Putting Sin to Death
Colossians 3:5–11
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
Please turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3, and follow along as I read our text for this evening. Colossians chapter 3, verses 5 to 11. “Therefore put to death the members of your earthly body: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6For it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience; 7and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. 8But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy speech from your mouth. 9Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— 11a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”
Last week, as we came to the beginning of chapter 3, we found ourselves at another significant transition point in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. I mentioned to you that that first transition point comes in chapter 2 verse 6—the first command that Paul issues in the entire letter. He says, “Therefore,” in view of the absolute supremacy and sufficiency of Christ in and above all things—that He is eternal God, the Creator, Sustainer, and telos of the entire universe, supreme over all things visible and invisible; the Head of the new humanity, the Church, God in the flesh, who reconciles God to man by the invincible power of His cross; the mystery of God, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge— “Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” Conduct your life in Christ, as you follow after Him in the same manner in which you received Him—namely, entirely by grace through faith.
And then from chapter 2 verse 8 all the way through the end of the chapter, Paul expounds on what obeying that command does not mean. In other words, “Walk in Christ as you’ve received Him—which was not by the empty and deceptive philosophies of this world that the false teachers were peddling. Only in Christ is spiritual fullness found! Only in Him are you regenerated; only in Him are you dead to sin and alive to God; only in His blood do you find forgiveness; only His death cancels the law’s just demand for your eternal condemnation; and only He has triumphed over the spiritual forces of wickedness through His cross!
“And so when these false teachers come, and insist that walking faithfully in Christ means observing the rites and ceremonies of the Old Covenant; when they say that true spirituality lies in the mysticism of extrabiblical visions and revelations; when they tell you that true holiness lies in the asceticism of the severe treatment of the physical body—you reject all that, because legalism, mysticism, and asceticism are of no value against fleshly indulgence! They don’t restrain the flesh! All spiritual fullness is in Christ alone! He is sufficient for the Christian life! So, walk in Him just as you’ve received Him!”
But now, starting in chapter 3, Paul begins to expound on what obeying that command does mean—what does restrain the flesh. And it all begins in the mind. Colossians 3 is filled with extremely practical instruction for living the Christian life—even as you’ve heard me read our text for this evening. But all of it is rooted in Paul’s call in verses 1 to 4 to heavenly-mindedness—to set our minds on the things of heaven, and not the things of earth. The key to walking in Christ after the manner in which we have received Him—the key to living a sanctified life by God’s grace—is to let our minds be preoccupied with heavenly things, with spiritual truths; to ascend in our thinking from the things of this earth up to the glories of heaven, to the glories of God and the wonders of our salvation.
As we said last week: our citizenship is there; freedom from the presence of sin is there; our crown of righteousness is there; every spiritual blessing is there; our fellow believers throughout the ages are there; eternal pleasures are there; unhindered communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit is there. Dear Christian: Christ—who is our whole life—is there! And so our thoughts and minds and hearts and affections must also be there!
But: we ourselves are here. I know that in one sense, positionally, Ephesians 2:6 tells us that we are there—seated with Christ in the heavenlies, by virtue of our union with Him. But in another sense, practically, we live our lives here on earth—on the very earth he’s trying to woo us away from. But it’s not as if heavenly-mindedness means isolating ourselves from the world and just contemplating the world to come. We are called to bring our heavenly-mindedness to bear on the life we live in the flesh—to let all those glorious truths about our union to Christ in His death and resurrection govern every aspect of our lives.
And Paul says: the way heavenly-mindedness governs life on earth is to be engaged in the spiritual warfare of the mortification of sin. Verse 5 says, “Therefore,”—in view of the fact that you have died to sin in union with Christ, and that sin therefore no longer reigns in your life; in light of the fact that you have risen again with Christ, and have even positionally ascended with Him up into the heavenlies; since your life is hidden with Him, and will be revealed with Him when He comes again in glory; because of your past spiritual death, your present spiritual life, and your future spiritual glory—“Therefore put to death the members of your earthly body!”
