Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Colossians 3:2

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

2. Set your affection &c.] Not “ affections,” but “ affection,” affectus, the tendency, bias, of the mind. More lit., “ think the things &c.”; in the sense not of articulate thought but rather of character, as we call a man thoughtful, high-thoughted, and the like. R.V., well, Set your mind &c. Latin Versions, sapite, Luther, Trachtet nach dem, was droben ist. The verb, phronein, appears (itself or its cognates) e.g. Mat 16:23; Rom 8:5; Php 2:5; Php 3:19 (the exact antithesis to this passage).

Grace only can fix the “affection” heavenward; but the Christian, none the less, is to use thought and will in the matter.

things on the earth ] Lit. and better, the things, &c. Cp. Php 3:19. The special reference is to earth as the scene of temptation, the field of conflict with “the flesh.” And the Christian is warned never to meet this conflict in a spirit secretly sympathetic with the foe because conversant only with the interests and expedients of things present and visible. The man who was absorbed in “earthly” care, or pleasure, and the man who understood no heavenly secrets of moral victory, but used only “earthly” expedients (“ touch not, taste not, &c.”), would alike be “setting the mind on earthly things.” See further on Col 3:5. Nothing in these words bids us shut our eyes to the riches of creation, or regard the charm of human affection as in itself evil. The precept is to be read in its context; it forbids an “earthly” programme for the aims and the means of the Christian life.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Set your affection – Margin, or mind. Greek think of – phroneite. The thoughts should be occupied about the things where Christ now dwells, where our final home is to be, where our great interests are. Since we are raised from the death of sin, and are made to live anew, the great object of our contemplation should be the heavenly world.

Not on things on the earth – Wealth, honor, pleasure. Our affections should not be fixed on houses and lands; on scenes of fashion and gaiety; on low and debasing enjoyments.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Col 3:2

Set your affections on things above.

Things above

It is implied in this exhortation that the things above are–

I. Known to us. We may love the unseen, not the unknown. We know them through the Scriptures.

II. OURS. We may not set our hearts on what is not ours. But all things are ours.

III. If we do not set our affections upon them we shall on things below. Empty mans heart cannot be.

IV. They are those amid which every Christian will soon be placed for eternity. It becomes the pilgrims of time to visit by faith their future home.

V. They are fitted and worthy to occupy a Christians soul. None else are.

VI. They have a transcendent excellency. Note the Apocalyptic figures of them.

VII. They endure for ever. All else is perishable.

VIII. In setting our affections on them we are certain of success. We can say this of nothing else.

IX. They become daily more and more important, while the things of earth grow daily less so. Every day lessens the duration of temporal things and brings us nearer to eternal things.

X. They cast down upon us a transforming beauty. Mans heart never acts without being acted upon. Contact with the good sanctifies; communion with the happy gladdens. Conclusion: Seek these things then–

1. In the Scripture.

2. In Christ.

3. In the ministry of the gospel.

4. On the Sabbath.

5. In prayer. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

Setting the affections on things above

I. What things above? Things above nature and above earth.

II. What things on earth? (1Jn 2:16; Gen 3:6).

1. Lust of the flesh–pleasures.

2. Lust of the eye–riches (Ecc 5:11).

3. Pride of life–honours.

III. What by affections?

1. The understanding and meditation.

2. The will and affections.

(1) Love.

(2) Desire.

(3) Joy.

IV. These affections are not to be set on things upon earth (Psa 62:10).

1. They are below us (Php 3:8).

2. Unsuitable to us.

3. Unsatisfying (1Co 7:31; Job 30:15; Psa 78:39; Hos 13:13; Pro 23:5; Luk 8:18).

4. Troublesome and vexatious (Mat 13:22).

5. Unnecessary.

(1) To the making of us happy (Job 28:15).

(2) To the bringing us to happiness.

6. Fleeting and unconstant (Pro 23:5; 2Sa 19:43; 2Sa 19:21.; Belshazzar; Luk 12:19-20). Uses:

1. Information.

(1) How sin hath debased and infatuated mankind.

(2) See the folly of covetous worldlings.

(3) See the easiness of charity. What a little thing God demands, and what vast returns there will be (Mat 10:41-42).

(4) What little cause men have to be troubled for the want of such things.

(5) Or others to be proud of having them.

2. Exhortation. Consider if ye do set your affections on things below–

(1) Ye cross Gods end in giving them.

(2) Ye provoke Him to take them away (Psa 78:5-7).

(3) Or to give you them for your portion (Psa 17:14).

(4) The more you affect them, the less comfort you will have in them (Psa 106:15).

(5) They will divert your thoughts from heaven (Psa 10:3-4).

(6) And so disturb you in duty (Eze 33:31).

(7) It is gross idolatry (Col 3:5).

(8) You have better things to mind (Mat 6:33; Col 3:1).

V. We are to set our affections on things above.

1. Why? Because–

(1) They are suitable for our affections (Psa 17:15).

(2) Our chief relations are three.

(a) Our Father (Luk 12:32; Joh 20:17; Mal 1:6).

(b) Our Husband (Hos 2:16; Isa 54:5).

(c) Brethren (Heb 2:11; Rom 8:29).

(3) Our treasure is there.

(a) Riches (Mat 6:19-21).

(b) Honours (1Sa 2:30).

(c) Pleasures (Psa 16:11).

(d) Your affections were made on purpose for these things (Pro 16:4).

(e) Setting your affections on them now is the way to come to their enjoyment hereafter.

2. What?

(1) Our thoughts (Php 4:8).

(a) Upon God (Psa 10:4; Psa 139:18).

(b) Upon Christ (Luk 22:11-19).

(c) Upon the Scripture that leads to them (Psa 1:2).

(2) Our love (Deu 6:5).

(3) Desire (Psa 73:25; Php 1:23).

(4) Hope (Rom 5:2).

(5) Joy (Psa 4:6-7; 1Pe 1:8).

3. How?

(1) In the most intense degree (Luk 14:26).

(2) Constantly. Uses:

1. Examination.

(1) What do you most think of?

(2) What are you most loath to part with?

(3) What do you spend most time about? (Mar 4:19).

2. Exhortation. Set your affections, etc.

(1) There is nothing else worthy of them (1Jn 2:15).

(2) This will keep you from doating on the world (Php 3:8).

(3) It will keep you from grieving too much about the affairs of this life (Php 4:11-12).

(4) It will make you more active in all duties (Act 20:24).

(5) By so doing you will partly enjoy them (2Co 12:2-3).

(6) This will make you willing to die (Php 1:23).

(7) And fit you for the enjoyment of God after death. (Bishop Beveridge.)

Affections rightly placed

I. The affections are–

1. The motions of the reasonable soul. When Jerusalem was much affected about the tidings of Christs birth it is said that all Jerusalem was moved. And when the Jews were affected against Paul they were moved with envy.

2. So they are the movings of the soul whereby the heart is sensibly carried out upon what is good or evil.

3. And as it is sensibly carried out towards, so it must embrace the same. By one we follow what is good and the other shun what is evil. There are several affections, but all are ministers of love. I love a thing and, if absent, desire it; if present, delight in it. If I hate a thing I shun it or am angry with it.

II. The affections are to be set on things above, and not on things on the earth.

1. What, may we not at all affect the things of earth? Yes, ye may desire them, and grieve at the loss of them, and both desire and grief are affections.

(1) But not for themselves, only in deference to Christ and in subordination to God. You are commanded to love your wives, husbands, etc., because you can love them in the Lord–but nowhere to love ourselves, money, etc., because If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him.

(2) In comparison with spiritual things your affection for them is to be as no affection. Let him that rejoiceth be as though he rejoiced not. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.

2. Why are we to set our affections on things above? Because, if they are not set on Christ and the things of Christ–

(1) You will not be found marriageable unto Him. That woman is not fit to be married to a man whose affections are not knit to him.

(2) You will never own Him. Ardent love is required for faithful testimony, and those who are ashamed of Christ, of them will He be ashamed.

(3) Our affections will never be drawn from things beneath. Sin is mortified by the contrary good; the joy and grief of the world by spiritual joy and grief. The snow is melted by the warm beams of the sun, and the more your hearts are warmed with love to Christ, the easier will earthly affections fall away.

(4) We shall never press much after the knowledge and enjoyment of heavenly things. A child if he have no affection for his book will never make a scholar.

(5) We shall never be zealous for God, for zeal is the heat of Divine love.

(6) We shall never do any great thing for God. The reason for Davids great gift was his affection (1Ch 29:3).

(7) We shall never please God in anything we do (Rom 12:11).

(8) We shall not be safe from apostasy. Conclusion: Do you set your affections on things above?

1. This is a hard thing to do: for it means to have a sympathy with that against which we had an antipathy; and to change our sympathies into antipathies, and vice versa, is no easy matter.

2. It is one thing to affect the best things and have some affections for them, and another thing to set our affections on them. Herod heard John gladly, and the stony ground received the Word with joy.

3. If mens affections were set on things above they would not be so indifferent in the things of God as they are. For this is described as hungering and thirsting.

4. Then they would always carry these things about with them in their minds.

5. They would seek them first, of their age, day, and competition; in youth, morning, and before all.

6. They would be often speaking of them, and would love to hear others (Psa 45:1).

7. They would be most indulgent and tender of them.

8. They would not be put off with any slight evidence of their interest in them. (W. Bridge, M. A.)

Affections the wings of the soul

If you will go to the banks of a little stream and watch the flies that come and bathe in it you will notice that while they plunge their bodies in the water, they keep their wings high out of it; and after swimming about a little while they fly away with their wings unwet through the sunny air. Now that is a lesson for us. Here we are immersed in the cares and business of the world; but let us keep the wings of our soul, our faith and our love, out of the world, that with these unclogged we may be ready to take our flight to heaven. (J. lnglis.)

Spirituality a safeguard against temptation

Birds, says Manton, are seldom taken in their flight; the more we are upon the wing of heavenly thoughts the more we escape snares. Oh that we would remember this, and never tarry long on the ground lest the fowler ensnare us. We need to be much taken up with Divine things, rising in thought above these temporal matters, or else the world will entangle us, and we shall be like birds held with limed twigs, or encompassed in a net. Up, then, my heart. Up from the weedy ditches and briery hedges of the world into the clear atmosphere of heaven. There, were the dews of grace are born, and the Sun of Righteousness is Lord paramount, and the blessed wind of the Spirit blows from the everlasting hills, thou wilt find rest on the wing, and sing for joy where thine enemies cannot even see thee. ( C. H. Spurgeon.)

The affections to be habitually heavenward

After painting the Sistine ceiling, Michael Angelo found that the habit of looking upward, which that long-continued work rendered necessary, made it for some time impossible to read or to look carefully at a drawing except in the same attitude. So our converse with heaven should affect our attitude in looking at the things of earth. (T. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

The supreme attachment due to spiritual objects

I. Affection is the going out of the soul toward objects within its view.

1. How happy it were if affection might go just at its own pleasure and all be right and safe, i.e., that an infallible perception accompanied it with which the moral taste strictly agreed. Then nothing would attract it that ought not; it would be in repulsion to all evil, and both in the right degrees.

