COLOSSIANS 1
CAC It will help us if we keep definitely in view that the Spirit of God is engaging us here with the greatness of Christ; it is not our blessings, however great they may be, but the greatness of Christ. We have seen His greatness in connection with creation, and His greatness as Head of the body, the assembly; and His greatness in the fact that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him, and now we come to His greatness as the One by whom reconciliation is effected. He is so great that by Him the Fulness can reconcile all things to Itself.
Ques How do we understand all things reconciled to the Godhead?
CAC The fact that reconciliation is needed, and has to be effected, suggests that something has come in which has caused a breach like the wife who has been separated from her husband in 1 Corinthians 7: 11. Something has come in that is offensive to the Godhead; it is not only that the creature is ruined. The Father, Son and Spirit are all included in the fulness of the Godhead; and something has come in offensive to each Person in the Godhead. A moral stain has come in which has disturbed the repose of the Godhead. It is a solemn thing. It is not only that the creature has fallen and is ruined, but the peace of the Godhead has been disturbed. Reconciliation comes in in order that all that might be removed, and the greatness of Christ comes out in the fact that He is the One by whom the fulness of the Godhead effects reconciliation. He is great enough to put all on a new footing with the Godhead. He has come into manhood in order to do so. The thing is done “through him”. How pleasurable it must be to the Godhead! It is not only that the stain is removed, but it is removed by Him. Lawlessness has worked in heaven in Satan and his angels. The very fact that such a dreadful thing has been in heaven has left a moral stain there. I wonder if we all understand what a moral stain is. Suppose a murder was committed in my house, would not a moral stain be left? Many persons would not live in a house where a murder had been committed; they would feel a moral stain there. Suppose such a thing happened, no creature could remove the stain, but God could. Nothing that any human being could do could remove the stain left by a terrible crime, but God could [p. 278] remove it, and reconciliation is the removal of every moral stain, and Christ is great enough to do it. All the kings or great ones in the world together could not remove the moral stain of murder, but Christ would remove every moral stain from earth and heaven — that is reconciliation. He has died so that earth and heaven might come on to a new footing. It is now Christ — His blood, His cross. The Lord’s prayer, “Thy will be done as in heaven so upon the earth”, could never have been answered if reconciliation had not been effected! It is the sacrificial basis on which all the pleasure of God rests in heaven and earth. Christ is great enough to secure a basis on which the repose and pleasure of the Godhead rest eternally in regard to heaven and earth. The fulness of the Godhead has accomplished reconciliation in the Son, in Christ. Satan and his angels will be cast out of heaven, the scene will be cleared so that not a bit of lawlessness will be left in heaven. God will clear the scene on earth, too, and all on the ground that Christ has died. He is great enough to remove in sacrifice the moral stain before God. God can look down on the world and think of the death of Christ. This great and glorious Person has done it. It is His greatness and gloriousness that makes it so precious.
The whole creation of which Adam was the head came under the effect of Adam’s fall, so a moral stain was on the whole scene and the repose of the Godhead was disturbed. The Lord said, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work”. There was no repose for the Godhead.
Reconciliation has been effected from the divine side; the Fulness effects it. There is nothing whatever required on the side of the creature but faith. We have to have faith in what the Fulness has done — that is the great gospel testimony. Paul had the place of being an ambassador for Christ and God; he had the ministry of reconciliation. Everybody now can be called to reconciliation; for it has been effected by the fulness of the Godhead in the death of Christ. All men are invited now to come into it, they are besought to be reconciled to God. “We are making our boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received the reconciliation”, Romans 5: 11. It is a wonderful thing to have received it. It is difficult to get hold of the idea, as we naturally think of it as something effected in us, but it is something effected by the fulness of the Godhead in Christ. It is always put that way [p. 279] in Scripture. A divine Person came into manhood, and in that divine Person was the fulness of the Godhead — the Father and the Spirit were there as well as the Son — and He came into manhood to effect reconciliation, and He could only do it by going down into death. In the early part of the chapter we are told that all dignities were created by and for Him. He created all dignities, and yet when it was a question of reconciliation He had to pass by every place of dignity and go down to the cross. I think the cross is brought in here and in Ephesians to show that everything has been brought about through that which is most ignominious in men’s eyes. The Fulness made peace by blood. It is a peace secured by sacrifice, by death, but not a grand death — a death of a character most revolting and degraded in men’s eyes — “the blood of his cross”. It has been done at the very lowest place in which a man could be found on earth. There is no lower place than a cross. Now it makes nothing of all that would puff man up! But if everything for God’s pleasure depended on a Man having His blood shed upon the cross it puts all on the footing of death. There is no puffing up there. The danger at Colosse was that some were “vainly puffed up by the mind of” their flesh. But the cross is man at the lowest point. I do not say that we have to come there to get blessing, but we have to see that Christ came there. This will take the puffing up out of us. He “made ... purification of sins”, Hebrews 1: 3. That means that He cleared sins away from before God, He removed them away from the Godhead. We know whose sins were removed, but the point is they were removed from before the Godhead.
