Let us turn to God's Word, and our text is found in Colossians
chapter 3 and verse 10. Colossians chapter 3 and verse
10, And have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him. We continue then to consider
this particular verse. We were looking at it last Lord's
Day evening and saw then that the subject matter being dealt
with is that of the restoration of man and that put on the new
man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that's
created him. And God's created man He was
made in the image of God. He was created after God's likeness. But man, alas, is a fallen creature. And here we have the renewal
of that divine image. Now, last week we were thinking
more particularly with regards to this restoration of the need
of mortification. There is still the old nature.
And in the context here we see how Paul speaks of the need to
put to death those deeds of the old man in verse 5, mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth, he says, fornication.
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness,
which is idolatry. Verse 8 he says, 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, and then
come the words of the text, and have put on the new man. We thought then in particular
of mortification, the mortification of sin, but we remarked also
how that the negative alone is not enough. There is a place
for the negative in the Word of God, but there must also,
of course, be the positive. Besides the putting off, there
must also be the putting on. And we refer to those words of
the Lord Jesus Himself in the Gospel, back in Luke chapter
11, and there at verse 24 Christ said, When the unclean spirit
is gone out of a man, He walketh through dry places, seeking rest
and finding none. He saith, I will return unto
my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth
it swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh to him
seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter
in and dwell there. And the last state of that man
is worse than the first, or beside the putting off there must evidently
be this putting on. And this is what we're considering in this particular
verse. And it's not the only verse,
of course, in the New Testament where Paul speaks of the restoration
of man. We have a very similar text,
remember, in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 24. He says there
that he put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness. After God, that is after God's
image. The new man is created in righteousness
and true holiness. It is the renewal then of that
divine image in man, that image that was destroyed and lost,
as we read in that solemn third chapter of the book of Genesis,
where is recorded, of course, the fall of our first parents,
Adam and Eve. But now, all of that that was
undone by the first Adam is restored by the last Adam. In him the
sons of Adam boast more blessings than their father lost, says
Isaac Watts in the hymn. Oh, it is in Christ that we see
the restoration of the sinner. And so we see here there is a
certain emphasis, is there not, upon Christ? He goes on to say,
at the end of the 11th verse, that Christ is all and in all. If any man be in Christ Jesus,
he is a new creature, a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. That's the word, again, of the
same Apostle Paul, writing in 2 Corinthians 5, the new creation. is all together in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And what do we see when we come
to consider Christ? We see the wonder of God's love
to sinners. God so loving the world that
He gives His only begotten Son that whosoever believe that in
him shall not perish but have everlasting life." We read those
words in 1 John 4.10, here in his love. Not that we love God,
but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. And so what is to be put on with
regards to the new man? Well, look at the words that
we have here at verse 14, and above all these things, he says,
put on charity. which is the bond of perfectness,
ought to be those who are putting on the new man. It is that putting
on of Christ who is the manifestation of the love of God. The word,
of course, that's rendered charity here is really that word for
Christian love agape. that greatest form of love. As I'm sure you're aware, there
are three particular words in the Greek that are translated
in our authorized version by love, and the Gapa is the greatest,
the purest of all those loves. And this is what the believer
is to be put on. So, as we continue with this
consideration of the restoration of man, I want us tonight to
think of the significance of this love and have put on the
new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. And above all these things, he
says, put on charity, put on Christian love, which is the
bond of perfectness. Now first of all, with regards
to this love, we are to recognize here how it is the very basis
of God's choice of his people, the very basis of election. See how he continues here at
verse 12, put on therefore, he says, as the elect of God, holy
and beloved. And the names that he is giving
to those whom he addresses here in this twelfth verse are quite
significant. Do not these titles belong to
the same people? He's addressing the church, those
believers in Colossa. and he speaks of them as the
elect of God, holy and beloved. What does each of these names
signify? Well, first of all, those he
addresses are the elects. And we were speaking of this,
of course, this morning when we considered those words in
Psalm 65. Here we have the same truth. Here are those who are
the election of Christ. And we remember that that election
of God is an eternal election. Ephesians chapter 1, the very
chapter that we read in the morning hour. According as he hath chosen
us in him, before the foundation of the world. God has made choice
of these people before ever he created, before ever man existed,
