Colossians Lesson 12
Colossians · JD McCulley · Jul 13, 2014
Colossians (2014), No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49264348698

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

So we're moving on to Colossians 2, 11-14, and we'll go ahead and read that, get a little running start in the word, and then we'll start with the questions. Somebody want to read that passage for us, 11-14? And in him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body and flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism. in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us. And he has taken that out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Okay. So we've left Colossians and we're in Romans now, right? Sounds like it. Sounds a lot like it. I mean, we've been talking about the Gnostic heresy, and Brian has done a great job of helping us understand some of the things that the Colossians were dealing with. mentally, philosophically, and here Paul jumps from what seems to be Gnostic heresy into circumcision.

When we think about circumcision here in verse 11, the first question has to do with what is circumcision made without hands? And so we're going to jump into a little bit of a different topic that Paul brings up, and it's going to be tied to something that they were also struggling with, but not necessarily the same kinds of error that they were dealing with in the previous verses. So, the question, what is circumcision made without hands?

So as you've studied and thought through that, what have your studies uncovered? The circumcision of the heart. Okay, circumcision of the heart. How do you know that? Okay, we're baptized into Christ. Let's define circumcision first. Let's get a background. We need to remember that context is everything. It's the window that sheds light in the room.

And this word can have a lot of different instances of how it's interpreted or understood, rather, how it is translated and what it means theologically to us in the church age versus what it means to maybe the children of Israel. So what are, first of all, are we talking about believers here? How do we know? Verse 11. In Him. Okay, so we're talking about those in Christ, we're talking about believers here. Second of all, what does the background of circumcision look like?

Where did we first see that in the scripture? Abraham. Okay, and how was it used? What was the point? Genesis 17 talks about the outward covenant that God made with Abraham and this physical command that he gave Abraham was to be an outward sign of something that had changed in this group of people that God had set aside He sanctified, set aside, and began a new work. And one of the outward signs of that new work, or that new covenant that he had with Abraham, was this circumcision.

And so we see that not only it starts with Abraham, but then it gets reiterated in what? Where do we see it come up again? It becomes formalized into a law. So in Leviticus, we see it as a part of the Mosaic law. So we have it given to Abraham, and then we have it repeated and sealed into the law, if you will, as part of what the people that descended from Abraham would do to show the outward sign of this covenant with God.

In some of my studies I realized that as the Jewish traditions became richer and richer with this particular higher standing in terms of the Sabbath and circumcision and so forth, the Jewish traditions actually had circumcision ranked above keeping the Sabbath. That's how important they felt it was. It was a big deal. It was a really big deal.

So when circumcision is brought up here in Colossians, I wanted to know, how many times does Paul talk about this in his epistles? Is this just kind of a one-off situation where he brings up this Jewish tradition and this Jewish law of circumcision, or is this something that Paul talks about quite a bit? What do you think? Is this rare?

He talks about it in Romans 6 for sure. He mentions it three times in this verse. Remember, repetition is one of the ways that the writers of the scripture highlight things. It's like, pay attention. This is an important factor. I want you to not lose sight of this, and so I'm going to repeat it in several different ways. Nouns, verbs, and so forth, but all in the same sense.

Three times in this passage, and he actually talks about it in Colossians 3.11 and 4.11. So he repeats it in three different areas in the book of Colossians. And if you go back and kind of look just in Paul's epistles, 42 times he talks about this. Three times in Colossians, and three times in this verse.

So what we're talking about here is something that Paul definitely wanted to make sure that the Colossians understood. And not only the Colossians, but also the Romans, the Ephesians. We see it just mentioned quite a bit all throughout his epistles. And so we have this issue, likely, that the Colossians were taking the Gnostic teachings and then mixing it up with Jewish traditions. That mixing up was unique to the Colossians, wasn't it?

Is that something that we do? Yeah, we do. We pick and choose laws, too. And in this case, Paul was addressing a situation where they picked the law of circumcision and likely had a very incorrect understanding of how that worked into their Gnostic, Jewish tradition belief system.

