WE see in the opening verse of this chapter how earnestly the apostle desired the truth he was bringing before them to be apprehended in power by the saints to whom he was writing. He was most anxious that they should know it. He says, " What great conflict I have for you;" it is a strong word. There was something standing in the way; there was something hindering their apprehension of it. And, on his side, it was not a thing that it was easy to present to them; so that he could speak of his own feelings with regard to the matter, not only as even a conflict, but as a "great conflict." And this truth that caused him so much anxiety was the mystery.
I have been surprised to find how little people know what the mystery is, and yet it is of the utmost importance that they should know it. The reason why the apostle so desired the saints at Colosse to know it, was because he saw that they were exposed to a snare. Now people often think that they know enough truth, but nothing protects from a snare but truth in power. The Colossians were in danger of religiousness of a twofold character: one, which appealed to the mind, we should call rationalism at the present time; the other, which affected the body, we should call ritualism. The danger of the saints, then, was a compound composed of these two things, which affected both mind and body.
The flesh comes before us in Colossians, but the flesh in a special way. There are three great intrusions of the flesh. In Corinthians it is levity: there it is, I am saved, but now I will do as I like. In Galatians it is, as in the reformed churches: making the law the rule of life. But in Colossians it is quite different. Here it is: a religious man. I cannot dwell upon the subject now; it is not my object to do so; I do not wish to dwell upon the bad side, for it is our great and precious privilege to maintain and know the good, and the more I do that, the more I ward off the bad.
What I wish then to bring before you this evening is the mystery which the apostle was so anxious that the Colossians should enter into.
Possibly very many of you could give a very clear definition of the mystery, who yet may not have reached to "the full assurance of understanding " it. " Full assurance " here does not mean that I am sure of it, but that I understand the weight of it. And the word " knowledge " does not mean simply knowing a thing, but possessing complete knowledge of it. If we have this, we shall never be drawn aside from it to the false thing, to religiousness in man.
It is astonishing the way in which religiousness will come out; it even may in the singing of a hymn. I often used to wonder at that word to Timothy: " Put the brethren in remembrance of these things;" it seemed to me astonishing that, the apostle should need to warn against Roman-ism a church that held the very highest truth. But the very worst thing comes from spurious sanctity. Nothing does so much damage to the real thing as a counterfeit of it; it deludes souls into the belief that they have got the real thing.
Now if a Colossian listened to the reading of this Epistle, he would say: Is the apostle really so interested about us? The least thing then that we can do, is to be interested about ourselves, and seek to understand what he has written to us. And any here to-night who do not know it, I desire that you may lift up your heart to God and say, Teach it me. As to any who do know, I am sure they desire to know more. For myself I feel every day how little I really enter into it. It is a truth that will affect me in everything as I understand it.
If we turn to the beginning if the Epistle, we read: " We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of your love which ye have to all the saints." Now from this we should have thought the Colossians in such a good state that they would not require to be watched over with this great anxiety. But it is like a good physician, who might say, You are in very good health at the present moment, but still I am exceedingly anxious about you, for there is a terrible epidemic going, and I fear it for you. God always deals with His people in this way; He gives us truth as preventive of evil. He gives us a summer before a winter, that we may be prepared for the dark days. That is, He gives us special truth, to preserve us from a danger thus impending; just as God gave Elijah a double portion of food before his forty days' journey. Thus the Colossians were exposed to the snare; and as the apostle feared their falling into, and wished to guard them from it, he opened out to them the trail of the mystery.
Before passing on to this, I would first say a word on verse 23 of the first chapter. Here we find, as every student of Scripture knows, that there are two ministries: one, the ministry of the gospel; the other, the ministry of the church, which is the mystery.
