COLOSSIANS 1 AND 2
Colossians 1:24-29; Colossians 2:1-10
CAC What is the thought of completing the word of God?
ALM I understood it to mean the completeness of the revelation of God. The unfolding of the mystery is the great thing God has before Him. It is wonderful that God should leave the masterpiece of His counsels and works as the last thing to be revealed.
CAC The greatest, and richest, and best of everything is to be known at the present moment; that is the body, the assembly. God is distinguishing this present time in a remarkable way: while Christ is hidden in the heavens the body is here, a vital organism, every part of which responds to Christ. The body in chapter 1 is the assembly to hold Christ in intelligent affections; not exactly yet to express Him, but the vessel to hold Him in living and intelligent affections. It is good to think of the saints as being able to cherish Christ. We come to the expression of Christ in chapter 3; He is expressed in His body, but He must be held and cherished in the affections before He can be expressed. If we do not apprehend Christ we cannot cherish Him. The labour of the apostle was that Christ might be apprehended; all that Christ is becomes the subject of ministry, so that He may be intelligently apprehended. The body, the assembly, is a company in the eye of God capable of apprehending and holding Christ and cherishing Him in their affections. The coming to light through Paul’s ministry of such a company was needed “to complete the word of God”. The counsel of God included the assembly, but it was an unspoken thing until it was given to Paul as a dispensation of God. The most glorious thing of all had been held in reserve until Christ took His place at the right hand of God. Something now came to light greater than the thought of the kingdom.
“Christ in you” gives you the thought. Christ, who is hidden in the heavens, is also hidden and cherished in the affections of a gentile company, so that they know what “glory” will be, because the One who will bring it in is in their hearts. Everyone who cherishes and appreciates Christ is in the body, that wonderful living organism which is actually on earth at this moment. He becomes the life of the saints while He is hidden in heaven. He is in them as having a place in their affections.
[p. 285] Rem Many connected with it have no conception of their privilege and distinction.
CAC That is where ministry comes in, that they may know it. In this chapter the divine work is not exactly in the saints but in the servant. “Whereunto also I toil, combating according to his working, which works in me in power”. There is a divine work in the apostle in order that the saints might come in to the intelligence of these things. This is a question of what is announced and taught in all wisdom. It is what is ministered, so that Christ may be apprehended by every man as the anointed Man of God’s pleasure.
Ques Is the exercise shared by others, or is it exclusively the apostle?
CAC I think it is peculiar to the apostle; he was the minister of the assembly; there was a divine work in Paul that there never was in any other. The very fact that we have this epistle is the abiding evidence of the power of the divine work in Paul. Verse 28 is the apostolic “we”.
The apostle was labouring that everyone might be full grown in the apprehension of Christ, that there might be no want of maturity in their apprehension of Christ, the accepted Man, the object of divine pleasure. All the pleasure of God centres in that one Man, and we are perfect in Him; we have to come to the apprehension of that. He is the anointed Man; every other man has disappeared from God’s account. The apostle laboured that every man might be presented perfect in Christ; that is, in the apprehension of Christ as the anointed Man for the pleasure of God, so that there might be no haziness or uncertainty as to which Man is accepted. Everything is made of God’s anointed Man. That every man should be brought to the apprehension of it is the toil of the servant, and God’s working is in the servant in this scripture. The servant had a definite objective in view, and a sense of the powers that had to be overcome.
It is Christ as presented in this chapter who is to be in the saints. The wonderful Person whom we have been considering as set forth in the early part of the chapter is to be in the affections of the saints — that is the mystery. There is no word in the Old Testament about a gentile company cherishing Christ while He is hid in the heavens. There may be types and figures in the Old Testament, but it has been hid from [p. 286] ages and generations, it could not be known till the riches of the glory of this mystery were opened out.
Ques What is the hope of glory?
CAC I think the saints understand what the glory will be because Christ is in their affections. The very One who brings in the glory is in the affections of the saints.
ALM Everything will be permeated with the glory of Christ. At the present time Christ is in the saints, so what will fill the universe fills the hearts of the saints.
CAC All that will be manifested in glory is present to the hope of the saints as they cherish Christ. Glory is all centred in Christ and what He will bring in. That is why the Spirit and the bride say “Come” — they know the Person who is coming and all that He will bring with Him.
ALM The prospect in Romans 5, rejoicing “in hope of the glory of God”, is realised here.
CAC In Romans God is the subject. We believe on God, have peace with God, access into the favour of God, boast in hope of the glory of God. God is the prominent thought there. But in Colossians it is the anointed Man who will fill the scene of glory; it is another aspect of the same scene. The great point in Colossians is Christ. What sort of scene will it be when Christ fills everything? All in the anointed Man will be brought out and manifested and made to shine. The body, the assembly, has it all in hope in having Christ in its affections. The church will have a peculiar place in that scene of glory.
The great labour of the apostle, and the divine working in him, was that every man might come to the apprehension of Christ — it is a wide scope. The Colossians were warned against the things which would delude them from Christ.
“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory”. Christ is going to appear, and that has become light to His saints before He appears. There is no uncertainty about hope in Scripture: it is not as we say, I hope so, when we are not quite sure. We use it in a doubtful sense, but Scripture never uses it that way.
