Setting Our Hearts

What does being “in Christ” imply for living daily under his rule (See Col. 3:1-3)? Verse 6 talks about a contrast between our old self and new self. The old self indicates our relationship to Adam, and the new self denotes our relationship to Christ. When we are converted, we are transferred from the realm of Adam, one type of humanity, to the realm of Christ, another type. We have died and been raised with Christ (8,9). Our status has changed, and we now stand on resurrection ground (4,5).

Paul elsewhere uses “new self” language to describe Christ (Eph. 4:24) and the Christian community (Eph. 2:15; Col. 3:10,11). Believers belong to a new regime, dominated by Christ, not by Adam. We are no longer at the beck and call of our sinful nature; it no longer has power to rule our lives. Now, says Paul, act on this. Learn to live out the new relationship God has put in us. That requires effort (12,13) and a challenge–to avoid putting our bodies, faculties and gifts to ungodly uses, but to use them in the service and worship of the God who has raised us to new life and gives us the power to fight all ungodliness.

We can look at this chapter like this. Imagine two fields surrounded by high rocks. Everyone starts life in one of those fields, which is ruled over by sin. God in his mercy takes us out of this field and puts us in the adjacent field, ruled by righteousness: a decisive change. We can still hear Satan calling from that old field and sometimes we give in, but we overcome his temptations to sin by moving further from the wall that divides the fields so the voice of Satan becomes more distant.

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psa. 139:23, 24). Offer yourself afresh to the Lordship of Jesus over your life.