First, as to the ministry of the gospel. It is purely and entirely individual. On the other hand, that of the church is entirely corporate. Now if souls only go as far as the ministry of the gospel, they never reach the corporate thing at all. Christ is preached; the good tidings of salvation through His blood is proclaimed, all which Christ did for me. If I take David and Jonathan as an illustration of it, I find that Jonathan has received a most wonderful benefit from the hand of David. He was in a state of fear until he saw the head of Goliath in the hand of David; but then he enjoys his savior David, who has removed the cause of his fear. He is now set in the state of David. David's victory is his victory. To all intents and purposes he is as David. In type, " As he is so are we in this world;" surely a state which cannot be surpassed.
Now I believe, and I speak it anxiously, that there is a lack in the way in which the gospel is preached. I delight at the way in which God blesses souls, but I feel that it is more the Goliath side that is known, than the David side, if I might so say.
Now God's thought is to set up a soul in a divine contrast to the misery in the spot of his misery. Nothing can satisfy the heart of God, but that the soul shall be set up to His own satisfaction in the spot where it was in utmost misery. No language can convey it, no human tongue can tell it; but nothing can satisfy the heart of my Father in heaven but that I should be here, in this scene where everything tells the tale of my departure and distance from Him, in the very joy and blessing in which He is Himself.
Souls often understand grace without understanding love. I must say one word about love. Love delights in its object, and it must remove everything that bars it from its object. Now love as to natural beings goes out to what we call its " ideal." God too has His standard. He cannot find it in us, but we read that we shall be "conformed to the image of His Son." So that now we can say with the apostle: " As he is, so. are we in this world."
But souls are not ready to go on to the immensity that is involved in the doctrine of the body of Christ, of the mystery, because they are not clear about the first ministry, that of the gospel. There is not a particle of relationship between Jonathan and David; there never was, though David was his savior; there is no mystery there. Therefore all we can learn in them is only the ministry of the gospel; there is not a shadow of anything more.
But in the gospel He has not only saved us from our fear, but He has placed us in power and blessedness in the very spot of our misery. See how He addresses the woman of Samaria. Does He say, When you get to heaven it will be all right with you? No! but here in Samaria! Here you shall have a new character; here you shall go on in another way; here you shall be a new kind of person altogether; here you shall." never thirst;" here is the place in which "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The Lord Himself was so delighted with the Father's work that He had done for this poor woman, that, when His disciples brought Him meat, He could not eat.
Again in Mark, where we find Him as the perfect servant. Is it an unclean spirit? is it a fever? is it the leper? is it the palsy? He can relieve the human family of everything that afflicts it. But in chapter v. it is something more. He says: I will not only relieve this poor man of his sufferings, but I will bring him out in a new way in the very spot of his sufferings. " Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee." And he departed and did so, and all marveled. I just mention these two cases that we may have a more magnificent idea of the ministry of the gospel.
Now as to the other ministry, that of the church, of the mystery, Paul says he speaks of that "according to the dispensation of God" which was given to him. The first thing about it is, that it was a secret, a " mystery," " from the beginning of the world." Yet all the way through the Old Testament there were glimpses of it. Just as the father of a family, who has a secret that he is bound not to disclose, yet now and then cannot help giving a hint of it. So at different times, all through the Old Testament, we get glimpses of the mystery. No sooner was creation completed than Adam and Eve foreshadowed it. Then Abraham sent for a bride for his son across the desert. Next we find Joseph and Asenath united to him in his rejection and separation from his brethren. Then Moses with a bride in Midian. And then David and Abigail. And when the Lord Himself was upon earth, He gave many hints of the same. He could tell of the man seeking goodly pearls, and finding " a pearl of great price." Is that your idea of the church? Have you the thought that there is something so lovely on earth that a pearl of great price is a picture of it? Do you go about the world with the feeling that, in the midst of all this evil, and tumult, and up heaving, there is something so precious to the heart of God in it? You answer, Yes. Then you believe in the mystery.
But I have not told you what it is. I turn to Matt. 22:44,44The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? (Matthew 22:44) where it is written: " The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool." But there is nothing about the mystery there, you say. No, nothing; but still there is a great point in it, which if you do not understand you will never understand the mystery. It is that Christ has been rejected from the earth.
