RISEN WITH CHRIST—ITS SUBJECTIVE RESULTS
In a certain sense, beloved friends, it would be more satisfactory to bring the entire epistle before you, though we could not do it on one occasion, but I trust that our consideration of the portion we have read may be found profitable to our souls.
What we have in Colossians 3 is really the practical effect of the subjective power of the truth; by that I mean the power of the truth as wrought by the Spirit in our own souls.
Verse 1 of this chapter is directly connected with verse 12 of the preceding chapter. “Buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”. So that the “if” with which this chapter begins is not for one moment to be taken as the conditional if; it is the demonstrative if, the if of moral sequence. There is no doubt about the statement that we have been raised with Him. “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above, where the Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: have your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth; for ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God”. The test is not what the mind may apprehend or assent to; it is really as to the power of the truth. There are two things with every one of us, there is the heart and the mind. We are told in one place: “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov 4: 23); the heart is guarded more than anything, and we are told in regard to the mind that as a man “thinketh in his soul so is he”, Prov 23: 7. God desires to obtain possession of our hearts—to bring them under divine control. In the Old Testament scriptures it is said: “My son, give me thine heart”, Prov 23: 26. It is a wonderful thing when the heart is given to God; it is a witness to the power of the truth, and, so far as this epistle is concerned, the saints at Colosse are spoken to from the outset as those who “knew indeed the grace of God in truth”, Col 1: 6. They had not only heard, but they had received the glad tidings; they had come under the control of the gospel; the fruit of it was manifest in them; that is, they did not merely know it in scriptural statement, but it had taken effect in their souls. “Thou desirest truth in the inward parts”, Ps 51: 6. John said: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth”, 3 John 4. It is when the truth is brought home to us by the Spirit of God—made good in us—then it is that we know “the grace of God in truth”. I want you to see the subjective power of the truth in the heart. It belongs to the heart to seek. Jehovah said to His people in Old Testament times: “If thou seek him, he will be found of thee”, 1 Chron 28: 9. Now we are told to seek those things that are above. In this scripture it is a question between things on the earth and things above; it is not a question as to whether things here are good or bad, we are to seek the things which are above where the Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. I trust, beloved, we shall not shrink from facing this truth here tonight, because just in the measure as we allow it to come right home to ourselves we shall be profited. There is divine attraction given to the heart, and the attraction for the heart to “things above” is that they are where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Then the apostle takes up the mind. He says “Have your mind on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God”.
Now the position in which the saints are seen down here is as having died; they have been circumcised with the circumcision of the Christ, they have been buried with Christ, and then he says that we are risen with Christ. “We are risen with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”, Col 2: 12. It is a position taken up in the mind: you regard yourself now as risen with Christ. It is a wonderful thing to have faith of the working of God who raised Him from among the dead. As circumcised with the circumcision of Christ you have put off the body of the flesh, and then as having died with Christ you have died morally to the rudiments or elements of this world; and not only so but you have been buried with Him in baptism, put out of sight, and then you are risen with Him, and that puts you in a position outside and beyond everything here. Then there is the further statement—we are quickened together with Him, and that is a very important point to observe in this epistle, because in being quickened together with Him there is power and ability given to take up the position in which God sees us—power to act according to it. You will observe in all this how in the Epistle to Colossians our previous history comes in, not exactly as it comes in in Romans; the standpoint here is different from that of Romans. Romans has its application more to us individually, as viewed in connection with our individual life of responsibility here; but not so Colossians; yet it has our former history in view. In Ephesians it is not our responsible life, as alive in the world that is in view, but our state viewed as regard of God—dead in offences and sin; hence there is nothing about being buried with Him by baptism, or about circumcision, nothing about dying with Christ; in Ephesians we are dead, and Christ is dead, and we are quickened with Him, are raised up together with Him, and are made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus; so our responsible history here does not come in in the Epistle to Ephesians; but here in Colossians it does come in, and so these various steps are traced by the Spirit of God in connection with our spiritual history. Colossians is complete in itself, and the position in which the saints are seen in Colossians is peculiar to that epistle.
