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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37345-8.txt b/37345-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5694e91 --- /dev/null +++ b/37345-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13664 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and +Philemon, by Alexander Maclaren + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and Philemon + +Author: Alexander Maclaren + +Editor: W. Robertson Nicoll + +Release Date: September 7, 2011 [EBook #37345] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + [Transcriber's Note: + + A few minor typographical errors and inconsistencies have been + silently corrected. + + All advertising material has been placed at the end of the text.] + + + + + THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE + + + EDITED BY THE REV. + W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + + _Editor of "The Expositor," etc._ + + + COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON + + BY + ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. + + + London + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW + + MCMII + + + + + THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL + TO + THE COLOSSIANS + AND + PHILEMON + + BY + ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. + + + _TENTH EDITION_ + + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW + + MCMII + + + + + _Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + _THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS._ + + PAGE + Chap. I. v. 1, 2. The Writer and the Readers 1 + v. 3-8. The Prelude 21 + v. 9-12. The Prayer 38 + v. 12-14. The Father's Gifts through the Son 54 + v. 15-18. The Glory of the Son in His Relation to + the Father, the Universe, and the Church 70 + v. 19-22. The Reconciling Son 85 + v. 22, 23. The Ultimate Purpose of Reconciliation + and its Human Conditions 100 + v. 24-27. Joy in Suffering, and Triumph in the + Manifested Mystery 116 + v. 28, 29. The Christian Ministry in its Theme, + Methods, and Aim 132 + + Chap. II. v. 1-3. Paul's Striving for the Colossians 151 + v. 4-7. Conciliatory and Hortatory Transition + to Polemics 168 + v. 8-10. The Bane and the Antidote 185 + v. 11-13. The True Circumcision 199 + v. 14, 15. The Cross the Death of Law and the + Triumph over Evil Powers 213 + v. 16-19. Warnings against Twin Chief Errors + based upon Previous Positive Teaching 226 + v. 20-23. Two Final Tests of the False Teaching 242 + + Chap. III. v. 1-4. The Present Christian Life a Risen Life 257 + v. 5-9. Slaying Self the Foundation Precept of + Practical Christianity 271 + v. 9-11. The New Nature wrought out in New Life 290 + v. 12-14. The Garments of the Renewed Soul 305 + v. 15-17. The Practical Effects of the Peace of + Christ, the Word of Christ, and the + Name of Christ 320 + v. 18, Ch. iv., 1. The Christian Family 335 + + Chap. IV. v. 2-6. Precepts for the Innermost and + Outermost Life 354 + v. 7-9. Tychicus and Onesimus, the Letter-Bearers 371 + v. 10-14. Salutations from the Prisoner's Friends 386 + v. 15-18. Closing Messages 402 + + + _THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON._ + + Chap. I. v. 1-3 417 + v. 4-7 432 + v. 8-11 447 + v. 12-14 459 + v. 15-19 470 + v. 20-25 483 + + + + +I. + +_THE WRITER AND THE READERS._ + + "Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and + Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ + which are at Colossæ: Grace to you and peace from God our + Father."--COL. i, 1, 2 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We may say that each of Paul's greater epistles has in it one salient +thought. In that to the Romans, it is Justification by faith; in +Ephesians, it is the mystical union of Christ and His Church; in +Philippians, it is the joy of Christian progress; in this epistle, it is +the dignity and sole sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and +Head of all creation and of the Church. + +Such a thought is emphatically a lesson for the day. + +The Christ whom the world needs to have proclaimed in every deaf ear and +lifted up before blind and reluctant eyes, is not merely the perfect +man, nor only the meek sufferer, but the Source of creation and its +Lord, Who from the beginning has been the life of all that has lived, +and before the beginning was in the bosom of the Father. The shallow and +starved religion which contents itself with mere humanitarian +conceptions of Jesus of Nazareth needs to be deepened and filled out by +these lofty truths before it can acquire solidity and steadfastness +sufficient to be the unmoved foundation of sinful and mortal lives. The +evangelistic teaching which concentrates exclusive attention on the +cross as "the work of Christ," needs to be led to the contemplation of +them, in order to understand the cross, and to have its mystery as well +as its meaning declared. This letter itself dwells upon two applications +of its principles to two classes of error which, in somewhat changed +forms, exist now as then--the error of the ceremonialist, to whom +religion was mainly a matter of ritual, and the error of the speculative +thinker, to whom the universe was filled with forces which left no room +for the working of a personal Will. The vision of the living Christ Who +fills all things, is held up before each of these two, as the antidote +to his poison; and that same vision must be made clear to-day to the +modern representatives of these ancient errors. If we are able to grasp +with heart and mind the principles of this epistle for ourselves, we +shall stand at the centre of things, seeing order where from any other +position confusion only is apparent, and being at the point of rest +instead of being hurried along by the wild whirl of conflicting +opinions. + +I desire, therefore, to present the teachings of this great epistle in a +series of expositions. + +Before advancing to the consideration of these verses, we must deal with +one or two introductory matters, so as to get the frame and the +background for the picture. + +(1) First, as to the Church of Colossæ to which the letter is addressed. + +Perhaps too much has been made of late years of geographical and +topographical elucidations of Paul's epistles. A knowledge of the place +to which a letter was sent cannot do much to help in understanding the +letter, for local circumstances leave very faint traces, if any, on the +Apostle's writings. Here and there an allusion may be detected, or a +metaphor may gain in point by such knowledge; but, for the most part, +local colouring is entirely absent. Some slight indication, however, of +the situation and circumstances of the Colossian Church may help to give +vividness to our conceptions of the little community to whom this rich +treasure of truth was first entrusted. + +Colossæ was a town in the heart of the modern Asia Minor, much decayed +in Paul's time from its earlier importance. It lay in a valley of +Phrygia, on the banks of a small stream, the Lycus, down the course of +which, at a distance of some ten miles or so, two very much more +important cities fronted each other, Hierapolis on the north, and +Laodicea on the south bank of the river. In all three cities were +Christian Churches, as we know from this letter, one of which has +attained the bad eminence of having become the type of tepid religion +for all the world. How strange to think of the tiny community in a +remote valley of Asia Minor, eighteen centuries since, thus gibbeted for +ever! These stray beams of light which fall upon the people in the New +Testament, showing them fixed for ever in one attitude, like a lightning +flash in the darkness, are solemn precursors of the last Apocalypse, +when all men shall be revealed in "the brightness of His coming." + +Paul does not seem to have been the founder of these Churches, or ever +to have visited them at the date of this letter. That opinion is based +on several of its characteristics, such, for instance, as the absence +of any of those kindly greetings to individuals which in the Apostle's +other letters are so abundant, and reveal at once the warmth and the +delicacy of his affection: and the allusions which occur more than once +to his having only "_heard_" of their faith and love, and is strongly +supported by the expression in the second chapter where he speaks of the +conflict in spirit which he had for "you, and for them at Laodicea, and +for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh." Probably the teacher +who planted the gospel in Colossæ was that Epaphras, whose visit to Rome +occasioned the letter, and who is referred to in verse 7 of this chapter +in terms which seem to suggest that he had first made known to them the +fruit-producing "word of the truth of the gospel." + +(2) Note the occasion and subject of the letter. Paul is a prisoner, in +a certain sense, in Rome; but the word prisoner conveys a false +impression of the amount of restriction of personal liberty to which he +was subjected. We know from the last words of the Acts of the Apostles, +and from the Epistle to the Philippians, that his "imprisonment" did not +in the least interfere with his liberty of preaching, nor with his +intercourse with friends. Rather, in the view of the facilities it gave +that by him "the preaching might be fully known," it may be regarded, as +indeed the writer of the Acts seems to regard it, as the very climax and +topstone of Paul's work, wherewith his history may fitly end, leaving +the champion of the gospel at the very heart of the world, with +unhindered liberty to proclaim his message by the very throne of Cæsar. +He was sheltered rather than confined beneath the wing of the imperial +eagle. His imprisonment, as we call it, was, at all events at first, +detention in Rome under military supervision rather than incarceration. +So to his lodgings in Rome there comes a brother from this decaying +little town in the far-off valley of the Lycus, Epaphras by name. +Whether his errand was exclusively to consult Paul about the state of +the Colossian Church, or whether some other business also had brought +him to Rome, we do not know; at all events, he comes and brings with him +bad news, which burdens Paul's heart with solicitude for the little +community, which had no remembrances of his own authoritative teaching +to fall back upon. Many a night would he and Epaphras spend in deep +converse on the matter, with the stolid Roman legionary, to whom Paul +was chained, sitting wearily by, while they two eagerly talked. + +The tidings were that a strange disease, hatched in that hotbed of +religious fancies, the dreamy East, was threatening the faith of the +Colossian Christians. A peculiar form of heresy, singularly compounded +of Jewish ritualism and Oriental mysticism--two elements as hard to +blend in the foundation of a system as the heterogeneous iron and clay +on which the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream stood unstably--had +appeared among them, and though at present confined to a few, was being +vigorously preached. The characteristic Eastern dogma, that matter is +evil and the source of evil, which underlies so much Oriental religion, +and crept in so early to corrupt Christianity, and crops up to-day in so +many strange places and unexpected ways, had begun to infect them. The +conclusion was quickly drawn: "Well, then, if matter be the source of +all evil, then, of course, God and matter must be antagonistic," and so +the creation and government of this material universe could not be +supposed to have come directly from Him. The endeavour to keep the pure +Divinity and the gross world as far apart as possible, while yet an +intellectual necessity forbad the entire breaking of the bond between +them, led to the busy working of the imagination, which spanned the void +gulf between God Who is good, and matter which is evil, with a bridge of +cobwebs--a chain of intermediate beings, emanations, abstractions, each +approaching more nearly to the material than his precursor, till at last +the intangible and infinite was confined and curdled into actual earthly +matter, and the pure was darkened thereby into evil. + +Such notions, fantastic and remote from daily life as they look, really +led by a very short cut to making wild work with the plainest moral +teachings both of the natural conscience and of Christianity. For if +matter be the source of all evil, then the fountain of each man's sin is +to be found, not in his own perverted will, but in his body, and the +cure of it is to be reached, not by faith which plants a new life in a +sinful spirit, but simply by ascetic mortification of the flesh. + +Strangely united with these mystical Eastern teachings, which might so +easily be perverted to the coarsest sensuality, and had their heads in +the clouds and their feet in the mud, were the narrowest doctrines of +Jewish ritualism, insisting on circumcision, laws regulating food, the +observance of feast days, and the whole cumbrous apparatus of a +ceremonial religion. It is a monstrous combination, a cross between a +Talmudical rabbi and a Buddhist priest, and yet it is not unnatural +that, after soaring in these lofty regions of speculation where the air +is too thin to support life, men should be glad to get hold of the +externals of an elaborate ritual. It is not the first nor the last time +that a misplaced philosophical religion has got close to a religion of +outward observances, to keep it from shivering itself to death. Extremes +meet. If you go far enough east, you are west. + +Such, generally speaking, was the error that was beginning to lift its +head in Colossæ. Religious fanaticism was at home in that country, from +which, both in heathen and in Christian times, wild rites and notions +emanated, and the Apostle might well dread the effect of this new +teaching, as of a spark on hay, on the excitable natures of the +Colossian converts. + +Now we may say, "What does all this matter to us? We are in no danger of +being haunted by the ghosts of these dead heresies." But the truth which +Paul opposed to them is all important for every age. It was simply the +Person of Christ as the only manifestation of the Divine, the link +between God and the universe, its Creator and Preserver, the Light and +Life of men, the Lord and Inspirer of the Church, Christ has come, +laying His hand upon both God and man, therefore there is no need nor +place for a misty crowd of angelic beings or shadowy abstractions to +bridge the gulf across which His incarnation flings its single solid +arch. Christ has been bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, therefore +that cannot be the source of evil in which the fulness of the Godhead +has dwelt as in a shrine. Christ has come, the fountain of life and +holiness, therefore there is no more place for ascetic mortifications on +the one hand, nor for Jewish scrupulosities on the other. These things +might detract from the completeness of faith in the complete redemption +which Christ has wrought, and must becloud the truth that simple faith +in it is all which a man needs. + +To urge these and the like truths this letter is written. Its central +principle is the sovereign and exclusive mediation of Jesus Christ, the +God-man, the victorious antagonist of these dead speculations, and the +destined conqueror of all the doubts and confusions of this day. If we +grasp with mind and heart that truth, we can possess our souls in +patience, and in its light see light where else is darkness and +uncertainty. + + * * * * * + +So much then for introduction, and now a few words of comment on the +superscription of the letter contained in these verses. + +I. Notice the blending of lowliness and authority in Paul's designation +of himself. "An Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God." + +He does not always bring his apostolic authority to mind at the +beginning of his letters. In his earliest epistles, those to the +Thessalonians, he has not yet adopted the practice. In the loving and +joyous letter to the Philippians, he has no need to urge his authority, +for no man among them ever gainsaid it. In that to Philemon, friendship +is uppermost, and though, as he says, he might be much bold to enjoin, +yet he prefers to beseech, and will not command as "Apostle," but pleads +as "the prisoner of Christ Jesus." In his other letters he put his +authority in the foreground as here, and it may be noticed that it and +its basis in the will of God are asserted with greatest emphasis in the +Epistle to the Galatians, where he has to deal with more defiant +opposition than elsewhere encountered him. + +Here he puts forth his claim to the apostolate, in the highest sense of +the word. He asserts his equality with the original Apostles, the chosen +witnesses for the reality of Christ's resurrection. He, too, had seen +the risen Lord, and heard the words of His mouth. He shared with them +the prerogative of certifying from personal experience that Jesus is +risen and lives to bless and rule. Paul's whole Christianity was built +on the belief that Jesus Christ had actually appeared to him. That +vision on the road to Damascus revolutionised his life. Because he had +seen his Lord and heard his duty from His lips, he had become what he +was. + +"Through the will of God" is at once an assertion of Divine authority, a +declaration of independence of all human teaching or appointment, and a +most lowly disclaimer of individual merit, or personal power. Few +religious teachers have had so strongly marked a character as Paul, or +have so constantly brought their own experience into prominence; but the +weight which he expected to be attached to his words was to be due +entirely to their being the words which God spoke through him. If this +opening clause were to be paraphrased it would be: I speak to you +because God has sent me. I am not an Apostle by my own will, nor by my +own merit. I am not worthy to be called an Apostle. I am a poor sinner +like yourselves, and it is a miracle of love and mercy that God should +put His words into such lips. But He does speak through me; my words are +neither mine nor learned from any other man, but His. Never mind the +cracked pipe through which the Divine breath makes music, but listen to +the music. + +So Paul thought of his message; so the uncompromising assertion of +authority was united with deep humility. Do we come to his words, +believing that we hear God speaking through Paul? Here is no formal +doctrine of inspiration, but here is the claim to be the organ of the +Divine will and mind, to which we ought to listen as indeed the voice of +God. + +The gracious humility of the man is further seen in his association with +himself, as joint senders of the letter, of his young brother Timothy, +who has no apostolic authority, but whose concurrence in its teaching +might give it some additional weight. For the first few verses he +remembers to speak in the plural, as in the name of both--"_we_ give +thanks," "Epaphras declared to _us_ your love," and so on; but in the +fiery sweep of his thoughts Timothy is soon left out of sight, and Paul +alone pours out the wealth of his Divine wisdom and the warmth of his +fervid heart. + +II. We may observe the noble ideal of the Christian character set forth +in the designations of the Colossian Church, as "saints and faithful +brethren in Christ." + +In his earlier letters Paul addresses himself to "the Church;" in his +later, beginning with the Epistle to the Romans, and including the three +great epistles from his captivity, namely, Ephesians, Philippians, and +Colossians, he drops the word Church, and uses expressions which regard +the individuals composing the community rather than the community which +they compose. The slight change thus indicated in the Apostle's point of +view is interesting, however it may be accounted for. There is no reason +to suppose it done of set purpose, and certainly it did not arise from +any lowered estimate of the sacredness of "the Church," which is nowhere +put on higher ground than in the letter to Ephesus, which belongs to the +later period; but it may be that advancing years and familiarity with +his work, with his position of authority, and with his auditors, all +tended to draw him closer to them, and insensibly led to the disuse of +the more formal and official address to "the Church" in favour of the +simpler and more affectionate superscription, to "the brethren." + +Be that as it may, the lessons to be drawn from the names here given to +the members of the Church are the more important matter for us. It would +be interesting and profitable to examine the meaning of all the New +Testament names for believers, and to learn the lessons which they +teach; but we must for the present confine ourselves to those which +occur here. + +"Saints"--a word that has been wofully misapplied both by the Church and +the world. The former has given it as a special honour to a few, and +"decorated" with it mainly the possessors of a false ideal of +sanctity--that of the ascetic and monastic sort. The latter uses it with +a sarcastic intonation, as if it implied much cry and little wool, loud +professions and small performance, not without a touch of hypocrisy and +crafty self-seeking. + +Saints are not people living in cloisters after a fantastic ideal, but +men and women immersed in the vulgar work of every-day life and worried +by the small prosaic anxieties which fret us all, who amidst the whirr +of the spindle in the mill, and the clink of the scales on the counter, +and the hubbub of the market-place and the jangle of the courts, are yet +living lives of conscious devotion to God. The root idea of the word, +which is an Old Testament word, is not moral purity, but separation to +God. The holy things of the old covenant were things set apart from +ordinary use for His service. So, on the high priest's mitre was written +Holiness to the Lord. So the Sabbath was kept "holy," because set apart +from the week in obedience to Divine command. + +_Sanctity_, and _saint_, are used now mainly with the idea of moral +purity, but that is a secondary meaning. The real primary signification +is separation to God. Consecration to Him is the root from which the +white flower of purity springs most surely. There is a deep lesson in +the word as to the true method of attaining cleanness of life and +spirit. We cannot make ourselves pure, but we can yield ourselves to God +and the purity will come. + +But we have not only here the fundamental idea of holiness, and the +connection of purity of character with self-consecration to God, but +also the solemn obligation on all so-called Christians thus to separate +and devote themselves to Him. We are Christians as far as we give +ourselves up to God, in the surrender of our wills and the practical +obedience of our lives--so far and not one inch further. We are not +merely bound to this consecration if we are Christians, but we are not +Christians unless we thus consecrate ourselves. Pleasing self, and +making my own will my law, and living for my own ends, is destructive of +all Christianity. Saints are not an eminent sort of Christians, but all +Christians are saints, and he who is not a saint is not a Christian. The +true consecration is the surrender of the will, which no man can do for +us, which needs no outward ceremonial, and the one motive which will +lead us selfish and stubborn men to bow our necks to that gentle yoke, +and to come out of the misery of pleasing self into the peace of serving +God, is drawn from the great love of Him Who devoted Himself to God and +man, and bought us for His own by giving Himself utterly to be ours. All +sanctity begins with consecration to God. All consecration rests upon +the faith of Christ's sacrifice. And if, drawn by the great love of +Christ to us unworthy, we give ourselves away to God in Him, then He +gives Himself in deep sacred communion to us. "I am thine" has ever for +its chord which completes the fulness of its music, "Thou art mine." And +so "saint" is a name of dignity and honour, as well as a stringent +requirement. There is implied in it, too, safety from all that would +threaten life or union with Him. He will not hold His possessions with a +slack hand that negligently lets them drop, or with a feeble hand that +cannot keep them from a foe. "Thou wilt not suffer him who is +consecrated to Thee to see corruption." If I belong to God, having given +myself to Him, then I am safe from the touch of evil and the taint of +decay. "The Lord's portion is His people," and He will not lose even so +worthless a part of that portion as I am. The great name "saints" +carries with it the prophecy of victory over all evil, and the +assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God, or pluck us +from His hand. + +But these Colossian Christians are "faithful" as well as saints. That +may either mean _trustworthy_ and _true_ to their stewardship, or +_trusting_. In the parallel verses in the Epistle to the Ephesians +(which presents so many resemblances to this epistle) the latter meaning +seems to be required, and here it is certainly the more natural, as +pointing to the very foundation of all Christian consecration and +brotherhood in the act of believing. We are united to Christ by our +faith. The Church is a family of faithful, that is to say of believing, +men. Faith underlies consecration and is the parent of holiness, for he +only will yield himself to God who trustfully grasps the mercies of God +and rests on Christ's great gift of Himself. Faith weaves the bond that +unites men in the brotherhood of the Church, for it brings all who share +it into a common relation to the Father. He who is faithful, that is, +believing, will be faithful in the sense of being worthy of confidence +and true to his duty, his profession, and his Lord. + +They were _brethren_ too. That strong new bond of union among men the +most unlike, was a strange phenomenon in Paul's time, when the Roman +world was falling to pieces, and rent by deep clefts of hatreds and +jealousies such as modern society scarcely knows; and men might well +wonder as they saw the slave and his master sitting at the same table, +the Greek and the barbarian learning the same wisdom in the same tongue, +the Jew and the Gentile bowing the knee in the same worship, and the +hearts of all fused into one great glow of helpful sympathy and +unselfish love. + +But "brethren" means more than this. It points not merely to Christian +love, but to the common possession of a new life. If we are brethren, it +is because we have one Father, because in us all there is one life. The +name is often regarded as sentimental and metaphorical. The obligation +of mutual love is supposed to be the main idea in it, and there is a +melancholy hollowness and unreality in the very sound of it as applied +to the usual average Christians of to-day. But the name leads straight +to the doctrine of regeneration, and proclaims that all Christians are +born again through their faith in Jesus Christ, and thereby partake of a +common new life, which makes all its possessors children of the Highest, +and therefore brethren one of another. If regarded as an expression of +the affection of Christians for one another, "brethren" is an +exaggeration, ludicrous or tragic, as we view it; but if we regard it as +the expression of the real bond which gathers all believers into one +family, it declares the deepest mystery and mightiest privilege of the +gospel that "to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become +the Sons of God." + +They are "in Christ." These two words may apply to all the designations +or to the last only. They are saints in Him, believers in Him, brethren +in Him. That mystical but most real union of Christians with their Lord +is never far away from the Apostle's thoughts, and in the twin Epistle +to the Ephesians is the very burden of the whole. A shallower +Christianity tries to weaken that great phrase to something more +intelligible to the unspiritual temper and the poverty-stricken +experience proper to it; but no justice can be done to Paul's teaching +unless it be taken in all its depth as expressive of that same mutual +indwelling and interlacing of spirit with spirit which is so prominent +in the writings of the Apostle John. _There_ is one point of contact +between the Pauline and the Johannean conceptions, on the differences +between which so much exaggeration has been expended: to both the inmost +essence of the Christian life is union to Christ, and abiding in Him. If +we are Christians, we are in Him, in yet profounder sense than creation +lives and moves and has its being in God. We are in Him as the earth +with all its living things is in the atmosphere, as the branch is in the +vine, as the members are in the body. We are in Him as inhabitants in a +house, as hearts that love in hearts that love, as parts in the whole. +If we are Christians, He is in us, as life in every vein, as the +fruit-producing sap and energy of the vine is in every branch, as the +air in every lung, as the sunlight in every planet. + +This is the deepest mystery of the Christian life. To be "in Him" is to +be complete. "In Him" we are "blessed with all spiritual blessings." "In +Him", we are "chosen," "In Him," God "freely bestows His grace upon us." +"In Him" we "have redemption through His blood." "In Him" "all things in +heaven and earth are gathered." "In Him we have obtained an +inheritance." In Him is the better life of all who live. In Him we have +peace though the world be seething with change and storm. In Him we +conquer though earth and our own evil be all in arms against us. If we +live in Him, we live in purity and joy. If we die in Him, we die in +tranquil trust. If our gravestones may truly carry the sweet old +inscription carved on so many a nameless slab in the catacombs, "In +Christo," they will also bear the other "In pace" (In peace). If we +sleep in Him, our glory is assured, for them also that sleep in Jesus, +will God bring with Him. + +III. A word or two only can be devoted to the last clause of salutation, +the apostolic wish, which sets forth the high ideal to be desired for +Churches and individuals: "Grace be unto and peace from God our Father." +The Authorized Version reads, "and the Lord Jesus Christ," but the +Revised Version follows the majority of recent text-critics and their +principal authorities in omitting these words, which are supposed to +have been imported into our passage from the parallel place in +Ephesians. The omission of these familiar words which occur so uniformly +in the similar introductory salutations of Paul's other epistles, is +especially singular here, where the main subject of the letter is the +office of Christ as channel of all blessings. Perhaps the previous word, +"brethren" was lingering in his mind, and so instinctively he stopped +with the kindred word "Father." + +"Grace and peace"--Paul's wishes for those whom he loves, and the +blessings which he expects every Christian to possess, blend the Western +and the Eastern forms of salutation, and surpass both. All that the +Greek meant by his "Grace," all that the Hebrew meant by his "Peace," +the ideally happy condition which differing nations have placed in +different blessings, and which all loving words have vainly wished for +dear ones, is secured and conveyed to every poor soul that trusts in +Christ. + +"Grace"--what is that? The word means first--love in exercise to those +who are below the lover, or who deserve something else; stooping love +that condescends, and patient love that forgives. Then it means the +gifts which such love bestows, and then it means the effects of these +gifts in the beauties of character and conduct developed in the +receivers. So there are here invoked, or we may call it, proffered and +promised, to every believing heart, the love and gentleness of that +Father whose love to us sinful atoms is a miracle of lowliness and +longsuffering; and, next, the outcome of that love which never visits +the soul emptyhanded, in all varied spiritual gifts, to strengthen +weakness, to enlighten ignorance, to fill the whole being; and as last +result of all, every beauty of mind, heart, and temper which can adorn +the character, and refine a man into the likeness of God. That great +gift will come in continuous bestowment if we are "saints in Christ." Of +His fulness we all receive and grace for grace, wave upon wave as the +ripples press shoreward and each in turn pours its tribute on the beach, +or as pulsation after pulsation makes one golden beam of unbroken light, +strong winged enough to come all the way from the sun, gentle enough to +fall on the sensitive eyeball without pain. That one beam will decompose +into all colours and brightnesses. That one "grace" will part into +sevenfold gifts and be the life in us of whatsoever things are lovely +and of good report. + +"Peace be unto you." That old greeting, the witness of a state of +society when every stranger seen across the desert was probably an +enemy, is also a witness to the deep unrest of the heart. It is well to +learn the lesson that peace comes after grace, that for tranquillity of +soul we must go to God, and that He gives it by giving us His love and +its gifts, of which, and of which only, peace is the result. If we have +that grace for ours, as we all may if we will, we shall be still, +because our desires are satisfied and all our needs met. To seek is +unnecessary when we are conscious of possessing. We may end our weary +quest, like the dove when it had found the green leaf, though little dry +land may be seen as yet, and fold our wings and rest by the cross. We +may be lapped in calm repose, even in the midst of toil and strife, like +John resting on the heart of his Lord. There must be first of all, peace +_with_ God, that there may be peace _from_ God. Then, when we have been +won from our alienation and enmity by the power of the cross, and have +learned to know that God is our Lover, Friend and Father, we shall +possess the peace of those whose hearts have found their home, the peace +of spirits no longer at war within--conscience and choice tearing them +asunder in their strife, the peace of obedience which banishes the +disturbance of self-will, the peace of security shaken by no fears, the +peace of a sure future across the brightness of which no shadows of +sorrow nor mists of uncertainty can fall, the peace of a heart in amity +with all mankind. So living in peace, we shall lay ourselves down and +die in peace, and enter into "that country, afar beyond the stars," +where "grows the flower of peace." + + "The Rose that cannot wither, + Thy fortress and thy ease." + +All this may be ours. Paul could only wish it for these Colossians. We +can only long for it for our dearest. No man can fulfil his wishes or +turn them into actual gifts. Many precious things we can give, but not +peace. But our brother, Jesus Christ, can do more than wish it. He can +bestow it, and when we need it most, He stands ever beside us, in our +weakness and unrest, with His strong arm stretched out to help, and on +His calm lips the old words--"My grace is sufficient for thee," "My +peace I give unto you." + +Let us keep ourselves in Him, believing in Him and yielding ourselves to +God for His dear sake, and we shall find His grace ever flowing into our +emptiness and His settled "peace keeping our hearts and minds in Christ +Jesus." + + + + +II. + +_THE PRELUDE._ + + "We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying + always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of + the love which ye have toward all the saints, because of the hope + which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in + the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you; even as + it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth + in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God in + truth; even as ye learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant, + who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, who also + declared to us your love in the Spirit."--COL. i. 3-8. (Rev. Ver.). + + +This long introductory section may at first sight give the impression of +confusion, from the variety of subjects introduced. But a little thought +about it shows it to be really a remarkable specimen of the Apostle's +delicate tact, born of his love and earnestness. Its purpose is to +prepare a favourable reception for his warnings and arguments against +errors which had crept in, and in his judgment were threatening to sweep +away the Colossian Christians from their allegiance to Christ, and their +faith in the gospel as it had been originally preached to them by +Epaphras. That design explains the selection of topics in these verses, +and their weaving together. + +Before he warns and rebukes, Paul begins by giving the Colossians credit +for all the good which he can find in them. As soon as he opens his +mouth, he asserts the claims and authority, the truth and power of the +gospel which he preaches, and from which all this good in them had come, +and which had proved that it came from God by its diffusiveness and +fruitfulness. He reminds them of their beginnings in the Christian life, +with which this new teaching was utterly inconsistent, and he flings his +shield over Epaphras, their first teacher, whose words were in danger of +being neglected now for newer voices with other messages. + +Thus skilfully and lovingly these verses touch a prelude which naturally +prepares for the theme of the epistle. Remonstrance and rebuke would +more often be effective if they oftener began with showing the rebuker's +love, and with frank acknowledgment of good in the rebuked. + +I. We have first a thankful recognition of Christian excellence as +introductory to warnings and remonstrances. + +Almost all Paul's letters begin with similar expressions of thankfulness +for the good that was in the Church he is addressing. Gentle rain +softens the ground and prepares it to receive the heavier downfall which +would else mostly run off the hard surface. The exceptions are, 2 +Corinthians; Ephesians, which was probably a circular letter; and +Galatians, which is too hot throughout for such praises. These +expressions are not compliments, or words of course. Still less are they +flattery used for personal ends. They are the uncalculated and +uncalculating expression of affection which delights to see white +patches in the blackest character, and of wisdom which knows that the +nauseous medicine of blame is most easily taken if administered wrapped +in a capsule of honest praise. + +All persons in authority over others, such as masters, parents, leaders +of any sort, may be the better for taking the lesson--"provoke not +your"--inferiors, dependents, scholars--"to wrath, lest they be +discouraged"--and deal out praise where you can, with a liberal hand. It +is nourishing food for many virtues, and a powerful antidote to many +vices. + +This praise is cast in the form of thanksgiving to God, as the true +fountain of all that is good in men. How all that might be harmful in +direct praise is strained out of it, when it becomes gratitude to God! +But we need not dwell on this, nor on the principle underlying these +thanks, namely that Christian men's excellences are God's gift, and that +therefore, admiration of the man should ever be subordinate to +thankfulness to God. The fountain, not the pitcher filled from it, +should have the credit of the crystal purity and sparkling coolness of +the water. Nor do we need to do more than point to the inference from +that phrase "having _heard_ of your faith," an inference confirmed by +other statements in the letter, namely, that the Apostle himself had +never _seen_ the Colossian Church. But we briefly emphasize the two +points which occasioned his thankfulness. They are the familiar two, +_faith_ and _love_. + +Faith is sometimes spoken of in the New Testament as "_towards_ Christ +Jesus," which describes that great act of the soul by its direction, as +if it were a going out or flight of the man's nature to the true goal of +all active being. It is sometimes spoken of as "_on_ Christ Jesus," +which describes it as reposing on Him as the end of all seeking, and +suggests such images as that of a hand that leans or of a burden borne, +or a weakness upheld by contact with Him. But more sweet and great is +the blessedness of faith considered as "_in_ Him," as its abiding place +and fortress-home, in union with, and indwelling in whom the seeking +spirit may fold its wings, and the weak heart may be strengthened to +lift its burden cheerily, heavy though it be, and the soul may be full +of tranquillity and soothed into a great calm. _Towards_, _on_, and +_in_--so manifold are the phases of the relation between Christ and our +faith. + +In all, faith is the same,--simple confidence, precisely like the trust +which we put in one another. But how unlike are the objects!--broken +reeds of human nature in the one case, and the firm pillar of that +Divine power and tenderness in the other, and how unlike, alas! is the +fervency and constancy of the trust we exercise in each other and in +Christ! "Faith" covers the whole ground of man's relation to God. All +religion, all devotion, everything which binds us to the unseen world is +included in or evolved from faith. And mark that this faith is, in +Paul's teaching, the foundation of love to men and of everything else +good and fair. We may agree or disagree with that thought, but we can +scarcely fail to see that it is the foundation of all his moral +teaching. From that fruitful source all good will come. From that deep +fountain sweet water will flow, and all drawn from other sources has a +tang of bitterness. Goodness of all kinds is most surely evolved from +faith--and that faith lacks its best warrant of reality which does not +lead to whatsoever things are lovely and of good report. Barnabas was a +"good man," because, as Luke goes on to tell us by way of analysis of +the sources of his goodness, he was "full of the Holy Ghost," the +author of all goodness, "and of faith" by which that Inspirer of all +beauty of purity dwells in men's hearts. Faith then is the germ of +goodness, not because of anything in itself, but because by it we come +under the influence of the Divine Spirit whose breath is life and +holiness. + +Therefore we say to every one who is seeking to train his character in +excellence, begin with trusting Christ, and out of that will come all +lustre and whiteness, all various beauties of mind and heart. It is hard +and hopeless work to cultivate our own thorns into grapes, but if we +will trust Christ, He will sow good seed in our field and "make it soft +with showers and bless the springing thereof." + +As faith is the foundation of all virtue, so it is the parent of love, +and as the former sums up every bond that knits men to God, so the +latter includes all relations of men to each other, and is the whole law +of human conduct packed into one word. But the warmest place in a +Christian's heart will belong to those who are in sympathy with his +deepest self, and a true faith in Christ, like a true loyalty to a +prince, will weave a special bond between all fellow-subjects. So the +sign, on the surface of earthly relations, of the deep-lying central +fire of faith to Christ, is the fruitful vintage of brotherly love, as +the vineyards bear the heaviest clusters on the slopes of Vesuvius. +Faith in Christ and love to Christians--that is the Apostle's notion of +a good man. That is the ideal of character which we have to set before +ourselves. Do we desire to be good? Let us trust Christ. Do we profess +to trust Christ? Let us show it by the true proof--our goodness and +especially our love. + +So we have here two members of the familiar triad, Faith and Love, and +their sister Hope is not far off. We read in the next clause, "because +of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens." The connection is +not altogether plain. Is the hope the reason for the Apostle's +thanksgiving, or the reason in some sense of the Colossians' love? As +far as the language goes, we may either read "We give thanks ... because +of the hope," or "the love which ye have ... because of the hope." But +the long distance which we have to go back for the connection, if we +adopt the former explanation, and other considerations which need not be +entered on here, seem to make the latter the preferable construction if +it yields a tolerable sense. Does it? Is it allowable to say that the +hope which is laid up in heaven is in any sense a reason or motive for +brotherly love? I think it is. + +Observe that "hope" here is best taken as meaning not the emotion, but +the object on which the emotion is fixed; not the faculty, but the thing +hoped for; or in other words, that it is objective not subjective; and +also that the ideas of futurity and security are conveyed by the thought +of this object of expectation being laid up. This future blessedness, +grasped by our expectant hearts as assured for us, does stimulate and +hearten to all well-doing. Certainly it does not supply the main reason; +we are not to be loving and good because we hope to win heaven thereby. +The deepest motive for all the graces of Christian character is the will +of God in Christ Jesus, apprehended by loving hearts. But it is quite +legitimate to draw subordinate motives for the strenuous pursuit of +holiness from the anticipation of future blessedness, and it is quite +legitimate to use that prospect to reinforce the higher motives. He who +seeks to be good only for the sake of the heaven which he thinks he will +get for his goodness--if there be any such a person existing anywhere +but in the imaginations of the caricaturists of Christian teaching--is +not good and will not get his heaven; but he who feeds his devotion to +Christ and his earnest cultivation of holiness with the animating hope +of an unfading crown will find in it a mighty power to intensify and +ennoble all life, to bear him up as on angel's hands that lift over all +stones of stumbling, to diminish sorrow and dull pain, to kindle love to +men into a brighter flame, and to purge holiness to a more radiant +whiteness. The hope laid up in heaven is not the deepest reason or +motive for faith and love--but both are made more vivid when it is +strong. It is not the light at which their lamps are lit, but it is the +odorous oil which feeds their flame. + +II. The course of thought passes on to a solemn reminder of the truth +and worth of that Gospel which was threatened by the budding heresies of +the Colossian Church. + +That is contained in the clauses from the middle of the fifth verse to +the end of the sixth, and is introduced with significant abruptness, +immediately after the commendation of the Colossians' faith. The +Apostle's mind and heart are so full of the dangers which he saw them to +be in, although they did not know it, that he cannot refrain from +setting forth an impressive array of considerations, each of which +should make them hold to the gospel with an iron grasp. They are put +with the utmost compression. Each word almost might be beaten out into a +long discourse, so that we can only indicate the lines of thought. This +somewhat tangled skein may, on the whole, be taken as the answer to the +question, Why should we cleave to Paul's gospel, and dread and war +against tendencies of opinion that would rob us of it? They are +preliminary considerations adapted to prepare the way for a patient and +thoughtful reception of the arguments which are to follow, by showing +how much is at stake, and how the readers would be poor indeed if they +were robbed of that great Word. + +He begins by reminding them that to that gospel they owed all _their +knowledge and hope of heaven_--the hope "whereof ye heard before in the +word of the truth of the gospel." That great word alone gives light on +the darkness. The sole certainty of a life beyond the grave is built on +the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the sole hope of a blessed life +beyond the grave for the poor soul that has learned its sinfulness is +built on the Death of Christ. Without this light, that land is a land of +darkness, lighted only by glimmering sparks of conjectures and +peradventures. So it is to-day, as it was then; the centuries have only +made more clear the entire dependence of the living conviction of +immortality on the acceptance of Paul's gospel, "how that Christ died +for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was raised again +the third day." All around us, we see those who reject the fact of +Christ's resurrection finding themselves forced to surrender their faith +in any life beyond. They cannot sustain themselves on that height of +conviction, unless they lean on Christ. The black mountain wall that +rings us poor mortals round about is cloven in one place only. Through +one narrow cleft there comes a gleam of light. There and there only is +the frowning barrier passable. Through that grim cañon, narrow and +black, where there is only room for the dark river to run, bright-eyed +Hope may travel, letting our her golden thread as she goes, to guide us. +Christ has cloven the rock, "the Breaker has gone up before" us, and by +His resurrection alone we have the knowledge which is certitude, and the +hope which is confidence, of an inheritance in light. If Paul's gospel +goes, that goes like morning mist. Before you throw away the "word of +the truth of the gospel," at all events understand that you fling away +all assurance of a future life along with it. + +Then, there is another motive touched in these words just quoted. The +gospel is a word of which the whole substance and content is truth. You +may say that is the whole question, whether the gospel is such a word? +Of course it is; but observe how here, at the very outset, the gospel is +represented as having a distinct dogmatic element in it. It is of value, +not because it feeds sentiment or regulates conduct only, but first and +foremost because it gives us true though incomplete knowledge concerning +all the deepest things of God and man about which, but for its light, we +know nothing. That truthful word is opposed to the argumentations and +speculations and errors of the heretics. The gospel is not speculation +but fact. It is truth, because it is the record of a Person who is the +Truth. The history of His life and death is the one source of all +certainty and knowledge with regard to man's relations to God, and God's +loving purposes to man. To leave it and Him of whom it speaks in order +to listen to men who spin theories out of their own brains is to prefer +will-o'-the-wisps to the sun. If we listen to Christ, we have the truth; +if we turn from Him, our ears are stunned by a Babel. "To whom shall we +go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." + +Further, this gospel had been already received by them. Ye _heard +before_, says he, and again he speaks of the gospel as "come unto" them, +and reminds them of the past days in which they "heard and knew the +grace of God." That appeal is, of course, no argument except to a man +who admits the truth of what he had already received, nor is it meant +for argument with others, but it is equivalent to the exhortation, "You +have heard that word and accepted it, see that your future be consistent +with your past." He would have the life a harmonious whole, all in +accordance with the first glad grasp which they had laid on the truth. +Sweet and calm and noble is the life which preserves to its close the +convictions of its beginning, only deepened and expanded. Blessed are +they whose creed at last can be spoken in the lessons they learned in +childhood, to which experience has but given new meaning! Blessed they +who have been able to store the treasure of a life's thought and +learning in the vessels of the early words, which have grown like the +magic coffers in a fairy tale, to hold all the increased wealth that can +be lodged in them! Beautiful is it when the little children and the +young men and the fathers possess the one faith, and when he who began +as a child, "knowing the Father," ends as an old man with the same +knowledge of the same God, only apprehended now in a form which has +gained majesty from the fleeting years, as "Him that is from the +beginning." There is no need to leave the Word long since heard in order +to get novelty. It will open out into all new depths, and blaze in new +radiance as men grow. It will give new answers as the years ask new +questions. Each epoch of individual experience, and each phase of +society, and all changing forms of opinion will find what meets them in +the gospel as it is in Jesus. It is good for Christian men often to +recall the beginnings of their faith, to live over again their early +emotions, and when they may be getting stunned with the din of +controversy, and confused as to the relative importance of different +parts of Christian truth, to remember _what_ it was that first filled +their heart with joy like that of the finder of a hidden treasure, and +with what a leap of gladness they first laid hold of Christ. + +That spiritual discipline is no less needful than is intellectual, in +facing the conflicts of this day. + +Again, this gospel was filling the world: "it is in all the world +bearing fruit, and increasing." There are two marks of life--it is +fruitful and it spreads. Of course such words are not to be construed as +if they occurred in a statistical table. "All the world" must be taken +with an allowance for rhetorical statement; but making such allowance, +the rapid spread of Christianity in Paul's time, and its power to +influence character and conduct among all sorts and conditions of men, +were facts that needed to be accounted for, if the gospel was not true. + +That is surely a noteworthy fact, and one which may well raise a +presumption in favour of the truth of the message, and make any proposal +to cast it aside for another gospel, a serious matter. Paul is not +suggesting the vulgar argument that a thing must be true because so +many people have so quickly believed it. But what he is pointing to is a +much deeper thought than that. All schisms and heresies are essentially +local, and partial. They suit coteries and classes. They are the product +of special circumstances acting on special casts of mind, and appeal to +such. Like parasitical plants they each require a certain species to +grow on, and cannot spread where these are not found. They are not for +all time, but for an age. They are not for all men, but for a select +few. They reflect the opinions or wants of a layer of society or of a +generation, and fade away. But the gospel goes through the world and +draws men to itself out of every land and age. Dainties and confections +are for the few, and many of them are like pickled olives to +unsophisticated palates, and the delicacies of one country are the +abominations of another; but everybody likes bread and lives on it, +after all. + +The gospel which tells of Christ belongs to all and can touch all, +because it brushes aside superficial differences of culture and +position, and goes straight to the depths of the one human heart, which +is alike in us all, addressing the universal sense of sin, and revealing +the Saviour of us all, and in Him the universal Father. Do not fling +away a gospel that belongs to all, and can bring forth fruit in all +kinds of people, for the sake of accepting what can never live in the +popular heart, nor influence more than a handful of very select and +"superior persons." Let who will have the dainties, do you stick to the +wholesome wheaten bread. + +Another plea for adherence to the gospel is based upon its continuous +and universal fruitfulness. It brings about results in conduct and +character which strongly attest its claim to be from God. That is a +rough and ready test, no doubt, but a sensible and satisfactory one. A +system which says that it will make men good and pure is reasonably +judged of by its fruits, and Christianity can stand the test. It did +change the face of the old world. It has been the principal agent in the +slow growth of "nobler manners, purer laws" which give the +characteristic stamp to modern as contrasted with pre-Christian nations. +The threefold abominations of the old world--slavery, war, and the +degradation of woman--have all been modified, one of them abolished, and +the others growingly felt to be utterly un-Christian. The main agent in +the change has been the gospel. It has wrought wonders, too, on single +souls; and though all Christians must be too conscious of their own +imperfections to venture on putting themselves forward as specimens of +its power, still the gospel of Jesus Christ has lifted men from the +dungheaps of sin and self to "set them with princes," to make them kings +and priests; has tamed passions, ennobled pursuits, revolutionised the +whole course of many a life, and mightily works to-day in the same +fashion, in the measure in which we submit to its influence. Our +imperfections are our own; our good is its. A medicine is not shown to +be powerless, though it does not do as much as is claimed for it, if the +sick man has taken it irregularly and sparingly. The failure of +Christianity to bring forth full fruit arises solely from the failure of +professing Christians to allow its quickening powers to fill their +hearts. After all deductions we may still say with Paul, "it bringeth +forth fruit in all the world." This rod has budded, at all events; have +any of its antagonists' rods done the same? Do not cast it away, says +Paul, till you are sure you have found a better. + +This tree not only fruits, but grows. It is not exhausted by +fruit-bearing, but it makes wood as well. It is "increasing" as well as +"bearing fruit," and that growth in the circuit of its branches that +spread through the world, is another of its claims on the faithful +adhesion of the Colossians. + +Again, they have heard a gospel which reveals the "true grace of God," +and that is another consideration urging to steadfastness. + +In opposition to it there were put then, as there are put to-day, man's +thoughts, and man's requirements, a human wisdom and a burdensome code. +Speculations and arguments on the one hand, and laws and rituals on the +other, look thin beside the large free gift of a loving God and the +message which tells of it. They are but poor bony things to try to live +on. The soul wants something more nourishing than such bread made out of +sawdust. We want a loving God to live upon, whom we can love because He +loves us. Will anything but the gospel give us that? Will anything be +our stay, in all weakness, weariness, sorrow and sin, in the fight of +life and the agony of death, except the confidence that in Christ we +"know the grace of God in truth"? + +So, if we gather together all these characteristics of the gospel, they +bring out the gravity of the issue when we are asked to tamper with it, +or to abandon the old lamp for the brand new ones which many eager +voices are proclaiming as the light of the future. May any of us who are +on the verge of the precipice lay to heart these serious thoughts! To +that gospel we owe our peace; by it alone can the fruit of lofty devout +lives be formed and ripened; it has filled the world with its sound, and +is revolutionising humanity; it and it only brings to men the good news +and the actual gift of the love and mercy of God. It is not a small +matter to fling away all this. + +We do not prejudge the question of the truth of Christianity; but, at +all events, let there be no mistake as to the fact that to give it up is +to give up the mightiest power that has ever wrought for the world's +good, and that if its light be quenched there will be darkness that may +be felt, not dispelled but made more sad and dreary by the ineffectual +flickers of some poor rushlights that men have lit, which waver and +shine dimly over a little space for a little while, and then die out. + +III. We have the Apostolic endorsement of Epaphras, the early teacher of +the Colossian Christians. + +Paul points his Colossian brethren, finally, to the lessons which they +had received from the teacher who had first led them to Christ. No doubt +his authority was imperiled by the new direction of thought in the +Church, and Paul was desirous of adding the weight of his attestation to +the complete correspondence between his own teaching and that of +Epaphras. + +We know nothing about this Epaphras except from this letter and that to +Philemon. He is "one of you," a member of the Colossian Church (iv. 12), +whether a Colossian born or not. He had come to the prisoner in Rome, +and had brought the tidings of their condition which filled the +Apostle's heart with strangely mingled feelings--of joy for their love +and Christian walk (verses 4, 8), and of anxiety lest they should be +swept from their steadfastness by the errors that he heard were +assailing them. Epaphras shared this anxiety, and during his stay in +Rome was much in thought, and care, and prayer for them (iv. 12). He +does not seem to have been the bearer of this letter to Colossæ. He was +in some sense Paul's fellow-servant, and in Philemon he is called by the +yet more intimate, though somewhat obscure, name of his fellow-prisoner. +It is noticeable that he alone of all Paul's companions receives the +name of "fellow-servant," which may perhaps point to some very special +piece of service of his, or may possibly be only an instance of Paul's +courteous humility, which ever delighted to lift others to his own +level--as if he had said, Do not make differences between your own +Epaphras and me, we are both slaves of one Master. + +The further testimony which Paul bears to him is so emphatic and pointed +as to suggest that it was meant to uphold an authority that had been +attacked, and to eulogize a character that had been maligned. "He is a +faithful minister of Christ on our behalf." In these words the Apostle +endorses his teaching, as a true representation of his own. Probably +Epaphras founded the Colossian Church and did so in pursuance of a +commission given him by Paul. He "also declared to us your love in the +Spirit." As he had truly represented Paul and his message to them, so he +lovingly represented them and their kindly affection to him. Probably +the same people who questioned Epaphras' version of Paul's teaching +would suspect the favourableness of his report of the Colossian Church, +and hence the double witness borne from the Apostle's generous heart to +both parts of his brother's work. His unstinted praise is ever ready. +His shield is swiftly flung over any of his helpers who are maligned or +assailed. Never was a leader truer to his subordinates, more tender of +their reputation, more eager for their increased influence, and freer +from every trace of jealousy, than was that lofty and lowly soul. + +It is a beautiful though a faint image which shines out on us from these +fragmentary notices of this Colossian Epaphras--a true Christian bishop, +who had come all the long way from his quiet valley in the depths of +Asia Minor, to get guidance about his flock from the great Apostle, and +who bore them on his heart day and night, and prayed much for them, +while so far away from them. How strange the fortune which has made his +name and his solicitudes and prayers immortal! How little he dreamed +that such embalming was to be given to his little services, and that +they were to be crowned with such exuberant praise! + +The smallest work done for Jesus Christ lasts for ever, whether it abide +in men's memories or no. Let us ever live as those who, like painters in +fresco, have with swift hand to draw lines and lay on colours which will +never fade, and let us, by humble faith and holy life, earn such a +character from Paul's master. He is glad to praise, and praise from His +lips is praise indeed. If He approves of us as faithful servants on His +behalf, it matters not what others may say. The Master's "Well done" +will outweigh labours and toils, and the depreciating tongues of +fellow-servants, or of the Master's enemies. + + + + +III. + +_THE PRAYER._ + + "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to + pray and to make request for you, that ye may be filled with the + knowledge of His will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to + walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every + good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with + all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience + and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks unto the Father."--COL. i. + 9-12 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We have here to deal with one of Paul's prayers for his brethren. In +some respects these are the very topmost pinnacles of his letters. +Nowhere else does his spirit move so freely, in no other parts are the +fervour of his piety and the beautiful simplicity and depth of his love +more touchingly shown. The freedom and heartiness of our prayers for +others are a very sharp test of both our piety to God and our love to +men. Plenty of people can talk and vow who would find it hard to pray. +Paul's intercessory prayers are the high-water mark of the epistles in +which they occur. He must have been a good man and a true friend of whom +so much can be said. + +This prayer sets forth the ideal of Christian character. What Paul +desired for his friends in Colossæ is what all true Christian hearts +should chiefly desire for those whom they love, and should strive after +and ask for themselves. If we look carefully at these words we shall see +a clear division into parts which stand related to each other as root, +stem, and fourfold branches, or as fountain, undivided stream, and "four +heads" into which this "river" of Christian life "is parted." To be +filled with the knowledge of God's will is the root or fountain-source +of all. From it comes a walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing--the +practical life being the outcome and expression of the inward possession +of the will of God. Then we have four clauses, evidently co-ordinate, +each beginning with a participle, and together presenting an analysis of +this worthy walk. It will be fruitful in all outward work. It will be +growing in all inward knowledge of God. Because life is not all doing +and knowing, but is suffering likewise, the worthy walk must be patient +and long-suffering, because strengthened by God Himself. And to crown +all, above work and knowledge and suffering it must be thankfulness to +the Father. The magnificent massing together of the grounds of gratitude +which follows, we must leave for future consideration, and pause, +however abruptly, yet not illogically, at the close of the enumeration +of these four branches of the tree, the four sides of the firm tower of +the true Christian life. + +I. Consider the Fountain or Root of all Christian character--"that ye +may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and +understanding." + +One or two remarks in the nature of verbal exposition may be desirable. +Generally speaking, the thing desired is the perfecting of the +Colossians in religious knowledge, and the perfection is forcibly +expressed in three different aspects. The idea of completeness up to the +height of their capacity is given in the prayer that they may be +"filled," like some jar charged with sparkling water to the brim. The +advanced degree of the knowledge desired for them is given in the word +here employed, which is a favourite in the Epistles of the Captivity, +and means additional or mature knowledge, that deeper apprehension of +God's truth which perhaps had become more obvious to Paul in the quiet +growth of his spirit during his life in Rome. And the rich variety of +forms which that advanced knowledge would assume is set forth by the +final words of the clause, which may either be connected with its first +words, so meaning "filled ... so that ye may abound in ... wisdom and +understanding;" or with "the knowledge of His will," so meaning a +"knowledge which is manifested in." That knowledge will blossom out into +_every kind_ of "wisdom" and "understanding," two words which it is hard +to distinguish, but of which the former is perhaps the more general and +the latter the more special, the former the more theoretical and the +latter the more practical: and both are the work of the Divine Spirit +whose sevenfold perfection of gifts illuminates with perfect light each +waiting heart. So perfect, whether in regard to its measure, its +maturity, or its manifoldness, is the knowledge of the will of God, +which the Apostle regards as the deepest good which his love can ask for +these Colossians. + +Passing by many thoughts suggested by the words, we may touch one or two +large principles which they involve. The first is, that the foundation +of all Christian character and conduct is laid in the knowledge of the +will of God. Every revelation of God is a law. What it concerns us to +know is not abstract truth, or a revelation for speculative thought, +but God's _will_. He does not show Himself to us in order merely that we +may know, but in order that, knowing, we may do, and, what is more than +either knowing or doing, in order that we may be. No revelation from God +has accomplished its purpose when a man has simply understood it, but +every fragmentary flash of light which comes from Him in nature and +providence, and still more the steady radiance that pours from Jesus, is +meant indeed to teach us how we should think of God, but to do that +mainly as a means to the end that we may live in conformity with His +will. The light is knowledge, but it is a light to guide our feet, +knowledge which is meant to shape practice. + +If that had been remembered, two opposite errors would have been +avoided. The error that was threatening the Colossian Church, and has +haunted the Church in general ever since, was that of fancying +Christianity to be merely a system of truth to be believed, a rattling +skeleton of abstract dogmas, very many and very dry. An unpractical +heterodoxy was their danger. An unpractical orthodoxy is as real a +peril. You may swallow all the creeds bodily, you may even find in God's +truth the food of very sweet and real feeling: but neither knowing nor +feeling is enough. The one all-important question for us is--does our +Christianity _work_? It is knowledge of His _will_, which becomes an +ever active force in our lives! Any other kind of religious knowledge is +windy food; as Paul says, it "puffeth up;" the knowledge which feeds the +soul with wholesome nourishment is the knowledge of His _will_. + +The converse error to that of unpractical knowledge, that of an +unintelligent practice, is quite as bad. There is always a class of +people, and they are unusually numerous to-day, who profess to attach no +importance to Christian doctrines, but to put all the stress on +Christian morals. They swear by the "Sermon on the Mount," and are blind +to the deep doctrinal basis laid in that "sermon" itself, on which its +lofty moral teaching is built. What God hath joined together, let no man +put asunder. Why pit the parent against the child? why wrench the +blossom from its stem? Knowledge is sound when it moulds conduct. Action +is good when it is based on knowledge. The knowledge of God is wholesome +when it shapes the life. Morality has a basis which makes it vigorous +and permanent when it rests upon the knowledge of His will. + +Again: Progress in knowledge is the law of the Christian life. There +should be a continual advancement in the apprehension of God's will, +from that first glimpse which saves, to the mature knowledge which Paul +here desires for his friends. The progress does not consist in leaving +behind old truths, but in a profounder conception of what is contained +in these truths. How differently a Fijian just saved, and a Paul on +earth, or a Paul in heaven, look at that verse, "God so loved the world +that He gave His only begotten Son"! The truths which are dim to the +one, like stars seen through a mist, blaze to the other like the same +stars to an eye that has travelled millions of leagues nearer them, and +sees them to be suns. The law of the Christian life is continuous +increase in the knowledge of the depths that lie in the old truths, and +of their far-reaching applications. We are to grow in knowledge of the +Christ by coming ever nearer to Him, and learning more of the infinite +meaning of our earliest lesson that He is the Son of God who has died +for us. The constellations that burn in our nightly sky looked down on +Chaldean astronomers, but though these are the same, how much more is +known about them at Greenwich than was dreamed at Babylon! + +II. Consider the River or Stem of Christian conduct. + +The purpose and outcome of this full knowledge of the will of God in +Christ is to "walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing." By "walk" is +of course meant the whole active life; so that the principle is brought +out here very distinctly, that the last result of knowledge of the +Divine will is an outward life regulated by that will. And the sort of +life which such knowledge leads to, is designated in most general terms +as "worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing," in which we have set forth +two aspects of the true Christian life. + +"Worthily of the Lord!" The "Lord" here, as generally, is Christ, and +"worthily" seems to mean, in a manner corresponding to what Christ is to +us, and has done for us. We find other forms of the same thought in such +expressions as "worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called" (Eph. +iv. 1), "worthily of saints" (Rom. xvi. 2), "worthy of the gospel" +(Phil. i. 27), "worthily of God" (1 Thess. ii. 12), in all of which +there is the idea of a standard to which the practical life is to be +conformed. Thus the Apostle condenses into one word all the manifold +relations in which we stand to Christ, and all the multifarious +arguments for a holy life which they yield. + +These are mainly two. The Christian should "walk" in a manner +corresponding to what Christ has done for him. "Do ye thus requite the +Lord, O foolish people, and unwise?" was the mournful wondering question +of the dying Moses to his people, as he summed up the history of +unbroken tenderness and love on the one side, and of disloyalty almost +as uninterrupted on the other. How much more pathetically and +emphatically might the question be asked of us! We say that we are not +our own, but bought with a price. Then how do we repay that costly +purchase? Do we not requite His blood and tears, His unquenchable, +unalterable love, with a little tepid love which grudges sacrifices and +has scarcely power enough to influence conduct at all, with a little +trembling faith which but poorly corresponds to His firm promises, with +a little reluctant obedience? The richest treasure of heaven has been +freely lavished for us, and we return a sparing expenditure of our +hearts and ourselves, repaying fine gold with tarnished copper, and the +flood of love from the heart of Christ with a few niggard drops +grudgingly squeezed from ours. Nothing short of complete self-surrender, +perfect obedience, and unwavering unfaltering love can characterize the +walk that corresponds with our profound obligations to Him. Surely there +can be no stronger cord with which to bind us as sacrifices to the horns +of the altar than the cords of love. This is the unique glory and power +of Christian ethics, that it brings in this tender personal element to +transmute the coldness of duty into the warmth of gratitude, so throwing +rosy light over the snowy summits of abstract virtue. Repugnant duties +become tokens of love, pleasant as every sacrifice made at its bidding +ever is. The true Christian spirit says: Thou hast given Thyself wholly +for me: help me to yield myself to Thee. Thou hast loved me perfectly: +help me to love Thee with all my heart. + +The other side of this conception of a worthy walk is, that the +Christian should act in a manner corresponding to Christ's character and +conduct. We profess to be His by sacredest ties: then we should set our +watches by that dial, being conformed to His likeness, and in all our +daily life trying to do as He has done, or as we believe He would do if +He were in our place. Nothing less than the effort to tread in His +footsteps is a walk worthy of the Lord. All unlikeness to His pattern is +a dishonour to Him and to ourselves. It is neither worthy of the Lord, +nor of the vocation wherewith we are called, nor of the name of saints. +Only when these two things are brought about in my experience--when the +glow of His love melts my heart and makes it flow down in answering +affection, and when the beauty of His perfect life stands ever before +me, and though it be high above me, is not a despair, but a stimulus and +a hope--only then do I "walk worthy of the Lord." + +Another thought as to the nature of the life in which the knowledge of +the Divine will should issue, is expressed in the other clause--"unto +all pleasing," which sets forth the great aim as being to please Christ +in everything. That is a strange purpose to propose to men, as the +supreme end to be ever kept in view, to satisfy Jesus Christ by their +conduct. To make the good opinion of men our aim is to be slaves; but to +please this Man ennobles us, and exalts life. Who or what is He, whose +judgment of us is thus all-important, whose approbation is praise +indeed, and to win whose smile is a worthy object for which to use life, +or even to lose it? We should ask ourselves, Do we make it our ever +present object to satisfy Jesus Christ? We are not to mind about other +people's approbation. We can do without that. We are not to hunt after +the good word of our fellows. Every life into which that craving for +man's praise and good opinion enters is tarnished by it. It is a canker, +a creeping leprosy, which eats sincerity and nobleness and strength out +of a man. Let us not care to trim our sails to catch the shifting winds +of this or that man's favour and eulogium, but look higher and say, +"With me it is a very small matter to be judged of man's judgment." "I +appeal unto Cæsar." He, the true Commander and Emperor, holds our fate +in His hands; we have to please Him and Him only. There is no thought +which will so reduce the importance of the babble around us, and teach +us such brave and wholesome contempt for popular applause, and all the +strife of tongues, as the constant habit of trying to act as ever in our +great Taskmaster's eye. What does it matter who praise, if He frowns? or +who blame, if His face lights with a smile? No thought will so spur us +to diligence, and make all life solemn and grand as the thought that "we +labour, that whether present or absent, we may be well pleasing to Him." +Nothing will so string the muscles for the fight, and free us from being +entangled with the things of this life, as the ambition to "please Him +who has called us to be soldiers." + +Men have willingly flung away their lives for a couple of lines of +praise in a despatch, or for a smile from some great commander. Let us +try to live and die so as to get "honourable mention" from our captain. +Praise from His lips is praise indeed. We shall not know how much it is +worth, till the smile lights His face, and the love comes into His eyes, +as He looks at us, and says, "Well done! good and faithful servant." + +III. We have finally the fourfold streams or branches into which this +general conception of Christian character parts itself. + +There are four participial clauses here, which seem all to stand on one +level, and to present an analysis in more detail of the component parts +of this worthy walk. In general terms it is divided into fruitfulness in +work, increase in knowledge, strength for suffering, and, as the climax +of all, thankfulness. + +The first element is--"bearing fruit in every good work." These words +carry us back to what was said in ver. 6 about the fruitfulness of the +gospel. Here the man in whom that word is planted is regarded as the +producer of the fruit, by the same natural transition by which, in our +Lord's Parable of the Sower, the men in whose hearts the seed was sown +are spoken of as themselves on the one hand, bringing no fruit to +perfection, and on the other, bringing forth fruit with patience. The +worthy walk will be first manifested in the production of a rich variety +of forms of goodness. All profound knowledge of God, and all lofty +thoughts of imitating and pleasing Christ, are to be tested at last by +their power to make men good, and that not after any monotonous type, +nor on one side of their nature only. + +One plain principle implied here is that the only true fruit is +goodness. We may be busy, as many a man in our great commercial cities +is busy, from Monday morning till Saturday night for a long lifetime, +and may have had to build bigger barns for our "fruits and our goods," +and yet, in the high and solemn meaning of the word here, our life may +be utterly empty and fruitless. Much of our work and of its results is +no more fruit than the galls on the oak-leaves are. They are a swelling +from a puncture made by an insect, a sign of disease, not of life. The +only sort of work which can be called fruit, in the highest meaning of +the word, is that which corresponds to a man's whole nature and +relations; and the only work which does so correspond is a life of +loving service of God, which cultivates all things lovely and of good +report. Goodness, therefore, alone deserves to be called fruit--as for +all the rest of our busy lives, they and their toils are like the +rootless, lifeless chaff that is whirled out of the threshing-floor by +every gust. A life which has not in it holiness and loving obedience, +however richly productive it may be in lower respects, is in inmost +reality blighted and barren, and is "nigh unto burning." Goodness is +fruit; all else is nothing but leaves. + +Again: the Christian life is to be "fruitful in _every_ good work." This +tree is to be like that in the apocalyptic vision, which "bare twelve +manner of fruits," yielding every month a different sort. So we should +fill the whole circuit of the year with various holiness, and seek to +make widely different forms of goodness our own. We have all certain +kinds of excellence which are more natural and easier for us than +others are. We should seek to cultivate the kind which is hardest for +us. The thorn stock of our own character should bear not only grapes, +but figs too, and olives as well, being grafted upon the true +olive-tree, which is Christ. Let us aim at this all-round and multiform +virtue, and not be like a scene for a stage, all gay and bright on one +side, and dirty canvas and stretchers hung with cobwebs on the other. + +The second element in the analysis of the true Christian life +is--"increasing in the knowledge of God." The figure of the tree is +probably continued here. If it fruits, its girth will increase, its +branches will spread, its top will mount, and next year its shadow on +the grass will cover a larger circle. Some would take the "knowledge" +here as the instrument or means of growth, and would render "increasing +by the knowledge of God," supposing that the knowledge is represented as +the rain or the sunshine which minister to the growth of the plant. But +perhaps it is better to keep to the idea conveyed by the common +rendering, which regards the words "in knowledge" as the specification +of that region in which the growth enjoined is to be realized. So here +we have the converse of the relation between work and knowledge which we +met in the earlier part of the chapter. There, knowledge led to a worthy +walk; here, fruitfulness in good works leads to, or at all events is +accompanied with, an increased knowledge. And both are true. These two +work on each other a reciprocal increase. All true knowledge which is +not mere empty notions, naturally tends to influence action, and all +true action naturally tends to confirm the knowledge from which it +proceeds. Obedience gives insight: "If any man wills to do My will, he +shall know of the doctrine." If I am faithful up to the limits of my +present knowledge, and have brought it all to bear on character and +conduct, I shall find that in the effort to make my every thought a +deed, there have fallen from my eyes as it were scales, and I see some +things clearly which were faint and doubtful before. Moral truth becomes +dim to a bad man. Religious truth grows bright to a good one, and +whosoever strives to bring all his creed into practice, and all his +practice under the guidance of his creed, will find that the path of +obedience is the path of growing light. + +Then comes the third element in this resolution of the Christian +character into its component parts--"strengthened with all power, +according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering +with joyfulness." Knowing and doing are not the whole of life: there are +sorrow and suffering too. + +Here again we have the Apostle's favourite "_all_," which occurs so +frequently in this connection. As he desired for the Colossians, _all_ +wisdom, unto _all_ pleasing, and fruitfulness in _every_ good work, so +he prays for _all_ power to strengthen them. Every kind of strength +which God can give and man can receive, is to be sought after by us, +that we may be "girded with strength," cast like a brazen wall all round +our human weakness. And that Divine power is to flow into us, having +this for its measure and limit--"the might of His glory." His "glory" is +the lustrous light of His self-revelation; and the far-flashing energy +revealed in that self-manifestation is the immeasurable measure of the +strength that may be ours. True, a finite nature can never contain the +infinite, but man's finite nature is capable of indefinite expansion. +Its elastic walls stretch to contain the increasing gift. The more we +desire, the more we receive, and the more we receive, the more we are +able to receive. The amount which filled our hearts to-day should not +fill them to-morrow. Our capacity is at each moment the working limit of +the measure of the strength given us. But it is always shifting, and may +be continually increasing. The only real limit is "the might of His +glory," the limitless omnipotence of the self-revealing God. To that we +may indefinitely approach, and till we have exhausted God we have not +reached the furthest point to which we should aspire. + +And what exalted mission is destined for this wonderful communicated +strength? Nothing that the world thinks great: only helping some lone +widow to stay her heart in patience, and flinging a gleam of brightness, +like sunrise on a stormy sea, over some tempest-tossed life. The +strength is worthily employed and absorbed in producing "all patience +and longsuffering with joy." Again the favourite "all" expresses the +universality of the patience and longsuffering. Patience here is not +merely passive endurance. It includes the idea of perseverance in the +right course, as well as that of uncomplaining bearing of evil. It is +the "steering right onward," without bating one jot of heart or hope; +the temper of the traveller who struggles forward, though the wind in +his face dashes the sleet in his eyes, and he has to wade through deep +snow. While "patience" regards the evil mainly as sent by God, and as +making the race set before us difficult, "longsuffering" describes the +temper under suffering when considered as a wrong or injury done by man. +And whether we think of our afflictions in the one or the other light, +God's strength will steal into our hearts, if we will, not merely to +help us to bear them with perseverance and with meekness as unruffled as +Christ's, but to crown both graces--as the clouds are sometimes rimmed +with flashing gold--with a great light of joy. That is the highest +attainment of all. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." Flowers beneath +the snow, songs in the night, fire burning beneath the water, "peace +subsisting at the heart of endless agitation," cool airs in the very +crater of Vesuvius--all these paradoxes may be surpassed in our hearts +if they are strengthened with all might by an indwelling Christ. + +The crown of all, the last of the elements of the Christian character, +is thankfulness--"giving thanks unto the Father." This is the summit of +all; and is to be diffused through all. All our progressive fruitfulness +and insight, as well as our perseverance and unruffled meekness in +suffering, should have a breath of thankfulness breathed through them. +We shall see the grand enumeration of the reasons for thankfulness in +the next verses. Here we pause for the present, with this final +constituent of the life which Paul desired for the Colossian Christians. +Thankfulness should mingle with all our thoughts and feelings, like the +fragrance of some perfume penetrating through the common scentless air. +It should embrace all events. It should be an operating motive in all +actions. We should be clear-sighted and believing enough to be thankful +for pain and disappointment and loss. That gratitude will add the +crowning consecration to service and knowledge and endurance. It will +touch our spirits to the finest of all issues, for it will lead to glad +self-surrender, and make of our whole life a sacrifice of praise. "I +beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your +bodies a living sacrifice." Our lives will then exhale in fragrance and +shoot up in flashing tongues of ruddy light and beauty, when kindled +into a flame of gratitude by the glow of Christ's great love. Let us lay +our poor selves on that altar, as sacrifices of thanksgiving; for with +such sacrifices God is well-pleased. + + + + +IV. + +_THE FATHER'S GIFTS THROUGH THE SON._ + + "The Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of + the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, + and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom + we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins."--COL. i. 12-14 + (Rev. Ver.). + + +We have advanced thus far in this Epistle without having reached its +main subject. We now, however, are on its verge. The next verses to +those now to be considered lead us into the very heart of Paul's +teaching, by which he would oppose the errors rife in the Colossian +Church. The great passages describing the person and work of Jesus +Christ are at hand, and here we have the immediate transition to them. + +The skill with which the transition is made is remarkable. How gradually +and surely the sentences, like some hovering winged things, circle more +and more closely round the central light, till in the last words they +touch it, ... "the Son of His love!" It is like some long procession +heralding a king. They that go before, cry Hosanna, and point to him who +comes last and chief. The affectionate greetings which begin the letter, +pass into prayer; the prayer into thanksgiving. The thanksgiving, as in +these words, lingers over and recounts our blessings, as a rich man +counts his treasures, or a lover dwells on his joys. The enumeration of +the blessings leads, as by a golden thread, to the thought and name of +Christ, the fountain of them all, and then, with a burst and a rush, the +flood of the truths about Christ which he had to give them sweeps +through Paul's mind and heart, carrying everything before it. The name +of Christ always opens the floodgates in Paul's heart. + +We have here then the deepest grounds for Christian thanksgiving, which +are likewise the preparations for a true estimate of the worth of the +Christ who gives them. These grounds of thanksgiving are but various +aspects of the one great blessing of "Salvation." The diamond flashes +greens and purples, and yellows and reds, according to the angle at +which its facets catch the eye. + +It is also to be observed, that all these blessings are the present +possession of Christians. The language of the first three clauses in the +verses before us points distinctly to a definite past act by which the +Father, at some definite point of time, made us meet, delivered and +translated us, while the present tense in the last clause shows that +"our redemption" is not only begun by some definite act in the past, but +is continuously and progressively possessed in the present. + +We notice, too, the remarkable correspondence of language with that +which Paul heard when he lay prone on the ground, blinded by the +flashing light, and amazed by the pleading remonstrance from heaven +which rung in his ears. "I send thee to the Gentiles ... that they may +turn from _darkness_ to _light_, and from the power of Satan unto God, +that they may receive _remission of sins_, and an _inheritance_ among +them which are sanctified." All the principal phrases are there, and are +freely recombined by Paul, as if unconsciously his memory was haunted +still by the sound of the transforming words heard so long ago. + +I. The first ground of thankfulness which all Christians have is, that +they are fit for the inheritance. Of course the metaphor here is drawn +from the "inheritance" given to the people of Israel, namely, the land +of Canaan. Unfortunately, our use of "heir" and "inheritance" confines +the idea to possession by succession on death, and hence some perplexity +is popularly experienced as to the force of the word in Scripture. +There, it implies possession by lot, if anything more than the simple +notion of possession; and points to the fact that the people did not win +their land by their own swords, but because "God had a favour unto +them." So the Christian inheritance is not won by our own merit, but +given by God's goodness. The words may be literally rendered, "fitted us +for the portion of the lot," and taken to mean the share or portion +which consists in the lot; but perhaps it is clearer, and more accordant +with the analogy of the division of the land among the tribes, to take +them as meaning "for our (individual) share in the broad land which, as +a whole, is the allotted possession of the saints." This possession +belongs to them, and is situated in the world of "light." Such is the +general outline of the thoughts here. The first question that arises is, +whether this inheritance is present or future. The best answer is that +it is both; because, whatever additions of power and splendour as yet +unspeakable may wait to be revealed in the future, the essence of all +which heaven can bring is ours to-day, if we live in the faith and love +of Christ. The difference between a life of communion with God here and +yonder is one of degree and not of kind. True, there are differences of +which we cannot speak, in enlarged capacities, and a "spiritual body," +and sins cast out, and nearer approach to "the fountain itself of +heavenly radiance;" but he who can say, while he walks amongst the +shadows of earth, "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance," will +neither leave his treasures behind him when he dies, nor enter on the +possession of a wholly new inheritance, when he passes into the heavens. +But while this is true, it is also true that that future possession of +God will be so deepened and enlarged that its beginnings here are but +the "earnest," of the same nature indeed as the estate, but limited in +comparison as is the tuft of grass which used to be given to a new +possessor, when set against the broad lands from which it was plucked. +Here certainly the predominant idea is that of a present fitness for a +mainly future possession. + +We notice again--where the inheritance is situated--"in the light." +There are several possible ways of connecting that clause with the +preceding. But without discussing these, it may be enough to point out +that the most satisfactory seems to be to regard it as specifying the +region in which the inheritance lies. It lies in a realm where purity +and knowledge and gladness dwell undimmed and unbounded by an envious +ring of darkness. For these three are the triple rays into which, +according to the Biblical use of the figure, that white beam may be +resolved. + +From this there follows that it is capable of being possessed only by +_saints_. There is no merit or desert which makes men worthy of the +inheritance, but there is a congruity, or correspondence between +character and the inheritance. If we rightly understand what the +essential elements of "heaven" are, we shall have no difficulty in +seeing that the possession of it is utterly incompatible with anything +but holiness. The vulgar ideas of what heaven is, hinder people from +seeing how to get there. They dwell upon the mere outside of the thing, +they take symbols for realities and accidents for essentials, and so it +appears an arbitrary arrangement that a man must have faith in Christ to +enter heaven. If it be a kingdom of light, then only souls that love the +light can go thither, and until owls and bats rejoice in the sunshine, +there will be no way of being fit for the inheritance which is light, +but by ourselves being "light in the Lord." Light itself is a torture to +diseased eyes. Turn up any stone by the roadside and we see how +unwelcome light is to crawling creatures that have lived in the darkness +till they have come to love it. + +Heaven is God and God is heaven. How can a soul possess God, and find +its heaven in possessing Him? Certainly only by likeness to Him, and +loving Him. The old question, "Who shall stand in the Holy Place?" is +not answered in the gospel by reducing the conditions, or negativing the +old reply. The common sense of every conscience answers, and +Christianity answers, as the Psalmist does, "He that hath clean hands +and a pure heart." + +One more step has to be taken to reach the full meaning of these words, +namely, the assertion that men who are not yet perfectly pure are +already fit to be partakers of the inheritance. The tense of the verb in +the original points back to a definite act by which the Colossians were +made meet, namely, their conversion; and the plain emphatic teaching of +the New Testament is that incipient and feeble faith in Christ works a +change so great, that through it we are fitted for the inheritance by +the impartation of a new nature, which, though it be but as a grain of +mustard seed, shapes from henceforth the very inmost centre of our +personal being. In due time that spark will convert into its own fiery +brightness the whole mass, however green and smokily it begins to burn. +Not the absence of sin, but the presence of faith working by love, and +longing for the light, makes fitness. No doubt flesh and blood cannot +inherit the Kingdom of God, and we must put off the vesture of the body +which has wrapped us during the wild weather here, before we can be +fully fit to enter the banqueting hall; nor do we know how much evil +which has not its seat in the soul may drop away therewith--but the +spirit is fit for heaven as soon as a man turns to God in Christ. +Suppose a company of rebels, and one of them, melted by some reason or +other, is brought back to loyalty. He is fit by that inward change, +although he has not done a single act of loyalty, for the society of +loyal subjects, and unfit for that of traitors. Suppose a prodigal son +away in the far off land. Some remembrance comes over him of what home +used to be like, and of the bountiful house-keeping that is still there; +and though it may begin with nothing more exalted than an empty stomach, +if it ends in "I will arise and go to my Father," at that instant a gulf +opens between him and the riotous living of "the citizens of that +country," and he is no longer fitted for their company. He is meet for +the fellowship of his father's house, though he has a weary journey +before he gets there, and needs to have his rags changed, and his filth +washed off him, ere he can sit down at the feast. + +So whoever turns to the love of God in Christ, and yields in the inmost +part of his being to the power of His grace, is already "light in the +Lord." The true home and affinities of his real self are in the kingdom +of the light, and he is ready for his part in the inheritance, either +here or yonder. There is no breach of the great law, that character +makes fitness for heaven--might we not say that character makes +heaven?--for the very roots of character lie in disposition and desire, +rather than in action. Nor is there in this principle anything +inconsistent with the need for continual growth in congruity of nature +with that land of light. The light within, if it be truly there, will, +however slowly, spread, as surely as the grey of twilight brightens to +the blaze of noonday. The heart will be more and more filled with it, +and the darkness driven back more and more to brood in remote corners, +and at last will vanish utterly. True fitness will become more and more +fit. We shall grow more and more capable of God. The measure of our +capacity is the measure of our possession, and the measure in which we +have become light, is the measure of our capacity for the light. The +land was parted among the tribes of Israel according to their strength; +some had a wider, some a narrower strip of territory. So, as there are +differences in Christian character here, there will be differences in +Christian participation in the inheritance hereafter. "Star differeth +from star." Some will blaze in brighter radiance and glow with more +fervent heat because they move in orbits closer to the sun. + +But, thank God, we are "fit for the inheritance," if we have ever so +humbly and poorly trusted ourselves to Jesus Christ and received His +renewing life into our spirits. Character alone fits for heaven. But +character may be in germ or in fruit. "If any man be in Christ, he _is_ +a new creature." Do we trust ourselves to Him? Are we trying, with His +help, to live as children of the light? Then we need not droop or +despair by reason of evil that may still haunt our lives. Let us give it +no quarter, for it diminishes our fitness for the full possession of +God; but let it not cause our tongue to falter in "giving thanks to the +Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints +in light." + +II. The second ground of thankfulness is, the change of king and +country. God "delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated +us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." These two clauses embrace +the negative and positive sides of the same act which is referred to in +the former ground of thankfulness, only stated now in reference to our +allegiance and citizenship in the present rather than in the future. In +the "deliverance" there maybe a reference to God's bringing Israel out +of Egypt, suggested by the previous mention of the inheritance, while +the "translation" into the other kingdom may be an illustration drawn +from the well known practice of ancient warfare, the deportation of +large bodies of natives from conquered kingdoms to some other part of +the conqueror's realm. + +We notice then the two kingdoms and their kings. "The power of +darkness," is an expression found in Luke's Gospel (xxii. 18), and it +may be used here as a reminiscence of our Lord's solemn words. "Power" +here seems to imply the conception of harsh, arbitrary dominion, in +contrast with the gracious rule of the other kingdom. It is a realm of +cruel and grinding sway. Its prince is personified in an image that +Æschylus or Dante might have spoken. Darkness sits sovereign there, a +vast and gloomy form on an ebon throne, wielding a heavy sceptre over +wide regions wrapped in night. The plain meaning of that tremendous +metaphor is just this--that the men who are not Christians live in a +state of subjection to darkness of ignorance, darkness of misery, +darkness of sin. If I am not a Christian man, that black three-headed +hound of hell sits baying on my doorstep. + +What a wonderful contrast the other kingdom and its King present! "The +kingdom of"--not "the light," as we are prepared to hear, in order to +complete the antithesis, but--"the Son of His love," who is the light. +The Son who is the object of His love, on whom it all and ever rests, as +on none besides. He has a kingdom in existence now, and not merely hoped +for, and to be set up at some future time. Wherever men lovingly obey +Christ, there is His kingdom. The subjects make the kingdom, and we may +to-day belong to it, and be free from all other dominion because we bow +to His. There then sit the two kings, like the two in the old story, +"either of them on his throne, clothed in his robes, at the entering in +of the gate of the city." Darkness and Light, the ebon throne and the +white throne, surrounded each by their ministers; there Sorrow and +Gloom, here Gladness and Hope; there Ignorance with blind eyes and idle +aimless hands, here Knowledge with the sunlight on her face, and +Diligence for her handmaid; here Sin, the pillar of the gloomy realm, +there Righteousness, in robes so as no fuller on earth could white them. +Under which king, my brother? + +We notice the transference of subjects. The sculptures on Assyrian +monuments explain this metaphor for us. A great conqueror has come, and +speaks to us as Sennacherib did to the Jews (2 Kings xviii. 31, 32), +"Come out to me ... and I will take you away to a land of corn and wine, +that ye may live and not die." + +If we listen to His voice, He will lead away a long string of willing +captives and plant them, not as pining exiles, but as happy naturalized +citizens, in the kingdom which the Father has appointed for "the Son of +His love." + +That transference is effected on the instant of our recognising the love +of God in Jesus Christ, and yielding up the heart to Him. We too often +speak as if the "entrance ministered at last to" a believing soul "into +the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour," were its first entrance therein, +and forget that we enter it as soon as we yield to the drawings of +Christ's love and take service under the king. The change then is +greater than at death. When we die, we shall change provinces, and go +from an outlying colony to the mother city and seat of empire, but we +shall not change kingdoms. We shall be under the same government, only +then we shall be nearer the King and more loyal to Him. That change of +king is the real fitness for heaven. We know little of what profound +changes death may make, but clearly a physical change cannot effect a +spiritual revolution. They who are not Christ's subjects will not become +so by dying. If here we are trying to serve a King who has delivered us +from the tyranny of darkness, we may be very sure that He will not lose +His subjects in the darkness of the grave. Let us choose our king. If we +take Christ for our heart's Lord, every thought of Him here, every piece +of partial obedience and stained service, as well as every sorrow and +every joy, our fading possessions and our undying treasures, the feeble +new life that wars against our sins, and even the very sins themselves +as contradictory of our deepest self, unite to seal to us the assurance, +"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. They shall behold the land +that is very far off." + +III. The heart and centre of all occasions for thankfulness is the +Redemption which we receive in Christ. + +"In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins." The +Authorized Version reads "redemption _through His blood_," but these +words are not found in the best manuscripts, and are regarded by the +principal modern editors as having been inserted from the parallel place +in Ephesians (i. 7), where they are genuine. The very heart then of the +blessings which God has bestowed, is "redemption," which consists +primarily, though not wholly, in "forgiveness of sins," and is received +by us in "the Son of His love." + +"Redemption," in its simplest meaning, is the act of delivering a slave +from captivity by the payment of ransom. So that it contains in its +application to the effect of Christ's death, substantially the same +figure as in the previous clause which spoke of a deliverance from a +tyrant, only that what was there represented as an act of Power is here +set forth as the act of self-sacrificing Love which purchases our +freedom at a heavy cost. That ransom price is said by Christ Himself to +be "His life," and His Incarnation to have the paying of that price as +one of its two chief objects. So the words added here by quotation from +the companion Epistle are in full accordance with New Testament +teaching; but even omitting them, the meaning of the clause is +unmistakable. Christ's death breaks the chains which bind us, and sets +us free. By it He acquires us for Himself. That transcendent act of +sacrifice has such a relation to the Divine government on the one hand, +and to the "sin of the world," as a whole, on the other, that by it all +who trust in Him are delivered from the most real penal consequences of +sin and from the dominion of its darkness over their natures. We freely +admit that we cannot penetrate to the understanding of _how_ Christ's +death thus avails. But just because the _rationale_ of the doctrine is +avowedly beyond our limits, we are barred from asserting that it is +incompatible with God's character, or with common justice, or that it is +immoral, and the like. When we know God through and through, to all the +depths and heights and lengths and breadths of His nature, and when we +know man in like manner, and when, consequently, we know the relation +between God and man as perfectly, and not till then, we shall have a +right to reject the teaching of Scripture on this matter, on such +grounds. Till then, let our faith lay hold on the fact, though we do not +understand the "how" of the fact, and cling to that cross which is the +great power of God unto salvation, and the heart-changing exponent of +the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. + +The essential and first element in this redemption is "the forgiveness +of sins." Possibly some misconception of the nature of redemption may +have been associated with the other errors which threatened the +Colossian Church, and thus Paul may have been led to this emphatic +declaration of its contents. Forgiveness, and not some mystic +deliverance by initiation or otherwise from the captivity of flesh and +matter, is redemption. There is more than forgiveness in it, but +forgiveness lies on the threshold; and that not only the removal of +legal penalties inflicted by a specific act, but the forgiveness of a +father. A sovereign pardons when he remits the sentence which law has +pronounced. A father forgives when the free flow of his love is +unhindered by his child's fault, and he may forgive and punish at the +same moment. The truest "penalty" of sin is that death which consists in +separation from God; and the conceptions of judicial pardon and fatherly +forgiveness unite when we think of the "remission of sins" as being the +removal of that separation, and the deliverance of heart and conscience +from the burden of guilt and of a father's wrath. + +Such forgiveness leads to that full deliverance from the power of +darkness, which is the completion of redemption. There is deep meaning +in the fact that the word here used for "forgiveness," means literally, +"sending away." Pardon has a mighty power to banish sin, not only as +guilt, but as habit. The waters of the gulf stream bear the warmth of +the tropics to the icy north, and lave the foot of the glaciers on its +coast till they melt and mingle with the liberating waves. So the flow +of the forgiving love of God thaws the hearts frozen in the obstinacy of +sin, and blends our wills with itself in glad submission and grateful +service. + +But we must not overlook the significant words in which the condition of +possessing this redemption is stated: "in Whom." There must be a real +living union with Christ, by which we are truly "in Him" in order to our +possession of redemption. "Redemption through His blood" is not the +whole message of the Gospel; it has to be completed by "_In Whom_ we +have redemption through His blood." That real living union is effected +by our faith, and when we are thus "in Him," our wills, hearts, spirits +joined to Him, then, and only then are we borne away from "the kingdom +of the darkness" and partake of redemption. We cannot get His gifts +without Himself. + +We observe, in conclusion, how redemption appears here as a present and +growing possession. There is emphasis on "we _have_." The Colossian +Christians had by one definite act in the past been fitted for a share +in the inheritance, and by the same act had been transferred to the +kingdom of Christ. Already they possess the inheritance, and are in the +kingdom, although both are to be more gloriously manifested in the +future. Here, however, Paul contemplates rather the reception, moment by +moment, of redemption. We might almost read "we are having," for the +present tense seems used on purpose to convey the idea of a continual +communication from Him to Whom we are to be united by faith. Daily we +may draw what we daily need--daily forgiveness for daily sins, the +washing of the feet which even he who has been bathed requires after +each day's march through muddy roads, daily bread for daily hunger, and +daily strength for daily effort. So day unto day may, in our narrow +lives, as in the wide heavens with all their stars, utter speech, and +night unto night show knowledge of the redeeming love of our Father. +Like the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness, according +to Jewish legend, and poured out water for their thirst, His grace flows +ever by our sides and from its bright waters we may daily draw with joy. + +And so let us lay to heart humbly these two lessons; that all our +Christianity must begin with forgiveness, and that, however far advanced +we may be in the Divine life, we never get beyond the need for a +continual bestowal upon us of God's pardoning mercy. + +Many of us, like some of these Colossians, are ready to call ourselves +in some sense followers of Christ. The speculative side of Christian +truth may have attractions for some of us, its lofty morality for +others. Some of us may be mainly drawn to it by its comforts for the +weary; some may be looking to it chiefly in hope of a future heaven. But +whatever we are, and however we may be disposed to Christ and His +Gospel, here is a plain message for us; we must begin by going to Him +for pardon. It is not enough for any of us to find in Him "wisdom," or +even "righteousness," for we need "redemption" which is "forgiveness," +and unless He is to us forgiveness, He will not be either righteousness +or wisdom. + +We can climb a ladder that reaches to heaven, but its foot must be in +"the horrible pit and miry clay" of our sins. Little as we like to hear +it, the first need for us all is forgiveness. Everything begins with +that. "The inheritance of the saints," with all its wealth of glory, its +immortal life and unfading joys, its changeless security, and its +unending progress deeper and deeper into the light and likeness of God, +is the goal, but the _only_ entrance is through the strait gate of +penitence. Christ will forgive on our cry for pardon, and that is the +first link of a golden chain unwinding from His hand by which we may +ascend to the perfect possession of our inheritance in God. "Whom He +justified, them," and them only, He will glorify. + + + + +V. + +_THE GLORY OF THE SON IN HIS RELATION TO THE FATHER, THE UNIVERSE AND +THE CHURCH._ + + "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all + creation; for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and + upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones + or dominions or principalities or powers, all things have been + created through Him and unto Him; and He is before all things, and + in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the + church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in + all things He might have the pre-eminence."--COL. i. 15-18 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +As has already been remarked, the Colossian Church was troubled by +teachers who had grafted on Jewish belief many of the strange +speculations about matter and creation which have always had such a +fascination for the Eastern mind. To us, they are apt to seem empty +dreams, baseless and bewildering; but they had force enough to shake the +early Church to its foundation, and in some forms they still live. + +These teachers in Colossæ seem to have held that all matter was evil and +the seat of sin; that therefore the material creation could not have +come directly from a good God, but was in a certain sense opposed to +Him, or, at all events, was separated from Him by a great gulf. The void +space was bridged by a chain of beings, half abstractions and half +persons, gradually becoming more and more material. The lowest of them +had created the material universe and now governed it, and all were to +be propitiated by worship. + +Some such opinions must be presupposed in order to give point and force +to these great verses in which Paul opposes the solid truth to these +dreams, and instead of a crowd of Powers and angelic Beings, in whom the +effulgence of Deity was gradually darkened, and the spirit became more +and more thickened into matter, lifts high and clear against that +background of fable, the solitary figure of the one Christ. He fills all +the space between God and man. There is no need for a crowd of shadowy +beings to link heaven with earth. Jesus Christ lays His hand upon both. +He is the head and source of creation; He is the head and fountain of +life to His Church. Therefore He is first in all things, to be listened +to, loved and worshipped by men. As when the full moon rises, so when +Christ appears, all the lesser stars with which Alexandrian and Eastern +speculation had peopled the abysses of the sky are lost in the mellow +radiance, and instead of a crowd of flickering ineffectual lights there +is one perfect orb, "and heaven is overflowed." "We see no _creature_ +any more save Jesus only." + +We have outgrown the special forms of error which afflicted the Church +at Colossæ, but the truths which are here set over against them are +eternal, and are needed to-day in our conflicts of opinion as much as +then. There are here three grand conceptions of Christ's relations. We +have Christ and God, Christ and Creation, Christ and the Church, and, +built upon all these, the triumphant proclamation of His supremacy over +all creatures in all respects. + +I. We have the relation of Christ to God set forth in these grand +words, "the image of the invisible God." + +Apparently Paul is here using for his own purposes language which was +familiar on the lips of his antagonists. We know that Alexandrian +Judaism had much to say about the "Word," and spoke of it as the Image +of God: and probably some such teaching had found its way to Colossæ. An +"image" is a likeness or representation, as of a king's head on a coin, +or of a face reflected in a mirror. Here it is that which makes the +invisible visible. The God who dwells in the thick darkness, remote from +sense and above thought, has come forth and made Himself known to man, +even in a very real way has come within the reach of man's senses, in +the manhood of Jesus Christ. Where then is there a place for the shadowy +abstractions and emanations with which some would bind together God and +man? + +The first thought involved in this statement is, that the Divine Being +in Himself is inconceivable and unapproachable. "No man hath seen God at +any time, nor can see Him." Not only is He beyond the reach of sense, +but above the apprehension of the understanding. Direct and immediate +knowledge of Him is impossible. There may be, there is, written on every +human spirit a dim consciousness of His presence, but that is not +knowledge. Creatural limitations prevent it, and man's sin prevents it. +He is "the King invisible," because He is the "Father of Lights" +dwelling in "a glorious privacy of light," which is to us darkness +because there is in it "no darkness at all." + +Then, the next truth included here is, that Christ is the perfect +manifestation and image of God. In Him we have the invisible becoming +visible. Through Him we know all that we know of God, as distinguished +from what we guess or imagine or suspect of Him. On this high theme, it +is not wise to deal much in the scholastic language of systems and +creeds. Few words, and these mainly His own, are best, and he is least +likely to speak wrongly who confines himself most to Scripture in his +presentation of the truth. All the great streams of teaching in the New +Testament concur in the truth which Paul here proclaims. The conception +in John's Gospel of the Word which is the utterance and making audible +of the Divine mind, the conceptions in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the +effulgence or forthshining of God's glory, and the very image, or +stamped impress of His substance, are but other modes of representing +the same facts of full likeness and complete manifestation, which Paul +here asserts by calling the man Christ Jesus, the image of the Invisible +God. The same thoughts are involved in the name by which our Lord called +Himself, the Son of God; and they cannot be separated from many words of +His, such as "he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." In Him the +Divine nature comes near to us in a form that once could be grasped in +part by men's senses, for it was "that of the Word of life" which they +saw with their eyes and their hands handled, and which is to-day and for +ever a form that can be grasped by mind and heart and will. In Christ we +have the revelation of a God who can be known, and loved, and trusted, +with a knowledge which, though it be not complete, is real and valid, +with a love which is solid enough to be the foundation of a life, with +a trust which is conscious that it has touched rock and builds secure. +Nor is that fact that He is the revealer of God, one that began with His +incarnation, or ends with His earthly life. From the beginning and +before the creatural beginning, as we shall see in considering another +part of these great verses, the Word was the agent of all Divine +activity, the "arm of the Lord," and the source of all Divine +illumination, "the face of the Lord," or, as we have the thought put in +the remarkable words of the Book of Proverbs, where the celestial and +pure Wisdom is more than a personification though not yet distinctly +conceived as a person, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His +way. I was by Him as one brought up--or as a master worker--with Him, +and I was daily _His_ delight ... and _My_ delights were with the sons +of men." And after the veils of flesh and sense are done away, and we +see face to face, I believe that the face which we shall see, and +seeing, shall have beauty born of the vision passing into our faces, +will be the face of Jesus Christ, in which the light of the glory of God +shall shine for the redeemed and perfected sons of God, even as it did +for them when they groped amid the shows of earth. The law for time and +for eternity is, "I have declared Thy name unto My brethren and will +declare it." That great fathomless, shoreless ocean of the Divine nature +is like a "closed sea"--Christ is the broad river which brings its +waters to men, and "everything liveth whithersoever the river cometh." + +In these brief words on so mighty a matter, I must run the risk of +appearing to deal in unsupported statements. My business is not so much +to try to prove Paul's words as to explain them, and then to press them +home. Therefore I would urge that thought, that we depend on Christ for +all true knowledge of God. Guesses are not knowledge. Speculations are +not knowledge. Peradventures, whether of hope or fear, are not +knowledge. What we poor men need, is a certitude of a God who loves us +and cares for us, has an arm that can help us, and a heart that will. +The God of "pure theism" is little better than a phantom, so +unsubstantial that you can see the stars shining through the pale form, +and when a man tries to lean on him for support, it is like leaning on a +wreath of mist. There is nothing. There is no certitude firm enough for +us to find sustaining power against life's trials in resting upon it, +but in Christ. There is no warmth of love enough for us to thaw our +frozen limbs by, apart from Christ. In Him, and in Him alone, the far +off, awful, doubtful God becomes a God very near, of Whom we are sure, +and sure that He loves and is ready to help and cleanse and save. + +And that is what we each need. "My soul crieth out for God, for the +_living_ God." And never will that orphaned cry be answered, but in the +possession of Christ, in Whom we possess the Father also. No dead +abstractions--no reign of law--still less the dreary proclamation, +"Behold we know not anything," least of all, the pottage of material +good, will hush that bitter wail that goes up unconsciously from many an +Esau's heart--"My father, my father!" Men will find Him in Christ. They +will find Him nowhere else. It seems to me that the only refuge for this +generation from atheism--if it is still allowable to use that +unfashionable word--is the acceptance of Christ as the revealer of God. +On any other terms religion is rapidly becoming impossible for the +cultivated class. The great word which Paul opposed to the cobwebs of +Gnostic speculation is the word for our own time with all its +perplexities--Christ is the Image of the Invisible God. + +II. We have the relation of Christ to Creation set forth in that great +name, "the firstborn of all creation," and further elucidated by a +magnificent series of statements which proclaim Him to be agent or +medium, and aim or goal of creation, prior to it in time and dignity, +and its present upholder and bond of unity. + +"The firstborn of all creation." At first sight, this name seems to +include Him in the great family of creatures as the eldest, and clearly +to treat Him as one of them, just because He is declared to be in some +sense the first of them. That meaning has been attached to the words; +but it is shown not to be their intention by the language of the next +verse, which is added to prove and explain the title. It distinctly +alleges that Christ was "before" all creation, and that He is the agent +of all creation. To insist that the words must be explained so as to +include Him in "creation" would be to go right in the teeth of the +Apostle's own justification and explanation of them. So that the true +meaning is that He is the firstborn, in comparison with, or in reference +to, all creation. Such an understanding of the force of the expression +is perfectly allowable grammatically, and is necessary unless this verse +is to be put in violent contradiction to the next. The same construction +is found in Milton's + + "Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, + His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve." + +where "of" distinctly means "in comparison with," and not "belonging +to." + +The title implies priority in existence, and supremacy. It substantially +means the same thing as the other title of "the only begotten Son," only +that the latter brings into prominence the relation of the Son to the +Father, while the former lays stress on His relation to Creation. +Further it must be noted, that this name applies to the Eternal Word and +not to the incarnation of that Word, or to put it in another form, the +divinity and not the humanity of the Lord Jesus is in the Apostle's +view. Such is the briefest outline of the meaning of this great name. + +A series of clauses follow, stating more fully the relation of the +firstborn Son to Creation, and so confirming and explaining the title. + +The whole universe is, as it were, set in one class, and He alone over +against it. No language could be more emphatically all-comprehensive. +Four times in one sentence we have "all things"--the whole +universe--repeated, and traced to Him as Creator and Lord. "In the +heavens and the earth" is quoted from Genesis, and is intended here, as +there, to be an exhaustive enumeration of the creation according to +place. "Things visible or invisible" again includes the whole under a +new principle of division--there are visible things in heaven, as sun +and stars, there may be invisible on earth, but wherever and of whatever +sort they are, He made them. "Whether thrones or dominions, or +principalities or powers," an enumeration evidently alluding to the +dreamy speculations about an angelic hierarchy filling the space between +the far off God, and men immersed in matter. There is a tone of +contemptuous impatience in Paul's voice, as he quotes the pompous list +of sonorous titles which a busy fancy had coined. It is as if he had +said, You are being told a great deal about these angel hierarchies, and +know all about their ranks and gradations. I do not know anything about +them; but this I know, that if, amid the unseen things in the heavens or +the earth, there be any such, my Lord made them, and is their master. So +he groups together the whole universe of created beings, actual or +imaginary, and then high above it, separate from it, its Lord and +Creator, its upholder and end, he points to the majestic person of the +only begotten Son of God, His Firstborn, higher than all the rulers of +the earth, whether human or superhuman. + +The language employed brings into strong relief the manifold variety of +relations which the Son sustains to the universe, by the variety of the +prepositions used in the sentence. The whole sum of created things (for +the Greek means not only "all things," but "all things considered as a +unity") was in the original act, created _in_ Him, _through_ Him, and +_unto_ Him. The first of these words, "in Him," regards Him as the +creative centre, as it were, or element in which as in a storehouse or +reservoir all creative force resided, and was in a definite act put +forth. The thought may be parallel with that in the prologue to John's +Gospel, "In Him was life." The Word stands to the universe as the +incarnate Christ does to the Church; and as all spiritual life is in +Him, and union to Him is its condition, so all physical takes its origin +within the depths of His Divine nature. The error of the Gnostics was to +put the act of creation and the thing created, as far away as possible +from God, and it is met by this remarkable expression, which brings +creation and the creatures in a very real sense within the confines of +the Divine nature, as manifested in the Word, and asserts the truth of +which pantheism so called is the exaggeration, that all things are in +Him, like seeds in a seed vessel, while yet they are not identified with +Him. + +The possible dangers of that profound truth, which has always been more +in harmony with Eastern than with Western modes of thought, are averted +by the next preposition used, "all things have been created _through_ +Him." That presupposes the full, clear demarcation between creature and +creator, and so on the one hand extricates the person of the Firstborn +of all creation from all risk of being confounded with the universe, +while on the other it emphasizes the thought that He is the medium of +the Divine energy, and so brings into clear relief His relation to the +inconceivable Divine nature. He is the image of the invisible God, and +accordingly, _through_ Him have all things been created. The same +connection of ideas is found in the parallel passage in the Epistle to +the Hebrews, where the words, "_through_ Whom also He made the worlds," +stand in immediate connection with "being the effulgence of His glory." + +But there remains yet another relation between Him and the act of +creation. "_For_ Him" they have been made. All things come from and tend +towards Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the +ending. All things spring from His will, draw their being from that +fountain, and return thither again. These relations which are here +declared of the Son, are in more than one place declared of the Father. +Do we face the question fairly--what theory of the person of Jesus +Christ explains that fact? + +But further, His existence before the whole creation is repeated, with a +force in both the words, "He is," which can scarcely be given in +English. The former is emphatic--He Himself--and the latter emphasizes +not only pre-existence, but absolute existence. "He _was_ before all +things" would not have said so much as "He _is_ before all things." We +are reminded of His own words, "Before Abraham was, I am." + +"In Him all things consist" or hold together. He is the element in which +takes place and by which is caused that continued creation which is the +preservation of the universe, as He is the element in which the original +creative act took place of old. All things came into being and form an +ordered unity in Him. He links all creatures and forces into a +co-operant whole, reconciling their antagonisms, drawing all their +currents into one great tidal wave, melting all their notes into music +which God can hear, however discordant it may sometimes sound to us. He +is "the bond of perfectness," the key-stone of the arch, the centre of +the wheel. + +Such, then, in merest outline is the Apostle's teaching about the +Eternal Word and the Universe. What sweetness and what reverential awe +such thoughts should cast around the outer world and the providences of +life! How near they should bring Jesus Christ to us! What a wonderful +thought that is, that the whole course of human affairs and of natural +processes is directed by Him who died upon the cross! The helm of the +universe is held by the hands which were pierced for us. The Lord of +Nature and the Mover of all things is that Saviour on whose love we may +pillow our aching heads. + +We need these lessons to-day, when many teachers are trying hard to +drive all that is spiritual and Divine out of creation and history, and +to set up a merciless law as the only God. Nature is terrible and stern +sometimes, and the course of events can inflict crushing blows; but we +have not the added horror of thinking both to be controlled by no will. +Christ is King in either region, and with our elder brother for the +ruler of the land, we shall not lack corn in our sacks, nor a Goshen to +dwell in. We need not people the void, as these old heretics did, with +imaginary forms, nor with impersonal forces and laws--nor need we, as so +many are doing to-day, wander through its many mansions as through a +deserted house, finding nowhere a Person who welcomes us; for everywhere +we may behold our Saviour, and out of every storm and every solitude +hear His voice across the darkness saying, "It is I; be not afraid." + +III. The last of the relations set forth in this great section is that +between Christ and His Church. "He is the head of the body, the Church; +who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead." + +A parallel is plainly intended to be drawn between Christ's relation to +the material creation and to the Church, the spiritual creation. As the +Word of God before incarnation is to the universe, so is the incarnate +Christ to the Church. As in the former, He is prior in time and superior +in dignity, so is He in the latter. As in the universe He is source and +origin of all being, so in the Church He is the beginning, both as being +first and as being origin of all spiritual life. As the glowing words +which described His relation to creation began with the great title "the +Firstborn," so those which describe His relation to the Church close +with the same name in a different application. Thus the two halves of +His work are as it were moulded into a golden circle, and the end of the +description bends round towards the beginning. + +Briefly, then, we have here first, Christ the head, and the Church His +body. In the lower realm the Eternal Word was the power which held all +things together, and similar but higher in fashion is the relation +between Him and the whole multitude of believing souls. Popular +physiology regards the head as the seat of life. So the fundamental idea +in the familiar metaphor, when applied to our Lord is that of the source +of the mysterious spiritual life which flows from Him into all the +members, and is sight in the eye, strength in the arm, swiftness in the +foot, colour in the cheek, being richly various in its manifestations +but one in its nature, and all His. The same mysterious derivation of +life from Him is taught in His own metaphor of the Vine, in which every +branch, however far away from the root, lives by the common life +circulating through all, which clings in the tendrils, and reddens in +the clusters, and is not theirs though it be in them. + +That thought of the source of life leads necessarily to the other, that +He is the centre of unity, by Whom the "many members" become "one body," +and the maze of branches one vine. The "head," too, naturally comes to +be the symbol for authority--and these three ideas of seat of life, +centre of unity, and emblem of absolute power, appear to be those +principally meant here. + +Christ is further the _beginning_ to the Church. In the natural world He +was before all, and source of all. The same double idea is contained in +this name, "the Beginning." It does not merely mean the first member of +a series who begins it, as the first link in a chain does, but it means +the power which causes the series to begin. The root is the beginning of +the flowers which blow in succession through the plant's flowering time, +though we may also call the first flower of the number the beginning. +But Christ is root; not merely the first flower, though He is also that. + +He is head and beginning to His Church by means of His resurrection. He +is the firstborn from the dead, and His communication of spiritual life +to His Church requires the historical fact of His resurrection as its +basis, for a dead Christ could not be the source of life; and that +resurrection completes the manifestation of the incarnate Word, by our +faith in which, His spiritual life flows into our spirits. Unless He has +risen from the dead, all His claims to be anything else than a wise +teacher and fair character crumble into nothing, and to think of Him as +a source of life is impossible. + +He is the beginning through His resurrection, too, in regard of His +raising us from the dead. He is the first-fruits of them that slept, and +bears the promise of a mighty harvest. He has risen from the dead, and +therein we have not only the one demonstration for the world that there +is a life after death, but the irrefragable assurance to the Church that +because He lives it shall live also. A dead body and a living head +cannot be. We are knit to Him too closely for the Fury "with the +abhorred shears" to cut the thread. He has risen that He might be the +firstborn among many brethren. + +So the Apostle concludes that in all things He is first--and all things +are, that He _may_ be first. Whether in nature or in grace, that +pre-eminence is absolute and supreme. The end of all the majesty of +creation and of all the wonders of grace is that His solitary figure may +stand clearly out as centre and lord of the universe, and His name be +lifted high over all. + +So the question of questions for us all is, What think ye of Christ? Our +thoughts now have necessarily been turned to subjects which may have +seemed abstract and remote--but these truths which we have been trying +to make clear and to present in their connection, are not the mere terms +or propositions of a half mystical theology far away from our daily +life, but bear most gravely and directly on our deepest interests. I +would fain press on every conscience the sharp-pointed appeal--What is +this Christ to us? Is He _any_ thing to us but a name? Do our hearts +leap up with a joyful Amen when we read these great words of this text? +Are we ready to crown Him Lord of all? Is He our head, to fill us with +vitality, to inspire and to command? Is He the goal and the end of our +individual life? Can we each say--I live by Him, in Him, and for Him? + +Happy are we, if we give to Christ the pre-eminence, and if our hearts +set "Him first, Him last, Him midst and without end." + + + + +VI. + +_THE RECONCILING SON._ + + "For it was the good pleasure _of the Father_ that in Him should all + the fulness dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto + Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through + Him, _I say_, whether things upon the earth, or things in the + heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your + mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of + His flesh through death."--COL. i. 19-22 (Rev. Ver.). + + +These words correspond to those which immediately precede them, inasmuch +as they present the same sequence, and deal with Christ in His relation +to God, to the universe, and to the Church. The strata of thought are +continuous, and lie here in the same order as we found them there. There +we had set forth the work of the pre-incarnate Word as well as of the +incarnate Christ; here we have mainly the reconciling power of His cross +proclaimed as reaching to every corner of the universe, and as +culminating in its operations on the believing souls to whom Paul +speaks. There we had the fact that He was the image of God laid as basis +of His relation to men and creatures; here that fact itself apprehended +in somewhat different manner, namely, as the dwelling in Him of all +"fulness," is traced to its ground in the "good pleasure" of the Father, +and the same Divine purpose is regarded as underlying Christ's whole +reconciling work. We observe, also, that all this section with which we +have now to deal is given as the explanation and reason of Christ's +pre-eminence. These are the principal links of connection with the +previous words, and having noted them, we may proceed to attempt some +imperfect consideration of the overwhelming thoughts here contained. + +I. As before, we have Christ in relation to God. "It was the good +pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell." + +Now, we may well suppose from the use of the word "fulness" here, which +we know to have been a very important term in later full-blown Gnostic +speculations, that there is a reference to some of the heretical +teachers' expressions, but such a supposition is not needed either to +explain the meaning, or to account for the use of the word. + +"The fulness"--what fulness? I think, although it has been disputed, +that the language of the next chapter (ii. 9), where we read "In Him +dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," should settle that. + +It seems most improbable that with two out of three significant words +the same, the ellipse should be supplied by anything but the third. The +meaning then will be--the whole abundance, or totality of Divine powers +and attributes. That is, to put it in homelier words, that all that +Divine nature in all its sweet greatness, in all its infinite wealth of +tenderness and power and wisdom, is embodied in Jesus Christ. We have no +need to look to heavens above or to earth beneath for fragmentary +revelations of God's character. We have no need to draw doubtful +inferences as to what God is from the questionable teachings of nature, +or from the mysteries of human history with its miseries. No doubt these +do show something of Him to observant hearts, and most to those who have +the key to their meaning by their faith in a clearer revelation. At +sundry times and in divers manners, God has spoken to the world by these +partial voices, to each of which some syllables of His name have been +committed. But He has put His whole name in that messenger of a New +Covenant by whom He has finally declared His whole character to us, even +His Son, in whom "it was the good pleasure of the Father that all the +fulness should dwell." + +The word rendered "dwell" implies a permanent abode, and may have been +chosen in order to oppose a view which we know to have prevailed later, +and may suspect to have been beginning to appear thus early, namely, +that the union of the Divine and the human in the person of Christ was +but temporary. At all events, emphasis is placed here on the opposite +truth that that indwelling does not end with the earthly life of Jesus, +and is not like the shadowy and transient incarnations of Eastern +mythology or speculation--a mere assumption of a fleshly nature for a +moment, which is dropped from the re-ascending Deity, but that, for +evermore, manhood is wedded to divinity in the perpetual humanity of +Jesus Christ. + +And this indwelling is the result of the Father's good pleasure. +Adopting the supplement in the Authorized and Revised Versions, we might +read "the Father pleased"--but without making that change, the force of +the words remains the same. The Incarnation and whole work of Christ are +referred to their deepest ground in the will of the Father. The word +rendered "pleased" implies both counsel and complacency; it is both +pleasure and good pleasure. The Father determined the work of the Son, +and delighted in it. Caricatures intentional or unintentional of New +Testament teaching have often represented it as making Christ's work the +means of pacifying an unloving God and moving Him to mercy. That is no +part of the Pauline doctrine. But he, as all his brethren, taught that +the love of God is the cause of the mission of Christ, even as Christ +Himself had taught that "God so loved the world that He sent His Son." +On that Rock-foundation of the will--the loving will of the Father, is +built the whole work of His Incarnate Son. And as that work was the +issue of His eternal purpose, so it is the object of His eternal +delight. That is the wonderful meaning of the word which fell gently as +the dove descending on His head, and lay on His locks wet from His +baptism, like a consecrating oil--"This is My beloved Son, in whom _I am +well pleased_." God willed that so He should be; He delighted that so He +was. Through Christ, the Father purposed that His fulness should be +communicated to us, and through Christ the Father rejoices to pour His +abundance into our emptiness, that we may be filled with all the +fulness. + +II. Again, we have here, as before Christ and the Universe, of which He +is not only Maker, Sustainer, and Lord, but through "the blood of His +cross" reconciles "all things unto Himself." + +Probably these same false teachers had dreams of reconciling agents +among the crowd of shadowy phantoms with which they peopled the void. +Paul lifts up in opposition to all these the one Sovereign Mediator, +whose cross is the bond of peace for all the universe. + +It is important for the understanding of these great words to observe +their distinct reference to the former clauses which dealt with our +Lord's relation to the universe as Creator. The same words are used in +order to make the parallelism as close as may be, "Through Him" was +creation; "through Him" is reconciliation. "All things"--or as the Greek +would rather suggest, "the universe"--all things considered as an +aggregate--were made and sustained through Him and subordinated to Him; +the same "all things" are reconciled. A significant change in the order +of naming the elements of which these are composed is noticeable. When +creation is spoken of, the order is "in the heavens and upon the +earth"--the order of creation; but when reconciliation is the theme, the +order is reversed, and we read "things upon the earth and things in the +heavens"--those coming first which stand nearest to the reconciling +cross, and are first to feel the power which streams from it. + +This obvious intentional correspondence between these two paragraphs +shows us that whatever be the nature of the "reconciliation" spoken of +here, it is supposed to affect not only rational and responsible +creatures who alone in the full sense of the word can be reconciled, as +they only in the full sense of the word can be enemies, but to extend to +_things_, and to send its influence through the universe. The width of +the reconciliation is the same as that of the creation; they are +conterminous. That being the case, "reconciliation" here must have a +different shade of meaning when applied to the sum total of created +things from what it has when applied to persons. But not only are +inanimate creatures included in the expression; it may even be made a +question whether the whole of mankind is not excluded from it, not only +by the phrase "all _things_" but also from the consideration that the +effect of Christ's death on men is the subject of the following words, +which are not an explanation of this clause, but an addition to it, +introducing an entirely different department of Christ's reconciling +work. Nor should we lose sight of the very significant omission in this +section of the reference to the angelic beings who were named in the +creation section. We hear nothing now about thrones or dominions or +principalities or powers. The division into "visible and invisible" is +not reproduced. I suggest the possibility that the reason may be the +intention to represent this "reconciliation" as taking effect +exclusively on the regions of creation below the angelic and below the +human, while the "reconciliation," properly so called, which is brought +to pass on alienated men is dealt with first in the following words. + +If this be so, then these words refer mainly to the restitution of the +material universe to its primal obedience, and represent Christ the +Creator removing by His cross the shadow which has passed over nature by +reason of sin. It has been well said, "How far this restoration of +universal nature may be subjective, as involved in the changed +perceptions of man thus brought into harmony with God, and how far it +may have an objective and independent existence, it were vain to +speculate."[1] + +Scripture seems to teach that man's sin has made the physical world +"subject to vanity"; for, although much of what it says on this matter +is unquestionably metaphor only, portraying the Messianic blessings in +poetical language never meant for dogmatic truth, and although +unquestionably physical death reigned among animals, and storms and +catastrophes swept over the earth long before man or sin were here, +still--seeing that man by his sin has compelled dead matter to serve his +lusts and to be his instrument in acts of rebellion against God, making +"a league with the stones of the field" against his and their +Master--seeing that he has used earth to hide heaven and to shut himself +out from its glories, and so has made it an unwilling antagonist to God +and temptress to evil--seeing that he has actually polluted the beauty +of the world and has stained many a lovely scene with his sin, making +its rivers run red with blood--seeing that he has laid unnumbered woes +on the living creatures--we may feel that there is more than poetry in +the affirmation that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain +together," and may hear a deep truth, the extent of which we cannot +measure, in Milton's majestic lines-- + + "Disproportioned Sin + Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din + Brake the fair music that all creatures made + To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed." + +Here we have held forth in words, the extent of which we can measure as +little, the counter-hope that wherever and however any such effect has +come to pass on the material universe, it shall be done away by the +reconciling power of the blood shed on the cross. That reconciling +power goes as far as His creative power. The universe is one, not only +because all created by the one personal Divine Word, nor because all +upheld by Him, but because in ways to us unknown, the power of the cross +pierces its heights and depths. As the impalpable influences of the sun +bind planets and comets into one great system, so from Him on His cross +may stream out attractive powers which knit together far off regions, +and diverse orders, and bring all in harmonious unity to God, who has +made peace by the blood shed on the cross, and has thereby been pleased +to reconcile all things to Himself. + + "And a Priest's hand through creation + Waveth calm and consecration." + +It may be that the reference to things in heaven is like the similar +reference in the previous verses, occasioned by some dreams of the +heretical teachers. He may merely mean to say: You speak much about +heavenly things, and have filled the whole space between God's throne +and man's earth with creatures thick as the motes in the sunbeam. I know +nothing about them; but this I know, that, if they are, Christ made +them, and that if among them there be antagonism to God, it can be +overcome by the cross. As to reconciliation proper,--in the heavens, +meaning by that, among spiritual beings who dwell in that realm, it is +clear there can be no question of it. There is no enmity among the +angels of heaven, and no place for return to union with God among their +untroubled bands, who "hearken to the voice of His word." But still if +the hypothetical form of the clause and the use of the neuter gender +permit any reference to intelligent beings in the heavens, we know that +to the principalities and powers in heavenly places the cross has been +the teacher of before unlearned depths in the Divine nature and +purposes, the knowledge of which has drawn them nearer the heart of God, +and made even their blessed union with Him more blessed and more close. + +On no subject is it more necessary to remember the limitations of our +knowledge than on this great theme. On none is confident assertion more +out of place. The general truth taught is clear, but the specific +applications of it to the various regions of the universe is very +doubtful. We have no source of knowledge on that subject but the words +of Scripture, and we have no means of verifying or checking the +conclusions we may draw from them. We are bound, therefore, if we go +beyond the general principle, to remember that _it_ is one thing, and +our reckoning up of what it includes is quite another. Our inferences +have not the certainty of God's word. _It_ comes to us with "Verily, +verily." _We_ have no right to venture on more than Perhaps. + +Especially is this the case when we have but one or two texts to build +on, and these most general in their language. And still more, when we +find other words of Scripture which seem hard to reconcile with them, if +pressed to their utmost meaning. In such a case our wisdom is to +recognise that God has not been pleased to give us the means of +constructing a dogma on the subject, and rather to seek to learn the +lessons taught by the obscurity that remains than rashly and confidently +to proclaim our inferences from half of our materials as if they were +the very heart of the gospel. + +Sublime and great beyond all our dreams, we may be sure, shall be the +issue. Certain as the throne of God is it that His purposes shall be +accomplished--and at last this shall be the fact for the universe, as it +has ever been the will of the Father--"Of Him, and through Him, and to +Him are all things, to whom be glory for ever." To that highest hope and +ultimate vision for the whole creation, who will not say, Amen? The +great sight which the seer beheld in Patmos is the best commentary on +our text. To him the eternal order of the universe was unveiled--the +great white throne, a snowy Alp in the centre; between the throne and +the creatures, the Lamb, through Whom blessing and life passed outwards +to them, and their incense and praise passed inwards to the throne; and +all around the "living creatures," types of the aggregate of creatural +life, the "elders," representatives of the Church redeemed from among +men, and myriads of the firstborn of heaven. The eyes of all alike wait +upon that slain Lamb. In Him they see God in clearest light of love and +gentlest might--and as they look and learn and are fed, each according +to his hunger, from the fulness of Christ, "every creature which is in +heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the +sea, and all that are in them," will be heard saying "Blessing, and +honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him, that sitteth upon the throne, +and unto the Lamb for ever." + +III. Christ, and His Reconciling Work in the Church. We have still the +parallel kept up between the reconciling and the creative work of +Christ. As in verse 18 He was represented as the giver of life to the +Church, in a higher fashion than to the universe, so, and probably with +a similar heightening of the meaning of "reconciliation," He is here +set forth as its giver to the Church. + +Now observe the solemn emphasis of the description of the condition of +men before that reconciling work has told upon their hearts. They are +"alienated"--not "aliens," as if that were their original condition, but +"alienated," as having become so. The same thought that man's sin and +separation from God is a fall, something abnormal and superinduced on +humanity, which is implied in "reconciliation" or restoration to an +original concord, is implied in this expression. "And enemies in your +mind"--the seat of the enmity is in that inner man which thinks, +reflects, and wills, and its sphere of manifestation is "in evil works" +which are religiously acts of hostility to God because morally they are +bad. We should not read "_by_ wicked works," as the Authorized Version +does, for the evil deeds have not made them enemies, but the enmity has +originated the evil deeds, and is witnessed to by them. + +That is a severe indictment, a plain, rough, and as it is thought +now-a-days, a far too harsh description of human nature. Our forefathers +no doubt were tempted to paint the "depravity of human nature" in very +black colours--but I am very sure that we are tempted just in the +opposite direction. It sounds too harsh and rude to press home the +old-fashioned truth on cultured, respectable ladies and gentlemen. The +charge is not that of conscious, active hostility, but of practical want +of affection, as manifested by habitual disobedience or inattention to +God's wishes, and by indifference and separation from Him in heart and +mind. + +And are these not the habitual temper of multitudes? The signs of love +are joy in the company of the beloved, sweet memories and longings if +parted, eager fulfilment of their lightest wish, a quick response to the +most slender association recalling them to our thoughts. Have we these +signs of love to God? If not, it is time to consider what temper of +heart and mind towards the most loving of Hearts and the most unwearied +of Givers, is indicated by the facts that we scarcely ever think of Him, +that we have no delight in His felt presence, that most of our actions +have no reference whatever to Him and would be done just the same if +there were no God at all. Surely such a condition is liker hostility +than love. + +Further, here, as uniformly, God Himself is the Reconciler. "He"--that +is, God, not Christ, "has reconciled us." Some, indeed, read "ye have +been reconciled," but the preponderance of authority is in favour of the +text as it stands, which yields a sense accordant with the usual mode of +representation. It is we who are reconciled. It is God who reconciles. +It is we who are enemies. The Divine patience loves on through all our +enmity, and though perfect love meeting human sin must become wrath, +which is consistent with love, it never becomes hatred, which is love's +opposite. + +Observe finally the great means of reconciliation: "In the body of His +flesh"--that is, of course, Christ's flesh--God has reconciled us. Why +does the Apostle use this apparently needless exuberance of +language--"the body of His flesh"? It may have been in order to correct +some erroneous tendencies towards a doctrine which we know was +afterwards eagerly embraced in the Eastern Churches, that our Lord's +body was not truly flesh, but only a phantasm or appearance. It may have +been to guard against risk of confounding it with His "body the Church," +spoken of in the 18th verse, though that supposes a scarcely credible +dulness in his readers. Or it may more naturally be accounted for as +showing how full his own mind was of the overwhelming wonder of the fact +that He, Whose majesty he has been setting forth in such deep words, +should veil His eternal glories and limit His far reaching energies +within a fleshly body. He would point the contrast between the Divine +dignity of the Eternal Word, the Creator and Lord of the universe, and +the lowliness of His incarnation. On these two pillars, as on two solid +piers, one on either continent, with a great gulf between, the Divinity +of Christ on one side, His Manhood on the other, is built the bridge by +which we pass over the river into the glory. + +But that is not all. The Incarnation is not the whole gospel. The body +of His flesh becomes the means of our reconciliation "through death." +Christ's death has so met the requirements of the Divine law that the +Divine love can come freely forth, and embrace and forgive sinful men. +That fact is the very centre of the revelation of God in Christ, the +very secret of His power. He has died. Voluntarily and of His own love, +as well as in obedience to the Father's loving will, He has borne the +consequences of the sin which He had never shared, in that life of +sorrow and sympathy, in that separation from God which is sin's deepest +penalty, and of which the solemn witness comes to us in the cry that +rent the darkness, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and in +that physical death which is the parable in the material sphere of the +true death of the spirit. We do not know all the incidence of Christ's +death. The whole manner of its operation has not been told us, but the +fact has been. It does not affect the Divine heart. _That_ we know, for +"God so loved the world, that He sent His Son." But it does affect the +Divine government. Without it, forgiveness could not have been. Its +influence extends to all the years before, as to all after, Calvary, for +the fact that Man continued to be after Man had sinned, was because the +whole Divine government from the first had respect to the sacrifice that +was to be, as now it all is moulded by the merit of the sacrifice that +has been. And in this aspect of the case, the previous thoughts as to +the blood of the cross having power in the material universe derive a +new meaning, if we regard the whole history of the world as shaped by +Christ's sacrifice, and the very continuance of humanity from the first +moment of transgression as possible, because He was "the Lamb slain +before the foundation of the world," whose cross, as an eternal fact in +the Divine purpose, influenced the Divine government long before it was +realized in time. + +For us, that wondrous love--mightier than death, and not to be quenched +by many waters--is the one power that can change our alienation to glad +friendship, and melt the frost and hard-ribbed ice of indifference and +dread into love. That, and that alone, is the solvent for stubborn +wills, the magnet for distant hearts. The cross of Christ is the +key-stone of the universe and the conqueror of all enmity. + +If religion is to have sovereign power in our lives, it must be the +religion built upon faith in the Incarnate Son of God, who reconciles +the world to God upon His cross. That is the only faith which makes men +love God and binds them to Him with bands which cannot be broken. Other +types of Christianity are but tepid; and lukewarm water is an +abomination. The one thing that makes us ground our rebellious arms and +say, Lord, I surrender, Thou hast conquered, is to see in Christ's life +the perfect image of God, and in His death the all-sufficient sacrifice +for sin. + +What does it avail for us that the far-reaching power of Christ's cross +shoots out magnetic forces to the uttermost verge of the heavens, and +binds the whole universe by silken blood-red cords to God, if it does +not bind me to Him in love and longing? What does it avail that God is +in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, if I am unconscious of the +enmity, and careless of the friendship? Each man has to ask himself, Am +I reconciled to God? Has the sight of His great love on the cross won +_me_, body and soul, to His love and service? Have I flung away +self-will, pride and enmity, and yielded myself a glad captive to the +loving Christ who died? His cross draws us, His love beckons us. God +pleads with all hearts. He who has made peace by so costly means as the +sacrifice of His Son, condescends to implore the rebels to come into +amity with Him, and "prays us with much entreaty to receive the gift." +God beseeches us to be reconciled to Himself. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Bp. Lightfoot, _On Coloss._, p. 226. + + + + +VII. + +_THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF RECONCILIATION AND ITS HUMAN CONDITIONS._ + + "To present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before + Him: if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, + and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which + was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a + minister."--COL. i. 22, 23 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The Apostle has been sketching in magnificent outline a vast system, +which we may almost call the scheme of the universe. He has set forth +Christ as its Lord and centre, through Whom all things at first came +into being, and still continue to be. In parallel manner he has +presented Christ as Lord and Centre of the Church, its lifegiving Head. +And finally he has set forth Christ as the Reconciler of all discords in +heaven and earth, and especially of that which parts sinful men from +God. + +And now he shows us here, in the first words of our text, the purpose of +this whole manifestation of God in Christ to be the presenting of men +perfect in purity, before the perfect judgment of God. He then appends +the condition on which the accomplishment of this ultimate purpose in +each man depends--namely, the man's continuance in the faith and hope of +the Gospel. That leads him to gather up, in a series of clauses +characterizing the Gospel, certain aspects of it which constitute +subordinate motives and encouragements to such stedfastness. That is, I +think, the outline connection of the words before us, which at first +sight seem somewhat tangled and difficult to unravel. + +I. We have then, first, to consider the ultimate purpose of God in the +work of Christ. + +"To present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him." +It may be a question whether these words should be connected with "now +hath He reconciled," or whether we are to go farther back in the long +paragraph, and make them dependent on "it was the good pleasure of the +Father." The former seems the more natural--namely, to see here a +statement of the great end contemplated in our reconciliation to God; +which, indeed, whatever may be the grammatical construction preferred +here, is also, of course, the ultimate object of the Father's good +pleasure. In the word "present" there is possibly a sacrificial +allusion, as there is unquestionably in its use in Rom. xii., "Present +your bodies a living sacrifice"; or there may be another and even more +eloquent metaphor implied, that of the bringing of the bride to the +husband by the friend of the bridegroom. That lovely figure is found in +two instances of the use of the word in Paul's epistle (2 Cor. ii. 2, +"to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," and Eph. v. 27, "that He +might present it to Himself a glorious Church"), and possibly in others. +It certainly gives an appropriate and beautiful emblem here if we think +of the presentation of the bride in virginal beauty and purity to her +Lord at that last great day which is the bridal day of the perfected +Church. + +There is, however, no need to suppose any metaphor at all, nor any +allusion beyond the general meaning of the word--_to set in the presence +of_. The sacrificial reference is incongruous here, and the bridal one +not indicated by anything in the context, as it is in the instances just +quoted. One thing is clear, that the reference is to a future +presentation in the day of judgment, as in another place, where Paul +says, "He ... shall raise up us also ... and shall present us" (2 Cor. +iv. 14). In the light of that revealing day, His purpose is that we +shall stand "holy," that is, devoted to God and therefore pure--"without +blemish," as the offerings had to be, and "unreproveable," against whom +no charge can be brought. These three express a regular sequence; first, +the inward principle of consecration and devotion to God, then its +visible issue in stainless conduct and character, and then its last +consequence, that in the judgment of God and of men we shall stand +acquitted of blame, and every accusation drop away from our dazzling +purity, like muddy water from the white wing of the sea-bird as it +soars. And all this moral perfectness and unblameableness is to be not +merely in the judgment of men, but "before Him," the light of whose +"pure eyes and perfect judgment" discovers all stains and evils. They +must be spotless indeed who are "without fault before the throne of +God." + +Such, then, is the grand conception of the ultimate purpose and issue of +Christ's reconciling work. All the lines of thought in the preceding +section lead up to and converge in this peak. The meaning of God in +creation and redemption cannot be fully fathomed without taking into +view the future perfecting of men. This Christian ideal of the +possibilities for men is the noblest vision that can animate our hopes. +Absolute moral purity which shall be recognised as perfect by the +perfect Judge, and a close approach to God, so as that we shall be +"before Him" in a manner unknown here--are hopes as much brighter than +those which any other systems of belief print on the dim canvass curtain +of the future, as the Christian estimate of man's condition apart from +Christ is sadder and darker than theirs. Christianity has a much more +extended scale of colours than they have. It goes further down into +blackness for the tints with which it paints man as he is, and further +up into flashing glories of splendour for the gleaming hues with which +it paints him as he may become. They move within narrow limits of +neutral tints. The Gospel alone does not try to minimise man's evil, +because it is triumphantly confident of its power to turn all that evil +into good. + +Nothing short of this complete purity and blamelessness satisfies God's +heart. We may travel back to the beginning of this section, and connect +its first words with these, "It pleased the Father, to present us holy +and spotless and blameless." It delights Him thus to effect the +purifying of sinful souls, and He is glad when He sees Himself +surrounded by spirits thus echoing His will and reflecting His light. +This is what he longs for. This is what He aims at in all His +working--to make good and pure men. The moral interest is uppermost in +His heart and in His doings. The physical universe is but the +scaffolding by which the true house of God may be built. The work of +Christ is the means to that end, and when God has got us, by such +lavish expenditure, to be white like Himself, and can find nothing in us +to condemn, then, and not till then, does He brood over us satisfied and +glad at heart, resting in His love, and rejoicing over us with singing. + +Nor will anything short of this complete purity exhaust the power of the +Reconciling Christ. His work is like an unfinished column, or Giotto's +Campanile, all shining with marbles and alabasters and set about with +fair figures, but waiting for centuries for the glittering apex to +gather its glories into a heaven-piercing point. His cross and passion +reach no adequate result, short of the perfecting of saints, nor was it +worth Christ's while to die for any less end. His cross and passion have +evidently power to effect this perfect purity, and cannot be supposed to +have done all that is in them to do, until they have done that with +every Christian. + +We ought then to keep very clear before us this as the crowning object +of Christianity: not to make men happy, except as a consequence of +holiness; not to deliver from penalty, except as a means to holiness; +but to make them holy, and being holy, to set them close by the throne +of God. No man understands the scope of Christianity, or judges it +fairly, who does not give full weight to that as its own statement of +its purpose. The more distinctly we, as Christians, keep that purpose +prominent in our thoughts, the more shall we have our efforts stimulated +and guided, and our hopes fed, even when we are saddened by a sense of +failure. We have a power working in us which can make us white as the +angels, pure as our Lord is pure. If it, being able to produce perfect +results, has produced only such imperfect ones, we may well ask, where +the reason for the partial failure lies. If we believed more vividly +that the real purpose and use of Christianity was to make us good men, +we should surely labour more earnestly to secure that end, should take +more to heart our own responsibility for the incompleteness with which +it has been attained in us, and should submit ourselves more completely +to the operation of the "might of the power" which worketh in us. + +Nothing less than our absolute purity will satisfy God about us. Nothing +less should satisfy ourselves. The only worthy end of Christ's work for +us is to present us holy, in complete consecration, and without blemish, +in perfect homogeneousness and uniformity of white purity and +unreproveable in manifest innocence in His sight. If we call ourselves +Christians let us make it our life's business to see that that end is +being accomplished in us in some tolerable and growing measure. + +II. We have next set forth the conditions on which the accomplishment of +that purpose depends: "If so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded +and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Gospel." + +The condition is, generally speaking, a stedfast adherence to the Gospel +which the Colossians had received. "If ye continue in the faith," means, +I suppose, if ye continue to live in the _exercise_ of your faith. The +word here has its ordinary subjective sense, expressing the act of the +believing man, and there is no need to suppose that it has the later +ecclesiastical objective sense, expressing the believer's creed, a +meaning in which it may be questioned whether the word is ever employed +in the New Testament. Then this continuance in the faith is further +explained as to its manner, and that first positively, and then +negatively. They are to be grounded, or more picturesquely and +accurately, "founded," that is, built into a foundation, and therefore +"stedfast," as banded into the firm rock, and so partaking of its +fixedness. Then, negatively, they are not to be "moved away"; the word +by its form conveying the idea, that this is a process which may be +continually going on, and in which, by some force constantly acting from +without, they may be gradually and imperceptibly pushed off from the +foundation--that foundation is the hope evoked or held out by the +Gospel, a representation which is less familiar than that which makes +the Gospel itself the foundation, but is substantially equivalent to it, +though with a different colour. + +One or two plain lessons may be drawn from these words. There is an +"if," then. However great the powers of Christ and of His work, however +deep the desire and fixed the purpose of God, no fulfilment of these is +possible except on condition of our habitual exercise of faith. The +Gospel does not work on men by magic. Mind, heart and will must be +exercised on Christ, or all His power to purify and bless will be of no +avail to us. We shall be like Gideon's fleece, dry when the dew is +falling thick, unless we are continually putting forth living faith. +That attracts the blessing and fits the soul to receive it. There is +nothing mystical about the matter. Common sense tells us, that if a man +never thinks about any truth, that truth will do him no good in any way. +If it does not find its road into his heart through his mind, and thence +into his life, it is all one as if there were no such truth, or as if +he did not believe it. If our creed is made up of truths which we do not +think about, we may just as well have no creed. If we do not bring +ourselves into contact with the motives which the Gospel brings to bear +on character, the motives will not mould our character. If we do not, by +faith and meditation, realize the principles which flow from the truth +as it is in Jesus, and obtain the strength which is stored in Him, we +shall not grow by Him or like Him. No matter how mighty be the renewing +powers of the Gospel wielded by the Divine Spirit, they can only work on +the nature that is brought into contact with and continues in contact +with them by faith. The measure in which we trust Jesus Christ will be +the measure in which He helps us. "He could do no mighty works because +of their unbelief." He cannot do what He can do, if we thwart Him by our +want of faith. God will present us holy before Him _if_ we continue in +the faith. + +And it must be present faith which leads to present results. We cannot +make an arrangement by which we exercise faith wholesale once for all, +and secure a delivery of its blessings in small quantities for a while +after, as a buyer may do with goods. The moment's act of faith will +bring the moment's blessings; but to-morrow will have to get its own +grace by its own faith. We cannot lay up a stock for the future. There +must be present drinking for present thirst; we cannot lay in a reserve +of the water of life, as a camel can drink at a draught enough for a +long desert march. The Rock follows us all through the wilderness, but +we have to fill our pitchers day by day. Many Christians seem to think +that they can live on past acts of faith. No wonder that their Christian +character is stunted, and their growth stopped, and many a blemish +visible, and many a "blame" to be brought against them. Nothing but +continual exercise of faith, day by day, moment by moment, in every +duty, and every temptation, will secure the continual entrance into our +weakness of the strength which makes strong and the purity which makes +pure. + +Then again, if we and our lives are to be firm and stable, we must have +a foundation outside of ourselves on which to rest. That thought is +involved in the word "grounded" or "founded." It is possible that this +metaphor of the foundation is carried on into the next clause, in which +case "the hope of the Gospel" would be the foundation. Strange to make a +solid foundation out of so unsubstantial a thing as "hope!" That would +be indeed to build a castle on the air, a palace on a soap-bubble, would +it not? Yes, it would, if this hope were not "the hope produced by the +Gospel," and therefore as solid as the ever-enduring Word of the Lord on +which it is founded. But, more probably, the ordinary application of the +figure is preserved here, and Christ is the foundation, the Rock, on +which builded, our fleeting lives and our fickle selves may become +rock-like too, and every impulsive and changeable Simon Bar Jonas rise +to the mature stedfastness of a Peter, the pillar of the Church. + +Translate that image of taking Christ for our foundation into plain +English, and what does it come to? It means, let our minds find in Him, +in His Word, and whole revealing life, the basis of our beliefs, the +materials for thought; let our hearts find in Him their object, which +brings calmness and unchangeableness into their love; let our practical +energies take Him as their motive and pattern, their strength and their +aim, their stimulus and their reward; let all hopes and joys, emotions +and desires, fasten themselves on Him; let Him occupy and fill our whole +nature, and mould and preside over all our actions. So shall we be +"founded" on Christ. + +And so "founded," we shall, as Paul here beautifully puts it, be +"stedfast." Without that foundation to give stability and permanence, we +never get down to what abides, but pass our lives amidst fleeting +shadows, and are ourselves transient as they. The mind whose thoughts +about God and the unseen world are not built on the personal revelation +of God in Christ will have no solid certainties which cannot be shaken, +but, at the best, opinions which cannot have more fixedness than belongs +to human thoughts upon the great problem. If my love does not rest on +Christ, it will flicker and flutter, lighting now here and now there, +and even where it rests most secure in human love, sure to have to take +wing some day, when Death with his woodman's axe fells the tree where it +nestles. If my practical life is not built on Him, the blows of +circumstance will make it reel and stagger. If we are not well joined to +Jesus Christ, we shall be driven by gusts of passion and storms of +trouble, or borne along on the surface of the slow stream of +all-changing time like thistle-down on the water. If we are to be +stable, it must be because we are fastened to something outside of +ourselves that is stable, just as they have to lash a man to the mast +or other fixed things on deck, if he is not to be washed overboard in +the gale. If we are lashed to the unchangeable Christ by the "cords of +love" and faith, we too shall, in our degree, be stedfast. + +And, says Paul, that Christ-derived stedfastness will make us able to +resist influences that would move us away from the hope of the Gospel. +That process which their stedfastness would enable the Colossians +successfully to resist, is described by the language of the Apostle as +continuous, and as one which acted on them from without. Intellectual +dangers arose from false teachings. The ever acting tendencies of +worldliness pressed upon them, and they needed to make a distinct effort +to keep themselves from being overcome by these. + +If we do not take care that imperceptible, steady pressure of the +all-surrounding worldliness, which is continually acting on us, will +push us right off the foundation without our knowing that we have +shifted at all. If we do not look well after our moorings we shall drift +away down stream, and never know that we are moving, so smooth is the +motion, till we wake up to see that everything round about is changed. +Many a man is unaware how completely his Christian faith has gone till +some crisis comes when he needs it, and when he opens the jar there is +nothing. It has evaporated. When white ants eat away all the inside of a +piece of furniture, they leave the outside shell apparently solid, and +it stands till some weight is laid upon it, and then goes down with a +crash. Many people loose their Christianity in that fashion, by its +being nibbled away in tiny flakes by a multitude of secretly working +little jaws, and they never know that the pith is out of it till they +want to lean on it, and then it gives under them. + +The only way to keep firm hold of hope is to keep fast on the +foundation. If we do not wish to slide imperceptibly away from Him who +alone will make our lives stedfast and our hearts calm with the +peacefulness of having found our All, we must continuously make an +effort to tighten our grasp on Him, and to resist the subtle forces +which, by silent pressure or by sudden blows, seek to get us off the one +foundation. + +III. Then lastly, we have a threefold motive for adherence to the +Gospel. + +The three clauses which close these verses seem to be appended as +secondary and subordinate encouragements to stedfastness, which +encouragements are drawn from certain characteristics of the Gospel. Of +course, the main reason for a man's sticking to the Gospel, or to +anything else, is that it is true. And unless we are prepared to say +that we believe it true, we have nothing to do with such subordinate +motives for professing adherence to it, except to take care that they do +_not_ influence us. And that one sole reason is abundantly wrought out +in this letter. But then, its truth being established, we may fairly +bring in other subsidiary motives to reinforce this, seeing that there +may be a certain coldness of belief which needs the warmth of such +encouragements. + +The first of these lies in the words, "the Gospel, which ye heard." That +is to say, the Apostle would have the Colossians, in the face of these +heretical teachers, remember the beginning of their Christian life, and +be consistent with that. They had heard it at their conversion. He +would have them recall what they had heard then, and tamper with no +teaching inconsistent with it. He also appeals to their experience. "Do +you remember what the Gospel did for you? Do you remember the time when +it first dawned upon your astonished hearts, all radiant with heavenly +beauty, as the revelation of a Heart in heaven that cared for you, and +of a Christ Who, on earth, had died for you? Did it not deliver you from +your burden? Did it not set new hope before you? Did it not make earth +as the very portals of heaven? And have these truths become less +precious because familiar? Be not moved away from the Gospel 'which ye +have heard.'" + +To us the same appeal comes. This word has been sounding in our ears +ever since childhood. It has done everything for some of us, something +for all of us. Its truths have sometimes shone out for us like suns, in +the dark, and brought us strength when nothing else could sustain us. If +they are not truths, of course they will have to go. But they are not to +be abandoned easily. They are interwoven with our very lives. To part +with them is a resolution not to be lightly undertaken. + +The argument of experience is of no avail to convince others, but is +valid for ourselves. A man has a perfect right to say, "I have heard Him +myself, and I know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the +world." A Christian may wisely decline to enter on the consideration of +many moot questions which he may feel himself incompetent to handle, and +rest upon the fact that Christ has saved his soul. The blind man beat +the Pharisees in logic when he sturdily took his stand on experience, +and refused to be tempted to discuss subjects which he did not +understand, or to allow his ignorance to slacken his grasp of what he +did know. "Whether this man be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I +know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." There was no answering +that, so by excommunicating him they confessed themselves beaten. + +A second encouragement to stedfast adherence to the Gospel lies in the +fact that it "was preached in all creation under heaven." We need not be +pedantic about literal accuracy, and may allow that the statement has a +rhetorical colouring. But what the Apostle means is, that the gospel had +spread so widely, through so many phases of civilisation, and had proved +its power by touching men so unlike each other in mental furniture and +habits, that it had showed itself to be a word for the whole race. It is +the same thought as we have already found in verse 6. His implied +exhortation is, "Be not moved away from what belongs to humanity by +teachings which can only belong to a class." All errors are transient in +duration and limited in area. One addresses itself to one class of men, +another to another. Each false, or exaggerated, or partial +representation of religious truth, is congenial to some group with +idiosyncrasies of temperament or mind. Different tastes like different +spiced meats, but the gospel, "human nature's daily food," is the bread +of God that everybody can relish, and which everybody must have for +healthy life. What only a certain class or the men of one generation or +of one stage of culture can find nourishment in, cannot be meant for all +men. But the great message of God's love in Jesus Christ commends +itself to us because it can go into any corner of the world, and there, +upon all sorts of people, work its wonders. So we will sit down with the +women and children upon the green grass, and eat of _it_, however +fastidious people whose appetites have been spoiled by high-spiced meat, +may find it coarse and insipid. It would feed them too, if they would +try--but whatever they may do, let us take it as more than our necessary +food. + +The last of these subsidiary encouragements to stedfastness lies in, +"whereof I Paul was made a minister." This is not merely an appeal to +their affection for him, though that is perfectly legitimate. Holy words +may be holier because dear lips have taught them to us, and even the +truth of God may allowably have a firmer hold upon our hearts because of +our love for some who have ministered it to us. It is a poor commentary +on a preacher's work if, after long service to a congregation, his words +do not come with power given to them by old affection and confidence. +The humblest teacher who has done his Master's errand will have some to +whom he can appeal as Paul did, and urge them to keep hold of the +message which he has preached. + +But there is more than that in the Apostle's mind. He was accustomed to +quote the fact that he, the persecutor, had been made the messenger of +Christ, as a living proof of the infinite mercy and power of that +ascended Lord, whom his eyes saw on the road to Damascus. So here, he +puts stress on the fact that he _became_ a minister of the gospel, as +being an "evidence of Christianity." The history of his conversion is +one of the strongest proofs of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus +Christ. You know, he seems to say, what turned me from being a +persecutor into an apostle. It was because I saw the living Christ, and +"heard the words of His mouth," and, I beseech you, listen to no words +which make His dominion less sovereign, and His sole and all sufficient +work on the cross less mighty as the only power that knits earth to +heaven. + +So the sum of this whole matter is--abide in Christ. Let us root and +ground our lives and characters in Him, and then God's inmost desire +will be gratified in regard to us, and He will bring even us stainless +and blameless into the blaze of His presence. There we shall all have to +stand, and let that all-penetrating light search us through and through. +How do we expect to be then "found of Him in peace, without spot and +blameless"? There is but one way--to live in constant exercise of faith +in Christ, and grip Him so close and sure that the world, the flesh and +the devil cannot make us loosen our fingers. Then He will hold us up, +and His great purpose, which brought Him to earth, and nailed Him to the +cross, will be fulfilled in us, and at last, we shall lift up voices of +wondering praise "to Him who is able to keep us from falling, and to +present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding +joy." + + + + +VIII. + +_JOY IN SUFFERING, AND TRIUMPH IN THE MANIFESTED MYSTERY._ + + "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my + part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh + for His body's sake, which is the Church; whereof I was made a + minister according to the dispensation of God which was given me to + you-ward to fulfil the word of God, even the mystery which hath been + hid from all ages and generations; but now hath it been manifested + to His Saints, to Whom God was pleased to make known what is the + riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is + Christ in you, the hope of glory."--COL. i. 24-27 (Rev. Ver.). + + +There are scarcely any personal references in this Epistle, until we +reach the last chapter. In this respect it contrasts strikingly with +another of Paul's epistles of the captivity, that to the Philippians, +which is running over with affection and with allusions to himself. This +sparseness of personal details strongly confirms the opinion that he had +not been to Colossæ. Here, however, we come to one of the very few +sections which may be called personal, though even here it is rather +Paul's office than himself which is in question. He is led to speak of +himself by his desire to enforce his exhortations to faithful +continuance in the gospel, and, as is so often the case with him in +touching on his apostleship, he as it were, catches fire, and blazes up +in a grand flame, which sheds a bright light on his lofty enthusiasm and +evangelistic fervour The words to be considered now are plain enough in +themselves, but they are run together, and thought follows thought in a +fashion which makes them somewhat obscure; and there are also one or two +difficulties in single words which require to be cleared up. We shall +perhaps best bring out the course of thought by dealing with these +verses in three groups, of which the three words, Suffering, Service, +and Mystery, are respectively the centres. First, we have a remarkable +view taken by the prisoner of the meaning of his sufferings, as being +endured for the Church. That leads him to speak of his relation to the +Church generally as being that of a servant or steward appointed by God, +to bring to its completion the work of God; and then, as I said, he +takes fire, and, forgetting himself, flames up in rapturous magnifying +of the grand message hid so long, and now entrusted to him to preach. So +we have his Sufferings for the Church, his service of Stewardship to the +Church, and the great Mystery which in that stewardship he had to +unveil. It may help us to understand both Paul and his message, as well +as our own tasks and trials, if we try to grasp his thoughts here about +his work and his sorrows. + +I. We have the Apostle's triumphant contemplation of his sufferings. "I +rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that +which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's +sake, which is the Church." + +The Revised Version, following the best authorities, omits the "who" +with which the Authorized Version begins this verse, and marks a new +sentence and paragraph, as is obviously right. + +The very first word is significant: "_Now_ I rejoice." Ay; it is easy +to say fine things about patience in sufferings and triumph in sorrow +when we are prosperous and comfortable; but it is different when we are +in the furnace. This man, with the chain on his wrist, and the iron +entering into his soul, with his life in danger, and all the future +uncertain, can say, "_Now_ I rejoice." This bird sings in a darkened +cage. + +Then come startling words, "I on my part fill up that which is lacking +(a better rendering than 'behind') of the afflictions of Christ." It is +not surprising that many explanations of these words have tried to +soften down their boldness; as, for instance, "afflictions borne for +Christ," or "imposed by Him," or "like His." But it seems very clear +that the startling meaning is the plain meaning, and that "the +sufferings of Christ" here, as everywhere else, are "the sufferings +borne by Christ." + +Then at once the questions start up, Does Paul mean to say that in any +sense whatever the sufferings which Christ endured have anything +"lacking" in them? or does he mean to say that a Christian man's +sufferings, however they may benefit the Church, can be put alongside of +the Lord's, and taken to eke out the incompleteness of His? Surely that +cannot be! Did He not say on the cross, "It is finished"? Surely that +sacrifice needs no supplement, and can receive none, but stands "the one +sacrifice for sins for ever"! Surely, His sufferings are absolutely +singular in nature and effect, unique and all-sufficient and eternal. +And does this Apostle, the very heart of whose gospel was that these +were the life of the world, mean to say that anything which he endures +can be tacked on to them, a bit of the old rags to the new garment? + +Distinctly not! To say so would be contradictory of the whole spirit and +letter of the Apostle's teaching. But there is no need to suppose that +he means anything of the sort. There is an idea frequently presented in +Scripture, which gives full meaning to the words, and is in full +accordance with Pauline teaching; namely, that Christ truly participates +in the sufferings of His people borne for Him. He suffers with them. The +head feels the pangs of all the members; and every ache may be thought +of as belonging, not only to the limb where it is located, but to the +brain which is conscious of it. The pains and sorrows and troubles of +His friends and followers to the end of time are one great whole. Each +sorrow of each Christian heart is one drop more added to the contents of +the measure which has to be filled to the brim, ere the purposes of the +Father who leads through suffering to rest are accomplished; and all +belong to Him. Whatsoever pain or trial is borne in fellowship with Him +is felt and borne by Him. Community of sensation is established between +Him and us. Our sorrows are transferred to Him. "In all our afflictions +He is afflicted," both by His mystical but most real oneness with us, +and by His brother's sympathy. + +So for us all, and not for the Apostle only, the whole aspect of our +sorrows may be changed, and all poor struggling souls in this valley of +weeping may take comfort and courage from the wonderful thought of +Christ's union with us, which makes our griefs His, and our pain touch +Him. Bruise your finger, and the pain pricks and stabs in your brain. +Strike the man that is joined to Christ here, and Christ up yonder +feels it. "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye." Where +did Paul learn this deep lesson, that the sufferings of Christ's +servants were Christ's sufferings? I wonder whether, as he wrote these +words of confident yet humble identification of himself the persecuted +with Christ the Lord, there came back to his memory what he heard on +that fateful day as he rode to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest +thou Me?" The thought so crushing to the persecutor had become balm and +glory to the prisoner,--that every blow aimed at the servant falls on +the Master, who stoops from amid the glory of the throne to declare that +whatsoever is done, whether it be kindness or cruelty, to the least of +His brethren, is done to Him. So every one of us may take the comfort +and strength of that wonderful assurance, and roll all our burdens and +sorrows on Him. + +Again, there is prominent here the thought that the good of sorrow does +not end with the sufferer. His sufferings are borne in his _flesh_ for +the _body's_ sake, which is the Church,--a remarkable antithesis between +the Apostle's flesh in which, and Christ's body for which, the +sufferings are endured. Every sorrow rightly borne, as it will be when +Christ is felt to be bearing it with us, is fruitful of blessing. Paul's +trials were in a special sense "for His body's sake," for of course, if +he had not preached the gospel, he would have escaped them all; and on +the other hand, they have been especially fruitful of good, for if he +had not been persecuted, he would never have written these precious +letters from Rome. The Church owes much to the violence which has shut +up confessors in dungeons. Its prison literature, beginning with this +letter, and ending with "Pilgrim's Progress," has been among its most +cherished treasures. + +But the same thing is true about us all, though it may be in a narrower +sphere. No man gets good for himself alone out of his sorrows. Whatever +purifies and makes gentler and more Christlike, whatever teaches or +builds up--and sorrows rightly borne do all these--is for the common +good. Be our trials great or small, be they minute and every-day--like +gnats that hum about us in clouds, and may be swept away by the hand, +and irritate rather than hurt where they sting--or be they huge and +formidable, like the viper that clings to the wrist and poisons the life +blood, they are meant to give us good gifts, which we may transmit to +the narrow circle of our homes, and in ever widening rings of influence +to all around us. Have we never known a household, where some chronic +invalid, lying helpless perhaps on a sofa, was a source of the highest +blessing and the centre of holy influence, that made every member of the +family gentler, more self-denying and loving? We shall never understand +our sorrows, unless we try to answer the question, What good to others +is meant to come through me by this? Alas, that grief should so often be +self-absorbed, even more than joy is! The heart sometimes opens to +unselfish sharing of its gladness with others; but it too often shuts +tight over its sorrow, and seeks solitary indulgence in the luxury of +woe. Let us learn that our brethren claim benefit from our trials, as +well as from our good things, and seek to ennoble our griefs by bearing +them for "His body's sake, which is the Church." + +Christ's sufferings on His cross are the satisfaction for a world's +sins, and in that view can have no supplement, and stand alone in kind. +But His "afflictions"--a word which would not naturally be applied to +His death--do operate also to set the pattern of holy endurance, and to +teach many a lesson; and in that view every suffering borne for Him and +with Him may be regarded as associated with His, and helping to bless +the Church and the world. God makes the rough iron of our natures into +shining, flexible, sharp steel, by heavy hammers and hot furnaces, that +He may shape us as His instruments to help and heal. + +It is of great moment that we should have such thoughts of our sorrows +whilst their pressure is upon us, and not only when they are past. "I +_now_ rejoice." Most of us have had to let years stretch between us and +the blow before we could attain to that clear insight. We can look back +and see how our past sorrows tended to bless us, and how Christ was with +us in them: but as for this one, that burdens us to-day, we cannot make +_it_ out. We can even have a solemn thankfulness not altogether unlike +joy as we look on those wounds that we remember; but how hard it is to +feel it about those that pain us now! There is but one way to secure +that calm wisdom, which feels their meaning even while they sting and +burn, and can smile through tears, as sorrowful and yet always +rejoicing; and that is to keep in very close communion with our Lord. +Then, even when we are in the whitest heat of the furnace, we may have +the Son of man with us; and if we have, the fiercest flames will burn up +nothing but the chains that bind us, and we shall "walk at liberty" in +that terrible heat, because we walk with Him. It is a high attainment +of Christian fortitude and faith to feel the blessed meaning, not only +of the six tribulations which are past, but of the present seventh, and +to say, even while the iron is entering the quivering flesh, "I _now_ +rejoice in my sufferings," and try to turn them to others' good. + +II. These thoughts naturally lead on to the statement of the Apostle's +lowly and yet lofty conception of his office--"whereof (that is, of +which _Church_) I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of +God, which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God." + +The first words of this clause are used at the close of the preceding +section in verse 23, but the "whereof" there refers to the gospel, not +as here to the Church. He is the servant of both, and because he is the +servant of the Church he suffers, as he has been saying. The +representation of himself as servant gives the reason for the conduct +described in the previous clause. Then the next words explain what makes +him the Church's servant. He is so in accordance with, or in pursuance +of, the stewardship, or office of administrator, of His household, to +which God has called him, "to you-ward," that is to say, with especial +reference to the Gentiles. And the final purpose of his being made a +steward is "to fulfil the word of God"; by which is not meant "to +accomplish or bring to pass its predictions," but "to bring it to +completion," or "to give full development to it," and that possibly in +the sense of preaching it fully, without reserve, and far and wide +throughout the whole world. + +So lofty and yet so lowly was Paul's thought of his office. He was the +Church's servant, and therefore bound to suffer cheerfully for its +sake. He was so, because a high honour had been conferred on him by God, +nothing less than the stewardship of His great household the Church, in +which he had to give to every man his portion, and to exercise +authority. He is the Church's servant indeed, but it is because he is +the Lord's steward. And the purpose of his appointment goes far beyond +the interests of any single Church; for while his office sends him +especially to the Colossians, its scope is as wide as the world. + +One great lesson to be learned from these words is that Stewardship +means service; and we may add that, in nine cases out of ten, service +means suffering. What Paul says, if we put it into more familiar +language, is just this: "Because God has given me something that I can +impart to others, I am their servant, and bound, not only by my duty to +Him, but by my duty to them, to labour that they may receive the +treasure." That is true for us all. Every gift from the great +Householder involves the obligation to impart it. It makes us His +stewards and our brethren's servants. We have that we may give. The +possessions are the Householder's, not ours, even after He has given +them to us. He gives us truths of various kinds in our minds, the gospel +in our hearts, influence from our position, money in our pockets, not to +lavish on self, nor to hide and gloat over in secret, but that we may +transmit His gifts, and "God's grace fructify through us to all." "It is +required of stewards that a man be found faithful"; and the heaviest +charge, "that he had wasted his Lord's goods," lies against every one of +us who does not use all that he possesses, whether of material or +intellectual or spiritual wealth, for the common advantage. + +But that common obligation of stewardship presses with special force on +those who say that they are Christ's servants. If we are, we know +something of His love and have felt something of His power; and there +are hundreds of people around us, many of whom we can influence, who +know nothing of either. That fact makes us their servants, not in the +sense of being under their control, or of taking orders from them, but +in the sense of gladly working for them, and recognising our obligation +to help them. Our resources may be small. The Master of the house may +have entrusted us with little. Perhaps we are like the boy with the five +barley loaves and two small fishes; but even if we had only a bit of the +bread and a tail of one of the fishes, we must not eat our morsel alone. +Give it those who have none, and it will multiply as it is distributed, +like the barrel of meal, which did not fail because its poor owner +shared it with the still poorer prophet. Give, and not only give, but +"pray them with much entreaty to receive the gift"; for men need to have +the true Bread pressed on them, and they will often throw it back, or +drop it over a wall, as soon as your back is turned, as beggars do in +our streets. We have to win them by showing that we are their servants, +before they will take what we have to give. Besides this, if stewardship +is service, service is often suffering; and he will not clear himself of +his obligations to his fellows, or of his responsibility to his Master, +who shrinks from seeking to make known the love of Christ to his +brethren, because he has often to "go forth weeping" whilst he bears +the precious seed. + +III. So we come to the last thought here, which is of the grand Mystery +of which Paul is the Apostle and Servant. Paul always catches fire when +he comes to think of the universal destination of the gospel, and of the +honour put upon him as the man to whom the task was entrusted of +transforming the Church from a Jewish sect to a world-wide society. That +great thought now sweeps him away from his more immediate object, and +enriches us with a burst which we could ill spare from the letter. + +His task, he says, is to give its full development to the word of God, +to proclaim a certain mystery long hid, but now revealed to those who +are consecrated to God. To these it has been God's good pleasure to show +the wealth of glory which is contained in this mystery, as exhibited +among the Gentile Christians, which mystery is nothing else than the +fact that Christ dwells in or among these Gentiles, of whom the +Colossians are part, and by His dwelling in them gives them the +confident expectation of future glory. + +The mystery then of which the Apostle speaks so rapturously is the fact +that the Gentiles were fellow-heirs and partakers of Christ. "Mystery" +is a word borrowed from the ancient systems, in which certain rites and +doctrines were communicated to the initiated. There are several +allusions to them in Paul's writings, as for instance in the passage in +Philippians iv. 12, which the Revised Version gives as "I have learned +the secret both to be filled and to be hungry," and probably in the +immediate context here, where the characteristic word "perfect" means +"initiated." Portentous theories which have no warrant have been spun +out of this word. The Greek mysteries implied secrecy; the rites were +done in deep obscurity; the esoteric doctrines were muttered in the ear. +The Christian mysteries are spoken on the housetop, nor does the word +imply anything as to the comprehensibility of the doctrines or facts +which are so called. + +We talk about "mysteries," meaning thereby truths that transcend human +faculties; but the New Testament "mystery" may be, and most frequently +is, a fact perfectly comprehensible when once spoken. "Behold I show you +a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." There +is nothing incomprehensible in that. We should never have known it if we +had not been told; but when told it is quite level with our faculties. +And as a matter of fact, the word is most frequently used in connection +with the notion, not of concealment, but of declaring. We find too that +it occurs frequently in this Epistle, and in the parallel letter to the +Ephesians, and in every instance but one refers as it does here, to a +fact which was perfectly plain and comprehensible when once made known; +namely, the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church. + +If that be the true meaning of the word, then "a steward of the +mysteries" will simply mean a man who has truths, formerly unknown but +now revealed, in charge to make known to all who will hearken, and +neither the claims of a priesthood nor the demand for the unquestioning +submission of the intellect have any foundation in this much abused +term. + +But turning from this, we may briefly consider what was the substance of +this grand mystery which thrilled Paul's soul. It is the wonderful fact +that all barriers were broken down, and that Christ dwelt in the hearts +of these Colossians. He saw in that the proof and the prophecy of the +world-wide destination of the gospel. No wonder that his heart burned as +he thought of the marvellous work which God had wrought by him. For +there is no greater revolution in the history of the world than that +accomplished through him, the cutting loose of Christianity from Judaism +and widening the Church to the width of the race. No wonder that he was +misunderstood and hated by Jewish Christians all his days! + +He thinks of these once heathens and now Christians at Colossæ, far away +in their lonely valley, and of many another little community--in Judæa, +Asia, Greece, and Italy; and as he thinks of how a real solid bond of +brotherhood bound them together in spite of their differences of race +and culture, the vision of the oneness of mankind in the Cross of Christ +shines out before him, as no man had ever seen it till then, and he +triumphs in the sorrows that had helped to bring about the great result. + +That dwelling of Christ among the Gentiles reveals the exuberant +abundance of glory. To him the "mystery" was all running over with +riches, and blazing with fresh radiance. To us it is familiar and +somewhat worn. The "vision splendid," which was manifestly a revelation +of hitherto unknown Divine treasures of mercy and lustrous light when it +first dawned on the Apostle's sight, has "faded" somewhat "into the +light of common day" for us, to whom the centuries since have shown so +slow a progress. But let us not lose more than we can help, either by +our familiarity with the thought, or by the discouragements arising from +the chequered history of its partial realization. Christianity is still +the only religion which has been able to make permanent conquests. It is +the only one that has been able to disregard latitude and longitude, and +to address and guide condition of civilization and modes of life quite +unlike those of its origin. It is the only one that sets itself the task +of conquering the world without the sword, and has kept true to the +design for centuries. It is the only one whose claims to be world-wide +in its adaptation and destiny would not be laughed out of court by its +history. It is the only one which is to-day a missionary religion. And +so, notwithstanding the long centuries of arrested growth and the wide +tracts of remaining darkness, the mystery which fired Paul's enthusiasm +is still able to kindle ours, and the wealth of glory that lies in it +has not been impoverished nor stricken with eclipse. + +One last thought is here,--that the possession of Christ is the pledge +of future blessedness. "Hope" here seems to be equivalent to "the +source" or "ground" of the hope. If we have the experience of His +dwelling in our hearts, we shall have, in that very experience of His +sweetness and of the intimacy of His love, a marvellous quickener of our +hope that such sweetness and intimacy will continue for ever. The closer +we keep to Him, the clearer will be our vision of future blessedness. If +He is throned in our hearts, we shall be able to look forward with a +hope, which is not less than certainty, to the perpetual continuance of +His hold of us and of our blessedness in Him. Anything seems more +credible to a man who habitually has Christ abiding in him, than that +such a trifle as death should have power to end such a union. To have +Him is to have life. To have Him will be heaven. To have Him is to have +a hope certain as memory and careless of death or change. + +That hope is offered to us all. If by our faith in His great sacrifice +we grasp the great truth of "Christ for us," our fears will be +scattered, sin and guilt taken away, death abolished, condemnation +ended, the future a hope and not a dread. If by communion with Him +through faith, love, and obedience, we have "Christ in us," our purity +will grow, and our experience will be such as plainly to demand eternity +to complete its incompleteness and to bring its folded buds to flower +and fruit. If Christ be in us, His life guarantees ours, and we cannot +die whilst He lives. The world has come, in the persons of its leading +thinkers, to the position of proclaiming that all is dark beyond and +above. "Behold! we know not anything," is the dreary "end of the whole +matter"--infinitely sadder than the old Ecclesiastes, which from "vanity +of vanities" climbed to "fear God and keep His commandments," as the sum +of human thought and life. "I find no God; I know no future." Yes! Paul +long ago told us that if we were "without Christ" we should "have no +hope, and be without God in the world." And cultivated Europe is finding +out that to fling away Christ and to keep a faith in God or in a future +life is impossible. + +But if we will take Him for our Saviour by simple trust, He will give us +His own presence in our hearts, and infuse there a hope full of +immortality. If we live in close communion with Him, we shall need no +other assurance of an eternal life beyond than that deep, calm +blessedness springing from the imperfect fellowship of earth which must +needs lead to and be lost in the everlasting and completed union of +heaven. + + + + +IX. + +_THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN ITS THEME, METHODS AND AIM._ + + "Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in + all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; + whereunto I labour also, striving according to His working, which + worketh in me mightily,"--COL. i. 28, 29 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The false teachers at Colossæ had a great deal to say about a higher +wisdom reserved for the initiated. They apparently treated the Apostolic +teaching as trivial rudiments, which might be good for the vulgar crowd, +but were known by the possessors of this higher truth to be only a veil +for it. They had their initiated class, to whom their mysteries were +entrusted in whispers. + +Such absurdities excited Paul's special abhorrence. His whole soul +rejoiced in a gospel for all men. He had broken with Judaism on the very +ground that it sought to enforce a ceremonial exclusiveness, and +demanded circumcision and ritual observances along with faith. That was, +in Paul's estimate, to destroy the gospel. These Eastern dreamers at +Colossæ were trying to enforce an intellectual exclusiveness quite as +much opposed to the gospel. Paul fights with all his might against that +error. Its presence in the Church colours this context, where he uses +the very phrases of the false teachers in order to assert the great +principles which he opposes to their teaching. "Mystery," "perfect" or +initiated, "wisdom,"--these are the key-words of the system which he is +combating; and here he presses them into the service of the principle +that the gospel is for all men, and the most recondite secrets of its +deepest truth the property of every single soul that wills to receive +them. Yes, he says in effect, we have mysteries. We have our initiated. +We have wisdom. But we have no whispered teachings, confined to a little +coterie; we have no inner chamber closed to the many. We are not +muttering hierophants, cautiously revealing a little to a few, and +fooling the rest with ceremonies and words. Our whole business is to +tell out as fully and loudly as we can what we know of Christ, to tell +to _every_ man _all_ the wisdom that we have learned. We fling open the +inmost sanctuary, and invite all the crowd to enter. + +This is the general scope of the words before us which state the object +and methods of the Apostle's work; partly in order to point the contrast +with those other teachers, and partly in order to prepare the way, by +this personal reference, for his subsequent exhortations. + +I. We have here the Apostle's own statement of what he conceived his +life work to be. + +"Whom we proclaim." All three words are emphatic. "Whom," not what--a +person, not a system; we "proclaim," not we argue or dissertate about. +"We" preach--the Apostle associates himself with all his brethren, puts +himself in line with them, points to the unanimity of their +testimony--"whether it were they or I, so we preach." We have all one +message, a common type of doctrine. + +So then--the Christian teacher's theme is not to be a theory or a +system, but a living Person. One peculiarity of Christianity is that you +cannot take its message, and put aside Christ, the speaker of the +message, as you may do with all men's teachings. Some people say: "We +take the great moral and religious truths which Jesus declared. They are +the all-important parts of His work. We can disentangle them from any +further connection with Him. It matters comparatively little who first +spoke them." But that will not do. His person is inextricably +intertwined with His teaching, for a very large part of His teaching is +exclusively concerned with, and all of it centres in, Himself. He is not +only true, but He is the truth. His message is, not only what He said +with His lips about God and man, but also what He said about Himself, +and what He did in His life, death, and resurrection. You may take +Buddha's sayings, if you can make sure that they are his, and find much +that is beautiful and true in them, whatever you may think of him; you +may appreciate the teaching of Confucius, though you know nothing about +him but that he said so and so; but you cannot do thus with Jesus. Our +Christianity takes its whole colour from what we think of Him. If we +think of Him as less than this chapter has been setting Him forth as +being, we shall scarcely feel that _He_ should be the preacher's theme; +but if He is to us what He was to this Apostle, the sole Revealer of +God, the Centre and Lord of creation, the Fountain of life to all which +lives, the Reconciler of men with God by the blood of His cross, then +the one message which a man may be thankful to spend his life in +proclaiming will be, Behold the Lamb! Let who will preach abstractions, +the true Christian minister has to preach the person and the +office--Jesus the Christ. + +To preach Christ is to set forth the person, the facts of His life and +death, and to accompany these with that explanation which turns them +from being merely a biography into a gospel. So much of "theory" must go +with the "facts," or they will be no more a gospel than the story of +another life would be. The Apostle's own statement of "the gospel which +he preached" distinctly lays down what is needed--"how that Jesus Christ +died." That is biography, and to say that and stop there is not to +preach Christ; but add, "For our sins, according to the Scriptures, and +that He was raised again the third day,"--preach _that_, the fact and +its meaning and power, and you will preach Christ. + +Of course there is a narrower and a wider sense of this expression. +There is the initial teaching, which brings to a soul, who has never +seen it before, the knowledge of a Saviour, whose Cross is the +propitiation for sin; and there is the fuller teaching, which opens out +the manifold bearings of that message in every region of moral and +religious thought. I do not plead for any narrow construction of the +words. They have been sorely abused, by being made the battle-cry for +bitter bigotry and a hard system of abstract theology, as unlike what +Paul means by "Christ" as any cobwebs of Gnostic heresy could be. +Legitimate outgrowths of the Christian ministry have been checked in +their name. They have been used as a cramping iron, as a shibboleth, as +a stone to fling at honest and especially at young preachers. They have +been made a pillow for laziness. So that the very sound of the words +suggests to some ears, because of their use in some mouths, ignorant +narrowness. + +But for all that, they are a standard of duty for all workers for God, +which it is not difficult to apply, if the will to do so be present, and +they are a touch-stone to try the spirits, whether they be of God. A +ministry of which the Christ who lived and died for us is manifestly the +centre to which all converges and from which all is viewed, may sweep a +wide circumference, and include many themes. The requirement bars out no +province of thought or experience, nor does it condemn the preacher to a +parrot-like repetition of elementary truths, or a narrow round of +commonplace. It does demand that all themes shall lead up to Christ, and +all teaching point to Him; that He shall be ever present in all the +preacher's words, a diffused even when not a directly perceptible +presence; and that His name, like some deep tone on an organ, shall be +heard sounding on through all the ripple and change of the higher notes. +Preaching Christ does not exclude any theme, but prescribes the bearing +and purpose of all; and the widest compass and richest variety are not +only possible but obligatory for him who would in any worthy sense take +this for the motto of his ministry, "I determined not to know anything +among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." + +But these words give us not only the theme but something of the manner +of the Apostle's activity. "We _proclaim_." The word is emphatic in its +form, meaning _to tell out_, and representing the proclamation as full, +clear, earnest. "We are no muttering mystery-mongers. From full lungs +and in a voice to make people hear, we shout aloud our message. We do +not take a man into a corner, and whisper secrets into his ear; we cry +in the streets, and our message is for 'every man.'" + +And the word not only implies the plain, loud earnestness of the +speaker, but also that what he speaks is a _message_, that he is not a +speaker of his own words or thoughts, but of what has been told him to +tell. His gospel is a good message, and a messenger's virtue is to say +exactly what he has been told, and to say it in such a way that the +people to whom he has to carry it cannot but hear and understand it. + +This connection of the Christian minister's office contrasts on the one +hand with the priestly theory. Paul had known in Judaism a religion of +which the altar was the centre, and the official function of the +"minister" was to sacrifice. But now he has come to see that "the one +sacrifice for sins for ever" leaves no room for a sacrificing priest in +that Church of which the centre is the Cross. We sorely need that lesson +to be drilled into the minds of men to-day, when such a strange +resurrection of priestism has taken place, and good, earnest men, whose +devotion cannot be questioned, are looking on preaching as a very +subordinate part of their work. For three centuries there has not been +so much need as now to fight against the notion of a priesthood in the +Church, and to urge this as the true definition of the minister's +office: "we preach," not "we sacrifice," not "we _do_" anything; "we +preach," not "we work miracles at any altar, or impart grace by any +rites," but by manifestation of the truth discharge our office and +spread the blessings of Christ. + +This conception contrasts on the other hand, with the false teachers' +style of speech, which finds its parallel in much modern talk. Their +business was to argue and refine and speculate, to spin inferences and +cobwebby conclusions. They sat in a lecturer's chair; we stand in a +preacher's pulpit. The Christian minister has not to deal in such wares; +he has a message to proclaim, and if he allows the "philosopher" in him +to overpower the "herald," and substitutes his thoughts about the +message, or his arguments in favour of the message, for the message +itself, he abdicates his highest office and neglects his most important +function. + +We hear many demands to-day for a "higher type of preaching," which I +would heartily echo, if only it be _preaching_; that is, the +proclamation in loud and plain utterance of the great facts of Christ's +work. But many who ask for this really want, not preaching, but +something quite different; and many, as I think, mistaken Christian +teachers are trying to play up to the requirements of the age by turning +their sermons into dissertations, philosophical or moral or æsthetic. We +need to fall back on this "we preach," and to urge that the Christian +minister is neither priest nor lecturer, but a herald, whose business is +to tell out his message, and to take good care that he tells it +faithfully. If, instead of blowing his trumpet and calling aloud his +commission, he were to deliver a discourse on acoustics and the laws of +the vibration of sonorous metal, or to prove that he had a message, and +to dilate on its evident truth or on the beauty of its phrases, he +would scarcely be doing his work. No more is the Christian minister, +unless he keeps clear before himself as the guiding star of his work +this conception of his theme and his task--_Whom we preach_--and opposes +that to the demands of an age, one half of which "require a sign," and +would again degrade him into a priest, and the other calls for "wisdom," +and would turn him into a professor. + +II. We have here the varying methods by which this one great end is +pursued. "Admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom." + +There are then two main methods--"admonishing" and "teaching." The +former means "admonishing with blame," and points, as many commentators +remark, to that side of the Christian ministry which corresponds to +repentance, while the latter points to that side which corresponds to +faith. In other words, the former rebukes and warns, has to do with +conduct and the moral side of Christian truth; the latter has chiefly to +do with doctrine, and the intellectual side. In the one Christ is +proclaimed as the pattern of conduct, the "new commandment"; in the +other, as the creed of creeds, the new and perfect knowledge. + +The preaching of Christ then is to be unfolded into all "warning," or +admonishing. The teaching of morality and the admonishing of the evil +and the end of sin are essential parts of preaching Christ. We claim for +the pulpit the right and the duty of applying the principles and pattern +of Christ's life to all human conduct. It is difficult to do, and is +made more so by some of the necessary conditions of our modern ministry, +for the pulpit is not the place for details; and yet moral teaching +which is confined to general principles is woefully like repeating +platitudes and firing blank cartridges. Everybody admits the general +principles, and thinks they do not apply to his specific wrong action; +and if the preacher goes beyond these toothless generalities, he is met +with the cry of "personalities." If a man preaches a sermon in which he +speaks plainly about tricks of trade or follies of fashion, somebody is +sure to say, going down the chapel steps, "Oh! ministers know nothing of +business," and somebody else to add, "It is a pity he was so personal," +and the chorus is completed by many other voices, "He should preach +Christ, and leave secular things alone." + +Well! whether a sermon of that sort be preaching Christ or not depends +on the way in which it is done. But sure I am that there is no +"preaching Christ" completely, which does not include plain speaking +about plain duties. Everything that a man can either do rightly or +wrongly belongs to the sphere of morals, and everything within the +sphere of morals belongs to Christianity and to "preaching Christ." + +Nor is such preaching complete without plain warning of the end of sin, +as death here and hereafter. This is difficult, for many people like to +have the smooth side of truth always put uppermost. But the gospel has a +rough side, and is by no means a "soothing syrup" merely. There are no +rougher words about what wrongdoers come to than some of Christ's words; +and he has only given half his Master's message who hides or softens +down the grim saying, "The wages of sin is death." + +But all this moral teaching must be closely connected with and built +upon Christ. Christian morality has Jesus for its perfect exemplar, His +love for its motive, and His grace for its power. Nothing is more +impotent than mere moral teaching. What is the use of perpetually saying +to people, Be good, be good? You may keep on at that for ever, and not a +soul will listen, any more than the crowds on our streets are drawn to +church by the bell's monotonous call. But if, instead of a cold ideal of +duty, as beautiful and as dead as a marble statue, we preach the Son of +man, whose life is our law incarnate; and instead of urging to purity by +motives which our own evil makes feeble, we re-echo His heart-touching +appeal, "If ye love Me, keep My commandments;" and if, instead of +mocking lame men with exhortations to walk, we point those who +despairingly cry, "Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?" to +Him who breathes His living spirit into us to set us free from sin and +death, then our preaching of morality will be "preaching the gospel" and +be "preaching Christ." + +This gospel is also to be unfolded into "teaching." In the facts of +Christ's life and death, as we ponder them and grow up to understand +them, we get to see more and more the key to all things. For thought, as +for life, He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending. All +that we can or need know about God or man, about present duty or future +destiny, about life, death, and the beyond,--all is in Jesus Christ, and +to be drawn from Him by patient thought and by abiding in Him. The +Christian minister's business is to be ever learning and ever teaching +more and more of the "manifold wisdom" of God. He has to draw for +himself from the deep, inexhaustible fountains; he has to bear the +water, which must be fresh drawn to be pleasant or refreshing, to +thirsty lips. He must seek to present all sides of the truth, teaching +_all_ wisdom, and so escaping from his own limited mannerisms. How many +ministers' Bibles are all dog-eared and thumbed at certain texts, at +which they almost open of themselves, and are as clean in most of their +pages as on the day when they were bought! + +The Christian ministry, then, in the Apostle's view, is distinctly +educational in its design. Preachers and hearers equally need to be +reminded of this. We preachers are poor scholars ourselves, and in our +work are tempted, like other people, to do most frequently what we can +do with least trouble. Besides which, we many of us know, and all +suspect, that our congregations prefer to hear what they have heard +often before, and what gives them the least trouble. We often hear the +cry for "simple preaching," by which one school intends "simple +instruction in plain, practical matters, avoiding mere dogma," and +another intends "the simple gospel," by which is meant the repetition +over and over again of the great truth, "Believe on the Lord Jesus +Christ, and thou shalt be saved." God forbid that I should say a word +which might even seem to under-estimate the need for that proclamation +being made in its simple form, as the staple of the Christian ministry, +to all who have not welcomed it into their hearts, or to forget that, +however dimly understood, it will bring light and hope and new loves and +strengths into a soul! But the New Testament draws a distinction between +evangelists and teachers, and common sense insists that Christian people +need more than the reiteration of that message from him whom they call +their "teacher." If he is a teacher, he should teach; and he cannot do +that, if the people who listen to him suspect everything that they do +not know already, and are impatient of anything that gives them the +trouble of attending and thinking in order to learn. I fear there is +much unreality in the name, and that nothing would be more distasteful +to many of our congregations than the preacher's attempt to make it +truly descriptive of his work. Sermons should not be "quiet resting +places." Nor is it quite the ideal of Christian teaching that busy men +should come to church or chapel on a Sunday, and not be fatigued by +being made to think, but perhaps to be able to sleep for a minute or two +and pick up the thread when they wake, quite sure that they have missed +nothing of any consequence. We are meant to be teachers, as well as +evangelists, though we fulfil the function so poorly; but our hearers +often make that task more difficult by ill-concealed impatience with +sermons which try to discharge it. + +Observe too the emphatic repetition of "every man" both in these two +clauses and in the following. It is Paul's protest against the +exclusiveness of the heretics, who shut out the mob from their +mysteries. An intellectual aristocracy is the proudest and most +exclusive of all. A Church built upon intellectual qualifications would +be as hard and cruel a _coterie_ as could be imagined. So there is +almost vehemence and scorn in the persistent repetition in each clause +of the obnoxious word, as if he would thrust down his antagonists' +throats the truth that his gospel has nothing to do with cliques and +sections, but belongs to the world. To it philosopher and fool are +equally welcome. Its message is to all. Brushing aside surface +diversities, it goes straight to deep-lying wants, which are the same in +all men. Below king's robe and professor's gown, and workman's jacket +and prodigal's rags, beats the same heart with the same wants, wild +longings, and weariness. Christianity knows no hopeless classes. But its +highest wisdom can be spoken to the little child and the barbarian, and +it is ready to deal with the most forlorn and foolish, knowing its own +power to "warn every man and to teach every man in all wisdom." + +III. We have here the ultimate aim of these diverse methods. "That we +may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." + +We found this same word "present" in verse 22. The remarks made there +will apply here. There the Divine purpose of Christ's great work, and +here Paul's purpose in his, are expressed alike. God's aim is Paul's aim +too. The Apostle's thoughts travel on to the great coming day, when we +shall all be manifested at the judgment seat of Christ, and preacher and +hearer, Apostle and convert, shall be gathered there. That solemn period +will test the teacher's work, and should ever be in his view as he +works. There is a real and indissoluble connection between the teacher +and his hearers, so that in some sense he is to blame if they do not +stand perfect then, and he in some sense has to present them as in his +work--the gold, silver, and precious stones which he has built on the +foundation. So each preacher should work with that end clear in view, as +Paul did. He is always toiling in the light of that great vision. One +sees him, in all his letters, looking away yonder to the horizon, where +he expects the breaking of its morning low down in the eastern sky. Ah! +how many formal pulpit and how many a languid pew would be galvanised +into intense action if only their occupants once saw burning in on them, +in their decorous deadness, the light of that great white throne! How +differently we should preach if we always felt "the terror of the Lord," +and under its solemn influence sought to "persuade men!" How differently +we should hear if we felt we must appear before the Judge, and give +account to Him of our profitings by His word! + +And the purpose which the true minister of Christ has in view is to +"present every man _perfect in Christ Jesus_." "Perfect" may be used +here with the technical signification of "initiated," but it means +absolute moral completeness. Negatively, it implies the entire removal +of all defects; positively, the complete possession of all that belongs +to human nature as God meant it to be. The Christian aim, for which the +preaching of Christ supplies ample power, is to make the whole race +possess, in fullest development, the whole circle of possible human +excellences. There is to be no one-sided growth but men are to grow like +a tree in the open, which has no barrier to hinder its symmetry, but +rises and spreads equally on all sides, with no branch broken or +twisted, no leaf worm-eaten or wind-torn, no fruit blighted or fallen, +no gap in the clouds of foliage, no bend in the straight stem,--a green +and growing completeness. This absolute completeness is attainable "in +Christ," by union with Him of that vital sort brought about by faith, +which will pour His Spirit into our spirits. The preaching of Christ is +therefore plainly the direct way to bring about this perfecting. That is +the Christian theory of the way to make perfect men. + +And this absolute perfection of character is, in Paul's belief, possible +for every man, no matter what his training or natural disposition may +have been. The gospel is confident that it can change the Ethiopian's +skin, because it can change his heart, and the leopard's spots will be +altered when it "eats straw like the ox." There are no hopeless classes, +in the glad, confident view of the man who has learned Christ's power. + +What a vision of the future to animate work! What an aim! What dignity, +what consecration, what enthusiasm it would give, making the trivial +great and the monotonous interesting, stirring up those who share it to +intense effort, overcoming low temptations, and giving precision to the +selection of means and use of instruments! The pressure of a great, +steady purpose consolidates and strengthens powers, which, without it, +become flaccid and feeble. We can make a piece of calico as stiff as a +board by putting it under an hydraulic press. Men with a fixed purpose +are terrible men. They crash through conventionalities like a cannon +ball. They, and they only, can persuade and arouse and impress their own +enthusiasm on the inert mass. "Behold, how great a matter a little fire +kindleth!" No Christian minister will work up to the limits of his +power, nor do much for Christ or man, unless his whole soul is mastered +by this high conception of the possibilities of his office, and unless +he is possessed with the ambition to present every man "perfect in +Christ Jesus." + +IV. Note the struggle and the strength with which the Apostle reaches +toward this aim. "Whereunto I labour also, striving according to His +working, which worketh in me mightily." + +As to the object, theme, and method of the Christian ministry, Paul can +speak, as he does in the previous verses, in the name of all his fellow +workers: "_We_ preach, admonishing and teaching, that we may present." +There was substantial unity among them. But he adds a sentence about his +own toil and conflict in doing his work. He will only speak for himself +now. The others may say what their experience has been. He has found +that he cannot do his work easily. Some people may be able to get +through it with little toil of body or agony of mind, but for himself it +has been laborious work. He has not learned to "take it easy." That +great purpose has been ever before him, and made a slave of him. "I +labour _also_"; I do not only preach, but I _toil_--as the word +literally implies--like a man tugging at an oar, and putting all his +weight into each stroke. No great work for God will be done without +physical and mental strain and effort. Perhaps there were people in +Colossæ who thought that a man who had nothing to do but to preach had a +very easy life, and so the Apostle had to insist that most exhausting +work is brain work and heart work. Perhaps there were preachers and +teachers there who worked in a leisurely, dignified fashion, and took +great care always to stop a long way on the safe side of weariness; and +so he had to insist that God's work cannot be done at all in that +fashion, but has to be done "with both hands, earnestly." The "immortal +garland" is to be run for, "not without dust and heat." The racer who +takes care to slack his speed whenever he is in danger of breaking into +a perspiration will not win the prize. The Christian minister who is +afraid of putting all his strength into his work, up to the point of +weariness, will never do much good. + +There must be not only toil, but conflict. He labours, +"_striving_"--that is to say, contending--with hindrances, both without +and within, which sought to mar his work. There is the struggle with +one's self, with the temptations to do high work from low motives, or to +neglect it, and to substitute routine for inspiration and mechanism for +fervour. One's own evil, one's weaknesses and fears and falsities, and +laziness and torpor and faithlessness, have all to be fought, besides +the difficulties and enemies without. In short, all good work is a +battle. + +The hard strain and stress of this life of effort and conflict made this +man "Paul the aged" while he was not old in years. Such soul's agony and +travail is indispensable for all high service of Christ. How can any +true, noble Christian life be lived without continuous effort and +continual strife? Up to the last particle of our power, it is our duty +to work. As for the sleepy, languid, self-indulgent service of modern +Christians, who seem to be chiefly anxious not to overstrain themselves, +and to manage to win the race set before them without turning a hair, I +am afraid that a large deduction will have to be made from it in the day +that shall "try every man's work, of what sort it is." + +So much for the struggle; now for the strength. The toil and the +conflict are to be carried on "according to His working, which worketh +in me mightily." The measure of our power then is Christ's power in us. +He whose presence makes the struggle necessary, by His presence +strengthens us for it. He will dwell in us and work in us, and even our +weakness will be lifted into joyful strength by Him. We shall be mighty +because that mighty Worker is in our spirits. We have not only His +presence beside us as an ally, but His grace within us. We may not only +have the vision of our Captain standing at our side as we front the +foe--an unseen presence to them, but inspiration and victory to us--but +we may have the consciousness of His power welling up in our spirits and +flowing, as immortal strength, into our arms. It is much to know that +Christ fights for us; it is more to know that He fights in us. + +Let us take courage then for all work and conflict; and remember that if +we have not "striven according to the power"--that is, if we have not +utilised _all_ our Christ-given strength in His service--we have not +striven enough. There may be a double defect in us. We may not have +taken all the power that he Has given, and we may not have used all the +power that we have taken. Alas, for us! we have to confess both faults. +How weak we have been when Omnipotence waited to give Itself to us! How +little we have made our own of the grace that flows so abundantly past +us, catching such a small part of the broad river in our hands, and +spilling so much even of that before it reached our lips! And how little +of the power given, whether natural or spiritual, we have used for our +Lord! How many weapons have hung rusty and unused in the fight! He has +sowed much in our hearts, and reaped little. Like some unkindly soils, +we have "drunk in the rain which cometh oft upon it," and have "_not_ +brought forth herbs fit for Him by whom it is dressed." Talents hid, the +Master's goods squandered, power allowed to run to waste, languid +service and half-hearted conflict, we have all to acknowledge. Let us go +to Him and confess that, "we have most unthankful been," and are +unprofitable servants indeed, coming far short of duty. Let us yield our +spirits to His influence, that He may work in us that which is pleasing +in His sight, and may encircle us with ever-growing completeness of +beauty and strength, until He "present us faultless before the presence +of His glory with exceeding joy." + + + + +X. + +_PAUL'S STRIVING FOR THE COLOSSIANS._ + + "For I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for + them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the + flesh; that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together + in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, + that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in Whom are all + the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden."--COL. ii. 1-3 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +We have seen that the closing portion of the previous chapter is almost +exclusively personal. In this context the same strain is continued, and +two things are dwelt on: the Apostle's agony of anxiety for the +Colossian Church, and the joy with which, from his prison, he travelled +in spirit across mountain and sea, and saw them in their quiet valley, +cleaving to the Lord. The former of these feelings is expressed in the +words now before us; the latter, in the following verses. + +All this long outpouring of self-revelation is so natural and +characteristic of Paul that we need scarcely look for any purpose in it, +and yet we may note with what consummate art he thereby prepares the way +for the warnings which follow. The unveiling of his own throbbing heart +was sure to work on the affections of his readers and to incline them to +listen. His profound emotion in thinking of the preciousness of his +message would help to make them feel how much was at stake, and his +unfaltering faith would give firmness to their less tenacious grasp of +the truth which, as they saw, he gripped with such force. Many truths +may be taught coolly, and some must be. But in religious matters, +arguments wrought in frost are powerless, and earnestness approaching to +passion is the all-conquering force. A teacher who is afraid to show his +feelings, or who has no feelings to show, will never gather many +disciples. + +So this revelation of the Apostle's heart is relevant to the great +purposes of the whole letter--the warning against error, and the +exhortation to stedfastness. In the verses which we are now considering, +we have the conflict which Paul was waging set forth in three aspects: +first, in itself; second, in regard to the persons for whom it was +waged; and, finally and principally, in regard to the object or purpose +in view therein. The first and second of these points may be dealt with +briefly. The third will require further consideration. + +I. There is first the conflict, which he earnestly desired that the +Colossian Christians might know to be "great." The word rendered in the +Authorised Version "conflict," belongs to the same root as that which +occurs in the last verse of the previous chapter, and is there rendered +"striving." The Revised Version rightly indicates this connection by its +translation, but fails to give the construction as accurately as the +older translation does. "What great strife I have" would be nearer the +Greek, and more forcible than the somewhat feeble "how greatly I +strive," which the Revisers have adopted. The conflict referred to is, +of course, that of the arena, as so often in Paul's writings. + +But how could he, in Rome, wage conflict on behalf of the Church at +Colossæ? No external conflict can be meant. He could strike no blows on +their behalf. What he could do in that way, he did, and he was now +taking part in their battle by this letter. If he could not fight by +their side, he could send them ammunition, as he does in this great +Epistle, which was, no doubt, to the eager combatants for the truth at +Colossæ, what it has been ever since, a magazine and arsenal in all +their warfare. But the real struggle was in his own heart. It meant +anxiety, sympathy, an agony of solicitude, a passion of intercession. +What he says of Epaphras in this very Epistle was true of himself. He +was "always striving in prayer for them." And by these wrestlings of +spirit he took his place among the combatants, though they were far +away, and though in outward seeming, his life was untouched by any of +the difficulties and dangers which hemmed them in. In that lonely +prison-cell, remote from their conflict, and with burdens enough of his +own to carry, with his life in peril, his heart yet turned to them and, +like some soldier left behind to guard the base while his comrades had +gone forward to the fight, his ears listened for the sound of battle, +and his thoughts were in the field. His prison cell was like the focus +of some reverberating gallery in which every whisper spoken all round +the circumference was heard, and the heart that was held captive there +was set vibrating in all its chords by every sound from any of the +Churches. + +Let us learn the lesson, that, for all Christian people, sympathy in the +battle for God, which is being waged all over the world, is plain duty. +For all Christian teachers of every sort, an eager sympathy in the +difficulties and struggles of those whom they would try to teach is +indispensable. We can never deal wisely with any mind until we have +entered into its peculiarities. We can never help a soul fighting with +errors and questionings until we have ourselves felt the pinch of the +problems, and have shown that soul that we know what it is to grope and +stumble. No man is ever able to lift a burden from another's shoulders +except on condition of bearing the burden himself. If I stretch out my +hand to some poor brother struggling in "the miry clay," he will not +grasp it, and my well-meant efforts will be vain, unless he can see that +I too have felt with him the horror of great darkness, and desire him to +share with me the benedictions of the light. + +Wheresoever our prison or our workshop may be, howsoever Providence or +circumstances--which is but a heathenish word for the same thing--may +separate us from active participation in any battle for God, we are +bound to take an eager share in it by sympathy, by interest, by such +help as we can render, and by that intercession which may sway the +fortunes of the field, though the uplifted hands grasp no weapons, and +the spot where we pray be far from the fight. It is not only the men who +bear the brunt of the battle in the high places of the field who are the +combatants. In many a quiet home, where their wives and mothers sit, +with wistful faces waiting for the news from the front, are an agony of +anxiety, and as true a share in the struggle as amidst the battery smoke +and the gleaming bayonets. It was a law in Israel, "As his part is that +goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that abideth by the +stuff. They shall part alike." They were alike in recompense, because +they were rightly regarded as alike in service. So all Christians who +have in heart and sympathy taken part in the great battle shall be +counted as combatants and crowned as victors, though they themselves +have struck no blows. "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a +prophet shall receive a prophet's reward." + +II. We notice the persons for whom this conflict was endured. They are +the Christians of Colossæ, and their neighbours of Laodicea, and "as +many as have not seen my face in the flesh." It may be a question +whether the Colossians and Laodiceans belong to those who have not seen +his face in the flesh, but the most natural view of the words is that +the last clause "introduces the whole class to which the persons +previously enumerated belong,"[2] and this conclusion is confirmed by +the silence of the Acts of the Apostles as to any visit of Paul's to +these Churches, and by the language of the Epistle itself, which, in +several places, refers to his knowledge of the Colossian Church as +derived from hearing of them, and never alludes to personal intercourse. +That being so, one can understand that its members might easily think +that he cared less for them than he did for the more fortunate +communities which he had himself planted or watered, and might have +suspected that the difficulties of the Church at Ephesus, for instance, +lay nearer his heart than theirs in their remote upland valley. No +doubt, too, their feelings to him were less warm than to Epaphras and to +other teachers whom they had heard. They had never felt the magnetism of +his personal presence, and were at a disadvantage in their struggle +with the errors which were beginning to lift their snaky heads among +them, from not having had the inspiration and direction of his teaching. + +It is beautiful to see how, here, Paul lays hold of that very fact which +seemed to put some film of separation between them, in order to make it +the foundation of his especial keenness of interest in them. Precisely +because he had never looked them in the eyes, they had a warmer place in +his heart, and his solicitude for them was more tender. He was not so +enslaved by sense that his love could not travel beyond the limits of +his eyesight. He was the more anxious about them because they had not +the recollections of his teaching and of his presence to fall back upon. + +III. But the most important part of this section is the Apostle's +statement of the great subject of his solicitude, that which he +anxiously longed that the Colossians might attain. It is a prophecy, as +well as a desire. It is a statement of the deepest purpose of his letter +to them, and being so, it is likewise a statement of the Divine desire +concerning each of us, and of the Divine design of the gospel. Here is +set forth what God would have all Christians to be, and, in Jesus +Christ, has given them ample means of being. + +(1) The first element in the Apostle's desire for them is "that their +hearts may be comforted." Of course the Biblical use of the word "heart" +is much wider than the modern popular use of it. We mean by it, when we +use it in ordinary talk, the hypothetical seat of the emotions, and +chiefly, the organ and throne of love; but Scripture means by the word, +the whole inward personality, including thought and will as well as +emotion. So we read of the "thoughts and intents of the heart," and the +whole inward nature is called "the hidden man of the heart." + +And what does he desire for this inward man? That it may be "comforted." +That word again has a wider signification in Biblical, than in +nineteenth century English. It is much more than consolation in trouble. +The cloud that hung over the Colossian Church was not about to break in +sorrows which they would need consolation to bear, but in doctrinal and +practical errors which they would need strength to resist. They were +called to fight rather than to endure, and what they needed most was +courageous confidence. So Paul desires for them that their hearts should +be _encouraged_ or strengthened, that they might not quail before the +enemy, but go into the fight with buoyancy, and be of good cheer. + +Is there any greater blessing in view both of the conflict which +Christianity has to wage to-day, and of the difficulties and warfare of +our own lives, than that brave spirit, which plunges into the struggle +with the serene assurance that victory sits on our helms and waits upon +our swords, and knows that anything is possible rather than defeat? That +is the condition of overcoming--even our faith. "The sad heart tires in +a mile," but the strong hopeful heart carries in its very strength the +prophecy of triumph. + +Such a disposition is not altogether a matter of temperament, but may be +cultivated, and though it may come easier to some of us than to others, +it certainly ought to belong to all who have God to trust to, and +believe that the gospel is His truth. They may well be strong who have +Divine power ready to flood their hearts, who know that everything works +for their good, who can see, above the whirl of time and change, one +strong loving Hand which moves the wheels. What have we to do with fear +for ourselves, or wherefore should our "hearts tremble for the ark of +God," seeing that One fights by our sides who will teach our hands to +war and cover our heads in the day of battle? "Be of good courage, and +He shall strengthen thine heart." + +(2) The way to secure such joyous confidence and strength is taught us +here, for we have next, _Union in love_, as part of the means for +obtaining it--"They being knit together in love." The persons, not the +hearts, are to be thus united. Love is the true bond which unites +men--the bond of perfectness, as it is elsewhere called. That unity in +love would, of course, add to the strength of each. The old fable +teaches us that little fagots bound together are strong, and the tighter +the rope is pulled, the stronger they are. A solitary heart is timid and +weak, but many weaknesses brought together make a strength, as slimly +built houses in a row hold each other up, or dying embers raked closer +burst into flame. Loose grains of sand are light and moved by a breath; +compacted they are rock against which the Atlantic beats in vain. So, a +Church, of which the members are bound together by that love which is +the only real bond of Church life, presents a front to threatening evils +through which they cannot break. A real moral defence against even +intellectual error will be found in such a close compaction in mutual +Christian love. A community so interlocked will throw off many evils, as +a Roman legion with linked shields roofed itself over against missiles +from the wall of a besieged city, or the imbricated scales on a fish +keep it dry in the heart of the sea. + +But we must go deeper than this in interpreting these words. The love +which is to knit Christian men together is not merely love to one +another, but is common love to Jesus Christ. Such common love to Him is +the true bond of union, and the true strengthener of men's hearts. + +(3) This compaction in love will lead to a wealth of certitude in the +possession of the truth. + +Paul is so eagerly desirous for the Colossians' union in love to each +other and all to God, because He knows that such union will materially +contribute to their assured and joyful possession of the truth. It +tends, he thinks, unto "all riches of the full assurance of +understanding," by which he means the wealth which consists in the +entire, unwavering certitude which takes possession of the +understanding, the confidence that it has the truth and the life in +Jesus Christ. Such a joyful stedfastness of conviction that I have +grasped the truth is opposed to hesitating half belief. It is +attainable, as this context shows, by paths of moral discipline, and +amongst them, by seeking to realize our unity with our brethren, and not +proudly rejecting the "common faith" because it is common. Possessing +that assurance, we shall be rich and heart-whole. Walking amid +certainties we shall walk in paths of peace, and re-echo the triumphant +assurance of the Apostle, to whom love had given the key of +knowledge:--"we know that we are of God, and we know that the Son of God +is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that +is true." + +In all times of religious unsettlement, when an active propaganda of +denial is going on, Christian men are tempted to lower their own tone, +and to say, "It is so," with somewhat less of certainty, because so many +are saying, "It is not so." Little Rhoda needs some courage to affirm +constantly that "it was even so," when apostles and her masters keep +assuring her that she has only seen a vision. In this day, many +professing Christians falter in the clear assured profession of their +faith, and it does not need a keen ear to catch an undertone of doubt +making their voices tremulous. Some even are so afraid of being thought +"narrow," that they seek for the reputation of liberality by talking as +if there were a film of doubt over even the truths which used to be +"most surely believed." Much of the so-called faith of this day is all +honeycombed with secret misgivings, which have in many instances no +other intellectual basis than the consciousness of prevalent unbelief +and a second-hand acquaintance with its teachings. Few things are more +needed among us now than this full assurance and satisfaction of the +understanding with the truth as it is in Jesus. Nothing is more wretched +than the slow paralysis creeping over faith, the fading of what had been +stars into darkness. A tragedy is being wrought in many minds which have +had to exchange Christ's "Verily, verily," for a miserable "perhaps," +and can no longer say "I know," but only, "I would fain believe," or at +the best, "I incline to think still." On the other hand, the "full +assurance of the understanding" brings wealth. It breathes peace over +the soul, and gives endless riches in the truths which through it are +made living and real. + +This wealth of conviction is attained by living in the love of God. Of +course, there is an intellectual discipline which is also needed. But no +intellectual process will lead to an assured grasp of spiritual truth, +unless it be accompanied by love. As soon may we lay hold of truth with +our hands, as of God in Christ with our understandings alone. This is +the constant teaching of Scripture--that, if we would know God and have +assurance of Him, we must love Him. "In order to love human things, it +is necessary to know them. In order to know Divine things, it is +necessary to love them." When we are rooted and grounded in love, we +shall be able to know--for what we have most need to know and what the +gospel has mainly to teach us is the love, and "unless the eye with +which we look is love, how shall we know love?" If we love, we shall +possess an experience which verifies the truth for us, will give us an +irrefragable demonstration which will bring certitude to ourselves, +however little it may avail to convince others. Rich in the possession +of this confirmation of the gospel by the blessings which have come to +us from it, and which witness of their source, as the stream that dots +some barren plain with a line of green along its course is revealed +thereby, we shall have the right to oppose to many a doubt the full +assurance born of love, and while others are disputing whether there be +any God, or any living Christ, or any forgiveness of sins, or any +guiding providence, we shall know that they are, and are ours, because +we have felt the power and wealth which they have brought into our +lives. + +(4) This unity of love will lead to full knowledge of the mystery of +God. Such seems to be the connection of the next words, which may be +literally read "unto the full knowledge of the mystery of God," and may +be best regarded as a co-ordinate clause with the preceding, depending +like it on "being knit together in love." So taken, there is set forth a +double issue of that compaction in love to God and one another, namely, +the calm assurance in the grasp of truth already possessed, and the more +mature and deeper insight into the deep things of God. The word for +knowledge here is the same as in i. 9, and here as there means a full +knowledge. The Colossians had known Christ at first, but the Apostle's +desire is that they may come to a fuller knowledge, for the object to be +known is infinite, and endless degrees in the perception and possession +of His power and grace are possible. In that fuller knowledge they will +not leave behind what they knew at first, but will find in it deeper +meaning, a larger wisdom and a fuller truth. + +Among the large number of readings of the following words, that adopted +by the Revised Version is to be preferred, and the translation which it +gives is the most natural and is in accordance with the previous thought +in chapter i. 27, where also "the mystery" is explained to be "Christ in +you." A slight variation in the conception is presented here. The +"mystery" is Christ, not "in you," but "in Whom are hid all the +treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The great truth long hidden, now +revealed, is that the whole wealth of spiritual insight (knowledge), and +of reasoning on the truths thus apprehended so as to gain an ordered +system of belief and a coherent law of conduct (wisdom), is stored for +us in Christ. + +Such being in brief the connection and outline meaning of these great +words, we may touch upon the various principles embodied in them. We +have seen, in commenting upon a former part of the Epistle, the force of +the great thought that Christ in His relations to us is the mystery of +God, and need not repeat what was then said. But we may pause for a +moment on the fact that the knowledge of that mystery has its stages. +The revelation of the mystery is complete. No further stages are +possible in that. But while the revelation is, in Paul's estimate, +finished, and the long concealed truth now stands in full sunshine, our +apprehension of it may grow, and there is a mature knowledge possible. +Some poor ignorant soul catches through the gloom a glimpse of God +manifested in the flesh, and bearing his sins. That soul will never +outgrow that knowledge, but as the years pass, life and reflection and +experience will help to explain and deepen it. God so loved the world +that He gave His only begotten Son--there is nothing beyond that truth. +Grasped however imperfectly, it brings light and peace. But as it is +loved and lived by, it unfolds undreamed-of depths, and flashes with +growing brightness. Suppose that a man could set out from the great +planet that moves on the outermost rim of our system, and could travel +slowly inwards towards the central sun, how the disc would grow, and the +light and warmth increase with each million of miles that he crossed, +till what had seemed a point filled the whole sky! Christian growth is +into, not away from Christ, a penetrating deeper into the centre, and a +drawing out into distinct consciousness as a coherent system, all that +was wrapped, as the leaves in their brown sheath, in that first glimpse +of Him which saves the soul. + +These stages are infinite, because in Him are all the treasures of +wisdom and knowledge. These four words, _treasures_, _wisdom_, +_knowledge_, _hidden_, are all familiar on the lips of the latter +Gnostics, and were so, no doubt, in the mouths of the false teachers at +Colossæ. The Apostle would assert for his gospel all which they falsely +claimed for their dreams. As in several other places of this Epistle, he +avails himself of his antagonists' special vocabulary, transferring its +terms, from the illusory phantoms which a false knowledge adorned with +them, to the truth which he had to preach. He puts special emphasis on +the predicate "hidden" by throwing it to the end of the sentence--a +peculiarity which is reproduced with advantage in the Revised Version. + +All wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. He is the Light of men, and all +thought and truth of every sort come from Him Who is the Eternal Word, +the Incarnate Wisdom. That Incarnate Word is the perfect Revelation of +God, and by His one completed life and death has declared the whole name +of God to His brethren, of which all other media of revelation have but +uttered broken syllables. That ascended Christ breathes wisdom and +knowledge into all who love Him, and still pursues, by giving us the +Spirit of wisdom, His great work of revealing God to men, according to +His own word, which at once asserted the completeness of the revelation +made by His earthly life and promised the perpetual continuance of the +revelation from His heavenly seat: "I have declared Thy name unto My +brethren, and will declare it." + +In Christ, as in a great storehouse, lie all the riches of spiritual +wisdom, the massive ingots of solid gold which when coined into creeds +and doctrines are the wealth of the Church. All which we can know +concerning God and man, concerning sin and righteousness and duty, +concerning another life, is in Him Who is the home and deep mine where +truth is stored. + +In Christ these treasures are "hidden," but not, as the heretics' +mysteries were hidden, in order that they might be out of reach of the +vulgar crowd. This mystery is hidden indeed, but it is revealed. It is +hidden only from the eyes that will not see it. It is hidden that +seeking souls may have the joy of seeking and the rest of finding. The +very act of revealing is a hiding, as our Lord has said in His great +thanksgiving because these things are (by one and the same act) "hid +from the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes." They are hid, as men +store provisions in the Arctic regions, in order that the bears may not +find them and the shipwrecked sailors may. + +Such thoughts have a special message for times of agitation such as the +Colossian Church was passing through, and such as we have to face. We +too are surrounded by eager confident voices, proclaiming profounder +truths and a deeper wisdom than the gospel gives us. In joyful +antagonism to these, Christian men have to hold fast by the confidence +that all Divine wisdom is laid up in their Lord. We need not go to +others to learn new truth. The new problems of each generation to the +end of time will find their answers in Christ, and new issues of that +old message which we have heard from the beginning will continually be +discerned. Let us not wonder if the lessons which the earlier ages of +the Church drew from that infinite storehouse fail at many points to +meet the eager questionings of to-day. Nor let us suppose that the stars +are quenched because the old books of astronomy are in some respects out +of date. We need not cast aside the truths that we learned at our +mother's knees. The central fact of the universe and the perfect +encyclopædia of all moral and spiritual truth is Christ, the Incarnate +Word, the Lamb slain, the ascended King. If we keep true to Him and +strive to widen our minds to the breadth of that great message, it will +grow as we gaze, even as the nightly heavens expand to the eye which +stedfastly looks into them, and reveal violet abysses sown with +sparkling points, each of which is a sun. "Lord, to whom shall we go? +Thou hast the words of eternal life." + +The ordinary type of Christian life is contented with a superficial +acquaintance with Christ. Many understand no more of Him and of His +gospel than they did when first they learned to love Him. So completely +has the very idea of a progressive knowledge of Jesus Christ faded from +the horizon of the average Christian that "edification," which ought to +mean the progressive building up of the character course by course, in +new knowledge and grace, has come to mean little more than the sense of +comfort derived from the reiteration of old and familiar words which +fall on the ear with a pleasant murmur. There is sadly too little +first-hand and growing knowledge of their Lord, among Christian people, +too little belief that fresh treasures may be found hidden in that field +which, to each soul and each new generation struggling with its own +special forms of the burdens and problems that press upon humanity, +would be cheaply bought by selling all, but may be won at the easier +rate of earnest desire to possess them, and faithful adherence to Him in +whom they are stored for the world. The condition of growth for the +branch is abiding in the vine. If our hearts are knit together with +Christ's heart in that love which is the parent of communion, both as +delighted contemplation and as glad obedience, then we shall daily dig +deeper into the mine of wealth which is hid in Him that it may be found, +and draw forth an unfailing supply of things new and old. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Bishop Lightfoot, _in loc._ + + + + +XI. + +_CONCILIATORY AND HORTATORY TRANSITION TO POLEMICS._ + + "This I say, that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of + speech. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in + the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of + your faith in Christ. + + "As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, + rooted and builded up in Him, and stablished in your faith, even as + ye were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."