The Text
Christ Is All and in All
Throughout his letter to Colossae, the Apostle Paul is lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ against the error that He was not fully divine, and against the heresy that angels were on a par with Him and to be worshipped. In chapter 1, verse 17, Christ is above all things, and by Him all things consist. In chapter 2, in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete in Him. This is the great doctrinal foundation of the letter. And when Paul arrives at chapter 3, he applies it: since you are risen with Christ — since all this fullness is yours in Him — seek those things which are above.
He sets before us the great truth of verse 11: Christ is all, and in all. First, Christ is all and in all to His people as their justifier, their sanctifier, their righteousness and their eternal glory. He is their life and their light, their strength and their provider, their hope and their joy. He is their hiding place — the name of the Lord is a strong tower, and the righteous run into it and are safe. He is their rest and their peace. His name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.
But there is a second meaning to this text. When God saves any man — whether Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian or the most vile and beastly Scythian, bond or free — the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ is implanted upon that soul. Christ is in all His people in the sense that His image has been stamped upon them. He is formed in them (Gal. 4:19). They are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18).
The Two Errors Concerning Sanctification
Shelton observes two errors that pull in opposite directions. The first is the error of those who say that after conversion, a man receives everything he needs to know in one act of the Spirit, and therefore passages like Colossians 3 need never be preached, read, or returned to. This leads directly to antinomianism — to licence to sin, to a Christianity that leaves behaviour entirely unaddressed.
The second error is more subtle: those who acknowledge that Christ is our holiness and that we are accepted in Him, and then reason from this that nothing can or need be done after salvation to pursue holiness, since we cannot add anything to Christ’s righteousness. This too leads to loose living. If there is no cry in the heart for holiness and right living, Shelton says plainly, we are not saved — because this is what God works in those He saves.
The Apostle does not present sanctification as optional. He does not say, “You may consider putting off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy communication.” He says, Put it off. The commands are emphatic and repeated. Mortify. Put off. Put on. These are not invitations but imperatives, addressed to those who have been risen with Christ.
Putting Off and Putting On
This is not a once-for-all transaction at conversion. It is the work of a lifetime — the privilege and responsibility of every believing day. As Shelton puts it: just as we take off our night clothes in the morning and put on what we will wear to meet the world, so the believer is to do the same thing daily in regard to the inner man.
Verse 8: Put off — anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication, lying. Verse 10: Put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. Verse 12: Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved — a heart of compassion, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another, even as Christ forgave you. Verse 14: Above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.
God never gives the negative without the positive. He says put off and He says put on. He does not leave His people with a list of prohibitions and no provision. He gives the grace — the Spirit of God indwelling them — to walk in these things. He has turned them from their ways and put within them both the desire and the ability to put off and put on. He does not leave them alone. He fills them with His Spirit, who takes the things of Christ and reveals them to their hearts.
Holiness Is Not a By-Product
Perhaps the most searching thrust of the message is this: holiness and sanctification are not a by-product of salvation. They are its very purpose.
This is the reason God chose us — that we might be holy, that we might be sanctified, that we might be set apart for His use and glory and conformed to the image of His Son. We lost the image of God in the fall. Christ came to restore it. He came to teach us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And He does not leave us to achieve this in our own strength — He put the Spirit of holiness within us, and it is this Spirit who enables us to walk in it day by day.
“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). If we are not holy — if we are not being made in the image and likeness of Christ — we shall not see His face. If He has not put His Spirit within us, we are none of His (Rom. 8:9). This is the Word of God, and it cannot be set aside.
The Cry of the Heart After Holiness
One of the most remarkable things God works in those He saves is a cry after holiness. Shelton testifies: “One of the most amazing things that ever happened to me, that works in my soul, is that God, when He saved me, put in my heart a cry after holiness. And I am not special — He does this to everyone He saves. He puts within their soul a cry after conformity to Christ.”
What is holiness? Conformity to Christ in thought, in word, and in deed. And this is what the believing people of God cry after and seek after. It is not that they have attained. The very presence of that cry — that daily repentance for sin, that hatred for what dishonours God, that longing to be pure in thought, pure in word, pure in deed — is itself the evidence that God has worked in the soul.
God takes even the desire. As Solomon said when he desired to build the temple, God said unto David his father: Whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart (1 Kings 8:18). God takes the very thought, the very cry of the heart after holiness and conformity to Christ, and He blesses us for it. We do not waste the time when we cry unto God to take out sin and purify us.
When this truth goes home to the heart, Shelton says, there is revival. When the people of God begin to pray that He would work in their hearts by His Spirit, to give them a spirit of prayer and supplication and to cry after these things — that is the pathway to God’s blessing on a congregation and on a soul.