Thus we have a double ministry, as well as a double preeminence of Christ,
and a double reconciliation; and each having a similar relationship the one
to the other: Christ, the Head of all things in heaven and earth, the Head
of the assembly; all things in heaven and earth are to be reconciled,
Christians are reconciled; Paul exercises his ministry in the whole
creation under heaven, he is the minister of the assembly. Naturally his
ministry was limited to the earth. In every respect the extent and bearing
of the glory of Christ, and of the ministry, went beyond the limits of
Judaism, and were in contrast with the whole system.
The apostle then insists on the second part of his ministry, of which he
had been just speaking; dwelling however particularly on that which met the
need of the Colossians, and developing it, in order to secure them in the
enjoyment of the whole circle of these precious truths. He completed the
word of God by announcing this mystery, which had been hidden from all ages
and generations, but was now manifested to the saints. No display of the
ways of God since the creation had (in the truths on which it was founded,
in the revelation of God-of His power, or of His thoughts, which formed its
basis and gave it its character) contained the mystery contained in the
doctrine of the assembly. It had not been communicated to any of those who
formed part of the system which preceded it, or who were the medium of
light to others, as instrumental in the revelation of the light of God.
Angels, men, Israel, the prophets-all were alike in ignorance of it. The
assembly (this body united to the Son of God become man and glorified) and
the calling of the Gentiles into that unity was hidden from them all.
Now that Christ the Head of the assembly, the Head of the body, was
glorified, the mystery of this body was made known. The apostle here dwells
on one particular side of this subject, which, after the Person of Christ,
forms the centre of all God's ways. This side is Christ in us, especially
as Gentiles, the hope of glory. And in this again we see how the saints are
viewed as on earth, though in the power of resurrection. The aspect here
given of the mystery is, Christ in us down here, not union with Him
actually in glory, though inseparable from that. In fact this mystery was
in every way a new thought, a new truth. That which was known was a Messiah
who should be manifested among the Jews, the accomplishment of glory in
their midst; the Gentiles at most having part in it, as subordinate to the
people of God. But according to the doctrine of the assembly, Christ
invisibly dwelt in the midst of the Gentiles,
[see note #14] and
even in them; and as to the glory He was only the hope of it. A Christ
dwelling in the hearts of men, and of men formerly rejected and outside the
promises, and filling their hearts with joy and glory in the consciousness
of union with Himself-this was the wondrous mystery prepared of God for the
blessing of the Gentiles. It was this Christ, a Christ such as this, whom
Paul preached, warning every man, and teaching every man according to the
full development of the wisdom of God, which wrought mightily in the
apostle by the Spirit, in order that he might present every man in a
spiritual state answering to this revelation of Christ, as being also its
fruit. Not that every man would receive it; but there was no longer any
limit. All distinction between them was blotted out, alike by sin and by
grace, and there was but one thing to do; that is, to seek that every man,
by the power of the word and the Spirit, should reflect Christ and grow up
unto the stature of His fullness as revealed in the doctrine committed to
the apostle. He laboured for this according to the working of Christ in
him; for Christ was not only the object, but the power that wrought to form
souls after His own image.
Now this power wrought in the apostle's weakness; in a human heart, that
felt the necessities of men and the difficulties that occurred by the
way-that felt them as a man, although according to God, and was the fruit
of His love. He desired that the Colossians should understand the conflict
he had for them, and for all those who had never seen him, in order that
they might be encouraged and be thoroughly united in love; so that they
might understand, in all the riches of a full assurance, the mystery of
God.
The apostle felt that it was this which they needed and which would be a
blessing to them. He knew that union with Christ, realised in the heart,
was a safeguard from the wiles of the enemy, to which the Colossians were
exposed. He knew the unutterable value of this union, and even of its
realisation by faith. He laboured, he wrestled in prayer-for it is indeed a
conflict-in order that the full sense of this union with the glorious Head
might be wrought in their hearts, so that the Christ on high should be in
them by faith. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge were found in the
mystery, of which this was to their souls the centre and the power. They
had not to seek elsewhere. Science, falsely so called, might pretend to
furnish them with heights to which the simplicity of the doctrines of
Christ did not reach but in fact the wisdom of God and the depths of His
counsels left these cloudy efforts of the human mind at an infinite
distance. Moreover they were truth -reality-instead of being but the
creatures of imagination inspired by the enemy.
