III. Motives to this conduct.—1. A regard to consistency. 2. The reasonableness of the duty. 3. Present advantages. 4. Because they are the scene in which are displayed Christ’s personal presence and glory.
Risen with Christ.
- Christianity begins where everything else ends: it begins with death.
- After dying to sin we are to begin to live in good earnest.
- The Christian toils, labours, and tasks his mind for the glory of God and the good of others.
- The true Christian seeks the things which are above.—1. Holiness. 2. Love. 3. Peace. 4. Truth.—A. W. Hare.
The New Life.
I. There is a great difference between the new life and the old.—1. In our feelings. 2. Principles. 3. Aims. 4. Methods. 5. Conduct. 6. Thoughts. 7. Company. 8. Influence.
II. This difference should lead us to think much of heaven and to seek after heavenly things.—1. To know all we can about heaven. 2. To prepare all we can for heaven. 3. To take all we can with us to heaven.—Preacher’s Magazine.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 3, 4.
The Present Condition and Future Glory of Life in Christ.
The Christian life has a twofold aspect. Outwardly it is shorn of all splendours, and to the eye of the world appears a life of weakness, ignominy, and suffering; but inwardly it is radiant with Divine light and pervaded with a heavenly peace. The believer is often as a monarch in the disguise of a beggar. The world knows nothing of the new life of which he has become possessed, and the new life must know nothing of the world. Its aspirations are directed towards higher things. The relish for earthly things is gone.
I. That the present condition of the believer’s life in Christ involves a new relation to outward things.—“For ye are dead” (ver. 3). There was a time when he not only lived in the world, but to the world and for the world. He was wholly captivated and absorbed in the pursuits and enjoyments of the carnal mind. But now, while still in the world, he is dead to its charms and to its ordinances. All the mainsprings of activity are changed. He is risen with Christ and shares the power of His resurrection life. Man lives where He loves, and, having experienced so complete a change, his affections are now fixed on things above, and his life is bound up in the love and service of Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of God. He is dead because he is crucified with Christ, and hath put off the old man—the old fleshly nature—with his deeds. This death involves a renunciation of all the ceremonial observances against which the apostle so faithfully warned in the preceding chapter—the Mosaic ritual, the vain philosophy, the angelolatry, the pride of the fleshly mind, the traditions and commandments of men, and all the pernicious doctrines of the false teachers. He is dead to the past and realising the beating of a new life within him, he enters upon a brighter and loftier career.