Discourses on Colossians
Unknown Author
Table of Contents
Discourse on Colossians 1
Besides the person of the Lord coming out fully in this chapter as Head of His body the church, and Creator of all things, the main subject that is developed in the epistle is life, much more in its detail than in the Ephesians, where we have rather the glories of the church of God, in contrast with the previous heathen, or even Jewish, state. Here, in Colossians, it is the life of Christ in us, and does not go as far in regard to privileges. The apostle gives us the saints risen with Christ, and then takes this life and shows what it is. But in doing so be puts the Christian fully in his place with God in that life. The Christian is taken as indeed risen, but yet on the earth, just simply having life, but not sitting in heavenly places. He puts the Christian in the power of resurrection, and the life of Christ in resurrection in the Christian, but heaven is looked at still as a matter of hope: you are looking up to it-"your life is hid with Christ in God;" but you are not seated there yet; whereas in Ephesians we are there in Christ. In Colossians he looks at what the power of that life is, and the Christian as risen, put in this place before God, and then he shows the power of this We in the details of daily life.
" And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that crested him." The knowledge which we have in this new life is renewed after the image of God Himself. A life has come in which has overcome the world, and I get into the new place which Christ is in as man before God. Thus we have Christ's place, but still down here; then what the power and character of that life are practically, as passing through this world just as Christ did. He was properly a heavenly man passing through the world, overcoming everything, and having all His joy in His Father, and He puts us into that life, both as to its acceptance and as to its power. (You do not get here all the privileges that flow from it.) Consequently the only proper place of one looked at as risen with Christ is the place He has before God.
You have the Head largely brought out here, the object and source of it all. " For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." In Ephesians we are the " fullness of him that filleth all in all," for we are looked at as His body. On the one side all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, a real man, and on the other you are complete in Him and have everything in Him. The fullness of the Godhead has been revealed in Christ, and we are complete in Him before God. He sets tes in connection with Him in virtue of Christ who is at God's right hand, and we are waiting for the hope which is laid up for us in heaven.
" If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel." Speaking of the Christian in Christ, you never get any " if." I could not say, " If I was at C——," for here I am. There is no " if " to your place in Christ, no condemnation. But there is another aspect in which we may look at the Christian; he is running a race towards glory. You have it especially in the Hebrews:, the saints are viewed there as on earth, Christ the Son of God and man as in heaven; and so you do not get the truth there of their being united to Christ-the body to its Head. Whenever the Christian is looked at in his path through this world, then the "ifs" come in; only with them you get the Messed testimony to the faithfulness of God in carrying us through to heaven. With acceptance and the value of. Christ's blood, there are no " ifs;" but when I am running the race, then I say I must get to heaven. When Israel was redeemed out of Egypt, there was no " if " then: so the one offering has perfected forever them that are sanctified. I am " kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation;" but why do I want to be kept? I find this revelation that I have a need of being kept, so that I am, constantly in need of being entirely dependent every instant upon this grace; but with it the positive revelation that the grace will not fail. Therefore-dependence is maintained, and it is very blessed to be kept in dependence. A man has to learn his entire dependence, as the Lord says, "Without me ye can do nothing." This man does not say, but thinks he can do a great deal; and so we have to learn dependence but at the same time the blessed truth of the unfailing faithfulness of God. " He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous;" He Always has His eyes on them for blessing, though He may have to chasten them.
" Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Why do you say that? Because the devil would pluck them out if he could. Before we come into the effect and result of' all in glory, it is the wisdom of God that I should be called to lean upon Him, So He puts one throne), this process where one’s faith is constantly exercised; and then I have to learn, too, that He never fails me. I have to learn myself, and to learn God. It is painful to learn oneself, but then there is the blessed truth of the unspeakable condescension of God in taking, notice of our state and circumstances. Interested in us every moment, as I said before, " He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous," Intercourse with God is maintained; it is the path we have to walk in as being redeemed. Supposing we were to give up Christ and have done with Him, then we should not have life, or peace, or anything. Some of the Hebrews seem to have been in danger of drawing hack and are warned accordingly.
We will see, where God has set the Christian. Seeing we are risen with Christ is more than seeing we are forgiven. Forgiveness is the perfect clearing away of every spot (the first thing we need). It is all gone in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, where we bad no Part but our sins and the wickedness that crucified Him. " Without shedding of blood there is no remission." If we were not perfected in conscience before God, Christ must have suffered often. What is to put sin away if it is not put away now? I may hate it and judge it more (that is the work of the Spirit in me), but I speak of the putting it away once for all. " Now once in -the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." He came the first time to bear sin; when He comes the second time, He will have nothing to do with sin, He comes to receive us to Himself. We stand between the first coming of. Christ, in which He wrought redemption on the cross' and gave Himself to put away sin, and the second coming of Christ, when, in virtue -of that work, He comes to receive believers to Himself; and the Holy Ghost is come down meanwhile to give me the fall sense of what He did the first time, and the bright and blessed hope of what He will do the second time. We have nothing between, except of course the operations of. the Holy Ghost, for the work of the Spirit is going on, most blessed' in its place, to lead us on to grow up unto Him in all things; but, as regards the work of Christ, He sits in the presence of God because all is done. There is no progress in the value of Christ's blood, nor in the righteousness of God which we are in Christ.
The first thing, then, is redemption-a work which delivers us from the place we were in, and brings us into the new place that Christ is in before God as man. God takes away the sins, and gives' us all Christ besides. It belongs to uses being in Christ, though in this epistle it is more Christ in us.
As for the glories of Christ that are to come-all things created by Him and for Him, and -He taking them all up as man-we read that He is going to reconcile the whole state and order of things in heaven and earth; but you "hath he reconciled." The Christian does not wait till then. I am perfectly reconciled to God. There I was a stranger and an enemy, away from Him; and here I am, my sins entirely gone, and my heart, by this wondrous revelation of love, brought back to delight in God. I am reconciled; and 'a great and blessed thing it is. If I am reconciled to a person with whom I have been at enmity, well then, there is nothing more between us; if there is anything, then I am not reconciled. If you have an after-thought, a misgiving, " after all I do not know whether it is all right," then you are not reconciled; the heart is not free. But we do get -perfect liberty with God through the precious blood of Christ, and the power and presence of the Spirit of God giving us the consciousness of it in our souls. " You hath he reconciled." He makes this difference between us and reconciling the things around us, which will not be till the new heavens and new earth. The state of things will be reconciled, which is not so now, for the world has rejected Christ, and will never see Him in that way again; but we, believers, are reconciled to God. It is God's estimate of Christ's blood that is the measure of my acceptance with Himself; it gives me peace. I have been reconciled to God in the consciousness of the perfect love that gave Christ, but beside that I am brought into perfect favor with God, the favor which rests upon Christ. It is not merely that the old things are swept away, and my sins washed out in the blood of Christ, but the perfect love of God is revealed in doing it. I come back to God in unbounded confidence and infinite love. This is the place of the Christian. Christ, being in us, teaches us, and conducts down into our souls this love of God; and the heart is thus reconciled in blessed peace and righteousness, resting in the consciousness of this perfect grace towards us.
If you look up to God and get into His holy presence, do you feel perfect liberty with Him? Poor unworthy creatures we certainly are in ourselves (and in the light I see more how worthless I am); but God spared not His own Son. There is no doubt or cloud as to that which He is for our souls, because it has been perfectly revealed to us in. the word of God, as it has been proved in Christ Himself and the cross.
Redemption and forgiveness is the first thing; reconciliation is the second. Then mark another thing, beloved friends; "who hath delivered us from the power of darkness." The world is blinded; where God is not known, they are in pitch darkness. They may be very clever on everything else, but this has nothing whatever to do with it. Mau's mental powers may be great; he may be full of science; but the moment his breath goes forth, all that is gone. " The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not"-that is, on Christ's coming into this world. Wherever the light does come in, wherever God is known, what is the effect? It reaches the conscience. If man's mind were capable of judging what God is, or of knowing what He ought to be, then he would be master of the subject. Do you put God in that place? When God comes in, it is to put me in my place, and Himself in His place, as with the woman of Samaria in John 4 All true intelligence of God comes in by the conscience. The heart, no doubt, is attracted by His grace; but all true knowledge of Him comes in by the conscience, though it may be developed afterward.- It is not only light but unspeakable love has been revealed, and He has delivered me fully and brought me into the very place in which Christ is before God. r am "translated into the kingdom of the Son of his love." It is the operation of grace which does come in, and make us know what we are-true moral light in the soul; but the effect is to take me out of darkness, and put me " into the kingdom of the Son of his love."