For this reason the apostle had brought forward these marvelous revelations
of God respecting the double glory of Christ, and with regard to His
Person. He declared them in order that no one should beguile the Colossians
with enticing words. He avails himself of the order that existed among
them, and of their faith to guard them against the danger they were in from
these thoughts which might glide unperceived into their minds, while all
was yet going on well, and the consciousness of their faith was not
touched. This often happens. People have faith in Christ, they walk well,
they do not perceive that certain ideas overthrow that faith; they admit
them, while still maintaining the profession of faith together with these
ideas; but the force of the truth and the sense of union with Christ and
the simplicity that is in Him are lost. The enemy has so far attained his
end. That which is received is not the development of Christ, but something
outside Him.
Therefore the apostle says, "As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord,
walk in him; rooted and built up in him, and confirmed in the faith, even as
ye have been taught." When we have received Christ, all the rest is but a
development of that which He is, and of the glory which the counsels of God
have connected with His Person. Knowledge, or pretended knowledge, outside
this, does but turn us away from Him, withdraw our hearts from the
influence of His glory, throw us into that which is false, and lead our
souls into connection with the creation apart from God, and without
possessing the key to His purposes. Thus, since man is incapable of
fathoming that which exists, and of explaining it to himself, his efforts
to do so cause him to invent a mass of ideas that have no foundation, and
to endeavor to fill up the void that is found in his knowledge through his
ignorance of God by speculations, in which (because he is at a distance
from God) Satan plays the chief part without man's suspecting it.
Man, as a child of Adam, is not at the centre of the immense system of
God's ways. Out of Christ and without Christ, he does not know the centre;
he speculates, without foundation and without end, only to lose himself
more and more. His knowledge of good and evil and the energy of his moral
faculties, do but lead him astray the more, because he employs them on
higher questions than those which simply relate to physical things; and
they produce in him the need of reconciling apparently inconsistent
principles, which cannot be reconciled without Christ. Moreover the
tendency of man is always to make himself, as he is, the centre of
everything; and this renders everything false.
Christians then ought to walk with simplicity in the ways of the Lord, even
as they have received Him; and their progress ought to be in the knowledge
of Christ, the true center and fullness of all things.
When man occupies himself philosophically with all things, the
insufficiency of his own resources always throws him into the hands of an
intellectual leader, and into tradition; and, when religion is the subject,
into traditions which develop the religion of the flesh, and are suited to
its powers and tendencies.
In those days Judaism had the highest pretensions to this kind of religion,
allied itself with human speculations and adopted then, and even pursued
them assiduously; offering at the same time proofs of divine origin, and a
testimony to the unity of the Godhead, which the absence of the grossness
of Pagan mythology and the meeting of human consciousness of the divine
rendered credible. This relative purity tended to remove-for enlightened
minds-that which was disgusting in the Pagan system. The Jewish system had,
by the death of Jesus, lost all pretension to be the true worship of God;
and was therefore suited (by the advantages it offered in the comparative
purity of its dogmas) to be an instrument of Satan in opposing the truth.
At all times it was adapted to the flesh, was founded on the elements of
this world, because by its means, when owned of God, God was proving man in
the position man stood in. But now God was no longer in it; and the Jews,
moved by envy, urged the Gentiles to persecution; and Judaism allied itself
to Pagan speculations, in order to corrupt and sap the foundations of
Christianity, and destroy its testimony.
