DELIVERANCE
[p. 445] DELIVERANCE
If we are left upon earth, there is a point for us of the greatest possible moment, that of deliverance. It is essential to us, because we are left in a scene where once we were the slaves of sin and Satan. If we consider the power of things here, Satan’s power, the power of sin and of the world, it must be patent to every believer how important it is that we should be in the reality of deliverance. It is the mind of God for His people, and He has made the way plain; are we prepared to take that way? Deliverance will not be needed in heaven, for there will be nothing there that is contrary either around or within; but in order to enter into God’s things here we must know deliverance.
In Romans 6 the truth does not go further than deliverance from the power of sin, but in Colossians there is deliverance from the world. God has provided the way of deliverance, and what will encourage us to take that way is knowing God’s thought in regard to His people. There is no difficulty on God’s side, and His way of our salvation becomes, when understood, the way of our deliverance. The death and resurrection of Christ are the way of our salvation and are too, the way of our deliverance. In chapter 2: 12 we have “Buried with him in baptism”. Those baptised to His death are thus looked at as having retired out of sight down here, buried with Him; but there is the other side, “wherein also ye are risen with him through faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the dead”. There is the apprehension in the soul of God’s pleasure as expressed in the resurrection of Christ.
Very often we are occupied with what we have got, but what is of importance is that God’s purpose should [p. 446] be fulfilled in His people; it will be eventually in heaven, but the object of Scripture is that we may be in His mind down here. The purpose of God is that there should be a body here descriptive of Christ. Faith always has regard to the purpose of God. There are figures and illustrations of His thought in Scripture, as in Adam and Eve, the woman was taken from the man to be descriptive of the man. Christ is dead as after the flesh in regard of Israel, and the Church is taken from Christ in order that it may be descriptive of Christ. It will be so when the heavenly city comes down out of heaven, but the same thing is to be true morally in the body upon earth. There are two things needed for this, one is, that those who are of the body should be set free from everything of earth; the other, that they should enter into Christ’s life. Sin is contrary to Christ, the world is contrary to Christ, Satan’s power is contrary to Christ. Christ has been refused and rejected, and if the Church is to be descriptive of Christ it must be free from all that is contrary to Him, and must participate in His life.
What is contemplated in this chapter is a company, not an individual. “All the body” (verse 19) must imply all the saints at Colosse, just as the apostle could say to the Corinthians, “Ye are the body of Christ”, the body which was to be descriptive of Christ. The wise woman (Proverbs 31) is descriptive of the man. She is so diligent and so demeans herself that “her husband is known in the gates”. When God created Eve, He took a rib from Adam and built it into a woman, and she was the glory of the man. Not one person, but the body is descriptive of Christ, and so real is it that when Paul was persecuting the Church, the Lord said, “Why persecutest thou me?” It is an immense point to see that there was a body upon earth in which Christ was displayed.
God has one mind and thought with regard to all Christians, and the point is whether we enter into His [p. 447] mind, or whether we keep some cupboard in our heart locked up so that we are not prepared to enter into God’s things. There is the full setting forth of God in Christ as a Man: “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”. The effect of His becoming Man was that all that was in the Godhead was set forth in a Man. Then the apostle says, “Ye are complete in him”. The Church as taken from Christ is an adequate vessel for the setting forth of Him down here, not as He was in humiliation, but as now in power. In the very scene in which He has been rejected, there is a vessel in which He is set forth as the Head of all principality and power. We are transformed that He might be described in us. “We, beholding the Lord’s glory with unveiled face, are changed into the same image”. It is well that Christians should walk humbly, but the divine thought is that they should be descriptive of Him who is the Head of all principality and power.
Verses 11, 12 describe complete deliverance. Saints are passed over Jordan and are at Gilgal, they are in the land, circumcised and risen with Christ, free of the reproach of Egypt. God’s thought as to each Christian is circumcised, buried, and risen. Flesh in all its movements must go, God has dealt with all that state in order to bring in the Spirit. Flesh is no longer to rule, and if the law of the Spirit of life has come in, we have, as to the flesh, to get out of sight. There are activities of the flesh, its energy, and there may be providential opportunities which enable a man to take a place in the world; but if the Spirit rules, you get out of sight. You get out of sight in the death of Christ during this present period of His rejection; but if we are out of sight in His death, we are risen with Him; we are conscious that we have cast off the grave-clothes; as with Lazarus, the grave-clothes are removed. Not only is the flesh judged, but the links are broken with the world. The resurrection of Christ is the beginning of God’s world. No man is free until he is conscious [p. 448] that he is risen with Christ, then he is liberated from the bonds which bound him here, to be a free man for Christ. Resurrection is the beginning of a new order of things. When Christ rose from the dead there were morally two worlds: one entirely to God, the other that to which Christ had died.
If the body is to be descriptive of Christ here, it must be in the life of Christ, “quickened together with him”. (Verse 13.) Our moral state was “dead in sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh”. The real moment of quickening is when there is the least breath of response in the heart to the love of God, then one can be said to be quickened with Christ. Where does Christ live morally? In the love of the Father. The Church could not possibly be in union with the Head unless it responded to the love of God. Glory is the effulgence of His love. God’s thought for us is sonship, the body is composed of sons of God, and in sonship there is the idea of a heart responsive to God’s love. For those quickened everything has been cleared away, all trespasses are forgiven; the question of law is settled, He has blotted out “the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us;” and there is a complete end of spiritual terror. (Verse 14.) Everything has been disposed of in the death of Christ. Are we prepared to accept this, and thus to enter into the purpose of God that there should be a body here descriptive of the One who has been cast out? What is important is, that we should hold the Head. Christ is pre-eminent, He claims the pre-eminence of love in regard to the body, such is the character of His headship to it.
In verse 19 we have the body increasing with the increase of God. That is love, the divine nature. Are we prepared to refuse everything that is contrary to the divine thought? Even if we have to be alone and unsupported here, let us not be moved away from the divine thought; and God has provided everything [p. 449] necessary, so that we may accept His thought and His deliverance. God has begun another world, the present world is too old for the saint, it does not improve; what we want is to have our hearts attached to Christ and to that world which is His.