Colossians 1

Colossians 1:1-18

Division 1. (Colossians 1:1-18.)The sufficiency of Christ as Head and Lord. Tun first division, then, starts us, as it were, upon our journey. The Colossians are presented to us as “holy and faithful brethren in Christ,” of whom the apostle has heard, possessors of a living faith which grows and bears fruit. He prays that it may increase, and that they may be filled with the full knowledge of His will, so as to walk worthy of the Lord; after which we are shown the One who is Lord of the individual as well as the Head of the body, the Church, and His full glories are made known to us.

1. The Colossians are seen, then, in the first place, as those who have received the knowledge of divine grace in truth, the beginning of everything for the soul, the living and active principle which at once suggests to us the fruits following, the result, in practical life which the epistle insists upon. The apostle addresses himself to them as an “apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,” associating Timothy with himself in his constant, gracious manner. He owns the holiness and faithfulness which characterizes them as brethren in Christ and which gives him courage and confidence in addressing them. As holy, they are not only separate from evil, but separate to God, the first necessity for fruit. The field that bears it must be fenced off from all that would intrude from the world around.

They are faithful to the position that God has given them and the light they have received, -another and equal necessity, but implied in the former. They have the “virtue” of which the apostle Peter speaks, and which leads on to knowledge. It is to those who hold in living power that which they have received, that God can still give more abundantly, but they need, as we all do, “grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He begins now with thanking God in their behalf, “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which, as we have already seen in Ephesians, presents to us the Lord as the One who has given God His character for the soul; and as the Son of the Father, introduces us to all the affections of the heart; divine affections, which so need to be cultivated if there is to be fruit at all. To Him then, he gives thanks continually, on praying for them, having heard that concerning them which encourages his prayer: -not only “faith in Christ Jesus,” but “love towards all the saints,” a love which manifests its character in that very fact. It is not simply personal, individual, and which may spring out of other connections, but love to saints as saints wherever they find them. This is that true love of the brethren which the apostle gives as an evidence that those who possess it have passed from death unto life. He thanks God because of the hope laid up for them in the heavens, the hope which is to energize them upon the way, pilgrims and strangers as they are now, with no portion in the world through which they pass; and thus the whole energy of their souls laying hold upon that which is invisible. This hope they found in the word of the truth of the gospel which had come to them, as it was going out in all the world; and which bore fruit and was growing among them, as wherever it was received. This knowledge seems to have been ministered to them by Epaphras, of whom he speaks as his fellow-servant, and for them a faithful minister of Christ. The work manifested the workman, and their love in the Spirit had been manifested towards the apostle himself by his means. 2. He has already said that a living faith is a growing faith. Growth is a necessity of life, and where the life is eternal life, there is here no limit of it reached, as in natural growth. We grow on till we reach eternity. Important it is to realize this, -salvation is so often simply looked at as the end itself which is to be reached, instead of the beginning, that which starts us upon the road. It is Christ in glory who is the end before us, and if we are really travelers, the light of that glory will be shining upon us more and more fully all the way. He was not content, however, to reason that this, of necessity, would be so. He did not cease praying and asking for them, that they might be filled with full knowledge of the will of God, a thing not gained in a short time, although, as possessing the Holy Spirit, every honest soul will find practical competence for the path which he has to tread; but the full knowledge of His will will take nothing else than the full word of God to minister it to us, and here it is not to be a theoretical knowledge, but knowledge in all wisdom, a knowledge which is real for us, and applies itself to all the circumstances of the way. The right understanding of it is spiritual understanding, not merely mental reception; though that does not mean that we are to undervalue the mind, which is, in fact, that in us through which God conveys these things, but the Spirit of God must give it its proper character. The result of it, the desire of the heart, is to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, an immense responsibility indeed as servants of His to show in the world what His service means; bearing fruit, therefore, in every good work and growing by the true knowledge of God. This is found, of course, in the revelation of Christ that is being made to us. Christ is the Life within us, and that which ministers, therefore, to the life we have received.

