We may, now, follow more strictly, the way in which the apostle was led, in this epistle, to recover and establish the Colossians upon the general, and weighty subject of “The mystery,” and of “Christ, and the things which are above”? He does this by shelving that Christ, and the headships into which He had “been raised by God the Father,” after the work of redemption by His precious blood at the cross had been accomplished, necessitated this new revelation of the counsels of God, and especially “The mystery, which had been hid from ages and generations.” This they were in danger of forgetting, “as the riches of the glory of this mystery,” once hidden in God, but which was now made manifest to His saints.
All these purposes were established in Christ before ever the world was, and were not connected with Adam, except by “the deep sleep, and the rib” in the garden, as the only fitting type of “this mystery” before the fall. In this sense, Christ and the Church, as His body and His bride, preceded, and took the lead of everything else. Adam as an individual creature, was lord of this creation, and the beginning of an earthly order of blessing in the world that now is, and has come to nothing; yea, far worse, “is groaning under the bondage of corruption,” waiting the day of its deliverance “into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” The new revelation concerning the person and glories of the second Adam, as “the beginning of the creation of God,” and “the riches of the glory of the mystery” itself, had now been made known by the Holy Ghost, after the Son of man had been exalted on high, and taken His own place as “Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”
Though this be quoted from the epistle to the Ephesians, yet is it properly Church truth, and the truth of the mystery, which Paul was bringing again in part before the saints at Colosse. He desired that they might understand the “things which are above,” and their being headed up in Christ, “where He sits at the right hand of God,” and from whence they must, begin in their day of manifestation. The Lord Himself, from that height of glory, had appeared to Paul, in “a light above the brightness of the sun,” to make him a minister and a witness, both of the things which he had seen, and of those things in which the Lord would appear unto him. There could be no mistake, and in effect, “what things were gain to him he counted loss for Christ.” The objects with which he had been familiar on earth, had been displaced by the appearance of the Son of man in heaven, and practically things had changed, as to their relative importance and value, since he had been apprehended by the voice which said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me”? “Yea, doubtless,” he writes to the Philippians, “and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ.” He is to all intents, as faithful to these Colossians, whether as “a witness,” or as “a minister,” and preaches, “warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that he may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
This heavenly and eternal order of God, with the righteous man in glory as its center, (and according to which all things are to be reconciled to God,) could not possibly coalesce with that which had rejected Him below, and preferred even Barabbas; yea, worse, which still progresses in its apostacy, and fills up its iniquity, till finally “the antichrist is manifested in the temple of God,” declaring that he is God, and the whole world seen to be worshipping the beast, and saying in the face of heaven, “who is like unto the beast?” The heaven and the earth which are now, may, and will stand in happy relation to each other by “the presence and rule of the Son of man,” after he has risen up from His Father’s throne where he now sits. He will come forth the second time, to make His enemies His footstool, and execute that terrible mission—with “the fan in His hand, by which He will thoroughly purge His floor, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Leaving, however, this final separation by judgment, between these two orders of the old and new creation, we may remark as to Christianity, that not even “the handwriting of ordinances” could be allowed to stand any longer as a shadow, when all to which they pointed had come into fulfillment, and ended in their final realities of “death and life in Christ.” They “were taken out of the way, and nailed to His cross;” besides this, the door was closed against another of the wiles of Satan, viz., a voluntary humility in the worshipping of angels, perhaps as a superior order of beings who had kept their first estate, and who had never sinned as we have; or may be, because “they excel in strength and do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word.” To be drawn away thus, would be false to Christianity, and to Christ Himself; yea, only convict them “as intruders into those things which man has not seen,” and condemn them for being “vainly puffed up by a fleshly mind.” Having thus closed every door against them, which a speculative philosophy had opened upward to angels and spirits in heaven; and which a traditional religion kept open outward, for a return to forms and ritualistic observances, “suited to man in the flesh,” he brings forward again the great delivering power of the cross, as the one grand truth “of their own death and life,” when learned in Christ. There are still some details upon this sliding scale of Colossian declension which have much to do in putting into contrast, what man is before God as under Judaism and the handwriting—or under grace—and also as viewed in connection with the old order of creation, or the new order of redemption; or in other words; as in Adam or in Christ.