There is another thing in which many feel more difficulty. " Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." Here we are told of meetness. For what For the inheritance of the saints in light-that is, in glory. But, as a Christian, I am not looking to get at it. He " hath made us meet." May I not say, See what a work God has done? Yea, I am to give thanks for it too. The thief was fit to be Christ's companion in paradise that day. Christ was there for him on the cross, and the value of the work of Christ was proved in taking that man straight to be His own companion above that day. Did God put him in unfit? Of course not. Fit for what? Fit to be with Christ in paradise. Exactly so am I, having " redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins," then reconciled to God, and delivered from the power of darkness, and made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. All that is done, that it may be known now by faith. By grace I do value the death of Christ; but God values it a great deal more. There is where my sin can be fully estimated: I hate it, and confess it; but after all a holy God sees it a great deal more deeply than I do, however sincere I may be. God knows all my sin, and He knows that Christ has put it away. I am left here for two things-to learn a great deal about myself, which is ever humbling; and to learn of God in Christ, the unutterable patience and love and goodness of God.
" For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." I have not merely, as in the law, what a man ought to be; I have now been taught of God, and know what God is and that I am His child-brought to Him by redemption. He says that you are a partaker of His holiness; He is making you enjoy His love: now you must not do anything that would hinder your enjoying it, or that would grieve the Spirit. You are brought into the light, and everything that does not snit the light must go. It is not merely avoiding crimes and positive sins, but you are to be filled with the knowledge of His will. God has a thought, and a mind, and a path for His children; and this is Christ's path, that we should walk in His steps. " He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself to walk even as he walked." Did you ever see Christ avenge Himself? Did you ever see selfishness working in Him? or trying to get rich, or seeking for pleasure or amusement? Then you go and walk like Him, as a person redeemed to God by the precious blood of Christ. It is a great mercy that God has a will about us and a path for us. " I am the way," says Christ. " He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." It is following His steps, walking in the spirit and temper in which He walked. " I have set the Lord always before me."
You will see how the apostle brings that out, " That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." Here am I called to-day and to-morrow to walk worthy of the Lord-nothing that I do, say, or think, which should not be worthy of Christ Himself. Here it is all growth: I have got the life. I say to a child, You go and walk worthy of your family;" but if he has no sense of what his family is, it is no use telling him to walk worthy of it; but, if he has the sense of the integrity and standing of his family, then he knows how to walk worthy of it. " In all things behaving ourselves as the ministers of God." You get the word "worthy" in three ways. In Thessalonians, " Walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory." In Ephesians it is the same thing practically: " Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." Here, in Colossians, it is, " Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." Did He ever do His own will in anything? No, He did His Father's. Are you content never to do your own will, but to take Christ's will as that which is to be the spring and motive of all you do? Then communion is not interrupted; and it is joy and blessing beyond all human thought. You say, "Am I never to do what I like?" Like! Do you like not to be always with Christ? This detects the workings of the flesh.
Then comes the activity, the growing acquaintance with God, "Increasing in [or rather by] the knowledge of God." The fall joy of heaven is the knowledge of God. If I am going after the world, will this be increasing by the knowledge of God? It tests what I like. Do you like to be away from God, and do your own will sometimes? But He says, " I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." Do you delight to do it? Oh, what a thought it is, that in this dark world God has perfectly revealed Himself in Christ, nay more that He dwells in us " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Christ, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." There is God by His Spirit.
Now mark how this works. " Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power." I shall find plenty of difficulties in the way, and temptations of all kinds-possibly death, as has often been the case in some countries; but we are strengthened with all might. There is the strength. I have been brought into close relationship with God, and there I get this power. Unto what " Unto all patience." This sounds a poor thing, but you will find it is just what tries you. " Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." And again, " The signs of an apostle were wrought in me in all patience." Are you always patient? do you not want divine power for it? I may want setting right in the church of God, or in the Lord's work, or in a thousand things; but I must have patience. I must wait on God. Supposing my will is not at work, there comes meekness and gentleness. I can take things gently and meekly and quietly with others, and then he adds, if that is the case, my life is in full display before God, and there is the enjoyment of God. I enter into all this blessedness and not merely " made meet," but " giving thanks," because I am in the positive and blessed enjoyment of all. When I am walking in patience of heart and long-suffering, my soul is with God. I get the blessed enjoyment of what He is, and I grow by the knowledge of Him; " To him that hath shall be given." If I am honest, I say, " I do not know what his will is;" perhaps there is something in myself that I have not yet detected. Here I have all these exercises; but it is in the sense of the divine favor resting on me with the consciousness of a child of God. The more a child is with his father, and delights in him, of course the better he will grow up, understanding what his father likes. It is so with us before God.
Later on we are told, we "have put off the old man with his deeds;" and then it is added, " Put on, there fore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering"-the graces belonging to the Christian. You must have the consciousness of what you are as the elect of God, and then put them on in that blessed consciousness. It was thus Christ ever walked as man.
" Strengthened unto all patience." You will find there is nothing that tests the strength of your soul like waiting for God. We think we must do things that we think right; we must rather learn to wait. Take Saul, for example, in 1 Sam. 13 He ought to have waited, and said, I can do nothing. We have but a little while more to go through the wilderness, but it is with God.
And now, beloved, I only ask, and earnestly ask, you, Are your souls free with God, reconciled to Him? Are you before God in virtue of the cross? or will you pretend to stand before Him as a Judge? " Enter not into judgment with thy servant," says the psalmist, "for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." He who will be the Judge first died on the cross as the Savior. When I appear before Him, I find the person who Himself put away my sins, and in whom I am now resting.
The cross of Christ is-where everything is morally perfected. There the whole question of good and evil was solved. The world despises the cross; and God meant it to be a despicable thing-a gibbet. " But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, that no flesh should glory in his presence." There, on the basest thing in the world, He has hung salvation; but the moment I am inside, I find everything in the cross-the uttermost sin of man in enmity against God, all the power of Satan, but the perfect man in Christ. " The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me;" but, on the other side, God is there in perfect righteousness against sin, and in perfect love for the sinner; and as you go on, you find that the new heavens and the new earth-all things in short-will be perfected by the cross. There I have perfect righteousness against sin, and perfect love towards the sinner; and I find peace and rest, not merely rest but God's rest. For He rests in His love, in the blessedness of those He has brought near in Christ, and He will bring them into His rest in glory.
The Lord give you fully to see the place where He has brought you, and, in the consciousness of your relationship with God, to set it forth,- and walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. Surely we have to give "thanks unto the Father," when we see the unutterable love that is in it all: He not sparing His own Son, but delivering Him up for us all, then follows the suited christian walk. The Lord give you to see, beloved, with the eyes of faith what God was and wrought in Christ, so that you should be before God according to it, as reconciled to Him, and then seek to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing by the knowledge. of God.
Discourses on Colossians 1
It is not the body and its privileges we have here, but the Head and its fullness; not the Spirit, but Christ as our life. But this is quite as momentous. So also we have the walk in view of the hope. We see where the apostle puts us as thus risen with Christ, and yet walking down here, and so a question of finishing our course. In Ephesians we come forth from God, and, being with Him there, show out His character as Christ did. If I say I am risen, let me walk as risen; if justified from sin, yield myself unto God, dead to sin, and alive from the dead.
Verse 4. He had heard of their love to all saints. But one cannot get the knowledge of His will unless it is connected with all saints; for Christ's heart does take in all, and if we do not, we fail to embrace that of which His eye has taken in the circle. (Eph. 3:18.) The moment we get into a risen state, we are all one. We are Jews, Gentiles, all sorts of things, when looked at as men on the earth; but when risen, all that is done with.
