Sanctification: Two Filthy Johns(For Don)

So, a couple of weeks ago my friend Don asked me for an opinion on a recent sermon that John MacArthur preached on Colossians 3 on the topic of Sanctification.  Don and I both are part of a discussion/drinking group but since I won't be able to make it to our group for awhile I am going to just put my thoughts up here.  So first off here is the link to the sermon.  Rather than trying to respond in a point by point way I am simply going to read Paul's text and make my own observations on the text, and anyone who wishes to compare my thoughts to can simply read them both and come to their own conclusions.  I will however be beginning with Colossians 2, and full disclosure Macarthur's sermon is part of a series on the entire book of Colossians and I have not read the entire series another reason why I am not commenting on his words but only on Paul's.

For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

So, let me start by saying that I intend to make much of Paul's references to Christ in this chapter.  He begins by describing the knowledge of God as a mystery, a mystery specifically revealed in Christ.  Now those who have read my recent writing on Revelation probably know where this is heading.  The knowledge of God is the scroll which is only accessible through the Slain Lamb, that is we can only see God as He is through the lens of Christ's Death and Resurrection.  This passage is about death and resurrection, His and ours.  And Paul doesn't mention Christ simply for branding purposes, every time that he mentions Christ in these chapters we should understand that he is referring to the mystery of the Cross.

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

How are we to walk in Christ?  As we have received Him.  How have we received Him?  By grace apart from any works on our part.  We have received Him while we were yet sinners the righteous Christ died for us.  And we are not to depart from that.  We are not to add to that.  We are not, to use a phrase that I know will draw a lot of fire, to stop being sinners.  We are to walk, to continue our lives, in the same way that we began in the Gospel.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

We are complete in Christ, requiring the addition of nothing.  But here's the rub, adding anything to that subtracts from it.  Adding any kind of spiritual worthiness, adding any knowledge, any virtue to our position as sinners saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is to add Baal to Jehovah.

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Our righteousness is not the righteousness of the absence of sins but the righteousness of the forgiveness of sins.  It is not the righteousness of doing right but the righteousness of all requirements, all standards by which we could be condemned being nailed to the cross, including the requirement of spiritual growth or improvement.  We are righteous by default, righteous because everyone who accuses the saints gets booted from the courtroom.(See Revelation 12)  When it is Christ who justifies who is it who dares to accuse?  Any who accuses the saints has no standing, simply because they have contradicted Christ Almighty.

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations— “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

This is going to be the core on which Paul builds ch3, so we need to understand it.  It is that you, on this Earth are dead.  You look at yourself and you look alive.  You feel alive.  There are any number of infallible proofs that you are alive.  But you are not alive in this world.  Your mind, your body, everything that seems to you to constitute yourself is declared by Scripture to be dead.  And you have testified to that same effect in baptism.  Martin Luther tells us that no one can know, or feel, or seem to himself to be a Christian.  He can only BELIEVE that he is.  And the choice before us as we move into chapter 3 is to believe the testimony of our minds and bodies that we are alive or to believe the testimony of Word and Sacrament that we are dead.  And understand this before we proceed, that the righteousness of doing right things, and having right thoughts and right feelings, APPEARS to conquer sin but is in fact merely indulgence of the flesh.  Abstaining from the acts that we have designated sinful is not the religion proscribed by He who when asked what were the works of God replied, "To believe in God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent."  And if it isn't His religion then it is self-imposed religion, false humility, and profitless neglect of the body.

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

So, the person that we think we are, is dead.  The part of you that you are familiar with, the part that walks around, thinks thoughts, feels feelings is dead.  There is a part of you that is alive but it is not on this earth, in the words of John's First Epistle it "doesn't appear yet" but we know that it is like Christ and that is enough.  Set your mind on a righteousness which doesn't appear, which you can't see, and can't act out, even in secret.

Therefore regard as dead your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you were alive in them.

You have no righteousness on this earth.  Everything that you think of that you could do that might be righteousness Paul here designates as uncleanness, evil desire, and idolatry.  Any goodness which we imagine that we might have must always be idolatry if it is true that there is only One who is good.  Get the idea out of your head that you are going to do anything good, the part of you that is on this Earth is only sin.  Rather than putting your hopes and your focus on yourself and your improvement regard yourself as dead, a lost cause.  Regard yourself as dead, but trust that the God who created you did not do so in vain, trust that whatever God intended you to be, will someday be, indeed already is in the mystery of the Divine Word.

But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Our chasing after our own righteousness, in opposition to or addition to, the righteousness which comes by faith was the cause in Colosse of strife in the church.  Those who imagined themselves further progressed in such a righteousness condemned those they imagined beneath them and they slandered them.  They struggled and lied all because of self-righteousness.  They compared themselves with others not realising that all such is covetousness and that all such distinctions are swallowed up in the abounding grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, do likewise. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

When we are all the same, all forgiven sinners, we can love and have compassion on one another. Envy and wrath destroy brotherhood as soon as our own righteousness intrudes on one another.  And this is the ground on which we forgive, not that the other is good or is improving but that they are dead in sin.  You can't collect from a corpse. 

So, I don't pretend to understand all of Scripture.  But what I do know is the commission that I was given.

"Comfort, yes, comfort My people!”
Says your God.
“Speak peace to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.

In all perplexity that is my guide.  John MacArthur or whoever can stand up and talk about our hard warfare and struggle in the Christian life.  I am not saying that they are wrong.  I am saying that my orders were to comfort the church with the knowledge that her struggle is done, it is all wrapped up in the forgiveness of sins by the grace which is doubly abundant over our sins.