before ever man had fallen into sin, even from eternity. God made choice of his people. Paul continues there in Ephesians
chapter 3 and verse 11, according to the eternal purpose which
he purposed in Christ Jesus. Oh, it is an eternal purpose
and it centers in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is in Christ that they are
chosen, it is in Christ that that divine image of God is restored
in men. And, as I said, the election is not only eternal,
it is also personal, is it not? Their names, their names are
written in the book of life from the foundation of the world,
we're told in Revelation chapter 13. From before ever the world was
created, before time was, from all eternity, their names were
written in God's book. They are those then who are the
chosen of the Lord. Look again at what the Apostle
says when he writes to Timothy in that second epistle. There
in the first chapter at verse 9 he says, "...who have saved
us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Oh, here we
see, you see, the very basis of all God's works. And it begins
before time was. In that sense, because we're
speaking now, of course, of eternity, and eternity is that where there
is no beginning and no ending. We cannot really begin to conceive
what eternity is. Sometimes we speak in contradictory
terms and might use the expression eternity past or eternity to
come because we're so limited in our understanding we only
know time and the passing moments and now the weeks come and go
and the years are soon fled by whereas eternity is altogether
outside of time and that is when God made choice of this people
in the Lord Jesus Christ But it is His sovereign election,
remember. It's nothing in there. The reason
for the choice is to be found only in God Himself. He says,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. Therefore it is not of Him that
run us. but of God, of God that showeth
mercy. Oh, He foreknows His people.
He has set His love upon them, whom He did foreknow. He also
did pedestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. Oh, friends, this is the new
nature, you see. Those that God has set His love on, they are
to conform to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how we're to understand
the words of the text concerning the new man, renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him. But when Paul addresses
these people, as he does here in verse 12, he doesn't only
speak to them as those who are the elect of God, he says, put
on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved. They are elect, yes, but they
are also those who are designated by the word holen. Now, what
are we to understand by that? Well, when God chooses His people,
He sets them apart. He sanctifies them. That's the
basic meaning, is it not, of the word to sanctify, to set
something apart for holy uses. We find it in the Old Testament,
the furnishings that were to be employed in the tabernacle
were not to be used for any common purpose. They were consecrated. They were set apart. They were
sanctified to the service of God. And so when Jude writes
in the words of his epistle, the opening verse of that short
epistle of Jude, we read of those who are sanctified by God the
Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called the work of God's
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father sanctifies them. What
does that mean? It means the Father set them
apart to Himself. He made choice of them. And then
even in the state of unregeneracy, before ever they come to saving
faith, the Lord Jesus preserves His people. As St John Kent said,
preserved in Jesus, when my feet made haste to hell, and there
should I have gone, but thou dost all things well. or they're
preserved, and so in the appointed time they're also caught. Sanctified
by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and caught,
the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. And it is that setting
apart that is the basis of this holiness. Again, the language
of the Apostle writing in the last chapter of the epistle to
the Hebrews, he speaks of Jesus also that he might sanctify the
people with his own blood, suffered without the gains. Oh, they're
sanctified now, they're sanctified by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They're not only set apart by
the Father from all eternity, sanctified in that eternal sense,
they're also sanctified in time. when the Lord Jesus Christ comes
to shed his precious blood, that there might be that cleansing
from all their sin. This is the great work of God,
is it not? Again, to Hebrews Paul can say,
by the witch will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. But then, as they are sanctified
in time, by that work that was accomplished by the Lord Jesus
Christ upon the cross. And it was, of course, the fullness
of the time. It was that time that God had
ordained. The Lord Jesus Christ was ever
conscious of that throughout his earthly ministry. There were
those occasions when the Jews would have taken him, they would
have stoned him because they accused him of blasphemy, but
his time was not yet come. His time was not yet come. There
was a time or days when He would shed His precious blood and so
sanctify that people that the Father had given to Him in the
Eternal Covenant. But then also there's that sanctifying
by the Holy Spirit. They're sanctified by the Holy
Ghost in their own soul's experience. We read of sanctification of
the Spirit and belief of the truth. Or when the Spirit comes
and does His gracious work in the soul of the sinner. Then
you see they receive a new nature. That that is born of the Spirit
is Spirit, that that is born of the flesh is flesh. And it
is in that new nature that they are made holy people. Paul understands it, he understands
it in his own soul's experience, he writes so fully of these things.