And we call that mixing syncretism. It's something that I deal with on a regular basis in terms of talking with people. It's like a buffet. You literally take what you want, and you just keep piling it on until you get what you think is the right mix of religion, and traditions, and beliefs, and spirituality, and so forth, until you've got your own personal buffet mix of Christianity or Buddhism.

And so, this is something that continues to plague the church. It plagues us. We likely have dealt with syncretism in our own hearts, haven't we? I mean, how many times have you picked the laws that you wanted to keep? Yeah, and so this is a situation that Paul's attacking head-on where these Colossians were confused about where circumcision fit potentially in their system of beliefs.

And did it fit? It did fit. What's the opposite of without hands? Okay, with hands. And so we have this situation in the scripture where maybe we would benefit from understanding what God does with hands and without hands. And I think that one of the things that was really unique to this phrase that I had never noticed was that there's a lot There's a lot going on in the scripture with this phrase. This with hands, without hands, and it applies to God and it applies to man. And so Verne has done a study on that and I've never heard it mentioned anywhere else.

There's the situation in the scripture where you have with hands, meaning something that God does physically with the creation and so forth, and you have something that God's doing without hands, which is what? What's the opposite of physical? So when we see in the scripture with hands, we're thinking about what God's doing in the physical realm. When we see without hands, we're talking about what God does in the spiritual realm. So we'll just look at with hands.

Somebody look up maybe Hebrews 1.10. We'll keep it New Testament even.

And then someone else look up Hebrews 9.11 for without hands.

And whoever's got Hebrews 1.10, go ahead and read that. You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands. Physical or spiritual? Physical. It's physical. Hebrews 9, 11.

When Christ came as high priest, the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made, that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. So how do we make that the tabernacle in heaven? It's without hands, it's spiritual. So we have instances of this phrase or the same types of language that relate to what God's doing in the physical and the spiritual realm.

So here we're concluding that this is a spiritual circumcision, would you agree? Because it's without hands, that's what that means. Is this referring to a group of people, or an individual, or both? What do you think? Those in Christ. Okay. So what do we call those in Christ? Circumcised. That's right. Of the? Heart. Okay. Circumcision of the heart.

Did you know that's a reference to the body? So here he's talking church truths. He's talking to the Colossians in the same way he's talking to us. This applies to us. We are the ones who are circumcised without hands. So we belong to this group. He is including the Colossians, and we too are included because of what follows in this verse, and we'll talk about how that happens in verse 12. But the next question has to do with what would be a good synonym for circumcision?

Cut around? Okay, I think that's accurate for sure. Mike uses the word removal in question three. Yes he does. Which is definitely, we'll look at that one for sure. I think we're going to look at setting up, let's see how does it come across there. removal of the body, the putting off, depending upon your translation. But there's another word I think that's pretty strong here.

Did anybody find severed? Cut off? So you have a a metaphorical description of what is happening to these believers' hearts. And he's not talking about the physical circumcision that was a part of the Jewish tradition, or the law rather, but here he's talking about a spiritual severedness. They are severed from something, spiritually.

It's a strong word. How did the Colossians think about physical things and spiritual things? Do you remember? Physical things were evil. Spiritual things were to be sought after because the more you knew, the higher knowledge you had and the more spiritual you were. So, why were they concerned about the physical issue of circumcision? I mean, if they were going to be consistent with being concerned with spiritual things, why is Paul correcting them about something that they likely had a physical misunderstanding about?

Because believers are inconsistent. Right? I've had so many conversations, and I use this phrase from a book that I read many years ago, but we sit in God's lap in order to slap Him in the face. That's what unbelievers do. They assume that He exists, They utilize the truth of his world and the logic that they have available in their minds only to turn around and be inconsistent about how they view it. They say everything, you know, we're talking about evolutionary perspective, everything that comes from an evolutionary perspective is only material.