Your translation may say, “Consider the members of your earthly body as dead,” and that’s certainly a part of what we’re called to do here. How we think about sin and sin’s relationship to our new life in Christ is absolutely essential. In fact, Paul says this very thing in Romans 6:11: “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” But the verb here in Colossians 3:5 is nekróo, from which we get the English word necrosis. Paul is saying, “Kill sin!” “Put your sin to death!” “Bring your earthly practice in line with your heavenly position. If you aredead to sin, positionally, by the grace of God in Christ, then draw strength from that grace to become in practice what you are in position. Put to death the remaining sin in you to which you have died.”
He calls the sin which remains in us, literally, “the members which are on the earth”—like members of a body. And he doesn’t mean, “Physically assault your arms and legs.” No, that’s the very asceticism—“the severe treatment of the body”—that he condemned in chapter 2 verse 23. He’s speaking metaphorically—inasmuch as Paul calls our sinfulness “the body of the flesh,” in chapter 2 verse 11, and “our body of sin” in Romans 6:6. He’ll speak of “the old self,” or literally, “the old man,” in verse 9—which represents the sinfulness of our old nature—and so he pictures our remaining sin as that old man’s body, with our various sinful thoughts, desires, affections, and acts as members of that body.
And he says, “Kill those members! Put them to death!” In Romans chapter 8 verse 13, Paul says, “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Living life according to the sinful flesh means the death of the soul. But abundant life comes by putting our sin to death. It was that text that led to the famous line from the Puritan theologian John Owen: “Be killing sin, or your sin will be killing you.”
Put to death the deeds of the body. Kill them. Resist your sins. Oppose them. Suppress them. Subdue them. Find out what they feed upon and starve them. Destroy whatever gives them life. Cut out whatever gives them oxygen. Suffocate them under the weight of the truth that exposes the lies sin tells you about the false pleasures they promise. Weaken their influence in your soul by preaching to heart the promises of God, which promise sweetness and pleasures and joy only on the path of holiness.
Whatever you do, rouse all diligence, to give yourself to this necessary task of mortification. If you went outside one morning and noticed that weeds had begun cropping up on your front lawn, you would go digging them up by the roots to avoid your entire lawn from being overtaken. If you noticed the beginnings of an infestation of cockroaches, or termites, in your home, you would pay an exterminator handsomely to fumigate your home with poisonous chemicals to root out that infestation. If an attacker broke into your home, whom you knew intended to kill you and your whole family, you would use the severest forms of self-defense in order to protect your lives. Friends, the danger of sin is no less severe, and no less imminent than any of those things. Termites may ruin your home, but sin will corrupt your heart. An intruder threatens your earthly life, but sin threatens your everlasting soul. All of your attention, all of your vigilance must be focused on the mortification of sin.
Paul says in Romans 6:12–13: Since you’re dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, “Therefore do not let sin reignin your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin asinstruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
And in Colossians 3:5–11, Paul takes aim at two sets of sins that believers in Christ are to put to death. These are not exhaustive lists, but they represent examples and categories of the sins that we are to mortify—which is to say: all of them. The first set comes in verse 5, and verses 6 and 7 give two reasons for mortifying these kinds of sins. And the second set comes in verses 8 and 9, and verses 9 to 11 give two reasons for mortifying these kinds of sins. John MacArthur makes the helpful observation that “the first list deals with perverted love, and the second list deals with perverted hate.” The first list seems to focus on sexual sins, and what gives rise to them in our own hearts, and the second list focuses on what we might call social sins, because of how they affect others.
And in one sense, the content of these seven verses could be the subject of an entire sermon series. Especially in our day, when our culture has given full vent to the pursuit of every vice—every immorality, every impurity, every evil desire, and when even those within the professing church have lost a vital sense of true virtue. We would do well to dwell long on diagnosing these sins in our hearts and setting out to kill every expression of them that we find. And perhaps if I could plan the schedule for Colossians again, I would have devoted more than one message to these verses. But we trust providence, and settle for something of an overview this time.