2. But this is not so.

(1) Our nature, composed of two kinds of being, places us in strict relation to two different economies. Therefore there is great difficulty in apportioning the regards towards these in due proportion.

(2) By the output of our nature our relation to one class of interests is immediate and sensible, while the relation to things spiritual is only through thought and faith.

(3) Our nature is sunk in such a state that it has a most obstinate tendency to give itself to the inferior class of interests, the effect of which is to throw away the supreme interests of the soul.

(4) One would imagine the terror of this to make the doctrine of Divine grace welcome. Except in reliance on this we should hear the text with despair.

II. A measure of affection for things on earth is legitimate. Good men have used an indiscreet language almost of requiring an indifference to or contempt for earthly things; and according to this there is one essential inconsistency between our duty and the condition in which God has placed us. But our interests here have claims that must be allowed.

1. Think in how many ways we derive pleasure or pain from earthly things. Surely our Creator does not desire the pleasure denied or the pain endured more than is inevitable, or disciplinary. And, therefore, we may in measure desire the pleasing, and be anxious to avoid the painful.

2. Think how much care is necessary to avoid the ills of life, and that we may have the most benefit of its relations. Affection is inevitably and justly set on health, near relatives, and as a matter concerning him and them, on his temporal condition. And then a man that looks on the conduct of public affairs, by which his own, his familys, and his fellow-citizens welfare are affected, will necessarily feel consider able interest in that direction. Again, if a man be of a cultivated intellect and taste, he cannot help being affected by the beauties of nature and the great works and discoveries of men.

3. But how sad it is that the relations of the present are all which many recognize. Think if they were exhorted to such an utter indifference to their temporal interests as they indulge respecting their eternal ones. What madness would be charged. A fortiori, then, is not theirs an awful madness.

III. Supreme affection should be reserved for things above.

1. By the nobler part of our nature we are placed in solemn relations with another economy comporting with its immortality–to God, the one infinite Being; to the Redeemer, the Lord of the new economy; to an unseen state of holy companionships and endless felicity. How marvellous that the soul can consent to stay in the dust when it might live beyond the stars.

2. What then should be the comparative state of the affections as towards the former and the latter?

(1) The answer can but be that there must be, at the lowest, a decided preponderance in favour of the spiritual and the eternal. Otherwise how is the great purpose of Christ accomplished who came to redeem us to them?

(2) But if no more than barely this is attained, how often it is likely to be put in doubt. We should aspire to have therefore more than a preponderance.

IV. What, then, may be taken as proofs that we have the required preponderance of affection for things above. In most cases this is a matter of prompt and unequivocal consciousness; but in this the best men find tests valuable.

1. Let a man examine when he is strongly interested in some temporal concern whether he can say more than all this is the interest I feel in things above.

2. When he is greatly pleased with something, and his thoughts suddenly turn to higher objects, is he then more pleased?

3. Or is he solicitous that this temporal good may not injure his spiritual interests?

4. If he suffers in goods or body does he feel that he would far rather suffer so than in soul, and does he feel a strong overbalancing consolation from above.

5. Is he more pleased to give earnest application to higher things than to inferior, and that he would sacrifice more for one than for the other?

6. Does he check his temporal pursuits directly they interfere with heavenly, and double his diligence in regard to the latter.

7. Do heavenly things grow increasingly attractive the nearer he gets to them? (John Foster.)

The heavenly inheritance preferred

I. Suppose two objects admitted to be of equal value presented themselves in competition for our favour.

1. In pursuing one of them we can only gain itself, but in pursuing the other we gain it and a large share of its competitor–who could hesitate about making an election? So if a man choose the earthly he can gain none of the heavenly; whereas if he choose the heavenly, besides securing it, he gains the best of the earthly. Nay, the choice of the heavenly portion is the more promising way of obtaining the earthly on the ground of the greater prudence and superior morality which the choice inspires, together with the blessing of God. And further, this is the only way of finding satisfaction in earthly things, and without that satisfaction they are worthless.

2. We shall be wise if we prefer that which we are sure of attaining, and resist that of which it is doubtful if we ever gain it. You who have chosen the earthly consider what a gamblers work you make of the pursuit of happiness. You must have the whole of your uncertain life in health; you must be pure amidst temptations without grace; you must have uninterrupted business prosperity; a wife who shall prove a helpmeet although chosen under dubious circumstances, and children who shall love and honour you in spite of a godless education. And happiness, according to your estimate, depends on such chances as these. But the happiness of him that seeks the things above is independent of these, and is assured not only now, but for ever.

3. Wisdom will prefer that which requires less labour. Reflect, then, what skilfulness, scheming, racing, anxiety, sleeplessness are required for gaining and retaining earthly things. Not that the life of the heavenly seeker is one of sloth, but his heavenly-mindedness enables him to go through the same work without the same disturbance, and to add others of a benevolent character by way of pastime.

II. But the two things are not of equal value, and though the pursuit of the heavenly excluded the earthly, though it were uncertain while the pursuit of the earthly were certain, and though it were more laborious, yet–

1. Its intrinsic value would outweigh all adverse considerations. The earthly is mainly for the body and fortune, the heavenly for both body and soul and for eternity.

2. Its necessity to our happiness is another weighty consideration. Earthly things are only at best a temporary convenience; but without the heavenly a man perishes for ever. Let, then, the most depressing view of life be taken, it is soon over, and then the Christian is for ever with the Lord. But where is the worldling after every earthly gratification then? (W. Anderson, LL. D.)

The vital transference

I. The folly of setting our affections on things on the earth.

1. They destroy while they please.

(1) Take riches; there is no harm in preferring them to poverty; but thousands are destroyed by the pleasure of their accumulation, bodily, spiritually, and eternally. Men demean themselves, defraud, and lie for money, and think of nothing else. You have not got so far as that? But you will acknowledge that during the week if you hewed away all that was given to earthly things there would not be much left.

(2) Take the approval of the world. A good name is, of course, an immense power for good: but thousands have gone down under worldly applause. Beauty, genius, everything that men and women have have been sacrificed for this, and as they went up in fame went down in character. Think of Byron, Sheridan, Burns, etc. The approval of the world while it pleases it damns.

3. They are unsatisfactory.

(1) Where is the man who has been made happy by temporal success. First a man wants to make a living, then a competency, then a superfluity, then he wants more. The husks of this wilderness can never satisfy the hunger of the soul. How is it with you now with your large house of twenty rooms sumptuously furnished; are you any happier than when you had only two? If you have never found out the true secret of life–the love of God and His service, you are not so happy. Besides, if they had all that they profess, we cannot keep them. How many dollars is Croesus worth now?

(2) We cannot depend on friend ships. Some play us false; the truest leave us.

(3) We cannot build on domestic enjoyments, pure and holy though they be.

II. Transfer, then, your affections to things above.

1. We ought to do so. We have a throne there, a multitude to greet us, and Jesus.

2. If we did so it would change everything in us, and make us more gentle, loving, hopeful, and when we come to die we should need no Jacobs ladder or angels wing.

3. The apostle had such an idea of heaven that it made the troubles of life seem insignificant. This light affliction. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

Drawings toward heaven

A man was passing along the street, and saw a blind boy seated on his fathers knee, holding in his hand a kite-string, the kite flying away in the air. The man said, Is it any satisfaction to you, my lad, to fly that kite, when you cannot see it? O yes, sir, he replied, I cannot see it, but I can feel it pull. And so out of this dark world, and amid this blindness of sin, we feel something drawing us heavenwards; and though we cannot see the thrones, and the joy, and the coronation, blessed be God, we can feel them pull. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

The antidote to asceticism and sensualism

You must not only seek heaven; you must also think heaven. (Cf. Php 3:19-20.) Extremes meet. Here the apostle points the antithesis between earthly and heavenly things to controvert a Gnostic asceticism: in the Philippian letter he uses the same contrast to denounce an Epicurean sensualism. Both alike are guilty of the same fundamental error; both alike concentrate their thoughts on material, mundane things. (Bishop Lightfoot.)

The death of Melancthon

Is there anything else you want? was asked Melancthon on his deathbed. Nothing but heaven, was the reply.

Not on things on the earth

In return for his splendid services to China, Gordon would accept only the distinctions of the Yellow Jacket and the Peacocks Feather, which correspond to our own orders of the Garter and the Bath. Of these rewards he wrote to his mother: I do not care twopence about these things, but know that you and my father like them. The Chinese Government twice offered him a fortune. On the first occasion ten thousand taels were actually brought into his room, but he drove out the bearers of the treasure, and would not even look at it. On the second occasion the sum was still larger, but this also he declined, and afterwards he wrote home:—I do not want anything, either money or honours, from either the Chinese Government or our own. As for the honours, I do not value them at all. I know that I am doing a great deal of good, and, liking my profession, do not mind going on with my work. Do not think I am ill-tempered, but I do not care one jot about my promotion, or what people may say. I know I shall leave China as poor as I entered it, but with the knowledge that through my weak instrumentality upwards of eighty to one hundred thousand lives have been spared. (E. Hake.)

The heart misplaced

To set the heart on the creature is to set a diamond in lead, or to lock coals in a cabinet and throw jewels into a cellar. (Bishop Reynolds.)

Vanity of earthly things

AEsops fable says:—A pigeon oppressed by excessive thirst, saw a goblet of water painted on a sign-board. Not supposing it to be only a picture, she flew towards it with a loud whirr, and unwittingly dashed against the sign-board, and jarred herself terribly. Having broken her wings by the blow, she fell to the ground, and was killed by one of the bystanders. The mockeries of the world are many, and those who are deluded by them not only miss the joys they looked for, but in their eager pursuit of vanity bring ruin upon their souls. We call the dove silly to be deceived by a picture, however cleverly painted, but what epithet shall we apply to those who are duped by the transparently false allurements of the world! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Attractions of the world

Nearly all can recall that favourite fiction of their childhood, the voyage of Sinbad the sailor into the Indian Sea. They will remember that magnetic rock that rose from the surface of the placid waters. Silently Sinbads vessel was attracted towards it; silently the bolts were drawn out of the ships side, one by one, through the subtle attraction of that magnetic rock. And when the fated vessel drew so near that every bolt and clamp was unloosed, the whole structure of bulwark, mast, and spars tumbled into ruin on the sea, and the sleeping sailors awoke to their drowning agonies. So stands the magnetic rock of worldliness athwart the Christians path. Its attraction is subtle, silent, slow, but fearfully powerful on every soul that floats within its range. Under its enchanting spell bolt after bolt of good resolution, clamp after clamp of Christian obligation, are stealthily drawn out. What matters it how long or how fair has been the mans profession of religion, or how flauntingly the flag of his orthodoxy floats from the masthead? Let sudden temptation smite the unbolted professor, and in an hour he is a wreck. He cannot hold together in a tempest of trial, he cannot go out on any cruise of Christian service, because he is no longer held together by a Divine principle within. It has been drawn out of him by that mighty loadstone of attraction, a sinful, godless, self-pampering, Christ-rejecting world. (Cuyler.)

