Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word. The entirety of Colossians chapter 3 brings to the forefront so much that’s important in our spiritual lives. There’s a great richness in understanding the true meaning of living in and with Christ and how it pertains to our eternal security. Let’s get started. Colossians chapter 3. Safely hidden.

Somewhere in rural Kentucky, there’s a 109,000-acre secure site. Very secure. It’s called the United States Bullion Depository. It’s popularly known as Fort Knox. The depository at Fort Knox is supposed to hold the largest portion of the United States gold reserves. I’ve read there are around 150 million ounces of gold stored there in bars that weigh about 30 pounds each, and with a value of between 400 and 500 billion dollars, depending on the current market, of course.

I say supposed to because I’m not sure any outside independent sources have or could confirm that. I understand the last time even a delegation of Congress was allowed inside the depository was 50 years ago in the 1970s. No one has ever gained access to rob the depository, that’s for sure. In fact, no one has ever tried, as far as we know. It’s extremely well protected, hidden deep underground, surrounded by multiple layers of technological security as well as massive physical barriers. The military claims the depository at Fort Knox could sustain a direct hit from an atomic weapon without being destroyed.

It’s hard to imagine anything being more secure and all to protect gold. When I read through Colossians 3 looking for the biggest ideas, I saw several things that we have pretty recently focused on. That’s not surprising because we’ve done most of the Apostle Paul’s letters by now, and his message to them was consistent. He wasn’t teaching one church one thing and another church a different thing. So, for example, if I had to say what I think is the biggest idea in today’s chapter, it’s about valuing spiritual and eternal things more than material and temporal things. You know, that’s a theme, though, that we have stressed several times from other passages.

Not that we have mastered it, but I certainly hope that we understand it by now. After that in this chapter are a lot of practical instructions about putting off the sinful things associated with our old nature and putting on the mind and qualities of Christ. Remember our podcast recently from Ephesians 4 on exactly that idea, so I decided not to focus there again so soon. There are great verses in Colossians 3 about forgiveness and about humility, two things we’ve also focused whole lessons on recently, and then a clear section reminding us how the gospel is for everyone. It’s the great leveler. How everyone who receives it, no matter who they are or where they are from, are equals before God and should be equals to each other.

I know I did a whole lesson on what a radical idea and also attractive factor that was in the society the early churches were taking root in. Then at verse 18 in this chapter, Paul transitions to a whole section on husbands and wives and how Christianity should be practiced in the home and marital relationship. That’s something my buddy Dr. Jeffrey Dean Arthur has covered well from Ephesians chapter 5. And at the end of this chapter, there’s some surprising instructions concerning slaves, which I’m not sure we’ve addressed adequately to this point. But the best text to spend a whole lesson on that issue will be Paul’s letter to Philemon, which are coming to very soon.

So, honestly, I was a little stuck deciding on a big idea that comes up in Colossians 3 that we haven’t addressed pretty recently. But after some more thought and prayer, something that Paul writes in verses 3 and 4 kind of jumped out at me. These are not verses I’d ever given much thought to before, honestly. Listen to how Paul opens this chapter. Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

That’s a key biblical idea that we’ve stressed in our podcast. But then he goes on, For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, reappears, then you will also appear with him in glory. The line that captured my attention is, For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Paul’s not talking about anyone’s physical death there. He’s talking to very alive people who are part of a local church community in Roman Asia, Colossi.

Paul is alluding to one of the things that happens at the time someone is saved, at the time someone places their faith in Jesus, when he writes here about dying and being raised up in Christ. In the spiritual dimension, when we place our faith in Christ, believers become included in and become beneficiaries of His death and resurrection. Believers are spiritually placed in Christ. We’ve learned this in Ephesians, and so benefit from all that He is and all that He has done. We also studied that in Romans chapter 6, by the way. So here Paul says, when that happened and we were united with Christ and became beneficiaries of what He accomplished through His death and resurrection, from that point on, our life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Hidden with Christ in God. Hold that thought. The New Testament describes in many different ways things that happen in the spiritual dimension when we hear and respond in faith to the gospel. For example, in John chapter 3, Jesus said at that moment we are born again, or born from above. We experience a spiritual rebirth. The part of us that was dead in sin is regenerated, made alive by the Holy Spirit, and we are before God a completely different thing now.

