And it's beautiful. She never appeared on the streets alone, not even to go marketing. It is, therefore, a sin with a very wide range. Again, on each Lord's day, when we are gathered together to Christ's name, what is before us according to God's word and will? 209.]. Is it necessary? The Greek was the aristocrat of the ancient world and he knew it. Like a mine of unknown and inexhaustible wealth, the treasures of wisdom are all in Him hidden, but not in order to remain so; they only need to be explored for you to attain "unto the riches" in them ( Colossians 2:2 ); but until you, Colossians, press after attaining the full knowledge "hidden." Alas! The Christian ethic is one of mutual obligation, in which the rights and the obligations rest with every man. But He is the Christ that God raised from the dead and seated in heavenly glory. It will be noted that this section is far longer than the other two; and its length may well be due to long talks which Paul had with the runaway slave, Onesimus, whom later he was to send back to his master Philemon. Can we speak it, remembering that he will hear?" The apostle brings in his own special part. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1992); John A. McLean, "Did Jesus Correct the Disciples View of the Kingdom?" First the apostle brings in all things as a whole, the universal creaturehood, earthly and heavenly; thus giving us an adequate notion of the perfect triumph of God at the time when it seemed as if Satan had completely succeeded through man against the counsels of God. That is to say, there may be a difference of reading here and there which impairs the full beauty and accuracy of the blessed word of God; but, as to the substance, the most timid may be assured that you have it in the worst editions of Christendom. The whole point therefore of this epistle is a recall to Christ Himself, because of what had crept in through Satan's wiles. The thing which settles any master and servant relationship is that both are servants of the one Master, Jesus Christ. The better a parent is the more he must avoid the danger of discouraging his child, for he must give discipline and encouragement in equal parts. It is a liberty founded on death, displayed in resurrection, known in the Spirit. It is not at all, " since ye continue." II. All momentous and blessed, but nevertheless by no means the same fulness of privilege of which he could discourse at once in writing to the Ephesians. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord ( Colossians 3:16-18 ). Thus the mystery includes, first, Christ as Head above, we though here being united by the Holy Ghost to Him glorified. And now He is risen from the dead, the beginning of a new order of existence altogether; and as He is the Head, so the church is His body founded, indeed, on Christ, but on Him dead and risen. "For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea." If it is the desire for a person, it leads to sexual sin. But don't lose touch with the chap in front of you.' To the Colossians the Holy Ghost has to speak about their state, and along with this to present the truth of Christ as a remedy for it; not so much as the centre of blessedness and joy in the communion of the saints, but as supplying the true and only divine corrective to the efforts of Satan, who would drag them down into tradition on the one hand, and into philosophy on the other, the too common snares of human nature, and the latter more particularly for cultivated and reasoning minds. The incarnation, blessed and precious as it is, never reconciled man to God. In point of time the world had grown comparatively old before Jesus appeared. Having this in the soul, one is entitled to have it in the body also at His coming. Have you not got the substance? [Note: Barclay, p. As this epistle then is not said to have been addressed to Laodicea, we may gather that it was either from that church, or, if apostolic, going its round from one assembly to another. Fathers, do not irritate your children, that they may not lose heart. Show yourselves the slaves of the Lord Christ. There must be in his life a radical transformation of the will and a radical shift of the centre. May the word of Christ dwell richly in you with all wisdom. The fundamental effect of this Christian teaching is that marriage becomes a partnership. Two rules: one for the wife, one for the husband. Christ, and Christ alone, has truly represented God to man, as He alone was perfect man before God. Macho, "I know what I'm doing. The gratitude of the Church has always gone up to God in praise and song. He is the only divine source, sphere, and means of real growth for the soul. If you look at the saints individually, He is the seal and the earnest. It makes a man grow continually in grace and knowledge until he reaches that which he was meant to be--manhood in the image of God. He does not even say worthy of Christ, but "of the Lord." The apostle will not sanction such an amalgam, but refuses it; and we must remember that in these exhortations it was the Lord acting by the Spirit in His servant. But if I am dead, what have I to do with those things that only affect men as long as they live? They needed to be drawn away from every theme and object but Christ Himself. Occasions of sin must be avoided: the lusts of the flesh, and the love of the world; and covetousness, which is idolatry; love of present good, and of outward enjoyments. Let man be unmendable, let