--COL. ii. 4-7 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +Nothing needs more delicacy of hand and gentleness of heart than the +administration of warning or reproof, especially when directed against +errors of religious opinion. It is sure to do harm unless the person +reproved is made to feel that it comes from true kindly interest in him, +and does full justice to his honesty. Warning so easily passes into +scolding, and sounds to the warned so like it even when the speaker does +not mean it so, that there is special need to modulate the voice very +carefully. + +So in this context, the Apostle has said much about his deep interest in +the Colossian Church, and has dwelt on the passionate earnestness of his +solicitude for them, his conflict of intercession and sympathy, and the +large sweep of his desires for their good. But he does not feel that he +can venture to begin his warnings till he has said something more, so +as to conciliate them still further, and to remove from their minds +other thoughts unfavourable to the sympathetic reception of his words. +One can fancy some Colossians saying, "What need is there for all this +anxiety? Why should Paul be in such a taking about us? He is +exaggerating our danger, and doing scant justice to our Christian +character." Nothing stops the ear to the voice of warning more surely +than a feeling that it is pitched in too solemn a key, and fails to +recognise the good. + +So before he goes further, he gathers up his motives in giving the +following admonitions, and gives his estimate of the condition of the +Colossians, in the two first of the verses now under consideration. All +that he has been saying has been said not so much because he thinks that +they have gone wrong, but because he knows that there are heretical +teachers at work, who may lead them astray with plausible lessons. He is +not combating errors which have already swept away the faith of the +Colossian Christians, but putting them on their guard against such as +threaten them. He is not trying to pump the water out of a water-logged +vessel, but to stop a little leak which is in danger of gaping wider. +And, in his solicitude, he has much confidence and is encouraged to +speak because, absent from them as he is, he has a vivid assurance, +which gladdens him, of the solidity and firmness of their faith. + +So with this distinct definition of the precise danger which he feared, +and this soothing assurance of his glad confidence in their stedfast +order, the Apostle at last opens his batteries. The 6th and 7th verses +are the first shot fired, the beginning of the monitions so long and +carefully prepared for They contain a general exhortation, which may be +taken as the keynote for the polemical portion of the Epistle, which +occupies the rest of the chapter. + +I. We have then first, the purpose of the Apostle's previous +self-revelation. "This I say"--this namely which is contained in the +preceding verses, the expression of his solicitude, and perhaps even +more emphatically, the declaration of Christ as the revealed secret of +God, the inexhaustible storehouse of all wisdom and knowledge. The +purpose of the Apostle, then, in his foregoing words has been to guard +the Colossians against the danger to which they were exposed, of being +deceived and led astray by "persuasiveness of speech." That expression +is not necessarily used in a bad sense, but here it evidently has a +tinge of censure, and implies some doubt both of the honesty of the +speakers and of the truthfulness of their words. Here we have an +important piece of evidence as to the then condition of the Colossian +Church. There were false teachers busy amongst them who belonged in some +sense to the Christian community. But probably these were not +Colossians, but wandering emissaries of a Judaizing Gnosticism, while +certainly the great mass of the Church was untouched by their +speculations. They were in danger of getting bewildered, and being +_deceived_, that is to say, of being induced to accept certain teaching +because of its speciousness, without seeing all its bearings, or even +knowing its real meaning. So error ever creeps into the Church. Men are +caught by something fascinating in some popular teaching, and follow it +without knowing where it will lead them. By slow degrees its tendencies +are disclosed, and at last the followers of the heresiarch wake to find +that everything which they once believed and prized has dropped from +their creed. + +We may learn here, too, the true safeguard against specious errors. Paul +thinks that he can best fortify these simple-minded disciples against +all harmful teaching by exalting his Master and urging the inexhaustible +significance of His person and message. To learn the full meaning and +preciousness of Christ is to be armed against error. The positive truth +concerning Him, by preoccupying mind and heart, guards beforehand +against the most specious teachings. If you fill the coffer with gold, +nobody will want, and there will be no room for, pinchbeck. A living +grasp of Christ will keep us from being swept away by the current of +prevailing popular opinion, which is always much more likely to be wrong +than right, and is sure to be exaggerated and one-sided at the best. A +personal consciousness of His power and sweetness will give an +instinctive repugnance to teaching that would lower His dignity and +debase His work. If He be the centre and anchorage of all our thoughts, +we shall not be tempted to go elsewhere in search of the "treasures of +wisdom and knowledge" which "are hid in Him." He who has found the one +pearl of great price, needs no more to go seeking goodly pearls, but +only day by day more completely to lose self, and give up all else, that +he may win more and more of Christ his All. If we keep our hearts and +minds in communion with our Lord, and have experience of His +preciousness, that will preserve us from many a snare, will give us a +wisdom beyond much logic, will solve for us many of the questions most +hotly debated to-day, and will show us that many more are unimportant +and uninteresting to us. And even if we should be led to wrong +conclusions on some matters, "if we drink any deadly thing, it shall not +hurt us." + +II. We see here the joy which blended with the anxiety of the solitary +prisoner, and encouraged him to warn the Colossians against impending +dangers to their faith. + +We need not follow the grammatical commentators in their discussion of +how Paul comes to invert the natural order here, and to say "joying and +beholding," instead of "beholding and rejoicing" as we should expect. No +one doubts that what he saw in spirit was the cause of his joy. The old +man in his prison, loaded with many cares, compelled to be inactive in +the cause which was more to him than life, is yet full of spirit and +buoyancy. His prison-letters all partake of that "rejoicing in the +Lord," which is the keynote of one of them. Old age and apparent +failure, and the exhaustion of long labours, and the disappointments and +sorrows which almost always gather like evening clouds round a life as +it sinks in the west had not power to quench his fiery energy or to +blunt his keen interest in all the Churches. His cell was like the +centre of a telephonic system. Voices spoke from all sides. Every Church +was connected with it, and messages were perpetually being brought. +Think of him sitting there, eagerly listening, and thrilling with +sympathy at each word, so self-oblivious was he, so swallowed up were +all personal ends in the care for the Churches, and in the swift, deep +fellow-feeling with them? Love and interest quickened his insight, and +though he was far away, he had them so vividly before him that he was as +if a spectator. The joy which he had in the thought of them made him +dwell on the thought--so the apparently inverted order of the words may +be the natural one and he may have looked all the more fixedly because +it gladdened him to look. + +What did he see? "Your order." That is unquestionably a military +metaphor, drawn probably from his experiences of the Prætorians, while +in captivity. He had plenty of opportunities of studying both the +equipment of the single legionary, who, in the 6th chapter of Ephesians, +sat for his portrait to the prisoner to whom he was chained, and also +the perfection of discipline in the whole which made the legion so +formidable. It was not a multitude but a unit, "moving altogether if it +move at all," as if animated by one will. Paul rejoices to know that the +Colossian Church was thus welded into a solid unity. + +Further, he beholds "the stedfastness of your faith in Christ." This may +be a continuation of the military metaphor, and may mean "the solid +front, the close phalanx" which your faith presents. But whether we +suppose the figure to be carried on or dropped, we must, I think, +recognise that this second point refers rather to the inward condition +than to the outward discipline of the Colossians. + +Here then is set forth a lofty ideal of the Church, in two respects. +First there is outwardly, an ordered disciplined array; and secondly, +there is a stedfast faith. + +As to the first, Paul was no martinet, anxious about the pedantry of the +parade ground, but he knew the need of organization and drill. Any body +of men united in order to carry out a specific purpose have to be +organized. That means a place for every man, and every man in his place. +It means co-operation to one common end, and therefore division of +function and subordination. Order does not merely mean obedience to +authority. There may be equal "order" under widely different forms of +polity. The legionaries were drawn up in close ranks, the light-armed +skirmishers more loosely. In the one case the phalanx was more and the +individual less; in the other there was more play given to the single +man, and less importance to corporate action; but the difference between +them was not that of order and disorder, but that of two systems, each +organized but on somewhat different principles and for different +purposes. A loosely linked chain is as truly a chain as a rigid one. The +main requirement for such "order" as gladdened the Apostle is conjoint +action to one end, with variety of office, and unity of spirit. + +Some Churches give more weight to the principle of authority; others to +that of individuality. They may criticise each other's polity, but the +former has no right to reproach the latter as being necessarily +defective in "order." Some Churches are all drill and their favourite +idea of discipline is, Obey them that have the rule over you. The +Churches of looser organization, on the other hand, are no doubt in +danger of making too little of organization. But both need that all +their members should be more penetrated by the sense of unity, and +should fill each his place in the work of the body. It was far easier to +secure the true order--a place and a task for every man and every man in +his place and at his task--in the small homogeneous communities of +apostolic times than it is now, when men of such different social +position, education, and ways of thinking are found in the same +Christian community. The proportion of idlers in all Churches is a +scandal and a weakness. However highly organized and officered a Church +may be, no joy would fill an apostle's heart in beholding it, if the +mass of its members had no share in its activities. Every society of +professing Christians should be like a man of war's crew, each of whom +knows the exact inch where he has to stand when the whistle sounds, and +the precise thing he has to do in the gun drill. + +But the perfection of discipline is not enough. That may stiffen into +routine if there be not something deeper. We want life even more than +order. The description of the soldiers who set David on the throne +should describe Christ's army--"men that could keep rank, they were not +of double heart." They had discipline and had learned to accommodate +their stride to the length of their comrades' step; but they had +whole-hearted enthusiasm, which was better. Both are needed. If there be +not courage and devotion there is nothing worth disciplining. The Church +that has the most complete order and not also stedfastness of faith will +be like the German armies, all pipeclay and drill, which ran like hares +before the ragged shoeless levies whom the first French Revolution flung +across the border with a fierce enthusiasm blazing in their hearts. So +the Apostle beholds with joy the stedfastness of the Colossians' faith +toward Christ. + +If the rendering "stedfastness" be adopted as in the Rev. Ver., the +phrase will be equivalent to the "firmness which characterizes or +belongs to your faith." But some of the best commentators deny that this +meaning of the word is ever found, and propose "foundation" (that which +is made stedfast). The meaning then will either be "the firm foundation +(for your lives) which consists of your faith," or, more probably, "the +firm foundation which your faith has." He rejoices, seeing that their +faith towards Jesus Christ has a basis unshaken by assaults. + +Such a rock foundation, and consequent stedfastness, must faith have, if +it is to be worthy of the name and to manifest its true power. A +tremulous faith may, thank God! be a true faith, but the very idea of +faith implies solid assurance and fixed confidence. Our faith should be +able to resist pressure and to keep its ground against assaults and +gainsaying. It should not be like a child's card castle, that the light +breath of a scornful laugh will throw down, but + + "a tower of strength + That stands foursquare to all the winds that blow." + +We should seek to make it so, nor let the fluctuations of our own hearts +cause it to fluctuate. We should try so to control the ebb and flow of +religious emotion that it may always be near high water with our faith, +a tideless but not stagnant sea. We should oppose a settled conviction +and unalterable confidence to the noisy voices which would draw us away. + +And that we may do so we must keep up a true and close communion with +Jesus Christ. The faith which is ever going out "towards" Him, as the +sunflower turns sunwards, will ever draw from Him such blessed gifts +that doubt or distrust will be impossible. If we keep near our Lord and +wait expectant on Him, He will increase our faith and make our "hearts +fixed, trusting in the Lord." So a greater than Paul may speak even to +us, as He walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, words which +from _His_ lips will be praise indeed: "Though I am absent in the flesh, +yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the +stedfastness of your faith in Me." + +III. We have here, the exhortation which comprehends all duty, and +covers the whole ground of Christian belief and practice. + +"Therefore"--the following exhortation is based upon the warning and +commendation of the preceding verses. There is first a wide general +injunction. "As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him," +_i.e._ let your active life be in accord with what you learned and +obtained when you first became Christians. Then this exhortation is +defined or broken up into four particulars in the following clauses, +which explain in detail how it is to be kept. + +The general exhortation is to a true Christian walk. The main force lies +upon the "as." The command is to order all life in accordance with the +early lessons and acquisitions. The phrase "ye received Christ Jesus the +Lord" presents several points requiring notice. It is obviously parallel +with "as ye were taught" in the next verse; so that it was from their +first teachers, and probably from Epaphras (i. 7) that they had +"received Christ." So then what we receive, when, from human lips, we +hear the gospel and accept it, is not merely the word about the Saviour, +but the Saviour Himself. This expression of our text is no mere loose or +rhetorical mode of speech, but a literal and blessed truth. Christ is +the sum of all Christian teaching and, where the message of His love is +welcomed, He Himself comes in spiritual and real presence, and dwells in +the spirit. + +The solemnity of the full name of our Saviour in this connection is most +significant. Paul reminds the Colossians, in view of the teaching which +degraded the person and curtailed the work of Christ, that they had +received the man Jesus, the promised Christ, the universal Lord. As if +he had said, Remember whom you received in your conversion--_Christ_, +the Messiah, anointed, that is, fitted by the unmeasured possession of +the Divine Spirit to fulfil all prophecy and to be the world's +deliverer. Remember _Jesus_, the man, our brother;--therefore listen to +no misty speculations nor look to whispered mysteries nor to angel +hierarchies for knowledge of God or for help in conflict. Our gospel is +not theory spun out of men's brains, but is, first and foremost, the +history of a brother's life and death. You received _Jesus_, so you are +delivered from the tyranny of these unsubstantial and portentous +systems, and relegated to the facts of a human life for your knowledge +of God. You received Jesus Christ as _Lord_. He was proclaimed as Lord +of men, angels, and the universe, Lord and Creator of the spiritual and +material worlds, Lord of history and providence. Therefore you need not +give heed to those teachers who would fill the gulf between men and God +with a crowd of powers and rulers. You have all that your mind or heart +or will can need in the human Divine Jesus, who is the Christ and the +Lord for you and all men. You have received Him in the all-sufficiency +of His revealed nature and offices. You have Him for your very own. +Hold fast that which you have, and let no man take this your crown and +treasure. The same exhortation has emphatic application to the conflicts +of to-day. The Church has had Jesus set forth as Christ and Lord. His +manhood, the historical reality of His Incarnation with all its blessed +issues, His Messiahship as the fulfiller of prophecy and symbol, +designated and fitted by the fulness of the Spirit, to be man's +deliverer, His rule and authority over all creatures and events have +been taught, and the tumults of present unsettlement make it hard and +needful to keep true to that threefold belief, and to let nothing rob us +of any of the elements of the full gospel which lies in the august name, +Christ Jesus the Lord. + +To that gospel, to that Lord, the walk, the active life, is to be +conformed, and the manner thereof is more fully explained in the +following clauses. + +"Rooted and built up in Him." Here again we have the profound "in Him," +which appears so frequently in this and in the companion Epistle to the +Ephesians, and which must be allowed its proper force, as expressing a +most real indwelling of the believer in Christ, if the depth of the +meaning is to be sounded. + +Paul drives his fiery chariot through rhetorical proprieties, and never +shrinks from "mixed metaphors" if they more vigorously express his +thought. Here we have three incongruous ones close on each other's +heels. The Christian is to _walk_, to be _rooted_ like a tree, to be +_built up_ like a house. What does the incongruity matter to Paul as the +stream of thought and feeling hurries him along? + +The tenses of the verbs, too, are studiously and significantly varied. +Fully rendered they would be "having been rooted and being builded up." +The one is a past act done once for all, the effects of which are +permanent; the other is a continuous resulting process which is going on +now. The Christian has been rooted in Jesus Christ at the beginning of +his Christian course. His faith has brought him into living contact with +the Saviour, who has become as the fruitful soil into which the believer +sends his roots, and both feeds and anchors there. The familiar image of +the first Psalm may have been in the writer's mind, and naturally recurs +to ours. If we draw nourishment and stability from Christ, round whom +the roots of our being twine and cling, we shall flourish and grow and +bear fruit. No man can do without some person beyond himself on whom to +repose, nor can any of us find in ourselves or on earth the sufficient +soil for our growth. We are like seedlings dropped on some great rock, +which send their rootlets down the hard stone and are stunted till they +reach the rich leaf-mould at its base. We blindly feel through all the +barrenness of the world for something into which our roots may plunge +that we may be nourished and firm. In Christ we may be "like a tree +planted by the river of water;" out of Him we are "as the chaff," +rootless, lifeless, profitless, and swept at last by the wind from the +threshing floor. The choice is before every man--either to be rooted in +Christ by faith, or to be rootless. + +"Being built up in Him." The gradual continuous building up of the +structure of a Christian character is doubly expressed in this word by +the present tense which points to a process, and by the prefixed +preposition represented by "up," which points to the successive laying +of course of masonry upon course. We are the architects of our own +characters. If our lives are based on Jesus Christ as their foundation, +and every deed is in vital connection with Him, as at once its motive, +its pattern, its power, its aim, and its reward, then we shall build +holy and fair lives, which will be temples. Men do not merely grow as a +leaf which "grows green and broad, and takes no care." The other +metaphor of a building needs to be taken into account, to complete the +former. Effort, patient continuous labour must be put forth. More than +"forty and six years is this temple in building." A stone at a time is +fitted into its place, and so after much toil and many years, as in the +case of some mediæval cathedral unfinished for centuries, the topstone +is brought forth at last. This choice, too, is before all men--to build +on Christ and so to build for eternity, or on sand and so to be crushed +below the ruins of their fallen houses. + +"Stablished in your faith, even as ye were taught." This is apparently +simply a more definite way of putting substantially the same thoughts as +in the former clauses. Possibly the meaning is "stablished by faith," +the Colossians' faith being the instrument of their establishment. But +the Revised Version is probably right in its rendering, "stablished in," +or as to, "your faith." Their faith, as Paul had just been saying, was +stedfast, but it needed yet increased firmness. And this exhortation, as +it were, translates the previous ones into more homely language, that if +any man stumbled at the mysticism of the thoughts there, he might grasp +the plain practicalness here. If we are established and confirmed in our +faith, we shall be rooted and built up in Jesus, for it is faith which +joins us to Him, and its increase measures our growth in and into Him. + +There then is a very plain practical issue of these deep thoughts of +union with Jesus. A progressive increase of our faith is the condition +of all Christian progress. The faith which is already the firmest, and +by its firmness may gladden an Apostle, is still capable of and needs +strengthening. Its range can be enlarged, its tenacity increased, its +power over heart and life reinforced. The eye of faith is never so keen +but that it may become more longsighted; its grasp never so close but +that it may be tightened; its realisation never so solid but that it may +be more substantial; its authority never so great but that it may be +made more absolute. This continual strengthening of faith is the most +essential form of a Christian's effort at self-improvement. Strengthen +faith and you strengthen all graces; for it measures our reception of +Divine help. + +And the furthest development which faith can attain should ever be +sedulously kept in harmony with the initial teaching--"even as ye were +taught." Progress does not consist in dropping the early truths of Jesus +Christ the Lord for newer wisdom and more speculative religion, but in +discovering ever deeper lessons and larger powers in these rudiments +which are likewise the last and highest lessons which men can learn. + +Further, as the daily effort of the believing soul ought to be to +strengthen the quality of his faith, so it should be to increase its +amount--"abounding in it with thanksgiving." Or if we adopt the reading +of the Revised Version, we shall omit the "in it," and find here only an +exhortation to thanksgiving. That is, in any case, the main idea of the +clause, which adds to the former the thought that thanksgiving is an +inseparable accompaniment of vigorous Christian life. It is to be called +forth, of course, mainly by the great gift of Christ, in whom we are +rooted and builded, and, in Paul's judgment it is the very spring of +Christian progress. + +That constant temper of gratitude implies a habitual presence to the +mind, of God's great mercy in His unspeakable gift, a continual glow of +heart as we gaze, a continual appropriation of that gift for our very +own, and a continual outflow of our heart's love to the Incarnate and +Immortal Love. Such thankfulness will bind us to glad obedience, and +will give swiftness to the foot and eagerness to the will, to run in the +way of God's commandments. It is like genial sunshine, all flowers +breathe perfume and fruits ripen under its influence. It is the fire +which kindles the sacrifice of life and makes it go up in fragrant +incense-clouds, acceptable to God. The highest nobleness of which man is +capable is reached when, moved by the mercies of God, we yield ourselves +living sacrifices, thank-offerings to Him Who yielded Himself the +sin-offering for us. The life which is all influenced by thanksgiving +will be pure, strong, happy, in its continual counting of its gifts, and +in its thoughts of the Giver, and not least happy and beautiful in its +glad surrender of itself to Him who has given Himself for and to it. The +noblest offering that we can bring, the only recompense which Christ +asks, is that our hearts and our lives should say, We thank thee, O +Lord. "By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God +continually," and the continual thanksgiving will ensure continuous +growth in our Christian character, and a constant increase in the +strength and depth of our faith. + + + + +XII. + +_THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE._ + + "Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you + through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, + after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him + dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are + made full, Who is the head of all principality and power."--COL. ii. + 8-10 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We come now to the first plain reference to the errors which were +threatening the peace of the Colossian community. Here Paul crosses +swords with the foe. This is the point to which all his previous words +have been steadily converging. The immediately preceding context +contained the positive exhortation to continue in the Christ Whom they +had received, having been rooted in Him as the tree in a fertile place +"by the rivers of water," and being continually builded up in Him, with +ever-growing completeness of holy character. The same exhortation in +substance is contained in the verses which we have now to consider, with +the difference that it is here presented negatively, as warning and +dehortation, with distinct statement of the danger which would uproot +the tree and throw down the building, and drag the Colossians away from +union with Christ. + +In these words the Bane and Antidote are both before us. Let us consider +each. + +I. The Poison against which Paul warns the Colossians is plainly +described in our first verse, the terms of which may require a brief +comment. + +"Take heed lest there shall be." The construction implies that it is a +real and not a hypothetical danger which he sees threatening. He is not +crying "wolf" before there is need. + +"Any one"--perhaps the tone of the warning would be better conveyed if +we read the more familiar "somebody"; as if he had said--"I name no +names--it is not the persons but the principles that I fight +against--but you know whom I mean well enough. Let him be anonymous, you +understand who it is." Perhaps there was even a single "somebody" who +was the centre of the mischief. + +"That maketh spoil of you." Such is the full meaning of the word--and +not "injure" or "rob," which the translation in the Authorized Version +suggests to an English reader. Paul sees the converts in Colossæ taken +prisoners and led away with a cord round their necks, like the long +strings of captives on the Assyrian monuments. He had spoken in the +previous chapter (ver. 13) of the merciful conqueror who had +"translated" them from the realm of darkness into a kingdom of light, +and now he fears lest a robber horde, making a raid upon the peaceful +colonists in their happy new homes, may sweep them away again into +bondage. + +The instrument which the man-stealer uses, or perhaps we may say, the +cord, whose fatal noose will be tightened round them, if they do not +take care, is "philosophy and vain deceit." If Paul had been writing in +English, he would have put "philosophy" in inverted commas, to show that +he was quoting the heretical teachers' own name for their system, if +system it may be called, which was really a chaos. For the true love of +wisdom, for any honest, humble attempt to seek after her as hid +treasure, neither Paul nor Paul's Master have anything but praise and +sympathy and help. Where he met real, however imperfect, searchers after +truth, he strove to find points of contact between them and his message, +and to present the gospel as the answer to their questionings, the +declaration of that which they were groping to find. The thing spoken of +here has no resemblance but in name to what the Greeks in their better +days first called philosophy, and nothing but that mere verbal +coincidence warrants the representation--often made both by +narrow-minded Christians, and by unbelieving thinkers--that Christianity +takes up a position of antagonism or suspicion to it. + +The form of the expression in the original shows clearly that "vain +deceit," or more literally "empty deceit," describes the "philosophy" +which Paul is bidding them beware of. They are not two things, but one. +It is like a blown bladder, full of wind, and nothing else. In its lofty +pretensions, and if we take its own account of itself, it is a love of +and search after wisdom; but if we look at it more closely, it is a +swollen nothing, empty and a fraud. This is what he is condemning. The +genuine thing he has nothing to say about here. + +He goes on to describe more closely this impostor, masquerading in the +philosopher's cloak. It is "after the traditions of men." We have seen +in a former chapter what a strange heterogeneous conglomerate of Jewish +ceremonial and Oriental dreams the false teachers in Colossæ were +preaching. Probably both these elements are included here. It is +significant that the very expression, "the traditions of men," is a word +of Christ's, applied to the Pharisees, whom He charges with "leaving the +commandment of God, and holding fast the tradition of men" (Mark vii. +8). The portentous undergrowth of such "traditions" which, like the +riotous fertility of creepers in a tropical forest, smother and kill the +trees round which they twine, is preserved for our wonder and warning in +the Talmud, where for thousands and thousands of pages, we get nothing +but Rabbi So and So said this, but Rabbi So and So said that; until we +feel stifled, and long for one Divine Word to still all the babble. + +The Oriental element in the heresy, on the other hand, prided itself on +a hidden teaching which was too sacred to be entrusted to books, and was +passed from lip to lip in some close conclave of muttering teachers and +listening adepts. The fact that all this, be it Jewish, be it Oriental +teaching, had no higher source than men's imaginings and refinings, +seems to Paul the condemnation of the whole system. His theory is that +in Jesus Christ, every Christian man has the full truth concerning God +and man, in their mutual relations,--the authoritative Divine +declaration of all that can be known, the perfect exemplar of all that +ought to be done, the sun-clear illumination and proof of all that dare +be hoped. What an absurd descent, then, from the highest of our +prerogatives, to "turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven," in +order to listen to poor human voices, speaking men's thoughts! + +The lesson is as needful to-day as ever. The special forms of men's +traditions in question here have long since fallen silent, and trouble +no man any more. But the tendency to give heed to human teachers and to +suffer them to come between us and Christ is deep in us all. There is at +one extreme the man who believes in no revelation from God, and, smiling +at us Christians who accept Christ's words as final and Himself as the +Incarnate truth, often pays to his chosen human teacher a deference as +absolute as that which he regards as superstition, when we render it to +our Lord. At the other extremity are the Christians who will not let +Christ and the Scripture speak to the soul, unless the Church be present +at the interview, like a jailer, with a bunch of man-made creeds +jingling at its belt. But it is not only at the two ends of the line, +but all along its length, that men are listening to "traditions" of men +and neglecting "the commandment of God." We have all the same tendency +in us. Every man carries a rationalist and a traditionalist under his +skin. Every Church in Christendom, whether it has a formal creed or no, +is ruled as to its belief and practice, to a sad extent, by the +"traditions of the elders." The "freest" of the Nonconformist Churches, +untrammelled by any formal confession, may be bound with as tight +fetters, and be as much dominated by men's opinions, as if it had the +straitest of creeds. The mass of our religious beliefs and practices has +ever to be verified, corrected and remodelled, by harking back from +creeds, written or unwritten, to the one Teacher, the endless +significance of Whose person and work is but expressed in fragments by +the purest and widest thoughts even of those who have lived nearest to +Him, and seen most of His beauty. Let us get away from men, from the +Babel of opinions and the strife of tongues, that we may "hear the words +of His mouth!" Let us take heed of the empty fraud which lays the absurd +snare for our feet, that we can learn to know God by any means but by +listening to His own speech in His Eternal Word, lest it lead us away +captive out of the Kingdom of the Light! Let us go up to the pure spring +on the mountain top, and not try to slake our thirst at the muddy pools +at its base! "Ye are Christ's, be not the slave of men." "This is My +beloved Son, hear ye Him." + +Another mark of this empty pretence of wisdom which threatens to +captivate the Colossians is, that it is "after the rudiments of the +world." The word rendered "rudiments" means the letters of the alphabet, +and hence comes naturally to acquire the meaning of "elements," or +"first principles," just as we speak of the A B C of a science. The +application of such a designation to the false teaching, is, like the +appropriation of the term "mystery" to the gospel, an instance of +turning the tables and giving back the teachers their own words. They +boasted of mysterious doctrines reserved for the initiated, of which the +plain truths that Paul preached were but the elements, and they looked +down contemptuously on his message as "milk for babes." Paul retorts on +them, asserting that the true mystery, the profound truth long hidden +and revealed, is the word which he preached, and that the +poverty-stricken elements, fit only for infants, are in that swelling +inanity which called itself wisdom and was not. Not only does he brand +it as "rudiments," but as "rudiments of the _world_," which is +worse--that is to say, as belonging to the sphere of the outward and +material, and not to the higher region of the spiritual, where Christian +thought ought to dwell. So two weaknesses are charged against the +system: it is the mere alphabet of truth, and therefore unfit for grown +men. It moves, for all its lofty pretensions, in the region of the +visible and mundane things and is therefore unfit for spiritual men. +What features of the system are referred to in this phrase? Its use in +the Epistle to the Galatians (iv. 3), as a synonyme for the whole system +of ritual observances and ceremonial precepts of Judaism, and the +present context, which passes on immediately to speak of circumcision, +point to a similar meaning here, though we may include also the +ceremonial and ritual of the Gentile religions, in so far as they +contributed to the outward forms which the Colossian heresy sought to +impose on the Church. This then is Paul's opinion about a system which +laid stress on ceremonial and busied itself with forms. He regards it as +a deliberate retrogression to an earlier stage. A religion of rites had +come first, and was needed for the spiritual infancy of the race--but in +Christ we ought to have outgrown the alphabet of revelation, and, being +men, to have put away childish things. He regards it further as a +pitiable descent into a lower sphere, a fall from the spiritual realm to +the material, and therefore unbecoming for those who have been +enfranchised from dependence upon outward helps and symbols, and taught +the spirituality and inwardness of Christian worship. + +We need the lesson in this day no less than did these Christians in the +little community in that remote valley of Phrygia. The forms which were +urged on them are long since antiquated, but the tendency to turn +Christianity into a religion of ceremonial is running with an unusually +powerful current to-day. We are all more interested in art, and think we +know more about it than our fathers did. The eye and the ear are more +educated than they used to be, and a society as "æsthetic" and "musical" +as much cultured English society is becoming, will like an ornate +ritual. So, apart altogether from doctrinal grounds, much in the +conditions of to-day works towards ritual religion. Nonconformist +services are less plain; some go from their ranks because they dislike +the "bald" worship in the chapel, and prefer the more elaborate forms of +the Anglican Church, which in its turn is for the same reason left by +others who find their tastes gratified by the complete thing, as it is +to be enjoyed full blown in the Roman Catholic communion. We may freely +admit that the Puritan reaction was possibly too severe, and that a +little more colour and form might with advantage have been retained. But +enlisting the senses as the allies of the spirit in worship is risky +work. They are very apt to fight for their own hand when they once +begin, and the history of all symbolic and ceremonial worship shows that +the experiment is much more likely to end in sensualising religion than +in spiritualising sense. The theory that such aids make a ladder by +which the soul may ascend to God is perilously apt to be confuted by +experience, which finds that the soul is quite as likely to go down the +ladder as up it. The gratification of taste, and the excitation of +æsthetic sensibility, which are the results of such aids to worship, are +not worship, however they may be mistaken as such. All ceremonial is in +danger of becoming opaque instead of transparent as it was meant to be, +and of detaining mind and eye instead of letting them pass on and up to +God. Stained glass is lovely, and white windows are "barnlike," and +"starved," and "bare"; but perhaps, if the object is to get light and to +see the sun, these solemn purples and glowing yellows are rather in the +way. I for my part believe that of the two extremes, a Quaker's meeting +is nearer the ideal of Christian worship than High Mass, and so far as +my feeble voice can reach, I would urge, as eminently a lesson for the +day, Paul's great principle here, that a Christianity making much of +forms and ceremonies is a distinct retrogression and descent. You are +men in Christ, do not go back to the picture book A B C of symbol and +ceremony, which was fit for babes. You have been brought in to the inner +sanctuary of worship in spirit; do not decline to the beggarly elements +of outward form. + +Paul sums up his indictment in one damning clause, the result of the two +preceding. If the heresy have no higher source than men's traditions, +and no more solid contents than ceremonial observances, it cannot be +"after Christ." He is neither its origin, nor its substance, nor its +rule and standard. There is a fundamental discord between every such +system, however it may call itself Christian, and Christ. The opposition +may be concealed by its teachers. They and their victims may not be +aware of it. They may not themselves be conscious that by adopting it +they have slipped off the foundation; but they have done so, and though +in their own hearts they be loyal to Him, they have brought an +incurable discord into their creeds which will weaken their lives, if it +do not do worse. Paul cared very little for the dreams of these +teachers, except in so far as they carried them and others away from his +Master. The Colossians might have as many ceremonies as they liked, and +welcome; but when these interfered with the sole reliance to be placed +on Christ's work, then they must have no quarter. It is not merely +because the teaching was "after the traditions of men, after the +rudiments of the world," but because being so, it was "not after +Christ," that Paul will have none of it. He that touches his Master +touches the apple of his eye, and shades of opinion, and things +indifferent in practice, and otherwise unimportant forms of worship, +have to be fought to the death if they obscure one corner of the perfect +and solitary work of the One Lord, who is at once the source, the +substance, and the standard of all Christian teaching. + +II. The Antidote.--"For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead +bodily, and in Him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality +and power." + +These words may be a reason for the warning--"Take heed, _for_"; or they +may be a reason for the implied exclusion of any teaching which is not +after Christ. The statement of its characteristics carries in itself its +condemnation. Anything "not after Christ" is _ipso facto_ wrong, and to +be avoided--"for," etc. "In Him" is placed with emphasis at the +beginning, and implies "and nowhere else." "Dwelleth," that is, has its +permanent abode; where the tense is to be noticed also, as pointing to +the ascended Christ. "All the fulness of the Godhead," that is, the +whole unbounded powers and attributes of Deity, where is to be noted the +use of the abstract term _Godhead_, instead of the more usual _God_, in +order to express with the utmost force the thought of the indwelling in +Christ of the whole essence and nature of God. "Bodily," that points to +the Incarnation, and so is an advance upon the passage in the former +chapter (ver. 19), which speaks of "the fulness" dwelling in the Eternal +Word, whereas this speaks of the Eternal Word in whom the fulness dwelt +becoming flesh. So we are pointed to the glorified corporeal humanity of +Jesus Christ in His exaltation as the abode, now and for ever, of all +the fulness of the Divine nature, which is thereby brought very near to +us. This grand truth seems to Paul to shiver to pieces all the dreams of +these teachers about angel mediators, and to brand as folly every +attempt to learn truth and God anywhere else but in Him. + +If He be the one sole temple of Deity in whom all Divine glories are +stored, why go anywhere else in order to _see_ or to _possess_ God? It +is folly; for not only are all these glories stored in Him, but they are +so stored on purpose to be reached by us. Therefore the Apostle goes on, +"and in Him ye are made full;" which sets forth two things as true in +the inward life of all Christians, namely, their living incorporation in +and union with Christ, and their consequent participation in His +fulness. Every one of us may enter into that most real and close union +with Jesus Christ by the power of continuous faith in Him. So may we be +grafted into the Vine, and builded into the Rock. If thus we keep our +hearts in contact with His heart and let Him lay His lip on our lips, +He will breathe into us the breath of His own life, and we shall live +because He lives, and in our measure, as He lives. All the fulness of +God is in Him, that from Him it may pass into us. We might start back +from such bold words if we did not remember that the same apostle who +here tells us that that fulness dwells in Jesus, crowns his wonderful +prayer for the Ephesian Christians with that daring petition, "that ye +may be filled with all the fulness of God." The treasure was lodged in +the earthen vessel of Christ's manhood that it might be within our +reach. He brings the fiery blessing of a Divine life from Heaven to +earth enclosed in the feeble reed of His manhood, that it may kindle +kindred fire in many a heart. Freely the water of life flows into all +cisterns from the ever fresh stream, into which the infinite depth of +that unfathomable sea of good pours itself. Every kind of spiritual +blessing is given therein. That stream, like a river of molten lava, +holds many precious things in its flaming current, and will cool into +many shapes and deposit many rare and rich gifts. According to our need +it will vary itself, being to each what the moment most +requires,--wisdom, or strength, or beauty, or courage, or patience. Out +of it will come whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of +good report, as Rabbinical legends tell us that the manna tasted to each +man like the food for which he wished most. + +This process of receiving of all the Divine fulness is a continuous one. +We can but be approximating to the possession of the infinite treasure +which is ours in Christ; and since the treasure is infinite, and we can +indefinitely grow in capacity of receiving God, there must be an +eternal continuance of the filling and an eternal increase of the +measure of what fills us. Our natures are elastic, and in love and +knowledge, as well as in purity and capacity for blessedness, there are +no bounds to be set to their possible expansion. They will be widened by +bliss into a greater capacity for bliss. The indwelling Christ will +"enlarge the place of His habitation," and as the walls stretch and the +roofs soar, He will fill the greater house with the light of His +presence and the fragrance of His name. The condition of this continuous +reception of the abundant gift of a Divine life is abiding in Jesus. It +is "in Him" that we are "being filled full"--and it is only so long as +we continue in Him that we continue full. We cannot bear away our +supplies, as one might a full bucket from a well, and keep it full. All +the grace will trickle out and disappear unless we live in constant +union with our Lord, whose Spirit passes into our deadness only so long +as we are joined to Him. + +From all such thoughts Paul would have us draw the conclusion--how +foolish, then, it must be to go to any other source for the supply of +our needs! Christ is "the head of all principality and power," he adds, +with a reference to the doctrine of angel mediators, which evidently +played a great part in the heretical teaching. If He is sovereign head +of all dignity and power on earth and heaven, why go to the ministers, +when we have access to the King; or have recourse to erring human +teachers, when we have the Eternal Word to enlighten us; or flee to +creatures to replenish our emptiness, when we may draw from the depths +of God in Christ? Why should we go on a weary search after goodly +pearls when the richest of all is by us, if we will have it? Do we seek +to know God? Let us behold Christ, and let men talk as they list. Do we +crave a stay for our spirit, guidance and impulse for our lives? Let us +cleave to Christ, and we shall be no more lonely and bewildered. Do we +need a quieting balm to be laid on conscience, and the sense of guilt to +be lifted from our hearts? Let us lay our hands on Christ, the one +sacrifice, and leave all other altars and priests and ceremonies. Do we +look longingly for some light on the future? Let us stedfastly gaze on +Christ as He rises to heaven bearing a human body into the glory of God. + +Though all the earth were covered with helpers and lovers of my soul, +"as the sand by the sea shore innumerable," and all the heavens were +sown with faces of angels who cared for me and succoured me, thick as +the stars in the milky way--all could not do for me what I need. Yea, +though all these were gathered into one mighty and loving creature, even +he were no sufficient stay for one soul of man. We want more than +creature help. We need the whole fulness of the Godhead to draw from. It +is all there in Christ, for each of us. Whosoever will, let him draw +freely. Why should we leave the fountain of living waters to hew out for +ourselves, with infinite pains, broken cisterns that can hold no water? +All we need is in Christ. Let us lift our eyes from the low earth and +all creatures, and behold "no man any more," as Lord and Helper, "save +Jesus only," "that we may be filled with all the fulness of God." + + + + +XIII. + +_THE TRUE CIRCUMCISION._ + + "In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with + hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the + circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, + wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the working of + God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead through your + trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, _I say_, did + he quicken together with Him, having forgiven us all our + trespasses."--COL. ii. 11-13 (Rev. Ver.). + + +There are two opposite tendencies ever at work in human nature to +corrupt religion. One is of the intellect; the other of the senses. The +one is the temptation of the cultured few; the other, that of the vulgar +many. The one turns religion into theological speculation; the other, +into a theatrical spectacle. But, opposite as these tendencies usually +are, they were united in that strange chaos of erroneous opinion and +practice which Paul had to front at Colossæ. From right and from left he +was assailed, and his batteries had to face both ways. Here he is mainly +engaged with the error which insisted on imposing circumcision on these +Gentile converts. + +I. To this teaching of the necessity of circumcision, he first opposes +the position that all Christian men, by virtue of their union with +Christ, have received the true circumcision, of which the outward rite +was a shadow and a prophecy, and that therefore the rite is antiquated +and obsolete. + +His language is emphatic and remarkable. It points to a definite past +time--no doubt the time when they became Christians--when, because they +were in Christ, a change passed on them which is fitly paralleled with +circumcision. This Christian circumcision is described in three +particulars: as "not made with hands;" as consisting in "putting off the +body of the flesh;" and as being "of Christ." + +It is "not made with hands," that is, it is not a rite but a reality, +not transacted in flesh but in spirit. It is not the removal of +ceremonial impurity, but the cleansing of the heart. This idea of +ethical circumcision, of which the bodily rite is the type, is common in +the Old Testament, as, for instance, "The Lord thy God will circumcise +thine heart ... to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart" (Deut. +xxx. 6). This is the true Christian circumcision. + +It consists in the "putting off the body of the flesh"--for "the sins +of" is an interpolation. Of course a man does not shuffle off this +mortal coil when he becomes a Christian, so that we have to look for +some other meaning of the strong words. They are very strong, for the +word "putting off" is intensified so as to express a complete stripping +off from oneself, as of clothes which are laid aside, and is evidently +intended to contrast the partial outward circumcision as the removal of +a small part of the body, with the entire removal effected by union with +Christ. If that removal of "the body of the flesh" is "not made with +hands," then it can only be in the sphere of the spiritual life, that is +to say, it must consist in a change in the relation of the two +constituents of a man's being, and that of such a kind that, for the +future, the Christian shall not live after the flesh, though he live in +the flesh. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit," says Paul, and +again he uses an expression as strong as, if not stronger than that of +our text, when he speaks of "the body" as "being destroyed," and +explains himself by adding "that henceforth we should not serve sin." It +is not the body considered simply as material and fleshly that we put +off, but the body considered as the seat of corrupt and sinful +affections and passions. A new principle of life comes into men's hearts +which delivers them from the dominion of these, and makes it possible +that they should live in the flesh, not "according to the lusts of the +flesh, but according to the will of God." True, the text regards this +divesting as complete, whereas, as all Christian men know only too +sadly, it is very partial, and realised only by slow degrees. The ideal +is represented here,--what we receive "in Him," rather than what we +actually possess and incorporate into our experience. On the Divine side +the change is complete. Christ gives complete emancipation from the +dominion of sense, and if we are not in reality completely emancipated, +it is because we have not taken the things that are freely given to us, +and are not completely "_in_ Him." So far as we are, we have put off +"the flesh." The change has passed on us if we are Christians. We have +to work it out day by day. The foe may keep up a guerilla warfare after +he is substantially defeated, but his entire subjugation is certain if +we keep hold of the strength of Christ. + +Finally, this circumcision is described as "of Christ," by which is not +meant that He submitted to it, but that He instituted it. + +Such being the force of this statement, what is its bearing on the +Apostle's purpose? He desires to destroy the teaching that the rite of +circumcision was binding on the Christian converts, and he does so by +asserting that the gospel has brought the reality, of which the rite was +but a picture and a prophecy. The underlying principle is that when we +have the thing signified by any Jewish rites, which were all prophetic +as well as symbolic, the rite may--must go. Its retention is an +anachronism, "as if a flower should shut, and be a bud again." That is a +wise and pregnant principle, but as it comes to the surface again +immediately hereafter, and is applied to a whole series of subjects, we +may defer the consideration of it, and rather dwell briefly on other +matters suggested by this verse. + +We notice, then, the intense moral earnestness which leads the Apostle +here to put the true centre of gravity of Christianity in moral +transformation, and to set all outward rites and ceremonies in a very +subordinate place. What had Jesus Christ come from heaven for, and for +what had He borne His bitter passion? To what end were the Colossians +knit to Him by a tie so strong, tender and strange? Had they been +carried into that inmost depth of union with Him, and were they still to +be laying stress on ceremonies? Had Christ's work, then, no higher issue +than to leave religion bound in the cords of outward observances? Surely +Jesus Christ, who gives men a new life by union with Himself, which +union is brought about through faith alone, has delivered men from that +"yoke of bondage," if He has done anything at all. Surely they who are +joined to Him should have a profounder apprehension of the means and the +end of their relation to their Lord than to suppose that it is either +brought about by any outward rite, or has any reality unless it makes +them pure and good. From that height all questions of external +observances dwindle into insignificance, and all question of sacramental +efficacy drops away of itself. The vital centre lies in our being joined +to Jesus Christ--the condition of which is faith in Him, and the outcome +of it a new life which delivers us from the dominion of the flesh. How +far away from such conceptions of Christianity are those which busy +themselves on either side with matters of detail, with punctilios of +observance, and pedantries of form? The hatred of forms may be as +completely a form as the most elaborate ritual--and we all need to have +our eyes turned away from these to the far higher thing, the worship and +service offered by a transformed nature. + +We notice again, that the conquest of the animal nature and the material +body is the certain outcome of true union with Christ, and of that +alone. + +Paul did not regard matter as necessarily evil, as these teachers at +Colossæ did, nor did he think of the body as the source of all sin. But +he knew that the fiercest and most fiery temptations came from it, and +that the foulest and most indelible stains on conscience were splashed +from the mud which it threw. We all know that too. It is a matter of +life and death for each of us to find some means of taming and holding +in the animal that is in us all. We all know of wrecked lives, which +have been driven on the rocks by the wild passions belonging to the +flesh. Fortune, reputation, health, everything are sacrificed by +hundreds of men, especially young men, at the sting of this imperious +lust. The budding promise of youth, innocence, hope, and all which makes +life desirable and a nature fair, are trodden down by the hoofs of the +brute. There is no need to speak of that. And when we come to add to +this the weaknesses of the flesh, and the needs of the flesh, and the +limitations of the flesh, and to remember how often high purposes are +frustrated by its shrinking from toil, and how often mists born from its +undrained swamps darken the vision that else might gaze on truth and +God, we cannot but feel that we do not need to be Eastern Gnostics, to +believe that goodness requires the flesh to be subdued. Every one who +has sought for self-improvement recognises the necessity. But no +asceticisms and no resolves will do what we want. Much repression may be +effected by sheer force of will, but it is like a man holding a wolf by +the jaws. The arms begin to ache and the grip to grow slack, and he +feels his strength ebbing, and knows that, as soon as he lets go, the +brute will fly at his throat. Repression is not taming. Nothing tames +the wild beast in us but the power of Christ. He binds it in a silken +lash, and that gentle constraint is strong, because the fierceness is +gone. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and a little child shall +lead them." The power of union with Christ, and that alone, will enable +us to put off the body of the flesh. And such union will certainly lead +to such crucifying of the animal nature. Christianity would be easy if +it were a round of observances; it would be comparatively easy if it +were a series of outward asceticisms. Anybody can fast or wear a hair +shirt, if he have motive sufficient; but the "putting off the body of +the flesh" which is "not made with hands," is a different and harder +thing. Nothing else avails. High-flown religious emotion, or clear +theological definitions, or elaborate ceremonial worship, may all have +their value; but a religion which includes them all, and leaves out the +plain moralities of subduing the flesh, and keeping our heel well +pressed down on the serpent's head, is worthless. If we are in Christ, +we shall not live in the flesh. + +II. The Apostle meets the false teaching of the need for circumcision, +by a second consideration; namely, a reference to Christian Baptism, as +being the Christian sign of that inward change. + +Ye were circumcised, says he--being buried with Him in baptism. The form +of expression in the Greek implies that the two things are +cotemporaneous. As if he had said--Do you want any further rite to +express that mighty change which passed on you when you came to be "in +Christ"? You have been baptised, does not that express all the meaning +that circumcision ever had, and much more? What can you want with the +less significant rite when you have the more significant? This reference +to baptism is quite consistent with what has been said as to the +subordinate importance of ritual. Some forms we must have, if there is +to be any outward visible Church, and Christ has yielded to the +necessity, and given us two, of which the one symbolises the initial +spiritual act of the Christian life, and the other the constantly +repeated process of Christian nourishment. They are symbols and outward +representations, nothing more. They convey grace, in so far as they +help us to realise more clearly and to feel more deeply the facts on +which our spiritual life is fed, but they are not channels of grace in +any other way than any other outward acts of worship may be. + +We see that the form of baptism here presupposed is by immersion, and +that the form is regarded as significant. All but entire unanimity +prevails among commentators on this point. The burial and the +resurrection spoken of point unmistakably to the primitive mode of +baptism, as Bishop Lightfoot, the latest and best English expositor of +this book, puts it in his paraphrase: "Ye were buried with Christ to +your old selves beneath the baptismal waters, and were raised with Him +from these same waters, to a new and better life." + +If so, two questions deserve consideration--first, is it right to alter +a form which has a meaning that is lost by the change? second, can we +alter a significant form without destroying it? Is the new thing rightly +called by the old name? If baptism be immersion, and immersion express a +substantial part of its meaning, can sprinkling or pouring be baptism? + +Again, baptism is associated in time with the inward change, which is +the true circumcision. There are but two theories on which these two +things are cotemporaneous. The one is the theory that baptism effects +the change, the other is the theory that baptism goes with the change as +its sign. The association is justified if men are "circumcised," that +is, changed when they are baptised, or if men are baptised when they +have been "circumcised." No other theory gives full weight to these +words. + +The former theory elevates baptism into more than the importance of +which Paul sought to deprive circumcision, it confuses the distinction +between the Church and the world, it lulls men into a false security, it +obscures the very central truth of Christianity--namely that faith in +Christ, working by love, makes a Christian--it gives the basis for a +portentous reproduction of sacerdotalism, and it is shivered to pieces +against the plain facts of daily life. But it may be worth while to +notice in a sentence, that it is conclusively disposed of by the +language before us--it is "through faith in the operation of God" that +we are raised again in baptism. Not the rite, then, but faith is the +means of this participation with Christ in burial and resurrection. What +remains but that baptism is associated with that spiritual change by +which we are delivered from the body of the flesh, because in the Divine +order it is meant to be the outward symbol of that change which is +effected by no rite or sacrament, but by faith alone, uniting us to the +transforming Christ? + +We observe the solemnity and the thoroughness of the change thus +symbolised. It is more than a circumcision. It is burial and a +resurrection, an entire dying of the old self by union with Christ, a +real and present rising again by participation in His risen life. This +and nothing less makes a Christian. We partake of His death, inasmuch as +we ally ourselves to it by our faith, as the sacrifice for our sins, and +make it the ground of all our hope. But that is not all. We partake of +His death, inasmuch as, by the power of His cross, we are drawn to sever +ourselves from the selfish life, and to slay our own old nature; dying +for His dear sake to the habits, tastes, desires and purposes in which +we lived. Self-crucifixion for the love of Christ is the law for us all. +His cross is the pattern for our conduct, as well as the pledge and +means of our acceptance. We must die to sin that we may live to +righteousness. We must die to self, that we may live to God and our +brethren. We have no right to trust in Christ _for_ us, except as we +have Christ _in_ us. His cross is not saving us from our guilt, unless +it is moulding our lives to some faint likeness of Him who died that we +might live, and might live a real life by dying daily to the world, sin, +and self. + +If we are thus made conformable to His death, we shall know the power of +His resurrection, in all its aspects. It will be to us the guarantee of +our own, and we shall know its power as a prophecy for our future. It +will be to us the seal of His perfect work on the cross, and we shall +know its power as God's token of acceptance of His sacrifice in the +past. It will be to us the type of our spiritual resurrection now, and +we shall know its power as the pattern and source of our supernatural +life in the present. Thus we must die in and with Christ that we may +live in and with Him, and that twofold process is the very heart of +personal religion. No lofty participation in the immortal hopes which +spring from the empty grave of Jesus is warranted, unless we have His +quickening power raising us to-day by a better resurrection; and no +participation in the present power of His heavenly life is possible, +unless we have such a share in His death, as that by it the world is +crucified to us, and we unto the world. + +III. The Apostle adds another phase of this great contrast of life and +death, which brings home still more closely to his hearers, the deep +and radical change which passes upon all Christians. He has been +speaking of a death and burial followed by a resurrection. But there is +another death from which Christ raises us, by that same risen life +imparted to us through faith--a darker and grimmer thing than the +self-abnegation before described. + +"And you, being dead through your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of +your flesh." The separate acts of transgression of which they had been +guilty, and the unchastened, unpurified, carnal nature from which these +had flowed, were the reasons of a very real and awful death; or, as the +parallel passage in Ephesians (ii. 2) puts it with a slight variation, +they made the condition or sphere in which that death inhered. That +solemn thought, so pregnant in its dread emphasis in Scripture, is not +to be put aside as a mere metaphor. All life stands in union with God. +The physical universe exists by reason of its perpetual contact with His +sustaining hand, in the hollow of which all Being lies, and it is, +because He touches it. "In Him we live." So also the life of mind is +sustained by His perpetual inbreathing, and in the deepest sense "we see +light" in His light. So, lastly, the highest life of the spirit stands +in union in still higher manner with Him, and to be separated from Him +is death to it. Sin breaks that union, and therefore sin is death, in +the very inmost centre of man's being. The awful warning, "In the day +thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," was fulfilled. That +separation by sin, in which the soul is wrenched from God, is the real +death, and the thing that men call by the name is only an outward symbol +of a far sadder fact--the shadow of that which is the awful substance, +and as much less terrible than it as painted fires are less than the +burning reality. + +So men may live in the body, and toil and think and feel, and be dead. +The world is full of "sheeted dead," that "squeak and gibber" in "our +streets," for every soul that lives to self and has rent itself away +from God, so far as a creature can, is "dead while he liveth." The other +death, of which the previous verse spoke, is therefore but the putting +off of a death. We lose nothing of real life in putting off self, but +only that which keeps us in a separation from God, and slays our true +and highest being. To die to self is but "the death of death." + +The same life of which the previous verse spoke as coming from the risen +Lord is here set forth as able to raise us from that death of sin. "He +hath quickened you together with Him." Union with Christ floods our dead +souls with His own vitality, as water will pour from a reservoir through +a tube inserted in it. There is the actual communication of a new life +when we touch Christ by faith. The prophet of old laid himself upon the +dead child, the warm lip on the pallid mouth, the throbbing heart on the +still one, and the contact rekindled the extinguished spark. So Christ +lays His full life on our deadness, and does more than recall a departed +glow of vitality. He communicates a new life kindred with His own. That +life makes us free here and now from the law of sin and death, and it +shall be perfected hereafter when the working of His mighty power shall +change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the body of His +glory, and the leaven of His new life shall leaven the three measures in +which it is hidden, body, soul, and spirit, with its own transforming +energy. Then, in yet higher sense, death shall die, and life shall be +victor by His victory. + +But to all this one preliminary is needful--"having forgiven us all +trespasses." Paul's eagerness to associate himself with his brethren, +and to claim his share in the forgiveness, as well as to unite in the +acknowledgment of sin, makes him change his word from "you" to "us." So +the best manuscripts give the text, and the reading is obviously full of +interest and suggestiveness. There must be a removal of the cause of +deadness before there can be a quickening to new life. That cause was +sin, which cannot be cancelled as guilt by any self-denial however +great, nor even by the impartation of a new life from God for the +future. A gospel which only enjoined dying to self would be as +inadequate as a gospel which only provided for a higher life in the +future. The stained and faultful past must be cared for. Christ must +bring pardon for it, as well as a new spirit for the future. So the +condition prior to our being quickened together with Him is God's +forgiveness, free and universal, covering all our sins, and given to us +without anything on our part. That condition is satisfied. Christ's +death brings to us God's pardon, and when the great barrier of +unforgiven sin is cleared away, Christ's life pours into our hearts, and +"everything lives whithersoever the river cometh." + +Here then we have the deepest ground of Paul's intense hatred of every +attempt to make anything but faith in Christ and moral purity essential +to the perfect Christian life. Circumcision and baptism and all other +rites or sacraments of Judaism or Christianity are equally powerless to +quicken dead souls. For that, the first thing needed is the forgiveness +of sins, and that is ours through simple faith in Christ's death. We are +quickened by Christ's own life in us, and He "dwells in our hearts by +faith." All ordinances may be administered to us a hundred times, and +without faith they leave us as they found us--dead. If we have hold of +Christ by faith we live, whether we have received the ordinances or not. +So all full blown or budding sacramentarianism is to be fought against +to the uttermost, because it tends to block the road to the City of +Refuge for a poor sinful soul, and the most pressing of all necessities +is that that way of life should be kept clear and unimpeded. + +We need the profound truth which lies in the threefold form which Paul +gives to one of his great watchwords: "Circumcision is nothing, and +uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." +And how, says my despairing conscience, shall I keep the commandments? +The answer lies in the second form of the saying--"In Christ Jesus +neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new +creature." And how, replies my saddened heart, can I become a new +creature? The answer lies in the final form of the saying--"In Jesus +Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but +faith which worketh." Faith brings the life which makes us new men, and +then we can keep the commandments. If we have faith, and are new men and +do God's will, we need no rites but as helps. If we have not faith, all +rites are nothing. + + + + +XIV. + +_THE CROSS THE DEATH OF LAW AND THE TRIUMPH OVER EVIL POWERS._ + + "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, + which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to + His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a + show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."--COL. ii. 14, 15 + (Rev. Ver.). + + +The same double reference to the two characteristic errors of the +Colossians which we have already met so frequently, presents itself +here. This whole section vibrates continually between warnings against +the Judaising enforcement of the Mosaic law on Gentile Christians, and +against the Oriental figments about a crowd of angelic beings filling +the space betwixt man and God, betwixt pure spirit and gross matter. One +great fact is here opposed to these strangely associated errors. The +cross of Christ is the abrogation of the Law; the cross of Christ is the +victory over principalities and powers. If we hold fast by it, we are +under no subjection to the former, and have neither to fear nor +reverence the latter. + +I. The Cross of Christ is the death of Law. + +The law is a written document. It has an antagonistic aspect to us all, +Gentiles as well as Jews. Christ has blotted it out. More than that, He +has taken it out of the way, as if it were an obstacle lying right in +the middle of our path. More than that, it is "nailed to the cross." +That phrase has been explained by an alleged custom of repealing laws +and cancelling bonds by driving a nail into them, and fixing them up in +public, but proof of the practice is said to be wanting. The thought +seems to be deeper than that. This antagonistic "law" is conceived of as +being, like "the world," crucified in the crucifixion of our Lord. The +nails which fastened Him to the cross fastened it, and in His death it +was done to death. We are free from it, "that being dead in which we +were held." + +We have first, then, to consider the "handwriting," or, as some would +render the word, "the bond." Of course, by _law_ here is primarily meant +the Mosaic ceremonial law, which was being pressed upon the Colossians. +It is so completely antiquated for us, that we have difficulty in +realising what a fight for life and death raged round the question of +its observance by the primitive Church. It is always harder to change +customs than creeds, and religious observances live on, as every maypole +on a village green tells us, long after the beliefs which animated them +are forgotten. So there was a strong body among the early believers to +whom it was flat blasphemy to speak of allowing the Gentile Christian to +come into the Church, except through the old doorway of circumcision, +and to whom the outward ceremonial of Judaism was the only visible +religion. That is the point directly at issue between Paul and these +teachers. + +But the modern distinction between moral and ceremonial law had no +existence in Paul's mind, any more than it has in the Old Testament, +where precepts of the highest morality and regulations of the merest +ceremonial are interstratified in a way most surprising to us moderns. +To him the law was a homogeneous whole, however diverse its commands, +because it was all the revelation of the will of God for the guidance of +man. It is the law as a whole, in all its aspects and parts, that is +here spoken of, whether as enjoining morality, or external observances, +or as an accuser fastening guilt on the conscience, or as a stern +prophet of retribution and punishment. + +Further, we must give a still wider extension to the thought. The +principles laid down are true not only in regard to "_the_ law," but +about all law, whether it be written on the tables of stone, or on "the +fleshy tables of the heart" or conscience, or in the systems of ethics, +or in the customs of society. Law, as such, howsoever enacted and +whatever the bases of its rule, is dealt with by Christianity in +precisely the same way as the venerable and God-given code of the Old +Testament. When we recognise that fact, these discussions in Paul's +Epistles flash up into startling vitality and interest. It has long +since been settled that Jewish ritual is nothing to us. But it ever +remains a burning question for each of us, What Christianity does for us +in relation to the solemn law of duty under which we are all placed, and +which we have all broken? + +The antagonism of law is the next point presented by these words. Twice, +to add to the emphasis, Paul tells us that the law is against us. It +stands opposite us fronting us and frowning at us, and barring our +road. Is "law" then become our "enemy because it tells us the truth?" +Surely this conception of law is a strange contrast to and descent from +the rapturous delight of psalmists and prophets in the "law of the +Lord." Surely God's greatest gift to man is the knowledge of His will, +and law is beneficent, a light and a guide to men, and even its strokes +are merciful. Paul believed all that too. But nevertheless the +antagonism is very real. As with God, so with law, if we be against Him, +He cannot but be against us. We may make Him our dearest friend or our +foe. "They rebelled ... therefore He was turned to be their enemy and +fought against them." The revelation of duty to which we are not +inclined is ever unwelcome. Law is against us, because it comes like a +taskmaster, bidding us do, but neither putting the inclination into our +hearts, nor the power into our hands. And law is against us, because the +revelation of unfulfilled duty is the accusation of the defaulter and a +revelation to him of his guilt. And law is against us, because it comes +with threatenings and foretastes of penalty and pain. Thus as standard, +accuser and avenger, it is--sad perversion of its nature and function +though such an attitude be--against us. + +We all know that. Strange and tragic it is, but alas! it is true, that +God's law presents itself before us as an enemy. Each of us has seen +that apparition, severe in beauty, like the sword-bearing angel that +Balaam saw "standing in the way" between the vineyards, blocking our +path when we wanted to "go frowardly in the way of our heart." Each of +us knows what it is to see our sentence in the stern face. The law of +the Lord should be to us "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb," but the +corruption of the best is the worst, and we can make it poison. Obeyed, +it is as the chariot of fire to bear us heavenward. Disobeyed, it is an +iron car that goes crashing on its way, crushing all who set themselves +against it. To know what we ought to be and to love and try to be it, is +blessedness, but to know it and to refuse to be it, is misery. In +herself she "wears the Godhead's most benignant grace," but if we turn +against her, Law, the "daughter of the voice of God," gathers frowns +upon her face and her beauty becomes stern and threatening. + +But the great principle here asserted is--the destruction of law in the +cross of Christ. The cross ends the law's power of _punishment_. Paul +believed that the burden and penalty of sin had been laid on Jesus +Christ and borne by Him on His cross. In deep, mysterious, but most real +identification of Himself with the whole race of man, He not only +Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, by the might of +His sympathy and the reality of His manhood, but "the Lord made to meet +upon Him the iniquity of us all"; and He, the Lamb of God, willingly +accepted the load, and bare away our sins by bearing their penalty. + +To philosophise on that teaching of Scripture is not my business here. +It is my business to assert it. We can never penetrate to a full +understanding of the rationale of Christ's bearing the world's sins, but +that has nothing to do with the earnestness of our belief in the fact. +Enough for us that in His person He willingly made experience of all the +bitterness of sin: that when He agonised in the dark on the cross, and +when from out of the darkness came that awful cry, so strangely compact +of wistful confidence and utter isolation, "My God, My God, why hast +Thou forsaken Me?" it was something deeper than physical pain or +shrinking from physical death that found utterance--even the sin-laden +consciousness of Him who in that awful hour gathered into His own breast +the spear-points of a world's punishment. The cross of Christ is the +endurance of the penalty of sin, and therefore is the unloosing of the +grip of the law upon us, in so far as threatening and punishment are +concerned. It is not enough that we should only intellectually recognise +that as a principle--it is the very heart of the gospel, the very life +of our souls. Trusting ourselves to that great sacrifice, the dread of +punishment will fade from our hearts, and the thunder-clouds melt out of +the sky, and the sense of guilt will not be a sting, but an occasion for +lowly thankfulness, and the law will have to draw the bolts of her +prison-house and let our captive souls go free. + +Christ's cross is the end of law as _ceremonial_. The whole elaborate +ritual of the Jew had sacrifice for its vital centre, and the prediction +of the Great Sacrifice for its highest purpose. Without the admission of +these principles, Paul's position is unintelligible, for he holds, as in +this context, that Christ's coming puts the whole system out of date, +because it fulfils it all. When the fruit has set, there is no more need +for petals; or, as the Apostle himself puts it, "when that which is +perfect is come, that which is in part is done away." We have the +reality, and do not need the shadow. There is but one temple for the +Christian soul--the "temple of His body." Local sanctity is at an end, +for it was never more than an external picture of that spiritual fact +which is realised in the Incarnation. Christ is the dwelling-place of +Deity, the meeting-place of God and man, the place of sacrifice; and, +builded on Him, we in Him become a spiritual house. There are none other +temples than these. Christ is the great priest, and in His presence all +human priesthood loses its consecration, for it could offer only +external sacrifice, and secure a local approach to a "worldly +sanctuary." He is the real Aaron, and we in Him become a royal +priesthood. There are none other priests than these. Christ is the true +sacrifice. His death is the real propitiation for sin, and we in Him +become thank-offerings, moved by His mercies to present ourselves living +sacrifices. There are none other offerings than these. So the law as a +code of ceremonial worship is done to death in the cross, and, like the +temple veil, is torn in two from the top to the bottom. + +Christ's cross is the end of law as _moral_ rule. Nothing in Paul's +writings warrants the restriction to the ceremonial law of the strong +assertion in the text, and its many parallels. Of course, such words do +not mean that Christian men are freed from the obligations of morality, +but they do mean that we are not bound to do the "things contained in +the law" because they are there. Duty is duty now because we see the +pattern of conduct and character in Christ. Conscience is not our +standard, nor is the Old Testament conception of the perfect ideal of +manhood. We have neither to read law in the fleshy tables of the heart, +nor in the tables graven by God's own finger, nor in men's parchments +and prescriptions. Our law is the perfect life and death of Christ, who +is at once the ideal of humanity and the reality of Deity. + +The weakness of all law is that it merely commands, but has no power to +get its commandments obeyed. Like a discrowned king, it posts its +proclamations, but has no army at its back to execute them. But Christ +puts His own power within us, and His love in our hearts; and so we pass +from under the dominion of an external commandment into the liberty of +an inward spirit. He is to His followers both "law and impulse." He +gives not the "law of a carnal commandment, but the power of an endless +life." The long schism between inclination and duty is at an end, in so +far as we are under the influence of Christ's cross. The great promise +is fulfilled, "I will put My law into their minds and write it in their +hearts"; and so, glad obedience with the whole power of the new life, +for the sake of the love of the dear Lord who has bought us by His +death, supersedes the constrained submission to outward precept. A +higher morality ought to characterise the partakers of the life of +Christ, who have His example for their code, and His love for their +motive. The tender voice that says, "If ye love Me, keep My +commandments," wins us to purer and more self-sacrificing goodness than +the stern accents that can only say, "Thou shalt--or else!" can ever +enforce. He came "not to destroy, but to fulfil." The fulfilment was +destruction in order to reconstruction in higher form. Law died with +Christ on the cross in order that it might rise and reign with Him in +our inmost hearts. + +II. The Cross is the triumph over all the powers of evil. + +There are considerable difficulties in the interpretation of verse 15; +the main question being the meaning of the word rendered in the +Authorized Version "spoiled," and in the R. V. "having put off from +Himself." It is the same word as is used in iii. 9, and is there +rendered "have put off"; while a cognate noun is found in verse 11 of +this chapter, and is there translated "the putting off." The form here +must either mean "having put off from oneself," or "having stripped +(others) _for_ oneself." The former meaning is adopted by many +commentators, as well as by the R. V., and is explained to mean that +Christ having assumed our humanity, was, as it were, wrapped about and +invested with Satanic temptations, which He finally flung from Him for +ever in His death, which was His triumph over the powers of evil. The +figure seems far-fetched and obscure, and the rendering necessitates the +supposition of a change in the person spoken of, which must be God in +the earlier part of the period, and Christ in the latter. + +But if we adopt the other meaning, which has equal warrant in the Greek +form, "having stripped for Himself," we get the thought that in the +cross, God has, for His greater glory, stripped principalities and +powers. Taking this meaning, we avoid the necessity of supposing with +Bishop Lightfoot that there is a change of subject from God to Christ at +some point in the period including verses 13 to 15--an expedient which +is made necessary by the impossibility of supposing that God "divested +Himself of principalities or powers"--and also avoid the other necessity +of referring the whole period to Christ, which is another way out of +that impossibility. We thereby obtain a more satisfactory meaning than +that Christ in assuming humanity was assailed by temptations from the +powers of evil which were, as it were, a poisoned garment clinging to +Him, and which He stripped off from Himself in His death. Further, such +a meaning as that which we adopt makes the whole verse a consistent +metaphor in three stages, whereas the other introduces an utterly +incongruous and irrelevant figure. What connection has the figure of +stripping off a garment with that of a conqueror in his triumphal +procession? But if we read "spoiled for Himself principalities and +powers," we see the whole process before our eyes--the victor stripping +his foes of arms and ornaments and dress, then parading them as his +captives, and then dragging them at the wheels of his triumphal car. + +The words point us into dim regions of which we know nothing more than +Scripture tells us. These dreamers at Colossæ had much to say about a +crowd of beings, bad and good, which linked men and matter with spirit +and God. We have heard already the emphasis with which Paul has claimed +for his Master the sovereign authority of Creator over all orders of +being, the headship over all principality and power. He has declared, +too, that from Christ's cross a magnetic influence streams out upwards +as well as earthwards, binding all things together in the great +reconciliation--and now he tells us that from that same cross shoot +downwards darts of conquering power which subdue and despoil reluctant +foes of other realms and regions than ours, in so far as they work among +men. + +That there are such seems plainly enough asserted in Christ's own +words. However much discredit has been brought on the thought by +monastic and Puritan exaggerations, it is clearly the teaching of +Scripture; and however it may be ridiculed or set aside, it can never be +disproved. + +But the position which Christianity takes in reference to the whole +matter is to maintain that Christ has conquered the banded kingdom of +evil, and that no man owes it fear or obedience, if he will only hold +fast by his Lord. In the cross is the judgment of this world, and by it +is the prince of this world cast out. He has taken away the power of +these Powers who were so mighty amongst men. They held men captive by +temptations too strong to be overcome, but He has conquered the lesser +temptations of the wilderness and the sorer of the cross, and therein +has made us more than conquerors. They held men captive by ignorance of +God, and the cross reveals Him; by the lie that sin was a trifle, but +the cross teaches us its gravity and power; by the opposite lie that sin +was unforgivable, but the cross brings pardon for every transgression +and cleansing for every stain. By the cross the world is a redeemed +world, and, as our Lord said in words which may have suggested the +figure of our text, the strong man is bound, and his house _spoiled_ of +all his armour wherein he trusted. The prey is taken from the mighty and +men are delivered from the dominion of evil. So that dark kingdom is +robbed of its subjects and its rulers impoverished and restrained. The +devout imagination of the monk-painter drew on the wall of the cell in +his convent the conquering Christ with white banner bearing a blood-red +cross, before whose glad coming the heavy doors of the prison-house +fell from their hinges, crushing beneath their weight the demon jailer, +while the long file of eager captives, from Adam onwards through ages of +patriarchs and psalmists and prophets, hurried forward with outstretched +hands to meet the Deliverer, who came bearing His own atmosphere of +radiance and joy. Christ has conquered. His cross is His victory; and in +that victory God has conquered. As the long files of the triumphal +procession swept upwards to the temple with incense and music, before +the gazing eyes of a gathered glad nation, while the conquered trooped +chained behind the chariot, that all men might see their fierce eyes +gleaming beneath their matted hair, and breathe more freely for the +chains on their hostile wrists, so in the world-wide issues of the work +of Christ, God triumphs before the universe, and enhances His glory in +that He has rent the prey from the mighty and won men back to Himself. + +So we learn to think of evil as conquered, and for ourselves in our own +conflicts with the world, the flesh, and the devil, as well as for the +whole race of man, to be of good cheer. True, the victory is but slowly +being realised in all its consequences, and often it seems as if no +territory had been won. But the main position has been carried, and +though the struggle is still obstinate, it can end only in one way. The +brute dies hard, but the naked heel of our Christ has bruised his head, +and though still the dragon + + "Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail," + +his death will come sooner or later. The regenerating power is lodged in +the heart of humanity, and the centre from which it flows is the cross. +The history of the world thenceforward is but the history of its more or +less rapid assimilation of that power, and of its consequent deliverance +from the bondage in which it has been held. The end can only be the +entire and universal manifestation of the victory which was won when He +bowed His head and died. Christ's cross is God's throne of triumph. + +Let us see that we have our own personal part in that victory. Holding +to Christ, and drawing from Him by faith a share in His new life, we +shall no longer be under the yoke of law, but enfranchised into the +obedience of love, which is liberty. We shall no longer be slaves of +evil, but sons and servants of our conquering God, who woos and wins us +by showing us all His love in Christ, and by giving us His own Son on +the Cross, our peace-offering. If we let Him overcome, His victory will +be life, not death. He will strip us of nothing but rags, and clothe us +in garments of purity; He will so breathe beauty into us that He will +show us openly to the universe as examples of His transforming power, +and He will bind us glad captives to His chariot wheels, partakers of +His victory as well as trophies of His all-conquering love. "Now thanks +be unto God, which always triumphs over us in Jesus Christ." + + + + +XV. + +_WARNINGS AGAINST TWIN CHIEF ERRORS, BASED UPON PREVIOUS POSITIVE +TEACHING._ + + "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect + of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of + things to come; but the body is Christ's. Let no man rob you of your + prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, + dwelling in the things which he hath seen, vainly puffed up by his + fleshly mind, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, + being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, + increaseth with the increase of God."--COL. ii. 16-19 (Rev. Ver.). + + +"Let no man _therefore_ judge you." That "therefore" sends us back to +what the Apostle has been saying in the previous verses, in order to +find there the ground of these earnest warnings. That ground is the +whole of the foregoing exposition of the Christian relation to Christ as +far back as verse 9, but especially the great truths contained in the +immediately preceding verses, that the cross of Christ is the death of +law, and God's triumph over all the powers of evil. Because it is so, +the Colossian Christians are exhorted to claim and use their +emancipation from both. Thus we have here the very heart and centre of +the practical counsels of the Epistle--the double blasts of the trumpet +warning against the two most pressing dangers besetting the Church. They +are the same two which we have often met already--on the one hand, a +narrow Judaising enforcement of ceremonial and punctilios of outward +observance; on the other hand, a dreamy Oriental absorption in +imaginations of a crowd of angelic mediators obscuring the one gracious +presence of Christ our Intercessor. + +I. Here then we have first, the claim for Christian liberty, with the +great truth on which it is built. + +The points in regard to which that liberty is to be exercised are +specified. They are no doubt those, in addition to circumcision, which +were principally in question then and there. "Meat and drink" refers to +restrictions in diet, such as the prohibition of "unclean" things in the +Mosaic law, and the question of the lawfulness of eating meat offered to +idols; perhaps also, such as the Nazarite vow. There were few +regulations as to "drink" in the Old Testament, so that probably other +ascetic practices besides the Mosaic regulations were in question, but +these must have been unimportant, else Paul could not have spoken of the +whole as being a "shadow of things to come." The second point in regard +to which liberty is here claimed is that of the sacred seasons of +Judaism: the annual festivals, the monthly feast of the new moon, the +weekly Sabbath. + +The relation of the Gentile converts to these Jewish practices was an +all-important question for the early Church. It was really the question +whether Christianity was to be more than a Jewish sect--and the main +force which, under God, settled the contest, was the vehemence and logic +of the Apostle Paul. + +Here he lays down the ground on which that whole question about diet and +days, and all such matters, is to be settled. They "are a shadow of +things to come" but the body is of Christ. "Coming events cast their +shadows _before_." That great work of Divine love, the mission of +Christ, Whose "goings forth have been from everlasting," may be thought +of as having set out from the Throne as soon as time was, travelling in +the greatness of its strength, like the beams of some far-off star that +have not yet reached a dark world. The light from the Throne is behind +Him as He advances across the centuries, and the shadow is thrown far in +front. + +Now that involves two thoughts about the Mosaic law and whole system. +First, the purely prophetic and symbolic character of the Old Testament +order, and especially of the Old Testament ritual. The absurd +extravagance of many attempts to "spiritualize" the latter should not +blind us to the truth which they caricature. Nor, on the other hand, +should we be so taken with new attempts to reconstruct our notions of +Jewish history and the dates of Old Testament books, as to forget that, +though the New Testament is committed to no theory on these points, it +is committed to the Divine origin and prophetic purpose of the Mosaic +law and Levitical worship. We should thankfully accept all teaching +which free criticism and scholarship can give us as to the process by +which, and the time when, that great symbolic system of acted prophecy +was built up; but we shall be further away than ever from understanding +the Old Testament if we have gained critical knowledge of its genesis, +and have lost the belief that its symbols were given by God to prophesy +of His Son. That is the key to both Testaments; and I cannot but believe +that the uncritical reader who reads his book of the law and the +prophets with that conviction, has got nearer the very marrow of the +book, than the critic, if he have parted with it, can ever come. + +Sacrifice, altar, priest, temple spake of Him. The distinctions of meats +were meant, among other purposes, to familiarize men with the +conceptions of purity and impurity, and so, by stimulating conscience, +to wake the sense of need of a Purifier. The yearly feasts set forth +various aspects of the great work of Christ, and the sabbath showed in +outward form the rest into which He leads those who cease from their own +works and wear His yoke. All these observances, and the whole system to +which they belong, are like out-riders who precede a prince on his +progress, and as they gallop through sleeping villages, rouse them with +the cry, "The king is coming!" + +And when the king _has_ come, where are the heralds? and when the +reality has come, who wants symbols? and if that which threw the shadow +forward through the ages has arrived, how shall the shadow be visible +too? Therefore the second principle here laid down, namely the cessation +of all these observances, and their like, is really involved in the +first, namely their prophetic character. + +The practical conclusion drawn is very noteworthy, because it seems much +narrower than the premises warrant. Paul does not say--therefore let no +man observe any of these any more; but takes up the much more modest +ground--let no man _judge_ you about them. He claims a wide liberty of +variation, and all that he repels is the right of anybody to dragoon +Christian men into ceremonial observances on the ground that they are +necessary. He does not quarrel with the rites, but with men insisting +on the necessity of the rites. + +In his own practice he gave the best commentary on his meaning. When +they said to him, "You _must_ circumcise Titus," he said, "Then I will +_not_." When nobody tried to compel him, he took Timothy, and of his own +accord circumcised him to avoid scandals. When it was needful as a +protest, he rode right over all the prescriptions of the law, and "did +eat with Gentiles." When it was advisable as a demonstration that he +himself "walked orderly and kept the law," he performed the rites of +purification and united in the temple worship. + +In times of transition wise supporters of the new will not be in a hurry +to break with the old. "I will lead on softly, according as the flock +and the children be able to endure," said Jacob, and so says every good +shepherd. + +The brown sheaths remain on the twig after the tender green leaf has +burst from within them, but there is no need to pull them off, for they +will drop presently. "I will wear three surplices if they like," said +Luther once. "Neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not +are we the worse," said Paul. Such is the spirit of the words here. It +is a plea for Christian liberty. If not insisted on as necessary, the +outward observances may be allowed. If they are regarded as helps, or as +seemly adjuncts or the like, there is plenty of room for difference of +opinion and for variety of practice, according to temperament and taste +and usage. There are principles which should regulate even these +diversities of practice, and Paul has set these forth, in the great +chapter about meats in the Epistle to the Romans. But it is a different +thing altogether when any external observances are insisted on as +essential, either from the old Jewish or from the modern sacramentarian +point of view. If a man comes saying, "Except ye be circumcised, ye +cannot be saved," the only right answer is, Then I will not be +circumcised, and if _you_ are, because you believe that you cannot be +saved without it, "Christ is become of none effect to you." Nothing is +necessary but union to Him, and that comes through no outward +observance, but through the faith which worketh by love. Therefore, let +no man judge you, but repel all such attempts at thrusting any +ceremonial ritual observances on you, on the plea of necessity, with the +emancipating truth that the cross of Christ is the death of law. + +A few words may be said here on the bearing of the principles laid down +in these verses on the religious observance of Sunday. The obligation of +the Jewish sabbath has passed away as much as sacrifices and +circumcision. That seems unmistakably the teaching here. But the +institution of a weekly day of rest is distinctly put in Scripture as +independent of, and prior to, the special form and meaning given to the +institution in the Mosaic law. That is the natural conclusion from the +narrative of the creative rest in Genesis, and from our Lord's emphatic +declaration that the sabbath was made for "man"--that is to say, for the +race. Many traces of the pre-Mosaic sabbath have been adduced, and among +others we may recall the fact that recent researches show it to have +been observed by the Accadians, the early inhabitants of Assyria. It is +a physical and moral necessity, and that is a sadly mistaken +benevolence which on the plea of culture or amusement for the many, +compels the labour of the few, and breaks down the distinction between +the Sunday and the rest of the week. + +The religious observance of the first day of the week rests on no +recorded command, but has a higher origin, inasmuch as it is the outcome +of a felt want. The early disciples naturally gathered together for +worship on the day which had become so sacred to them. At first, no +doubt, they observed the Jewish sabbath, and only gradually came to the +practice which we almost see growing before our eyes in the Acts of the +Apostles, in the mention of the disciples at Troas coming together on +the first day of the week to break bread, and which we gather, from the +Apostle's instructions as to weekly setting apart money for charitable +purposes, to have existed in the Church at Corinth; as we know, that +even in his lonely island prison far away from the company of his +brethren, the Apostle John was in a condition of high religious +contemplation on the Lord's day, ere yet he heard the solemn voice and +saw "the things which are." + +This gradual growing up of the practice is in accordance with the whole +spirit of the New Covenant, which has next to nothing to say about the +externals of worship, and leaves the new life to shape itself. Judaism +gave prescriptions and minute regulations; Christianity, the religion of +the spirit, gives principles. The necessity, for the nourishment of the +Divine life, of the religious observance of the day of rest is certainly +not less now than at first. In the hurry and drive of our modern life +with the world forcing itself on us at every moment, we cannot keep up +the warmth of devotion unless we use this day, not merely for physical +rest, and family enjoyment, but for worship. They who know their own +slothfulness of spirit, and are in earnest in seeking after a deeper, +fuller Christian life, will thankfully own, "the week were dark but for +its light." I distrust the spirituality which professes that all life is +a sabbath, and therefore holds itself absolved from special seasons of +worship. If the stream of devout communion is to flow through all our +days, there must be frequent reservoirs along the road, or it will be +lost in the sand, like the rivers of higher Asia. It is a poor thing to +say, keep the day as a day of worship because it is a commandment. +Better to think of it as a great gift for the highest purposes; and not +let it be merely a day of rest for jaded bodies, but make it one of +refreshment for cumbered spirits, and rekindle the smouldering flame of +devotion, by drawing near to Christ in public and in private. So shall +we gather stores that may help us to go in the strength of that meat for +some more marches on the dusty road of life. + +II. The Apostle passes on to his second peal of warning,--that against +the teaching about angel mediators, which would rob the Colossian +Christians of their prize,--and draws a rapid portrait of the teachers +of whom they are to beware. + +"Let no man rob you of your prize." The metaphor is the familiar one of +the race or the wrestling ground; the umpire or judge is Christ; the +reward is that incorruptible crown of glory, of righteousness, woven not +of fading bay leaves, but of sprays from the "tree of life," which dower +with undying blessedness the brows round which they are wreathed. +Certain people are trying to rob them of their prize--not consciously, +for that would be inconceivable, but such is the tendency of their +teaching. No names will be mentioned, but he draws a portrait of the +robber with swift firm hand, as if he had said, If you want to know whom +I mean, here he is. Four clauses, like four rapid strokes of the pencil, +do it, and are marked in the Greek by four participles, the first of +which is obscured in the Authorised Version. "Delighting in humility and +the worshipping of angels." So probably the first clause should be +rendered. The first words are almost contradictory, and are meant to +suggest that the humility has not the genuine ring about it. +Self-conscious humility in which a man takes delight is not the real +thing. A man who knows that he is humble, and is self-complacent about +it, glancing out of the corners of his downcast eyes at any mirror where +he can see himself, is not humble at all. "The devil's darling vice is +the pride which apes humility." + +So _very_ humble were these people that they would not venture to pray +to God! _There_ was humility indeed. So far beneath did they feel +themselves, that the utmost they could do was to lay hold of the lowest +link of a long chain of angel mediators, in hope that the vibration +might run upwards through all the links, and perhaps reach the throne at +last. Such fantastic abasement which would not take God at His word, nor +draw near to Him in His Son, was really the very height of pride. + +Then follows a second descriptive clause, of which no altogether +satisfactory interpretation has yet been given. Possibly, as has been +suggested, we have here an early error in the text, which has affected +all the manuscripts, and cannot now be corrected. Perhaps, on the whole, +the translation adopted by the Revised Version presents the least +difficulty--"dwelling in the things which he hath seen." In that case +the seeing would be not by the senses, but by visions and pretended +revelations, and the charge against the false teachers would be that +they "walked in a vain show" of unreal imaginations and visionary +hallucinations, whose many-coloured misleading lights they followed +rather than the plain sunshine of revealed facts in Jesus Christ. + +"Vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind" is the next feature in the +portrait. The self-conscious humility was only skin deep, and covered +the utmost intellectual arrogance. The heretic teacher, like a blown +bladder, was swollen with what after all was only wind; he was dropsical +from conceit of "mind," or, as we should say, "intellectual ability," +which after all was only the instrument and organ of the "flesh," the +sinful self. And, of course, being all these things, he would have no +firm grip of Christ, from whom such tempers and views were sure to +detach him. Therefore the damning last clause of the indictment is "not +holding the Head." How could he do so? And the slackness of his grasp of +the Lord Jesus would make all these errors and faults ten times worse. + +Now the special forms of these errors which are here dealt with are all +gone past recall. But the tendencies which underlay these special forms +are as rampant as ever, and work unceasingly to loosen our hold of our +dear Lord. The worship of angels is dead, but we are still often +tempted to think that we are too lowly and sinful to claim our portion +of the faithful promises of God. The spurious humility is by no means +out of date, which knows better than God does, whether He can forgive us +our sins, and bend over us in love. We do not slip in angel mediators +between ourselves and Him, but the tendency to put the sole work of +Jesus Christ "into commission," is not dead. We are all tempted to grasp +at others as well as at Him, for our love, and trust, and obedience, and +we all need the reminder that to lay hold of any other props is to lose +hold of Him, and that he who does not cleave to Christ alone, does not +cleave to Christ at all. + +We do not see visions and dream dreams any more, except here and there +some one led astray by a so-called "spiritualism," but plenty of us +attach more importance to our own subjective fancies or speculations +about the obscurer parts of Christianity than to the clear revelation of +God in Christ. The "unseen world" has for many minds an unwholesome +attraction. The Gnostic spirit is still in full force among us, which +despises the foundation facts and truths of the gospel as "milk for +babes," and values its own baseless artificial speculations about +subordinate matters, which are unrevealed because they are subordinate, +and fascinating to some minds because unrevealed, far above the truths +which are clear because they are vital, and insipid to such minds +because they are clear. We need to be reminded that Christianity is not +for speculation, but to make us good, and that "He who has fashioned +their hearts alike," has made us all to live by the same air, to be +nourished by the same bread from heaven, to be saved and purified by +the same truth. That is the gospel which the little child can +understand, of which the outcast and the barbarian can get some kind of +hold, which the failing spirit groping in the darkness of death can +dimly see as its light in the valley--that is the all-important part of +the gospel. What needs special training and capacity to understand is no +essential portion of the truth that is meant for the world. + +And a swollen self-conceit is of all things the most certain to keep a +man away from Christ. We must feel our utter helplessness and need, +before we shall lay hold on Him, and if ever that wholesome lowly sense +of our own emptiness is clouded over, that moment will our fingers relax +their tension, and that moment will the flow of life into our deadness +run slow and pause. Whatever slackens our hold of Christ tends to rob us +of the final prize, that crown of life which He gives. + +Hence the solemn earnestness of these warnings. It was not only a +doctrine more or less that was at stake, but it was their eternal life. +Certain truths believed would increase the firmness of their hold on +their Lord, and thereby would secure the prize. Disbelieved, the +disbelief would slacken their grasp of Him, and thereby would deprive +them of it. We are often told that the gospel gives heaven for right +belief, and that that is unjust. But if a man does not believe a thing, +he cannot have in his character or feelings the influence which the +belief of it would produce. If he does not believe that Christ died for +his sins, and that all his hopes are built on that great Saviour, he +will not cleave to Him in love and dependence. If he does not so cleave +to Him he will not draw from Him the life which would mould his +character and stir him to run the race. If he do not run the race he +will never win nor wear the crown. That crown is the reward and issue of +character and conduct, made possible by the communication of strength +and new nature from Jesus, which again is made possible through our +faith laying hold of Him as revealed in certain truths, and of these +truths as revealing Him. Therefore, intellectual error may loose our +hold on Christ, and if we slacken that, we shall forfeit the prize. Mere +speculative interest about the less plainly revealed corners of +Christian truth may, and often do, act in paralysing the limbs of the +Christian athlete. "Ye did run well, what hath hindered you?" has to be +asked of many whom a spirit akin to this described in our text has made +languid in the race. To us all, knowing in some measure how the whole +sum of influences around us work to detach us from our Lord, and so to +rob us of the prize which is inseparable from His presence, the solemn +exhortation which He speaks from heaven may well come, "Hold fast that +thou hast; let no man take thy crown." + +III. The source and manner of all true growth is next set forth, in +order to enforce the warning, and to emphasize the need of holding the +Head. + +Christ is not merely represented supreme and sovereign, when He is +called "the head." The metaphor goes much deeper, and points to Him as +the source of a real spiritual life, from Him communicated to all the +members of the true Church, and constituting it an organic whole. We +have found the same expression twice already in the Epistle; once as +applied to His relation to "the body, the Church" (i. 18), and once in +reference to the "principalities and powers." The errors in the +Colossian Church derogated from Christ's sole sovereign place as +fountain of all life natural and spiritual for all orders of beings, and +hence the emphasis of the Apostle's proclamation of the counter truth. +That life which flows from the head is diffused through the whole body +by the various and harmonious action of all the parts. The body is +"supplied and knit together," or in other words, the functions of +nutrition and compaction into a whole are performed by the "joints and +bands," in which last word are included muscles, nerves, tendons, and +any of the "connecting bands which strap the body together." Their +action is the condition of growth; but the Head is the source of all +which the action of the members transmits to the body. Christ is the +source of all nourishment. From Him flows the life-blood which feeds the +whole, and by which every form of supply is ministered whereby the body +grows. Christ is the source of all unity. Churches have been bound +together by other bonds, such as creeds, polity, or even nationality; +but that external bond is only like a rope round a bundle of fagots, +while the true, inward unity springing from common possession of the +life of Christ, is as the unity of some great tree, through which the +same sap circulates from massive bole to the tiniest leaf that dances at +the tip of the farthest branch. + +These blessed results of supply and unity are effected through the +action of the various parts. If each organ is in healthy action, the +body grows. There is diversity in offices; the same life is light in +the eyes, beauty in the cheek, strength in the hand, thought in the +brain. The more you rise in the scale of life the more the body is +differentiated, from the simple sac that can be turned inside out and +has no division of parts or offices, up to man. So in the Church. The +effect of Christianity is to heighten individuality, and to give each +man his own proper "gift from God," and therefore each man his office, +"one after this manner and another after that." Therefore is there need +for the freest possible unfolding of each man's idiosyncrasy, heightened +and hallowed by an indwelling Christ, lest the body should be the poorer +if any member's activity be suppressed, or any one man be warped from +his own work wherein he is strong, to become a feeble copy of another's. +The perfect light is the blending of all colours. + +A community where each member thus holds firmly by the Head, and each +ministers in his degree to the nourishment and compaction of the +members, will, says Paul, increase with the increase of God. The +increase will come from Him, will be pleasing to Him, will be +essentially the growth of His own life in the body. There is an increase +not of God. These heretical teachers were swollen with dropsical +self-conceit; but this is wholesome, solid growth. For individuals and +communities of professing Christians the lesson is always seasonable, +that it is very easy to get an increase of the other kind. The +individual may increase in apparent knowledge, in volubility, in visions +and speculations, in so-called Christian work; the Church may increase +in members, in wealth, in culture, in influence in the world, in +apparent activities, in subscription lists, and the like--and it may +all be not sound growth, but proud flesh, which needs the knife. One way +only there is by which we may increase with the increase of God, and +that is that we keep fast hold of Jesus Christ, and "let Him not go, for +He is our life." The one exhortation which includes all that is needful, +and which being obeyed, all ceremonies and all speculations will drop +into their right place, and become helps, not snares, is the exhortation +which Barnabas gave to the new Gentile converts at Antioch--that "with +purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord." + + + + +XVI. + +_TWO FINAL TESTS OF THE FALSE TEACHING._ + + "If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as + though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances. + Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish + with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which + things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, + and severity to the body; _but are_ not of any value against the + indulgence of the flesh."--COL. ii. 20-23 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The polemical part of the Epistle is now coming to an end. We pass in +the next chapter, after a transitional paragraph, to simple moral +precepts which, with personal details, fill up the remainder of the +letter. The antagonist errors appear for the last time in the words +which we have now to consider. In these the Apostle seems to gather up +all his strength to strike two straight, crashing, final blows, which +pulverize and annihilate the theoretical positions and practical +precepts of the heretical teachers. First, he puts in the form of an +unanswerable demand for the reason for their teachings, their radical +inconsistency with the Christian's death with Christ, which is the very +secret of his life. Then, by a contemptuous concession of their apparent +value to people who will not look an inch below the surface, he makes +more emphatic their final condemnation as worthless--less than nothing +and vanity--for the suppression of "the flesh"--the only aim of all +moral and religious discipline. So we have here two great tests by their +conformity to which we may try all teachings which assume to regulate +life, and all Christian teaching about the place and necessity for +ritual and outward prescriptions of conduct. "Ye are dead with Christ." +All must fit in with that great fact. The restraint and conquest of "the +flesh" is the purpose of all religion and of all moral teaching--our +systems must do that or they are naught, however fascinating they may +be. + +I. We have then to consider the great fact of the Christian's death with +Christ, and to apply it as a touch-stone. + +The language of the Apostle points to a definite time when the Colossian +Christians "died" with Christ. That carries us back to former words in +the chapter, where, as we found, the period of their baptism considered +as the symbol and profession of their conversion, was regarded as the +time of their burial. They died with Christ when they clave with +penitent trust to the truth that Christ died for them. When a man unites +himself by faith to the dying Christ as his Peace, Pardon, and Saviour, +then he too in a very real sense dies with Jesus. + +That thought that every Christian is dead with Christ, runs through the +whole of Paul's teaching. It is no mere piece of mysticism on his lips, +though it has often become so, when divorced from morality, as it has +been by some Christian teachers. It is no mere piece of rhetoric, though +it has often become so, when men have lost the true thought of what +Christ's death is for the world. But to Paul the cross of Christ was, +first and foremost, the altar of sacrifice on which the oblation had +been offered that took away all his guilt and sin; and then, because it +was that, it became the law of his own life, and the power that +assimilated him to his Lord. + +The plain English of it all is, that when a man becomes a Christian by +putting his trust in Christ Who died, as the ground of his acceptance +and salvation, such a change takes place upon his whole nature and +relationship to externals as is fairly comparable to a death. + +The same illustration is frequent in ordinary speech. What do we mean +when we talk of an old man being dead to youthful passions or follies or +ambitions? We mean that they have ceased to interest him, that he is +_separated_ from them and _insensible_ to them. Death is the separator. +What an awful gulf there is between that fixed white face beneath the +sheet, and all the things about which the man was so eager an hour ago! +How impossible for any cries of love to pass the chasm! "His sons come +to honour, and he knoweth it not." The "business" which filled his +thoughts, crumbles to pieces, and he cares not. Nothing reaches him or +interests him any more. So, if we have got hold of Christ as our +Saviour, and have found in His cross the anchor of souls, that +experience will deaden us to all which was our life, and the measure in +which we are joined to Jesus by our faith in His great sacrifice, will +be the measure in which we are detached from our former selves, and from +old objects of interest and pursuit. The change may either be called +dying with Christ, or rising with Him. The one phrase takes hold of it +at an earlier stage than the other; the one puts stress on our ceasing +to be what we were, the other on our beginning to be what we were not. +So our text is followed by a paragraph corresponding in form and +substance, and beginning, "If ye then be risen with Christ," as this +begins, "If ye died with Christ!" + +Such detachment from externals and separation from a former self is not +unknown in ordinary life. Strong emotion of any kind makes us insensible +to things around, and even to physical pain. Many a man with the +excitement of the battle-field boiling in his brain, "receives but recks +not of a wound." Absorption of thought and interest leads to what is +called "absence of mind," where the surroundings are entirely unfelt, as +in the case of the saint who rode all day on the banks of the Swiss +lake, plunged in theological converse, and at evening asked where the +lake was, though its waves had been rippling for twenty miles at his +mule's feet. Higher tastes drive out lower ones, as some great stream +turned into a new channel will sweep it clear of mud and rubbish. So, if +we are joined to Christ, He will fill our souls with strong emotions and +interests which will deaden our sensitiveness to things around us, and +will inspire new loves, tastes and desires, which will make us +indifferent to much that we used to be eager about and hostile to much +that we once cherished. + +To what shall we die if we are Christians? The Apostle answers that +question in various ways, which we may profitably group together. +"Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto _sin_" (Rom. vi. 11). +"He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto +_themselves_" (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). "Ye are become dead to the _law_" +(Rom. vii. 6). By the cross of Christ, "the world hath been crucified +unto me, and I unto _the world_." So then, to the whole mass of outward +material things, all this present order which surrounds us, to the +unrenounced self which has ruled us so long, and to the sin which +results from the appeals of outward things to that evil self--to these, +and to the mere outward letter of a commandment which is impotent to +enforce its own behests or deliver self from the snares of the world and +the burden of sin, we cease to belong in the measure in which we are +Christ's. The separation is not complete; but, if we are Christians at +all, it is begun, and henceforward our life is to be a "dying daily." It +must either be a dying life or a living death. We shall still belong in +our outward being--and, alas! far too much in heart also--to the world +and self and sin--but, if we are Christians at all, there will be a real +separation from these in the inmost heart of our hearts, and the germ of +entire deliverance from them all will be in us. + +This day needs that truth to be strongly urged. The whole meaning of the +death of Christ is not reached when it is regarded as the great +propitiation for our sins. Is it the pattern for our lives? has it drawn +us away from our love of the world, from our sinful self, from the +temptations to sin, from cowering before duties which we hate but dare +not neglect? has it changed the current of our lives, and lifted us into +a new region where we find new interests, loves and aims, before which +the twinkling lights, which once were stars to us, pale their +ineffectual fires? If so, then, just in as much as it is so, and not one +hair's breadth the more, may we call ourselves Christians. If not, it is +of no use for us to talk about looking to the cross as the source of +our salvation. Such a look, if it be true and genuine, will certainly +change all a man's tastes, habits, aspirations, and relationships. If we +know nothing of dying with Christ, it is to be feared we know as little +of Christ's dying for us. + +This great fact of the Christian's death with Christ comes into view +here mainly as pointing the contradiction between the Christian's +position, and his subjection to the prescriptions and prohibitions of a +religion which consists chiefly in petty rules about conduct. We are +"dead" says Paul, "to the rudiments of the world,"--a phrase which we +have already heard in verse 8 of this chapter, where we found its +meaning to be "precepts of an elementary character, fit for babes, not +for men in Christ, and moving principally in the region of the +material." It implies a condemnation of all such regulation religion on +the two grounds, that it is an anachronism, seeking to perpetuate an +earlier stage which has been left behind, and that it has to do with the +outsides of things, with the material and visible only. To such +rudiments we are dead with Christ. Then, queries Paul, with irresistible +triumphant question--why, in the name of consistency, "do you subject +yourself to ordinances" (of which we have already heard in verse 14 of +the chapter) such as "handle not, nor taste, nor touch?" These three +prohibitions are not Paul's, but are quoted by him as specimens of the +kind of rules and regulations which he is protesting against. The +ascetic teachers kept on vehemently reiterating their prohibitions, and +as the correct rendering of the words shows, with a constantly +increasing intolerance. "Handle not" is a less rigid prohibition than +"touch not." The first says, Do not lay hold of; the last Do not even +touch with the tip of your finger. So asceticism, like many another +tendency and habit, grows by indulgence, and demands abstinence ever +more rigid and separation ever more complete. And the whole thing is out +of date, and a misapprehension of the genius of Christianity. Man's work +in religion is ever to confine it to the surface, to throw it outward +and make it a mere round of things done and things abstained from. +Christ's work in religion is to drive it inwards, and to focus all its +energy on "the hidden man of the heart," knowing that if that be right, +the visible will come right. It is waste labour to try to stick figs on +the prickles of a thorn bush--as is the tree, so will be the fruit. +There are plenty of pedants and martinets in religion as well as on the +parade ground. There must be so many buttons on the uniform, and the +shoulder belts must be pipe-clayed, and the rifles on the shoulders +sloped at just such an angle--and then all will be right. Perhaps so. +Disciplined courage is better than courage undisciplined. But there is +much danger of all the attention being given to drill, and then, when +the parade ground is exchanged for the battle-field, disaster comes +because there is plenty of etiquette and no dash. Men's lives are +pestered out of them by a religion which tries to tie them down with as +many tiny threads as those with which the Liliputians fastened down +Gulliver. But Christianity in its true and highest forms is not a +religion of prescriptions but of principles. It does not keep +perpetually dinning a set of petty commandments and prohibitions into +our ears. Its language is not a continual "Do this, forbear from +that,"--but "Love, and thou fulfillest the law." It works from the +centre outwards to the circumference; first making clean the inside of +the platter, and so ensuring that the outside shall be clean also. The +error with which Paul fought, and which perpetually crops up anew, +having its roots deep in human nature, begins with the circumference and +wastes effort in burnishing the outside. + +The parenthesis which follows in the text, "all which things are to +perish with the using," contains an incidental remark intended to show +the mistake of attaching such importance to regulations about diet and +the like, from the consideration of the perishableness of these meats +and drinks about which so much was said by the false teachers. "They are +all destined for corruption, for physical decomposition--in the very act +of consumption." You cannot use them without using them up. They are +destroyed in the very moment of being used. Is it fitting for men who +have died with Christ to this fleeting world, to make so much of its +perishable things? + +May we not widen this thought beyond its specific application here, and +say that death with Christ to the world should deliver us from the +temptation of making much of the things which perish with the using, +whether that temptation is presented in the form of attaching +exaggerated religious importance to ascetic abstinence from them or in +that of exaggerated regard and unbridled use of them? Asceticism and +Sybaritic luxury have in common an over-estimate of the importance of +the material things. The one is the other turned inside out. Dives in +his purple and fine linen, and the ascetic in his hair shirt, both make +too much of "what they shall put on." The one with his feasts and the +other with his fasts both think too much of what they shall eat and +drink. A man who lives on high with his Lord puts all these things in +their right place. There are things which do _not_ perish with the +using, but grow with use, like the five loaves in Christ's hands. Truth, +love, holiness, all Christlike graces and virtues increase with +exercise, and the more we feed on the bread which comes down from +heaven, the more shall we have for our own nourishment and for our +brother's need. There is a treasure which faileth not, bags which wax +not old, the durable riches and undecaying possessions of the soul that +lives on Christ and grows like Him. These let us seek after; for if our +religion be worth anything at all, it should carry us past all the +fleeting wealth of earth straight into the heart of things, and give us +for our portion that God whom we can never exhaust, nor outgrow, but +possess the more as we use His sweetness for the solace, and His +all-sufficient Being for the good, of our souls. + +The final inconsistency between the Christian position and the practical +errors in question is glanced at in the words "after the commandments +and doctrines of men," which refer, of course, to the ordinances of +which Paul is speaking. The expression is a quotation from Isaiah's +(xxix. 13) denunciation of the Pharisees of his day, and as used here +seems to suggest that our Lord's great discourse on the worthlessness of +the Jewish punctilios about meats and drinks was in the Apostle's mind, +since the same words of Isaiah occur there in a similar connection. It +is not fitting that we, who are withdrawn from dependence on the outward +visible order of things by our union with Christ in His death, should be +under the authority of men. Here is the true democracy of the Christian +society. "Ye were redeemed with a price. Be not the servants of men." +Our union to Jesus Christ is a union of absolute authority and utter +submission. We all have access to the one source of illumination, and we +are bound to take our orders from the one Master. The protest against +the imposition of human authority on the Christian soul is made not in +the interests of self-will, but from reverence to the only voice that +has the right to give autocratic commands and to receive unquestioning +obedience. We are free in proportion as we are dead to the world with +Christ. We are free from men not that we may please ourselves, but that +we may please Him. "Hold your peace, I want to hear what my Master has +to command me," is the language of the Christian freedman, who is free +that he may serve, and because he serves. + +II. We have to consider one great purpose of all teaching and external +worship, by its power in attaining which any system is to be tried. + +"Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and +humility, and severity to the body, _but are_ not of any value against +the indulgence of the flesh." Here is the conclusion of the whole +matter, the parting summary of the indictment against the whole +irritating tangle of restrictions and prescriptions. From a moral point +of view it is worthless, as having no coercive power over "the flesh." +Therein lies its conclusive condemnation, for if religious observances +do not help a man to subdue his sinful self, what, in the name of common +sense, is the use of them? + +The Apostle knows very well that the system which he was opposing had +much which commended it to people, especially to those who did not look +very deep. It had a "show of wisdom" very fascinating on a superficial +glance, and that in three points, all of which caught the vulgar eye, +and all of which turned into the opposite on closer examination. + +It has the look of being exceeding devotion and zealous worship. These +teachers with their abundant forms impose upon the popular imagination, +as if they were altogether given up to devout contemplation and prayer. +But if one looks a little more closely at them, one sees that their +devotion is the indulgence of their own will and not surrender to God's. +They are not worshipping Him as He has appointed, but as they have +themselves chosen, and as they are rendering services which He has not +required, they are in a very true sense worshipping their own wills, and +not God at all. By "will-worship" seems to be meant self-imposed forms +of religious service which are the outcome not of obedience, nor of the +instincts of a devout heart, but of a man's own will. And the Apostle +implies that such supererogatory and volunteered worship is no worship. +Whether offered in a cathedral or a barn, whether the worshipper wear a +cope or a fustian jacket, such service is not accepted. A prayer which +is but the expression of the worshipper's own will, instead of being +"not my will but Thine be done," reaches no higher than the lips that +utter it. If we are subtly and half unconsciously obeying self even +while we seem to be bowing before God; if we are seeming to pray, and +are all the while burning incense to ourselves, instead of being drawn +out of ourselves by the beauty and the glory of the God towards whom our +spirits yearn, then our devotion is a mask, and our prayers will be +dispersed in empty air. + +The deceptive appearance of wisdom in these teachers and their doctrines +is further manifest in the humility which felt so profoundly the gulf +between man and God that it was fain to fill the void with its fantastic +creations of angel mediators. Humility is a good thing, and it looked +very humble to say, We cannot suppose that such insignificant +flesh-encompassed creatures as we can come into contact and fellowship +with God; but it was a great deal more humble to take God at His word, +and to let Him lay down the possibilities and conditions of intercourse, +and to tread the way of approach to Him which He has appointed. If a +great king were to say to all the beggars and ragged losels of his +capital, Come to the palace to-morrow; which would be the humbler, he +who went, rags and leprosy and all, or he who hung back because he was +so keenly conscious of his squalor? God says to men, "Come to My arms +through My Son. Never mind the dirt, come." Which is the humbler: he who +takes God at His word, and runs to hide his face on his Father's breast, +having access to Him through Christ the Way, or he who will not venture +near till he has found some other mediators besides Christ? A humility +so profound that it cannot think God's promise and Christ's mediation +enough for it, has gone so far West that it has reached the East, and +from humility has become pride. + +Further, this system has a show of wisdom in "severity to the body." Any +asceticism is a great deal more to men's taste than abandoning self. +They will rather stick hooks in their backs and do the "swinging +poojah," than give up their sins or yield up their wills. It is easier +to travel the whole distance from Cape Comorin to the shrine of +Juggernaut, measuring every foot of it by the body laid prostrate in the +dust, than to surrender the heart to the love of God. In the same manner +the milder forms of putting oneself to pain, hair shirts, scourgings, +abstinence from pleasant things with the notion that thereby merit is +acquired, or sin atoned for, have a deep root in human nature, and hence +"a show of wisdom." It is strange, and yet not strange, that people +should think that, somehow or other, they recommend themselves to God by +making themselves uncomfortable, but so it is that religion presents +itself to many minds mainly as a system of restrictions and injunctions +which forbids the agreeable and commands the unpleasant. So does our +poor human nature vulgarise and travesty Christ's solemn command to deny +ourselves and take up our cross after Him. + +The conclusive condemnation of all the crowd of punctilious restrictions +of which the Apostle has been speaking lies in the fact that, however +they may correspond to men's mistaken notions, and so seem to be the +dictate of wisdom, they "are not of any value against the indulgence of +the flesh." This is one great end of all moral and spiritual discipline, +and if practical regulations do not tend to secure it, they are +worthless. + +Of course by "flesh" here we are to understand, as usually in the +Pauline Epistles, not merely the body but the whole unregenerate +personality, the entire unrenewed self that thinks and feels and wills +and desires apart from God. To indulge and satisfy it is to die, to slay +and suppress it is to live. All these "ordinances" with which the +heretical teachers were pestering the Colossians, have no power, Paul +thinks, to keep that self down, and therefore they seem to him so much +rubbish. He thus lifts the whole question up to a higher level and +implies a standard for judging much formal outward Christianity which +would make very short work of it. + +A man may be keeping the whole round of them and seven devils may be in +his heart. They distinctly tend to foster some of the "works of the +flesh," such as self-righteousness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, +and they as distinctly altogether fail to subdue any of them. A man may +stand on a pillar like Simeon Stylites for years, and be none the +better. Historically, the ascetic tendency has not been associated with +the highest types of real saintliness except by accident, and has never +been their productive cause. The bones rot as surely inside the +sepulchre though the whitewash on its dome be ever so thick. + +So the world and the flesh are very willing that Christianity should +shrivel into a religion of prohibitions and ceremonials, because all +manner of vices and meannesses may thrive and breed under these, like +scorpions under stones. There is only one thing that will put the collar +on the neck of the animal within us, and that is the power of the +indwelling Christ. The evil that is in us all is too strong for every +other fetter. Its cry to all these "commandments and ordinances of men" +is, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?" Not in obedience to +such, but in the reception into our spirits of His own life, is our +power of victory over self. "This I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye +shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." + + + + +XVII. + +_THE PRESENT CHRISTIAN LIFE, A RISEN LIFE._ + + "If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that + are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set + your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are + upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in + God. When Christ, _Who is_ our life, shall be manifested, then shall + ye also with Him be manifested in glory."--COL. iii. 1-4 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +We have now done with controversy. We hear no more about heretical +teachers. The Apostle has cut his way through the tangled thickets of +error, and has said his say as to the positive truths with which he +would hew them down. For the remainder of the letter, we have +principally plain practical exhortations, and a number of interesting +personal details. + +The paragraph which we have now to consider is the transition from the +controversial to the ethical portion of the Epistle. It touches the +former by its first words, "If ye then were raised together with +Christ," which correspond in form and refer in meaning to the beginning +of the previous paragraph, "If ye died with Christ." It touches the +latter because it embodies the broad general precept, "Seek the things +that are above," of which the following practical directions are but +varying applications in different spheres of duty. + +In considering these words we must begin by endeavouring to put clearly +their connection and substance. As they flew from Paul's eager lips, +motive and precept, symbol and fact, the present and future are blended +together. It may conduce to clearness if we try to part these elements. + +There are here two similar exhortations, side by side. "Seek the things +that are above," and "Set your mind on the things that are above." The +first is _preceded_, and the second is _followed_ by its reason. So the +two laws of conduct are, as it were, enclosed like a kernel in its +shell, or a jewel in a gold setting, by encompassing motives. These +considerations, in which the commandment are imbedded, are the double +thought of union with Christ in His resurrection, and in His death, and +as consequent thereon, participation in His present hidden life, and in +His future glorious manifestation. So we have here the present budding +life of the Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ; the future +consummate flower of the Christian life in union with the glorious +manifested Christ; and the practical aim and direction which alone is +consistent with either bud or flower. + +I. The present budding life of the Christian in union with the risen, +hidden Christ. + +Two aspects of this life are set forth in verses 1 and 3--"raised with +Christ," and "ye died, and your life is hid with Christ." A still +profounder thought lies in the words of verse 4, "Christ _is_ our life." + +We have seen in former parts of this Epistle that Paul believed that, +when a man puts His faith in Jesus Christ, he is joined to Him in such a +way that he is separated from his former self and dead to the world. +That great change may be considered either with reference to what the +man has ceased to be, or with reference to what he becomes. In the one +aspect, it is a death; in the other, it is a resurrection. It depends on +the point of view whether a semicircle seems convex or concave. The two +thoughts express substantially the same fact. That great change was +brought about in these Colossian Christians, at a definite time, as the +language shows; and by a definite means--namely, by union with Christ +through faith, which grasps His death and resurrection as at once the +ground of salvation, the pattern for life, and the prophecy of glory. So +then, the great truths here are these; the impartation of life by union +with Christ, which life is truly a resurrection life, and is, moreover, +hidden with Christ in God. + +Union with Christ by faith is the condition of a real communication of +life. "In Him was life," says John's Gospel, meaning thereby to assert, +in the language of our Epistle, that "in Him were all things created, +and in Him all things consist." Life in all its forms is dependent on +union in varying manner with the Divine, and upheld only by His +continual energy. The creature must touch God or perish. Of that energy +the Uncreated Word of God is the channel--"with Thee is the fountain of +life." As the life of the body, so the higher self-conscious life of the +thinking, feeling, striving soul, is also fed and kept alight by the +perpetual operation of a higher Divine energy, imparted in like manner +by the Divine Word. Therefore, with deep truth, the psalm just quoted, +goes on to say, "In Thy light shall we see light"--and therefore, too, +John's Gospel continues: "And the life was the light of men." + +But there is a still higher plane on which life may be manifested, and +nobler energies which may accompany it. The body may live, and mind and +heart be dead. Therefore Scripture speaks of a threefold life: that of +the animal nature, that of the intellectual and emotional nature, and +that of the spirit, which lives when it is conscious of God, and touches +Him by aspiration, hope, and love. This is the loftiest life. Without +it, a man is dead while he lives. With it, he lives though he dies. And +like the others, it depends on union with the Divine life as it is +stored in Jesus Christ--but in this case, the union is a conscious union +by faith. If I trust to Him, and am thereby holding firmly by Him, my +union with Him is so real, that, in the measure of my faith, His fulness +passes over into my emptiness, His righteousness into my sinfulness, His +life into my death, as surely as the electric shock thrills my nerves +when I grasp the poles of the battery. + +No man can breathe into another's nostrils the breath of life. But +Christ can and does breathe His life into us; and this true miracle of a +communication of spiritual life takes place in every man who humbly +trusts himself to Him. So the question comes home to each of us--am I +living by my union with Christ? do I draw from Him that better being +which He is longing to pour into my withered, dead spirit? It is not +enough to live the animal life; the more it is fed, the more are the +higher lives starved and dwindled. It is not enough to live the life of +intellect and feeling. That may be in brightest, keenest exercise, and +yet we--our best selves--may be dead--separated from God in Christ, and +therefore dead--and all our activity may be but as a galvanic twitching +of the muscles in a corpse. Is Christ our life, its source, its +strength, its aim, its motive? Do we live in Him, by Him, with Him, for +Him? If not, we are dead while we live. + +This life from Christ is a resurrection life. "The power of Christ's +resurrection" is threefold--as a seal of His mission and Messiahship, +"declared to be the Son of God, by His resurrection from the dead;" as a +prophecy and pledge of ours, "now is Christ risen from the dead, and +become the first-fruits of them that slept;" and as a symbol and pattern +of our new life of Christian consecration, "likewise reckon ye also +yourselves to be indeed dead unto sin." This last use of the +resurrection of Christ is a plain witness of the firm, universal and +uncontested belief in the historical fact, throughout the Churches which +Paul addressed. The fact must have been long familiar and known as +undoubted, before it could have been thus moulded into a symbol. But, +passing from that, consider that our union to Christ produces a moral +and spiritual change analogous to His resurrection. After all, it is the +moral and not the mystical side which is the main thing in Paul's use of +this thought. He would insist, that all true Christianity operates a +death to the old self, to sin and to the whole present order of things, +and endows a man with new tastes, desires and capacities, like a +resurrection to a new being. These heathen converts--picked from the +filthy cesspools in which many of them had been living, and set on a +pure path, with the astounding light of a Divine love flooding it, and a +bright hope painted on the infinite blackness ahead--had surely passed +into a new life. Many a man in this day, long familiar with Christian +teaching, has found himself made over again in mature life, when his +heart has grasped Christ. Drunkards, profligates, outcasts, have found +it life from the dead; and even where there has not been such complete +visible revolution as in them, there has been such deep-seated central +alteration that it is no exaggeration to call it resurrection. The plain +fact is that real Christianity in a man will produce in him a radical +moral change. If our religion does not do that in us, it is nothing. +Ceremonial and doctrine are but means to an end--making us better men. +The highest purpose of Christ's work, for which He both "died and rose +and revived," is to change us into the likeness of His own beauty of +perfect purity. That risen life is no mere exaggeration of mystical +rhetoric, but an imperative demand of the highest morality, and the +plain issue of it is: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body." +Do I say that I am a Christian? The test by which my claim must be tried +is the likeness of my life here to Him who has died unto sin, and liveth +unto God. + +But the believing soul is risen with Christ also, inasmuch as our union +with Him makes us partakers of His resurrection as our victory over +death. The water in the reservoir and in the fountain is the same; the +sunbeam in the chamber and in the sky are one. The life which flows into +our spirits from Christ is a life that has conquered death, and makes us +victors in that last conflict, even though we have to go down into the +darkness. If Christ live in us, we can never die. "It is not possible +that _we_ should be holden of _it_." The bands which He broke can never +be fastened on our limbs. The gates of death were so warped and the +locks so spoiled when He burst them asunder, that they can never be +closed again. There are many arguments for a future life beyond the +grave, but there is only one proof of it--the Resurrection of Jesus +Christ. So, trusting in Him, and with our souls bound in the bundle of +life with our Lord the King, we can cherish quiet thankfulness of heart, +and bless the God and Father of our Lord who hath begotten us again into +a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. + +This risen life is a hidden life. Its roots are in Him. He has passed in +His ascension into the light which is inaccessible, and is hidden in its +blaze, bearing with Him our life, concealed there with Him in God. Faith +stands gazing into heaven, as the cloud, the visible manifestation from +of old of the Divine presence, hides Him from sight, and turns away +feeling that the best part of its true self is gone with Him. So here +Paul points his finger upwards to where "Christ is, sitting at the right +hand of God," and says--We are here in outward seeming, but our true +life is there, if we are His. And what majestic, pregnant words these +are! How full, and yet how empty for a prurient curiosity, and how +reverently reticent even while they are triumphantly confident! How +gently they suggest repose--deep and unbroken, and yet full of active +energy! For if the attitude imply rest, the locality--"at the right hand +of God"--expresses not only the most intimate approach to, but also the +wielding of the Divine omnipotence. What is the right hand of God but +the activity of His power? and what less can be ascribed to Christ +here, than His being enthroned in closest union with the Father, +exercising Divine dominion, and putting forth Divine power. No doubt the +ascended and glorified bodily manhood of Jesus Christ has a local +habitation, but the old psalm might teach us that wherever space is, +even there "Thy right hand upholds," and there is our ascended Lord, +sitting as in deepest rest, but working all the work of God. And it is +just because He is at the right hand of God that He is hid. The light +hides. He has been lost to sight in the glory. + +He has gone in thither, bearing with Him the true source and root of our +lives into the secret place of the Most High. Therefore we no longer +belong to this visible order of things in the midst of which we tarry +for a while. The true spring that feeds our lives lies deep beneath all +the surface waters. These may dry up, but it will flow. These may be +muddied with rain, but it will be limpid as ever. The things seen do not +go deep enough to touch our real life. They are but as the winds that +fret, and the currents that sway the surface and shallower levels of the +ocean, while the great depths are still. The circumference is all a +whirl; the centre is at rest. + +Nor need we leave out of sight, though it be not the main thought here, +that the Christian life is hidden, inasmuch as here on earth action ever +falls short of thought, and the love and faith by which a good man lives +can never be fully revealed in his conduct and character. You cannot +carry electricity from the generator to the point where it is to work +without losing two-thirds of it by the way. Neither word nor deed can +adequately set forth a soul; and the profounder and nobler the emotion, +the more inadequate are the narrow gates of tongue and hand to give it +passage. The deepest love can often only "love and be silent." So, while +every man is truly a mystery to his neighbour, a life which is rooted in +Christ is more mysterious to the ordinary eye than any other. It is fed +by hidden manna. It is replenished from a hidden source. It is guided by +other than the world's motives, and follows unseen aims. "Therefore the +world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." + +II. We have the future consummate flower of the Christian life in union +with the manifested, glorious Christ. + +The future personal manifestation of Jesus Christ in visible glory is, +in the teaching of all the New Testament writers, the last stage in the +series of His Divine human conditions. As surely as the Incarnation led +to the cross, and the cross to the empty grave, and the empty grave to +the throne, so surely does the throne lead to the coming again in glory. +And as with Christ, so with His servants, the manifestation in glory is +the certain end of all the preceding, as surely as the flower is of the +tiny green leaves that peep above the frost-bound earth in bleak March +days. Nothing in that future, however glorious and wonderful, but has +its germ and vital beginning in our union with Christ here by humble +faith. The great hopes which we may cherish are gathered up here into +these words--"shall be manifested with Him." That is far more than was +conveyed by the old translation--"shall appear." The roots of our being +shall be disclosed, for He shall come, "and every eye shall see Him." We +shall be seen for what we are. The outward life shall correspond to the +inward. The faith and love which often struggled in vain for expression +and were thwarted by the obstinate flesh, as a sculptor trying to embody +his dream might be by a block of marble with many a flaw and speck, +shall then be able to reveal themselves completely. Whatever is in the +heart shall be fully visible in the life. Stammering words and imperfect +deeds shall vex us no more. "His name shall be in their foreheads"--no +longer only written in fleshly tables of the heart and partially visible +in the character, but stamped legibly and completely on life and nature. +They shall walk in the light, and so shall be seen of all. Here the +truest followers of Christ shine like an intermittent star, seen through +mist and driving cloud: "Then shall the righteous _blaze forth_ like the +sun in the kingdom of My Father." + +But this is not all. The manifestation is to be "with Him." The union +which was here effected by faith, and marred by many an interposing +obstacle of sin and selfishness, of flesh and sense, is to be perfected +then. No film of separation is any more to break its completeness. Here +we often lose our hold of Him amidst the distractions of work, even when +done for His sake; and our life is at best but an imperfect compromise +between contemplation and action; but then, according to that great +saying, "His servants shall serve Him, and see His face," the utmost +activity of consecrated service, though it be far more intense and on a +nobler scale than anything here, will not interfere with the fixed gaze +on His countenance. We shall serve like Martha, and yet never remove +from sitting with Mary, rapt and blessed at His feet. + +This is the one thought of that solemn future worth cherishing. Other +hopes may feed sentiment, and be precious sometimes to aching hearts. A +reverent longing or an irreverent curiosity, may seek to discern +something more in the far-off light. But it is enough for the heart to +know that "we shall ever be with the Lord;" and the more we have that +one hope in its solitary grandeur, the better. We shall be with Him in +"in glory." That is the climax of all that Paul would have us hope. +"Glory" is the splendour and light of the self-revealing God. In the +heart of the blaze stands Christ; the bright cloud enwraps Him, as it +did on the mountain of transfiguration, and into the dazzling radiance +His disciples will pass as His companions did then, nor "fear as they +enter into the cloud." They walk unshrinking in that beneficent fire, +because with them is one like unto a Son of man, through whom they +dwell, as in their own calm home, amidst "the everlasting burning," +which shall not destroy them, but kindle them into the likeness of its +own flashing glory. + +Then shall the life which here was but in bud, often unkindly nipt and +struggling, burst into the consummate beauty of the perfect flower +"which fadeth not away." + +III. We have the practical aim and direction which alone is consistent +with either stage of the Christian life. + +Two injunctions are based upon these considerations--"seek," and "set +your mind upon," the things that are above. The one points to the +outward life of effort and aim; the other to the inward life of thought +and longing. Let the things above then, be the constant mark at which +you aim. There is a vast realm of real existence of which your risen +Lord is the centre and the life. Make it the point to which you strive. +That will not lead to despising earth and nearer objects. These, so far +as they are really good and worthy, stand right in the line of direction +which our efforts will take if we are seeking the things that are above, +and may all be stages on our journey Christwards. The lower objects are +best secured by those who live for the higher. No man is so well able to +do the smallest duties here, or to bear the passing troubles of this +world of illusion and change, or to wring the last drop of sweetness out +of swiftly fleeting joys, as he to whom everything on earth is dwarfed +by the eternity beyond, as some hut beside a palace, and is great +because it is like a little window a foot square through which infinite +depths of sky with all their stars shine in upon him. The true meaning +and greatness of the present is that it is the vestibule of the august +future. The staircase leading to the presence chamber of the king may be +of poor deal, narrow, crooked, and stowed away in a dark turret, but it +has dignity by reason of that to which it gives access. So let our aims +pass through the earthly and find in them helps to the things that are +above. We should not fire all our bullets at the short range. Seek ye +first the kingdom of God--the things which are above. + +"Set your mind on" these things, says the Apostle further. Let them +occupy mind and heart--and this in order that we may seek them. The +direction of the aims will follow the set and current of the thoughts. +"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." How can we be shaping our +efforts to reach a good which we have not clearly before our +imaginations as desirable? How should the life of so many professing +Christians be other than a lame creeping along the low levels of earth, +seeing that so seldom do they look up to "see the King in His beauty and +the land that is very far off"? John Bunyan's "man with the muckrake" +grubbed away so eagerly among the rubbish, because he never lifted his +eyes to the crown that hung above his head. In many a silent, solitary +hour of contemplation, with the world shut out and Christ brought very +near, we must find the counterpoise to the pressure of earthly aims, or +our efforts after the things that are above will be feeble and broken. +Life goes at such a pace to-day, and the present is so exacting with +most of us, that quiet meditation is, I fear me, almost out of fashion +with Christian people. We must become more familiar with the secret +place of the most High, and more often enter into our chambers and shut +our doors about us, if in the bustle of our busy days we are to aim +truly and strongly at the only object which saves life from being a +waste and a sin, a madness and a misery--"the things which are above, +where Christ is." + +"Where Christ is." Yes, that is the only thought which gives +definiteness and solidity to that else vague and nebulous unseen +universe; the only thought which draws our affections thither. Without +Him, there is no footing for us there. Rolling mists of doubt and dim +hopes warring with fears, strangeness and terrors wrap it all. But if He +be there, it becomes a home for our hearts. "I go to prepare a place for +you"--a place where desire and thought may walk unterrified and +undoubting even now, and where we ourselves may abide when our time +comes, nor shrink from the light nor be oppressed by the glory. + + "My knowledge of that life is small, + The eye of faith is dim, + But 'tis enough that Christ knows all, + And I shall be with Him." + +Into that solemn world we shall all pass. We can choose whether we shall +go to it as to our long-sought home, to find in it Him who is our life; +or whether we shall go reluctant and afraid, leaving all for which we +have cared, and going to Him whom we have neglected and that which we +have feared. Christ will be manifested, and we shall see Him. We can +choose whether it will be to us the joy of beholding the soul of our +soul, the friend long-loved when dimly seen from afar; or whether it +shall be the vision of a face that will stiffen us to stone and stab us +with its light. We must make our choice. If we give our hearts to Him, +and by faith unite ourselves with Him, then, "when He shall appear, we +shall have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming." + + + + +XVIII. + +_SLAYING SELF THE FOUNDATION PRECEPT OF PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY._ + + "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; + fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, + the which is idolatry; for which things' sake cometh the wrath of + God upon the sons of disobedience; in the which ye also walked + aforetime, when ye lived in these things. But now put ye also away + all these; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of + your mouth: lie not one to another."--COL. iii. 5-9 (Rev. Ver.). + + +"Mortify _therefore_"--wherefore? The previous words give the reason. +Because "ye died" with Christ, and because ye "were raised together with +Him." In other words, the plainest, homeliest moral teaching of this +Epistle, such as that which immediately follows, is built upon its +"mystical" theology. Paul thinks that the deep things which he has been +saying about union with Christ in His death and resurrection have the +most intimate connection with common life. These profound truths have +the keenest edge, and are as a sacrificial knife, to slay the life of +self. Creed is meant to tell on conduct. Character is the last outcome +and test of doctrine. But too many people deal with their theological +beliefs as they do with their hassocks and prayer books and hymn books +in their pews--use them for formal worship once a week, and leave them +for the dust to settle on them till Sunday comes round again. So it is +very necessary to put the practical inferences very plainly, to +reiterate the most commonplace and threadbare precepts as the issue of +the most recondite teaching, and to bind the burden of duty on men's +backs with the cords of principles and doctrines. + +Accordingly the section of the Epistle which deals with Christian +character now begins, and this "therefore" knits the two halves +together. That word protests against opposite errors. On the one hand, +some good people are to be found impatient of exhortations to duties, +and ready to say, Preach the gospel, and the duties will spring up +spontaneously where it is received; on the other hand, some people are +to be found who see no connection between the practice of common +morality and the belief of Christian truths, and are ready to say, Put +away your theology; it is useless lumber, the machine will work as well +without it. But Paul believed that the firmest basis for moral teaching +and the most powerful motive for moral conduct is "the truth as it is in +Jesus." + +I. We have here put very plainly the paradox of continual self-slaying +as the all-embracing duty of a Christian. + +It is a pity that the R. V. has retained "mortify" here, as that +Latinized word says to an ordinary reader much less than is meant, and +hides the allusion to the preceding contest. The marginal alternative +"make dead" is, to say the least, not idiomatic English. The suggestion +of the American revisers, which is printed at the end of the R. V., "put +to death," is much better, and perhaps a single word, such as "slay" or +"kill" might have been better still. + +"Slay your members which are upon the earth." It is a vehement and +paradoxical injunction, though it be but the echo of still more solemn +and stringent words--"pluck it out, cut it off, and cast it from thee." +The possibility of misunderstanding it and bringing it down to the level +of that spurious asceticism and "severity to the body" against which he +has just been thundering, seems to occur to the Apostle, and therefore +he hastens to explain that he does not mean the maiming of selves, or +hacking away limbs, but the slaying of the passions and desires which +root themselves in our bodily constitution. The eager haste of the +explanation destroys the congruity of the sentence, but he does not mind +that. And then follows a grim catalogue of the evil-doers on whom +sentence of death is passed. + +Before dealing with that list, two points of some importance may be +observed. The first is that the practical exhortations of this letter +begin with this command to put off certain characteristics which are +assumed to belong to the Colossian Christians in their natural state, +and that only afterwards comes the precept to put on (ver. 12) the +fairer robes of Christlike purity, clasped about by the girdle of +perfectness. That is to say, Paul's anthropology regards men as wrong +and having to get right. A great deal of the moral teaching which is +outside of Christianity, and which does not sufficiently recognise that +the first thing to be done is to cure and alter, but talks as if men +were, on the whole, rather inclined to be good, is for that very reason +perfectly useless. Its fine precepts and lofty sentiments go clean over +people's heads, and are ludicrously inappropriate to the facts of the +case. The serpent has twined itself round my limbs, and unless you can +give me a knife, sharp and strong enough to cut its loathsome coils +asunder, it is cruel to bid me walk. All men on the face of the earth +need, for moral progress, to be shown and helped first how _not_ to be +what they have been, and only after that is it of the slightest use to +tell them what they ought to be. The only thing that reaches the +universal need is a power that will make us different from what we are. +If we are to grow into goodness and beauty, we must begin by a complete +reversal of tastes and tendencies. The thing we want first is not +progress, the going on in the direction in which our faces are turned, +but a power which can lay a mastering hand upon our shoulders, turn us +right round, and make us go in the way opposite to that. Culture, the +development of what is in us in germ, is not the beginning of good +husbandry on human nature as it is. The thorns have to be stubbed up +first, and the poisonous seeds sifted out, and new soil laid down, and +then culture will bring forth something better than wild grapes. +First--"mortify;" then--"put on." + +Another point to be carefully noted is that, according to the Apostle's +teaching, the root and beginning of all such slaying of the evil which +is in us all, lies in our being dead with Christ to the world. In the +former chapter we found that the Apostle's final condemnation of the +false asceticism which was beginning to infect the Colossian Church, was +that it was of no value as a counteractive of fleshly indulgence. But +here he proclaims that what asceticism could not do, in that it was +weak through the flesh, union with Jesus Christ in His death and risen +life will do; it will subdue sin in the flesh. That slaying here +enjoined as fundamental to all Christian holiness, is but the working +out in life and character of the revolution in the inmost self which has +been effected, if by faith we are joined to the living Lord, who was +dead and is alive for evermore. + +There must, however, be a very vigorous act of personal determination if +the power of that union is to be manifested in us. The act of "slaying" +can never be pleasant or easy. The vehemence of the command and the form +of the metaphor express the strenuousness of the effort and the +painfulness of the process, in the same way as Paul's other saying, +"crucify the flesh," does. Suppose a man working at some machine. His +fingers get drawn between the rollers or caught in some belting. Another +minute and he will be flattened to a shapeless bloody mass. He catches +up an axe lying by and with his own arm hacks off his own hand at the +wrist. It takes some nerve to do that. It is not easy nor pleasant, but +it is the only alternative to a horrible death. I know of no stimulus +that will string a man up to the analogous spiritual act here enjoined, +and enjoined by conscience also, except participation in the death of +Christ and in the resulting life. + +"Slay your members which are upon the earth" means tears and blood and +more than blood. It is easier far to cut off the hand, which after all +is not me, than to sacrifice passions and desires which, though they be +my worst self, are myself. It is useless to blink the fact that the only +road to holiness is through self-suppression, self-annihilation; and +nothing can make that easy and pleasant. True, the paths of religion are +ways of pleasantness and paths of peace, but they are steep, and +climbing is never easy. The upper air is bracing and exhilarating +indeed, but trying to lungs accustomed to the low levels. Religion is +delightsome, but self-denial is always against the grain of the self +which is denied, and there is no religion without it. Holiness is not to +be won in a moment. It is not a matter of consciousness, possessed when +we know that we possess it. But it has to be attained by effort. The way +to heaven is not by "the primrose path." That leads to "the everlasting +bonfire." For ever it remains true that men _obtain_ forgiveness and +eternal life as a gift for which the only requisite is faith, but they +_achieve_ holiness, which is the permeating of their characters with +that eternal life, by patient, believing, continuous effort. An +essential part of that effort is directed towards the conquest and +casting out of the old self in its earthward-looking lusts and passions. +The love of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of His renewing spirit make +that conquest possible, by supplying an all-constraining motive and an +all-conquering power. But even they do not make it easy, nor deaden the +flesh to the cut of the sacrificial knife. + +II. We have here a grim catalogue of the condemned to death. + +The Apostle stands like a jailer at the prison door, with the fatal roll +in his hand, and reads out the names of the evil doers for whom the +tumbril waits to carry them to the guillotine. It is an ugly list but we +need plain speaking that there may be no mistake as to the identity of +the culprits. He enumerates evils which honeycombed society with +rottenness then, and are rampant now. The series recounts various forms +of evil love, and is so arranged as that it starts with the coarse, +gross act, and goes on to more subtle and inward forms. It goes up the +stream as it were, to the fountain head, passing inward from deed to +desire. First stands "fornication," which covers the whole ground of +immoral sexual relations, then "all uncleanness," which embraces every +manifestation in word or look or deed of the impure spirit, and so is at +once wider and subtler than the gross physical act. Then follow +"passion" and "evil desire"; the sources of the evil deeds. These again +are at once more inward and more general than the preceding. They +include not only the lusts and longings which give rise to the special +sins just denounced, but all forms of hungry appetite and desire after +"the things that are upon the earth." If we are to try to draw a +distinction between the two, probably "passion" is somewhat less wide +than "desire," and the former represents the evil emotion as an +affection which the mind suffers, while the latter represents it as a +longing which it actively puts forth. The "lusts of the flesh" are in +the one aspect kindled by outward temptations which come with terrible +force and carry men captive, acting almost irresistibly on the animal +nature. In the other aspect they are excited by the voluntary action of +the man himself. In the one the evil comes into the heart; in the other +the heart goes out to the evil. + +Then follows covetousness. The juxtaposition of that vice with the +grosser forms of sensuality is profoundly significant. It is closely +allied with these. It has the same root, and is but another form of evil +desire going out to the "things which are on the earth." The ordinary +worldly nature flies for solace either to the pleasures of appetite or +to the passion of acquiring. And not only are they closely connected in +root, but covetousness often follows lust in the history of a life just +as it does in this catalogue. When the former evil spirit loses its +hold, the latter often takes its place. How many respectable middle-aged +gentlemen are now mainly devoted to making money, whose youth was foul +with sensual indulgence? When that palled, this came to titillate the +jaded desires with a new form of gratification. Covetousness is +"promoted _vice_, lust superannuated." + +A reason for this warning against covetousness is appended, "inasmuch as +(for such is the force of the word rendered 'the which') it is +idolatry." If we say of anything, no matter what, "If I have only enough +of this, I shall be satisfied; it is my real aim, my sufficient good," +that thing is a god to me, and my real worship is paid to it, whatever +may be my nominal religion. The lowest form of idolatry is the giving of +supreme trust to a material thing, and making that a god. There is no +lower form of fetish-worship than this, which is the real working +religion to-day of thousands of Englishmen who go masquerading as +Christians. + +III. The exhortation is enforced by a solemn note of warning: "For which +things' sake the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience." +Some authorities omit the words "upon the children of disobedience," +which are supposed to have crept in here from the parallel passage, +Eph. v. 6. But even the advocates of the omission allow that the clause +has "preponderating support," and the sentence is painfully incomplete +and abrupt without it. The R. V. has exercised a wise discretion in +retaining it. + +In the previous chapter the Apostle included "warning" in his statement +of the various branches into which his Apostolic activity was divided. +His duty seemed to him to embrace the plain stern setting forth of that +terrible reality, the wrath of God. Here we have it urged as a reason +for shaking off these evil habits. + +That thought of wrath as an element in the Divine nature has become very +unwelcome to this generation. The great revelation of God in Jesus +Christ has taught the world His love, as it never knew it before, and +knows it now by no other means. So profoundly has that truth that God is +love penetrated the consciousness of the European world, that many +people will not hear of the wrath of God because they think it +inconsistent with His love--and sometimes reject the very gospel to +which they owe their lofty conceptions of the Divine heart, because it +speaks solemn words about His anger and its issues. + +But surely these two thoughts of God's love and God's wrath are not +inconsistent, for His wrath is His love, pained, wounded, thrown back +upon itself, rejected and compelled to assume the form of aversion and +to do its "strange work"--that which is not its natural operation--of +punishment. When we ascribe wrath to God, we must take care of lowering +the conception of it to the level of human wrath, which is shaken with +passion and often tinged with malice, whereas in that affection of the +Divine nature which corresponds to anger in us, there is neither passion +nor wish to harm. Nor does it exclude the co-existence of love, as Paul +witnesses in his Epistle to the Ephesians, in one verse declaring that +"we were the children of wrath," and in the next that God "loved us with +a great love even when we were dead in sins." + +God would not be a holy God if it were all the same to Him whether a man +were good or bad. As a matter of fact, the modern revulsion against the +representation of the wrath of God is usually accompanied with weakened +conceptions of His holiness, and of His moral government of the world. +Instead of exalting, it degrades His love to free it from the admixture +of wrath, which is like alloy with gold, giving firmness to what were +else too soft for use. Such a God is not love, but impotent good nature. +If there be no wrath, there is no love; if there were no love, there +would be no wrath. It is more blessed and hopeful for sinful men to +believe in a God who is angry with the wicked, whom yet He loves, every +day, and who cannot look upon sin, than in one who does not love +righteousness enough to hate iniquity, and from whose too indulgent hand +the rod has dropped, to the spoiling of His children. "With the froward +Thou wilt show Thyself froward." The mists of our sins intercept the +gracious beams and turn the blessed sun into a ball of fire. + +The wrath "_cometh_." That majestic present tense may express either the +continuous present incidence of the wrath as exemplified in the moral +government of the world, in which, notwithstanding anomalies, such sins +as have been enumerated drag after themselves their own punishment and +are "avenged in kind," or it may be the present tense expressive of +prophetic certainty, which is so sure of what shall come, that it speaks +of it as already on its road. It is eminently true of those sins of lust +and passion, that the men who do them reap as they have sown. How many +young men come up into our great cities, innocent and strong, with a +mother's kiss upon their lips, and a father's blessing hovering over +their heads! They fall among bad companions in college or warehouse, and +after a little while they disappear. Broken in health, tainted in body +and soul, they crawl home to break their mothers' hearts--and to die. +"His bones are full of the sins of his youth, which shall lie down with +him in the dust." Whether in such extreme forms or no, that wrath comes +even now, in plain and bitter consequences on men, and still more on +women who sin in such ways. + +And the present retribution may well be taken as the herald and prophet +of a still more solemn manifestation of the Divine displeasure, which is +already as it were on the road, has set out from the throne of God, and +will certainly arrive here one day. These consequences of sin already +realised serve to show the set and drift of things, and to suggest what +will happen when retribution and the harvest of our present life of +sowing come. The first fiery drops that fell on Lot's path as he fled +from Sodom were not more surely precursors of an overwhelming rain, nor +bade him flee for his life more urgently, than the present punishment of +sin proclaims its sorer future punishment, and exhorts us all to come +out of the storm into the refuge, even Jesus, who is ever even now +"delivering us from the wrath which is" ever even now "coming" on the +sons of disobedience. + +IV. A further motive enforcing the main precept of self-slaying is the +remembrance of a sinful past, which remembrance is at once penitent and +grateful. "In the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye lived in +them." + +What is the difference between "walking" and "living" in these things? +The two phrases seem synonymous, and might often be used indifferently; +but here there is evidently a well marked diversity of meaning. The +former is an expression frequent in the Pauline Epistles as well as in +John's; as for instance, "to walk in love" or "in truth." That in which +men walk is conceived of as an atmosphere encompassing them; or, without +a metaphor, to walk in anything is to have the active life or conduct +guided or occupied by it. These Colossian Christians, then, had in the +past trodden that evil path, or their active life had been spent in that +poisonous atmosphere--which is equivalent to saying that they had +committed these sins. At what time? "When you lived in them." That does +not mean merely "when your natural life was passed among them." That +would be a trivial thing to say, and it would imply that their outward +life now was not so passed, which would not be true. In that sense they +still lived in the poisonous atmosphere. In such an age of unnameable +moral corruption no man could live out of the foul stench which filled +his nostrils whenever he walked abroad or opened his window. But the +Apostle has just said that they were now "living in Christ," and their +lives "hid with Him in God." So this phrase describes the condition +which is the opposite of their present, and may be paraphrased, "When +the roots of your life, tastes, affections, thoughts, desires were +immersed, as in some feculent bog, in these and kindred evils." And the +meaning of the whole is substantially--Your active life was occupied and +guided by these sins in that past time when your inward being was knit +to and nourished by them. Or to put it plainly, conduct followed and was +shaped by inclinations and desires. + +This retrospect enforces the main exhortation. It is meant to awaken +penitence, and the thought that time enough has been wasted and incense +enough offered on these foul altars. It is also meant to kindle +thankfulness for the strong, loving hand which has drawn them from that +pit of filth, and by both emotions to stimulate the resolute casting +aside of that evil in which they once, like others, wallowed. Their joy +on the one hand and their contrition on the other should lead them to +discern the inconsistency of professing to be Christians and yet keeping +terms with these old sins. They could not have the roots of half their +lives above and of the other half down here. The gulf between the +present and past of a regenerate man is too wide and deep to be bridged +by flimsy compromises. "A man who is perverse in his two ways," that is, +in double ways, "shall fall in one of them," as the Book of Proverbs has +it. The attempt to combine incompatibles is sure to fail. It is +impossible to walk firmly if one foot be down in the gutter and the +other up on the curb-stone. We have to settle which level we shall +choose, and then to plant both feet there. + +V. We have, as conclusion, a still wider exhortation to an entire +stripping off of the sins of the old state. + +The whole force of the contrast and contrariety between the Colossian +Christians' past and present lies in that emphatic "now." They as well +as other heathen had been walking, because they had been living, in +these muddy ways. But now that their life was hid with Christ in God; +now that they had been made partakers of His death and resurrection, and +of all the new loves and affinities which therein became theirs; now +they must take heed that they bring not that dead and foul past into +this bright and pure present, nor prolong winter and its frosts into the +summer of the soul. + +"Ye also." There is another "ye also" in the previous verse--"ye also +walked," that is, you in company with other Gentiles followed a certain +course of life. Here, by contrast, the expression means "you, in common +with other Christians." A motive enforcing the subsequent exhortation is +in it hinted rather than fully spoken. The Christians at Colossæ had +belonged to a community which they have now left in order to join +another. Let them behave as their company behaves. Let them keep step +with their new comrades. Let them strip themselves, as their new +associates do, of the uniform which they wore in that other regiment. + +The metaphor of putting clothing on or off is very frequent in this +Epistle. The precept here is substantially equivalent to the previous +command to "slay," with the difference that the conception of vices as +the garments of the soul is somewhat less vehement than that which +regards them as members of the very self. "All these" are to be put off. +That phrase points back to the things previously spoken of. It includes +the whole of the unnamed members of the class, of which a few have been +already named, and a handful more are about to be plucked like poison +flowers, and suggests that there are many more as baleful growing by the +side of this devil's bouquet which is next presented. + +As to this second catalogue of vices, they may be summarised as, on the +whole, being various forms of wicked hatred, in contrast with the former +list, which consisted of various forms of wicked love. They have less to +do with bodily appetites. But perhaps it is not without profound meaning +that the fierce rush of unhallowed passion over the soul is put first, +and the contrary flow of chill malignity comes second; for in the +spiritual world, as in the physical, a storm blowing from one quarter is +usually followed by violent gales from the opposite. Lust ever passes +into cruelty, and dwells "hard by hate." A licentious epoch or man is +generally a cruel epoch or man. Nero made torches of the Christians. +Malice is evil desire iced. + +This second list goes in the opposite direction to the former. That +began with actions and went up the stream to desire; this begins with +the sources, which are emotions, and comes down stream to their +manifestations in action. + +First we have anger. There is a just and righteous anger, which is part +of the new man, and essential to his completeness, even as it is part of +the image after which he is created. But here of course the anger which +is to be put off is the inverted reflection of the earthly and +passionate lust after the flesh; it is, then, of an earthly, passionate +and selfish kind. "Wrath" differs from "anger" in so far as it may be +called anger boiling over. If anger rises keep the lid on, do not let it +get the length of wrath, nor effervesce into the brief madness of +passion. But on the other hand, do not think that you have done enough +when you have suppressed the wrath which is the expression of your +anger, nor be content with saying, "Well, at all events I did not show +it," but take the cure a step further back, and strip off anger as well +as wrath, the emotion as well as the manifestation. + +Christian people do not sufficiently bring the greatest forces of their +religion and of God's Spirit to bear upon the homely task of curing +small hastinesses of temper, and sometimes seem to think it a sufficient +excuse to say, "I have naturally a hot disposition." But Christianity +was sent to subdue and change natural dispositions. An angry man cannot +have communion with God, any more than the sky can be reflected in the +storm-swept tide; and a man in communion with God cannot be angry with a +passionate and evil anger any more than a dove can croak like a raven or +strike like a hawk. Such anger disturbs our insight into everything; +eyes suffused with it cannot see; and it weakens all good in the soul, +and degrades it before its own conscience. + +"Malice" designates another step in the process. The anger boils over in +wrath, and then cools down into malignity--the disposition which means +mischief, and plans or rejoices in evil falling on the hated head. That +malice, as cold, as clear, as colourless as sulphuric acid, and burning +like it, is worse than the boiling rage already spoken of. There are +many degrees of this cold drawn, double distilled rejoicing in evil, and +the beginnings of it in a certain faint satisfaction in the misfortunes +of those whom we dislike is by no means unusual. + +An advance is now made in the direction of outward manifestation. It is +significant that while the expressions of wicked love were deeds, those +of wicked hate are words. The "blasphemy" of the Authorised Version is +better taken, with the Revised, as "railing." The word means "speech +that injures," and such speech may be directed either against God, which +is blasphemy in the usual sense of the word, or against man. The hate +blossoms into hurtful speech. The heated metal of anger is forged into +poisoned arrows of the tongue. Then follows "shameful speaking out of +your mouth," which is probably to be understood not so much of +obscenities, which would more properly belong to the former catalogue, +as of foul-mouthed abuse of the hated persons, that copiousness of +vituperation and those volcanic explosions of mud, which are so natural +to the angry Eastern. + +Finally, we have a dehortation from lying, especially to those within +the circle of the Church, as if that sin too were the child of hatred +and anger. It comes from a deficiency of love, or a predominance of +selfishness, which is the same thing. A lie ignores my brother's claims +on me, and my union with him. "Ye are members one of another," is the +great obligation to love which is denied and sinned against by hatred in +all its forms and manifestations, and not least by giving my brother the +poisoned bread of lies instead of the heavenly manna of pure truth, so +far as it has been given to me. + +On the whole, this catalogue brings out the importance to be attached to +sins of speech, which are ranked here as in parallel lines with the +grossest forms of animal passion. Men's words ought to be fountains of +consolation and sources of illumination, encouragement, revelations of +love and pity. And what are they? What floods of idle words, foul words, +words that wound like knives and sting and bite like serpents, deluge +the world! If all the talk that has its sources in these evils rebuked +here, were to be suddenly made inaudible, what a dead silence would fall +on many brilliant circles, and how many of us would stand making mouths +but saying nothing. + +All the practical exhortations of this section concern common homely +duties which everybody knows to be such. It may be asked--does +Christianity then only lay down such plain precepts? What need was there +of all that prelude of mysterious doctrines, if we are only to be landed +at last in such elementary and obvious moralities? No doubt they are +elementary and obvious, but the main matter is--how to get them kept. +And in respect to that, Christianity does two things which nothing else +does. It breaks the entail of evil habits by the great gift of pardon +for the past, and by the greater gift of a new spirit and life principle +within, which is foreign to all evil, being the effluence of the spirit +of life in Christ Jesus. + +Therefore the gospel of Jesus Christ makes it possible that men should +slay themselves, and put on the new life, which will expel the old as +the new shoots on some trees push the last year's lingering leaves, +brown and sere, from their places. All moral teachers from the beginning +have agreed, on the whole, in their reading of the commandments which +are printed on conscience in the largest capitals. Everybody who is not +blind can read them. But reading is easy, keeping is hard. How to fulfil +has been wanting. It is given us in the gospel, which is not merely a +republication of old precepts, but the communication of new power. If we +yield ourselves to Christ He will nerve our arms to wield the knife that +will slay our dearest tastes, though beloved as Isaac by Abraham. If a +man knows and feels that Christ has died for him, and that he lives in +and by Christ, then, and not else, will he be able to crucify self. If +he knows and feels that by His pardoning mercy and atoning death, Christ +has taken off his foul raiment and clothed him in clean garments, then, +and not else, will he be able, by daily effort after repression of self +and appropriation of Christ, to put off the old man and to put on the +new, which is daily being renewed into closer resemblance to the image +of Him who created him. + + + + +XIX. + +_THE NEW NATURE WROUGHT OUT IN NEW LIFE._ + + "Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have + put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the + image of Him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, + circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, + freeman; but Christ is all, and in all."--COL. iii. 9-11 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +In previous section we were obliged to break the close connection +between these words and the preceding. They adduce a reason for the +moral exhortation going before, which at first sight may appear very +illogical. "Put off these vices of the old nature because you have put +off the old nature with its vices," sounds like, Do a thing because you +have done it. But the apparent looseness of reasoning covers very +accurate thought which a little consideration brings to light, and +introduces a really cogent argument for the conduct it recommends. Nor +do the principles contained in the verses now under examination look +backward only to enforce the exhortation to put aside these evils. They +also look forward, and are taken as the basis of the following +exhortation, to put on the white robes of Christlikeness--which is +coupled with this section by "therefore." + +I. The first thing to be observed is the change of the spirit's dress, +which is taken for granted as having occurred in the experience of all +Christians. + +We have already found the same idea presented under the forms of death +and resurrection. The "death" is equivalent to the "putting off of the +old," and the "resurrection" to "the putting on of the new man." That +figure of a change of dress to express a change of moral character is +very obvious, and is frequent in Scripture. Many a psalm breathes such +prayers as, "Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness." Zechariah +in vision saw the high-priestly representative of the nation standing +before the Lord "in filthy garments," and heard the command to strip +them off him, and clothe him in festival robes, in token that God had +"caused his iniquity to pass from him." Christ spoke His parable of the +man at the wedding feast without the wedding garment, and of the +prodigal, who was stripped of his rags stained with the filth of the +swine troughs, and clothed with the best robe. Paul in many places +touches the same image, as in his ringing exhortation--clear and rousing +in its notes like the morning bugle--to Christ's soldiers, to put off +their night gear, "the works of darkness," and to brace on the armour of +light, which sparkles in the morning sunrise. Every reformatory and +orphanage yields an illustration of the image, where the first thing +done is to strip off and burn the rags of the new comers, then to give +them a bath and dress them in clean, sweet, new clothes. Most naturally +dress is taken as the emblem of character, which is indeed the garb of +the soul. Most naturally _habit_ means both _costume_ and _custom_. + +But here we have a strange paradox introduced, to the ruining of the +rhetorical propriety of the figure. It is a "new man" that is put on. +The Apostle does not mind hazarding a mixed metaphor, if it adds to the +force of his speech, and he introduces this thought of the new _man_, +though it somewhat jars, in order to impress on his readers that what +they have to put off and on is much more truly part of themselves than +an article of dress is. The "old man" is the unregenerate self; the new +man is, of course, the regenerate self, the new Christian moral nature +personified. There is a deeper self which remains the same throughout +the change, the true man, the centre of personality; which is, as it +were, draped in the moral nature, and can put it off and on. I myself +change myself. The figure is vehement, and, if you will, paradoxical, +but it expresses accurately and forcibly at once the depth of the change +which passes on him who becomes a Christian, and the identity of the +person through all change. If I am a Christian, there has passed on me a +change so thorough that it is in one aspect a death, and in another a +resurrection; in one aspect it is a putting off not merely of some garb +of action, but of the old _man_, and in another a putting on not merely +of some surface renovation, but of a new _man_--which is yet the same +old self. + +This entire change is taken for granted by Paul as having been realised +in every Christian. It is here treated as having taken place at a +certain point of time, namely when these Colossians began to put their +trust in Jesus Christ, and in profession of that trust, and as a symbol +of that change, were baptized. + +Of course the contrast between the character before and after faith in +Christ is strongest when, like the Christians at Colossæ, converts have +been brought out of heathenism. With us, where some knowledge of +Christianity is widely diffused, and its indirect influence has shaped +the characters even of those who reject it, there is less room for a +marked revolution in character and conduct. There will be many true +saints who can point to no sudden change as their conversion; but have +grown up, sometimes from childhood, under Christian influences, or who, +if they have distinctly been conscious of a change, have passed through +it as gradually as night passes into day. Be it so. In many respects +that will be the highest form of experience. Yet even such souls will be +aware of a "new man" formed in them which is at variance with their own +old selves, and will not escape the necessity of the conflict with their +lower nature, the immolation and casting off of the unregenerate self. +But there are also many people who have grown up without God or Christ, +who must become Christians by the way of sudden conversion, if they are +ever to become Christians at all. + +Why should such sudden change be regarded as impossible? Is it not a +matter of every-day experience that some long ignored principle may +suddenly come, like a meteor into the atmosphere, into a man's mind and +will, may catch fire as it travels, and may explode and blow to pieces +the solid habits of a lifetime? And why should not the truth concerning +God's great love in Christ, which in too sad certainty is ignored by +many, flame in upon blind eyes, and change the look of everything? The +New Testament doctrine of conversion asserts that it may and does. It +does not insist that everybody must become a Christian in the same +fashion. Sometimes there will be a dividing line between the two states, +as sharp as the boundary of adjoining kingdoms; sometimes the one will +melt imperceptibly into the other. Sometimes the revolution will be as +swift as that of the wheel of a locomotive, sometimes slow and silent as +the movement of a planet in the sky. The main thing is that whether +suddenly or slowly the face shall be turned to God. + +But however brought about, this putting off of the old sinful self, is a +certain mark of a Christian man. It can be assumed as true universally, +and appealed to as the basis of exhortations such as those of the +context. Believing certain truths does not make a Christian. If there +have been any reality in the act by which we have laid hold of Christ as +our Saviour, our whole being will be revolutionized; old things will +have passed away--tastes, desires, ways of looking at the world, +memories, habits, pricks of conscience and all cords that bound us to +our God-forgetting past--and all things will have become new, because we +ourselves move in the midst of the old things as new creatures with new +love burning in our hearts and new motives changing all our lives, and a +new aim shining before us, and a new hope illuminating the blackness +beyond, and a new song on our lips, and a new power in our hands, and a +new Friend by our sides. + +This is a wholesome and most needful test for all who call themselves +Christians, and who are often tempted to put too much stress on +believing and feeling, and to forget the supreme importance of the moral +change which true Christianity effects. Nor is it less needful to +remember that this resolute casting off of the garment spotted by the +flesh, and putting on of the new man, is a consequence of faith in +Christ and is only possible as a consequence. Nothing else will strip +the foul robes from a man. The moral change comes second, the union with +Jesus Christ by faith must come first. To try to begin with the second +stage, is like trying to begin to build a house at the second story. + +But there is a practical conclusion drawn from this taken-for-granted +change. Our text is introduced by "seeing that;" and though some doubts +may be raised as to that translation and the logical connection of the +paragraph, it appears on the whole most congruous with both the +preceding and the following context, to retain it and to see here the +reason for the exhortation which goes before--"Put off all these," and +for that which follows--"Put on, therefore," the beautiful garment of +love and compassion. + +That great change, though taking place in the inmost nature whensoever a +heart turns to Christ, needs to be wrought into character, and to be +wrought out in conduct. The leaven is in the dough, but to knead it +thoroughly into the mass is a lifelong task, which is only accomplished +by our own continually repeated efforts. The old garment clings to the +limbs like the wet clothes of a half-drowned man, and it takes the work +of a lifetime to get quite rid of it. The "old man" dies hard, and we +have to repeat the sacrifice hour by hour. The new man has to be put on +afresh day by day. + +So the apparently illogical exhortation, Put off what you have put off, +and put on what you have put on, is fully vindicated. It means, Be +consistent with your deepest selves. Carry out in detail what you have +already done in bulk. Cast out the enemy, already ejected from the +central fortress, from the isolated positions which he still occupies. +You _may_ put off the old man, for he is put off already; and the +confidence that he is will give you strength for the struggle that still +remains. You _must_ put off the old man, for there is still danger of +his again wrapping his poisonous rags about your limbs. + +II. We have here, the continuous growth of the new man, its aim and +pattern. + +The thought of the garment passes for the moment out of sight, and the +Apostle enlarges on the greatness and glory of this "new man," partly as +a stimulus to obeying the exhortation, partly, with allusion to some of +the errors which he had been combating, and partly because his fervid +spirit kindles at the mention of the mighty transformation. + +The new man, says he, is "being renewed." This is one of the instances +where minute accuracy in translation is not pedantic, but clear gain. +When we say, with the Authorised Version, "is renewed," we speak of a +completed act; when we say with the Revised Version, "is being renewed," +we speak of a continuous process; and there can be no question that the +latter is the true idea intended here. The growth of the new man is +constant, perhaps slow and difficult to discern, if the intervals of +comparison be short. But like all habits and powers it steadily +increases. On the other hand, a similar process works to opposite +results in the "old man," which, as Paul says in the instructive +parallel passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 22), "waxeth +corrupt, after the lusts of deceit." Both grow according to their inmost +nature, the one steadily upwards; the other with accelerating speed +downwards, till they are parted by the whole distance between the +highest heaven and the lowest abyss. So mystic and awful is that solemn +law of the persistent increase of the true ruling tendency of a man's +nature, and its certain subjugation of the whole man to itself! + +It is to be observed that this renewing is represented in this clause, +as done _on_ the new man, not by him. We have heard the exhortation to a +continuous appropriation and increase of the new life by our own +efforts. But there is a Divine side too, and the renewing is not merely +effected by us, nor due only to the vital power of the new man, though +growth is the sign of life there as everywhere, but is "the renewing by +the Holy Ghost," whose touch quickens and whose indwelling renovates the +inward man day by day. So there is hope for us in our striving, for He +helps us; and the thought of that Divine renewal is not a pillow for +indolence, but a spur to intenser energy, as Paul well knew when he wove +the apparent paradox, "work out your own salvation, for it is God that +worketh in you." + +The new man is being renewed "_unto_ knowledge." An advanced knowledge +of God and Divine realities is the result of the progressive renewal. +Possibly there may be a passing reference to the pretensions of the +false teachers, who had so much to say about a higher wisdom open to the +initiated, and to be won by ceremonial and asceticism. Their claims, +hints Paul, are baseless; their pretended secrets a delusion; their +method of attaining them a snare. There is but one way to press into the +depths of the knowledge of God--namely growth into His likeness. We +understand one another best by sympathy. We know God only on condition +of resemblance. "If the eye were not sunlike how could it see the sun?" +says Goethe. "If thou beest this, thou seest this," said Plotinus. Ever, +as we grow in resemblance, shall we grow in knowledge, and ever as we +grow in knowledge, shall we grow in resemblance. So in perpetual action +and reaction of being and knowing, shall we draw nearer and nearer the +unapproachable light, and receiving it full on our faces, shall be +changed into the same image, as the moonbeams that touch the dark ocean +transfigure its waves into silver radiance like their own. For all +simple souls, bewildered by the strife of tongues and unapt for +speculation, this is a message of gladness, that the way to know God is +to be like Him, and the way to be like Him is to be renewed in the +inward man, and the way to be renewed in the inward man is to put on +Christ. They may wrangle and philosophize who will, but the path to God +leads far away from all that. It may be trodden by a child's foot, and +the wayfaring man though a fool shall not err therein, for all that is +needed is a heart that desires to know Him, and is made like Him by +love. Half the secret lies in the great word which tells us that "we +shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," and knowledge will +work likeness. The other half lies in the great word which tells us that +"blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," and likeness +will work a more perfect knowledge. + +This new man is being renewed _after the image of Him that created him_. +As in the first creation man was made in the image of God, so in the new +creation. From the first moment in which the supernatural life is +derived from Christ into the regenerated spirit, that new life is like +its source. It is kindred, therefore it is like, as all derived life is. +The child's life is like the father's. But the image of God which the +new man bears is more than that which was stamped on man in his +creation. That consisted mainly, if not wholly, in the reasonable soul, +and the self-conscious personality, the broad distinctions which +separate man from other animals. The image of God is often said to have +been lost by sin, but Scripture seems rather to consider it as +inseparable from humanity, even when stained by transgression. Men are +still images of God, though darkened and "carved in ebony." The coin +bears His image and superscription, though rusty and defaced. But the +image of God, which the new man bears from the beginning in a +rudimentary form, and which is continually imprinting itself more deeply +upon him, has for its principal feature holiness. Though the majestic +infinitudes of God can have no likeness in man, however exalted, and our +feebleness cannot copy His strength, nor our poor blind knowledge, with +its vast circumference of ignorance, be like His ungrowing and unerring +knowledge, we may be "holy _as_ He is holy"; we may be "imitators of God +as beloved children, and walk in love as He hath loved us"; we may +"_walk_ in the light as He _is_ in the light," with only the difference +between His calm, eternal being, and our changeful and progressive +motion therein; we may even "be perfect as our Father is perfect." This +is the end of all our putting off the old and putting on the new. This +is the ultimate purpose of God, in all His self-revelation. For this +Christ has come and died and lives. For this the Spirit of God dwells in +us. This is the immortal hope with which we may re-create and encourage +our souls in our often weary struggles. Even our poor sinful natures may +be transformed into that wondrous likeness. Coal and diamond are but +varying forms of carbon, and the blackest lump dug from the deepest +mine, may be transmuted by the alchemy of that wondrous transforming +union with Christ, into a brightness that shall flash back all the glory +of the sunlight, and gleam for ever, set in one of His many crowns. + +III. We have here finally the grand unity of this new creation. + +We may reverse the order of the words as they stand here, and consider +the last clause first, inasmuch as it is the reason for the doing away +of all distinctions of race, or ceremony, or culture, or social +condition. + +"Christ is all." Wherever that new nature is found, it lives by the life +of Christ. He dwells in all who possess it. The Spirit of life in Christ +is in them. His blood passes into their veins. The holy desires, the new +tastes, the kindling love, the clearer vision, the gentleness and the +strength, and whatsoever things beside are lovely and of good report, +are all His--nay, we may say, are all Himself. + +And, of course, all who are His are partakers of that common gift, and +He is _in_ all. There is no privileged class in Christ's Church, as +these false teachers in Colossæ had taught. Against every attempt to +limit the universality of the gospel, whether it came from Jewish +Pharisees or Eastern philosophers, Paul protested with his whole soul. +He has done so already in this Epistle, and does so here in his emphatic +assertion that Christ was not the possession of an aristocracy of +"intelligence," but belonged to every soul that trusted Him. + +Necessarily, therefore, surface distinctions disappear. There is triumph +in the roll of his rapid enumeration of these clefts that have so long +kept brothers apart, and are now being filled up. He looks round on a +world, the antagonisms of which we can but faintly imagine, and his eye +kindles and his voice rises into vibrating emotion, as he thinks of the +mighty magnetism that is drawing enemies towards the one centre in +Christ. His catalogue here may profitably be compared with his other in +the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 28). There he enumerates the three +great distinctions which parted the old world: race (Jew and Greek), +social condition (bond and free), and sex (male and female.) These, he +says, as separating powers, are done away in Christ. Here the list is +modified, probably with reference to the errors in the Colossian Church. + +"There cannot be Greek and Jew." The cleft of national distinctions, +which certainly never yawned more widely than between the Jew and every +other people, ceases to separate, and the teachers who had been trying +to perpetuate that distinction in the Church were blind to the very +meaning of the gospel. "Circumcision and uncircumcision" separated. +Nothing makes deeper and bitterer antagonisms than differences in +religious forms, and people who have not been born into them are +usually the most passionate in adherence to them, so that cleft did not +entirely coincide with the former. "Barbarian, Scythian," is not an +antithesis, but a climax--the Scythians were looked upon as the most +savage of barbarians. The Greek contempt for the outside races, which is +reflected in this clause, was largely the contempt for a supposed lower +stage of culture. As we have seen, Colossæ especially needed the lesson +that differences in culture disappeared in the unity of Christ, for the +heretical teachers attached great importance to the wisdom which they +professed to impart. A cultivated class is always tempted to +superciliousness, and a half cultivated class is even more so. There is +abundance of that arrogance born of education among us to-day, and +sorely needing and quite disbelieving the teaching that there are things +which can make up for the want of what it possesses. It is in the +interest of the humble virtues of the uneducated godly as well as of the +nations called uncivilized, that Christianity wars against that most +heartless and ruinous of all prides, the pride of culture, by its +proclamation that in Christ, barbarian, Scythian and the most polished +thinker or scholar are one. + +"Bondman, freeman" is again an antithesis. That gulf between master and +slave was indeed wide and deep; too wide for compassion to cross, though +not for hatred to stride over. The untold miseries of slavery in the old +world are but dimly known; but it and war and the degradation of women +made an infernal trio which crushed more than half the race into a hell +of horrors. Perhaps Paul may have been the more ready to add this clause +to his catalogue because his thoughts had been occupied with the +relation of master and slave on the occasion of the letter to Philemon +which was sent along with this to Colossæ. + +Christianity waged no direct war against these social evils of +antiquity, but it killed them much more effectually by breathing into +the conscience of the world truths which made their continuance +impossible. It girdled the tree, and left it to die--a much better and +more thorough plan than dragging it out of the ground by main force. +Revolution cures nothing. The only way to get rid of evils engrained in +the constitution of society is to elevate and change the tone of thought +and feeling, and then they die of atrophy. Change the climate, and you +change the vegetation. Until you do, neither mowing nor uprooting will +get rid of the foul growths. + +So the gospel does with all these lines of demarcation between men. What +becomes of them? What becomes of the ridges of sand that separate pool +from pool at low water? The tide comes up over them and makes them all +one, gathered into the oneness of the great sea. They may remain, but +they are seen no more, and the roll of the wave is not interrupted by +them. The powers and blessings of the Christ pass freely from heart to +heart, hindered by no barriers. Christ founds a deeper unity independent +of all these superficial distinctions, for the very conception of +humanity is the product of Christianity, and the true foundation for the +brotherhood of mankind is the revelation in Christ of the fatherhood of +God. Christ is the brother of us all; His death is for every man; the +blessing of His gospel is offered to each; He will dwell in the heart +of any. Therefore all distinctions, national, ceremonial, intellectual +or social, fade into nothingness. Love is of no nation, and Christ is +the property of no aristocracy in the Church. That great truth was a +miraculous new thing in that old world, all torn apart by deep clefts +like the grim cañons of American rivers. Strange it must have seemed to +find slaves and their masters, Jew and Greek, sitting at one table and +bound in fraternal ties. The world has not yet fully grasped that truth, +and the Church has woefully failed in showing it to be a reality. But it +arches above all our wars, and schisms, and wretched class distinctions, +like a rainbow of promise, beneath whose open portal the world shall one +day pass into that bright land where the wandering peoples shall gather +together in peace round the feet of Jesus, and there shall be one fold +because there is one Shepherd. + + + + +XX. + +_THE GARMENTS OF THE RENEWED SOUL._ + + "Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of + compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing + one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint + against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: and above + all these things put on love, which is the bond of + perfectness."--COL. iii.12-14 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We need not repeat what has been already said as to the logic of the +inference, You have put off the "old man," therefore put off the vices +which belong to him. Here we have the same argument in reference to the +"new man" who is to be "put on" because he has been put on. This +"therefore" rests the exhortation both on that thought, and on the +nearer words, "Christ is all and in all." Because the new nature has +been assumed in the very act of conversion, therefore array your souls +in vesture corresponding. Because Christ is all and in all, therefore +clothe yourselves with all brotherly graces, corresponding to the great +unity into which all Christians are brought by their common possession +of Christ. The whole field of Christian morality is not traversed here, +but only so much of it as concerns the social duties which result from +that unity. + +But besides the foundation for the exhortations which is laid in the +possession of the "New Man," consequent on participation in Christ, +another ground for them is added in the words, "as God's elect, holy and +beloved." Those who are in Christ and are thus regenerated in Him, are +of the chosen race, are consecrated as belonging especially to God, and +receive the warm beams of the special paternal love with which He +regards the men who are in some measure conformed to His likeness and +moulded after His will. That relation to God should draw after it a life +congruous with itself--a life of active goodness and brotherly +gentleness. The outcome of it should be not mere glad emotion, nor a +hugging of one's self in one's happiness, but practical efforts to turn +to men a face lit by the same dispositions with which God has looked on +us, or as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it, "Be imitators of +God, as beloved children." That is a wide and fruitful principle--the +relation to men will follow the relation to God. As we think God has +been to us, so let us try to be to others. The poorest little fishing +cobble is best guided by celestial observations, and dead reckoning +without sun or stars is but second best. Independent morality cut loose +from religion will be feeble morality. On the other hand, religion which +does not issue in morality is a ghost without substance. Religion is the +soul of morality. Morality is the body of religion, more than ceremonial +worship is. The virtues which all men know, are the fitting garments of +the elect of God. + +I. We have here then an enumeration of the fair garments of the new man. + +Let us go over the items of this list of the wardrobe of the consecrated +soul. + +"A heart of compassion." So the Revised Version renders the words given +literally in the Authorised as "bowels of mercies," an expression which +that very strange thing called conventional propriety regards as coarse, +simply because Jews chose one part of the body and we another as the +supposed seat of the emotions. Either phrase expresses substantially the +Apostle's meaning. + +Is it not beautiful that the series should begin with _pity_? It is the +most often needed, for the sea of sorrow stretches so widely that +nothing less than a universal compassion can arch it over as with the +blue of heaven. Every man would seem in some respect deserving of and +needing sympathy, if his whole heart and history could be laid bare. +Such compassion is difficult to achieve, for its healing streams are +dammed back by many obstructions of inattention and occupation, and +dried up by the fierce heat of selfishness. Custom, with its deadening +influence, comes in to make us feel least the sorrows which are most +common in the society around us. As a man might live so long in an +asylum that lunacy would seem to him almost the normal condition, so the +most widely diffused griefs are those least observed and least +compassionated; and good, tender-hearted men and women walk the streets +of our great cities and see sights--children growing up for the gallows +and the devil, gin-shops at every corner--which might make angels weep, +and suppose them to be as inseparable from our "civilization" as the +noise of wheels from a carriage or bilge water from a ship. Therefore we +have to make conscious efforts to "put on" that sympathetic disposition, +and to fight against the faults which hinder its free play. Without it, +no help will be of much use to the receiver, nor of any to the giver. +Benefits bestowed on the needy and sorrowful, if bestowed without +sympathy, will hurt like a blow. Much is said about ingratitude, but +very often it is but the instinctive recoil of the heart from the unkind +doer of a kindness. Aid flung to a man as a bone is to a dog usually +gets as much gratitude as the sympathy which it expresses deserves. But +if we really make another's sorrows ours, that teaches us tact and +gentleness, and makes our clumsy hands light and deft to bind up sore +hearts. + +Above all things, the practical discipline which cultivates pity will +beware of letting it be excited and then not allowing the emotion to +act. To stimulate feeling and do nothing in consequence is a short road +to destroy the feeling. Pity is meant to be the impulse toward help, and +if it is checked and suffered to pass away idly, it is weakened, as +certainly as a plant is weakened by being kept close nipped and hindered +from bringing its buds to flower and fruit. + +"Kindness" comes next--a wider benignity, not only exercised where there +is manifest room for pity, but turning a face of goodwill to all. Some +souls are so dowered that they have this grace without effort, and come +like the sunshine with welcome and cheer for all the world. But even +less happily endowed natures can cultivate the disposition, and the best +way to cultivate it is to be much in communion with God. When Moses came +down from the mount, his face shone. When we come out from the secret +place of the Most High we shall bear some reflection of His great +kindness whose "tender mercies are over all His works." This "kindness" +is the opposite of that worldly wisdom, on which many men pride +themselves as the ripe fruit of their knowledge of men and things, and +which keeps up vigilant suspicion of everybody, as in the savage state, +where "stranger" and "enemy" had only one word between them. It does not +require us to be blind to facts or to live in fancies, but it does +require us to cherish a habit of goodwill, ready to become pity if +sorrow appears, and slow to turn away even if hostility appears. Meet +your brother with kindness, and you will generally find it returned. The +prudent hypocrites who get on in the world, as ships are launched, by +"greasing the ways" with flattery, and smiles, teach us the value of the +true thing, since even a coarse caricature of it wins hearts and disarms +foes. This "kindness" is the most powerful solvent of illwill and +indifference. + +Then follows "humility." That seems to break the current of thought by +bringing a virtue entirely occupied with self into the middle of a +series referring exclusively to others. But it does not really do so. +From this point onwards all the graces named have reference to our +demeanour under slights and injuries--and humility comes into view here +only as constituting the foundation for the right bearing of these. +Meekness and longsuffering must stand on a basis of humility. The proud +man, who thinks highly of himself and of his own claims, will be the +touchy man, if any one derogates from these. + +"Humility," or lowly-mindedness, a lowly estimate of ourselves, is not +necessarily blindness to our strong points. If a man can do certain +things better than his neighbours, he can hardly help knowing it, and +Christian humility does not require him to be ignorant of it. I suppose +Milton would be none the less humble, though he was quite sure that his +work was better than that of Sternhold and Hopkins. The consciousness of +power usually accompanies power. But though it may be quite right to +"know myself" in the strong points, as well as in the weak, there are +two considerations which should act as dampers to any unchristian fire +of pride which the devil's breath may blow up from that fuel. The one +is, "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" the other is, "Who is +pure before God's judgment-seat?" Your strong points are nothing so very +wonderful, after all. If you have better brains than some of your +neighbours, well, that is not a thing to give yourself such airs about. +Besides, where did you get the faculties you plume yourself on? However +cultivated by yourself, how came they yours at first? And, furthermore, +whatever superiorities may lift you above any men, and however high you +may be elevated, it is a long way from the top of the highest molehill +to the sun, and not much longer to the top of the lowest. And, besides +all that, you may be very clever and brilliant, may have made books or +pictures, may have stamped your name on some invention, may have won a +place in public life, or made a fortune--and yet you and the beggar who +cannot write his name are both guilty before God. Pride seems out of +place in creatures like us, who have all to bow our heads in the +presence of His perfect judgment, and cry, "God be merciful to me a +sinner!" + +Then follow "meekness, long-suffering." The distinction between these +two is slight. According to the most thorough investigators, the former +is the temper which accepts God's dealings, or evil inflicted by men as +His instruments, without resistance, while the latter is the long +holding out of the mind before it gives way to a temptation to action, +or passion, especially the latter. The opposite of meekness is rudeness +or harshness; the opposite of long-suffering, swift resentment or +revenge. Perhaps there may be something in the distinction, that while +long-suffering does not get angry soon, meekness does not get angry at +all. Possibly, too, meekness implies a lowlier position than +long-suffering does. The meek man puts himself below the offender; the +long-suffering man does not. God is long-suffering, but the incarnate +God alone can be "meek and lowly." + +The general meaning is plain enough. The "hate of hate," the "scorn of +scorn," is not the Christian ideal. I am not to allow my enemy always to +settle the terms on which we are to be. Why should I scowl back at him, +though he frowns at me? It is hard work, as we all know, to repress the +retort that would wound and be so neat. It is hard not to repay slights +and offences in kind. But, if the basis of our dispositions to others be +laid in a wise and lowly estimate of ourselves, such graces of conduct +will be possible, and they will give beauty to our characters. + +"Forbearing and forgiving" are not new virtues. They are meekness and +long-suffering in exercise, and if we were right in saying that +"long-suffering" was not _soon_ angry, and "meekness" was not angry at +all, then "forbearance" would correspond to the former and "forgiveness" +to the latter; for a man may exercise forbearance, and bite his lips +till the blood come rather than speak, and violently constrain himself +to keep calm and do nothing unkind, and yet all the while seven devils +may be in his spirit; while forgiveness, on the other hand, is an entire +wiping of all enmity and irritation clean out of the heart. + +Such is the Apostle's outline sketch of the Christian character in its +social aspect, all rooted in pity, and full of soft compassion; quick to +apprehend, to feel, and to succour sorrow; a kindliness, equable and +widespread, illuminating all who come within its reach; a patient +acceptance of wrongs without resentment or revenge, because a lowly +judgment of self and its claims, a spirit schooled to calmness under all +provocations, disdaining to requite wrong by wrong, and quick to +forgive. + +The question may well be asked--is that a type of character which the +world generally admires? Is it not uncommonly like what most people +would call "a poor spiritless creature." It was "a new man," most +emphatically, when Paul drew that sketch, for the heathen world had +never seen anything like it. It is a "new man" still; for although the +modern world has had some kind of Christianity--at least has had a +Church--for all these centuries, that is not the kind of character which +is its ideal. Look at the heroes of history and of literature. Look at +the tone of so much contemporary biography and criticism of public +actions. Think of the ridicule which is poured on the attempt to +regulate politics by Christian principles, or, as a distinguished +soldier called them in public recently, "puling principles." It may be +true that Christianity has not added any new virtues to those which are +prescribed by natural conscience, but it has most certainly altered the +perspective of the whole, and created a type of excellence, in which the +gentler virtues predominate, and the novelty of which is proved by the +reluctance of the so-called Christian world to recognise it even yet. + +By the side of its serene and lofty beauty, the "heroic virtues" +embodied in the world's type of excellence show vulgar and glaring, like +some daub representing a soldier, the sign-post of a public-house, by +the side of Angelico's white-robed visions on the still convent walls. +The highest exercise of these more gaudy and conspicuous qualities is to +produce the pity and meekness of the Christian ideal. More self-command, +more heroic firmness, more contempt for the popular estimate, more of +everything strong and manly, will find a nobler field in subduing +passion and cherishing forgiveness, which the world thinks folly and +spiritless, than anywhere else. Better is he that ruleth his spirit than +he that taketh a city. + +_The great pattern and motive of forgiveness_ is next set forth. We are +to forgive as Christ has forgiven us; and that "as" may be applied +either as meaning "in like manner," or as meaning "because." The Revised +Version, with many others, adopts the various reading of "the Lord," +instead of "Christ," which has the advantage of recalling the parable +that was no doubt in Paul's mind, about the servant who, having been +forgiven by his "_Lord_" all his great debt, took his fellow-servant by +the throat and squeezed the last farthing out of him. + +The great transcendent act of God's mercy brought to us by Christ's +cross is sometimes, as in the parallel passage in Ephesians, spoken of +as "God for Christ's sake forgiving us," and sometimes as here, Christ +is represented as forgiving. We need not pause to do more than point to +that interchange of Divine office and attributes, and ask what notion of +Christ's person underlies it. + +We have already had the death of Christ set forth as in a very profound +sense our pattern. Here we have one special case of the general law that +the life and death of our Lord are the embodied ideal of human character +and conduct. His forgiveness is not merely revealed to us that trembling +hearts may be calm, and that a fearful looking for of judgment may no +more trouble a foreboding conscience. For whilst we must ever begin with +cleaving to it as our hope, we must never stop there. A heart touched +and softened by pardon will be a heart apt to pardon, and the miracle of +forgiveness which has been wrought for it will constitute the law of its +life as well as the ground of its joyful security. + +This new pattern and new motive, both in one, make the true novelty and +specific difference of Christian morality. "As I have loved you," makes +the commandment "love one another" a new commandment. And all that is +difficult in obedience becomes easier by the power of that motive. +Imitation of one whom we love is instinctive. Obedience to one whom we +love is delightful. The far off ideal becomes near and real in the +person of our best friend. Bound to him by obligations so immense, and a +forgiveness so costly and complete, we shall joyfully yield to "the +cords of love" which draw us after Him. We have each to choose what +shall be the pattern for us. The world takes Cæsar, the hero; the +Christian takes Christ, in whose meekness is power, and whose gentle +long-suffering has been victor in a sterner conflict than any battle of +the warrior with garments rolled in blood. + +Paul says, "Even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye." The Lord's +prayer teaches us to ask, Forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive. +In the one case Christ's forgiveness is the example and the motive for +ours. In the other, our forgiveness is the condition of God's. Both are +true. We shall find the strongest impulse to pardon others in the +consciousness that we have been pardoned by Him. And if we have +grudgings against our offending brother in our hearts, we shall not be +conscious of the tender forgiveness of our Father in heaven. That is no +arbitrary limitation, but inherent in the very nature of the case. + +II. We have here the girdle which keeps all the garments in their +places. + +"Above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness." + +"Above all these" does not mean "besides," or "more important than," but +is clearly used in its simplest local sense, as equivalent to "over," +and thus carries on the metaphor of the dress. Over the other garments +is to be put the silken sash or girdle of love, which will brace and +confine all the rest into a unity. It is "the girdle of perfectness," by +which is not meant, as is often supposed, the perfect principle of union +among men. Perfectness is not the quality of the girdle, but the thing +which it girds, and is a collective expression for "the various graces +and virtues, which together make up perfection." So the metaphor +expresses the thought that love knits into a harmonious whole, the +graces which without it would be fragmentary and incomplete. + +We can conceive of all the dispositions already named as existing in +some fashion without love. There might be pity which was not love, +though we know it is akin to it. The feeling with which one looks upon +some poor outcast, or on some stranger in sorrow, or even on an enemy in +misery, may be very genuine compassion, and yet clearly separate from +love. So with all the others. There may be kindness most real without +any of the diviner emotion, and there may even be forbearance reaching +up to forgiveness, and yet leaving the heart untouched in its deepest +recesses. But if these virtues were thus exercised, in the absence of +love they would be fragmentary, shallow, and would have no guarantee for +their own continuance. Let love come into the heart and knit a man to +the poor creature whom he had only pitied before, or to the enemy whom +he had at the most been able with an effort to forgive; and it lifts +these other emotions into a nobler life. He who pities may not love, but +he who loves cannot but pity; and that compassion will flow with a +deeper current and be of a purer quality than the shrunken stream which +does not rise from that higher source. + +Nor is it only the virtues enumerated here for which love performs this +office; but all the else isolated graces of character, it binds or welds +into a harmonious whole. As the broad Eastern girdle holds the flowing +robes in position, and gives needed firmness to the figure as well as +composed order to the attire; so this broad band, woven of softest +fabric, keeps all emotions in their due place and makes the attire of +the Christian soul beautiful in harmonious completeness. + +Perhaps it is a yet deeper truth that love produces all these graces. +Whatsoever things men call virtues, are best cultivated by cultivating +it. So with a somewhat similar meaning to that of our text, but if +anything, going deeper down, Paul in another place calls love the +fulfilling of the law, even as his Master had taught him that all the +complex of duties incumbent upon us were summed up in love to God, and +love to men. Whatever I owe to my brother will be discharged if I love +God, and live my love. Nothing of it, not even the smallest mite of the +debt will be discharged, however vast my sacrifices and services, if I +do not. + +So end the frequent references in this letter to putting off the old and +putting on the new. The sum of them all is, that we must first put on +Christ by faith, and then by daily effort clothe our spirits in the +graces of character which He gives us, and by which we shall be like +Him. + +We have said that this dress of the Christian soul which we have been +now considering does not include the whole of Christian duty. We may +recall the other application of the same figure which occurs in the +parallel Epistle to the Ephesians, where Paul sketches for us in a few +rapid touches the armed Christian soldier. The two pictures may +profitably be set side by side. Here he dresses the Christian soul in +the robes of peace, bidding him put on pity and meekness, and above all, +the silken girdle of love. + + "In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man + As modest stillness and humility; + But when the blast of war blows in our ears," + +then "put on the whole armour of God," the leathern girdle of truth, the +shining breastplate of righteousness, and above all, the shield of +faith--and so stand a flashing pillar of steel. Are the two pictures +inconsistent? must we doff the robes of peace to don the armour, or put +off the armour to resume the robes of peace? Not so; both must be worn +together, for neither is found in its completeness without the other. +Beneath the armour must be the fine linen, clean and white--and at one +and the same time, our souls may be clad in all pity, mercifulness and +love, and in all the sparkling panoply of courage and strength for +battle. + +But both the armour and the dress of peace presuppose that we have +listened to Christ's pleading counsel to buy of Him "white raiment that +we may be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness do not appear." +The garment for the soul, which is to hide its deformities and to +replace our own filthy rags, is woven in no earthly looms, and no +efforts of ours will bring us into possession of it. We must be content +to owe it wholly to Christ's gift, or else we shall have to go without +it altogether. The first step in the Christian life is by simple faith +to receive from Him the forgiveness of all our sins, and that new nature +which He alone can impart, and which we can neither create nor win, but +must simply accept. Then, after that, come the field and the time for +efforts put forth in His strength, to array our souls in His likeness, +and day by day to put on the beautiful garments which He bestows. It is +a lifelong work thus to strip ourselves of the rags of our old vices, +and to gird on the robe of righteousness. Lofty encouragements, tender +motives, solemn warnings, all point to this as our continual task. We +should set ourselves to it in His strength, if so be that being clothed, +we may not be found naked--and then, when we lay aside the garment of +flesh and the armour needed for the battle, we shall hear His voice +welcoming us to the land of peace, and shall walk with Him in victor's +robes, glistening "so as no fuller on earth could white them." + + + + +XXI. + +_THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF THE PEACE OF CHRIST, THE WORD OF CHRIST, AND +THE NAME OF CHRIST._ + + "And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also + ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of + Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing + one another with psalms _and_ hymns _and_ spiritual songs, singing + with grace in your hearts unto God. And whatsoever ye do in word or + in deed, _do_ all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to + God the Father through Him."--COL. iii. 15-17 (Rev. Vers.). + + +There are here three precepts somewhat loosely connected, of which the +first belongs properly to the series considered in our last section, +from which it is only separated as not sharing in the metaphor under +which the virtues contained in the former verses were set forth. In +substance it is closely connected with them, though in form it is +different, and in sweep is more comprehensive. The second refers mainly +to Christian intercourse, especially to social worship; and the third +covers the whole field of conduct, and fitly closes the series, which in +it reaches the utmost possible generality, and from it drops to the +inculcation of very special domestic duties. The three verses have each +a dominant phrase round which we may group their teaching. These three +are, the peace of Christ, the word of Christ, the name of the Lord +Jesus. + +I. The Ruling Peace of Christ. + +The various reading "peace of Christ," for "peace of God," is not only +recommended by manuscript authority, but has the advantage of bringing +the expression into connection with the great words of the Lord, "Peace +I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." A strange legacy to leave, +and a strange moment at which to speak of His peace! It was but an hour +or so since He had been "troubled in spirit," as He thought of the +betrayer--and in an hour more He would be beneath the olives of +Gethsemane; and yet, even at such a time, He bestows on His friends some +share in His own deep repose of spirit. Surely "the peace of Christ" +must mean what "My peace" meant; not only the peace which He gives, but +the peace which lay, like a great calm on the sea, on His own deep +heart; and surely we cannot restrict so solemn an expression to the +meaning of mutual concord among brethren. That, no doubt, is included in +it, but there is much more than that. Whatever made the strange calm +which leaves such unmistakable traces in the picture of Christ drawn in +the Gospels, may be ours. When He gave us His peace, He gave us some +share in that meek submission of will to His Father's will, and in that +stainless purity, which were its chief elements. The hearts and lives of +men are made troubled, not by circumstances, but by themselves. Whoever +can keep his own will in harmony with God's enters into rest, though +many trials and sorrows may be his. Even if within and without are +fightings, there may be a central "peace subsisting at the heart of +endless agitation." We are our own disturbers. The eager swift motions +of our own wills keep us restless. Forsake these, and quiet comes. +Christ's peace was the result of the perfect harmony of all His nature. +All was co-operant to one great purpose; desires and passions did not +war with conscience and reason, nor did the flesh lust against the +Spirit. Though that complete uniting of all our inner selves in the +sweet concord of perfect obedience is not attained on earth, yet its +beginnings are given to us by Christ, and in Him we may be at peace with +ourselves, and have one great ruling power binding all our conflicting +desires in one, as the moon draws after her the heaped waters of the +sea. + +We are summoned to improve that gift--to "_let_ the peace of Christ" +have its way in our hearts. The surest way to increase our possession of +it is to decrease our separation from Him. The fulness of our possession +of His gift of peace depends altogether on our proximity to the Giver. +It evaporates in carrying. It "diminishes as the square of the distance" +from the source. So the exhortation to let it rule in us will be best +fulfilled by keeping thought and affection in close union with our Lord. + +This peace is to "rule" in our hearts. The figure contained in the word +here translated _rule_ is that of the umpire or arbitrator at the games, +who, looking down on the arena, watches that the combatants strive +lawfully, and adjudges the prize. Possibly the force of the figure may +have been washed out of the word by use, and the "rule" of our rendering +may be all that it means. But there seems no reason against keeping the +full force of the expression, which adds picturesqueness and point to +the precept. The peace of Christ, then, is to sit enthroned as umpire +in the heart; or, if we might give a mediæval instead of a classical +shape to the figure, that fair sovereign, Peace, is to be Queen of the +Tournament, and her "eyes rain influence and adjudge the prize." When +contending impulses and reasons distract and seem to pull us in opposite +directions, let her settle which is to prevail. How can the peace of +Christ do that for us? We may make a rude test of good and evil by their +effects on our inward repose. Whatever mars our tranquillity, ruffling +the surface so that Christ's image is no longer visible, is to be +avoided. That stillness of spirit is very sensitive and shrinks away at +the presence of an evil thing. Let it be for us what the barometer is to +a sailor, and if it sinks, let us be sure a storm is at hand. If we find +that a given course of action tends to break our peace, we may be +certain that there is poison in the draught which as in the old stories, +has been detected by the shivered cup, and we should not drink any more. +There is nothing so precious that it is worth while to lose the peace of +Christ for the sake of it. Whenever we find it in peril, we must retrace +our steps. + +Then follows appended a reason for cultivating the peace of Christ "to +which also ye were called in one body." The very purpose of God's +merciful summons and invitation to them in the gospel was that they +might share in this peace. There are many ways of putting God's design +in His call by the gospel--it may be represented under many angles and +from many points of view, and is glorious from all and each. No one word +can state all the fulness to which we are called by His wonderful love, +but none can be tenderer and more blessed than this thought, that God's +great voice has summoned us to a share in Christ's peace. Being so +called, all who share in it of course find themselves knit to each other +by possession of a common gift. What a contradiction then, to be +summoned in order to so blessed a possession, and not to allow it +sovereign sway in moulding heart and life! What a contradiction, +further, to have been gathered into one body by the common possession of +the peace of Christ, and yet not to allow it to bind all the members in +its sweet fetters with cords of love! The sway of the "peace of Christ" +in our hearts will ensure the perfect exercise of all the other graces +of which we have been hearing, and therefore this precept fitly closes +the series of exhortations to brotherly affections, and seals all with +the thought of the "one body" of which all these "new men" are members. + +The very abruptness of the introduction of the next precept gives it +force, "and be ye thankful," or, as we might translate with an accuracy +which perhaps is not too minute, "become thankful," striving towards +deeper gratitude than you have yet attained. Paul is ever apt to catch +fire as often as his thought brings him in sight of God's great love in +drawing men to Himself, and in giving them such rich gifts. It is quite +a feature of his style to break into sudden bursts of praise as often as +his path leads him to a summit from which he catches a glimpse of that +great miracle of love. This interjected precept is precisely like these +sudden jets of praise. It is as if he had broken off for a moment from +the line of his thought, and had said to his hearers--Think of that +wonderful love of your Father God. He has called you from the midst of +your heathenism, He has called you from a world of tumult and a life of +troubled unrest to possess the peace which brooded ever, like the mystic +dove, over Christ's head; He has called you in one body, having knit in +a grand unity us, Jews and Gentiles, so widely parted before. Let us +pause and lift up our voices in praise to Him. True thankfulness will +well up at all moments, and will underlie and blend with all duties. +There are frequent injunctions to thankfulness in this letter, and we +have it again enjoined in the closing words of the verses which we are +now considering, so that we may defer any further remarks till we come +to deal with these. + +II. The Indwelling Word of Christ. + +The main reference of this verse seems to be to the worship of the +Church--the highest expression of its oneness. There are three points +enforced in its three clauses, of which the first is the dwelling in the +hearts of the Colossian Christians of the "word of Christ," by which is +meant, as I conceive, not simply "the presence of Christ in the heart, +as an inward monitor,"[3] but the indwelling of the definite body of +truths contained in the gospel which had been preached to them. That +gospel is the word of Christ, inasmuch as He is its subject. These early +Christians received that body of truth by oral teaching. To us it comes +in the history of Christ's life and death, and in the exposition of the +significance and far-reaching depth and power of these, which are +contained in the rest of the New Testament--a very definite body of +teaching. How can it abide in the heart? or what is the dwelling of +that word within us but the occupation of mind and heart and will with +the truth concerning Jesus revealed to us in Scripture? This indwelling +is in our own power, for it is matter of precept and not of promise--and +if we want to have it we must do with religious truth just what we do +with other truths that we want to keep in our minds--ponder them, use +our faculties on them, be perpetually recurring to them, fix them in our +memories, like nails fastened in a sure place, and, that we may remember +them, "get them by heart," as the children say. Few things are more +wanting to-day than this. The popular Christianity of the day is strong +in philanthropic service, and some phases of it are full of +"evangelistic" activity, but it is wofully lacking in intelligent grasp +of the great principles involved and revealed in the gospel. Some +Christians have yielded to the popular prejudice against "dogma," and +have come to dislike and neglect the doctrinal side of religion, and +others are so busy in good works of various kinds that they have no time +nor inclination to reflect nor to learn, and for others "the cares of +this world and the lusts of other things, entering in, choke the word." +A merely intellectual Christianity is a very poor thing, no doubt; but +that has been dinned into our ears so long and loudly for a generation +now, that there is much need for a clear preaching of the other +side--namely, that a merely emotional Christianity is a still poorer, +and that if feeling on the one hand and conduct on the other are to be +worthy of men with heads on their shoulders and brains in their heads, +both feeling and conduct must be built on a foundation of truth believed +and pondered. In the ordered monarchy of human nature, reason is meant +to govern, but she is also meant to submit, and for her the law holds +good, she must learn to obey that she may be able to rule. She must bow +to the word of Christ, and then she will sway aright the kingdom of the +soul. It becomes us to make conscience of seeking to get a firm and +intelligent grasp of Christian truth as a whole, and not to be always +living on milk meant for babes, nor to expect that teachers and +preachers should only repeat for ever the things which we know already. + +That word is to dwell in Christian men _richly_. It is their own fault +if they possess it, as so many do, in scant measure. It might be a full +tide. Why in so many is it a mere trickle, like an Australian river in +the heat, a line of shallow ponds with no life or motion, scarcely +connected by a thread of moisture, and surrounded by great stretches of +blinding shingle, when it might be a broad water--"waters to swim in"? +Why, but because they do not do with this word, what all students do +with the studies which they love? + +The word should manifest the rich abundance of its dwelling in men by +opening out in their minds into "every kind of wisdom." Where the gospel +in its power dwells in a man's spirit, and is intelligently meditated on +and studied, it will effloresce into principles of thought and action +applicable to all subjects, and touching the whole round horizon of +human life. All, and more than all, the wisdom which these false +teachers promised in their mysteries, is given to the babes and the +simple ones who treasure the word of Christ in their hearts, and the +least among them may say, "I have more understanding than all my +teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation." That gospel which the +child may receive, has "infinite riches in a narrow room," and, like +some tiny black seed, for all its humble form, has hidden in it the +promise and potency of wondrous beauty of flower, and nourishment of +fruit. Cultured and cared for in the heart where it is sown, it will +unfold into all truth which a man can receive or God can give, +concerning God and man, our nature, duties, hopes and destinies, the +tasks of the moment, and the glories of eternity. He who has it and lets +it dwell richly in his heart is wise; he who has it not, "at his latter +end shall be a fool." + +The second clause of this verse deals with the manifestations of the +indwelling word in the worship of the Church. The individual possession +of the word in one's own heart does not make us independent of brotherly +help. Rather, it is the very foundation of the duty of sharing our +riches with our fellows, and of increasing ours by contributions from +their stores. And so--"teaching and admonishing one another" is the +outcome of it. The universal possession of Christ's word involves the +equally universal right and duty of mutual instruction. + +We have already heard the Apostle declaring it to be his work to +"admonish every man and to teach every man," and found that the former +office pointed to practical ethical instruction, not without rebuke and +warning, while the latter referred rather to doctrinal teaching. What he +there claimed for himself, he here enjoins on the whole Christian +community. We have here a glimpse of the perfectly simple, informal +public services of the early Church, which seem to have partaken much +more of the nature of a free conference than of any of the forms of +worship at present in use in any Church. The evidence both of this +passage and of the other Pauline Epistles, especially of the first +Epistle to the Corinthians (xiv.) unmistakably shows this. The forms of +worship in the apostolic Church are not meant for models, and we do not +prove a usage as intended to be permanent because we prove it to be +primitive; but the principles which underlie the usages are valid always +and everywhere, and one of these principles is the universal though not +equal inspiration of Christian men, which results in their universal +calling to teach and admonish. In what forms that principle shall be +expressed, how safeguarded and controlled, is of secondary importance. +Different stages of culture and a hundred other circumstances will +modify these, and nobody but a pedant or religious martinet will care +about uniformity. But I cannot but believe that the present practice of +confining the public teaching of the Church to an official class has +done harm. Why should one man be for ever speaking, and hundreds of +people who are able to teach, sitting dumb to listen or pretend to +listen to him? Surely there is a wasteful expenditure there. I hate +forcible revolution, and do not believe that any institutions, either +political or ecclesiastical, which need violence to sweep them away, are +ready to be removed; but I believe that if the level of spiritual life +were raised among us, new forms would naturally be evolved, in which +there should be a more adequate recognition of the great principle on +which the democracy of Christianity is founded, namely, "I will pour +out My Spirit on all flesh--and on My servants and on My handmaidens I +will pour out in these days of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy." +There are not wanting signs that many different classes of Christian +worshippers have ceased to find edification in the present manner of +teaching. The more cultured write books on "the decay of preaching;" the +more earnest take to mission halls and a "freer service," and "lay +preaching;" the more indifferent stay at home. When the tide rises, all +the idle craft stranded on the mud are set in motion; such a time is +surely coming for the Church, when the aspiration that has waited +millenniums for its fulfilment, and received but a partial +accomplishment at Pentecost, shall at last be a fact: "would God that +all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His +Spirit upon them!" + +The teaching and admonishing is here regarded as being effected by means +of song. That strikes one as singular, and tempts to another punctuation +of the verse, by which "In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one +another" should make a separate clause, and "in psalms and hymns and +spiritual songs" should be attached to the following words. But probably +the ordinary arrangement of clauses is best on the whole. The +distinction between "psalms" and "hymns" appears to be that the former +is a song with a musical accompaniment, and that the latter is vocal +praise to God. No doubt the "psalms" meant were chiefly those of the +Psalter, the Old Testament element in the early Christian worship, while +the "hymns" were the new product of the spirit of devotion which had +naturally broken into song, the first beginnings of the great treasure +of Christian hymnody. "Spiritual songs" is a more general expression, +including all varieties of Christian poesy, provided that they come from +the Spirit moving in the heart. We know from many sources that song had +a large part in the worship of the early Church. Indeed, whenever a +great quickening of religious life comes, a great burst of Christian +song comes with it. The onward march of the Church has ever been +attended by music of praise; "as well the singers as the players on +instruments" have been there. The mediæval Latin hymns cluster round the +early pure days of the monastic orders; Luther's rough stormy hymns were +as powerful as his treatises; the mystic tenderness and rapture of +Charles Wesley's have become the possession of the whole Church. We hear +from outside observers, that one of the practices of the early +Christians which most attracted heathen notice was, that they assembled +daily before it was light and "sang hymns of praise to one Christus as +to a god." + +These early hymns were of a dogmatic character. No doubt, just as in +many a missionary Church a hymn is found to be the best vehicle for +conveying the truth, so it was in these early Churches, which were made +up largely of slaves and women--both uneducated. "Singing the gospel" is +a very old invention, though the name be new. The picture which we get +here of the meetings of the early Christians is very remarkable. +Evidently their gatherings were free and social, with the minimum of +form, and that most elastic. If a man had any word of exhortation for +the people, he might say on. "Every one of you hath a psalm, a +doctrine." If a man had some fragment of an old psalm, or some strain +that had come fresh from the Christian heart, he might sing it, and his +brethren would listen. We do not have that sort of psalmody now. But +what a long way we have travelled from it to a modern congregation, +standing with books that they scarcely look at, and "worshipping" in a +hymn which half of them do not open their mouths to sing at all, and the +other half do in a voice inaudible three pews off. + +The best praise, however, is a heart song. So the Apostle adds "singing +in your hearts unto God." And it is to be in "grace," that is to say, +_in_ it as the atmosphere and element in which the song moves, which is +nearly equivalent to "by means of the Divine grace" which works in the +heart, and impels to that perpetual music of silent praise. If we have +the peace of Christ in our hearts, and the word of Christ dwelling in us +richly in all wisdom, then an unspoken and perpetual music will dwell +there too, "a noise like of a hidden brook" singing for ever its "quiet +tune." + +III. The all-hallowing Name of Jesus. + +From worship the Apostle passes to life, and crowns the entire series of +injunctions with an all-comprehensive precept, covering the whole ground +of action. "_Whatsoever_ ye do, in word or deed"--then, not merely +worship, specially so called, but everything is to come under the +influence of the same motive. That expresses emphatically the sanctity +of common life, and extends the idea of worship to all deeds. +"Whatsoever ye _do_ in _word_"--then words are _doings_, and in many +respects the most important of our doings. Some words, though they fade +off the ear so quickly, outlast all contemporary deeds, and are more +lasting than brass. Not only "the word of the Lord," but, in a very +solemn sense, the word of man "endureth for ever." + +Do all "in the name of the Lord Jesus." That means at least two +things--in obedience to His authority, and in dependence on His help. +These two are the twin talismans which change the whole character of our +actions, and preserve us, in doing them, from every harm. That name +hallows and ennobles all work. Nothing can be so small but this will +make it great, nor so monotonous and tame but this will make it +beautiful and fresh. The name now, as of old, casts out devils and +stills storms. "For the name of the Lord Jesus" is the silken padding +which makes our yokes easy. It brings the sudden strength which makes +our burdens light. We may write it over all our actions. If there be any +on which we dare not inscribe it, they are not for us. + +Thus done in the name of Christ, all deeds will become thanksgiving, and +so reach their highest consecration and their truest blessedness. +"Giving thanks to God the Father through Him" is ever to accompany the +work in the name of Jesus. The exhortation to thanksgiving, which is in +a sense the Alpha and the Omega of the Christian life, is perpetually on +the Apostle's lips, because thankfulness should be in perpetual +operation in our hearts. It is so important because it presupposes +all-important things, and because it certainly leads to every Christian +grace. For continual thankfulness there must be a continual direction of +mind towards God and towards the great gifts of our salvation in Jesus +Christ. There must be a continual going forth of our love and our desire +to these, that is to say--thankfulness rests on the reception and the +joyful appropriation of the mercies of God, brought to us by our Lord. +And it underlies all acceptable service and all happy obedience. The +servant who thinks of God as a harsh exactor is slothful; the servant +who thinks of Him as the "giving God" rejoices in toil. He who brings +his work in order to be paid for it, will get no wages, and turn out no +work worth any. He who brings it because he feels that he has been paid +plentiful wages beforehand, of which he will never earn the least mite, +will present service well pleasing to the Master. + +So we should keep thoughts of Jesus Christ, and of all we owe to Him, +ever before us in our common work, in shop and mill and counting-house, +in study and street and home. We should try to bring all our actions +more under their influence, and, moved by the mercies of God, should +yield ourselves living thank-offerings to Him, who is the sin-offering +for us. If, as every fresh duty arises, we hear Christ saying, "This do +in remembrance of Me," all life will become a true communion with Him, +and every common vessel will be as a sacramental chalice, and the bells +of the horses will bear the same inscription as the high priest's +mitre--"Holiness to the Lord." To lay work on that altar sanctifies both +the giver and the gift. Presented through Him, by whom all blessings +come to man and all thanks go to God, and kindled by the flame of +gratitude, our poor deeds, for all their grossness and earthliness, +shall go up in curling wreaths of incense, an odour of a sweet smell +acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Lightfoot. + + + + +XXII. + +_THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY._ + + "Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the + Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. + + "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is + well-pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children, that + they be not discouraged. + + "Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according + to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but in + singleness of heart, fearing the Lord: whatsoever ye do, work + heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that from the + Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: ye serve + the Lord Christ. For he that doeth wrong shall receive again for the + wrong that he hath done: and there is no respect of persons. + + "Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal; + knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven."--COL. iii. 18-iv. 1 + (Rev. Ver.). + + +This section deals with the Christian family, as made up of husband and +wife, children, and servants. In the family, Christianity has most +signally displayed its power of refining, ennobling, and sanctifying +earthly relationships. Indeed, one may say that domestic life, as seen +in thousands of Christian homes, is purely a Christian creation, and +would have been a new revelation to the heathenism of Colossæ, as it is +to-day in many a mission field. + +We do not know what may have led Paul to dwell with special emphasis on +the domestic duties, in this letter, and in the contemporaneous Epistle +of the Ephesians. He does so, and the parallel section there should be +carefully compared throughout with this paragraph. The former is +considerably more expanded, and may have been written after the verses +before us; but, however that may be, the verbal coincidences and +variations in the two sections are very interesting as illustrations of +the way in which a mind fully charged with a theme will freely repeat +itself, and use the same words in different combinations and with +infinite shades of modification. + +The precepts given are extremely simple and obvious. Domestic happiness +and family Christianity are made up of very homely elements. One duty is +prescribed for the one member of each of the three family groups, and +varying forms of another for the other. The wife, the child, the servant +are bid to obey; the husband to love, the father to show his love in +gentle considerateness; the master to yield his servants their dues. +Like some perfume distilled from common flowers that grow on every bank, +the domestic piety which makes home a house of God, and a gate of +heaven, is prepared from these two simples--obedience and love. These +are all. + +We have here then the ideal Christian household in the three ordinary +relationships which make up the family; wife and husband, children and +father, servant and master. + +I. The Reciprocal Duties of wife and husband--subjection and love. + +The duty of the wife is "subjection," and it is enforced on the ground +that it is "fitting in the Lord"--that is, "it is," or perhaps "it +became" at the time of conversion, "the conduct corresponding to or +befitting the condition of being in the Lord." In more modern +language--the Christian ideal of the wife's duty has for its very +centre--subjection. + +Some of us will smile at that; some of us will think it an old-fashioned +notion, a survival of a more barbarous theory of marriage than this +century recognises. But, before we decide upon the correctness of the +apostolic precept, let us make quite sure of its meaning. Now, if we +turn to the corresponding passage in Ephesians, we find that marriage is +regarded from a high and sacred point of view, as being an earthly +shadow and faint adumbration of the union between Christ and the Church. + +To Paul, all human and earthly relationships were moulded after the +patterns of things in the heavens, and the whole fleeting visible life +of man was a parable of the "things which are" in the spiritual realm. +Most chiefly, the holy and mysterious union of man and woman in marriage +is fashioned in the likeness of the only union which is closer and more +mysterious than itself, namely that between Christ and His Church. + +Such then as are the nature and the spring of the Church's "subjection" +to Christ, such will be the nature and the spring of the wife's +"subjection" to the husband. That is to say, it is a subjection of which +love is the very soul and animating principle. In a true marriage, as in +the loving obedience of a believing soul to Christ, the wife submits not +because she has found a master, but because her heart has found its +rest. Everything harsh or degrading melts away from the requirement when +thus looked at. It is a joy to serve where the heart is engaged, and +that is eminently true of the feminine nature. For its full +satisfaction, a woman's heart needs to look up where it loves. She has +certainly the fullest wedded life who can "reverence" her husband. For +its full satisfaction, a woman's heart needs to serve where it loves. +That is the same as saying that a woman's love is, in the general, +nobler, purer, more unselfish than a man's, and therein, quite as much +as in physical constitution, is laid the foundation of that Divine ideal +of marriage, which places the wife's delight and dignity in sweet loving +subjection. + +Of course the subjection has its limitations. "We must obey God rather +than man" bounds the field of all human authority and control. Then +there are cases in which, on the principle of "the tools to the hands +that can use them," the rule falls naturally to the wife as the stronger +character. Popular sarcasm, however, shows that such instances are felt +to be contrary to the true ideal, and such a wife lacks something of +repose for her heart. + +No doubt, too, since Paul wrote, and very largely by Christian +influences, women have been educated and elevated, so as to make mere +subjection impossible now, if ever it were so. Woman's quick instinct as +to persons, her finer wisdom, her purer discernment as to moral +questions, make it in a thousand cases the wisest thing a man can do to +listen to the "subtle flow of silver-paced counsel" which his wife gives +him. All such considerations are fully consistent with this apostolic +teaching, and it remains true that the wife who does not reverence and +lovingly obey is to be pitied if she cannot, and to be condemned if she +will not. + +And what of the husband's duty? He is to love, and because he loves, not +to be harsh or bitter, in word, look or act. The parallel in Ephesians +adds the solemn elevating thought, that a man's love to the woman, whom +he has made his own, is to be like Christ's to the Church. Patient and +generous, utterly self-forgetting and self-sacrificing, demanding +nothing, grudging nothing, giving all, not shrinking from the extreme of +suffering and pain and death itself--that he may bless and help--such +was the Lord's love to His bride, such is to be a Christian husband's +love to his wife. That solemn example, which lifts the whole emotion +high above mere passion or selfish affection, carries a great lesson too +as to the connection between man's love and woman's "subjection." The +former is to evoke the latter, just as in the heavenly pattern, Christ's +love melts and moves human wills to glad obedience, which is liberty. We +do not say that a wife is utterly absolved from obedience where a +husband fails in self-forgetting love, though certainly it does not lie +in _his_ mouth to accuse, whose fault is graver than and the origin of +hers. But, without going so far as that, we may recognise the true order +to be that the husband's love, self-sacrificing and all-bestowing, is +meant to evoke the wife's love, delighting in service, and proud to +crown him her king. + +Where there is such love, there will be no question of mere command and +obedience, no tenacious adherence to rights, or jealous defence of +independence. Law will be transformed into choice. To obey will be joy; +to serve, the natural expression of the heart. Love uttering a wish +speaks music to love listening; and love obeying the wish is free and a +queen. Such sacred beauty may light up wedded life, if it catches a +gleam from the fountain of all light, and shines by reflection from the +love that binds Christ to His Church as the links of the golden beams +bind the sun to the planet. Husbands and wives are to see to it that +this supreme consecration purifies and raises their love. Young men and +maidens are to remember that the nobleness and heart-repose of their +whole life may be made or marred by marriage, and to take heed where +they fix their affections. If there be not unity in the deepest thing of +all, love to Christ, the sacredness and completeness will fade away from +any love. But if a man and woman love and marry "in the Lord," He will +be "in the midst," walking between them, a third who will make them one, +and that threefold cord will not be quickly broken. + +II. The Reciprocal Duties of children and parents--obedience and gentle +loving authority. + +The injunction to children is laconic, decisive, universal. "Obey your +parents in all things." Of course, there is one limitation to that. If +God's command looks one way, and a parent's the opposite, disobedience +is duty--but such extreme case is probably the only one which Christian +ethics admit as an exception to the rule. The Spartan brevity of the +command is enforced by one consideration, "for this is well-pleasing +_in_ the Lord," as the Revised Version rightly reads, instead of "to the +Lord," as in the Authorised, thus making an exact parallel to the former +"fitting in the Lord." Not only to Christ, but to all who can appreciate +the beauty of goodness, is filial obedience beautiful. The parallel in +Ephesians substitutes "for this is right," appealing to the natural +conscience. Right and fair in itself, it is accordant with the law +stamped on the very relationship, and it is witnessed as such by the +instinctive approbation which it evokes. + +No doubt, the moral sentiment of Paul's age stretched parental authority +to an extreme, and we need not hesitate to admit that the Christian idea +of a father's power and a child's obedience has been much softened by +Christianity; but the softening has come from the greater prominence +given to love, rather than from the limitation given to obedience. + +Our present domestic life seems to me to stand sorely in need of Paul's +injunction. One cannot but see that there is great laxity in this matter +in many Christian households, in reaction perhaps from the too great +severity of past times. Many causes lead to this unwholesome relaxation +of parental authority. In our great cities, especially among the +commercial classes, children are generally better educated than their +fathers and mothers, they know less of early struggles, and one often +sees a sense of inferiority making a parent hesitate to command, as well +as a misplaced tenderness making him hesitate to forbid. A very +misplaced and cruel tenderness it is to say "would you like?" when he +ought to say "I wish." It is unkind to lay on young shoulders "the +weight of too much liberty," and to introduce young hearts too soon to +the sad responsibility of choosing between good and evil. It were better +and more loving by far to put off that day, and to let the children feel +that in the safe nest of home, their feeble and ignorant goodness is +sheltered behind a strong barrier of command, and their lives simplified +by having the one duty of obedience. By many parents the advice is +needed--consult your children less, command them more. + +And as for children, here is the one thing which God would have them do: +"Obey your parents in all things." As fathers used to say when I was a +boy--"not only obedience, but prompt obedience." It is right. That +should be enough. But children may also remember that it is +"pleasing"--fair and good to see, making them agreeable in the eyes of +all whose approbation is worth having, and pleasing to themselves, +saving them from many a bitter thought in after days, when the grave has +closed over father and mother. One remembers the story of how Dr. +Johnson, when a man, stood in the market place at Lichfield, bareheaded, +with the rain pouring on him, in remorseful remembrance of boyish +disobedience to his dead father. There is nothing bitterer than the too +late tears for wrongs done to those who are gone beyond the reach of our +penitence. "Children obey your parents in all things," that you may be +spared the sting of conscience for childish faults, which may be set +tingling and smarting again even in old age. + +The law for parents is addressed to "fathers," partly because a mother's +tenderness has less need of the warning "provoke not your children," +than a father's more rigorous rule usually has, and partly because the +father is regarded as the head of the household. The advice is full of +practical sagacity. How do parents provoke their children? By +unreasonable commands, by perpetual restrictions, by capricious jerks at +the bridle, alternating with as capricious dropping of the reins +altogether, by not governing their own tempers, by shrill or stern tones +where quiet, soft ones would do, by frequent checks and rebukes, and +sparing praise. And what is sure to follow such mistreatment by father +or mother? First, as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it; +"wrath"--bursts of temper, for which probably the child is punished and +the parent is guilty--and then spiritless listlessness and apathy. "I +cannot please him whatever I do," leads to a rankling sense of +injustice, and then to recklessness--"it is useless to try any more." +And when a child or a man loses heart, there will be no more obedience. +Paul's theory of the training of children is closely connected with his +central doctrine, that love is the life of service, and faith the parent +of righteousness. To him hope and gladness and confident love underlie +all obedience. When a child loves and trusts, he will obey. When he +fears and has to think of his father as capricious, exacting or stern, +he will do like the man in the parable, who was afraid because he +thought of his master as austere, reaping where he did not sow, and +therefore went and hid his talent. Children's obedience must be fed on +love and praise. Fear paralyses activity, and kills service, whether it +cowers in the heart of a boy to his father, or of a man to his Father in +heaven. + +So parents are to let the sunshine of their smile ripen their children's +love to fruit of obedience, and remember that frost in spring scatters +the blossoms on the grass. Many a parent, especially many a father, +drives his child into evil by keeping him at a distance. He should make +his boy a companion and playmate, teach him to think of his father as +his confidant, try to keep his child nearer to himself than to anybody +beside, and then his authority will be absolute, his opinions an oracle, +and his lightest wish a law. Is not the kingdom of Jesus Christ based +on His becoming a brother and one of ourselves, and is it not wielded in +gentleness and enforced by love? Is it not the most absolute of rules? +and should not the parental authority be like it--having a reed for a +sceptre, lowliness and gentleness being stronger to rule and to sway +than the "rods of iron" or of gold which earthly monarchs wield? + +There is added to this precept, in Ephesians, an injunction on the +positive side of parental duty: "Bring them up in the nurture and +admonition of the Lord." I fear that is a duty fallen wofully into +disuse in many Christian households. Many parents think it wise to send +their children away from home for their education, and so hand over +their moral and religious training to teachers. That may be right, but +it makes the fulfilment of this precept all but impossible. Others, who +have their children beside them, are too busy all the week, and too fond +of "rest" on Sunday. Many send their children to a Sunday school chiefly +that they themselves may have a quiet house and a sound sleep in the +afternoon. Every Christian minister, if he keeps his eyes open, must see +that there is no religious instruction worth calling by the name in a +very large number of professedly Christian households; and he is bound +to press very earnestly on his hearers the question, whether the +Christian fathers and mothers among them do their duty in this matter. +Many of them, I fear, have never opened their lips to their children on +religious subjects. Is it not a grief and a shame that men and women +with some religion in them, and loving their little ones dearly, should +be tongue-tied before them on the most important of all things? What +can come of it but what does come of it so often that it saddens one to +see how frequently it occurs--that the children drift away from a faith +which their parents did not care enough about to teach it to them? A +silent father makes prodigal sons, and many a grey head has been brought +down with sorrow to the grave, and many a mother's heart broken, because +he and she neglected their plain duty, which can be handed over to no +schools or masters--the duty of religious instruction. "These words +which I command thee, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them +diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in +thine house." + +III. The Reciprocal Duties of servants and masters--obedience and +justice. + +The first thing to observe here is, that these "servants" are slaves, +not persons who have voluntarily given their work for wages. The +relation of Christianity to slavery is too wide a subject to be touched +here. It must be enough to point out that Paul recognises that "sum of +all villanies," gives instructions to both parties in it, never says one +word in condemnation of it. More remarkable still; the messenger who +carried this letter to Colossæ carried in the same bag the Epistle to +Philemon, and was accompanied by the fugitive slave Onesimus, on whose +neck Paul bound again the chain, so to speak, with his own hands. And +yet the gospel which Paul preached has in it principles which cut up +slavery by the roots; as we read in this very letter, "In Christ Jesus +there is neither bond nor free." Why then did not Christ and His +apostles make war against slavery? For the same reason for which they +did not make war against _any_ political or social institutions. "First +make the tree good and his fruit good." The only way to reform +institutions is to elevate and quicken the general conscience, and then +the evil will be outgrown, left behind, or thrown aside. Mould men and +the men will mould institutions. So Christianity did not set itself to +fell this upas tree, which would have been a long and dangerous task; +but girdled it, as we may say, stripped the bark off it, and left it to +die--and it _has_ died in all Christian lands now. + +But the principles laid down here are quite as applicable to our form of +domestic and other service as to the slaves and masters of Colossæ. + +Note then the extent of the servant's obedience--"in all things." Here, +of course, as in former cases, is there presupposed the limit of supreme +obedience to God's commands; that being safe, all else is to give way to +the duty of submission. It is a stern command, that seems all on the +side of the masters. It might strike a chill into many a slave, who had +been drawn to the gospel by the hope of finding some little lightening +of the yoke that pressed so heavily on his poor galled neck, and of +hearing some voice speaking in tenderer tones than those of harsh +command. Still more emphatically, and, as it might seem, still more +harshly, the Apostle goes on to insist on the inward completeness of the +obedience--"not with eyeservice (a word of Paul's own coining) as +men-pleasers." We have a proverb about the worth of the master's eye, +which bears witness that the same fault still clings to hired service. +One has only to look at the next set of bricklayers one sees on a +scaffold, or of haymakers one comes across in a field, to see it. The +vice was venial in slaves; it is inexcusable, because it darkens into +theft, in paid servants--and it spreads far and wide. All scamped work, +all productions of man's hand or brain which are got up to look better +than they are, all fussy parade of diligence when under inspection and +slackness afterwards--and all their like which infect and infest every +trade and profession, are transfixed by the sharp point of this precept. + +"But in singleness of heart," that is, with undivided motive, which is +the antithesis and the cure for "eyeservice"--and "fearing God," which +is opposed to "pleasing men." Then follows the positive injunction, +covering the whole ground of action and lifting the constrained +obedience to the earthly master up into the sacred and serene loftiness +of religious duty, "whatsoever ye do, work heartily," or from the soul. +The word for _work_ is stronger than that for _do_, and implies effort +and toil. They are to put all their power into their work, and not be +afraid of hard toil. And they are not only to bend their backs but their +wills, and to labour "from the soul," that is, cheerfully and with +interest--a hard lesson for a slave and asking more than could be +expected from human nature, as many of them would, no doubt, think. Paul +goes on to transfigure the squalor and misery of the slave's lot by a +sudden beam of light--"as to the Lord"--your true "Master," for it is +the same word as in the previous verse--"and not unto men." Do not think +of your tasks as only enjoined by harsh, capricious, selfish men, but +lift your thoughts to Christ, who is your Lord, and glorify all these +sordid duties by seeing _His_ will in them. He only who works as "to +the Lord," will work "heartily." The thought of Christ's command, and of +my poor toil as done for His sake, will change constraint into +cheerfulness, and make unwelcome tasks pleasant, and monotonous ones +fresh, and trivial ones great. It will evoke new powers, and renewed +consecration. In that atmosphere, the dim flame of servile obedience +will burn more brightly, as a lamp plunged into a jar of pure oxygen. + +The stimulus of a great hope for the ill-used, unpaid slave, is added. +Whatever their earthly masters might fail to give them, the true Master +whom they really served would accept no work for which He did not return +more than sufficient wages. "From the Lord ye shall receive the +recompense of the inheritance." Blows and scanty food and poor lodging +may be all that they get from their owners for all their sweat and toil, +but if they are Christ's slaves, they will be treated no more as slaves, +but as sons, and receive a son's portion, the exact recompense which +consists of the "inheritance." The juxtaposition of the two ideas of the +slave and the inheritance evidently hints at the unspoken thought, that +they are heirs because they are sons--a thought which might well lift up +bowed backs and brighten dull faces. The hope of that reward came like +an angel into the smoky huts and hopeless lives of these poor slaves. It +shone athwart all the gloom and squalor, and taught patience beneath +"the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely." Through long, weary +generations it has lived in the hearts of men driven to God by man's +tyranny, and forced to clutch at heaven's brightness to keep them from +being made mad by earth's blackness. It may irradiate our poor lives, +especially when we fail, as we all do sometimes, to get recognition of +our work, or fruit from it. If we labour for man's appreciation or +gratitude, we shall certainly be disappointed; but if for Christ, we +have abundant wages beforehand, and we shall have an overabundant +requital, the munificence of which will make us more ashamed of our +unworthy service than anything else could do. Christ remains in no man's +debt. "Who hath first given, and it shall be recompensed to him again?" + +The last word to the slave is a warning against neglect of duty. There +is to be a double recompense--to the slave of Christ the portion of a +son; to the wrong doer retribution "for the wrong that he has done." +Then, though slavery was itself a wrong, though the master who held a +man in bondage was himself inflicting the greatest of all wrongs, yet +Paul will have the slave think that he still has duties to his master. +That is part of Paul's general position as to slavery. He will not wage +war against it, but for the present accept it. Whether he saw the full +bearing of the gospel on that and other infamous institutions may be +questioned. He has given us the principles which will destroy them, but +he is no revolutionist, and so his present counsel is to remember the +master's rights, even though they be founded on wrong, and he has no +hesitation in condemning and predicting retribution for evil things done +by a slave to his master. A superior's injustice does not warrant an +inferior's breach of moral law, though it may excuse it. Two blacks do +not make a white. Herein lies the condemnation of all the crimes which +enslaved nations and classes have done, of many a deed which has been +honoured and sung, of the sanguinary cruelties of servile revolts, as +well as of the questionable means to which labour often resorts in +modern industrial warfare. The homely, plain principle, that a man does +not receive the right to break God's laws because he is ill-treated, +would clear away much fog from some people's notions of how to advance +the cause of the oppressed. + +But, on the other hand, this warning may look towards the masters also; +and probably the same double reference is also to be discerned in the +closing words to the slaves, "and there is no respect of persons." The +servants were naturally tempted to think that God was on their side, as +indeed He was, but also to think that the great coming day of judgment +was mostly meant to be terrible to tyrants and oppressors, and so to +look forward to it with a fierce un-Christian joy, as well as with a +false confidence built only on their present misery. They would be apt +to think that God did "respect persons," in the opposite fashion from +that of a partial judge--namely, that He would incline the scale in +favour of the ill-used, the poor, the down-trodden; that they would have +an easy test and a light sentence, while His frowns and His severity +would be kept for the powerful and the rich who had ground the faces of +the poor and kept back the hire of the labourer. It was therefore a +needful reminder for them, and for us all, that that judgment has +nothing to do with earthly conditions, but only with conduct and +character; that sorrow and calamity here do not open heaven's gates +hereafter, and that the slave and master are tried by the same law. + +The series of precepts closes with a brief but most pregnant word to +masters. They are bid to give to their slaves "that which is just and +equal," that is to say, "equitable." A startling criterion for a +master's duty to the slave who was denied to have any rights at all. +They were chattels, not persons. A master might, in regard to them, do +what he liked with his own; he might crucify or torture, or commit any +crime against manhood either in body or soul, and no voice would +question or forbid. How astonished Roman lawgivers would have been if +they could have heard Paul talking about justice and equity as applied +to a slave! What a strange new dialect it must have sounded to the +slave-owners in the Colossian Church! They would not see how far the +principle, thus quietly introduced, was to carry succeeding ages; they +could not dream of the great tree that was to spring from this tiny +seed-precept; but no doubt the instinct which seldom fails an unjustly +privileged class, would make them blindly dislike the exhortation, and +feel as if they were getting out of their depth when they were bid to +consider what was "right" and "equitable" in their dealings with their +slaves. + +The Apostle does not define what _is_ "right and equal." That will come. +The main thing is to drive home the conviction that there are duties +owing to slaves, inferiors, employés. We are far enough from a +satisfactory discharge of these yet; but, at any rate, everybody now +admits the principle--and we have mainly to thank Christianity for that. +Slowly the general conscience is coming to recognise that simple truth +more and more clearly, and its application is becoming more decisive +with each generation. There is much to be done before society is +organized on that principle, but the time is coming--and till it is +come, there will be no peace. All masters and employers of labour, in +their mills and warehouses, are bid to base their relations to "hands" +and servants on the one firm foundation of "justice." Paul does not say, +Give your servants what is kind and patronising. He wants a great deal +more than that. Charity likes to come in and supply the wants which +would never have been felt had there been equity. An ounce of justice is +sometimes worth a ton of charity. + +This duty of the masters is enforced by the same thought which was to +stimulate the servants to their tasks: "ye also have a Master in +heaven." That is not only stimulus, but it is pattern. I said that Paul +did not specify what was just and right, and that his precept might +therefore be objected to as vague. Does the introduction of this thought +of the master's Master in heaven, take away any of the vagueness? If +Christ is our Master, then we are to look to Him to see what a master +ought to be, and to try to be masters like that. That is precise enough, +is it not? That grips tight enough, does it not? Give your servants what +you expect and need to get from Christ. If we try to live that +commandment for twenty-four hours, it will probably not be its vagueness +of which we complain. + +"Ye have a Master in heaven" is the great principle on which all +Christian duty reposes. Christ's command is my law, His will is supreme, +His authority absolute, His example all-sufficient. My soul, my life, my +all are His. My will is not my own. My possessions are not my own. My +being is not my own. All duty is elevated into obedience to Him, and +obedience to Him, utter and absolute, is dignity and freedom. We are +Christ's slaves, for He has bought us for Himself, by giving Himself for +us. Let that great sacrifice win our heart's love and our perfect +submission. "O Lord, truly I am Thy servant, Thou hast loosed my bonds." +Then all earthly relationships will be fulfilled by us; and we shall +move among men, breathing blessing and raying out brightness, when in +all, we remember that we have a Master in heaven, and do all our work +from the soul as to Him and not to men. + + + + +XXIII. + +_PRECEPTS FOR THE INNERMOST AND OUTERMOST LIFE._ + + "Continue stedfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving; + withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us a door for the + word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; + that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom + toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be + always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought + to answer each one."--COL. iv. 2-6 (Rev. Ver.). + + +So ends the ethical portion of the Epistle. A glance over the series of +practical exhortations, from the beginning of the preceding chapter +onwards, will show that, in general terms we may say that they deal +successively with a Christian's duties to himself, the Church, and the +family. And now, these last advices touch the two extremes of life, the +first of them having reference to the hidden life of prayer, and the +second and third to the outward, busy life of the market-place and the +street. That bringing together of the extremes seems to be the link of +connection here. The Christian life is first regarded as gathered into +itself--coiled as it were on its centre, like some strong spring. Next, +it is regarded as it operates in the world, and, like the uncoiling +spring, gives motion to wheels and pinions. These two sides of +experience and duty are often hard to blend harmoniously. The conflict +between busy Martha, who serves, and quiet Mary, who only sits and +gazes, goes on in every age and in every heart. Here we may find, in +some measure, the principle of reconciliation between their antagonistic +claims. Here is, at all events, the protest against allowing either to +oust the other. Continual prayer is to blend with unwearied action. We +are so to walk the dusty ways of life as to be ever in the secret place +of the Most High. "Continue stedfastly in prayer," and withal let there +be no unwholesome withdrawal from the duties and relationships of the +outer world, but let the prayer pass into, first, a wise walk, and +second, an ever-gracious speech. + +I. So we have here, first, an exhortation to a hidden life of constant +prayer. + +The word rendered "continue" in the Authorised Version, and more fully +in the Revised Version by "continue stedfastly," is frequently found in +reference to prayer, as well as in other connections. A mere enumeration +of some of these instances may help to illustrate its full meaning. "We +_will give ourselves_ to prayer," said the apostles in proposing the +creation of the office of deacon. "_Continuing instant_ in prayer" says +Paul to the Roman Church. "They _continuing_ daily with one accord in +the Temple" is the description of the early believers after Pentecost. +Simon Magus is said to have "continued with Philip," where there is +evidently the idea of close adherence as well as of uninterrupted +companionship. These examples seem to show that the word implies both +earnestness and continuity; so that this injunction not only covers the +ground of Paul's other exhortation, "Pray without ceasing," but includes +fervour also. + +The Christian life, then, ought to be one of unbroken prayer. + +What manner of prayer can that be which is to be continuous through a +life that must needs be full of toil on outward things? How can such a +precept be obeyed? Surely there is no need for paring down its +comprehensiveness, and saying that it merely means--a very frequent +recurrence to devout exercises, as often as the pressure of daily duties +will permit. That is not the direction in which the harmonising of such +a precept with the obvious necessities of our position is to be sought. +We must seek it in a more inward and spiritual notion of prayer. We must +separate between the form and the substance, the treasure and the +earthen vessel which carries it. What is prayer? Not the utterance of +words--they are but the vehicle; but the attitude of the spirit. +Communion, aspiration, and submission, these three are the elements of +prayer--and these three may be diffused through a life. It is possible, +though difficult. There may be unbroken communion, a constant +consciousness of God's presence, and of our contact with Him, thrilling +through our souls and freshening them, like some breath of spring +reaching the toilers in choky factories and busy streets; or even if the +communion do not run like an absolutely unbroken line of light through +our lives, the points may be so near together as all but to touch. In +such communion words are needless. When spirits draw closest together +there is no need for speech. Silently the heart may be kept fragrant +with God's felt presence, and sunny with the light of His face. There +are towns nestling beneath the Alps, every narrow filthy alley of which +looks to the great solemn snow-peaks, and the inhabitants, amid all the +squalor of their surroundings, have that apocalypse of wonder ever +before them, if they would only lift their eyes. So we, if we will, may +live with the majesties and beauties of the great white throne and of +Him that sat on it closing every vista and filling the end of every +commonplace passage in our lives. + +In like manner, there may be a continual, unspoken and unbroken presence +of the second element of prayer, which is aspiration, or desire after +God. All circumstances, whether duty, sorrow or joy, should and may be +used to stamp more deeply on my consciousness the sense of my weakness +and need; and every moment, with its experience of God's swift and +punctual grace, and all my communion with Him which unveils to me His +beauty--should combine to move longings for Him, for more of Him. The +very deepest cry of the heart which understands its own yearnings, is +for the living God; and perpetual as the hunger of the spirit for the +food which will stay its profound desires, will be the prayer, though it +may often be voiceless, of the soul which knows where alone that food +is. + +Continual too may be our submission to His will, which is an essential +of all prayer. Many people's notion is that our prayer is urging our +wishes on God, and that His answer is giving us what we desire. But true +prayer is the meeting in harmony of God's will and man's, and its +deepest expression is not, Do this, because I desire it, O Lord; but, I +do this because Thou desirest it, O Lord. That submission may be the +very spring of all life, and whatsoever work is done in such spirit, +however "secular" and however small it be, were it making buttons, is +truly prayer. + +So there should run all through our lives the music of that continual +prayer, heard beneath all our varying occupations like some prolonged +deep bass note, that bears up and gives dignity to the lighter melody +that rises and falls and changes above it, like the spray on the crest +of a great wave. Our lives will then be noble and grave, and woven into +a harmonious unity, when they are based upon continual communion with, +continual desire after, and continual submission to, God. If they are +not, they will be worth nothing and will come to nothing. + +But such continuity of prayer is not to be attained without effort; +therefore Paul goes on to say, "Watching therein." We are apt to do +drowsily whatever we do constantly. Men fall asleep at any continuous +work. There is also the constant influence of externals, drawing our +thoughts away from their true home in God, so that if we are to keep up +continuous devotion, we shall have to rouse ourselves often when in the +very act of dropping off to sleep. "Awake up, my glory!" we shall often +have to say to our souls. Do we not all know that subtly approaching +languor? and have we not often caught ourselves in the very act of +falling asleep at our prayers? We must make distinct and resolute +efforts to rouse ourselves--we must concentrate our attention and apply +the needed stimulants, and bring the interest and activity of our whole +nature to bear on this work of continual prayer, else it will become +drowsy mumbling as of a man but half awake. The world has strong +opiates for the soul, and we must stedfastly resist their influence, if +we are to "continue in prayer." + +One way of so watching is to have and to observe definite times of +spoken prayer. We hear much now-a-days about the small value of times +and forms of prayer, and how, as I have been saying, true prayer is +independent of these, and needs no words. All that, of course, is true; +but when the practical conclusion is drawn that therefore we can do +without the outward form, a grave mistake, full of mischief, is +committed. I do not, for my part, believe in a devotion diffused through +a life and never concentrated and coming to the surface in visible +outward acts or audible words; and, as far as I have seen, the men whose +religion is spread all through their lives most really are the men who +keep the central reservoir full, if I may so say, by regular and +frequent hours and words of prayer. The Christ, whose whole life was +devotion and communion with the Father, had His nights on the mountains, +and rising up a great while before day, He watched unto prayer. We must +do the like. + +One more word has still to be said. This continual prayer is to be "with +thanksgiving"--again the injunction so frequent in this letter, in such +various connections. Every prayer should be blended with gratitude, +without the perfume of which, the incense of devotion lacks one element +of fragrance. The sense of need, or the consciousness of sin, may evoke +"strong crying and tears," but the completest prayer rises confident +from a grateful heart, which weaves memory into hope, and asks much +because it has received much. A true recognition of the lovingkindness +of the past has much to do with making our communion sweet, our desires +believing, our submission cheerful. Thankfulness is the feather that +wings the arrow of prayer--the height from which our souls rise most +easily to the sky. + +And now the Apostle's tone softens from exhortation to entreaty, and +with very sweet and touching humility he begs a supplemental corner in +their prayers. "Withal praying also for us." The "withal" and "also" +have a tone of lowliness in them, while the "us," including as it does +Timothy, who is associated with him in the superscription of the letter, +and possibly others also, increases the impression of modesty. The +subject of their prayers for Paul and the others is to be that "God may +open unto us a door for the word." That phrase apparently means an +unhindered opportunity of preaching the gospel, for the consequence of +the door's being opened is added--"to speak (so that I may speak) the +mystery of Christ." The special reason for this prayer is, "for which I +am also (in addition to my other sufferings) in bonds." + +He was a prisoner. He cared little about that or about the fetters on +his wrists, so far as his own comfort was concerned; but his spirit +chafed at the restraint laid upon him in spreading the good news of +Christ, though he had been able to do much in his prison, both among the +Prætorian guard, and throughout the whole population of Rome. Therefore +he would engage his friends to ask God to open the prison doors, as He +had done for Peter, not that Paul might come out, but that the gospel +might. The personal was swallowed up; all that he cared for was to do +his work. + +But he wants their prayers for more than that--"that I may make it +manifest as I ought to speak." This is probably explained most naturally +as meaning his endowment with power to set forth the message in a manner +adequate to its greatness. When he thought of what it was that he, +unworthy, had to preach, its majesty and wonderfulness brought a kind of +awe over his spirit; and endowed, as he was, with apostolic functions +and apostolic grace; conscious, as he was, of being anointed and +inspired by God, he yet felt that the richness of the treasure made the +earthen vessel seem terribly unworthy to bear it. His utterances seemed +to himself poor and unmelodious beside the majestic harmonies of the +gospel. He could not soften his voice to breathe tenderly enough a +message of such love, nor give it strength enough to peal forth a +message of such tremendous import and world-wide destination. + +If Paul felt his conception of the greatness of the gospel dwarfing into +nothing _his_ words when he tried to preach it, what must every other +true minister of Christ feel? If he, in the fulness of his inspiration, +besought a place in his brethren's prayers, how much more must they need +it, who try with stammering tongues to preach the truth that made his +fiery words seem ice? Every such man must turn to those who love him and +listen to his poor presentment of the riches of Christ, with Paul's +entreaty. His friends cannot do a kinder thing to him than to bear him +on their hearts in their prayers to God. + +II. We have here next, a couple of precepts, which spring at a bound +from the inmost secret of the Christian life to its circumference, and +refer to the outward life in regard to the non-Christian world, +enjoining, in view of it, a wise walk and gracious speech. + +"Walk in wisdom towards them that are without." Those that are within +are those who have "fled for refuge" to Christ, and are within the fold, +the fortress, the ark. Men who sit safe within while the storm howls, +may simply think with selfish complacency of the poor wretches exposed +to its fierceness. The phrase may express spiritual pride and even +contempt. All close corporations tend to generate dislike and scorn of +outsiders, and the Church has had its own share of such feeling; but +there is no trace of anything of the sort here. Rather is there pathos +and pity in the word, and a recognition that their sad condition gives +these outsiders a claim on Christian men, who are bound to go out to +their help and bring them in. Precisely because they are "without" do +those within owe them a wise walk, that "if any will not hear the word, +they may without the word be won." The thought is in some measure +parallel to our Lord's words, of which perhaps it is a reminiscence. +"Behold I send you forth"--a strange thing for a careful shepherd to +do--"as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents." +Think of that picture--the handful of cowering frightened creatures +huddled against each other, and ringed round by that yelping, +white-toothed crowd, ready to tear them to pieces! So are Christ's +followers in the world. Of course, things have changed in many respects +since those days; partly because persecution has gone out of fashion, +and partly because "the world" has been largely influenced by Christian +morality, and partly because the Church has been largely secularized. +The temperature of the two has become nearly equalized over a large +tract of professing Christendom. So a tolerably good understanding and a +brisk trade has sprung up between the sheep and the wolves. But for all +that, there is fundamental discord, however changed may be its +exhibition, and if we are true to our Master and insist on shaping our +lives by His rules, we shall find out that there is. + +We need, therefore, to "walk in wisdom" towards the non-Christian world; +that is, to let practical prudence shape all our conduct. If we are +Christians, we have to live under the eyes of vigilant and not +altogether friendly observers, who derive satisfaction and harm from any +inconsistency of ours. A plainly Christian life that needs no commentary +to exhibit its harmony with Christ's commandments is the first duty we +owe to them. + +And the wisdom which is to mould our lives in view of these outsiders +will "discern both time and judgment," will try to take the measure of +men and act accordingly. Common sense and practical sagacity are +important accompaniments of Christian zeal. What a singularly complex +character, in this respect, was Paul's--enthusiastic and yet capable of +such diplomatic adaptation; and withal never dropping to cunning, nor +sacrificing truth! Enthusiasts who despise worldly wisdom, and therefore +often dash themselves against stone walls, are not rare; cool +calculators who abhor all generous glow of feeling and have ever a +pailful of cold water for any project which shows it, are only too +common--but fire and ice together, like a volcano with glaciers +streaming down its cone, are rare. Fervour married to tact, common +sense which keeps close to earth and enthusiasm which flames heaven +high, are a rare combination. It is not often that the same voice can +say, "I count not my life dear to myself," and "I became all things to +all men." + +A dangerous principle that last, a very slippery piece of ground to get +upon!--say people, and quite truly. It _is_ dangerous, and one thing +only will keep a man's feet when on it, and that is, that his wise +adaptation shall be perfectly unselfish, and that he shall ever keep +clear before him the great object to be gained, which is nothing +personal, but "that I might by all means save some." If that end is held +in view, we shall be saved from the temptation of hiding or maiming the +very truth which we desire should be received, and our wise adaptation +of ourselves and of our message to the needs and weaknesses and +peculiarities of those "who are without," will not degenerate into +handling the word of God deceitfully. Paul advised "walking in wisdom;" +he abhorred "walking in craftiness." + +We owe them that are without such a walk as may tend to bring them in. +Our life is to a large extent their Bible. They know a great deal more +about Christianity, as they see it in us, than as it is revealed in +Christ, or recorded in Scripture--and if, as seen in us, it does not +strike them as very attractive, small wonder if they still prefer to +remain where they are. Let us take care lest instead of being +doorkeepers to the house of the Lord, to beckon passers-by and draw them +in, we block the doorway, and keep them from seeing the wonders within. + +The Apostle adds a special way in which this wisdom shows +itself--namely, "redeeming the time." The last word here does not denote +time in general, but a definite season, or _opportunity_. The lesson, +then, is not that of making the best use of all the moments as they fly, +precious as that lesson is, but that of discerning and eagerly using +appropriate opportunities for Christian service. The figure is simple +enough; to "buy up" means to make one's own. "Make much of time, let not +advantage slip," is an advice in exactly the same spirit. Two things are +included in it; the watchful study of characters, so as to know the +right times to bring influences to bear on them, and an earnest +diligence in utilizing these for the highest purposes. We have not acted +wisely towards those who are without unless we have used every +opportunity to draw them in. + +But besides a wise walk, there is to be "gracious speech." "Let your +speech be always with grace." A similar juxtaposition of "wisdom" and +"grace" occurred in chapter iii. 16. "Let the word of Christ dwell in +you richly in all wisdom ... singing with grace in your hearts"; and +there as here, "grace" may be taken either in its lower æsthetic sense, +or in its higher spiritual. It may mean either favour, agreeableness, or +the Divine gift, bestowed by the indwelling Spirit. The former is +supposed by many good expositors to be the meaning here. But is it a +Christian's duty to make his speech always agreeable? Sometimes it is +his plain duty to make it very disagreeable indeed. If our speech is to +be true, and wholesome, it must sometimes rasp and go against the grain. +Its pleasantness depends on the inclinations of the hearers rather than +on the will of the honest speaker. If he is to "redeem the time" and +"walk wisely to them that are without," his speech cannot be always with +such grace. The advice to make our words always pleasing may be a very +good maxim for worldly success, but it smacks of Chesterfield's Letters +rather than of Paul's Epistles. + +We must go much deeper for the true import of this exhortation. It is +substantially this--whether you can speak smooth things or no, and +whether your talk is always directly religious or no--and it need not +and cannot always be that--let there ever be in it the manifest +influence of God's Spirit, Who dwells in the Christian heart, and will +mould and sanctify your speech. Of you, as of your Master, let it be +true, "Grace is poured into thy lips." He in whose spirit the Divine +Spirit abides will be truly "Golden-mouthed"; his speech shall distil as +the dew, and whether his grave and lofty words please frivolous and +prurient ears or no, they will be beautiful in the truest sense, and +show the Divine life pulsing through them, as some transparent skin +shows the throbbing of the blue veins. Men who feed their souls on great +authors catch their style, as some of our great living orators, who are +eager students of English poetry. So if we converse much with God, +listening to His voice in our hearts, our speech will have in it a tone +that will echo that deep music. Our accent will betray our country. Then +our speech will be with grace in the lower sense of pleasingness. The +truest gracefulness, both of words and conduct, comes from heavenly +grace. The beauty caught from God, the fountain of all things lovely, is +the highest. + +The speech is to be "seasoned with salt." That does not mean the "Attic +salt" of wit. There is nothing more wearisome than the talk of men who +are always trying to be piquant and brilliant. Such speech is like a +"pillar of salt"--it sparkles, but is cold, and has points that wound, +and it tastes bitter. That is not what Paul recommends. Salt was used in +sacrifice--let the sacrificial salt be applied to all our words; that +is, let all we say be offered up to God, "a sacrifice of praise to God +continually." Salt preserves. Put into your speech what will keep it +from rotting, or, as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it, "let no +_corrupt_ communication proceed out of your mouth." Frivolous talk, +dreary gossip, ill-natured talk, idle talk, to say nothing of foul and +wicked words, will be silenced when your speech is seasoned with salt. + +The following words make it probable that salt here is used also with +some allusion to its power of giving savour to food. Do not deal in +insipid generalities, but suit your words to your hearers, "that ye may +know how ye ought to answer each one." Speech that fits close to the +characteristics and wants of the people to whom it is spoken is sure to +be interesting, and that which does not will for them be insipid. +Commonplaces that hit full against the hearer will be no commonplaces to +him, and the most brilliant words that do not meet his mind or needs +will to him be tasteless "as the white of an egg." + +Individual peculiarities, then, must determine the wise way of approach +to each man, and there will be wide variety in the methods. Paul's +language to the wild hill tribes of Lycaonia was not the same as to the +cultivated, curious crowd on Mars' Hill, and his sermons in the +synagogues have a different tone from his reasonings of judgment to come +before Felix. + +All that is too plain to need illustration. But one word may be added. +The Apostle here regards it as the task of every Christian man to speak +for Christ. Further, he recommends dealing with individuals rather than +masses, as being within the scope of each Christian, and as being much +more efficacious. Salt has to be rubbed in, if it is to do any good. It +is better for most of us to fish with the rod than with the net, to +angle for single souls, rather than to try and enclose a multitude at +once. Preaching to a congregation has its own place and value; but +private and personal talk, honestly and wisely done, will effect more +than the most eloquent preaching. Better to drill in the seeds, dropping +them one by one into the little pits made for their reception, than to +sow them broadcast. + +And what shall we say of Christian men and women, who can talk +animatedly and interestingly of anything but of their Saviour and His +kingdom? Timidity, misplaced reverence, a dread of seeming to be +self-righteous, a regard for conventional proprieties, and the national +reserve account for much of the lamentable fact that there are so many +such. But all these barriers would be floated away like straws, if a +great stream of Christian feeling were pouring from the heart. What +fills the heart will overflow by the floodgates of speech. So that the +real reason for the unbroken silence in which many Christian people +conceal their faith is mainly the small quantity of it which there is to +conceal. + +A solemn ideal is set before us in these parting injunctions--a higher +righteousness than was thundered from Sinai. When we think of our +hurried, formal devotion, our prayers forced from us sometimes by the +pressure of calamity, and so often suspended when the weight is lifted; +of the occasional glimpses that we get of God--as sailors may catch +sight of a guiding star for a moment through driving fog, and of the +long tracts of life which would be precisely the same, as far as our +thoughts are concerned, if there were no God at all, or He had nothing +to do with us--what an awful command that seems, "Continue stedfastly in +prayer"! + +When we think of our selfish disregard of the woes and dangers of the +poor wanderers without, exposed to the storm, while we think ourselves +safe in the fold, and of how little we have meditated on and still less +discharged our obligations to them, and of how we have let precious +opportunities slip through our slack hands, we may well bow rebuked +before the exhortation, "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without." + +When we think of the stream of words ever flowing from our lips, and how +few grains of gold that stream has brought down amid all its sand, and +how seldom Christ's name has been spoken by us to hearts that heed Him +not nor know Him, the exhortation, "Let your speech be always with +grace," becomes an indictment as truly as a command. + +There is but one place for us, the foot of the cross, that there we may +obtain forgiveness for all the faulty past and thence may draw +consecration and strength for the future, to enable us to keep that +lofty law of Christian morality, which is high and hard if we think only +of its precepts, but becomes light and easy when we open our hearts to +receive the power for obedience, "which," as this great Epistle +manifoldly teaches, "is Christ in you, the hope of glory." + + + + +XXIV. + +_TYCHICUS AND ONESIMUS, THE LETTER-BEARERS._ + + "All my affairs shall Tychicus make known unto you, the beloved + brother and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I + have sent unto you for this very purpose, that ye may know our + estate, and that he may comfort your hearts; together with Onesimus, + the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make + known unto you all things that _are done_ here."--COL. iv. 7-9 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +In Paul's days it was perhaps more difficult to get letters delivered +than to write them. It was a long, weary journey from Rome to +Colossæ,--across Italy, then by sea to Greece, across Greece, then by +sea to the port of Ephesus, and thence by rough ways to the upland +valley where lay Colossæ, with its neighbouring towns of Laodicea and +Hierapolis. So one thing which the Apostle has to think about is to find +messengers to carry his letter. He pitches upon these two, Tychicus and +Onesimus. The former is one of his personal attendants, told off for +this duty; the other, who has been in Rome under very peculiar +circumstances, is going home to Colossæ, on a strange errand, in which +he may be helped by having a message from Paul to carry. + +We shall not now deal with the words before us, so much as with these +two figures, whom we may regard as representing certain principles, and +embodying some useful lessons. + +I. Tychicus may stand as representing the greatness and sacredness of +small and secular service done for Christ. + +We must first try, in as few words as may be, to change the name into a +man. There is something very solemn and pathetic in these shadowy names +which appear for a moment on the page of Scripture, and are swallowed up +of black night, like stars that suddenly blaze out for a week or two, +and then dwindle and at last disappear altogether. They too lived, and +loved, and strove, and suffered, and enjoyed: and now--all is gone, +gone; the hot fire burned down to such a little handful of white ashes. +Tychicus and Onesimus! two shadows that once were men! and as they are, +so we shall be. + +As to Tychicus, there are several fragmentary notices about him in the +Acts of the Apostles and in Paul's letters, and although they do not +amount to much, still by piecing them together, and looking at them with +some sympathy, we can get a notion of the man. + +He does not appear till near the end of Paul's missionary work, and was +probably one of the fruits of the Apostle's long residence in Ephesus on +his last missionary tour, as we do not hear of him till after that +period. That stay in Ephesus was cut short by the silversmiths' +riot--the earliest example of trades' unions--when they wanted to +silence the preaching of the gospel because it damaged the market for +"shrines," and "_also_" was an insult to the great goddess! Thereupon +Paul retired to Europe, and after some months there, decided on his last +fateful journey to Jerusalem. On the way he was joined by a remarkable +group of friends seven in number, and apparently carefully selected so +as to represent the principal fields of the Apostle's labours. There +were three Europeans, two from "Asia"--meaning by that name, of course, +only the Roman province, which included mainly the western seaboard--and +two from the wilder inland country of Lycaonia. Tychicus was one of the +two from Asia; the other was Trophimus, whom we know to have been an +Ephesian (Acts xxi. 29), as Tychicus may not improbably have also been. + +We do not know that all the seven accompanied Paul to Jerusalem. +Trophimus we know did, and another of them, Aristarchus, is mentioned as +having sailed with him on the return voyage from Palestine (Acts xxvii. +2). But if they were not intended to go to Jerusalem, why did they meet +him at all? The sacredness of the number seven, the apparent care to +secure a representation of the whole field of apostolic activity, and +the long distances that some of them must have travelled, make it +extremely unlikely that these men should have met him at a little port +in Asia Minor for the mere sake of being with him for a few days. It +certainly seems much more probable that they joined his company and went +on to Jerusalem. What for? Probably as bearers of money contributions +from the whole area of the Gentile Churches, to the "poor saints" +there--a purpose which would explain the composition of the delegation. +Paul was too sensitive and too sagacious to have more to do with money +matters than he could help. We learn from his letter to the Church at +Corinth that he insisted on another brother being associated with him in +the administration of their alms, so that no man could raise suspicions +against him. Paul's principle was that which ought to guide every man +entrusted with other people's money to spend for religious or charitable +purposes--"I shall not be your almoner unless some one appointed by you +stands by me to see that I spend your money rightly"--a good example +which, it is much to be desired, were followed by all workers, and +required to be followed as a condition of all giving. + +These seven, at all events, began the long journey with Paul. Among them +is our friend Tychicus, who may have learned to know the Apostle more +intimately during it, and perhaps developed qualities in travel which +marked him out as fit for the errand on which we here find him. + +This voyage was about the year 58 A.D. Then comes an interval of some +three or four years, in which occur Paul's arrest and imprisonment at +Cæsarea, his appearance before governors and kings, his voyage to Italy +and shipwreck, with his residence in Rome. Whether Tychicus was with him +during all this period, as Luke seems to have been, we do not know, nor +at what point he joined the Apostle, if he was not his companion +throughout. But the verses before us show that he was with Paul during +part of his first Roman captivity, probably about A.D. 62 or 63; and +their commendation of him as "a faithful minister," or helper of Paul, +implies that for a considerable period before this he had been rendering +services to the Apostle. + +He is now despatched all the long way to Colossæ to carry this letter, +and to tell the Church by word of mouth all that had happened in Rome. +No information of that kind is in the letter itself. That silence forms +a remarkable contrast to the affectionate abundance of personal details +in another prison letter, that to the Philippians, and probably marks +this Epistle as addressed to a Church never visited by Paul. Tychicus is +sent, according to the most probable reading, that "ye may know our +estate, and that he may comfort your hearts"--encouraging the brethren +to Christian stedfastness, not only by his news of Paul, but by his own +company and exhortations. + +The very same words are employed about him in the contemporaneous letter +to the Ephesians. Evidently, then, he carried both epistles on the same +journey; and one reason for selecting him as messenger is plainly that +he was a native of the province, and probably of Ephesus. When Paul +looked round his little circle of attendant friends, his eye fell on +Tychicus, as the very man for such an errand. "You go, Tychicus. It is +your home; they all know you." + +The most careful students now think that the Epistle to the Ephesians +was meant to go the round of the Churches of Asia Minor, beginning, no +doubt, with that in the great city of Ephesus. If that be so, and +Tychicus had to carry it to these Churches in turn, he would necessarily +come, in the course of his duty, to Laodicea, which was only a few miles +from Colossæ, and so could most conveniently deliver this Epistle. The +wider and the narrower mission fitted into each other. + +No doubt he went, and did his work. We can fancy the eager groups, +perhaps in some upper room, perhaps in some quiet place of prayer by the +river side; in their midst the two messengers, with a little knot of +listeners and questioners round each. How they would have to tell the +story a dozen times over! how every detail would be precious! how tears +would come and hearts would glow! how deep into the night they would +talk! and how many a heart that had begun to waver would be confirmed in +cleaving to Christ by the exhortations of Tychicus, by the very sight of +Onesimus, and by Paul's words of fire! + +What became of Tychicus after that journey we do not know. Perhaps he +settled down at Ephesus for a time, perhaps he returned to Paul. At any +rate, we get two more glimpses of him at a later period--one in the +Epistle to Titus, in which we hear of the Apostle's intention to +despatch him on another journey to Crete, and the last in the close of +the second Epistle to Timothy, written from Rome probably about A.D. 67. +The Apostle believes that his death is near, and seems to have sent away +most of his staff. Among the notices of their various appointments we +read, "Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus." He is not said to have been +sent on any mission connected with the Churches. It may be that he was +simply sent away because, by reason of his impending martyrdom, Paul had +no more need of him. True, he still has Luke by him, and he wishes +Timothy to come and bring his first "minister," Mark, with him. But he +has sent away Tychicus, as if he had said, Now, go back to your home, my +friend! You have been a faithful servant for ten years. I need you no +more. Go to your own people, and take my blessing. God be with you! So +they parted, he that was for death, to die! and he that was for life, to +live and to treasure the memory of Paul in his heart for the rest of +his days. These are the facts; ten years of faithful service to the +Apostle, partly during his detention in Rome, and much of it spent in +wearisome and dangerous travelling undertaken to carry a couple of +letters. + +As for his character, Paul has given us something of it in these few +words, which have commended him to a wider circle than the handful of +Christians at Colossæ. As for his personal godliness and goodness, he is +"a beloved brother," as are all who love Christ; but he is also a +"faithful minister," or personal attendant upon the Apostle. Paul always +seems to have had one or two such about him, from the time of his first +journey, when John Mark filled the post, to the end of his career. +Probably he was no great hand at managing affairs, and needed some plain +common-sense nature beside him, who would be secretary or amanuensis +sometimes, and general helper and factotum. Men of genius and men +devoted to some great cause which tyrannously absorbs attention, want +some person to fill such a homely office. The person who filled it would +be likely to be a plain man, not gifted in any special degree for higher +service. Common sense, willingness to be troubled with small details of +purely secular arrangements, and a hearty love for the chief, and desire +to spare him annoyance and work, were the qualifications. Such probably +was Tychicus--no orator, no organiser, no thinker, but simply an honest, +loving soul, who did not shrink from rough outward work, if only it +might help the cause. We do not read that he was a teacher or preacher, +or miracle worker. His gift was--ministry, and he gave himself to his +ministry. His business was to run Paul's errands, and, like a true man, +he ran them "faithfully." + +So then, he is fairly taken as representing the greatness and sacredness +of small and secular service for Christ. For the Apostle goes on to add +something to his eulogium as a "faithful minister"--when he calls him "a +fellow-servant," or slave, "in the Lord." As if he had said, Do not +suppose that because I write this letter, and Tychicus carries it, there +is much difference between us. We are both slaves of the same Lord who +has set each of us his tasks; and though the tasks be different, the +obedience is the same, and the doers stand on one level. I am not +Tychicus' master, though he be my minister. We have both, as I have been +reminding you that you all have, an owner in heaven. The delicacy of the +turn thus given to the commendation is a beautiful indication of Paul's +generous, chivalrous nature. No wonder that such a soul bound men like +Tychicus to him! + +But there is more than merely a revelation of a beautiful character in +the words; there are great truths in them. We may draw them out in two +or three thoughts. + +Small things done for Christ are great. Trifles that contribute and are +indispensable to a great result are great; or perhaps, more properly, +both words are out of place. In some powerful engine there is a little +screw, and if it drop out, the great piston cannot rise nor the huge +crank turn. What have big and little to do with things which are equally +indispensable? There is a great rudder that steers an ironclad. It moves +on a "pintle" a few inches long. If that bit of iron were gone, what +would become of the rudder, and what would be the use of the ship with +all her guns? There is an old jingling rhyme about losing a shoe for +want of a nail, and a horse for want of a shoe, and a man for want of a +horse, and a battle for want of a man, and a kingdom for loss of a +battle. The intervening links may be left out--and the nail and the +kingdom brought together. In a similar spirit, we may say that the +trifles done for Christ which help the great things are as important as +these. What is the use of writing letters, if you cannot get them +delivered? It takes both Paul and Tychicus to get the letter into the +hands of the people at Colossæ. + +Another thought suggested by the figure of Paul's minister, who was also +his fellow-slave, is the sacredness of secular work done for Christ. +When Tychicus is caring for Paul's comfort, and looking after common +things for him, he is serving Christ, and his work is "in the Lord." +That is equivalent to saying that the distinction between sacred and +secular, religious and non-religious, like that of great and small, +disappears from work done for and in Jesus. Whenever there is +organization, there must be much work concerned with purely material +things: and the most spiritual forces must have some organization. There +must be men for "the outward business of the house of God" as well as +white-robed priests at the altar, and the rapt gazer in the secret place +of the Most High. There are a hundred matters of detail and of purely +outward and mechanical sort which must be seen to by somebody. The +alternative is to do them in a purely mechanical and secular manner and +so to make the work utterly dreary and contemptible, or in a devout and +earnest manner and so to hallow them all, and make worship of them all. +The difference between two lives is not in the material on which, but in +the motive from which, and in the end for which, they are respectively +lived. All work done in obedience to the same Lord is the same in +essence; for it is all obedience; and all work done for the same God is +the same in essence, for it is all worship. The distinction between +secular and sacred ought never to have found its way into Christian +morals, and ought for evermore to be expelled from Christian life. + +Another thought may be suggested--fleeting things done for Christ are +eternal. How astonished Tychicus would have been if anybody had told him +on that day when he got away from Rome, with the two precious letters in +his scrip, that these bits of parchment would outlast all the +ostentatious pomp of the city, and that his name, because written in +them, would be known to the end of time all over the world! The eternal +things are the things done for Christ. They are eternal in His memory +who has said, "I will never forget any of their works," however they may +fall from man's remembrance. They are perpetual in their consequences. +True, no man's contribution to the mighty sum of things "that make for +righteousness" can very long be traced as separate from the others, any +more than the raindrop that refreshed the harebell on the moor can be +traced in burn, and river, and sea. But for all that, it is there. So +our influence for good blends with a thousand others, and may not be +traceable beyond a short distance, still it is there: and no true work +for Christ, abortive as it may seem, but goes to swell the great +aggregate of forces which are working on through the ages to bring the +perfect Order. + +That Colossian Church seems a failure. Where is it now? Gone. Where are +its sister Churches of Asia? Gone. Paul's work and Tychicus' seem to +have vanished from the earth, and Mohammedanism to have taken its place. +Yes! and here are we to-day in England, and Christian men all over the +world in lands that were mere slaughterhouses of savagery then, learning +our best lessons from Paul's words, and owing something for our +knowledge of them to Tychicus' humble care. Paul meant to teach a +handful of obscure believers--he has edified the world. Tychicus thought +to carry the precious letter safely over the sea--he was helping to send +it across the centuries, and to put it into our hands. So little do we +know where our work will terminate. Our only concern is where it begins. +Let us look after this end, the motive; and leave God to take care of +the other, the consequences. + +Such work will be perpetual in its consequences on ourselves. "Though +Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious." Whether our service +for Christ does others any good or no, it will bless ourselves, by +strengthening the motives from which it springs, by enlarging our own +knowledge and enriching our own characters, and by a hundred other +gracious influences which His work exerts upon the devout worker, and +which become indissoluble parts of himself, and abide with him for ever, +over and above the crown of glory that fadeth not away. + +And, as the reward is given not to the outward deed, but to the motive +which settles its value, all work done from the same motive is alike in +reward, howsoever different in form. Paul in the front, and Tychicus +obscure in the rear, the great teachers and path-openers whom Christ +through the ages raises up for large spiritual work, and the little +people whom Christ through the ages raises up to help and +sympathize--shall share alike at last, if the Spirit that moved them has +been the same, and if in different administrations they have served the +same Lord. "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a +prophet"--though no prophecy come from his lips--"shall receive a +prophet's reward." + +II. We must now turn to a much briefer consideration of the second +figure here, Onesimus, as representing the transforming and uniting +power of Christian faith. + +No doubt this is the same Onesimus as we read of in the Epistle to +Philemon. His story is familiar and need not be dwelt on. He had been an +"unprofitable servant," good-for-nothing, and apparently had robbed his +master, and then fled. He had found his way to Rome, to which all the +scum of the empire seemed to drift. There he had burrowed in some hole, +and found obscurity and security. Somehow or other he had come across +Paul--surely not, as has been supposed, having sought the Apostle as a +friend of his master's, which would rather have been a reason for +avoiding him. However that may be, he had found Paul, and Paul's Master +had found _him_ by the gospel which Paul spoke. His heart had been +touched. And now he is to go back to his owner. With beautiful +considerateness the Apostle unites him with Tychicus in his mission, and +refers the Church to him as an authority. That is most delicate and +thoughtful. The same sensitive regard for his feelings marks the +language in which he is commended to them. There is now no word about "a +fellow-slave"--that might have been misunderstood and might have hurt. +Paul will only say about him half of what he said about Tychicus. He +cannot leave out the "faithful," because Onesimus had been eminently +unfaithful, and so he attaches it to that half of his former +commendation which he retains, and testifies to him as "a faithful and +beloved brother." There are no references to his flight or to his +peculations. Philemon is the person to be spoken to about these. The +Church has nothing to do with them. The man's past was blotted +out--enough that he is "faithful," exercising trust in Christ, and +therefore to be trusted. His condition was of no moment--enough that he +is "a brother," therefore to be beloved. + +Does not then that figure stand forth a living illustration of the +_transforming_ power of Christianity? Slaves had well-known vices, +largely the result of their position--idleness, heartlessness, lying, +dishonesty. And this man had had his full share of the sins of his +class. Think of him as he left Colossæ, slinking from his master, with +stolen property in his bosom, madness and mutiny in his heart, an +ignorant heathen, with vices and sensualities holding carnival in his +soul. Think of him as he came back, Paul's trusted representative, with +desires after holiness in his deepest nature, the light of the knowledge +of a loving and pure God in his soul, a great hope before him, ready for +all service and even to put on again the abhorred yoke! What had +happened? Nothing but this--the message had come to him, "Onesimus! +fugitive, rebel, thief as thou art, Jesus Christ has died for thee, and +lives to cleanse and bless thee. Believest thou this?" And he believed, +and leant his whole sinful self on that Saviour, and the corruption +faded away from his heart, and out of the thief was made a trustworthy +man, and out of the slave a beloved brother. The cross had touched his +heart and will. That was all. It had changed his whole being. He is a +living illustration of Paul's teaching in this very letter. He is dead +with Christ to his old self; he lives with Christ a new life. + +The gospel can do that. It can and does do so to-day and to us, if we +will. Nothing else can; nothing else ever has done it; nothing else ever +will. Culture may do much; social reformation may do much; but the +radical transformation of the nature is only effected by the "love of +God shed abroad in the heart," and by the new life which we receive +through our faith in Christ. + +That change can be produced on all sorts and conditions of men. The +gospel despairs of none. It knows of no hopelessly irreclaimable +classes. It can kindle a soul under the ribs of death. The filthiest +rags can be cleaned and made into spotlessly white paper, which may have +the name of God written upon it. None are beyond its power; neither the +savages in other lands, nor the more hopeless heathens festering and +rotting in our back slums, the opprobrium of our civilization and the +indictment of our Christianity. Take the gospel that transformed this +poor slave, to them, and some hearts will own it, and we shall pick out +of the kennel souls blacker than his, and make them like him, brethren, +faithful and beloved. + +Further, here is a living illustration of the power which the gospel has +of binding men into a true brotherhood. We can scarcely picture to +ourselves the gulf which separated the master from his slave. "So many +slaves, so many enemies," said Seneca. That great crack running through +society was a chief weakness and peril of the ancient world. +Christianity gathered master and slave into one family, and set them +down at one table to commemorate the death of the Saviour who held them +all in the embrace of His great love. + +All true union among men must be based upon their oneness in Jesus +Christ. The brotherhood of man is a consequence of the fatherhood of +God, and Christ shows us the Father. If the dreams of men's being knit +together in harmony are ever to be more than dreams, the power that +makes them facts must flow from the cross. The world must recognise that +"One is your master," before it comes to believe as anything more than +the merest sentimentality that "all ye are brethren." + +Much has to be done before the dawn of that day reddens in the east, +"when, man to man, the wide world o'er, shall brothers be," and much in +political and social life has to be swept away before society is +organized on the basis of Christian fraternity. The vision tarries. But +we may remember how certainly, though slowly, the curse of slavery has +disappeared, and take courage to believe that all other evils will fade +away in like manner, until the cords of love shall bind all hearts in +fraternal unity, because they bind each to the cross of the Elder +Brother, through whom we are no more slaves but sons, and if sons of +God, then brethren of one another. + + + + +XXV. + +_SALUTATIONS FROM THE PRISONER'S FRIENDS._ + + "Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth you, and Mark, the cousin + of Barnabas (touching whom ye received commandments; if he come unto + you, receive him), and Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the + circumcision: these only _are my_ fellow-workers unto the kingdom of + God, men that have been a comfort unto me. Epaphras, who is one of + you, a servant of Christ Jesus, saluteth you, always striving for + you in his prayers, that ye may stand perfect and fully assured in + all the will of God. For I bear him witness, that he hath much + labour for you, and for them in Laodicea, and for them in + Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas salute + you."--COL. iv. 10-14 (Rev. Ver.). + + +Here are men of different races, unknown to each other by face, clasping +hands across the seas, and feeling that the repulsions of nationality, +language, conflicting interests, have disappeared in the unity of faith. +These greetings are a most striking, because unconscious, testimony to +the reality and strength of the new bond that knit Christian souls +together. + +There are three sets of salutations here, sent from Rome to the little +far-off Phrygian town in its secluded valley. The first is from three +large-hearted Jewish Christians, whose greeting has a special meaning as +coming from that wing of the Church which had least sympathy with Paul's +work or converts. The second is from the Colossians' towns-man Epaphras; +and the third is from two Gentiles like themselves, one well known as +Paul's most faithful friend, one almost unknown, of whom Paul has +nothing to say, and of whom nothing good can be said. All these may +yield us matter for consideration. It is interesting to piece together +what we know of the bearers of these shadowy names. It is profitable to +regard them as exponents of certain tendencies and principles. + +1. These three sympathetic Jewish Christians may stand as types of a +progressive and non-ceremonial Christianity. + +We need spend little time in outlining the figures of these three, for +he in the centre is well known to every one, and his two supporters are +little known to any one. Aristarchus was a Thessalonian (Acts xx. 4), +and so perhaps one of Paul's early converts on his first journey to +Europe. His purely Gentile name would not have led us to expect him to +be a Jew. But we have many similar instances in the New Testament, such +for instance, as the names of six of the seven deacons (Acts vii. 5), +which show that the Jews of "the dispersion," who resided in foreign +countries, often bore no trace of their nationality in their names. He +was with Paul in Ephesus at the time of the riot, and was one of the two +whom the excited mob, in their zeal for trade and religion, dragged into +the theatre, to the peril of their lives. We next find him like +Tychicus, a member of the deputation which joined Paul on his voyage to +Jerusalem. Whatever was the case with the other, Aristarchus was in +Palestine with Paul, for we learn that he sailed with him thence (Acts +xxvii. 2). Whether he kept company with Paul during all the journey we +do not know. But more probably he went home to Thessalonica, and +afterwards rejoined Paul at some point in his Roman captivity. At any +rate here he is, standing by Paul, having drunk in his spirit, and +enthusiastically devoted to him and his work. + +He receives here a remarkable and honourable title, "my +fellow-prisoner." I suppose that it is to be taken literally, and that +Aristarchus was, in some way, at the moment of writing, sharing Paul's +imprisonment. Now it has been often noticed that, in the Epistle to +Philemon, where almost all these names re-appear, it is not Aristarchus, +but Epaphras, who is honoured with this epithet; and that interchange +has been explained by an ingenious supposition that Paul's friends took +it in turn to keep him company, and were allowed to live with him, on +condition of submitting to the same restrictions, military guardianship, +and so on. There is no positive evidence in favour of this, but it is +not improbable, and, if accepted, helps to give an interesting glimpse +of Paul's prison life, and of the loyal devotion which surrounded him. + +Mark comes next. His story is well known--how twelve years before, he +had joined the first missionary band from Antioch, of which his cousin +Barnabas was the leader, and had done well enough as long as they were +on known ground, in Barnabas' (and perhaps his own) native island of +Cyprus, but had lost heart and run home to his mother as soon as they +crossed into Asia Minor. He had long ago effaced the distrust of him +which Paul naturally conceived on account of this collapse. How he came +to be with Paul at Rome is unknown. It has been conjectured that +Barnabas was dead, and that so, Mark was free to join the Apostle; but +that is unsupported supposition. Apparently he is now purposing a +journey to Asia Minor, in the course of which, if he should come to +Colossæ (which was doubtful, perhaps on account of its insignificance), +Paul repeats his previous injunction, that the church should give him a +cordial welcome. Probably this commendation was given because the evil +odour of his old fault might still hang about his name. The calculated +emphasis of the exhortation, "receive him," seems to show that there was +some reluctance to give him a hearty reception and take him to their +hearts. So we have an "undesigned coincidence." The tone of the +injunction here is naturally explained by the story in the Acts. + +So faithful a friend did he prove, that the lonely old man, fronting +death, longed to have his affectionate tending once more; and his last +word about him, "Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is +profitable to me for _the ministry_," condones the early fault, and +restores him to the office which, in a moment of selfish weakness, he +had abandoned. So it is possible to efface a faultful past, and to +acquire strength and fitness for work, to which we are by nature most +inapt and indisposed. Mark is an instance of early faults nobly atoned +for, and a witness of the power of repentance and faith to overcome +natural weakness. Many a ragged colt makes a noble horse. + +The third man is utterly unknown--"Jesus, which is called Justus." How +startling to come across that name, borne by this obscure Christian! How +it helps us to feel the humble manhood of Christ, by showing us that +many another Jewish boy bore the same name; common and undistinguished +then, though too holy to be given to any since. His surname Justus may, +perhaps, like the same name given to James, the first bishop of the +Church in Jerusalem, hint his rigorous adherence to Judaism, and so may +indicate that, like Paul himself, he came from the straitest sect of +their religion into the large liberty in which he now rejoiced. + +He seems to have been of no importance in the Church, for his name is +the only one in this context which does not re-appear in Philemon, and +we never hear of him again. A strange fate his! to be made immortal by +three words--and because he wanted to send a loving message to the +Church at Colossæ! Why, men have striven and schemed, and broken their +hearts, and flung away their lives, to grasp the bubble of posthumous +fame; and how easily this good "Jesus which is called Justus" has got +it! He has his name written for ever on the world's memory, and he very +likely never knew it, and does not know it, and was never a bit the +better for it! What a satire on "the last infirmity of noble minds!" + +These three men are united in this salutation, because they are all +three, "of the circumcision;" that is to say, are Jews, and being so, +have separated themselves from all the other Jewish Christians in Rome, +and have flung themselves with ardour into Paul's missionary work among +the Gentiles, and have been his fellow-workers for the advancement of +the kingdom--aiding him, that is, in seeking to win willing subjects to +the loving, kingly will of God. By this co-operation in the aim of his +life, they have been a "comfort" to him. He uses a half medical term, +which perhaps he had caught from the physician at his elbow, which we +might perhaps parallel by saying they had been a "cordial" to him--like +a refreshing draught to a weary man, or some whiff of pure air stealing +into a close chamber and lifting the damp curls on some hot brow. + +Now these three men, the only three Jewish Christians in Rome who had +the least sympathy with Paul and his work, give us, in their isolation, +a vivid illustration of the antagonism which he had to face from that +portion of the early Church. The great question for the first generation +of Christians was, not whether Gentiles might enter the Christian +community, but whether they must do so by circumcision, and pass through +Judaism on their road to Christianity. The bulk of the Palestinian +Jewish Christians naturally held that they must; while the bulk of +Jewish Christians who had been born in other countries as naturally held +that they need not. As the champion of this latter decision, Paul was +worried and counter-worked and hindered all his life by the other party. +They had no missionary zeal, or next to none, but they followed in his +wake and made mischief wherever they could. If we can fancy some modern +sect that sends out no missionaries of its own, but delights to come in +where better men have forced a passage, and to upset their work by +preaching its own crotchets, we get precisely the kind of thing which +dogged Paul all his life. + +There was evidently a considerable body of these men in Rome; good men +no doubt in a fashion, believing in Jesus as the Messiah, but unable to +comprehend that he had antiquated Moses, as the dawning day makes +useless the light in a dark place. Even when he was a prisoner, their +unrelenting antagonism pursued the Apostle. They preached Christ of +"envy and strife." Not one of them lifted a finger to help him, or spoke +a word to cheer him. With none of them to say, God bless him! he toiled +on. Only these three were large-hearted enough to take their stand by +his side, and by this greeting to clasp the hands of their Gentile +brethren in Colossæ and thereby to endorse the teaching of this letter +as to the abrogation of Jewish rites. + +It was a brave thing to do, and the exuberance of the eulogium shows how +keenly Paul felt his countrymen's coldness, and how grateful he was to +"the dauntless three." Only those who have lived in an atmosphere of +misconstruction, surrounded by scowls and sneers, can understand what a +cordial the clasp of a hand, or the word of sympathy is. These men were +like the old soldier that stood on the street of Worms, as Luther passed +in to the Diet, and clapped him on the shoulder, with "Little monk! +little monk! you are about to make a nobler stand to-day than we in all +our battles have ever done. If your cause is just, and you are sure of +it, go forward in God's name, and fear nothing." If we can do no more, +we can give some one who is doing more a cup of cold water, by our +sympathy and taking our place at his side, and _so_ can be +fellow-workers to the kingdom of God. + +We note, too, that the best comfort Paul could have was help in his +work. He did not go about the world whimpering for sympathy. He was much +too strong a man for that. He wanted men to come down into the trench +with him, and to shovel and wheel there till they had made in the +wilderness some kind of a highway for the King. The true cordial for a +true worker is that others get into the traces and pull by his side. + +But we may further look at these men as representing for us progressive +as opposed to reactionary, and spiritual as opposed to ceremonial +Christianity. Jewish Christians looked backwards; Paul and his three +sympathisers looked forward. There was much excuse for the former. No +wonder that they shrank from the idea that things divinely appointed +could be laid aside. Now there is a broad distinction between the divine +in Christianity and the divine in Judaism. For Jesus Christ is God's +last word, and abides for ever. His divinity, His perfect sacrifice, His +present life in glory for us, His life within us, these and their +related truths are the perennial possession of the Church. To Him we +must look back, and every generation till the end of time will have to +look back, as the full and final expression of the wisdom and will and +mercy of God. "Last of all He sent unto them His Son." + +That being distinctly understood, we need not hesitate to recognise the +transitory nature of much of the embodiment of the eternal truth +concerning the eternal Christ. To draw the line accurately between the +permanent and the transient would be to anticipate history and read the +future. But the clear recognition of the distinction between the Divine +revelation and the vessels in which it is contained, between Christ and +creed, between Churches, forms of worship, formularies of faith on the +one hand, and the everlasting word of God spoken to us once for all in +His Son, and recorded in Scripture, on the other, is needful at all +times, and especially at such times of sifting and unsettlement as the +present. It will save some of us from an obstinate conservatism which +might read its fate in the decline and disappearance of Jewish +Christianity. It will save us equally from needless fears, as if the +stars were going out, when it is only men-made lamps that are paling. +Men's hearts often tremble for the ark of God, when the only things in +peril are the cart that carries it, or the oxen that draw it. "We have +received a kingdom that cannot be moved," because we have received a +King eternal, and therefore may calmly see the removal of things that +can be shaken, assured that the things which cannot be shaken will but +the more conspicuously assert their permanence. The existing embodiments +of God's truth are not the highest, and if Churches and forms crumble +and disintegrate, their disappearance will not be the abolition of +Christianity, but its progress. These Jewish Christians would have found +all that they strove to keep, in higher form and more real reality, in +Christ; and what seemed to them the destruction of Judaism was really +its coronation with undying life. + +II. Epaphras is for us the type of the highest service which love can +render. + +All our knowledge of Epaphras is contained in these brief notices in +this Epistle. We learn from the first chapter that he had introduced the +gospel to Colossæ, and perhaps also to Laodicea and Hierapolis. He was +"one of you," a member of the Colossian community, and a resident in, +possibly a native of, Colossæ. He had come to Rome, apparently to +consult the Apostle about the views which threatened to disturb the +Church. He had told him, too, of their love, not painting the picture +too black, and gladly giving full prominence to any bits of brightness. +It was his report which led to the writing of this letter. + +Perhaps some of the Colossians were not over pleased with his having +gone to speak with Paul, and having brought down this thunderbolt on +their heads; and such a feeling may account for the warmth of Paul's +praises of him as his "fellow-slave," and for the emphasis of his +testimony on his behalf. However they might doubt it, Epaphras' love for +them was warm. It showed itself by continual fervent prayers that they +might stand "perfect and fully persuaded in all the will of God," and by +toil of body and mind for them. We can see the anxious Epaphras, far +away from the Church of his solicitude, always burdened with the thought +of their danger, and ever wrestling in prayer on their behalf. + +So we may learn the noblest service which Christian love can do--prayer. +There is a real power in Christian intercession. There are many +difficulties and mysteries round that thought. The manner of the +blessing is not revealed, but the fact that we help one another by +prayer is plainly taught, and confirmed by many examples, from the day +when God heard Abraham and delivered Lot, to the hour when the loving +authoritative words were spoken, "Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee +that thy faith fail not." A spoonful of water sets a hydraulic press in +motion, and brings into operation a force of tons' weight; so a drop of +prayer at the one end may move an influence at the other which is +omnipotent. It is a service which all can render. Epaphras could not +have written this letter, but he could pray. Love has no higher way of +utterance than prayer. A prayerless love may be very tender, and may +speak murmured words of sweetest sound, but it lacks the deepest +expression, and the noblest music of speech. We never help our dear ones +so well as when we pray for them. Do we thus show and consecrate our +family loves and our friendships? + +We notice too the kind of prayer which love naturally presents. It is +constant and earnest--"always striving," or as the word might be +rendered, "agonizing." That word suggests first the familiar metaphor of +the wrestling-ground. True prayer is the intensest energy of the spirit +pleading for blessing with a great striving of faithful desire. But a +more solemn memory gathers round the word, for it can scarcely fail to +recall the hour beneath the olives of Gethsemane, when the clear paschal +moon shone down on the suppliant who, "being in an agony, prayed the +more earnestly." And both Paul's word here, and the evangelist's there, +carry us back to that mysterious scene by the brook Jabbok, where Jacob +"wrestled" with "a man" until the breaking of the day, and prevailed. +Such is prayer; the wrestle in the arena, the agony in Gethsemane, the +solitary grapple with the "traveller unknown"; and such is the highest +expression of Christian love. + +Here, too, we learn what love asks for its beloved. Not perishable +blessings, not the prizes of earth--fame, fortune, friends; but that "ye +may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God." The first +petition is for stedfastness. To stand has for opposites--to fall, or +totter, or give ground; so the prayer is that they may not yield to +temptation, or opposition, nor waver in their fixed faith, nor go down +in the struggle; but keep erect, their feet planted on the rock, and +holding their own against every foe. The prayer is also for their +maturity of Christian character, that they may stand firm, because +perfect, having attained that condition which Paul in this Epistle tell +us is the aim of all preaching and warning. As for ourselves, so for our +dear ones, we are to be content with nothing short of entire conformity +to the will of God. His merciful purpose for us all is to be the goal of +our efforts for ourselves, and of our prayers for others. We are to +widen our desires to coincide with His gift, and our prayers are to +cover no narrower space than His promises enclose. + +Epaphras' last desire for his friends, according to the true reading, is +that they may be "fully assured" in all the will of God. There can be no +higher blessing than that--to be quite sure of what God desires me to +know and do and be--if the assurance comes from the clear light of His +illumination, and not from hasty self-confidence in my own penetration. +To be free from the misery of intellectual doubts and practical +uncertainties, to walk in the sunshine--is the purest joy. And it is +granted in needful measure to all who have silenced their own wills, +that they may hear what God says,--"If any man wills to do His will, he +shall know." + +Does our love speak in prayer? and do our prayers for our dear ones +plead chiefly for such gifts? Both our love and our desires need +purifying if this is to be their natural language. How can we offer such +prayers for them if, at the bottom of our hearts, we had rather see +them well off in the world than stedfast, matured and assured +Christians? How can we expect an answer to such prayers if the whole +current of our lives shows that neither for them nor for ourselves do we +"seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness"? + +III. The last salutation comes from a singularly contrasted couple--Luke +and Demas, the types respectively of faithfulness and apostasy. These +two unequally yoked together stand before us like the light and the dark +figures that Ary Scheffer delights to paint, each bringing out the +colouring of the other more vividly by contrast. They bear the same +relation to Paul which John, the beloved disciple, and Judas did to +Paul's master. + +As for Luke, his long and faithful companionship of the Apostle is too +well known to need repetition here. His first appearance in the Acts +nearly coincides with an attack of Paul's constitutional malady, which +gives probability to the suggestion that one reason for Luke's close +attendance on the Apostle was the state of his health. Thus the form and +warmth of the reference here would be explained--"Luke the physician, +the beloved." We trace Luke as sharing the perils of the winter voyage +to Italy, making his presence known only by the modest "we" of the +narrative. We find him here sharing the Roman captivity, and, in the +second imprisonment, he was Paul's only companion. All others had been +sent away, or had fled; but Luke could not be spared, and would not +desert him, and no doubt was by his side till the end, which soon came. + +As for Demas, we know no more about him except the melancholy record, +"Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world; and is +departed unto Thessalonica." Perhaps he was a Thessalonian, and so went +home. His love of the world, then, was his reason for abandoning Paul. +Probably it was on the side of danger that the world tempted him. He was +a coward, and preferred a whole skin to a clear conscience. In immediate +connection with the record of his desertion we read, "At my first +answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me." As the same word +is used, probably Demas may have been one of those timid friends, whose +courage was not equal to standing by Paul when, to use his own metaphor, +he thrust his head into the lion's mouth. Let us not be too hard on the +constancy that warped in so fierce a heat. All that Paul charges him +with is, that he was a faithless friend, and too fond of the present +world. Perhaps his crime did not reach the darker hue. He may not have +been an apostate Christian, though he was a faithless friend. Perhaps, +if there were departure from Christ as well as from Paul, he came back +again, like Peter, whose sins against love and friendship were greater +than his--and, like Peter, found pardon and a welcome. Perhaps, away in +Thessalonica, he repented him of his evil, and perhaps Paul and Demas +met again before the throne, and there clasped inseparable hands. Let us +not judge a man of whom we know so little, but take to ourselves the +lesson of humility and self-distrust! + +How strikingly these two contrasted characters bring out the possibility +of men being exposed to the same influences and yet ending far away from +each other! These two set out from the same point, and travelled side by +side, subject to the same training, in contact with the magnetic +attraction of Paul's strong personality, and at the end they are wide as +the poles asunder. Starting from the same level, one line inclines ever +so little upwards, the other imperceptibly downwards. Pursue them far +enough, and there is room for the whole solar system with all its orbits +in the space between them. So two children trained at one mother's knee, +subjects of the same prayers, with the same sunshine of love and rain of +good influences upon them both, may grow up, one to break a mother's +heart and disgrace a father's home, and the other to walk in the ways of +godliness and serve the God of his fathers. Circumstances are mighty; +but the use we make of circumstances lies with ourselves. As we trim our +sails and set our rudder, the same breeze will take us in opposite +directions. We are the architects and builders of our own characters, +and may so use the most unfavourable influences as to strengthen and +wholesomely harden our natures thereby, and may so misuse the most +favourable as only thereby to increase our blameworthiness for wasted +opportunities. + +We are reminded, also, from these two men who stand before us like a +double star--one bright and one dark--that no loftiness of Christian +position, nor length of Christian profession is a guarantee against +falling and apostasy. As we read in another book, for which also the +Church has to thank a prison cell--the place where so many of its +precious possessions have been written--there is a backway to the pit +from the gate of the Celestial City. Demas had stood high in the Church, +had been admitted to the close intimacy of the Apostle, was evidently +no raw novice, and yet the world could drag him back from so eminent a +place in which he had long stood. "Let him that thinketh he standeth +take heed lest he fall." + +The world that was too strong for Demas will be too strong for us if we +front it in our own strength. It is ubiquitous, working on us everywhere +and always, like the pressure of the atmosphere on our bodies. Its +weight will crush us unless we can climb to and dwell on the heights of +communion with God, where pressure is diminished. It acted on Demas +through his fears. It acts on us through our ambitions, affections and +desires. So, seeing that miserable wreck of Christian constancy, and +considering ourselves lest we also be tempted, let us not judge another, +but look at home. There is more than enough there to make profound +self-distrust our truest wisdom, and to teach us to pray, "Hold Thou me +up, and I shall be safe." + + + + +XXVI. + +_CLOSING MESSAGES._ + + "Salute the brethren that are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the + Church that is in their house. And when this epistle hath been read + among you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the + Laodiceans; and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea. And say + to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in + the Lord, that thou fulfil it. The salutation of me Paul with mine + own hand. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you."--COL. iv. 15-end + (Rev. Ver.). + + +There is a marked love of triplets in these closing messages. There were +three of the circumcision who desired to salute the Colossians; and +there were three Gentiles whose greetings followed these. Now we have a +triple message from the Apostle himself--his greeting to Laodicea, his +message as to the interchange of letters with that Church, and his +grave, stringent charge to Archippus. Finally, the letter closes with a +few hurried words in his own handwriting, which also are threefold, and +seem to have been added in extreme haste, and to be compressed to the +utmost possible brevity. + +I. We shall first look at the threefold greeting and warnings to +Laodicea. + +In the first part of this triple message we have a glimpse of the +Christian life of that city, "Salute the brethren that are in +Laodicea." These are, of course, the whole body of Christians in the +neighbouring town, which was a much more important place than Colossæ. +They are the same persons as "the Church of the Laodiceans." Then comes +a special greeting to "Nymphas," who was obviously a brother of some +importance and influence in the Laodicean Church, though to us he has +sunk to be an empty name. With him Paul salutes "the Church that is in +_their_ house" (Rev. Ver.). Whose house? Probably that belonging to +Nymphas and his family. Perhaps that belonging to Nymphas and the Church +that met in it, if these were other than his family. The more difficult +expression is adopted by preponderating textual authorities, and "_his_ +house" is regarded as a correction to make the sense easier. If so, then +the expression is one of which in our ignorance we have lost the key, +and which must be content to leave unexplained. + +But what was this "Church in the house"? We read that Prisca and Aquila +had such both in their house in Rome (Rom. xvi. 5) and in Ephesus (1 +Cor. xvi. 19), and that Philemon had such in his house at Colossæ. It +may be that only the household of Nymphas is meant, and that the words +import no more than that it was a Christian household; or it may be, and +more probably is, that in all these cases there was some gathering of a +few of the Christians resident in each city, who were closely connected +with the heads of the household, and met in their houses more or less +regularly to worship and to help one another in the Christian life. We +have no facts that decide which of these two suppositions is correct. +The early Christians had, of course no buildings especially used for +their meetings, and there may often have been difficulty in finding +suitable places, particularly in cities where the Church was numerous. +It may have been customary, therefore, for brethren who had large and +convenient houses, to gather together portions of the whole community in +these. In any case, the expression gives us a glimpse of the primitive +elasticity of Church order, and of the early fluidity, so to speak, of +ecclesiastical language. The word "Church" has not yet been hardened and +fixed to its present technical sense. There was but one Church in +Laodicea, and yet within it there was this little Church--an _imperium +in imperio_--as if the word had not yet come to mean more than an +assembly, and as if all arrangements of order and worship, and all the +terminology of later days, were undreamed of yet. The life was there, +but the forms which were to grow out of the life, and to protect it +sometimes, and to stifle it often, were only beginning to show +themselves, and were certainly not yet felt to be forms. + +We may note, too, the beautiful glimpse we get here of domestic and +social religion. + +If the Church in the house of Nymphas consisted of his own family and +dependants, it stands for us as a lesson of what every family, which has +a Christian man or woman at its head, ought to be. Little knowledge of +the ordering of so-called Christian households is needed to be sure that +domestic religion is wofully neglected to-day. Family worship and family +instruction are disused, one fears, in many homes, the heads of which +can remember both in their father's houses; and the unspoken aroma and +atmosphere of religion does not fill the house with its odour, as it +ought to do. If a Christian householder have not "a Church in his +house," the family union is tending to become "a synagogue of Satan." +One or other it is sure to be. It is a solemn question for all parents +and heads of households, What am I doing to make my house a Church, my +family a family united by faith in Jesus Christ? + +A like suggestion may be made if, as is possible, the Church in the +house of Nymphas included more than relatives and dependants. It is a +miserable thing when social intercourse plays freely round every other +subject, and taboos all mention of religion. It is a miserable thing +when Christian people choose and cultivate society for worldly +advantages, business connections, family advancement, and for every +reason under heaven--sometimes a long way under--except those of a +common faith, and of the desire to increase it. + +It is not needful to lay down extravagant, impracticable restrictions, +by insisting either that we should limit our society to religious men, +or our conversation to religious subjects. But it is a bad sign when our +chosen associates are chosen for every other reason but their religion, +and when our talk flows copiously on all other subjects, and becomes a +constrained driblet when religion comes to be spoken of. Let us try to +carry about with us an influence which shall permeate all our social +intercourse, and make it, if not directly religious, yet never +antagonistic to religion, and always capable of passing easily and +naturally into the highest regions. Our godly forefathers used to carve +texts over their house doors. Let us do the same in another fashion, so +that all who cross the threshold may feel that they have come into a +Christian household, where cheerful godliness sweetens and brightens the +sanctities of home. + +We have next a remarkable direction as to the interchange of Paul's +letters to Colossæ and Laodicea. The present Epistle is to be sent over +to the neighbouring Church of Laodicea--that is quite clear. But what is +"the Epistle from Laodicea" which the Colossians are to be sure to get +and to read? The connection forbids us to suppose that a letter written +by the Laodicean Church is meant. Both letters are plainly Pauline +epistles, and the latter is said to be "from Laodicea," simply because +the Colossians were to procure it from that place. The "from" does not +imply authorship, but transmission. What then has become of this letter? +Is it lost? So say some commentators; but a more probable opinion is +that it is no other than the Epistle which we know as that to the +Ephesians. This is not the occasion to enter on a discussion of that +view. It will be enough to notice that very weighty textual authorities +omit the words "In Ephesus," in the first verse of that Epistle. The +conjecture is a very reasonable one, that the letter was intended for a +circle of Churches, and had originally no place named in the +superscription, just as we might issue circulars "To the Church in----," +leaving a blank to be filled in with different names. This conjecture is +strengthened by the marked absence of personal references in the letter, +which in that respect forms a striking contrast to the Epistle to the +Colossians, which it so strongly resembles in other particulars. +Probably, therefore, Tychicus had both letters put into his hands for +delivery. The circular would go first to Ephesus as the most important +Church in Asia, and thence would be carried by him to one community +after another, till he reached Laodicea, from which he would come +further up the valley to Colossæ, bringing both letters with him. The +Colossians are not told to _get_ the letter from Laodicea, but to be +sure that they _read_ it. Tychicus would see that it came to them; their +business was to see that they marked, learned, and inwardly digested it. + +The urgency of these instructions that Paul's letters should be read, +reminds us of a similar but still more stringent injunction in his +earliest epistle (1 Thess. v. 27), "I charge you by the Lord that this +epistle be read unto all the holy brethren." Is it possible that these +Churches did not much care for Paul's words, and were more willing to +admit that they were weighty and powerful, than to study them and lay +them to heart? It looks almost like it. Perhaps they got the same +treatment then as they often do now, and were more praised than read, +even by those who professed to look upon him as their teacher in Christ! + +But passing by that, we come to the last part of this threefold message, +the solemn warning to a slothful servant. + +"Say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in +the Lord, that thou fulfil it." A sharp message that--and especially +sharp, as being sent through others, and not spoken directly to the man +himself. If this Archippus were a member of the Church at Colossæ, it is +remarkable that Paul should not have spoken to him directly, as he did +to Euodia and Syntyche, the two good women at Philippi, who had fallen +out. But it is by no means certain that he was. We find him named again, +indeed, at the beginning of the Epistle to Philemon, in such immediate +connection with the latter, and with his wife Apphia, that he has been +supposed to be their son. At all events, he was intimately associated +with the Church in the house of Philemon, who, as we know, was a +Colossian. The conclusion, therefore, seems at first sight most natural +that Archippus too belonged to the Colossian Church. But on the other +hand the difficulty already referred to seems to point in another +direction; and if it be further remembered that this whole section is +concerned with the Church at Laodicea, it will be seen to be a likely +conclusion from all the facts that Archippus, though perhaps a native of +Colossæ, or even a resident there, had his "ministry" in connection with +that other neighbouring Church. + +It may be worth notice, in passing, that all these messages to Laodicea +occurring here, strongly favour the supposition that the epistle from +that place cannot have been a letter especially meant for the Laodicean +church, as, if it had been, these would have naturally been inserted in +it. So far, therefore, they confirm the hypothesis that it was a +circular. + +Some may say, Well, what in the world does it matter where Archippus +worked? Not very much perhaps; and yet one cannot but read this grave +exhortation to a man who was evidently getting languid and negligent, +without remembering what we hear about Laodicea and the angel of the +Church there, when next we meet it in the page of Scripture. It is not +impossible that Archippus was that very "angel," to whom the Lord +Himself sent the message through His servant John, more awful than that +which Paul had sent through his brethren at Colossæ, "Because thou art +neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth." + +Be that as it may, the message is for us all. Each of us has a +"ministry," a sphere of service. We may either fill it full, with +earnest devotion and patient heroism, as some expanding gas fills out +the silken round of its containing vessel, or we may breathe into it +only enough to occupy a little portion, while all the rest hangs empty +and flaccid. We have to "fulfil our ministry." + +A sacred motive enhances the obligation--we have received it "_in_ the +Lord." In union with Him it has been laid on us. No human hand has +imposed it, nor does it arise merely from earthly relationships, but our +fellowship with Jesus Christ, and incorporation into the true Vine, has +laid on us responsibilities, and exalted us by service. + +There must be diligent watchfulness, in order to fulfil our ministry. We +must take heed to our service, and we must take heed to ourselves. We +have to reflect upon it, its extent, nature, imperativeness, upon the +manner of discharging it, and the means of fitness for it. We have to +keep our work ever before us. Unless we are absorbed in it, we shall not +fulfil it. And we have to take heed to ourselves, ever feeling our +weakness and the strong antagonisms in our own natures which hinder our +discharge of the plainest, most imperative duties. + +And let us remember, too, that if once we begin, like Archippus, to be a +little languid and perfunctory in our work, we may end where the Church +of Laodicea ended, whether he were its angel or no, with that nauseous +lukewarmness which sickens even Christ's longsuffering love, and forces +Him to reject it with loathing. + +II. And now we come to the end of our task, and have to consider the +hasty last words in Paul's own hand. + +We can see him taking the reed from the amanuensis and adding the three +brief sentences which close the letter. He first writes that which is +equivalent to our modern usage of signing the letter--"the salutation of +me Paul with mine own hand." This appears to have been his usual +practice, or, as he says in 2 Thess. (iii. 17), it was "his token in +every epistle"--the evidence that each was the genuine expression of his +mind. Probably his weak eyesight, which appears certain, may have had +something to do with his employing a secretary, as we may assume him to +have done, even when there is no express mention of his autograph in the +closing salutations. We find for example in the Epistle to the Romans no +words corresponding to these, but the modest amanuensis steps for a +moment into the light near the end: "I Tertius, who write the epistle, +salute you in the Lord." + +The endorsement with his name is followed by a request singularly +pathetic in its abrupt brevity, "Remember my bonds." This is the one +personal reference in the letter, unless we add as a second, his request +for their prayers that he may speak the mystery of Christ, for which he +is in bonds. There is a striking contrast in this respect with the +abundant allusions to his circumstances in the Epistle to the +Philippians, which also belongs to the period of his captivity. He had +been swept far away from thoughts of self by the enthusiasm of his +subject. The vision that opened before him of his Lord in His glory, the +Lord of Creation, the Head of the Church, the throned helper of every +trusting soul, had flooded his chamber with light, and swept guards and +chains and restrictions out of his consciousness. But now the spell is +broken, and common things re-assert their power. He stretches out his +hand for the reed to write his last words, and as he does so, the chain +which fastens him to the Prætorian guard at his side pulls and hinders +him. He wakes to the consciousness of his prison. The seer, swept along +by the storm wind of a Divine inspiration, is gone. The weak man +remains. The exhaustion after such an hour of high communion makes him +more than usually dependent; and all his subtle profound teachings, all +his thunderings and lightnings, end in the simple cry, which goes +straight to the heart: "Remember my bonds." + +He wished their remembrance because he needed their sympathy. Like the +old rags put round the ropes by which the prophet was hauled out of his +dungeon, the poorest bit of sympathy twisted round a fetter makes it +chafe less. The petition helps us to conceive how heavy a trial Paul +felt his imprisonment, to be little as he said about it, and bravely as +he bore it. He wished their remembrance too, because his bonds added +weight to his words. His sufferings gave him a right to speak. In times +of persecution confessors are the highest teachers, and the marks of the +Lord Jesus borne in a man's body give more authority than diplomas and +learning. He wished their remembrance because his bonds might encourage +them to steadfast endurance if need for it should arise. He points to +his own sufferings, and would have them take heart to bear their lighter +crosses and to fight their easier battle. + +One cannot but recall the words of Paul's Master, so like these in +sound, so unlike them in deepest meaning. Can there be a greater +contrast than between "Remember my bonds," the plaintive appeal of a +weak man seeking sympathy, coming as an appendix, quite apart from the +subject of the letter, and "Do this in remembrance of Me," the royal +words of the Master? Why is the memory of Christ's death so unlike the +memory of Paul's chains? Why is the one merely for the play of sympathy, +and the enforcement of his teaching, and the other the very centre of +our religion? For one reason alone. Because Christ's death is the life +of the world, and Paul's sufferings, whatever their worth, had nothing +in them that bore, except indirectly, on man's redemption. "Was Paul +crucified for you?" We remember his chains, and they give him sacredness +in our eyes. But we remember the broken body and shed blood of our Lord, +and cleave to it in faith as the one sacrifice for the world's sin. + +And then comes the last word: "Grace be with you." The apostolic +benediction, with which he closes all his letters, occurs in many +different stages of expression. Here it is pared down to the very quick. +No shorter form is possible--and yet even in this condition of extreme +compression, all good is in it. + +All possible blessing is wrapped up in that one word, Grace. Like the +sunshine, it carries life and fruitfulness in itself. If the favour and +kindness of God, flowing out to men so far beneath Him, who deserve such +different treatment, be ours, then in our hearts will be rest and a +great peacefulness, whatever may be about us, and in our characters will +be all beauties and capacities, in the measure of our possession of that +grace. + +That all-productive germ of joy and excellence is here parted among the +whole body of Colossian Christians. The dew of this benediction falls +upon them all--the teachers of error if they still held by Christ, the +Judaisers, the slothful Archippus, even as the grace which it invokes +will pour itself into imperfect natures and adorn very sinful +characters, if beneath the imperfection and the evil there be the true +affiance of the soul on Christ. + +That communication of grace to a sinful world is the end of all God's +deeds, as it is the end of this letter. That great revelation which +began when man began, which has spoken its complete message in the Son, +the heir of all things, as this Epistle tells us, has this for the +purpose of all its words--whether they are terrible or gentle, deep or +simple--that God's grace may dwell among men. The mystery of Christ's +being, the agony of Christ's cross, the hidden glories of Christ's +dominion are all for this end, that of His fulness we may all receive, +and grace for grace. The Old Testament, true to its genius, ends with +stern onward-looking words which point to a future coming of the Lord +and to the possible terrible aspect of that coming--"Lest I come and +smite the earth with a curse." It is the last echo of the long drawn +blast of the trumpets of Sinai. The New Testament ends, as our Epistle +ends, and as we believe the weary history of the world will end, with +the benediction: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." + +That grace, the love which pardons and quickens and makes good and fair +and wise and strong, is offered to all in Christ. Unless we have +accepted it, God's revelation and Christ's work have failed as far as we +are concerned. "We therefore, as fellow-workers with Him, beseech you +that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." + + * * * * * + + + + +THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. + + + + +I. + + "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to + Philemon our beloved and fellow-worker, and to Apphia our sister, + and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church in thy house: + Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus + Christ."--PHILEM. 1-3 (Rev. Ver.). + + +This Epistle stands alone among Paul's letters in being addressed to a +private Christian, and in being entirely occupied with a small though +very singular private matter; its aim being merely to bespeak a kindly +welcome for a runaway slave who had been induced to perform the +unheard-of act of voluntarily returning to servitude. If the New +Testament were simply a book of doctrinal teaching, this Epistle would +certainly be out of place in it; and if the great purpose of revelation +were to supply material for creeds, it would be hard to see what value +could be attached to a simple, short letter, from which no contribution +to theological doctrine or ecclesiastical order can be extracted. But if +we do not turn to it for discoveries of truth, we can find in it very +beautiful illustrations of Christianity at work. It shows us the +operation of the new forces which Christ has lodged in humanity--and +that on two planes of action. It exhibits a perfect model of Christian +friendship, refined and ennobled by a half-conscious reflection of the +love which has called us "no longer slaves but friends," and adorned by +delicate courtesies and quick consideration, which divines with subtlest +instinct what it will be sweetest to the friend to hear, while it never +approaches by a hair-breadth to flattery, nor forgets to counsel high +duties. But still more important is the light which the letter casts on +the relation of Christianity to slavery, which may be taken as a +specimen of its relation to social and political evils generally, and +yields fruitful results for the guidance of all who would deal with +such. + +It may be observed, too, that most of the considerations which Paul +urges on Philemon as reasons for his kindly reception of Onesimus do not +even need the alteration of a word, but simply a change in their +application, to become worthy statements of the highest Christian +truths. As Luther puts it, "We are all God's Onesimuses"; and the +welcome which Paul seeks to secure for the returning fugitive, as well +as the motives to which he appeals in order to secure it, do shadow +forth in no uncertain outline our welcome from God, and the treasures of +His heart towards us, because they are at bottom the same. The Epistle +then is valuable, as showing in a concrete instance how the Christian +life, in its attitude to others, and especially to those who have +injured us, is all modelled upon God's forgiving love to us. Our Lord's +parable of the forgiven servant who took his brother by the throat finds +here a commentary, and the Apostle's own precept, "Be imitators of God, +and walk in love," a practical exemplification. + +Nor is the light which the letter throws on the character of the Apostle +to be regarded as unimportant. The warmth, the delicacy, and what, if it +were not so spontaneous, we might call tact, the graceful ingenuity with +which he pleads for the fugitive, the perfect courtesy of every word, +the gleam of playfulness--all fused together and harmonized to one end, +and that in so brief a compass and with such unstudied ease and complete +self-oblivion, make this Epistle a pure gem. Without thought of effect, +and with complete unconsciousness, this man beats all the famous +letter-writers on their own ground. That must have been a great +intellect, and closely conversant with the Fountain of all light and +beauty, which could shape the profound and far-reaching teachings of the +Epistle to the Colossians, and pass from them to the graceful simplicity +and sweet kindliness of this exquisite letter; as if Michael Angelo had +gone straight from smiting his magnificent Moses from the marble mass to +incise some delicate and tiny figure of Love or Friendship on a cameo. + +The structure of the letter is of the utmost simplicity. It is not so +much a structure as a flow. There is the usual superscription and +salutation, followed, according to Paul's custom, by the expression of +his thankful recognition of the love and faith of Philemon and his +prayer for the perfecting of these. Then he goes straight to the +business in hand, and with incomparable persuasiveness pleads for a +welcome to Onesimus, bringing all possible reasons to converge on that +one request, with an ingenious eloquence born of earnestness. Having +poured out his heart in this pleasure adds no more but affectionate +greetings from his companions and himself. + +In the present section we shall confine our attention to the +superscription and opening salutation. + +I. We may observe the Apostle's designation of himself, as marked by +consummate and instinctive appreciation of the claims of friendship, and +of his own position in this letter as a suppliant. He does not come to +his friend clothed with apostolic authority. In his letters to the +Churches he always puts that in the forefront, and when he expected to +be met by opponents, as in Galatia, there is a certain ring of defiance +in his claim to receive his commission through no human intervention, +but straight from heaven. Sometimes, as in the Epistle to the +Colossians, he unites another strangely contrasted title, and calls +himself also "the slave" of Christ; the one name asserting authority, +the other bowing in humility before his Owner and Master. But here he is +writing as a friend to a friend, and his object is to win his friend to +a piece of Christian conduct which may be somewhat against the grain. +Apostolic authority will not go half so far as personal influence in +this case. So he drops all reference to it, and, instead, lets Philemon +hear the fetters jangling on his limbs--a more powerful plea. "Paul, a +prisoner," surely that would go straight to Philemon's heart, and give +all but irresistible force to the request which follows. Surely if he +could do anything to show his love and gratify even momentarily his +friend in prison, he would not refuse it. If this designation had been +calculated to produce effect, it would have lost all its grace; but no +one with any ear for the accents of inartificial spontaneousness, can +fail to hear them in the unconscious pathos of these opening words, +which say the right thing, all unaware of how right it is. + +There is great dignity also, as well as profound faith, in the next +words, in which the Apostle calls himself a prisoner "of Christ Jesus." +With what calm ignoring of all subordinate agencies he looks to the true +author of his captivity! Neither Jewish hatred nor Roman policy had shut +him up in Rome. Christ Himself had riveted his manacles on his wrists, +therefore he bore them as lightly and proudly as a bride might wear the +bracelet that her husband had clasped on her arm. The expression reveals +both the author of and the reason for his imprisonment, and discloses +the conviction which held him up in it. He thinks of his Lord as the +Lord of providence, whose hand moves the pieces on the board--Pharisees, +and Roman governors, and guards, and Cæsar; and he knows that he is an +ambassador in bonds, for no crime, but for the testimony of Jesus. We +need only notice that his younger companion Timothy is associated with +the Apostle in the superscription, but disappears at once. The reason +for the introduction of his name may either have been the slight +additional weight thereby given to the request of the letter, or more +probably, the additional authority thereby given to the junior, who +would, in all likelihood, have much of Paul's work devolved on him when +Paul was gone. + +The names of the receivers of the letter bring before us a picture seen, +as by one glimmering light across the centuries, of a Christian +household in that Phrygian valley. The head of it, Philemon, appears to +have been a native of, or at all events a resident in, Colossæ; for +Onesimus, his slave, is spoken of in the Epistle to the Church there as +"one of _you_." He was a person of some standing and wealth, for he had +a house large enough to admit of a "Church" assembling in it, and to +accommodate the Apostle and his travelling companions if he should visit +Colossæ. He had apparently the means for large pecuniary help to poor +brethren, and willingness to use them, for we read of the refreshment +which his kindly deeds had imparted. He had been one of Paul's converts, +and owed his own self to him; so that he must have met the Apostle,--who +had probably not been in Colossæ,--on some of his journeys, perhaps +during his three years' residence in Ephesus. He was of mature years, +if, as is probable, Archippus, who was old enough to have service to do +in the Church (Col. iv. 17), was his son. + +He is called "our fellow-labourer." The designation may imply some +actual co-operation at a former time. But more probably, the phrase, +like the similar one in the next verse, "our fellow-soldier," is but +Paul's gracefully affectionate way of lifting these good people's +humbler work out of its narrowness, by associating it with his own. They +in their little sphere, and he in his wider, were workers at the same +task. All who toil for furtherance of Christ's kingdom, however widely +they may be parted by time or distance, are fellow-workers. Division of +labour does not impair unity of service. The field is wide, and the +months between seedtime and harvest are long; but all the husbandmen +have been engaged in the same great work, and though they have toiled +alone shall "rejoice together." The first man who dug a shovelful of +earth for the foundations of Cologne Cathedral, and he who fixed the +last stone on the topmost spire a thousand years after, are +fellow-workers. So Paul and Philemon, though their tasks were widely +different in kind, in range, and in importance, and were carried on +apart and independent of each other, were fellow-workers. The one lived +a Christian life and helped some humble saints in an insignificant, +remote corner; the other flamed through the whole then civilized western +world, and sheds light to-day: but the obscure, twinkling taper and the +blazing torch were kindled at the same source, shone with the same +light, and were parts of one great whole. Our narrowness is rebuked, our +despondency cheered, our vulgar tendency to think little of modest, +obscure service rendered by commonplace people, and to exaggerate the +worth of the more conspicuous, is corrected by such a thought. However +small may be our capacity or sphere, and however solitary we may feel, +we may summon up before the eyes of our faith a mighty multitude of +apostles, martyrs, toilers in every land and age as _our_--even +our--work-fellows. The field stretches far beyond our vision, and many +are toiling in it for Him, whose work never comes near ours. There are +differences of service, but the same Lord, and all who have the same +master are companions in labour. Therefore Paul, the greatest of the +servants of Christ, reaches down his hand to the obscure Philemon, and +says, "He works the work of the Lord, as I also do." + +In the house at Colossæ there was a Christian wife by the side of a +Christian husband; at least, the mention of Apphia here in so prominent +a position is most naturally accounted for by supposing her to be the +wife of Philemon. Her friendly reception of the runaway would be quite +as important as his, and it is therefore most natural that the letter +bespeaking it should be addressed to both. The probable reading "our +sister" (R.V.), instead of "our beloved" (A.V.), gives the distinct +assurance that she too was a Christian, and like-minded with her +husband. + +The prominent mention of this Phrygian matron is an illustration of the +way in which Christianity, without meddling with social usages, +introduced a new tone of feeling about the position of woman, which +gradually changed the face of the world, is still working, and has +further revolutions to affect. The degraded classes of the Greek world +were slaves and women. This Epistle touches both, and shows us +Christianity in the very act of elevating both. The same process strikes +the fetters from the slave and sets the wife by the side of the husband, +"yoked in all exercise of noble end,"--namely, the proclamation of +Christ as the Saviour of all mankind, and of all human creatures as +equally capable of receiving an equal salvation. That annihilates all +distinctions. The old world was parted by deep gulfs. There were three +of special depth and width, across which it was hard for sympathy to +fly. These were the distinctions of race, sex, and condition. But the +good news that Christ has died for all men, and is ready to live in all +men, has thrown a bridge across, or rather has filled up, the ravine; so +the Apostle bursts into his triumphant proclamation, "There is neither +Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor +female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." + +A third name is united with those of husband and wife, that of +Archippus. The close relation in which the names stand, and the purely +domestic character of the letter, make it probable that he was a son of +the wedded pair. At all events, he was in some way part of their +household, possibly some kind of teacher and guide. We meet his name +also in the Epistle to the Colossians, and, from the nature of the +reference to him there, we draw the inference that he filled some +"ministry" in the Church of Laodicea. The nearness of the two cities +made it quite possible that he should live in Philemon's house in +Colossæ and yet go over to Laodicea for his work. + +The Apostle calls him "his fellow-soldier," a phrase which is best +explained in the same fashion as is the previous "fellow-worker," +namely, that by it Paul graciously associates Archippus with himself, +different as their tasks were. The variation of _soldier_ for _worker_ +probably is due to the fact of Archippus' being the bishop of the +Laodicean Church. In any case, it is very beautiful that the grizzled +veteran officer should thus, as it were, clasp the hand of this young +recruit, and call him his comrade. How it would go to the heart of +Archippus! + +A somewhat stern message is sent to Archippus in the Colossian letter. +Why did not Paul send it quietly in this Epistle instead of letting a +whole Church know of it? It seems at first sight as if he had chosen the +harshest way; but perhaps further consideration may suggest that the +reason was an instinctive unwillingness to introduce a jarring note into +the joyous friendship and confidence which sounds through this Epistle, +and to bring public matters into this private communication. The +warning would come with more effect from the Church, and this cordial +message of goodwill and confidence would prepare Archippus to receive +the other, as rain showers make the ground soft for the good seed. The +private affection would mitigate the public exhortation with whatever +rebuke may have been in it. + +A greeting is sent, too, to "the Church in thy house." As in the case of +the similar community in the house of Nymphas (Col. iv. 15), we cannot +decide whether by this expression is meant simply a Christian family, or +some little company of believers who were wont to meet beneath +Philemon's roof for Christian converse and worship. The latter seems the +more probable supposition. It is natural that they should be addressed; +for Onesimus, if received by Philemon, would naturally become a member +of the group, and therefore it was important to secure their good will. + +So we have here shown to us, by one stray beam of twinkling light, for a +moment, a very sweet picture of the domestic life of that Christian +household in their remote valley. It shines still to us across the +centuries, which have swallowed up so much that seemed more permanent, +and silenced so much that made far more noise in its day. The picture +may well set us asking ourselves the question whether we, with all our +boasted advancement, have been able to realize the true ideal of +Christian family life as these three did. The husband and wife dwelling +as heirs together of the grace of life, their child beside them sharing +their faith and service, their household ordered in the ways of the +Lord, their friends Christ's friends, and their social joys hallowed +and serene--what nobler form of family life can be conceived than that? +What a rebuke to, and satire on, many a so-called Christian household! + +II. We may deal briefly with the apostolic salutation, "Grace to you and +peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," as we have already +had to speak of it in considering the greeting to the Colossians. The +two main points to be observed in these words are the comprehensiveness +of the Apostle's loving wish, and the source to which he looks for its +fulfilment. Just as the regal title of the King, whose Throne was the +Cross, was written in the languages of culture, of law, and of religion, +as an unconscious prophecy of His universal reign; so, with like +unintentional felicity, we have blended here the ideals of good which +the East and the West have framed for those to whom they wish good, in +token that Christ is able to slake all the thirsts of the soul, and that +whatsoever things any races of men have dreamed as the chiefest +blessings, these are all to be reached through Him and Him only. + +But the deeper lesson here is to be found by observing that "grace" +refers to the action of the Divine heart, and "peace" to the result +thereof in man's experience. As we have noted in commenting on Col. i. +2, "grace" is free, undeserved, unmotived, self-springing love. Hence it +comes to mean, not only the deep fountain in the Divine nature, that His +love, which, like some strong spring, leaps up and gushes forth by an +inward impulse, in neglect of all motives drawn from the lovableness of +its objects, such as determine our poor human loves, but also the +results of that bestowing love in men's characters, or, as we say, the +"graces" of the Christian soul. They are "grace," not only because in +the æsthetic sense of the word they are beautiful, but because, in the +theological meaning of it, they are the products of the giving love and +power of God. "Whatsoever things are lovely and of good report," all +nobilities, tendernesses, exquisite beauties, and steadfast strengths of +mind and heart, of will and disposition--all are the gifts of God's +undeserved and open-handed love. + +The fruit of such grace received is peace. In other places the Apostle +twice gives a fuller form of this salutation, inserting "mercy" between +the two here named; as also does St. John in his second Epistle. That +fuller form gives us the source in the Divine heart, the manifestation +of grace in the Divine act, and the outcome in human experience; or as +we may say, carrying on the metaphor, the broad, calm lake which the +grace, flowing to us in the stream of mercy, makes, when it opens out in +our hearts. Here, however, we have but the ultimate source, and the +effect in us. + +All the discords of our nature and circumstances can be harmonized by +that grace which is ready to flow into our hearts. Peace with God, with +ourselves, with our fellows, repose in the midst of change, calm in +conflict, may be ours. All these various applications of the one idea +should be included in our interpretation, for they are all included in +fact in the peace which God's grace brings where it lights. The first +and deepest need of the soul is conscious amity and harmony with God, +and nothing but the consciousness of His love as forgiving and healing +brings that. We are torn asunder by conflicting passions, and our hearts +are the battleground for conscience and inclination, sin and goodness, +hopes and fears, and a hundred other contending emotions. Nothing but a +heavenly power can make the lion within lie down with the lamb. Our +natures are "like the troubled sea, which cannot rest," whose churning +waters cast up the foul things that lie in their slimy beds; but where +God's grace comes, a great calm hushes the tempests, "and birds of peace +sit brooding on the charmed wave." + +We are compassed about by foes with whom we have to wage undying +warfare, and by hostile circumstances and difficult tasks which need +continual conflict; but a man with God's grace in his heart may have the +rest of submission, the repose of trust, the tranquillity of him who +"has ceased from his own works": and so, while the daily struggle goes +on and the battle rages round, there may be quiet, deep and sacred, in +his heart. + +The life of nature, which is a selfish life, flings us into unfriendly +rivalries with others, and sets us battling for our own hands, and it is +hard to pass out of ourselves sufficiently to live peaceably with all +men. But the grace of God in our hearts drives out self, and changes the +man who truly has it into its own likeness. He who knows that he owes +everything to a Divine love which stooped to his lowliness, and pardoned +his sins, and enriched him with all which he has that is worthy and +noble, cannot but move among men, doing with them, in his poor fashion, +what God has done with him. + +Thus, in all the manifold forms in which restless hearts need peace, +the grace of God brings it to them. The great river of mercy which has +its source deep in the heart of God, and in His free, undeserved love, +pours into poor, unquiet spirits, and there spreads itself into a placid +lake, on whose still surface all heaven is mirrored. + +The elliptical form of this salutation leaves it doubtful whether we are +to see in it a prayer or a prophecy, a wish or an assurance. According +to the probable reading of the parallel greeting in the second Epistle +of John, the latter would be the construction; but probably it is best +to combine both ideas, and to see here, as Bengel does in the passage +referred to in John's Epistle, "votum cum affirmatione"--a desire which +is so certain of its own fulfilment, that it is a prophecy, just because +it is a prayer. + +The ground of the certainty lies in the source from which the grace and +peace come. They flow "from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." +The placing of both names under the government of one preposition +implies the mysterious unity of the Father with the Son; while +conversely St. John, in the parallel passage just mentioned, by +employing two prepositions, brings out the distinction between the +Father, who is the fontal source, and the Son, who is the flowing +stream. But both forms of the expression demand for their honest +explanation the recognition of the divinity of Jesus Christ. How dare a +man, who thought of Him as other than Divine, put His name thus by the +side of God's, as associated with the Father in the bestowal of grace? +Surely such words, spoken without any thought of a doctrine of the +Trinity, and which are the spontaneous utterance of Christian devotion, +are demonstration, not to be gainsaid, that to Paul, at all events, +Jesus Christ was, in the fullest sense, Divine. The double source is one +source, for in the Son is the whole fulness of the Godhead; and the +grace of God, bringing with it the peace of God, is poured into that +spirit which bows humbly before Jesus Christ, and trusts Him when He +says, with love in His eyes and comfort in His tones, "My grace is +sufficient for thee"; "My peace give I unto you." + + + + +II. + + "I thank my God always, making mention of thee in my prayers, + hearing of thy love, and of the faith which thou hast toward the + Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints; that the fellowship of thy + faith may become effectual, in the knowledge of every good thing + which is in you, unto Christ. For I had much joy and comfort in thy + love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through + thee, brother."--PHILEM. 4-7 (Rev. Ver.). + + +Paul's was one of those regal natures to which things are possible that +other men dare not do. No suspicion of weakness attaches to him when he +pours out his heart in love, nor any of insincerity when he speaks of +his continual prayers for his friends, or when he runs over in praise of +his converts. Few men have been able to talk so much of their love +without betraying its shallowness and self-consciousness, or of their +prayers without exciting a doubt of their manly sincerity. But the +Apostle could venture to do these things without being thought either +feeble or false, and could unveil his deepest affections and his most +secret devotions without provoking either a smile or a shrug. + +He has the habit of beginning all his letters with thankful +commendations and assurances of a place in his prayers. The exceptions +are 2 Corinthians, where he writes under strong and painful emotion, and +Galatians, where a vehement accusation of fickleness takes the place of +the usual greeting. But these exceptions make the habit more +conspicuous. Though this is a habit, it is not a form, but the perfectly +simple and natural expression of the moment's feelings. He begins his +letters so, not in order to please and to say smooth things, but because +he feels lovingly, and his heart fills with a pure joy which speaks most +fitly in prayer. To recognise good is the way to make good better. +Teachers must love if their teaching is to help. The best way to secure +the doing of any signal act of Christian generosity, such as Paul wished +of Philemon, is to show absolute confidence that it will be done, +because it is in accordance with what we know of the doer's character. +"It's a shame to tell Arnold a lie: he always trusts us," the Rugby boys +used to say. Nothing could so powerfully have swayed Philemon to grant +Paul's request, as Paul's graceful mention of his beneficence, which +mention is yet by no means conscious diplomacy, but instinctive +kindliness. + +The words of this section are simple enough, but their order is not +altogether clear. They are a good example of the hurry and rush of the +Apostle's style, arising from his impetuosity of nature. His thoughts +and feelings come knocking at "the door of his lips" in a crowd, and do +not always make their way out in logical order. For instance, he begins +here with thankfulness, and that suggests the mention of his prayers, +_v._ 4. Then he gives the occasion of his thankfulness in _v._ 5, +"Hearing of thy love and of the faith which thou hast," etc. He next +tells Philemon the subject matter of his prayers in _v._ 6, "That the +fellowship of thy faith may become effectual," etc. These two verses +thus correspond to the two clauses of _v._ 4, and finally in _v._ 7 he +harks back once more to his reasons for thankfulness in Philemon's love +and faith, adding, in a very lovely and pathetic way, that the good +deeds done in far off Colossæ had wafted a refreshing air to the Roman +prison house, and, little as the doer knew it, had been a joy and +comfort to the solitary prisoner there. + +I. We have,--then, here the character of Philemon, which made Paul glad +and thankful. The order of the language is noteworthy. Love is put +before faith. The significance of this sequence comes out by contrast +with similar expressions in Ephesians i. 15: "Your faith in the Lord +Jesus, and love unto all the saints" (A.V.) and Colossians i. 4: "Your +faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which ye have toward all the +saints," where the same elements are arranged in the more natural order, +corresponding to their logical relation; viz., faith first, and love as +its consequence. The reason for the change here is probably that +Onesimus and Epaphras, from whom Paul would be likely to hear of +Philemon, would enlarge upon his practical benevolence, and would +naturally say less about the root than about the sweet and visible +fruit. The arrangement then is an echo of the talks which had gladdened +the Apostle. Possibly, too, love is put first, because the object of the +whole letter is to secure its exercise towards the fugitive slave; and +seeing that the Apostle would listen with that purpose in view, each +story which was told of Philemon's kindness to others made the deeper +impression on Paul. The order here is the order of analysis, digging +down from manifestation to cause: the order in the parallel passages +quoted is the order of production ascending from root to flower. + +Another peculiarity in the arrangement of the words is that the objects +of love and faith are named in the reverse order to that in which these +graces are mentioned, "the Lord Jesus" being first, and "all the saints" +last. Thus we have, as it were, "faith towards the Lord Jesus" imbedded +in the centre of the verse, while "thy love ... toward all the saints," +which flows from it, wraps it round. The arrangement is like some forms +of Hebrew poetical parallelism, in which the first and fourth members +correspond, and the second and third, or like the pathetic measure of +_In Memoriam_, and has the same sweet lingering cadence; while it also +implies important truths as to the central place in regard to the +virtues which knit hearts in soft bonds of love and help, of the faith +which finds its sole object in Jesus Christ. + +The source and foundation of goodness and nobility of character is faith +in Jesus the Lord. That must be buried deep in the soul if tender love +toward men is to flow from it. It is "the very pulse of the machine." +All the pearls of goodness are held in solution in faith. Or, to speak +more accurately, faith in Christ gives possession of His life and +Spirit, from which all good is unfolded; and it further sets in action +strong motives by which to lead to every form of purity and beauty of +soul; and, still further, it brings the heart into glad contact with a +Divine love which forgives its Onesimuses, and so it cannot but touch +the heart into some glad imitation of that love which is its own dearest +treasure. So that, for all these and many more reasons, love to men is +the truest visible expression, as it is the direct and necessary result, +of faith in Christ. What is exhaled from the heart and drawn upwards by +the fervours of Christ's self-sacrificing love is faith; when it falls +on earth again, as a sweet rain of pity and tenderness, it is love. + +Further, the true object of faith and one phase of its attitude towards +that object are brought out in this central clause. We have the two +names which express, the one the divinity, the other the humanity of +Christ. So the proper object of faith is the whole Christ, in both His +natures, the Divine-human Saviour. Christian faith sees the divinity in +the humanity, and the humanity around the divinity. A faith which grasps +only the manhood is maimed, and indeed has no right to the name. +Humanity is not a fit object of trust. It may change; it has limits; it +must die. "Cursed be the man that maketh flesh his arm," is as true +about faith in a merely human Christ as about faith in any other man. +There may be reverence, there may be in some sense love, obedience, +imitation; but there should not be, and I see not how there can be, the +absolute reliance, the utter dependence, the unconditional submission, +which are of the very essence of faith, in the emotions which men +cherish towards a human Christ. The Lord Jesus only can evoke these. On +the other hand, the far off splendour and stupendous glory of the Divine +nature becomes the object of untrembling trust, and draws near enough to +be known and loved, when we have it mellowed to our weak eyes by shining +through the tempering medium of His humanity. + +The preposition here used to define the relation of faith to its object +is noteworthy. Faith is "toward" Him. The idea is that of a movement of +yearning after an unattained good. And that is one part of the true +office of faith. There is in it an element of aspiration, as of the +soaring eagle to the sun, or the climbing tendrils to the summit of the +supporting stem. In Christ there is always something beyond, which +discloses itself the more clearly, the fuller is our present possession +of Him. Faith builds upon and rests in the Christ possessed and +experienced, and just therefore will it, if it be true, yearn towards +the Christ unpossessed. A great reach of flashing glory beyond opens on +us, as we round each new headland in that unending voyage. Our faith +should and will be an ever-increasing fruition of Christ, accompanied +with increasing perception of unreached depths in Him, and increasing +longing after enlarged possession of His infinite fulness. + +Where the centre is such a faith, its circumference and outward +expression will be a widely diffused love. That deep and most private +emotion of the soul, which is the flight of the lonely spirit to the +single Christ, as if these two were alone in the world, does not bar a +man off from his kind, but effloresces into the largest and most +practical love. When one point of the compasses is struck deeply and +firmly into that centre of all things, the other can steadily sweep a +wide circle. The widest is not here drawn, but a somewhat narrower, +concentric one. The love is "toward all saints." Clearly their relation +to Jesus Christ puts all Christians into relation with one another. That +was an astounding thought in Philemon's days, when such high walls +separated race from race, the slave from the free, woman from man; but +the new faith leaped all barriers, and put a sense of brotherhood into +every heart that learned God's fatherhood in Jesus. The nave of the +wheel holds all the spokes in place. The sun makes the system called by +its name a unity, though some planets be of giant bulk and swing through +a mighty orbit, waited on by obedient satellites, and some be but specks +and move through a narrow circle, and some have scarce been seen by +human eye. All are one, because all revolve round one sun, though solemn +abysses part them, and though no message has ever crossed the gulfs from +one to another. + +The recognition of the common relation which all who bear the same +relation to Christ bear to one another has more formidable difficulties +to encounter to-day than it had in these times when the Church had no +stereotyped creeds and no stiffened organizations, and when to the +flexibility of its youth were added the warmth of new conviction and the +joy of a new field for expanding emotions of brotherly kindness. But +nothing can absolve from the duty. Creeds separate, Christ unites. The +road to "the reunion of Christendom" is through closer union to Jesus +Christ. When that is secured, barriers which now keep brethren apart +will be leaped, or pulled down, or got rid of somehow. It is of no use +to say, "Go to, let us love one another." That will be unreal, mawkish, +histrionic. "The faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus" will be +the productive cause, as it is the measure, of "thy love toward all the +saints." + +But the love which is here commended is not a mere feeling, nor does it +go off in gushes, however fervid, of eloquent emotion. Clearly Philemon +was a benefactor of the brotherhood, and his love did not spend only the +paper money of words and promises to pay, but the solid coin of kindly +deeds. Practical charity is plainly included in that love of which it +had cheered Paul in his imprisonment to hear. Its mention, then, is one +step nearer to the object of the letter. Paul conducts his siege of +Philemon's heart skilfully, and opens here a fresh parallel, and creeps +a yard or two closer up. "Surely you are not going to shut out one of +your own household from that wide-reaching kindness." So much is most +delicately hinted, or rather, left to Philemon to infer, by the +recognition of his brotherly love. A hint lies in it that there may be a +danger of cherishing a cheap and easy charity that reverses the law of +gravity, and _in_creases as the square of the distance, having +tenderness and smiles for people and Churches which are well out of our +road, and frowns for some nearer home. "He that loveth not his brother +whom he hath seen, how shall he love" his brother "whom he hath not +seen?" + +II. In _v._ 6 we have the apostolic prayer for Philemon, grounded on the +tidings of his love and faith. It is immediately connected with "the +prayers" of _v._ 4 by the introductory "that," which is best understood +as introducing the subject matter of the prayer. Whatever then may be +the meaning of this supplication, it is a prayer for Philemon, and not +for others. That remark disposes of the explanations which widen its +scope, contrary, as it seems to me, to the natural understanding of the +context. + +"The fellowship of thy faith" is capable of more than one meaning. The +signification of the principal word and the relation expressed by the +preposition may be variously determined. "Fellowship" is more than once +used in the sense of sharing material wealth with Christ's poor, or more +harshly and plainly, charitable contribution. So we find it in Romans +xv. 26 and 2 Corinthians ix. 13. Adopting that meaning here, the "of" +must express, as it often does, the origin of Philemon's kindly gifts, +namely, his faith; and the whole phrase accords with the preceding verse +in its view of the genesis of beneficence to the brethren as the result +of faith in the Lord. + +The Apostle prays that this faith-begotten practical liberality may +become efficacious, or may acquire still more power; _i.e._ may increase +in activity, and so may lead to "the knowledge of every good thing that +is in us." The interpretation has found extensive support, which takes +this as equivalent to a desire that Philemon's good deeds might lead +others, whether enemies or friends, to recognise the beauties of +sympathetic goodness in the true Christian character. Such an +explanation hopelessly confuses the whole, and does violence to the +plain requirements of the context, which limit the prayer to Philemon. +It is _his_ "knowledge" of which Paul is thinking. The same profound and +pregnant word is used here which occurs so frequently in the other +epistles of the captivity, and which always means that deep and vital +knowledge which knows because it possesses. Usually its object is God as +revealed in the great work and person of Christ. Here its object is the +sum total of spiritual blessings, the whole fulness of the gifts given +us by, and, at bottom, consisting of, that same Christ dwelling in the +heart, who is revealer, because He is communicator, of God. The full, +deep knowledge of this manifold and yet one good is no mere theoretical +work of the understanding, but is an experience which is only possible +to him who enjoys it. + +The meaning of the whole prayer, then, put into feebler and more modern +dress is simply that Philemon's liberality and Christian love may grow +more and more, and may help him to a fuller appropriation and experience +of the large treasures "which are in us," though in germ and +potentiality only, until brought into consciousness by our own Christian +growth. The various readings "in us," or "in you" only widen the circle +of possessors of these gifts to the whole Church, or narrow it to the +believers of Colossæ. + +There still remain for consideration the last words of the clause, "unto +Christ" They must be referred back to the main subject of the sentence, +"may become effectual." They seem to express the condition on which +Christian "fellowship," like all Christian acts, can be quickened with +energy, and tend to spiritual progress; namely, that it shall be done as +to the Lord. There is perhaps in this appended clause a kind of +lingering echo of our Lord's own words, in which He accepts as done unto +Him the kindly deeds done to the least of His brethren. + +So then this great prayer brings out very strongly the goal to which the +highest perfection of Christian character has still to aspire. Philemon +was no weakling or laggard in the Christian conflict and race. His +attainments sent a thrill of thankfulness through the Apostle's spirit. +But there remained "very much land to be possessed"; and precisely +because he had climbed so far, does his friend pray that he may mount +still higher, where the sweep of view is wider, and the air clearer +still. It is an endless task to bring into conscious possession and +exercise all the fulness with which Christ endows His feeblest servant. +Not till all that God can give, or rather has given, has been +incorporated in the nature and wrought out in the life, is the term +reached. This is the true sublime of the Christian life, that it begins +with the reception of a strictly infinite gift, and demands immortality +as the field for unfolding its worth. Continual progress in all that +ennobles the nature, satisfies the heart, and floods the mind with light +is the destiny of the Christian soul, and of it alone. Therefore +unwearied effort, buoyancy, and hope which no dark memories can dash nor +any fears darken should mark _their_ temper, to whom the future offers +an absolutely endless and limitless increase in the possession of the +infinite God. + +There is also brought out in this prayer the value of Christian +beneficence as a means of spiritual growth. Philemon's "communication of +faith" will help him to the knowledge of the fulness of Christ. The +reaction of conduct on character and growth in godliness is a familiar +idea with Paul, especially in the prison epistles. Thus we read in his +prayer for the Colossians, "fruitful in every good work, and increasing +in the knowledge of God." The faithful carrying out in life of what we +already know is not the least important condition of increasing +knowledge. If a man does not live up to his religion, his religion +shrinks to the level of his life. Unoccupied territory lapses. We hold +our spiritual gifts on the terms of using them. The practice of +convictions deepens convictions; not that the exercise of Christian +graces will make theologians, but it will give larger possession of the +knowledge which is life. + +While this general principle is abundantly enforced in Scripture and +confirmed by experience, the specific form of it here is that the right +administration of wealth is a direct means of increasing a Christian's +possession of the large store treasured in Christ. Every loving thought +towards the sorrowful and the needy, every touch of sympathy yielded to, +and every kindly, Christlike deed flowing from these, thins away some +film of the barriers between the believing soul and a full possession of +God, and thus makes it more capable of beholding Him and of rising to +communion with Him. The possibilities of wealth lie, not only in the +direction of earthly advantages, but in the fact that men may so use it +as to secure their being "received into everlasting habitations." Modern +evangelical teachers have been afraid to say what Paul ventured to say +on this matter, for fear of obscuring the truth which Paul gave his life +to preach. Surely they need not be more jealous for the doctrine of +"justification by faith" than he was; and if he had no scruples in +telling rich men to "lay up in store for themselves a good foundation +for the time to come," by being "ready to communicate," they may safely +follow. There is probably no more powerful cause of the comparative +feebleness of average English Christianity than the selfish use of +money, and no surer means of securing a great increase in the depth and +richness of the individual Christian life than the fuller application of +Christian principle, that is, of the law of sacrifice, to the +administration of property. + +The final clause of the verse seems to state the condition on which +Philemon's good deeds will avail for his own growth in grace, and +implies that in him that condition is fulfilled. If a man does deeds of +kindness and help to one of these little ones, as "unto Christ," then +his beneficence will come back in spiritual blessing on his own head. If +they are the result of simple natural compassion, beautiful as it is, +they will reinforce _it_, but have no tendency to strengthen that from +which they do _not_ flow. If they are tainted by any self-regard, then +they are not charitable deeds at all. What is done for Christ will bring +to the doer more of Christ as its consequence and reward. All life, with +all its varied forms of endurance and service, comes under this same +law, and tends to make more assured and more blessed and more profound +the knowledge and grasp of the fulness of Christ, in the measure in +which it is directed to Him, and done or suffered for His sake. + +III. The present section closes with a very sweet and pathetic +representation of the Apostle's joy in the character of his friend. + +The "for" of _v._ 7 connects not with the words of petition immediately +before, but with "I thank my God" (_v._ 4), and gives a graceful +turn--graceful only because so unforced and true--to the sentence. "My +thanks are due to you for your kindness to others, for, though you did +not think of it, you have done me as much good as you did them." The +"love" which gives Paul such "great joy and consolation" is not love +directed to himself, but to others; and the reason why it gladdened the +Apostle was because it had "refreshed the hearts" of sorrowful and needy +saints in Colossæ. This tender expression of affectionate joy in +Philemon's good deeds is made wonderfully emotional by that emphatic +"brother" which ends the verse, and by its unusual position in the +sentence assumes the character of a sudden, irrepressible shoot of love +from Paul's heart towards Philemon, like the quick impulse with which a +mother will catch up her child, and cover it with caresses. Paul was +never ashamed of showing his tenderness, and it never repels us. + +These final words suggest the unexpected good which good deeds may do. +No man can ever tell how far the blessing of his trivial acts of +kindness, or other pieces of Christian conduct, may travel. They may +benefit one in material fashion, but the fragrance may reach many +others. Philemon little dreamed that his small charity to some suffering +brother in Colossæ would find its way across the sea, and bring a waft +of coolness and refreshing into the hot prison house. Neither Paul nor +Philemon dreamed that, made immortal by the word of the former, the same +transient act would find its way across the centuries, and would "smell +sweet and blossom in the dust" to-day. Men know not who are their +audiences, or who may be spectators of their works; for they are all +bound so mystically and closely together, that none can tell how far the +vibrations which he sets in motion will thrill. This is true about all +deeds, good and bad, and invests them all with solemn importance. The +arrow shot travels beyond the archer's eye, and may wound where he +knows not. The only thing certain about the deed once done is, that its +irrevocable consequences will reach much farther than the doer dreamed, +and that no limits can be set to the subtle influence which, for +blessing or harm, it exerts. + +Since the diameter of the circle which our acts may fill is unknown and +unknowable, the doer who stands at the centre is all the more solemnly +bound to make sure of the only thing of which he can make sure, the +quality of the influence sent forth; and since his deed may blight or +bless so widely, to clarify his motives and guard his doings, that they +may bring only good wherever they light. + +May we not venture to see shining through the Apostle's words the +Master's face? "Even as Christ did for us with God the Father," says +Luther, "thus also doth St. Paul for Onesimus with Philemon"; and that +thought may permissibly be applied to many parts of this letter, to +which it gives much beauty. It may not be all fanciful to say that, as +Paul's heart was gladdened when he heard of the good deeds done in +far-off Colossæ by a man who "owed to him his own self" so we may +believe that Christ is glad and has "great joy in our love" to His +servants and in our kindliness, when He beholds the poor work done by +the humblest for His sake. He sees and rejoices, and approves when there +are none but Himself to know or praise; and at last many, who did lowly +service to His friends, will be surprised to hear from His lips the +acknowledgment that it was Himself whom they had visited and succoured, +and that they had been ministering to the Master's joy when they had +only known themselves to be succouring His servants' need. + + + + +III. + + "Wherefore, though I have all boldness in Christ to enjoin thee that + which is befitting, yet for love's sake I rather beseech, being such + a one as Paul the aged, and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ; I + beseech thee for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, + Onesimus; who was aforetime unprofitable to thee, but now is + profitable to thee, and to me."--PHILEM. 8-11 (Rev. Ver.). + + +After honest and affectionate praise of Philemon, the Apostle now +approaches the main purpose of his letter. But even now he does not +blurt it out at once. He probably anticipated that his friend was justly +angry with his runaway slave, and therefore, in these verses, he touches +a kind of prelude to his request with what we should call the finest +tact, if it were not so manifestly the unconscious product of simple +good feeling. Even by the end of them he has not ventured to say what he +wishes done, though he has ventured to introduce the obnoxious name. So +much persuading and sanctified ingenuity does it sometimes take to +induce good men to do plain duties which may be unwelcome. + +These verses not only present a model for efforts to lead men in right +paths, but they unveil the very spirit of Christianity in their +pleadings. Paul's persuasives to Philemon are echoes of Christ's +persuasives to Paul. He had learned his method from his Master, and had +himself experienced that gentle love was more than commandments. +Therefore he softens his voice to speak to Philemon, as Christ had +softened His to speak to Paul. We do not arbitrarily "spiritualize" the +words, but simply recognise that the Apostle moulded his conduct after +Christ's pattern, when we see here a mirror reflecting some of the +highest truths of Christian ethics. + +I. Here is seen love which beseeches where it might command. The first +word, "wherefore," leads back to the preceding sentence, and makes +Philemon's past kindness to the saints the reason for his being asked to +be kind now. The Apostle's confidence in his friend's character, and in +his being amenable to the appeal of love, made Paul waive his apostolic +authority, and sue instead of commanding. There are people, like the +horse and the mule, who understand only rough imperatives, backed by +force; but they are fewer than we are apt to think, and perhaps +gentleness is never wholly thrown away. No doubt, there must be +adaptation of method to different characters, but we should try +gentleness before we make up our minds that to try it is to throw pearls +before swine. + +The careful limits put to apostolic authority here deserve notice. "I +might be much bold in Christ to command." He has no authority in +himself, but he has "in Christ." His own personality gives him none, but +his relation to his Master does. It is a distinct assertion of right to +command, and an equally distinct repudiation of any such right, except +as derived from his union with Jesus. + +He still further limits his authority by that noteworthy clause, "that +which is befitting." His authority does not stretch so far as to create +new obligations, or to repeal plain laws of duty. There was a standard +by which his commands were to be tried. He appeals to Philemon's own +sense of moral fitness, to his natural conscience, enlightened by +communion with Christ. + +Then comes the great motive which he will urge, "for love's sake,"--not +merely his to Philemon, nor Philemon's to him, but the bond which unites +all Christian souls together, and binds them all to Christ. "That grand, +sacred principle," says Paul, "bids me put away authority, and speak in +entreaty." Love naturally beseeches, and does not order. The harsh voice +of command is simply the imposition of another's will, and it belongs to +relationships in which the heart has no share. But wherever love is the +bond, grace is poured into the lips, and "I enjoin" becomes "I pray." So +that even where the outward form of authority is still kept, as in a +parent to young children, there will ever be some endearing word to +swathe the harsh imperative in tenderness, like a sword blade wrapped +about with wool, lest it should wound. Love tends to obliterate the hard +distinction of superior and inferior, which finds its expression in +laconic imperatives and silent obedience. It seeks not for mere +compliance with commands, but for oneness of will. The lightest wish +breathed by loved lips is stronger than all stern injunctions, often, +alas! than all laws of duty. The heart is so tuned as only to vibrate to +that one tone. The rocking stones, which all the storms of winter may +howl round and not move, can be set swinging by a light touch. Una leads +the lion in a silken leash. Love controls the wildest nature. The +demoniac, whom no chains can bind, is found sitting at the feet of +incarnate gentleness. So the wish of love is all-powerful with loving +hearts, and its faintest whisper louder and more constraining than all +the trumpets of Sinai. + +There is a large lesson here for all human relationships. Fathers and +mothers, husbands and wives, friends and companions, teachers and guides +of all sorts, should set their conduct by this pattern, and let the law +of love sit ever upon their lips. Authority is the weapon of a weak man, +who is doubtful of his own power to get himself obeyed, or of a selfish +one, who seeks for mechanical submission rather than for the fealty of +willing hearts. Love is the weapon of a strong man who can cast aside +the trappings of superiority, and is never loftier than when he +descends, nor more absolute than when he abjures authority, and appeals +with love to love. Men are not to be dragooned into goodness. If mere +outward acts are sought, it may be enough to impose another's will in +orders as curt as a soldier's word of command; but if the joyful +inclination of the heart to the good deed is to be secured, that can +only be done when law melts into love, and is thereby transformed to a +more imperative obligation, written not on tables of stone, but on +fleshy tables of the heart. + +There is a glimpse here into the very heart of Christ's rule over men. +He too does not merely impose commands, but stoops to entreat, where He +indeed might command. "Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends"; +and though He does go on to say, "Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever +I command you," yet His commandment has in it so much tenderness, +condescension, and pleading love, that it sounds far liker beseeching +than enjoining. His yoke is easy, for this among other reasons, that it +is, if one may so say, padded with love. His burden is light, because it +is laid on His servant's shoulders by a loving hand; and so, as St. +Bernard says, it is _onus quod portantem portat_, a burden which carries +him who carries it. + +II. There is in these verses the appeal which gives weight to the +entreaties of love. The Apostle brings personal considerations to bear +on the enforcement of impersonal duty, and therein follows the example +of his Lord. He presents his own circumstances as adding power to his +request, and as it were puts himself into the scale. He touches with +singular pathos on two things which should sway his friend. "Such a one +as Paul the aged." The alternative rendering "ambassador," while quite +possible, has not congruity in its favour, and would be a recurrence to +that very motive of official authority which he has just disclaimed. The +other rendering is every way preferable. How old was he? Probably +somewhere about sixty--not a very great age, but life was somewhat +shorter then than now, and Paul was, no doubt, aged by work, by worry, +and by the unresting spirit that "o'er-informed his tenement of clay." +Such temperaments as his soon grow old. Perhaps Philemon was not much +younger; but the prosperous Colossian gentleman had had a smoother life, +and, no doubt, carried his years more lightly. + +The requests of old age should have weight. In our days, what with the +improvements in education, and the general loosening of the bonds of +reverence, the old maxim that "the utmost respect is due to children," +receives a strange interpretation, and in many a household the Divine +order is turned upside down, and the juniors regulate all things. Other +still more sacred things will be likely to lose their due reverence when +silver hairs no longer receive theirs. + +But usually the aged who are "such" aged "as Paul" was, will not fail of +obtaining honour and deference. No more beautiful picture of the bright +energy and freshness still possible to the old was ever painted than may +be gathered from the Apostle's unconscious sketch of himself. He +delighted in having young life about him--Timothy, Titus, Mark, and +others, boys in comparison with himself, whom yet he admitted to close +intimacy as some old general might the youths of his staff, warming his +age at the genial flame of their growing energies and unworn hopes. His +was a joyful old age too, notwithstanding many burdens of anxiety and +sorrow. We hear the clear song of his gladness ringing through the +epistle of joy, that to the Philippians, which, like this, dates from +his Roman captivity. A Christian old age should be joyful, and only it +will be; for the joys of the natural life burn low, when the fuel that +fed them is nearly exhausted, and withered hands are held in vain over +the dying embers. But Christ's joy "remains," and a Christian old age +may be like the polar midsummer days, when the sun shines till midnight, +and dips but for an imperceptible interval ere it rises for the unending +day of heaven. + +Paul the aged was full of interest in the things of the day; no mere +"praiser of time gone by," but a strenuous worker, cherishing a quick +sympathy and an eager interest which kept him young to the end. Witness +that last chapter of the second Epistle to Timothy, where he is seen, in +the immediate expectation of death, entering heartily into passing +trifles, and thinking it worth while to give little pieces of +information about the movements of his friends, and wishful to get his +books and parchments, that he might do some more work while waiting for +the headsman's sword. And over his cheery, sympathetic, busy old age +there is thrown the light of a great hope, which kindles desire and +onward looks in his dim eyes, and parts "such a one as Paul the aged" by +a whole universe from the old whose future is dark and their past +dreary, whose hope is a phantom and their memory a pang. + +The Apostle adds yet another personal characteristic as a motive with +Philemon to grant his request: "Now a prisoner also of Christ Jesus." He +has already spoken of himself in these terms in _v._ 1. His sufferings +were imposed by and endured for Christ. He holds up his fettered wrist, +and in effect says, "Surely you will not refuse anything that you can do +to wrap a silken softness round the cold, hard iron, especially when you +remember for Whose sake and by Whose will I am bound with this chain." +He thus brings personal motives to reinforce duty which is binding from +other and higher considerations. He does not merely tell Philemon that +he ought to take back Onesimus as a piece of self-sacrificing Christian +duty. He does imply that highest motive throughout his pleadings, and +urges that such action is "fitting" or in consonance with the position +and obligations of a Christian man. But he backs up this highest reason +with these others: "If you hesitate to take him back because you ought, +will you do it because I ask you? and, before you answer that question, +will you remember my age, and what I am bearing for the Master?" If he +can get his friend to do the right thing by the help of these subsidiary +motives, still, it is the right thing; and the appeal to these motives +will do Philemon no harm, and, if successful, will do both him and +Onesimus a great deal of good. + +Does not this action of Paul remind us of the highest example of a +similar use of motives of personal attachment as aids to duty? Christ +does thus with His servants. He does not simply hold up before us a cold +law of duty, but warms it by introducing our personal relation to Him as +the main motive for keeping it. Apart from Him, Morality can only point +to the tables of stone and say: "There! that is what you ought to do. Do +it, or face the consequences." But Christ says: "I have given Myself for +you. My will is your law. Will you do it for My sake?" Instead of the +chilling, statuesque ideal, as pure as marble and as cold, a Brother +stands before us with a heart that beats, a smile on His face, a hand +outstretched to help; and His word is, "If ye love Me, keep My +commandments." The specific difference of Christian morality lies not in +its precepts, but in its motive, and in its gift of power to obey. Paul +could only urge regard to him as a subsidiary inducement. Christ puts it +as the chief, nay, as the sole motive for obedience. + +III. The last point suggested by these verses is the gradual opening up +of the main subject matter of the Apostle's request. Very noteworthy is +the tenderness of the description of the fugitive as "my child, whom I +have begotten in my bonds." Paul does not venture to name him at once, +but prepares the way by the warmth of this affectionate reference. The +position of the name in the sentence is most unusual, and suggests a +kind of hesitation to take the plunge, while the hurried passing on to +meet the objection which he knew would spring immediately to Philemon's +mind is almost as if Paul laid his hand on his friend's lips to stop his +words,--"Onesimus then is it? that good-for-nothing!" Paul admits the +indictment, will say no word to mitigate the condemnation due to his +past worthlessness, but, with a playful allusion to the slave's name, +which conceals his deep earnestness, assures Philemon that he will find +the formerly inappropriate name, Onesimus--_i.e._ profitable--true yet, +for all that is past. He is sure of this, because he, Paul, has proved +his value. Surely never were the natural feelings of indignation and +suspicion more skilfully soothed, and never did repentant +good-for-nothing get sent back to regain the confidence which he had +forfeited, with such a certificate of character in his hand! + +But there is something of more importance than Paul's inborn delicacy +and tact to notice here. Onesimus had been a bad specimen of a bad +class. Slavery must needs corrupt both the owner and the chattel; and, +as a matter of fact, we have classical allusions enough to show that the +slaves of Paul's period were deeply tainted with the characteristic +vices of their condition. Liars, thieves, idle, treacherous, nourishing +a hatred of their masters all the more deadly that it was smothered, but +ready to flame out, if opportunity served, in blood-curdling +cruelties--they constituted an ever-present danger, and needed an +ever-wakeful watchfulness. Onesimus had been known to Philemon only as +one of the idlers who were more of a nuisance than a benefit, and cost +more than they earned; and he apparently ended his career by theft. And +this degraded creature, with scars on his soul deeper and worse than the +marks of fetters on his limbs, had somehow found his way to the great +jungle of a city, where all foul vermin could crawl and hiss and sting +with comparative safety. There he had somehow come across the Apostle, +and had received into his heart, filled with ugly desires and lusts, the +message of Christ's love, which had swept it clean, and made him over +again. The Apostle has had but short experience of his convert, but he +is quite sure that he is a Christian; and, that being the case, he is as +sure that all the bad black past is buried, and that the new leaf now +turned over will be covered with fair writing, not in the least like the +blots that were on the former page, and have now been dissolved from off +it, by the touch of Christ's blood. + +It is a typical instance of the miracles which the gospel wrought as +every-day events in its transforming career. Christianity knows nothing +of hopeless cases. It professes its ability to take the most crooked +stick and bring it straight, to flash a new power into the blackest +carbon, which will turn it into a diamond. Every duty will be done +better by a man if he have the love and grace of Jesus Christ in his +heart. New motives are brought into play, new powers are given, new +standards of duty are set up. The small tasks become great, and the +unwelcome sweet, and the difficult easy, when done for and through +Christ. Old vices are crushed in their deepest source; old habits driven +out by the force of a new affection, as the young leaf-buds push the +withered foliage from the tree. Christ can make any man over again, and +does so re-create every heart that trusts to him. Such miracles of +transformation are wrought to-day as truly as of old. Many professing +Christians experience little of that quickening and revolutionising +energy; many observers see little of it, and some begin to croak, as if +the old power had ebbed away. But wherever men give the gospel fair play +in their lives, and open their spirits, in truth and not merely in +profession, to its influence, it vindicates its undiminished possession +of all its former energy; and if ever it seems to fail, it is not that +the medicine is ineffectual, but that the sick man has not really taken +it. The low tone of much modern Christianity and its dim exhibition of +the transforming power of the gospel is easily and sadly accounted for +without charging decrepitude on that which was once so mighty, by the +patent fact that much modern Christianity is little better than lip +acknowledgment, and that much more of it is wofully unfamiliar with the +truth which it in some fashion believes, and is sinfully negligent of +the spiritual gifts which it professes to treasure. If a Christian man +does not show that his religion is changing him into the fair likeness +of his Master, and fitting him for all relations of life, the reason is +simply that he has so little of it, and that little so mechanical and +tepid. + +Paul pleads with Philemon to take back his worthless servant, and +assures him that he will find Onesimus helpful now. Christ does not +need to be besought to welcome His runaway good-for-nothings, however +unprofitable they have been. That Divine charity of His forgives all +things, and "hopes all things" of the worst, and can fulfil its own hope +in the most degraded. With bright, unfaltering confidence in His own +power He fronts the most evil, sure that He can cleanse; and that, no +matter what the past has been, His power can overcome all defects of +character, education, or surroundings, can set free from all moral +disadvantages adhering to men's station, class, or calling, can break +the entail of sin. The worst needs no intercessor to sway that tender +heart of our great Master whom we may dimly see shadowed in the very +name of "Philemon," which means one who is loving or kindly. Whoever +confesses to him that he has "been an unprofitable servant," will be +welcomed to His heart, made pure and good by the Divine Spirit breathing +new life into him, will be trained by Christ for all joyful toil as His +slave, and yet His freedman and friend; and at last each once fugitive +and unprofitable Onesimus will hear the "Well done, good and faithful +servant!" + + + + +IV. + + "Whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, that is, my very + heart: whom I would fain have kept with me, that in my behalf he + might minister unto me in the bonds of the gospel: but without thy + mind I would do nothing; that thy goodness should not be as of + necessity, but of free will."--PHILEM. 12-14 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The characteristic features of the Epistle are all embodied in these +verses. They set forth, in the most striking manner, the relation of +Christianity to slavery and to other social evils. They afford an +exquisite example of the courteous delicacy and tact of the Apostle's +intervention on behalf of Onesimus; and there shine through them, as +through a semi-transparent medium, adumbrations and shimmering hints of +the greatest truths of Christianity. + +I. The first point to notice is that decisive step of sending back the +fugitive slave. Not many years ago the conscience of England was stirred +because the Government of the day sent out a circular instructing +captains of men-of-war, on the decks of which fugitive slaves sought +asylum, to restore them to their "owners." Here an Apostle does the same +thing--seems to side with the oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from +the sole refuge left him, the horns of the very altar. More +extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily going back, +travelling all the weary way from Rome to Colossæ in order to put his +neck once more beneath the yoke. Both men were acting from Christian +motives, and thought that they were doing a piece of plain Christian +duty. Then does Christianity sanction slavery? Certainly not; its +principles cut it up by the roots. A gospel, of which the starting-point +is that all men stand on the same level, as loved by the one Lord, and +redeemed by the one cross, can have no place for such an institution. A +religion which attaches the highest importance to man's awful +prerogative of freedom, because it insists on every man's individual +responsibility to God, can keep no terms with a system which turns men +into chattels. Therefore Christianity cannot but regard slavery as sin +against God, and as treason towards man. The principles of the gospel +worked into the conscience of a nation destroy slavery. Historically it +is true that as Christianity has grown slavery has withered. But the New +Testament never directly condemns it, and by regulating the conduct of +Christian masters, and recognising the obligations of Christian slaves, +seems to contemplate its continuance, and to be deaf to the sighing of +the captives. + +This attitude was probably not a piece of policy or a matter of +calculated wisdom on the part of the Apostle. He no doubt saw that the +Gospel brought a great unity in which all distinctions were merged, and +rejoiced in thinking that "in Christ Jesus there is neither bond or +free"; but whether he expected the distinction ever to disappear from +actual life is less certain. He may have thought of slavery as he did of +sex, that the fact would remain, while yet "we are all one in Christ +Jesus." It is by no means necessary to suppose that the Apostles saw +the full bearing of the truths they had to preach, in their relation to +social conditions. They were inspired to give the Church the principles. +It remained for future ages, under Divine guidance, to apprehend the +destructive and formative range of these principles. + +However this may be, the attitude of the New Testament to slavery is the +same as to other unchristian institutions. It brings the leaven, and +lets it work. That attitude is determined by three great principles. +First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only +secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to +influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment, +and only afterwards and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it +hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it +meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down +principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak +into the general mind. If an evil needs force for its removal, it is not +ready for removal. If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the +root will certainly be left and will grow again. When a dandelion head +is ripe, a child's breath can detach the winged seeds; but until it is, +no tempest can move them. The method of violence is noisy and wasteful, +like the winter torrents that cover acres of good ground with mud and +rocks, and are past in a day. The only true way is, by slow degrees to +create a state of feeling which shall instinctively abhor and cast off +the evil. Then there will be no hubbub and no waste, and the thing once +done will be done for ever. + +So has it been with slavery; so will it be with war, and intemperance, +and impurity, and the miserable anomalies of our present civilization. +It has taken eighteen hundred years for the whole Church to learn the +inconsistency of Christianity with slavery. We are no quicker learners +than the past generations were. God is patient, and does not seek to +hurry the march of His purposes. We have to be imitators of God, and +shun the "raw haste" which is "half-sister to delay." + +But patience is not passivity. It is a Christian's duty to "hasten the +day of the Lord," and to take part in the educational process which +Christ is carrying on through the ages, by submitting himself to it in +the first place, and then by endeavouring to bring others under its +influence. His place should be in the van of all social progress. It +does not become Christ's servants to be content with the attainments of +any past or present, in the matter of the organization of society on +Christian principles. "God has more light to break forth from His word." +Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness of the moral +perceptions of nineteenth century Christians in regard to matters of +Christian duty which, hidden from us, are sun-clear to them, with the +same half-amused, half-tragic wonder with which we look back to Jamaica +planters or South Carolina rice growers, who defended slavery as a +missionary institution, and saw no contradiction between their religion +and their practice. We have to stretch our charity to believe in these +men's sincere religion. Succeeding ages will have to make the same +allowance for us, and will need it for themselves from their successors. +The main thing is, for us to try to keep our spirits open to all the +incidence of the gospel on social and civic life, and to see that we are +on the right side, and trying to help on the approach of that kingdom +which does "not cry, nor lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the +streets," but has its coming "prepared as the morning," that swims up, +silent and slow, and flushes the heaven with an unsetting light. + +II. The next point in these verses is Paul's loving identification of +himself with Onesimus. + +The A.V. here follows another reading from the R.V.; the former has +"thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels." The additional +words are unquestionably inserted without authority in order to patch a +broken construction. The R.V. cuts the knot in a different fashion by +putting the abrupt words, "himself that is, my very own heart," under +the government of the preceding verb. But it seems more probable that +the Apostle began a new sentence with them, which he meant to have +finished as the A.V. does for him, but which, in fact, got hopelessly +upset in the swift rush of his thoughts, and does not right itself +grammatically till the "receive him" of _v._ 17. + +In any case the main thing to observe is the affectionate plea which he +puts in for the cordial reception of Onesimus. Of course "mine own +bowels" is simply the Hebrew way of saying "mine own heart." We think +the one phrase graceful and sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did +not think so, and it might be difficult to say why he should. It is a +mere question of difference in localizing certain emotions. Onesimus was +a piece of Paul's very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable slave +had wound himself round his affections, and become so dear that to part +with him was like cutting his heart out of his bosom. Perhaps some of +the virtues, which the servile condition helps to develop in undue +proportion, such as docility, lightheartedness, serviceableness, had +made him a soothing and helpful companion. What a plea that would be +with one who loved Paul as well as Philemon did! He could not receive +harshly one whom the Apostle had so honoured with his love. "Take care +of him, be kind to him as if it were to me." + +Such language from an Apostle about a slave would do more to destroy +slavery than any violence would do. Love leaps the barrier, and it +ceases to separate. So these simple, heart-felt words are an instance of +one method by which Christianity wars against all social wrongs, by +casting its caressing arm around the outcast, and showing that the +abject and oppressed are objects of its special love. + +They teach too how interceding love makes its object part of its very +self; the same thought recurs still more distinctly in _v._ 17, "Receive +him as myself." It is the natural language of love; some of the deepest +and most blessed Christian truths are but the carrying out of that +identification to its fullest extent. We are all Christ's Onesimuses, +and He, out of His pure love, makes Himself one with us, and us one with +Him. The union of Christ with all who trust in Him, no doubt, +presupposes His Divine nature, but still there is a human side to it, +and it is the result of His perfect love. All love delights to fuse +itself with its object, and as far as may be to abolish the distinction +of "I" and "thou." But human love can travel but a little way on that +road; Christ's goes much farther. He that pleads for some poor creature +feels that the kindness is done to himself when the former is helped or +pardoned. Imperfectly but really these words shadow forth the great fact +of Christ's intercession for us sinners, and our acceptance in Him. We +need no better symbol of the stooping love of Christ, Who identifies +Himself with His brethren, and of our wondrous identification with Him, +our High Priest and Intercessor, than this picture of the Apostle +pleading for the runaway and bespeaking a welcome for him as part of +himself. When Paul says, "Receive him, that is, my very heart," his +words remind us of the yet more blessed ones, which reveal a deeper love +and more marvellous condescension, "He that receiveth you receiveth Me," +and may reverently be taken as a faint shadow of that prevailing +intercession, through which he that is joined to the Lord and is one +spirit with Him, is received of God as part of Christ's mystical body, +bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh. + +III. Next comes the expression of a half-formed purpose which was put +aside for a reason to be immediately stated. "Whom I would fain have +kept with me"; the tense of the verb indicating the incompleteness of +the desire. The very statement of it is turned into a graceful +expression of Paul's confidence in Philemon's goodwill to him, by the +addition of that "on thy behalf." He is sure that, if his friend had +been beside him, he would have been glad to lend him his servant, and so +he would have liked to have had Onesimus as a kind of representative of +the service which he knows would have been so willingly rendered. The +purpose for which he would have liked to keep him is defined as being, +"that he might minister to me in the bonds of the Gospel." If the last +words be connected with "me," they suggest a tender reason why Paul +should be ministered to, as suffering for Christ, their common Master, +and for the truth, their common possession. If, as is perhaps less +probable, they be connected with "minister," they describe the sphere in +which the service is to be rendered. Either the master or the slave +would be bound by the obligations which the Gospel laid on them to serve +Paul. Both were his converts, and therefore knit to him by a welcome +chain, which made service a delight. + +There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy of these words, so +full of happy confidence in the friend's disposition, that they could +not but evoke the love to which they trusted so completely. Nor need I +do more than point their force for the purpose of the whole letter, the +procuring a cordial reception for the returning fugitive. So dear had he +become, that Paul would like to have kept him. He goes back with a kind +of halo round him, now that he is not only a good-for-nothing runaway, +but Paul's friend, and so much prized by him. It would be impossible to +do anything but welcome him, bringing such credentials; and yet all this +is done with scarcely a word of direct praise, which might have provoked +contradiction. One does not know whether the confidence in Onesimus or +in Philemon is the dominant note in the harmony. In the preceding +clause, he was spoken of as, in some sense, part of the Apostle's very +self. In this, he is regarded as, in some sense, part of Philemon. So he +is a link between them. Paul would have taken his service as if it had +been his master's. Can the master fail to take him as if he were Paul? + +IV. The last topic in these verses is the decision which arrested the +half-formed wish. "I was _wishing_ indeed, but I _willed_ otherwise." +The language is exact. There is a universe between "I wished" and "I +willed." Many a good wish remains fruitless, because it never passes +into the stage of firm resolve. Many who wish to be better will to be +bad. One strong "I will" can paralyse a million wishes. + +The Apostle's final determination was, to do nothing without Philemon's +cognisance and consent. The reason for the decision is at once a very +triumph of persuasiveness, which would be ingenious if it were not so +spontaneous, and an adumbration of the very spirit of Christ's appeal +for service to us. "That thy benefit"--the good done to me by him, which +would in my eyes be done by you--"should not be as of necessity, but +willingly." That "as" is a delicate addition. He will not think that the +benefit would really have been by constraint, but it might have looked +as if it were. + +Do not these words go much deeper than this small matter? And did not +Paul learn the spirit that suggested them from his own experience of how +Christ treated him? The principle underlying them is, that where the +bond is love, compulsion takes the sweetness and goodness out of even +sweet and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue. If a man "could +not help it" there is neither praise nor blame due. That freedom +Christianity honours and respects. So in reference to the offer of the +gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them but appealed to, +and can turn deaf ears to the pleading voice, "Why will ye die?" Sorrows +and sins and miseries without end continue, and the gospel is rejected, +and lives of wretched godlessness are lived, and a dark future pulled +down on the rejecters' heads--and all because God knows that these +things are better than that men should be forced into goodness, which +indeed would cease to be goodness if they were. For nothing is good but +the free turning of the will to goodness, and nothing bad but its +aversion therefrom. + +The same solemn regard for the freedom of the individual and low +estimate of the worth of constrained service influence the whole aspect +of Christian ethics. Christ wants no pressed men in His army. The +victorious host of priestly warriors, which the Psalmist saw following +the priest-king in the day of his power, numerous as the dewdrops, and +radiant with reflected beauty as these, were all "willing"--volunteers. +There are no conscripts in the ranks. These words might be said to be +graven over the gates of the kingdom of heaven, "Not as of necessity, +but willingly." In Christian morals, law becomes love, and love, law. +"Must" is not in the Christian vocabulary, except as expressing the +sweet constraint which bows the will of him who loves to harmony, which +is joy, with the will of Him who is loved. Christ takes no offerings +which the giver is not glad to render. Money, influence, service, which +are not offered by a will moved by love, which love, in its turn, is set +in motion by the recognition of the infinite love of Christ in His +sacrifice, are, in His eyes, nought. An earthenware cup with a drop of +cold water in it, freely given out of a glad heart, is richer and more +precious in His sight than golden chalices swimming with wine and melted +pearls, which are laid by constraint on His table. "I delight to do Thy +will" is the foundation of all Christian obedience; and the servant had +caught the very tone of the Lord's voice when he said, "Without thy mind +I will do nothing, that thy benefit should not be, as it were, of +necessity, but willingly." + + + + +V. + + "For perhaps he was therefore parted from thee for a season, that + thou shouldest have him for ever; no longer as a servant, but more + than a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much + rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then thou + countest me a partner, receive him as myself. But if he hath wronged + thee at all, or oweth thee aught, put that to mine account; I Paul + write it with mine own hand, I will repay it: that I say not unto + thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self + besides."--PHILEM. 15-19 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The first words of these verses are connected with the preceding by the +"for" at the beginning; that is to say, the thought that possibly the +Divine purpose in permitting the flight of Onesimus was his restoration, +in eternal and holy relationship, to Philemon, was Paul's reason for not +carrying out his wish to keep Onesimus as his own attendant and helper. +"I did not decide, though I very much wished, to retain him without your +consent, because it is possible that he was allowed to flee from you, +though his flight was his own blamable act, in order that he might be +given back to you, a richer possession, a brother instead of a slave." + +I. There is here a Divine purpose discerned as shining through a +questionable human act. + +The first point to note is, with what charitable delicacy of feeling the +Apostle uses a mild word to express the fugitive's flight. He will not +employ the harsh naked word "ran away." It might irritate Philemon. +Besides, Onesimus has repented of his faults, as is plain from the fact +of his voluntary return, and therefore there is no need for dwelling on +them. The harshest, sharpest words are best when callous consciences are +to be made to wince; but words that are balm and healing are to be used +when men are heartily ashamed of their sins. So the deed for which +Philemon's forgiveness is asked is half veiled in the phrase "he was +parted." + +Not only so, but the word suggests that behind the slave's mutiny and +flight there was another Will working, of which, in some sense, Onesimus +was but the instrument. He "_was_ parted"--not that he was not +responsible for his flight, but that, through his act, which in the eyes +of all concerned was wrong, Paul discerns as dimly visible a great +Divine purpose. + +But he puts that as only a possibility: "_Perhaps_ he departed from +thee."----He will not be too sure of what God means by such and such a +thing, as some of us are wont to be, as if we had been sworn of God's +privy council. "Perhaps" is one of the hardest words for minds of a +certain class to say; but in regard to all such subjects, and to many +more, it is the motto of the wise man, and the shibboleth which sifts +out the patient, modest lovers of truth from rash theorists and +precipitate dogmatisers. Impatience of uncertainty is a moral fault +which mars many an intellectual process; and its evil effects are +nowhere mote visible than in the field of theology. A humble "perhaps" +often grows into a "verily, verily"--and a hasty, over-confident +"verily, verily," often dwindles to a hesitating "perhaps." Let us not +be in too great a hurry to make sure that we have the key of the +cabinet where God keeps His purposes, but content ourselves with +"perhaps" when we are interpreting the often questionable ways of His +providences, each of which has many meanings and many ends. + +But however modestly he may hesitate as to the application of the +principle, Paul has no doubt as to the principle itself: namely, that +God, in the sweep of His wise providence, utilizes even men's evil, and +works it in, to the accomplishment of great purposes far beyond their +ken, as nature, in her patient chemistry, takes the rubbish and filth of +the dunghill and turns them into beauty and food. Onesimus had no high +motives in his flight; he had run away under discreditable +circumstances, and perhaps to escape deserved punishment. Laziness and +theft had been the hopeful companions of his flight, which, so far as he +was concerned, had been the outcome of low and probably criminal +impulses; and yet God had known how to use it so as to lead to his +becoming a Christian. "With the wrath of man Thou girdest Thyself," +twisting and bending it so as to be flexible in Thy hands, and "the +remainder Thou dost restrain," How unlike were the seed and the +fruit--the flight of a good-for-nothing thief and the return of a +Christian brother! He meant it not so; but in running away from his +master, he was running straight into the arms of his Saviour. How little +Onesimus knew what was to be the end of that day's work, when he slunk +out of Philemon's house with his stolen booty hid away in his bosom! And +how little any of us know where we are going, and what strange results +may evolve themselves from our actions! Blessed they who can rest in +the confidence that, however modest we should be in our interpretation +of the events of our own or of other men's lives, the infinitely complex +web of circumstance is woven by a loving, wise Hand, and takes shape, +with all its interlacing threads, according to a pattern in His hand, +which will vindicate itself when it is finished! + +The contrast is emphatic between the short absence and the eternity of +the new relationship: "for a season"--literally an hour--and "for ever." +There is but one point of view which gives importance to this material +world, with all its fleeting joys and fallacious possessions. Life is +not worth living, unless it be the vestibule to a life beyond. Why all +its discipline, whether of sorrow or joy, unless there be another, +ampler life, where we can use to nobler ends the powers acquired and +greatened by use here? What an inconsequent piece of work is man, if the +few years of earth are his all! Surely, if nothing is to come of all +this life here, men are made in vain, and had better not have been at +all. Here is a narrow sound, with a mere ribbon of sea in it, shut in +between grim, echoing rocks. How small and meaningless it looks as long +as the fog hides the great ocean beyond! But when the mist lifts, and we +see that the narrow strait leads out into a boundless sea that lies +flashing in the sunshine to the horizon, then we find out the worth of +that little driblet of water at our feet. It connects with the open sea, +and that swathes the world. So is it with "the hour" of life; it opens +out and debouches into the "for ever," and therefore it is great and +solemn. This moment is one of the moments of that hour. We are the sport +of our own generalisations, and ready to admit all these fine and +solemn things about life, but we are less willing to apply them to the +single moments as they fly. We should not rest content with recognising +the general truth, but ever make conscious effort to feel that _this_ +passing instant has something to do with our eternal character and with +our eternal destiny. + +That is an exquisitely beautiful and tender thought which the Apostle +puts here, and one which is susceptible of many applications. The +temporary loss may be eternal gain. The dropping away of the earthly +form of a relationship may, in God's great mercy, be a step towards its +renewal in higher fashion and for evermore. All our blessings need to be +past before reflection can be brought to bear upon them, to make us +conscious how blessed we were. The blossoms have to perish before the +rich perfume, which can be kept in undiminished fragrance for years, can +be distilled from them. When death takes away dear ones, we first learn +that we were entertaining angels unawares; and as they float away from +us into the light, they look back with faces already beginning to +brighten into the likeness of Christ, and take leave of us with His +valediction, "It is expedient for you that I go away." Memory teaches us +the true character of life. We can best estimate the height of the +mountain peaks when we have left them behind. The softening and +hallowing influence of death reveals the nobleness and sweetness of +those who are gone. Fair country never looks so fair as when it has a +curving river for a foreground; and fair lives look fairer than before, +when seen across the Jordan of death. + +To us who believe that life and love are not killed by death, the end of +their earthly form is but the beginning of a higher heavenly. Love which +is "in Christ" is eternal. Because Philemon and Onesimus were two +Christians, therefore their relationship was eternal. Is it not yet more +true, if that were possible, that the sweet bonds which unite Christian +souls here on earth are in their essence indestructible, and are +affected by death only as the body is? Sown in weakness, will they not +be raised in power? Nothing of them shall die but the encompassing +death. Their mortal part shall put on immortality. As the farmer gathers +the green flax with its blue bells blooming on it, and throws it into a +tank to rot, in order to get the firm fibre which cannot rot, and spin +it into a strong cable, so God does with our earthly loves. He causes +all about them that is perishable to perish, that the central fibre, +which is eternal, may stand clear and disengaged from all that was less +Divine than itself. Wherefore mourning hearts may stay themselves on +this assurance, that they will never lose the dear ones whom they have +loved in Christ, and that death itself but changes the manner of the +communion, and refines the tie. They were as for a moment dead, but they +are alive again. To our bewildered sight they departed and were lost for +a season, but they are found, and we can fold them in our heart of +hearts for ever. + +But there is also set forth here a change, not only in the duration but +in the quality of the relation between the Christian master and his +former slave, who continues a slave indeed, but is also a brother. "No +longer as a servant, but more than a servant, a brother beloved, +specially to me, but how much rather to thee, both in the flesh and in +the Lord." It is clear from these words that Paul did not anticipate the +manumission of Onesimus. What he asks is, that he should not be received +_as_ a slave. Evidently then he is to be still a slave in so far as the +outward fact goes--but a new spirit is to be breathed into the +relationship. "Specially to me"; he is more than a slave to me. I have +not looked on him as such, but have taken him to my heart as a brother, +as a son indeed, for he is especially dear to me as my convert. But +however dear he is to me, he should be more so to thee, to whom his +relation is permanent, while to me it is temporary. And this Brotherhood +of the slave is to be felt and made visible "both in the flesh"--that +is, in the earthly and personal relations of common life, "and in the +Lord"--that is, in the spiritual and religious relationships of worship +and the Church. + +As has been well said, "In the flesh, Philemon has the brother for his +slave; in the Lord, Philemon has the slave for his brother." He is to +treat him as his brother therefore both in the common relationships of +every-day life and in the acts of religious worship. + +That is a pregnant word. True, there is no gulf between Christian people +now-a-days like that which in the old times parted owner and slave; but, +as society becomes more and more differentiated, as the diversities of +wealth become more extreme in our commercial communities, as education +comes to make the educated man's whole way of looking at life differ +more and more from that of the less cultured classes, the injunction +implied in our text encounters enemies quite as formidable as slavery +ever was. The highly educated man is apt to be very oblivious of the +brotherhood of the ignorant Christian, and he, on his part, finds the +recognition just as hard. The rich mill-owner has not much sympathy with +the poor brother who works at his spinning-jennies. It is often +difficult for the Christian mistress to remember that her cook is her +sister in Christ. There is quite as much sin against fraternity on the +side of the poor Christians who are servants and illiterate, as on the +side of the rich who are masters or cultured. But the principle that +Christian brotherhood is to reach across the wall of class distinctions +is as binding to-day as it was on these two good people, Philemon the +master and Onesimus the slave. + +That brotherhood is not to be confined to acts and times of Christian +communion, but is to be shown and to shape conduct in common life. "Both +in the flesh and in the Lord" may be put into plain English thus: A rich +man and a poor one belong to the same church; they unite in the same +worship, they are "partakers of the one bread," and therefore, Paul +thinks, "are one bread." They go outside the church door. Do they ever +dream of speaking to one another outside? "A brother beloved in the +Lord"--on Sundays, and during worship and in Church matters--is often a +stranger "in the flesh" on Mondays, in the street and in common life. +Some good people seem to keep their brotherly love in the same wardrobe +with their Sunday clothes. Philemon was bid, and all are bid, to wear it +all the week, at market as well as church. + +II. In the next verse, the essential purpose for which the whole letter +was written is put at last in an articulate request, based upon a very +tender motive. "If then thou countest me as a partner, receive him as +myself," Paul now at last completes the sentence which he began in _v_. +12, and from which he was hurried away by the other thoughts that came +crowding in upon him. This plea for the kindly welcome to be accorded to +Onesimus has been knocking at the door of his lips for utterance from +the beginning of the letter; but only now, so near the end, after so +much conciliation, he ventures to put it into plain words; and even now +he does not dwell on it, but goes quickly on to another point. He puts +his requests on a modest and yet a strong ground, appealing to +Philemon's sense of comradeship--"if thou countest me a partner"--a +comrade or a sharer in Christian blessings. He sinks all reference to +apostolic authority, and only points to their common possession of +faith, hope, and joy in Christ. "Receive him as myself." That request +was sufficiently illustrated in the preceding chapter, so that I need +only refer to what was then said on this instance of interceding love +identifying itself with its object, and on the enunciation in it of +great Christian truth. + +III. The course of thought next shows--Love taking the slave's debts on +itself. + +"If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught." Paul makes an "if" of +what he knew well enough to be the fact; for no doubt Onesimus had told +him all his faults, and the whole context shows that there was no +uncertainty in Paul's mind, but that he puts the wrong hypothetically +for the same reason for which he chooses to say, "was parted" instead +of "ran away," namely, to keep some thin veil over the crimes of a +penitent, and not to rasp him with rough words. For the same reason, +too, he falls back upon the gentler expressions, "wronged" and "oweth," +instead of blurting out the ugly word "stolen." And then, with a +half-playful assumption of lawyer-like phraseology, he bids Philemon put +that to his account. Here is my autograph--"I Paul write it with mine +own hand"--I make this letter into a bond. Witness my hand; "I will +repay it." The formal tone of the promise, rendered more formal by the +insertion of the name--and perhaps by that sentence only being in his +own handwriting--seems to warrant the explanation that it is half +playful; for he could never have supposed that Philemon would exact the +fulfilment of the bond, and we have no reason to suppose that, if he +had, Paul could really have paid the amount. But beneath the playfulness +there lies the implied exhortation to forgive the money wrong as well as +the others which Onesimus had done him. + +The verb used here for _put to the account of_ is, according to the +commentators, a very rare word; and perhaps the singular phrase may be +chosen to let another great Christian truth shine through. Was Paul's +love the only one that we know of which took the slave's debts on +itself? Did anybody else ever say, "Put that on mine account"? We have +been taught to ask for the forgiveness of our sins as "debts," and we +have been taught that there is One on whom God has made to meet the +iniquities of us all. Christ takes on Himself all Paul's debt, all +Philemon's, all ours. He has paid the ransom for all, and He so +identifies Himself with men that He takes all their sins upon Him, and +so identifies men with Himself that they are "received as Himself." It +is His great example that Paul is trying to copy here. Forgiven all that +great debt, he dare not rise from his knees to take his brother by the +throat, but goes forth to show to his fellow the mercy which he has +found, and to model his life after the pattern of that miracle of love +in which is his trust. It is Christ's own voice which echoes in "put +that on mine account." + +IV. Finally, these verses pass to a gentle reminder of a greater debt: +"That I say not unto thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self +besides." + +As his child in the Gospel, Philemon owed to Paul much more than the +trifle of money of which Onesimus had robbed him; namely his spiritual +life, which he had received through the Apostle's ministry. But he will +not insist on that. True love never presses its claims, nor recounts its +services. Claims which need to be urged are not worth urging. A true, +generous heart will never say, "You ought to do so much for me, because +I have done so much for you." To come down to that low level of +chaffering and barter is a dreadful descent from the heights where the +love which delights in giving should ever dwell. + +Does not Christ speak to us in the same language? We owe ourselves to +Him, as Lazarus did, for He raises us from the death of sin to a share +in His own new, undying life. As a sick man owes his life to the doctor +who has cured him, as a drowning man owes his to his rescuer, who +dragged him from the water and breathed into his lungs till they began +to work of themselves, as a child owes its life to its parent--so we owe +ourselves to Christ. But He does not insist upon the debt; He gently +reminds us of it, as making His commandment sweeter and easier to obey. +Every heart that is really touched with gratitude will feel, that the +less the giver insists upon his gifts, the more do they impel to +affectionate service. To be perpetually reminded of them weakens their +force as motives to obedience, for it then appears as if they had not +been gifts of love at all, but bribes given by self-interest; and the +frequent reference to them sounds like complaint. But Christ does not +insist on His claims, and therefore the remembrance of them ought to +underlie all our lives and to lead to constant glad devotion. + +One more thought may be drawn from the words. The great debt which can +never be discharged does not prevent the debtor from receiving reward +for the obedience of love. "I will repay it," even though thou owest me +thyself. Christ has bought us for His servants by giving Himself and +ourselves to us. No work, no devotion, no love can ever repay our debt +to Him. From His love alone comes the desire to serve Him; from His +grace comes the power. The best works are stained and incomplete, and +could only be acceptable to a Love that was glad to welcome even +unworthy offerings, and to forgive their imperfections. Nevertheless He +treats them as worthy of reward, and crowns His own grace in men with an +exuberance of recompense far beyond their deserts. He will suffer no man +to work for Him for nothing; but to each He gives even here great +reward _in_ keeping His commandments, and hereafter "an exceeding great +reward," of which the inward joys and outward blessings that now flow +from obedience are but the earnest His merciful allowance of +imperfections treats even our poor deeds as rewardable; and though +eternal life must ever be the _gift_ of God, and no claim of merit can +be sustained before His judgment seat, yet the measure of that life +which is possessed here or hereafter is accurately proportioned to and +is, in a very real sense, the consequence of obedience and service, "If +any man's work abide, he shall receive a reward," and Christ's own +tender voice speaks the promise, "I will repay, albeit I say not unto +thee how thou owest to Me even thine own self besides." Men do not +really possess themselves unless they yield themselves to Jesus Christ. +He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth himself, in +glad surrender of himself to his Saviour, he and only he is truly lord +and owner of his own soul. And to such an one shall be given rewards +beyond hope and beyond measure--and, as the crown of all, the blessed +possession of Christ, and in it the full, true, eternal possession of +himself, glorified and changed into the image of the Lord who loved him +and gave Himself for him. + + + + +VI. + + "Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord refresh my heart + in Christ. Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, + knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say. But withal prepare + me a lodging: for I hope that through your prayers I shall be + granted unto you. + + "Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, saluteth thee; and so + do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers. + + "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. + Amen."--PHILEM. 20-25 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We have already had occasion to point out that Paul's pleading with +Philemon, and the motives which he adduces, are expressions, on a lower +level, of the greatest principles of Christian ethics. If the closing +salutations be left out of sight for the moment, there are here three +verses, each containing a thought which needs only to be cast into its +most general form to show itself as a large Christian truth. + +I. Verse 20 gives the final moving form of the Apostle's request. +Onesimus disappears, and the final plea is based altogether on the fact +that compliance will pleasure and help Paul. There is but the faintest +gleam of a possible allusion to the former in the use of the verb from +which the name Onesimus is derived--"Let me have _help_ of thee"; as if +he had said, "Be you an Onesimus, a helpful one to me, as I trust he is +going to be to you." "Refresh my heart" points back to _v._ 7, "The +hearts of the saints have been refreshed by thee," and lightly suggests +that Philemon should do for Paul what he had done for many others. But +the Apostle does not merely ask help and refreshing; he desires that +they should be of a right Christian sort. "In Christ" is very +significant. If Philemon receives his slave for Christ's sake and in the +strength of that communion with Christ which fits for all virtue, and so +for this good deed--a deed which is of too high and rare a strain of +goodness for his unaided nature,--then "in Christ" he will be helpful to +the Apostle. In that case the phrase expresses the element or sphere in +which the act is done. But it may apply rather, or even also, to Paul, +and then it expresses the element or sphere in which he is helped and +refreshed. In communion with Jesus, taught and inspired by Him, the +Apostle is brought to such true and tender sympathy with the runaway +that his heart is refreshed, as by a cup of cold water, by kindness +shown to him. Such keen sympathy is as much beyond the reach of nature +as Philemon's kindness would be. Both are "in Christ." Union with Him +refines selfishness, and makes men quick to feel another's sorrows and +joys as theirs, after the pattern of Him who makes the case of God's +fugitives His own. It makes them easy to be entreated and ready to +forgive. So to be in Him is to be sympathetic like Paul, and placable as +He would have Onesimus. "In Christ" carries in it the secret of all +sweet humanities and beneficence, is the spell which calls out fairest +charity, and is the only victorious antagonist of harshness and +selfishness. + +The request for the sake of which the whole letter is written is here +put as a kindness to Paul himself, and thus an entirely different motive +is appealed to. "Surely you would be glad to give me pleasure. Then do +this thing which I ask you." It is permissible to seek to draw to +virtuous acts by such a motive, and to reinforce higher reasons by the +desire to please dear ones, or to win the approbation of the wise and +good. It must be rigidly kept as a subsidiary motive, and distinguished +from the mere love of applause. Most men have some one whose opinion of +their acts is a kind of embodied conscience, and whose satisfaction is +reward. But pleasing the dearest and purest among men can never be more +than at most a crutch to help lameness or a spur to stimulate. + +If however this motive be lifted to the higher level, and these words +thought of as Paul's echo of Christ's appeal to those who love Him, they +beautifully express the peculiar blessedness of Christian ethics. The +strongest motive, the very mainspring and pulsing heart of Christian +duty, is to please Christ. His language to His followers is not, "Do +this because it is right," but, "Do this because it pleaseth Me." They +have a living Person to gratify, not a mere law of duty to obey. The +help which is given to weakness by the hope of winning golden opinions +from, or giving pleasure to, those whom men love is transferred in the +Christian relation to Jesus. So the cold thought of duty is warmed, and +the weight of obedience to a stony, impersonal law is lightened, and a +new power is enlisted on the side of goodness, which sways more mightily +than all the abstractions of duty. The Christ Himself makes His appeal +to men in the same tender fashion as Paul to Philemon. He will move to +holy obedience by the thought--wonderful as it is--that it gladdens Him. +Many a weak heart has been braced and made capable of heroisms of +endurance and effort, and of angel deeds of mercy, all beyond its own +strength, by that great thought, "We labour that, whether present or +absent, we may be well-pleasing to Him." + +II. Verse 21 exhibits love commanding, in the confidence of love +obeying. "Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, +knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say." In _v_. 8 the Apostle +had waived his right to enjoin, because he had rather speak the speech +of love, and request. But here, with the slightest possible touch, he +just lets the note of authority sound for a single moment, and then +passes into the old music of affection and trust. He but names the word +"obedience," and that in such a way as to present it as the child of +love, and the privilege of his friend. He trusts Philemon's obedience, +because he knows his love, and is sure that it is love of such a sort as +will not stand on the exact measure, but will delight in giving it +"pressed down and running over." + +What could he mean by "do more than I say"? Was he hinting at +emancipation, which he would rather have to come from Philemon's own +sense of what was due to the slave who was now a brother, than be +granted, perhaps hesitatingly, in deference to his request? Possibly, +but more probably he had no definite thing in his mind, but only desired +to express his loving confidence in his friend's willingness to please +him. Commands given in such a tone, where authority audibly trusts the +subordinate, are far more likely to be obeyed than if they were shouted +with the hoarse voice of a drill-sergeant. Men will do much to fulfil +generous expectations. Even debased natures will respond to such appeal; +and if they see that good is expected from them, that will go far to +evoke it. Some masters have always good servants, and part of the secret +is that they trust them to obey. "England expects" fulfilled itself. +When love enjoins there should be trust in its tones. It will act like a +magnet to draw reluctant feet into the path of duty. A will which mere +authority could not bend, like iron when cold, may be made flexible when +warmed by this gentle heat. If parents oftener let their children feel +that they had confidence in their obedience, they would seldomer have to +complain of their disobedience. + +Christ's commands follow, or rather set, this pattern. He trusts His +servants, and speaks to them in a voice softened and confiding. He tells +them His wish, and commits Himself and His cause to His disciples' love. + +Obedience beyond the strict limits of command will always be given by +love. It is a poor, grudging service which weighs obedience as a chemist +does some precious medicine, and is careful that not the hundredth part +of a grain more than the prescribed amount shall be doled out. A hired +workman will fling down his lifted trowel full of mortar at the first +stroke of the clock, though it would be easier to lay it on the bricks; +but where affection moves the hand, it is delight to add something over +and above to bare duty. The artist who loves his work will put many a +touch on it beyond the minimum which will fulfil his contract. Those +who adequately feel the power of Christian motives will not be anxious +to find the least that they durst, but the most that they can do. If +obvious duty requires them to go a mile, they will rather go two, than +be scrupulous to stop as soon as they see the milestone. A child who is +always trying to find out how little would satisfy his father cannot +have much love. Obedience to Christ is joy, peace, love. The grudging +servants are limiting their possession of these, by limiting their +active surrender of themselves. They seem to be afraid of having too +much of these blessings. A heart truly touched by the love of Jesus +Christ will not seek to know the lowest limit of duty, but the highest +possibility of service. + + "Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore + Of nicely calculated less or more." + +III. Verse 22 may be summed up as the language of love, hoping for +reunion. "Withal prepare me a lodging: for I hope that through your +prayers I shall be granted unto you." We do not know whether the +Apostle's expectation was fulfilled. Believing that he was set free from +his first imprisonment, and that his second was separated from it by a +considerable interval, during which he visited Macedonia and Asia Minor, +we have yet nothing to show whether or not he reached Colossæ; but +whether fulfilled or not, the expectation of meeting would tend to +secure compliance with his request, and would be all the more likely to +do so, for the very delicacy with which it is stated, so as not to seem +to be mentioned for the sake of adding force to his intercession. + +The limits of Paul's expectation as to the power of his brethren's +prayers for temporal blessings are worth noting. He does believe that +these good people in Colossæ could help him by prayer for his +liberation, but he does not believe that their prayer will certainly be +heard. In some circles much is said now about "the prayer of faith"--a +phrase which, singularly enough, is in such cases almost confined to +prayers for external blessings,--and about its power to bring money for +work which the person praying believes to be desirable, or to send away +diseases. But surely there can be no "faith" without a definite Divine +_word_ to lay hold of. Faith and God's promise are correlative; and +unless a man has God's plain promise that A. B. will be cured by his +prayer, the belief that he will is not faith, but something deserving a +much less noble name. The prayer of faith is not forcing our wills on +God, but bending our wills to God's. The prayer which Christ has taught +in regard to all outward things is, "Not my will but Thine be done," +and, "May Thy will become mine." That is the prayer of faith, which is +always answered. The Church prayed for Peter, and he was delivered; the +Church, no doubt, prayed for Stephen, and he was stoned. Was then the +prayer for him refused? Not so, but if it were prayer at all, the inmost +meaning of it was "be it as Thou wilt"; and that was accepted and +answered. Petitions for outward blessings, whether for the petitioner or +for others, are to be presented with submission; and the highest +confidence which can be entertained concerning them is that which Paul +here expresses: "I _hope_ that through your prayers I shall be set +free." + +The prospect of meeting enhances the force of the Apostle's wish; nor +are Christians without an analogous motive to give weight to their +obligations to their Lord. Just as Paul quickened Philemon's loving wish +to serve him by the thought that he might have the gladness of seeing +him before long, so Christ quickens His servant's diligence by the +thought that before very many days He will come, or they will go--at any +rate, they will be with Him,--and He will see what they have been doing +in His absence. Such a prospect should increase diligence, and should +not inspire terror. It is a mark of true Christians that they "love His +appearing." Their hearts should glow at the hope of meeting. That hope +should make work happier and lighter. When a husband has been away at +sea, the prospect of his return makes the wife sing at her work, and +take more pains or rather pleasure with it, because his eye is to see +it. So should it be with the bride in the prospect of her bridegroom's +return. The Church should not be driven to unwelcome duties by the fear +of a strict judgment, but drawn to large, cheerful service, by the hope +of spreading her work before her returning Lord. + +Thus, on the whole, in this letter, the central springs of Christian +service are touched, and the motives used to sway Philemon are the echo +of the motives which Christ uses to sway men. The keynote of all is +love. Love beseeches when it might command. To love we owe our own +selves beside. Love will do nothing without the glad consent of him to +whom it speaks, and cares for no service which is of necessity. Its +finest wine is not made from juice which is pressed out of the grapes, +but from that which flows from them for very ripeness. Love identifies +itself with those who need its help, and treats kindnesses to them as +done to itself. Love finds joy and heart solace in willing, though it be +imperfect, service. Love expects more than it asks. Love hopes for +reunion, and by the hope makes its wish more weighty. These are the +points of Paul's pleading with Philemon. Are they not the elements of +Christ's pleading with His friends? + +He too prefers the tone of friendship to that of authority. To Him His +servants owe themselves, and remain for ever in His debt, after all +payment of reverence and thankful self-surrender. He does not count +constrained service as service at all, and has only volunteers in His +army. He makes Himself one with the needy, and counts kindness to the +least as done to Him. He binds Himself to repay and overpay all +sacrifice in His service. He finds delight in His people's work. He asks +them to prepare an abode for Him in their own hearts, and in souls +opened by their agency for His entrance. He has gone to prepare a +mansion for them, and He comes to receive account of their obedience and +to crown their poor deeds. It is impossible to suppose that Paul's +pleading for Philemon failed. How much less powerful is Christ's, even +with those who love Him best? + +IV. The parting greetings may be very briefly considered, for much that +would have naturally been said about them has already presented itself +in dealing with the similar salutations in the epistle to Colossæ. The +same people send messages here as there; only Jesus called Justus being +omitted, probably for no other reason than because he was not at hand +at the moment. Epaphras is naturally mentioned singly, as being a +Colossian, and therefore more closely connected with Philemon than were +the others. After him come the two Jews and the two Gentiles, as in +Colossians. + +The parting benediction ends the letter. At the beginning of the epistle +Paul invoked grace upon the household "from God our Father and the Lord +Jesus Christ." Now he conceives of it as Christ's gift. In him all the +stooping, bestowing love of God is gathered, that from Him it may be +poured on the world. That grace is not diffused like stellar light, +through some nebulous heaven, but concentrated in the Sun of +Righteousness, who is the light of men. That fire is piled on a hearth +that, from it, warmth may ray out to all that are in the house. + +That grace has man's spirit for the field of its highest operation. +Thither it can enter, and there it can abide, in union more close and +communion more real and blessed than aught else can attain. The spirit +which has the grace of Christ with it can never be utterly solitary or +desolate. + +The grace of Christ is the best bond of family life. Here it is prayed +for on behalf of all the group, the husband, wife, child, and the +friends in their home Church. Like grains of sweet incense cast on an +altar flame, and making fragrant what was already holy, that grace +sprinkled on the household fire will give it an odour of a sweet smell, +grateful to men and acceptable to God. + +That wish is the purest expression of Christian friendship, of which the +whole letter is so exquisite an example. Written as it is about a +common, every-day matter, which could have been settled without a +single religious reference, it is saturated with Christian thought and +feeling. So it becomes an example of how to blend Christian sentiment +with ordinary affairs, and to carry a Christian atmosphere everywhere. +Friendship and social intercourse will be all the nobler and happier, if +pervaded by such a tone. Such words as these closing ones would be a sad +contrast to much of the intercourse of professedly Christian men. But +every Christian ought by his life to be, as it were, floating the grace +of God to others sinking for want of it to lay hold of, and all his +speech should be of a piece with this benediction. + +A Christian's life should be "an epistle of Christ" written with His own +hand, wherein dim eyes might read the transcript of His own gracious +love, and through all his words and deeds should shine the image of his +Master, even as it does through the delicate tendernesses and gracious +pleadings of this pure pearl of a letter, which the slave, become a +brother, bore to the responsive hearts in quiet Colossæ. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._ + +FIRST SERIES, 1887-8. + + Colossians. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. + + St. Mark. + By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. + + Genesis. + By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + 1 Samuel. + By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D. + + 2 Samuel. + By the same Author. + + Hebrews. + By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D. + +SECOND SERIES, 1888-9. + + Galatians. + By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. + + The Pastoral Epistles. + By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + + Isaiah I.--XXXIX. + By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I. + + The Book of Revelation. + By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D. + + 1 Corinthians. + By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + The Epistles of St. John. + By the Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh. + +THIRD SERIES, 1889-90. + + Judges and Ruth. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + Jeremiah. + By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A. + + Isaiah XL.--LXVI. + By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. II. + + St. Matthew. + By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D. + + Exodus. + By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. + + St. Luke. + By the Rev. H. BURTON, M.A. + +FOURTH SERIES, 1890-91. + + Ecclesiastes. + By the Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D. + + St. James and St. Jude. + By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + + Proverbs. + By the Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D. + + Leviticus. + By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D. + + The Gospel of St. John. + By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I. + + The Acts of the Apostles. + By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I. + +FIFTH SERIES, 1891-2. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I. + + 1 and 2 Thessalonians. + By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + + The Book of Job. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + Ephesians. + By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. + + The Gospel of St. John. + By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol II. + + The Acts of the Apostles. + By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II. + +SIXTH SERIES, 1892-3. + + 1 Kings. + By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. + + Philippians. + By Principal RAINY, D.D. + + Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. + By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + + Joshua. + By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II. + + The Epistles of St. Peter. + By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D. + +SEVENTH SERIES, 1893-4. + + 2 Kings. + By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. + + Romans. + By the Right Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, D.D. + + The Books of Chronicles. + By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + + 2 Corinthians. + By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + + Numbers. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III. + +EIGHTH SERIES, 1895-6. + + Daniel. + By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. + + The Book of Jeremiah. + By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + + Deuteronomy. + By Prof. ANDREW HARPER, B.D. + + The Song of Solomon and Lamentations. + By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + + Ezekiel. + By Prof. JOHN SKINNER, M.A. + + The Book of the Twelve Prophets. + By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Two Vols. + + + + +The Expositor's Bible. + +Edited by Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + +_Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. each._ + + +OLD TESTAMENT VOLUMES. + +_GENESIS._ By Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + +_EXODUS._ By the Right Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Bishop of Derry. + +_LEVITICUS._ By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D. + +_Numbers._ By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D. + +_DEUTERONOMY._ By Rev. Prof. ANDREW HARPER, M.A., B.D. + +_JOSHUA._ By Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + +_JUDGES AND RUTH._ By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D. + +_1 SAMUEL._ By Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + +_2 SAMUEL._ By Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + +_1 KINGS._ By the Very Rev. DEAN FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. + +_2 KINGS._ By the Very Rev, DEAN FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. + +_THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES._ By Rev. Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + +_EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER._ By Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + +_JOB._ By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D. + +_PSALMS._ By Rev. ALEX. MACLAREN, D.D. Three Volumes. + +_PROVERBS._ By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A. + +_ECCLESIASTES._ By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D. + +_THE SONG OF SOLOMON AND THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH._ By the Rev. W. +F. ADENEY, M.A. + +_ISAIAH._ By Rev. Prof. G. ADAM SMITH, D.D. Two Volumes. + +_JEREMIAH._ By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A. + +_JEREMIAH._ Chaps. xxi.-lii. By Rev. Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + +_EZEKIEL._ By Rev. Prof. SKINNER, M.A. + +_DANIEL._ By the Very Rev. DEAN FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. + +_THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS._ By Rev. Prof. G. ADAM SMITH, D.D. Two +Volumes. + + + + +The Expositor's Bible. + +Edited by Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + +_Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. each._ + + +NEW TESTAMENT VOLUMES. + +_ST. MATTHEW._ By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D. + +_ST. MARK._ By the Right Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Bishop of Derry. + +_ST. LUKE._ By Rev. HENRY BURTON, M.A. + +_ST. JOHN._ By Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. Two Volumes. + +_THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES._ By Rev. Prof. G. T. STOKES, D.D. Two +Volumes. + +_ROMANS._ By Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, M.A. + +_1 CORINTHIANS._ By Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + +_2 CORINTHIANS._ By Rev. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + +_GALATIANS._ By Rev, Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A. + +_EPHESIANS._ By Rev. Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A. + +_PHILIPPIANS._ By Rev. Principal RAINY, D.D. + +_COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON._ By Rev. ALEX. MACLAREN, D.D. + +_THESSALONIANS._ By Rev. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + +_THE PASTORAL EPISTLES._ By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + +_HEBREWS._ By Rev. Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D. + +_THE EPISTLES OF ST. JAMES AND ST. JUDE._ By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + +_THE EPISTLES OF ST. PETER._ By Rev. Prof. LUMBY, D.D. + +_THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN._ By the Most Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D., Lord +Archbishop of Armagh. + +_THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION._ By Rev. Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D. + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and +Philemon, by Alexander Maclaren + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON *** + +***** This file should be named 37345-8.txt or 37345-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/3/4/37345/ + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and Philemon + +Author: Alexander Maclaren + +Editor: W. Robertson Nicoll + +Release Date: September 7, 2011 [EBook #37345] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="notes"> +<p>Transcriber’s Note:</p> +<p>A few minor typographical errors and inconsistencies have been silently corrected.</p> +<p>All advertising material has been placed at the end of the text.</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> + +<h1>THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE</h1> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">EDITED BY THE REV.</span><br /> +<span class="titlebigger">W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D..</span><br /> +<i>Editor of “The Expositor,” etc.</i></p> + +<p class="center gaptop"><span class="titlebigger">COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">BY</span><br /> +<span class="titlebigger">ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D.</span></p> + +<p class="center gaptop">London<br /> +<span class="titlebigger">HODDER AND STOUGHTON</span><br /> +27, PATERNOSTER ROW<br /></p> + +<hr class="titlerule" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">MCMII</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + +<h1><span class="titlesmaller">THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller">TO</span></span><br /> +THE COLOSSIANS<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><span class="titlesmaller">AND</span><br /></span> +PHILEMON</h1> + +<p class="center gaptop"><span class="titlesmaller">BY</span><br /> +<span class="titlebigger">ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D.</span></p> + +<p class="center gaptop"><i>TENTH EDITION</i></p> + +<p class="center gaptop">London:<br /> +<span class="titlebigger">HODDER AND STOUGHTON</span><br /> +27, PATERNOSTER ROW<br /></p> + +<hr class="titlerule" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="titlesmaller">MCMII</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr> +<th class="hd" colspan="4"><i>THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS.</i></th> +</tr><tr> +<th class="pg"> </th> +<th class="pg"> </th> +<th class="pg"> </th> +<th class="pg">PAGE</th> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt">Chap. I.</td> +<td class="lt">v. 1, 2.</td> +<td class="lb">The Writer and the Readers</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 3–8.</td> +<td class="lb">The Prelude</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 9–12.</td> +<td class="lb">The Prayer</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 12–14.</td> +<td class="lb">The Father’s Gifts through the Son</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 15–18.</td> +<td class="lb">The Glory of the Son in His Relation to the Father, the Universe, and the Church</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 19–22.</td> +<td class="lb">The Reconciling Son</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 22, 23.</td> +<td class="lb">The Ultimate Purpose of Reconciliation and its Human Conditions</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 24–27.</td> +<td class="lb">Joy in Suffering, and Triumph in the Manifested Mystery</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 28, 29.</td> +<td class="lb">The Christian Ministry in its Theme, Methods, and Aim</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td> </td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt">Chap. II.</td> +<td class="lt">v. 1–3.</td> +<td class="lt">Paul’s Striving for the Colossians</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 4–7.</td> +<td class="lt">Conciliatory and Hortatory Transition to Polemics</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></td> +<td class="lt">v. 8–10.</td> +<td class="lb">The Bane and the Antidote</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 11–13.</td> +<td class="lb">The True Circumcision</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 14, 15.</td> +<td class="lb">The Cross the Death of Law and the Triumph over Evil Powers</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 16–19.</td> +<td class="lb">Warnings against Twin Chief Errors based upon Previous Positive Teaching</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 20–23.</td> +<td class="lb">Two Final Tests of the False Teaching</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td> </td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt">Chap. III.</td> +<td class="lt">v. 1–4.</td> +<td class="lb">The Present Christian Life a Risen Life</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 5–9.</td> +<td class="lb">Slaying Self the Foundation Precept of Practical Christianity</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 9–11.</td> +<td class="lb">The New Nature wrought out in New Life</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 12–14.</td> +<td class="lb">The Garments of the Renewed Soul</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 15–17.</td> +<td class="lb">The Practical Effects of the Peace of Christ, the Word of Christ, and the Name of Christ</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_320">320</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 18, Ch. iv., 1.</td> +<td class="lb">The Christian Family</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td> </td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt">Chap. IV.</td> +<td class="lt">v. 2–6.</td> +<td class="lb">Precepts for the Innermost and Outermost Life</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_354">354</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 7–9.</td> +<td class="lb">Tychicus and Onesimus, the Letter-Bearers</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_371">371</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 10–14.</td> +<td class="lb">Salutations from the Prisoner’s Friends</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_386">386</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 15–18.</td> +<td class="lb">Closing Messages</td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_402">402</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td> </td> +</tr><tr> +<th class="hd" colspan="4"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span> +<i>THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON.</i></th> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt">Chap. I.</td> +<td class="lt">v. 1–3</td> +<td class="lb"> </td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_417">417</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 4–7</td> +<td class="lb"> </td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_432">432</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 8–11</td> +<td class="lb"> </td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_447">447</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 12–14</td> +<td class="lb"> </td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_459">459</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 15–19</td> +<td class="lb"> </td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_470">470</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="lt"> </td> +<td class="lt">v. 20–25</td> +<td class="lb"> </td> +<td class="rb"><a href="#Page_483">483</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColI" id="ColI"></a>I.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE WRITER AND THE READERS.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and +Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ +which are at Colossæ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> +i, 1, 2 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We may say that each of Paul’s greater epistles +has in it one salient thought. In that to +the Romans, it is Justification by faith; in Ephesians, +it is the mystical union of Christ and His +Church; in Philippians, it is the joy of Christian +progress; in this epistle, it is the dignity and sole +sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and Head +of all creation and of the Church.</p> + +<p>Such a thought is emphatically a lesson for the +day.</p> + +<p>The Christ whom the world needs to have proclaimed +in every deaf ear and lifted up before +blind and reluctant eyes, is not merely the perfect +man, nor only the meek sufferer, but the Source of +creation and its Lord, Who from the beginning has +been the life of all that has lived, and before the +beginning was in the bosom of the Father. The +shallow and starved religion which contents itself +with mere humanitarian conceptions of Jesus of +Nazareth needs to be deepened and filled out by +these lofty truths before it can acquire solidity and +steadfastness sufficient to be the unmoved foundation +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +of sinful and mortal lives. The evangelistic teaching +which concentrates exclusive attention on the +cross as “the work of Christ,” needs to be led to +the contemplation of them, in order to understand +the cross, and to have its mystery as well as its +meaning declared. This letter itself dwells upon +two applications of its principles to two classes of +error which, in somewhat changed forms, exist now +as then—the error of the ceremonialist, to whom +religion was mainly a matter of ritual, and the error +of the speculative thinker, to whom the universe was +filled with forces which left no room for the working +of a personal Will. The vision of the living +Christ Who fills all things, is held up before each of +these two, as the antidote to his poison; and that +same vision must be made clear to-day to the +modern representatives of these ancient errors. If +we are able to grasp with heart and mind the +principles of this epistle for ourselves, we shall stand +at the centre of things, seeing order where from any +other position confusion only is apparent, and being +at the point of rest instead of being hurried along +by the wild whirl of conflicting opinions.</p> + +<p>I desire, therefore, to present the teachings of this +great epistle in a series of expositions.</p> + +<p>Before advancing to the consideration of these +verses, we must deal with one or two introductory +matters, so as to get the frame and the background +for the picture.</p> + +<p>(1) First, as to the Church of Colossæ to which +the letter is addressed.</p> + +<p>Perhaps too much has been made of late years of +geographical and topographical elucidations of Paul’s +epistles. A knowledge of the place to which a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +letter was sent cannot do much to help in understanding +the letter, for local circumstances leave +very faint traces, if any, on the Apostle’s writings. +Here and there an allusion may be detected, or a +metaphor may gain in point by such knowledge; +but, for the most part, local colouring is entirely +absent. Some slight indication, however, of the +situation and circumstances of the Colossian Church +may help to give vividness to our conceptions of the +little community to whom this rich treasure of truth +was first entrusted.</p> + +<p>Colossæ was a town in the heart of the modern +Asia Minor, much decayed in Paul’s time from its +earlier importance. It lay in a valley of Phrygia, +on the banks of a small stream, the Lycus, down +the course of which, at a distance of some ten miles +or so, two very much more important cities fronted +each other, Hierapolis on the north, and Laodicea +on the south bank of the river. In all three cities +were Christian Churches, as we know from this +letter, one of which has attained the bad eminence +of having become the type of tepid religion for all +the world. How strange to think of the tiny +community in a remote valley of Asia Minor, +eighteen centuries since, thus gibbeted for ever! +These stray beams of light which fall upon the +people in the New Testament, showing them fixed for +ever in one attitude, like a lightning flash in the darkness, +are solemn precursors of the last Apocalypse, +when all men shall be revealed in “the brightness +of His coming.”</p> + +<p>Paul does not seem to have been the founder of +these Churches, or ever to have visited them at the +date of this letter. That opinion is based on several +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +of its characteristics, such, for instance, as the +absence of any of those kindly greetings to individuals +which in the Apostle’s other letters are so +abundant, and reveal at once the warmth and the +delicacy of his affection: and the allusions which +occur more than once to his having only “<i>heard</i>” of +their faith and love, and is strongly supported by the +expression in the second chapter where he speaks +of the conflict in spirit which he had for “you, and +for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not +seen my face in the flesh.” Probably the teacher +who planted the gospel in Colossæ was that +Epaphras, whose visit to Rome occasioned the +letter, and who is referred to in verse 7 of this +chapter in terms which seem to suggest that he had +first made known to them the fruit-producing “word +of the truth of the gospel.”</p> + +<p>(2) Note the occasion and subject of the letter. +Paul is a prisoner, in a certain sense, in Rome; +but the word prisoner conveys a false impression of +the amount of restriction of personal liberty to +which he was subjected. We know from the last +words of the Acts of the Apostles, and from the +Epistle to the Philippians, that his “imprisonment” +did not in the least interfere with his liberty of +preaching, nor with his intercourse with friends. +Rather, in the view of the facilities it gave that by +him “the preaching might be fully known,” it may +be regarded, as indeed the writer of the Acts seems +to regard it, as the very climax and topstone of +Paul’s work, wherewith his history may fitly end, +leaving the champion of the gospel at the very heart +of the world, with unhindered liberty to proclaim +his message by the very throne of Cæsar. He was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +sheltered rather than confined beneath the wing of +the imperial eagle. His imprisonment, as we call it, +was, at all events at first, detention in Rome under +military supervision rather than incarceration. So +to his lodgings in Rome there comes a brother from +this decaying little town in the far-off valley of the +Lycus, Epaphras by name. Whether his errand was +exclusively to consult Paul about the state of the +Colossian Church, or whether some other business +also had brought him to Rome, we do not know; at +all events, he comes and brings with him bad news, +which burdens Paul’s heart with solicitude for the +little community, which had no remembrances of his +own authoritative teaching to fall back upon. Many +a night would he and Epaphras spend in deep converse +on the matter, with the stolid Roman legionary, +to whom Paul was chained, sitting wearily by, while +they two eagerly talked.</p> + +<p>The tidings were that a strange disease, hatched +in that hotbed of religious fancies, the dreamy East, +was threatening the faith of the Colossian Christians. +A peculiar form of heresy, singularly compounded +of Jewish ritualism and Oriental mysticism—two +elements as hard to blend in the foundation of a +system as the heterogeneous iron and clay on which +the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream stood unstably—had +appeared among them, and though at present +confined to a few, was being vigorously preached. +The characteristic Eastern dogma, that matter is +evil and the source of evil, which underlies so much +Oriental religion, and crept in so early to corrupt +Christianity, and crops up to-day in so many strange +places and unexpected ways, had begun to infect +them. The conclusion was quickly drawn: “Well, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +then, if matter be the source of all evil, then, of +course, God and matter must be antagonistic,” and +so the creation and government of this material +universe could not be supposed to have come +directly from Him. The endeavour to keep the +pure Divinity and the gross world as far apart as +possible, while yet an intellectual necessity forbad +the entire breaking of the bond between them, led +to the busy working of the imagination, which +spanned the void gulf between God Who is good, +and matter which is evil, with a bridge of cobwebs—a +chain of intermediate beings, emanations, abstractions, +each approaching more nearly to the +material than his precursor, till at last the intangible +and infinite was confined and curdled into actual +earthly matter, and the pure was darkened thereby +into evil.</p> + +<p>Such notions, fantastic and remote from daily life +as they look, really led by a very short cut to +making wild work with the plainest moral teachings +both of the natural conscience and of Christianity. +For if matter be the source of all evil, then the +fountain of each man’s sin is to be found, not in his +own perverted will, but in his body, and the cure of +it is to be reached, not by faith which plants a new +life in a sinful spirit, but simply by ascetic mortification +of the flesh.</p> + +<p>Strangely united with these mystical Eastern +teachings, which might so easily be perverted to +the coarsest sensuality, and had their heads in the +clouds and their feet in the mud, were the narrowest +doctrines of Jewish ritualism, insisting on circumcision, +laws regulating food, the observance of feast days, +and the whole cumbrous apparatus of a ceremonial +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +religion. It is a monstrous combination, a cross +between a Talmudical rabbi and a Buddhist priest, +and yet it is not unnatural that, after soaring in +these lofty regions of speculation where the air is too +thin to support life, men should be glad to get hold +of the externals of an elaborate ritual. It is not the +first nor the last time that a misplaced philosophical +religion has got close to a religion of outward observances, +to keep it from shivering itself to death. +Extremes meet. If you go far enough east, you are +west.</p> + +<p>Such, generally speaking, was the error that was +beginning to lift its head in Colossæ. Religious +fanaticism was at home in that country, from which, +both in heathen and in Christian times, wild rites +and notions emanated, and the Apostle might well +dread the effect of this new teaching, as of a spark +on hay, on the excitable natures of the Colossian +converts.</p> + +<p>Now we may say, “What does all this matter to +us? We are in no danger of being haunted by the +ghosts of these dead heresies.” But the truth which +Paul opposed to them is all important for every age. +It was simply the Person of Christ as the only manifestation +of the Divine, the link between God and +the universe, its Creator and Preserver, the Light and +Life of men, the Lord and Inspirer of the Church, +Christ has come, laying His hand upon both God and +man, therefore there is no need nor place for a misty +crowd of angelic beings or shadowy abstractions to +bridge the gulf across which His incarnation flings +its single solid arch. Christ has been bone of our +bone and flesh of our flesh, therefore that cannot be +the source of evil in which the fulness of the Godhead +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +has dwelt as in a shrine. Christ has come, the +fountain of life and holiness, therefore there is no +more place for ascetic mortifications on the one hand, +nor for Jewish scrupulosities on the other. These +things might detract from the completeness of faith +in the complete redemption which Christ has wrought, +and must becloud the truth that simple faith in it is +all which a man needs.</p> + +<p>To urge these and the like truths this letter is +written. Its central principle is the sovereign and +exclusive mediation of Jesus Christ, the God-man, +the victorious antagonist of these dead speculations, +and the destined conqueror of all the doubts and confusions +of this day. If we grasp with mind and +heart that truth, we can possess our souls in patience, +and in its light see light where else is darkness and +uncertainty.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>So much then for introduction, and now a few +words of comment on the superscription of the letter +contained in these verses.</p> + +<p>I. Notice the blending of lowliness and authority +in Paul’s designation of himself. “An Apostle of +Christ Jesus through the will of God.”</p> + +<p>He does not always bring his apostolic authority +to mind at the beginning of his letters. In his +earliest epistles, those to the Thessalonians, he has +not yet adopted the practice. In the loving and +joyous letter to the Philippians, he has no need to +urge his authority, for no man among them ever +gainsaid it. In that to Philemon, friendship is uppermost, +and though, as he says, he might be much bold +to enjoin, yet he prefers to beseech, and will not +command as “Apostle,” but pleads as “the prisoner +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +of Christ Jesus.” In his other letters he put his +authority in the foreground as here, and it may be +noticed that it and its basis in the will of God are +asserted with greatest emphasis in the Epistle to the +Galatians, where he has to deal with more defiant +opposition than elsewhere encountered him.</p> + +<p>Here he puts forth his claim to the apostolate, +in the highest sense of the word. He asserts his +equality with the original Apostles, the chosen witnesses +for the reality of Christ’s resurrection. He, +too, had seen the risen Lord, and heard the words of +His mouth. He shared with them the prerogative +of certifying from personal experience that Jesus +is risen and lives to bless and rule. Paul’s whole +Christianity was built on the belief that Jesus Christ +had actually appeared to him. That vision on the +road to Damascus revolutionised his life. Because +he had seen his Lord and heard his duty from His +lips, he had become what he was.</p> + +<p>“Through the will of God” is at once an assertion +of Divine authority, a declaration of independence +of all human teaching or appointment, and a most +lowly disclaimer of individual merit, or personal +power. Few religious teachers have had so strongly +marked a character as Paul, or have so constantly +brought their own experience into prominence; but +the weight which he expected to be attached to his +words was to be due entirely to their being the +words which God spoke through him. If this opening +clause were to be paraphrased it would be: I +speak to you because God has sent me. I am not +an Apostle by my own will, nor by my own merit. +I am not worthy to be called an Apostle. I am a +poor sinner like yourselves, and it is a miracle of love +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +and mercy that God should put His words into such +lips. But He does speak through me; my words +are neither mine nor learned from any other man, +but His. Never mind the cracked pipe through +which the Divine breath makes music, but listen to +the music.</p> + +<p>So Paul thought of his message; so the uncompromising +assertion of authority was united with deep +humility. Do we come to his words, believing that +we hear God speaking through Paul? Here is no +formal doctrine of inspiration, but here is the claim +to be the organ of the Divine will and mind, to which +we ought to listen as indeed the voice of God.</p> + +<p>The gracious humility of the man is further seen +in his association with himself, as joint senders of +the letter, of his young brother Timothy, who has +no apostolic authority, but whose concurrence in its +teaching might give it some additional weight. For +the first few verses he remembers to speak in the +plural, as in the name of both—“<i>we</i> give thanks,” +“Epaphras declared to <i>us</i> your love,” and so on; +but in the fiery sweep of his thoughts Timothy is +soon left out of sight, and Paul alone pours out the +wealth of his Divine wisdom and the warmth of his +fervid heart.</p> + +<p>II. We may observe the noble ideal of the Christian +character set forth in the designations of the +Colossian Church, as “saints and faithful brethren in +Christ.”</p> + +<p>In his earlier letters Paul addresses himself to +“the Church;” in his later, beginning with the +Epistle to the Romans, and including the three great +epistles from his captivity, namely, Ephesians, Philippians, +and Colossians, he drops the word Church, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +uses expressions which regard the individuals composing +the community rather than the community +which they compose. The slight change thus indicated +in the Apostle’s point of view is interesting, +however it may be accounted for. There is no reason +to suppose it done of set purpose, and certainly it +did not arise from any lowered estimate of the sacredness +of “the Church,” which is nowhere put on higher +ground than in the letter to Ephesus, which belongs +to the later period; but it may be that advancing +years and familiarity with his work, with his position +of authority, and with his auditors, all tended to draw +him closer to them, and insensibly led to the disuse +of the more formal and official address to “the +Church” in favour of the simpler and more affectionate +superscription, to “the brethren.”</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, the lessons to be drawn from the +names here given to the members of the Church are +the more important matter for us. It would be interesting +and profitable to examine the meaning of +all the New Testament names for believers, and to +learn the lessons which they teach; but we must for +the present confine ourselves to those which occur +here.</p> + +<p>“Saints”—a word that has been wofully misapplied +both by the Church and the world. The former has +given it as a special honour to a few, and “decorated” +with it mainly the possessors of a false ideal of +sanctity—that of the ascetic and monastic sort. The +latter uses it with a sarcastic intonation, as if it implied +much cry and little wool, loud professions and +small performance, not without a touch of hypocrisy +and crafty self-seeking.</p> + +<p>Saints are not people living in cloisters after a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +fantastic ideal, but men and women immersed in the +vulgar work of every-day life and worried by the +small prosaic anxieties which fret us all, who amidst +the whirr of the spindle in the mill, and the clink of +the scales on the counter, and the hubbub of the +market-place and the jangle of the courts, are yet +living lives of conscious devotion to God. The root +idea of the word, which is an Old Testament word, +is not moral purity, but separation to God. The +holy things of the old covenant were things set +apart from ordinary use for His service. So, on +the high priest’s mitre was written Holiness to the +Lord. So the Sabbath was kept “holy,” because +set apart from the week in obedience to Divine +command.</p> + +<p><i>Sanctity</i>, and <i>saint</i>, are used now mainly with the +idea of moral purity, but that is a secondary meaning. +The real primary signification is separation to +God. Consecration to Him is the root from which +the white flower of purity springs most surely. There +is a deep lesson in the word as to the true method +of attaining cleanness of life and spirit. We cannot +make ourselves pure, but we can yield ourselves to +God and the purity will come.</p> + +<p>But we have not only here the fundamental idea +of holiness, and the connection of purity of character +with self-consecration to God, but also the solemn +obligation on all so-called Christians thus to separate +and devote themselves to Him. We are Christians +as far as we give ourselves up to God, in the surrender +of our wills and the practical obedience of +our lives—so far and not one inch further. We +are not merely bound to this consecration if we are +Christians, but we are not Christians unless we thus +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +consecrate ourselves. Pleasing self, and making my +own will my law, and living for my own ends, is +destructive of all Christianity. Saints are not an +eminent sort of Christians, but all Christians are +saints, and he who is not a saint is not a Christian. +The true consecration is the surrender of the will, +which no man can do for us, which needs no +outward ceremonial, and the one motive which will +lead us selfish and stubborn men to bow our necks +to that gentle yoke, and to come out of the misery +of pleasing self into the peace of serving God, is +drawn from the great love of Him Who devoted +Himself to God and man, and bought us for His +own by giving Himself utterly to be ours. All +sanctity begins with consecration to God. All consecration +rests upon the faith of Christ’s sacrifice. +And if, drawn by the great love of Christ to us +unworthy, we give ourselves away to God in Him, +then He gives Himself in deep sacred communion +to us. “I am thine” has ever for its chord which +completes the fulness of its music, “Thou art mine.” +And so “saint” is a name of dignity and honour, +as well as a stringent requirement. There is implied +in it, too, safety from all that would threaten +life or union with Him. He will not hold His +possessions with a slack hand that negligently lets +them drop, or with a feeble hand that cannot keep +them from a foe. “Thou wilt not suffer him who +is consecrated to Thee to see corruption.” If I +belong to God, having given myself to Him, then +I am safe from the touch of evil and the taint of +decay. “The Lord’s portion is His people,” and +He will not lose even so worthless a part of that +portion as I am. The great name “saints” carries +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +with it the prophecy of victory over all evil, and +the assurance that nothing can separate us from +the love of God, or pluck us from His hand.