The epistle to the Colossians brings before us some precious instructions on the subject we are considering. The Epistle to the Ephesians has taught us that God would gather together all things in Christ, and that the Church was united to Him as His body, associated with Him in His dominion over all things. The Epistle to the Colossians teaches us the same truth under another aspect. We shall also find that the idea of Christ which is presented in chapter 1., contrasts with all that Re was as the hope of the Jews, according to the testimony of the prophets, as much as that which is found in the Epistle to the Ephesians, but in a different manner. Let us first look at what is said of the double glory of Christ—Head over all things, and Head of the Church. In verses 15 and 16 He is presented as the First-born of every creature; and the reason of it is given: He has created all things. He who had created all things, having taken His place as a Man in the midst of the creation, must at all events be the Head of it. This thought is confirmed in verse 17. The second part of the glory of Christ is declared in verse 18. He is the Head of the body, the Church; who is the beginning, the First-born from the dead. These are the two truths presented in Eph. 1:22, 2322And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:22‑23); only the two things are considered separately here as two diverse glories of Christ, in whom it has pleased all the fullness to dwell. The reconciliation of all things and of the Church follows. Having made peace through the blood of His cross, the thought of God is to reconcile all things through Him, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven. This answers to verse 16. Then the apostle, addressing the Christians at Colosse, says to them, " And you that were sometime alienated.... yet now path He reconciled." This answers to verse 18. They were part of the Church of which Christ was the Head, and of which the reconciliation takes place now. Verses 21 and 25 present, as following this distinction of the double glory of Christ and the double reconciliation, a double ministry-the ministry of the gospel to every creature under heaven, and the ministry of the Church, which is the body of Christ. This ministry, a complement in its doctrine of all the preceding revelations, completed the teaching of the word of God. (Vs. 24-26.) The Church was a mystery which had been hid from ages and from generations —a mystery which admitted the Gentiles into all the privileges which it revealed, and spoke of a Christ, not the crown and accomplishment of the glory of the Jews, but who, in the Gentiles, or in the midst of the Gentiles, in Spirit, was the hope of glory. The presence of JESUS amongst the Jews ought to have been, and will one day be, the accomplishment of the glory which had been promised to them. But the presence of Christ in Spirit among the Gentiles was the hope of glory—of a more excellent glory—a heavenly glory. In Ephesians, Christ is considered as exalted at the right hand of God, whence He sent the Spirit to confer upon the Church the gifts which were the testimony of His victory and the manifestation of His power gas Man victorious over the enemy a glorious Head of the Church which was upon earth. In Colossians, He is considered as present in the Church, securing to the Gentiles the possession of the heavenly glory into which He has Himself entered. This chapter, then, brings the Church into prominence in a very interesting manner. Christ raised is the Head-the Church is His body; its practical reconciliation takes effect now, being founded on the peace made through the blood of the cross. Gentiles belong to it quite as much as Jews; and Christ in Spirit dwells in it, the hope of glory. This last expression teaches us, without controversy, that the Church is contemplated as exclusively upon earth, though having the sure hope of a heavenly glory. Its unity is not declared as in the Epistle to the Ephesians; but it is self-evident that the body of Christ can be only one.
I confine myself to the doctrine; adding that the epistle, as a whole, shows that the Colossians were in danger of losing sight of their close union with the Head of the body—Christ, in whom everything was accomplished, and they complete in Him; and of seeking, by forgetting this truth, to add something else, which was nothing but the setting aside of Him. Consequently. the epistle brings into prominence the riches and the perfection of Christ to remind the Colossians of them; whilst the Ephesians, who held fast the faith of their union with Him, were able to profit by the teaching which revealed to them the whole extent of their own privileges. The faithfulness of the one, and the unfaithfulness of the other, have both turned, in the hand of our God, to the blessing of the Church in all ages.
The First Epistle to Timothy furnishes us with some precious thoughts in a short sentence: " The house," it is said (chap. 3:15), " of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Here we stand on ground more, connected with the practical character of the Church upon earth. It is the house of God-it is there that truth is found and nowhere else; there alone it is maintained in the world. Let us understand this declaration. The Church does not create the truth, but has been created by it. It adds to it neither authority nor weight. The truth is of God before it is received by the Church; but the latter possesses it. It exists because it possesses the truth, and it alone possesses it. Where, besides in the Church, is the truth found? Nowhere.