In principle it is always thus. The flesh may appear for a time to despise
tradition, but that which is purely intellectual cannot stand in the midst
of humanity without something religious. It has not the truth nor the world
which belongs to faith, and for an immense majority superstition and
tradition are needed; that is to say, a religion which the flesh can lay
hold of, and which suits the flesh. God by His power may preserve a portion
of the truth, or allow the whole to be corrupted; but in either case true
christian position and the doctrine of the assembly are lost. [see note #15]
We may indeed find philosophy apart from the religion of the flesh, and the
latter apart from the former; but inthis case philosophy is impotent and
atheistic, the religion of the flesh narrow, legal, superstitious, and, if
it can be so, persecuting.
In our chapter we find philosophy and the emptiness of human wisdom united
with the traditions of men, characteristic as "the elements of this world,"
in opposition to Christ: for we have a heavenly Christ who is a perfect
contrast to the flesh in man living on earth, a Christ in whom is all
wisdom and fullness, and the reality of all that which the law pretended to
give, or which it presented in figure: and who is at the same time an
answer to all our wants. This the apostle develops here, shewing death and
resurrection with Him as the means of participating in it.
And first all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. Instead of
the misty speculations of men and fantastic aeons, we have the fullness of
God bodily, in a real human body, and thus efficaciously for us, in the
Person of Jesus Christ. In the second place we are complete in Him; we need
nothing out of Christ. [see note #16]
On the one side, we have, in Him, God perfectly presented in all His
fullness; on the other side, we possess in Him perfection and completeness
before God. We are wanting in nothing as to our position before God. What a
truth! What a position! God, in His perfect fullness, in Christ as man, we
in Him before God, in the perfection of what He is- in Him who is head of
all principality and power, before which man in his ignorance would incline
to bend the knee! We are in Him, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells
as to His Person; in Him, who is above all principality as to His position
and His rights as Christ, man exalted on high.
The apostle then enters into some details of application to demonstrate
that the faithful have all in Christ, viewed according to the position
which He has taken without having anything to seek elsewhere here below.
Circumcision (the divine token of the covenant with the Jews, and of the
putting off the flesh, which was required in order to form part of God's
people) had its reality in Him. By the power of the life which is in Him,
and which is theirs-being made partakers of the efficacy of His
death-Christians account themselves to be dead, and have put off this body
of sin by faith. This is the true circumcision of Christ made without
hands. Circumcision made by hands was but the sign of this putting off the
body of the flesh-the privilege of the Christian in Christ. Having a new
life in Christ, he has efficaciously put off the old man.
We are buried with Christ by baptism (this is its meaning), in which also
we are risen with Him by faith in this operation of the power of God
whereby He was raised from among the dead. Baptism was the sign and
expression of this ; [see note #17]
faith in the operation of God which raised Him, the means by which is
effected in us this marvelous resurrection with Christ into a new state and
scene-this happy death, or rather this precious participation in the death
of Him who has accomplished all for us. And when I say "faith," it is the
power of God's Spirit working in us. But it is the power of God Himself, as
it wrought in Christ, which works in us to give us the new standing in
life. Viewed in connection with our resurrection with Christ it implies-by
the very fact of our receiving it-that we are forgiven perfectly and for
ever. We were under the burden of our sins, and dead in them. This burden
Christ took upon Himself, and died for us, accomplishing what put away our
sins in going down into death. Raised up with Him, inasmuch as partaking of
that life which He possesses as risen from the dead, we have-like Him and
with Him-left all that burden of sin and condemnation behind us with the
death from which we have been delivered. Therefore He says, "Having
forgiven you all trespasses."
Christ, when He arose, left death and the weight of condemnation under
which we were lying, behind Him-we also being raised up with Him. Naturally
God, in thus raising us up from the state in which we were, has not raised
us up to condemn us, or with condemnation attached to this new life, which
is Christ Himself. For He had already borne the condemnation, and satisfied
the justice of God, and died for the putting away of sin, before He
communicated this life to us. God brought us out of death and condemnation
with Christ who had borne it for us. But this is connected with another
aspect of this work of grace, spoken of here, and also in Ephesians, and
even in John 5 and 2 Corinthians 5. He who is alive in sins is dead in them
towards God. If I look at him as alive in them, death must come in and has
come in on the cross. (See Rom. 6) This side is not brought forward in
Ephesians; only death in Romans; in Colossians death and resurrection in
Christ, of which we have spoken. In Ephesians this is not spoken of at all.