I. Put Sexual Sins to Death (vv. 5–7)
Two sets of sins for believers to mortify. First, we are to put sexual sins to death. And we that in verse 5: “Put to death the members which are on the earth: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” And what you’ll notice is that this list of sexual sins progresses backward from the external acts—immorality and impurity—to the internal desires—passion and evil desire—all the way to the root of sin: covetousness, which is idolatry.
Immorality translates the Greek word porneia, from which we get the term pornography. The cognate noun porne is the Greek term for prostitute, and the masculine form, pornos, is translated “fornicator” in numerous passages of Scripture. And so “immorality” refers to any sexual activity outside of the confines of marriage. And these days I have to specify that the Bible defines marriage exclusively as that lifelong, covenantal union between one man and one woman. Any sexual activity that is not between a husband and his wife is sinful and forbidden by God.
And that isn’t at all because sex is dirty or somehow sinful in itself. Sex is a good gift from God to men and women that is actually meant to be a parable of the joy and the delight that Christ-the-Bridegroom and the-Church-the-Bride have in one another—even as marriage itself exists to be a parable of the Gospel. But precisely because that is its design, any sexual expression outside the covenant of marriage is a perversion—a distortion of the very truth that marital intimacy was designed to make much of.
And so, pre-marital sex, fornication, is immorality. Extramarital sex, adultery, is immorality. And that was every bit as countercultural to society in Paul’s day as it is in our day, where people will film their fornication and sell it online so others can corrupt themselves with it. And yet the Scripture is as clear as day: “Flee immorality,” 1 Corinthians 6:18. “Abstain from immorality,” 1 Thessalonians 4:3. “Immorality…must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints,” Ephesians 5:5. A professing Christian who practices immorality, not repenting from it, 1 Corinthians 5, is to be removed from the church, and 1 Corinthians 6 says he “will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Impurity is closely related to immorality, but it’s a broader term that embraces any kind of moral corruption. Nevertheless, it very often refers to sexual sins (Moo, 256), and that certainly fits in this context. The term is akatharsía—uncleanness. And several commentators observe that impurity reaches to the filthier kinds of sexual deviancy—rape, incest, homosexuality, polyamory, and bestiality. All of those things were explicitly forbidden in the Law of Moses, and they are forbidden in the New Testament by the general term impurity. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:7 that “God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.” God has not brought us to Himself to leave us in our uncleanness! He’s brought us to Himself to sanctify us, so that we might be holy as He is holy! And so we must put impurity to death.
Passion comes next, and it shows that the external acts of immorality and impurity proceed from what is inside of us. We normally think of “passion” as a good thing; we want to be passionate about what we love, and not listless or indifferent. But this term appears only two other times in the New Testament—in Romans 1:26, where it speaks of degrading passions, and in 1 Thessalonians 4:5 where it speaks of lustful passions.
This is talking about that flame of inordinate desire that is fired by the oil of temptation. One commentator calls it “that disposition of the mind whereby any one is fitted and ready for the sin of lust, when any occasion is offered” (Davenant, 2:47). It is that latent bent to sinning that lurks inside of us, so that when the slightest sinful pleasure is presented to us, we chase after it like an animal at feeding time. It’s why sometimes we speak of the “animal passions,” which we have to rule by the exercise of sanctified reason. So Psalm 32:9 says, “Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check.” Don’t give yourself to unbridled passion! Douse that flame with the pure water of the Word of God!
Evil desire is closely related to passion. It’s what we normally understand as lust, and it’s often translated that way. And what this shows us is that sin begins on the inside of us. It’s “from within,” Jesus says in Mark 7:21, “out of the heart of men, [that] proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, … adulteries” and every kind of impurity. Man’s problem is what he is, on the inside, not just what he does. Man is not basically good, who slips up here and there. He is corrupt with evil desire from his very heart. Which means: if you’re going to mortify sin and pursue holiness, where do you have to start? On the inside. First in the mind, where you root out sinful thinking. And then in the heart, where you put to death sinful affections and desires.
And note: the first motions of the heart are themselves sins—even before they break forth into evil deeds. Sometimes well-meaning but misguided Christians excuse things like same-sex attraction as being merely disordered, but not positively sinful in itself. This verse refutes that idea, because it teaches us that the very desire for what is sinful is itself sinful on its own.