It's only the physical, that's the only thing that we can trust. I say, okay, what about the laws of logic? Where are those at? Have you found those yet? Well, no, that's the only immaterial thing that we have. Well, doesn't your whole system depend upon the laws of logic in order to prove that God doesn't exist? So here you have a material view of the world standing on top of an immaterial set of rules or logic. And so this inconsistency is not something that we just see in the scripture. We see it every single day when we battle through apologetically with other unbelievers. And we have to remember that Romans 1 talks about where they stand, doesn't it? What does Romans 1 say about the unbelieving mind? What do they know? They trade truth for a lie.

Right? And so, that same temptation is available to us. I mean, the inconsistencies of adapting certain laws, you know, you got your favorite ten. Vern talks a lot about, you know, which ones are you going to pick? And we all have those, right? Or we've had those, hopefully.

But here is a situation where you just see an inconsistent mind. They needed teaching. That's one of the reasons why Paul needed to write, because they were inconsistent. They were mixing things together. There was syncretism that was taking place. And Paul said, there's clarity here.

And one of them is in this issue of circumcision. So when we think about the synonym for circumcision, that idea of severed, here we have, I'm going to use a word that is very strong. You have a physical understanding of it. You're falling into error, but I'm going to use it spiritually to explain what's going on spiritually so that you understand how this applies to you.

So question number three, this is a good one. I might put it after four, so we'll probably do three and four here together. Question three, are we talking sins or sin here? Remember, we're severed from something, and we're assuming with this question that we're severed from sin. How do we determine that, and how do we know if it's sin or sins from the verse? One of the reasons I put it in there is that there are some translations that actually say, like mine says, without putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. And I wanted to make it clear that the sins is not there in the Greek.

What translation is that? It's the New King James. Okay. Does anybody else have sins of the flesh? Okay, so I didn't catch that, which is why I wanted to reverse these. Okay, I can't ask you the question because Mike has swept in. Ask it anyway. Is the word sin or sins in this passage? You wouldn't know unless you had a translation that either communicated that to you or you looked in the Greek. But in the Greek, there is no sin or sins.

Yes. In the Interlinear, in the Greek it says, by the putting off of the body of the flesh. The body of the flesh. So that's really what we want to talk about, right? So the word sin is not in there, sins. So if we're going to ask ourselves this question, are we talking about sin or sins? And then we're going to, in the next question, talk about what does it mean to be, the putting off or the removal of. We'll get there. But we need to deal with this term. So let's break it down.

What do we know about the body? What are we talking about here? What's Paul referring to? Physical. Physical? Okay. How does he use the word body? What's the context here? I think these two words used together give us a better picture of what he's talking about, right?

Because we could be referring to the body of Christ. We could be referring to his physical body. We could be referring to the spiritual body of Christ. We could be referring to your physical body. We could be referring to your spiritual body. And oftentimes there are different words that are used for those, but here the context is with the flesh. And so to understand what body means, we also have to understand what flesh means. And flesh is another one of those words that shows up all over the place in Paul's writings. So we'll hold on to what body is here now. Let's just kind of jump over to flesh for a minute. What's the opposite of flesh for Paul? Alright, so here it makes sense probably to understand the word body as being the members of a physical body, so all that makes up your physical body, the body of the flesh.

So, a question again, are we talking about sin or sins here? Sin. Be sin. I think it's sin. Be sin. The sin. The sin they have. Not sins? What are sins? All types of things, but sin, isn't that our nature? We have a sin nature. This word flesh can also be understood differently. So we have physical flesh, we have physical humanity, So all of humanity is referred to as the flesh, or flesh. And then we have the unregenerate state of man.

There's a lot of other variances and nuances, but let's look at 2 Corinthians 12.7. Someone read that one.

Someone else grab Romans 3.20. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Okay, so who's talking there? Paul. Who's got the thorn in the flesh? Paul. Okay, what flesh is that? It's physical body. Okay. Is that what we're talking about here? Yes. Are we? Is that the same use of the word?

