If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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Colossians 3:1-3 sits inside this longer paragraph.
If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.
Parallel Translations
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If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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If ye be then rysen agayne with christ seke those thynges which are above where Christ sitteth on the right honde of god.
Set youre affeccion on thynges that are above and not on thinges which are on the erth.
For ye are deed and youre lyfe is hid with Christ in god.
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If yee then bee risen with Christ, seeke those thinges which are aboue, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
Set your affections on things which are aboue, and not on things which are on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Cross-references (85)
- 1 John 2:15-17 (v2) Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. For all that is in the…
- Romans 8:6 (v1) For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;
- Matthew 6:33 (v1) But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.
- 1 Chronicles 22:19 (v2) Now set your heart and your soul to follow Yahweh your God. Arise therefore, and build the sanctuary of Yahweh God, to bring the ark of…
- 2 Corinthians 4:18 (v1) while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the…
Show all 84 cross-references
- Colossians 3:1 (v2) If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
- Colossians 3:2 (v1) Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
- Matthew 16:23 (v2) But he turned, and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things…
- Romans 8:4-6 (v2) that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For those who live according to…
- Matthew 6:20 (v1) but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal;
- Psalms 73:25-26 (v1) Whom do I have in heaven? There is no one on earth whom I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my…
- Matthew 6:19 (v2) “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal;
- Psalms 119:36-37 (v2) Turn my heart toward your statutes, not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things. Revive me in your ways.
- Hebrews 12:2 (v1) looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and…
- Colossians 3:5 (v2) Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and…
- Galatians 2:19-20 (v1) For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but…
- Galatians 2:20 (v3) I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live…
- Psalms 16:11 (v1) You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
- Luke 12:33 (v1) Sell that which you have, and give gifts to the needy. Make for yourselves purses which don’t grow old, a treasure in the heavens that…
- Romans 6:2 (v3) May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
- Philippians 3:19-20 (v2) whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who think about earthly things. For our citizenship is…
- Philippians 3:20-21 (v1) For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change the body of our humiliation…
- Ephesians 2:5-6 (v1) even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him,…
- Luke 12:15 (v2) He said to them, “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he…
- Colossians 2:12-13 (v1) having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the…
- Romans 6:9-11 (v1) knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him! For the death that he died, he died…
- Colossians 2:20 (vv1, 3) If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
- Psalms 62:10 (v2) Don’t trust in oppression. Don’t become vain in robbery. If riches increase, don’t set your heart on them.
- Hebrews 1:3 (v1) His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, who, when he had…
- John 5:24 (v3) “Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has…
- Romans 6:4-5 (v1) We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,…
- Ephesians 1:19-20 (v1) and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might which he…
- Philippians 1:23 (v2) But I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
- Psalms 91:14 (v2) “Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name.
- Luke 22:69 (v1) From now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”
- Luke 16:11 (v2) If therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
- Romans 5:10 (v3) For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his…
- Romans 8:2 (v3) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.
- Hebrews 8:1 (v1) Now in the things which we are saying, the main point is this. We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of…
- 1 Chronicles 29:3 (v2) In addition, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, since I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver, I give it to the…
- Mark 14:62 (v1) Jesus said, “I am. You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of the sky.”
- Romans 8:34 (v1) Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes…
- Hebrews 10:12 (v1) but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God,
- Matthew 26:64 (v1) Jesus said to him, “You have said it. Nevertheless, I tell you, after this you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power,…
- Ecclesiastes 7:14 (v2) In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; yes, God has made the one side by side with the other, to the end…
- Ephesians 4:10 (v1) He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
- 1 Peter 1:3-5 (v3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy caused us to be born again to a living hope…
- Psalms 17:14-15 (v1) from men by your hand, Yahweh, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons…
- Proverbs 23:5 (v2) Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.
- Matthew 22:44 (v1) ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?’
- Mark 12:36 (v1) For David himself said in the Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of…
- Mark 16:19 (v1) So then the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
- Luke 20:42 (v1) David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,
- Acts 2:34 (v1) For David didn’t ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit by my right hand
- 2 Corinthians 5:14 (v3) For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died.
- Hebrews 1:13 (v1) But which of the angels has he told at any time, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet?”
- Proverbs 15:24 (v1) The path of life leads upward for the wise, to keep him from going downward to Sheol.
- Acts 7:55 (v1) But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of…
- 1 Peter 3:22 (v1) who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.
- Psalms 110:1 (v1) Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.”
- Luke 16:19-25 (v2) “Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. A certain beggar, named…
- Hebrews 11:13-16 (v1) These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they…
- John 3:16 (v3) For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
- John 5:21 (v3) For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires.
- Psalms 49:11-17 (v2) Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after…
- Luke 16:8-9 (v2) “His lord commended the dishonest manager because he had done wisely, for the children of this world are, in their own generation, wiser…
- John 14:19 (v3) Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also.
- 1 Peter 3:4 (v3) but in the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of…
- Matthew 11:25 (v3) At that time, Jesus answered, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding,…
- Romans 8:34-39 (v3) Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes…
- Colossians 3:4 (v3) When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.
- John 4:14 (v3) but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well…
- John 5:40 (v3) Yet you will not come to me, that you may have life.
- Colossians 2:3 (v3) in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
- Hebrews 7:25 (v3) Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make…
- Revelation 2:17 (v3) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I…
- John 6:39-40 (v3) This is the will of my Father who sent me, that of all he has given to me I should lose nothing, but should raise him up at the last day.…
- John 10:28-30 (v3) I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is…
- Romans 5:21 (v3) that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- 1 Corinthians 2:14 (v3) Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are…
- 1 Corinthians 15:45 (v3) So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
- Philippians 4:7 (v3) And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
- 1 John 3:2 (v3) Beloved, now we are children of God. It is not yet revealed what we will be; but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him; for…
- 2 Corinthians 5:7 (v3) for we walk by faith, not by sight.
84 distinct cross-references across this passage (85 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (33 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–3 To those fruitless exercises which the false apostles urged,…
To those fruitless exercises which the false apostles urged, as though perfection consisted in them, he opposes those true exercises in which it becomes Christians to employ themselves; and this has no slight bearing upon the point in hand; for when we see what God would have us do, we afterwards easily despise the inventions of men. When we perceive, too, that what God recommends to us is much more lofty and excellent than what men inculcate, our alacrity of mind increases for following God, so as to disregard men. Paul here exhorts the Colossians to meditation upon the heavenly life. And what as to his opponents? They were desirous to retain their childish rudiments. This doctrine, therefore, makes the ceremonies be the more lightly esteemed. Hence it is manifest that Paul, in this passage, exhorts in such a manner as to confirm the foregoing doctrine; for, in describing solid piety and holiness of life, his aim is, that those vain shows of human traditions may vanish. At the same time, he anticipates an objection with which the false apostles might assail him. What then? “Wouldst thou rather have men be idle than addict themselves to such exercises, of whatever sort they may be?” When, therefore, he bids Christians apply themselves to exercises of a greatly superior kind, he cuts off the handle for this calumny; nay more, he loads them with no small odium, on the ground that they impede the right course of the pious by worthless amusements.
1. If ye are risen with Christ. Ascension follows resurrection: hence, if we are the members of Christ we must ascend into heaven, because he, on being raised up from the dead, was received up into heaven, (Mark 16:19,) that he might draw us up with him. Now, we seek those things which are above, when in our minds we are truly sojourners in this world, and are not bound to it. The word rendered think upon expresses rather assiduity and intensity of aim: “Let your whole meditation be as to this: to this apply your intellect — to this your mind.” But if we ought to think of nothing but of what is heavenly, because Christ is in heaven, how much less becoming were it to seek Christ upon the earth. Let us therefore bear in mind that that is a true and holy thinking as to Christ, which forthwith bears us up into heaven, that we may there adore him, and that our minds may dwell with him.
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As to the right hand of God, it is not confined to heaven, but fills the whole world. Paul has made mention of it here to intimate that Christ encompasses us by his power, that we may not think that distance of place is a cause of separation between us and him, and that at the same time his majesty may excite us wholly to reverence him.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–3 For if we be partakers of Christ, we are…
For if we be partakers of Christ, we are carried as it were into another life, where we shall need neither meat nor drink, for we shall be like unto the Angels.
Another part of this Epistle, wherein he taketh occasion by the reason of those vain exercises, to show the duty of a Christian life: which is an ordinary thing with him after he hath once set down the doctrine itself.
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Our renewing or new birth, which is wrought in us by being partakers of the resurrection of Christ, is the fountain of all holiness, out of which sundry arms or rivers do afterwards flow.
The end and mark which all the duties of Christian life shoot at, is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and to give ourselves to those things which lead us thither, that is to true godliness, and not to those outward and corporal things.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek…
1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Ver. 1. If ye then be risen with Christ] As ye profess to be, Col 2:12.
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Seek those things, &c.] As Christ risen spake and did only the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, Act 1:3, and waited alway for his exaltation into heaven; there should be continual ascensions in our hearts. The Church is compared to pillars of smoke, elationibus fumi, Son 3:6, as having her affections, thoughts, desires upward, heavenward. (Tremel.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–3 If ye then be risen with Christ: having refuted…
If ye then be risen with Christ: having refuted superstitious observances placed in things earthly and perishing, and called them off from shadows to mind the substance; he doth, upon supposition of what he had asserted before, Col 2:12,13, here infer that, since they were risen again with Christ, it did behove them to set about the duties required of those in that state: not of the proper resurrection of the body, which, while here below, can only be in our Head by virtue of the mystical union, as in regard of right the members of Christ are said to sit with him in heavenly places, Eph 2:6, signified and sealed by baptism: but the metaphorical and spiritual resurrection from spiritual death, which is regeneration, Rom 6:4; Tit 3:5, wrought by the same Spirit which raised Christ, and whereby renewed Christians live in certain hope of that proper resurrection of their bodies, which Christ hath procured.
Seek those things which are above: hereupon he urgeth them, (in the same sense our Saviour doth command to seek his kingdom, Mat 6:33), with diligence to pursue heaven and happiness as the end, and holiness as the means to the attaining of it; to have their conversation in heaven, Phi 3:20.
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Where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God: while the apostle speaks of God after the manner of men, we must take heed of the gross error of the Anthropomorphites, who did imagine God to sit in heaven in the shape of a man. Some indeed, who abhor such a gross imagination, yet conceive that because more generally the heaven is God’s throne, and shall be so for ever, Jer 17:12; Lam 5:19; Mat 5:34, that he hath a particular throne in heaven, whereon he doth show himself specially present, as in his temple, 1Ki 22:19; Psa 11:4; and so, though Christ is set properly on the right hand of this throne, Heb 1:3; 8:1; 12:2; Rev 3:21; but because the conception of such a particular material throne, with extension of parts and proper dimensions, may (besides other inconveniences) misguide our apprehensions, and occasion adoration to the creature, which should be terminated on God alone, who is a pure Spirit; and whereas sitting is not taken properly, since Stephen saw Christ standing, Act 7:55, and is opposed to the ministration of angels, which have no bodies or bodily parts, Heb 1:13; by most it is taken metaphorically, importing that Christ hath all real power and dominion put into his hands, connoting his authority and security from his enemies, who are put under his feet, Mat 28:18; 1Co 15:25, is crowned with majesty, glory, and honour, Heb 1:3; 2:9, enjoying all blessedness in a most transcendent way, Psa 16:11; 110:1; Act 2:33,36; having the human nature filled with abilities to execute all when he entered into glory, Isa 16:5; Luk 22:29,30; 24:26 1Co 15:43; Rev 19:6; where he resides possessed of all in safety, Act 3:21; Rev 3:21. It was above whither Christ ascended by a local motion from a certain where here below into a certain where above; so that whatever the Lutherans argue from Christ’s glorious ascension and session, to prove Christ’s body a ubiquitary, or every where present, is inconsequent, since it is in heaven where he wills that believers should be to behold the glory that his Father hath given him, Joh 17:24; wherefore,
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Observe here, 1. The nature of the duty to…
Observe here, 1. The nature of the duty to which we are exhorted; this is expressed both affirmatively and negatively; affirmatively, Seek the things above, and set your affections on them; negatively, Not on the things here on earth; it being impossible to seek and set our affections upon both in an intense degree.
Quest. But what is it to seek those things that are above, and to set our affections upon them?
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Ans. In these two words, four things are comprehended;
1. An act of our understanding, that we know the worth of these things.
2. An act of the will, to chuse these things, and with the ardour and vehemency of our affections to love them.
3. An act of industry and endeavour in the pursuit of these things, if by any means we may attain them. Our affections are so many springs of motion to set our endeavours on work for the obtaining of what we love and desire.
4. It implies a clear preference of the things above to things below, when they come in competition; set your affections more on things above than on the things below, and shew it by your readiness to part with these things.
Observe, 2. What is the object of this act, or what it is that we are to seek and set our affections upon, namely, the things which are above; God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, together with the blessed state and condition of heaven, and the happiness above; as also those dispositions and qualifications which are requisite for the obtaining of this happiness and bringing us to the fruition of it; all these are comprehended in the latitude of the object, the things which are above.
Observe, 3. The arguments which our apostle uses to excite us to this duty:
1. If ye be risen with Christ, that is, if ye believe that Christ is risen, and if ye will bear a conformity and resemblance to him in his resurrection, and be made partakers of the power and virtue of it; for Christ’s resurrection is of the power and virtue of it; for Christ’s resurrection is not only a pattern, but a principle; it has a power and efficacy in it to raise us up to a spiritual life; If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.
2. A second argument is drawn from Christ’s exaltation in heaven: he sitteth on the right hand of God; which words declare the exaltation of his human nature, and his being advanced to be the supreme King and Governor of his church.
Now the force of this argument lies in the relation that is between the Head and the members, between Christ and Christians; as the Head has an influence upon the members, so the members have an affection for the Head, which makes them aspire heavenwards, where their Head is; because their glorified Saviour, sitting at the right hand of God, by the power of his Spirit, draws out their affection towards him: If ye be risen with Christ, seek the things above.
As if St. Paul had said "I’d Christ our Head risen, and ascended into heaven? Let us in our hearts and affections follow him thither, and patiently wait till he receive our souls, and raise our bodies, and take us wholly to himself, that we may be forever with the Lord."
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The apostle, having described our privileges by Christ in…
The apostle, having described our privileges by Christ in the former part of the epistle, and our discharge from the yoke of the ceremonial law, comes here to press upon us our duty as inferred thence. Though we are made free from the obligation of the ceremonial law, it does not therefore follow that we may live as we list. We must walk the more closely with God in all the instances of evangelical obedience. He begins with exhorting them to set their hearts on heaven, and take them off from this world: If you then have risen with Christ. It is our privilege that we have risen with Christ; that is, have benefit by the resurrection of Christ, and by virtue of our union and communion with him are justified and sanctified, and shall be glorified. Hence he infers that we must seek those things which are above. We must mind the concerns of another world more than the concerns of this. We must make heaven our scope and aim, seek the favour of God above, keep up our communion with the upper world by faith, and hope, and holy love, and make it our constant care and business to secure our title to and qualifications for the heavenly bliss. And the reason is because Christ sits at the right hand of God. He who is our best friend and our head is advanced to the highest dignity and honour in heaven, and has gone before to secure to us the heavenly happiness; and therefore we should seek and secure what he has purchased at so vast an expense, and is taking so much care about. We must live such a life as Christ lived here on earth and lives now in heaven, according to our capacities.
I. He explains this duty (Col 3:2): Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. Observe, To seek heavenly things is to set our affections upon them, to love them and let our desires be towards them. Upon the wings of affection the heart soars upwards, and is carried forth towards spiritual and divine objects. We must acquaint ourselves with them, esteem them above all other things, and lay out ourselves in preparation for the enjoyment of them. David gave this proof of his loving the house of God, that he diligently sought after it, and prepared for it, Psa 27:4. This is to be spiritually minded (Rom 8:6), and to seek and desire a better country, that is, a heavenly, Heb 11:14, Heb 11:16. Things on earth are here set in opposition to things above. We must not dote upon them, nor expect too much from them, that we may set our affections on heaven; for heaven and earth are contrary one to the other, and a supreme regard to both is inconsistent; and the prevalence of our affection to one will proportionably weaken and abate our affection to the other.
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II. He assigns three reasons for this, Col 3:3, Col 3:4.
1. That we are dead; that is, to present things, and as our portion. We are so in profession and obligation; for we are buried with Christ, and planted into the likeness of his death. Every Christian is crucified unto the world, and the world is crucified unto him, Gal 6:14. And if we are dead to the earth, and have renounced it as our happiness, it is absurd for us to set our affections upon it, and seek it. We should be like a dead thing to it, unmoved and unaffected towards it.
2. Our true life lies in the other world: You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God, Col 3:3. The new man has its livelihood thence. It is born and nourished from above; and the perfection of its life is reserved for that state. It is hid with Christ; not hid from us only, in point of secrecy, but hid for us, denoting security. The life of a Christian is hid with Christ. Because I live you shall live also, Joh 14:19. Christ is at present a hidden Christ, or one whom we have not seen; but this is our comfort, that our life is hid with him, and laid up safely with him. As we have reason to love him whom we have not seen (Pe1 1:8), so we may take the comfort of a happiness out of sight, and reserved in heaven for us.
3. Because at the second coming of Christ we hope for the perfection of our happiness. If we live a life of Christian purity and devotion now, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we shall also appear with him in glory, Col 3:4. Observe, (1.) Christ is a believer's life. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, Gal 2:20. He is the principle and end of the Christian's life. He lives in us by his Spirit, and we live to him in all we do. To me to live is Christ, Phi 1:21. (2.) Christ will appear again. He is now hid; and the heavens must contain him; but he will appear in all the pomp of the upper world, with his holy angels, and in his own glory and his Father's glory, Mar 8:38; Luk 9:26. (3.) We shall then appear with him in glory. It will be his glory to have his redeemed with him; he will come to be glorified in his saints (Th2 1:10); and it will be their glory to come with him, and be with him for ever. At the second coming of Christ there will be a general meeting of all the saints; and those whose life is now hid with Christ shall then appear with Christ in that glory which he himself enjoys, Joh 17:24. Do we look for such a happiness, and should we not set our affections upon that world, and live above this? What is there here to make us fond of it? What is there not there to draw our hearts to it? Our head is there, our home is there, our treasure is there, and we hope to be there for ever.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–3 If ye then be risen with Christ,.... The apostle…
If ye then be risen with Christ,.... The apostle having observed in the former chapter, that the believing Colossians were dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, were buried with him in baptism, and were risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, argues from hence how much it became them to regard a new and spiritual life, and to seek after superior and heavenly things, and treat with neglect and contempt carnal and earthly ones. For he does not here call in question their being risen with Christ, but takes it for granted that they were, and makes use of it as an argument for his present purpose. They were risen with Christ as their head, and as members in union with him representatively, when he rose from the dead; and emblematically in their baptism, when having gone down into the water, and being baptized, they emersed from it; and spiritually in conversion, when they were raised from a death of sin, to a life of grace, by Christ, as the resurrection and the life, the efficient cause of it, and in virtue of his resurrection from the dead: wherefore being thus raised again in every sense, it highly became them to
seek those things which are above; the better and heavenly country, the continuing city, which is above the heavens, whose builder and maker is God; Christ, who is in heaven, and salvation alone by him without the works of the law; all spiritual blessings, such as pardon, peace, righteousness, life, and glory, which are in heavenly places in him; doctrines and ordinances, which come from heaven, and are the means of supporting a spiritual and heavenly life; especially that bread of life which came down from heaven, and gives life unto the world, and of which if a man eats, he shall never die, but live for ever; and particularly glory, honour, immortality, and eternal life, the crown of righteousness laid up above, the kingdom of God, and the righteousness of it; which are to be sought for in the first place with all affection, earnest desire, care, and diligence, not by or for works of righteousness, but in Christ, and as the gifts of God's grace through him.
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Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God: which contains other reasons and arguments to engage believers to look upwards, and seek after heavenly things; that as Christ, when he died and rose again from the dead, did not stay long on earth, nor minded the things of the world, but ascended up to heaven, where he now is, and will remain until his second coming; so they, being dead and risen with him, should, in their thoughts, desires, and affections, in the exercise of the graces of faith, hope, and love, ascend heavenwards, like pillars of smoke perfumed with frankincense; and the more should their hearts be where he is, and intent on things above there, from the consideration of that great honour and dignity in which he is. He is "on the right hand of God"; in human nature, an honour which none of the angels were ever admitted to: here he "sitteth", as having done the work of redemption, and entered into his rest, beholding the travail of his soul with satisfaction, though he continues to be an advocate, and to make intercession for his people; which is another reason enforcing this exhortation.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 If ye are risen, seek the things above -…
If ye are risen, seek the things above - As Christ being risen, immediately went to heaven.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The apostle exhorts the Colossians to heavenly-mindedness after
CHAPTER III.
The apostle exhorts the Colossians to heavenly-mindedness after
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the example of Christ, that they may be prepared to appear with
him in glory, 1-4.
Exhorts them also to mortify their members, and calls to their
remembrance their former state, 5-7.
Shows how completely they were changed from that state, and
gives them various directions relative to truth, compassion,
meekness, long-suffering, forgiveness, charity, 8-14.
Shows that they are called to unity and holiness; and commands
them to have the doctrine of Christ dwelling richly in them;
and how they should teach and admonish each other, and do every
thing, in the name of the Lord Jesus, 15-17.
The relative duties of wives, 18.
Of husbands, 19.
Of children, 20.
Of fathers, 21.
Of servants, 22.
He concludes by showing that he that does wrong shall be treated
accordingly, for God is no respecter of persons, 23-25.
NOTES ON CHAP. III.
Verse 1. If ye then] ει ουν. Seeing then that ye are risen with Christ; this refers to what he had said, Col 2:12: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him. As, therefore, ye have most cordially received the doctrine of Christ; and profess to be partakers of a spiritual religion, that promises spiritual and eternal things; seek those things, and look to be prepared for the enjoyment of them.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Col 3:1-2. If ye then be risen with Christ…
Col 3:1-2. If ye then be risen with Christ — From spiritual death to spiritual life, as spoken of Col 2:12-13. See also notes on Eph 2:1; Eph 2:6. If ye be not only engaged to become new creatures, but really are such: or, which seems to be also implied, If Christ’s resurrection draw after it, and ensure, the resurrection of all men, and especially of all his true disciples, and if, therefore, you be begotten again to a lively hope of rising with him, even as to your bodies, to glory and immortality; seek the things which are above — Which relate to heaven and eternal felicity; as Christ, being raised, went immediately to heaven; where he sitteth at the right hand of God — As your forerunner, having taken possession of the incorruptible inheritance for you. Seek — That is, desire and pursue them in the way which God hath appointed; namely, 1st, By the exercise of that faith which is the evidence of things not seen, (Heb 11:1,) having a deep conviction and lively sense of their reality and importance. For a mere idea or opinion of them, however correct, will not suffice. Who would set sail in search of new islands or continents, and encounter the storms and perils of the ocean, with his life, and property, and all embarked, if he did not believe the real existence of the objects of his search? It is necessary to be persuaded also of the excellence and attainableness of these things. 2d, By an anticipating and joyful hope of them, grounded on your being children of God, and heirs of these heavenly joys and glories. 3d, By shunning whatever you know would grieve the Spirit of God, and so prevent your attaining the objects of your pursuit, and by conscientiously using all those means which are calculated to promote and ensure your attainment of them. And especially, 4th, Set your affection on these things; for without this you will seek them in vain. Greek, φρονειτε, discern, mind, regard, esteem, covet, delight in, things above — Things spiritual and eternal. And not on things on the earth — Things visible and temporal, things relating to this present, short, and uncertain life; things unsatisfying and transitory, which pass from you, and you from them. For remember, you cannot set your affection on things above and on things beneath also; cannot go two ways at once, nor be at the same time spiritually and carnally minded: if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, 1Jn 2:15.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–3 If ye then be risen with Christ - The…
If ye then be risen with Christ - The apostle in this place evidently founds the argument on what he had said in Col 2:12; see the notes at that passage. The argument is, that there was such an union between Christ and his people, that in virtue of his death they become dead to sin; that in virtue of his resurrection they rise to spiritual life, and that, therefore, as Christ now lives in heaven, they should live for heaven, and fix their affections there.
Seek those things which are above - That is, seek them as the objects of pursuit and affection; strive to secure them.
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Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God - Notes, Mar 16:19. The argument here is, that since Christ is there, and since he is the object of our supreme attachment, we should fix our affections on heavenly things, and seek to be prepared to dwell with him.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v1 Here begins the second or the moral part of…
Here begins the second or the moral part of this epistle. --- If you be risen, &c. The remaining part of this epistle has no great difficulties, but excellent instructions, as that to the Ephesians. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Colossians Chapter 3
Colossians Chapter 3
Now begins the direct exhortations founded on the truth that has been developed, and adapted to the state in which the Colossians were; that is, viewed as risen with Christ, but not sitting in heavenly places.
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Risen with Christ, they were to set their affections on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God, and not on things on the earth. The two could not go together. To look, to have one’s motives, above and below at the same time is impossible. Be tempted by things, have to resist them, we may; but this is not to have them as our object. The reason for this is however found in our position: we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God. It does not say, “we must die.” Man cannot do this by will: we cannot deny will by will. Nor would the will of the flesh ever do it. If it acts, it does not abdicate. We are dead: this is the precious comforting truth with regard to the Christian by virtue of Christ having died for him. He has received the life of Christ, and all that Christ did for him in that life belongs to him. Thus he is dead, because Christ died for him. The life with which the power of temptation, guilt, the attacks of sin, are connected, exists no longer to faith. By death all that was connected with it has come to an end. Now that which was connected with the life of the old man was sin, condemnation, weakness, fear, powerlessness against the assaults of the enemy-all that is past. We have a life, but it is in Christ; it is hidden with Him in God. We are not yet manifested in its glory, as we shall be manifested before the eyes of all in heaven and earth. Our life is hidden, but safe in its eternal source. It has the portion of Christ, in whom we possess it. He is hid in God, so also is our life: when Christ shall appear, we shall also appear with Him. It will be remarked, that the apostle does not speak here of our union with Christ, but of our life, of the fact that we are dead, and that our life is hid with Him in God. He does not speak of the assembly with regard to our position; he speaks, no doubt, of Christ as being its Head, as to His personal glory, but not of it as to us. He speaks of us individually. Each one has his own life in Christ truly, but as his own; it is not union with other Christians. We have this life in Christ, but it is not here our union as one body with Him. It is the individual character of the Christian, to whom Christ, the Head, is everything.
That which is also highly important to observe in connection with this truth is that in this epistle there is nothing said of the Holy Ghost. The apostle speaks practically of their love in the Spirit, but in the instruction of the epistle he does not name Him. Even when he says, “here is neither Jew, nor Greek,” &c., it is in the new man, not because we are one in Christ. The individual was to cleave to the Head. He was no longer living in this world; he was dead, and his life hid with Christ in God. But this was for himself; he was to know it, and hold it fast for himself, as necessary truth, that he might be preserved from the wiles of the enemy. In a word, it is life in Christ. Elsewhere we see many of the things which the apostle here mentions spoken of as the fruit of the Spirit, by which communion and union are maintained; but here it is simply in the nature of the life that these fruits have their source. It is quite natural consequently, that the compass and the assemblage of all spiritual relationships in one, in Christ, which we find in the divine instruction when the Holy Ghost is introduced, are wanting here.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians this operation of the Holy Ghost is found everywhere, and characterises the whole of that which is developed in communion with the Head, Christ, with whom we are united in one body by the Spirit. Thus we are individually sealed by the Spirit of promise, the earnest of our inheritance; we all have access to the Father by one Spirit; we are also builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit; the union of the Gentiles in one body is now revealed by the Spirit; saints are strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man; there is one body and one Spirit; we are not to grieve the Spirit; we are to be filled with Him; the word itself is the sword of the Spirit. The union of the body with Christ, our resurrection with Him, that we are sitting in the heavenlies in Him-all that flows from this union, is fully developed; but at the same time the Holy Ghost, who unites us to Him, and unites us all together as one body, and who here below characterises the presence of God in the church, who acts in us, secures our future, and becomes our strength in the present-the Holy Ghost, I repeat, is found every where, to complete the truth and to give it its present force for us here below.
Many of the exhortations in the Epistle to the Ephesians are nearly the same as those to the Colossians. But in the Epistle to the Ephesians they are connected with the Spirit; in that to the Colossians with the action of the word and of grace in the heart. This gives an immense range and a connectedness to the doctrine of the Epistle to the Ephesians, in that which regards our position here below, because it brings in God Himself, and as dwelling in us by the Spirit, and filling us, whether as in the individual or in the oneness of the body; and gives the full scope of the counsels of God.
Yet the possession of life is in its way as important as the presence and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. It makes the blessing ourselves, not merely an operation in us, and, as we have seen, the character of divine life is far more fully developed; whereas in Ephesians it is more contrast with the previous state.
In the Epistle to the Romans we have (chap. 8) this action and presence of the Holy Ghost presented in a very remarkable way as to the individual. He characterises us vitally in the principle of our resurrection, is the witness in us that we are children filling us with joy and with the hope of glory as heirs, the support of our weakness and the source of our petitions and our groans. In the Epistle to the Romans it is in connection with our personal relationship to God; in that to the Ephesians, as the presence of God in us in connection with our union to Christ as one body.
There is another thing to be noticed here which throws light on the purpose of the Holy Ghost in these epistles. The starting-point in that to the Ephesians is the counsels of God. Man is looked at as he is, without one pulse of life as regards God; he is dead in trespasses and sins, by nature the child of wrath. God is rich in mercy; He raises him up with Christ who in grace went down into death, and places him according to His counsels in the same position as that Christ is in. We are His workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus. God is pleased to bring us into His presence according to His own counsels and His nature. It is not said that we are dead with Christ. Man is not viewed as living in the flesh, so that in one way or in another he had to die. This was not necessary. The Ephesians were to apprehend, on the one hand, the full contrast between God and man according to His counsels; and, on the other, man’s sinful state according to nature. In their epistle all is the work of God Himself according to the original purpose of His own heart, of His nature, and of His will, [21] man is already dead, and even Christ is not brought in as to His place till viewed as dead, and thereon risen and exalted on high.
The Colossians were in danger of subjecting themselves to ordinances, and thereby were in a position to consider man as living in the world; and the apostle makes them feel that they are dead with Christ. He was obliged in grace to follow them where they were, for their danger was to take man into consideration as living on the earth; in order, nevertheless, to shew that the Christian had already died with Christ, and his life on earth was as risen with Him.
In the letter to the Ephesians man is not said to die with Christ. He is dead in his sins when God begins to act towards him. No man is alive to God. The Christian is quickened together with Christ, Christ Himself first viewed as dead.
This character of the Colossians however, the dwelling on life or the new man, has its value for us all, and a great value, because the life, the new nature, and grace working in it, are much less brought forward in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the subject is the energy of God, who creates men in Christ and unites them to Him, fills the believer and the assembly here with the nature and the character of the new man, and thereby of Christ, yea, of God Himself.[22] I may add here to that which I have said of the Holy Ghost, that, when the apostle speaks in Colossians of the power of hope in us, he does not mention the earnest of the Spirit. It is still in us, the hope of glory. Throughout it is Christ, and Christ as life.
One might suppose that there was only the Holy Ghost acting in the fullness of His power, and filling the individual and the assembly. But in this Epistle to the Colossians we find that there is a new nature, an intrinsic change, not of the flesh indeed, but of the man. For we are viewed, not merely as quickened by the Son, but as dead and risen with Christ, the Man who had died, so as to have passed out of-put off- the old standing of a child of Adam, and into a risen one with Christ-put on the new man. This is at once a standing and a state before God, a source of tastes, of sentiments, of desires, of arguments, and of moral capacities, which are in connection with the very nature of God, who has caused it to spring up in theheart. We are renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us. But this source is a life, which needs that
the Holy Ghost should reveal to it the objects that are suited to it, and that awaken these tastes and feelings, which satisfy them and cause them to grow. It needs that the Spirit of God should act in it to give it strength; but it is a real life, a nature which has its tastes attached to its very existence; [23] which, being enlightened by the Holy Ghost, is conscious of its own existence; and in which we are the children of God, being born of Him.
Neither is it unimportant that we should learn, with regard to the life of the flesh, and when thinking of it, although it be on the negative side, that we are dead; that God recognises nothing belonging to the old man; that He takes pleasure in a new nature, which is indeed ours by grace, but which is of God Himself, and which is the moral reflection of His own. We are dead then, and our life is hid with Christ in God. We have members on earth-no recognised life; and we have to put to death [24] all these members of the old man. The Christian has to deny them practically as belonging to the old man, while his life is there where Christ is. They bring down the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Christians walked in these things when they had their life in them; but this is no longer the case: and they deny not only gross sins, the fruit of positive lusts (chap. 3:5,6), but all the workings of an unbroken will and an unsubdued heart, every indication of the actings of the will of that nature which knows not God, and is not ruled by His fear, all anger and malice and falsehood flowing from selfishness or the fear of man. (Ver. 8.) Truth reigns in the heart which has put off the old man, according to the simplicity of the new man, [24] which is renewed also in knowledge after the image of Him who created it. (Verse. 9,10.) The new man walks in the light. It is not only that there is a conscience which judges good and evil according to that which man ought to be according to his nature as a responsible being; there is a new man who judges the old man altogether, judging good and evil according to the knowledge of God. Such is the putting off.
Before Christianity, which is the full revelation of God, there were indeed, as need not be said, souls born anew; but their rule, when a rule was definitely given, was man’s responsibility (whatever piety and grace might inspire), and the law, which was the perfect measure of that which man, as a being responsible to God, ought to be. Saints then did not distinguish between a new and an old man, although of necessity they had the conscience of the old man and the tastes of the new in measure in many respects. The sense, for instance, of the evil of falsehood had not at all the same place as with the Christian. Now the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him. [25] God Himself in His nature is the standard of good and evil, because the new man has the knowledge of what that nature is: he is made a partaker of it, and he has the light of God. It is an intelligent participation by grace in the nature of God, which is the marvelous and precious privilege of the Christian. God works in this nature; but by communicating it He has placed man in this position. Christ is the perfect model of this image, the type of the new man.
Other differences have disappeared: there remains but the old man, which we only acknowledge as dead, and the new man. To the latter Christ is all; so that there is none but He whom they see and whom they acknowledge, and He is in all believers. They put on therefore as such, as elect, holy, beloved (Christ being their life), the character of Christ, mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another if offence has been given, even as Christ has done to us. [26] Finally they put on love, the bond of perfectness, that which gives a divine character to all the qualities that have been enumerated, and that were manifested in Christ, and a divine check on taking amiable nature for divine grace, for divine love is holy.