The supposition that the truth is anywhere else would be the denial of the truthfulness and ways of God. The truth can be nothing but what God has said; it is the truth, independently of all church authority; of any but that of God, who is the source of it. But where the truth is, supposing a body to be constituted by its means, there is the Church; and the Church which possesses it, and subsists by possessing it, thereby manifests it to the world. The authority of the Church cannot make that which it teaches to be truth. Truth alone does not constitute the Church; that is, the meaning of the word Church embraces other ideas. A single man holding the truth is not the Church: but the assembly of God is distinguished by the possession of the truth. An assembly which has not the truth, as the condition of its existence, is not the assembly of God. The passage under consideration, and the importance of this point must be my excuse for this little digression, which is but indirectly connected with the subject of the Church.
There is one more passage, which presents the Church in so complete a manner, as to its hope and its service, that 1 will quote it in closing this series of testimonies from the Bible. It is that of Rev. 22 " The Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come, And let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."
In this passage we find the Spirit, introduced in a very remarkable manner, somewhat analogous to Rom. 8 Both passages show how far the Holy Ghost is considered in the word of God as dwelling upon the earth since the day of Pentecost, and as identifying Himself either with the believer or with the Church. In Romans, it is " He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit; because," it is added, " He maketh intercession for the saints according to God." Now it is our groanings that are spoken of there. Here in the Revelation, the Spirit and the bride say, Come. The Spirit so takes His place with the bride, that the sentiment of the Church is that which the Spirit Himself expresses. The Spirit is upon earth and animates the Church, being the true source of its thoughts. The Church, animated by these very thoughts, expresses her own affections under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Had it been only an expression of affection, one might have questioned its legitimateness; and that also of the groans spoken of in Rom. 8; but since the Holy Spirit connects Himself with it, this desire of a feeble heart has the power and authority of a divine thought. This, then, is what characterizes the Church, in her desires and in her hope, She desires that her Bridegroom should come. It is not a question about prophecy: it is Christ, the Communicator of the prophecy, who presents Himself: “I am the bright and morning star." The Church knows Him. She will be with Him before the great day of His manifestation comes—she will appear with Him in glory. But when He is thus presented in His person, it awakens the earnest desire of the Bride that He should come. But there is also a testimony to be borne. It is what follows. She calls upon those who hear, but who have not understood their privilege of being of the bride, to join this cry, and to say, Come. In the meantime, she already possesses the river of living water, and, turning towards those who are athirst, she invites them to come and make a free use of it. How beautiful a position for the Church-for our hearts! The first affection of her heart is towards her Head-her Bridegroom, who is to come like the morning star, to receive her to Himself in heaven, before He is manifested to the world. Then she desires all believers to share this desire, and to reinforce her cry that He may come. In the meantime, she is the vessel and herald of grace, according to the heart of Him who has shown grace to her.
What more blessed position could be thought of, for such poor worms as we are, than that which sovereign and creative grace has given us? If the reader examines John 17, he will find that the object of the chief part of the chapter is to place believers, beginning in a special manner with the apostles, in the same position as JESUS was they taking His place upon the earth. We well know, that He alone, by His Spirit, can be the strength through which they can accomplish such a task.
This truth enables us to apprehend what the true position of the Church is. Christ was upon earth, but at the same time one with His Father. He was manifesting Him upon the earth. He was a Man upon earth, but He was a heavenly Man, displaying upon earth the spirit and sentiments of heaven, where love and holiness reign; because God is love and God is holy. He says, "The Son of man which is in heaven." He was separate from sinners and yet at the same time perfect in grace towards them. In His case, His person was the cause of it (He being at the same time true Man and acting by the power of the Holy Ghost in a dependence upon God, which constituted His perfect ion as Man), In the case of the Church it is clear that the question is no longer of a divine person, yet she is not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world United to her head in heaven by the Holy Ghost come down from thence, dead and risen with Him and seated in Him in heavenly places, her character is purely heavenly. She is upon the earth, where the Holy Ghost has come down, to manifest there a heavenly walk—the motive and the mind of heaven. She lives above in Christ by the Spirit; her life is hid there with Christ in God; she seeks for nothing down here, declaring plainly that she is yet seeking her country. She is one, she knows it: it cannot be otherwise. Can her heart recognize that Christ has another bride as companion of His heavenly joys? The manner of her being necessitates her unity, as well as the character of her Bridegroom, and the unity of the Spirit. She is upon earth; she sighs after her country, but still more after the Bridegroom who will come to receive her unto Himself, that, where He is, there she may be with Him. In the meantime she bears testimony upon earth, as united into one body by the presence of the Holy Ghost. This is the place where God owns her, till Christ comes to take her to Himself. From that, time she will bear testimony in the glory and by the glory to the love which has placed her there, and to the mighty redemption which has taken poor sinners and placed them in the same glory as the Son of God, and in the same relations with His Father, except that which is essentially divine—" that in the ages to come He [God] might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus."
(Continued from page 138.)
(To he continued, D. V.)