Three's Company

Passages in both Ephesians 5 and Colossian 3, speak about relationships: husbands and wives, children and parents, slave and masters. How we relate to others seems to be important to God. Let’s take a look at what Paul says in his letter to the church at Colossae.

Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and don't become bitter against them.

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so they won't become discouraged.

Slaves, obey your human masters in everything; don't work only while being watched, in order to please men, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. ... Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you too have a Master in heaven. -- Colossians 3:18-22,4:1

Notice, first, that these are perfectly paired statements. Nothing is asked of one side of the relationship without something being asked of the other. Yet it is not simply a reciprocal response. The requirements on each side are absolute. Husbands have to love their wives even if they "don't get no respect". Children have to obey their parents even if the parents are unworthy.

Here are the verses I left out, Colossians 3:23-25 –

Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord -- you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism.

As it says in Romans, "God is no respecter of persons". Our position in life is not what is important. Whether husband, wife, child, parent, slave, or master, none of that matters to God in its essence. What matters is what we do with it. A relationship, though it appears as a couplet, is really, then, a triad. Christ is between us, always. If a man's wife disrespects him, she is disrespecting Christ. If a man becomes bitter or is unfaithful to his wife, he is bitter and unfaithful to the Lord.

My job is to take my position, however humble or exalted, and see what I can do with it. I need to see if I can keep Jesus in focus when my kids are acting like fools, when my boss makes unreasonable demands, or my wife snatches the remote control.

Initially I was thinking about the husband and wife relationship as kind of a means of overcoming our natural tendencies. Men, especially young men, probably gravitate toward idolizing women, while women may tend toward wanting to be in control (for some reason I laugh even as I write that).

By acting in accordance to God's requirements, we are forced to refocus and put our eyes on Him. The woman who would manipulate her husband, because she can, will have to see that she is really trying to manipulate and control the Lord. A man unwilling to put the Lord first in his life is doing his wife a disservice by making an idol of her. The man who would fail to love his wife and give himself up for her must see that he is failing to love Jesus. Consider marriage as a means of helping your spouse and, at the same time, yourself reject the bondage of the old nature and live in the liberty of the kingdom.

What God is asking of us may not come easily, and perhaps that’s the whole point. We need to break free of the world’s perspective and see Him in the middle of everything.

Who is that Masked Man?

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his practices and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of his Creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all in all -- Colossians 3:9-11

When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, He identified with man. When a person offered an animal sacrifice under the Law, he placed his hands on the head of the creature, ritually placing his own sins upon the offering and identifying with it. Without the identification, the sacrifice was meaningless – they were just slaughtering another lamb.

Much Christian talk and teaching rightfully focuses on what Jesus did for us. He bore the penalty of our sins. Like the scapegoat in the Old Testament, He bore our sins out of sight. Or, as Donnie McClurkin sings:

Living He loved me
Dying He saved me
Buried He carried my,
My sins far away
Rising He justified me
Freed me forever
One day he’s coming back –
Glorious day!

The other side of the coin is our identification with Christ, and Paul’s letter to the Colossians begins to emphasize that in the third chapter, where I’ve been stuck for a while, as I mentioned a few posts back.

The scapegoat and the sacrificial lambs were just a shadow, a little drama showing us truth. Offering my sacrifice, I could only be sincerely sorry for my bad actions and resolve to be a better man. I could use that symbolic act like a piton driven into the rock on an otherwise impossible face. It allowed me to stay in touch with God, to continue to receive blessings and benefits. The trouble is, as we are told in Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. It has to be repeated. The high priest can never rest, never sit down and say, “It’s finished. The payment is complete.”

Jesus came as our Great High Priest, became fully man, emptying Himself of His glory yet never ceasing to be God. He identified completely with us, to be tested and to suffer as a man. He then offered the ultimate sacrifice of Himself. On the cross, He said, “It is finished. It is paid in full forever.” When He ascended, unlike the sons of Aaron, He sat down.

When a baby is born it does not know what it is, let alone who it is. It has to identify with someone. I am like my father, not just because I have some of the same genetic material, but because I identified with him. Someone took a picture of me not too long ago. When I saw it some time later it took me a couple of minutes to realize it was not Dad. I do look a little like him physically but that wasn’t what fooled me -- it was the facial expression which is just so typical of him that I thought it was on his face.

To be spiritually born from above puts me back to that point where I don’t know who or what I am. As Jesus said to the sons of thunder, “You really don’t know what kind of spirit you’ve got there, boys.” Unlike an infant born of the flesh, however, the spiritual infant literally grows by identification. It is possible, I fear, to remain a helpless, amorphous infant spiritually for many years. I do not know what happens to one who dies physically in that condition. I would imagine it’s pretty shocking. It is certainly not meant to be.

I identified with the old natural man for a long time. Like my father’s expression, it can almost be a mask that hides who is really in the picture. It is a lie about what and who I really am. I need to end the lie, end the deception, stop living as a persona, drop the actor’s mask. What, as your mama used to say, if your face freezes like that?

It’s time to drop all the racial, tribal, and sectarian identities as being meaningful. They can be good fun and there’s nothing wrong with that, but they do no touch the core of what we are. Christ alone is my identity, just as I am His identity.

Stuck in the Middle with Who?

So if you have been raised with the Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you will be revealed with Him in glory. -- Colossian 3:1-4

I’ve been stuck on Colossians 3 for weeks it seems. As Romans 4:25 says, Jesus was delivered up – that is, crucified, for my trespasses, but He was raised from the dead for my justification. Not just me, of course, but I do need to make it personal. As far as God is concerned, the death of Jesus on the cross is the death of all old Adam’s race. It is the end of the line, the omega point for the old man. In Adam all died, so in Christ all are made alive, we are told.

Paul’s declaration sounds conditional, but it is really a statement that follows from a premise, “so if”, not just “if” – it means that I am raised with Christ. That being the case, I am called to seek what is above – in the vertical dimension. In that vertical realm it does not matter about my condition or situation in the horizontal for “above” I am in Christ at the position of authority. In Christ I am God’s right hand man. I am thus called to pay less attention to the earthly dimension and move my mind’s focus to the heavenly.

"When the Messiah is revealed" is not talking about the Second Coming primarily, or possibly at all. It is Christ being revealed to me right here.

This is why I think I’ve been stuck, because, again, it is about revelation. I think the Holy Spirit is building a hunger in me to see Jesus, as I have been talking about the last few days. My real life is now Christ’s life; my reality is now the vertical, the hidden, the unseen as opposed to what is visible in Flatland. The Lord is creating a desire for revelation that I have been avoiding.

Now who, in his right mind (not saying I am), who would refuse to accept the offer to see the Messiah? Actually, it’s not just me. It happened all the time in the Old Testament as individuals chosen by God to do His work had visitations of the “Angel of the Lord”; they all expected to die. In fact, they all did, though not physically as they expected. They died to their old nature – sometimes forever, other times only temporarily. The Angel of the Presence, whether physically visible or seen in the logos, is the Angel of Death to Adam’s children.

All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain surrounded by smoke. When the people saw it they trembled and stood at a distance. “You speak to us, and we will listen,” they said to Moses, “”but don’t let God speak to us, or we will die.” -- Exodus 20:18,19

I’ve been satisfied with the indirect approach, to being obedient without seeing Jesus, frankly because it requires not just occasional, temporary sanctification – enough to get me through a church service, or sufficient for filling in for the pastor on Wednesday night – but death, permanent unmitigated death to the flatlander within me.

In a little while the world will see Me no longer, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live, too. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you. The one who has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. Ad the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I also will love him and will reveal Myself to him. -- John 14:19-21