And note here, that the putting on of these qualities is in the consciousness of the blessed place before God expressed in the words “elect of God, holy and beloved.” It is as such. Nor can we do it otherwise. It is in the sense of this wondrous favour that grace develops itself in our hearts. So in Ephesians, “as dear children.”
Several of these qualities may be resembled by things in nature; but the energy, the features, the bond of divine love, which acts in the sense of communion with God, are totally wanting in the latter; and this gives a character, a completeness, a righteousness of application, a perfection, a propriety, and an energy to the manifestation of these qualities, which love alone can give. For it is indeed God Himself who is there, acting in His nature which He has imparted to us. For He who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. With regard to the state of the soul, there is a crown to this walk, wherewith they who follow it constantly are adorned. The peace of Christ reigns in the heart, that sweet and ineffable peace which nothing could disturb, though His spirit passed through everything to try it, for He walked ever with God. God has also called us to this; He is the God of peace. And here the apostle introduces the oneness of the body, not as to its privileges in Christ, but as to the fact that Christians are called to be together in the unity of which peace is the seal and the bond. And then there will be thanksgiving; for the soul is conscious of the love and the activity of God, and everything flows to it from that love.
But, besides peace and thanksgiving towards God, there is the development of life in the knowledge of what is revealed, its food and joy. This too is enjoyed in the activity of life and love towards others. The enjoyment of God and of that which is in His presence leads to this activity of the soul. When the latter is real, it is the joyful liberty of a nature that is itself in health, the activity of love that is natural to it, and which receives its energy from communion with God, according to His nature. The word of Christ unfolds all that is revealed to the soul as that in which it lives, and in which it expands itself, and is thus the rule, and active and directing power, because it is the expression of that nature, and the revelation of all its ways, and of its active energy in love in Him.
The apostle therefore exhorts that the word of Christ may dwell in them richly. This is the development, according to the perfection of God, of the new man, and the wisdom of God to form and direct him. Paul desires that Christians may fully realise this. It is by communion with the Lord, holding intercourse with Him, that it is done. The word being that in which the wisdom is found; also according to this development the saints can teach and admonish each other. [27] But in this case it is not only wisdom that we learn, and that is displayed in us, but affections in connection with Him in whom we have found this wisdom, so that these expressions of the life of Christ, as true wisdom in the world, find their voice in our hearts in praise, in thanksgiving, in singing His excellency. All the intimate affections in which spiritual life develops itself express themselves, according to what we have learned: they flow from the Spirit of Christ, and are the expression of the soul’s connection with Him and of the feelings this produces in the heart. Christ in His Person, in the consciousness of His presence, as the object of our thoughts, and in the moral fruits proceeding thence, sustains the intercourse and the communications of the soul that is occupied with His praises.
But this consciousness of relationship with Christ, in the life which is of Him in us, applies to everything. Nothing is done without Him. If He is the life, all which that life does has Him for its end and object, as far as the heart is concerned. He is present as that which is the governing motive, and gives its character to our actions, and which preoccupies our heart in performing them. Everything relates to Him: we do not eat without Him; (how can we when He is our very life?) we do not drink with out Him; what we say, what we do, is said and done in the name of the Lord Jesus. There is the sense of His presence; the consciousness that everything relates to Him, that we can do nothing-unless carnally-with out Him, because the life which we have of Him acts with Him and in Him, does not separate from Him, and has Him for its aim in all things, even as water rises to the height from which it descended. This is what characterises the life of the Christian. And what a life! Through Him, dwelling in the consciousness of divine love, we give thanks to our God and Father.
Observe here that the Christian life is not only characterised by certain subjective qualities which flow from Christ, but by its having Christ Himself for the aim and object of the heart and mind in all that we do in every respect. Christ personally reigns in, and is pleasant to, the heart in everything.
To the inexperienced eye of man nature is often confounded with grace; but the intelligent consciousness of Christ as the heart’s object, of His presence, of the seal of His approval when one thinks of Him cannot be confounded with anything. There is nothing, that resembles it, nothing that can appear to take its place. When He reveals Himself to our heart, and the heart walks with Him, and communes with Him in all things, and seeks only the light of His countenance, the seal of His favour on the soul in all things, then He is known, well known. There is none but He who thus communicates Himself to the soul when it walks in the way of His will, as expressed in the word.
After these great and important principles of the new life the apostle enters into the diverse relation ships of life, giving warnings against that which would endanger them, by shewing what the Christian character of each one of them is. To the wife, obedience-affection was natural to her. “Thy desire shall be to thy husband.” To the husband, affection and kindness-his heart may be indifferent and hard. Children are to be obedient; fathers, gentle, in order that the children’s affections may not be estranged from them, and that they may not be induced to seek that happiness in the world which they ought to find in the sanctuary of the domestic circle, which God has formed as a safeguard for those who are growing up in weakness; the precious home (if Christ is acknowledged) of kind affections, in which the heart is trained in the ties which God Himself has formed; and that in connection with the Lord, and which, by cherishing the affections, preserves from the passions and from self-will; and which, where its strength is rightly developed, has a power that, in spite of sin and disorder, awakens the conscience and engages the heart, keeping it away from evil and the direct power of Satan. For it is God’s appointment.
I know indeed that another power is required to deliver the heart from sin and to keep it from sin. Nature, even as God created it, does not give eternal life, nor does it restore innocence or purify the conscience. We may, by the energy of the Spirit, consecrate ourselves to God outside these relationships, renounce them even, if God should call us by more powerful obligations, as Christ teaches us in the gospel. The rights of Christ over man lost by sin are sovereign, absolute, and complete. He has redeemed him; and the redeemed one is no longer his own, but belongs to Him who gave Himself for him. Where relationships exist, sin indeed has perverted every thing, and corrupted the will; passions come in; but the relationships themselves are of God: woe to him who despises them as such! If grace has wrought and the new life exists, it acknowledges that which God has formed. It well knows that there is no good in man, it knows that sin has marred everything, but that which sin has marred is not itself sin. And where these relationships exist, the renunciation of self-will, death to sin, the bringing in of Christ, the operation of life in Him, restore their power; and if they cannot give back the character of innocence (lost for ever), they can make them a scene for the operations of grace, in which meekness, tenderness, mutual help, and self-denial, in the midst of the difficulties and sorrows which sin has introduced, lend them a charm and a depth (even as Christ did in every relationship) which innocence itself could not have presented. It is grace acting in the life of Christ in us which develops itself in them.
To be without natural affection is a sin of hopeless apostacy and estrangement from God, of the complete selfishness of the last days.
I am not drawing a false picture, or speaking poetically, as though the bright side were all; I only say that God has formed these relationships, and that whosoever fears God will respect them. Grace is requisite. They give occasion, through their intimacy itself, to all that is most painful, if grace do not act in them. The apostle warns us here of this danger. If the Lord is the bond in them, if our still closer union with Him forms the strength of our natural relationships, then grace reigns here as elsewhere; and, to those who stand in these relationships, they become a scene for the lovely display of the life of Christ.
Footnotes for Colossians Chapter 3
21: Hence we have no justification in Ephesians. It treats of a new creation.
22: This difference is of deep interest, and brings out the character of the Epistle to the Ephesians in a remarkable way-an epistle in which everything is influenced by the high point of view taken by the Spirit, and flows from the original and eternal counsels of God, and from His operation to bring those counsels to perfection-the settled purposes of His own heart. He desires to have-He creates-something in order to shew forth the immense riches of His grace. He has taken the dead and the lost: but they are only the objects of His operations, suited to make these manifest on account of their own condition. He does not work upon the nature of man, because it is contrary to His own, in order to destroy this contrariety. He quickens from the dead, and creates. In Colossians the death of the old man is spoken of, which it was necessary to take into consideration. God be praised, we are entitled to view it as already dead, because Christ has died for us.
23: With this difference between the actings of the Spirit, and the existence of the new life, is connected the liberty of the soul. When we are born of God, we have necessarily a taste for holiness- love acts in us- we take pleasure in the righteousness of God. But, by virtue of these sentiments, although my heart appreciates love in God, and this love attracts me and inspires me with a measure of confidence, yet my conscience condemns me, I feel that I am not that which I love. I am under the law, and uncertain of my relationship with God. When I have learnt the value of Christ’s blood, that He is my righteousness, the Holy Ghost dwelling and acting in me gives me the sense of my relationship with God. I have the consciousness of it in my soul, and the Holy Ghost bears witness of it. There is liberty.
24: These three form the whole character of evil in man: generally, violence and corruption, the last taking the twofold form of lust and falsehood. So, before the flood, the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. Falsehood is Satan’s form of corruption, and violence also characterises Him. The Lord declares him to be a liar and a murderer. (Joh 8:44 ) Man adds the lust because of flesh.
24: These three form the whole character of evil in man: generally, violence and corruption, the last taking the twofold form of lust and falsehood. So, before the flood, the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. Falsehood is Satan’s form of corruption, and violence also characterises Him. The Lord declares him to be a liar and a murderer. (Joh 8:44 ) Man adds the lust because of flesh.
25: Note here the difference of the corresponding phrase in Ephesians. There the Christian is created after God in righteousness and true holiness. Here it is the new apprehensions of the divine life which knows God. It is our state, not Gods creative act. Not that this contradicts the Ephesian view; on the contrary, “renewed “here is another word from Ephesians. It is that which is wholly new, never was there before (anakainoumenoi). In Ephesians “renewed “is what is kept fresh and new.
26: Remark here how patience and graciousness and long suffering characterise the Christian. It is remarkable how this is the case everywhere. So must it be in a world like this. So was it in Christ. So in 1Co 13:1-13. the traits of charity are all subjective and of this character. Not that that is a definition of charity, but it is characteristic of it. Where these traits are wanting, charity is.
27: It is simpler to put the stop after “one another”, and only a comma before “teaching”.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Exhortation to vital sanctification
III. PART SECOND
Exhortation to vital sanctification
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Col_3:1 to Col_4:6
1. The foundation and prospect of a genuine Christian mind and walk.
(Col_3:1-4)
1If ye then be risen [were raised together] 1 with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth [is, sitting] on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection 3[mind] on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead2 [died] and 4your life is [or hath been] hid [χέχρυπται] with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,3 shall appear [or be manifested], then shall ye also appear [or be manifested] with him in glory.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The injunction. Col_3:1-2.
Col_3:1. If ye then were raised together with Christ takes up from the foregoing (Col_2:12) a comprehensive thought, in a form reminding us of Col_2:20, to make it the basis of the exhortation. “If,” like Col_2:20, is not a doubtful hypothesis, but fact (Col_2:12), from which, as undeniable, a certain conclusion is deduced (οὗν). By “raised together with Christ” we must understand the ethical renewal (see notes on Col_2:12). Meyer, who apparently refers this also to the corporeal resurrection, overlooks the “shall be manifested” (Col_3:4), and errs in regarding “actual” and “objective” as identical notions in contrast with “ethical;” this latter is no less actual. [Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth refer the aorist to “baptism.” It refers to the definite point of time when this actual, “ethical” change took place. Is that necessarily at baptism? The two former object to the ethical sense on the ground that the injunction which follows would then be superfluous. Why should not a motive be drawn from this? What has been done for them is the ground for their doing, “seeking.”—R.]
Seek those things which are above.—Τὰ ἄνω, placed first for emphasis, is like τὰ ἑπουράνια (Eph_2:6); to seek such things is a necessary consequence and requirement of being “raised together with Christ.” Bengel: Christus a resurrectione statini contendit ad cælum (Joh_20:17). Comp. Php_3:14; Php_3:20; Mat_6:20; Mat_6:23; Rom_2:7.—Where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.—“Where” marks “the things above” as the region of the heavenly things of the Messianic salvation; “Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God” indicates both the exultation after deep humiliation and certain rest after severe conflict. Thus a motive is given for the exhortation. Comp. Psa_110:1. [The passage seems to abound in motives, though this is the principal one. The E. V. overlooks the fact that there are two enunciations: “Christ is there, and in all the glory of His regal and judiciary power” (Ellicott).—R.]
Col_3:2. Set your mind on things above.—The emphasis rests on the object; hence it is placed first here also. This is not mere repetition. After “seek” (ζητεῖν), which manifests itself in active and outward conduct, prominence is given to the cogitations of thought (φρονεῖν, Php_3:15; Php_3:19). Bengel: qui vere suprema quærunt, non possunt non sapere suprema.—Not on things on the earth.—This is=τὰ ἐπίγεια, “earthly things” (Php_3:19), τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, “the things that are in the world” (1Jn_2:15). The earthly, that which is “to perish with the using” (Col_2:22), should not be the object of inward care and thought; this is a sign of being “of the world,” which is not=being “in the world” (Joh_17:14; Joh_17:16; Joh_17:12). The use of earthly things is not forbidden, but we are bidden, in the right use of the earthly to mind and seek heavenly things. [Theophilus: Four-footed beasts are like images of men who mind earthly things; but they who live righteous lives soar aloft, like birds, on the wings of the soul, and mind those things that are above (Wordsworth).—R.]
Col_3:3. The Proof. For ye died, i. e., died to the world, to the earth (Col_2:20 : “from the rudiments of the world”). The aorist (ἀπεθάνετε) is used to denote an act that has occurred. Ye cannot then go backwards, live again or longer after the former fashion: your life is now another one.—And your life is hid with Christ in God.—“And” adds to the negative side, the having died, the positive side, “your life,” which however is “hid.” The perfect (κέκρυπται) denotes the continued relation, the verb itself marks the state of the existent life as still hidden, of course from the world, from men, from themselves also (1Jn_3:2 : “It doth not yet appear”): the coherence of the life of Christians is denoted by “with Christ,” the inherence by “in God” (Meyer). Comp. 1Pe_3:4 : “the hidden man of the heart;” Act_17:28 : “in Him we live and move and have our being.” [Eadie, against Barnes: “the idea of concealment, and not that of security, seems to be principally contained in the verb, for it is placed in contrast with open manifestation of Christ’s appearance. But this concealment is no argument against present and partial enjoyment.”—R.]—Evidently this is to be understood of eternal life, which has been awakened and is furthered in the present in consequence of the new birth. It remains concealed until its completion, which enters (Col_3:4; Rom_8:19) with “the coming” (2Th_2:8; 1Ti_6:14; 1Co_1:7; 2Th_1:7) of its Author and Finisher, Christ. The Greek fathers, Calvin, Grotius, Meyer, incorrectly regard it as the life hereafter, [Alford: the resurrection life—R.], as if the Christian life were not already substantially, though incipiently, the life to be completed hereafter. Grotius is incorrect, jus ad rem rei nomine appellat; Heinrich: sicuti Christus; Rosenmueller: in mente dei. [Alford: notice the solemnity of the repetition of the articles; and so all through these verses.—R.]
Col_3:4. The exalted prospect. When Christ shall appear.—Rapidly, without καί or δέ, this reminder and prospect is added, to animate their zeal. “When” marks the time, viz.: the appearing of Christ.—Our life—[the E. V. inserts “who is,” thus bringing out the force of the passage.—R.] This is in apposition with “Christ,” as “the hope of glory” (Col_1:27). It forms the basis of the conclusion (“then shall ye also appear”); hence it is added to signify not merely that Christ is a remote and sundered Cause, but Impulse, Power, Object and Substance of the Life itself (Php_1:21; Joh_11:25). Bengel: Ratio sub qua manifestabitur. [Eadie is unfortunate in his interpretation: “shall appear in the character of our life.” Christ is our life itself, the essence and the impersonation of it (Ellicott).—R.]
Then shall ye also appear with him in glory.—“Then” refers to “when” (Bengel: prius non debemus postulare); “ye also” to “Christ.” [Ellicott: The more verbally exact opposition would have been “your hidden life;” but this the Apostle perhaps designedly neglects, to prevent ζωή being applied as it has been applied, merely to the resurrection-life.—R.] “With Him,” which might otherwise have been omitted, is emphatic. “Appear with Him in glory” is=“glorified together” (Rom_8:17), there preceded by “suffer with Him,” as this is by “died” (Col_3:3; Col_2:20 : “with Christ”). Comp. 1Co_15:42-44; 1Co_15:53.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Here and hereafter no more fall into two incongruous parts, than the year with seed time and harvest, human life with childhood and riper age, man with body and soul, the church in invisibly visible manner, with its militant and triumphant congregations. It is more than indistinctness and superficiality, it is anti-christian error to say, as does Kaüffer (De ζωῆς αἰωνίον notione, p. 93): vitam enim piam et honestam, quam homo Christianus in hac terra vivere possit ac debeat, Paulus dicere non poterat nunc cum Christo in deo (in cœlis puta, in quibus Christus nunc est) reconditam esse, atque olim in splendido Jesu reditu de cœlo revelatam iri: hæc nonnisi vitæ cœlesti conveniunt. Such an affirmation grossly offends against the Lord’s words (Joh_5:24, “hath eternal life”) and Paul’s (Php_3:20 : “our conversation is in heaven). So “ethical” and “physical” are very different, but not incongruous ideas. The Ethos should become Physis, and the latter should be made ethical. The Hereafter is not locally separated, is not a limited place, but a spiritual life-sphere, whose rudiments and germs lie in the narrow corporeal life, as in a concentric inner circle. God’s world cannot be dualistically split into a visible and invisible world; as little can it be separated by a rationalistic or deistical cross-cut into an upper and under world. He has created His world, the material world, to be glorified with a receptivity for eternal spiritual being, finitum infiniti capax.
2. The Ethical Consequence of the Christian view is: in the earthly life to begin the heavenly, in time to seek and to find eternity, faithful in the least, the perishing, to gain the greatest, the eternal. Aptly and elegantly says the Epistle to Diognetus (chap. v. 6 in scholz: Apostolic Fathers, p. 170) of Christians; they inhabit—Being in heaven. Comp. the beautiful hymn of Richter : es glänzet der Christen inwendiges Leben.
3. Only in and with Christ can we be even here assured of and joyful in eternal life; the true life is Christ in us.
4. The motive to constancy and fidelity in such a life is the glimpse of future glory, not the slavish fear of perdition, but child-like confidence and joy in the glory of the heritage and the heritage of glory.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Do not indefinitely seek what is above in heaven, but think of this, that there Christ is in glory with the Father, resting in the assurance of victory, taking part in the rule of the world. As the leaves that cool thee with their shade, shining in the sunlight and gaily rustling and dancing on the stem, were only born in the spring, begotten the summer before, in the sleeping eye as in a cradle, so in the heat of life is hiddenly prepared thy life to be manifested above: so God creates thy life in the quiet depth of the heart through and with Christ.—Wouldst thou be one day in heaven, then must heaven be in thee here: first the kingdom of God is in thee, then thou in it.
Starke:—Ascendamus interim corde, ut olim sequamur et corpore (Augustine).—Think not, that by earnest meditation on the kingdom of God, all duties of house and office must be laid aside. We can find a place for that, even when the body is outwardly busy. Indeed through spiritual care of the soul, external business is properly regulated, sanctified and blessed.
Gerlach:—As Christ has concealed Himself from the bodily eye, and now lives a higher, heavenly, divine life; so does the Christian united to Him through faith. But the life of Christ will not always be thus concealed.
Schleiermacher:—The old man and the new man: this is the great contrast in which Paul’s entire proclamation of the gospel moved. The old man is both the man of sin and the man of the law; the new man is both the new creature in whom Christ lives, and he, who serves the righteousness, which comes through faith and avails before God.—The walk is manifest, the life is hid, we can conclude respecting the latter, only from what is manifested in the former.
Passavant:—The world knows not, sees not, what a new being has arisen in the believer through the risen Christ. He feels the life of Jesus in his heart.—Highest stand the prophets, apostles, martyrs, who “overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and loved not their lives unto the death” (Rev_12:11). But all the rest, who have fought unto death, in patience and long-suffering, in holy fidelity, who are made kings and priests, will be called conquerors by their Head.
Heubner:—The higher, heavenly sense of the Christian proceeds from Christ, the Risen One,—this is its origin, its power—thither it goes also to His heavenly glory as its goal. He who has found the higher, forgets the lower.—Palmer:—The life in God: 1) a life of profound concealment, yet to be made manifest; 2) a life in blessed rest, yet with daily unrest and labor; 3) a life in heaven, yet with an appropriate blessing for earth.
Gesetz und Zeugniss [a German theological periodical.—R.] : Live with Christ in God! 1) We have to make this way clear to ourselves; 2) to acquaint ourselves with the nature and quality of this life; 3) to inquire respecting the end, to which it develops itself.—The sign of spiritual resurrection; 1) heavenly mind; 2) divine life; 3) blessed hope.—The exhortation of the Apostle: Seek the things which are above! 1) How the Apostle explains it; 2) what grounds he adduces for it.—Our past and present and future [Unser Sonst und Jetzt und Einst.] 1) our past; a seeking and minding what is on the earth; a life without Christ and without God, manifest in sin and shame. 2) Our present; a seeking and minding what is above, where Christ is; a life hid with Christ in God. 3) Our future; a possessing and enjoying all that after which we here strive in faith; a life with God manifested with Christ in glory.
[Andrewes: Col_3:1-2. Christ is risen, and if Christ then we. If we so be, then we “seek;” and that we cannot unless we “set our minds.” On what? On “things above,” not on earth, but where “Christ is.” And why there? Because where He is, there are the things we seek for, and here cannot find. There He “is sitting” and so at rest. And at “the right hand” so in glory. “God’s right hand” and so forever. These we seek, rest in eternal glory. These Christ hath found and so shall we, if we begin to “set our minds” to search after them.—Luther:
Ver, 2. We live not in the flesh, but we dwell in the flesh. Bp. Dan. Wilson :—Things on earth too naturally draw us down, attract us, fix us. Esau’s red pottage prevails over the birthright. The guests in the parable turn away to their land, or oxen, or families. The Gadarene mind wishes Christ to depart from its coasts.—R.]
[Eadie :—The pilgrim is not to despise the comforts which ho may meet with by the way, but he is not to tarry among them, or leave them with regret.—Wordsworth:—Be ye good trees. Now, in the world’s eye, is your winter; to men ye appear like dry sticks. Your life is hid with Christ. Ye are dead in appearance, but not dead in reality; dead as to show of luxuriant leaves, but not dead in your spiritual root. Your root is Christ. His coming will be your summer. Then ye will put forth a glorious foliage. Ye will appear with Him in glory. And the leafy fig-tree of this world will be withered by His coming.—R.]
[Beveridge: Sermon on Col_3:2. 1) Why “not on things on the earth?” a) they are below you and unsuitable to you both as men and Christians; b) they can never satisfy your desires; c) are troublesome and disquieting; d) unimportant and unnecessary (can neither make you happy themselves, nor conduce thereto); e) fleeting and unconstant, 2) Why “on things above?” a) nothing was made or designed as a proper object for our affections but these; b) our relations “above;” c) our possessions. 3) What affections? a) our thoughts and meditations; b) our affection of love; c) our desires; d) our joy. Thus become holy and happy.—R.]
Footnotes:
[1]Col_3:1.—[So Ellicott, Alford. The former renders the whole verse: “If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting on the right hand of God,” which rendering is justified in the notes below. His note on the distinction between “which” and “that” is interesting.—R.]
[2]Col_3:3.—[Ἀπεθάνετε; aorist, referring to definite past time, hence: “died”—as in Col_3:1 : “were raised.”—R.]
[3]Col_3:4.—א. C. D.1 E.1 F. G. and others read ὑμῶν; while B. and many others have ὴμῶν. A. has a lacuna here. The authorities are equal, the internal grounds also; the former is more striking, fitting, the latter the stranger, more difficult reading; not like the other dependent on Col_3:3. Certainly it cannot be referred merely to Paul and Timothy (Schenkel), but to Christians in general. [Braune, following Meyer, seems to prefer ὑμῶν; but with Rec., Lachmann, Tischendorf, and modern English editors, ἡμῶν (“our,” E. V.) is to be preferred.—R.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–3 Translate, "Set your mind on the things above, not…
Translate, "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things," &c. (Col 2:20). Contrast "who mind earthly things" (Phi 3:19). Whatever we make an idol of, will either be a cross to us if we be believers, or a curse to us if unbelievers.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–3 III. ETHICAL COUNSELS, Col_3:1 to Col_4:6.
III. ETHICAL COUNSELS, Col_3:1 to Col_4:6.
1. The pursuit of heavenly things based on union with the risen Christ, Col_3:1-4.
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1. If ye then be risen—Better, if ye then be raised together. The reference is definitely to the period of their baptism, (Col_2:12,) and to the spiritual resurrection symbolized by it, and ideally coincident with it. As in Col_2:20, a rule of conduct is deduced from the fact of their having died with Christ, so here also another is founded on their resurrection with him. They then began a life of holiness. Thenceforth they were servants of the ascended Christ, and citizens of the heavenly kingdom. They were consecrated to the pursuit of things above, holy and heavenly.
Seek—Strive earnestly to gain all that heaven has for the redeemed, its mansion, its purity, its joy, its glory.
Christ sitteth—Two things are asserted: Christ is in heaven, and he is seated on the right hand of God. See on Eph_1:20.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Ch. Col_3:1-4.The subject continued; life in union with the…
Ch. Col_3:1-4.The subject continued; life in union with the Risen One
1. If] The “if” not of conjecture but of assumption, as in Col_2:20. He takes them all for granted, as really united to Christ by a living faith, sealed by holy Baptism.
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then] The thought goes back to all the previous statements of the Christian’s glorious position and privilege in Christ. In view of these Divine facts, the poor expedients of a mechanical religious routine are seen to be as needless as they are futile. The secret of moral victory is opened, and it consists in using the powers conveyed to the believer through federal and vital oneness with his Head.
ye … be risen] Lit. and far better, ye did rise, or were raised. The time-reference is, ideally, to the hour of Christ’s Resurrection; biographically, to their own union with Him by faith. Of that faith their baptism, with its immersion and emersion, was symbol, seal, and monument. See above on Col_2:12.
In Christ the Crucified they had “died to” the guilt, and so to the despotic claim, of sin. In Christ the Risen they had “risen to” a life of full acceptance, and also to life-power, and life-endowments, derived from His “indissoluble life” (Heb_7:16); in fact, to the possession of the indwelling Spirit which He, as Risen, “shed forth” (Act_2:33), and which gives to the limb the strength and holiness of the Head, to be used and realized. See above on Col_2:12.
with Christ] The holy Union appears in every word.
seek those things which are above] As the exile seeks home (Heb_11:14), or as a thing gravitating seeks its centre. The precept bears full on the problem last in view, how to meet “the indulgence of the flesh.” It is best met by the looking-away of the soul, heavenward, Christ ward, in the recollection of its new and eternal life in Him. The “things above” are thus “sought” both as the goal of hope and the antidote to temptation.—For the phrase the “things above” (here and Col_3:2), cp. Joh_8:23 : “I am from the things above.”
where] The “things above” are just so far localized as they have to do with the glorified Body of the incarnate and ascended Lord.
Christ sitteth] Better, Christ is, seated. (So R.V.) Vulgate, Christus est … sedens.—First, His presence “there,” in general, is in view; then, His session.
“Seated”:—cp. Mat_26:64; Mar_16:19; Luk_22:69; Eph_1:20; Heb_1:3; Heb_8:1; Heb_10:12; Heb_12:2; Rev_3:21. See Psa_110:1, with the quotations Mat_22:44 (and parallels); Zec_6:13; Act_2:34; Heb_1:13 (cp. 1Co_15:24-27).—The imagery denotes the repose and empire of the ascended Christ, who has for ever done the work of sacrificial offering, and now “sits” to dispense the blessings He has wrought. Two exceptions only appear; Act_7:56, where He “stands” to aid and welcome the martyr; Rev_5:6, where the mystic Lamb, new ascended, “stands” close by the throne, not on it, but about to approach and (Rev_22:3) claim it.
on the right hand] I.e., on the throne, at the Father’s “right hand.”—The words not only state a fact, but have here a special significance. To “seek the things above” is to go out in spirit towards a Christ triumphant and reigning, and therefore all-competent to save and bless.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 (1) If ye then be risen (rather, ye rose)…
(1) If ye then be risen (rather, ye rose) with Christ.—In these words is marked the beginning of the spiritual life, referred evidently to baptism. (See Col_2:12.) It is a “resurrection with Christ” and in Christ; as such it is dwelt upon in detail in Rom_6:1-14. We may note that this phrase, implying a sudden passing from death unto life, accords more exactly with the idea of adult baptism, accepted in conscious faith, and leading at once to a new life; while the later phrase, “regeneration” (Tit_3:5), which speaks of the soul as passing, indeed, at once into a new condition, but as having only the undeveloped germ of the new life, corresponds more closely with the idea of the infant baptism, which gradually superseded the other. Here this spiritual resurrection is taken for granted, and the Apostle goes on at once to the next stage of the spiritual life.
Christ.—The name, four times repeated, has in all cases the article prefixed to it. Evidently it used emphatically to refer to our Lord, as our Mediator—our Prophet, Priest, and King.
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Seek those things which are above . . . set your affection on things above.—Here we have the spiritual life in its continuance. It is described, (1) first, as “seeking the things above”—that is, looking, and so growing, to perfection. This characteristic is dwelt upon with great fulness and beauty in Php_3:12-16. (2) Next, in a still higher strain, as “setting our affection on the things above,” or, more properly, catching the spirit of the things above, being “heavenly-minded” already—anticipating heaven, not only in hope, but in tone and temper, seeing things as God sees them, and seeing all in relation to Him. On this we may again compare the great passage in Php_3:20-21, on our “citizenship of heaven.” Of such heavenly-mindedness we have, perhaps, the most perfect specimen in the calm and loving certainty of St. John’s Epistles. (3) These two graces must be united In the one is the secret of growth, in the other the present earnest of perfection. Moreover, the higher grace must follow from the former; “for, where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.”
Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.—The allusion is emphatic. Heaven is to us, in itself, a vague expression of unknown bliss. It is made definite to the Christian by the thought of Christ. in His glorified humanity, there enthroned in majesty, “preparing a place for us,” and drawing us to be with Him. (Note a similar emphatic reference in Php_3:21; and comp. Eph_2:6, “He raised us up, and made us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”)
This glorious idea of Christ in heaven, and heaven in Christ, runs through the whole book of the Revelation of St. John, from the opening Epistles to the last vision of glory.
III.
(1-4) As the partaking of the death of Christ taught the negative lesson of death to the Law, so the partaking of His resurrection teaches the positive lesson of the spiritual life. We observe that this celebrated passage occupies a place at the close of the doctrinal portion of the Epistle, exactly corresponding to the even greater passage on the unity of the Church in God in the Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph_4:1-16). It is unlike that passage, because, summing up the main teaching of this Epistle, it dwells simply on the close personal relation of all souls to God in Jesus Christ, who is at once “the image of God,” and the one Mediator between God and man. It is like it (and like other passages of the Epistles of the Captivity) because it passes on from Christ risen to Christ in heaven: it takes for granted our being risen with Christ, and bids us in heart to ascend to heaven now, and look forward to the bliss of heaven in the hereafter.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Vers. 1-17. SECTION VII THE TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE. The…
Vers. 1-17. SECTION VII THE TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE. The apostle, having delivered his attack on the system of error inculcated at Colossae, now passes from the controversial to the more practical purport of his letter. There is no break, however, in the current of his thought; for throughout this chapter he urges the pursuit of a practical Christian life in a sense and in a manner silently opposed to the tendencies of Gnosticizing error. How much more congenial was the task to which he now addresses himself we may judge, perhaps, from the ease and simplicity which mark the language of this chapter, as compared with the abrupt and seemingly embarrassed style of the last section. We may analyze the hortatory section of the Epistle (Col_3:1-25; Col_4:1-6) as follows:
(a) Col_3:1-4, urging the Colossians to maintain a lofty spiritual life;
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(b) vers. 5-8, to put off their old vices, impurity, malice, falsehood;
(c) vers. 9-14, to put on the new Christian virtues, especially gentleness, forgivingness, love;
(d) vers. 15-17, to let the sovereign influence of Christ sway their whole life inward, social, secular;
(e) ver. 18 Col_4:1, enjoining the Christian discharge of their relative duties, as wives and husbands, children and fathers, servants and masters, under the sense of their allegiance to the Lord Christ;
(f) Col_4:2-4, exhorting to constant prayer, and especially for the apostle himself at the present juncture; and
(g) vers. 5, 6, to wise conduct and edifying speech toward them that are without. It will be seen how much more comprehensive and systematic is the view thus presented of Christian duty than that furnished by earlier Epistles; and how the ideas of the supremacy of Christ, the unity of the Christian brotherhood, and the sacredness of the natural constitution of human life, which were threatened by the rise of Gnosticism in Colossae, underlie the apostle"s exposition of Christian ethics. Paragraphs (a) to (d) in the above analysis we have grouped together under the title given to this section; (e) demands a separate treatment; and (f) and (g) will finally be bracketed together.
Vers. 1, 2. If, therefore, ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at God"s right hand; mind the things above, not the things upon the earth (Col_2:11-13, Col_2:20; Rom_6:1-11; Eph_1:20-22; Php_3:20; Mat_6:19, Mat_6:20; Luk_12:13-40) The apostle has already shown that when his readers, entering the gate of baptism, became Christians through faith in Christ, they died with him, (Col_2:20) were buried, then raised and made alive together with him: (Col_2:11-13) comp. Rom_6:1-11. So they were restored to peace and favour with God, (Col_1:21-23 Col_2:13, Col_2:14) severed from their old life of sin, (Col_2:11) and set in the path of holiness. (Col_1:22) At the same time, they left behind all childish, tentative forms and notions ("rudiments") of religion, whether Jewish or non-Jewish. (Col_2:8, Col_2:11, Col_2:18, Col_2:20-23) They became dead both from sin and from human modes of salvation. Both are included in "the things upon the earth," to which belong at once the grosser sensual forms of sin (ver. 5) with its "surfeiting of the flesh", (Col_2:23) and that vaunted philosophy, which is after all earth born and earthward tending, (Col_2:8, Col_2:20) bringing the soul again into bondage to material things. The apostle lifts his readers into a new, heavenly sphere. He bids them make "the things above," i.e. "the things of Christ," the one object of their thought and endeavour. So they will master the flesh by rising above it, instead of fighting it on its own ground by ceremonial rite and ascetic regimen. "The things above" are no abstract, transcendental conception, as in the theology of St. Paul"s opponents, for they are "where Christ is." The things "in the heavens" as well as those "upon the earth" were created "in him, through him, unto him"; (Col_1:16) there he is Lord, even as here (Col_1:17 Col_2:10; Mat_28:18) His presence gives distinctness and positiveness to the Christian"s view of heaven, and concentrates his interests and affections there. (comp. Php_1:23 3:20; 1Th_1:10; Eph_1:3; Mat_6:19, Mat_6:20; Joh_12:26 Joh_14:3; Act_1:11 Act_7:56) "Seated" is placed with emphasis at the end of its clause, indicating the completeness of the Saviour"s work and the dignity of his position (comp. Eph_1:20-22; Heb_1:3 Heb_10:12, Heb_10:13; Rev_3:21; and see Pearson on the Creed, art. 6.) (For "the things above," see vers. 3, 4; also Col_1:5 Col_2:18 compared with Php_3:11-14, 20, 21; Rom_2:7 Rom_8:17-23; 1Co_15:42-49; 2Co_4:16-18; 2Co_5:1-8; Joh_17:24) To "seek" these things is to strive that they may be ours in the future; to "mind" them is to occupy our thoughts with them in the present. (For the word "mind" (fronew), comp. Php_3:19 andnhma, Rom_8:5-7) (fro minding); in Rom_14:6 it is rendered by "regard.
