Sunday, April 12, 2020

Colossians 3:1-4

Colossians 3:1-4
1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Colossians 3:1-4 moves from the negative notion of separation that Paul discussed since 2:16 to a presentation of the positive notion of baptism and union with Christ. The flow of thought from 2:16 continues here, only now from the positive side. Once separated from the ascetic practices and from the cosmic powers, one needs to unite to Christ. Paul makes a stark contrast between the former life of faithlessness and the present life of faith. The former is "earthly" and the latter is from "above." The mystery religions might promise the knowledge of heaven but, to Paul, it was a false experience and hence no real experience at all. The pastoral strategy is clear. Paul does not disparage their concern for the heavenly realm. Instead, he attempts to redirect it. He sees an antithesis and confrontation. As will be clear in the next section, to seek what is above is not to be other-worldly, for this “seeking” will influence how one lives.[1] They will have a lifestyle and faith expression that will separate them from the syncretistic milieu of the surrounding culture.
A careful reader properly gets the impression that the Christians were struggling to differentiate themselves. On the one side, Hellenistic Jews stressed circumcision and "legal demands" (2:14). On the other side, the Greco-Roman philosophical family of mystery religions or pseudo-Christian sectarian groups worshiped angels, dwelt in visions and who were "puffed up" with a pseudo-spirituality that, to Paul, did not effect a transformation of one's being toward the likeness of Jesus Christ (2:18). 
 So if you have been raised with (συνηγέρθητεChrist, a formulaic expression following 2:20, “If you have died.” No doubt behind the "died, raised" pairing is the traditional baptismal formula of dying and rising with Christ. Baptism participates in the death and resurrection of Christ. Hence, Paul exhorts the Colossians to remember their baptism and put on "the new self" (3:10) which baptism brings. The change must pervade the whole nature of the person.  It is both intellectual and practical, removal to a new sphere of being. Thus, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Rather than a contrast with the earthly, Paul challenges them to focus on the true spirituality in Christ.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. The new way of thinking affects not only the mind and spirit but directs the expression of faith outwardly as well. The statement rejects Gnostic asceticism. Paul exhorts them to allow Christ's freedom to control their lives.  For you have died (ἀπεθάνετε)Becoming a Christian is a death-to-life event. The death occurred in baptism. Yet, the end is not the end, but rather, a beginning. Further, your life is hidden (κέκρυπται) with Christ in God. "Hidden," buried out of sight to the world.  The world knows nothing of this new life, while the believer must know nothing of the world.  The hiddenness may be another way to speak of death.  This new life of Christ hides behind the fleshly visage and the day-to-day responsibilities, but it was real and effective. When Christ who is your life is revealed (φανερωθῇ)Paul promising that what hides in the present God would reveal in the future, then you also will be revealed (φανερωθήσεσθε) with him in glory. The revelation would show the believer to be one with Christ. The end is not death, darkness, or nothingness. The end is beautiful because life with Jesus defines our end. We are to live our lives today from the perspective of that end. If we do, our today is always full. It will never be empty. It will have a direction and a goal. Jesus, to Paul, is more than an example whom the believer chooses to follow; rather, for Paul, baptism is a transformation event changing the person from the inside out. Conversion is not a change in the flesh (circumcision), or a change of mind (philosophy); instead, Christ brings mind and body together, for Christ "is all and in all" (v. 11). To live with Christ means to seek our life above, where it is real. We seek here and now, not in this here and now and not on this earth. Think of the true life of the Christian as this exalted life.  Our lives are with Christ, and never apart from Him, never at all independently of Him, never at all in and for itself. Humanity never exists in oneself. The Christian is the very last to cling to existing in oneself. Humanity exists in Jesus Christ and in Christ alone. Humanity also finds God in Christ and in Christ alone.  We are concealed in Christ, but our lives remain our own, renewed in the reconciliation accomplished in Christ.  This passage stresses the security of the believer in Christ.  If our lives hide in Christ, they are not hiding in our sin.[2]Christian hope is not just individual hope in God but hope for the world, for the rule of God, and only in this context hope for one’s own salvation. In 1:13-14, God’s saving plan, the divine mystery now revealed, consists of the fact that “Christ is in you, the hope of glory.” The Messiah of the people of God is also the Savior of the world of nations. Therefore, Christ is not only the hope for this or that individual, but also the riches of the glory of the divine plan of salvation among the peoples. In 2:12-13, only by union with the Messiah Jesus as this takes place in baptism gives individuals a part in this glory, which we also see in verse 4.  Paul developed the notion of the Already and the Not Yet of salvation. In 2:12, Colossians is bold enough to describe the resurrection of the baptized as a reality that is present already. Yet, the tension with the future of salvation is still present when Colossians 3:3-4 still says that that the new life of believers still has a hidden quality, with Christ in God, to whom God has exalted Christ.  The resurrection of the believer occurs at death. The biblical basis involves the promise to the thief on the cross. The existence with Christ inaugurated by faith is the start of resurrected life and therefore outlasts death.  In this passage, we find biblical support for this notion. God has already raised the baptized with Christ. Naturally, we must add that this life will appear only with the return of Christ as said in verse 4. The thesis of a resurrection in death, which according to verse 1 occurs even at baptism, does not express the totality of the New Testament witness to the resurrection of the dead.[3]
How many of the following blanks can you fill in?
• Time you awoke today ____
• Your heart rate upon awaking ____
• Your blood pressure upon awaking ____
• Your cholesterol number ____
• The amount of time you slept each night last week, on average ____
• The number of minutes you exercised in the last 24 hours ____
• Your maximum heart rate during the exercise ____
• The number of calories you consumed yesterday ____
• How many milligrams of caffeine you consumed yesterday ____
• How many milligrams of various vitamins and minerals you took yesterday ____
• Your pain level yesterday, on a scale of 1-10 ___ 
• Your mood today, on a scale of 1-5 ____

