“For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory”  (Colossians 3:3-4).

The revelation of the Lord Jesus spoken of in verse 4 is not the Lord’s coming for His own to take them to Himself (see 1 Thessalonians 4:17). Our future is linked with the future of Christ. Because He died and rose again, we are inseparably connected with Christ in heaven through the Holy Spirit.

But as long as Christ is hidden from this world, we too are hidden with Him: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” On the day when the Lord will return to take His own to Himself, only His assembly will see Him—no one else. He will take His bride to have her with Him forever. We will be united for all eternity and bound together by an inseparable bond.

When the Lord comes to establish His kingdom, His assembly will accompany Him, because the world must see Him as He appears on this earth—accompanied by His own. Verse 4 says that this will be a glorious appearing, for He will have transformed us to be like Him: “We know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2).

This truth appears again and again in the New Testament. Many other passages confirm what we find in Colossians regarding the appearing of Christ and our coming with Him. First the Lord will come for us, so that a little later we will appear together with Him.

For now we are still on the earth with all the weaknesses we encounter here. For now we see nothing of the glory that awaits us. But after the Lord has caught us up to Himself, He Himself will appear before the eyes of the whole world with us. He will not show Himself to people alone, for He has also decided to share this glory with us: “when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:10). Shortly before He went to the cross, He prayed to His Father, carrying His own on His heart. About the day of His mighty appearing He says: “The glory which You have given Me I also have given to them” (John 17:22).