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I. A DEATH. "Ye are dead."

1. You have retained an individuality, but lost a consciousness. You had a knowledge once of which you have no knowledge now. Your old sins are like names on a tombstone; once they were your whole being and personality.

2. "Dead," for how can life be sustained without food? and the old life is unalimented. You have ceased to fulfil the lusts and thus to maintain the being.

3. "Dead," for you are a mystery to the world. They think there are no pure men and women, but there are, and they have been crucified with Christ.

II. A DIVINE GIFT LOST AND RESTORED. Life was the most precious jewel in the gift of God. God inbreathed this life — gave it to man to keep it. Man threw it away. Then said Christ, "I will recover it, and crown him again." "I am come that they might have life." But it could only be recovered at the expense of His own. He conquered, and a second time "God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." And from that moment He said to His people, "I am the Keeper of your life." That jewel must not be thrown away again.

III. HIDDEN. All life is. The life of a tree, of an insect, eludes the physiologist. It is an awful mystery. We have, too, to feel in our friendships that the heart that beat very near to us, even after all its confidences, is hidden. Our spiritual life is hidden.

1. In its origin. It is a Divine seed. It is the breath of the holy. When men attempt to reason on this matter their processes are sometimes startling and their conclusions uninstructive. It is "hidden from the wise and prudent," etc. It is hidden, but Divinely true.

2. In its development. "The world knoweth us not because it knew Him not." True, we may be known by our deeds, but we are hidden, like a pearl in the sea, a star in the daytime. But God sees what we see not. He watches the growth, tends and trains His loved ones. But the growth of a Christian often contradicts the expectations of the world. When the world says, Behold their weakness, Christ says, Behold their strength, and vice versa. Your hopes, fears, prayers, etc., the world never saw. All the most sacred things are secret.

3. In its destiny. As all waters run into the sea, so all fulness in us terminates in our fulness in Him.

IV. SAFE. We feel this for our lost friends; let us feel it for ourselves and our living dear ones. The treasure we could not keep is guarded among the regalia of the skies. The forces of eternity bind us to our Lord as the earth is held in order by her parent sun. Good people are neither born, nor live, nor die by chance. So of little children. Why are they born to die? it seems so vain, the parents solicitude and agony. No, it is not vain. "Their life is hid with Christ in God." A citizen may be safe, although the walls may be destroyed; the man, although the dress be destroyed; the root, although the flower may be destroyed; the soul, although the body be destroyed. Diseases and fiends may prowl around, and fires consume, but they cannot touch him whose life is hid, etc.

V. TO BE MANIFESTED IN GLORY.

1. Glory! What is that? The revelation of the hidden life. Think of it less as the triumph of the conqueror than as the ecstasy of the new-born delight in the thrice holy state.

2. With Him. In the deeper recesses of the heavenly state, when glory does not cast too dreadful a brilliancy; there meditating on the wonder that we appear with Him, that we have seen Him smile, that He has introduced us to our dear ones, that He will employ us in holy toil.

3. Meanwhile, in the presence of this thought, let all light afflictions be forgotten.

(Paxton Hood.)

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KJV: For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

WEB: For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.