Let's look at Romans 3.20 and see another use that Paul has of that. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Okay, so what's that referring to? Humanity? No flesh should be justified by the law. Yeah. It's an entirety, right? Humanity. And then Romans 7, 5. Last one. Romans 7, 5. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work on our members to bear fruit for death. That's from the English Standard Version. Okay.

So what are we talking about here? Are we talking about human flesh? Are we talking about humanity? Or are we talking about the unregenerate state of man? Unregenerate state of man. I think so. So when we see that we're severed, we're cut off, we're circumcised without hands, it's a spiritual circumcision, in the removal of the body of the flesh. So we're talking about the whole entirety of the unregenerate state of man.

Does that seem right? Does that seem to fit in this context? we need verse 12 to help us fully understand that. But before we get to verse 12 to explain how that severedness or the putting off or the removal, we need verse 12 to understand that. But let's first of all make sure that we have a clear understanding of what this whole process looks like.

And one of the interpretive tools that we have as believers is to grab your favorite commentary and look it up, right? Yes, but what if you have a divine commentary not written by men? And you have a commentary parallel in the scripture that you can go and help give insight to your understanding of this before you go to your favorite commentary. Call it the divine commentary.

And that's the first place that we go. So if we want to get a clear picture of this process, we say, where else in scripture is this talked about? Even more specifically, is it talked about in this is it talked about in other letters that were written by Paul? Because the closer you can get to divine commentary of the original author and other things that he said, the better you're going to be. Now, what is the parallel book to Colossians? So Colossians is written where? Man looking up or man looking down? So Colossians is man looking up. Your mind set above. Ephesians is written where? Looking down, okay, from the position that we have.

Where does Romans fit in this? In this particular passage, we're talking about circumcision and the law, and when Paul deals with this area, he deals with it extremely heavily, and extremely heavily, is that a combination that works? He deals with it very heavily in Romans 6, 1 through 11. So, next to your verse in the Bible, just say, divine commentary, see further, Romans 6, 1 through 11. Because that's going to give you the picture of what Paul is summing up in this statement, the putting off of the body of flesh. But let's read specifically Romans 6, 6. Someone grab that, and let's see if we can get some divine commentary on what's going on here. knowing this that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. Now here he uses the word sin. So, is it safe to say that according to Paul, this process of removing the body of the flesh is consistent with his reference to the body of sin?

So what are we talking about? Sin or sins? Sin. So sin is the unregenerate nature of man that produces sins, right? That's right. The sin nature produces sin. And he produces different sins in each of our lives. Some we share, some we don't. You've got your pets and I've got mine. But they all come from the body of the sin nature. Now it's cut off. Wait a minute.

So we know that unbelievers are not cut off from the body of sin. So it's their nature to sin. How do we have believers who are severed, who are cut off, and still sin? That's a question we're going to have to answer today. But before we do, let's look at question number four, because that precedes this next area that we're going to talk about. What does the word removal or putting off mean?

Putting out of commission, no longer able to control us. Say that one more time, sorry. Putting something out of commission, no longer able to control us. No longer can control us, okay. Anyone else have... Done away with. Done away with. Render inoperative. Render inoperative. So you take this putting off, or in some cases you have the word removal, and then you combine it with circumcision, which means we talked about synonyms for that, which were severed, cut off, Paul's repeating. the extent to which this is taking place. So it's pretty severe. It's severed. It's removed. It's put off. It's cut off.

I have a total breaking away from. That's one way of understanding that. And the background usage of that word was literally to strip oneself of clothes, or to strip oneself of armor, and to literally put it away, to walk away from it. To get out of sight. out of sight, out of mind, it is gone. I no longer have any need for that.

You think about a soldier's gear today. When they're enrolled in the army and they're fighting, they have gear. When they get back home and their service is over, do they still put that gear on and walk around? It's no longer what belongs to them. They have removed themselves from it, totally broken away from that state and moved on to something else, and now they're wearing what you guys are wearing today. It's different, right? It's total breaking away from.

