| Colossians 3:3 3 For you will have died, and your life will be hidden with Christ in God,2 [This death is not after the normal physical death of all men; it is the death of a seeker who has been crucified, who loses their life to save their life.] | |||||||||
2 For you will have died, and your life will be hidden with Christ in God. This death is not after the normal physical death of all men; it is the death of a seeker who has been crucified, who loses their life to save their life. This verse is universally translated as: For you have died, (past tense), because the verse is probably in the Aorist prophetic tense, (explained in Colossians 1:1), a very optimistic tense used to describe a certain future event as having already occurred, which events are typically translated in other languages to a simple past tense. This verse is changed to read: For you will have died, and your life will be hidden with Christ in God, because:
You cannot have died in the flesh and have the hidden life of Christ instead, unless you are: pure and perfect and holy; free from all sin, having overcome sin, the devil, and the world; under control of Christ in every spoken word and every deed; with the mind of Christ having replace your fleshly mind. If you have died to the flesh, (been crucified), there is no need for further verses 4-9 in this chapter telling you to: a) stop lying to one another [verse 9]; b) mortify the the deeds of the body that are of the earthly life: fornication, impurity, inordinate affections, evil lusts of the flesh, and covetousness, which is idolatry [verse 5]; and c) put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy communication out of your mouth [verse 8]. Gentle reader, all these would have already happened before you have died with your life hidden with Christ in God.
When you die and Christ is resurrected in you, few to none will be able to see him in you. The Jews didn't recognize Christ, and they insisted that the Romans crucify him; then the Jews cut the apostle James' head off; and the Jews stoned Stephen. Ninety per cent of the people of England didn't recognize Christ in George Fox or in the thousands of other early Quakers that lived in the kingdom and were one with God and Christ who guided their every word and deed. Christ is not recognized except by his fruits; you will know them by their fruits. And the fruit of the spirit is: love, joy, peace (quietness and confident trust forever), patience (including longsuffering, steadfastness, and perseverance), kindness (including morality and integrity), goodness, faith, gentleness (including meekness and humility), and self-control (mastery of sensual appetites, passions, and desires). Gal 5:22-23.
3 When Christ, Who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Col 3:4
The New Testament is full of references to the second appearance of Jesus being then, not thousands of years later. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is recorded saying that some then standing with him, 2000 years ago, would see his glorious coming in the clouds with the Kingdom before they died. In addition Paul, Jesus preaching, Jesus in Revelation, Peter, James, and John, — all said, soon, the time is near, a little while, he stands at the door. Christendom blithely ignores this gaping incongruity between what the Bible plainly states vs. what they are taught by their blind guides. It would be a cruel hoax to be waiting on Him to appear if the past 100 generations of believers actually had no hope of ever seeing Him. From the Word of the Lord within: "The kingdom, the grand prize. Seek first the kingdom, and all else will be provided — provided you stay on course. Do not be misled; you must enter the kingdom while on earth. You can live in heaven and still walk the earth."
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