Brethren, when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.
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Here, Paul touches upon a clear dichotomy of human behaviour. If you consider yourself to be belonging to Christ – that is to say a follower of Christ – then you must live a Christian life. Your thoughts, your actions, your motivations, your ambitions and desires must be based upon the Christian life.
It is not enough to say that you are Christian and expect salvation. If you are raised with Christ – and you are so raised if you are baptised in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit – then your pathway is clear. That pathway is hard and narrow and filled with tribulation – but that is the path that needs to be followed.
Look at the devil and his works and his pomp. The devil even tried to tempt Christ. “If you are Christ,” is what the devil says to Christ in chapter 4 of Luke, “then you can change stones into bread.” “If you are Christ” then fall down from this temple. By the time of the third temptation the devil no longer dares to excite and provoke Christ by asking the question “if you are Christ” but simply says to him that if Christ bows to him he will give him all the world. This is similar to what happens in the world today. Each of us has our own demons – our own vices. The devil knows us so well that he gives us whatever our heart desires so long as we follow him. Notice that the devil has no concerns or morals or scruples as to how he wins you over. No trick is beneath him or beyond him. It is enough that he claims your soul. And the irony and the tragedy is that we give our soul cheaply and willingly for a few baubles and a few minutes of fame. To those people: they answer the question posed by Christ: for what can a man give for his soul? And the response is: we will do this for fame, fortune, pleasure, leisure, notoriety or any other of their perverted hearts desires.
Here’s the thing: the devil gives us everything we want to make us feel important, desirable, superior and better than our fellow man. The way of the devil is broad. Lights, glitter, tinsel sparkles, noise and diversions abound. Pleasures of the flesh in all their manifestations are freely available. All vices are catered for. Nothing is beyond the pale. No wonder we are attracted to lights and glitter like moths to a flame. After all, who does not want good clothes, a good car, good looks and above all, the applause and admiration of his fellow man?
Who looks at the path of Christ? Who would be prepared to walk the long, narrow and arduous road ever inclining and never ending? On one path there is glitz and glitter, on the other path there is sorrow and mourning, humility, obedience, selflessness and the remembrance of death, all wrapped up in the smell of incense, the murmur of prayer and calluses of the knees through prostrations.
The reality is that the devil promises things of this world so our gratification is immediate and present. We can feel it, we can see it and we can sense it and we can touch it. We tell ourselves why do we need to wait for tomorrow when we can have it all today? Who knows what tomorrow may bring? So we say to ourselves: soul, take your rest, eat, drink and be merry for you have earned it. Christ on the other hand promises us life in the next world. This we cannot see. This we cannot feel. We cannot touch it and yet it is the promise of Christ.
So the reality is you either pick God or you pick mammon. If you pick God and that is the sensible and life-saving election, then we must put to death all the inclinations of our earthly nature. So, we need to look at the sorts of behaviours that put us on the side of the devil and excise them from our heart. We must put to death our sexual immorality, impurity and lust. In short we must be married to one another, male and female, and enjoy sexual intimacy within the bounds of that marital relationship. So we need to give up having a sexual relationship outside of marriage. We need to clean our thoughts from impurities and from lust. Christ himself says if you look at a woman lustfully you have committed adultery in your heart. We need to guard our mind and hearts from all sorts of dark and evil thoughts. Why? because these thoughts bring us down and cause us to look away from Christ and look towards the devil. After all, it is far easier to slide downhill that it is to slide uphill. To traverse uphill we need to put in effort. On the other hand, to slide downhill all we need do is stop putting in that special effort to ascend and the devil and gravity will take care of the rest.
We are extolled to get rid of the ways of the devil because God is coming and if God is coming then God will be judging each and every one of us. So, we are obliged to put away such things as anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language. What we are doing is removing personal impurities and making what is left pure and befitting the indwelling of God. We are then told not to lie to each other because if we do then we are lying in effect to God because God made the other and the other is made in the image and likeness of God.
This is the new way for all humankind. God did not come into the world for this race or that. God did not come for this nation or that. God came for all and all who are in Christ belong to Christ. They are his and if we are all part of Christ then the reality is we are all part of each other and if we are part of each other then we all want the other to be saved because we are somebody else’s other and we, in turn, will be saved by the love, prayers and kindness of the other. For in Christ we live and move and have our being. In Christ we are all one. In Christ we will find salvation. In Christ will find life and everlasting life at that.