We are viewed as dead in sins, dead towards God, and all good is a new
creation according to God's counsels. We are quickened together with Christ
when dead in sins. This also is taken up in Colossians: only it is not
spoken of as a new creation. But in both a new life is given when we are
dead; only Ephesians begins with this in Christ raised and exalted, and by
the same power in us. In Colossians it is introduced as completing what is
taught of the administration of this doctrine of death in baptism and our
resurrection by faith of God's operation in Christ. In Ephesians grace
finds us dead and quickened with Christ. In Colossians it finds us alive in
sins and brings in death and resurrection, and completes this by quickening
with Christ.
All the ordinances likewise, which belonged to the rudiments of this world
and which applied to man in the flesh, and weighed as an insupportable yoke
upon the Jews (and to which they endeavoured to bring others into
subjection), which put the conscience always under the burden of a service
unaccomplished by man, and a righteousness, unsatisfied in God-these
ordinances were blotted out. In them the Jew had put his signature, so to
speak, to his guiltiness; but the obligation was destroyed and nailed to
the cross of Christ. We receive liberty as well as life and pardon.
This is not all. There was, the strength of principalities and powers
against us-the might of spiritual wickedness. Christ has vanquished and
despoiled them on the cross, having triumphed over them in it. All that was
against us He has put aside, in order to introduce us, entirely delivered
from it all, into our new position. It will be seen here, that what the
apostle says of the work of Christ does not go beyond that which He did for
our deliverance, in order to set us in the heavenly places. He speaks (ver.
10) of the rights of Christ, but not as sitting in the heavenly places, nor
as, leading the enemy captive; neither does he speak of us as sitting in
Him in the heavenlies. He has done all that is necessary to bring us into
them; but the Colossians are viewed as on earth though risen, and in danger
at least of losing the sense of the position which was theirs in virtue of
their union with Christ, and were in danger of slipping back into the
elements of the world and of flesh, of the man alive in the flesh, not
dead, not risen with Christ; and the apostle seeks to bring them back to
it, by shewing how Christ had accomplished all that was requisite-had taken
out of the way all that prevented their attaining it. But he cannot speak
of the position itself: they were not consciously in it. In the things of
God we cannot comprehend a position without being in it. God may reveal it.
God may shew us the way to it. The apostle does so here with regard to the
Person of Christ, which alone could bring them back to it; and at the same
time he develops the efficacy of His work in this respect, in order to set
them free from the shackles that kept them back, and to shew them that all
obstacles had been removed. But in detail he has to apply it to the dangers
that beset them rather than to display its glorious results in heaven.
Jewish ordinances were but shadows, Christ is the substance. By bringing in
angels as objects of homage, and thus putting them between themselves and
Christ, they would separate themselves from the Head of the body, who was
above all principalities. The simplicity of christian faith held fast the
Head, from which the whole body directly drew its nourishment and thus
increased with the increase of God. It looked like humility, thus to bring
themselves into relation with angels, as superior and exalted beings who
might serve as mediators. But there were two faults of immense importance
in this apparent humility. First, it really was thorough pride-this
pretension to penetrate into the secrets of heaven of which they were
ignorant. What did they know of any position held by angels, which would
make them the objects of such homage? It was pretending to mount up into
heaven for and by themselves, and to measure their relations with God's
creatures without Christ, and at their own will to connect themselves with
them. Secondly, it was to deny their union with Christ. One with Him, there
could be nothing between Him and them; if there were anything, then they
were dead and twice dead. Besides by this union they were one with Him who
was above the angels. United to Him, they received, as we have seen, a
communication, through all the members of the body, of the treasures of
grace and life which were in the Head. The mutual links between the members
of the body itself were thereby strengthened, and thus the body had its
increase.