Vers. 1-17. Sect. 7.
The true Christian life.
From above only can we be raised. There is no salvation in mere antipathy. Disgust at the vanities of life, repulsion from earthly things, will of itself never lift us beyond them; it needs the superior influence of heavenly things to do that. This the Colossian errorists did not rightly understand; or they could not have made ceremonial purifications and bodily austerities the way of holiness, the means of reaching spiritual perfection. "Touch not, taste not", (Col_2:20, Col_2:21) these were their chief commandments. The physical life was their great aversion, and to reduce and harass it was the leading object of their moral endeavours. In the last two sections of his letter (Col_2:8-23) the apostle has denounced their system as false and mischievous, to be rejected by Christian believers, since it is not according to Christ, but is, in spite of its high pretensions, essentially base and earthly. He now proceeds, by way of command and appeal, to delineate the true Christian character, the working of Christian principles of life, as contrasted with the mystico-ceremonial and ascetic ideal of the Gnosticizing teachers. The Christian he describes is one whose "life is Christ a life derived from, and animated and governed by, "the Lord from heaven," and not by "the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world things upon the earth". (comp. Joh_6:31-33, Joh_6:41, Joh_6:42, Joh_6:47-59)
I THE HIDDEN LIFE. (Vers. 1-4.)
1. The vital spring of a practical Christian life is personal union with Christ. "Ye were raised with Christ; your life is hid with Christ; ye shall be manifested with him; Christ is your life (vers. 1-4).
(1) Not only must the principle of a perfect and all-sufficing life for men be heavenly; it must be personal. "We live by admiration, hope, and love." All really commanding and sovereign influences acting on human nature contain a personal element. We cannot sustain ourselves on abstract laws, or great universal ideas, or "streams of tendency;" on a "something not ourselves that makes for" this or that; on formulas or generalizations of any kind, however grand and comprehensive, however true and useful in their place. In spite of all plausible argument and elegant raillery, and underneath the changing modes and fashions of polite or scientific thought, it yet remains a constitutional and fixed necessity of the human soul to find in that which is higher than itself Some One to reverence and to obey. Against this necessity, Alexandrine theosophy and modern scepticism equally contend in vain. Men want a living God, One who knows, who loves and hates, who wills and acts a just God and a Saviour; and they will not have these terms explained away. We are not to be frightened or discomposed by being told that our God is "a magnified, non-natural Man," and that our notions are grossly "anthropomorphic." We cannot believe that the Power which is infinitely greater than ourselves is less than a Person. "That which may be known of God is" so far "manifest in ourselves, (Rom_1:19) that what we find there of highest and most distinctive in thought, in will, in affection, in moral self consciousness must needs be an index, the surest and directest that reason furnishes (for it is given by the very being of reason itself), to the nature of that Power which made and governs us. To this first principle we are compelled to hold, notwithstanding the metaphysical difficulties old as human thought, which surround those indications difficulties which meet every interpretation of them alike. The Incarnation has confirmed, while it has corrected, this universal assumption. In the mind of Christ, in the love of Christ, in the holy will that says, "Father, I will nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Joh_17:24; Mar_14:36) we behold in its purest and most satisfying form that which may be known of God, and the relations in which as men we stand thereto. How much God is beyond and behind all that, we cannot guess; but he is all that, he is nothing less than, nothing different from, that which we see "in the face of Jesus Christ" (Col_1:15; 2Co_4:4; Joh_1:18)
(2) The man whose "life is hid with Christ" is "joined in one spirit" (1Co_6:17) in a sympathy of love and fellowship of thought and aim the most complete of which the human soul is capable with a living Person in heaven. He is "joined to the Lord," who has "all authority in heaven and in earth" (Col_1:13, Col_1:15, Col_1:18; Rom_14:9; Joh_17:2; Mat_28:18; Rev_1:5) with the wisdom that touches on the one side the resources of omniscience and on the other the everyday experience of human infirmity and suffering. (1Co_1:24; Joh_2:25 Joh_16:30; Mat_11:27; Heb_2:17, 18 4:15; Rev_2:23) and the claims on our devotion of One who "loved us and gave himself for us" (Col_1:14, Col_1:20-22; Eph_2:13, Eph_2:14; Gal_2:20; 2Co_8:9; Joh_10:15 Joh_15:13; Rev_1:5 Rev_5:12) In him we recognize personal being, personal worth, and personal rights in relation to ourselves, the highest conceivable both in kind and degree. To have a life hid with Christ is to dwell in an inward communion of heart with One whom we can perfectly trust, perfectly love, and absolutely obey.
(3) This is life indeed (Joh_6:53; 1Jn_5:12) This fellowship supplies, as nothing else can do in the nature of things, the means of moral culture, the influences by which men may be "redeemed from all iniquity" (Tit_2:14; Gal_1:4; Joh_15:3) by which a Divine character is formed in the soul (Gal_4:19) and it is trained for the life of heaven (Col_1:27; Php_1:6) The Christian life is nothing less than a Divine friendship (Joh_15:12-15; Exo_33:11; Gen_5:24 Gen_18:17) To gain this life one may gladly consent to die to all that is alien from the life of Christ (ver. 3; Col_2:11, Col_2:20; Php_3:7-12; Rom_6:2, 11 7:4-6)
2. A true union with Christ lifts our aims above this world. "Ye were raised with Christ, seek, mind, the things above, where Christ is, for (from the things on the earth) ye died" (vers. 1-3). Christ has gone to heaven, and he is our Life. Thither he has carried with him our desires and hopes (Php_1:23; 2Co_5:6-8) To be where he is, is the deepest longing of the Christian heart; and its attainment is the supreme reward of faithful service (Joh_12:26 Joh_14:1-6; Rev_3:21 Rev_14:4) Heaven is the Christian"s home, because he is there. And he has gone thither, not simply as to "the place where he was before", (Joh_6:62) and to which he properly belongs, (Joh_3:13) but as our "Forerunner", (Heb_6:20) the "Firstborn among many brethren" (Col_1:18; Rom_8:29) Heaven is the goal which he has marked out for his followers, the "Father"s house," the native city of all the members of his body, the Church (Eph_1:18-23; Joh_14:2; Heb_11:10, Heb_11:13-16) "The prize of our high calling" (thv anw klhsewv, "that calls us above") is bestowed at "the resurrection of the dead". (Php_3:9-21)
(1) As workmen, as tradesmen, as citizens, our aims terminate with the things upon the earth; as Christians, we seek the things that are above. The present in our view is the seed time, the training school for the immortal future; and its value lies in what it leads to rather than in what it is. Our present spiritual life, the knowledge of Christ and communion with him we now enjoy, is but "the earnest of our inheritance," "the firstfruits of the Spirit" (Eph_1:14; Rom_8:23; Php_3:12-14) "By" this "hope we are saved"; (Rom_8:17-25) for this, most of all, do we give thanks Col_1:3-5, Col_1:23; Php_1:6; 1Co_1:7, 1Co_1:8; 1Pe_1:3-7 comp. homiletics, sect. 1, II 1 (3).
(2) Yet this minding of the things above involves no disparagement of the interests and claims of secular life. For this present is the pathway to that future. How seriously important, how carefully to be studied and appraised, how diligently to be improved, are the "few things" of our earthly stewardship, if by a right management of them we may become "lords" of the "many things" of the everlasting habitations! (Mat_25:14 Mat_25:30; Luk_16:9-12; 1Co_7:31) But we must keep our thoughts and aims above the world, taking care not to be overcharged with "cares and pleasures of this life", (Luk_8:14 Luk_21:34) "declaring plainly that we seek a country", (Heb_11:14) turning earth at every step into "a scale to heaven," making Christ all in all in family and social life, in business and in politics.
3. The Christian life is, therefore, in its essence a mystery. "Your life is hid (ver. 3).
(1) "The world knoweth us not". (1Jn_3:1) As to the life of the children of this world, and of the Christian man so far as he is a man of the world, everything is plain. The principles and motives of the man of business, the politician, or the scientist are easily stated and generally intelligible. And the influences which govern the depraved, ungodly man are all too plain; "the works of the flesh are manifest". (Gal_5:19) But the man whose "citizenship is in heaven," who "walks by faith, not by sight," who is "looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God," whose life it is to love and serve a Master who was crucified eighteen hundred years ago, and whom he expects to see only after he himself is dead, such a person is an enigma to natural men born only of this world; he is "judged of no man". (1Co_2:14, 1Co_2:15) Political economy, experimental psychology with its "analysis of the human mind," fail to account for him; and the philosopher haply will pass him by as a pretence or an abnormity. He is like a planet deflected from its course by some unknown body out of telescopic reach, whose magnitude and position it is impossible scientifically to determine.
(2) Our life is hidden, because he who is our Life is hidden. "Ye see me no more," said Jesus; and again, "The world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also". (Joh_16:10 Joh_14:19) "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not". (1Jn_3:1) Our life is wrapped up in One "whom we have not seen", (1Pe_1:8, 1Pe_1:9) with whom we can have no kind of sensible communication; in a Christ who indeed was "manifested in the flesh," but was scornfully disbelieved and put to death, "justified" only "in the Spirit," seen only "of angels". (1Ti_3:16) A mystery to the world, the Christian life is a mystery also to its possessor as respects the methods by which it is bestowed and sustained on God"s part. "The things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God," and though we receive this Spirit, "we know" but "in part" his operations. (1Co_2:11 1Co_13:12) "Thou hearest the voice thereof that is all. (Joh_3:8) There is a supernatural something that defies analysis and measurement in the experience of every Christian a Divine life as distinct from the natural soul life, as that is from mere animal vitality; and this is just the sovereign creative factor of his religion, the principle of his new birth and new manhood: his life is "hid in God." But while this life itself is hidden, its fruits are not. (ver. 5; Eph_5:8-14; Php_2:15, 16; Tit_2:11, Tit_2:12; Mat_5:14-16; Joh_13:35; 1Pe_2:9, 1Pe_2:12, 15 3:1, 2, 15, 16)
4. But the mystery of the Christian life is to have its revelation. "When Christ shall be manifested, then shall ye also be manifested with him, in glory" (ver. 4). This riddle of life must be solved: (1Co_13:12, R.V margin) "the things shaken" must be removed, "that the thingsunshaken may remain"; (Heb_12:27) appearance must give place to reality; "mortality" must be "swallowed up of life;" God has "wrought us for this very thing". (2Co_5:4, 2Co_5:5) Faith is the virtue of education, and must have its reward in sight; if there is nothing to be seen, then those are not "blessed, but only mistaken, "who have not seen and yet have believed". (Joh_20:29) Hope must be crowned with fruition, or it will "put us to shame". (Rom_5:5) And love, content now to "see him not", (1Pe_1:8) is only so content on the assurance that "we shall see him even as he is" (1Jn_3:3; Act_1:11; Joh_14:3)
(1) Christ shall be manifested. He has pledged himself, both to his friends and to his foes, to return (Joh_14:3; Mat_26:63, Mat_26:64) That pledge he gave in the most public and solemn manner possible, in assertion of his Divine sonship and Messiahship. His second coming is the goal of New Testament prophecy, and of the Church"s hope and longing through the ages (Mat_25:19, Mat_25:31; Act_3:21 Act_17:31; 1Th_4:14-18; Php_3:20; Tit_2:13; 1Pe_1:7; 1Jn_2:28; Rev_1:7 Rev_22:20, etc.) It is the consummation of human history, the denouement of the great time drama, "the one far off Divine event, to which the whole creation moves." But he waits till "the gospel of the kingdom is preached to all the nations," "till his enemies be made his footstool," till "the harvest of the earth is ripe," till the hour has struck appointed in the Father"s eternal counsels (Mar_13:10, 32; Heb_10:12, Heb_10:13; Rev_14:15, Rev_14:18) Then he will appear in that glory (Mat_25:31 Mat_26:64; Tit_2:13) something of which the three saw "in the holy mount", (2Pe_1:16-18) which dying Stephen beheld as he fell asleep, and Saul of Tarsus as he journeyed to Damascus, and John in Patmos (Act_7:56 Act_9:3-6; Rev_1:13-18) of which in entering upon his earthly estate he had "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant". (Php_2:6, 7) "We shall see him even as he isthe Lord of glory (1Jn_3:3; Jam_2:1)
(2) Christ"s glory his saints will share. They, too, will be manifested. There will be an "unveiling of the sons of God". (Rom_8:18-25) "In this tabernacle we do groan, being burdened". (2Co_5:4) Our life is "cribbed, cabined, and confined." The body, virtually "dead because of sin," oppresses and conceals, while it contains, the immortal "spirit, which is life because of righteousness". (Rom_8:10, Rom_8:11) "Now we see through a glass, darkly". (1Co_13:12) We move about as if under a heavy, muffling cloak. "We are spirits in prison, able only to make signals to each other." But we shall then enjoy "the liberty of the glory of the children of God". (Rom_8:21) This "natural body" will become a "spiritual body," in which the spirit will be perfectly expressed and for ever at home.
(3) Then Christ"s glory will be manifest in us. He will be "glorified in his saints," and they glorified in him (2Th_1:10; Psa_90:16, Psa_90:17) Like some sculptor"s work, prepared in concealment and with long labour, carved out of the rough, unshapely block by many a painful stroke of hammer and of chisel, till the artist"s glorious ideal is wrought out, and on some public day the finished masterpiece is at last unveiled; so the man, perfect in Christ, will be "presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy" (Col_1:22, Col_1:28; Jud_1:24)
II THE DEATH OF THE OLD SELF. (Vers. 5-9.) Impurity, greed, malice, falsehood, these are the leading features of the former life of sin which the apostle represents his readers as having followed before they became Christians. He does not, of course, charge all of them equally and alike with these offences. But then, as now, these four types of vice were prevalent amongst the great mass of ungodly men. (ver. 7; 1Co_6:9-11) Such statements, when applied to men living under the influences of Christian society, must be applied with discrimination, and in the light of our Lord"s teaching addressed to the moral Jews in Mat_5:17-48, etc. These vices are native to the soil of the human. (Mar_7:20-23) By habitual practice they take possession of the man, so that his "members" are made "slaves to uncleanness and iniquity" (Rom_6:19; Joh_8:34) and his body becomes a "body of sin" and "of death" (Rom_6:6 Rom_7:23-25; Col_2:11) They become virtually his "members that are upon the earth" (ver. 5). Under the sway of sensual appetite and worldly desire, ungoverned by any influence from "the things above," his person becomes more and more completely an incarnation of sin. (Rom_7:5, Rom_7:20, Rom_7:23) These "members," then, individually and collectively, must be "put to death;" this "body of the flesh," as a "body of sin," must be "stripped off" and "done away" (Col_2:11; Rom_6:6) Christ cannot dwell in the soul while "sin reigns in the mortal body". (Rom_6:12) He has no "concord with Belial," or with Mammon (2Co_6:15; Mat_6:24) "The old man" must be "so buried, that the new man may be raised up" in us. (comp. Eph_4:17-24)
1. Unchastity was the most conspicuous sin of the Gentile world in which St. Paul moved. There it prevailed in the grossest and most shameless forms; and its prevalence is a fearful warning, as he points out, (Rom_1:18-27) of the outcome of a godless civilization. The society of the populous Greek cities of that day was one in which "fornication, uncleanness, lustful passion, evil desire" (ver. 5), had free course, and its moral condition was only less abandoned than the "reeking rottenness" of Sodom and Gomorrha. Adultery, indeed, was condemned as a civil crime by pagan moralists; but fornication they held, as a rule, to be an innocent and almost a necessary thing. It was in writing to Corinth, perhaps the most licentious city in that licentious age, that the apostle launched his sternest and most vehement interdict against this crime, which is a moral leprosy and pestilence. There he marks it out as peculiar from all other sins in being a sin against a man"s own body, and an especial insult and outrage to the Holy Spirit who claims the human body for his temple (1Co_6:13-20: comp. 1Th_4:2-8) There are too many evidences in the state of modern society, both in high quarters and in low, that as Christian sentiment grows weak and religious faith dies down, in the same proportion the perversion of the sexual passions follows, with its invariable result in the relaxation of moral fibre, the destruction of social confidence, and the physical decay of the corrupted race. Man begins by denying his Maker, and ends by degrading himself. There are times and places where plain speaking on this subject is needful, and no prudery or sentimental delicacy should prevent it. The tempted must be warned; the guilty rebuked; bodily self respect must be taught in good time. The pure will know how to do this, like the apostle himself and like his Master, "in all purity." When once inward chastity has been lost and uncleanness spots the sou, the stain is not easily effaced. Evils of this kind flourish in the dark and love to be ignored.
2. Covetousness is idolatry. (Ver. 5.) It is, obviously and directly, "worshipping and serving the creature". (Rom_1:25) While it appeases to be self love, it is really the sacrifice of self to the world, offered at the shrine of wealth, or fame, or pleasure. The man seeks to gain power over other men or things; but if this becomes his supreme desire, or if he seeks to attain it by evil means, then from that moment the object of his guilty pursuit gains power over him, and begins to entangle and enslave (Joh_8:34; Rom_7:23) His passion becomes his tyrant, his ambition an insanity, his pursuit of pleasure an infatuation. Even the thirst for knowledge, the noblest of natural desires, may grow into a selfish greed, jealous and grasping, eating out the best affections, and producing an accomplished scholar, a master of science, void of all goodness of heart and human worth. All creaturely things, regarded out of God, are but "passing shows" (eidwla, idols) of the absolute and enduring goodness that belongs to him. (Mat_19:17) The homage rendered to them whether by the savage to his fetish, by the civilized worldling to his wealth or rank, or by the scientist to his laws and forces of nature is idolatry, the worshipping of shams and shows, in so far as it is a departing from the living God (Heb_3:12; Exo_20:3; 1Co_8:4-6) And with life thus perverted at its fountainhead, it becomes a mere vanity and vexation of spirit.
3. Malice is universally denounced. Moralists of all schools and all ages agree in proscribing this vice, though in little else. The malicious man is instinctively dreaded; he is a peril to every one. Sins of malice and of falsehood strike directly at the existence of society, while the two former classes of offence threaten it more gradually and indirectly.
(1) Yet it can scarcely be denied that anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking, are, to a large extent, congenital to human nature. It is true that there is an instinctive benevolence, a fellow feeling for one"s kind, only exceptionally wanting; but at the same time there exists a proclivity, that is often terribly strong even in its earliest manifestations, in the opposite direction. "Cain was of that wicked one, and slew his brother; because his own works were evil, and his brother"s righteous". (1Jn_3:12) It is a weak and fatal delusion to rely on natural benevolence as an effective and commanding moral force, a stable foundation for a system of practical ethics. Nor is it possible in the nature of things that enlightened self interest or any combination of prudential or utilitarian considerations should ever teach men to love their neighbours as themselves, or should succeed in suppressing rage and jealousy and the murderous passions slumbering in the blood of the race. We must be "taught of God to love one another". (1Th_4:9; see 1Jn_2:7-11 1Jn_3:13-24 1Jn_4:7-21)
(2) The love of Christ will at last subdue the fratricidal passions of mankind, will "make wars to cease unto the ends of the earth;" and one day will bring men of the most distant climes and hostile interests to clasp each other"s hands and look into each other"s eyes and say, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another!" Here lies the only hope of the fraternization of mankind.
4. If impurity dishonours the body, falsehood dishonours the mind. This sin at once degrades the man, wrongs by deceiving his fellow, and insults his God, the ever present Witness and Guardian of truth (Act_5:4; Rom_9:1; 1Th_2:5; Psa_139:4; Jer_5:3) Here the apostle points out
(1) its inconsistency with the Christian character of the man (vers. 9, 10); and
(2) its contradiction to the Christian view of society (ver. 11). Similarly in Eph_4:25: "For we are members one of another." For a man to deceive his neighbour by word or deed, is as if the eyes should conspire to trick the ear or misguide the hand. The ancients condemned falsehood between men of the same community, but generally regarded it as a lawful weapon to use against enemies or strangers; although the Stoics, with their wider views of humanity, taught on this point, as on others, a higher morality. The "Greek" might deceive the "barbarian," the "bondman" might lie to his master, and have no sense of moral wrong. And so it has been too commonly in the dealing of servants or schoolboys with their masters, of civilized men with savages, of libertines in their conduct towards the other sex. Witness the immoral maxim, "All"s fair in love and war." One chief cause of deceit would be removed if men would understand that the instinct of honour which bids them be truthful to their equals and comrades, requires the same honesty in dealing with every man as man. The Christian acts on this principle; he will not in any sense "hold the faith of our Lord Jesus with respect of persons". (Jam_2:1)
(a) Many men who would resist the temptation to utter a lie in so many words, will silently act it; especially in a continued course of action, where the deception lies not in any single definite act, but in the general construction which they lead others to put on their proceedings. Such deception is no less culpable in itself, and as a rule still more disastrous in its effects, than a palpable lie.
(b) And again, men find it easy to lie collectively who would not do so singly. Though men of probity in their private affairs, they will put their hands to documents, they will consent with others to acts, which they know to be misleading, or, at least, which they do not know to be true. And now that business is becoming more and more a matter of "limited liability," the perils of divided responsibility in this direction should be well understood.
5. "Because of all these things God"s anger is coming on the sons ofdisobedience" (ver. 6). Every act or thought of any of these kinds is a disobedience, a breach of "the holy and just and good Law" under which man was first created in his Maker"s image (ver. 10). This "Law worketh out wrath," inexorably and perpetually, against "every soul of man that doeth evil". (Rom_2:9 Rom_4:15) And that anger of God is coming. (Isa_30:27, Isa_30:28) There is a day appointed for its "revelation" (Rom_2:5, Rom_2:16; Mal_4:1) even as for "the manifestation of the sons of God". (ver. 4; Rom_8:19) It is already "revealed from heaven", (Rom_1:18) and gives forewarning of its advent in many a personal and public calamity (Isa_26:9; Mal_3:5; Mat_24:3-42; 1Co_5:3-5 1Co_11:30-32) On every account, the Christian must have done with the old life of sin. He sees it to be incompatible with fellowship with Christ, to be hateful to God, to be ruinous to himself and to his fellow men. No return to it, no renewal of it, no dallying or temporizing with it in any kind or degree, can be tolerated. It must die if he is to live.
III THE UNITY OF MANKIND IN CHRIST. (Vers. 10, 11.) This truth belonged, at least in St. Paul"s time, to the more advanced Christian knowledge, "unto which" the believer was "being renewed" (ver. 10); and the Church still comes far short of its full apprehension.
1. The gospel of Christ reveals the spiritual unity of mankind. To make this known was a part of the apostle"s mission, and of the special "mystery God" entrusted to him (Col_1:25-28; Eph_3:1-6; Rom_3:9-30 Rom_15:5-12) Its manifestation, and the consequent "breaking down of the middle wall of partition", (Eph_2:14) were necessary to a complete Christian virtue, the proper virtue of man as man, carried out in all his relations to God and to his fellows; and for the regeneration of human society, the salvation of the world. There was a preparation for this belief in the breaking down of the old nations into the unity of the Roman empire, in the decay of local and ancestral religions, and in the advance of philosophy from the narrower and more political ethics of Plato and Aristotle to the moral system of the Stoics, which was at once more inward and more humane. But there was wanting that conception of a living, Divine centre of the human race, given in Christ, which alone could make the sentiment of universal humanity a creative, organic force.
2. This unity has been realized in the Christian Church. It appears in the beautiful simplicity of its childlike beginning, in the communism of the infant Church of Jerusalem. (Act_2:44 Act_2:47) It was set forth in a larger and fuller way by the Apostle Paul in addressing the mixed Churches of the great cities where he laboured; and was actually put into practice there in a good degree. Jew and Greek, (Gal_2:12) rich and poor 1Co_11:20-22; the exception proves the rule: comp., (Jam_2:1-4) master and slave, (Phm_1:16, 17) met at the same table of the Lord, mingled as equals in the same Christian society, distinguished only by the measure of "grace" and "spiritual gifts" bestowed on each. (1Co_12:7-11) And the records of the first three Christian centuries show how faithfully, on the whole, this principle was maintained, and how nobly the Church held herself superior to temporal distinctions of wealth and rank. Far indeed has she subsequently departed from this rule; and lost how much thereby in spiritual dignity and power! We admire it now as a proof of special humility if the titled or cultured man forgets amongst Christian brethren his worldly eminence; if the employer of labour is glad to sit at the feet of his workman, when that workman, as may often be the case, is his spiritual superior; if the wealthy contributor to a Church fund does not expect, on that account, to dictate in its management.
3. The Church is destined to gather mankind into a spiritual common, wealth. In it there is to be no "strife as to who shall be greatest;" but in humility and self forgetfulness "the greater shall be as the younger, and the chief as he that doth serve". (Luk_22:24-26) There "all are brethren, with one Master even Christ". (Mat_23:8-12) All authority and office are derived from him, and attested by his Spirit in his people (1Co_12:1-11; Act_1:24 Act_13:1 Act_13:4; Gal_1:1; Joh_20:21) The Church is his body, complete in him a unity in itself and in its action, because in every limb it draws its life and gets its direction from the Head. And as the Church becomes a greater and more pervasive power in the world, the spiritual brotherhood it creates will work appeasingly on the "wars and fightings," on the aristocratic exclusiveness and haughtiness, the democratic bitterness and jealousy, the invincible prejudices, the clashing interests, by which society is distracted and its bonds are strained almost to rending, and the nations are kept in arms and hurled repeatedly against each other in deadly conflict. When mankind recovers its unity in him in whom it was created and redeemed, when it is reconciled to God and bows its every knee "at the name of Jesus, then at last there will be "peace on earth." Where "Christ is all and in all" antipathy must cease.
IV THE NEW CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. (Vers. 12-17.) We have traced the principle of the Christian life in its inner ground and aim, as "hid with Christ" and seeking its home in heaven (vers. 1-4); in its uncompromising and mortal warfare with the old life of sin (vers. 5-9); in its purpose to form a new humanity in the individual soul, and in the world at large (vers. 10, 11). We are now to follow its practical working, to see how the "new man" is to show himself in a new habit and style of living, how the "hidden life" is to blossom out into its fragrance and beauty, and its "celestial fruit" to "grow on earthly ground." We note that the Christian character is one derived from God and that refers to God in everything. It is as "God"s elect, his holy and beloved ones" (ver. 12), that we are called to assume the new habits of Christian grace and goodness. Knowing what the Divine Father is, and what he has done for us, (Col_1:12-14) and what he intends us to be, (Eph_1:4-6) sensible of our filial relation to him (Rom_8:15-17; Gal_4:1-7; 1Jn_3:1, 1Jn_3:2) loyally embracing his will (Rom_6:22) and seeking to be conformed to his nature as that is translated for us into "the image of his (Rom_8:29; 2Pe_1:4; 1Jn_4:17) we shall be "holy in all manner of conversation." But God is known to us through Christ. And, therefore, in the formation of the Christian character "Christ is all and in all" (ver. 13; 1Co_11:1; Rom_15:3; Php_2:5; 1Pe_2:22; 1Jn_2:6; Joh_13:15) It is nothing else than Christ formed in us. (Gal_4:19) In the perfect Christian character, then:
1. Christ"s love rules. (Vers. 13, 14; 2Co_5:14; Joh_13:34) The tender heart of compassion, the gentle, sympathetic kindliness, the lowliness of mind, the uncomplaining meekness, the patient long-suffering, the forbearance and forgivingness (vers. 12, 13) of the Christian nature, these centre in the all-perfect and all-perfecting grace of Christ-like love (1Co 13; 1Jn_4:7-21; Rom_13:9, Rom_13:10) He in whose heart dwells the love of Christ cannot "shut up his compassion" from any within reach of help who need it; (1Jn_3:17) cannot be rude and ungracious, or hard and unforgiving (Eph_4:31, Eph_4:32; 2Co_2:5-11) cannot be self-asserting, clamorous, overbearing (2Co_10:1; Php_2:6, R.V margin; Mat_12:19) cannot be passionate and resentful, irritable and fault finding, obstinate in prejudice, intolerant of opposition. The love of Christ will assimilate his whole disposition and make it sweet, gracious, unselfish, loving, and lovable as that of an innocent child. (Mat_18:1-4) And the Christian man who in the spirit of this love can "possess his soul in patience" through all the strenuous endeavours and painful collisions and vexing wrongs of life, wears "the girdle of perfectness," and has attained the perfect Christian temper.
2. Christ"s peace guards. (Ver. 15.) The Christian"s faith and hope are assailed by a thousand enemies. Sometimes amid the common incidents of life, sometimes in "the heavenly places" of his richest experience and most exalted communion with spiritual things (Eph_6:12) sometimes brought about by open and palpable causes, sometimes by strange influences shadowing the inner life and coming we know not whence or how sometimes through the ruggedness and gloom of his providential rule, sometimes through mental perplexities and the chilling and confused intellectual atmosphere around him, in any or in all of these ways "the trial of his faith" comes comes, in one shape or other, to every man who has a faith worth trial. And then, whatever be the form which the assault takes or the quarter from which it is directed, he may find in "the peace of Christ" his strong tower of defence and harbour of refuge. His difficulties may not disappear under this influence; his doubts may not be at once dispelled; the conflict may still rage furiously around and within him; but he will be kept, the fortress of his heart will not be surrendered (1Pe_1:5; Php_4:7) So long as "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," and "his love is shed abroad in our hearts", (Rom_5:1-5) nothing can shake our essential faith or rob us of our immortal hope (Psa_27:4-6; Luk_12:32; Rev_1:17) Neither sophistry (Col_2:4) nor threatening (Col_2:18) will take from us "the prize of our high calling." "One thing," at any rate, "we know"; (Joh_9:25) and to it "we have the witness in ourselves", (1Jn_5:10) in "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," "to which we were called," in the "new heart and right spirit" he has "put within" us, in the moral victory attained over self and the world: (1Jn_5:4, 1Jn_5:5) "we know that we have passed from death unto life". (1Jn_3:14) And we safely infer that he "who has begun a good work in us" will carry it through; (Php_1:6) that he will keep that which we commit to him, and "none shall pluck us out of his hand" (2Ti_1:12; Joh_10:27-29; Rom_8:31-39) So, unitedly and thankfully, we "hold fast the beginning of our confidence, and the glorying of our hope, firm unto the end". (Heb_3:6, Heb_3:14)
3. Christ"s word inspires. (Ver. 16.) It is to "dwell in the heart richly to be the welcome visitant and constant inhabitant of the mind; to be listened to and diligently learned; to be cherished and pondered in inward meditation, not as an object of theoretic study only, but as the power which is to shape the character and guide the life of the Christian (Deu_6:6-9; Psa_119:105; Joh_17:17) as the soul"s daily nutriment the bread of God, "which strengtheneth man"s heart," "the word of eternal life" (Deu_8:3; Mat_4:4; Joh_6:63, Joh_6:68)
(1) This word gives all wisdom best of God"s gifts to man, which instructs the mind and prompts the tongue and guides the action of its possessor. (Col_2:2, 3 4:5, 6) So furnished, every Christian (Col_1:28) is able to minister something to his fellows of that which God has taught him by his own study of the Word and its practice in his experience of life (Mat_13:52; Rom_15:14; 1Co_14:31) Thus the members of the Church are able, "in the meekness of wisdom," to "teach and admonish one another," "being knit together in love, and led into all the riches of the full assurance of the understanding, into the knowledge of the mystery of God". (Col_2:2)
(2) And it stirs in the heart an ardour of holy feeling that finds expression in Christian song. "The word of Christ," cherished in thought, kindles the emotions and wakens all the music of the soul. The early Christians were a singing people, for they were a cheerful and thankful people. And subsequent revivals of religious life, as a rule, have been attended with fresh outbursts of sacred song. (Psa_40:3) The singing of a people its heartiness, and simplicity, and the care and pains taken in itscultivation, are a good test of their spiritual state. "Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs hymns old and new, narrative, didactic, lyrical; in every measure and every tone of expression songs of praise, of confession, of wailing sorrow, of ecstatic joy; for the congregation, the household, or the private chamber; all find a place in the diapason of the Church"s music.
4. Christ"s name hallows everything. (Ver. 17.) Our eating and drinking acts which seem the most ordinary and purely physical, and quite remote from the interests and sentiments of the spiritual life these are to be "sanctified by the word of God and prayer", (1Ti_4:5) by the mention of Christ"s name in thanksgiving to the Father, who through him sends us all life"s blessings. And if our mere animal necessities of life are capable of being thus hallowed, there is nothing in family relations, or secular employments, or social or civil duties, which may not receive and does not demand the same consecration. We may associate Christ with everything we do, doing all as his servants and under his eye, and in such a way that, by every part of our work, he may be glorified in us. And this will be a safeguard to the Christian man. If he is to do everything in Christ"s name, he must do nothing unworthy of that name, nothing with which he cannot associate it. Nowhere, in any company or on any business, must he forget, "either in word or deed," that this "worthy name" is the name which he bears, and whose honour is in his keeping. This is the seal that marks the true Church of Christ, which every Christian wears upon his heart: "Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness". (2Ti_2:19)
HOMILIES BY T. CROSKERY.
Ver. 1.
The obligations of the risen life.
We have here a transition to the practical part of this Epistle. "If ye then were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
I OUR RESURRECTION WITH CHRIST. We are not only "dead with Christ," but "risen with him;" "not only planted in the likeness of his death, but planted together in the likeness of his resurrection;" "that we may walk in newness of life". (Rom_6:2-4) This translation has altered our standpoint. We are "quickened together with Christ, and raised together with him". (Eph_2:5, Eph_2:6) We have now an entirely new sphere of intellectual conception and moral aspiration. "Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new". (2Co_5:17)
II THE PRACTICAL DUTY INVOLVED IN THIS RESURRECTION. "Seek those things which are above.
