Christ Preeminent (Part Seven): A Change of Identity

Transcript

JRNT 29
08/13/2023
Christ Preeminent (Part Seven): A Change of Identity
Colossians 1:21-23
Jesse Randolph

Identity. How one identifies, specifically the idea of changing one's identity, has been a source of fascination and intrigue now for centuries. We see the idea of changed identities in literature. We think of Mark Twain's work, The Prince and the Pauper, that entertaining story of two look-alike boys from two totally different worlds—one born into royalty, one born into poverty—who trade clothing and trade identities and all confusion and humor, and adventure ensues. We think of changed identities in the movies, whether that be Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can or John Travolta and Nick Cage in Face/Off. I'm not recommending either movie on a Sunday morning, by the way. We see the idea of changed identities in today's medical literature where people are described as having dissociative identity disorder, in layman's terms that means having multiple, distinct personalities. At breakfast Jim is a mid-career sales executive in his 50s but at dinner he is Davey, a 9-year-old boy who can't stand to have his mashed potatoes touch his peas. And of course, we see this idea of changing one's identity becoming this cultural and social lightning rod in more recent years as men are now identifying as women and demanding that you recognize them as such, as people are identifying themselves by a dizzying array of new made-up pronouns—zee, zim, zer, nem, ver—and demanding that you recognize them as such. We can't forget that we are now seeing people identifying themselves not just as the other gender or as a new made-up gender or as no gender at all, but they are identifying themselves as animals. I'm Paul and I'm a tiger, I'm Lisa and I'm a kitty cat, I'm Tim and I'm a gender fluid lizard and I demand that you identify me as such. The point is this whole issue of identity and namely changing one's identity is one of which we are all especially aware and especially attuned in our day. It's an issue that we are all familiar with in our day, since I've just mentioned it's being thrown in our face all the time in our day. All that means is that we are good and ready and primed to hear what God's Word has to say about the most fundamental change of identity a person could ever go through.

Turn with me in your Bibles, if you would, to Colossians 1, we'll resume our study of Christ preeminent through the book of Colossians. This morning we're going to be in Colossians 1, picking it up in verse 21 and working all the way through verse 23. Colossians 1:21, God's Word reads, “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach; if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the Gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.” What we're going to see today in our time together in this passage is the most stark and stunning and glorious change of identity a person could possibly go through, as they go from alienated and hostile in mind and engaging in evil to reconciled, holy, blameless, beyond reproach, firmly established and steadfast. In a world and in a time such as ours in which changes of identity are this inordinate source of fascination, and not just that but great fanfare and great celebration, the change of identity described in our passage today is one that truly should be celebrated and championed because what we see through this divinely delivered metamorphosis, that we're going to study today, is a person is made a new creature, a person is transferred out of the domain of darkness and into the realm of the inheritance of the saints in light. They are spiritually resurrected, having gone from death to life, no longer carrying around the stench of death that they once had as unbelievers but now having and bearing the aroma of Christ.

That's the title of today's sermon, by the way, A Change of Identity. I've given the sermon that title because in our text Paul highlights the change and identity that these Colossian believers have undergone and ultimately the change and identity that all followers of Christ around the world throughout the centuries undergo. Our text for today, verses 21-23, divides up into three nice points, all built on a key verbal idea that we see in each of these three verses. In verse 21 we're going to see The Christian's Former Identity, when they were alienated from God and back when they were hostile to God. In verse 22 we're going to see The Christian's New Identity, having been reconciled to God through the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross. In verse 23 we're going to see The Firmness and the Genuineness of the Christian's New Identity, as they have been established now in their faith.