Looking through another lens, Paul explains in Romans 3 and 4 that at that same moment we are justified before God. Our sins are forgiven, and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as if it were our own. Remember the podcast Perfect Credit Score. Then just last podcast, we saw Paul describe, this time you could say through a business lens, that at salvation, God cancels out all our debts to Him. Everything He had against us was nailed to Christ’s cross and done away with. And there are several more ways the New Testament describes what happens to a believer in the spiritual dimension at the moment we repent and believe into Jesus.

Now, here in Colossians 3, Paul says spiritually at that moment we died along with Christ when he died and were raised when he was raised, and that now our lives are hidden with Christ in God. As Christ was raised up and then ascended back to heaven, a place of complete safety and security once again with God, we who are in him, we too are already in some spiritual way safely and securely there with him and God. What else could he possibly mean by your life is hidden with Christ in God? He’s assuring the Colossian believers that when they accepted Christ, they died with him to their old sinful selves, were raised up to a new life, and are spiritually now hidden with Christ in God, spiritually as safe and secure as they could possibly be, as if they were already in heaven.

This brings up a subject that’s somewhat controversial even among Christians who accept the Bible as the final authority. The question: is it possible for a Christian to lose their salvation? On Share the Word, we try to not get argumentative over questions where Bible-believing Christians honestly have differences. But this is a practically important question, and I want to discuss it a little bit. By practically important, I mean who hasn’t questioned at some point if they are really saved? I know I certainly have.

I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t want us to live in doubts and fears over such an important question. So, what are some other New Testament passages that teach that believers are spiritually safe and secure in their relationship to God through Christ? Let me give you three, briefly. Three pictures, really. First, consider Jesus’ teaching about the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep. This is in the Gospel of John, chapter 10.

In that picture, believers are compared to sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd, who Jesus identifies as himself. He says in verses 14 and 15, I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. It’s the closest possible way you can know someone. Then continuing at verse 27, My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. In this passage, Jesus is assuring believers that their security rests with him and his Father. Nothing and no one, then, can get at his own because he is our shepherd, our guardian.

And even beyond that, certainly no one could overcome God the Father, who is also our protector. I like these promises because they emphasize that our security rests with God rather than on us. In a second image, this is found in Romans chapter 8, starting in verse 15, Paul writes, You have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Paul uses the exact same terms about believers being adopted and how God is now our Abba Father in Galatians chapter 5. By the way, Abba was an Aramaic familiar term like daddy or papa.

Paul is saying that being adopted into God’s family through faith in Christ, we are now in a relationship with Him as His children, free from fear. He’s our tender, loving Father, our Daddy. As a father myself, I can tell you that my children will always be my children, no matter what. And I’m very sure that I’m not a better father than God. My children may disappoint me, and they have, one of them grievously, but my love for them, that doesn’t change. They are mine, and they always will be.

God feels the same way about His children. He’s not going to disown us because we disappoint Him. As Paul continues in that chapter, he underscores that. If God is for us, who could be against us? He did not even spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us. How will He not also then give us all things with Him?

Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies them. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died for them, but even more, was raised for them and is also at the right hand of God interceding for them. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? And then answers his own question: Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That’s pretty strong language, isn’t it? A third image illustrating our security is found in Ephesians chapter 1. Verses 13 and 14. And they read, In Christ you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and when you believed it. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of our possession is given to us to the praise of His glory. When we believed the gospel, we were sealed in Christ, Paul wrote.

Very similar language occurs in Ephesians 4 at verse 30, where he writes again, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit with whom you have been sealed for the day of redemption. Several times these passages I’m quoting to you refer to the idea of our inheritance, or that we are heirs along with Christ. He’s talking about heaven and all the good things God has in store for His children there. And both these Ephesians passages I just quoted say that believers have been sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day we can redeem that inheritance in heaven. What’s being described here by sealed is the practice in the ancient world of using hot wax and an owner’s seal impressed into it, like on an official document, for example, to certify authenticity, ownership, and authority. Important people had and used seals.

It could be on a cylinder they wore around their neck. It could be a signet they wore on their finger, or a stamping seal they kept at their home or business. We see this practice in different settings in the Bible. For example, when Daniel was placed in the den of lions, it says, and this account is found in Daniel chapter 6, a stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the lion’s den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring. And with the signet rings of his nobles, so that, listen to this, nothing could be changed regarding Daniel. So Daniel was thrown to the lions, literally, and a stone was placed over the opening above the den, and around the edges of that covering stone, wax was melted, and King Darius and other Persian nobles impressed their signets, their seals, into that wax.

