Bible Commentaries

Some Dangers Indicated

Colossians 2:1-9.

Why should Paul the Apostle enter into any "conflict" about people or concerning people whom he had never seen? It is to be remembered that the Apostle Paul is writing to persons who had never seen him in the flesh, whom he had never seen, and with whom he had only opened indirect communication by a fellow-labourer. Yet he says he has a "great conflict" for the Colossians and the Laodiceans and the dwellers in Hierapolis. Why this conflict? Why not let the people alone? Why not be concerned simply for those who are round about you? What is this passion in the sanctified heart that will go out to the ends of the earth, clothed in charity, burning with Christly ardour? If there be any persons who are strangers to this passion they cannot enter into the music of the Apostle's Epistle to the Colossians. They may call themselves practical people, they may find refuge in narrow maxims, such as, "Charity begins at home." Christianity knows nothing about such maxims. Christianity takes in all time, all space, all human nature; Christianity is not willing to sit down to the feast so long as there is one vacant chair at the banqueting table: Christianity never ceased to say, "Yet there is room"; specially is there room for those who least think of it, or who least suspect their fitness to occupy it. There is no room for the self-contented, the pharisaical; there is always more room for the broken-hearted, the self-renouncing, the Christ-seeking soul. Paul lived in conflict: on the other hand, we are amongst those who avoid everything like controversy, friction, and sharp, mutual confrontage. We love quietness. Yet we do not know what quietness is; we think that quietness is indifference, carelessness, indisposition to concern oneself about anybody's interests. That is not quietness, that is more nearly an approach to death: peace is not indifference, it is the last result of the operation of ten thousand conflicting forces. We are only at peace after we have been at war, and after we have accepted the music of the will of God.

What is this conflict? The term would seem to mean battle, antagonism, decisive and unchangeable hostility in relation to some other object. That is not the whole meaning of the word in this connection. In another verse the Apostle defines the conflict—"striving," saith Colossians 2:2

This ought to be a commonplace; the merest truism in Christian speech. The announcement of such a text should awaken no attention, or excite no curiosity or special interest, because the words themselves are trite. To be human is to love; to be men is to be knit together; to be alive is to be in brotherhood. So we should say, if we had no experience to go by: but all experience, alas, contradicts our theory, and instead of having a commonplace to deal with we are face to face with a miracle. That miracle will appear to be the greater and the more suggestive, if we think once more of what ought to be a mere commonplace in human history. When man meets man he must hail his brother; two men cannot pass one another on a journey without recognition; to be sick is to evoke the help of the whole neighbourhood; to be in distress is enough to bring to our aid all who hear of it. So it would seem, for we are men—educated, cultured, refined men. The priest will never pass a wounded Colossians 2:10-19

Men are of different capacities. No two men can contain exactly the same quantity (if that term may be permitted) of Christ: each man has his own portion. This is a fact which is overlooked, and in consequence of its being overlooked we have no end of conflict and soul-distressing controversy. We cannot all contain the same quantity of nature. The earth is enough for some; others seem to be able to take in the whole heaven; whether they are poets or mystics or rhapsodists or saints, we stay not to inquire; they shame us by a capacity which seems to extend every time it presents itself for new gifts from the Cross and from the throne. Let a man know what his capacity Colossians 2:11).

The meaning is that there was an earlier circumcision done with hands, a kind of surgical operation; nothing in itself, but very much in its significance; it was the mark of a Divine covenant. But in Christ there are no such marks; we enter into liberty, joy, transport, consciousness of the Divine presence, which enables us to judge everything, and to escape all criticism of a humiliating kind ourselves. Circumcision was not done away, it was consummated; that is to say, it was brought up to all its meaning, it realised all its significance; so we are now of the circumcision, not the circumcision of the knife or the sharp-edged stone, but the circumcision which is wrought by the Spirit: we, too, bear signs and marks and tokens, but wholly of a spiritual kind.

"Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead" ( Colossians 2:12).