Let's get right into it, looking again at verse 21 where it says, “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds.” Now this verse marks a major shift in Paul's writing and in his thinking. In verses 15-20 he has just been soaring in the clouds with this amazing rich language that we've been looking at the last couple of weeks. In verses 15-20 he gives us some of the most beautiful and powerful Christological truth on the pages of Scripture. He is the image of the invisible God. He is before all things. He is the head of the body. He is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead. Then in our text from last week, verses 19-20, we see “it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” So, for the past six verses and for our past two sermons together, Paul has been delivering these transcendent truths as he dwells and meditates upon and proclaims the glories of Christ. Now in verse 21, our text for today, his focus shifts markedly from He, meaning Christ, to you. That's what it says in verse 21, “And although you,” or as some translations have it, “but you,” as in the Colossians and by extension us as believers. See, we're moving on here from the subject of Christ as He is and His preeminence in the creation of all things and His upholding all things and His one-day reconciliation of all things to what Christ has done and accomplished in each of our lives. We're moving from the various third party “He is” statements that we've looked at the past couple of weeks to now these second person “you are” statements. We're moving from the cosmic and the transcendent and the abstract to the personal and the practical and the pastoral. By the way this is not the first time Paul in Colossians expresses himself in these personal, practical, pastoral terms. We've already seen him do it earlier in chapter 1 where he gives thanks to God, Colossians 1:3, for the Colossian believers and their steadfastness of faith. He has already done this earlier in chapter 1 where he shares with them the various ways, he is praying for them and that he is praying that they will remain steadfast in their faith. We're also going to see later in Colossians the very personal and practical and pastoral ways Paul addresses these believers as he is going to lay out for them various rules of conduct and faith as they live as Christians, whether that's in relation to their spouses or to their children or to their employers or to whomever. In other words, Paul here in Colossians is no doubt concerned with theological precision and accuracy. He is very much concerned with sound doctrine and weeding out false doctrine. But he is also very concerned with bringing those cookies and putting them down on the lower shelf. He is concerned with tending to and protecting precious sheep who are in the flock of Christ by reminding them of some of the basic truths like we're going to see today. I bring that up here, this point about Paul and his ability to speak with two voices, the high minded theological Paul and the very practical and pastoral Paul, to remind all of us that while it, yes, is important to grow in theological refinement, of course, and while yes it is important to be able to identify sound doctrine and while yes it is important to be able to sniff out and weed out false teaching, it's also important that we periodically bring it back to the basics as Paul does right here. It's important to remember as Jesus said in John 3:16 that “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.” It's important to remember as Paul said in I Timothy 2:5-6 that “there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.” It's important sometimes, like Charles Spurgeon did, to say things like my theology can be boiled down to four words—Jesus died for me.

That's what Paul is doing in our passage this morning, he is bringing the Colossian believers back down to earth, he is bringing them back to the basics, basics that we all need to be reminded of from time to time. He does so, as we're about to see, with brilliant brevity. Starting in verse 21, he says, “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds.” Now note here the focus is clearly on the past. Paul here is zeroing in on what preceded our reconciliation. As we see, what preceded our reconciliation to God through Christ was alienation, hostility in mind and engaging in evil deeds. We'll start with that first one, alienation. “You were formerly alienated,” he says. Now before they got the Gospel, heard the Gospel from Epaphras, before they responded to that Gospel with repentance and faith, the Colossians had been pagan sinners who did pagan sinful things.

Let's turn over to Ephesians, actually, just for a second. Go back a book or two to Ephesians to get a taste of what this might have looked like, to be alienated and doing wicked, evil, sinful things in that alienated state. We'll pick it up in Ephesians 2:1. Ephesians, you'll recall, was written to a neighboring church of Colossae, the church at Ephesus, Paul ministered directly here. Look at Ephesians 2:1. The people here at Ephesus, as at Colossae, were once “dead in your trespasses and sins.” Moving on to verse 2, “They formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.” Or down in verse 3, they were “living in the lusts of their flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath.” Or go down to Ephesians 2:12. There was a time where they were “separate from Christ,” it says, and at the end of that verse it says, “having no hope and without God in the world.” Or go all the way down to Ephesians 4, a couple pages over, Ephesians 4:17-18. He says they used to walk in the “futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that was in them, because of the hardness of their heart.”

Now bringing it back over to Colossae in their former life, turn back to Colossians please, the Colossians had been alienated from God. That word means estranged, cut off, separated. It's a word with a highly, highly negative connotation. It's a word that would rightly describe an immigrant who makes his way through his new country, not knowing anyone, not knowing the language or the culture as he goes back to wherever he is staying alone. It would be a word that would rightly describe that awkward fourth grade boy who never quite connects with anyone at his school and is always finding himself sitting alone at lunch. It would describe the husband and wife who are living as roommates later in their marriage because they made their marriage all about the kids rather than about each other and now there is this separated sadness that hangs over the home. The alienation of which Paul speaks here is infinitely worse than any alienation that a human could experience, vis-a-vis, another human. There is no stronger form of alienation a person made in the image of God can experience than to be alienated from the One who made them, the One upon whom they depend for their existence, the One in whom is the meaning and the purpose of life, the One whom they were created to be in fellowship with. They'll go through the motions of this life, they'll put another candle on the birthday cake oblivious to the One who gave them the 365 previous days. They'll enjoy the colors and the smells and the festivities of the seasons but suppress the reality of the One who gave them each. They'll go to every national park and punch the national park passport, oblivious to the One who created all the beauty that resides in each of those parks. They'll enjoy a false form of fragile unity and harmony with other people, ignorant of the fact that every human relationship ultimately points to the One that we were designed to have relationship with. Those who think that they are good without God, those who are just skating by on the superficialities of life, those who think that all there is to this life is this life are in the saddest position of all because they are without the Lord, alienated from God. They are consciously foregoing eternal life. They are purposely choosing a few fleeting pleasures in this one instead. They think they have their lives dialed in, they think they have the world all figured out when in reality they are spiritual outcasts who are alienated from God and in desperate need of reconciliation. We were all once there, whether we were raised in the church or whether we grew up in the gutter. We were alienated from God, in desperate need of reconciliation.