So, we want to know what does the severing, what does this cutting off, how does this work? And so, and we also want to know what is it Why does it mean for a Christian to be severed, to totally break away from this body of the flesh, which is sin, the sin nature, and yet still have outward sins? How does that work? So, we're going to move to verse 12, in a sense, just to begin getting an insight, but this has been something that I struggle with for a long time, and you probably have too.

I think every Christian who gets past the gospel truths in their lives, starts to walk with the Lord, hears that they need to continue to walk by faith, they get confused, they read James, they think there's a lot of other things going on, and all of a sudden they're seeing sin in their life come back up, they've kind of left the honeymoon period of being a believer, and now, here comes that nasty sin that you had trouble with before you became a believer, and you read Colossians 2.11, and you're thinking, what's going on?

Did it not work? Do I gotta go back? Have stronger faith? Do I gotta go back? Make a greater public confession? Do I gotta go back and kneel at the altar? And the altar, again, I share the Baptist upbringing that you did, Brian, and altar calls were a good way of renewing this issue. I gotta just go make sure. Let me get back up there. Let me feel a little bit worse about where I was. so that I can feel a little bit better when I leave until I don't feel good anymore and I'll come back.

Hey, revivals are necessary if you don't understand the passage and understand how this works. So, Paul bringing this up to the Colossians would have prevented them from constantly returning back to Gnosticism, constantly returning back to Jewish traditions, just to try to make things right.

He's going to go on in these next several verses to create a very, very clear understanding of key identification truths. So we're talking about identification now, aren't we? This has huge impact. There's an allegory that Miles Stanford uses, and it was extremely helpful to me in understanding what's going on here, and I'll read it to you.

Here is the allegory of the sea captain who, in mid-ocean, is charged with a capital offense. He is put in chains and replaced by another. As the ship sails on, the chained one seeks to assert his old authority over the crew. Some of them might be foolish enough to respond. There is no need, for he has been judicially deposed. It is now simply a matter of acknowledging the new captain and refusing the threats and orders of the condemned one. The death sentence is not yet carried out beyond his being held in the place of death. His power is broken, but he will be executed when the ship reaches port.

In the meantime, he causes a lot of trouble." Then he goes on to explain, "...is this not a picture of the edemic source, held in the place of death, replaced by the new source, at the helm of our ship, our attitude toward the old man is to be this, and this is the key part, I reckon upon the crucifixion of the cross as your undoing and therefore refuse your reign over me. I count the Lord Jesus Christ as the captain of my life. When we reach the heavenly port, the conflict will be over.

In the meantime, we rest in him. pretty impactful way of allegorizing what's going on here. You have a completely severed off relationship. Does that mean that the sin nature isn't still megaphone style yelling in your ear? It doesn't mean that. Not until the body is completely done away with. You see, the sin nature is attached to this fleshly body.

As long as you've got it, that deposed monarch, or deposed captain in Miles' reference there, he's still shouting commands. I've used an example of, you used to be in the army, you've been out of it for quite a bit, you show up in the grocery store and lo and behold, there's that old major that you used to listen to for every single command of your life. When to breathe, when to sit, when to to stand, when to wake up, when to run, when to stop, when to eat.

And he shows up and he says, hey, how you doing? How's it been? How's life been since you've left? Now get out and give me 20. And you're just thinking, it's great, but I don't know what else to do. This is how it's always been, so I drop down and give him 20 right there in the middle of the grocery store. It's kind of the way the sin nature works, isn't it? It comes up, how you doing? How you been? What's going on? Give me 20." And you're thinking, wait a minute, you're no longer authoritative over me.

