“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you …, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator... [because] Christ is all, and in all.” Colossians 3:5, 9–11
One pastor confessed a moment of fierce, frightening anger toward his own child — a rage he wasn't proud of and could have led to actions more harmful. What stopped him from progressing down that harmful path were true words from a wise wife: “Stephen, that is not who you are.”
That sentence landed hard and true because of its gospel weight. The raging man was not the man Christ had made him. He had already put off that old self. Expressing the rage of old wounds according to old family patterns was like pulling a winter coat back out in the middle of spring — understandable as a reflex, but no longer fitting.
This is the practical nature of the gospel’s effects that Paul has been describing: having died and been raised with Christ, believers are now called to live as who they actually are before God, not who they used to be. The old self's practices — anger, malice, slander, dishonesty — simply don't fit the new identity any longer.
Paul also wants us to know that this new identity is shared by all who “are hidden with Christ in God.” Every human distinction that once ranked people in importance and set them at odds by their differences now collapses. Paul says that, for those who are “with Christ,” there is neither Jew or Greek, slave or free, respected or despised. Everyone stands level before God on the same ground — ground made solid not by our merits, but by Christ, who is “all, and in all.” In Christ, rage, malice, pride, and prejudice collapse because that’s not who is in us and not who we are anymore.
RESPOND: Is there an old pattern or prejudice — a family trait, an old wound, an old reflex of your upbringing — that you've been treating as acceptable rather than as a feature of your “old self” that has been put off by Christ’s work in you? Could someone point to an attitude or expression in your life and say to you – the way this pastor's wife did – “That is not who you are.” And are you willing to listen?
Reflect on the truth that no one stands above you or beneath you before God. Then ask God to reveal the nature of Christ in others that will ultimately confirm the nature of Christ in you.
PRAYER: Father, thank You that my old self is genuinely put off, not just covered up, by the work of Jesus in my behalf. When old patterns surface, remind me plainly: that is not who I am anymore. And when I'm tempted to rank myself against others or grow agitated because of their differences, remind me that Christ alone is the ground of my own standing. He is all, and in all. Help me to rejoice in that reality and be changed by it. In Jesus' name, amen.