UNDRESSING THE OLD MAN

Col. 3:8-9

Morning Meditation 10/14/2013

Verses 8-9 say, "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds."

The believer is saved by grace alone. The preparation for salvation by grace is the conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-11). The proper response to the conviction of sin is enlightenment concerning God's displeasure with our sin and our agreement with Him. Repentance is where we come to agree with God even when what He says is against us. Our agreement with God means that we have changed our minds (repentance) and are ready to cast ourselves upon His mercy for forgiveness (Luke 18:13). As we do this, we find that God has provided a means by which he can and will forgive us completely. This is called GRACE and it is available because the just penalty of the law against sin has been paid for by Christ on the cross.

We also find ourselves completely freed from the penalty of sin and discover that in the person of Christ, we died in His death to sin and were raised in His resurrection to life eternal. Not only is this true, but we also discover that we are alive with Him right now on the throne in heaven (Eph. 2:5-6; Col. 3:1). Yes, we live in two places at once (John 3:13)! And the one is as real as the other. Only faith can rest in and enjoy this truth. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God. That is a shelter from all storms and out of the reach of Satan altogether. At times, God allows Satan to attack us in our earthly life, but he is never allowed to touch our life with Christ on the throne. Amen! The grace of God that saves us on the spot for eternity, now teaches us (Titus 2:11-15) to direct our affection to things above, to count ourselves dead (mortify) to the former life-style identified by the words, "fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness."

Grace now goes further and goes beyond those outward sins that have to do with things that hardly anyone will argue with, and instructs us to take off some things that will defile and will cause the bride to look like she has just cleaned up on the outside but has retained the dress she wore when she was prostituted to Satan and the world. Grace says there are some garments that you must take off. We will look at those garments in this meditation.

First we must take off anger.. The word "now" translates "nun" and means, "now at this very moment." When did Paul say this and at what point of time in the lives of those he is addressing? It was after salvation. They are members in good standing of the Church in Colosse. Godly living comes after the experience of salvation. Before salvation all a person needs to hear is the gospel: Paul says in 1 Cor. 2:1-2, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." There is only one message that an unsaved man needs to hear, i..e., "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." Now that one has been saved, he needs to go on in the new life and learn how His NEW LORD wants him to dress. The words "ye...put off" translate "apotithemi" and mean, "to put off or aside and wear no longer." The verb is an aorist middle imperative. The aorist tense means to immediately and permanently put these garments aside to wear no more. The middle voice is where the subject acts and participates in the result of the action. They must make this decision whereby they will be helped. The imperative mood is a command that expresses urgency. It is urgent that NOW, not after while, that the old garments of the prostitute be worn no more by the Bride of Christ! The word "anger" translates "orge" and means, "up surging," and according to Kittel, "comes to be used for an impulsive nature." So anger would indicate an impulsive nature in a person that would be described in our common use as "a person with a short fuse." The Christian needs to unclothe himself of the natural trait of anger and not make the lame excuse, "I was just born like this and I can't help it." Paul says by inspiration of God "Put off...anger." If you don't, you are a sinning Christian and need to repent and get His forgiveness. You will be the loser if you don't obey the Lord. Anger is the root cause of a lot of other wrong actions.

Do you get the picture? It is not the changing of the garments that saves. You can be sure of one thing. The woman caught in the act of adultery in John chapter eight went straight home and changed her garments! She had just escaped the penalty of the law because she had met GRACE! Anger is no longer a garment that is acceptable for the Bride to wear.

You ask, "How can a Christian keep from expressing anger?" First, admit it is wrong, at least in most cases. You start getting right by confessing it is wrong. You see, you will deal more quickly, as a Christian, with things that you really believe are wrong. When you allow your emotions to dwell too long in an area, like the things that bother you, things get out of control. Is it possible to be angry without committing sin? Paul says in Ephesians 4:26, "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath." Just be careful that you don't use this verse to justify KEEPING THIS GARMENT, so in case you want to wear it again, and act like you did before you were saved, it will be handy. Ouch!

