“If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
You’ve heard me, and probably other preachers, many times, saying that since the writers of the Bible did not give their works the chapter and verse divisions that we use as a guide for reference and study, it behooves us to pay close attention to the context of the passage we’re reading.
Especially when it comes to the chapter division. We want to study or read Colossians 3, so we begin with verse 1 and go on. But we cannot get the full sense of what the Apostle is saying, if we start with the words, “If then…” and do not take time to ask what the ‘then’ is referring to.
Well, I want you to get that fuller sense. I want us to go for the clearer understanding of these verses of our text today, so in order to do that we have to take, at the very least, a brief look back at chapter 2. The ideal, of course, would be to begin at chapter one verse one, and we may do that some year; but today we’ll get by with a quick overview of the second chapter, then look for some nuggets in chapter 3 verses 1 through 4.
OVERVIEW OF TWO
Actually, we’ll begin at verse 6 of chapter 2. Because Paul is really stating the same admonition to them in verses 6 and 7, as he is in our text. Just worded differently. Then in verse 8 he begins a discourse on the need to understand sound doctrine, so they are not caught up again in the legalism of the law and religious formality.
He tells them that since Christ is all the fulness of Deity in bodily form, it should be Him to whom they look for answers, and who they study and maintain diligence in serving, rather than the traditions of men and philosophies of the world that deceive and take captive.
Though it’s not our main text today, let’s take a moment to read this wonderful and rich passage of scripture from Colossians 2:9-15
“For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
Thus, with these words, Paul establishes forever that Christ is preeminent. He is Deity, He is Head over all rule and authority, He has triumphed over them and disarmed them forever. More, even when we were dead, He himself, by dying, canceled out the decree of our debt, gave us life, and made us complete.
So he finishes chapter 2 with a comparison that should make all of us see the pathetic uselessness; even the sinful destructiveness, of turning back to vain worldly philosophies, and keeping of ritual and tradition and trusting in them for righteousness.
He makes the point once more in verse 20 that we have died with Christ. Christ died to the world and by faith we have entered into that death with Him. If we do not understand this, if we continue to submit to our fallen nature and the lure of the world system, then we find ourselves going back to the things that kept us hostage to futility.
A quick glance at verse 23 shows us that while worldly principles of philosophy and religion seem to have wisdom, they are still of the flesh and useless to those who are of the Spirit.
RAISED UP WITH CHRIST
So, having laid that foundation we finally come to our text verses. And the first thing we see, is that we are raised up.
Remember back to 2:20. We died with Christ. So it follows, since we know that Christ rose from death, that we also have been raised to life in Him. In E.K. Simpson’s commentary on The Pastoral Epistles (London, 1954 p. 63) he observed that, “When our Forerunner triumphed, He bore up with Him into safety the spiritual life of all His people”.
We Christians seem to have a very difficult time really grasping the reality of this, and internalizing it to the degree that it has a powerful and fruitful result in our every day life.
We have been raised up with Christ. And where is Christ? Well, in a sense He is everywhere, because He is God. But positionally, He is seated at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, so are we.
In fact, this statement made about us in verse 1 can help us understand this point of theology a little better.
We know that we are not physically sitting at the right hand of the Throne of God, yet Paul says we’ve been raised up to where Christ is seated.
Now we know that there is not a literal throne where God the Father is sitting, and Christ is sitting next to Him on another throne. There are other places in the epistles that convey the same idea of Christ’s exaltation, using different terms. Christ has been given “the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. (Phil 2:9-11) And Christ has “…ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things”. (Eph 4:10) These are just a couple of examples of how the Apostles understood Christ’s exaltation above all things.
I liked a greeting card I saw years ago. On the outside it said, “Keep looking down”.
On the inside it said, “You’re seated with Christ in heavenly places” and in parenthesis it referred to these verses from Colossians.
