Colossians 1:21-23

Colossians 1:21-23    Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.  This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant (NIV).

   Different people have different definitions about what is evil.  What does the Biblical term evil mean?  Evil is covered much in the Bible, and I give a few examples.  Evil was an issue shortly after the creation of people.  When God put Adam in the Garden of Eden: “… In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9 NIV).  Thus in only the second chapter of Genesis, we have “evil” contrasted with “good.”  We sure know a vast majority of Israelite kings “did evil in the eyes of the LORD.”  You read that phrase frequently in I Kings and 2 Kings.
   Jesus gave what has been popularly termed the “Sermon on the Mount,” and in Matthew 7:11, He called His listeners “evil.”  That is a courageous statement to make to an audience.  “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (NIV).  Again evil is contrasted with good.  And who were the listeners?  A crowd from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan, as is shown in Matthew 4:25.  In other words, simply people.
   Earlier in the “Sermon on the Mount” when Jesus gave the “Lord’s Prayer,” it included: “…but deliver us from the evil one,” or “from evil.”  So evil is so bad we are to ask God in prayer for deliverance.  And Paul states in Romans 12:9 – “Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good” (NIV).  Now Christians are even instructed to hate evil.  And note the specific dichotomy of good and evil, the two terms in contrast in the tree in the Garden of Eden.
   I have to add since it stands out so much, there is the statement by Paul in I Timothy 6:10 – “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…” (NIV).  Note this is often misquoted as money being the root of evil, yet Scripture states “the love of money.”
   I use to think of the word evil more in the context of horrible actions, such as what is flaunted in the horror section of many video movie sections, yet the Bible definition is more overreaching.  Jesus once made a radical statement about goodness.  “Why do you ask me about what is good?”  Jesus replied.  “There is only One who is good…” (Matthew 19:17 NIV).  Take this in conjunction with His statement that His audience was “evil” and I think we get an understanding of evil broadly consisting of anything apart from the will of God.  Thus evil is on the same lines as “sin,” though maybe with more intention.  If something is apart from the will of God, we should seek deliverance.  So when Paul is saying that before the Colossian Christians were saved by Jesus that their behavior was evil, such behavior may have involved common things like envying, lying, and being greedy.  Before being saved, the Colossian Christians were simply lost from the ways of the righteousness of God.  What is evil is bad according to God’s standards, and no one else.
   I gave my heart to Jesus about one year after graduating from college.  During college, I had a reputation for being “moral.”  I never had sex.  I was a hard working Resident Advisor who took his job totally serious.  I am still proud of how I once stopped a guy, a large guy, who was assaulting a woman.  No one at Tech ever called my behavior evil.  Rather they called me a strict R.A.  Yet in my heart, I was empty of God’s love, and I realize now I did some wrong things according to God’s loving will.  Thankfully, Jesus made it possible for us to be reconciled to God, and since I turned to Christ, He saved me from the spiritual punishment I deserved, and He has changed me.
   In addition to saying sorry for current sins, every once in a while I think about something wrong I did in the distant past, and I repent and ask for forgiveness from God.  How blessed we followers of Jesus are to know we are forgiven of sins of our entire past, even things that did not seem wrong at the time.
   Verse 23 seems to state that salvation can be lost even after a person is saved.  I can see how someone could take verse 23 here and argue such, however, as I wrote in the beginning of the last piece, we need to interpret Scripture with Scripture.  All people are given by God the opportunity to decide whether they will receive or reject Christ, yet then the Bible teaches the position which Christian theologians coin “eternal security,” the definition of which is once a person receives Jesus, he or she will never lose salvation.  Jesus said, “…And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 NIV).  So how do we continue in our faith?  Rely on Jesus, the One who enables goodness, and the One who will even carry His children in the darkest of times.
Hunter Irvine