Living Lord

Paul says, Christ is our life. Not, Christ gives us life, or Christ defends our life, or Christ supports our life. No: Christ is our life.

I died, Paul tells the Galatians, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. We died with Christ, and Christ lives in us by the Spirit so that our lives conform to His life, repeatedly dying and living again.

We are radically decentered. The center of your life is not in you. It is not even here on earth. Our life is now hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1). Our life sits at the right hand of the Father.

The sum of what Paul says is that we, just as much as Jesus, are living ones. We know it would be a mistake to seek Jesus among the tombs. It’s the same mistake to seek ourselves here, to seek meaning and satisfaction and life in what this dead world offers.

Knowing that Jesus is our living Lord, and our lives are hid with Him in heaven, therefore: Consider your body dead to immorality, impurity, lust, idolatrous greed. Be renewed according to the image of Christ, the new man.