In reality though, what the Holy Spirit is telling us is that having died to this world, we are now raised up with Christ, and therefore since He is far above all things, we are to allow our minds and hearts to be transformed so that we no longer seek and pursue the things that are passing away. We are to be focusing on and seeking heavenly things. Jesus called it “The kingdom of God and His righteousness”
“Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” The old King James translation uses the word “affection”. “Set your affection on things above”
In the 1600s the word affection may have held a slightly different meaning than the one we generally ascribe to it now. Maybe when King James used the word he meant, spend the bulk of your time and energies on it. Make the things that are above, the highest of priorities in what occupies your mind. Maybe. Because the Greek word used in the text refers to the understanding. A deliberate thought process. The Amplified version says, “…set your minds and keep them set…”
So the idea here, is that we are to develop a way of thinking, a thought life-style, if you will, of focusing on the higher things; the things that are above.
Now the world has its ‘higher things’, but those of the world do not realize that there is something higher than the highest and noblest cause they can possibly imagine. They talk of humanitarian efforts and goals for peace and prosperity for all. They build statues and paint portraits of men and women who have lived their lives and spent their efforts and resources to try and make the world a better place. But their highest goals and their noblest thoughts cannot begin to climb to the place where Paul says you and I are now raised up to, and seated.
We’re seated there. Meaning, this is not some temporary thing. We’re established in that high place with Christ, and we’re not going back. There’s nothing for us in the world any more. We’re done with it. It has nothing for us of value. It never did, really, but now we are to understand that, and our thinking is to be according to the new creature that we are; and the new place we live. With Christ, at the right hand of God.
DOUBLY SECURE
Now in verse 3 Paul again repeats that we have died. We talked about that. But he stresses that our life now, is hidden with Christ in God. It is hidden.
Why do we hide things of value? To keep them safe. In some cases, because of their sentimental value, or their deep personal meaning for us, we might keep them hidden because we consider only a select few people in our lives worthy of sharing the knowledge of them. Like some item that may have no intrinsic value of its own, but it is valuable and precious to us because it takes us back to a special moment in our life; and no one who doesn’t know us intimately would understand the value of it, and so we keep it tucked away as a memento, away from the eyes of others.
The world cannot understand this life we now have. To them in fact, there is no value in it. Even when we talk to them about it they cannot grasp it, and will often scoff at it and ridicule it. That is, until they themselves are drawn in to it by the Holy Spirit and given a new life of their own.
Until then, though, trying to make them understand is like casting pearls before swine. So God has hidden our life in Christ.
F.F. Bruce referred to primitive cultures who have held the belief that some chosen object contains their life force. As long as they kept that object hidden away where no one could steal it or damage it, no harm would befall them. He said that this certainly is not what Paul was conveying, but it serves as a good example of the security of our life in Christ. (“The Epistle to the Colossians” F.F. Bruce, Eerdmans, 1957)
Raised up above the world powers, and even the spiritual principalities and powers, who can take from us what is hidden with Christ in God? No one and no thing.
So you see our life is doubly secure. It is hidden with Christ, in God.
The Holy Spirit in us is given as earnest. A token; a sort of down payment on a promise. In 2 Corinthians 5:5 and Ephesians 1:14 Paul says the Spirit was given to us as a pledge of our inheritance in Christ.
So we’re just getting glimpses now, believers, of what our new life really is. Paul likened it to seeing in a dim mirror. I like the way the King James puts it because it is so poetic; “as through a glass darkly”.
Here’s the verse, from I Corinthians 13:12
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.”
By now we should all be very familiar with I John 3:2, since I quote it so often; but here it is again:
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.”
People, passages like this, promises like this, should thrill us right down to the soles of our feet!
The people who walked and talked with Jesus, who heard His voice and touched Him and ate with Him, and saw Him risen from the dead, talked about His coming back as nonchalantly as expecting a family member to return home from the store.
And here’s one of them saying when He appears… not ‘if’, but ‘when’. And with the confidence that comes with personal knowledge and experience, he announces, ‘we shall be like Him’!
We only see little hints of it now. Just every once in a while, reading the word, or in prayer, or just going about our way and thinking about Him, we suddenly get what I call a little ‘quickening’ inside. Just a little prod. A glimpse. Like someone opened the box just ever so slightly and a gleam of light came out of it and struck our eye just for a second, and we thought we saw something wonderful in there, but couldn’t quite tell what it was, and then they quickly closed the box again. But they were smiling at the prospect of one day being able to open the box completely and let us see all that awaits us inside.