And then, finally, Paul comes to the root of even these sinful internal desires. The NAS translates it “greed,” but it’s the general term for covetousness—not specifically the love of money (which is a vicious sin, 1 Timothy 6), but the general desire to have more—whether money or otherwise. That’s the literal translation of the term pleonexia: the insatiable desire to have more than what you have, or more than what you’re lawfully permitted to have.
Covetousness is at the root of so many sins, and that’s likely why it appears last in the lists of the Ten Commandments: because it sums up the other nine. If you covet money, you’ll be a thief—or at least someone who is full of envy, and who hates those who have more than you. And if you hate your brother in your heart, you’ve committed what, in your heart? Murder. If you covet recognition and the praise of men, you’ll be proud, boastful, and insecure. If you covet power and influence, you’ll be heavy-handed, full of selfish ambition, and a manipulator of people. And, if you covet more and more sexual fulfillment outside the confines of your marriage, you’ll be a sexually immoral, impure person, driven by passion and evil desire.
Now, if you want to kill sin, and if the way to do that is not just to trim the branches of sin out at the fruit level, but to dig sin out at the root level—if you don’t just want to pull the leaves off the weeds but you want to pull them up by the roots—and if covetousness is the root of sin, then, listen carefully: the key to putting sin to death is to diagnose what the heart desires that it does not have, and why it wants that. And whatever that is: we believe that sinning will satisfy the craving of our heart. We believe that there is more pleasure to be had in our sinful desires than obedience to Christ. Every sin promises the heart a satisfaction that it desires and doesn’t have.
But not a single sin ever delivers on that promise! They are “lusts of deceit,” Ephesians 4:22. Sinful desires lie to you when they promise pleasure and joy and fulfillment. Oh, sin may be sweet in the tasting, but it is bitter in the digesting. Sweet on the lips, but bitter in the belly. Sin brings fleeting, false pleasures that destroy rather than satisfy. But here’s the key: obedience to Christ brings clearer and fuller sights of the glory of your Savior, who is the greatest joy, the greatest pleasure, the greatest satisfaction your heart can experience! So if you can discipline yourself to remember that there is superior joy—deeper pleasures, richer satisfaction—in obedience rather than disobedience, you will reject the false pleasures of sin and be content with the supreme pleasure that is found in Christ alone.
And do you know what that’s called—that contentment in the beauty and glory of Jesus that severs the root of covetousness? It’s called worship. That’s what worship is. It is ascribing so much worth to the disclosure of Christ to the eyes of your hearts on the path of obedience, that you devote your entire life to seeing more of Him. And when you don’t do that, do you know what it’s called? Idolatry. It’s why Paul says at the end of verse 5 that covetousness isidolatry: because idolatry is worshiping something other than God. It is ascribing so much worth to something that is not God, that you devote your life to getting it—even if it means sacrificing the worship of God. If I devote my life to getting the pleasures money can bring me, money’s my god. If I devote my life to getting the pleasures fame can bring me, the praise of men is my god. If I devote my life to getting the pleasures immoral sex can bring me, sex is my god. But if I devote my life to getting the pleasures God in Christ can bring me—pleasures in Himself—then God is my God!
Now, I spent a little more time than I intended to on that. And so as we come to these two reasons that Paul gives for putting sexual sins to death in verses 6 and 7, I only have time to do little more than state them. First, Paul says put sexual sins to death, “for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” The world may treat these things as trifles. “Does God really care what consenting adults do in their bedrooms?” Paul says, “So much so that He punishes these sins by sending those who commit them to be tormented in the lake of fire and brimstone day and night for eternity!” Someone says, “I don’t like that! You’re fear-mongering!” No I’m not. I’m quoting the Book of Revelation (14:10; 20:10; 21:8).
God’s wrath is His holy, unrestrained vengeance upon the filthiness of sin. And we saw it in the flood that drowned the entire world. And we saw it in the fire that God rained out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah. And eternal hell will make both of those episodes look like child’s play, when the unmixed holy fury of Almighty God is unleashed upon the enemies of righteousness. And Paul is saying to these believers: “Dear Colossians, it is true that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and so if you are in Christ by faith, you need not fear wrath. But that wrath will break over the heads of the unrepentant in a flood of eternal punishment. If you are children of God, why would you give yourself to the practice of those very things for which your Father so dreadfully punishes the sons of disobedience?”