Christ is before us now in all the might of His glory for our souls, that which strengthens for the way, for all that is found here in the world so contrary to Him and to us; but we are furnished thus to all endurance and long-suffering with joy. These things are in God’s hand, ordained for us only to bring out in us the Christ-likeness which belongs to a life in Him, to separate us from a world which thus manifests itself for what it is, and to make us realize only the more the completeness of satisfaction which is in that which is our own.

We see how Paul’s gospel enters, of necessity, into all this. The revelation of Christ is that which is continually before him. Christ is the Goal of his race, and the recompensing Prize, as he will tell us fully in Philippians. Here it is not exactly the pressing after Him which is brought before us, but the power resulting from the apprehension of what He is, the One who has been in death for us and who has now everything in His hand. What a thing to assure and rest the heart! But he goes on now to the fitness which is already ours to partake of the portion of the saints in light, -and wonderful this is. He does not say that God is making us fit for it, as we might imagine to be more suitable to be said; we are already made fit, and fit for the portion of the holy ones in that light which would discover the least spot or defect. And strange it would seem to many, in view of the indisputable fact that evil is in us still and that the good in us is yet far short of full development, that we are already meet for the inheritance. To have title to it is another thing. Title we should easily recognize that we all have; but a child may have most abundant title to an inheritance for which, as yet, he is by no means “fit.” We have not merely the title, we have the fitness also. We can only realize this as we realize the distinctness of the new nature which God has imparted to us.

The flesh is in us, but it is not ourselves; we are not identified with it, not in it before God. As a consequence, if the Lord should take us, in whatever way He be pleased to take us, home to Himself, the flesh is gone, and there remains nothing but that which is according to His mind. The development of the life we have is another matter, and we need not consider it here; but even a babe in Christ has fitness, therefore, for his portion. Well may we give thanks to the Father who has accomplished this for us. We are delivered, as the apostle goes on to say, from the authority of darkness. Darkness may be also in measure in us, but it has no title over us. We are in the light as Christians. Whether we realize it aright or not, depends upon how far the eye is single in us; but we are practically in the darkness, in any measure of it, only by our own consent. God has translated us into another kingdom, put us under another authority, and that the authority of His own dear Son. This is the only passage in which we find the present kingdom of Christ spoken of exactly in this character. As Son of Man, He waits for His Kingdom. He has not yet received it. He waits upon the right hand of God; but whatever this may imply, that He is still waiting, yet as seated on the Father’s throne, in that place to which His title plainly is found in His eternal relationship to the Father, He has, in fact, all things in His hand now. This can only seem in any wise a contradiction to the fact of His waiting for His Kingdom as Son of Man, if we fail to realize that the Kingdom in that character is taken for the final setting in order of all things for eternity, which is put into Christ’s hands expressly as the Son of Man. All judgment is thus committed to Him, and as by man the old creation fell away from God, so by man everything must be restored.