Does Paul deal with this issue of authority in Colossians? Wasn't that the previous verse? This issue of authority is a big deal. We covered it a little bit, but When you're walking about your daily Christian life, every decision you make is based on the authority that you're listening to. And yes, we assume authority quite a bit, don't we? We know better then. And we talk about this idea of authority and where does authority get dealt with in Scripture in the very first place. Where is authority challenged the first time in Scripture? And who challenged the authority?

Yeah. You see, it's one thing to dangle these things out there like circumcision, agnostic thinking, but if you can slyly challenge the authority of someone, then it doesn't matter what you're going to be selling them at the end of the day. If they've already decided that their authority is not, in this case, in the Lord Jesus, you can dangle anything to them and eventually get them to bite.

That's the way Satan works. He works in counterfeit measures, right? That's what he does. He deceives, not for the purpose of drawing you out into sin, but to even change your authority so that you continue to sin and you stay focused in that way. So if I can change who your authority is, then I can change the way that you behave according to that authority. And so, when looking at this issue of how come my body of sin, or the sin nature, has been severed, cut off, totally removed, and yet I still sin because you are listening to the wrong authority.

And, more importantly, it has no rule over you. I'm thinking that here comes this information that's brand new to the believer, let's say, Romans 6. And you have an authority that you believe up until that point that Christ died for your sins. And here comes this information that's new to you. But you have no experience to verify it and you've probably lived a lot by experience up to that point. And up to this point there has been other information that has been transmitted to you that you've been invited just to do one thing about and that's believe, whether you experience it or not.

And here comes this information and it really says, I died. And so now I've got a dilemma. I'm sitting here alive looking at the information that I died. How do I reconcile that? What I'm getting at is a position condition issue. I have a position in Christ that Paul is constantly laying out to me and I'm always learning something new about my position. What do I do with that information?

I don't have enough spiritual maturity to implement it. I don't know how to implement being crucified with Christ. I'm just discovering that maybe it happened to me. I don't implement anything. So let's talk about that. So essentially, here's some new identification truths that have come to light in the scripture.

You don't have any past experiences of which to understand them. They've never taken place for you. You're a brand new believer. Your experiences don't line up with what Paul is saying about you. What do you do in that situation? All you've done is believe the gospel, and now you've got something else that's challenging you that does not line up with your experience. And oh, by the way, it doesn't line up with anything I've read Christian-wise or any church-wise. And it doesn't line up with anything in the Christian bookstore. I think we have the best example. You know, we think, well, we can always, Paul is great and wonderful and all this. Read Romans 6, all the identification. The next chapter, Romans 7. exactly what we're talking about.

He struggles with this. I know what I have to do, but my body and I'm doing flesh. He uses the word flesh there. And you get the final ones, which are the great verses in 7, 24 and 25. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of flesh? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So that on the one hand, I myself, my mind, am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin.

He's dealing with this very, very issue. Position and condition. He knows... So is that a condition or position? This one, he's both. The position is, I have... Who will set me free? Is that condition or position? That's conditionally. And then here he says, I've been severed from it. And he goes on in that passage to talk about, too. Thanks be to God for... So, absolutely, that verse is really helpful to see in light of this.

Is this verse positional or conditional? Initially it's positional. I always have a hard time asking myself that question because every positional truth has a conditional result, right? But where does this begin, I should say? It begins positionally and it's carried out conditionally. This is the truth positionally in Romans, that passage that Courtney just read, is this truth conditionally being understood and applied.

Are we talking then in this verse about because we're in Christ, God views us positionally already cut off from the body of Jesus? Absolutely. That's our position right now. It's already a done deal. That's right. Galatians 5.24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So let's talk about how this gets done. We know that this is a positional truth. How does it get accomplished? Who accomplishes it and how do they do it?

Verse 12. Let's read it. You have death, burial, and resurrection right here. That's three of the five identification truths in one verse. It's an overload for us, huh? So verse 11 talks about what's been done. Verse 12 talks about how it got done. How did it get done? That's really the next question, isn't it? Number five, how is it done? God does it. We're co-buried with him. We're co-raised with him. Okay, so the author is God.

