III. ^1Εἰ οὖν συνηγέρθητε τῷ Χριστῷ, τὰ ἄνω ζητεῖτε, οὗ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν
ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ Θεοῦ καθήμενος·
III. 1–4. ‘If this be so; if ye were raised with Christ, if ye were
translated into heaven, what follows? Why you must realise the change.
All your aims must centre in heaven, where reigns the Christ who has
thus exalted you, enthroned on God’s right hand. All your thoughts must
abide in heaven, not on the earth. For, I say it once again, you have
nothing to do with mundane things: you _died_, died once for all to the
world: you are living another life. This life indeed is hidden now: it
has no outward splendour as men count splendour; for it is a life with
Christ, a life in God. But the veil will not always shroud it. Christ,
our life, shall be manifested hereafter; then ye also shall be
manifested with Him and the world shall see your glory’.
1. εἰ οὖν συνηγέρθητε κ.τ.λ.] ‘_If then ye were raised_’, not ‘_have
been raised_’. The aorist συνηγέρθητε, like ἀπεθάνετε (ii. 20), refers
to their baptism; and the εἰ οὖν here is a resumption of the εἰ in ii.
20. The sacrament of baptism, as administered in the Apostolic age,
involved a twofold symbolism, a death or burial and a resurrection: see
the note on ii. 12. In the rite itself these were represented by two
distinct acts, the disappearance beneath the water and the emergence
from the water: but in the change typified by the rite they are two
aspects of the same thing, ‘like the concave and convex in a circle’, to
use an old simile. The negative side—the death and burial—implies the
positive side—the resurrection. Hence the form of the Apostle’s
resumption, εἰ ἀπεθάνετε, εἰ _οὖν_ συνηγέρθητε.
The change involved in baptism, if truly realised, must pervade a man’s
whole nature. It affects not only his practical conduct, but his
intellectual conceptions also. It is nothing less than a removal into a
new sphere of being. He is translated from earth to heaven; and with
this translation his point of view is altered, his standard of judgment
is wholly changed. Matter is to him no longer the great enemy; his
position towards it is one of absolute neutrality. Ascetic rules, ritual
ordinances, have ceased to have any absolute value, irrespective of
their effects. All these things are of the earth, earthy. The material,
the transitory, the mundane, has given place to the moral, the eternal,
the heavenly.
τὰ ἄνω ζητεῖτε κ.τ.λ.] ‘Cease to concentrate your energies, your
thoughts, on mundane ordinances, and realise your new and heavenly life,
of which Christ is the pole-star’.
ἐν δεξιᾷ κ.τ.λ.] ‘_being seated on the right hand of God_’, where
καθήμενος must not be connected with ἐστιν; see the note on ἀπόκρυφοι,
ii. 3. This participial clause is pertinent and emphatic, for the
session of Christ implies the session of the believer also; Ephes. ii.
4–6 ὁ δὲ Θεός ... ἡμᾶς ... συνεζωοποίησεν ... καὶ συνήγειρεν καὶ
_συνεκάθισεν_ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ κ.τ.λ.; comp.
Rev. iii. 21 ὁ νικῶν, δώσω αὐτῷ καθίσαι μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἐν τῷ θρόνῳ μου, ὡς
κἀγὼ ἐνίκησα καὶ ἐκάθισα μετὰ τοῦ πατρός μου ἐν τῷ θρόνῳ αὐτοῦ, in the
message addressed to the principal church of this district: see above p.
42. Βαβαί, says Chrysostom, ποῦ τὸν νοῦν ἀπήγαγε τὸν ἡμέτερον; πῶς
φρονήματος αὐτοὺς ἐπλήρωσε μεγάλου; οὐκ ἤρκει Τὰ ἄνω εἰπεῖν, οὐδὲ, Οὗ ὁ
Χριστός ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ τί; Ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ Θεοῦ καθήμενος. ἐκεῖθεν λοιπὸν τὴν
γῆν ὁρᾶν παρεσκεύαζε.
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