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Col_3:3. Assigning a reason for the requirement of Col_3:2.
For ye are dead; how then could your mind be directed towards earthly things! and your life does not belong to the realm of the visible world, but it is hidden with Christ in God: how should you not then τὰ ἄνω φρονεῖν ! It is a guide to a correct and certain interpretation of the passage, that this statement of a reason must affirm the same thing as was already contained, only without special development, in εἰ συνηγέρθ . τ . Χ . of Col_3:1. This special exposition Paul now gives. Whosoever is risen, namely, has died and lives, and these are the two points to which Col_3:3 refers.
ἀπεθάνετε ] namely, by your having entered into the fellowship of the death of Christ. This being dead has dissolved in the consciousness of the Christian the ties that hitherto bound him to earthly things. He finds himself still in the realm of the earthly, but he no longer lives therein, Col_2:21. Comp. Php_3:20; Gal_2:20.
ἡ ζωὴ ὑμῶν ] must necessarily be the life, which has followed the being dead; consequently the eternal life, comp. Col_3:4, which set in through the resurrection (of which Christians, in fact, have become partakers with Christ, Col_3:1)—a life which the believer has, prior to the Parousia, as a possession that has not yet been manifested but is still in secret ( οὔπω ἐφανερώθη , 1Jn_3:2), a treasure in heaven, possessed in hope and still unrevealed, destined to appear in glorious manifestation only at the Parousia.
σὺν τῷ Χριστῷ ] For Christ Himself, apart from fellowship with whose life the ζωή of His believers cannot have its being and essence, is hidden till the Parousia; and only then sets in His φανέρωσις (Col_3:4), ἀποκάλυψις (1Co_1:7; 2Th_1:7; 1Pe_1:7; 1Pe_1:13; 1Pe_4:13), ἐπιφάνεια (1Th_2:8; 1Ti_6:14), with which also the ἀποκάλυψις τῶν υἱῶν τ . Θεοῦ (Rom_8:19) will take place, Col_3:4. Comp. 2Ti_2:10 f.; 1Jn_3:2.
ἐν τῷ Θεῷ ] in God, in so far, namely, as Christ, who, according to John (Col_1:18), is εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρός , remains hidden in God till the Parousia, as σύνθρονος of God (Col_3:1), living united with God in His glory hitherto unseen, in order thereafter to proceed from God and to manifest Himself with the full divine glory. But, as with Christ, so also with our life, which is hidden σὺν τῷ Χριστῷ , and therefore can only issue forth at His second coming from God, and be received by us in real glorious communication and manifestation through our συνδοξασθῆναι (Rom_8:17, comp. Rom_5:2; Rom_5:10). If the coherence of the relation expressed by κέκρυπται was asserted by σὺν τῷ Χ ., so also is its inherence by ἐν τῷ Θεῷ . The essential part of our explanation, viz. that ἡ ζωὴ ἡμ . is eternal life, is held also by Chrysostom, Theodoret ( ἐκείνου γὰρ ἀναστάντος πάντες ἠγέρθημεν , ἀλλʼ οὐδέπω ὁρῶμεν τῶν πραγμάτων τὴν ἔκβασιν ), Oecumenius ( τῶν γὰρ ἀληθῶς Χριστιανῶν ζωὴ ἔστιν μένουσα , ἡ μέν τοι πάρουσα εἰκόνα μᾶλλον θανάτου ἢ ζωῆς ἔχει ), Theophylact (Paul wished to show αὐτοὺς καθημένους ἄνω καὶ ἄλλην ζῶντας ζωὴν , τὴν ἐν τῷ Θεῷ , τὴν μὴ φαινομένην ), Calvin, Beza, Erasmus Schmid, Grotius, and others, including Baumgarten-Crusius. The accurate contextual connection of this view with what precedes, and with Col_3:4 (see above), excludes the explanation adopted by many, of ζωή in the ethical, spiritual sense. So Erasmus, Vatablus, Calovius, Bengel, Flatt (“the inner, new, blissful life of true Christians”), Bähr, Böhmer, Steiger, Olshausen,[139] and others, including Huther,[140] Bleek, and de Wette, who apprehends this life as being hidden in two respects: namely, as regards the disposition and striving, it is, because directed to the heavenly, internal and ideal, whereas the life of worldly men in the common sense is real or manifest; as regards the imputation or recompense, it lacks outward happiness, but enjoys internal peace, and is therefore in this respect also hidden or ideal, whereas the worldly life, in unison with the outer world, leads to external peace or to happiness, and is so far, therefore, real or manifest also; the σὺν τῷ Χ . denotes not merely the spiritual fellowship, but is “at the same time to a certain extent” to be understood in a local sense (comp. Col_3:1), and ἘΝ Τῷ ΘΕῷ denotes the sphere of the Christian life, or “its relation to the system of the universe, that it belongs to the invisible world, where God Himself lives.” Of all this there is nothing in the words, the historical sense of which neither requires nor bears such a spiritualistic idealisation with more senses than one, but, on the contrary, excludes it as caprice. The ἡ ζωὴ ὑμῶν does not refer to the ethical life of Christians at all, neither alone nor along with eternal life (Cornelius a Lapide, Estius; comp. Bleek and Ewald). On the contrary, it is aptly said by Kaeuffer, de ζωῆς αἰων . not. p. 93: “vitam enim piam et honestam, quam homo Christianus in hac terra vivere possit ac debeat, P. dicere non poterat nunc cum Christo in Deo (in coelis puta, in quibus Christus nunc est) reconditam esse, atque olim in splendido Jesu reditu de coelo revelatum iri; haec non nisi vitae coelesti conveniunt.” Hofmann’s distinction is less clear and definite: the ζωή is meant as the blessing, in which Christians have an advantage over the world, by their having participated in the death and resurrection of Christ,—a life, which is indeed life in the full sense of the word, but which does not appear before the world as what it is, so long as Christ is hidden from the world and in God. Notwithstanding, Hofmann properly rejects the explanations referring it to the holy life of the Christian, and to the holy and blissful life together.
Observe, further, the difference in the tenses, the aorist ἀπεθάνετε denoting the accomplished act of dying at conversion, by which they entered into the fellowship of the death of Christ; and the perfect κέκρ ., the continuous subsisting relation in reference to the present up to the (near) Parousia.
[139] “The life of believers is said to be hidden, inasmuch as it is internal, and what is external does not harmonize with it;” and in ἐν τῷ Θεῷ God is conceived as the element, “into whose essence believers, like Christ Himself, are assumed and enwrapped.”
[140] In whose view the Christian leads a life in God, and this is a hidden life, because the world knows nothing about it (comp. Erasmus: “juxta judicium mundi”); in fact, to the Christian himself its full glory is not manifest (comp. Bengel); and by σὺν τῷ Χ . it is shown that the Christian leads such a life not of himself, but only in his fellowship with Christ. Dalmer gives an obscure and heterogeneous explanation.