Your life is hid with Christ

Colossians 3:1-3 reads, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

The first two verses of this well-known passage are relatively straightforward to understand. However, the third verse, with its reference to our lives being “hid with Christ in God,” is a bit more difficult. But this is a beautiful passage, and it is worth examining in greater detail.

The language of being “hid with Christ in God” is taken probably from treasure which is “hid” or concealed in a place of security. The idea is that eternal life is an invaluable jewel or treasure, which is laid up with Christ in heaven in the presence of God. There it is safely deposited -- nothing can reach it or take it away. It is not left with us, or entrusted to our keeping -- for then it might be lost, as we might lose an invaluable jewel; or it might be taken from us; or we might be defrauded of it; but it is now laid up far out of our sight, and far from the reach of all our enemies, and with One who can “keep that which we have committed to him against that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). Our eternal life, therefore, is as secure as it could possibly be made (Romans 8:31-39; 1 Peter 1:3-5). The true condition of the Christian is that he is “dead” to this world, but he lives for heaven, knowing that if he successfully throws off the temptation of sin, he will be saved.

Kyle Campbell