We desire to call attention to a new commencement, which introduces us to the prospect of an eternal day of unclouded joy. This new beginning is CHRIST — Christ in resurrection, Christ as the Firstborn from the dead. To understand this, some consideration must be given to the term, “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18). Death is thus pointed out as the close of the old period and resurrection as the beginning of the new order of things. Death was the consequence of sin, and the cross of Christ was really the termination of God’s trial of man under responsibility. The first man came to an end there, under the just judgment of God. Until this is seen, there can be no proper apprehension of the significance of the resurrection of Christ.
The Commencement of New Creation
Together with the disappearance of the first man from the eye of God, the world in which he had lived came under judgment, and its prince was cast out. There was thus, if we may so speak, a clean sweep, the ending up of everything. The first man and his world came under a common doom. But this only gave the occasion for the revelation of the eternal counsels of God. Before the foundation of the world, God, in the sovereignty of His grace, had chosen a people in Christ, that they should be holy and without blame before Him in love. The foundation for the accomplishment of these counsels was laid in the death and resurrection of Christ. His death was the end of the responsible man’s history in the flesh. His resurrection, while it was the display of His victorious power over sin, death and Satan, was also the commencement of that new creation, of which He is the center and the glory and in which all things are made new, as suited to His condition as the Second Man who is out of heaven.
Christ in Incarnation
It must not be forgotten that Christ, in incarnation, was the Second Man, and it is only as we remember this that we can understand the language of John, who speaks of Him as “from the beginning.” This “beginning” dated from His introduction into this world. But while He was the Second Man when He became flesh and dwelt among us, He was not in the condition of the Second Man until after His resurrection. In His life here, He was in the form of a servant, in fashion as a man, “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” In resurrection this was all changed, and now, for the first time, God’s eternal thought for man in redemption was realized and set forth. It is on this account that He is termed “the beginning” in our scripture (Col. 1:18), and the words, “the Firstborn from the dead,” are added to mark the fact that He became this in resurrection. The similar expression in Revelation 3:14, “the beginning of the creation of God,” differs only in this, that here our attention is directed rather to the nature and character of the new creation, as seen in a risen and glorified Christ.
Firstborn of All Creation
One word must be said as to the context in Colossians. Immediately after describing our blessed Lord as the Firstborn from the dead, it proceeds, “That in all things He might have the preeminence.” The Apostle had already spoken of Him as the firstborn of every creature, or “Firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:5), and he explains that this place belongs to Him in virtue of His creatorship: “By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Col. 1:16-17). If the Creator Himself steps, so to speak, into His own creation, He must, of necessity, take the first place, and this is one of the glories of His supremacy. Then, on introducing us into the new circle of the church, we are also reminded that He has the first place in it, for He who is the head of His body, the church, is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence. Thus, wherever Christ is, whether regarded as connected with the first creation or the new, He is first, in the absolute preeminence of His personal and acquired glories.
Christ Our Life in Resurrection
But the point to be pressed at this moment is that if God now dates everything (we speak reverently) from the resurrection of Christ, so must we, if we would be in communion with His mind. Think for one moment of the unspeakable significance of this truth. All men are in a state of spiritual death, and Christians are, by the grace of God, associated with the death of Christ, so that it can be said of them, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). There is only one Man, therefore, before the eyes of God, only one in life, the Life itself, and this is He who is the Firstborn from the dead. That it is He who is our life is also blessedly true, but it is He who is this, and He is our life in resurrection. He is consequently our new beginning, and His resurrection will be invested with new light and power for our souls. Entering into this, we shall not be occupied with our birth into this world or with times and seasons, but everything for us will be associated with Christ as risen out of death and glorified.
Christ Is Our Beginning
All will admit the truth of this as doctrine, but what we want is to be in the power of the truth. After a new language is learned, many continue to think in their own and to translate their thoughts into the new as required. Many Christians are like this. They live the old life, they profess to have died with Christ, but endeavor to use the new life, life in a risen Christ, as the vehicle for the expression of their old thoughts, feelings and affections. No wonder that constant failure marks their path and that their Christian lives are characterized by sorrow and disappointment! New wine must, as our Lord teaches, be put into new bottles. The old life must be refused, and grace must be sought always to bear about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. Possessing Christ, we then have to learn that we came to an end before God in His cross and that our true life is Himself who is the Firstborn from the dead. Then we shall indeed apprehend that He, the risen One, is also our beginning.
Christ the Pattern
It may be further remarked that Christ, as so presented to us, is the Pattern and Model of all the redeemed. As before remarked, in Christ risen and glorified we behold God’s eternal thought for all His redeemed, and His servant Paul has taught us that God has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, “that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren.” Nothing short of this would correspond with His purpose or satisfy His heart. Our Lord Himself speaks of the same thing when He says, “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (John 17:19). The truth of what He is as the glorified Man, although ever the Eternal Son, is the means, brought home to the soul in the power of the Holy Spirit, of bringing us into growing moral conformity to Him now and into His likeness actually when our bodies also partake of the efficacy of redemption. “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:48-49). What a prospect is thus opened out before the eye of faith! And what an unfolding of the grace of our God, in that He has thus purposed to have us ever before Himself, in eternal association with His beloved Son and in perfect conformity to His image!
Christian Friend, 1896