1.THE COLOSSIANS—continued.
THE five points to which we drew attention in our last article on this subject, as illustrating the errors into which the Colossians were apparently being drawn, may be divided broadly into two classes; first, errors derived from the heathen, and secondly, those derived from the Jews. In this manner we may perhaps most conveniently consider them; bearing in mind, however, that in certain points the distinction cannot be drawn.
1St. Errors as to the person of Christ. “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Chapter 2:9. also 1:19), an expression to which we have drawn attention in speaking of the first chapter. He was the full manifestation of all that God is—all abiding in Him, finding its full expression in Him, and revealed through Him. We must notice particularly the word “bodily”: in no mystical sense, but in all verity, in the person of our Lord here on earth, dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead: “ the Word was made flesh.” If He cast out devils, it was by the Spirit of God; if He wrought miracles, it was the Father who dwelt in Him; and notice His own words to Philip, “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.”
To us the expression quoted above may seem a simple one, one that carries with it its own meaning without question, even if we find it difficult to express it in our own words in more detail; but it was not so to the Colossians and early Christians generally. We do not know from any writings which have been handed down to us, the exact signification attached to the word “fullness” by heretics in the days of the apostle; but in later writings there is found attached to it a peculiar meaning, that in all probability is the same in principle as that in earlier times. The “fullness” then being the aggregate of all the divine attributes, virtues, energies, it was taught that Christ was but one of these attributes; merely one of the powers by which God, who is unknown, works. By some these attributes were personified, and were regarded as emanations from God Himself, Christ being one of them. From this point of view they formed a ready, and to them a satisfactory solution of the mystery—our Lord was not God, but one of these emanations (Christ) descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism, and returned to the “fullness “ when Jesus was crucified.
It is not possible in our limits to touch more fully upon these theories, the discussion of which seems to have had a great fascination for some of the early heretics: to us they seem so extraordinary, that to state them is to ensure their rejection by the Christian. We have said enough to show what point there is in the apostle’s emphatic assertion of the dignity and glory of the person of Christ: no inferior position can be His; in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
2nd. Errors as to the Creation. We can easily understand that, where the knowledge of God, once given to man, has been lost, the mind of man speculates—gropes in the dark-about the many problems presented in the world. Where there is left any sense of good and evil, the cause of the evident antagonism of the two, and their respective origin, would furnish an abundant field for the exercise of his ingenuity. We accordingly find that such has been the case in connection with the ancient religions of the world, or at least such as had a regular system, with the exception of the Jewish, which alone was based on revelation. When Christianity has exercised a scarcely more than nominal influence, or has been received as an addition to previous knowledge and not as entirely supplanting it, instead of drawing the heart away from the contemplation of subjects which do not profit, it has been regarded only as another means towards the solution of difficulties, leaving them difficulties still.
We may follow the argument thus: —If God be, as revealed in Christ, holy, how can He be the Creator of all things, seeing that evil exists? If He be, then He must be the Creator of a power or principle of evil, independent of, and antagonistic to, God; and this was called “matter.” How then could God act as the Creator? not by direct means, seeing that good and evil are opposed. To solve this difficulty there was imagined a succession of emanations from God, each inferior to its predecessor, until at last there results one so far removed from infinite good as to be able to come in contact with the evil of matter, and so create this world.
In opposition to these reveries there is the teaching of the apostle that Christ is the direct Creator and upholder of the world. The idea of an inferior being as the direct instrument finds no support, nor does the thought of an antagonistic power. But further, seeing that in Christ we have all that is required to supply the wants of our souls, there is great need to be careful that we be not robbed of the joy which is ours in the contemplation of Himself, by the study (absorbing if yielded to) of the material world, even if we be not led altogether astray, through failure to recognize in everything the hand of the Creator. How needful, then, the apostle’s warning, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (Chapter 2:8). The thought that matter in itself is evil has an important bearing upon our fifth point.
(To be continued.)