1. The things above" are all things pertaining to our true home new Jerusalem" and "the heavenly citizenship," in contrast to "the things upon the earth." They include
(1) the vision of Christ; (Joh_17:24)
(2) the enjoyment of God, which is promoted
(a) by our fuller knowledge of him, (Joh_17:3)
(b) by our growing love to him, (1Jn_4:16) and
(c) by the manifold expressions of his love to us; (Zep_3:17)
(3) the society of angels and saints.
1. The excellence of the things above. They are
1. satisfying, as things on earth are unsatisfying;
2. certain, as things on earth are uncertain;
3. perpetual and everlasting, as things on earth are transient and decaying;
4. suitable, as things on earth are unsuitable to an immortal spirit.
1. They are to be sought, implying
1. our knowledge of them;
2. our longing for them;
3. our anxious effort to realize them. (Mat_6:33)
III AN ARGUMENT TO INCITE AND ENCOURAGE US TO THIS DUTY. "Where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God." There are two facts here stated.
1. Christ our Head is in heaven. Therefore heaven must be the objective point of our thoughts as well as our hopes. We look up because he, who is our Hope, is there the vail." The thought of Christ"s presence gives definiteness to our ideas of heaven. "Where our treasure is, there will be our heart also.
2. Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. This implies:
(1) His intercessory work; for he has entered into "heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (Heb_9:24; 1Jn_2:1)
(2) His mediatorial dominion and power. (Php_2:10)
(3) Our sitting with him raised us up and made us to sit in heavenly places in Jesus Christ." These places are those he premised to prepare for his people. (Joh_14:2) "He that overcometh, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne". T.C. (Rev_3:21)
HOMILIES BY R. M. EDGAR Vers. 1, 2.
The heavenly life.
Paul has been warning his Colossian converts against the superstitious interest in ceremonies which the false teachers tried to foster; and now he passes to the higher things and thoughts which should occupy the soul. He speaks of their resurrection with Christ if they are real converts, and of the consequent duty of living a heavenly life, which consists in setting one"s heart upon heavenly things in contrast to the things which are upon the earth. He further shows that this heavenly life is to end in a glorious manifestation at the second advent of Christ. The line of thought here is consequently of the highest character.
I THE DEATH TO EARTHLY THINGS. (Ver. 3.) The apostle here affirms that the Colossian Christians "died" (Revised Version). Now, this represents a distinct element in Christian experience; it means that the soul passes through a death to earthly things to sin and the allurements of the flesh, just as our Lord died upon the tree. The Crucifixion must have its counterpart within us. We die to the attractions of the world. "The dead," says Augustus Hare, in a sermon on this passage, "know not nor care for anything in this world. Their love and hatred and envy are clean wiped out. A dead man is as cold and motionless as a stone, to all that the living make the greatest stir about. How perfectly, then, how entirely, ought we to be free from sin, in order to be dead to it! It is not enough to keep from outward acts of sin, if the heart cherishes any secret liking for it. This is not dying to it. Before we can attain to that perfect sinlessness, our hearts must be as completely closed against the tempter as if we were nailed down in our coffins; our ears must be deaf to his voice; our eyes must be blind to his charms. We must not only give up every evil practice; we must also stifle every evil desire. Nothing less can deserve the name of being dead to sin. This, then, is the perfection of innocency which we are to strive after." Now, every true Christian has experienced in larger or smaller measure this deadening to things earthly which has its perfect ideal in absolute death. The world has not the attractions for our deadened hearts that it once had.
II THE RESURRECTION TO NEWNESS OF LIFE. (Ver. 1.) Simultaneously with the death to things earthly comes the resurrection to newness of life. We are regarded as rising along with Christ out of our grave in trespasses and in sins (Eph_2:2-5) and entering into a new lifo unto God. Our Lord"s life after his resurrection is thus the type of our new life. As our Lord entered by resurrection into an immortal life such as he had not before he suffered, according to his words, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore;" so believers enter by resurrection into a new life essentially different from the old. We have passed by faith "from death unto life." "A resurrection," says Liddon, "is a transfer from one state to another. It is a passage from the darkness of the tomb to the sunshine of the upper air. It is an exchange of the coldness, stillness, corruption of death, for the warmth and movement and undecayed energies of life." We have in resurrection attained to "life eternal.
III THE ASCENSION INTO HEAVENLY RELATIONS. (Vers. 1, 2.) Not only does Paul regard believers as "raised together with Christ," but also as bound to ascend in spirit into heavenly relations. "The things which are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God," are to concern us. Our mind is to be set upon these things instead of upon the things that are upon the earth, Having so risen with Christ, we are bound to show the reality of our resurrection by leading a new life and seeking the things that are above. "As Christ did not break loose from the grave," says Hare, "to tarry on earth, but, having risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, so, instead of lingering among the things of earth, we too should ascend into heaven in heart and mind, and dwell there with him continually." Now, suppose we ascended into heaven and sat down with Christ upon his throne, (Eph_2:6) what should we realize about our relations to heavenly things?
1. We should realize that Christ is our Life. The heavenly world depends consciously upon Jesus for its glorious existence. He is the Life of each and of all. As the source of life, he is there beyond the reach of change, an exhaustless Fountain.
2. We should realize that Christ is the Object of supreme affection. The celestial world not only traces all its life to Jesus, but centres all its love in him. To love him with all the soul, heart, mind, and strength is deemed, not the duty merely, but the constant privilege of all. He is the Beloved One who is loved beyond all conception.
3. We should realize that Christ"s kingdom and reign are the supreme concern of the whole heavenly world. Angels and redeemed ones alike bend in rapturous interest over the progress of Christ"s kingdom and inquire doubtless in what ways they can promote it. The heavenly life is thus a life of hope for the triumph of that sacred cause which centres in the Son of God.
4. We should realize that Christ"s second advent in glory is to be the date of our glorification with him. The heavenly world not only awaits Christ"s triumph, but also his manifestation as the glorified Saviour. And in that manifestation of the Son the other sons of God are to share. So that the second advent of Christ into this world is a distinct matter of hope to the celestial inhabitants. Now, in all these ways we can in this life realize heavenly relations. We can regard Christ as our Life, hidden, doubtless, from the eye of sense, but palpable to faith, and rejoice in him as our Divine and exhaustless Source of life. We can set our heart"s supreme affections on him, loving him and all he loves for his own dear sake. We can make his kingdom and reign our supreme concern, every other thought being subsidiary and tributary to this. We can, lastly, hope for and love his appearing as the time for the manifestation of the sons of God. Thus shall we live the heavenly life on earth. Thus shall we show that we are more citizens of the other world than of this, and that we are contemplating the time of our emigration with satisfaction. We have acquainted ourselves with the nature of the country we are going to; we have studied the guide book and consulted the faithful and true Witness about heavenly things; the soil and climate of the better land are not altogether unknown. Its holy and fragrant air, its religious and happy spirit, its bountiful conditions, we have tried to realize, and when we are transferred to it we feel persuaded we shall be at home. R.M.E.
HOMILIES R. FINLAYSON Vers. 1-4.
Our risen life.
then ye were raised together with Christ." At this point the apostle leaves the polemical and begins the practical. Doctrine again forms the foundation for exhortation. As in combating asceticism he proceeded upon the fact that we were sharers with Christ in his death, so in presenting a substitute for asceticism, he proceeds upon the fact that we were sharers with him in his resurrection. Our being baptized with him extended, not only to our dying with him, but also to our rising with him.
I ITS HEAVENWARD DIRECTION.
1. In its connection with Christ. "Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God." It was when we were raised with Christ that we were introduced to the things that are above. There, henceforth, we found our proper sphere. Our being must now ever, and increasingly, tend thitherward. The things that are above we are to seek supremely. They are the only things which are worthy of being sought in the fullest sense. Of the heavenly sphere Christ is the blessed and glorious Centre. He is, in a word, the things that are above. He is here mentioned with a local reference. The time was when he was on earth and mingled with men. He was seen by the eleven disciples going up into heaven. He was seen by the dying Stephen standing on the right hand of God. And we are to think of him as still stationed ("seated," it is here, and according to the usual conception) on the right hand of God. To him, then, must our being now and ever tend. He has gone into heaven to draw our desires and affections after him and up toward him. We are to turn to him with our whole desire. We are to turn to him for all that we neon. Our spiritual life cannot be maintained without the things that are above in the shape of
2. heavenly blessing, s descending on us, and we must turn to him for their bestowal (in regal manner, seeing that he occupies the seat of rule). We must turn to him with the whole affection of our being. For he is a Person (the Manifester of God, and Author of our salvation), and is pronounced "the altogether lovely." And to be powerfully drawn toward him is the only way to be delivered from that in regard to which asceticism is pronounced ineffective, viz. the temptations of the flesh. Drawn toward him, we are drawn away from all that should be below us, and we are drawn up to the things which are high. We have thus, though on earth, a great elevation for our being. And, in accordance with it, we should look high, even up to him who is seated on the right hand of God.
3. In its contrast with an earthward direction. "Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are.upon the earth." There is a word employed here with a slightly different meaning from "seek." The idea is that we are to be so drawn to the things that are above as that they are to occupy our thoughts. There is not only the sphere of the things that are above, but there is the sphere of the things that are upon the earth, to which also we are related. We are not to think of the latter with a sinful association. The things upon the earth have been made by God, and are, therefore, good in themselves. But they are evidently placed in a certain subordination. They are things upon the earth, in contrast with the things that are above. It is implied that they are not to be sought supremely, but (if they would be sought truly according to their nature and purpose) with a due subordination and subservience to the things that are above. We are not to allow them to occupy our thoughts. And the reason is obvious. They cannot so fill up our being as to bring about our perfection and happiness. De Quincey thus concludes his apostrophe to opium: "Thou only givest these gifts to men; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty opium!" But the opium-eater"s Paradise easily changes into its opposite. There is a fluctuation connected with all things that are upon the earth. And we know that soon our whole earthly prospect will dissolve. That is intended to teach us this lesson, that we are not to set our mind on earthly things. We are not to feel toward them as though they were essential to our being. But, feeling them to be limited in quality and duration, we are to set our mind on that which is unlimited in quality and duration.
II ITS HIDDEN NATURE.
1. We are dead to the outwardness of the worldly life. "For ye died." There is a hiddenness connected with the worldly life which is not to be spoken of. "My soul, come not thou into their secret." But the worldly life is characteristically a life in the outward. It is a life within the sphere of the five senses. It is a life of communion and commerce with earthly things. It is a life which has its roots in the world. It is a life the highest ambition of which is to appear well to the world, and to continue to appear well. Now, as Christians, we are dead, so far as going after the outward is concerned. We occupy a different standpoint altogether. We are dead where men of the world are alive. And the course we have to take, in obedience to Christ, may even bring us into collision with the world.
2. It is a life hidden with Christ in God. "And your life is hid with Christ in God.
(1) It is hidden from the world. We are in a position to comprehend the worldly life from our experience of what sin is. But the Christian life is beyond the comprehension of men of the world, for they have had no experience of it. They have no affinities to it, and, therefore, it is an enigma to them, as nature and art are to those who have no appreciation of the beautiful. They see the manifestations of the Christian life, but they cannot appreciate the motives by which we are actuated, the principles by which we are guided.
(2) It is partly hidden from ourselves. There is a mystery in all life. We cut into a plant to find what life is, but it eludes the finest perception. Christians, then, cannot be expected to understand the mystery of the life of God in the soul. And, apart from that, we can only imperfectly understand our experiences. Our life goes forward according to the thought and working of One unseen.
(3) It is a life of hidden fellowship with Christ. It commenced in that region of the soul which is penetrated only by our own eye and by the eye of God. There with Christ we dedicated ourselves to him. There we have fellowship with Christ, in our joys, even in our earthly joys. There we have fellowship with Christ in our sorrows, even our sorrows of repentance and painful struggles after virtue. And there he is with us to encourage us in all the efforts we put forth for the advancement of his cause.
(4) It is hidden in God. The worldly life has its roots in the world. The life which consists in fellowship with Christ is hidden because it is lived in God. He is essentially hidden the invisible God; he is called in this Epistle, elsewhere, a God that hideth himself. Our life, then, has its roots hidden in him, in his eternal purpose and inexhaustible goodness.
III ITS FUTURE MANIFESTATION. "When Christ, who is our Life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory." The Christian life is to be manifested to men. We are to make our light so shine before men that others, seeing our good works, may glorify our Father which is in heaven. But the manifestation referred to here is that to which we are to look forward as the crown of our being.
1. It results frown our relation to Christ. Our life is not only with him, but he is our Life. He is the life of our life. The essential thing in the relation here is that, thus living within us, he gives type and form to our life.
2. It results from his manifestation. There is a manifestation yet before him. "When Christ shall be manifested." It is implied that at present he is in a condition of concealment. He is concealed from the world. Many think that he and his cause are under a cloud. He is, to a certain extent, manifested in heaven; but he is not manifested in the full meaning of his work, in his full glory as Saviour. His manifestation will be our manifestation. We shall he completely vindicated before men. It will be made completely manifest that we are sons of God and friends of Christ. Christ within us will work out till we are made glorious in body and in soul with his glory. R.F.
HOMILIES BY U.R. THOMAS Vers. 1-4.
The Christian"s higher life.
Our text gives us a magnificent picture of the higher life of man, indicating the means of its beginning, the signs of its progress, and the hope of its perpetuity.
I THE EXPERIENCES OF THE BEGINNING OF THE HIGHER LIFE. These initial experiences are spoken of under the three allied figures of death, the hiding as of burial and resurrection. There is an experience:
1. As of death. "Ye have died." The soul as it becomes Christian passes through a death with Christ
(1) a death to sin,
(2) a death to the bondage of outwardness.
Dead, yet alive! the paradox that finds its counterpart in the gardener"s insertion of the vine shoot, that was cut off and so dead to its old stock, under the bark of the living vine.
2. As of hiding away in burial. "Hid." That may mean
(1) what is concealed now will be revealed by and by; or
(2) it may denote a life of much blessed solitude, and so of sacred seclusion; or
(3) it may mean a life of fellowship with the hidden Christ; or
(4) it may tell of a life whose purposes and inspirations are hid in God.
3. As of resurrection. "Risen. That must indicate
(1) a living life, such a life as Ezekiel portrays, "I will open your graves, and give you a new heart, a heart of flesh;" and
(2) an elevated life. No more of the earth earthy, no more grave clothes, sepulchre, and earthworms, but such beauty and activity and blessedness as belong to the scenes of Christ"s forty days" risen life.
II THE DUTY OF THE HIGHER LIFE. The duty is twofold, and the way of obeying is twofold also.
1. The twofold duty of the higher life.
(1) The withdrawal of chief concern from inferior things. "Set not your affections," etc. Does not this mean, cease to entwine your affections round the things of time, cease to concentrate your energies on the things of this world? So far we have only the negative aspect of duty; but there is:
(2) The fixing of chief interest on superior things. They are twice spoken of here as "things above;" and may they not denote what is above socially, intellectually, spiritually?
2. The twofold method of attaining the performance of this duty.
(1) "Seek the things that are above." Let the higher things be the object of pursuit. What higher things? Plato would have said, "The true, the beautiful, the good." Most modern Christians, meaning the same, would have said, "Heaven." And Paul, meaning the same, would have said, "Christ." For surely Christ is heaven and heaven is Christ. Well, therefore, does Bishop Pearson urge, "Rise to Christ with the wings of your meditation and in the chariot of your affections.
(2) "Set your affections on things that are above." Not only seek heaven, but think heaven; not only think heaven, but love heaven. Our life cannot rise into a higher realm of itself any more than a bar of iron can lift itself. Both have capacity of response. Christ is the magnet to uplift our natures. Love him, and the love of him lifts up.
III THE DESTINY OF THE HIGHER LIFE. In the fourth verse we have the onward aspect of the higher life.
1. There is to be a complete manifestation of this higher life. Paul has said now it is "hid," then it will be unveiled; now it is buried, then it will be "risen." Because of misunderstandings, and misconceptions, and harsh judgments of others, the "higher life" is now often hid; then all will be explained, interpreted, rectified. Because now that life is so often in itself distorted, confused, it is partially "hid;" then in ease and naturalness and grace it will gloriously "appear.
2. The perfect revelation of this life will be in perfect union with Christ.
(1) How? Because he is the Origin and Sustenance, the Life of man"s own inner higher life.
(2) When? No calendar can fix the date. It will be the time of his appearing; and that will be to the ages as his incarnation was "the fulness of the times.
(3) What? The glory we shall have will be his glory. That is the glory of purity, simplicity, victory, sacrifice, love. The paragraph we have thus considered names Christ four times. Our model is Christ"s death; our strength is Christ"s risen life; our heaven is Christ"s glory; our hope is Christ"s coming.
Yea, thro" life, death, thro" sorrow and thro" sinning, He shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed: Christ is the End, for Christ was the Beginning; Christ the Beginning, for the End is Christ.
U.R.T.
HOMILIES BY E.S. PROUT
Vers. 1-4.
Present privileges: future glory.
The apostle now proceeds to the application of the grand truths he has been expounding. Note in what a lofty strain he begins. As in the previous section he refutes practical errors by reminding of the sublimest doctrines, so here, before giving exhortations on special sins and duties, he seeks to lift the Colossians to the heights of that new spiritual, heavenly life it is their privilege to live. (Like a commander encouraging his troops in the field to maintain the strictest discipline by motives suggested by the purest patriotism and the dignity of their trust.)
I THE CHRISTIANS PRESENT PRIVILEGES.
1. "Ye died. This figurative expression describes the complete change which takes place in those who are truly regenerated. It is most strikingly illustrated in the conversion of an idolatrous or a profligate man. But every true convert dies to his former self, i.e. is separated from it as by a death and burial. (Illustrate from Ecc_9:5, Ecc_9:6, Ecc_9:10) As a Christian martyr, worn down by the sickness and pain of a long persecution, obtains a blessed release and separation from this present evil world by death, so is the Christian, by union with Christ, set free, as by a death and burial, from two of his most formidable foes the Law and sin.
(1) We died to the Law (Rom_7:4, Rom_7:6; Gal_2:19) We renounced all dependence on works of Law and trusted for justification alone to the work of Christ.
(2) We died to sin. We were set free from the love of sin and are being set free from its power. Crucifixion, though fatal, was not immediately so. So our "old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away (katarghqh), that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin". (Rom_6:6, Rom_6:15)
It was the sight of thy dear cross First weaned my soul from earthly things," etc.
1. "Ye were raised together with Christ. (Eph_2:4-6; Gal_1:4) In the world, not of it. "We dwell in the flesh, but do not live in the flesh" (Luther). The true sphere of our life is "heavenly places. Does this seem mystical when spoken of tradesmen, engine
2. drivers, or kitchen maids? But if they are Christ"s they have a life which is "hid with Christ in God." It is a still and secret life, hidden from the world. The Christian has a different spirit (Joh_14:17) and aim (1Co_10:31) and strength. (Php_4:13) He is like a palm tree in the desert, verdant and fruitful, because far beneath the sand the fibres of its roots are enjoying a hidden life of moisture which keeps the tree alive in spite of arid sand and cloudless sky.
3. Ye may "seek" and set your mind on the things that are above. Is not this a privilege as well as a duty? Reflect on the honour of being allowed to fix our best thoughts and our purest affections on persons and objects not at all affected by the change and disappointment and transitoriness of this world. (Like a sailor amid the hardships of a long winter voyage, whose thoughts and emotions are constantly turning to wife and children in his distant home. He does not need to be told, "You ought to think of them; you must love them.") What are "the things that are upon the earth"? Find the answer in 1Jn_2:16, 1Jn_2:17. They belong to a state from which we profess to have been conclusively delivered. Shall Lazarus take pleasure in his grave clothes or the healed demoniac in his fetters? Shall those who profess to be living a resurrection life with Christ "mind earthly things"? Riches? (Psa_62:10 Pro_23:5; 1Ti_6:7) Worldly power or fame? (Psa_73:18-20; Isa_40:6-8; Jam_1:10, Jam_1:11) Shall we cling to a sinking vessel when our home is in sight? If we find it hard to enjoy our privileges, let us take the following hints.
(1) Give more thought to "the things that are above to the great themes of God, Christ, heaven, eternity; and in the light of these, look down on the transitory trifles of this world.
(2) Do more for Christ, who, "seated on the right hand of God," is doing so much for us. (Mat_6:33) (Illustrate Christ"s manifold activities for his people in that heavenly world.) Recognize that you have a citizenship in the heavenly places, and therefore civic duties among them.
(3) Make sacrifices for Christ and eternity. Treasure there as large a proportion as your conscience will justify of money, time, and every talent you possess. (Mat_6:19-21)
II THE CHRISTIAN"S FUTURE GLORY. (Ver. 4.) This follows from ver. 3. Concealment with Christ ensures safety. Our future is wrapped up with his. (Joh_14:19) Our life is, as it were, deposited with Christ"s life in the very sanctuary of the Godhead. God will not forget that trust (2Ti_1:12) Christ himself liveth in us and is our life. What is awaiting Christ? A glorious manifestation. (Tit_2:13; cf. Act_3:21 and 1Th_1:10) That manifestation will, by reason of the identity of Christ and his servants, be the manifestation in glory of Christians also, "the sons of God". (Rom_8:19) (Illustrate from contrasts suggested by Isa_60:14; Mat_13:43; Joh_17:24) Christ is now concealed, and it is our winter; his revelation will bring summer to our souls. (2Th_1:10) The glory in which we shall be revealed was said by the schoolmen to consist of the robe of the soul and the robe of the body.
1. There will be glory for the soul. No more sin, (1Jn_3:2) or sorrow, (Rom_7:17) or divided affections, or darkness (1Co_13:12; cf. Rev_22:3, Rev_22:4; perfect service, perfect satisfaction, perfect security).
2. In that glory the body shall share (1Co_15:42-44, 1Co_15:53; Php_3:21) "The resurrection of the dead is the confidence of Christians". (Tertullian; 1Pe_1:13) That "grace to be brought unto us" will brighten into glory. It will be his glory; that is enough for us. E.S.P.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADNENEY Ver. 1.
Christian aspiration.
If we would understand St. Paul we must often remind ourselves of his view of the Christian life as a union and identification with the life of Christ in its several stages. The apostle teaches that the Christian has to live spiritually the same life that Christ lived both spiritually and visibly. He must humble himself like Christ, his old self must be crucified, he must be buried to the world and then rise again in a new life. Now, we are to see how the Ascension follows the Resurrection; how, as it was in the human experience of Christ, so spiritually to us there must be a rising to the things above after we have come from the death of sin to the new Christian life.
I CHRISTIAN ASPIRATION SPRINGS FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF A NEW SPIRITUAL LIFE. The resurrection must precede the ascension. Christ rose from the dead before he was received up into heaven. We have our resurrection. Without it we vainly strive to aspire to higher things. So long as the soul is dead in trespasses and sins it can have no power to rise to the heights of celestial experience. But this resurrection has taken place in every true Christian. Christianity does not satisfy itself with the death of the old life of sin. It is itself a new resurrection life. The destruction of old habits, evil pleasures, a wicked will, etc., are but the first process. The very purpose of this killing of the old is to make way for the awakening of the new life. Christ could not have risen if he had not died. He died that he might rise again. We die to sin that we may thereby rise into newness of life. The Christian lives with the energies, faculties, hopes, and aims of a new life. All is not done in the act of the new birth. This, like natural birth, is the beginning of greater things. The aspect of the new life must be onward and upward.
II CHRISTIAN ASPIRATION AIMS AT THE THINGS THAT ARE ABOVE. It must soar above the sinful pleasures and habits of the past. It would be undoing all the work of redemption if the freed soul were to let itself be again taken captive by sin. The death agonies of repentance and the birth throes of the new life would be endured in vain if, like a sow returning to its wallowing in the mire, the soul went back again to grovel in the low and evil things of its old life. What is the use of the beautiful wings of the moth if it continues to crawl over the garbage on which the caterpillar fed? Moreover, the Christian aspiration must carry him away from the old narrow restraints and formal methods and laws of the old life. It is not for him to go back to "ordinances". (Col_2:20) Observe, however, that the aspiration is to be to that which is above, not merely to that which is future. The mere longing for heaven as a home of the future may degenerate into an idle sentiment. The true Christian aspiration looks upward rather than forward. It seeks the heavenly things that may be had already in some degree. Its aims are for those things which are spiritually higher and better than the things at present experienced. The Christian should prefer heavenly treasure to earthly riches; the smile of God to the favour of man; truth, purity, and love to any things that are seen and temporal.
III CHRISTIAN ASPIRATION IS SUPPORTED BY FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST. Nothing is more difficult than active aspiration. The aspiration of sentiment that looks up may be easy. But the aspiration of life that seeks the things that are above is beyond our common endeavours. The wings of the soul are feeble. We lose ourselves in the clouds of our lower atmosphere before we have a glimpse of the stars above. Storms beat us back again to earth, weak and weary and sad. We can only safely aspire in Christ. As we die with him and rise from the grave of our old selves with him, so we ascend by continued fellowship with him. We may hold it true
That men may rise on stepping stones Of their dead selves to higher things.
But we find in experience that the process is slow and toilsome. We want a hand above to draw us up. Now, as Christ is already in glory, when we seek to be near to Christ we approach his high estate. Two important lessons flow from this truth.
1. We cannot remain in fellowship with Christ if we grovel among thethings of earth. Christ ascending to heavenly places will leave us behind and beneath his companionship unless we ascend to heavenly mindedness. The worldly minded Christian is the Christless Christian.
2. But close fellowship with Christ is the one way by means of which wemay ascend to the things which are above. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–3 If ye then be risen with Christ.
Col_3:1-4
If ye then be risen with Christ.
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Risen with Christ
There is no doubt a supposition in the if. The apostle takes it for granted that Christians were raised together with Christ, and admonishes them, therefore, to evince it in their life. The resurrection of Christ is represented as giving to His people--
I. A new aim. Man is born to aspire, and when he rises with the victorious Christ he aspires to heavenly things. The new quest is for righteousness, holiness, patience, devotion, love, and self-sacrifice.
II. A new heart. The affections are to be set on things above, not as in the unregenerate state on earthly things. It might be possible to seek heavenly things merely in obedience to authority or convictions of duty, but that we may be raised above that, we are encouraged to set our whole heart and mind upon Divine realities.
III. A new life. Dead to the world, they have nevertheless a resurrection life hid with Christ in God. And their earthly life of duty and endurance corresponds with the secret fountain from which it flows.
IV. A new hope which--
1. Respects Christ--He shall be manifested. It is the blessed hope, the glorious appearing. He shall come the-second time without sin unto salvation.
2. Respects Christians. Spiritually raised with Christ, they will share His revelation. (Family Churchman.)
1. St. Paul has just been dealing with a system of repression and abstinence which had a vain show of wisdom, but did not touch the spring of action, and was therefore of no value in resistance to indulgence of the flesh. Would you know, he asks, how you may be lifted above the tyranny of sense, and be initiated into the true secret of temperance and chastity? To go back to a system of bondage fit only for the childhood of the race is to forget the characteristic feature of Christianity, which is the elevating of the whole man into a new region of thought and action, in virtue of union with One who has ascended into that heaven where your true life is hid with Him in God.
2. This is Pauls great doctrine.
(1) He seems almost to picture a pursuit of the sinner by the Avenger of blood which is disappointed by his reception into the City of Refuge. That I may win Christ and befound in Him, so that when I am looked for only Christ is to be seen.
(2) But inclusion in Christ is more than for safety, it is for comfort in trouble, strength in weakness, life in death.
3. This union is expressed in a retrospective way. If I am in Christ I am in Him as that which He is now, as one who has died, risen and ascended; and when He died I died, and when God exalted Him He set me with Him. Henceforth I must live the risen life, and live above the world as one who has done with its cares, tails, and lying vanities. He that is dead is freed from sin; he that is raised must mind the things above, have them for his interest, employment, study, affection, so that when the veil is removed which now hides Him we may be manifested with Him.
I. The resurrection of Christ is a fact, as much of history as of the faith of Christendom, and attested by convincing evidence on the part of unexceptionable witnesses.
II. Our resurrection with Christ is a fact spiritual, but real, and contained in Christs resurrection. To some minds a spiritual fact is a self-contradiction. But a spiritual fact is, above all other kinds, a factor in history. It sets in motion influences which change the face of nations, working those miracles of good in comparison with which the rise and fall of dynasties are vanity.
III. This resurrection is effected by union with Christ. The word union is used very loosely. We speak of a combination of a few thousands for a purpose salutary or mischievous as union, little thinking what the term is which we take in vain. But this union is one which man cannot have with man. It is a union of spirit, and such that the spirit of the Saviour not only influences the spirit of the man from outside, as our mind is wrought upon by speech or books, but from within. He shall be in you.
IV. How and when is this union realized. Paul says that all we who are baptized into Christ, there and then put on Christ. We were buried with Him by our baptism into death. If this realization of Christ has not yet been given us, let us not take refuge in names and forms, saying, I have it as a thing of course, for I have been baptized. If you have it you will know it; if you have it not yet it is yours by right. Baptism is at any rate the promise of God, to each one, of his grace and acceptance in proportion to the need and entreaty.
V. This union is between Christ in heaven and us. That Christ is there need not repel any one from seeking Him. He ascended that He might fill all things. When He was upon earth He did not even fill Palestine. Now by virtue of His exaltation He can fill every soul with Himself.
VI. Therefore we must seek the things above.
1. The contrast is to things on earth--harassing anxiety, importunate vanity, consuming ambition, exciting pleasure, shameful self-indulgence. The things above are the realities of which these are counterfeits, the grand and satisfying pursuits of which these are the phantoms, things which bring comfort and peace and rest to the soul.
2. Every honest searching of the heart to root out what God hates, every earnest effort after forgiveness, every aspiration after a Diviner life, every sincere endeavour, is a seeking after the things above.
3. By degrees there shall be in every such seeker a change of places between earth and heaven. From seeking he shall rise to thinking the things above, and when at last the door opens, and he is called in to see the King in His beauty, he shall find himself in no strange scene or company. (Dean Vaughan.)
Christ and the higher nature
That there is a higher life which we may and ought to live, all men, in whom there is any religion, feel; and what is peculiar to the gospel is not the bare idea of this life, but the revelation of its character, power, and attainment.
I. The nature of this higher life.
1. It is above. But is not this just what has been ob jected to--that Christianity concerns itself with another world rather than with this? And is not this very exaltation a weakness and a delusion. What nobler ideal can there be than to make the present life better. But Christs ideal was a kingdom, in our hearts, it is true, yet of heaven, not of earth. It was, in short, a higher Divine life that was to irradiate our poor human life, and to glorify it. It was no development from below, but a revelation from on high, and without this Christianity has no meaning. Cut away its Divine side, and it is destroyed.
2. This life is not merely in the future, although it embraces it. It concerns itself with another world, yet it does not despise things on the earth. The kingdom is now, and not to be reached after death, and the things above are to be possessed now. These are the things of which the apostle speaks presently, kindness, etc. Spiritual qualities. The apostle does not contrast heaven and earth as places, nor set the future life against the present, but the spiritual against the natural, the carnal against the Divine. The higher life takes up the present and glorifies it, and finds its development in every variety of well-doing. It embraces every real virtue, and beautifies and ennobles the life that now is as well as that to come.
II. Its source and motive power. It is no process of self-culture or moral discipline. It springs only from the living root Christ. It is a new life rising on the extinction of the old life of self. The same Divine power which raised Christ from the dead is supposed to live and work in Christians. But out of Christ there is no higher life in the Christian sense. But is this so? Axe there not many beautiful characters who never heard of Christ; and are there not many Christians far from stainless? Yes, but--
1. The Christian type of character is to be estimated by its ideal, as rendered by the highest examples, and not by the conduct of all professors. It is true that the best Christians but feebly represent Christ, yet where is there any list of worthies to be compared with the roll of Christian saints? And all such have declared their strength for good to lie in the fact that their life was hid with Christ in God.
2. If there is goodness where the name of Christ is unknown, or which refuses to acknowledge Him, let us not deny it. If we must have a theory the true one is that all goodness, even when seeming to be apart from Christ, has really its root in Him. (Principal Tulloch.)
The hidden life
At the close of the preceding chapter St. Paul exposes the error of those who would bring back Christians to the rudiments of the world; but with that rapidity of thought which is characteristic of him, he passes on to other rudiments--everything that is loved and cultivated by the flesh- and makes no distinction between rites and worldliness, resting on the similarity between them.
I. The Divine life produces dying to the world. It would be wrong to hold the reverse, of course. If you are risen with Christ, your life is no longer here below, but where Christ is. Here comes a series of transformations.
1. Spiritual death. You wore dead in sins, but Christ has raised you (see Col_2:12-13; Eph_2:5-6; 1Pe_1:3).
2. In the very act of raising you, Christ has subjected you to a new death--to the world. These two facts correspond as the projections of a coin do with the depressions of the mould. Resurrection is the relievo of the coin; it produces the void which is death: for our life cannot be everywhere; if it is in heaven it is not on the earth (Col_3:4).
II. It is true that we live here by our necessary life, but the best part of ourselves is elsewhere. We live where our heart is. The prisoner lives nowhere less than in his cell. You say of the person you passionately love, She has stolen my heart. When any one is indifferent to his surroundings we say, His heart is elsewhere. It is with the heart we live our real life; out of it are the issues of life. It can restrict itself to earthly things, but it can also have its conversation in heaven.
III. We must be quite clear as to the meaning of the words above and below, heaven and earth. Earth and heaven here are not exactly places and times, but principles called after the place and time of their perfect realization. To detach ourselves from earth is not to detach ourselves from activity, but to detach our hearts from earthly principles, and attach them to the principles to be realized in heaven. To fulfil social duties, etc., under Gods eye is not to do earthly but heavenly things. And so the Christian becomes attached to the place and time, where the true principle finds its realization, and detached from that where the false principle is realized. Nevertheless, we must not be drawn into a false spirituality, a selfish separation from earth while attached to it in affection. It is an admirable thing when he who is weaned from life appreciates it; for he despises what in it is contemptible, and esteems in it what is really worth esteem.