Not only that, though, as we bring it back to Paul's letter here to the Colossians, these early Christians here at Colossae, it says here, were “once hostile in mind.” They were not just formerly alienated but hostile in mind. Now part of being made in the image of God is being given the ability to reason and to think cognitively and to think God's thoughts after Him, to share intelligent thoughts. In their former state, though, before they were reconciled to God, the Colossians, it is saying here, were using their God-given intellectual and reasoning abilities against God, meaning they were in a state of mental enmity. They were enemies of God in their minds. Again, that's not limited to these believers back at Colossae in the first century. This is true of everyone who has ever lived. This describes the unregenerate condition of literally every one of the billions of people who have ever set foot on planet earth before being reconciled to God. Before being reconciled to God they were hostile in mind toward God. They do not, as Romans 1:28 puts it, “see fit to acknowledge God.” Their minds, as II Corinthians 4:4 says, “have been blinded by Satan, the God of this world, that they might not see the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Their minds, Romans 8:7 says, “are set on the flesh which is enmity against God.” See, there is no such thing as impartiality toward God. There is no such thing as moral neutrality toward God. There is no such thing as an apathetic atheist. No, in the unbelieving world there is only hostility toward God, enmity toward God, antagonism toward God, and hatred, yes hatred, toward God. That's one of the most appalling consequences of the fall, that because of the entrance of sin into the world, and because of the darkened and foolish hearts and the scale-covered eyes of the so-called nonbeliever, there is natural antagonism in this world toward God. In his unregenerate condition man does not occupy some morally neutral middle ground. No, he is desperately wicked, as it says in Jeremiah 17:9. He stands in direct opposition to God, and he hates Him. That is strong language, but it is true. The one who has not been reconciled to God hates God, and that hatred can be found really in two broad categories. One would be that of the angry atheist, the one who is on his own ironically religious crusade to convince people that God doesn't exist, building his case, building his argument on that self-contradictory two-part creed of God isn't there and I hate Him. The other way, the other group is the self-righteous do-gooder, the one who would never think to say that they hate God. They might even be regular church attenders who are used to hearing about God and speaking about God and conversing about God. But they have never truly understood or embraced what it means to be made right with that God through the grace of Jesus Christ. Instead they point to their credentials or their resume or their good deeds, not realizing that God said long ago in Isaiah 64:6 that all those so-called good deeds are filthy rags in His holy presence, not realizing, as John Calvin once put it that our hearts are actually idol factories, not realizing that the amount of self-love they have for themselves actually reflects a deep seated hatred of God because when it gets right down to it they would never allow God to knock them off their self-righteous perch. Both types of individuals, to borrow here, to go back to Colossians 1, are hostile in mind toward God. They are enemies of God, they are haters of God, whether they are willing to acknowledge it or not.

Now Paul here, of course, is speaking in the context of this church at Colossae and to every single person in that Colossian church. Because Scripture is timelessly true and transcends the centuries, that means that what Paul is referring to here when he says that every single person who has ever lived has been hostile in mind to God applies to our context today as well. Everyone, whether in 1st century Colossae or 21st century Lincoln in an unregenerate condition, has been affected in their thinking by sin. Everyone in that unregenerate state is hostile in mind toward God. In fact, go over with me, if you would, to Psalm 14. Let's head to the middle of our Bibles, go back to the Old Testament and look at Psalm 14 for a picture, an apt picture of who we are, who we were in our unregenerate condition. Psalm 14, surely for many of you this will be familiar, at least this first line. Psalm 14:1 says, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one.” The Bible students in the room should know that Paul appropriated that language in Romans 3, but the point is in our natural condition, before God grabbed a hold of us, we were hostile toward the One who created us, hostile toward the One who gave us life and breath and movement, hostile toward the One who allows us to experience so much goodness in this life. It is wicked pride, is what it is, and it is utter foolishness.