Earthly and heavenly things

As it is but foolish childishness that makes children so delight in baubles that they would not leave them for all your lands, so it is but foolish worldliness, and fleshliness, and wickedness, that makes you so much delight in your houses, and lands, and meat, and drink, and ease, and honour, as that you would not part with them for heavenly delights. But what will you do for pleasure when these are gone? Do you not think of that? When your pleasures end in horror, and go out like a taper, the pleasures of the saints are then at their best. (R. Baxter.)

Earthly-mindedness

It is storied of Henry the Fourth of France, asking the Duke of Alva if he had observed the eclipses happening in that year, he answered, that he had so much business on earth, that he had no leisure to look up to heaven. A sad thing it is for men to be so bent, and their hearts so set on the things of this world, as not to cast up a look to the things that are in heaven; nay, not to regard though God brings heaven down to them in His Word and sacraments. Yet so it is: most men are of this Spanish generals mind; witness the oxen, the farms, the pleasures, the profits and preferments, that men are so fast glued unto, that they have hardly leisure to entertain a thought of any goodness. (J. Spence.)

Love of the world

A dervish once went into a confectioners shop. The confectioner, to honour him, poured some honey into a dish before him. Immediately a swarm of flies settled, as was their wont, upon the honey; some upon the edge of the dish, but the greater number in the middle. The confectioner then took up s whisk to drive them off, when those upon the side flew away with ease, but the others were prevented from rising, the honey clinging to their wings, and were involved in ruin. The dervish noticed this, and remarked, That honey-dish is like the world, and the honey like its pleasures. Those who enjoy them with moderation and contentment, when the whisk of death approaches, not having their hearts filled with the love of them, can with ease escape its snare; while all who, like the foolish flies, have given themselves wholly to their sweetness will meet with destruction. (From the Hindustani.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 2. Set your affection on things above] . Love heavenly things; study them; let your hearts be entirely engrossed by them. Now, that ye are converted to God, act in reference to heavenly things as ye did formerly in reference to those of earth; and vice versa. This is a very good general rule: “Be as much in earnest for heavenly and eternal things, as ye formerly were for those that are earthly and perishing.”

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Set your affection on things above: that the hearts of believers here might be where their treasure is, the apostle here repeats his exhortation, using another word, importing they should intensely mind things above, Rom 8:5, viz. the inheritance reserved in heaven for us, 1Pe 1:4, with heart and affections, together with all that Gcd hath appointed to be a furtherance to the enjoyment of it; not curiously to search the deep things of God, which cannot be found out, but to mind things above with sobriety, Rom 12:3.

Not on things on the earth; taking off the mind and heart from all that is opposite to heavenly things, viz. not only those human, carnal ordinances and ceremonies, Col 2:22, with Phi 3:18,19, but also from the eager pursuit of the pleasures, profits, and honours of this world, which the men of it do inordinately desire, Col 3:5, with Mat 6:33; Gal 5:24, and are carried away with, Tit 2:12; Jam 4:4; 2Pe 1:4; 1Jo 2:17. Christians should not be, to the neglect of things spiritual; however, they are obliged, in a due subordination, to take care of themselves and families for these things below, so far as to put them into a capacity of raising them more heavenward.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

2. Translate, “Set yourmind on the things above, not on the things,” &c.(Col 2:20). Contrast “whomind earthly things” (Php3:19). Whatever we make an idol of, will either be a cross to usif we be believers, or a curse to us if unbelievers.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Set your affections on things above,…. For unless the affections are set on them, they will never be sought after in a proper manner. The word signifies to mind them, and think on them, to favour and approve of them, to be affectionately desirous of them, and concerned for them; for where the treasure is, the heart should be; and as the saints’ best things are above, their minds and affections should be there likewise; their contemplation should be on those things, and their conversation should be in heaven; nor should they regard anything but what is there, or comes from thence, for they belong not to this world, but to another and better country: their citizenship is in heaven, and there, in a short time, they must have their everlasting residence; and therefore should seek after, and highly prize and value heavenly things, and set their affections on them, and

not on things on the earth; not mind earth and earthly things, temporal enjoyments, riches, and honours; and though food and raiment, and the necessaries of life, are to be sought after, and cared and provided for, yet not with anxiety and perplexity of mind, in an over thoughtful and distressing manner; nor should the heart be set on those outward things, or happiness placed in the possession of them. Moreover, worldly lusts, the members which are on the earth, earthly pleasures that are sinful, may be here meant. Worldly lusts are to be denied, the deeds of the body are to be mortified, carnal desires are not to be gratified and indulged, provision is not to be made for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts; and particularly the vain philosophy of Jews and Gentiles, the traditions of the elders, the ceremonies of the law, which lay in earthly things, in worldly observances, the difference of meats and drinks, keeping of days, months, and years, new moons, feasts, and sabbath days; the rudiments of the world, the commandments and doctrines which were of the earth, and lay in not touching, tasting, and handling certain things that are on earth, and which perish with the using, as opposed to the doctrines of the Gospel, and ordinances of Christ, which are from above, and come from heaven, and have a spiritual and heavenly use: and which is the sense chiefly intended, though it is best to understand the words in their largest compass.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Set your mind on (). “Keep on thinking about.” It does matter what we think and we are responsible for our thoughts.

Not on the things that are upon the earth ( ). Paul does not mean that we should never think the things upon the earth, but that these should not be our aim, our goal, our master. The Christian has to keep his feet upon the earth, but his head in the heavens. He must be heavenly-minded here on earth and so help to make earth like heaven.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Set your affection [] . Lit., be minded, think. As Rev., set your mind. Seek marks the practical striving; set your mind, the inward impulse and disposition. Both must be directed at things above. “You must not only seek heaven, you must think heaven” (Lightfoot). Compare Phi 3:19, 20.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Set your affections on things above” (ta ano phroneite) mind ye the things above,” give mind or attention to the things above, spiritual things, celestial things, or heavenly things; This is a reemphasis of the previous verse, with expansion to include ones affections and disposition.

2) “Not on things on the earth” (me ta epi tes ges) “not the things on the earth;” 1Jn 2:15-17; Mat 6:19; Rom 8:5-6. All the earth lies in darkness and sin, is not to be the concern or object of the heart of the Christian, 1Jn 5:19.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

2. Not the things that are on earth. He does not mean, as he does a little afterwards, depraved appetites, which reign in earthly men, nor even riches, or fields, or houses, nor any other things of the present life, which we must

use, as though we did not use them, (1Co 7:30) (433)

but is still following out his discussion as to ceremonies, which he represents as resembling entanglements which constrain us to creep upon the ground. “Christ,” says he, “calls us upwards to himself, while these draw us downwards.” For this is the winding-up and exposition of what he had lately touched upon as to the abolition of ceremonies through the death of Christ. “The ceremonies are dead to you through the death of Christ, and you to them, in order that, being raised up to heaven with Christ, you may think only of those things that are above. Leave off therefore earthly things.” I shall not contend against others who are of a different mind; but certainly the Apostle appears to me to go on step by step, so that, in the first instance, he places traditions as to trivial matters in contrast with meditation on the heavenly life, and afterwards, as we shall see, goes a step farther.

(433) See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. 1, p. 257.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

2. Set your affection on things above This is broader counsel than to seek them. Think of them, care for them. Let them occupy your thoughts and affections. Two courses of life and two classes of things were before them. They are more fully described in Php 3:17-20, where the words they “mind earthly things” finishes the climax on the unchristian side. Only things above comport with the life upon which the Christian enters at his conversion and baptism.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth, for you died and your life is hid with Christ in God.’

The tenses here are important. ‘Go on setting your mind continually ( present tense) — ‘you died once for all’ (aorist tense) —– ‘your life has been hid and still is’ (perfect tense).

‘Set your mind continually.’ All people have their minds set on something to which they give maximum attention. It may be sport, or a hobby, or success at work, or music, or travel. But none of these thing should so grip the Christian. His mind is to be set on things above, not on things on the earth, and it is to those that he must give maximum attention. Everything else must fit around that. His concern is the glorification of God, the expansion of God’s rule over men, and to show Christ’s love to the world. He is concerned to be carrying out his duties under God’s instruction. Christ and His activities are his ‘team’. This should be what grips him and arouses his enthusiasm.

‘You died.’ And this attitude will be his because when he became a Christian, when he first repented and believed, he died with Christ, and this was represented in his baptism. He is now dead to the world and its pleasures, to its approval or blame, to its aims and purposes. His concern as one raised with Christ is with heavenly purposes, for he belongs to Heaven. His life is ‘hid with Christ in God’.

And what a place of security and blessing that is. He is ‘with Christ’, united with Him as one like husband and wife (Eph 5:23-32), joined with Him because He is our representative, the last Adam, the second man, summing up redeemed mankind in Himself (1Co 15:45; 1Co 15:48). We are one with Him as members of His body and as branches of the true vine (Joh 15:4-5). And ‘with Christ’ we are ‘in God’, surrounded by God, Who has enveloped us in His arms (Deu 33:27), having our being in God (Joh 14:20) as He has His being in God (Joh 1:18; Joh 10:28-30; Joh 14:10-11).

‘Your life is hid.’ The world will only see glimpses of it. It has no conception of what the Christian’s life is really like. That is safely kept and preserved in the heart of God. And that is where our treasure should be, and our heart.

It may be asked. If the Christian died with Christ, why is his ‘old man’ still active? The answer lies in the plan of salvation, which is seen as a whole (see Rom 8:29-30; Eph 1:3-12). When a man becomes a true Christian the final death of his ‘old man’ is guaranteed, its fate is sealed, and his being perfected in Christ in the new man is also guaranteed. And the guarantee lies in the death of Christ for him which will finally be effected in him. Thus the old man is from that moment under sentence of death.

So Paul is saying something like this, ‘when Christ died, you, as the man that you were, in effect died, he came under sentence of death with your approval and one day that death will be finalised. Meanwhile, while the old man lingers on, you are to treat him as dead and buried with Christ and therefore not to be taken account of. You are to carry out on him the sentence of death and bury him out of the way.’

No one goes out to the scrap heap and starts to polish up the useless things that are there. He will only polish up what he thinks will have some future use. Now in submitting to the cross of Christ we have acknowledged that ‘the old man’ is to be cast out and is useless. That he has no permanent future. So what we should do is ignore him, let him die. How we treat the old man demonstrates what we really believe about the cross.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Col 3:2. Set your affection on things above, The original is mind, regard: “Prefer and pursue the things that are above:” .

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 2182
HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS

Col 3:2. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.

