Colossians Chapter 3 verse 3 Holy Bible

Colossians 3 : 3 Bible Verse Songs

• First Love by Hillsong Young & Free

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - For ye died, and your life is hid, with Christ, in God (Colossians 2:11-13, 20; Ephesians 4:22; Philippians 3:20; Romans 6:1-14; Romans 7:1-6; 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15; Galatians 2:20; 1 Corinthians 3:23; John 15:5; John 12:26; Revelation 3:21). In this hidden life of the Christian lies the ground and the spring of the more outward life of thought and endeavour of vers. 1, 2. And this life comes through death, from that "dying with Christ" out of which we "rose with him" (ver. 1; Colossians 2:11-13, 20; Romans 6:3, 4, 8). "The aorist ἀπεθάνετε ('ye died') denotes the past act; the perfect κέκρυπται ('hath been and is hid') the permanent effects" (Lightfoot). (On the nature of this death, see notes to Colossians 2:11-13.) "Died - and your life!" this paradox is explained in Romans 6:10, 11, and repeated in Galatians 2:20; 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15. The Christian's life is lodged in the sphere of "the unseen and eternal." It centres in Christ, and as he is hidden - withdrawn from the world of sense, yet with us always in his Spirit (John 14:16-20; John 16:16-22) - so our life with him. And if "with Christ," then "in God;" for "Christ is God's" (1 Corinthians 3:23); "lives to God" (Romans 6:10), and "is at God's right hand" (ver. 1), being "the Son of his love" (Colossians 1:13; John 1:18). The apostle says, "in God" ("in heaven," Philippians 3:19), to emphasize the fact of the union of Christ with God, or perhaps to deepen the reader's sense of the sacredness of this life in Christ (comp. 1 Timothy 6:14-16). "Is hid" (Colossians 1:26, 27; Colossians 2:2, 3), another allusion to the fondness of the Colossian errorists for mysteries. In Colossians 1:26 St. Paul spoke of the ancient mystery of a Christ for all the world; then of the new, perpetual mystery of a Christ dwelling within believing hearts. But this second mystery is equally that of our life in Christ as of Christ's life in us, lifting us to heaven while it brings him down to earth. This mutual indwelling of the Head in heaven and the members upon earth is the most intimate and inscrutable of all secrets (John 14:20; John 15:1-7; John 17:22, 23, 26). "The world knows neither Christ nor Christians, and Christians do not even know themselves" (Bengel). But as the old historic secret had its manifestation at last (Colossians 1:26), so will the new secret that lies enfolded within every Christian life -

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) Ye are dead.--Properly, ye died. See Colossians 2:20, and Note there. The phrase here is to be taken in its whole sense, both of "death to sin" and "death to the visible world."Your life is hid with Christ in God . . . Christ who is our life.--In these two phrases, again, we pass from a lower to a higher expression of the same truth. (1) First, "our life is hid with Christ in God." The spiritual life in man is a "hidden life," having its source in God; the full conviction of it, as distinct from the mere instinctive consciousness of it in the mind itself, comes only from the belief that it is the image of God in us, and is sustained by constant communion with Him. If God be our God at all, we must live; for "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32). It is also "hid with Christ." Our Lord's ascent to His glory in heaven is at once the pledge and the means of this our spiritual communion with God. It is "with Him" that we can "in heart and mind ascend;" it is "with Him" that we can "continually dwell." (2) But this is not all. "Christ is our life" now as well as hereafter. This is simply a summary of the two truths;" Christ liveth in me (see Galatians 2:20), as the source of life; and "To me to live (the actual condition of life) is Christ" (Philippians 1:21). It is but a brief expression of faith in the truth which our Lord Himself declared (John 11:25), "I am the Life; whoso liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." (Comp. John 14:6.) Hence our spiritual life is not only a being "with Christ;" it is also unity with Christ in the bosom of the Father. . . .