In reply, may it not be stated, as was said at the outset of this paper, that the sense and power of “the things above” had been lost at Colosse, and that as the saints there had let go the Head and. Lord as “the beginning, and the first-born from the dead,” so Christians, since, and to an alarming extent in our day, have let go Christ as the Head of a new creation, and moreover have let go the Cross in its separating power between themselves and the world as it now is. “The world crucified to me, and I unto the world” is as necessarily a rule of life and death, for practical walk with Christ, as was the cross in its saving power necessary as a rule for our faith, when we believed in Jesus, “delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.” How can a Christian in whom the lusts of the mind and the pride of life dwell and act, so that he gathers around himself the most selected pleasures of the world for advancement or position in it, pass out of this region into the heavens, and set his affection on the things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of the majesty of God? He would not be happy or at home there with the Father and the Son, if he could even get inside in spirit—for the ruling objects and principles and motives of his daily and hourly being, when at their fullest activity and energy are not there, but upon the things on this earth, where he dwells, and where his interests are, and he has taken root. “Ye are dead together with Him in whom also ye are circumcised, with the circumcision of Christ” are as needful to be introduced now, as were the sharp-knives at Gilgal, when the Israelites were called to take possession of their inheritance in the promised land.
The coming in of such an One as Christ into this world in life, as “the image of the invisible God” displaced of necessity all the pretensions of these Greeks to wisdom and knowledge, for “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” were “hid in Him,” So likewise all the profession of these Jews, “who were Israelites, and to whom pertained originally the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises,” &c., had not attained to righteousness or permanent blessing in the earth, under all the advantages of that economy. All that God could bestow had been given, and forfeited. Moreover, “They had stumbled at the stumbling-stone, which God had laid in Zion,” and wrath was come upon them to the uttermost The world too, and “the rudiments of the world, were not after Christ.” They had been detected and exposed by Him, during His living ministry, when the Scribes and Pharisees and the Herodians, questioned Him, till they durst ask Him nothing more. They had further refused “the voice from heaven,” which said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him.” It was to the glory of this Person of the Son, that Paul sought to recover and establish “the faith” of these Colossians, and to attract their affections, by sheaving them that His presence on the earth was the test “for faith, and of conscience before God.” It was also the power of displacement too, as regarded all the proud and lofty pretensions of men (they were but grass, or the flower of the field) be they who and what they might. There was nothing outside Christ “for faith, or for God,” except to act upon by testimony, or in saving grace. Nothing but the work of Christ upon the cross could bring a man to God, in present acceptance, much less in heavenly and eternal life and glory. Man was in sin, and sin dwelt in man—and he was a slave to its power, as to his own consciousness of himself. Relatively, men were possessed by unclean spirits, and grievously tormented by the devil. As before God, man was in death while he lived, and under the second and eternal judgment in the resurrection at the last day. But these philosophic pretensions of men on the one side, or the religious professions of men on the other, were not the only or principal things in question before God. These were rebuked and set aside by the perfections of the Son of God in His life and doctrine—but besides this, Christ had closed up the history of “man in the flesh” by His own death as the sin-bearer and “ransom for all” under the righteous judgment of God. “He who knew no sin, was made sin,” and bore the curse in his Own body on the tree, and left it there. The flesh and “sin in the flesh,” having been brought to light by the law, and its enmity proved to be against God, and against Christ at the Cross, whether by the high priest who accused Jesus to Pilate, or by Pilate who condemned Him, or the soldier who pierced His side, was thus carried by Him into the place of judgment. There “God has condemned sin in the flesh” judicially, down to death, even the death of the cross. He has left it in the place of ashes forever, and risen out of it. So that the Colossians were taught their own death to the flesh and the world in the Christ who died, and their resurrection to a place and portion “in things above” as heirs and joint-heirs in the Christ, who rose from among the dead. “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God,” is their normal condition and description, as having been thus “delivered out of death, and the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love.” This is their new status and position as believers in Christ, and they were free from the law of sin and death, by the circumcision of Christ “in the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh.” Moreover “Christ was in them the hope of glory,” and thus through faith, in the Spirit too, they could “follow Christ in their affections” where he had gone, “and set their mind on things which were above; and not upon things which are on the earth.” Christ had been raised, and was sitting at the right hand of God, as the first-born from the dead, and Head over all things to the church, as the object for their hearts, and would they falsify His own position and theirs, as one with Him in heaven, by a return to ordinances, and the rudiments of the world. Would they abandon, or continue in the faith?
The observance of days and new moons, or meats and drinks, were parts of a former economy, when God was dealing with man in the flesh, by what was merely ceremonial and external. What had these things to do with a new creation, or with Christ, “where He now sits,” or with them either as being one with Him unless they were false both to Him, and to themselves?
Our Lord is not gone up into uncertain or empty space, but into heaven itself, and there “to appear in the presence of God for us.” What He personally is “at the right hand of God” on high, as entering upon His own glories and dominions, may well fill our souls with adoration and praise, as well as call out our affections after Him, “to seek those things which are above,” and which the Father hath put into His own hands. Take for instance the things with which we are familiar by name, and which in this world make up the life struggle of emperors, and kings, and nations. What objects to the eye and heart of the greatest men, are majesty and wisdom, glory and power, honor and riches, and a name above every one that is named, especially if it could be said “not only in this world, but in that which is to come” if we think of His earthly rights as Son of man, all these, and more, are transferred to Him, who, when He comes a second time, and “sits upon the throne of His glory,” will exercise them all under the righteous scepter of His kingdom, according to the decrees of God the Father.
Shall we be content to see these things, in the manner in which they appear today “under the sun,” and are talked of, become the objects of ambition and lust, or else of diplomacy and war, amongst the nations, where all is wrong and in wrong hands; and yet that these things, when transferred in all their perfection to “the man of God’s right hand, whom he has made strong for Himself” should fail to be understood as realities, or have power to draw our hearts and our affections up to Him, because not knowing with distinctness what they are? And yet the witness to us, from these spheres and scenes of glory and blessing, into which Christ has entered, is the Holy Ghost, respecting whose presence and ministry, Jesus said, “He shall take of mine, and shew it unto you.” We may here observe that as “the spirit of prophecy,” he tarried not for the sons of men, but tuned the hearts of the earthly people by the songs of Moses and Hannah, and lighted up the dark and gloomy records of their individual and collective declension, and apostacy from Jehovah, by the bright assurances of “the nail in a sure place, who should be for a glorious throne to His Father’s house, and upon whom they should hang all the glory, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons.”
David, the son of Jesse, also sang when under the anointing of the God of Jacob: “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God, and he shall be like the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds,” &c. As “the sweet Psalmist” he again tuned his prophetic lyre, and sang, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet.” This was David’s creation psalm, or the song “of the world to come,” when he saw Christ’s glory as “the Son of man,” and spake of Him in connection with the earth and the heavens, saying, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who hast set thy glory above the heavens.” These outbursts from the Spirit of prophecy, as well as of the Spirit of the Lord, by “the man who was raised up on high” to One who is raised infinitely higher—or to the one who rules over men in the fear of God—or the Son of Man, for the excellency of Jehovah’s name upon the earth, and for the establishment of His glory in the heavens, hereafter, carried the faith and affections of that people upward! All these positions and glories of their Messiah and King above and below, connect themselves with this epistle, which reconciles things on earth to God, and fit in to some one or other of its many spheres of glory. “All things were created by Him, and for Him, and by Him all things consist” are the words of the same Spirit to ourselves if we would see or sing like the Psalmist, of the abundance of peace and blessing “from the cup to the flagon” –or look out upon the “morning without a cloud” to witness the King, on the throne of His kingdom—or the Son of man delivering creation from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. “The Spirit of truth” witnesses to us that Christ is to reconcile all things moreover, which are in heaven and in the earth; and is there any difficulty to the heart that is side by side with Christ in this mighty work, and in these happy deliverances, to “enter into His joy,” or to set its affection with His own, on a day so full of the love of God, and of the Son’s love, to every creature? A day, bright with the clear rising of the sun, when “the universal song shall be raised, of blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever.” a scene which is to display the rights and titles and inheritances of the Son of man.