For example, to take down from the cross “the handwriting of ordinances,” and work either for acceptance in holiness, or deliverance from sin, by their means; would be a denial of “the circumcision made without hands, for the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” once and forever “by the circumcision of Christ.” So also as touching “their baptism”—and what is this, do any ask? It is, “That we are dead and buried with Him” by this outward, but true expression of death, our own death, “wherein also we are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead.” What a new, yea, what a victorious end of the old man is this death, and what a glorious beginning of the new creature is this! What a triumphant opening out of death by baptism, into life with Christ is ours! A life hid “with Him, who is our Life,” in God! Such was the true doctrine, and efficacy of the cross of Christ, for the faith which rested upon “the operation of God” to the believer, by its means. On the other hand, man “alive in the flesh”; and its judgment by the cross of Christ which extinguishes it, can never agree. He cannot look it in the face without being convicted as a rebel. Jesus is there refused afresh by him, whether for present peace with God, or as the means of that eternal redemption which connects the soul with Christ, on the other side of condemnation by the cross, in everlasting life and righteousness and glory.
All the pretensions of man in the flesh, are forever contradicted, and are turned against him, by his part in the cross of Christ. If he boasts of power, it was the world’s power in the hands of Caesar, that crucified the Lord; and if he speaks of wisdom, it is the place where God confounded the wise, by raising up Christ from the dead. Does he glory in progress so called, and advancement? They belong to the Son of man, at the right hand of God. If he makes his boast in righteousness, and benevolence, and philanthropy, the cross again convicts him, and condemns him, for having refused them all in Christ below; and once more, in not owning “the kindness and love of God” the Father, and the Son when proclaimed afresh in the gospel of His grace from above “to every creature under heaven.” In truth man in the flesh is displaced as a matter of fact, not only by the judgment of God., at the cross, but also by the entrance of the Lord from heaven as the quickening Spirit, and, it is in this twofold way the one great text of this epistle comes into place, viz., that “Christ is all, and in all.” We have to this point, mainly followed the apostle in the practical application of the cross for their rescue and deliverance; they could turn to nothing under heaven any longer, for the best things which had been authorized by Jehovah, proved abortive by reason of the weakness or willfulness of the flesh, to maintain even an outward relationship, and had been “taken out of the way.” There was nothing now but Christianity, and no one but the Son of Man come in by incarnation, and now on the other side of the cross in resurrection, as “the last Adam,” and “the beginning of the creation of God.” Man is thus in a new place for faith!
Let us now turn to the positive teaching of the Holy Ghost in this epistle, by which he seeks to attract them to “the glory of the Person of the Son,” that they may go after Him where He now is, and seek, yea, set their affections on Himself and “upon things above, not on things upon the earth.” The foundation—for this, lies in the fact, that they are by grace and quickening power, united to Christ, as the exalted Man, in a new position in heaven. Their ability for “seeking the things which are above” consisted in the reality of their own death in this sphere below, and their being risen out of it, with Christ as their life, into a new one in glory, where all things are headed up in Him, “Where He sits on the right hand of God.” This death of Christ is also to be kept judicially upon the flesh, in its activity and lust, so that the hindrances to the growth and development of the new man by the Spirit, may be refused, and set aside in the power of God. Likewise, “the inner man thus strengthened with might,” will be able in a present communion with Christ and in real enjoyment of heart, to seek “the things which are above.” There is thus a Person in the heavens who loves us, and whom we love, and with whom we are united; having “been quickened and raised together,” by the operation of God. There are things likewise which are already His; and others, to be gathered together in Him as the appointed center, whether they be in heaven, or on the earth, according to the divine counsels in “the dispensation of the fullness of times.” The instruction of the Lord to His disciples in John 16 may be rightly quoted here, concerning “the things above,” and especially to show that the unfolding of them to us, is part of the present ministry of the Holy Ghost. “Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.” And in continuance, Jesus said, “He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mire, and show it unto you.” But perhaps what follows, more directly bears upon our inquiry, as to “what the things above are,” on which our affections are to be set, viz., “All things that the Father hath are mine, therefore said I that he shall take of mine and show it unto you.” Surely this blessed ministry is what the Holy Ghost has long since entered upon, and has carried out in the revelations made to the apostles, and by their writings still communicated to the Church of the living God. Indeed the prayer of Eph. 1 not only recognizes this as a fact, but, as a consequence, Paul desired “the eyes of their understanding, or heart might be opened, that they might know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,” &c. The Colossian epistle likewise contains (as might be supposed) instruction as to the “things above” which are connected with Christ as the new center, in the glory of His Person, who is not only Head “over all things,” but who has “all things” put under His feet.
