Verses 1-29
Christ In Christians
The peculiar expression in the twentieth verse "whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven" opens innumerable questions. We always thought of heaven as not needing reconciliation. Is there a suggestion here that even in heaven there has been apostasy or any form of hostility, or any indication of unrest? Does not the gospel enlarge itself here in a quite unfamiliar but a truly ennobling way? Have we understood the expression "earth" and "heaven?" Are we not always being chided and corrected for narrowing the meaning of Scripture, and not rising to all its comprehensiveness and dignity and pregnancy of suggestion? Who authorised us to call this one little world "earth," and the sky above us "heaven"? and then to say "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" two objects, and only two? Suppose "the earth" to be an expression representing all space, all time, all magnitude, all worlds, everything that can be brought under the designation matter, or material; suppose the word "heaven" should be taken as meaning all spirituality: there you have a universe, there you have Christ at the centre of it and at the head of it, and all round about it; there you have a Cross that reaches through the universe. I am not aware of any conclusive argument against this suggestion; and if the suggestion be true, how all things are altered, in proportion, in perspective, in spiritual balance, and relationship! Verily we have here a new heaven and a new earth. By this suggestion, "earth" will be a typical term, then, representing all materialism so-called; "heaven" will be a typical term, on the other hand, representing all spiritualism: In the beginning God created all matter and all spirit, and when Christ died he reconciled the whole universe, up and down, through all gradations, and that universe he reconciled to the wisdom and love of God. How far-reaching, then, the Atonement! Who knows where it stops? No man can tell where it begins; for origin we are told that the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world; for conclusion we are told, his mercy endureth for ever. When the Priest left the Cross he went away, we cannot tell whither he went: we hear of him in Hades, in Paradise, among the spirits in prison, in hell we cannot tell where he was in the interval; certainly he was not holden of death "Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." We may have erred therefore in being too geometrical and too narrowly astronomical in all our outlook and purview. We have called this little handful of dust "the earth"; we had better call it "earth," that is what God called it; not "the earth," but "earth": and there is a universe full of it; all the stars are mud, all the suns are but blazing dust: behind, above, beyond, is spirit, soul, immortality, heaven: and Christ died, and by the mystery of shed blood he reconciled all earth, all heaven, all space, magnitude, time, eternity, glory; he reconciled it, unified it, centralised it, made it all into his Father's house. This may be now but in process: we need not interrupt the Divine constructor as he builds his infinite temple; when the topstone is brought on, and the completed edifice is hailed by those who have watched its building and who have been incorporated in its structure, then we may tell God how the miracle strikes our imagination and our gratitude. Meanwhile, here is a most remarkable expression "by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven."
If we want to know what is meant by this reconciliation, the Apostle comes, in Colossians 1:21 , to give us definite or concrete instances "And you... hath he reconciled": he has taken the hostility out of your soul, he has caused you to throw down your arms of rebellion, he has enabled you to open your lips in sacred praise, he has made your hearts glow with thankfulness: that on the scale of infinity he has done in all worlds, and a reconciled universe is the trophy, the triumph of the Cross.
There is an awkward "If" in the twenty-third verse "If ye continue------." It is in continuance that we break down. How excellent we are for an hour, how almost angels for one sudden flash of time, and how instantly we forget our best selves, fall away into the lowest grade of being. The Apostle always lays great stress on continuance; once he used the remarkable expression "patient continuance": he would refine the continuance; he would make the continuity perfect in quality; it should not be mere doggedness, it should be patient continuance, intelligent acquiescence, a full-hearted consent. Thus are triumphs wrought in God's great school. There may be those who have some burning gift of genius who can by a sudden inspiration or by a quick and incalculable movement pass from alphabet to literature, but the most of us need to study letter by letter and line by line; we need to proceed slowly, with almost contemptible slowness when looked upon by those who fly on the wings of genius and never trudge on the legs of industry. "He that endureth unto the end shall be saved." God has given us something to do in all this mystery of reconciliation; we are not occupying a position that may be regarded as passive, we are to be patient, industrious, painstaking, working steadily: not knowing at what moment the Lord may come to pronounce upon the scope and quality of our work.