It gets worse, though. In their former unbelieving state, the Colossians were not only formerly alienated and hostile in mind, it also says here at the end of verse 21 they were “engaged in evil deeds.” The Colossians' former alienation from and hostility toward God expressed itself in their evil deeds. Thoughts and actions always go together. That's a timeless truth that spans the centuries. Jesus, in Matthew 7:20 said, “You shall know them by their” what? “Their fruit.” A bad root will inevitably produce bad fruit. The members of this church here in Colossae were not only once sinners in thought, but they were also sinners indeed, sinners in practice. With their once depraved mind they were committed to doing those things that were not proper, Romans 1:28. What a contrast that is—how they once lived and how in Paul's time they were now living. Look up the page of Colossians 1 to verse 10. We covered this a few weeks ago. Colossians 1:10, this was their then present-day status as Paul wrote to them. It says, he speaks of walking in a manner worthy of the Lord to please Him in all respects and look at how they are living. “Bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” That's quite the contrast from their former state of continually engaging in evil deeds. Such it was for us if we have trusted in Jesus Christ. In our former life we were consistently and persistently and flagrantly violating the commands of God. We stood defiantly against Him as rebels. We lived under this cloud of delusion that we had this proud independence from Him. But that was our posture, and that wasn't just our posture, though, it led to action, to wicked ways, to wicked behaviors. We were overtly yielded to the desires of the flesh. It was out of the wickedness of our hearts that those wicked acts came. Those desires of the flesh, of course, are listed in Galatians 5:19-21 where it says, “The deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like that.” That is the stark and grim description that Paul gives here of what the Colossians once were. They were alienated, they were hostile in mind, they were engaged in evil deeds. Again, that is once who we all were. All of us. There are no asterisks or exceptions in this room.

Now what Paul is saying here, I recognize, might not strike as deep a chord with some of you here this morning as it does for others because you don't have the sex, drugs, rock and roll testimony. You don't live with the external marks of a former life of debauchery and sin. You don't carry the baggage of a past life which was once swirling down the drain. Rather, you were brought up in a solid family made up of good Christian stock which in God's kindness you were protected. Praise God! And you were sheltered from the cesspool of wickedness that exists out there in the world. In fact, as you encounter this text you might find it hard to remember anything especially shameful about your past. You find it hard to think of a season in which you were actually alienated from God, or you find it difficult to think of a time when you were hostile in mind toward God. You always believed He was there. The thought of doing evil deeds, as it says here in verse 21, might seem like a grotesque overstatement of what your life has actually looked like. Not me, you might say. Maybe those people with the tattoos and the history of drinking and drugs and sexual immorality. This applies to them, but not me. I've always believed in God, I've always known who Jesus is, we always read the Bible in my home, I always knew to pray, I went to Indian Hills my whole life. Actually, belt and suspenders time, I even went to Lincoln Christian. All of that may be true, but you need to understand that whether you got saved when you were 7 or 37 and whether or not you ever felt like this was so, there was a time in your life, as is true of literally everyone who has ever lived, where you were alienated from God, where you were hostile in mind toward God, and where you were engaged in evil deeds which completely dishonored God. But like everyone else, before you truly gave your life to Jesus Christ you were utterly hopeless and lost. See, all of us have ultimately what is known as mental problems before we come to Jesus Christ for salvation. I don't mean mental problems like in the psychological sense; I mean mental problems like in the biblical sense. Just take down these Scripture references as we think about what the Scriptures teach about the state of the mind before we come to faith in Christ. Romans 1:28 says our minds were depraved. II Corinthians 3:14 says our minds were hardened. II Corinthians 4:4 says our minds were blinded. Titus 1:15 says our minds were defiled. Then our passage says our minds were hostile. We had major mental issues.

Not only did we have mental problems, though, those mental problems were reflective of a larger spiritual problem which was that in our revolt against God we were alienated from Him. He created us but we had no fellowship with Him. Sure, we could take an occasional walk-through nature and feel connected to something bigger than we are. Sure, we could give to charitable causes and feel like we were making a difference in the world. Sure, we can make it through life's various milestones like graduation day or wedding day or the birth of our children or promotions or raises or retirement or the birth of grandchildren. We can feel like our lives had purpose and meaning and direction. But when we would get really honest with ourselves in those 2 a.m. moments when we were just staring at the ceiling fan going round and round, there was this sense of emptiness and malaise and despair when we came to grips with how vast and unfeeling and unforgiving this big universe is.

Well, for the Christian, the one who has believed on the name of Jesus, what I have just described for you through verse 21 here is our former state, our former plight—alienated, hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds. That's our old condition, that's what the past looked like. Now in verse 22 we come upon a major transition. Look at what it says. It says, “Yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.”