Or writing to the Galatians, he speaks of that conflict. He
says, the good that I would, I do, not the evil that I would,
not that I do. He feels himself to be such a
wretched man, feeling the flesh, lusting against the spirit, and
the spirit against the flesh, and now these are contrary one
to the other. and he says he cannot do the
thing that he would. But we write so fully of it then
in the 7th chapter of Romans, those words that we just alluded
to, where he feels himself to be a wretched man. Who will deliver
me, he says, from the body of this death? That's what he feels
with regards to the old nature, that nature that must be put
off and mortified. But there is not only the old
nature, there is that new nature. And what a blessing it is. It's
the gracious work of the Spirit of God in the soul of the sinner. Paul then again, writing there
in the Epistle to the Corinthians, speaks of how they are to live
their lives in view of who they are by the grace of God. At the
end of the 6th chapter in 1st Corinthians, again he gives various
exhortations, he says, flee fornication, flee fornication, every sin that
a man doeth is without the body, but he that commiteth fornication
sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body
is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? which you have
of God, and you are not your own, for you are bought with
the price. Therefore glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's." And he goes on now
concerning the things whereof we spoke and so forth. He's speaking
here, is he not, of the importance of the believer practicing holiness
of life. The believer who desires to conform
to the image of Christ. He wants to live a holy life,
a God-fearing life. This is indicative that he is
one who has received that new nature. These are marks of the
grace of God in the soul of the man. The man is truly a partaker
of the divine nature, to use the expression that Peter employs. The believer is a partaker of
the divine nature, and the mark, of course, of that divine nature
is holiness, because God is a holy God. And so, as the apostle is
addressing himself to these believers at Colossae, he uses these various
names. He speaks of them as the elect,
He speaks of them as holy, and then He says they are the beloved. Put on therefore as the elect
of God, holy and beloved. Now doesn't this name indicate
to us the reason why God ever chose them? and never set them
apart. He did so because He loves them. It is God's love, you see, that
is at the very root of His choice of them. And when Paul writes
to the Thessalonians in the first epistle to the Thessalonians,
and there in the opening chapter, and verse 4, if we read that
word, or that verse, in line with what is written in the margin,
it says, knowing brethren, beloved of God, your election. That's
how the marginal reading renders that particular verse. Knowing brethren, beloved of
God, your election. They are elect because God has
loved them, they are the beloved. And so again when Paul writes
to the same Thessalonians, this time in his second epistle, look
at the language that he employs. There in 2 Thessalonians chapter
2 and verse 13 he says, We are bound to give thanks always to
God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth." They are the beloved.
Here is the basis of God's choice of His people. He loves them. And so He sets His love upon
them. Israel in the Old Testament. Are they not a typical people?
Israel is a type of the Church. We know that they're not all
Israel, they're not of Israel. There was ever in the nation,
the ethnic nation of Israel, there was ever always that remnant,
the true spiritual Israel. But Israel as a nation was a
typical people. And remember the language that
we have employed by Moses when he writes there in the 7th chapter
of Deuteronomy concerning God's choice of the nation. He says
to them in verse 7 of Deuteronomy 7, The Lord did not set his love
upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than
any people, for you were the fewest of all people, but because
the Lord loved you. and because he would keep the
oath which he had sworn unto your fathers after the Lord brought
you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house
of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." Or why was it
that God had set his love upon this people? Simply because the
Lord loved you and because God He's ever faithful to His covenants,
to His promise, all His covenant love. And so here, you see, we
see how these people are addressed by these various names. They
are elect, they are holy, and they are beloved. Now, Jeremiah
expresses that glorious truth when he speaks of himself, the
Lord has appeared of old unto me, he says, saying that he has
loved me with an everlasting love. I have loved thee with
an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
thee. Oh, it is the love of God that
we see here, it's the basis. of all that God is doing. And
we read it, did we not, there in that portion in the fourth
chapter of John's general epistle. We love Him because He first
loved us. Love is at the very roots of God's choice of His
people. But love is not only the roots
of God's choice of them, It's also the root of all the other
graces of the Spirit. He says at verse 12, Put on therefore
as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one
another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." But then he goes
on to speak of love. Verse 14, "...and above all these
things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness."