There are two things—one may say three—which we have in the resurrection of Christ. First, the testimony of God is to the full acceptance of Christ's work— “God hath raised him from the dead;” and, secondly, the effect of that, which is a new place with God altogether, where neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Adam innocent nor Adam guilty, ever were. It is an entrance into an entirely new condition; we belong to a new creation altogether. This, beloved friends, is of all moment to our hearts—the consciousness of our relationship with God. As to Christ, sins are past, judgment past, death past, Satan's power past, when He rose from the dead. His death had been a terrible testimony to the state of the old man—it was a total breach with man in the flesh. “Let no fruit grow upon thee henceforth and forever.” We never get fully into the consciousness of our proper blessing till we clearly and distinctly understand, not only that we are guilty, but that the tree is bad. God has set-aside man, and in the flesh he cannot please God; he has no actual living connection with Him whatever—no life, no nature, in which he can please Him. (Rom. 8) When we talk of being risen with Christ, we have left all that scene behind us which Christ has left behind; not of the world, as He is not of it, though we have to go through it, of course, and to keep ourselves unspotted from it. Christ got into life again—a totally new state past all these things; we are crucified with Him, dead to sin and the world, and in this new condition in which Christ is now. He was there dying under our sins—we, found dead in them, and now quickened along with Him, with all our trespasses forgiven. In Colossians it is only this change of position, not all that it involves.
The apostle desired for them that they should be walking here as risen men, filled with knowledge, that there might be the doing of His will. There is a path which the vulture's eye has not seen, but which is unfolded in Christ, which He has tracked for us, and “he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” If you look at Christ, you never see one single thing done for Himself: perfect grace, a testimony to the will of God, which is known only spiritually, not legal righteousness. It is such righteousness to be smitten on one cheek, and turn the other? That is the only thing we have now to look for, which will not be found even in heaven—a perfect path in the midst of evil. It is a trying path often: people will trample upon you; but is my object to keep Christ, or my character? You will soon find in that way what the motive that governs you is. If the eye is single, you will get knowledge from God, as the vulture, the most clear-seeing creature there is. The eye of Christ in us sees the thing that pleases Christ, and, of course, the world cannot understand that at all. They may admire it, for they see the unselfishness of it. The more we go on, and the more evil grows up, infidelity corruption and superstition, the more that faithfulness will tell. The world may not understand why a person gives up all he has, but it sees that he does so—that there are motives which govern the heart soberly and quietly. Bring the word of God to them; they do not think it is a good sword, but it is; for it reaches the conscience, and no man is an infidel in his conscience. In the midst of this poor selfish world, if there is a person who is living entirely for another, they cannot understand it. The fact that they cannot understand it makes them understand it in one sense; they see there is something they cannot understand.
Verse 10. “Walk worthy of the Lord” —the whole object of the Christian in his going out and coming in, in his whole path in life. What a wonderful privilege! A poor creature in myself, but called on to walk worthy of the Lord. Beloved brethren, think of it!
Verse 11. “Strengthened with all might... unto all patience and long-suffering.” What was Christ's life? All patience and long-suffering; everything was against Him, and His path the path of unchanging goodness, of all patience and long-suffering, in passing along. Seek in this world patience and Long-suffering. The world, being a world which will not have the principles of the Christian, will not have Christ; our path in it is patience—patience in service with souls. Souls are full of themselves, but always at bottom there is a want. “Redeeming the time,” not diligence, but seeking opportunities which are given, and being so full of Christ that I do not miss them when given. Patience may seem a little thing, but just try your own heart, and see if it does not test you. Saul waited six days and three quarters, and lost the kingdom because he could not wait the other quarter. He acted for himself. Nature could wait a long time, but could not go through with the thing. Patience acts for God: “Let patience have its perfect work.” Christ never did His own will; you are set to do His will, sanctified to His obedience.
Now the apostle lays the ground which I had on my heart at the beginning; but what I have been saying is of all practical importance. The light is my place. We never can give a right testimony, or be servants to others, till our own relationships with God are perfectly settled. You cannot carry the testimony of God with intelligence unless you know your own place. It is not that you talk about yourself, but can you say in God's presence, “I am thanking Thee because Thou hast made me meet?” The walk is all founded upon this I insist on it, for we all know how it is rejected, but it is the ground on which all Christians are set. You may go through the deepest exercises (the deeper the better), but when brought into your place as a Christian, you give thanks that He has made you meet. That perfect and infinite love has taken me up, a poor sinner, and made me meet for the light. That is where I am—a blessed thought—it is the perfectness of love; God's thought, and He has carried it out. Supposing me to be actually risen, am I not fit for the inheritance of the saints in light? Self-righteousness (which is a very subtle thing) says, “I am not fit.” Why, you do not know yet how bright that light is! But I do know that He, whose love has thought of me, must have that which is fit for His presence, for He is light as well as love, and He has wrought it in Christ. The prodigal was quite as sincere when he set out in his rags as afterward, but he was not fit to go in till he had the best robe on.
Verse 18. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,” &c. Here we are naturally in Satan's kingdom, the ruler of the darkness of this world. A man may not mean wickedness, but the glory of this world—its grandeur—has influence on the heart. Well, it is darkness, simple darkness, and all the time that is spent there is loss, for everything that is not Christ is loss—there is no life in it. The life of Christ in us cannot be looking after wealth, and power, and vanity—the one thing we have to do in the world is to overcome it. The blinding power of Satan is there, but we are delivered from it. It does not say, “brought into light,” but it gives the experimental consciousness of what the light is— “the kingdom of the Son of his love,” it is light. I get out of this darkness, which only ministers to my wretched selfishness, to nothing but self, the very opposite of what Christ was. There is one true, holy, blessed place—the presence of God. I have got into (not merely the light, but) the kingdom of the Son. The One who is the delight of the Father's heart, the sufficient and adequate object of the Father's heart, who satisfies and draws out His love—we are brought into the kingdom of that Son. We have to go through the world, which has risen up because man was turned out of paradise; but I have passed out of it into the kingdom where God's perfect delight in His Son is. We have to judge ourselves, and watch, that it may be effectually wrought in us; but here the apostle is giving thanks that it is, done—that we are brought, even while here, to know we are loved as Christ is loved. He has given us what is sufficient for His heart and our hearts to delight in, and, in the second place, we are loved as He is loved.
“All things were created by him and for him;” but He could not, in the counsels and love of God, take those things without having joint-heirs—His bride. He has come up, after having wrought redemption, not only Head over everything He has created as man, but also Head of the body, the church.
Verse 21. “And you hath he reconciled;” that is more than “made meet” for what God wants, according to His holy nature. We are not simply fitted, but God has reconciled our hearts now in that perfect love which has come out, and wrought all in Christ's death, while the world is not reconciled. The reconciliation of Christians is a present effectual thing, through the knowledge of the perfect love of God, which did not spare His own Son. He has given Him for my sins, blotted them out, and left no uneasiness on my conscience. Not only are my sins forgiven, but I am reconciled to God. Take it up in your consciences, beloved friends. Christ my righteousness, sins all gone, myself loved as He is loved—that is my place. How far can your souls be looking up to God, without one thing to hinder your enjoyment He has brought us to Himself—brought into His presence, in the full sense of the unclouded love of His heart.
Then we get the effect of this as regards the testimony. Paul was made a minister of two things, and so are we, whether in private dealing with souls, or in public ministry. I have learned this love which reconciles, and I will carry it out to every creature. I carry the love of Christ so in my soul, that, if a want comes, I have what will minister to it—so living in the love of God, with the sense of it in our souls, that it comes out naturally. If I meet souls, do I carry God to them? That is the Christian testimony; we carry this in our own souls, as made meet and reconciled. No matter what comes, difficult times, &c., if I can only carry it out, there is that which, if any one has ears to hear, is heard in the heart. I may be rejected; of course, as Christ was, but that is the character of the testimony—the light too, as well as the love.
The second thing is the ministry of the church. This is not to sinners; but you cannot have a due sense of the thoughts and purposes of God in bringing us where He has, without carrying it all with you. The church supposes the fullness of love, and the perfectness of redemption, which breaks through our testimony. If we are conscious of this, that God has called us to be the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, which He is gathering to present to Himself, that love which has been known to us in its fullness will give a stamp and character to everything we say. It would be a gospel which carries its testimony to the ruin of man, but also to the love which is never satisfied till it sets us with the Son. A complete redemption cannot be hid—I cannot preach the gospel without bringing it in. The current of love, which we know, lays the foundation in the heart of all that is built upon it, and it gives another character to the gospel. My being with God, according to that perfect reconciliation, enables me to go out and meet the want of every poor sinner. You may do it in difficulty and trial, but carry that with you, and neither infidelity, nor anything else, can answer it.
