Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt - Resurrection Power!

Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt – Resurrection Power!

The transformation in Paul was at once remarkable yet not surprising. The most seductive temptation Satan can devise will arouse no response from a dead man. Insult a dead man to his face and he will not retaliate in anger. As a dead man, Paul experienced a new freedom over sin that he had never known before. Yet in spite of being dead, Paul was more alive than he had ever been: “I am crucified…nevertheless I live.” Dead to sin, he was alive to God through Christ. So real was this to Paul that it was as though Christ Himself were living in him – and, indeed, He was! Christ had become his very life – and this, said Paul, was what Christianity was all about.

Paul reminded the saints at Colossae that victory over sin and self was not possible through willpower and fleshly struggle. True victory could come only through understanding and believing what Christ’s death for their sins and resurrection for their justification really meant. Paul declared that this was the secret of his own complete transformation – and so it must be with them.

But how could Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection be as real to them as it was to Paul – so real that their very lives would be totally transformed? Paul explained: They must believe that Christ was coming at any moment to take them to heaven, where they would thereafter appear with Him in glory. It was the hope of Christ’s imminent return that would make the difference between victory and defeat in the Christian life!

That this hope is the key to victorious living is clear. Notice again Paul’s staggering declaration: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore….” That was such a vibrant hope and of such certain fulfillment that Paul began this entire section with the statement, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (vv. 1-2). Herein lies the secret to the godly life that Paul himself lived and expected of the Colossians as well. They were to be so heavenly minded that the things of this earth would have no appeal and thus no power over them.