Hidden With Christ in God
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In Him
In Him
Last week I tried to set the context for some of Paul’s ethical teaching thats come at the end of chapter two and then throughout chapter three. What I tried to make clear is that, in Paul’s mind, at your baptism, something happened. For Paul, baptism isn’t merely a symbolic act of obedience. It is, rather, the moment in which you are united with Christ, the moment in which you become “in him” so that whatever is true of him becomes true of you. Because of this, when God looks on you, what he sees is Christ and not you.
having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Paul said last week that were were buried with Christ in baptism and also raised with him, which provides the ground for what Paul says later in the chapter. Namely, he says in verse 20
If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—
In baptism, you have died with Christ to the world as we know it, so why then, Paul asks, do you continue to live like you are still alive in the world? Notice, just to be clear, that Paul isn’t referring to earth but to the present ordering of the old creation. Having talked about our dying with Christ, he then says at the start of chapter three:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
I want to stop here for a moment. I want to make sure that we feel the weight of what Paul just said. Notice the language. You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Who you are in Christ is hidden. You can’t see it. There is, as it were, a better version of you, up there, because that version of you exists in Christ, and Christ is up there seated at the right hand of God. But a day will come, notice the eschatology, when Christ who is your life appears, then you, the real you, the true you, the you hidden in Christ with God, will appear as well.
Notice how our identity and Christ’s are linked in Paul’s mind. At first he merely says that our life is hidden with Christ in God, but then he says in verse four that Christ is our life. If you have been baptized into Christ, then what is true of him because true of you in such a way that Paul can say truly that Christ is your life. The real you isn’t the you that you know with all your doubt and fear and brokenness and sin. That’s Adam and all who exist in him. That’s the old world .But you have already died, and the real you has already been raised in Christ Jesus and that you will be revealed on the last great day when Christ returns again in glory to finish transforming the world.
And until then, Paul says, we must live, to the best that we are able, like the real us and not the us that we know. Notice what Paul says. If you can get this, you can get Paul’s doctrine of sanctification and how it relates to the finished work of Christ and our baptism into Christ.
He says in verse three
Colossians 3:3 (ESV)
For you have died...
But then he says in verse five
Colossians 3:5 (ESV)
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you...
You have died, therefore put to death. The imperative, the command “put to death” is in the process of catching up with the indicative, the statement of fact, that you have died. You are right now in the process of becoming who you already are in Christ, and that process is what we call Christian sanctification, it’s how we all become better and more faithful disciples and imitators of Christ by becoming who we already are in him.
And what this mean, which is what makes this whole conversation about Christian morality so complex, is that what we should and shouldn’t be doing as God’s people isn’t based on rules or law. Christian morality is based on an indicative, on a statement of fact about what Christ has done and about what happened to you when you were baptized. So the question before us is never “what do the rules say” but rather do our behavior and actions reflect the world to which we have died, our old self, or the new world, our new self, which Christ will bring with him on the last great day. It’s the cross, baptism, and eschatology crashing down into every moment of our lives and constantly asking us if we are living more like Adam or more like Jesus, if we are living more like our old self or our new self, if we are living more like the old world or the new creation.
Look at how Paul puts this in verses nine and ten.
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Renewed. Renewed in knowledge. After the image of our creator. That’s the process. That’s the goal of Christian discipleship. That’s the goal of this Christian community.
But it starts with faith, faith that the cross of Jesus Christ is more than a couple pieces of wood on which a Jewish peasant died, faith that the waters of baptism are more a merely symbolic act but rather define who you are from now into eternity. Who you are, with all your doubts, fears, brokenness, and sin, that you is dead. I know you feel that old self every day. I know it. I feel him too. But that old self is dead, which is why Paul can say in the next verse:
Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Who you were… dead. Who you are.... Christ, because he is in you, and you are in him, and your life is hidden with him in God.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Compassion. Kindness. Humility. Meekness. Patience. Forgiveness. And above all, love. Those are the character traits of the person you are in Christ. That’s your true self. But since we await the revealing of our true selves on the last great day, until then we must, day after day after day, put on these character traits. In the same way you wake up each morning and choose what clothes to put on, Paul is saying that we should choose to put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love. They say dress for the job you want, but Paul would say, “Dress like the real you who will be revealed on the last great day.” Not the you that you know, but the you who is hidden with Christ in God. Make that decision, every day, to live like you whose life is hidden with Christ in God, and what you will find, brothers and sisters, is that every day you make that choice, is another day in which you are being renewed in the image of your creator. Or to put it another way, every day you make that choice is another day that you become more like who you already are.
Amen.