IV. The life weaned from earth is hidden from the world, and does not seem life. For life does not consist in tile involuntary fact commonly called by the name. The world judges, and rightly from its premises, that visible things are alone worthy of attachment, that a man who does not attend to them does not live. And yet every thing is not obscure in regard to the Christian. He is unknown and yet known. It is impossible to see a Christian without saying, There is something peculiar there! His life declares him to be a Christian. But because this life is not understood it is denied. The natural man sees something, but he does not regard it as life. And yet the Christian lives; he is not an anchorite. He has everything that others have as men, but as a Christian more. Worldlings may consider sin as essential to humanity; but it mutilates a man, Christianity increases him, and faith takes away sin. As a man the Christian mixes himself up in the business of life, for the earth belongs to his God; but in spite of this he is not understood, because the common aim which all pursue is with him only a means of attaining a higher end. And from misunderstand ing to contempt and calumniation the distance is not great. Whatever we may do in order to have peace with all men we shall never succeed unless we walk on the same footing. Thus the Christian is treated as dead, and with the same repugnance as is felt towards a dead man in the physical sense.
V. What motives has the Christian to consent to this, and to accept the consequences?
1. In reality he lives, and God knows that he lives, and that is enough. Those small and charming flowers which bloom in the desert or on the mountain-top will fold up their leaves without being seen by any human eye. God sees them, that is enough. In the Middle Ages unknown workmen spent their lives in rearing glorious cathedrals; some, working in positions dangerous and difficult of access, carved wonders of art and patience which are not seen except as you climb to the tops of columns. It was enough that God saw their work and that throughout the ages a continual hymn should rise to Him from the midst of the stone. So with the Christian.
2. What grand compensation. Obscurity does not hinder greatness.
(1) A great work has been wrought for and in the Christian. He is a king, although disguised.
(2) There is greatness in what he does by the strength of God, subjugation of passions, resignation, etc.
3. But the Christian will appear when Christ appears, and under what glorious circumstances (Php_2:10-11; Mat_10:32; Mat_13:43; Dan_12:3). (A. Vinet, D. D.)
When will the world grow better
The world is full of lamentations. The times are bad; business is stagnant. There is no confidence, but everywhere mistrust and discontent. Everybody says that this state of things cannot last. There are plenty of social quacks. We have been flooded with laws for improving the conditions of life; but the confusion is only the greater. New ecclesiastical laws have been made, but entire classes are alienated from the Church. Then when will the world be better? When each one of us begins to grow better himself; and if any one could devise the means of bringing about that result it would be of more use than all modern experiments. But we have the means in the well-tried Word of God and its Divine powers. The world will grow better.
I. When we die and rise with Christ.
1. There was a time when a great deal was said about the moral improvement of the race. If men laid aside their grosser sins and endeavoured to live virtuously, all would be well. The theory was not confirmed by the facts. To-day men have fallen into a similar error. Culture is now the Saviour. All honour to it; but history proves that a man may be learned in every branch of knowledge, and yet be utterly bad.
2. One of the most absurd suppositions which lies at the root of most modern experiments is that human nature is good. The Scripture doctrine to the contrary, though much decried, is a fact of which every parent can convince himself. If the world is to be made better a commencement must be made with the inner life of each man. The old nature must die, and a new one arise, or you may as soon build the top storey of a house before you have laid the foundation.
3. Accordingly in Scripture this renewal is everywhere insisted upon. Ye are dead and ye have risen, and since ye are risen seek the things that are above. It is not by mere accident that this renewing is thus described, and in connection with the death and resurrection of Christ. There was needed for it a spiritual energy which does not exist in us, but is in Christ, the risen One.
4. This new life is by virtue of a personal surrender by faith to Christ (Col_2:12). Thus we die to sin and the world. A new purpose is disclosed, viz., to please God and enjoy fellowship with Him; a new rule of thought and action--the will of God; a new impelling principle--the Holy Spirit; and thus we come with our whole personal life into a higher order--the heavenly. What further proof do we need that when this happens things are better?
II. When heavenly-mindedness fills all hearts.
1. That which is below is the earthly world, with its tangible but perishable things; and the more the pursuit of them grows to a longing after them, the worse will it be for the inner and outer life. For this lower world, however beautiful, can never satisfy the heart, and the void is filled with base passions or wild schemes.
2. The world above is closed against the earthly mind. The natural man has no eye for its glory, no ear for its language. Nevertheless it is the real world, where Christ is seated, its light, life, and supreme attraction. When the mind is fixed on this the earthly life is glorified. For though Christ is exalted He dwells on earth with His faithful ones, and, therefore, brings heaven down below. Attachment to Him does not incapacitate us for the business of life, but only makes us independent of what is sinful and selfish, and teaches us to serve God in all things.
3. Who can doubt, therefore, that this heavenly-mindedness would be better for the home, the shop, the nation.
III. When Christ shall be revealed. NOW the Christians life is hid. The world understands not its nature, power, or effects. But it shall be manifest at the appearing of Christ--and then in its full perfection. It will indeed be better then. (G. Maurer.)
Of the resurrection
I. Two suppositions.
1. Christs resurrection. This needs no if. It is a certainty. Three hundred years the world opposed it, and ever since has supposed it. But it is not supposed by itself, and ours inferred, but ores supposed likewise. And as they are so closely linked that one supposition serveth for them, so they are woven together that one preposition (with) holdeth them.
2. Our resurrection.
(1) If ye. Why only to a certain ye Concerns it not all? As Christ died so is He risen for all, and all shall rise. Yes, but not all to the right hand, a good many to the left. The resurrection reaches to all; this only to such as seek, and set their minds.
(2) If ye be risen. Is the tense right? For when we hear of the resurrection we are carried to the last day. He rose, we say, we shall rise. But here the resurrection is already. Fall we in, then, with those who say that the resurrection is past (2Ti_2:18)? No; but we believe that as there is one to come of the body, so there is one which we are to pass here, of the minds. There are the first and second resurrections (Rev_20:6); and all the good or evil of the second depends on the passing or not passing the first. Christ is risen is not enough, nay is nothing at all, if He be risen without us.
3. If. Is it so? If He is risen cry to Him to draw thee, as He said He would (Joh_12:32); the soul first as being from above, so the more easily drawn to things above, and then with itself the soul to elevate the flesh.
II. The double inference--Seek; Set your minds.
1. The two acts jointly; for disjoined they my not be. One is little worth without the other.
(1) There ve that seek, and be very busy in it, and yet savour (Mat_16:23, same word) not the things of God. Some possessed with false principles fall a seeking; zealous, but without the true knowledge to fix their minds aright (Pro_19:2). the mind misled will set the affections awry. Look but to the close of chapter
2. Then they seek so as they will not taste, handle, or touch. Some seek as to worship angels, and spare not their own bodies, and yet with all their seeking not risen with Christ.
(2) On the other side there be that savour Christ, but seek themselves (Php_2:21). They have knowledge competent, but no endeavour; they sit still and seek not.
(3) So that both may be kept together, seek and set your minds both. As in the body a rheumatic head spoils the stomach, and a distempered stomach the head, so here. The mind mistaking misleads the affections, and a wrong-set affection puts the mind out of frame.
2. The acts severally.
(1) Seek; he shall not stumble or hit upon it unawares. If the Saviour knew the way well, it is hard to hit (Mat_7:14). Pains and diligence are requisite. It were great folly when we see daily things without travail wilt not be come by, to think that things above will drop into our lap. Pilate asked, What is truth? and went his way before he had the answer. He never deserved to find what truth was.
(2) But we shall never seek as we should unless we set our minds. For a man will never kindly seek that he hath no mind to. That we may seek things above we must prize them as a silver mine (Pro_3:14), as a treasure hid in a field (Mat_13:44), and sell all to compass them. Then, he that seeks should have as well eyes to discern, as feet to go about it, i.e., have knowledge. To seek we know not what is but to err, and never find that we seek for. Four things are in this.
(1) To set the mind, not the fancy, and seek as many do with no other ground but their own conceits. Yet seek they will, and have all the world follow them, and have nothing to follow after but their own folly. So as being very idiots they take themselves for the only men who ever had wisdom to know what to seek or how.
(2) But it is not an act of the understanding alone. It is to set our mind not only to know, but to mind it; not only to distinguish tastes, but in and with the taste to feel such delight as will lead us to seek it again more earnestly.
(3) So to savour it that to seek it is our wisdom (Deu_4:6). To think when ye are about the things above that you are about the wisest action of your lives.
(4) Not the contemplative wisdom only, but the active. To show that not only our grounds for judgment, but our rules for action, are to be set thence. What will He who sitteth at the right hand of God say or think of what I am about? May I offer it to Him? Will He help me forward with it, and reward me for it?
3. The order. Seek first--
(1) To teach us that it is the first thing we are to have a care of (Mat_6:33).
(2) Because there is more need of diligence in this business than aught else. Always we have more ado to quicken the affection than to inform the judgment.
III. The two references or objects of hope. Rest--sitteth; glory--at the right hand of God.
1. The things we are to seek, etc., are above.
(1) To do this we shall be easily entreated. We yield, presently, to seek to be above others in favour, honour, place, and power. All would be above, bramble (Jdg_9:15) and all, and nothing is too high for us, not even the right hand (Mat_20:21).
(2) The apostle saw clearly that we should err here, hence he tells us that above is not on earth, but in heaven. So the fault he finds is that our above is too low.
(a) The very frame of body has an upward tendency, and bids us look thither. And that way should our soul make. It came from thence, and thither it should draw again, and we do but crook our souls against their nature when we set them to seek nothing but here below.
(b) And if nature would have us no moles, grace would have us mount up as eagles--Where the body is (Luk_17:37). For contrary to the philosophers sentence, things above concern us not; they chiefly concern us.
2. Above is Christ, and with Him the things we of all others seek for.
(1) Rest (Psa_4:6). And it is not the bodys concern so much as the souls. The soul is from above, and never finds rest but in her own place (Psa_116:17; Heb_3:11; Heb_3:18-19). But we seek glory more, and for it we are content to deprive ourselves of rest, which otherwise we love well enough. For no rest will give us full content but at the right hand. Where are they to be found? Not here, and therefore it is folly to seek them here. In this troublesome tumultuous place there is no rest (Mic_2:10) nor glory, for in our gardens of delight there are worms, and spiders in kings palaces. And whatever we fancy we have of either it is at the expense of the other. Rest is a thing inglorious, and glory a thing restless.
3. But both are united above, where we sit at the right hand of God with Christ; and then we have them not so that our rest may be sometimes broken, and our glory sometimes tarnished, but both perfectly and for ever. (Bishop Andrewes.)
The resurrection of Christ an argument for seeking things above
I. The duty to which we are exhorted. Affirmatively, to seek and set our affections on things above; negatively, not on things on the earth.
1. The act. In seek and set your affections are comprehended
(1) An act of the understanding. Heaven and the way of getting there should be much in our thoughts.
(2) An act of our affections, that we love and desire the things above proportionately to their excellence.
(3) Activity and industry in the prosecution of these things, if by any means we may attain them. When our understandings have dwelt long enough on our heavenly treasures as to work on our affections, these, like so many springs of motion, will set our endeavours on work for the obtaining what we so much love and desire.
(4) A clear preference of the things above to the things of the earth when they come in competition. Set your affections is often used for taking part with one side when two parties or interests come into competition. So when heaven and earth, the interests of your souls and of your bodies, a holy and a sinful course come into competition, choose the better part (Col_3:5).
2. The objects of this act.
(1) God in Christ.
(2) The blessed state of glory in the next life.
(3) The dispositions to be acquired and the duties to be performed as necessary qualifications for the obtaining this happiness.
II. The force of the arguments used to persuade us to it.
1. If ye be risen with Christ, seek, etc., i.e.,
(1) If ye believe in the resurrection of Christ. This was the great seal of His ministry and confirmation of His doctrine: and one great branch of His doctrine was that we should lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven.
(2) If we resemble Him in His resurrection. He is our pattern in His saving acts as well as in His virtues. So as He died for sin we must die to it; if He rose we must rise into newness of life; if He ascended so should we in our hearts (Col_2:12; Rom_6:4-5; Rom_6:9-11).
(3) If we are partakers of the power of His resurrection (Joh_11:25; Eph_1:19; Php_3:10; Col_2:13).
2. Seek the things which are above where Christ sitteth (Luk_24:26; Eph_1:20-22).
(1) The force of this argument is from the relation between the head and the members. The members have an affection for the head which makes them aspire heavenwards; and the head has an influence upon the members (Joh_12:32-33).
(2) The gift of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of Christs ascension, and it is by His operation upon our hearts that our affections are fixed on heavenly things, as against the counter allurements of the world.
3. The transcendent excellence of heavenly things above things of the earth, which the apostle intimates by the opposition, Set your affections, etc. (Archbishop Tillotson.)
Following the risen Christ
I. Our spiritual rising with Christ. The if is used logically, not theologically, by way of argument, and not by way of doubt.
1. We were dead in sin, but having believed in Christ we have been quickened by the Holy Ghost, and we are dead no longer. We remember the first sensation of life, how it seemed to tingle just as drowning persons when coming back to life suffer great pain. Conviction was wrought in us, and a dread of judgment, and a sense of condemnation, but these were tokens of life, but that life gradually deepened until the eye was opened, and the restored hand stretched itself out, the foot began to move in the way of obedience, and the heart felt the sweet glow of love within.
2. There has been wrought in us a wonderful change. Before regeneration our soul was as our body will be when it dies.
(1) Sown in corruption. In some cases it did not appear on the surface; in others it was something fearful to look upon. Now the new life has overcome it, for it is an incorruptible seed, and liveth for ever.
(2) In dishonour. Sin is a shameful thing; but behold what manner of love (1Jn_3:1). Since thou wast precious in my sight, etc. Unto you which believe He is an honour.
(3) In weakness. When we were the captives of sin we could do nothing good; but when we were without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Now we know the power of His resurrection (Joh_1:12; Php_4:13).
(4) A natural body. Aforetime we were natural men, and discerned not the things of the Spirit of God. Now a spirit has been created in us which lives for spiritual objects.
3. In consequence of receiving this life and undergoing this change the things of the world become a tomb to us. To a dead man a tomb is as good a dwelling as he can want; but the moment he lives he cannot endure it.. So when we were natural men earthly things contented us.
(1) A merely outward religion satisfied us; a dead form suited a dead soul. Judaism pleased those who put themselves under its yoke; traditions, ordinances make pretty furniture for a dead mans chamber; but when eternal life enters the soul they are flung off. A living man demands such garments as are suitable for life.
2. Merely carnal objects become as the grave to us, whether sinful pleasures or selfish gains. They are as a coffin to the renewed man: he cries for liberty.
4. We are wholly raised from the dead in a spiritual sense. Our Lord did not have His head quickened while His feet were in the sepulchre. So we have been renewed in every part. We have received, although it be in its infancy, a perfect life in Christ Jesus; our ear is awakened, our eye opened, our feet nimble.
5. We are so raised that we shall die no more. Christ being raised, death hath no more dominion, etc. So we.
II. Let us exercise the new man in suitable pursuits.
1. Let us leave the sepulchre.
(1) The vault of a mere outward religion, and worship God in Spirit and in truth.
(2) The vault of carnal enjoyments. These ought to be as dead things to the man who is risen with Christ.
2. Let us hasten to forget every evil as our Lord hastened to leave the tomb. He made the three days as short as possible;. so let there be no lingering and hankering after the flesh.
3. As our Lord spent a short season with His disciples, we are to spend our forty days in holy service.
(1) In greater seclusion from the world and greater nearness to heaven.
(2) In testimony, even as He manifested Himself, to the resurrection power of God.
(3) In comforting the saints.
(4) In setting everything in order for the furtherance of His kingdom.
4. Let our whole minds ascend to heaven with Christ; not a stray thought.
(1) Because we need heavenly things, prize them, and hope to gain them.
(2) After heavenly things, faith, hope, etc.
(3) Heavenly objects--the glory of God, not your own; the good of man.
(4) Heavenly joys. Your treasure is above, let your hearts be with it.
5. What a magnet Christ should be. Where should the wifes thoughts be but with her absent and beloved one?
(1) Christ is sitting, for His work is done; rise and rest with Him.
(2) At the right hand of God, in the place of honour and favour.
III. Let the new life delight itself with suitable objects. Have a relish for things above; study them industriously; set your mind on them. What are they?
1. God Himself. Delight thyself in the Lord. What is all the world if He be gone; and if you have Him, what though all the world be gone?
2. Jesus who is God, but truly man. Meditate on His Divine Person, His perfect work, etc.
3. The New Jerusalem of the Church triumphant.
4. Heaven, the place of holiness after sin, of rest after work, of riches after poverty, of health and life after sickness and death. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Risen with Christ
I. Christ is risen. This appears--
(1) From the Holy Scriptures.
(2) From eye-witnesses.
(3) From the testimony of the Spirit.
II. Christians are risen with Christ. What is this? (Eph_2:5-6; Col_2:12; Col_2:20.)
1. Christ is our Head, and a public Person (Eph_5:23).
2. Whatever He did, He did it not in a private but a public capacity, and therefore we are looked upon as doing it in Him (Isaiah ]iii. 5).
3. Hence, when He arose, we arose in Him and with Him.
4. Metaphorically we rise from sin.
III. Being risen with Christ we are to seek the things above.
1. What things?
(1) The perfection of graces.
(2) The society of angels.
(3) The vision of Christ (Joh_17:24).
(4) The enjoyment of God; consisting
(a) in our clear knowledge of Him (Joh_17:3).
(b) Perfect love to Him.
(c) Infinite expressions of love from Him (Zep_3:17).
2. How seek them? It implies--
(1) Our knowledge of them.
(2) Our love for them.
(3) Our labouring to be instated in them (Mat_6:33).
IV. Why should they who are risen with christ seek the things above?
1. Because now all things else are below them.
2. Their inheritance is there.
V. USE.
1. Motives.
(1) The things below are unsuitable, the things above suitable.
(2) They empty and deceiving; these full and satisfying; nay, there is more happiness in seeking heaven than enjoying earth.
(3) They uncertain to be attained; these certain if sought for.
(4) They mixed with troubles, these pure comforts.
(5) They transient end fading, these perpetual and everlasting.
2. Means.
(1) Exercise graces--repentance, faith (Heb_11:5-6).
(2) Perform duties. (Bishop Beveridge.)
The Christian risen with Christ
I. A glorious truth supposed--that believers are risen with Christ. This involves--
1. A firm belief in His resurrection. This doctrine is of paramount importance as the principal evidence of Christianity. Every other doctrine hangs upon it. If Christ be not risen, where--
(1) Our access to God.
(2) Our success in prayer.
(3) Our hope of pardon.
(4) Our holy aspirations.
(5) Our bright prospects (see 1Co_15:14-19).
2. A personal experience of its power.
(1) In the renewing of the mind.
(2) The changing of the heart.
(3) The quickening of the spirit.
(4) Newness of life.
3. A well-grounded anticipation of conformity with His resurrection.
(1) Spiritual life with Him now in heaven.
(2) Completeness of bodily and soul likeness to Him by and by.
II. A momentous duty required.
1. The superiority of its object--the things above.
(1) The glorious state of happiness in reserve for believers in heaven.
(2) The sublime realities of religion that belong by way of preparation to the heavenly state-growth in grace and knowledge; spirituality of mind, holiness, devotion to God, love to His people. How superior to the pleasures of the ungodly.
2. The extent of its application. It implies more than a belief in things above, and includes--
(1) A persuasion of their value. We shall not be induced to seek what we do not value. Worldly men underrate them: but rising with Christ brings spiritual perception, by which they are viewed in the light of eternity.
(2) A fixing of the mind on them--choosing them in preference to sublunary things. The wisdom of the Christians choice will be seen when the universe is in ruins. The things which are seen are temporal.
(3) A diligent pursuit after them in the use of the appointed means. Beware of the fascinations of the world. Cultivate heavenly dispositions.
3. The power of its motive.
(1) In general. The principles we profess call for it; the profession we make demands it; love, gratitude, our own interest and Gods glory, all urge us to it.
(2) In particular. Mark the Person--Christ. He is over all. Mark the posture--Sitteth, etc.
one of dignity and authority. This was the joy set before Him, and is the joy set before us? (Ebenezer Temple.)
The risen life
I. risen with Christ.
1. In the earliest Christian teaching the resurrection dominates over all other Christian doctrines. It is the palmary proof of the truth of Christianity. It rested upon the evidences of the senses, and accordingly the first ministerial effort of the apostles was to publish the fact, and let it do its proper work in the understandings and consciences of men (Act_4:32, etc.). The resurrection is equally prominent in the teaching of St. Paul. But here the apostle teaches us its relation, not to Christian belief, but to Christian living. It is not pressed upon us as a detached and unfruitful dogma; it is a vitalizing principle in the living soul. Indeed all Christian doctrine in the Christian soul is inseparable from Christian practice. The practical relation between the two is observable in St. Pauls Epistles. They are not separated in the two sections into which he usually divides his letters. With him the moral element interpenetrates doctrine, and rises spontaneously out of it; while the dogmatic truth is continually reasserted as the motive or basis of the morality. In the text the resurrection is a germinant principle out of which the soul derives its new life, and by which the laws and obligations of that life are determined. This is not a mere metaphor (Eph_1:18-20); but if it were, a metaphor surely means something: it conveys a truth under the form of an illustration. What, then, is the truth latent beneath the metaphor?
3. This resurrection with Christ is not merely a movement, a shifting of spiritual position from a lower to a higher point in the same sphere. That would be an elevation.
(1) It is necessary to mark this distinction, because the one is often confounded with the other. Individuals, families, populations, are often elevated without being risen with Christ. A certain mental and moral elevation is the natural result of contact with a Divine religion; may be received unconsciously; comes as if from some subtle element afloat in the atmosphere; passes unnoticed into a literary school, philosophical system, or political society; and may thenceforward be detected in half-formed ideas, and fitful currents of thought, or turns of expression. It comes to men as they gaze on the fair form of the Church, or as they mark a Christian who is seriously living for another world.
(2) But what is this elevation worth? Felix underwent a certain elevation of conscience; Agrippa was raised above his natural level; but in each ease the moral pulsation died away. The Emperor Alexander Severus underwent a certain elevation when he assigned a niche in the Imperial Pantheon to the statue of Jesus; so did Julian, who in his letters applauds the love and discipline of the Church. The same may be said of Rousseau, who enhanced the beauty of the French language in expressing his sense of the gospel, and of those modern writers of fiction who lavish their encomiums with no sparing or graceless hand upon the religion of our Lord, and who yet apologize for the errors which His teaching condemns. But these were not risen with Christ.
(3) We here touch on a distinction that is vital, and which is based upon the deeper difference which parts nature from grace. Moral elevation lies within the sphere of nature, and may be accounted for by the operation of natural causes; spiritual resurrection belongs to nature just as little as does the resurrection of a corpse.
4. Resurrection with Christ is a supernatural thing. What is meant by this? Any idea of the supernatural--
(1) Presupposes belief in God as a personal agent. Clearly, therefore, it must be rejected by those philosophers which deny the primary truths of theism.
(a) The Positivist must see in it a stupid phantom to be relegated to the theological period of human development.
(b) The Pantheist will object to it as implying a distinction which, if it be admitted, must be fatal to the essential principles of his philosophy.
(c) Nor does it approve itself to the sensuous materialism which is sceptical of all that lies beyond.
(d) But no serious Theist can deny its possibility. He who made the world which we touch can superadd another world which we cannot touch.
(2) As the term enters theology it is concerned with the relations which God has established between Himself and man in the higher sphere, such as, e.g., that union with Christ, part of which is expressed in rising with Him. The lesson of our text is often not learnt; because the difficulty of learning it is spiritual rather than intellectual. To understand it we must be living the life of the supernatural resurrection. The apostle elsewhere explains what he means (Eph_2:3-6; Eph_1:17-20). What wonder that all around us in the Church is supernatural, if it be a continuous exercise of the power which raised Jesus from the dead? Or that in Christian souls we behold graces of which nature is incapable.
II. seek those things which are above.
1. Seek, above all, communion with God, work for God, rest in the felt presence of God, and the final reward in God; and then all that is highest and purest in the sphere of nature.
2. What a rule for conversation. All may do something to raise or degrade it. Each may insist that in his presence it shall keep a pure tone; and a few men who are simply determined to maintain an elevated standard of social intercourse can affect for good an entire society.
3. What a rule for making friendships! How much depends for time and eternity on the choice of one whose affections shall be entwined in ours.
4. What a motto for a library, and even for sacred studies!
5. What a solemn word for those who are deciding their line of work for life, particularly if they are seeking the ministry of souls.
6. But above all, the text is a rule for the regulation and employment of secret thought. (Canon Liddon.)
Believers risen with Christ, and their duty in consequence
I. A fact admitted: the resurrection of Christ.
1. That He was dead cannot be questioned.
2. He was buried. What became of His body?
3. He rose, and in the providence of God many circumstances transpired to render it obvious and undeniable.
II. The privilege supposed. Christians are risen with Christ.
1. Professedly, by joining the Church; coming to the Lords table; confession with the tongue.
2. Representatively, by virtue of that federal union with Christ by which His acts become theirs.
3. Spiritually, from death in sin to a life of faith, hope, acceptance, holiness, duty.
4. By anticipation, having the pledges, earnests, and first-fruits of exaltation with Christ. These anticipations differ in various Christians, but four seasons are peculiarly favourable to it--
(1) The solitude of the closet.
(2) The ordinances of Gods house.
(3) Affliction.
(4) The dying hour.
III. A duty enjoined.
1. The things themselves are described not by their nature, but by their residence, which shows their excellency. There is no night there, no pain, no sin; but the peace that passeth understanding; the joy unspeakable and full of glory; beloved connexions; the good of all ages; angels; Christ.
2. We should seek them because they are--
(1) Necessary. While many things are desirable and some important, one thing is needful.
(2) Attainable. You are not quite sure of earthly things.
3. They must be sought--
(1) Principally. Seek ye first, etc.
(2) Intensely.
(3) Perseveringly.
IV. An inference derived. If.
1. It is surely desirable to know this.
2. There is no evidence of our religious condition that can be depended upon separately from heavenly-mindedness.
3. If you are seeking the things above, they must correspond with your condition, and your practice must accord with your profession.
Conclusion:
1. Some entirely disregard the things above.
2. Others regard them as doubtful.
3. Others declare plainly that they seek a country. (W. Jay.)
Seek those things that are above
Contemplate--
I. The sublime objects to which the exhortation relates. The future blessedness of believers in heaven. Notice--
1. The perfection of character they shall exhibit. There they shall partake of Gods nature, and be holy as He is holy. It is impossible for sin and sinners to enter there. There is no imperfection in things above. The most eminent saints have faults and blemishes, but there they shall be free from spot or wrinkle.
2. The exercises in which they shall be engaged. Ease is sometimes regarded as necessary to enjoyment. But analogy and revelation are against the sentiment. A heaven of ease would be death rather than life. The service of heaven constitutes one part of the blessedness of the angels, and we are to be equal with them. And how multiplied must be the actions involved in a service which night never interrupts, of a mind and body that are never wearied, and of an existence which knows no end! This view may tend to moderate our surprise and sorrow at the deaths of eminent and useful Christians, who now spend their energies over wider regions.
3. The happiness of which they shall participate. All religious experience on earth affords but a faint emblem of the bliss of heaven. Here, however great, it is much marred, but there it is perfect, because all the saints are made perfectly holy. Here they taste the streams, there the fountain, and the happiness is made complete by a sight of Jesus face.
4. The friendships they shall share. Man is constituted for society. Place him in solitude and he will pine and wither. But in heaven we shall enjoy the company of angels, of the wise and good of all ages, of our own loved ones. We look for those breaches which are made in our holy connexions to be repaired there.
II. THE CONDUCT ENJOINED UPON US IN RELATION TO THEM. Seek them.
1. This implies belief of them.
(1) Those who have just views of the Divine perfections will believe in the possibility of such a state as we have contemplated.
(2) Numerous considerations indicate the probability. Every man has that within him which thinks and wills, etc., which cannot be the result of a material organization, is perfectly distinct from the body, and will not be more endangered by the dissolution of the latter than a sunbeam is crushed by the demolition of the house through which it is passing. Then again, the strong desire of immortality, common to men, is an argument in its favour. Why should God universally plant a desire He never meant to gratify?
(3) But why argue its probability when I have a Bible which tells me it is certain.
2. It implies that attention is directed much towards them. They must be minded as well as credited. This is necessary because of the wrong bias the mind has received.
(1) You must labour that your minds may acquire a heavenly direction, seeing that you are surrounded by the secularities of life.
(2) The thoughts must go frequently forth, not now and then with long intervals between. Not that it is inconsistent with diligence in business, etc.; for that also is the service of God.
3. To set our attachment upon them. Surely it would be inconsistent in one who is going to heaven not to set his heart upon it.
4. Diligent and persevering exertions to obtain them are included. Belief awakens attention, attention kindles desires for possession, desires give birth to efforts. You are called upon, then, to use the means. Christ is our Way to the holy of holies, and faith, prayer, meditation, etc., are the means.
III. Some motives or considerations which should impel us to this conduct.
1. A regard to consistency. You who were dead have been quickened, and are risen with Christ, therefore, etc. From so great a difference of state it is expected that the greatest difference of conduct should follow.
2. The reasonableness of the duty. Can there be anything more reasonable than that among the multiplicity of things which court attention, we should seek those that are most excellent and enduring. As well might a chemist hope for a universal elixir from polluted water, as mankind expect from earthly things the light and bliss of their immortal souls. Besides, earthly things are transitory as well as vain, Like the bubble that glitters in all the colours of the rainbow, but, whilst we view it, bursts, and is no more; like the splendid hues that bedeck the insects wings fluttering in the sunbeam, but which are brushed off as soon as the beam is withdrawn, so rapidly do they flee away? The present advantages resulting from the exercise here enioined. By a wise and gracious appointment of God, duty and interest are joined together. Godliness is profitable unto all things, etc.
4. The things above are the scene in which are displayed Christs presence and glory. The argument of the apostle and the Saviours prayer (Joh_17:1-26.) are that we should meet Him there. In conclusion: be admonished by the consideration of the dreadful alternative which must inevitably follow the neglect of this duty. If you follow not holiness you cannot see the Lord. (J. Beaumont, M. D.)
Seeking things above
I. This is the business of the understanding.
1. Of late years the word thinker has been employed to designate those who bring their reasoning faculties to bear on abstract problems, and who give proof of this by lectures and books, and of no others. If this use is correct, thinkers would constitute a select class indeed; it would be just as reasonable to confine the term worker to a manual labourer. But all human beings think, and this is none the less true because the understanding apprehends what is before it indistinctly. The eye may none the less see because the objects are somewhat confused.
2. Thus the solemn question arises, What do we think about? For most of the day we have no choice. To give your mind to it is the condition of all good work. But there is a fixed hour when business ends and we regain liberty of thought. What do you habitually think about then? The question is important, for the instructive direction of thought at such times may tell us much about our real selves and our destiny.
3. Is it not true that the mind of many is occupied with much that does not guide it heavenwards? It is almost at the mercy of the first claimant; weighted with the importunity of sense; dissipated or distorted by passion; darkened by avoidance of God. What mean those long periods spent over a work of fiction which suggests at almost every page what it dares not describe; those long hours of sullen moodiness, or of hard thoughts of God?
4. It is sometimes thought that if thought is only active it must needs be good, and that only when it stagnates it breeds evil. But thought may be exercised on subjects that degrade it, and in proportion to its activity.
5. Easter then bids thought rise heavenward with Christ; it is the warrant and pattern of mental resurrection. Before Christ rose men had thought and written about another world; but at best the veil was only half withdrawn. Men hoped and guessed. But Christ made it clear and certain, and bade thought arise into the world beyond the stars, into which He passed to prepare a place for us.
6. Seek then in thought the things above. Seek the conversation of the wise, make the most of whatever enlarges and ennobles. In all higher and purer regions of thought you are nearer Christ (Php_4:8). But as you seek, cry Excelsior! Rest not until you have struggled beyond literature, science, and nature, into the kingdom of heaven where Christ the King of Glory sits.
II. This is the business of the affections.
1. The affections are a particular department of desire.
(1) Desire is the strongest motive power in the soul, it is what gravitation is to matter. When we know upon what desire is set, we know the direction a soul is taking. If its objects are in heaven then the soul is moving upwards, if earthly then downwards (Mat_6:21).
(2) Desire is the raw material which is fashioned on the one hand into covetousness, or ambition, or sensuality, or into the love of God on the other (Jam_1:15).
(3) Desire was meant to attach the soul to God by a spiritual attraction that should keep it, though in its freedom, true to its centre, just as the planets move ever round their central sun. And sin resembles those catastrophes which might result if it were conceivable that a planet should leave its orbit and dash wildly into space.
2. God gives to every man a certain measure of that affection which is a department of desire. It is dealt out by us partly to those whom providence has appointed to receive it--a father, mother, etc.; and also on objects which we choose to be its recipients. So we may squander it on the pleasures of sense, or compress it into high self-sacrifice. But we do not spend it twice. Since the being who loves is finite the supply is limited; and the despair of those who have given their all at the bidding of some unlawful pleasure is to find, while life is still young, but all too late, that the heart may be like a dried-up spring, without natural affection (Rom_1:31; 2Ti_3:3). That wasting fever of the heart is almost worse than the moral death of which, if unassuaged, it is the assured presentiment.
3. Seek, then, with your affections the things above. As truth is the prize of the understanding, so beauty is the prize of the heart. Let the Eternal Beauty woo and win your hearts. In that higher world there are many objects (1Co_2:9) to win them; but there is One above all others who has claims such as no other can have upon them. To love Him is to love a Being who sustains love (Rom_5:5; Eph_6:24). He is the only Being in loving whom the heart can never incur the risk of exhaustion or disappointment.
III. It is the business of the will. There is at the centre of our being a power which rules all others, which, while professing obedience to reason, not seldom arranges its premises and settles its conclusions, and which gives play to affection or restrains it almost at discretion. It is not reason nor feeling which in the last resort rules the soul, and by which the great question of its destiny must be decided. Grant that the will is weakened, this weakness has been corrected in those who are risen with Christ (Php_4:3). Away with the faint-hearted and false notion that religious effort is an affair of temperament! Natural disposition may make things easy or difficult, but it cannot arrest the upward movement of a free, because regenerate, will. We have been made masters of ourselves by Christ, and we cannot shift the responsibility. (Canon Liddon.)