And then, secondly, Paul says put sexual sins to death because, verse 7, “in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.” You’ve had enough time with these things! And what has it ever gotten you? Romans 6:21 says, “what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.” And 1 Peter 4:3 says, “For the time already past is sufficient to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, … and abominable idolatries.” But now that you have died to those things, why would you go on living in them? You’ve spent enough time sowing sin and reaping death! Now that you’ve been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life, put the deeds of death to death!
II. Put Social Sins to Death (vv. 8–11)
Now, there’s a second set of sins that Paul calls believers to mortify. We are not only to put sexual sins to death. We are, number two, to put social sins to death. Look at verse 8: “But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy speech from your mouth.” And I call these social sins because of the harmful effect they have on those around us.
Paul says, “Put them aside,” or “lay them aside.” Apotíthemi. It’s a verb that’s often used to speak of taking off one’s clothes. Acts 7:58 says the witnesses of Stephen’s execution “laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.” And so Paul is saying, “Just as a manual laborer would come home at the end of the day, remove his dirty clothes, be washed, and put on clean clothes in their place, now that you are no longer living in the filthiness of sin, put off the filthy garments of your old life. It’s simply not fitting for someone who has been cleansed by the blood of Christ and raised to live in the power of the Spirit to be wearing the deeds of the flesh.”
And while the previous list progressed backward from the external acts to the internal desires and finally down to the root, this set of sins begins with the heart attitudes which give rise to the evil actions. And the actions that are in particular focus here are sins of the tongue. And we might think, “Well, what are a few impatient words compared with sexual immorality, impurity, and evil passions and desires?” And it’s true: we do often excuse sins of the tongue—especially in ourselves—thinking them to be mere peccadillos.
But it is not so. Not only because of the great damage we can do with our words: Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” and James 3:6 calls the tongue “a fire, the very world of iniquity,” which “defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life.” But also because our words are a signal indicator of what’s in our hearts. Matthew 12:34: “the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” And so, even though anger and slander are in some manner not as gross as immorality and impurity, they are no less characteristic of the old life of sin, and are just as necessary to be laid aside.
He starts, in the first place, with anger. Now, anger is not necessarily sinful of itself. It is possible, as Ephesians 4:26 says, to “Be angry, and yet do not sin.” We know there is such a thing as righteous anger, because Mark 3:5 says that Jesus was angry with the Pharisees. Anger is righteous when it (1) arises from a good motive—love of God or neighbor; when it (2) tends toward a good end—God’s glory and a neighbor’s correction; and when it (3) is expressed in a good manner—without intemperance or harshness. Anger is sinful when it is motivated by love of self, when it tends toward personal vengeance or injury to someone else, or when it is expressed with intemperance, impatience, or undue severity. And I’d be willing to wager that we all tend to think our sinful anger is righteous far more often than it is.
One commentator calls anger, “a deep, smoldering, resentful bitterness” (MacArthur, 143). Another calls it “a vindictive appetite to hurt another unjustly for some affront” (Poole). It is the desire for vengeance, which, of course, the Lord reserves for Himself. Romans 12:19 says, “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Wrath isn’t substantially different from anger. In fact, in the verse I just quoted, the same Greek word that’s translated “anger” in Colossians 3:8 is translated “wrath” in Romans 12:19. But while the former speaks of a deep-seated feeling of hatred, this word speaks of those outbursts of anger that we associate with losing our temper. This is rage.
And malice translates a general term for moral evil (MacArthur, 144), but in this context, likely refers to “the deliberate intention to harm [that is eventually] expressed in [the] evil speech” Paul will speak about in a moment (O’Brien, 187). Malice is that intense hatred that results from brooding on the offenses committed against you—“I just can’t believe she said that to me! And in front of everyone! I didn’t deserve to be spoken to that way!”—just replayingit in your mind until bitterness takes root, and then you recognize that you intend to do harm to that person in response, and that eventually boils over—either in harmful actions that inflict physical pain, like Cain being so angry that he decided to kill his brother; or the harmful speech that aims to inflict emotional pain.