It is not merely that by the coming in of Christ everything under heaven was put to the proof, and set aside finally, by His death on the cross, but also that by His ascension to the right hand of the Father, “He fills all things” out of the fullness which dwells in Him—for it is written, that “In Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell.” “The Spirit of truth” glorifies the Son to the eyes and hearts of the Colossians, as He rises before their faith and hope, in His personal and essential glories of Godhead and manhood, like the light of day, when he shines forth in his strength, to dispel the darkness, and to call forth into life and beauty all that is dependent upon His rays. How blessed for them and us to see the eternal Son come out as the “image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation; because by Him were created all things, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or principalities; all things have been created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” In this precious scripture (the like to which does not occur anywhere else) we behold Him first, in His own Personal glories, and secondly as the source, and center, and sustainer of “all things.” If we ask ourselves what must these things which are thus enumerated be to Him, and to His heart, having first created them, and afterward secured them by redemption for the glory of God, and His own glory, and ours, we shall begin to see “what the things are” which we are encouraged to seek! Moreover, “He is the firstborn from among the dead, the beginning, that in all things He might have the first place.” Thus the “pre-eminence,” and the “fullness,” are alike His; and in Him “are hid, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” The vast spheres for their exercise and display, in blessing are the heavens and the earth which are now, as well as the heavens and the earth which shall be after these, wherein dwelleth righteousness—For neither the one nor the other could suffice, to unfold the infinite and various glories of such an One as He “Who is the image of the invisible God.” He alone could say “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father.” Great in the glory of the Godhead as the eternal Son, He yet adds to it another glory in His own Person, by the mysterious Manhood which He assumed, and in which it is our blessedness to know and worship Him. “We are complete in Him, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” The heavens and the earth were necessary to reveal the life and ways of Him, when He came forth from the eternity in which He dwelt with God, into time, that He might “tabernacle amongst men,” and again pass out of time into the everlasting ages to prepare an abode, and lay open the Father’s house to “our affections as the elect of God.” He could say as to the earth and the heavens, in the manner and dignity which became Him, and in which they had been and would forever be His servants. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, I am He that liveth and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hades and of death.” Is it nothing, we may ask each other for our affections to pass into regions and territories and dominions like these, with God and the Son of His love, to own Him in the almighty power by which He created all things, and by which at this day all things consist, and for whom, if not “for Him?” Are these things dear to His heart (and not to ours) who when “the right of redemption lay with Him,” and Him alone, paid such a price to regain the heavens and the earth, and ourselves out of the depths of the enemy’s power, as the shedding of His own blood? Do we allow the god of this world, and those whom he leads captive, as “The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” to make their boast in the things of time and sense, and we know not what our things are? Do we consent that their things should be so definitely understood, and so elaborately portrayed to the lusts of the mind and the pride of life, as that they may be distinctly pursued to the ends of the world, or purchased at their Crystal Palaces and Emporiums? Do we see all this in everyday life, or else by Railways and Ocean Steamers, and yet a man in Christ, an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ, asks what the things are above, upon which he is to set his affection? Though he knows these things to be “Where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.”