What would the Apostle have us be? "Grounded and settled," so that we "be not moved away." If we could imagine a tree so foolish, that it was growing in one place to-day and moving itself off to another tomorrow, and on the third day climbing a hill to feel how the mountain air would suit it, and another day going down to the seaside to see what the ocean breezes would do for it, what would be the end of that tree? Yet some men do this very thing: they are here and there, and yonder and back again, and they know not which is gospel, which is revelation, which is speculation, which is human, which is divine. And oh! the fraying away, the attenuation of manhood, the loss of quality, the downgoing in all spiritual dignity, what tongue can adequately tell?
Paul introduces himself into all his arguments as if by right. Paul never could detach himself from the argument. There are those to whom the deliverance is nothing; it does not belong to themselves in their veriest consciousness. It was not so with Paul. He was crucified with Christ; Christ was in him, he was in Christ; he was so thoroughly identified with Christ, that sometimes it was difficult to say whether Paul was speaking or Christ was speaking. Here is an instance in which in the sublimest argument an argument Paul himself never rivalled, except in his Epistle to the Ephesians Paul is referring to his own ministry, his own sufferings, and his own service, with a familiarity that does not for a moment impair the dignity of the great and sacred argument to which he has ascended by right of inspired power. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say about himself. He calls himself in another place "a minister of God"; in the twenty-third verse of this chapter he calls himself a "minister of the Gospel"; in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth verses he calls himself "a minister of the Church." Look at these three aspects of his Apostleship: A minister of God; that carries everything with it: a minister of the Gospel; that is hardly a change of terms: a minister of the Church; which means nothing, unless it first be rooted in the very spirit of the former relationships. Ministers of the Church may be mere officials; but when ministers of the Church are also ministers of God, and ministers of the Gospel, there are no nobler men in all the world. How lovely are the feet of them that bring good tidings, that publish peace, that say unto Zion, Thy God reigneth; break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord by his messengers hath comforted his people. This is the ideal ministry; that men fall short of it is not the blame of the ministry, but the fault of the men themselves.
Paul says he rejoices: What does he rejoice in? Who, without reference to the book, could imagine the source or the subject of this Apostolic joy? None! "Who now rejoice in my sufferings" every scar a medal, every wound a door opening towards some new vision of spiritual beauty, every inconvenience a revelation, every night in the wilderness a night in the sanctuary. Paul counted his sufferings. In his letter to the Corinthians he made a list of them, and then words failed him; on one occasion he spoke of them summarily, and he said, "I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation." Along that line there are miracles to be worked every day.
In the twenty-sixth verse, we come upon a revelation of Divine methods: "The mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints." Here we have the apocrypha and apocalypse. Things which have been hidden not necessarily concealed absolutely, but things covered up at the corners, almost wholly covered, and yet with certain elements peering out here and there, agitating the generations, so that they say, In that direction there is something yet to be discovered; or, Just about here God has hidden whole planets; one day they will be visible like lamps in the sky, and shall burn with glory. These apocryphal or hidden truths have kept the attention of the world alive. There is always something beyond; evermore a sweet voice, angel-like in tender witchery of music, says, Excelsior! five hundred feet more, and you may rest, but only rest your strength to climb another five hundred feet: Excelsior! It is what is behind the cloud we want to see.