            These days, there is a good chance that some of us can provide personal data on several of these questions, including the one for info from a year ago. That is partly because personal technology has now made collecting such numbers easy. Computers, iPhones, pedometers, heart-rate monitors, blood-sugar meters, cyclometers and the like not only make it simple to read our personal numbers but also to maintain a record of them. 
            Our age has found more ways to focus attention upon the self. For example, what seems to animate the “personal metrics movement” is the ability to analyze such personal data in hope of harvesting better personal results. Professional athletes have long tracked such things as heart rate, metabolism, diet and other factors to improve their performance. Now, ordinary people, you and I, can use tracking such information to achieve weight loss, improvements in physical fitness, better performance in our sports activities and so on. We can gain new insights into ourselves by harnessing the power of countless observations of small incidents of change that used to vanish without a trace. 
I can imagine all of this applied to faith as well. Just as we can now apply a number to pain, or figure out our mood, I suppose someone has figured out a number to apply to faith. How is your faith right now? Oh, I am five today, how about you? From what I know of John Wesley and his “methodical” approach to spiritual formation, he would have liked that approach. 
Of course, knowing yourself is better than not knowing yourself. “Know thyself,” is a well-known phrase, inscribed in gold letters over the portico of the temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece. Plato refers to it several times. He encouraged those who would listen to learn what it meant.         Just as famously, Shakespeare, in Hamlet, has the phrase, “to thine own self be true.” We human beings are very concerned with the “self.” The Bible has this concern as well, but with a twist. 
Self-knowledge is certainly a good thing. Yet, we are not very good at knowing ourselves. If anything, we want to avoid genuine self-knowledge. In Christianity, however, a different type of problem presents us when in the matter of self-knowledge. Among the most important elements of baptism is that re-directs our attention away from self and toward Christ. Baptism means washing away the old and putting on the new. It identifies us with Christ, especially in his death and resurrection. Our lives are “hidden,” or “encrypted” with Christ in God. I know this may seem strange, but there seems to be a sense in which who we are will not reveal itself even to us until Christ comes. Our self-knowledge will always be partial. If we have identified our lives with Christ through faith, then in ways of which we are not fully aware, Christ is our life. Christian hope is for a future that will reveal who we are. In the mean time, Paul will urge us toward hearts and lives full of love. 
In the spiritual journey, knowing yourself is worth the time and energy it will take. We might keep a journal. We can make little notes about worship, personal devotions, places where we sensed closeness or distance with God, places where we responded well (or not) to family, friends, and work. An important part of the spiritual battle we face is acknowledging and noticing what is happening in our lives. So many tools are readily available today, such as personality tests and spiritual gifts inventories. Knowing ourselves is the first step toward making the changes we know we need to make in our lives. We have likely said something like, “Well, that is just the way I am.” Granted, some truth resides in the statement. Yet, we are not helpless bystanders of our lives. We have made decisions in the past that make us the way we are. Who we become in the future will be the result of choices we make today. 


[1] Andrew Lincoln
[2] Barth, Church Dogmatics 
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 

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