how that this grace of love is at the very root of all the other
graces. In a sense, we can say that this
love that the apostle is speaking of is that that is under all. It's under all. Calvin here renders
it like this. He says, on account of all these
put a love on account of all these, all the other graces that
he's spoken of in the previous two verses, verses 12 and 13. It is love that is primary. It
is love that is basic to everything. Remember that great 13th chapter
of 1 Corinthians in which the Apostle speaks of that Christian
love and the the wonderful exposition of that
chapter that we find in that book by Jonathan Edwards which
I would commend to you, Charity and its Fruits where the great
North American Puritan Jonathan Edwards expounds all of that
chapter and what do we see there that love is that that is so
basic to everything When we come to the conclusion of the chapter,
Paul says, Now abide us faith, hope, charity, these three, but
the greatest of all is charity. And it's the same word as we
have here in verse 14, put on charity. It's that word agape,
it's that highest, that purest form of love that the Greeks
could ever conceive of. And when we come to Galatians
chapter 5, where Paul sets before us the fruit of the Spirit, look
at the order in which they are set before us. Verse 22 of Galatians
5, he says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And thou that art Christ, have
crucified the flesh with the affections of lust. If we live
in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be
desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. What is that that appears first
as the fruit of the Spirit? It is this word love, or charity
as we find it here in verse 14. I say it is basic to all else. But not only is it that that
we might say is under all those graces of the Spirit, it is clearly
that that is also over, over all those graces. This is the
word that he uses here in verse 14, he says, above all these
things. And the construction here has
this idea of that that rests upon everything else, that that
rests above everything else, that it embraces everything else. Love is under all, love is over
all. He says that love is through
all. This is the emphasis that he
is making, is it not? He says, put on charity, which
is the bond. The bond of perfectness. That that binds all together,
that that is like glue or cement holding everything together. It's not only under all and over
all, it's through all. or the importance then of the
believer putting on this grace of love. It is, I say, the very
basis of God's choice of his people. when he made choice of
them in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is at that is the root of
all the graces that are spoken of in the previous verses, verses
12 and 13, and we see also here, do we not, how that this love
is the source of all good. Above all things, all these things
put on charity, you see, What are they to do? They are to be
Christ-like. Christ-like, he says, is their
pattern. We're never to lose sight of
the Lord Jesus, of course, as the believer's pattern. Of course,
He is more than a pattern. He is the Saviour. He is the
One who has come to reconcile sinners to God. That is the great
work that He undertook in terms of the eternal covenant, as we
were saying this morning. It is that cleansing from all
sin, that purging from sin, that comes by the blood of His cross.
There upon the cross He bore in His own person that punishment
that was there just as earth. He died, the just, for the unjust,
to bring sinners to God who knew no sin. It says Paul was made
sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. We're never to lose sight of
that great work that Christ came to do. But when we consider Christ,
He is also the believer's pattern. Christ's love is that that we
are to desire that we might be copying. So look at what Paul
says here in verse 13. He says, "...forbearing one another
and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." The Christ life. Christ was ready to forgive. be ye also those who are forgiving." Above all, you see, put on charity. It is that love that is the real
mark, is it not, of God in the soul of a sinner.
In that portion that we read in 1 John chapter 4, Twice we
have that statement, God is love, in verse 8, and again in verse
16. We're told then that God is love. In a sense, love is one of the
attributes of God, one of the characteristics of God. There
are various attributes that we see in Scripture. God is whole,
and God is righteous, and God is just, and God is also merciful,
and God is gracious, and so God is love. But in a very real sense,
love is more than an attribute of God. Love is really the very
essence of all that God is. When we think of that great mystery
of the Godhead, that God is a trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And God is love without any object
outside of himself to set his love upon. The relationship between
the persons in the Godhead, you see. How the Father loves the
Son and delights in the Son. And how the Son loves the Father.