There was one thing that Satan was always set against, and that was Christ being upon the earth. No sooner was He born into this world, than the king of the Jews commanded all the infants under two years of age to be slain, in order that God's Son might be swept off the face of the earth. And eventually, Jew and Gentile united to put Him to death. Thus they turned Him out of the earth; and God says to Him: " Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Mark the opposition to Him. They will not have Him here. Now turn to Acts 7:55,55But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, (Acts 7:55) and read the words for yourselves to get the power of them into your souls. " But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." That is all I want now. The believer on earth sees his Savior in heaven! God grant that every one of us may see Him there too!
Now what did the Jews do to Stephen for saying this? They killed him for it. Peter had proposed to them that Christ should come back to them, but they will not have Him. And now, the rejection being a completed thing, Christ having been rejected both on earth and from heaven, comes the time for divulging the secret.
And what is it? That though Christ Himself has been rejected, His body is on earth. That is the secret! Would you not feel differently about everything if you believed it?
We never get it described until now. We find it first in Acts 9:4: " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" It is not belonging to me, or part of me, but me. In that little word is conveyed the fact that Christ is here. If a than struck me on the foot I should not say, he has struck my foot, but, he has struck me.
But this is a subject that is sure to be opposed. People cannot bear the fact that the body of Christ is here. They will stand anything else, but they will not hear of this.
In the epistle to the Ephesians Paul speaks of it as a great, mystery, and turns to Eve to illustrate it, for " she was taken out of man;" in like manner, " we are members of his body." Thus the secret is divulged, and I pray you to get hold of it; this fact that the pearl is here; that the treasure is hidden in the field; and that this is Christ's one delight on earth, His one interest.,
Now let us turn to 1 Cor. 12 to see how this body is constructed. We read: " For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." This is how it is formed.
But I must here dwell for a moment on the fact, that no one can understand the formation of the church unless he believes that the Holy Ghost is here residing on the earth, in the house of God. I do not think that people generally believe this, though they believe that the Holy Ghost is dwelling in believers individually. Now in Acts 2 we read that on the day of Pentecost He first filled the house where they were sitting, then Hel filled all those who were there also. When He had thus filled those who were sitting there, the house was not any the less filled, was it? Certainly not, It is the Holy Ghost who has come down from heaven who baptizes all the members into one body. And it is just as easy for Him to connect a saint in Australia with me, as the one sitting next to me. You will never comprehend the formation of a body unless you believe in the ubiquity of the Spirit.
In reading Psa. 139 we find these two subjects in connection: " Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." And the formation of a body; these two subjects together, though not referring to the church.
There is therefore evidently no geographical limit to the Spirit of God. It is no difficulty to the Holy Ghost to bind souls together, however remote from one another. Hence "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." For instance, a man hurts his finger, and at once he stops walking and looks at it. He might as well have gone on walking, for his feet were not hurt. No, he says, but my finger is, and I cannot go on. But, you argue, I cannot act to a brother in Australia as I can to one near to me. True; and therefore in Romans and Ephesians, where the brother near you is spoken of, he is called your "neighbor." The man in Australia cannot be your neighbor, but he is none the less your brother.
Now Satan sought to extirpate Christ from the earth; but in the very place from whence He has been rejected are now found multitudes of saints to represent Him, baptized into one body by the Holy Ghost. Romanism has sought to give an exhibition of this unity by insisting on a liturgy which shall be the same and in one form and the same language all over the world. This was the work of the natural mind certainly; but there is no greater enemy to the church of God than the natural mind. So we find in Revelation that the direst enemy of Christ is that which is professedly the church of God.
The Holy Ghost has two actions upon earth. One is, He comforts the saints; the other is, He stands for Christ. And many know Him as the Comforter who know nothing of Him as the One who " shall testify of me."