Anger, wrath, and malice, friends, are nothing to trifle with. Anger causes the soul to shrivel. It sucks the joy out of life. It so floods the mind with the darkness of vengeance, that there is often little room for the illumination of the Spirit—which lifts up the light of God’s countenance upon us. Anger steals the joy of communion with Christ, not the least because it usurps God’s own role as the One who takes vengeance. Anger also leaves little room for the Spirit’s illumination of God’s Word. Characteristically angry people are not wise people, who have insight into the Scriptures and who skillfully apply it to their lives. That’s why Ecclesiastes 7:9 says, “Anger resides in the bosom of fools.” And anger sucks the joy out of relationships as well. Proverbs 22:24 counsels us, “Do not associate with a man given to anger, or go with a hot-tempered man.” Jesus puts sinful anger on par with murder in Matthew 5:22, and says it makes you “guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” Those are Jesus’ words! Paul says: put it off from you. Lay it aside.
Then he goes on to show the fruit that an angry heart bears in the mouth. He speaks of slander. The Greek word is blasphemia, which is where we get the English term “blasphemy.” Usually, we hear that in the context of defaming God, but Scripture also used it in relation to defaming people. Blasphemia comes from the phrase blaptein ten phemen, which means “to harm the reputation.” And so slander is a fitting translation, but it’s actually even broader than that. It is any kind of speaking ill of someone—whether that “ill” is false, as in slander, or whether it’s true, as in gossip, and talebearing, and passing along an evil report.
Titus 3:2 says, “Remind them…to speak evil of no one.” Now, there are people who give you plenty of “evil” to speak about them! But Paul says, “Don’t speak it!” Matthew Henry said, “We are all forbidden to do anything injurious to our neighbor’s good name.” If “a good name is to be more desired than great wealth,” Proverbs 22:1, then it’s easy to see how Leviticus 19:16 could say that “going about as a talebearer among your people” is to “act against the life of your neighbor.” Spurgeon wrote, “The reputations of the Lord’s people should be very precious in our sight, and we should count it shame to help the devil to dishonor the Church and the name of the Lord.”
And so Christians are here forbidden from publishing faults, revealing secrets, sowing discord, and even passing along unsubstantiated accusations that could damage a brother or sister’s reputation. Even listening to such talk is characteristic of the unregenerate man. Proverbs 17:4 says, “An evildoer listens to wicked lips; a liar pays attention to a destructive tongue.” Listening to evil-speaking is no less harmful than speaking evil. One man said: the slanderer has a devil in his tongue, and the one who listens to slander has a devil in his ear. Paul says, “Those are the deeds of the oldman. Lay them aside like the dirty clothes that they are!”
He goes on to mention filthy speech. Aischrologia. Literally, obscene speaking. Paul indicates that profanity, lewd talk, sexual innuendo, and any other kind of coarse language is sinful for the Christian to engage in. In Ephesians 5:4 he says the same, “There must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting.” And I love that phrase: it’s not fitting for a Christian! Those dirty clothes don’t fit! As image bearers of God, you were given the powers of language above the animals in order to praise the glories of your Creator. And as Christians, re-created and indwelt by the Spirit of holiness, your heart has been freed to proclaim the excellencies of your Savior and His salvation, to encourage and build up your brothers and sisters in the truth! There is hardly anything more incongruous and unbecoming than a foul-mouthed professing Christian. One Roman historian noted that the Emperor Commodus would, as a joke, serve his guests delectable meals mixed with human feces. That’s something of an illustration of a potty-mouthed Christian (Davenant, 2:75).
And finally, Paul says, in the beginning of verse 9, “Do not lie to one another.” And this is also just as plain as day. Those who are disciples of Christ, who says of Himself, “I am the truth,” contradict the very identity of the Savior they claim when they fail to speak what is true. And when you consider that Satan is called “the father of lies,” John 8:44, the contrast is clear. God is the God of truth and cannot lie (cf. Titus 1:2); Satan is the father of lies. And so it is a gross incongruity for the Christian to ever let a lie pass through his lips.
