The truth of the mystery of Christ and the church includes four things:
1. The revelation of God concerning Christ as the second Man.
2. The relation of the church to Him as His body and bride.
3. The nature of this union.
4. What the Head is to the body and to each individual member.
In other words, it is the unfolding of the glory of the Head, the grace which has set the church in relation to Him in that glory, and what the Head is to the body for its present maintenance while on earth.
The Gospel
In the end of Romans, the Apostle first mentions the mystery but does not develop it. In that epistle the Spirit of God gives that which must precede the knowledge of the mystery, that is, the gospel. Until the gospel is known in its fullness, a soul cannot truly appreciate the truth of the mystery. Paul was a minister of both the gospel and also the mystery (Col. 1:23-29). In Romans we get that which meets the need of a sinner, revealing what God is in grace for man. When it is apprehended by faith, the soul is brought to God in peace and liberty, assured that every question as to sin was settled at the cross, once and for all. The believer is reconciled to God, and is brought to know God as Father. Thus the conscience and heart are perfectly set free, the soul is at home in the presence of God, and it needs no more to be occupied with itself and its needs. Being thus delivered from all his fears and cares, the believer is in a condition to be occupied with what is outside the range of his own necessities. He can now be engaged with the glories of Christ and God’s counsels and purposes concerning Christ and for His glory. So then, when the truth in Romans is really known, the saint is prepared to go on to the apprehension of the mystery. This we get developed in Colossians and Ephesians.
The Purpose of God
Concerning Christ
First of all, we get in Ephesians 1 the purpose of God concerning Christ as the second Man. In verse 10 we learn that God has purposed to bring everything in heaven and upon earth under the headship of Christ as the second Man. It is wonderful to see that God’s purpose gives man this place of universal headship over all creation and puts everything in heaven as well as on the earth under His dominion. Christ will take this place, not simply in His divine right as Son of God, but in His acquired glory as Son of Man, for God’s purpose was that the church should co-inherit with Him, which would have been impossible if He did not take the place as man. How the knowledge of this should preserve us from all we find in the world around us, where Christ is rejected and where we see man exalting himself in every way! The principle of the world is, “Men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.” We know that this exaltation of man will find its full development in the manifestation of “the man of sin,” who will exalt himself above all that is called God and will be destroyed in the judgment of that day, when all the pride of man will be brought low and when the Lord alone will be exalted.
The Relation of the Church
Second, we learn in the revelation of the mystery how God has associated believers of the present dispensation with Christ, in this place of honor and glory, as His body and His bride. When risen and exalted, He is given to be head over all things to the church, which is His body. It does not say head over the church, but head over all things to the church. Surely nothing could more fully display the riches of God’s grace than that He should be pleased to associate the church (that is, all saints from Pentecost until the Lord comes) with Christ, the One in whom is all His pleasure. Every believer indwelt by the Spirit is united to Christ, the living Head, as a member of His body, and is regarded by the Lord as a part of Himself. The church is thus the fullness of Him who fills all in all, the subject of God’s purpose, that is, Christ the Head and the church His body, making the Christ, as it says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, one perfect man according to God’s counsel, which will be manifested as such in the day of glory. This is the force of the expression, “His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”
The Nature of This Union
Third, it is important to consider the nature of this union. The true nature of our union with Christ comes out in Colossians, where we see that we must be of His life and nature in order to be united to Him. As natural men alive in this world we have died with Christ; we have put off the body of the flesh. It was impossible for Christ to take sinful flesh into union with Himself, and it was impossible to change the flesh; therefore there was nothing else to be done but to put it off, as that which God has judged in the cross. In Colossians it is not only sin in the flesh which is judged, but the flesh itself. All in which man naturally glories is set aside in the death of Christ as being utterly unprofitable to God. In Christ risen we see man according to God; He is the only man whom God now acknowledges. In resurrection He is the beginning of a new race — a new creation. The believer is alive now in the life of the risen Man. Being risen with Christ, he has left behind the life and condition of the first man, and being identified with Christ risen, he is of that new race, of the new creation of which He is the beginning and Head.
What the Head Is to the Body
Fourth, in Colossians we get what the Head is to the body, as in Ephesians we get what the body is to the Head. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” — all that God is is revealed and presented to us and is for us in Christ our living Head. What a wonderful thought with which we can be occupied! In Him, who is our Head, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead! Surely the man of this world, with his intellect, wisdom or religion, can add nothing to the one who is filled up in Christ! It is no wonder, when the Apostle recognized the dangers that threatened the saints, that he should so earnestly desire that they should be fully assured of the truth of the mystery of God, in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Christ we not only have everything which makes us complete as to our standing before God, but also everything which we need for our life and service here. As we learn experimentally the weakness and worthlessness of all that is of the flesh, so we appreciate the fact that we are filled up in Christ — that Christ is all. All the supply for the body comes down from the Head.
Christ in Us — We in Him
We see in Colossians that the aspect of the mystery presented is not so much what we are in Christ, but Christ in us as life and the practical results of this: “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up in Him.” Philosophy and human religion can only cultivate and develop the flesh; they cannot reveal Christ and what we have in Him, nor form Christ in us, which is the practical object of Christianity. We see too how the church derives everything from Christ and is thus independent of all that is of man.
May God grant to us not only that we may understand the truth of the mystery, but that we may more fully realize by faith and in the power of the Spirit our union with Christ.
Adapted from
The Christian Friend