We have often been told that in Romans, though we have death with Christ, resurrection is future, because it is actual: “if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection”, Rom 6: 5. So quickening in Romans is in the future tense and applies to the quickening of our mortal bodies; but in Colossians we are quickened now; we are made to live together with Christ in the life in which He lives consequent upon resurrection. Christ is viewed not only as risen, but as ascended; but the saints are not taken off the earth in Colossians. Well now, that is the position.
“If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above”. The question is often raised—What are the things above? I think the answer is this—“He that seeks finds”. If you do not know what the “things above” are, that is sure evidence you have not been seeking, because there is no such thing as seeking and not becoming acquainted with what you seek. It is really what is practical as the result of the subjective power of the truth that is before the mind of the Spirit of God in Colossians 3, and you can see how perfectly incompatible with the fact that we have died with Christ it would be to seek the things down here. You have done with the whole scene here, everything below is behind you; death has closed up the history of your connection with the things on the earth; ye have died. And what about your life? “Your life is hid with Christ in God”. Now that is another peculiar and very beautiful feature of the truth in Colossians. You have got your life, but it is hid with Christ in God. Where is Christ? He is hid in God. Christ has gone out of sight so far as this world is concerned. In John 12: 36 you get the close of His public ministry in the solemn statement, “And going away, he hid himself from them”; and He has been hid in God ever since. “When Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory”. It is no question in Colossians of the manifestation of anything before the world. One has often said, and would say it carefully, that in Colossians there is neither testimony before man nor conflict with the power of evil; but our life is hid with Christ in God, and it goes straight on to manifestation in glory, for the first four verses are a complete paragraph. If you are manifested here, I say—you are going to be manifested ahead of Christ. He was down here—He was presented to man, but He was rejected ... but He is going to appear in glory, and when Christ, who is our life, appears, we also shall be manifested with Him. It is not a question of being like Christ now in glory, “What we shall be has not yet been manifested; we know that if it is manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”, 1 John 3: 2.
We have a twofold unfolding of His glory in chapter 1. There is what Christ is in relation to God and what He is in relation to the saints. As regards the first, He is “the image of the invisible God”. Everything that could be made known of God has been made known in Him; as it is put in Hebrews, “Who being the effulgence [the outshining] of his glory and the expression of his substance”, Heb 1: 3. Then we have His relation to creation, and how it exposes the blunders of man in departing from the scriptures, when divine Persons are distinguished as they are in the creeds of Christendom, and they tell us that the Father created all things. When divine Persons are distinguished in the scriptures in connection with the creation it is the Son, not the Father, of whom it is predicated that “by him were created all things, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth”.
Now we come to His relation with the saints. There is a peculiar presentation of Christ in each epistle, and the way in which Christ is presented determines the character and scope of the application of the truth in each epistle. In chapter 1: 17 it says: “he is before all, and all things subsist together by him” (you are still in the region of the creation of God and His relationship to that creation). Then in verse 18: “And he is the head of the body, the assembly” (here we get His relation to the saints); “who is the beginning, firstborn from among the dead, that he might have the first place in all things”.
In Ephesians 1: 22, 23, where His resurrection and exaltation are unfolded, it says that God “gave him to be head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”. You can understand the Spirit of God making that prominent in Ephesians, because there we are in the presence of the vast scope of the counsels of God, the universe is in view, both heaven and earth, and so He has given Christ to be Head over all things, and no doubt it is in that capacity, if one might say so reverently, that He is Head of the assembly—the body.
But the statements of the Spirit in Colossians are confined to the body—the assembly; that brings in the thought of the assembly as His body. I think perhaps we have been inclined to take an ecclesiastical view of the body, but I am sure in that we have been mistaken. Your body is that in which you live. If I know anything about you, your character, your ways, I have learned it in your body. I am expressed as a man in my body, and you are expressed in your body. So the body of Christ is that in which Christ is to find expression here, not in the form of testimony; no doubt that is a testimony (there are plenty of scriptures for that), but so far as this epistle is concerned, Christ expressed in His body here is for the delight and satisfaction of the heart of God. And I think it is a wonderful, yet an exercising, thought. I do not know how far we have compassed it and given it a place in our souls, that as the body of Christ, the saints are here as a continuation of Christ for the delight of God. Take the portion I read just now in chapter 3. Our King James’ Version says, “singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord”: but it should read: “Singing with grace in your hearts to God”. You are not singing to be heard by anybody here; this spontaneous outburst of joy in the saints is for the delight and joy of the heart of God. How little have we taken in what it was to God to have Christ down here. He was ever the delight and joy of the heart of God. And, beloved, although Christ has gone on high the body of Christ is here, to be the reproduction, in the power of the Holy Ghost, of Christ in the saints, and this is for the delight of God. Do not think that I overlook the idea of testimony or conflict, but I would that we were big enough spiritually to take in what there is in this epistle to the Colossians. I think it is so encouraging and so exercising. We might ask ourselves—What delight is God finding in us here as the body of Christ? As I have said, it is not an ecclesiastical idea, we should discard that thought; it is entirely moral.
Well now, that is the view of the epistle I have not time to go fully into what is in chapter 2, but I will just say briefly that in chapter 2 there are certain adverse elements against which the saints are safeguarded and warned. There are three things mentioned, and they are alike in this respect—“man” appears in them all. You are to beware of the philosophical man, who is after the rudiments of this world and not according to Christ, and you are to beware of the religious man with his sabbaths and new moons, and then you are to beware of the mystical man, the man who is vainly puffed up with his fleshly mind and dares to intrude into things that are unseen. That chapter deals with the outside things; but in chapter 3 we come to ourselves. It is not there what is outside of you but what is within. In Ephesians we are looked at as in Christ, but in Colossians Christ is in us: “Christ in you the hope of glory”, and the early part of the chapter deals with the things that would hinder—things from within ourselves, hence verse 5—“Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth”. By those who understand it we are told that the tense of the Greek verb here is in the aorist; that is—you do not keep on mortifying; the effect abides, you do not repeat it, but you maintain it. When the Israelites entered the land God said to Joshua, “Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time” (Josh 5: 2); Joshua did not keep on circumcising them after they had come into the land, yet they pitched their tents at Gilgal, and when they went out to conflict they went out from Gilgal, and when they returned they returned to Gilgal—it had to be maintained, and so the mortifying has to be maintained. Your members are here, and they are the only connection with earth that this epistle will allow; you have to put them to death, because if you do not, if there is not the maintenance in your soul of what this putting to death means, these members which are upon the earth will betray you into what will really hinder your soul. “In which ye also once walked when ye lived in those things”. It is not contemplated that the saints are walking in these things, but where the connecting link exists (these members upon the earth) death must come in. Verse 8: “Put off, ye also, all these things, wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, vile language out of your mouth”. What are these exhortations based upon? They are based upon a spiritual fact, and that fact is that you have “put off the old man with his deeds”. It is not simply what God did with the old man in the cross of Christ, though if God had not dealt with the old man in the cross of Christ, it would have been out of the question for you or me to deal with him; but this is our side—you put off. “Having put off the old man with his deeds”, you have learned the character of the old man, and you have done with him; you have put him off and based upon that fact are these exhortations; you put off in habit, put off practically everything that is of the old man. You could not have put off the old man without the corresponding side—the putting on. You ask, Where is the ability for it? Why, you are said to be quickened together with Christ. That is ability enough. Do not say you are not able for it; people shut their eyes to these plain statements of scripture, and looking only at themselves they say they cannot. Paul, in the gaol at Rome, says: “I have strength for all things in him that gives me power” (Phil 4: 13); perhaps you will say, that is the language of an apostle, but no, it is the language of a Christian, for Philippians is the epistle of Christian experience, not apostolic.
