Heavenly Theology for Life

If you’ve been around Christian circles for some time, then you’ve probably heard the saying that a person can be so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. However, that doesn’t seem to fit with what the Scriptures say. Not only is heavenly mindedness a good thing, it is intended to have a profound affect upon how we live. Let’s look at one passage in Colossians that points us to heaven. We’ll supplement this passage with notes from the Colossians volume from Tyndale Commentaries.

Colossians 3:1–4

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.

Heavenly Seeking

Having emphasized the glory of Christ and the blessings of the gospel of Christ, Paul turns from his immediately preceding emphasis on the false teachings threatening the Colossian believers and directs them to where their focus should be, namely Christ. The basis of the imperatives in this section is the reality that just as ‘you have died with Christ’ (2:20), so also you have been raised with Christ. The passive voice of the verb ‘raised’ points to God’s action for the believers. Since the Colossians came to Christ they now belong to him and the benefits of his death and resurrection are applied to them. His death becomes their death (2:20). They have also been raised with Christ (2:12). Since this is true of all believers, the reality of who they are has changed.

Picking up on the reality of this new resurrection life that he has mentioned earlier in 2:12, and building upon the implications of 2:20, Paul now uses spatial language to emphasize this change. Christ’s resurrection and ascension mean the inauguration of his kingdom in the present (1:13) in anticipation of the consummation, the hope of glory (1:27; 3:4). Jesus rules from his place of authority and power, seated at the right hand of God (cf. Acts 2:33–34). The believer, therefore, as one who belongs to Christ, also ought to continue to ‘seek’ that which is in keeping with where Christ is, that is, the things above. In the context of Colossians, this is a reference to ‘heaven’ where the believer’s hope is secure (1:5) and where their ‘Lord’ is (4:1).

Heavenly Thinking

The exhortation of 3:1 is then repeated with a slight variation and an additional contrast in 3:2. The slight variation in 3:2 is the exhortation to set your minds on things above, which is not likely to be that different to the exhortation in 3:1 to ‘seek’. If anything, ‘seek’ is more general and refers to one’s overarching purpose and goal worked out in actions that reveal one’s fundamental direction in life.

The more specific exhortation to set your minds on things above picks up on the many references to knowledge, understanding and thinking that occur throughout this letter. Whereas the Colossians were at one time ‘enemies in their minds’ (1:21), they came to ‘understand God’s grace’ in the gospel, having ‘learned it from Epaphras’ (1:6–7). Paul prays for the Colossians’ ‘knowledge’ of God’s will and spiritual ‘understanding’ (1:9–10), and he labours so that they would have the ‘full assurance’ that comes from ‘complete understanding’, or the ‘knowledge’ of Christ, God’s mystery revealed (2:2).

Paul’s contrasting phrase, not on earthly things, refers to that which is derived from and dependent upon the ‘elementary principles of this world’ with its human-oriented and this-worldly teaching that deceives and leads away from the sufficiency of Christ that the gospel teaches (2:4, 8, 18–19, 20–23). The things above, therefore, relate to God’s eternal and saving purposes in what Christ has done. Since Christ has taken the penalty that we were under and removed the accusations against us, he has triumphed over the accuser, and now is risen and reigning, having inaugurated his saving rule. Thus Paul urges the Colossians not to be taken in by this-worldly human-oriented priorities but to orient their thinking around the accomplishments and the present reign of Christ as proclaimed in the gospel.

Heavenly Reality

The reason Paul gives for believers directing their thinking to the accomplishments and present reign of Christ is because (for) you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Paul now combines what he said in 2:12, 20; and 3:1. It is the indicative – the reality of what is already true for all believers – that is the basis for the exhortation to respond in this way. Paul does not (yet) say that believers too must die to or put to death anything. Rather he restates here what is spiritually true for all believers because they belong to Christ: they have already died and they have already risen to new life. That is, the saving benefits of Christ’s actions and accomplishments are theirs already. This is the basis for the exhortation to focus on, be governed by and set their minds on these things.

Heavenly Hiddenness

The additional point that your life is now hidden with Christ emphasizes the security each individual believer now has. Thus, because of Christ’s resurrection and ascension to reign at the right hand of the Father, the person who belongs to Christ can be assured that the salvation (‘life’) they have in Christ is as secure as Christ’s resurrection life and his relationship with God the Father (cf. 1:19; 2:9). Just as their hope is stored up in heaven (1:5), so too their relationship with God is hidden in the sense that it is secure and kept safe. Just as all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are bound up with Christ (2:3), so too is the believer’s new life (2:13).

This then is the reason why Paul can confidently exhort the Colossians. Even though they still live in a world in which strength to have endurance and patience is needed from God (1:12), they can in fact set their minds on Christ’s saving rule because of the reality of the life-giving change that has most assuredly already taken place. The close connection with the language of ‘revealed’ in the next verse, together with the language of ‘hidden . . . but now made known’ in 1:26–27 for God’s saving purposes, lends support to another feature of this ‘hiddenness’. The reality of the believer’s new life is ‘hidden’ in the sense that it is yet to be fully seen. The believer must live in anticipation of the future unveiling of this reality (1:5, 23, 27), and yet display the reality of this new life in everyday relationships (3:10–4:1).

Heavenly Glory

Paul completes the sequence of salvation-historical events, implied in the allusion to Psalm 110:1 and Christ’s present reign in 3:1, with the language of when . . . then. The inauguration of Christ’s kingdom through his life, death, resurrection and ascension is brought to consummation with his return. Christ is first said to be your life. Here Paul reaffirms in a more emphatic way that the believer’s life is bound up with Christ’s resurrection life and is as secure as saying that Christ is your life. The additional point that Paul makes here is that just as the events of Christ’s death and resurrection are applied to those who belong to him, so too does the event of Christ’s return affect the believer.

Even though the security of this new life is hidden now, one day it will be made absolutely clear. That day will be when Christ . . . appears. This is the future hope that Paul has referred to numerous times in this letter. It is the hope that is stored up in heaven (1:5), the hope of glory (1:27). It is the anticipation of being presented before the throne of God holy, without blemish and free from accusation, complete in Christ (1:22, 28). This hope is the certainty that when Christ ‘appears’ then you too (those who belong to Christ) will ‘appear’ with him in glory. ‘Glory’ refers to the full manifestation of Christ’s majesty when he will be seen for all he is at the consummation of history and the entrance of eternity at his second coming.

Theology for Life

Paul develops the significance of the believers’ identification with Christ. Because of Christ’s supremacy, those who belong to him enjoy the blessings of all that he has accomplished. Because believers belong to him they are therefore to set their priorities by Christ’s resurrection and eternal reign as he carries out the Father’s saving purposes in contrast to that which is merely this-worldly or ‘earthly’. In temporal terms, his death, resurrection and return all directly impact his people as they have consequently died to their past life outside of Christ, risen to new spiritual resurrection life and look forward to the full disclosure of this when the majesty of Christ is seen at his return. In a nutshell, Christ is our life! Everything hinges on our identification with Christ.

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