his enmity be beyond all thought, God, in the calmness of His own wisdom, and in the strength of His unwearied grace, accomplishes His purpose of redeeming love at the very moment when man consummates his wickedness. Christ it is who determines this, as all else. There is no slovenliness here; no careless assumption that, because you are members of Christ's body, all else must be right, and may be left; for he who knew best the faithful love of Christ is none the less urgent individually with "every man." And how is this to be accomplished? He also urged them to continue living in keeping with their position in Christ. Ha, ha. Christ is a believer's life. They have undoubtedly taught that which is consistent with it and even supposes it. But treat them as means desirable to attract the world, or as objects to be valued for their own sake by Christians, and as they are intruders, so they will prove to be aliens, and enemies of the glory of Christ. He meant to reconcile man spite of himself; He would prove His own love to be the conqueror of his hatred. And so, are you walking after the Spirit? And here we come back to where this passage started--that is precisely why the Christian sets his mind and heart on the things which are above and not on the things of this world. His function was to fill up the word of God, "even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.". "Let no man judge you" is the exhortation. Can anything be sweeter than this genuine simplicity of affection and mutual interest? The veriest victims of Satan, the open enemies of Christ, the fiercest powerless let them be, but the fiercest in their will of opposition against God are precisely those that God has already reconciled to Himself; and this where Satan had but just appeared to conquer in leading them to crucify Christ., In that field of blood where His ancient people joined the idolatrous Gentiles, and indeed incited them to plant the cross for their own Messiah there it is that God's grace has established a righteous deliverance for such as He has reconciled. This it is that always settles the difficulties in the great conflict that rages now as ever, and more than ever, between human religion and the truth of God. How can that be? Montgomery was famous as a disciplinarian--but there was another side to him. No one, no thing, can add to Christ's power, lustre, or value in any one respect. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me,Galatians 2:20. That may be putting bread on the table, but your life really is bound up in Jesus Christ. In Christ the saint is above them, and leaves them to God without anxiety or envy. The universe goes on as before, the lower creation at least subject to vanity; but God (and it is like Him) hastens to use His victory, though not yet as far as outward things are concerned. Thus it begins, not with the incarnation (for sin was not yet judged, nor man brought to God), but with the cross, with redemption. But does this so much as resemble the provision of grace for the Christian? "And let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another." And the husband, he feels so macho, "Hey, she's my little gal; she's trusting me to do the right thing." She lived in the women's apartments and did not join her menfolk even for meals. Their foolishness and their unteachability never drive it to cynicism or despair; their insults and their ill-treatment never drive it to bitterness or wrath. Don't provoke your children. "You must not only seek heaven; you must also think heaven." Then follows that which could be said of us alone. Goodness by itself can be stern; but chrestotes ( G5544) is the goodness which is kind, that type of goodness which Jesus used to the sinning woman who anointed his feet ( Luke 7:37-50). Atheism and Pantheism are the ultimate results of philosophy, and both in reality set. 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. It is as if Paul said, "For you the treasures of wisdom are hidden in your secret books; for us Christ is the treasury of wisdom and we are hidden in him.". Of course it is not at all being dead to what a man had as a natural life in the world. They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The answer is important, for in it there is the whole Christian doctrine of work. See the same thing in the famous seventy weeks of Daniel. Hence we find the glorious future display referred to here: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear;" for we have both "ye are dead," and "your life is hid with Christ in God." Accordingly, he brings in now for this object the twofold truth: "for in him," says he, "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Now, if that is so, the Christian must rise from baptism a different man. "You must not only seek heaven, you must think heaven" (Lightfoot). Am I entitled, as I look upon Christians henceforth, to see nothing but Christ in any and Christ in every one? The master must remember that he too has a Master--Christ in heaven. God has been pleased to call the church a body; and so in truth it is. He must be heavenly-minded here on earth and so help to make earth like heaven." It is in baptism rather than in Him. Verse Colossians 3:2. Nor is this all. Does not this still abide true? It was in no wise the old thing, elevated by the glory of Him who had deigned to descend into it, but a new state of things, of which the risen Christ is both the Head and beginning; as it is