Thus He is, as Isaiah gives it to us, the “Father of Eternity.” He is the One who is going to bring everything into subjection to God. We, in the meanwhile, are the fruit of His work, delivered from the opposing power of evil and brought into the Kingdom of light and peace, as those redeemed by His blood and having the forgiveness of sins. Here, therefore, we have marked out for us distinctly the character of the truth which the apostle presents to us. Already separated from the world, separated to God, we are those who are given to Christ and put into His hand to be led on through the world by the attractive power of what is in Himself; to Himself beyond it. In the “Kingdom of the Son of His love,” what can be wanting to us, even though the full blessing has not come? But we are here filling a place which has its own distinctness of privilege, a place that, in the same way, we can never fill again. We are here for Christ in the midst of a world opposed to Him, and treading in His steps who is the Author and Finisher of faith in His own Person, and who has left us an example that we should walk in His steps. This is our privilege now, and how greatly we should value it! We have not merely to go out of the world and to be with Christ where He is, which will be accomplished for us in His own time, which our souls must, of course, desire at any time; nevertheless that which God is working for us now and that which, we may say, He is working through us now, will be seen in the day to come as amply sufficient causes of delay for a little while, that, in the place of Christ’s humiliation, we may learn Him better so, and acquire that mind of Christ which we have use for, in participation with Him in that which is to come. 3. We come now then fully to look at Christ Himself. We have been shown our competence for this. We can look without any harassing question as to our part in Him or our fitness for the blessing which we have before us. We ought to be capable, therefore, of full occupation with Himself. That is what the epistle to the Romans has already shown us, and that is what deliverance means really; deliverance from ourselves, in order that we may be engaged with Him, to be in whose blest company is to grow in His likeness. Who is He then of whom we are speaking? He is, says the apostle, first of all, the Image of the Invisible God, the perfect and exact Expression of One who is nowhere seen as He is seen in Him. The invisible God has become visible to us, of course to faith; but we have the full revelation of God in Him, who, in order that He may reveal God, has come down into that which is His own creation, has taken His place in it, of necessity, thus, at the Head of it also. If He who is the Image of the Invisible God takes His place in creation, it must be as the First-born of it all, the Beginning, as He says Himself in the epistle to Laodicea, “the Beginning of the creation of God.” Here is His link at once with all that is to receive blessing through Him. Apart from those who really set themselves outside it, who refuse and turn aside from this grace of His, all creation is thus linked with Him for blessing. He has become Man. He has taken not only a human spirit, but a soul and a body. In His unutterable love, He has linked Himself, as one may say, with the very dust of the earth, that He might assure us that, of all which God has created, nothing is below His thought. He will lose nothing of it all, but bring it into that which was His mind for it in creating it; for He who has come into this wondrous place, -the very humiliation of which is glory too, -is the One “by whom all things were created, things in heaven and things on earth, visible or invisible,” however high, however low you go, “thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers;” the highest are but His creatures, and have not only been created “by Him” but “for Him.” What a wonderful light does that throw upon creation itself and upon its destiny! Christ is not only the One under whom it is; He is not only the One who will bring it all into blessing, but He, the One who has become the Man Christ Jesus, is the One for whom it all exists. Christ, then, and that grace which is manifested in Him, -that manifestation itself, which is in itself grace, -is that which is the great purpose of God in creation. He must manifest Himself; He must make His creatures know Him. He could not possibly leave them without the full display of all His heart. He wants to be near them.

He wants to have them near Himself. Christ is the fulness of God’s heart thus told out, and as He is before all, as He is the One who holds all things together now, this purpose cannot fail of accomplishment. But there is another sphere, still, in which He is the Head, and considering that it too is needed for the full display of divine grace, (as it is that, as we have heard in Ephesians, in which God is going to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us, and in which His glory is to be displayed forever,) it must of necessity find mention here. It is not to be lost simply in the thought of creation. He is the Head of creation, but He is also the Head of the body, the Church; and as this, He is the Beginning, a new Beginning, a First-Born, not in creation simply, but from among the dead. Here, full redemptive power manifests itself. He is seen Master of all the evil and not merely Master to subdue it, but making it all show forth His praise. Thus He is pre-eminent in all things.

This is the One under whom God has put us to find our way, upheld by His grace, to the place where He Himself awaits us. How blessed should be a path upon which this light shines more and more fully to the perfect day!

Colossians 1:19-29

Division 2. (Colossians 1:19-29.)The double sphere of the gospel and the church, with the double ministry entrusted to Paul in connection with these. Here, then, there is a double sphere marked out for our contemplation. There is the sphere of creation into which Christ in His grace has come, and there is the sphere of the Church through which His love to His creatures is to be most signally manifested. We now find these two spheres specially dwelt upon, and the apostle’s double ministry in God’s wonderful grace to him, answering to these two spheres. He is minister of the gospel in all the world, minister of the Church, the mystery of God now revealed.