What baptism was this? Not of water, for then Judas was baptised, and Judas rose again with his Lord. Said Christ, "I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" That is the baptism in which we are buried with Christ. Your self-conceited, pompous ritualism must be banished from the Church, whether circumcision or baptism, and the great spiritual thought must be realised in all the fulness of its glory. If there be those who imagine that being put into so much water they are buried with Christ in baptism, then they know not the spirit of the Christianity which has been given to them. We are buried with Christ when we are one with him, in spirit, in resignation, in obedience, in the consciousness that only by sacrifice can certain great spiritual results be realised. It would indeed be a cheap form of burial with Christ to go down into a reservoir, or to be submerged for a moment in some classic river: only they are buried with Christ in baptism who have been buried with him in Gethsemane; only they know the baptism of Christ who have said in speechless, blanched agony, Thy will be done. It is at that point we must join Christ. We do not come in after the victory and enjoy all the fruits of triumph; we do not go up to a risen Lord and say, Now that the resurrection has taken place we will join thee in thy kingdom; we see now where the power Colossians 2:13).

The action is Divine. When we confess our sins we but obey a Divine inspiration; when we have lain down in all the deepest humiliation of soul, it is not that we have covenanted with ourselves to win a prize, but that we have seen the abominableness of sin, and have come to hate it in every aspect and issue. If we are raised again we are miracles of God: every new thought is a Divine gift, every aspiration that is determined to find out what is beyond the clouds is a creation of Divine power; whenever any soul said, "I will pray," it was not the soul that said it, or only the soul as the medium of the Holy Ghost. The more we get rid of ourselves in all these particulars the truer shall be our humility, and the more rational our piety and our homage.

What then became of the old deeds?

"Having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, who was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his Cross" ( Colossians 2:14).

How easy to read these words! how impossible to comprehend this ocean of love! How easy to say "forgiven you all trespasses"! This was not the act of a sovereign, this was the act of a priest: here is no sovereign pomp, here is a suffering God. If God could forgive as a Sovereign, there were no need of the Cross. God needed the Christ as much as we did: he needed the Christ in relation to righteousness, holiness, law, the music and harmony of his universe; and we needed the Christ, because there are times in the soul's history when we want something to cling to, something to look at, something about which we can say, That is the hope of my soul. Into these mysteries there is no door through language: the door opening upon such glories opens in the consciousness of the soul, for which there is no adequate speech: we leave this mystery, and thus come to understand it in some degree. As to our omitted ordinances, the grace that is in Christ Jesus covers up all the past of our neglect; as for the handwriting that was against us, it is cancelled, it is removed by blood; as to the whole covenant that we had broken, it is taken out of the way, and nailed to the Cross. It is supposed that in ancient times the nailing of a bond meant its cancellation; a nail was put through it, the meaning that the bond was fulfilled, cancelled, or dismissed. To-day we signify such results by perforation in some cases. The figure is graphic, striking, and memorable: there was a written paper against us, we had written it and signed it with our own hand; it was ours, and we could not deny it without stultifying ourselves: how was it to be got out of the way? Christ took it, and nailed it to his Cross; and he only could do this.

"And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it" ( Colossians 2:15).

Having spoiled all wickedness, all diabolical presences, and ministries; having gone into the spiritual world, and searched out every foe, and killed him, his triumph was clean and complete. There is a singular idea in this word "spoiled,"—an idea of stripping, as if he had thrown off the body, the only thing that principalities and powers could get hold of in his case. They could not touch that soul of purity, ineffable, impeccable, everlasting; they could make some assault on the flesh, so he stripped it, threw off all the medium and surface on which principalities and powers could operate; he said, Take the body, make of it what you will. So he worked out the mystery of reconciliation with God. So we may read, Having conquered all principalities and powers, either by discipline, or by sheer spiritual energy, or by ineffable holiness,—having proved himself to be master, he has given us all the advantage of his sovereignty.

What, then, are we to do now that Christ has risen and proved himself to be the Lord of all? We have to enter into and claim and justify a great liberty:—

"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ" ( Colossians 2:16-17).

All littleness, meanness of method, smallness of literal discipline, was to be done away in the liberty that is in Christ Jesus. We are no longer Jews, ritualists, observers of times and seasons; we have escaped the region of narrow and false criticism, and we have entered into the glorious liberty of the sons or God. We have not entered into licence; we have entered into certain rights of personal conscience, and in the exercise of those rights we are to realise what Christ meant by liberty. We have not done with meat or drink or holydays or new moons or Sabbath days, or with any shadows; if they can help us, let their help be made welcome: but no man is to come into the Church and say his way is the right way, and that if we do not submit to his plan we are aliens against the commonwealth of Israel. A new court of arbitrament has been set up, the conscience has been Colossians 2:18).