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Discourses on Colossians 2
There is practically one subject in what I have read, but divided into two parts: one, Christ as contrasted with all the thoughts of the world; and the other, the true place of the Christian as in Him. It is a new place, even in Christ. He begins by pressing on them a warning against all the philosophy and Judaism abroad. They really ran into the same channel; and this is connected with the second point referred to, because they belong to this world. Christ is put, first, in opposition to all that; and, secondly, he unfolds that what is in Christ is in a risen Christ, outside of this world. There are the same things current now, for people are turning back to “the rudiments of the world.” All this infidelity and ritualism have just the same root, though not the same shape; both belong to this world, and are what man's mind and imagination, as a child of Adam, can take up. The contrast is Christ risen—Christ out of this world.
This chapter brings out both. They are the workings of man's mind and imagination—what man can do; whereas the moment you get what God has revealed in Christ, and the place Christ is in, man has nothing to do with it. They are the rudiments of this world: the one is reasoning, mental flesh; and the other is imaginative flesh. This Ritualism—Christ offered every Sunday, &c.—is as if there was not one offering for sin. But I find “By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” Then it is not perfected! This makes all the difference. My imagination and fancy can take hold of these things, or the mind rejects them; but they are the denial that Christ has finished the work.
We are very little aware (though they are quite different parts of human nature) how it all has to do with man—man not delivered from himself—and having Christ instead: The apostle first warns them, and then shows what the real thing is, that is, Christ in heavenly places. God had taken up human nature among the Jews to see if it could be brought into connection with Him, and it could not. It was, in a certain sense; but God had to hide Himself behind a veil: if there were no veil, you must be able to stand in the light, as God is light. God never came out, but He gave a gorgeous worship, and He gave the law as a more perfect rule for human nature, for man as he is. The question is, has man kept it? No one has. Where a person is going on under Judaism, he will take all the gorgeous part of it, and, on the other hand, be takes the law, without the consciousness that he has not kept it. Of course numbers fear the law when their conscience is awakened; and, where there is truth of conscience under such a system, they are always unhappy. Man's mind takes its own course, and ends necessarily without finding God. “Can man by searching find out God?” Instead of that, you get God fully revealed in Christ, and man brought to God in Christ. Christianity supplants the darkness of the natural mind (I do not say soul), which could have nothing to do with God, add which, take it in its fullest broadest sense, it is necessarily atheism, as it never reaches to God, it confining itself to what my mind can find out; and that is what they were all at here.
The apostle was anxious about them, because they were constantly mixed up with these things—living in the midst of these Greek philosophers. Although he had never been there, yet his heart knew experimentally, by the power of the Holy Ghost, what the snares were, and he says, “I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you.” He felt the dangers that were there, and he looked on these saints as belonging to Christ, whom he so loved and labored for, and he showed interest in them.
Verse 2. Here I get the understanding of the mystery of God, and that is another thing altogether. It is not the way we are accustomed to understand the word “mystery,” as a thing not to be found out; but it is a thing only known by revelation—it is not known save to the initiated. It is that which by divine revelation and teaching we know, and it brings us into a totally new world.
You get, then, another important thing needed. Supposing I was the greatest scientist in the world, there is not a bit of love about it: it is connected with nobody, and there is not an atom of soul-work in it. Therefore God cannot be known, for God is love. Faith gives us an inlet into all the things that love has done. Science is as cold as ice—dead cold: you cannot let a bit of feeling in. There is no relationship with anything in the world or any One above it. (Ver. g.) But revelation lets in “To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God” —God the source of their life, God the One who dwells there by the Holy Ghost among them, and gives the feeling that flows from the relationship into which they are brought. The mind may get developed, but there is no moral [motive?] in it—it is not in its nature. The Christian acts by a motive. Science does not touch the ground that the soul is on. What has feeling to do with the discovery of how the physical nature works? In Christ I learn the blessed truth, that God dwells in me by the power of the Spirit in the divine nature, and. I have communion with the Father and the Son. I get into a new world altogether.
Then I rise “unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding.” Understanding of what? Of how animals were born? No; of the hidden mystery. I get my heart opened to see all the scope of God's plans and counsels in Christ. You get the “full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22.) (that is not science!) that “he that hath received his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true.” Science says, “I think this, and I think that” —such is all it has. I find adequate certainty about all common things, but if I have the testimony of God, I get the positive certainty of faith—the only certainty we have. I have set to its seal that God is true—He cannot but be true.
I get another “full assurance,” and that is “hope” (Heb. 6:11), for there you have the affections engaged, and the things realized. It gives much greater reality—the very acquaintance imparts great reality. I am going to be in the same glory with Christ, and that is the full assurance of hope. Am I going to be there? Yes, of course, if you are a believer, and you have the earnest of it in your hearts. “Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven” —that is the full assurance of hope.
The third thing goes much higher— “Full assurance of understanding” —for it is part of God's plan and counsel in Christ; and if we are not there, Christ's glory is not complete, and it cannot be otherwise. “We have the mind of Christ.” If I have the full assurance of hope, then I see these things as a part of God's plan and Christ's glory, and that is the full assurance of understanding.
“To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” There is nothing so certain in the world as the revelation of God, known only by redemption. Now you belong to another world: these things (philosophy, Judaism, &c.) do not belong to the world I am in. Of course there is God's creation, but it is His first creation; it passes away, or we perish from it. It is a wonderful creation, but that is not being reconciled to God, and being in the new creation. In this mystery are all God's wisdom and knowledge—all summed up—all His counsels there, to which the natural mind has not even an entrance, and never can, for “they are spiritually discerned.” It rests on the revelation of God. The soul finds its affections in the new creation; it has a world it belongs to, and “they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.” You get the figure of it in Abram. He had not so much as to set his foot upon; he was not in the land, but he belonged to it, and that is just where we are, “As having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” The world attracts Lot's heart in the character of its efforts at grandeur; but Abram was a stranger and pilgrim, and he says, “If thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” Lot goes down to the plain just ripening for judgment, and pitched his tent near Sodom; then he gets nearer and nearer, till he is snatched out of it. As soon as Lot had gone down and chosen this prosperous place, then God says to Abram, “Lift up now thine eyes,” &c. As soon as he had completely given up the world in heart, then the promised land rose up before him. He realized the thing that was promised to him. It was separation to God in faith. He got the fall assurance of hope.
Now he goes on to show where the Christian is, not what he is yet. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” It is Christ up in heaven in another world. “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Here I find the actual starting-place, and this is, that in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead bodily is revealed; I have the perfect revelation of the fullness of the Godhead in Christ. I have nothing new to look after (save, of course, to know it better), for I cannot go beyond the fullness of the Godhead, and it is revealed to me. In Christ, in that Man—more than man, for He was God too—has been the revelation of the /illness of the Godhead. It requires eyes to see it; but to faith, which saw through the veil of His humiliation when here, there was not a trait in His character, an act in His conduct, or an expression of the feeling of His heart going out to the misery around Him, that was not the revelation of the Godhead: the Father was revealed, as in John 14, all was revealed, and nothing else to seek after, except to know it better.
Then I get the other blessed side (ver. 10), “In him dwelleth all the completeness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him” (just the same word in the original). Yes, and I say I am complete iii Him before God—God is completely revealed to me in Christ; but what about you? can you stand before Him? I am before Him, complete in Christ, with not a single thing wanting. This makes it such a full statement of what the mystery is—the positive revelation of all the fullness of the Godhead in One who has come close to me in love, that I may know He is love: When Christ was in this world, He did not seek anything great or grand for Himself. What did He seek? Sorrow, poverty, misery. That is what God has been doing in this world—perfect love (and power too) relieving distress—love that brought down perfect goodness to where I was; that is what God is to me. Perfect goodness in the midst of all the sorrow and misery of this world, and the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily! Ah, poor science! it is a long way off from that. It can tell me about protoplasms, but about divine love never!
The mystery of Christ shows me this completeness without going to outside things—not, up in the clouds to reach it if we can, but brought down to me here. I am complete in Christ, but as I find God perfectly revealed (none of us can measure it, of course, or even go through it—we have to search it out, and grow in it), then I find this on the other side: How can I stand before Him, and grasp all that? Are you fit to be in His presence? Yes; I say, “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” That is the place you are brought into, lust as the completeness of the Godhead was brought to us in Christ. Then I find that I am complete according to all God's thoughts. Just as God stood in Christ before man, man stands in Christ before God. It is not merely philosophy spelling out what has been all around us since the creation, it is the One who created it all. And besides this, I find the personal blessedness in it. I am complete in Him, I have everything I want, and that I want for eternity. “Both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one” —all one set. What life have I got? Christ. What righteousness? Christ. What glory? Christ. Just in one position and state. How can I tell how much God loves me? This I can tell you (or rather Christ has told us), that you are loved as Christ is loved. And we know it now. “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it,” &c. He dwells in us, and the Holy Ghost brings down this love into our hearts; “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.”