So, we've looked at the past, what preceded the Christian's reconciliation—alienation, hostility in mind, evil deeds. As we turn to verse 22 now, we look at now the present-day reality for the follower of Christ as one who has been reconciled. “He has now reconciled you,” it says, “in His fleshly body through death.” What a contrast. I mean, what a change in position between the old man and now his new standing before God in Christ. It all starts with those words, “Yet He has now,” which some translations have “But now.” And that is one of Paul's favorite literary devices, to highlight the contrast of what was before and what now is, especially as it relates to our relationship with God through Christ. He uses very similar words of contrast, for instance, in Romans 11:30 where he says, “Just as you once were disobedient to God but now you have been shown mercy.” Or Galatians 4:8-9 says, “When you did not know God you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods, but now that you have come to know God,” and then he rebukes them for going back to the old ways. So, before the Colossians were alienated from God, estranged from God, hostile to God, thinking evil thoughts in their mind about God, engaged in evil deeds against God, but now they have been reconciled to God through Christ's death, and as we'll see a little bit later, with this hope of being presented to God in a few specific ways.

But let's get back to these very powerful words, and these are those basic words of Paul that I mentioned at the beginning, fundamental words. He has reconciled, He has now reconciled. Now last Sunday you may recall I gave you ten observations on reconciliation, I won't go back over those again, you can look that one up later. But that was in the context of verse 20 where it is said that “Christ reconciled all things to Himself.” Well, in that category of all things are believers, God's chosen ones, the elect of God. Yes, it is because of Jesus' death on the cross, as we saw last week that He will ultimately reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven. His atoning death at Calvary paid for all of that to occur. But it's through that same death of our Lord at Calvary that we who have trusted in His finished work on the cross are no longer alienated but reconciled. We are already today reconciled. The war is over, the hostilities have ended, the conflict has ceased. We've been justified, meaning declared righteous. We've been redeemed, purchased from the slave market of sin. We've been regenerated, brought to spiritual life by the washing and renewal of the Holy Spirit and in our text today we've been reconciled to God. Our relationship has been restored. Once broken, once distant, that dividing wall that existed has now been broken down. Once estranged, we've been restored to communion and fellowship with Him.

But how? How did that work? And by what means? He tells us in verse 22, “He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death.” Now we saw last week reconciliation, that term, it presupposes something. It presupposes distance, it presupposes people who are at odds with each other, it presupposes brokenness. That is such a fitting picture of the state of affairs between us and the living God before He reconciled us, before He took the initiative to redeem us and restore us. See, God is the One ultimately, we have to remember this, God is the One, the holy transcendent God of the universe who has been sinned against. It is that God whose righteous anger had been provoked, and it's that God whose just wrath against sin needs to be appeased. God is far from the look-the-other-way type of grandfatherly God that the culture likes to portray Him as being. No, God in Nahum 1:2 is described as being the “One who takes vengeance on His adversaries and reserves wrath for His enemies.” His wrath hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of those who are still in opposition to Him. Ephesians 5:6 says, “The wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” Man has sinned, God's wrath has been kindled and because God is not a God who can simply turn a blind eye toward sin or look the other way when it comes to sin, His wrath has to be appeased. And appeased it was, through Christ's sacrificial, atoning death on the cross. It was through the shedding of His precious blood that God's wrath was appeased. Romans 5:9 says, “Having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”