said, "Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.". Yet there is nothing more common; it is precisely what men, and sometimes Christians to no small extent, are doing now very generally; and what have they gained by it? And as He is the image of the invisible God, so is He the first-born of all creation; for the Holy Spirit here brings together a kind of antithesis as to Christ in relation to God, and in relation to the creature. Meanwhile, instead of the Jews enjoying glory along with Christ in their midst, rejected by the Jews, Christ is in the Gentiles; and they who receive His name are waiting for heavenly glory with Christ. In a sense Paul is saying--and saying truly--that some day the verdicts of eternity will reverse the verdicts of time and the judgments of God will overturn the judgments of men. Thus it is from the first the expression of a most needed truth, which remains the comfort of grace throughout the whole Christian career, and is therefore never repeated. The word we have translated foul talk is aischrologia ( G148) ; it could well mean obscene language. Still less was it because of anything conferred on Him, whether of power or office. And when Christ who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory. ". It is not merely the life of a Christ that lived in this world, but the life of Him that was lifted up on the cross, and bore my sins there. He's watching. Thus in every way the ritualistic system is false, and a traitor to Him who died on the cross. We must live such a life as Christ lived here on earth and lives now in heaven, according to our capacities. In the ancient world no one was interested in foreign languages, apart from Greek. It was an absolutely new truth, in contrast with the ancient and millennial order, yet altogether different from what is found in the Ephesians; nevertheless they both constitute substantive parts of the mystery. Now, that ye are converted to God, act in reference to heavenly things as ye did formerly in reference to those of earth; and vice versa. Further, this change is progressive. There is kindness (chrestotes, G5544) . His was by no means a love inactive or limited. "All" the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Jesus. Scripture must not be sacrificed rudely to our seeming comfort. Knowledge and faith make a soul rich. 177. But the apostle took every pains to, show how great was the love of Epaphras for them; for his faithful spirit knew some little of that which the apostle knew well, that the more abundantly he loved, the less he was loved. Analysis. "The description of Christ as seated at the right hand of God is another implied rejoinder to those who were seeking to diminish Christs role as mediator, inasmuch as the right hand of God is a metaphor for the place of supreme privilege and divine authority." The master must treat the slave not like a thing, but like a person, with justice and with the equity which goes beyond justice. Or to come at it another way, the man whose life is dominated by the desire to get things has set up things in the place of God--and that precisely is idolatry. For Christianity is not a mere thing of doing this or not doing that; it is a growth, because it is of the Spirit in life and power. A short greeting Paul began most of his letters in this way. Away, then, with every pretence to add to Him; away with all possible expedients to give lustre to Christ! So, not only am I to just put off the works of the flesh, the old life, I am to put on Jesus Christ, living after Him. Had they prayed more, the result might have been to better purpose. There is the forbearing and the forgiving spirit. The ceremonies are dead to you through the death of Christ, and you to them, in order that, being raised up to heaven with Christ, you may think only of those things that are above. If the parent is too easy-going, the child will grow up indisciplined and unfit to face life. Am I to forget His glory in the presence of God? I wonder, then, if we can read Col. 3:4 as referring to the present and future before the parousia. Jesus is going to come again as he said with "the clouds of heavenand great glory" ( Matthew 24:30 ). As God forgave him, so he must forgive others, for only the forgiving can be forgiven. He calls him Christ our life. So you feel like you've got to challenge everything. he was minister of both. God knows that the greatest need a man has is to be macho, to feel he's in control. This is truth about them; and He who is the truth told it out. That which is hidden is concealed; the world cannot recognize the Christian. One of the great effects of Christianity is that it destroys the barriers. Colossians 3:1-2. He is the Head of the body one of the chief topics of this epistle. It would be possible for one to set a goal for himself (verse 1) without really putting his heart into it. But so it is. How we want them to be better than we were. It remains, however, that He is the first-born of all creation, because he is the Creator of all things, above or below, material or spiritual: "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible." Like heaven. as referring to the present and future before the parousia and he who our. Real growth for the Christian their position in Christ he also urged them to continue in. This way in the body one of the body one of the will a! Lose heart to sexual sin a love inactive or limited spite of ;. 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