Lesson 13 – Struggling for the Right Goal, part 5 (2:13-15)
Read Colossians 2 - www.bible.com/bible/59/col.2
Let’s look at the next few verses in chapter 2 to see more of what it means to be “in Christ” as we read in verse 11 in the last lesson.
Remember from verses 12 and 13 that we were buried with Him (Jesus), and also raised with Him. Verse 13 repeats this – we who were dead in our sin have been made alive together with Him.
If I’m a living human being, how can the Bible say I was dead? What does it mean that I’m now alive? The answer is in the last words of this verse – we are made alive together with Jesus Christ because He has forgiven us all our trespasses, all our sin. We were dead in our sin – our spirit was dead. When He forgave us our sin, He gave us life for our spirit. That life is the same kind of life God has – eternal life. God cannot die, not ever. That’s why God had to become human if He wanted to die for our sins – but once He was dead, sin had done the worst it could ever do. So when He rose from the dead, it was in victory over sin and death – neither can ever touch Jesus again. And that’s the life He has given to our spirit – a life that sin or the death of our physical body can never touch again.
What happened to our sin? It was nailed to the cross in Jesus’ physical body. All payment for our sin has met its legal punishment and sentence there. One price, already done, for every sin. He has triumphed over every judgment against you forever!
Does that mean we can go about our lives as we did before we accepted Him? No, we are no longer citizens of this world system; we belong to a different family. Does that mean we cannot sin? No, we still live in our mortal bodies and face the temptations and lies of the evil one? Does that mean we can lose our salvation? No, our spirit received eternal life the moment we accepted Jesus as our Savior, and He is now responsible for maintaining that life while we are responsible for maintaining our relationship with Him.
Remember the truck full of water in our last lesson? The moment we take our hands out of the water we can no longer keep them filled with the water, it starts to seep out between our fingers or spills over the sides, or evaporates. We must keep our hands in the water. Just so, we must keep ourselves in right relationship with Him to remain filled and usable by Him.