Ques What is the nature of the conflict which the apostle speaks of in the next chapter?
CAC There are two sides to the battle. There is the side of ministry in chapter 1. Paul says in the last verse, “Whereunto also I toil, combating” — that is in the ministry.
[p. 287] Then in chapter 2: 1 he says, “For I would have you know what combat I have for you” — that is in prayer. It is a real battle to get the saints to give Christ His rightful place in their hearts. Ministry is a battle, not a review.
Ques Would you use the expression ‘exercise’ in that way?
CAC Yes, it is a very intense form of exercise because there is a great hostile power. If a man gets up to minister Christ he ought to have a definite object in view, not just what comes into his head at the moment, just as a general in the field of battle means to reach a certain point. The minister recognises the tremendous power of opposition, so the ministry is a combat. And when the apostle prayed he realised what a fearful power of opposition there was to everything he prayed about; he prayed in the sense that he was up against the power of the enemy. He wanted the Colossians to understand this, and he wants us to know about it, too; he had this agony about us, too. The fact that he had become minister of the assembly gave him a universal outlook and exercise.
Ques Would the prayer meeting be on the same line?
CAC Yes, I think combating in prayer comes in there. Everything that moves for God in this world moves in the face of all the combating forces of evil; it is a hostile scene and every movement is in the nature of a combat, there is nothing easy about it. The Philippians were well drilled troops, they had a good start. What a fine lesson it was for them to know about Paul’s experiences in prison. The jailor might have become a leading brother, and no doubt he told them all about it: they would realise then what it was for Paul to bring them the gospel. There is a great difference between a review and a battle. There is not much blood shed in a review, but there is plenty on a battlefield. It was not much like a review at Philippi.
It is remarkable that there should be all this combat in prayer about the saints that their hearts might be encouraged; that was what he was combating about, “to the end that their hearts might be encouraged”. It would indicate that the power of the enemy is set on discouraging the saints.
Ques In what way does he do it?
CAC I suppose by getting the eye off divine Persons. One who has divine Persons in view would not be discouraged by anything. We may fall under the power of the enemy and [p. 288] not recognise who he is. If we get occupied with evil we lose power. God would never have us occupied with evil so as to be discouraged. Satan would try to occupy us with the weakness and failure of others, or even with our own, so as to discourage us. A discouraged assembly is no good. A proclamation went throughout the camp when Israel went to war, which said, If any man’s heart failed him he was to go home to his wife and family, or his brother’s heart would fail too. A discouraged man is no good. The most courageous of all Paul’s epistles is 2 Timothy: he was faced then with the break-up and failure of the assembly; he was about to go off the scene himself and was leaving a weak man behind, and yet he was not discouraged. The first mark of the power of God among His people is that their hearts are encouraged; that is a sure mark that God is with His people. We should carry with us what is encouraging. Some people depress you, because they have always got before them some failure or wrong. I want divine Persons before me, and I like to come across brothers or sisters who have divine Persons and the things of God and of Christ before them. There is no knitting together if people are discouraged; discouraged hearts tend to scatter, but when hearts are encouraged there is a power to unite together in love. As Christ is brought in there is that which we can unite on, and then there can be increase in wealth of understanding. These are the things Paul agonised about: he wanted the saints’ hearts encouraged so that they might be knit together, and then they would have intelligence and know all these wonderful things. If our hearts are encouraged and knit together in love we shall get the full assurance of understanding as to the mystery of God. The mystery of God is a very wide thought; it is the greatest thing we can think of: it goes far beyond the church. It is not now in display, it is hidden, and only known to people with encouraged hearts, who are knit together in love. Such people get to know all that God is going to bring into display in the world to come. The mystery of God is the accomplishment of all His counsels in regard to every family. It includes the church, and every family that God is going to bless; it is all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, there is nothing outside it. If it were only the church there would be something outside it because the blessing of Israel is outside the church. But the mystery includes all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge: there is [p. 289] absolutely nothing outside it. The mystery will be unveiled when the city comes down.
‘Radiant hearts for ever share
The unveiled mystery’. (74:7)
That is not the church only, it is the whole mystery of God. God has wonderful thoughts that He has been cherishing from eternity; they are all as yet in mystery, they are not known to the public — that is what mystery means. His thoughts are only known by those who go into the temple; it is a temple idea. We go in there to be initiated; the mystery of God is known in His temple for the joy of saints before a single part of it comes into display. It should make one absolutely independent of every proposition that can come to us from the world. People bring pretentious things before us, and talk about the wonderful discoveries of science, and the development of light and understanding in regard to this, that, and the other! They talk of philosophy and the ability to penetrate into unseen things, and I know not what; but the christian is made far superior to all these things, for he has the knowledge of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All these things which men talk about do not make them happy or give any pleasure to God. But when we come to the mystery all in it is for God’s pleasure and for the supreme happiness of His creature. What are all the books in the bookshops? They are like foam on the waves, or smoke from the chimney, compared with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in the mystery of God! Christians sometimes think they must have light reading, and many of them have not read their Bibles through! We ought to be deeply exercised about these things.