The Power of the Gospel for Real Change: Reflections on the Process of Sanctification from Colossians 2:20-3:5 (Part 3)

Are you embarrassed by the gospel? Paul wasn’t. He understood that the gospel was the only real hope any man had. He wrote to the Romans saying, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). The gospel is the “power of God”! If we have any hope of changing, of being transformed, it is through the gospel, friends. As we wrap up this study on the process of sanctification from Colossians 2:20-3:5, then, we want to build our fighting of sin on the firm foundation of this gospel message.

Paul has warned us already against the futility of mere striving to be better. He despises legalism! So should you. There are few things that make me more sick than legalism! I love neck ties, but if someone tells me I have to wear one in order to be a Christian then I am showing up to church in a t-shirt and cut-off camo shorts! Legalism is soul-destroying! Paul tells us that it has the appearance of holiness but it is useless. But that is not the same as saying that we shouldn’t fight against our sin and against temptation at all. We are not merely sitting on our hands and waiting for God to take us home! We must fight against sin, but we must do while standing on the firm foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s unpack what this means.

Paul wants us to fight, he makes that plain in Colossians 3 verse 5. He writes:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry

He challenges the believer here not merely to fight sin, but to kill it! Mortification of whatever is earthly in you is a serious thing, and it requires discipline and hard work. So Paul is not a pacifist in regards to our sin. But how can we strive in such a way as not to undermine the very gospel we cling to? That is going to be the key for seeing real change and real progress.

The key difference is found as we follow Paul from verses 1-4. In those verses we read:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Our battling isn’t legalism when it is rooted in Christ’s death, and in our life being hidden with Christ. Alasdair Grove observes:

Only when you run to Christ in his victory, in his intercession for you, in his love for you and his forgiveness of you, can you move from pious asceticism to radical passionate hatred of your sin. (“Exposing the Lies of Pornography,” Journal of Biblical Counseling. 27.1. p. 21)

It is not the striving that is the problem it is the motivation behind that striving. What fuels our “putting sin to death”? Transformation happens as we wrestle through the gospel against our sin.

It is important that we put to death sin. As the Puritan John Owen once wrote, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” But how we fight against it is vitally important. Groves adds:

The struggle against sin, then, is not about setting rules to try to keep ourselves in line. It is about a passionate ware on anything that would stand between us and God. It is about seeking out and attacking the dark spawning grounds of [sinful] desire and learning to see how they are the ugly antithesis of “Christ is my life.”

The motivation to fight sin comes from a heart that has been transformed by the gospel and values our union with Christ. We are not merely interested in changing behaviors. Groves writes:

Paul roots the core of the problem in our failure to grasp that our very life and hope is bound up in the righteousness and power of the risen Christ. If he is victorious, then we are victorious. Because he is seated in heaven, we are already living a foretaste of heaven’s glory and power and victory over sin.

Understanding the gospel, and our union with Christ through it, and his power in us because of it, allows us to fight sin rightly and from the right motivation.

Though the Bible is clear about our responsibility to act, to do, to work, to fight, it does not give us such imperatives as a list of legalistic rules by which we judge God’s love for us. Rather, we fight because we are motivated by our gospel union with Jesus. Because we know we are in him, and we have the power to overcome sin, we can fight against sin! It is in the gospel, not in a list of rules, that we find the strength to put sin to death! Fight through the gospel, friends.