Now the apostle turns to a special thing which was their difficulty then, that, while he gives the whole scope of God's mind in the mystery, he goes down and deals with this fleshly religion. The Colossians were accustomed to be in the midst of these things. The Jewish system was bringing out for us whether man in the flesh could have to do with God. How many souls there are now under the law in their hearts (they are lawless if they are not)! You must get the knowledge of sin by the law, if rightly applied. It is man, as responsible man, getting a perfect rule of what he ought to be, and circumcision is merely the expression of that death of the flesh. All that was shadowed forth in those things you have in Christ.
The apostle turns more to details to show where we are as Christians. (Ver. 11.) A totally new thing it is—the putting off the body of the flesh. They never had circumcision in the wilderness, not till they crossed the Jordan—a figure of our dying with Christ. Gilgal was the place where they rolled away the reproach of the world. I get the same here. Before it was a circumcision made with hands—now without. I have the true circumcision. Instead of the mere outward ritual of the thing, I have the thing itself. I am complete in Christ. How so? Why I am dead and gone! I have put off the old man altogether. I am not speaking of carrying it out: this you get in 2 Cor. 4:10. A risen Christ is my life, all connection with this world is gone. I am dead to sin, and alive to God. I have put off the body of the flesh, I have died with Christ. I reckon myself dead. I have got a risen Christ as my life; to faith then I have done with this flesh—done with it altogether. I have got this new thing; I am in it (of course I am in this poor earthly tabernacle still, but) I do not belong to this world; I have died through the death of Christ. It is not merely saying you must die—saying “you must” does not give a thing. If you have died with Christ, you are risen with Him—you have left it all behind. It is the very character and meaning of baptism. I have died, I am baptized to Christ's death. Here am I, a living man, and I go through death with Christ (an outward sign, of course). A person who has gone with Christ into His grave, and come up out of it again. He passed out of the condition He was in here as a man on the earth into a totally new place—God raised Him from the dead. You then get, “Wherein also ye are risen with him,” &c. As a Christian you are risen; I have got into this new state. I say that is myself, for I am a Christian.
And now we get much further light on our condition. “And you being dead in your sins.” (Ver. 13.) I was living in sins in the other, but the truth of “dead in sins” goes a good deal farther. Alive as regards my sins, but dead as regards God. This goes farther, and takes up the nature that likes doing them. There is not one single thing in your heart with which God could link Himself. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” There is nothing in heaven your nature would like.
I get now, not merely “quickened,” but “quickened together with him” (ver. 13); because, supposing I am alive, I may be spiritually alive, or I may be in Rom. 7. Any one there says, “I think Christ is precious to me, and I love His word, and His people,” but He is examining himself to find out if he is in the new creation. Like the prodigal, he has not met the father; but that is not quickened together with Christ—quickened, no doubt, and when I speak of being quickened in that way, it is the divine operation of a new life in my soul. But quickened together with Christ is different. Where do I see Christ Himself? Not as quickener, but as quickened. Christ as man has been raised from the dead. He died under our sins—for them—He went on unto death for us, and God has raised Him up, and, supposing I am a believer, I am raised up with Him. If I look at myself, it is as raised with Christ, as it says here, “Quickened together with him.” It looks at Christ as a dead man, but that in coming down to death He put away my sins, and therefore I am raised with Him. It is not merely the fact that I have life; I have life in a new condition where Christ is. I have got into a new place before God—Christ's place—and all my sins are left on the other side of Christ's grave. I do not own the old man, it is the horrid thing that has been deceiving me.
There are two more things I would just mention. There are these ordinances—all “blotted out.” All the things the flesh can do in order to gain acceptance are dead in the flesh that did them. Where do I find Christ now that we are risen? Where do I find Christ in the Lord's supper? It is His death. “Bringing Christ into the elements,” as people say; there is no such thing, for it is a dead Christ. The shed blood shows forth His death, and there is no such Christ now. After His resurrection He is alive, death can have no more dominion over Him. And so baptism, as to its signification, it is unto His death. I have gone down with Christ to death, and I am risen with Him.
Only one thing more. In order to bring us thus complete in Him, there were other things against us—these “principalities and powers.” (Ver. 15.) Christ has destroyed Satan's power in the cross; I was a living man in sin—that is gone. Then all these ordinances I was bound to—they are gone. Well, then, Satan's power (not that he has not power) Christ has triumphed over him, “Through death destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil;” so death has lost its power too. The cross of Christ has closed the history of the old man, and of all its associations. I was a slave of sin, “I am quickened together with Him.” A slave to ordinances, they are “nailed to his cross. A slave to Satan, his power is destroyed. I am risen with Christ beyond these things, and that is where the Christian is. I am going to have an everlasting holiday; I have it even now in spirit. I am going to God's rest in heaven. I do not keep days, for that is going back to heathenism. Do you think the sun going round will make them keep days in heaven? It is an everlasting holiday; it is only in our hearts now, for if we follow Christ, we learn its sorrows and griefs too, for He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” We are taken out of all the speculation of philosophy, for we are in a world into which it cannot get.
Now, beloved friends, are your hearts ready to accept such a Christianity? The flesh clings to what the flesh likes—clings to the world, and that which Satan has power over us by, and therefore there is still the combating. But are you content with this? I do not talk about realization, but are you content to take that path which Christ walked as your path?—to take up your cross daily and follow Him? It looks bitter to the flesh, for it is in another world that the flesh can have nothing to say to, even in thought. We shall fail in many things, but are you content to have done with the world into which you were born—to be dead out of it? It is the character and essence of what Christianity really is. My place is as a Christian come up out of Christ's grave. Are you content to take such a Christianity as that? You will never escape the wiles of the devil—either philosophy or Ritualism—you have not got what takes you out of their sphere and dominion. It is the wiles of the devil we have to stand against, not his power—resist him. We have still that allowed in us, in our lives, which Satan can use and get a hold of. You say I must have done with this world that does not want Christ; but if I am risen with Christ, I say I have done with it. The more we go on, the more we shall see it is what is needed. If we are not using the power of Christ in that way, we shall not succeed. If we are risen with Christ, there is a world that the life belongs to, and a world that the flesh cannot touch. Is my heart living for the world where Christ is gone, or for this world?
The Lord give us to see Him so precious, that those things that were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. It is all very easy with a single eye, but “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” If Christ is up there, then, of course, our hearts will go after Him. It must be a thorough thing.
Discourses on Colossians 2
We see in this epistle that Christ is all: there is life in Him; then we see the object into which this life grows—the child grows up into that. We get, further, all the scene into which Christ has entered, as the child grows up into the scene around him. Christ is all, and He is in all too. Then another thing, which we are all conscious of—the way in which He has met our need as poor sinners, the work of Christ which He has wrought for us all alone; all that meeting our consciences, and the effect of it too, which is that the Christian is looked at in two different ways—as a sinner saved, and as one who stands in the system and circle of God's purpose; they are two very distinct things, and the way of treating them is distinct too.
There are many thorough and devoted Christians who do not get beyond this first thing that. God has done; but there is another thing—the thought and purpose God had in doing it, our portion looked at as connected with the Second Adam.
He is our Savior as regards the first man, looked at as responsible man, but behind all that, and beyond all that, there is the purpose of God, in which we are looked at, not as in the first man, but in the Second. You get the old man looked at (vers. 12, 18), one dying for our sins, standing in our place as guilty sinners, saving and justifying us; and then you get the second point, “quickened together with Christ.” Whenever he speaks of quickening in these epistles, it is not merely the fact of having life; He looks at us as dead in our sins, not responsible people, but dead, and God not dealing with a responsible man, but a new creation, totally new; it is quite a different aspect, though they run into one another. I have died in Christ— “in which things ye walked when ye lived in them,” and death had to come in as to that life.
There are two things in connection with that, though he does not go much into the second in this epistle. First, we are a new creation, then there is the sphere in which this new creation has its life. Our conversation is in heaven. As to myself, I know that in me dwelleth no good thing, but I am placed, like Christ, before God; He has said, “My Father, and your Father;” as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly—that takes another scope altogether.