High ground for the affection
Thou puttest wheat in the low ground, and thy friend comes, who knows the nature of the corn and the land, and instructs thine unskilfulness, and says to thee, What hast thou done? thou hast put the corn in the flat soil, in the lower land; the soil is moist; the seed will rot, and thou wilt lose thy labour. Thou answerest, What, then, must I do? Remove it, he says, into the higher ground. Dost thou, then, give ear to a friend who gives thee counsel about thy corn, and despisest thou God, who gives thee counsel about thy heart? Thou fearest to put thy corn in the low ground, and wilt thou lose thine heart in the earth? (T. H. Leary.)
Homewards
As the fire mounteth upwards to its proper place, and as the needle still trembleth till it stands at the north; so the soul, once inflamed with the heavenly fire, and acquainted with her first original, cannot be at rest until it finds itself in that comfortable way which certainly leads homewards. (T. H. Leary.)
Above the tide
There is a plant called samphire, which grows only on cliffs near the sea. But though it grows near the salt sea waves, yet it is never found on any part of a cliff which is not above the reach of the tide. On one occasion, a party of shipwrecked sailors, flung ashore, were struggling up the face of precipitous rocks, afraid of the advancing tide overtaking them, when one of their number lighted upon a plant of samphire, growing luxuriantly. Instantly he raised a shout of joy, assuring his companions, by this token, they were now in safety. The sea might come near this spot, and perhaps cast up its spray, but would never be found reaching it. Such is the position of a soul in Christ: justified and united to Him, the person may be in full sight still of the worlds threatening and angry waves, but he is perfectly safe, and he cannot be overwhelmed. (J. L. Nye.)
Reasons for seeking the things above
The things above--
I. Form the proper object of our regard. Every person should attend to the things which relate to his own home. But the home of a Christian is above. There is his Fathers house.
II. They are the object for which man is by his nature made; and especially for which he is pre pared in his sanctified character.
1. By the constitution of his mind, man requires an object of a spiritual and eternal kind. Nothing of a worldly nature, however multiplied, is congenial with the tendencies and desires of the immortal spirit.
2. Much more, the Christian, as renewed in his spirit by the power of God, must seek the things above, as alone suited to his soul. Spirituality is the essence of the Christian: he breathes and tends heavenward.
III. Their transcendent excellence. There all is perfection; all holiness and happiness. There are in conceivable glories in the heavenly world. Whatever can render it a scene worthy of the majesty of God, of the infinite merit and purchase of the Son of God, of the most enlarged desires and hopes of the redeemed; all is collected and perfect there.
IV. Their perpetuity. The smallest good, of a lasting duration, is deemed prefer able to a much greater benefit that is only transient. But the things which are not seen are eternal.
V. The certainty of success assured to all that seek them in the right way. In the pursuit of all earthly objects there is no certainty of attainment. Conclusion: What reasons, then, exist why we should seek these things with increased earnestness!
1. The apostle, who wrote the text, affords a striking example of the manner in which we should seek them (Php_3:12-14).
2. These reasons are always growing stronger; every moment is impairing the lustre and the value of everything below; while every moment is adding to the nearness and importance of eternal things. (Robert Hall, M. A.)
The heavenly aspirations of the renewed nature
I. The intimate connection between Christ and His people. Dead with Christ, Risen with Christ. The latter phrase implies--
1. That the soul was once dead in sin. The body of the sinner lives--his mind is vigorous, but his soul is dead. It sees no beauty in Christ, hears not the gospel, is unmoved by the love of God, is insensible to the terrors of the coming judgment.
2. The same power which raised Christ from the dead raises dead souls to life.
II. The duty enjoined--Seek, etc.
1. The godliness is not merely a state, but a life.
2. In this active course the Christian is not treated as a mere machine--moved irrespective of his will. Gods power is manifested in it all, but the Christian himself is to seek.
3. We are not left in ignorance of the object of our search. Things above. This indicates--
(1) Their character. Things above--spiritual, heavenly, Godlike, holy, pure.
(2) Their locality. Satisfaction is not to be found in earthly things.
III. The inducement to this life. Christ sitteth above. It is His will that those whom the Father has given Him be with Him where He is. Christs position is--
1. One of honour. The right hand. Him hath God greatly exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour.
2. One of power. The right hand is a symbol of authority. From heaven He shall come to judge the world.
3. Meanwhile it is the position of an Intercessor. (F. Wagstaff.)
Excelsior
The resurrection of Christ occupies a central place in the gospel system, and from it lines of vital connection radiate to every doctrine. As planets revolve round the central sun, and derive light and heat therefrom, so every doctrine connected with mans salvation circles round the risen Christ.
1. Apart from this no guilty man can be justified, for Christ was raised for our justification. If Christ be not risen we are yet dead in our sins.
2. But now is Christ risen, and the opposite results follow.
I. A fact assumed, viz., that Christ has risen.
1. A fact which Christ foresaw would possess transcendent interest. When the Jews asked a sign, this was the one given.
2. A fact well certified, or no fact in history is, and sceptics to be consistent must destroy their Livy, Caesar, Gibbon, and Grote. No one of Christs friends was predisposed to belief. The jealousy of the priesthood was a safeguard against deception.
3. A fact which alone can account for the apostles heroic service.
II. A supposition. If, etc. In Pauls view regeneration and progress could not be disjoined. Ascension must follow resurrection. To rise with Christ means--
1. A transition from darkness to light. The grave symbolizes our state of moral darkness, conversion is the dawning of heavenly light.
2. From bondage to liberty. The grave is an emblem of captivity. When Christ rose, He led captivity captive.
3. From death to life. Christ liveth in us, and because He lives we shall live also.
III. An inspiring exhortation.
1. Every form of life has its corresponding form of activity. If you live, says Paul, grow. Superior life is manifested by superior conduct.
2. Our aspiration should have a definite aim. The things above are those which purify and ennoble.
(1) Knowledge, of God, Scripture, etc.
(2) Faith.
(3) Love.
(4) Righteousness.
(5) Conformity to Christ.
3. The exhortation is supported by a principle of self-consistence. You have risen, rise higher still. On what ground have we started on the heavenly race if we do not mean to continue! (D. Davies, M. A.)
Aspring towards heaven
Ere autumn has tinted the woodlands, or the cornfields are falling to the reapers song, or hoary hill-tops, like grey hairs on an aged head, give warning of winters approach, I have seen the swallows brood pruning their feathers, and putting their long wings to the proof; and, though they might return to their nests in the window-eaves, or alight again on the house-tops, they darted away in the direction of sunny lands. Thus they showed that they were birds bound for a foreign clime, and that the period of their migration from the scene of their birth was nigh at hand. Grace also has its prognostics. They are infallible as those of nature. So, when the soul, filled with longings to be gone, is often darting away to glory, and, soaring upward, rises on the wings of faith, till this great world, from her sublime elevation, looks a little thing, Gods people know that they have the earnest of the Spirit. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The Christian temper
First, then, those who do seek the things which are above, as a matter of fact, become elevated in tone and temper. Do not think that tone and temper are nothing. In the best pictures of great masters, tone is almost everything. Form goes for much. Form, indeed, and the steadiness of the drawing, go for very much in the composition of the picture; but deprive it of the wonderful non so che called tone, and it stands out hard and unpleasing, and supplies to the soul no real pleasure. On the other hand, let the tone of the true artist be there, and now it covers in a great degree even badness in the drawing. In the same way, in nature, atmosphere counts for much, very much, in the charm of a scene, in its power, that is, to touch the heart; and when you come to personal life, what tone is to the picture, what atmosphere is to the landscape, such is general temper to the human character. (Knox Little.)
Attaining higher life
I have known men who have been up in balloons, and they have told me that when they want to rise higher they just throw out some of the sand with which they ballast the balloon. Now, I believe one reason why so many people are earthly-minded and have so little of the spirit of heaven, is that they have got too much ballast in the shape of love for earthly joys and gains; and what you want is to throw out some of the sand, and you will rise higher. (D. L. Moody.)
The affections elevated
On board iron vessels it is a common thing to see a compass placed aloft, to be as much away from the cause of aberration as possible; a wise hint to us to elevate our affections and desires; the nearer to God, the less swayed by worldly influences. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 3 Part 1
Chapter 3 Part 1
THE PRESENT CHRISTIAN LIFE A RISEN LIFE
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Col_3:1-4 (R.V.)
We have now done with controversy. We hear no more about heretical teachers. The Apostle has cut his way through the tangled thickets of error, and has said his say as to the positive truths with which he would hew them down. For the remainder of the letter, we have principally plain practical exhortations, and a number of interesting personal details.
The paragraph which we have now to consider is the transition from the controversial to the ethical portion of the Epistle. It touches the former by its first words, "If ye then were raised together with Christ," which correspond in form and refer in meaning to the beginning of the previous paragraph, "If ye died with Christ." It touches the latter because it embodies the broad general precept, "Seek the things that are above," of which the following practical directions are but varying applications in different spheres of duty.
In considering these words we must begin by endeavouring to put clearly their connection and substance. As they flew from Pauls eager lips, motive and precept, symbol and fact, the present and future are blended together. It may conduce to clearness if we try to part these elements. There are here two similar exhortations, side by side. "Seek the things that are above," and "Set your mind on the things that are above." The first is preceded, and the second is followed by its reason. So the two laws of conduct are, as it were, enclosed like a kernel in its shell, or a jewel in a gold setting, by encompassing motives. These considerations, in which the commandments are embedded, are the double thought of union with Christ in His resurrection, and in His death, and as consequent thereon, participation in His present hidden life, and in His future glorious manifestation. So we have here the present budding life of the Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ; the future consummate flower of the Christian life in union with the glorious manifested Christ; and the practical aim and direction which alone are consistent with either bud or flower.
I. The present budding life of the Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ.
Two aspects of this life are set forth in Col_3:1 and Col_3:3 -"raised with Christ," and "ye died, and your life is hid with Christ." A still profounder thought lies in the words of Col_3:4, "Christ is our life."
We have seen in former parts of this Epistle that Paul believed that, when a man puts His faith in Jesus Christ, he is joined to Him in such a way that he is separated from his former self and dead to the world. That great change may be considered either with reference to what the man has ceased to be, or with reference to what he becomes. In the one aspect, it is a death; in the other, it is a resurrection. It depends on the point of view whether a semicircle seems convex or concave. The two thoughts express substantially the same fact. That great change was brought about in these Colossian Christians, at a definite time, as the language shows; and by a definite means- namely, by union with Christ through faith, which grasps His death and resurrection as at once the ground of salvation, the pattern for life, and the prophecy of glory. So then, the great truths here are these; the impartation of life by union with Christ, which life is truly a resurrection life, and is, moreover, hidden with Christ in God.
Union with Christ by faith is the condition of a real communication of life. "In Him was life," says Johns Gospel, meaning thereby to assert, in the language of our Epistle, that "in Him were all things created, and in Him all things consist." Life in all its forms is dependent on union in varying manner with the Divine, and upheld only by His continual energy, The creature must touch God or perish. Of that energy the Uncreated Word of God is the channel-"with Thee is the fountain of life." As the life of the body, so the higher self-conscious life of the thinking, feeling, striving soul, is also fed and kept alight by the perpetual operation of a higher Divine energy, imparted in like manner by the Divine Word. Therefore, with deep truth, the psalm just quoted, goes on to say, "In Thy light shall we see light"-and therefore, too, Johns Gospel continues: "And the life was the light of men."
But there is a still higher plane on which life may be manifested, and nobler energies which may accompany it. The body may live, and mind and heart be dead. Therefore Scripture speaks of a threefold life: that of the animal nature, that of the intellectual and emotional nature, and that of the spirit, which lives when it is conscious of God, and touches Him by aspiration, hope, and love. This is the loftiest life. Without it, a man is dead while he lives. With it, he lives though he dies. And like the others, it depends on union with the Divine life as it is stored in Jesus Christ- but in this case, the union is a conscious union by faith. If I trust to Him, and am thereby holding firmly by Him, my union with Him is so real, that, in the measure of my faith, His fulness passes over into my emptiness, His righteousness into my sinfulness, His life into my death, as surely as the electric shock thrills my nerves when I grasp the poles of the battery.
No man can breathe into anothers nostrils the breath of life. But Christ can and does breathe His life into us; and this true miracle of a communication of spiritual life takes place in every man who humbly trusts himself to Him. So the question comes home to each of us-am I living by my union with Christ? do I draw from Him that better being which He is longing to pour into my withered, dead spirit? It is not enough to live the animal life the more it is fed, the more are the higher lives starved and dwindled. It is not enough to live the life of intellect and feeling. That may be in brightest, keenest exercise, and yet we-our best selves-may be dead-separated from God in Christ, and therefore dead-and all our activity may be but as a galvanic twitching of the muscles in a corpse. Is Christ our life, its source, its strength, its aim, its motive? Do we live in Him, by Him, with Him, for Him.? If not, we are dead while we live.
This life from Christ is a resurrection life. "The power of Christs resurrection" is three fold-as a seal of His mission and Messiahship, "declared to be the Son of God, by His resurrection from the dead"; as a prophecy and pledge of ours, "now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept"; and as a symbol and pattern of our new life of Christian consecration, "likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be indeed dead unto sin." This last use of the resurrection of Christ is a plain witness of the firm, universal, and uncontested belief in the historical fact, throughout the Churches which Paul addressed. The fact must have been long familiar and known as undoubted, before it could have been thus moulded into a symbol. But, passing from that, consider that our union to Christ produces a moral and spiritual change analogous to His resurrection. After all, it is the moral and not the mystical side which is the main thing in Pauls use of this thought. He would insist that all true Christianity operates a death to the old self, to sin, and to the whole present order of things, and endows a man with new tastes, desires, and capacities, like a resurrection to a new being. These heathen converts-picked from the filthy cesspools in which many of them had been living, and set on a pure path, with the astounding light of a Divine love flooding it, and a bright hope painted on the infinite blackness ahead-had surely passed into a new life. Many a man in this day, long familiar with Christian teaching, has found himself made over again in mature life, when his heart has grasped Christ. Drunkards, profligates, outcasts, have found it life from the dead; and even where there has not been such complete visible revolution as in them, there has been such deep-seated central alteration that it is no exaggeration to call it resurrection. The plain fact is that real Christianity in a man will produce in him a radical moral change. If our religion does not do that in us, it is nothing. Ceremonial and doctrine are but means to an end-making us better men. The highest purpose of Christs work, for which He both "died and rose and revived," is to change us into the likeness of His own beauty of perfect purity. That risen life is no mere exaggeration of mystical rhetoric, but an imperative demand of the highest morality, and the plain issue of it is: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body." Do I say that I am a Christian? The test by which my claim must be tried is the likeness of my life here to Him who has died unto sift, and liveth unto God.
But the believing soul is risen with Christ also, inasmuch as our union with Him makes us partakers of His resurrection as our victory over death. The water in the reservoir and in the fountain is the same; the sunbeam in the chamber and in the sky is one. The life which flows into our spirits from Christ is a life that has conquered death, and makes us victors in that last conflict, even though we have to go down into the darkness. If Christ live in us, we can never die. "It is not possible that we should be holden of it." The bands which He broke can never be fastened on our limbs. The gates of death were so warped and the locks so spoiled, when He burst them asunder, that they can never be closed again. There are many arguments for a future life beyond the grave, but there is only one proof of it-the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, trusting in Him, and with our souls bound in the bundle of life with our Lord the King, we can cherish quiet thankfulness of heart, and bless the God and Father of our Lord who hath begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
This risen life is a hidden life. Its roots are in Him. He has passed in His ascension into the light which is inaccessible, and is hidden in its blaze, bearing with Him our life, concealed there with Him in God. Faith stands gazing into heaven, as the cloud, the visible manifestation from of old of the Divine presence, hides Him from sight, and turns away feeling that the best part of its true self is gone with Him. So here Paul points his finger upwards to where "Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God," and says-We are here in outward seeming, but our true life is there, if we are His.
And what majestic, pregnant words these are! How full, and yet how empty for a prurient curiosity, and how reverently reticent even while they are triumphantly confident! How gently they suggest repose-deep and unbroken, and yet full of active energy! For if the attitude imply rest, the locality-"at the right hand of God"-expresses not only the most intimate approach to, but also the wielding of the Divine omnipotence. What is the right hand of God but the activity of His power? and what less can be ascribed to Christ here, than His being enthroned in closest union with the Father, exercising Divine dominion, and putting forth Divine power. No doubt the ascended and glorified bodily manhood of Jesus Christ has a local habitation, but the old psalm might teach us that wherever space is, even there "Thy right hand upholds," and there is our ascended Lord, sitting as in deepest rest, but working all the work of God. And it is just because He is at the right hand of God that He is hid. The light hides. He has been lost to sight in the glory.
He has gone in thither, bearing with Him the true source and root of our lives into the secret place of the Most High. Therefore we no longer belong to this visible order of things in the midst of which we tarry for a while. The true spring that feeds our lives lies deep beneath all the surface waters. These may dry up, but it will flow. These may be muddied with rain, but it will be limpid as ever. The things seen do not go deep enough to touch our real life. They are but as the winds that fret, and the currents that sway the surface and shallower levels of the ocean, while the great depths are still. The circumference is all a whirl; the centre is at rest.
Nor need we leave out of sight, though it be not the main thought here, that the Christian life is hidden, inasmuch as here on earth action ever falls short of thought, and the love and faith by which a good man lives can never be fully revealed in his conduct and character. You cannot carry electricity from the generator to the point where it is to work without losing two thirds of it by the way. Neither word nor deed can adequately set forth a soul; and the profounder and nobler the emotion, the more inadequate are the narrow gates of tongue and hand to give it passage. The deepest love can often only "love and be silent." So, while every man is truly a mystery to his neighbour, a life which is rooted in Christ is more mysterious to the ordinary eye than any other. It is fed by hidden manna. It is replenished from a hidden source. It is guided by other than the worlds motives, and follows unseen aims. "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not."
II. We have the future consummate flower of the Christian life in union with the manifested, glorious Christ.
The future personal manifestation of Jesus Christ in visible glory is, in the teaching of all the New Testament writers, the last stage in the series of His Divine human conditions. As surely as the Incarnation led to the cross, and the cross to the empty grave, and the empty grave to the throne, so surely does the throne lead to the coming again in glory. And as with Christ, so with His servants, the manifestation in glory is the certain end of all the preceding, as surely as the flower is of the tiny green leaves that peep above the frost-bound earth in bleak March days. Nothing in that future, however glorious and wonderful, but has its germ and vital beginning in our union with Christ here by humble faith. The great hopes which we may cherish are gathered up here into these words-"shall be manifested with Him." That is far more than was conveyed by the old translation-"shall appear." The roots of our being shall be disclosed, for He shall come, "and every eye shall see Him." We shall be seen for what we are The outward life shall correspond to the inward. The faith and love which often struggled in vain for expression and were thwarted by the obstinate flesh, as a sculptor trying to embody his dream might be by a block of marble with many a flaw and speck, shall then be able to reveal themselves completely. Whatever is in the heart shall be fully visible in the life. Stammering words and imperfect deeds shall vex us no more. "His name shall be in their foreheads"-no longer only written in fleshly tables of the heart and partially visible in the character, but stamped legibly and completely on life and nature. They shall walk in the light, and so shall be seen of all. Here the truest followers of Christ shine like an intermittent star, seen through mist and driving cloud: "Then shall the righteous blaze forth like the sun in the kingdom of My Father."
But this is not all. The manifestation is to be "with Him." The union which was here effected by faith, and marred by many an interposing obstacle of sin and selfishness, of flesh and sense, is to be perfected then. No film of separation is any more to break its completeness. Here we often lose our hold of Him amidst the distractions of work, even when done for His sake; and our life is at best but an imperfect compromise between contemplation and action; but then, according to that great saying, "His servants shall serve Him, and see His face," the utmost activity of consecrated service, though it be far more intense and on a nobler scale than anything here, will not interfere with the fixed gaze on His countenance. We shall serve like Martha, and yet never remove from sitting with Mary, rapt and blessed at His feet.
This is the one thought of that solemn future worth cherishing. Other hopes may feed sentiment, and be precious sometimes to aching hearts. A reverent longing or an irreverent curiosity may seek to discern something more in the far off light. But it is enough for the heart to know that "we shall ever be with the Lord"; and the more we have that one hope in its solitary grandeur, the better. We shalt be with Him "in glory." That is the climax of all that Paul would have us hope. "Glory" is the splendour and light of the self-revealing God. In the heart of the blaze stands Christ; the bright cloud enwraps Him, as it did on the mountain of transfiguration, and into the dazzling radiance His disciples will pass as His companions did then, nor "fear as they enter into the cloud." They walk unshrinking in that beneficent fire, because with them is one like unto the Son of man, through whom they dwell, as in their own calm home, amidst "the everlasting burning," which shall not destroy them, but kindle them into the likeness of its own flashing glory.
Then shall the life which here was but in bud, often unkindly nipped and struggling, burst into the consummate beauty of the perfect flower "which fadeth not away."
III. We have the practical aim and direction which alone are consistent with either stage of the Christian life.
Two injunctions are based upon these considerations-"seek," and "set your mind upon," the things that are above. The one points to the outward life of effort and aim; the other to the inward life of thought and longing. Let the things above, then, be the constant mark at which you aim. There is a vast realm of real existence of which your risen Lord is the centre and the life. Make it the point to which you strive. That will riot lead to despising earth and nearer objects. These, so far as they are really good and worthy, stand right in the line of direction which our efforts will take it we are seeking the things that are above, and may all be stages on our journey Christwards. The lower objects are best secured by those who live for the higher. No man is so well able to do the smallest duties here, or to bear the passing troubles of this world of illusion and change, or to wring the last drop of sweetness out of swiftly fleeting joys, as he to whom everything on earth is dwarfed by the eternity beyond, as some hut beside a palace, and is great because it is like a little window a foot square through which infinite depths of sky with all their stars shine in upon him. The true meaning and greatness of the present are that it is the vestibule of the august future. The staircase leading to the presence chamber of the king may be of poor deal, narrow crooked, and stowed away in a dark turret, but it has dignity by reason of that to which it gives access. So let our aims pass through the earthly and find in them helps to the things that are above. We should not fire all our bullets at the short range. Seek ye first the kingdom of God-the things which are above.
"Set your mind on" these things, says the Apostle further. Let them occupy mind and heart-and this in order that we may seek them. The direction of the aims will follow the set and current of the thoughts. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." How can we be shaping our efforts to reach a good which we have not clearly before our imaginations as desirable? How should the life of so many professing Christians be other than a lame creeping along the low levels of earth, seeing that so seldom do they look up to "see the King in His beauty and the land that is very far off"? John Bunyans "man with the muckrake" grubbed away so eagerly among the rubbish because he never lifted his eyes to the crown that hung above his head. In many a silent, solitary hour of contemplation, with the world shut out and Christ brought very near, we must find the counterpoise to the pressure of earthly aims, or our efforts after the things that are above will be feeble and broken. Life goes at such, a pace today, and the present is so exacting with most of us, that quiet meditation is, I fear me, almost out of fashion with Christian people. We must become more familiar with the secret place of the most High, and more often enter into our chambers and shut our doors about us, if in the bustle of our busy days we are to aim truly and strongly at the only object which saves life from being a waste and a sin, a madness and a misery-"the things which are above, where Christ is."
"Where Christ is." Yes, that is the only thought which gives definiteness and solidity to that else vague and nebulous unseen universe; the only thought which draws our affections thither. Without Him, there is no footing for us there. Rolling mists of doubt and dim hopes warring with fears, strangeness, and terrors wrap it all. "I go to prepare a place for you" - a place where desire and thought may walk unterrified and undoubting even now, and where we ourselves may abide when our time comes, nor shrink from the light nor be oppressed by the glory.
"My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim,
But tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him."
Into that solemn world we shall all pass. We can choose whether we shall go to it as to our long sought home, to find in it Him who is our life; or whether we shall go reluctant and afraid, leaving all for which we have cared, and going to Him whom we have neglected and that which we have feared. Christ will be manifested, and we shall see Him. We can choose whether it will be to us the joy of beholding the soul of our soul, the friend long loved when dimly seen from afar; or whether it shall be the vision of a face that will stiffen us to stone and stab us with its light. We must make our choice. If we give our hearts to Him, and by faith unite ourselves with Him, then, "when He shall appear, we shall have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1–4. If then ye were raised together with Christ.…
1–4. If then ye were raised together with Christ. The Revision is correct. A definite act, not a state, is referred to. The definite act is named in 2:12 above. When they were “buried with him in baptism,” they were also raised from this burial with him through faith, quickened. Hence here he says, “If then ye were raised with him,” if your obedience was from the heart and in faith, if you rose therefore with him (these are the emphatic words), then seek those things which are above. The risen Christ ascended; let your aspirations ascend also. Where Christ sitteth, etc. See notes on Eph. 1:20.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Col_3:1. Seek those things that are above.—Our Lord says…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Col_3:1. Seek those things that are above.—Our Lord says that as He was “from above,” so His disbelieving hearers were “from beneath,” which He interprets as “of this world” (Joh_8:23-24). The apostle in like manner in the next verse opposes the “things above” to “things on earth.”
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Col_3:1-2
The Higher Aspirations of the Soul.
You have seen the clouds gather in the sky and settle on the hills. The thunder mutters, the rain falls, and the scene is one of storm, confusion, and darkness. Suddenly the whole aspect of the heavens is changed. A blaze of light springs up among the hills; the storm ceases; the gloom is swept away; and the outlook is one of tranquillity, of triumph, and of splendour. Similar to this is the striking change between the close of the last chapter of this epistle and the beginning of the present one. The grave warnings against the sombre errors of a false philosophy, and the supposed meritorious torturings of the body, which occupy a considerable part of the second chapter, give place in the opening of the third chapter to a luminous and inspiring picture of the glorious privileges and lofty destiny of the believing soul. These verses teach that, being raised by Christ into newness of life, the soul should aspire to the attainment of the highest blessings.
I. The distinguished relation in which the believing soul stands to Christ.—“Risen with Christ” (Col_3:1).
1. This relation implies the living union of the soul with Christ.—The apostle had spoken of the soul as dying with Christ, as buried with Him, as quickened with Him; and now he advances another step, and declares that it is also raised with Him. The union between the believer and Christ was so complete that he participates with Christ in all He has done. “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom_6:4). As the dead body of the man cast into the sepulchre of Elisha revived and stood up the moment it touched the bones of the prophet (2Ki_13:21), so the soul, dead in trespasses and sins, is quickened by believing contact with Christ, and rises into a higher and more glorious life.
2. This relation indicates the nature and tendencies of the soul.—“Risen with Christ: … set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Col_3:1-2). The change involved in union with Christ affects man’s whole nature. It affects not only his practical conduct, but also his intellectual conceptions. He is translated from earth to heaven; and with this translation his point of view is altered, his standard of judgment wholly changed. His aspirations spurn the earthly and transitory, and soar towards the heavenly and eternal. The flies that sport upon the summer stream, while they plunge their bodies in the water, are careful not to wet their wings, so that they may fly again into the sunny air. So, while we are necessarily immersed in “things on the earth,” we should take heed that the wings of our soul are not so clogged as to retard our flight to heaven.
II. The sublime objects of the soul’s higher aspirations.—“Things above” (Col_3:2).
1. Christ is above.—“Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Col_3:2). This indicates that Christ is exalted to the highest dignity. He is above all angelic powers, whatever their position or rank. The right hand of God also indicates the right hand of power. Thence Christ wields all the authority and power of universal government. “Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour.” He reigns on high in order to carry out to a glorious consummation the work He accomplished on the cross. To Him all hearts turn for love and blessedness, as the flowers turn to the sun. The rudiments of the world have no longer any power to satisfy. The soul ascends to heaven, for where the treasure is there will be the heart also; and the flow of time is rapidly hurrying us on to the moment when we shall be
“Caught up to share
The triumph of our Lord.”
2. The source of the greatest spiritual blessings is above.—When Christ ascended into the heavens He received gifts for men; and from His lofty throne He delights to distribute those gifts to the needy sons of men. Thence we receive pardon, the conscious favour of God, holiness of character, comfort in every time of distress, and hope to light the pathway of the future. Of all the blessings laid up for us above, the highest and the best is that which in itself includes all others—the gift of the Holy Ghost. All, all we want is there.
3. The heavenly home is above.—There is the abode of peace and purity; there temptation has no power, and suffering and sorrow can never enter; there the Saviour reveals His glories and diffuses the joy of His radiant presence; there all the members of the Father’s family assemble from every part of the globe, never more to separate. The soul, burdened with the cares of life, and troubled with multiplied disappointments, yearns for the rest of the heavenly home. The things on the earth can never satisfy the wants of the soul; they are unsuited to it; they are beneath it; and, liberated from their trammels by the resurrection power of Christ, it seeks its true happiness above the stars.
III. The paramount duty of the soul to aspire to the highest good.—Seek, set “your affections on things above” (Col_3:1). A similar expression repeated for the emphasis. You are not only to seek heaven, but also to think heaven. The understanding must be engaged in duly estimating the value of heavenly things, the will in preferring them above all things earthly, the affections in embracing them as the objects to be most evidently desired and loved; in fact, all the powers of the soul must be constantly exercised in the search. The soul, raised from the death of sin, is ever responding to the attractive influence of its risen Lord. “Being thus already risen, every motion of grace is the struggle of the soul for the final consummation—the bird is caged, but the wings are free to flutter within their prison.” The soul is now willing, cheerfully and faithfully, to follow the call of duty, whatever it may entail.
“Oft where she leads, thy blood must mark thy footsteps;
Oft where she leads, thy head must bear the storm,
And thy shrunk form endure heat, cold, and hunger;
But she will guide thee up to noble heights,
Which he who gains seems native of the sky;
While earthly things lie stretched beneath his feet,
Diminished, shrunk, and valueless.”
Lessons.—
1. The soul is endowed with vast powers and capable of the highest destiny.
2. It is sad to witness thousands whose souls rise no higher than the things on the earth.
3. The soul can realise its highest aspirations only as it is risen with Christ.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Col_3:1. Seeking the Things Above.
I. Contemplate the sublime object—the state of future blessedness of believers.
1. The perfection of character they exhibit.
2. The exercises in which they shall be engaged.
3. The happiness in which they participate.
4. The friendships they share.
II. The conduct enjoined upon us.—“Seek those things.”
1. Implies belief in their existence.
2. That attention is directed much towards them.
3. Set our attachment upon them.
4. Use diligent and persevering exertions to obtain them.
III. Motives to this conduct—
1. A regard to consistency.
2. The reasonableness of the duty.
3. Present advantages.
4. Because they are the scene in which are displayed Christ’s personal presence and glory.
Risen with Christ.
I. Christianity begins where everything else ends: it begins with death.
II. After dying to sin we are to begin to live in good earnest.
III. The Christian toils, labours, and tasks his mind for the glory of God and the good of others.
IV. The true Christian seeks the things which are above.—
1. Holiness.
2. Love.
3. Peace.
4. Truth.—A. W. Hare.
The New Life.
I. There is a great difference between the new life and the old.—
1. In our feelings.
2. Principles.
3. Aims.
4. Methods.
5. Conduct.
6. Thoughts.
7. Company.
8. Influence.
II. This difference should lead us to think much of heaven and to seek after heavenly things.—
1. To know all we can about heaven.
2. To prepare all we can for heaven.
3. To take all we can with us to heaven.—Preacher’s Magazine.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v1 1. “If therefore you have been resurrected with Christ,…
ARGUMENT 13
THE TRUE CHURCH INVISIBLE TILL OUR LORD’S RETURN
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1. “If therefore you have been resurrected with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God.
2. “Think about the things above, not things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
4. “When Christ, your life, may appear, then you shall also appear with him in glory.”
While the Head walked the earth visible to mortal eyes, then the Church of Christ was visible also. When the glorified Head flew up to heaven from Mt. Olivet, thus becoming invisible, the body became invisible also, and will so remain till our descending King shall ride down on the throne of his glory, and call his saints to meet him in the air. Materialistic religion in all ages has been quarreling over the identity of the Church of Christ. I was reared in a country where ignorance abounded in pulpit and pew, and sectarian war was the order of the day. If an insinuation was cast against his creed, the spunky pastor announced a time for a doctrinal sermon. We all went and enjoyed two solid hours on his creed. No time for the Bible that day. Meanwhile his necessary entrenchment on his neighbor’s creed arouses him to the defense. And so the creedistic war is renewed on all sides, every pastor laboring assiduously amid perspiration and hoarseness to prove that his Church is the genuine apostolical succession, to the exclusion of all others, simultaneously exhorting the people to teach’ the heresies, and come and join the bona fide Church of Christ. I, with all the balance, preachers included, was at that time utterly ignorant that each champion, by his stalwart effort, was actually proving the very opposite of his enterprise; i.e., confirming to all intelligent Bible readers that his visible organization is not the Church of Christ, and that his clamorous, excited people, so enthusiastically vociferating their claims to the true apostolic succession, are not the Church of Christ, which is composed of the people, who are “dead,” and their life “hid with Christ in God,” and will never be recognized by mortal eyes till Christ shall appear. Then his true saints will enter into the transfigured glory of their descending Lord, and fly up to meet him in the air. If you want to know whether you are a member of the true Church of Christ, you must settle it on the route you are traveling. Are you really dead? Is your pride dead? Is your lust dead? Is your temper dead? Is your love of money dead? Are you really dead to the world? If so, you are a full-fledged member of the gospel Church, regardless of modes, rights, and cognomens.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. "Seek things that be above." This is the…
Col 3:1
I. "Seek things that be above." This is the business first of all of a man’s understanding, of the understanding of a Christian who is risen with Christ. Seek those things that be above, seek the conversation of the wise and the instructed. Study if you will the masterpieces, the highest masterpieces of literature: make the most of whatever enlarges and ennobles your conceptions of nature and of human life; in all the higher and purer regions of thought you are nearer Christ even though His name be not uttered. But as you think let your cry be ever "Excelsior." Rest not in the highest regions of earthly excellence, do not be satisfied until you have struggled upwards beyond literature, beyond science, beyond nature into that world which human thought may enter under the guidance of revelation; into that kingdom of heaven which, since the Redeemer died and rose, has indeed been opened to all believers.
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II. Yes, seek those things that be above, for it is the business not merely of the understanding, but of the affections. The affections are a particular form or department of desire, and desire is the strongest motive power in the heart of man. St. Augustine said, "Quocunque feror, amore feror." If I am borne upwards, it is by the love of the highest good; if I am being carried downwards, it is by corrupt or perverted desire, by desire which has attached itself to false or unworthy objects, but which, nevertheless, has the control of my movement as a spiritual being, and in this sense St. James says that desire, when it is finished, bringeth forth sin: sin is the act by which perverted desire attains its object. Seek then, as with your understandings, so with your affections, things above.
