THE PLACE OF IMMUNITY"hidden with Christ in God." Col 3:3
Just as the outer man is subject to the attack of infection and various toxins, so also the inner man.
According to the Oxford Reference Dictionary to be immune is to be, "resistant to a particular infection, toxin etc., owing to the presence of specific antibodies".
There is a place of immunity where our inner life is safe from the toxins of the old life from its lusts and affections. A place where we are "hidden with Christ in God", where earthly things no longer hold sway a place where worldly values, the betrayals of men, and the vagaries of life no longer control.
It is a place, in the words of the old hymn, of "perfect rest near to the heart of God where sin cannot molest". No matter what may come from without, no matter what storm may assail, no matter what man may do, within there is perfect rest. Why? Because I am near to the heart of God but more than near I am with Christ in God. My rampart against the enemy of my soul is doubly sure. I am hidden, secure not only with Christ, but in the citadel of God himself.
Immunity to failure, success, friend, or foe
I am immune to either failure or success, and therefore, to the opinions of men. Something has so transacted within that I am dead to what others may think and therefore willing to live unto God. I am willing to risk all as a fool for Christ.
I am immune to either friend or foe. Friends may fail, forget, or betray, but there is one closer than a brother. Enemies may scheme and plot, but nothing can separate me from the love of God. Nothing can come through the defences of the all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving God in whom I am safe unless he has allowed it for my good.
What a place of freedom and rest! No longer defending myself. No longer fighting for my own rights. Perfect abandonment to the One whom I love. I am absorbed into him in fact, hidden with him I am finally dealt with.
Wounds, resentments, unforgivenesses, and even deep plaguing insecurities lose their hold. I am free to enjoy the higher life, hidden in God.
But how does this work? How do I find this place of immunity?
Immunity through the death of self
Through the death of self. The antibodies of the cross have once-and-for-all fought and destroyed the infection of the self-life. This has been explained by Paul in the previous chapter of Colossians (chapter 2:11-18). No self-effort, no attempt at the ascetic life, nor any kind of religious performance will lift us into the higher plane with Christ. Our death in Christ is a revelatory faith-fact, that cannot be changed by what we do, or dont do. All we do is count on it (see Rom 6:11). And as we do so the principalities and powers that have already been disarmed lose their present control over us. The written code with its regulations has been cancelled, taken away by the cross.
Consequently, there is no principle of this world no protocol of the contemporary church, no success ethic, leadership formula, or worldly value, that can lift us one inch higher in God.
The realisation that I can do nothing, that it has all been done, is the ultimate death to self.
Therefore, not only is the cross death to self-effort, it is, at a far deeper and more profound level, death to self-realisation.
This is what Jesus meant when he said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it" (Lk 9:23-24).
And so, the cross deals a deathblow to me finding myself to self-realisation through self-effort. No amount of self-help, self-justification, self-defence, self-promotion, or self-seeking, will ever bring me to fulfilment, let alone into the destiny-purpose of God for my life.
Death to self is, therefore, the first side of the equation that brings us to into the place of immunity.
Immunity through the life of God
Now, the counter-point of dying to self is living unto God. We have not only been baptised into his death but also raised into his life. We arise from the waters of baptism actuated not by self, but by the power of an age to come by the life of God.
This being so Paul exhorts us to, "set our hearts" and "our minds", not on "earthly things", but "on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God" (see Col 3:1-2).
With the death of self, we are now free to focus all on Christ alone. Through obedience to the law of the spirit of life the poise of our soul is turned Godward.
First, we are drawn out after him. As the psalmist so eloquently states, "As the deer pants after the waterbrooks, so my soul pants for you, O God" (Psa 42:1). Our emotions and affections, our inner man, thirst for his touch for his presence.
Second, we are drawn upward. Again as the psalmist declares, "I have set the Lord always before me" (Psa 16:8). We focus on him, filling our vision with his awesomeness, seeing him exalted, sitting at the right hand of the majesty on high. And as we do, the things of earth grow increasingly dim. Compared to the beauty and majesty of the ascended Christ worldly affections, priorities, values, and even offences pale into insignificance. We begin to cry out with the psalmist, "In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" (Psa 56:11).
And with Paul we declare,
"If God be for us, who can be against us? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who diedmore than that, who was raised to lifeis at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:31-39).
And so, as you can see, through the death of the cross we enter the place of immunity. Because we have died to self and are alive unto God we can let go of offences. Persecutions and multifarious difficulties may come but they shall also go they shall not come near us:
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you" (Isa 43:2).
While our outer man may perish, we set our hearts on things above where Christ is, for we are hidden with him in God, and we are made more than conquerors. In this place of hiddenness we find a source invisible to the natural eye, an underground river, that makes glad the city of God. We are refreshed and sustained in what to the natural man looks like impossible circumstances.
And because you have passed through death into the place of immunity, "When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Col 3:4).
