“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

Not only is our life hidden with Christ, but the life spoken of here is zoe, divine life, the life Christ is.  “Your life” is not you.  The life that is ours is of another kind.  Genesis chapter one tells us that every creature comes forth from its own kind.  Christ is the kind from which we come forth, from whom our life is.  Our life is not bios (physical life), or psuche (the self-life).  Our life—who we now are—is the life that we have since we have been raised with Christ.  It is the life above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1).

We are told not to set our minds on things on the earth (Col. 3:2).  That is not where our life comes from.  That is not where our life is.  The life that related to the old creation, that was the old creation, died.  Our new life—our divine life—is in another place, above, raised, in God.  In Him we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28).

We are told to deaden our members that are on the earth (Col. 3:5).  We are from above, not from the earth.  It was through our members we related to this creation, this fallen world, through our members we carried on the intercourse of sin.  But no more.  “For you died.”  Because one died for all, all died (2 Cor. 5:14).  The members, the medium of our sinful intercourse with the earth, were cut off.  Like broken roots, they are powerless to draw the earth into us, powerless to hold us down in it.  We are free, free in Christ and above.  We no longer have members that drink sin from the earth.  We ARE members of Christ: one body drawing one life from the one God.

—Excerpted from my booklet, “Reflections on Colossians 3“