IT seems harsh and paradoxical, to say that Christianity is very imperfectly understood amongst us. Respecting its mysterious doctrines, perhaps, the allegation would be admitted without difficulty: but respecting its precepts, scarcely any one would suspect that the observation could have any foundation in truth. But it is to the preceptive part especially that I intend the remark to be applied: and I think that, before I have closed my present subject, the greater part of you will agree with me, that the sentiment is just. The morality of Christians in general goes only to the conduct of men so far as it is visible to those around us: but the Christian code extends to the inmost feelings of the soul; and requires a conformity to the Saviour himself, not only in the dispositions of his mind whilst he sojourned upon earth, but in the change wrought upon him in his exaltation to heaven: it requires us to be dead to sin as truly as ever he died for sin; and to live as truly and entirely to God as he did, and yet does, in his risen state in glory. The precept which you have just heard will fitly illustrate this truth. I will endeavour to mark,

I.

Its import

Directions in Scripture are often put in a way of contrast, when they are to be understood only in a way of comparison. Such, for instance, is the declaration, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice. We are not to understand that passage as prohibiting sacrifices, which had been expressly enjoined, and were yet of necessity to be offered; but only as expressing an approbation of acts of mercy, even though they should supersede the observance of some positive injunction. When our Lord says, Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat that endureth unto everlasting life, he must not be understood as discouraging an attention to worldly business: for God has authoritatively commanded, Six days shalt thou labour. It is in a comparative sense only that his words must be understood: and in the same manner must we interpret also the words before us. Mark,

1.

The things here contrasted

[The things which are on earth are those which relate to this present life. Even intellectual pursuits must be included, no less than the pleasures, or riches, or honours, of the world. On the other hand, by the things which are above, we must understand every thing relating to the soul, its first acceptance with God, its progressive restoration to the Divine image, and its final possession of the heavenly glory. The latter of these we are to pursue, if not exclusively, yet supremely, so as to shew that they have no rival whatever in our souls.
The term here translated Set your affections on things above, is more literally rendered, in the margin, Mind the things that are above. The term imports, not an exercise of the intellectual powers only, but also of the will and the affections; and such an exercise of them as demonstrates the supreme attachment of the soul. Perhaps it was on this account that our translators preferred the translation; which, though less proper in itself, more exactly conveyed the sense to those who were unacquainted with the original. But, not to separate the words, let us take them in their collective import; and consider,]

2.

The precept relating to them

[I have said, that all concern about earthly things is not forbidden: on the contrary, there are many things which require an ardour and intensity in the pursuit, and cannot be attained without. But they must not engage the affections of the soul; they must not be permitted to stand in competition with heaven and heavenly things. In comparison with the knowledge of Christ, all that the world contains must be in our eyes no better than dung and dross. The favour of an offended God the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in all its sanctifving operations the witness of the Holy Spirit testifying of our adoption into his family, and of our interest in Christ and, finally, the eternal possession of his glory What deserves to be sought after, like these? What will bear any comparison with these? These, then, are to occupy our supreme regard; and every thing else must give way to them. Earthly satisfactions of any kind, if they stand in competition with them, must all be sacrificed without hesitation and without regret. So permanent must be the ascendency of these things in our minds, that no labour for them shall appear too great, and no suffering too intense. In comparison of them, even life itself must be of no value in our eyes, and the whole world be only as the small dust upon the balance.]

This precept does indeed appear to impose a duty that is quite impracticable: but, to shew that it deserves our most attentive regards, I will display,

II.

Its reasonableness

Let us take a more distinct survey of the two different objects which are here contrasted; and the preference required in behalf of heavenly things will be found precisely such as it becomes us to manifest. For,

1.

1. They are more excellent in themselves

[What is there truly valuable in the things of this world? They have no intrinsic worth: they are only good as being high in the estimation of men: an angel would disregard them all, as much as we should the dirt under our feet. Crowns, kingdoms, empires, what are they all, but the baubles of children, which a man in his senses would despise? Beyond food and raiment there is nothing worth a thought: and they derive their value, not from any thing in themselves, but from the necessities of our nature, which render them important in our eyes. But is there nothing real in the favour of God, the grace of Christ, the witness of the Spirit, and the glory of heaven? Yes, verily: these elevate our nature, and ennoble it, and raise it to its primitive perfection and blessedness. These things the highest angel in heaven cannot but approve; yea, he must account them as objects on which it is impossible to bestow too great, or too undivided, an attention.]

2.

They are more satisfactory to our minds

[They who possess the most of this world are the very persons who most feel the emptiness and vanity of it all. Go to those who have attained all that their hearts could desire, and ask them whether they have not grasped a shadow? A name, a title, a ribbon of distinction, what contemptible things, in comparison of those which belong to the soul! Who that possesses them does not feel an aching void in his bosom, unless with them he possesses also the favour of God? In the midst of his sufficiency, he is in straits. But the blessings of which we have before spoken, are solid; and the person who enjoys them, possesses rest in his soul. Having drunk of the living waters, he thirsts no more for any thing besides.]

3.

They are more conducive to our happiness

[Are the rich and great happier than other people? Not a wit. A Lazarus, with Gods love shed abroad in his heart, is happier than the Rich Man amongst all his banquets. Search the Scriptures, and see whether those who have revelled most in their wealth, and drunk most deeply of the cup of pleasure, have not pronounced it all, not merely vanity, but vexation of spirit also? But look at the possessors of spiritual good: take them in their lowest state; view them poor, and weeping, and mourning, and hungering and thirsting after degrees of holiness unattained: what says the Scripture respecting them? What? Our Saviour himself declares them blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. If, like Paul and Silas, they are reduced to the most pitiable condition that can be conceived, they have ample ground for the most exalted joy: and even in martyrdom itself they have no cause for any thing but self-congratulation, thanksgiving, and praise.]

4.

They are more easily to be attained

[Multitudes, however much they were to labour, could never gain earthly distinction: and multitudes who do labour for it with a reasonable hope of success, are left a prey to the most painful disappointments. But who that has the heart of a man is incapable of acquiring heavenly blessings? or who ever failed in attaining them, provided he only sought them in humility and faith? Me thinks this is one of the chief excellencies of spiritual things, that they are open alike to all, and never are sought in vain. Of them, in all their fulness, we may say, Every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.]

5.

They are more lasting

[Let a man possess the whole world; how long shall he retain it? Every moment his happiness is drawing nearer to a close: no sooner is the breath departed from his body, than he surrenders it all to some new possessor, who shall, like him also, retain it but a little time: for we can carry nothing away with us when we die: we came naked into the world, and naked must we depart from it. But is it thus with the man who has sought his happiness in God? No, verily: he has treasures in heaven; and at death he goes to the full possession of them. His happiness, instead of being terminated at death, is then consummated: he then, as it were, comes of age, and enters on the full possession of his inheritance, which is incorruptible and undefiled, and fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for him.
And now let me ask, Is it unreasonable that these things should occupy your minds, in preference to the vanities of time and sense? these things, which are so excellent in themselves, so satisfactory to us, so conducive to our happiness, so certain to be attained, and so lasting in the enjoyment? Surely the poor empty vanities of time and sense cannot, for a moment, stand in competition with these; nor do they deserve so much as a thought, in comparison of them.]

Let me now commend this precept to you,

1.

As a test to try your character

[In this view it is particularly set before us by St. Paul: They that are of the flesh, do mind the things after the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit [Note: Rom 8:5.]. Now, here the very same term is used as in our text: and it forms a line of distinction between the carnal and the spiritual man, between him who is in a state of death, and him who is in the enjoyment of life and peace [Note: Rom 8:5.]. It may be thought, indeed, that the adoption of evangelical sentiments, and the making an open profession of piety, will supersede this test: but nothing can ever set it aside. The Philippian converts judged that they were in a state of acceptance with God, because they professed faith in Christ: but, respecting many of them, St. Paul said, Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and tell you now even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction; and then, assigning the reasons for his judgment, he combines with other things this charge; They mind earthly things [Note: Php 3:18-19.]. I call every one of you, then, to try yourselves by this infallible mark. It is a point easily ascertained. You need only examine your lives from day to day; and see what it is that interests you most, and forms the leading objects of your pursuit. You may be deeply engaged about earthly things, and yet be right in the sight of God, provided heavenly things he regarded by you with supreme and paramount affection. Bring then, I pray you, this matter to a trial; and never cease to implore of God that spiritual discernment which He alone can give, and that uprightness of heart which is indispensable to the forming of a right judgment.]

2.

As a rule, to regulate your conduct

[Verily, this must distinguish every child of God: though in the world, we must not be of it: our conversation must be in heaven. This is our duty our honour our happiness our security There is no standing still in religion. If we advance not, we recede. Be not contented to rest in a low state, but press forward for the highest attainments in holiness; forgetting all that is behind, and reaching forward to that which is before, till you have fully attained the prize of your high calling.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Ver. 2. Set your affections on things ] Things above outlast the days of heaven, and run parallel with the life of God and line of eternity. Things on earth are mutable and momentary, subject to vanity and violence; when we grasp them most greedily we embrace nothing but smoke, which wrings tears from our eyes, and vanisheth into nothing. Here then the wise man’s question takes place, “Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?” Pro 23:5 . Wilt thou rejoice in a thing of nought? Amo 6:13 . Most people are nailed to the earth, as Sisera was by Jael: they go bowed downward, as that woman in the Gospel that had a spirit of infirmity, and was bound by Satan; they strive (with the toad) who shall die with most earth in their mouths. Surely the saying of that Roman general to the soldier that kept the tents, when he should have been fighting in the field, Non amo nimium diligentes, I like not those that are thus overly busy, will be used of God, if when he calls us to seek after and set our affections upon the things above, we are wholly taken up about things of an inferior alloy. Cor camera omnipotentis regis, the heart of man is an inverted Pyramis, narrow below, almost sharpened to a point, that it might touch the earth no more than needs must; and broad above, to receive the influence of heaven. But surely, as we used to say of a top, the keen point of it is toward the earth, but it is flat and dull enough toward heaven; so are most men’s affections. “My brethren, these things ought not so to be,” as St James speaketh in another case. Our souls should be like a ship, which is made little and narrow downward, but more wide and broad upward.

And not on things on earth ] Set not thy heart upon the asses, said Samuel to Saul, since the desire of all Israel is to thee; so, set not your affections on outward things, since better things abide you. It is not for you to be fishing for gudgeons, a but for towns, forts, and castles, said Cleopatra to Mark Antony. So neither is it for such as hope for heaven to be taken up about trifles; as Domitian spent his time in catching flies, and Artaxerxes in making hafts for knives. There is a generation of Terrigenae fratres, whose names are written in the earth, Jer 17:13 , called the inhabitants of the earth, Rev 12:12 , in opposition to the saints and heirs of heaven. These may with the Athenians give for their badge the grasshopper, which is bred, liveth, and dieth in the same ground, and though she hath wings, yet flieth not; sometimes she hoppeth upwards a little, but falleth to the ground again. So here. Or at best, they are but like the eagle, which soars aloft not for any love of heaven; her eye is all the while upon the prey, which by this means she spies sooner and seizeth upon better.

a A small European fresh-water fish (Gobio fluviatilis), much used for bait. D

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Col 3:2 . . “Set your mind on the things above.” . is wider in its sense than . It embraces, as Meyer says, “the whole practical bent of thought and disposition”. . “The things on the earth” are not in themselves sinful, but become so if sought and thought on in preference to the things above ( cf. Mat 6:19-21 ). There seems to be no reference to the false teachers here.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Set your affection on = Mind. Greek phroneo. See Rom 8:5.

not. App-105.

on. App-104.

earth. App-199.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Col 3:2. , Have a relish for, set your mind, or affections) They who truly seek the things that are above, cannot but relish or set their affections on the things that are above. The apostle says, relish in the second place, not seek; for there is an anti-thesis to earthly things ( ), which we are said to relish or set our affections upon, to care for, but which we could not properly be said to seek, because they are present with us.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Col 3:2

Col 3:2

Set your mind on the things that are above,-To set the mind upon him in the affections is to direct the thoughts, desires, and affections toward the things that are in heaven, cultivate an earnest desire for them, and follow the path that leads to them.

not on the things that are upon the earth.-Do not seek after the worldly, fleshly ends and aims-the gratification of the

flesh-worldly ambition, or earthly riches. [We may use the world without abusing it. But it must be secondary, and made subservient to the higher and heavenly interests of the soul.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The Hidden Life

Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.Col 3:2-4.