It's important to note not only the value of Christ's blood in that atoning death that He died, it's also important to note that the death He died, He died in a body of flesh. That's what it says here in our passage. “He reconciled you in His fleshly body through death.” We're reconciled not only through Christ's shed blood, but we’re also reconciled through His fleshly body. Why am I belaboring this? Why am I zeroing in on this? What is the significance of that language, “His fleshly body?” Well, you've heard me say it a few times already in our series through Colossians that Paul here, even in Colossians 1, is already writing pointedly and preemptively against this heresy that was making its way into the Colossian church. One of the teachings of this early heresy there at Colossae was sort of this proto-Gnosticism which taught that spirit was good, all things spiritual were good but that matter, which includes flesh, is evil. So according to this teaching that was circulating in this early church, if Christ were really God and deity, He couldn't have put on flesh no matter what the Scriptures teach because that would mean evil—flesh, matter—was being mixed with spirit. Well, Paul here refutes all of that with these words. He says Christ not only died, He died in His fleshly body. To redeem humans Christ had Himself to be fully human. That's Hebrews 2:17, “He had to be made like His brethren in all things so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.” That's why the Apostle John would make it such a key and a central point of sound doctrine that you affirm, that we affirm that Jesus Christ actually did come in the flesh. John says in I John 4:2, “By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” That's exactly what Paul is doing here in our text, Colossians 1:22. He is confessing that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Jesus wasn't merely a spirit being, He wasn't like a friendly ghost as the Gnostics claimed Him to be. No, rather He was the One who created all things, He is the One who created all things, He's the One who upholds all things, He's the One who sustains all things, yet He also possesses a fully human nature. He put on humanity in His incarnation, Philippians 2. He brought about reconciliation and redemption for humanity by dying on the cross in an actual human body. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Through Christ's fleshly body and specifically through the death He experienced in that body of flesh, the accursed are no longer accursed, the condemned are now freed, the alienated are now reconciled. “He has reconciled,” it says, verse 22, “He has reconciled you in His fleshly body through death,” notwithstanding our hostility, notwithstanding our evil deeds and our wicked ways. As a demonstration of His unfathomable mercy and His matchless love, God reconciled us. I hope we never get tired of that truth. Romans 3:25, “In the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” Romans 5:10, “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” God accomplished that reconciliation, as we see here in verse 22, through the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Now as we continue on in verse 22, we see that God did all this with a purpose. Look at the second half of the verse, he says, “In order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” So, we have that purpose clause right up front, “in order to.” In order to what? “In order to present you before Him,” it says. To present you before whom? That is speaking of God the Father. Going all the way back to verse 19, that is connecting the “God the Father.” God the Father is still the main actor in this subject here. Christ died the atoning death He did, Christ died the reconciling death He did with a purpose, which was to present you and to present me before God the Father. To do so in three specific ways. First, we see is that we would be presented holy before God. Holy here refers to the believer's positional relationship with God, as one who has been justified as a blood-bought saint is now set apart. Set apart to God by the righteousness of God having been imputed to him, but also set apart from sin, meaning the believer's identity is no longer their sin. Rather, their identity now is Christ. That's not to say that the believer once reconciled and now positionally holy will always act in a perfectly holy way. Most certainly not. But positionally, judicially the Christian is holy, set apart because of the death of Christ, the true holy One.

The second effect of this reconciling death on our behalf is that we be presented blameless before God. Ephesians 1:4 tells us that God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless,” same word, “before Him.” We also know from Ephesians 5:27 that as the bride of Christ we will one day be presented “holy and blameless to Him.” Now that word blameless was originally used to refer to the sacrifices of the Old Testament and how important it was in that context to present animals for sacrifice that were without spot or blemish. Same concept there. What Paul is doing here is carrying over that idea, that same concept, to what Christ has done for us. Because our salvation was purchased with His blameless blood, that's I Peter 1:19, “He was a lamb without blemish and spotless,” we are presented to God, we are reconciled without defilement or blemish. We're presented to God when we are reconciled as though we have no defect of any kind, though in reality we know we're covered in blots and blemishes and stains. When we are presented to God, when we are reconciled it is as though those blots and blemishes and stains don't exist. Jesus Christ didn't shed His blood and offer up His body of flesh merely to reform us superficially on the outside, to clean us up and scrub us up a little bit on the outside, to simply make us better than we once were. No, He did what He did, He accomplished what He accomplished to reconcile us completely so that we might be presented blameless before God.

He has reconciled us to Himself through His fleshly body through death. He has presented us holy before Him, He has presented us blameless before Him. Here is the third one, “beyond reproach.” When the believer is reconciled to God, they are presented to Him as being “beyond reproach.” That's a legal term, that's a courtroom term. It means free from accusation; it means that the charges that would be brought against this person will not stick. Just think about it, in the context of even what we studied here this morning, we who were once alienated from God, we who were once hostile in mind toward God, we who were once engaged in evil deeds against God, we who have a rap sheet of sin that would wrap around this building have now been presented to God as beyond reproach. The charges have been dropped; the case has been dismissed. It forces us to think of Paul in Romans 8:33 when he says, “Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the One who justifies.” What is that saying? That God has declared the believer justified. There is no higher court to which to take an appeal beyond that. He has already rendered the verdict. He is the Supreme Court; you can't go any further than Him and that verdict is etched. He is the One who has reconciled us to Himself and He is the One who sees us as beyond reproach not because we are so inherently noble or honorable or good in our behavior, not because we are worthy of such a verdict being rendered in our favor, but instead because of the perfect sacrifice that was offered by a perfect Savior in the death of Christ on the cross.

