"Christ Who Is Our Life"

Colossians 3:4

Christ is life (John 11:25; 14:6). Apart from him there is nothing but death. He is the Source of life, the Strength of life, the Sum of life and the Object of life. All life is in Christ. By nature we are all dead, spiritually dead, without life before God. But there is life in Christ for sinners. That life which is in Christ may be described in three ways:

1. JUDICIAL LIFE - When a guilty criminal is pardoned, he has his life restored to him in a legal sense. While he is under the sentence of the law, his life is held under the bondage of the law's penalty. When he is pardoned, the law releases its hold upon him. In just that sense Christ is our life! He promises that all who believe on him "shall not come into condemnation; but (are) passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life" (I John 5:12). The law of God will not release you from its hold and its condemnation until you come to Christ. He alone can give you life.

2. SPIRITUAL LIFE - Spiritual life is the life that is begotten in the soul by the Holy Spirit in regeneration (John 5:25; Gal. 2:20). When Adam sinned, we all died in him, in a legal, judicial sense. And we all died in him spiritually (Rom. 5:12). We were born without spiritual life. In the new birth the Spirit of God gives us a new life, a new will, a new nature. We are made "partakers of the divine nature" (II Pet. 1:4). Christ is formed in us (Col. 1:27). "You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1).

3. ETERNAL LIFE - The Lord Jesus Christ says, with regard to his sheep, those chosen sinners for whom he suffered and died, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish" (John 10:28). That judicial life which Christ gives can never be revoked, for sin shall never be charged to those whom God has pardoned. That spiritual life which we have in Christ can never be destroyed, for that life is "Christ in you." Until Christ can be destroyed the believer cannot perish! The Son of God declares, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die!" (John 11:26). Christ is our life. And in him we shall live forever!

Don Fortner