What does it mean that we are raised with Christ (Colossians 3:1)?

Colossians 3 & 4 completely answer all such. In Colossians 2 we are risen, and Colossians 3 begins, "If ye then be risen with Christ." It is the "if" of argument introducing the consequences and results flowing from this fact. As risen with Christ we are bidden to "seek those things which are above" and to set our "affection [mind] on things above, not on things on the earth."

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." What are the things that belong to a risen life? The things down here in the world? No. What can a risen man seek in the world? He has nothing to do with the things of this life. That is the position in which He puts us. But, blessed be God, the risen man, supposing we are actually risen, has objects; his life belongs to another world, even to heaven. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." If I am risen with Christ, and Christ has become my life, where is Christ? Up at the right hand of God. He does not say, You are there; but speaking of life he says, "If ye then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections 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."

Again, in the beginning of the third chapter, the apostle teaches these young believers that they are "risen with Christ." Now what do we understand by this? Is it not that, having been quickened and associated in life with Christ, who is here spoken of as "our Life," we have the life of One who is risen from among the dead?* Is it not thus a new and an eternal life, the free gift of God to us in our Lord Jesus Christ? Not, surely, a prolongation or an improvement of natural life, but a new and risen life, which is totally outside the old creation. Jesus said, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24); that is, that blessing to others in living association with Himself must follow His death, for until that He was "alone." Thus we are plainly taught that, though He was that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us, He was alone till after His death, even as the grains in the ear are the result of the corn having fallen into the ground and died. So Christ, as He now is risen from among the dead, is our Life; for "God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son," so that believers are "risen with Christ." Happy are those who have accepted in simple faith this revelation of divine; grace! To such it becomes easy and natural to have their minds set on things above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." It calls for no effort; for being set thus in association with Christ for ever by God, who raised Him up from among the dead, and assured too that when Christ, who is our Life, is manifested in glory we shall be manifested with Him, our minds and hearts are attracted by such love and blessedness to where He, our Life, now is. The important question, therefore, for each of us is, Have I accepted as God's truth such wondrous blessing, and thus made it my own for present enjoyment? What a precious thing for the soul to know, on the authority of the word of God, and entirely of His own free grace and power, that I am connected with Christ in resurrection life, and, we may add, for ever united to Him where He is by the gift and indwelling of the Holy Spirit!

Risen with Christ; such is the believer's position. "Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." These are the great truths of Christianity: The believer dead with Christ; risen with Christ and in possession of a life which is hid with Christ in God and therefore safe and secure. And these facts constitute the controlling motive of the believer's life on earth. If apprehended in faith they will lead the soul to seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. The mind will then be constantly set on the things above and not on things which are on the earth. The more a believer enters into those blessed truths, making them his own by reckoning himself dead with Christ and risen with Him, with his life hid with Christ in God, the more will the things above be for him the great attraction and the things on earth will lose their charm. The things above are Christ and His glory. The things on earth include all the deceiving things mentioned in the previous chapter, such as the rudiments of the world, philosophy and words of vain deceit, legalism, ritualism, ordinances, as well as worldly ambitions, honors, pleasures and achievements. All these will fade away when the believer's heart is occupied with Him who fills the throne in glory. This is the true and only way of sanctification--heart occupation with the risen Christ. When the eyes of the heart see the risen and glorified Christ and faith lays hold of the wonderful meaning for us who believe, then we learn to walk in that separation into which God has called His people. What the Christian therefore needs is an ever increasing realization in faith of his position in Christ, and then to be energized by the indwelling Spirit to seek those things which are above and not the things on earth. Such a life means joy and peace. It is a life of obedience and quietness, victorious over all earthly circumstances. And because it is a life which is hid with Christ in God, it is hidden from the world. "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not" (1 John 3:1). The world, which lieth in the wicked one, cannot understand nor estimate such a life of separation through faith in an unseen person, a life which reaches out after an unseen goal and which spurns worldly honors and the things which are the boast of the natural man. (Phil. 3:18-19 tells us that those who mind earthly things, though Christians in profession, are the enemies of the cross of Christ and that their end will be destruction. Such is the state of the masses of Christendom today--minding earthly things; filled with the love of the world and dead to the spiritual heavenly things.) But it will not be always thus. A day is coming when this life, hidden now, will be fully manifested. "When Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with Him in glory." It will be a manifestation in glory. It comes when He comes again. "When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day" (2 Thes. 1:10). It is not the day when He comes for His saints; it is the day of His visible manifestation, when all His own share His glory and come with Him, when He brings His many sons unto glory. To look constantly in holy anticipation to this promised glory-event, is inseparably connected with the statements of the preceding verses. What blessed links these are:--dead with Christ--risen with Christ--a life hid with Christ in God--a life to be manifested when He comes again! May God's people know the reality of all this in power and be kept from a mere profession, lifeless and powerless, of these fundamental facts of the gospel.

We get here the blessed side of the Christian state - being risen with Christ, the great groundwork on which we are. It is not that Christ has died for our sins, but that we have died and are risen, and this is the starting-point of the exhortation. We have done altogether with the old man, having died as children of Adam; and we are also risen, having totally done with the world, and yet in it, but risen with Christ; therefore you get the practice of a person risen, and the affections and state and condition of the heart. The Christian is looked at as a person not alive on earth at all; he has died, and now, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above." In chapter 2 you get, "Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" You are not living in the world - you are dead. Now set your affection on things above. You belong there; you have not gone there yet, but the new man is not in you to put you into earthly things. The Spirit takes of "the things of Christ" and shews them to you, not to fix your hearts on earthly things, but to deliver you from them; we are to be, in spirit, mind, and affections, up there. We are risen, and having nothing more to do with the world, as to our affections and object, than a man who has died out of it. It does not say, "You must die," but, "You are dead," for that is the Christian state. Christ having died, and He being my life, my life is hid up there in Him. There is complete association with Christ. He has died; I have died. He is hidden up there; my life is hidden. He will appear; I shall appear with Him in glory. Thorough, complete, blessed association with Christ is the place into which we are put; and it is the starting-point of the character of this life displayed on the earth to which we do not belong. If an angel were here, he would do that which was God's will for him; but he would have nothing to do with the earth as to the object for which he lived.