1. “In Him,” then, “all the fulness was pleased to dwell.” The whole Godhead has in Him manifested itself and come forth to bless and to redeem. If we think of Christ, we must not separate from Him the Father’s thought and purpose the Father’s heart told out, and if we think of Him again, He is the One whom the Spirit of God exalts and glorifies, the One in whom, as we see Him here upon earth, the fulness of the Spirit dwelt, The whole activity of the Godhead is manifested thus in our behalf. It is Christ as Man who is still spoken of. His Manhood it is that is the tabernacle of Deity. We must not so think of His humiliation as to forget, for a moment, the glory that was ever His. He has come down, in fact, to fulfil the purpose which none but He could possibly fulfil.

Sin has come in. Question has been raised by the presence of it with regard to God Himself. If left to this, God’s whole place with regard to creation is compromised. Thus, as has been said elsewhere, He could not, apart from the cross, from that which has fully displayed His holiness and the judgment of sin, while displaying His love for His creatures, take up even the heavens themselves as that in which He could find delight and display His glory. By Him, therefore, God came to reconcile all things to Himself, not simply individuals, but the whole frame as it were, of the universe. There is not a part of it to which the power of the blood of the cross does not penetrate.

Our possession in the heavens is purchased by it. The earth, too, is purchased. Things on the earth or things in the heavens will alike be made once more to be according to God’s mind, objects of complacent delight. 2. But if the heavens and earth are thus reconciled by His blood, there are those also who were once alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, in whom it manifests its power. Here the reconciliation must, of necessity, include the bringing of enemies out of their enmity; while His work, the work of the cross, was needed in a double sense for this needed as that which has made atonement for iniquity, needed as that which, by the power of divine grace in it, conquers the heart for Him. How great a triumph when we can be thus presented holy and unblamable and irreproachable before God! The apostle puts in here a word of caution needed by those amongst whom there may still be those who, whatever their profession, have not, in fact, received the reconciliation. The test of this will be a faith in which men abide on a firm foundation, not moved away from the hope of the gospel, a gospel which is being proclaimed indeed in the whole creation which is under heaven, and of which Paul himself was, in a special sense, the minister. We must remember here what has been elsewhere shown us, that Paul was not only a minister of the gospel, having his place with the rest who ministered it, but was in a special sense the minister of the gospel, which had with him a fulness of blessing which we find nowhere else. 3. But this was only a part of that which was specially committed to him. He was suffering, manifestly (he says this as writing now from his prison at Rome) on account of the Church, Christ’s body; filling up, as he puts it here, that which remained of the sufferings of Christ for them. Christ had been pleased to link him in a special way with Himself, in labor for this purpose so dear to Him, the having a body, a people in the nearness of that relation to Himself, near as none other could be, and the revelation of which now completed the word of God -filled it out fully, no principle of truth remaining unrevealed. Of this, then, he was minister; of the mystery hidden from ages and generations but now made manifest to His saints, the long pent up secret of the heart that must now disclose itself; the riches of the glory of this mystery being found, not amongst Jews but amongst Gentiles, -Christ among Gentiles, not therefore glory come, as it will be when He takes His place in the midst of Israel, but the hope of glory belonging to another sphere, and as we know, a wonderfully higher one. This, says the apostle, was his aim, then, “admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, to present every man perfect in Christ.” He works according to the full largeness in which the gospel itself goes out.

He would have “every man,” not merely those who actually are laid hold of by it, but in the thought of his heart, in that for which, if it might be, he works, “every man presented perfect in Christ.” This is the character, manifestly, as we have seen, of Paul’s epistles. The position in Christ is what is before him continually. This is what he would bring us up to. His writings are therefore the Leviticus of the New Testament. They open the sanctuary, and that to bring us in there. For this he was toiling.

For this he was in conflict; and Christ, as it were, toiling in him, working in the power of His grace in the instrument He had chosen.