Sermon Tone Analysis

(Welcome)

Welcome to Central.

If this is your first time, I want to say, “Welcome Home!”

As an expository church, we prioritize preaching and teaching that focuses on a Christ-centered, holistic, and sequential approach to Scripture.

We enjoy preaching through books of the Bible and tackling each passage with a high view of Jesus Christ and an intent to be led into worship and transformation by what we find therein.

(Opening Prayer)

Heavenly Father, be glorified this morning as we open your Word.

Open our ears to hear it.

Open our minds to understand it.

Open our hearts to believe it.

Open our mouths to confess it.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to You today.

In Jesus' Name, Amen.

(Series Introduction)

Today we continue our Colossians series.

(Opening Context)

Paul is writing to a church he has never visited.

He doesn’t know these people.

Paul wrote Colossians between 60-62 AD during his first imprisonment in Rome (Acts 28).

Paul also wrote Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon during this time.

Pastor Epaphras planted the Colossian church and came to Paul because they had problems that needed to be addressed.

Paul writes this letter in the midst of their many heresies with one solution in mind - Correct Christology.

A low view of Christ was the problem, Paul gave us a high view of Christ.

The

Colossians 1:21–23 (ESV)

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,

22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

1.

No Christ, No Peace, No Victory

Colossians 1:21 (ESV)

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,

Having struck the note of reconciliation as the seventh characteristic of the exalted Christ, Paul then developed that theme.

Reconciliation is necessary because people are alienated (“cut off, estranged”) from life and God (Eph.

2:12; 4:18).

Before conversion the Colossian believers also were enemies or hostile to God in their minds as well as in their behavior, internally and externally.

Sin begins in the heart (Matt.

5:27–28) and manifests itself in overt deeds (Gal.

5:19).

(“In the sphere of your evil deeds” is better than NIV‘s because of your evil behavior.

People are not inwardly hostile vs. God because of their outward acts of sins; they commit sins because they are inwardly hostile.)

Paul moves from a generic description of God’s act of reconciliation in the world to a specific description of the experience of the Colossian believers.

Once again, there are strong similarities between this text and material in Ephesians.

Broadly speaking, we can observe a common pattern: (a) once you were …, (b) but now God has acted, (c) so now you are.…

This basic pattern is found in this portion of Colossians and also in Ephesians 2:1–10 and 2:11–22.

More specifically, we can compare Colossians 1:21–22 with Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2:12

12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

A sharp contrast is drawn between their pre-Christian past and their present standing in Christ.

The serious nature of their previous situation only serves to emphasize the wonder of God’s gracious, mighty action of reconciling them, i.e. of making them his friends.

Prior to their conversion they were alienated, completely out of harmony with God, trapped in idolatry and slavery to sin.

They had been opposed to God in their thinking, and this naturally found visible expression in their evil behaviour (lit.

‘doing evil deeds’).

Although God had accomplished reconciliation and peace through “the blood of his cross” (Col.

1:20), the personal experience of the Colossians prior to their conversion was alienation (Paul returns to the use of the second-person plural “you” in v. 21).

Paul identifies this alienation from God in terms parallel to his prayer in Colossians 1:10.

In both cases he brings actions and thought together.

In Colossians 1:21 he highlights the “total depravity” of alienation from God, impacting both the will and the mind.

In Colossians 1:10 he prays for fruitfulness in good works and growth in knowledge of God.

Alienation was not simply a passive distance from God but an active hostility toward him (Rom.

8:7).

Apart from the work of God the Son, Peace with God is impossible.

(We are the hostile ones who need to be brought back to God)

2. Peace With God is Because of Christ

Colossians 1:22 (ESV)

22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

Reconciliation of sinners to God is by Christ’s physical body through death.

The Gnostic tendency of the Colossian heresy, with its Platonic orientation, denied both Christ’s true humanity and His true deity.

As John explained, it is necessary to confess “that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2).

Spirits cannot die, and “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb.

9:22).

In order to redeem humans, Christ Himself must be truly human (cf. 1 Tim.

2:5; Heb.

2:17).

Thus Christ’s real physical body and death were necessary for man’s salvation (cf.

Rom.

7:4; Heb.

10:10).

Ephesians 2:13–16 (ESV)

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility

15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

The result of Christ’s death is redemptive—to present us holy in His sight.

This may mean judicially perfect as to a believer’s position, or spiritually perfect as to his condition.

Ultimately God envisions both for believers, and Christ’s death is the basis for judicial justification (Rom.

3:21–26), progressive sanctification (Rom.

6–7), and even ultimate glorification (Rom.

8).

As Paul wrote the Ephesians, “He chose us in Him before the Creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight” (Eph.

1:4).

Christians are without blemish (amōmous; correctly translated “blameless” in Eph.

1:4 and Phil.

2:15; “without … blemish” in Eph.

5:27 and “without fault” in Jude 24) in Christ, and also are free from accusation (anenklētous).

This latter Greek word is used five times in the New Testament and only by Paul (here and in 1 Cor.

1:8; 1 Tim.

3:10; Titus 1:6–7).

It connotes one who is unaccused, free from all charges.

Satan is “the accuser” (Rev.

12:10), but Christ is their “Advocate” (1 John 2:1) or “Defense” (1 John 2:1) before the Father.

Therefore by the merits of Christ believers are free from every charge (Rom.

8:33).

In Christ the accused are unaccused and the condemned are freed.

God’s response to this hostility is to accomplish reconciliation, an act only he could accomplish.

The use of the verb apokatallassō (“to reconcile”; Col. 1:22) forms a clear link between what has been said in the preceding section (note the use of the same verb in v. 20) and this passage, and it is clear that the theme of reconciliation is crucial to understanding the change of situation the Colossians have experienced.

Whereas the verb katallassō is used several times in Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians, the compound verb apokatallassō is found only in Ephesians 2:16 and Colossians 1:20 and 22.

The Greek word used here, apokatallassō, refers to the act of restoring a relationship to harmony.

The purpose of Christ’s death on the cross was to bring all things created by Christ and for Christ (Col 1:16) into harmonious relationship.

The believers’ reconciliation has been accomplished “in [Christ’s] body of flesh by his death.”