1. The mind of St. Paul moves in this Epistle on a very high level. He is speaking to the men of Coloss of one who, in the estimate of unbelievers, was no more than a dead man. Whatever Christ had been, He is gone; and the new truth St. Paul is introducing to the consciousness of the world notwithstanding, is that there has been no severance between the life of Him who has gone and that of men now living on the earth. He is not like any other dead man; He is One who rose from the dead, and though He has since disappeared from sight, His resurrection is that characteristic thing which makes Him different from all other men who have lived and died. It is not only a physical but a moral resurrection; the coming to life again of all those holy principles of action and elements of power which seemed for a moment to have been overshadowed by the darkness of the grave. He is now not dead but unchangeably living. And together with this the Apostle insists on the indissoluble character of the common life between Christ and His disciples. That which has gone out of sight is the mere form and semblance of the Man Christ Jesus; the true Christ is risen and ascended. And if there be this indissoluble union, men now living on the earth have risen with Him; they are sharers, in a mystic sense which yet is consistent with the deepest reality, in that higher life of His in the heavenly places. To the old life which sought its Paradise on the earth which made this world the sum and substance of existence, they have died; they are now sharers with Him in the pure and holy life which has only one supreme ambition, the doing of the Heavenly Fathers Will. Your life, says the Apostle, is hid with Christ in God.

2. The fact that St. Paul should have felt justified in writing thus to inhabitants of Coloss is a remarkable evidence of the power of Christianity to touch hearts and change lives. Coloss, although no worse than the average contemporary city, can scarcely have been much better; and a few years before, it is tolerably certain, the notion of sending a communication of this kind to people of the place would have been a melancholy sarcasm. But all that had been changed. There were men and women in its streets and lanes now who had believed in Jesus Christ, and who possessed the peace and joy of reconciliation. Risen with Christ, they had the very springs of their being hid with Him in God. Once there had been no depths in their life; all had been shallow, specious, external, busy with affairs that mattered little, crowded with trifles, pathetically wasted in worthless ambition and fleeting pleasure. Then God called them, as He calls us, into a new domain, and their whole experience was re-created. In the barren wastes fountains of water were springing up; in wide ranges of unprofitable folly mines had been discovered that would yield the gold and gems of faith and hope and love. Once they were content with a poor, starveling, fortuitous morality; always untrustworthy, always unequal to a new or sudden strain, whereas now their stores of power and gladness in service were held high above the reach of sorrow and temptation, because treasured and guarded well by Christ in the unseen.

3. There are here two similar exhortations, side by side. Seek the things that are above, and Set your mind on the things that are above. The first is preceded and the second is followed by its reason. So the two laws of conduct are, as it were, enclosed like a kernel in its shell, or a jewel in a gold setting, by encompassing motives. These considerations in which the commandments are embedded are the double thought of union with Christ in His resurrection and in His death, and, as consequent thereon, participation in His present hidden life and in His future glorious manifestation. So we have here the present budding life of the Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ; the future consummate flower of the Christian life in union with the glorious manifested Christ; and the practical aim and direction which alone is consistent with either bud or flower.

Maeterlinck tells us of the threshold of the third enclosure, behind which is the life of life. Browning, in his Death in the Desert, expounds the doctrine of the three souls in man which, in ascending order of importance, make up one soul: What Does, what Knows, what Is, three souls, one man. Matthew Arnold has written words about the Buried Life which can never be forgotten by those who know them, as he tells of those rare moments when a bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, the eye sinks inward and the heart lies plain, and what we mean we say, and what we would, we know. Carlyle, in a well-known passage, declares: Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom. That is hardly true. Not what I have is my kingdom; we have learned that a mans life consists not in the abundance of the things that he possesses: not what I know is my kingdom, so soon does knowledge become antiquated and obsolete; not what I sayin words always inadequate and often unrealis my kingdom; nor even what I do, so little can I accomplish of what I would fain achieve, and my reach so far exceeds my grasp. No; what I am is my kingdom; and then the question presses, What am I? We turn from philosophy and poetry to religion, and especially to the Christian religion, and we are reminded of the inward man, the hidden man of the heart, and hear the memorable words, Your life is hid with Christ in God. That life is the one thing that counts for each one of us, and that alone.1 [Note: W. T. Davison, The Indwelling Spirit, 298.]

It was the passionate and unceasing insistence on the Christ-nature within every man as such that gave dignity and power to the preaching of the early Quakers. Read George Foxs Journal, and this emerges out of an astonishing amount of fanaticism and unfairness. It runs like a thread of gold through the whole narrative. On all hands religious men were disputing about the limits of Church membership, the rights of hierarchies, the importance of sacraments, the decrees of God in election and reprobation, and so forth; and there was immense excitement and vehemence and partisanship; Christianity seemed to have lost its moral force altogether; and the Image of Christ had faded from view. Then came this strange, youthful-looking man, with his long hair and brilliant eyes, and courage of a martyr blended with an extraordinary tenderness, and a fervent eloquence which held men spell-bound and called them away from the quarrelling Christians and their Churches, and pointed them to Christ within themselves. This is his habitual phrase. I directed them to the light of Christ in them. I exhorted the family to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and hearken to His teachings in their own hearts. I directed them to Christ, the true teacher within. These and similar expressions are scattered freely through the journal, and give it a distinct character.1 [Note: Canon H. Hensley Henson.]

I

The Old Life Left Behind

1. Ye died. That represents a distinct element in Christian experience. It means that the soul passes through a death to earthly thingsto sin and the allurements of the flesh, just as the Lord died upon the tree. The crucifixion has its counterpart within us. We die to the attractions of the world.

The new life we enjoy had its birth in the death of the old nature; it is preserved and flourishes now only by the continuous use of that cross on which the old desires were crucified and by which they must still be mortified right on to the very last, when the body itself is put off and earthly temptations cease. The inner life is one of continual joyful self-crucifixion, the doing to death of all that in tendency threatens the supremacy of the higher and better self. The power of the Cross alone can free from the guilt and stain of the past, as in it alone is found the secret of a new, sacred, ineffable life, named in St. Johns Gospel eternal, in one of Pauls Epistles life indeed.

The old life, like the trees the backwoodsmen cannot wait to cut down, is ringed; and, as when that strip of bark is cut out, its withering is only a question of time. Or, to change the figure, the channels in which its streams once flowed may now and then seem to run as copiously as ever; but gradually the parent spring is failing, and one day it will cease, never to fill again. You who have the new heart, but are sorely plagued by the old, remember this. Do not complain that the struggle is unavailing. Do not even grow impatient with yourselves; for not to have surrendered is itself a victory.2 [Note: H. R. Mackintosh, Life on Gods Plan, 147.]

2. Paul is indicating a definite occasion in the past. Sometimes the passage of a soul into Gods Kingdom is a very sudden thing. It may even be as the flight of a bird for swiftness. We lie down one night our old selves, and ere we sleep again the revolution has occurred. In this text, however, suddenness of that kind is not necessarily implied. Men may die swiftly, or they may die slowly; it matters nothing, once they have wakened on the immortal side of death.

At the Equator no visible line is stretched round the world for all to see; nevertheless, the line is actually crossed; at some definite point the ship leaves one hemisphere and enters on the other. Just so, when Gods eye reads our past, many circumstances may take on a bold prominence and fixity of outline that were concealed, or only half displayed to our feebler gaze. Where we saw nothing but an unbroken, imperceptible advance, He, it is possible, may discern a cleavage, sharp as though effected by a scimitar-stroke, between the old existence and the new. And the fittest metaphor to illustrate the transition that St. Paul can think of is that passage from one world to another which we call death.1 [Note: H. R. Mackintosh, Life on Gods Plan, 146.]

Yet one more stepno flight

The weary soul can bear

Into a whiter light,

Into a hush more rare.

Take me, I am all Thine;

I Thine now, not seeking Thee

Hid in the secret shrine,

Lost in the shoreless sea.

Grant to the prostrate soul

Prostration new and sweet;

Make weak the weak, control

Thy creature; at Thy feet

Passive I lie: shine down,

Pierce through the will with straight,

Swift beams one after one;

Divide, disintegrate,

Free me from self, resume

Thy place, and be Thou there.

Yet also keep me. Come,

Thou Saviour and Thou slayer!1 [Note: Edward Dowden.]

II

The New Life Hidden in God

1. Every one has two lives, the outward and the inward; and although they are seemingly separate, having a different mode of manifestation, they are at the same time intimately connected. Even rude, undeveloped natures have that which they hide from men. Much goes on within them that does not show itself outwardly. Their cunning purposes, their selfish greed, their lurid and lustful desiresif not shame, then self-interest and safety lead them to secrete these bad elemental forces; and so the lowest natures have a hidden life of badness. Many men are bad outwardly who are a great deal worse inwardly.

But also when love has purified the soul; when men have risen through the social affections far above these vulgar conditions, they in like manner have secret lives, but of a different sort. Men revolve ten thousand thoughts which never find expression, and never can. We never can say our best things. We think a great deal better than we ever speak. Fancies thick as stars shine in the vault of souls elected to poetry. Our tender and affectionate natures are like nightingales, and will not sing in glare of day, nor without cover and retirement.

Every person of richness of soul will recognize the truth, that the dearest part of his lifethat which seems to him the finest, the noblest, the deepestnever is fully and fairly exposed. And if we think a moment, we are conscious that all those subtlest sentiments, those rarest feelings, which, when they manifest themselves in us with power, give us some sentiment of divinity, are the strains of the soul which we cannot speak, and certainly do not. Our feelings towards each other, the feelings that parents have towards their children, are unutterable; and, surely, the feelings of affection which great natures have towards each other never find expression in words. There is more in one look that the eye gives than in all that the tongue utters in a lifetime.

When the Apostle, therefore, speaks of the Christian life as a hidden one, it is neither a paradox nor a mystery, though at first it may strike one as being so. Interpreted by the analogy of the souls best habits, it is only declaring the Christians hope to be the secret and spring of all the rest of his life. That which is the strongest in him, that which is the truest to his Divine nature, that which he considers the best part of himin short, that which he will call his real lifeis hidden. Your life is hid with Christ in God.