REVEALED
That same confident conviction we saw in John when he wrote “when we see Him”, we find right here in our text, from Paul.
“When Christ, who is our life, is revealed…”
Speaking to His disciples shortly before His crucifixion, Jesus said;
“After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.” (John 14:19)
This world has never recognized Christ. Those who are of this world didn’t recognize Him when He came. They turned from Him and rejected Him, He says, because they loved the darkness rather than the light. He came to them and they didn’t know Him,
Well Christian, the world doesn’t know you either. Those who are of the world still prefer the darkness, for their deeds are evil. When they revile you and persecute you, it is because the light that is in you exposes their darkness and the spirit that is in them hates that.
They can’t see or understand the life that you have. It is hidden with Christ. They will never see it. Jesus said, “After a little while the world will behold Me no more…” and when they crucified Him they were giving up their last chance to see Him. Because short of repentance and salvation, the world will never see Him again.
Not this world. Not this fallen world system. Not until He is revealed; and at that time, the world will be transformed. Those who cling to the old world and their hatred of God and Christ will be destroyed along with that which they’ve clung to. They’ve missed their chance to see Him.
So they’ll never really see you either. Not who you really are.
But there’s a day of revelation coming.
When Christ, ‘who is our life’ is revealed.
Christ is our life. Our life is hidden with Christ, because He is the giver and sustainer of our life. We were created anew by Him, and for Him, and He has our life in His good keeping.
Paul said, “For me to live is Christ”. He knew that now that he was a Christian, he had no life of his own, but that his entire existence was generated by, and owing to, Christ his Lord. So it is with us.
Therefore it goes undeniably, that when Christ is revealed in all His glory, we will be revealed with Him.
Paul spoke often of this revelation and this glory that we will share with Christ.
In Romans 5 he said “…we exalt in hope of the glory of God.” In Romans 8:29,30 he said, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
On this passage Bruce wrote:
“The day of glory may be future, but its arrival is as sure as if it had already come. The hope of glory will then give place to glory realized; but as it is Christ Himself who is now in us the hope of glory, so it is Christ Himself who will eternally be to us glory realized.”
In the story of Robin Hood, good King Richard returned from the crusades incognito. The evil Prince John and his minions had controlled the kingdom in his absence, and the common people had suffered greatly under John’s iron rule. But when Richard threw off the cloak and revealed who he was, two things happened. The kingdom fell instantly back into his control, and secondly, all those who were faithful to him were revealed as such, and rewarded as such.
Friends, if you read carefully the wording of the Apostles when they talk about Christ’s return and the glory that is to be revealed;
if you try to put yourself in their place, and really give careful consideration to the choosing of their wording as they wrote, you have to begin to understand that they must have been shown some unimaginable wonders.
They use words like, ‘mystery’ and ‘joy unspeakable’ and ‘glory’ and ‘majesty’.
Just the way they lived their lives and the things they wrote to the churches; their confidence, their willingness to go singing to horrible deaths… if you think about these things you have to believe that they must have been absolutely confident that there was something awaiting them that made it all worthwhile.
Christians, there is something waiting for us that is unimaginable. Jesus even struggled with ways to describe it to His listeners in a way they could begin to comprehend.
Every once in a while I let my imagination go and try to envision it, and even though I know I cannot come close, still, I get goose bumps.
My life is hidden with Christ in God. And when on that glorious day, He returns to reign supreme; when He is revealed in all His glory, I too will be with Him, and with Him, revealed in glory. Can you say that of yourself? If you’re a believer, it’s true.
Christian, one day the box is going to be opened wide and its treasure revealed openly. And you and I are going to then understand why it gave us such a thrill to see those quick indefinable glimpses. Because when we get to look fully in, we’re going to realize that what we were seeing was us, with Him…like Him…glorious with the splendor of Heaven.
Glory hoped for, will be glory realized, eternally, in Christ, when we are revealed with Him. This is a certainty, and it is almost upon us, Christians. The dawn is about to break. Don’t grow weary. Don’t give up. Don’t stop working, and don’t lose sight of the goal. We’re about to be revealed.