We get here the blessed side of the Christian state - being risen with Christ, the great groundwork on which we are. It is not that Christ has died for our sins, but that we have died and are risen, and this is the starting point of the exhortation. We have done altogether with the old man, having died as children of Adam; and we are also risen, having totally done with the world, and yet in it, but risen with Christ; therefore you get the practice of a person risen, and the affections and state and condition of the heart. The Christian is looked at as a person not alive on earth at all; he has died, and now, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above." In Col. 2 you get, "Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" You are not living in the world - you are dead. Now set your affection on things above. You belong there; you have not gone there yet, but the new man is not in you to put you into earthly things. The Spirit takes of "the things of Christ" and shows them to you, not to fix your hearts on earthly things, but to deliver you from them; we are to be, in spirit, mind, and affections, up there. We are risen, and have nothing more to do with the world, as to our affections and object, than a man who has died out of it. It does not say, "You must die," but, "You are dead," for that is the Christian state. Christ having died, and He being my life, my life is hid up there in Him. There is complete association with Christ. He has died; I have died. He is hidden up there; my life is hidden. He will appear; I shall appear with Him in glory. Thorough, complete, blessed association with Christ is the place into which we are put; and it is the starting-point of the character of this life displayed on the earth to which we don't belong. If an angel were here, he would do that which was God's will for him; but he would have nothing to do with the earth as to the object for which he lived.

In this chapter (Col. 2) you get both. As dead, and as living. Both are true; living to sin, and dead to God. (vv. 12, 13.) "Buried with Him in baptism," verse 12, is Romans. And "you, being dead in your sins … hath He quickened together with Him," verse 13, is Ephesians. You must go to death, you must get the tree cut down; and then he shows it has been cut down in Christ's death. Looked at as dead, I want to be made alive. In Romans you do not get the Christian risen, in Colossians you do; but not sitting in heavenly places, as in Ephesians. Here he is in spirit and heart risen with Christ, and he is, to set his affection on things above, and the apostle speaks of the hope laid up for us in heaven. In Ephesians he is sitting there by faith. In Colossians he is risen as to the spirit of his mind; he has died and is risen, and has to look up. I do not get the Holy Ghost here. In Ephesians it is full union — Christ and we one in heavenly places. In Romans it is merely individual, and the Spirit seals. In Colossians you get divine life; for the man is risen. Thus for our instruction we get different aspects in the different epistles. Justification is in Romans, not in Ephesians; for there it is a new creation, and that God cannot justify. Here the soul is going through the world with the consciousness of being risen. Are you passing through the world with the consciousness of being risen? It is a question of realizing it first as a truth, and then getting our affections in it, as the effect of the blessed truth that "the fulness of the Godhead bodily," in Christ as a Man, has been down here, and we are in Him before God. He is the Head of all principality and power. Man (Christ as Man) has been exalted to this place, to be set over all the works of His hands. He is the one God delights in, and we are complete in Him. We live in the world as those risen with Him while here, and our affections up there. How far are your hearts living in the objects Christ has brought you to? Christ brings us to another world. Adam and sin brought us to this. Are our hearts living in that? After such a thing as Christ Himself visiting us, and dying for us, how far is He all to us? J. N. D. (1871.)

The Epistle to the Colossians goes farther still. The believer, indeed, is not seen sitting in heavenly places in Christ. A hope is laid up for him in heaven, and he is to set his affection on things above, where Christ sits at God's right hand, not on things on the earth. But he is not only dead with Christ, but risen with Him; he is dead, and his life hid with Christ in God. When Christ appears, he will appear with Him.

87 The man is justified in Romans; he is a new creation entirely in Ephesians; while in Colossians you get both. In the latter there is death and the new creation, but not yet seated in heaven. They are looked at as on the earth, and there is a hope laid up for them in heaven - "ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." In chapter 2:11-12, we read, "In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism [there I get the doctrine of Romans], wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead [I have now got beyond the Romans]. And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened together with him." There we get Colossian doctrine, but it does not take us up to heaven. When he speaks of that in Ephesians he says, "He hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Colossians is, as it were, between Romans and Ephesians. Therefore in Colossians you get, instead of sitting in heavenly places, "set your affections or things above," "the hope that is laid up for you in heaven," and such expressions. He does not talk of the Holy Ghost in Colossians. What we find in Colossians is life, and this is as important in its place as the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. In Ephesians you get the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, and therefore the body; whereas in Colossians you never get the Holy Ghost mentioned except in the expression "your love in the Spirit." For example, in Ephesians we read, "Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another," whereas in Colossians he says, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds." Instead of the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, it is God's nature the measure of how we are to behave ourselves.

The believer has both died and risen with Christ. Here he is looked at, not as seated in the heavenlies, as in Ephesians (Eph.2:6), but as still walking on the earth, though Christ is sitting on the right hand of God (v.1). Therefore His place is our true sphere of blessing, and we are to seek those things that are above the level on which we walk, He Himself being our true Object and delight. We cannot ignore our earthly relationships and the necessity of providing for our own bodies and families, but these are not to be the chief occupation of our minds. Our minds are to be set on things above (v.2), willing at any moment to leave all that is of earth, to exchange what is only a temporary tenancy for that which "our own" in permanent possessions.