If we turn now to Eph. 2 we find a point of immense interest. Many a one who accepts the truth that we are bound together is not clear as to what is bound together. It certainly is not the bad thing in us. It is the good thing that is bound together; it is the new nature which we have received from God. " Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." The Jew in nature is done with, and the Gentile is done with; but He makes of both one new man, and all are united together, and to Christ the Head. The special position of the church through all eternity will be that it is united to Christ. In chapter v. we read: " No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." And this, he adds, " is a great mystery."
This is the whole point, not only has Christ done the greatest work for me, but He has put me also in the closest relationship to Him. He is my Head. I cannot, then, use my own head; the blunders we make are all from using our own heads instead of following His guidance. As to the nature of the union the marriage tie falls short; it is a relationship that all types fall short of. I can only say that Scripture states it, and so I believe it. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are " hid " in it. My hand writes something; you ask, How did you get that? I answer, From my head. What a wonderful thing it would be if we could say of everything we did, I got that from Christ; He alone is my Head.
I do not believe we have the least conception of what a wonderful place we are set in; " rivers of water " flowing from us; not getting anything from this poor world, but, on the contrary, contributing to it (this individually), while corporately I participate in the wisdom, grace and glory of that blessed One who has brought me into this place on earth; for the glory of our corporate position is, that what belongs to the Head belongs to each one of the members. As an individual I never enjoy anything until I have practical possession of it. But as a member of Christ's body, I can say I have a place in heaven. I may not be enjoying it, but still I have it.
If we turn to 1 Kings 10, we find a scripture which explains this. You remember that the queen of Sheba came all the way from her country to see king Solomon; and when she beheld all his riches, and glory, and magnificence, " there was no more spirit in her." Now I turn to this passage merely by way of contrast; and I ask what is the difference between the church's relation to Christ, and the queen of Sheba's relation to Solomon? The queen of Sheba was there only as a spectator; she was so entranced with all she saw that there was no more spirit left in her. But does that convey to us the church's position? No; the church is a participator, not a spectator. If the queen of Sheba could have understood that she was allied to Solomon as closely as his own body to his head, do you think she would ever have gone away from Jerusalem? Certainly not.
Thus I get a test by which to discover whether a person really knows the mystery. If they know what it is to be members of the body of Christ, they are satisfied with nothing short of Christ's place. The church can have no other place but where Christ is. A person sees the mystery if he sees that he can have his joys, his pleasures, in no other place but where the Head is. God has made us complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power.
So that in dealing with a soul I first seek to portray to him the greatness of God's grace in putting a sinner in a place of freedom from all fear, of salvation from his enemy; and, when he is clear as to that, I tell him that he is a member of the body of Christ. He thus not only rejoices in His work, but he participates in all that He is.
One word more. Practice corroborates even a divine theory; therefore, if what I have stated is the truth, the practice will confirm it. Now we find the practice in chapter 3. First, we are to " Set our minds on things above, not on things on the earth." It does not say in the world; many a man is earthly who is not worldly. The earth is in contrast to heaven; the world, to the Father. And then we read farther on: " Christ is all and in all." Christ is all; He is everything; it does not leave room for anything else. Then, I say, this truth as to the mystery would affect my life in everything. For instance I might write a letter rather sharply, and then ask myself, would the Lord write that letter? If not, then do not send it. We have a Head in heaven, who would use us just as we use our hand.
Lastly: " Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." I believe that is the testimony; to do everything in His name. Nothing ought to be more delightful to us. Just as any affectionate husband or wife would say, You need not tell me to do such or such a thing: I delight to. Do everything in His name: our furniture, our dress, no matter what it is. I am delighted that He has not imposed anything less upon me. I know that nothing can carry such virtue and blessedness with it as doing everything in His name.
I can only add, that I do not know anything that has had a more vivifying effect on my own heart, than the fact that the Lord has an object of delight and interest and love upon this earth, and that He has called us to share His interest and delight and joy in it.
(J. B. S.)
The men who had the God of heaven for them and with them in the furnace, became marked men: men whose bands were burnt off. Every time you have been faithful to God, you will find it standing by you as a constant mark; and you will have found the blessing of God with you in the furnace too.
(G. V. W.)