To what extent is it accomplished? What's the extent? Entirely. Entirely. Completely. The whole body of the sin nature has been severed from you. And the character of it is internal or external? Internal. Spiritual, isn't it? So we have God doing the doing. This is something that is passive. It happened to you. Okay? And it was done by Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Well, you weren't there. Were you? Yes, you were. Were you there? Yes. Yes. You mean you were put to death, buried, and raised again. And what's the word that we use to explain that entire set of events? It's in the verse, too. Mystery of God? I erased that. Mike had that up here earlier. I erased it. Nope. It's in the verse.

It explains the death, burial, and resurrection in one word. Baptism. And what does baptism mean? Immersion. Immersion, okay. Wouldn't it kind of be like the death, when you're baptized, a death, being buried? That's part of it. But what happens when you're raised out? That's right, you're raised anew. The old is gone, the new has come. So, how is it done? I mean, we don't have to be fancy about it. Verse 12 is the answer. Yes.

It's death by association. Death by association. What does that mean? We're associated with Christ, so we have been, not that it's actually happened, but we're buried, we're raised with Christ by association. We are associated with Christ. In verse 11, what were the first two words that we read? In Him. So, we could say we were co-buried. There was a co-death, a co-burial, and a co-resurrection.

So, were you there according to the way that the Lord views you? Are you in verse 12? You're not physically, but you're there. Spiritually speaking, because we're talking about what's happening in the spiritual realm, were you in His death, in His burial, and in His resurrection? You have to be. That's a very, very busy cross, a very busy tomb, isn't it? And it's a busy place at the right hand of the Father. Why? Because spiritually, that's where you are. So how is it done? Baptism. And what does baptism mean?

That we are immersed into the death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior. Jim, one thing that I'm thinking is our human condition, nature, up until the moment of salvation, we take everything that is fed to us and we compartmentalize that. And I think that once the gift of salvation is explained to us, we tend to put it into some type of a compartment, not fully appreciating or understanding the depth and width of that gift of salvation. And therefore, I think that it adds to the confusion after we accept that belief. or that gift that we tend to continue to think that it's up to us to set what compartments are the priorities of them and what goes into each one of those boxes instead of understanding that it encompasses everything.

So I just became a believer. I trusted Christ to die on my behalf as my substitute, be buried, and His resurrection was proof that God accepted the sacrifice made on my behalf. Okay, now what? Okay, now what? These are those verses when you look at what we call the identification. They don't make sense unless you understand our co-crucifixion.

I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Does your daily challenge with the sin, who is a deposed monarch in your life, he has no authority, but he's claiming it, does that have anything to do with the gospel? Have you compartmentalized the gospel so much so that when you're dealing with these commands to go about your life with your own authority or the authority of some other source outside of scripture, does that have anything to do with the gospel? or can you compartmentalize the truth of the gospel and look to some other identification truth to help you through it? Are they different? We use the term identification truths a lot. Is the gospel a part of the identification truths? Uh huh. Which ones? The first three. Right?

So every single instance of the deposed monarch challenging you and luring you out, or your own sin nature luring you out to sin, is a direct confrontation with the Gospel message that you believe when you first became a believer. Every single step you make in the direction of sin is a direction away from the trust of the Gospel that you first believed. The gospel has to do with every bit of your life. You had a thought? Yeah, as you're describing a brand new believer, and he's merrily going along and probably doing fine, and then sin starts to creep back in his life.

And so his initial reaction, as you've described, is to go back to the altar. Well, maybe I didn't get saved really good. I've had guys say to me, well, if he really is a believer, well, you either are or you aren't. It really isn't there. So what do you do?

This struggle with the power of sin becomes an issue. And then you run into this information. Initially you get pretty excited about it because you can see within the confines of the knowledge that's there, there's a possibility to be free from the sin that besets me.

There's a real chance now that I can live like I'm supposed to live. But I have to go to seminary. Well seminary will kind of screw it up. Cemetery? So there's a real possibility. What the identification truths really do when you first encounter them is they give you a hope that you can live the life that you've been reading about, but haven't been.

