AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH August 7, 2011
 

A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ without Compromise by Faith 
in agreement with the thrust of the PC of Australia Constitution 1901   

GOVERNMENT BY GRACE

CHANGES AND CONSTANCY

NO IDLE CONTINUANCE

Colossians 3:1-17

Changes here are to enable constancy,
express continuation
and form  character in Christ

  I  EMPLACEMENT Colossians 3:1-4

Eye-target, Mind-set and Life Exchange are found in one's source,
your life being under the tutelage and with the inspiration of Jesus Christ

Thus in that Christ died for you, being one of His,
so hidden in Him and His works,
you now have substitutionary sacrifice for you
(Galatians 3, Colossians 2:14, Matthew 20:28),
identification with Him in His death for you,
with consummation to  come when all is exposed and you, as now hidden,
will then be with Him in His glory (Matthew 13:43, Philippians 3:20-21).
That is the advantage of reality: it works and finally wins: this is HIS victory,
to become yours also.

II  DEATH-SENTENCE  3:5-7

This is levied on the eruptive volcanics of vitiated man.
They have no place, and instead of plate tectonics, you have a celestial plateau for life

Here Christ's death for you is seen also in this, that He died for you as representing you,
now His. Accordingly, evacuate all residual encumbrance as rubbish -  as in Philippians 3:8.

III  CHANGE OF CLOTHES  3:8-9, and 10-14

A) Put off ...

Strip off the odour of the old man, personality, life
 

B) Put on

'You have put on,'  this is past  for the Christian,
but the dry-cleaning is continual (I John 1:7-2:2).
Value your new  clothes and their upkeep (Isaiah 61:10).

Let us now join together what we saw in the EMPLACEMENT,
with this PUTTING OFF and PUTTING ON.

Do not be put off by what is put on; for it has its base and indeed basis in Christ alone, proffered in death on behalf of all, received in life by SOME, namely those who united with Him in death by faith, find life in Him through operative grace and dispensed ransom (Romans 6:5-6).

Three sites cast light on this, Romans 5, 6 and II Corinthians 5. Thus in Romans 5:14, we look at the base case: By Adam's offence DEATH REIGNED. It implicated and applied to ALL men. In 5:16, we learn that there is a vast thrust of grace, so that as through one all died, so through One sacrificial Person, the free gift comes from many offences, set for one justification. The free gift moreover came directed towards justification for all men (5:18 cf. I John 2:1-2), but for all that, it is

"those who receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness"

who

 "will reign in  life through the One Jesus Christ."  

You can neither biblically squash the grace of God as if it had no bearing at all on ALL; nor can you extend the righteousness of God as if it reached to the life of any who do not receive it. It is perfectly just and perfectly clear.

Thus in II Corinthians 5:14, we have this:

"We judge this: that If One died for all, then all died."

Here you see first, the universal sweep, for if Christ as representative, God for man, died for all, all are shown implicated, deserving of death and requiring salvation. But it has the more intense and central meaning at once made clear in the following 5:15.

"He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves,
but for Him who died for them, and rose again ...
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature."

Here is the operative section. The expansive grace and love relates to all, is sufficient for all, is needed by all, and like the Paschal Lamb is presented on behalf of all, but by no means is that person covered whose heart is not with it, in effect placing the hands of faith on the head of the Lamb as in Leviticus 4. The priest does not do that for you!

It is precisely the same in Romans 6:5:

"If we have been united together {or planted together} in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection."

There is to be a double participation if the sacrifice is to have any relationship other than a testimony of the scope of the love of God. You are united TOGETHER in death, and SO in life. Thus, as in Romans 6:8;  , we have this word:

"If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him."

Thus as Christ was raised from the dead, so will those whom He has ACTUALLY covered, who received Him, and so were crucified with Him (Romans 6:6), be raised from the dead. So does offer to all become reception by some, and reception by any becomes death WITH Christ, the substitutionary offering becoming through faith an identification through the dynamic divine; and the result becomes a promise assured, even in the resurrection. Paul puts it in current terms in Galatians 2:20, with daily application, I Corinthians 15:31. By faith, bundled with Him, you are blessed in Him with life everlasting.

IV ESTABLISHMENT OF ATMOSPHERE   3:10-17

- the rule of peace
- the grace of thankfulness
- the  liveliness of godly exchange
- the glowing going by the word in Christ
 

ESSENCE - Overall
 

A) SUBSTITUTION  - All Changes are for Exchange

sin for pardon; wandering for wisdom;
grubbiness for godliness; rubbish for realisation of value
vanity for spiritual sanity; petulance for patience
licence for love; quarrelsomeness for peace
waywardness for directed voyaging;
meaninglessness for a name to claim

See Romans 6:8 - the matter has  current consequences in vitality, as in
8:11 by the direct spiritual power of the living Lord Jesus Christ:
the new man is BEING renewed, like clothes that instead of wearing out, wear in.

B) SETTING - All Changes are Dynamised from God

Set your heart aloft in the Lord
Your mind on the heavenly.
Sanctify by mortification and vitalisation (cf. Ephesians 3:16, Romans 8).
Have  an express change to express the Lord, and
Name Him with a fearless exuberance (cf. Colossians 3:23),
remembering Psalm 73:23: " I am continually with Thee."

Colossians 3:18-4:6 is really a new focus in itself, and might be taken independently: its focus is family and social  relationships.

C) THRUST - Inspiration is both outer and from within,  in Christ

In all these things, you see envelopment, but not  suppression;
that what is to be exposed is so because it is first hidden,
that what is to be manifested may be so, because it is first received by exchange;
 
that the rule of life is not vagrancy but an order inset and inbuilt,
yet not one which commands for coercion.
 

Rather does it vitalise for a hearty expression of what life should be,
may be and is continually to seek to be,
as the Spirit of the Lord indwells,
and the heart enlarges with the life that, being source, is also
both destiny and delivered through the divinity of its Mentor,
fashioned as a new installation for each one,
as a child of God, in Christ (II  Corinthians 3:17ff., I John 1:1-4, 3:1-4).

After all, if a Christian, you serve the Lord's Christ (Luke 2:26),
the source of your choices in life, of your values, inspiration of your thoughts.
In Him,  there is no renegacy. Therefore,  actually and practically do  ALL in His name,
neither in your own nor that of others.
You are HIDDEN in Him that He be the more obvious.

So sing, imbibe His word, exhort!

REFLECTION

The family of God is not what calls itself so, any more than the wealthy are those who say they are rich. It is those who having repented and been covered from the guilt of sin (I Peter 2, Galatians 3), are regenerated, that is, made all over again as a car when it is smashed and then panel-beaten, though that which is of God is from the centre, the heart outwards, not from the outer part to a superficial restoration. It is those redeemed by His blood who are of His own family (Ephesians 1), that is His life-for-life substitution of Himself for the sinner at the bar of justice before God (Galatians 3); for He came from eternity for just such a purpose (John 17:1-3, 8:58, Micah 5:1-3, Isaiah 48:12-19), that He might bring many new children of God to Himself (I Peter 3:18).

It is accordingly, those for whom Christ is the Head, not only the Creator as the Word of God, whose commands are written in our cells, that we might be, but He who is the Redeemer, and whose word is written for our eyes, in His Book of Life (cf. Isaiah 34:16, Matthew 5:17-20), the Bible, that they might see. It is then His works which clear the eye of cataract, restoring the lens of life to acute vision.

What sights anoint the seeing eye (Matthew 15:13), which does not stay closed,opaque to God! and what joy to find after all, in the refreshing of the heart, that that part is not a speck in the night, like a will-o'-the-wisp, but energised to shine (Philippians 2:14-18, Matthew 5:16, Ephesians 3:16), enabled with strength to follow the will of the Saviour (Ephesians 1:19), whatever the foe.

That is the nature of divine grace, the government of God for the soul of man, of woman, of child. It is capacious, yes and far more, there is no limit to His power (Mark 11:23ff.) for those who abide in Him, His words in them (John 15:7), nor any to His love (Ephesians 3:14-21), and His abundance of grace even to eternal life (Romans 8:31-39).