Now we have this brought out in the language of Proverbs chapter
8, that great chapter on the wisdom of God. And our wisdom
speaks there, and wisdom is Christ. As He is the Word of God, so
He is the wisdom of God. Then I was by Him as one brought
up with Him, I was daily as delight, rejoicing always before Him. or there is a relationship between
the persons in the Godhead, the Father loving the Son, the Son
loving the Father, the Holy Spirit loving the Father and the Son,
the Father and the Son loving the Holy Spirit. This is the
very image of God, that God is love. And so, where there is
this renewal of man, this renewing of the divine image in man, Surely
it must be marked by love, put on the new man, which is renewed
in knowledge after the image of him that created it. And remember how John in that
chapter, but in chapter 3 and in chapter 4 really, John has
so much to say with regards to all this love of God in the soul
of the side sinner is to be manifested. He says at verse 7, their beloved
let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that loveth
is born of God and knoweth God he that loveth not knoweth not
God for God is love. And then again Later, at verse 19, he says,
We love him because he first loved us. If a man say, I love
God, and hate that his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth
not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom
he hath not seen? And this commandment have we
from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. This is the believer's high and
holy calling there if we are those friends who know anything
of the accomplishment of the words of our text in our souls
experience if we are those who have put on the new man which
is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him why the love of God will be in our hearts and how will
that love of God manifest itself it will manifest itself in love
for the brethren Isn't this one of the tests whereby we are to
try ourselves? Here is that whereby we can find
some measure of assurance that we've known something of the
grace of God in our souls. We know, says John again in that
first epistle, we know that we have passed from death unto life
because we love the brethren. Who are you those who love the
brethren? You love the communion of saints. You want to be where
the people of God are. And you know, the communion of
saints doesn't mean that we simply love those that we're familiar
with and those that we rub shoulders with in our own church community. Of course, it's wider than that.
It's loving the saints wherever we see them, but it's loving
not only living saints. Is there not also sometimes a
communion that we feel with those saints who have gone before,
those saints who have gone to glory? Sometimes when we're reading
some of the works of those godly men and women of old, do we not
feel our hearts going out to them in love? When we read maybe
some of their letters, when they write to their various friends,
often times when we read sermons by godly men of a previous generation
or do we not feel that they are men who are really ministering
to us still and we love them that is the love of the brethren
and we know says John that we pass from death unto life because
we love the brethren put on therefore he says as the elect of God holy
and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind,
meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one
another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave
you, so also do you." Now, what we have here is not those duties,
that the law would demand of the child of God. Surely it's
not duty that's set before us here. Here we see something more
than that. We see the believer's indebtedness
to God under the gospel. How the believer is that one
who wants to conform more and more to the image of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Is he not the image? of the invisible
God. And if God's image is restored
in us, oh friends, we must be those who are Christ-like. We must be Christ-like, above
all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness,
to be a partaker. of the divine nature. Remarkable
words that Peter uses there in the opening chapter of his second
epistle. That's what the believer is,
you see. That's the seed. That's the seed that abides within
the believer. And he cannot sin because he
is born of God. That's speaking of this new nature.
But alas, as we said last time, there's the old nature. It's still there, but that's
not the real child of God. The real child of God is to be
found in that new nature. I do think it's most striking,
you know, when Paul comes to the end of that great seventh
chapter of Romans in which he speaks of that conflict between
the old man and the new man. What does he say? The very last
sentence. There, at the end of Romans 7, he says, So then with
the mind I myself serve the Lord of God, but with the flesh the
law of sin. And observe the emphasis, and
how wonderfully it's brought out in our authorized version.
The true Paul He's that new man of grace. He says, so then with
the mind I myself. He doesn't simply say with the
mind I serve the Lord of God. No, he places an emphasis there.
This is the real me. With the mind I myself. All the
true Paul is that new man of grace. But then there is this
body. the body of this death, he calls
it, the old nature. That's what is to be put off.
But what is put on is that new man of Christ. It's that that
we have here in the text, or to know, friends, what it is
to have that image of God restored in Christ, who is the last Adam. And that put on, the new man,
which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. The Lord be pleased to bless
his word to us.