RECONCILIATION
[p. 447] RECONCILIATION
Rem It has been pressed on me lately how little we have entered into the necessity for reconciliation. We should take into account what the entrance of sin into the scene meant for God. But He took a divine way to meet it that His heart might be liberated to flow out in love in the accomplishment of His purpose. God might have met the sin question by the judgment it deserved, and swept man off the scene. He would have acted in righteous judgment in doing that, but it would not have met the situation for God, because it would have left on record that Satan had thwarted God, and had spoilt effectually all that God had brought in for His pleasure. God could never have tolerated that.
CAC The thought of reconciliation is connected with the revelation of God. It is striking that we do not get the actual word reconciliation in the Old Testament nor the word atonement in the New Testament. The word atonement means a covering; the first occurrence of the word translated “atonement” is in Genesis in connection With Noah covering the ark with pitch.
Ques What is the difference between atonement and reconciliation?
CAC Atonement is always for the one who has sinned, or for that which has been rendered unclean by the uncleanness of God’s people, but reconciliation is what God has effected in view of His own pleasure. If God comes out to reveal Himself, the fulness of the Godhead comes into view: we get the Father, Son and Spirit. The revelation of the Godhead was by the Son becoming Man. God had in mind not simply that sin should be covered, but that a basis should be laid on which His own pleasure might be carried into effect in relation to persons and things which had come under the moral stain of sin. The coming [p. 448] in of Christ, and His taking up the question of sin, and going into death for it, has secured this.
Ques Is there any connection between that thought and the blood of the sin-offering being carried into the holiest?
CAC I think the nearest thought to reconciliation in the Old Testament is in Leviticus 16. Because not only did the blood go in, but the cloud of incense. The priest went in with the fragrance of the perfections of Christ. Everything that God does now is on the footing of Christ and His death: it would liberate the heart of the saints wonderfully to see this. These are elementary truths, but they are the greatest truths.
Rem. The hymn says,
‘His hand, His house, His heart are free,
Because Thy work is done’. (431:4)
CAC Yes, exactly, the work of reconciliation has been done. It was actually done by the Son, by Christ, but the fulness of the Godhead was concerned in it. The fulness was pleased to dwell in Him in order by Him to effect reconciliation. The Godhead has acted to place us now on an entirely new footing. We are sitting now in the holy presence of God on an entirely new footing. We were alienated and enemies in mind, but the Fulness has placed us before Itself on the footing of Christ and of His death. To enter into that is of importance for the abiding happiness of our souls. Reconciliation is positively effected: it is not something that might be or ought to be, it has been effected by the fulness of the Godhead.
Ques Is the world in reconciliation?
CAC It is in the sense that neither Jew nor Gentile is in God’s account now. Everything in God’s account is dependent on Christ and His death; that is the footing on which everything stands before God at this present moment. As to the world it is provisional.
[p. 449] It is most important for us to understand the necessity for reconciliation. A condition of alienation and enmity has come into God’s creation, and the fact that such a condition has come in has disturbed the repose of the Godhead. Not only is the creature ruined and lost, and we have bad consciences and lost peace, but the coming in of sin has disturbed the repose of the Godhead. The first necessity is that peace should be made for the Godhead. The Fulness in the Person of Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross, and now there is repose for the Godhead. Peace has been brought in for the Godhead in relation to all that disturbed, so that the Godhead can regard the creature on an entirely new footing; and by faith we can occupy that footing. But there is an important “if”: “If indeed ye abide in the faith”. Faith here is the faith of reconciliation. “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, yet now has it reconciled in the body of his flesh through death”. The only persons reconciled are those who have the faith of it.
Ques What is the difference between peace with God and for God?
CAC Peace with God is connected with justification, but “having made peace by the blood of his cross” is assuring peace for the Godhead in view of the disturbing element that had come in.
Ques What is the thought of 2 Corinthians 5: 19, “God ... reconciling the world to himself”?
CAC “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their offences”. He was making known that everything now was on the footing of Christ. Everything presented in Christ has its basis in His death. The presentation of divine grace to men in Christ was all based on the work of the cross, though the work was not yet accomplished. We must remember that in divine purpose the Lamb was “foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but who has been manifested at the end of times” (1 Peter 1: 20). All the actings of grace and mercy in the Old Testament, and the work of God in effecting new birth in millions of souls throughout the ages, had as its basis the death of the Lord Jesus. His death was before God when He clothed Adam and his wife with coats of skin, and it was before God when He accepted Abel’s sacrifice, “the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat”. Indeed, in the whole sacrificial system from beginning to end, God was saying, ‘I have Christ before Me, and I want Him to be before you, I want you to come to Me with the memorial of Him and of His death, and then I will be pleased with you’. If we want to minister pleasure to God, and I hope there is not one here who would not like to, we must come near to God on the footing of Christ and His death. His saints in the faith of Him thus become an abiding memorial of Him in the presence of the blessed God.
Rem Enoch walked with God and brought pleasure to Him.
CAC Yes, that is the kind of man who will be translated — reconciled persons; those who are presented holy, unblamable, irreproachable are the kind of persons ready for translation. Translation did not mean much change morally for Enoch: it is a pity if translation would mean a great change morally. If we are in the good of reconciliation we are on a footing with God which we should be found in absolutely if translated. J.B.S. said to me not long before he died, ‘I shall be very happy in the Lord some day, and suddenly find myself with Him’ — there is no great change in that. Enoch walked with God and had the confidence of God; God told him wonderful things, so that he had in spirit the good of reconciliation and eternal life; he was outside the domain of death, and he had faith to be translated. The wonderful thing is that he had the faith of it before the actuality. It says, “By faith Enoch was translated”.
Ques Is it an exhortation in 2 Corinthians 5, [p. 451] that they should come into the good of reconciliation?
CAC The apostle’s ministry had been called in question at Corinth, and he insists on the character of his ministry. Indeed, it is pretty evident that at Corinth they were not in the good of the new covenant or reconciliation. Yet he addresses them as reconciled, “All things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”. “Be reconciled to God” is the character of his ministry.
Reconciliation is a sacrificial idea; it is effected in the death of Christ, “in the body of his flesh through death” (verse 22). “Being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5: 10). It is something effected by the death of Christ. God intends to magnify Christ in our hearts, and to magnify the work and death of Christ, to make it very great to our thoughts. If Christ and His death are in our thoughts we become pleasurable to God. Reconciliation brings in an entirely new standard of walk and soul condition.
I think the body in Colossians 1 is not exactly the assembly for the expression of Christ, but for the cherishing of Christ. You must have Christ cherished before you have Him expressed. In chapter 3 you have Christ expressed; the features and grace of Christ coming out in the body for the pleasure of God. But in chapter 1 the body is that vital organism where Christ is cherished, a company of persons who value Christ. The working of God in chapter 1 is in the vessel of ministry: “I toil, combating according to his working, which works in me in power” (verse 29). The mighty power of God was working in Paul as the vessel of ministry so that Christ may be ministered. Through the ministry Christ gets His place in the hearts of the saints, and there is a living vessel here capable of cherishing Christ, and that vessel is the body. Paul was the minister, and we have to come into the good of what Paul ministered. It is too great a thing for us to be minister of. God took up a man and made him the vessel of the ministry of Christ, so that Christ [p. 452] might be enshrined in the affections of a gentile company, and that company is still in this world. The christian company eating the Supper brings the body into view in its vital affections: the body is the one sphere of delight for God in this world. A company of persons with living affections cherishing Christ and His death, and consciously on the footing of Christ and His death with God. That is the good of reconciliation.
Reconciliation has been effected in one body; not Jews and Gentiles reconciled and remaining Jews and Gentiles, but both reconciled in one body to God by the cross. Jews and Gentiles were the greatest antagonists, they could not be brought together by any human power. But when reconciled, a Jew would say, ‘I am gone and Christ remains’; and a Gentile would say, ‘I am gone and Christ remains’. Now there is nothing between them. The new man is the moral material out of which the body is constructed.
Ques Would you tell us about the new covenant in reference to reconciliation?
CAC The death of Christ is looked at in the new covenant as giving expression to the outflowing of the heart of God; everything in the way of blessing is the product of divine love and can flow out from the heart of God towards man through the death of Christ. The ministry of the new covenant is the ministry of what flows out from God to man. Reconciliation is that God puts everything on a new footing for His pleasure. We are on a footing where everything is delightful to God and there is perfect repose. The woman in Luke 7 is an example of one who apprehended Christ as the covenant. How she was affected by it! She pours herself out on Him; her tears, the wiping of His feet, the anointing, show the effect of the covenant. Forgiving love had charmed and won her heart. “Go in peace”, or into peace, is perhaps an intimation of reconciliation; it is an intimation that there is a place to [p. 453] travel into where there is the sense of being under divine complacency. This is a great liberation for the heart; it sets one free. When we know the reconciliation which God has effected, we can take our place with Him on that ground. But there is a danger of being moved away from it. Our enjoyment of reconciliation depends on our abiding in the faith of it. Those who abide in the faith of reconciliation are not moved away from the hope of the gospel and they give God pleasure.
The hope of the gospel is that we are going to be like Christ. The fulness of the Godhead has reconciled us; the Father the Son and the Spirit. “By him to reconcile all things to itself”, but it is the Fulness that does it. It gives one an immense thought of the greatness of Christ. If we leave this room today with an enlarged sense of the greatness of Christ, and of His cross, it will help to deliver us from what is all around us — the pride and pretensions of man. The fulness of the Godhead came in to reconcile, but the work was done at the lowest point, at the most ignominious place, at the cross. It emphasises the terrible nature of what had to be removed. A glorious death would not have been suitable: it was fitting it should be the death of the cross. The sinful state was so abominable, so hateful in the sight of God that it had to be removed in the most ignominious death possible; but the One who went into that death was the infinitely great and glorious Person of whom Colossians 1 speaks. When we get a sense of that, it makes nothing of our pride and vanity, and the things which belong to us naturally: these are the very things which, if we allow them, hinder our being in the good of reconciliation.
Ques What is the difference between what God has effected now, and what will exist when all evil is done away?
CAC Simply, that then it will be actuality. God’s pleasure will be found in actualities, but now His pleasure [p. 454] is found in saints being in the faith of it. The moral stain will eventually be removed from all things, all the things which have been affected by enmity.
In Revelation 5 everything comes on to the footing of what the Lamb has done: it is a question of the worthiness of the Lamb, and all creation becomes vocal with His praise.
Ques What is meant by thrones, lordships, principalities and authorities?
CAC I thought they expressed the principle on which God has put the whole creation together. It has pleased God that His creation should take a form which is a striking witness against lawlessness. Thrones, lordships, principalities and authorities are creations of dignity and rule. God’s creation is ordered on the principle of rule; it is an entirely contrary thought to insubordination and lawlessness. Every dignity has been created by Christ, and all will derive from Him. He is the Head of all principality and authority, and all must be eventually subservient to Him. They have been usurped or permitted to pass into men’s hands in view of the divine government of the world, but all will revert to the Heir. Christ is the Heir of every dignity, all is going to revert to Him and will be held by Him on the ground of that reconciliation which has been effected [p. 455] in His death.
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 1: 17 - 29 It is well to see that all brought out here of the greatness of Christ is really to lead us into the truth of how we stand in relation to Him. I suppose the whole point of this scripture is to bring out that this great and glorious and divine Person has that which stands in relation to Him as His body; and it is not presented abstractly as what is true in Him, but so that we can understand the immensity of the fact that He now has what is in relation to Him as His body.
It is in this connection that reconciliation is necessary according to Colossians, because we could not think of His having a body that was in any way unsuitable. He can take up nothing that is not reconciled. And what has been effected in reconciliation will yet be applied to all things; it extends to everything He has created, and yet there is something brought about now greater than the reconciliation of all things; that is, reconciliation of certain persons who are presented before the Fulness “holy and unblamable and irreproachable” (verse 22), in order that they can stand in relation to Him as His body. It is astounding! It is unique, because when the “all things” are reconciled, they will never be set in that intimate relationship of His body. So we need to be seriously concerned to enter into the greatness of it all.
To think that such a Person, that so majestic a Person, should be Head of the body! There is a certain company of which He is Head. Reconciliation is very important if you take into account what the Fulness has in mind in reconciling these persons to Itself.
“Fulness” is that which is adequate to bring out all that is in the Persons of the Godhead. So that creation and reconciliation, and the assembly as the body, will serve to bring out the fulness of the Godhead as moving in the [p. 456] activities of love. The things are not yet reconciled but the persons are; that is, the saints are in the most blessed position conceivable as regards their being cleared of every moral stain. They can be presented before the presence of the Godhead “holy and unblamable and irreproachable”.
No one could be in the body but as reconciled to the fulness of the Godhead. And it is the Fulness presenting to Itself. It is very blessed to see that it is for the pleasure of the Fulness. So that conditions are brought about to make it possible for saints to be in relation to Christ as Head, and no one who does not know what it is to be reconciled can possibly be of the body.
Rem There are two ways (in Colossians and Ephesians) in which Christ is spoken of: as Head of the body and as Head to the body.
CAC Well, He is Head over all to the body; there is His universal headship, but then the assembly is brought to share it with Him because she is brought into the place of His wife. There is what He is as Head of the body, and that brings out the character of the body. The Spirit of God is seeking to make us realise what it is! It is that company that stands in vital relation to Christ as its Head. The Spirit of God would bring us to realise our relation to Christ as the body — His body — and for that the apostle laboured with all his might, to bring the saints into the consciousness and reality of the body.
Rem He enlarges on the greatness of the One to whom the assembly is united.
CAC What an effect it would produce if our hearts were a little touched by it. We should all go away from this meeting changed people.
Ques When will it be seen?
CAC It is not seen now, and is not that why he mentions hope in this epistle? “On account of the hope which is laid up for you” (verse 5), and “not moved away from the hope” (verse 23). The consummation of it is a matter of [p. 457] hope.
The first light of the gospel is that we are justified and reconciled so that we may be conformed to the image of God’s Son. That is the light we get at the beginning of our spiritual history. Paul says here, “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”. That is, there is one gospel everywhere. The Colossians were in danger of being moved away; that was because hope was not maintained in their hearts. At the beginning light did dawn — the light of being conformed to God’s Son, a glorified Man in heaven. And if we lose that, we lose the sense of being the body of Christ, and that is why so few saints have any idea of the body of Christ. No one has the hope of glory until Christ is livingly in their affections.
Now in the body viewed as in relation to Christ there is nothing inconsistent with Christ any more than there will be in heaven. If it is Christ’s body, Christ will come out in it. By and by it will be Christ; and I must not excuse anything else. If anything else does come out, I ought to bury my face in the dust.
If we are affected by the truth, it is that we should not be moved away from what God has before Him in the future — that we should be conformed to His Son — but also not moved away from what is now before Him in the body of Christ, so that the manifold graces of Christ should come out in it now. That is the character of the mystery. “The riches of the glory of this mystery” (verse 27) have come out in the ministry of Paul; he was the minister and suffered for it. If any of us are minded to follow Paul we shall suffer too. Paul was exclusively the minister of the mystery; that is, he brought the ministry directly from God, and we are sitting under it tonight, just as the Colossians were then. If we want to know what the ministry of the gospel is, and what the ministry of the assembly is, we must go to Paul for it.
[p. 458] He suffered from the religious man all his life, and it is the religious man still who will not have the truth of the body. That we should come into evidence as the body of Christ is the most wonderful thing ever heard of in Scripture — or out of Scripture.
Ques Will the Jews be brought into reconciliation?
CAC Yes, I think Israel will be reconciled. Jehovah will become their righteousness, and they will be reconciled. The time is coming when He will say, “This people have I formed for myself: they shall shew forth my praise” (Isaiah 43: 21). Well, that must be a reconciled people.
The body is now made known through ministry. It is not enough that Christ should die, and be raised, and be glorified and the Spirit given — all that put together would not put the saints into the body. Therefore Paul’s great service as the “minister” is essential.
Rem And intelligence is needed.
CAC God knows how far we have got, and He wants us to understand the nature of the body, and that it is essential that every bit of the body should be of persons made perfect; that is, brought into such a state that nothing could possibly be added to them.
Rem The Lord said to Saul, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 26: 14).
CAC That is the point, they were His body, Christ was coming out in them. Paul was persecuting them because they were really His body.
The ministry helps us into divine thoughts that would never enter the creature mind; and Paul is ministering them to us tonight. This mystery was “hidden from ages and from generations, but has now been made manifest to his saints; to whom God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you the hope of glory” (verses 26, 27). No one can have the hope of glory until Christ is in them, and that is the character of the mystery. God is bringing it about [p. 459] that Christ is really and spiritually in people who were once poor and alienated Gentiles; and Paul is labouring that this shall be worked out in result. You could not think of Christ being in a person and there being nothing to indicate it. J.N.D. said, ‘If you are in Christ, Christ is in you, and if Christ is in you, take care that nothing but Christ comes out of you’. As Christ is livingly in me I correspond with the glory, and I can look for it happily and joyfully.
So the apostle is labouring according to God’s working, “admonishing every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, to the end that we may present every man perfect in Christ” (verse 28). That is what he is after; nothing short of that will do. It is only those “perfect in Christ” that can be in the body in any vital sense. It is the Gentiles, it is a collective thought, and it is the body because Christ is there. It would not be the body if Christ were not there, because it is His body. It comes out individually, Paul is dealing with individuals. And that is the object of all labouring and all ministry now, that every man should know what it is to be complete in Christ. “Every man”, it is those who come in range of Paul’s ministry. God’s thought for every one of us is that each of us should be perfect in Christ. I can well understand that if we realise who Christ is and what Christ is, if we are blessed in that Man, and furnished in Him, and if everything God has given us is in that Man, such a man does not need anything from any other quarter; he is perfect in Christ. And that is what it means. It is not a question of attainment, but of obtaining it through the precious ministry of Paul; and none of us can obtain it anywhere else. Then the warning is that something crafty of the devil may come along and divert us from this.
Rem “Whom we announce”, it says in verse 28.
CAC It is what is announced in Paul’s ministry, and God was working this truth mightily in Paul’s soul, so that he could not help bringing it to bear on anyone he met. It would be good if it were so with us. It shows how difficult [p. 460] it is to get these divine thoughts into the minds of people. It was difficult for Paul and it is just as difficult today. We see the impossibility of getting this thought of the body into the mind of any believer except by divine working and Paul’s ministry going together.
Rem We have to be attracted by the thought of it.
CAC To begin with there are the glories of Christ, that is true leverage. He is the Creator, all things subsist together by Him, and reconciliation is by Him, and we are called to be the body of that glorious Man in heaven. We are His body to express Him. Anyone not expressing Christ could not be said to be in His body. It could hardly be said of those who minded their own things and not the things of Christ.
It is additional to what they had at Pentecost. Pentecost was not the climax of everything. Not one of them there knew anything at all about the body. Think of a poor old man in prison with scarcely enough food to eat, and yet the most mighty work of God on the earth was in that poor old man! And he was labouring in that day for what many Christians of that day knew nothing of. All that is for revelation is out now. The mystery is the last thing to complete the word of God, so we might say God has told out all His mind. Now, are we affected by [p. 461] it?
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 2: 1 - 15 The word “combat” (verse 1) would imply the very deep conflict the apostle went through for the Colossians.
CAC And ourselves. It serves to show that the apostle was very conscious of the difficulties and the opposition. If we think of the greatness of Christ and the place that He is to fill for God, we must see that all the devices of the enemy will be brought into action to hinder the saints from apprehending it. So this chapter takes the character of warning. The first chapter is the positive ministry of Christ; and chapter 2 is mainly occupied with warning against influences that steal our hearts away from Christ; and the remainder of the epistle would show how this precious truth would work out in a practical way in the saints. I suppose we see it more in the third chapter than in any other part of Scripture.
Rem It is the features of Christ coming out in the body really.
CAC Yes, indeed; and there are certain conditions stated as necessary on the part of the saints if we are to be spiritually intelligent. “That their hearts may be encouraged, being united together in love” (verse 2). I suppose we shall hardly get the full assurance of understanding apart from these conditions. They are such as the knowledge of God would bring about. The knowledge of God in love would give us encouraged hearts. It is when people are discouraged and disappointed that room is made for Satan’s efforts. “United together in love” is a love to one another because it is a knitting together. This “combat” is an agony of heart which the apostle had before God, like the agony of Epaphras in the last chapter. He was agonising in prayer with God (not exactly meeting the enemy), which is a very important service, especially if we see anything [p. 462] moving among the saints to take away their hearts from the sense of the greatness of Christ; and the whole cause of God would suffer, if saints were turned aside. So that with encouraged hearts and knit together in love, which is just the normal fruit of the gospel, we should be prepared to take in the wonderful thought of God as to the place Christ is to fill in the whole universe of bliss, for that is, I suppose, the thought of the mystery of God. It is the most comprehensive view of it that we get in Scripture, as I understand it.
Rem Revelation 10 speaks of the mystery of God — His workings being completed.
CAC Yes, I think that all that has been hidden in the ways of God will be brought to an issue. It will be seen that God has been working secretly all the time with a specific end in view. That is very comforting for us when we see these great upheavals amongst the nations. We need to remember that all the while, God is working to His own great end. The mystery of God would include the place that Christ will fill in the whole universe of bliss. The assembly is the nearest circle, but there are other circles. The One who created all things must of necessity possess them. He created them, they subsist together by Him, and He is going to exercise His headship in view of blessing. Every family will own Him, and God would have us entertain that in our hearts in great reality now, because if that is the place He will have then, surely He has a right to have it in my heart now. The wonderful thing is that the saints of God in Christ Jesus have a world of their own, and men around us have no idea of it at all. We have to cultivate dwelling on these invisible things, which are the greatest realities there are. I suppose the headship of Christ is the greatest thing of all. It is no mere imagination with us. The world is full of shams and shadows, but the Christian has the privilege of living in a world of reality. How it would fortify us against the dangers mentioned here.
[p. 463] It is the privilege of each to hold the Head and to find we can draw out of this wonderful Person satisfaction for ourselves and for our brethren. It would go very much with “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7: 38).
Rem It would go with “in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge” (verse 3).
CAC Yes, and it is very wonderful that God should present Himself to us as acting in wisdom and knowledge. We know Him as acting in love, and He would like us to know Him as acting in this way; that is, the blessed God knows what He is doing. It says in Ephesians, He has abounded “towards us in all wisdom and intelligence” (chapter 1: 8) — that is on God’s part, He knows what He is about. These great things are not stated absolutely; they are matters of prayer; we need to have them before us. It is clear that we cannot be pleasing to God unless we are intelligent. If He is acting in wisdom and knowledge, His saints (or sons) must know what it is to have intelligence, or they do not satisfy the Father’s heart.
We do not get into everything at once, but as Christ and His glories are known in our hearts we have the key to everything that God has in mind for the universe. He says, ‘I am going to make that blessed anointed Man Head of everything, and that is not only Head of the assembly, it is universal headship. There is not going to be a single thing in the vast universe of bliss that does not take character from Him’. Will it not be good to be there! God desires us to have these things as objects of pursuit, even if we do not get far into them. We are to go after them; He is helping us all the time.
The apostle was able to recognise that the Colossians had really received the gospel from Epaphras. They were walking in assembly order and their faith in Christ was firm. Then we are to go on with what we have begun with: “As therefore ye have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord,
[p. 464] walk in him, rooted and built up in him” (verses 6, 7).
There are different dangers: “Philosophy and vain deceit, according to the teaching of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ” (verse 8). Then the Jewish element: we are not to be occupied with feasts and new moons (verse 16). Then human imagination, and then the man who worships angels, “vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh” (verse 18); that is, he is dealing with imaginary things. All these things are present today. All that is losing sight of the headship of Christ. The test of these things is they are not according to Christ. I have sometimes seen a book in a shop window that I have thought I should like to read. Then I have asked myself, would it help me in the knowledge of Christ? It would not, and I have passed on. The philosophy of the world is exceedingly poor and small, whereas we have to do with One in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and we are filled full in Him.
Ques Would you tell us what the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily means?
CAC Well, it means more than I can say.
Ques It refers, would you say, to His present position, and includes His manhood?
CAC Yes. It dwells in Him bodily, not merely spiritually. It dwells in the body of that glorious Man in heaven, and we can come into it; and nothing to be known of God is outside that Man. God has set forth all that He is in that glorified Man. There is nothing in creation to set forth all that He is, everything is there in Christ; if we want to know the Father we must learn it in Him.
Rem The footnote (d, Darby Translation) reads, ‘The fulness or completeness of the Godhead is in Christ, as towards us; and we, as towards God, are complete in him’.
CAC It is one of the most extraordinary statements in Scripture because it is infinite.
Ques Would you explain why the Godhead is brought [p. 465] in here?
CAC To bring in all that belongs to God, all that is set forth in God the Father and the Son and the Spirit. You could not leave out one Person or it would not be the fulness of the Godhead. All that the creature can know of God is set forth in a glorified Man. “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (verse 9); and a soul not established in grace might say, that frightens me! Paul goes on to say, “And ye are complete in him”; and that takes us up in suitability to the fulness of the Godhead. You are ‘filled full’ in Christ; I do not want anything but Christ! We are not in liberty in the assembly unless it is so, not free to worship, which implies we know God and know that we are perfectly suitable to Him. How could I worship unless I knew I was suitable? Viewed as the body we have not anything outside Christ, we are filled full in Him, there is not a desire outside Him. If I am wanting a hundred and one things outside Christ I am not really in the body.
We enter into things now as seeing them in a risen and glorified Man. The interesting question was asked me the other day, why in the hymn book we never dwell on the perfections of Christ as Man here in detail. The spouse in the Song of Songs describes everything relating to her Beloved in detail, not in a general way. I believe it is because as in the assembly we view the Lord in another position and are not engaged with the greatness that came out in Him here as Man in flesh and blood, for we start with His death. The first thing before us when we come together for the Supper is His death as the ground on which we can participate in His life as risen and ascended and glorified. It is in that condition that we are all of one with Him; so that we do not dwell on the features that came out in Him down here. It would not be quite suitable to the occasion, because we know Him as risen and glorified.
Ques What would you say as to the burnt-offering?
CAC You could hardly have raised an illustration that better confirms what I am saying, because by contrast [p. 466] in the meat-offering the sweet savour goes up to Jehovah, but it was food for the priest to eat. The perfections of Christ here are for our contemplation and we are to feed on Him, but is not that different from the service of the assembly? All His perfections are treasured in the hearts of His saints, but then we think of all His perfections that have come out in His death, and the saints begin there. 313:1 comes nearest to it, but even there they are looked at as going up to the Father as a sweet savour. The saints treasure them but we could have no link with Him on this side of death, but in resurrection. This chapter speaks of it, “Buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him” (verse 12). It puts us on new ground. This is the whole truth of the matter. We begin with Christ disclosing all His perfections in death, we do not go back to His path here, we go on to dwell on the new position He takes up as risen and glorified. It is new ground. As we sing in 95:3,
‘The glories of His work we bring, Thee glorified we see;
His deep perfections gladly sing, And tell them forth to Thee’.
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 2: 8 - 15 The concern of Paul here was that the hearts of these Colossian saints, and ours, might be so furnished that we may be unmoved by delusions and persuasive speech and by those who would lead us away as a prey by philosophy and vain deceit. If we apprehend the greatness and fulness of Christ we should be preserved.
This scripture shows us that after having had a faithful ministry of Christ such as the Colossians had through Epaphras, and having received the Christ and being marked by faith in Christ Jesus, and walking in the beautiful order of 1 Corinthians — assembly order — yet they were in danger and needed further enrichment in the knowledge of Christ. They needed a further ministry of Christ beyond what Epaphras could give them. Epaphras seems to have told Paul, I have told them as much as I know, I see they are in danger, they need something more. So Paul writes this epistle to give them a deeper and fuller ministry of Christ than they had yet received. Paul was in an agony of exercise about us all, because we all come in amongst these who have not seen his face in flesh. His great concern was that there might be conditions with us, our hearts encouraged and united together in love, so that we might be able to apprehend “all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God; in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge” (verses 2, 3). If we get hold of that, the enemy has nothing to offer that is tempting.
Ques What is the mystery of God?
CAC I suppose the mystery of God is God’s great design to make everything centre in Christ. It would go out wider than the church, it would be that great design which is altogether veiled from the eyes of men, God’s great [p. 468] design to set everything of Himself forth in Christ and to make Christ the great Fountain head out of which the whole universe will be filled with delight for God — that is the mystery of God. We are all acquainted with what is in view but God would bring us to what is behind the scenes and that is the greatness of Christ. If the greatness of Christ gets hold of our hearts, everything that is the product of man’s mind is seen to be empty. The Colossians had lived vile lives. There was a time past when the apostle could say, ‘You lived in certain things, vile things’. Now grace has come in and delivered them from vile things, but Satan was going to work subtly to capture them by things of the mind, elevated things, things that appeal to intellect and reason, and they were in danger. I suppose we are surrounded today by a world of intellect, and it all appeals to us. If we have any mind at all, the world of intellect appeals to us, and we need to be fortified against it by the sense of the greatness of Christ. Nothing will preserve us from the world of intellect but Christ; it is more subtle than the world of lust. There is a very large building in this country, a beautiful building; it carries a large inscription on one side which says, ‘There is nothing great on earth but man’. If you go round the other side of the building you will see a corresponding inscription which says, ‘There is nothing greater in man than mind’. That carries engraved in stone the convictions of men, and there is no room there for Christ. Of course all the philosophy and reasonings of men lead you nowhere; their wonderful investigations into the secrets of nature, their wonderful discoveries and theories, if you follow them up, as I once said to a scientific man, where do you get to? He said, ‘We come up against a blank wall’. That is where philosophy, the teachings of men, the elements of the world and the mind of men land you, at a blank wall. Evolution too leads you to a blank wall, and God is behind the wall, and you cannot reach Him. What a contrast when Paul speaks of One in whom the fulness of [p. 469] the Godhead dwells bodily! You cannot have a more striking contrast. On the one hand we get the intellect of men and their speculations and enquiries, reasonings and philosophy — a blank wall; you see on the other side what God presents. He presents a glorious Man, One whom we can apprehend, for He is a Man and the fulness of the Godhead is in that Man bodily. Who would exchange that for a blank wall? It is well for us to see what things really are. The whole activity of the mind of man in an intellectual way for six thousand years leads him to a blank wall. God is behind the wall and they cannot reach Him. ‘There is nothing greater in man than mind’: what a positive lie of Satan. There is something far greater in man than mind; he has a spirit that he has received from God, the spirit that God made for the very purpose of man having to do with Him; that is something far greater in man than mind. The blessed truth of God meets all the need of the spirit of man. We want God and God wants us. He is the Father of spirits, not of minds. God is concerned and His beloved servant was in an agony that in our spirits we might know the mystery of God. Everything that is of God centres in Christ, the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. If philosophy, the teachings of men and the elements of the world lead us to a blank wall, that will not do. Our spirits crave for the knowledge of God, we must have God, the exercise is awakened for God. That is what John means when he speaks of thirsting. I am not speaking now about conviction of sin or the sense of being in the good of atonement, but there is such a thing as thirst for God. The creature must have God, and the answer to that is, the fulness of the Godhead dwells in that glorious Man bodily. What God proposes in the gospel is that we should know all about Himself that it is possible for the creature to know, so that we may come into the riches of the full assurance of understanding, and that we may know all the things that to the natural man would be behind a blank wall.
Rem The psalmist says, “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42: 2).
CAC Yes, there is a sense that comes into the soul of distance from God but wanting God; in a sense I have not got God and I want Him. Then in the gospel God says, ‘I want you, I want you to know Me’. God sets forth everything, that is the idea of the fulness of the Godhead. Every element that goes to make up the knowledge of God is in Christ; every feature, every characteristic, every spiritual quality, every attribute of God’s blessed nature, all that is included in the fulness, and it all dwells in a risen and glorified Man now in heaven, it dwells in Him bodily.
Ques. Why is it bodily?
CAC Does that not show how the whole mystery of God hangs upon the incarnation? Bodily suggests that the whole truth of the incarnation is there, so that God has come into evidence in a tangible form. It is remarkable that when John speaks of the Word of life he says, “Which ... our hands handled” (l John 1: 1), he speaks of what he had heard, seen and contemplated, what his hands had handled, showing the tangibleness of it, showing what the incarnation has brought about. All that is spiritual has become tangible so that we might apprehend it. All the philosophy of men is intangible, the whole system of speculation that floats about in the air; and the only substance to be found is a blank wall. When we come to Christ, all the fulness of the Godhead is set forth in a Man in a body. We need to pray for the apprehension of what is presented to us. God is telling us about this tonight, that the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily. We accept it and now we have to pray for apprehension that we may be able to grasp it intelligently, so that what is set forth in Christ may be apprehended.
Ques Our eyes are opened in the gospel, but is spiritual sight necessary to see all this?
CAC Yes, spiritual sight is necessary, and the riches [p. 471] of the full assurance of understanding; that is the line we are on here. The Christian is the most intelligent man that lives. It is not that you discard the mind of man because it is elevated, but you discard it because it is debased, unholy and infidel; it finds pleasure in leaving God out. Scripture says, “All his thoughts are, There is no God!” (Psalm 10: 4). So in the first chapter of this epistle it speaks of being “enemies in mind” (verse 21). The mind of man is hostile to God, but the Christian as having a renewed mind has a mind of an elevated character, and he has an understanding far superior to that of the natural mind. I think the Lord is exercising us at the present time about the greatness of the incarnation. We have all professed to believe that a divine Person became Man, and we do believe it in a certain sense, but we have not apprehended the greatness of it; that calls for exercise and prayer and meditation, it calls for enlargement. There is an immensity there to be explored which will fill eternity, but all that is set forth in the fulness of the Godhead is set forth to be apprehended, not to be unknown and unappreciated. I think the fulness of the Godhead is not exactly the being of God which is inscrutable, but the fulness means there is not a detail wanting, not an element of any part of God’s nature and character that is not set forth for our apprehension. Nothing is held in reserve that it is possible to know. There are things in the Deity which it is impossible for the creature to know; there must ever be an immense distance between the Creator and the creature, between God and His creature, but the Fulness conveys to us the thought of the completeness that is set forth of everything that can be known of God by the creature; all is there in Christ.
Ques Is Godhead a relative term?
CAC I thought so. It is the Godhead viewed in relation to the creature, so that in chapter 1 we are told, “In him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to itself, ... whether the [p. 472] things on the earth or the things in the heavens” (verses 20, 21). It is the fulness of the Godhead viewed in relation to creation.
Ques What you speak of in Deity is unknown except to divine Persons, but is the Godhead more in relation to creation?
CAC I thought so. In Colossians the whole scope of creation comes into view, the whole sphere in which God has operated in creation comes into view. That I believe is the mystery of God, and it stands in relation to the whole of creation. Therefore you get a view of Christ here which goes far beyond what He is to us; we see that He is ever so much greater than what would be, for instance, needed to fill the church; that does not exceed His ability.
Ques Would reconciling all things to Itself go as far as creation?
CAC I thought so. Of course, things in the heavens and things on the earth take in all that man can take knowledge of, and it is all going to be reconciled and be made pleasurable to God. The wonderful thing is that the mystery of God lies in this, that God has designed that Christ shall be the Head of the whole created universe.
Rem That would be chapter 1: 16.
CAC Yes. By Him were created all things. Christ is the Creator of all things, but then having created all things He has actually come into the system which He created. God in the Person of Christ not only created, but has come into the creation by becoming Man; He has taken up a place in the creation and therefore He can be spoken of as the Firstborn of all creation. If the Creator comes into the created system He must take the first place in it, He could have no other place. He takes the first place and He is going to be Head of the whole creation, so that there will not be a single thing in the universe that is according to God that does not derive from Christ. It is a great thing to get hold of that remarkable fact.
[p. 473] Ques Is chapter 1: 18 a new sphere; is it in resurrection that He actually takes the place of the Beginning?
CAC Yes. He takes that place as having died; that is the wonderful thing. Sin came into the created universe, and if it was all to be reconciled to God, it must be on the basis which secured the removal of sin according to the pleasure of God. So the Creator has become a Man in order that He might die; death is the divine penalty attaching to sin, and the Creator has become Man in order that through death He might effect reconciliation. It is a divine Person who has become Man and who has gone into death; He is going to be the Head of all creation. That is the greatness of Christ, and where is philosophy after that? The verses we are speaking of go on to say, “Ye are complete in him, [p. 479] who is the head of all principality and authority”.
Ques I should like to ask what is involved in that word “complete”?
CAC The way we are set up with God is equal to the way in which God is set before us in Christ. The fulness of the Godhead is set before us in Christ; it is absolutely complete, not an element lacking on that side; and on the other side we are complete in the same blessed Person. We are just as complete in the way we are set up in the presence of the fulness of the Godhead — as complete in every detail — as the outshining of God in Christ is complete; that is christianity. You cannot think of adding anything to that. What is philosophy? It does not appeal to you one bit. The word “complete” is really ‘filled full’ (see note d, Darby Translation). “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and ye are complete [filled full] in him”. It is fulness on our side. What we need to see is that Christ has taken on the side of creation. The Creator has taken a place on the side of creation that He might fill all creation out of His own fulness, and in so doing He secures a perfect answer to everything there is in the fulness of the [p. 474] Godhead. We have a whole creation — heaven and earth — answering perfectly to God, and that for eternity. The assembly is the first family to be brought into the understanding and apprehension of it, so that we may glorify God for the greatness of that mystery which He has made known to us. It is most blessed to see that everything is going to answer perfectly to God because the perfect answer is secured in Christ, the One in whom the fulness of the Godhead was brought out to us in every detail. In that same Person every detail on the side of the creature has been secured in absolute perfection. It is secure in the Head, and what is secured in the Head abides for eternity.
We want to pray for apprehension of the Head. We pray a great deal for realisation, but what we mean really is apprehension, that is what we want. The realisation is in Christ; it is all realised and verified in Christ, but we have to come into the spiritual apprehension of it; it is all there to be apprehended. As we come into it we get these wonderful “riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God”. Then we become men of stature; we graduate in the university of God.
I thought there was a figure of this in the tabernacle where you have certain vessels in which what is of God is set forth. There are the ark, the mercy-seat and the candlestick all of gold; they set forth what is divine; you might say the fulness of the Godhead is set forth in these things. But then you also get the table and the golden altar; in these you have the answer. The golden table sustained the twelve loaves representing all Israel — all the people of God are sustained there in a way that corresponded with the vessels in which what is purely divine is set forth. In the golden altar you have the thought of approach to God; it is equal to the revelation. Then you have another thing, you have the priests. There is a long chapter (Exodus 28) describing the vestments of the priests; they are for glory and for ornament. If you study the robes of the priests, the [p. 475] breastplate and the shoulder-pieces, etc., you will find that there is everything there which corresponds with the glory of God. There is correspondence in a man so that before the system broke down by the sin of Nadab and Abihu, Aaron could go in in his garments of beauty and ornament as the one who corresponded perfectly with the glory of God. He could go in representing all the people, he was the head. Israel had a head in Aaron, and until the system broke down it represented typically the outshining of God on the one side, and then the priestly head corresponded in every detail with the pleasure of God. You might have said to any Israelite, ‘Are you perfectly furnished in relation to God?’ If he had been an intelligent man he would have said, ‘Yes, I am perfectly complete in Aaron, I have a priestly head who is there in perfect suitability to God; I am complete in him’. The priest is head. The whole system is secured and maintained in Christ as Head and we are complete in Him; He is Head of all principality and authority. These poor Colossians did not know what they were doing, they were worshipping angels. Paul corrects them by saying that the Christ, in whom you are complete, is the Head of all principality and authority. There is not a dignity, not a created being in the universe of God, to whom Christ does not stand as Head.
What a moment it will be when God brings Him out as the Firstborn! He is going to bring Him into the habitable world as the Firstborn; then what will be the first thing to happen? All the angels of God will worship their Head, that is the mystery of God, and that is the explanation of the marvellous scene in Revelation 5 where we find the twenty-four elders singing the song of redemption; they are ascribing worthiness and honour to the Lamb because He was slain and had redeemed to God by His blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. That has to do with men, and then we find the Spirit of God introduces a marvellous company; their number was ten thousands of [p. 476] ten thousands and thousands of thousands. It is the whole universal assembly of heaven, and they all celebrate their Head. They cannot say that He has redeemed them, but they celebrate Him as their glorious Head. That is the greatness of Christ, and God has privileged us to come together to learn it even now in the time when Christ is despised; God has shown us this to teach us a little more that we are filled full in Him.
It is wonderful to see what a great Person He is. This is the great divine conception, that there never will be any feature in the creation that answers to God that did not originate in Christ. He brings in every feature that answers to God, all comes in in the Head. Israel will have to learn this same lesson, they will have to learn that everything that is of God and for God is brought in in the Head. When they see that, they will bless themselves in Him, “Men shall bless themselves in him” (Psalm 72: 17).
I believe it is the apprehension of this that prepares us for circumcision; we begin to see that everything that is of the flesh is an encumbrance, a thing it would be a relief to get rid of. I do not think that any of us will come to the truth of circumcision until we are thankful to be circumcised. You get such a sense of how you are filled full in Christ that everything derived from Adam becomes not only unnecessary but an offensive intrusion, that you are ready to say the happiest day in your life would be the day when you could cut it off. Now God says, ‘I have done it for you, I have cut it off in the circumcision of Christ, in Christ’s death’. Paul says, “Far be it from me to boast save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6: 14). He is not facing the cross as a terrible thing but as the proper ground of glory. He says, ‘I will glory in having done with the world and with the flesh’. Why? Because he knew what it was to be filled full in Christ. If we get an apprehension of Christ as Head, we shall have done with the mind of man, the intellect and speculations of man; we shall have done [p. 477] with that and with the body of the flesh. I believe there is an intentional contrast thrown by the Spirit of God between the bodily form in which the fulness of the Godhead dwells and the body of the flesh which comprises the totality of everything we derive from the fallen man. All that man is in mind and body, the Christian is privileged to know, has been cut off for him in the circumcision of the Christ, and he gladly falls in with what God has done. That is the lesson we all need to learn; I believe those of us who know it best, know it but imperfectly. In the presence of the greatness of Christ and in the sense of what it is to be complete, filled full in Him, we should be very thankful for circumcision and burial by baptism. We do not come to it until we are thankful for it; it comes in the way of relief. We see how God has freed us; He has filled us full in our Head, and we do not want any other. Christ has come into the place of sinful flesh, and that sinful flesh has been cut off vicariously in His death. We come into the apprehension of it, so it forms no part of our spiritual status at all. We are entitled to be with God as completely apart from the flesh as if we were already in heaven. It is a faith position, and we can be with God in that faith position and rejoice in it. We do not feel it has cut us off from the things we should like, but it has cut us off from the things we dislike because we are enriched in all the greatness of Christ. That is a remarkable [p. 478] truth of christianity.
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 2: 9 - 23 Apparently the Colossians stood in the truth of Romans and also of 1 Corinthians. The apostle says, “Seeing your order”, which would be 1 Corinthians, and “The firmness of your faith in Christ”, which would be Romans surely. I suppose that is for most of us here tonight; we know something of having come to faith in Christ according to Romans and have some idea of assembly order according to l Corinthians, but the apostle is anxious to bring us on to something further; that is, the truth of the body and the headship of Christ.
It is remarkable that when the truth of the assembly was recovered a little more than one hundred years ago, it came about through a young clergyman in Ireland getting the thought that there was a Head in heaven. Then the next thought he got was, if there is a Head in heaven, there is a body on earth. He got hold of two immense spiritual realities that had not been known at all since the departure of the apostles.
Rem The reception of the truth of the Reformation would be the reception of Romans, so that what follows would be in a way moral sequence.
CAC Of course what has marked the revival of the truth in the last one hundred years, I suppose, is the saints coming to the reality of what it is to be risen with Christ.
Rem Would it be a matter of spiritual state or of position?
CAC I thought it was what we received from God as light, and therefore it comes by faith; it is “through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead” (verse 12). The great thought of being complete in Christ is at the basis of all this.
Ques Why is it put, “Ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and authority”?
CAC He wishes to bring before us the wide and immense scope that comes under the Head. “Head of all principality and authority”. Well, that gives a wonderful touch to the thought of being complete in Him. That is, every power in dignity or eminence is to take character from Christ. It is a fact that the saints are complete in Him. We have to receive that as a divine statement, and then seek to understand what is involved in it.
Rem Both are positive facts, “Who is head of all principality and authority”, and “Ye are complete in him”.
CAC If God did not state things in that way we should never get hold of them. He states how they are in His mind; God knows well enough what is in His mind and He wants the saints to come to what is in His mind. It is a comfort to see we have nothing to do but come to what is in God’s mind. This would make us willing to accept circumcision. If you are complete in Christ you can very well afford to dispense with the other man who is not.
I think “principality and authority” might go beyond the earth. I suppose the principalities and powers of which Christ is Head will not have to be set aside, but there are others which God has spoiled and exposed in their evil character and triumphed over them. We have to do not only with man’s wickedness but with powers greater than man which have a great influence on him. Our conflict is with principalities and powers in heavenly places, powers of darkness and of evil, powers that do not acknowledge the headship of Christ, and that very fact exposes them as evil. I think men are today largely the dupes of these powers. Man prides himself on originating all kinds of thoughts that are against God and against Christ, but he does not originate them.
Ques Do we not travel through Romans and Corinthians in the thought of headship and now reach Colossians?
CAC [p. 480] We get the Head in a new way in Colossians, as the Source of everything. It is to bring us in our minds to see that everything centres in and proceeds from this great and glorious Person — a divine Person come into manhood and now risen and glorified — and that His death is really what cuts us off from the man we were once identified with to come under this new and glorious Head. So we all have to be circumcised with the circumcision of Christ, and that is His death.
Rem I suppose reconciliation would be the same thing.
CAC We have to come into line with this in our minds, as what is in the mind of God (we are not actually raised with Christ), and we are privileged to see that the death of Christ is really what cuts us off from the man we were once linked with. Hence He leads us on to see that there is a body that stands in definite relation to Him as Head. It is remarkable that there is nothing about sonship, or children, or the church as the wife or bride of Christ here; it is all about the body. All that is in the body proceeds from Christ, “The body is of Christ” (verse 17).
Circumcision is an inward exercise, as it says in Romans, “of the heart, in spirit” (chapter 2: 29). Thus baptism follows circumcision in Colossians, and is burial with Christ. It is the apprehension of what took place in His death, really the end of all I am as in the flesh. It was actually the end of that man before God, not in me, but in Christ. Well then, what sort of place do I want in the world? Every true believer would say, “What hinders my being baptised?” (Acts 8: 36). Then there is what answers to it in the public position, and then what follows — for here baptism takes us as far as resurrection — there is the coming up out of the water. Baptism is at the Red Sea; in the type they were not circumcised until over the Jordan. So that publicly we have to be in accord with our baptism. I remember once being offered a book on baptism, stated on the cover to be written [p. 481] by a B.A. I asked the one who offered it, ‘Does that attach to the man that went down into the water or to the man that came up?’ ‘I suppose to the man that went down’, was the answer. I said, ‘Well, I do not care to read what is written about baptism by a man not knowing anything about it’.
Rem “The circumcision of the Christ” (verse 11) — the truth of it is all set out there.
CAC Yes, it shows how God has brought everything into the death of Christ — the whole thing is gone — the old man gone.
Rem All three — circumcision, baptism and being raised — are necessary if we are to be here as part of the body.
CAC It is most important to see that.
Ques Would it be like Romans 6, identification with Him?
CAC In Romans he looks on to it as future; here it is something we are brought to at the present time. It is nothing in me; we are brought to the mind of God, that God has raised Christ from among the dead; and if I have the faith of that, I can take the ground of having been raised. We have to be quickened to be in the conscious good of it; that is, the saints are made to live in their affections in the truth of being risen with Christ. Now that is a thing to pray about, because quickening is an actual operation of God; that is, we are either quickened or not quickened. He is the only One who can make us live in our affections in relation to Christ as risen with Him. It is incomprehensible to an unconverted man in the world. What is remarkable is that God is said to have done so much. He has quickened, forgiven offences, effaced the handwriting in ordinances, spoiled principalities and powers — God has done it all.
Rem Quickening puts you right outside man’s world. A risen man is not coming back to the earth, he is going to heaven.
Ques There are two states in verses 11 and 13:
circumcised and uncircumcised. “In whom also ye have been circumcised”, is that how we come to it?
CAC Yes, and by the quickening power. Quickening is always out of death. It has been said that resurrection is relative to all that is behind it, and quickening is relative to what is before. We are quickened for an entirely new order of things outside of the region of death entirely, and we ought to touch this character of things, especially when we are in assembly.
Ques Would you say John 20 touches this quickening power?
CAC Yes, it is really the life of the risen Man breathed into them. How could you live in this life without quickening? It is a marvellous thought to me, that we should have the life of Christ. For quickening causes one to live in one’s affections in all these wonderful things that have come to light in the death of Christ. I pray constantly, I think daily, for this quickening power.
Rem The Holy Spirit is vital for this.
CAC There is no doubt it is very connected with the Holy Spirit, but that is not brought in in Colossians. It is here rather the fulness of Christ and what we may derive from His fulness, and everything being set aside in His death that is contrary to God, so that we may be set free from ordinances, and so on.
Ques “He made a show of them publicly”. When was that?
CAC I suppose it was done at the cross. There were certain powers acting against Christ — the chief priests, the rulers and Pilate — but behind these men were certain powers of the invisible world prompting them, and God stripped these powers, making manifest that they were all against Christ. “The ruler of this world is judged” (John 16: 11). The fact is he led the world to the point of crucifying Christ — that was his judgment. What did Peter and Paul think of the leaders of Israel when they crucified Christ?
[p. 483] They were all exposed and God has triumphed over them. It looked like public defeat, but actually Christ was the Victor.
Rem “Having nailed it to the cross”, it says (verse 14).
CAC It would seem that these Gentiles of Colosse had subjected themselves to ordinances. “Why as if alive in the world do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?” (verse 20). They had signed their name to it (see note g, verse 14). The same thing is seen today. People sign the pledge, for instance.
Rem That is not circumcision.
CAC No, exactly the contrary, it is just what Paul is condemning. Every obligation of that kind that I have put myself under has been nailed to the cross.
Rem It is applied to the man in the flesh.
CAC A Christian as a dead and risen man is on quite a different ground. What is very good for man in the flesh is positively evil when brought into christianity. All these things apply to a living man. If I have come to it that I have died with Christ, I do not think of signing a pledge that I will not drink, and so on. If the thing is nailed to the cross of Christ it is very foolish for me to go on with it. All that could be imposed as an ordinance on man in the flesh is what Christ suffered for to make an end of.
Rem So that Christ Himself came under law, “come of woman, come under law” (Galatians 4: 4).
CAC But then there was an end of that when He died; it had no more to say to Him. That was all ended when He gave up His spirit. It really comes to this: there is a body now which is of Christ, so that all these other things are a shadow. It is a great thing for us to get hold of the fact that we are of the body. I think it is much more difficult to get at than the thought of children or sons.
The substance is the body; all the substance of things now for God is in the body, all that is derived from Christ. Nothing in me that is not of Christ is the body, “The body is of Christ”. It is what is so little understood. We see here it is outside all that is religious. The enemy was on the line of introducing what was religious in a fleshly way. The apostle is anxious to show them they are really outside all that. So that to be turned aside to these things was to be fraudulently deprived of their prize. Humility is a devilish thing when it does not give place to Christ. I have in my time come across people proud of their humility. “And not holding fast the head” (verse 19) — that is the important matter.
Ques And that is connected with the body. Will you say a word on “Increases with the increase of God” (verse 19)?
CAC It is, “All the body, ministered to and united together by the joints and bands, increases with the increase of God”. It is a remarkable thing; there are no gifts in Colossians, but there are joints and bands, and so far as I see, a sister might be a joint and band as much as a brother. I think the reason is He is seeking to put each one of us in direct personal contact with the Head. If He had bestowed a gift, the gift might be between Him and me, and He says, ‘I want you in personal contact with Myself’. It is sweet to think of it. I am in a position in which I can draw directly from the Head and get something for myself, something perhaps that no saint ever got before. The body is of the Head and draws everything from the Head, and would move together beautifully. As children of God we are all alike, as sons of God we are all alike, but in the body we are not nor shall we be to all eternity; we are co-ordinated.
What is given by the Head is never given to be kept by the individual who gets it, but for the good of the body. We should all be ready to talk about what we get. There would be wonderful power if all the saints were free to talk about what they get from the Head.
The gifts in Ephesians come from the ascended Christ, but not from the Head. The body increases with the increase of God. It is intended to come out as the saints are together so that it is seen that there is a spiritual formation [p. 485] there that is of God — that is of God and for God. Indeed, F.E.R. used to tell us the body was [p. 486] the worshipping company.
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 2: 9 - 23 Certain things follow upon the apprehension of being complete, or filled full in Christ, the Head. Circumcision and burial follow in the spiritual setting of this chapter; they follow upon the apprehension of being filled full in Christ, so the cutting off of the flesh is seen to be a positive advantage. It is important to see that it says, “In whom also ye have been circumcised”; that is, it is not in yourself. Circumcision is a question of cutting off, and burial is a question of putting out of sight; they are both negative. When it is a question of being raised with Christ, that is the positive side, so we begin with the apprehension of being filled full in the Head. We were speaking last week of the greatness of the Head. He is Head of all principality and authority, not only Head for men, but Head over everything that has dignity and authority and eminence in the moral universe. He is great enough to be Head of the whole of God’s universe; so if we are filled full in Him we have a wonderful furnishing; nothing that is of the flesh is required to fill out that furnishing. We do not want even the best bit of the flesh; if we could have flesh in the most beautiful, refined, intellectual or religious form, we do not want it because it is not Christ. Being filled full in Christ, we are not only made spiritually independent of any contribution from the flesh, but we begin to see that any contribution from the flesh is obnoxious. It would be introducing a wrong element, something altogether foreign to God’s universe. All God’s moral universe is brought into view; how great it is, and it is all going to be filled out of the greatness of Christ. There is a complete furnishing in the fulness of Christ, and it is a furnishing in His fulness, not out of it. We do not draw out of it but we are brought into the vastness and moral splendour of it.
[p. 487] Then in Him also we are circumcised. There is a new kind of circumcision. The apostle speaks of a circumcision made without hands. That is to show it is a moral and spiritual thing. It is not a circumcision in the flesh, done by human hands — the hand of man cannot circumcise the heart and spirit — this is circumcision of the heart, in spirit. We were saying lately that when God introduces a thought He never gives it up. You cannot find anything God has introduced in the Old Testament that He has given up. He has secured it all in christianity in a greater and more real and spiritual way. So now instead of men being circumcised in the flesh, they are circumcised in the heart, in spirit. Paul tells the Romans that that is the true character of circumcision; that is, it is something inward, in contrast with burial, which is public. Circumcision is connected with the inward exercises of our hearts and spirits, and nobody knows anything about it; a man who is buried disappears from the public view. We get in circumcision and burial what may be called the inward and the outward — one has to do with the heart and with the spirit, and the other has to do with the public life.
There is an inward filling, a filling full in Christ; it is what you apprehend in your soul. He is adequate to fill the moral universe of God, so there will not be a vestige of anything in God’s moral universe, nor in the angelic world, or anywhere else, that is not headed up in Christ. If I am filled full in that great and glorious Person then I apprehend another thing, that in Christ, in the Head, I am circumcised, not in a fleshly way but in a spiritual way. “Circumcision not done by hand in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Christ”. It is important to notice that the Authorised Version says, “Putting off the body of the sins of the flesh”, but it should be the putting off of the body of the flesh, that is the totality of it. Everything that we derive from Adam, all that has been put off in the circumcision of the Christ, has been cut off in the death of [p. 488] Christ. There comes a moment when we value the thought of it. I remember the day when I first appreciated that thought as a blessed deliverance — that every atom of the flesh was cut off in the death of Christ. You come to it secretly in your mind and heart; you can tell God how thankful you are to be circumcised in Christ. It is most delivering and emancipating. You arrive at this inwardly, it is a secret between yourself and God.
Ques We may see the light of it, but what about the power?
CAC It is not altogether a question of power but of illumination, light in the soul; God gives you this light in Christ. You have been circumcised with this spiritual circumcision which means a complete cutting off of the flesh in the death of Christ. It comes to you as a relief and you apprehend it. You have been trying, perhaps, to make something of this old flesh, to tinker it up in some way, but you come to appreciate that it is cut off.
Ques Does it go further than oneself?
CAC Yes. We taste it first as liberty in regard to ourselves, but it is far reaching, it is the flesh in its totality, not only in me but in every other man. We do not look for contributions from the flesh; it can only be an intrusion and obnoxious. There is deliverance from the whole system in which flesh could have a place. It is very wide in that way, but the soul comes to it as the light of deliverance, so it is a relief and comfort to know it, because we want to think everything of Christ; we want Him to have the first place in all things. We do not want to be like Ishmael who was circumcised outwardly but not in heart and spirit. When Isaac came in — the one with whom was God’s covenant — he mocked. Ishmael represents very much the religious flesh of today, taking the ground of being separated to God, circumcised one might say formally, but not inwardly, and so he mocks at Christ. Is everything to be made of Christ and am I to be nothing? Am I to have no place at all? That is Ishmael’s view of Him.
Ques Is it necessary that we should know something of this before we can know anything of what God has before Him for us in Christ?
CAC Yes, it comes in on the way to the apprehension of being risen with Christ. As we are risen with Christ, a sphere of life comes into view and it is in that sphere of life that the wealth of the inheritance can be entered upon and enjoyed.
The test as to how far this inward process has gone on with us comes out when it is a question of burial; that answers in a public way to the inward exercise of circumcision. “Buried with him in baptism” takes us a little further than Romans. In Romans you are baptised, you are committed to the thing; it is ground on which you are set publicly and formally as having faith in Christ. You are set in a certain position. “We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6: 4). We have been committed to it, every baptised person is committed to it. But it seems to me that in Colossians it is looked at as being come to intelligently, so that there is no desire to bring into public evidence the man after the flesh. You can take a position publicly in which that man is kept out of sight. I will give a simple illustration to make it clear. I had a book put into my hand some little time ago by a Christian, which he was anxious I should read. It was a pamphlet on baptism and it said on the cover that it was written by so and so, B.A. I asked the man who offered it to me, ‘Which man do you think the B.A. attaches to, to the man who went down into the water, or the one who comes up?’ He replied, ‘I suppose it must attach to the man who went down’. I said then, ‘Why are you asking me to read a book written by a man who puts outside it that he does not know anything about baptism?’ It would be quite different [p. 490] for a man to put B.A. or any other letters on his brass plate if he were a schoolmaster or a doctor because that gives him professional status in the world. But I would not like him to advertise B.A. if he were going to preach the gospel, as if it gave him status as a servant of Christ or a Christian. That is where burial comes in, as to whether we take any place publicly that brings the man after the flesh into evidence. It is testing. We may not do it in a glaring way like that, but we are very apt to do it in some way, and while professing to hold all this truth we can be very inconsistent with burial. We do not want to bring in the man after the flesh with his intellect, his mind or any of his ways, we do not want to bring him into evidence. Your desire and your prayer if you have come to apprehend baptism is that you do not want a bit of the flesh to come into view. That leads to a public character of walk which is consistent with the truth, and people can take account of that.
It is a wonderful thing to have come to, that Christ is our life. Is Christ my life? It is just in the same sense that the world is the life of the worldling; if you could take the world away from him, you have taken away his life, for he has no other life; he would tell you so. For the Christian, Christ has become his life; everything that is truly life is Christ. It is very marvellous that One who is hidden in heaven should be our life, that He should be the very life of people living down here. If we rejoice in Him with joy unspeakable and filled with the glory (1 Peter 1: 8), He is our life; it is a very good commentary on this.
All this is leading on to the great truth of being raised with Christ. There is a thought of what has emerged in a sphere of life. There has been a wonderful working of God in raising Christ from the dead; Christ has emerged, He has been in death, He has been buried, but by the working of God He has emerged into a sphere of life. We could not possibly bring Christ back into the life of this world. If [p. 491] Christ cannot be brought back, and I am filled full in Christ, and circumcised in Him, and buried in baptism, I am ready to apprehend the wonderful working of God. It is a question of faith, it is not realisation but apprehension. It is in Christ, in whom (it is not in baptism) we are raised by faith of the working of God who raised Him from the dead. It would be very helpful to us if we realised that we cannot bring Christ back into the life of the world. Mary would have been glad to bring the Lord back into the life of the world; yet not even His life could be brought back, though it was a life so perfect and delightful to God, nothing in it offensive to God but everything pleasing to God. Love could not bring Him back. The Lord says to Mary, “Touch me not”; you cannot bring Me back. If there is to be company with Him it must be on His side; He is not coming back to our side, we must go to His side. I have often thought it is illustrated in David speaking of his child dying. David says, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12: 23). You can apply that to Christ: He has gone out of this world by death and burial. He has emerged from death by the working of God. It is impossible to bring Him back to the life of the world, but we can be associated with Him in life outside the world; that is the simple truth of christianity. We have to come to the faith of it; it is a matter of faith. Some of us may not have come to the light of it but God can give it to us tonight. God gives it to us as light; it is faith of the working of God; that is how we reach what it is to be raised with Christ.
Paul assumes in the next chapter that they had reached that point; “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ”. He assumes that we all ought to understand this, to have the faith of it, that we are raised with Christ to live with Him in that sphere of life into which He has entered, having emerged from death by the working of God. That is the truth and we are to have the faith of it. Of course, having the faith of it does not necessarily mean that we are [p. 492] living there. We begin with the faith of it, and then there is a further divine operation necessary if we are to live there.
That is, we must be quickened, and that is a divine operation, not in Christ but in us. We are not quickened in Christ, we are complete in Christ, circumcised in Christ, and we are raised in Christ. But when it comes to quickening — that is, being made to live in our affections with Christ — that is something further.
I think it would be something like this. There are certain steps in light that we take. God gives us the light of certain things in Christ until we reach this point that we are raised with Him by faith of the working of God. Faith brings us to that, and then there is an operation of God that goes along with it. One could not think of being raised with Christ through faith of the operation of God, and not being quickened. This operation on God’s part will surely be there; God confers the capacity to live in this new region with Christ. We recognise that saints have capacity, spiritual vitality; they have been quickened, so that in their affections they can live with Christ. This is a blessed reality. We may remember that, when the child of the Shunammite died, what Elisha did was figurative of the quickening process. Gehazi had been sent with the staff, but he comes back and says, “The lad is not awaked” (2 Kings 4: 31). Of course not; the staff would speak of power, but something more was needed. Nothing but the contact of the living prophet would do. The power of life in Elisha had to come into personal contact with the child — he lies upon it — and puts his mouth on his mouth, and so on. He comes into the closest contact with it, and we are told that the flesh of the child grew warm. That is quickening. What a moment it is when there is a living point of contact established by God with a living Christ, so that there is a warming of the affections, and with warmed affections we can find delight in living with Christ now. Then the child sneezed; now you have life in energy, there is an energetic manifestation; and [p. 493] then he opens his eyes. All these things are connected with quickening. The christian company according to this presentation is made to live in affection for Christ. There is complete liberation from everything that would fetter the spirit or hinder it from living there. All these things that have been there before, what he speaks of as offences and the handwriting in ordinances, are dealt with. If one had one’s offences round one’s neck, how they would drag one down! If one had taken up ordinances as a pious Jew did, a man like Saul of Tarsus, they only proved to be against the soul, they brought an obligation. If we are not free in regard of these things, they would absolutely hinder us from living together with Christ in our affections. If one is thinking of offences belonging to one’s former history, it would hinder and hamper one terribly. So that the favourableness of God comes out even in relation to our offences; we have learned the disposition of God. The thought here is not remission of sins but the great favourableness of God to us, that He is not disposed to hold anything against us; we know the blessed heart of God.
Ques What is signified by being nailed to His cross?
CAC The handwriting of ordinances stood up against us; that is, not breaking the law but undertaking to keep it; that kind of obligation is entirely effaced. What we see here is persons taking up ordinances, not God imposing them. The Jew had known what it was to take up ordinances, but now the Gentile is doing it, and Paul expresses his surprise at them and says, ‘If you take up ordinances you are alive in the world’. “If ye have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why as if alive in the world do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?” Paul tells them, ‘We have tried that long before you; we found when we signed our names to that document we were committed to something that stood against us for ever after’. It was not breaking the law that was against them, but assuming the ground that they were able to [p. 494] keep it.
Rem This gives the man in the flesh a place.
CAC Yes, that is why the cross comes in. God has nailed this bond which the Jew had signed to the cross. It was his own handwriting he had made himself responsible to, he had charged himself with the whole system of ordinances and it was a millstone round his neck. How could a man like that live with Christ? What was to be done? God says, ‘I have dealt with it, and taken and nailed it to the cross’. The cross was the public dealing with the criminal who could not be suffered to live any longer. Now Christ has been there on our behalf. People make vows and promises, and pledge themselves to do this and not do that, and they sign their names to it until it becomes a millstone round their necks which will hinder them most effectually from living with Christ. The seriousness of all this is that a great deal in the present course of things in christianity is to get people to commit themselves to do certain things, and to abstain from certain other things. Until they see that it has all been nailed to the cross, they will never be free to live together with Christ. This is the very reverse of something bad as man would say; it is undertaking to be and to do what is good, what is acceptable to God, but undertaking it as man in the flesh. Paul says, ‘You must see that gone’. These questions of ordinances had been worked out by the Jew, and now the devil is seeking to lead the gentile believers to take up ordinances, to take up these questions of “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”. That is a man alive in the world. We need to note carefully the difference between the us and the you. Paul writing to the Jew says, “us”, but in writing to the Gentile he says, “you”.
I think all this is very useful as showing us what christianity is, and showing us the sphere in which God would have us to live as those who are quickened together with Christ in a sphere [p. 495] outside the world.
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 2: 15 - 23 It is helpful to see that the things mentioned in verses 13 - 15 are what God has done. God has quickened the saints together with Christ, He has forgiven all offences, He has effaced handwriting in ordinances, He has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross, He has spoiled principalities and authorities — we are in the region of divine actings. It is very comforting and establishing to have before us the actings of God.
Ques What is your thought of “leading them in triumph by it”?
CAC I suppose it is to show the completeness of the conquest. It was customary when great victories were gained for the conquered kings to be chained to the chariot wheels of the victors and led in triumph. It is remarkable the wide scope of what is brought before us both in this epistle and in that to the Ephesians. It goes wider than men; it brings in the thought of principalities and authorities. Christ has carried with Him on high the evidence of complete victory over every power that was adverse to God. We know from Scripture there are great powers of evil, and one might say that they have all come into action. Satan has no reserves, he has brought all his forces into action, and they have all been utterly defeated — spoiled is the word, they have been rendered impotent. It is an immense comfort to see that.
Ques Are all these activities for blessing?
CAC Yes, certainly. To be quickened together with Christ is a wonderful blessing. He has been favourable to us, He has blotted out all that was against us. If every power that is adverse to God and to man as God’s creature has been brought into action and been utterly defeated, that is an immense thing. We do not understand how great is the [p. 496] victory which God has gained publicly over every malign power. Victory has been gained publicly so that every power of evil has been reduced to impotence. Do we believe it?
Ques. How was it public?
CAC When the Lord Jesus Christ was in this world, was there any power of evil able to withstand Him? We have to think of Christ. The apostle is seeking to bring before us the greatness of Christ, and the greatness of what has been effected by the public appearance of Christ in this world. The incarnation of Christ is the greatest public fact that ever transpired in the universe of God. God chose the battle and Christ came in, and came in publicly. Paul could say, “This was not done in a corner” (Acts 26: 26). The Lord’s baptism was public, and the descent of the Spirit upon Him was public, and He met all the power of the devil in the temptations. Indeed the words used by the Lord are very striking, He speaks of Satan as a strong man armed keeping his house until a stronger than he comes upon him and takes away his armour in which he trusted and spoils his goods (Luke 11: 21, 22). It was all done publicly. There was a Man in this world who reduced the whole power of evil into impotence; it was powerless in the presence of Christ. So we are told He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil for God was with Him. Every power of evil had to give way, the powers were spoiled — it was all done publicly.
Ques Was the resurrection a part of this?
CAC No doubt it was. It made manifest that there was One there who could not be held by death. He had come into death because He would righteously set free those who were under the power of evil, and He took upon Himself all the consequences of sin. He bore it all in love, so that sin and death might become witnesses of the love of God, and show how intense was the interest of God in His creature.
[p. 497] Rem It was said after the temptation that the devil departed from Him for a season.
CAC Yes. He mustered his forces again in the garden of Gethsemane, but all was defeated because there was perfect obedience and perfect dependence there in Christ; neither Satan nor his angels have the slightest power in presence of that. Satan has a certain armour in which he trusts; that is a remarkable word. I suppose that Satan having succeeded in displacing God from the confidence of His creature trusts that he can keep men away from God by the same means, and it is astonishing how confident people are in unbelief. But Satan has to reckon with the fact that One has come who is stronger than he. It is of the greatest comfort to me to think that the whole power of evil that has been arrayed against Christ has been defeated. There was One who absolutely defeated the whole range of power that was opposed to God; He has defeated it and made a show of it publicly. God has spoiled principalities and authorities, but He has done it in Christ, and it is in Him that they are led in triumph. God would occupy us with the greatness of Christ. The teaching of this epistle particularly is to bring out the greatness of what God has effected in Christ; we do not see the full results of it yet, “We see not yet all things subjected to him”. We see the Victor crowned, and it has been made known to us that every evil power has been spoiled.
The principalities and authorities that we are speaking of now are authorities opposed to God because God has to defeat them and spoil them by Christ. But the principalities and authorities of a good character would be seen in verse 10; He “is the head of all principality and authority”. Everything that has a place in God’s universe is to own Christ as Head. There are certain evil powers who will not own Christ as Head, they have been publicly exposed. Every influence by which the power of evil can deceive and destroy men has been fully exposed and defeated when the [p. 498] Lord was here on earth.
Ques In verse 10 of this chapter He is spoken of as the Head and in chapter 1: 15 He is spoken of as Creator. Are the two connected?
CAC All was created by Him and for Him. He created all these powers but the One who created them all is Head of them. He takes a place on the side of creation as Head. He, the Creator, as it were, comes over to the side of creation, and coming over to that side, is Head of it. Some principalities and powers do not own that government, they are rebellious, adverse to God and Christ, but all are defeated. In chapter 1, Christ is brought in as having “created all things, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or principalities or authorities”; these things are positions of dignity. Every such position that has come in came in that Christ might fill it. There is not a conception of dignity in the universe of God that is not going to be filled by Christ; it brings out His greatness. What a wonderful universe it will be when every influence in it and every authority exercised in it derives from Christ; He is great enough to fill the whole universe with beneficent influences. That is the One who is our Head, and our great exercise is to hold fast the Head.
As a matter of fact, these evil forces are still active, but it has been publicly manifested that Christ has been victorious over them all; they are all His lawful captives. We may not see it publicly now, but it is made known to faith; we have the joy and the delight of it in our souls. We do not need to fear any evil power. It is astonishing how men are held in bondage by superstitious fears; the world is more full of superstitious dread than we have any idea of. I believe that men almost universally have a dread of evil powers; they know there is a mysterious power of evil and they have a deep secret dread of it — no one is free of it but the Christian. The Christian sees every evil power chained [p. 499] to the chariot wheels of Christ, and the One who is completely superior to and has exposed everything of that kind is our glorious Head. It was God who was acting, God who was spoiling principalities and authorities, He made a show of them publicly, leading them in triumph in Him (see note h, Darby Translation). The in Him must be emphasised. God has gained a complete public victory over every power that was adverse to Him and to the blessing of man; that is part of the gospel. It looks at things on a wider range than we are apt to think of them. We think about men’s sins needing forgiveness, and the state of sin from which they need deliverance, and the prospect of death and judgment which calls for relief. But there is another question which is greater, that is the existence in the universe of an immense and terrible power of evil which has succeeded in ruining the human race and darkening the minds of men as to God for six thousand years; that is very much more terrible than my state of sin. How is it I am a sinner and that all men are sinners? Because of the actings of tremendous forces of evil opposed to God. God tells us that in Christ He has exposed and defeated and publicly crushed every one of those forces; that is the divine fact of the gospel. I am sure we ought to take account of it. It is not often presented. We talk about man’s sin and guilt, and man being liable to death and judgment, and that he is going to hell if not converted, but there is something far greater and more serious and terrible than all that. We should get back to the secret of things; Scripture helps us by telling us that God made man, and put him in a beautiful place, and did everything He could for His innocent creature, and that almost immediately a malign power appeared and desolated the whole thing. What a comfort it is to know that God brought a Man into this world who was absolutely invulnerable to the power that destroyed the world. He was invulnerable and invincible, and He absolutely defeated not only Satan but every principality [p. 500] and power that was arrayed on Satan’s side — in Christ it is all manifestly led in triumph. That is a good gospel to preach, and it is a side of the gospel not too much dwelt upon. The reason is probably that we have not estimated the seriousness of the position. There is something far greater and more terrible than my being lost, and that is, the existence of a power that was able to bring me and all men into the position of lost sinners. How is that power going to be dealt with? God has dealt with it absolutely in Christ. The Man who got the victory has gone to the right hand of God, and wears the Victor’s crown; neither death nor the devil and his angels will ever dispute that they are His lawful captives.
Ques Would this answer to the walls of Jericho falling down?
CAC The falling down of the walls of Jericho was the public spoiling and leading in triumph of all the power of the enemy; it was typically a complete destruction. Was there any power in Canaan that could stand if those walls fell down without a human hand touching them? It is a comfort to know that Satan and all his angels are spoiled and defeated. Nobody will be delivered until they see that; there will be some dread somewhere in the heart or mind.
Ques Is verse 16 the shadow, whereas we have come to the substance in Christ?