</p> + +<p>But these Colossian Christians are “faithful” as +well as saints. That may either mean <i>trustworthy</i> +and <i>true</i> to their stewardship, or <i>trusting</i>. In the +parallel verses in the Epistle to the Ephesians +(which presents so many resemblances to this +epistle) the latter meaning seems to be required, +and here it is certainly the more natural, as pointing +to the very foundation of all Christian consecration +and brotherhood in the act of believing. We +are united to Christ by our faith. The Church is a +family of faithful, that is to say of believing, men. +Faith underlies consecration and is the parent of +holiness, for he only will yield himself to God who +trustfully grasps the mercies of God and rests on +Christ’s great gift of Himself. Faith weaves the +bond that unites men in the brotherhood of the +Church, for it brings all who share it into a common +relation to the Father. He who is faithful, that is, +believing, will be faithful in the sense of being +worthy of confidence and true to his duty, his +profession, and his Lord.</p> + +<p>They were <i>brethren</i> too. That strong new bond +of union among men the most unlike, was a strange +phenomenon in Paul’s time, when the Roman world +was falling to pieces, and rent by deep clefts of +hatreds and jealousies such as modern society +scarcely knows; and men might well wonder as +they saw the slave and his master sitting at the +same table, the Greek and the barbarian learning +the same wisdom in the same tongue, the Jew +and the Gentile bowing the knee in the same +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +worship, and the hearts of all fused into one great +glow of helpful sympathy and unselfish love.</p> + +<p>But “brethren” means more than this. It points +not merely to Christian love, but to the common +possession of a new life. If we are brethren, it is +because we have one Father, because in us all there +is one life. The name is often regarded as sentimental +and metaphorical. The obligation of mutual +love is supposed to be the main idea in it, +and there is a melancholy hollowness and unreality +in the very sound of it as applied to the usual +average Christians of to-day. But the name leads +straight to the doctrine of regeneration, and proclaims +that all Christians are born again through +their faith in Jesus Christ, and thereby partake of +a common new life, which makes all its possessors +children of the Highest, and therefore brethren one +of another. If regarded as an expression of the +affection of Christians for one another, “brethren” +is an exaggeration, ludicrous or tragic, as we view +it; but if we regard it as the expression of the real +bond which gathers all believers into one family, it +declares the deepest mystery and mightiest privilege +of the gospel that “to as many as received Him, to +them gave He power to become the Sons of God.”</p> + +<p>They are “in Christ.” These two words may +apply to all the designations or to the last only. +They are saints in Him, believers in Him, brethren +in Him. That mystical but most real union of +Christians with their Lord is never far away from +the Apostle’s thoughts, and in the twin Epistle to +the Ephesians is the very burden of the whole. +A shallower Christianity tries to weaken that great +phrase to something more intelligible to the unspiritual +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +temper and the poverty-stricken experience +proper to it; but no justice can be done to Paul’s +teaching unless it be taken in all its depth as +expressive of that same mutual indwelling and interlacing +of spirit with spirit which is so prominent +in the writings of the Apostle John. <i>There</i> is one +point of contact between the Pauline and the +Johannean conceptions, on the differences between +which so much exaggeration has been expended: +to both the inmost essence of the Christian life is +union to Christ, and abiding in Him. If we are +Christians, we are in Him, in yet profounder sense +than creation lives and moves and has its being in +God. We are in Him as the earth with all its +living things is in the atmosphere, as the branch is +in the vine, as the members are in the body. We +are in Him as inhabitants in a house, as hearts that +love in hearts that love, as parts in the whole. If +we are Christians, He is in us, as life in every vein, +as the fruit-producing sap and energy of the vine +is in every branch, as the air in every lung, as the +sunlight in every planet.</p> + +<p>This is the deepest mystery of the Christian life. +To be “in Him” is to be complete. “In Him” +we are “blessed with all spiritual blessings.” “In +Him”, we are “chosen,” “In Him,” God “freely +bestows His grace upon us.” “In Him” we “have +redemption through His blood.” “In Him” “all +things in heaven and earth are gathered.” “In +Him we have obtained an inheritance.” In Him is +the better life of all who live. In Him we have +peace though the world be seething with change +and storm. In Him we conquer though earth and +our own evil be all in arms against us. If we live +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +in Him, we live in purity and joy. If we die in +Him, we die in tranquil trust. If our gravestones +may truly carry the sweet old inscription carved on +so many a nameless slab in the catacombs, “In +Christo,” they will also bear the other “In pace” +(In peace). If we sleep in Him, our glory is +assured, for them also that sleep in Jesus, will God +bring with Him.</p> + +<p>III. A word or two only can be devoted to the +last clause of salutation, the apostolic wish, which +sets forth the high ideal to be desired for Churches +and individuals: “Grace be unto and peace from +God our Father.” The Authorized Version reads, +“and the Lord Jesus Christ,” but the Revised +Version follows the majority of recent text-critics +and their principal authorities in omitting these +words, which are supposed to have been imported +into our passage from the parallel place in Ephesians. +The omission of these familiar words which occur so +uniformly in the similar introductory salutations of +Paul’s other epistles, is especially singular here, +where the main subject of the letter is the office of +Christ as channel of all blessings. Perhaps the previous +word, “brethren” was lingering in his mind, +and so instinctively he stopped with the kindred +word “Father.”</p> + +<p>“Grace and peace”—Paul’s wishes for those +whom he loves, and the blessings which he expects +every Christian to possess, blend the Western and +the Eastern forms of salutation, and surpass both. +All that the Greek meant by his “Grace,” all that +the Hebrew meant by his “Peace,” the ideally +happy condition which differing nations have placed +in different blessings, and which all loving words +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +have vainly wished for dear ones, is secured and +conveyed to every poor soul that trusts in Christ.</p> + +<p>“Grace”—what is that? The word means first—love +in exercise to those who are below the lover, +or who deserve something else; stooping love that +condescends, and patient love that forgives. Then +it means the gifts which such love bestows, and +then it means the effects of these gifts in the beauties +of character and conduct developed in the receivers. +So there are here invoked, or we may call it, proffered +and promised, to every believing heart, the love +and gentleness of that Father whose love to us sinful +atoms is a miracle of lowliness and longsuffering; +and, next, the outcome of that love which never +visits the soul emptyhanded, in all varied spiritual +gifts, to strengthen weakness, to enlighten ignorance, +to fill the whole being; and as last result of all, +every beauty of mind, heart, and temper which can +adorn the character, and refine a man into the likeness +of God. That great gift will come in continuous +bestowment if we are “saints in Christ.” Of +His fulness we all receive and grace for grace, wave +upon wave as the ripples press shoreward and each +in turn pours its tribute on the beach, or as pulsation +after pulsation makes one golden beam of unbroken +light, strong winged enough to come all the way +from the sun, gentle enough to fall on the sensitive +eyeball without pain. That one beam will decompose +into all colours and brightnesses. That one +“grace” will part into sevenfold gifts and be the +life in us of whatsoever things are lovely and of +good report.</p> + +<p>“Peace be unto you.” That old greeting, the +witness of a state of society when every stranger +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +seen across the desert was probably an enemy, is +also a witness to the deep unrest of the heart. It is +well to learn the lesson that peace comes after grace, +that for tranquillity of soul we must go to God, and +that He gives it by giving us His love and its gifts, +of which, and of which only, peace is the result. If +we have that grace for ours, as we all may if we will, +we shall be still, because our desires are satisfied and +all our needs met. To seek is unnecessary when we +are conscious of possessing. We may end our weary +quest, like the dove when it had found the green leaf, +though little dry land may be seen as yet, and fold +our wings and rest by the cross. We may be lapped +in calm repose, even in the midst of toil and strife, +like John resting on the heart of his Lord. There +must be first of all, peace <i>with</i> God, that there may +be peace <i>from</i> God. Then, when we have been won +from our alienation and enmity by the power of the +cross, and have learned to know that God is our +Lover, Friend and Father, we shall possess the peace +of those whose hearts have found their home, the +peace of spirits no longer at war within—conscience +and choice tearing them asunder in their strife, the +peace of obedience which banishes the disturbance of +self-will, the peace of security shaken by no fears, +the peace of a sure future across the brightness of +which no shadows of sorrow nor mists of uncertainty +can fall, the peace of a heart in amity with all mankind. +So living in peace, we shall lay ourselves +down and die in peace, and enter into “that country, +afar beyond the stars,” where “grows the flower of +peace.”</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The Rose that cannot wither,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy fortress and thy ease.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +All this may be ours. Paul could only wish it +for these Colossians. We can only long for it for +our dearest. No man can fulfil his wishes or turn +them into actual gifts. Many precious things we +can give, but not peace. But our brother, Jesus +Christ, can do more than wish it. He can bestow +it, and when we need it most, He stands ever beside +us, in our weakness and unrest, with His strong arm +stretched out to help, and on His calm lips the old +words—“My grace is sufficient for thee,” “My peace +I give unto you.”</p> + +<p>Let us keep ourselves in Him, believing in Him +and yielding ourselves to God for His dear sake, and +we shall find His grace ever flowing into our emptiness +and His settled “peace keeping our hearts and +minds in Christ Jesus.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColII" id="ColII"></a>II.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE PRELUDE.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying +always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the +love which ye have toward all the saints, because of the hope which is +laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of +the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you; even as it is also in all +the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also, since the +day ye heard and knew the grace of God in truth; even as ye learned +of Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant, who is a faithful minister of +Christ on our behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> +i. 3–8. (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>This long introductory section may at first +sight give the impression of confusion, from the +variety of subjects introduced. But a little thought +about it shows it to be really a remarkable specimen +of the Apostle’s delicate tact, born of his love and +earnestness. Its purpose is to prepare a favourable +reception for his warnings and arguments against +errors which had crept in, and in his judgment were +threatening to sweep away the Colossian Christians +from their allegiance to Christ, and their faith in the +gospel as it had been originally preached to them +by Epaphras. That design explains the selection of +topics in these verses, and their weaving together.</p> + +<p>Before he warns and rebukes, Paul begins by +giving the Colossians credit for all the good which +he can find in them. As soon as he opens his mouth, +he asserts the claims and authority, the truth and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +power of the gospel which he preaches, and from +which all this good in them had come, and which +had proved that it came from God by its diffusiveness +and fruitfulness. He reminds them of their +beginnings in the Christian life, with which this new +teaching was utterly inconsistent, and he flings his +shield over Epaphras, their first teacher, whose words +were in danger of being neglected now for newer +voices with other messages.</p> + +<p>Thus skilfully and lovingly these verses touch a +prelude which naturally prepares for the theme of +the epistle. Remonstrance and rebuke would more +often be effective if they oftener began with showing +the rebuker’s love, and with frank acknowledgment +of good in the rebuked.</p> + +<p>I. We have first a thankful recognition of Christian +excellence as introductory to warnings and remonstrances.</p> + +<p>Almost all Paul’s letters begin with similar expressions +of thankfulness for the good that was in the +Church he is addressing. Gentle rain softens the +ground and prepares it to receive the heavier downfall +which would else mostly run off the hard surface. +The exceptions are, 2 Corinthians; Ephesians, which +was probably a circular letter; and Galatians, which +is too hot throughout for such praises. These expressions +are not compliments, or words of course. +Still less are they flattery used for personal ends. +They are the uncalculated and uncalculating expression +of affection which delights to see white patches +in the blackest character, and of wisdom which +knows that the nauseous medicine of blame is most +easily taken if administered wrapped in a capsule of +honest praise.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +All persons in authority over others, such as +masters, parents, leaders of any sort, may be the +better for taking the lesson—“provoke not your”—inferiors, +dependents, scholars—“to wrath, lest +they be discouraged”—and deal out praise where +you can, with a liberal hand. It is nourishing food +for many virtues, and a powerful antidote to many +vices.</p> + +<p>This praise is cast in the form of thanksgiving to +God, as the true fountain of all that is good in men. +How all that might be harmful in direct praise is +strained out of it, when it becomes gratitude to God! +But we need not dwell on this, nor on the principle +underlying these thanks, namely that Christian men’s +excellences are God’s gift, and that therefore, admiration +of the man should ever be subordinate to thankfulness +to God. The fountain, not the pitcher filled +from it, should have the credit of the crystal purity +and sparkling coolness of the water. Nor do we +need to do more than point to the inference from +that phrase “having <i>heard</i> of your faith,” an inference +confirmed by other statements in the letter, +namely, that the Apostle himself had never <i>seen</i> the +Colossian Church. But we briefly emphasize the +two points which occasioned his thankfulness. They +are the familiar two, <i>faith</i> and <i>love</i>.</p> + +<p>Faith is sometimes spoken of in the New Testament +as “<i>towards</i> Christ Jesus,” which describes that +great act of the soul by its direction, as if it were a +going out or flight of the man’s nature to the true +goal of all active being. It is sometimes spoken of +as “<i>on</i> Christ Jesus,” which describes it as reposing +on Him as the end of all seeking, and suggests such +images as that of a hand that leans or of a burden +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +borne, or a weakness upheld by contact with Him. +But more sweet and great is the blessedness of faith +considered as “<i>in</i> Him,” as its abiding place and +fortress-home, in union with, and indwelling in whom +the seeking spirit may fold its wings, and the weak +heart may be strengthened to lift its burden cheerily, +heavy though it be, and the soul may be full of tranquillity +and soothed into a great calm. <i>Towards</i>, <i>on</i>, +and <i>in</i>—so manifold are the phases of the relation +between Christ and our faith.</p> + +<p>In all, faith is the same,—simple confidence, precisely +like the trust which we put in one another. +But how unlike are the objects!—broken reeds of +human nature in the one case, and the firm pillar of that +Divine power and tenderness in the other, and how +unlike, alas! is the fervency and constancy of the +trust we exercise in each other and in Christ! +“Faith” covers the whole ground of man’s relation +to God. All religion, all devotion, everything which +binds us to the unseen world is included in or evolved +from faith. And mark that this faith is, in Paul’s +teaching, the foundation of love to men and of +everything else good and fair. We may agree or +disagree with that thought, but we can scarcely fail +to see that it is the foundation of all his moral teaching. +From that fruitful source all good will come. From +that deep fountain sweet water will flow, and all +drawn from other sources has a tang of bitterness. +Goodness of all kinds is most surely evolved from +faith—and that faith lacks its best warrant of reality +which does not lead to whatsoever things are lovely +and of good report. Barnabas was a “good man,” +because, as Luke goes on to tell us by way of analysis +of the sources of his goodness, he was “full of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +Holy Ghost,” the author of all goodness, “and of +faith” by which that Inspirer of all beauty of purity +dwells in men’s hearts. Faith then is the germ of +goodness, not because of anything in itself, but because +by it we come under the influence of the Divine +Spirit whose breath is life and holiness.</p> + +<p>Therefore we say to every one who is seeking to +train his character in excellence, begin with trusting +Christ, and out of that will come all lustre and whiteness, +all various beauties of mind and heart. It is +hard and hopeless work to cultivate our own thorns +into grapes, but if we will trust Christ, He will sow +good seed in our field and “make it soft with showers +and bless the springing thereof.”</p> + +<p>As faith is the foundation of all virtue, so it is the +parent of love, and as the former sums up every bond +that knits men to God, so the latter includes all relations +of men to each other, and is the whole law +of human conduct packed into one word. But the +warmest place in a Christian’s heart will belong to +those who are in sympathy with his deepest self, and +a true faith in Christ, like a true loyalty to a prince, +will weave a special bond between all fellow-subjects. +So the sign, on the surface of earthly relations, of the +deep-lying central fire of faith to Christ, is the fruitful +vintage of brotherly love, as the vineyards bear the +heaviest clusters on the slopes of Vesuvius. Faith in +Christ and love to Christians—that is the Apostle’s +notion of a good man. That is the ideal of character +which we have to set before ourselves. Do we desire +to be good? Let us trust Christ. Do we profess +to trust Christ? Let us show it by the true proof—our +goodness and especially our love.</p> + +<p>So we have here two members of the familiar triad, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +Faith and Love, and their sister Hope is not far off. +We read in the next clause, “because of the hope +which is laid up for you in the heavens.” The +connection is not altogether plain. Is the hope the +reason for the Apostle’s thanksgiving, or the reason +in some sense of the Colossians’ love? As far as +the language goes, we may either read “We give +thanks ... because of the hope,” or “the love which +ye have ... because of the hope.” But the long +distance which we have to go back for the connection, +if we adopt the former explanation, and other considerations +which need not be entered on here, seem +to make the latter the preferable construction if it +yields a tolerable sense. Does it? Is it allowable +to say that the hope which is laid up in heaven is in +any sense a reason or motive for brotherly love? I +think it is.</p> + +<p>Observe that “hope” here is best taken as meaning +not the emotion, but the object on which the emotion +is fixed; not the faculty, but the thing hoped for; or +in other words, that it is objective not subjective; +and also that the ideas of futurity and security are +conveyed by the thought of this object of expectation +being laid up. This future blessedness, grasped by +our expectant hearts as assured for us, does stimulate +and hearten to all well-doing. Certainly it does not +supply the main reason; we are not to be loving and +good because we hope to win heaven thereby. The +deepest motive for all the graces of Christian character +is the will of God in Christ Jesus, apprehended by +loving hearts. But it is quite legitimate to draw +subordinate motives for the strenuous pursuit of holiness +from the anticipation of future blessedness, and +it is quite legitimate to use that prospect to reinforce +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +the higher motives. He who seeks to be good only +for the sake of the heaven which he thinks he will +get for his goodness—if there be any such a person +existing anywhere but in the imaginations of the +caricaturists of Christian teaching—is not good and +will not get his heaven; but he who feeds his devotion +to Christ and his earnest cultivation of holiness with +the animating hope of an unfading crown will find +in it a mighty power to intensify and ennoble all life, +to bear him up as on angel’s hands that lift over all +stones of stumbling, to diminish sorrow and dull pain, +to kindle love to men into a brighter flame, and to +purge holiness to a more radiant whiteness. The +hope laid up in heaven is not the deepest reason or +motive for faith and love—but both are made more +vivid when it is strong. It is not the light at which +their lamps are lit, but it is the odorous oil which +feeds their flame.</p> + +<p>II. The course of thought passes on to a solemn +reminder of the truth and worth of that Gospel which +was threatened by the budding heresies of the Colossian +Church.</p> + +<p>That is contained in the clauses from the middle +of the fifth verse to the end of the sixth, and is +introduced with significant abruptness, immediately +after the commendation of the Colossians’ faith. +The Apostle’s mind and heart are so full of the +dangers which he saw them to be in, although +they did not know it, that he cannot refrain from +setting forth an impressive array of considerations, +each of which should make them hold to the gospel +with an iron grasp. They are put with the utmost +compression. Each word almost might be beaten +out into a long discourse, so that we can only +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +indicate the lines of thought. This somewhat +tangled skein may, on the whole, be taken as the +answer to the question, Why should we cleave to +Paul’s gospel, and dread and war against tendencies +of opinion that would rob us of it? They are +preliminary considerations adapted to prepare the +way for a patient and thoughtful reception of the +arguments which are to follow, by showing how +much is at stake, and how the readers would be poor +indeed if they were robbed of that great Word.</p> + +<p>He begins by reminding them that to that +gospel they owed all <i>their knowledge and hope of +heaven</i>—the hope “whereof ye heard before in the +word of the truth of the gospel.” That great word +alone gives light on the darkness. The sole certainty +of a life beyond the grave is built on the +Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the sole hope of a +blessed life beyond the grave for the poor soul that +has learned its sinfulness is built on the Death of +Christ. Without this light, that land is a land of +darkness, lighted only by glimmering sparks of +conjectures and peradventures. So it is to-day, as +it was then; the centuries have only made more +clear the entire dependence of the living conviction +of immortality on the acceptance of Paul’s gospel, +“how that Christ died for our sins according to the +Scriptures, and that He was raised again the third +day.” All around us, we see those who reject the +fact of Christ’s resurrection finding themselves forced +to surrender their faith in any life beyond. They +cannot sustain themselves on that height of conviction, +unless they lean on Christ. The black +mountain wall that rings us poor mortals round +about is cloven in one place only. Through one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +narrow cleft there comes a gleam of light. There +and there only is the frowning barrier passable. +Through that grim cañon, narrow and black, where +there is only room for the dark river to run, bright-eyed +Hope may travel, letting our her golden thread +as she goes, to guide us. Christ has cloven the +rock, “the Breaker has gone up before” us, and by +His resurrection alone we have the knowledge which +is certitude, and the hope which is confidence, of an +inheritance in light. If Paul’s gospel goes, that +goes like morning mist. Before you throw away +the “word of the truth of the gospel,” at all events +understand that you fling away all assurance of a +future life along with it.</p> + +<p>Then, there is another motive touched in these +words just quoted. The gospel is a word of which +the whole substance and content is truth. You may +say that is the whole question, whether the gospel is +such a word? Of course it is; but observe how +here, at the very outset, the gospel is represented as +having a distinct dogmatic element in it. It is of +value, not because it feeds sentiment or regulates +conduct only, but first and foremost because it gives +us true though incomplete knowledge concerning all +the deepest things of God and man about which, +but for its light, we know nothing. That truthful +word is opposed to the argumentations and speculations +and errors of the heretics. The gospel is not +speculation but fact. It is truth, because it is the +record of a Person who is the Truth. The history +of His life and death is the one source of all +certainty and knowledge with regard to man’s +relations to God, and God’s loving purposes to man. +To leave it and Him of whom it speaks in order +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +to listen to men who spin theories out of their own +brains is to prefer will-o’-the-wisps to the sun. If +we listen to Christ, we have the truth; if we turn +from Him, our ears are stunned by a Babel. “To +whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of +eternal life.”</p> + +<p>Further, this gospel had been already received by +them. Ye <i>heard before</i>, says he, and again he speaks +of the gospel as “come unto” them, and reminds +them of the past days in which they “heard and +knew the grace of God.” That appeal is, of course, +no argument except to a man who admits the truth +of what he had already received, nor is it meant for +argument with others, but it is equivalent to the +exhortation, “You have heard that word and accepted +it, see that your future be consistent with your past.” +He would have the life a harmonious whole, all in +accordance with the first glad grasp which they had +laid on the truth. Sweet and calm and noble is the +life which preserves to its close the convictions of its +beginning, only deepened and expanded. Blessed +are they whose creed at last can be spoken in the +lessons they learned in childhood, to which experience +has but given new meaning! Blessed they who have +been able to store the treasure of a life’s thought and +learning in the vessels of the early words, which have +grown like the magic coffers in a fairy tale, to hold +all the increased wealth that can be lodged in them! +Beautiful is it when the little children and the young +men and the fathers possess the one faith, and when +he who began as a child, “knowing the Father,” ends +as an old man with the same knowledge of the same +God, only apprehended now in a form which has +gained majesty from the fleeting years, as “Him +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +that is from the beginning.” There is no need to +leave the Word long since heard in order to get +novelty. It will open out into all new depths, and +blaze in new radiance as men grow. It will give new +answers as the years ask new questions. Each epoch +of individual experience, and each phase of society, +and all changing forms of opinion will find what +meets them in the gospel as it is in Jesus. It is +good for Christian men often to recall the beginnings +of their faith, to live over again their early emotions, +and when they may be getting stunned with the din +of controversy, and confused as to the relative importance +of different parts of Christian truth, to remember +<i>what</i> it was that first filled their heart with joy +like that of the finder of a hidden treasure, and with +what a leap of gladness they first laid hold of Christ.</p> + +<p>That spiritual discipline is no less needful than is +intellectual, in facing the conflicts of this day.</p> + +<p>Again, this gospel was filling the world: “it is in +all the world bearing fruit, and increasing.” There +are two marks of life—it is fruitful and it spreads. +Of course such words are not to be construed as if +they occurred in a statistical table. “All the world” +must be taken with an allowance for rhetorical statement; +but making such allowance, the rapid spread +of Christianity in Paul’s time, and its power to influence +character and conduct among all sorts and conditions +of men, were facts that needed to be accounted for, +if the gospel was not true.</p> + +<p>That is surely a noteworthy fact, and one which +may well raise a presumption in favour of the truth +of the message, and make any proposal to cast it aside +for another gospel, a serious matter. Paul is not +suggesting the vulgar argument that a thing must be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +true because so many people have so quickly believed +it. But what he is pointing to is a much deeper +thought than that. All schisms and heresies are +essentially local, and partial. They suit coteries and +classes. They are the product of special circumstances +acting on special casts of mind, and appeal to such. +Like parasitical plants they each require a certain +species to grow on, and cannot spread where these +are not found. They are not for all time, but for an +age. They are not for all men, but for a select few. +They reflect the opinions or wants of a layer of society +or of a generation, and fade away. But the gospel +goes through the world and draws men to itself out +of every land and age. Dainties and confections are +for the few, and many of them are like pickled olives +to unsophisticated palates, and the delicacies of one +country are the abominations of another; but everybody +likes bread and lives on it, after all.</p> + +<p>The gospel which tells of Christ belongs to all and +can touch all, because it brushes aside superficial +differences of culture and position, and goes straight +to the depths of the one human heart, which is alike +in us all, addressing the universal sense of sin, and +revealing the Saviour of us all, and in Him the +universal Father. Do not fling away a gospel that +belongs to all, and can bring forth fruit in all kinds +of people, for the sake of accepting what can never +live in the popular heart, nor influence more than a +handful of very select and “superior persons.” Let +who will have the dainties, do you stick to the wholesome +wheaten bread.</p> + +<p>Another plea for adherence to the gospel is based +upon its continuous and universal fruitfulness. It +brings about results in conduct and character which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +strongly attest its claim to be from God. That is a +rough and ready test, no doubt, but a sensible and +satisfactory one. A system which says that it will +make men good and pure is reasonably judged of by +its fruits, and Christianity can stand the test. It +did change the face of the old world. It has been +the principal agent in the slow growth of “nobler +manners, purer laws” which give the characteristic +stamp to modern as contrasted with pre-Christian +nations. The threefold abominations of the old +world—slavery, war, and the degradation of woman—have +all been modified, one of them abolished, +and the others growingly felt to be utterly un-Christian. +The main agent in the change has been +the gospel. It has wrought wonders, too, on single +souls; and though all Christians must be too conscious +of their own imperfections to venture on +putting themselves forward as specimens of its +power, still the gospel of Jesus Christ has lifted men +from the dungheaps of sin and self to “set them +with princes,” to make them kings and priests; has +tamed passions, ennobled pursuits, revolutionised the +whole course of many a life, and mightily works to-day +in the same fashion, in the measure in which we +submit to its influence. Our imperfections are our +own; our good is its. A medicine is not shown to +be powerless, though it does not do as much as is +claimed for it, if the sick man has taken it irregularly +and sparingly. The failure of Christianity to bring +forth full fruit arises solely from the failure of professing +Christians to allow its quickening powers to +fill their hearts. After all deductions we may still +say with Paul, “it bringeth forth fruit in all the +world.” This rod has budded, at all events; have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +any of its antagonists’ rods done the same? Do not +cast it away, says Paul, till you are sure you have +found a better.</p> + +<p>This tree not only fruits, but grows. It is not +exhausted by fruit-bearing, but it makes wood as +well. It is “increasing” as well as “bearing fruit,” +and that growth in the circuit of its branches that +spread through the world, is another of its claims +on the faithful adhesion of the Colossians.</p> + +<p>Again, they have heard a gospel which reveals the +“true grace of God,” and that is another consideration +urging to steadfastness.</p> + +<p>In opposition to it there were put then, as there +are put to-day, man’s thoughts, and man’s requirements, +a human wisdom and a burdensome code. +Speculations and arguments on the one hand, and +laws and rituals on the other, look thin beside the +large free gift of a loving God and the message +which tells of it. They are but poor bony things +to try to live on. The soul wants something more +nourishing than such bread made out of sawdust. We +want a loving God to live upon, whom we can love +because He loves us. Will anything but the gospel +give us that? Will anything be our stay, in all +weakness, weariness, sorrow and sin, in the fight of +life and the agony of death, except the confidence +that in Christ we “know the grace of God in truth”?</p> + +<p>So, if we gather together all these characteristics +of the gospel, they bring out the gravity of the issue +when we are asked to tamper with it, or to abandon +the old lamp for the brand new ones which many +eager voices are proclaiming as the light of the future. +May any of us who are on the verge of the precipice +lay to heart these serious thoughts! To that gospel +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +we owe our peace; by it alone can the fruit of lofty +devout lives be formed and ripened; it has filled the +world with its sound, and is revolutionising humanity; +it and it only brings to men the good news and the +actual gift of the love and mercy of God. It is not +a small matter to fling away all this.</p> + +<p>We do not prejudge the question of the truth of +Christianity; but, at all events, let there be no mistake +as to the fact that to give it up is to give up +the mightiest power that has ever wrought for the +world’s good, and that if its light be quenched there +will be darkness that may be felt, not dispelled but +made more sad and dreary by the ineffectual flickers +of some poor rushlights that men have lit, which +waver and shine dimly over a little space for a little +while, and then die out.</p> + +<p>III. We have the Apostolic endorsement of Epaphras, +the early teacher of the Colossian Christians.</p> + +<p>Paul points his Colossian brethren, finally, to the +lessons which they had received from the teacher +who had first led them to Christ. No doubt his +authority was imperiled by the new direction of +thought in the Church, and Paul was desirous of +adding the weight of his attestation to the complete +correspondence between his own teaching and that +of Epaphras.</p> + +<p>We know nothing about this Epaphras except +from this letter and that to Philemon. He is “one +of you,” a member of the Colossian Church (iv. 12), +whether a Colossian born or not. He had come +to the prisoner in Rome, and had brought the +tidings of their condition which filled the Apostle’s +heart with strangely mingled feelings—of joy for +their love and Christian walk (verses 4, 8), and of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +anxiety lest they should be swept from their steadfastness +by the errors that he heard were assailing +them. Epaphras shared this anxiety, and during +his stay in Rome was much in thought, and care, +and prayer for them (iv. 12). He does not seem to +have been the bearer of this letter to Colossæ. He +was in some sense Paul’s fellow-servant, and in +Philemon he is called by the yet more intimate, +though somewhat obscure, name of his fellow-prisoner. +It is noticeable that he alone of all Paul’s +companions receives the name of “fellow-servant,” +which may perhaps point to some very special piece +of service of his, or may possibly be only an instance +of Paul’s courteous humility, which ever delighted +to lift others to his own level—as if he had said, Do +not make differences between your own Epaphras +and me, we are both slaves of one Master.</p> + +<p>The further testimony which Paul bears to him is +so emphatic and pointed as to suggest that it was +meant to uphold an authority that had been attacked, +and to eulogize a character that had been maligned. +“He is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf.” +In these words the Apostle endorses his teaching, +as a true representation of his own. Probably +Epaphras founded the Colossian Church and did so +in pursuance of a commission given him by Paul. +He “also declared to us your love in the Spirit.” +As he had truly represented Paul and his message +to them, so he lovingly represented them and their +kindly affection to him. Probably the same people +who questioned Epaphras’ version of Paul’s teaching +would suspect the favourableness of his report of +the Colossian Church, and hence the double witness +borne from the Apostle’s generous heart to both +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +parts of his brother’s work. His unstinted praise +is ever ready. His shield is swiftly flung over any +of his helpers who are maligned or assailed. Never +was a leader truer to his subordinates, more tender +of their reputation, more eager for their increased +influence, and freer from every trace of jealousy, +than was that lofty and lowly soul.</p> + +<p>It is a beautiful though a faint image which +shines out on us from these fragmentary notices of +this Colossian Epaphras—a true Christian bishop, +who had come all the long way from his quiet valley +in the depths of Asia Minor, to get guidance about +his flock from the great Apostle, and who bore +them on his heart day and night, and prayed much +for them, while so far away from them. How +strange the fortune which has made his name and +his solicitudes and prayers immortal! How little +he dreamed that such embalming was to be given +to his little services, and that they were to be +crowned with such exuberant praise!</p> + +<p>The smallest work done for Jesus Christ lasts for +ever, whether it abide in men’s memories or no. +Let us ever live as those who, like painters in fresco, +have with swift hand to draw lines and lay on +colours which will never fade, and let us, by humble +faith and holy life, earn such a character from Paul’s +master. He is glad to praise, and praise from His +lips is praise indeed. If He approves of us as faithful +servants on His behalf, it matters not what others +may say. The Master’s “Well done” will outweigh +labours and toils, and the depreciating tongues of +fellow-servants, or of the Master’s enemies.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColIII" id="ColIII"></a>III.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE PRAYER.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease +to pray and to make request for you, that ye may be filled with the +knowledge of His will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, +to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every +good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened +with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience +and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks unto the Father.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> +i. 9–12 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We have here to deal with one of Paul’s prayers +for his brethren. In some respects these are +the very topmost pinnacles of his letters. Nowhere +else does his spirit move so freely, in no other parts +are the fervour of his piety and the beautiful simplicity +and depth of his love more touchingly shown. The +freedom and heartiness of our prayers for others +are a very sharp test of both our piety to God and +our love to men. Plenty of people can talk and vow +who would find it hard to pray. Paul’s intercessory +prayers are the high-water mark of the epistles in +which they occur. He must have been a good man +and a true friend of whom so much can be said.</p> + +<p>This prayer sets forth the ideal of Christian character. +What Paul desired for his friends in Colossæ +is what all true Christian hearts should chiefly desire +for those whom they love, and should strive after and +ask for themselves. If we look carefully at these +words we shall see a clear division into parts which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +stand related to each other as root, stem, and fourfold +branches, or as fountain, undivided stream, and “four +heads” into which this “river” of Christian life “is +parted.” To be filled with the knowledge of God’s +will is the root or fountain-source of all. From it +comes a walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing—the +practical life being the outcome and expression +of the inward possession of the will of God. Then +we have four clauses, evidently co-ordinate, each +beginning with a participle, and together presenting +an analysis of this worthy walk. It will be fruitful +in all outward work. It will be growing in all inward +knowledge of God. Because life is not all doing and +knowing, but is suffering likewise, the worthy walk +must be patient and long-suffering, because strengthened +by God Himself. And to crown all, above +work and knowledge and suffering it must be thankfulness +to the Father. The magnificent massing +together of the grounds of gratitude which follows, +we must leave for future consideration, and pause, +however abruptly, yet not illogically, at the close +of the enumeration of these four branches of the +tree, the four sides of the firm tower of the true +Christian life.</p> + +<p>I. Consider the Fountain or Root of all Christian +character—“that ye may be filled with the knowledge +of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”</p> + +<p>One or two remarks in the nature of verbal exposition +may be desirable. Generally speaking, the +thing desired is the perfecting of the Colossians in +religious knowledge, and the perfection is forcibly +expressed in three different aspects. The idea of +completeness up to the height of their capacity is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +given in the prayer that they may be “filled,” like +some jar charged with sparkling water to the brim. +The advanced degree of the knowledge desired for +them is given in the word here employed, which is a +favourite in the Epistles of the Captivity, and means +additional or mature knowledge, that deeper apprehension +of God’s truth which perhaps had become +more obvious to Paul in the quiet growth of his spirit +during his life in Rome. And the rich variety of +forms which that advanced knowledge would assume +is set forth by the final words of the clause, which +may either be connected with its first words, so +meaning “filled ... so that ye may abound in ... +wisdom and understanding;” or with “the knowledge +of His will,” so meaning a “knowledge which is +manifested in.” That knowledge will blossom out +into <i>every kind</i> of “wisdom” and “understanding,” +two words which it is hard to distinguish, but of +which the former is perhaps the more general and +the latter the more special, the former the more +theoretical and the latter the more practical: and +both are the work of the Divine Spirit whose sevenfold +perfection of gifts illuminates with perfect light +each waiting heart. So perfect, whether in regard +to its measure, its maturity, or its manifoldness, is +the knowledge of the will of God, which the Apostle +regards as the deepest good which his love can ask +for these Colossians.</p> + +<p>Passing by many thoughts suggested by the words, +we may touch one or two large principles which they +involve. The first is, that the foundation of all +Christian character and conduct is laid in the knowledge +of the will of God. Every revelation of God +is a law. What it concerns us to know is not abstract +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +truth, or a revelation for speculative thought, +but God’s <i>will</i>. He does not show Himself to us in +order merely that we may know, but in order that, +knowing, we may do, and, what is more than either +knowing or doing, in order that we may be. No +revelation from God has accomplished its purpose +when a man has simply understood it, but every +fragmentary flash of light which comes from Him +in nature and providence, and still more the steady +radiance that pours from Jesus, is meant indeed to +teach us how we should think of God, but to do that +mainly as a means to the end that we may live in +conformity with His will. The light is knowledge, +but it is a light to guide our feet, knowledge which +is meant to shape practice.</p> + +<p>If that had been remembered, two opposite errors +would have been avoided. The error that was +threatening the Colossian Church, and has haunted +the Church in general ever since, was that of fancying +Christianity to be merely a system of truth to be +believed, a rattling skeleton of abstract dogmas, very +many and very dry. An unpractical heterodoxy +was their danger. An unpractical orthodoxy is as +real a peril. You may swallow all the creeds bodily, +you may even find in God’s truth the food of very +sweet and real feeling: but neither knowing nor +feeling is enough. The one all-important question +for us is—does our Christianity <i>work</i>? It is knowledge +of His <i>will</i>, which becomes an ever active force +in our lives! Any other kind of religious knowledge +is windy food; as Paul says, it “puffeth up;” the +knowledge which feeds the soul with wholesome +nourishment is the knowledge of His <i>will</i>.</p> + +<p>The converse error to that of unpractical knowledge, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +that of an unintelligent practice, is quite as bad. +There is always a class of people, and they are unusually +numerous to-day, who profess to attach no +importance to Christian doctrines, but to put all the +stress on Christian morals. They swear by the +“Sermon on the Mount,” and are blind to the deep +doctrinal basis laid in that “sermon” itself, on which +its lofty moral teaching is built. What God hath +joined together, let no man put asunder. Why pit +the parent against the child? why wrench the blossom +from its stem? Knowledge is sound when it moulds +conduct. Action is good when it is based on +knowledge. The knowledge of God is wholesome +when it shapes the life. Morality has a basis which +makes it vigorous and permanent when it rests upon +the knowledge of His will.</p> + +<p>Again: Progress in knowledge is the law of the +Christian life. There should be a continual advancement +in the apprehension of God’s will, from that +first glimpse which saves, to the mature knowledge +which Paul here desires for his friends. The +progress does not consist in leaving behind old +truths, but in a profounder conception of what is +contained in these truths. How differently a Fijian +just saved, and a Paul on earth, or a Paul in heaven, +look at that verse, “God so loved the world that +He gave His only begotten Son”! The truths +which are dim to the one, like stars seen through a +mist, blaze to the other like the same stars to an eye +that has travelled millions of leagues nearer them, +and sees them to be suns. The law of the Christian +life is continuous increase in the knowledge of the +depths that lie in the old truths, and of their far-reaching +applications. We are to grow in knowledge +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +of the Christ by coming ever nearer to Him, +and learning more of the infinite meaning of our +earliest lesson that He is the Son of God who has +died for us. The constellations that burn in our +nightly sky looked down on Chaldean astronomers, +but though these are the same, how much more is +known about them at Greenwich than was dreamed +at Babylon!</p> + +<p>II. Consider the River or Stem of Christian conduct.</p> + +<p>The purpose and outcome of this full knowledge +of the will of God in Christ is to “walk worthily +of the Lord unto all pleasing.” By “walk” is of +course meant the whole active life; so that the +principle is brought out here very distinctly, that +the last result of knowledge of the Divine will is an +outward life regulated by that will. And the sort +of life which such knowledge leads to, is designated +in most general terms as “worthy of the Lord unto +all pleasing,” in which we have set forth two aspects +of the true Christian life.</p> + +<p>“Worthily of the Lord!” The “Lord” here, as +generally, is Christ, and “worthily” seems to mean, +in a manner corresponding to what Christ is to us, +and has done for us. We find other forms of the +same thought in such expressions as “worthy of the +vocation wherewith ye are called” (Eph. iv. 1), +“worthily of saints” (Rom. xvi. 2), “worthy of the +gospel” (Phil. i. 27), “worthily of God” (1 Thess. +ii. 12), in all of which there is the idea of a standard +to which the practical life is to be conformed. +Thus the Apostle condenses into one word all the +manifold relations in which we stand to Christ, and +all the multifarious arguments for a holy life which +they yield.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +These are mainly two. The Christian should +“walk” in a manner corresponding to what Christ +has done for him. “Do ye thus requite the Lord, +O foolish people, and unwise?” was the mournful +wondering question of the dying Moses to his +people, as he summed up the history of unbroken +tenderness and love on the one side, and of disloyalty +almost as uninterrupted on the other. How +much more pathetically and emphatically might the +question be asked of us! We say that we are not +our own, but bought with a price. Then how do +we repay that costly purchase? Do we not requite +His blood and tears, His unquenchable, unalterable +love, with a little tepid love which grudges sacrifices +and has scarcely power enough to influence conduct +at all, with a little trembling faith which but poorly +corresponds to His firm promises, with a little +reluctant obedience? The richest treasure of +heaven has been freely lavished for us, and we +return a sparing expenditure of our hearts and +ourselves, repaying fine gold with tarnished copper, +and the flood of love from the heart of Christ with +a few niggard drops grudgingly squeezed from ours. +Nothing short of complete self-surrender, perfect +obedience, and unwavering unfaltering love can +characterize the walk that corresponds with our profound +obligations to Him. Surely there can be no +stronger cord with which to bind us as sacrifices to +the horns of the altar than the cords of love. This +is the unique glory and power of Christian ethics, +that it brings in this tender personal element to +transmute the coldness of duty into the warmth of +gratitude, so throwing rosy light over the snowy +summits of abstract virtue. Repugnant duties become +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +tokens of love, pleasant as every sacrifice made at +its bidding ever is. The true Christian spirit says: +Thou hast given Thyself wholly for me: help me to +yield myself to Thee. Thou hast loved me perfectly: +help me to love Thee with all my heart.</p> + +<p>The other side of this conception of a worthy walk +is, that the Christian should act in a manner corresponding +to Christ’s character and conduct. We +profess to be His by sacredest ties: then we should +set our watches by that dial, being conformed to His +likeness, and in all our daily life trying to do as He +has done, or as we believe He would do if He were +in our place. Nothing less than the effort to tread +in His footsteps is a walk worthy of the Lord. All +unlikeness to His pattern is a dishonour to Him and +to ourselves. It is neither worthy of the Lord, nor +of the vocation wherewith we are called, nor of the +name of saints. Only when these two things are +brought about in my experience—when the glow of +His love melts my heart and makes it flow down in +answering affection, and when the beauty of His +perfect life stands ever before me, and though it +be high above me, is not a despair, but a stimulus +and a hope—only then do I “walk worthy of the +Lord.”</p> + +<p>Another thought as to the nature of the life in +which the knowledge of the Divine will should issue, +is expressed in the other clause—“unto all pleasing,” +which sets forth the great aim as being to please +Christ in everything. That is a strange purpose +to propose to men, as the supreme end to be ever +kept in view, to satisfy Jesus Christ by their conduct. +To make the good opinion of men our aim is to be +slaves; but to please this Man ennobles us, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +exalts life. Who or what is He, whose judgment of +us is thus all-important, whose approbation is praise +indeed, and to win whose smile is a worthy object +for which to use life, or even to lose it? We should +ask ourselves, Do we make it our ever present object +to satisfy Jesus Christ? We are not to mind about +other people’s approbation. We can do without +that. We are not to hunt after the good word of +our fellows. Every life into which that craving for +man’s praise and good opinion enters is tarnished by +it. It is a canker, a creeping leprosy, which eats +sincerity and nobleness and strength out of a man. +Let us not care to trim our sails to catch the shifting +winds of this or that man’s favour and eulogium, but +look higher and say, “With me it is a very small +matter to be judged of man’s judgment.” “I appeal +unto Cæsar.” He, the true Commander and Emperor, +holds our fate in His hands; we have to please Him +and Him only. There is no thought which will so +reduce the importance of the babble around us, and +teach us such brave and wholesome contempt for +popular applause, and all the strife of tongues, as +the constant habit of trying to act as ever in our +great Taskmaster’s eye. What does it matter who +praise, if He frowns? or who blame, if His face lights +with a smile? No thought will so spur us to diligence, +and make all life solemn and grand as the +thought that “we labour, that whether present or +absent, we may be well pleasing to Him.” Nothing +will so string the muscles for the fight, and free us +from being entangled with the things of this life, as +the ambition to “please Him who has called us to +be soldiers.”</p> + +<p>Men have willingly flung away their lives for a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +couple of lines of praise in a despatch, or for a smile +from some great commander. Let us try to live and +die so as to get “honourable mention” from our +captain. Praise from His lips is praise indeed. We +shall not know how much it is worth, till the smile +lights His face, and the love comes into His eyes, as +He looks at us, and says, “Well done! good and +faithful servant.”</p> + +<p>III. We have finally the fourfold streams or +branches into which this general conception of Christian +character parts itself.</p> + +<p>There are four participial clauses here, which seem +all to stand on one level, and to present an analysis +in more detail of the component parts of this worthy +walk. In general terms it is divided into fruitfulness +in work, increase in knowledge, strength for suffering, +and, as the climax of all, thankfulness.</p> + +<p>The first element is—“bearing fruit in every +good work.” These words carry us back to what +was said in ver. 6 about the fruitfulness of the +gospel. Here the man in whom that word is +planted is regarded as the producer of the fruit, by +the same natural transition by which, in our Lord’s +Parable of the Sower, the men in whose hearts the +seed was sown are spoken of as themselves on the +one hand, bringing no fruit to perfection, and on +the other, bringing forth fruit with patience. The +worthy walk will be first manifested in the production +of a rich variety of forms of goodness. All +profound knowledge of God, and all lofty thoughts +of imitating and pleasing Christ, are to be tested at +last by their power to make men good, and that not +after any monotonous type, nor on one side of their +nature only.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +One plain principle implied here is that the only +true fruit is goodness. We may be busy, as many +a man in our great commercial cities is busy, from +Monday morning till Saturday night for a long lifetime, +and may have had to build bigger barns for +our “fruits and our goods,” and yet, in the high +and solemn meaning of the word here, our life may +be utterly empty and fruitless. Much of our work +and of its results is no more fruit than the galls on +the oak-leaves are. They are a swelling from a +puncture made by an insect, a sign of disease, not +of life. The only sort of work which can be called +fruit, in the highest meaning of the word, is that +which corresponds to a man’s whole nature and +relations; and the only work which does so correspond +is a life of loving service of God, which +cultivates all things lovely and of good report. +Goodness, therefore, alone deserves to be called +fruit—as for all the rest of our busy lives, they and +their toils are like the rootless, lifeless chaff that +is whirled out of the threshing-floor by every gust. +A life which has not in it holiness and loving +obedience, however richly productive it may be in +lower respects, is in inmost reality blighted and +barren, and is “nigh unto burning.” Goodness is +fruit; all else is nothing but leaves.</p> + +<p>Again: the Christian life is to be “fruitful in +<i>every</i> good work.” This tree is to be like that in +the apocalyptic vision, which “bare twelve manner +of fruits,” yielding every month a different sort. +So we should fill the whole circuit of the year with +various holiness, and seek to make widely different +forms of goodness our own. We have all certain +kinds of excellence which are more natural and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +easier for us than others are. We should seek to +cultivate the kind which is hardest for us. The +thorn stock of our own character should bear not +only grapes, but figs too, and olives as well, being +grafted upon the true olive-tree, which is Christ. +Let us aim at this all-round and multiform virtue, +and not be like a scene for a stage, all gay and +bright on one side, and dirty canvas and stretchers +hung with cobwebs on the other.</p> + +<p>The second element in the analysis of the true +Christian life is—“increasing in the knowledge of +God.” The figure of the tree is probably continued +here. If it fruits, its girth will increase, its branches +will spread, its top will mount, and next year its +shadow on the grass will cover a larger circle. +Some would take the “knowledge” here as the +instrument or means of growth, and would render +“increasing by the knowledge of God,” supposing +that the knowledge is represented as the rain or the +sunshine which minister to the growth of the plant. +But perhaps it is better to keep to the idea conveyed +by the common rendering, which regards the words +“in knowledge” as the specification of that region +in which the growth enjoined is to be realized. So +here we have the converse of the relation between +work and knowledge which we met in the earlier +part of the chapter. There, knowledge led to a +worthy walk; here, fruitfulness in good works leads +to, or at all events is accompanied with, an increased +knowledge. And both are true. These two work +on each other a reciprocal increase. All true +knowledge which is not mere empty notions, +naturally tends to influence action, and all true +action naturally tends to confirm the knowledge from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +which it proceeds. Obedience gives insight: “If +any man wills to do My will, he shall know of the +doctrine.” If I am faithful up to the limits of my +present knowledge, and have brought it all to bear +on character and conduct, I shall find that in the +effort to make my every thought a deed, there have +fallen from my eyes as it were scales, and I see +some things clearly which were faint and doubtful +before. Moral truth becomes dim to a bad man. +Religious truth grows bright to a good one, and +whosoever strives to bring all his creed into practice, +and all his practice under the guidance of his creed, +will find that the path of obedience is the path of +growing light.</p> + +<p>Then comes the third element in this resolution +of the Christian character into its component parts—“strengthened +with all power, according to the +might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering +with joyfulness.” Knowing and doing are +not the whole of life: there are sorrow and suffering +too.</p> + +<p>Here again we have the Apostle’s favourite “<i>all</i>,” +which occurs so frequently in this connection. As +he desired for the Colossians, <i>all</i> wisdom, unto <i>all</i> +pleasing, and fruitfulness in <i>every</i> good work, so he +prays for <i>all</i> power to strengthen them. Every kind +of strength which God can give and man can receive, +is to be sought after by us, that we may be “girded +with strength,” cast like a brazen wall all round our +human weakness. And that Divine power is to flow +into us, having this for its measure and limit—“the +might of His glory.” His “glory” is the lustrous +light of His self-revelation; and the far-flashing +energy revealed in that self-manifestation is the immeasurable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +measure of the strength that may be ours. +True, a finite nature can never contain the infinite, +but man’s finite nature is capable of indefinite expansion. +Its elastic walls stretch to contain the increasing +gift. The more we desire, the more we receive, and +the more we receive, the more we are able to receive. +The amount which filled our hearts to-day should +not fill them to-morrow. Our capacity is at each +moment the working limit of the measure of the +strength given us. But it is always shifting, and +may be continually increasing. The only real limit +is “the might of His glory,” the limitless omnipotence +of the self-revealing God. To that we may indefinitely +approach, and till we have exhausted +God we have not reached the furthest point to which +we should aspire.</p> + +<p>And what exalted mission is destined for this +wonderful communicated strength? Nothing that +the world thinks great: only helping some lone widow +to stay her heart in patience, and flinging a gleam +of brightness, like sunrise on a stormy sea, over some +tempest-tossed life. The strength is worthily employed +and absorbed in producing “all patience and +longsuffering with joy.” Again the favourite “all” +expresses the universality of the patience and longsuffering. +Patience here is not merely passive +endurance. It includes the idea of perseverance in +the right course, as well as that of uncomplaining +bearing of evil. It is the “steering right onward,” +without bating one jot of heart or hope; the temper +of the traveller who struggles forward, though the +wind in his face dashes the sleet in his eyes, and he +has to wade through deep snow. While “patience” +regards the evil mainly as sent by God, and as making +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +the race set before us difficult, “longsuffering” describes +the temper under suffering when considered as +a wrong or injury done by man. And whether we +think of our afflictions in the one or the other light, +God’s strength will steal into our hearts, if we will, +not merely to help us to bear them with perseverance +and with meekness as unruffled as Christ’s, but to +crown both graces—as the clouds are sometimes +rimmed with flashing gold—with a great light of joy. +That is the highest attainment of all. “Sorrowful, +yet always rejoicing.” Flowers beneath the snow, +songs in the night, fire burning beneath the water, +“peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation,” +cool airs in the very crater of Vesuvius—all these +paradoxes may be surpassed in our hearts if they +are strengthened with all might by an indwelling +Christ.</p> + +<p>The crown of all, the last of the elements of the +Christian character, is thankfulness—“giving thanks +unto the Father.” This is the summit of all; and +is to be diffused through all. All our progressive +fruitfulness and insight, as well as our perseverance +and unruffled meekness in suffering, should have a +breath of thankfulness breathed through them. We +shall see the grand enumeration of the reasons for +thankfulness in the next verses. Here we pause +for the present, with this final constituent of the +life which Paul desired for the Colossian Christians. +Thankfulness should mingle with all our +thoughts and feelings, like the fragrance of some +perfume penetrating through the common scentless +air. It should embrace all events. It should be an +operating motive in all actions. We should be +clear-sighted and believing enough to be thankful +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +for pain and disappointment and loss. That gratitude +will add the crowning consecration to service and +knowledge and endurance. It will touch our spirits +to the finest of all issues, for it will lead to glad self-surrender, +and make of our whole life a sacrifice of +praise. “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of +God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.” +Our lives will then exhale in fragrance and shoot up +in flashing tongues of ruddy light and beauty, when +kindled into a flame of gratitude by the glow of +Christ’s great love. Let us lay our poor selves on +that altar, as sacrifices of thanksgiving; for with such +sacrifices God is well-pleased.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColIV" id="ColIV"></a>IV.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE FATHER’S GIFTS THROUGH THE SON.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance +of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, +and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom +we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> i. 12–14 +(Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We have advanced thus far in this Epistle +without having reached its main subject. +We now, however, are on its verge. The next +verses to those now to be considered lead us into +the very heart of Paul’s teaching, by which he would +oppose the errors rife in the Colossian Church. +The great passages describing the person and work +of Jesus Christ are at hand, and here we have the +immediate transition to them.</p> + +<p>The skill with which the transition is made is +remarkable. How gradually and surely the +sentences, like some hovering winged things, circle +more and more closely round the central light, till +in the last words they touch it, ... “the Son of +His love!” It is like some long procession heralding +a king. They that go before, cry Hosanna, and +point to him who comes last and chief. The +affectionate greetings which begin the letter, pass +into prayer; the prayer into thanksgiving. The +thanksgiving, as in these words, lingers over and +recounts our blessings, as a rich man counts his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +treasures, or a lover dwells on his joys. The +enumeration of the blessings leads, as by a golden +thread, to the thought and name of Christ, the +fountain of them all, and then, with a burst and a +rush, the flood of the truths about Christ which he +had to give them sweeps through Paul’s mind and +heart, carrying everything before it. The name of +Christ always opens the floodgates in Paul’s heart.</p> + +<p>We have here then the deepest grounds for +Christian thanksgiving, which are likewise the preparations +for a true estimate of the worth of the +Christ who gives them. These grounds of thanksgiving +are but various aspects of the one great +blessing of “Salvation.” The diamond flashes +greens and purples, and yellows and reds, according +to the angle at which its facets catch the eye.</p> + +<p>It is also to be observed, that all these blessings +are the present possession of Christians. The +language of the first three clauses in the verses +before us points distinctly to a definite past act by +which the Father, at some definite point of time, +made us meet, delivered and translated us, while the +present tense in the last clause shows that “our +redemption” is not only begun by some definite act +in the past, but is continuously and progressively +possessed in the present.</p> + +<p>We notice, too, the remarkable correspondence of +language with that which Paul heard when he lay +prone on the ground, blinded by the flashing light, +and amazed by the pleading remonstrance from +heaven which rung in his ears. “I send thee to +the Gentiles ... that they may turn from <i>darkness</i> +to <i>light</i>, and from the power of Satan unto +God, that they may receive <i>remission of sins</i>, and an +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +<i>inheritance</i> among them which are sanctified.” All +the principal phrases are there, and are freely +recombined by Paul, as if unconsciously his memory +was haunted still by the sound of the transforming +words heard so long ago.</p> + +<p>I. The first ground of thankfulness which all +Christians have is, that they are fit for the inheritance. +Of course the metaphor here is drawn from the +“inheritance” given to the people of Israel, namely, +the land of Canaan. Unfortunately, our use of +“heir” and “inheritance” confines the idea to possession +by succession on death, and hence some +perplexity is popularly experienced as to the force +of the word in Scripture. There, it implies possession +by lot, if anything more than the simple +notion of possession; and points to the fact that the +people did not win their land by their own swords, +but because “God had a favour unto them.” So +the Christian inheritance is not won by our own +merit, but given by God’s goodness. The words +may be literally rendered, “fitted us for the portion +of the lot,” and taken to mean the share or portion +which consists in the lot; but perhaps it is clearer, +and more accordant with the analogy of the division +of the land among the tribes, to take them as +meaning “for our (individual) share in the broad +land which, as a whole, is the allotted possession +of the saints.” This possession belongs to them, +and is situated in the world of “light.” Such is +the general outline of the thoughts here. The first +question that arises is, whether this inheritance +is present or future. The best answer is that +it is both; because, whatever additions of power +and splendour as yet unspeakable may wait to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +be revealed in the future, the essence of all which +heaven can bring is ours to-day, if we live in the +faith and love of Christ. The difference between +a life of communion with God here and yonder is +one of degree and not of kind. True, there are +differences of which we cannot speak, in enlarged +capacities, and a “spiritual body,” and sins cast out, +and nearer approach to “the fountain itself of +heavenly radiance;” but he who can say, while he +walks amongst the shadows of earth, “The Lord is +the portion of my inheritance,” will neither leave his +treasures behind him when he dies, nor enter on the +possession of a wholly new inheritance, when he +passes into the heavens. But while this is true, it +is also true that that future possession of God +will be so deepened and enlarged that its beginnings +here are but the “earnest,” of the same nature +indeed as the estate, but limited in comparison as +is the tuft of grass which used to be given to a new +possessor, when set against the broad lands from +which it was plucked. Here certainly the predominant +idea is that of a present fitness for a +mainly future possession.</p> + +<p>We notice again—where the inheritance is situated—“in +the light.” There are several possible ways +of connecting that clause with the preceding. But +without discussing these, it may be enough to point +out that the most satisfactory seems to be to regard +it as specifying the region in which the inheritance +lies. It lies in a realm where purity and knowledge +and gladness dwell undimmed and unbounded by an +envious ring of darkness. For these three are the +triple rays into which, according to the Biblical use +of the figure, that white beam may be resolved.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +From this there follows that it is capable of being +possessed only by <i>saints</i>. There is no merit or +desert which makes men worthy of the inheritance, but +there is a congruity, or correspondence between character +and the inheritance. If we rightly understand +what the essential elements of “heaven” are, we shall +have no difficulty in seeing that the possession of it +is utterly incompatible with anything but holiness. +The vulgar ideas of what heaven is, hinder people +from seeing how to get there. They dwell upon the +mere outside of the thing, they take symbols for +realities and accidents for essentials, and so it appears +an arbitrary arrangement that a man must +have faith in Christ to enter heaven. If it be a +kingdom of light, then only souls that love the light +can go thither, and until owls and bats rejoice in +the sunshine, there will be no way of being fit for +the inheritance which is light, but by ourselves being +“light in the Lord.” Light itself is a torture to +diseased eyes. Turn up any stone by the roadside +and we see how unwelcome light is to crawling +creatures that have lived in the darkness till they +have come to love it.</p> + +<p>Heaven is God and God is heaven. How can a +soul possess God, and find its heaven in possessing +Him? Certainly only by likeness to Him, and loving +Him. The old question, “Who shall stand in the +Holy Place?” is not answered in the gospel by +reducing the conditions, or negativing the old reply. +The common sense of every conscience answers, and +Christianity answers, as the Psalmist does, “He that +hath clean hands and a pure heart.”</p> + +<p>One more step has to be taken to reach the full +meaning of these words, namely, the assertion that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +men who are not yet perfectly pure are already fit +to be partakers of the inheritance. The tense of +the verb in the original points back to a definite act +by which the Colossians were made meet, namely, +their conversion; and the plain emphatic teaching of +the New Testament is that incipient and feeble faith +in Christ works a change so great, that through it +we are fitted for the inheritance by the impartation +of a new nature, which, though it be but as a grain of +mustard seed, shapes from henceforth the very inmost +centre of our personal being. In due time that spark +will convert into its own fiery brightness the whole +mass, however green and smokily it begins to burn. +Not the absence of sin, but the presence of faith working +by love, and longing for the light, makes fitness. +No doubt flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom +of God, and we must put off the vesture of the body +which has wrapped us during the wild weather here, +before we can be fully fit to enter the banqueting +hall; nor do we know how much evil which has +not its seat in the soul may drop away therewith—but +the spirit is fit for heaven as soon as a man turns +to God in Christ. Suppose a company of rebels, +and one of them, melted by some reason or other, is +brought back to loyalty. He is fit by that inward +change, although he has not done a single act of +loyalty, for the society of loyal subjects, and unfit +for that of traitors. Suppose a prodigal son away +in the far off land. Some remembrance comes over +him of what home used to be like, and of the +bountiful house-keeping that is still there; and though +it may begin with nothing more exalted than an +empty stomach, if it ends in “I will arise and go +to my Father,” at that instant a gulf opens between +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +him and the riotous living of “the citizens of that +country,” and he is no longer fitted for their company. +He is meet for the fellowship of his father’s house, +though he has a weary journey before he gets there, +and needs to have his rags changed, and his filth +washed off him, ere he can sit down at the feast.</p> + +<p>So whoever turns to the love of God in Christ, +and yields in the inmost part of his being to the +power of His grace, is already “light in the Lord.” +The true home and affinities of his real self are in +the kingdom of the light, and he is ready for his +part in the inheritance, either here or yonder. There +is no breach of the great law, that character makes +fitness for heaven—might we not say that character +makes heaven?—for the very roots of character lie +in disposition and desire, rather than in action. Nor +is there in this principle anything inconsistent with +the need for continual growth in congruity of nature +with that land of light. The light within, if it be +truly there, will, however slowly, spread, as surely +as the grey of twilight brightens to the blaze of +noonday. The heart will be more and more filled +with it, and the darkness driven back more and more +to brood in remote corners, and at last will vanish +utterly. True fitness will become more and more +fit. We shall grow more and more capable of God. +The measure of our capacity is the measure of our +possession, and the measure in which we have +become light, is the measure of our capacity for the +light. The land was parted among the tribes of +Israel according to their strength; some had a wider, +some a narrower strip of territory. So, as there are +differences in Christian character here, there will be +differences in Christian participation in the inheritance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +hereafter. “Star differeth from star.” Some will +blaze in brighter radiance and glow with more fervent +heat because they move in orbits closer to the sun.</p> + +<p>But, thank God, we are “fit for the inheritance,” +if we have ever so humbly and poorly trusted ourselves +to Jesus Christ and received His renewing life +into our spirits. Character alone fits for heaven. +But character may be in germ or in fruit. “If any +man be in Christ, he <i>is</i> a new creature.” Do we +trust ourselves to Him? Are we trying, with His +help, to live as children of the light? Then we need +not droop or despair by reason of evil that may still +haunt our lives. Let us give it no quarter, for it +diminishes our fitness for the full possession of God; +but let it not cause our tongue to falter in “giving +thanks to the Father who made us meet to be partakers +of the inheritance of the saints in light.”</p> + +<p>II. The second ground of thankfulness is, the change +of king and country. God “delivered us out of the +power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom +of the Son of His love.” These two clauses embrace +the negative and positive sides of the same act which +is referred to in the former ground of thankfulness, +only stated now in reference to our allegiance and +citizenship in the present rather than in the future. In +the “deliverance” there maybe a reference to God’s +bringing Israel out of Egypt, suggested by the previous +mention of the inheritance, while the “translation” +into the other kingdom may be an illustration drawn +from the well known practice of ancient warfare, the +deportation of large bodies of natives from conquered +kingdoms to some other part of the conqueror’s +realm.</p> + +<p>We notice then the two kingdoms and their kings. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +“The power of darkness,” is an expression found in +Luke’s Gospel (xxii. 18), and it may be used here +as a reminiscence of our Lord’s solemn words. +“Power” here seems to imply the conception of +harsh, arbitrary dominion, in contrast with the gracious +rule of the other kingdom. It is a realm of cruel and +grinding sway. Its prince is personified in an image +that Æschylus or Dante might have spoken. Darkness +sits sovereign there, a vast and gloomy form on +an ebon throne, wielding a heavy sceptre over wide +regions wrapped in night. The plain meaning of +that tremendous metaphor is just this—that the men +who are not Christians live in a state of subjection +to darkness of ignorance, darkness of misery, darkness +of sin. If I am not a Christian man, that black +three-headed hound of hell sits baying on my doorstep.</p> + +<p>What a wonderful contrast the other kingdom and +its King present! “The kingdom of”—not “the +light,” as we are prepared to hear, in order to complete +the antithesis, but—“the Son of His love,” who +is the light. The Son who is the object of His love, +on whom it all and ever rests, as on none besides. +He has a kingdom in existence now, and not merely +hoped for, and to be set up at some future time. +Wherever men lovingly obey Christ, there is His +kingdom. The subjects make the kingdom, and we +may to-day belong to it, and be free from all other +dominion because we bow to His. There then sit +the two kings, like the two in the old story, “either +of them on his throne, clothed in his robes, at the +entering in of the gate of the city.” Darkness and +Light, the ebon throne and the white throne, surrounded +each by their ministers; there Sorrow and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +Gloom, here Gladness and Hope; there Ignorance +with blind eyes and idle aimless hands, here Knowledge +with the sunlight on her face, and Diligence +for her handmaid; here Sin, the pillar of the gloomy +realm, there Righteousness, in robes so as no fuller +on earth could white them. Under which king, my +brother?</p> + +<p>We notice the transference of subjects. The sculptures +on Assyrian monuments explain this metaphor +for us. A great conqueror has come, and speaks to us +as Sennacherib did to the Jews (2 Kings xviii. 31, 32), +“Come out to me ... and I will take you away to +a land of corn and wine, that ye may live and not +die.”</p> + +<p>If we listen to His voice, He will lead away a +long string of willing captives and plant them, not +as pining exiles, but as happy naturalized citizens, +in the kingdom which the Father has appointed for +“the Son of His love.”</p> + +<p>That transference is effected on the instant of +our recognising the love of God in Jesus Christ, and +yielding up the heart to Him. We too often speak +as if the “entrance ministered at last to” a believing +soul “into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour,” +were its first entrance therein, and forget that we +enter it as soon as we yield to the drawings of Christ’s +love and take service under the king. The change +then is greater than at death. When we die, we +shall change provinces, and go from an outlying +colony to the mother city and seat of empire, but we +shall not change kingdoms. We shall be under the +same government, only then we shall be nearer the +King and more loyal to Him. That change of king +is the real fitness for heaven. We know little of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +what profound changes death may make, but clearly +a physical change cannot effect a spiritual revolution. +They who are not Christ’s subjects will not become +so by dying. If here we are trying to serve a King +who has delivered us from the tyranny of darkness, +we may be very sure that He will not lose His subjects +in the darkness of the grave. Let us choose our +king. If we take Christ for our heart’s Lord, every +thought of Him here, every piece of partial obedience +and stained service, as well as every sorrow and every +joy, our fading possessions and our undying treasures, +the feeble new life that wars against our sins, and +even the very sins themselves as contradictory of +our deepest self, unite to seal to us the assurance, +“Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. +They shall behold the land that is very far off.”</p> + +<p>III. The heart and centre of all occasions for +thankfulness is the Redemption which we receive in +Christ.</p> + +<p>“In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness +of our sins.” The Authorized Version reads “redemption +<i>through His blood</i>,” but these words are not +found in the best manuscripts, and are regarded by +the principal modern editors as having been inserted +from the parallel place in Ephesians (i. 7), where +they are genuine. The very heart then of the +blessings which God has bestowed, is “redemption,” +which consists primarily, though not wholly, in “forgiveness +of sins,” and is received by us in “the +Son of His love.”</p> + +<p>“Redemption,” in its simplest meaning, is the act +of delivering a slave from captivity by the payment +of ransom. So that it contains in its application to +the effect of Christ’s death, substantially the same +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +figure as in the previous clause which spoke of a +deliverance from a tyrant, only that what was there +represented as an act of Power is here set forth as +the act of self-sacrificing Love which purchases our +freedom at a heavy cost. That ransom price is said +by Christ Himself to be “His life,” and His Incarnation +to have the paying of that price as one of +its two chief objects. So the words added here by +quotation from the companion Epistle are in full +accordance with New Testament teaching; but even +omitting them, the meaning of the clause is unmistakable. +Christ’s death breaks the chains which bind +us, and sets us free. By it He acquires us for +Himself. That transcendent act of sacrifice has such +a relation to the Divine government on the one +hand, and to the “sin of the world,” as a whole, on +the other, that by it all who trust in Him are delivered +from the most real penal consequences of sin and +from the dominion of its darkness over their natures. +We freely admit that we cannot penetrate to the +understanding of <i>how</i> Christ’s death thus avails. +But just because the <i>rationale</i> of the doctrine is +avowedly beyond our limits, we are barred from +asserting that it is incompatible with God’s character, +or with common justice, or that it is immoral, and +the like. When we know God through and through, +to all the depths and heights and lengths and +breadths of His nature, and when we know man in +like manner, and when, consequently, we know the +relation between God and man as perfectly, and not +till then, we shall have a right to reject the teaching +of Scripture on this matter, on such grounds. Till +then, let our faith lay hold on the fact, though we do +not understand the “how” of the fact, and cling +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +to that cross which is the great power of God unto +salvation, and the heart-changing exponent of the +love of Christ which passeth knowledge.</p> + +<p>The essential and first element in this redemption +is “the forgiveness of sins.” Possibly some misconception +of the nature of redemption may have been +associated with the other errors which threatened the +Colossian Church, and thus Paul may have been led +to this emphatic declaration of its contents. Forgiveness, +and not some mystic deliverance by initiation +or otherwise from the captivity of flesh and matter, +is redemption. There is more than forgiveness in +it, but forgiveness lies on the threshold; and that +not only the removal of legal penalties inflicted by +a specific act, but the forgiveness of a father. A +sovereign pardons when he remits the sentence which +law has pronounced. A father forgives when the +free flow of his love is unhindered by his child’s +fault, and he may forgive and punish at the same +moment. The truest “penalty” of sin is that death +which consists in separation from God; and the +conceptions of judicial pardon and fatherly forgiveness +unite when we think of the “remission of sins” +as being the removal of that separation, and the +deliverance of heart and conscience from the burden +of guilt and of a father’s wrath.</p> + +<p>Such forgiveness leads to that full deliverance from +the power of darkness, which is the completion of +redemption. There is deep meaning in the fact that +the word here used for “forgiveness,” means literally, +“sending away.” Pardon has a mighty power to +banish sin, not only as guilt, but as habit. The +waters of the gulf stream bear the warmth of the +tropics to the icy north, and lave the foot of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +glaciers on its coast till they melt and mingle with +the liberating waves. So the flow of the forgiving +love of God thaws the hearts frozen in the obstinacy +of sin, and blends our wills with itself in glad submission +and grateful service.</p> + +<p>But we must not overlook the significant words in +which the condition of possessing this redemption is +stated: “in Whom.” There must be a real living +union with Christ, by which we are truly “in Him” +in order to our possession of redemption. “Redemption +through His blood” is not the whole message +of the Gospel; it has to be completed by “<i>In Whom</i> +we have redemption through His blood.” That real +living union is effected by our faith, and when we +are thus “in Him,” our wills, hearts, spirits joined +to Him, then, and only then are we borne away +from “the kingdom of the darkness” and partake of +redemption. We cannot get His gifts without +Himself.</p> + +<p>We observe, in conclusion, how redemption +appears here as a present and growing possession. +There is emphasis on “we <i>have</i>.” The Colossian +Christians had by one definite act in the past been +fitted for a share in the inheritance, and by the same +act had been transferred to the kingdom of Christ. +Already they possess the inheritance, and are in the +kingdom, although both are to be more gloriously +manifested in the future. Here, however, Paul contemplates +rather the reception, moment by moment, +of redemption. We might almost read “we are +having,” for the present tense seems used on purpose +to convey the idea of a continual communication +from Him to Whom we are to be united by faith. +Daily we may draw what we daily need—daily +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +forgiveness for daily sins, the washing of the feet +which even he who has been bathed requires after +each day’s march through muddy roads, daily bread +for daily hunger, and daily strength for daily effort. +So day unto day may, in our narrow lives, as in the +wide heavens with all their stars, utter speech, and +night unto night show knowledge of the redeeming +love of our Father. Like the rock that followed the +Israelites in the wilderness, according to Jewish +legend, and poured out water for their thirst, His +grace flows ever by our sides and from its bright +waters we may daily draw with joy.</p> + +<p>And so let us lay to heart humbly these two +lessons; that all our Christianity must begin with +forgiveness, and that, however far advanced we may +be in the Divine life, we never get beyond the need +for a continual bestowal upon us of God’s pardoning +mercy.</p> + +<p>Many of us, like some of these Colossians, are +ready to call ourselves in some sense followers of +Christ. The speculative side of Christian truth may +have attractions for some of us, its lofty morality for +others. Some of us may be mainly drawn to it by +its comforts for the weary; some may be looking to +it chiefly in hope of a future heaven. But whatever +we are, and however we may be disposed to Christ +and His Gospel, here is a plain message for us; we +must begin by going to Him for pardon. It is not +enough for any of us to find in Him “wisdom,” or +even “righteousness,” for we need “redemption” +which is “forgiveness,” and unless He is to us +forgiveness, He will not be either righteousness or +wisdom.</p> + +<p>We can climb a ladder that reaches to heaven, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +but its foot must be in “the horrible pit and miry +clay” of our sins. Little as we like to hear it, +the first need for us all is forgiveness. Everything +begins with that. “The inheritance of the saints,” +with all its wealth of glory, its immortal life and +unfading joys, its changeless security, and its unending +progress deeper and deeper into the light +and likeness of God, is the goal, but the <i>only</i> entrance +is through the strait gate of penitence. Christ will +forgive on our cry for pardon, and that is the first +link of a golden chain unwinding from His hand +by which we may ascend to the perfect possession +of our inheritance in God. “Whom He justified, +them,” and them only, He will glorify.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColV" id="ColV"></a>V.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE GLORY OF THE SON IN HIS RELATION TO THE +FATHER, THE UNIVERSE AND THE CHURCH.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; +for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, +things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or +principalities or powers, all things have been created through Him and +unto Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. +And He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the +firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> +i. 15–18 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>As has already been remarked, the Colossian +Church was troubled by teachers who had +grafted on Jewish belief many of the strange speculations +about matter and creation which have always +had such a fascination for the Eastern mind. To us, +they are apt to seem empty dreams, baseless and +bewildering; but they had force enough to shake the +early Church to its foundation, and in some forms +they still live.</p> + +<p>These teachers in Colossæ seem to have held that +all matter was evil and the seat of sin; that therefore +the material creation could not have come directly +from a good God, but was in a certain sense opposed +to Him, or, at all events, was separated from Him +by a great gulf. The void space was bridged by a +chain of beings, half abstractions and half persons, +gradually becoming more and more material. The +lowest of them had created the material universe and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +now governed it, and all were to be propitiated by +worship.</p> + +<p>Some such opinions must be presupposed in order +to give point and force to these great verses in which +Paul opposes the solid truth to these dreams, and +instead of a crowd of Powers and angelic Beings, in +whom the effulgence of Deity was gradually darkened, +and the spirit became more and more thickened +into matter, lifts high and clear against that background +of fable, the solitary figure of the one Christ. +He fills all the space between God and man. There +is no need for a crowd of shadowy beings to link +heaven with earth. Jesus Christ lays His hand upon +both. He is the head and source of creation; He is +the head and fountain of life to His Church. Therefore +He is first in all things, to be listened to, loved +and worshipped by men. As when the full moon +rises, so when Christ appears, all the lesser stars with +which Alexandrian and Eastern speculation had +peopled the abysses of the sky are lost in the mellow +radiance, and instead of a crowd of flickering ineffectual +lights there is one perfect orb, “and heaven +is overflowed.” “We see no <i>creature</i> any more save +Jesus only.”</p> + +<p>We have outgrown the special forms of error +which afflicted the Church at Colossæ, but the truths +which are here set over against them are eternal, and +are needed to-day in our conflicts of opinion as much +as then. There are here three grand conceptions of +Christ’s relations. We have Christ and God, Christ +and Creation, Christ and the Church, and, built upon +all these, the triumphant proclamation of His supremacy +over all creatures in all respects.</p> + +<p>I. We have the relation of Christ to God set forth +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +in these grand words, “the image of the invisible +God.”</p> + +<p>Apparently Paul is here using for his own purposes +language which was familiar on the lips of his antagonists. +We know that Alexandrian Judaism had +much to say about the “Word,” and spoke of it as +the Image of God: and probably some such teaching +had found its way to Colossæ. An “image” is a +likeness or representation, as of a king’s head on a +coin, or of a face reflected in a mirror. Here it is +that which makes the invisible visible. The God +who dwells in the thick darkness, remote from sense +and above thought, has come forth and made Himself +known to man, even in a very real way has +come within the reach of man’s senses, in the manhood +of Jesus Christ. Where then is there a place +for the shadowy abstractions and emanations with +which some would bind together God and man?</p> + +<p>The first thought involved in this statement is, +that the Divine Being in Himself is inconceivable +and unapproachable. “No man hath seen God at +any time, nor can see Him.” Not only is He beyond +the reach of sense, but above the apprehension of +the understanding. Direct and immediate knowledge +of Him is impossible. There may be, there is, +written on every human spirit a dim consciousness +of His presence, but that is not knowledge. Creatural +limitations prevent it, and man’s sin prevents it. +He is “the King invisible,” because He is the +“Father of Lights” dwelling in “a glorious privacy +of light,” which is to us darkness because there is +in it “no darkness at all.”</p> + +<p>Then, the next truth included here is, that +Christ is the perfect manifestation and image of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +God. In Him we have the invisible becoming +visible. Through Him we know all that we know +of God, as distinguished from what we guess or +imagine or suspect of Him. On this high theme, it +is not wise to deal much in the scholastic language +of systems and creeds. Few words, and these +mainly His own, are best, and he is least likely +to speak wrongly who confines himself most to +Scripture in his presentation of the truth. All the +great streams of teaching in the New Testament +concur in the truth which Paul here proclaims. +The conception in John’s Gospel of the Word which +is the utterance and making audible of the Divine +mind, the conceptions in the Epistle to the Hebrews +of the effulgence or forthshining of God’s glory, and +the very image, or stamped impress of His substance, +are but other modes of representing the same facts +of full likeness and complete manifestation, which +Paul here asserts by calling the man Christ Jesus, +the image of the Invisible God. The same thoughts +are involved in the name by which our Lord called +Himself, the Son of God; and they cannot be +separated from many words of His, such as “he +that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” In Him +the Divine nature comes near to us in a form that +once could be grasped in part by men’s senses, for +it was “that of the Word of life” which they saw +with their eyes and their hands handled, and which +is to-day and for ever a form that can be grasped +by mind and heart and will. In Christ we have the +revelation of a God who can be known, and loved, +and trusted, with a knowledge which, though it be +not complete, is real and valid, with a love which is +solid enough to be the foundation of a life, with a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +trust which is conscious that it has touched rock +and builds secure. Nor is that fact that He is the +revealer of God, one that began with His incarnation, +or ends with His earthly life. From the beginning +and before the creatural beginning, as we shall see +in considering another part of these great verses, the +Word was the agent of all Divine activity, the “arm +of the Lord,” and the source of all Divine illumination, +“the face of the Lord,” or, as we have the +thought put in the remarkable words of the Book +of Proverbs, where the celestial and pure Wisdom is +more than a personification though not yet distinctly +conceived as a person, “The Lord possessed me in +the beginning of His way. I was by Him as one +brought up—or as a master worker—with Him, +and I was daily <i>His</i> delight ... and <i>My</i> delights +were with the sons of men.” And after the veils of +flesh and sense are done away, and we see face to +face, I believe that the face which we shall see, and +seeing, shall have beauty born of the vision passing +into our faces, will be the face of Jesus Christ, in +which the light of the glory of God shall shine for +the redeemed and perfected sons of God, even as it +did for them when they groped amid the shows of +earth. The law for time and for eternity is, “I have +declared Thy name unto My brethren and will +declare it.” That great fathomless, shoreless ocean +of the Divine nature is like a “closed sea”—Christ +is the broad river which brings its waters to men, and +“everything liveth whithersoever the river cometh.”</p> + +<p>In these brief words on so mighty a matter, I +must run the risk of appearing to deal in unsupported +statements. My business is not so much to try to +prove Paul’s words as to explain them, and then to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +press them home. Therefore I would urge that +thought, that we depend on Christ for all true knowledge +of God. Guesses are not knowledge. Speculations +are not knowledge. Peradventures, whether +of hope or fear, are not knowledge. What we poor +men need, is a certitude of a God who loves us and +cares for us, has an arm that can help us, and a +heart that will. The God of “pure theism” is little +better than a phantom, so unsubstantial that you +can see the stars shining through the pale form, and +when a man tries to lean on him for support, it is +like leaning on a wreath of mist. There is nothing. +There is no certitude firm enough for us to find +sustaining power against life’s trials in resting upon +it, but in Christ. There is no warmth of love enough +for us to thaw our frozen limbs by, apart from Christ. +In Him, and in Him alone, the far off, awful, doubtful +God becomes a God very near, of Whom we are +sure, and sure that He loves and is ready to help +and cleanse and save.</p> + +<p>And that is what we each need. “My soul crieth +out for God, for the <i>living</i> God.” And never will +that orphaned cry be answered, but in the possession +of Christ, in Whom we possess the Father also. No +dead abstractions—no reign of law—still less the +dreary proclamation, “Behold we know not anything,” +least of all, the pottage of material good, will hush +that bitter wail that goes up unconsciously from +many an Esau’s heart—“My father, my father!” +Men will find Him in Christ. They will find Him +nowhere else. It seems to me that the only refuge +for this generation from atheism—if it is still allowable +to use that unfashionable word—is the acceptance of +Christ as the revealer of God. On any other terms +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +religion is rapidly becoming impossible for the cultivated +class. The great word which Paul opposed to +the cobwebs of Gnostic speculation is the word for +our own time with all its perplexities—Christ is the +Image of the Invisible God.</p> + +<p>II. We have the relation of Christ to Creation set +forth in that great name, “the firstborn of all creation,” +and further elucidated by a magnificent series of +statements which proclaim Him to be agent or +medium, and aim or goal of creation, prior to it in +time and dignity, and its present upholder and bond +of unity.</p> + +<p>“The firstborn of all creation.” At first sight, +this name seems to include Him in the great family +of creatures as the eldest, and clearly to treat Him +as one of them, just because He is declared to be in +some sense the first of them. That meaning has +been attached to the words; but it is shown not to +be their intention by the language of the next verse, +which is added to prove and explain the title. It +distinctly alleges that Christ was “before” all creation, +and that He is the agent of all creation. To insist +that the words must be explained so as to include +Him in “creation” would be to go right in the teeth +of the Apostle’s own justification and explanation of +them. So that the true meaning is that He is the +firstborn, in comparison with, or in reference to, all +creation. Such an understanding of the force of the +expression is perfectly allowable grammatically, and +is necessary unless this verse is to be put in violent +contradiction to the next. The same construction +is found in Milton’s</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Adam, the goodliest man of men since born,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +where “of” distinctly means “in comparison with,” +and not “belonging to.”</p> + +<p>The title implies priority in existence, and supremacy. +It substantially means the same thing as the +other title of “the only begotten Son,” only that the +latter brings into prominence the relation of the Son +to the Father, while the former lays stress on His +relation to Creation. Further it must be noted, that +this name applies to the Eternal Word and not to +the incarnation of that Word, or to put it in another +form, the divinity and not the humanity of the Lord +Jesus is in the Apostle’s view. Such is the briefest +outline of the meaning of this great name.</p> + +<p>A series of clauses follow, stating more fully the +relation of the firstborn Son to Creation, and so +confirming and explaining the title.</p> + +<p>The whole universe is, as it were, set in one class, +and He alone over against it. No language could +be more emphatically all-comprehensive. Four times +in one sentence we have “all things”—the whole +universe—repeated, and traced to Him as Creator +and Lord. “In the heavens and the earth” is +quoted from Genesis, and is intended here, as there, +to be an exhaustive enumeration of the creation +according to place. “Things visible or invisible” +again includes the whole under a new principle of +division—there are visible things in heaven, as sun +and stars, there may be invisible on earth, but +wherever and of whatever sort they are, He made +them. “Whether thrones or dominions, or principalities +or powers,” an enumeration evidently alluding +to the dreamy speculations about an angelic hierarchy +filling the space between the far off God, and men +immersed in matter. There is a tone of contemptuous +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +impatience in Paul’s voice, as he quotes the +pompous list of sonorous titles which a busy fancy +had coined. It is as if he had said, You are being +told a great deal about these angel hierarchies, and +know all about their ranks and gradations. I do +not know anything about them; but this I know, +that if, amid the unseen things in the heavens or the +earth, there be any such, my Lord made them, and +is their master. So he groups together the whole +universe of created beings, actual or imaginary, and +then high above it, separate from it, its Lord and +Creator, its upholder and end, he points to the +majestic person of the only begotten Son of God, +His Firstborn, higher than all the rulers of the earth, +whether human or superhuman.</p> + +<p>The language employed brings into strong relief +the manifold variety of relations which the Son +sustains to the universe, by the variety of the +prepositions used in the sentence. The whole sum +of created things (for the Greek means not only +“all things,” but “all things considered as a unity”) +was in the original act, created <i>in</i> Him, <i>through</i> +Him, and <i>unto</i> Him. The first of these words, “in +Him,” regards Him as the creative centre, as it +were, or element in which as in a storehouse or +reservoir all creative force resided, and was in a +definite act put forth. The thought may be parallel +with that in the prologue to John’s Gospel, “In Him +was life.” The Word stands to the universe as the +incarnate Christ does to the Church; and as all +spiritual life is in Him, and union to Him is its +condition, so all physical takes its origin within +the depths of His Divine nature. The error of the +Gnostics was to put the act of creation and the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +thing created, as far away as possible from God, and +it is met by this remarkable expression, which brings +creation and the creatures in a very real sense within +the confines of the Divine nature, as manifested +in the Word, and asserts the truth of which pantheism +so called is the exaggeration, that all things are in +Him, like seeds in a seed vessel, while yet they are +not identified with Him.</p> + +<p>The possible dangers of that profound truth, +which has always been more in harmony with +Eastern than with Western modes of thought, are +averted by the next preposition used, “all things +have been created <i>through</i> Him.” That presupposes +the full, clear demarcation between creature and +creator, and so on the one hand extricates the +person of the Firstborn of all creation from all risk of +being confounded with the universe, while on the other +it emphasizes the thought that He is the medium +of the Divine energy, and so brings into clear relief +His relation to the inconceivable Divine nature. He +is the image of the invisible God, and accordingly, +<i>through</i> Him have all things been created. The +same connection of ideas is found in the parallel +passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the +words, “<i>through</i> Whom also He made the worlds,” +stand in immediate connection with “being the +effulgence of His glory.”</p> + +<p>But there remains yet another relation between +Him and the act of creation. “<i>For</i> Him” they +have been made. All things come from and tend +towards Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, +the beginning and the ending. All things spring +from His will, draw their being from that fountain, +and return thither again. These relations which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +are here declared of the Son, are in more than +one place declared of the Father. Do we face the +question fairly—what theory of the person of Jesus +Christ explains that fact?</p> + +<p>But further, His existence before the whole +creation is repeated, with a force in both the +words, “He is,” which can scarcely be given in +English. The former is emphatic—He Himself—and +the latter emphasizes not only pre-existence, +but absolute existence. “He <i>was</i> before all things” +would not have said so much as “He <i>is</i> before all +things.” We are reminded of His own words, +“Before Abraham was, I am.”</p> + +<p>“In Him all things consist” or hold together. +He is the element in which takes place and by +which is caused that continued creation which is the +preservation of the universe, as He is the element +in which the original creative act took place of old. +All things came into being and form an ordered +unity in Him. He links all creatures and forces into +a co-operant whole, reconciling their antagonisms, +drawing all their currents into one great tidal wave, +melting all their notes into music which God can +hear, however discordant it may sometimes sound +to us. He is “the bond of perfectness,” the key-stone +of the arch, the centre of the wheel.</p> + +<p>Such, then, in merest outline is the Apostle’s +teaching about the Eternal Word and the Universe. +What sweetness and what reverential awe such +thoughts should cast around the outer world and the +providences of life! How near they should bring +Jesus Christ to us! What a wonderful thought +that is, that the whole course of human affairs and +of natural processes is directed by Him who died +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +upon the cross! The helm of the universe is held +by the hands which were pierced for us. The Lord +of Nature and the Mover of all things is that Saviour +on whose love we may pillow our aching heads.</p> + +<p>We need these lessons to-day, when many teachers +are trying hard to drive all that is spiritual and +Divine out of creation and history, and to set up a +merciless law as the only God. Nature is terrible +and stern sometimes, and the course of events can +inflict crushing blows; but we have not the added +horror of thinking both to be controlled by no will. +Christ is King in either region, and with our elder +brother for the ruler of the land, we shall not lack +corn in our sacks, nor a Goshen to dwell in. We +need not people the void, as these old heretics did, +with imaginary forms, nor with impersonal forces +and laws—nor need we, as so many are doing to-day, +wander through its many mansions as through +a deserted house, finding nowhere a Person who +welcomes us; for everywhere we may behold our +Saviour, and out of every storm and every solitude +hear His voice across the darkness saying, “It is I; +be not afraid.”</p> + +<p>III. The last of the relations set forth in this +great section is that between Christ and His Church. +“He is the head of the body, the Church; who is +the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.”</p> + +<p>A parallel is plainly intended to be drawn between +Christ’s relation to the material creation and to the +Church, the spiritual creation. As the Word of +God before incarnation is to the universe, so is the +incarnate Christ to the Church. As in the former, +He is prior in time and superior in dignity, so is He +in the latter. As in the universe He is source and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +origin of all being, so in the Church He is the +beginning, both as being first and as being origin of +all spiritual life. As the glowing words which described +His relation to creation began with the great +title “the Firstborn,” so those which describe His +relation to the Church close with the same name in +a different application. Thus the two halves of His +work are as it were moulded into a golden circle, +and the end of the description bends round towards +the beginning.</p> + +<p>Briefly, then, we have here first, Christ the head, +and the Church His body. In the lower realm the +Eternal Word was the power which held all things +together, and similar but higher in fashion is the +relation between Him and the whole multitude of +believing souls. Popular physiology regards the +head as the seat of life. So the fundamental idea +in the familiar metaphor, when applied to our Lord +is that of the source of the mysterious spiritual life +which flows from Him into all the members, and is +sight in the eye, strength in the arm, swiftness in the +foot, colour in the cheek, being richly various in its +manifestations but one in its nature, and all His. +The same mysterious derivation of life from Him is +taught in His own metaphor of the Vine, in which +every branch, however far away from the root, lives +by the common life circulating through all, which +clings in the tendrils, and reddens in the clusters, +and is not theirs though it be in them.</p> + +<p>That thought of the source of life leads necessarily +to the other, that He is the centre of unity, by Whom +the “many members” become “one body,” and the +maze of branches one vine. The “head,” too, +naturally comes to be the symbol for authority—and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +these three ideas of seat of life, centre of unity, +and emblem of absolute power, appear to be those +principally meant here.</p> + +<p>Christ is further the <i>beginning</i> to the Church. In +the natural world He was before all, and source of +all. The same double idea is contained in this name, +“the Beginning.” It does not merely mean the +first member of a series who begins it, as the first +link in a chain does, but it means the power which +causes the series to begin. The root is the beginning +of the flowers which blow in succession through +the plant’s flowering time, though we may also call +the first flower of the number the beginning. But +Christ is root; not merely the first flower, though +He is also that.</p> + +<p>He is head and beginning to His Church by means +of His resurrection. He is the firstborn from the +dead, and His communication of spiritual life to +His Church requires the historical fact of His resurrection +as its basis, for a dead Christ could not be +the source of life; and that resurrection completes +the manifestation of the incarnate Word, by our +faith in which, His spiritual life flows into our spirits. +Unless He has risen from the dead, all His claims +to be anything else than a wise teacher and fair +character crumble into nothing, and to think of Him +as a source of life is impossible.</p> + +<p>He is the beginning through His resurrection, too, +in regard of His raising us from the dead. He is the +first-fruits of them that slept, and bears the promise +of a mighty harvest. He has risen from the dead, +and therein we have not only the one demonstration +for the world that there is a life after death, but the +irrefragable assurance to the Church that because He +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +lives it shall live also. A dead body and a living +head cannot be. We are knit to Him too closely +for the Fury “with the abhorred shears” to cut the +thread. He has risen that He might be the firstborn +among many brethren.</p> + +<p>So the Apostle concludes that in all things He +is first—and all things are, that He <i>may</i> be first. +Whether in nature or in grace, that pre-eminence is +absolute and supreme. The end of all the majesty +of creation and of all the wonders of grace is that +His solitary figure may stand clearly out as centre +and lord of the universe, and His name be lifted +high over all.</p> + +<p>So the question of questions for us all is, What +think ye of Christ? Our thoughts now have necessarily +been turned to subjects which may have seemed +abstract and remote—but these truths which we +have been trying to make clear and to present in +their connection, are not the mere terms or propositions +of a half mystical theology far away from our +daily life, but bear most gravely and directly on our +deepest interests. I would fain press on every conscience +the sharp-pointed appeal—What is this +Christ to us? Is He <i>any</i> thing to us but a name? +Do our hearts leap up with a joyful Amen when +we read these great words of this text? Are we +ready to crown Him Lord of all? Is He our head, +to fill us with vitality, to inspire and to command? +Is He the goal and the end of our individual life? +Can we each say—I live by Him, in Him, and for +Him?</p> + +<p>Happy are we, if we give to Christ the pre-eminence, +and if our hearts set “Him first, Him last, +Him midst and without end.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColVI" id="ColVI"></a>VI.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE RECONCILING SON.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“For it was the good pleasure <i>of the Father</i> that in Him should all +the fulness dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, +having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, +<i>I say</i>, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And +you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil +works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through +death.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> i. 19–22 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>These words correspond to those which immediately +precede them, inasmuch as they +present the same sequence, and deal with Christ in +His relation to God, to the universe, and to the +Church. The strata of thought are continuous, and +lie here in the same order as we found them there. +There we had set forth the work of the pre-incarnate +Word as well as of the incarnate Christ; here we +have mainly the reconciling power of His cross proclaimed +as reaching to every corner of the universe, +and as culminating in its operations on the believing +souls to whom Paul speaks. There we had the fact +that He was the image of God laid as basis of His +relation to men and creatures; here that fact itself +apprehended in somewhat different manner, namely, +as the dwelling in Him of all “fulness,” is traced to +its ground in the “good pleasure” of the Father, and +the same Divine purpose is regarded as underlying +Christ’s whole reconciling work. We observe, also, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +that all this section with which we have now to deal +is given as the explanation and reason of Christ’s +pre-eminence. These are the principal links of +connection with the previous words, and having noted +them, we may proceed to attempt some imperfect +consideration of the overwhelming thoughts here +contained.</p> + +<p>I. As before, we have Christ in relation to God. +“It was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him +should all the fulness dwell.”</p> + +<p>Now, we may well suppose from the use of the +word “fulness” here, which we know to have been +a very important term in later full-blown Gnostic +speculations, that there is a reference to some of the +heretical teachers’ expressions, but such a supposition +is not needed either to explain the meaning, or to +account for the use of the word.</p> + +<p>“The fulness”—what fulness? I think, although +it has been disputed, that the language of the next +chapter (ii. 9), where we read “In Him dwelleth all +the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” should settle +that.</p> + +<p>It seems most improbable that with two out of +three significant words the same, the ellipse should +be supplied by anything but the third. The meaning +then will be—the whole abundance, or totality +of Divine powers and attributes. That is, to put it +in homelier words, that all that Divine nature in all +its sweet greatness, in all its infinite wealth of tenderness +and power and wisdom, is embodied in Jesus +Christ. We have no need to look to heavens above +or to earth beneath for fragmentary revelations of +God’s character. We have no need to draw doubtful +inferences as to what God is from the questionable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +teachings of nature, or from the mysteries of human +history with its miseries. No doubt these do show +something of Him to observant hearts, and most to +those who have the key to their meaning by their +faith in a clearer revelation. At sundry times and +in divers manners, God has spoken to the world by +these partial voices, to each of which some syllables +of His name have been committed. But He has put +His whole name in that messenger of a New Covenant +by whom He has finally declared His whole character +to us, even His Son, in whom “it was the good +pleasure of the Father that all the fulness should +dwell.”</p> + +<p>The word rendered “dwell” implies a permanent +abode, and may have been chosen in order to oppose +a view which we know to have prevailed later, and +may suspect to have been beginning to appear thus +early, namely, that the union of the Divine and the +human in the person of Christ was but temporary. +At all events, emphasis is placed here on the opposite +truth that that indwelling does not end with the +earthly life of Jesus, and is not like the shadowy +and transient incarnations of Eastern mythology or +speculation—a mere assumption of a fleshly nature +for a moment, which is dropped from the re-ascending +Deity, but that, for evermore, manhood is wedded to +divinity in the perpetual humanity of Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>And this indwelling is the result of the Father’s +good pleasure. Adopting the supplement in the +Authorized and Revised Versions, we might read +“the Father pleased”—but without making that +change, the force of the words remains the same. +The Incarnation and whole work of Christ are +referred to their deepest ground in the will of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +Father. The word rendered “pleased” implies both +counsel and complacency; it is both pleasure and +good pleasure. The Father determined the work of +the Son, and delighted in it. Caricatures intentional +or unintentional of New Testament teaching have +often represented it as making Christ’s work the +means of pacifying an unloving God and moving +Him to mercy. That is no part of the Pauline +doctrine. But he, as all his brethren, taught that +the love of God is the cause of the mission of Christ, +even as Christ Himself had taught that “God so +loved the world that He sent His Son.” On that +Rock-foundation of the will—the loving will of the +Father, is built the whole work of His Incarnate Son. +And as that work was the issue of His eternal +purpose, so it is the object of His eternal delight. +That is the wonderful meaning of the word which +fell gently as the dove descending on His head, and +lay on His locks wet from His baptism, like a consecrating +oil—“This is My beloved Son, in whom +<i>I am well pleased</i>.” God willed that so He should +be; He delighted that so He was. Through Christ, +the Father purposed that His fulness should be +communicated to us, and through Christ the Father +rejoices to pour His abundance into our emptiness, +that we may be filled with all the fulness.</p> + +<p>II. Again, we have here, as before Christ and the +Universe, of which He is not only Maker, Sustainer, +and Lord, but through “the blood of His cross” +reconciles “all things unto Himself.”</p> + +<p>Probably these same false teachers had dreams +of reconciling agents among the crowd of shadowy +phantoms with which they peopled the void. Paul +lifts up in opposition to all these the one Sovereign +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +Mediator, whose cross is the bond of peace for all +the universe.</p> + +<p>It is important for the understanding of these +great words to observe their distinct reference to the +former clauses which dealt with our Lord’s relation +to the universe as Creator. The same words are +used in order to make the parallelism as close as +may be, “Through Him” was creation; “through +Him” is reconciliation. “All things”—or as the +Greek would rather suggest, “the universe”—all +things considered as an aggregate—were made and +sustained through Him and subordinated to Him; +the same “all things” are reconciled. A significant +change in the order of naming the elements of +which these are composed is noticeable. When +creation is spoken of, the order is “in the heavens +and upon the earth”—the order of creation; but +when reconciliation is the theme, the order is +reversed, and we read “things upon the earth and +things in the heavens”—those coming first which +stand nearest to the reconciling cross, and are first +to feel the power which streams from it.</p> + +<p>This obvious intentional correspondence between +these two paragraphs shows us that whatever be the +nature of the “reconciliation” spoken of here, it is +supposed to affect not only rational and responsible +creatures who alone in the full sense of the word +can be reconciled, as they only in the full sense of +the word can be enemies, but to extend to <i>things</i>, +and to send its influence through the universe. +The width of the reconciliation is the same as that +of the creation; they are conterminous. That +being the case, “reconciliation” here must have a +different shade of meaning when applied to the sum +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +total of created things from what it has when +applied to persons. But not only are inanimate +creatures included in the expression; it may +even be made a question whether the whole of +mankind is not excluded from it, not only by the +phrase “all <i>things</i>” but also from the consideration +that the effect of Christ’s death on men is the +subject of the following words, which are not an +explanation of this clause, but an addition to it, +introducing an entirely different department of +Christ’s reconciling work. Nor should we lose sight +of the very significant omission in this section of the +reference to the angelic beings who were named in +the creation section. We hear nothing now about +thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. +The division into “visible and invisible” is not +reproduced. I suggest the possibility that the +reason may be the intention to represent this +“reconciliation” as taking effect exclusively on the +regions of creation below the angelic and below the +human, while the “reconciliation,” properly so called, +which is brought to pass on alienated men is dealt +with first in the following words.</p> + +<p>If this be so, then these words refer mainly to +the restitution of the material universe to its primal +obedience, and represent Christ the Creator removing +by His cross the shadow which has passed over +nature by reason of sin. It has been well said, +“How far this restoration of universal nature may be +subjective, as involved in the changed perceptions +of man thus brought into harmony with God, and how far it may +have an objective and independent existence, it were vain to +speculate.”<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +Scripture seems to teach that man’s sin has made +the physical world “subject to vanity”; for, although +much of what it says on this matter is unquestionably +metaphor only, portraying the Messianic blessings +in poetical language never meant for dogmatic +truth, and although unquestionably physical death +reigned among animals, and storms and catastrophes +swept over the earth long before man or sin were +here, still—seeing that man by his sin has compelled +dead matter to serve his lusts and to be his +instrument in acts of rebellion against God, making +“a league with the stones of the field” against his +and their Master—seeing that he has used earth to +hide heaven and to shut himself out from its glories, +and so has made it an unwilling antagonist to God +and temptress to evil—seeing that he has actually +polluted the beauty of the world and has stained +many a lovely scene with his sin, making its rivers +run red with blood—seeing that he has laid +unnumbered woes on the living creatures—we may +feel that there is more than poetry in the affirmation +that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in +pain together,” and may hear a deep truth, the +extent of which we cannot measure, in Milton’s +majestic lines—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">“Disproportioned Sin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jarred against Nature’s chime, and with harsh din<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brake the fair music that all creatures made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here we have held forth in words, the extent of +which we can measure as little, the counter-hope that +wherever and however any such effect has come to +pass on the material universe, it shall be done away +by the reconciling power of the blood shed on the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +cross. That reconciling power goes as far as His +creative power. The universe is one, not only because +all created by the one personal Divine Word, +nor because all upheld by Him, but because in ways +to us unknown, the power of the cross pierces its +heights and depths. As the impalpable influences +of the sun bind planets and comets into one great +system, so from Him on His cross may stream out +attractive powers which knit together far off regions, +and diverse orders, and bring all in harmonious unity +to God, who has made peace by the blood shed on +the cross, and has thereby been pleased to reconcile +all things to Himself.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“And a Priest’s hand through creation<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waveth calm and consecration.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It may be that the reference to things in heaven +is like the similar reference in the previous verses, +occasioned by some dreams of the heretical teachers. +He may merely mean to say: You speak much +about heavenly things, and have filled the whole +space between God’s throne and man’s earth with +creatures thick as the motes in the sunbeam. I +know nothing about them; but this I know, that, if +they are, Christ made them, and that if among them +there be antagonism to God, it can be overcome by the +cross. As to reconciliation proper,—in the heavens, +meaning by that, among spiritual beings who dwell +in that realm, it is clear there can be no question of +it. There is no enmity among the angels of heaven, +and no place for return to union with God among +their untroubled bands, who “hearken to the voice +of His word.” But still if the hypothetical form of +the clause and the use of the neuter gender permit +any reference to intelligent beings in the heavens, we +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +know that to the principalities and powers in heavenly +places the cross has been the teacher of before unlearned +depths in the Divine nature and purposes, +the knowledge of which has drawn them nearer the +heart of God, and made even their blessed union with +Him more blessed and more close.</p> + +<p>On no subject is it more necessary to remember +the limitations of our knowledge than on this great +theme. On none is confident assertion more out of +place. The general truth taught is clear, but the +specific applications of it to the various regions of +the universe is very doubtful. We have no source +of knowledge on that subject but the words of +Scripture, and we have no means of verifying or +checking the conclusions we may draw from them. +We are bound, therefore, if we go beyond the general +principle, to remember that <i>it</i> is one thing, and our +reckoning up of what it includes is quite another. +Our inferences have not the certainty of God’s word. +<i>It</i> comes to us with “Verily, verily.” <i>We</i> have no +right to venture on more than Perhaps.</p> + +<p>Especially is this the case when we have but one +or two texts to build on, and these most general in +their language. And still more, when we find other +words of Scripture which seem hard to reconcile with +them, if pressed to their utmost meaning. In such +a case our wisdom is to recognise that God has not +been pleased to give us the means of constructing a +dogma on the subject, and rather to seek to learn the +lessons taught by the obscurity that remains than +rashly and confidently to proclaim our inferences +from half of our materials as if they were the very +heart of the gospel.</p> + +<p>Sublime and great beyond all our dreams, we +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +may be sure, shall be the issue. Certain as the +throne of God is it that His purposes shall be accomplished—and +at last this shall be the fact for the +universe, as it has ever been the will of the Father—“Of +Him, and through Him, and to Him are all +things, to whom be glory for ever.” To that highest +hope and ultimate vision for the whole creation, who +will not say, Amen? The great sight which the +seer beheld in Patmos is the best commentary on +our text. To him the eternal order of the universe +was unveiled—the great white throne, a snowy Alp +in the centre; between the throne and the creatures, +the Lamb, through Whom blessing and life passed +outwards to them, and their incense and praise passed +inwards to the throne; and all around the “living +creatures,” types of the aggregate of creatural life, +the “elders,” representatives of the Church redeemed +from among men, and myriads of the firstborn of +heaven. The eyes of all alike wait upon that slain +Lamb. In Him they see God in clearest light of +love and gentlest might—and as they look and learn +and are fed, each according to his hunger, from the +fulness of Christ, “every creature which is in heaven, +and on the earth, and under the earth, and such +as are in the sea, and all that are in them,” will be +heard saying “Blessing, and honour, and glory, and +power, be unto Him, that sitteth upon the throne, +and unto the Lamb for ever.”</p> + +<p>III. Christ, and His Reconciling Work in the +Church. We have still the parallel kept up between +the reconciling and the creative work of Christ. +As in verse 18 He was represented as the giver of +life to the Church, in a higher fashion than to the +universe, so, and probably with a similar heightening +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +of the meaning of “reconciliation,” He is here set +forth as its giver to the Church.</p> + +<p>Now observe the solemn emphasis of the description +of the condition of men before that reconciling +work has told upon their hearts. They are +“alienated”—not “aliens,” as if that were their +original condition, but “alienated,” as having become +so. The same thought that man’s sin and separation +from God is a fall, something abnormal and +superinduced on humanity, which is implied in +“reconciliation” or restoration to an original concord, +is implied in this expression. “And enemies +in your mind”—the seat of the enmity is in that +inner man which thinks, reflects, and wills, and its +sphere of manifestation is “in evil works” which are +religiously acts of hostility to God because morally +they are bad. We should not read “<i>by</i> wicked +works,” as the Authorized Version does, for the evil +deeds have not made them enemies, but the enmity +has originated the evil deeds, and is witnessed to by +them.</p> + +<p>That is a severe indictment, a plain, rough, and +as it is thought now-a-days, a far too harsh description +of human nature. Our forefathers no doubt +were tempted to paint the “depravity of human +nature” in very black colours—but I am very sure +that we are tempted just in the opposite direction. +It sounds too harsh and rude to press home the old-fashioned +truth on cultured, respectable ladies and +gentlemen. The charge is not that of conscious, +active hostility, but of practical want of affection, as +manifested by habitual disobedience or inattention to +God’s wishes, and by indifference and separation from +Him in heart and mind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +And are these not the habitual temper of multitudes? +The signs of love are joy in the company +of the beloved, sweet memories and longings if +parted, eager fulfilment of their lightest wish, a quick +response to the most slender association recalling +them to our thoughts. Have we these signs of love +to God? If not, it is time to consider what temper +of heart and mind towards the most loving of +Hearts and the most unwearied of Givers, is indicated +by the facts that we scarcely ever think of +Him, that we have no delight in His felt presence, +that most of our actions have no reference whatever +to Him and would be done just the same if there +were no God at all. Surely such a condition is +liker hostility than love.</p> + +<p>Further, here, as uniformly, God Himself is the +Reconciler. “He”—that is, God, not Christ, “has +reconciled us.” Some, indeed, read “ye have been +reconciled,” but the preponderance of authority is in +favour of the text as it stands, which yields a sense +accordant with the usual mode of representation. +It is we who are reconciled. It is God who +reconciles. It is we who are enemies. The Divine +patience loves on through all our enmity, and +though perfect love meeting human sin must become +wrath, which is consistent with love, it never +becomes hatred, which is love’s opposite.</p> + +<p>Observe finally the great means of reconciliation: +“In the body of His flesh”—that is, of course, +Christ’s flesh—God has reconciled us. Why does +the Apostle use this apparently needless exuberance +of language—“the body of His flesh”? It may +have been in order to correct some erroneous +tendencies towards a doctrine which we know was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +afterwards eagerly embraced in the Eastern +Churches, that our Lord’s body was not truly flesh, +but only a phantasm or appearance. It may have +been to guard against risk of confounding it with +His “body the Church,” spoken of in the 18th +verse, though that supposes a scarcely credible +dulness in his readers. Or it may more naturally +be accounted for as showing how full his own mind +was of the overwhelming wonder of the fact that He, +Whose majesty he has been setting forth in such +deep words, should veil His eternal glories and limit +His far reaching energies within a fleshly body. He +would point the contrast between the Divine dignity +of the Eternal Word, the Creator and Lord of the +universe, and the lowliness of His incarnation. On +these two pillars, as on two solid piers, one on either +continent, with a great gulf between, the Divinity of +Christ on one side, His Manhood on the other, is +built the bridge by which we pass over the river into +the glory.</p> + +<p>But that is not all. The Incarnation is not the +whole gospel. The body of His flesh becomes the +means of our reconciliation “through death.” Christ’s +death has so met the requirements of the Divine +law that the Divine love can come freely forth, and +embrace and forgive sinful men. That fact is the +very centre of the revelation of God in Christ, the +very secret of His power. He has died. Voluntarily +and of His own love, as well as in obedience +to the Father’s loving will, He has borne the consequences +of the sin which He had never shared, in +that life of sorrow and sympathy, in that separation +from God which is sin’s deepest penalty, and of which +the solemn witness comes to us in the cry that rent +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +the darkness, “My God, My God, why hast Thou +forsaken Me?” and in that physical death which is +the parable in the material sphere of the true death +of the spirit. We do not know all the incidence of +Christ’s death. The whole manner of its operation +has not been told us, but the fact has been. It does +not affect the Divine heart. <i>That</i> we know, for +“God so loved the world, that He sent His Son.” +But it does affect the Divine government. Without +it, forgiveness could not have been. Its influence +extends to all the years before, as to all after, Calvary, +for the fact that Man continued to be after Man had +sinned, was because the whole Divine government from +the first had respect to the sacrifice that was to be, as +now it all is moulded by the merit of the sacrifice that +has been. And in this aspect of the case, the previous +thoughts as to the blood of the cross having power +in the material universe derive a new meaning, if we +regard the whole history of the world as shaped by +Christ’s sacrifice, and the very continuance of humanity +from the first moment of transgression as possible, +because He was “the Lamb slain before the foundation +of the world,” whose cross, as an eternal fact in the +Divine purpose, influenced the Divine government +long before it was realized in time.</p> + +<p>For us, that wondrous love—mightier than death, +and not to be quenched by many waters—is +the one power that can change our alienation to +glad friendship, and melt the frost and hard-ribbed +ice of indifference and dread into love. That, and +that alone, is the solvent for stubborn wills, the +magnet for distant hearts. The cross of Christ is +the key-stone of the universe and the conqueror of +all enmity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +If religion is to have sovereign power in our lives, +it must be the religion built upon faith in the Incarnate +Son of God, who reconciles the world to God +upon His cross. That is the only faith which makes +men love God and binds them to Him with bands +which cannot be broken. Other types of Christianity +are but tepid; and lukewarm water is an +abomination. The one thing that makes us ground +our rebellious arms and say, Lord, I surrender, Thou +hast conquered, is to see in Christ’s life the perfect +image of God, and in His death the all-sufficient +sacrifice for sin.</p> + +<p>What does it avail for us that the far-reaching +power of Christ’s cross shoots out magnetic forces to +the uttermost verge of the heavens, and binds the +whole universe by silken blood-red cords to God, if +it does not bind me to Him in love and longing? +What does it avail that God is in Christ, reconciling +the world to Himself, if I am unconscious of the +enmity, and careless of the friendship? Each man +has to ask himself, Am I reconciled to God? Has +the sight of His great love on the cross won <i>me</i>, +body and soul, to His love and service? Have I +flung away self-will, pride and enmity, and yielded +myself a glad captive to the loving Christ who died? +His cross draws us, His love beckons us. God +pleads with all hearts. He who has made peace +by so costly means as the sacrifice of His Son, condescends +to implore the rebels to come into amity +with Him, and “prays us with much entreaty to +receive the gift.” God beseeches us to be reconciled +to Himself.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +Bp. Lightfoot, <i>On Coloss.</i>, p. 226.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColVII" id="ColVII"></a>VII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF RECONCILIATION AND +ITS HUMAN CONDITIONS.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“To present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before +Him: if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and +not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which +was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a +minister.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> i. 22, 23 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>The Apostle has been sketching in magnificent +outline a vast system, which we may almost +call the scheme of the universe. He has set forth +Christ as its Lord and centre, through Whom all +things at first came into being, and still continue to +be. In parallel manner he has presented Christ as +Lord and Centre of the Church, its lifegiving Head. +And finally he has set forth Christ as the Reconciler +of all discords in heaven and earth, and especially of +that which parts sinful men from God.</p> + +<p>And now he shows us here, in the first words of +our text, the purpose of this whole manifestation of +God in Christ to be the presenting of men perfect +in purity, before the perfect judgment of God. He +then appends the condition on which the accomplishment +of this ultimate purpose in each man depends—namely, +the man’s continuance in the faith and +hope of the Gospel. That leads him to gather up, +in a series of clauses characterizing the Gospel, +certain aspects of it which constitute subordinate +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +motives and encouragements to such stedfastness. +That is, I think, the outline connection of the +words before us, which at first sight seem somewhat +tangled and difficult to unravel.</p> + +<p>I. We have then, first, to consider the ultimate +purpose of God in the work of Christ.</p> + +<p>“To present you holy and without blemish and +unreproveable before Him.” It may be a question +whether these words should be connected with “now +hath He reconciled,” or whether we are to go farther +back in the long paragraph, and make them +dependent on “it was the good pleasure of the +Father.” The former seems the more natural—namely, +to see here a statement of the great end +contemplated in our reconciliation to God; which, +indeed, whatever may be the grammatical construction +preferred here, is also, of course, the +ultimate object of the Father’s good pleasure. In +the word “present” there is possibly a sacrificial +allusion, as there is unquestionably in its use in +Rom. xii., “Present your bodies a living sacrifice”; +or there may be another and even more eloquent +metaphor implied, that of the bringing of the bride +to the husband by the friend of the bridegroom. +That lovely figure is found in two instances of the +use of the word in Paul’s epistle (2 Cor. ii. 2, “to +present you as a chaste virgin to Christ,” and Eph. +v. 27, “that He might present it to Himself a +glorious Church”), and possibly in others. It +certainly gives an appropriate and beautiful emblem +here if we think of the presentation of the bride in +virginal beauty and purity to her Lord at that last +great day which is the bridal day of the perfected +Church.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +There is, however, no need to suppose any +metaphor at all, nor any allusion beyond the +general meaning of the word—<i>to set in the presence +of</i>. The sacrificial reference is incongruous here, +and the bridal one not indicated by anything in the +context, as it is in the instances just quoted. One +thing is clear, that the reference is to a future +presentation in the day of judgment, as in another +place, where Paul says, “He ... shall raise up us +also ... and shall present us” (2 Cor. iv. 14). +In the light of that revealing day, His purpose is +that we shall stand “holy,” that is, devoted to God +and therefore pure—“without blemish,” as the +offerings had to be, and “unreproveable,” against +whom no charge can be brought. These three +express a regular sequence; first, the inward +principle of consecration and devotion to God, then +its visible issue in stainless conduct and character, +and then its last consequence, that in the judgment +of God and of men we shall stand acquitted of +blame, and every accusation drop away from our +dazzling purity, like muddy water from the white +wing of the sea-bird as it soars. And all this moral +perfectness and unblameableness is to be not merely +in the judgment of men, but “before Him,” the +light of whose “pure eyes and perfect judgment” +discovers all stains and evils. They must be spotless +indeed who are “without fault before the +throne of God.”</p> + +<p>Such, then, is the grand conception of the ultimate +purpose and issue of Christ’s reconciling work. +All the lines of thought in the preceding section lead +up to and converge in this peak. The meaning of +God in creation and redemption cannot be fully +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +fathomed without taking into view the future perfecting +of men. This Christian ideal of the possibilities +for men is the noblest vision that can animate our +hopes. Absolute moral purity which shall be recognised +as perfect by the perfect Judge, and a close +approach to God, so as that we shall be “before +Him” in a manner unknown here—are hopes as +much brighter than those which any other systems of +belief print on the dim canvass curtain of the future, +as the Christian estimate of man’s condition apart +from Christ is sadder and darker than theirs. +Christianity has a much more extended scale of +colours than they have. It goes further down into +blackness for the tints with which it paints man as +he is, and further up into flashing glories of splendour +for the gleaming hues with which it paints him as +he may become. They move within narrow limits +of neutral tints. The Gospel alone does not try to +minimise man’s evil, because it is triumphantly confident +of its power to turn all that evil into good.</p> + +<p>Nothing short of this complete purity and blamelessness +satisfies God’s heart. We may travel back +to the beginning of this section, and connect its first +words with these, “It pleased the Father, to present +us holy and spotless and blameless.” It delights +Him thus to effect the purifying of sinful souls, and +He is glad when He sees Himself surrounded by +spirits thus echoing His will and reflecting His light. +This is what he longs for. This is what He aims +at in all His working—to make good and pure men. +The moral interest is uppermost in His heart and in +His doings. The physical universe is but the scaffolding +by which the true house of God may be built. +The work of Christ is the means to that end, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +when God has got us, by such lavish expenditure, to +be white like Himself, and can find nothing in us to +condemn, then, and not till then, does He brood +over us satisfied and glad at heart, resting in His +love, and rejoicing over us with singing.</p> + +<p>Nor will anything short of this complete purity +exhaust the power of the Reconciling Christ. His +work is like an unfinished column, or Giotto’s Campanile, +all shining with marbles and alabasters and set +about with fair figures, but waiting for centuries for +the glittering apex to gather its glories into a heaven-piercing +point. His cross and passion reach no +adequate result, short of the perfecting of saints, nor +was it worth Christ’s while to die for any less end. +His cross and passion have evidently power to effect +this perfect purity, and cannot be supposed to have +done all that is in them to do, until they have done +that with every Christian.</p> + +<p>We ought then to keep very clear before us this +as the crowning object of Christianity: not to make +men happy, except as a consequence of holiness; not +to deliver from penalty, except as a means to holiness; +but to make them holy, and being holy, to +set them close by the throne of God. No man +understands the scope of Christianity, or judges it +fairly, who does not give full weight to that as its +own statement of its purpose. The more distinctly +we, as Christians, keep that purpose prominent in +our thoughts, the more shall we have our efforts +stimulated and guided, and our hopes fed, even when +we are saddened by a sense of failure. We have a +power working in us which can make us white as +the angels, pure as our Lord is pure. If it, being +able to produce perfect results, has produced only +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +such imperfect ones, we may well ask, where the +reason for the partial failure lies. If we believed +more vividly that the real purpose and use of Christianity +was to make us good men, we should surely +labour more earnestly to secure that end, should take +more to heart our own responsibility for the incompleteness +with which it has been attained in us, and +should submit ourselves more completely to the +operation of the “might of the power” which worketh +in us.</p> + +<p>Nothing less than our absolute purity will satisfy +God about us. Nothing less should satisfy ourselves. +The only worthy end of Christ’s work for us is to +present us holy, in complete consecration, and without +blemish, in perfect homogeneousness and uniformity +of white purity and unreproveable in manifest innocence +in His sight. If we call ourselves Christians +let us make it our life’s business to see that +that end is being accomplished in us in some tolerable +and growing measure.</p> + +<p>II. We have next set forth the conditions on +which the accomplishment of that purpose depends: +“If so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and +stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the +Gospel.”</p> + +<p>The condition is, generally speaking, a stedfast +adherence to the Gospel which the Colossians had +received. “If ye continue in the faith,” means, I suppose, +if ye continue to live in the <i>exercise</i> of your faith. +The word here has its ordinary subjective sense, expressing +the act of the believing man, and there is no need +to suppose that it has the later ecclesiastical objective +sense, expressing the believer’s creed, a meaning in +which it may be questioned whether the word is ever +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +employed in the New Testament. Then this continuance +in the faith is further explained as to its +manner, and that first positively, and then negatively. +They are to be grounded, or more picturesquely and +accurately, “founded,” that is, built into a foundation, +and therefore “stedfast,” as banded into the firm +rock, and so partaking of its fixedness. Then, +negatively, they are not to be “moved away”; the +word by its form conveying the idea, that this is a +process which may be continually going on, and in +which, by some force constantly acting from without, +they may be gradually and imperceptibly pushed off +from the foundation—that foundation is the hope +evoked or held out by the Gospel, a representation +which is less familiar than that which makes the +Gospel itself the foundation, but is substantially +equivalent to it, though with a different colour.</p> + +<p>One or two plain lessons may be drawn from +these words. There is an “if,” then. However +great the powers of Christ and of His work, however +deep the desire and fixed the purpose of God, +no fulfilment of these is possible except on condition +of our habitual exercise of faith. The Gospel does +not work on men by magic. Mind, heart and will +must be exercised on Christ, or all His power to +purify and bless will be of no avail to us. We shall +be like Gideon’s fleece, dry when the dew is falling +thick, unless we are continually putting forth living +faith. That attracts the blessing and fits the soul +to receive it. There is nothing mystical about the +matter. Common sense tells us, that if a man never +thinks about any truth, that truth will do him no +good in any way. If it does not find its road into +his heart through his mind, and thence into his life, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +it is all one as if there were no such truth, or as if +he did not believe it. If our creed is made up of +truths which we do not think about, we may just as +well have no creed. If we do not bring ourselves +into contact with the motives which the Gospel +brings to bear on character, the motives will not +mould our character. If we do not, by faith and +meditation, realize the principles which flow from the +truth as it is in Jesus, and obtain the strength +which is stored in Him, we shall not grow by Him +or like Him. No matter how mighty be the +renewing powers of the Gospel wielded by the +Divine Spirit, they can only work on the nature that +is brought into contact with and continues in contact +with them by faith. The measure in which +we trust Jesus Christ will be the measure in which +He helps us. “He could do no mighty works +because of their unbelief.” He cannot do what He +can do, if we thwart Him by our want of faith. +God will present us holy before Him <i>if</i> we continue +in the faith.</p> + +<p>And it must be present faith which leads to +present results. We cannot make an arrangement +by which we exercise faith wholesale once for all, +and secure a delivery of its blessings in small +quantities for a while after, as a buyer may do with +goods. The moment’s act of faith will bring the +moment’s blessings; but to-morrow will have to get +its own grace by its own faith. We cannot lay up +a stock for the future. There must be present +drinking for present thirst; we cannot lay in a +reserve of the water of life, as a camel can drink at +a draught enough for a long desert march. The +Rock follows us all through the wilderness, but we +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +have to fill our pitchers day by day. Many +Christians seem to think that they can live on past +acts of faith. No wonder that their Christian +character is stunted, and their growth stopped, and +many a blemish visible, and many a “blame” to +be brought against them. Nothing but continual +exercise of faith, day by day, moment by moment, +in every duty, and every temptation, will secure the +continual entrance into our weakness of the strength +which makes strong and the purity which makes +pure.</p> + +<p>Then again, if we and our lives are to be firm +and stable, we must have a foundation outside of +ourselves on which to rest. That thought is involved +in the word “grounded” or “founded.” It +is possible that this metaphor of the foundation is +carried on into the next clause, in which case “the +hope of the Gospel” would be the foundation. +Strange to make a solid foundation out of so unsubstantial +a thing as “hope!” That would be +indeed to build a castle on the air, a palace on a +soap-bubble, would it not? Yes, it would, if this +hope were not “the hope produced by the Gospel,” +and therefore as solid as the ever-enduring Word +of the Lord on which it is founded. But, more +probably, the ordinary application of the figure is +preserved here, and Christ is the foundation, the +Rock, on which builded, our fleeting lives and our +fickle selves may become rock-like too, and every +impulsive and changeable Simon Bar Jonas rise to +the mature stedfastness of a Peter, the pillar of the +Church.</p> + +<p>Translate that image of taking Christ for our +foundation into plain English, and what does it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +come to? It means, let our minds find in Him, in +His Word, and whole revealing life, the basis of our +beliefs, the materials for thought; let our hearts +find in Him their object, which brings calmness and +unchangeableness into their love; let our practical +energies take Him as their motive and pattern, their +strength and their aim, their stimulus and their +reward; let all hopes and joys, emotions and desires, +fasten themselves on Him; let Him occupy and +fill our whole nature, and mould and preside over all +our actions. So shall we be “founded” on Christ.</p> + +<p>And so “founded,” we shall, as Paul here beautifully +puts it, be “stedfast.” Without that foundation +to give stability and permanence, we never get down +to what abides, but pass our lives amidst fleeting +shadows, and are ourselves transient as they. The +mind whose thoughts about God and the unseen +world are not built on the personal revelation of God +in Christ will have no solid certainties which cannot +be shaken, but, at the best, opinions which cannot +have more fixedness than belongs to human thoughts +upon the great problem. If my love does not rest +on Christ, it will flicker and flutter, lighting now here +and now there, and even where it rests most secure +in human love, sure to have to take wing some day, +when Death with his woodman’s axe fells the tree +where it nestles. If my practical life is not built on +Him, the blows of circumstance will make it reel and +stagger. If we are not well joined to Jesus Christ, +we shall be driven by gusts of passion and storms +of trouble, or borne along on the surface of the slow +stream of all-changing time like thistle-down on the +water. If we are to be stable, it must be because +we are fastened to something outside of ourselves +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +that is stable, just as they have to lash a man to the +mast or other fixed things on deck, if he is not to be +washed overboard in the gale. If we are lashed to +the unchangeable Christ by the “cords of love” and +faith, we too shall, in our degree, be stedfast.</p> + +<p>And, says Paul, that Christ-derived stedfastness +will make us able to resist influences that would move +us away from the hope of the Gospel. That process +which their stedfastness would enable the Colossians +successfully to resist, is described by the language of +the Apostle as continuous, and as one which acted +on them from without. Intellectual dangers arose +from false teachings. The ever acting tendencies of +worldliness pressed upon them, and they needed to +make a distinct effort to keep themselves from being +overcome by these.</p> + +<p>If we do not take care that imperceptible, steady +pressure of the all-surrounding worldliness, which +is continually acting on us, will push us right off the +foundation without our knowing that we have shifted +at all. If we do not look well after our moorings +we shall drift away down stream, and never +know that we are moving, so smooth is the motion, +till we wake up to see that everything round about +is changed. Many a man is unaware how completely +his Christian faith has gone till some crisis comes +when he needs it, and when he opens the jar there is +nothing. It has evaporated. When white ants eat +away all the inside of a piece of furniture, they leave +the outside shell apparently solid, and it stands till +some weight is laid upon it, and then goes down +with a crash. Many people loose their Christianity +in that fashion, by its being nibbled away in tiny +flakes by a multitude of secretly working little jaws, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +and they never know that the pith is out of it till they +want to lean on it, and then it gives under them.</p> + +<p>The only way to keep firm hold of hope is to +keep fast on the foundation. If we do not wish to +slide imperceptibly away from Him who alone will +make our lives stedfast and our hearts calm with +the peacefulness of having found our All, we must +continuously make an effort to tighten our grasp on +Him, and to resist the subtle forces which, by silent +pressure or by sudden blows, seek to get us off the +one foundation.</p> + +<p>III. Then lastly, we have a threefold motive for +adherence to the Gospel.</p> + +<p>The three clauses which close these verses seem +to be appended as secondary and subordinate encouragements +to stedfastness, which encouragements +are drawn from certain characteristics of the Gospel. +Of course, the main reason for a man’s sticking to +the Gospel, or to anything else, is that it is true. +And unless we are prepared to say that we believe it +true, we have nothing to do with such subordinate +motives for professing adherence to it, except to +take care that they do <i>not</i> influence us. And that +one sole reason is abundantly wrought out in this +letter. But then, its truth being established, we +may fairly bring in other subsidiary motives to +reinforce this, seeing that there may be a certain +coldness of belief which needs the warmth of such +encouragements.</p> + +<p>The first of these lies in the words, “the Gospel, +which ye heard.” That is to say, the Apostle would +have the Colossians, in the face of these heretical +teachers, remember the beginning of their Christian +life, and be consistent with that. They had heard it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +at their conversion. He would have them recall what +they had heard then, and tamper with no teaching inconsistent +with it. He also appeals to their experience. +“Do you remember what the Gospel did for you? +Do you remember the time when it first dawned +upon your astonished hearts, all radiant with heavenly +beauty, as the revelation of a Heart in heaven that +cared for you, and of a Christ Who, on earth, had +died for you? Did it not deliver you from your +burden? Did it not set new hope before you? +Did it not make earth as the very portals of heaven? +And have these truths become less precious because +familiar? Be not moved away from the Gospel +‘which ye have heard.’”</p> + +<p>To us the same appeal comes. This word has +been sounding in our ears ever since childhood. It +has done everything for some of us, something for +all of us. Its truths have sometimes shone out for +us like suns, in the dark, and brought us strength +when nothing else could sustain us. If they are not +truths, of course they will have to go. But they +are not to be abandoned easily. They are interwoven +with our very lives. To part with them is a +resolution not to be lightly undertaken.</p> + +<p>The argument of experience is of no avail to +convince others, but is valid for ourselves. A man +has a perfect right to say, “I have heard Him myself, +and I know that this is indeed the Christ, the +Saviour of the world.” A Christian may wisely +decline to enter on the consideration of many moot +questions which he may feel himself incompetent to +handle, and rest upon the fact that Christ has saved +his soul. The blind man beat the Pharisees in +logic when he sturdily took his stand on experience, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +and refused to be tempted to discuss subjects which +he did not understand, or to allow his ignorance to +slacken his grasp of what he did know. “Whether +this man be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing +I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” +There was no answering that, so by excommunicating +him they confessed themselves beaten.</p> + +<p>A second encouragement to stedfast adherence +to the Gospel lies in the fact that it “was preached +in all creation under heaven.” We need not be +pedantic about literal accuracy, and may allow that +the statement has a rhetorical colouring. But what +the Apostle means is, that the gospel had spread +so widely, through so many phases of civilisation, +and had proved its power by touching men so +unlike each other in mental furniture and habits, +that it had showed itself to be a word for the whole +race. It is the same thought as we have already +found in verse 6. His implied exhortation is, “Be +not moved away from what belongs to humanity +by teachings which can only belong to a class.” +All errors are transient in duration and limited in +area. One addresses itself to one class of men, +another to another. Each false, or exaggerated, or +partial representation of religious truth, is congenial +to some group with idiosyncrasies of temperament +or mind. Different tastes like different spiced +meats, but the gospel, “human nature’s daily food,” +is the bread of God that everybody can relish, and +which everybody must have for healthy life. What +only a certain class or the men of one generation +or of one stage of culture can find nourishment +in, cannot be meant for all men. But the great +message of God’s love in Jesus Christ commends +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +itself to us because it can go into any corner of +the world, and there, upon all sorts of people, work +its wonders. So we will sit down with the women +and children upon the green grass, and eat of <i>it</i>, +however fastidious people whose appetites have +been spoiled by high-spiced meat, may find it coarse +and insipid. It would feed them too, if they would +try—but whatever they may do, let us take it as +more than our necessary food.</p> + +<p>The last of these subsidiary encouragements to +stedfastness lies in, “whereof I Paul was made a +minister.” This is not merely an appeal to their +affection for him, though that is perfectly legitimate. +Holy words may be holier because dear lips have +taught them to us, and even the truth of God may +allowably have a firmer hold upon our hearts because +of our love for some who have ministered +it to us. It is a poor commentary on a preacher’s +work if, after long service to a congregation, his +words do not come with power given to them by +old affection and confidence. The humblest teacher +who has done his Master’s errand will have some to +whom he can appeal as Paul did, and urge them to +keep hold of the message which he has preached.</p> + +<p>But there is more than that in the Apostle’s +mind. He was accustomed to quote the fact that +he, the persecutor, had been made the messenger of +Christ, as a living proof of the infinite mercy and +power of that ascended Lord, whom his eyes saw on +the road to Damascus. So here, he puts stress on +the fact that he <i>became</i> a minister of the gospel, as +being an “evidence of Christianity.” The history of +his conversion is one of the strongest proofs of the +resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. You +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +know, he seems to say, what turned me from being +a persecutor into an apostle. It was because I saw +the living Christ, and “heard the words of His +mouth,” and, I beseech you, listen to no words +which make His dominion less sovereign, and His +sole and all sufficient work on the cross less mighty +as the only power that knits earth to heaven.</p> + +<p>So the sum of this whole matter is—abide in +Christ. Let us root and ground our lives and +characters in Him, and then God’s inmost desire will +be gratified in regard to us, and He will bring even +us stainless and blameless into the blaze of His +presence. There we shall all have to stand, and +let that all-penetrating light search us through and +through. How do we expect to be then “found of +Him in peace, without spot and blameless”? There +is but one way—to live in constant exercise of faith +in Christ, and grip Him so close and sure that the +world, the flesh and the devil cannot make us loosen +our fingers. Then He will hold us up, and His +great purpose, which brought Him to earth, and +nailed Him to the cross, will be fulfilled in us, and +at last, we shall lift up voices of wondering praise +“to Him who is able to keep us from falling, and to +present us faultless before the presence of His glory +with exceeding joy.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColVIII" id="ColVIII"></a>VIII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>JOY IN SUFFERING, AND TRIUMPH IN THE +MANIFESTED MYSTERY.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part +that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His +body’s sake, which is the Church; whereof I was made a minister +according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward +to fulfil the word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid from +all ages and generations; but now hath it been manifested to His +Saints, to Whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches +of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, +the hope of glory.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> i. 24–27 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>There are scarcely any personal references in +this Epistle, until we reach the last chapter. +In this respect it contrasts strikingly with another +of Paul’s epistles of the captivity, that to the +Philippians, which is running over with affection +and with allusions to himself. This sparseness of +personal details strongly confirms the opinion that +he had not been to Colossæ. Here, however, we +come to one of the very few sections which may be +called personal, though even here it is rather Paul’s +office than himself which is in question. He is led +to speak of himself by his desire to enforce his +exhortations to faithful continuance in the gospel, +and, as is so often the case with him in touching +on his apostleship, he as it were, catches fire, and +blazes up in a grand flame, which sheds a bright +light on his lofty enthusiasm and evangelistic fervour +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +The words to be considered now are plain enough +in themselves, but they are run together, and thought +follows thought in a fashion which makes them +somewhat obscure; and there are also one or two +difficulties in single words which require to be +cleared up. We shall perhaps best bring out the +course of thought by dealing with these verses in +three groups, of which the three words, Suffering, +Service, and Mystery, are respectively the centres. +First, we have a remarkable view taken by the +prisoner of the meaning of his sufferings, as being +endured for the Church. That leads him to speak of +his relation to the Church generally as being that of +a servant or steward appointed by God, to bring to +its completion the work of God; and then, as I said, +he takes fire, and, forgetting himself, flames up in +rapturous magnifying of the grand message hid so +long, and now entrusted to him to preach. So we +have his Sufferings for the Church, his service of +Stewardship to the Church, and the great Mystery +which in that stewardship he had to unveil. It may +help us to understand both Paul and his message, as +well as our own tasks and trials, if we try to grasp +his thoughts here about his work and his sorrows.</p> + +<p>I. We have the Apostle’s triumphant contemplation +of his sufferings. “I rejoice in my sufferings +for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is +lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for +His body’s sake, which is the Church.”</p> + +<p>The Revised Version, following the best authorities, +omits the “who” with which the Authorized +Version begins this verse, and marks a new sentence +and paragraph, as is obviously right.</p> + +<p>The very first word is significant: “<i>Now</i> I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +rejoice.” Ay; it is easy to say fine things about +patience in sufferings and triumph in sorrow when +we are prosperous and comfortable; but it is +different when we are in the furnace. This man, +with the chain on his wrist, and the iron entering +into his soul, with his life in danger, and all the +future uncertain, can say, “<i>Now</i> I rejoice.” This +bird sings in a darkened cage.</p> + +<p>Then come startling words, “I on my part fill up +that which is lacking (a better rendering than ‘behind’) +of the afflictions of Christ.” It is not surprising that +many explanations of these words have tried to +soften down their boldness; as, for instance, “afflictions +borne for Christ,” or “imposed by Him,” or +“like His.” But it seems very clear that the +startling meaning is the plain meaning, and that +“the sufferings of Christ” here, as everywhere else, +are “the sufferings borne by Christ.”</p> + +<p>Then at once the questions start up, Does Paul +mean to say that in any sense whatever the sufferings +which Christ endured have anything “lacking” +in them? or does he mean to say that a Christian +man’s sufferings, however they may benefit the +Church, can be put alongside of the Lord’s, and +taken to eke out the incompleteness of His? Surely +that cannot be! Did He not say on the cross, +“It is finished”? Surely that sacrifice needs no +supplement, and can receive none, but stands “the +one sacrifice for sins for ever”! Surely, His +sufferings are absolutely singular in nature and +effect, unique and all-sufficient and eternal. And +does this Apostle, the very heart of whose gospel +was that these were the life of the world, mean to +say that anything which he endures can be tacked +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +on to them, a bit of the old rags to the new garment?</p> + +<p>Distinctly not! To say so would be contradictory +of the whole spirit and letter of the Apostle’s teaching. +But there is no need to suppose that he means +anything of the sort. There is an idea frequently +presented in Scripture, which gives full meaning to +the words, and is in full accordance with Pauline +teaching; namely, that Christ truly participates in +the sufferings of His people borne for Him. He +suffers with them. The head feels the pangs of all +the members; and every ache may be thought of as +belonging, not only to the limb where it is located, +but to the brain which is conscious of it. The pains +and sorrows and troubles of His friends and followers +to the end of time are one great whole. Each sorrow +of each Christian heart is one drop more added to +the contents of the measure which has to be filled to +the brim, ere the purposes of the Father who leads +through suffering to rest are accomplished; and all +belong to Him. Whatsoever pain or trial is borne +in fellowship with Him is felt and borne by Him. +Community of sensation is established between Him +and us. Our sorrows are transferred to Him. “In +all our afflictions He is afflicted,” both by His mystical +but most real oneness with us, and by His +brother’s sympathy.</p> + +<p>So for us all, and not for the Apostle only, the +whole aspect of our sorrows may be changed, and all +poor struggling souls in this valley of weeping may +take comfort and courage from the wonderful thought +of Christ’s union with us, which makes our griefs His, +and our pain touch Him. Bruise your finger, and the +pain pricks and stabs in your brain. Strike the man +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +that is joined to Christ here, and Christ up yonder +feels it. “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple +of His eye.” Where did Paul learn this deep lesson, +that the sufferings of Christ’s servants were Christ’s +sufferings? I wonder whether, as he wrote these +words of confident yet humble identification of himself +the persecuted with Christ the Lord, there came +back to his memory what he heard on that fateful +day as he rode to Damascus, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest +thou Me?” The thought so crushing to +the persecutor had become balm and glory to the +prisoner,—that every blow aimed at the servant falls +on the Master, who stoops from amid the glory of +the throne to declare that whatsoever is done, whether +it be kindness or cruelty, to the least of His brethren, +is done to Him. So every one of us may take the +comfort and strength of that wonderful assurance, +and roll all our burdens and sorrows on Him.</p> + +<p>Again, there is prominent here the thought that +the good of sorrow does not end with the sufferer. +His sufferings are borne in his <i>flesh</i> for the <i>body’s</i> +sake, which is the Church,—a remarkable antithesis +between the Apostle’s flesh in which, and Christ’s +body for which, the sufferings are endured. Every +sorrow rightly borne, as it will be when Christ is felt +to be bearing it with us, is fruitful of blessing. Paul’s +trials were in a special sense “for His body’s sake,” +for of course, if he had not preached the gospel, he +would have escaped them all; and on the other hand, +they have been especially fruitful of good, for if he +had not been persecuted, he would never have written +these precious letters from Rome. The Church owes +much to the violence which has shut up confessors +in dungeons. Its prison literature, beginning with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +this letter, and ending with “Pilgrim’s Progress,” has +been among its most cherished treasures.</p> + +<p>But the same thing is true about us all, though it +may be in a narrower sphere. No man gets good +for himself alone out of his sorrows. Whatever +purifies and makes gentler and more Christlike, whatever +teaches or builds up—and sorrows rightly borne +do all these—is for the common good. Be our trials +great or small, be they minute and every-day—like +gnats that hum about us in clouds, and may be swept +away by the hand, and irritate rather than hurt +where they sting—or be they huge and formidable, +like the viper that clings to the wrist and poisons +the life blood, they are meant to give us good gifts, +which we may transmit to the narrow circle of our +homes, and in ever widening rings of influence to all +around us. Have we never known a household, where +some chronic invalid, lying helpless perhaps on a +sofa, was a source of the highest blessing and the +centre of holy influence, that made every member of +the family gentler, more self-denying and loving? +We shall never understand our sorrows, unless we +try to answer the question, What good to others is +meant to come through me by this? Alas, that grief +should so often be self-absorbed, even more than joy +is! The heart sometimes opens to unselfish sharing +of its gladness with others; but it too often shuts +tight over its sorrow, and seeks solitary indulgence +in the luxury of woe. Let us learn that our brethren +claim benefit from our trials, as well as from our +good things, and seek to ennoble our griefs by +bearing them for “His body’s sake, which is the +Church.”</p> + +<p>Christ’s sufferings on His cross are the satisfaction +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +for a world’s sins, and in that view can have +no supplement, and stand alone in kind. But His +“afflictions”—a word which would not naturally be +applied to His death—do operate also to set the +pattern of holy endurance, and to teach many a +lesson; and in that view every suffering borne for +Him and with Him may be regarded as associated +with His, and helping to bless the Church and the +world. God makes the rough iron of our natures +into shining, flexible, sharp steel, by heavy hammers +and hot furnaces, that He may shape us as His +instruments to help and heal.</p> + +<p>It is of great moment that we should have such +thoughts of our sorrows whilst their pressure is upon +us, and not only when they are past. “I <i>now</i> rejoice.” +Most of us have had to let years stretch +between us and the blow before we could attain to +that clear insight. We can look back and see how +our past sorrows tended to bless us, and how Christ +was with us in them: but as for this one, that +burdens us to-day, we cannot make <i>it</i> out. We can +even have a solemn thankfulness not altogether +unlike joy as we look on those wounds that we +remember; but how hard it is to feel it about those +that pain us now! There is but one way to secure +that calm wisdom, which feels their meaning even +while they sting and burn, and can smile through +tears, as sorrowful and yet always rejoicing; and that +is to keep in very close communion with our Lord. +Then, even when we are in the whitest heat of the +furnace, we may have the Son of man with us; and +if we have, the fiercest flames will burn up nothing +but the chains that bind us, and we shall “walk at +liberty” in that terrible heat, because we walk with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +Him. It is a high attainment of Christian fortitude +and faith to feel the blessed meaning, not only of the +six tribulations which are past, but of the present +seventh, and to say, even while the iron is entering +the quivering flesh, “I <i>now</i> rejoice in my sufferings,” +and try to turn them to others’ good.</p> + +<p>II. These thoughts naturally lead on to the statement +of the Apostle’s lowly and yet lofty conception +of his office—“whereof (that is, of which <i>Church</i>) I +was made a minister, according to the dispensation +of God, which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil +the word of God.”</p> + +<p>The first words of this clause are used at the close +of the preceding section in verse 23, but the “whereof” +there refers to the gospel, not as here to the +Church. He is the servant of both, and because he +is the servant of the Church he suffers, as he has +been saying. The representation of himself as +servant gives the reason for the conduct described +in the previous clause. Then the next words explain +what makes him the Church’s servant. He is +so in accordance with, or in pursuance of, the stewardship, +or office of administrator, of His household, to +which God has called him, “to you-ward,” that is to +say, with especial reference to the Gentiles. And +the final purpose of his being made a steward is “to +fulfil the word of God”; by which is not meant “to +accomplish or bring to pass its predictions,” but “to +bring it to completion,” or “to give full development +to it,” and that possibly in the sense of preaching it +fully, without reserve, and far and wide throughout +the whole world.</p> + +<p>So lofty and yet so lowly was Paul’s thought of +his office. He was the Church’s servant, and therefore +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +bound to suffer cheerfully for its sake. He was +so, because a high honour had been conferred on +him by God, nothing less than the stewardship of +His great household the Church, in which he had +to give to every man his portion, and to exercise +authority. He is the Church’s servant indeed, but +it is because he is the Lord’s steward. And the +purpose of his appointment goes far beyond the +interests of any single Church; for while his office +sends him especially to the Colossians, its scope is +as wide as the world.</p> + +<p>One great lesson to be learned from these words +is that Stewardship means service; and we may +add that, in nine cases out of ten, service means +suffering. What Paul says, if we put it into more +familiar language, is just this: “Because God has +given me something that I can impart to others, I +am their servant, and bound, not only by my duty +to Him, but by my duty to them, to labour that +they may receive the treasure.” That is true for +us all. Every gift from the great Householder involves +the obligation to impart it. It makes us His +stewards and our brethren’s servants. We have +that we may give. The possessions are the Householder’s, +not ours, even after He has given them to +us. He gives us truths of various kinds in our +minds, the gospel in our hearts, influence from our +position, money in our pockets, not to lavish on +self, nor to hide and gloat over in secret, but that +we may transmit His gifts, and “God’s grace +fructify through us to all.” “It is required of +stewards that a man be found faithful”; and the +heaviest charge, “that he had wasted his Lord’s +goods,” lies against every one of us who does not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +use all that he possesses, whether of material or +intellectual or spiritual wealth, for the common +advantage.</p> + +<p>But that common obligation of stewardship presses +with special force on those who say that they are +Christ’s servants. If we are, we know something +of His love and have felt something of His power; +and there are hundreds of people around us, many of +whom we can influence, who know nothing of either. +That fact makes us their servants, not in the sense +of being under their control, or of taking orders +from them, but in the sense of gladly working for +them, and recognising our obligation to help them. +Our resources may be small. The Master of the +house may have entrusted us with little. Perhaps +we are like the boy with the five barley loaves and +two small fishes; but even if we had only a bit of +the bread and a tail of one of the fishes, we must +not eat our morsel alone. Give it those who have +none, and it will multiply as it is distributed, like +the barrel of meal, which did not fail because its +poor owner shared it with the still poorer prophet. +Give, and not only give, but “pray them with much +entreaty to receive the gift”; for men need to have +the true Bread pressed on them, and they will often +throw it back, or drop it over a wall, as soon as +your back is turned, as beggars do in our streets. +We have to win them by showing that we are their +servants, before they will take what we have to give. +Besides this, if stewardship is service, service is often +suffering; and he will not clear himself of his obligations +to his fellows, or of his responsibility to his +Master, who shrinks from seeking to make known the +love of Christ to his brethren, because he has often to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +“go forth weeping” whilst he bears the precious +seed.</p> + +<p>III. So we come to the last thought here, which +is of the grand Mystery of which Paul is the Apostle +and Servant. Paul always catches fire when he +comes to think of the universal destination of the +gospel, and of the honour put upon him as the man +to whom the task was entrusted of transforming the +Church from a Jewish sect to a world-wide society. +That great thought now sweeps him away from his +more immediate object, and enriches us with a burst +which we could ill spare from the letter.</p> + +<p>His task, he says, is to give its full development +to the word of God, to proclaim a certain mystery +long hid, but now revealed to those who are consecrated +to God. To these it has been God’s good +pleasure to show the wealth of glory which is contained +in this mystery, as exhibited among the +Gentile Christians, which mystery is nothing else +than the fact that Christ dwells in or among these +Gentiles, of whom the Colossians are part, and by +His dwelling in them gives them the confident expectation +of future glory.</p> + +<p>The mystery then of which the Apostle speaks +so rapturously is the fact that the Gentiles were +fellow-heirs and partakers of Christ. “Mystery” +is a word borrowed from the ancient systems, in +which certain rites and doctrines were communicated +to the initiated. There are several allusions to +them in Paul’s writings, as for instance in the +passage in Philippians iv. 12, which the Revised +Version gives as “I have learned the secret both to +be filled and to be hungry,” and probably in the +immediate context here, where the characteristic word +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +“perfect” means “initiated.” Portentous theories +which have no warrant have been spun out of this +word. The Greek mysteries implied secrecy; the +rites were done in deep obscurity; the esoteric +doctrines were muttered in the ear. The Christian +mysteries are spoken on the housetop, nor does the +word imply anything as to the comprehensibility of +the doctrines or facts which are so called.</p> + +<p>We talk about “mysteries,” meaning thereby +truths that transcend human faculties; but the New +Testament “mystery” may be, and most frequently +is, a fact perfectly comprehensible when once spoken. +“Behold I show you a mystery: We shall not all +sleep, but we shall all be changed.” There is nothing +incomprehensible in that. We should never have +known it if we had not been told; but when told +it is quite level with our faculties. And as a matter +of fact, the word is most frequently used in connection +with the notion, not of concealment, but of +declaring. We find too that it occurs frequently +in this Epistle, and in the parallel letter to the +Ephesians, and in every instance but one refers as it +does here, to a fact which was perfectly plain and +comprehensible when once made known; namely, +the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church.</p> + +<p>If that be the true meaning of the word, then “a +steward of the mysteries” will simply mean a man +who has truths, formerly unknown but now revealed, +in charge to make known to all who will hearken, +and neither the claims of a priesthood nor the demand +for the unquestioning submission of the intellect +have any foundation in this much abused term.</p> + +<p>But turning from this, we may briefly consider +what was the substance of this grand mystery which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +thrilled Paul’s soul. It is the wonderful fact that +all barriers were broken down, and that Christ dwelt +in the hearts of these Colossians. He saw in that +the proof and the prophecy of the world-wide destination +of the gospel. No wonder that his heart +burned as he thought of the marvellous work which +God had wrought by him. For there is no greater +revolution in the history of the world than that +accomplished through him, the cutting loose of +Christianity from Judaism and widening the Church +to the width of the race. No wonder that he +was misunderstood and hated by Jewish Christians +all his days!</p> + +<p>He thinks of these once heathens and now Christians +at Colossæ, far away in their lonely valley, and of +many another little community—in Judæa, Asia, +Greece, and Italy; and as he thinks of how a real +solid bond of brotherhood bound them together in +spite of their differences of race and culture, the +vision of the oneness of mankind in the Cross of +Christ shines out before him, as no man had ever +seen it till then, and he triumphs in the sorrows that +had helped to bring about the great result.</p> + +<p>That dwelling of Christ among the Gentiles +reveals the exuberant abundance of glory. To him +the “mystery” was all running over with riches, and +blazing with fresh radiance. To us it is familiar +and somewhat worn. The “vision splendid,” which +was manifestly a revelation of hitherto unknown +Divine treasures of mercy and lustrous light when it +first dawned on the Apostle’s sight, has “faded” +somewhat “into the light of common day” for us, +to whom the centuries since have shown so slow a +progress. But let us not lose more than we can +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +help, either by our familiarity with the thought, or +by the discouragements arising from the chequered +history of its partial realization. Christianity is still +the only religion which has been able to make permanent +conquests. It is the only one that has +been able to disregard latitude and longitude, and +to address and guide condition of civilization and +modes of life quite unlike those of its origin. It is +the only one that sets itself the task of conquering +the world without the sword, and has kept true to +the design for centuries. It is the only one whose +claims to be world-wide in its adaptation and +destiny would not be laughed out of court by its +history. It is the only one which is to-day a +missionary religion. And so, notwithstanding the +long centuries of arrested growth and the wide tracts +of remaining darkness, the mystery which fired +Paul’s enthusiasm is still able to kindle ours, and +the wealth of glory that lies in it has not been impoverished +nor stricken with eclipse.</p> + +<p>One last thought is here,—that the possession of +Christ is the pledge of future blessedness. “Hope” +here seems to be equivalent to “the source” or +“ground” of the hope. If we have the experience +of His dwelling in our hearts, we shall have, in that +very experience of His sweetness and of the intimacy +of His love, a marvellous quickener of our hope that +such sweetness and intimacy will continue for ever. +The closer we keep to Him, the clearer will be our +vision of future blessedness. If He is throned in +our hearts, we shall be able to look forward with a +hope, which is not less than certainty, to the perpetual +continuance of His hold of us and of our +blessedness in Him. Anything seems more credible +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +to a man who habitually has Christ abiding in him, +than that such a trifle as death should have power +to end such a union. To have Him is to have life. +To have Him will be heaven. To have Him is to +have a hope certain as memory and careless of +death or change.</p> + +<p>That hope is offered to us all. If by our faith +in His great sacrifice we grasp the great truth of +“Christ for us,” our fears will be scattered, sin and +guilt taken away, death abolished, condemnation +ended, the future a hope and not a dread. If by +communion with Him through faith, love, and +obedience, we have “Christ in us,” our purity will +grow, and our experience will be such as plainly +to demand eternity to complete its incompleteness +and to bring its folded buds to flower and fruit. If +Christ be in us, His life guarantees ours, and we +cannot die whilst He lives. The world has come, +in the persons of its leading thinkers, to the position +of proclaiming that all is dark beyond and above. +“Behold! we know not anything,” is the dreary +“end of the whole matter”—infinitely sadder than +the old Ecclesiastes, which from “vanity of vanities” +climbed to “fear God and keep His commandments,” +as the sum of human thought and life. +“I find no God; I know no future.” Yes! Paul +long ago told us that if we were “without Christ” +we should “have no hope, and be without God in +the world.” And cultivated Europe is finding out +that to fling away Christ and to keep a faith in God +or in a future life is impossible.</p> + +<p>But if we will take Him for our Saviour by +simple trust, He will give us His own presence in +our hearts, and infuse there a hope full of immortality. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +If we live in close communion with Him, +we shall need no other assurance of an eternal life +beyond than that deep, calm blessedness springing +from the imperfect fellowship of earth which must +needs lead to and be lost in the everlasting and +completed union of heaven.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColIX" id="ColIX"></a>IX.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN ITS THEME, METHODS +AND AIM.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every +man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; +whereunto I labour also, striving according to His working, which +worketh in me mightily,”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> i. 28, 29 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>The false teachers at Colossæ had a great deal +to say about a higher wisdom reserved for the +initiated. They apparently treated the Apostolic +teaching as trivial rudiments, which might be good +for the vulgar crowd, but were known by the possessors +of this higher truth to be only a veil for it. +They had their initiated class, to whom their mysteries +were entrusted in whispers.</p> + +<p>Such absurdities excited Paul’s special abhorrence. +His whole soul rejoiced in a gospel for all men. +He had broken with Judaism on the very ground +that it sought to enforce a ceremonial exclusiveness, +and demanded circumcision and ritual observances +along with faith. That was, in Paul’s estimate, to +destroy the gospel. These Eastern dreamers at +Colossæ were trying to enforce an intellectual exclusiveness +quite as much opposed to the gospel. +Paul fights with all his might against that error. +Its presence in the Church colours this context, +where he uses the very phrases of the false teachers +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +in order to assert the great principles which he +opposes to their teaching. “Mystery,” “perfect” or +initiated, “wisdom,”—these are the key-words of the +system which he is combating; and here he presses +them into the service of the principle that the gospel +is for all men, and the most recondite secrets of its +deepest truth the property of every single soul that +wills to receive them. Yes, he says in effect, we +have mysteries. We have our initiated. We have +wisdom. But we have no whispered teachings, confined +to a little coterie; we have no inner chamber +closed to the many. We are not muttering hierophants, +cautiously revealing a little to a few, and +fooling the rest with ceremonies and words. Our +whole business is to tell out as fully and loudly as +we can what we know of Christ, to tell to <i>every</i> man +<i>all</i> the wisdom that we have learned. We fling open +the inmost sanctuary, and invite all the crowd to enter.</p> + +<p>This is the general scope of the words before us +which state the object and methods of the Apostle’s +work; partly in order to point the contrast with +those other teachers, and partly in order to prepare +the way, by this personal reference, for his subsequent +exhortations.</p> + +<p>I. We have here the Apostle’s own statement of +what he conceived his life work to be.</p> + +<p>“Whom we proclaim.” All three words are emphatic. +“Whom,” not what—a person, not a system; +we “proclaim,” not we argue or dissertate about. +“We” preach—the Apostle associates himself with +all his brethren, puts himself in line with them, +points to the unanimity of their testimony—“whether +it were they or I, so we preach.” We have all one +message, a common type of doctrine.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +So then—the Christian teacher’s theme is not to +be a theory or a system, but a living Person. One +peculiarity of Christianity is that you cannot take +its message, and put aside Christ, the speaker of the +message, as you may do with all men’s teachings. +Some people say: “We take the great moral and +religious truths which Jesus declared. They are the +all-important parts of His work. We can disentangle +them from any further connection with Him. +It matters comparatively little who first spoke them.” +But that will not do. His person is inextricably +intertwined with His teaching, for a very large part +of His teaching is exclusively concerned with, and +all of it centres in, Himself. He is not only true, +but He is the truth. His message is, not only what +He said with His lips about God and man, but +also what He said about Himself, and what He did +in His life, death, and resurrection. You may take +Buddha’s sayings, if you can make sure that they +are his, and find much that is beautiful and true in +them, whatever you may think of him; you may +appreciate the teaching of Confucius, though you +know nothing about him but that he said so and so; +but you cannot do thus with Jesus. Our Christianity +takes its whole colour from what we think of Him. +If we think of Him as less than this chapter has +been setting Him forth as being, we shall scarcely +feel that <i>He</i> should be the preacher’s theme; but if +He is to us what He was to this Apostle, the sole +Revealer of God, the Centre and Lord of creation, +the Fountain of life to all which lives, the Reconciler +of men with God by the blood of His cross, then +the one message which a man may be thankful to +spend his life in proclaiming will be, Behold the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +Lamb! Let who will preach abstractions, the true +Christian minister has to preach the person and the +office—Jesus the Christ.</p> + +<p>To preach Christ is to set forth the person, the +facts of His life and death, and to accompany these +with that explanation which turns them from being +merely a biography into a gospel. So much of +“theory” must go with the “facts,” or they will +be no more a gospel than the story of another life +would be. The Apostle’s own statement of “the +gospel which he preached” distinctly lays down +what is needed—“how that Jesus Christ died.” +That is biography, and to say that and stop there +is not to preach Christ; but add, “For our sins, +according to the Scriptures, and that He was +raised again the third day,”—preach <i>that</i>, the fact +and its meaning and power, and you will preach +Christ.</p> + +<p>Of course there is a narrower and a wider sense +of this expression. There is the initial teaching, +which brings to a soul, who has never seen it before, +the knowledge of a Saviour, whose Cross is the +propitiation for sin; and there is the fuller teaching, +which opens out the manifold bearings of that +message in every region of moral and religious +thought. I do not plead for any narrow construction +of the words. They have been sorely abused, +by being made the battle-cry for bitter bigotry and +a hard system of abstract theology, as unlike what +Paul means by “Christ” as any cobwebs of Gnostic +heresy could be. Legitimate outgrowths of the +Christian ministry have been checked in their name. +They have been used as a cramping iron, as a +shibboleth, as a stone to fling at honest and especially +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +at young preachers. They have been made a +pillow for laziness. So that the very sound of the +words suggests to some ears, because of their use in +some mouths, ignorant narrowness.</p> + +<p>But for all that, they are a standard of duty for +all workers for God, which it is not difficult to +apply, if the will to do so be present, and they are +a touch-stone to try the spirits, whether they be of +God. A ministry of which the Christ who lived and +died for us is manifestly the centre to which all +converges and from which all is viewed, may sweep +a wide circumference, and include many themes. +The requirement bars out no province of thought +or experience, nor does it condemn the preacher to +a parrot-like repetition of elementary truths, or a +narrow round of commonplace. It does demand +that all themes shall lead up to Christ, and all +teaching point to Him; that He shall be ever +present in all the preacher’s words, a diffused +even when not a directly perceptible presence; and +that His name, like some deep tone on an organ, +shall be heard sounding on through all the ripple +and change of the higher notes. Preaching Christ +does not exclude any theme, but prescribes the +bearing and purpose of all; and the widest compass +and richest variety are not only possible but +obligatory for him who would in any worthy sense +take this for the motto of his ministry, “I determined +not to know anything among you, save Jesus +Christ and Him crucified.”</p> + +<p>But these words give us not only the theme but +something of the manner of the Apostle’s activity. +“We <i>proclaim</i>.” The word is emphatic in its form, +meaning <i>to tell out</i>, and representing the proclamation +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +as full, clear, earnest. “We are no muttering +mystery-mongers. From full lungs and in a voice +to make people hear, we shout aloud our message. +We do not take a man into a corner, and whisper +secrets into his ear; we cry in the streets, and our +message is for ‘every man.’”</p> + +<p>And the word not only implies the plain, loud +earnestness of the speaker, but also that what he +speaks is a <i>message</i>, that he is not a speaker of his +own words or thoughts, but of what has been told +him to tell. His gospel is a good message, and a +messenger’s virtue is to say exactly what he has +been told, and to say it in such a way that the +people to whom he has to carry it cannot but hear +and understand it.</p> + +<p>This connection of the Christian minister’s office +contrasts on the one hand with the priestly theory. +Paul had known in Judaism a religion of which the +altar was the centre, and the official function of the +“minister” was to sacrifice. But now he has come +to see that “the one sacrifice for sins for ever” +leaves no room for a sacrificing priest in that Church +of which the centre is the Cross. We sorely need +that lesson to be drilled into the minds of men to-day, +when such a strange resurrection of priestism +has taken place, and good, earnest men, whose +devotion cannot be questioned, are looking on +preaching as a very subordinate part of their work. +For three centuries there has not been so much need +as now to fight against the notion of a priesthood in +the Church, and to urge this as the true definition of +the minister’s office: “we preach,” not “we sacrifice,” +not “we <i>do</i>” anything; “we preach,” not “we work +miracles at any altar, or impart grace by any rites,” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +but by manifestation of the truth discharge our +office and spread the blessings of Christ.</p> + +<p>This conception contrasts on the other hand, +with the false teachers’ style of speech, which finds +its parallel in much modern talk. Their business +was to argue and refine and speculate, to spin +inferences and cobwebby conclusions. They sat in +a lecturer’s chair; we stand in a preacher’s pulpit. +The Christian minister has not to deal in such +wares; he has a message to proclaim, and if he +allows the “philosopher” in him to overpower the +“herald,” and substitutes his thoughts about the +message, or his arguments in favour of the message, +for the message itself, he abdicates his highest +office and neglects his most important function.</p> + +<p>We hear many demands to-day for a “higher +type of preaching,” which I would heartily echo, if +only it be <i>preaching</i>; that is, the proclamation in +loud and plain utterance of the great facts of Christ’s +work. But many who ask for this really want, not +preaching, but something quite different; and many, +as I think, mistaken Christian teachers are trying +to play up to the requirements of the age by turning +their sermons into dissertations, philosophical or +moral or æsthetic. We need to fall back on this +“we preach,” and to urge that the Christian minister +is neither priest nor lecturer, but a herald, whose +business is to tell out his message, and to take good +care that he tells it faithfully. If, instead of blowing +his trumpet and calling aloud his commission, he +were to deliver a discourse on acoustics and the +laws of the vibration of sonorous metal, or to prove +that he had a message, and to dilate on its evident +truth or on the beauty of its phrases, he would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +scarcely be doing his work. No more is the Christian +minister, unless he keeps clear before himself as +the guiding star of his work this conception of his +theme and his task—<i>Whom we preach</i>—and opposes +that to the demands of an age, one half of which +“require a sign,” and would again degrade him into +a priest, and the other calls for “wisdom,” and would +turn him into a professor.</p> + +<p>II. We have here the varying methods by which +this one great end is pursued. “Admonishing every +man and teaching every man in all wisdom.”</p> + +<p>There are then two main methods—“admonishing” +and “teaching.” The former means “admonishing +with blame,” and points, as many commentators +remark, to that side of the Christian ministry +which corresponds to repentance, while the latter +points to that side which corresponds to faith. In +other words, the former rebukes and warns, has to +do with conduct and the moral side of Christian +truth; the latter has chiefly to do with doctrine, +and the intellectual side. In the one Christ is +proclaimed as the pattern of conduct, the “new +commandment”; in the other, as the creed of +creeds, the new and perfect knowledge.</p> + +<p>The preaching of Christ then is to be unfolded +into all “warning,” or admonishing. The teaching of +morality and the admonishing of the evil and the +end of sin are essential parts of preaching Christ. +We claim for the pulpit the right and the duty of +applying the principles and pattern of Christ’s life +to all human conduct. It is difficult to do, and is +made more so by some of the necessary conditions +of our modern ministry, for the pulpit is not the +place for details; and yet moral teaching which is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +confined to general principles is woefully like repeating +platitudes and firing blank cartridges. Everybody +admits the general principles, and thinks they +do not apply to his specific wrong action; and if +the preacher goes beyond these toothless generalities, +he is met with the cry of “personalities.” If a man +preaches a sermon in which he speaks plainly about +tricks of trade or follies of fashion, somebody is +sure to say, going down the chapel steps, “Oh! +ministers know nothing of business,” and somebody +else to add, “It is a pity he was so personal,” and +the chorus is completed by many other voices, “He +should preach Christ, and leave secular things +alone.”</p> + +<p>Well! whether a sermon of that sort be preaching +Christ or not depends on the way in which it is +done. But sure I am that there is no “preaching +Christ” completely, which does not include plain +speaking about plain duties. Everything that a +man can either do rightly or wrongly belongs to the +sphere of morals, and everything within the sphere +of morals belongs to Christianity and to “preaching +Christ.”</p> + +<p>Nor is such preaching complete without plain +warning of the end of sin, as death here and hereafter. +This is difficult, for many people like to have +the smooth side of truth always put uppermost. +But the gospel has a rough side, and is by no +means a “soothing syrup” merely. There are no +rougher words about what wrongdoers come to than +some of Christ’s words; and he has only given half +his Master’s message who hides or softens down the +grim saying, “The wages of sin is death.”</p> + +<p>But all this moral teaching must be closely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +connected with and built upon Christ. Christian +morality has Jesus for its perfect exemplar, His love +for its motive, and His grace for its power. Nothing +is more impotent than mere moral teaching. What +is the use of perpetually saying to people, Be good, +be good? You may keep on at that for ever, and +not a soul will listen, any more than the crowds +on our streets are drawn to church by the bell’s +monotonous call. But if, instead of a cold ideal of +duty, as beautiful and as dead as a marble statue, +we preach the Son of man, whose life is our law +incarnate; and instead of urging to purity by +motives which our own evil makes feeble, we re-echo +His heart-touching appeal, “If ye love Me, keep My +commandments;” and if, instead of mocking lame +men with exhortations to walk, we point those who +despairingly cry, “Who shall deliver us from the +body of this death?” to Him who breathes His +living spirit into us to set us free from sin and death, +then our preaching of morality will be “preaching +the gospel” and be “preaching Christ.”</p> + +<p>This gospel is also to be unfolded into “teaching.” +In the facts of Christ’s life and death, as +we ponder them and grow up to understand them, +we get to see more and more the key to all things. +For thought, as for life, He is the alpha and omega, +the beginning and the ending. All that we can or +need know about God or man, about present duty or +future destiny, about life, death, and the beyond,—all +is in Jesus Christ, and to be drawn from Him +by patient thought and by abiding in Him. The +Christian minister’s business is to be ever learning +and ever teaching more and more of the “manifold +wisdom” of God. He has to draw for himself from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +the deep, inexhaustible fountains; he has to bear +the water, which must be fresh drawn to be pleasant +or refreshing, to thirsty lips. He must seek to +present all sides of the truth, teaching <i>all</i> wisdom, +and so escaping from his own limited mannerisms. +How many ministers’ Bibles are all dog-eared and +thumbed at certain texts, at which they almost open +of themselves, and are as clean in most of their +pages as on the day when they were bought!</p> + +<p>The Christian ministry, then, in the Apostle’s view, +is distinctly educational in its design. Preachers +and hearers equally need to be reminded of this. +We preachers are poor scholars ourselves, and in +our work are tempted, like other people, to do most +frequently what we can do with least trouble. +Besides which, we many of us know, and all suspect, +that our congregations prefer to hear what they have +heard often before, and what gives them the least +trouble. We often hear the cry for “simple preaching,” +by which one school intends “simple instruction +in plain, practical matters, avoiding mere dogma,” +and another intends “the simple gospel,” by which +is meant the repetition over and over again of the +great truth, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, +and thou shalt be saved.” God forbid that I +should say a word which might even seem to under-estimate +the need for that proclamation being made +in its simple form, as the staple of the Christian +ministry, to all who have not welcomed it into their +hearts, or to forget that, however dimly understood, +it will bring light and hope and new loves and +strengths into a soul! But the New Testament draws +a distinction between evangelists and teachers, and +common sense insists that Christian people need +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +more than the reiteration of that message from him +whom they call their “teacher.” If he is a teacher, +he should teach; and he cannot do that, if the +people who listen to him suspect everything that +they do not know already, and are impatient of +anything that gives them the trouble of attending +and thinking in order to learn. I fear there is +much unreality in the name, and that nothing would +be more distasteful to many of our congregations +than the preacher’s attempt to make it truly +descriptive of his work. Sermons should not be +“quiet resting places.” Nor is it quite the ideal of +Christian teaching that busy men should come to +church or chapel on a Sunday, and not be fatigued +by being made to think, but perhaps to be able to +sleep for a minute or two and pick up the thread +when they wake, quite sure that they have missed +nothing of any consequence. We are meant to be +teachers, as well as evangelists, though we fulfil the +function so poorly; but our hearers often make that +task more difficult by ill-concealed impatience with +sermons which try to discharge it.</p> + +<p>Observe too the emphatic repetition of “every +man” both in these two clauses and in the following. +It is Paul’s protest against the exclusiveness of the +heretics, who shut out the mob from their mysteries. +An intellectual aristocracy is the proudest and most +exclusive of all. A Church built upon intellectual +qualifications would be as hard and cruel a <i>coterie</i> +as could be imagined. So there is almost vehemence +and scorn in the persistent repetition in each clause +of the obnoxious word, as if he would thrust down +his antagonists’ throats the truth that his gospel has +nothing to do with cliques and sections, but belongs +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +to the world. To it philosopher and fool are +equally welcome. Its message is to all. Brushing +aside surface diversities, it goes straight to deep-lying +wants, which are the same in all men. Below +king’s robe and professor’s gown, and workman’s +jacket and prodigal’s rags, beats the same heart with +the same wants, wild longings, and weariness. +Christianity knows no hopeless classes. But its +highest wisdom can be spoken to the little child and +the barbarian, and it is ready to deal with the most +forlorn and foolish, knowing its own power to “warn +every man and to teach every man in all wisdom.”</p> + +<p>III. We have here the ultimate aim of these +diverse methods. “That we may present every man +perfect in Christ Jesus.”</p> + +<p>We found this same word “present” in verse 22. +The remarks made there will apply here. There +the Divine purpose of Christ’s great work, and here +Paul’s purpose in his, are expressed alike. God’s +aim is Paul’s aim too. The Apostle’s thoughts +travel on to the great coming day, when we shall all +be manifested at the judgment seat of Christ, and +preacher and hearer, Apostle and convert, shall be +gathered there. That solemn period will test the +teacher’s work, and should ever be in his view as he +works. There is a real and indissoluble connection +between the teacher and his hearers, so that in some +sense he is to blame if they do not stand perfect +then, and he in some sense has to present them +as in his work—the gold, silver, and precious +stones which he has built on the foundation. So +each preacher should work with that end clear +in view, as Paul did. He is always toiling in the +light of that great vision. One sees him, in all his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> +letters, looking away yonder to the horizon, where +he expects the breaking of its morning low down in +the eastern sky. Ah! how many formal pulpit and +how many a languid pew would be galvanised into +intense action if only their occupants once saw +burning in on them, in their decorous deadness, the +light of that great white throne! How differently +we should preach if we always felt “the terror of +the Lord,” and under its solemn influence sought to +“persuade men!” How differently we should hear +if we felt we must appear before the Judge, and +give account to Him of our profitings by His word!</p> + +<p>And the purpose which the true minister of Christ +has in view is to “present every man <i>perfect in +Christ Jesus</i>.” “Perfect” may be used here with +the technical signification of “initiated,” but it means +absolute moral completeness. Negatively, it implies +the entire removal of all defects; positively, the +complete possession of all that belongs to human +nature as God meant it to be. The Christian aim, +for which the preaching of Christ supplies ample +power, is to make the whole race possess, in fullest +development, the whole circle of possible human +excellences. There is to be no one-sided growth +but men are to grow like a tree in the open, which +has no barrier to hinder its symmetry, but rises and +spreads equally on all sides, with no branch broken +or twisted, no leaf worm-eaten or wind-torn, no fruit +blighted or fallen, no gap in the clouds of foliage, +no bend in the straight stem,—a green and growing +completeness. This absolute completeness is attainable +“in Christ,” by union with Him of that vital +sort brought about by faith, which will pour His +Spirit into our spirits. The preaching of Christ is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +therefore plainly the direct way to bring about this +perfecting. That is the Christian theory of the way +to make perfect men.</p> + +<p>And this absolute perfection of character is, in +Paul’s belief, possible for every man, no matter what +his training or natural disposition may have been. +The gospel is confident that it can change the +Ethiopian’s skin, because it can change his heart, +and the leopard’s spots will be altered when it “eats +straw like the ox.” There are no hopeless classes, +in the glad, confident view of the man who has +learned Christ’s power.</p> + +<p>What a vision of the future to animate work! +What an aim! What dignity, what consecration, +what enthusiasm it would give, making the trivial +great and the monotonous interesting, stirring up +those who share it to intense effort, overcoming low +temptations, and giving precision to the selection of +means and use of instruments! The pressure of a +great, steady purpose consolidates and strengthens +powers, which, without it, become flaccid and feeble. +We can make a piece of calico as stiff as a board by +putting it under an hydraulic press. Men with a +fixed purpose are terrible men. They crash through +conventionalities like a cannon ball. They, and they +only, can persuade and arouse and impress their own +enthusiasm on the inert mass. “Behold, how great +a matter a little fire kindleth!” No Christian minister +will work up to the limits of his power, nor do +much for Christ or man, unless his whole soul is +mastered by this high conception of the possibilities +of his office, and unless he is possessed with the +ambition to present every man “perfect in Christ +Jesus.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +IV. Note the struggle and the strength with +which the Apostle reaches toward this aim. “Whereunto +I labour also, striving according to His working, +which worketh in me mightily.”</p> + +<p>As to the object, theme, and method of the +Christian ministry, Paul can speak, as he does in the +previous verses, in the name of all his fellow +workers: “<i>We</i> preach, admonishing and teaching, +that we may present.” There was substantial unity +among them. But he adds a sentence about his +own toil and conflict in doing his work. He will +only speak for himself now. The others may say +what their experience has been. He has found that +he cannot do his work easily. Some people may be +able to get through it with little toil of body or +agony of mind, but for himself it has been laborious +work. He has not learned to “take it easy.” That +great purpose has been ever before him, and made +a slave of him. “I labour <i>also</i>”; I do not only +preach, but I <i>toil</i>—as the word literally implies—like +a man tugging at an oar, and putting all his +weight into each stroke. No great work for God +will be done without physical and mental strain and +effort. Perhaps there were people in Colossæ who +thought that a man who had nothing to do but to +preach had a very easy life, and so the Apostle had +to insist that most exhausting work is brain work +and heart work. Perhaps there were preachers and +teachers there who worked in a leisurely, dignified +fashion, and took great care always to stop a long +way on the safe side of weariness; and so he had +to insist that God’s work cannot be done at all in +that fashion, but has to be done “with both hands, +earnestly.” The “immortal garland” is to be run for, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +“not without dust and heat.” The racer who takes +care to slack his speed whenever he is in danger of +breaking into a perspiration will not win the prize. +The Christian minister who is afraid of putting all +his strength into his work, up to the point of weariness, +will never do much good.</p> + +<p>There must be not only toil, but conflict. He +labours, “<i>striving</i>”—that is to say, contending—with +hindrances, both without and within, which +sought to mar his work. There is the struggle with +one’s self, with the temptations to do high work +from low motives, or to neglect it, and to substitute +routine for inspiration and mechanism for fervour. +One’s own evil, one’s weaknesses and fears and +falsities, and laziness and torpor and faithlessness, +have all to be fought, besides the difficulties and +enemies without. In short, all good work is a +battle.</p> + +<p>The hard strain and stress of this life of effort and +conflict made this man “Paul the aged” while he +was not old in years. Such soul’s agony and travail +is indispensable for all high service of Christ. How +can any true, noble Christian life be lived without +continuous effort and continual strife? Up to the +last particle of our power, it is our duty to work. +As for the sleepy, languid, self-indulgent service of +modern Christians, who seem to be chiefly anxious +not to overstrain themselves, and to manage to win +the race set before them without turning a hair, I +am afraid that a large deduction will have to be +made from it in the day that shall “try every man’s +work, of what sort it is.”</p> + +<p>So much for the struggle; now for the strength. +The toil and the conflict are to be carried on “according +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +to His working, which worketh in me mightily.” +The measure of our power then is Christ’s power +in us. He whose presence makes the struggle +necessary, by His presence strengthens us for it. +He will dwell in us and work in us, and even our +weakness will be lifted into joyful strength by Him. +We shall be mighty because that mighty Worker +is in our spirits. We have not only His presence +beside us as an ally, but His grace within us. We +may not only have the vision of our Captain +standing at our side as we front the foe—an unseen +presence to them, but inspiration and victory to us—but +we may have the consciousness of His power +welling up in our spirits and flowing, as immortal +strength, into our arms. It is much to know that +Christ fights for us; it is more to know that He +fights in us.</p> + +<p>Let us take courage then for all work and conflict; +and remember that if we have not “striven +according to the power”—that is, if we have not +utilised <i>all</i> our Christ-given strength in His service—we +have not striven enough. There may be a +double defect in us. We may not have taken all +the power that he Has given, and we may not have +used all the power that we have taken. Alas, for us! +we have to confess both faults. How weak we have +been when Omnipotence waited to give Itself to us! +How little we have made our own of the grace that +flows so abundantly past us, catching such a small part +of the broad river in our hands, and spilling so +much even of that before it reached our lips! And +how little of the power given, whether natural or +spiritual, we have used for our Lord! How many +weapons have hung rusty and unused in the fight! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +He has sowed much in our hearts, and reaped little. +Like some unkindly soils, we have “drunk in the +rain which cometh oft upon it,” and have “<i>not</i> +brought forth herbs fit for Him by whom it is +dressed.” Talents hid, the Master’s goods squandered, +power allowed to run to waste, languid service +and half-hearted conflict, we have all to acknowledge. +Let us go to Him and confess that, “we have +most unthankful been,” and are unprofitable servants +indeed, coming far short of duty. Let us yield our +spirits to His influence, that He may work in us +that which is pleasing in His sight, and may encircle +us with ever-growing completeness of beauty and +strength, until He “present us faultless before the +presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColX" id="ColX"></a>X.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>PAUL’S STRIVING FOR THE COLOSSIANS.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“For I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for +them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the +flesh; that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in +love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that +they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in Whom are all the +treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> ii. 1–3 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We have seen that the closing portion of the +previous chapter is almost exclusively personal. +In this context the same strain is continued, +and two things are dwelt on: the Apostle’s agony +of anxiety for the Colossian Church, and the joy +with which, from his prison, he travelled in spirit +across mountain and sea, and saw them in their quiet +valley, cleaving to the Lord. The former of these +feelings is expressed in the words now before us; +the latter, in the following verses.</p> + +<p>All this long outpouring of self-revelation is so +natural and characteristic of Paul that we need +scarcely look for any purpose in it, and yet we may +note with what consummate art he thereby prepares +the way for the warnings which follow. The +unveiling of his own throbbing heart was sure to +work on the affections of his readers and to incline +them to listen. His profound emotion in thinking +of the preciousness of his message would help to +make them feel how much was at stake, and his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +unfaltering faith would give firmness to their less +tenacious grasp of the truth which, as they saw, +he gripped with such force. Many truths may be +taught coolly, and some must be. But in religious +matters, arguments wrought in frost are powerless, +and earnestness approaching to passion is the all-conquering +force. A teacher who is afraid to show +his feelings, or who has no feelings to show, will +never gather many disciples.</p> + +<p>So this revelation of the Apostle’s heart is relevant +to the great purposes of the whole letter—the +warning against error, and the exhortation to stedfastness. +In the verses which we are now considering, +we have the conflict which Paul was waging +set forth in three aspects: first, in itself; second, in +regard to the persons for whom it was waged; and, +finally and principally, in regard to the object or +purpose in view therein. The first and second of +these points may be dealt with briefly. The third +will require further consideration.</p> + +<p>I. There is first the conflict, which he earnestly +desired that the Colossian Christians might know to +be “great.” The word rendered in the Authorised +Version “conflict,” belongs to the same root as that +which occurs in the last verse of the previous chapter, +and is there rendered “striving.” The Revised +Version rightly indicates this connection by its +translation, but fails to give the construction as +accurately as the older translation does. “What +great strife I have” would be nearer the Greek, and +more forcible than the somewhat feeble “how +greatly I strive,” which the Revisers have adopted. +The conflict referred to is, of course, that of the +arena, as so often in Paul’s writings.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +But how could he, in Rome, wage conflict on +behalf of the Church at Colossæ? No external +conflict can be meant. He could strike no blows +on their behalf. What he could do in that way, he +did, and he was now taking part in their battle by +this letter. If he could not fight by their side, he +could send them ammunition, as he does in this +great Epistle, which was, no doubt, to the eager +combatants for the truth at Colossæ, what it has +been ever since, a magazine and arsenal in all +their warfare. But the real struggle was in his own +heart. It meant anxiety, sympathy, an agony of +solicitude, a passion of intercession. What he says +of Epaphras in this very Epistle was true of himself. +He was “always striving in prayer for them.” And +by these wrestlings of spirit he took his place among +the combatants, though they were far away, and +though in outward seeming, his life was untouched +by any of the difficulties and dangers which +hemmed them in. In that lonely prison-cell, remote +from their conflict, and with burdens enough of his +own to carry, with his life in peril, his heart yet +turned to them and, like some soldier left behind to +guard the base while his comrades had gone forward +to the fight, his ears listened for the sound of battle, +and his thoughts were in the field. His prison cell +was like the focus of some reverberating gallery +in which every whisper spoken all round the circumference +was heard, and the heart that was held +captive there was set vibrating in all its chords by +every sound from any of the Churches.</p> + +<p>Let us learn the lesson, that, for all Christian +people, sympathy in the battle for God, which is being +waged all over the world, is plain duty. For all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +Christian teachers of every sort, an eager sympathy +in the difficulties and struggles of those whom they +would try to teach is indispensable. We can never +deal wisely with any mind until we have entered into +its peculiarities. We can never help a soul fighting +with errors and questionings until we have ourselves +felt the pinch of the problems, and have shown that +soul that we know what it is to grope and stumble. +No man is ever able to lift a burden from another’s +shoulders except on condition of bearing the burden +himself. If I stretch out my hand to some poor +brother struggling in “the miry clay,” he will not +grasp it, and my well-meant efforts will be vain, +unless he can see that I too have felt with him the +horror of great darkness, and desire him to share +with me the benedictions of the light.</p> + +<p>Wheresoever our prison or our workshop may be, +howsoever Providence or circumstances—which is but +a heathenish word for the same thing—may separate +us from active participation in any battle for God, +we are bound to take an eager share in it by sympathy, +by interest, by such help as we can render, +and by that intercession which may sway the fortunes +of the field, though the uplifted hands grasp no +weapons, and the spot where we pray be far from +the fight. It is not only the men who bear the +brunt of the battle in the high places of the field +who are the combatants. In many a quiet home, +where their wives and mothers sit, with wistful faces +waiting for the news from the front, are an agony of +anxiety, and as true a share in the struggle as amidst +the battery smoke and the gleaming bayonets. It +was a law in Israel, “As his part is that goeth down +to the battle, so shall his part be that abideth by the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> +stuff. They shall part alike.” They were alike in +recompense, because they were rightly regarded as +alike in service. So all Christians who have in heart +and sympathy taken part in the great battle shall be +counted as combatants and crowned as victors, though +they themselves have struck no blows. “He that +receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall +receive a prophet’s reward.”</p> + +<p>II. We notice the persons for whom this conflict +was endured. They are the Christians of Colossæ, +and their neighbours of Laodicea, and “as many +as have not seen my face in the flesh.” It may be +a question whether the Colossians and Laodiceans +belong to those who have not seen his face in the flesh, +but the most natural view of the words is that the last clause +“introduces the whole class to which the persons previously enumerated +belong,”<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +and this conclusion is confirmed by the silence of the +Acts of the Apostles as to any visit of Paul’s to these +Churches, and by the language of the Epistle itself, +which, in several places, refers to his knowledge of +the Colossian Church as derived from hearing of +them, and never alludes to personal intercourse. +That being so, one can understand that its members +might easily think that he cared less for them than +he did for the more fortunate communities which he +had himself planted or watered, and might have suspected +that the difficulties of the Church at Ephesus, +for instance, lay nearer his heart than theirs in their +remote upland valley. No doubt, too, their feelings +to him were less warm than to Epaphras and to +other teachers whom they had heard. They had +never felt the magnetism of his personal presence, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +and were at a disadvantage in their struggle with +the errors which were beginning to lift their snaky +heads among them, from not having had the inspiration +and direction of his teaching.</p> + +<p>It is beautiful to see how, here, Paul lays hold +of that very fact which seemed to put some film of +separation between them, in order to make it the +foundation of his especial keenness of interest in +them. Precisely because he had never looked them +in the eyes, they had a warmer place in his heart, +and his solicitude for them was more tender. He +was not so enslaved by sense that his love could +not travel beyond the limits of his eyesight. He +was the more anxious about them because they had +not the recollections of his teaching and of his +presence to fall back upon.</p> + +<p>III. But the most important part of this section +is the Apostle’s statement of the great subject of his +solicitude, that which he anxiously longed that the +Colossians might attain. It is a prophecy, as well +as a desire. It is a statement of the deepest purpose +of his letter to them, and being so, it is likewise a +statement of the Divine desire concerning each of us, +and of the Divine design of the gospel. Here is set +forth what God would have all Christians to be, and, +in Jesus Christ, has given them ample means of +being.</p> + +<p>(1) The first element in the Apostle’s desire for +them is “that their hearts may be comforted.” Of +course the Biblical use of the word “heart” is much +wider than the modern popular use of it. We mean +by it, when we use it in ordinary talk, the hypothetical +seat of the emotions, and chiefly, the organ +and throne of love; but Scripture means by the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +word, the whole inward personality, including thought +and will as well as emotion. So we read of the +“thoughts and intents of the heart,” and the whole +inward nature is called “the hidden man of the +heart.”</p> + +<p>And what does he desire for this inward man? +That it may be “comforted.” That word again has +a wider signification in Biblical, than in nineteenth +century English. It is much more than consolation +in trouble. The cloud that hung over the Colossian +Church was not about to break in sorrows which +they would need consolation to bear, but in doctrinal +and practical errors which they would need strength +to resist. They were called to fight rather than to +endure, and what they needed most was courageous +confidence. So Paul desires for them that their +hearts should be <i>encouraged</i> or strengthened, that +they might not quail before the enemy, but go into +the fight with buoyancy, and be of good cheer.</p> + +<p>Is there any greater blessing in view both of the +conflict which Christianity has to wage to-day, and +of the difficulties and warfare of our own lives, than +that brave spirit, which plunges into the struggle +with the serene assurance that victory sits on our +helms and waits upon our swords, and knows that +anything is possible rather than defeat? That is the +condition of overcoming—even our faith. “The sad +heart tires in a mile,” but the strong hopeful heart +carries in its very strength the prophecy of triumph.</p> + +<p>Such a disposition is not altogether a matter of +temperament, but may be cultivated, and though it +may come easier to some of us than to others, it +certainly ought to belong to all who have God to +trust to, and believe that the gospel is His truth. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +They may well be strong who have Divine power +ready to flood their hearts, who know that everything +works for their good, who can see, above the whirl +of time and change, one strong loving Hand which +moves the wheels. What have we to do with fear +for ourselves, or wherefore should our “hearts tremble +for the ark of God,” seeing that One fights by our +sides who will teach our hands to war and cover our +heads in the day of battle? “Be of good courage, +and He shall strengthen thine heart.”</p> + +<p>(2) The way to secure such joyous confidence and +strength is taught us here, for we have next, <i>Union +in love</i>, as part of the means for obtaining it—“They +being knit together in love.” The persons, +not the hearts, are to be thus united. Love is the +true bond which unites men—the bond of perfectness, +as it is elsewhere called. That unity in love +would, of course, add to the strength of each. The +old fable teaches us that little fagots bound together +are strong, and the tighter the rope is pulled, the +stronger they are. A solitary heart is timid and +weak, but many weaknesses brought together make +a strength, as slimly built houses in a row hold each +other up, or dying embers raked closer burst into +flame. Loose grains of sand are light and moved +by a breath; compacted they are rock against which +the Atlantic beats in vain. So, a Church, of which +the members are bound together by that love which +is the only real bond of Church life, presents a front +to threatening evils through which they cannot break. +A real moral defence against even intellectual error +will be found in such a close compaction in mutual +Christian love. A community so interlocked will +throw off many evils, as a Roman legion with linked +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +shields roofed itself over against missiles from the +wall of a besieged city, or the imbricated scales on +a fish keep it dry in the heart of the sea.</p> + +<p>But we must go deeper than this in interpreting +these words. The love which is to knit Christian +men together is not merely love to one another, but +is common love to Jesus Christ. Such common love +to Him is the true bond of union, and the true +strengthener of men’s hearts.</p> + +<p>(3) This compaction in love will lead to a wealth +of certitude in the possession of the truth.</p> + +<p>Paul is so eagerly desirous for the Colossians’ +union in love to each other and all to God, because +He knows that such union will materially contribute +to their assured and joyful possession of the truth. +It tends, he thinks, unto “all riches of the full +assurance of understanding,” by which he means +the wealth which consists in the entire, unwavering +certitude which takes possession of the understanding, +the confidence that it has the truth and +the life in Jesus Christ. Such a joyful stedfastness +of conviction that I have grasped the truth is opposed +to hesitating half belief. It is attainable, as this +context shows, by paths of moral discipline, and +amongst them, by seeking to realize our unity with +our brethren, and not proudly rejecting the “common +faith” because it is common. Possessing that +assurance, we shall be rich and heart-whole. Walking +amid certainties we shall walk in paths of peace, +and re-echo the triumphant assurance of the Apostle, +to whom love had given the key of knowledge:—“we +know that we are of God, and we know that +the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, +that we may know Him that is true.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +In all times of religious unsettlement, when an +active propaganda of denial is going on, Christian +men are tempted to lower their own tone, and to +say, “It is so,” with somewhat less of certainty, +because so many are saying, “It is not so.” Little +Rhoda needs some courage to affirm constantly that +“it was even so,” when apostles and her masters +keep assuring her that she has only seen a vision. +In this day, many professing Christians falter in the +clear assured profession of their faith, and it does +not need a keen ear to catch an undertone of doubt +making their voices tremulous. Some even are so +afraid of being thought “narrow,” that they seek +for the reputation of liberality by talking as if there +were a film of doubt over even the truths which +used to be “most surely believed.” Much of the +so-called faith of this day is all honeycombed with +secret misgivings, which have in many instances no +other intellectual basis than the consciousness of +prevalent unbelief and a second-hand acquaintance +with its teachings. Few things are more needed +among us now than this full assurance and satisfaction +of the understanding with the truth as it is +in Jesus. Nothing is more wretched than the slow +paralysis creeping over faith, the fading of what had +been stars into darkness. A tragedy is being +wrought in many minds which have had to exchange +Christ’s “Verily, verily,” for a miserable +“perhaps,” and can no longer say “I know,” but only, +“I would fain believe,” or at the best, “I incline to +think still.” On the other hand, the “full assurance +of the understanding” brings wealth. It breathes +peace over the soul, and gives endless riches in the +truths which through it are made living and real.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> +This wealth of conviction is attained by living in +the love of God. Of course, there is an intellectual +discipline which is also needed. But no intellectual +process will lead to an assured grasp of spiritual +truth, unless it be accompanied by love. As soon +may we lay hold of truth with our hands, as of God +in Christ with our understandings alone. This is the +constant teaching of Scripture—that, if we would +know God and have assurance of Him, we must love +Him. “In order to love human things, it is +necessary to know them. In order to know Divine +things, it is necessary to love them.” When we +are rooted and grounded in love, we shall be able +to know—for what we have most need to know and +what the gospel has mainly to teach us is the love, +and “unless the eye with which we look is love, how +shall we know love?” If we love, we shall possess +an experience which verifies the truth for us, will +give us an irrefragable demonstration which will +bring certitude to ourselves, however little it may +avail to convince others. Rich in the possession +of this confirmation of the gospel by the blessings +which have come to us from it, and which witness +of their source, as the stream that dots some barren +plain with a line of green along its course is revealed +thereby, we shall have the right to oppose to +many a doubt the full assurance born of love, and +while others are disputing whether there be any God, +or any living Christ, or any forgiveness of sins, or +any guiding providence, we shall know that they are, +and are ours, because we have felt the power and +wealth which they have brought into our lives.</p> + +<p>(4) This unity of love will lead to full knowledge +of the mystery of God. Such seems to be the connection +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +of the next words, which may be literally read +“unto the full knowledge of the mystery of God,” +and may be best regarded as a co-ordinate clause +with the preceding, depending like it on “being +knit together in love.” So taken, there is set forth +a double issue of that compaction in love to God +and one another, namely, the calm assurance in the +grasp of truth already possessed, and the more +mature and deeper insight into the deep things of +God. The word for knowledge here is the same as +in i. 9, and here as there means a full knowledge. +The Colossians had known Christ at first, but the +Apostle’s desire is that they may come to a fuller +knowledge, for the object to be known is infinite, +and endless degrees in the perception and possession +of His power and grace are possible. In that +fuller knowledge they will not leave behind what +they knew at first, but will find in it deeper meaning, +a larger wisdom and a fuller truth.</p> + +<p>Among the large number of readings of the following +words, that adopted by the Revised Version is +to be preferred, and the translation which it gives +is the most natural and is in accordance with the +previous thought in chapter i. 27, where also “the +mystery” is explained to be “Christ in you.” A +slight variation in the conception is presented here. +The “mystery” is Christ, not “in you,” but “in +Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and +knowledge.” The great truth long hidden, now +revealed, is that the whole wealth of spiritual insight +(knowledge), and of reasoning on the truths thus +apprehended so as to gain an ordered system of +belief and a coherent law of conduct (wisdom), is +stored for us in Christ.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> +Such being in brief the connection and outline +meaning of these great words, we may touch upon +the various principles embodied in them. We have +seen, in commenting upon a former part of the +Epistle, the force of the great thought that Christ in +His relations to us is the mystery of God, and need +not repeat what was then said. But we may pause +for a moment on the fact that the knowledge of +that mystery has its stages. The revelation of the +mystery is complete. No further stages are possible +in that. But while the revelation is, in Paul’s +estimate, finished, and the long concealed truth now +stands in full sunshine, our apprehension of it may +grow, and there is a mature knowledge possible. +Some poor ignorant soul catches through the gloom +a glimpse of God manifested in the flesh, and bearing +his sins. That soul will never outgrow that knowledge, +but as the years pass, life and reflection and +experience will help to explain and deepen it. God +so loved the world that He gave His only begotten +Son—there is nothing beyond that truth. Grasped +however imperfectly, it brings light and peace. +But as it is loved and lived by, it unfolds undreamed-of +depths, and flashes with growing brightness. +Suppose that a man could set out from the great +planet that moves on the outermost rim of our +system, and could travel slowly inwards towards the +central sun, how the disc would grow, and the light +and warmth increase with each million of miles that +he crossed, till what had seemed a point filled the +whole sky! Christian growth is into, not away +from Christ, a penetrating deeper into the centre, +and a drawing out into distinct consciousness as a +coherent system, all that was wrapped, as the leaves +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +in their brown sheath, in that first glimpse of Him +which saves the soul.</p> + +<p>These stages are infinite, because in Him are all +the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These four +words, <i>treasures</i>, <i>wisdom</i>, <i>knowledge</i>, <i>hidden</i>, are all +familiar on the lips of the latter Gnostics, and were +so, no doubt, in the mouths of the false teachers at +Colossæ. The Apostle would assert for his gospel +all which they falsely claimed for their dreams. As +in several other places of this Epistle, he avails +himself of his antagonists’ special vocabulary, transferring +its terms, from the illusory phantoms which a +false knowledge adorned with them, to the truth +which he had to preach. He puts special emphasis +on the predicate “hidden” by throwing it to the end +of the sentence—a peculiarity which is reproduced +with advantage in the Revised Version.</p> + +<p>All wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. He is +the Light of men, and all thought and truth of every +sort come from Him Who is the Eternal Word, +the Incarnate Wisdom. That Incarnate Word is the +perfect Revelation of God, and by His one completed +life and death has declared the whole name +of God to His brethren, of which all other media of +revelation have but uttered broken syllables. That +ascended Christ breathes wisdom and knowledge into +all who love Him, and still pursues, by giving us the +Spirit of wisdom, His great work of revealing God +to men, according to His own word, which at once +asserted the completeness of the revelation made by +His earthly life and promised the perpetual continuance +of the revelation from His heavenly seat: +“I have declared Thy name unto My brethren, and +will declare it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +In Christ, as in a great storehouse, lie all the +riches of spiritual wisdom, the massive ingots of solid +gold which when coined into creeds and doctrines +are the wealth of the Church. All which we can +know concerning God and man, concerning sin and +righteousness and duty, concerning another life, is in +Him Who is the home and deep mine where truth is +stored.</p> + +<p>In Christ these treasures are “hidden,” but not, +as the heretics’ mysteries were hidden, in order that +they might be out of reach of the vulgar crowd. +This mystery is hidden indeed, but it is revealed. +It is hidden only from the eyes that will not see it. +It is hidden that seeking souls may have the joy +of seeking and the rest of finding. The very act of +revealing is a hiding, as our Lord has said in His +great thanksgiving because these things are (by one +and the same act) “hid from the wise and prudent, +and revealed to babes.” They are hid, as men store +provisions in the Arctic regions, in order that +the bears may not find them and the shipwrecked +sailors may.</p> + +<p>Such thoughts have a special message for times +of agitation such as the Colossian Church was passing +through, and such as we have to face. We too are +surrounded by eager confident voices, proclaiming +profounder truths and a deeper wisdom than the +gospel gives us. In joyful antagonism to these, +Christian men have to hold fast by the confidence +that all Divine wisdom is laid up in their Lord. +We need not go to others to learn new truth. The +new problems of each generation to the end of time +will find their answers in Christ, and new issues of +that old message which we have heard from the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> +beginning will continually be discerned. Let us not +wonder if the lessons which the earlier ages of the +Church drew from that infinite storehouse fail at +many points to meet the eager questionings of to-day. +Nor let us suppose that the stars are quenched +because the old books of astronomy are in some +respects out of date. We need not cast aside the +truths that we learned at our mother’s knees. The +central fact of the universe and the perfect encyclopædia +of all moral and spiritual truth is Christ, the +Incarnate Word, the Lamb slain, the ascended King. +If we keep true to Him and strive to widen our +minds to the breadth of that great message, it will +grow as we gaze, even as the nightly heavens expand +to the eye which stedfastly looks into them, and +reveal violet abysses sown with sparkling points, +each of which is a sun. “Lord, to whom shall we +go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”</p> + +<p>The ordinary type of Christian life is contented +with a superficial acquaintance with Christ. Many +understand no more of Him and of His gospel than +they did when first they learned to love Him. So +completely has the very idea of a progressive knowledge +of Jesus Christ faded from the horizon of the +average Christian that “edification,” which ought to +mean the progressive building up of the character +course by course, in new knowledge and grace, has +come to mean little more than the sense of comfort +derived from the reiteration of old and familiar words +which fall on the ear with a pleasant murmur. +There is sadly too little first-hand and growing +knowledge of their Lord, among Christian people, +too little belief that fresh treasures may be found +hidden in that field which, to each soul and each +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +new generation struggling with its own special forms +of the burdens and problems that press upon +humanity, would be cheaply bought by selling all, +but may be won at the easier rate of earnest desire +to possess them, and faithful adherence to Him in +whom they are stored for the world. The condition +of growth for the branch is abiding in the vine. If +our hearts are knit together with Christ’s heart in +that love which is the parent of communion, both as +delighted contemplation and as glad obedience, then +we shall daily dig deeper into the mine of wealth +which is hid in Him that it may be found, and draw +forth an unfailing supply of things new and old.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> +Bishop Lightfoot, <i>in loc.</i></p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXI" id="ColXI"></a>XI.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>CONCILIATORY AND HORTATORY TRANSITION TO +POLEMICS.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“This I say, that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of +speech. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the +spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your +faith in Christ.</p> + +<p>“As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, +rooted and builded up in Him, and stablished in your faith, even as +ye were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> ii. 4–7 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>Nothing needs more delicacy of hand and +gentleness of heart than the administration of +warning or reproof, especially when directed against +errors of religious opinion. It is sure to do harm +unless the person reproved is made to feel that it +comes from true kindly interest in him, and does full +justice to his honesty. Warning so easily passes +into scolding, and sounds to the warned so like it +even when the speaker does not mean it so, that +there is special need to modulate the voice very +carefully.</p> + +<p>So in this context, the Apostle has said much +about his deep interest in the Colossian Church, +and has dwelt on the passionate earnestness of his +solicitude for them, his conflict of intercession and +sympathy, and the large sweep of his desires for their +good. But he does not feel that he can venture to +begin his warnings till he has said something more, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +so as to conciliate them still further, and to remove +from their minds other thoughts unfavourable to the +sympathetic reception of his words. One can fancy +some Colossians saying, “What need is there for all +this anxiety? Why should Paul be in such a taking +about us? He is exaggerating our danger, and doing +scant justice to our Christian character.” Nothing +stops the ear to the voice of warning more surely +than a feeling that it is pitched in too solemn a key, +and fails to recognise the good.</p> + +<p>So before he goes further, he gathers up his +motives in giving the following admonitions, and +gives his estimate of the condition of the Colossians, +in the two first of the verses now under consideration. +All that he has been saying has been said not so +much because he thinks that they have gone wrong, +but because he knows that there are heretical teachers +at work, who may lead them astray with plausible +lessons. He is not combating errors which have +already swept away the faith of the Colossian +Christians, but putting them on their guard against +such as threaten them. He is not trying to pump +the water out of a water-logged vessel, but to stop a +little leak which is in danger of gaping wider. And, +in his solicitude, he has much confidence and is +encouraged to speak because, absent from them as +he is, he has a vivid assurance, which gladdens him, +of the solidity and firmness of their faith.</p> + +<p>So with this distinct definition of the precise +danger which he feared, and this soothing assurance +of his glad confidence in their stedfast order, the +Apostle at last opens his batteries. The 6th and +7th verses are the first shot fired, the beginning of +the monitions so long and carefully prepared for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> +They contain a general exhortation, which may be +taken as the keynote for the polemical portion of +the Epistle, which occupies the rest of the chapter.</p> + +<p>I. We have then first, the purpose of the Apostle’s +previous self-revelation. “This I say”—this namely +which is contained in the preceding verses, the expression +of his solicitude, and perhaps even more +emphatically, the declaration of Christ as the revealed +secret of God, the inexhaustible storehouse of all +wisdom and knowledge. The purpose of the Apostle, +then, in his foregoing words has been to guard the +Colossians against the danger to which they were +exposed, of being deceived and led astray by “persuasiveness +of speech.” That expression is not +necessarily used in a bad sense, but here it evidently +has a tinge of censure, and implies some doubt +both of the honesty of the speakers and of the truthfulness +of their words. Here we have an important +piece of evidence as to the then condition of the +Colossian Church. There were false teachers busy +amongst them who belonged in some sense to the +Christian community. But probably these were not +Colossians, but wandering emissaries of a Judaizing +Gnosticism, while certainly the great mass of the +Church was untouched by their speculations. They +were in danger of getting bewildered, and being +<i>deceived</i>, that is to say, of being induced to accept +certain teaching because of its speciousness, without +seeing all its bearings, or even knowing its real +meaning. So error ever creeps into the Church. +Men are caught by something fascinating in some +popular teaching, and follow it without knowing +where it will lead them. By slow degrees its +tendencies are disclosed, and at last the followers of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +the heresiarch wake to find that everything which +they once believed and prized has dropped from +their creed.</p> + +<p>We may learn here, too, the true safeguard +against specious errors. Paul thinks that he can +best fortify these simple-minded disciples against all +harmful teaching by exalting his Master and urging +the inexhaustible significance of His person and +message. To learn the full meaning and preciousness +of Christ is to be armed against error. The +positive truth concerning Him, by preoccupying +mind and heart, guards beforehand against the most +specious teachings. If you fill the coffer with gold, +nobody will want, and there will be no room for, +pinchbeck. A living grasp of Christ will keep us +from being swept away by the current of prevailing +popular opinion, which is always much more likely +to be wrong than right, and is sure to be exaggerated +and one-sided at the best. A personal +consciousness of His power and sweetness will give +an instinctive repugnance to teaching that would +lower His dignity and debase His work. If He be +the centre and anchorage of all our thoughts, we shall +not be tempted to go elsewhere in search of the +“treasures of wisdom and knowledge” which “are +hid in Him.” He who has found the one pearl of +great price, needs no more to go seeking goodly +pearls, but only day by day more completely to lose +self, and give up all else, that he may win more and +more of Christ his All. If we keep our hearts and +minds in communion with our Lord, and have experience +of His preciousness, that will preserve us +from many a snare, will give us a wisdom beyond +much logic, will solve for us many of the questions +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +most hotly debated to-day, and will show us that +many more are unimportant and uninteresting to us. +And even if we should be led to wrong conclusions +on some matters, “if we drink any deadly thing, it +shall not hurt us.”</p> + +<p>II. We see here the joy which blended with the +anxiety of the solitary prisoner, and encouraged him +to warn the Colossians against impending dangers +to their faith.</p> + +<p>We need not follow the grammatical commentators +in their discussion of how Paul comes to +invert the natural order here, and to say “joying +and beholding,” instead of “beholding and rejoicing” +as we should expect. No one doubts that +what he saw in spirit was the cause of his joy. +The old man in his prison, loaded with many cares, +compelled to be inactive in the cause which was +more to him than life, is yet full of spirit and +buoyancy. His prison-letters all partake of that +“rejoicing in the Lord,” which is the keynote of +one of them. Old age and apparent failure, and +the exhaustion of long labours, and the disappointments +and sorrows which almost always gather like +evening clouds round a life as it sinks in the west +had not power to quench his fiery energy or to blunt +his keen interest in all the Churches. His cell was +like the centre of a telephonic system. Voices +spoke from all sides. Every Church was connected +with it, and messages were perpetually being +brought. Think of him sitting there, eagerly +listening, and thrilling with sympathy at each word, +so self-oblivious was he, so swallowed up were all +personal ends in the care for the Churches, and in +the swift, deep fellow-feeling with them? Love and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> +interest quickened his insight, and though he was +far away, he had them so vividly before him that +he was as if a spectator. The joy which he had in +the thought of them made him dwell on the thought—so +the apparently inverted order of the words +may be the natural one and he may have looked all +the more fixedly because it gladdened him to look.</p> + +<p>What did he see? “Your order.” That is +unquestionably a military metaphor, drawn probably +from his experiences of the Prætorians, while in +captivity. He had plenty of opportunities of studying +both the equipment of the single legionary, who, +in the 6th chapter of Ephesians, sat for his portrait +to the prisoner to whom he was chained, and also +the perfection of discipline in the whole which made +the legion so formidable. It was not a multitude +but a unit, “moving altogether if it move at all,” as +if animated by one will. Paul rejoices to know that +the Colossian Church was thus welded into a solid +unity.</p> + +<p>Further, he beholds “the stedfastness of your +faith in Christ.” This may be a continuation of the +military metaphor, and may mean “the solid front, +the close phalanx” which your faith presents. But +whether we suppose the figure to be carried on or +dropped, we must, I think, recognise that this second +point refers rather to the inward condition than to +the outward discipline of the Colossians.</p> + +<p>Here then is set forth a lofty ideal of the Church, +in two respects. First there is outwardly, an +ordered disciplined array; and secondly, there is a +stedfast faith.</p> + +<p>As to the first, Paul was no martinet, anxious +about the pedantry of the parade ground, but he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +knew the need of organization and drill. Any body +of men united in order to carry out a specific purpose +have to be organized. That means a place for every +man, and every man in his place. It means co-operation +to one common end, and therefore division of +function and subordination. Order does not merely +mean obedience to authority. There may be equal +“order” under widely different forms of polity. The +legionaries were drawn up in close ranks, the light-armed +skirmishers more loosely. In the one case +the phalanx was more and the individual less; in +the other there was more play given to the single +man, and less importance to corporate action; but +the difference between them was not that of order +and disorder, but that of two systems, each organized +but on somewhat different principles and for different +purposes. A loosely linked chain is as truly a chain +as a rigid one. The main requirement for such +“order” as gladdened the Apostle is conjoint action +to one end, with variety of office, and unity of spirit.</p> + +<p>Some Churches give more weight to the principle +of authority; others to that of individuality. They +may criticise each other’s polity, but the former has +no right to reproach the latter as being necessarily +defective in “order.” Some Churches are all drill +and their favourite idea of discipline is, Obey them +that have the rule over you. The Churches of looser +organization, on the other hand, are no doubt in +danger of making too little of organization. But +both need that all their members should be more +penetrated by the sense of unity, and should fill each +his place in the work of the body. It was far easier +to secure the true order—a place and a task for +every man and every man in his place and at his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +task—in the small homogeneous communities of +apostolic times than it is now, when men of such +different social position, education, and ways of thinking +are found in the same Christian community. +The proportion of idlers in all Churches is a scandal +and a weakness. However highly organized and +officered a Church may be, no joy would fill an +apostle’s heart in beholding it, if the mass of its +members had no share in its activities. Every +society of professing Christians should be like a man +of war’s crew, each of whom knows the exact inch +where he has to stand when the whistle sounds, and +the precise thing he has to do in the gun drill.</p> + +<p>But the perfection of discipline is not enough. +That may stiffen into routine if there be not something +deeper. We want life even more than order. +The description of the soldiers who set David on the +throne should describe Christ’s army—“men that +could keep rank, they were not of double heart.” +They had discipline and had learned to accommodate +their stride to the length of their comrades’ step; +but they had whole-hearted enthusiasm, which was +better. Both are needed. If there be not courage +and devotion there is nothing worth disciplining. +The Church that has the most complete order and +not also stedfastness of faith will be like the German +armies, all pipeclay and drill, which ran like hares +before the ragged shoeless levies whom the first +French Revolution flung across the border with a +fierce enthusiasm blazing in their hearts. So the +Apostle beholds with joy the stedfastness of the +Colossians’ faith toward Christ.</p> + +<p>If the rendering “stedfastness” be adopted as in +the Rev. Ver., the phrase will be equivalent to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +“firmness which characterizes or belongs to your +faith.” But some of the best commentators deny +that this meaning of the word is ever found, and +propose “foundation” (that which is made stedfast). +The meaning then will either be “the firm foundation +(for your lives) which consists of your faith,” or, +more probably, “the firm foundation which your +faith has.” He rejoices, seeing that their faith +towards Jesus Christ has a basis unshaken by assaults.</p> + +<p>Such a rock foundation, and consequent stedfastness, +must faith have, if it is to be worthy of the +name and to manifest its true power. A tremulous +faith may, thank God! be a true faith, but the very +idea of faith implies solid assurance and fixed confidence. +Our faith should be able to resist pressure +and to keep its ground against assaults and gainsaying. +It should not be like a child’s card castle, +that the light breath of a scornful laugh will throw +down, but</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">“a tower of strength<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That stands foursquare to all the winds that blow.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We should seek to make it so, nor let the fluctuations +of our own hearts cause it to fluctuate. We +should try so to control the ebb and flow of religious +emotion that it may always be near high water with +our faith, a tideless but not stagnant sea. We should +oppose a settled conviction and unalterable confidence +to the noisy voices which would draw us away.