To his sense of responsibility to the Faith and the Church must be added his sense of responsibility as Bishop and Primate for national life. The three things went together; they would stand and fall together. The conviction came to him originally through his reading of Coleridge: Christianity is not a Theory, or a Speculation; but a Life. Not a Philosophy of Life, but a Life and a living Process. Dr. Temple applied this principle to all doctrinesnotably to the doctrine of Easter Day. Try to live by it, he says to the boys at Rugby: Try to live as if that other world were immediately before your eyes; try to live as if you were following your great Captain on the road to victory; and, believe me, you will never find the doctrine stale or commonplace or powerless! This conviction only deepened as he grew older.1 [Note: Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, ii. 670.]

As you cross a Highland moor you may come upon a curious bright streak of green, winding in and out among the heather, its pure and shining verdure clearly marked against the dull brown of its immediate surroundings. What is it, and how came it there? Whence rises the sap to feed this soft elastic ribband of turf? There is a tiny stream below, a runnel of sweet water flowing down there out of sight, only hinting its presence by the green beauty above. So the springs of Christian life are hid, hid with Christ in God.2 [Note: H. R. Mackintosh, Life on Gods Plan, 148.]

2. The Christian life is hidden inasmuch as here on earth action ever falls short of thought, and the love and faith by which a good man lives can never be fully revealed in his conduct and character. Electricity cannot be carried from the generator to the point where it is to work without two-thirds of it being lost by the way. Neither word nor deed can adequately set forth a soul; and the profounder and nobler the emotion, the more inadequate are the narrow gates of tongue and hand to give it passage. The deepest love can often only love and be silent. So, while every man is truly a mystery to his neighbour, a life which is rooted in Christ is more mysterious to the ordinary eye than any other. It is fed by hidden manna. It is replenished from a hidden source. It is guided by other than the worlds motives and follows unseen aims. Therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.

There is an old and beautiful Spanish legend of a certain Convent of St. Benedict, not far from the old city of Toledo, which was the retreat of a sisterhood embracing some of the noblest blood of all Spain. When the Moors overran the country after Don Roderick and his fine chivalry were slain, they came to this convent and vowed its destruction. But just as they were making their final assault the convent disappeared. Cloisters, cells, chapel, belfry, with their inmates, sank underground. Forty years after a lonely traveller, journeying through the forest at eventide, heard in an open space of rising ground the mysterious echoes of vesper bells and voices floating on the still evening air, as they breathed forth the praise of evensong. Nothing but a moss-grown stone pinnacle surmounted by a Cross broke the dark glades of forest on either hand. Yet the harmonies from that buried convent thrilled his heart with wonder and awe. Ethereal, mystic, heavenly, they broke upon the ear like the echoes of another world. Such is the Christian life ever since the first Easter Day, buried away out of the sight of men, stolen from the grasp of the boasting foe, hidden in the sealed stone, yet still exerting its powerful spell almost unrecognized over the hearts of men, still breathing forth its heavenly music to souls who have spiritual leisure to hearken to it, still filling the solitary place with mysterious praise.1 [Note: T. A. Gurney, The Living Lord and the Opened Grave, 96.]

3. This life is hid, because Christ has gone out of sight, bearing with Him the true source and root of our lives into the secret place of the Most High. Therefore we no longer belong to this visible order of things in the midst of which we tarry for a while. The true spring that feeds our lives lies deep beneath all the surface waters. These may dry up, but it will flow. These may be muddied with rain, but it will be limpid as ever. The things seen do not go deep enough to touch our real life. They are but as the winds that fret and the currents that sway the surface and shallower levels of the ocean, while the great depths are still. The circumference is all a whirl; the centre is at rest.

In the early folk-lore of various countries, we come, here and there, on certain statements which have a singular affinity with what St. Paul says in the text and which may possibly have had something to do with the form, at least, of the thought which he there expresses. I refer to the accounts which are given about cruel giants and other monstrosities who could not be killed by wounds that would at once have ended the life of any other creature. They might be pierced through the heart with the sword of an assailant, they might be hurled from a precipice that should have broken all their bones, they might be left for dead in a burning fire that should have consumed them effectually, but nothing could touch their life, or even seriously hurt them. For, according to the story, their life was not in their own bodies, but somewhere else, and carefully concealed so that no one could reach it. It is represented as being, perhaps, hid in an egg, which is in the belly of a fish, which is swimming in a lake, which lies among inaccessible mountains or an island that is far away in some untravelled ocean; and unless you can discover that ocean and the island and the lake, and catch the fish, and lay hold on the egg, nothing you can do will anywise affect the life of the terrible being you are anxious, for some reason, to destroy. As a rule, the stories tell us that, after many had tried and failed, a hero comes at last who, by some means or other, discovers the secret, overcomes all the difficulties, and destroys the creature who had wrought so much mischief, but with that part of them we have at present nothing to do. What I want to point out is simply the idea, which seems to have been pretty widely prevalent, that ones life could be kept apart from ones self, and so hid as to be very hard to reach, and that no injury to ones body could anywise affect such a life.1 [Note: Walter C. Smith.]

Botanists tell us that there is a beautiful arrangement in nature for clothing our barren moorlands with a vesture of heather. The heather cannot nourish itself, but must be nourished, so to speak, by a foster-parent, which prepares its food for it, reducing the peat upon which it grows into a condition that renders it capable of being absorbed and assimilated. So at the extreme ends of the roots of the heather, you will find mingled with the finer fibres a tissue of delicate whitish threads. This is not part of the heather itself, but a separate plant or fungus which lives in association with the heather, and does for it the kindliest service, nourishing its vitals at the fountain head. Microscopic examination of the fine rootlets of the heather shows how filaments of its hidden friend and partner penetrate into the very cells of the texture of these rootlets, conveying life and strength to the whole plant. Without the help of this hidden intermediary the heather would wither and die. And whenever you transplant heather without securing its associate feeder, your labour is in vain, the heather infallibly dies. So our spiritual life is linked with Christ and hid in God. We are identified with Christ, and He communicates to us His own life. Without me, He says, ye can do nothing. But, says the Apostle, as if responding to Him, I can do all things in Christ which strengtheneth me. The hidden life of Christ works deep down at the roots of our being, and the chief hindrance to a noble and rich and fruitful career is that we do not sufficiently realize our oneness with Christ and His readiness to vitalize all our spiritual and moral energies.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan.]

Since Eden, it keeps the secret!

Not a flower beside it knows

To distil from the day the fragrance

And beauty that flood the rose.

Silently speeds the secret

From the loving eye of the sun

To the willing heart of the flower:

The life of the twain is one.

Folded within my being,

A wonder to me is taught,

Too deep for curious seeing

Or fathom of sounding thought,

Of all sweet mysteries holiest!

Faded are rose and sun!

The Highest hides in the lowliest;

My Father and I are one.2 [Note: Charles G. Ames.]

III

The Coming Manifestation

1. The present has in it the promise of the future.Eternal life is a condition of the soul into which we may pass without dying; indeed, at any moment this resurrection may take place, we may pass from death to life, or also from life to death; the lower sphere may be exchanged for the higher, or the higher for the lower. And so when the lawyer asked the great question, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? the answer practically was that the love of God and man is eternal life. It is a change in the sphere and level of life and emotion now, not a succeeding stage in our existence. In fact, to be spiritually minded, this is life; and to be carnally minded, this is death. The teaching of the Apostles is everywhere clear. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. Our citizenship is in heaven. We have come to the heavenly Jerusalem. Christ is our life. The Gospel Christ preached is pre-eminently one of the present world; it is the release from the grip of sin now, that real redemption which we may daily verify when we give up any wrong act for the love of Christ; it is the presence of God in the heart now.

Union with Christ by faith is the condition of a real communication of life. In him was life, says St. John, meaning thereby to assert, in the language of our Epistle, that in him were all things created, and in him all things consist. Life in all its forms is dependent on union in varying manner with the Divine, and upheld only by His continual energy. The creature must touch God or perish. Of that energy the Uncreated Word of God is the channelwith thee is the fountain of life. As the life of the body, so the higher self-conscious life of the thinking, feeling, striving soul is also fed and kept alight by the perpetual operation of a higher Divine energy, imparted in like manner by the Divine Word. Therefore, with deep truth, the Psalmist goes on to say, In thy light shall we see lightand therefore, too, St. John continues: And the life was the light of men.

The training of a prince may, in some respects, be very much like that of other youths. He may have to endure hardness, to fare simply, to toil patiently, to deny himself, that he may be able for the tasks that await him by and by. All that will be good for him, and especially it will be needful that he should learn to have princely ideas of duty and a regal nobleness of mind; for the higher his position is, the more worthless would he appear if he were given to any kind of baseness. He must look, therefore, to the things that are above. He must converse with high affairs in a high strain of thought. Any littleness would only be made more glaring by contrast with the grandeur of his position at last. While his life is for a season hidden, then, it must be carefully preparing for the final manifestation of its regal dignity, which otherwise he would only dishonour.1 [Note: Walter C. Smith.]

2. The manifestation of Christ will carry with it the manifestation of all life hid with Him in God.There is nothing in the future, however glorious and wonderful, that has not its germ and vital beginning in our union with Christ here by humble faith. The great hopes which we may cherish are gathered up here into the words, He shall be manifested. That is far more than was conveyed by the old translationshall appear. The roots of our being shall be disclosed, for He shall come, and every eye shall see him. We shall be seen for what we are. The outward life shall correspond to the inward. The faith and love which often struggled in vain for expression and were thwarted by the obstinate flesh, as a sculptor trying to embody his dream might be by a block of marble with many a flaw and speck, shall then be able to reveal themselves completely. Whatever is in the heart shall be fully visible in the life. Stammering words and imperfect deeds shall vex us no more. His name shall be in their foreheadsno longer only written in fleshy tables of the heart, and partially visible in the character, but stamped legibly and completely on life and nature. They shall walk in the light, and so shall be seen of all. Here the truest followers of Christ shine like an intermittent star, seen through mist and driving cloud: Then shall the righteous blaze forth like the sun in the kingdom of my Father.

The underground river, fed from hidden springs, will emerge in due time as a clear, full stream, at which the nations may drink. The coral polyp builds steadily on under the water amidst the ceaseless beating of the surf, and ere long there appears above the surface the atoll reef with its waving palms and still lagoon. Realities have their own way of asserting themselves, even in a world of shadows often mistaken for realities. The hidden life is the most potent life, even amidst the half-lights of earth, and the time will come when the day will break and the shadows flee away. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall we also with him be manifested in glory.

The Great Artist will then unveil His work, that has been long preparing in secret and behind the screen of an infirm decaying body, wrought out through the machinery of nature, which labours and groans beneath the bondage of corruption and moves with harsh grinding and torturing of the spirit through the flesh as it is placed upon the wheel. Yet from this factory and loom of time, with its unsightliness and disarray and its thousand seeming-cruel processes, Gods fairest work is coming, the adornment of heaven and the wealth of eternity. The Lord and Redeemer of men, when He appears the second time, shall appear to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.1 [Note: G. G. Findlay, The Things Above, 30.]

