Key Truth: As a result of our resurrection, we are to actively and perpetually put to death what is earthly within us and glorify God as the redeemed new creation society in Christ alone.  

“Paul’s admonitions…are all based on the co-resurrection his hearers have experienced. They are not a list of legalistic rules; they are expressions of how Christ-followers live because Jesus lives in them.”

James Bryan Smith, Hidden in Christ: Living as God’s Beloved

Put to Death What is Earthly in the Power of the Resurrection:

Colossians 3:5-8

“You have died with Christ; act and speak and think therefore so as to make it plain that this “death” is no mere figure of speech, but a real event which has severed the links which bound you to the dominion of sin.”

F.F. Bruce, Epistles to Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians

Q: What earthly things do you wrestle with that are not pleasing to God? What are you doing to actively and perpetually put them to death?

Put Off the Old Self, Put on the New Self in Christ Alone:

Colossians 3:9-11

“The new creation, then, is a society where the barriers that separate us from one another in this world are abolished (verse 11). Here there cannot be the deep divisions, national and traditional, tribal and geographical, social and cultural, that largely distinguish us from one another.”

Dick Lucas, The Message of Colossians and Philemon

Q: How are you different as a Christian as compared to when you were not? What are some ways in which you growing more in the image of Christ as a member of the redeemed new creation society?

Colossians 3:5-11 teaches us that we are to:

- actively and perpetually put to death what is earthly within us

- glorify God as the redeemed new creation society in Christ alone