</p> + +<p>And that we may do so we must keep up a true +and close communion with Jesus Christ. The faith +which is ever going out “towards” Him, as the sunflower +turns sunwards, will ever draw from Him such +blessed gifts that doubt or distrust will be impossible. +If we keep near our Lord and wait expectant on +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> +Him, He will increase our faith and make our +“hearts fixed, trusting in the Lord.” So a greater +than Paul may speak even to us, as He walks in the +midst of the golden candlesticks, words which from +<i>His</i> lips will be praise indeed: “Though I am +absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, +joying and beholding your order and the stedfastness +of your faith in Me.”</p> + +<p>III. We have here, the exhortation which comprehends +all duty, and covers the whole ground of +Christian belief and practice.</p> + +<p>“Therefore”—the following exhortation is based +upon the warning and commendation of the preceding +verses. There is first a wide general injunction. +“As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so +walk in Him,” <i>i.e.</i> let your active life be in accord +with what you learned and obtained when you first +became Christians. Then this exhortation is defined +or broken up into four particulars in the following +clauses, which explain in detail how it is to be kept.</p> + +<p>The general exhortation is to a true Christian +walk. The main force lies upon the “as.” The +command is to order all life in accordance with the +early lessons and acquisitions. The phrase “ye +received Christ Jesus the Lord” presents several +points requiring notice. It is obviously parallel +with “as ye were taught” in the next verse; so that +it was from their first teachers, and probably from +Epaphras (i. 7) that they had “received Christ.” So +then what we receive, when, from human lips, we +hear the gospel and accept it, is not merely the +word about the Saviour, but the Saviour Himself. +This expression of our text is no mere loose or +rhetorical mode of speech, but a literal and blessed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +truth. Christ is the sum of all Christian teaching +and, where the message of His love is welcomed, +He Himself comes in spiritual and real presence, and +dwells in the spirit.</p> + +<p>The solemnity of the full name of our Saviour in +this connection is most significant. Paul reminds +the Colossians, in view of the teaching which +degraded the person and curtailed the work of +Christ, that they had received the man Jesus, the +promised Christ, the universal Lord. As if he had +said, Remember whom you received in your conversion—<i>Christ</i>, +the Messiah, anointed, that is, fitted +by the unmeasured possession of the Divine Spirit +to fulfil all prophecy and to be the world’s deliverer. +Remember <i>Jesus</i>, the man, our brother;—therefore +listen to no misty speculations nor look to whispered +mysteries nor to angel hierarchies for knowledge of +God or for help in conflict. Our gospel is not +theory spun out of men’s brains, but is, first and +foremost, the history of a brother’s life and death. +You received <i>Jesus</i>, so you are delivered from the +tyranny of these unsubstantial and portentous +systems, and relegated to the facts of a human life +for your knowledge of God. You received Jesus +Christ as <i>Lord</i>. He was proclaimed as Lord of men, +angels, and the universe, Lord and Creator of the +spiritual and material worlds, Lord of history and +providence. Therefore you need not give heed to +those teachers who would fill the gulf between men +and God with a crowd of powers and rulers. You +have all that your mind or heart or will can need in +the human Divine Jesus, who is the Christ and the +Lord for you and all men. You have received Him +in the all-sufficiency of His revealed nature and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +offices. You have Him for your very own. Hold +fast that which you have, and let no man take this +your crown and treasure. The same exhortation +has emphatic application to the conflicts of to-day. +The Church has had Jesus set forth as Christ and +Lord. His manhood, the historical reality of His +Incarnation with all its blessed issues, His Messiahship +as the fulfiller of prophecy and symbol, designated +and fitted by the fulness of the Spirit, to be +man’s deliverer, His rule and authority over all +creatures and events have been taught, and the +tumults of present unsettlement make it hard and +needful to keep true to that threefold belief, and to +let nothing rob us of any of the elements of the full +gospel which lies in the august name, Christ Jesus +the Lord.</p> + +<p>To that gospel, to that Lord, the walk, the active +life, is to be conformed, and the manner thereof is +more fully explained in the following clauses.</p> + +<p>“Rooted and built up in Him.” Here again we +have the profound “in Him,” which appears so frequently +in this and in the companion Epistle to the +Ephesians, and which must be allowed its proper +force, as expressing a most real indwelling of the +believer in Christ, if the depth of the meaning is to +be sounded.</p> + +<p>Paul drives his fiery chariot through rhetorical proprieties, +and never shrinks from “mixed metaphors” +if they more vigorously express his thought. Here +we have three incongruous ones close on each other’s +heels. The Christian is to <i>walk</i>, to be <i>rooted</i> like +a tree, to be <i>built up</i> like a house. What does the +incongruity matter to Paul as the stream of thought +and feeling hurries him along?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> +The tenses of the verbs, too, are studiously and +significantly varied. Fully rendered they would be +“having been rooted and being builded up.” The +one is a past act done once for all, the effects of +which are permanent; the other is a continuous +resulting process which is going on now. The +Christian has been rooted in Jesus Christ at the +beginning of his Christian course. His faith has +brought him into living contact with the Saviour, +who has become as the fruitful soil into which the +believer sends his roots, and both feeds and anchors +there. The familiar image of the first Psalm may +have been in the writer’s mind, and naturally recurs +to ours. If we draw nourishment and stability from +Christ, round whom the roots of our being twine and +cling, we shall flourish and grow and bear fruit. No +man can do without some person beyond himself on +whom to repose, nor can any of us find in ourselves +or on earth the sufficient soil for our growth. We +are like seedlings dropped on some great rock, which +send their rootlets down the hard stone and are +stunted till they reach the rich leaf-mould at its +base. We blindly feel through all the barrenness +of the world for something into which our roots may +plunge that we may be nourished and firm. In +Christ we may be “like a tree planted by the river +of water;” out of Him we are “as the chaff,” +rootless, lifeless, profitless, and swept at last by the +wind from the threshing floor. The choice is before +every man—either to be rooted in Christ by faith, +or to be rootless.</p> + +<p>“Being built up in Him.” The gradual continuous +building up of the structure of a Christian +character is doubly expressed in this word by the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +present tense which points to a process, and by +the prefixed preposition represented by “up,” which +points to the successive laying of course of masonry +upon course. We are the architects of our own +characters. If our lives are based on Jesus Christ +as their foundation, and every deed is in vital +connection with Him, as at once its motive, its +pattern, its power, its aim, and its reward, then we +shall build holy and fair lives, which will be temples. +Men do not merely grow as a leaf which “grows +green and broad, and takes no care.” The other +metaphor of a building needs to be taken into +account, to complete the former. Effort, patient +continuous labour must be put forth. More than +“forty and six years is this temple in building.” +A stone at a time is fitted into its place, and so +after much toil and many years, as in the case of +some mediæval cathedral unfinished for centuries, the +topstone is brought forth at last. This choice, too, +is before all men—to build on Christ and so to +build for eternity, or on sand and so to be crushed +below the ruins of their fallen houses.</p> + +<p>“Stablished in your faith, even as ye were taught.” +This is apparently simply a more definite way of +putting substantially the same thoughts as in the +former clauses. Possibly the meaning is “stablished +by faith,” the Colossians’ faith being the instrument +of their establishment. But the Revised Version is +probably right in its rendering, “stablished in,” or +as to, “your faith.” Their faith, as Paul had just +been saying, was stedfast, but it needed yet increased +firmness. And this exhortation, as it were, translates +the previous ones into more homely language, +that if any man stumbled at the mysticism of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +thoughts there, he might grasp the plain practicalness +here. If we are established and confirmed in +our faith, we shall be rooted and built up in Jesus, +for it is faith which joins us to Him, and its increase +measures our growth in and into Him.</p> + +<p>There then is a very plain practical issue of these +deep thoughts of union with Jesus. A progressive +increase of our faith is the condition of all Christian +progress. The faith which is already the firmest, +and by its firmness may gladden an Apostle, is still +capable of and needs strengthening. Its range can +be enlarged, its tenacity increased, its power over +heart and life reinforced. The eye of faith is never +so keen but that it may become more longsighted; its +grasp never so close but that it may be tightened; +its realisation never so solid but that it may be +more substantial; its authority never so great but +that it may be made more absolute. This continual +strengthening of faith is the most essential form of a +Christian’s effort at self-improvement. Strengthen +faith and you strengthen all graces; for it measures +our reception of Divine help.</p> + +<p>And the furthest development which faith can +attain should ever be sedulously kept in harmony +with the initial teaching—“even as ye were taught.” +Progress does not consist in dropping the early +truths of Jesus Christ the Lord for newer wisdom +and more speculative religion, but in discovering +ever deeper lessons and larger powers in these +rudiments which are likewise the last and highest +lessons which men can learn.</p> + +<p>Further, as the daily effort of the believing soul +ought to be to strengthen the quality of his faith, so +it should be to increase its amount—“abounding in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> +it with thanksgiving.” Or if we adopt the reading +of the Revised Version, we shall omit the “in it,” +and find here only an exhortation to thanksgiving. +That is, in any case, the main idea of the clause, +which adds to the former the thought that thanksgiving +is an inseparable accompaniment of vigorous +Christian life. It is to be called forth, of course, +mainly by the great gift of Christ, in whom we are +rooted and builded, and, in Paul’s judgment it is the +very spring of Christian progress.</p> + +<p>That constant temper of gratitude implies a +habitual presence to the mind, of God’s great mercy +in His unspeakable gift, a continual glow of heart +as we gaze, a continual appropriation of that gift for +our very own, and a continual outflow of our heart’s +love to the Incarnate and Immortal Love. Such +thankfulness will bind us to glad obedience, and will +give swiftness to the foot and eagerness to the will, +to run in the way of God’s commandments. It is +like genial sunshine, all flowers breathe perfume and +fruits ripen under its influence. It is the fire which +kindles the sacrifice of life and makes it go up in +fragrant incense-clouds, acceptable to God. The +highest nobleness of which man is capable is reached +when, moved by the mercies of God, we yield ourselves +living sacrifices, thank-offerings to Him Who +yielded Himself the sin-offering for us. The life +which is all influenced by thanksgiving will be pure, +strong, happy, in its continual counting of its gifts, +and in its thoughts of the Giver, and not least happy +and beautiful in its glad surrender of itself to Him +who has given Himself for and to it. The noblest +offering that we can bring, the only recompense +which Christ asks, is that our hearts and our lives +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +should say, We thank thee, O Lord. “By Him, +therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God +continually,” and the continual thanksgiving will +ensure continuous growth in our Christian character, +and a constant increase in the strength and depth of +our faith.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXII" id="ColXII"></a>XII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through +his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the +rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwelleth all +the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are made full, Who is +the head of all principality and power.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> ii. 8–10 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We come now to the first plain reference to the +errors which were threatening the peace of the +Colossian community. Here Paul crosses swords +with the foe. This is the point to which all his +previous words have been steadily converging. +The immediately preceding context contained the +positive exhortation to continue in the Christ Whom +they had received, having been rooted in Him as the +tree in a fertile place “by the rivers of water,” and +being continually builded up in Him, with ever-growing +completeness of holy character. The same +exhortation in substance is contained in the verses +which we have now to consider, with the difference +that it is here presented negatively, as warning and +dehortation, with distinct statement of the danger +which would uproot the tree and throw down the +building, and drag the Colossians away from union +with Christ.</p> + +<p>In these words the Bane and Antidote are both +before us. Let us consider each.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +I. The Poison against which Paul warns the +Colossians is plainly described in our first verse, the +terms of which may require a brief comment.</p> + +<p>“Take heed lest there shall be.” The construction +implies that it is a real and not a hypothetical danger +which he sees threatening. He is not crying “wolf” +before there is need.</p> + +<p>“Any one”—perhaps the tone of the warning +would be better conveyed if we read the more +familiar “somebody”; as if he had said—“I name +no names—it is not the persons but the principles +that I fight against—but you know whom I mean +well enough. Let him be anonymous, you understand +who it is.” Perhaps there was even a single +“somebody” who was the centre of the mischief.</p> + +<p>“That maketh spoil of you.” Such is the full +meaning of the word—and not “injure” or “rob,” +which the translation in the Authorized Version +suggests to an English reader. Paul sees the +converts in Colossæ taken prisoners and led away +with a cord round their necks, like the long strings +of captives on the Assyrian monuments. He had +spoken in the previous chapter (ver. 13) of the +merciful conqueror who had “translated” them +from the realm of darkness into a kingdom of light, +and now he fears lest a robber horde, making a +raid upon the peaceful colonists in their happy new +homes, may sweep them away again into bondage.</p> + +<p>The instrument which the man-stealer uses, or +perhaps we may say, the cord, whose fatal noose will +be tightened round them, if they do not take care, +is “philosophy and vain deceit.” If Paul had been +writing in English, he would have put “philosophy” +in inverted commas, to show that he was quoting +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +the heretical teachers’ own name for their system, +if system it may be called, which was really a chaos. +For the true love of wisdom, for any honest, humble +attempt to seek after her as hid treasure, neither +Paul nor Paul’s Master have anything but praise and +sympathy and help. Where he met real, however +imperfect, searchers after truth, he strove to find +points of contact between them and his message, +and to present the gospel as the answer to their +questionings, the declaration of that which they +were groping to find. The thing spoken of here has +no resemblance but in name to what the Greeks in +their better days first called philosophy, and nothing +but that mere verbal coincidence warrants the representation—often +made both by narrow-minded +Christians, and by unbelieving thinkers—that Christianity +takes up a position of antagonism or suspicion +to it.</p> + +<p>The form of the expression in the original shows +clearly that “vain deceit,” or more literally “empty +deceit,” describes the “philosophy” which Paul is +bidding them beware of. They are not two things, +but one. It is like a blown bladder, full of wind, +and nothing else. In its lofty pretensions, and if +we take its own account of itself, it is a love of and +search after wisdom; but if we look at it more closely, +it is a swollen nothing, empty and a fraud. This is +what he is condemning. The genuine thing he has +nothing to say about here.</p> + +<p>He goes on to describe more closely this impostor, +masquerading in the philosopher’s cloak. It +is “after the traditions of men.” We have seen in +a former chapter what a strange heterogeneous conglomerate +of Jewish ceremonial and Oriental dreams +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +the false teachers in Colossæ were preaching. Probably +both these elements are included here. It is +significant that the very expression, “the traditions +of men,” is a word of Christ’s, applied to the +Pharisees, whom He charges with “leaving the +commandment of God, and holding fast the tradition +of men” (Mark vii. 8). The portentous undergrowth +of such “traditions” which, like the riotous fertility +of creepers in a tropical forest, smother and kill the +trees round which they twine, is preserved for our +wonder and warning in the Talmud, where for thousands +and thousands of pages, we get nothing but +Rabbi So and So said this, but Rabbi So and So +said that; until we feel stifled, and long for one +Divine Word to still all the babble.</p> + +<p>The Oriental element in the heresy, on the other +hand, prided itself on a hidden teaching which was +too sacred to be entrusted to books, and was passed +from lip to lip in some close conclave of muttering +teachers and listening adepts. The fact that all this, +be it Jewish, be it Oriental teaching, had no higher +source than men’s imaginings and refinings, seems to +Paul the condemnation of the whole system. His +theory is that in Jesus Christ, every Christian man +has the full truth concerning God and man, in their +mutual relations,—the authoritative Divine declaration +of all that can be known, the perfect exemplar +of all that ought to be done, the sun-clear illumination +and proof of all that dare be hoped. What an absurd +descent, then, from the highest of our prerogatives, +to “turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven,” +in order to listen to poor human voices, speaking +men’s thoughts!</p> + +<p>The lesson is as needful to-day as ever. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +special forms of men’s traditions in question here +have long since fallen silent, and trouble no man +any more. But the tendency to give heed to human +teachers and to suffer them to come between us and +Christ is deep in us all. There is at one extreme +the man who believes in no revelation from God, +and, smiling at us Christians who accept Christ’s +words as final and Himself as the Incarnate truth, +often pays to his chosen human teacher a deference +as absolute as that which he regards as superstition, +when we render it to our Lord. At the other +extremity are the Christians who will not let Christ +and the Scripture speak to the soul, unless the +Church be present at the interview, like a jailer, with +a bunch of man-made creeds jingling at its belt. +But it is not only at the two ends of the line, but +all along its length, that men are listening to +“traditions” of men and neglecting “the commandment +of God.” We have all the same tendency in +us. Every man carries a rationalist and a traditionalist +under his skin. Every Church in Christendom, +whether it has a formal creed or no, is +ruled as to its belief and practice, to a sad extent, +by the “traditions of the elders.” The “freest” of +the Nonconformist Churches, untrammelled by any +formal confession, may be bound with as tight +fetters, and be as much dominated by men’s opinions, +as if it had the straitest of creeds. The mass of +our religious beliefs and practices has ever to be +verified, corrected and remodelled, by harking back +from creeds, written or unwritten, to the one Teacher, +the endless significance of Whose person and work is +but expressed in fragments by the purest and widest +thoughts even of those who have lived nearest to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +Him, and seen most of His beauty. Let us get +away from men, from the Babel of opinions and the +strife of tongues, that we may “hear the words of +His mouth!” Let us take heed of the empty fraud +which lays the absurd snare for our feet, that we can +learn to know God by any means but by listening +to His own speech in His Eternal Word, lest it lead +us away captive out of the Kingdom of the Light! +Let us go up to the pure spring on the mountain +top, and not try to slake our thirst at the muddy +pools at its base! “Ye are Christ’s, be not the slave +of men.” “This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him.”</p> + +<p>Another mark of this empty pretence of wisdom +which threatens to captivate the Colossians is, that +it is “after the rudiments of the world.” The word +rendered “rudiments” means the letters of the alphabet, +and hence comes naturally to acquire the +meaning of “elements,” or “first principles,” just as +we speak of the A B C of a science. The application +of such a designation to the false teaching, is, +like the appropriation of the term “mystery” to the +gospel, an instance of turning the tables and giving +back the teachers their own words. They boasted +of mysterious doctrines reserved for the initiated, of +which the plain truths that Paul preached were but +the elements, and they looked down contemptuously +on his message as “milk for babes.” Paul retorts on +them, asserting that the true mystery, the profound +truth long hidden and revealed, is the word which +he preached, and that the poverty-stricken elements, +fit only for infants, are in that swelling inanity which +called itself wisdom and was not. Not only does +he brand it as “rudiments,” but as “rudiments of +the <i>world</i>,” which is worse—that is to say, as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> +belonging to the sphere of the outward and material, +and not to the higher region of the spiritual, where +Christian thought ought to dwell. So two weaknesses +are charged against the system: it is the +mere alphabet of truth, and therefore unfit for grown +men. It moves, for all its lofty pretensions, in the +region of the visible and mundane things and is +therefore unfit for spiritual men. What features of +the system are referred to in this phrase? Its use +in the Epistle to the Galatians (iv. 3), as a synonyme +for the whole system of ritual observances and +ceremonial precepts of Judaism, and the present +context, which passes on immediately to speak of +circumcision, point to a similar meaning here, though +we may include also the ceremonial and ritual of the +Gentile religions, in so far as they contributed to the +outward forms which the Colossian heresy sought to +impose on the Church. This then is Paul’s opinion +about a system which laid stress on ceremonial and +busied itself with forms. He regards it as a deliberate +retrogression to an earlier stage. A religion of +rites had come first, and was needed for the spiritual +infancy of the race—but in Christ we ought to +have outgrown the alphabet of revelation, and, being +men, to have put away childish things. He regards +it further as a pitiable descent into a lower sphere, +a fall from the spiritual realm to the material, and +therefore unbecoming for those who have been enfranchised +from dependence upon outward helps and +symbols, and taught the spirituality and inwardness +of Christian worship.</p> + +<p>We need the lesson in this day no less than did +these Christians in the little community in that +remote valley of Phrygia. The forms which were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> +urged on them are long since antiquated, but the +tendency to turn Christianity into a religion of ceremonial +is running with an unusually powerful current +to-day. We are all more interested in art, and think +we know more about it than our fathers did. The +eye and the ear are more educated than they used +to be, and a society as “æsthetic” and “musical” +as much cultured English society is becoming, will +like an ornate ritual. So, apart altogether from +doctrinal grounds, much in the conditions of to-day +works towards ritual religion. Nonconformist services +are less plain; some go from their ranks because +they dislike the “bald” worship in the chapel, and +prefer the more elaborate forms of the Anglican +Church, which in its turn is for the same reason +left by others who find their tastes gratified by +the complete thing, as it is to be enjoyed full blown +in the Roman Catholic communion. We may freely +admit that the Puritan reaction was possibly too +severe, and that a little more colour and form might +with advantage have been retained. But enlisting +the senses as the allies of the spirit in worship is +risky work. They are very apt to fight for their +own hand when they once begin, and the history of +all symbolic and ceremonial worship shows that the +experiment is much more likely to end in sensualising +religion than in spiritualising sense. The theory that +such aids make a ladder by which the soul may +ascend to God is perilously apt to be confuted by +experience, which finds that the soul is quite as +likely to go down the ladder as up it. The gratification +of taste, and the excitation of æsthetic +sensibility, which are the results of such aids to +worship, are not worship, however they may be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> +mistaken as such. All ceremonial is in danger of +becoming opaque instead of transparent as it was +meant to be, and of detaining mind and eye instead +of letting them pass on and up to God. Stained +glass is lovely, and white windows are “barnlike,” +and “starved,” and “bare”; but perhaps, if the +object is to get light and to see the sun, these +solemn purples and glowing yellows are rather in +the way. I for my part believe that of the two +extremes, a Quaker’s meeting is nearer the ideal of +Christian worship than High Mass, and so far as +my feeble voice can reach, I would urge, as eminently +a lesson for the day, Paul’s great principle here, that +a Christianity making much of forms and ceremonies +is a distinct retrogression and descent. You are +men in Christ, do not go back to the picture book +A B C of symbol and ceremony, which was fit for +babes. You have been brought in to the inner +sanctuary of worship in spirit; do not decline to +the beggarly elements of outward form.</p> + +<p>Paul sums up his indictment in one damning +clause, the result of the two preceding. If the +heresy have no higher source than men’s traditions, +and no more solid contents than ceremonial observances, +it cannot be “after Christ.” He is +neither its origin, nor its substance, nor its rule and +standard. There is a fundamental discord between +every such system, however it may call itself Christian, +and Christ. The opposition may be concealed by +its teachers. They and their victims may not be +aware of it. They may not themselves be conscious +that by adopting it they have slipped off the +foundation; but they have done so, and though +in their own hearts they be loyal to Him, they have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +brought an incurable discord into their creeds which +will weaken their lives, if it do not do worse. Paul +cared very little for the dreams of these teachers, +except in so far as they carried them and others +away from his Master. The Colossians might +have as many ceremonies as they liked, and welcome; +but when these interfered with the sole +reliance to be placed on Christ’s work, then they +must have no quarter. It is not merely because +the teaching was “after the traditions of men, after +the rudiments of the world,” but because being so, +it was “not after Christ,” that Paul will have none +of it. He that touches his Master touches the +apple of his eye, and shades of opinion, and things +indifferent in practice, and otherwise unimportant +forms of worship, have to be fought to the death if +they obscure one corner of the perfect and solitary +work of the One Lord, who is at once the source, +the substance, and the standard of all Christian +teaching.</p> + +<p>II. The Antidote.—“For in Him dwelleth all the +fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are +made full, who is the head of all principality and +power.”</p> + +<p>These words may be a reason for the warning—“Take +heed, <i>for</i>”; or they may be a reason for the +implied exclusion of any teaching which is not after +Christ. The statement of its characteristics carries +in itself its condemnation. Anything “not after +Christ” is <i>ipso facto</i> wrong, and to be avoided—“for,” +etc. “In Him” is placed with emphasis at the beginning, +and implies “and nowhere else.” “Dwelleth,” +that is, has its permanent abode; where the tense +is to be noticed also, as pointing to the ascended +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> +Christ. “All the fulness of the Godhead,” that is, +the whole unbounded powers and attributes of Deity, +where is to be noted the use of the abstract term +<i>Godhead</i>, instead of the more usual <i>God</i>, in order to +express with the utmost force the thought of the +indwelling in Christ of the whole essence and nature +of God. “Bodily,” that points to the Incarnation, +and so is an advance upon the passage in the former +chapter (ver. 19), which speaks of “the fulness” +dwelling in the Eternal Word, whereas this speaks +of the Eternal Word in whom the fulness dwelt becoming +flesh. So we are pointed to the glorified +corporeal humanity of Jesus Christ in His exaltation +as the abode, now and for ever, of all the fulness of the +Divine nature, which is thereby brought very near +to us. This grand truth seems to Paul to shiver to +pieces all the dreams of these teachers about angel +mediators, and to brand as folly every attempt to +learn truth and God anywhere else but in Him.</p> + +<p>If He be the one sole temple of Deity in whom +all Divine glories are stored, why go anywhere else +in order to <i>see</i> or to <i>possess</i> God? It is folly; for +not only are all these glories stored in Him, but +they are so stored on purpose to be reached by us. +Therefore the Apostle goes on, “and in Him ye are +made full;” which sets forth two things as true in +the inward life of all Christians, namely, their living +incorporation in and union with Christ, and their +consequent participation in His fulness. Every one +of us may enter into that most real and close union +with Jesus Christ by the power of continuous faith +in Him. So may we be grafted into the Vine, and +builded into the Rock. If thus we keep our hearts +in contact with His heart and let Him lay His lip +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +on our lips, He will breathe into us the breath of +His own life, and we shall live because He lives, and +in our measure, as He lives. All the fulness of God +is in Him, that from Him it may pass into us. We +might start back from such bold words if we did not +remember that the same apostle who here tells us +that that fulness dwells in Jesus, crowns his wonderful +prayer for the Ephesian Christians with that +daring petition, “that ye may be filled with all the +fulness of God.” The treasure was lodged in the +earthen vessel of Christ’s manhood that it might be +within our reach. He brings the fiery blessing of a +Divine life from Heaven to earth enclosed in the +feeble reed of His manhood, that it may kindle +kindred fire in many a heart. Freely the water of +life flows into all cisterns from the ever fresh stream, +into which the infinite depth of that unfathomable +sea of good pours itself. Every kind of spiritual +blessing is given therein. That stream, like a river +of molten lava, holds many precious things in its +flaming current, and will cool into many shapes +and deposit many rare and rich gifts. According +to our need it will vary itself, being to each +what the moment most requires,—wisdom, or +strength, or beauty, or courage, or patience. Out of +it will come whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever +things are of good report, as Rabbinical legends +tell us that the manna tasted to each man like the +food for which he wished most.</p> + +<p>This process of receiving of all the Divine fulness +is a continuous one. We can but be approximating +to the possession of the infinite treasure which is +ours in Christ; and since the treasure is infinite, and +we can indefinitely grow in capacity of receiving +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +God, there must be an eternal continuance of the +filling and an eternal increase of the measure of +what fills us. Our natures are elastic, and in love +and knowledge, as well as in purity and capacity for +blessedness, there are no bounds to be set to their +possible expansion. They will be widened by bliss +into a greater capacity for bliss. The indwelling +Christ will “enlarge the place of His habitation,” +and as the walls stretch and the roofs soar, He will +fill the greater house with the light of His presence +and the fragrance of His name. The condition of +this continuous reception of the abundant gift of a +Divine life is abiding in Jesus. It is “in Him” that +we are “being filled full”—and it is only so long +as we continue in Him that we continue full. We +cannot bear away our supplies, as one might a full +bucket from a well, and keep it full. All the grace +will trickle out and disappear unless we live in +constant union with our Lord, whose Spirit passes +into our deadness only so long as we are joined +to Him.</p> + +<p>From all such thoughts Paul would have us draw +the conclusion—how foolish, then, it must be to go +to any other source for the supply of our needs! +Christ is “the head of all principality and power,” +he adds, with a reference to the doctrine of angel +mediators, which evidently played a great part in +the heretical teaching. If He is sovereign head of +all dignity and power on earth and heaven, why go +to the ministers, when we have access to the King; +or have recourse to erring human teachers, when we +have the Eternal Word to enlighten us; or flee to +creatures to replenish our emptiness, when we may +draw from the depths of God in Christ? Why should +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +we go on a weary search after goodly pearls when the +richest of all is by us, if we will have it? Do we seek +to know God? Let us behold Christ, and let men talk +as they list. Do we crave a stay for our spirit, guidance +and impulse for our lives? Let us cleave to +Christ, and we shall be no more lonely and bewildered. +Do we need a quieting balm to be laid on conscience, +and the sense of guilt to be lifted from our hearts? +Let us lay our hands on Christ, the one sacrifice, +and leave all other altars and priests and ceremonies. +Do we look longingly for some light on the future? +Let us stedfastly gaze on Christ as He rises to +heaven bearing a human body into the glory of God.</p> + +<p>Though all the earth were covered with helpers +and lovers of my soul, “as the sand by the sea +shore innumerable,” and all the heavens were sown +with faces of angels who cared for me and succoured +me, thick as the stars in the milky way—all could +not do for me what I need. Yea, though all these +were gathered into one mighty and loving creature, +even he were no sufficient stay for one soul of man. +We want more than creature help. We need the +whole fulness of the Godhead to draw from. It is +all there in Christ, for each of us. Whosoever will, +let him draw freely. Why should we leave the +fountain of living waters to hew out for ourselves, +with infinite pains, broken cisterns that can hold no +water? All we need is in Christ. Let us lift our +eyes from the low earth and all creatures, and behold +“no man any more,” as Lord and Helper, “save +Jesus only,” “that we may be filled with all the +fulness of God.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXIII" id="ColXIII"></a>XIII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE TRUE CIRCUMCISION.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made +with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision +of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye +were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who +raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead through your trespasses +and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, <i>I say</i>, did he quicken +together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> ii. +11–13 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>There are two opposite tendencies ever at +work in human nature to corrupt religion. +One is of the intellect; the other of the senses. +The one is the temptation of the cultured few; the +other, that of the vulgar many. The one turns religion +into theological speculation; the other, into a +theatrical spectacle. But, opposite as these tendencies +usually are, they were united in that strange +chaos of erroneous opinion and practice which Paul +had to front at Colossæ. From right and from left +he was assailed, and his batteries had to face both +ways. Here he is mainly engaged with the error +which insisted on imposing circumcision on these +Gentile converts.</p> + +<p>I. To this teaching of the necessity of circumcision, +he first opposes the position that all Christian +men, by virtue of their union with Christ, have received +the true circumcision, of which the outward +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +rite was a shadow and a prophecy, and that therefore +the rite is antiquated and obsolete.</p> + +<p>His language is emphatic and remarkable. It +points to a definite past time—no doubt the time +when they became Christians—when, because they +were in Christ, a change passed on them which is +fitly paralleled with circumcision. This Christian +circumcision is described in three particulars: as +“not made with hands;” as consisting in “putting +off the body of the flesh;” and as being “of Christ.”</p> + +<p>It is “not made with hands,” that is, it is not a +rite but a reality, not transacted in flesh but in spirit. +It is not the removal of ceremonial impurity, but +the cleansing of the heart. This idea of ethical +circumcision, of which the bodily rite is the type, +is common in the Old Testament, as, for instance, +“The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart ... +to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart” +(Deut. xxx. 6). This is the true Christian circumcision.</p> + +<p>It consists in the “putting off the body of the +flesh”—for “the sins of” is an interpolation. Of +course a man does not shuffle off this mortal coil +when he becomes a Christian, so that we have to +look for some other meaning of the strong words. +They are very strong, for the word “putting off” is +intensified so as to express a complete stripping off +from oneself, as of clothes which are laid aside, and +is evidently intended to contrast the partial outward +circumcision as the removal of a small part of the +body, with the entire removal effected by union with +Christ. If that removal of “the body of the flesh” +is “not made with hands,” then it can only be in the +sphere of the spiritual life, that is to say, it must +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +consist in a change in the relation of the two constituents +of a man’s being, and that of such a kind +that, for the future, the Christian shall not live after +the flesh, though he live in the flesh. “Ye are not +in the flesh, but in the Spirit,” says Paul, and again +he uses an expression as strong as, if not stronger +than that of our text, when he speaks of “the body” +as “being destroyed,” and explains himself by +adding “that henceforth we should not serve sin.” +It is not the body considered simply as material and +fleshly that we put off, but the body considered as +the seat of corrupt and sinful affections and passions. +A new principle of life comes into men’s hearts +which delivers them from the dominion of these, and +makes it possible that they should live in the flesh, +not “according to the lusts of the flesh, but according +to the will of God.” True, the text regards this +divesting as complete, whereas, as all Christian men +know only too sadly, it is very partial, and realised +only by slow degrees. The ideal is represented +here,—what we receive “in Him,” rather than what +we actually possess and incorporate into our experience. +On the Divine side the change is complete. +Christ gives complete emancipation from the dominion +of sense, and if we are not in reality completely +emancipated, it is because we have not taken +the things that are freely given to us, and are not +completely “<i>in</i> Him.” So far as we are, we have +put off “the flesh.” The change has passed on us if +we are Christians. We have to work it out day by +day. The foe may keep up a guerilla warfare after +he is substantially defeated, but his entire subjugation +is certain if we keep hold of the strength of Christ.</p> + +<p>Finally, this circumcision is described as “of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +Christ,” by which is not meant that He submitted to +it, but that He instituted it.</p> + +<p>Such being the force of this statement, what is +its bearing on the Apostle’s purpose? He desires +to destroy the teaching that the rite of circumcision +was binding on the Christian converts, and he does so +by asserting that the gospel has brought the reality, +of which the rite was but a picture and a prophecy. +The underlying principle is that when we have the +thing signified by any Jewish rites, which were all +prophetic as well as symbolic, the rite may—must +go. Its retention is an anachronism, “as if a flower +should shut, and be a bud again.” That is a wise +and pregnant principle, but as it comes to the surface +again immediately hereafter, and is applied to a +whole series of subjects, we may defer the consideration +of it, and rather dwell briefly on other matters +suggested by this verse.</p> + +<p>We notice, then, the intense moral earnestness +which leads the Apostle here to put the true centre +of gravity of Christianity in moral transformation, +and to set all outward rites and ceremonies in a +very subordinate place. What had Jesus Christ +come from heaven for, and for what had He borne +His bitter passion? To what end were the Colossians +knit to Him by a tie so strong, tender and +strange? Had they been carried into that inmost +depth of union with Him, and were they still to be +laying stress on ceremonies? Had Christ’s work, +then, no higher issue than to leave religion bound in +the cords of outward observances? Surely Jesus +Christ, who gives men a new life by union with +Himself, which union is brought about through faith +alone, has delivered men from that “yoke of bondage,” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +if He has done anything at all. Surely they +who are joined to Him should have a profounder +apprehension of the means and the end of their relation +to their Lord than to suppose that it is either +brought about by any outward rite, or has any +reality unless it makes them pure and good. From +that height all questions of external observances +dwindle into insignificance, and all question of sacramental +efficacy drops away of itself. The vital +centre lies in our being joined to Jesus Christ—the +condition of which is faith in Him, and the outcome +of it a new life which delivers us from the dominion +of the flesh. How far away from such conceptions +of Christianity are those which busy themselves on +either side with matters of detail, with punctilios of +observance, and pedantries of form? The hatred of +forms may be as completely a form as the most +elaborate ritual—and we all need to have our eyes +turned away from these to the far higher thing, the +worship and service offered by a transformed nature.</p> + +<p>We notice again, that the conquest of the animal +nature and the material body is the certain outcome +of true union with Christ, and of that alone.</p> + +<p>Paul did not regard matter as necessarily evil, as +these teachers at Colossæ did, nor did he think of +the body as the source of all sin. But he knew that +the fiercest and most fiery temptations came from +it, and that the foulest and most indelible stains on +conscience were splashed from the mud which it +threw. We all know that too. It is a matter of +life and death for each of us to find some means of +taming and holding in the animal that is in us all. +We all know of wrecked lives, which have been driven +on the rocks by the wild passions belonging to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +flesh. Fortune, reputation, health, everything are +sacrificed by hundreds of men, especially young men, +at the sting of this imperious lust. The budding +promise of youth, innocence, hope, and all which +makes life desirable and a nature fair, are trodden +down by the hoofs of the brute. There is no need +to speak of that. And when we come to add to +this the weaknesses of the flesh, and the needs of the +flesh, and the limitations of the flesh, and to remember +how often high purposes are frustrated by +its shrinking from toil, and how often mists born +from its undrained swamps darken the vision that +else might gaze on truth and God, we cannot but +feel that we do not need to be Eastern Gnostics, to +believe that goodness requires the flesh to be subdued. +Every one who has sought for self-improvement +recognises the necessity. But no asceticisms +and no resolves will do what we want. Much repression +may be effected by sheer force of will, but +it is like a man holding a wolf by the jaws. The +arms begin to ache and the grip to grow slack, and +he feels his strength ebbing, and knows that, as soon +as he lets go, the brute will fly at his throat. Repression +is not taming. Nothing tames the wild +beast in us but the power of Christ. He binds it in +a silken lash, and that gentle constraint is strong, +because the fierceness is gone. “The wolf also shall +dwell with the lamb, and a little child shall lead +them.” The power of union with Christ, and that +alone, will enable us to put off the body of the flesh. +And such union will certainly lead to such crucifying +of the animal nature. Christianity would be +easy if it were a round of observances; it would be +comparatively easy if it were a series of outward +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +asceticisms. Anybody can fast or wear a hair shirt, +if he have motive sufficient; but the “putting off +the body of the flesh” which is “not made with +hands,” is a different and harder thing. Nothing +else avails. High-flown religious emotion, or clear +theological definitions, or elaborate ceremonial worship, +may all have their value; but a religion which +includes them all, and leaves out the plain moralities +of subduing the flesh, and keeping our heel well +pressed down on the serpent’s head, is worthless. If +we are in Christ, we shall not live in the flesh.</p> + +<p>II. The Apostle meets the false teaching of the +need for circumcision, by a second consideration; +namely, a reference to Christian Baptism, as being +the Christian sign of that inward change.</p> + +<p>Ye were circumcised, says he—being buried with +Him in baptism. The form of expression in the +Greek implies that the two things are cotemporaneous. +As if he had said—Do you want any +further rite to express that mighty change which +passed on you when you came to be “in Christ”? +You have been baptised, does not that express all +the meaning that circumcision ever had, and much +more? What can you want with the less significant +rite when you have the more significant? This +reference to baptism is quite consistent with what +has been said as to the subordinate importance of +ritual. Some forms we must have, if there is to be +any outward visible Church, and Christ has yielded +to the necessity, and given us two, of which the one +symbolises the initial spiritual act of the Christian +life, and the other the constantly repeated process of +Christian nourishment. They are symbols and outward +representations, nothing more. They convey +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +grace, in so far as they help us to realise more +clearly and to feel more deeply the facts on which +our spiritual life is fed, but they are not channels of +grace in any other way than any other outward acts +of worship may be.</p> + +<p>We see that the form of baptism here presupposed +is by immersion, and that the form is regarded +as significant. All but entire unanimity prevails +among commentators on this point. The burial and +the resurrection spoken of point unmistakably to the +primitive mode of baptism, as Bishop Lightfoot, the +latest and best English expositor of this book, puts +it in his paraphrase: “Ye were buried with Christ to +your old selves beneath the baptismal waters, and +were raised with Him from these same waters, to a +new and better life.”</p> + +<p>If so, two questions deserve consideration—first, +is it right to alter a form which has a meaning that +is lost by the change? second, can we alter a significant +form without destroying it? Is the new +thing rightly called by the old name? If baptism +be immersion, and immersion express a substantial +part of its meaning, can sprinkling or pouring be +baptism?</p> + +<p>Again, baptism is associated in time with the inward +change, which is the true circumcision. There +are but two theories on which these two things are +cotemporaneous. The one is the theory that baptism +effects the change, the other is the theory that +baptism goes with the change as its sign. The +association is justified if men are “circumcised,” that +is, changed when they are baptised, or if men are +baptised when they have been “circumcised.” No +other theory gives full weight to these words.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> +The former theory elevates baptism into more +than the importance of which Paul sought to deprive +circumcision, it confuses the distinction between the +Church and the world, it lulls men into a false +security, it obscures the very central truth of Christianity—namely +that faith in Christ, working by love, +makes a Christian—it gives the basis for a portentous +reproduction of sacerdotalism, and it is shivered +to pieces against the plain facts of daily life. But it +may be worth while to notice in a sentence, that it +is conclusively disposed of by the language before +us—it is “through faith in the operation of God” +that we are raised again in baptism. Not the rite, +then, but faith is the means of this participation +with Christ in burial and resurrection. What remains +but that baptism is associated with that +spiritual change by which we are delivered from the +body of the flesh, because in the Divine order it is +meant to be the outward symbol of that change +which is effected by no rite or sacrament, but by +faith alone, uniting us to the transforming Christ?</p> + +<p>We observe the solemnity and the thoroughness of +the change thus symbolised. It is more than a circumcision. +It is burial and a resurrection, an entire +dying of the old self by union with Christ, a real and +present rising again by participation in His risen life. +This and nothing less makes a Christian. We partake +of His death, inasmuch as we ally ourselves to +it by our faith, as the sacrifice for our sins, and make +it the ground of all our hope. But that is not all. +We partake of His death, inasmuch as, by the power +of His cross, we are drawn to sever ourselves from +the selfish life, and to slay our own old nature; dying +for His dear sake to the habits, tastes, desires and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +purposes in which we lived. Self-crucifixion for the +love of Christ is the law for us all. His cross is the +pattern for our conduct, as well as the pledge and +means of our acceptance. We must die to sin that +we may live to righteousness. We must die to self, +that we may live to God and our brethren. We have +no right to trust in Christ <i>for</i> us, except as we have +Christ <i>in</i> us. His cross is not saving us from our guilt, +unless it is moulding our lives to some faint likeness +of Him who died that we might live, and might live +a real life by dying daily to the world, sin, and +self.</p> + +<p>If we are thus made conformable to His death, we +shall know the power of His resurrection, in all its +aspects. It will be to us the guarantee of our own, +and we shall know its power as a prophecy for our +future. It will be to us the seal of His perfect work +on the cross, and we shall know its power as God’s +token of acceptance of His sacrifice in the past. It +will be to us the type of our spiritual resurrection +now, and we shall know its power as the pattern and +source of our supernatural life in the present. Thus +we must die in and with Christ that we may live in +and with Him, and that twofold process is the very +heart of personal religion. No lofty participation in +the immortal hopes which spring from the empty +grave of Jesus is warranted, unless we have His +quickening power raising us to-day by a better resurrection; +and no participation in the present power +of His heavenly life is possible, unless we have such +a share in His death, as that by it the world is +crucified to us, and we unto the world.</p> + +<p>III. The Apostle adds another phase of this great +contrast of life and death, which brings home still +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +more closely to his hearers, the deep and radical +change which passes upon all Christians. He has +been speaking of a death and burial followed by a +resurrection. But there is another death from which +Christ raises us, by that same risen life imparted +to us through faith—a darker and grimmer thing +than the self-abnegation before described.</p> + +<p>“And you, being dead through your trespasses, +and the uncircumcision of your flesh.” The separate +acts of transgression of which they had been guilty, +and the unchastened, unpurified, carnal nature from +which these had flowed, were the reasons of a very +real and awful death; or, as the parallel passage in +Ephesians (ii. 2) puts it with a slight variation, they +made the condition or sphere in which that death +inhered. That solemn thought, so pregnant in its +dread emphasis in Scripture, is not to be put aside as +a mere metaphor. All life stands in union with +God. The physical universe exists by reason of its +perpetual contact with His sustaining hand, in the +hollow of which all Being lies, and it is, because He +touches it. “In Him we live.” So also the life of +mind is sustained by His perpetual inbreathing, and +in the deepest sense “we see light” in His light. +So, lastly, the highest life of the spirit stands in union +in still higher manner with Him, and to be separated +from Him is death to it. Sin breaks that union, and +therefore sin is death, in the very inmost centre of +man’s being. The awful warning, “In the day thou +eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” was fulfilled. +That separation by sin, in which the soul is wrenched +from God, is the real death, and the thing that men +call by the name is only an outward symbol of a far +sadder fact—the shadow of that which is the awful +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +substance, and as much less terrible than it as painted +fires are less than the burning reality.</p> + +<p>So men may live in the body, and toil and think +and feel, and be dead. The world is full of “sheeted +dead,” that “squeak and gibber” in “our streets,” +for every soul that lives to self and has rent itself +away from God, so far as a creature can, is “dead +while he liveth.” The other death, of which the +previous verse spoke, is therefore but the putting off +of a death. We lose nothing of real life in putting off +self, but only that which keeps us in a separation from +God, and slays our true and highest being. To die +to self is but “the death of death.”</p> + +<p>The same life of which the previous verse spoke +as coming from the risen Lord is here set forth as +able to raise us from that death of sin. “He hath +quickened you together with Him.” Union with +Christ floods our dead souls with His own vitality, +as water will pour from a reservoir through a tube +inserted in it. There is the actual communication +of a new life when we touch Christ by faith. The +prophet of old laid himself upon the dead child, the +warm lip on the pallid mouth, the throbbing heart +on the still one, and the contact rekindled the extinguished +spark. So Christ lays His full life on +our deadness, and does more than recall a departed +glow of vitality. He communicates a new life kindred +with His own. That life makes us free here +and now from the law of sin and death, and it shall +be perfected hereafter when the working of His +mighty power shall change the body of our humiliation +into the likeness of the body of His glory, and +the leaven of His new life shall leaven the three +measures in which it is hidden, body, soul, and spirit, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +with its own transforming energy. Then, in yet +higher sense, death shall die, and life shall be victor +by His victory.</p> + +<p>But to all this one preliminary is needful—“having +forgiven us all trespasses.” Paul’s eagerness to associate +himself with his brethren, and to claim his +share in the forgiveness, as well as to unite in the +acknowledgment of sin, makes him change his word +from “you” to “us.” So the best manuscripts give +the text, and the reading is obviously full of interest +and suggestiveness. There must be a removal of the +cause of deadness before there can be a quickening +to new life. That cause was sin, which cannot be +cancelled as guilt by any self-denial however great, +nor even by the impartation of a new life from God +for the future. A gospel which only enjoined dying +to self would be as inadequate as a gospel which only +provided for a higher life in the future. The stained +and faultful past must be cared for. Christ must +bring pardon for it, as well as a new spirit for +the future. So the condition prior to our being +quickened together with Him is God’s forgiveness, +free and universal, covering all our sins, and given to +us without anything on our part. That condition is +satisfied. Christ’s death brings to us God’s pardon, +and when the great barrier of unforgiven sin is +cleared away, Christ’s life pours into our hearts, and +“everything lives whithersoever the river cometh.”</p> + +<p>Here then we have the deepest ground of Paul’s +intense hatred of every attempt to make anything +but faith in Christ and moral purity essential to the +perfect Christian life. Circumcision and baptism +and all other rites or sacraments of Judaism or +Christianity are equally powerless to quicken dead +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +souls. For that, the first thing needed is the forgiveness +of sins, and that is ours through simple +faith in Christ’s death. We are quickened by +Christ’s own life in us, and He “dwells in our hearts +by faith.” All ordinances may be administered to +us a hundred times, and without faith they leave us +as they found us—dead. If we have hold of Christ +by faith we live, whether we have received the +ordinances or not. So all full blown or budding +sacramentarianism is to be fought against to the +uttermost, because it tends to block the road to the +City of Refuge for a poor sinful soul, and the most +pressing of all necessities is that that way of life +should be kept clear and unimpeded.</p> + +<p>We need the profound truth which lies in the +threefold form which Paul gives to one of his great +watchwords: “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision +is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments +of God.” And how, says my despairing +conscience, shall I keep the commandments? The +answer lies in the second form of the saying—“In +Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, +nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” And how, +replies my saddened heart, can I become a new +creature? The answer lies in the final form of +the saying—“In Jesus Christ neither circumcision +availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which +worketh.” Faith brings the life which makes us new +men, and then we can keep the commandments. If +we have faith, and are new men and do God’s will, +we need no rites but as helps. If we have not faith, +all rites are nothing.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXIV" id="ColXIV"></a>XIV.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE CROSS THE DEATH OF LAW AND THE TRIUMPH +OVER EVIL POWERS.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, +which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His +cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show +of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> ii. 14, 15 (Rev. +Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>The same double reference to the two characteristic +errors of the Colossians which we have +already met so frequently, presents itself here. +This whole section vibrates continually between +warnings against the Judaising enforcement of the +Mosaic law on Gentile Christians, and against the +Oriental figments about a crowd of angelic beings +filling the space betwixt man and God, betwixt +pure spirit and gross matter. One great fact is here +opposed to these strangely associated errors. The +cross of Christ is the abrogation of the Law; the +cross of Christ is the victory over principalities and +powers. If we hold fast by it, we are under no +subjection to the former, and have neither to fear +nor reverence the latter.</p> + +<p>I. The Cross of Christ is the death of Law.</p> + +<p>The law is a written document. It has an +antagonistic aspect to us all, Gentiles as well as +Jews. Christ has blotted it out. More than that, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +He has taken it out of the way, as if it were an +obstacle lying right in the middle of our path. +More than that, it is “nailed to the cross.” That +phrase has been explained by an alleged custom of +repealing laws and cancelling bonds by driving a +nail into them, and fixing them up in public, but +proof of the practice is said to be wanting. The +thought seems to be deeper than that. This antagonistic +“law” is conceived of as being, like “the +world,” crucified in the crucifixion of our Lord. +The nails which fastened Him to the cross fastened +it, and in His death it was done to death. We are +free from it, “that being dead in which we were held.”</p> + +<p>We have first, then, to consider the “handwriting,” +or, as some would render the word, “the bond.” Of +course, by <i>law</i> here is primarily meant the Mosaic +ceremonial law, which was being pressed upon the +Colossians. It is so completely antiquated for us, +that we have difficulty in realising what a fight for +life and death raged round the question of its +observance by the primitive Church. It is always +harder to change customs than creeds, and religious +observances live on, as every maypole on a village +green tells us, long after the beliefs which animated +them are forgotten. So there was a strong body +among the early believers to whom it was flat +blasphemy to speak of allowing the Gentile +Christian to come into the Church, except through +the old doorway of circumcision, and to whom the +outward ceremonial of Judaism was the only visible +religion. That is the point directly at issue between +Paul and these teachers.</p> + +<p>But the modern distinction between moral and +ceremonial law had no existence in Paul’s mind, any +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +more than it has in the Old Testament, where +precepts of the highest morality and regulations of +the merest ceremonial are interstratified in a way +most surprising to us moderns. To him the law +was a homogeneous whole, however diverse its +commands, because it was all the revelation of the +will of God for the guidance of man. It is the +law as a whole, in all its aspects and parts, that is +here spoken of, whether as enjoining morality, or +external observances, or as an accuser fastening guilt +on the conscience, or as a stern prophet of retribution +and punishment.</p> + +<p>Further, we must give a still wider extension to +the thought. The principles laid down are true +not only in regard to “<i>the</i> law,” but about all law, +whether it be written on the tables of stone, or on +“the fleshy tables of the heart” or conscience, or in +the systems of ethics, or in the customs of society. +Law, as such, howsoever enacted and whatever the +bases of its rule, is dealt with by Christianity in +precisely the same way as the venerable and God-given +code of the Old Testament. When we +recognise that fact, these discussions in Paul’s +Epistles flash up into startling vitality and interest. +It has long since been settled that Jewish ritual +is nothing to us. But it ever remains a burning +question for each of us, What Christianity does for +us in relation to the solemn law of duty under +which we are all placed, and which we have all +broken?</p> + +<p>The antagonism of law is the next point presented +by these words. Twice, to add to the +emphasis, Paul tells us that the law is against us. +It stands opposite us fronting us and frowning at us, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +and barring our road. Is “law” then become our +“enemy because it tells us the truth?” Surely +this conception of law is a strange contrast to and +descent from the rapturous delight of psalmists and +prophets in the “law of the Lord.” Surely God’s +greatest gift to man is the knowledge of His will, +and law is beneficent, a light and a guide to men, +and even its strokes are merciful. Paul believed +all that too. But nevertheless the antagonism is +very real. As with God, so with law, if we be +against Him, He cannot but be against us. We +may make Him our dearest friend or our foe. +“They rebelled ... therefore He was turned to +be their enemy and fought against them.” The +revelation of duty to which we are not inclined is +ever unwelcome. Law is against us, because it +comes like a taskmaster, bidding us do, but neither +putting the inclination into our hearts, nor the +power into our hands. And law is against us, +because the revelation of unfulfilled duty is the +accusation of the defaulter and a revelation to him +of his guilt. And law is against us, because it +comes with threatenings and foretastes of penalty +and pain. Thus as standard, accuser and avenger, +it is—sad perversion of its nature and function +though such an attitude be—against us.</p> + +<p>We all know that. Strange and tragic it is, but +alas! it is true, that God’s law presents itself before +us as an enemy. Each of us has seen that apparition, +severe in beauty, like the sword-bearing angel +that Balaam saw “standing in the way” between +the vineyards, blocking our path when we wanted +to “go frowardly in the way of our heart.” Each +of us knows what it is to see our sentence in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +stern face. The law of the Lord should be to us +“sweeter than honey and the honeycomb,” but the +corruption of the best is the worst, and we can make +it poison. Obeyed, it is as the chariot of fire to +bear us heavenward. Disobeyed, it is an iron car +that goes crashing on its way, crushing all who set +themselves against it. To know what we ought to +be and to love and try to be it, is blessedness, but +to know it and to refuse to be it, is misery. In +herself she “wears the Godhead’s most benignant +grace,” but if we turn against her, Law, the “daughter +of the voice of God,” gathers frowns upon her face +and her beauty becomes stern and threatening.</p> + +<p>But the great principle here asserted is—the +destruction of law in the cross of Christ. The cross +ends the law’s power of <i>punishment</i>. Paul believed +that the burden and penalty of sin had been laid on +Jesus Christ and borne by Him on His cross. In +deep, mysterious, but most real identification of +Himself with the whole race of man, He not only +Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, +by the might of His sympathy and the reality of His +manhood, but “the Lord made to meet upon Him +the iniquity of us all”; and He, the Lamb of God, +willingly accepted the load, and bare away our sins +by bearing their penalty.</p> + +<p>To philosophise on that teaching of Scripture is +not my business here. It is my business to assert +it. We can never penetrate to a full understanding +of the rationale of Christ’s bearing the world’s sins, +but that has nothing to do with the earnestness of +our belief in the fact. Enough for us that in His +person He willingly made experience of all the bitterness +of sin: that when He agonised in the dark on +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +the cross, and when from out of the darkness came +that awful cry, so strangely compact of wistful confidence +and utter isolation, “My God, My God, why +hast Thou forsaken Me?” it was something deeper +than physical pain or shrinking from physical death +that found utterance—even the sin-laden consciousness +of Him who in that awful hour gathered into +His own breast the spear-points of a world’s punishment. +The cross of Christ is the endurance of the +penalty of sin, and therefore is the unloosing of the +grip of the law upon us, in so far as threatening and +punishment are concerned. It is not enough that +we should only intellectually recognise that as a +principle—it is the very heart of the gospel, the +very life of our souls. Trusting ourselves to that +great sacrifice, the dread of punishment will fade +from our hearts, and the thunder-clouds melt out of +the sky, and the sense of guilt will not be a sting, +but an occasion for lowly thankfulness, and the law +will have to draw the bolts of her prison-house and +let our captive souls go free.</p> + +<p>Christ’s cross is the end of law as <i>ceremonial</i>. The +whole elaborate ritual of the Jew had sacrifice for its +vital centre, and the prediction of the Great Sacrifice +for its highest purpose. Without the admission of +these principles, Paul’s position is unintelligible, for +he holds, as in this context, that Christ’s coming puts +the whole system out of date, because it fulfils it all. +When the fruit has set, there is no more need for +petals; or, as the Apostle himself puts it, “when +that which is perfect is come, that which is in part is +done away.” We have the reality, and do not need +the shadow. There is but one temple for the Christian +soul—the “temple of His body.” Local sanctity +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> +is at an end, for it was never more than an external +picture of that spiritual fact which is realised in the +Incarnation. Christ is the dwelling-place of Deity, +the meeting-place of God and man, the place of +sacrifice; and, builded on Him, we in Him become +a spiritual house. There are none other temples +than these. Christ is the great priest, and in His +presence all human priesthood loses its consecration, +for it could offer only external sacrifice, and secure a +local approach to a “worldly sanctuary.” He is the +real Aaron, and we in Him become a royal priesthood. +There are none other priests than these. +Christ is the true sacrifice. His death is the real +propitiation for sin, and we in Him become thank-offerings, +moved by His mercies to present ourselves +living sacrifices. There are none other offerings than +these. So the law as a code of ceremonial worship +is done to death in the cross, and, like the temple +veil, is torn in two from the top to the bottom.</p> + +<p>Christ’s cross is the end of law as <i>moral</i> rule. +Nothing in Paul’s writings warrants the restriction to +the ceremonial law of the strong assertion in the +text, and its many parallels. Of course, such words +do not mean that Christian men are freed from the +obligations of morality, but they do mean that we +are not bound to do the “things contained in the +law” because they are there. Duty is duty now +because we see the pattern of conduct and character +in Christ. Conscience is not our standard, nor is +the Old Testament conception of the perfect ideal +of manhood. We have neither to read law in the +fleshy tables of the heart, nor in the tables graven +by God’s own finger, nor in men’s parchments and +prescriptions. Our law is the perfect life and death +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +of Christ, who is at once the ideal of humanity and +the reality of Deity.</p> + +<p>The weakness of all law is that it merely commands, +but has no power to get its commandments +obeyed. Like a discrowned king, it posts its proclamations, +but has no army at its back to execute +them. But Christ puts His own power within us, +and His love in our hearts; and so we pass from +under the dominion of an external commandment +into the liberty of an inward spirit. He is to His +followers both “law and impulse.” He gives not +the “law of a carnal commandment, but the power +of an endless life.” The long schism between inclination +and duty is at an end, in so far as we are +under the influence of Christ’s cross. The great +promise is fulfilled, “I will put My law into their +minds and write it in their hearts”; and so, glad +obedience with the whole power of the new life, for +the sake of the love of the dear Lord who has +bought us by His death, supersedes the constrained +submission to outward precept. A higher morality +ought to characterise the partakers of the life of +Christ, who have His example for their code, and +His love for their motive. The tender voice that +says, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments,” +wins us to purer and more self-sacrificing goodness +than the stern accents that can only say, “Thou +shalt—or else!” can ever enforce. He came “not +to destroy, but to fulfil.” The fulfilment was destruction +in order to reconstruction in higher form. +Law died with Christ on the cross in order that it +might rise and reign with Him in our inmost hearts.</p> + +<p>II. The Cross is the triumph over all the powers +of evil.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> +There are considerable difficulties in the interpretation +of verse 15; the main question being the +meaning of the word rendered in the Authorized +Version “spoiled,” and in the R. V. “having put +off from Himself.” It is the same word as is used +in iii. 9, and is there rendered “have put off”; +while a cognate noun is found in verse 11 of this +chapter, and is there translated “the putting off.” +The form here must either mean “having put off +from oneself,” or “having stripped (others) <i>for</i> oneself.” +The former meaning is adopted by many +commentators, as well as by the R. V., and is explained +to mean that Christ having assumed our +humanity, was, as it were, wrapped about and +invested with Satanic temptations, which He finally +flung from Him for ever in His death, which was +His triumph over the powers of evil. The figure +seems far-fetched and obscure, and the rendering +necessitates the supposition of a change in the +person spoken of, which must be God in the earlier +part of the period, and Christ in the latter.</p> + +<p>But if we adopt the other meaning, which has +equal warrant in the Greek form, “having stripped +for Himself,” we get the thought that in the cross, +God has, for His greater glory, stripped principalities +and powers. Taking this meaning, we avoid the +necessity of supposing with Bishop Lightfoot that +there is a change of subject from God to Christ +at some point in the period including verses 13 to +15—an expedient which is made necessary by the +impossibility of supposing that God “divested Himself +of principalities or powers”—and also avoid the +other necessity of referring the whole period to +Christ, which is another way out of that impossibility. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +We thereby obtain a more satisfactory meaning than +that Christ in assuming humanity was assailed by +temptations from the powers of evil which were, as +it were, a poisoned garment clinging to Him, and +which He stripped off from Himself in His death. +Further, such a meaning as that which we adopt +makes the whole verse a consistent metaphor in +three stages, whereas the other introduces an utterly +incongruous and irrelevant figure. What connection +has the figure of stripping off a garment with that +of a conqueror in his triumphal procession? But +if we read “spoiled for Himself principalities and +powers,” we see the whole process before our eyes—the +victor stripping his foes of arms and ornaments +and dress, then parading them as his captives, and +then dragging them at the wheels of his triumphal +car.</p> + +<p>The words point us into dim regions of which we +know nothing more than Scripture tells us. These +dreamers at Colossæ had much to say about a crowd +of beings, bad and good, which linked men and +matter with spirit and God. We have heard already +the emphasis with which Paul has claimed for his +Master the sovereign authority of Creator over all +orders of being, the headship over all principality +and power. He has declared, too, that from Christ’s +cross a magnetic influence streams out upwards as +well as earthwards, binding all things together in +the great reconciliation—and now he tells us that +from that same cross shoot downwards darts of +conquering power which subdue and despoil reluctant +foes of other realms and regions than ours, in so +far as they work among men.</p> + +<p>That there are such seems plainly enough asserted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +in Christ’s own words. However much discredit +has been brought on the thought by monastic and +Puritan exaggerations, it is clearly the teaching of +Scripture; and however it may be ridiculed or set +aside, it can never be disproved.</p> + +<p>But the position which Christianity takes in +reference to the whole matter is to maintain that +Christ has conquered the banded kingdom of evil, +and that no man owes it fear or obedience, if he +will only hold fast by his Lord. In the cross is the +judgment of this world, and by it is the prince of +this world cast out. He has taken away the power +of these Powers who were so mighty amongst men. +They held men captive by temptations too strong +to be overcome, but He has conquered the lesser +temptations of the wilderness and the sorer of the +cross, and therein has made us more than conquerors. +They held men captive by ignorance of God, and +the cross reveals Him; by the lie that sin was a +trifle, but the cross teaches us its gravity and power; +by the opposite lie that sin was unforgivable, but +the cross brings pardon for every transgression and +cleansing for every stain. By the cross the world is +a redeemed world, and, as our Lord said in words +which may have suggested the figure of our text, the +strong man is bound, and his house <i>spoiled</i> of all his +armour wherein he trusted. The prey is taken from +the mighty and men are delivered from the dominion +of evil. So that dark kingdom is robbed of its +subjects and its rulers impoverished and restrained. +The devout imagination of the monk-painter drew +on the wall of the cell in his convent the conquering +Christ with white banner bearing a blood-red cross, +before whose glad coming the heavy doors of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> +prison-house fell from their hinges, crushing beneath +their weight the demon jailer, while the long file of +eager captives, from Adam onwards through ages +of patriarchs and psalmists and prophets, hurried +forward with outstretched hands to meet the +Deliverer, who came bearing His own atmosphere of +radiance and joy. Christ has conquered. His cross +is His victory; and in that victory God has conquered. +As the long files of the triumphal procession +swept upwards to the temple with incense and +music, before the gazing eyes of a gathered glad +nation, while the conquered trooped chained behind +the chariot, that all men might see their fierce eyes +gleaming beneath their matted hair, and breathe more +freely for the chains on their hostile wrists, so in the +world-wide issues of the work of Christ, God triumphs +before the universe, and enhances His glory in that +He has rent the prey from the mighty and won +men back to Himself.</p> + +<p>So we learn to think of evil as conquered, and for +ourselves in our own conflicts with the world, the +flesh, and the devil, as well as for the whole race of +man, to be of good cheer. True, the victory is but +slowly being realised in all its consequences, and +often it seems as if no territory had been won. But +the main position has been carried, and though the +struggle is still obstinate, it can end only in one +way. The brute dies hard, but the naked heel of +our Christ has bruised his head, and though still the +dragon</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail,”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>his death will come sooner or later. The regenerating +power is lodged in the heart of humanity, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +the centre from which it flows is the cross. The +history of the world thenceforward is but the history +of its more or less rapid assimilation of that power, +and of its consequent deliverance from the bondage +in which it has been held. The end can only be the +entire and universal manifestation of the victory +which was won when He bowed His head and died. +Christ’s cross is God’s throne of triumph.</p> + +<p>Let us see that we have our own personal part +in that victory. Holding to Christ, and drawing +from Him by faith a share in His new life, we shall +no longer be under the yoke of law, but enfranchised +into the obedience of love, which is liberty. We +shall no longer be slaves of evil, but sons and +servants of our conquering God, who woos and +wins us by showing us all His love in Christ, and +by giving us His own Son on the Cross, our peace-offering. +If we let Him overcome, His victory will +be life, not death. He will strip us of nothing but +rags, and clothe us in garments of purity; He will +so breathe beauty into us that He will show us +openly to the universe as examples of His transforming +power, and He will bind us glad captives to +His chariot wheels, partakers of His victory as well +as trophies of His all-conquering love. “Now +thanks be unto God, which always triumphs over +us in Jesus Christ.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXV" id="ColXV"></a>XV.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>WARNINGS AGAINST TWIN CHIEF ERRORS, BASED +UPON PREVIOUS POSITIVE TEACHING.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect +of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of +things to come; but the body is Christ’s. Let no man rob you of your +prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in +the things which he hath seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and +not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and +knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase +of God.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> ii. 16–19 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>“Let no man <i>therefore</i> judge you.” That “therefore” +sends us back to what the Apostle has +been saying in the previous verses, in order to find +there the ground of these earnest warnings. That +ground is the whole of the foregoing exposition of +the Christian relation to Christ as far back as +verse 9, but especially the great truths contained in +the immediately preceding verses, that the cross of +Christ is the death of law, and God’s triumph over +all the powers of evil. Because it is so, the +Colossian Christians are exhorted to claim and use +their emancipation from both. Thus we have here +the very heart and centre of the practical counsels +of the Epistle—the double blasts of the trumpet +warning against the two most pressing dangers +besetting the Church. They are the same two +which we have often met already—on the one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> +hand, a narrow Judaising enforcement of ceremonial +and punctilios of outward observance; on the other +hand, a dreamy Oriental absorption in imaginations +of a crowd of angelic mediators obscuring the one +gracious presence of Christ our Intercessor.</p> + +<p>I. Here then we have first, the claim for Christian +liberty, with the great truth on which it is built.</p> + +<p>The points in regard to which that liberty is to be +exercised are specified. They are no doubt those, +in addition to circumcision, which were principally +in question then and there. “Meat and drink” +refers to restrictions in diet, such as the prohibition +of “unclean” things in the Mosaic law, and the +question of the lawfulness of eating meat offered +to idols; perhaps also, such as the Nazarite vow. +There were few regulations as to “drink” in the Old +Testament, so that probably other ascetic practices +besides the Mosaic regulations were in question, but +these must have been unimportant, else Paul could +not have spoken of the whole as being a “shadow +of things to come.” The second point in regard to +which liberty is here claimed is that of the sacred +seasons of Judaism: the annual festivals, the monthly +feast of the new moon, the weekly Sabbath.</p> + +<p>The relation of the Gentile converts to these +Jewish practices was an all-important question for the +early Church. It was really the question whether +Christianity was to be more than a Jewish sect—and +the main force which, under God, settled the +contest, was the vehemence and logic of the Apostle +Paul.</p> + +<p>Here he lays down the ground on which that whole +question about diet and days, and all such matters, is +to be settled. They “are a shadow of things to come” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +but the body is of Christ. “Coming events cast +their shadows <i>before</i>.” That great work of Divine +love, the mission of Christ, Whose “goings forth +have been from everlasting,” may be thought of as +having set out from the Throne as soon as time was, +travelling in the greatness of its strength, like the +beams of some far-off star that have not yet +reached a dark world. The light from the Throne +is behind Him as He advances across the centuries, +and the shadow is thrown far in front.</p> + +<p>Now that involves two thoughts about the Mosaic +law and whole system. First, the purely prophetic +and symbolic character of the Old Testament order, +and especially of the Old Testament ritual. The +absurd extravagance of many attempts to “spiritualize” +the latter should not blind us to the truth +which they caricature. Nor, on the other hand, +should we be so taken with new attempts to reconstruct +our notions of Jewish history and the +dates of Old Testament books, as to forget that, +though the New Testament is committed to no +theory on these points, it is committed to the Divine +origin and prophetic purpose of the Mosaic law and +Levitical worship. We should thankfully accept all +teaching which free criticism and scholarship can +give us as to the process by which, and the time +when, that great symbolic system of acted prophecy +was built up; but we shall be further away than +ever from understanding the Old Testament if we +have gained critical knowledge of its genesis, and +have lost the belief that its symbols were given by +God to prophesy of His Son. That is the key to +both Testaments; and I cannot but believe that +the uncritical reader who reads his book of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> +law and the prophets with that conviction, has got +nearer the very marrow of the book, than the critic, +if he have parted with it, can ever come.</p> + +<p>Sacrifice, altar, priest, temple spake of Him. The +distinctions of meats were meant, among other +purposes, to familiarize men with the conceptions +of purity and impurity, and so, by stimulating conscience, +to wake the sense of need of a Purifier. +The yearly feasts set forth various aspects of the +great work of Christ, and the sabbath showed +in outward form the rest into which He leads those +who cease from their own works and wear His yoke. +All these observances, and the whole system to +which they belong, are like out-riders who precede a +prince on his progress, and as they gallop through +sleeping villages, rouse them with the cry, “The +king is coming!”</p> + +<p>And when the king <i>has</i> come, where are the +heralds? and when the reality has come, who wants +symbols? and if that which threw the shadow +forward through the ages has arrived, how shall +the shadow be visible too? Therefore the second +principle here laid down, namely the cessation of all +these observances, and their like, is really involved +in the first, namely their prophetic character.</p> + +<p>The practical conclusion drawn is very noteworthy, +because it seems much narrower than the premises +warrant. Paul does not say—therefore let no man +observe any of these any more; but takes up the +much more modest ground—let no man <i>judge</i> you +about them. He claims a wide liberty of variation, +and all that he repels is the right of anybody to +dragoon Christian men into ceremonial observances +on the ground that they are necessary. He does +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> +not quarrel with the rites, but with men insisting on +the necessity of the rites.</p> + +<p>In his own practice he gave the best commentary +on his meaning. When they said to him, “You +<i>must</i> circumcise Titus,” he said, “Then I will <i>not</i>.” +When nobody tried to compel him, he took Timothy, +and of his own accord circumcised him to avoid +scandals. When it was needful as a protest, he rode +right over all the prescriptions of the law, and “did +eat with Gentiles.” When it was advisable as a +demonstration that he himself “walked orderly and +kept the law,” he performed the rites of purification +and united in the temple worship.</p> + +<p>In times of transition wise supporters of the new +will not be in a hurry to break with the old. “I +will lead on softly, according as the flock and the +children be able to endure,” said Jacob, and so says +every good shepherd.</p> + +<p>The brown sheaths remain on the twig after the +tender green leaf has burst from within them, but +there is no need to pull them off, for they will drop +presently. “I will wear three surplices if they like,” +said Luther once. “Neither if we eat are we the +better, neither if we eat not are we the worse,” said +Paul. Such is the spirit of the words here. It is +a plea for Christian liberty. If not insisted on as +necessary, the outward observances may be allowed. +If they are regarded as helps, or as seemly adjuncts +or the like, there is plenty of room for difference +of opinion and for variety of practice, according +to temperament and taste and usage. There are +principles which should regulate even these diversities +of practice, and Paul has set these forth, in the great +chapter about meats in the Epistle to the Romans. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +But it is a different thing altogether when any +external observances are insisted on as essential, +either from the old Jewish or from the modern +sacramentarian point of view. If a man comes +saying, “Except ye be circumcised, ye cannot be +saved,” the only right answer is, Then I will not be +circumcised, and if <i>you</i> are, because you believe that +you cannot be saved without it, “Christ is become +of none effect to you.” Nothing is necessary but +union to Him, and that comes through no outward +observance, but through the faith which worketh by +love. Therefore, let no man judge you, but repel +all such attempts at thrusting any ceremonial ritual +observances on you, on the plea of necessity, with +the emancipating truth that the cross of Christ is +the death of law.</p> + +<p>A few words may be said here on the bearing +of the principles laid down in these verses on the +religious observance of Sunday. The obligation of +the Jewish sabbath has passed away as much as +sacrifices and circumcision. That seems unmistakably +the teaching here. But the institution of a weekly +day of rest is distinctly put in Scripture as independent +of, and prior to, the special form and meaning +given to the institution in the Mosaic law. That +is the natural conclusion from the narrative of the +creative rest in Genesis, and from our Lord’s emphatic +declaration that the sabbath was made for “man”—that +is to say, for the race. Many traces of the pre-Mosaic +sabbath have been adduced, and among +others we may recall the fact that recent researches +show it to have been observed by the Accadians, the +early inhabitants of Assyria. It is a physical and +moral necessity, and that is a sadly mistaken benevolence +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +which on the plea of culture or amusement for +the many, compels the labour of the few, and breaks +down the distinction between the Sunday and the +rest of the week.</p> + +<p>The religious observance of the first day of the +week rests on no recorded command, but has a higher +origin, inasmuch as it is the outcome of a felt want. +The early disciples naturally gathered together for +worship on the day which had become so sacred to +them. At first, no doubt, they observed the Jewish +sabbath, and only gradually came to the practice +which we almost see growing before our eyes in the +Acts of the Apostles, in the mention of the disciples +at Troas coming together on the first day of the +week to break bread, and which we gather, from the +Apostle’s instructions as to weekly setting apart +money for charitable purposes, to have existed in +the Church at Corinth; as we know, that even in +his lonely island prison far away from the company +of his brethren, the Apostle John was in a condition +of high religious contemplation on the Lord’s day, +ere yet he heard the solemn voice and saw “the +things which are.”</p> + +<p>This gradual growing up of the practice is in +accordance with the whole spirit of the New Covenant, +which has next to nothing to say about the externals +of worship, and leaves the new life to shape itself. +Judaism gave prescriptions and minute regulations; +Christianity, the religion of the spirit, gives principles. +The necessity, for the nourishment of the Divine life, +of the religious observance of the day of rest is +certainly not less now than at first. In the hurry +and drive of our modern life with the world forcing +itself on us at every moment, we cannot keep up +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +the warmth of devotion unless we use this day, not +merely for physical rest, and family enjoyment, but +for worship. They who know their own slothfulness +of spirit, and are in earnest in seeking after a deeper, +fuller Christian life, will thankfully own, “the week +were dark but for its light.” I distrust the spirituality +which professes that all life is a sabbath, and therefore +holds itself absolved from special seasons of +worship. If the stream of devout communion is to +flow through all our days, there must be frequent +reservoirs along the road, or it will be lost in the +sand, like the rivers of higher Asia. It is a poor +thing to say, keep the day as a day of worship +because it is a commandment. Better to think of +it as a great gift for the highest purposes; and not +let it be merely a day of rest for jaded bodies, but +make it one of refreshment for cumbered spirits, +and rekindle the smouldering flame of devotion, +by drawing near to Christ in public and in private. +So shall we gather stores that may help us to go +in the strength of that meat for some more marches +on the dusty road of life.</p> + +<p>II. The Apostle passes on to his second peal of +warning,—that against the teaching about angel +mediators, which would rob the Colossian Christians +of their prize,—and draws a rapid portrait of the +teachers of whom they are to beware.</p> + +<p>“Let no man rob you of your prize.” The +metaphor is the familiar one of the race or the +wrestling ground; the umpire or judge is Christ; +the reward is that incorruptible crown of glory, of +righteousness, woven not of fading bay leaves, but +of sprays from the “tree of life,” which dower with +undying blessedness the brows round which they are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +wreathed. Certain people are trying to rob them +of their prize—not consciously, for that would be +inconceivable, but such is the tendency of their +teaching. No names will be mentioned, but he +draws a portrait of the robber with swift firm hand, +as if he had said, If you want to know whom I +mean, here he is. Four clauses, like four rapid +strokes of the pencil, do it, and are marked in the +Greek by four participles, the first of which is +obscured in the Authorised Version. “Delighting +in humility and the worshipping of angels.” So +probably the first clause should be rendered. The +first words are almost contradictory, and are meant +to suggest that the humility has not the genuine +ring about it. Self-conscious humility in which a +man takes delight is not the real thing. A man +who knows that he is humble, and is self-complacent +about it, glancing out of the corners of his downcast +eyes at any mirror where he can see himself, is not +humble at all. “The devil’s darling vice is the +pride which apes humility.”</p> + +<p>So <i>very</i> humble were these people that they +would not venture to pray to God! <i>There</i> was +humility indeed. So far beneath did they feel themselves, +that the utmost they could do was to lay +hold of the lowest link of a long chain of angel +mediators, in hope that the vibration might run +upwards through all the links, and perhaps reach +the throne at last. Such fantastic abasement which +would not take God at His word, nor draw near +to Him in His Son, was really the very height of +pride.</p> + +<p>Then follows a second descriptive clause, of which +no altogether satisfactory interpretation has yet been +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +given. Possibly, as has been suggested, we have +here an early error in the text, which has affected all +the manuscripts, and cannot now be corrected. Perhaps, +on the whole, the translation adopted by the +Revised Version presents the least difficulty—“dwelling +in the things which he hath seen.” In +that case the seeing would be not by the senses, but +by visions and pretended revelations, and the charge +against the false teachers would be that they “walked +in a vain show” of unreal imaginations and visionary +hallucinations, whose many-coloured misleading +lights they followed rather than the plain sunshine +of revealed facts in Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>“Vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind” is the +next feature in the portrait. The self-conscious +humility was only skin deep, and covered the utmost +intellectual arrogance. The heretic teacher, like a +blown bladder, was swollen with what after all was +only wind; he was dropsical from conceit of “mind,” +or, as we should say, “intellectual ability,” which +after all was only the instrument and organ of the +“flesh,” the sinful self. And, of course, being all +these things, he would have no firm grip of Christ, +from whom such tempers and views were sure to +detach him. Therefore the damning last clause of +the indictment is “not holding the Head.” How +could he do so? And the slackness of his grasp +of the Lord Jesus would make all these errors and +faults ten times worse.</p> + +<p>Now the special forms of these errors which are +here dealt with are all gone past recall. But the +tendencies which underlay these special forms are as +rampant as ever, and work unceasingly to loosen our +hold of our dear Lord. The worship of angels is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +dead, but we are still often tempted to think that +we are too lowly and sinful to claim our portion of +the faithful promises of God. The spurious humility +is by no means out of date, which knows better than +God does, whether He can forgive us our sins, and +bend over us in love. We do not slip in angel +mediators between ourselves and Him, but the +tendency to put the sole work of Jesus Christ “into +commission,” is not dead. We are all tempted to +grasp at others as well as at Him, for our love, and +trust, and obedience, and we all need the reminder +that to lay hold of any other props is to lose hold +of Him, and that he who does not cleave to Christ +alone, does not cleave to Christ at all.</p> + +<p>We do not see visions and dream dreams any +more, except here and there some one led astray by a +so-called “spiritualism,” but plenty of us attach more +importance to our own subjective fancies or speculations +about the obscurer parts of Christianity than to +the clear revelation of God in Christ. The “unseen +world” has for many minds an unwholesome attraction. +The Gnostic spirit is still in full force among +us, which despises the foundation facts and truths of +the gospel as “milk for babes,” and values its own +baseless artificial speculations about subordinate +matters, which are unrevealed because they are +subordinate, and fascinating to some minds because +unrevealed, far above the truths which are clear because +they are vital, and insipid to such minds because +they are clear. We need to be reminded that Christianity +is not for speculation, but to make us good, +and that “He who has fashioned their hearts alike,” +has made us all to live by the same air, to be +nourished by the same bread from heaven, to be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +saved and purified by the same truth. That is the +gospel which the little child can understand, of +which the outcast and the barbarian can get some +kind of hold, which the failing spirit groping in the +darkness of death can dimly see as its light in the +valley—that is the all-important part of the gospel. +What needs special training and capacity to understand +is no essential portion of the truth that is +meant for the world.</p> + +<p>And a swollen self-conceit is of all things the +most certain to keep a man away from Christ. We +must feel our utter helplessness and need, before we +shall lay hold on Him, and if ever that wholesome +lowly sense of our own emptiness is clouded over, +that moment will our fingers relax their tension, and +that moment will the flow of life into our deadness +run slow and pause. Whatever slackens our hold of +Christ tends to rob us of the final prize, that crown +of life which He gives.</p> + +<p>Hence the solemn earnestness of these warnings. +It was not only a doctrine more or less that was at +stake, but it was their eternal life. Certain truths +believed would increase the firmness of their hold +on their Lord, and thereby would secure the prize. +Disbelieved, the disbelief would slacken their grasp +of Him, and thereby would deprive them of it. We +are often told that the gospel gives heaven for right +belief, and that that is unjust. But if a man does +not believe a thing, he cannot have in his character +or feelings the influence which the belief of it would +produce. If he does not believe that Christ died +for his sins, and that all his hopes are built on that +great Saviour, he will not cleave to Him in love and +dependence. If he does not so cleave to Him he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> +will not draw from Him the life which would mould +his character and stir him to run the race. If he +do not run the race he will never win nor wear +the crown. That crown is the reward and issue of +character and conduct, made possible by the communication +of strength and new nature from Jesus, +which again is made possible through our faith +laying hold of Him as revealed in certain truths, +and of these truths as revealing Him. Therefore, +intellectual error may loose our hold on Christ, and +if we slacken that, we shall forfeit the prize. Mere +speculative interest about the less plainly revealed +corners of Christian truth may, and often do, act in +paralysing the limbs of the Christian athlete. “Ye +did run well, what hath hindered you?” has to be +asked of many whom a spirit akin to this described +in our text has made languid in the race. To us +all, knowing in some measure how the whole sum +of influences around us work to detach us from our +Lord, and so to rob us of the prize which is inseparable +from His presence, the solemn exhortation +which He speaks from heaven may well come, +“Hold fast that thou hast; let no man take thy +crown.”</p> + +<p>III. The source and manner of all true growth is +next set forth, in order to enforce the warning, and +to emphasize the need of holding the Head.</p> + +<p>Christ is not merely represented supreme and +sovereign, when He is called “the head.” The +metaphor goes much deeper, and points to Him as +the source of a real spiritual life, from Him communicated +to all the members of the true Church, and +constituting it an organic whole. We have found +the same expression twice already in the Epistle; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +once as applied to His relation to “the body, the +Church” (i. 18), and once in reference to the “principalities +and powers.” The errors in the Colossian +Church derogated from Christ’s sole sovereign place +as fountain of all life natural and spiritual for all +orders of beings, and hence the emphasis of the +Apostle’s proclamation of the counter truth. That +life which flows from the head is diffused through +the whole body by the various and harmonious +action of all the parts. The body is “supplied and +knit together,” or in other words, the functions of +nutrition and compaction into a whole are performed +by the “joints and bands,” in which last word are +included muscles, nerves, tendons, and any of the +“connecting bands which strap the body together.” +Their action is the condition of growth; but the +Head is the source of all which the action of the +members transmits to the body. Christ is the +source of all nourishment. From Him flows the +life-blood which feeds the whole, and by which +every form of supply is ministered whereby the body +grows. Christ is the source of all unity. Churches +have been bound together by other bonds, such as +creeds, polity, or even nationality; but that external +bond is only like a rope round a bundle of fagots, +while the true, inward unity springing from common +possession of the life of Christ, is as the unity of +some great tree, through which the same sap circulates +from massive bole to the tiniest leaf that +dances at the tip of the farthest branch.</p> + +<p>These blessed results of supply and unity are +effected through the action of the various parts. If +each organ is in healthy action, the body grows. +There is diversity in offices; the same life is light +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +in the eyes, beauty in the cheek, strength in the +hand, thought in the brain. The more you rise in +the scale of life the more the body is differentiated, +from the simple sac that can be turned inside out +and has no division of parts or offices, up to man. +So in the Church. The effect of Christianity is to +heighten individuality, and to give each man his +own proper “gift from God,” and therefore each man +his office, “one after this manner and another after +that.” Therefore is there need for the freest possible +unfolding of each man’s idiosyncrasy, heightened and +hallowed by an indwelling Christ, lest the body +should be the poorer if any member’s activity be +suppressed, or any one man be warped from his own +work wherein he is strong, to become a feeble copy +of another’s. The perfect light is the blending of +all colours.</p> + +<p>A community where each member thus holds +firmly by the Head, and each ministers in his degree +to the nourishment and compaction of the members, +will, says Paul, increase with the increase of God. +The increase will come from Him, will be pleasing +to Him, will be essentially the growth of His own +life in the body. There is an increase not of God. +These heretical teachers were swollen with dropsical +self-conceit; but this is wholesome, solid growth. +For individuals and communities of professing Christians +the lesson is always seasonable, that it is very +easy to get an increase of the other kind. The +individual may increase in apparent knowledge, in +volubility, in visions and speculations, in so-called +Christian work; the Church may increase in members, +in wealth, in culture, in influence in the world, in +apparent activities, in subscription lists, and the like—and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> +it may all be not sound growth, but proud +flesh, which needs the knife. One way only there +is by which we may increase with the increase of +God, and that is that we keep fast hold of Jesus +Christ, and “let Him not go, for He is our life.” +The one exhortation which includes all that is +needful, and which being obeyed, all ceremonies and +all speculations will drop into their right place, and +become helps, not snares, is the exhortation which +Barnabas gave to the new Gentile converts at +Antioch—that “with purpose of heart they should +cleave unto the Lord.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXVI" id="ColXVI"></a>XVI.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>TWO FINAL TESTS OF THE FALSE TEACHING.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as +though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances. +Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish with the +using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which things have +indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to +the body; <i>but are</i> not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> +ii. 20–23 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>The polemical part of the Epistle is now +coming to an end. We pass in the next +chapter, after a transitional paragraph, to simple +moral precepts which, with personal details, fill up +the remainder of the letter. The antagonist errors +appear for the last time in the words which we have +now to consider. In these the Apostle seems to +gather up all his strength to strike two straight, +crashing, final blows, which pulverize and annihilate +the theoretical positions and practical precepts of the +heretical teachers. First, he puts in the form of an +unanswerable demand for the reason for their teachings, +their radical inconsistency with the Christian’s +death with Christ, which is the very secret of his life. +Then, by a contemptuous concession of their apparent +value to people who will not look an inch +below the surface, he makes more emphatic their +final condemnation as worthless—less than nothing +and vanity—for the suppression of “the flesh”—the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> +only aim of all moral and religious discipline. So +we have here two great tests by their conformity +to which we may try all teachings which assume to +regulate life, and all Christian teaching about the +place and necessity for ritual and outward prescriptions +of conduct. “Ye are dead with Christ.” All +must fit in with that great fact. The restraint and +conquest of “the flesh” is the purpose of all religion +and of all moral teaching—our systems must do +that or they are naught, however fascinating they +may be.</p> + +<p>I. We have then to consider the great fact of the +Christian’s death with Christ, and to apply it as a +touch-stone.</p> + +<p>The language of the Apostle points to a definite +time when the Colossian Christians “died” with Christ. +That carries us back to former words in the chapter, +where, as we found, the period of their baptism +considered as the symbol and profession of their +conversion, was regarded as the time of their burial. +They died with Christ when they clave with penitent +trust to the truth that Christ died for them. When +a man unites himself by faith to the dying Christ as +his Peace, Pardon, and Saviour, then he too in a +very real sense dies with Jesus.</p> + +<p>That thought that every Christian is dead with +Christ, runs through the whole of Paul’s teaching. +It is no mere piece of mysticism on his lips, though +it has often become so, when divorced from morality, +as it has been by some Christian teachers. It is no +mere piece of rhetoric, though it has often become +so, when men have lost the true thought of what +Christ’s death is for the world. But to Paul the +cross of Christ was, first and foremost, the altar of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> +sacrifice on which the oblation had been offered that +took away all his guilt and sin; and then, because +it was that, it became the law of his own life, and +the power that assimilated him to his Lord.</p> + +<p>The plain English of it all is, that when a man +becomes a Christian by putting his trust in Christ +Who died, as the ground of his acceptance and salvation, +such a change takes place upon his whole +nature and relationship to externals as is fairly comparable +to a death.</p> + +<p>The same illustration is frequent in ordinary +speech. What do we mean when we talk of an old +man being dead to youthful passions or follies or +ambitions? We mean that they have ceased to +interest him, that he is <i>separated</i> from them and +<i>insensible</i> to them. Death is the separator. What +an awful gulf there is between that fixed white face +beneath the sheet, and all the things about which the +man was so eager an hour ago! How impossible +for any cries of love to pass the chasm! “His +sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not.” The +“business” which filled his thoughts, crumbles to +pieces, and he cares not. Nothing reaches him or +interests him any more. So, if we have got hold of +Christ as our Saviour, and have found in His cross +the anchor of souls, that experience will deaden us +to all which was our life, and the measure in which +we are joined to Jesus by our faith in His great +sacrifice, will be the measure in which we are +detached from our former selves, and from old +objects of interest and pursuit. The change may +either be called dying with Christ, or rising with +Him. The one phrase takes hold of it at an earlier +stage than the other; the one puts stress on our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +ceasing to be what we were, the other on our +beginning to be what we were not. So our text is +followed by a paragraph corresponding in form and +substance, and beginning, “If ye then be risen with +Christ,” as this begins, “If ye died with Christ!”</p> + +<p>Such detachment from externals and separation +from a former self is not unknown in ordinary life. +Strong emotion of any kind makes us insensible to +things around, and even to physical pain. Many a +man with the excitement of the battle-field boiling +in his brain, “receives but recks not of a wound.” +Absorption of thought and interest leads to what is +called “absence of mind,” where the surroundings +are entirely unfelt, as in the case of the saint who +rode all day on the banks of the Swiss lake, plunged +in theological converse, and at evening asked where +the lake was, though its waves had been rippling for +twenty miles at his mule’s feet. Higher tastes drive +out lower ones, as some great stream turned into a +new channel will sweep it clear of mud and rubbish. +So, if we are joined to Christ, He will fill our souls +with strong emotions and interests which will deaden +our sensitiveness to things around us, and will inspire +new loves, tastes and desires, which will make us +indifferent to much that we used to be eager about +and hostile to much that we once cherished.</p> + +<p>To what shall we die if we are Christians? The +Apostle answers that question in various ways, +which we may profitably group together. “Reckon +ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto <i>sin</i>” +(Rom. vi. 11). “He died for all, that they which +live should no longer live unto <i>themselves</i>” (2 Cor. +v. 14, 15). “Ye are become dead to the <i>law</i>” +(Rom. vii. 6). By the cross of Christ, “the world +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +hath been crucified unto me, and I unto <i>the world</i>.” +So then, to the whole mass of outward material +things, all this present order which surrounds us, to +the unrenounced self which has ruled us so long, +and to the sin which results from the appeals of +outward things to that evil self—to these, and to +the mere outward letter of a commandment which is +impotent to enforce its own behests or deliver self +from the snares of the world and the burden of sin, +we cease to belong in the measure in which we are +Christ’s. The separation is not complete; but, if +we are Christians at all, it is begun, and henceforward +our life is to be a “dying daily.” It must +either be a dying life or a living death. We shall +still belong in our outward being—and, alas! far +too much in heart also—to the world and self and +sin—but, if we are Christians at all, there will be a +real separation from these in the inmost heart of our +hearts, and the germ of entire deliverance from them +all will be in us.</p> + +<p>This day needs that truth to be strongly urged. +The whole meaning of the death of Christ is not +reached when it is regarded as the great propitiation +for our sins. Is it the pattern for our lives? has it +drawn us away from our love of the world, from our +sinful self, from the temptations to sin, from cowering +before duties which we hate but dare not neglect? +has it changed the current of our lives, and lifted us +into a new region where we find new interests, loves +and aims, before which the twinkling lights, which +once were stars to us, pale their ineffectual fires? +If so, then, just in as much as it is so, and not +one hair’s breadth the more, may we call ourselves +Christians. If not, it is of no use for us to talk +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> +about looking to the cross as the source of our +salvation. Such a look, if it be true and genuine, +will certainly change all a man’s tastes, habits, +aspirations, and relationships. If we know nothing +of dying with Christ, it is to be feared we know as +little of Christ’s dying for us.</p> + +<p>This great fact of the Christian’s death with +Christ comes into view here mainly as pointing the +contradiction between the Christian’s position, and +his subjection to the prescriptions and prohibitions of +a religion which consists chiefly in petty rules about +conduct. We are “dead” says Paul, “to the rudiments +of the world,”—a phrase which we have +already heard in verse 8 of this chapter, where we +found its meaning to be “precepts of an elementary +character, fit for babes, not for men in Christ, and +moving principally in the region of the material.” +It implies a condemnation of all such regulation +religion on the two grounds, that it is an anachronism, +seeking to perpetuate an earlier stage which has been +left behind, and that it has to do with the outsides of +things, with the material and visible only. To such +rudiments we are dead with Christ. Then, queries +Paul, with irresistible triumphant question—why, in +the name of consistency, “do you subject yourself +to ordinances” (of which we have already heard in +verse 14 of the chapter) such as “handle not, nor +taste, nor touch?” These three prohibitions are +not Paul’s, but are quoted by him as specimens of +the kind of rules and regulations which he is protesting +against. The ascetic teachers kept on +vehemently reiterating their prohibitions, and as the +correct rendering of the words shows, with a +constantly increasing intolerance. “Handle not” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> +is a less rigid prohibition than “touch not.” The +first says, Do not lay hold of; the last Do not even +touch with the tip of your finger. So asceticism, +like many another tendency and habit, grows by +indulgence, and demands abstinence ever more rigid +and separation ever more complete. And the whole +thing is out of date, and a misapprehension of the +genius of Christianity. Man’s work in religion is +ever to confine it to the surface, to throw it +outward and make it a mere round of things done +and things abstained from. Christ’s work in religion +is to drive it inwards, and to focus all its energy on +“the hidden man of the heart,” knowing that if that +be right, the visible will come right. It is waste +labour to try to stick figs on the prickles of a thorn +bush—as is the tree, so will be the fruit. There are +plenty of pedants and martinets in religion as well +as on the parade ground. There must be so many +buttons on the uniform, and the shoulder belts must +be pipe-clayed, and the rifles on the shoulders +sloped at just such an angle—and then all will be +right. Perhaps so. Disciplined courage is better +than courage undisciplined. But there is much +danger of all the attention being given to drill, and +then, when the parade ground is exchanged for the +battle-field, disaster comes because there is plenty of +etiquette and no dash. Men’s lives are pestered out +of them by a religion which tries to tie them down +with as many tiny threads as those with which the +Liliputians fastened down Gulliver. But Christianity +in its true and highest forms is not a religion of +prescriptions but of principles. It does not keep +perpetually dinning a set of petty commandments +and prohibitions into our ears. Its language is not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> +a continual “Do this, forbear from that,”—but +“Love, and thou fulfillest the law.” It works from +the centre outwards to the circumference; first +making clean the inside of the platter, and so +ensuring that the outside shall be clean also. The +error with which Paul fought, and which perpetually +crops up anew, having its roots deep in human +nature, begins with the circumference and wastes +effort in burnishing the outside.</p> + +<p>The parenthesis which follows in the text, “all +which things are to perish with the using,” contains +an incidental remark intended to show the mistake +of attaching such importance to regulations about +diet and the like, from the consideration of the +perishableness of these meats and drinks about which +so much was said by the false teachers. “They +are all destined for corruption, for physical decomposition—in +the very act of consumption.” You +cannot use them without using them up. They are +destroyed in the very moment of being used. Is it +fitting for men who have died with Christ to this +fleeting world, to make so much of its perishable +things?</p> + +<p>May we not widen this thought beyond its specific +application here, and say that death with Christ to +the world should deliver us from the temptation of +making much of the things which perish with the +using, whether that temptation is presented in the +form of attaching exaggerated religious importance +to ascetic abstinence from them or in that of +exaggerated regard and unbridled use of them? +Asceticism and Sybaritic luxury have in common +an over-estimate of the importance of the material +things. The one is the other turned inside out. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> +Dives in his purple and fine linen, and the ascetic +in his hair shirt, both make too much of “what they +shall put on.” The one with his feasts and the +other with his fasts both think too much of what +they shall eat and drink. A man who lives on high +with his Lord puts all these things in their right +place. There are things which do <i>not</i> perish with +the using, but grow with use, like the five loaves in +Christ’s hands. Truth, love, holiness, all Christlike +graces and virtues increase with exercise, and the +more we feed on the bread which comes down from +heaven, the more shall we have for our own nourishment +and for our brother’s need. There is a treasure +which faileth not, bags which wax not old, the +durable riches and undecaying possessions of the +soul that lives on Christ and grows like Him. +These let us seek after; for if our religion be worth +anything at all, it should carry us past all the +fleeting wealth of earth straight into the heart of +things, and give us for our portion that God whom +we can never exhaust, nor outgrow, but possess the +more as we use His sweetness for the solace, and +His all-sufficient Being for the good, of our souls.</p> + +<p>The final inconsistency between the Christian +position and the practical errors in question is +glanced at in the words “after the commandments +and doctrines of men,” which refer, of course, to +the ordinances of which Paul is speaking. The +expression is a quotation from Isaiah’s (xxix. 13) +denunciation of the Pharisees of his day, and as +used here seems to suggest that our Lord’s great +discourse on the worthlessness of the Jewish +punctilios about meats and drinks was in the +Apostle’s mind, since the same words of Isaiah +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> +occur there in a similar connection. It is not fitting +that we, who are withdrawn from dependence on the +outward visible order of things by our union with +Christ in His death, should be under the authority +of men. Here is the true democracy of the Christian +society. “Ye were redeemed with a price. Be not +the servants of men.” Our union to Jesus Christ is +a union of absolute authority and utter submission. +We all have access to the one source of illumination, +and we are bound to take our orders from the one +Master. The protest against the imposition of human +authority on the Christian soul is made not in the +interests of self-will, but from reverence to the only +voice that has the right to give autocratic commands +and to receive unquestioning obedience. We are +free in proportion as we are dead to the world with +Christ. We are free from men not that we may +please ourselves, but that we may please Him. +“Hold your peace, I want to hear what my Master +has to command me,” is the language of the Christian +freedman, who is free that he may serve, and because +he serves.</p> + +<p>II. We have to consider one great purpose of all +teaching and external worship, by its power in +attaining which any system is to be tried.</p> + +<p>“Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in +will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body, +<i>but are</i> not of any value against the indulgence of +the flesh.” Here is the conclusion of the whole +matter, the parting summary of the indictment +against the whole irritating tangle of restrictions and +prescriptions. From a moral point of view it is +worthless, as having no coercive power over “the +flesh.” Therein lies its conclusive condemnation, for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> +if religious observances do not help a man to subdue +his sinful self, what, in the name of common sense, +is the use of them?</p> + +<p>The Apostle knows very well that the system +which he was opposing had much which commended +it to people, especially to those who did not look +very deep. It had a “show of wisdom” very fascinating +on a superficial glance, and that in three points, +all of which caught the vulgar eye, and all of which +turned into the opposite on closer examination.</p> + +<p>It has the look of being exceeding devotion and +zealous worship. These teachers with their abundant +forms impose upon the popular imagination, as if +they were altogether given up to devout contemplation +and prayer. But if one looks a little more +closely at them, one sees that their devotion is the +indulgence of their own will and not surrender to +God’s. They are not worshipping Him as He has +appointed, but as they have themselves chosen, and +as they are rendering services which He has not +required, they are in a very true sense worshipping +their own wills, and not God at all. By “will-worship” +seems to be meant self-imposed forms of +religious service which are the outcome not of +obedience, nor of the instincts of a devout heart, but +of a man’s own will. And the Apostle implies that +such supererogatory and volunteered worship is no +worship. Whether offered in a cathedral or a barn, +whether the worshipper wear a cope or a fustian +jacket, such service is not accepted. A prayer which +is but the expression of the worshipper’s own will, +instead of being “not my will but Thine be done,” +reaches no higher than the lips that utter it. If we +are subtly and half unconsciously obeying self even +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> +while we seem to be bowing before God; if we are +seeming to pray, and are all the while burning +incense to ourselves, instead of being drawn out of +ourselves by the beauty and the glory of the God +towards whom our spirits yearn, then our devotion is +a mask, and our prayers will be dispersed in empty air.</p> + +<p>The deceptive appearance of wisdom in these +teachers and their doctrines is further manifest in +the humility which felt so profoundly the gulf +between man and God that it was fain to fill the +void with its fantastic creations of angel mediators. +Humility is a good thing, and it looked very humble +to say, We cannot suppose that such insignificant +flesh-encompassed creatures as we can come into +contact and fellowship with God; but it was a great +deal more humble to take God at His word, and to +let Him lay down the possibilities and conditions +of intercourse, and to tread the way of approach to +Him which He has appointed. If a great king were +to say to all the beggars and ragged losels of his +capital, Come to the palace to-morrow; which would +be the humbler, he who went, rags and leprosy and +all, or he who hung back because he was so keenly +conscious of his squalor? God says to men, “Come +to My arms through My Son. Never mind the dirt, +come.” Which is the humbler: he who takes God +at His word, and runs to hide his face on his Father’s +breast, having access to Him through Christ the +Way, or he who will not venture near till he has +found some other mediators besides Christ? A +humility so profound that it cannot think God’s +promise and Christ’s mediation enough for it, has +gone so far West that it has reached the East, and +from humility has become pride.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> +Further, this system has a show of wisdom in +“severity to the body.” Any asceticism is a great +deal more to men’s taste than abandoning self. +They will rather stick hooks in their backs and do +the “swinging poojah,” than give up their sins or +yield up their wills. It is easier to travel the whole +distance from Cape Comorin to the shrine of Juggernaut, +measuring every foot of it by the body laid +prostrate in the dust, than to surrender the heart to +the love of God. In the same manner the milder +forms of putting oneself to pain, hair shirts, scourgings, +abstinence from pleasant things with the notion +that thereby merit is acquired, or sin atoned for, +have a deep root in human nature, and hence “a +show of wisdom.” It is strange, and yet not strange, +that people should think that, somehow or other, +they recommend themselves to God by making +themselves uncomfortable, but so it is that religion +presents itself to many minds mainly as a system of +restrictions and injunctions which forbids the agreeable +and commands the unpleasant. So does our +poor human nature vulgarise and travesty Christ’s +solemn command to deny ourselves and take up our +cross after Him.</p> + +<p>The conclusive condemnation of all the crowd +of punctilious restrictions of which the Apostle has +been speaking lies in the fact that, however they +may correspond to men’s mistaken notions, and so +seem to be the dictate of wisdom, they “are not of +any value against the indulgence of the flesh.” This +is one great end of all moral and spiritual discipline, +and if practical regulations do not tend to secure it, +they are worthless.</p> + +<p>Of course by “flesh” here we are to understand, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> +as usually in the Pauline Epistles, not merely the +body but the whole unregenerate personality, the +entire unrenewed self that thinks and feels and wills +and desires apart from God. To indulge and satisfy +it is to die, to slay and suppress it is to live. All +these “ordinances” with which the heretical teachers +were pestering the Colossians, have no power, Paul +thinks, to keep that self down, and therefore they +seem to him so much rubbish. He thus lifts the +whole question up to a higher level and implies a +standard for judging much formal outward Christianity +which would make very short work of it.</p> + +<p>A man may be keeping the whole round of them +and seven devils may be in his heart. They distinctly +tend to foster some of the “works of the +flesh,” such as self-righteousness, uncharitableness, +censoriousness, and they as distinctly altogether fail +to subdue any of them. A man may stand on a +pillar like Simeon Stylites for years, and be none +the better. Historically, the ascetic tendency has +not been associated with the highest types of real +saintliness except by accident, and has never been +their productive cause. The bones rot as surely +inside the sepulchre though the whitewash on its +dome be ever so thick.</p> + +<p>So the world and the flesh are very willing that +Christianity should shrivel into a religion of prohibitions +and ceremonials, because all manner of +vices and meannesses may thrive and breed under +these, like scorpions under stones. There is only +one thing that will put the collar on the neck of +the animal within us, and that is the power of the +indwelling Christ. The evil that is in us all is too +strong for every other fetter. Its cry to all these +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +“commandments and ordinances of men” is, “Jesus +I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?” Not +in obedience to such, but in the reception into our +spirits of His own life, is our power of victory over +self. “This I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall +not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXVII" id="ColXVII"></a>XVII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE PRESENT CHRISTIAN LIFE, A RISEN LIFE.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that +are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your +mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the +earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When +Christ, <i>Who is</i> our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him +be manifested in glory.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iii. 1–4 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We have now done with controversy. We +hear no more about heretical teachers. The +Apostle has cut his way through the tangled +thickets of error, and has said his say as to the +positive truths with which he would hew them down. +For the remainder of the letter, we have principally +plain practical exhortations, and a number of interesting +personal details.</p> + +<p>The paragraph which we have now to consider is +the transition from the controversial to the ethical +portion of the Epistle. It touches the former by its +first words, “If ye then were raised together with +Christ,” which correspond in form and refer in +meaning to the beginning of the previous paragraph, +“If ye died with Christ.” It touches the latter +because it embodies the broad general precept, +“Seek the things that are above,” of which the +following practical directions are but varying applications +in different spheres of duty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> +In considering these words we must begin by +endeavouring to put clearly their connection and +substance. As they flew from Paul’s eager lips, +motive and precept, symbol and fact, the present +and future are blended together. It may conduce +to clearness if we try to part these elements.</p> + +<p>There are here two similar exhortations, side by +side. “Seek the things that are above,” and “Set +your mind on the things that are above.” The +first is <i>preceded</i>, and the second is <i>followed</i> by its +reason. So the two laws of conduct are, as it were, +enclosed like a kernel in its shell, or a jewel in +a gold setting, by encompassing motives. These +considerations, in which the commandment are imbedded, +are the double thought of union with +Christ in His resurrection, and in His death, and +as consequent thereon, participation in His present +hidden life, and in His future glorious manifestation. +So we have here the present budding life of the +Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ; the +future consummate flower of the Christian life in +union with the glorious manifested Christ; and the +practical aim and direction which alone is consistent +with either bud or flower.</p> + +<p>I. The present budding life of the Christian in +union with the risen, hidden Christ.</p> + +<p>Two aspects of this life are set forth in verses 1 +and 3—“raised with Christ,” and “ye died, and +your life is hid with Christ.” A still profounder +thought lies in the words of verse 4, “Christ <i>is</i> our +life.”</p> + +<p>We have seen in former parts of this Epistle that +Paul believed that, when a man puts His faith in +Jesus Christ, he is joined to Him in such a way +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> +that he is separated from his former self and dead +to the world. That great change may be considered +either with reference to what the man has ceased +to be, or with reference to what he becomes. In +the one aspect, it is a death; in the other, it is +a resurrection. It depends on the point of view +whether a semicircle seems convex or concave. The +two thoughts express substantially the same fact. +That great change was brought about in these +Colossian Christians, at a definite time, as the +language shows; and by a definite means—namely, +by union with Christ through faith, which grasps +His death and resurrection as at once the ground of +salvation, the pattern for life, and the prophecy of +glory. So then, the great truths here are these; the +impartation of life by union with Christ, which life +is truly a resurrection life, and is, moreover, hidden +with Christ in God.</p> + +<p>Union with Christ by faith is the condition of a +real communication of life. “In Him was life,” says +John’s Gospel, meaning thereby to assert, in the +language of our Epistle, that “in Him were all +things created, and in Him all things consist.” Life +in all its forms is dependent on union in varying +manner with the Divine, and upheld only by His +continual energy. The creature must touch God or +perish. Of that energy the Uncreated Word of God +is the channel—“with Thee is the fountain of life.” +As the life of the body, so the higher self-conscious +life of the thinking, feeling, striving soul, is also fed +and kept alight by the perpetual operation of a +higher Divine energy, imparted in like manner by +the Divine Word. Therefore, with deep truth, the +psalm just quoted, goes on to say, “In Thy light +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> +shall we see light”—and therefore, too, John’s Gospel +continues: “And the life was the light of men.”</p> + +<p>But there is a still higher plane on which life may +be manifested, and nobler energies which may accompany +it. The body may live, and mind and heart +be dead. Therefore Scripture speaks of a threefold +life: that of the animal nature, that of the intellectual +and emotional nature, and that of the spirit, which +lives when it is conscious of God, and touches Him +by aspiration, hope, and love. This is the loftiest +life. Without it, a man is dead while he lives. With +it, he lives though he dies. And like the others, it +depends on union with the Divine life as it is stored +in Jesus Christ—but in this case, the union is a +conscious union by faith. If I trust to Him, and +am thereby holding firmly by Him, my union with +Him is so real, that, in the measure of my faith, His +fulness passes over into my emptiness, His righteousness +into my sinfulness, His life into my death, as +surely as the electric shock thrills my nerves when I +grasp the poles of the battery.</p> + +<p>No man can breathe into another’s nostrils the +breath of life. But Christ can and does breathe +His life into us; and this true miracle of a communication +of spiritual life takes place in every man +who humbly trusts himself to Him. So the question +comes home to each of us—am I living by my +union with Christ? do I draw from Him that better +being which He is longing to pour into my withered, +dead spirit? It is not enough to live the animal life; +the more it is fed, the more are the higher lives +starved and dwindled. It is not enough to live the life +of intellect and feeling. That may be in brightest, +keenest exercise, and yet we—our best selves—may +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> +be dead—separated from God in Christ, and therefore +dead—and all our activity may be but as a +galvanic twitching of the muscles in a corpse. Is +Christ our life, its source, its strength, its aim, its +motive? Do we live in Him, by Him, with Him, +for Him? If not, we are dead while we live.</p> + +<p>This life from Christ is a resurrection life. “The +power of Christ’s resurrection” is threefold—as a +seal of His mission and Messiahship, “declared to +be the Son of God, by His resurrection from the +dead;” as a prophecy and pledge of ours, “now +is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits +of them that slept;” and as a symbol and +pattern of our new life of Christian consecration, +“likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be indeed +dead unto sin.” This last use of the resurrection of +Christ is a plain witness of the firm, universal and +uncontested belief in the historical fact, throughout +the Churches which Paul addressed. The fact must +have been long familiar and known as undoubted, +before it could have been thus moulded into a +symbol. But, passing from that, consider that our +union to Christ produces a moral and spiritual change +analogous to His resurrection. After all, it is the +moral and not the mystical side which is the main +thing in Paul’s use of this thought. He would +insist, that all true Christianity operates a death to +the old self, to sin and to the whole present order +of things, and endows a man with new tastes, desires +and capacities, like a resurrection to a new being. +These heathen converts—picked from the filthy cesspools +in which many of them had been living, and set +on a pure path, with the astounding light of a Divine +love flooding it, and a bright hope painted on the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> +infinite blackness ahead—had surely passed into a +new life. Many a man in this day, long familiar +with Christian teaching, has found himself made +over again in mature life, when his heart has grasped +Christ. Drunkards, profligates, outcasts, have found +it life from the dead; and even where there has not +been such complete visible revolution as in them, +there has been such deep-seated central alteration +that it is no exaggeration to call it resurrection. +The plain fact is that real Christianity in a man +will produce in him a radical moral change. If our +religion does not do that in us, it is nothing. Ceremonial +and doctrine are but means to an end—making +us better men. The highest purpose of +Christ’s work, for which He both “died and rose +and revived,” is to change us into the likeness of +His own beauty of perfect purity. That risen life +is no mere exaggeration of mystical rhetoric, but an +imperative demand of the highest morality, and the +plain issue of it is: “Let not sin therefore reign in +your mortal body.” Do I say that I am a Christian? +The test by which my claim must be tried is the +likeness of my life here to Him who has died unto +sin, and liveth unto God.</p> + +<p>But the believing soul is risen with Christ also, +inasmuch as our union with Him makes us partakers +of His resurrection as our victory over death. The +water in the reservoir and in the fountain is the +same; the sunbeam in the chamber and in the sky +are one. The life which flows into our spirits from +Christ is a life that has conquered death, and makes +us victors in that last conflict, even though we have +to go down into the darkness. If Christ live in us, +we can never die. “It is not possible that <i>we</i> should +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> +be holden of <i>it</i>.” The bands which He broke can +never be fastened on our limbs. The gates of death +were so warped and the locks so spoiled when He +burst them asunder, that they can never be closed +again. There are many arguments for a future life +beyond the grave, but there is only one proof of it—the +Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, trusting in Him, +and with our souls bound in the bundle of life with +our Lord the King, we can cherish quiet thankfulness +of heart, and bless the God and Father of our Lord +who hath begotten us again into a lively hope by +the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.</p> + +<p>This risen life is a hidden life. Its roots are in +Him. He has passed in His ascension into the light +which is inaccessible, and is hidden in its blaze, bearing +with Him our life, concealed there with Him in +God. Faith stands gazing into heaven, as the +cloud, the visible manifestation from of old of the +Divine presence, hides Him from sight, and turns +away feeling that the best part of its true self is gone +with Him. So here Paul points his finger upwards +to where “Christ is, sitting at the right hand of +God,” and says—We are here in outward seeming, +but our true life is there, if we are His. And what +majestic, pregnant words these are! How full, and +yet how empty for a prurient curiosity, and how +reverently reticent even while they are triumphantly +confident! How gently they suggest repose—deep +and unbroken, and yet full of active energy! For +if the attitude imply rest, the locality—“at the right +hand of God”—expresses not only the most intimate +approach to, but also the wielding of the Divine +omnipotence. What is the right hand of God but +the activity of His power? and what less can be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> +ascribed to Christ here, than His being enthroned +in closest union with the Father, exercising Divine +dominion, and putting forth Divine power. No +doubt the ascended and glorified bodily manhood of +Jesus Christ has a local habitation, but the old psalm +might teach us that wherever space is, even there +“Thy right hand upholds,” and there is our ascended +Lord, sitting as in deepest rest, but working all the +work of God. And it is just because He is at the +right hand of God that He is hid. The light hides. +He has been lost to sight in the glory.</p> + +<p>He has gone in thither, bearing with Him the +true source and root of our lives into the secret place +of the Most High. Therefore we no longer belong +to this visible order of things in the midst of which +we tarry for a while. The true spring that feeds +our lives lies deep beneath all the surface waters. +These may dry up, but it will flow. These may be +muddied with rain, but it will be limpid as ever. +The things seen do not go deep enough to touch +our real life. They are but as the winds that fret, +and the currents that sway the surface and shallower +levels of the ocean, while the great depths are still. +The circumference is all a whirl; the centre is at rest.</p> + +<p>Nor need we leave out of sight, though it be not +the main thought here, that the Christian life is +hidden, inasmuch as here on earth action ever falls +short of thought, and the love and faith by which a +good man lives can never be fully revealed in his +conduct and character. You cannot carry electricity +from the generator to the point where it is to work +without losing two-thirds of it by the way. Neither +word nor deed can adequately set forth a soul; and +the profounder and nobler the emotion, the more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> +inadequate are the narrow gates of tongue and hand +to give it passage. The deepest love can often only +“love and be silent.” So, while every man is truly +a mystery to his neighbour, a life which is rooted in +Christ is more mysterious to the ordinary eye than +any other. It is fed by hidden manna. It is replenished +from a hidden source. It is guided by +other than the world’s motives, and follows unseen +aims. “Therefore the world knoweth us not, because +it knew Him not.”</p> + +<p>II. We have the future consummate flower of the +Christian life in union with the manifested, glorious +Christ.</p> + +<p>The future personal manifestation of Jesus Christ +in visible glory is, in the teaching of all the New +Testament writers, the last stage in the series of His +Divine human conditions. As surely as the Incarnation +led to the cross, and the cross to the empty +grave, and the empty grave to the throne, so surely +does the throne lead to the coming again in glory. +And as with Christ, so with His servants, the +manifestation in glory is the certain end of all the +preceding, as surely as the flower is of the tiny green +leaves that peep above the frost-bound earth in +bleak March days. Nothing in that future, however +glorious and wonderful, but has its germ and vital +beginning in our union with Christ here by humble +faith. The great hopes which we may cherish are +gathered up here into these words—“shall be +manifested with Him.” That is far more than was +conveyed by the old translation—“shall appear.” +The roots of our being shall be disclosed, for He +shall come, “and every eye shall see Him.” We +shall be seen for what we are. The outward life +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> +shall correspond to the inward. The faith and love +which often struggled in vain for expression and +were thwarted by the obstinate flesh, as a sculptor +trying to embody his dream might be by a block of +marble with many a flaw and speck, shall then be +able to reveal themselves completely. Whatever is +in the heart shall be fully visible in the life. Stammering +words and imperfect deeds shall vex us no +more. “His name shall be in their foreheads”—no +longer only written in fleshly tables of the heart and +partially visible in the character, but stamped legibly +and completely on life and nature. They shall +walk in the light, and so shall be seen of all. Here +the truest followers of Christ shine like an intermittent +star, seen through mist and driving cloud: +“Then shall the righteous <i>blaze forth</i> like the sun +in the kingdom of My Father.”</p> + +<p>But this is not all. The manifestation is to be +“with Him.” The union which was here effected +by faith, and marred by many an interposing obstacle +of sin and selfishness, of flesh and sense, is to be +perfected then. No film of separation is any more +to break its completeness. Here we often lose our +hold of Him amidst the distractions of work, even +when done for His sake; and our life is at best but +an imperfect compromise between contemplation and +action; but then, according to that great saying, +“His servants shall serve Him, and see His face,” +the utmost activity of consecrated service, though it be +far more intense and on a nobler scale than anything +here, will not interfere with the fixed gaze on His +countenance. We shall serve like Martha, and yet +never remove from sitting with Mary, rapt and +blessed at His feet.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> +This is the one thought of that solemn future +worth cherishing. Other hopes may feed sentiment, +and be precious sometimes to aching hearts. A +reverent longing or an irreverent curiosity, may seek to +discern something more in the far-off light. But it +is enough for the heart to know that “we shall ever +be with the Lord;” and the more we have that one +hope in its solitary grandeur, the better. We shall +be with Him in “in glory.” That is the climax of +all that Paul would have us hope. “Glory” is the +splendour and light of the self-revealing God. In the +heart of the blaze stands Christ; the bright cloud +enwraps Him, as it did on the mountain of transfiguration, +and into the dazzling radiance His +disciples will pass as His companions did then, nor +“fear as they enter into the cloud.” They walk +unshrinking in that beneficent fire, because with them +is one like unto a Son of man, through whom they +dwell, as in their own calm home, amidst “the everlasting +burning,” which shall not destroy them, but +kindle them into the likeness of its own flashing +glory.</p> + +<p>Then shall the life which here was but in bud, +often unkindly nipt and struggling, burst into the +consummate beauty of the perfect flower “which +fadeth not away.”</p> + +<p>III. We have the practical aim and direction +which alone is consistent with either stage of the +Christian life.</p> + +<p>Two injunctions are based upon these considerations—“seek,” +and “set your mind upon,” the +things that are above. The one points to the outward +life of effort and aim; the other to the inward +life of thought and longing. Let the things above +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> +then, be the constant mark at which you aim. There +is a vast realm of real existence of which your risen +Lord is the centre and the life. Make it the point +to which you strive. That will not lead to despising +earth and nearer objects. These, so far as they are +really good and worthy, stand right in the line of +direction which our efforts will take if we are seeking +the things that are above, and may all be stages +on our journey Christwards. The lower objects are +best secured by those who live for the higher. No +man is so well able to do the smallest duties here, +or to bear the passing troubles of this world of +illusion and change, or to wring the last drop of +sweetness out of swiftly fleeting joys, as he to whom +everything on earth is dwarfed by the eternity +beyond, as some hut beside a palace, and is great +because it is like a little window a foot square +through which infinite depths of sky with all their +stars shine in upon him. The true meaning and +greatness of the present is that it is the vestibule of +the august future. The staircase leading to the +presence chamber of the king may be of poor deal, +narrow, crooked, and stowed away in a dark turret, +but it has dignity by reason of that to which it gives +access. So let our aims pass through the earthly +and find in them helps to the things that are above. +We should not fire all our bullets at the short range. +Seek ye first the kingdom of God—the things which +are above.</p> + +<p>“Set your mind on” these things, says the +Apostle further. Let them occupy mind and heart—and +this in order that we may seek them. The +direction of the aims will follow the set and current +of the thoughts. “As a man thinketh in his heart, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> +so is he.” How can we be shaping our efforts to +reach a good which we have not clearly before our +imaginations as desirable? How should the life of +so many professing Christians be other than a lame +creeping along the low levels of earth, seeing that so +seldom do they look up to “see the King in His +beauty and the land that is very far off”? John +Bunyan’s “man with the muckrake” grubbed away +so eagerly among the rubbish, because he never +lifted his eyes to the crown that hung above his +head. In many a silent, solitary hour of contemplation, +with the world shut out and Christ brought +very near, we must find the counterpoise to the +pressure of earthly aims, or our efforts after the +things that are above will be feeble and broken. +Life goes at such a pace to-day, and the present is +so exacting with most of us, that quiet meditation +is, I fear me, almost out of fashion with Christian +people. We must become more familiar with the +secret place of the most High, and more often enter +into our chambers and shut our doors about us, if in +the bustle of our busy days we are to aim truly and +strongly at the only object which saves life from +being a waste and a sin, a madness and a misery—“the +things which are above, where Christ is.”</p> + +<p>“Where Christ is.” Yes, that is the only thought +which gives definiteness and solidity to that else +vague and nebulous unseen universe; the only +thought which draws our affections thither. Without +Him, there is no footing for us there. Rolling +mists of doubt and dim hopes warring with fears, +strangeness and terrors wrap it all. But if He be +there, it becomes a home for our hearts. “I go to +prepare a place for you”—a place where desire and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> +thought may walk unterrified and undoubting even +now, and where we ourselves may abide when our +time comes, nor shrink from the light nor be +oppressed by the glory.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“My knowledge of that life is small,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The eye of faith is dim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I shall be with Him.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Into that solemn world we shall all pass. We +can choose whether we shall go to it as to our +long-sought home, to find in it Him who is our life; +or whether we shall go reluctant and afraid, leaving +all for which we have cared, and going to Him +whom we have neglected and that which we have +feared. Christ will be manifested, and we shall see +Him. We can choose whether it will be to us the +joy of beholding the soul of our soul, the friend +long-loved when dimly seen from afar; or whether +it shall be the vision of a face that will stiffen us to +stone and stab us with its light. We must make +our choice. If we give our hearts to Him, and by +faith unite ourselves with Him, then, “when He +shall appear, we shall have boldness, and not be +ashamed before Him at His coming.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXVIII" id="ColXVIII"></a>XVIII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>SLAYING SELF THE FOUNDATION PRECEPT OF +PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, +uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, the which +is idolatry; for which things’ sake cometh the wrath of God upon the +sons of disobedience; in the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye +lived in these things. But now put ye also away all these; anger, +wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth: lie not +one to another.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iii. 5–9 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>“Mortify <i>therefore</i>”—wherefore? The previous +words give the reason. Because “ye +died” with Christ, and because ye “were raised +together with Him.” In other words, the plainest, +homeliest moral teaching of this Epistle, such as +that which immediately follows, is built upon its +“mystical” theology. Paul thinks that the deep +things which he has been saying about union with +Christ in His death and resurrection have the most +intimate connection with common life. These profound +truths have the keenest edge, and are as a +sacrificial knife, to slay the life of self. Creed is +meant to tell on conduct. Character is the last +outcome and test of doctrine. But too many people +deal with their theological beliefs as they do with +their hassocks and prayer books and hymn books +in their pews—use them for formal worship once a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> +week, and leave them for the dust to settle on them +till Sunday comes round again. So it is very +necessary to put the practical inferences very plainly, +to reiterate the most commonplace and threadbare +precepts as the issue of the most recondite teaching, +and to bind the burden of duty on men’s backs with +the cords of principles and doctrines.</p> + +<p>Accordingly the section of the Epistle which +deals with Christian character now begins, and this +“therefore” knits the two halves together. That +word protests against opposite errors. On the one +hand, some good people are to be found impatient +of exhortations to duties, and ready to say, Preach +the gospel, and the duties will spring up spontaneously +where it is received; on the other hand, +some people are to be found who see no connection +between the practice of common morality and the +belief of Christian truths, and are ready to say, Put +away your theology; it is useless lumber, the +machine will work as well without it. But Paul +believed that the firmest basis for moral teaching +and the most powerful motive for moral conduct is +“the truth as it is in Jesus.”</p> + +<p>I. We have here put very plainly the paradox of +continual self-slaying as the all-embracing duty of a +Christian.</p> + +<p>It is a pity that the R. V. has retained “mortify” +here, as that Latinized word says to an ordinary +reader much less than is meant, and hides the +allusion to the preceding contest. The marginal +alternative “make dead” is, to say the least, not +idiomatic English. The suggestion of the American +revisers, which is printed at the end of the R. V., +“put to death,” is much better, and perhaps a single +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> +word, such as “slay” or “kill” might have been +better still.</p> + +<p>“Slay your members which are upon the earth.” +It is a vehement and paradoxical injunction, though +it be but the echo of still more solemn and stringent +words—“pluck it out, cut it off, and cast it from +thee.” The possibility of misunderstanding it and +bringing it down to the level of that spurious asceticism +and “severity to the body” against which +he has just been thundering, seems to occur to the +Apostle, and therefore he hastens to explain that he +does not mean the maiming of selves, or hacking +away limbs, but the slaying of the passions and +desires which root themselves in our bodily constitution. +The eager haste of the explanation destroys +the congruity of the sentence, but he does not +mind that. And then follows a grim catalogue of +the evil-doers on whom sentence of death is passed.</p> + +<p>Before dealing with that list, two points of some +importance may be observed. The first is that the +practical exhortations of this letter begin with this +command to put off certain characteristics which are +assumed to belong to the Colossian Christians in +their natural state, and that only afterwards comes +the precept to put on (ver. 12) the fairer robes of +Christlike purity, clasped about by the girdle of +perfectness. That is to say, Paul’s anthropology +regards men as wrong and having to get right. A +great deal of the moral teaching which is outside +of Christianity, and which does not sufficiently +recognise that the first thing to be done is to cure +and alter, but talks as if men were, on the whole, +rather inclined to be good, is for that very reason +perfectly useless. Its fine precepts and lofty sentiments +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> +go clean over people’s heads, and are +ludicrously inappropriate to the facts of the case. +The serpent has twined itself round my limbs, and +unless you can give me a knife, sharp and strong +enough to cut its loathsome coils asunder, it is cruel +to bid me walk. All men on the face of the earth +need, for moral progress, to be shown and helped +first how <i>not</i> to be what they have been, and only +after that is it of the slightest use to tell them what +they ought to be. The only thing that reaches the +universal need is a power that will make us different +from what we are. If we are to grow into goodness +and beauty, we must begin by a complete reversal +of tastes and tendencies. The thing we want first +is not progress, the going on in the direction in +which our faces are turned, but a power which can +lay a mastering hand upon our shoulders, turn us +right round, and make us go in the way opposite to +that. Culture, the development of what is in us +in germ, is not the beginning of good husbandry +on human nature as it is. The thorns have to be +stubbed up first, and the poisonous seeds sifted out, +and new soil laid down, and then culture will bring +forth something better than wild grapes. First—“mortify;” +then—“put on.”</p> + +<p>Another point to be carefully noted is that, +according to the Apostle’s teaching, the root and +beginning of all such slaying of the evil which is +in us all, lies in our being dead with Christ to the +world. In the former chapter we found that the +Apostle’s final condemnation of the false asceticism +which was beginning to infect the Colossian Church, +was that it was of no value as a counteractive of +fleshly indulgence. But here he proclaims that what +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> +asceticism could not do, in that it was weak through +the flesh, union with Jesus Christ in His death and +risen life will do; it will subdue sin in the flesh. +That slaying here enjoined as fundamental to all +Christian holiness, is but the working out in life and +character of the revolution in the inmost self which +has been effected, if by faith we are joined to the +living Lord, who was dead and is alive for evermore.</p> + +<p>There must, however, be a very vigorous act of +personal determination if the power of that union is +to be manifested in us. The act of “slaying” can +never be pleasant or easy. The vehemence of the +command and the form of the metaphor express the +strenuousness of the effort and the painfulness of +the process, in the same way as Paul’s other saying, +“crucify the flesh,” does. Suppose a man working +at some machine. His fingers get drawn between +the rollers or caught in some belting. Another +minute and he will be flattened to a shapeless bloody +mass. He catches up an axe lying by and with his +own arm hacks off his own hand at the wrist. It +takes some nerve to do that. It is not easy nor +pleasant, but it is the only alternative to a horrible +death. I know of no stimulus that will string a +man up to the analogous spiritual act here enjoined, +and enjoined by conscience also, except participation +in the death of Christ and in the resulting life.</p> + +<p>“Slay your members which are upon the earth” +means tears and blood and more than blood. It +is easier far to cut off the hand, which after all is +not me, than to sacrifice passions and desires which, +though they be my worst self, are myself. It is +useless to blink the fact that the only road to holiness +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> +is through self-suppression, self-annihilation; +and nothing can make that easy and pleasant. +True, the paths of religion are ways of pleasantness +and paths of peace, but they are steep, and climbing +is never easy. The upper air is bracing and exhilarating +indeed, but trying to lungs accustomed to the +low levels. Religion is delightsome, but self-denial +is always against the grain of the self which is +denied, and there is no religion without it. Holiness +is not to be won in a moment. It is not a matter +of consciousness, possessed when we know that +we possess it. But it has to be attained by effort. +The way to heaven is not by “the primrose path.” +That leads to “the everlasting bonfire.” For ever +it remains true that men <i>obtain</i> forgiveness and +eternal life as a gift for which the only requisite is +faith, but they <i>achieve</i> holiness, which is the permeating +of their characters with that eternal life, by +patient, believing, continuous effort. An essential +part of that effort is directed towards the conquest +and casting out of the old self in its earthward-looking +lusts and passions. The love of Jesus Christ +and the indwelling of His renewing spirit make that +conquest possible, by supplying an all-constraining +motive and an all-conquering power. But even they +do not make it easy, nor deaden the flesh to the cut +of the sacrificial knife.</p> + +<p>II. We have here a grim catalogue of the condemned +to death.</p> + +<p>The Apostle stands like a jailer at the prison +door, with the fatal roll in his hand, and reads out +the names of the evil doers for whom the tumbril +waits to carry them to the guillotine. It is an +ugly list but we need plain speaking that there may +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> +be no mistake as to the identity of the culprits. +He enumerates evils which honeycombed society +with rottenness then, and are rampant now. The +series recounts various forms of evil love, and is +so arranged as that it starts with the coarse, gross +act, and goes on to more subtle and inward forms. +It goes up the stream as it were, to the fountain +head, passing inward from deed to desire. First +stands “fornication,” which covers the whole ground +of immoral sexual relations, then “all uncleanness,” +which embraces every manifestation in word or look +or deed of the impure spirit, and so is at once wider +and subtler than the gross physical act. Then follow +“passion” and “evil desire”; the sources of the +evil deeds. These again are at once more inward +and more general than the preceding. They include +not only the lusts and longings which give rise to +the special sins just denounced, but all forms of +hungry appetite and desire after “the things that +are upon the earth.” If we are to try to draw a +distinction between the two, probably “passion” is +somewhat less wide than “desire,” and the former +represents the evil emotion as an affection which the +mind suffers, while the latter represents it as a longing +which it actively puts forth. The “lusts of the +flesh” are in the one aspect kindled by outward +temptations which come with terrible force and +carry men captive, acting almost irresistibly on the +animal nature. In the other aspect they are excited +by the voluntary action of the man himself. +In the one the evil comes into the heart; in the +other the heart goes out to the evil.</p> + +<p>Then follows covetousness. The juxtaposition of +that vice with the grosser forms of sensuality is profoundly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> +significant. It is closely allied with these. +It has the same root, and is but another form of evil +desire going out to the “things which are on the +earth.” The ordinary worldly nature flies for solace +either to the pleasures of appetite or to the passion +of acquiring. And not only are they closely connected +in root, but covetousness often follows lust in +the history of a life just as it does in this catalogue. +When the former evil spirit loses its hold, the latter +often takes its place. How many respectable +middle-aged gentlemen are now mainly devoted to +making money, whose youth was foul with sensual +indulgence? When that palled, this came to +titillate the jaded desires with a new form of gratification. +Covetousness is “promoted <i>vice</i>, lust superannuated.”</p> + +<p>A reason for this warning against covetousness is +appended, “inasmuch as (for such is the force of the +word rendered ‘the which’) it is idolatry.” If we +say of anything, no matter what, “If I have only +enough of this, I shall be satisfied; it is my real +aim, my sufficient good,” that thing is a god to me, +and my real worship is paid to it, whatever may be +my nominal religion. The lowest form of idolatry +is the giving of supreme trust to a material thing, +and making that a god. There is no lower form of +fetish-worship than this, which is the real working +religion to-day of thousands of Englishmen who go +masquerading as Christians.</p> + +<p>III. The exhortation is enforced by a solemn +note of warning: “For which things’ sake the wrath +of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.” +Some authorities omit the words “upon the children +of disobedience,” which are supposed to have crept +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> +in here from the parallel passage, Eph. v. 6. But +even the advocates of the omission allow that the +clause has “preponderating support,” and the sentence +is painfully incomplete and abrupt without +it. The R. V. has exercised a wise discretion in +retaining it.</p> + +<p>In the previous chapter the Apostle included +“warning” in his statement of the various branches +into which his Apostolic activity was divided. His +duty seemed to him to embrace the plain stern +setting forth of that terrible reality, the wrath of +God. Here we have it urged as a reason for +shaking off these evil habits.</p> + +<p>That thought of wrath as an element in the +Divine nature has become very unwelcome to this +generation. The great revelation of God in Jesus +Christ has taught the world His love, as it never +knew it before, and knows it now by no other +means. So profoundly has that truth that God is +love penetrated the consciousness of the European +world, that many people will not hear of the wrath +of God because they think it inconsistent with His +love—and sometimes reject the very gospel to which +they owe their lofty conceptions of the Divine heart, +because it speaks solemn words about His anger and +its issues.</p> + +<p>But surely these two thoughts of God’s love and +God’s wrath are not inconsistent, for His wrath is +His love, pained, wounded, thrown back upon itself, +rejected and compelled to assume the form of +aversion and to do its “strange work”—that which +is not its natural operation—of punishment. When +we ascribe wrath to God, we must take care of +lowering the conception of it to the level of human +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> +wrath, which is shaken with passion and often tinged +with malice, whereas in that affection of the Divine +nature which corresponds to anger in us, there is +neither passion nor wish to harm. Nor does it +exclude the co-existence of love, as Paul witnesses in +his Epistle to the Ephesians, in one verse declaring +that “we were the children of wrath,” and in the +next that God “loved us with a great love even when +we were dead in sins.”</p> + +<p>God would not be a holy God if it were all the +same to Him whether a man were good or bad. +As a matter of fact, the modern revulsion against +the representation of the wrath of God is usually +accompanied with weakened conceptions of His +holiness, and of His moral government of the world. +Instead of exalting, it degrades His love to free it +from the admixture of wrath, which is like alloy +with gold, giving firmness to what were else too soft +for use. Such a God is not love, but impotent +good nature. If there be no wrath, there is no love; +if there were no love, there would be no wrath. It +is more blessed and hopeful for sinful men to +believe in a God who is angry with the wicked, +whom yet He loves, every day, and who cannot look +upon sin, than in one who does not love righteousness +enough to hate iniquity, and from whose too +indulgent hand the rod has dropped, to the spoiling +of His children. “With the froward Thou wilt show +Thyself froward.” The mists of our sins intercept +the gracious beams and turn the blessed sun into a +ball of fire.</p> + +<p>The wrath “<i>cometh</i>.” That majestic present +tense may express either the continuous present +incidence of the wrath as exemplified in the moral +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> +government of the world, in which, notwithstanding +anomalies, such sins as have been enumerated drag +after themselves their own punishment and are +“avenged in kind,” or it may be the present tense +expressive of prophetic certainty, which is so sure of +what shall come, that it speaks of it as already on +its road. It is eminently true of those sins of lust +and passion, that the men who do them reap as +they have sown. How many young men come up +into our great cities, innocent and strong, with a +mother’s kiss upon their lips, and a father’s blessing +hovering over their heads! They fall among bad +companions in college or warehouse, and after a +little while they disappear. Broken in health, +tainted in body and soul, they crawl home to break +their mothers’ hearts—and to die. “His bones are +full of the sins of his youth, which shall lie down +with him in the dust.” Whether in such extreme +forms or no, that wrath comes even now, in plain +and bitter consequences on men, and still more on +women who sin in such ways.</p> + +<p>And the present retribution may well be taken as +the herald and prophet of a still more solemn manifestation +of the Divine displeasure, which is already +as it were on the road, has set out from the throne +of God, and will certainly arrive here one day. +These consequences of sin already realised serve to +show the set and drift of things, and to suggest +what will happen when retribution and the harvest +of our present life of sowing come. The first fiery +drops that fell on Lot’s path as he fled from Sodom +were not more surely precursors of an overwhelming +rain, nor bade him flee for his life more urgently, +than the present punishment of sin proclaims its +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> +sorer future punishment, and exhorts us all to come +out of the storm into the refuge, even Jesus, who +is ever even now “delivering us from the wrath +which is” ever even now “coming” on the sons of +disobedience.</p> + +<p>IV. A further motive enforcing the main precept +of self-slaying is the remembrance of a sinful past, +which remembrance is at once penitent and grateful. +“In the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye +lived in them.”</p> + +<p>What is the difference between “walking” and +“living” in these things? The two phrases seem +synonymous, and might often be used indifferently; +but here there is evidently a well marked diversity +of meaning. The former is an expression frequent +in the Pauline Epistles as well as in John’s; as for +instance, “to walk in love” or “in truth.” That in +which men walk is conceived of as an atmosphere +encompassing them; or, without a metaphor, to walk +in anything is to have the active life or conduct +guided or occupied by it. These Colossian Christians, +then, had in the past trodden that evil path, or their +active life had been spent in that poisonous atmosphere—which +is equivalent to saying that they had +committed these sins. At what time? “When you +lived in them.” That does not mean merely “when +your natural life was passed among them.” That +would be a trivial thing to say, and it would imply +that their outward life now was not so passed, which +would not be true. In that sense they still lived in +the poisonous atmosphere. In such an age of unnameable +moral corruption no man could live out +of the foul stench which filled his nostrils whenever +he walked abroad or opened his window. But the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> +Apostle has just said that they were now “living in +Christ,” and their lives “hid with Him in God.” So +this phrase describes the condition which is the +opposite of their present, and may be paraphrased, +“When the roots of your life, tastes, affections, +thoughts, desires were immersed, as in some feculent +bog, in these and kindred evils.” And the meaning +of the whole is substantially—Your active life was +occupied and guided by these sins in that past time +when your inward being was knit to and nourished +by them. Or to put it plainly, conduct followed and +was shaped by inclinations and desires.</p> + +<p>This retrospect enforces the main exhortation. It +is meant to awaken penitence, and the thought that +time enough has been wasted and incense enough +offered on these foul altars. It is also meant to +kindle thankfulness for the strong, loving hand which +has drawn them from that pit of filth, and by both +emotions to stimulate the resolute casting aside of +that evil in which they once, like others, wallowed. +Their joy on the one hand and their contrition on +the other should lead them to discern the inconsistency +of professing to be Christians and yet +keeping terms with these old sins. They could not +have the roots of half their lives above and of the +other half down here. The gulf between the present +and past of a regenerate man is too wide and deep +to be bridged by flimsy compromises. “A man +who is perverse in his two ways,” that is, in double +ways, “shall fall in one of them,” as the Book of +Proverbs has it. The attempt to combine incompatibles +is sure to fail. It is impossible to walk +firmly if one foot be down in the gutter and the +other up on the curb-stone. We have to settle +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> +which level we shall choose, and then to plant both +feet there.</p> + +<p>V. We have, as conclusion, a still wider exhortation +to an entire stripping off of the sins of the old +state.</p> + +<p>The whole force of the contrast and contrariety +between the Colossian Christians’ past and present +lies in that emphatic “now.” They as well as other +heathen had been walking, because they had been +living, in these muddy ways. But now that their +life was hid with Christ in God; now that they had +been made partakers of His death and resurrection, +and of all the new loves and affinities which therein +became theirs; now they must take heed that they +bring not that dead and foul past into this bright +and pure present, nor prolong winter and its frosts +into the summer of the soul.</p> + +<p>“Ye also.” There is another “ye also” in the +previous verse—“ye also walked,” that is, you in +company with other Gentiles followed a certain +course of life. Here, by contrast, the expression +means “you, in common with other Christians.” A +motive enforcing the subsequent exhortation is in it +hinted rather than fully spoken. The Christians +at Colossæ had belonged to a community which +they have now left in order to join another. Let +them behave as their company behaves. Let them +keep step with their new comrades. Let them +strip themselves, as their new associates do, of the +uniform which they wore in that other regiment.</p> + +<p>The metaphor of putting clothing on or off is +very frequent in this Epistle. The precept here is +substantially equivalent to the previous command to +“slay,” with the difference that the conception of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> +vices as the garments of the soul is somewhat less +vehement than that which regards them as members +of the very self. “All these” are to be put off. +That phrase points back to the things previously +spoken of. It includes the whole of the unnamed +members of the class, of which a few have been +already named, and a handful more are about to be +plucked like poison flowers, and suggests that there +are many more as baleful growing by the side of +this devil’s bouquet which is next presented.</p> + +<p>As to this second catalogue of vices, they may be +summarised as, on the whole, being various forms +of wicked hatred, in contrast with the former list, +which consisted of various forms of wicked love. +They have less to do with bodily appetites. But +perhaps it is not without profound meaning that +the fierce rush of unhallowed passion over the soul +is put first, and the contrary flow of chill malignity +comes second; for in the spiritual world, as in the +physical, a storm blowing from one quarter is usually +followed by violent gales from the opposite. Lust +ever passes into cruelty, and dwells “hard by hate.” +A licentious epoch or man is generally a cruel epoch +or man. Nero made torches of the Christians. +Malice is evil desire iced.</p> + +<p>This second list goes in the opposite direction to +the former. That began with actions and went up +the stream to desire; this begins with the sources, +which are emotions, and comes down stream to their +manifestations in action.</p> + +<p>First we have anger. There is a just and righteous +anger, which is part of the new man, and essential to +his completeness, even as it is part of the image after +which he is created. But here of course the anger +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> +which is to be put off is the inverted reflection of the +earthly and passionate lust after the flesh; it is, then, +of an earthly, passionate and selfish kind. “Wrath” +differs from “anger” in so far as it may be called +anger boiling over. If anger rises keep the lid on, +do not let it get the length of wrath, nor effervesce +into the brief madness of passion. But on the other +hand, do not think that you have done enough when +you have suppressed the wrath which is the expression +of your anger, nor be content with saying, +“Well, at all events I did not show it,” but take the +cure a step further back, and strip off anger as well +as wrath, the emotion as well as the manifestation.</p> + +<p>Christian people do not sufficiently bring the +greatest forces of their religion and of God’s Spirit +to bear upon the homely task of curing small hastinesses +of temper, and sometimes seem to think it a +sufficient excuse to say, “I have naturally a hot +disposition.” But Christianity was sent to subdue +and change natural dispositions. An angry man +cannot have communion with God, any more than +the sky can be reflected in the storm-swept tide; +and a man in communion with God cannot be angry +with a passionate and evil anger any more than a +dove can croak like a raven or strike like a hawk. +Such anger disturbs our insight into everything; +eyes suffused with it cannot see; and it weakens all +good in the soul, and degrades it before its own +conscience.</p> + +<p>“Malice” designates another step in the process. +The anger boils over in wrath, and then cools down +into malignity—the disposition which means mischief, +and plans or rejoices in evil falling on the hated +head. That malice, as cold, as clear, as colourless +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> +as sulphuric acid, and burning like it, is worse than +the boiling rage already spoken of. There are +many degrees of this cold drawn, double distilled +rejoicing in evil, and the beginnings of it in a certain +faint satisfaction in the misfortunes of those whom +we dislike is by no means unusual.</p> + +<p>An advance is now made in the direction of +outward manifestation. It is significant that while +the expressions of wicked love were deeds, those of +wicked hate are words. The “blasphemy” of the +Authorised Version is better taken, with the Revised, +as “railing.” The word means “speech that injures,” +and such speech may be directed either +against God, which is blasphemy in the usual sense +of the word, or against man. The hate blossoms +into hurtful speech. The heated metal of anger is +forged into poisoned arrows of the tongue. Then +follows “shameful speaking out of your mouth,” +which is probably to be understood not so much of +obscenities, which would more properly belong to +the former catalogue, as of foul-mouthed abuse of +the hated persons, that copiousness of vituperation +and those volcanic explosions of mud, which are so +natural to the angry Eastern.</p> + +<p>Finally, we have a dehortation from lying, especially +to those within the circle of the Church, as if +that sin too were the child of hatred and anger. It +comes from a deficiency of love, or a predominance +of selfishness, which is the same thing. A lie ignores +my brother’s claims on me, and my union with him. +“Ye are members one of another,” is the great obligation +to love which is denied and sinned against by +hatred in all its forms and manifestations, and not +least by giving my brother the poisoned bread of lies +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> +instead of the heavenly manna of pure truth, so far +as it has been given to me.</p> + +<p>On the whole, this catalogue brings out the importance +to be attached to sins of speech, which are +ranked here as in parallel lines with the grossest +forms of animal passion. Men’s words ought to be +fountains of consolation and sources of illumination, +encouragement, revelations of love and pity. And +what are they? What floods of idle words, foul +words, words that wound like knives and sting and +bite like serpents, deluge the world! If all the talk +that has its sources in these evils rebuked here, were +to be suddenly made inaudible, what a dead silence +would fall on many brilliant circles, and how many +of us would stand making mouths but saying +nothing.</p> + +<p>All the practical exhortations of this section concern +common homely duties which everybody knows +to be such. It may be asked—does Christianity +then only lay down such plain precepts? What +need was there of all that prelude of mysterious doctrines, +if we are only to be landed at last in such +elementary and obvious moralities? No doubt they +are elementary and obvious, but the main matter +is—how to get them kept. And in respect to that, +Christianity does two things which nothing else +does. It breaks the entail of evil habits by the +great gift of pardon for the past, and by the greater +gift of a new spirit and life principle within, which is +foreign to all evil, being the effluence of the spirit +of life in Christ Jesus.</p> + +<p>Therefore the gospel of Jesus Christ makes it +possible that men should slay themselves, and put +on the new life, which will expel the old as the new +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> +shoots on some trees push the last year’s lingering +leaves, brown and sere, from their places. All +moral teachers from the beginning have agreed, on +the whole, in their reading of the commandments +which are printed on conscience in the largest +capitals. Everybody who is not blind can read +them. But reading is easy, keeping is hard. How +to fulfil has been wanting. It is given us in the +gospel, which is not merely a republication of old +precepts, but the communication of new power. If +we yield ourselves to Christ He will nerve our arms +to wield the knife that will slay our dearest tastes, +though beloved as Isaac by Abraham. If a man +knows and feels that Christ has died for him, and +that he lives in and by Christ, then, and not else, +will he be able to crucify self. If he knows and +feels that by His pardoning mercy and atoning +death, Christ has taken off his foul raiment and +clothed him in clean garments, then, and not else, +will he be able, by daily effort after repression of +self and appropriation of Christ, to put off the old +man and to put on the new, which is daily being +renewed into closer resemblance to the image of +Him who created him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXIX" id="ColXIX"></a>XIX.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE NEW NATURE WROUGHT OUT IN NEW LIFE.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have +put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after +the image of Him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and +Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, +freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iii. 9–11 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>In previous section we were obliged to break the +close connection between these words and the +preceding. They adduce a reason for the moral +exhortation going before, which at first sight may +appear very illogical. “Put off these vices of the old +nature because you have put off the old nature with +its vices,” sounds like, Do a thing because you have +done it. But the apparent looseness of reasoning +covers very accurate thought which a little consideration +brings to light, and introduces a really cogent +argument for the conduct it recommends. Nor do +the principles contained in the verses now under +examination look backward only to enforce the +exhortation to put aside these evils. They also +look forward, and are taken as the basis of the +following exhortation, to put on the white robes of +Christlikeness—which is coupled with this section by +“therefore.”</p> + +<p>I. The first thing to be observed is the change +of the spirit’s dress, which is taken for granted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> +as having occurred in the experience of all Christians.</p> + +<p>We have already found the same idea presented +under the forms of death and resurrection. The +“death” is equivalent to the “putting off of the +old,” and the “resurrection” to “the putting on of +the new man.” That figure of a change of dress to +express a change of moral character is very obvious, +and is frequent in Scripture. Many a psalm breathes +such prayers as, “Let Thy priests be clothed with +righteousness.” Zechariah in vision saw the high-priestly +representative of the nation standing before +the Lord “in filthy garments,” and heard the command +to strip them off him, and clothe him in festival +robes, in token that God had “caused his iniquity to +pass from him.” Christ spoke His parable of the +man at the wedding feast without the wedding garment, +and of the prodigal, who was stripped of his +rags stained with the filth of the swine troughs, and +clothed with the best robe. Paul in many places +touches the same image, as in his ringing exhortation—clear +and rousing in its notes like the morning +bugle—to Christ’s soldiers, to put off their night +gear, “the works of darkness,” and to brace on the +armour of light, which sparkles in the morning sunrise. +Every reformatory and orphanage yields an +illustration of the image, where the first thing done +is to strip off and burn the rags of the new comers, +then to give them a bath and dress them in clean, +sweet, new clothes. Most naturally dress is taken +as the emblem of character, which is indeed the garb +of the soul. Most naturally <i>habit</i> means both +<i>costume</i> and <i>custom</i>.</p> + +<p>But here we have a strange paradox introduced, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> +to the ruining of the rhetorical propriety of the +figure. It is a “new man” that is put on. The +Apostle does not mind hazarding a mixed metaphor, +if it adds to the force of his speech, and he introduces +this thought of the new <i>man</i>, though it somewhat +jars, in order to impress on his readers that what +they have to put off and on is much more truly part +of themselves than an article of dress is. The “old +man” is the unregenerate self; the new man is, of +course, the regenerate self, the new Christian moral +nature personified. There is a deeper self which +remains the same throughout the change, the true +man, the centre of personality; which is, as it were, +draped in the moral nature, and can put it off and +on. I myself change myself. The figure is vehement, +and, if you will, paradoxical, but it expresses +accurately and forcibly at once the depth of the +change which passes on him who becomes a Christian, +and the identity of the person through all +change. If I am a Christian, there has passed on +me a change so thorough that it is in one aspect a +death, and in another a resurrection; in one aspect +it is a putting off not merely of some garb of action, +but of the old <i>man</i>, and in another a putting on not +merely of some surface renovation, but of a new +<i>man</i>—which is yet the same old self.</p> + +<p>This entire change is taken for granted by Paul +as having been realised in every Christian. It is +here treated as having taken place at a certain point +of time, namely when these Colossians began to put +their trust in Jesus Christ, and in profession of that +trust, and as a symbol of that change, were baptized.</p> + +<p>Of course the contrast between the character +before and after faith in Christ is strongest when, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> +like the Christians at Colossæ, converts have been +brought out of heathenism. With us, where some +knowledge of Christianity is widely diffused, and its +indirect influence has shaped the characters even of +those who reject it, there is less room for a marked +revolution in character and conduct. There will be +many true saints who can point to no sudden change +as their conversion; but have grown up, sometimes +from childhood, under Christian influences, or who, +if they have distinctly been conscious of a change, +have passed through it as gradually as night passes +into day. Be it so. In many respects that will +be the highest form of experience. Yet even such +souls will be aware of a “new man” formed in +them which is at variance with their own old selves, +and will not escape the necessity of the conflict with +their lower nature, the immolation and casting off +of the unregenerate self. But there are also many +people who have grown up without God or Christ, +who must become Christians by the way of sudden +conversion, if they are ever to become Christians +at all.</p> + +<p>Why should such sudden change be regarded +as impossible? Is it not a matter of every-day +experience that some long ignored principle may +suddenly come, like a meteor into the atmosphere, +into a man’s mind and will, may catch fire as it +travels, and may explode and blow to pieces the +solid habits of a lifetime? And why should not the +truth concerning God’s great love in Christ, which +in too sad certainty is ignored by many, flame in +upon blind eyes, and change the look of everything? +The New Testament doctrine of conversion asserts +that it may and does. It does not insist that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> +everybody must become a Christian in the same +fashion. Sometimes there will be a dividing line +between the two states, as sharp as the boundary +of adjoining kingdoms; sometimes the one will melt +imperceptibly into the other. Sometimes the revolution +will be as swift as that of the wheel of a +locomotive, sometimes slow and silent as the movement +of a planet in the sky. The main thing is +that whether suddenly or slowly the face shall be +turned to God.</p> + +<p>But however brought about, this putting off of +the old sinful self, is a certain mark of a Christian +man. It can be assumed as true universally, and +appealed to as the basis of exhortations such as +those of the context. Believing certain truths does +not make a Christian. If there have been any +reality in the act by which we have laid hold of +Christ as our Saviour, our whole being will be +revolutionized; old things will have passed away—tastes, +desires, ways of looking at the world, memories, +habits, pricks of conscience and all cords that bound +us to our God-forgetting past—and all things will +have become new, because we ourselves move in the +midst of the old things as new creatures with new +love burning in our hearts and new motives changing +all our lives, and a new aim shining before us, and +a new hope illuminating the blackness beyond, and +a new song on our lips, and a new power in our +hands, and a new Friend by our sides.</p> + +<p>This is a wholesome and most needful test for all +who call themselves Christians, and who are often +tempted to put too much stress on believing and +feeling, and to forget the supreme importance of the +moral change which true Christianity effects. Nor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> +is it less needful to remember that this resolute +casting off of the garment spotted by the flesh, and +putting on of the new man, is a consequence of faith +in Christ and is only possible as a consequence. +Nothing else will strip the foul robes from a man. +The moral change comes second, the union with +Jesus Christ by faith must come first. To try to +begin with the second stage, is like trying to begin +to build a house at the second story.</p> + +<p>But there is a practical conclusion drawn from +this taken-for-granted change. Our text is introduced +by “seeing that;” and though some doubts +may be raised as to that translation and the logical +connection of the paragraph, it appears on the whole +most congruous with both the preceding and the +following context, to retain it and to see here the +reason for the exhortation which goes before—“Put +off all these,” and for that which follows—“Put on, +therefore,” the beautiful garment of love and compassion.</p> + +<p>That great change, though taking place in the +inmost nature whensoever a heart turns to Christ, +needs to be wrought into character, and to be +wrought out in conduct. The leaven is in the dough, +but to knead it thoroughly into the mass is a lifelong +task, which is only accomplished by our own +continually repeated efforts. The old garment clings +to the limbs like the wet clothes of a half-drowned +man, and it takes the work of a lifetime to get quite +rid of it. The “old man” dies hard, and we have +to repeat the sacrifice hour by hour. The new man +has to be put on afresh day by day.</p> + +<p>So the apparently illogical exhortation, Put off +what you have put off, and put on what you have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> +put on, is fully vindicated. It means, Be consistent +with your deepest selves. Carry out in detail what +you have already done in bulk. Cast out the enemy, +already ejected from the central fortress, from the +isolated positions which he still occupies. You +<i>may</i> put off the old man, for he is put off already; +and the confidence that he is will give you strength +for the struggle that still remains. You <i>must</i> put +off the old man, for there is still danger of his again +wrapping his poisonous rags about your limbs.</p> + +<p>II. We have here, the continuous growth of the +new man, its aim and pattern.</p> + +<p>The thought of the garment passes for the +moment out of sight, and the Apostle enlarges on +the greatness and glory of this “new man,” partly +as a stimulus to obeying the exhortation, partly, +with allusion to some of the errors which he had +been combating, and partly because his fervid spirit +kindles at the mention of the mighty transformation.</p> + +<p>The new man, says he, is “being renewed.” +This is one of the instances where minute accuracy +in translation is not pedantic, but clear gain. When +we say, with the Authorised Version, “is renewed,” +we speak of a completed act; when we say with the +Revised Version, “is being renewed,” we speak of a +continuous process; and there can be no question +that the latter is the true idea intended here. The +growth of the new man is constant, perhaps slow +and difficult to discern, if the intervals of comparison +be short. But like all habits and powers it steadily +increases. On the other hand, a similar process +works to opposite results in the “old man,” which, +as Paul says in the instructive parallel passage in +the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 22), “waxeth +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> +corrupt, after the lusts of deceit.” Both grow +according to their inmost nature, the one steadily +upwards; the other with accelerating speed downwards, +till they are parted by the whole distance +between the highest heaven and the lowest abyss. +So mystic and awful is that solemn law of the +persistent increase of the true ruling tendency of a +man’s nature, and its certain subjugation of the +whole man to itself!</p> + +<p>It is to be observed that this renewing is represented +in this clause, as done <i>on</i> the new man, not +by him. We have heard the exhortation to a +continuous appropriation and increase of the new +life by our own efforts. But there is a Divine side +too, and the renewing is not merely effected by us, +nor due only to the vital power of the new man, +though growth is the sign of life there as everywhere, +but is “the renewing by the Holy Ghost,” +whose touch quickens and whose indwelling renovates +the inward man day by day. So there is +hope for us in our striving, for He helps us; and +the thought of that Divine renewal is not a pillow +for indolence, but a spur to intenser energy, as Paul +well knew when he wove the apparent paradox, +“work out your own salvation, for it is God that +worketh in you.”</p> + +<p>The new man is being renewed “<i>unto</i> knowledge.” +An advanced knowledge of God and Divine realities +is the result of the progressive renewal. Possibly +there may be a passing reference to the pretensions +of the false teachers, who had so much to say about +a higher wisdom open to the initiated, and to be +won by ceremonial and asceticism. Their claims, +hints Paul, are baseless; their pretended secrets a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> +delusion; their method of attaining them a snare. +There is but one way to press into the depths of the +knowledge of God—namely growth into His likeness. +We understand one another best by sympathy. +We know God only on condition of resemblance. +“If the eye were not sunlike how could it see the +sun?” says Goethe. “If thou beest this, thou +seest this,” said Plotinus. Ever, as we grow in +resemblance, shall we grow in knowledge, and ever +as we grow in knowledge, shall we grow in resemblance. +So in perpetual action and reaction of +being and knowing, shall we draw nearer and +nearer the unapproachable light, and receiving it full +on our faces, shall be changed into the same image, +as the moonbeams that touch the dark ocean transfigure +its waves into silver radiance like their own. +For all simple souls, bewildered by the strife of +tongues and unapt for speculation, this is a message +of gladness, that the way to know God is to be like +Him, and the way to be like Him is to be renewed +in the inward man, and the way to be renewed in +the inward man is to put on Christ. They may +wrangle and philosophize who will, but the path +to God leads far away from all that. It may be +trodden by a child’s foot, and the wayfaring man +though a fool shall not err therein, for all that is +needed is a heart that desires to know Him, and +is made like Him by love. Half the secret lies in +the great word which tells us that “we shall be like +Him, for we shall see Him as He is,” and knowledge +will work likeness. The other half lies in the +great word which tells us that “blessed are the pure +in heart, for they shall see God,” and likeness will +work a more perfect knowledge.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> +This new man is being renewed <i>after the image of +Him that created him</i>. As in the first creation man +was made in the image of God, so in the new +creation. From the first moment in which the +supernatural life is derived from Christ into the regenerated +spirit, that new life is like its source. It +is kindred, therefore it is like, as all derived life is. +The child’s life is like the father’s. But the image +of God which the new man bears is more than that +which was stamped on man in his creation. That +consisted mainly, if not wholly, in the reasonable +soul, and the self-conscious personality, the broad +distinctions which separate man from other animals. +The image of God is often said to have been lost +by sin, but Scripture seems rather to consider it +as inseparable from humanity, even when stained by +transgression. Men are still images of God, though +darkened and “carved in ebony.” The coin bears +His image and superscription, though rusty and defaced. +But the image of God, which the new man +bears from the beginning in a rudimentary form, and +which is continually imprinting itself more deeply +upon him, has for its principal feature holiness. +Though the majestic infinitudes of God can have +no likeness in man, however exalted, and our feebleness +cannot copy His strength, nor our poor blind +knowledge, with its vast circumference of ignorance, +be like His ungrowing and unerring knowledge, we +may be “holy <i>as</i> He is holy”; we may be “imitators +of God as beloved children, and walk in love +as He hath loved us”; we may “<i>walk</i> in the light +as He <i>is</i> in the light,” with only the difference +between His calm, eternal being, and our changeful +and progressive motion therein; we may even “be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> +perfect as our Father is perfect.” This is the end +of all our putting off the old and putting on the new. +This is the ultimate purpose of God, in all His self-revelation. +For this Christ has come and died and +lives. For this the Spirit of God dwells in us. This +is the immortal hope with which we may re-create +and encourage our souls in our often weary struggles. +Even our poor sinful natures may be transformed +into that wondrous likeness. Coal and diamond are +but varying forms of carbon, and the blackest lump +dug from the deepest mine, may be transmuted by +the alchemy of that wondrous transforming union +with Christ, into a brightness that shall flash back +all the glory of the sunlight, and gleam for ever, set +in one of His many crowns.</p> + +<p>III. We have here finally the grand unity of this +new creation.</p> + +<p>We may reverse the order of the words as they +stand here, and consider the last clause first, inasmuch +as it is the reason for the doing away of all +distinctions of race, or ceremony, or culture, or social +condition.</p> + +<p>“Christ is all.” Wherever that new nature is +found, it lives by the life of Christ. He dwells in +all who possess it. The Spirit of life in Christ is in +them. His blood passes into their veins. The holy +desires, the new tastes, the kindling love, the clearer +vision, the gentleness and the strength, and whatsoever +things beside are lovely and of good report, +are all His—nay, we may say, are all Himself.</p> + +<p>And, of course, all who are His are partakers of that +common gift, and He is <i>in</i> all. There is no privileged +class in Christ’s Church, as these false teachers +in Colossæ had taught. Against every attempt to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> +limit the universality of the gospel, whether it came +from Jewish Pharisees or Eastern philosophers, Paul +protested with his whole soul. He has done so +already in this Epistle, and does so here in his +emphatic assertion that Christ was not the possession +of an aristocracy of “intelligence,” but belonged to +every soul that trusted Him.</p> + +<p>Necessarily, therefore, surface distinctions disappear. +There is triumph in the roll of his rapid +enumeration of these clefts that have so long kept +brothers apart, and are now being filled up. He +looks round on a world, the antagonisms of which +we can but faintly imagine, and his eye kindles and +his voice rises into vibrating emotion, as he thinks +of the mighty magnetism that is drawing enemies +towards the one centre in Christ. His catalogue +here may profitably be compared with his other in +the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 28). There he +enumerates the three great distinctions which parted +the old world: race (Jew and Greek), social condition +(bond and free), and sex (male and female.) +These, he says, as separating powers, are done away +in Christ. Here the list is modified, probably with +reference to the errors in the Colossian Church.</p> + +<p>“There cannot be Greek and Jew.” The cleft of +national distinctions, which certainly never yawned +more widely than between the Jew and every other +people, ceases to separate, and the teachers who had +been trying to perpetuate that distinction in the +Church were blind to the very meaning of the +gospel. “Circumcision and uncircumcision” separated. +Nothing makes deeper and bitterer antagonisms +than differences in religious forms, and +people who have not been born into them are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> +usually the most passionate in adherence to them, so +that cleft did not entirely coincide with the former. +“Barbarian, Scythian,” is not an antithesis, but a +climax—the Scythians were looked upon as the +most savage of barbarians. The Greek contempt +for the outside races, which is reflected in this +clause, was largely the contempt for a supposed +lower stage of culture. As we have seen, Colossæ +especially needed the lesson that differences in culture +disappeared in the unity of Christ, for the heretical +teachers attached great importance to the wisdom +which they professed to impart. A cultivated class +is always tempted to superciliousness, and a half cultivated +class is even more so. There is abundance +of that arrogance born of education among us to-day, +and sorely needing and quite disbelieving the +teaching that there are things which can make up +for the want of what it possesses. It is in the +interest of the humble virtues of the uneducated +godly as well as of the nations called uncivilized, +that Christianity wars against that most heartless +and ruinous of all prides, the pride of culture, by its +proclamation that in Christ, barbarian, Scythian +and the most polished thinker or scholar are one.</p> + +<p>“Bondman, freeman” is again an antithesis. +That gulf between master and slave was indeed wide +and deep; too wide for compassion to cross, though +not for hatred to stride over. The untold miseries +of slavery in the old world are but dimly known; +but it and war and the degradation of women made +an infernal trio which crushed more than half the +race into a hell of horrors. Perhaps Paul may have +been the more ready to add this clause to his catalogue +because his thoughts had been occupied with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> +the relation of master and slave on the occasion of +the letter to Philemon which was sent along with +this to Colossæ.</p> + +<p>Christianity waged no direct war against these +social evils of antiquity, but it killed them much +more effectually by breathing into the conscience of +the world truths which made their continuance impossible. +It girdled the tree, and left it to die—a +much better and more thorough plan than dragging +it out of the ground by main force. Revolution +cures nothing. The only way to get rid of evils +engrained in the constitution of society is to elevate +and change the tone of thought and feeling, and +then they die of atrophy. Change the climate, and +you change the vegetation. Until you do, neither +mowing nor uprooting will get rid of the foul +growths.</p> + +<p>So the gospel does with all these lines of demarcation +between men. What becomes of them? +What becomes of the ridges of sand that separate +pool from pool at low water? The tide comes up +over them and makes them all one, gathered into +the oneness of the great sea. They may remain, +but they are seen no more, and the roll of the wave +is not interrupted by them. The powers and blessings +of the Christ pass freely from heart to heart, +hindered by no barriers. Christ founds a deeper +unity independent of all these superficial distinctions, +for the very conception of humanity is the product +of Christianity, and the true foundation for the +brotherhood of mankind is the revelation in Christ +of the fatherhood of God. Christ is the brother +of us all; His death is for every man; the blessing +of His gospel is offered to each; He will dwell in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> +the heart of any. Therefore all distinctions, national, +ceremonial, intellectual or social, fade into nothingness. +Love is of no nation, and Christ is the property +of no aristocracy in the Church. That great +truth was a miraculous new thing in that old world, +all torn apart by deep clefts like the grim cañons +of American rivers. Strange it must have seemed +to find slaves and their masters, Jew and Greek, +sitting at one table and bound in fraternal ties. +The world has not yet fully grasped that truth, and +the Church has woefully failed in showing it to be +a reality. But it arches above all our wars, and +schisms, and wretched class distinctions, like a rainbow +of promise, beneath whose open portal the +world shall one day pass into that bright land where +the wandering peoples shall gather together in peace +round the feet of Jesus, and there shall be one fold +because there is one Shepherd.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXX" id="ColXX"></a>XX.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE GARMENTS OF THE RENEWED SOUL.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of +compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing +one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint +against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: and above all +these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iii.12–14 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We need not repeat what has been already +said as to the logic of the inference, You +have put off the “old man,” therefore put off the +vices which belong to him. Here we have the same +argument in reference to the “new man” who is to be +“put on” because he has been put on. This “therefore” +rests the exhortation both on that thought, +and on the nearer words, “Christ is all and in all.” +Because the new nature has been assumed in the +very act of conversion, therefore array your souls in +vesture corresponding. Because Christ is all and +in all, therefore clothe yourselves with all brotherly +graces, corresponding to the great unity into which +all Christians are brought by their common possession +of Christ. The whole field of Christian morality +is not traversed here, but only so much of it as +concerns the social duties which result from that +unity.</p> + +<p>But besides the foundation for the exhortations +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> +which is laid in the possession of the “New Man,” +consequent on participation in Christ, another ground +for them is added in the words, “as God’s elect, +holy and beloved.” Those who are in Christ and +are thus regenerated in Him, are of the chosen race, +are consecrated as belonging especially to God, and +receive the warm beams of the special paternal love +with which He regards the men who are in some +measure conformed to His likeness and moulded +after His will. That relation to God should draw +after it a life congruous with itself—a life of active +goodness and brotherly gentleness. The outcome of +it should be not mere glad emotion, nor a hugging +of one’s self in one’s happiness, but practical efforts +to turn to men a face lit by the same dispositions +with which God has looked on us, or as the parallel +passage in Ephesians has it, “Be imitators of God, +as beloved children.” That is a wide and fruitful +principle—the relation to men will follow the relation +to God. As we think God has been to us, so let +us try to be to others. The poorest little fishing +cobble is best guided by celestial observations, and +dead reckoning without sun or stars is but second +best. Independent morality cut loose from religion +will be feeble morality. On the other hand, religion +which does not issue in morality is a ghost without +substance. Religion is the soul of morality. +Morality is the body of religion, more than ceremonial +worship is. The virtues which all men know, +are the fitting garments of the elect of God.</p> + +<p>I. We have here then an enumeration of the fair +garments of the new man.</p> + +<p>Let us go over the items of this list of the wardrobe +of the consecrated soul.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> +“A heart of compassion.” So the Revised Version +renders the words given literally in the Authorised +as “bowels of mercies,” an expression which that +very strange thing called conventional propriety +regards as coarse, simply because Jews chose one +part of the body and we another as the supposed +seat of the emotions. Either phrase expresses substantially +the Apostle’s meaning.</p> + +<p>Is it not beautiful that the series should begin +with <i>pity</i>? It is the most often needed, for the sea +of sorrow stretches so widely that nothing less than +a universal compassion can arch it over as with the +blue of heaven. Every man would seem in some +respect deserving of and needing sympathy, if his +whole heart and history could be laid bare. Such +compassion is difficult to achieve, for its healing +streams are dammed back by many obstructions of +inattention and occupation, and dried up by the +fierce heat of selfishness. Custom, with its deadening +influence, comes in to make us feel least the +sorrows which are most common in the society +around us. As a man might live so long in an +asylum that lunacy would seem to him almost the +normal condition, so the most widely diffused griefs +are those least observed and least compassionated; +and good, tender-hearted men and women walk the +streets of our great cities and see sights—children +growing up for the gallows and the devil, gin-shops +at every corner—which might make angels weep, +and suppose them to be as inseparable from our +“civilization” as the noise of wheels from a carriage +or bilge water from a ship. Therefore we have to +make conscious efforts to “put on” that sympathetic +disposition, and to fight against the faults which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> +hinder its free play. Without it, no help will be of +much use to the receiver, nor of any to the giver. +Benefits bestowed on the needy and sorrowful, if +bestowed without sympathy, will hurt like a blow. +Much is said about ingratitude, but very often it is +but the instinctive recoil of the heart from the unkind +doer of a kindness. Aid flung to a man as a bone +is to a dog usually gets as much gratitude as the +sympathy which it expresses deserves. But if we +really make another’s sorrows ours, that teaches us +tact and gentleness, and makes our clumsy hands +light and deft to bind up sore hearts.</p> + +<p>Above all things, the practical discipline which +cultivates pity will beware of letting it be excited +and then not allowing the emotion to act. To +stimulate feeling and do nothing in consequence is +a short road to destroy the feeling. Pity is meant +to be the impulse toward help, and if it is checked +and suffered to pass away idly, it is weakened, as +certainly as a plant is weakened by being kept close +nipped and hindered from bringing its buds to flower +and fruit.</p> + +<p>“Kindness” comes next—a wider benignity, not +only exercised where there is manifest room for +pity, but turning a face of goodwill to all. Some +souls are so dowered that they have this grace without +effort, and come like the sunshine with welcome +and cheer for all the world. But even less happily +endowed natures can cultivate the disposition, and +the best way to cultivate it is to be much in communion +with God. When Moses came down from +the mount, his face shone. When we come out from +the secret place of the Most High we shall bear +some reflection of His great kindness whose “tender +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> +mercies are over all His works.” This “kindness” +is the opposite of that worldly wisdom, on which +many men pride themselves as the ripe fruit of their +knowledge of men and things, and which keeps up +vigilant suspicion of everybody, as in the savage +state, where “stranger” and “enemy” had only one +word between them. It does not require us to be +blind to facts or to live in fancies, but it does require +us to cherish a habit of goodwill, ready to become +pity if sorrow appears, and slow to turn away even +if hostility appears. Meet your brother with kindness, +and you will generally find it returned. The +prudent hypocrites who get on in the world, as ships +are launched, by “greasing the ways” with flattery, +and smiles, teach us the value of the true thing, since +even a coarse caricature of it wins hearts and disarms +foes. This “kindness” is the most powerful solvent +of illwill and indifference.</p> + +<p>Then follows “humility.” That seems to break +the current of thought by bringing a virtue entirely +occupied with self into the middle of a series referring +exclusively to others. But it does not really do +so. From this point onwards all the graces named +have reference to our demeanour under slights and +injuries—and humility comes into view here only as +constituting the foundation for the right bearing of +these. Meekness and longsuffering must stand on +a basis of humility. The proud man, who thinks +highly of himself and of his own claims, will be the +touchy man, if any one derogates from these.</p> + +<p>“Humility,” or lowly-mindedness, a lowly estimate +of ourselves, is not necessarily blindness to our +strong points. If a man can do certain things better +than his neighbours, he can hardly help knowing it, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> +and Christian humility does not require him to be +ignorant of it. I suppose Milton would be none the +less humble, though he was quite sure that his work +was better than that of Sternhold and Hopkins. +The consciousness of power usually accompanies +power. But though it may be quite right to “know +myself” in the strong points, as well as in the weak, +there are two considerations which should act as +dampers to any unchristian fire of pride which the +devil’s breath may blow up from that fuel. The +one is, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” +the other is, “Who is pure before God’s +judgment-seat?” Your strong points are nothing +so very wonderful, after all. If you have better +brains than some of your neighbours, well, that is +not a thing to give yourself such airs about. Besides, +where did you get the faculties you plume yourself +on? However cultivated by yourself, how came +they yours at first? And, furthermore, whatever +superiorities may lift you above any men, and however +high you may be elevated, it is a long way from +the top of the highest molehill to the sun, and not +much longer to the top of the lowest. And, besides +all that, you may be very clever and brilliant, may +have made books or pictures, may have stamped +your name on some invention, may have won a +place in public life, or made a fortune—and yet you +and the beggar who cannot write his name are both +guilty before God. Pride seems out of place in +creatures like us, who have all to bow our heads in +the presence of His perfect judgment, and cry, “God +be merciful to me a sinner!”</p> + +<p>Then follow “meekness, long-suffering.” The +distinction between these two is slight. According +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> +to the most thorough investigators, the former is the +temper which accepts God’s dealings, or evil inflicted +by men as His instruments, without resistance, while +the latter is the long holding out of the mind before +it gives way to a temptation to action, or passion, +especially the latter. The opposite of meekness is +rudeness or harshness; the opposite of long-suffering, +swift resentment or revenge. Perhaps there may be +something in the distinction, that while long-suffering +does not get angry soon, meekness does not get +angry at all. Possibly, too, meekness implies a +lowlier position than long-suffering does. The meek +man puts himself below the offender; the long-suffering +man does not. God is long-suffering, but +the incarnate God alone can be “meek and lowly.”</p> + +<p>The general meaning is plain enough. The “hate +of hate,” the “scorn of scorn,” is not the Christian +ideal. I am not to allow my enemy always to +settle the terms on which we are to be. Why should +I scowl back at him, though he frowns at me? It +is hard work, as we all know, to repress the retort +that would wound and be so neat. It is hard not +to repay slights and offences in kind. But, if the +basis of our dispositions to others be laid in a +wise and lowly estimate of ourselves, such graces of +conduct will be possible, and they will give beauty +to our characters.</p> + +<p>“Forbearing and forgiving” are not new virtues. +They are meekness and long-suffering in exercise, +and if we were right in saying that “long-suffering” +was not <i>soon</i> angry, and “meekness” was not +angry at all, then “forbearance” would correspond +to the former and “forgiveness” to the latter; +for a man may exercise forbearance, and bite +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> +his lips till the blood come rather than speak, and +violently constrain himself to keep calm and do +nothing unkind, and yet all the while seven devils +may be in his spirit; while forgiveness, on the other +hand, is an entire wiping of all enmity and irritation +clean out of the heart.</p> + +<p>Such is the Apostle’s outline sketch of the +Christian character in its social aspect, all rooted +in pity, and full of soft compassion; quick to +apprehend, to feel, and to succour sorrow; a kindliness, +equable and widespread, illuminating all who +come within its reach; a patient acceptance of +wrongs without resentment or revenge, because a +lowly judgment of self and its claims, a spirit +schooled to calmness under all provocations, disdaining +to requite wrong by wrong, and quick to forgive.</p> + +<p>The question may well be asked—is that a type +of character which the world generally admires? Is +it not uncommonly like what most people would +call “a poor spiritless creature.” It was “a new +man,” most emphatically, when Paul drew that +sketch, for the heathen world had never seen anything +like it. It is a “new man” still; for although +the modern world has had some kind of Christianity—at +least has had a Church—for all these centuries, +that is not the kind of character which is its ideal. +Look at the heroes of history and of literature. +Look at the tone of so much contemporary biography +and criticism of public actions. Think of +the ridicule which is poured on the attempt to +regulate politics by Christian principles, or, as a +distinguished soldier called them in public recently, +“puling principles.” It may be true that Christianity +has not added any new virtues to those which are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> +prescribed by natural conscience, but it has most +certainly altered the perspective of the whole, and +created a type of excellence, in which the gentler +virtues predominate, and the novelty of which is +proved by the reluctance of the so-called Christian +world to recognise it even yet.</p> + +<p>By the side of its serene and lofty beauty, the +“heroic virtues” embodied in the world’s type of +excellence show vulgar and glaring, like some daub +representing a soldier, the sign-post of a public-house, +by the side of Angelico’s white-robed visions +on the still convent walls. The highest exercise of +these more gaudy and conspicuous qualities is to +produce the pity and meekness of the Christian +ideal. More self-command, more heroic firmness, +more contempt for the popular estimate, more of +everything strong and manly, will find a nobler field +in subduing passion and cherishing forgiveness, +which the world thinks folly and spiritless, than anywhere +else. Better is he that ruleth his spirit than +he that taketh a city.</p> + +<p><i>The great pattern and motive of forgiveness</i> is +next set forth. We are to forgive as Christ has +forgiven us; and that “as” may be applied either +as meaning “in like manner,” or as meaning +“because.” The Revised Version, with many +others, adopts the various reading of “the Lord,” +instead of “Christ,” which has the advantage of +recalling the parable that was no doubt in Paul’s +mind, about the servant who, having been forgiven +by his “<i>Lord</i>” all his great debt, took his fellow-servant +by the throat and squeezed the last farthing +out of him.</p> + +<p>The great transcendent act of God’s mercy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> +brought to us by Christ’s cross is sometimes, as in +the parallel passage in Ephesians, spoken of as +“God for Christ’s sake forgiving us,” and sometimes +as here, Christ is represented as forgiving. We +need not pause to do more than point to that interchange +of Divine office and attributes, and ask what +notion of Christ’s person underlies it.</p> + +<p>We have already had the death of Christ set forth +as in a very profound sense our pattern. Here we +have one special case of the general law that the +life and death of our Lord are the embodied ideal +of human character and conduct. His forgiveness is +not merely revealed to us that trembling hearts may +be calm, and that a fearful looking for of judgment +may no more trouble a foreboding conscience. For +whilst we must ever begin with cleaving to it as our +hope, we must never stop there. A heart touched +and softened by pardon will be a heart apt to +pardon, and the miracle of forgiveness which has +been wrought for it will constitute the law of its life +as well as the ground of its joyful security.</p> + +<p>This new pattern and new motive, both in one, +make the true novelty and specific difference of +Christian morality. “As I have loved you,” makes +the commandment “love one another” a new commandment. +And all that is difficult in obedience +becomes easier by the power of that motive. Imitation +of one whom we love is instinctive. Obedience +to one whom we love is delightful. The far off +ideal becomes near and real in the person of our +best friend. Bound to him by obligations so +immense, and a forgiveness so costly and complete, +we shall joyfully yield to “the cords of love” which +draw us after Him. We have each to choose what +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> +shall be the pattern for us. The world takes Cæsar, +the hero; the Christian takes Christ, in whose +meekness is power, and whose gentle long-suffering +has been victor in a sterner conflict than any battle +of the warrior with garments rolled in blood.</p> + +<p>Paul says, “Even as the Lord forgave you, so +also do ye.” The Lord’s prayer teaches us to ask, +Forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive. In +the one case Christ’s forgiveness is the example and +the motive for ours. In the other, our forgiveness +is the condition of God’s. Both are true. We shall +find the strongest impulse to pardon others in the +consciousness that we have been pardoned by Him. +And if we have grudgings against our offending +brother in our hearts, we shall not be conscious of +the tender forgiveness of our Father in heaven. +That is no arbitrary limitation, but inherent in the +very nature of the case.</p> + +<p>II. We have here the girdle which keeps all the +garments in their places.</p> + +<p>“Above all these things, put on love, which is the +bond of perfectness.”</p> + +<p>“Above all these” does not mean “besides,” or +“more important than,” but is clearly used in its +simplest local sense, as equivalent to “over,” and +thus carries on the metaphor of the dress. Over +the other garments is to be put the silken sash or +girdle of love, which will brace and confine all the +rest into a unity. It is “the girdle of perfectness,” +by which is not meant, as is often supposed, the +perfect principle of union among men. Perfectness +is not the quality of the girdle, but the thing which +it girds, and is a collective expression for “the +various graces and virtues, which together make up +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> +perfection.” So the metaphor expresses the thought +that love knits into a harmonious whole, the graces +which without it would be fragmentary and incomplete.</p> + +<p>We can conceive of all the dispositions already +named as existing in some fashion without love. +There might be pity which was not love, though we +know it is akin to it. The feeling with which one +looks upon some poor outcast, or on some stranger +in sorrow, or even on an enemy in misery, may be +very genuine compassion, and yet clearly separate +from love. So with all the others. There may be +kindness most real without any of the diviner +emotion, and there may even be forbearance reaching +up to forgiveness, and yet leaving the heart +untouched in its deepest recesses. But if these +virtues were thus exercised, in the absence of love +they would be fragmentary, shallow, and would have +no guarantee for their own continuance. Let love +come into the heart and knit a man to the poor +creature whom he had only pitied before, or to the +enemy whom he had at the most been able with an +effort to forgive; and it lifts these other emotions +into a nobler life. He who pities may not love, +but he who loves cannot but pity; and that compassion +will flow with a deeper current and be of a +purer quality than the shrunken stream which does +not rise from that higher source.</p> + +<p>Nor is it only the virtues enumerated here for which +love performs this office; but all the else isolated +graces of character, it binds or welds into a harmonious +whole. As the broad Eastern girdle holds +the flowing robes in position, and gives needed +firmness to the figure as well as composed order to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> +the attire; so this broad band, woven of softest +fabric, keeps all emotions in their due place and +makes the attire of the Christian soul beautiful in +harmonious completeness.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it is a yet deeper truth that love produces +all these graces. Whatsoever things men call virtues, +are best cultivated by cultivating it. So with a +somewhat similar meaning to that of our text, but +if anything, going deeper down, Paul in another +place calls love the fulfilling of the law, even as his +Master had taught him that all the complex of +duties incumbent upon us were summed up in love +to God, and love to men. Whatever I owe to my +brother will be discharged if I love God, and live +my love. Nothing of it, not even the smallest mite +of the debt will be discharged, however vast my +sacrifices and services, if I do not.</p> + +<p>So end the frequent references in this letter to +putting off the old and putting on the new. The +sum of them all is, that we must first put on Christ +by faith, and then by daily effort clothe our spirits +in the graces of character which He gives us, and by +which we shall be like Him.</p> + +<p>We have said that this dress of the Christian soul +which we have been now considering does not +include the whole of Christian duty. We may +recall the other application of the same figure which +occurs in the parallel Epistle to the Ephesians, +where Paul sketches for us in a few rapid touches +the armed Christian soldier. The two pictures may +profitably be set side by side. Here he dresses the +Christian soul in the robes of peace, bidding him +put on pity and meekness, and above all, the silken +girdle of love.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> +<span class="i0">“In peace, there’s nothing so becomes a man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As modest stillness and humility;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when the blast of war blows in our ears,”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>then “put on the whole armour of God,” the +leathern girdle of truth, the shining breastplate of +righteousness, and above all, the shield of faith—and +so stand a flashing pillar of steel. Are the two +pictures inconsistent? must we doff the robes of +peace to don the armour, or put off the armour to +resume the robes of peace? Not so; both must +be worn together, for neither is found in its completeness +without the other. Beneath the armour +must be the fine linen, clean and white—and at one +and the same time, our souls may be clad in all pity, +mercifulness and love, and in all the sparkling +panoply of courage and strength for battle.</p> + +<p>But both the armour and the dress of peace presuppose +that we have listened to Christ’s pleading +counsel to buy of Him “white raiment that we may +be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness +do not appear.” The garment for the soul, which +is to hide its deformities and to replace our own +filthy rags, is woven in no earthly looms, and no +efforts of ours will bring us into possession of it. +We must be content to owe it wholly to Christ’s +gift, or else we shall have to go without it altogether. +The first step in the Christian life is by simple faith +to receive from Him the forgiveness of all our sins, +and that new nature which He alone can impart, +and which we can neither create nor win, but must +simply accept. Then, after that, come the field and +the time for efforts put forth in His strength, to +array our souls in His likeness, and day by day to +put on the beautiful garments which He bestows. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> +It is a lifelong work thus to strip ourselves of the +rags of our old vices, and to gird on the robe +of righteousness. Lofty encouragements, tender +motives, solemn warnings, all point to this as our +continual task. We should set ourselves to it in +His strength, if so be that being clothed, we may +not be found naked—and then, when we lay aside +the garment of flesh and the armour needed for the +battle, we shall hear His voice welcoming us to the +land of peace, and shall walk with Him in victor’s +robes, glistening “so as no fuller on earth could +white them.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXXI" id="ColXXI"></a>XXI.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF THE PEACE OF +CHRIST, THE WORD OF CHRIST, AND THE NAME +OF CHRIST.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also +ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of +Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing +one another with psalms <i>and</i> hymns <i>and</i> spiritual songs, singing with +grace in your hearts unto God. And whatsoever ye do in word or in +deed, <i>do</i> all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the +Father through Him.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iii. 15–17 (Rev. Vers.).</p></div> + +<p>There are here three precepts somewhat loosely +connected, of which the first belongs properly to +the series considered in our last section, from which +it is only separated as not sharing in the metaphor +under which the virtues contained in the former +verses were set forth. In substance it is closely +connected with them, though in form it is different, +and in sweep is more comprehensive. The second +refers mainly to Christian intercourse, especially to +social worship; and the third covers the whole field +of conduct, and fitly closes the series, which in it +reaches the utmost possible generality, and from it +drops to the inculcation of very special domestic +duties. The three verses have each a dominant +phrase round which we may group their teaching. +These three are, the peace of Christ, the word of +Christ, the name of the Lord Jesus.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> +I. The Ruling Peace of Christ.</p> + +<p>The various reading “peace of Christ,” for “peace +of God,” is not only recommended by manuscript +authority, but has the advantage of bringing the expression +into connection with the great words of the +Lord, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give +unto you.” A strange legacy to leave, and a +strange moment at which to speak of His peace! +It was but an hour or so since He had been +“troubled in spirit,” as He thought of the betrayer—and +in an hour more He would be beneath the +olives of Gethsemane; and yet, even at such a time, +He bestows on His friends some share in His own +deep repose of spirit. Surely “the peace of Christ” +must mean what “My peace” meant; not only the +peace which He gives, but the peace which lay, like +a great calm on the sea, on His own deep heart; +and surely we cannot restrict so solemn an expression +to the meaning of mutual concord among +brethren. That, no doubt, is included in it, but +there is much more than that. Whatever made the +strange calm which leaves such unmistakable traces +in the picture of Christ drawn in the Gospels, may +be ours. When He gave us His peace, He gave us +some share in that meek submission of will to His +Father’s will, and in that stainless purity, which +were its chief elements. The hearts and lives of +men are made troubled, not by circumstances, but +by themselves. Whoever can keep his own will in +harmony with God’s enters into rest, though many +trials and sorrows may be his. Even if within and +without are fightings, there may be a central “peace +subsisting at the heart of endless agitation.” We +are our own disturbers. The eager swift motions of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> +our own wills keep us restless. Forsake these, and +quiet comes. Christ’s peace was the result of the +perfect harmony of all His nature. All was co-operant +to one great purpose; desires and passions +did not war with conscience and reason, nor did the +flesh lust against the Spirit. Though that complete +uniting of all our inner selves in the sweet concord +of perfect obedience is not attained on earth, yet its +beginnings are given to us by Christ, and in Him +we may be at peace with ourselves, and have one +great ruling power binding all our conflicting desires +in one, as the moon draws after her the heaped +waters of the sea.</p> + +<p>We are summoned to improve that gift—to “<i>let</i> +the peace of Christ” have its way in our hearts. The +surest way to increase our possession of it is to +decrease our separation from Him. The fulness of +our possession of His gift of peace depends altogether +on our proximity to the Giver. It evaporates in +carrying. It “diminishes as the square of the +distance” from the source. So the exhortation to +let it rule in us will be best fulfilled by keeping +thought and affection in close union with our Lord.</p> + +<p>This peace is to “rule” in our hearts. The +figure contained in the word here translated <i>rule</i> is +that of the umpire or arbitrator at the games, who, +looking down on the arena, watches that the combatants +strive lawfully, and adjudges the prize. +Possibly the force of the figure may have been +washed out of the word by use, and the “rule” of +our rendering may be all that it means. But there +seems no reason against keeping the full force of the +expression, which adds picturesqueness and point +to the precept. The peace of Christ, then, is to sit +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> +enthroned as umpire in the heart; or, if we might +give a mediæval instead of a classical shape to the +figure, that fair sovereign, Peace, is to be Queen of +the Tournament, and her “eyes rain influence and +adjudge the prize.” When contending impulses and +reasons distract and seem to pull us in opposite +directions, let her settle which is to prevail. How +can the peace of Christ do that for us? We may +make a rude test of good and evil by their effects on +our inward repose. Whatever mars our tranquillity, +ruffling the surface so that Christ’s image is no +longer visible, is to be avoided. That stillness of +spirit is very sensitive and shrinks away at the +presence of an evil thing. Let it be for us what +the barometer is to a sailor, and if it sinks, let us be +sure a storm is at hand. If we find that a given +course of action tends to break our peace, we may +be certain that there is poison in the draught which +as in the old stories, has been detected by the +shivered cup, and we should not drink any more. +There is nothing so precious that it is worth while to +lose the peace of Christ for the sake of it. Whenever +we find it in peril, we must retrace our steps.</p> + +<p>Then follows appended a reason for cultivating +the peace of Christ “to which also ye were called +in one body.” The very purpose of God’s merciful +summons and invitation to them in the gospel was +that they might share in this peace. There are +many ways of putting God’s design in His call by +the gospel—it may be represented under many +angles and from many points of view, and is glorious +from all and each. No one word can state all the +fulness to which we are called by His wonderful +love, but none can be tenderer and more blessed than +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> +this thought, that God’s great voice has summoned +us to a share in Christ’s peace. Being so called, all +who share in it of course find themselves knit to +each other by possession of a common gift. What +a contradiction then, to be summoned in order to so +blessed a possession, and not to allow it sovereign +sway in moulding heart and life! What a contradiction, +further, to have been gathered into one body +by the common possession of the peace of Christ, +and yet not to allow it to bind all the members in +its sweet fetters with cords of love! The sway of +the “peace of Christ” in our hearts will ensure the +perfect exercise of all the other graces of which we +have been hearing, and therefore this precept fitly +closes the series of exhortations to brotherly affections, +and seals all with the thought of the “one +body” of which all these “new men” are members.</p> + +<p>The very abruptness of the introduction of the +next precept gives it force, “and be ye thankful,” or, +as we might translate with an accuracy which perhaps +is not too minute, “become thankful,” striving +towards deeper gratitude than you have yet attained. +Paul is ever apt to catch fire as often as his thought +brings him in sight of God’s great love in drawing +men to Himself, and in giving them such rich gifts. +It is quite a feature of his style to break into sudden +bursts of praise as often as his path leads him to +a summit from which he catches a glimpse of that +great miracle of love. This interjected precept is +precisely like these sudden jets of praise. It is as +if he had broken off for a moment from the line +of his thought, and had said to his hearers—Think +of that wonderful love of your Father God. He has +called you from the midst of your heathenism, He +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> +has called you from a world of tumult and a life of +troubled unrest to possess the peace which brooded +ever, like the mystic dove, over Christ’s head; He +has called you in one body, having knit in a grand +unity us, Jews and Gentiles, so widely parted before. +Let us pause and lift up our voices in praise to Him. +True thankfulness will well up at all moments, and +will underlie and blend with all duties. There are +frequent injunctions to thankfulness in this letter, +and we have it again enjoined in the closing words +of the verses which we are now considering, so that +we may defer any further remarks till we come to +deal with these.</p> + +<p>II. The Indwelling Word of Christ.</p> + +<p>The main reference of this verse seems to be to +the worship of the Church—the highest expression +of its oneness. There are three points enforced in +its three clauses, of which the first is the dwelling +in the hearts of the Colossian Christians of the +“word of Christ,” by which is meant, as I conceive, +not simply “the presence of Christ in the heart, as an inward +monitor,”<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +but the indwelling of the definite body of truths contained in the gospel which +had been preached to them. That gospel is the +word of Christ, inasmuch as He is its subject. +These early Christians received that body of truth +by oral teaching. To us it comes in the history of +Christ’s life and death, and in the exposition of the +significance and far-reaching depth and power of +these, which are contained in the rest of the New +Testament—a very definite body of teaching. How +can it abide in the heart? or what is the dwelling +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> +of that word within us but the occupation of mind +and heart and will with the truth concerning Jesus +revealed to us in Scripture? This indwelling is in +our own power, for it is matter of precept and not +of promise—and if we want to have it we must do +with religious truth just what we do with other truths +that we want to keep in our minds—ponder them, +use our faculties on them, be perpetually recurring +to them, fix them in our memories, like nails fastened +in a sure place, and, that we may remember them, +“get them by heart,” as the children say. Few +things are more wanting to-day than this. The +popular Christianity of the day is strong in philanthropic +service, and some phases of it are full of +“evangelistic” activity, but it is wofully lacking in +intelligent grasp of the great principles involved and +revealed in the gospel. Some Christians have yielded +to the popular prejudice against “dogma,” and have +come to dislike and neglect the doctrinal side of +religion, and others are so busy in good works of +various kinds that they have no time nor inclination +to reflect nor to learn, and for others “the cares of +this world and the lusts of other things, entering in, +choke the word.” A merely intellectual Christianity +is a very poor thing, no doubt; but that has been +dinned into our ears so long and loudly for a +generation now, that there is much need for a clear +preaching of the other side—namely, that a merely +emotional Christianity is a still poorer, and that if +feeling on the one hand and conduct on the other +are to be worthy of men with heads on their +shoulders and brains in their heads, both feeling and +conduct must be built on a foundation of truth +believed and pondered. In the ordered monarchy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> +of human nature, reason is meant to govern, but she +is also meant to submit, and for her the law holds +good, she must learn to obey that she may be able +to rule. She must bow to the word of Christ, and +then she will sway aright the kingdom of the soul. +It becomes us to make conscience of seeking to get +a firm and intelligent grasp of Christian truth as +a whole, and not to be always living on milk meant +for babes, nor to expect that teachers and preachers +should only repeat for ever the things which we +know already.</p> + +<p>That word is to dwell in Christian men <i>richly</i>. +It is their own fault if they possess it, as so many +do, in scant measure. It might be a full tide. +Why in so many is it a mere trickle, like an +Australian river in the heat, a line of shallow ponds +with no life or motion, scarcely connected by a +thread of moisture, and surrounded by great stretches +of blinding shingle, when it might be a broad water—“waters +to swim in”? Why, but because they do +not do with this word, what all students do with the +studies which they love?</p> + +<p>The word should manifest the rich abundance of +its dwelling in men by opening out in their minds +into “every kind of wisdom.” Where the gospel in +its power dwells in a man’s spirit, and is intelligently +meditated on and studied, it will effloresce into +principles of thought and action applicable to all +subjects, and touching the whole round horizon of +human life. All, and more than all, the wisdom +which these false teachers promised in their mysteries, +is given to the babes and the simple ones +who treasure the word of Christ in their hearts, and +the least among them may say, “I have more understanding +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> +than all my teachers, for Thy testimonies +are my meditation.” That gospel which the child +may receive, has “infinite riches in a narrow room,” +and, like some tiny black seed, for all its humble +form, has hidden in it the promise and potency of +wondrous beauty of flower, and nourishment of fruit. +Cultured and cared for in the heart where it is sown, +it will unfold into all truth which a man can receive +or God can give, concerning God and man, our +nature, duties, hopes and destinies, the tasks of the +moment, and the glories of eternity. He who has +it and lets it dwell richly in his heart is wise; he +who has it not, “at his latter end shall be a fool.”</p> + +<p>The second clause of this verse deals with the +manifestations of the indwelling word in the worship +of the Church. The individual possession of the +word in one’s own heart does not make us independent +of brotherly help. Rather, it is the very +foundation of the duty of sharing our riches with +our fellows, and of increasing ours by contributions +from their stores. And so—“teaching and admonishing +one another” is the outcome of it. The +universal possession of Christ’s word involves the +equally universal right and duty of mutual instruction.</p> + +<p>We have already heard the Apostle declaring it +to be his work to “admonish every man and to +teach every man,” and found that the former office +pointed to practical ethical instruction, not without +rebuke and warning, while the latter referred rather +to doctrinal teaching. What he there claimed for +himself, he here enjoins on the whole Christian +community. We have here a glimpse of the +perfectly simple, informal public services of the early +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> +Church, which seem to have partaken much more of +the nature of a free conference than of any of the +forms of worship at present in use in any Church. +The evidence both of this passage and of the other +Pauline Epistles, especially of the first Epistle to the +Corinthians (xiv.) unmistakably shows this. The +forms of worship in the apostolic Church are not +meant for models, and we do not prove a usage as +intended to be permanent because we prove it to be +primitive; but the principles which underlie the +usages are valid always and everywhere, and one of +these principles is the universal though not equal +inspiration of Christian men, which results in their +universal calling to teach and admonish. In what +forms that principle shall be expressed, how safeguarded +and controlled, is of secondary importance. +Different stages of culture and a hundred other +circumstances will modify these, and nobody but a +pedant or religious martinet will care about uniformity. +But I cannot but believe that the present +practice of confining the public teaching of the +Church to an official class has done harm. Why +should one man be for ever speaking, and hundreds +of people who are able to teach, sitting dumb to +listen or pretend to listen to him? Surely there is +a wasteful expenditure there. I hate forcible +revolution, and do not believe that any institutions, +either political or ecclesiastical, which need violence +to sweep them away, are ready to be removed; but +I believe that if the level of spiritual life were raised +among us, new forms would naturally be evolved, +in which there should be a more adequate recognition +of the great principle on which the democracy of +Christianity is founded, namely, “I will pour out +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> +My Spirit on all flesh—and on My servants and on +My handmaidens I will pour out in these days of +My Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” There are not +wanting signs that many different classes of Christian +worshippers have ceased to find edification in the +present manner of teaching. The more cultured +write books on “the decay of preaching;” the more +earnest take to mission halls and a “freer service,” +and “lay preaching;” the more indifferent stay at +home. When the tide rises, all the idle craft +stranded on the mud are set in motion; such a time +is surely coming for the Church, when the aspiration +that has waited millenniums for its fulfilment, and +received but a partial accomplishment at Pentecost, +shall at last be a fact: “would God that all the +Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord +would put His Spirit upon them!”</p> + +<p>The teaching and admonishing is here regarded as +being effected by means of song. That strikes one +as singular, and tempts to another punctuation of the +verse, by which “In all wisdom teaching and admonishing +one another” should make a separate clause, +and “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” +should be attached to the following words. But +probably the ordinary arrangement of clauses is best +on the whole. The distinction between “psalms” +and “hymns” appears to be that the former is a +song with a musical accompaniment, and that the +latter is vocal praise to God. No doubt the “psalms” +meant were chiefly those of the Psalter, the Old +Testament element in the early Christian worship, +while the “hymns” were the new product of the +spirit of devotion which had naturally broken into +song, the first beginnings of the great treasure of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> +Christian hymnody. “Spiritual songs” is a more +general expression, including all varieties of Christian +poesy, provided that they come from the Spirit +moving in the heart. We know from many sources +that song had a large part in the worship of the +early Church. Indeed, whenever a great quickening +of religious life comes, a great burst of Christian song +comes with it. The onward march of the Church +has ever been attended by music of praise; “as well +the singers as the players on instruments” have been +there. The mediæval Latin hymns cluster round +the early pure days of the monastic orders; Luther’s +rough stormy hymns were as powerful as his treatises; +the mystic tenderness and rapture of Charles +Wesley’s have become the possession of the whole +Church. We hear from outside observers, that one +of the practices of the early Christians which most +attracted heathen notice was, that they assembled +daily before it was light and “sang hymns of praise +to one Christus as to a god.”</p> + +<p>These early hymns were of a dogmatic character. +No doubt, just as in many a missionary Church a +hymn is found to be the best vehicle for conveying +the truth, so it was in these early Churches, which +were made up largely of slaves and women—both +uneducated. “Singing the gospel” is a very old +invention, though the name be new. The picture +which we get here of the meetings of the early +Christians is very remarkable. Evidently their +gatherings were free and social, with the minimum +of form, and that most elastic. If a man had any +word of exhortation for the people, he might say on. +“Every one of you hath a psalm, a doctrine.” If a +man had some fragment of an old psalm, or some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> +strain that had come fresh from the Christian heart, +he might sing it, and his brethren would listen. We +do not have that sort of psalmody now. But what a +long way we have travelled from it to a modern congregation, +standing with books that they scarcely look +at, and “worshipping” in a hymn which half of them +do not open their mouths to sing at all, and the other +half do in a voice inaudible three pews off.</p> + +<p>The best praise, however, is a heart song. So the +Apostle adds “singing in your hearts unto God.” +And it is to be in “grace,” that is to say, <i>in</i> it as the +atmosphere and element in which the song moves, +which is nearly equivalent to “by means of the +Divine grace” which works in the heart, and impels +to that perpetual music of silent praise. If we have +the peace of Christ in our hearts, and the word of +Christ dwelling in us richly in all wisdom, then an +unspoken and perpetual music will dwell there too, +“a noise like of a hidden brook” singing for ever its +“quiet tune.”</p> + +<p>III. The all-hallowing Name of Jesus.</p> + +<p>From worship the Apostle passes to life, and +crowns the entire series of injunctions with an all-comprehensive +precept, covering the whole ground +of action. “<i>Whatsoever</i> ye do, in word or deed”—then, +not merely worship, specially so called, but +everything is to come under the influence of the same +motive. That expresses emphatically the sanctity of +common life, and extends the idea of worship to all +deeds. “Whatsoever ye <i>do</i> in <i>word</i>”—then words +are <i>doings</i>, and in many respects the most important +of our doings. Some words, though they fade off +the ear so quickly, outlast all contemporary deeds, and +are more lasting than brass. Not only “the word +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> +of the Lord,” but, in a very solemn sense, the word +of man “endureth for ever.”</p> + +<p>Do all “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” That +means at least two things—in obedience to His +authority, and in dependence on His help. These +two are the twin talismans which change the whole +character of our actions, and preserve us, in doing +them, from every harm. That name hallows and +ennobles all work. Nothing can be so small but +this will make it great, nor so monotonous and tame +but this will make it beautiful and fresh. The +name now, as of old, casts out devils and stills +storms. “For the name of the Lord Jesus” is the +silken padding which makes our yokes easy. It +brings the sudden strength which makes our burdens +light. We may write it over all our actions. If +there be any on which we dare not inscribe it, they +are not for us.</p> + +<p>Thus done in the name of Christ, all deeds will +become thanksgiving, and so reach their highest +consecration and their truest blessedness. “Giving +thanks to God the Father through Him” is ever +to accompany the work in the name of Jesus. The +exhortation to thanksgiving, which is in a sense the +Alpha and the Omega of the Christian life, is perpetually +on the Apostle’s lips, because thankfulness +should be in perpetual operation in our hearts. It +is so important because it presupposes all-important +things, and because it certainly leads to every +Christian grace. For continual thankfulness there +must be a continual direction of mind towards God +and towards the great gifts of our salvation in Jesus +Christ. There must be a continual going forth of +our love and our desire to these, that is to say—thankfulness +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> +rests on the reception and the joyful +appropriation of the mercies of God, brought to us +by our Lord. And it underlies all acceptable service +and all happy obedience. The servant who +thinks of God as a harsh exactor is slothful; the +servant who thinks of Him as the “giving God” rejoices +in toil. He who brings his work in order to +be paid for it, will get no wages, and turn out no +work worth any. He who brings it because he feels +that he has been paid plentiful wages beforehand, of +which he will never earn the least mite, will present +service well pleasing to the Master.</p> + +<p>So we should keep thoughts of Jesus Christ, and +of all we owe to Him, ever before us in our common +work, in shop and mill and counting-house, in study +and street and home. We should try to bring all +our actions more under their influence, and, moved +by the mercies of God, should yield ourselves living +thank-offerings to Him, who is the sin-offering for +us. If, as every fresh duty arises, we hear Christ +saying, “This do in remembrance of Me,” all life +will become a true communion with Him, and every +common vessel will be as a sacramental chalice, and +the bells of the horses will bear the same inscription +as the high priest’s mitre—“Holiness to the Lord.” +To lay work on that altar sanctifies both the giver +and the gift. Presented through Him, by whom all +blessings come to man and all thanks go to God, +and kindled by the flame of gratitude, our poor +deeds, for all their grossness and earthliness, shall +go up in curling wreaths of incense, an odour of +a sweet smell acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> +Lightfoot.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXXII" id="ColXXII"></a>XXII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. +Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.</p> + +<p>“Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing +in the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children, that they be not +discouraged.</p> + +<p>“Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according to +the flesh; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of +heart, fearing the Lord: whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the +Lord, and not unto men; knowing that from the Lord ye shall receive the +recompense of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ. For he that +doeth wrong shall receive again for the wrong that he hath done: and +there is no respect of persons.</p> + +<p>“Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal; +knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iii. 18–iv. 1 +(Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>This section deals with the Christian family, as +made up of husband and wife, children, and +servants. In the family, Christianity has most +signally displayed its power of refining, ennobling, +and sanctifying earthly relationships. Indeed, one +may say that domestic life, as seen in thousands of +Christian homes, is purely a Christian creation, and +would have been a new revelation to the heathenism +of Colossæ, as it is to-day in many a mission field.</p> + +<p>We do not know what may have led Paul to dwell +with special emphasis on the domestic duties, in this +letter, and in the contemporaneous Epistle of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> +Ephesians. He does so, and the parallel section +there should be carefully compared throughout with +this paragraph. The former is considerably more +expanded, and may have been written after the +verses before us; but, however that may be, the +verbal coincidences and variations in the two +sections are very interesting as illustrations of the +way in which a mind fully charged with a theme +will freely repeat itself, and use the same words in +different combinations and with infinite shades of +modification.</p> + +<p>The precepts given are extremely simple and +obvious. Domestic happiness and family Christianity +are made up of very homely elements. One duty is +prescribed for the one member of each of the three +family groups, and varying forms of another for the +other. The wife, the child, the servant are bid to +obey; the husband to love, the father to show his +love in gentle considerateness; the master to yield +his servants their dues. Like some perfume distilled +from common flowers that grow on every bank, the +domestic piety which makes home a house of God, +and a gate of heaven, is prepared from these two +simples—obedience and love. These are all.</p> + +<p>We have here then the ideal Christian household +in the three ordinary relationships which make up +the family; wife and husband, children and father, +servant and master.</p> + +<p>I. The Reciprocal Duties of wife and husband—subjection +and love.</p> + +<p>The duty of the wife is “subjection,” and it is +enforced on the ground that it is “fitting in the +Lord”—that is, “it is,” or perhaps “it became” at +the time of conversion, “the conduct corresponding +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> +to or befitting the condition of being in the Lord.” +In more modern language—the Christian ideal of +the wife’s duty has for its very centre—subjection.</p> + +<p>Some of us will smile at that; some of us will +think it an old-fashioned notion, a survival of a more +barbarous theory of marriage than this century +recognises. But, before we decide upon the correctness +of the apostolic precept, let us make quite sure +of its meaning. Now, if we turn to the corresponding +passage in Ephesians, we find that marriage is +regarded from a high and sacred point of view, as +being an earthly shadow and faint adumbration of +the union between Christ and the Church.</p> + +<p>To Paul, all human and earthly relationships were +moulded after the patterns of things in the heavens, +and the whole fleeting visible life of man was a +parable of the “things which are” in the spiritual +realm. Most chiefly, the holy and mysterious union +of man and woman in marriage is fashioned in the +likeness of the only union which is closer and more +mysterious than itself, namely that between Christ +and His Church.</p> + +<p>Such then as are the nature and the spring of +the Church’s “subjection” to Christ, such will be the +nature and the spring of the wife’s “subjection” to +the husband. That is to say, it is a subjection of +which love is the very soul and animating principle. +In a true marriage, as in the loving obedience of a +believing soul to Christ, the wife submits not because +she has found a master, but because her heart has +found its rest. Everything harsh or degrading melts +away from the requirement when thus looked at. +It is a joy to serve where the heart is engaged, and +that is eminently true of the feminine nature. For +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> +its full satisfaction, a woman’s heart needs to look +up where it loves. She has certainly the fullest +wedded life who can “reverence” her husband. For +its full satisfaction, a woman’s heart needs to serve +where it loves. That is the same as saying that a +woman’s love is, in the general, nobler, purer, more +unselfish than a man’s, and therein, quite as much +as in physical constitution, is laid the foundation of +that Divine ideal of marriage, which places the wife’s +delight and dignity in sweet loving subjection.</p> + +<p>Of course the subjection has its limitations. “We +must obey God rather than man” bounds the field +of all human authority and control. Then there are +cases in which, on the principle of “the tools to the +hands that can use them,” the rule falls naturally to +the wife as the stronger character. Popular sarcasm, +however, shows that such instances are felt to be +contrary to the true ideal, and such a wife lacks +something of repose for her heart.</p> + +<p>No doubt, too, since Paul wrote, and very largely +by Christian influences, women have been educated +and elevated, so as to make mere subjection impossible +now, if ever it were so. Woman’s quick +instinct as to persons, her finer wisdom, her purer +discernment as to moral questions, make it in a +thousand cases the wisest thing a man can do to +listen to the “subtle flow of silver-paced counsel” +which his wife gives him. All such considerations +are fully consistent with this apostolic teaching, and +it remains true that the wife who does not reverence +and lovingly obey is to be pitied if she cannot, and +to be condemned if she will not.</p> + +<p>And what of the husband’s duty? He is to love, +and because he loves, not to be harsh or bitter, in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> +word, look or act. The parallel in Ephesians adds +the solemn elevating thought, that a man’s love to +the woman, whom he has made his own, is to be +like Christ’s to the Church. Patient and generous, +utterly self-forgetting and self-sacrificing, demanding +nothing, grudging nothing, giving all, not shrinking +from the extreme of suffering and pain and death +itself—that he may bless and help—such was the +Lord’s love to His bride, such is to be a Christian +husband’s love to his wife. That solemn example, +which lifts the whole emotion high above mere +passion or selfish affection, carries a great lesson too +as to the connection between man’s love and woman’s +“subjection.” The former is to evoke the latter, +just as in the heavenly pattern, Christ’s love melts +and moves human wills to glad obedience, which +is liberty. We do not say that a wife is utterly +absolved from obedience where a husband fails in +self-forgetting love, though certainly it does not lie +in <i>his</i> mouth to accuse, whose fault is graver than +and the origin of hers. But, without going so far +as that, we may recognise the true order to be that +the husband’s love, self-sacrificing and all-bestowing, +is meant to evoke the wife’s love, delighting in +service, and proud to crown him her king.</p> + +<p>Where there is such love, there will be no question +of mere command and obedience, no tenacious adherence +to rights, or jealous defence of independence. +Law will be transformed into choice. To obey will +be joy; to serve, the natural expression of the heart. +Love uttering a wish speaks music to love listening; +and love obeying the wish is free and a queen. +Such sacred beauty may light up wedded life, if it +catches a gleam from the fountain of all light, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> +shines by reflection from the love that binds Christ +to His Church as the links of the golden beams bind +the sun to the planet. Husbands and wives are to +see to it that this supreme consecration purifies and +raises their love. Young men and maidens are to +remember that the nobleness and heart-repose of their +whole life may be made or marred by marriage, and +to take heed where they fix their affections. If +there be not unity in the deepest thing of all, love +to Christ, the sacredness and completeness will fade +away from any love. But if a man and woman love +and marry “in the Lord,” He will be “in the midst,” +walking between them, a third who will make them +one, and that threefold cord will not be quickly +broken.</p> + +<p>II. The Reciprocal Duties of children and parents—obedience +and gentle loving authority.