III. Here is, lastly, an effort for the sovereign faculty, for the will. "O will of man," the Apostle seems to say, "seek those things that be above." Grant that the will is weakened by the inheritance of moral disease, this weakness has been corrected at least in those who are risen in Christ. Natural disposition may make things easy or difficult. It cannot either prompt or arrest the onward, upward movement of a free, because regenerate will. We have been made masters of ourselves by Christ. We cannot shift the responsibility which attaches to us by putting it upon the very circumstances which are placed within our control. "Seek those things that are above."
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 225.
Christian Advance.
I. First, I would have you notice the basis upon which St. Paul puts forward his view of the life of the Christian, as a life of advance. The basis is this: he maintains, and maintains earnestly, to those to whom he wrote, that their life had passed through a crisis. He warns them that there has been a special time marked by a special external witness, when that life had advanced out of one sphere of being into another, when they had stepped off one platform of thought on to another; and therefore, because upon the fact of this momentous charge he based his view of their life, the exhortation of the text had real force. Christianity is not a mere matter of feeling and emotion. Christianity has indeed in its keeping forces capable of drawing forth the warmest emotions, and kindling the most glowing feelings of the human heart. But Christianity in its very essence is something deeper than that; and as Christian life, on its subjective side—on the side of the soul—is something more than feeling, so that on which it rests objectively is something more than mere idea. The basis of it all is fundamental fact.
II. If you have turned to God, have listened to His call, if you have taken Him at His word and submitted to Jesus, the platform of your life is changed, the sphere of your activity is altered, and you start not merely to a life of labour, but to something higher, better, greater, than labour—an advance upward and onward on a new and glorious course. There are minds which are apt to look upon the Christian life as a life of mere stagnation. On the contrary, we must remember that there remains before us the advancing life.
III. Christianity in urging us to that advance is falling in with the fundamental fact and experience of our nature. It does not need regenerating grace, it does not need a converting call, to tell us men that there is within us a yearning and a longing for higher things. Ye are "risen with Christ," and therefore do not merely have yearnings, and indefinite longings, but "seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." (1) Those who do "seek the things which are above," as a matter of fact, become elevated in tone and temper. (2) It is not only true that the tone of life is changed by "seeking" them, but also that the sphere of thought is enlarged. (3) "Seeking those things which are above" helps us not only to reach towards, but gradually and steadily to attain to virtues purely Christian. To grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ is a possibility to every soul young and old.
W. J. Knox Little, Characteristics of the Christian Life, p.,26.
I. It is on the great fact that Christ is risen that the whole attention of faith is concentrated. When we have grasped this, then all the other truths which are emphatically doctrines of faith, the Atonement, the Incarnation, the Pre-existent Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ, unfold themselves in their right order. For we come to know Him in the very power of His resurrection, and so we are able to rest on His Word when He tells us, "I came to give My life a ransom for the many."
II. The Resurrection of Christ is not a dead fact of the past; it is a living fact, which looks on to the future; it is the type and earnest of our own rising again. He is the firstfruits of the great harvest, which shall be reaped at the Judgment Day, gathered safe into the garner of God. Wherever we go, the shadow of death falls upon this life. That shadow has already swallowed those whom we honour, reverence, love; it is so near ourselves, that it must at times cast, in thought and anticipation, some shadows on our own path. We must have light upon it, if we are really to live as true men, and if we are to know anything of a living God. It is the knowledge of the great truth of Easter, which alone lights it up.
III. But it is not on the Resurrection as a fact in the past St. Paul dwells; this is now accepted by all as one of the first elements of Christian truth. It is not even on the future hope of our resurrection through it, for that also is taken almost for granted now. It is on the eternal life in and through Christ, actually given us in the present. The regeneration in Christ and those who are made His, is spoken of as a present resurrection in us—a resurrection of the spiritual life, from the bondage of the flesh, and from the death of sin: it is not, therefore, that we shall rise, but that we are risen in Christ. Faith is not content even with the saying, "I am the Resurrection"; it goes on to the still deeper utterance of the Lord, "I am the Life"; he that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.
A. Barry, First Words in Australia, p. 145.
References: Col 3:1.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 269; Ibid., vol. vi., p. 216; Scott, University Sermons, p. 42; J. Vaughan, Sermons, nth series, p. 189; Plain Sermons, vol. iii., p. 61; Liddon, Easter Sermons, vol. ii., p. 37; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 88; A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons, p. 203; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. i., p. 201; H. P. Liddon, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 217; Homilist, 4th series, vol. i., p. 362; E. Johnson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 342. Col 3:1, Col 3:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1530; Plain Sermons, vol. x., p. 133. Col 1:1-3.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 202; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., pp. 87, 224; W. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 109. Col 3:1-4.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 129.
Col 3:2
I. What does the Apostle mean by the words Set your affections? Our affections are that part of our nature by which we go out in sentiments of interest, complacency or delight. What the Apostle requires of us is to let our minds go out upon these "things above," and rest in quiet contemptation of them. He would have us take them as settled and indubitable facts, clearly revealed to us, and make them the object of our deep, continuous and interested study. He calls us not to pry into things hidden and recondite, but to ponder things manifest and revealed. It is not to a process of research, but to a process of reflection that he urges us.
II. There is, I trust, little need to enlarge upon the importance of cultivating and cherishing such a habit as the Apostle here inculcates. (1) When the affections are habitually set on things above, the surest evidence of regeneration, and of being in a state of grace, is afforded. (2) The setting of the affections on things above is supremely conducive to the right discharge of the duties, and the right endurance of the trials, of the Christian course. (3) As this habit of spiritual affection and thought fits for a useful and happy life on earth, so it alone prepares us for the higher life in heaven. Blessed is that man whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find ready, his eye turned from the fading joys of earth, and resting on the glories of opening heaven.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Sermons, p. 309.
References: Col 3:2.—T. de Witt Talmage, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 129; Church of England Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 28; Homilist, vol. iv., p. 413; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 306; W. Arthur, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 130; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xxvi., p. 355.
Col 3:3
The Hidden Life.
If we are true Christians, we have passed through a death of some kind, and our life, if we have one, is a hidden life, a life not seen by men, a life safe in the company and the custody of Christ.
I. Now, doubtless, there was a more visible and palpable contrast in the days of St. Paul, between the life of one who was and one who was not a Christian, than there can ever be in a country like our own. But though the contrast is more vivid in a heathen country than among the members of a Christian body, yet it is indeed not more real. In the hearts of professing Christians, Christ must either succeed or fail in introducing a new life, of which death must be the precursor.
II. Do you know anything of gradual dying to sin? You might have called the struggle by some other name. But you have struggled with a cruel darling sin, and you feel the intense truthfulness of that description which represents the struggles and deed of dying, and the victory as a fact of death. And certainly, if this be so, you will already have overcome the great difficulty which blinds so many to the existence of the hidden life with Christ. The pure in heart are those who have the vision of God. And purity of heart is only granted to those who have conquered, or have died to all duplicity and all defilement.
H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 344.
Spiritual Mindedness.
What St. Paul here urges is, indeed, the highest perfection of Christianity, and therefore of human nature; but it is not an impossible perfection, and St. Paul’s own life and character are our warrant that it is nothing sickly or foolish or fanatical.
I. It is most certain that Christ requires us to be dead only to what is evil. But the essence of spiritual mindedness consists in this, that it is assumed that with earth and all things earthly, evil and imperfection are closely mixed; so that it is not possible to set our affections keenly upon, or to abandon ourselves to the enjoyment of, any earthly thing without the danger of the affections and their enjoyment becoming evil. In other words, there is that in the state of things within and around us, which renders it needful to be ever watchful; and watchfulness is inconsistent with an intensity of delight and enjoyment.
II. Consider, for instance, that lively sense of the beauty of all nature, that indescribable feeling of delight which arises out of consciousness of health and strength and power. Suppose we abandon ourselves to such impressions without restraint, and is it not manifest that they are the extreme of godless pride and selfishness? For do we not know that in this world, and close to us wherever we are, there is, along with all the beauty and enjoyment which we witness, a large proportion also of evil and suffering? The soldier has something else to do than to gaze like a child on the splendour of his uniform, or the brightness of his sword: those faculties which we find as it were burning within us, have their work before them, a work far above their strength, though multiplied a thousand fold; the call to them to be busy is never silent; there is an infinite voice in the infinite sins and sufferings of millions which proclaims that the contest is raging around us; every idle moment is treason; now is the time for unceasing efforts, and not till the victory is gained may Christ’s soldiers throw aside their arms, and resign themselves to enjoyment and to rest.
T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 39.
Death and Life with Christ.
It is the Christian state that is here described; the state of the real Christian. And it is described in a twofold aspect, as a state of death and a state of life. The paradox is not peculiar to this passage.
I. "Ye are dead." This is strong language addressed to true believers. But it is very gracious language. In conversion the sinner does indeed die with Christ, being buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. It would thus appear that there are three stages of the death of believers. (1) In their original state of unconcern and unbelief, they are dead. (2) In their effectual calling by the Holy Ghost, they die. (3) And ever after, as long as they remain on earth, they are to reckon themselves dead indeed.
II. As it is said of those who live in pleasure, that they are dead while they live, so it may be said of you who believe in Jesus, that you live while you are dead. And your life is hid with Christ in God. Follow Christ now, from earth to heaven; from the scene of His agony here below, to the scene of His blessed joy in the presence of the Father above. (1) Your life is with Christ. It is, in fact, identified with Him. He is your life, and He is so in two respects. (a) You live with Christ as partakers of His right to live. (b) You live with Christ in respect of the new spirit of your life. (2) Further, this life, being with Christ, must be where He is. It must therefore be in God. He is your life. And where He is, there is your life. But He is in the bosom of the Father. Your life with Christ, therefore, is in God. For in His favour is life, and His lovingkindness is better than life. (3) Finally, this life with Christ in God is hid. It must needs be so, since it enters in within the veil. This suggests the touching ideas of security and spirituality, of privacy and of seclusion. Your life is not to be always hidden. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory."
R. S. Candlish, Sermons, p. 67.
The purpose of the Apostle is evidently to exhort the Colossians to live the highest possible life, the life of the resurrection, the life of heaven even on earth. To do that is here described in two words: "Seek the things that are above," "Set your mind, or affection, on the things that are above." Seek them in order to find and possess them. Seek them as goodly pearls, for they can be found; they have an existence. They are realities outside us, not mere thoughts and feelings and methods, but objective things which can be sought and can be found. The other word is, "Set your mind"—think the things—"that are above." For though they are realities outside us they have the power of being transmuted into thoughts and feelings. We have the faculty of changing them from outward realities into governing principles of character. We can think them, we can make thoughts out of them. They are the material out of which great ideas and great characters are formed. Then the Apostle mentions two reasons why we should do this, why we should seek these, and why we should think them. The one reason is, "that ye are risen with Christ." The other is, "that ye are dead with Christ*" Evidently "with Christ" ought to be supplied in thought in the third verse, for "if we die with Christ," he says in the twentieth verse of the first chapter. If we died with Christ—not in ourselves, but in Christ—we are risen with Christ, and we have died with Christ. And the things must come in that order—resurrection first with Christ, death after with Christ. The other is the natural order. Men die first, and they lie in the world for centuries, but the resurrection comes at last, afterwards. The supernatural order is the reverse. We rise first from the natural into the supernatural, and then in that supernatural resurrection we die unto the natural life which we lived before. We rise first, we die afterwards. Every life must have these two aspects. It must appear, it must hide itself. It is so with every life, even the lowest. If it is a life it must hide itself. The rose tree in the garden lives and appears in leaf and flower, but it does so because its life is hid in the roots. And if it had no roots, unseen, hiding themselves under the surface, you would never see a leaf or a rose in sight. It is so with men. No man will ever appear great, will ever show signs of greatness of character, unless he has a hidden life. There is more hidden than appears. It is so with religion. A religion that is always on the surface is not a living one. A religion that is real will have a glorious manifestation in proportion as it has an equally glorious hiding.
I. Christ and the Christian are hid in the mystery of God’s providence. In the development of the Church, in the progress of Christ’s religion, in the persecutions, in the prosperity or adversity, in all the changing circumstances of the ages, Christ is there hiding Himself. Now, as Jesus, so we. We are hid. A Christian man is a hidden man. The world has never understood him. The natural man knoweth not the things that are of the Spirit of God. We must be spiritual men before we can understand a spiritual fact and before we can understand a spiritual person. Though it be a poor ignorant man that is dying calmly because he trusts the Saviour, there is a mystery in that death that the philosophers of this world do not understand. We are hid.
II. In the second place, Christ is hid in the sanctuary of heaven. He is gone far from us, into the secret pavilion into which only the High Priest can enter, into the presence of God. And when the high priest under the law entered into the holiest place, the ordinary priests had to leave the holy place in order that the high priest might be alone in awful solitariness, entering into the presence of Jehovah. Jesus Christ went straight from the cross to heaven through the rent veil, that is to say, His flesh. He went into the holiest place, and there He is. He has been there for nearly two thousand years. When He shall appear, we shall appear also, we shall be revealed also.
T. C. Edwards, from Sermon preached at Mansfield College.
On Living.
Nature means that without learning, powers and feelings grow and act. We see by nature. The power of sight is born with us. The eye as a matter of course is born, and as a matter of course sees light, and as a matter of course sees whatever light prints on it. When an eye does not see light, it has ceased to be an eye, though it often looks like an eye still. The eye that does not see light is, as an eye, dead. The image of God in man was once nature; and God’s image, or nature, as a matter of course, saw and felt God’s presence, for the nature of God in man naturally received that which was natural to it, and when this natural power perished, this eye was put out, it was dead; and man, as far as the true life went, was dead.
II. On that day death ends, when the life of God becomes incarnate in man, and man, born of God, is willing to lead a life in God’s image. This is Christianity; nothing else is. Life, life victorious; life able to see God in this world; life able, as it were, to feel the presence of God in all things; life, that changes pain into glory, and bodily shame and death to a very present sense of heaven and God. The moment self is really cast aside, man’s spirit acknowledges at once that a higher power is come, and tastes the joy of truth and strength, for Christ’s sake; able to choose pain and know its good; and can see Christ the Sanctifier of pain, the Interpreter and Glorifier of sorrow and weakness, the Destroyer of the idolatry of the body, and all that belongs to it; pride of head, or pride of hand, or the lusts of the flesh; able to see Him the Lord of life, as higher motives come into sight, and base things please no more. So heaven is to the living no far-off dream, but a very present sense of life begun; and bodily death is no king of terrors, but a slight and vanishing trouble in the path, scarcely seen and never obscuring the beyond.
E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons, vol. ii., p. 278.
The World Within.
I. There will be found in all mankind a ceaseless effort to put what we do, and its effect, and what is thought of it, and what others do, and its effect, and what is thought of it, in the place of life, and to give it the name of our life, and their life. But the moment we think of it we see at once that what we and others call our lives, that is, the outcome that is seen, is as nothing compared with the infinite unceasing goings on in our own inward being, which are not seen. For one action or one word, that comes out, a thousand castles in the air, a thousand dreams or projects, a thousand reasonings and decisions, mental struggles, victories, defeats, backward and forward movements, take place within, that are not seen; and these are not the life, they are only part of that spirit, which is working itself out into a more perfect growth and habit of good or evil. Hence it comes to pass, what I am sure is true, that not infrequently the estimate formed of a man shall be one thing, and the effect of his life another. So different is life from actions, and still more from the judgment men form of the actions.
II. As if to put away from our hearts the idea of much work, and to make us value life itself apart from the long day’s labour, Christ Himself spent thirty years of quiet preparation in a cottage home, and only three in public. Nor can we tell which was the more important; we can only say with certainty, each was perfect, each the half of the perfect whole, each incomplete without the other. But it is clear from this that the fierce pressure of consuming work is not the ideal set before man in the life of Christ, any more than it is in Christ’s parable of the labourers in the vineyard. The silent thirty years are full of the glories of holy silence, and it is on the cross that the Redeemer draws all men unto Him. Learn to make the life within true and powerful. Measure yourselves, not by what you do, but by what you are. So shall you be like Christ.
E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons, vol. i., p. 277.
The Hidden Life.
Life is a mystery, however we regard it. The life of our natural body is a mystery. The inner life of every man is a mystery. The life of the Christian soul is a mystery. The Apostle tells us it is hid with Christ in God.
I. The immortal soul is dwelling as a guest in a material body. It is the very life of that body. What is the body without the soul? It is the soul which gives expression to the face. It is the soul which bids the tongue utter speech. But the soul which makes its presence felt in so wondrous a way at all the outposts of the body has inmost depths which a stranger’s eye cannot penetrate. They are revealed to no eye but the Lord’s. He has searched them out and known them. No inward thought is hid from Him.
And it is the inmost depths of the Christian soul of which the Apostle speaks. They are hid with Christ in God. A Christian soul scarcely needs even an Apostle’s words to tell this. The same Divine spirit which illumined St. Paul’s soul, and unveiled to him this deep suggestive truth, has access to the souls of all lovers of Jesus. They know that St. Paul speaks what is divinely true. Their own experience has taught them so. Each individual soul knows that its history is a sealed book to all but Christ. We can never thoroughly disclose ourselves to one another. There is an innermost shrine which cannot be entered by the closest human friend, an innermost shrine in which we hold communion with the Lord—a communion which, indeed, constitutes the hidden life of the soul.
II. The truth of the life of the Christian soul consisting in its union with the Lord should be very precious to us. It is a truth of which men have different and varied experiences. For, as it is possible for men to grow in grace and in knowledge of their Lord and Saviour, so it is possible for some to enter into a closer union with the Lord than has been vouchsafed to others. It is possible that some in their religious life have not been as yet so richly blessed as others; but all who have the faintest yearnings in their hearts towards Christ may feel assured that the yearning is not so faint as to pass unrecognised by the Lord. He knows of the work begun in their souls. He knows that they are drawing nigh unto Himself. He will aid them to draw into nearer union still.
H. N. Grimley, Tremadoc Sermons, p. 1.
References: Col 3:3.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vi., p. 165; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 333; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 111; Church of England Pulpit, vol. v., p. 245. Col 3:3, Col 3:4.—A. Barry, Sermons for Passiontide and Easter, p. 121. Col 3:4.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 399; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., pp. 160, 179; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 223; Ibid., Sermons, vol. xi., No. 617.
Col 3:5
However startling this phraseology may appear at first, it is perfectly easy to point out, by instancing a few particulars in analysis, the plain reason for such an application of terms. Gold seems in many respects very like a god; not the only living and true God, but some human conception of the deity, resembling those of the savage or unchristianised regions of the world.
I. No matter where we begin. Take the attributes it possesses, if you will, for examination. (1) Omniscience, for example. Wealth seems to know everything on the instant that it occurs. Gold has a million eyes; it sees in the dark; it infringes patents, pre-empts islands, places itself over hidden mines. It knows everything by instinct, it pushes forward almost as if it were an all-seeing deity. (2) Of course, omnipresence follows. "Mammon worms its way where scruples might despair." (3) Omnipotence likewise. Gold rules the world, gold owns the land, inhabits the palaces, buys up the offices of the nation, sways the mighty sceptre of social influence, and becomes the master of men.
II. Wealth assumes to be a god, and oftentimes really appears to be one, because of the worship it attracts.
III. Wealth seems very like a god in the favours it bestows.
IV. Wealth seems very like a god because of the scourges it inflicts. See then (1) The reason why God is so violent in striking at this sin. It is the most direct offence that can be given to Him. (2) See, too, how covetousness destroys personal piety. He is covetous whose piety is chilled by gold; he is covetous for whom Christ is not a sufficiency when gold fails. (3) See how covetousness ruins all one’s future. It leaves him with his chosen god. "Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone."
C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts, p. 143.
References: Col 3:10.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 207.
Col 3:11
Christ All, and in all.
I. Christ is the substance or fulness of "all" things—that which really goes to make the being of everything. Let us pause a little, and help ourselves to begin this year with worthy views of the dignity of Christ in the whole physical and spiritual universe. Everything that is was first a thought in the mind of Christ. There it lay from all eternity, till, by His will and power, that thought became matter. That was creation. Therefore every created thing is a development of the mind of Christ. "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." Therefore Christ is all things. Christ is "all" in every believer. "Without Me ye can do nothing."
II. Christ is the one characterising feature, the determining test of everything. This is the precise meaning of the verse. All characteristics merge, all distinctions are done away in Christ. "There is neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all."
III. Christ is the bond that unites "all." For so we have it,—"Christ is all, and in all." The same Christ in many makes many one. That is God’s unity, the only unity God recognises. Here lie the deep mysteries of our religion, and here is the power of the sacraments. There are two things which take place in every regenerate man. You pass into Christ, and Christ passes into you.
IV. Christ is the sufficiency and the satisfaction of life. Ask the years that are gone! Take council of the past! What is satisfaction? Where has desire rested? When has ambition had enough? It has pleased God to treasure up all that man really wants in one treasury, the Lord Jesus Christ. And, excepting there, no man, since the foundation of this world, ever found it. He fills all things. He must fill your hearts. You will date your peace, your first true peace, to that day when you could say of Christ, "He is all, and in all to me."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 268.
References: Col 3:11.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1006; J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity, p. 249. Col 3:12.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 501; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ix., p. 29. Col 3:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1841.
Col 3:15
I. The region: where the ruling power touches and takes effect. "Your hearts." The heart, as it is called by a metaphor common to Scripture and the language of ordinary life, is the regulator of the whole man. It means the will and the affections, as distinguished from the intellect. It is the choosing faculty, as distinguished from the knowing faculty. It is that in man which fastens impetuously on an object loved, without waiting in all cases for a decision of the judgment whether the object be worthy. It is by the heart that the attitude is determined, the path traced out, and the impulse given. When the heart is drawn in one direction, the whole man follows. The rush of an evil heart’s affections, like other swollen streams, will not yield to reason. When God by His Word and Spirit comes to save, He saves by arresting the heart and making it new.
II. The reign: the manner in which the heart is possessed and controlled. "Rule." The word translated "rule" in the text occurs nowhere else in the Scripture. It is borrowed from the practice of the Greeks at their great national games; and relates to the prize for which the athletes contended in the stadium. The prize giver exercised over the runners or wrestlers a kind of rule. By the display of the prize he held, he led, he impelled them. They felt the impulse, and gave their whole being over to its sway. The word which designated the power and office of the president is the "rule" of our text. This is the kind of rule which Man’s maker applies to man’s heart.
III. The ruler: the power that sways a human heart, and so saves and sanctifies the man. "The peace of God." (1) It is God and no idol that should rule in the human heart. (2) God’s peace holds a heart from sin, and rules it in holiness.
W. Arnot, Roots and Fruits, p. 415.
Col 3:15
The Peace of God and the Peace of the Devil.
The word "peace" is that which is most frequently employed in the Scriptures to set forth the blessedness of the righteous. Peace suggests the idea of what is calm, deep, tranquil, unruffled, something that may be in its nature divine and in its character permanent.
I. Religious peace may be denominated the peace of God, because, in one sense, or in some of its higher elements, it is that for which God made and constituted man at first. It is an approach towards the realisation of God’s original idea of the happiness of humanity, for it springs from intercourse with God.
II. Religious blessedness, as now experienced by humanity, is the peace of God, because it is the result of His merciful interposition for man, as well as the realisation of His original idea respecting him. This blessedness is referred thus directly to God, because it is by God’s grace that it is possible; because it is by the gift of His Son that it is procured; and because it is through the application of His truth that it is produced. It consists in the hope of forgiveness of sin and the exercise of filial trust and confidence, through the restoration and re-establishment of those ruptured relations which sin had broken.
III. The blessedness of the spiritual life in man is the peace of God, because in addition to its including something of that for which God Originally designed him, it is that which is immediately imparted or produced by God’s Holy Spirit, and is thus in some degree of the nature of a divine donation.
IV. Religious peace is "the peace of God" because it is sustained, nourished, and enlarged by those acts and exercises, private and public, which bring the soul into contact with God.
V. There is, however, the peace of the devil, of the world, of sin, of the flesh. It is quite possible humanity may go to sleep in death under the peace of the devil, apparently as quietly and calmly as those who fall asleep in Jesus. The peace of the devil consists in the destruction of all that is noblest and finest and greatest in man. Just such a contrast is there in the heart of man, between the peace of the devil and the peace of God.
T. Binney, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 605.
References: Col 3:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1693: F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 19; W. Page, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 171; F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 130; J. H. Wilson, The Gospel and its Fruits, p. 259.
Col 3:16
I. Christ’s Word is simple. It is all plain to him that understandeth. There have been many books which professed great things; some that promised to work wonders for man, and some that even professed to come from God, but they were abstruse and enigmatical. They showed how insecure they were by the mystery in which they veiled their meaning. But the Saviour, in His kindness and sincerity, has made His Word an easy and simple book, so plain that it need perplex no one, so self-evident that it is ready for everybody’s use.
II. And yet though so simple there is no book so significant. Like Christ Himself in Christ’s Word are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; and those who dig into this hidden treasure may rest assured that as the word of an infinite Being there is an infinite fulness in it.
III. The Word of Christ is saving. There is a company whom no man can number before the throne; but ere they went to heaven they were all brought to God. It is Christ’s Word received into the soul, and abiding there, which is the source and securing of its immortality.
IV. Christ’s Word is sanctifying. If you get to love and revere it so as to exalt it into a companion and counsellor, it will tell on all your conduct. Like a lamp it will reveal what is wrong in your character and motives, and be the great help to self-examination; but, better than a lamp, like a wise and loving friend it will show the excellence of holiness, and set you on the way to attaining it.
V. And sustaining. Daily work needs daily bread, and it is in the Bible magazine that the bread of life is stored. And just as the man who wishes strength for labour would deem it false economy to save his time and take no food, so theirs is foolish haste who think to struggle on from day to day without the Spirit’s bread.
VI. It is suited to all. If Luther adored the fulness of Scripture, we have as much reason to bless God for its variety and all-fittingness.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. vi., p. 17.
The Word of Christ: Its Truths and Transformation.
J. It is of infinite moment that the Bible truths should dwell in us. To have clear conceptions and secure possession of them is faith, and he is a believer whose mind these truths occupy and inhabit. But I fear the best that can be said for many Gospel hearers is that they get a view of the Word on a visit. It is not a guest nor an inmate. Just as you may sit at the window and see passengers in the street or the public road, and make remarks on them; but none of them is any friend of yours, so you do not detain them, you do not run down and open the door and invite them in. So many see a truth pass by and they pronounce a verdict on it, but they do not take it home. Never rest till Christ’s Word dwells in you. Like Abraham in the tent-door, look out for it. Enthrone it in your highest heart, and bid all your being wait on it and obey it.
II. But it is not enough that Christ’s truths inhabit your convictions. In order to be strictly Biblical, you must not only ascertain the truth, but you must catch the tone; and in those only does Christ’s Word dwell richly in whom Christ’s Spirit dwells as well as Christ’s sayings. It is perfectly possible, and for some purposes eminently important, to cull out from the Bible and arrange and classify its several truths. But the soundest doctrine is no more the Bible than carbon is the diamond, and the noblest system of theology is no more the Word of Christ than a vast museum is the smiling world which its Creator greeted "very good."
III. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Let its lifesome energy inspire your character. Exhibit the Saviour’s truth in its transforming power. Then, indeed, will Christ’s Word dwell in you richly, when it not only fills up your soul with sincerity and spiritual-mindedness, but exhibits itself in a radiant efflorescence over all your conduct. To have the Word dwelling in you so richly is to be Scripturalised—to have Christ’s Word so dwelling is to be Christianised.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. vi., p. 46.
The Word of Christ: Its Truths and Its Tone.
I. Let the truths and realities of the Word inhabit your convictions; and, in order that they may inhabit, let them enter. Many turn towards the firmament of Scripture a telescope with the lid still on, and then see nothing wonderful. Many plunge into the scriptural fountain a bottle with the cork still in, and marvel that, however long they leave it, they still bring it empty up. And many pray, "O send forth Thy light and Thy truth," but keep their minds so closed by worldliness and carelessness, or by some obstinate prepossession, or some besetting sin, that the light and truth cannot enter. Turn towards the Word of God an open eye and an honest heart. Be desirous to find something; seek and you shall find. Should there be branches in the tree of knowledge above your present reach, gather such fruit as is more accessible; and when refreshed and strengthened by those truths which you do attain, you will be able to reach those which grow more loftily.
II. Let its tone be infused into your temper. When a person speaks, there is not only the thing he says, but the tone in which he says it. There is a dry and flippant tone which withers the sincerity out of the kindest words, and there is a full-hearted tone, which will fill the most common words with a melting magic. There is not only Bible truth, but a Bible tone; not only Christ’s Word, but Christ’s way of speaking it. The keynote of Scripture is love, and the truth of Jesus is all spoken in a divinely gracious tone. There is something more than doctrine in the Word of Christ. A chemist may analyse the wine of Lebanon, and he may tell you that it contains so many salts and alkalies; and you may combine all these, you may mix them in the just proportions; but chemistry will never create what the vintage yielded. To make the wine of Lebanon needs Lebanon itself,—the mountain with its gushing heart and aromatic springs. A theologian may analyse the Christian doctrine; he may tell you how many truths and tenets this Bible contains, and you may combine them all; but it needs Christ’s own mind, His loving heart and benignant spirit, to reproduce the truth as it is in Jesus.
J. Hamilton, Works, vol. vi., p. 32.
References: Col 3:16.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 33; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 270; vol. iv., p. 185; vol. vii., p. 378; R. S. Candlish, Sermons, p. 188; Homilist, vol. v., p. 14; Ibid., 3rd series, vol. vi., p. 270; A. Raleigh, The Little Sanctuary, p. 273; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church, vol. ii., p. 1; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 302.
Col 3:17
I. Observe the extent of this saying, an extent of which it is impossible to divest it. Either it is a mere empty exaggeration, or it goes to the extent of applying to all the acts of man’s life, important or unimportant. And it is plain, that for such to be the case it must propose to us some motive, and some rule, which shall touch that daily life at every point. No sight is more common than to find a man actuated by a powerful motive which rules and directs his whole life. Reality is the essence and necessary condition of all such springs of life and action. It is impossible that a man should give up his heart and life to pursuit of that which he does not believe. The hypocrite is no exception; he only makes use of something which he does not believe as an instrument towards the attainment of something which he does believe. Observe how such motives act on man.
(1) Their influence is a constraining power, of which he is unconscious, rather than a stimulus carried on by conscious effort.
(2) They are very seldom indeed loudly professed by the persons on whom they act. Here, as in nature, the deepest is the stillest. But, on the other hand, by its very stillness, all who are observant know its depth.
II. Note the motive implied in the words, "In the name of the Lord Jesus." Let Christ’s love to me become to me not only an acknowledged fact, but the acknowledged fact of my life; then it will become a constraining motive; then it will not be contented with influencing some of my faculties, with employing some of my time, with claiming some of my affections; but from the very nature of things it must and will have all, will absorb me into His service, and take possession of my heart and motives, and my life, day by day; will be the sun that lights me to my unborn life; so that whatsoever I do, in word or deed, I shall do under the influence of this constraining motive.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 67.
References: Col 3:17.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 12; vol. v., p. 31; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. i., p. 90; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 913; Homilist, vol. iv., p, 415; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv.,p. 289; H. W. Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit, 10th series, p. 391.
Col 3:21
The Christian Training of Children.
I. Man has enemies enough within; corruption of many kinds is deeply rooted in the human heart, and, sooner or later, springs up and manifests itself in various forms, according to different natural dispositions. And it is a comparatively rare thing that sinful tendencies show themselves for the first time in mature life. All the evil tendencies in a child’s nature will have shown themselves very unmistakably before he has exchanged his father’s house for the great stage of the world. If dispositions like our own have been found in our children, it was the effect of our hurtful example; the sin of the old called forth that of the young. Or, if they have opposite faults from ours, it is generally resistance of the wrong with which our faults threaten them that rouses theirs to activity. It is not unusual with us parents, when we grow weary of the struggle, to give up all godly training, and leave the children to their own way. If we only guard our children against being distrustful of us, everything is put right, but if we have got into that unhappy condition, it involves ruin and loss in our whole relations with them.
II. Consider what, according to God’s appointment, the young are to be to us. It is only the children, joyous and free from care, who can diffuse around us the atmosphere of oblivion of the world that is so needful for us. It is they who, when we come back to the home circle, see in our faces nothing but our joy in being there again, and themselves feel only that they have been missing us, and now have us back once more. This happiness is, of course, lost for him in whose home the young hearts have been embittered; for he finds awaiting him at home only more painful difficulties than those he has left behind. When we provoke and estrange our children, both they and we lose the best of our life together. And as they, on their side, can best guard against any growing bitterness by respectful obedience, according to the first commandment with promise, let us, on our part, be unremitting in that self-denying love to them, which seeks not our own pleasure and advantage, but theirs, and which has its direct reward in the brightness and peace which the companionship of the young so naturally brings when there are no jars and misunderstandings.
F. Schleiermacher, Selected Sermons, p. 146.
References: Col 3:23, Col 3:24.—G. Salmon, Gnosticism and Agnosticism, p. 243. Col 3:24.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 348; Ibid., Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1205. Col 4:1.—W. Braden, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 140. Col 4:2.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 2; Ibid., Sermons, vol. vii., No. 354.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 1. (Col 3:1-17.)
Section 1. (Col 3:1-17.)
Christ all.
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We have now the practical consequences, not negatively merely, in the refusal of certain things, but in that which is morally right and fitting, the image of Christ wrought out in the life.
1. The consequence of being raised with Christ is to put us necessarily outside the world. The risen man is in connection with heaven, although, as with the Lord during the forty days, he may actually be upon earth, but as raised with Christ, in association with Him, the things above belong to him where Christ sits at the right hand of God. What is according to God is seen by this place of exaltation in which Christ is. God has bidden us, in this way, to have our hearts in company with His heart; and Christ, the accepted of God is the rejected of man. Thus, a heavenly Object lifts one from the earth. It is not a question simply of what is in itself evil or what is not. Christ has passed out of the whole scene. He is in heaven, and the heart drawn there is God’s method of sanctification, therefore, for the soul. The result is that if a true life for God is lived here upon the earth, yet it is in character, in all that in which it has its source and object, a life hidden from the world. Christ is hidden, and hidden in God. As a consequence, to be understood by the world, to be commended and honored, would be contrary to that association with Christ which God has given us. The day is coming when Christ will be manifested, He who is our life even now. Then indeed that for which the Christian has lived will become apparent to all, and the wisdom of his life will be evident. Then we will be manifested with Him in glory, but for this, therefore, faith must be content to wait through all the present time, finding in Him its present joy and satisfaction, but in strangership here. This is the principle which underlies the whole moral condition for us.