There had been a great scheme of morality and discipline and self-preparation, whereby the soul could draw upon God as if by right of merit. "Voluntary humility,"—studied modesty; humility at the mirror, looking at itself and wondering how much nicer it could make itself, how much humbler it could make its humility, and in what attitude it might go forth, so as to attract the attention of others, who should say concerning it, Behold what beautiful modesty, what really exquisite humility is this! We are not brought into this kind of discipline, but into unconscious humility; sometimes into humility so unconscious that it is mistaken by others, who know not that an erect form may be perfectly consistent with a prostrate soul. Then the "worshipping of angels" had to be done away with. There has always been in the Church a sect which believed in angelology. They built their theories and hopes upon odd expressions in the Scriptures; they know that we receive the law by the disposition of angels; they say, Are not all angels ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? There are innumerable passages of Scripture in which the word "angels" occurs; and these have been all brought together, and have been made to constitute what is termed angelology. All this has to be done away, and we are to stand face to face with Christ: the medium destroyed, the Lord himself immediately realised by every soul. So there must be no encroachment into things not seen, no spirit of trespass, no standing at the door, saying, I will enter here, or I will be outside for ever. There is to be nothing of that kind, but all other things are to be absorbed in "holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God" ( Colossians 2:19). Why do not men go immediately to the Eternal himself? Why palter with spirits when you might speak to The Spirit? Why wait for angels, however bright they may be, when you may speak to their Lord? Why the dark seance, waiting for vagrant spirits to talk nonsense to you, when you might hold communion with the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost? How much men are upset or beguiled by details! There shall be this possibility in human life, which is so laughable, so absurd, as to be incredible, that men will betake themselves to such association as they think will enable them to hear the goings of spirits, when they might advance into the very centre of the sanctuary, and say, We have come to see God, God the Spirit—literally, God is the Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Why this illegitimate spiritualism when we might have the vital association with God who is offered us in the Gospel of Christ? Why chaffer with the servants when you might banquet with the Lord? These are the great inquiries urged upon us by Christian doctrine and expostulation. But such is the littleness of Colossians 1:9); "Increasing in the knowledge of God" ( Colossians 1:10); "Every man perfect in Christ Jesus" ( Colossians 1:28); "Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith" ( Colossians 2:7). Then the cautions:—"Lest any man should beguile you" ( Colossians 2:4); "Beware lest any man spoil you" ( Colossians 2:8); "Let no man beguile you" ( Colossians 2:18). This is Paul's idea of progress; this is Christian science. Surely there is a science of conduct. Is conduct, the end for which all means were made, to be spoken of generally, jauntily? or is it to be regarded as the sum of a thousand processes, every one of which is watched with an eager criticism? Let no man imagine that he can easily pass on to perfectness of character. He who would be perfect in Christ Jesus must work at the detail, at the habits of life, and at all the little excitements which make up the urgency of need. And he must omit nothing; the one element which he omits will be the element that will wreck him in the end. In Christian culture there are to be no omissions.

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee that through Jesus Christ thy Son thou hast now spoken unto us. He is the last speaker. We know that these are the last times; thou wilt send no more vision upon us, for thou hast given us thy Son , the express image of thy Person. May we hear thy Son , and understand somewhat of his meaning. Thy voice unto us is clear, saying, This is my beloved Son , hear ye him. Oh, for the hearing ear! Thou wilt give us the hearing ear, thou wilt also give us the understanding heart. We have not heard thy Son; we want to hear all that he says: not only would we hear his voice, we would hear the hidden music of his tone, which is kept from all but those who listen with their hearts. We have heard the words but not the music; we have listened with the outward ear but not with the attention of the soul: may we listen to this Master of speech, and wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth; yea, may we notice their graciousness, their soft, river-like flow; may we hear what they mean; may they bring with them their own interpretation, may the tone that reaches us be such that no man must speak afterwards. We bless thee for the manner of the speech; now so mysterious, weird, ghostly, like voices in the wind at night-time; and now so simple, clear, childlike, and winning, as if all meant for little hearts and opening minds and childlike souls; and now so solemn with judgment and rebuke that the most dauntless of thy servants must exclaim, I exceedingly fear and quake! Never man spake like this man. He could speak to men, and to women, and to little children, and they could all understand him in their hearts, though not in their minds; they felt him to be the Son of God. May we look, therefore, for the eternal meaning; may we watch with continual and thankful interest all changefulness of method and form, and yet find under all changefulness the abiding thought of love divine. Amen.