</p> + +<p>The injunction to children is laconic, decisive, +universal. “Obey your parents in all things.” Of +course, there is one limitation to that. If God’s +command looks one way, and a parent’s the opposite, +disobedience is duty—but such extreme case is +probably the only one which Christian ethics admit +as an exception to the rule. The Spartan brevity +of the command is enforced by one consideration, +“for this is well-pleasing <i>in</i> the Lord,” as the Revised +Version rightly reads, instead of “to the Lord,” as +in the Authorised, thus making an exact parallel +to the former “fitting in the Lord.” Not only to +Christ, but to all who can appreciate the beauty of +goodness, is filial obedience beautiful. The parallel +in Ephesians substitutes “for this is right,” appealing +to the natural conscience. Right and fair in itself, +it is accordant with the law stamped on the very +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> +relationship, and it is witnessed as such by the +instinctive approbation which it evokes.</p> + +<p>No doubt, the moral sentiment of Paul’s age +stretched parental authority to an extreme, and we +need not hesitate to admit that the Christian idea of +a father’s power and a child’s obedience has been +much softened by Christianity; but the softening has +come from the greater prominence given to love, +rather than from the limitation given to obedience.</p> + +<p>Our present domestic life seems to me to stand +sorely in need of Paul’s injunction. One cannot but +see that there is great laxity in this matter in many +Christian households, in reaction perhaps from the +too great severity of past times. Many causes lead +to this unwholesome relaxation of parental authority. +In our great cities, especially among the commercial +classes, children are generally better educated than +their fathers and mothers, they know less of early +struggles, and one often sees a sense of inferiority +making a parent hesitate to command, as well as a +misplaced tenderness making him hesitate to forbid. +A very misplaced and cruel tenderness it is to say +“would you like?” when he ought to say “I wish.” +It is unkind to lay on young shoulders “the weight +of too much liberty,” and to introduce young hearts +too soon to the sad responsibility of choosing between +good and evil. It were better and more loving by +far to put off that day, and to let the children feel +that in the safe nest of home, their feeble and +ignorant goodness is sheltered behind a strong barrier +of command, and their lives simplified by having the +one duty of obedience. By many parents the advice +is needed—consult your children less, command them +more.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span> +And as for children, here is the one thing which +God would have them do: “Obey your parents in +all things.” As fathers used to say when I was a +boy—“not only obedience, but prompt obedience.” +It is right. That should be enough. But children +may also remember that it is “pleasing”—fair and +good to see, making them agreeable in the eyes of +all whose approbation is worth having, and pleasing +to themselves, saving them from many a bitter +thought in after days, when the grave has closed +over father and mother. One remembers the story +of how Dr. Johnson, when a man, stood in the +market place at Lichfield, bareheaded, with the rain +pouring on him, in remorseful remembrance of +boyish disobedience to his dead father. There is +nothing bitterer than the too late tears for wrongs +done to those who are gone beyond the reach of +our penitence. “Children obey your parents in all +things,” that you may be spared the sting of conscience +for childish faults, which may be set +tingling and smarting again even in old age.</p> + +<p>The law for parents is addressed to “fathers,” +partly because a mother’s tenderness has less need +of the warning “provoke not your children,” than a +father’s more rigorous rule usually has, and partly +because the father is regarded as the head of the +household. The advice is full of practical sagacity. +How do parents provoke their children? By unreasonable +commands, by perpetual restrictions, by +capricious jerks at the bridle, alternating with as +capricious dropping of the reins altogether, by not +governing their own tempers, by shrill or stern tones +where quiet, soft ones would do, by frequent checks +and rebukes, and sparing praise. And what is sure +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> +to follow such mistreatment by father or mother? +First, as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it; +“wrath”—bursts of temper, for which probably the +child is punished and the parent is guilty—and then +spiritless listlessness and apathy. “I cannot please +him whatever I do,” leads to a rankling sense of +injustice, and then to recklessness—“it is useless to +try any more.” And when a child or a man loses +heart, there will be no more obedience. Paul’s +theory of the training of children is closely connected +with his central doctrine, that love is the life of +service, and faith the parent of righteousness. To +him hope and gladness and confident love underlie +all obedience. When a child loves and trusts, he +will obey. When he fears and has to think of his +father as capricious, exacting or stern, he will do +like the man in the parable, who was afraid because +he thought of his master as austere, reaping where +he did not sow, and therefore went and hid his +talent. Children’s obedience must be fed on love +and praise. Fear paralyses activity, and kills +service, whether it cowers in the heart of a boy to +his father, or of a man to his Father in heaven.</p> + +<p>So parents are to let the sunshine of their smile +ripen their children’s love to fruit of obedience, and +remember that frost in spring scatters the blossoms +on the grass. Many a parent, especially many a +father, drives his child into evil by keeping him at a +distance. He should make his boy a companion +and playmate, teach him to think of his father as +his confidant, try to keep his child nearer to himself +than to anybody beside, and then his authority will +be absolute, his opinions an oracle, and his lightest +wish a law. Is not the kingdom of Jesus Christ +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> +based on His becoming a brother and one of ourselves, +and is it not wielded in gentleness and enforced +by love? Is it not the most absolute of +rules? and should not the parental authority be like +it—having a reed for a sceptre, lowliness and gentleness +being stronger to rule and to sway than the +“rods of iron” or of gold which earthly monarchs +wield?</p> + +<p>There is added to this precept, in Ephesians, an +injunction on the positive side of parental duty: +“Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of +the Lord.” I fear that is a duty fallen wofully into +disuse in many Christian households. Many parents +think it wise to send their children away from home +for their education, and so hand over their moral +and religious training to teachers. That may be +right, but it makes the fulfilment of this precept all +but impossible. Others, who have their children +beside them, are too busy all the week, and too fond +of “rest” on Sunday. Many send their children to +a Sunday school chiefly that they themselves may +have a quiet house and a sound sleep in the afternoon. +Every Christian minister, if he keeps his +eyes open, must see that there is no religious instruction +worth calling by the name in a very large +number of professedly Christian households; and he +is bound to press very earnestly on his hearers the +question, whether the Christian fathers and mothers +among them do their duty in this matter. Many of +them, I fear, have never opened their lips to their +children on religious subjects. Is it not a grief and +a shame that men and women with some religion in +them, and loving their little ones dearly, should be +tongue-tied before them on the most important of all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> +things? What can come of it but what does come of +it so often that it saddens one to see how frequently +it occurs—that the children drift away from a faith +which their parents did not care enough about to +teach it to them? A silent father makes prodigal +sons, and many a grey head has been brought down +with sorrow to the grave, and many a mother’s heart +broken, because he and she neglected their plain +duty, which can be handed over to no schools or +masters—the duty of religious instruction. “These +words which I command thee, shall be in thine +heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy +children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest +in thine house.”</p> + +<p>III. The Reciprocal Duties of servants and masters—obedience +and justice.</p> + +<p>The first thing to observe here is, that these +“servants” are slaves, not persons who have voluntarily +given their work for wages. The relation of +Christianity to slavery is too wide a subject to be +touched here. It must be enough to point out that +Paul recognises that “sum of all villanies,” gives instructions +to both parties in it, never says one word +in condemnation of it. More remarkable still; the +messenger who carried this letter to Colossæ carried +in the same bag the Epistle to Philemon, and was +accompanied by the fugitive slave Onesimus, on +whose neck Paul bound again the chain, so to +speak, with his own hands. And yet the gospel +which Paul preached has in it principles which cut +up slavery by the roots; as we read in this very +letter, “In Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor +free.” Why then did not Christ and His apostles +make war against slavery? For the same reason for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> +which they did not make war against <i>any</i> political +or social institutions. “First make the tree good +and his fruit good.” The only way to reform +institutions is to elevate and quicken the general +conscience, and then the evil will be outgrown, left +behind, or thrown aside. Mould men and the men +will mould institutions. So Christianity did not +set itself to fell this upas tree, which would have +been a long and dangerous task; but girdled it, as +we may say, stripped the bark off it, and left it to +die—and it <i>has</i> died in all Christian lands now.</p> + +<p>But the principles laid down here are quite as +applicable to our form of domestic and other service +as to the slaves and masters of Colossæ.</p> + +<p>Note then the extent of the servant’s obedience—“in +all things.” Here, of course, as in former cases, +is there presupposed the limit of supreme obedience +to God’s commands; that being safe, all else is to +give way to the duty of submission. It is a stern +command, that seems all on the side of the masters. +It might strike a chill into many a slave, who had +been drawn to the gospel by the hope of finding +some little lightening of the yoke that pressed so +heavily on his poor galled neck, and of hearing some +voice speaking in tenderer tones than those of harsh +command. Still more emphatically, and, as it might +seem, still more harshly, the Apostle goes on to +insist on the inward completeness of the obedience—“not +with eyeservice (a word of Paul’s own coining) +as men-pleasers.” We have a proverb about the +worth of the master’s eye, which bears witness that +the same fault still clings to hired service. One has +only to look at the next set of bricklayers one sees +on a scaffold, or of haymakers one comes across in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> +a field, to see it. The vice was venial in slaves; +it is inexcusable, because it darkens into theft, in +paid servants—and it spreads far and wide. All +scamped work, all productions of man’s hand or +brain which are got up to look better than they are, +all fussy parade of diligence when under inspection +and slackness afterwards—and all their like which +infect and infest every trade and profession, are +transfixed by the sharp point of this precept.</p> + +<p>“But in singleness of heart,” that is, with undivided +motive, which is the antithesis and the +cure for “eyeservice”—and “fearing God,” which +is opposed to “pleasing men.” Then follows the +positive injunction, covering the whole ground of +action and lifting the constrained obedience to the +earthly master up into the sacred and serene loftiness +of religious duty, “whatsoever ye do, work +heartily,” or from the soul. The word for <i>work</i> is +stronger than that for <i>do</i>, and implies effort and toil. +They are to put all their power into their work, and +not be afraid of hard toil. And they are not only +to bend their backs but their wills, and to labour +“from the soul,” that is, cheerfully and with interest—a +hard lesson for a slave and asking more than +could be expected from human nature, as many of +them would, no doubt, think. Paul goes on to +transfigure the squalor and misery of the slave’s lot +by a sudden beam of light—“as to the Lord”—your +true “Master,” for it is the same word as in +the previous verse—“and not unto men.” Do not +think of your tasks as only enjoined by harsh, +capricious, selfish men, but lift your thoughts to +Christ, who is your Lord, and glorify all these sordid +duties by seeing <i>His</i> will in them. He only who +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> +works as “to the Lord,” will work “heartily.” The +thought of Christ’s command, and of my poor toil +as done for His sake, will change constraint into +cheerfulness, and make unwelcome tasks pleasant, +and monotonous ones fresh, and trivial ones great. +It will evoke new powers, and renewed consecration. +In that atmosphere, the dim flame of servile obedience +will burn more brightly, as a lamp plunged +into a jar of pure oxygen.</p> + +<p>The stimulus of a great hope for the ill-used, unpaid +slave, is added. Whatever their earthly masters +might fail to give them, the true Master whom they +really served would accept no work for which He +did not return more than sufficient wages. “From +the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the +inheritance.” Blows and scanty food and poor +lodging may be all that they get from their owners +for all their sweat and toil, but if they are Christ’s +slaves, they will be treated no more as slaves, but +as sons, and receive a son’s portion, the exact recompense +which consists of the “inheritance.” The +juxtaposition of the two ideas of the slave and the +inheritance evidently hints at the unspoken thought, +that they are heirs because they are sons—a thought +which might well lift up bowed backs and brighten +dull faces. The hope of that reward came like an +angel into the smoky huts and hopeless lives of +these poor slaves. It shone athwart all the gloom +and squalor, and taught patience beneath “the +oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely.” +Through long, weary generations it has lived in +the hearts of men driven to God by man’s tyranny, +and forced to clutch at heaven’s brightness to keep +them from being made mad by earth’s blackness. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> +It may irradiate our poor lives, especially when we +fail, as we all do sometimes, to get recognition of +our work, or fruit from it. If we labour for man’s +appreciation or gratitude, we shall certainly be disappointed; +but if for Christ, we have abundant +wages beforehand, and we shall have an overabundant +requital, the munificence of which will +make us more ashamed of our unworthy service +than anything else could do. Christ remains in no +man’s debt. “Who hath first given, and it shall be +recompensed to him again?”</p> + +<p>The last word to the slave is a warning against +neglect of duty. There is to be a double recompense—to +the slave of Christ the portion of a son; +to the wrong doer retribution “for the wrong that +he has done.” Then, though slavery was itself a +wrong, though the master who held a man in bondage +was himself inflicting the greatest of all wrongs, yet +Paul will have the slave think that he still has duties +to his master. That is part of Paul’s general position +as to slavery. He will not wage war against it, but +for the present accept it. Whether he saw the full +bearing of the gospel on that and other infamous +institutions may be questioned. He has given us +the principles which will destroy them, but he is no +revolutionist, and so his present counsel is to remember +the master’s rights, even though they be +founded on wrong, and he has no hesitation in condemning +and predicting retribution for evil things +done by a slave to his master. A superior’s injustice +does not warrant an inferior’s breach of moral law, +though it may excuse it. Two blacks do not make +a white. Herein lies the condemnation of all the +crimes which enslaved nations and classes have done, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> +of many a deed which has been honoured and sung, +of the sanguinary cruelties of servile revolts, as well +as of the questionable means to which labour often +resorts in modern industrial warfare. The homely, +plain principle, that a man does not receive the right +to break God’s laws because he is ill-treated, would +clear away much fog from some people’s notions +of how to advance the cause of the oppressed.</p> + +<p>But, on the other hand, this warning may look +towards the masters also; and probably the same +double reference is also to be discerned in the closing +words to the slaves, “and there is no respect of +persons.” The servants were naturally tempted to +think that God was on their side, as indeed He was, +but also to think that the great coming day of judgment +was mostly meant to be terrible to tyrants and +oppressors, and so to look forward to it with a fierce +un-Christian joy, as well as with a false confidence +built only on their present misery. They would +be apt to think that God did “respect persons,” in +the opposite fashion from that of a partial judge—namely, +that He would incline the scale in favour +of the ill-used, the poor, the down-trodden; that +they would have an easy test and a light sentence, +while His frowns and His severity would be kept for +the powerful and the rich who had ground the faces +of the poor and kept back the hire of the labourer. +It was therefore a needful reminder for them, and +for us all, that that judgment has nothing to do +with earthly conditions, but only with conduct and +character; that sorrow and calamity here do not +open heaven’s gates hereafter, and that the slave and +master are tried by the same law.</p> + +<p>The series of precepts closes with a brief but most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> +pregnant word to masters. They are bid to give to +their slaves “that which is just and equal,” that is to +say, “equitable.” A startling criterion for a master’s +duty to the slave who was denied to have any rights +at all. They were chattels, not persons. A master +might, in regard to them, do what he liked with his +own; he might crucify or torture, or commit any +crime against manhood either in body or soul, and +no voice would question or forbid. How astonished +Roman lawgivers would have been if they could +have heard Paul talking about justice and equity +as applied to a slave! What a strange new dialect +it must have sounded to the slave-owners in the +Colossian Church! They would not see how far the +principle, thus quietly introduced, was to carry succeeding +ages; they could not dream of the great +tree that was to spring from this tiny seed-precept; +but no doubt the instinct which seldom fails an unjustly +privileged class, would make them blindly dislike +the exhortation, and feel as if they were getting +out of their depth when they were bid to consider +what was “right” and “equitable” in their dealings +with their slaves.</p> + +<p>The Apostle does not define what <i>is</i> “right and +equal.” That will come. The main thing is to +drive home the conviction that there are duties +owing to slaves, inferiors, employés. We are far +enough from a satisfactory discharge of these yet; +but, at any rate, everybody now admits the principle—and +we have mainly to thank Christianity for +that. Slowly the general conscience is coming to +recognise that simple truth more and more clearly, +and its application is becoming more decisive with +each generation. There is much to be done before +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> +society is organized on that principle, but the time +is coming—and till it is come, there will be no +peace. All masters and employers of labour, in +their mills and warehouses, are bid to base their +relations to “hands” and servants on the one firm +foundation of “justice.” Paul does not say, Give +your servants what is kind and patronising. He +wants a great deal more than that. Charity likes to +come in and supply the wants which would never +have been felt had there been equity. An ounce of +justice is sometimes worth a ton of charity.</p> + +<p>This duty of the masters is enforced by the same +thought which was to stimulate the servants to +their tasks: “ye also have a Master in heaven.” +That is not only stimulus, but it is pattern. I said +that Paul did not specify what was just and right, +and that his precept might therefore be objected to +as vague. Does the introduction of this thought of +the master’s Master in heaven, take away any of the +vagueness? If Christ is our Master, then we are to +look to Him to see what a master ought to be, and +to try to be masters like that. That is precise +enough, is it not? That grips tight enough, does it +not? Give your servants what you expect and +need to get from Christ. If we try to live that +commandment for twenty-four hours, it will probably +not be its vagueness of which we complain.</p> + +<p>“Ye have a Master in heaven” is the great principle +on which all Christian duty reposes. Christ’s +command is my law, His will is supreme, His +authority absolute, His example all-sufficient. My +soul, my life, my all are His. My will is not my +own. My possessions are not my own. My being +is not my own. All duty is elevated into obedience +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> +to Him, and obedience to Him, utter and absolute, +is dignity and freedom. We are Christ’s slaves, for +He has bought us for Himself, by giving Himself +for us. Let that great sacrifice win our heart’s love +and our perfect submission. “O Lord, truly I am +Thy servant, Thou hast loosed my bonds.” Then +all earthly relationships will be fulfilled by us; and +we shall move among men, breathing blessing and +raying out brightness, when in all, we remember +that we have a Master in heaven, and do all our +work from the soul as to Him and not to men.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXXIII" id="ColXXIII"></a>XXIII.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>PRECEPTS FOR THE INNERMOST AND OUTERMOST +LIFE.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Continue stedfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving; +withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us a door for the +word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; +that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom +toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be +always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought +to answer each one.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iv. 2–6 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>So ends the ethical portion of the Epistle. A +glance over the series of practical exhortations, +from the beginning of the preceding chapter onwards, +will show that, in general terms we may say +that they deal successively with a Christian’s duties +to himself, the Church, and the family. And now, +these last advices touch the two extremes of life, +the first of them having reference to the hidden life +of prayer, and the second and third to the outward, +busy life of the market-place and the street. That +bringing together of the extremes seems to be the +link of connection here. The Christian life is first +regarded as gathered into itself—coiled as it were +on its centre, like some strong spring. Next, it is +regarded as it operates in the world, and, like the +uncoiling spring, gives motion to wheels and pinions. +These two sides of experience and duty are often +hard to blend harmoniously. The conflict between +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> +busy Martha, who serves, and quiet Mary, who only +sits and gazes, goes on in every age and in every +heart. Here we may find, in some measure, the +principle of reconciliation between their antagonistic +claims. Here is, at all events, the protest against +allowing either to oust the other. Continual prayer +is to blend with unwearied action. We are so to +walk the dusty ways of life as to be ever in the +secret place of the Most High. “Continue stedfastly +in prayer,” and withal let there be no unwholesome +withdrawal from the duties and relationships of the +outer world, but let the prayer pass into, first, a wise +walk, and second, an ever-gracious speech.</p> + +<p>I. So we have here, first, an exhortation to a +hidden life of constant prayer.</p> + +<p>The word rendered “continue” in the Authorised +Version, and more fully in the Revised Version by +“continue stedfastly,” is frequently found in reference +to prayer, as well as in other connections. A mere +enumeration of some of these instances may help to +illustrate its full meaning. “We <i>will give ourselves</i> +to prayer,” said the apostles in proposing the creation +of the office of deacon. “<i>Continuing instant</i> in +prayer” says Paul to the Roman Church. “They +<i>continuing</i> daily with one accord in the Temple” is +the description of the early believers after Pentecost. +Simon Magus is said to have “continued with +Philip,” where there is evidently the idea of close +adherence as well as of uninterrupted companionship. +These examples seem to show that the word implies +both earnestness and continuity; so that this injunction +not only covers the ground of Paul’s other +exhortation, “Pray without ceasing,” but includes +fervour also.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> +The Christian life, then, ought to be one of unbroken +prayer.</p> + +<p>What manner of prayer can that be which is to +be continuous through a life that must needs be full +of toil on outward things? How can such a precept +be obeyed? Surely there is no need for paring down +its comprehensiveness, and saying that it merely +means—a very frequent recurrence to devout exercises, +as often as the pressure of daily duties will +permit. That is not the direction in which the +harmonising of such a precept with the obvious +necessities of our position is to be sought. We +must seek it in a more inward and spiritual notion +of prayer. We must separate between the form and +the substance, the treasure and the earthen vessel +which carries it. What is prayer? Not the utterance +of words—they are but the vehicle; but the +attitude of the spirit. Communion, aspiration, and +submission, these three are the elements of prayer—and +these three may be diffused through a life. +It is possible, though difficult. There may be unbroken +communion, a constant consciousness of God’s +presence, and of our contact with Him, thrilling +through our souls and freshening them, like some +breath of spring reaching the toilers in choky factories +and busy streets; or even if the communion do not +run like an absolutely unbroken line of light through +our lives, the points may be so near together as all +but to touch. In such communion words are needless. +When spirits draw closest together there is no +need for speech. Silently the heart may be kept +fragrant with God’s felt presence, and sunny with +the light of His face. There are towns nestling +beneath the Alps, every narrow filthy alley of which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> +looks to the great solemn snow-peaks, and the inhabitants, +amid all the squalor of their surroundings, +have that apocalypse of wonder ever before them, if +they would only lift their eyes. So we, if we will, +may live with the majesties and beauties of the +great white throne and of Him that sat on it closing +every vista and filling the end of every commonplace +passage in our lives.</p> + +<p>In like manner, there may be a continual, unspoken +and unbroken presence of the second element +of prayer, which is aspiration, or desire after God. +All circumstances, whether duty, sorrow or joy, +should and may be used to stamp more deeply on +my consciousness the sense of my weakness and +need; and every moment, with its experience of +God’s swift and punctual grace, and all my communion +with Him which unveils to me His beauty—should +combine to move longings for Him, for +more of Him. The very deepest cry of the heart +which understands its own yearnings, is for the +living God; and perpetual as the hunger of the +spirit for the food which will stay its profound +desires, will be the prayer, though it may often be +voiceless, of the soul which knows where alone that +food is.</p> + +<p>Continual too may be our submission to His will, +which is an essential of all prayer. Many people’s +notion is that our prayer is urging our wishes on +God, and that His answer is giving us what we +desire. But true prayer is the meeting in harmony +of God’s will and man’s, and its deepest expression +is not, Do this, because I desire it, O Lord; but, I +do this because Thou desirest it, O Lord. That +submission may be the very spring of all life, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> +whatsoever work is done in such spirit, however +“secular” and however small it be, were it making +buttons, is truly prayer.</p> + +<p>So there should run all through our lives the +music of that continual prayer, heard beneath all +our varying occupations like some prolonged deep +bass note, that bears up and gives dignity to the +lighter melody that rises and falls and changes +above it, like the spray on the crest of a great wave. +Our lives will then be noble and grave, and woven +into a harmonious unity, when they are based upon +continual communion with, continual desire after, +and continual submission to, God. If they are not, +they will be worth nothing and will come to nothing.</p> + +<p>But such continuity of prayer is not to be attained +without effort; therefore Paul goes on to say, +“Watching therein.” We are apt to do drowsily +whatever we do constantly. Men fall asleep at any +continuous work. There is also the constant influence +of externals, drawing our thoughts away +from their true home in God, so that if we are to +keep up continuous devotion, we shall have to rouse +ourselves often when in the very act of dropping off +to sleep. “Awake up, my glory!” we shall often +have to say to our souls. Do we not all know that +subtly approaching languor? and have we not often +caught ourselves in the very act of falling asleep at +our prayers? We must make distinct and resolute +efforts to rouse ourselves—we must concentrate our +attention and apply the needed stimulants, and +bring the interest and activity of our whole nature +to bear on this work of continual prayer, else it will +become drowsy mumbling as of a man but half +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> +awake. The world has strong opiates for the soul, +and we must stedfastly resist their influence, if we +are to “continue in prayer.”</p> + +<p>One way of so watching is to have and to observe +definite times of spoken prayer. We hear much +now-a-days about the small value of times and forms +of prayer, and how, as I have been saying, true +prayer is independent of these, and needs no words. +All that, of course, is true; but when the practical +conclusion is drawn that therefore we can do without +the outward form, a grave mistake, full of mischief, +is committed. I do not, for my part, believe in a +devotion diffused through a life and never concentrated +and coming to the surface in visible outward +acts or audible words; and, as far as I have seen, +the men whose religion is spread all through their +lives most really are the men who keep the central +reservoir full, if I may so say, by regular and frequent +hours and words of prayer. The Christ, whose whole +life was devotion and communion with the Father, +had His nights on the mountains, and rising up a +great while before day, He watched unto prayer. +We must do the like.</p> + +<p>One more word has still to be said. This continual +prayer is to be “with thanksgiving”—again +the injunction so frequent in this letter, in such +various connections. Every prayer should be blended +with gratitude, without the perfume of which, the +incense of devotion lacks one element of fragrance. +The sense of need, or the consciousness of sin, may +evoke “strong crying and tears,” but the completest +prayer rises confident from a grateful heart, which +weaves memory into hope, and asks much because +it has received much. A true recognition of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> +lovingkindness of the past has much to do with +making our communion sweet, our desires believing, +our submission cheerful. Thankfulness is the feather +that wings the arrow of prayer—the height from +which our souls rise most easily to the sky.</p> + +<p>And now the Apostle’s tone softens from exhortation +to entreaty, and with very sweet and touching +humility he begs a supplemental corner in their +prayers. “Withal praying also for us.” The “withal” +and “also” have a tone of lowliness in them, while +the “us,” including as it does Timothy, who is +associated with him in the superscription of the +letter, and possibly others also, increases the impression +of modesty. The subject of their prayers +for Paul and the others is to be that “God may +open unto us a door for the word.” That phrase +apparently means an unhindered opportunity of +preaching the gospel, for the consequence of the +door’s being opened is added—“to speak (so that +I may speak) the mystery of Christ.” The special +reason for this prayer is, “for which I am also (in +addition to my other sufferings) in bonds.”</p> + +<p>He was a prisoner. He cared little about that or +about the fetters on his wrists, so far as his own +comfort was concerned; but his spirit chafed at the +restraint laid upon him in spreading the good news +of Christ, though he had been able to do much in +his prison, both among the Prætorian guard, and +throughout the whole population of Rome. Therefore +he would engage his friends to ask God to open +the prison doors, as He had done for Peter, not that +Paul might come out, but that the gospel might. +The personal was swallowed up; all that he cared +for was to do his work.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> +But he wants their prayers for more than that—“that +I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” +This is probably explained most naturally as meaning +his endowment with power to set forth the message +in a manner adequate to its greatness. When he +thought of what it was that he, unworthy, had to +preach, its majesty and wonderfulness brought a kind +of awe over his spirit; and endowed, as he was, with +apostolic functions and apostolic grace; conscious, +as he was, of being anointed and inspired by God, he +yet felt that the richness of the treasure made the +earthen vessel seem terribly unworthy to bear it. His +utterances seemed to himself poor and unmelodious +beside the majestic harmonies of the gospel. He +could not soften his voice to breathe tenderly enough +a message of such love, nor give it strength enough +to peal forth a message of such tremendous import +and world-wide destination.</p> + +<p>If Paul felt his conception of the greatness of the +gospel dwarfing into nothing <i>his</i> words when he tried +to preach it, what must every other true minister of +Christ feel? If he, in the fulness of his inspiration, +besought a place in his brethren’s prayers, how much +more must they need it, who try with stammering +tongues to preach the truth that made his fiery +words seem ice? Every such man must turn to +those who love him and listen to his poor presentment +of the riches of Christ, with Paul’s entreaty. +His friends cannot do a kinder thing to him than +to bear him on their hearts in their prayers to +God.</p> + +<p>II. We have here next, a couple of precepts, +which spring at a bound from the inmost secret +of the Christian life to its circumference, and refer +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> +to the outward life in regard to the non-Christian +world, enjoining, in view of it, a wise walk and +gracious speech.</p> + +<p>“Walk in wisdom towards them that are without.” +Those that are within are those who have “fled for +refuge” to Christ, and are within the fold, the fortress, +the ark. Men who sit safe within while the storm +howls, may simply think with selfish complacency of +the poor wretches exposed to its fierceness. The +phrase may express spiritual pride and even contempt. +All close corporations tend to generate +dislike and scorn of outsiders, and the Church has +had its own share of such feeling; but there is no +trace of anything of the sort here. Rather is there +pathos and pity in the word, and a recognition that +their sad condition gives these outsiders a claim on +Christian men, who are bound to go out to their +help and bring them in. Precisely because they are +“without” do those within owe them a wise walk, +that “if any will not hear the word, they may without +the word be won.” The thought is in some +measure parallel to our Lord’s words, of which +perhaps it is a reminiscence. “Behold I send you +forth”—a strange thing for a careful shepherd to +do—“as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore +wise as serpents.” Think of that picture—the +handful of cowering frightened creatures huddled +against each other, and ringed round by that yelping, +white-toothed crowd, ready to tear them to pieces! +So are Christ’s followers in the world. Of course, +things have changed in many respects since those +days; partly because persecution has gone out of +fashion, and partly because “the world” has been +largely influenced by Christian morality, and partly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> +because the Church has been largely secularized. +The temperature of the two has become nearly +equalized over a large tract of professing Christendom. +So a tolerably good understanding and a brisk trade +has sprung up between the sheep and the wolves. +But for all that, there is fundamental discord, however +changed may be its exhibition, and if we are +true to our Master and insist on shaping our lives +by His rules, we shall find out that there is.</p> + +<p>We need, therefore, to “walk in wisdom” towards +the non-Christian world; that is, to let practical +prudence shape all our conduct. If we are Christians, +we have to live under the eyes of vigilant and +not altogether friendly observers, who derive satisfaction +and harm from any inconsistency of ours. A +plainly Christian life that needs no commentary to +exhibit its harmony with Christ’s commandments is +the first duty we owe to them.</p> + +<p>And the wisdom which is to mould our lives in +view of these outsiders will “discern both time and +judgment,” will try to take the measure of men +and act accordingly. Common sense and practical +sagacity are important accompaniments of Christian +zeal. What a singularly complex character, in this +respect, was Paul’s—enthusiastic and yet capable +of such diplomatic adaptation; and withal never +dropping to cunning, nor sacrificing truth! Enthusiasts +who despise worldly wisdom, and therefore +often dash themselves against stone walls, are not +rare; cool calculators who abhor all generous glow +of feeling and have ever a pailful of cold water for +any project which shows it, are only too common—but +fire and ice together, like a volcano with glaciers +streaming down its cone, are rare. Fervour married +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> +to tact, common sense which keeps close to earth +and enthusiasm which flames heaven high, are a +rare combination. It is not often that the same +voice can say, “I count not my life dear to myself,” +and “I became all things to all men.”</p> + +<p>A dangerous principle that last, a very slippery +piece of ground to get upon!—say people, and +quite truly. It <i>is</i> dangerous, and one thing only +will keep a man’s feet when on it, and that is, that +his wise adaptation shall be perfectly unselfish, and +that he shall ever keep clear before him the great +object to be gained, which is nothing personal, but +“that I might by all means save some.” If that +end is held in view, we shall be saved from the +temptation of hiding or maiming the very truth +which we desire should be received, and our wise +adaptation of ourselves and of our message to the +needs and weaknesses and peculiarities of those +“who are without,” will not degenerate into handling +the word of God deceitfully. Paul advised “walking +in wisdom;” he abhorred “walking in craftiness.”</p> + +<p>We owe them that are without such a walk as +may tend to bring them in. Our life is to a large +extent their Bible. They know a great deal more +about Christianity, as they see it in us, than as it is +revealed in Christ, or recorded in Scripture—and if, +as seen in us, it does not strike them as very attractive, +small wonder if they still prefer to remain +where they are. Let us take care lest instead of +being doorkeepers to the house of the Lord, to +beckon passers-by and draw them in, we block +the doorway, and keep them from seeing the wonders +within.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> +The Apostle adds a special way in which this +wisdom shows itself—namely, “redeeming the time.” +The last word here does not denote time in general, +but a definite season, or <i>opportunity</i>. The lesson, +then, is not that of making the best use of all the +moments as they fly, precious as that lesson is, but +that of discerning and eagerly using appropriate +opportunities for Christian service. The figure is +simple enough; to “buy up” means to make one’s +own. “Make much of time, let not advantage slip,” +is an advice in exactly the same spirit. Two things +are included in it; the watchful study of characters, +so as to know the right times to bring influences to +bear on them, and an earnest diligence in utilizing +these for the highest purposes. We have not acted +wisely towards those who are without unless we have +used every opportunity to draw them in.</p> + +<p>But besides a wise walk, there is to be “gracious +speech.” “Let your speech be always with grace.” +A similar juxtaposition of “wisdom” and “grace” +occurred in chapter iii. 16. “Let the word of +Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom ... singing +with grace in your hearts”; and there as here, +“grace” may be taken either in its lower æsthetic +sense, or in its higher spiritual. It may mean either +favour, agreeableness, or the Divine gift, bestowed +by the indwelling Spirit. The former is supposed +by many good expositors to be the meaning here. +But is it a Christian’s duty to make his speech +always agreeable? Sometimes it is his plain duty +to make it very disagreeable indeed. If our speech +is to be true, and wholesome, it must sometimes +rasp and go against the grain. Its pleasantness +depends on the inclinations of the hearers rather +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> +than on the will of the honest speaker. If he is to +“redeem the time” and “walk wisely to them that +are without,” his speech cannot be always with such +grace. The advice to make our words always +pleasing may be a very good maxim for worldly +success, but it smacks of Chesterfield’s Letters +rather than of Paul’s Epistles.</p> + +<p>We must go much deeper for the true import of +this exhortation. It is substantially this—whether +you can speak smooth things or no, and whether +your talk is always directly religious or no—and it +need not and cannot always be that—let there ever +be in it the manifest influence of God’s Spirit, Who +dwells in the Christian heart, and will mould and +sanctify your speech. Of you, as of your Master, +let it be true, “Grace is poured into thy lips.” He +in whose spirit the Divine Spirit abides will be +truly “Golden-mouthed”; his speech shall distil as +the dew, and whether his grave and lofty words +please frivolous and prurient ears or no, they will be +beautiful in the truest sense, and show the Divine +life pulsing through them, as some transparent skin +shows the throbbing of the blue veins. Men who +feed their souls on great authors catch their style, +as some of our great living orators, who are eager +students of English poetry. So if we converse +much with God, listening to His voice in our hearts, +our speech will have in it a tone that will echo that +deep music. Our accent will betray our country. +Then our speech will be with grace in the lower +sense of pleasingness. The truest gracefulness, both +of words and conduct, comes from heavenly grace. +The beauty caught from God, the fountain of all +things lovely, is the highest.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> +The speech is to be “seasoned with salt.” That +does not mean the “Attic salt” of wit. There is +nothing more wearisome than the talk of men who +are always trying to be piquant and brilliant. Such +speech is like a “pillar of salt”—it sparkles, but is +cold, and has points that wound, and it tastes bitter. +That is not what Paul recommends. Salt was used +in sacrifice—let the sacrificial salt be applied to all +our words; that is, let all we say be offered up +to God, “a sacrifice of praise to God continually.” +Salt preserves. Put into your speech what will keep +it from rotting, or, as the parallel passage in Ephesians +has it, “let no <i>corrupt</i> communication proceed +out of your mouth.” Frivolous talk, dreary gossip, +ill-natured talk, idle talk, to say nothing of foul and +wicked words, will be silenced when your speech is +seasoned with salt.</p> + +<p>The following words make it probable that salt +here is used also with some allusion to its power of +giving savour to food. Do not deal in insipid +generalities, but suit your words to your hearers, +“that ye may know how ye ought to answer each +one.” Speech that fits close to the characteristics +and wants of the people to whom it is spoken is +sure to be interesting, and that which does not will +for them be insipid. Commonplaces that hit full +against the hearer will be no commonplaces to him, +and the most brilliant words that do not meet his +mind or needs will to him be tasteless “as the white +of an egg.”</p> + +<p>Individual peculiarities, then, must determine the +wise way of approach to each man, and there will be +wide variety in the methods. Paul’s language to +the wild hill tribes of Lycaonia was not the same as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> +to the cultivated, curious crowd on Mars’ Hill, and +his sermons in the synagogues have a different tone +from his reasonings of judgment to come before +Felix.</p> + +<p>All that is too plain to need illustration. But +one word may be added. The Apostle here regards +it as the task of every Christian man to speak for +Christ. Further, he recommends dealing with individuals +rather than masses, as being within the +scope of each Christian, and as being much more +efficacious. Salt has to be rubbed in, if it is to do +any good. It is better for most of us to fish with +the rod than with the net, to angle for single souls, +rather than to try and enclose a multitude at once. +Preaching to a congregation has its own place and +value; but private and personal talk, honestly and +wisely done, will effect more than the most eloquent +preaching. Better to drill in the seeds, dropping +them one by one into the little pits made for their +reception, than to sow them broadcast.</p> + +<p>And what shall we say of Christian men and +women, who can talk animatedly and interestingly +of anything but of their Saviour and His kingdom? +Timidity, misplaced reverence, a dread of seeming +to be self-righteous, a regard for conventional proprieties, +and the national reserve account for much +of the lamentable fact that there are so many such. +But all these barriers would be floated away like +straws, if a great stream of Christian feeling were +pouring from the heart. What fills the heart will +overflow by the floodgates of speech. So that the +real reason for the unbroken silence in which many +Christian people conceal their faith is mainly the +small quantity of it which there is to conceal.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> +A solemn ideal is set before us in these parting +injunctions—a higher righteousness than was +thundered from Sinai. When we think of our +hurried, formal devotion, our prayers forced from us +sometimes by the pressure of calamity, and so often +suspended when the weight is lifted; of the occasional +glimpses that we get of God—as sailors may +catch sight of a guiding star for a moment through +driving fog, and of the long tracts of life which +would be precisely the same, as far as our thoughts +are concerned, if there were no God at all, or He +had nothing to do with us—what an awful command +that seems, “Continue stedfastly in prayer”!</p> + +<p>When we think of our selfish disregard of the +woes and dangers of the poor wanderers without, +exposed to the storm, while we think ourselves safe +in the fold, and of how little we have meditated on +and still less discharged our obligations to them, +and of how we have let precious opportunities slip +through our slack hands, we may well bow rebuked +before the exhortation, “Walk in wisdom toward +them that are without.”</p> + +<p>When we think of the stream of words ever +flowing from our lips, and how few grains of gold +that stream has brought down amid all its sand, and +how seldom Christ’s name has been spoken by us +to hearts that heed Him not nor know Him, the +exhortation, “Let your speech be always with +grace,” becomes an indictment as truly as a command.</p> + +<p>There is but one place for us, the foot of the +cross, that there we may obtain forgiveness for all +the faulty past and thence may draw consecration +and strength for the future, to enable us to keep +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> +that lofty law of Christian morality, which is high +and hard if we think only of its precepts, but +becomes light and easy when we open our hearts to +receive the power for obedience, “which,” as this +great Epistle manifoldly teaches, “is Christ in you, +the hope of glory.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXXIV" id="ColXXIV"></a>XXIV.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>TYCHICUS AND ONESIMUS, THE LETTER-BEARERS.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“All my affairs shall Tychicus make known unto you, the beloved +brother and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I +have sent unto you for this very purpose, that ye may know our +estate, and that he may comfort your hearts; together with Onesimus, +the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make +known unto you all things that <i>are done</i> here.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iv. 7–9 (Rev. +Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>In Paul’s days it was perhaps more difficult to get +letters delivered than to write them. It was a +long, weary journey from Rome to Colossæ,—across +Italy, then by sea to Greece, across Greece, then by +sea to the port of Ephesus, and thence by rough +ways to the upland valley where lay Colossæ, with +its neighbouring towns of Laodicea and Hierapolis. +So one thing which the Apostle has to think about +is to find messengers to carry his letter. He pitches +upon these two, Tychicus and Onesimus. The +former is one of his personal attendants, told off for +this duty; the other, who has been in Rome under +very peculiar circumstances, is going home to +Colossæ, on a strange errand, in which he may be +helped by having a message from Paul to carry.</p> + +<p>We shall not now deal with the words before us, +so much as with these two figures, whom we may +regard as representing certain principles, and embodying +some useful lessons.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> +I. Tychicus may stand as representing the greatness +and sacredness of small and secular service +done for Christ.</p> + +<p>We must first try, in as few words as may be, to +change the name into a man. There is something +very solemn and pathetic in these shadowy names +which appear for a moment on the page of Scripture, +and are swallowed up of black night, like stars that +suddenly blaze out for a week or two, and then +dwindle and at last disappear altogether. They too +lived, and loved, and strove, and suffered, and enjoyed: +and now—all is gone, gone; the hot fire +burned down to such a little handful of white ashes. +Tychicus and Onesimus! two shadows that once +were men! and as they are, so we shall be.</p> + +<p>As to Tychicus, there are several fragmentary +notices about him in the Acts of the Apostles and in +Paul’s letters, and although they do not amount to +much, still by piecing them together, and looking at +them with some sympathy, we can get a notion of +the man.</p> + +<p>He does not appear till near the end of Paul’s +missionary work, and was probably one of the fruits +of the Apostle’s long residence in Ephesus on his +last missionary tour, as we do not hear of him till +after that period. That stay in Ephesus was cut +short by the silversmiths’ riot—the earliest example +of trades’ unions—when they wanted to silence the +preaching of the gospel because it damaged the +market for “shrines,” and “<i>also</i>” was an insult to +the great goddess! Thereupon Paul retired to +Europe, and after some months there, decided on +his last fateful journey to Jerusalem. On the way +he was joined by a remarkable group of friends +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> +seven in number, and apparently carefully selected +so as to represent the principal fields of the Apostle’s +labours. There were three Europeans, two from +“Asia”—meaning by that name, of course, only the +Roman province, which included mainly the western +seaboard—and two from the wilder inland country +of Lycaonia. Tychicus was one of the two from +Asia; the other was Trophimus, whom we know to +have been an Ephesian (Acts xxi. 29), as Tychicus +may not improbably have also been.</p> + +<p>We do not know that all the seven accompanied +Paul to Jerusalem. Trophimus we know did, and +another of them, Aristarchus, is mentioned as having +sailed with him on the return voyage from Palestine +(Acts xxvii. 2). But if they were not intended to +go to Jerusalem, why did they meet him at all? +The sacredness of the number seven, the apparent +care to secure a representation of the whole field of +apostolic activity, and the long distances that some +of them must have travelled, make it extremely +unlikely that these men should have met him at a +little port in Asia Minor for the mere sake of being +with him for a few days. It certainly seems much +more probable that they joined his company and +went on to Jerusalem. What for? Probably as +bearers of money contributions from the whole area +of the Gentile Churches, to the “poor saints” there—a +purpose which would explain the composition +of the delegation. Paul was too sensitive and too +sagacious to have more to do with money matters +than he could help. We learn from his letter to +the Church at Corinth that he insisted on another +brother being associated with him in the administration +of their alms, so that no man could raise +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> +suspicions against him. Paul’s principle was that +which ought to guide every man entrusted with +other people’s money to spend for religious or +charitable purposes—“I shall not be your almoner +unless some one appointed by you stands by me to +see that I spend your money rightly”—a good example +which, it is much to be desired, were followed +by all workers, and required to be followed as a +condition of all giving.</p> + +<p>These seven, at all events, began the long journey +with Paul. Among them is our friend Tychicus, +who may have learned to know the Apostle more +intimately during it, and perhaps developed qualities +in travel which marked him out as fit for the errand +on which we here find him.</p> + +<p>This voyage was about the year 58 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> Then +comes an interval of some three or four years, in +which occur Paul’s arrest and imprisonment at +Cæsarea, his appearance before governors and kings, +his voyage to Italy and shipwreck, with his residence +in Rome. Whether Tychicus was with him during +all this period, as Luke seems to have been, we do +not know, nor at what point he joined the Apostle, +if he was not his companion throughout. But +the verses before us show that he was with Paul +during part of his first Roman captivity, probably +about <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 62 or 63; and their commendation of +him as “a faithful minister,” or helper of Paul, implies +that for a considerable period before this he +had been rendering services to the Apostle.</p> + +<p>He is now despatched all the long way to Colossæ +to carry this letter, and to tell the Church by word +of mouth all that had happened in Rome. No information +of that kind is in the letter itself. That +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> +silence forms a remarkable contrast to the affectionate +abundance of personal details in another prison +letter, that to the Philippians, and probably marks +this Epistle as addressed to a Church never visited +by Paul. Tychicus is sent, according to the most +probable reading, that “ye may know our estate, +and that he may comfort your hearts”—encouraging +the brethren to Christian stedfastness, not only +by his news of Paul, but by his own company and +exhortations.</p> + +<p>The very same words are employed about him +in the contemporaneous letter to the Ephesians. +Evidently, then, he carried both epistles on the same +journey; and one reason for selecting him as messenger +is plainly that he was a native of the +province, and probably of Ephesus. When Paul +looked round his little circle of attendant friends, his +eye fell on Tychicus, as the very man for such an +errand. “You go, Tychicus. It is your home; they +all know you.”</p> + +<p>The most careful students now think that the +Epistle to the Ephesians was meant to go the round +of the Churches of Asia Minor, beginning, no doubt, +with that in the great city of Ephesus. If that be +so, and Tychicus had to carry it to these Churches +in turn, he would necessarily come, in the course of +his duty, to Laodicea, which was only a few miles +from Colossæ, and so could most conveniently +deliver this Epistle. The wider and the narrower +mission fitted into each other.</p> + +<p>No doubt he went, and did his work. We can +fancy the eager groups, perhaps in some upper room, +perhaps in some quiet place of prayer by the river +side; in their midst the two messengers, with a little +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> +knot of listeners and questioners round each. How +they would have to tell the story a dozen times +over! how every detail would be precious! how +tears would come and hearts would glow! how deep +into the night they would talk! and how many a +heart that had begun to waver would be confirmed +in cleaving to Christ by the exhortations of +Tychicus, by the very sight of Onesimus, and by +Paul’s words of fire!</p> + +<p>What became of Tychicus after that journey we +do not know. Perhaps he settled down at Ephesus +for a time, perhaps he returned to Paul. At any +rate, we get two more glimpses of him at a later +period—one in the Epistle to Titus, in which we +hear of the Apostle’s intention to despatch him +on another journey to Crete, and the last in the +close of the second Epistle to Timothy, written +from Rome probably about <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 67. The Apostle +believes that his death is near, and seems to have +sent away most of his staff. Among the notices of +their various appointments we read, “Tychicus have +I sent to Ephesus.” He is not said to have been +sent on any mission connected with the Churches. +It may be that he was simply sent away because, +by reason of his impending martyrdom, Paul had no +more need of him. True, he still has Luke by him, +and he wishes Timothy to come and bring his first +“minister,” Mark, with him. But he has sent away +Tychicus, as if he had said, Now, go back to your +home, my friend! You have been a faithful servant +for ten years. I need you no more. Go to your +own people, and take my blessing. God be with +you! So they parted, he that was for death, to +die! and he that was for life, to live and to treasure +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> +the memory of Paul in his heart for the rest of his +days. These are the facts; ten years of faithful +service to the Apostle, partly during his detention +in Rome, and much of it spent in wearisome and +dangerous travelling undertaken to carry a couple +of letters.</p> + +<p>As for his character, Paul has given us something +of it in these few words, which have commended +him to a wider circle than the handful of Christians +at Colossæ. As for his personal godliness and +goodness, he is “a beloved brother,” as are all who +love Christ; but he is also a “faithful minister,” or +personal attendant upon the Apostle. Paul always +seems to have had one or two such about him, from +the time of his first journey, when John Mark filled +the post, to the end of his career. Probably he was +no great hand at managing affairs, and needed some +plain common-sense nature beside him, who would +be secretary or amanuensis sometimes, and general +helper and factotum. Men of genius and men +devoted to some great cause which tyrannously +absorbs attention, want some person to fill such a +homely office. The person who filled it would be +likely to be a plain man, not gifted in any special +degree for higher service. Common sense, willingness +to be troubled with small details of purely +secular arrangements, and a hearty love for the chief, +and desire to spare him annoyance and work, were +the qualifications. Such probably was Tychicus—no +orator, no organiser, no thinker, but simply an +honest, loving soul, who did not shrink from rough +outward work, if only it might help the cause. We +do not read that he was a teacher or preacher, or +miracle worker. His gift was—ministry, and he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> +gave himself to his ministry. His business was to +run Paul’s errands, and, like a true man, he ran +them “faithfully.”</p> + +<p>So then, he is fairly taken as representing the +greatness and sacredness of small and secular service +for Christ. For the Apostle goes on to add something +to his eulogium as a “faithful minister”—when +he calls him “a fellow-servant,” or slave, “in +the Lord.” As if he had said, Do not suppose that +because I write this letter, and Tychicus carries it, +there is much difference between us. We are both +slaves of the same Lord who has set each of us +his tasks; and though the tasks be different, the +obedience is the same, and the doers stand on one +level. I am not Tychicus’ master, though he be my +minister. We have both, as I have been reminding +you that you all have, an owner in heaven. The +delicacy of the turn thus given to the commendation +is a beautiful indication of Paul’s generous, +chivalrous nature. No wonder that such a soul +bound men like Tychicus to him!</p> + +<p>But there is more than merely a revelation of a +beautiful character in the words; there are great +truths in them. We may draw them out in two or +three thoughts.</p> + +<p>Small things done for Christ are great. Trifles +that contribute and are indispensable to a great +result are great; or perhaps, more properly, both +words are out of place. In some powerful engine +there is a little screw, and if it drop out, the great +piston cannot rise nor the huge crank turn. What +have big and little to do with things which are +equally indispensable? There is a great rudder that +steers an ironclad. It moves on a “pintle” a few +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> +inches long. If that bit of iron were gone, what +would become of the rudder, and what would be the +use of the ship with all her guns? There is an old +jingling rhyme about losing a shoe for want of a +nail, and a horse for want of a shoe, and a man for +want of a horse, and a battle for want of a man, and +a kingdom for loss of a battle. The intervening +links may be left out—and the nail and the kingdom +brought together. In a similar spirit, we may +say that the trifles done for Christ which help the +great things are as important as these. What is +the use of writing letters, if you cannot get them +delivered? It takes both Paul and Tychicus to get +the letter into the hands of the people at Colossæ.</p> + +<p>Another thought suggested by the figure of +Paul’s minister, who was also his fellow-slave, is the +sacredness of secular work done for Christ. When +Tychicus is caring for Paul’s comfort, and looking +after common things for him, he is serving Christ, +and his work is “in the Lord.” That is equivalent +to saying that the distinction between sacred and +secular, religious and non-religious, like that of great +and small, disappears from work done for and in +Jesus. Whenever there is organization, there must +be much work concerned with purely material +things: and the most spiritual forces must have +some organization. There must be men for “the +outward business of the house of God” as well as +white-robed priests at the altar, and the rapt gazer +in the secret place of the Most High. There are +a hundred matters of detail and of purely outward +and mechanical sort which must be seen to by +somebody. The alternative is to do them in a +purely mechanical and secular manner and so to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> +make the work utterly dreary and contemptible, or +in a devout and earnest manner and so to hallow +them all, and make worship of them all. The +difference between two lives is not in the material +on which, but in the motive from which, and in the +end for which, they are respectively lived. All work +done in obedience to the same Lord is the same in +essence; for it is all obedience; and all work done +for the same God is the same in essence, for it is +all worship. The distinction between secular and +sacred ought never to have found its way into +Christian morals, and ought for evermore to be +expelled from Christian life.</p> + +<p>Another thought may be suggested—fleeting +things done for Christ are eternal. How astonished +Tychicus would have been if anybody had told him +on that day when he got away from Rome, with +the two precious letters in his scrip, that these bits +of parchment would outlast all the ostentatious +pomp of the city, and that his name, because written +in them, would be known to the end of time all over +the world! The eternal things are the things done +for Christ. They are eternal in His memory who +has said, “I will never forget any of their works,” +however they may fall from man’s remembrance. +They are perpetual in their consequences. True, no +man’s contribution to the mighty sum of things +“that make for righteousness” can very long be +traced as separate from the others, any more than +the raindrop that refreshed the harebell on the moor +can be traced in burn, and river, and sea. But for +all that, it is there. So our influence for good blends +with a thousand others, and may not be traceable +beyond a short distance, still it is there: and no true +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span> +work for Christ, abortive as it may seem, but goes to +swell the great aggregate of forces which are working +on through the ages to bring the perfect Order.</p> + +<p>That Colossian Church seems a failure. Where +is it now? Gone. Where are its sister Churches +of Asia? Gone. Paul’s work and Tychicus’ seem to +have vanished from the earth, and Mohammedanism +to have taken its place. Yes! and here are we +to-day in England, and Christian men all over the +world in lands that were mere slaughterhouses of +savagery then, learning our best lessons from Paul’s +words, and owing something for our knowledge of +them to Tychicus’ humble care. Paul meant to +teach a handful of obscure believers—he has edified +the world. Tychicus thought to carry the precious +letter safely over the sea—he was helping to send it +across the centuries, and to put it into our hands. +So little do we know where our work will terminate. +Our only concern is where it begins. Let us look +after this end, the motive; and leave God to take +care of the other, the consequences.</p> + +<p>Such work will be perpetual in its consequences +on ourselves. “Though Israel be not gathered, yet +shall I be glorious.” Whether our service for Christ +does others any good or no, it will bless ourselves, +by strengthening the motives from which it springs, +by enlarging our own knowledge and enriching our +own characters, and by a hundred other gracious influences +which His work exerts upon the devout +worker, and which become indissoluble parts of himself, +and abide with him for ever, over and above the +crown of glory that fadeth not away.</p> + +<p>And, as the reward is given not to the outward +deed, but to the motive which settles its value, all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> +work done from the same motive is alike in reward, +howsoever different in form. Paul in the front, and +Tychicus obscure in the rear, the great teachers and +path-openers whom Christ through the ages raises +up for large spiritual work, and the little people +whom Christ through the ages raises up to help and +sympathize—shall share alike at last, if the Spirit +that moved them has been the same, and if in +different administrations they have served the same +Lord. “He that receiveth a prophet in the name +of a prophet”—though no prophecy come from his +lips—“shall receive a prophet’s reward.”</p> + +<p>II. We must now turn to a much briefer consideration +of the second figure here, Onesimus, as +representing the transforming and uniting power of +Christian faith.</p> + +<p>No doubt this is the same Onesimus as we read +of in the Epistle to Philemon. His story is familiar +and need not be dwelt on. He had been an “unprofitable +servant,” good-for-nothing, and apparently +had robbed his master, and then fled. He had +found his way to Rome, to which all the scum of +the empire seemed to drift. There he had burrowed +in some hole, and found obscurity and security. +Somehow or other he had come across Paul—surely +not, as has been supposed, having sought the +Apostle as a friend of his master’s, which would +rather have been a reason for avoiding him. However +that may be, he had found Paul, and Paul’s +Master had found <i>him</i> by the gospel which Paul +spoke. His heart had been touched. And now he +is to go back to his owner. With beautiful considerateness +the Apostle unites him with Tychicus in his +mission, and refers the Church to him as an authority. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> +That is most delicate and thoughtful. The +same sensitive regard for his feelings marks the +language in which he is commended to them. +There is now no word about “a fellow-slave”—that +might have been misunderstood and might have +hurt. Paul will only say about him half of what +he said about Tychicus. He cannot leave out the +“faithful,” because Onesimus had been eminently +unfaithful, and so he attaches it to that half of his +former commendation which he retains, and testifies +to him as “a faithful and beloved brother.” There +are no references to his flight or to his peculations. +Philemon is the person to be spoken to about these. +The Church has nothing to do with them. The +man’s past was blotted out—enough that he is +“faithful,” exercising trust in Christ, and therefore +to be trusted. His condition was of no moment—enough +that he is “a brother,” therefore to be beloved.</p> + +<p>Does not then that figure stand forth a living +illustration of the <i>transforming</i> power of Christianity? +Slaves had well-known vices, largely the result of +their position—idleness, heartlessness, lying, dishonesty. +And this man had had his full share of +the sins of his class. Think of him as he left Colossæ, +slinking from his master, with stolen property in his +bosom, madness and mutiny in his heart, an ignorant +heathen, with vices and sensualities holding carnival +in his soul. Think of him as he came back, Paul’s +trusted representative, with desires after holiness in +his deepest nature, the light of the knowledge of a +loving and pure God in his soul, a great hope before +him, ready for all service and even to put on again +the abhorred yoke! What had happened? Nothing +but this—the message had come to him, “Onesimus! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span> +fugitive, rebel, thief as thou art, Jesus Christ has died +for thee, and lives to cleanse and bless thee. Believest +thou this?” And he believed, and leant his +whole sinful self on that Saviour, and the corruption +faded away from his heart, and out of the thief was +made a trustworthy man, and out of the slave a +beloved brother. The cross had touched his heart +and will. That was all. It had changed his whole +being. He is a living illustration of Paul’s teaching +in this very letter. He is dead with Christ to his +old self; he lives with Christ a new life.</p> + +<p>The gospel can do that. It can and does do so +to-day and to us, if we will. Nothing else can; +nothing else ever has done it; nothing else ever will. +Culture may do much; social reformation may do +much; but the radical transformation of the nature +is only effected by the “love of God shed abroad in +the heart,” and by the new life which we receive +through our faith in Christ.</p> + +<p>That change can be produced on all sorts and +conditions of men. The gospel despairs of none. +It knows of no hopelessly irreclaimable classes. It +can kindle a soul under the ribs of death. The +filthiest rags can be cleaned and made into spotlessly +white paper, which may have the name of God +written upon it. None are beyond its power; +neither the savages in other lands, nor the more +hopeless heathens festering and rotting in our back +slums, the opprobrium of our civilization and the indictment +of our Christianity. Take the gospel that +transformed this poor slave, to them, and some hearts +will own it, and we shall pick out of the kennel souls +blacker than his, and make them like him, brethren, +faithful and beloved.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> +Further, here is a living illustration of the power +which the gospel has of binding men into a true +brotherhood. We can scarcely picture to ourselves +the gulf which separated the master from his slave. +“So many slaves, so many enemies,” said Seneca. +That great crack running through society was a +chief weakness and peril of the ancient world. Christianity +gathered master and slave into one family, +and set them down at one table to commemorate +the death of the Saviour who held them all in the +embrace of His great love.</p> + +<p>All true union among men must be based upon +their oneness in Jesus Christ. The brotherhood of +man is a consequence of the fatherhood of God, and +Christ shows us the Father. If the dreams of men’s +being knit together in harmony are ever to be more +than dreams, the power that makes them facts must +flow from the cross. The world must recognise that +“One is your master,” before it comes to believe as +anything more than the merest sentimentality that +“all ye are brethren.”</p> + +<p>Much has to be done before the dawn of that day +reddens in the east, “when, man to man, the wide +world o’er, shall brothers be,” and much in political +and social life has to be swept away before society is +organized on the basis of Christian fraternity. The +vision tarries. But we may remember how certainly, +though slowly, the curse of slavery has disappeared, +and take courage to believe that all other evils will +fade away in like manner, until the cords of love +shall bind all hearts in fraternal unity, because they +bind each to the cross of the Elder Brother, through +whom we are no more slaves but sons, and if sons of +God, then brethren of one another.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXXV" id="ColXXV"></a>XXV.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>SALUTATIONS FROM THE PRISONER’S FRIENDS.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth you, and Mark, the cousin +of Barnabas (touching whom ye received commandments; if he come +unto you, receive him), and Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the +circumcision: these only <i>are my</i> fellow-workers unto the kingdom of +God, men that have been a comfort unto me. Epaphras, who is one of +you, a servant of Christ Jesus, saluteth you, always striving for you in +his prayers, that ye may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of +God. For I bear him witness, that he hath much labour for you, and +for them in Laodicea, and for them in Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved +physician, and Demas salute you.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iv. 10–14 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>Here are men of different races, unknown to +each other by face, clasping hands across the +seas, and feeling that the repulsions of nationality, +language, conflicting interests, have disappeared in +the unity of faith. These greetings are a most +striking, because unconscious, testimony to the +reality and strength of the new bond that knit +Christian souls together.</p> + +<p>There are three sets of salutations here, sent +from Rome to the little far-off Phrygian town in +its secluded valley. The first is from three large-hearted +Jewish Christians, whose greeting has a +special meaning as coming from that wing of the +Church which had least sympathy with Paul’s work or +converts. The second is from the Colossians’ towns-man +Epaphras; and the third is from two Gentiles like +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> +themselves, one well known as Paul’s most faithful +friend, one almost unknown, of whom Paul has +nothing to say, and of whom nothing good can be +said. All these may yield us matter for consideration. +It is interesting to piece together what we +know of the bearers of these shadowy names. It is +profitable to regard them as exponents of certain +tendencies and principles.</p> + +<p>1. These three sympathetic Jewish Christians may +stand as types of a progressive and non-ceremonial +Christianity.</p> + +<p>We need spend little time in outlining the figures +of these three, for he in the centre is well known to +every one, and his two supporters are little known +to any one. Aristarchus was a Thessalonian +(Acts xx. 4), and so perhaps one of Paul’s early +converts on his first journey to Europe. His purely +Gentile name would not have led us to expect him +to be a Jew. But we have many similar instances in +the New Testament, such for instance, as the names +of six of the seven deacons (Acts vii. 5), which show +that the Jews of “the dispersion,” who resided in +foreign countries, often bore no trace of their +nationality in their names. He was with Paul in +Ephesus at the time of the riot, and was one of the +two whom the excited mob, in their zeal for trade +and religion, dragged into the theatre, to the peril +of their lives. We next find him like Tychicus, a +member of the deputation which joined Paul on his +voyage to Jerusalem. Whatever was the case with +the other, Aristarchus was in Palestine with Paul, +for we learn that he sailed with him thence (Acts +xxvii. 2). Whether he kept company with Paul +during all the journey we do not know. But more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> +probably he went home to Thessalonica, and afterwards +rejoined Paul at some point in his Roman +captivity. At any rate here he is, standing by Paul, +having drunk in his spirit, and enthusiastically +devoted to him and his work.</p> + +<p>He receives here a remarkable and honourable +title, “my fellow-prisoner.” I suppose that it is to +be taken literally, and that Aristarchus was, in some +way, at the moment of writing, sharing Paul’s +imprisonment. Now it has been often noticed that, +in the Epistle to Philemon, where almost all these +names re-appear, it is not Aristarchus, but Epaphras, +who is honoured with this epithet; and that +interchange has been explained by an ingenious +supposition that Paul’s friends took it in turn to +keep him company, and were allowed to live with +him, on condition of submitting to the same +restrictions, military guardianship, and so on. There +is no positive evidence in favour of this, but it is +not improbable, and, if accepted, helps to give an +interesting glimpse of Paul’s prison life, and of the +loyal devotion which surrounded him.</p> + +<p>Mark comes next. His story is well known—how +twelve years before, he had joined the first +missionary band from Antioch, of which his cousin +Barnabas was the leader, and had done well enough +as long as they were on known ground, in Barnabas’ +(and perhaps his own) native island of Cyprus, but +had lost heart and run home to his mother as soon +as they crossed into Asia Minor. He had long ago +effaced the distrust of him which Paul naturally +conceived on account of this collapse. How he +came to be with Paul at Rome is unknown. It has +been conjectured that Barnabas was dead, and that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> +so, Mark was free to join the Apostle; but that is +unsupported supposition. Apparently he is now +purposing a journey to Asia Minor, in the course of +which, if he should come to Colossæ (which was +doubtful, perhaps on account of its insignificance), +Paul repeats his previous injunction, that the church +should give him a cordial welcome. Probably this +commendation was given because the evil odour of +his old fault might still hang about his name. The +calculated emphasis of the exhortation, “receive +him,” seems to show that there was some reluctance +to give him a hearty reception and take him to +their hearts. So we have an “undesigned coincidence.” +The tone of the injunction here is +naturally explained by the story in the Acts.</p> + +<p>So faithful a friend did he prove, that the lonely +old man, fronting death, longed to have his affectionate +tending once more; and his last word about +him, “Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he +is profitable to me for <i>the ministry</i>,” condones the +early fault, and restores him to the office which, in a +moment of selfish weakness, he had abandoned. So +it is possible to efface a faultful past, and to acquire +strength and fitness for work, to which we are by +nature most inapt and indisposed. Mark is an +instance of early faults nobly atoned for, and a +witness of the power of repentance and faith to +overcome natural weakness. Many a ragged colt +makes a noble horse.</p> + +<p>The third man is utterly unknown—“Jesus, which +is called Justus.” How startling to come across +that name, borne by this obscure Christian! How +it helps us to feel the humble manhood of Christ, +by showing us that many another Jewish boy bore +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> +the same name; common and undistinguished then, +though too holy to be given to any since. His surname +Justus may, perhaps, like the same name given +to James, the first bishop of the Church in Jerusalem, +hint his rigorous adherence to Judaism, and so may +indicate that, like Paul himself, he came from the +straitest sect of their religion into the large liberty +in which he now rejoiced.</p> + +<p>He seems to have been of no importance in the +Church, for his name is the only one in this context +which does not re-appear in Philemon, and we never +hear of him again. A strange fate his! to be made +immortal by three words—and because he wanted +to send a loving message to the Church at Colossæ! +Why, men have striven and schemed, and broken +their hearts, and flung away their lives, to grasp the +bubble of posthumous fame; and how easily this +good “Jesus which is called Justus” has got it! +He has his name written for ever on the world’s +memory, and he very likely never knew it, and does +not know it, and was never a bit the better for it! +What a satire on “the last infirmity of noble minds!”</p> + +<p>These three men are united in this salutation, +because they are all three, “of the circumcision;” +that is to say, are Jews, and being so, have separated +themselves from all the other Jewish Christians in +Rome, and have flung themselves with ardour into +Paul’s missionary work among the Gentiles, and +have been his fellow-workers for the advancement of +the kingdom—aiding him, that is, in seeking to win +willing subjects to the loving, kingly will of God. +By this co-operation in the aim of his life, they have +been a “comfort” to him. He uses a half medical +term, which perhaps he had caught from the physician +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> +at his elbow, which we might perhaps parallel +by saying they had been a “cordial” to him—like a +refreshing draught to a weary man, or some whiff of +pure air stealing into a close chamber and lifting the +damp curls on some hot brow.</p> + +<p>Now these three men, the only three Jewish +Christians in Rome who had the least sympathy +with Paul and his work, give us, in their isolation, a +vivid illustration of the antagonism which he had to +face from that portion of the early Church. The +great question for the first generation of Christians +was, not whether Gentiles might enter the Christian +community, but whether they must do so by circumcision, +and pass through Judaism on their road to +Christianity. The bulk of the Palestinian Jewish +Christians naturally held that they must; while the +bulk of Jewish Christians who had been born in +other countries as naturally held that they need not. +As the champion of this latter decision, Paul was +worried and counter-worked and hindered all his life +by the other party. They had no missionary zeal, +or next to none, but they followed in his wake and +made mischief wherever they could. If we can +fancy some modern sect that sends out no missionaries +of its own, but delights to come in where +better men have forced a passage, and to upset their +work by preaching its own crotchets, we get precisely +the kind of thing which dogged Paul all his life.</p> + +<p>There was evidently a considerable body of these +men in Rome; good men no doubt in a fashion, +believing in Jesus as the Messiah, but unable to +comprehend that he had antiquated Moses, as the +dawning day makes useless the light in a dark place. +Even when he was a prisoner, their unrelenting +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> +antagonism pursued the Apostle. They preached +Christ of “envy and strife.” Not one of them lifted +a finger to help him, or spoke a word to cheer him. +With none of them to say, God bless him! he toiled +on. Only these three were large-hearted enough to +take their stand by his side, and by this greeting to +clasp the hands of their Gentile brethren in Colossæ +and thereby to endorse the teaching of this letter as +to the abrogation of Jewish rites.</p> + +<p>It was a brave thing to do, and the exuberance +of the eulogium shows how keenly Paul felt his +countrymen’s coldness, and how grateful he was to +“the dauntless three.” Only those who have lived +in an atmosphere of misconstruction, surrounded by +scowls and sneers, can understand what a cordial the +clasp of a hand, or the word of sympathy is. These +men were like the old soldier that stood on the +street of Worms, as Luther passed in to the Diet, +and clapped him on the shoulder, with “Little monk! +little monk! you are about to make a nobler stand +to-day than we in all our battles have ever done. If +your cause is just, and you are sure of it, go forward +in God’s name, and fear nothing.” If we can do no +more, we can give some one who is doing more a +cup of cold water, by our sympathy and taking our +place at his side, and <i>so</i> can be fellow-workers to the +kingdom of God.</p> + +<p>We note, too, that the best comfort Paul could +have was help in his work. He did not go about +the world whimpering for sympathy. He was much +too strong a man for that. He wanted men to come +down into the trench with him, and to shovel and +wheel there till they had made in the wilderness +some kind of a highway for the King. The true +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> +cordial for a true worker is that others get into the +traces and pull by his side.</p> + +<p>But we may further look at these men as representing +for us progressive as opposed to reactionary, +and spiritual as opposed to ceremonial Christianity. +Jewish Christians looked backwards; Paul and his +three sympathisers looked forward. There was +much excuse for the former. No wonder that they +shrank from the idea that things divinely appointed +could be laid aside. Now there is a broad distinction +between the divine in Christianity and the divine in +Judaism. For Jesus Christ is God’s last word, and +abides for ever. His divinity, His perfect sacrifice, +His present life in glory for us, His life within us, +these and their related truths are the perennial +possession of the Church. To Him we must look +back, and every generation till the end of time will +have to look back, as the full and final expression +of the wisdom and will and mercy of God. “Last +of all He sent unto them His Son.”</p> + +<p>That being distinctly understood, we need not +hesitate to recognise the transitory nature of much +of the embodiment of the eternal truth concerning +the eternal Christ. To draw the line accurately +between the permanent and the transient +would be to anticipate history and read the future. +But the clear recognition of the distinction between +the Divine revelation and the vessels in which it +is contained, between Christ and creed, between +Churches, forms of worship, formularies of faith on +the one hand, and the everlasting word of God +spoken to us once for all in His Son, and recorded +in Scripture, on the other, is needful at all times, +and especially at such times of sifting and unsettlement +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> +as the present. It will save some of us from +an obstinate conservatism which might read its fate +in the decline and disappearance of Jewish Christianity. +It will save us equally from needless fears, +as if the stars were going out, when it is only men-made +lamps that are paling. Men’s hearts often +tremble for the ark of God, when the only things in +peril are the cart that carries it, or the oxen that +draw it. “We have received a kingdom that cannot +be moved,” because we have received a King eternal, +and therefore may calmly see the removal of things +that can be shaken, assured that the things which +cannot be shaken will but the more conspicuously +assert their permanence. The existing embodiments +of God’s truth are not the highest, and if Churches +and forms crumble and disintegrate, their disappearance +will not be the abolition of Christianity, but its +progress. These Jewish Christians would have found +all that they strove to keep, in higher form and more +real reality, in Christ; and what seemed to them +the destruction of Judaism was really its coronation +with undying life.</p> + +<p>II. Epaphras is for us the type of the highest +service which love can render.</p> + +<p>All our knowledge of Epaphras is contained in +these brief notices in this Epistle. We learn from +the first chapter that he had introduced the gospel +to Colossæ, and perhaps also to Laodicea and +Hierapolis. He was “one of you,” a member of the +Colossian community, and a resident in, possibly a +native of, Colossæ. He had come to Rome, apparently +to consult the Apostle about the views +which threatened to disturb the Church. He had +told him, too, of their love, not painting the picture +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> +too black, and gladly giving full prominence to any +bits of brightness. It was his report which led to +the writing of this letter.</p> + +<p>Perhaps some of the Colossians were not over +pleased with his having gone to speak with Paul, +and having brought down this thunderbolt on their +heads; and such a feeling may account for the +warmth of Paul’s praises of him as his “fellow-slave,” +and for the emphasis of his testimony on his +behalf. However they might doubt it, Epaphras’ +love for them was warm. It showed itself by +continual fervent prayers that they might stand +“perfect and fully persuaded in all the will of God,” +and by toil of body and mind for them. We can +see the anxious Epaphras, far away from the Church +of his solicitude, always burdened with the thought +of their danger, and ever wrestling in prayer on their +behalf.</p> + +<p>So we may learn the noblest service which +Christian love can do—prayer. There is a real +power in Christian intercession. There are many +difficulties and mysteries round that thought. The +manner of the blessing is not revealed, but the fact +that we help one another by prayer is plainly +taught, and confirmed by many examples, from the +day when God heard Abraham and delivered Lot, +to the hour when the loving authoritative words +were spoken, “Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee +that thy faith fail not.” A spoonful of water sets +a hydraulic press in motion, and brings into +operation a force of tons’ weight; so a drop of +prayer at the one end may move an influence at the +other which is omnipotent. It is a service which +all can render. Epaphras could not have written +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> +this letter, but he could pray. Love has no higher +way of utterance than prayer. A prayerless love +may be very tender, and may speak murmured +words of sweetest sound, but it lacks the deepest +expression, and the noblest music of speech. We +never help our dear ones so well as when we pray +for them. Do we thus show and consecrate our +family loves and our friendships?</p> + +<p>We notice too the kind of prayer which love +naturally presents. It is constant and earnest—“always +striving,” or as the word might be rendered, +“agonizing.” That word suggests first the familiar +metaphor of the wrestling-ground. True prayer is +the intensest energy of the spirit pleading for +blessing with a great striving of faithful desire. But +a more solemn memory gathers round the word, +for it can scarcely fail to recall the hour beneath +the olives of Gethsemane, when the clear paschal +moon shone down on the suppliant who, “being in +an agony, prayed the more earnestly.” And both +Paul’s word here, and the evangelist’s there, carry +us back to that mysterious scene by the brook +Jabbok, where Jacob “wrestled” with “a man” +until the breaking of the day, and prevailed. Such +is prayer; the wrestle in the arena, the agony in +Gethsemane, the solitary grapple with the “traveller +unknown”; and such is the highest expression of +Christian love.</p> + +<p>Here, too, we learn what love asks for its beloved. +Not perishable blessings, not the prizes of earth—fame, +fortune, friends; but that “ye may stand +perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.” +The first petition is for stedfastness. To stand has +for opposites—to fall, or totter, or give ground; so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> +the prayer is that they may not yield to temptation, +or opposition, nor waver in their fixed faith, nor go +down in the struggle; but keep erect, their feet +planted on the rock, and holding their own against +every foe. The prayer is also for their maturity of +Christian character, that they may stand firm, +because perfect, having attained that condition which +Paul in this Epistle tell us is the aim of all preaching +and warning. As for ourselves, so for our dear ones, +we are to be content with nothing short of entire +conformity to the will of God. His merciful purpose +for us all is to be the goal of our efforts for ourselves, +and of our prayers for others. We are to +widen our desires to coincide with His gift, and our +prayers are to cover no narrower space than His +promises enclose.</p> + +<p>Epaphras’ last desire for his friends, according to +the true reading, is that they may be “fully assured” +in all the will of God. There can be no higher +blessing than that—to be quite sure of what God +desires me to know and do and be—if the assurance +comes from the clear light of His illumination, and +not from hasty self-confidence in my own penetration. +To be free from the misery of intellectual doubts +and practical uncertainties, to walk in the sunshine—is +the purest joy. And it is granted in needful +measure to all who have silenced their own wills, +that they may hear what God says,—“If any man +wills to do His will, he shall know.”</p> + +<p>Does our love speak in prayer? and do our +prayers for our dear ones plead chiefly for such gifts? +Both our love and our desires need purifying if this +is to be their natural language. How can we offer +such prayers for them if, at the bottom of our hearts, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> +we had rather see them well off in the world than +stedfast, matured and assured Christians? How +can we expect an answer to such prayers if the +whole current of our lives shows that neither for +them nor for ourselves do we “seek first the kingdom +of God and His righteousness”?</p> + +<p>III. The last salutation comes from a singularly +contrasted couple—Luke and Demas, the types +respectively of faithfulness and apostasy. These +two unequally yoked together stand before us like +the light and the dark figures that Ary Scheffer +delights to paint, each bringing out the colouring +of the other more vividly by contrast. They bear +the same relation to Paul which John, the beloved +disciple, and Judas did to Paul’s master.</p> + +<p>As for Luke, his long and faithful companionship +of the Apostle is too well known to need repetition +here. His first appearance in the Acts nearly coincides +with an attack of Paul’s constitutional malady, +which gives probability to the suggestion that one +reason for Luke’s close attendance on the Apostle +was the state of his health. Thus the form and +warmth of the reference here would be explained—“Luke +the physician, the beloved.” We trace Luke +as sharing the perils of the winter voyage to Italy, +making his presence known only by the modest +“we” of the narrative. We find him here sharing +the Roman captivity, and, in the second imprisonment, +he was Paul’s only companion. All others +had been sent away, or had fled; but Luke could +not be spared, and would not desert him, and no +doubt was by his side till the end, which soon came.</p> + +<p>As for Demas, we know no more about him except +the melancholy record, “Demas hath forsaken +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span> +me, having loved this present world; and is departed +unto Thessalonica.” Perhaps he was a Thessalonian, +and so went home. His love of the world, then, +was his reason for abandoning Paul. Probably it was +on the side of danger that the world tempted him. +He was a coward, and preferred a whole skin to a +clear conscience. In immediate connection with the +record of his desertion we read, “At my first answer, +no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.” +As the same word is used, probably Demas may +have been one of those timid friends, whose courage +was not equal to standing by Paul when, to use his +own metaphor, he thrust his head into the lion’s +mouth. Let us not be too hard on the constancy +that warped in so fierce a heat. All that Paul +charges him with is, that he was a faithless friend, +and too fond of the present world. Perhaps his +crime did not reach the darker hue. He may not +have been an apostate Christian, though he was a +faithless friend. Perhaps, if there were departure +from Christ as well as from Paul, he came back +again, like Peter, whose sins against love and friendship +were greater than his—and, like Peter, found +pardon and a welcome. Perhaps, away in Thessalonica, +he repented him of his evil, and perhaps Paul +and Demas met again before the throne, and there +clasped inseparable hands. Let us not judge a man +of whom we know so little, but take to ourselves the +lesson of humility and self-distrust!</p> + +<p>How strikingly these two contrasted characters +bring out the possibility of men being exposed to +the same influences and yet ending far away from +each other! These two set out from the same +point, and travelled side by side, subject to the same +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span> +training, in contact with the magnetic attraction of +Paul’s strong personality, and at the end they are +wide as the poles asunder. Starting from the same +level, one line inclines ever so little upwards, the +other imperceptibly downwards. Pursue them far +enough, and there is room for the whole solar system +with all its orbits in the space between them. So +two children trained at one mother’s knee, subjects +of the same prayers, with the same sunshine of love +and rain of good influences upon them both, may +grow up, one to break a mother’s heart and disgrace +a father’s home, and the other to walk in the ways +of godliness and serve the God of his fathers. Circumstances +are mighty; but the use we make of +circumstances lies with ourselves. As we trim our +sails and set our rudder, the same breeze will take +us in opposite directions. We are the architects +and builders of our own characters, and may so use +the most unfavourable influences as to strengthen +and wholesomely harden our natures thereby, and +may so misuse the most favourable as only thereby +to increase our blameworthiness for wasted opportunities.</p> + +<p>We are reminded, also, from these two men who +stand before us like a double star—one bright and +one dark—that no loftiness of Christian position, +nor length of Christian profession is a guarantee +against falling and apostasy. As we read in another +book, for which also the Church has to thank a +prison cell—the place where so many of its precious +possessions have been written—there is a backway +to the pit from the gate of the Celestial City. +Demas had stood high in the Church, had been +admitted to the close intimacy of the Apostle, was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span> +evidently no raw novice, and yet the world could +drag him back from so eminent a place in which he +had long stood. “Let him that thinketh he standeth +take heed lest he fall.”</p> + +<p>The world that was too strong for Demas will be +too strong for us if we front it in our own strength. +It is ubiquitous, working on us everywhere and +always, like the pressure of the atmosphere on our +bodies. Its weight will crush us unless we can +climb to and dwell on the heights of communion +with God, where pressure is diminished. It acted +on Demas through his fears. It acts on us through +our ambitions, affections and desires. So, seeing that +miserable wreck of Christian constancy, and considering +ourselves lest we also be tempted, let us +not judge another, but look at home. There is more +than enough there to make profound self-distrust +our truest wisdom, and to teach us to pray, “Hold +Thou me up, and I shall be safe.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="ColXXVI" id="ColXXVI"></a>XXVI.<br /> +<span class="titlesmaller"><i>CLOSING MESSAGES.</i></span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Salute the brethren that are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the +Church that is in their house. And when this epistle hath been read +among you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans; +and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, +Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that +thou fulfil it. The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand. +Remember my bonds. Grace be with you.”—<span class="smcap">Col.</span> iv. 15–end (Rev. +Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>There is a marked love of triplets in these +closing messages. There were three of the +circumcision who desired to salute the Colossians; +and there were three Gentiles whose greetings +followed these. Now we have a triple message +from the Apostle himself—his greeting to Laodicea, +his message as to the interchange of letters +with that Church, and his grave, stringent charge +to Archippus. Finally, the letter closes with a few +hurried words in his own handwriting, which also +are threefold, and seem to have been added in +extreme haste, and to be compressed to the utmost +possible brevity.</p> + +<p>I. We shall first look at the threefold greeting +and warnings to Laodicea.</p> + +<p>In the first part of this triple message we have a +glimpse of the Christian life of that city, “Salute +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> +the brethren that are in Laodicea.” These are, of +course, the whole body of Christians in the neighbouring +town, which was a much more important +place than Colossæ. They are the same persons as +“the Church of the Laodiceans.” Then comes a +special greeting to “Nymphas,” who was obviously +a brother of some importance and influence in the +Laodicean Church, though to us he has sunk to be +an empty name. With him Paul salutes “the +Church that is in <i>their</i> house” (Rev. Ver.). Whose +house? Probably that belonging to Nymphas and +his family. Perhaps that belonging to Nymphas +and the Church that met in it, if these were other +than his family. The more difficult expression is +adopted by preponderating textual authorities, and +“<i>his</i> house” is regarded as a correction to make the +sense easier. If so, then the expression is one of +which in our ignorance we have lost the key, and +which must be content to leave unexplained.</p> + +<p>But what was this “Church in the house”? We +read that Prisca and Aquila had such both in their +house in Rome (Rom. xvi. 5) and in Ephesus (1 Cor. +xvi. 19), and that Philemon had such in his house +at Colossæ. It may be that only the household of +Nymphas is meant, and that the words import no +more than that it was a Christian household; or it +may be, and more probably is, that in all these cases +there was some gathering of a few of the Christians +resident in each city, who were closely connected +with the heads of the household, and met in their +houses more or less regularly to worship and to +help one another in the Christian life. We have no +facts that decide which of these two suppositions is +correct. The early Christians had, of course no +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> +buildings especially used for their meetings, and +there may often have been difficulty in finding suitable +places, particularly in cities where the Church +was numerous. It may have been customary, +therefore, for brethren who had large and convenient +houses, to gather together portions of the whole +community in these. In any case, the expression +gives us a glimpse of the primitive elasticity of +Church order, and of the early fluidity, so to speak, +of ecclesiastical language. The word “Church” +has not yet been hardened and fixed to its present +technical sense. There was but one Church in +Laodicea, and yet within it there was this little +Church—an <i>imperium in imperio</i>—as if the word +had not yet come to mean more than an assembly, +and as if all arrangements of order and worship, and +all the terminology of later days, were undreamed of +yet. The life was there, but the forms which were +to grow out of the life, and to protect it sometimes, +and to stifle it often, were only beginning to show +themselves, and were certainly not yet felt to be +forms.</p> + +<p>We may note, too, the beautiful glimpse we get +here of domestic and social religion.</p> + +<p>If the Church in the house of Nymphas consisted +of his own family and dependants, it stands for us +as a lesson of what every family, which has a Christian +man or woman at its head, ought to be. Little +knowledge of the ordering of so-called Christian +households is needed to be sure that domestic religion +is wofully neglected to-day. Family worship +and family instruction are disused, one fears, in +many homes, the heads of which can remember both +in their father’s houses; and the unspoken aroma +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> +and atmosphere of religion does not fill the house +with its odour, as it ought to do. If a Christian +householder have not “a Church in his house,” the +family union is tending to become “a synagogue of +Satan.” One or other it is sure to be. It is a +solemn question for all parents and heads of households, +What am I doing to make my house a Church, +my family a family united by faith in Jesus Christ?</p> + +<p>A like suggestion may be made if, as is possible, +the Church in the house of Nymphas included more +than relatives and dependants. It is a miserable thing +when social intercourse plays freely round every +other subject, and taboos all mention of religion. +It is a miserable thing when Christian people choose +and cultivate society for worldly advantages, business +connections, family advancement, and for every +reason under heaven—sometimes a long way under—except +those of a common faith, and of the desire to +increase it.</p> + +<p>It is not needful to lay down extravagant, impracticable +restrictions, by insisting either that we +should limit our society to religious men, or our +conversation to religious subjects. But it is a bad +sign when our chosen associates are chosen for every +other reason but their religion, and when our talk +flows copiously on all other subjects, and becomes +a constrained driblet when religion comes to be +spoken of. Let us try to carry about with us an +influence which shall permeate all our social intercourse, +and make it, if not directly religious, yet +never antagonistic to religion, and always capable of +passing easily and naturally into the highest regions. +Our godly forefathers used to carve texts over their +house doors. Let us do the same in another fashion, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span> +so that all who cross the threshold may feel that +they have come into a Christian household, where +cheerful godliness sweetens and brightens the sanctities +of home.</p> + +<p>We have next a remarkable direction as to the +interchange of Paul’s letters to Colossæ and Laodicea. +The present Epistle is to be sent over to +the neighbouring Church of Laodicea—that is quite +clear. But what is “the Epistle from Laodicea” +which the Colossians are to be sure to get and to read? +The connection forbids us to suppose that a letter +written by the Laodicean Church is meant. Both +letters are plainly Pauline epistles, and the latter is +said to be “from Laodicea,” simply because the +Colossians were to procure it from that place. The +“from” does not imply authorship, but transmission. +What then has become of this letter? Is it lost? +So say some commentators; but a more probable +opinion is that it is no other than the Epistle which +we know as that to the Ephesians. This is not the +occasion to enter on a discussion of that view. It +will be enough to notice that very weighty textual +authorities omit the words “In Ephesus,” in the first +verse of that Epistle. The conjecture is a very +reasonable one, that the letter was intended for a +circle of Churches, and had originally no place named +in the superscription, just as we might issue circulars +“To the Church in——,” leaving a blank to be +filled in with different names. This conjecture is +strengthened by the marked absence of personal +references in the letter, which in that respect forms +a striking contrast to the Epistle to the Colossians, +which it so strongly resembles in other particulars. +Probably, therefore, Tychicus had both letters put +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span> +into his hands for delivery. The circular would go +first to Ephesus as the most important Church in +Asia, and thence would be carried by him to one +community after another, till he reached Laodicea, +from which he would come further up the valley +to Colossæ, bringing both letters with him. The +Colossians are not told to <i>get</i> the letter from Laodicea, +but to be sure that they <i>read</i> it. Tychicus would +see that it came to them; their business was to +see that they marked, learned, and inwardly digested +it.</p> + +<p>The urgency of these instructions that Paul’s +letters should be read, reminds us of a similar but +still more stringent injunction in his earliest epistle +(1 Thess. v. 27), “I charge you by the Lord that +this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.” Is +it possible that these Churches did not much care +for Paul’s words, and were more willing to +admit that they were weighty and powerful, than to +study them and lay them to heart? It looks almost +like it. Perhaps they got the same treatment then +as they often do now, and were more praised than +read, even by those who professed to look upon him +as their teacher in Christ!</p> + +<p>But passing by that, we come to the last part of +this threefold message, the solemn warning to a +slothful servant.</p> + +<p>“Say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry +which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil +it.” A sharp message that—and especially sharp, +as being sent through others, and not spoken directly +to the man himself. If this Archippus were a +member of the Church at Colossæ, it is remarkable +that Paul should not have spoken to him directly, as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span> +he did to Euodia and Syntyche, the two good women +at Philippi, who had fallen out. But it is by no +means certain that he was. We find him named +again, indeed, at the beginning of the Epistle to +Philemon, in such immediate connection with the +latter, and with his wife Apphia, that he has been +supposed to be their son. At all events, he was +intimately associated with the Church in the house +of Philemon, who, as we know, was a Colossian. +The conclusion, therefore, seems at first sight most +natural that Archippus too belonged to the Colossian +Church. But on the other hand the difficulty +already referred to seems to point in another direction; +and if it be further remembered that this +whole section is concerned with the Church at +Laodicea, it will be seen to be a likely conclusion +from all the facts that Archippus, though perhaps a +native of Colossæ, or even a resident there, had his +“ministry” in connection with that other neighbouring +Church.</p> + +<p>It may be worth notice, in passing, that all these +messages to Laodicea occurring here, strongly +favour the supposition that the epistle from that +place cannot have been a letter especially meant for +the Laodicean church, as, if it had been, these would +have naturally been inserted in it. So far, therefore, +they confirm the hypothesis that it was a circular.</p> + +<p>Some may say, Well, what in the world does it +matter where Archippus worked? Not very much +perhaps; and yet one cannot but read this grave +exhortation to a man who was evidently getting +languid and negligent, without remembering what +we hear about Laodicea and the angel of the Church +there, when next we meet it in the page of Scripture. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span> +It is not impossible that Archippus was that very +“angel,” to whom the Lord Himself sent the message +through His servant John, more awful than that +which Paul had sent through his brethren at +Colossæ, “Because thou art neither cold nor hot, I +will spue thee out of My mouth.”</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, the message is for us all. +Each of us has a “ministry,” a sphere of service. +We may either fill it full, with earnest devotion and +patient heroism, as some expanding gas fills out the +silken round of its containing vessel, or we may +breathe into it only enough to occupy a little portion, +while all the rest hangs empty and flaccid. We +have to “fulfil our ministry.”</p> + +<p>A sacred motive enhances the obligation—we +have received it “<i>in</i> the Lord.” In union with Him +it has been laid on us. No human hand has imposed +it, nor does it arise merely from earthly relationships, +but our fellowship with Jesus Christ, and +incorporation into the true Vine, has laid on us responsibilities, +and exalted us by service.</p> + +<p>There must be diligent watchfulness, in order to +fulfil our ministry. We must take heed to our +service, and we must take heed to ourselves. We +have to reflect upon it, its extent, nature, imperativeness, +upon the manner of discharging it, and the +means of fitness for it. We have to keep our work +ever before us. Unless we are absorbed in it, we +shall not fulfil it. And we have to take heed to +ourselves, ever feeling our weakness and the strong +antagonisms in our own natures which hinder our +discharge of the plainest, most imperative duties.</p> + +<p>And let us remember, too, that if once we begin, +like Archippus, to be a little languid and perfunctory +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span> +in our work, we may end where the Church of +Laodicea ended, whether he were its angel or no, +with that nauseous lukewarmness which sickens +even Christ’s longsuffering love, and forces Him to +reject it with loathing.</p> + +<p>II. And now we come to the end of our task, +and have to consider the hasty last words in Paul’s +own hand.</p> + +<p>We can see him taking the reed from the amanuensis +and adding the three brief sentences which close +the letter. He first writes that which is equivalent +to our modern usage of signing the letter—“the +salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.” This +appears to have been his usual practice, or, as he +says in 2 Thess. (iii. 17), it was “his token in every +epistle”—the evidence that each was the genuine +expression of his mind. Probably his weak eyesight, +which appears certain, may have had something +to do with his employing a secretary, as we may +assume him to have done, even when there is no +express mention of his autograph in the closing +salutations. We find for example in the Epistle to +the Romans no words corresponding to these, but +the modest amanuensis steps for a moment into the +light near the end: “I Tertius, who write the +epistle, salute you in the Lord.”</p> + +<p>The endorsement with his name is followed by a +request singularly pathetic in its abrupt brevity, +“Remember my bonds.” This is the one personal +reference in the letter, unless we add as a second, +his request for their prayers that he may speak the +mystery of Christ, for which he is in bonds. There +is a striking contrast in this respect with the abundant +allusions to his circumstances in the Epistle to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span> +the Philippians, which also belongs to the period of +his captivity. He had been swept far away from +thoughts of self by the enthusiasm of his subject. +The vision that opened before him of his Lord in +His glory, the Lord of Creation, the Head of the +Church, the throned helper of every trusting soul, +had flooded his chamber with light, and swept +guards and chains and restrictions out of his consciousness. +But now the spell is broken, and common +things re-assert their power. He stretches out +his hand for the reed to write his last words, and +as he does so, the chain which fastens him to the +Prætorian guard at his side pulls and hinders him. +He wakes to the consciousness of his prison. The +seer, swept along by the storm wind of a Divine +inspiration, is gone. The weak man remains. The +exhaustion after such an hour of high communion +makes him more than usually dependent; and all +his subtle profound teachings, all his thunderings +and lightnings, end in the simple cry, which goes +straight to the heart: “Remember my bonds.”</p> + +<p>He wished their remembrance because he needed +their sympathy. Like the old rags put round the +ropes by which the prophet was hauled out of his +dungeon, the poorest bit of sympathy twisted round +a fetter makes it chafe less. The petition helps us +to conceive how heavy a trial Paul felt his imprisonment, +to be little as he said about it, and bravely as he +bore it. He wished their remembrance too, because +his bonds added weight to his words. His sufferings +gave him a right to speak. In times of +persecution confessors are the highest teachers, and +the marks of the Lord Jesus borne in a man’s body +give more authority than diplomas and learning. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span> +He wished their remembrance because his bonds +might encourage them to steadfast endurance if need +for it should arise. He points to his own sufferings, +and would have them take heart to bear their +lighter crosses and to fight their easier battle.</p> + +<p>One cannot but recall the words of Paul’s Master, +so like these in sound, so unlike them in deepest +meaning. Can there be a greater contrast than between +“Remember my bonds,” the plaintive appeal of a +weak man seeking sympathy, coming as an appendix, +quite apart from the subject of the letter, and “Do +this in remembrance of Me,” the royal words of the +Master? Why is the memory of Christ’s death so +unlike the memory of Paul’s chains? Why is the +one merely for the play of sympathy, and the +enforcement of his teaching, and the other the very +centre of our religion? For one reason alone. +Because Christ’s death is the life of the world, and +Paul’s sufferings, whatever their worth, had nothing +in them that bore, except indirectly, on man’s redemption. +“Was Paul crucified for you?” We +remember his chains, and they give him sacredness +in our eyes. But we remember the broken body +and shed blood of our Lord, and cleave to it in faith +as the one sacrifice for the world’s sin.</p> + +<p>And then comes the last word: “Grace be with +you.” The apostolic benediction, with which he +closes all his letters, occurs in many different stages +of expression. Here it is pared down to the very +quick. No shorter form is possible—and yet even +in this condition of extreme compression, all good +is in it.</p> + +<p>All possible blessing is wrapped up in that one +word, Grace. Like the sunshine, it carries life and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span> +fruitfulness in itself. If the favour and kindness of +God, flowing out to men so far beneath Him, who +deserve such different treatment, be ours, then in our +hearts will be rest and a great peacefulness, whatever +may be about us, and in our characters will be +all beauties and capacities, in the measure of our +possession of that grace.</p> + +<p>That all-productive germ of joy and excellence is +here parted among the whole body of Colossian +Christians. The dew of this benediction falls upon +them all—the teachers of error if they still held by +Christ, the Judaisers, the slothful Archippus, even +as the grace which it invokes will pour itself into +imperfect natures and adorn very sinful characters, +if beneath the imperfection and the evil there be the +true affiance of the soul on Christ.</p> + +<p>That communication of grace to a sinful world is +the end of all God’s deeds, as it is the end of this +letter. That great revelation which began when +man began, which has spoken its complete message +in the Son, the heir of all things, as this Epistle +tells us, has this for the purpose of all its words—whether +they are terrible or gentle, deep or simple—that +God’s grace may dwell among men. The +mystery of Christ’s being, the agony of Christ’s +cross, the hidden glories of Christ’s dominion are +all for this end, that of His fulness we may all +receive, and grace for grace. The Old Testament, +true to its genius, ends with stern onward-looking +words which point to a future coming of the Lord +and to the possible terrible aspect of that coming—“Lest +I come and smite the earth with a curse.” +It is the last echo of the long drawn blast of the +trumpets of Sinai. The New Testament ends, as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span> +our Epistle ends, and as we believe the weary +history of the world will end, with the benediction: +“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you +all.”</p> + +<p>That grace, the love which pardons and quickens +and makes good and fair and wise and strong, is +offered to all in Christ. Unless we have accepted +it, God’s revelation and Christ’s work have failed as +far as we are concerned. “We therefore, as fellow-workers +with Him, beseech you that ye receive not +the grace of God in vain.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span></p> + +<h2>THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON.</h2> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="PhilI" id="PhilI"></a>I.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to +Philemon our beloved and fellow-worker, and to Apphia our sister, +and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church in thy house: +Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus +Christ.”—<span class="smcap">Philem.</span> 1–3 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>This Epistle stands alone among Paul’s letters +in being addressed to a private Christian, and +in being entirely occupied with a small though very +singular private matter; its aim being merely to +bespeak a kindly welcome for a runaway slave who +had been induced to perform the unheard-of act of +voluntarily returning to servitude. If the New Testament +were simply a book of doctrinal teaching, this +Epistle would certainly be out of place in it; and +if the great purpose of revelation were to supply +material for creeds, it would be hard to see what +value could be attached to a simple, short letter, from +which no contribution to theological doctrine or +ecclesiastical order can be extracted. But if we do +not turn to it for discoveries of truth, we can find +in it very beautiful illustrations of Christianity at +work. It shows us the operation of the new forces +which Christ has lodged in humanity—and that on +two planes of action. It exhibits a perfect model +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span> +of Christian friendship, refined and ennobled by a +half-conscious reflection of the love which has called +us “no longer slaves but friends,” and adorned by +delicate courtesies and quick consideration, which +divines with subtlest instinct what it will be sweetest +to the friend to hear, while it never approaches by +a hair-breadth to flattery, nor forgets to counsel high +duties. But still more important is the light which +the letter casts on the relation of Christianity to +slavery, which may be taken as a specimen of its +relation to social and political evils generally, and +yields fruitful results for the guidance of all who would +deal with such.</p> + +<p>It may be observed, too, that most of the considerations +which Paul urges on Philemon as reasons +for his kindly reception of Onesimus do not even +need the alteration of a word, but simply a change +in their application, to become worthy statements +of the highest Christian truths. As Luther puts it, +“We are all God’s Onesimuses”; and the welcome +which Paul seeks to secure for the returning fugitive, +as well as the motives to which he appeals in order +to secure it, do shadow forth in no uncertain outline +our welcome from God, and the treasures of His +heart towards us, because they are at bottom the +same. The Epistle then is valuable, as showing in +a concrete instance how the Christian life, in its +attitude to others, and especially to those who have +injured us, is all modelled upon God’s forgiving love +to us. Our Lord’s parable of the forgiven servant +who took his brother by the throat finds here a +commentary, and the Apostle’s own precept, “Be +imitators of God, and walk in love,” a practical exemplification.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span> +Nor is the light which the letter throws on the +character of the Apostle to be regarded as unimportant. +The warmth, the delicacy, and what, if it +were not so spontaneous, we might call tact, the +graceful ingenuity with which he pleads for the +fugitive, the perfect courtesy of every word, the gleam +of playfulness—all fused together and harmonized to +one end, and that in so brief a compass and with +such unstudied ease and complete self-oblivion, make +this Epistle a pure gem. Without thought of effect, +and with complete unconsciousness, this man beats +all the famous letter-writers on their own ground. +That must have been a great intellect, and closely +conversant with the Fountain of all light and beauty, +which could shape the profound and far-reaching +teachings of the Epistle to the Colossians, and pass +from them to the graceful simplicity and sweet +kindliness of this exquisite letter; as if Michael +Angelo had gone straight from smiting his magnificent +Moses from the marble mass to incise some +delicate and tiny figure of Love or Friendship on a +cameo.</p> + +<p>The structure of the letter is of the utmost +simplicity. It is not so much a structure as a flow. +There is the usual superscription and salutation, +followed, according to Paul’s custom, by the expression +of his thankful recognition of the love and +faith of Philemon and his prayer for the perfecting +of these. Then he goes straight to the business in +hand, and with incomparable persuasiveness pleads +for a welcome to Onesimus, bringing all possible +reasons to converge on that one request, with an +ingenious eloquence born of earnestness. Having +poured out his heart in this pleasure adds no more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span> +but affectionate greetings from his companions and +himself.</p> + +<p>In the present section we shall confine our attention +to the superscription and opening salutation.</p> + +<p>I. We may observe the Apostle’s designation of +himself, as marked by consummate and instinctive +appreciation of the claims of friendship, and of his +own position in this letter as a suppliant. He does +not come to his friend clothed with apostolic +authority. In his letters to the Churches he always +puts that in the forefront, and when he expected to +be met by opponents, as in Galatia, there is a certain +ring of defiance in his claim to receive his commission +through no human intervention, but straight +from heaven. Sometimes, as in the Epistle to the +Colossians, he unites another strangely contrasted +title, and calls himself also “the slave” of Christ; +the one name asserting authority, the other bowing +in humility before his Owner and Master. But here +he is writing as a friend to a friend, and his object +is to win his friend to a piece of Christian conduct +which may be somewhat against the grain. Apostolic +authority will not go half so far as personal +influence in this case. So he drops all reference +to it, and, instead, lets Philemon hear the fetters +jangling on his limbs—a more powerful plea. “Paul, +a prisoner,” surely that would go straight to Philemon’s +heart, and give all but irresistible force to +the request which follows. Surely if he could do +anything to show his love and gratify even momentarily +his friend in prison, he would not refuse it. If +this designation had been calculated to produce effect, +it would have lost all its grace; but no one with +any ear for the accents of inartificial spontaneousness, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span> +can fail to hear them in the unconscious pathos of +these opening words, which say the right thing, all +unaware of how right it is.</p> + +<p>There is great dignity also, as well as profound +faith, in the next words, in which the Apostle calls +himself a prisoner “of Christ Jesus.” With what +calm ignoring of all subordinate agencies he looks to +the true author of his captivity! Neither Jewish +hatred nor Roman policy had shut him up in Rome. +Christ Himself had riveted his manacles on his +wrists, therefore he bore them as lightly and proudly +as a bride might wear the bracelet that her husband +had clasped on her arm. The expression reveals both +the author of and the reason for his imprisonment, +and discloses the conviction which held him up in it. +He thinks of his Lord as the Lord of providence, +whose hand moves the pieces on the board—Pharisees, +and Roman governors, and guards, and Cæsar; +and he knows that he is an ambassador in bonds, +for no crime, but for the testimony of Jesus. We +need only notice that his younger companion +Timothy is associated with the Apostle in the superscription, +but disappears at once. The reason for +the introduction of his name may either have been +the slight additional weight thereby given to the +request of the letter, or more probably, the additional +authority thereby given to the junior, who would, in +all likelihood, have much of Paul’s work devolved +on him when Paul was gone.</p> + +<p>The names of the receivers of the letter bring +before us a picture seen, as by one glimmering light +across the centuries, of a Christian household in that +Phrygian valley. The head of it, Philemon, appears +to have been a native of, or at all events a resident +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span> +in, Colossæ; for Onesimus, his slave, is spoken of in +the Epistle to the Church there as “one of <i>you</i>.” He +was a person of some standing and wealth, for he +had a house large enough to admit of a “Church” +assembling in it, and to accommodate the Apostle and +his travelling companions if he should visit Colossæ. +He had apparently the means for large pecuniary +help to poor brethren, and willingness to use them, +for we read of the refreshment which his kindly +deeds had imparted. He had been one of Paul’s +converts, and owed his own self to him; so that he +must have met the Apostle,—who had probably not +been in Colossæ,—on some of his journeys, perhaps +during his three years’ residence in Ephesus. He +was of mature years, if, as is probable, Archippus, +who was old enough to have service to do in the +Church (Col. iv. 17), was his son.</p> + +<p>He is called “our fellow-labourer.” The designation +may imply some actual co-operation at a +former time. But more probably, the phrase, like +the similar one in the next verse, “our fellow-soldier,” +is but Paul’s gracefully affectionate way of lifting +these good people’s humbler work out of its narrowness, +by associating it with his own. They in their +little sphere, and he in his wider, were workers at +the same task. All who toil for furtherance of +Christ’s kingdom, however widely they may be +parted by time or distance, are fellow-workers. +Division of labour does not impair unity of service. +The field is wide, and the months between seedtime +and harvest are long; but all the husbandmen have +been engaged in the same great work, and though +they have toiled alone shall “rejoice together.” +The first man who dug a shovelful of earth for the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span> +foundations of Cologne Cathedral, and he who fixed +the last stone on the topmost spire a thousand years +after, are fellow-workers. So Paul and Philemon, +though their tasks were widely different in kind, in +range, and in importance, and were carried on apart +and independent of each other, were fellow-workers. +The one lived a Christian life and helped some +humble saints in an insignificant, remote corner; +the other flamed through the whole then civilized +western world, and sheds light to-day: but the +obscure, twinkling taper and the blazing torch were +kindled at the same source, shone with the same +light, and were parts of one great whole. Our +narrowness is rebuked, our despondency cheered, +our vulgar tendency to think little of modest, obscure +service rendered by commonplace people, and to +exaggerate the worth of the more conspicuous, is +corrected by such a thought. However small may +be our capacity or sphere, and however solitary we +may feel, we may summon up before the eyes of our +faith a mighty multitude of apostles, martyrs, toilers +in every land and age as <i>our</i>—even our—work-fellows. +The field stretches far beyond our vision, +and many are toiling in it for Him, whose work +never comes near ours. There are differences of +service, but the same Lord, and all who have the +same master are companions in labour. Therefore +Paul, the greatest of the servants of Christ, reaches +down his hand to the obscure Philemon, and says, +“He works the work of the Lord, as I also do.”</p> + +<p>In the house at Colossæ there was a Christian +wife by the side of a Christian husband; at least, +the mention of Apphia here in so prominent a position +is most naturally accounted for by supposing her +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span> +to be the wife of Philemon. Her friendly reception +of the runaway would be quite as important as his, +and it is therefore most natural that the letter bespeaking +it should be addressed to both. The +probable reading “our sister” (R.V.), instead of +“our beloved” (A.V.), gives the distinct assurance +that she too was a Christian, and like-minded with +her husband.</p> + +<p>The prominent mention of this Phrygian matron +is an illustration of the way in which Christianity, +without meddling with social usages, introduced a +new tone of feeling about the position of woman, +which gradually changed the face of the world, is +still working, and has further revolutions to affect. +The degraded classes of the Greek world were slaves +and women. This Epistle touches both, and shows +us Christianity in the very act of elevating both. +The same process strikes the fetters from the slave +and sets the wife by the side of the husband, “yoked +in all exercise of noble end,”—namely, the proclamation +of Christ as the Saviour of all mankind, +and of all human creatures as equally capable of +receiving an equal salvation. That annihilates all +distinctions. The old world was parted by deep +gulfs. There were three of special depth and width, +across which it was hard for sympathy to fly. +These were the distinctions of race, sex, and condition. +But the good news that Christ has died for +all men, and is ready to live in all men, has thrown a +bridge across, or rather has filled up, the ravine; so +the Apostle bursts into his triumphant proclamation, +“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither +bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for +ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span> +A third name is united with those of husband and +wife, that of Archippus. The close relation in which +the names stand, and the purely domestic character +of the letter, make it probable that he was a son of +the wedded pair. At all events, he was in some +way part of their household, possibly some kind of +teacher and guide. We meet his name also in the +Epistle to the Colossians, and, from the nature of +the reference to him there, we draw the inference +that he filled some “ministry” in the Church of +Laodicea. The nearness of the two cities made it +quite possible that he should live in Philemon’s +house in Colossæ and yet go over to Laodicea for +his work.</p> + +<p>The Apostle calls him “his fellow-soldier,” a +phrase which is best explained in the same fashion +as is the previous “fellow-worker,” namely, that by +it Paul graciously associates Archippus with himself, +different as their tasks were. The variation of +<i>soldier</i> for <i>worker</i> probably is due to the fact of +Archippus’ being the bishop of the Laodicean Church. +In any case, it is very beautiful that the grizzled +veteran officer should thus, as it were, clasp the hand +of this young recruit, and call him his comrade. +How it would go to the heart of Archippus!</p> + +<p>A somewhat stern message is sent to Archippus +in the Colossian letter. Why did not Paul send it +quietly in this Epistle instead of letting a whole +Church know of it? It seems at first sight as if he +had chosen the harshest way; but perhaps further +consideration may suggest that the reason was an +instinctive unwillingness to introduce a jarring note +into the joyous friendship and confidence which +sounds through this Epistle, and to bring public +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span> +matters into this private communication. The warning +would come with more effect from the Church, +and this cordial message of goodwill and confidence +would prepare Archippus to receive the other, as +rain showers make the ground soft for the good +seed. The private affection would mitigate the +public exhortation with whatever rebuke may have +been in it.</p> + +<p>A greeting is sent, too, to “the Church in thy +house.” As in the case of the similar community +in the house of Nymphas (Col. iv. 15), we cannot +decide whether by this expression is meant simply a +Christian family, or some little company of believers +who were wont to meet beneath Philemon’s roof for +Christian converse and worship. The latter seems +the more probable supposition. It is natural that +they should be addressed; for Onesimus, if received +by Philemon, would naturally become a member of +the group, and therefore it was important to secure +their good will.</p> + +<p>So we have here shown to us, by one stray beam +of twinkling light, for a moment, a very sweet +picture of the domestic life of that Christian household +in their remote valley. It shines still to us +across the centuries, which have swallowed up so +much that seemed more permanent, and silenced so +much that made far more noise in its day. The +picture may well set us asking ourselves the question +whether we, with all our boasted advancement, have +been able to realize the true ideal of Christian family +life as these three did. The husband and wife +dwelling as heirs together of the grace of life, their +child beside them sharing their faith and service, +their household ordered in the ways of the Lord, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span> +their friends Christ’s friends, and their social joys +hallowed and serene—what nobler form of family +life can be conceived than that? What a rebuke +to, and satire on, many a so-called Christian household!</p> + +<p>II. We may deal briefly with the apostolic salutation, +“Grace to you and peace from God our +Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” as we have +already had to speak of it in considering the greeting +to the Colossians. The two main points to be +observed in these words are the comprehensiveness +of the Apostle’s loving wish, and the source to which +he looks for its fulfilment. Just as the regal title +of the King, whose Throne was the Cross, was +written in the languages of culture, of law, and of +religion, as an unconscious prophecy of His universal +reign; so, with like unintentional felicity, we have +blended here the ideals of good which the East and +the West have framed for those to whom they wish +good, in token that Christ is able to slake all the +thirsts of the soul, and that whatsoever things any +races of men have dreamed as the chiefest blessings, +these are all to be reached through Him and Him +only.</p> + +<p>But the deeper lesson here is to be found by +observing that “grace” refers to the action of the +Divine heart, and “peace” to the result thereof in +man’s experience. As we have noted in commenting +on Col. i. 2, “grace” is free, undeserved, unmotived, +self-springing love. Hence it comes to +mean, not only the deep fountain in the Divine +nature, that His love, which, like some strong spring, +leaps up and gushes forth by an inward impulse, in +neglect of all motives drawn from the lovableness +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span> +of its objects, such as determine our poor human +loves, but also the results of that bestowing love in +men’s characters, or, as we say, the “graces” of the +Christian soul. They are “grace,” not only because +in the æsthetic sense of the word they are beautiful, +but because, in the theological meaning of it, they +are the products of the giving love and power of +God. “Whatsoever things are lovely and of good +report,” all nobilities, tendernesses, exquisite beauties, +and steadfast strengths of mind and heart, of will +and disposition—all are the gifts of God’s undeserved +and open-handed love.</p> + +<p>The fruit of such grace received is peace. In other +places the Apostle twice gives a fuller form of this +salutation, inserting “mercy” between the two here +named; as also does St. John in his second Epistle. +That fuller form gives us the source in the Divine +heart, the manifestation of grace in the Divine act, +and the outcome in human experience; or as we +may say, carrying on the metaphor, the broad, calm +lake which the grace, flowing to us in the stream +of mercy, makes, when it opens out in our hearts. +Here, however, we have but the ultimate source, and +the effect in us.</p> + +<p>All the discords of our nature and circumstances +can be harmonized by that grace which is ready to +flow into our hearts. Peace with God, with ourselves, +with our fellows, repose in the midst of +change, calm in conflict, may be ours. All these +various applications of the one idea should be included +in our interpretation, for they are all included +in fact in the peace which God’s grace brings where +it lights. The first and deepest need of the soul is +conscious amity and harmony with God, and nothing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span> +but the consciousness of His love as forgiving and +healing brings that. We are torn asunder by conflicting +passions, and our hearts are the battleground +for conscience and inclination, sin and goodness, +hopes and fears, and a hundred other contending +emotions. Nothing but a heavenly power can make +the lion within lie down with the lamb. Our natures +are “like the troubled sea, which cannot rest,” whose +churning waters cast up the foul things that lie in +their slimy beds; but where God’s grace comes, a +great calm hushes the tempests, “and birds of peace +sit brooding on the charmed wave.”</p> + +<p>We are compassed about by foes with whom we +have to wage undying warfare, and by hostile circumstances +and difficult tasks which need continual +conflict; but a man with God’s grace in his heart +may have the rest of submission, the repose of trust, +the tranquillity of him who “has ceased from his +own works”: and so, while the daily struggle goes +on and the battle rages round, there may be quiet, +deep and sacred, in his heart.</p> + +<p>The life of nature, which is a selfish life, flings +us into unfriendly rivalries with others, and sets us +battling for our own hands, and it is hard to pass +out of ourselves sufficiently to live peaceably with +all men. But the grace of God in our hearts drives +out self, and changes the man who truly has it into +its own likeness. He who knows that he owes +everything to a Divine love which stooped to his +lowliness, and pardoned his sins, and enriched him +with all which he has that is worthy and noble, +cannot but move among men, doing with them, in +his poor fashion, what God has done with him.</p> + +<p>Thus, in all the manifold forms in which restless +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span> +hearts need peace, the grace of God brings it to +them. The great river of mercy which has its source +deep in the heart of God, and in His free, undeserved +love, pours into poor, unquiet spirits, and +there spreads itself into a placid lake, on whose still +surface all heaven is mirrored.</p> + +<p>The elliptical form of this salutation leaves it +doubtful whether we are to see in it a prayer or a +prophecy, a wish or an assurance. According to +the probable reading of the parallel greeting in the +second Epistle of John, the latter would be the +construction; but probably it is best to combine +both ideas, and to see here, as Bengel does in the +passage referred to in John’s Epistle, “votum cum +affirmatione”—a desire which is so certain of its +own fulfilment, that it is a prophecy, just because it +is a prayer.</p> + +<p>The ground of the certainty lies in the source +from which the grace and peace come. They flow +“from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” +The placing of both names under the government of +one preposition implies the mysterious unity of the +Father with the Son; while conversely St. John, in +the parallel passage just mentioned, by employing +two prepositions, brings out the distinction between +the Father, who is the fontal source, and the Son, +who is the flowing stream. But both forms of the +expression demand for their honest explanation the +recognition of the divinity of Jesus Christ. How +dare a man, who thought of Him as other than +Divine, put His name thus by the side of God’s, as +associated with the Father in the bestowal of grace? +Surely such words, spoken without any thought of +a doctrine of the Trinity, and which are the spontaneous +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span> +utterance of Christian devotion, are demonstration, +not to be gainsaid, that to Paul, at all +events, Jesus Christ was, in the fullest sense, Divine. +The double source is one source, for in the Son is +the whole fulness of the Godhead; and the grace of +God, bringing with it the peace of God, is poured +into that spirit which bows humbly before Jesus +Christ, and trusts Him when He says, with love in +His eyes and comfort in His tones, “My grace is +sufficient for thee”; “My peace give I unto you.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="PhilII" id="PhilII"></a>II.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“I thank my God always, making mention of thee in my prayers, +hearing of thy love, and of the faith which thou hast toward the Lord +Jesus, and toward all the saints; that the fellowship of thy faith may +become effectual, in the knowledge of every good thing which is in you, +unto Christ. For I had much joy and comfort in thy love, because the +hearts of the saints have been refreshed through thee, brother.”—<span class="smcap">Philem.</span> +4–7 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>Paul’s was one of those regal natures to which +things are possible that other men dare not do. +No suspicion of weakness attaches to him when he +pours out his heart in love, nor any of insincerity +when he speaks of his continual prayers for his +friends, or when he runs over in praise of his converts. +Few men have been able to talk so much of +their love without betraying its shallowness and self-consciousness, +or of their prayers without exciting +a doubt of their manly sincerity. But the Apostle +could venture to do these things without being +thought either feeble or false, and could unveil his +deepest affections and his most secret devotions +without provoking either a smile or a shrug.</p> + +<p>He has the habit of beginning all his letters with +thankful commendations and assurances of a place +in his prayers. The exceptions are 2 Corinthians, +where he writes under strong and painful emotion, +and Galatians, where a vehement accusation of +fickleness takes the place of the usual greeting. But +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span> +these exceptions make the habit more conspicuous. +Though this is a habit, it is not a form, but the +perfectly simple and natural expression of the +moment’s feelings. He begins his letters so, not +in order to please and to say smooth things, but +because he feels lovingly, and his heart fills with +a pure joy which speaks most fitly in prayer. To +recognise good is the way to make good better. +Teachers must love if their teaching is to help. +The best way to secure the doing of any signal +act of Christian generosity, such as Paul wished of +Philemon, is to show absolute confidence that it will +be done, because it is in accordance with what we +know of the doer’s character. “It’s a shame to tell +Arnold a lie: he always trusts us,” the Rugby boys +used to say. Nothing could so powerfully have +swayed Philemon to grant Paul’s request, as Paul’s +graceful mention of his beneficence, which mention +is yet by no means conscious diplomacy, but instinctive +kindliness.</p> + +<p>The words of this section are simple enough, but +their order is not altogether clear. They are a good +example of the hurry and rush of the Apostle’s style, +arising from his impetuosity of nature. His thoughts +and feelings come knocking at “the door of his +lips” in a crowd, and do not always make their way +out in logical order. For instance, he begins here +with thankfulness, and that suggests the mention +of his prayers, <i>v.</i> 4. Then he gives the occasion of +his thankfulness in <i>v.</i> 5, “Hearing of thy love and +of the faith which thou hast,” etc. He next tells +Philemon the subject matter of his prayers in <i>v.</i> 6, +“That the fellowship of thy faith may become +effectual,” etc. These two verses thus correspond +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span> +to the two clauses of <i>v.</i> 4, and finally in <i>v.</i> 7 he +harks back once more to his reasons for thankfulness +in Philemon’s love and faith, adding, in a very +lovely and pathetic way, that the good deeds done +in far off Colossæ had wafted a refreshing air to the +Roman prison house, and, little as the doer knew it, +had been a joy and comfort to the solitary prisoner +there.</p> + +<p>I. We have,—then, here the character of Philemon, +which made Paul glad and thankful. The order +of the language is noteworthy. Love is put before +faith. The significance of this sequence comes out +by contrast with similar expressions in Ephesians i. +15: “Your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto +all the saints” (A.V.) and Colossians i. 4: “Your +faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which ye have +toward all the saints,” where the same elements are +arranged in the more natural order, corresponding +to their logical relation; viz., faith first, and love +as its consequence. The reason for the change here +is probably that Onesimus and Epaphras, from +whom Paul would be likely to hear of Philemon, +would enlarge upon his practical benevolence, and +would naturally say less about the root than about +the sweet and visible fruit. The arrangement then +is an echo of the talks which had gladdened the +Apostle. Possibly, too, love is put first, because the +object of the whole letter is to secure its exercise +towards the fugitive slave; and seeing that the +Apostle would listen with that purpose in view, each +story which was told of Philemon’s kindness to +others made the deeper impression on Paul. The +order here is the order of analysis, digging down +from manifestation to cause: the order in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span> +parallel passages quoted is the order of production +ascending from root to flower.</p> + +<p>Another peculiarity in the arrangement of the +words is that the objects of love and faith are named +in the reverse order to that in which these graces +are mentioned, “the Lord Jesus” being first, and +“all the saints” last. Thus we have, as it were, +“faith towards the Lord Jesus” imbedded in the +centre of the verse, while “thy love ... toward +all the saints,” which flows from it, wraps it round. +The arrangement is like some forms of Hebrew +poetical parallelism, in which the first and fourth +members correspond, and the second and third, or +like the pathetic measure of <i>In Memoriam</i>, and has +the same sweet lingering cadence; while it also +implies important truths as to the central place in +regard to the virtues which knit hearts in soft bonds +of love and help, of the faith which finds its sole +object in Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>The source and foundation of goodness and +nobility of character is faith in Jesus the Lord. +That must be buried deep in the soul if tender love +toward men is to flow from it. It is “the very +pulse of the machine.” All the pearls of goodness +are held in solution in faith. Or, to speak more +accurately, faith in Christ gives possession of His +life and Spirit, from which all good is unfolded; +and it further sets in action strong motives by which +to lead to every form of purity and beauty of soul; +and, still further, it brings the heart into glad contact +with a Divine love which forgives its Onesimuses, +and so it cannot but touch the heart into some +glad imitation of that love which is its own dearest +treasure. So that, for all these and many more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span> +reasons, love to men is the truest visible expression, +as it is the direct and necessary result, of faith in +Christ. What is exhaled from the heart and drawn +upwards by the fervours of Christ’s self-sacrificing +love is faith; when it falls on earth again, as a sweet +rain of pity and tenderness, it is love.</p> + +<p>Further, the true object of faith and one phase of +its attitude towards that object are brought out in +this central clause. We have the two names which +express, the one the divinity, the other the humanity +of Christ. So the proper object of faith is the +whole Christ, in both His natures, the Divine-human +Saviour. Christian faith sees the divinity in the +humanity, and the humanity around the divinity. +A faith which grasps only the manhood is maimed, +and indeed has no right to the name. Humanity +is not a fit object of trust. It may change; it has +limits; it must die. “Cursed be the man that +maketh flesh his arm,” is as true about faith in a +merely human Christ as about faith in any other +man. There may be reverence, there may be in +some sense love, obedience, imitation; but there +should not be, and I see not how there can be, +the absolute reliance, the utter dependence, the +unconditional submission, which are of the very +essence of faith, in the emotions which men cherish +towards a human Christ. The Lord Jesus only can +evoke these. On the other hand, the far off splendour +and stupendous glory of the Divine nature becomes +the object of untrembling trust, and draws near +enough to be known and loved, when we have it +mellowed to our weak eyes by shining through the +tempering medium of His humanity.</p> + +<p>The preposition here used to define the relation +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span> +of faith to its object is noteworthy. Faith is +“toward” Him. The idea is that of a movement +of yearning after an unattained good. And that is +one part of the true office of faith. There is in it +an element of aspiration, as of the soaring eagle to +the sun, or the climbing tendrils to the summit of +the supporting stem. In Christ there is always +something beyond, which discloses itself the more +clearly, the fuller is our present possession of Him. +Faith builds upon and rests in the Christ possessed +and experienced, and just therefore will it, if it be +true, yearn towards the Christ unpossessed. A +great reach of flashing glory beyond opens on us, +as we round each new headland in that unending +voyage. Our faith should and will be an ever-increasing +fruition of Christ, accompanied with increasing +perception of unreached depths in Him, +and increasing longing after enlarged possession of +His infinite fulness.</p> + +<p>Where the centre is such a faith, its circumference +and outward expression will be a widely diffused +love. That deep and most private emotion of the +soul, which is the flight of the lonely spirit to the +single Christ, as if these two were alone in the world, +does not bar a man off from his kind, but effloresces +into the largest and most practical love. When one +point of the compasses is struck deeply and firmly +into that centre of all things, the other can steadily +sweep a wide circle. The widest is not here drawn, +but a somewhat narrower, concentric one. The love +is “toward all saints.” Clearly their relation to +Jesus Christ puts all Christians into relation with +one another. That was an astounding thought in +Philemon’s days, when such high walls separated +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span> +race from race, the slave from the free, woman from +man; but the new faith leaped all barriers, and put +a sense of brotherhood into every heart that learned +God’s fatherhood in Jesus. The nave of the wheel +holds all the spokes in place. The sun makes the +system called by its name a unity, though some +planets be of giant bulk and swing through a mighty +orbit, waited on by obedient satellites, and some be +but specks and move through a narrow circle, and +some have scarce been seen by human eye. All +are one, because all revolve round one sun, though +solemn abysses part them, and though no message +has ever crossed the gulfs from one to another.</p> + +<p>The recognition of the common relation which all +who bear the same relation to Christ bear to one +another has more formidable difficulties to encounter +to-day than it had in these times when the Church +had no stereotyped creeds and no stiffened organizations, +and when to the flexibility of its youth +were added the warmth of new conviction and the +joy of a new field for expanding emotions of +brotherly kindness. But nothing can absolve from +the duty. Creeds separate, Christ unites. The +road to “the reunion of Christendom” is through +closer union to Jesus Christ. When that is secured, +barriers which now keep brethren apart will be +leaped, or pulled down, or got rid of somehow. It +is of no use to say, “Go to, let us love one another.” +That will be unreal, mawkish, histrionic. “The +faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus” will +be the productive cause, as it is the measure, of +“thy love toward all the saints.”</p> + +<p>But the love which is here commended is not a +mere feeling, nor does it go off in gushes, however +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span> +fervid, of eloquent emotion. Clearly Philemon was +a benefactor of the brotherhood, and his love did +not spend only the paper money of words and +promises to pay, but the solid coin of kindly deeds. +Practical charity is plainly included in that love of +which it had cheered Paul in his imprisonment to +hear. Its mention, then, is one step nearer to the +object of the letter. Paul conducts his siege of +Philemon’s heart skilfully, and opens here a fresh +parallel, and creeps a yard or two closer up. +“Surely you are not going to shut out one of your +own household from that wide-reaching kindness.” +So much is most delicately hinted, or rather, left +to Philemon to infer, by the recognition of his +brotherly love. A hint lies in it that there may +be a danger of cherishing a cheap and easy charity +that reverses the law of gravity, and <i>in</i>creases as the +square of the distance, having tenderness and smiles +for people and Churches which are well out of our +road, and frowns for some nearer home. “He +that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, +how shall he love” his brother “whom he hath not +seen?”</p> + +<p>II. In <i>v.</i> 6 we have the apostolic prayer for +Philemon, grounded on the tidings of his love and +faith. It is immediately connected with “the +prayers” of <i>v.</i> 4 by the introductory “that,” which +is best understood as introducing the subject matter +of the prayer. Whatever then may be the meaning +of this supplication, it is a prayer for Philemon, and +not for others. That remark disposes of the explanations +which widen its scope, contrary, as it +seems to me, to the natural understanding of the +context.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span> +“The fellowship of thy faith” is capable of more +than one meaning. The signification of the principal +word and the relation expressed by the preposition +may be variously determined. “Fellowship” is more +than once used in the sense of sharing material +wealth with Christ’s poor, or more harshly and +plainly, charitable contribution. So we find it in +Romans xv. 26 and 2 Corinthians ix. 13. Adopting +that meaning here, the “of” must express, as +it often does, the origin of Philemon’s kindly gifts, +namely, his faith; and the whole phrase accords +with the preceding verse in its view of the genesis of +beneficence to the brethren as the result of faith in +the Lord.</p> + +<p>The Apostle prays that this faith-begotten practical +liberality may become efficacious, or may acquire +still more power; <i>i.e.</i> may increase in activity, and +so may lead to “the knowledge of every good thing +that is in us.” The interpretation has found extensive +support, which takes this as equivalent to +a desire that Philemon’s good deeds might lead +others, whether enemies or friends, to recognise the +beauties of sympathetic goodness in the true Christian +character. Such an explanation hopelessly +confuses the whole, and does violence to the plain +requirements of the context, which limit the prayer +to Philemon. It is <i>his</i> “knowledge” of which Paul +is thinking. The same profound and pregnant word +is used here which occurs so frequently in the other +epistles of the captivity, and which always means +that deep and vital knowledge which knows because +it possesses. Usually its object is God as revealed +in the great work and person of Christ. Here its +object is the sum total of spiritual blessings, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span> +whole fulness of the gifts given us by, and, at bottom, +consisting of, that same Christ dwelling in the heart, +who is revealer, because He is communicator, of +God. The full, deep knowledge of this manifold +and yet one good is no mere theoretical work of the +understanding, but is an experience which is only +possible to him who enjoys it.</p> + +<p>The meaning of the whole prayer, then, put into +feebler and more modern dress is simply that +Philemon’s liberality and Christian love may grow +more and more, and may help him to a fuller appropriation +and experience of the large treasures “which +are in us,” though in germ and potentiality only, +until brought into consciousness by our own Christian +growth. The various readings “in us,” or “in +you” only widen the circle of possessors of these +gifts to the whole Church, or narrow it to the +believers of Colossæ.</p> + +<p>There still remain for consideration the last words +of the clause, “unto Christ” They must be referred +back to the main subject of the sentence, “may +become effectual.” They seem to express the condition +on which Christian “fellowship,” like all +Christian acts, can be quickened with energy, and +tend to spiritual progress; namely, that it shall be +done as to the Lord. There is perhaps in this +appended clause a kind of lingering echo of our +Lord’s own words, in which He accepts as done +unto Him the kindly deeds done to the least of His +brethren.</p> + +<p>So then this great prayer brings out very strongly +the goal to which the highest perfection of Christian +character has still to aspire. Philemon was no +weakling or laggard in the Christian conflict and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span> +race. His attainments sent a thrill of thankfulness +through the Apostle’s spirit. But there remained +“very much land to be possessed”; and precisely +because he had climbed so far, does his friend pray +that he may mount still higher, where the sweep +of view is wider, and the air clearer still. It is an +endless task to bring into conscious possession and +exercise all the fulness with which Christ endows +His feeblest servant. Not till all that God can give, +or rather has given, has been incorporated in the +nature and wrought out in the life, is the term +reached. This is the true sublime of the Christian +life, that it begins with the reception of a strictly +infinite gift, and demands immortality as the field +for unfolding its worth. Continual progress in all +that ennobles the nature, satisfies the heart, and +floods the mind with light is the destiny of the +Christian soul, and of it alone. Therefore unwearied +effort, buoyancy, and hope which no dark memories +can dash nor any fears darken should mark <i>their</i> +temper, to whom the future offers an absolutely endless +and limitless increase in the possession of the +infinite God.</p> + +<p>There is also brought out in this prayer the value +of Christian beneficence as a means of spiritual +growth. Philemon’s “communication of faith” will +help him to the knowledge of the fulness of Christ. +The reaction of conduct on character and growth in +godliness is a familiar idea with Paul, especially in +the prison epistles. Thus we read in his prayer for +the Colossians, “fruitful in every good work, and +increasing in the knowledge of God.” The faithful +carrying out in life of what we already know is not +the least important condition of increasing knowledge. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span> +If a man does not live up to his religion, his religion +shrinks to the level of his life. Unoccupied territory +lapses. We hold our spiritual gifts on the terms +of using them. The practice of convictions deepens +convictions; not that the exercise of Christian graces +will make theologians, but it will give larger possession +of the knowledge which is life.</p> + +<p>While this general principle is abundantly enforced +in Scripture and confirmed by experience, the specific +form of it here is that the right administration of +wealth is a direct means of increasing a Christian’s +possession of the large store treasured in Christ. +Every loving thought towards the sorrowful and the +needy, every touch of sympathy yielded to, and +every kindly, Christlike deed flowing from these, +thins away some film of the barriers between the +believing soul and a full possession of God, and thus +makes it more capable of beholding Him and of +rising to communion with Him. The possibilities +of wealth lie, not only in the direction of earthly +advantages, but in the fact that men may so use it +as to secure their being “received into everlasting +habitations.” Modern evangelical teachers have been +afraid to say what Paul ventured to say on this +matter, for fear of obscuring the truth which Paul +gave his life to preach. Surely they need not be +more jealous for the doctrine of “justification by +faith” than he was; and if he had no scruples in +telling rich men to “lay up in store for themselves +a good foundation for the time to come,” by being +“ready to communicate,” they may safely follow. +There is probably no more powerful cause of the +comparative feebleness of average English Christianity +than the selfish use of money, and no surer +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span> +means of securing a great increase in the depth and +richness of the individual Christian life than the +fuller application of Christian principle, that is, of +the law of sacrifice, to the administration of property.</p> + +<p>The final clause of the verse seems to state the +condition on which Philemon’s good deeds will avail +for his own growth in grace, and implies that in him +that condition is fulfilled. If a man does deeds of +kindness and help to one of these little ones, as +“unto Christ,” then his beneficence will come back +in spiritual blessing on his own head. If they are +the result of simple natural compassion, beautiful as +it is, they will reinforce <i>it</i>, but have no tendency to +strengthen that from which they do <i>not</i> flow. If +they are tainted by any self-regard, then they are +not charitable deeds at all. What is done for Christ +will bring to the doer more of Christ as its consequence +and reward. All life, with all its varied +forms of endurance and service, comes under this +same law, and tends to make more assured and more +blessed and more profound the knowledge and grasp +of the fulness of Christ, in the measure in which it is +directed to Him, and done or suffered for His sake.</p> + +<p>III. The present section closes with a very sweet +and pathetic representation of the Apostle’s joy in +the character of his friend.</p> + +<p>The “for” of <i>v.</i> 7 connects not with the words of +petition immediately before, but with “I thank my +God” (<i>v.</i> 4), and gives a graceful turn—graceful +only because so unforced and true—to the sentence. +“My thanks are due to you for your kindness to +others, for, though you did not think of it, you have +done me as much good as you did them.” The +“love” which gives Paul such “great joy and consolation” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span> +is not love directed to himself, but to others; +and the reason why it gladdened the Apostle was +because it had “refreshed the hearts” of sorrowful +and needy saints in Colossæ. This tender expression +of affectionate joy in Philemon’s good deeds +is made wonderfully emotional by that emphatic +“brother” which ends the verse, and by its unusual +position in the sentence assumes the character of +a sudden, irrepressible shoot of love from Paul’s +heart towards Philemon, like the quick impulse with +which a mother will catch up her child, and cover it +with caresses. Paul was never ashamed of showing +his tenderness, and it never repels us.</p> + +<p>These final words suggest the unexpected good +which good deeds may do. No man can ever tell +how far the blessing of his trivial acts of kindness, +or other pieces of Christian conduct, may travel. +They may benefit one in material fashion, but the +fragrance may reach many others. Philemon little +dreamed that his small charity to some suffering +brother in Colossæ would find its way across the sea, +and bring a waft of coolness and refreshing into the +hot prison house. Neither Paul nor Philemon +dreamed that, made immortal by the word of the +former, the same transient act would find its way +across the centuries, and would “smell sweet and +blossom in the dust” to-day. Men know not who +are their audiences, or who may be spectators of +their works; for they are all bound so mystically and +closely together, that none can tell how far the +vibrations which he sets in motion will thrill. This +is true about all deeds, good and bad, and invests +them all with solemn importance. The arrow shot +travels beyond the archer’s eye, and may wound +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span> +where he knows not. The only thing certain about +the deed once done is, that its irrevocable consequences +will reach much farther than the doer dreamed, and +that no limits can be set to the subtle influence +which, for blessing or harm, it exerts.</p> + +<p>Since the diameter of the circle which our acts +may fill is unknown and unknowable, the doer who +stands at the centre is all the more solemnly bound +to make sure of the only thing of which he can +make sure, the quality of the influence sent forth; +and since his deed may blight or bless so widely, to +clarify his motives and guard his doings, that they +may bring only good wherever they light.</p> + +<p>May we not venture to see shining through the +Apostle’s words the Master’s face? “Even as Christ +did for us with God the Father,” says Luther, “thus +also doth St. Paul for Onesimus with Philemon”; +and that thought may permissibly be applied to +many parts of this letter, to which it gives much +beauty. It may not be all fanciful to say that, as +Paul’s heart was gladdened when he heard of the +good deeds done in far-off Colossæ by a man who +“owed to him his own self” so we may believe that +Christ is glad and has “great joy in our love” to +His servants and in our kindliness, when He beholds +the poor work done by the humblest for His sake. +He sees and rejoices, and approves when there are +none but Himself to know or praise; and at last +many, who did lowly service to His friends, will be +surprised to hear from His lips the acknowledgment +that it was Himself whom they had visited and +succoured, and that they had been ministering to the +Master’s joy when they had only known themselves +to be succouring His servants’ need.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="PhilIII" id="PhilIII"></a>III.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Wherefore, though I have all boldness in Christ to enjoin thee that +which is befitting, yet for love’s sake I rather beseech, being such a one +as Paul the aged, and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ; I beseech +thee for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus; who +was aforetime unprofitable to thee, but now is profitable to thee, and to +me.”—<span class="smcap">Philem.</span> 8–11 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>After honest and affectionate praise of Philemon, +the Apostle now approaches the main +purpose of his letter. But even now he does not +blurt it out at once. He probably anticipated that +his friend was justly angry with his runaway slave, +and therefore, in these verses, he touches a kind of +prelude to his request with what we should call the +finest tact, if it were not so manifestly the unconscious +product of simple good feeling. Even by +the end of them he has not ventured to say what he +wishes done, though he has ventured to introduce +the obnoxious name. So much persuading and +sanctified ingenuity does it sometimes take to induce +good men to do plain duties which may be unwelcome.</p> + +<p>These verses not only present a model for efforts +to lead men in right paths, but they unveil the very +spirit of Christianity in their pleadings. Paul’s +persuasives to Philemon are echoes of Christ’s +persuasives to Paul. He had learned his method +from his Master, and had himself experienced that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span> +gentle love was more than commandments. Therefore +he softens his voice to speak to Philemon, as +Christ had softened His to speak to Paul. We do +not arbitrarily “spiritualize” the words, but simply +recognise that the Apostle moulded his conduct +after Christ’s pattern, when we see here a mirror +reflecting some of the highest truths of Christian +ethics.</p> + +<p>I. Here is seen love which beseeches where it +might command. The first word, “wherefore,” +leads back to the preceding sentence, and makes +Philemon’s past kindness to the saints the reason +for his being asked to be kind now. The Apostle’s +confidence in his friend’s character, and in his being +amenable to the appeal of love, made Paul waive his +apostolic authority, and sue instead of commanding. +There are people, like the horse and the mule, who +understand only rough imperatives, backed by force; +but they are fewer than we are apt to think, and +perhaps gentleness is never wholly thrown away. +No doubt, there must be adaptation of method to +different characters, but we should try gentleness +before we make up our minds that to try it is to +throw pearls before swine.</p> + +<p>The careful limits put to apostolic authority here +deserve notice. “I might be much bold in Christ to +command.” He has no authority in himself, but he +has “in Christ.” His own personality gives him +none, but his relation to his Master does. It is a +distinct assertion of right to command, and an +equally distinct repudiation of any such right, except +as derived from his union with Jesus.</p> + +<p>He still further limits his authority by that noteworthy +clause, “that which is befitting.” His +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span> +authority does not stretch so far as to create new +obligations, or to repeal plain laws of duty. There +was a standard by which his commands were to be +tried. He appeals to Philemon’s own sense of moral +fitness, to his natural conscience, enlightened by +communion with Christ.</p> + +<p>Then comes the great motive which he will urge, +“for love’s sake,”—not merely his to Philemon, nor +Philemon’s to him, but the bond which unites all +Christian souls together, and binds them all to +Christ. “That grand, sacred principle,” says Paul, +“bids me put away authority, and speak in entreaty.” +Love naturally beseeches, and does not order. The +harsh voice of command is simply the imposition of +another’s will, and it belongs to relationships in +which the heart has no share. But wherever love +is the bond, grace is poured into the lips, and “I +enjoin” becomes “I pray.” So that even where the +outward form of authority is still kept, as in a +parent to young children, there will ever be some +endearing word to swathe the harsh imperative in +tenderness, like a sword blade wrapped about with +wool, lest it should wound. Love tends to obliterate +the hard distinction of superior and inferior, which +finds its expression in laconic imperatives and silent +obedience. It seeks not for mere compliance with +commands, but for oneness of will. The lightest +wish breathed by loved lips is stronger than all stern +injunctions, often, alas! than all laws of duty. The +heart is so tuned as only to vibrate to that one tone. +The rocking stones, which all the storms of winter +may howl round and not move, can be set swinging +by a light touch. Una leads the lion in a silken +leash. Love controls the wildest nature. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span> +demoniac, whom no chains can bind, is found sitting +at the feet of incarnate gentleness. So the wish +of love is all-powerful with loving hearts, and its +faintest whisper louder and more constraining than +all the trumpets of Sinai.</p> + +<p>There is a large lesson here for all human relationships. +Fathers and mothers, husbands and +wives, friends and companions, teachers and guides +of all sorts, should set their conduct by this pattern, +and let the law of love sit ever upon their lips. +Authority is the weapon of a weak man, who is +doubtful of his own power to get himself obeyed, or +of a selfish one, who seeks for mechanical submission +rather than for the fealty of willing hearts. Love is +the weapon of a strong man who can cast aside the +trappings of superiority, and is never loftier than +when he descends, nor more absolute than when +he abjures authority, and appeals with love to +love. Men are not to be dragooned into goodness. +If mere outward acts are sought, it may be enough +to impose another’s will in orders as curt as a +soldier’s word of command; but if the joyful inclination +of the heart to the good deed is to be secured, +that can only be done when law melts into love, and is +thereby transformed to a more imperative obligation, +written not on tables of stone, but on fleshy tables of +the heart.</p> + +<p>There is a glimpse here into the very heart of +Christ’s rule over men. He too does not merely +impose commands, but stoops to entreat, where He +indeed might command. “Henceforth I call you +not servants, but friends”; and though He does go +on to say, “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I +command you,” yet His commandment has in it so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span> +much tenderness, condescension, and pleading love, +that it sounds far liker beseeching than enjoining. +His yoke is easy, for this among other reasons, that +it is, if one may so say, padded with love. His +burden is light, because it is laid on His servant’s +shoulders by a loving hand; and so, as St. Bernard +says, it is <i>onus quod portantem portat</i>, a burden which +carries him who carries it.</p> + +<p>II. There is in these verses the appeal which +gives weight to the entreaties of love. The Apostle +brings personal considerations to bear on the enforcement +of impersonal duty, and therein follows +the example of his Lord. He presents his own circumstances +as adding power to his request, and as it +were puts himself into the scale. He touches with +singular pathos on two things which should sway +his friend. “Such a one as Paul the aged.” The +alternative rendering “ambassador,” while quite possible, +has not congruity in its favour, and would be +a recurrence to that very motive of official authority +which he has just disclaimed. The other rendering +is every way preferable. How old was he? Probably +somewhere about sixty—not a very great age, +but life was somewhat shorter then than now, and +Paul was, no doubt, aged by work, by worry, and by +the unresting spirit that “o’er-informed his tenement +of clay.” Such temperaments as his soon grow old. +Perhaps Philemon was not much younger; but the +prosperous Colossian gentleman had had a smoother +life, and, no doubt, carried his years more lightly.</p> + +<p>The requests of old age should have weight. In +our days, what with the improvements in education, +and the general loosening of the bonds of reverence, +the old maxim that “the utmost respect is due to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span> +children,” receives a strange interpretation, and in +many a household the Divine order is turned upside +down, and the juniors regulate all things. Other +still more sacred things will be likely to lose their +due reverence when silver hairs no longer receive +theirs.</p> + +<p>But usually the aged who are “such” aged “as +Paul” was, will not fail of obtaining honour and +deference. No more beautiful picture of the bright +energy and freshness still possible to the old was +ever painted than may be gathered from the +Apostle’s unconscious sketch of himself. He delighted +in having young life about him—Timothy, +Titus, Mark, and others, boys in comparison with +himself, whom yet he admitted to close intimacy +as some old general might the youths of his staff, +warming his age at the genial flame of their growing +energies and unworn hopes. His was a joyful old +age too, notwithstanding many burdens of anxiety +and sorrow. We hear the clear song of his gladness +ringing through the epistle of joy, that to the Philippians, +which, like this, dates from his Roman captivity. +A Christian old age should be joyful, and only it will +be; for the joys of the natural life burn low, when +the fuel that fed them is nearly exhausted, and +withered hands are held in vain over the dying +embers. But Christ’s joy “remains,” and a Christian +old age may be like the polar midsummer days, +when the sun shines till midnight, and dips but for +an imperceptible interval ere it rises for the unending +day of heaven.</p> + +<p>Paul the aged was full of interest in the things of +the day; no mere “praiser of time gone by,” but a +strenuous worker, cherishing a quick sympathy and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span> +an eager interest which kept him young to the end. +Witness that last chapter of the second Epistle to +Timothy, where he is seen, in the immediate expectation +of death, entering heartily into passing +trifles, and thinking it worth while to give little +pieces of information about the movements of his +friends, and wishful to get his books and parchments, +that he might do some more work while waiting for +the headsman’s sword. And over his cheery, sympathetic, +busy old age there is thrown the light of a +great hope, which kindles desire and onward looks in +his dim eyes, and parts “such a one as Paul the +aged” by a whole universe from the old whose future +is dark and their past dreary, whose hope is a +phantom and their memory a pang.</p> + +<p>The Apostle adds yet another personal characteristic +as a motive with Philemon to grant his request: +“Now a prisoner also of Christ Jesus.” He has +already spoken of himself in these terms in <i>v.</i> 1. +His sufferings were imposed by and endured for +Christ. He holds up his fettered wrist, and in effect +says, “Surely you will not refuse anything that you +can do to wrap a silken softness round the cold, hard +iron, especially when you remember for Whose sake +and by Whose will I am bound with this chain.” +He thus brings personal motives to reinforce duty +which is binding from other and higher considerations. +He does not merely tell Philemon that he +ought to take back Onesimus as a piece of self-sacrificing +Christian duty. He does imply that +highest motive throughout his pleadings, and urges +that such action is “fitting” or in consonance with +the position and obligations of a Christian man. +But he backs up this highest reason with these +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span> +others: “If you hesitate to take him back because +you ought, will you do it because I ask you? and, +before you answer that question, will you remember +my age, and what I am bearing for the Master?” +If he can get his friend to do the right thing by the +help of these subsidiary motives, still, it is the right +thing; and the appeal to these motives will do Philemon +no harm, and, if successful, will do both him +and Onesimus a great deal of good.</p> + +<p>Does not this action of Paul remind us of the +highest example of a similar use of motives of +personal attachment as aids to duty? Christ does +thus with His servants. He does not simply hold +up before us a cold law of duty, but warms it by +introducing our personal relation to Him as the main +motive for keeping it. Apart from Him, Morality +can only point to the tables of stone and say: +“There! that is what you ought to do. Do it, or +face the consequences.” But Christ says: “I have +given Myself for you. My will is your law. Will +you do it for My sake?” Instead of the chilling, +statuesque ideal, as pure as marble and as cold, a +Brother stands before us with a heart that beats, a +smile on His face, a hand outstretched to help; and +His word is, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” +The specific difference of Christian morality +lies not in its precepts, but in its motive, and in its +gift of power to obey. Paul could only urge regard +to him as a subsidiary inducement. Christ puts it +as the chief, nay, as the sole motive for obedience.</p> + +<p>III. The last point suggested by these verses is +the gradual opening up of the main subject matter +of the Apostle’s request. Very noteworthy is the +tenderness of the description of the fugitive as “my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span> +child, whom I have begotten in my bonds.” Paul +does not venture to name him at once, but prepares +the way by the warmth of this affectionate reference. +The position of the name in the sentence is most +unusual, and suggests a kind of hesitation to take +the plunge, while the hurried passing on to meet the +objection which he knew would spring immediately +to Philemon’s mind is almost as if Paul laid his +hand on his friend’s lips to stop his words,—“Onesimus +then is it? that good-for-nothing!” Paul +admits the indictment, will say no word to mitigate +the condemnation due to his past worthlessness, but, +with a playful allusion to the slave’s name, which +conceals his deep earnestness, assures Philemon that +he will find the formerly inappropriate name, +Onesimus—<i>i.e.</i> profitable—true yet, for all that is +past. He is sure of this, because he, Paul, has +proved his value. Surely never were the natural +feelings of indignation and suspicion more skilfully +soothed, and never did repentant good-for-nothing +get sent back to regain the confidence which he +had forfeited, with such a certificate of character in +his hand!</p> + +<p>But there is something of more importance than +Paul’s inborn delicacy and tact to notice here. +Onesimus had been a bad specimen of a bad class. +Slavery must needs corrupt both the owner and the +chattel; and, as a matter of fact, we have classical +allusions enough to show that the slaves of Paul’s +period were deeply tainted with the characteristic +vices of their condition. Liars, thieves, idle, treacherous, +nourishing a hatred of their masters all the more +deadly that it was smothered, but ready to flame +out, if opportunity served, in blood-curdling cruelties—they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span> +constituted an ever-present danger, and +needed an ever-wakeful watchfulness. Onesimus +had been known to Philemon only as one of the +idlers who were more of a nuisance than a benefit, +and cost more than they earned; and he apparently +ended his career by theft. And this degraded +creature, with scars on his soul deeper and worse +than the marks of fetters on his limbs, had somehow +found his way to the great jungle of a city, where all +foul vermin could crawl and hiss and sting with comparative +safety. There he had somehow come across +the Apostle, and had received into his heart, filled +with ugly desires and lusts, the message of Christ’s +love, which had swept it clean, and made him over +again. The Apostle has had but short experience +of his convert, but he is quite sure that he is a +Christian; and, that being the case, he is as sure +that all the bad black past is buried, and that the +new leaf now turned over will be covered with fair +writing, not in the least like the blots that were on +the former page, and have now been dissolved from +off it, by the touch of Christ’s blood.</p> + +<p>It is a typical instance of the miracles which the +gospel wrought as every-day events in its transforming +career. Christianity knows nothing of +hopeless cases. It professes its ability to take the +most crooked stick and bring it straight, to flash a +new power into the blackest carbon, which will turn +it into a diamond. Every duty will be done better +by a man if he have the love and grace of Jesus +Christ in his heart. New motives are brought into +play, new powers are given, new standards of duty +are set up. The small tasks become great, and the +unwelcome sweet, and the difficult easy, when done +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span> +for and through Christ. Old vices are crushed in their +deepest source; old habits driven out by the force +of a new affection, as the young leaf-buds push the +withered foliage from the tree. Christ can make +any man over again, and does so re-create every +heart that trusts to him. Such miracles of transformation +are wrought to-day as truly as of old. +Many professing Christians experience little of that +quickening and revolutionising energy; many observers +see little of it, and some begin to croak, as +if the old power had ebbed away. But wherever +men give the gospel fair play in their lives, and +open their spirits, in truth and not merely in profession, +to its influence, it vindicates its undiminished +possession of all its former energy; and if ever +it seems to fail, it is not that the medicine is +ineffectual, but that the sick man has not really +taken it. The low tone of much modern Christianity +and its dim exhibition of the transforming +power of the gospel is easily and sadly accounted +for without charging decrepitude on that which was +once so mighty, by the patent fact that much +modern Christianity is little better than lip acknowledgment, +and that much more of it is wofully +unfamiliar with the truth which it in some fashion +believes, and is sinfully negligent of the spiritual +gifts which it professes to treasure. If a Christian +man does not show that his religion is changing +him into the fair likeness of his Master, and fitting +him for all relations of life, the reason is simply that +he has so little of it, and that little so mechanical +and tepid.</p> + +<p>Paul pleads with Philemon to take back his +worthless servant, and assures him that he will find +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span> +Onesimus helpful now. Christ does not need to be +besought to welcome His runaway good-for-nothings, +however unprofitable they have been. That Divine +charity of His forgives all things, and “hopes all +things” of the worst, and can fulfil its own hope in +the most degraded. With bright, unfaltering confidence +in His own power He fronts the most evil, +sure that He can cleanse; and that, no matter +what the past has been, His power can overcome +all defects of character, education, or surroundings, +can set free from all moral disadvantages adhering +to men’s station, class, or calling, can break the +entail of sin. The worst needs no intercessor to +sway that tender heart of our great Master whom +we may dimly see shadowed in the very name of +“Philemon,” which means one who is loving or +kindly. Whoever confesses to him that he has +“been an unprofitable servant,” will be welcomed to +His heart, made pure and good by the Divine Spirit +breathing new life into him, will be trained by Christ +for all joyful toil as His slave, and yet His freedman +and friend; and at last each once fugitive and +unprofitable Onesimus will hear the “Well done, +good and faithful servant!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="PhilIV" id="PhilIV"></a>IV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, that is, my +very heart: whom I would fain have kept with me, that in my behalf +he might minister unto me in the bonds of the gospel: but without thy +mind I would do nothing; that thy goodness should not be as of +necessity, but of free will.”—<span class="smcap">Philem.</span> 12–14 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>The characteristic features of the Epistle are all +embodied in these verses. They set forth, in +the most striking manner, the relation of Christianity +to slavery and to other social evils. They afford +an exquisite example of the courteous delicacy and +tact of the Apostle’s intervention on behalf of +Onesimus; and there shine through them, as through +a semi-transparent medium, adumbrations and shimmering +hints of the greatest truths of Christianity.</p> + +<p>I. The first point to notice is that decisive step +of sending back the fugitive slave. Not many +years ago the conscience of England was stirred +because the Government of the day sent out a +circular instructing captains of men-of-war, on the +decks of which fugitive slaves sought asylum, to +restore them to their “owners.” Here an Apostle +does the same thing—seems to side with the +oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from the sole +refuge left him, the horns of the very altar. More +extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily +going back, travelling all the weary way from Rome +to Colossæ in order to put his neck once more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span> +beneath the yoke. Both men were acting from +Christian motives, and thought that they were doing +a piece of plain Christian duty. Then does Christianity +sanction slavery? Certainly not; its principles +cut it up by the roots. A gospel, of which +the starting-point is that all men stand on the same +level, as loved by the one Lord, and redeemed by +the one cross, can have no place for such an +institution. A religion which attaches the highest +importance to man’s awful prerogative of freedom, +because it insists on every man’s individual responsibility +to God, can keep no terms with a system +which turns men into chattels. Therefore Christianity +cannot but regard slavery as sin against God, +and as treason towards man. The principles of the +gospel worked into the conscience of a nation +destroy slavery. Historically it is true that as +Christianity has grown slavery has withered. But +the New Testament never directly condemns it, and +by regulating the conduct of Christian masters, and +recognising the obligations of Christian slaves, seems +to contemplate its continuance, and to be deaf to the +sighing of the captives.</p> + +<p>This attitude was probably not a piece of policy +or a matter of calculated wisdom on the part of +the Apostle. He no doubt saw that the Gospel +brought a great unity in which all distinctions were +merged, and rejoiced in thinking that “in Christ +Jesus there is neither bond or free”; but whether +he expected the distinction ever to disappear from +actual life is less certain. He may have thought +of slavery as he did of sex, that the fact would +remain, while yet “we are all one in Christ Jesus.” +It is by no means necessary to suppose that the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span> +Apostles saw the full bearing of the truths they had +to preach, in their relation to social conditions. +They were inspired to give the Church the principles. +It remained for future ages, under Divine guidance, +to apprehend the destructive and formative range of +these principles.</p> + +<p>However this may be, the attitude of the New +Testament to slavery is the same as to other unchristian +institutions. It brings the leaven, and lets +it work. That attitude is determined by three great +principles. First, the message of Christianity is +primarily to individuals, and only secondarily to +society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced +to influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual +and moral sentiment, and only afterwards and +consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it +hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened +conscience. So it meddles directly with no political +or social arrangements, but lays down principles +which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them +to soak into the general mind. If an evil needs +force for its removal, it is not ready for removal. +If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the +root will certainly be left and will grow again. +When a dandelion head is ripe, a child’s breath can +detach the winged seeds; but until it is, no tempest +can move them. The method of violence is noisy +and wasteful, like the winter torrents that cover acres +of good ground with mud and rocks, and are past in +a day. The only true way is, by slow degrees to +create a state of feeling which shall instinctively +abhor and cast off the evil. Then there will be no +hubbub and no waste, and the thing once done will +be done for ever.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span> +So has it been with slavery; so will it be with +war, and intemperance, and impurity, and the +miserable anomalies of our present civilization. It +has taken eighteen hundred years for the whole +Church to learn the inconsistency of Christianity +with slavery. We are no quicker learners than the +past generations were. God is patient, and does +not seek to hurry the march of His purposes. We +have to be imitators of God, and shun the “raw +haste” which is “half-sister to delay.”</p> + +<p>But patience is not passivity. It is a Christian’s +duty to “hasten the day of the Lord,” and to take +part in the educational process which Christ is +carrying on through the ages, by submitting himself +to it in the first place, and then by endeavouring to +bring others under its influence. His place should +be in the van of all social progress. It does not +become Christ’s servants to be content with the +attainments of any past or present, in the matter of +the organization of society on Christian principles. +“God has more light to break forth from His word.” +Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness +of the moral perceptions of nineteenth century +Christians in regard to matters of Christian duty +which, hidden from us, are sun-clear to them, with +the same half-amused, half-tragic wonder with which +we look back to Jamaica planters or South Carolina +rice growers, who defended slavery as a missionary +institution, and saw no contradiction between their +religion and their practice. We have to stretch our +charity to believe in these men’s sincere religion. +Succeeding ages will have to make the same allowance +for us, and will need it for themselves from +their successors. The main thing is, for us to try to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span> +keep our spirits open to all the incidence of the +gospel on social and civic life, and to see that we +are on the right side, and trying to help on the +approach of that kingdom which does “not cry, nor +lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the streets,” +but has its coming “prepared as the morning,” that +swims up, silent and slow, and flushes the heaven +with an unsetting light.</p> + +<p>II. The next point in these verses is Paul’s loving +identification of himself with Onesimus.</p> + +<p>The A.V. here follows another reading from the +R.V.; the former has “thou therefore receive him, +that is, mine own bowels.” The additional words +are unquestionably inserted without authority in +order to patch a broken construction. The R.V. +cuts the knot in a different fashion by putting the +abrupt words, “himself that is, my very own heart,” +under the government of the preceding verb. But +it seems more probable that the Apostle began a +new sentence with them, which he meant to have +finished as the A.V. does for him, but which, in fact, +got hopelessly upset in the swift rush of his thoughts, +and does not right itself grammatically till the +“receive him” of <i>v.</i> 17.</p> + +<p>In any case the main thing to observe is the +affectionate plea which he puts in for the cordial +reception of Onesimus. Of course “mine own +bowels” is simply the Hebrew way of saying “mine +own heart.” We think the one phrase graceful and +sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did not +think so, and it might be difficult to say why he +should. It is a mere question of difference in +localizing certain emotions. Onesimus was a piece +of Paul’s very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[464]</a></span> +slave had wound himself round his affections, and +become so dear that to part with him was like +cutting his heart out of his bosom. Perhaps some +of the virtues, which the servile condition helps to +develop in undue proportion, such as docility, +lightheartedness, serviceableness, had made him a +soothing and helpful companion. What a plea that +would be with one who loved Paul as well as +Philemon did! He could not receive harshly one +whom the Apostle had so honoured with his love. +“Take care of him, be kind to him as if it were +to me.”</p> + +<p>Such language from an Apostle about a slave +would do more to destroy slavery than any violence +would do. Love leaps the barrier, and it ceases to +separate. So these simple, heart-felt words are an +instance of one method by which Christianity wars +against all social wrongs, by casting its caressing +arm around the outcast, and showing that the abject +and oppressed are objects of its special love.</p> + +<p>They teach too how interceding love makes its +object part of its very self; the same thought recurs +still more distinctly in <i>v.</i> 17, “Receive him as myself.” +It is the natural language of love; some of +the deepest and most blessed Christian truths are but +the carrying out of that identification to its fullest +extent. We are all Christ’s Onesimuses, and He, +out of His pure love, makes Himself one with us, +and us one with Him. The union of Christ with all +who trust in Him, no doubt, presupposes His Divine +nature, but still there is a human side to it, and it is +the result of His perfect love. All love delights to +fuse itself with its object, and as far as may be +to abolish the distinction of “I” and “thou.” But +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[465]</a></span> +human love can travel but a little way on that road; +Christ’s goes much farther. He that pleads for some +poor creature feels that the kindness is done to himself +when the former is helped or pardoned. Imperfectly +but really these words shadow forth the great +fact of Christ’s intercession for us sinners, and our +acceptance in Him. We need no better symbol of +the stooping love of Christ, Who identifies Himself +with His brethren, and of our wondrous identification +with Him, our High Priest and Intercessor, than this +picture of the Apostle pleading for the runaway and +bespeaking a welcome for him as part of himself. +When Paul says, “Receive him, that is, my very +heart,” his words remind us of the yet more blessed +ones, which reveal a deeper love and more marvellous +condescension, “He that receiveth you receiveth +Me,” and may reverently be taken as a faint shadow +of that prevailing intercession, through which he that +is joined to the Lord and is one spirit with Him, is +received of God as part of Christ’s mystical body, +bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh.</p> + +<p>III. Next comes the expression of a half-formed +purpose which was put aside for a reason to be immediately +stated. “Whom I would fain have kept +with me”; the tense of the verb indicating the incompleteness +of the desire. The very statement of +it is turned into a graceful expression of Paul’s confidence +in Philemon’s goodwill to him, by the addition +of that “on thy behalf.” He is sure that, if his friend +had been beside him, he would have been glad to +lend him his servant, and so he would have liked to +have had Onesimus as a kind of representative of the +service which he knows would have been so willingly +rendered. The purpose for which he would have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[466]</a></span> +liked to keep him is defined as being, “that he might +minister to me in the bonds of the Gospel.” If the +last words be connected with “me,” they suggest a +tender reason why Paul should be ministered to, as +suffering for Christ, their common Master, and for +the truth, their common possession. If, as is perhaps +less probable, they be connected with “minister,” they +describe the sphere in which the service is to be rendered. +Either the master or the slave would be +bound by the obligations which the Gospel laid on +them to serve Paul. Both were his converts, and +therefore knit to him by a welcome chain, which +made service a delight.</p> + +<p>There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy +of these words, so full of happy confidence in +the friend’s disposition, that they could not but evoke +the love to which they trusted so completely. Nor +need I do more than point their force for the purpose +of the whole letter, the procuring a cordial reception +for the returning fugitive. So dear had he become, +that Paul would like to have kept him. He goes +back with a kind of halo round him, now that he is +not only a good-for-nothing runaway, but Paul’s +friend, and so much prized by him. It would be +impossible to do anything but welcome him, bringing +such credentials; and yet all this is done with +scarcely a word of direct praise, which might have +provoked contradiction. One does not know whether +the confidence in Onesimus or in Philemon is the +dominant note in the harmony. In the preceding +clause, he was spoken of as, in some sense, part of +the Apostle’s very self. In this, he is regarded as, +in some sense, part of Philemon. So he is a link +between them. Paul would have taken his service +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[467]</a></span> +as if it had been his master’s. Can the master fail +to take him as if he were Paul?</p> + +<p>IV. The last topic in these verses is the decision +which arrested the half-formed wish. “I was <i>wishing</i> +indeed, but I <i>willed</i> otherwise.” The language +is exact. There is a universe between “I wished” +and “I willed.” Many a good wish remains fruitless, +because it never passes into the stage of firm +resolve. Many who wish to be better will to be +bad. One strong “I will” can paralyse a million +wishes.</p> + +<p>The Apostle’s final determination was, to do +nothing without Philemon’s cognisance and consent. +The reason for the decision is at once a very triumph +of persuasiveness, which would be ingenious if it +were not so spontaneous, and an adumbration of +the very spirit of Christ’s appeal for service to us. +“That thy benefit”—the good done to me by him, +which would in my eyes be done by you—“should +not be as of necessity, but willingly.” That “as” +is a delicate addition. He will not think that the +benefit would really have been by constraint, but it +might have looked as if it were.</p> + +<p>Do not these words go much deeper than this +small matter? And did not Paul learn the spirit +that suggested them from his own experience of +how Christ treated him? The principle underlying +them is, that where the bond is love, compulsion +takes the sweetness and goodness out of even sweet +and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue. +If a man “could not help it” there is neither praise +nor blame due. That freedom Christianity honours +and respects. So in reference to the offer of the +gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[468]</a></span> +but appealed to, and can turn deaf ears to the +pleading voice, “Why will ye die?” Sorrows and +sins and miseries without end continue, and the +gospel is rejected, and lives of wretched godlessness +are lived, and a dark future pulled down on the +rejecters’ heads—and all because God knows that +these things are better than that men should be +forced into goodness, which indeed would cease to +be goodness if they were. For nothing is good but +the free turning of the will to goodness, and nothing +bad but its aversion therefrom.</p> + +<p>The same solemn regard for the freedom of the +individual and low estimate of the worth of constrained +service influence the whole aspect of Christian +ethics. Christ wants no pressed men in His army. +The victorious host of priestly warriors, which the +Psalmist saw following the priest-king in the day of +his power, numerous as the dewdrops, and radiant +with reflected beauty as these, were all “willing”—volunteers. +There are no conscripts in the ranks. +These words might be said to be graven over the +gates of the kingdom of heaven, “Not as of necessity, +but willingly.” In Christian morals, law becomes +love, and love, law. “Must” is not in the Christian +vocabulary, except as expressing the sweet constraint +which bows the will of him who loves to harmony, +which is joy, with the will of Him who is loved. +Christ takes no offerings which the giver is not glad +to render. Money, influence, service, which are not +offered by a will moved by love, which love, in its +turn, is set in motion by the recognition of the +infinite love of Christ in His sacrifice, are, in His +eyes, nought. An earthenware cup with a drop of +cold water in it, freely given out of a glad heart, is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[469]</a></span> +richer and more precious in His sight than golden +chalices swimming with wine and melted pearls, +which are laid by constraint on His table. “I +delight to do Thy will” is the foundation of all +Christian obedience; and the servant had caught +the very tone of the Lord’s voice when he said, +“Without thy mind I will do nothing, that thy +benefit should not be, as it were, of necessity, but +willingly.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[470]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="PhilV" id="PhilV"></a>V.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“For perhaps he was therefore parted from thee for a season, that +thou shouldest have him for ever; no longer as a servant, but more +than a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much rather +to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then thou countest me +a partner, receive him as myself. But if he hath wronged thee at all, +or oweth thee aught, put that to mine account; I Paul write it with +mine own hand, I will repay it: that I say not unto thee how that thou +owest to me even thine own self besides.”—<span class="smcap">Philem.</span> 15–19 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>The first words of these verses are connected +with the preceding by the “for” at the beginning; +that is to say, the thought that possibly the +Divine purpose in permitting the flight of Onesimus +was his restoration, in eternal and holy relationship, +to Philemon, was Paul’s reason for not carrying out +his wish to keep Onesimus as his own attendant +and helper. “I did not decide, though I very much +wished, to retain him without your consent, because +it is possible that he was allowed to flee from you, +though his flight was his own blamable act, in +order that he might be given back to you, a richer +possession, a brother instead of a slave.”</p> + +<p>I. There is here a Divine purpose discerned as +shining through a questionable human act.</p> + +<p>The first point to note is, with what charitable +delicacy of feeling the Apostle uses a mild word to +express the fugitive’s flight. He will not employ +the harsh naked word “ran away.” It might irritate +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[471]</a></span> +Philemon. Besides, Onesimus has repented of his +faults, as is plain from the fact of his voluntary +return, and therefore there is no need for dwelling +on them. The harshest, sharpest words are best +when callous consciences are to be made to wince; +but words that are balm and healing are to be used +when men are heartily ashamed of their sins. So +the deed for which Philemon’s forgiveness is asked +is half veiled in the phrase “he was parted.”</p> + +<p>Not only so, but the word suggests that behind +the slave’s mutiny and flight there was another Will +working, of which, in some sense, Onesimus was but +the instrument. He “<i>was</i> parted”—not that he +was not responsible for his flight, but that, through +his act, which in the eyes of all concerned was +wrong, Paul discerns as dimly visible a great Divine +purpose.</p> + +<p>But he puts that as only a possibility: “<i>Perhaps</i> +he departed from thee.”——He will not be too +sure of what God means by such and such a thing, +as some of us are wont to be, as if we had been +sworn of God’s privy council. “Perhaps” is one of +the hardest words for minds of a certain class to +say; but in regard to all such subjects, and to many +more, it is the motto of the wise man, and the +shibboleth which sifts out the patient, modest lovers +of truth from rash theorists and precipitate dogmatisers. +Impatience of uncertainty is a moral +fault which mars many an intellectual process; and +its evil effects are nowhere mote visible than in the +field of theology. A humble “perhaps” often grows +into a “verily, verily”—and a hasty, over-confident +“verily, verily,” often dwindles to a hesitating “perhaps.” +Let us not be in too great a hurry to make +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[472]</a></span> +sure that we have the key of the cabinet where +God keeps His purposes, but content ourselves with +“perhaps” when we are interpreting the often +questionable ways of His providences, each of which +has many meanings and many ends.</p> + +<p>But however modestly he may hesitate as to the +application of the principle, Paul has no doubt as to +the principle itself: namely, that God, in the sweep +of His wise providence, utilizes even men’s evil, and +works it in, to the accomplishment of great purposes +far beyond their ken, as nature, in her patient +chemistry, takes the rubbish and filth of the dunghill +and turns them into beauty and food. Onesimus +had no high motives in his flight; he had run away +under discreditable circumstances, and perhaps to +escape deserved punishment. Laziness and theft had +been the hopeful companions of his flight, which, +so far as he was concerned, had been the outcome +of low and probably criminal impulses; and yet +God had known how to use it so as to lead to his +becoming a Christian. “With the wrath of man +Thou girdest Thyself,” twisting and bending it so as +to be flexible in Thy hands, and “the remainder +Thou dost restrain,” How unlike were the seed +and the fruit—the flight of a good-for-nothing thief +and the return of a Christian brother! He meant +it not so; but in running away from his master, he +was running straight into the arms of his Saviour. +How little Onesimus knew what was to be the end +of that day’s work, when he slunk out of Philemon’s +house with his stolen booty hid away in his bosom! +And how little any of us know where we are going, +and what strange results may evolve themselves +from our actions! Blessed they who can rest in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[473]</a></span> +confidence that, however modest we should be in +our interpretation of the events of our own or of +other men’s lives, the infinitely complex web of +circumstance is woven by a loving, wise Hand, and +takes shape, with all its interlacing threads, according +to a pattern in His hand, which will vindicate +itself when it is finished!</p> + +<p>The contrast is emphatic between the short +absence and the eternity of the new relationship: +“for a season”—literally an hour—and “for ever.” +There is but one point of view which gives importance +to this material world, with all its fleeting joys +and fallacious possessions. Life is not worth living, +unless it be the vestibule to a life beyond. Why all +its discipline, whether of sorrow or joy, unless there +be another, ampler life, where we can use to nobler +ends the powers acquired and greatened by use +here? What an inconsequent piece of work is +man, if the few years of earth are his all! Surely, +if nothing is to come of all this life here, men are +made in vain, and had better not have been at all. +Here is a narrow sound, with a mere ribbon of sea +in it, shut in between grim, echoing rocks. How +small and meaningless it looks as long as the fog +hides the great ocean beyond! But when the mist +lifts, and we see that the narrow strait leads out into +a boundless sea that lies flashing in the sunshine to +the horizon, then we find out the worth of that little +driblet of water at our feet. It connects with the +open sea, and that swathes the world. So is it with +“the hour” of life; it opens out and debouches into +the “for ever,” and therefore it is great and solemn. +This moment is one of the moments of that hour. +We are the sport of our own generalisations, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[474]</a></span> +ready to admit all these fine and solemn things +about life, but we are less willing to apply them to +the single moments as they fly. We should not +rest content with recognising the general truth, but +ever make conscious effort to feel that <i>this</i> passing +instant has something to do with our eternal character +and with our eternal destiny.</p> + +<p>That is an exquisitely beautiful and tender thought +which the Apostle puts here, and one which is +susceptible of many applications. The temporary +loss may be eternal gain. The dropping away of +the earthly form of a relationship may, in God’s +great mercy, be a step towards its renewal in higher +fashion and for evermore. All our blessings need +to be past before reflection can be brought to bear +upon them, to make us conscious how blessed we +were. The blossoms have to perish before the rich +perfume, which can be kept in undiminished fragrance +for years, can be distilled from them. When +death takes away dear ones, we first learn that we +were entertaining angels unawares; and as they +float away from us into the light, they look back +with faces already beginning to brighten into the +likeness of Christ, and take leave of us with His +valediction, “It is expedient for you that I go +away.” Memory teaches us the true character of +life. We can best estimate the height of the +mountain peaks when we have left them behind. +The softening and hallowing influence of death +reveals the nobleness and sweetness of those who +are gone. Fair country never looks so fair as when +it has a curving river for a foreground; and fair lives +look fairer than before, when seen across the Jordan +of death.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[475]</a></span> +To us who believe that life and love are not +killed by death, the end of their earthly form is +but the beginning of a higher heavenly. Love which +is “in Christ” is eternal. Because Philemon and +Onesimus were two Christians, therefore their relationship +was eternal. Is it not yet more true, if +that were possible, that the sweet bonds which unite +Christian souls here on earth are in their essence +indestructible, and are affected by death only as the +body is? Sown in weakness, will they not be raised +in power? Nothing of them shall die but the +encompassing death. Their mortal part shall put +on immortality. As the farmer gathers the green +flax with its blue bells blooming on it, and throws it +into a tank to rot, in order to get the firm fibre +which cannot rot, and spin it into a strong cable, so +God does with our earthly loves. He causes all +about them that is perishable to perish, that the +central fibre, which is eternal, may stand clear and +disengaged from all that was less Divine than itself. +Wherefore mourning hearts may stay themselves on +this assurance, that they will never lose the dear +ones whom they have loved in Christ, and that death +itself but changes the manner of the communion, +and refines the tie. They were as for a moment +dead, but they are alive again. To our bewildered +sight they departed and were lost for a season, but +they are found, and we can fold them in our heart of +hearts for ever.</p> + +<p>But there is also set forth here a change, not +only in the duration but in the quality of the relation +between the Christian master and his former slave, +who continues a slave indeed, but is also a brother. +“No longer as a servant, but more than a servant, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[476]</a></span> +a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much +rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” +It is clear from these words that Paul did not anticipate +the manumission of Onesimus. What he +asks is, that he should not be received <i>as</i> a slave. +Evidently then he is to be still a slave in so far as +the outward fact goes—but a new spirit is to be +breathed into the relationship. “Specially to me”; +he is more than a slave to me. I have not looked +on him as such, but have taken him to my heart as +a brother, as a son indeed, for he is especially dear +to me as my convert. But however dear he is to +me, he should be more so to thee, to whom his relation +is permanent, while to me it is temporary. And this +Brotherhood of the slave is to be felt and made +visible “both in the flesh”—that is, in the earthly +and personal relations of common life, “and in the +Lord”—that is, in the spiritual and religious relationships +of worship and the Church.</p> + +<p>As has been well said, “In the flesh, Philemon +has the brother for his slave; in the Lord, Philemon +has the slave for his brother.” He is to treat him +as his brother therefore both in the common relationships +of every-day life and in the acts of +religious worship.</p> + +<p>That is a pregnant word. True, there is no gulf +between Christian people now-a-days like that which +in the old times parted owner and slave; but, as +society becomes more and more differentiated, as +the diversities of wealth become more extreme in +our commercial communities, as education comes to +make the educated man’s whole way of looking at +life differ more and more from that of the less +cultured classes, the injunction implied in our text +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[477]</a></span> +encounters enemies quite as formidable as slavery +ever was. The highly educated man is apt to be +very oblivious of the brotherhood of the ignorant +Christian, and he, on his part, finds the recognition +just as hard. The rich mill-owner has not much +sympathy with the poor brother who works at his +spinning-jennies. It is often difficult for the +Christian mistress to remember that her cook is her +sister in Christ. There is quite as much sin against +fraternity on the side of the poor Christians who +are servants and illiterate, as on the side of the +rich who are masters or cultured. But the principle +that Christian brotherhood is to reach across +the wall of class distinctions is as binding to-day +as it was on these two good people, Philemon the +master and Onesimus the slave.</p> + +<p>That brotherhood is not to be confined to acts +and times of Christian communion, but is to be +shown and to shape conduct in common life. “Both +in the flesh and in the Lord” may be put into +plain English thus: A rich man and a poor one +belong to the same church; they unite in the same +worship, they are “partakers of the one bread,” and +therefore, Paul thinks, “are one bread.” They go +outside the church door. Do they ever dream of +speaking to one another outside? “A brother +beloved in the Lord”—on Sundays, and during +worship and in Church matters—is often a stranger +“in the flesh” on Mondays, in the street and in +common life. Some good people seem to keep +their brotherly love in the same wardrobe with their +Sunday clothes. Philemon was bid, and all are +bid, to wear it all the week, at market as well as +church.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[478]</a></span> +II. In the next verse, the essential purpose for +which the whole letter was written is put at last +in an articulate request, based upon a very tender +motive. “If then thou countest me as a partner, +receive him as myself,” Paul now at last completes +the sentence which he began in <i>v</i>. 12, and from +which he was hurried away by the other thoughts +that came crowding in upon him. This plea for +the kindly welcome to be accorded to Onesimus has +been knocking at the door of his lips for utterance +from the beginning of the letter; but only now, +so near the end, after so much conciliation, he +ventures to put it into plain words; and even now +he does not dwell on it, but goes quickly on to +another point. He puts his requests on a modest +and yet a strong ground, appealing to Philemon’s +sense of comradeship—“if thou countest me a partner”—a +comrade or a sharer in Christian blessings. +He sinks all reference to apostolic authority, and +only points to their common possession of faith, +hope, and joy in Christ. “Receive him as myself.” +That request was sufficiently illustrated in the +preceding chapter, so that I need only refer to what +was then said on this instance of interceding love +identifying itself with its object, and on the enunciation +in it of great Christian truth.</p> + +<p>III. The course of thought next shows—Love +taking the slave’s debts on itself.</p> + +<p>“If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught.” +Paul makes an “if” of what he knew well enough +to be the fact; for no doubt Onesimus had told +him all his faults, and the whole context shows that +there was no uncertainty in Paul’s mind, but that +he puts the wrong hypothetically for the same +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[479]</a></span> +reason for which he chooses to say, “was parted” +instead of “ran away,” namely, to keep some thin +veil over the crimes of a penitent, and not to rasp +him with rough words. For the same reason, too, +he falls back upon the gentler expressions, +“wronged” and “oweth,” instead of blurting out +the ugly word “stolen.” And then, with a half-playful +assumption of lawyer-like phraseology, he +bids Philemon put that to his account. Here is my +autograph—“I Paul write it with mine own hand”—I +make this letter into a bond. Witness my +hand; “I will repay it.” The formal tone of the +promise, rendered more formal by the insertion of +the name—and perhaps by that sentence only being +in his own handwriting—seems to warrant the +explanation that it is half playful; for he could +never have supposed that Philemon would exact the +fulfilment of the bond, and we have no reason to +suppose that, if he had, Paul could really have paid +the amount. But beneath the playfulness there lies +the implied exhortation to forgive the money wrong +as well as the others which Onesimus had done +him.</p> + +<p>The verb used here for <i>put to the account of</i> is, +according to the commentators, a very rare word; +and perhaps the singular phrase may be chosen to +let another great Christian truth shine through. +Was Paul’s love the only one that we know of which +took the slave’s debts on itself? Did anybody else +ever say, “Put that on mine account”? We have +been taught to ask for the forgiveness of our sins +as “debts,” and we have been taught that there +is One on whom God has made to meet the +iniquities of us all. Christ takes on Himself all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[480]</a></span> +Paul’s debt, all Philemon’s, all ours. He has paid the +ransom for all, and He so identifies Himself with +men that He takes all their sins upon Him, and so +identifies men with Himself that they are “received +as Himself.” It is His great example that Paul +is trying to copy here. Forgiven all that great +debt, he dare not rise from his knees to take his +brother by the throat, but goes forth to show to his +fellow the mercy which he has found, and to model +his life after the pattern of that miracle of love +in which is his trust. It is Christ’s own voice which +echoes in “put that on mine account.”</p> + +<p>IV. Finally, these verses pass to a gentle reminder +of a greater debt: “That I say not unto +thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self +besides.”</p> + +<p>As his child in the Gospel, Philemon owed to +Paul much more than the trifle of money of which +Onesimus had robbed him; namely his spiritual life, +which he had received through the Apostle’s ministry. +But he will not insist on that. True love never +presses its claims, nor recounts its services. Claims +which need to be urged are not worth urging. A +true, generous heart will never say, “You ought to +do so much for me, because I have done so much +for you.” To come down to that low level of +chaffering and barter is a dreadful descent from the +heights where the love which delights in giving +should ever dwell.</p> + +<p>Does not Christ speak to us in the same language? +We owe ourselves to Him, as Lazarus +did, for He raises us from the death of sin to a +share in His own new, undying life. As a sick man +owes his life to the doctor who has cured him, as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[481]</a></span> +a drowning man owes his to his rescuer, who dragged +him from the water and breathed into his lungs till +they began to work of themselves, as a child owes +its life to its parent—so we owe ourselves to Christ. +But He does not insist upon the debt; He gently +reminds us of it, as making His commandment +sweeter and easier to obey. Every heart that is +really touched with gratitude will feel, that the less +the giver insists upon his gifts, the more do they +impel to affectionate service. To be perpetually +reminded of them weakens their force as motives to +obedience, for it then appears as if they had not +been gifts of love at all, but bribes given by self-interest; +and the frequent reference to them sounds +like complaint. But Christ does not insist on His +claims, and therefore the remembrance of them ought +to underlie all our lives and to lead to constant glad +devotion.</p> + +<p>One more thought may be drawn from the words. +The great debt which can never be discharged does +not prevent the debtor from receiving reward for the +obedience of love. “I will repay it,” even though +thou owest me thyself. Christ has bought us for +His servants by giving Himself and ourselves to us. +No work, no devotion, no love can ever repay our +debt to Him. From His love alone comes the +desire to serve Him; from His grace comes the +power. The best works are stained and incomplete, +and could only be acceptable to a Love that was +glad to welcome even unworthy offerings, and to +forgive their imperfections. Nevertheless He treats +them as worthy of reward, and crowns His own +grace in men with an exuberance of recompense far +beyond their deserts. He will suffer no man to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[482]</a></span> +work for Him for nothing; but to each He gives +even here great reward <i>in</i> keeping His commandments, +and hereafter “an exceeding great reward,” +of which the inward joys and outward blessings that +now flow from obedience are but the earnest His +merciful allowance of imperfections treats even our +poor deeds as rewardable; and though eternal life +must ever be the <i>gift</i> of God, and no claim of merit +can be sustained before His judgment seat, yet the +measure of that life which is possessed here or hereafter +is accurately proportioned to and is, in a very +real sense, the consequence of obedience and service, +“If any man’s work abide, he shall receive a +reward,” and Christ’s own tender voice speaks the +promise, “I will repay, albeit I say not unto thee +how thou owest to Me even thine own self besides.” +Men do not really possess themselves unless they +yield themselves to Jesus Christ. He that loveth +his life shall lose it, and he that loseth himself, in +glad surrender of himself to his Saviour, he and only +he is truly lord and owner of his own soul. And to +such an one shall be given rewards beyond hope +and beyond measure—and, as the crown of all, the +blessed possession of Christ, and in it the full, true, +eternal possession of himself, glorified and changed +into the image of the Lord who loved him and gave +Himself for him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[483]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="PhilVI" id="PhilVI"></a>VI.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord refresh my heart +in Christ. Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, +knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say. But withal prepare +me a lodging: for I hope that through your prayers I shall be granted +unto you.</p> + +<p>“Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, saluteth thee; and +so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers.</p> + +<p>“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”—<span class="smcap">Philem.</span> +20–25 (Rev. Ver.).</p></div> + +<p>We have already had occasion to point out that +Paul’s pleading with Philemon, and the +motives which he adduces, are expressions, on a +lower level, of the greatest principles of Christian +ethics. If the closing salutations be left out of sight +for the moment, there are here three verses, each +containing a thought which needs only to be cast +into its most general form to show itself as a large +Christian truth.</p> + +<p>I. Verse 20 gives the final moving form of the +Apostle’s request. Onesimus disappears, and the +final plea is based altogether on the fact that compliance +will pleasure and help Paul. There is but +the faintest gleam of a possible allusion to the +former in the use of the verb from which the name +Onesimus is derived—“Let me have <i>help</i> of thee”; +as if he had said, “Be you an Onesimus, a helpful +one to me, as I trust he is going to be to you.” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[484]</a></span> +“Refresh my heart” points back to <i>v.</i> 7, “The hearts +of the saints have been refreshed by thee,” and +lightly suggests that Philemon should do for Paul +what he had done for many others. But the +Apostle does not merely ask help and refreshing; +he desires that they should be of a right Christian +sort. “In Christ” is very significant. If Philemon +receives his slave for Christ’s sake and in the +strength of that communion with Christ which fits +for all virtue, and so for this good deed—a deed +which is of too high and rare a strain of goodness +for his unaided nature,—then “in Christ” he will +be helpful to the Apostle. In that case the phrase +expresses the element or sphere in which the act is +done. But it may apply rather, or even also, to +Paul, and then it expresses the element or sphere in +which he is helped and refreshed. In communion +with Jesus, taught and inspired by Him, the Apostle +is brought to such true and tender sympathy with +the runaway that his heart is refreshed, as by a cup +of cold water, by kindness shown to him. Such +keen sympathy is as much beyond the reach of +nature as Philemon’s kindness would be. Both are +“in Christ.” Union with Him refines selfishness, +and makes men quick to feel another’s sorrows +and joys as theirs, after the pattern of Him who +makes the case of God’s fugitives His own. It +makes them easy to be entreated and ready to forgive. +So to be in Him is to be sympathetic like +Paul, and placable as He would have Onesimus. +“In Christ” carries in it the secret of all sweet +humanities and beneficence, is the spell which calls +out fairest charity, and is the only victorious antagonist +of harshness and selfishness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[485]</a></span> +The request for the sake of which the whole letter +is written is here put as a kindness to Paul himself, +and thus an entirely different motive is appealed +to. “Surely you would be glad to give me pleasure. +Then do this thing which I ask you.” It is permissible +to seek to draw to virtuous acts by such +a motive, and to reinforce higher reasons by the +desire to please dear ones, or to win the approbation +of the wise and good. It must be rigidly kept as +a subsidiary motive, and distinguished from the mere +love of applause. Most men have some one whose +opinion of their acts is a kind of embodied conscience, +and whose satisfaction is reward. But pleasing +the dearest and purest among men can never +be more than at most a crutch to help lameness +or a spur to stimulate.</p> + +<p>If however this motive be lifted to the higher +level, and these words thought of as Paul’s echo of +Christ’s appeal to those who love Him, they beautifully +express the peculiar blessedness of Christian +ethics. The strongest motive, the very mainspring +and pulsing heart of Christian duty, is to please +Christ. His language to His followers is not, “Do +this because it is right,” but, “Do this because it +pleaseth Me.” They have a living Person to gratify, +not a mere law of duty to obey. The help which +is given to weakness by the hope of winning golden +opinions from, or giving pleasure to, those whom +men love is transferred in the Christian relation +to Jesus. So the cold thought of duty is warmed, +and the weight of obedience to a stony, impersonal +law is lightened, and a new power is enlisted on +the side of goodness, which sways more mightily +than all the abstractions of duty. The Christ +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[486]</a></span> +Himself makes His appeal to men in the same +tender fashion as Paul to Philemon. He will move +to holy obedience by the thought—wonderful as +it is—that it gladdens Him. Many a weak heart +has been braced and made capable of heroisms of +endurance and effort, and of angel deeds of mercy, +all beyond its own strength, by that great thought, +“We labour that, whether present or absent, we may +be well-pleasing to Him.”</p> + +<p>II. Verse 21 exhibits love commanding, in the +confidence of love obeying. “Having confidence +in thine obedience I write unto thee, knowing that +thou wilt do even beyond what I say.” In <i>v</i>. 8 +the Apostle had waived his right to enjoin, because +he had rather speak the speech of love, and request. +But here, with the slightest possible touch, he just +lets the note of authority sound for a single moment, +and then passes into the old music of affection and +trust. He but names the word “obedience,” and +that in such a way as to present it as the child +of love, and the privilege of his friend. He trusts +Philemon’s obedience, because he knows his love, +and is sure that it is love of such a sort as will +not stand on the exact measure, but will delight +in giving it “pressed down and running over.”</p> + +<p>What could he mean by “do more than I say”? +Was he hinting at emancipation, which he would +rather have to come from Philemon’s own sense of +what was due to the slave who was now a brother, +than be granted, perhaps hesitatingly, in deference to +his request? Possibly, but more probably he had +no definite thing in his mind, but only desired to +express his loving confidence in his friend’s willingness +to please him. Commands given in such a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[487]</a></span> +tone, where authority audibly trusts the subordinate, +are far more likely to be obeyed than if they were +shouted with the hoarse voice of a drill-sergeant. +Men will do much to fulfil generous expectations. +Even debased natures will respond to such appeal; +and if they see that good is expected from them, +that will go far to evoke it. Some masters have +always good servants, and part of the secret is that +they trust them to obey. “England expects” +fulfilled itself. When love enjoins there should be +trust in its tones. It will act like a magnet to draw +reluctant feet into the path of duty. A will which +mere authority could not bend, like iron when cold, +may be made flexible when warmed by this gentle +heat. If parents oftener let their children feel that +they had confidence in their obedience, they would +seldomer have to complain of their disobedience.</p> + +<p>Christ’s commands follow, or rather set, this pattern. +He trusts His servants, and speaks to them +in a voice softened and confiding. He tells them +His wish, and commits Himself and His cause to +His disciples’ love.</p> + +<p>Obedience beyond the strict limits of command +will always be given by love. It is a poor, grudging +service which weighs obedience as a chemist does +some precious medicine, and is careful that not the +hundredth part of a grain more than the prescribed +amount shall be doled out. A hired workman will +fling down his lifted trowel full of mortar at the first +stroke of the clock, though it would be easier to lay +it on the bricks; but where affection moves the +hand, it is delight to add something over and above +to bare duty. The artist who loves his work will +put many a touch on it beyond the minimum which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[488]</a></span> +will fulfil his contract. Those who adequately feel +the power of Christian motives will not be anxious +to find the least that they durst, but the most that +they can do. If obvious duty requires them to go +a mile, they will rather go two, than be scrupulous +to stop as soon as they see the milestone. A child +who is always trying to find out how little would +satisfy his father cannot have much love. Obedience +to Christ is joy, peace, love. The grudging +servants are limiting their possession of these, by +limiting their active surrender of themselves. They +seem to be afraid of having too much of these +blessings. A heart truly touched by the love of +Jesus Christ will not seek to know the lowest limit +of duty, but the highest possibility of service.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of nicely calculated less or more.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>III. Verse 22 may be summed up as the language +of love, hoping for reunion. “Withal prepare +me a lodging: for I hope that through your prayers +I shall be granted unto you.” We do not know +whether the Apostle’s expectation was fulfilled. Believing +that he was set free from his first imprisonment, +and that his second was separated from it +by a considerable interval, during which he visited +Macedonia and Asia Minor, we have yet nothing +to show whether or not he reached Colossæ; but +whether fulfilled or not, the expectation of meeting +would tend to secure compliance with his request, +and would be all the more likely to do so, for the +very delicacy with which it is stated, so as not to +seem to be mentioned for the sake of adding force +to his intercession.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[489]</a></span> +The limits of Paul’s expectation as to the power +of his brethren’s prayers for temporal blessings are +worth noting. He does believe that these good +people in Colossæ could help him by prayer for his +liberation, but he does not believe that their prayer +will certainly be heard. In some circles much is +said now about “the prayer of faith”—a phrase +which, singularly enough, is in such cases almost +confined to prayers for external blessings,—and +about its power to bring money for work which the +person praying believes to be desirable, or to send +away diseases. But surely there can be no “faith” +without a definite Divine <i>word</i> to lay hold of. Faith +and God’s promise are correlative; and unless a +man has God’s plain promise that A. B. will be cured +by his prayer, the belief that he will is not faith, but +something deserving a much less noble name. The +prayer of faith is not forcing our wills on God, but +bending our wills to God’s. The prayer which Christ +has taught in regard to all outward things is, “Not +my will but Thine be done,” and, “May Thy will +become mine.” That is the prayer of faith, which +is always answered. The Church prayed for Peter, +and he was delivered; the Church, no doubt, prayed +for Stephen, and he was stoned. Was then the +prayer for him refused? Not so, but if it were +prayer at all, the inmost meaning of it was “be it +as Thou wilt”; and that was accepted and answered. +Petitions for outward blessings, whether for +the petitioner or for others, are to be presented with +submission; and the highest confidence which can +be entertained concerning them is that which Paul +here expresses: “I <i>hope</i> that through your prayers +I shall be set free.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[490]</a></span> +The prospect of meeting enhances the force of +the Apostle’s wish; nor are Christians without an +analogous motive to give weight to their obligations +to their Lord. Just as Paul quickened Philemon’s +loving wish to serve him by the thought that he +might have the gladness of seeing him before long, +so Christ quickens His servant’s diligence by the +thought that before very many days He will come, +or they will go—at any rate, they will be with +Him,—and He will see what they have been doing +in His absence. Such a prospect should increase +diligence, and should not inspire terror. It is a +mark of true Christians that they “love His appearing.” +Their hearts should glow at the hope of +meeting. That hope should make work happier +and lighter. When a husband has been away at sea, +the prospect of his return makes the wife sing at +her work, and take more pains or rather pleasure +with it, because his eye is to see it. So should it be +with the bride in the prospect of her bridegroom’s +return. The Church should not be driven to unwelcome +duties by the fear of a strict judgment, +but drawn to large, cheerful service, by the hope +of spreading her work before her returning Lord.</p> + +<p>Thus, on the whole, in this letter, the central +springs of Christian service are touched, and the +motives used to sway Philemon are the echo of the +motives which Christ uses to sway men. The keynote +of all is love. Love beseeches when it might +command. To love we owe our own selves beside. +Love will do nothing without the glad consent of +him to whom it speaks, and cares for no service +which is of necessity. Its finest wine is not made +from juice which is pressed out of the grapes, but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[491]</a></span> +from that which flows from them for very ripeness. +Love identifies itself with those who need its help, +and treats kindnesses to them as done to itself. +Love finds joy and heart solace in willing, though +it be imperfect, service. Love expects more than +it asks. Love hopes for reunion, and by the hope +makes its wish more weighty. These are the points +of Paul’s pleading with Philemon. Are they not +the elements of Christ’s pleading with His friends?</p> + +<p>He too prefers the tone of friendship to that of +authority. To Him His servants owe themselves, +and remain for ever in His debt, after all payment +of reverence and thankful self-surrender. He does +not count constrained service as service at all, and +has only volunteers in His army. He makes Himself +one with the needy, and counts kindness to the +least as done to Him. He binds Himself to repay +and overpay all sacrifice in His service. He finds +delight in His people’s work. He asks them to +prepare an abode for Him in their own hearts, and +in souls opened by their agency for His entrance. +He has gone to prepare a mansion for them, and +He comes to receive account of their obedience +and to crown their poor deeds. It is impossible to +suppose that Paul’s pleading for Philemon failed. +How much less powerful is Christ’s, even with those +who love Him best?</p> + +<p>IV. The parting greetings may be very briefly +considered, for much that would have naturally been +said about them has already presented itself in +dealing with the similar salutations in the epistle +to Colossæ. The same people send messages here +as there; only Jesus called Justus being omitted, +probably for no other reason than because he was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[492]</a></span> +not at hand at the moment. Epaphras is naturally +mentioned singly, as being a Colossian, and therefore +more closely connected with Philemon than +were the others. After him come the two Jews and +the two Gentiles, as in Colossians.</p> + +<p>The parting benediction ends the letter. At the +beginning of the epistle Paul invoked grace upon the +household “from God our Father and the Lord +Jesus Christ.” Now he conceives of it as Christ’s +gift. In him all the stooping, bestowing love of +God is gathered, that from Him it may be poured +on the world. That grace is not diffused like +stellar light, through some nebulous heaven, but +concentrated in the Sun of Righteousness, who is the +light of men. That fire is piled on a hearth that, +from it, warmth may ray out to all that are in the +house.</p> + +<p>That grace has man’s spirit for the field of its +highest operation. Thither it can enter, and there +it can abide, in union more close and communion +more real and blessed than aught else can attain. +The spirit which has the grace of Christ with it can +never be utterly solitary or desolate.</p> + +<p>The grace of Christ is the best bond of family +life. Here it is prayed for on behalf of all the +group, the husband, wife, child, and the friends in +their home Church. Like grains of sweet incense +cast on an altar flame, and making fragrant what +was already holy, that grace sprinkled on the household +fire will give it an odour of a sweet smell, +grateful to men and acceptable to God.</p> + +<p>That wish is the purest expression of Christian +friendship, of which the whole letter is so exquisite +an example. Written as it is about a common, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[493]</a></span> +every-day matter, which could have been settled +without a single religious reference, it is saturated +with Christian thought and feeling. So it becomes +an example of how to blend Christian sentiment +with ordinary affairs, and to carry a Christian +atmosphere everywhere. Friendship and social intercourse +will be all the nobler and happier, if +pervaded by such a tone. Such words as these +closing ones would be a sad contrast to much of the +intercourse of professedly Christian men. But every +Christian ought by his life to be, as it were, floating +the grace of God to others sinking for want of it to +lay hold of, and all his speech should be of a piece +with this benediction.</p> + +<p>A Christian’s life should be “an epistle of +Christ” written with His own hand, wherein dim +eyes might read the transcript of His own gracious +love, and through all his words and deeds +should shine the image of his Master, even as it +does through the delicate tendernesses and gracious +pleadings of this pure pearl of a letter, which the +slave, become a brother, bore to the responsive hearts +in quiet Colossæ.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE.</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol.</i></p> + +<h4>First Series, 1887–8.</h4> + +<p class="book">Colossians.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">A. Maclaren</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">St. Mark.</p> +<p class="author">By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry.</p> + +<p class="book">Genesis.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">Marcus Dods</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">1 Samuel.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. G. Blaikie</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">2 Samuel.</p> +<p class="author">By the same Author.</p> + +<p class="book">Hebrews.</p> +<p class="author">By Principal <span class="smcap">T. C. Edwards</span>, D.D.</p> + +<h4>Second Series, 1888–9.</h4> + +<p class="book">Galatians.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">G. G. Findlay</span>, B.A., D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Pastoral Epistles.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">A. Plummer</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Isaiah <span class="smcap lowercase">I.–XXXIX.</span></p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">G. A. Smith</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. I.</span></p> + +<p class="book">The Book of Revelation.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. Milligan</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">1 Corinthians.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">Marcus Dods</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Epistles of St. John.</p> +<p class="author">By the Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh.</p> + +<h4>Third Series, 1889–90.</h4> + +<p class="book">Judges and Ruth.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. A. Watson</span>, M.A., D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Jeremiah.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">C. J. Ball</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="book">Isaiah <span class="smcap lowercase">XL.–LXVI.</span></p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">G. A. Smith</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. II.</span></p> + +<p class="book">St. Matthew.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">J. Monro Gibson</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Exodus.</p> +<p class="author">By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry.</p> + +<p class="book">St. Luke.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">H. Burton</span>, M.A.</p> + +<h4>Fourth Series, 1890–91.</h4> + +<p class="book">Ecclesiastes.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Samuel Cox</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">St. James and St. Jude.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">A. Plummer</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Proverbs.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. F. Horton</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Leviticus.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">S. H. Kellogg</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Gospel of St. John.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">M. Dods</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. I.</span></p> + +<p class="book">The Acts of the Apostles.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">Stokes</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. I.</span></p> + +<h4>Fifth Series, 1891–2.</h4> + +<p class="book">The Psalms.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">A. Maclaren</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. I.</span></p> + +<p class="book">1 and 2 Thessalonians.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">James Denney</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Book of Job.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. A. Watson</span>, M.A., D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Ephesians.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">G. G. Findlay</span>, B.A., D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Gospel of St. John.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">M. Dods</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol II.</span></p> + +<p class="book">The Acts of the Apostles.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">Stokes</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. II.</span></p> + +<h4>Sixth Series, 1892–3.</h4> + +<p class="book">1 Kings.</p> +<p class="author">By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.</p> + +<p class="book">Philippians.</p> +<p class="author">By Principal <span class="smcap">Rainy</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. F. Adeney</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="book">Joshua.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. G. Blaikie</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Psalms.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">A. Maclaren</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. II.</span></p> + +<p class="book">The Epistles of St. Peter.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">Rawson Lumby</span>, D.D.</p> + +<h4>Seventh Series, 1893–4.</h4> + +<p class="book">2 Kings.</p> +<p class="author">By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.</p> + +<p class="book">Romans.</p> +<p class="author">By the Right Rev. <span class="smcap">H. C. G. Moule</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Books of Chronicles.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. H. Bennett</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="book">2 Corinthians.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">James Denney</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">Numbers.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">R. A. Watson</span>, M.A., D.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Psalms.</p> +<p class="author">By the Rev. <span class="smcap">A. Maclaren</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Vol. III.</span></p> + +<h4>Eighth Series, 1895–6.</h4> + +<p class="book">Daniel.</p> +<p class="author">By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury.</p> + +<p class="book">The Book of Jeremiah.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. H. Bennett</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="book">Deuteronomy.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">Andrew Harper</span>, B.D.</p> + +<p class="book">The Song of Solomon and Lamentations.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. F. Adeney</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="book">Ezekiel.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">John Skinner</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="book">The Book of the Twelve Prophets.</p> +<p class="author">By Prof. <span class="smcap">G. A. Smith</span>, D.D. Two Vols.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3 class="titlebigger">The Expositor’s Bible.</h3> + +<p class="center">Edited by Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. each.</i></p> + +<p class="center">OLD TESTAMENT VOLUMES.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">GENESIS.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">Marcus Dods</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">EXODUS.</span> +By the Right Rev. <span class="smcap">G. A. Chadwick</span>, D.D., Bishop of Derry.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">LEVITICUS.</span> +By the Rev. <span class="smcap">S. H. Kellogg</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">Numbers.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">R. A. Watson</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">DEUTERONOMY.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">Andrew Harper</span>, M.A., B.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">JOSHUA.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. G. Blaikie</span>, D.D., LL.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">JUDGES AND RUTH.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">R. A. Watson</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">1 SAMUEL.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. G. Blaikie</span>, D.D., LL.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">2 SAMUEL.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. G. Blaikie</span>, D.D., LL.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">1 KINGS.</span> +By the Very Rev. <span class="smcap">Dean Farrar</span>, D.D., F.R.S.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">2 KINGS.</span> +By the Very Rev, <span class="smcap">Dean Farrar</span>, D.D., F.R.S.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. H. Bennett</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. F. Adeney</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">JOB.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">R. A. Watson</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">PSALMS.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">Alex. Maclaren</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Three Volumes.</span></p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">PROVERBS.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">R. F. Horton</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">ECCLESIASTES.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">Samuel Cox</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE SONG OF SOLOMON AND THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH.</span> +By the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. F. Adeney</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">ISAIAH.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">G. Adam Smith</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Two Volumes.</span></p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">JEREMIAH.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">C. J. Ball</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">JEREMIAH.</span> Chaps. xxi.–lii. +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. H. Bennett</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">EZEKIEL.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">Skinner</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">DANIEL.</span> +By the Very Rev. <span class="smcap">Dean Farrar</span>, D.D., F.R.S.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">G. Adam Smith</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Two Volumes.</span></p> + +<hr /> + +<h3 class="titlebigger">The Expositor’s Bible.</h3> + +<p class="center">Edited by Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. each.</i></p> + +<p class="center">NEW TESTAMENT VOLUMES.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">ST. MATTHEW.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">J. Monro Gibson</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">ST. MARK.</span> +By the Right Rev. <span class="smcap">G. A. Chadwick</span>, D.D., Bishop of Derry.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">ST. LUKE.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">Henry Burton</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">ST. JOHN.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">Marcus Dods</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Two Volumes.</span></p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">G. T. Stokes</span>, D.D. <span class="volsp">Two Volumes.</span></p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">ROMANS.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">H. C. G. Moule</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">1 CORINTHIANS.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">Marcus Dods</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">2 CORINTHIANS.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">James Denney</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">GALATIANS.</span> +By Rev, Prof. <span class="smcap">G. G. Findlay</span>, B.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">EPHESIANS.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">G. G. Findlay</span>, B.A.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">PHILIPPIANS.</span> +By Rev. Principal <span class="smcap">Rainy</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">Alex. Maclaren</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THESSALONIANS.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">James Denney</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE PASTORAL EPISTLES.</span> +By Rev. A. <span class="smcap">Plummer</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">HEBREWS.</span> +By Rev. Principal T. C. <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE EPISTLES OF ST. JAMES AND ST. JUDE.</span> +By Rev. <span class="smcap">A. Plummer</span>, D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE EPISTLES OF ST. PETER.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">Lumby,</span> D.D.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN.</span> +By the Most Rev. <span class="smcap">W. Alexander</span>, D.D., Lord Archbishop of Armagh.</p> + +<p class="hanga"><span class="booksp">THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION.</span> +By Rev. Prof. <span class="smcap">W. Milligan</span>, D.D.</p> + +<hr class="titlerule" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">London: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row.</span></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and +Philemon, by Alexander Maclaren + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON *** + +***** This file should be named 37345-h.htm or 37345-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/3/4/37345/ + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and Philemon + +Author: Alexander Maclaren + +Editor: W. Robertson Nicoll + +Release Date: September 7, 2011 [EBook #37345] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON *** + + + + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + [Transcriber's Note: + + A few minor typographical errors and inconsistencies have been + silently corrected. + + All advertising material has been placed at the end of the text.] + + + + + THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE + + + EDITED BY THE REV. + W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + + _Editor of "The Expositor," etc._ + + + COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON + + BY + ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. + + + London + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW + + MCMII + + + + + THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL + TO + THE COLOSSIANS + AND + PHILEMON + + BY + ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. + + + _TENTH EDITION_ + + + London: + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + 27, PATERNOSTER ROW + + MCMII + + + + + _Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + _THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS._ + + PAGE + Chap. I. v. 1, 2. The Writer and the Readers 1 + v. 3-8. The Prelude 21 + v. 9-12. The Prayer 38 + v. 12-14. The Father's Gifts through the Son 54 + v. 15-18. The Glory of the Son in His Relation to + the Father, the Universe, and the Church 70 + v. 19-22. The Reconciling Son 85 + v. 22, 23. The Ultimate Purpose of Reconciliation + and its Human Conditions 100 + v. 24-27. Joy in Suffering, and Triumph in the + Manifested Mystery 116 + v. 28, 29. The Christian Ministry in its Theme, + Methods, and Aim 132 + + Chap. II. v. 1-3. Paul's Striving for the Colossians 151 + v. 4-7. Conciliatory and Hortatory Transition + to Polemics 168 + v. 8-10. The Bane and the Antidote 185 + v. 11-13. The True Circumcision 199 + v. 14, 15. The Cross the Death of Law and the + Triumph over Evil Powers 213 + v. 16-19. Warnings against Twin Chief Errors + based upon Previous Positive Teaching 226 + v. 20-23. Two Final Tests of the False Teaching 242 + + Chap. III. v. 1-4. The Present Christian Life a Risen Life 257 + v. 5-9. Slaying Self the Foundation Precept of + Practical Christianity 271 + v. 9-11. The New Nature wrought out in New Life 290 + v. 12-14. The Garments of the Renewed Soul 305 + v. 15-17. The Practical Effects of the Peace of + Christ, the Word of Christ, and the + Name of Christ 320 + v. 18, Ch. iv., 1. The Christian Family 335 + + Chap. IV. v. 2-6. Precepts for the Innermost and + Outermost Life 354 + v. 7-9. Tychicus and Onesimus, the Letter-Bearers 371 + v. 10-14. Salutations from the Prisoner's Friends 386 + v. 15-18. Closing Messages 402 + + + _THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON._ + + Chap. I. v. 1-3 417 + v. 4-7 432 + v. 8-11 447 + v. 12-14 459 + v. 15-19 470 + v. 20-25 483 + + + + +I. + +_THE WRITER AND THE READERS._ + + "Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and + Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ + which are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our + Father."