As the traveller starting for some distant mountain sees at the outset its cloudy and mysterious summits hanging in the far-off horizon, and is conscious that even then their presence adds a beauty and an interest to all the nearer landscape through which he is passing; but, as he advances on his way, every hour they engross a larger portion of the view, they become clearer and nearer, and fresh scenes of wonder and glory open up, till at last, without any perceptible break, he finds that his path has led him into the very bosom of the eternal hills; even so there are some whose way through this world is beautified and glorified, from dawn till eve, by the bright vision of the world beyond the grave. For them earth melts into heaven, and heaven sheds its radiance upon earth.2 [Note: E. H. Bradby.]

3. This is the enduring life.Such a life has nothing in it of the ephemeral and passing. It has no relation to the body, or the death of the body. Physical death is not its end, or its beginning, or its opposite. The life in God partakes of the Divineunchangeableness and infinity and eternity. All on earth passes away; even the everlasting hills will at last change and disappear; but if we ourselves become in some way incorporate with the life of God, then we are safe for ever in His everlasting arms. Our life is verily hid with Christ in God.

As Ralph Erskine puts it: When risen with Christ you have a Treasure, a Treasurer, and a Treasury. Your Lifethat is your Treasure; is hid with ChristHe is your Treasurer; in Godthat is your Treasury. Your life is hidden for secrecy and for security. The world knows not the sons of God; they draw their strength and inspiration from a secret source, they fix their hopes upon things unseen. Their life is hidden from the eyes of men. This makes it all the more secure. The foundations are beyond the reach of pickaxe or dynamite. The believers security does not lie exposed to the malice of man or devil. It is the security of a union which cannot be dissolved, of a trusteeship which never fails, of a covenant which cannot be broken. God the Father is the author of the Covenant. God the Son is the faithful guardian or trustee. God the Holy Ghost is the bond of the union. Secure indeed are those whose life is hid with Christ in God.

The uncertainty as to what awaits us ahead, beyond the limit of our spiritual visionthis uncertainty, this mysteryis the only possibility of our life, because it secures the forward movement. We walk, as it were, through an underground passage and see ahead of us the illuminated point of the exit; but that we may reach this exit, ahead of us, in front of us must be an emptiness. The eternal life is eternal for the very reason that it deploys before us infinitely. If it were completely unfolded before us, and we could comprehend it here, in our temporal, carnal existence, it would not be the eternal life, as there would be nothing left beyond it.1 [Note: Tolstoy, Thoughts and Aphorisms (Works, xix. 81).]

If you address any average modern English company as believing in an eternal life; and then endeavour to draw any conclusions from this assumed belief, as to their present business, they will forthwith tell you that what you say is very beautiful, but it is not practical. If, on the contrary, you frankly address them as unbelievers in eternal life, and try to draw any consequences from that unbelief,they immediately hold you for an accursed person, and shake off the dust from their feet at you.2 [Note: Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive (Works, xviii. 392).]

IV

The Present Duty

1. Set your mind on the things that are above. The Apostle uses a word which indicates the application of the mind to the observation and study of any object. It is a stronger word and means more than the word seek used in Col 3:1. And what we are urged to do is to let our minds go out upon these things, and rest in quiet contemplation of them. He would have us take them as settled and indubitable facts, clearly revealed to us, and make them the object of our deep, continuous, and interested study. He calls us not to pry into things hidden and recondite, but to ponder things manifest and revealed. It is not to a process of research but to a process of reflection that he urges us. He would have us stand, as it were, at the gate of heaven, and inspire its hallowed atmosphere, and bask in radiance of its unutterable splendour. A mere baptism with the waters of the river of life will not suffice; what he exhorts us to is to cast ourselves into that heaven-born stream, and repose upon the bosom of its shining and ever-flowing waters. There must be the outgoings of the soul after those supernal realities, and the incomings of these into the soul in return. Our reflections must be after the similitude of those angels that are to be seen ascending and descending upon the Son of man, a continuous and reflexive process, yet ever finding in Him its alpha and its omega, its beginning and its ending, its first and its last.

One sunny day, as on my way I went,

And stooped to pluck the flowers I loved so well,

I saw that on each bloom oer which I bent,

My shadow fell;

But when my wandering glances left the ground

And travelled sunwards up the shafts of light,

The shadow fell behind me, and I found

That all was bright.

So when, with earthward gaze, we set our minds

On flowers beside lifes pathway blooming fair,

Whoever stoops to seize their beauties finds

A shadow there;

But if, with eyes uplifted, we are wont

To scan the heavenward stair the angels trod,

Behind us is the shadow, and in front

The light of God.1 [Note: E. T. Fowler, Verses Wise and Otherwise, 137.]

2. If the affections are habitually set on things above, this is the surest evidence of being in a state of grace. In the animal world we see life manifesting itself through an immense gradation, from the sluggish and hardly perceptible animation of the zoophyte up, through that of the insect and reptile tribes, to the finer perceptions and sensibilities of the more perfectly organized animals, until we reach its highest development in man. In all cases we are satisfied life is there, because the results of life are there; but as these become increasingly distinct and manifest, as we ascend the scale of being, so our assurance of it becomes proportionately stronger. It is the same as regards the spiritual life. That life may be very feeble in some, hardly perceptible, a mere zoophytic existence; but if it is there at all, it will show itself by its proper results, and most of all by some measure of spiritual sensibility and relish for spiritual things, the things that are above. And as the life becomes stronger, this manifestation of it will become increasingly distinct and convincing.

By holiness do we not mean something different from virtue? It is not the same as duty, as religious belief. Holiness is the name for an inner grace of nature, an instinct of the soul, by which, though knowing of earthly appetites and worldly passions, the spirit, purifying itself from these and independent of all reason, arguments, and fierce struggles of the will, dwells in living, patient, and confident communion with the seen and unseen good.1 [Note: John Morley, Miscellanies.]

Our fathers understood by cultivation of the hidden life the practice of earnest prayer, reverent study of the Bible and devotional books, with meditation and endeavour to make their own by faith the life that is hid with Christ in God. Their fathers before them for nearly two thousand years used similar methods. Have we outgrown them? Are these amongst the old-fashioned ways which we style early Victorian, and, confident in our maturity, are prepared to leave behind us? The Bibleis it read, known, loved, thought and prayed and wrestled over till its deepest religious teaching is afresh assimilated? The chief interest excited concerning it to-day is aroused by criticism, which in some directions is doing excellent service. But the Bible is essentially a book of religion, not a collection of literary documents. There is a time and a place for examination into the details of its composition, but it is as food for the hidden man of the heart that it is all-important, and it is a question whether the coming generation in any stratum of society knows the Bible well or appreciates its value for the world. Every Christian prays; but how? One who would know the hidden world of prayer must be a familiar denizen of it; hasty and occasional visits will teach him nothing. Whilst Sir Oliver Lodge is urging the power in the spiritual world of filial communion and those aspirations and petitions which exert an influence far beyond their conscious range, some Christians, who ought to know better, plead that work is worship, and that social reform is of more importance than pietistic communings. These things, therefore, ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.1 [Note: W. T. Davison, The Indwelling Spirit, 301.]

The lowland road is pleasant and the upper road is steep,

The lowland air is windless and its rivers sing of sleep;

When all the kine are gathered and all the pastures mowed,

One should go home at evening along the lowland road.

When stalwart knees bend inward and strong-thewed shoulders tire,

When a man has wrought his utmost and followed his desire,

When he has starved and feasted and borne a heavy load,

How good to come at evening along the lowland road.

But if the white peaks beckon, if one be left to scale,

A man should seek the mountains and shun the lowland vale;

His heart will feel their prompting, and answer to the goad,

And tho the hour be evening, hell take the upper road.

When all earths fruits are gathered on silent field and garth,

When song is at the winepress and mirth is at the hearth,

There is another harvest whose seed we have not sowed

Youll find the orchards of the Lord upon the upper road.

Im going by the upper road, for that still holds the sun;

Im climbing thro Nights pastures, where starry rivers run;

If you should think to seek me in my old dark abode,

Youll find this writing on the doorHes on the Upper Road.

3. Setting the mind on things above is conducive to the right discharge of duty and the right endurance of trial. The mind accustomed to Divine contemplation looks at things not on their earthward but on their heavenward side; or rathermay we say?looks at the things of earth from a heavenly point of view. Duty thus is seen not simply as something that has to be done, a task that has to be performed, but as the will of the heavenly Father, which it is an honour and a privilege to His servants to be called to do. Affliction is seen to be light because it is looked at, not as among things seen and temporal, but in its relation to those things which are unseen and eternal. Thus, the man who has his conversation in heaven, who is occupied with spiritual realities, whose treasure is in heaven, and whose heart is there also, has a power in him for the discharge of duty which the world cannot understand, and a support under trial which the world can neither give nor take away.

Christian prayer is earnest and believing, but it asks for blessings in accordance with the will of the Father. It means good, not harm, for our neighbours as for ourselves; it means bringing ourselves into harmony with the laws of health and right living; it means using to the utmost all the strength and energy that God has put into our hands to bring about the result that we pray for. We cannot pray for food and expect the ravens to bring it to us, like one misguided man whom I met some years ago. He excused himself from work and lived on charity or the small earnings of his wife, on the plea that the Bible commands us to take no thought for the morrow. Prayer means not the halting of effort, but its spur. We cannot ask for peace, and give way at the first provocation to ill-temper and irritability. We cannot pray for unselfishness, and refuse the opportunity to practise it. We cannot pray for success, and expect to achieve it without work. Prayer gives us the assurance that behind our effort is infinite strength, but that effort must measure the best that we have of will, energy, and intelligence. We must bring the inspiration of our ideals into daily living.1 [Note: S. Fallows, Health and Happiness, 12.]

We doubt the word that tells us: Ask,

And ye shall have your prayer;

We turn our thoughts as to a task,

With will constrained and rare.

And yet we have; these scanty prayers

Yield gold without alloy:

O God, but he that trusts and dares

Must have a boundless joy!2 [Note: George MacDonald, Organ Songs (Poetical Works, ii. 292).]

The Hidden Life

Literature

Alexander (W. L.), Sermons, 309.

Beecher (H. W.), Sermons, 2nd Ser., 508.

Cook (F. C.), Church Doctrine and the Spiritual Life, 53.

Davison (W. T.), The Indwelling Spirit, 297.

Dearden (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, 75.

Findlay (G. G.), The Things Above, 1.

Gladden (W.), Where does the Sky Begin? 208.

Grimley (H. N.), Tremadoc Sermons, 1.

Gurney (T. A.), The Living Lord and the Opened Grave, 80.

Houchin (J. W.), The Vision of God, 149.

Huntingdon (F. D.), Sermons for the People, 310.

Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 266.

Mackintosh (H. R.), Life on Gods Plan, 143.

