Our Salvation

“You have been raised with Christ”

The church in Colossae was dealing with false teachers. They claimed that to have a relationship with God, you needed to work hard and earn your own salvation. Paul made the opposite claim. He didn’t say we have raised ourselves; he said, “God did it!” We have been raised. Salvation comes from God’s work, not ours.

Earlier in Colossians, Paul uses an amazing word picture. He says that God has forgiven us for all our sins and canceled the “charge of our legal indebtedness” by nailing it to the Cross. Just like the Roman soldier who nailed a notice of Jesus’ “crimes” to the Cross, Jesus paid the bill of our crimes and nailed them to His Cross. Pastor Tim Keller summarized it like this: “Jesus lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died.” What an amazing Gospel reality!

Religion, like that taught by the false teachers in Colossae, says we must work our way to God, but the Gospel teaches that salvation is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. We are not saved by our works but by His grace, which we receive through faith in Him. It’s a gift from God! Romans 10:9 says that if we declare with our mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved.

The amazing thing is that salvation can be just the beginning of our life in Him. We “have been raised” because we have died to our old lives. The power of sin no longer has the same hold over us! We have new lives in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to live out our calling as we follow Jesus. Today, remember you have been raised with Christ, not because of anything you have done, but because of what He has done. You can walk in confidence, knowing that you are secure in Him and can live the life He has called you to!