--COL. i, 1, 2 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We may say that each of Paul's greater epistles has in it one salient +thought. In that to the Romans, it is Justification by faith; in +Ephesians, it is the mystical union of Christ and His Church; in +Philippians, it is the joy of Christian progress; in this epistle, it is +the dignity and sole sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and +Head of all creation and of the Church. + +Such a thought is emphatically a lesson for the day. + +The Christ whom the world needs to have proclaimed in every deaf ear and +lifted up before blind and reluctant eyes, is not merely the perfect +man, nor only the meek sufferer, but the Source of creation and its +Lord, Who from the beginning has been the life of all that has lived, +and before the beginning was in the bosom of the Father. The shallow and +starved religion which contents itself with mere humanitarian +conceptions of Jesus of Nazareth needs to be deepened and filled out by +these lofty truths before it can acquire solidity and steadfastness +sufficient to be the unmoved foundation of sinful and mortal lives. The +evangelistic teaching which concentrates exclusive attention on the +cross as "the work of Christ," needs to be led to the contemplation of +them, in order to understand the cross, and to have its mystery as well +as its meaning declared. This letter itself dwells upon two applications +of its principles to two classes of error which, in somewhat changed +forms, exist now as then--the error of the ceremonialist, to whom +religion was mainly a matter of ritual, and the error of the speculative +thinker, to whom the universe was filled with forces which left no room +for the working of a personal Will. The vision of the living Christ Who +fills all things, is held up before each of these two, as the antidote +to his poison; and that same vision must be made clear to-day to the +modern representatives of these ancient errors. If we are able to grasp +with heart and mind the principles of this epistle for ourselves, we +shall stand at the centre of things, seeing order where from any other +position confusion only is apparent, and being at the point of rest +instead of being hurried along by the wild whirl of conflicting +opinions. + +I desire, therefore, to present the teachings of this great epistle in a +series of expositions. + +Before advancing to the consideration of these verses, we must deal with +one or two introductory matters, so as to get the frame and the +background for the picture. + +(1) First, as to the Church of Colossae to which the letter is addressed. + +Perhaps too much has been made of late years of geographical and +topographical elucidations of Paul's epistles. A knowledge of the place +to which a letter was sent cannot do much to help in understanding the +letter, for local circumstances leave very faint traces, if any, on the +Apostle's writings. Here and there an allusion may be detected, or a +metaphor may gain in point by such knowledge; but, for the most part, +local colouring is entirely absent. Some slight indication, however, of +the situation and circumstances of the Colossian Church may help to give +vividness to our conceptions of the little community to whom this rich +treasure of truth was first entrusted. + +Colossae was a town in the heart of the modern Asia Minor, much decayed +in Paul's time from its earlier importance. It lay in a valley of +Phrygia, on the banks of a small stream, the Lycus, down the course of +which, at a distance of some ten miles or so, two very much more +important cities fronted each other, Hierapolis on the north, and +Laodicea on the south bank of the river. In all three cities were +Christian Churches, as we know from this letter, one of which has +attained the bad eminence of having become the type of tepid religion +for all the world. How strange to think of the tiny community in a +remote valley of Asia Minor, eighteen centuries since, thus gibbeted for +ever! These stray beams of light which fall upon the people in the New +Testament, showing them fixed for ever in one attitude, like a lightning +flash in the darkness, are solemn precursors of the last Apocalypse, +when all men shall be revealed in "the brightness of His coming." + +Paul does not seem to have been the founder of these Churches, or ever +to have visited them at the date of this letter. That opinion is based +on several of its characteristics, such, for instance, as the absence +of any of those kindly greetings to individuals which in the Apostle's +other letters are so abundant, and reveal at once the warmth and the +delicacy of his affection: and the allusions which occur more than once +to his having only "_heard_" of their faith and love, and is strongly +supported by the expression in the second chapter where he speaks of the +conflict in spirit which he had for "you, and for them at Laodicea, and +for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh." Probably the teacher +who planted the gospel in Colossae was that Epaphras, whose visit to Rome +occasioned the letter, and who is referred to in verse 7 of this chapter +in terms which seem to suggest that he had first made known to them the +fruit-producing "word of the truth of the gospel." + +(2) Note the occasion and subject of the letter. Paul is a prisoner, in +a certain sense, in Rome; but the word prisoner conveys a false +impression of the amount of restriction of personal liberty to which he +was subjected. We know from the last words of the Acts of the Apostles, +and from the Epistle to the Philippians, that his "imprisonment" did not +in the least interfere with his liberty of preaching, nor with his +intercourse with friends. Rather, in the view of the facilities it gave +that by him "the preaching might be fully known," it may be regarded, as +indeed the writer of the Acts seems to regard it, as the very climax and +topstone of Paul's work, wherewith his history may fitly end, leaving +the champion of the gospel at the very heart of the world, with +unhindered liberty to proclaim his message by the very throne of Caesar. +He was sheltered rather than confined beneath the wing of the imperial +eagle. His imprisonment, as we call it, was, at all events at first, +detention in Rome under military supervision rather than incarceration. +So to his lodgings in Rome there comes a brother from this decaying +little town in the far-off valley of the Lycus, Epaphras by name. +Whether his errand was exclusively to consult Paul about the state of +the Colossian Church, or whether some other business also had brought +him to Rome, we do not know; at all events, he comes and brings with him +bad news, which burdens Paul's heart with solicitude for the little +community, which had no remembrances of his own authoritative teaching +to fall back upon. Many a night would he and Epaphras spend in deep +converse on the matter, with the stolid Roman legionary, to whom Paul +was chained, sitting wearily by, while they two eagerly talked. + +The tidings were that a strange disease, hatched in that hotbed of +religious fancies, the dreamy East, was threatening the faith of the +Colossian Christians. A peculiar form of heresy, singularly compounded +of Jewish ritualism and Oriental mysticism--two elements as hard to +blend in the foundation of a system as the heterogeneous iron and clay +on which the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream stood unstably--had +appeared among them, and though at present confined to a few, was being +vigorously preached. The characteristic Eastern dogma, that matter is +evil and the source of evil, which underlies so much Oriental religion, +and crept in so early to corrupt Christianity, and crops up to-day in so +many strange places and unexpected ways, had begun to infect them. The +conclusion was quickly drawn: "Well, then, if matter be the source of +all evil, then, of course, God and matter must be antagonistic," and so +the creation and government of this material universe could not be +supposed to have come directly from Him. The endeavour to keep the pure +Divinity and the gross world as far apart as possible, while yet an +intellectual necessity forbad the entire breaking of the bond between +them, led to the busy working of the imagination, which spanned the void +gulf between God Who is good, and matter which is evil, with a bridge of +cobwebs--a chain of intermediate beings, emanations, abstractions, each +approaching more nearly to the material than his precursor, till at last +the intangible and infinite was confined and curdled into actual earthly +matter, and the pure was darkened thereby into evil. + +Such notions, fantastic and remote from daily life as they look, really +led by a very short cut to making wild work with the plainest moral +teachings both of the natural conscience and of Christianity. For if +matter be the source of all evil, then the fountain of each man's sin is +to be found, not in his own perverted will, but in his body, and the +cure of it is to be reached, not by faith which plants a new life in a +sinful spirit, but simply by ascetic mortification of the flesh. + +Strangely united with these mystical Eastern teachings, which might so +easily be perverted to the coarsest sensuality, and had their heads in +the clouds and their feet in the mud, were the narrowest doctrines of +Jewish ritualism, insisting on circumcision, laws regulating food, the +observance of feast days, and the whole cumbrous apparatus of a +ceremonial religion. It is a monstrous combination, a cross between a +Talmudical rabbi and a Buddhist priest, and yet it is not unnatural +that, after soaring in these lofty regions of speculation where the air +is too thin to support life, men should be glad to get hold of the +externals of an elaborate ritual. It is not the first nor the last time +that a misplaced philosophical religion has got close to a religion of +outward observances, to keep it from shivering itself to death. Extremes +meet. If you go far enough east, you are west. + +Such, generally speaking, was the error that was beginning to lift its +head in Colossae. Religious fanaticism was at home in that country, from +which, both in heathen and in Christian times, wild rites and notions +emanated, and the Apostle might well dread the effect of this new +teaching, as of a spark on hay, on the excitable natures of the +Colossian converts. + +Now we may say, "What does all this matter to us? We are in no danger of +being haunted by the ghosts of these dead heresies." But the truth which +Paul opposed to them is all important for every age. It was simply the +Person of Christ as the only manifestation of the Divine, the link +between God and the universe, its Creator and Preserver, the Light and +Life of men, the Lord and Inspirer of the Church, Christ has come, +laying His hand upon both God and man, therefore there is no need nor +place for a misty crowd of angelic beings or shadowy abstractions to +bridge the gulf across which His incarnation flings its single solid +arch. Christ has been bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, therefore +that cannot be the source of evil in which the fulness of the Godhead +has dwelt as in a shrine. Christ has come, the fountain of life and +holiness, therefore there is no more place for ascetic mortifications on +the one hand, nor for Jewish scrupulosities on the other. These things +might detract from the completeness of faith in the complete redemption +which Christ has wrought, and must becloud the truth that simple faith +in it is all which a man needs. + +To urge these and the like truths this letter is written. Its central +principle is the sovereign and exclusive mediation of Jesus Christ, the +God-man, the victorious antagonist of these dead speculations, and the +destined conqueror of all the doubts and confusions of this day. If we +grasp with mind and heart that truth, we can possess our souls in +patience, and in its light see light where else is darkness and +uncertainty. + + * * * * * + +So much then for introduction, and now a few words of comment on the +superscription of the letter contained in these verses. + +I. Notice the blending of lowliness and authority in Paul's designation +of himself. "An Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God." + +He does not always bring his apostolic authority to mind at the +beginning of his letters. In his earliest epistles, those to the +Thessalonians, he has not yet adopted the practice. In the loving and +joyous letter to the Philippians, he has no need to urge his authority, +for no man among them ever gainsaid it. In that to Philemon, friendship +is uppermost, and though, as he says, he might be much bold to enjoin, +yet he prefers to beseech, and will not command as "Apostle," but pleads +as "the prisoner of Christ Jesus." In his other letters he put his +authority in the foreground as here, and it may be noticed that it and +its basis in the will of God are asserted with greatest emphasis in the +Epistle to the Galatians, where he has to deal with more defiant +opposition than elsewhere encountered him. + +Here he puts forth his claim to the apostolate, in the highest sense of +the word. He asserts his equality with the original Apostles, the chosen +witnesses for the reality of Christ's resurrection. He, too, had seen +the risen Lord, and heard the words of His mouth. He shared with them +the prerogative of certifying from personal experience that Jesus is +risen and lives to bless and rule. Paul's whole Christianity was built +on the belief that Jesus Christ had actually appeared to him. That +vision on the road to Damascus revolutionised his life. Because he had +seen his Lord and heard his duty from His lips, he had become what he +was. + +"Through the will of God" is at once an assertion of Divine authority, a +declaration of independence of all human teaching or appointment, and a +most lowly disclaimer of individual merit, or personal power. Few +religious teachers have had so strongly marked a character as Paul, or +have so constantly brought their own experience into prominence; but the +weight which he expected to be attached to his words was to be due +entirely to their being the words which God spoke through him. If this +opening clause were to be paraphrased it would be: I speak to you +because God has sent me. I am not an Apostle by my own will, nor by my +own merit. I am not worthy to be called an Apostle. I am a poor sinner +like yourselves, and it is a miracle of love and mercy that God should +put His words into such lips. But He does speak through me; my words are +neither mine nor learned from any other man, but His. Never mind the +cracked pipe through which the Divine breath makes music, but listen to +the music. + +So Paul thought of his message; so the uncompromising assertion of +authority was united with deep humility. Do we come to his words, +believing that we hear God speaking through Paul? Here is no formal +doctrine of inspiration, but here is the claim to be the organ of the +Divine will and mind, to which we ought to listen as indeed the voice of +God. + +The gracious humility of the man is further seen in his association with +himself, as joint senders of the letter, of his young brother Timothy, +who has no apostolic authority, but whose concurrence in its teaching +might give it some additional weight. For the first few verses he +remembers to speak in the plural, as in the name of both--"_we_ give +thanks," "Epaphras declared to _us_ your love," and so on; but in the +fiery sweep of his thoughts Timothy is soon left out of sight, and Paul +alone pours out the wealth of his Divine wisdom and the warmth of his +fervid heart. + +II. We may observe the noble ideal of the Christian character set forth +in the designations of the Colossian Church, as "saints and faithful +brethren in Christ." + +In his earlier letters Paul addresses himself to "the Church;" in his +later, beginning with the Epistle to the Romans, and including the three +great epistles from his captivity, namely, Ephesians, Philippians, and +Colossians, he drops the word Church, and uses expressions which regard +the individuals composing the community rather than the community which +they compose. The slight change thus indicated in the Apostle's point of +view is interesting, however it may be accounted for. There is no reason +to suppose it done of set purpose, and certainly it did not arise from +any lowered estimate of the sacredness of "the Church," which is nowhere +put on higher ground than in the letter to Ephesus, which belongs to the +later period; but it may be that advancing years and familiarity with +his work, with his position of authority, and with his auditors, all +tended to draw him closer to them, and insensibly led to the disuse of +the more formal and official address to "the Church" in favour of the +simpler and more affectionate superscription, to "the brethren." + +Be that as it may, the lessons to be drawn from the names here given to +the members of the Church are the more important matter for us. It would +be interesting and profitable to examine the meaning of all the New +Testament names for believers, and to learn the lessons which they +teach; but we must for the present confine ourselves to those which +occur here. + +"Saints"--a word that has been wofully misapplied both by the Church and +the world. The former has given it as a special honour to a few, and +"decorated" with it mainly the possessors of a false ideal of +sanctity--that of the ascetic and monastic sort. The latter uses it with +a sarcastic intonation, as if it implied much cry and little wool, loud +professions and small performance, not without a touch of hypocrisy and +crafty self-seeking. + +Saints are not people living in cloisters after a fantastic ideal, but +men and women immersed in the vulgar work of every-day life and worried +by the small prosaic anxieties which fret us all, who amidst the whirr +of the spindle in the mill, and the clink of the scales on the counter, +and the hubbub of the market-place and the jangle of the courts, are yet +living lives of conscious devotion to God. The root idea of the word, +which is an Old Testament word, is not moral purity, but separation to +God. The holy things of the old covenant were things set apart from +ordinary use for His service. So, on the high priest's mitre was written +Holiness to the Lord. So the Sabbath was kept "holy," because set apart +from the week in obedience to Divine command. + +_Sanctity_, and _saint_, are used now mainly with the idea of moral +purity, but that is a secondary meaning. The real primary signification +is separation to God. Consecration to Him is the root from which the +white flower of purity springs most surely. There is a deep lesson in +the word as to the true method of attaining cleanness of life and +spirit. We cannot make ourselves pure, but we can yield ourselves to God +and the purity will come. + +But we have not only here the fundamental idea of holiness, and the +connection of purity of character with self-consecration to God, but +also the solemn obligation on all so-called Christians thus to separate +and devote themselves to Him. We are Christians as far as we give +ourselves up to God, in the surrender of our wills and the practical +obedience of our lives--so far and not one inch further. We are not +merely bound to this consecration if we are Christians, but we are not +Christians unless we thus consecrate ourselves. Pleasing self, and +making my own will my law, and living for my own ends, is destructive of +all Christianity. Saints are not an eminent sort of Christians, but all +Christians are saints, and he who is not a saint is not a Christian. The +true consecration is the surrender of the will, which no man can do for +us, which needs no outward ceremonial, and the one motive which will +lead us selfish and stubborn men to bow our necks to that gentle yoke, +and to come out of the misery of pleasing self into the peace of serving +God, is drawn from the great love of Him Who devoted Himself to God and +man, and bought us for His own by giving Himself utterly to be ours. All +sanctity begins with consecration to God. All consecration rests upon +the faith of Christ's sacrifice. And if, drawn by the great love of +Christ to us unworthy, we give ourselves away to God in Him, then He +gives Himself in deep sacred communion to us. "I am thine" has ever for +its chord which completes the fulness of its music, "Thou art mine." And +so "saint" is a name of dignity and honour, as well as a stringent +requirement. There is implied in it, too, safety from all that would +threaten life or union with Him. He will not hold His possessions with a +slack hand that negligently lets them drop, or with a feeble hand that +cannot keep them from a foe. "Thou wilt not suffer him who is +consecrated to Thee to see corruption." If I belong to God, having given +myself to Him, then I am safe from the touch of evil and the taint of +decay. "The Lord's portion is His people," and He will not lose even so +worthless a part of that portion as I am. The great name "saints" +carries with it the prophecy of victory over all evil, and the +assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God, or pluck us +from His hand. + +But these Colossian Christians are "faithful" as well as saints. That +may either mean _trustworthy_ and _true_ to their stewardship, or +_trusting_. In the parallel verses in the Epistle to the Ephesians +(which presents so many resemblances to this epistle) the latter meaning +seems to be required, and here it is certainly the more natural, as +pointing to the very foundation of all Christian consecration and +brotherhood in the act of believing. We are united to Christ by our +faith. The Church is a family of faithful, that is to say of believing, +men. Faith underlies consecration and is the parent of holiness, for he +only will yield himself to God who trustfully grasps the mercies of God +and rests on Christ's great gift of Himself. Faith weaves the bond that +unites men in the brotherhood of the Church, for it brings all who share +it into a common relation to the Father. He who is faithful, that is, +believing, will be faithful in the sense of being worthy of confidence +and true to his duty, his profession, and his Lord. + +They were _brethren_ too. That strong new bond of union among men the +most unlike, was a strange phenomenon in Paul's time, when the Roman +world was falling to pieces, and rent by deep clefts of hatreds and +jealousies such as modern society scarcely knows; and men might well +wonder as they saw the slave and his master sitting at the same table, +the Greek and the barbarian learning the same wisdom in the same tongue, +the Jew and the Gentile bowing the knee in the same worship, and the +hearts of all fused into one great glow of helpful sympathy and +unselfish love. + +But "brethren" means more than this. It points not merely to Christian +love, but to the common possession of a new life. If we are brethren, it +is because we have one Father, because in us all there is one life. The +name is often regarded as sentimental and metaphorical. The obligation +of mutual love is supposed to be the main idea in it, and there is a +melancholy hollowness and unreality in the very sound of it as applied +to the usual average Christians of to-day. But the name leads straight +to the doctrine of regeneration, and proclaims that all Christians are +born again through their faith in Jesus Christ, and thereby partake of a +common new life, which makes all its possessors children of the Highest, +and therefore brethren one of another. If regarded as an expression of +the affection of Christians for one another, "brethren" is an +exaggeration, ludicrous or tragic, as we view it; but if we regard it as +the expression of the real bond which gathers all believers into one +family, it declares the deepest mystery and mightiest privilege of the +gospel that "to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become +the Sons of God." + +They are "in Christ." These two words may apply to all the designations +or to the last only. They are saints in Him, believers in Him, brethren +in Him. That mystical but most real union of Christians with their Lord +is never far away from the Apostle's thoughts, and in the twin Epistle +to the Ephesians is the very burden of the whole. A shallower +Christianity tries to weaken that great phrase to something more +intelligible to the unspiritual temper and the poverty-stricken +experience proper to it; but no justice can be done to Paul's teaching +unless it be taken in all its depth as expressive of that same mutual +indwelling and interlacing of spirit with spirit which is so prominent +in the writings of the Apostle John. _There_ is one point of contact +between the Pauline and the Johannean conceptions, on the differences +between which so much exaggeration has been expended: to both the inmost +essence of the Christian life is union to Christ, and abiding in Him. If +we are Christians, we are in Him, in yet profounder sense than creation +lives and moves and has its being in God. We are in Him as the earth +with all its living things is in the atmosphere, as the branch is in the +vine, as the members are in the body. We are in Him as inhabitants in a +house, as hearts that love in hearts that love, as parts in the whole. +If we are Christians, He is in us, as life in every vein, as the +fruit-producing sap and energy of the vine is in every branch, as the +air in every lung, as the sunlight in every planet. + +This is the deepest mystery of the Christian life. To be "in Him" is to +be complete. "In Him" we are "blessed with all spiritual blessings." "In +Him", we are "chosen," "In Him," God "freely bestows His grace upon us." +"In Him" we "have redemption through His blood." "In Him" "all things in +heaven and earth are gathered." "In Him we have obtained an +inheritance." In Him is the better life of all who live. In Him we have +peace though the world be seething with change and storm. In Him we +conquer though earth and our own evil be all in arms against us. If we +live in Him, we live in purity and joy. If we die in Him, we die in +tranquil trust. If our gravestones may truly carry the sweet old +inscription carved on so many a nameless slab in the catacombs, "In +Christo," they will also bear the other "In pace" (In peace). If we +sleep in Him, our glory is assured, for them also that sleep in Jesus, +will God bring with Him. + +III. A word or two only can be devoted to the last clause of salutation, +the apostolic wish, which sets forth the high ideal to be desired for +Churches and individuals: "Grace be unto and peace from God our Father." +The Authorized Version reads, "and the Lord Jesus Christ," but the +Revised Version follows the majority of recent text-critics and their +principal authorities in omitting these words, which are supposed to +have been imported into our passage from the parallel place in +Ephesians. The omission of these familiar words which occur so uniformly +in the similar introductory salutations of Paul's other epistles, is +especially singular here, where the main subject of the letter is the +office of Christ as channel of all blessings. Perhaps the previous word, +"brethren" was lingering in his mind, and so instinctively he stopped +with the kindred word "Father." + +"Grace and peace"--Paul's wishes for those whom he loves, and the +blessings which he expects every Christian to possess, blend the Western +and the Eastern forms of salutation, and surpass both. All that the +Greek meant by his "Grace," all that the Hebrew meant by his "Peace," +the ideally happy condition which differing nations have placed in +different blessings, and which all loving words have vainly wished for +dear ones, is secured and conveyed to every poor soul that trusts in +Christ. + +"Grace"--what is that? The word means first--love in exercise to those +who are below the lover, or who deserve something else; stooping love +that condescends, and patient love that forgives. Then it means the +gifts which such love bestows, and then it means the effects of these +gifts in the beauties of character and conduct developed in the +receivers. So there are here invoked, or we may call it, proffered and +promised, to every believing heart, the love and gentleness of that +Father whose love to us sinful atoms is a miracle of lowliness and +longsuffering; and, next, the outcome of that love which never visits +the soul emptyhanded, in all varied spiritual gifts, to strengthen +weakness, to enlighten ignorance, to fill the whole being; and as last +result of all, every beauty of mind, heart, and temper which can adorn +the character, and refine a man into the likeness of God. That great +gift will come in continuous bestowment if we are "saints in Christ." Of +His fulness we all receive and grace for grace, wave upon wave as the +ripples press shoreward and each in turn pours its tribute on the beach, +or as pulsation after pulsation makes one golden beam of unbroken light, +strong winged enough to come all the way from the sun, gentle enough to +fall on the sensitive eyeball without pain. That one beam will decompose +into all colours and brightnesses. That one "grace" will part into +sevenfold gifts and be the life in us of whatsoever things are lovely +and of good report. + +"Peace be unto you." That old greeting, the witness of a state of +society when every stranger seen across the desert was probably an +enemy, is also a witness to the deep unrest of the heart. It is well to +learn the lesson that peace comes after grace, that for tranquillity of +soul we must go to God, and that He gives it by giving us His love and +its gifts, of which, and of which only, peace is the result. If we have +that grace for ours, as we all may if we will, we shall be still, +because our desires are satisfied and all our needs met. To seek is +unnecessary when we are conscious of possessing. We may end our weary +quest, like the dove when it had found the green leaf, though little dry +land may be seen as yet, and fold our wings and rest by the cross. We +may be lapped in calm repose, even in the midst of toil and strife, like +John resting on the heart of his Lord. There must be first of all, peace +_with_ God, that there may be peace _from_ God. Then, when we have been +won from our alienation and enmity by the power of the cross, and have +learned to know that God is our Lover, Friend and Father, we shall +possess the peace of those whose hearts have found their home, the peace +of spirits no longer at war within--conscience and choice tearing them +asunder in their strife, the peace of obedience which banishes the +disturbance of self-will, the peace of security shaken by no fears, the +peace of a sure future across the brightness of which no shadows of +sorrow nor mists of uncertainty can fall, the peace of a heart in amity +with all mankind. So living in peace, we shall lay ourselves down and +die in peace, and enter into "that country, afar beyond the stars," +where "grows the flower of peace." + + "The Rose that cannot wither, + Thy fortress and thy ease." + +All this may be ours. Paul could only wish it for these Colossians. We +can only long for it for our dearest. No man can fulfil his wishes or +turn them into actual gifts. Many precious things we can give, but not +peace. But our brother, Jesus Christ, can do more than wish it. He can +bestow it, and when we need it most, He stands ever beside us, in our +weakness and unrest, with His strong arm stretched out to help, and on +His calm lips the old words--"My grace is sufficient for thee," "My +peace I give unto you." + +Let us keep ourselves in Him, believing in Him and yielding ourselves to +God for His dear sake, and we shall find His grace ever flowing into our +emptiness and His settled "peace keeping our hearts and minds in Christ +Jesus." + + + + +II. + +_THE PRELUDE._ + + "We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying + always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of + the love which ye have toward all the saints, because of the hope + which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in + the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you; even as + it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth + in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God in + truth; even as ye learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant, + who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, who also + declared to us your love in the Spirit."--COL. i. 3-8. (Rev. Ver.). + + +This long introductory section may at first sight give the impression of +confusion, from the variety of subjects introduced. But a little thought +about it shows it to be really a remarkable specimen of the Apostle's +delicate tact, born of his love and earnestness. Its purpose is to +prepare a favourable reception for his warnings and arguments against +errors which had crept in, and in his judgment were threatening to sweep +away the Colossian Christians from their allegiance to Christ, and their +faith in the gospel as it had been originally preached to them by +Epaphras. That design explains the selection of topics in these verses, +and their weaving together. + +Before he warns and rebukes, Paul begins by giving the Colossians credit +for all the good which he can find in them. As soon as he opens his +mouth, he asserts the claims and authority, the truth and power of the +gospel which he preaches, and from which all this good in them had come, +and which had proved that it came from God by its diffusiveness and +fruitfulness. He reminds them of their beginnings in the Christian life, +with which this new teaching was utterly inconsistent, and he flings his +shield over Epaphras, their first teacher, whose words were in danger of +being neglected now for newer voices with other messages. + +Thus skilfully and lovingly these verses touch a prelude which naturally +prepares for the theme of the epistle. Remonstrance and rebuke would +more often be effective if they oftener began with showing the rebuker's +love, and with frank acknowledgment of good in the rebuked. + +I. We have first a thankful recognition of Christian excellence as +introductory to warnings and remonstrances. + +Almost all Paul's letters begin with similar expressions of thankfulness +for the good that was in the Church he is addressing. Gentle rain +softens the ground and prepares it to receive the heavier downfall which +would else mostly run off the hard surface. The exceptions are, 2 +Corinthians; Ephesians, which was probably a circular letter; and +Galatians, which is too hot throughout for such praises. These +expressions are not compliments, or words of course. Still less are they +flattery used for personal ends. They are the uncalculated and +uncalculating expression of affection which delights to see white +patches in the blackest character, and of wisdom which knows that the +nauseous medicine of blame is most easily taken if administered wrapped +in a capsule of honest praise. + +All persons in authority over others, such as masters, parents, leaders +of any sort, may be the better for taking the lesson--"provoke not +your"--inferiors, dependents, scholars--"to wrath, lest they be +discouraged"--and deal out praise where you can, with a liberal hand. It +is nourishing food for many virtues, and a powerful antidote to many +vices. + +This praise is cast in the form of thanksgiving to God, as the true +fountain of all that is good in men. How all that might be harmful in +direct praise is strained out of it, when it becomes gratitude to God! +But we need not dwell on this, nor on the principle underlying these +thanks, namely that Christian men's excellences are God's gift, and that +therefore, admiration of the man should ever be subordinate to +thankfulness to God. The fountain, not the pitcher filled from it, +should have the credit of the crystal purity and sparkling coolness of +the water. Nor do we need to do more than point to the inference from +that phrase "having _heard_ of your faith," an inference confirmed by +other statements in the letter, namely, that the Apostle himself had +never _seen_ the Colossian Church. But we briefly emphasize the two +points which occasioned his thankfulness. They are the familiar two, +_faith_ and _love_. + +Faith is sometimes spoken of in the New Testament as "_towards_ Christ +Jesus," which describes that great act of the soul by its direction, as +if it were a going out or flight of the man's nature to the true goal of +all active being. It is sometimes spoken of as "_on_ Christ Jesus," +which describes it as reposing on Him as the end of all seeking, and +suggests such images as that of a hand that leans or of a burden borne, +or a weakness upheld by contact with Him. But more sweet and great is +the blessedness of faith considered as "_in_ Him," as its abiding place +and fortress-home, in union with, and indwelling in whom the seeking +spirit may fold its wings, and the weak heart may be strengthened to +lift its burden cheerily, heavy though it be, and the soul may be full +of tranquillity and soothed into a great calm. _Towards_, _on_, and +_in_--so manifold are the phases of the relation between Christ and our +faith. + +In all, faith is the same,--simple confidence, precisely like the trust +which we put in one another. But how unlike are the objects!--broken +reeds of human nature in the one case, and the firm pillar of that +Divine power and tenderness in the other, and how unlike, alas! is the +fervency and constancy of the trust we exercise in each other and in +Christ! "Faith" covers the whole ground of man's relation to God. All +religion, all devotion, everything which binds us to the unseen world is +included in or evolved from faith. And mark that this faith is, in +Paul's teaching, the foundation of love to men and of everything else +good and fair. We may agree or disagree with that thought, but we can +scarcely fail to see that it is the foundation of all his moral +teaching. From that fruitful source all good will come. From that deep +fountain sweet water will flow, and all drawn from other sources has a +tang of bitterness. Goodness of all kinds is most surely evolved from +faith--and that faith lacks its best warrant of reality which does not +lead to whatsoever things are lovely and of good report. Barnabas was a +"good man," because, as Luke goes on to tell us by way of analysis of +the sources of his goodness, he was "full of the Holy Ghost," the +author of all goodness, "and of faith" by which that Inspirer of all +beauty of purity dwells in men's hearts. Faith then is the germ of +goodness, not because of anything in itself, but because by it we come +under the influence of the Divine Spirit whose breath is life and +holiness. + +Therefore we say to every one who is seeking to train his character in +excellence, begin with trusting Christ, and out of that will come all +lustre and whiteness, all various beauties of mind and heart. It is hard +and hopeless work to cultivate our own thorns into grapes, but if we +will trust Christ, He will sow good seed in our field and "make it soft +with showers and bless the springing thereof." + +As faith is the foundation of all virtue, so it is the parent of love, +and as the former sums up every bond that knits men to God, so the +latter includes all relations of men to each other, and is the whole law +of human conduct packed into one word. But the warmest place in a +Christian's heart will belong to those who are in sympathy with his +deepest self, and a true faith in Christ, like a true loyalty to a +prince, will weave a special bond between all fellow-subjects. So the +sign, on the surface of earthly relations, of the deep-lying central +fire of faith to Christ, is the fruitful vintage of brotherly love, as +the vineyards bear the heaviest clusters on the slopes of Vesuvius. +Faith in Christ and love to Christians--that is the Apostle's notion of +a good man. That is the ideal of character which we have to set before +ourselves. Do we desire to be good? Let us trust Christ. Do we profess +to trust Christ? Let us show it by the true proof--our goodness and +especially our love. + +So we have here two members of the familiar triad, Faith and Love, and +their sister Hope is not far off. We read in the next clause, "because +of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens." The connection is +not altogether plain. Is the hope the reason for the Apostle's +thanksgiving, or the reason in some sense of the Colossians' love? As +far as the language goes, we may either read "We give thanks ... because +of the hope," or "the love which ye have ... because of the hope." But +the long distance which we have to go back for the connection, if we +adopt the former explanation, and other considerations which need not be +entered on here, seem to make the latter the preferable construction if +it yields a tolerable sense. Does it? Is it allowable to say that the +hope which is laid up in heaven is in any sense a reason or motive for +brotherly love? I think it is. + +Observe that "hope" here is best taken as meaning not the emotion, but +the object on which the emotion is fixed; not the faculty, but the thing +hoped for; or in other words, that it is objective not subjective; and +also that the ideas of futurity and security are conveyed by the thought +of this object of expectation being laid up. This future blessedness, +grasped by our expectant hearts as assured for us, does stimulate and +hearten to all well-doing. Certainly it does not supply the main reason; +we are not to be loving and good because we hope to win heaven thereby. +The deepest motive for all the graces of Christian character is the will +of God in Christ Jesus, apprehended by loving hearts. But it is quite +legitimate to draw subordinate motives for the strenuous pursuit of +holiness from the anticipation of future blessedness, and it is quite +legitimate to use that prospect to reinforce the higher motives. He who +seeks to be good only for the sake of the heaven which he thinks he will +get for his goodness--if there be any such a person existing anywhere +but in the imaginations of the caricaturists of Christian teaching--is +not good and will not get his heaven; but he who feeds his devotion to +Christ and his earnest cultivation of holiness with the animating hope +of an unfading crown will find in it a mighty power to intensify and +ennoble all life, to bear him up as on angel's hands that lift over all +stones of stumbling, to diminish sorrow and dull pain, to kindle love to +men into a brighter flame, and to purge holiness to a more radiant +whiteness. The hope laid up in heaven is not the deepest reason or +motive for faith and love--but both are made more vivid when it is +strong. It is not the light at which their lamps are lit, but it is the +odorous oil which feeds their flame. + +II. The course of thought passes on to a solemn reminder of the truth +and worth of that Gospel which was threatened by the budding heresies of +the Colossian Church. + +That is contained in the clauses from the middle of the fifth verse to +the end of the sixth, and is introduced with significant abruptness, +immediately after the commendation of the Colossians' faith. The +Apostle's mind and heart are so full of the dangers which he saw them to +be in, although they did not know it, that he cannot refrain from +setting forth an impressive array of considerations, each of which +should make them hold to the gospel with an iron grasp. They are put +with the utmost compression. Each word almost might be beaten out into a +long discourse, so that we can only indicate the lines of thought. This +somewhat tangled skein may, on the whole, be taken as the answer to the +question, Why should we cleave to Paul's gospel, and dread and war +against tendencies of opinion that would rob us of it? They are +preliminary considerations adapted to prepare the way for a patient and +thoughtful reception of the arguments which are to follow, by showing +how much is at stake, and how the readers would be poor indeed if they +were robbed of that great Word. + +He begins by reminding them that to that gospel they owed all _their +knowledge and hope of heaven_--the hope "whereof ye heard before in the +word of the truth of the gospel." That great word alone gives light on +the darkness. The sole certainty of a life beyond the grave is built on +the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the sole hope of a blessed life +beyond the grave for the poor soul that has learned its sinfulness is +built on the Death of Christ. Without this light, that land is a land of +darkness, lighted only by glimmering sparks of conjectures and +peradventures. So it is to-day, as it was then; the centuries have only +made more clear the entire dependence of the living conviction of +immortality on the acceptance of Paul's gospel, "how that Christ died +for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was raised again +the third day." All around us, we see those who reject the fact of +Christ's resurrection finding themselves forced to surrender their faith +in any life beyond. They cannot sustain themselves on that height of +conviction, unless they lean on Christ. The black mountain wall that +rings us poor mortals round about is cloven in one place only. Through +one narrow cleft there comes a gleam of light. There and there only is +the frowning barrier passable. Through that grim canyon, narrow and +black, where there is only room for the dark river to run, bright-eyed +Hope may travel, letting our her golden thread as she goes, to guide us. +Christ has cloven the rock, "the Breaker has gone up before" us, and by +His resurrection alone we have the knowledge which is certitude, and the +hope which is confidence, of an inheritance in light. If Paul's gospel +goes, that goes like morning mist. Before you throw away the "word of +the truth of the gospel," at all events understand that you fling away +all assurance of a future life along with it. + +Then, there is another motive touched in these words just quoted. The +gospel is a word of which the whole substance and content is truth. You +may say that is the whole question, whether the gospel is such a word? +Of course it is; but observe how here, at the very outset, the gospel is +represented as having a distinct dogmatic element in it. It is of value, +not because it feeds sentiment or regulates conduct only, but first and +foremost because it gives us true though incomplete knowledge concerning +all the deepest things of God and man about which, but for its light, we +know nothing. That truthful word is opposed to the argumentations and +speculations and errors of the heretics. The gospel is not speculation +but fact. It is truth, because it is the record of a Person who is the +Truth. The history of His life and death is the one source of all +certainty and knowledge with regard to man's relations to God, and God's +loving purposes to man. To leave it and Him of whom it speaks in order +to listen to men who spin theories out of their own brains is to prefer +will-o'-the-wisps to the sun. If we listen to Christ, we have the truth; +if we turn from Him, our ears are stunned by a Babel. "To whom shall we +go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." + +Further, this gospel had been already received by them. Ye _heard +before_, says he, and again he speaks of the gospel as "come unto" them, +and reminds them of the past days in which they "heard and knew the +grace of God." That appeal is, of course, no argument except to a man +who admits the truth of what he had already received, nor is it meant +for argument with others, but it is equivalent to the exhortation, "You +have heard that word and accepted it, see that your future be consistent +with your past." He would have the life a harmonious whole, all in +accordance with the first glad grasp which they had laid on the truth. +Sweet and calm and noble is the life which preserves to its close the +convictions of its beginning, only deepened and expanded. Blessed are +they whose creed at last can be spoken in the lessons they learned in +childhood, to which experience has but given new meaning! Blessed they +who have been able to store the treasure of a life's thought and +learning in the vessels of the early words, which have grown like the +magic coffers in a fairy tale, to hold all the increased wealth that can +be lodged in them! Beautiful is it when the little children and the +young men and the fathers possess the one faith, and when he who began +as a child, "knowing the Father," ends as an old man with the same +knowledge of the same God, only apprehended now in a form which has +gained majesty from the fleeting years, as "Him that is from the +beginning." There is no need to leave the Word long since heard in order +to get novelty. It will open out into all new depths, and blaze in new +radiance as men grow. It will give new answers as the years ask new +questions. Each epoch of individual experience, and each phase of +society, and all changing forms of opinion will find what meets them in +the gospel as it is in Jesus. It is good for Christian men often to +recall the beginnings of their faith, to live over again their early +emotions, and when they may be getting stunned with the din of +controversy, and confused as to the relative importance of different +parts of Christian truth, to remember _what_ it was that first filled +their heart with joy like that of the finder of a hidden treasure, and +with what a leap of gladness they first laid hold of Christ. + +That spiritual discipline is no less needful than is intellectual, in +facing the conflicts of this day. + +Again, this gospel was filling the world: "it is in all the world +bearing fruit, and increasing." There are two marks of life--it is +fruitful and it spreads. Of course such words are not to be construed as +if they occurred in a statistical table. "All the world" must be taken +with an allowance for rhetorical statement; but making such allowance, +the rapid spread of Christianity in Paul's time, and its power to +influence character and conduct among all sorts and conditions of men, +were facts that needed to be accounted for, if the gospel was not true. + +That is surely a noteworthy fact, and one which may well raise a +presumption in favour of the truth of the message, and make any proposal +to cast it aside for another gospel, a serious matter. Paul is not +suggesting the vulgar argument that a thing must be true because so +many people have so quickly believed it. But what he is pointing to is a +much deeper thought than that. All schisms and heresies are essentially +local, and partial. They suit coteries and classes. They are the product +of special circumstances acting on special casts of mind, and appeal to +such. Like parasitical plants they each require a certain species to +grow on, and cannot spread where these are not found. They are not for +all time, but for an age. They are not for all men, but for a select +few. They reflect the opinions or wants of a layer of society or of a +generation, and fade away. But the gospel goes through the world and +draws men to itself out of every land and age. Dainties and confections +are for the few, and many of them are like pickled olives to +unsophisticated palates, and the delicacies of one country are the +abominations of another; but everybody likes bread and lives on it, +after all. + +The gospel which tells of Christ belongs to all and can touch all, +because it brushes aside superficial differences of culture and +position, and goes straight to the depths of the one human heart, which +is alike in us all, addressing the universal sense of sin, and revealing +the Saviour of us all, and in Him the universal Father. Do not fling +away a gospel that belongs to all, and can bring forth fruit in all +kinds of people, for the sake of accepting what can never live in the +popular heart, nor influence more than a handful of very select and +"superior persons." Let who will have the dainties, do you stick to the +wholesome wheaten bread. + +Another plea for adherence to the gospel is based upon its continuous +and universal fruitfulness. It brings about results in conduct and +character which strongly attest its claim to be from God. That is a +rough and ready test, no doubt, but a sensible and satisfactory one. A +system which says that it will make men good and pure is reasonably +judged of by its fruits, and Christianity can stand the test. It did +change the face of the old world. It has been the principal agent in the +slow growth of "nobler manners, purer laws" which give the +characteristic stamp to modern as contrasted with pre-Christian nations. +The threefold abominations of the old world--slavery, war, and the +degradation of woman--have all been modified, one of them abolished, and +the others growingly felt to be utterly un-Christian. The main agent in +the change has been the gospel. It has wrought wonders, too, on single +souls; and though all Christians must be too conscious of their own +imperfections to venture on putting themselves forward as specimens of +its power, still the gospel of Jesus Christ has lifted men from the +dungheaps of sin and self to "set them with princes," to make them kings +and priests; has tamed passions, ennobled pursuits, revolutionised the +whole course of many a life, and mightily works to-day in the same +fashion, in the measure in which we submit to its influence. Our +imperfections are our own; our good is its. A medicine is not shown to +be powerless, though it does not do as much as is claimed for it, if the +sick man has taken it irregularly and sparingly. The failure of +Christianity to bring forth full fruit arises solely from the failure of +professing Christians to allow its quickening powers to fill their +hearts. After all deductions we may still say with Paul, "it bringeth +forth fruit in all the world." This rod has budded, at all events; have +any of its antagonists' rods done the same? Do not cast it away, says +Paul, till you are sure you have found a better. + +This tree not only fruits, but grows. It is not exhausted by +fruit-bearing, but it makes wood as well. It is "increasing" as well as +"bearing fruit," and that growth in the circuit of its branches that +spread through the world, is another of its claims on the faithful +adhesion of the Colossians. + +Again, they have heard a gospel which reveals the "true grace of God," +and that is another consideration urging to steadfastness. + +In opposition to it there were put then, as there are put to-day, man's +thoughts, and man's requirements, a human wisdom and a burdensome code. +Speculations and arguments on the one hand, and laws and rituals on the +other, look thin beside the large free gift of a loving God and the +message which tells of it. They are but poor bony things to try to live +on. The soul wants something more nourishing than such bread made out of +sawdust. We want a loving God to live upon, whom we can love because He +loves us. Will anything but the gospel give us that? Will anything be +our stay, in all weakness, weariness, sorrow and sin, in the fight of +life and the agony of death, except the confidence that in Christ we +"know the grace of God in truth"? + +So, if we gather together all these characteristics of the gospel, they +bring out the gravity of the issue when we are asked to tamper with it, +or to abandon the old lamp for the brand new ones which many eager +voices are proclaiming as the light of the future. May any of us who are +on the verge of the precipice lay to heart these serious thoughts! To +that gospel we owe our peace; by it alone can the fruit of lofty devout +lives be formed and ripened; it has filled the world with its sound, and +is revolutionising humanity; it and it only brings to men the good news +and the actual gift of the love and mercy of God. It is not a small +matter to fling away all this. + +We do not prejudge the question of the truth of Christianity; but, at +all events, let there be no mistake as to the fact that to give it up is +to give up the mightiest power that has ever wrought for the world's +good, and that if its light be quenched there will be darkness that may +be felt, not dispelled but made more sad and dreary by the ineffectual +flickers of some poor rushlights that men have lit, which waver and +shine dimly over a little space for a little while, and then die out. + +III. We have the Apostolic endorsement of Epaphras, the early teacher of +the Colossian Christians. + +Paul points his Colossian brethren, finally, to the lessons which they +had received from the teacher who had first led them to Christ. No doubt +his authority was imperiled by the new direction of thought in the +Church, and Paul was desirous of adding the weight of his attestation to +the complete correspondence between his own teaching and that of +Epaphras. + +We know nothing about this Epaphras except from this letter and that to +Philemon. He is "one of you," a member of the Colossian Church (iv. 12), +whether a Colossian born or not. He had come to the prisoner in Rome, +and had brought the tidings of their condition which filled the +Apostle's heart with strangely mingled feelings--of joy for their love +and Christian walk (verses 4, 8), and of anxiety lest they should be +swept from their steadfastness by the errors that he heard were +assailing them. Epaphras shared this anxiety, and during his stay in +Rome was much in thought, and care, and prayer for them (iv. 12). He +does not seem to have been the bearer of this letter to Colossae. He was +in some sense Paul's fellow-servant, and in Philemon he is called by the +yet more intimate, though somewhat obscure, name of his fellow-prisoner. +It is noticeable that he alone of all Paul's companions receives the +name of "fellow-servant," which may perhaps point to some very special +piece of service of his, or may possibly be only an instance of Paul's +courteous humility, which ever delighted to lift others to his own +level--as if he had said, Do not make differences between your own +Epaphras and me, we are both slaves of one Master. + +The further testimony which Paul bears to him is so emphatic and pointed +as to suggest that it was meant to uphold an authority that had been +attacked, and to eulogize a character that had been maligned. "He is a +faithful minister of Christ on our behalf." In these words the Apostle +endorses his teaching, as a true representation of his own. Probably +Epaphras founded the Colossian Church and did so in pursuance of a +commission given him by Paul. He "also declared to us your love in the +Spirit." As he had truly represented Paul and his message to them, so he +lovingly represented them and their kindly affection to him. Probably +the same people who questioned Epaphras' version of Paul's teaching +would suspect the favourableness of his report of the Colossian Church, +and hence the double witness borne from the Apostle's generous heart to +both parts of his brother's work. His unstinted praise is ever ready. +His shield is swiftly flung over any of his helpers who are maligned or +assailed. Never was a leader truer to his subordinates, more tender of +their reputation, more eager for their increased influence, and freer +from every trace of jealousy, than was that lofty and lowly soul. + +It is a beautiful though a faint image which shines out on us from these +fragmentary notices of this Colossian Epaphras--a true Christian bishop, +who had come all the long way from his quiet valley in the depths of +Asia Minor, to get guidance about his flock from the great Apostle, and +who bore them on his heart day and night, and prayed much for them, +while so far away from them. How strange the fortune which has made his +name and his solicitudes and prayers immortal! How little he dreamed +that such embalming was to be given to his little services, and that +they were to be crowned with such exuberant praise! + +The smallest work done for Jesus Christ lasts for ever, whether it abide +in men's memories or no. Let us ever live as those who, like painters in +fresco, have with swift hand to draw lines and lay on colours which will +never fade, and let us, by humble faith and holy life, earn such a +character from Paul's master. He is glad to praise, and praise from His +lips is praise indeed. If He approves of us as faithful servants on His +behalf, it matters not what others may say. The Master's "Well done" +will outweigh labours and toils, and the depreciating tongues of +fellow-servants, or of the Master's enemies. + + + + +III. + +_THE PRAYER._ + + "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to + pray and to make request for you, that ye may be filled with the + knowledge of His will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to + walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every + good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with + all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience + and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks unto the Father."--COL. i. + 9-12 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We have here to deal with one of Paul's prayers for his brethren. In +some respects these are the very topmost pinnacles of his letters. +Nowhere else does his spirit move so freely, in no other parts are the +fervour of his piety and the beautiful simplicity and depth of his love +more touchingly shown. The freedom and heartiness of our prayers for +others are a very sharp test of both our piety to God and our love to +men. Plenty of people can talk and vow who would find it hard to pray. +Paul's intercessory prayers are the high-water mark of the epistles in +which they occur. He must have been a good man and a true friend of whom +so much can be said. + +This prayer sets forth the ideal of Christian character. What Paul +desired for his friends in Colossae is what all true Christian hearts +should chiefly desire for those whom they love, and should strive after +and ask for themselves. If we look carefully at these words we shall see +a clear division into parts which stand related to each other as root, +stem, and fourfold branches, or as fountain, undivided stream, and "four +heads" into which this "river" of Christian life "is parted." To be +filled with the knowledge of God's will is the root or fountain-source +of all. From it comes a walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing--the +practical life being the outcome and expression of the inward possession +of the will of God. Then we have four clauses, evidently co-ordinate, +each beginning with a participle, and together presenting an analysis of +this worthy walk. It will be fruitful in all outward work. It will be +growing in all inward knowledge of God. Because life is not all doing +and knowing, but is suffering likewise, the worthy walk must be patient +and long-suffering, because strengthened by God Himself. And to crown +all, above work and knowledge and suffering it must be thankfulness to +the Father. The magnificent massing together of the grounds of gratitude +which follows, we must leave for future consideration, and pause, +however abruptly, yet not illogically, at the close of the enumeration +of these four branches of the tree, the four sides of the firm tower of +the true Christian life. + +I. Consider the Fountain or Root of all Christian character--"that ye +may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and +understanding." + +One or two remarks in the nature of verbal exposition may be desirable. +Generally speaking, the thing desired is the perfecting of the +Colossians in religious knowledge, and the perfection is forcibly +expressed in three different aspects. The idea of completeness up to the +height of their capacity is given in the prayer that they may be +"filled," like some jar charged with sparkling water to the brim. The +advanced degree of the knowledge desired for them is given in the word +here employed, which is a favourite in the Epistles of the Captivity, +and means additional or mature knowledge, that deeper apprehension of +God's truth which perhaps had become more obvious to Paul in the quiet +growth of his spirit during his life in Rome. And the rich variety of +forms which that advanced knowledge would assume is set forth by the +final words of the clause, which may either be connected with its first +words, so meaning "filled ... so that ye may abound in ... wisdom and +understanding;" or with "the knowledge of His will," so meaning a +"knowledge which is manifested in." That knowledge will blossom out into +_every kind_ of "wisdom" and "understanding," two words which it is hard +to distinguish, but of which the former is perhaps the more general and +the latter the more special, the former the more theoretical and the +latter the more practical: and both are the work of the Divine Spirit +whose sevenfold perfection of gifts illuminates with perfect light each +waiting heart. So perfect, whether in regard to its measure, its +maturity, or its manifoldness, is the knowledge of the will of God, +which the Apostle regards as the deepest good which his love can ask for +these Colossians. + +Passing by many thoughts suggested by the words, we may touch one or two +large principles which they involve. The first is, that the foundation +of all Christian character and conduct is laid in the knowledge of the +will of God. Every revelation of God is a law. What it concerns us to +know is not abstract truth, or a revelation for speculative thought, +but God's _will_. He does not show Himself to us in order merely that we +may know, but in order that, knowing, we may do, and, what is more than +either knowing or doing, in order that we may be. No revelation from God +has accomplished its purpose when a man has simply understood it, but +every fragmentary flash of light which comes from Him in nature and +providence, and still more the steady radiance that pours from Jesus, is +meant indeed to teach us how we should think of God, but to do that +mainly as a means to the end that we may live in conformity with His +will. The light is knowledge, but it is a light to guide our feet, +knowledge which is meant to shape practice. + +If that had been remembered, two opposite errors would have been +avoided. The error that was threatening the Colossian Church, and has +haunted the Church in general ever since, was that of fancying +Christianity to be merely a system of truth to be believed, a rattling +skeleton of abstract dogmas, very many and very dry. An unpractical +heterodoxy was their danger. An unpractical orthodoxy is as real a +peril. You may swallow all the creeds bodily, you may even find in God's +truth the food of very sweet and real feeling: but neither knowing nor +feeling is enough. The one all-important question for us is--does our +Christianity _work_? It is knowledge of His _will_, which becomes an +ever active force in our lives! Any other kind of religious knowledge is +windy food; as Paul says, it "puffeth up;" the knowledge which feeds the +soul with wholesome nourishment is the knowledge of His _will_. + +The converse error to that of unpractical knowledge, that of an +unintelligent practice, is quite as bad. There is always a class of +people, and they are unusually numerous to-day, who profess to attach no +importance to Christian doctrines, but to put all the stress on +Christian morals. They swear by the "Sermon on the Mount," and are blind +to the deep doctrinal basis laid in that "sermon" itself, on which its +lofty moral teaching is built. What God hath joined together, let no man +put asunder. Why pit the parent against the child? why wrench the +blossom from its stem? Knowledge is sound when it moulds conduct. Action +is good when it is based on knowledge. The knowledge of God is wholesome +when it shapes the life. Morality has a basis which makes it vigorous +and permanent when it rests upon the knowledge of His will. + +Again: Progress in knowledge is the law of the Christian life. There +should be a continual advancement in the apprehension of God's will, +from that first glimpse which saves, to the mature knowledge which Paul +here desires for his friends. The progress does not consist in leaving +behind old truths, but in a profounder conception of what is contained +in these truths. How differently a Fijian just saved, and a Paul on +earth, or a Paul in heaven, look at that verse, "God so loved the world +that He gave His only begotten Son"! The truths which are dim to the +one, like stars seen through a mist, blaze to the other like the same +stars to an eye that has travelled millions of leagues nearer them, and +sees them to be suns. The law of the Christian life is continuous +increase in the knowledge of the depths that lie in the old truths, and +of their far-reaching applications. We are to grow in knowledge of the +Christ by coming ever nearer to Him, and learning more of the infinite +meaning of our earliest lesson that He is the Son of God who has died +for us. The constellations that burn in our nightly sky looked down on +Chaldean astronomers, but though these are the same, how much more is +known about them at Greenwich than was dreamed at Babylon! + +II. Consider the River or Stem of Christian conduct. + +The purpose and outcome of this full knowledge of the will of God in +Christ is to "walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing." By "walk" is +of course meant the whole active life; so that the principle is brought +out here very distinctly, that the last result of knowledge of the +Divine will is an outward life regulated by that will. And the sort of +life which such knowledge leads to, is designated in most general terms +as "worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing," in which we have set forth +two aspects of the true Christian life. + +"Worthily of the Lord!" The "Lord" here, as generally, is Christ, and +"worthily" seems to mean, in a manner corresponding to what Christ is to +us, and has done for us. We find other forms of the same thought in such +expressions as "worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called" (Eph. +iv. 1), "worthily of saints" (Rom. xvi. 2), "worthy of the gospel" +(Phil. i. 27), "worthily of God" (1 Thess. ii. 12), in all of which +there is the idea of a standard to which the practical life is to be +conformed. Thus the Apostle condenses into one word all the manifold +relations in which we stand to Christ, and all the multifarious +arguments for a holy life which they yield. + +These are mainly two. The Christian should "walk" in a manner +corresponding to what Christ has done for him. "Do ye thus requite the +Lord, O foolish people, and unwise?" was the mournful wondering question +of the dying Moses to his people, as he summed up the history of +unbroken tenderness and love on the one side, and of disloyalty almost +as uninterrupted on the other. How much more pathetically and +emphatically might the question be asked of us! We say that we are not +our own, but bought with a price. Then how do we repay that costly +purchase? Do we not requite His blood and tears, His unquenchable, +unalterable love, with a little tepid love which grudges sacrifices and +has scarcely power enough to influence conduct at all, with a little +trembling faith which but poorly corresponds to His firm promises, with +a little reluctant obedience? The richest treasure of heaven has been +freely lavished for us, and we return a sparing expenditure of our +hearts and ourselves, repaying fine gold with tarnished copper, and the +flood of love from the heart of Christ with a few niggard drops +grudgingly squeezed from ours. Nothing short of complete self-surrender, +perfect obedience, and unwavering unfaltering love can characterize the +walk that corresponds with our profound obligations to Him. Surely there +can be no stronger cord with which to bind us as sacrifices to the horns +of the altar than the cords of love. This is the unique glory and power +of Christian ethics, that it brings in this tender personal element to +transmute the coldness of duty into the warmth of gratitude, so throwing +rosy light over the snowy summits of abstract virtue. Repugnant duties +become tokens of love, pleasant as every sacrifice made at its bidding +ever is. The true Christian spirit says: Thou hast given Thyself wholly +for me: help me to yield myself to Thee. Thou hast loved me perfectly: +help me to love Thee with all my heart. + +The other side of this conception of a worthy walk is, that the +Christian should act in a manner corresponding to Christ's character and +conduct. We profess to be His by sacredest ties: then we should set our +watches by that dial, being conformed to His likeness, and in all our +daily life trying to do as He has done, or as we believe He would do if +He were in our place. Nothing less than the effort to tread in His +footsteps is a walk worthy of the Lord. All unlikeness to His pattern is +a dishonour to Him and to ourselves. It is neither worthy of the Lord, +nor of the vocation wherewith we are called, nor of the name of saints. +Only when these two things are brought about in my experience--when the +glow of His love melts my heart and makes it flow down in answering +affection, and when the beauty of His perfect life stands ever before +me, and though it be high above me, is not a despair, but a stimulus and +a hope--only then do I "walk worthy of the Lord." + +Another thought as to the nature of the life in which the knowledge of +the Divine will should issue, is expressed in the other clause--"unto +all pleasing," which sets forth the great aim as being to please Christ +in everything. That is a strange purpose to propose to men, as the +supreme end to be ever kept in view, to satisfy Jesus Christ by their +conduct. To make the good opinion of men our aim is to be slaves; but to +please this Man ennobles us, and exalts life. Who or what is He, whose +judgment of us is thus all-important, whose approbation is praise +indeed, and to win whose smile is a worthy object for which to use life, +or even to lose it? We should ask ourselves, Do we make it our ever +present object to satisfy Jesus Christ? We are not to mind about other +people's approbation. We can do without that. We are not to hunt after +the good word of our fellows. Every life into which that craving for +man's praise and good opinion enters is tarnished by it. It is a canker, +a creeping leprosy, which eats sincerity and nobleness and strength out +of a man. Let us not care to trim our sails to catch the shifting winds +of this or that man's favour and eulogium, but look higher and say, +"With me it is a very small matter to be judged of man's judgment." "I +appeal unto Caesar." He, the true Commander and Emperor, holds our fate +in His hands; we have to please Him and Him only. There is no thought +which will so reduce the importance of the babble around us, and teach +us such brave and wholesome contempt for popular applause, and all the +strife of tongues, as the constant habit of trying to act as ever in our +great Taskmaster's eye. What does it matter who praise, if He frowns? or +who blame, if His face lights with a smile? No thought will so spur us +to diligence, and make all life solemn and grand as the thought that "we +labour, that whether present or absent, we may be well pleasing to Him." +Nothing will so string the muscles for the fight, and free us from being +entangled with the things of this life, as the ambition to "please Him +who has called us to be soldiers." + +Men have willingly flung away their lives for a couple of lines of +praise in a despatch, or for a smile from some great commander. Let us +try to live and die so as to get "honourable mention" from our captain. +Praise from His lips is praise indeed. We shall not know how much it is +worth, till the smile lights His face, and the love comes into His eyes, +as He looks at us, and says, "Well done! good and faithful servant." + +III. We have finally the fourfold streams or branches into which this +general conception of Christian character parts itself. + +There are four participial clauses here, which seem all to stand on one +level, and to present an analysis in more detail of the component parts +of this worthy walk. In general terms it is divided into fruitfulness in +work, increase in knowledge, strength for suffering, and, as the climax +of all, thankfulness. + +The first element is--"bearing fruit in every good work." These words +carry us back to what was said in ver. 6 about the fruitfulness of the +gospel. Here the man in whom that word is planted is regarded as the +producer of the fruit, by the same natural transition by which, in our +Lord's Parable of the Sower, the men in whose hearts the seed was sown +are spoken of as themselves on the one hand, bringing no fruit to +perfection, and on the other, bringing forth fruit with patience. The +worthy walk will be first manifested in the production of a rich variety +of forms of goodness. All profound knowledge of God, and all lofty +thoughts of imitating and pleasing Christ, are to be tested at last by +their power to make men good, and that not after any monotonous type, +nor on one side of their nature only. + +One plain principle implied here is that the only true fruit is +goodness. We may be busy, as many a man in our great commercial cities +is busy, from Monday morning till Saturday night for a long lifetime, +and may have had to build bigger barns for our "fruits and our goods," +and yet, in the high and solemn meaning of the word here, our life may +be utterly empty and fruitless. Much of our work and of its results is +no more fruit than the galls on the oak-leaves are. They are a swelling +from a puncture made by an insect, a sign of disease, not of life. The +only sort of work which can be called fruit, in the highest meaning of +the word, is that which corresponds to a man's whole nature and +relations; and the only work which does so correspond is a life of +loving service of God, which cultivates all things lovely and of good +report. Goodness, therefore, alone deserves to be called fruit--as for +all the rest of our busy lives, they and their toils are like the +rootless, lifeless chaff that is whirled out of the threshing-floor by +every gust. A life which has not in it holiness and loving obedience, +however richly productive it may be in lower respects, is in inmost +reality blighted and barren, and is "nigh unto burning." Goodness is +fruit; all else is nothing but leaves. + +Again: the Christian life is to be "fruitful in _every_ good work." This +tree is to be like that in the apocalyptic vision, which "bare twelve +manner of fruits," yielding every month a different sort. So we should +fill the whole circuit of the year with various holiness, and seek to +make widely different forms of goodness our own. We have all certain +kinds of excellence which are more natural and easier for us than +others are. We should seek to cultivate the kind which is hardest for +us. The thorn stock of our own character should bear not only grapes, +but figs too, and olives as well, being grafted upon the true +olive-tree, which is Christ. Let us aim at this all-round and multiform +virtue, and not be like a scene for a stage, all gay and bright on one +side, and dirty canvas and stretchers hung with cobwebs on the other. + +The second element in the analysis of the true Christian life +is--"increasing in the knowledge of God." The figure of the tree is +probably continued here. If it fruits, its girth will increase, its +branches will spread, its top will mount, and next year its shadow on +the grass will cover a larger circle. Some would take the "knowledge" +here as the instrument or means of growth, and would render "increasing +by the knowledge of God," supposing that the knowledge is represented as +the rain or the sunshine which minister to the growth of the plant. But +perhaps it is better to keep to the idea conveyed by the common +rendering, which regards the words "in knowledge" as the specification +of that region in which the growth enjoined is to be realized. So here +we have the converse of the relation between work and knowledge which we +met in the earlier part of the chapter. There, knowledge led to a worthy +walk; here, fruitfulness in good works leads to, or at all events is +accompanied with, an increased knowledge. And both are true. These two +work on each other a reciprocal increase. All true knowledge which is +not mere empty notions, naturally tends to influence action, and all +true action naturally tends to confirm the knowledge from which it +proceeds. Obedience gives insight: "If any man wills to do My will, he +shall know of the doctrine." If I am faithful up to the limits of my +present knowledge, and have brought it all to bear on character and +conduct, I shall find that in the effort to make my every thought a +deed, there have fallen from my eyes as it were scales, and I see some +things clearly which were faint and doubtful before. Moral truth becomes +dim to a bad man. Religious truth grows bright to a good one, and +whosoever strives to bring all his creed into practice, and all his +practice under the guidance of his creed, will find that the path of +obedience is the path of growing light. + +Then comes the third element in this resolution of the Christian +character into its component parts--"strengthened with all power, +according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering +with joyfulness." Knowing and doing are not the whole of life: there are +sorrow and suffering too. + +Here again we have the Apostle's favourite "_all_," which occurs so +frequently in this connection. As he desired for the Colossians, _all_ +wisdom, unto _all_ pleasing, and fruitfulness in _every_ good work, so +he prays for _all_ power to strengthen them. Every kind of strength +which God can give and man can receive, is to be sought after by us, +that we may be "girded with strength," cast like a brazen wall all round +our human weakness. And that Divine power is to flow into us, having +this for its measure and limit--"the might of His glory." His "glory" is +the lustrous light of His self-revelation; and the far-flashing energy +revealed in that self-manifestation is the immeasurable measure of the +strength that may be ours. True, a finite nature can never contain the +infinite, but man's finite nature is capable of indefinite expansion. +Its elastic walls stretch to contain the increasing gift. The more we +desire, the more we receive, and the more we receive, the more we are +able to receive. The amount which filled our hearts to-day should not +fill them to-morrow. Our capacity is at each moment the working limit of +the measure of the strength given us. But it is always shifting, and may +be continually increasing. The only real limit is "the might of His +glory," the limitless omnipotence of the self-revealing God. To that we +may indefinitely approach, and till we have exhausted God we have not +reached the furthest point to which we should aspire. + +And what exalted mission is destined for this wonderful communicated +strength? Nothing that the world thinks great: only helping some lone +widow to stay her heart in patience, and flinging a gleam of brightness, +like sunrise on a stormy sea, over some tempest-tossed life. The +strength is worthily employed and absorbed in producing "all patience +and longsuffering with joy." Again the favourite "all" expresses the +universality of the patience and longsuffering. Patience here is not +merely passive endurance. It includes the idea of perseverance in the +right course, as well as that of uncomplaining bearing of evil. It is +the "steering right onward," without bating one jot of heart or hope; +the temper of the traveller who struggles forward, though the wind in +his face dashes the sleet in his eyes, and he has to wade through deep +snow. While "patience" regards the evil mainly as sent by God, and as +making the race set before us difficult, "longsuffering" describes the +temper under suffering when considered as a wrong or injury done by man. +And whether we think of our afflictions in the one or the other light, +God's strength will steal into our hearts, if we will, not merely to +help us to bear them with perseverance and with meekness as unruffled as +Christ's, but to crown both graces--as the clouds are sometimes rimmed +with flashing gold--with a great light of joy. That is the highest +attainment of all. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." Flowers beneath +the snow, songs in the night, fire burning beneath the water, "peace +subsisting at the heart of endless agitation," cool airs in the very +crater of Vesuvius--all these paradoxes may be surpassed in our hearts +if they are strengthened with all might by an indwelling Christ. + +The crown of all, the last of the elements of the Christian character, +is thankfulness--"giving thanks unto the Father." This is the summit of +all; and is to be diffused through all. All our progressive fruitfulness +and insight, as well as our perseverance and unruffled meekness in +suffering, should have a breath of thankfulness breathed through them. +We shall see the grand enumeration of the reasons for thankfulness in +the next verses. Here we pause for the present, with this final +constituent of the life which Paul desired for the Colossian Christians. +Thankfulness should mingle with all our thoughts and feelings, like the +fragrance of some perfume penetrating through the common scentless air. +It should embrace all events. It should be an operating motive in all +actions. We should be clear-sighted and believing enough to be thankful +for pain and disappointment and loss. That gratitude will add the +crowning consecration to service and knowledge and endurance. It will +touch our spirits to the finest of all issues, for it will lead to glad +self-surrender, and make of our whole life a sacrifice of praise. "I +beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your +bodies a living sacrifice." Our lives will then exhale in fragrance and +shoot up in flashing tongues of ruddy light and beauty, when kindled +into a flame of gratitude by the glow of Christ's great love. Let us lay +our poor selves on that altar, as sacrifices of thanksgiving; for with +such sacrifices God is well-pleased. + + + + +IV. + +_THE FATHER'S GIFTS THROUGH THE SON._ + + "The Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of + the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, + and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom + we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins."--COL. i. 12-14 + (Rev. Ver.). + + +We have advanced thus far in this Epistle without having reached its +main subject. We now, however, are on its verge. The next verses to +those now to be considered lead us into the very heart of Paul's +teaching, by which he would oppose the errors rife in the Colossian +Church. The great passages describing the person and work of Jesus +Christ are at hand, and here we have the immediate transition to them. + +The skill with which the transition is made is remarkable. How gradually +and surely the sentences, like some hovering winged things, circle more +and more closely round the central light, till in the last words they +touch it, ... "the Son of His love!" It is like some long procession +heralding a king. They that go before, cry Hosanna, and point to him who +comes last and chief. The affectionate greetings which begin the letter, +pass into prayer; the prayer into thanksgiving. The thanksgiving, as in +these words, lingers over and recounts our blessings, as a rich man +counts his treasures, or a lover dwells on his joys. The enumeration of +the blessings leads, as by a golden thread, to the thought and name of +Christ, the fountain of them all, and then, with a burst and a rush, the +flood of the truths about Christ which he had to give them sweeps +through Paul's mind and heart, carrying everything before it. The name +of Christ always opens the floodgates in Paul's heart. + +We have here then the deepest grounds for Christian thanksgiving, which +are likewise the preparations for a true estimate of the worth of the +Christ who gives them. These grounds of thanksgiving are but various +aspects of the one great blessing of "Salvation." The diamond flashes +greens and purples, and yellows and reds, according to the angle at +which its facets catch the eye. + +It is also to be observed, that all these blessings are the present +possession of Christians. The language of the first three clauses in the +verses before us points distinctly to a definite past act by which the +Father, at some definite point of time, made us meet, delivered and +translated us, while the present tense in the last clause shows that +"our redemption" is not only begun by some definite act in the past, but +is continuously and progressively possessed in the present. + +We notice, too, the remarkable correspondence of language with that +which Paul heard when he lay prone on the ground, blinded by the +flashing light, and amazed by the pleading remonstrance from heaven +which rung in his ears. "I send thee to the Gentiles ... that they may +turn from _darkness_ to _light_, and from the power of Satan unto God, +that they may receive _remission of sins_, and an _inheritance_ among +them which are sanctified." All the principal phrases are there, and are +freely recombined by Paul, as if unconsciously his memory was haunted +still by the sound of the transforming words heard so long ago. + +I. The first ground of thankfulness which all Christians have is, that +they are fit for the inheritance. Of course the metaphor here is drawn +from the "inheritance" given to the people of Israel, namely, the land +of Canaan. Unfortunately, our use of "heir" and "inheritance" confines +the idea to possession by succession on death, and hence some perplexity +is popularly experienced as to the force of the word in Scripture. +There, it implies possession by lot, if anything more than the simple +notion of possession; and points to the fact that the people did not win +their land by their own swords, but because "God had a favour unto +them." So the Christian inheritance is not won by our own merit, but +given by God's goodness. The words may be literally rendered, "fitted us +for the portion of the lot," and taken to mean the share or portion +which consists in the lot; but perhaps it is clearer, and more accordant +with the analogy of the division of the land among the tribes, to take +them as meaning "for our (individual) share in the broad land which, as +a whole, is the allotted possession of the saints." This possession +belongs to them, and is situated in the world of "light." Such is the +general outline of the thoughts here. The first question that arises is, +whether this inheritance is present or future. The best answer is that +it is both; because, whatever additions of power and splendour as yet +unspeakable may wait to be revealed in the future, the essence of all +which heaven can bring is ours to-day, if we live in the faith and love +of Christ. The difference between a life of communion with God here and +yonder is one of degree and not of kind. True, there are differences of +which we cannot speak, in enlarged capacities, and a "spiritual body," +and sins cast out, and nearer approach to "the fountain itself of +heavenly radiance;" but he who can say, while he walks amongst the +shadows of earth, "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance," will +neither leave his treasures behind him when he dies, nor enter on the +possession of a wholly new inheritance, when he passes into the heavens. +But while this is true, it is also true that that future possession of +God will be so deepened and enlarged that its beginnings here are but +the "earnest," of the same nature indeed as the estate, but limited in +comparison as is the tuft of grass which used to be given to a new +possessor, when set against the broad lands from which it was plucked. +Here certainly the predominant idea is that of a present fitness for a +mainly future possession. + +We notice again--where the inheritance is situated--"in the light." +There are several possible ways of connecting that clause with the +preceding. But without discussing these, it may be enough to point out +that the most satisfactory seems to be to regard it as specifying the +region in which the inheritance lies. It lies in a realm where purity +and knowledge and gladness dwell undimmed and unbounded by an envious +ring of darkness. For these three are the triple rays into which, +according to the Biblical use of the figure, that white beam may be +resolved. + +From this there follows that it is capable of being possessed only by +_saints_. There is no merit or desert which makes men worthy of the +inheritance, but there is a congruity, or correspondence between +character and the inheritance. If we rightly understand what the +essential elements of "heaven" are, we shall have no difficulty in +seeing that the possession of it is utterly incompatible with anything +but holiness. The vulgar ideas of what heaven is, hinder people from +seeing how to get there. They dwell upon the mere outside of the thing, +they take symbols for realities and accidents for essentials, and so it +appears an arbitrary arrangement that a man must have faith in Christ to +enter heaven. If it be a kingdom of light, then only souls that love the +light can go thither, and until owls and bats rejoice in the sunshine, +there will be no way of being fit for the inheritance which is light, +but by ourselves being "light in the Lord." Light itself is a torture to +diseased eyes. Turn up any stone by the roadside and we see how +unwelcome light is to crawling creatures that have lived in the darkness +till they have come to love it. + +Heaven is God and God is heaven. How can a soul possess God, and find +its heaven in possessing Him? Certainly only by likeness to Him, and +loving Him. The old question, "Who shall stand in the Holy Place?" is +not answered in the gospel by reducing the conditions, or negativing the +old reply. The common sense of every conscience answers, and +Christianity answers, as the Psalmist does, "He that hath clean hands +and a pure heart." + +One more step has to be taken to reach the full meaning of these words, +namely, the assertion that men who are not yet perfectly pure are +already fit to be partakers of the inheritance. The tense of the verb in +the original points back to a definite act by which the Colossians were +made meet, namely, their conversion; and the plain emphatic teaching of +the New Testament is that incipient and feeble faith in Christ works a +change so great, that through it we are fitted for the inheritance by +the impartation of a new nature, which, though it be but as a grain of +mustard seed, shapes from henceforth the very inmost centre of our +personal being. In due time that spark will convert into its own fiery +brightness the whole mass, however green and smokily it begins to burn. +Not the absence of sin, but the presence of faith working by love, and +longing for the light, makes fitness. No doubt flesh and blood cannot +inherit the Kingdom of God, and we must put off the vesture of the body +which has wrapped us during the wild weather here, before we can be +fully fit to enter the banqueting hall; nor do we know how much evil +which has not its seat in the soul may drop away therewith--but the +spirit is fit for heaven as soon as a man turns to God in Christ. +Suppose a company of rebels, and one of them, melted by some reason or +other, is brought back to loyalty. He is fit by that inward change, +although he has not done a single act of loyalty, for the society of +loyal subjects, and unfit for that of traitors. Suppose a prodigal son +away in the far off land. Some remembrance comes over him of what home +used to be like, and of the bountiful house-keeping that is still there; +and though it may begin with nothing more exalted than an empty stomach, +if it ends in "I will arise and go to my Father," at that instant a gulf +opens between him and the riotous living of "the citizens of that +country," and he is no longer fitted for their company. He is meet for +the fellowship of his father's house, though he has a weary journey +before he gets there, and needs to have his rags changed, and his filth +washed off him, ere he can sit down at the feast. + +So whoever turns to the love of God in Christ, and yields in the inmost +part of his being to the power of His grace, is already "light in the +Lord." The true home and affinities of his real self are in the kingdom +of the light, and he is ready for his part in the inheritance, either +here or yonder. There is no breach of the great law, that character +makes fitness for heaven--might we not say that character makes +heaven?--for the very roots of character lie in disposition and desire, +rather than in action. Nor is there in this principle anything +inconsistent with the need for continual growth in congruity of nature +with that land of light. The light within, if it be truly there, will, +however slowly, spread, as surely as the grey of twilight brightens to +the blaze of noonday. The heart will be more and more filled with it, +and the darkness driven back more and more to brood in remote corners, +and at last will vanish utterly. True fitness will become more and more +fit. We shall grow more and more capable of God. The measure of our +capacity is the measure of our possession, and the measure in which we +have become light, is the measure of our capacity for the light. The +land was parted among the tribes of Israel according to their strength; +some had a wider, some a narrower strip of territory. So, as there are +differences in Christian character here, there will be differences in +Christian participation in the inheritance hereafter. "Star differeth +from star." Some will blaze in brighter radiance and glow with more +fervent heat because they move in orbits closer to the sun. + +But, thank God, we are "fit for the inheritance," if we have ever so +humbly and poorly trusted ourselves to Jesus Christ and received His +renewing life into our spirits. Character alone fits for heaven. But +character may be in germ or in fruit. "If any man be in Christ, he _is_ +a new creature." Do we trust ourselves to Him? Are we trying, with His +help, to live as children of the light? Then we need not droop or +despair by reason of evil that may still haunt our lives. Let us give it +no quarter, for it diminishes our fitness for the full possession of +God; but let it not cause our tongue to falter in "giving thanks to the +Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints +in light." + +II. The second ground of thankfulness is, the change of king and +country. God "delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated +us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." These two clauses embrace +the negative and positive sides of the same act which is referred to in +the former ground of thankfulness, only stated now in reference to our +allegiance and citizenship in the present rather than in the future. In +the "deliverance" there maybe a reference to God's bringing Israel out +of Egypt, suggested by the previous mention of the inheritance, while +the "translation" into the other kingdom may be an illustration drawn +from the well known practice of ancient warfare, the deportation of +large bodies of natives from conquered kingdoms to some other part of +the conqueror's realm. + +We notice then the two kingdoms and their kings. "The power of +darkness," is an expression found in Luke's Gospel (xxii. 18), and it +may be used here as a reminiscence of our Lord's solemn words. "Power" +here seems to imply the conception of harsh, arbitrary dominion, in +contrast with the gracious rule of the other kingdom. It is a realm of +cruel and grinding sway. Its prince is personified in an image that +AEschylus or Dante might have spoken. Darkness sits sovereign there, a +vast and gloomy form on an ebon throne, wielding a heavy sceptre over +wide regions wrapped in night. The plain meaning of that tremendous +metaphor is just this--that the men who are not Christians live in a +state of subjection to darkness of ignorance, darkness of misery, +darkness of sin. If I am not a Christian man, that black three-headed +hound of hell sits baying on my doorstep. + +What a wonderful contrast the other kingdom and its King present! "The +kingdom of"--not "the light," as we are prepared to hear, in order to +complete the antithesis, but--"the Son of His love," who is the light. +The Son who is the object of His love, on whom it all and ever rests, as +on none besides. He has a kingdom in existence now, and not merely hoped +for, and to be set up at some future time. Wherever men lovingly obey +Christ, there is His kingdom. The subjects make the kingdom, and we may +to-day belong to it, and be free from all other dominion because we bow +to His. There then sit the two kings, like the two in the old story, +"either of them on his throne, clothed in his robes, at the entering in +of the gate of the city." Darkness and Light, the ebon throne and the +white throne, surrounded each by their ministers; there Sorrow and +Gloom, here Gladness and Hope; there Ignorance with blind eyes and idle +aimless hands, here Knowledge with the sunlight on her face, and +Diligence for her handmaid; here Sin, the pillar of the gloomy realm, +there Righteousness, in robes so as no fuller on earth could white them. +Under which king, my brother? + +We notice the transference of subjects. The sculptures on Assyrian +monuments explain this metaphor for us. A great conqueror has come, and +speaks to us as Sennacherib did to the Jews (2 Kings xviii. 31, 32), +"Come out to me ... and I will take you away to a land of corn and wine, +that ye may live and not die." + +If we listen to His voice, He will lead away a long string of willing +captives and plant them, not as pining exiles, but as happy naturalized +citizens, in the kingdom which the Father has appointed for "the Son of +His love." + +That transference is effected on the instant of our recognising the love +of God in Jesus Christ, and yielding up the heart to Him. We too often +speak as if the "entrance ministered at last to" a believing soul "into +the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour," were its first entrance therein, +and forget that we enter it as soon as we yield to the drawings of +Christ's love and take service under the king. The change then is +greater than at death. When we die, we shall change provinces, and go +from an outlying colony to the mother city and seat of empire, but we +shall not change kingdoms. We shall be under the same government, only +then we shall be nearer the King and more loyal to Him. That change of +king is the real fitness for heaven. We know little of what profound +changes death may make, but clearly a physical change cannot effect a +spiritual revolution. They who are not Christ's subjects will not become +so by dying. If here we are trying to serve a King who has delivered us +from the tyranny of darkness, we may be very sure that He will not lose +His subjects in the darkness of the grave. Let us choose our king. If we +take Christ for our heart's Lord, every thought of Him here, every piece +of partial obedience and stained service, as well as every sorrow and +every joy, our fading possessions and our undying treasures, the feeble +new life that wars against our sins, and even the very sins themselves +as contradictory of our deepest self, unite to seal to us the assurance, +"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. They shall behold the land +that is very far off." + +III. The heart and centre of all occasions for thankfulness is the +Redemption which we receive in Christ. + +"In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins." The +Authorized Version reads "redemption _through His blood_," but these +words are not found in the best manuscripts, and are regarded by the +principal modern editors as having been inserted from the parallel place +in Ephesians (i. 7), where they are genuine. The very heart then of the +blessings which God has bestowed, is "redemption," which consists +primarily, though not wholly, in "forgiveness of sins," and is received +by us in "the Son of His love." + +"Redemption," in its simplest meaning, is the act of delivering a slave +from captivity by the payment of ransom. So that it contains in its +application to the effect of Christ's death, substantially the same +figure as in the previous clause which spoke of a deliverance from a +tyrant, only that what was there represented as an act of Power is here +set forth as the act of self-sacrificing Love which purchases our +freedom at a heavy cost. That ransom price is said by Christ Himself to +be "His life," and His Incarnation to have the paying of that price as +one of its two chief objects. So the words added here by quotation from +the companion Epistle are in full accordance with New Testament +teaching; but even omitting them, the meaning of the clause is +unmistakable. Christ's death breaks the chains which bind us, and sets +us free. By it He acquires us for Himself. That transcendent act of +sacrifice has such a relation to the Divine government on the one hand, +and to the "sin of the world," as a whole, on the other, that by it all +who trust in Him are delivered from the most real penal consequences of +sin and from the dominion of its darkness over their natures. We freely +admit that we cannot penetrate to the understanding of _how_ Christ's +death thus avails. But just because the _rationale_ of the doctrine is +avowedly beyond our limits, we are barred from asserting that it is +incompatible with God's character, or with common justice, or that it is +immoral, and the like. When we know God through and through, to all the +depths and heights and lengths and breadths of His nature, and when we +know man in like manner, and when, consequently, we know the relation +between God and man as perfectly, and not till then, we shall have a +right to reject the teaching of Scripture on this matter, on such +grounds. Till then, let our faith lay hold on the fact, though we do not +understand the "how" of the fact, and cling to that cross which is the +great power of God unto salvation, and the heart-changing exponent of +the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. + +The essential and first element in this redemption is "the forgiveness +of sins." Possibly some misconception of the nature of redemption may +have been associated with the other errors which threatened the +Colossian Church, and thus Paul may have been led to this emphatic +declaration of its contents. Forgiveness, and not some mystic +deliverance by initiation or otherwise from the captivity of flesh and +matter, is redemption. There is more than forgiveness in it, but +forgiveness lies on the threshold; and that not only the removal of +legal penalties inflicted by a specific act, but the forgiveness of a +father. A sovereign pardons when he remits the sentence which law has +pronounced. A father forgives when the free flow of his love is +unhindered by his child's fault, and he may forgive and punish at the +same moment. The truest "penalty" of sin is that death which consists in +separation from God; and the conceptions of judicial pardon and fatherly +forgiveness unite when we think of the "remission of sins" as being the +removal of that separation, and the deliverance of heart and conscience +from the burden of guilt and of a father's wrath. + +Such forgiveness leads to that full deliverance from the power of +darkness, which is the completion of redemption. There is deep meaning +in the fact that the word here used for "forgiveness," means literally, +"sending away." Pardon has a mighty power to banish sin, not only as +guilt, but as habit. The waters of the gulf stream bear the warmth of +the tropics to the icy north, and lave the foot of the glaciers on its +coast till they melt and mingle with the liberating waves. So the flow +of the forgiving love of God thaws the hearts frozen in the obstinacy of +sin, and blends our wills with itself in glad submission and grateful +service. + +But we must not overlook the significant words in which the condition of +possessing this redemption is stated: "in Whom." There must be a real +living union with Christ, by which we are truly "in Him" in order to our +possession of redemption. "Redemption through His blood" is not the +whole message of the Gospel; it has to be completed by "_In Whom_ we +have redemption through His blood." That real living union is effected +by our faith, and when we are thus "in Him," our wills, hearts, spirits +joined to Him, then, and only then are we borne away from "the kingdom +of the darkness" and partake of redemption. We cannot get His gifts +without Himself. + +We observe, in conclusion, how redemption appears here as a present and +growing possession. There is emphasis on "we _have_." The Colossian +Christians had by one definite act in the past been fitted for a share +in the inheritance, and by the same act had been transferred to the +kingdom of Christ. Already they possess the inheritance, and are in the +kingdom, although both are to be more gloriously manifested in the +future. Here, however, Paul contemplates rather the reception, moment by +moment, of redemption. We might almost read "we are having," for the +present tense seems used on purpose to convey the idea of a continual +communication from Him to Whom we are to be united by faith. Daily we +may draw what we daily need--daily forgiveness for daily sins, the +washing of the feet which even he who has been bathed requires after +each day's march through muddy roads, daily bread for daily hunger, and +daily strength for daily effort. So day unto day may, in our narrow +lives, as in the wide heavens with all their stars, utter speech, and +night unto night show knowledge of the redeeming love of our Father. +Like the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness, according +to Jewish legend, and poured out water for their thirst, His grace flows +ever by our sides and from its bright waters we may daily draw with joy. + +And so let us lay to heart humbly these two lessons; that all our +Christianity must begin with forgiveness, and that, however far advanced +we may be in the Divine life, we never get beyond the need for a +continual bestowal upon us of God's pardoning mercy. + +Many of us, like some of these Colossians, are ready to call ourselves +in some sense followers of Christ. The speculative side of Christian +truth may have attractions for some of us, its lofty morality for +others. Some of us may be mainly drawn to it by its comforts for the +weary; some may be looking to it chiefly in hope of a future heaven. But +whatever we are, and however we may be disposed to Christ and His +Gospel, here is a plain message for us; we must begin by going to Him +for pardon. It is not enough for any of us to find in Him "wisdom," or +even "righteousness," for we need "redemption" which is "forgiveness," +and unless He is to us forgiveness, He will not be either righteousness +or wisdom. + +We can climb a ladder that reaches to heaven, but its foot must be in +"the horrible pit and miry clay" of our sins. Little as we like to hear +it, the first need for us all is forgiveness. Everything begins with +that. "The inheritance of the saints," with all its wealth of glory, its +immortal life and unfading joys, its changeless security, and its +unending progress deeper and deeper into the light and likeness of God, +is the goal, but the _only_ entrance is through the strait gate of +penitence. Christ will forgive on our cry for pardon, and that is the +first link of a golden chain unwinding from His hand by which we may +ascend to the perfect possession of our inheritance in God. "Whom He +justified, them," and them only, He will glorify. + + + + +V. + +_THE GLORY OF THE SON IN HIS RELATION TO THE FATHER, THE UNIVERSE AND +THE CHURCH._ + + "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all + creation; for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and + upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones + or dominions or principalities or powers, all things have been + created through Him and unto Him; and He is before all things, and + in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the + church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in + all things He might have the pre-eminence."--COL. i. 15-18 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +As has already been remarked, the Colossian Church was troubled by +teachers who had grafted on Jewish belief many of the strange +speculations about matter and creation which have always had such a +fascination for the Eastern mind. To us, they are apt to seem empty +dreams, baseless and bewildering; but they had force enough to shake the +early Church to its foundation, and in some forms they still live. + +These teachers in Colossae seem to have held that all matter was evil and +the seat of sin; that therefore the material creation could not have +come directly from a good God, but was in a certain sense opposed to +Him, or, at all events, was separated from Him by a great gulf. The void +space was bridged by a chain of beings, half abstractions and half +persons, gradually becoming more and more material. The lowest of them +had created the material universe and now governed it, and all were to +be propitiated by worship. + +Some such opinions must be presupposed in order to give point and force +to these great verses in which Paul opposes the solid truth to these +dreams, and instead of a crowd of Powers and angelic Beings, in whom the +effulgence of Deity was gradually darkened, and the spirit became more +and more thickened into matter, lifts high and clear against that +background of fable, the solitary figure of the one Christ. He fills all +the space between God and man. There is no need for a crowd of shadowy +beings to link heaven with earth. Jesus Christ lays His hand upon both. +He is the head and source of creation; He is the head and fountain of +life to His Church. Therefore He is first in all things, to be listened +to, loved and worshipped by men. As when the full moon rises, so when +Christ appears, all the lesser stars with which Alexandrian and Eastern +speculation had peopled the abysses of the sky are lost in the mellow +radiance, and instead of a crowd of flickering ineffectual lights there +is one perfect orb, "and heaven is overflowed." "We see no _creature_ +any more save Jesus only." + +We have outgrown the special forms of error which afflicted the Church +at Colossae, but the truths which are here set over against them are +eternal, and are needed to-day in our conflicts of opinion as much as +then. There are here three grand conceptions of Christ's relations. We +have Christ and God, Christ and Creation, Christ and the Church, and, +built upon all these, the triumphant proclamation of His supremacy over +all creatures in all respects. + +I. We have the relation of Christ to God set forth in these grand +words, "the image of the invisible God." + +Apparently Paul is here using for his own purposes language which was +familiar on the lips of his antagonists. We know that Alexandrian +Judaism had much to say about the "Word," and spoke of it as the Image +of God: and probably some such teaching had found its way to Colossae. An +"image" is a likeness or representation, as of a king's head on a coin, +or of a face reflected in a mirror. Here it is that which makes the +invisible visible. The God who dwells in the thick darkness, remote from +sense and above thought, has come forth and made Himself known to man, +even in a very real way has come within the reach of man's senses, in +the manhood of Jesus Christ. Where then is there a place for the shadowy +abstractions and emanations with which some would bind together God and +man? + +The first thought involved in this statement is, that the Divine Being +in Himself is inconceivable and unapproachable. "No man hath seen God at +any time, nor can see Him." Not only is He beyond the reach of sense, +but above the apprehension of the understanding. Direct and immediate +knowledge of Him is impossible. There may be, there is, written on every +human spirit a dim consciousness of His presence, but that is not +knowledge. Creatural limitations prevent it, and man's sin prevents it. +He is "the King invisible," because He is the "Father of Lights" +dwelling in "a glorious privacy of light," which is to us darkness +because there is in it "no darkness at all." + +Then, the next truth included here is, that Christ is the perfect +manifestation and image of God. In Him we have the invisible becoming +visible. Through Him we know all that we know of God, as distinguished +from what we guess or imagine or suspect of Him. On this high theme, it +is not wise to deal much in the scholastic language of systems and +creeds. Few words, and these mainly His own, are best, and he is least +likely to speak wrongly who confines himself most to Scripture in his +presentation of the truth. All the great streams of teaching in the New +Testament concur in the truth which Paul here proclaims. The conception +in John's Gospel of the Word which is the utterance and making audible +of the Divine mind, the conceptions in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the +effulgence or forthshining of God's glory, and the very image, or +stamped impress of His substance, are but other modes of representing +the same facts of full likeness and complete manifestation, which Paul +here asserts by calling the man Christ Jesus, the image of the Invisible +God. The same thoughts are involved in the name by which our Lord called +Himself, the Son of God; and they cannot be separated from many words of +His, such as "he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." In Him the +Divine nature comes near to us in a form that once could be grasped in +part by men's senses, for it was "that of the Word of life" which they +saw with their eyes and their hands handled, and which is to-day and for +ever a form that can be grasped by mind and heart and will. In Christ we +have the revelation of a God who can be known, and loved, and trusted, +with a knowledge which, though it be not complete, is real and valid, +with a love which is solid enough to be the foundation of a life, with +a trust which is conscious that it has touched rock and builds secure. +Nor is that fact that He is the revealer of God, one that began with His +incarnation, or ends with His earthly life. From the beginning and +before the creatural beginning, as we shall see in considering another +part of these great verses, the Word was the agent of all Divine +activity, the "arm of the Lord," and the source of all Divine +illumination, "the face of the Lord," or, as we have the thought put in +the remarkable words of the Book of Proverbs, where the celestial and +pure Wisdom is more than a personification though not yet distinctly +conceived as a person, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His +way. I was by Him as one brought up--or as a master worker--with Him, +and I was daily _His_ delight ... and _My_ delights were with the sons +of men." And after the veils of flesh and sense are done away, and we +see face to face, I believe that the face which we shall see, and +seeing, shall have beauty born of the vision passing into our faces, +will be the face of Jesus Christ, in which the light of the glory of God +shall shine for the redeemed and perfected sons of God, even as it did +for them when they groped amid the shows of earth. The law for time and +for eternity is, "I have declared Thy name unto My brethren and will +declare it." That great fathomless, shoreless ocean of the Divine nature +is like a "closed sea"--Christ is the broad river which brings its +waters to men, and "everything liveth whithersoever the river cometh." + +In these brief words on so mighty a matter, I must run the risk of +appearing to deal in unsupported statements. My business is not so much +to try to prove Paul's words as to explain them, and then to press them +home. Therefore I would urge that thought, that we depend on Christ for +all true knowledge of God. Guesses are not knowledge. Speculations are +not knowledge. Peradventures, whether of hope or fear, are not +knowledge. What we poor men need, is a certitude of a God who loves us +and cares for us, has an arm that can help us, and a heart that will. +The God of "pure theism" is little better than a phantom, so +unsubstantial that you can see the stars shining through the pale form, +and when a man tries to lean on him for support, it is like leaning on a +wreath of mist. There is nothing. There is no certitude firm enough for +us to find sustaining power against life's trials in resting upon it, +but in Christ. There is no warmth of love enough for us to thaw our +frozen limbs by, apart from Christ. In Him, and in Him alone, the far +off, awful, doubtful God becomes a God very near, of Whom we are sure, +and sure that He loves and is ready to help and cleanse and save. + +And that is what we each need. "My soul crieth out for God, for the +_living_ God." And never will that orphaned cry be answered, but in the +possession of Christ, in Whom we possess the Father also. No dead +abstractions--no reign of law--still less the dreary proclamation, +"Behold we know not anything," least of all, the pottage of material +good, will hush that bitter wail that goes up unconsciously from many an +Esau's heart--"My father, my father!" Men will find Him in Christ. They +will find Him nowhere else. It seems to me that the only refuge for this +generation from atheism--if it is still allowable to use that +unfashionable word--is the acceptance of Christ as the revealer of God. +On any other terms religion is rapidly becoming impossible for the +cultivated class. The great word which Paul opposed to the cobwebs of +Gnostic speculation is the word for our own time with all its +perplexities--Christ is the Image of the Invisible God. + +II. We have the relation of Christ to Creation set forth in that great +name, "the firstborn of all creation," and further elucidated by a +magnificent series of statements which proclaim Him to be agent or +medium, and aim or goal of creation, prior to it in time and dignity, +and its present upholder and bond of unity. + +"The firstborn of all creation." At first sight, this name seems to +include Him in the great family of creatures as the eldest, and clearly +to treat Him as one of them, just because He is declared to be in some +sense the first of them. That meaning has been attached to the words; +but it is shown not to be their intention by the language of the next +verse, which is added to prove and explain the title. It distinctly +alleges that Christ was "before" all creation, and that He is the agent +of all creation. To insist that the words must be explained so as to +include Him in "creation" would be to go right in the teeth of the +Apostle's own justification and explanation of them. So that the true +meaning is that He is the firstborn, in comparison with, or in reference +to, all creation. Such an understanding of the force of the expression +is perfectly allowable grammatically, and is necessary unless this verse +is to be put in violent contradiction to the next. The same construction +is found in Milton's + + "Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, + His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve." + +where "of" distinctly means "in comparison with," and not "belonging +to." + +The title implies priority in existence, and supremacy. It substantially +means the same thing as the other title of "the only begotten Son," only +that the latter brings into prominence the relation of the Son to the +Father, while the former lays stress on His relation to Creation. +Further it must be noted, that this name applies to the Eternal Word and +not to the incarnation of that Word, or to put it in another form, the +divinity and not the humanity of the Lord Jesus is in the Apostle's +view. Such is the briefest outline of the meaning of this great name. + +A series of clauses follow, stating more fully the relation of the +firstborn Son to Creation, and so confirming and explaining the title. + +The whole universe is, as it were, set in one class, and He alone over +against it. No language could be more emphatically all-comprehensive. +Four times in one sentence we have "all things"--the whole +universe--repeated, and traced to Him as Creator and Lord. "In the +heavens and the earth" is quoted from Genesis, and is intended here, as +there, to be an exhaustive enumeration of the creation according to +place. "Things visible or invisible" again includes the whole under a +new principle of division--there are visible things in heaven, as sun +and stars, there may be invisible on earth, but wherever and of whatever +sort they are, He made them. "Whether thrones or dominions, or +principalities or powers," an enumeration evidently alluding to the +dreamy speculations about an angelic hierarchy filling the space between +the far off God, and men immersed in matter. There is a tone of +contemptuous impatience in Paul's voice, as he quotes the pompous list +of sonorous titles which a busy fancy had coined. It is as if he had +said, You are being told a great deal about these angel hierarchies, and +know all about their ranks and gradations. I do not know anything about +them; but this I know, that if, amid the unseen things in the heavens or +the earth, there be any such, my Lord made them, and is their master. So +he groups together the whole universe of created beings, actual or +imaginary, and then high above it, separate from it, its Lord and +Creator, its upholder and end, he points to the majestic person of the +only begotten Son of God, His Firstborn, higher than all the rulers of +the earth, whether human or superhuman. + +The language employed brings into strong relief the manifold variety of +relations which the Son sustains to the universe, by the variety of the +prepositions used in the sentence. The whole sum of created things (for +the Greek means not only "all things," but "all things considered as a +unity") was in the original act, created _in_ Him, _through_ Him, and +_unto_ Him. The first of these words, "in Him," regards Him as the +creative centre, as it were, or element in which as in a storehouse or +reservoir all creative force resided, and was in a definite act put +forth. The thought may be parallel with that in the prologue to John's +Gospel, "In Him was life." The Word stands to the universe as the +incarnate Christ does to the Church; and as all spiritual life is in +Him, and union to Him is its condition, so all physical takes its origin +within the depths of His Divine nature. The error of the Gnostics was to +put the act of creation and the thing created, as far away as possible +from God, and it is met by this remarkable expression, which brings +creation and the creatures in a very real sense within the confines of +the Divine nature, as manifested in the Word, and asserts the truth of +which pantheism so called is the exaggeration, that all things are in +Him, like seeds in a seed vessel, while yet they are not identified with +Him. + +The possible dangers of that profound truth, which has always been more +in harmony with Eastern than with Western modes of thought, are averted +by the next preposition used, "all things have been created _through_ +Him." That presupposes the full, clear demarcation between creature and +creator, and so on the one hand extricates the person of the Firstborn +of all creation from all risk of being confounded with the universe, +while on the other it emphasizes the thought that He is the medium of +the Divine energy, and so brings into clear relief His relation to the +inconceivable Divine nature. He is the image of the invisible God, and +accordingly, _through_ Him have all things been created. The same +connection of ideas is found in the parallel passage in the Epistle to +the Hebrews, where the words, "_through_ Whom also He made the worlds," +stand in immediate connection with "being the effulgence of His glory." + +But there remains yet another relation between Him and the act of +creation. "_For_ Him" they have been made. All things come from and tend +towards Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the +ending. All things spring from His will, draw their being from that +fountain, and return thither again. These relations which are here +declared of the Son, are in more than one place declared of the Father. +Do we face the question fairly--what theory of the person of Jesus +Christ explains that fact? + +But further, His existence before the whole creation is repeated, with a +force in both the words, "He is," which can scarcely be given in +English. The former is emphatic--He Himself--and the latter emphasizes +not only pre-existence, but absolute existence. "He _was_ before all +things" would not have said so much as "He _is_ before all things." We +are reminded of His own words, "Before Abraham was, I am." + +"In Him all things consist" or hold together. He is the element in which +takes place and by which is caused that continued creation which is the +preservation of the universe, as He is the element in which the original +creative act took place of old. All things came into being and form an +ordered unity in Him. He links all creatures and forces into a +co-operant whole, reconciling their antagonisms, drawing all their +currents into one great tidal wave, melting all their notes into music +which God can hear, however discordant it may sometimes sound to us. He +is "the bond of perfectness," the key-stone of the arch, the centre of +the wheel. + +Such, then, in merest outline is the Apostle's teaching about the +Eternal Word and the Universe. What sweetness and what reverential awe +such thoughts should cast around the outer world and the providences of +life! How near they should bring Jesus Christ to us! What a wonderful +thought that is, that the whole course of human affairs and of natural +processes is directed by Him who died upon the cross! The helm of the +universe is held by the hands which were pierced for us. The Lord of +Nature and the Mover of all things is that Saviour on whose love we may +pillow our aching heads. + +We need these lessons to-day, when many teachers are trying hard to +drive all that is spiritual and Divine out of creation and history, and +to set up a merciless law as the only God. Nature is terrible and stern +sometimes, and the course of events can inflict crushing blows; but we +have not the added horror of thinking both to be controlled by no will. +Christ is King in either region, and with our elder brother for the +ruler of the land, we shall not lack corn in our sacks, nor a Goshen to +dwell in. We need not people the void, as these old heretics did, with +imaginary forms, nor with impersonal forces and laws--nor need we, as so +many are doing to-day, wander through its many mansions as through a +deserted house, finding nowhere a Person who welcomes us; for everywhere +we may behold our Saviour, and out of every storm and every solitude +hear His voice across the darkness saying, "It is I; be not afraid." + +III. The last of the relations set forth in this great section is that +between Christ and His Church. "He is the head of the body, the Church; +who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead." + +A parallel is plainly intended to be drawn between Christ's relation to +the material creation and to the Church, the spiritual creation. As the +Word of God before incarnation is to the universe, so is the incarnate +Christ to the Church. As in the former, He is prior in time and superior +in dignity, so is He in the latter. As in the universe He is source and +origin of all being, so in the Church He is the beginning, both as being +first and as being origin of all spiritual life. As the glowing words +which described His relation to creation began with the great title "the +Firstborn," so those which describe His relation to the Church close +with the same name in a different application. Thus the two halves of +His work are as it were moulded into a golden circle, and the end of the +description bends round towards the beginning. + +Briefly, then, we have here first, Christ the head, and the Church His +body. In the lower realm the Eternal Word was the power which held all +things together, and similar but higher in fashion is the relation +between Him and the whole multitude of believing souls. Popular +physiology regards the head as the seat of life. So the fundamental idea +in the familiar metaphor, when applied to our Lord is that of the source +of the mysterious spiritual life which flows from Him into all the +members, and is sight in the eye, strength in the arm, swiftness in the +foot, colour in the cheek, being richly various in its manifestations +but one in its nature, and all His. The same mysterious derivation of +life from Him is taught in His own metaphor of the Vine, in which every +branch, however far away from the root, lives by the common life +circulating through all, which clings in the tendrils, and reddens in +the clusters, and is not theirs though it be in them. + +That thought of the source of life leads necessarily to the other, that +He is the centre of unity, by Whom the "many members" become "one body," +and the maze of branches one vine. The "head," too, naturally comes to +be the symbol for authority--and these three ideas of seat of life, +centre of unity, and emblem of absolute power, appear to be those +principally meant here. + +Christ is further the _beginning_ to the Church. In the natural world He +was before all, and source of all. The same double idea is contained in +this name, "the Beginning." It does not merely mean the first member of +a series who begins it, as the first link in a chain does, but it means +the power which causes the series to begin. The root is the beginning of +the flowers which blow in succession through the plant's flowering time, +though we may also call the first flower of the number the beginning. +But Christ is root; not merely the first flower, though He is also that. + +He is head and beginning to His Church by means of His resurrection. He +is the firstborn from the dead, and His communication of spiritual life +to His Church requires the historical fact of His resurrection as its +basis, for a dead Christ could not be the source of life; and that +resurrection completes the manifestation of the incarnate Word, by our +faith in which, His spiritual life flows into our spirits. Unless He has +risen from the dead, all His claims to be anything else than a wise +teacher and fair character crumble into nothing, and to think of Him as +a source of life is impossible. + +He is the beginning through His resurrection, too, in regard of His +raising us from the dead. He is the first-fruits of them that slept, and +bears the promise of a mighty harvest. He has risen from the dead, and +therein we have not only the one demonstration for the world that there +is a life after death, but the irrefragable assurance to the Church that +because He lives it shall live also. A dead body and a living head +cannot be. We are knit to Him too closely for the Fury "with the +abhorred shears" to cut the thread. He has risen that He might be the +firstborn among many brethren. + +So the Apostle concludes that in all things He is first--and all things +are, that He _may_ be first. Whether in nature or in grace, that +pre-eminence is absolute and supreme. The end of all the majesty of +creation and of all the wonders of grace is that His solitary figure may +stand clearly out as centre and lord of the universe, and His name be +lifted high over all. + +So the question of questions for us all is, What think ye of Christ? Our +thoughts now have necessarily been turned to subjects which may have +seemed abstract and remote--but these truths which we have been trying +to make clear and to present in their connection, are not the mere terms +or propositions of a half mystical theology far away from our daily +life, but bear most gravely and directly on our deepest interests. I +would fain press on every conscience the sharp-pointed appeal--What is +this Christ to us? Is He _any_ thing to us but a name? Do our hearts +leap up with a joyful Amen when we read these great words of this text? +Are we ready to crown Him Lord of all? Is He our head, to fill us with +vitality, to inspire and to command? Is He the goal and the end of our +individual life? Can we each say--I live by Him, in Him, and for Him? + +Happy are we, if we give to Christ the pre-eminence, and if our hearts +set "Him first, Him last, Him midst and without end." + + + + +VI. + +_THE RECONCILING SON._ + + "For it was the good pleasure _of the Father_ that in Him should all + the fulness dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto + Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through + Him, _I say_, whether things upon the earth, or things in the + heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your + mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of + His flesh through death."--COL. i. 19-22 (Rev. Ver.). + + +These words correspond to those which immediately precede them, inasmuch +as they present the same sequence, and deal with Christ in His relation +to God, to the universe, and to the Church. The strata of thought are +continuous, and lie here in the same order as we found them there. There +we had set forth the work of the pre-incarnate Word as well as of the +incarnate Christ; here we have mainly the reconciling power of His cross +proclaimed as reaching to every corner of the universe, and as +culminating in its operations on the believing souls to whom Paul +speaks. There we had the fact that He was the image of God laid as basis +of His relation to men and creatures; here that fact itself apprehended +in somewhat different manner, namely, as the dwelling in Him of all +"fulness," is traced to its ground in the "good pleasure" of the Father, +and the same Divine purpose is regarded as underlying Christ's whole +reconciling work. We observe, also, that all this section with which we +have now to deal is given as the explanation and reason of Christ's +pre-eminence. These are the principal links of connection with the +previous words, and having noted them, we may proceed to attempt some +imperfect consideration of the overwhelming thoughts here contained. + +I. As before, we have Christ in relation to God. "It was the good +pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell." + +Now, we may well suppose from the use of the word "fulness" here, which +we know to have been a very important term in later full-blown Gnostic +speculations, that there is a reference to some of the heretical +teachers' expressions, but such a supposition is not needed either to +explain the meaning, or to account for the use of the word. + +"The fulness"--what fulness? I think, although it has been disputed, +that the language of the next chapter (ii. 9), where we read "In Him +dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," should settle that. + +It seems most improbable that with two out of three significant words +the same, the ellipse should be supplied by anything but the third. The +meaning then will be--the whole abundance, or totality of Divine powers +and attributes. That is, to put it in homelier words, that all that +Divine nature in all its sweet greatness, in all its infinite wealth of +tenderness and power and wisdom, is embodied in Jesus Christ. We have no +need to look to heavens above or to earth beneath for fragmentary +revelations of God's character. We have no need to draw doubtful +inferences as to what God is from the questionable teachings of nature, +or from the mysteries of human history with its miseries. No doubt these +do show something of Him to observant hearts, and most to those who have +the key to their meaning by their faith in a clearer revelation. At +sundry times and in divers manners, God has spoken to the world by these +partial voices, to each of which some syllables of His name have been +committed. But He has put His whole name in that messenger of a New +Covenant by whom He has finally declared His whole character to us, even +His Son, in whom "it was the good pleasure of the Father that all the +fulness should dwell." + +The word rendered "dwell" implies a permanent abode, and may have been +chosen in order to oppose a view which we know to have prevailed later, +and may suspect to have been beginning to appear thus early, namely, +that the union of the Divine and the human in the person of Christ was +but temporary. At all events, emphasis is placed here on the opposite +truth that that indwelling does not end with the earthly life of Jesus, +and is not like the shadowy and transient incarnations of Eastern +mythology or speculation--a mere assumption of a fleshly nature for a +moment, which is dropped from the re-ascending Deity, but that, for +evermore, manhood is wedded to divinity in the perpetual humanity of +Jesus Christ. + +And this indwelling is the result of the Father's good pleasure. +Adopting the supplement in the Authorized and Revised Versions, we might +read "the Father pleased"--but without making that change, the force of +the words remains the same. The Incarnation and whole work of Christ are +referred to their deepest ground in the will of the Father. The word +rendered "pleased" implies both counsel and complacency; it is both +pleasure and good pleasure. The Father determined the work of the Son, +and delighted in it. Caricatures intentional or unintentional of New +Testament teaching have often represented it as making Christ's work the +means of pacifying an unloving God and moving Him to mercy. That is no +part of the Pauline doctrine. But he, as all his brethren, taught that +the love of God is the cause of the mission of Christ, even as Christ +Himself had taught that "God so loved the world that He sent His Son." +On that Rock-foundation of the will--the loving will of the Father, is +built the whole work of His Incarnate Son. And as that work was the +issue of His eternal purpose, so it is the object of His eternal +delight. That is the wonderful meaning of the word which fell gently as +the dove descending on His head, and lay on His locks wet from His +baptism, like a consecrating oil--"This is My beloved Son, in whom _I am +well pleased_." God willed that so He should be; He delighted that so He +was. Through Christ, the Father purposed that His fulness should be +communicated to us, and through Christ the Father rejoices to pour His +abundance into our emptiness, that we may be filled with all the +fulness. + +II. Again, we have here, as before Christ and the Universe, of which He +is not only Maker, Sustainer, and Lord, but through "the blood of His +cross" reconciles "all things unto Himself." + +Probably these same false teachers had dreams of reconciling agents +among the crowd of shadowy phantoms with which they peopled the void. +Paul lifts up in opposition to all these the one Sovereign Mediator, +whose cross is the bond of peace for all the universe. + +It is important for the understanding of these great words to observe +their distinct reference to the former clauses which dealt with our +Lord's relation to the universe as Creator. The same words are used in +order to make the parallelism as close as may be, "Through Him" was +creation; "through Him" is reconciliation. "All things"--or as the Greek +would rather suggest, "the universe"--all things considered as an +aggregate--were made and sustained through Him and subordinated to Him; +the same "all things" are reconciled. A significant change in the order +of naming the elements of which these are composed is noticeable. When +creation is spoken of, the order is "in the heavens and upon the +earth"--the order of creation; but when reconciliation is the theme, the +order is reversed, and we read "things upon the earth and things in the +heavens"--those coming first which stand nearest to the reconciling +cross, and are first to feel the power which streams from it. + +This obvious intentional correspondence between these two paragraphs +shows us that whatever be the nature of the "reconciliation" spoken of +here, it is supposed to affect not only rational and responsible +creatures who alone in the full sense of the word can be reconciled, as +they only in the full sense of the word can be enemies, but to extend to +_things_, and to send its influence through the universe. The width of +the reconciliation is the same as that of the creation; they are +conterminous. That being the case, "reconciliation" here must have a +different shade of meaning when applied to the sum total of created +things from what it has when applied to persons. But not only are +inanimate creatures included in the expression; it may even be made a +question whether the whole of mankind is not excluded from it, not only +by the phrase "all _things_" but also from the consideration that the +effect of Christ's death on men is the subject of the following words, +which are not an explanation of this clause, but an addition to it, +introducing an entirely different department of Christ's reconciling +work. Nor should we lose sight of the very significant omission in this +section of the reference to the angelic beings who were named in the +creation section. We hear nothing now about thrones or dominions or +principalities or powers. The division into "visible and invisible" is +not reproduced. I suggest the possibility that the reason may be the +intention to represent this "reconciliation" as taking effect +exclusively on the regions of creation below the angelic and below the +human, while the "reconciliation," properly so called, which is brought +to pass on alienated men is dealt with first in the following words. + +If this be so, then these words refer mainly to the restitution of the +material universe to its primal obedience, and represent Christ the +Creator removing by His cross the shadow which has passed over nature by +reason of sin. It has been well said, "How far this restoration of +universal nature may be subjective, as involved in the changed +perceptions of man thus brought into harmony with God, and how far it +may have an objective and independent existence, it were vain to +speculate."[1] + +Scripture seems to teach that man's sin has made the physical world +"subject to vanity"; for, although much of what it says on this matter +is unquestionably metaphor only, portraying the Messianic blessings in +poetical language never meant for dogmatic truth, and although +unquestionably physical death reigned among animals, and storms and +catastrophes swept over the earth long before man or sin were here, +still--seeing that man by his sin has compelled dead matter to serve his +lusts and to be his instrument in acts of rebellion against God, making +"a league with the stones of the field" against his and their +Master--seeing that he has used earth to hide heaven and to shut himself +out from its glories, and so has made it an unwilling antagonist to God +and temptress to evil--seeing that he has actually polluted the beauty +of the world and has stained many a lovely scene with his sin, making +its rivers run red with blood--seeing that he has laid unnumbered woes +on the living creatures--we may feel that there is more than poetry in +the affirmation that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain +together," and may hear a deep truth, the extent of which we cannot +measure, in Milton's majestic lines-- + + "Disproportioned Sin + Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din + Brake the fair music that all creatures made + To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed." + +Here we have held forth in words, the extent of which we can measure as +little, the counter-hope that wherever and however any such effect has +come to pass on the material universe, it shall be done away by the +reconciling power of the blood shed on the cross. That reconciling +power goes as far as His creative power. The universe is one, not only +because all created by the one personal Divine Word, nor because all +upheld by Him, but because in ways to us unknown, the power of the cross +pierces its heights and depths. As the impalpable influences of the sun +bind planets and comets into one great system, so from Him on His cross +may stream out attractive powers which knit together far off regions, +and diverse orders, and bring all in harmonious unity to God, who has +made peace by the blood shed on the cross, and has thereby been pleased +to reconcile all things to Himself. + + "And a Priest's hand through creation + Waveth calm and consecration." + +It may be that the reference to things in heaven is like the similar +reference in the previous verses, occasioned by some dreams of the +heretical teachers. He may merely mean to say: You speak much about +heavenly things, and have filled the whole space between God's throne +and man's earth with creatures thick as the motes in the sunbeam. I know +nothing about them; but this I know, that, if they are, Christ made +them, and that if among them there be antagonism to God, it can be +overcome by the cross. As to reconciliation proper,--in the heavens, +meaning by that, among spiritual beings who dwell in that realm, it is +clear there can be no question of it. There is no enmity among the +angels of heaven, and no place for return to union with God among their +untroubled bands, who "hearken to the voice of His word." But still if +the hypothetical form of the clause and the use of the neuter gender +permit any reference to intelligent beings in the heavens, we know that +to the principalities and powers in heavenly places the cross has been +the teacher of before unlearned depths in the Divine nature and +purposes, the knowledge of which has drawn them nearer the heart of God, +and made even their blessed union with Him more blessed and more close. + +On no subject is it more necessary to remember the limitations of our +knowledge than on this great theme. On none is confident assertion more +out of place. The general truth taught is clear, but the specific +applications of it to the various regions of the universe is very +doubtful. We have no source of knowledge on that subject but the words +of Scripture, and we have no means of verifying or checking the +conclusions we may draw from them. We are bound, therefore, if we go +beyond the general principle, to remember that _it_ is one thing, and +our reckoning up of what it includes is quite another. Our inferences +have not the certainty of God's word. _It_ comes to us with "Verily, +verily." _We_ have no right to venture on more than Perhaps. + +Especially is this the case when we have but one or two texts to build +on, and these most general in their language. And still more, when we +find other words of Scripture which seem hard to reconcile with them, if +pressed to their utmost meaning. In such a case our wisdom is to +recognise that God has not been pleased to give us the means of +constructing a dogma on the subject, and rather to seek to learn the +lessons taught by the obscurity that remains than rashly and confidently +to proclaim our inferences from half of our materials as if they were +the very heart of the gospel. + +Sublime and great beyond all our dreams, we may be sure, shall be the +issue. Certain as the throne of God is it that His purposes shall be +accomplished--and at last this shall be the fact for the universe, as it +has ever been the will of the Father--"Of Him, and through Him, and to +Him are all things, to whom be glory for ever." To that highest hope and +ultimate vision for the whole creation, who will not say, Amen? The +great sight which the seer beheld in Patmos is the best commentary on +our text. To him the eternal order of the universe was unveiled--the +great white throne, a snowy Alp in the centre; between the throne and +the creatures, the Lamb, through Whom blessing and life passed outwards +to them, and their incense and praise passed inwards to the throne; and +all around the "living creatures," types of the aggregate of creatural +life, the "elders," representatives of the Church redeemed from among +men, and myriads of the firstborn of heaven. The eyes of all alike wait +upon that slain Lamb. In Him they see God in clearest light of love and +gentlest might--and as they look and learn and are fed, each according +to his hunger, from the fulness of Christ, "every creature which is in +heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the +sea, and all that are in them," will be heard saying "Blessing, and +honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him, that sitteth upon the throne, +and unto the Lamb for ever." + +III. Christ, and His Reconciling Work in the Church. We have still the +parallel kept up between the reconciling and the creative work of +Christ. As in verse 18 He was represented as the giver of life to the +Church, in a higher fashion than to the universe, so, and probably with +a similar heightening of the meaning of "reconciliation," He is here +set forth as its giver to the Church. + +Now observe the solemn emphasis of the description of the condition of +men before that reconciling work has told upon their hearts. They are +"alienated"--not "aliens," as if that were their original condition, but +"alienated," as having become so. The same thought that man's sin and +separation from God is a fall, something abnormal and superinduced on +humanity, which is implied in "reconciliation" or restoration to an +original concord, is implied in this expression. "And enemies in your +mind"--the seat of the enmity is in that inner man which thinks, +reflects, and wills, and its sphere of manifestation is "in evil works" +which are religiously acts of hostility to God because morally they are +bad. We should not read "_by_ wicked works," as the Authorized Version +does, for the evil deeds have not made them enemies, but the enmity has +originated the evil deeds, and is witnessed to by them. + +That is a severe indictment, a plain, rough, and as it is thought +now-a-days, a far too harsh description of human nature. Our forefathers +no doubt were tempted to paint the "depravity of human nature" in very +black colours--but I am very sure that we are tempted just in the +opposite direction. It sounds too harsh and rude to press home the +old-fashioned truth on cultured, respectable ladies and gentlemen. The +charge is not that of conscious, active hostility, but of practical want +of affection, as manifested by habitual disobedience or inattention to +God's wishes, and by indifference and separation from Him in heart and +mind. + +And are these not the habitual temper of multitudes? The signs of love +are joy in the company of the beloved, sweet memories and longings if +parted, eager fulfilment of their lightest wish, a quick response to the +most slender association recalling them to our thoughts. Have we these +signs of love to God? If not, it is time to consider what temper of +heart and mind towards the most loving of Hearts and the most unwearied +of Givers, is indicated by the facts that we scarcely ever think of Him, +that we have no delight in His felt presence, that most of our actions +have no reference whatever to Him and would be done just the same if +there were no God at all. Surely such a condition is liker hostility +than love. + +Further, here, as uniformly, God Himself is the Reconciler. "He"--that +is, God, not Christ, "has reconciled us." Some, indeed, read "ye have +been reconciled," but the preponderance of authority is in favour of the +text as it stands, which yields a sense accordant with the usual mode of +representation. It is we who are reconciled. It is God who reconciles. +It is we who are enemies. The Divine patience loves on through all our +enmity, and though perfect love meeting human sin must become wrath, +which is consistent with love, it never becomes hatred, which is love's +opposite. + +Observe finally the great means of reconciliation: "In the body of His +flesh"--that is, of course, Christ's flesh--God has reconciled us. Why +does the Apostle use this apparently needless exuberance of +language--"the body of His flesh"? It may have been in order to correct +some erroneous tendencies towards a doctrine which we know was +afterwards eagerly embraced in the Eastern Churches, that our Lord's +body was not truly flesh, but only a phantasm or appearance. It may have +been to guard against risk of confounding it with His "body the Church," +spoken of in the 18th verse, though that supposes a scarcely credible +dulness in his readers. Or it may more naturally be accounted for as +showing how full his own mind was of the overwhelming wonder of the fact +that He, Whose majesty he has been setting forth in such deep words, +should veil His eternal glories and limit His far reaching energies +within a fleshly body. He would point the contrast between the Divine +dignity of the Eternal Word, the Creator and Lord of the universe, and +the lowliness of His incarnation. On these two pillars, as on two solid +piers, one on either continent, with a great gulf between, the Divinity +of Christ on one side, His Manhood on the other, is built the bridge by +which we pass over the river into the glory. + +But that is not all. The Incarnation is not the whole gospel. The body +of His flesh becomes the means of our reconciliation "through death." +Christ's death has so met the requirements of the Divine law that the +Divine love can come freely forth, and embrace and forgive sinful men. +That fact is the very centre of the revelation of God in Christ, the +very secret of His power. He has died. Voluntarily and of His own love, +as well as in obedience to the Father's loving will, He has borne the +consequences of the sin which He had never shared, in that life of +sorrow and sympathy, in that separation from God which is sin's deepest +penalty, and of which the solemn witness comes to us in the cry that +rent the darkness, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and in +that physical death which is the parable in the material sphere of the +true death of the spirit. We do not know all the incidence of Christ's +death. The whole manner of its operation has not been told us, but the +fact has been. It does not affect the Divine heart. _That_ we know, for +"God so loved the world, that He sent His Son." But it does affect the +Divine government. Without it, forgiveness could not have been. Its +influence extends to all the years before, as to all after, Calvary, for +the fact that Man continued to be after Man had sinned, was because the +whole Divine government from the first had respect to the sacrifice that +was to be, as now it all is moulded by the merit of the sacrifice that +has been. And in this aspect of the case, the previous thoughts as to +the blood of the cross having power in the material universe derive a +new meaning, if we regard the whole history of the world as shaped by +Christ's sacrifice, and the very continuance of humanity from the first +moment of transgression as possible, because He was "the Lamb slain +before the foundation of the world," whose cross, as an eternal fact in +the Divine purpose, influenced the Divine government long before it was +realized in time. + +For us, that wondrous love--mightier than death, and not to be quenched +by many waters--is the one power that can change our alienation to glad +friendship, and melt the frost and hard-ribbed ice of indifference and +dread into love. That, and that alone, is the solvent for stubborn +wills, the magnet for distant hearts. The cross of Christ is the +key-stone of the universe and the conqueror of all enmity. + +If religion is to have sovereign power in our lives, it must be the +religion built upon faith in the Incarnate Son of God, who reconciles +the world to God upon His cross. That is the only faith which makes men +love God and binds them to Him with bands which cannot be broken. Other +types of Christianity are but tepid; and lukewarm water is an +abomination. The one thing that makes us ground our rebellious arms and +say, Lord, I surrender, Thou hast conquered, is to see in Christ's life +the perfect image of God, and in His death the all-sufficient sacrifice +for sin. + +What does it avail for us that the far-reaching power of Christ's cross +shoots out magnetic forces to the uttermost verge of the heavens, and +binds the whole universe by silken blood-red cords to God, if it does +not bind me to Him in love and longing? What does it avail that God is +in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, if I am unconscious of the +enmity, and careless of the friendship? Each man has to ask himself, Am +I reconciled to God? Has the sight of His great love on the cross won +_me_, body and soul, to His love and service? Have I flung away +self-will, pride and enmity, and yielded myself a glad captive to the +loving Christ who died? His cross draws us, His love beckons us. God +pleads with all hearts. He who has made peace by so costly means as the +sacrifice of His Son, condescends to implore the rebels to come into +amity with Him, and "prays us with much entreaty to receive the gift." +God beseeches us to be reconciled to Himself. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Bp. Lightfoot, _On Coloss._, p. 226. + + + + +VII. + +_THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF RECONCILIATION AND ITS HUMAN CONDITIONS._ + + "To present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before + Him: if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, + and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which + was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a + minister."--COL. i. 22, 23 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The Apostle has been sketching in magnificent outline a vast system, +which we may almost call the scheme of the universe. He has set forth +Christ as its Lord and centre, through Whom all things at first came +into being, and still continue to be. In parallel manner he has +presented Christ as Lord and Centre of the Church, its lifegiving Head. +And finally he has set forth Christ as the Reconciler of all discords in +heaven and earth, and especially of that which parts sinful men from +God. + +And now he shows us here, in the first words of our text, the purpose of +this whole manifestation of God in Christ to be the presenting of men +perfect in purity, before the perfect judgment of God. He then appends +the condition on which the accomplishment of this ultimate purpose in +each man depends--namely, the man's continuance in the faith and hope of +the Gospel. That leads him to gather up, in a series of clauses +characterizing the Gospel, certain aspects of it which constitute +subordinate motives and encouragements to such stedfastness. That is, I +think, the outline connection of the words before us, which at first +sight seem somewhat tangled and difficult to unravel. + +I. We have then, first, to consider the ultimate purpose of God in the +work of Christ. + +"To present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him." +It may be a question whether these words should be connected with "now +hath He reconciled," or whether we are to go farther back in the long +paragraph, and make them dependent on "it was the good pleasure of the +Father." The former seems the more natural--namely, to see here a +statement of the great end contemplated in our reconciliation to God; +which, indeed, whatever may be the grammatical construction preferred +here, is also, of course, the ultimate object of the Father's good +pleasure. In the word "present" there is possibly a sacrificial +allusion, as there is unquestionably in its use in Rom. xii., "Present +your bodies a living sacrifice"; or there may be another and even more +eloquent metaphor implied, that of the bringing of the bride to the +husband by the friend of the bridegroom. That lovely figure is found in +two instances of the use of the word in Paul's epistle (2 Cor. ii. 2, +"to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," and Eph. v. 27, "that He +might present it to Himself a glorious Church"), and possibly in others. +It certainly gives an appropriate and beautiful emblem here if we think +of the presentation of the bride in virginal beauty and purity to her +Lord at that last great day which is the bridal day of the perfected +Church. + +There is, however, no need to suppose any metaphor at all, nor any +allusion beyond the general meaning of the word--_to set in the presence +of_. The sacrificial reference is incongruous here, and the bridal one +not indicated by anything in the context, as it is in the instances just +quoted. One thing is clear, that the reference is to a future +presentation in the day of judgment, as in another place, where Paul +says, "He ... shall raise up us also ... and shall present us" (2 Cor. +iv. 14). In the light of that revealing day, His purpose is that we +shall stand "holy," that is, devoted to God and therefore pure--"without +blemish," as the offerings had to be, and "unreproveable," against whom +no charge can be brought. These three express a regular sequence; first, +the inward principle of consecration and devotion to God, then its +visible issue in stainless conduct and character, and then its last +consequence, that in the judgment of God and of men we shall stand +acquitted of blame, and every accusation drop away from our dazzling +purity, like muddy water from the white wing of the sea-bird as it +soars. And all this moral perfectness and unblameableness is to be not +merely in the judgment of men, but "before Him," the light of whose +"pure eyes and perfect judgment" discovers all stains and evils. They +must be spotless indeed who are "without fault before the throne of +God." + +Such, then, is the grand conception of the ultimate purpose and issue of +Christ's reconciling work. All the lines of thought in the preceding +section lead up to and converge in this peak. The meaning of God in +creation and redemption cannot be fully fathomed without taking into +view the future perfecting of men. This Christian ideal of the +possibilities for men is the noblest vision that can animate our hopes. +Absolute moral purity which shall be recognised as perfect by the +perfect Judge, and a close approach to God, so as that we shall be +"before Him" in a manner unknown here--are hopes as much brighter than +those which any other systems of belief print on the dim canvass curtain +of the future, as the Christian estimate of man's condition apart from +Christ is sadder and darker than theirs. Christianity has a much more +extended scale of colours than they have. It goes further down into +blackness for the tints with which it paints man as he is, and further +up into flashing glories of splendour for the gleaming hues with which +it paints him as he may become. They move within narrow limits of +neutral tints. The Gospel alone does not try to minimise man's evil, +because it is triumphantly confident of its power to turn all that evil +into good. + +Nothing short of this complete purity and blamelessness satisfies God's +heart. We may travel back to the beginning of this section, and connect +its first words with these, "It pleased the Father, to present us holy +and spotless and blameless." It delights Him thus to effect the +purifying of sinful souls, and He is glad when He sees Himself +surrounded by spirits thus echoing His will and reflecting His light. +This is what he longs for. This is what He aims at in all His +working--to make good and pure men. The moral interest is uppermost in +His heart and in His doings. The physical universe is but the +scaffolding by which the true house of God may be built. The work of +Christ is the means to that end, and when God has got us, by such +lavish expenditure, to be white like Himself, and can find nothing in us +to condemn, then, and not till then, does He brood over us satisfied and +glad at heart, resting in His love, and rejoicing over us with singing. + +Nor will anything short of this complete purity exhaust the power of the +Reconciling Christ. His work is like an unfinished column, or Giotto's +Campanile, all shining with marbles and alabasters and set about with +fair figures, but waiting for centuries for the glittering apex to +gather its glories into a heaven-piercing point. His cross and passion +reach no adequate result, short of the perfecting of saints, nor was it +worth Christ's while to die for any less end. His cross and passion have +evidently power to effect this perfect purity, and cannot be supposed to +have done all that is in them to do, until they have done that with +every Christian. + +We ought then to keep very clear before us this as the crowning object +of Christianity: not to make men happy, except as a consequence of +holiness; not to deliver from penalty, except as a means to holiness; +but to make them holy, and being holy, to set them close by the throne +of God. No man understands the scope of Christianity, or judges it +fairly, who does not give full weight to that as its own statement of +its purpose. The more distinctly we, as Christians, keep that purpose +prominent in our thoughts, the more shall we have our efforts stimulated +and guided, and our hopes fed, even when we are saddened by a sense of +failure. We have a power working in us which can make us white as the +angels, pure as our Lord is pure. If it, being able to produce perfect +results, has produced only such imperfect ones, we may well ask, where +the reason for the partial failure lies. If we believed more vividly +that the real purpose and use of Christianity was to make us good men, +we should surely labour more earnestly to secure that end, should take +more to heart our own responsibility for the incompleteness with which +it has been attained in us, and should submit ourselves more completely +to the operation of the "might of the power" which worketh in us. + +Nothing less than our absolute purity will satisfy God about us. Nothing +less should satisfy ourselves. The only worthy end of Christ's work for +us is to present us holy, in complete consecration, and without blemish, +in perfect homogeneousness and uniformity of white purity and +unreproveable in manifest innocence in His sight. If we call ourselves +Christians let us make it our life's business to see that that end is +being accomplished in us in some tolerable and growing measure. + +II. We have next set forth the conditions on which the accomplishment of +that purpose depends: "If so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded +and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Gospel." + +The condition is, generally speaking, a stedfast adherence to the Gospel +which the Colossians had received. "If ye continue in the faith," means, +I suppose, if ye continue to live in the _exercise_ of your faith. The +word here has its ordinary subjective sense, expressing the act of the +believing man, and there is no need to suppose that it has the later +ecclesiastical objective sense, expressing the believer's creed, a +meaning in which it may be questioned whether the word is ever employed +in the New Testament. Then this continuance in the faith is further +explained as to its manner, and that first positively, and then +negatively. They are to be grounded, or more picturesquely and +accurately, "founded," that is, built into a foundation, and therefore +"stedfast," as banded into the firm rock, and so partaking of its +fixedness. Then, negatively, they are not to be "moved away"; the word +by its form conveying the idea, that this is a process which may be +continually going on, and in which, by some force constantly acting from +without, they may be gradually and imperceptibly pushed off from the +foundation--that foundation is the hope evoked or held out by the +Gospel, a representation which is less familiar than that which makes +the Gospel itself the foundation, but is substantially equivalent to it, +though with a different colour. + +One or two plain lessons may be drawn from these words. There is an +"if," then. However great the powers of Christ and of His work, however +deep the desire and fixed the purpose of God, no fulfilment of these is +possible except on condition of our habitual exercise of faith. The +Gospel does not work on men by magic. Mind, heart and will must be +exercised on Christ, or all His power to purify and bless will be of no +avail to us. We shall be like Gideon's fleece, dry when the dew is +falling thick, unless we are continually putting forth living faith. +That attracts the blessing and fits the soul to receive it. There is +nothing mystical about the matter. Common sense tells us, that if a man +never thinks about any truth, that truth will do him no good in any way. +If it does not find its road into his heart through his mind, and thence +into his life, it is all one as if there were no such truth, or as if +he did not believe it. If our creed is made up of truths which we do not +think about, we may just as well have no creed. If we do not bring +ourselves into contact with the motives which the Gospel brings to bear +on character, the motives will not mould our character. If we do not, by +faith and meditation, realize the principles which flow from the truth +as it is in Jesus, and obtain the strength which is stored in Him, we +shall not grow by Him or like Him. No matter how mighty be the renewing +powers of the Gospel wielded by the Divine Spirit, they can only work on +the nature that is brought into contact with and continues in contact +with them by faith. The measure in which we trust Jesus Christ will be +the measure in which He helps us. "He could do no mighty works because +of their unbelief." He cannot do what He can do, if we thwart Him by our +want of faith. God will present us holy before Him _if_ we continue in +the faith. + +And it must be present faith which leads to present results. We cannot +make an arrangement by which we exercise faith wholesale once for all, +and secure a delivery of its blessings in small quantities for a while +after, as a buyer may do with goods. The moment's act of faith will +bring the moment's blessings; but to-morrow will have to get its own +grace by its own faith. We cannot lay up a stock for the future. There +must be present drinking for present thirst; we cannot lay in a reserve +of the water of life, as a camel can drink at a draught enough for a +long desert march. The Rock follows us all through the wilderness, but +we have to fill our pitchers day by day. Many Christians seem to think +that they can live on past acts of faith. No wonder that their Christian +character is stunted, and their growth stopped, and many a blemish +visible, and many a "blame" to be brought against them. Nothing but +continual exercise of faith, day by day, moment by moment, in every +duty, and every temptation, will secure the continual entrance into our +weakness of the strength which makes strong and the purity which makes +pure. + +Then again, if we and our lives are to be firm and stable, we must have +a foundation outside of ourselves on which to rest. That thought is +involved in the word "grounded" or "founded." It is possible that this +metaphor of the foundation is carried on into the next clause, in which +case "the hope of the Gospel" would be the foundation. Strange to make a +solid foundation out of so unsubstantial a thing as "hope!" That would +be indeed to build a castle on the air, a palace on a soap-bubble, would +it not? Yes, it would, if this hope were not "the hope produced by the +Gospel," and therefore as solid as the ever-enduring Word of the Lord on +which it is founded. But, more probably, the ordinary application of the +figure is preserved here, and Christ is the foundation, the Rock, on +which builded, our fleeting lives and our fickle selves may become +rock-like too, and every impulsive and changeable Simon Bar Jonas rise +to the mature stedfastness of a Peter, the pillar of the Church. + +Translate that image of taking Christ for our foundation into plain +English, and what does it come to? It means, let our minds find in Him, +in His Word, and whole revealing life, the basis of our beliefs, the +materials for thought; let our hearts find in Him their object, which +brings calmness and unchangeableness into their love; let our practical +energies take Him as their motive and pattern, their strength and their +aim, their stimulus and their reward; let all hopes and joys, emotions +and desires, fasten themselves on Him; let Him occupy and fill our whole +nature, and mould and preside over all our actions. So shall we be +"founded" on Christ. + +And so "founded," we shall, as Paul here beautifully puts it, be +"stedfast." Without that foundation to give stability and permanence, we +never get down to what abides, but pass our lives amidst fleeting +shadows, and are ourselves transient as they. The mind whose thoughts +about God and the unseen world are not built on the personal revelation +of God in Christ will have no solid certainties which cannot be shaken, +but, at the best, opinions which cannot have more fixedness than belongs +to human thoughts upon the great problem. If my love does not rest on +Christ, it will flicker and flutter, lighting now here and now there, +and even where it rests most secure in human love, sure to have to take +wing some day, when Death with his woodman's axe fells the tree where it +nestles. If my practical life is not built on Him, the blows of +circumstance will make it reel and stagger. If we are not well joined to +Jesus Christ, we shall be driven by gusts of passion and storms of +trouble, or borne along on the surface of the slow stream of +all-changing time like thistle-down on the water. If we are to be +stable, it must be because we are fastened to something outside of +ourselves that is stable, just as they have to lash a man to the mast +or other fixed things on deck, if he is not to be washed overboard in +the gale. If we are lashed to the unchangeable Christ by the "cords of +love" and faith, we too shall, in our degree, be stedfast. + +And, says Paul, that Christ-derived stedfastness will make us able to +resist influences that would move us away from the hope of the Gospel. +That process which their stedfastness would enable the Colossians +successfully to resist, is described by the language of the Apostle as +continuous, and as one which acted on them from without. Intellectual +dangers arose from false teachings. The ever acting tendencies of +worldliness pressed upon them, and they needed to make a distinct effort +to keep themselves from being overcome by these. + +If we do not take care that imperceptible, steady pressure of the +all-surrounding worldliness, which is continually acting on us, will +push us right off the foundation without our knowing that we have +shifted at all. If we do not look well after our moorings we shall drift +away down stream, and never know that we are moving, so smooth is the +motion, till we wake up to see that everything round about is changed. +Many a man is unaware how completely his Christian faith has gone till +some crisis comes when he needs it, and when he opens the jar there is +nothing. It has evaporated. When white ants eat away all the inside of a +piece of furniture, they leave the outside shell apparently solid, and +it stands till some weight is laid upon it, and then goes down with a +crash. Many people loose their Christianity in that fashion, by its +being nibbled away in tiny flakes by a multitude of secretly working +little jaws, and they never know that the pith is out of it till they +want to lean on it, and then it gives under them. + +The only way to keep firm hold of hope is to keep fast on the +foundation. If we do not wish to slide imperceptibly away from Him who +alone will make our lives stedfast and our hearts calm with the +peacefulness of having found our All, we must continuously make an +effort to tighten our grasp on Him, and to resist the subtle forces +which, by silent pressure or by sudden blows, seek to get us off the one +foundation. + +III. Then lastly, we have a threefold motive for adherence to the +Gospel. + +The three clauses which close these verses seem to be appended as +secondary and subordinate encouragements to stedfastness, which +encouragements are drawn from certain characteristics of the Gospel. Of +course, the main reason for a man's sticking to the Gospel, or to +anything else, is that it is true. And unless we are prepared to say +that we believe it true, we have nothing to do with such subordinate +motives for professing adherence to it, except to take care that they do +_not_ influence us. And that one sole reason is abundantly wrought out +in this letter. But then, its truth being established, we may fairly +bring in other subsidiary motives to reinforce this, seeing that there +may be a certain coldness of belief which needs the warmth of such +encouragements. + +The first of these lies in the words, "the Gospel, which ye heard." That +is to say, the Apostle would have the Colossians, in the face of these +heretical teachers, remember the beginning of their Christian life, and +be consistent with that. They had heard it at their conversion. He +would have them recall what they had heard then, and tamper with no +teaching inconsistent with it. He also appeals to their experience. "Do +you remember what the Gospel did for you? Do you remember the time when +it first dawned upon your astonished hearts, all radiant with heavenly +beauty, as the revelation of a Heart in heaven that cared for you, and +of a Christ Who, on earth, had died for you? Did it not deliver you from +your burden? Did it not set new hope before you? Did it not make earth +as the very portals of heaven? And have these truths become less +precious because familiar? Be not moved away from the Gospel 'which ye +have heard.'" + +To us the same appeal comes. This word has been sounding in our ears +ever since childhood. It has done everything for some of us, something +for all of us. Its truths have sometimes shone out for us like suns, in +the dark, and brought us strength when nothing else could sustain us. If +they are not truths, of course they will have to go. But they are not to +be abandoned easily. They are interwoven with our very lives. To part +with them is a resolution not to be lightly undertaken. + +The argument of experience is of no avail to convince others, but is +valid for ourselves. A man has a perfect right to say, "I have heard Him +myself, and I know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the +world." A Christian may wisely decline to enter on the consideration of +many moot questions which he may feel himself incompetent to handle, and +rest upon the fact that Christ has saved his soul. The blind man beat +the Pharisees in logic when he sturdily took his stand on experience, +and refused to be tempted to discuss subjects which he did not +understand, or to allow his ignorance to slacken his grasp of what he +did know. "Whether this man be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I +know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." There was no answering +that, so by excommunicating him they confessed themselves beaten. + +A second encouragement to stedfast adherence to the Gospel lies in the +fact that it "was preached in all creation under heaven." We need not be +pedantic about literal accuracy, and may allow that the statement has a +rhetorical colouring. But what the Apostle means is, that the gospel had +spread so widely, through so many phases of civilisation, and had proved +its power by touching men so unlike each other in mental furniture and +habits, that it had showed itself to be a word for the whole race. It is +the same thought as we have already found in verse 6. His implied +exhortation is, "Be not moved away from what belongs to humanity by +teachings which can only belong to a class." All errors are transient in +duration and limited in area. One addresses itself to one class of men, +another to another. Each false, or exaggerated, or partial +representation of religious truth, is congenial to some group with +idiosyncrasies of temperament or mind. Different tastes like different +spiced meats, but the gospel, "human nature's daily food," is the bread +of God that everybody can relish, and which everybody must have for +healthy life. What only a certain class or the men of one generation or +of one stage of culture can find nourishment in, cannot be meant for all +men. But the great message of God's love in Jesus Christ commends +itself to us because it can go into any corner of the world, and there, +upon all sorts of people, work its wonders. So we will sit down with the +women and children upon the green grass, and eat of _it_, however +fastidious people whose appetites have been spoiled by high-spiced meat, +may find it coarse and insipid. It would feed them too, if they would +try--but whatever they may do, let us take it as more than our necessary +food. + +The last of these subsidiary encouragements to stedfastness lies in, +"whereof I Paul was made a minister." This is not merely an appeal to +their affection for him, though that is perfectly legitimate. Holy words +may be holier because dear lips have taught them to us, and even the +truth of God may allowably have a firmer hold upon our hearts because of +our love for some who have ministered it to us. It is a poor commentary +on a preacher's work if, after long service to a congregation, his words +do not come with power given to them by old affection and confidence. +The humblest teacher who has done his Master's errand will have some to +whom he can appeal as Paul did, and urge them to keep hold of the +message which he has preached. + +But there is more than that in the Apostle's mind. He was accustomed to +quote the fact that he, the persecutor, had been made the messenger of +Christ, as a living proof of the infinite mercy and power of that +ascended Lord, whom his eyes saw on the road to Damascus. So here, he +puts stress on the fact that he _became_ a minister of the gospel, as +being an "evidence of Christianity." The history of his conversion is +one of the strongest proofs of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus +Christ. You know, he seems to say, what turned me from being a +persecutor into an apostle. It was because I saw the living Christ, and +"heard the words of His mouth," and, I beseech you, listen to no words +which make His dominion less sovereign, and His sole and all sufficient +work on the cross less mighty as the only power that knits earth to +heaven. + +So the sum of this whole matter is--abide in Christ. Let us root and +ground our lives and characters in Him, and then God's inmost desire +will be gratified in regard to us, and He will bring even us stainless +and blameless into the blaze of His presence. There we shall all have to +stand, and let that all-penetrating light search us through and through. +How do we expect to be then "found of Him in peace, without spot and +blameless"? There is but one way--to live in constant exercise of faith +in Christ, and grip Him so close and sure that the world, the flesh and +the devil cannot make us loosen our fingers. Then He will hold us up, +and His great purpose, which brought Him to earth, and nailed Him to the +cross, will be fulfilled in us, and at last, we shall lift up voices of +wondering praise "to Him who is able to keep us from falling, and to +present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding +joy." + + + + +VIII. + +_JOY IN SUFFERING, AND TRIUMPH IN THE MANIFESTED MYSTERY._ + + "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my + part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh + for His body's sake, which is the Church; whereof I was made a + minister according to the dispensation of God which was given me to + you-ward to fulfil the word of God, even the mystery which hath been + hid from all ages and generations; but now hath it been manifested + to His Saints, to Whom God was pleased to make known what is the + riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is + Christ in you, the hope of glory."--COL. i. 24-27 (Rev. Ver.). + + +There are scarcely any personal references in this Epistle, until we +reach the last chapter. In this respect it contrasts strikingly with +another of Paul's epistles of the captivity, that to the Philippians, +which is running over with affection and with allusions to himself. This +sparseness of personal details strongly confirms the opinion that he had +not been to Colossae. Here, however, we come to one of the very few +sections which may be called personal, though even here it is rather +Paul's office than himself which is in question. He is led to speak of +himself by his desire to enforce his exhortations to faithful +continuance in the gospel, and, as is so often the case with him in +touching on his apostleship, he as it were, catches fire, and blazes up +in a grand flame, which sheds a bright light on his lofty enthusiasm and +evangelistic fervour The words to be considered now are plain enough in +themselves, but they are run together, and thought follows thought in a +fashion which makes them somewhat obscure; and there are also one or two +difficulties in single words which require to be cleared up. We shall +perhaps best bring out the course of thought by dealing with these +verses in three groups, of which the three words, Suffering, Service, +and Mystery, are respectively the centres. First, we have a remarkable +view taken by the prisoner of the meaning of his sufferings, as being +endured for the Church. That leads him to speak of his relation to the +Church generally as being that of a servant or steward appointed by God, +to bring to its completion the work of God; and then, as I said, he +takes fire, and, forgetting himself, flames up in rapturous magnifying +of the grand message hid so long, and now entrusted to him to preach. So +we have his Sufferings for the Church, his service of Stewardship to the +Church, and the great Mystery which in that stewardship he had to +unveil. It may help us to understand both Paul and his message, as well +as our own tasks and trials, if we try to grasp his thoughts here about +his work and his sorrows. + +I. We have the Apostle's triumphant contemplation of his sufferings. "I +rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that +which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's +sake, which is the Church." + +The Revised Version, following the best authorities, omits the "who" +with which the Authorized Version begins this verse, and marks a new +sentence and paragraph, as is obviously right. + +The very first word is significant: "_Now_ I rejoice." Ay; it is easy +to say fine things about patience in sufferings and triumph in sorrow +when we are prosperous and comfortable; but it is different when we are +in the furnace. This man, with the chain on his wrist, and the iron +entering into his soul, with his life in danger, and all the future +uncertain, can say, "_Now_ I rejoice." This bird sings in a darkened +cage. + +Then come startling words, "I on my part fill up that which is lacking +(a better rendering than 'behind') of the afflictions of Christ." It is +not surprising that many explanations of these words have tried to +soften down their boldness; as, for instance, "afflictions borne for +Christ," or "imposed by Him," or "like His." But it seems very clear +that the startling meaning is the plain meaning, and that "the +sufferings of Christ" here, as everywhere else, are "the sufferings +borne by Christ." + +Then at once the questions start up, Does Paul mean to say that in any +sense whatever the sufferings which Christ endured have anything +"lacking" in them? or does he mean to say that a Christian man's +sufferings, however they may benefit the Church, can be put alongside of +the Lord's, and taken to eke out the incompleteness of His? Surely that +cannot be! Did He not say on the cross, "It is finished"? Surely that +sacrifice needs no supplement, and can receive none, but stands "the one +sacrifice for sins for ever"! Surely, His sufferings are absolutely +singular in nature and effect, unique and all-sufficient and eternal. +And does this Apostle, the very heart of whose gospel was that these +were the life of the world, mean to say that anything which he endures +can be tacked on to them, a bit of the old rags to the new garment? + +Distinctly not! To say so would be contradictory of the whole spirit and +letter of the Apostle's teaching. But there is no need to suppose that +he means anything of the sort. There is an idea frequently presented in +Scripture, which gives full meaning to the words, and is in full +accordance with Pauline teaching; namely, that Christ truly participates +in the sufferings of His people borne for Him. He suffers with them. The +head feels the pangs of all the members; and every ache may be thought +of as belonging, not only to the limb where it is located, but to the +brain which is conscious of it. The pains and sorrows and troubles of +His friends and followers to the end of time are one great whole. Each +sorrow of each Christian heart is one drop more added to the contents of +the measure which has to be filled to the brim, ere the purposes of the +Father who leads through suffering to rest are accomplished; and all +belong to Him. Whatsoever pain or trial is borne in fellowship with Him +is felt and borne by Him. Community of sensation is established between +Him and us. Our sorrows are transferred to Him. "In all our afflictions +He is afflicted," both by His mystical but most real oneness with us, +and by His brother's sympathy. + +So for us all, and not for the Apostle only, the whole aspect of our +sorrows may be changed, and all poor struggling souls in this valley of +weeping may take comfort and courage from the wonderful thought of +Christ's union with us, which makes our griefs His, and our pain touch +Him. Bruise your finger, and the pain pricks and stabs in your brain. +Strike the man that is joined to Christ here, and Christ up yonder +feels it. "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye." Where +did Paul learn this deep lesson, that the sufferings of Christ's +servants were Christ's sufferings? I wonder whether, as he wrote these +words of confident yet humble identification of himself the persecuted +with Christ the Lord, there came back to his memory what he heard on +that fateful day as he rode to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest +thou Me?" The thought so crushing to the persecutor had become balm and +glory to the prisoner,--that every blow aimed at the servant falls on +the Master, who stoops from amid the glory of the throne to declare that +whatsoever is done, whether it be kindness or cruelty, to the least of +His brethren, is done to Him. So every one of us may take the comfort +and strength of that wonderful assurance, and roll all our burdens and +sorrows on Him. + +Again, there is prominent here the thought that the good of sorrow does +not end with the sufferer. His sufferings are borne in his _flesh_ for +the _body's_ sake, which is the Church,--a remarkable antithesis between +the Apostle's flesh in which, and Christ's body for which, the +sufferings are endured. Every sorrow rightly borne, as it will be when +Christ is felt to be bearing it with us, is fruitful of blessing. Paul's +trials were in a special sense "for His body's sake," for of course, if +he had not preached the gospel, he would have escaped them all; and on +the other hand, they have been especially fruitful of good, for if he +had not been persecuted, he would never have written these precious +letters from Rome. The Church owes much to the violence which has shut +up confessors in dungeons. Its prison literature, beginning with this +letter, and ending with "Pilgrim's Progress," has been among its most +cherished treasures. + +But the same thing is true about us all, though it may be in a narrower +sphere. No man gets good for himself alone out of his sorrows. Whatever +purifies and makes gentler and more Christlike, whatever teaches or +builds up--and sorrows rightly borne do all these--is for the common +good. Be our trials great or small, be they minute and every-day--like +gnats that hum about us in clouds, and may be swept away by the hand, +and irritate rather than hurt where they sting--or be they huge and +formidable, like the viper that clings to the wrist and poisons the life +blood, they are meant to give us good gifts, which we may transmit to +the narrow circle of our homes, and in ever widening rings of influence +to all around us. Have we never known a household, where some chronic +invalid, lying helpless perhaps on a sofa, was a source of the highest +blessing and the centre of holy influence, that made every member of the +family gentler, more self-denying and loving? We shall never understand +our sorrows, unless we try to answer the question, What good to others +is meant to come through me by this? Alas, that grief should so often be +self-absorbed, even more than joy is! The heart sometimes opens to +unselfish sharing of its gladness with others; but it too often shuts +tight over its sorrow, and seeks solitary indulgence in the luxury of +woe. Let us learn that our brethren claim benefit from our trials, as +well as from our good things, and seek to ennoble our griefs by bearing +them for "His body's sake, which is the Church." + +Christ's sufferings on His cross are the satisfaction for a world's +sins, and in that view can have no supplement, and stand alone in kind. +But His "afflictions"--a word which would not naturally be applied to +His death--do operate also to set the pattern of holy endurance, and to +teach many a lesson; and in that view every suffering borne for Him and +with Him may be regarded as associated with His, and helping to bless +the Church and the world. God makes the rough iron of our natures into +shining, flexible, sharp steel, by heavy hammers and hot furnaces, that +He may shape us as His instruments to help and heal. + +It is of great moment that we should have such thoughts of our sorrows +whilst their pressure is upon us, and not only when they are past. "I +_now_ rejoice." Most of us have had to let years stretch between us and +the blow before we could attain to that clear insight. We can look back +and see how our past sorrows tended to bless us, and how Christ was with +us in them: but as for this one, that burdens us to-day, we cannot make +_it_ out. We can even have a solemn thankfulness not altogether unlike +joy as we look on those wounds that we remember; but how hard it is to +feel it about those that pain us now! There is but one way to secure +that calm wisdom, which feels their meaning even while they sting and +burn, and can smile through tears, as sorrowful and yet always +rejoicing; and that is to keep in very close communion with our Lord. +Then, even when we are in the whitest heat of the furnace, we may have +the Son of man with us; and if we have, the fiercest flames will burn up +nothing but the chains that bind us, and we shall "walk at liberty" in +that terrible heat, because we walk with Him. It is a high attainment +of Christian fortitude and faith to feel the blessed meaning, not only +of the six tribulations which are past, but of the present seventh, and +to say, even while the iron is entering the quivering flesh, "I _now_ +rejoice in my sufferings," and try to turn them to others' good. + +II. These thoughts naturally lead on to the statement of the Apostle's +lowly and yet lofty conception of his office--"whereof (that is, of +which _Church_) I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of +God, which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God." + +The first words of this clause are used at the close of the preceding +section in verse 23, but the "whereof" there refers to the gospel, not +as here to the Church. He is the servant of both, and because he is the +servant of the Church he suffers, as he has been saying. The +representation of himself as servant gives the reason for the conduct +described in the previous clause. Then the next words explain what makes +him the Church's servant. He is so in accordance with, or in pursuance +of, the stewardship, or office of administrator, of His household, to +which God has called him, "to you-ward," that is to say, with especial +reference to the Gentiles. And the final purpose of his being made a +steward is "to fulfil the word of God"; by which is not meant "to +accomplish or bring to pass its predictions," but "to bring it to +completion," or "to give full development to it," and that possibly in +the sense of preaching it fully, without reserve, and far and wide +throughout the whole world. + +So lofty and yet so lowly was Paul's thought of his office. He was the +Church's servant, and therefore bound to suffer cheerfully for its +sake. He was so, because a high honour had been conferred on him by God, +nothing less than the stewardship of His great household the Church, in +which he had to give to every man his portion, and to exercise +authority. He is the Church's servant indeed, but it is because he is +the Lord's steward. And the purpose of his appointment goes far beyond +the interests of any single Church; for while his office sends him +especially to the Colossians, its scope is as wide as the world. + +One great lesson to be learned from these words is that Stewardship +means service; and we may add that, in nine cases out of ten, service +means suffering. What Paul says, if we put it into more familiar +language, is just this: "Because God has given me something that I can +impart to others, I am their servant, and bound, not only by my duty to +Him, but by my duty to them, to labour that they may receive the +treasure." That is true for us all. Every gift from the great +Householder involves the obligation to impart it. It makes us His +stewards and our brethren's servants. We have that we may give. The +possessions are the Householder's, not ours, even after He has given +them to us. He gives us truths of various kinds in our minds, the gospel +in our hearts, influence from our position, money in our pockets, not to +lavish on self, nor to hide and gloat over in secret, but that we may +transmit His gifts, and "God's grace fructify through us to all." "It is +required of stewards that a man be found faithful"; and the heaviest +charge, "that he had wasted his Lord's goods," lies against every one of +us who does not use all that he possesses, whether of material or +intellectual or spiritual wealth, for the common advantage. + +But that common obligation of stewardship presses with special force on +those who say that they are Christ's servants. If we are, we know +something of His love and have felt something of His power; and there +are hundreds of people around us, many of whom we can influence, who +know nothing of either. That fact makes us their servants, not in the +sense of being under their control, or of taking orders from them, but +in the sense of gladly working for them, and recognising our obligation +to help them. Our resources may be small. The Master of the house may +have entrusted us with little. Perhaps we are like the boy with the five +barley loaves and two small fishes; but even if we had only a bit of the +bread and a tail of one of the fishes, we must not eat our morsel alone. +Give it those who have none, and it will multiply as it is distributed, +like the barrel of meal, which did not fail because its poor owner +shared it with the still poorer prophet. Give, and not only give, but +"pray them with much entreaty to receive the gift"; for men need to have +the true Bread pressed on them, and they will often throw it back, or +drop it over a wall, as soon as your back is turned, as beggars do in +our streets. We have to win them by showing that we are their servants, +before they will take what we have to give. Besides this, if stewardship +is service, service is often suffering; and he will not clear himself of +his obligations to his fellows, or of his responsibility to his Master, +who shrinks from seeking to make known the love of Christ to his +brethren, because he has often to "go forth weeping" whilst he bears +the precious seed. + +III. So we come to the last thought here, which is of the grand Mystery +of which Paul is the Apostle and Servant. Paul always catches fire when +he comes to think of the universal destination of the gospel, and of the +honour put upon him as the man to whom the task was entrusted of +transforming the Church from a Jewish sect to a world-wide society. That +great thought now sweeps him away from his more immediate object, and +enriches us with a burst which we could ill spare from the letter. + +His task, he says, is to give its full development to the word of God, +to proclaim a certain mystery long hid, but now revealed to those who +are consecrated to God. To these it has been God's good pleasure to show +the wealth of glory which is contained in this mystery, as exhibited +among the Gentile Christians, which mystery is nothing else than the +fact that Christ dwells in or among these Gentiles, of whom the +Colossians are part, and by His dwelling in them gives them the +confident expectation of future glory. + +The mystery then of which the Apostle speaks so rapturously is the fact +that the Gentiles were fellow-heirs and partakers of Christ. "Mystery" +is a word borrowed from the ancient systems, in which certain rites and +doctrines were communicated to the initiated. There are several +allusions to them in Paul's writings, as for instance in the passage in +Philippians iv. 12, which the Revised Version gives as "I have learned +the secret both to be filled and to be hungry," and probably in the +immediate context here, where the characteristic word "perfect" means +"initiated." Portentous theories which have no warrant have been spun +out of this word. The Greek mysteries implied secrecy; the rites were +done in deep obscurity; the esoteric doctrines were muttered in the ear. +The Christian mysteries are spoken on the housetop, nor does the word +imply anything as to the comprehensibility of the doctrines or facts +which are so called. + +We talk about "mysteries," meaning thereby truths that transcend human +faculties; but the New Testament "mystery" may be, and most frequently +is, a fact perfectly comprehensible when once spoken. "Behold I show you +a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." There +is nothing incomprehensible in that. We should never have known it if we +had not been told; but when told it is quite level with our faculties. +And as a matter of fact, the word is most frequently used in connection +with the notion, not of concealment, but of declaring. We find too that +it occurs frequently in this Epistle, and in the parallel letter to the +Ephesians, and in every instance but one refers as it does here, to a +fact which was perfectly plain and comprehensible when once made known; +namely, the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church. + +If that be the true meaning of the word, then "a steward of the +mysteries" will simply mean a man who has truths, formerly unknown but +now revealed, in charge to make known to all who will hearken, and +neither the claims of a priesthood nor the demand for the unquestioning +submission of the intellect have any foundation in this much abused +term. + +But turning from this, we may briefly consider what was the substance of +this grand mystery which thrilled Paul's soul. It is the wonderful fact +that all barriers were broken down, and that Christ dwelt in the hearts +of these Colossians. He saw in that the proof and the prophecy of the +world-wide destination of the gospel. No wonder that his heart burned as +he thought of the marvellous work which God had wrought by him. For +there is no greater revolution in the history of the world than that +accomplished through him, the cutting loose of Christianity from Judaism +and widening the Church to the width of the race. No wonder that he was +misunderstood and hated by Jewish Christians all his days! + +He thinks of these once heathens and now Christians at Colossae, far away +in their lonely valley, and of many another little community--in Judaea, +Asia, Greece, and Italy; and as he thinks of how a real solid bond of +brotherhood bound them together in spite of their differences of race +and culture, the vision of the oneness of mankind in the Cross of Christ +shines out before him, as no man had ever seen it till then, and he +triumphs in the sorrows that had helped to bring about the great result. + +That dwelling of Christ among the Gentiles reveals the exuberant +abundance of glory. To him the "mystery" was all running over with +riches, and blazing with fresh radiance. To us it is familiar and +somewhat worn. The "vision splendid," which was manifestly a revelation +of hitherto unknown Divine treasures of mercy and lustrous light when it +first dawned on the Apostle's sight, has "faded" somewhat "into the +light of common day" for us, to whom the centuries since have shown so +slow a progress. But let us not lose more than we can help, either by +our familiarity with the thought, or by the discouragements arising from +the chequered history of its partial realization. Christianity is still +the only religion which has been able to make permanent conquests. It is +the only one that has been able to disregard latitude and longitude, and +to address and guide condition of civilization and modes of life quite +unlike those of its origin. It is the only one that sets itself the task +of conquering the world without the sword, and has kept true to the +design for centuries. It is the only one whose claims to be world-wide +in its adaptation and destiny would not be laughed out of court by its +history. It is the only one which is to-day a missionary religion. And +so, notwithstanding the long centuries of arrested growth and the wide +tracts of remaining darkness, the mystery which fired Paul's enthusiasm +is still able to kindle ours, and the wealth of glory that lies in it +has not been impoverished nor stricken with eclipse. + +One last thought is here,--that the possession of Christ is the pledge +of future blessedness. "Hope" here seems to be equivalent to "the +source" or "ground" of the hope. If we have the experience of His +dwelling in our hearts, we shall have, in that very experience of His +sweetness and of the intimacy of His love, a marvellous quickener of our +hope that such sweetness and intimacy will continue for ever. The closer +we keep to Him, the clearer will be our vision of future blessedness. If +He is throned in our hearts, we shall be able to look forward with a +hope, which is not less than certainty, to the perpetual continuance of +His hold of us and of our blessedness in Him. Anything seems more +credible to a man who habitually has Christ abiding in him, than that +such a trifle as death should have power to end such a union. To have +Him is to have life. To have Him will be heaven. To have Him is to have +a hope certain as memory and careless of death or change. + +That hope is offered to us all. If by our faith in His great sacrifice +we grasp the great truth of "Christ for us," our fears will be +scattered, sin and guilt taken away, death abolished, condemnation +ended, the future a hope and not a dread. If by communion with Him +through faith, love, and obedience, we have "Christ in us," our purity +will grow, and our experience will be such as plainly to demand eternity +to complete its incompleteness and to bring its folded buds to flower +and fruit. If Christ be in us, His life guarantees ours, and we cannot +die whilst He lives. The world has come, in the persons of its leading +thinkers, to the position of proclaiming that all is dark beyond and +above. "Behold! we know not anything," is the dreary "end of the whole +matter"--infinitely sadder than the old Ecclesiastes, which from "vanity +of vanities" climbed to "fear God and keep His commandments," as the sum +of human thought and life. "I find no God; I know no future." Yes! Paul +long ago told us that if we were "without Christ" we should "have no +hope, and be without God in the world." And cultivated Europe is finding +out that to fling away Christ and to keep a faith in God or in a future +life is impossible. + +But if we will take Him for our Saviour by simple trust, He will give us +His own presence in our hearts, and infuse there a hope full of +immortality. If we live in close communion with Him, we shall need no +other assurance of an eternal life beyond than that deep, calm +blessedness springing from the imperfect fellowship of earth which must +needs lead to and be lost in the everlasting and completed union of +heaven. + + + + +IX. + +_THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN ITS THEME, METHODS AND AIM._ + + "Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in + all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; + whereunto I labour also, striving according to His working, which + worketh in me mightily,"--COL. i. 28, 29 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The false teachers at Colossae had a great deal to say about a higher +wisdom reserved for the initiated. They apparently treated the Apostolic +teaching as trivial rudiments, which might be good for the vulgar crowd, +but were known by the possessors of this higher truth to be only a veil +for it. They had their initiated class, to whom their mysteries were +entrusted in whispers. + +Such absurdities excited Paul's special abhorrence. His whole soul +rejoiced in a gospel for all men. He had broken with Judaism on the very +ground that it sought to enforce a ceremonial exclusiveness, and +demanded circumcision and ritual observances along with faith. That was, +in Paul's estimate, to destroy the gospel. These Eastern dreamers at +Colossae were trying to enforce an intellectual exclusiveness quite as +much opposed to the gospel. Paul fights with all his might against that +error. Its presence in the Church colours this context, where he uses +the very phrases of the false teachers in order to assert the great +principles which he opposes to their teaching. "Mystery," "perfect" or +initiated, "wisdom,"--these are the key-words of the system which he is +combating; and here he presses them into the service of the principle +that the gospel is for all men, and the most recondite secrets of its +deepest truth the property of every single soul that wills to receive +them. Yes, he says in effect, we have mysteries. We have our initiated. +We have wisdom. But we have no whispered teachings, confined to a little +coterie; we have no inner chamber closed to the many. We are not +muttering hierophants, cautiously revealing a little to a few, and +fooling the rest with ceremonies and words. Our whole business is to +tell out as fully and loudly as we can what we know of Christ, to tell +to _every_ man _all_ the wisdom that we have learned. We fling open the +inmost sanctuary, and invite all the crowd to enter. + +This is the general scope of the words before us which state the object +and methods of the Apostle's work; partly in order to point the contrast +with those other teachers, and partly in order to prepare the way, by +this personal reference, for his subsequent exhortations. + +I. We have here the Apostle's own statement of what he conceived his +life work to be. + +"Whom we proclaim." All three words are emphatic. "Whom," not what--a +person, not a system; we "proclaim," not we argue or dissertate about. +"We" preach--the Apostle associates himself with all his brethren, puts +himself in line with them, points to the unanimity of their +testimony--"whether it were they or I, so we preach." We have all one +message, a common type of doctrine. + +So then--the Christian teacher's theme is not to be a theory or a +system, but a living Person. One peculiarity of Christianity is that you +cannot take its message, and put aside Christ, the speaker of the +message, as you may do with all men's teachings. Some people say: "We +take the great moral and religious truths which Jesus declared. They are +the all-important parts of His work. We can disentangle them from any +further connection with Him. It matters comparatively little who first +spoke them." But that will not do. His person is inextricably +intertwined with His teaching, for a very large part of His teaching is +exclusively concerned with, and all of it centres in, Himself. He is not +only true, but He is the truth. His message is, not only what He said +with His lips about God and man, but also what He said about Himself, +and what He did in His life, death, and resurrection. You may take +Buddha's sayings, if you can make sure that they are his, and find much +that is beautiful and true in them, whatever you may think of him; you +may appreciate the teaching of Confucius, though you know nothing about +him but that he said so and so; but you cannot do thus with Jesus. Our +Christianity takes its whole colour from what we think of Him. If we +think of Him as less than this chapter has been setting Him forth as +being, we shall scarcely feel that _He_ should be the preacher's theme; +but if He is to us what He was to this Apostle, the sole Revealer of +God, the Centre and Lord of creation, the Fountain of life to all which +lives, the Reconciler of men with God by the blood of His cross, then +the one message which a man may be thankful to spend his life in +proclaiming will be, Behold the Lamb! Let who will preach abstractions, +the true Christian minister has to preach the person and the +office--Jesus the Christ. + +To preach Christ is to set forth the person, the facts of His life and +death, and to accompany these with that explanation which turns them +from being merely a biography into a gospel. So much of "theory" must go +with the "facts," or they will be no more a gospel than the story of +another life would be. The Apostle's own statement of "the gospel which +he preached" distinctly lays down what is needed--"how that Jesus Christ +died." That is biography, and to say that and stop there is not to +preach Christ; but add, "For our sins, according to the Scriptures, and +that He was raised again the third day,"--preach _that_, the fact and +its meaning and power, and you will preach Christ. + +Of course there is a narrower and a wider sense of this expression. +There is the initial teaching, which brings to a soul, who has never +seen it before, the knowledge of a Saviour, whose Cross is the +propitiation for sin; and there is the fuller teaching, which opens out +the manifold bearings of that message in every region of moral and +religious thought. I do not plead for any narrow construction of the +words. They have been sorely abused, by being made the battle-cry for +bitter bigotry and a hard system of abstract theology, as unlike what +Paul means by "Christ" as any cobwebs of Gnostic heresy could be. +Legitimate outgrowths of the Christian ministry have been checked in +their name. They have been used as a cramping iron, as a shibboleth, as +a stone to fling at honest and especially at young preachers. They have +been made a pillow for laziness. So that the very sound of the words +suggests to some ears, because of their use in some mouths, ignorant +narrowness. + +But for all that, they are a standard of duty for all workers for God, +which it is not difficult to apply, if the will to do so be present, and +they are a touch-stone to try the spirits, whether they be of God. A +ministry of which the Christ who lived and died for us is manifestly the +centre to which all converges and from which all is viewed, may sweep a +wide circumference, and include many themes. The requirement bars out no +province of thought or experience, nor does it condemn the preacher to a +parrot-like repetition of elementary truths, or a narrow round of +commonplace. It does demand that all themes shall lead up to Christ, and +all teaching point to Him; that He shall be ever present in all the +preacher's words, a diffused even when not a directly perceptible +presence; and that His name, like some deep tone on an organ, shall be +heard sounding on through all the ripple and change of the higher notes. +Preaching Christ does not exclude any theme, but prescribes the bearing +and purpose of all; and the widest compass and richest variety are not +only possible but obligatory for him who would in any worthy sense take +this for the motto of his ministry, "I determined not to know anything +among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." + +But these words give us not only the theme but something of the manner +of the Apostle's activity. "We _proclaim_." The word is emphatic in its +form, meaning _to tell out_, and representing the proclamation as full, +clear, earnest. "We are no muttering mystery-mongers. From full lungs +and in a voice to make people hear, we shout aloud our message. We do +not take a man into a corner, and whisper secrets into his ear; we cry +in the streets, and our message is for 'every man.'" + +And the word not only implies the plain, loud earnestness of the +speaker, but also that what he speaks is a _message_, that he is not a +speaker of his own words or thoughts, but of what has been told him to +tell. His gospel is a good message, and a messenger's virtue is to say +exactly what he has been told, and to say it in such a way that the +people to whom he has to carry it cannot but hear and understand it. + +This connection of the Christian minister's office contrasts on the one +hand with the priestly theory. Paul had known in Judaism a religion of +which the altar was the centre, and the official function of the +"minister" was to sacrifice. But now he has come to see that "the one +sacrifice for sins for ever" leaves no room for a sacrificing priest in +that Church of which the centre is the Cross. We sorely need that lesson +to be drilled into the minds of men to-day, when such a strange +resurrection of priestism has taken place, and good, earnest men, whose +devotion cannot be questioned, are looking on preaching as a very +subordinate part of their work. For three centuries there has not been +so much need as now to fight against the notion of a priesthood in the +Church, and to urge this as the true definition of the minister's +office: "we preach," not "we sacrifice," not "we _do_" anything; "we +preach," not "we work miracles at any altar, or impart grace by any +rites," but by manifestation of the truth discharge our office and +spread the blessings of Christ. + +This conception contrasts on the other hand, with the false teachers' +style of speech, which finds its parallel in much modern talk. Their +business was to argue and refine and speculate, to spin inferences and +cobwebby conclusions. They sat in a lecturer's chair; we stand in a +preacher's pulpit. The Christian minister has not to deal in such wares; +he has a message to proclaim, and if he allows the "philosopher" in him +to overpower the "herald," and substitutes his thoughts about the +message, or his arguments in favour of the message, for the message +itself, he abdicates his highest office and neglects his most important +function. + +We hear many demands to-day for a "higher type of preaching," which I +would heartily echo, if only it be _preaching_; that is, the +proclamation in loud and plain utterance of the great facts of Christ's +work. But many who ask for this really want, not preaching, but +something quite different; and many, as I think, mistaken Christian +teachers are trying to play up to the requirements of the age by turning +their sermons into dissertations, philosophical or moral or aesthetic. We +need to fall back on this "we preach," and to urge that the Christian +minister is neither priest nor lecturer, but a herald, whose business is +to tell out his message, and to take good care that he tells it +faithfully. If, instead of blowing his trumpet and calling aloud his +commission, he were to deliver a discourse on acoustics and the laws of +the vibration of sonorous metal, or to prove that he had a message, and +to dilate on its evident truth or on the beauty of its phrases, he +would scarcely be doing his work. No more is the Christian minister, +unless he keeps clear before himself as the guiding star of his work +this conception of his theme and his task--_Whom we preach_--and opposes +that to the demands of an age, one half of which "require a sign," and +would again degrade him into a priest, and the other calls for "wisdom," +and would turn him into a professor. + +II. We have here the varying methods by which this one great end is +pursued. "Admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom." + +There are then two main methods--"admonishing" and "teaching." The +former means "admonishing with blame," and points, as many commentators +remark, to that side of the Christian ministry which corresponds to +repentance, while the latter points to that side which corresponds to +faith. In other words, the former rebukes and warns, has to do with +conduct and the moral side of Christian truth; the latter has chiefly to +do with doctrine, and the intellectual side. In the one Christ is +proclaimed as the pattern of conduct, the "new commandment"; in the +other, as the creed of creeds, the new and perfect knowledge. + +The preaching of Christ then is to be unfolded into all "warning," or +admonishing. The teaching of morality and the admonishing of the evil +and the end of sin are essential parts of preaching Christ. We claim for +the pulpit the right and the duty of applying the principles and pattern +of Christ's life to all human conduct. It is difficult to do, and is +made more so by some of the necessary conditions of our modern ministry, +for the pulpit is not the place for details; and yet moral teaching +which is confined to general principles is woefully like repeating +platitudes and firing blank cartridges. Everybody admits the general +principles, and thinks they do not apply to his specific wrong action; +and if the preacher goes beyond these toothless generalities, he is met +with the cry of "personalities." If a man preaches a sermon in which he +speaks plainly about tricks of trade or follies of fashion, somebody is +sure to say, going down the chapel steps, "Oh! ministers know nothing of +business," and somebody else to add, "It is a pity he was so personal," +and the chorus is completed by many other voices, "He should preach +Christ, and leave secular things alone." + +Well! whether a sermon of that sort be preaching Christ or not depends +on the way in which it is done. But sure I am that there is no +"preaching Christ" completely, which does not include plain speaking +about plain duties. Everything that a man can either do rightly or +wrongly belongs to the sphere of morals, and everything within the +sphere of morals belongs to Christianity and to "preaching Christ." + +Nor is such preaching complete without plain warning of the end of sin, +as death here and hereafter. This is difficult, for many people like to +have the smooth side of truth always put uppermost. But the gospel has a +rough side, and is by no means a "soothing syrup" merely. There are no +rougher words about what wrongdoers come to than some of Christ's words; +and he has only given half his Master's message who hides or softens +down the grim saying, "The wages of sin is death." + +But all this moral teaching must be closely connected with and built +upon Christ. Christian morality has Jesus for its perfect exemplar, His +love for its motive, and His grace for its power. Nothing is more +impotent than mere moral teaching. What is the use of perpetually saying +to people, Be good, be good? You may keep on at that for ever, and not a +soul will listen, any more than the crowds on our streets are drawn to +church by the bell's monotonous call. But if, instead of a cold ideal of +duty, as beautiful and as dead as a marble statue, we preach the Son of +man, whose life is our law incarnate; and instead of urging to purity by +motives which our own evil makes feeble, we re-echo His heart-touching +appeal, "If ye love Me, keep My commandments;" and if, instead of +mocking lame men with exhortations to walk, we point those who +despairingly cry, "Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?" to +Him who breathes His living spirit into us to set us free from sin and +death, then our preaching of morality will be "preaching the gospel" and +be "preaching Christ." + +This gospel is also to be unfolded into "teaching." In the facts of +Christ's life and death, as we ponder them and grow up to understand +them, we get to see more and more the key to all things. For thought, as +for life, He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending. All +that we can or need know about God or man, about present duty or future +destiny, about life, death, and the beyond,--all is in Jesus Christ, and +to be drawn from Him by patient thought and by abiding in Him. The +Christian minister's business is to be ever learning and ever teaching +more and more of the "manifold wisdom" of God. He has to draw for +himself from the deep, inexhaustible fountains; he has to bear the +water, which must be fresh drawn to be pleasant or refreshing, to +thirsty lips. He must seek to present all sides of the truth, teaching +_all_ wisdom, and so escaping from his own limited mannerisms. How many +ministers' Bibles are all dog-eared and thumbed at certain texts, at +which they almost open of themselves, and are as clean in most of their +pages as on the day when they were bought! + +The Christian ministry, then, in the Apostle's view, is distinctly +educational in its design. Preachers and hearers equally need to be +reminded of this. We preachers are poor scholars ourselves, and in our +work are tempted, like other people, to do most frequently what we can +do with least trouble. Besides which, we many of us know, and all +suspect, that our congregations prefer to hear what they have heard +often before, and what gives them the least trouble. We often hear the +cry for "simple preaching," by which one school intends "simple +instruction in plain, practical matters, avoiding mere dogma," and +another intends "the simple gospel," by which is meant the repetition +over and over again of the great truth, "Believe on the Lord Jesus +Christ, and thou shalt be saved." God forbid that I should say a word +which might even seem to under-estimate the need for that proclamation +being made in its simple form, as the staple of the Christian ministry, +to all who have not welcomed it into their hearts, or to forget that, +however dimly understood, it will bring light and hope and new loves and +strengths into a soul! But the New Testament draws a distinction between +evangelists and teachers, and common sense insists that Christian people +need more than the reiteration of that message from him whom they call +their "teacher." If he is a teacher, he should teach; and he cannot do +that, if the people who listen to him suspect everything that they do +not know already, and are impatient of anything that gives them the +trouble of attending and thinking in order to learn. I fear there is +much unreality in the name, and that nothing would be more distasteful +to many of our congregations than the preacher's attempt to make it +truly descriptive of his work. Sermons should not be "quiet resting +places." Nor is it quite the ideal of Christian teaching that busy men +should come to church or chapel on a Sunday, and not be fatigued by +being made to think, but perhaps to be able to sleep for a minute or two +and pick up the thread when they wake, quite sure that they have missed +nothing of any consequence. We are meant to be teachers, as well as +evangelists, though we fulfil the function so poorly; but our hearers +often make that task more difficult by ill-concealed impatience with +sermons which try to discharge it. + +Observe too the emphatic repetition of "every man" both in these two +clauses and in the following. It is Paul's protest against the +exclusiveness of the heretics, who shut out the mob from their +mysteries. An intellectual aristocracy is the proudest and most +exclusive of all. A Church built upon intellectual qualifications would +be as hard and cruel a _coterie_ as could be imagined. So there is +almost vehemence and scorn in the persistent repetition in each clause +of the obnoxious word, as if he would thrust down his antagonists' +throats the truth that his gospel has nothing to do with cliques and +sections, but belongs to the world. To it philosopher and fool are +equally welcome. Its message is to all. Brushing aside surface +diversities, it goes straight to deep-lying wants, which are the same in +all men. Below king's robe and professor's gown, and workman's jacket +and prodigal's rags, beats the same heart with the same wants, wild +longings, and weariness. Christianity knows no hopeless classes. But its +highest wisdom can be spoken to the little child and the barbarian, and +it is ready to deal with the most forlorn and foolish, knowing its own +power to "warn every man and to teach every man in all wisdom." + +III. We have here the ultimate aim of these diverse methods. "That we +may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." + +We found this same word "present" in verse 22. The remarks made there +will apply here. There the Divine purpose of Christ's great work, and +here Paul's purpose in his, are expressed alike. God's aim is Paul's aim +too. The Apostle's thoughts travel on to the great coming day, when we +shall all be manifested at the judgment seat of Christ, and preacher and +hearer, Apostle and convert, shall be gathered there. That solemn period +will test the teacher's work, and should ever be in his view as he +works. There is a real and indissoluble connection between the teacher +and his hearers, so that in some sense he is to blame if they do not +stand perfect then, and he in some sense has to present them as in his +work--the gold, silver, and precious stones which he has built on the +foundation. So each preacher should work with that end clear in view, as +Paul did. He is always toiling in the light of that great vision. One +sees him, in all his letters, looking away yonder to the horizon, where +he expects the breaking of its morning low down in the eastern sky. Ah! +how many formal pulpit and how many a languid pew would be galvanised +into intense action if only their occupants once saw burning in on them, +in their decorous deadness, the light of that great white throne! How +differently we should preach if we always felt "the terror of the Lord," +and under its solemn influence sought to "persuade men!" How differently +we should hear if we felt we must appear before the Judge, and give +account to Him of our profitings by His word! + +And the purpose which the true minister of Christ has in view is to +"present every man _perfect in Christ Jesus_." "Perfect" may be used +here with the technical signification of "initiated," but it means +absolute moral completeness. Negatively, it implies the entire removal +of all defects; positively, the complete possession of all that belongs +to human nature as God meant it to be. The Christian aim, for which the +preaching of Christ supplies ample power, is to make the whole race +possess, in fullest development, the whole circle of possible human +excellences. There is to be no one-sided growth but men are to grow like +a tree in the open, which has no barrier to hinder its symmetry, but +rises and spreads equally on all sides, with no branch broken or +twisted, no leaf worm-eaten or wind-torn, no fruit blighted or fallen, +no gap in the clouds of foliage, no bend in the straight stem,--a green +and growing completeness. This absolute completeness is attainable "in +Christ," by union with Him of that vital sort brought about by faith, +which will pour His Spirit into our spirits. The preaching of Christ is +therefore plainly the direct way to bring about this perfecting. That is +the Christian theory of the way to make perfect men. + +And this absolute perfection of character is, in Paul's belief, possible +for every man, no matter what his training or natural disposition may +have been. The gospel is confident that it can change the Ethiopian's +skin, because it can change his heart, and the leopard's spots will be +altered when it "eats straw like the ox." There are no hopeless classes, +in the glad, confident view of the man who has learned Christ's power. + +What a vision of the future to animate work! What an aim! What dignity, +what consecration, what enthusiasm it would give, making the trivial +great and the monotonous interesting, stirring up those who share it to +intense effort, overcoming low temptations, and giving precision to the +selection of means and use of instruments! The pressure of a great, +steady purpose consolidates and strengthens powers, which, without it, +become flaccid and feeble. We can make a piece of calico as stiff as a +board by putting it under an hydraulic press. Men with a fixed purpose +are terrible men. They crash through conventionalities like a cannon +ball. They, and they only, can persuade and arouse and impress their own +enthusiasm on the inert mass. "Behold, how great a matter a little fire +kindleth!" No Christian minister will work up to the limits of his +power, nor do much for Christ or man, unless his whole soul is mastered +by this high conception of the possibilities of his office, and unless +he is possessed with the ambition to present every man "perfect in +Christ Jesus." + +IV. Note the struggle and the strength with which the Apostle reaches +toward this aim. "Whereunto I labour also, striving according to His +working, which worketh in me mightily." + +As to the object, theme, and method of the Christian ministry, Paul can +speak, as he does in the previous verses, in the name of all his fellow +workers: "_We_ preach, admonishing and teaching, that we may present." +There was substantial unity among them. But he adds a sentence about his +own toil and conflict in doing his work. He will only speak for himself +now. The others may say what their experience has been. He has found +that he cannot do his work easily. Some people may be able to get +through it with little toil of body or agony of mind, but for himself it +has been laborious work. He has not learned to "take it easy." That +great purpose has been ever before him, and made a slave of him. "I +labour _also_"; I do not only preach, but I _toil_--as the word +literally implies--like a man tugging at an oar, and putting all his +weight into each stroke. No great work for God will be done without +physical and mental strain and effort. Perhaps there were people in +Colossae who thought that a man who had nothing to do but to preach had a +very easy life, and so the Apostle had to insist that most exhausting +work is brain work and heart work. Perhaps there were preachers and +teachers there who worked in a leisurely, dignified fashion, and took +great care always to stop a long way on the safe side of weariness; and +so he had to insist that God's work cannot be done at all in that +fashion, but has to be done "with both hands, earnestly." The "immortal +garland" is to be run for, "not without dust and heat." The racer who +takes care to slack his speed whenever he is in danger of breaking into +a perspiration will not win the prize. The Christian minister who is +afraid of putting all his strength into his work, up to the point of +weariness, will never do much good. + +There must be not only toil, but conflict. He labours, +"_striving_"--that is to say, contending--with hindrances, both without +and within, which sought to mar his work. There is the struggle with +one's self, with the temptations to do high work from low motives, or to +neglect it, and to substitute routine for inspiration and mechanism for +fervour. One's own evil, one's weaknesses and fears and falsities, and +laziness and torpor and faithlessness, have all to be fought, besides +the difficulties and enemies without. In short, all good work is a +battle. + +The hard strain and stress of this life of effort and conflict made this +man "Paul the aged" while he was not old in years. Such soul's agony and +travail is indispensable for all high service of Christ. How can any +true, noble Christian life be lived without continuous effort and +continual strife? Up to the last particle of our power, it is our duty +to work. As for the sleepy, languid, self-indulgent service of modern +Christians, who seem to be chiefly anxious not to overstrain themselves, +and to manage to win the race set before them without turning a hair, I +am afraid that a large deduction will have to be made from it in the day +that shall "try every man's work, of what sort it is." + +So much for the struggle; now for the strength. The toil and the +conflict are to be carried on "according to His working, which worketh +in me mightily." The measure of our power then is Christ's power in us. +He whose presence makes the struggle necessary, by His presence +strengthens us for it. He will dwell in us and work in us, and even our +weakness will be lifted into joyful strength by Him. We shall be mighty +because that mighty Worker is in our spirits. We have not only His +presence beside us as an ally, but His grace within us. We may not only +have the vision of our Captain standing at our side as we front the +foe--an unseen presence to them, but inspiration and victory to us--but +we may have the consciousness of His power welling up in our spirits and +flowing, as immortal strength, into our arms. It is much to know that +Christ fights for us; it is more to know that He fights in us. + +Let us take courage then for all work and conflict; and remember that if +we have not "striven according to the power"--that is, if we have not +utilised _all_ our Christ-given strength in His service--we have not +striven enough. There may be a double defect in us. We may not have +taken all the power that he Has given, and we may not have used all the +power that we have taken. Alas, for us! we have to confess both faults. +How weak we have been when Omnipotence waited to give Itself to us! How +little we have made our own of the grace that flows so abundantly past +us, catching such a small part of the broad river in our hands, and +spilling so much even of that before it reached our lips! And how little +of the power given, whether natural or spiritual, we have used for our +Lord! How many weapons have hung rusty and unused in the fight! He has +sowed much in our hearts, and reaped little. Like some unkindly soils, +we have "drunk in the rain which cometh oft upon it," and have "_not_ +brought forth herbs fit for Him by whom it is dressed." Talents hid, the +Master's goods squandered, power allowed to run to waste, languid +service and half-hearted conflict, we have all to acknowledge. Let us go +to Him and confess that, "we have most unthankful been," and are +unprofitable servants indeed, coming far short of duty. Let us yield our +spirits to His influence, that He may work in us that which is pleasing +in His sight, and may encircle us with ever-growing completeness of +beauty and strength, until He "present us faultless before the presence +of His glory with exceeding joy." + + + + +X. + +_PAUL'S STRIVING FOR THE COLOSSIANS._ + + "For I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for + them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the + flesh; that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together + in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, + that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in Whom are all + the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden."--COL. ii. 1-3 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +We have seen that the closing portion of the previous chapter is almost +exclusively personal. In this context the same strain is continued, and +two things are dwelt on: the Apostle's agony of anxiety for the +Colossian Church, and the joy with which, from his prison, he travelled +in spirit across mountain and sea, and saw them in their quiet valley, +cleaving to the Lord. The former of these feelings is expressed in the +words now before us; the latter, in the following verses. + +All this long outpouring of self-revelation is so natural and +characteristic of Paul that we need scarcely look for any purpose in it, +and yet we may note with what consummate art he thereby prepares the way +for the warnings which follow. The unveiling of his own throbbing heart +was sure to work on the affections of his readers and to incline them to +listen. His profound emotion in thinking of the preciousness of his +message would help to make them feel how much was at stake, and his +unfaltering faith would give firmness to their less tenacious grasp of +the truth which, as they saw, he gripped with such force. Many truths +may be taught coolly, and some must be. But in religious matters, +arguments wrought in frost are powerless, and earnestness approaching to +passion is the all-conquering force. A teacher who is afraid to show his +feelings, or who has no feelings to show, will never gather many +disciples. + +So this revelation of the Apostle's heart is relevant to the great +purposes of the whole letter--the warning against error, and the +exhortation to stedfastness. In the verses which we are now considering, +we have the conflict which Paul was waging set forth in three aspects: +first, in itself; second, in regard to the persons for whom it was +waged; and, finally and principally, in regard to the object or purpose +in view therein. The first and second of these points may be dealt with +briefly. The third will require further consideration. + +I. There is first the conflict, which he earnestly desired that the +Colossian Christians might know to be "great." The word rendered in the +Authorised Version "conflict," belongs to the same root as that which +occurs in the last verse of the previous chapter, and is there rendered +"striving." The Revised Version rightly indicates this connection by its +translation, but fails to give the construction as accurately as the +older translation does. "What great strife I have" would be nearer the +Greek, and more forcible than the somewhat feeble "how greatly I +strive," which the Revisers have adopted. The conflict referred to is, +of course, that of the arena, as so often in Paul's writings. + +But how could he, in Rome, wage conflict on behalf of the Church at +Colossae? No external conflict can be meant. He could strike no blows on +their behalf. What he could do in that way, he did, and he was now +taking part in their battle by this letter. If he could not fight by +their side, he could send them ammunition, as he does in this great +Epistle, which was, no doubt, to the eager combatants for the truth at +Colossae, what it has been ever since, a magazine and arsenal in all +their warfare. But the real struggle was in his own heart. It meant +anxiety, sympathy, an agony of solicitude, a passion of intercession. +What he says of Epaphras in this very Epistle was true of himself. He +was "always striving in prayer for them." And by these wrestlings of +spirit he took his place among the combatants, though they were far +away, and though in outward seeming, his life was untouched by any of +the difficulties and dangers which hemmed them in. In that lonely +prison-cell, remote from their conflict, and with burdens enough of his +own to carry, with his life in peril, his heart yet turned to them and, +like some soldier left behind to guard the base while his comrades had +gone forward to the fight, his ears listened for the sound of battle, +and his thoughts were in the field. His prison cell was like the focus +of some reverberating gallery in which every whisper spoken all round +the circumference was heard, and the heart that was held captive there +was set vibrating in all its chords by every sound from any of the +Churches. + +Let us learn the lesson, that, for all Christian people, sympathy in the +battle for God, which is being waged all over the world, is plain duty. +For all Christian teachers of every sort, an eager sympathy in the +difficulties and struggles of those whom they would try to teach is +indispensable. We can never deal wisely with any mind until we have +entered into its peculiarities. We can never help a soul fighting with +errors and questionings until we have ourselves felt the pinch of the +problems, and have shown that soul that we know what it is to grope and +stumble. No man is ever able to lift a burden from another's shoulders +except on condition of bearing the burden himself. If I stretch out my +hand to some poor brother struggling in "the miry clay," he will not +grasp it, and my well-meant efforts will be vain, unless he can see that +I too have felt with him the horror of great darkness, and desire him to +share with me the benedictions of the light. + +Wheresoever our prison or our workshop may be, howsoever Providence or +circumstances--which is but a heathenish word for the same thing--may +separate us from active participation in any battle for God, we are +bound to take an eager share in it by sympathy, by interest, by such +help as we can render, and by that intercession which may sway the +fortunes of the field, though the uplifted hands grasp no weapons, and +the spot where we pray be far from the fight. It is not only the men who +bear the brunt of the battle in the high places of the field who are the +combatants. In many a quiet home, where their wives and mothers sit, +with wistful faces waiting for the news from the front, are an agony of +anxiety, and as true a share in the struggle as amidst the battery smoke +and the gleaming bayonets. It was a law in Israel, "As his part is that +goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that abideth by the +stuff. They shall part alike." They were alike in recompense, because +they were rightly regarded as alike in service. So all Christians who +have in heart and sympathy taken part in the great battle shall be +counted as combatants and crowned as victors, though they themselves +have struck no blows. "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a +prophet shall receive a prophet's reward." + +II. We notice the persons for whom this conflict was endured. They are +the Christians of Colossae, and their neighbours of Laodicea, and "as +many as have not seen my face in the flesh." It may be a question +whether the Colossians and Laodiceans belong to those who have not seen +his face in the flesh, but the most natural view of the words is that +the last clause "introduces the whole class to which the persons +previously enumerated belong,"[2] and this conclusion is confirmed by +the silence of the Acts of the Apostles as to any visit of Paul's to +these Churches, and by the language of the Epistle itself, which, in +several places, refers to his knowledge of the Colossian Church as +derived from hearing of them, and never alludes to personal intercourse. +That being so, one can understand that its members might easily think +that he cared less for them than he did for the more fortunate +communities which he had himself planted or watered, and might have +suspected that the difficulties of the Church at Ephesus, for instance, +lay nearer his heart than theirs in their remote upland valley. No +doubt, too, their feelings to him were less warm than to Epaphras and to +other teachers whom they had heard. They had never felt the magnetism of +his personal presence, and were at a disadvantage in their struggle +with the errors which were beginning to lift their snaky heads among +them, from not having had the inspiration and direction of his teaching. + +It is beautiful to see how, here, Paul lays hold of that very fact which +seemed to put some film of separation between them, in order to make it +the foundation of his especial keenness of interest in them. Precisely +because he had never looked them in the eyes, they had a warmer place in +his heart, and his solicitude for them was more tender. He was not so +enslaved by sense that his love could not travel beyond the limits of +his eyesight. He was the more anxious about them because they had not +the recollections of his teaching and of his presence to fall back upon. + +III. But the most important part of this section is the Apostle's +statement of the great subject of his solicitude, that which he +anxiously longed that the Colossians might attain. It is a prophecy, as +well as a desire. It is a statement of the deepest purpose of his letter +to them, and being so, it is likewise a statement of the Divine desire +concerning each of us, and of the Divine design of the gospel. Here is +set forth what God would have all Christians to be, and, in Jesus +Christ, has given them ample means of being. + +(1) The first element in the Apostle's desire for them is "that their +hearts may be comforted." Of course the Biblical use of the word "heart" +is much wider than the modern popular use of it. We mean by it, when we +use it in ordinary talk, the hypothetical seat of the emotions, and +chiefly, the organ and throne of love; but Scripture means by the word, +the whole inward personality, including thought and will as well as +emotion. So we read of the "thoughts and intents of the heart," and the +whole inward nature is called "the hidden man of the heart." + +And what does he desire for this inward man? That it may be "comforted." +That word again has a wider signification in Biblical, than in +nineteenth century English. It is much more than consolation in trouble. +The cloud that hung over the Colossian Church was not about to break in +sorrows which they would need consolation to bear, but in doctrinal and +practical errors which they would need strength to resist. They were +called to fight rather than to endure, and what they needed most was +courageous confidence. So Paul desires for them that their hearts should +be _encouraged_ or strengthened, that they might not quail before the +enemy, but go into the fight with buoyancy, and be of good cheer. + +Is there any greater blessing in view both of the conflict which +Christianity has to wage to-day, and of the difficulties and warfare of +our own lives, than that brave spirit, which plunges into the struggle +with the serene assurance that victory sits on our helms and waits upon +our swords, and knows that anything is possible rather than defeat? That +is the condition of overcoming--even our faith. "The sad heart tires in +a mile," but the strong hopeful heart carries in its very strength the +prophecy of triumph. + +Such a disposition is not altogether a matter of temperament, but may be +cultivated, and though it may come easier to some of us than to others, +it certainly ought to belong to all who have God to trust to, and +believe that the gospel is His truth. They may well be strong who have +Divine power ready to flood their hearts, who know that everything works +for their good, who can see, above the whirl of time and change, one +strong loving Hand which moves the wheels. What have we to do with fear +for ourselves, or wherefore should our "hearts tremble for the ark of +God," seeing that One fights by our sides who will teach our hands to +war and cover our heads in the day of battle? "Be of good courage, and +He shall strengthen thine heart." + +(2) The way to secure such joyous confidence and strength is taught us +here, for we have next, _Union in love_, as part of the means for +obtaining it--"They being knit together in love." The persons, not the +hearts, are to be thus united. Love is the true bond which unites +men--the bond of perfectness, as it is elsewhere called. That unity in +love would, of course, add to the strength of each. The old fable +teaches us that little fagots bound together are strong, and the tighter +the rope is pulled, the stronger they are. A solitary heart is timid and +weak, but many weaknesses brought together make a strength, as slimly +built houses in a row hold each other up, or dying embers raked closer +burst into flame. Loose grains of sand are light and moved by a breath; +compacted they are rock against which the Atlantic beats in vain. So, a +Church, of which the members are bound together by that love which is +the only real bond of Church life, presents a front to threatening evils +through which they cannot break. A real moral defence against even +intellectual error will be found in such a close compaction in mutual +Christian love. A community so interlocked will throw off many evils, as +a Roman legion with linked shields roofed itself over against missiles +from the wall of a besieged city, or the imbricated scales on a fish +keep it dry in the heart of the sea. + +But we must go deeper than this in interpreting these words. The love +which is to knit Christian men together is not merely love to one +another, but is common love to Jesus Christ. Such common love to Him is +the true bond of union, and the true strengthener of men's hearts. + +(3) This compaction in love will lead to a wealth of certitude in the +possession of the truth. + +Paul is so eagerly desirous for the Colossians' union in love to each +other and all to God, because He knows that such union will materially +contribute to their assured and joyful possession of the truth. It +tends, he thinks, unto "all riches of the full assurance of +understanding," by which he means the wealth which consists in the +entire, unwavering certitude which takes possession of the +understanding, the confidence that it has the truth and the life in +Jesus Christ. Such a joyful stedfastness of conviction that I have +grasped the truth is opposed to hesitating half belief. It is +attainable, as this context shows, by paths of moral discipline, and +amongst them, by seeking to realize our unity with our brethren, and not +proudly rejecting the "common faith" because it is common. Possessing +that assurance, we shall be rich and heart-whole. Walking amid +certainties we shall walk in paths of peace, and re-echo the triumphant +assurance of the Apostle, to whom love had given the key of +knowledge:--"we know that we are of God, and we know that the Son of God +is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that +is true." + +In all times of religious unsettlement, when an active propaganda of +denial is going on, Christian men are tempted to lower their own tone, +and to say, "It is so," with somewhat less of certainty, because so many +are saying, "It is not so." Little Rhoda needs some courage to affirm +constantly that "it was even so," when apostles and her masters keep +assuring her that she has only seen a vision. In this day, many +professing Christians falter in the clear assured profession of their +faith, and it does not need a keen ear to catch an undertone of doubt +making their voices tremulous. Some even are so afraid of being thought +"narrow," that they seek for the reputation of liberality by talking as +if there were a film of doubt over even the truths which used to be +"most surely believed." Much of the so-called faith of this day is all +honeycombed with secret misgivings, which have in many instances no +other intellectual basis than the consciousness of prevalent unbelief +and a second-hand acquaintance with its teachings. Few things are more +needed among us now than this full assurance and satisfaction of the +understanding with the truth as it is in Jesus. Nothing is more wretched +than the slow paralysis creeping over faith, the fading of what had been +stars into darkness. A tragedy is being wrought in many minds which have +had to exchange Christ's "Verily, verily," for a miserable "perhaps," +and can no longer say "I know," but only, "I would fain believe," or at +the best, "I incline to think still." On the other hand, the "full +assurance of the understanding" brings wealth. It breathes peace over +the soul, and gives endless riches in the truths which through it are +made living and real. + +This wealth of conviction is attained by living in the love of God. Of +course, there is an intellectual discipline which is also needed. But no +intellectual process will lead to an assured grasp of spiritual truth, +unless it be accompanied by love. As soon may we lay hold of truth with +our hands, as of God in Christ with our understandings alone. This is +the constant teaching of Scripture--that, if we would know God and have +assurance of Him, we must love Him. "In order to love human things, it +is necessary to know them. In order to know Divine things, it is +necessary to love them." When we are rooted and grounded in love, we +shall be able to know--for what we have most need to know and what the +gospel has mainly to teach us is the love, and "unless the eye with +which we look is love, how shall we know love?" If we love, we shall +possess an experience which verifies the truth for us, will give us an +irrefragable demonstration which will bring certitude to ourselves, +however little it may avail to convince others. Rich in the possession +of this confirmation of the gospel by the blessings which have come to +us from it, and which witness of their source, as the stream that dots +some barren plain with a line of green along its course is revealed +thereby, we shall have the right to oppose to many a doubt the full +assurance born of love, and while others are disputing whether there be +any God, or any living Christ, or any forgiveness of sins, or any +guiding providence, we shall know that they are, and are ours, because +we have felt the power and wealth which they have brought into our +lives. + +(4) This unity of love will lead to full knowledge of the mystery of +God. Such seems to be the connection of the next words, which may be +literally read "unto the full knowledge of the mystery of God," and may +be best regarded as a co-ordinate clause with the preceding, depending +like it on "being knit together in love." So taken, there is set forth a +double issue of that compaction in love to God and one another, namely, +the calm assurance in the grasp of truth already possessed, and the more +mature and deeper insight into the deep things of God. The word for +knowledge here is the same as in i. 9, and here as there means a full +knowledge. The Colossians had known Christ at first, but the Apostle's +desire is that they may come to a fuller knowledge, for the object to be +known is infinite, and endless degrees in the perception and possession +of His power and grace are possible. In that fuller knowledge they will +not leave behind what they knew at first, but will find in it deeper +meaning, a larger wisdom and a fuller truth. + +Among the large number of readings of the following words, that adopted +by the Revised Version is to be preferred, and the translation which it +gives is the most natural and is in accordance with the previous thought +in chapter i. 27, where also "the mystery" is explained to be "Christ in +you." A slight variation in the conception is presented here. The +"mystery" is Christ, not "in you," but "in Whom are hid all the +treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The great truth long hidden, now +revealed, is that the whole wealth of spiritual insight (knowledge), and +of reasoning on the truths thus apprehended so as to gain an ordered +system of belief and a coherent law of conduct (wisdom), is stored for +us in Christ. + +Such being in brief the connection and outline meaning of these great +words, we may touch upon the various principles embodied in them. We +have seen, in commenting upon a former part of the Epistle, the force of +the great thought that Christ in His relations to us is the mystery of +God, and need not repeat what was then said. But we may pause for a +moment on the fact that the knowledge of that mystery has its stages. +The revelation of the mystery is complete. No further stages are +possible in that. But while the revelation is, in Paul's estimate, +finished, and the long concealed truth now stands in full sunshine, our +apprehension of it may grow, and there is a mature knowledge possible. +Some poor ignorant soul catches through the gloom a glimpse of God +manifested in the flesh, and bearing his sins. That soul will never +outgrow that knowledge, but as the years pass, life and reflection and +experience will help to explain and deepen it. God so loved the world +that He gave His only begotten Son--there is nothing beyond that truth. +Grasped however imperfectly, it brings light and peace. But as it is +loved and lived by, it unfolds undreamed-of depths, and flashes with +growing brightness. Suppose that a man could set out from the great +planet that moves on the outermost rim of our system, and could travel +slowly inwards towards the central sun, how the disc would grow, and the +light and warmth increase with each million of miles that he crossed, +till what had seemed a point filled the whole sky! Christian growth is +into, not away from Christ, a penetrating deeper into the centre, and a +drawing out into distinct consciousness as a coherent system, all that +was wrapped, as the leaves in their brown sheath, in that first glimpse +of Him which saves the soul. + +These stages are infinite, because in Him are all the treasures of +wisdom and knowledge. These four words, _treasures_, _wisdom_, +_knowledge_, _hidden_, are all familiar on the lips of the latter +Gnostics, and were so, no doubt, in the mouths of the false teachers at +Colossae. The Apostle would assert for his gospel all which they falsely +claimed for their dreams. As in several other places of this Epistle, he +avails himself of his antagonists' special vocabulary, transferring its +terms, from the illusory phantoms which a false knowledge adorned with +them, to the truth which he had to preach. He puts special emphasis on +the predicate "hidden" by throwing it to the end of the sentence--a +peculiarity which is reproduced with advantage in the Revised Version. + +All wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. He is the Light of men, and all +thought and truth of every sort come from Him Who is the Eternal Word, +the Incarnate Wisdom. That Incarnate Word is the perfect Revelation of +God, and by His one completed life and death has declared the whole name +of God to His brethren, of which all other media of revelation have but +uttered broken syllables. That ascended Christ breathes wisdom and +knowledge into all who love Him, and still pursues, by giving us the +Spirit of wisdom, His great work of revealing God to men, according to +His own word, which at once asserted the completeness of the revelation +made by His earthly life and promised the perpetual continuance of the +revelation from His heavenly seat: "I have declared Thy name unto My +brethren, and will declare it." + +In Christ, as in a great storehouse, lie all the riches of spiritual +wisdom, the massive ingots of solid gold which when coined into creeds +and doctrines are the wealth of the Church. All which we can know +concerning God and man, concerning sin and righteousness and duty, +concerning another life, is in Him Who is the home and deep mine where +truth is stored. + +In Christ these treasures are "hidden," but not, as the heretics' +mysteries were hidden, in order that they might be out of reach of the +vulgar crowd. This mystery is hidden indeed, but it is revealed. It is +hidden only from the eyes that will not see it. It is hidden that +seeking souls may have the joy of seeking and the rest of finding. The +very act of revealing is a hiding, as our Lord has said in His great +thanksgiving because these things are (by one and the same act) "hid +from the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes." They are hid, as men +store provisions in the Arctic regions, in order that the bears may not +find them and the shipwrecked sailors may. + +Such thoughts have a special message for times of agitation such as the +Colossian Church was passing through, and such as we have to face. We +too are surrounded by eager confident voices, proclaiming profounder +truths and a deeper wisdom than the gospel gives us. In joyful +antagonism to these, Christian men have to hold fast by the confidence +that all Divine wisdom is laid up in their Lord. We need not go to +others to learn new truth. The new problems of each generation to the +end of time will find their answers in Christ, and new issues of that +old message which we have heard from the beginning will continually be +discerned. Let us not wonder if the lessons which the earlier ages of +the Church drew from that infinite storehouse fail at many points to +meet the eager questionings of to-day. Nor let us suppose that the stars +are quenched because the old books of astronomy are in some respects out +of date. We need not cast aside the truths that we learned at our +mother's knees. The central fact of the universe and the perfect +encyclopaedia of all moral and spiritual truth is Christ, the Incarnate +Word, the Lamb slain, the ascended King. If we keep true to Him and +strive to widen our minds to the breadth of that great message, it will +grow as we gaze, even as the nightly heavens expand to the eye which +stedfastly looks into them, and reveal violet abysses sown with +sparkling points, each of which is a sun. "Lord, to whom shall we go? +Thou hast the words of eternal life." + +The ordinary type of Christian life is contented with a superficial +acquaintance with Christ. Many understand no more of Him and of His +gospel than they did when first they learned to love Him. So completely +has the very idea of a progressive knowledge of Jesus Christ faded from +the horizon of the average Christian that "edification," which ought to +mean the progressive building up of the character course by course, in +new knowledge and grace, has come to mean little more than the sense of +comfort derived from the reiteration of old and familiar words which +fall on the ear with a pleasant murmur. There is sadly too little +first-hand and growing knowledge of their Lord, among Christian people, +too little belief that fresh treasures may be found hidden in that field +which, to each soul and each new generation struggling with its own +special forms of the burdens and problems that press upon humanity, +would be cheaply bought by selling all, but may be won at the easier +rate of earnest desire to possess them, and faithful adherence to Him in +whom they are stored for the world. The condition of growth for the +branch is abiding in the vine. If our hearts are knit together with +Christ's heart in that love which is the parent of communion, both as +delighted contemplation and as glad obedience, then we shall daily dig +deeper into the mine of wealth which is hid in Him that it may be found, +and draw forth an unfailing supply of things new and old. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Bishop Lightfoot, _in loc._ + + + + +XI. + +_CONCILIATORY AND HORTATORY TRANSITION TO POLEMICS._ + + "This I say, that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of + speech. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in + the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of + your faith in Christ. + + "As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, + rooted and builded up in Him, and stablished in your faith, even as + ye were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."