We come in as guilty sinners. If I merely get hold of the purpose of God, without conscience being reached as to sins, there is no truth in it; I must know what I am in myself before I can know what I am made in Christ. That is the point I had in my mind, which I desire to have your hearts turned to—the difference between saving a sinner, and one whom Christ is not ashamed to call a brother; that is not true about sinful Adam. Looked at as new creatures, we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. In Colossians he does not go much farther than that. A new creature which grows up as a child does in the sphere in which it lives, in which all its thoughts and affections are developed.
Verse 2. You do not want the wisdom of the world here; the life is of God. We are passed through this world, left here for exercises and trials, much to learn and much to unlearn, but still we get this sphere into which we are brought by grace, as well as the nature which is capable of enjoying it.
Verse 6. So walk ye in Him. If Christ is our life, let us walk in Him, the heart not getting out of this sphere which belongs to the new creation. You must all know, if you know anything of your own hearts, that double-mindedness is a great snare, even in the most sincere. We are constantly surrounded with that which belongs to the old man. I am not talking of sins. Take an unconverted man—his heart is like a highway for everything that comes before him in the world. That is an extreme case, but for us there is the danger of distraction, politics, all the things going on around us, and the heart is not living in the sources of strength, it is double-minded—I do not mean in will, but that which determines the conduct of a Christian is not there, it is not the strait and narrow way for his heart, but that running through his mind and heart, which saps the spiritual strength, and the manna is light food for him, not sweet as honey, but light food. That is the danger of distraction, and so he says, “Beware.”
Verse 8. “Not after Christ.” That is the turning-point. The world has its principles, its rudiments, and all these things that distract us belong to the world's estimate of things, and we do not suspect danger. People are talking of things around, and we are drawn into the ordinary conversation, and we come out with the consciousness that we have been unfaithful to Christ, and our spiritual strength is weakened. When the people were thinking of the leeks, the onions, and the cucumbers, they forgot they had been making bricks without straw in Egypt. A glorified Christ on high is the testimony that the world would not have Christ, and it goes on with its own rudiments and principles. Look at the prayer in Eph. 3—what infinite blessedness! the poor world has not got that, and there you get the sphere of the life.
“In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” I get this wonderful central object, that where all the fullness of the Godhead is, it has all been in a Man: how little our hearts reach up to it! He says, “Strengthened with might,” that we may. But there it is for us, and in us too we can say in one sense; but that which He looks for is, that, having got in a Man, the object of the Father's delight, all the fullness of the Godhead, I should feed upon that with joy. If my soul has really felt and seen the fullness of the Godhead in Him in this world, if my eyes are open to see what He was there, I find this wonderful thing, a Man who is much meeker than I am, who thinks about my feelings much more than I do about His, and He is here close to me—a Man much more true, humble, gracious, affable than any other; and now we are united to Him where He is. You find what people do when they are settled in the truth of justification—they go back, and feed upon the Gospels, He becomes the food of the soul, and its object, and we find this unspeakable truth, that He who is sufficient for the Father's delight is sufficient for mine—my thoughts poor enough, but His perfect. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;” that is what is before us in “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and this truth was the very first one that was attacked, And this is the reason of one of those cases of gracious thoughtfulness which we get at the well of Samaria: “If thou knewest who it was who had come down so low as to be dependent on a woman like you for a drink of water”
He was utterly alone in a world of sinners, and then worked redemption, and now we are brought through the power of redemption and the Holy Ghost to see Who He is.
He never gives up His Godhead place. It does not cease to be condescension when the thing is complete, and instead of waiting on our infirmities, it is bringing us into His blessedness. What are all the distractions of the world in the face of such a thing! It was His intention we should walk by faith; when He speaks of sight, it is the sight of heavenly things, but it is equally true we cannot live by sight here.
Verse 10. If the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, we are complete in Him too—complete according to God's mind, in Christ before God. What is the measure of that completeness? Christ. And what is that “in Christ?” God looked down at Christ; looks at Him now, He is all the desire of His heart, and we are complete in Him. All that satisfies God's delight, His spiritual judgment (if I may use such an expression of God), He also brings us into (of course, He keeps His Godhead). All His thoughts as to righteousness, holiness, love, are satisfied in Christ, and we are complete in Him. What a place, beloved brethren! And it was brought down to us in perfect grace where we were; and, on the other hand, there is all that God's heart and righteousness could delight in, and we are in that, Christ the measure. God had His measure for man, that was the law, what the first man ought to be, but here it is where all God's thoughts are satisfied, not in the first man, but, in His own wisdom, in the second Man.
He applies it now in detail. We see how God takes us up as poor sinners, to redeem us; first, as regards His dealings with us where we were; and then taking us in our lowest possible condition as dead in sins, we see what He has brought us into. Here I get the putting off, the circumcision; that is no part of the purpose of God. It is not pat off outwardly, it is the discovery, not of certain things we have done, but of this old stock, the flesh, which is enmity against God, a positive thing in me, to which death must be applied; it is in grace, for it is the death of Christ. I find the evil thing, the Flesh, lusting against the Spirit, and the only remedy for that is death; to reckon ourselves dead, that is our place as Christians, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I get the figure of that here in the putting off of a thing always evil in its nature. If I try to keep it down, as not knowing it is dead in Christ, it will be a laborious effort, in which I can never succeed; but if I see it is dead with Christ, I see it is a question between Christ and God. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh; God sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” as does not talk of forgiving it; it was an evil nature, and He condemned it in death.
But in all this God is dealing still with the old thing. First, I need to get my sins blotted out as guilt, but when I want, in honesty of heart, to walk aright, I find this—I died there; I am not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; and I say, It is not I, it is only sin, and that was crucified in the cross. But then all that deals with the old man, It is the necessity of my condition, but not the purpose of God. Many, alas have not even learned that. They see their sins are forgiven, but not that they have died out of that condition, so as to have done with it altogether. I am entitled to reckon myself dead, and then I get in Christ, who has redeemed me by the Holy Ghost, power against it; but still that is all about the old thing. I get this death to sin, and resurrection. too, but still dealing with the old thing. But then, when I come to the new thing, I can look at it in another aspect. It is stated in this epistle and in Ephesians. In Ephesians it is more as to its nature, “which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth.” God's own nature reproduced, it was manifested in Christ, the pattern and fullness of it. In Col. 3:10 it is expressed a little differently: “Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” I have got to know what love is; I know what righteousness in the divine sense is, and I know what holiness is. If I am chastened, it is that I may be a partaker of His holiness: “renewed in knowledge;” I press that, for while Colossians does not put us so much into the new sphere, I am renewed in knowledge, He has brought into our souls the knowledge of what is pleasing to God, a new nature, associated with God in its very being and nature.
Supposing for a moment that I have known justification, have known the old man dead, I get another thing, “dead in your sins.” (Ver. 18.) When I come to know myself, I see that, spiritually speaking, I was dead, not a living sinner dealing with the old thing as bad, but I am dead in sins; my starting-point is total alienation from God; it is not the things I have done, nor the evil nature that did them, but no one thing in my heart that answered to God, and when the only thing that answered to God's heart was here, we would have nothing to do with Him. I have got on to another ground now; I have found out that, in respect of God, I was dead in sins; but then, when I was lying, in a spiritual sense, dead in sins, Christ came down to the cross, and He died for my sins, and I get Christ, not as the quickening Son of God, but I get Him quickened, and with that alone in scripture the new creation begins. When speaking of the lusts and sins of the old man, I say, You must die; but now on this ground I am totally dead, not a movement of my heart towards God, and nothing could stir any movement. It was tried, God, in His love, sending His Son, and what it woke was hatred.
I am quickened together with Him, an entirely new thing, which I had not before, Christ now the only life I have. God's power has come in, and taken me spiritually out of that state, as He took Christ out of it, and has put me into Christ, not yet with Him. I am created in Christ Jesus, and so he says, If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation: our faith ought to realize it, for we are not there actually yet.
In this new creation we are sitting together in Christ, but it does not go so far as that in Colossians; He makes me a partaker of His own nature; and that is the only thing I own at all. What is the first man? What does he belong to? To the world, of course. This makes one of the difficulties of the Christian. I cannot expect the world to see what I see. But there is a path the vulture's eye hath not seen, and He does help us through these difficulties. We have to go through it, but this is not the world, the now Man belongs to.
