Interview with John Piper
Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org

Audio Transcript

Happy Friday, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Pastor John is back in the studio with me today for a really sharp Bible question on Colossians 3:3. It comes to us from a listener named Josiah. “Pastor John, hello and thank you for taking my question today. How do we reconcile Colossians 3:3, ‘For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,’ with Ephesians 2:1, ‘And you were dead in trespasses and sins’? I know this refers to our spiritual state of existence before and after Christ. I was already dead, and then I died? Is that right? So those who are saved were dead, and then they died again. So dead men die? Is that how salvation works in Paul’s mind?”

That’s a really good question. I love this kind of question. When people read the Bible carefully enough that they think, “How does that fit together?” those are just golden moments in Bible reading to go deeper. So Josiah has put his finger right on a crucial biblical paradox. So Ephesians 2 describes all human beings as dead in trespasses and sins, in need of life. And then Colossians 3 says, “We must die in order to have that life.” That’s a good question.

So the answer is yes. Dead men must die if they are to live. That’s true. That’s the clear teaching of Scripture, and there are two senses in which the dead must die in order to live. So now, if we step back and say, “Whoa, that sounds really confusing” — there are five things that need to be clarified.

First, in what sense are all people dead apart from Christ? Second, in what sense are those dead people alive while they are dead? Because it’s clear those dead people are walking around all around us during the day. Third and fourth, what are the two ways that these dead people must die if they are to live? And then finally, fifth, what is the difference between the life we have after this double death and the life we had while we were dead?

It all sounds very odd, I know, but those are exactly the questions that Scripture leads us to ask.

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