Please have your Bible open at the passage indicated above as you read this article. The writer takes it for granted that you will do this, and consequently all his references to Scripture are in the briefest possible form.
IN the very first verse of the Bible creation is attributed to God, and it is a remarkable fact that the word used there for God is a plural word, Elohim. It is the more remarkable inasmuch as the Hebrews employed not only the singular and the plural but had also another number, the dual, signifying two, and two only. Their plural words therefore signified three or more, and when we turn to the New Testament we find that there are three Persons in the Godhead. We also discover that of the three Persons creation is always attributed to the Son.
It is so here; and in verse 16 this great fact is stated in a threefold way, three different prepositions being used, in, by and for. In our Authorized version the first preposition as well as the second is by. Literally, however, it is in. If you turn up this passage in Darby’s New Translation you will find footnotes which instruct us that in signifies “characteristic power:” that “He was the One whose intrinsic power characterized the creation. It exists as His creature.” They instruct us also that by signifies that He was “the active Instrument,” and that for signifies that He is “the End” for which creation exists.
You will notice too the comprehensive way in which the creation is described in this passage. Heaven as well as earth is brought into view. Things invisible are contemplated as well as things visible; and the invisible and spiritual powers are spoken of under four heads. What may be the real distinction between thrones, dominions, principalities and powers we do not know, but we do know that they all owe their very existence to our Lord Jesus. Twice over in this one verse is it stated that He is the Creator of “all things.” Consequently He is before all both as to time and place; and all things hang together by Him. The stars pursue their appointed courses, but they only do so because directed by Him.
It is not difficult to see that the Creator, having entered into the midst of His gown creation by becoming Kan, He necessarily stands in the creation as Hegel and. First-born. In verse 18 however, we find that He is both Head and Firstborn in another connection. He is the Head of the body, the church, and that church is God’s new creation work. He is the Firstborn from among the dead; that is, He holds the supreme rights in the resurrection world. Consequently in all things and in every sphere He has the first place.
What glorious truth is this! How wonderful that we should know Him as Firstborn in this twofold way, both in connection with the first creation and the new creation! Only our relation with Him according ‘to the new creation is far more intimate than ever it could have been according to the old. In all creation He is of course Head, in the sense of being Chief, and it is in that sense that He is spoken of as, “the Head of every man,” in 1 Corinthians 11:33But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3). He is Head to the church in another sense, illustrated by the human body. An organic and vital union exists between the head and the other members of the body, and just so does a vital union exist between Christ and His members in new creation.
Further, He is “the Beginning.” He existed in the beginning; as we are elsewhere told, but that is another thing. Here He is the beginning, and that beginning is connected with resurrection as the next words show. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus was the new beginning for God. All that God is doing today He is doing in connection with Christ in resurrection. All our links with Him are on that footing. Let us very prayerfully consider this point, for except we lay hold of it with spiritual understanding we shall fail to appreciate the true nature of Christianity.
In the risen Christ, then, we find God’s new beginning, but let us now notice the important truth that follows in verse 1922. There had to be a complete settlement of every liability incurred in connection with the old creation. Unscrupulous men may sometimes open a business and having incurred heavy liabilities, close it up without any attempt at meeting them. Then they depart elsewhere and propose to open up a new business! Such a practice is universally condemned. God ever acts in strict righteousness. By His death the Lord Jesus has wrought a settlement as regards man’s sin in the old creation. Then in His resurrection God commenced anew.
Verse 19 tells us that all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in the Son when He came forth to do His mighty work, and by the blood of His cross the Godhead aimed at so effectually making peace that the basis might be laid for the reconciliation of all things. And we may safely add that what the Godhead aims at the Godhead always accomplishes.
The effect of sin has been that man has lapsed into a state of enmity with God, and hence the earth is filled with strife, confusion, disharmony. In the death of Christ a clearance has been effected judicially by judgment falling on that which created all the trouble. The disturbing element being removed peace can ensue. Peace being established reconciliation can come to pass.
Now peace has been made. No one has to make their peace with God.” Nor could they make peace with God if they had to do it. Christ is the Maker of peace. He made it, not by His life of singular beauty and perfection, but by His death. We of course are to enjoy the peace, and that is what is spoken of in Romans 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1). “Being justified by faith we have peace with God.” By faith we have the peace in our hearts, and what a wonderful peace it is! Here however the point is the making of the peace at the cross. The only possible basis for the peace enjoyed inside us is the peace made outside us when the blood of the cross was shed.
Peace having been made the reconciliation of all things is coming. We must not, however, imagine that this means the salvation of everybody, for a qualifying clause is immediately added. The “all things” is limited to “things in earth or things in heaven.” When it is a question of bowing the knee to Jesus, there are included “things under the earth,” but they are not included here. The world of the lost will have to submit. They will be broken but not reconciled.
It is perfectly evident that reconciliation has not yet been reached as to things on earth. Yet believers are already reconciled as verse 21 states; and in that verse we find a word that helps us to understand what reconciliation really means — a word that describes the state which is the exact opposite of reconciliation — alienation.
Manifold evil has engulfed mankind as the result of the incoming of sin. Not only have we incurred guilt but we lie under a terrible bondage. Again not only are we in bondage but we have been utterly estranged from God, in whom all our hope lies. We needed justification in view of, our guilt. We needed redemption in view of bondage. And because we were so wholly alienated from God we needed reconciliation. The alienation, be it observed, lay wholly upon our side. The enmity existed in our minds towards God, not in God’s mind towards us; and the enmity and alienation expressed itself in wicked works. Hence we may say that, whilst there is a sense in which God needed reconciliation, we needed it in a twofold way.
