Put On Christ
Colossians 3:12-14
Sometimes you can identify someone by the clothes they wear. A policeman or soldier wears a uniform. A nurse wears scrubs. A businessman might be wearing a suit. What should a Christian look like? If you were looking at a crowd of people, how would you know the Christian from the non-Christian? Can you tell by what they wear? Should there be something about believers in Christ that makes them stand apart from the world around them?
Last time in our study of Colossians, Paul instructed the Colossians (and us as his readers) to put to death what is earthly (Col. 3:5). He told us to kill sins like “fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col. 3:5). He instructed us to put off sins like “anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language” (Col. 3:8) and lying to one another (Col. 3:9). We are to kill these sins, take them off like a filthy garment, and throw them away forever because we are new people in Christ.
In sports, when a player gets traded or joins a different team, he changes uniforms. He puts away his old uniform associated with his previous team, and puts on the uniform of his new team. As a Christian, you have switched teams. You are no longer of the world (John 15:19). You are in Christ. Romans 13 says, “Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. … But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” (Rom. 13:12, 14).
In Colossians 3:9-10 Paul says “you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.” That’s what happened when you believed in Christ and He saved you. Piper says, “our old unbelieving self died and we sloughed it off like a butterfly sloughs off its old wormlike cocoon when the springtime of salvation comes.”[1] And we have put on the new self which is like Christ—like a butterfly taking flight with its new wings.
Christ has changed us. We are different than we used to be. Now, our life should reflect the image of Christ in us. As we saw in Colossians 3:11, God is creating a new community out of all kinds of people whose primary identity is Christ. So that “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free.” Those things that separated us in the past no longer matter. One thing matters: “Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). For our new self and for our new community, the church, Christ is everything. Christ is our significance. Christ is our fulfillment. Christ is our satisfaction. Christ is our security. Christ is our peace. Christ is our life. “Christ is all and in all.”
Because we are made new in Christ, and because Christ is everything, and because Christ is in all of us, we must live like Christ, put on Christ. This is what Paul instructs us to do in Colossians 3:12-14. First, Paul tells us why we should put on Christ. Then He tells us what putting on Christ looks like and how we are to live with one another. Finally, he tells us to put on the crown jewel that binds them all together.