I desire to send you a few remarks from time to time, as the Lord may enable me, on the Epistle to the Colossians; chiefly for the help of the young who have recently been brought, in His great mercy, to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Two things in this Epistle make it especially precious to such. The first is the way in which it so fully reveals the glory of His Person, whether as Son of the Father's love, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells, or as Creator, and Redeemer, and Head of His body, the Church. The Second thing is the way in which it unfolds "the mystery" for the joy and consolation of the saints -even Christ in them the hope of glory.
These are the two great subjects set before our hearts by the Holy Ghost in this precious Epistle; and what can be more strengthening or gladdening than to have the eye and heart filled with the glory of Jesus and to have the joy and assurance of our intimate union with Him made good in our souls by the Holy Ghost. To walk in the light of His risen glory and in the consciousness of our individual interest in His love is the great requirement in these evil days. Nothing else will give courage to confess Him before men; and this alone will deliver from all the snares of Satan, whether of worldliness on the one hand, or of religion on the other, which is not after Christ.
These things will come before us, if the Lord will, by and by: meantime, let us follow the course of the Epistle from the beginning.
In the first two verses we have the salutation of the Apostle, and in the next three his thanksgiving on their behalf. He addresses them as Christ's apostle, clothed with the authority of His name, and charged with the communication of His grace. Moreover, God had set him apart to this service. In the end of the chapter the Apostle tells of a double ministry entrusted to him as the vessel of the grace of God; first, a ministry for the proclamation of the gospel to sinners; and second, a ministry for the Church, to make known to the saints the unsearchable riches of Christ. It is in the exercise of this latter ministry that he writes this Epistle. It is to bring the hearts of the saints into the assured knowledge and enjoyment of their place and portion in Christ so as to walk in peaceful communion with Him until He shall appear. This ministry he fulfills in the name, and as the Apostle of, Jesus Christ. Thus the whole Epistle flows directly from Christ through His chosen Apostle.
It is to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ he writes, and, as we have seen, on the part of Christ. They were " in Christ," the grand center of the new creation; holy and brethren in Him. Then he ministers the sweet stream of grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus was parted from His disciples in the act of blessing them, so here the apostle of Christ begins his epistle to the Colossians, before entering on anything else, by saluting them with the grace or unmingled favor of the Father and the Son, of which they were ever the objects, being in Christ, and with the peace which is the fruit of this favor.
Next we get his thanksgiving. He thanked God, even the Father of " Our Lord Jesus Christ," praying always for them, for the hope laid up for them in Heaven. Here we see how Paul identified himself with the interests of Heaven. He had heard of the faith and love of these Colossians, and his heart at once turned to God in thanksgiving and prayers; thanksgiving that He had linked with heaven this fresh company of believers, and that lie had done it. And note well, that it was not what they were delivered from that here occur pies him, though he does not forget that, as we see lower down; nor is it what was wrought in them, blessed as that was; but it is what they were called to-that bright and blessed portion in heaven-the hope laid up for them there. Thus he would evidently fill their minds with what they were going to; and in his own sense of its exceeding excellency and glory, he thanks God on their behalf as heirs of such an inheritance.
This is a very important point. For there is a great tendency, in the first joy of faith and fervor of feeling, to be occupied with the joy and with the feeling; and when afterward trials and exercises of heart and conscience have to be passed through, to be occupied with them, or with what will give present deliverance and help, and to forget the bright and blessed hope laid up for us in heaven-the place of rest and glory with Himself, which Jesus is gone to prepare. But how can I journey on to Canaan through the trials and exercises of the wilderness if my heart has lost the sense of the blessedness of the Canaan I am going to? We are redeemed, not for the wilderness, but for Canaan; we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And when the glory of God is indeed our joy, we can add, " Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also." For then we know and experience that these very tribulations are all made to work for our good, and to further us on our way. For tribulation worketh patience. It frees us from the restlessness of our own will, which would turn aside, and delivers us, besides, from the fear of what man can do to us. We learn to trust in God. We learn, moreover, how little we can be the authors of our own blessing, and we count more and more on the constant watchfulness and love, and care of a Father in heaven. His love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. We know that we are in these tribulations because the objects of His love, the ransomed ones of His grace from the fire that shall never be quenched. And then, besides, we are on our way to God. Thus having the end in view enables us to confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and it brightens with hope every step of the way. Otherwise we get weary, becoming faint in our minds. But if living by faith in the midst of things that are unseen and eternal the inward man is renewed day by day, and that, too, at the very time that the outward man is perishing and falling into decay.
But we now come to a third point, and that is-the ground of this thanksgiving on the behalf of these Colossians.
How could the apostle give thanks so assuredly on their behalf, having never seen them? Verse 4 tells us. It was because he had heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus, and of their love to all the saints. These were the grand distinguishing features and characteristics of the divine life in man. And these being of God, he well knew that all who possessed them were bound up forever in the bundle of life with the Lord Jesus Christ, and that where He was there should they be also. These were the grand essentials. In Christ Jesus nothing avails but " faith which worketh by love." First, faith, which came to Jesus with all its load of sin and unworthiness because it had no where else to go, and because it saw a love and a holiness in Him which received sinners and made Him their companion and their friend. And then love which, having Him for its object, necessarily had all who were His. Faith not only thus comes to Jesus at the first, but it binds the soul to Him as risen, and is ever receiving of His fullness. And love, having seen the saints as the precious ones of His heart, enfolds them forever in its bosom with a most tender affection. They are dear to Him. This is the motive of love, and it never faileth. It clothes with divine comeliness all the objects of His grace. And what it does to them it does as unto Him; and great is its reward.
(To be continued)