If we've trusted in Jesus Christ, if we are His followers, we have been reconciled to God. Once alienated, now beyond reproach. Once hostile in mind, now holy. Once engaged in evil deeds, now blameless. Those are incredible truths, and they speak to this incredible reversal, this ultimate change and identity, a change that will be lasting and permanent in the lives of His followers as we, I Corinthians 1:8 says, “are confirmed to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now what we've seen here in verse 22 is how we as believers have, past tense, been reconciled and how we are now, present tense, able to be presented before God as holy and blameless and beyond reproach. I'd be remiss, though, if I didn't mention that there certainly is a future sense in which God's followers, the followers of Christ, will one day be presented to God in the purest sense as holy and blameless and beyond reproach. We are reconciled now, and we are positionally holy before God now and we are positionally blameless before God now, and without reproach now. But there is a day coming, a future event coming, a coming dimension where what we have already received positionally will be true of us actually, in our actual bodies, our glorified bodies. Romans 14:10 speaks of this day where we'll stand before the judgment seat of God and at that time in the future as we stand before Him in our glorified bodies, finally free from the presence of sin, we will actually be holy and actually blameless and actually beyond reproach, not merely positionally. And that will all, we have to remember, be because of the death of the One, the only One who in His own right, the Lord Jesus Christ, was holy and blameless and beyond reproach. A stunningly dramatic transition is being spoken of here, an amazingly divine reversal, a true change in identity. Those who were once far away from God are now brought close to Him, those who were once at war with God are now at peace with Him. It's all because He has reconciled us in His fleshly body through death.

Now as we move into verse 23, Paul is going to throw us here a little bit of a curve ball, starting with that first word, “if.” Look at verse 23, he says, “If indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.” Now that word “If” has been a source of stumbling for many because it seems on first glance to be suggesting that a person once saved can lose their salvation. But is that what is actually being said here? No, there is one linguistic reason and then we'll get to a theological reason in just a second. The linguistic reason is this, that word “if” in the original Greek is actually a statement of confidence. It could legitimately be translated since you are continuing or seeing that you are continuing. In other words, Paul here is assuming that the Colossians were continuing on in their faith and that they would continue to do so. This wasn't an unsettled issue or an uncertain prospect for Paul, this wasn't a gray area. No, the Colossians' continuance in their faith was a certain assumption. They had to continue, and he was sure that they would. Here is the theological reason, what Paul is saying here is totally in alignment with what the Scriptures teach elsewhere about the eternal security of the believer. We have to remember the words of our Lord Jesus in John 10:27-28 where He says, “My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give eternal life to them. And they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” Or Paul's words elsewhere in Philippians 1:6 which speaks of the perseverance of God's people. He says, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” In other words, the Scriptures teach uniformly that true faith, genuine faith, will always have this quality of permanence. The one who has actually been born of God will go on faithfully for God until the end. Sure, they'll stumble and sure they'll sin. James 3:2, “For we all stumble in many ways.” But they'll inevitably get back on their feet. They won't forsake their faith. They might slip and wobble on the ice but they're not going to take off their skates. They might swing and miss at a few pitches, but they're not going to pack up their glove and their bat and go home. No. Once saved we're not perfect, but we're persistent and a true believer perseveres.

As we continue on in verse 23, we see that the perseverance of the true believer is marked in three different ways. First, by being firmly established. You see it there, “If indeed you continue in the faith firmly established.” That's a building term, a construction term. It's referring to the fact that the one who continues in the faith does so based on the firm and permanent spiritual foundation on which their faith is built, namely the person and the work of Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 3:11 says, “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid which is Jesus Christ.” Or you could write down Ephesians 2:19-20 which says, “We are no longer strangers and aliens but fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.” The idea is that the one who perseveres is stable, they have a sure foundation, and indeed the surest foundation, they have the rock, Jesus Christ. Second aspect of continuing on in the faith here is the person is marked by steadfastness. “If you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast,” meaning they have a steady and firm resolve. They have a settled and grounded faith. They are loyal to the truth, and they resolve to live faithfully in light of that truth. It brings to mind I Corinthians 15:58 which speaks of the believer being “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Third, the one who perseveres, the one who continues is “not moved away from the hope of the gospel that they have heard.” That's right in the middle there of verse 23. Now again in the context of Colossae we know that Paul was aware of what his audience was going through. He knew from Epaphras, who had come all the way from Colossae, the unique challenges that this church was facing, and one of the unique threats they were facing as false teaching was being promoted there by these promoters of the Colossian Heresy. As we have already seen the promoters of that heresy were presenting an altogether different Christ and an altogether different gospel, what you've heard me describe a couple of times already as a Christ-plus gospel. Well, Paul here is urging the Colossians with the expectation that they'll heed his encouragement to “not move away from the hope of the gospel,” as it says, whereas other translations have it “to not shift” from the hope of the gospel, or “to not swerve” from the hope of the gospel. Instead, they were to continue in their faith in a simple and pure gospel message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. No philosophy, no mysticism, no angel worship, no legalism. Just Christ and Him crucified, a pure and simple devotion to Christ.