CAC There was evidently an influence working at Colosse to get the people of God to go back and take up the shadows. To us the Old Testament is not a book of shadows. I think a good many people still think that the Old Testament is a book of shadows, but the Lord would give us a sense that it is a book of substance. I hear of places where they never read the Old Testament in their readings; how narrow their outlook must be! There is an immense amount of substance in the Old Testament that we should never get from the New. There is an unfolding of the preciousness of Christ and of the perfection in detail of His [p. 501] work in the Old Testament that we never could get from the New. You could never get from the New Testament what is unfolded to us in the books of Exodus and Leviticus, and if people neglect these books they will be lamentably ignorant of Christ, and their earnest study of the New Testament will never furnish them with what they learn of Christ in Exodus and Leviticus. As to these things — meat and drink, feasts, new moon or sabbath — they now have acquired spiritual substance to us. Christ having come into the shadows, the shadows have become substance. Until He appeared, these things remained shadows, but Christ has come in to every one of the shadows and they have become substance. So now there is a company of persons on this earth who can be spoken of as the body, and to these persons the shadows have become substance. The Lord “interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24: 27).
In that way He brought substance into that which had previously been shadows. The Colossians were in danger of it, but for us who are of the body, the body is of Christ. It refers to the christian company, a company who being of Christ are able to see Christ substantially in all the figures of the Old Testament.
I often think it is a little remarkable that he should speak of the new moon here. What has struck me about it is that it did not belong at all to the original institution of the typical system; it was added later. The sacrifices connected with the new moon were enjoined in Numbers 28 after Aaron was dead and when Moses was just about to die and the people were just going into the land. It formed no part of the original system of sacrifices and offerings. It seems to me it suggests something that would come in after all the failure on the part of the people. After the history of failure in the wilderness, God gives a new unfolding of His mind showing that in spite of the failure that came in on man’s side, God would have His portion. The new moon comes in [p. 502] in connection with that, which suggests a revival. The moon is not a vessel of light in itself, it is a dependent vessel of light; and so it represents in Scripture a human vessel of light, whether it is Israel or the assembly. The thought of a new moon is very instructive to us because it is what we may look for after all the failure of the church; we may look for a renewed shining of Christ upon us so that we come afresh into the light of Christ and into the substance of all that is there in Christ. Then we get on to the line of increase. In Numbers 28 you will find more than in any other chapter we get the thought of increase, the thought of what is additional. It says several times over that certain sacrifices are to be offered “besides” the others; that gives the thought of increase. The apostle is seeking to bring us in Colossians on to the line of increase in the apprehension of Christ, which is the true substance of everything for God. So we are to hold the Head, and if we do, the Head will be constantly ministering to us increase. The new moon begins very small; what marks it is a tiny silver line first, but every day you see increase. I have often thought there is a moral force in the new moon being mentioned here.
Rem In Ephesians 5: 14 it says, “Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee”.
CAC That is progressive. The beginning of Christ shining would be like the new moon, just a streak of silver, and every day you see it more and more. Holding the Head would be like abiding in the shining; every day there is increase until you come to the full moon. In holding the Head we have the conditions of spiritual prosperity and increase, and as we hold the Head we shall be like the moon that shows an enlarged result of being in the light every day. We have to see to it that we are not turned aside by anything that is not Christ. There may be those who make a pretence of humility and worshipping angels but [p. 503] they do not hold the Head. If we hold the Head we shall be continually getting more divine light and increase, and there will be knitting together. If we hold the Head, the Head ministers to us, and that is the way by which we are held together. We cannot be held together without contact with the Head, so that what we receive from the Head becomes the link that binds us to the brethren. Our great business is to be on the line of increase. If there is a constant looking to the Head I believe the Head will always be faithful. Such is the love of Christ that those who hold the Head will be constantly receiving something; nourishment will be ministered to them. Why is it? That I may be a joint and band in the body. The joints and bands hold the body together; then as I minister to others what I receive from the Head, there is a binding together, and the body comes into evidence as a living organism, a vital thing, and increases with the increase of God. God would not have us to be only orthodox believers who have the Scriptures and are no further on than they were twenty years ago. He would have us to hold the Head and get nourishment ministered to us direct from the Head. Then our business with the brethren is to communicate that which becomes a spiritual bond between us and every brother and sister we come in contact with. That is the vital bond. What I receive is ministered from the Head as a living bond between the Head and me; then I have something I can minister to the brethren, and as I do, it becomes a bond of the same character between me and the brethren as there is between the Head in heaven and me. That is the truth of the body; the body is not something that has arrived at finality, but something increasing all the time with the increase of God.
One would like to see the brethren really gathered in the truth of that. We talk about being gathered on the ground of the one body, but to be gathered in the vitality of the one body would be worth going in for. We cannot all be gifts [p. 504] but we can all be joints and bands. We can do something to form a spiritual unbreakable link between myself and the Christians with whom I may come in contact. We want [p. 505] to cultivate that.
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 3: 1 - 15 God would have His saints to keep their spirits on the ground that they have died with Christ and that they have been raised with Him. All the injunctions and teachings of men would regard us on other ground than that.
Rem In both cases it is “If”: “If ye have died with Christ” (chapter 2: 20), “If ... ye have been raised with the Christ” (chapter 3: 1).
CAC Yes, it assumes the saints have taken that ground through divine teaching.
Rem They are entitled to do so, and he seeks to bring them to it.
CAC It is where we are inwardly, for outwardly and publicly we are not dead and risen. It is something to be apprehended spiritually and it would liberate us from ordinances and injunctions and commandments and teachings of men. They look very nice often, as it says, “Which have indeed an appearance of wisdom in voluntary worship, and humility, and harsh treatment of the body” (chapter 2: 23). All that is for the satisfaction of the flesh. It is just what is developed in christendom. The enemy was seeking to bring it in amongst the gentile believers at Colosse. These things have got in and they characterise the great part of the christian profession, so it is very important that we should understand our place as dead with Christ and risen with Him. That is our place according to the thoughts of God.
Rem All these things suggest the possibility of improving what is of the flesh.
CAC I suppose there is a certain honour due to the body, and people would make out a kind of righteousness in treating the body badly. It is right to honour the body; a [p. 506] certain honour is due to it because it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The body is a member of Christ as being the temple of the Holy Spirit, so that God gives it a place of honour; that is, these physical bodies are members of Christ. Well, that gives the body a place of great honour.
Ques Would you help us as to “the things which are above”? “Seek the things which are above, where the Christ is”. J.N.D. places a comma there, after “is”.
CAC Well, it is important that we should understand where Christ is. The first chapter is rather to give us some sense of who He is, but the third chapter would lead us to where He is.
Rem The Israelites forgot Moses when he went up.
CAC It is quite possible for believers to get into a state something like that. There He is; because that is the Christ we have to do with. He is no longer here, no longer in the days of His flesh, He is above and at the right hand of God and the Centre of a whole circle of things.
Ques Are the things above the vast world of bliss?
CAC Well, it would not be easy to define in a few words the things that are above. If you read the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament, they do not speak of the things that are above, they connect the thoughts and faith of God’s people with things below; that is, the coming kingdom and all that is going to characterise it, the glory of the Lord filling the earth as the waters cover the sea. The great mass of Scripture is occupied with the things below, what God is going to do in a coming day; and in the millennium the people of God will not be occupied with things above but with things below; because, I suppose, some of the things above will be enjoyed below. Not a single person in that day will know what it is to be dead with Christ and risen with Christ — I mean, of course, on the earthly side — and no Old Testament saint ever knew it, nor did the disciples when here on earth with Him, because He was not dead and risen then. It defines our position. “Have [p. 507] your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth”. If He were on earth He would be the object of faith and love, and to be followed in His pathway here. He has died and risen and is at the right hand of God and nowhere else personally.
The Hebrews needed to have that epistle written to them to lead believers to Christ above. They very soon dropped to things below. They said to Paul, ‘There are myriads of Jews that have believed and they are all zealous of the law. Let everyone see that you are a good Jew’. They all said wrong and Paul gave way (Acts 21: 20). That was the state of things a very few years after Pentecost; it is very solemn. Paul had to fall in, or cause a breach between the believers. He could not face that, and he landed himself in prison for the rest of his days. It shows how easy it is to get away from the things above. Peter had said, “Him has God exalted by his right hand as leader and saviour” (Acts 5: 31). That was occupying them with things above. Later he dropped down to be a good Jew, just what Paul was warning them against here. To recognise that our place here is to be on the ground of the death of Christ clears away a lot of rubbish. We may say we are dead with Him, we may say it in words, but it is no use talking.
I think it is quite possible for people to try to be dead. There is no power with being dead, but in being dead with Christ there is great power.
Ques Would you say more as to what that means — dead with Christ?
CAC Well, Christ’s place here is the place of death. The world has never reversed its verdict. If we love Him we shall covet to be identified with Him in death in this scene. We shall not want to be anything politically or publicly, we shall not want anything but His rejection here because we are bound up with Him above — ‘One with Thee above’, as we sometimes sing.
Rem “Bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus”
CAC That is the real thing. If really identified with Him in death and as risen and exalted we shall come out like Him down here, and that is as fully stated here as anywhere in the Bible. J.B.S. used to tell of a woman in a storm who, when asked what she did, said she was thinking of Jesus in the storm. ‘Then you did not come out like Him’, was his reply. ‘If you had been thinking about Him where He is, you would have come out like Him where He was’. Stephen did so. There is no reference in the epistles as to what Jesus was, except as bearing on the practical life of the saint; and we only come out as He was, as we are occupied with Him where He is; the power is in that.
Rem “As he is, we also are in this world” (1 John 4: 17).
CAC “He that says he abides in him” (1 John 2: 6) — that is, as He is; “even as he walked” — that is where He was. I am sure that is so. We find the mass of Christians are taken up with what Jesus was; they read the gospels, not understanding them; therefore there is no power because the Holy Spirit comes in in connection with Jesus being glorified. I have often said, I believe as the writers of the gospels were writing verse by verse they said to themselves, ‘Now risen and glorified’. It is not Christ for this world; the Christ of the gospels was. But then He was also rejected and the world cut Him off. He was cut off from the world, and now He is the Centre of another world, and that is the only Christ we know.
Rem “If even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer” (2 Corinthians 5: 16).
CAC He then goes on just after that to speak of new creation, and that is connected with Christ in heaven, and is the rule of our walk here, the rule of new creation. It is not only Christ there but a system of heavenly things, and that, I believe, constitutes the true power of christianity; and as we concentrate on that we come into what is of God.
[p. 509] Everything hangs for us on the place where Christ is. Who He is comes first — “Who art thou, Lord?” was Paul’s question. Every one of us has to be brought to ask Him that question. He only can tell us that, and when He has told us, the next thing we shall want to know is, where is He?
The whole of christendom has got on the ground of something on the earth. Why build big cathedrals and churches, unless you want a place on earth? If so, it must be a large one. All these things are a positive denial of christianity. It does not go along with being dead with Christ and risen with Christ; a man who is, is outside of it all. J.B.S. has said that up to the death of Stephen the offers of grace were going out to God’s earthly people, but when they were rejected everything was transferred from Jerusalem below to Jerusalem above — the new metropolis.
Rem The blind man in John 9 had simple faith in the Person.
CAC The blind man did not stop until he worshipped the Son of God. He was pushed out. Do we want some place in the things below? We are to earn our living and fill up our little responsibilities here to the glory of God in obedience and subjection to Him, but we can do all that without wanting any place here, and as belonging to our Head in heaven we do not want a place here.
Rem “Your life is hid with the Christ in God” (verse 3).
CAC Is that not beautiful? Every Christian has a life outside this world, outside things below, and that life is in a Person. “Christ ... who is our life” (verse 4). It is a wonderful moment in the life of a soul when he first realises that. Because it is Christ who is above who is our life. There is infinite, blessed satisfaction if we consider who He is and then where He is, and if the place is seen that we have in relation to Him as His body, which is a wonderful formation down here. It has all come out of Christ in heaven; the body is really a heavenly company. Those living in the world are those who have a life such as it is in [p. 510] the world, and what a life it is! What the world is to the worldly, Christ is to the Christian. It puts us in a wonderful light.
Rem Mary at the feet of Jesus had His death in mind.
CAC Mary, and she alone perhaps, learned the lesson of death and resurrection; there were only two people who expected the Lord to die — Nicodemus and Mary. She learned Him as the resurrection and the life, which was a wonderful thing. So the gospels present an immense number of things that were not actually true at the time. The Lord had before Him at the very outset that He was going to die, and all His acts of grace and mercy were founded on His death. In fact, not a single act of God in goodness towards men in the Old Testament would have been possible except for that. His death was a blessed, present reality in God’s mind though it was yet future. It was all known to God as much before as after.