Russell (A.), The Light that Lighteth every Man, 248.

Smith (W. C.), Sermons, 216.

Wilberforce (B.), The Secret of a Quiet Mind, 103.

Wilson (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Clifton College Chapel, 41.

Christian Age, xlvi. 402 (Abbott).

Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 166 (Scott); lxii. 2 (Henson).

Church of England Pulpit, xlvii. 181 (Carpenter).

Churchmans Pulpit: St. Matthias, xiv. 298 (Burgon).

Expositor, 3rd Ser., iii. 434 (Maclaren).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

Set: Col 3:1, 1Ch 22:19, 1Ch 29:3, Psa 62:10, Psa 91:14, Psa 119:36, Psa 119:37, Pro 23:5, Ecc 7:14, Mat 16:23, Rom 8:4-6, Phi 1:23, 1Jo 2:15-17

affection: or, mind

not: Col 3:5, Psa 49:11-17, Mat 6:19, Luk 12:15, Luk 16:8, Luk 16:9, Luk 16:11, Luk 16:19-25, Phi 3:19, 1Jo 2:15

Reciprocal: 1Sa 9:20 – set not Psa 31:19 – laid up Psa 119:25 – soul Pro 15:24 – above Son 3:6 – like Son 4:8 – with me Zep 2:3 – hid Joh 6:27 – the meat Col 2:12 – wherein Heb 9:24 – but Heb 10:34 – in yourselves that ye have

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE DISCIPLINE OF THE AFFECTIONS

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Col 3:2

The affections have been defined as the faculty or power which regulates or determines all our likes or dislikes for persons or things, our tastes, our friendships, our loves. This faculty or power ought to be brought under control by every reasonable man and every reasonable woman. You must refuse to grow attached to what is unworthy of your affections, what is unworthy of your consideration.

I. Choose the best things.You can cultivate good taste, whether it be in the matter of literature or art or conversation, or any other such thing. It is a duty to choose always the best that is within our reach. It seems obvious, it seems easy in theory; in practice it is really very difficult. Self-culture always means a good deal of effort. You will be tempted by laziness, by habit, or by cowardice, but if you do not choose the best, your taste will in time be spoiled, your affections will inevitably go out towards what is vulgar and common, and your character will suffer in proportion.

II. Choose the best friends.This is an important point. A bad friend very often means ones ruin. Again you must choose what is noble and what is true. Fix your eyes upon such qualities as honour, courage, duty, unselfishness, purity. Do not allow your preference to rest upon the mean, the cowardly, the selfish, the dishonest, the impure; and then slowly and surely your affections will fix themselves upon the better traits of character. You will become naturally disposed to make good friends instead of bad ones. And still further we must be ourselves pure, ourselves unselfish.

III. The control of the affections.Our affections must be controlled as regards those that we love most. Remember that there is a selfish, inconsiderate kind of love. There is a love that proceeds from passion and impurity, there is a love not founded upon sympathy and upon self-sacrifice; there is also an uncurbed, unrestrained love, which regards its object as belonging absolutely to itself rather than as a trust from God. People very often, under the cover of love, will allow those they love all kinds of indulgence, all kinds of laxity. They seem to think that love is an excuse for many things that would be otherwise inadmissible.

Rev. Hamilton Rose.

Illustration

True love must come from God Himself, Who is love. And yet people are afraid to love Him. They are afraid of losing something they value, they are afraid of not possessing the object of affection so surely if they first surrender it to God; the result is they choose the lower kind of love in preference to the love that comes from above, and it means infinite loss in the end to themselves, perhaps a greater loss still to those they try to love. Whether then in regard to things or persons, our affections need strict discipline; you may easily grow fond of what is ignoble, unworthy of respect.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE HIGHER LIFE

Let us consider how we may go up to the higher life, and reach towards things above.

I. It must be by attraction.The repulsion of this earth may drive you to dislike this world; but no repulsiveness here could ever bring you nearer heaven; it would only make you morose. Christ must draw. And therefore He has gone up on high, that He may draw you higher. Put yourself within the attraction.

II. Do not attempt to leap to the top by a bound.Go up by little steps day by day. Let it be something which is always just above you; not too far; not so far as to discourage you; yet not so near as to be done without effort.

(a) Put more intercession and more praise into your prayers.

(b) Make your reading of the Bible a more real study.

(c) Resolve to come more frequently to Holy Communion.

(d) Do your charity with more method.

(e) Let your social intercourse be more profitable.

III. That you may do this, you must lean less upon yourself.Perhaps the most beautiful picture in the whole Bible of a Christian is in those words of Solomons: Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved? Who is this coming up and upalways coming up and upthrough a world which is comparatively a wildernessleaning in very weakness on One she loves, and that Loved One Christ? Who is this? Is it you? Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved?

Illustration

Some years ago a passenger in a homeward-bound ship chanced to go on deck one morning while the captain was teaching his young son to climb to the mast-head. The boy had gone bravely up, while his father stood watching and encouraging him. At last he began to descend, and while doing so he looked down. The captain noted the action and also saw that his boy was getting giddy and was thus in the greatest danger of falling. Look up, he at once shouted to the boy, look up. Raising his face to the skies, the youth obeyed and came down in safety. He might have fallen and been killed, said the passenger to the captain afterwards. No, he was safe enough as long as he looked up, was the reply. The Christian in this life is only safe from the danger of falling into sinfulness by looking up heavenwards.

(THIRD OUTLINE)

UNPOPULAR BUT NECESSARY

Mens ears are dull to the warnings of the Gospel against worldliness, because their hearts cling strongly to the things of this world, and are loth to give them up.

I. The special feature of holiness and goodness is an increasing nearness and closeness of communion between God and the soul, an affectionateness which the soul feels in thinking of God and in praying to God. Whatever interferes with that nearness, and tends to make division and distance between God and the soul, is that souls worst enemy. Whatever turns the affections away from God unto itself hinders the souls salvation. Whether it be the unmeasured indulgence of the bodily passions, or dishonest gain, or the excitement of pleasure, or intellectual pride, or mere inertness and sloth, that occupies the soul and shuts out religion, it is a fetter all the same; it hinders the soul from growing into Christs likeness, perverts its nature to evil, and risks, or rather hinders altogether, its salvation. Such a pursuit, or such a taste, or such a habit, whatever of pleasure it may offer, whatever of beauty it may have, is in serious truth the deadliest enemy of the soul.

II. This mode of thinking can never be popular, and this counsel of the Apostles can never be a popular one. Careless people silently resist itset themselves in stubborn refusal to give up the world. The command is not, therefore, popular. Say it to the rich man, whose wealth opens to him all the sources of earthly pleasure, Set your affections on things above. Oh, he replies, that is an exaggerated statement. It is all very well for people to do that who have nothing to enjoy in the world. They may well look for something better, something beyondbut, as for me, I am well off already; let me enjoy what I have. Thus he willingly ties down his own soul to the things of earth.

III. Yet how necessary it is!How can any one be a lover of the world, and at the same time a lover of religion? If he loves Christ best, on the whole, he will certainly have to let the world go. If the world gets tight hold of him, it will certainly make him let Christ go. And though we must all live in the world, we need none of us be the servants of the world. That is just the distinction it is important we should draw. An Englishman living in any foreign country need not part with his nationality. So a servant of Christ, a subject of Christs spiritual kingdom, though living as a stranger and sojourner, far from his heavenly home, need not be subject to the principles of the world. He must use the world, as not abusing it. Now, to set the affections on it is to abuse it.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

(Col 3:2.) , -Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. The verb in this verse differs so far from that employed in the preceding, that it refers more to inner disposition, while the former is rather practical pursuit. The sure safeguard against seeking things below, is not to set the mind upon them. The things above have been already glanced at. The things on the earth are not, as Huther and Schrader suppose, the meat and drinks and other elements of the ascetic system which the apostle condemns, but such things as are the objects of usual and intense search among men. Php 3:19. The apostle does not urge any transcendental contempt of things below, but simply asks that the heart be not set upon them in the same way, and to the same extent, in which it is set upon things above. The pilgrim is not to despise the comforts which he may meet with by the way, but he is not to tarry among them, or leave them with regret. Things on earth are only subordinate and instrumental-things above are supreme and final. Attachment to things on the earth is unworthy of one who has risen with Christ, for they are beneath him, and the love of them is not at all in harmony with his position and prospects. What can wealth achieve for him who has treasure laid up in heaven? Or honour for him who is already enthroned in the heavenly places? Or pleasure for him who revels in newness of life? Or power for him who is endowed with a moral omnipotence? Or fame for him who enjoys the approval of God? Nay, too often, when the things on earth are possessed, they concentrate the heart upon them, and the look and thoughts are downward bent. Bishop Wilson on this place observes-for things on earth too naturally draw us down, attract us, fix us. Esau’s red pottage prevails over the bir thright. The guests in the parable turn away to their land, or oxen, or families. The Gadarene mind wishes Christ to depart from its coasts. The things on earth are seen, therefore they are temporal; the things in heaven are unseen, and therefore they are eternal. If the mind be fully occupied with things above, things on earth will be barred out. The apostle adduces another reason, not indeed essentially different, but exhibiting another phasis of the argument-

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Col 3:2. Set your affections are from the Greek word PHRONEO, and Thayer defines it, “to direct one’s mind to a thing, to seek or strive for.” The verse is virtually the same in meaning as the preceding one./

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Col 3:2. Set your mind (not, affection), etc. Seek pointed to the outward conduct, this carries the injunction to the inward thought and controlling desire. Lightfoot: You must not only seek heaven; you must also think heaven.

The things that are on the earth. Comp. Php 3:19 : earthly things; 1Jn 2:15 : the things that are in the world. Those who place this paragraph in the polemical portion of the Epistle find here a reference to the false precepts about eating, etc. Of course the injunction gains force in its application to these ascetic rules, which are about things to perish with the using (chap. Col 2:22), but it should be limited to them. The tone henceforth is ethical, not controversial. The use of earthly things is not forbidden, but we are bidden, in the right use of the earthly, to mind and seek heavenly things (Braune). Col 3:3. For introduces an enforcement of the preceding exhortation.

Ye died; in fellowship with the death of Christ (see marg. references); died from the rudiments of the world (chap. Col 2:20). Hence ye cannot go back to that previous mode of living.

And your life is hid (or, hath been hidden) with Christ in God. The past and present are combined in the thought: your true life was hid and remains hidden together with Christ, and this permanent concealment was in God; in Him, as the Father in whom is the Eternal Son (Joh 1:18; Joh 17:21), and with whom He forever reigns (Col 3:1), the life of which the Son is the essence lies shrouded and concealed (Ellicott). Life here means more than the future resurrection life; or rather, it includes all that is involved in that life. The life to be completed hereafter begins here. That life is unknown to the world, and in its fulness even to believers themselves (1Jn 3:2); but though hidden it furnishes a motive for not living to the world. Being kept secure is not the thought suggested.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the {b} earth.

(b) So he calls that show of religion which he spoke of in the former chapter.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes