OTHER glories which pertain to Him as the Son of Man, and the king of Israel may lie more in His earthly dominions, yet are they connected with “the kingdom of His dear Son” and wait for their manifestation, upon the Christ who is sitting at the right hand of God. In the meanwhile “Christ dwells in us the hope of glory” till He who is our life shall appear as the appointed heir of all things, when “we also shall appear with Him in glory.” “The hope which is laid up (for these Colossians and for all saints) in heaven,” was to call out and gladden their hearts, because it included all things that are created, be they “visible or invisible,” “whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers,” as comprehended in the glory of Christ, our Head. All the material universe which as Creator He had made, the Lord also holds as the last Adam upon the ground of redemption, and in the title of Redeemer. It yet remains for Him, as the Son of God in time, to reconcile all things “whether in the earth, or in heaven, unto God, which come within His own eternal purpose, and by means of redemption as the true Boaz, by the purchase of the inheritance through the blood of the Lamb slain.” Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, and good pleasure in man “open out yet further the three great subjects of the angels’ song, as comprehending in permanent peace and sure blessing the relations of God with men, and with this earth, in connection with” the Son born, and the Child given. We have thus in these Scriptures the breaking forth of the affections in Patriarchs, and men and angels, as they saw Christ’s glory and spake of His day.
Thus promise, prophecy, and the annunciation, alike pointed to the in-coming and Incarnate One, at the Man, of God’s eternal counsel, the only begotten, and well-beloved Son, “the image of the invisible God and the first-born of every creature.” Moreover, He is the Saviour of the world, its Redeemer and Deliverer and who is yet as the Reconciler and King of kings to subdue all things to Himself, and to yield up the kingdom to God even the Father, “that God may be all in all.” These momentous realities between the Father and the Son, are not merely matters of fact, to be accomplished in glory, but have their foundation in the love of God, towards US) and the world, and all that it contains, and in which by grace we have our place and share, “for thou has created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were created.” Not only does the love of God thus manifest itself towards us, as His creatures that we may love Him and what He loves, but higher still, and upon a different scale than this, “the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth.” Nor is this all for “the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.” Love, the eternal love of the Father and the Son, found out objects of satisfaction and delight, in the creation of the heavens, and the earth and all that is in them by the word of His power; but a new motive even for this love, was found in the nature and efficacy of His death by which He redeemed them. “Therefore doth my Father love Me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” This is the circle into which our affections are carried, and in which we are “to seek the things above,” because of the life taken again, and now “hid with Christ in God.” When we are once at this center, in the delight and communion of the Father’s counsels in Christ, we shall then be able to discover the objects and subjects on which the love of God, and the love of Christ, and the love of the Spirit are fixed, and round which they turn. By redemption through the blood of the Cross, they are all brought into their true relations to Christ, and finally shall all stand out before the presence of God, in complete and abiding reconciliation and order to Him. If angels sang their songs, with the multitude of the heavenly host, at the giving forth of the Son of the bosom, and if the very trees of the field shall clap their hands, when they are conscious that the finishing touch of that Master’s hand has rescued them from decay, how can it be that a child of the Father’s love, an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ, should be rebuked and eclipsed by them? Peter reaches this side of the Colossian epistle, when he reminds the pilgrims and strangers on earth, “that they are begotten unto a living hope” by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and carries off their affections to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, “reserved in heaven for you.” So practically, we shall find one of two things, viz., either the grapes of Eschol, and the ripe corn of the land on the other side of Jordan, together with the secret of Shiloh, and God’s delight to have His people where He dwells, will set our affections for us on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; or else “our members which are upon the earth” will play the fool with us, and we shall make it clear to others that our hearts were never really at home and fixed therewith Christ. But again, “all things that the Father hath are mine, therefore said I, He shall take of mine and shew it unto you: and surely those things which satisfy the heart of God to give unto His Son, as the reward of” “the travail of His soul,” and which satisfy the heart of our Blessed Lord to receive, may well gladden ours and call them away from things on the earth, as they now are, in the absence of Christ, and whilst under the dominion of sin, and the flesh, and Satan. Precious it is thus to look into the earth and the heavens and “seek the things which are above” in their happy relation one to another, when the old serpent, the dragon is cast out of them into the bottomless pit. Blessed is it for our affections to run on with Christ their strength and joy, as we delight ourselves prospectively in their new order of redemption under Him, and of reconciliation to God. It is in this interim these things are called “the things above” as headed up in Christ at the right hand of God. Moreover they must all begin from above at His second coming, and for this they wait.
