Col 3:12-21 Holy Church Life

                The Holy Church Life    Col3:12-21

I have been in Bankstown parish for about 4 years and today is my last day.  Tomorrow our whole family will fly to Hong Kong for another position there in Mandarin ministry.  My new church St. Andrew’s is seated at the center of Tsimshatusi, a famous tourist place crowded with tourist attractions, beautiful shops and wonderful restaurants, so please do come to visit me when you have a chance to come to HK.

     But no matter the church in Sydney or Hong Kong, we all share the same nature.  We all are the body of Christ, with Jesus Christ our Lord being the centre of the church life.  We all are called to follow Jesus Christ and also to live a new life worthy for the gospel, i.e., the salvation through the death and resurrection of our Lord. Today’s passage from Colossian is just one of the examples to urge us to live this holy life. Just look at Verse 12; ”Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience...the following is forgiveness and love”  About this new life, it is not only beneficial to each Christian individual, but also the church and even the world, as we are called to witness the goodness and mercy from God who has led us out from the darkness of this world.

     But here comes the practical question; how can we live a holy life?  All of us knew quite well our own human nature; we have failed and failed again in front of its power. From our deep conscience we know that we can’t make it by our own effort to live up to the standard, and by this we also know that other religions in this world are only fighting in vain as well.

     The answer from the Bible lies in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Let us firstly go back to the earlier part of today’s chapter. Let’s read . From here please take note about the spiritual reality of our being: we were already dead, and then we were also raised from the dead; i.e., we died with Christ, and we also were raised with Him.  Here death is the death of the old self(9), the old being which is rebellious against God, craving for the worldly pride and pleasure, and ‘me’ being the centre of this self.  And as we turned to Christ and repented to him, we have given up this old self and let Jesus being the master of my life.  At that moment, the old self has died, and a new self(10), a new creation has also taken place in me.  For a Christian, this has already happened before the cross, and this has to be happened.  And only after recognize this spiritual reality of death and resurrection with Christ can we begin a holy life worthy for the gospel.

     Following the recognition of our death and life with Christ, the second step of holy life is to set our hearts and minds on thing above.  We have read V.1-3 and please note the last cause in V.3, and perhaps it is surprise to some of us, that our “life are NOW hidden with Christ in God”.  In other words, our new life is NOW in heaven, hidden in Christ and in fellowship with God the Father, so it is a heavenly and holy existence.  Please think about that again, how much a treasure of glory and holiness being together with God in heaven, and this existence has also guaranteed holy substance in every aspect of the new life in Christ.  Therefore it is right to put all our heart and mind there, to love God whole-heartedly and to turn away from earthly and fleshly attractions. 

     The third step of holy life is to put off the old self and then put on the new self.  How to put off the old? V.5, “put to death the earthly nature, such as sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed.  And then put on the new self; in V.12, clothe with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and especially love which will bind all virtues into unity.  We must notice the wordings put on and put off here, it is about wearing clothes.  We can always change our old and dirty clothe with a clean and decent one, but both the clothes are not part of you.  So the teachings here are not something about self-willed transformation, by which we change ourselves solely by our own will and effort.  NO, we have already been given the new nature in Christ when we turned to Christ and received the new life by the Holy Spirit. The transformation is already made possible, the thing is we still have to do our own part by putting off our old habits and putting on new virtues.  And as we continue on this sanctification process, we are always blessed with God’s grace, that the Holy Spirit may  empower us, or the Word of God may guide us, or God just let things work together to transform us.  We are benefitted only because we are hidden in Christ.

     Finally, If we take a closer look on the list of virtues we can find that they are all communal, they can only be practiced when in a community.  And I would like to say that those virtues are the blessings to Christian community and beyond, much more than for personal interest.  Even peace, which is also mentioned here, whereas its contemporary meaning is close to tranquility, its actual meaning in the Bible is also strongly communal. (V.15 “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”  Peace (Shalom) is a term originated from the Old Testament, it is about harmonious relationship.) In this regard, I can conclude that the main theme of the teachings here is about church life, or put it in another words, the place of actualizing of our new life is our local church, our Christian community. This view is further supported by V.16, where the mentioning of preaching the Word of God and singing hymns and songs, which are common activities in Christian gathering, has clearly marked this passage as a teaching piece about church life.  In the end, I pray that God’s grace, through the guidance from the teachings here, may bless us the perfection of our church life through the maturity of every church member.