When you look at your own behavior, you think, boy, am I falling short of this? And I've rededicated myself. I'm praying more. I'm doing all the stuff. When old man shows up, when the music starts, my feet are moving, and I can't stop them. this information is enough to at least give the believer hope that he doesn't have to respond. Does that make sense?

If you haven't experienced it, does that mean it's not authoritative? No. It doesn't. Now, that's not what you'll hear in a lot of experiential churches, right? But when we're beholding the Lord through his word, If we believe what the end of that verse talks about, being transformed through His Word, then the longer, and time is a critical element here, the longer we behold the authority who is Christ Himself and His Word, the more we will be transformed. So, your experience is ongoing, isn't it? Is your experience on day 36 of your new Christian life the same as year 36? Could be. Hopefully not. It could be. Hopefully not. Hopefully your experience is lining up more with the authority of God's word because you're being transformed, conformed, and all the things that God's doing in your life.

One of the things too, in the verse where I like Galatians 2.20, the life which I now live in the flesh, so he's talking about that and what he said, it doesn't say that I battle the flesh, that I do all this spiritual push-ups, that I do whatever. It says by faith in the Son of God. That's our responsibility. Believe what is true about us. That's our responsibility or what we're to do. And that is the transforming. It goes right along with that verse.

It's faith in the Son of God. How we battle the flesh is believe what's true about us. Believe what we have in Him. Is it faith in the Son of God or faith of the Son of God? Both. Well, that's a doozy of a question. I thought I remembered it was faith of the Son of God.

So our object, when we think about the gospel, what is the object of our faith? Our Jesus Christ. So I think it's in, in the way that you're referring to it. If it's of, then one might say it's Christ's faith and not your own, and that's another discussion for another day. But the object of our faith is Christ. And you know what, that passage is so critical because here he's talking about not salvation, but sanctification. And what is he saying is the solution to a life lived in sanctification?

What's the thing the believer is doing? Not meritorious, but he's doing something. What is he doing? Growing in Christ. He's believing. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. This life I live now by faith, again, by faith in the Son of God. So, whether it's salvation or sanctification, it's faith.

That's your responsibility. It's not meritorious towards your salvation or your sanctification, but it's the trigger that brings the experience in line with the authority that is identified in scripture as free for us to have. There's some experiences that are claimed that are not ours to have. The scripture doesn't say that that's a result of a believer trusting in the word. And there's a lot of them being promoted as, you know, just in the same way the Gnostics thought they could achieve higher spiritual standing or experiences based on where they put their faith and authority.

You know, I think this goes back also, you know, when we see this in the battle of the flesh, what do I have to do? What do you have to do? Well, that's the flesh talking. And it's faith that fits right into grace, the unmerited It's just believing what's true about you. It's not to do something. It's to believe what's true about you. So our first reaction is usually, OK, I've got to do something. And when you start realizing, that's the old man. Well, where's your focus if you're thinking about what you have to do?

Self. Self. If the question is really, who? Who does the doing? Now, where's your focus? On your Savior. And that's where the beholding comes in, and that's where growth takes place, and that's where these verses have impact in a believer's life, regardless of where they are in their Christian life, new or old. The flesh wants you to focus on, what do I have to do? The Spirit says, you need to focus on who does the doing.

You rest. That's not exactly what I was going to say. Okay, cool. Well, let's pray. Lord, we are so thankful for the truth of your word. It is a light that gives us just amazing clarity about ourselves, about others, and most importantly about yourself. And Lord, we want to be concerned with you. We want to be focused on you. We want to listen to the spirit that you've given to indwell our hearts, to focus on your authority. And Lord, when we are challenged this week, as we think about the different areas that we each struggle, Lord, may we not focus on those things and what must be done, but may we focus on You, trusting You to do the living through us. It's in Your name we pray. Amen.