Note as we keep on going through verse 23 that this was the gospel they had heard. In other words, Paul wasn't here conveying new information to them, this wasn't something unknown to them. This was the gospel they had heard before through Epaphras. And note, it was a message that they heard through their ears, rattling the brain waves. It was something that was expressed to them verbally, it was something that they could understand. It had come to them by means of ordinary human speech. That's a good place to remind everybody here that the gospel is not some mystical experience or some unknowable idea. The gospel is not even a life well lived. No, the gospel is a message, it's the good news, the euaggelion, a message that is communicated and a message that is heard. The Colossians had heard that gospel. In fact, look up the page at Colossians 1:5-6 with me, if we go back to the very beginning of the letter, where we see the Colossians had heard this actual true, simple gospel. Look at verse 5, he speaks of the hope being laid up for them in heaven “of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you.” Now, as he is toward the end of the chapter, he is noting that they are continuing and persevering in their faith in that gospel. They weren't being moved away from the hope of that gospel, rather they were progressing on to spiritual maturity, which is the mark of anybody who has truly been reconciled. They march on in their faith, they don't let go of the reins. They persevere as they are transformed daily by the power of that gospel, a gospel which in the Colossian context, as we keep on going through verse 23, had been “proclaimed in all creation under heaven.” Now we know that not everyone on planet earth in Paul's day had actually heard the gospel and we know that even today not everyone on planet earth has actually heard the gospel, so what Paul is using here is a figure of speech when he speaks of all creation under heaven. He is speaking of the universality of the gospel and its proclamation. The idea here is that the gospel is going out to all creation, not that it has literally reached every creature, but it is going out to all of creation. Paul is using intentionally extravagant language here to catch the attention of his readers and to say, the gospel is not only being preached here and there—Colossae, but Ephesus also—it's being preached everywhere, all creation under heaven.

Last, verse 23, it almost seems like a toss-in statement, but Paul then says it is of that gospel that he was “made a minister.” That gospel that is being proclaimed to all creation under heaven, Paul is a minister of that gospel. A few concluding observations about that statement. First, note the built-in humility of Paul's words there. Paul is an apostle, directly appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ. He could have easily swung the big stick here and said, I am Paul made an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. But he doesn't. He says, I am made a minister of the gospel. That word minister is the word from which we get our word for deacon. It just means servant. There is nothing fancy or official about this term. It doesn't speak of holding some sort of lofty office, it speaks of Paul being a humble servant. Paul the apostle was a humble servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, there is this built-in recognition with this language at the end of verse 23 of God's role in making ministers. Note it is passive here, Paul was made a minister. He wasn't a self-appointed minister, he didn't glad-hand and schmooze his way up to the top, he didn't win any popularity contest to earn a plum title. No, God set him apart, God made Paul the minister He wanted Him to be. And last, we can't lose sight of this, and this is a great place to close, we have to remember that Paul went through the ultimate change in identity. Before he was Paul, who was he? Saul. Before he was Paul building up Christian believers in the faith, he was Saul the Pharisee, approving the execution of the earliest Christian believers. So even these two words, “I Paul,” which seem like they are just kind of thrown in randomly here, they actually have tremendously rich meaning. But it's because they call to remembrance for us this man, Paul, who was once alienated, who was once hostile in mind, who was once engaged in evil deeds. But then we think of what he became: reconciled in Christ's fleshly body, holy, blameless, beyond reproach, firmly established, steadfast and certainly not moved away from the hope of the gospel.

As we close my prayer for everyone in this room this morning is that like Paul you truly have undergone a change of identity. My prayer is that you are not carrying around a fake Christian ID where you are just going through the motions and blending in chameleon-like to church activity. My prayer is that instead you truly do have a new identity, a genuine identity, one that is rooted in your relationship with Jesus Christ who has reconciled you to God the Father in His fleshly body through His death.

Let's pray. Father, thank You as always for the timelessness and the timeliness of Your word. God, as we think about what You have accomplished, what You have designed through the reconciling death of Your Son on the cross, it is a basic truth to Christianity, but it can become a truth that frankly we get bored with, we don't think of often, we sort of let it roll off our backs, it passes us by and we don't appreciate as we should, as we ought, the depth of that reality that we who were once alienated from You, hostile in mind toward You, engaged in evil deeds which offended You have now, because of Your great love for us, because of Your great mercy, because of Your great grace have been reconciled to You, the holy God of the universe, through the fleshly death of Jesus Christ on the cross. God, I pray for we who are believers that we would go home from this remembering, reflecting, rejoicing and praising You earnestly for what You have done. God, I pray if there is anyone here who is not a follower of Christ, who has not been reconciled to You, I do pray that today they would ask those questions, that they would seek counsel and guidance and that they would ultimately come to know You through Christ and be reconciled to You, their maker. Thank You for this time. We love You and praise You, in Jesus' name, amen.