Let's begin by observing the verse to which you refer:
"To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27 NKJ).
What a powerful revelation is brought forth in this verse. When a person accepts Jesus as their Savior, a miraculous new birth takes place on the inside of him or her. Let's observe two additional verses of Scripture that deal with this event:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ (you enter into Christ when you accept him as your Savior), he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.When any person accepts Christ as their Savior, he or she dies (their being as they were known on the inside). Yet he or she lives! The new Christian is newly created in Christ who is now living on the inside of them. He causes us to be born again and to be created in His image and likeness.
(2 Cor. 5:17 NKJ)
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
(Gal. 2:20 NIV)
It's very important for the Christian to realize that they are not the same person they were before receiving Christ, but are newly created by God. This is why the Bible calls accepting Christ the born again experience.
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.... As new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 1:23, 2:2 KJV).
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