NOTES for Col 3:3-4

Paul draws attention to the fact that the Christian's life is directly connected with the life and person of Christ Himself, "hidden in Christ," as the apostle calls it. This is understandable: the Kingdom itself is inseparable from the relationships that bind the Son with the Father, and still more is the life of each individual Christian inseparable from them. This life is visible to the world to the extent that the Kingdom is visible to it at all, and the Kingdom opens to the world as the world is transformed. To the extent that the world is transformed, the life of the Kingdom, and therefore the life of its inhabitants, becomes visible to it; to the extent that it still remains untransformed, that life remains unknown to it. But on the day of the world's complete transformation and the Savior's return, everything that was previously invisible will become visible and plain to all, so that nothing hidden from the world will remain.

However, in order for the life of a particular Christian to be full, it must not be reduced merely to passive abiding in the Kingdom, in the space of the relationships that bind the Father and the Son. In any case, passive abiding in the Kingdom is scarcely possible at all, since the Kingdom itself exists only in continuous dynamism, insofar as every relationship is always dynamic and can exist only by being constantly renewed. But besides this external dynamism, the Christian's life must also necessarily contain an internal one, connected with spiritual renewal and the transformation of the Christian's own human nature. After full transformation, every person's nature must become the same as the Savior's human nature became after His Resurrection. But transformation is not a one-time act; it is a process connected with the person of the Savior Himself, with His life, and with the process by which the Kingdom enters the world.

The completion of the Christian's path, and therefore of the transformation of his human nature, coincides with the completion of the transformation of all the rest of nature, of all creation. And of course this path is not limited to the bounds of a person's earthly life, but continues after that life is finished. Yet it begins at the present, earthly stage of the path, and Paul describes it figuratively as a person's "stripping off" his former nature and "putting on" a new one, corresponding to the spiritual state that abiding in the Kingdom presupposes. Of course, a change in a person's physical nature is impossible at the present stage of the path, but a change in the person's psychic, soul nature is entirely possible. This is what the apostle reminds the recipients of his letter about, calling them to exclude from their life sexual immorality in all its forms, impurity, greed, anger, and everything else that is characteristic of human psychic nature in its fallen state. And if they succeed in this, then they will have taken the first step on the path toward the complete transformation of their nature, and therefore toward the fullness of the life of the Kingdom.