Paul's Prison Epistles: Paul's ImprisonmentSample

Paul’s Theology—United to Christ: Colossians 3:5-10

Our union with Christ obligates and enables us to live ethically for at least three reasons: First, Christ indwells us by his Spirit, giving us a new nature and compelling us to do good works. One result of the Spirit’s indwelling presence is that our natures are being conformed to Christ’s nature. As a result, we are transformed and motivated to obey Christ. In all this, God works within us to submit us to himself and to conform us to Christ’s example. 

Consider the way Paul spoke to these issues in Philippians 2:12-13:

Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13).

Our union with Christ consists partly of our being indwelled by the Spirit of God. And the Holy Spirit moves our wills and compels us to act in obedience to God so that we live rightly and ethically.  Paul presented a similar argument in Colossians 3:5-10:

Put to death … whatever belongs to your earthly nature … since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3:5-10).

Because we are united to Christ, we have new natures. And because God has given us new natures, we have not only the obligation, but we are enabled to make use of them by doing good works and by resisting the temptation to sin.

Second, God has commanded that all who are united to his Son must live holy lives. In fact, God has not merely commanded this. He has actually predestined good works for us to do.

Paul wrote of this in Ephesians 2:10, where he taught:

We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

We have been created in Christ Jesus, meaning that God has saved us through union with Jesus Christ. And part of the reason he has done this is because he has appointed good works for us to do.

Third, because we are all united to Christ, we are also united to one another through Christ. This obligates us to treat one another as we would treat Christ himself, and as we ourselves want to be treated. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:25:

Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body (Ephesians 4:25).

The phrase “we are all members of one body” might be more literally translated “we are members of one another.” Paul’s point was that we are united to one another in Christ and that this unity obligates us to treat one another with respect, not sinning against one another, but working for the benefit of all.

Click here to watch Paul’s Imprisonment, lesson one in the series Paul's Prison Epistles. thirdmill.org