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{Christ is Your Life}
 A Homiletic Essay from Colossians 3:1-4
By Andrew Johnson
Christ is your life. This is surely a loaded statement and one we will make some effort tounpack. To say that “Christ is your life” is a way of expressing a peculiar motif in that appears in theNew Testament, namely the union of Christ with His people. In 1 Corinthians 6:11 Paul states it thisway, “the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him.”
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In Galatians he expresses it another way: “Ihave been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I nowlive in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself forme.” (Gal. 2:20) The passage we want to look at specifically says:
“Therefore, if you have been raised withChrist, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Keep thinking aboutthings above, not things on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. WhenChrist (who is your life) appears, then you too will be revealed in glory with him
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(Col. 3:1-4) This passageand its immediate context gives us a picture of what union with Christ means in terms of ourrelationship to God and the way in which we are to live.
1.
Union with Christ
Our passage begins, “Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the thingsabove, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” In another place, Eph. 2:4-6, Paul writessimilarly, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even thoughwe were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you are saved!—and heraised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” And yet inanother place he says, “For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we willcertainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection...Now if we died with Christ, we believe thatwe will also live with him.” (Rom. 6:5, 8-11) In these passages we see a common thread, that God hasunited us with Christ so that His death, which He died to sin once for all time, is our death; Christ wasour substitute, laying His life down on our behalf for the sins we committed. Not only this, but His life
1All Scripture quotations in this sermon are taken from the New English Translation.
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—His living in obedience to the Father, His rising from the dead, and His living as our faithful highpriest before the Father in heaven—is also our life. So, even as Christ was raised from the dead, so willwe be raised. Yet in Col. 3:1 and Eph 2:5-6, Paul goes even further to say that, while we eagerly await“our adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23), we are nevertheless already “made alive”(that is, resurrected), already “raised up” and “seated” in Christ (that is, ascended and in the presenceof God). In Col. 3:3 Paul says again, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”We have died to sin and to the world in the death of Christ, who is our substitute and who the Head of the church, His body; yet we also live to God in Christ, “who is your life.” Though we remain presentin this world, while we still live in bodies made in the likeness of Adam, our true life is neverthelesstethered to Christ, who is also called the last Adam, in whose likeness we are being created anew.This brings us to discuss in what manner we are united with Christ. How is it that we are stillhere physically, yet at the same time seated with Christ in the presence of the Father? Earlier in hisletter to the Colossians, Paul had said of Christ, “He is the head of the body, the church, as well as thebeginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things.”(Colossians 1:18) Keeping this verse in view, we also consider Paul's statements in Romans 5.
So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread toall people because all sinned... Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through onetransgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedienceof one man many will be made righteous.
Romans 5:12, 18-19
And also from 1 Corinthians:
For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ,the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him...So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living person”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, made of dust; thesecond man is from heaven.
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Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like theone from heaven, so too those who are heavenly.
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And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven.
1 Corinthians 15:22-23, 45-49
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Adam was the “head” of the entire human race, since he was the first man. His transgression had theconsequence that all human beings after him were sinners by birth; so through Adam sin entered theworld and so also death. We all sin, so we all die. The reason we all sin is, first, because Adam sinnedand second, because we are sinners like Adam. By way of contrast, Christ is the head of another bodyof humanity—the church, “those who belong to him” and are members of His body. Adam is the headof those who are “of dust.” Adam was the man made of dust and we all bear that image; Christ, on theother hand, is head of those who are of heavenly birth. Christ was sent from heaven and though Hewas brought into this world like any other child born in the likeness of Adam, He was conceived by theHoly Spirit. Thus, there are two humanities: those who are only like Adam and those who, while stillpossessing a body like Adam's, are nevertheless of heavenly birth. The latter have been born of Godand are not of the world.Christ is their head; He stands for them. He is their representative. Right now, Christ stands forHis people, for His body, in the presence of the Father. This is what in Reformed or Covenant theologyis known as “federalism.” Adam was “federal head” of the whole human race and so because of his sinwe also suffer the consequences; Christ is the “federal head” of the body of Christ and so those whobelong to Him receive the benefits of His faithfulness. It is because of this federal union that Paul cansay that we have been raised with Christ and seated with Christ, even though we have yet to experiencethe resurrection of our bodies and we have yet to be revealed with Christ in glory.The late James Montgomery Boice brings out the significance of this union: “The seat next toGod in which we have been seated with Christ is a throne, which means that we reign with him. Weare extensions of Christ's presence and authority in the world...This seat speaks of victory. It involvessecurity, privilege, rejoicing, accomplishment.”
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Not only does Christ represent us before the Father'sthrone, we also represent Christ and His kingdom on the earth. This fact brings us to our next point.
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 Marks of Union with Christ
Our passage, we recall, began with the words, “Therefore if...” This can also be translated simplyas “Since.” Since we have been crucified with Christ and raised with Christ “keep seeking what isabove” and “keep thinking about what is above, not about what is on earth.” Thus, our union withChrist is not only a federal union where He is our representative it is also s living union; He is our life,and as such, there are consequences to this. If Christ is indeed our life, if we are indeed members of His
2James M. Boice,
 Ephesians
. (Grand Rapids: Baker), 1988, 1997. 61
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