Reconciliation was effected “through death,” —the death of Christ. His death is the stable basis on which it rests, needed by God and needed by us. We however needed more than this. We needed the mighty work in our hearts by which the enmity should be swept out of them forever. As a result of it all God looks down upon us, as in Christ, with complacency and delight; whilst we, sensible of His favor, look up to Him with responsive affection.
God only has full delight in that which is perfect. But then the effect of the death of Christ is that we can be presented “holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight.” Cleared are we from everything which formerly attached to us as the fallen children of Adam, for “in the body of His flesh through death” the judgment of all that we were has been executed. That same death provides the basis for the coming reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth.
What a glorious prospect this is! There are things in heaven which have been touched and tarnished by sin, and these are to be reconciled, though the angels that sinned have been cast down to hell, and so do not come within its scope. Everything upon earth has been wrecked. Yet a day is coming when everything within these two spheres will be brought into complete harmony with the will of God, and bask forever in the sunlight of His favor, responding in every particular to His love. Well may we cry, Lord, haste that day! Well may we ponder deeply upon such themes for the more we do so the more will dawn upon us the wonder of the death of Christ.
All that we have been considering supposes of course that we are really and truly the Lord’s. Hence the qualifying “If” in verse 23. Many there are who, hearing the Gospel profess to believe and yet at some later time they totally abandon their profession. They do not “continue in the faith grounded and settled,” they are “moved away from the hope of the Gospel”; and thereby they make manifest that they had not the root of the matter in them. The words, “yet now hash He reconciled,” do not apply to such.
Again in this verse does the Apostle emphasize the vast scope of the Gospel, even “every creature which is under heaven,” just as in verse 6 it is stated as “all the world.” The point here is of course not that it had then been actually preached to every creature, but that the sphere of its operations was no less than every creature. Of that Gospel Paul had been made a minister. A further ministry, that of the church, was his also, as stated in verse 25.
The Apostle introduces the subject of his second ministry by a reference to his sufferings. He was in prison when he wrote and he speaks of his sufferings as, “the afflictions of, Christ.” That was their character. They were certainly afflictions for Christ, but the point here seems to be that they were in character Christ’s afflictions, of the same kind as He endured in His wonderful path on earth, though far less as to degree. Needless to say the Lord Jesus stands absolutely alone in His atoning sufferings in His death. There is no allusion to those here.
The sufferings which rolled in upon Paul’s flesh were endured for the sake of the whole church, and that church is the body of Christ. In his imprisonment the Apostle was filling up the cup of his afflictions, and that on behalf of the church in its widest sense — we mean, not only for the church as existing on earth in his day, but for the church through the ages to, the finish of its earthly history, including ourselves. He suffered that the truth as to the church might be made abundantly plain and established, and out of his sufferings sprang these immortal epistles which instruct us today. In this way his ministry as to the church is made available for us today.
A “dispensation,” or “administration” was given to him of God that thereby he might fulfill” or, “complete” His Word. This does not mean that Paul was to write the last words of Scripture, for, as we know, John did that. It means that the revealing of the mystery alluded to in the succeeding verses, was committed to him, and when that was made known the last item of revelation was filled in, the circle of revealed truth was complete.
In Scripture a “mystery” does not mean something mysterious or incomprehensible, but simply something which up to that time had been secret or hidden, or at all events only known to the initiated. The mystery spoken of here had been completely hidden in earlier ages, and now is only made manifest to God’s saints. It concerns Christ and the church, and more particularly the bringing in of the Gentiles in one body. This side of it is more definitely unfolded in the epistle to the Ephesians. In verse 27 of our chapter it is said to be “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Read the verse and you will see that the “you” here means “you Gentiles.” Formerly God had dwelt for a brief time in the midst of Israel, and then again the Messiah had appeared for another brief season amongst Jews in the land, but that Christ should now be found in Gentiles was an altogether new and unprecedented thing. It was a pledge of the glory to come, for Christ will be all and in all in that day.
It is not easy for us to imagine how revolutionary a doctrine this appeared to be when first announced. It completely set aside the special and exclusive position of the Jew and this was its chief offense in their eyes, arousing their furious opposition. The maintaining of this it was that had brought imprisonment and such suffering upon Paul.
On the other hand Paul knew its great importance as being the characteristic truth for this dispensation. Every dispensation of God has truth which gives character to it, and this is the truth which characterizes the present dispensation. Only as instructed in it are we likely to be “perfect”, or, “complete” in Christ. Hence the Apostle labored mightily in making this truth known according to the working of the Spirit of God in him.
Not only did Paul labor in teaching this great truth, but he labored also in prayer, and this the more now that he was restrained from his former activity by prison walls. His prayers were so intense that he describes them as conflict. In this conflict he was led out specially on behalf of those he had never met face to face, such as the Colossians, the Laodiceans and others. He wanted them to come to a full knowledge of this secret and to have their hearts knit together in the process, for in this full knowledge lay the full assurance of understanding.
In Hebrews 10 we read of “the full assurance of faith,” the faith that simply takes God at His word. That is something with which we are entitled to begin our career as believers. Full assurance of understanding marks maturity of spiritual intelligence. Entering into the understanding of the mystery, the last segment of the circle of truth falls into its place, the whole becomes intelligible and luminous, the vastness and wonder of the whole Divine scheme begins to dawn upon us, and a very wonderful assurance takes possession of our hearts.
For this month I take leave of my readers with this question, Is that assurance yours?
F. B. Hole.