Well now, “having put on the new, renewed into full knowledge according to the image of him that has created him”. Here it is the new man in the sense of fresh; in Ephesians it is the new kind of man, it is remarkable how the terms are transposed in the two epistles. In Ephesians 4: 24 it is “having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness”, and the moment you bring in the thought of creation you have got something that did not exist before, you have got the new kind of man—you are renewed in the spirit of your mind. Here (in Colossians) you put on the new—that which is fresh—and it is “renewed into full knowledge according to the image of him that has created him”. The word translated “renewed” here is just the word that means in a way what the new man does in Ephesians; you are renewed here after the image of Him that created him, “wherein there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is everything, and in all”. You are outside all the distinctions mentioned here—religious—circumcision or uncircumcision, bondman, freeman; you might actually be a poor slave, but you are outside of it, or you might be a master, but you are outside of it; you have come into that spiritual sphere where Christ is everything.
Now I want to come to these last verses just for a moment before we close. “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any should have a complaint against any; even as the Christ has forgiven you, so also do ye”. The word “therefore” refers back to the beginning of verse 10, and as the exhortations preceding verse 10 are based upon the fact that you have put off the old man, so these exhortations are based upon the fact that you have put on the new. “Put on therefore”. It is practical, and comes out in our relationships one with another in the body of Christ. Now it is a matter of common experience that the closer the relationship the more you are tested by it, and so the Christians that put one to the test are not the Episcopalians, etc., or those I do not walk with. I do not have anything to do with them, though, of course, I trust I carry about in my heart, by the grace of God, real affection for every Christian; but it is the people with whom I walk, the Christians with whom I am in close touch—that is where the test comes.
Let me call your attention to these terms elect, holy and beloved. They primarily apply to Christ as a Man down here; He was God’s elect, God’s holy One; He was God’s beloved One; and the very titles applicable primarily to the Lord Jesus Christ as a Man here are taken up now and applied to His people. It is very touching, very wonderful. “Put on therefore” as what?—“as the elect of God”. These traits were all true of Christ as God’s elect One, God’s holy and beloved One; how these things shone out in undimmed moral splendour in His Person!
“Bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering”. Have we got these things on? These traits of Christ are to be reproduced in us, manifested in us. I trust that, by the grace of Christ, we may apply these things honestly to ourselves. “Forgiving one another, if any should have a complaint against any; even as the Christ has forgiven you, so also do ye”. Are we equal to it? Oh, what a truth the body of Christ is!—it is to be down here for the expression of Christ, for the delight and joy of the heart of God; it is wonderful! The opportunity of expressing Him down here is what heaven and eternity will not give us. Just think of being down here in this scene of contrariety as the body of Christ, to express the traits of Christ, the very life of Christ coming out in us!
Then verse 14: “And to all these add love, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful”. Love is the bond of perfectness. It is a delightful thought to me that there is something down here that is the bond of perfectness; there is that which never fails—love never fails. “Let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts”. What a wonderful thing among the saints in their relationship to each other in the body of Christ—the very peace of Christ presiding. You know the idea of a presiding officer, he is in entire control, he presides, and so, “Let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful”. That is individual. The Spirit of God knows where to drop that word—“in one body”; we need each to be reminded of that; nothing contrary to unity can be entertained for one moment.
Verse 16: “Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another”. Our ability to teach and admonish one another depends upon the word of the Christ dwelling in us; how could we do it apart from that? It is Christ Jesus who has been made to us wisdom from God. Not one of us has any resources of wisdom in himself. “In psalms, hymns, spiritual songs”. There are three varieties of praise, and I have no doubt they are in an ascending scale. There is great liberty, and while the unity of the body must never be forgotten there is variety. Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God. What kind of singing is that? The singing in scripture is spontaneous. I love the thought of the spontaneity of Christianity. In John 4: 14 the Lord says, “The water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life”, and in John 7: 38 He speaks of “rivers of living water” flowing out. Paul says, “I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the understanding also”, 1 Cor 14: 15. What music for the ear and heart of God!
There is one more verse: “And everything, whatever ye may do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by him”. Everything is covered by His name; you do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by Him. It is not a formula of language put into your mouth, it is like Himself—the company is in correspondence with Him, they do all in His name, giving thanks. That is just what He did. We are not told much about it, but we are told once (and it is very striking), that when everything down here was so dark: “At that time, Jesus answering said, I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes”, Matt 11: 25.
May we understand it and follow Him, and be in correspondence with Him.