2. The result is that we are to put to death our members which are upon the earth. He does not say our bodies. The body is to be offered up to God "a living sacrifice." The members are quite other morally than this implies, as he shows here. If the body is allowed to have a life, then, it is to be put to death; but he will not allow that this is properly the body. He speaks of it as if the members, so to speak, were in revolt from the body, in revolt certainly from subjection to God. On account of such things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. You walked in those things, he says, when you lived in them, but the walk must follow, therefore, the character of the life. What a disgrace to walk in things in which we do not live!
There are other things to be put off, things which have not the same character of lust, but which, nevertheless, are contrary to God. We are not to lie to one another, as having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new. This has introduced us, as he says, now, into a new scene. The new man has a knowledge which is derived from faith. It is the knowledge of a new creation where there is nothing but Christ. No human distinctions are recognized in it, no conditions upon which men pride themselves here. Christ is everything and Christ is in all who belong to that place. Here, as we have seen, is that which keeps the heart. We can only be strangers to that which we have been brought out of by being at home in that which is now made ours. We cannot set ourselves right piecemeal. We can only be set right by having our hearts in that, where Christ being all, all is according to God, and where we can let our hearts out freely; where we can covet everything, and nothing will be denied us.
3. The joy of the Lord is our strength. For mortification, we want power; and our power is found in that which lifts us out of the whole scene to which evil attaches. Christ, therefore, is now to give character to every part of our behaviour. As the elect of God, those who owe everything to His will, His choice as those set apart to Him, and those upon whom He has set His love, we are to put on the things which properly accompany this: "bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another." It is striking how, in all these, there is found some form of self-denial. Power is shown by competence for stooping; God turning also the very things that are against us into the means of educating us in this. Things evil in themselves may, nevertheless, furnish us with a wholesome discipline for the way and enable us, in answer, to bring forth fruit which is according to God. We are to forbear as God has forborne. We are to forgive as Christ has forgiven us; to all which is to be added love, as that which is the "bond of perfectness," which keeps everything in its place and perfects every detail of life. Think how the world, even, has to put on the appearance of love, the more if it has not the reality; but love itself has no need to put on an appearance. It will manifest itself in harmony in every tone and gesture. The manifestation of the divine nature has a unity in it which makes everything to be in harmony. If there is love in the heart, the words will not be hard or unseemly; their very tone will be affected.
Here too, the peace of Christ is found, that is to preside in the heart. It is the peace which results from unbroken communion, in a life that is according to God, in ways that are ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. To this we have been called in one body. This peace is the common heritage of all the saints of God; and we may well be thankful as we realize the immensity of such a blessing as this. The word of Christ, too, is to dwell in us richly. All through, it is Christ here; the forgiveness of Christ, the peace of Christ, the word of Christ. We can see how occupation with Christ is that which is necessarily the basis of it all, and His Lordship is fully owned. Thus, the word of Christ is not only owned and bowed to, but dwells in the soul richly in all its fulness and blessedness; and this issues in an ability to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom. The truth which God has given, if it be really received, cannot be held simply as one’s own. We cannot but impart it. Truth that is not imparted can scarcely be enjoyed, and in the close contact in which God has brought us with one another, the interest that He has given us in each other, the relationship we bear to one another, it cannot but follow that we shall realize one another’s needs. Connected with this, the power of it all in our own hearts is beautifully shown us. "In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," the truth makes music in us. We sing with grace in our hearts to God, and what a need there is for this, in order to any true teaching or admonishing one another. Nay, will not this enjoyment in our own souls be the most effectual form of it? Such heart-songs will awaken other songs, and in all this, he says, whatever is done, in word or deed, we are to do all things as representatives of the Lord Jesus, in His Name. How much this would settle for us as to details of practical conduct, if it were only frankly accepted by us all! In word and in deed, identification with Christ in His spirit is to mark us, and here again, as those who are giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. How we see that the spirit of joy and praise is that which becomes us, the atmosphere of heaven to which our life belongs. Here, then, is a beautiful and comprehensive picture of the Christian life in its moral aspect. We are to learn it in His company, or we shall never learn it.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Col 3:1-2.
Colossians
RISEN WITH CHRIST
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Col 3:1-2.
There are three aspects in which the New Testament treats the Resurrection, and these three seem to have successively come into the consciousness of the Church. First, as is natural, it was considered mainly in its bearing on the person and work of our Lord. We may point for illustration to the way in which the Resurrection is treated in the earliest of the apostolic discourses, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Then it came, with further reflection and experience, to be discerned that it had a bearing on the hope of the immortality of man. And last of all, as the Christian life deepened, it came to be discerned that the Resurrection was the pattern of the life of the Christian disciples. It was regarded first as a witness, then as a prophecy, then as a symbol. Three fragments of Scripture express these three phases: for the first, ‘Declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead’; for the second, ‘Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept’; for the third, ‘God hath raised us up together with Him, and made us sit together in the heavenly places.’ I have considered incidentally the two former aspects in the course of previous sermons; I wish to turn at present to that final third one.
One more observation I must make by way of introduction, and that is, that the way in which the Apostle here glides from ‘being risen with Christ’ to where ‘Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God,’ confirms what I have pointed out in former discourses, that the Ascension of Jesus Christ is always considered in Scripture as being nothing more than the necessary outcome and issue of the process which began in the Resurrection. They are not separate facts, but they are two ends of one process. And so with these thoughts, that Resurrection develops into Ascension, and that in both Jesus Christ is the pattern for His followers, let us turn to the words before us.
Then we have here
I. The Christian life considered as a risen life.
Now, we are all familiar with the great evangelical point of view from which the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ are usually contemplated. To many of us Christ’s sacrifice is nothing more or less than the means by which the world is reconciled to God, and Christ’s Resurrection nothing more than the seal which was set by Divinity upon that work. ‘Crucified for our offences, and raised again for our justification,’ as Paul has it--that is the point of view from which most evangelical or orthodox Christian people are contented to regard the solemn fact of the Death and the radiant fact of the Resurrection. You cannot be too emphatic about these truths, but you may be too exclusive in your contemplation of them. You do well when you say that they are the Gospel; you do not well when you say, as some of you do, that they are the whole Gospel. For there is another stream of teaching in the New Testament, of which my text is an example, and a multitude of other passages that I cannot refer to now are equally conspicuous instances, in which that death and that Resurrection are regarded, not so much in respect to the power which they exercise in the reconciliation of the world to God, as in their aspect as the type of all noble and true Christian life. You remember how, when our Lord Himself touched upon the fruitful issues of His death, and said: ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit,’ He at once went on to say that a man that loved his life would lose it; and that a man that lost his life would find it, and proceeded to point, even then, and in that connection, to His Cross as our pattern, declaring: ‘If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be.’
‘Made like Him, like Him we rise; Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.’
So, then, a risen life is the type of all noble life, and before there can be a risen life there must have been a death. True, we may say that the spiritual facts in a man’s experience, which are represented by these two great symbols of a death and a rising, are but like the segment of a circle which, seen from the one side is convex and from the other is concave. But however loosely we may feel that the metaphors represent the facts, this is plain, that unless a man dies to flesh, to self-will, to the world, he never will live a life that is worth calling life. The condition of all nobleness and all growth upwards is that we shall die daily, and live a life that has sprung victorious from the death of self. All lofty ethics teach that; and Christianity teaches it, with redoubled emphasis, because it says to us, that the Cross and the Resurrection are not merely imaginative emblems of the noble and the Christian life, but are a great deal more than that. For, brethren, do not forget--if you do, you will be hopelessly at sea as to large tracts of blessed Christian truth--that by faith in Jesus Christ we are brought into such a true deep union with Him as that, in no mere metaphorical or analogous sense, but in most blessed reality, there comes into the believing heart a spark of the life that is Christ’s own, so that with Him we do live, and from Him we do live a life cognate with His, who, having risen from the dead, dieth no more, and over whom death hath no dominion. So it is not a metaphor only, but a spiritual truth, when we speak of being risen with Christ, seeing that our faith, in the measure of its genuineness, its depth and its operative power upon our characters, will be the gate through which there shall pass into our deadness the life that truly is, the life that has nought to do with death or sin. And this unity with Jesus, brought about by faith, brings about that the depths of the Christian life are hid with Christ in God, and that we, risen with Him, do even now sit ‘at the right hand in heavenly places,’ whilst our feet, dusty and sometimes blood-stained, are journeying along the paths of life. This is the great teaching of my text, and of a multitude of other places; and this is the teaching which modern Christianity, in its exclusive, or all but exclusive, contemplation of the Cross as the sacrifice for sin, has far too much forgotten. ‘Ye are risen with Christ.’
Let me remind you that this veritable death and rising again, which marks the Christian life, is set forth before us in the initial rite of the Christian Church. Some of you do not agree with me in my view, either of what is the mode or of who are the subjects of that ordinance, but if you know anything about the question, you know that everybody that has a right to give a judgment agrees with us Baptists in saying--although they may not think that it carries anything obligatory upon the practice of to-day--that the primitive Church baptized by immersion. Now, the meaning of baptism is to symbolise these two inseparable moments, dying to sin, to self, to the world, to the old past, and rising again to newness of life. Our sacramentarian friends say that, in my text, it was in baptism that these Colossian Christians rose again with Christ. I, for my part, do not believe that, but that baptism was the speaking sign of what lies at the gate of a true Christian life I have no manner of doubt.
So the first thought of our text is not only taught us in words, but it stands manifest in the ritual of the Church as it was from the beginning. We die, and we rise again, through faith and by union through faith, with Christ ‘that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.’
Let me turn, secondly, to
II. The consequent aims of the Christian life.
‘If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.’ ‘To seek’ implies the direction of the external life toward certain objects. It is not to seek as if perhaps we might not find; it is not even to seek in the sense of searching for, but it is to seek in the sense of aiming at. And now do you not think that if we had burning in our hearts, and conscious to our experiences, the sense of union with Jesus Christ the risen Saviour, that would shape the direction and dictate the aims of our earthly life? As surely as the elevation of the rocket tube determines the flight of the projectile that comes from it, so surely would the inward consciousness, if it were vivid as it ought to be in all Christian people, of that risen life throbbing within the heart, shape all the external conduct. It would give us wings and make us soar. It would make us buoyant, and lift us above the creeping aims that constitute the objects of life for so many men.
But you say, ‘Things above: that is an indefinite phrase. What do you mean by it?’ I will tell you what the Bible means by it. It means Jesus Christ. All the nebulous splendours of that firmament are gathered together into one blazing sun. It is a vague direction to tell a man to shoot up, into an empty heaven. It is not a vague direction to tell him to seek the ‘things above’; for they are all gathered into a person. ‘Where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God,’--that is the meaning of ‘things above,’ which are to be the continual aim of the man who is conscious of a risen life. And of course they will be, for if we feel, as we ought to feel habitually, though with varying clearness, that we do carry within us a spark, if I might use that phrase, of the very life of Jesus Christ, so surely as fire will spring upwards, so surely as water will rise to the height of its source, so surely will our outward lives be directed towards Him, who is the life of our inward lives, and the goal therefore of our outward actions?
Jesus Christ is the summing up of ‘the things that are above’; therefore there stands out clear this one great truth, that the only aim for a Christian soul, consistent with the facts of its Christian life, is to be like Christ, to be with Christ, to please Christ.
Now, how does that aim--’whether present or absent we labour that we may be well pleasing to Him’--how does that aim bear upon the multitude of inferior and nearer aims which men pursue, and which Christians have to pursue along with other men? How does it bear upon them?--Why thus--as the culminating peak of a mountain-chain bears on the lower hills that for miles and miles buttress it, and hold it up, and aspire towards it, and find their perfection in its calm summit that touches the skies. The more we have in view, as our aim in life, Christ who is ‘at the right hand of God,’ and assimilation, communion with Him, approbation from Him, the more will all immediate aims be ennobled and delivered from the evils that else cleave to them. They are more when they are second than when they are first. ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God,’ and all your other aims--as students, as thinkers, as scientists, as men of business, as parents, as lovers, or anything else--will be greatened by being subordinated to the conscious aim of pleasing Him. That aim should persist, like a strain of melody, one long, holden-down, diapason note, through all our lives. Perfume can be diffused into the air, and dislodge no atom of that which it makes fragrant. This supreme aim can be pursued through, and by means of, all nearer ones, and is inconsistent with nothing but sin. ‘Seek the things that are above.’
Lastly, we have here--
III. The discipline which is needed to secure the right direction of the life.
The Apostle does not content himself with pointing out the aims. He adds practical advice as to how these aims can be made dominant in our individual cases, when he says, ‘Set your affections on things above.’ Now, many of you will know that ‘affections’ is not the full sense of the word that is here employed, and that the Revised Version gives a more adequate rendering when it says, ‘Set your minds on the things that are above.’ A man cannot do with his love according to his will. He cannot say: ‘ Resolved , that I love So-and-So’; and then set himself to do it. But though you cannot act on the emotions directly by the will, you can act directly on your understandings, on your thoughts, and your thoughts will act on your affections. If a man wants to love Jesus Christ he must think about Him. That is plain English. It is vain for a man to try to coerce his wandering affections by any other course than by concentrating his thoughts. Set your minds on the things that are above, and that will consolidate and direct the emotions; and the thoughts and the emotions together will shape the outward efforts. Seeking the things that are above will come, and will only come, when mind and heart and inward life are occupied with Him. There is no other way by which the externals can be made right than by setting a watch on the door of our hearts and minds, and this inward discipline must be put in force before there will be any continuity or sureness in the outward aim. We want, for that direction of the life of which I have been speaking, a clear perception and a concentrated purpose, and we shall not get either of these unless we fall back, by thought and meditation, upon the truths which will provide them both.
Brethren, there is another aspect of the connection between these two parts of our text, which I can only touch. Not only is the setting of our thoughts on the things above, the way by which we can make these the aim of our lives. They are not only aims to be reached at some future stage of our progress, but they are possessions to be enjoyed at the present. We may have a present Christ and a present Heaven. The Christian life is not all aspiration; it is fruition as well. We have to seek, but even whilst we seek, we should be conscious that we possess what we are seeking, even whilst we seek it. Do you know anything of that double experience of having the things that are above, here and now, as well as reaching out towards them?
I am afraid that the Christian life of this generation suffers at a thousand points, because it is more concerned with the ordering of the outward life, and the manifold activities which this busy generation has struck out for itself, than it is with the quiet setting of the mind, in silent sunken depths of contemplation, on the things that are above. Oh, if we would think more about them we should aim more at them; and if we were sure that we possessed them to-day we should be more eager for a larger possession to-morrow.
Dear brethren, we may all have the risen life for ours, if we will knit ourselves, in humble dependence and utter self-surrender, to the Christ who died for us that we might be dead to sin, and rose again that we might rise to righteousness. And if we have Him, in any deep and real sense, as the life of our lives, then we shall be blessed, amid all the divergent and sometimes conflicting nearer aims, which we have to pursue, by seeing clear above them that to which they all may tend, the one aim which corresponds to a man’s nature, which meets his condition, which satisfies his needs, which can always be attained if it is followed, and which, when secured, never disappoints. God help us all to say, ‘This one thing I do, and all else I count but dung, that I may know Him, and the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death, if by any means I may attain unto the Resurrection from the dead!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Christian's Risen Life and the Duties it entails
The Christian's Risen Life and the Duties it entails
1-4. Resurrection with Christ and the heavenly life.
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Paraphrase] '(1) Seeing then that at your conversion you shared not Christ's death only, but His resurrection, go on to participate in His heavenly life, in that heaven where He is, and where He sits at God's right hand. (2) Let your whole thought be set on heavenly, not on earthly things. (3) For you died with Christ, and your life in union with Him is a hidden life in God. (4) It is not always to remain hidden, for at Christ's second coming it will be revealed; for Christ is our very life, so that His manifestation involves ours.'
2. Affection] RV 'mind.'
3. For ye are dead] RV 'Ye died,' i.e. at conversion.
5-16. The moral life of the Christian.
Paraphrase. '(5, 6) Since you died and rose with Christ and your life is hidden with Him in God, realise these experiences already ideally yours in putting your sins to death, impurity and covetousness, (7) those heathen vices which draw down God's wrath, which you also once practised. (8) Put away anger, malice, abusive speech, (9) lying, for the old self has been discarded, (10) and the new self has been put on, which is being renewed with a view to deeper knowledge in conformity to the Creator's image. (11) Where there is such a new nature, all distinctions of race, social position, and religion are annulled, and Christ is all and in all the relations of life. (12-14) Be kind, forbearing, and forgiving as Christ forgave you, and let love, which binds all Christians in one, do its perfect work. (15) Let the peace of Christ control your life, do nothing to ruffle it, and be thankful. (16) Let the gospel dwell within you, wisely teach and warn each other in songs of praise, let all your life be lived in Christ's name, and express through Him your thankfulness to God.'
8. Blasphemy] RV 'railing.' Filthy communication] rather, 'abusive speech.'
10. In knowledge] RV 'unto knowledge.'
11. Is] RV 'cannot be.' Scythian] the extreme barbarian.
14. Charity] RV 'love.' Bond of perfectness] the bond in which perfection consists. Love is the bond, in the sense that it binds Christians together (not the virtues).
18-Colossians 41. Reciprocal duties of wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters.
22. The case of slaves is treated more fully, since the case of Onesimus was engaging Paul's attention. But he wished to keep the gospel clear of any attempt to revolutionise society. It was to be leaven, not dynamite. Eye-service] i.e. service most zealously performed when the slave is under observation.
25. The meaning is probably that the Christian slave must not suppose, because he is a Christian, that God will deal leniently with his misconduct.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 not in any
not in any
Or, "which do not really honour God, but only satisfy the flesh" (i.e. by creating a reputation for superior sanctity).
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1
III. THE PRACTICAL RESULTS:
LIVING AS RISEN WITH CHRIST (3-4)
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CHAPTER 3
1. The life hid with Christ in God (Col 3:1-4)
2. The contrast: The old man and the new man (Col 3:5-11)
3. Manifesting Christ (Col 3:12-17)
4. Relationships (Col 3:18-25; Col 4:1)
Col 3:1-4
Risen with Christ; such is the believer’s position. “Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.” These are the great truths of Christianity: The believer dead with Christ; risen with Christ and in possession of a life which is hid with Christ in God and therefore safe and secure. And these facts constitute the controlling motive of the believer’s life on earth. If apprehended in faith they will lead the soul to seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. The mind will then be constantly set on the things above and not on things which are on the earth. The more a believer enters into those blessed truths, making them his own by reckoning himself dead with Christ and risen with Him, with his life hid with Christ in God, the more will the things above be for him the great attraction and the things on earth will lose their charm. The things above are Christ and His glory. The things on earth include all the deceiving things mentioned in the previous chapter, such as the rudiments of the world, philosophy and words of vain deceit, legalism, ritualism, ordinances, as well as worldly ambitions, honors, pleasures and achievements. All these will fade away when the believer’s heart is occupied with Him who fills the throne in glory. This is the true and only way of sanctification--heart occupation with the risen Christ. When the eyes of the heart see the risen and glorified Christ and faith lays hold of the wonderful meaning for us who believe, then we learn to walk in that separation into which God has called His people. What the Christian therefore needs is an ever increasing realization in faith of his position in Christ, and then to be energized by the indwelling Spirit to seek those things which are above and not the things on earth. Such a life means joy and peace. It is a life of obedience and quietness, victorious over all earthly circumstances. And because it is a life which is hid with Christ in God, it is hidden from the world. “Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not” (1Jn 3:1). The world, which lieth in the wicked one, cannot understand nor estimate such a life of separation through faith in an unseen person, a life which reaches out after an unseen goal and which spurns worldly honors and the things which are the boast of the natural man. (Php 3:18-19 tells us that those who mind earthly things, though Christians in profession, are the enemies of the cross of Christ and that their end will be destruction. Such is the state of the masses of Christendom today--minding earthly things; filled with the love of the world and dead to the spiritual heavenly things.) But it will not be always thus. A day is coming when this life, hidden now, will be fully manifested. “When Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with Him in glory.” It will be a manifestation in glory. It comes when He comes again. “When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day” (2Th 1:10). It is not the day when He comes for His saints; it is the day of His visible manifestation, when all His own share His glory and come with Him, when He brings His many sons unto glory. To look constantly in holy anticipation to this promised glory-event, is inseparably connected with the statements of the preceding verses. What blessed links these are:--dead with Christ--risen with Christ--a life hid with Christ in God--a life to be manifested when He comes again! May God’s people know the reality of all this in power and be kept from a mere profession, lifeless and powerless, of these fundamental facts of the gospel.
Col 3:5-11
An exhortation follows to mortify the members which are upon the earth. And what shameful and shameless things are mentioned here! “Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” From this exhortation addressed to those who are believers, dead and risen with Christ, we learn that the old nature is not eradicated in the child of God. The believer knows that the old man is crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6), that being in Christ he is now no longer seen by God as in the flesh; but the believer also knows that the old nature is still in him. He finds this out daily “for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” The spiritually minded believer acknowledges freely that in his flesh there dwelleth no good thing, and that in his fallen nature are all these shameful things and that this old nature is capable of all of which the apostle writes. On account of these things the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. “In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.” The natural man lives in these things; but not so the believer. A child of God may commit these horrible things of the flesh, but he no longer lives in them. And what is to be done to these members? The translation, “mortify your members which are on the earth,” does not fully express the original meaning. It does not mean that we are to be doing it as it is so often attempted by resolutions, fasting and other exercises, ever trying to fight the flesh and conquer the evil things of the old nature. We are never told to fight the flesh, but to flee and abstain from fleshly lusts. Fighting the flesh, trying to put it to death ourselves leads to defeat. We cannot do it, but it has been done for us. The old man was put to death in the cross of Christ; we are now dead to sin--sin is not to have dominion over us. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Rom 6:11-12). “Mortify your members” means keep them in the place Of death where they have been put by the death of Christ. “Let it be as done”--exercise the power which redemption gives by holding in the place of death the members which are upon earth. This, however, is not possible unless the believer walks in the Spirit, is occupied with Christ and seeks those things which are above. For this reason the exhortations of Col 3:5-11 are the result of doing what the opening verses of this chapter put before us. And there are other things besides the gross things of the flesh. “Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications, lying one to another” are likewise the works of the flesh. They are to be put off. The same Greek tense, aorist imperative, is here also employed-- “let it be as done”--have it put off, because grace in redemption has made it possible. No need, therefore, to tolerate these things any longer in your lives, “seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all.” Born again, believers have received a new nature, the nature from above; and this new man is being renewed in knowledge, not after the pattern of the first man, Adam, but after the image of Him, who created him. Christ Himself is the type of the new man; Christ is the object of the faith and the ambitions of the new nature in the believer. And in this new man all differences have ceased, all human distinctions disappear forever. Greek, Jew, circumcision, uncircumcision, barbarian, and the worst type of the barbarian, the Scythian, bond and free, are completely obliterated and gone. Having believed in Christ the new man is formed in each, and Christ is all as well as in all. He Himself is everything and all things are found in Him. The new man is independent of all earthly things and conditions and blessedly dependent upon Him, who created the new man. It is a great truth that Christ is all and also “in all.” The believer must look upon all fellow-believers as being indwelt by Christ, that He is in all. This brings deliverance from self; all jealousy, pride and fleshly ambitions will end among the saints of God if they look upon each other after this manner, that Christ is in all. Here is comfort and power.
Col 3:12-17
Therefore, as the elect of God, who are the new man indwelt by Christ and one with Him, holy and beloved, are exhorted to put on (have it done) the things which manifest Christ. Bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering. It is the fruit of knowing Christ risen and seated in glory. His own character is reproduced and Christ is manifested in the believer’s walk. “As the elect of God, those who owe everything to His will, His choice as those set apart to Him, and those upon whom He has set His love, we are to put on the things which properly accompany this: ‘bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another.’ It is striking how, in all these, there is found some form of self-denial. Power is shown by competence for stooping; God turning also the very things that are against us into the means of educating us in this. Things evil in themselves may, nevertheless, furnish us with a wholesome discipline for the way and enable us, in answer, to bring forth fruit which is according to God. We are to forbear as God has forborne. We are to forgive as Christ has forgiven us; to all which is to be added love as that which is the ‘bond of perfectness,’ which keeps everything in its place and perfects every detail of life. Think how the world, even, has to put on the appearance of love, the more if it has not the reality; but love itself has no need to put on an appearance. It will manifest itself in harmony in every tone and gesture. The manifestation of the divine nature has a unity in it which makes everything to be in harmony. If there is love in the heart, the words will not be hard or unseemly; their very tone will be affected” (Numerical Bible). “And let the peace of Christ (not ‘Peace of God’ as in the Authorized Version) preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful.” All God’s true children have peace with God and their calling in one body is also to have the peace of Christ presiding in their hearts. This blessed heritage (Joh 14:27) will be enjoyed by all who walk in the Spirit, who walk in love, obedient to His will and in unbroken fellowship with Him. The crown and glory of such a walk is the peace of Christ, the very peace which He possessed while down here. Blessed, unspeakable privilege! Yet how few know this peace of Christ and enjoy it daily! If Christ is all for the believer and seen as being “in all,” in every member of the body of Christ, then that peace will rule in the heart and we shall know the comfort and joy of it. Furthermore the word of Christ is to dwell richly in the believer’s heart in all wisdom. And this word ever directs us to Himself. It does not teach us self-occupation but occupation with Himself, His own person and glory. It is through His word that we learn to know Him better and by which we are kept in His fellowship. And this again bears the blessed fruits of joy and praise, as well as spiritual fellowship with the saints. “Teaching, and admonishing one another; with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God.” And all the believer does in word or in deed is all to be done in His own worthy name, “giving thanks to God the Father by Him.” The Lord Jesus is to be in all our thoughts; in every word and in every deed must be given Him the preeminence. “This consciousness of relationship with Christ, in the life which is of Him in us, applies to everything. Nothing is done without Him. If He is the life, all which that life does has Him for its end and object, as far as the heart is concerned. He is present as that which is the governing motive, and gives its character to our actions, and which preoccupies our heart in performing them. Everything relates to Him: we do not eat without Him (how can we when He is our very life?); we do not drink without Him; what we say, what we do, is said and done in the name of the Lord Jesus. There is the sense of His presence; the consciousness that everything relates to Him, that we can do nothing--unless carnally--without Him, because the life which we have of Him acts with Him and in Him, does not separate from Him, and has Him for its aim in all things, even as water rises to the height from which it descended. This is what characterizes the life of the Christian. And what a life! Through Him, dwelling in the consciousness of divine love, we give thanks to our God and Father.”
Col 1:18-29; Col 2:1-23; Col 3:1-25; Col 4:1.
Wives, husbands, children, fathers, servants and masters are exhorted how to walk in the different relationships while still in the body. The more complete exhortations as to husband and wife are found in the Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph 5:22-23); and as to children, fathers, servants and masters in Eph 6:1-9. The same loving submission of the wives to their husbands “as is fitting in the Lord” is here stated once more. And husbands are to love their wives and be not bitter against them. God has established and sanctioned the marriage relation; sin has come in and brought its corruption, never so much in evidence as in our own days. Believers in this relationship are exhorted to give in it a lovely display of the union which exists between Christ and the Church. Children in the believer’s family are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4), and seeing the truth that “Christ is all” exemplified in the family life they are exhorted to obey their parents in all things. The disintegration of the family life is one of the evil things of the closing days of this age. Among the characteristics of “the perilous times” with which our age closes we find “disobedience to parents” and “without natural affection” (2Ti 3:1-5). And fathers must take heed so as not to provoke their children to anger by any unjust treatment, so that the children be not discouraged to obey in all things. How often a spirit of rebellion is fostered in children by the treatment of parents, who do not manifest the love of Christ. But if “Christ is all” in the family life, if the peace of Christ presides in the hearts, if the Word of Christ dwells there richly, then love will govern all. The servants exhorted were slaves, who had believed and become in Christ true freedmen. Not a word is said about the wrong of slavery. Sin is responsible for it. But these Christian slaves are exhorted to obey their masters according to the flesh in all things. In serving them, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in faithfulness, meekness and devotedness they do it as unto the Lord. The place of honor belonged to these slaves in Christ, for they could manifest in their low place the life of Christ, who was here on earth the servant who came not to be ministered to but to minister; the servant of all. In the coming day of Christ many of the slaves who believed on Christ and served in meekness and lowliness will receive a great reward. “Two principles act in the heart of the Christian slave: his conscience in all his conduct is before God; the fear of God governs him, and not his master’s eye. And he is conscious of his relationship to Christ, of the presence of Christ, which sustains and lifts him above everything. It is a secret which nothing can take from him, and which has power over everything, because it is within and on high--Christ in him, the hope of glory. Yes, how admirably does the knowledge of Christ exalt everything that it pervades; and with what consoling power does it descend into all that is desolate and cast down, all that groans, all that is humbled in this world of sin! “Three times in these two verses, while holding their conscience in the presence of God, the apostle brings in the Lord, the Lord Christ, to fill the hearts of these poor slaves, and make them feel who it was to whom they rendered service. Such is Christianity” (Synopsis of the Bible). And masters are exhorted to render unto the slaves that which is just and equal. “Knowing that ye also have a Master who is in heaven.” Before that Master, all will have to appear and there will be no respect of persons.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Affections of the Christians Set on Things Above.
The Affections of the Christians Set on Things Above.
v. 1. If ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
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v. 2. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
v. 3. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
v. 4. When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.
As the Bible-student will note, the similarity between Colossians and Ephesians is everywhere apparent, but nowhere more pronounced than in this chapter. The apostle here holds out before the Christians the highest inducement that he could possibly bring: If, then (as is the case), you were raised with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. That we Christians have been raised with Christ, that we have risen together with Him, that we have been made partakers of His resurrection and its blessings in our conversion, that is the principal and most profound basis of all our Christian life. "For, as St. Paul here says, the excellent work and supreme treasure of the resurrection of Christ shall not be a useless, inefficient, and powerless talk or thought, as a dead picture hewn in stone or painted on paper, but a power and might of a kind to work a resurrection also in us through faith; which he calls ’rising with Christ,’ that is, to be dead to sins, to be torn out of the power of death and hell, and to have comfort and life in Christ. " Having become partakers of Christ’s life, of the fruits of His resurrection, having entered into the most intimate fellowship with Him, it follows that we will have only one thing in mind, that we will set our thoughts upon the things that are above. Christians will at all times strive after the possession of the invisible, eternal, holy, heavenly world of God, on the eternal blessings which the exalted Christ has prepared for them in the mansions above. They will heed the admonition: Set your mind on the things above, not on those on the earth. All our thinking, all our desiring, all our loving should be directed heavenward. The transitory things of this world should engage our attention only inasmuch as we are stewards of the gifts of God for the space of this short life. But Christians cannot set their affections upon the treasures, upon the joys, upon the honors of this world. The things of this world are at best only a means to an end, namely, to support this earthly, physical life, to enable us to perform the work which was given us by the Lord to perform. In the right use of the earthly things entrusted to us, we really mind and seek heavenly things; with their attainment our hearts are engrossed.
Paul substantiates his admonition: For you died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When the Lord converted us through the power of His Word, He gave us complete fellowship with Christ. So we Christians died to the world and to earthly, transitory things; we renounced the devil and all his works and all his pomp. At the same time we entered into the communion of Christ’s wonderful life. We now enjoy the mysterious union with Christ which is concealed with Him in God. This life, which belongs to the depth of our inward experiences, may be foolishness in the eyes of the foolish children of this world, but to us Christians it is a divine conviction, a certain experience. At the same time, by our union with Christ, we are united in fellowship with God the Father Himself. The apostle thus has the strongest reason for speaking so emphatically. "To such earthly behavior, he means to say, after which the heathen and unbelievers seek that put the Word of God out of their mind entirely and permit themselves to be led and driven by the devil, you must be dead, proving thereby that the resurrection of Christ in you is not vain words, but living power, which also give evidence in you that you also have risen and now live differently than before, namely, according to God’s will and Word; which is called a divine, heavenly life."
Eventually this life will no longer be hidden: When Christ shall appear, who is your Life, then you also with Him will be manifested in glory. Christ, our Savior, is our Life; He is at the same time both Possessor and Source of all true life, spiritual and eternal. The life of our Redeemer is our life, it was transmitted to us by His gracious power; He Himself is the essence of our life, all the manifestations of spiritual life in us are due to His life in us. See Rom 6:10-11; Gal 2:19-20. Christ will be manifested on the great day of His judgment, He will appear before all the world in the majesty of His glory. And then the days of humility will be past, then the time of the hidden life will be ended, then we Christians shall also be manifested with Him in glory, to the astonishment of the unbelievers, that considered us more or less harmless or harmful fools with our belief in the risen Christ; we shall be taken out of our disgrace and obscurity to become partakers of His eternal state of blessedness.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v1 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul warns the believers that because they are one with Christ, they ought not do certain things.
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If then
This is an idiom that means "because." (See: Idiom)
God has raised you with Christ
Here to raise up is an idiom for causing someone who has died to become alive again. Possible meanings are 1) because God has caused Christ to come alive again, God has already given the believers in Colossae new spiritual life. AT: "God has given you new life because you belong to Christ" or 2) because God has caused Christ to come alive again, the believers in Colossae can know that after they die they will live with Christ, and Paul can speak of the believers living again as if it has already happened. AT: "you can be sure that God will give you life as he has caused Christ to come alive again" (See: Predictive Past and Idiom)
things above
"things in heaven"
where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.
To sit at the "right hand of God" is a symbolic action of receiving great honor and authority from God. AT: "where Christ is sitting in the place of honor and authority beside God" (See: Symbolic Action)
For you have died
As Christ actually died, so God counts the Colossian believers as having died with Christ. (See: Metaphor)
your life is hidden with Christ in God
Paul speaks of people's lives as if they were objects that can be hidden in containers and speaks of God as if he were a container. AT: Possible meanings are 1) "it is as though God has taken your life and concealed it with Christ in God's presence" or 2) "only God knows what your true life really is, and he will reveal it when he reveals Christ" (See: Active or Passive and Metaphor)
who is your life
Christ is the one who gives spiritual life to the believer. (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
God
raise
Christ
glory
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 3:1-11 Paul summons the Colossians to a new way…
3:1-11 Paul summons the Colossians to a new way of thinking that results in a new lifestyle.
3:1 set your sights on the realities of heaven: Christians live on earth, but because they have been raised with Christ, their true being is oriented to the spiritual realm over which Christ rules. In contrast, the rules and regulations of the false teachers focused on the earthly realm (2:22).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.