002.C 03. Our Progress in the Position

Our Progress in the Position But when you pass to Colossians 2:19, it is a matter of progress, progress in the position and by reason of that relatedness. "Holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God." "In him ye are made full," but in Him you have got to increase. That is not a contradiction. Made full by reason of your position, but increasing in that fulness by reason of your spiritual progress. Progress is a matter of making good all that is in your position. We see in Ephesians the correspondence between that letter and the book of Joshua. When the people came into the land, they were in the land flowing with milk and honey, they were in the place where all the fulness dwelt, but they had to do something about it; and so we find that it was a matter of making good all that was theirs, progressing in the fulness into which they had been placed positionally; and that is exactly what is here. "Increaseth with the increase of God" is a matter of going on in that position to appropriate, apply and make ours the fulness which we have inherited in Christ; or, to put it more closely to the figure of the Body and the Head here in this letter, it is taking everything from the Head.

Now the temptation which was being presented to these Colossian believers was to let go of Christ as supreme, and the Apostle made it perfectly clear that to let Christ’s supreme position go was to let the fulness go, and that only as they held fast, not simply to Christ personally - all these people were prepared to hold fast to Christ and not to let Him go - but also to Him as Head, and so recognized that everything came from the headship of Christ, only so would they come experimentally to His fulness.