Set Your Mind on Things Above: A Meditation on Colossians 3

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,

where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,

then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

For this week, the focus of our readings (Ecclesiastes 1-2, Luke 12, and Colossians 3) invites us to ponder what is permanent versus what is transitory—what is temporal, versus what is eternal.  Fallen as we are in this broken world, our eyes have difficulty seeing things as they really are, and our minds have difficulty keeping our priorities straight.  From King Solomon writing 3000 years ago, to Christ and His Apostle Paul teaching 2000 years ago, and the myriad of Church Fathers, Saints, and Martyrs across our history confessing Christ’s Word in their own times and places, we hear repeatedly that there actually is a difference between what endures for the present and what endures for eternity.  As people with eternal destinies yet living in a fallen temporal world, it would behoove us to listen to what God has to say about these things, rather than relying solely on our own darkened intellect and suspect sensibilities.

The first delusion we need to unshackle ourselves from, is that we are temporary beings.  The sophistic lies of Materialists and Evolutionists have become so pervasive in our day, that far too many people believe they are only blips on the cosmic scene—here today, gone tomorrow.  They cannot see their lives as having extension beyond the physical world around them and their ability to interact with it, and so they conclude that when a person’s body dies, that’s the end of their story.  After all, from a Materialist point of view, dead bodies don’t climb out of graves, or reconstitute themselves from incinerators.  This temporal perspective breeds a kind of Utilitarianism or Hedonism, living one’s life in pursuit of efficiency or pleasure, relative only to what is seen and experienced in the physical world.  The unfortunate consequence to such thinking is that people turn themselves and others into means to their own gratification, be it their greed, lust, ambition, pleasure, or happiness.  People without an eternal perspective lose the sense not only of their own dignity, but of the dignity of others; for if today we live and tomorrow we die, why not eat, drink, and be merry?  If all that awaits each person upon their death is the darkness of oblivion, why not use our temporal power or influence to take everything we can for these few fleeting moments of life we’ve mysteriously and  inexplicably been given?

God, our Maker and Redeemer, tells us something different about ourselves.  While it is true that we have been created to experience time and dwell in a material universe, we also were created as spiritual beings which never really die.  Due to our collective Fall into sin, each person’s spirit will eventually be separated from their physical body in a kind of death, but every one of those people continues to exist.  God tells us that someday He will resurrect the whole creation—the whole physical universe—putting it back together in such a way that spirit and flesh will never be separated again, and that sin and death will never plague it for eternity.  When that occurs, all those people who have lived and died across all of human history will be resurrected with the whole of creation, and given their place in the world to come.  Those who have lived by grace through faith in Christ will rise again to dwell in the blessedness of Christ’s Eternal Kingdom, and those who have repudiated God will rise again to eternal condemnation in the fiery prison of hell.  In that Last Day, each person will find the fulfillment of God’s Word to them and their response to His Word, as the eternity of their existence shall be established forever.  Regardless of the delusions we buy into or the philosophies we pursue, the truth remains that we are created to be eternal beings, and we will retain an eternal relationship with the only infinite, eternal, and almighty God:  either living in His grace by faith in His Gospel, or condemned in our evil by the justice of His law, forever.

While God tells us little of the intermediate state of souls between their physical death in this world and their resurrected lives on the Last Day, we know that those whose lives are hidden with Christ by grace through faith remain with Christ until that Day comes, and those who reject Him remain apart from Him until that Day comes.  Whatever the fate of every soul, it is set at the moment of their temporal death, and the relationship they have chosen to maintain with God shall be ratified.  The ancients of the Church used to say, as the tree falls, so it remains—that a soul’s eternal destiny is set as they close their eyes to the physical, temporal realities of this world, and open them to the eternal realities of the spiritual world which was always all around them.

And so, dear Christian, how does this reality impact you?  As you look around you with the eyes of faith to see the world as God’s Word reveals it to you, can you discern between the things which will endure forever, and those things which will eventually all be consumed by fire?  Can you see the vanity which Solomon warned about in the pursuits of wealth, power, and pleasure?  Can you discern the wickedness of using and abusing your neighbor—another eternal soul with an eternal destiny—for your own passing appetites, or gluttonously consuming that which your neighbor needs?  On the contrary, can you see the eternal spiritual realities of virtue, compassion, faith, hope, love, and sacrifice?  Can you see in yourself a penitent pilgrim trying to work out your own salvation in fear and trembling before the Cross of Christ, and through that same Cross see your neighbor’s eternal need for the same forgiveness and reconciliation with God you so desperately need?  Can you see the dignity of eternity written in the life of every person, as each one is an eternal soul for whom Christ has suffered and died?  Can you see yourself and your neighbor in the resurrection of the Last Day, where all the ugliness of self serving evil and the trophies of material pursuits are forever put away, while the good fruits of righteousness, mercy, and truth endure forever?

Lift up your eyes once again, to see the world and yourself as God’s Eternal Word reveals it to you.  Turn from the darkness of dying and condemned pursuits, and set your mind on the everlasting things which are above, where Christ your Savior offers the free gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation to you, and all who would repent and believe His Gospel.  Reject the lies of the devil and wicked men, which would take from you your endowed dignity, and the dignity of every human being created in the image of God.  Hear the Word of your Savior remind you once again who you really are, and what He has always called you to be—an eternal heir of His eternal salvation in His eternal Kingdom.  Hear Him.  Repent, believe, and live.  Amen.