And not just outright lying, but any act of dishonesty, deception, cunning, or insincerity. Christians don’t lie, and they don’t even mislead. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:2, “We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning…, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God” (ESV). In 2 Corinthians 13:8 he says what should be the motto of every Christian’s life: “We can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.” No one should ever have to wonder whether your word is trustworthy—whether you’re being deceptive or misleading or not perfectly truthful with them. That is to act against the truth. Spurgeon made the great observation that “There was great openness about Christ.” He says, “There was an utter absence of anything like…saying one thing and meaning another, or using expressions that had a double meaning in them. … He carried his heart where all might read it.” And if we would be His followers, so must we.
Why? Why should we lay aside the dirty clothes of these social sins? Verse 9: because “you laid aside the old self with its evil practices.” You ought to strip off the dirty clothes of the old man because the old man—that old self that you were in Adam—he has been stripped away from you! Romans 6:6 says, “our old self was crucified with Christ, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” Colossians 2:11 spoke of “the circumcision made without hands, in the removal”—in the laying aside, same word as here, in the stripping away—“of the body of the flesh.” Believer: these things are not who you are anymore!
Who are you? Look at verse 10: “and have put on”—like someone would put on clothes—“and have put on the newself”: the new man. And who is that? Well, if the old man is who you were in Adam, then the new man is who you are in Christ. What are the right clothes for a Christian to wear? Galatians 3:27, “For all of you who were baptized into [union with] Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ”! Do you know what you’re wearing, Christian? By the sovereign grace of God in regeneration, you have clothed yourselves with Christ! He is your clothing! His spotless, pure-white robe of perfect obedience to the very law you’ve broken is laid upon your shoulders!
Conclusion
Dear believer: if you’re wearing Christ—if His righteousness is yours in union with Him—then live like you’re wearing Christ. Put to death the deeds of the body. Lay aside the dirty clothes of the old man. Not to earnrighteousness, but because you are already righteous—because you already are “being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created” this new man, this in-Christ man or woman who sits here tonight by faith in Christ!
It doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew or a Gentile; the Christian life is not about ethnicity. It doesn’t matter if you’re circumcised or uncircumcised; the Christian life is not about religious ceremonies. It doesn’t matter if you’re a barbarian or Scythian; that is, social and cultural norms have no bearing on Christianity. You’re at no spiritual advantage if you’re the picture of cultural elegance, and you’re at no spiritual disadvantage if you’re an unrefined bumpkin! And it doesn’t matter if you’re a slave or a freeman; the Christian life is not about social position or economic status. Why doesn’t any of that matter? Because you’re in Christ, and Christ is all! He’s the One that matters! And He’s the One you’re in! He’s the One you’re united to! He’s the One you’re clothed with! He is your identity! And so, dear people, He must be the One you walk in.
You want to know how to put sin to death? It is to be utterly convinced, in the depth of your soul, that Christ is all; that Christ is everything; that He is wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30); that He is your meat and your drink, your pearl of great price and your treasure in hidden in the field; the strength of your heart and your portion forever.
Oh, dear friend, can you say that as you sit here tonight? Can you make that good confession of faith in Christ here this evening? Is Christ all to you? If not, dear unbeliever: I call you to bow the knee in faith to Him tonight. Throw off your resistance of Him. Release your grip on those sins that keep you in bondage. Turn away from them. And come and find freedom and liberty in the Christ who is all in all—the Savior who will make a new man or woman out of you, who will wash you in His blood and clothe you with Himself. Sinner: He bore the sins of His people in His body on the cross, and died in their place, and rose to victory in conquest over all sin and death. And He holds out His hands to you this evening, and calls you to come to Him for forgiveness, and for new life, and for all things.
You may die, this evening, to sin and judgment. You may rise to walk in newness of life. And if you walk in Him, you may put sin to death, and live life as it was meant to be. Turn from your sins, and believe upon Jesus tonight.