He is trying throughout all his epistles to get us to understand our place. And our place is in Christ, in Him, with Him, to always be in His presence.
This is a wonderful summary passage of what I have said today. And verse 3 is especially intriguing, that our lives are hidden with Christ in God.
Remember, He is speaking of what happens after we have died in the waters of baptism. We died to sin and to Satan and have been raised in newness of life in Christ. He is our Savior and our sovereign at this point, and because we have gone through the same thing that He did. . . Remember, He died and He was raised again to newness of life.
The baptismal ceremony is the same sort of thing and so we go through that, we die symbolically in the waters of baptism, and then we are raised in newness of life. And this newness of life is all about abiding in the vine, being attached to Christ, and learning and growing to be more like Christ because He is going to give us the tools, starting with the Holy Spirit and other knowledge and wisdom and experiences and all those things, so that we can grow up into Him.
We could have gone there in Ephesians 4 and talked about all these things that we are growing into Christ, the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ, who was our Head. That is what we do with this newness of life.
So our journey from the time we break out of those waters is in Christ. He is constantly with us from that point on. He is in us by His Spirit. But what does hidden with Christ in God mean?
Hidden is the Greek word krupto. Some of you may own some cryptocurrency. It is Strong's number 2928, and it means concealed in a safe place, secreted. We saw this in Psalm 27:5, In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me. So we are safe.
That is one of the great blessings of baptism and receiving the Holy Spirit because at that point, whether we realize it or not, we are safe. We do not need to be insecure. We do not need to worry. We are in the safest place of all.
You get me? We are in Christ! Nothing, as my dad used to say, zero, nada, zilch, can get to us from outside because we are in the fortress of Christ Himself! He is the Rock. No one can overcome Him.
So we are secure with Christ in God. It is not just Christ. It is the Master of the universe. The great Sovereign of all backs Him up. Because He says in John that it is not only Christ in us, but the Father too through Their Spirit. Both the Father and the Son are with us, wrapped around us, protecting us, guiding us, helping us to grow to become like They are, all along the way of our training regimen till our death.
With Christ in God is the perfect environment for real, joyous, fruitful life as we walk toward God's Kingdom.
These verses sum up the true focus of our lives. If we would look at this in its context, going all the way back into chapter 2 where Paul was talking about an asceticism, it seems (to these Colossian people) as though it was something that was very spiritual. Paul, though, was instructing us to understand that the solution to dealing with carnal passions is in our relationship with Christ. Our focus must be to set our hearts on things above.
Brethren, there is a mystical relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit. This is not an escape from reality nor a withdrawal from the stresses and strains of the world. That is made very plain by what Paul writes beginning in verse 5, where it takes a completely ethical turn to it. It is that our interest is centered on Christ, that our attitudes, ambitions and whole outlook are molded by our relationship to Him. That our allegiance to Him takes precedence over everything else, and that everything in our life is determined by that relationship.
Most of that covers verse 1 and so if verse 1 is descriptive of the aim or focus of our life, verse 2 has to do with our inner disposition toward it. Our attitude, brethren, has to be that we are only going to seek the Kingdom of God.
Certainly we have our part in this relationship, but the relationship opens to us a whole new set of values. We can no longer be satisfied with the base standards of this world. It means that God, people and things begin to be seen in their right perspective. Earthly things that are in these two verses here might be understood in a broad sense as being wealth, power, worldly honor, social prestige, fashions in clothing, homes, furnishings, this world's entertainments such as athletics, movies, musical pleasures.
Did you notice something in those three verses? "Our life is hidden." Do you see what he said there? It is the relationship that provides us with the protection and because God is God, even if He wills that it is His purpose that we go into the tribulation, we will be fully prepared to meet the challenges of even martyrdom. The strength, the spiritual strength, the faith in God, the love for God, the willingness to die for Him, if need be, will be there.
What an awesome understanding. God keeps His word; He will never allow us to go through something that He will not supply the strength for, because our life is hidden with His son.
Now let us consider it from another perspective and recognize that we share the life of Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom. What an incredible idea that He is always thinking about us, that we have a role and place in His grand plan. We are in Christ and we are sharers in His life. Colossians 3, verse 4 says,
So Christ is our life. Eternal life is not some heavenly substance that God imparts when we trust our Savior. Eternal life is Jesus Christ Himself.
Already, as members of God's church, we are tied completely to Christ's life. And that will increase in many ways as we receive the many blessings that will be coming.
We are dead and alive at the same time, dead to sin and alive in Christ. Someone once said, Life is what you are alive to. A child may come alive when you talk about ice cream. The teenager may come alive when you mention cars in that physical sense.
So Christ was Paul's life and he was dedicated to everything related to Christ. Likewise, every member of God's church should behave that way toward the Groom.
Now He is our life, which is another way of saying that we are sharers of His life. When Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:30, We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones, it expresses the same idea. So we are now viewing it from a slightly different angle and not so much from the perspective of spiritual union but through Christ's own consciousness, so to speak.
He is giving His life, sharing it, and we are brought into it, becoming an intimate part of His life. This is the part that we are in, the sanctification, where Jesus trains us and shapes us into what a bride should be for Him.
Let us turn over to Colossians 3, verse 1. The last point is that we share in all the glory of His prospects and expectations.
Our new life is hidden with Christ in God. Eternal life is a precious treasure stored up with Christ in heaven where God is, and since our treasure is laid up in heaven, we should not focus on the things of the earth.
We cannot wait for that! We have a certain glory as human beings that God created in us, but for the glory that is the glory of Jesus Christ and God, we just cannot wait to receive that.
This means that Christ must prepare His bride ahead of time, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:27. He says there