We may now turn from these, to consider the yet higher unfoldings of glory by the Spirit in His character of the “Spirit of truth, which (Jesus said) proceedeth from the Father and the Son.” Beyond the redemption and reconciliation of all things to God, which though peculiar to us, is common to all within the circle of His grace, there is another presentation of the person of the Son in this epistle, different to His connection with the heavens and the earth, as the firstborn of every creature, and even as Creator and Head over all. It is indeed the counterpart of what was in Him as divine and almighty and infinite: and goes to complete the counsels of God, as to the mystery of the Christ; or “God manifest in the flesh,” for of Him in manhood, it is said, “in Him dwelleth all the fullness, of the Godhead bodily.” Moreover, “ye are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” The unfolding and presentation of His glory, as God the Son, in chapter 1, is divinely connected with His Manhood glory, and “bodily,” as in chapter 2, that the unveiled mystery of His own Person, might command our faith and worship, and attract, yea, fix our hearts’ affections upon Himself “who loved us and gave Himself for us.” In this two-fold mystery of God and man, as united in the Person of the Son, was the Lord presented to them by Paul, under the anointing of the Holy Ghost. Moreover He had great conflict for them to the end that their hearts might be established, being united together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the full knowledge of the mystery of God, in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. Observe in this scripture that Paul’s conflict was; “that their hearts’ affections might be encouraged,” as he opened these mysteries of the Christ of God to them in chapter 1 and 2, to pass out of the region of speculative philosophy by the certainty of a divine revelation, and outside the range of traditional religion, into the heavens, with their risen and glorified Lord. They had begun a new history with the Second. Man above, through “faith and love which is in Christ Jesus,”—who had won their hearts for Himself, by what He was, and by the work He had wrought out in “the body of His flesh through death,” in virtue of which they had been reconciled to God, and would be “presented holy, and unblameable, and unreproachable in His presence.” Precious assurance! A full realization for their best affections now, and their brightest hopes hereafter in glory, as by the Spirit they were led forth into their new position with their Lord “above” who had redeemed them for “this inheritance of the saints in light,” and for which the Father’s love had “made them meet.” Moreover, so real and vital was this relation to them and Him that they were “to give thanks to the Father” who had put His own seal to it! How could they take this new place of thanksgiving to the Father, if their hearts were not conversant with “the things above” and in the conscious enjoyment of the blessedness for which they gave thanks? They were presented by Christ on high, according to the new position and place which he had taken before God as the heavenly Man. The world that was once under probation was over, and Christ was the beginning of a new creation. They were likewise “new creatures in Christ,” and with them “old things were passed away, and all things had become new,” for all things were of God. Was there any uncertainty as, to their title by grace that they should be enticed by the rudiments of the world? or their meetness for such a position with Christ in the presence of God, so that their affections should slip from the things above? It would be in them a wicked denial of this new mystery of God and of Christ, “in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and in whom they were complete “and perfect.” This was to engross and satisfy their hearts, as it did Christ’s. Farther still, they who were by grace it this position, “having received Christ Jesus the Lord,” were in living relationship with the Father, and personally enjoyed “the love in the Spirit,” which produced in them those affections which could only find their objects in Christ. They were “to seek those things which are above” in that vast circle of which in the foreknowledge of God, He was the appointed and unchangeable center, as Lord and Head. In this liberty of union with Christ, moreover, as head of the body—and, as the Bride “the Lamb’s wife,” could not these relations as His members, draw their hearts to things above, where His own found its delight and satisfaction? In the measure by which the conflict of Paul for them availed, and in which they reached “the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God,” they would for themselves be filled with “the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” One step further, as regards the competency of believers in Christ to enjoy these “riches of the full assurance” in the heart and understanding—we should always have before our souls the fact of the present, and active ministry by the Spirit, to “take of the things of Christ and shew them unto us.” This was the last proof of the Lord’s care over “His own which were in the world.” when He departed out of it—and also the heavenly pledge of the Father’s love to us, in sending down “the Comforter, the Spirit of truth,” to guide us into all truth.
In brief, we have thus in Christianity, a new revelation of the counsels of the Father, for His own glory, and the glory of His Son—accompanied by a declaration of the present mind and ways of God in grace towards every creature under heaven by the preaching of the gospel. In addition to this, and to fill up, or complete the word of God, was “the mystery,” which had been hidden from ages and from generations, but has now been made manifest to his saints, &c. We have secondly, the unfolding of the Person of the Son in Godhead and Manhood fullness and glory, whether displayed in the original circle of creation, or in the present sphere of redemption, or in the future one of reconciliation before God, of all things in the heavens or in the earth. Thirdly, we have His eminence, and pre-eminence declared by Headship of all things “visible and invisible,” as well as Headship “of the body the Church, who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead”—and “the Head of all principality and power.” We then have, fourthly, the secret communicated to us, that in the everlasting counsels “it pleased all the fullness to dwell in Him”—and further, as to this world, and in time, “the eyes of our hearts have looked upon Him” “in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Lastly, as to Himself, surely “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in Him,” for another day as to their manifestation and exercise, when as “the greater than Solomon” in the days of the Queen of Sheba, He shall sit on the throne of His glory, as “Wisdom” to be justified of all her children—and is not all this the food and delight of our affections, while Christ is sitting above?
Such is the Person who requires the heavens and the earth, as the necessary spheres in which to manifest Himself for the Father’s glory, and for the blessing of every creature therein, and who was presented throughout the length and breadth of His dominions to the faith and love of these saints at Colosse, by the prophecies which went before, and the counsels which followed. He had opened His own heart to them by a love which made them co-heirs with Himself in the things above, and which when tested by the sufferings of death, proved itself to be stronger than death, that He might make them His own. And though the primary application of this glory and fullness of Christ was to shame them from being enticed away, by anything angelic or human around—yet the positive revelation of the Person by the Holy Ghost to the Church of God, is that our affections may be set upon Him, and the things connected with Him and, dear to His own heart, where He is sitting at the right hand of God. He is in the glory of God—and a man in Christ, is the Christian who has gone after Him, in the Spirit and affections and purpose of His entire being. The object of His life then, will be Christ, “for me to live is Christ,”—the beginning and end of his faith will be Christ, “that I may know Him,” &c.—the hope of his heart will be Christ, “looking for that blessed hope, and the glory of His appearing,” – the rule of his walk will be “to walk as He walked”—the pattern and standard will be also Christ, “I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”