MONDAY 4th
Colossians 3:1-11
NIV (v4) – ‘When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.’
ESV (v4) – ‘When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.’
This is a great Scripture that speaks of our eternal future – with Christ! We will appear with him and we will be with him. But notice what it says before this, , ‘When Christ WHO IS YOUR LIFE, appears . . .’ He is already at this moment our life. What does this mean for us? Well our answer comes from considering who Jesus is, he is the source of life ‘All things were made through him, . . .’ (John 1:3) ‘In him was life . . .’ (John 1:4) in his own words Jesus said ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life’ (John 14:6) He was the one who came from God to give life, life in all its fulness, abundant and eternal. ‘whoever believes in him will have everlasting life’ (John 3:16) ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10) and in the well-known words that Jesus spoke to Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.’ (John 11:25-26)
Jesus is life, and he has the power to grant life, which is guaranteed to all who come to him by faith and believe, and the moment we do believe and accept, Jesus becomes our life. And because he is our life, one day, which could be very soon, we shall appear with him in glory.
What a day that is going to be, that moment in time when we will suddenly be taken up into eternity, it will happen at the very moment that the trumpet sounds and the arch angel shouts and the dead in Christ will be raised and we who are alive shall be caught up together so that we will meet the Lord in the air – we shall, we are going to appear with him in glory, on that wonderful day when he comes for the saints. It possibly also looks forward as well to the time when the Lord will come down to the earth with the saints at the end of the tribulation, when he comes in glory to set up his earthly kingdom for the millennial reign, when he comes we will appear with him, whether Paul is thinking of one of these stages of Christs coming or both, the news is good, because we have placed our trust in him as our Saviour one day we will be with him.