Two applications of the doctrine that they are dead with Christ and risen
with Him follow. (Chap. 2:20.) He applies the principle of death to all the
ordinances, and to the asceticism which treated the body as a thing vile in
itself which ought to be rejected; and (chap.3:1) he uses the resurrection
to raise their hearts into a higher sphere and to bring them back to Christ
by looking up; they being dead as regards the old man. [see note #18]
To make these instructions more plain by shewing their connection, we may
remark that the apostle points out the double danger, namely, philosophy,
and human tradition, in contrast with Christ. (Chap. 2:3; see vers. 9-15.)
While identifying us with Christ, he speaks of the bearing of the work of
Christ Himself rather thanof this identification. In verses 16-19 he
applies it first (ver. 16) to subjection to ordinances, that is, to the
Jewish side of their danger; and then (ver. 18) to the Gnostic philosophy,
[see note #19]
science falsely so called, which linked itself with Judaism (or to which
Judaism linked itself), reproducing itself under a new form. From verse 20
the apostle applies our death and resurrection with Christ to the same
points, or to the deliverance of the Colossians by raising their thoughts
on high.
But the Colossians are not the only ones who may have been in this danger.
In the main these principles have been the ruin of the church at all times.
They are those of the mystery of iniquity, [see note #20]
which has so much ripened since then, and produced effects so various, and
under such different modifications, on account of other principles which
have also acted, and under the sovereign providence of God. We shall see
the deep, simple, and decisive principle which is involved in it in the
verses that follow.
The verses already quoted, as far as the twentieth, had judged this whole
Judeo-philosophic system from the point of view of Christ's work, of His
resurrection, and of union with Him in His heavenly position.
That which follows judges it after our position. The preceding verses had
demonstrated that the system was false because Christ and His work were
such as is declared in them. The passage we are going to consider shews
that this system is absurd, cannot be applied to us, has no possible
application, because of our position. On the one hand it is a false system,
null and void in all its parts, if Christ is true and is in heaven; and, on
the other hand, it is an absurd system in its application to us, if we are
Christians. And for this reason: it is a system which supposes life in this
world, and relationships to be acquired with God, having their foundation
in that life, while it pretends to mortify flesh; and yet it addresses
itself to persons who, for faith, are dead. The apostle says, that we are
dead to the rudiments of this world, to all the principles on which its
life acts. Why then as though we were still living (alive) in it, as though
we were still alive in this world, do we subject ourselves to ordinances
which have to do with this life, and which suppose its
existence?-ordinances which apply to things which perish in the use of
them, and which have no connection with that which is heavenly and eternal.
They have indeed a semblance of humility and self-denial as regards the
body, but they have no link with heaven, which is the sphere of the new
life -of all its motives, and all its development; and they do not
recognize the honour of the creature, as a creature come out of the hand of
God, which, as such, has always its place and its honour. They put a man in
and under the flesh, while pretending to deliver us from it, and they
separate the believer from Christ by putting angels between the soul and
the heavenly place and blessing; whereas we are united to Christ, who is
above all these powers, and we in Him.
These ordinances had to do with merely corruptible things-were not
connected with the new life, but with man living in his life of flesh on
the earth, to which life the christian is morally dead; and as far as
regarded this life, they did not recognize the body as a creature of God,
as it ought to be recognised.
Thus this system of ordinances had lost Christ, who was their substance. It
was connected with the pride that pretended to penetrate heaven, in order
to put itself in relation with beings whom we do not know in such a manner
as to have any relations with them -pride which in so doing separated from
the Head of the body, Christ, and thus disowned all connection with the
source of life, and with the only true position of the soul before God.
This system falsified equally our position on earth by treating us as
though still alive after the old man, whereas we are dead; and dishonoured
the creature as such, instead of recognizing it as coming from the hand of
God.
That which was a danger to Christians in the apostle's days characterises
Christianity at the present time.
The Christian's position was thus set forth, but in its application thus
far rather to the danger of Christians than to their heavenly privileges.
Thus grace has provided us with all we need, using every privilege, using
the faith of some, giving warnings and instruction above all price, and
turning the faults of others to account.