What did that mean? Well, it meant, it says here, that no one could alter Daniel’s situation. If anyone tried to remove the cover and help Daniel escape, they would have to break the king’s seal to do that. And to break that seal meant challenging King Darius, his order and his authority. Get the picture? In the same way, Paul says God has sealed us with His Holy Spirit until the day of our final redemption.

The Spirit of God is the wax, if you will. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day we redeem our promised inheritance in heaven. That means our situation cannot be changed before then unless by God’s own authority, and He is overthrown. Again, this language, this picture, is very strong. Some religions teach, I know this, that if a Christian dies with unconfessed mortal sin, they will be lost. Among other groups, if a Christian persists in deliberate sin, they can fall from grace.

It’s put different ways by different groups. But these kind of word pictures painted for us in the New Testament, they seem pretty hard to misunderstand, don’t they? I’ve heard people protest, but if you teach that once saved, always saved doctrine, then you’re going to give people a license to go out and just live crazy. They’ll think, Well, I’m eternally secure, so that means I can now do whatever I want. My response to that is, if someone understands what an amazing thing Christ has done for them at the cross, and understands the amazing love God loves them with, like a father, an unbreakable kind of love, and their response to that is, Well, I guess since I prayed the prayer and accepted Jesus, I can now live how I want, such a person has never really repented or believed into Christ as their Savior and Lord.

I’m not saying that a genuine Christian cannot get off track and into things that grieve the Holy Spirit in them and seriously disappoint God. They can, and they do. But genuine believers will feel conviction when they do, and if that’s not enough, they will get chastened when they do, and like the prodigal will normally find their way home at some point. If someone who claimed to be a believer and follower of Christ, but whose lifestyle continually, continually contradicts that, then in terms we learned from 1 John, remember this, they are failing the moral test. They shouldn’t feel any assurance of salvation and should, to use Paul’s language in 2 Corinthians 13, examine themselves to see if they are really in the faith.

Looking back through Colossians 3, after Paul has assured the Colossians their lives are safely hidden with Christ in God, he says, Therefore, that is in response to that promise, put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. These are the things that characterize other people’s lives who have not yet heard or responded to the gospel. Those things should never characterize your lives any longer, he is saying. So, he goes on, put away these things like anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language, lying to one another, since you have put off your old self with its practices and have put on a new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. And then he goes on to list qualities they should instead now be putting on, incorporating in their new lives as believers.

But these sinless are not here to warn, God will disown you if you do any of these things. Paul is showing new believers what to put on and what to put off, how God’s people should be different in their daily walk and relationships. As we strive to overcome what we learn displeases our Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit, he says, is rebuilding the lost image of God in us. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back, but that process of sanctification will continue until it is finally completed when Christ returns, and we are then made fully like Him, that is, glorified, made ready for heaven. Someone told me once, and I have not forgotten it, Paul, if your personal salvation did not depend on your performance to begin with, but rather on God’s grace, then why would it depend on your performance afterwards? That rang true to me.

So this is my take on the question of whether genuine Christians could lose their salvation. I think it’s the majority view within circles of those who look to the Bible for final answers. When I lack assurance or feel unworthy or doubt my faith, and I have, I go back to these metaphors given us in the New Testament to remind myself of who God is. He’s the ultimate good shepherd who guards and secures His sheep. He’s a tender Father who has adopted me into His family and who promises nothing can separate me from His love. He’s a King who has sealed me with His Holy Spirit until the day of my final redemption.

Each of these pictures is consistent with what Paul told the Colossians here in our chapter when he wrote, You have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, reappears, then you will also appear with Him in glory. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. I think that’s a powerful thought. It reassures me that I am right now in the safest possible place with God, the most secure place I could be. If you have questions about this important topic, please get up with us here at Share the Word.

I’d be glad to correspond with you further about it. Thanks for listening. This has been Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. As always at Share the Word, we’ve spoken plainly about the most important decision that you will ever need to make on this earth. It’s not a physical or emotional need.

It’s a spiritual one. It’s the acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior that affects not only your life here on earth, but more importantly, your eternity that is to come. How’s this for a perspective? Eternity, by definition, has no length because it represents an infinite duration existing outside of time. And yet, what do we do? We make our decisions on a life that on average lasts 80 to 100 years.

Where’s your focus? Is it on the earthly, or are you living for the moment that you appear with Christ again? Let us know your thoughts. Email us at info at sharetheword.org. That’s info at sharetheword.org. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.