As dead in sins, we are totally away from God. Do not we know it, beloved friends? Take the most respectable, decent man in the world—the things of Christ have no interest for him—he is dead towards God; he may be intelligent, honest, &c., but you never get Christ in his heart. It was just the same with ourselves. It is not a question of reprobate criminals, but we were dead.
Supposing I get a dead man, is there any motion in his heart towards another? No. Can you produce any? No. You may galvanize him for a moment, just as striking impressions may be produced, but he is dead. But I get this unspeakable grace, that Christ came down here actually to death. God quickened Him and us, and I am a partaker of the divine nature, a totally new thing—the second Adam, not the first—a man that belongs to God's new creation, because he is a new creation. We never know thoroughly our blessing until we get hold of that; the Thorough consciousness of what we were as dead in sins, the grace of Christ in coming down here, and therefore we are totally and actually raised out of it into another world. God has a new creation, of which Christ is the Head, He sitting now at God's right hand alone, and we strangers and pilgrims seeking a country, Christ the ensample, and we have to follow His steps, the path which none but the spiritual eye can see through this world. A new man, created of God, the life I have now got as created to satisfy Himself and all that He is. When we were these poor wretched sinners, guilty, away from God, it was in the purpose of His heart, ordained before the world, unto our glory. I cannot enlarge upon this now perhaps could not do it properly if I tried. But there is that sphere we belong to altogether, though left to go through this world.
Beloved brethren, as born of God you belong not to this world at all, but to the world where Christ has gone to prepare a place for you, and from whence He is preparing you for the place. When dead in sins, He has quickened us together with Christ—the divine grace of the Son of God, who became a man on purpose to die, and came into our death and sins, made sin for us, and He is gone to be the beginning and the Head of this new creation. Our every-day trial is, how far we are living in this new creation, our conversation in heaven.
There are these two things: the nature you have got, “created after God in righteousness and true holiness;” and then, where will that find what will satisfy its affections? It is revealed to us in Christ, and the Holy Ghost down here has brought these things out before us, “that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
We have to see, beloved brethren, how far we are not only keeping out the evil lusts of our hearts, but as new creatures are living in the new creation of God. I may be a babe in it, of course, but the affections of the babe are as true as those of the old man. How far is your conversation in heaven, where Christ is gone to prepare a place where you may be with Him and like Him? your hearts in love and thankfulness to Him who loved you, living in the things He died to bring you into.
What I desire your hearts to study in scripture is this—that while there is this reckoning ourselves dead, those is the other aspect, that, dead in sins, we are created anew in Christ Jesus. You are a new creation as to state and condition, but how far are you living in the sphere it belongs to? It is a wonderful thing to think God has created us thus, Christ the attractive point there, the power of it all; and what is this poor world to me?
The Lord give us, beloved friends, as quickened together with Christ, all trespasses forgiven, to see what it is to have our conversation in that which we belong to.
Discourses on Colossians 3
We get here the great groundwork of Christian life, and the development of Christian life itself, both negatively and positively—what we put off, and what we put on.
It is of all moment for us, not only to understand it as stated in scripture, but to have the statements of scripture transferred to our hearts and consciences, that we are in an entirely new creation, “renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” So the first man was made in the image of God, though now a lost ruined creature. In death and resurrection man gets a new place altogether, not only quickened, but quickened together with Christ. A man may be quickened as to the state of his mind, and yet think he is alive in the world, which is the very thing we are not. As to our condition before God, we do not belong to the life that is on this side of death. A new life may be given, and the man left down here; but Christ is looked at as a man who has died here, after having come into our place, taken the judgment, the cup, and gone away beyond it; and this is our place; not as to our bodies, of course, for we have the treasure in earthen vessels, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our bodies; but our place in faith and in life is Christ's place, the second Man's place, and not the first man's. If our bodies, it is the first; if our souls, it is the second. We are taken out of the old place by redemption. I repeat it, for it is very important for the apprehension of faith, that Christ the Son, a divine person, communicated life, but Christ died, and now we are quickened together with Him. The place we were in by sin and disobedience, He was in for us, and having perfected the work needed to redeem us, we are taken up into the place where He is, and when He comes to raise the dead, we shall be there actually. Now it is putting on the character of Christ, then it will be actually the thing in glory.
All through, the teaching here is not simply that we are born of God, but raised with Christ, He as man actually thee, and it is the basis of Christianity to understand it, and the love that gave Him too. We have to watch and deny the ways of the old man; he seeks a place in the world, likes consideration, &c.; but Christ took the lowest place, and calls us to follow Him. As to our place with God, it is as near Him as Christ is. “If you died with Christ, how can you be alive spiritually in this world?” It is very strong as to a Christian's place; the world is always soliciting the Christian back into it; it is an immense system which Satan has built up to act on the flesh and to hide God. This cannot satisfy conscience, and therefore, when a. man's conscience is awakened, he bows his head as a bulrush—saying, “Shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” and gets under ordinances. He has not got out in spirit and state from this world—not dead to it; it is the religion Paul had when he was Saul the Pharisee. An unconverted man can do these things better than a converted one, for the latter has too much thought to be satisfied, though he may be doing it. He may go on his knees, and be vexed and angry if you do not think well of him for it: he is making out his religion as a living man, not as a redeemed man.
Man is a religious animal, it is a necessity of man's heart. His reason may reason him out of the want of God, but there it remains at the bottom, and breaks out again, as it was after the French revolution, It is part of man's nature to have to say to God; it is the consciousness that he cannot supply his own needs in this world, and must turn to a God above him. It may be miserably corrupted, but man wants help, he wants to look up. The devil used this to let him make gods of his passions; but in man's nature is a craving after God, and man, when not set free by the work of redemption, will be religious; it is Pharisaism—there have always been Pharisees. It is just ritualism, alive in the world, and subject to ordinances, not dead with Christ. (Chap. 2:21,22.) I may fancy there are precious mysteries in these things, but they are all to perish with the using, and therefore the old nature makes its religion in them. “A shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.” They go back to the shadows, as if they were something real, and are subject to ordinances; man's will is in it, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. It is to the satisfying of the flesh. Who was satisfied when the Pharisee thanked God he was not as other men are? To whose credit did it go? To God or Christ?
Supposing I were to fast seven times a week. Well, I think myself better than the man who only does it six times; it is satisfying the flesh. Supposing it is prayer (I need not say prayer is the most blessed privilege a man has); but if he says so many prayers, the one who says five is better than the one who only says three; it is satisfying the flesh, though neglecting the body. That is, as regards being dead with Christ, I am clean out of it, I have left it all behind; what is it to me if I am dead? No good thing in you at all, for the religious doings of the flesh are flesh still; it is merely saying, I am not dead with Christ. What, as Christians are our greatest privileges may be used in this way.
Chapter 3:1. If risen with Christ, you are not in the world. If I have got this Christ-place, that I have died to the world, making Christ my life, I reckon myself dead, and alive to God, not in Adam, but in Jesus Christ our Lord. It is a great thing for the believer, it strikes at the root of a number of things in detail as we go on. Am I, a living man as born of Adam, to question my place with God as such? or am I dead with Christ, risen with Christ, and having my place, with God as such?
“Where Christ sitteth;” there is one Man who has gone there, a blessed Man who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am a risen man, knowing redemption, forgiveness, and my affections resting on Him up there. I see Christ on high. “Set your affections on things above,” &c. He is looking for the state of the affections here. Having the consciousness that Christ is my life up there, my heart follows Him. A dead man cannot have his affections on things of earth.
Verse 3. Another thing which comes out most blessedly here is our complete thorough association with Christ. What is true of Him is true of me. He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one. Christ is dead, we are dead: Christ is hid in God, our life is hid in Him: when He appears, we appear. “Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” There is this blessed identification with Christ, our sins put away; and as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall bear the image of the Heavenly. “As he is, so are we in this world;” not that we are actually in the glory, but it is our place before God. It gives wonderfully settled peace, beloved friends—all sins completely blotted out; but that is not all, there is another thing—in what kind of a way am I going to be received, supposing He had forgiven us, and left us here to go on as best we could? That is not what He has done. “Accepted in the Beloved” —that is what a Christian is. What the flesh has done is blotted out, and put away, but then we are in Christ, “as he is, so are we” —the positive side, in short, not only the negative—loved as Christ is loved, “the glory thou hast given me, I have given them.” “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them,” that is, now. The world will know we are thus loved when it sees us in the same glory with Himself.