Ques Is His making peace different from reconciliation?
CAC It is bound up in reconciliation. Everything is taken away sacrificially. Through death, through blood-shedding, everything is taken away that could disturb the repose of the Godhead. It is not here a question of securing peace for sinners, it is not peace with God here, but the peace of the Godhead. In Ephesians 2 it is peace between Jew and gentile: “he is our peace”. He has brought Jew and gentile into peace, there is no enmity left between them; and if Christ has His place with us there is no enmity left between us. What a blessed end of all discord between man and man! Another Man is brought in who displaces both, and becomes their peace. There were two men at daggers drawn, and the Jew says, I am nothing, I have been ended in the cross of Christ. The gentile [p. 280] says, I am nothing, I am removed in the death of Christ. What remains? Only Christ. All the privileges of the Jew have gone, all the disabilities of the gentiles have gone in that death, and Christ is our peace; there is nothing left to make discord.
Here in Colossians it is the peace of the Godhead. One loves to think of the Godhead as now in repose in regard to all the sin and lawlessness which came in in heaven and earth.
‘In Him all the Fulness was pleased to dwell’ is the correct translation — it is what He was here on earth in flesh. In chapter 2: 9 the fulness dwells bodily in a risen and glorified Man. We see the Father in Him and the Spirit in Him, too.
It is wonderful to think that everything has been put on a new footing for God through Christ having come down here and died. That has to be received by faith; it is not a matter of attainment or growing up to it. Anyone here is privileged to receive it tonight if they never have received it before.
The Spirit of God in verse 21 turns to the only company that has come into reconciliation. There is only one company which can be definitely said to be reconciled, and that is the assembly. You could not say that any but believers were reconciled. It is like justification, which is in the mind of God for everybody. Every man can be justified, it can be preached in the gospel that God is the Justifier, but no man is justified till he has faith. It can be said of all believers who have faith, ‘You hath He reconciled’. We know what the state was in which we were found, “alienated and enemies in mind” — our alienation from God manifested itself in a practical way in wicked works. Now the Fulness — the Father, Son and Spirit — has acted, and it can be said of every believer that he is reconciled. The Father, Son and Spirit have reconciled every believer, and it is “in the body of his flesh through death”. All that we were as in alienation has disappeared from God’s view through Christ’s death. But this is in view of the saints being presented “holy and unblamable and irreproachable” before the Fulness of the Godhead. What a wonderful thing to sit quietly and let into our souls that the Father, Son and Spirit through the death of Christ have so cleared away everything unsuited to Them that we can be presented to the Father, Son and Spirit “holy, unblamable, and irreproachable”. That is the gospel. Now are we really on that footing with the Godhead? What is the footing that exists at the present [p. 281] moment? It witnesses the greatness of Christ. If we are not on that footing we are not giving Christ the glory that is due to Him. We are not honouring the Fulness.
Ques What is the difference between justification and reconciliation?
CAC Justification is that I am cleared from every charge. In Christ we are justified from all things: “Who shall bring an accusation against God’s elect. It is God who justifies”, Romans 8: 33. Every charge has been met. Justification is that you are justified from all things, justified from sins and offences. But reconciliation is for something; we are reconciled to be presented “holy and unblamable and irreproachable” before the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How it sets our hearts free! We can be presented to the fulness of the Godhead in a faultless condition, through what has been effected by divine Persons.
Ques Is reconciliation like Luke 15?
CAC We get in Luke 15 what goes beyond it — the prodigal covered with kisses. What we get here is more on the line of moral suitability to the Godhead — being presented “holy and unblamable and irreproachable”. That is not so far as being covered with kisses: the prodigal is brought into the embrace of love, into sonship. Reconciliation is the basis on which the whole pleasure of the Godhead can be carried out, it is the basis of all the blessings in Luke 15.
