To Encourage You

Colossians 3:3 ”For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Everyone has two natures.  It’s just a fact of how God created us. There is a physical nature and a spiritual nature.  At the creation, both of these natures were consistent in that they were both alive.  God breathed life into Adam and Eve, i.e., He breathed life into their physical bodies, but he also breathed life into their spirit.  God then warned them that if they disobeyed him, on that very day they would die (Genesis 2:17). However, on the day that they ate of the forbidden fruit, they didn’t die – or did they? 

You see, although Adam and Eve’s physical body didn’t die on the same day that they first sinned, they did die spiritually.  As for their body, it began the process of death, as well.  It too would die someday, but slowly, as their bodies were overtaken by age, disease, and other physical stressors.  And while their bodies lingered on with a physical, but terminal, condition, the evidence of their spiritual death became evident immediately.  Now they sinned. They hid from God rather than having a desire to commune with Him. They lied, coveted, feared, and resorted to all manner of idolatry.  They had no hunger for spiritual food, for now their physical desires controlled them. It was all that mattered to them, while truly godly and spiritual things had no appeal to them.   And that’s been the condition of every person who has ever entered the world since Adam and Eve. 

From the moment any person is given physical life, they begin a journey that will end in physical death.  And as for their spirit, they are born dead – stillborn if you will. This spiritual death is evident in their actions, desires, and wills.  As we are told in Romans 8:7 “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”  The natural man can’t see spiritual things, can’t hear spiritual things, and can’t walk in the spirit, because he is spiritually dead. That’s the truth, according to God’s Word.  

But then the Bible tells us that when a person is born again, this all changes.  Now, at the moment of the new birth, a person is resurrected to life, spiritually. Suddenly they care about spiritual things, like spiritual food, i.e., the Bible. Now they have a longing to live a life that pleases God, rather than live in a way that opposes Him. They bear spiritual fruit, such as self-control, which means control of those physical lusts that once controlled him or her.  All things have, wonderfully, become new in a spiritual sense in their life (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Yet, in the verse above from Colossians 3 we are told that the believer “has died.”  But in what way?  It is a vicarious death, for we died with Christ.  The penalty of death has already been paid for us, because Jesus paid it.  The wonderful reality of this is that while the physical death of an unbeliever transports them into the full reality of the spiritual death that’s characterized their existence, the physical death of a believer transports them into the full reality of the spiritual life that now characterizes them.  It’s hidden now, in Christ, i.e., it is the life Jesus lives in heaven right now, which is hidden from our view, that is the very life they possess. The full reality of which that life consists will await the time of Jesus’ second coming.  But right now, it’s hidden, especially from the view of the natural man. 

Paul, who wrote Colossians 3, knew this very well. He once had no spiritual life and he was totally blind to the reality of who Christ was. But then, when Paul was blinded physically on the Damascus Road by the blinding light of the presence of Christ, his eyes were suddenly opened spiritually.  He now, for the first time, could see his own sin, and now, for the first time, he could see the truth about who Jesus was.  From the moment that Paul believed, he became spiritually alive. 

However, the full reality of that life, like the full reality of any believer’s life, is hidden from the view of the unbeliever. It’s that same glorious life of Christ that Paul’s eyes were opened to on the Damascus Road. All believers share that life, that hidden life. But one day, it will be revealed for all to see. What a glorious truth this is! 

So, if this brings joy to your heart, it’s evidence that you are spiritually alive.  However, if all this makes no sense to you, i.e., to you it’s all nonsense, that’s just evidence that your spirit is currently dead.  However, the wonderful truth is that Jesus came to give you life, for in Him is Life (John 1:4). But that life is only available to those who believe.  Jesus spoke of this wonderful truth with these words: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

So, does that describe you?  If not, it can, if you will only believe.