Then next, Paul says to put off "wrath." The word "wrath" translates "thumos" and "denotes violent movement (of air, water, the ground etc.)," --Kittel; in other words, in the case of wind, a tornado, or in the case of water, the dam brakes, or in the case of the ground, an earthquake takes place. It is not easy to define the difference between anger and wrath by looking at a dictionary. They are related but not identical twins! I will venture to say that anger might be expressed in words and wrath expressed in a violent action. However, don't hold me to this. Paul says that this garment has to go. It is not acceptable behavior in the life of the Christian.

Then next, Paul says to put off, "malice." The word "malice" translates "kakia" and means, "malignity, malice, ill-will, desire to injure." This represents an attitude of the life of the depraved nature being worked out towards others. There are persons who could be classified as "malignant.." They are poison and will poison others when they get around them. I have seen these characters in the Church over my nearly 60 years of preaching. Some of them go from church to church, and when they come, the poor preacher thinks his church is growing. It takes a little time for him to see that this is a malignant person and he infects the body, and it sometime results in a church split, or, as a friend of mine calls it, "a sluff off!" I think that eases the pain a little, rather than to admit that his church has had a full-grown split! You say, "Preacher, is a person like that saved?" I don't know. Only God knows. I will tell you one thing. If he is, he is wearing the wrong clothes. Paul says to put off malice.

Then next, he says to put off, "blasphemy." The word "blasphemy" translates "blasphemia" and means, "to slander, detraction, speech injurious to another's good name." The reason we call cursing blasphemy, is that it is using God's holy name to express frustrations and anger. This is brought out in Exodus 20:7, "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." The Jews would not pronounce the name of God, represented by the English spelling LORD in all caps and GOD in all caps in our KJV. The Jews held this name for God in such awe that they were afraid that the very mispronunciation of the name would be violating this commandment. Therefore, the right pronunciation of the name LORD is not known today. The original Hebrew language did not have vowels. It was a language of tetragrammatons. This is a language without vowels. Every word had to be memorized along with its sound. The word's pronunciation would be lost if it were not continued in active use. This is the way the correct pronunciation of the word LORD was lost. Paul said that it is not appropriate for the Christian to "blaspheme" and therefore, it must be taken off as a worn out garment and discarded, never to be used again. The bride who loves her husband does not use disrespectful words when referring to HIM.

Then next Paul says to put off "filthy communication out of your mouth." The words "filthy communication" translate "aischrologia" and mean, "foul speaking, low and obscene speech." This kind of speech would include filthy jokes and the kind of speech that you would not expect from a holy person. This was evidently a practice in those early days, and Paul is teaching that the kind of speech that is totally acceptable to the world is off limits for the Christian. Corrupt speech grieves the Holy Spirit who indwells every believer (Eph. 4:29-30). Paul tells us to put off filthy communications like a garment that we put off, never intending to wear again. It is not appropriate speech for the Christian.

Then finally in this disrobing instruction Paul says, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man and his deeds." The word "lie" translates "pseudomai" and means, "to lie, to speak deliberate falsehoods, to deceive one by a lie." This is a present middle imperative verb. The present tense with the negative means to stop something that is in progress. The middle voice means that it is a benefit to the one who stops lying by an act of personal choice. The imperative mood is a command that expresses urgency. This is no light matter. They were evidently doing this, and Paul says it must come to a stop. It is evident on them, like a garment that identified them with the world, and it is to be taken off to be worn no more.

The words "seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds" is given as a reason. The words "seeing that ye have put off" translate one word "apekduomai" which means, "wholly put off from one's self, and denotes separation from what is put off, to wholly strip off for one's self (for one's own advantage)." It is an aorist middle participle. The aorist tense goes back to the salvation experience where we, through being placed into Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), became identified with all that He has done and is doing for us. It is not just the "old man," however, it is also "with his deeds." The old man is the root from which the seven things mentioned in this meditation grow. It is not just the sin of Adam for which Jesus died, but also for all those evil works that come from that wicked root. And once we are saved by His marvelous grace, we are to act, to put away from us all the garments worn by him.

John says in 1 John 2:1-2, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." There will be times we sin and will need forgiveness. When we do, we must confess and be honest with God and ourselves and be restored to full fellowship (1 John 1:9). But for believers, we no longer wear the garments of sin. The Christian dresses differently. In our next meditation we will look at the new garments for the new man in Christ.

May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.

In Christ,

Bro. White