Then we come upon the contrary expression, "but now is made manifest" the apocalypse, the throwing-back of the curtain, and the revealing of that which was partially or absolutely concealed. This is God's method of working. Is this the Divine method in theology only? Far from it; it is the method of God through and through: the economies of God are one. We have made our divisions into secular, and sacred; material, and spiritual; earth, and heaven; time, and eternity: and so have shown no little cleverness in balancing words. There is a deeper or more inclusive meaning, which we have to realise if we would cause our lives to intermingle with the solemn and massive music of the universe. God has hidden everything. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, to write apocryphally. It is so with science. Why did not science find out the steam-engine a thousand years ago? It could not; the eyes of science were holden that they could not see. There was the iron, there was the fire, there was the water: why did not science put these things together in proper proportion and relation? Because science could not. There is a time for everything under the sun. There was a time to discover the telegraph: there was a time to set up the Cross. There is a time of concealment, and there is a time of manifestation; he who conducts himself properly in the time that is apocryphal will also conduct himself properly in the time that is apocalyptical, the time of manifestation and revelation. Why did not men find out all about reading and writing, say thousands of years ago? Because they could not. Why did not Adam invent an alphabet? Because he could not. Why did not the first handful of men publish a book? Because they could not. So when we come into the realm theological, we do not come into such a great mystery, as if God had held back from the nations and the ages truths in theology, whilst in all departments of civilisation the very first man that lived telegraphed to the very second man that was born. Nothing of the kind. The universe is conducted on a plan. We have discovered nothing yet; we are mere grubbers in the dust, and we call ourselves scientific. We have little geological hammers and we go out with little geological bags, and we bring back at night some little geological specimens, and we appropriately put them under glass. That is scientific. But it a man should pray, and say, "My soul knows that the throne is beyond the sky, and my soul must find it," he is a fanatic. We accept the fanaticism. We abide in this spiritual confidence; we are expecting the Lord. Let him come in what form it may please him to adopt, personally, providentially, dispensationally, spiritually, by a great glow of love in the heart, by an intellect that shall make the understanding a medium of genius, let him come as he will: but, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Thy Church feels almost widowed, she yearns, she pines, she cries in her heart for her Lord.
"But now," saith the Apostle, "is made manifest." Observe the word "now": there are historical moments in time; moments when there are incarnations of spiritual thought; moments when all history is illumined; moments of transfiguration, when we see men as they are. Blind are they, and stupid beyond recovery, who see nothing but surfaces, geometries, planes, cubes, and things that can be handled with the fingers of the body. Blessed are they that have not seen with the eyes of the body, and yet have believed; they shall be rewarded; heaven shall not be withheld from them.
Now Paul goes on preaching, preaching the Gospel, "warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom," warning man by man. Every man is a congregation. Do not speak of great congregations or small congregations; every congregation is great; if you have the opportunity of speaking to a soul, you have an opportunity of revealing God. "Teaching" every man, as well as warning every man, warning and teaching; and it is a poor sermon that is not rich in spiritual suggestion and that does not burn with spiritual earnestness. The sermon is going out of fashion. The preacher soon will not be wanted. There is only one man that can be really popular now in the pulpit, and that is the man who preaches very briefly and very quietly; there are some who would not care about the quietness, if they could only reduce the length. It was not so in the Apostolic days. The old heroes of the Cross thundered day and night, and lightened like angels flying from the heavens, and men hungered and thirsted for the Word, and called him thief who would take their attention away to anything short of Calvary.
How does the Apostle represent the whole action? "Working," "Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." A curious interaction: Paul labouring, Christ working in him, the Spirit working in him mightily, and all the inward might reproduced in public service. This was Apostolic consecration!
Prayer
Almighty God, thou art called the Father of lights: may we be thy children in that we walk in the light and manifest forth the works of God; may our light so shine before men that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father, the Father of lights, which is in heaven. Thou dwellest in light that is inaccessible; we are blinded by the glory of God; we may not look upon God and live. Yet we may see Jesus Christ thy Son, who is the brightness of thy glory and the express image of thy person. He is God manifest in the flesh. We worship him as Immanuel, God with us; in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He is light, and in him is no darkness at all: may we follow him in the light, being children of the day, yea, of the noonday; and may our joy be full of hope. We bless thee that Jesus Christ revealed the Father: if we have seen Jesus Christ thy Son, we have seen thyself. We thank thee for this revelation. We ourselves have seen and tasted and handled and felt of the Word of Life: thou hast enabled us to bear personal testimony to the nearness and richness and the glory of thy revelation. May Christ be born in us the hope of glory; may the Holy Spirit take of the things of Christ and show them unto us; may he be revealed to us more and more, for the more we know thy Son the more we shall know of thyself: may the revelation be without a cloud. We bless thee for the years that are gone, wherein we have been enabled to turn them to good account; and now we pray that all the blackness and sin and shame may be forgiven and forgotten by God, yea, cast behind thy back for ever. Let the Lord hear the doxologies of his people, and answer their thankfulness with new blessings. Amen.
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