there we constantly remain.
The implications regarding our security with God and our duty to the world are far reaching. The world cannot see us hidden in Christ. But God sees his elect hidden in Christ. God sees the body in terms of the head and there is the sobering reality that the world sees the Head through the body. The world sees Christ through those who profess Jesus as Savior. What does how we live say about the wonder and the beauty and the glory of our Head? The world’s estimation of our Christ will very often depend on what they see in the body.
The Imperatives of the Hidden Life
1. Seek – involves thinking directed at our wills. We are under the obligation as believers to do these things.
Be seeking the above things through an habitual process
Not simply an investigation but a thorough going effort to obtain that which is sought
To regard Christ as our treasure is to have our earthly heart focused on where he is.
This is more than an examination of doctrine, but a striving to experience the blessing and the fulness.
Sometimes theologians can suck the joy right out of truth.
We seek truth not to examine it but to experience it. We as believers tend to live on the borders of blessing (like the ten spies).
2. Set our affection on things above – be thinking about above things.
Habitual thinking grooves the brain – Phil 4:8
Groove the brain in thinking about Christ. It doesn’t mean that we never think about other things, but all other things we think about is governed by the fact that we are in Christ.
The Prospect of the Hidden Life – v. 4
The hidden life does not and will not remain hidden. Faith transitions to sight, the invisible becomes the visible.
Christ, who is our life, the essence of our life, the object of our passions, what defines us, that will one day be openly revealed, and we will be manifested in the same glory with him. There is no separating Christ and his peole.
It is occupation with Christ that is the secret to everything in the Christian life.
Living out our faith means that we live now with a view to then. We keep t=eternity in view and we keep the gospel in focus.
The Procedure of the Christian Life (The Seen Life): vv. 5 – 17
What is true on the inside will show itself on the outside. The evidences of our hidden union with Christ should be seen – it is going to look like the way we live.
The implications of what it means to be in Christ.
1. Dying to sin: believers are to put off all of the old vices of our life outside of Christ. We should die practically to sin as we live in union with His life in the resurrection. Paul demands the duty of death, imperatives that demand obedience:
Mortify our earthly members – the physical limbs or body parts – but includes whatever in us that is of this world that is bent to sin
The biggest threat to our sanctification is self
This death is not by natural causes. “Mortify” means to kill self – spiritual suicide – the language is blunt, forceful and shocking. We must kill off the stuff of the sinful life that we have in our earthly existence. The consequence of our dying with Christ is that we should no longer live with a view to ourselves, our own desires, our own ambitions.
Put off the sinful practices. Uses the metaphor of changing clothes – life in Christ cannot look like what you looked like before you were in Christ. The Bible knows nothing of a gospel that makes no demands on life, that requires no change in life.
Identifies sins that are subject to death: vv. 5-8 The principle point that the Apostle is making. Go through these two lists which have five sins, both have bearing on the second division of God’s moral law. In v. 5 the list progresses from outward transgressions to inward transgressions. v. 8 begins with inward transgressions that show themselves outward.
There is a logic here that the Apostle is using: our attention is to be focused on the center, focusing all thoughts on the center statement and then developing out from that center.
When all ten sins are combined, we need to be careful not to think these are the only sins we need to deal with. This is a partial list that designates the totality. We have to deal with sin – not just particular sins.
Verse 7 gives us hope that it is possible to put off these sins. There is no Christian who is experientially is as holy as he should be, nor as holy as he will be.
The Reasons for Death to Sin
1. Negatively: sin angers God. We are no longer subject to God’s wrath because of Christ’s atoning work. God put the cross between our sin and Him. And the wrath of God for our sakes as believers is quenched by the cross of Christ. If God put the cross there, then we ought to as well. Thinking about why he died, and that we died in union with him, is reason enough for us to die to sin.
2. Positively: we are restored in the image of God: vv. 9-10 We dress according to what we are. Those who trust Christ no longer wear the clothes of those who are spiritually dead. Continually and habitually and progressively renewed in the Creator’s image. Without regard to our race or naationlity (v. 11). Every believer is to look like Christ.
The Marks of Spiritual Life/The Virtues of the New Man vv. 12ff
The Merits of the Christian Life: vv. 15-16
Let the Peace of God Rule
Let the Word of (about) Christ Dwell
Our relationship to fellow believers: we tech and admonish
Our relationship to God: singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord
Gratitude: Be thankful
The Motives of the Christian Life: v. 17
The name of Christ and the glory of Christ motivates us. Whatever we do, we do it for Jesus sake, consciously and intentionally in the name of Christ.
Living out our faith requires thinking and living in the reality of the religion we say we believe, belief and practice, doctrine and duty. In the head we must know the truth, in our hearts we believe the truth, with our hands we implement the truth.