Put on Love, Put off Impurities, 4:32-5:7

5 Put off-Put ons: 1. Falsehoods - truth speaking in love; 2. Stealing - hard working; 3. Corrupt speech-only what is edifying; 4. Bitterness-kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness.  5. (reverse order) the love of God - impurities.

A.      Put on the love of God: kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness, 4:32- 5:2.

     a.       By putting on: kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness.

     b.      This is how God the Father loved us.

     c.       It is how Christ loved us.

His love sprang from his love for the Father and is typified in the 3 OT sacrifices: the burnt offering (Lev 1:1-17), depicting Christ’s perfection; the grain offering (Lev 2:1-16), depicting Christ’s total devotion to God in giving his life to please the Father; and the peace offering (Lev 3:1-17), depicting his peacemaking between God and man.  All this was a soothing aroma to the Lord (Lev 1:9, 13, 17, 2:2, 9, 12; 3:5, 16).

B.     Put off all impurities: impure acts and impure speech, 5:3-7.

     a.       Impure acts, 3.

          1.      Immoralities, impurities, and covetousness.

          2.      This list is expanded upon in 1 Cor 6: 9-10 and Gal 5:19-21.

     b.      Impure speech: filthy, foolish, crude, versus the giving of thanks, 4 (1 Thess 4:16-18).

     c.       The reasons, 5-7.

          1.      No one who practices such things has inheritance in the kingdom of God (Mt 7:21f, 1 Cor 6:9-11).  

          2.      Don’t be deceived into thinking otherwise: easy believism, antinomianism, baptismal regenerationism, loss of salvation, 1 Jn 3:9.