Christ was totally alone with God when He was made sin for us, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, and when that was done, sitting down in glory, He sent down the Holy Ghost to give us the consciousness that we are in the same place.
You find many such passages, as in 1 Cor. 15, if Christ is not raised, we are not raised. He was really a dead man, and if I am not raised, Christ is not raised. We get all in this blessed association with Christ. But where it pinches is, if that is true, he that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked. That will not do with the world. It pinches our poor wretched hearts if the flesh works; but when the heart is on Christ, it is freedom and blessed liberty; but it is a hard thing to the feeble heart that I am to be like Christ down here. I know I am going to be like Christ in glory, to bear the image of the heavenly, and so thorn is one object on earth to win Him, and to purify myself even as He is pure. Beholding the glory of the Lord, I am changed into the same image.
Here is the groundwork which is thus laid: dead with Christ, risen with Christ—not there yet, of course, but our affections set upon things above, not on things of earth; they cannot go together: “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Our affections follow Christ where He is actually gone; our hearts have got into the place where He is risen in glory. How far have our hearts got there? We have actual acceptance, we know we are in Christ before God, but how far are our hearts content to follow Him, as He said, “Follow thou me?” A very strong word, it is as taking us right out of this world—a full and absolute object for the heart. There is a way the vulture's eye hath not seen, the following Christ, the one thing God delights in.
In verse 5, &c., you find more fully than anywhere in scripture what this life of the Christian really is. But it is “members which are on the earth only.” But mark this, the moment I am here I have power, which in the flesh I have not. “When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law did work in my members to bring forth fruit unto death. The renewed man under law has no power; when dead and risen with Christ we get power. “Mortifying” is putting to death. Scripture does not say “dying;” but we are called to reckon ourselves dead because he has done it, and has become our life, and then I say to the flesh, I do not know you, I have had enough of you; I am dead.
Colossians gives the fact, Rom. 6 faith's estimate of it; 2 Cor. 5 is practically carrying it out, and so death works in us, and life in you; there is power, the power of Christ.
Verse 6. Unbelief is not the only ground of judgment. The world is condemned as such for having rejected Christ, but judgment is for works.
Verse 7. “In the which ye also walked some time when ye lived in them.” They are not supposed to be in them now, that they were in Christ; they had walked in them, like other Gentiles.
Gross things come first, what is plain and evident; but he does not stop there, for he will not have the flesh stir. How is it that you get angry? Is it not this, that the flesh is not subdued practically? Impatience—where does that come from? You say, “Oh, but it is so vexing, so provoking.” Would Christ be impatient? And you have Christ's life. “Lie not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man and his deeds.” I get three characters of sin—devil sins and brute sins; corruption; violence in anger and malice; and then, added to that, “Lie not one to another,” with the ground of this, “seeing ye have put off the old man.”
And now we have the putting on. Mark the measure of this here, “renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” My standard of what is good is spiritual knowledge of God's nature. We are renewed in knowledge. I say that does not suit God.
If I take the character and image, I see that manifested in a Man, in Christ. In Ephesians it is, “Be ye followers of God as dear children.” He takes the essential names of God, light and love, and in both cases he takes Christ as the pattern. A person says, An imitator of God! how can I be that, a poor worm like me? But what is your pattern? Christ—that is the way we are to walk. It is not simply what is claimed from man under the law, but my walk is to be the expression of God, and I see that in Christ—love manifested in the midst of evil. It is not, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, but, the world being an evil world, you must go and show out God in it as Christ did— “made partakers of the divine nature.”
Verse 11. It is not said here, Christ is all in all, though that is very well in its way, but it is something more here, which is very important. Christ is all; no object but Christ. And what does that mean? The cross, perhaps; we may have to go through it. He is in all, the power of life, and the sole object of life. When it is affections, He is all, everything, to me, and in me the power of divine life too.
I have here also a most important principle: if I am to produce these fruits, and walk in this way, as He tells us, and there are a thousand different details in which it comes in every day, and all day—well, I go as the elect of God. If I send my child out, I say, Walk as my child, and he must recollect that he is my child; if he has lost the recollection of it, the whole nature and character of the walk is gone. Be imitators of God as dear children; do not forget that. So here, Put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved. Just think, if I carried that with me all the day long! Here am I, the elect of God: God has chosen to delight in me. He will surely make us know our own nothingness, but there is the consciousness of this love, just as a child knows its father's affection, not at all that be is worthy of it. Separate to God, and loved of God, I go through the world in the blessed sense that God, in His sovereign goodness, has taken me into His delight. We find all these things are said of Christ. Was not He the elect of God, One chosen out of the people? Was not He the Holy One in the fullest sense? Was not He the beloved One, the beloved Son, all His life sanctified to the Father in an absolute sense? And He says, Walk as such. You cannot do it unless you have got the motive, that which moves the affections, though there may be duty. We are to walk through this world, not to attain anything, though I shall get joy and blessing; but, having got this place, there is the putting off the old man, and the putting on the new. Being in that place, and having that life, I put on the things that become it— “meekness, long-suffering, humbleness of mind, lowliness.” He always took the last place; when rejected, He said, “Let us go to another village.”
“Forbearing one another, forgiving one another.” Did not Christ forgive us when He was insulted, spit upon? Yes, and you go and do that too. If you look at 1 Cor. 13, you will find there is not one atom of activity spoken of there as to charity, but it is all self-denying, meekness, patience. If you know what self is, you know that is where we are tested. I must bring not merely kindness into the path, but the divine element which checks anything that is contrary to holiness, while humble, lowly, &c. It has with it the divine thing which cannot acquiesce in an evil to itself; love, the bond of perfectness, will put it all in its place. The moment I bring God in, I bring in what has a claim upon the heart, in thorough consistency with the One who says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” If your heart were always perfectly peaceful, quiet, and gentle, how many things which provoke would not be there. It gives, too, calmness of judgment, so that we know what to do. Christ's peace was never disturbed. You never find Him in a position where He was not Himself; even in Gethsemane, when in an agony, He turned round to His disciples, just as if nothing had happened, and said, “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” He goes from one to the other, just what He ought to be with His Father about this dreadful cup, and just what He ought to be with His poor disciples in love to them. Of course we fail, but that is the principle.
Verse 16 is not merely negative, nor the putting on the character of Christ, but the unsearchable riches of Christ, the soul opening out on all that belongs to the Christian; “teaching and admonishing one another.... singing with grace,” &c.. Not merely knowledge, but the affections expressed as human beings do express them, and as they will be expressed in heaven— “singing,” the word giving the knowledge of all things, and then melody in the heart.
“Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” How can I bring Christ into the common things of this world? Whatever word comes out of your mouth, or whatever ye do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. You say, Is there any harm in that? Can you do it in the name of Jesus? if not, do not leave Christ to go and do it without Him. Are you going to see that Exhibition? Why not? I cannot go in the name of the Lord. I take the common things of life purposely to make it simple. Do you smoke? No, I cannot smoke in the name of Jesus. I do not mind what it is—everything in word or deed. The gross things of evil all cast off, and then what would be called by man indifferent things. It is an indifferent thing if I put the book this way, or that way; but supposing my Father held very much to my putting it this way, and I do not, you may say, Well, I do not know about the book, but I know where your heart is. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” If you make a law, it will be very hard, but if Christ is everything to me, it will be easy. If I love my father very much, I shall take great care to put the book as He likes.
Then another thing that marks where the heart is— “giving thanks.” These wretched things, which distract the heart, and force the Holy Ghost to be judging, are not there, and He becomes the Spirit of joy and thankfulness to God, the love of God shed abroad in the heart, which constantly goes up for everything in thankfulness to God in the sense that He is the Author of everything. Even sorrow is blessing: it is more profitable to be in sorrow than in joy. We can give thanks, if really the love of God is in our hearts, walking as to everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, no distraction in the heart; where there is that, the Holy Ghost necessarily becomes a rebuking Spirit, instead of a Spirit of joy and thankfulness.
Are we in His favor which is better than life? Our lips shall praise Him. The Lord only give us, beloved brethren, to walk in that way, confiding in divine love, and seeing the proof of it in the love that gave Himself for us, kept privily in His presence from the provoking of all men, to go through a world of confusion and restlessness with the peace of Christ in our souls.