Reflecting Reality

My parents are not dead. Oh, yes, you can go to a little veterans’ cemetery in East Hartford, CT, and find crosses engraved with their names sitting side by side. Their bodies have most certainly died. But they are not dead. When my thoughts move to what they are doing now, I most often picture them together up in Heaven, worshiping the Lord. An earthly lifetime of walking in faith has now become sight. They are finally face to face with Jesus.

I’ve only visited their gravesite once. It is not because I don’t desperately miss them. I still do, and probably will until I go to Heaven myself. I don’t go to their gravesite because they are not there. Their eternity has begun. This fact is more real than any physical thing I can see here on earth. In reality, our material existence is what is temporary.

Paul urged that kind of thinking on the church at Colosse. He contrasts the appropriate and inappropriate places in which to set our minds.

Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

There were false teachers in the early church that were perverting the gospel. They taught that Christ was not God, and that salvation was earned through strict observation of the Law, traditions, and other observances. They promoted self-abasement and even harsh treatment of the body. All of this sacrificial activity may have looked spiritual from the outside, but Paul assured his readers it lacked any value. All of that “religiousness” came from the minds of men, and did not originate with God.

Instead, Paul urged his readers to set their minds on things with eternal value. Why is this so appropriate? It reflects our true reality. When we believe in Christ, our identity becomes wrapped up in Him. Paul reveals three points of that identification. Notice the verb tenses in the italicized verse above. We have died: past tense. Romans 6:6-8 tells us our old self was put to death and a new life implanted within us at the moment of our salvation.

The second verb tense: our lives are hidden with Christ in God: present tense. This is our present reality. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us we presently see through a glass, with limited understanding. I think Paul was telling the Colossians we are seen through a glass as well. The Greek word for hidden, from where the English word encrypted comes, is translated in other places as kept secret, concealed, or hidden so that something not be made known.

The last verb tense Paul uses is the future tense: you will be revealed with Him in glory. At the resurrection of all believers, the glory that is Christ’s will be fully revealed in us as well.

Past, present, and future reality. All three realities identify us with an aspect of Christ. Our past death. Our present burial (hiddenness). Our future resurrection. So, in keeping with our identification with Him, we are to set our minds on the things above, where He is seated at the right hand of God.

This can be a challenge, since we presently reside in a material world. In another of his letters, Paul reminds us to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). To set our minds on the things above is to acknowledge these realities and adjust our thinking accordingly.