Rem There were the water vessels in John 2.
CAC The water vessels when filled with water to the top represent the purification of death, then it is turned into the wine of joy, and I think that is the moral order always.
Ques Is “Your life is hid with the Christ in God” (verse 3) a collective or individual thought?
CAC I think these things are all collective — being dead with Christ, raised with Christ and having Christ as our life, and that is why saints like coming together. What is collective surpasses what is individual always; they have what they can enjoy together, and the greatest bit is for the least.
Ques Would it be connected with things above?
CAC I think that is right; we come together that we may touch afresh the things above and that blessed Person who is the Centre of them all. “When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory” (verse 4). When He comes into public view [p. 511] the saints all come into public view too, and that is in a glorified condition. It would take our thoughts away from things publicly below. So our life is hid with Christ in heaven. No one can see our life, but they ought to be able to see it coming out. We are to put to death our members which are on the earth, and Christians do all put these things to death; if they do not they could not be said to be Christians. You once “lived in these things” — what a life! Yet they were things that were our very nature as in the flesh. We are never told to die to them; we are to put them to death in the power of life.
There is more trouble perhaps about the positive things we are to put on. And to put off habits is not easy, “But now, put off ... all these things, wrath, anger, malice”, and so on; they are all bad habits that have to be put off, and Christians do put them off. That is simple christianity. It is no good to tell me that a person who habitually tells lies, and an angry person characterised by wrath, is a Christian; no one would believe you. All this is the practical result of having Christ as my life. If He is, I do not want vile language to come out of my mouth. If they have not put off these things, they are not Christians.
Rem Is not this addressed to the Colossian believers?
CAC There is a shade of difference here to note. He does not tell them to put them off, he exhorts them to be in the state of having done it; they are to be in that state. The word is there to exercise us if we should manifest any of these things. It is always assumed that Christians have put off the old man and have put on the new. “Having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new, renewed into full knowledge according to the image of him that has created him” (verses 9, 10). It has been done; the aorist is used (see footnote a, Darby Translation). And that is christianity. If I have not put off these things I am not a Christian at all. If a Christian does lie, he does not know what to say when he goes to God; he has nothing to say.
[p. 512] Rem All liars have their part in the lake of fire (Revelation 21: 8).
CAC Well, I must not go on with that. I do not want to qualify for the lake of fire, do [p. 513] I?
NOTES OF A READING Colossians 4: 1 - 18 “Persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving”. I suppose there should be along with prayer the responsible side — the thought of thanksgiving, for we can hardly approach God at all without thanksgiving in our hearts; it connects with our very approach to God, apart from the petition we offer.
Would it be like incense added to the prayers, the spirit of intercession blending with thanksgiving? They must take on something of incense character which is pleasing to God.
CAC I suppose all true prayer is bringing back to God His own thoughts, and that must produce in the heart that takes it up the spirit of thanksgiving.
Rem “For he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them who seek him out” (Hebrews 11: 6).
Rem I remember an old saint saying the believer has such a sense of God and His love that he can give thanks all the time. It is like a person in some difficulty going to a friend he knows is perfectly able to meet it all. You pour out your difficulty, and give thanks in the same breath, as it were.
Ques David said, “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening oblation” (Psalm 141: 2). What would it mean, “Watching in it” (verse 2)? Is it that we are on the line of securing the answer?
CAC Well, prayer is not much good if we do not look out for the answer.
Ques “That God may open to us a door of the word to speak the mystery of Christ”. Does that refer to a door being opened in the hearts of saints to the ministry, [p. 514] do you suppose?
CAC I do not know that the apostle ever prayed that he might be furnished with more to minister, did he? I do not think he prayed for more light, or increased knowledge of what was connected with Christ. But the exercise was that he might be able to speak of it rightly. He had it, it was all in his soul by the grace of God, but there was an exercise remaining that there might be a door for the word, that the word might go forth in actual communication to souls.
Rem It is a question of a door opened for them to receive.
CAC And of his own capacity to put it out; “That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak”. It is important that the Lord’s servants should be helped to put out what they have got. The Lord gives spiritual substance to His servants, but they need divine help to put it out. The speaking is an important matter, for they may in some way obscure what they want to say.
Ques What is “the mystery of Christ” (verse 3)?
CAC Well, I think it would include all that is connected with Christ where He is as hidden from the eyes of men. There is a wonderful wealth connected with Christ in the hidden position, and it is to be made known in the ministry of the word, and those who do minister need much help. That I might speak “as I ought to speak”, the apostle says. There is a right way to speak.
Ques Why do you say ‘hidden’?
CAC Because that is the mystery of the Christ; it is just because He is hidden from human eyes that there is such a thing. It is all behind the scenes. Everything at the right hand of God, everything having that character, is hidden, is in mystery. Of course, the mystery would include the fact that He has a body here.
Rem “The Preacher was wise, ... he pondered, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The Preacher [p. 515] sought to find out acceptable words; and that which was written is upright, words of truth” (Ecclesiastes 12: 9, 10). It shows the concern of the preacher to speak as he ought to speak.
Rem “He so spake that a great multitude of both Jews and Greeks believed” (Acts 14: 1).
CAC The character of the speaking is important.
Rem “If any one speak — as oracles of God; if any one minister-as of strength which God supplies” (1 Peter 4: 11).
CAC And we need continually to pray for that. It is a continual exercise, the waiting on the Lord of those that speak, for something to say; but they ought to be supported by the saints as to the actual putting of it out.
Rem There are the both sides, speaking and receiving.
CAC Both sides would be needed that there should be “a door of the word”. It hardly could be said if it were all on the speaker’s side.
Rem It is an important principle that a servant should be prayed for as to his utterance, but there should be an earnest desire on the part of the saints that they should be able to receive.
Rem It is important for us to see the setting here, that it is a question of how the teaching becomes effectual. All the preceding chapters are full of the greatness of Christ; how much have we gathered up about it? It must be an encouragement to feel that there is far more to be dispensed than we have already gathered up.
Rem The question is, do we desire to receive it and be affected by it?
Ques Why does the apostle say, “Remember my bonds” (verse 18)?
Ques Is not the precious ministry the very reason why he has been brought into bonds?
Rem It is more a matter of the greatness of the thing.
Ques The prison epistles give us the greatest things, do [p. 516] they not?
CAC Yes, and it should touch our hearts that Paul was prepared to suffer so much that this precious truth should come to us.
Rem He was held in a certain course in order that this might come out; so he speaks of himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ; he might not move in other directions.
CAC And he passes on the responsibility to us all in the next two verses, because there it is a question of those that are without, “so as to know how ye ought to answer each one” (verse 6).
Rem This would seem to follow on. What is inward must be first, before it can take shape outwardly towards others. If we enter the fray unequipped we may be worsted.
Rem You first get built up, and then you are able.
CAC And “in wisdom” (verse 5), it says. Opportunities come to all of us, and we are not to miss those, but then we need wisdom. It is quite easy to say something that might hinder what we desire.
Rem To cry down what a person holds and so create an atmosphere of distrust and opposition at once is not wisdom. You put what is attractive before children if you want to encourage them.
CAC And we ought to cultivate the ability to put ourselves alongside of people.
Rem “To all I have become all things, in order that at all events I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9: 22). The apostle puts himself as near as possible to those to whom he spoke.
Rem The Lord put Himself near to the woman of Samaria.
CAC He did in a wonderful way, if you think of what He was and what she was — to ask a drink of a degraded woman hardly fit to be seen at large. He made Himself dependent on her; that is the spirit in which to reach people.
I think the need for wisdom comes out in contact with individual souls more than anything else. It is easy to stand [p. 517] up and speak with no one to contradict you, but with individual souls you have to be prepared for things you did not expect.
Rem There is even a righteous condemnation that may be a hindrance. People may have been brought up in a thing, or they may have known the truth and become entangled. It is a test of our resources, whether we have a treasure-house. The more we listen to Paul the better we shall be able to meet the case, to present what is attractive. There is nothing so attractive as Christ. The question is whether we have the ability to present it.
Rem “The wise winneth souls” (Proverbs 11: 30), or, as footnote a says (Darby Translation), ‘He that winneth souls is wise’.
Rem “Let your word be always with grace, seasoned with salt” (verse 6) is a very good word for us generally.
Rem Salt is a preservative; the Lord was full of grace and truth.
CAC Yes, and the principle of faithfulness is there; you do not exactly hide your principles.
Rem You must take care that grace does not carry you right down into the mud; there must be balance with us.
CAC The Lord has been referred to in John 4. Well, what He said to the woman was pure grace, but He had to bring in the seasoning of the salt. The moment came when He had to say, “Go, call thy husband” (verse 16); the salt came in. We ought never to speak to anybody in an ungracious way, however wicked they are.
Ques How do you mean that? It says “Thy money go with thee to destruction” (Acts 8: 20).
CAC Well, that was a solemn sentence of judgment pronounced upon Simon, which has not been put into our charge. God has not given us authority to pronounce judgment on anybody.
Ques And is not grace the great characteristic of the present dispensation? “Let your word be always with grace”. I think what you were saying is very important.
CAC Even if we have to speak in severity it should always be in grace, so that it is manifest we are not speaking in any ill-feeling or with enmity.
Rem “How ye ought to answer each one” (verse 6). Christianity is a matter of persons.
CAC Sometimes it is the greatest wisdom not to say anything. We are not responsible to answer every foolish question that may be put to us. We are under responsibility to give a reason to everyone that asks an account of the hope that is in us — we are responsible to answer every question on that line. Infidel questions, because they are infidel, need wisdom.
It is important to see that Tychicus was sent to them to make known to them all particulars as to the apostle’s state and circumstances. That is, there was one man in prison in whom things were exemplified in grace and wisdom. It pleased God to bring out christianity in Paul, so that there was not only a letter written but a brother to tell them all that concerned Paul. Christianity is a living thing, it cannot be put in a letter. They were to be told the conduct and spirit of Paul in his condition of bonds and humiliation. All that was a reality to Paul was to be reported; so they had a wonderful report as to what sort of man Paul was. Christianity was coming out in him, and it comes out in persons. It is important for us to see that the Bible without the saints is no good.
Rem It has been said the Bible cannot love you.
CAC In the Bible you get the letter of the truth, but the substance of the truth is in the saints; christianity is a divine system of blessing in persons. It was all livingly set forth in Christ, and now is set forth in the body. So we are very important. It is not a question of what we hold, but of what holds us. Each one is essential in the service, for if Christ does not come out in me, I am out of the whole [p. 519] thing.
The state of Paul was to be communicated to them and their state communicated to him. Tychicus was to bring back word as to what effect the letter had had on them; and that is what the Lord looks for, that the Scripture should have its effect on us, otherwise we might as well not have had it brought before us.
Ques Why was Onesimus sent?
CAC Because it was his letter of commendation! He had been a runaway slave and was going back now. “Who is one of you” (verse 9), he says, he is local at Colosse. The epistle to Philemon went along with the epistle to Colosse, I suppose, but that was a personal, private letter to Philemon. “The faithful and beloved brother” (verse 9): he is one of you, he will fit in all right.
Rem It would be a living element strengthening the assembly setting at Colosse.
CAC Yes.
Rem In Philemon, Archippus is also mentioned (verse 12), as well as at the end of this epistle.
CAC The bringing in of persons at the end of certain epistles is important as indicating that the thing has been made good in certain persons. The Colossians had not only a beautiful letter, but there were certain persons in which these things could be seen livingly. And we all have this opportunity, and indeed there is an obligation upon us to express Christ, and it is the living expression of Christ that is of pleasure to God. The body of Christ exists for the very purpose of expressing Christ. The mention of persons shows it is a very practical thing. It is touching to see that Mark is now restored to the affection of the apostle. It is very pathetic, too, that Paul has to say, ‘These are the only ones that have been a comfort to me’. “These are the only fellow-workers for the kingdom of God who have been a consolation to me” (verse 11).
Rem I believe Epaphras is the only one spoken of as “the bondman of Christ Jesus” (verse 12).
CAC And he was working it out on his knees, we might say.
Rem Why does he say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, to the end that thou fulfil it” (verse 17)?
CAC I should think there must have been with him a tendency to be a little slack. It is important that what the Lord has given should be worked out for the good of the saints. There is one Lord and there are distinctions of services. The Lord appoints the service of each one, who is under the responsibility to work it out — to fulfil it.