If you talk to people you find they are occupied with their failures, inconsistencies and defects. That all shows they are not in the faith of reconciliation. It is just there the ‘if’ comes in; we are so soon moved away. “If indeed ye abide in the faith founded and firm, and not moved away from the hope of the glad tidings, which ye have heard, which have been proclaimed in the whole creation which is under heaven, of which I Paul became minister”. The fact is that practically many of us do not abide in the faith, and we get moved away from the hope of the glad tidings, and so the blessing of reconciliation is not enjoyed. It is only maintained as we abide in the faith and are not moved away from the hope of the glad tidings. The hope of the glad tidings is that I shall be like Christ. I often think that, if one’s first thought on waking were, I am going to be like Christ, what a start for the day it would be! It is not merely I would like to be like Christ, but I am going to be like Christ for the pleasure of God. If one had the light of that one would be very careful about allowing what is of [p. 282] the flesh. All this was brought in to take the Colossians away from any allowance of the flesh. If we have received the reconciliation, a divine Person is before us, another Man; and we are going to be like Him, on the same footing as He is before God.
In this epistle God is leading the saints on to the ground of being risen with Christ, but before we come to that ground we have to see what the fulness of the Godhead has effected, and to get our vision filled with Christ. The faith of the gospel occupies us entirely with Christ; not some of Christ and some of self but altogether Christ. We are not to be moved away from the faith of the glad tidings.
Ques What is continuing in the faith?
CAC The faith here is the faith of this wonderful Person, and of the reconciliation which the Fulness has effected by Him. We are not to be moved away from the faith of that.
Ques Why is it “the whole creation” that it is preached in?
CAC That gives the scope of it; it is not limited to saints, but is for the whole creation. Anybody can come into reconciliation, can have the faith of Christ now.
What we get here is the light of what is above the sun, of what is in heaven, and of that wonderful Person now in heaven. “Seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God”, chapter 3: 1. All is connected with things above the sun, but known in the hearts of believers in this world. It is marvellous what God has brought about; but this is the gospel. It is especially Paul’s gospel.
From verse 24 to the end Paul passes on to the assembly, “of which I became minister”. He was not only minister of the gospel but minister of the assembly. He brought out the full truth of the gospel and of the assembly — he was minister of both.
Christ had suffered for the assembly, and Paul continued on that line. The sufferings for the assembly did not end with Christ, they were continued in the apostle Paul; he was allowed the privilege in a special way of suffering for the assembly, and he says, “I rejoice in sufferings for you, and I fill up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh, for his body, which is the assembly”. Paul was ready to suffer anything so that Christ might secure a place in the hearts of the gentiles. If he had been content to confine Christ to [p. 283] the Jews he would not have been persecuted. It was because he was carrying Christ to the gentiles that they persecuted him; his sufferings were in a peculiar way for the gentile assembly, and he was prepared to suffer so that Christ might have a place in their hearts. The character of the mystery here is “Christ in you the hope of glory”. It is Christ in the hearts of the saints, Christ in their affections. It is not Christ formed in us, but Christ in the affections.
Ques Does not every servant suffer for the assembly?
CAC No doubt there is a measure of suffering connected with all true service to the assembly, but no one else was privileged to suffer for the assembly as Paul did. He had the ministry of the assembly and had to suffer in a peculiar way for it akin to the sufferings of Christ. There was a character of suffering for the church left behind, and Paul took it up and filled it up; and being filled up in Paul there is none left.
The thought of the body is a living organism every part of which is appreciative of Christ. Christ is in the affections of every one who is a member of His body: that is the special form of the mystery here — a vast gentile company and Christ in the affections of each one in it.
Ques Is it the same as “Ye in me, and I in you”, John 14: 20?
CAC That is the special activity of the Spirit to make us know that Christ is in the affections of the Father, the church in the affections of Christ, and Christ in the affections of the saints. It is a beautiful threefold cord; we are bound up in affection with divine Persons. The mystery here is that the Christ, who is hidden in heaven, is hidden in the affections of millions in this world, and gentiles, too. The church treasures Christ in her affections; everyone in the body has Christ in the heart. Is Christ in your heart? If He is, you are in the body. Queen Mary was greatly taken up with Calais, and she said that after her death they would find Calais written in her heart! If we could get to the heart of anyone belonging to the body we should find Christ there. The body is a living organism, and Christ is in the affections of everyone who is part of it, that is the mystery. Paul laboured, and his ministry was all to the end that Christ should be in the affections of His saints. All ministry in the power of the Spirit is to that end.