William Burkitt Notes and Observations - Colossians 3:3 - 3:3

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William Burkitt Notes and Observations - Colossians 3:3 - 3:3


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Here we have a fresh argument to enforce the foregoing exhortation, Seek the things above, for ye are dead, that is, dead to sin, dead to the world, therefore be not over eager in the pursuit of the things below.

How affrighting a sight would it be, to see a dead man rise out of his grave, and converse with the world, and follow the things here below!

As affecting is it to see Christians, who by baptismal profession do own themsleves to be dead to the world, yet buried in the world; and instead of setting their affections on things above, pursuing, with the full bent of their desires, the things below. Ye are dead, it follows, your life is hid with Christ in God:

Your life, that is, your spiritual life of grace, and your eternal life of glory, they are both hid with Christ, now with God in heaven.

Hid in Christ, 1. As the effect is in the cause, as the life of the branchs is hid in the root, so is the life of a Christian hid in Christ; he is our root.

Again, hid in Christ, that is, 2. Deposited and laid up with Christ, committed to his care and custody, securely put into his hands.

3. Hid with Christ, that is, dispensed by him, and derived from him at his pleasure; of his fulness we receive, when and in what measure he pleaseth.

Note here, 1. Our life, short and uncertain in itself, and common to us with the brutes, deserves not comparatively, the name of life.

Note, 2. That Christ is the believer's life, he is both the author and efficient cause of it, the meritorious cause of it, and the exemplary cause and pattern of it.

Note, 3. That the Christian's life is hid with Christ.

The phrase imports, 1. Security and safety; what is hidden in Christ, and with him, must be safe, and out of the reach of danger; grace is incorruptible seed, that shall never die: The world, Satan, and sin, may assault, but shall not overcome; neither lust within, nor the devil, nor the world, shall be able to vanquish that life which is hid in Christ.

2. It imports obscurity; what is hidden, is concealed: The life of grace is totally hidden from the wicked, and hid, in some sort, from winnowings of temptation, under the prevalencey of corruption; much more is the life of glory hidden, it doth not yet appear; we can no more conceive of it by all we have heard, than we can conceive what the sun is by seeing a glowworm.

3. Our life being hid with Christ, it imports plenty and abundance: I am come, that ye may have life more abundantly, Joh_10:10.