--COL. ii. 4-7 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +Nothing needs more delicacy of hand and gentleness of heart than the +administration of warning or reproof, especially when directed against +errors of religious opinion. It is sure to do harm unless the person +reproved is made to feel that it comes from true kindly interest in him, +and does full justice to his honesty. Warning so easily passes into +scolding, and sounds to the warned so like it even when the speaker does +not mean it so, that there is special need to modulate the voice very +carefully. + +So in this context, the Apostle has said much about his deep interest in +the Colossian Church, and has dwelt on the passionate earnestness of his +solicitude for them, his conflict of intercession and sympathy, and the +large sweep of his desires for their good. But he does not feel that he +can venture to begin his warnings till he has said something more, so +as to conciliate them still further, and to remove from their minds +other thoughts unfavourable to the sympathetic reception of his words. +One can fancy some Colossians saying, "What need is there for all this +anxiety? Why should Paul be in such a taking about us? He is +exaggerating our danger, and doing scant justice to our Christian +character." Nothing stops the ear to the voice of warning more surely +than a feeling that it is pitched in too solemn a key, and fails to +recognise the good. + +So before he goes further, he gathers up his motives in giving the +following admonitions, and gives his estimate of the condition of the +Colossians, in the two first of the verses now under consideration. All +that he has been saying has been said not so much because he thinks that +they have gone wrong, but because he knows that there are heretical +teachers at work, who may lead them astray with plausible lessons. He is +not combating errors which have already swept away the faith of the +Colossian Christians, but putting them on their guard against such as +threaten them. He is not trying to pump the water out of a water-logged +vessel, but to stop a little leak which is in danger of gaping wider. +And, in his solicitude, he has much confidence and is encouraged to +speak because, absent from them as he is, he has a vivid assurance, +which gladdens him, of the solidity and firmness of their faith. + +So with this distinct definition of the precise danger which he feared, +and this soothing assurance of his glad confidence in their stedfast +order, the Apostle at last opens his batteries. The 6th and 7th verses +are the first shot fired, the beginning of the monitions so long and +carefully prepared for They contain a general exhortation, which may be +taken as the keynote for the polemical portion of the Epistle, which +occupies the rest of the chapter. + +I. We have then first, the purpose of the Apostle's previous +self-revelation. "This I say"--this namely which is contained in the +preceding verses, the expression of his solicitude, and perhaps even +more emphatically, the declaration of Christ as the revealed secret of +God, the inexhaustible storehouse of all wisdom and knowledge. The +purpose of the Apostle, then, in his foregoing words has been to guard +the Colossians against the danger to which they were exposed, of being +deceived and led astray by "persuasiveness of speech." That expression +is not necessarily used in a bad sense, but here it evidently has a +tinge of censure, and implies some doubt both of the honesty of the +speakers and of the truthfulness of their words. Here we have an +important piece of evidence as to the then condition of the Colossian +Church. There were false teachers busy amongst them who belonged in some +sense to the Christian community. But probably these were not +Colossians, but wandering emissaries of a Judaizing Gnosticism, while +certainly the great mass of the Church was untouched by their +speculations. They were in danger of getting bewildered, and being +_deceived_, that is to say, of being induced to accept certain teaching +because of its speciousness, without seeing all its bearings, or even +knowing its real meaning. So error ever creeps into the Church. Men are +caught by something fascinating in some popular teaching, and follow it +without knowing where it will lead them. By slow degrees its tendencies +are disclosed, and at last the followers of the heresiarch wake to find +that everything which they once believed and prized has dropped from +their creed. + +We may learn here, too, the true safeguard against specious errors. Paul +thinks that he can best fortify these simple-minded disciples against +all harmful teaching by exalting his Master and urging the inexhaustible +significance of His person and message. To learn the full meaning and +preciousness of Christ is to be armed against error. The positive truth +concerning Him, by preoccupying mind and heart, guards beforehand +against the most specious teachings. If you fill the coffer with gold, +nobody will want, and there will be no room for, pinchbeck. A living +grasp of Christ will keep us from being swept away by the current of +prevailing popular opinion, which is always much more likely to be wrong +than right, and is sure to be exaggerated and one-sided at the best. A +personal consciousness of His power and sweetness will give an +instinctive repugnance to teaching that would lower His dignity and +debase His work. If He be the centre and anchorage of all our thoughts, +we shall not be tempted to go elsewhere in search of the "treasures of +wisdom and knowledge" which "are hid in Him." He who has found the one +pearl of great price, needs no more to go seeking goodly pearls, but +only day by day more completely to lose self, and give up all else, that +he may win more and more of Christ his All. If we keep our hearts and +minds in communion with our Lord, and have experience of His +preciousness, that will preserve us from many a snare, will give us a +wisdom beyond much logic, will solve for us many of the questions most +hotly debated to-day, and will show us that many more are unimportant +and uninteresting to us. And even if we should be led to wrong +conclusions on some matters, "if we drink any deadly thing, it shall not +hurt us." + +II. We see here the joy which blended with the anxiety of the solitary +prisoner, and encouraged him to warn the Colossians against impending +dangers to their faith. + +We need not follow the grammatical commentators in their discussion of +how Paul comes to invert the natural order here, and to say "joying and +beholding," instead of "beholding and rejoicing" as we should expect. No +one doubts that what he saw in spirit was the cause of his joy. The old +man in his prison, loaded with many cares, compelled to be inactive in +the cause which was more to him than life, is yet full of spirit and +buoyancy. His prison-letters all partake of that "rejoicing in the +Lord," which is the keynote of one of them. Old age and apparent +failure, and the exhaustion of long labours, and the disappointments and +sorrows which almost always gather like evening clouds round a life as +it sinks in the west had not power to quench his fiery energy or to +blunt his keen interest in all the Churches. His cell was like the +centre of a telephonic system. Voices spoke from all sides. Every Church +was connected with it, and messages were perpetually being brought. +Think of him sitting there, eagerly listening, and thrilling with +sympathy at each word, so self-oblivious was he, so swallowed up were +all personal ends in the care for the Churches, and in the swift, deep +fellow-feeling with them? Love and interest quickened his insight, and +though he was far away, he had them so vividly before him that he was as +if a spectator. The joy which he had in the thought of them made him +dwell on the thought--so the apparently inverted order of the words may +be the natural one and he may have looked all the more fixedly because +it gladdened him to look. + +What did he see? "Your order." That is unquestionably a military +metaphor, drawn probably from his experiences of the Praetorians, while +in captivity. He had plenty of opportunities of studying both the +equipment of the single legionary, who, in the 6th chapter of Ephesians, +sat for his portrait to the prisoner to whom he was chained, and also +the perfection of discipline in the whole which made the legion so +formidable. It was not a multitude but a unit, "moving altogether if it +move at all," as if animated by one will. Paul rejoices to know that the +Colossian Church was thus welded into a solid unity. + +Further, he beholds "the stedfastness of your faith in Christ." This may +be a continuation of the military metaphor, and may mean "the solid +front, the close phalanx" which your faith presents. But whether we +suppose the figure to be carried on or dropped, we must, I think, +recognise that this second point refers rather to the inward condition +than to the outward discipline of the Colossians. + +Here then is set forth a lofty ideal of the Church, in two respects. +First there is outwardly, an ordered disciplined array; and secondly, +there is a stedfast faith. + +As to the first, Paul was no martinet, anxious about the pedantry of the +parade ground, but he knew the need of organization and drill. Any body +of men united in order to carry out a specific purpose have to be +organized. That means a place for every man, and every man in his place. +It means co-operation to one common end, and therefore division of +function and subordination. Order does not merely mean obedience to +authority. There may be equal "order" under widely different forms of +polity. The legionaries were drawn up in close ranks, the light-armed +skirmishers more loosely. In the one case the phalanx was more and the +individual less; in the other there was more play given to the single +man, and less importance to corporate action; but the difference between +them was not that of order and disorder, but that of two systems, each +organized but on somewhat different principles and for different +purposes. A loosely linked chain is as truly a chain as a rigid one. The +main requirement for such "order" as gladdened the Apostle is conjoint +action to one end, with variety of office, and unity of spirit. + +Some Churches give more weight to the principle of authority; others to +that of individuality. They may criticise each other's polity, but the +former has no right to reproach the latter as being necessarily +defective in "order." Some Churches are all drill and their favourite +idea of discipline is, Obey them that have the rule over you. The +Churches of looser organization, on the other hand, are no doubt in +danger of making too little of organization. But both need that all +their members should be more penetrated by the sense of unity, and +should fill each his place in the work of the body. It was far easier to +secure the true order--a place and a task for every man and every man in +his place and at his task--in the small homogeneous communities of +apostolic times than it is now, when men of such different social +position, education, and ways of thinking are found in the same +Christian community. The proportion of idlers in all Churches is a +scandal and a weakness. However highly organized and officered a Church +may be, no joy would fill an apostle's heart in beholding it, if the +mass of its members had no share in its activities. Every society of +professing Christians should be like a man of war's crew, each of whom +knows the exact inch where he has to stand when the whistle sounds, and +the precise thing he has to do in the gun drill. + +But the perfection of discipline is not enough. That may stiffen into +routine if there be not something deeper. We want life even more than +order. The description of the soldiers who set David on the throne +should describe Christ's army--"men that could keep rank, they were not +of double heart." They had discipline and had learned to accommodate +their stride to the length of their comrades' step; but they had +whole-hearted enthusiasm, which was better. Both are needed. If there be +not courage and devotion there is nothing worth disciplining. The Church +that has the most complete order and not also stedfastness of faith will +be like the German armies, all pipeclay and drill, which ran like hares +before the ragged shoeless levies whom the first French Revolution flung +across the border with a fierce enthusiasm blazing in their hearts. So +the Apostle beholds with joy the stedfastness of the Colossians' faith +toward Christ. + +If the rendering "stedfastness" be adopted as in the Rev. Ver., the +phrase will be equivalent to the "firmness which characterizes or +belongs to your faith." But some of the best commentators deny that this +meaning of the word is ever found, and propose "foundation" (that which +is made stedfast). The meaning then will either be "the firm foundation +(for your lives) which consists of your faith," or, more probably, "the +firm foundation which your faith has." He rejoices, seeing that their +faith towards Jesus Christ has a basis unshaken by assaults. + +Such a rock foundation, and consequent stedfastness, must faith have, if +it is to be worthy of the name and to manifest its true power. A +tremulous faith may, thank God! be a true faith, but the very idea of +faith implies solid assurance and fixed confidence. Our faith should be +able to resist pressure and to keep its ground against assaults and +gainsaying. It should not be like a child's card castle, that the light +breath of a scornful laugh will throw down, but + + "a tower of strength + That stands foursquare to all the winds that blow." + +We should seek to make it so, nor let the fluctuations of our own hearts +cause it to fluctuate. We should try so to control the ebb and flow of +religious emotion that it may always be near high water with our faith, +a tideless but not stagnant sea. We should oppose a settled conviction +and unalterable confidence to the noisy voices which would draw us away. + +And that we may do so we must keep up a true and close communion with +Jesus Christ. The faith which is ever going out "towards" Him, as the +sunflower turns sunwards, will ever draw from Him such blessed gifts +that doubt or distrust will be impossible. If we keep near our Lord and +wait expectant on Him, He will increase our faith and make our "hearts +fixed, trusting in the Lord." So a greater than Paul may speak even to +us, as He walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, words which +from _His_ lips will be praise indeed: "Though I am absent in the flesh, +yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the +stedfastness of your faith in Me." + +III. We have here, the exhortation which comprehends all duty, and +covers the whole ground of Christian belief and practice. + +"Therefore"--the following exhortation is based upon the warning and +commendation of the preceding verses. There is first a wide general +injunction. "As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him," +_i.e._ let your active life be in accord with what you learned and +obtained when you first became Christians. Then this exhortation is +defined or broken up into four particulars in the following clauses, +which explain in detail how it is to be kept. + +The general exhortation is to a true Christian walk. The main force lies +upon the "as." The command is to order all life in accordance with the +early lessons and acquisitions. The phrase "ye received Christ Jesus the +Lord" presents several points requiring notice. It is obviously parallel +with "as ye were taught" in the next verse; so that it was from their +first teachers, and probably from Epaphras (i. 7) that they had +"received Christ." So then what we receive, when, from human lips, we +hear the gospel and accept it, is not merely the word about the Saviour, +but the Saviour Himself. This expression of our text is no mere loose or +rhetorical mode of speech, but a literal and blessed truth. Christ is +the sum of all Christian teaching and, where the message of His love is +welcomed, He Himself comes in spiritual and real presence, and dwells in +the spirit. + +The solemnity of the full name of our Saviour in this connection is most +significant. Paul reminds the Colossians, in view of the teaching which +degraded the person and curtailed the work of Christ, that they had +received the man Jesus, the promised Christ, the universal Lord. As if +he had said, Remember whom you received in your conversion--_Christ_, +the Messiah, anointed, that is, fitted by the unmeasured possession of +the Divine Spirit to fulfil all prophecy and to be the world's +deliverer. Remember _Jesus_, the man, our brother;--therefore listen to +no misty speculations nor look to whispered mysteries nor to angel +hierarchies for knowledge of God or for help in conflict. Our gospel is +not theory spun out of men's brains, but is, first and foremost, the +history of a brother's life and death. You received _Jesus_, so you are +delivered from the tyranny of these unsubstantial and portentous +systems, and relegated to the facts of a human life for your knowledge +of God. You received Jesus Christ as _Lord_. He was proclaimed as Lord +of men, angels, and the universe, Lord and Creator of the spiritual and +material worlds, Lord of history and providence. Therefore you need not +give heed to those teachers who would fill the gulf between men and God +with a crowd of powers and rulers. You have all that your mind or heart +or will can need in the human Divine Jesus, who is the Christ and the +Lord for you and all men. You have received Him in the all-sufficiency +of His revealed nature and offices. You have Him for your very own. +Hold fast that which you have, and let no man take this your crown and +treasure. The same exhortation has emphatic application to the conflicts +of to-day. The Church has had Jesus set forth as Christ and Lord. His +manhood, the historical reality of His Incarnation with all its blessed +issues, His Messiahship as the fulfiller of prophecy and symbol, +designated and fitted by the fulness of the Spirit, to be man's +deliverer, His rule and authority over all creatures and events have +been taught, and the tumults of present unsettlement make it hard and +needful to keep true to that threefold belief, and to let nothing rob us +of any of the elements of the full gospel which lies in the august name, +Christ Jesus the Lord. + +To that gospel, to that Lord, the walk, the active life, is to be +conformed, and the manner thereof is more fully explained in the +following clauses. + +"Rooted and built up in Him." Here again we have the profound "in Him," +which appears so frequently in this and in the companion Epistle to the +Ephesians, and which must be allowed its proper force, as expressing a +most real indwelling of the believer in Christ, if the depth of the +meaning is to be sounded. + +Paul drives his fiery chariot through rhetorical proprieties, and never +shrinks from "mixed metaphors" if they more vigorously express his +thought. Here we have three incongruous ones close on each other's +heels. The Christian is to _walk_, to be _rooted_ like a tree, to be +_built up_ like a house. What does the incongruity matter to Paul as the +stream of thought and feeling hurries him along? + +The tenses of the verbs, too, are studiously and significantly varied. +Fully rendered they would be "having been rooted and being builded up." +The one is a past act done once for all, the effects of which are +permanent; the other is a continuous resulting process which is going on +now. The Christian has been rooted in Jesus Christ at the beginning of +his Christian course. His faith has brought him into living contact with +the Saviour, who has become as the fruitful soil into which the believer +sends his roots, and both feeds and anchors there. The familiar image of +the first Psalm may have been in the writer's mind, and naturally recurs +to ours. If we draw nourishment and stability from Christ, round whom +the roots of our being twine and cling, we shall flourish and grow and +bear fruit. No man can do without some person beyond himself on whom to +repose, nor can any of us find in ourselves or on earth the sufficient +soil for our growth. We are like seedlings dropped on some great rock, +which send their rootlets down the hard stone and are stunted till they +reach the rich leaf-mould at its base. We blindly feel through all the +barrenness of the world for something into which our roots may plunge +that we may be nourished and firm. In Christ we may be "like a tree +planted by the river of water;" out of Him we are "as the chaff," +rootless, lifeless, profitless, and swept at last by the wind from the +threshing floor. The choice is before every man--either to be rooted in +Christ by faith, or to be rootless. + +"Being built up in Him." The gradual continuous building up of the +structure of a Christian character is doubly expressed in this word by +the present tense which points to a process, and by the prefixed +preposition represented by "up," which points to the successive laying +of course of masonry upon course. We are the architects of our own +characters. If our lives are based on Jesus Christ as their foundation, +and every deed is in vital connection with Him, as at once its motive, +its pattern, its power, its aim, and its reward, then we shall build +holy and fair lives, which will be temples. Men do not merely grow as a +leaf which "grows green and broad, and takes no care." The other +metaphor of a building needs to be taken into account, to complete the +former. Effort, patient continuous labour must be put forth. More than +"forty and six years is this temple in building." A stone at a time is +fitted into its place, and so after much toil and many years, as in the +case of some mediaeval cathedral unfinished for centuries, the topstone +is brought forth at last. This choice, too, is before all men--to build +on Christ and so to build for eternity, or on sand and so to be crushed +below the ruins of their fallen houses. + +"Stablished in your faith, even as ye were taught." This is apparently +simply a more definite way of putting substantially the same thoughts as +in the former clauses. Possibly the meaning is "stablished by faith," +the Colossians' faith being the instrument of their establishment. But +the Revised Version is probably right in its rendering, "stablished in," +or as to, "your faith." Their faith, as Paul had just been saying, was +stedfast, but it needed yet increased firmness. And this exhortation, as +it were, translates the previous ones into more homely language, that if +any man stumbled at the mysticism of the thoughts there, he might grasp +the plain practicalness here. If we are established and confirmed in our +faith, we shall be rooted and built up in Jesus, for it is faith which +joins us to Him, and its increase measures our growth in and into Him. + +There then is a very plain practical issue of these deep thoughts of +union with Jesus. A progressive increase of our faith is the condition +of all Christian progress. The faith which is already the firmest, and +by its firmness may gladden an Apostle, is still capable of and needs +strengthening. Its range can be enlarged, its tenacity increased, its +power over heart and life reinforced. The eye of faith is never so keen +but that it may become more longsighted; its grasp never so close but +that it may be tightened; its realisation never so solid but that it may +be more substantial; its authority never so great but that it may be +made more absolute. This continual strengthening of faith is the most +essential form of a Christian's effort at self-improvement. Strengthen +faith and you strengthen all graces; for it measures our reception of +Divine help. + +And the furthest development which faith can attain should ever be +sedulously kept in harmony with the initial teaching--"even as ye were +taught." Progress does not consist in dropping the early truths of Jesus +Christ the Lord for newer wisdom and more speculative religion, but in +discovering ever deeper lessons and larger powers in these rudiments +which are likewise the last and highest lessons which men can learn. + +Further, as the daily effort of the believing soul ought to be to +strengthen the quality of his faith, so it should be to increase its +amount--"abounding in it with thanksgiving." Or if we adopt the reading +of the Revised Version, we shall omit the "in it," and find here only an +exhortation to thanksgiving. That is, in any case, the main idea of the +clause, which adds to the former the thought that thanksgiving is an +inseparable accompaniment of vigorous Christian life. It is to be called +forth, of course, mainly by the great gift of Christ, in whom we are +rooted and builded, and, in Paul's judgment it is the very spring of +Christian progress. + +That constant temper of gratitude implies a habitual presence to the +mind, of God's great mercy in His unspeakable gift, a continual glow of +heart as we gaze, a continual appropriation of that gift for our very +own, and a continual outflow of our heart's love to the Incarnate and +Immortal Love. Such thankfulness will bind us to glad obedience, and +will give swiftness to the foot and eagerness to the will, to run in the +way of God's commandments. It is like genial sunshine, all flowers +breathe perfume and fruits ripen under its influence. It is the fire +which kindles the sacrifice of life and makes it go up in fragrant +incense-clouds, acceptable to God. The highest nobleness of which man is +capable is reached when, moved by the mercies of God, we yield ourselves +living sacrifices, thank-offerings to Him Who yielded Himself the +sin-offering for us. The life which is all influenced by thanksgiving +will be pure, strong, happy, in its continual counting of its gifts, and +in its thoughts of the Giver, and not least happy and beautiful in its +glad surrender of itself to Him who has given Himself for and to it. The +noblest offering that we can bring, the only recompense which Christ +asks, is that our hearts and our lives should say, We thank thee, O +Lord. "By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God +continually," and the continual thanksgiving will ensure continuous +growth in our Christian character, and a constant increase in the +strength and depth of our faith. + + + + +XII. + +_THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE._ + + "Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you + through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, + after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him + dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are + made full, Who is the head of all principality and power."--COL. ii. + 8-10 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We come now to the first plain reference to the errors which were +threatening the peace of the Colossian community. Here Paul crosses +swords with the foe. This is the point to which all his previous words +have been steadily converging. The immediately preceding context +contained the positive exhortation to continue in the Christ Whom they +had received, having been rooted in Him as the tree in a fertile place +"by the rivers of water," and being continually builded up in Him, with +ever-growing completeness of holy character. The same exhortation in +substance is contained in the verses which we have now to consider, with +the difference that it is here presented negatively, as warning and +dehortation, with distinct statement of the danger which would uproot +the tree and throw down the building, and drag the Colossians away from +union with Christ. + +In these words the Bane and Antidote are both before us. Let us consider +each. + +I. The Poison against which Paul warns the Colossians is plainly +described in our first verse, the terms of which may require a brief +comment. + +"Take heed lest there shall be." The construction implies that it is a +real and not a hypothetical danger which he sees threatening. He is not +crying "wolf" before there is need. + +"Any one"--perhaps the tone of the warning would be better conveyed if +we read the more familiar "somebody"; as if he had said--"I name no +names--it is not the persons but the principles that I fight +against--but you know whom I mean well enough. Let him be anonymous, you +understand who it is." Perhaps there was even a single "somebody" who +was the centre of the mischief. + +"That maketh spoil of you." Such is the full meaning of the word--and +not "injure" or "rob," which the translation in the Authorized Version +suggests to an English reader. Paul sees the converts in Colossae taken +prisoners and led away with a cord round their necks, like the long +strings of captives on the Assyrian monuments. He had spoken in the +previous chapter (ver. 13) of the merciful conqueror who had +"translated" them from the realm of darkness into a kingdom of light, +and now he fears lest a robber horde, making a raid upon the peaceful +colonists in their happy new homes, may sweep them away again into +bondage. + +The instrument which the man-stealer uses, or perhaps we may say, the +cord, whose fatal noose will be tightened round them, if they do not +take care, is "philosophy and vain deceit." If Paul had been writing in +English, he would have put "philosophy" in inverted commas, to show that +he was quoting the heretical teachers' own name for their system, if +system it may be called, which was really a chaos. For the true love of +wisdom, for any honest, humble attempt to seek after her as hid +treasure, neither Paul nor Paul's Master have anything but praise and +sympathy and help. Where he met real, however imperfect, searchers after +truth, he strove to find points of contact between them and his message, +and to present the gospel as the answer to their questionings, the +declaration of that which they were groping to find. The thing spoken of +here has no resemblance but in name to what the Greeks in their better +days first called philosophy, and nothing but that mere verbal +coincidence warrants the representation--often made both by +narrow-minded Christians, and by unbelieving thinkers--that Christianity +takes up a position of antagonism or suspicion to it. + +The form of the expression in the original shows clearly that "vain +deceit," or more literally "empty deceit," describes the "philosophy" +which Paul is bidding them beware of. They are not two things, but one. +It is like a blown bladder, full of wind, and nothing else. In its lofty +pretensions, and if we take its own account of itself, it is a love of +and search after wisdom; but if we look at it more closely, it is a +swollen nothing, empty and a fraud. This is what he is condemning. The +genuine thing he has nothing to say about here. + +He goes on to describe more closely this impostor, masquerading in the +philosopher's cloak. It is "after the traditions of men." We have seen +in a former chapter what a strange heterogeneous conglomerate of Jewish +ceremonial and Oriental dreams the false teachers in Colossae were +preaching. Probably both these elements are included here. It is +significant that the very expression, "the traditions of men," is a word +of Christ's, applied to the Pharisees, whom He charges with "leaving the +commandment of God, and holding fast the tradition of men" (Mark vii. +8). The portentous undergrowth of such "traditions" which, like the +riotous fertility of creepers in a tropical forest, smother and kill the +trees round which they twine, is preserved for our wonder and warning in +the Talmud, where for thousands and thousands of pages, we get nothing +but Rabbi So and So said this, but Rabbi So and So said that; until we +feel stifled, and long for one Divine Word to still all the babble. + +The Oriental element in the heresy, on the other hand, prided itself on +a hidden teaching which was too sacred to be entrusted to books, and was +passed from lip to lip in some close conclave of muttering teachers and +listening adepts. The fact that all this, be it Jewish, be it Oriental +teaching, had no higher source than men's imaginings and refinings, +seems to Paul the condemnation of the whole system. His theory is that +in Jesus Christ, every Christian man has the full truth concerning God +and man, in their mutual relations,--the authoritative Divine +declaration of all that can be known, the perfect exemplar of all that +ought to be done, the sun-clear illumination and proof of all that dare +be hoped. What an absurd descent, then, from the highest of our +prerogatives, to "turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven," in +order to listen to poor human voices, speaking men's thoughts! + +The lesson is as needful to-day as ever. The special forms of men's +traditions in question here have long since fallen silent, and trouble +no man any more. But the tendency to give heed to human teachers and to +suffer them to come between us and Christ is deep in us all. There is at +one extreme the man who believes in no revelation from God, and, smiling +at us Christians who accept Christ's words as final and Himself as the +Incarnate truth, often pays to his chosen human teacher a deference as +absolute as that which he regards as superstition, when we render it to +our Lord. At the other extremity are the Christians who will not let +Christ and the Scripture speak to the soul, unless the Church be present +at the interview, like a jailer, with a bunch of man-made creeds +jingling at its belt. But it is not only at the two ends of the line, +but all along its length, that men are listening to "traditions" of men +and neglecting "the commandment of God." We have all the same tendency +in us. Every man carries a rationalist and a traditionalist under his +skin. Every Church in Christendom, whether it has a formal creed or no, +is ruled as to its belief and practice, to a sad extent, by the +"traditions of the elders." The "freest" of the Nonconformist Churches, +untrammelled by any formal confession, may be bound with as tight +fetters, and be as much dominated by men's opinions, as if it had the +straitest of creeds. The mass of our religious beliefs and practices has +ever to be verified, corrected and remodelled, by harking back from +creeds, written or unwritten, to the one Teacher, the endless +significance of Whose person and work is but expressed in fragments by +the purest and widest thoughts even of those who have lived nearest to +Him, and seen most of His beauty. Let us get away from men, from the +Babel of opinions and the strife of tongues, that we may "hear the words +of His mouth!" Let us take heed of the empty fraud which lays the absurd +snare for our feet, that we can learn to know God by any means but by +listening to His own speech in His Eternal Word, lest it lead us away +captive out of the Kingdom of the Light! Let us go up to the pure spring +on the mountain top, and not try to slake our thirst at the muddy pools +at its base! "Ye are Christ's, be not the slave of men." "This is My +beloved Son, hear ye Him." + +Another mark of this empty pretence of wisdom which threatens to +captivate the Colossians is, that it is "after the rudiments of the +world." The word rendered "rudiments" means the letters of the alphabet, +and hence comes naturally to acquire the meaning of "elements," or +"first principles," just as we speak of the A B C of a science. The +application of such a designation to the false teaching, is, like the +appropriation of the term "mystery" to the gospel, an instance of +turning the tables and giving back the teachers their own words. They +boasted of mysterious doctrines reserved for the initiated, of which the +plain truths that Paul preached were but the elements, and they looked +down contemptuously on his message as "milk for babes." Paul retorts on +them, asserting that the true mystery, the profound truth long hidden +and revealed, is the word which he preached, and that the +poverty-stricken elements, fit only for infants, are in that swelling +inanity which called itself wisdom and was not. Not only does he brand +it as "rudiments," but as "rudiments of the _world_," which is +worse--that is to say, as belonging to the sphere of the outward and +material, and not to the higher region of the spiritual, where Christian +thought ought to dwell. So two weaknesses are charged against the +system: it is the mere alphabet of truth, and therefore unfit for grown +men. It moves, for all its lofty pretensions, in the region of the +visible and mundane things and is therefore unfit for spiritual men. +What features of the system are referred to in this phrase? Its use in +the Epistle to the Galatians (iv. 3), as a synonyme for the whole system +of ritual observances and ceremonial precepts of Judaism, and the +present context, which passes on immediately to speak of circumcision, +point to a similar meaning here, though we may include also the +ceremonial and ritual of the Gentile religions, in so far as they +contributed to the outward forms which the Colossian heresy sought to +impose on the Church. This then is Paul's opinion about a system which +laid stress on ceremonial and busied itself with forms. He regards it as +a deliberate retrogression to an earlier stage. A religion of rites had +come first, and was needed for the spiritual infancy of the race--but in +Christ we ought to have outgrown the alphabet of revelation, and, being +men, to have put away childish things. He regards it further as a +pitiable descent into a lower sphere, a fall from the spiritual realm to +the material, and therefore unbecoming for those who have been +enfranchised from dependence upon outward helps and symbols, and taught +the spirituality and inwardness of Christian worship. + +We need the lesson in this day no less than did these Christians in the +little community in that remote valley of Phrygia. The forms which were +urged on them are long since antiquated, but the tendency to turn +Christianity into a religion of ceremonial is running with an unusually +powerful current to-day. We are all more interested in art, and think we +know more about it than our fathers did. The eye and the ear are more +educated than they used to be, and a society as "aesthetic" and "musical" +as much cultured English society is becoming, will like an ornate +ritual. So, apart altogether from doctrinal grounds, much in the +conditions of to-day works towards ritual religion. Nonconformist +services are less plain; some go from their ranks because they dislike +the "bald" worship in the chapel, and prefer the more elaborate forms of +the Anglican Church, which in its turn is for the same reason left by +others who find their tastes gratified by the complete thing, as it is +to be enjoyed full blown in the Roman Catholic communion. We may freely +admit that the Puritan reaction was possibly too severe, and that a +little more colour and form might with advantage have been retained. But +enlisting the senses as the allies of the spirit in worship is risky +work. They are very apt to fight for their own hand when they once +begin, and the history of all symbolic and ceremonial worship shows that +the experiment is much more likely to end in sensualising religion than +in spiritualising sense. The theory that such aids make a ladder by +which the soul may ascend to God is perilously apt to be confuted by +experience, which finds that the soul is quite as likely to go down the +ladder as up it. The gratification of taste, and the excitation of +aesthetic sensibility, which are the results of such aids to worship, are +not worship, however they may be mistaken as such. All ceremonial is in +danger of becoming opaque instead of transparent as it was meant to be, +and of detaining mind and eye instead of letting them pass on and up to +God. Stained glass is lovely, and white windows are "barnlike," and +"starved," and "bare"; but perhaps, if the object is to get light and to +see the sun, these solemn purples and glowing yellows are rather in the +way. I for my part believe that of the two extremes, a Quaker's meeting +is nearer the ideal of Christian worship than High Mass, and so far as +my feeble voice can reach, I would urge, as eminently a lesson for the +day, Paul's great principle here, that a Christianity making much of +forms and ceremonies is a distinct retrogression and descent. You are +men in Christ, do not go back to the picture book A B C of symbol and +ceremony, which was fit for babes. You have been brought in to the inner +sanctuary of worship in spirit; do not decline to the beggarly elements +of outward form. + +Paul sums up his indictment in one damning clause, the result of the two +preceding. If the heresy have no higher source than men's traditions, +and no more solid contents than ceremonial observances, it cannot be +"after Christ." He is neither its origin, nor its substance, nor its +rule and standard. There is a fundamental discord between every such +system, however it may call itself Christian, and Christ. The opposition +may be concealed by its teachers. They and their victims may not be +aware of it. They may not themselves be conscious that by adopting it +they have slipped off the foundation; but they have done so, and though +in their own hearts they be loyal to Him, they have brought an +incurable discord into their creeds which will weaken their lives, if it +do not do worse. Paul cared very little for the dreams of these +teachers, except in so far as they carried them and others away from his +Master. The Colossians might have as many ceremonies as they liked, and +welcome; but when these interfered with the sole reliance to be placed +on Christ's work, then they must have no quarter. It is not merely +because the teaching was "after the traditions of men, after the +rudiments of the world," but because being so, it was "not after +Christ," that Paul will have none of it. He that touches his Master +touches the apple of his eye, and shades of opinion, and things +indifferent in practice, and otherwise unimportant forms of worship, +have to be fought to the death if they obscure one corner of the perfect +and solitary work of the One Lord, who is at once the source, the +substance, and the standard of all Christian teaching. + +II. The Antidote.--"For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead +bodily, and in Him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality +and power." + +These words may be a reason for the warning--"Take heed, _for_"; or they +may be a reason for the implied exclusion of any teaching which is not +after Christ. The statement of its characteristics carries in itself its +condemnation. Anything "not after Christ" is _ipso facto_ wrong, and to +be avoided--"for," etc. "In Him" is placed with emphasis at the +beginning, and implies "and nowhere else." "Dwelleth," that is, has its +permanent abode; where the tense is to be noticed also, as pointing to +the ascended Christ. "All the fulness of the Godhead," that is, the +whole unbounded powers and attributes of Deity, where is to be noted the +use of the abstract term _Godhead_, instead of the more usual _God_, in +order to express with the utmost force the thought of the indwelling in +Christ of the whole essence and nature of God. "Bodily," that points to +the Incarnation, and so is an advance upon the passage in the former +chapter (ver. 19), which speaks of "the fulness" dwelling in the Eternal +Word, whereas this speaks of the Eternal Word in whom the fulness dwelt +becoming flesh. So we are pointed to the glorified corporeal humanity of +Jesus Christ in His exaltation as the abode, now and for ever, of all +the fulness of the Divine nature, which is thereby brought very near to +us. This grand truth seems to Paul to shiver to pieces all the dreams of +these teachers about angel mediators, and to brand as folly every +attempt to learn truth and God anywhere else but in Him. + +If He be the one sole temple of Deity in whom all Divine glories are +stored, why go anywhere else in order to _see_ or to _possess_ God? It +is folly; for not only are all these glories stored in Him, but they are +so stored on purpose to be reached by us. Therefore the Apostle goes on, +"and in Him ye are made full;" which sets forth two things as true in +the inward life of all Christians, namely, their living incorporation in +and union with Christ, and their consequent participation in His +fulness. Every one of us may enter into that most real and close union +with Jesus Christ by the power of continuous faith in Him. So may we be +grafted into the Vine, and builded into the Rock. If thus we keep our +hearts in contact with His heart and let Him lay His lip on our lips, +He will breathe into us the breath of His own life, and we shall live +because He lives, and in our measure, as He lives. All the fulness of +God is in Him, that from Him it may pass into us. We might start back +from such bold words if we did not remember that the same apostle who +here tells us that that fulness dwells in Jesus, crowns his wonderful +prayer for the Ephesian Christians with that daring petition, "that ye +may be filled with all the fulness of God." The treasure was lodged in +the earthen vessel of Christ's manhood that it might be within our +reach. He brings the fiery blessing of a Divine life from Heaven to +earth enclosed in the feeble reed of His manhood, that it may kindle +kindred fire in many a heart. Freely the water of life flows into all +cisterns from the ever fresh stream, into which the infinite depth of +that unfathomable sea of good pours itself. Every kind of spiritual +blessing is given therein. That stream, like a river of molten lava, +holds many precious things in its flaming current, and will cool into +many shapes and deposit many rare and rich gifts. According to our need +it will vary itself, being to each what the moment most +requires,--wisdom, or strength, or beauty, or courage, or patience. Out +of it will come whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of +good report, as Rabbinical legends tell us that the manna tasted to each +man like the food for which he wished most. + +This process of receiving of all the Divine fulness is a continuous one. +We can but be approximating to the possession of the infinite treasure +which is ours in Christ; and since the treasure is infinite, and we can +indefinitely grow in capacity of receiving God, there must be an +eternal continuance of the filling and an eternal increase of the +measure of what fills us. Our natures are elastic, and in love and +knowledge, as well as in purity and capacity for blessedness, there are +no bounds to be set to their possible expansion. They will be widened by +bliss into a greater capacity for bliss. The indwelling Christ will +"enlarge the place of His habitation," and as the walls stretch and the +roofs soar, He will fill the greater house with the light of His +presence and the fragrance of His name. The condition of this continuous +reception of the abundant gift of a Divine life is abiding in Jesus. It +is "in Him" that we are "being filled full"--and it is only so long as +we continue in Him that we continue full. We cannot bear away our +supplies, as one might a full bucket from a well, and keep it full. All +the grace will trickle out and disappear unless we live in constant +union with our Lord, whose Spirit passes into our deadness only so long +as we are joined to Him. + +From all such thoughts Paul would have us draw the conclusion--how +foolish, then, it must be to go to any other source for the supply of +our needs! Christ is "the head of all principality and power," he adds, +with a reference to the doctrine of angel mediators, which evidently +played a great part in the heretical teaching. If He is sovereign head +of all dignity and power on earth and heaven, why go to the ministers, +when we have access to the King; or have recourse to erring human +teachers, when we have the Eternal Word to enlighten us; or flee to +creatures to replenish our emptiness, when we may draw from the depths +of God in Christ? Why should we go on a weary search after goodly +pearls when the richest of all is by us, if we will have it? Do we seek +to know God? Let us behold Christ, and let men talk as they list. Do we +crave a stay for our spirit, guidance and impulse for our lives? Let us +cleave to Christ, and we shall be no more lonely and bewildered. Do we +need a quieting balm to be laid on conscience, and the sense of guilt to +be lifted from our hearts? Let us lay our hands on Christ, the one +sacrifice, and leave all other altars and priests and ceremonies. Do we +look longingly for some light on the future? Let us stedfastly gaze on +Christ as He rises to heaven bearing a human body into the glory of God. + +Though all the earth were covered with helpers and lovers of my soul, +"as the sand by the sea shore innumerable," and all the heavens were +sown with faces of angels who cared for me and succoured me, thick as +the stars in the milky way--all could not do for me what I need. Yea, +though all these were gathered into one mighty and loving creature, even +he were no sufficient stay for one soul of man. We want more than +creature help. We need the whole fulness of the Godhead to draw from. It +is all there in Christ, for each of us. Whosoever will, let him draw +freely. Why should we leave the fountain of living waters to hew out for +ourselves, with infinite pains, broken cisterns that can hold no water? +All we need is in Christ. Let us lift our eyes from the low earth and +all creatures, and behold "no man any more," as Lord and Helper, "save +Jesus only," "that we may be filled with all the fulness of God." + + + + +XIII. + +_THE TRUE CIRCUMCISION._ + + "In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with + hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the + circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, + wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the working of + God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead through your + trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, _I say_, did + he quicken together with Him, having forgiven us all our + trespasses."--COL. ii. 11-13 (Rev. Ver.). + + +There are two opposite tendencies ever at work in human nature to +corrupt religion. One is of the intellect; the other of the senses. The +one is the temptation of the cultured few; the other, that of the vulgar +many. The one turns religion into theological speculation; the other, +into a theatrical spectacle. But, opposite as these tendencies usually +are, they were united in that strange chaos of erroneous opinion and +practice which Paul had to front at Colossae. From right and from left he +was assailed, and his batteries had to face both ways. Here he is mainly +engaged with the error which insisted on imposing circumcision on these +Gentile converts. + +I. To this teaching of the necessity of circumcision, he first opposes +the position that all Christian men, by virtue of their union with +Christ, have received the true circumcision, of which the outward rite +was a shadow and a prophecy, and that therefore the rite is antiquated +and obsolete. + +His language is emphatic and remarkable. It points to a definite past +time--no doubt the time when they became Christians--when, because they +were in Christ, a change passed on them which is fitly paralleled with +circumcision. This Christian circumcision is described in three +particulars: as "not made with hands;" as consisting in "putting off the +body of the flesh;" and as being "of Christ." + +It is "not made with hands," that is, it is not a rite but a reality, +not transacted in flesh but in spirit. It is not the removal of +ceremonial impurity, but the cleansing of the heart. This idea of +ethical circumcision, of which the bodily rite is the type, is common in +the Old Testament, as, for instance, "The Lord thy God will circumcise +thine heart ... to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart" (Deut. +xxx. 6). This is the true Christian circumcision. + +It consists in the "putting off the body of the flesh"--for "the sins +of" is an interpolation. Of course a man does not shuffle off this +mortal coil when he becomes a Christian, so that we have to look for +some other meaning of the strong words. They are very strong, for the +word "putting off" is intensified so as to express a complete stripping +off from oneself, as of clothes which are laid aside, and is evidently +intended to contrast the partial outward circumcision as the removal of +a small part of the body, with the entire removal effected by union with +Christ. If that removal of "the body of the flesh" is "not made with +hands," then it can only be in the sphere of the spiritual life, that is +to say, it must consist in a change in the relation of the two +constituents of a man's being, and that of such a kind that, for the +future, the Christian shall not live after the flesh, though he live in +the flesh. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit," says Paul, and +again he uses an expression as strong as, if not stronger than that of +our text, when he speaks of "the body" as "being destroyed," and +explains himself by adding "that henceforth we should not serve sin." It +is not the body considered simply as material and fleshly that we put +off, but the body considered as the seat of corrupt and sinful +affections and passions. A new principle of life comes into men's hearts +which delivers them from the dominion of these, and makes it possible +that they should live in the flesh, not "according to the lusts of the +flesh, but according to the will of God." True, the text regards this +divesting as complete, whereas, as all Christian men know only too +sadly, it is very partial, and realised only by slow degrees. The ideal +is represented here,--what we receive "in Him," rather than what we +actually possess and incorporate into our experience. On the Divine side +the change is complete. Christ gives complete emancipation from the +dominion of sense, and if we are not in reality completely emancipated, +it is because we have not taken the things that are freely given to us, +and are not completely "_in_ Him." So far as we are, we have put off +"the flesh." The change has passed on us if we are Christians. We have +to work it out day by day. The foe may keep up a guerilla warfare after +he is substantially defeated, but his entire subjugation is certain if +we keep hold of the strength of Christ. + +Finally, this circumcision is described as "of Christ," by which is not +meant that He submitted to it, but that He instituted it. + +Such being the force of this statement, what is its bearing on the +Apostle's purpose? He desires to destroy the teaching that the rite of +circumcision was binding on the Christian converts, and he does so by +asserting that the gospel has brought the reality, of which the rite was +but a picture and a prophecy. The underlying principle is that when we +have the thing signified by any Jewish rites, which were all prophetic +as well as symbolic, the rite may--must go. Its retention is an +anachronism, "as if a flower should shut, and be a bud again." That is a +wise and pregnant principle, but as it comes to the surface again +immediately hereafter, and is applied to a whole series of subjects, we +may defer the consideration of it, and rather dwell briefly on other +matters suggested by this verse. + +We notice, then, the intense moral earnestness which leads the Apostle +here to put the true centre of gravity of Christianity in moral +transformation, and to set all outward rites and ceremonies in a very +subordinate place. What had Jesus Christ come from heaven for, and for +what had He borne His bitter passion? To what end were the Colossians +knit to Him by a tie so strong, tender and strange? Had they been +carried into that inmost depth of union with Him, and were they still to +be laying stress on ceremonies? Had Christ's work, then, no higher issue +than to leave religion bound in the cords of outward observances? Surely +Jesus Christ, who gives men a new life by union with Himself, which +union is brought about through faith alone, has delivered men from that +"yoke of bondage," if He has done anything at all. Surely they who are +joined to Him should have a profounder apprehension of the means and the +end of their relation to their Lord than to suppose that it is either +brought about by any outward rite, or has any reality unless it makes +them pure and good. From that height all questions of external +observances dwindle into insignificance, and all question of sacramental +efficacy drops away of itself. The vital centre lies in our being joined +to Jesus Christ--the condition of which is faith in Him, and the outcome +of it a new life which delivers us from the dominion of the flesh. How +far away from such conceptions of Christianity are those which busy +themselves on either side with matters of detail, with punctilios of +observance, and pedantries of form? The hatred of forms may be as +completely a form as the most elaborate ritual--and we all need to have +our eyes turned away from these to the far higher thing, the worship and +service offered by a transformed nature. + +We notice again, that the conquest of the animal nature and the material +body is the certain outcome of true union with Christ, and of that +alone. + +Paul did not regard matter as necessarily evil, as these teachers at +Colossae did, nor did he think of the body as the source of all sin. But +he knew that the fiercest and most fiery temptations came from it, and +that the foulest and most indelible stains on conscience were splashed +from the mud which it threw. We all know that too. It is a matter of +life and death for each of us to find some means of taming and holding +in the animal that is in us all. We all know of wrecked lives, which +have been driven on the rocks by the wild passions belonging to the +flesh. Fortune, reputation, health, everything are sacrificed by +hundreds of men, especially young men, at the sting of this imperious +lust. The budding promise of youth, innocence, hope, and all which makes +life desirable and a nature fair, are trodden down by the hoofs of the +brute. There is no need to speak of that. And when we come to add to +this the weaknesses of the flesh, and the needs of the flesh, and the +limitations of the flesh, and to remember how often high purposes are +frustrated by its shrinking from toil, and how often mists born from its +undrained swamps darken the vision that else might gaze on truth and +God, we cannot but feel that we do not need to be Eastern Gnostics, to +believe that goodness requires the flesh to be subdued. Every one who +has sought for self-improvement recognises the necessity. But no +asceticisms and no resolves will do what we want. Much repression may be +effected by sheer force of will, but it is like a man holding a wolf by +the jaws. The arms begin to ache and the grip to grow slack, and he +feels his strength ebbing, and knows that, as soon as he lets go, the +brute will fly at his throat. Repression is not taming. Nothing tames +the wild beast in us but the power of Christ. He binds it in a silken +lash, and that gentle constraint is strong, because the fierceness is +gone. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and a little child shall +lead them." The power of union with Christ, and that alone, will enable +us to put off the body of the flesh. And such union will certainly lead +to such crucifying of the animal nature. Christianity would be easy if +it were a round of observances; it would be comparatively easy if it +were a series of outward asceticisms. Anybody can fast or wear a hair +shirt, if he have motive sufficient; but the "putting off the body of +the flesh" which is "not made with hands," is a different and harder +thing. Nothing else avails. High-flown religious emotion, or clear +theological definitions, or elaborate ceremonial worship, may all have +their value; but a religion which includes them all, and leaves out the +plain moralities of subduing the flesh, and keeping our heel well +pressed down on the serpent's head, is worthless. If we are in Christ, +we shall not live in the flesh. + +II. The Apostle meets the false teaching of the need for circumcision, +by a second consideration; namely, a reference to Christian Baptism, as +being the Christian sign of that inward change. + +Ye were circumcised, says he--being buried with Him in baptism. The form +of expression in the Greek implies that the two things are +cotemporaneous. As if he had said--Do you want any further rite to +express that mighty change which passed on you when you came to be "in +Christ"? You have been baptised, does not that express all the meaning +that circumcision ever had, and much more? What can you want with the +less significant rite when you have the more significant? This reference +to baptism is quite consistent with what has been said as to the +subordinate importance of ritual. Some forms we must have, if there is +to be any outward visible Church, and Christ has yielded to the +necessity, and given us two, of which the one symbolises the initial +spiritual act of the Christian life, and the other the constantly +repeated process of Christian nourishment. They are symbols and outward +representations, nothing more. They convey grace, in so far as they +help us to realise more clearly and to feel more deeply the facts on +which our spiritual life is fed, but they are not channels of grace in +any other way than any other outward acts of worship may be. + +We see that the form of baptism here presupposed is by immersion, and +that the form is regarded as significant. All but entire unanimity +prevails among commentators on this point. The burial and the +resurrection spoken of point unmistakably to the primitive mode of +baptism, as Bishop Lightfoot, the latest and best English expositor of +this book, puts it in his paraphrase: "Ye were buried with Christ to +your old selves beneath the baptismal waters, and were raised with Him +from these same waters, to a new and better life." + +If so, two questions deserve consideration--first, is it right to alter +a form which has a meaning that is lost by the change? second, can we +alter a significant form without destroying it? Is the new thing rightly +called by the old name? If baptism be immersion, and immersion express a +substantial part of its meaning, can sprinkling or pouring be baptism? + +Again, baptism is associated in time with the inward change, which is +the true circumcision. There are but two theories on which these two +things are cotemporaneous. The one is the theory that baptism effects +the change, the other is the theory that baptism goes with the change as +its sign. The association is justified if men are "circumcised," that +is, changed when they are baptised, or if men are baptised when they +have been "circumcised." No other theory gives full weight to these +words. + +The former theory elevates baptism into more than the importance of +which Paul sought to deprive circumcision, it confuses the distinction +between the Church and the world, it lulls men into a false security, it +obscures the very central truth of Christianity--namely that faith in +Christ, working by love, makes a Christian--it gives the basis for a +portentous reproduction of sacerdotalism, and it is shivered to pieces +against the plain facts of daily life. But it may be worth while to +notice in a sentence, that it is conclusively disposed of by the +language before us--it is "through faith in the operation of God" that +we are raised again in baptism. Not the rite, then, but faith is the +means of this participation with Christ in burial and resurrection. What +remains but that baptism is associated with that spiritual change by +which we are delivered from the body of the flesh, because in the Divine +order it is meant to be the outward symbol of that change which is +effected by no rite or sacrament, but by faith alone, uniting us to the +transforming Christ? + +We observe the solemnity and the thoroughness of the change thus +symbolised. It is more than a circumcision. It is burial and a +resurrection, an entire dying of the old self by union with Christ, a +real and present rising again by participation in His risen life. This +and nothing less makes a Christian. We partake of His death, inasmuch as +we ally ourselves to it by our faith, as the sacrifice for our sins, and +make it the ground of all our hope. But that is not all. We partake of +His death, inasmuch as, by the power of His cross, we are drawn to sever +ourselves from the selfish life, and to slay our own old nature; dying +for His dear sake to the habits, tastes, desires and purposes in which +we lived. Self-crucifixion for the love of Christ is the law for us all. +His cross is the pattern for our conduct, as well as the pledge and +means of our acceptance. We must die to sin that we may live to +righteousness. We must die to self, that we may live to God and our +brethren. We have no right to trust in Christ _for_ us, except as we +have Christ _in_ us. His cross is not saving us from our guilt, unless +it is moulding our lives to some faint likeness of Him who died that we +might live, and might live a real life by dying daily to the world, sin, +and self. + +If we are thus made conformable to His death, we shall know the power of +His resurrection, in all its aspects. It will be to us the guarantee of +our own, and we shall know its power as a prophecy for our future. It +will be to us the seal of His perfect work on the cross, and we shall +know its power as God's token of acceptance of His sacrifice in the +past. It will be to us the type of our spiritual resurrection now, and +we shall know its power as the pattern and source of our supernatural +life in the present. Thus we must die in and with Christ that we may +live in and with Him, and that twofold process is the very heart of +personal religion. No lofty participation in the immortal hopes which +spring from the empty grave of Jesus is warranted, unless we have His +quickening power raising us to-day by a better resurrection; and no +participation in the present power of His heavenly life is possible, +unless we have such a share in His death, as that by it the world is +crucified to us, and we unto the world. + +III. The Apostle adds another phase of this great contrast of life and +death, which brings home still more closely to his hearers, the deep +and radical change which passes upon all Christians. He has been +speaking of a death and burial followed by a resurrection. But there is +another death from which Christ raises us, by that same risen life +imparted to us through faith--a darker and grimmer thing than the +self-abnegation before described. + +"And you, being dead through your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of +your flesh." The separate acts of transgression of which they had been +guilty, and the unchastened, unpurified, carnal nature from which these +had flowed, were the reasons of a very real and awful death; or, as the +parallel passage in Ephesians (ii. 2) puts it with a slight variation, +they made the condition or sphere in which that death inhered. That +solemn thought, so pregnant in its dread emphasis in Scripture, is not +to be put aside as a mere metaphor. All life stands in union with God. +The physical universe exists by reason of its perpetual contact with His +sustaining hand, in the hollow of which all Being lies, and it is, +because He touches it. "In Him we live." So also the life of mind is +sustained by His perpetual inbreathing, and in the deepest sense "we see +light" in His light. So, lastly, the highest life of the spirit stands +in union in still higher manner with Him, and to be separated from Him +is death to it. Sin breaks that union, and therefore sin is death, in +the very inmost centre of man's being. The awful warning, "In the day +thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," was fulfilled. That +separation by sin, in which the soul is wrenched from God, is the real +death, and the thing that men call by the name is only an outward symbol +of a far sadder fact--the shadow of that which is the awful substance, +and as much less terrible than it as painted fires are less than the +burning reality. + +So men may live in the body, and toil and think and feel, and be dead. +The world is full of "sheeted dead," that "squeak and gibber" in "our +streets," for every soul that lives to self and has rent itself away +from God, so far as a creature can, is "dead while he liveth." The other +death, of which the previous verse spoke, is therefore but the putting +off of a death. We lose nothing of real life in putting off self, but +only that which keeps us in a separation from God, and slays our true +and highest being. To die to self is but "the death of death." + +The same life of which the previous verse spoke as coming from the risen +Lord is here set forth as able to raise us from that death of sin. "He +hath quickened you together with Him." Union with Christ floods our dead +souls with His own vitality, as water will pour from a reservoir through +a tube inserted in it. There is the actual communication of a new life +when we touch Christ by faith. The prophet of old laid himself upon the +dead child, the warm lip on the pallid mouth, the throbbing heart on the +still one, and the contact rekindled the extinguished spark. So Christ +lays His full life on our deadness, and does more than recall a departed +glow of vitality. He communicates a new life kindred with His own. That +life makes us free here and now from the law of sin and death, and it +shall be perfected hereafter when the working of His mighty power shall +change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the body of His +glory, and the leaven of His new life shall leaven the three measures in +which it is hidden, body, soul, and spirit, with its own transforming +energy. Then, in yet higher sense, death shall die, and life shall be +victor by His victory. + +But to all this one preliminary is needful--"having forgiven us all +trespasses." Paul's eagerness to associate himself with his brethren, +and to claim his share in the forgiveness, as well as to unite in the +acknowledgment of sin, makes him change his word from "you" to "us." So +the best manuscripts give the text, and the reading is obviously full of +interest and suggestiveness. There must be a removal of the cause of +deadness before there can be a quickening to new life. That cause was +sin, which cannot be cancelled as guilt by any self-denial however +great, nor even by the impartation of a new life from God for the +future. A gospel which only enjoined dying to self would be as +inadequate as a gospel which only provided for a higher life in the +future. The stained and faultful past must be cared for. Christ must +bring pardon for it, as well as a new spirit for the future. So the +condition prior to our being quickened together with Him is God's +forgiveness, free and universal, covering all our sins, and given to us +without anything on our part. That condition is satisfied. Christ's +death brings to us God's pardon, and when the great barrier of +unforgiven sin is cleared away, Christ's life pours into our hearts, and +"everything lives whithersoever the river cometh." + +Here then we have the deepest ground of Paul's intense hatred of every +attempt to make anything but faith in Christ and moral purity essential +to the perfect Christian life. Circumcision and baptism and all other +rites or sacraments of Judaism or Christianity are equally powerless to +quicken dead souls. For that, the first thing needed is the forgiveness +of sins, and that is ours through simple faith in Christ's death. We are +quickened by Christ's own life in us, and He "dwells in our hearts by +faith." All ordinances may be administered to us a hundred times, and +without faith they leave us as they found us--dead. If we have hold of +Christ by faith we live, whether we have received the ordinances or not. +So all full blown or budding sacramentarianism is to be fought against +to the uttermost, because it tends to block the road to the City of +Refuge for a poor sinful soul, and the most pressing of all necessities +is that that way of life should be kept clear and unimpeded. + +We need the profound truth which lies in the threefold form which Paul +gives to one of his great watchwords: "Circumcision is nothing, and +uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." +And how, says my despairing conscience, shall I keep the commandments? +The answer lies in the second form of the saying--"In Christ Jesus +neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new +creature." And how, replies my saddened heart, can I become a new +creature? The answer lies in the final form of the saying--"In Jesus +Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but +faith which worketh." Faith brings the life which makes us new men, and +then we can keep the commandments. If we have faith, and are new men and +do God's will, we need no rites but as helps. If we have not faith, all +rites are nothing. + + + + +XIV. + +_THE CROSS THE DEATH OF LAW AND THE TRIUMPH OVER EVIL POWERS._ + + "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, + which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to + His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a + show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."--COL. ii. 14, 15 + (Rev. Ver.). + + +The same double reference to the two characteristic errors of the +Colossians which we have already met so frequently, presents itself +here. This whole section vibrates continually between warnings against +the Judaising enforcement of the Mosaic law on Gentile Christians, and +against the Oriental figments about a crowd of angelic beings filling +the space betwixt man and God, betwixt pure spirit and gross matter. One +great fact is here opposed to these strangely associated errors. The +cross of Christ is the abrogation of the Law; the cross of Christ is the +victory over principalities and powers. If we hold fast by it, we are +under no subjection to the former, and have neither to fear nor +reverence the latter. + +I. The Cross of Christ is the death of Law. + +The law is a written document. It has an antagonistic aspect to us all, +Gentiles as well as Jews. Christ has blotted it out. More than that, He +has taken it out of the way, as if it were an obstacle lying right in +the middle of our path. More than that, it is "nailed to the cross." +That phrase has been explained by an alleged custom of repealing laws +and cancelling bonds by driving a nail into them, and fixing them up in +public, but proof of the practice is said to be wanting. The thought +seems to be deeper than that. This antagonistic "law" is conceived of as +being, like "the world," crucified in the crucifixion of our Lord. The +nails which fastened Him to the cross fastened it, and in His death it +was done to death. We are free from it, "that being dead in which we +were held." + +We have first, then, to consider the "handwriting," or, as some would +render the word, "the bond." Of course, by _law_ here is primarily meant +the Mosaic ceremonial law, which was being pressed upon the Colossians. +It is so completely antiquated for us, that we have difficulty in +realising what a fight for life and death raged round the question of +its observance by the primitive Church. It is always harder to change +customs than creeds, and religious observances live on, as every maypole +on a village green tells us, long after the beliefs which animated them +are forgotten. So there was a strong body among the early believers to +whom it was flat blasphemy to speak of allowing the Gentile Christian to +come into the Church, except through the old doorway of circumcision, +and to whom the outward ceremonial of Judaism was the only visible +religion. That is the point directly at issue between Paul and these +teachers. + +But the modern distinction between moral and ceremonial law had no +existence in Paul's mind, any more than it has in the Old Testament, +where precepts of the highest morality and regulations of the merest +ceremonial are interstratified in a way most surprising to us moderns. +To him the law was a homogeneous whole, however diverse its commands, +because it was all the revelation of the will of God for the guidance of +man. It is the law as a whole, in all its aspects and parts, that is +here spoken of, whether as enjoining morality, or external observances, +or as an accuser fastening guilt on the conscience, or as a stern +prophet of retribution and punishment. + +Further, we must give a still wider extension to the thought. The +principles laid down are true not only in regard to "_the_ law," but +about all law, whether it be written on the tables of stone, or on "the +fleshy tables of the heart" or conscience, or in the systems of ethics, +or in the customs of society. Law, as such, howsoever enacted and +whatever the bases of its rule, is dealt with by Christianity in +precisely the same way as the venerable and God-given code of the Old +Testament. When we recognise that fact, these discussions in Paul's +Epistles flash up into startling vitality and interest. It has long +since been settled that Jewish ritual is nothing to us. But it ever +remains a burning question for each of us, What Christianity does for us +in relation to the solemn law of duty under which we are all placed, and +which we have all broken? + +The antagonism of law is the next point presented by these words. Twice, +to add to the emphasis, Paul tells us that the law is against us. It +stands opposite us fronting us and frowning at us, and barring our +road. Is "law" then become our "enemy because it tells us the truth?" +Surely this conception of law is a strange contrast to and descent from +the rapturous delight of psalmists and prophets in the "law of the +Lord." Surely God's greatest gift to man is the knowledge of His will, +and law is beneficent, a light and a guide to men, and even its strokes +are merciful. Paul believed all that too. But nevertheless the +antagonism is very real. As with God, so with law, if we be against Him, +He cannot but be against us. We may make Him our dearest friend or our +foe. "They rebelled ... therefore He was turned to be their enemy and +fought against them." The revelation of duty to which we are not +inclined is ever unwelcome. Law is against us, because it comes like a +taskmaster, bidding us do, but neither putting the inclination into our +hearts, nor the power into our hands. And law is against us, because the +revelation of unfulfilled duty is the accusation of the defaulter and a +revelation to him of his guilt. And law is against us, because it comes +with threatenings and foretastes of penalty and pain. Thus as standard, +accuser and avenger, it is--sad perversion of its nature and function +though such an attitude be--against us. + +We all know that. Strange and tragic it is, but alas! it is true, that +God's law presents itself before us as an enemy. Each of us has seen +that apparition, severe in beauty, like the sword-bearing angel that +Balaam saw "standing in the way" between the vineyards, blocking our +path when we wanted to "go frowardly in the way of our heart." Each of +us knows what it is to see our sentence in the stern face. The law of +the Lord should be to us "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb," but the +corruption of the best is the worst, and we can make it poison. Obeyed, +it is as the chariot of fire to bear us heavenward. Disobeyed, it is an +iron car that goes crashing on its way, crushing all who set themselves +against it. To know what we ought to be and to love and try to be it, is +blessedness, but to know it and to refuse to be it, is misery. In +herself she "wears the Godhead's most benignant grace," but if we turn +against her, Law, the "daughter of the voice of God," gathers frowns +upon her face and her beauty becomes stern and threatening. + +But the great principle here asserted is--the destruction of law in the +cross of Christ. The cross ends the law's power of _punishment_. Paul +believed that the burden and penalty of sin had been laid on Jesus +Christ and borne by Him on His cross. In deep, mysterious, but most real +identification of Himself with the whole race of man, He not only +Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, by the might of +His sympathy and the reality of His manhood, but "the Lord made to meet +upon Him the iniquity of us all"; and He, the Lamb of God, willingly +accepted the load, and bare away our sins by bearing their penalty. + +To philosophise on that teaching of Scripture is not my business here. +It is my business to assert it. We can never penetrate to a full +understanding of the rationale of Christ's bearing the world's sins, but +that has nothing to do with the earnestness of our belief in the fact. +Enough for us that in His person He willingly made experience of all the +bitterness of sin: that when He agonised in the dark on the cross, and +when from out of the darkness came that awful cry, so strangely compact +of wistful confidence and utter isolation, "My God, My God, why hast +Thou forsaken Me?" it was something deeper than physical pain or +shrinking from physical death that found utterance--even the sin-laden +consciousness of Him who in that awful hour gathered into His own breast +the spear-points of a world's punishment. The cross of Christ is the +endurance of the penalty of sin, and therefore is the unloosing of the +grip of the law upon us, in so far as threatening and punishment are +concerned. It is not enough that we should only intellectually recognise +that as a principle--it is the very heart of the gospel, the very life +of our souls. Trusting ourselves to that great sacrifice, the dread of +punishment will fade from our hearts, and the thunder-clouds melt out of +the sky, and the sense of guilt will not be a sting, but an occasion for +lowly thankfulness, and the law will have to draw the bolts of her +prison-house and let our captive souls go free. + +Christ's cross is the end of law as _ceremonial_. The whole elaborate +ritual of the Jew had sacrifice for its vital centre, and the prediction +of the Great Sacrifice for its highest purpose. Without the admission of +these principles, Paul's position is unintelligible, for he holds, as in +this context, that Christ's coming puts the whole system out of date, +because it fulfils it all. When the fruit has set, there is no more need +for petals; or, as the Apostle himself puts it, "when that which is +perfect is come, that which is in part is done away." We have the +reality, and do not need the shadow. There is but one temple for the +Christian soul--the "temple of His body." Local sanctity is at an end, +for it was never more than an external picture of that spiritual fact +which is realised in the Incarnation. Christ is the dwelling-place of +Deity, the meeting-place of God and man, the place of sacrifice; and, +builded on Him, we in Him become a spiritual house. There are none other +temples than these. Christ is the great priest, and in His presence all +human priesthood loses its consecration, for it could offer only +external sacrifice, and secure a local approach to a "worldly +sanctuary." He is the real Aaron, and we in Him become a royal +priesthood. There are none other priests than these. Christ is the true +sacrifice. His death is the real propitiation for sin, and we in Him +become thank-offerings, moved by His mercies to present ourselves living +sacrifices. There are none other offerings than these. So the law as a +code of ceremonial worship is done to death in the cross, and, like the +temple veil, is torn in two from the top to the bottom. + +Christ's cross is the end of law as _moral_ rule. Nothing in Paul's +writings warrants the restriction to the ceremonial law of the strong +assertion in the text, and its many parallels. Of course, such words do +not mean that Christian men are freed from the obligations of morality, +but they do mean that we are not bound to do the "things contained in +the law" because they are there. Duty is duty now because we see the +pattern of conduct and character in Christ. Conscience is not our +standard, nor is the Old Testament conception of the perfect ideal of +manhood. We have neither to read law in the fleshy tables of the heart, +nor in the tables graven by God's own finger, nor in men's parchments +and prescriptions. Our law is the perfect life and death of Christ, who +is at once the ideal of humanity and the reality of Deity. + +The weakness of all law is that it merely commands, but has no power to +get its commandments obeyed. Like a discrowned king, it posts its +proclamations, but has no army at its back to execute them. But Christ +puts His own power within us, and His love in our hearts; and so we pass +from under the dominion of an external commandment into the liberty of +an inward spirit. He is to His followers both "law and impulse." He +gives not the "law of a carnal commandment, but the power of an endless +life." The long schism between inclination and duty is at an end, in so +far as we are under the influence of Christ's cross. The great promise +is fulfilled, "I will put My law into their minds and write it in their +hearts"; and so, glad obedience with the whole power of the new life, +for the sake of the love of the dear Lord who has bought us by His +death, supersedes the constrained submission to outward precept. A +higher morality ought to characterise the partakers of the life of +Christ, who have His example for their code, and His love for their +motive. The tender voice that says, "If ye love Me, keep My +commandments," wins us to purer and more self-sacrificing goodness than +the stern accents that can only say, "Thou shalt--or else!" can ever +enforce. He came "not to destroy, but to fulfil." The fulfilment was +destruction in order to reconstruction in higher form. Law died with +Christ on the cross in order that it might rise and reign with Him in +our inmost hearts. + +II. The Cross is the triumph over all the powers of evil. + +There are considerable difficulties in the interpretation of verse 15; +the main question being the meaning of the word rendered in the +Authorized Version "spoiled," and in the R. V. "having put off from +Himself." It is the same word as is used in iii. 9, and is there +rendered "have put off"; while a cognate noun is found in verse 11 of +this chapter, and is there translated "the putting off." The form here +must either mean "having put off from oneself," or "having stripped +(others) _for_ oneself." The former meaning is adopted by many +commentators, as well as by the R. V., and is explained to mean that +Christ having assumed our humanity, was, as it were, wrapped about and +invested with Satanic temptations, which He finally flung from Him for +ever in His death, which was His triumph over the powers of evil. The +figure seems far-fetched and obscure, and the rendering necessitates the +supposition of a change in the person spoken of, which must be God in +the earlier part of the period, and Christ in the latter. + +But if we adopt the other meaning, which has equal warrant in the Greek +form, "having stripped for Himself," we get the thought that in the +cross, God has, for His greater glory, stripped principalities and +powers. Taking this meaning, we avoid the necessity of supposing with +Bishop Lightfoot that there is a change of subject from God to Christ at +some point in the period including verses 13 to 15--an expedient which +is made necessary by the impossibility of supposing that God "divested +Himself of principalities or powers"--and also avoid the other necessity +of referring the whole period to Christ, which is another way out of +that impossibility. We thereby obtain a more satisfactory meaning than +that Christ in assuming humanity was assailed by temptations from the +powers of evil which were, as it were, a poisoned garment clinging to +Him, and which He stripped off from Himself in His death. Further, such +a meaning as that which we adopt makes the whole verse a consistent +metaphor in three stages, whereas the other introduces an utterly +incongruous and irrelevant figure. What connection has the figure of +stripping off a garment with that of a conqueror in his triumphal +procession? But if we read "spoiled for Himself principalities and +powers," we see the whole process before our eyes--the victor stripping +his foes of arms and ornaments and dress, then parading them as his +captives, and then dragging them at the wheels of his triumphal car. + +The words point us into dim regions of which we know nothing more than +Scripture tells us. These dreamers at Colossae had much to say about a +crowd of beings, bad and good, which linked men and matter with spirit +and God. We have heard already the emphasis with which Paul has claimed +for his Master the sovereign authority of Creator over all orders of +being, the headship over all principality and power. He has declared, +too, that from Christ's cross a magnetic influence streams out upwards +as well as earthwards, binding all things together in the great +reconciliation--and now he tells us that from that same cross shoot +downwards darts of conquering power which subdue and despoil reluctant +foes of other realms and regions than ours, in so far as they work among +men. + +That there are such seems plainly enough asserted in Christ's own +words. However much discredit has been brought on the thought by +monastic and Puritan exaggerations, it is clearly the teaching of +Scripture; and however it may be ridiculed or set aside, it can never be +disproved. + +But the position which Christianity takes in reference to the whole +matter is to maintain that Christ has conquered the banded kingdom of +evil, and that no man owes it fear or obedience, if he will only hold +fast by his Lord. In the cross is the judgment of this world, and by it +is the prince of this world cast out. He has taken away the power of +these Powers who were so mighty amongst men. They held men captive by +temptations too strong to be overcome, but He has conquered the lesser +temptations of the wilderness and the sorer of the cross, and therein +has made us more than conquerors. They held men captive by ignorance of +God, and the cross reveals Him; by the lie that sin was a trifle, but +the cross teaches us its gravity and power; by the opposite lie that sin +was unforgivable, but the cross brings pardon for every transgression +and cleansing for every stain. By the cross the world is a redeemed +world, and, as our Lord said in words which may have suggested the +figure of our text, the strong man is bound, and his house _spoiled_ of +all his armour wherein he trusted. The prey is taken from the mighty and +men are delivered from the dominion of evil. So that dark kingdom is +robbed of its subjects and its rulers impoverished and restrained. The +devout imagination of the monk-painter drew on the wall of the cell in +his convent the conquering Christ with white banner bearing a blood-red +cross, before whose glad coming the heavy doors of the prison-house +fell from their hinges, crushing beneath their weight the demon jailer, +while the long file of eager captives, from Adam onwards through ages of +patriarchs and psalmists and prophets, hurried forward with outstretched +hands to meet the Deliverer, who came bearing His own atmosphere of +radiance and joy. Christ has conquered. His cross is His victory; and in +that victory God has conquered. As the long files of the triumphal +procession swept upwards to the temple with incense and music, before +the gazing eyes of a gathered glad nation, while the conquered trooped +chained behind the chariot, that all men might see their fierce eyes +gleaming beneath their matted hair, and breathe more freely for the +chains on their hostile wrists, so in the world-wide issues of the work +of Christ, God triumphs before the universe, and enhances His glory in +that He has rent the prey from the mighty and won men back to Himself. + +So we learn to think of evil as conquered, and for ourselves in our own +conflicts with the world, the flesh, and the devil, as well as for the +whole race of man, to be of good cheer. True, the victory is but slowly +being realised in all its consequences, and often it seems as if no +territory had been won. But the main position has been carried, and +though the struggle is still obstinate, it can end only in one way. The +brute dies hard, but the naked heel of our Christ has bruised his head, +and though still the dragon + + "Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail," + +his death will come sooner or later. The regenerating power is lodged in +the heart of humanity, and the centre from which it flows is the cross. +The history of the world thenceforward is but the history of its more or +less rapid assimilation of that power, and of its consequent deliverance +from the bondage in which it has been held. The end can only be the +entire and universal manifestation of the victory which was won when He +bowed His head and died. Christ's cross is God's throne of triumph. + +Let us see that we have our own personal part in that victory. Holding +to Christ, and drawing from Him by faith a share in His new life, we +shall no longer be under the yoke of law, but enfranchised into the +obedience of love, which is liberty. We shall no longer be slaves of +evil, but sons and servants of our conquering God, who woos and wins us +by showing us all His love in Christ, and by giving us His own Son on +the Cross, our peace-offering. If we let Him overcome, His victory will +be life, not death. He will strip us of nothing but rags, and clothe us +in garments of purity; He will so breathe beauty into us that He will +show us openly to the universe as examples of His transforming power, +and He will bind us glad captives to His chariot wheels, partakers of +His victory as well as trophies of His all-conquering love. "Now thanks +be unto God, which always triumphs over us in Jesus Christ." + + + + +XV. + +_WARNINGS AGAINST TWIN CHIEF ERRORS, BASED UPON PREVIOUS POSITIVE +TEACHING._ + + "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect + of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of + things to come; but the body is Christ's. Let no man rob you of your + prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, + dwelling in the things which he hath seen, vainly puffed up by his + fleshly mind, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, + being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, + increaseth with the increase of God."--COL. ii. 16-19 (Rev. Ver.). + + +"Let no man _therefore_ judge you." That "therefore" sends us back to +what the Apostle has been saying in the previous verses, in order to +find there the ground of these earnest warnings. That ground is the +whole of the foregoing exposition of the Christian relation to Christ as +far back as verse 9, but especially the great truths contained in the +immediately preceding verses, that the cross of Christ is the death of +law, and God's triumph over all the powers of evil. Because it is so, +the Colossian Christians are exhorted to claim and use their +emancipation from both. Thus we have here the very heart and centre of +the practical counsels of the Epistle--the double blasts of the trumpet +warning against the two most pressing dangers besetting the Church. They +are the same two which we have often met already--on the one hand, a +narrow Judaising enforcement of ceremonial and punctilios of outward +observance; on the other hand, a dreamy Oriental absorption in +imaginations of a crowd of angelic mediators obscuring the one gracious +presence of Christ our Intercessor. + +I. Here then we have first, the claim for Christian liberty, with the +great truth on which it is built. + +The points in regard to which that liberty is to be exercised are +specified. They are no doubt those, in addition to circumcision, which +were principally in question then and there. "Meat and drink" refers to +restrictions in diet, such as the prohibition of "unclean" things in the +Mosaic law, and the question of the lawfulness of eating meat offered to +idols; perhaps also, such as the Nazarite vow. There were few +regulations as to "drink" in the Old Testament, so that probably other +ascetic practices besides the Mosaic regulations were in question, but +these must have been unimportant, else Paul could not have spoken of the +whole as being a "shadow of things to come." The second point in regard +to which liberty is here claimed is that of the sacred seasons of +Judaism: the annual festivals, the monthly feast of the new moon, the +weekly Sabbath. + +The relation of the Gentile converts to these Jewish practices was an +all-important question for the early Church. It was really the question +whether Christianity was to be more than a Jewish sect--and the main +force which, under God, settled the contest, was the vehemence and logic +of the Apostle Paul. + +Here he lays down the ground on which that whole question about diet and +days, and all such matters, is to be settled. They "are a shadow of +things to come" but the body is of Christ. "Coming events cast their +shadows _before_." That great work of Divine love, the mission of +Christ, Whose "goings forth have been from everlasting," may be thought +of as having set out from the Throne as soon as time was, travelling in +the greatness of its strength, like the beams of some far-off star that +have not yet reached a dark world. The light from the Throne is behind +Him as He advances across the centuries, and the shadow is thrown far in +front. + +Now that involves two thoughts about the Mosaic law and whole system. +First, the purely prophetic and symbolic character of the Old Testament +order, and especially of the Old Testament ritual. The absurd +extravagance of many attempts to "spiritualize" the latter should not +blind us to the truth which they caricature. Nor, on the other hand, +should we be so taken with new attempts to reconstruct our notions of +Jewish history and the dates of Old Testament books, as to forget that, +though the New Testament is committed to no theory on these points, it +is committed to the Divine origin and prophetic purpose of the Mosaic +law and Levitical worship. We should thankfully accept all teaching +which free criticism and scholarship can give us as to the process by +which, and the time when, that great symbolic system of acted prophecy +was built up; but we shall be further away than ever from understanding +the Old Testament if we have gained critical knowledge of its genesis, +and have lost the belief that its symbols were given by God to prophesy +of His Son. That is the key to both Testaments; and I cannot but believe +that the uncritical reader who reads his book of the law and the +prophets with that conviction, has got nearer the very marrow of the +book, than the critic, if he have parted with it, can ever come. + +Sacrifice, altar, priest, temple spake of Him. The distinctions of meats +were meant, among other purposes, to familiarize men with the +conceptions of purity and impurity, and so, by stimulating conscience, +to wake the sense of need of a Purifier. The yearly feasts set forth +various aspects of the great work of Christ, and the sabbath showed in +outward form the rest into which He leads those who cease from their own +works and wear His yoke. All these observances, and the whole system to +which they belong, are like out-riders who precede a prince on his +progress, and as they gallop through sleeping villages, rouse them with +the cry, "The king is coming!" + +And when the king _has_ come, where are the heralds? and when the +reality has come, who wants symbols? and if that which threw the shadow +forward through the ages has arrived, how shall the shadow be visible +too? Therefore the second principle here laid down, namely the cessation +of all these observances, and their like, is really involved in the +first, namely their prophetic character. + +The practical conclusion drawn is very noteworthy, because it seems much +narrower than the premises warrant. Paul does not say--therefore let no +man observe any of these any more; but takes up the much more modest +ground--let no man _judge_ you about them. He claims a wide liberty of +variation, and all that he repels is the right of anybody to dragoon +Christian men into ceremonial observances on the ground that they are +necessary. He does not quarrel with the rites, but with men insisting +on the necessity of the rites. + +In his own practice he gave the best commentary on his meaning. When +they said to him, "You _must_ circumcise Titus," he said, "Then I will +_not_." When nobody tried to compel him, he took Timothy, and of his own +accord circumcised him to avoid scandals. When it was needful as a +protest, he rode right over all the prescriptions of the law, and "did +eat with Gentiles." When it was advisable as a demonstration that he +himself "walked orderly and kept the law," he performed the rites of +purification and united in the temple worship. + +In times of transition wise supporters of the new will not be in a hurry +to break with the old. "I will lead on softly, according as the flock +and the children be able to endure," said Jacob, and so says every good +shepherd. + +The brown sheaths remain on the twig after the tender green leaf has +burst from within them, but there is no need to pull them off, for they +will drop presently. "I will wear three surplices if they like," said +Luther once. "Neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not +are we the worse," said Paul. Such is the spirit of the words here. It +is a plea for Christian liberty. If not insisted on as necessary, the +outward observances may be allowed. If they are regarded as helps, or as +seemly adjuncts or the like, there is plenty of room for difference of +opinion and for variety of practice, according to temperament and taste +and usage. There are principles which should regulate even these +diversities of practice, and Paul has set these forth, in the great +chapter about meats in the Epistle to the Romans. But it is a different +thing altogether when any external observances are insisted on as +essential, either from the old Jewish or from the modern sacramentarian +point of view. If a man comes saying, "Except ye be circumcised, ye +cannot be saved," the only right answer is, Then I will not be +circumcised, and if _you_ are, because you believe that you cannot be +saved without it, "Christ is become of none effect to you." Nothing is +necessary but union to Him, and that comes through no outward +observance, but through the faith which worketh by love. Therefore, let +no man judge you, but repel all such attempts at thrusting any +ceremonial ritual observances on you, on the plea of necessity, with the +emancipating truth that the cross of Christ is the death of law. + +A few words may be said here on the bearing of the principles laid down +in these verses on the religious observance of Sunday. The obligation of +the Jewish sabbath has passed away as much as sacrifices and +circumcision. That seems unmistakably the teaching here. But the +institution of a weekly day of rest is distinctly put in Scripture as +independent of, and prior to, the special form and meaning given to the +institution in the Mosaic law. That is the natural conclusion from the +narrative of the creative rest in Genesis, and from our Lord's emphatic +declaration that the sabbath was made for "man"--that is to say, for the +race. Many traces of the pre-Mosaic sabbath have been adduced, and among +others we may recall the fact that recent researches show it to have +been observed by the Accadians, the early inhabitants of Assyria. It is +a physical and moral necessity, and that is a sadly mistaken +benevolence which on the plea of culture or amusement for the many, +compels the labour of the few, and breaks down the distinction between +the Sunday and the rest of the week. + +The religious observance of the first day of the week rests on no +recorded command, but has a higher origin, inasmuch as it is the outcome +of a felt want. The early disciples naturally gathered together for +worship on the day which had become so sacred to them. At first, no +doubt, they observed the Jewish sabbath, and only gradually came to the +practice which we almost see growing before our eyes in the Acts of the +Apostles, in the mention of the disciples at Troas coming together on +the first day of the week to break bread, and which we gather, from the +Apostle's instructions as to weekly setting apart money for charitable +purposes, to have existed in the Church at Corinth; as we know, that +even in his lonely island prison far away from the company of his +brethren, the Apostle John was in a condition of high religious +contemplation on the Lord's day, ere yet he heard the solemn voice and +saw "the things which are." + +This gradual growing up of the practice is in accordance with the whole +spirit of the New Covenant, which has next to nothing to say about the +externals of worship, and leaves the new life to shape itself. Judaism +gave prescriptions and minute regulations; Christianity, the religion of +the spirit, gives principles. The necessity, for the nourishment of the +Divine life, of the religious observance of the day of rest is certainly +not less now than at first. In the hurry and drive of our modern life +with the world forcing itself on us at every moment, we cannot keep up +the warmth of devotion unless we use this day, not merely for physical +rest, and family enjoyment, but for worship. They who know their own +slothfulness of spirit, and are in earnest in seeking after a deeper, +fuller Christian life, will thankfully own, "the week were dark but for +its light." I distrust the spirituality which professes that all life is +a sabbath, and therefore holds itself absolved from special seasons of +worship. If the stream of devout communion is to flow through all our +days, there must be frequent reservoirs along the road, or it will be +lost in the sand, like the rivers of higher Asia. It is a poor thing to +say, keep the day as a day of worship because it is a commandment. +Better to think of it as a great gift for the highest purposes; and not +let it be merely a day of rest for jaded bodies, but make it one of +refreshment for cumbered spirits, and rekindle the smouldering flame of +devotion, by drawing near to Christ in public and in private. So shall +we gather stores that may help us to go in the strength of that meat for +some more marches on the dusty road of life. + +II. The Apostle passes on to his second peal of warning,--that against +the teaching about angel mediators, which would rob the Colossian +Christians of their prize,--and draws a rapid portrait of the teachers +of whom they are to beware. + +"Let no man rob you of your prize." The metaphor is the familiar one of +the race or the wrestling ground; the umpire or judge is Christ; the +reward is that incorruptible crown of glory, of righteousness, woven not +of fading bay leaves, but of sprays from the "tree of life," which dower +with undying blessedness the brows round which they are wreathed. +Certain people are trying to rob them of their prize--not consciously, +for that would be inconceivable, but such is the tendency of their +teaching. No names will be mentioned, but he draws a portrait of the +robber with swift firm hand, as if he had said, If you want to know whom +I mean, here he is. Four clauses, like four rapid strokes of the pencil, +do it, and are marked in the Greek by four participles, the first of +which is obscured in the Authorised Version. "Delighting in humility and +the worshipping of angels." So probably the first clause should be +rendered. The first words are almost contradictory, and are meant to +suggest that the humility has not the genuine ring about it. +Self-conscious humility in which a man takes delight is not the real +thing. A man who knows that he is humble, and is self-complacent about +it, glancing out of the corners of his downcast eyes at any mirror where +he can see himself, is not humble at all. "The devil's darling vice is +the pride which apes humility." + +So _very_ humble were these people that they would not venture to pray +to God! _There_ was humility indeed. So far beneath did they feel +themselves, that the utmost they could do was to lay hold of the lowest +link of a long chain of angel mediators, in hope that the vibration +might run upwards through all the links, and perhaps reach the throne at +last. Such fantastic abasement which would not take God at His word, nor +draw near to Him in His Son, was really the very height of pride. + +Then follows a second descriptive clause, of which no altogether +satisfactory interpretation has yet been given. Possibly, as has been +suggested, we have here an early error in the text, which has affected +all the manuscripts, and cannot now be corrected. Perhaps, on the whole, +the translation adopted by the Revised Version presents the least +difficulty--"dwelling in the things which he hath seen." In that case +the seeing would be not by the senses, but by visions and pretended +revelations, and the charge against the false teachers would be that +they "walked in a vain show" of unreal imaginations and visionary +hallucinations, whose many-coloured misleading lights they followed +rather than the plain sunshine of revealed facts in Jesus Christ. + +"Vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind" is the next feature in the +portrait. The self-conscious humility was only skin deep, and covered +the utmost intellectual arrogance. The heretic teacher, like a blown +bladder, was swollen with what after all was only wind; he was dropsical +from conceit of "mind," or, as we should say, "intellectual ability," +which after all was only the instrument and organ of the "flesh," the +sinful self. And, of course, being all these things, he would have no +firm grip of Christ, from whom such tempers and views were sure to +detach him. Therefore the damning last clause of the indictment is "not +holding the Head." How could he do so? And the slackness of his grasp of +the Lord Jesus would make all these errors and faults ten times worse. + +Now the special forms of these errors which are here dealt with are all +gone past recall. But the tendencies which underlay these special forms +are as rampant as ever, and work unceasingly to loosen our hold of our +dear Lord. The worship of angels is dead, but we are still often +tempted to think that we are too lowly and sinful to claim our portion +of the faithful promises of God. The spurious humility is by no means +out of date, which knows better than God does, whether He can forgive us +our sins, and bend over us in love. We do not slip in angel mediators +between ourselves and Him, but the tendency to put the sole work of +Jesus Christ "into commission," is not dead. We are all tempted to grasp +at others as well as at Him, for our love, and trust, and obedience, and +we all need the reminder that to lay hold of any other props is to lose +hold of Him, and that he who does not cleave to Christ alone, does not +cleave to Christ at all. + +We do not see visions and dream dreams any more, except here and there +some one led astray by a so-called "spiritualism," but plenty of us +attach more importance to our own subjective fancies or speculations +about the obscurer parts of Christianity than to the clear revelation of +God in Christ. The "unseen world" has for many minds an unwholesome +attraction. The Gnostic spirit is still in full force among us, which +despises the foundation facts and truths of the gospel as "milk for +babes," and values its own baseless artificial speculations about +subordinate matters, which are unrevealed because they are subordinate, +and fascinating to some minds because unrevealed, far above the truths +which are clear because they are vital, and insipid to such minds +because they are clear. We need to be reminded that Christianity is not +for speculation, but to make us good, and that "He who has fashioned +their hearts alike," has made us all to live by the same air, to be +nourished by the same bread from heaven, to be saved and purified by +the same truth. That is the gospel which the little child can +understand, of which the outcast and the barbarian can get some kind of +hold, which the failing spirit groping in the darkness of death can +dimly see as its light in the valley--that is the all-important part of +the gospel. What needs special training and capacity to understand is no +essential portion of the truth that is meant for the world. + +And a swollen self-conceit is of all things the most certain to keep a +man away from Christ. We must feel our utter helplessness and need, +before we shall lay hold on Him, and if ever that wholesome lowly sense +of our own emptiness is clouded over, that moment will our fingers relax +their tension, and that moment will the flow of life into our deadness +run slow and pause. Whatever slackens our hold of Christ tends to rob us +of the final prize, that crown of life which He gives. + +Hence the solemn earnestness of these warnings. It was not only a +doctrine more or less that was at stake, but it was their eternal life. +Certain truths believed would increase the firmness of their hold on +their Lord, and thereby would secure the prize. Disbelieved, the +disbelief would slacken their grasp of Him, and thereby would deprive +them of it. We are often told that the gospel gives heaven for right +belief, and that that is unjust. But if a man does not believe a thing, +he cannot have in his character or feelings the influence which the +belief of it would produce. If he does not believe that Christ died for +his sins, and that all his hopes are built on that great Saviour, he +will not cleave to Him in love and dependence. If he does not so cleave +to Him he will not draw from Him the life which would mould his +character and stir him to run the race. If he do not run the race he +will never win nor wear the crown. That crown is the reward and issue of +character and conduct, made possible by the communication of strength +and new nature from Jesus, which again is made possible through our +faith laying hold of Him as revealed in certain truths, and of these +truths as revealing Him. Therefore, intellectual error may loose our +hold on Christ, and if we slacken that, we shall forfeit the prize. Mere +speculative interest about the less plainly revealed corners of +Christian truth may, and often do, act in paralysing the limbs of the +Christian athlete. "Ye did run well, what hath hindered you?" has to be +asked of many whom a spirit akin to this described in our text has made +languid in the race. To us all, knowing in some measure how the whole +sum of influences around us work to detach us from our Lord, and so to +rob us of the prize which is inseparable from His presence, the solemn +exhortation which He speaks from heaven may well come, "Hold fast that +thou hast; let no man take thy crown." + +III. The source and manner of all true growth is next set forth, in +order to enforce the warning, and to emphasize the need of holding the +Head. + +Christ is not merely represented supreme and sovereign, when He is +called "the head." The metaphor goes much deeper, and points to Him as +the source of a real spiritual life, from Him communicated to all the +members of the true Church, and constituting it an organic whole. We +have found the same expression twice already in the Epistle; once as +applied to His relation to "the body, the Church" (i. 18), and once in +reference to the "principalities and powers." The errors in the +Colossian Church derogated from Christ's sole sovereign place as +fountain of all life natural and spiritual for all orders of beings, and +hence the emphasis of the Apostle's proclamation of the counter truth. +That life which flows from the head is diffused through the whole body +by the various and harmonious action of all the parts. The body is +"supplied and knit together," or in other words, the functions of +nutrition and compaction into a whole are performed by the "joints and +bands," in which last word are included muscles, nerves, tendons, and +any of the "connecting bands which strap the body together." Their +action is the condition of growth; but the Head is the source of all +which the action of the members transmits to the body. Christ is the +source of all nourishment. From Him flows the life-blood which feeds the +whole, and by which every form of supply is ministered whereby the body +grows. Christ is the source of all unity. Churches have been bound +together by other bonds, such as creeds, polity, or even nationality; +but that external bond is only like a rope round a bundle of fagots, +while the true, inward unity springing from common possession of the +life of Christ, is as the unity of some great tree, through which the +same sap circulates from massive bole to the tiniest leaf that dances at +the tip of the farthest branch. + +These blessed results of supply and unity are effected through the +action of the various parts. If each organ is in healthy action, the +body grows. There is diversity in offices; the same life is light in +the eyes, beauty in the cheek, strength in the hand, thought in the +brain. The more you rise in the scale of life the more the body is +differentiated, from the simple sac that can be turned inside out and +has no division of parts or offices, up to man. So in the Church. The +effect of Christianity is to heighten individuality, and to give each +man his own proper "gift from God," and therefore each man his office, +"one after this manner and another after that." Therefore is there need +for the freest possible unfolding of each man's idiosyncrasy, heightened +and hallowed by an indwelling Christ, lest the body should be the poorer +if any member's activity be suppressed, or any one man be warped from +his own work wherein he is strong, to become a feeble copy of another's. +The perfect light is the blending of all colours. + +A community where each member thus holds firmly by the Head, and each +ministers in his degree to the nourishment and compaction of the +members, will, says Paul, increase with the increase of God. The +increase will come from Him, will be pleasing to Him, will be +essentially the growth of His own life in the body. There is an increase +not of God. These heretical teachers were swollen with dropsical +self-conceit; but this is wholesome, solid growth. For individuals and +communities of professing Christians the lesson is always seasonable, +that it is very easy to get an increase of the other kind. The +individual may increase in apparent knowledge, in volubility, in visions +and speculations, in so-called Christian work; the Church may increase +in members, in wealth, in culture, in influence in the world, in +apparent activities, in subscription lists, and the like--and it may +all be not sound growth, but proud flesh, which needs the knife. One way +only there is by which we may increase with the increase of God, and +that is that we keep fast hold of Jesus Christ, and "let Him not go, for +He is our life." The one exhortation which includes all that is needful, +and which being obeyed, all ceremonies and all speculations will drop +into their right place, and become helps, not snares, is the exhortation +which Barnabas gave to the new Gentile converts at Antioch--that "with +purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord." + + + + +XVI. + +_TWO FINAL TESTS OF THE FALSE TEACHING._ + + "If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as + though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances. + Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish + with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which + things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, + and severity to the body; _but are_ not of any value against the + indulgence of the flesh."--COL. ii. 20-23 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The polemical part of the Epistle is now coming to an end. We pass in +the next chapter, after a transitional paragraph, to simple moral +precepts which, with personal details, fill up the remainder of the +letter. The antagonist errors appear for the last time in the words +which we have now to consider. In these the Apostle seems to gather up +all his strength to strike two straight, crashing, final blows, which +pulverize and annihilate the theoretical positions and practical +precepts of the heretical teachers. First, he puts in the form of an +unanswerable demand for the reason for their teachings, their radical +inconsistency with the Christian's death with Christ, which is the very +secret of his life. Then, by a contemptuous concession of their apparent +value to people who will not look an inch below the surface, he makes +more emphatic their final condemnation as worthless--less than nothing +and vanity--for the suppression of "the flesh"--the only aim of all +moral and religious discipline. So we have here two great tests by their +conformity to which we may try all teachings which assume to regulate +life, and all Christian teaching about the place and necessity for +ritual and outward prescriptions of conduct. "Ye are dead with Christ." +All must fit in with that great fact. The restraint and conquest of "the +flesh" is the purpose of all religion and of all moral teaching--our +systems must do that or they are naught, however fascinating they may +be. + +I. We have then to consider the great fact of the Christian's death with +Christ, and to apply it as a touch-stone. + +The language of the Apostle points to a definite time when the Colossian +Christians "died" with Christ. That carries us back to former words in +the chapter, where, as we found, the period of their baptism considered +as the symbol and profession of their conversion, was regarded as the +time of their burial. They died with Christ when they clave with +penitent trust to the truth that Christ died for them. When a man unites +himself by faith to the dying Christ as his Peace, Pardon, and Saviour, +then he too in a very real sense dies with Jesus. + +That thought that every Christian is dead with Christ, runs through the +whole of Paul's teaching. It is no mere piece of mysticism on his lips, +though it has often become so, when divorced from morality, as it has +been by some Christian teachers. It is no mere piece of rhetoric, though +it has often become so, when men have lost the true thought of what +Christ's death is for the world. But to Paul the cross of Christ was, +first and foremost, the altar of sacrifice on which the oblation had +been offered that took away all his guilt and sin; and then, because it +was that, it became the law of his own life, and the power that +assimilated him to his Lord. + +The plain English of it all is, that when a man becomes a Christian by +putting his trust in Christ Who died, as the ground of his acceptance +and salvation, such a change takes place upon his whole nature and +relationship to externals as is fairly comparable to a death. + +The same illustration is frequent in ordinary speech. What do we mean +when we talk of an old man being dead to youthful passions or follies or +ambitions? We mean that they have ceased to interest him, that he is +_separated_ from them and _insensible_ to them. Death is the separator. +What an awful gulf there is between that fixed white face beneath the +sheet, and all the things about which the man was so eager an hour ago! +How impossible for any cries of love to pass the chasm! "His sons come +to honour, and he knoweth it not." The "business" which filled his +thoughts, crumbles to pieces, and he cares not. Nothing reaches him or +interests him any more. So, if we have got hold of Christ as our +Saviour, and have found in His cross the anchor of souls, that +experience will deaden us to all which was our life, and the measure in +which we are joined to Jesus by our faith in His great sacrifice, will +be the measure in which we are detached from our former selves, and from +old objects of interest and pursuit. The change may either be called +dying with Christ, or rising with Him. The one phrase takes hold of it +at an earlier stage than the other; the one puts stress on our ceasing +to be what we were, the other on our beginning to be what we were not. +So our text is followed by a paragraph corresponding in form and +substance, and beginning, "If ye then be risen with Christ," as this +begins, "If ye died with Christ!" + +Such detachment from externals and separation from a former self is not +unknown in ordinary life. Strong emotion of any kind makes us insensible +to things around, and even to physical pain. Many a man with the +excitement of the battle-field boiling in his brain, "receives but recks +not of a wound." Absorption of thought and interest leads to what is +called "absence of mind," where the surroundings are entirely unfelt, as +in the case of the saint who rode all day on the banks of the Swiss +lake, plunged in theological converse, and at evening asked where the +lake was, though its waves had been rippling for twenty miles at his +mule's feet. Higher tastes drive out lower ones, as some great stream +turned into a new channel will sweep it clear of mud and rubbish. So, if +we are joined to Christ, He will fill our souls with strong emotions and +interests which will deaden our sensitiveness to things around us, and +will inspire new loves, tastes and desires, which will make us +indifferent to much that we used to be eager about and hostile to much +that we once cherished. + +To what shall we die if we are Christians? The Apostle answers that +question in various ways, which we may profitably group together. +"Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto _sin_" (Rom. vi. 11). +"He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto +_themselves_" (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). "Ye are become dead to the _law_" +(Rom. vii. 6). By the cross of Christ, "the world hath been crucified +unto me, and I unto _the world_." So then, to the whole mass of outward +material things, all this present order which surrounds us, to the +unrenounced self which has ruled us so long, and to the sin which +results from the appeals of outward things to that evil self--to these, +and to the mere outward letter of a commandment which is impotent to +enforce its own behests or deliver self from the snares of the world and +the burden of sin, we cease to belong in the measure in which we are +Christ's. The separation is not complete; but, if we are Christians at +all, it is begun, and henceforward our life is to be a "dying daily." It +must either be a dying life or a living death. We shall still belong in +our outward being--and, alas! far too much in heart also--to the world +and self and sin--but, if we are Christians at all, there will be a real +separation from these in the inmost heart of our hearts, and the germ of +entire deliverance from them all will be in us. + +This day needs that truth to be strongly urged. The whole meaning of the +death of Christ is not reached when it is regarded as the great +propitiation for our sins. Is it the pattern for our lives? has it drawn +us away from our love of the world, from our sinful self, from the +temptations to sin, from cowering before duties which we hate but dare +not neglect? has it changed the current of our lives, and lifted us into +a new region where we find new interests, loves and aims, before which +the twinkling lights, which once were stars to us, pale their +ineffectual fires? If so, then, just in as much as it is so, and not one +hair's breadth the more, may we call ourselves Christians. If not, it is +of no use for us to talk about looking to the cross as the source of +our salvation. Such a look, if it be true and genuine, will certainly +change all a man's tastes, habits, aspirations, and relationships. If we +know nothing of dying with Christ, it is to be feared we know as little +of Christ's dying for us. + +This great fact of the Christian's death with Christ comes into view +here mainly as pointing the contradiction between the Christian's +position, and his subjection to the prescriptions and prohibitions of a +religion which consists chiefly in petty rules about conduct. We are +"dead" says Paul, "to the rudiments of the world,"--a phrase which we +have already heard in verse 8 of this chapter, where we found its +meaning to be "precepts of an elementary character, fit for babes, not +for men in Christ, and moving principally in the region of the +material." It implies a condemnation of all such regulation religion on +the two grounds, that it is an anachronism, seeking to perpetuate an +earlier stage which has been left behind, and that it has to do with the +outsides of things, with the material and visible only. To such +rudiments we are dead with Christ. Then, queries Paul, with irresistible +triumphant question--why, in the name of consistency, "do you subject +yourself to ordinances" (of which we have already heard in verse 14 of +the chapter) such as "handle not, nor taste, nor touch?" These three +prohibitions are not Paul's, but are quoted by him as specimens of the +kind of rules and regulations which he is protesting against. The +ascetic teachers kept on vehemently reiterating their prohibitions, and +as the correct rendering of the words shows, with a constantly +increasing intolerance. "Handle not" is a less rigid prohibition than +"touch not." The first says, Do not lay hold of; the last Do not even +touch with the tip of your finger. So asceticism, like many another +tendency and habit, grows by indulgence, and demands abstinence ever +more rigid and separation ever more complete. And the whole thing is out +of date, and a misapprehension of the genius of Christianity. Man's work +in religion is ever to confine it to the surface, to throw it outward +and make it a mere round of things done and things abstained from. +Christ's work in religion is to drive it inwards, and to focus all its +energy on "the hidden man of the heart," knowing that if that be right, +the visible will come right. It is waste labour to try to stick figs on +the prickles of a thorn bush--as is the tree, so will be the fruit. +There are plenty of pedants and martinets in religion as well as on the +parade ground. There must be so many buttons on the uniform, and the +shoulder belts must be pipe-clayed, and the rifles on the shoulders +sloped at just such an angle--and then all will be right. Perhaps so. +Disciplined courage is better than courage undisciplined. But there is +much danger of all the attention being given to drill, and then, when +the parade ground is exchanged for the battle-field, disaster comes +because there is plenty of etiquette and no dash. Men's lives are +pestered out of them by a religion which tries to tie them down with as +many tiny threads as those with which the Liliputians fastened down +Gulliver. But Christianity in its true and highest forms is not a +religion of prescriptions but of principles. It does not keep +perpetually dinning a set of petty commandments and prohibitions into +our ears. Its language is not a continual "Do this, forbear from +that,"--but "Love, and thou fulfillest the law." It works from the +centre outwards to the circumference; first making clean the inside of +the platter, and so ensuring that the outside shall be clean also. The +error with which Paul fought, and which perpetually crops up anew, +having its roots deep in human nature, begins with the circumference and +wastes effort in burnishing the outside. + +The parenthesis which follows in the text, "all which things are to +perish with the using," contains an incidental remark intended to show +the mistake of attaching such importance to regulations about diet and +the like, from the consideration of the perishableness of these meats +and drinks about which so much was said by the false teachers. "They are +all destined for corruption, for physical decomposition--in the very act +of consumption." You cannot use them without using them up. They are +destroyed in the very moment of being used. Is it fitting for men who +have died with Christ to this fleeting world, to make so much of its +perishable things? + +May we not widen this thought beyond its specific application here, and +say that death with Christ to the world should deliver us from the +temptation of making much of the things which perish with the using, +whether that temptation is presented in the form of attaching +exaggerated religious importance to ascetic abstinence from them or in +that of exaggerated regard and unbridled use of them? Asceticism and +Sybaritic luxury have in common an over-estimate of the importance of +the material things. The one is the other turned inside out. Dives in +his purple and fine linen, and the ascetic in his hair shirt, both make +too much of "what they shall put on." The one with his feasts and the +other with his fasts both think too much of what they shall eat and +drink. A man who lives on high with his Lord puts all these things in +their right place. There are things which do _not_ perish with the +using, but grow with use, like the five loaves in Christ's hands. Truth, +love, holiness, all Christlike graces and virtues increase with +exercise, and the more we feed on the bread which comes down from +heaven, the more shall we have for our own nourishment and for our +brother's need. There is a treasure which faileth not, bags which wax +not old, the durable riches and undecaying possessions of the soul that +lives on Christ and grows like Him. These let us seek after; for if our +religion be worth anything at all, it should carry us past all the +fleeting wealth of earth straight into the heart of things, and give us +for our portion that God whom we can never exhaust, nor outgrow, but +possess the more as we use His sweetness for the solace, and His +all-sufficient Being for the good, of our souls. + +The final inconsistency between the Christian position and the practical +errors in question is glanced at in the words "after the commandments +and doctrines of men," which refer, of course, to the ordinances of +which Paul is speaking. The expression is a quotation from Isaiah's +(xxix. 13) denunciation of the Pharisees of his day, and as used here +seems to suggest that our Lord's great discourse on the worthlessness of +the Jewish punctilios about meats and drinks was in the Apostle's mind, +since the same words of Isaiah occur there in a similar connection. It +is not fitting that we, who are withdrawn from dependence on the outward +visible order of things by our union with Christ in His death, should be +under the authority of men. Here is the true democracy of the Christian +society. "Ye were redeemed with a price. Be not the servants of men." +Our union to Jesus Christ is a union of absolute authority and utter +submission. We all have access to the one source of illumination, and we +are bound to take our orders from the one Master. The protest against +the imposition of human authority on the Christian soul is made not in +the interests of self-will, but from reverence to the only voice that +has the right to give autocratic commands and to receive unquestioning +obedience. We are free in proportion as we are dead to the world with +Christ. We are free from men not that we may please ourselves, but that +we may please Him. "Hold your peace, I want to hear what my Master has +to command me," is the language of the Christian freedman, who is free +that he may serve, and because he serves. + +II. We have to consider one great purpose of all teaching and external +worship, by its power in attaining which any system is to be tried. + +"Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and +humility, and severity to the body, _but are_ not of any value against +the indulgence of the flesh." Here is the conclusion of the whole +matter, the parting summary of the indictment against the whole +irritating tangle of restrictions and prescriptions. From a moral point +of view it is worthless, as having no coercive power over "the flesh." +Therein lies its conclusive condemnation, for if religious observances +do not help a man to subdue his sinful self, what, in the name of common +sense, is the use of them? + +The Apostle knows very well that the system which he was opposing had +much which commended it to people, especially to those who did not look +very deep. It had a "show of wisdom" very fascinating on a superficial +glance, and that in three points, all of which caught the vulgar eye, +and all of which turned into the opposite on closer examination. + +It has the look of being exceeding devotion and zealous worship. These +teachers with their abundant forms impose upon the popular imagination, +as if they were altogether given up to devout contemplation and prayer. +But if one looks a little more closely at them, one sees that their +devotion is the indulgence of their own will and not surrender to God's. +They are not worshipping Him as He has appointed, but as they have +themselves chosen, and as they are rendering services which He has not +required, they are in a very true sense worshipping their own wills, and +not God at all. By "will-worship" seems to be meant self-imposed forms +of religious service which are the outcome not of obedience, nor of the +instincts of a devout heart, but of a man's own will. And the Apostle +implies that such supererogatory and volunteered worship is no worship. +Whether offered in a cathedral or a barn, whether the worshipper wear a +cope or a fustian jacket, such service is not accepted. A prayer which +is but the expression of the worshipper's own will, instead of being +"not my will but Thine be done," reaches no higher than the lips that +utter it. If we are subtly and half unconsciously obeying self even +while we seem to be bowing before God; if we are seeming to pray, and +are all the while burning incense to ourselves, instead of being drawn +out of ourselves by the beauty and the glory of the God towards whom our +spirits yearn, then our devotion is a mask, and our prayers will be +dispersed in empty air. + +The deceptive appearance of wisdom in these teachers and their doctrines +is further manifest in the humility which felt so profoundly the gulf +between man and God that it was fain to fill the void with its fantastic +creations of angel mediators. Humility is a good thing, and it looked +very humble to say, We cannot suppose that such insignificant +flesh-encompassed creatures as we can come into contact and fellowship +with God; but it was a great deal more humble to take God at His word, +and to let Him lay down the possibilities and conditions of intercourse, +and to tread the way of approach to Him which He has appointed. If a +great king were to say to all the beggars and ragged losels of his +capital, Come to the palace to-morrow; which would be the humbler, he +who went, rags and leprosy and all, or he who hung back because he was +so keenly conscious of his squalor? God says to men, "Come to My arms +through My Son. Never mind the dirt, come." Which is the humbler: he who +takes God at His word, and runs to hide his face on his Father's breast, +having access to Him through Christ the Way, or he who will not venture +near till he has found some other mediators besides Christ? A humility +so profound that it cannot think God's promise and Christ's mediation +enough for it, has gone so far West that it has reached the East, and +from humility has become pride. + +Further, this system has a show of wisdom in "severity to the body." Any +asceticism is a great deal more to men's taste than abandoning self. +They will rather stick hooks in their backs and do the "swinging +poojah," than give up their sins or yield up their wills. It is easier +to travel the whole distance from Cape Comorin to the shrine of +Juggernaut, measuring every foot of it by the body laid prostrate in the +dust, than to surrender the heart to the love of God. In the same manner +the milder forms of putting oneself to pain, hair shirts, scourgings, +abstinence from pleasant things with the notion that thereby merit is +acquired, or sin atoned for, have a deep root in human nature, and hence +"a show of wisdom." It is strange, and yet not strange, that people +should think that, somehow or other, they recommend themselves to God by +making themselves uncomfortable, but so it is that religion presents +itself to many minds mainly as a system of restrictions and injunctions +which forbids the agreeable and commands the unpleasant. So does our +poor human nature vulgarise and travesty Christ's solemn command to deny +ourselves and take up our cross after Him. + +The conclusive condemnation of all the crowd of punctilious restrictions +of which the Apostle has been speaking lies in the fact that, however +they may correspond to men's mistaken notions, and so seem to be the +dictate of wisdom, they "are not of any value against the indulgence of +the flesh." This is one great end of all moral and spiritual discipline, +and if practical regulations do not tend to secure it, they are +worthless. + +Of course by "flesh" here we are to understand, as usually in the +Pauline Epistles, not merely the body but the whole unregenerate +personality, the entire unrenewed self that thinks and feels and wills +and desires apart from God. To indulge and satisfy it is to die, to slay +and suppress it is to live. All these "ordinances" with which the +heretical teachers were pestering the Colossians, have no power, Paul +thinks, to keep that self down, and therefore they seem to him so much +rubbish. He thus lifts the whole question up to a higher level and +implies a standard for judging much formal outward Christianity which +would make very short work of it. + +A man may be keeping the whole round of them and seven devils may be in +his heart. They distinctly tend to foster some of the "works of the +flesh," such as self-righteousness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, +and they as distinctly altogether fail to subdue any of them. A man may +stand on a pillar like Simeon Stylites for years, and be none the +better. Historically, the ascetic tendency has not been associated with +the highest types of real saintliness except by accident, and has never +been their productive cause. The bones rot as surely inside the +sepulchre though the whitewash on its dome be ever so thick. + +So the world and the flesh are very willing that Christianity should +shrivel into a religion of prohibitions and ceremonials, because all +manner of vices and meannesses may thrive and breed under these, like +scorpions under stones. There is only one thing that will put the collar +on the neck of the animal within us, and that is the power of the +indwelling Christ. The evil that is in us all is too strong for every +other fetter. Its cry to all these "commandments and ordinances of men" +is, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?" Not in obedience to +such, but in the reception into our spirits of His own life, is our +power of victory over self. "This I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye +shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." + + + + +XVII. + +_THE PRESENT CHRISTIAN LIFE, A RISEN LIFE._ + + "If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that + are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set + your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are + upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in + God. When Christ, _Who is_ our life, shall be manifested, then shall + ye also with Him be manifested in glory."--COL. iii. 1-4 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +We have now done with controversy. We hear no more about heretical +teachers. The Apostle has cut his way through the tangled thickets of +error, and has said his say as to the positive truths with which he +would hew them down. For the remainder of the letter, we have +principally plain practical exhortations, and a number of interesting +personal details. + +The paragraph which we have now to consider is the transition from the +controversial to the ethical portion of the Epistle. It touches the +former by its first words, "If ye then were raised together with +Christ," which correspond in form and refer in meaning to the beginning +of the previous paragraph, "If ye died with Christ." It touches the +latter because it embodies the broad general precept, "Seek the things +that are above," of which the following practical directions are but +varying applications in different spheres of duty. + +In considering these words we must begin by endeavouring to put clearly +their connection and substance. As they flew from Paul's eager lips, +motive and precept, symbol and fact, the present and future are blended +together. It may conduce to clearness if we try to part these elements. + +There are here two similar exhortations, side by side. "Seek the things +that are above," and "Set your mind on the things that are above." The +first is _preceded_, and the second is _followed_ by its reason. So the +two laws of conduct are, as it were, enclosed like a kernel in its +shell, or a jewel in a gold setting, by encompassing motives. These +considerations, in which the commandment are imbedded, are the double +thought of union with Christ in His resurrection, and in His death, and +as consequent thereon, participation in His present hidden life, and in +His future glorious manifestation. So we have here the present budding +life of the Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ; the future +consummate flower of the Christian life in union with the glorious +manifested Christ; and the practical aim and direction which alone is +consistent with either bud or flower. + +I. The present budding life of the Christian in union with the risen, +hidden Christ. + +Two aspects of this life are set forth in verses 1 and 3--"raised with +Christ," and "ye died, and your life is hid with Christ." A still +profounder thought lies in the words of verse 4, "Christ _is_ our life." + +We have seen in former parts of this Epistle that Paul believed that, +when a man puts His faith in Jesus Christ, he is joined to Him in such a +way that he is separated from his former self and dead to the world. +That great change may be considered either with reference to what the +man has ceased to be, or with reference to what he becomes. In the one +aspect, it is a death; in the other, it is a resurrection. It depends on +the point of view whether a semicircle seems convex or concave. The two +thoughts express substantially the same fact. That great change was +brought about in these Colossian Christians, at a definite time, as the +language shows; and by a definite means--namely, by union with Christ +through faith, which grasps His death and resurrection as at once the +ground of salvation, the pattern for life, and the prophecy of glory. So +then, the great truths here are these; the impartation of life by union +with Christ, which life is truly a resurrection life, and is, moreover, +hidden with Christ in God. + +Union with Christ by faith is the condition of a real communication of +life. "In Him was life," says John's Gospel, meaning thereby to assert, +in the language of our Epistle, that "in Him were all things created, +and in Him all things consist." Life in all its forms is dependent on +union in varying manner with the Divine, and upheld only by His +continual energy. The creature must touch God or perish. Of that energy +the Uncreated Word of God is the channel--"with Thee is the fountain of +life." As the life of the body, so the higher self-conscious life of the +thinking, feeling, striving soul, is also fed and kept alight by the +perpetual operation of a higher Divine energy, imparted in like manner +by the Divine Word. Therefore, with deep truth, the psalm just quoted, +goes on to say, "In Thy light shall we see light"--and therefore, too, +John's Gospel continues: "And the life was the light of men." + +But there is a still higher plane on which life may be manifested, and +nobler energies which may accompany it. The body may live, and mind and +heart be dead. Therefore Scripture speaks of a threefold life: that of +the animal nature, that of the intellectual and emotional nature, and +that of the spirit, which lives when it is conscious of God, and touches +Him by aspiration, hope, and love. This is the loftiest life. Without +it, a man is dead while he lives. With it, he lives though he dies. And +like the others, it depends on union with the Divine life as it is +stored in Jesus Christ--but in this case, the union is a conscious union +by faith. If I trust to Him, and am thereby holding firmly by Him, my +union with Him is so real, that, in the measure of my faith, His fulness +passes over into my emptiness, His righteousness into my sinfulness, His +life into my death, as surely as the electric shock thrills my nerves +when I grasp the poles of the battery. + +No man can breathe into another's nostrils the breath of life. But +Christ can and does breathe His life into us; and this true miracle of a +communication of spiritual life takes place in every man who humbly +trusts himself to Him. So the question comes home to each of us--am I +living by my union with Christ? do I draw from Him that better being +which He is longing to pour into my withered, dead spirit? It is not +enough to live the animal life; the more it is fed, the more are the +higher lives starved and dwindled. It is not enough to live the life of +intellect and feeling. That may be in brightest, keenest exercise, and +yet we--our best selves--may be dead--separated from God in Christ, and +therefore dead--and all our activity may be but as a galvanic twitching +of the muscles in a corpse. Is Christ our life, its source, its +strength, its aim, its motive? Do we live in Him, by Him, with Him, for +Him? If not, we are dead while we live. + +This life from Christ is a resurrection life. "The power of Christ's +resurrection" is threefold--as a seal of His mission and Messiahship, +"declared to be the Son of God, by His resurrection from the dead;" as a +prophecy and pledge of ours, "now is Christ risen from the dead, and +become the first-fruits of them that slept;" and as a symbol and pattern +of our new life of Christian consecration, "likewise reckon ye also +yourselves to be indeed dead unto sin." This last use of the +resurrection of Christ is a plain witness of the firm, universal and +uncontested belief in the historical fact, throughout the Churches which +Paul addressed. The fact must have been long familiar and known as +undoubted, before it could have been thus moulded into a symbol. But, +passing from that, consider that our union to Christ produces a moral +and spiritual change analogous to His resurrection. After all, it is the +moral and not the mystical side which is the main thing in Paul's use of +this thought. He would insist, that all true Christianity operates a +death to the old self, to sin and to the whole present order of things, +and endows a man with new tastes, desires and capacities, like a +resurrection to a new being. These heathen converts--picked from the +filthy cesspools in which many of them had been living, and set on a +pure path, with the astounding light of a Divine love flooding it, and a +bright hope painted on the infinite blackness ahead--had surely passed +into a new life. Many a man in this day, long familiar with Christian +teaching, has found himself made over again in mature life, when his +heart has grasped Christ. Drunkards, profligates, outcasts, have found +it life from the dead; and even where there has not been such complete +visible revolution as in them, there has been such deep-seated central +alteration that it is no exaggeration to call it resurrection. The plain +fact is that real Christianity in a man will produce in him a radical +moral change. If our religion does not do that in us, it is nothing. +Ceremonial and doctrine are but means to an end--making us better men. +The highest purpose of Christ's work, for which He both "died and rose +and revived," is to change us into the likeness of His own beauty of +perfect purity. That risen life is no mere exaggeration of mystical +rhetoric, but an imperative demand of the highest morality, and the +plain issue of it is: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body." +Do I say that I am a Christian? The test by which my claim must be tried +is the likeness of my life here to Him who has died unto sin, and liveth +unto God. + +But the believing soul is risen with Christ also, inasmuch as our union +with Him makes us partakers of His resurrection as our victory over +death. The water in the reservoir and in the fountain is the same; the +sunbeam in the chamber and in the sky are one. The life which flows into +our spirits from Christ is a life that has conquered death, and makes us +victors in that last conflict, even though we have to go down into the +darkness. If Christ live in us, we can never die. "It is not possible +that _we_ should be holden of _it_." The bands which He broke can never +be fastened on our limbs. The gates of death were so warped and the +locks so spoiled when He burst them asunder, that they can never be +closed again. There are many arguments for a future life beyond the +grave, but there is only one proof of it--the Resurrection of Jesus +Christ. So, trusting in Him, and with our souls bound in the bundle of +life with our Lord the King, we can cherish quiet thankfulness of heart, +and bless the God and Father of our Lord who hath begotten us again into +a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. + +This risen life is a hidden life. Its roots are in Him. He has passed in +His ascension into the light which is inaccessible, and is hidden in its +blaze, bearing with Him our life, concealed there with Him in God. Faith +stands gazing into heaven, as the cloud, the visible manifestation from +of old of the Divine presence, hides Him from sight, and turns away +feeling that the best part of its true self is gone with Him. So here +Paul points his finger upwards to where "Christ is, sitting at the right +hand of God," and says--We are here in outward seeming, but our true +life is there, if we are His. And what majestic, pregnant words these +are! How full, and yet how empty for a prurient curiosity, and how +reverently reticent even while they are triumphantly confident! How +gently they suggest repose--deep and unbroken, and yet full of active +energy! For if the attitude imply rest, the locality--"at the right hand +of God"--expresses not only the most intimate approach to, but also the +wielding of the Divine omnipotence. What is the right hand of God but +the activity of His power? and what less can be ascribed to Christ +here, than His being enthroned in closest union with the Father, +exercising Divine dominion, and putting forth Divine power. No doubt the +ascended and glorified bodily manhood of Jesus Christ has a local +habitation, but the old psalm might teach us that wherever space is, +even there "Thy right hand upholds," and there is our ascended Lord, +sitting as in deepest rest, but working all the work of God. And it is +just because He is at the right hand of God that He is hid. The light +hides. He has been lost to sight in the glory. + +He has gone in thither, bearing with Him the true source and root of our +lives into the secret place of the Most High. Therefore we no longer +belong to this visible order of things in the midst of which we tarry +for a while. The true spring that feeds our lives lies deep beneath all +the surface waters. These may dry up, but it will flow. These may be +muddied with rain, but it will be limpid as ever. The things seen do not +go deep enough to touch our real life. They are but as the winds that +fret, and the currents that sway the surface and shallower levels of the +ocean, while the great depths are still. The circumference is all a +whirl; the centre is at rest. + +Nor need we leave out of sight, though it be not the main thought here, +that the Christian life is hidden, inasmuch as here on earth action ever +falls short of thought, and the love and faith by which a good man lives +can never be fully revealed in his conduct and character. You cannot +carry electricity from the generator to the point where it is to work +without losing two-thirds of it by the way. Neither word nor deed can +adequately set forth a soul; and the profounder and nobler the emotion, +the more inadequate are the narrow gates of tongue and hand to give it +passage. The deepest love can often only "love and be silent." So, while +every man is truly a mystery to his neighbour, a life which is rooted in +Christ is more mysterious to the ordinary eye than any other. It is fed +by hidden manna. It is replenished from a hidden source. It is guided by +other than the world's motives, and follows unseen aims. "Therefore the +world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." + +II. We have the future consummate flower of the Christian life in union +with the manifested, glorious Christ. + +The future personal manifestation of Jesus Christ in visible glory is, +in the teaching of all the New Testament writers, the last stage in the +series of His Divine human conditions. As surely as the Incarnation led +to the cross, and the cross to the empty grave, and the empty grave to +the throne, so surely does the throne lead to the coming again in glory. +And as with Christ, so with His servants, the manifestation in glory is +the certain end of all the preceding, as surely as the flower is of the +tiny green leaves that peep above the frost-bound earth in bleak March +days. Nothing in that future, however glorious and wonderful, but has +its germ and vital beginning in our union with Christ here by humble +faith. The great hopes which we may cherish are gathered up here into +these words--"shall be manifested with Him." That is far more than was +conveyed by the old translation--"shall appear." The roots of our being +shall be disclosed, for He shall come, "and every eye shall see Him." We +shall be seen for what we are. The outward life shall correspond to the +inward. The faith and love which often struggled in vain for expression +and were thwarted by the obstinate flesh, as a sculptor trying to embody +his dream might be by a block of marble with many a flaw and speck, +shall then be able to reveal themselves completely. Whatever is in the +heart shall be fully visible in the life. Stammering words and imperfect +deeds shall vex us no more. "His name shall be in their foreheads"--no +longer only written in fleshly tables of the heart and partially visible +in the character, but stamped legibly and completely on life and nature. +They shall walk in the light, and so shall be seen of all. Here the +truest followers of Christ shine like an intermittent star, seen through +mist and driving cloud: "Then shall the righteous _blaze forth_ like the +sun in the kingdom of My Father." + +But this is not all. The manifestation is to be "with Him." The union +which was here effected by faith, and marred by many an interposing +obstacle of sin and selfishness, of flesh and sense, is to be perfected +then. No film of separation is any more to break its completeness. Here +we often lose our hold of Him amidst the distractions of work, even when +done for His sake; and our life is at best but an imperfect compromise +between contemplation and action; but then, according to that great +saying, "His servants shall serve Him, and see His face," the utmost +activity of consecrated service, though it be far more intense and on a +nobler scale than anything here, will not interfere with the fixed gaze +on His countenance. We shall serve like Martha, and yet never remove +from sitting with Mary, rapt and blessed at His feet. + +This is the one thought of that solemn future worth cherishing. Other +hopes may feed sentiment, and be precious sometimes to aching hearts. A +reverent longing or an irreverent curiosity, may seek to discern +something more in the far-off light. But it is enough for the heart to +know that "we shall ever be with the Lord;" and the more we have that +one hope in its solitary grandeur, the better. We shall be with Him in +"in glory." That is the climax of all that Paul would have us hope. +"Glory" is the splendour and light of the self-revealing God. In the +heart of the blaze stands Christ; the bright cloud enwraps Him, as it +did on the mountain of transfiguration, and into the dazzling radiance +His disciples will pass as His companions did then, nor "fear as they +enter into the cloud." They walk unshrinking in that beneficent fire, +because with them is one like unto a Son of man, through whom they +dwell, as in their own calm home, amidst "the everlasting burning," +which shall not destroy them, but kindle them into the likeness of its +own flashing glory. + +Then shall the life which here was but in bud, often unkindly nipt and +struggling, burst into the consummate beauty of the perfect flower +"which fadeth not away." + +III. We have the practical aim and direction which alone is consistent +with either stage of the Christian life. + +Two injunctions are based upon these considerations--"seek," and "set +your mind upon," the things that are above. The one points to the +outward life of effort and aim; the other to the inward life of thought +and longing. Let the things above then, be the constant mark at which +you aim. There is a vast realm of real existence of which your risen +Lord is the centre and the life. Make it the point to which you strive. +That will not lead to despising earth and nearer objects. These, so far +as they are really good and worthy, stand right in the line of direction +which our efforts will take if we are seeking the things that are above, +and may all be stages on our journey Christwards. The lower objects are +best secured by those who live for the higher. No man is so well able to +do the smallest duties here, or to bear the passing troubles of this +world of illusion and change, or to wring the last drop of sweetness out +of swiftly fleeting joys, as he to whom everything on earth is dwarfed +by the eternity beyond, as some hut beside a palace, and is great +because it is like a little window a foot square through which infinite +depths of sky with all their stars shine in upon him. The true meaning +and greatness of the present is that it is the vestibule of the august +future. The staircase leading to the presence chamber of the king may be +of poor deal, narrow, crooked, and stowed away in a dark turret, but it +has dignity by reason of that to which it gives access. So let our aims +pass through the earthly and find in them helps to the things that are +above. We should not fire all our bullets at the short range. Seek ye +first the kingdom of God--the things which are above. + +"Set your mind on" these things, says the Apostle further. Let them +occupy mind and heart--and this in order that we may seek them. The +direction of the aims will follow the set and current of the thoughts. +"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." How can we be shaping our +efforts to reach a good which we have not clearly before our +imaginations as desirable? How should the life of so many professing +Christians be other than a lame creeping along the low levels of earth, +seeing that so seldom do they look up to "see the King in His beauty and +the land that is very far off"? John Bunyan's "man with the muckrake" +grubbed away so eagerly among the rubbish, because he never lifted his +eyes to the crown that hung above his head. In many a silent, solitary +hour of contemplation, with the world shut out and Christ brought very +near, we must find the counterpoise to the pressure of earthly aims, or +our efforts after the things that are above will be feeble and broken. +Life goes at such a pace to-day, and the present is so exacting with +most of us, that quiet meditation is, I fear me, almost out of fashion +with Christian people. We must become more familiar with the secret +place of the most High, and more often enter into our chambers and shut +our doors about us, if in the bustle of our busy days we are to aim +truly and strongly at the only object which saves life from being a +waste and a sin, a madness and a misery--"the things which are above, +where Christ is." + +"Where Christ is." Yes, that is the only thought which gives +definiteness and solidity to that else vague and nebulous unseen +universe; the only thought which draws our affections thither. Without +Him, there is no footing for us there. Rolling mists of doubt and dim +hopes warring with fears, strangeness and terrors wrap it all. But if He +be there, it becomes a home for our hearts. "I go to prepare a place for +you"--a place where desire and thought may walk unterrified and +undoubting even now, and where we ourselves may abide when our time +comes, nor shrink from the light nor be oppressed by the glory. + + "My knowledge of that life is small, + The eye of faith is dim, + But 'tis enough that Christ knows all, + And I shall be with Him." + +Into that solemn world we shall all pass. We can choose whether we shall +go to it as to our long-sought home, to find in it Him who is our life; +or whether we shall go reluctant and afraid, leaving all for which we +have cared, and going to Him whom we have neglected and that which we +have feared. Christ will be manifested, and we shall see Him. We can +choose whether it will be to us the joy of beholding the soul of our +soul, the friend long-loved when dimly seen from afar; or whether it +shall be the vision of a face that will stiffen us to stone and stab us +with its light. We must make our choice. If we give our hearts to Him, +and by faith unite ourselves with Him, then, "when He shall appear, we +shall have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming." + + + + +XVIII. + +_SLAYING SELF THE FOUNDATION PRECEPT OF PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY._ + + "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; + fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, + the which is idolatry; for which things' sake cometh the wrath of + God upon the sons of disobedience; in the which ye also walked + aforetime, when ye lived in these things. But now put ye also away + all these; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of + your mouth: lie not one to another."--COL. iii. 5-9 (Rev. Ver.). + + +"Mortify _therefore_"--wherefore? The previous words give the reason. +Because "ye died" with Christ, and because ye "were raised together with +Him." In other words, the plainest, homeliest moral teaching of this +Epistle, such as that which immediately follows, is built upon its +"mystical" theology. Paul thinks that the deep things which he has been +saying about union with Christ in His death and resurrection have the +most intimate connection with common life. These profound truths have +the keenest edge, and are as a sacrificial knife, to slay the life of +self. Creed is meant to tell on conduct. Character is the last outcome +and test of doctrine. But too many people deal with their theological +beliefs as they do with their hassocks and prayer books and hymn books +in their pews--use them for formal worship once a week, and leave them +for the dust to settle on them till Sunday comes round again. So it is +very necessary to put the practical inferences very plainly, to +reiterate the most commonplace and threadbare precepts as the issue of +the most recondite teaching, and to bind the burden of duty on men's +backs with the cords of principles and doctrines. + +Accordingly the section of the Epistle which deals with Christian +character now begins, and this "therefore" knits the two halves +together. That word protests against opposite errors. On the one hand, +some good people are to be found impatient of exhortations to duties, +and ready to say, Preach the gospel, and the duties will spring up +spontaneously where it is received; on the other hand, some people are +to be found who see no connection between the practice of common +morality and the belief of Christian truths, and are ready to say, Put +away your theology; it is useless lumber, the machine will work as well +without it. But Paul believed that the firmest basis for moral teaching +and the most powerful motive for moral conduct is "the truth as it is in +Jesus." + +I. We have here put very plainly the paradox of continual self-slaying +as the all-embracing duty of a Christian. + +It is a pity that the R. V. has retained "mortify" here, as that +Latinized word says to an ordinary reader much less than is meant, and +hides the allusion to the preceding contest. The marginal alternative +"make dead" is, to say the least, not idiomatic English. The suggestion +of the American revisers, which is printed at the end of the R. V., "put +to death," is much better, and perhaps a single word, such as "slay" or +"kill" might have been better still. + +"Slay your members which are upon the earth." It is a vehement and +paradoxical injunction, though it be but the echo of still more solemn +and stringent words--"pluck it out, cut it off, and cast it from thee." +The possibility of misunderstanding it and bringing it down to the level +of that spurious asceticism and "severity to the body" against which he +has just been thundering, seems to occur to the Apostle, and therefore +he hastens to explain that he does not mean the maiming of selves, or +hacking away limbs, but the slaying of the passions and desires which +root themselves in our bodily constitution. The eager haste of the +explanation destroys the congruity of the sentence, but he does not mind +that. And then follows a grim catalogue of the evil-doers on whom +sentence of death is passed. + +Before dealing with that list, two points of some importance may be +observed. The first is that the practical exhortations of this letter +begin with this command to put off certain characteristics which are +assumed to belong to the Colossian Christians in their natural state, +and that only afterwards comes the precept to put on (ver. 12) the +fairer robes of Christlike purity, clasped about by the girdle of +perfectness. That is to say, Paul's anthropology regards men as wrong +and having to get right. A great deal of the moral teaching which is +outside of Christianity, and which does not sufficiently recognise that +the first thing to be done is to cure and alter, but talks as if men +were, on the whole, rather inclined to be good, is for that very reason +perfectly useless. Its fine precepts and lofty sentiments go clean over +people's heads, and are ludicrously inappropriate to the facts of the +case. The serpent has twined itself round my limbs, and unless you can +give me a knife, sharp and strong enough to cut its loathsome coils +asunder, it is cruel to bid me walk. All men on the face of the earth +need, for moral progress, to be shown and helped first how _not_ to be +what they have been, and only after that is it of the slightest use to +tell them what they ought to be. The only thing that reaches the +universal need is a power that will make us different from what we are. +If we are to grow into goodness and beauty, we must begin by a complete +reversal of tastes and tendencies. The thing we want first is not +progress, the going on in the direction in which our faces are turned, +but a power which can lay a mastering hand upon our shoulders, turn us +right round, and make us go in the way opposite to that. Culture, the +development of what is in us in germ, is not the beginning of good +husbandry on human nature as it is. The thorns have to be stubbed up +first, and the poisonous seeds sifted out, and new soil laid down, and +then culture will bring forth something better than wild grapes. +First--"mortify;" then--"put on." + +Another point to be carefully noted is that, according to the Apostle's +teaching, the root and beginning of all such slaying of the evil which +is in us all, lies in our being dead with Christ to the world. In the +former chapter we found that the Apostle's final condemnation of the +false asceticism which was beginning to infect the Colossian Church, was +that it was of no value as a counteractive of fleshly indulgence. But +here he proclaims that what asceticism could not do, in that it was +weak through the flesh, union with Jesus Christ in His death and risen +life will do; it will subdue sin in the flesh. That slaying here +enjoined as fundamental to all Christian holiness, is but the working +out in life and character of the revolution in the inmost self which has +been effected, if by faith we are joined to the living Lord, who was +dead and is alive for evermore. + +There must, however, be a very vigorous act of personal determination if +the power of that union is to be manifested in us. The act of "slaying" +can never be pleasant or easy. The vehemence of the command and the form +of the metaphor express the strenuousness of the effort and the +painfulness of the process, in the same way as Paul's other saying, +"crucify the flesh," does. Suppose a man working at some machine. His +fingers get drawn between the rollers or caught in some belting. Another +minute and he will be flattened to a shapeless bloody mass. He catches +up an axe lying by and with his own arm hacks off his own hand at the +wrist. It takes some nerve to do that. It is not easy nor pleasant, but +it is the only alternative to a horrible death. I know of no stimulus +that will string a man up to the analogous spiritual act here enjoined, +and enjoined by conscience also, except participation in the death of +Christ and in the resulting life. + +"Slay your members which are upon the earth" means tears and blood and +more than blood. It is easier far to cut off the hand, which after all +is not me, than to sacrifice passions and desires which, though they be +my worst self, are myself. It is useless to blink the fact that the only +road to holiness is through self-suppression, self-annihilation; and +nothing can make that easy and pleasant. True, the paths of religion are +ways of pleasantness and paths of peace, but they are steep, and +climbing is never easy. The upper air is bracing and exhilarating +indeed, but trying to lungs accustomed to the low levels. Religion is +delightsome, but self-denial is always against the grain of the self +which is denied, and there is no religion without it. Holiness is not to +be won in a moment. It is not a matter of consciousness, possessed when +we know that we possess it. But it has to be attained by effort. The way +to heaven is not by "the primrose path." That leads to "the everlasting +bonfire." For ever it remains true that men _obtain_ forgiveness and +eternal life as a gift for which the only requisite is faith, but they +_achieve_ holiness, which is the permeating of their characters with +that eternal life, by patient, believing, continuous effort. An +essential part of that effort is directed towards the conquest and +casting out of the old self in its earthward-looking lusts and passions. +The love of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of His renewing spirit make +that conquest possible, by supplying an all-constraining motive and an +all-conquering power. But even they do not make it easy, nor deaden the +flesh to the cut of the sacrificial knife. + +II. We have here a grim catalogue of the condemned to death. + +The Apostle stands like a jailer at the prison door, with the fatal roll +in his hand, and reads out the names of the evil doers for whom the +tumbril waits to carry them to the guillotine. It is an ugly list but we +need plain speaking that there may be no mistake as to the identity of +the culprits. He enumerates evils which honeycombed society with +rottenness then, and are rampant now. The series recounts various forms +of evil love, and is so arranged as that it starts with the coarse, +gross act, and goes on to more subtle and inward forms. It goes up the +stream as it were, to the fountain head, passing inward from deed to +desire. First stands "fornication," which covers the whole ground of +immoral sexual relations, then "all uncleanness," which embraces every +manifestation in word or look or deed of the impure spirit, and so is at +once wider and subtler than the gross physical act. Then follow +"passion" and "evil desire"; the sources of the evil deeds. These again +are at once more inward and more general than the preceding. They +include not only the lusts and longings which give rise to the special +sins just denounced, but all forms of hungry appetite and desire after +"the things that are upon the earth." If we are to try to draw a +distinction between the two, probably "passion" is somewhat less wide +than "desire," and the former represents the evil emotion as an +affection which the mind suffers, while the latter represents it as a +longing which it actively puts forth. The "lusts of the flesh" are in +the one aspect kindled by outward temptations which come with terrible +force and carry men captive, acting almost irresistibly on the animal +nature. In the other aspect they are excited by the voluntary action of +the man himself. In the one the evil comes into the heart; in the other +the heart goes out to the evil. + +Then follows covetousness. The juxtaposition of that vice with the +grosser forms of sensuality is profoundly significant. It is closely +allied with these. It has the same root, and is but another form of evil +desire going out to the "things which are on the earth." The ordinary +worldly nature flies for solace either to the pleasures of appetite or +to the passion of acquiring. And not only are they closely connected in +root, but covetousness often follows lust in the history of a life just +as it does in this catalogue. When the former evil spirit loses its +hold, the latter often takes its place. How many respectable middle-aged +gentlemen are now mainly devoted to making money, whose youth was foul +with sensual indulgence? When that palled, this came to titillate the +jaded desires with a new form of gratification. Covetousness is +"promoted _vice_, lust superannuated." + +A reason for this warning against covetousness is appended, "inasmuch as +(for such is the force of the word rendered 'the which') it is +idolatry." If we say of anything, no matter what, "If I have only enough +of this, I shall be satisfied; it is my real aim, my sufficient good," +that thing is a god to me, and my real worship is paid to it, whatever +may be my nominal religion. The lowest form of idolatry is the giving of +supreme trust to a material thing, and making that a god. There is no +lower form of fetish-worship than this, which is the real working +religion to-day of thousands of Englishmen who go masquerading as +Christians. + +III. The exhortation is enforced by a solemn note of warning: "For which +things' sake the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience." +Some authorities omit the words "upon the children of disobedience," +which are supposed to have crept in here from the parallel passage, +Eph. v. 6. But even the advocates of the omission allow that the clause +has "preponderating support," and the sentence is painfully incomplete +and abrupt without it. The R. V. has exercised a wise discretion in +retaining it. + +In the previous chapter the Apostle included "warning" in his statement +of the various branches into which his Apostolic activity was divided. +His duty seemed to him to embrace the plain stern setting forth of that +terrible reality, the wrath of God. Here we have it urged as a reason +for shaking off these evil habits. + +That thought of wrath as an element in the Divine nature has become very +unwelcome to this generation. The great revelation of God in Jesus +Christ has taught the world His love, as it never knew it before, and +knows it now by no other means. So profoundly has that truth that God is +love penetrated the consciousness of the European world, that many +people will not hear of the wrath of God because they think it +inconsistent with His love--and sometimes reject the very gospel to +which they owe their lofty conceptions of the Divine heart, because it +speaks solemn words about His anger and its issues. + +But surely these two thoughts of God's love and God's wrath are not +inconsistent, for His wrath is His love, pained, wounded, thrown back +upon itself, rejected and compelled to assume the form of aversion and +to do its "strange work"--that which is not its natural operation--of +punishment. When we ascribe wrath to God, we must take care of lowering +the conception of it to the level of human wrath, which is shaken with +passion and often tinged with malice, whereas in that affection of the +Divine nature which corresponds to anger in us, there is neither passion +nor wish to harm. Nor does it exclude the co-existence of love, as Paul +witnesses in his Epistle to the Ephesians, in one verse declaring that +"we were the children of wrath," and in the next that God "loved us with +a great love even when we were dead in sins." + +God would not be a holy God if it were all the same to Him whether a man +were good or bad. As a matter of fact, the modern revulsion against the +representation of the wrath of God is usually accompanied with weakened +conceptions of His holiness, and of His moral government of the world. +Instead of exalting, it degrades His love to free it from the admixture +of wrath, which is like alloy with gold, giving firmness to what were +else too soft for use. Such a God is not love, but impotent good nature. +If there be no wrath, there is no love; if there were no love, there +would be no wrath. It is more blessed and hopeful for sinful men to +believe in a God who is angry with the wicked, whom yet He loves, every +day, and who cannot look upon sin, than in one who does not love +righteousness enough to hate iniquity, and from whose too indulgent hand +the rod has dropped, to the spoiling of His children. "With the froward +Thou wilt show Thyself froward." The mists of our sins intercept the +gracious beams and turn the blessed sun into a ball of fire. + +The wrath "_cometh_." That majestic present tense may express either the +continuous present incidence of the wrath as exemplified in the moral +government of the world, in which, notwithstanding anomalies, such sins +as have been enumerated drag after themselves their own punishment and +are "avenged in kind," or it may be the present tense expressive of +prophetic certainty, which is so sure of what shall come, that it speaks +of it as already on its road. It is eminently true of those sins of lust +and passion, that the men who do them reap as they have sown. How many +young men come up into our great cities, innocent and strong, with a +mother's kiss upon their lips, and a father's blessing hovering over +their heads! They fall among bad companions in college or warehouse, and +after a little while they disappear. Broken in health, tainted in body +and soul, they crawl home to break their mothers' hearts--and to die. +"His bones are full of the sins of his youth, which shall lie down with +him in the dust." Whether in such extreme forms or no, that wrath comes +even now, in plain and bitter consequences on men, and still more on +women who sin in such ways. + +And the present retribution may well be taken as the herald and prophet +of a still more solemn manifestation of the Divine displeasure, which is +already as it were on the road, has set out from the throne of God, and +will certainly arrive here one day. These consequences of sin already +realised serve to show the set and drift of things, and to suggest what +will happen when retribution and the harvest of our present life of +sowing come. The first fiery drops that fell on Lot's path as he fled +from Sodom were not more surely precursors of an overwhelming rain, nor +bade him flee for his life more urgently, than the present punishment of +sin proclaims its sorer future punishment, and exhorts us all to come +out of the storm into the refuge, even Jesus, who is ever even now +"delivering us from the wrath which is" ever even now "coming" on the +sons of disobedience. + +IV. A further motive enforcing the main precept of self-slaying is the +remembrance of a sinful past, which remembrance is at once penitent and +grateful. "In the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye lived in +them." + +What is the difference between "walking" and "living" in these things? +The two phrases seem synonymous, and might often be used indifferently; +but here there is evidently a well marked diversity of meaning. The +former is an expression frequent in the Pauline Epistles as well as in +John's; as for instance, "to walk in love" or "in truth." That in which +men walk is conceived of as an atmosphere encompassing them; or, without +a metaphor, to walk in anything is to have the active life or conduct +guided or occupied by it. These Colossian Christians, then, had in the +past trodden that evil path, or their active life had been spent in that +poisonous atmosphere--which is equivalent to saying that they had +committed these sins. At what time? "When you lived in them." That does +not mean merely "when your natural life was passed among them." That +would be a trivial thing to say, and it would imply that their outward +life now was not so passed, which would not be true. In that sense they +still lived in the poisonous atmosphere. In such an age of unnameable +moral corruption no man could live out of the foul stench which filled +his nostrils whenever he walked abroad or opened his window. But the +Apostle has just said that they were now "living in Christ," and their +lives "hid with Him in God." So this phrase describes the condition +which is the opposite of their present, and may be paraphrased, "When +the roots of your life, tastes, affections, thoughts, desires were +immersed, as in some feculent bog, in these and kindred evils." And the +meaning of the whole is substantially--Your active life was occupied and +guided by these sins in that past time when your inward being was knit +to and nourished by them. Or to put it plainly, conduct followed and was +shaped by inclinations and desires. + +This retrospect enforces the main exhortation. It is meant to awaken +penitence, and the thought that time enough has been wasted and incense +enough offered on these foul altars. It is also meant to kindle +thankfulness for the strong, loving hand which has drawn them from that +pit of filth, and by both emotions to stimulate the resolute casting +aside of that evil in which they once, like others, wallowed. Their joy +on the one hand and their contrition on the other should lead them to +discern the inconsistency of professing to be Christians and yet keeping +terms with these old sins. They could not have the roots of half their +lives above and of the other half down here. The gulf between the +present and past of a regenerate man is too wide and deep to be bridged +by flimsy compromises. "A man who is perverse in his two ways," that is, +in double ways, "shall fall in one of them," as the Book of Proverbs has +it. The attempt to combine incompatibles is sure to fail. It is +impossible to walk firmly if one foot be down in the gutter and the +other up on the curb-stone. We have to settle which level we shall +choose, and then to plant both feet there. + +V. We have, as conclusion, a still wider exhortation to an entire +stripping off of the sins of the old state. + +The whole force of the contrast and contrariety between the Colossian +Christians' past and present lies in that emphatic "now." They as well +as other heathen had been walking, because they had been living, in +these muddy ways. But now that their life was hid with Christ in God; +now that they had been made partakers of His death and resurrection, and +of all the new loves and affinities which therein became theirs; now +they must take heed that they bring not that dead and foul past into +this bright and pure present, nor prolong winter and its frosts into the +summer of the soul. + +"Ye also." There is another "ye also" in the previous verse--"ye also +walked," that is, you in company with other Gentiles followed a certain +course of life. Here, by contrast, the expression means "you, in common +with other Christians." A motive enforcing the subsequent exhortation is +in it hinted rather than fully spoken. The Christians at Colossae had +belonged to a community which they have now left in order to join +another. Let them behave as their company behaves. Let them keep step +with their new comrades. Let them strip themselves, as their new +associates do, of the uniform which they wore in that other regiment. + +The metaphor of putting clothing on or off is very frequent in this +Epistle. The precept here is substantially equivalent to the previous +command to "slay," with the difference that the conception of vices as +the garments of the soul is somewhat less vehement than that which +regards them as members of the very self. "All these" are to be put off. +That phrase points back to the things previously spoken of. It includes +the whole of the unnamed members of the class, of which a few have been +already named, and a handful more are about to be plucked like poison +flowers, and suggests that there are many more as baleful growing by the +side of this devil's bouquet which is next presented. + +As to this second catalogue of vices, they may be summarised as, on the +whole, being various forms of wicked hatred, in contrast with the former +list, which consisted of various forms of wicked love. They have less to +do with bodily appetites. But perhaps it is not without profound meaning +that the fierce rush of unhallowed passion over the soul is put first, +and the contrary flow of chill malignity comes second; for in the +spiritual world, as in the physical, a storm blowing from one quarter is +usually followed by violent gales from the opposite. Lust ever passes +into cruelty, and dwells "hard by hate." A licentious epoch or man is +generally a cruel epoch or man. Nero made torches of the Christians. +Malice is evil desire iced. + +This second list goes in the opposite direction to the former. That +began with actions and went up the stream to desire; this begins with +the sources, which are emotions, and comes down stream to their +manifestations in action. + +First we have anger. There is a just and righteous anger, which is part +of the new man, and essential to his completeness, even as it is part of +the image after which he is created. But here of course the anger which +is to be put off is the inverted reflection of the earthly and +passionate lust after the flesh; it is, then, of an earthly, passionate +and selfish kind. "Wrath" differs from "anger" in so far as it may be +called anger boiling over. If anger rises keep the lid on, do not let it +get the length of wrath, nor effervesce into the brief madness of +passion. But on the other hand, do not think that you have done enough +when you have suppressed the wrath which is the expression of your +anger, nor be content with saying, "Well, at all events I did not show +it," but take the cure a step further back, and strip off anger as well +as wrath, the emotion as well as the manifestation. + +Christian people do not sufficiently bring the greatest forces of their +religion and of God's Spirit to bear upon the homely task of curing +small hastinesses of temper, and sometimes seem to think it a sufficient +excuse to say, "I have naturally a hot disposition." But Christianity +was sent to subdue and change natural dispositions. An angry man cannot +have communion with God, any more than the sky can be reflected in the +storm-swept tide; and a man in communion with God cannot be angry with a +passionate and evil anger any more than a dove can croak like a raven or +strike like a hawk. Such anger disturbs our insight into everything; +eyes suffused with it cannot see; and it weakens all good in the soul, +and degrades it before its own conscience. + +"Malice" designates another step in the process. The anger boils over in +wrath, and then cools down into malignity--the disposition which means +mischief, and plans or rejoices in evil falling on the hated head. That +malice, as cold, as clear, as colourless as sulphuric acid, and burning +like it, is worse than the boiling rage already spoken of. There are +many degrees of this cold drawn, double distilled rejoicing in evil, and +the beginnings of it in a certain faint satisfaction in the misfortunes +of those whom we dislike is by no means unusual. + +An advance is now made in the direction of outward manifestation. It is +significant that while the expressions of wicked love were deeds, those +of wicked hate are words. The "blasphemy" of the Authorised Version is +better taken, with the Revised, as "railing." The word means "speech +that injures," and such speech may be directed either against God, which +is blasphemy in the usual sense of the word, or against man. The hate +blossoms into hurtful speech. The heated metal of anger is forged into +poisoned arrows of the tongue. Then follows "shameful speaking out of +your mouth," which is probably to be understood not so much of +obscenities, which would more properly belong to the former catalogue, +as of foul-mouthed abuse of the hated persons, that copiousness of +vituperation and those volcanic explosions of mud, which are so natural +to the angry Eastern. + +Finally, we have a dehortation from lying, especially to those within +the circle of the Church, as if that sin too were the child of hatred +and anger. It comes from a deficiency of love, or a predominance of +selfishness, which is the same thing. A lie ignores my brother's claims +on me, and my union with him. "Ye are members one of another," is the +great obligation to love which is denied and sinned against by hatred in +all its forms and manifestations, and not least by giving my brother the +poisoned bread of lies instead of the heavenly manna of pure truth, so +far as it has been given to me. + +On the whole, this catalogue brings out the importance to be attached to +sins of speech, which are ranked here as in parallel lines with the +grossest forms of animal passion. Men's words ought to be fountains of +consolation and sources of illumination, encouragement, revelations of +love and pity. And what are they? What floods of idle words, foul words, +words that wound like knives and sting and bite like serpents, deluge +the world! If all the talk that has its sources in these evils rebuked +here, were to be suddenly made inaudible, what a dead silence would fall +on many brilliant circles, and how many of us would stand making mouths +but saying nothing. + +All the practical exhortations of this section concern common homely +duties which everybody knows to be such. It may be asked--does +Christianity then only lay down such plain precepts? What need was there +of all that prelude of mysterious doctrines, if we are only to be landed +at last in such elementary and obvious moralities? No doubt they are +elementary and obvious, but the main matter is--how to get them kept. +And in respect to that, Christianity does two things which nothing else +does. It breaks the entail of evil habits by the great gift of pardon +for the past, and by the greater gift of a new spirit and life principle +within, which is foreign to all evil, being the effluence of the spirit +of life in Christ Jesus. + +Therefore the gospel of Jesus Christ makes it possible that men should +slay themselves, and put on the new life, which will expel the old as +the new shoots on some trees push the last year's lingering leaves, +brown and sere, from their places. All moral teachers from the beginning +have agreed, on the whole, in their reading of the commandments which +are printed on conscience in the largest capitals. Everybody who is not +blind can read them. But reading is easy, keeping is hard. How to fulfil +has been wanting. It is given us in the gospel, which is not merely a +republication of old precepts, but the communication of new power. If we +yield ourselves to Christ He will nerve our arms to wield the knife that +will slay our dearest tastes, though beloved as Isaac by Abraham. If a +man knows and feels that Christ has died for him, and that he lives in +and by Christ, then, and not else, will he be able to crucify self. If +he knows and feels that by His pardoning mercy and atoning death, Christ +has taken off his foul raiment and clothed him in clean garments, then, +and not else, will he be able, by daily effort after repression of self +and appropriation of Christ, to put off the old man and to put on the +new, which is daily being renewed into closer resemblance to the image +of Him who created him. + + + + +XIX. + +_THE NEW NATURE WROUGHT OUT IN NEW LIFE._ + + "Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have + put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the + image of Him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, + circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, + freeman; but Christ is all, and in all."--COL. iii. 9-11 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +In previous section we were obliged to break the close connection +between these words and the preceding. They adduce a reason for the +moral exhortation going before, which at first sight may appear very +illogical. "Put off these vices of the old nature because you have put +off the old nature with its vices," sounds like, Do a thing because you +have done it. But the apparent looseness of reasoning covers very +accurate thought which a little consideration brings to light, and +introduces a really cogent argument for the conduct it recommends. Nor +do the principles contained in the verses now under examination look +backward only to enforce the exhortation to put aside these evils. They +also look forward, and are taken as the basis of the following +exhortation, to put on the white robes of Christlikeness--which is +coupled with this section by "therefore." + +I. The first thing to be observed is the change of the spirit's dress, +which is taken for granted as having occurred in the experience of all +Christians. + +We have already found the same idea presented under the forms of death +and resurrection. The "death" is equivalent to the "putting off of the +old," and the "resurrection" to "the putting on of the new man." That +figure of a change of dress to express a change of moral character is +very obvious, and is frequent in Scripture. Many a psalm breathes such +prayers as, "Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness." Zechariah +in vision saw the high-priestly representative of the nation standing +before the Lord "in filthy garments," and heard the command to strip +them off him, and clothe him in festival robes, in token that God had +"caused his iniquity to pass from him." Christ spoke His parable of the +man at the wedding feast without the wedding garment, and of the +prodigal, who was stripped of his rags stained with the filth of the +swine troughs, and clothed with the best robe. Paul in many places +touches the same image, as in his ringing exhortation--clear and rousing +in its notes like the morning bugle--to Christ's soldiers, to put off +their night gear, "the works of darkness," and to brace on the armour of +light, which sparkles in the morning sunrise. Every reformatory and +orphanage yields an illustration of the image, where the first thing +done is to strip off and burn the rags of the new comers, then to give +them a bath and dress them in clean, sweet, new clothes. Most naturally +dress is taken as the emblem of character, which is indeed the garb of +the soul. Most naturally _habit_ means both _costume_ and _custom_. + +But here we have a strange paradox introduced, to the ruining of the +rhetorical propriety of the figure. It is a "new man" that is put on. +The Apostle does not mind hazarding a mixed metaphor, if it adds to the +force of his speech, and he introduces this thought of the new _man_, +though it somewhat jars, in order to impress on his readers that what +they have to put off and on is much more truly part of themselves than +an article of dress is. The "old man" is the unregenerate self; the new +man is, of course, the regenerate self, the new Christian moral nature +personified. There is a deeper self which remains the same throughout +the change, the true man, the centre of personality; which is, as it +were, draped in the moral nature, and can put it off and on. I myself +change myself. The figure is vehement, and, if you will, paradoxical, +but it expresses accurately and forcibly at once the depth of the change +which passes on him who becomes a Christian, and the identity of the +person through all change. If I am a Christian, there has passed on me a +change so thorough that it is in one aspect a death, and in another a +resurrection; in one aspect it is a putting off not merely of some garb +of action, but of the old _man_, and in another a putting on not merely +of some surface renovation, but of a new _man_--which is yet the same +old self. + +This entire change is taken for granted by Paul as having been realised +in every Christian. It is here treated as having taken place at a +certain point of time, namely when these Colossians began to put their +trust in Jesus Christ, and in profession of that trust, and as a symbol +of that change, were baptized. + +Of course the contrast between the character before and after faith in +Christ is strongest when, like the Christians at Colossae, converts have +been brought out of heathenism. With us, where some knowledge of +Christianity is widely diffused, and its indirect influence has shaped +the characters even of those who reject it, there is less room for a +marked revolution in character and conduct. There will be many true +saints who can point to no sudden change as their conversion; but have +grown up, sometimes from childhood, under Christian influences, or who, +if they have distinctly been conscious of a change, have passed through +it as gradually as night passes into day. Be it so. In many respects +that will be the highest form of experience. Yet even such souls will be +aware of a "new man" formed in them which is at variance with their own +old selves, and will not escape the necessity of the conflict with their +lower nature, the immolation and casting off of the unregenerate self. +But there are also many people who have grown up without God or Christ, +who must become Christians by the way of sudden conversion, if they are +ever to become Christians at all. + +Why should such sudden change be regarded as impossible? Is it not a +matter of every-day experience that some long ignored principle may +suddenly come, like a meteor into the atmosphere, into a man's mind and +will, may catch fire as it travels, and may explode and blow to pieces +the solid habits of a lifetime? And why should not the truth concerning +God's great love in Christ, which in too sad certainty is ignored by +many, flame in upon blind eyes, and change the look of everything? The +New Testament doctrine of conversion asserts that it may and does. It +does not insist that everybody must become a Christian in the same +fashion. Sometimes there will be a dividing line between the two states, +as sharp as the boundary of adjoining kingdoms; sometimes the one will +melt imperceptibly into the other. Sometimes the revolution will be as +swift as that of the wheel of a locomotive, sometimes slow and silent as +the movement of a planet in the sky. The main thing is that whether +suddenly or slowly the face shall be turned to God. + +But however brought about, this putting off of the old sinful self, is a +certain mark of a Christian man. It can be assumed as true universally, +and appealed to as the basis of exhortations such as those of the +context. Believing certain truths does not make a Christian. If there +have been any reality in the act by which we have laid hold of Christ as +our Saviour, our whole being will be revolutionized; old things will +have passed away--tastes, desires, ways of looking at the world, +memories, habits, pricks of conscience and all cords that bound us to +our God-forgetting past--and all things will have become new, because we +ourselves move in the midst of the old things as new creatures with new +love burning in our hearts and new motives changing all our lives, and a +new aim shining before us, and a new hope illuminating the blackness +beyond, and a new song on our lips, and a new power in our hands, and a +new Friend by our sides. + +This is a wholesome and most needful test for all who call themselves +Christians, and who are often tempted to put too much stress on +believing and feeling, and to forget the supreme importance of the moral +change which true Christianity effects. Nor is it less needful to +remember that this resolute casting off of the garment spotted by the +flesh, and putting on of the new man, is a consequence of faith in +Christ and is only possible as a consequence. Nothing else will strip +the foul robes from a man. The moral change comes second, the union with +Jesus Christ by faith must come first. To try to begin with the second +stage, is like trying to begin to build a house at the second story. + +But there is a practical conclusion drawn from this taken-for-granted +change. Our text is introduced by "seeing that;" and though some doubts +may be raised as to that translation and the logical connection of the +paragraph, it appears on the whole most congruous with both the +preceding and the following context, to retain it and to see here the +reason for the exhortation which goes before--"Put off all these," and +for that which follows--"Put on, therefore," the beautiful garment of +love and compassion. + +That great change, though taking place in the inmost nature whensoever a +heart turns to Christ, needs to be wrought into character, and to be +wrought out in conduct. The leaven is in the dough, but to knead it +thoroughly into the mass is a lifelong task, which is only accomplished +by our own continually repeated efforts. The old garment clings to the +limbs like the wet clothes of a half-drowned man, and it takes the work +of a lifetime to get quite rid of it. The "old man" dies hard, and we +have to repeat the sacrifice hour by hour. The new man has to be put on +afresh day by day. + +So the apparently illogical exhortation, Put off what you have put off, +and put on what you have put on, is fully vindicated. It means, Be +consistent with your deepest selves. Carry out in detail what you have +already done in bulk. Cast out the enemy, already ejected from the +central fortress, from the isolated positions which he still occupies. +You _may_ put off the old man, for he is put off already; and the +confidence that he is will give you strength for the struggle that still +remains. You _must_ put off the old man, for there is still danger of +his again wrapping his poisonous rags about your limbs. + +II. We have here, the continuous growth of the new man, its aim and +pattern. + +The thought of the garment passes for the moment out of sight, and the +Apostle enlarges on the greatness and glory of this "new man," partly as +a stimulus to obeying the exhortation, partly, with allusion to some of +the errors which he had been combating, and partly because his fervid +spirit kindles at the mention of the mighty transformation. + +The new man, says he, is "being renewed." This is one of the instances +where minute accuracy in translation is not pedantic, but clear gain. +When we say, with the Authorised Version, "is renewed," we speak of a +completed act; when we say with the Revised Version, "is being renewed," +we speak of a continuous process; and there can be no question that the +latter is the true idea intended here. The growth of the new man is +constant, perhaps slow and difficult to discern, if the intervals of +comparison be short. But like all habits and powers it steadily +increases. On the other hand, a similar process works to opposite +results in the "old man," which, as Paul says in the instructive +parallel passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 22), "waxeth +corrupt, after the lusts of deceit." Both grow according to their inmost +nature, the one steadily upwards; the other with accelerating speed +downwards, till they are parted by the whole distance between the +highest heaven and the lowest abyss. So mystic and awful is that solemn +law of the persistent increase of the true ruling tendency of a man's +nature, and its certain subjugation of the whole man to itself! + +It is to be observed that this renewing is represented in this clause, +as done _on_ the new man, not by him. We have heard the exhortation to a +continuous appropriation and increase of the new life by our own +efforts. But there is a Divine side too, and the renewing is not merely +effected by us, nor due only to the vital power of the new man, though +growth is the sign of life there as everywhere, but is "the renewing by +the Holy Ghost," whose touch quickens and whose indwelling renovates the +inward man day by day. So there is hope for us in our striving, for He +helps us; and the thought of that Divine renewal is not a pillow for +indolence, but a spur to intenser energy, as Paul well knew when he wove +the apparent paradox, "work out your own salvation, for it is God that +worketh in you." + +The new man is being renewed "_unto_ knowledge." An advanced knowledge +of God and Divine realities is the result of the progressive renewal. +Possibly there may be a passing reference to the pretensions of the +false teachers, who had so much to say about a higher wisdom open to the +initiated, and to be won by ceremonial and asceticism. Their claims, +hints Paul, are baseless; their pretended secrets a delusion; their +method of attaining them a snare. There is but one way to press into the +depths of the knowledge of God--namely growth into His likeness. We +understand one another best by sympathy. We know God only on condition +of resemblance. "If the eye were not sunlike how could it see the sun?" +says Goethe. "If thou beest this, thou seest this," said Plotinus. Ever, +as we grow in resemblance, shall we grow in knowledge, and ever as we +grow in knowledge, shall we grow in resemblance. So in perpetual action +and reaction of being and knowing, shall we draw nearer and nearer the +unapproachable light, and receiving it full on our faces, shall be +changed into the same image, as the moonbeams that touch the dark ocean +transfigure its waves into silver radiance like their own. For all +simple souls, bewildered by the strife of tongues and unapt for +speculation, this is a message of gladness, that the way to know God is +to be like Him, and the way to be like Him is to be renewed in the +inward man, and the way to be renewed in the inward man is to put on +Christ. They may wrangle and philosophize who will, but the path to God +leads far away from all that. It may be trodden by a child's foot, and +the wayfaring man though a fool shall not err therein, for all that is +needed is a heart that desires to know Him, and is made like Him by +love. Half the secret lies in the great word which tells us that "we +shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," and knowledge will +work likeness. The other half lies in the great word which tells us that +"blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," and likeness +will work a more perfect knowledge. + +This new man is being renewed _after the image of Him that created him_. +As in the first creation man was made in the image of God, so in the new +creation. From the first moment in which the supernatural life is +derived from Christ into the regenerated spirit, that new life is like +its source. It is kindred, therefore it is like, as all derived life is. +The child's life is like the father's. But the image of God which the +new man bears is more than that which was stamped on man in his +creation. That consisted mainly, if not wholly, in the reasonable soul, +and the self-conscious personality, the broad distinctions which +separate man from other animals. The image of God is often said to have +been lost by sin, but Scripture seems rather to consider it as +inseparable from humanity, even when stained by transgression. Men are +still images of God, though darkened and "carved in ebony." The coin +bears His image and superscription, though rusty and defaced. But the +image of God, which the new man bears from the beginning in a +rudimentary form, and which is continually imprinting itself more deeply +upon him, has for its principal feature holiness. Though the majestic +infinitudes of God can have no likeness in man, however exalted, and our +feebleness cannot copy His strength, nor our poor blind knowledge, with +its vast circumference of ignorance, be like His ungrowing and unerring +knowledge, we may be "holy _as_ He is holy"; we may be "imitators of God +as beloved children, and walk in love as He hath loved us"; we may +"_walk_ in the light as He _is_ in the light," with only the difference +between His calm, eternal being, and our changeful and progressive +motion therein; we may even "be perfect as our Father is perfect." This +is the end of all our putting off the old and putting on the new. This +is the ultimate purpose of God, in all His self-revelation. For this +Christ has come and died and lives. For this the Spirit of God dwells in +us. This is the immortal hope with which we may re-create and encourage +our souls in our often weary struggles. Even our poor sinful natures may +be transformed into that wondrous likeness. Coal and diamond are but +varying forms of carbon, and the blackest lump dug from the deepest +mine, may be transmuted by the alchemy of that wondrous transforming +union with Christ, into a brightness that shall flash back all the glory +of the sunlight, and gleam for ever, set in one of His many crowns. + +III. We have here finally the grand unity of this new creation. + +We may reverse the order of the words as they stand here, and consider +the last clause first, inasmuch as it is the reason for the doing away +of all distinctions of race, or ceremony, or culture, or social +condition. + +"Christ is all." Wherever that new nature is found, it lives by the life +of Christ. He dwells in all who possess it. The Spirit of life in Christ +is in them. His blood passes into their veins. The holy desires, the new +tastes, the kindling love, the clearer vision, the gentleness and the +strength, and whatsoever things beside are lovely and of good report, +are all His--nay, we may say, are all Himself. + +And, of course, all who are His are partakers of that common gift, and +He is _in_ all. There is no privileged class in Christ's Church, as +these false teachers in Colossae had taught. Against every attempt to +limit the universality of the gospel, whether it came from Jewish +Pharisees or Eastern philosophers, Paul protested with his whole soul. +He has done so already in this Epistle, and does so here in his emphatic +assertion that Christ was not the possession of an aristocracy of +"intelligence," but belonged to every soul that trusted Him. + +Necessarily, therefore, surface distinctions disappear. There is triumph +in the roll of his rapid enumeration of these clefts that have so long +kept brothers apart, and are now being filled up. He looks round on a +world, the antagonisms of which we can but faintly imagine, and his eye +kindles and his voice rises into vibrating emotion, as he thinks of the +mighty magnetism that is drawing enemies towards the one centre in +Christ. His catalogue here may profitably be compared with his other in +the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 28). There he enumerates the three +great distinctions which parted the old world: race (Jew and Greek), +social condition (bond and free), and sex (male and female.) These, he +says, as separating powers, are done away in Christ. Here the list is +modified, probably with reference to the errors in the Colossian Church. + +"There cannot be Greek and Jew." The cleft of national distinctions, +which certainly never yawned more widely than between the Jew and every +other people, ceases to separate, and the teachers who had been trying +to perpetuate that distinction in the Church were blind to the very +meaning of the gospel. "Circumcision and uncircumcision" separated. +Nothing makes deeper and bitterer antagonisms than differences in +religious forms, and people who have not been born into them are +usually the most passionate in adherence to them, so that cleft did not +entirely coincide with the former. "Barbarian, Scythian," is not an +antithesis, but a climax--the Scythians were looked upon as the most +savage of barbarians. The Greek contempt for the outside races, which is +reflected in this clause, was largely the contempt for a supposed lower +stage of culture. As we have seen, Colossae especially needed the lesson +that differences in culture disappeared in the unity of Christ, for the +heretical teachers attached great importance to the wisdom which they +professed to impart. A cultivated class is always tempted to +superciliousness, and a half cultivated class is even more so. There is +abundance of that arrogance born of education among us to-day, and +sorely needing and quite disbelieving the teaching that there are things +which can make up for the want of what it possesses. It is in the +interest of the humble virtues of the uneducated godly as well as of the +nations called uncivilized, that Christianity wars against that most +heartless and ruinous of all prides, the pride of culture, by its +proclamation that in Christ, barbarian, Scythian and the most polished +thinker or scholar are one. + +"Bondman, freeman" is again an antithesis. That gulf between master and +slave was indeed wide and deep; too wide for compassion to cross, though +not for hatred to stride over. The untold miseries of slavery in the old +world are but dimly known; but it and war and the degradation of women +made an infernal trio which crushed more than half the race into a hell +of horrors. Perhaps Paul may have been the more ready to add this clause +to his catalogue because his thoughts had been occupied with the +relation of master and slave on the occasion of the letter to Philemon +which was sent along with this to Colossae. + +Christianity waged no direct war against these social evils of +antiquity, but it killed them much more effectually by breathing into +the conscience of the world truths which made their continuance +impossible. It girdled the tree, and left it to die--a much better and +more thorough plan than dragging it out of the ground by main force. +Revolution cures nothing. The only way to get rid of evils engrained in +the constitution of society is to elevate and change the tone of thought +and feeling, and then they die of atrophy. Change the climate, and you +change the vegetation. Until you do, neither mowing nor uprooting will +get rid of the foul growths. + +So the gospel does with all these lines of demarcation between men. What +becomes of them? What becomes of the ridges of sand that separate pool +from pool at low water? The tide comes up over them and makes them all +one, gathered into the oneness of the great sea. They may remain, but +they are seen no more, and the roll of the wave is not interrupted by +them. The powers and blessings of the Christ pass freely from heart to +heart, hindered by no barriers. Christ founds a deeper unity independent +of all these superficial distinctions, for the very conception of +humanity is the product of Christianity, and the true foundation for the +brotherhood of mankind is the revelation in Christ of the fatherhood of +God. Christ is the brother of us all; His death is for every man; the +blessing of His gospel is offered to each; He will dwell in the heart +of any. Therefore all distinctions, national, ceremonial, intellectual +or social, fade into nothingness. Love is of no nation, and Christ is +the property of no aristocracy in the Church. That great truth was a +miraculous new thing in that old world, all torn apart by deep clefts +like the grim canyons of American rivers. Strange it must have seemed to +find slaves and their masters, Jew and Greek, sitting at one table and +bound in fraternal ties. The world has not yet fully grasped that truth, +and the Church has woefully failed in showing it to be a reality. But it +arches above all our wars, and schisms, and wretched class distinctions, +like a rainbow of promise, beneath whose open portal the world shall one +day pass into that bright land where the wandering peoples shall gather +together in peace round the feet of Jesus, and there shall be one fold +because there is one Shepherd. + + + + +XX. + +_THE GARMENTS OF THE RENEWED SOUL._ + + "Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of + compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing + one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint + against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: and above + all these things put on love, which is the bond of + perfectness."--COL. iii.12-14 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We need not repeat what has been already said as to the logic of the +inference, You have put off the "old man," therefore put off the vices +which belong to him. Here we have the same argument in reference to the +"new man" who is to be "put on" because he has been put on. This +"therefore" rests the exhortation both on that thought, and on the +nearer words, "Christ is all and in all." Because the new nature has +been assumed in the very act of conversion, therefore array your souls +in vesture corresponding. Because Christ is all and in all, therefore +clothe yourselves with all brotherly graces, corresponding to the great +unity into which all Christians are brought by their common possession +of Christ. The whole field of Christian morality is not traversed here, +but only so much of it as concerns the social duties which result from +that unity. + +But besides the foundation for the exhortations which is laid in the +possession of the "New Man," consequent on participation in Christ, +another ground for them is added in the words, "as God's elect, holy and +beloved." Those who are in Christ and are thus regenerated in Him, are +of the chosen race, are consecrated as belonging especially to God, and +receive the warm beams of the special paternal love with which He +regards the men who are in some measure conformed to His likeness and +moulded after His will. That relation to God should draw after it a life +congruous with itself--a life of active goodness and brotherly +gentleness. The outcome of it should be not mere glad emotion, nor a +hugging of one's self in one's happiness, but practical efforts to turn +to men a face lit by the same dispositions with which God has looked on +us, or as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it, "Be imitators of +God, as beloved children." That is a wide and fruitful principle--the +relation to men will follow the relation to God. As we think God has +been to us, so let us try to be to others. The poorest little fishing +cobble is best guided by celestial observations, and dead reckoning +without sun or stars is but second best. Independent morality cut loose +from religion will be feeble morality. On the other hand, religion which +does not issue in morality is a ghost without substance. Religion is the +soul of morality. Morality is the body of religion, more than ceremonial +worship is. The virtues which all men know, are the fitting garments of +the elect of God. + +I. We have here then an enumeration of the fair garments of the new man. + +Let us go over the items of this list of the wardrobe of the consecrated +soul. + +"A heart of compassion." So the Revised Version renders the words given +literally in the Authorised as "bowels of mercies," an expression which +that very strange thing called conventional propriety regards as coarse, +simply because Jews chose one part of the body and we another as the +supposed seat of the emotions. Either phrase expresses substantially the +Apostle's meaning. + +Is it not beautiful that the series should begin with _pity_? It is the +most often needed, for the sea of sorrow stretches so widely that +nothing less than a universal compassion can arch it over as with the +blue of heaven. Every man would seem in some respect deserving of and +needing sympathy, if his whole heart and history could be laid bare. +Such compassion is difficult to achieve, for its healing streams are +dammed back by many obstructions of inattention and occupation, and +dried up by the fierce heat of selfishness. Custom, with its deadening +influence, comes in to make us feel least the sorrows which are most +common in the society around us. As a man might live so long in an +asylum that lunacy would seem to him almost the normal condition, so the +most widely diffused griefs are those least observed and least +compassionated; and good, tender-hearted men and women walk the streets +of our great cities and see sights--children growing up for the gallows +and the devil, gin-shops at every corner--which might make angels weep, +and suppose them to be as inseparable from our "civilization" as the +noise of wheels from a carriage or bilge water from a ship. Therefore we +have to make conscious efforts to "put on" that sympathetic disposition, +and to fight against the faults which hinder its free play. Without it, +no help will be of much use to the receiver, nor of any to the giver. +Benefits bestowed on the needy and sorrowful, if bestowed without +sympathy, will hurt like a blow. Much is said about ingratitude, but +very often it is but the instinctive recoil of the heart from the unkind +doer of a kindness. Aid flung to a man as a bone is to a dog usually +gets as much gratitude as the sympathy which it expresses deserves. But +if we really make another's sorrows ours, that teaches us tact and +gentleness, and makes our clumsy hands light and deft to bind up sore +hearts. + +Above all things, the practical discipline which cultivates pity will +beware of letting it be excited and then not allowing the emotion to +act. To stimulate feeling and do nothing in consequence is a short road +to destroy the feeling. Pity is meant to be the impulse toward help, and +if it is checked and suffered to pass away idly, it is weakened, as +certainly as a plant is weakened by being kept close nipped and hindered +from bringing its buds to flower and fruit. + +"Kindness" comes next--a wider benignity, not only exercised where there +is manifest room for pity, but turning a face of goodwill to all. Some +souls are so dowered that they have this grace without effort, and come +like the sunshine with welcome and cheer for all the world. But even +less happily endowed natures can cultivate the disposition, and the best +way to cultivate it is to be much in communion with God. When Moses came +down from the mount, his face shone. When we come out from the secret +place of the Most High we shall bear some reflection of His great +kindness whose "tender mercies are over all His works." This "kindness" +is the opposite of that worldly wisdom, on which many men pride +themselves as the ripe fruit of their knowledge of men and things, and +which keeps up vigilant suspicion of everybody, as in the savage state, +where "stranger" and "enemy" had only one word between them. It does not +require us to be blind to facts or to live in fancies, but it does +require us to cherish a habit of goodwill, ready to become pity if +sorrow appears, and slow to turn away even if hostility appears. Meet +your brother with kindness, and you will generally find it returned. The +prudent hypocrites who get on in the world, as ships are launched, by +"greasing the ways" with flattery, and smiles, teach us the value of the +true thing, since even a coarse caricature of it wins hearts and disarms +foes. This "kindness" is the most powerful solvent of illwill and +indifference. + +Then follows "humility." That seems to break the current of thought by +bringing a virtue entirely occupied with self into the middle of a +series referring exclusively to others. But it does not really do so. +From this point onwards all the graces named have reference to our +demeanour under slights and injuries--and humility comes into view here +only as constituting the foundation for the right bearing of these. +Meekness and longsuffering must stand on a basis of humility. The proud +man, who thinks highly of himself and of his own claims, will be the +touchy man, if any one derogates from these. + +"Humility," or lowly-mindedness, a lowly estimate of ourselves, is not +necessarily blindness to our strong points. If a man can do certain +things better than his neighbours, he can hardly help knowing it, and +Christian humility does not require him to be ignorant of it. I suppose +Milton would be none the less humble, though he was quite sure that his +work was better than that of Sternhold and Hopkins. The consciousness of +power usually accompanies power. But though it may be quite right to +"know myself" in the strong points, as well as in the weak, there are +two considerations which should act as dampers to any unchristian fire +of pride which the devil's breath may blow up from that fuel. The one +is, "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" the other is, "Who is +pure before God's judgment-seat?" Your strong points are nothing so very +wonderful, after all. If you have better brains than some of your +neighbours, well, that is not a thing to give yourself such airs about. +Besides, where did you get the faculties you plume yourself on? However +cultivated by yourself, how came they yours at first? And, furthermore, +whatever superiorities may lift you above any men, and however high you +may be elevated, it is a long way from the top of the highest molehill +to the sun, and not much longer to the top of the lowest. And, besides +all that, you may be very clever and brilliant, may have made books or +pictures, may have stamped your name on some invention, may have won a +place in public life, or made a fortune--and yet you and the beggar who +cannot write his name are both guilty before God. Pride seems out of +place in creatures like us, who have all to bow our heads in the +presence of His perfect judgment, and cry, "God be merciful to me a +sinner!" + +Then follow "meekness, long-suffering." The distinction between these +two is slight. According to the most thorough investigators, the former +is the temper which accepts God's dealings, or evil inflicted by men as +His instruments, without resistance, while the latter is the long +holding out of the mind before it gives way to a temptation to action, +or passion, especially the latter. The opposite of meekness is rudeness +or harshness; the opposite of long-suffering, swift resentment or +revenge. Perhaps there may be something in the distinction, that while +long-suffering does not get angry soon, meekness does not get angry at +all. Possibly, too, meekness implies a lowlier position than +long-suffering does. The meek man puts himself below the offender; the +long-suffering man does not. God is long-suffering, but the incarnate +God alone can be "meek and lowly." + +The general meaning is plain enough. The "hate of hate," the "scorn of +scorn," is not the Christian ideal. I am not to allow my enemy always to +settle the terms on which we are to be. Why should I scowl back at him, +though he frowns at me? It is hard work, as we all know, to repress the +retort that would wound and be so neat. It is hard not to repay slights +and offences in kind. But, if the basis of our dispositions to others be +laid in a wise and lowly estimate of ourselves, such graces of conduct +will be possible, and they will give beauty to our characters. + +"Forbearing and forgiving" are not new virtues. They are meekness and +long-suffering in exercise, and if we were right in saying that +"long-suffering" was not _soon_ angry, and "meekness" was not angry at +all, then "forbearance" would correspond to the former and "forgiveness" +to the latter; for a man may exercise forbearance, and bite his lips +till the blood come rather than speak, and violently constrain himself +to keep calm and do nothing unkind, and yet all the while seven devils +may be in his spirit; while forgiveness, on the other hand, is an entire +wiping of all enmity and irritation clean out of the heart. + +Such is the Apostle's outline sketch of the Christian character in its +social aspect, all rooted in pity, and full of soft compassion; quick to +apprehend, to feel, and to succour sorrow; a kindliness, equable and +widespread, illuminating all who come within its reach; a patient +acceptance of wrongs without resentment or revenge, because a lowly +judgment of self and its claims, a spirit schooled to calmness under all +provocations, disdaining to requite wrong by wrong, and quick to +forgive. + +The question may well be asked--is that a type of character which the +world generally admires? Is it not uncommonly like what most people +would call "a poor spiritless creature." It was "a new man," most +emphatically, when Paul drew that sketch, for the heathen world had +never seen anything like it. It is a "new man" still; for although the +modern world has had some kind of Christianity--at least has had a +Church--for all these centuries, that is not the kind of character which +is its ideal. Look at the heroes of history and of literature. Look at +the tone of so much contemporary biography and criticism of public +actions. Think of the ridicule which is poured on the attempt to +regulate politics by Christian principles, or, as a distinguished +soldier called them in public recently, "puling principles." It may be +true that Christianity has not added any new virtues to those which are +prescribed by natural conscience, but it has most certainly altered the +perspective of the whole, and created a type of excellence, in which the +gentler virtues predominate, and the novelty of which is proved by the +reluctance of the so-called Christian world to recognise it even yet. + +By the side of its serene and lofty beauty, the "heroic virtues" +embodied in the world's type of excellence show vulgar and glaring, like +some daub representing a soldier, the sign-post of a public-house, by +the side of Angelico's white-robed visions on the still convent walls. +The highest exercise of these more gaudy and conspicuous qualities is to +produce the pity and meekness of the Christian ideal. More self-command, +more heroic firmness, more contempt for the popular estimate, more of +everything strong and manly, will find a nobler field in subduing +passion and cherishing forgiveness, which the world thinks folly and +spiritless, than anywhere else. Better is he that ruleth his spirit than +he that taketh a city. + +_The great pattern and motive of forgiveness_ is next set forth. We are +to forgive as Christ has forgiven us; and that "as" may be applied +either as meaning "in like manner," or as meaning "because." The Revised +Version, with many others, adopts the various reading of "the Lord," +instead of "Christ," which has the advantage of recalling the parable +that was no doubt in Paul's mind, about the servant who, having been +forgiven by his "_Lord_" all his great debt, took his fellow-servant by +the throat and squeezed the last farthing out of him. + +The great transcendent act of God's mercy brought to us by Christ's +cross is sometimes, as in the parallel passage in Ephesians, spoken of +as "God for Christ's sake forgiving us," and sometimes as here, Christ +is represented as forgiving. We need not pause to do more than point to +that interchange of Divine office and attributes, and ask what notion of +Christ's person underlies it. + +We have already had the death of Christ set forth as in a very profound +sense our pattern. Here we have one special case of the general law that +the life and death of our Lord are the embodied ideal of human character +and conduct. His forgiveness is not merely revealed to us that trembling +hearts may be calm, and that a fearful looking for of judgment may no +more trouble a foreboding conscience. For whilst we must ever begin with +cleaving to it as our hope, we must never stop there. A heart touched +and softened by pardon will be a heart apt to pardon, and the miracle of +forgiveness which has been wrought for it will constitute the law of its +life as well as the ground of its joyful security. + +This new pattern and new motive, both in one, make the true novelty and +specific difference of Christian morality. "As I have loved you," makes +the commandment "love one another" a new commandment. And all that is +difficult in obedience becomes easier by the power of that motive. +Imitation of one whom we love is instinctive. Obedience to one whom we +love is delightful. The far off ideal becomes near and real in the +person of our best friend. Bound to him by obligations so immense, and a +forgiveness so costly and complete, we shall joyfully yield to "the +cords of love" which draw us after Him. We have each to choose what +shall be the pattern for us. The world takes Caesar, the hero; the +Christian takes Christ, in whose meekness is power, and whose gentle +long-suffering has been victor in a sterner conflict than any battle of +the warrior with garments rolled in blood. + +Paul says, "Even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye." The Lord's +prayer teaches us to ask, Forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive. +In the one case Christ's forgiveness is the example and the motive for +ours. In the other, our forgiveness is the condition of God's. Both are +true. We shall find the strongest impulse to pardon others in the +consciousness that we have been pardoned by Him. And if we have +grudgings against our offending brother in our hearts, we shall not be +conscious of the tender forgiveness of our Father in heaven. That is no +arbitrary limitation, but inherent in the very nature of the case. + +II. We have here the girdle which keeps all the garments in their +places. + +"Above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness." + +"Above all these" does not mean "besides," or "more important than," but +is clearly used in its simplest local sense, as equivalent to "over," +and thus carries on the metaphor of the dress. Over the other garments +is to be put the silken sash or girdle of love, which will brace and +confine all the rest into a unity. It is "the girdle of perfectness," by +which is not meant, as is often supposed, the perfect principle of union +among men. Perfectness is not the quality of the girdle, but the thing +which it girds, and is a collective expression for "the various graces +and virtues, which together make up perfection." So the metaphor +expresses the thought that love knits into a harmonious whole, the +graces which without it would be fragmentary and incomplete. + +We can conceive of all the dispositions already named as existing in +some fashion without love. There might be pity which was not love, +though we know it is akin to it. The feeling with which one looks upon +some poor outcast, or on some stranger in sorrow, or even on an enemy in +misery, may be very genuine compassion, and yet clearly separate from +love. So with all the others. There may be kindness most real without +any of the diviner emotion, and there may even be forbearance reaching +up to forgiveness, and yet leaving the heart untouched in its deepest +recesses. But if these virtues were thus exercised, in the absence of +love they would be fragmentary, shallow, and would have no guarantee for +their own continuance. Let love come into the heart and knit a man to +the poor creature whom he had only pitied before, or to the enemy whom +he had at the most been able with an effort to forgive; and it lifts +these other emotions into a nobler life. He who pities may not love, but +he who loves cannot but pity; and that compassion will flow with a +deeper current and be of a purer quality than the shrunken stream which +does not rise from that higher source. + +Nor is it only the virtues enumerated here for which love performs this +office; but all the else isolated graces of character, it binds or welds +into a harmonious whole. As the broad Eastern girdle holds the flowing +robes in position, and gives needed firmness to the figure as well as +composed order to the attire; so this broad band, woven of softest +fabric, keeps all emotions in their due place and makes the attire of +the Christian soul beautiful in harmonious completeness. + +Perhaps it is a yet deeper truth that love produces all these graces. +Whatsoever things men call virtues, are best cultivated by cultivating +it. So with a somewhat similar meaning to that of our text, but if +anything, going deeper down, Paul in another place calls love the +fulfilling of the law, even as his Master had taught him that all the +complex of duties incumbent upon us were summed up in love to God, and +love to men. Whatever I owe to my brother will be discharged if I love +God, and live my love. Nothing of it, not even the smallest mite of the +debt will be discharged, however vast my sacrifices and services, if I +do not. + +So end the frequent references in this letter to putting off the old and +putting on the new. The sum of them all is, that we must first put on +Christ by faith, and then by daily effort clothe our spirits in the +graces of character which He gives us, and by which we shall be like +Him. + +We have said that this dress of the Christian soul which we have been +now considering does not include the whole of Christian duty. We may +recall the other application of the same figure which occurs in the +parallel Epistle to the Ephesians, where Paul sketches for us in a few +rapid touches the armed Christian soldier. The two pictures may +profitably be set side by side. Here he dresses the Christian soul in +the robes of peace, bidding him put on pity and meekness, and above all, +the silken girdle of love. + + "In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man + As modest stillness and humility; + But when the blast of war blows in our ears," + +then "put on the whole armour of God," the leathern girdle of truth, the +shining breastplate of righteousness, and above all, the shield of +faith--and so stand a flashing pillar of steel. Are the two pictures +inconsistent? must we doff the robes of peace to don the armour, or put +off the armour to resume the robes of peace? Not so; both must be worn +together, for neither is found in its completeness without the other. +Beneath the armour must be the fine linen, clean and white--and at one +and the same time, our souls may be clad in all pity, mercifulness and +love, and in all the sparkling panoply of courage and strength for +battle. + +But both the armour and the dress of peace presuppose that we have +listened to Christ's pleading counsel to buy of Him "white raiment that +we may be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness do not appear." +The garment for the soul, which is to hide its deformities and to +replace our own filthy rags, is woven in no earthly looms, and no +efforts of ours will bring us into possession of it. We must be content +to owe it wholly to Christ's gift, or else we shall have to go without +it altogether. The first step in the Christian life is by simple faith +to receive from Him the forgiveness of all our sins, and that new nature +which He alone can impart, and which we can neither create nor win, but +must simply accept. Then, after that, come the field and the time for +efforts put forth in His strength, to array our souls in His likeness, +and day by day to put on the beautiful garments which He bestows. It is +a lifelong work thus to strip ourselves of the rags of our old vices, +and to gird on the robe of righteousness. Lofty encouragements, tender +motives, solemn warnings, all point to this as our continual task. We +should set ourselves to it in His strength, if so be that being clothed, +we may not be found naked--and then, when we lay aside the garment of +flesh and the armour needed for the battle, we shall hear His voice +welcoming us to the land of peace, and shall walk with Him in victor's +robes, glistening "so as no fuller on earth could white them." + + + + +XXI. + +_THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF THE PEACE OF CHRIST, THE WORD OF CHRIST, AND +THE NAME OF CHRIST._ + + "And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also + ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of + Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing + one another with psalms _and_ hymns _and_ spiritual songs, singing + with grace in your hearts unto God. And whatsoever ye do in word or + in deed, _do_ all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to + God the Father through Him."--COL. iii. 15-17 (Rev. Vers.). + + +There are here three precepts somewhat loosely connected, of which the +first belongs properly to the series considered in our last section, +from which it is only separated as not sharing in the metaphor under +which the virtues contained in the former verses were set forth. In +substance it is closely connected with them, though in form it is +different, and in sweep is more comprehensive. The second refers mainly +to Christian intercourse, especially to social worship; and the third +covers the whole field of conduct, and fitly closes the series, which in +it reaches the utmost possible generality, and from it drops to the +inculcation of very special domestic duties. The three verses have each +a dominant phrase round which we may group their teaching. These three +are, the peace of Christ, the word of Christ, the name of the Lord +Jesus. + +I. The Ruling Peace of Christ. + +The various reading "peace of Christ," for "peace of God," is not only +recommended by manuscript authority, but has the advantage of bringing +the expression into connection with the great words of the Lord, "Peace +I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." A strange legacy to leave, +and a strange moment at which to speak of His peace! It was but an hour +or so since He had been "troubled in spirit," as He thought of the +betrayer--and in an hour more He would be beneath the olives of +Gethsemane; and yet, even at such a time, He bestows on His friends some +share in His own deep repose of spirit. Surely "the peace of Christ" +must mean what "My peace" meant; not only the peace which He gives, but +the peace which lay, like a great calm on the sea, on His own deep +heart; and surely we cannot restrict so solemn an expression to the +meaning of mutual concord among brethren. That, no doubt, is included in +it, but there is much more than that. Whatever made the strange calm +which leaves such unmistakable traces in the picture of Christ drawn in +the Gospels, may be ours. When He gave us His peace, He gave us some +share in that meek submission of will to His Father's will, and in that +stainless purity, which were its chief elements. The hearts and lives of +men are made troubled, not by circumstances, but by themselves. Whoever +can keep his own will in harmony with God's enters into rest, though +many trials and sorrows may be his. Even if within and without are +fightings, there may be a central "peace subsisting at the heart of +endless agitation." We are our own disturbers. The eager swift motions +of our own wills keep us restless. Forsake these, and quiet comes. +Christ's peace was the result of the perfect harmony of all His nature. +All was co-operant to one great purpose; desires and passions did not +war with conscience and reason, nor did the flesh lust against the +Spirit. Though that complete uniting of all our inner selves in the +sweet concord of perfect obedience is not attained on earth, yet its +beginnings are given to us by Christ, and in Him we may be at peace with +ourselves, and have one great ruling power binding all our conflicting +desires in one, as the moon draws after her the heaped waters of the +sea. + +We are summoned to improve that gift--to "_let_ the peace of Christ" +have its way in our hearts. The surest way to increase our possession of +it is to decrease our separation from Him. The fulness of our possession +of His gift of peace depends altogether on our proximity to the Giver. +It evaporates in carrying. It "diminishes as the square of the distance" +from the source. So the exhortation to let it rule in us will be best +fulfilled by keeping thought and affection in close union with our Lord. + +This peace is to "rule" in our hearts. The figure contained in the word +here translated _rule_ is that of the umpire or arbitrator at the games, +who, looking down on the arena, watches that the combatants strive +lawfully, and adjudges the prize. Possibly the force of the figure may +have been washed out of the word by use, and the "rule" of our rendering +may be all that it means. But there seems no reason against keeping the +full force of the expression, which adds picturesqueness and point to +the precept. The peace of Christ, then, is to sit enthroned as umpire +in the heart; or, if we might give a mediaeval instead of a classical +shape to the figure, that fair sovereign, Peace, is to be Queen of the +Tournament, and her "eyes rain influence and adjudge the prize." When +contending impulses and reasons distract and seem to pull us in opposite +directions, let her settle which is to prevail. How can the peace of +Christ do that for us? We may make a rude test of good and evil by their +effects on our inward repose. Whatever mars our tranquillity, ruffling +the surface so that Christ's image is no longer visible, is to be +avoided. That stillness of spirit is very sensitive and shrinks away at +the presence of an evil thing. Let it be for us what the barometer is to +a sailor, and if it sinks, let us be sure a storm is at hand. If we find +that a given course of action tends to break our peace, we may be +certain that there is poison in the draught which as in the old stories, +has been detected by the shivered cup, and we should not drink any more. +There is nothing so precious that it is worth while to lose the peace of +Christ for the sake of it. Whenever we find it in peril, we must retrace +our steps. + +Then follows appended a reason for cultivating the peace of Christ "to +which also ye were called in one body." The very purpose of God's +merciful summons and invitation to them in the gospel was that they +might share in this peace. There are many ways of putting God's design +in His call by the gospel--it may be represented under many angles and +from many points of view, and is glorious from all and each. No one word +can state all the fulness to which we are called by His wonderful love, +but none can be tenderer and more blessed than this thought, that God's +great voice has summoned us to a share in Christ's peace. Being so +called, all who share in it of course find themselves knit to each other +by possession of a common gift. What a contradiction then, to be +summoned in order to so blessed a possession, and not to allow it +sovereign sway in moulding heart and life! What a contradiction, +further, to have been gathered into one body by the common possession of +the peace of Christ, and yet not to allow it to bind all the members in +its sweet fetters with cords of love! The sway of the "peace of Christ" +in our hearts will ensure the perfect exercise of all the other graces +of which we have been hearing, and therefore this precept fitly closes +the series of exhortations to brotherly affections, and seals all with +the thought of the "one body" of which all these "new men" are members. + +The very abruptness of the introduction of the next precept gives it +force, "and be ye thankful," or, as we might translate with an accuracy +which perhaps is not too minute, "become thankful," striving towards +deeper gratitude than you have yet attained. Paul is ever apt to catch +fire as often as his thought brings him in sight of God's great love in +drawing men to Himself, and in giving them such rich gifts. It is quite +a feature of his style to break into sudden bursts of praise as often as +his path leads him to a summit from which he catches a glimpse of that +great miracle of love. This interjected precept is precisely like these +sudden jets of praise. It is as if he had broken off for a moment from +the line of his thought, and had said to his hearers--Think of that +wonderful love of your Father God. He has called you from the midst of +your heathenism, He has called you from a world of tumult and a life of +troubled unrest to possess the peace which brooded ever, like the mystic +dove, over Christ's head; He has called you in one body, having knit in +a grand unity us, Jews and Gentiles, so widely parted before. Let us +pause and lift up our voices in praise to Him. True thankfulness will +well up at all moments, and will underlie and blend with all duties. +There are frequent injunctions to thankfulness in this letter, and we +have it again enjoined in the closing words of the verses which we are +now considering, so that we may defer any further remarks till we come +to deal with these. + +II. The Indwelling Word of Christ. + +The main reference of this verse seems to be to the worship of the +Church--the highest expression of its oneness. There are three points +enforced in its three clauses, of which the first is the dwelling in the +hearts of the Colossian Christians of the "word of Christ," by which is +meant, as I conceive, not simply "the presence of Christ in the heart, +as an inward monitor,"[3] but the indwelling of the definite body of +truths contained in the gospel which had been preached to them. That +gospel is the word of Christ, inasmuch as He is its subject. These early +Christians received that body of truth by oral teaching. To us it comes +in the history of Christ's life and death, and in the exposition of the +significance and far-reaching depth and power of these, which are +contained in the rest of the New Testament--a very definite body of +teaching. How can it abide in the heart? or what is the dwelling of +that word within us but the occupation of mind and heart and will with +the truth concerning Jesus revealed to us in Scripture? This indwelling +is in our own power, for it is matter of precept and not of promise--and +if we want to have it we must do with religious truth just what we do +with other truths that we want to keep in our minds--ponder them, use +our faculties on them, be perpetually recurring to them, fix them in our +memories, like nails fastened in a sure place, and, that we may remember +them, "get them by heart," as the children say. Few things are more +wanting to-day than this. The popular Christianity of the day is strong +in philanthropic service, and some phases of it are full of +"evangelistic" activity, but it is wofully lacking in intelligent grasp +of the great principles involved and revealed in the gospel. Some +Christians have yielded to the popular prejudice against "dogma," and +have come to dislike and neglect the doctrinal side of religion, and +others are so busy in good works of various kinds that they have no time +nor inclination to reflect nor to learn, and for others "the cares of +this world and the lusts of other things, entering in, choke the word." +A merely intellectual Christianity is a very poor thing, no doubt; but +that has been dinned into our ears so long and loudly for a generation +now, that there is much need for a clear preaching of the other +side--namely, that a merely emotional Christianity is a still poorer, +and that if feeling on the one hand and conduct on the other are to be +worthy of men with heads on their shoulders and brains in their heads, +both feeling and conduct must be built on a foundation of truth believed +and pondered. In the ordered monarchy of human nature, reason is meant +to govern, but she is also meant to submit, and for her the law holds +good, she must learn to obey that she may be able to rule. She must bow +to the word of Christ, and then she will sway aright the kingdom of the +soul. It becomes us to make conscience of seeking to get a firm and +intelligent grasp of Christian truth as a whole, and not to be always +living on milk meant for babes, nor to expect that teachers and +preachers should only repeat for ever the things which we know already. + +That word is to dwell in Christian men _richly_. It is their own fault +if they possess it, as so many do, in scant measure. It might be a full +tide. Why in so many is it a mere trickle, like an Australian river in +the heat, a line of shallow ponds with no life or motion, scarcely +connected by a thread of moisture, and surrounded by great stretches of +blinding shingle, when it might be a broad water--"waters to swim in"? +Why, but because they do not do with this word, what all students do +with the studies which they love? + +The word should manifest the rich abundance of its dwelling in men by +opening out in their minds into "every kind of wisdom." Where the gospel +in its power dwells in a man's spirit, and is intelligently meditated on +and studied, it will effloresce into principles of thought and action +applicable to all subjects, and touching the whole round horizon of +human life. All, and more than all, the wisdom which these false +teachers promised in their mysteries, is given to the babes and the +simple ones who treasure the word of Christ in their hearts, and the +least among them may say, "I have more understanding than all my +teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation." That gospel which the +child may receive, has "infinite riches in a narrow room," and, like +some tiny black seed, for all its humble form, has hidden in it the +promise and potency of wondrous beauty of flower, and nourishment of +fruit. Cultured and cared for in the heart where it is sown, it will +unfold into all truth which a man can receive or God can give, +concerning God and man, our nature, duties, hopes and destinies, the +tasks of the moment, and the glories of eternity. He who has it and lets +it dwell richly in his heart is wise; he who has it not, "at his latter +end shall be a fool." + +The second clause of this verse deals with the manifestations of the +indwelling word in the worship of the Church. The individual possession +of the word in one's own heart does not make us independent of brotherly +help. Rather, it is the very foundation of the duty of sharing our +riches with our fellows, and of increasing ours by contributions from +their stores. And so--"teaching and admonishing one another" is the +outcome of it. The universal possession of Christ's word involves the +equally universal right and duty of mutual instruction. + +We have already heard the Apostle declaring it to be his work to +"admonish every man and to teach every man," and found that the former +office pointed to practical ethical instruction, not without rebuke and +warning, while the latter referred rather to doctrinal teaching. What he +there claimed for himself, he here enjoins on the whole Christian +community. We have here a glimpse of the perfectly simple, informal +public services of the early Church, which seem to have partaken much +more of the nature of a free conference than of any of the forms of +worship at present in use in any Church. The evidence both of this +passage and of the other Pauline Epistles, especially of the first +Epistle to the Corinthians (xiv.) unmistakably shows this. The forms of +worship in the apostolic Church are not meant for models, and we do not +prove a usage as intended to be permanent because we prove it to be +primitive; but the principles which underlie the usages are valid always +and everywhere, and one of these principles is the universal though not +equal inspiration of Christian men, which results in their universal +calling to teach and admonish. In what forms that principle shall be +expressed, how safeguarded and controlled, is of secondary importance. +Different stages of culture and a hundred other circumstances will +modify these, and nobody but a pedant or religious martinet will care +about uniformity. But I cannot but believe that the present practice of +confining the public teaching of the Church to an official class has +done harm. Why should one man be for ever speaking, and hundreds of +people who are able to teach, sitting dumb to listen or pretend to +listen to him? Surely there is a wasteful expenditure there. I hate +forcible revolution, and do not believe that any institutions, either +political or ecclesiastical, which need violence to sweep them away, are +ready to be removed; but I believe that if the level of spiritual life +were raised among us, new forms would naturally be evolved, in which +there should be a more adequate recognition of the great principle on +which the democracy of Christianity is founded, namely, "I will pour +out My Spirit on all flesh--and on My servants and on My handmaidens I +will pour out in these days of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy." +There are not wanting signs that many different classes of Christian +worshippers have ceased to find edification in the present manner of +teaching. The more cultured write books on "the decay of preaching;" the +more earnest take to mission halls and a "freer service," and "lay +preaching;" the more indifferent stay at home. When the tide rises, all +the idle craft stranded on the mud are set in motion; such a time is +surely coming for the Church, when the aspiration that has waited +millenniums for its fulfilment, and received but a partial +accomplishment at Pentecost, shall at last be a fact: "would God that +all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His +Spirit upon them!" + +The teaching and admonishing is here regarded as being effected by means +of song. That strikes one as singular, and tempts to another punctuation +of the verse, by which "In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one +another" should make a separate clause, and "in psalms and hymns and +spiritual songs" should be attached to the following words. But probably +the ordinary arrangement of clauses is best on the whole. The +distinction between "psalms" and "hymns" appears to be that the former +is a song with a musical accompaniment, and that the latter is vocal +praise to God. No doubt the "psalms" meant were chiefly those of the +Psalter, the Old Testament element in the early Christian worship, while +the "hymns" were the new product of the spirit of devotion which had +naturally broken into song, the first beginnings of the great treasure +of Christian hymnody. "Spiritual songs" is a more general expression, +including all varieties of Christian poesy, provided that they come from +the Spirit moving in the heart. We know from many sources that song had +a large part in the worship of the early Church. Indeed, whenever a +great quickening of religious life comes, a great burst of Christian +song comes with it. The onward march of the Church has ever been +attended by music of praise; "as well the singers as the players on +instruments" have been there. The mediaeval Latin hymns cluster round the +early pure days of the monastic orders; Luther's rough stormy hymns were +as powerful as his treatises; the mystic tenderness and rapture of +Charles Wesley's have become the possession of the whole Church. We hear +from outside observers, that one of the practices of the early +Christians which most attracted heathen notice was, that they assembled +daily before it was light and "sang hymns of praise to one Christus as +to a god." + +These early hymns were of a dogmatic character. No doubt, just as in +many a missionary Church a hymn is found to be the best vehicle for +conveying the truth, so it was in these early Churches, which were made +up largely of slaves and women--both uneducated. "Singing the gospel" is +a very old invention, though the name be new. The picture which we get +here of the meetings of the early Christians is very remarkable. +Evidently their gatherings were free and social, with the minimum of +form, and that most elastic. If a man had any word of exhortation for +the people, he might say on. "Every one of you hath a psalm, a +doctrine." If a man had some fragment of an old psalm, or some strain +that had come fresh from the Christian heart, he might sing it, and his +brethren would listen. We do not have that sort of psalmody now. But +what a long way we have travelled from it to a modern congregation, +standing with books that they scarcely look at, and "worshipping" in a +hymn which half of them do not open their mouths to sing at all, and the +other half do in a voice inaudible three pews off. + +The best praise, however, is a heart song. So the Apostle adds "singing +in your hearts unto God." And it is to be in "grace," that is to say, +_in_ it as the atmosphere and element in which the song moves, which is +nearly equivalent to "by means of the Divine grace" which works in the +heart, and impels to that perpetual music of silent praise. If we have +the peace of Christ in our hearts, and the word of Christ dwelling in us +richly in all wisdom, then an unspoken and perpetual music will dwell +there too, "a noise like of a hidden brook" singing for ever its "quiet +tune." + +III. The all-hallowing Name of Jesus. + +From worship the Apostle passes to life, and crowns the entire series of +injunctions with an all-comprehensive precept, covering the whole ground +of action. "_Whatsoever_ ye do, in word or deed"--then, not merely +worship, specially so called, but everything is to come under the +influence of the same motive. That expresses emphatically the sanctity +of common life, and extends the idea of worship to all deeds. +"Whatsoever ye _do_ in _word_"--then words are _doings_, and in many +respects the most important of our doings. Some words, though they fade +off the ear so quickly, outlast all contemporary deeds, and are more +lasting than brass. Not only "the word of the Lord," but, in a very +solemn sense, the word of man "endureth for ever." + +Do all "in the name of the Lord Jesus." That means at least two +things--in obedience to His authority, and in dependence on His help. +These two are the twin talismans which change the whole character of our +actions, and preserve us, in doing them, from every harm. That name +hallows and ennobles all work. Nothing can be so small but this will +make it great, nor so monotonous and tame but this will make it +beautiful and fresh. The name now, as of old, casts out devils and +stills storms. "For the name of the Lord Jesus" is the silken padding +which makes our yokes easy. It brings the sudden strength which makes +our burdens light. We may write it over all our actions. If there be any +on which we dare not inscribe it, they are not for us. + +Thus done in the name of Christ, all deeds will become thanksgiving, and +so reach their highest consecration and their truest blessedness. +"Giving thanks to God the Father through Him" is ever to accompany the +work in the name of Jesus. The exhortation to thanksgiving, which is in +a sense the Alpha and the Omega of the Christian life, is perpetually on +the Apostle's lips, because thankfulness should be in perpetual +operation in our hearts. It is so important because it presupposes +all-important things, and because it certainly leads to every Christian +grace. For continual thankfulness there must be a continual direction of +mind towards God and towards the great gifts of our salvation in Jesus +Christ. There must be a continual going forth of our love and our desire +to these, that is to say--thankfulness rests on the reception and the +joyful appropriation of the mercies of God, brought to us by our Lord. +And it underlies all acceptable service and all happy obedience. The +servant who thinks of God as a harsh exactor is slothful; the servant +who thinks of Him as the "giving God" rejoices in toil. He who brings +his work in order to be paid for it, will get no wages, and turn out no +work worth any. He who brings it because he feels that he has been paid +plentiful wages beforehand, of which he will never earn the least mite, +will present service well pleasing to the Master. + +So we should keep thoughts of Jesus Christ, and of all we owe to Him, +ever before us in our common work, in shop and mill and counting-house, +in study and street and home. We should try to bring all our actions +more under their influence, and, moved by the mercies of God, should +yield ourselves living thank-offerings to Him, who is the sin-offering +for us. If, as every fresh duty arises, we hear Christ saying, "This do +in remembrance of Me," all life will become a true communion with Him, +and every common vessel will be as a sacramental chalice, and the bells +of the horses will bear the same inscription as the high priest's +mitre--"Holiness to the Lord." To lay work on that altar sanctifies both +the giver and the gift. Presented through Him, by whom all blessings +come to man and all thanks go to God, and kindled by the flame of +gratitude, our poor deeds, for all their grossness and earthliness, +shall go up in curling wreaths of incense, an odour of a sweet smell +acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Lightfoot. + + + + +XXII. + +_THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY._ + + "Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the + Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. + + "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is + well-pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children, that + they be not discouraged. + + "Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according + to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but in + singleness of heart, fearing the Lord: whatsoever ye do, work + heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that from the + Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: ye serve + the Lord Christ. For he that doeth wrong shall receive again for the + wrong that he hath done: and there is no respect of persons. + + "Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal; + knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven."--COL. iii. 18-iv. 1 + (Rev. Ver.). + + +This section deals with the Christian family, as made up of husband and +wife, children, and servants. In the family, Christianity has most +signally displayed its power of refining, ennobling, and sanctifying +earthly relationships. Indeed, one may say that domestic life, as seen +in thousands of Christian homes, is purely a Christian creation, and +would have been a new revelation to the heathenism of Colossae, as it is +to-day in many a mission field. + +We do not know what may have led Paul to dwell with special emphasis on +the domestic duties, in this letter, and in the contemporaneous Epistle +of the Ephesians. He does so, and the parallel section there should be +carefully compared throughout with this paragraph. The former is +considerably more expanded, and may have been written after the verses +before us; but, however that may be, the verbal coincidences and +variations in the two sections are very interesting as illustrations of +the way in which a mind fully charged with a theme will freely repeat +itself, and use the same words in different combinations and with +infinite shades of modification. + +The precepts given are extremely simple and obvious. Domestic happiness +and family Christianity are made up of very homely elements. One duty is +prescribed for the one member of each of the three family groups, and +varying forms of another for the other. The wife, the child, the servant +are bid to obey; the husband to love, the father to show his love in +gentle considerateness; the master to yield his servants their dues. +Like some perfume distilled from common flowers that grow on every bank, +the domestic piety which makes home a house of God, and a gate of +heaven, is prepared from these two simples--obedience and love. These +are all. + +We have here then the ideal Christian household in the three ordinary +relationships which make up the family; wife and husband, children and +father, servant and master. + +I. The Reciprocal Duties of wife and husband--subjection and love. + +The duty of the wife is "subjection," and it is enforced on the ground +that it is "fitting in the Lord"--that is, "it is," or perhaps "it +became" at the time of conversion, "the conduct corresponding to or +befitting the condition of being in the Lord." In more modern +language--the Christian ideal of the wife's duty has for its very +centre--subjection. + +Some of us will smile at that; some of us will think it an old-fashioned +notion, a survival of a more barbarous theory of marriage than this +century recognises. But, before we decide upon the correctness of the +apostolic precept, let us make quite sure of its meaning. Now, if we +turn to the corresponding passage in Ephesians, we find that marriage is +regarded from a high and sacred point of view, as being an earthly +shadow and faint adumbration of the union between Christ and the Church. + +To Paul, all human and earthly relationships were moulded after the +patterns of things in the heavens, and the whole fleeting visible life +of man was a parable of the "things which are" in the spiritual realm. +Most chiefly, the holy and mysterious union of man and woman in marriage +is fashioned in the likeness of the only union which is closer and more +mysterious than itself, namely that between Christ and His Church. + +Such then as are the nature and the spring of the Church's "subjection" +to Christ, such will be the nature and the spring of the wife's +"subjection" to the husband. That is to say, it is a subjection of which +love is the very soul and animating principle. In a true marriage, as in +the loving obedience of a believing soul to Christ, the wife submits not +because she has found a master, but because her heart has found its +rest. Everything harsh or degrading melts away from the requirement when +thus looked at. It is a joy to serve where the heart is engaged, and +that is eminently true of the feminine nature. For its full +satisfaction, a woman's heart needs to look up where it loves. She has +certainly the fullest wedded life who can "reverence" her husband. For +its full satisfaction, a woman's heart needs to serve where it loves. +That is the same as saying that a woman's love is, in the general, +nobler, purer, more unselfish than a man's, and therein, quite as much +as in physical constitution, is laid the foundation of that Divine ideal +of marriage, which places the wife's delight and dignity in sweet loving +subjection. + +Of course the subjection has its limitations. "We must obey God rather +than man" bounds the field of all human authority and control. Then +there are cases in which, on the principle of "the tools to the hands +that can use them," the rule falls naturally to the wife as the stronger +character. Popular sarcasm, however, shows that such instances are felt +to be contrary to the true ideal, and such a wife lacks something of +repose for her heart. + +No doubt, too, since Paul wrote, and very largely by Christian +influences, women have been educated and elevated, so as to make mere +subjection impossible now, if ever it were so. Woman's quick instinct as +to persons, her finer wisdom, her purer discernment as to moral +questions, make it in a thousand cases the wisest thing a man can do to +listen to the "subtle flow of silver-paced counsel" which his wife gives +him. All such considerations are fully consistent with this apostolic +teaching, and it remains true that the wife who does not reverence and +lovingly obey is to be pitied if she cannot, and to be condemned if she +will not. + +And what of the husband's duty? He is to love, and because he loves, not +to be harsh or bitter, in word, look or act. The parallel in Ephesians +adds the solemn elevating thought, that a man's love to the woman, whom +he has made his own, is to be like Christ's to the Church. Patient and +generous, utterly self-forgetting and self-sacrificing, demanding +nothing, grudging nothing, giving all, not shrinking from the extreme of +suffering and pain and death itself--that he may bless and help--such +was the Lord's love to His bride, such is to be a Christian husband's +love to his wife. That solemn example, which lifts the whole emotion +high above mere passion or selfish affection, carries a great lesson too +as to the connection between man's love and woman's "subjection." The +former is to evoke the latter, just as in the heavenly pattern, Christ's +love melts and moves human wills to glad obedience, which is liberty. We +do not say that a wife is utterly absolved from obedience where a +husband fails in self-forgetting love, though certainly it does not lie +in _his_ mouth to accuse, whose fault is graver than and the origin of +hers. But, without going so far as that, we may recognise the true order +to be that the husband's love, self-sacrificing and all-bestowing, is +meant to evoke the wife's love, delighting in service, and proud to +crown him her king. + +Where there is such love, there will be no question of mere command and +obedience, no tenacious adherence to rights, or jealous defence of +independence. Law will be transformed into choice. To obey will be joy; +to serve, the natural expression of the heart. Love uttering a wish +speaks music to love listening; and love obeying the wish is free and a +queen. Such sacred beauty may light up wedded life, if it catches a +gleam from the fountain of all light, and shines by reflection from the +love that binds Christ to His Church as the links of the golden beams +bind the sun to the planet. Husbands and wives are to see to it that +this supreme consecration purifies and raises their love. Young men and +maidens are to remember that the nobleness and heart-repose of their +whole life may be made or marred by marriage, and to take heed where +they fix their affections. If there be not unity in the deepest thing of +all, love to Christ, the sacredness and completeness will fade away from +any love. But if a man and woman love and marry "in the Lord," He will +be "in the midst," walking between them, a third who will make them one, +and that threefold cord will not be quickly broken. + +II. The Reciprocal Duties of children and parents--obedience and gentle +loving authority. + +The injunction to children is laconic, decisive, universal. "Obey your +parents in all things." Of course, there is one limitation to that. If +God's command looks one way, and a parent's the opposite, disobedience +is duty--but such extreme case is probably the only one which Christian +ethics admit as an exception to the rule. The Spartan brevity of the +command is enforced by one consideration, "for this is well-pleasing +_in_ the Lord," as the Revised Version rightly reads, instead of "to the +Lord," as in the Authorised, thus making an exact parallel to the former +"fitting in the Lord." Not only to Christ, but to all who can appreciate +the beauty of goodness, is filial obedience beautiful. The parallel in +Ephesians substitutes "for this is right," appealing to the natural +conscience. Right and fair in itself, it is accordant with the law +stamped on the very relationship, and it is witnessed as such by the +instinctive approbation which it evokes. + +No doubt, the moral sentiment of Paul's age stretched parental authority +to an extreme, and we need not hesitate to admit that the Christian idea +of a father's power and a child's obedience has been much softened by +Christianity; but the softening has come from the greater prominence +given to love, rather than from the limitation given to obedience. + +Our present domestic life seems to me to stand sorely in need of Paul's +injunction. One cannot but see that there is great laxity in this matter +in many Christian households, in reaction perhaps from the too great +severity of past times. Many causes lead to this unwholesome relaxation +of parental authority. In our great cities, especially among the +commercial classes, children are generally better educated than their +fathers and mothers, they know less of early struggles, and one often +sees a sense of inferiority making a parent hesitate to command, as well +as a misplaced tenderness making him hesitate to forbid. A very +misplaced and cruel tenderness it is to say "would you like?" when he +ought to say "I wish." It is unkind to lay on young shoulders "the +weight of too much liberty," and to introduce young hearts too soon to +the sad responsibility of choosing between good and evil. It were better +and more loving by far to put off that day, and to let the children feel +that in the safe nest of home, their feeble and ignorant goodness is +sheltered behind a strong barrier of command, and their lives simplified +by having the one duty of obedience. By many parents the advice is +needed--consult your children less, command them more. + +And as for children, here is the one thing which God would have them do: +"Obey your parents in all things." As fathers used to say when I was a +boy--"not only obedience, but prompt obedience." It is right. That +should be enough. But children may also remember that it is +"pleasing"--fair and good to see, making them agreeable in the eyes of +all whose approbation is worth having, and pleasing to themselves, +saving them from many a bitter thought in after days, when the grave has +closed over father and mother. One remembers the story of how Dr. +Johnson, when a man, stood in the market place at Lichfield, bareheaded, +with the rain pouring on him, in remorseful remembrance of boyish +disobedience to his dead father. There is nothing bitterer than the too +late tears for wrongs done to those who are gone beyond the reach of our +penitence. "Children obey your parents in all things," that you may be +spared the sting of conscience for childish faults, which may be set +tingling and smarting again even in old age. + +The law for parents is addressed to "fathers," partly because a mother's +tenderness has less need of the warning "provoke not your children," +than a father's more rigorous rule usually has, and partly because the +father is regarded as the head of the household. The advice is full of +practical sagacity. How do parents provoke their children? By +unreasonable commands, by perpetual restrictions, by capricious jerks at +the bridle, alternating with as capricious dropping of the reins +altogether, by not governing their own tempers, by shrill or stern tones +where quiet, soft ones would do, by frequent checks and rebukes, and +sparing praise. And what is sure to follow such mistreatment by father +or mother? First, as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it; +"wrath"--bursts of temper, for which probably the child is punished and +the parent is guilty--and then spiritless listlessness and apathy. "I +cannot please him whatever I do," leads to a rankling sense of +injustice, and then to recklessness--"it is useless to try any more." +And when a child or a man loses heart, there will be no more obedience. +Paul's theory of the training of children is closely connected with his +central doctrine, that love is the life of service, and faith the parent +of righteousness. To him hope and gladness and confident love underlie +all obedience. When a child loves and trusts, he will obey. When he +fears and has to think of his father as capricious, exacting or stern, +he will do like the man in the parable, who was afraid because he +thought of his master as austere, reaping where he did not sow, and +therefore went and hid his talent. Children's obedience must be fed on +love and praise. Fear paralyses activity, and kills service, whether it +cowers in the heart of a boy to his father, or of a man to his Father in +heaven. + +So parents are to let the sunshine of their smile ripen their children's +love to fruit of obedience, and remember that frost in spring scatters +the blossoms on the grass. Many a parent, especially many a father, +drives his child into evil by keeping him at a distance. He should make +his boy a companion and playmate, teach him to think of his father as +his confidant, try to keep his child nearer to himself than to anybody +beside, and then his authority will be absolute, his opinions an oracle, +and his lightest wish a law. Is not the kingdom of Jesus Christ based +on His becoming a brother and one of ourselves, and is it not wielded in +gentleness and enforced by love? Is it not the most absolute of rules? +and should not the parental authority be like it--having a reed for a +sceptre, lowliness and gentleness being stronger to rule and to sway +than the "rods of iron" or of gold which earthly monarchs wield? + +There is added to this precept, in Ephesians, an injunction on the +positive side of parental duty: "Bring them up in the nurture and +admonition of the Lord." I fear that is a duty fallen wofully into +disuse in many Christian households. Many parents think it wise to send +their children away from home for their education, and so hand over +their moral and religious training to teachers. That may be right, but +it makes the fulfilment of this precept all but impossible. Others, who +have their children beside them, are too busy all the week, and too fond +of "rest" on Sunday. Many send their children to a Sunday school chiefly +that they themselves may have a quiet house and a sound sleep in the +afternoon. Every Christian minister, if he keeps his eyes open, must see +that there is no religious instruction worth calling by the name in a +very large number of professedly Christian households; and he is bound +to press very earnestly on his hearers the question, whether the +Christian fathers and mothers among them do their duty in this matter. +Many of them, I fear, have never opened their lips to their children on +religious subjects. Is it not a grief and a shame that men and women +with some religion in them, and loving their little ones dearly, should +be tongue-tied before them on the most important of all things? What +can come of it but what does come of it so often that it saddens one to +see how frequently it occurs--that the children drift away from a faith +which their parents did not care enough about to teach it to them? A +silent father makes prodigal sons, and many a grey head has been brought +down with sorrow to the grave, and many a mother's heart broken, because +he and she neglected their plain duty, which can be handed over to no +schools or masters--the duty of religious instruction. "These words +which I command thee, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them +diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in +thine house." + +III. The Reciprocal Duties of servants and masters--obedience and +justice. + +The first thing to observe here is, that these "servants" are slaves, +not persons who have voluntarily given their work for wages. The +relation of Christianity to slavery is too wide a subject to be touched +here. It must be enough to point out that Paul recognises that "sum of +all villanies," gives instructions to both parties in it, never says one +word in condemnation of it. More remarkable still; the messenger who +carried this letter to Colossae carried in the same bag the Epistle to +Philemon, and was accompanied by the fugitive slave Onesimus, on whose +neck Paul bound again the chain, so to speak, with his own hands. And +yet the gospel which Paul preached has in it principles which cut up +slavery by the roots; as we read in this very letter, "In Christ Jesus +there is neither bond nor free." Why then did not Christ and His +apostles make war against slavery? For the same reason for which they +did not make war against _any_ political or social institutions. "First +make the tree good and his fruit good." The only way to reform +institutions is to elevate and quicken the general conscience, and then +the evil will be outgrown, left behind, or thrown aside. Mould men and +the men will mould institutions. So Christianity did not set itself to +fell this upas tree, which would have been a long and dangerous task; +but girdled it, as we may say, stripped the bark off it, and left it to +die--and it _has_ died in all Christian lands now. + +But the principles laid down here are quite as applicable to our form of +domestic and other service as to the slaves and masters of Colossae. + +Note then the extent of the servant's obedience--"in all things." Here, +of course, as in former cases, is there presupposed the limit of supreme +obedience to God's commands; that being safe, all else is to give way to +the duty of submission. It is a stern command, that seems all on the +side of the masters. It might strike a chill into many a slave, who had +been drawn to the gospel by the hope of finding some little lightening +of the yoke that pressed so heavily on his poor galled neck, and of +hearing some voice speaking in tenderer tones than those of harsh +command. Still more emphatically, and, as it might seem, still more +harshly, the Apostle goes on to insist on the inward completeness of the +obedience--"not with eyeservice (a word of Paul's own coining) as +men-pleasers." We have a proverb about the worth of the master's eye, +which bears witness that the same fault still clings to hired service. +One has only to look at the next set of bricklayers one sees on a +scaffold, or of haymakers one comes across in a field, to see it. The +vice was venial in slaves; it is inexcusable, because it darkens into +theft, in paid servants--and it spreads far and wide. All scamped work, +all productions of man's hand or brain which are got up to look better +than they are, all fussy parade of diligence when under inspection and +slackness afterwards--and all their like which infect and infest every +trade and profession, are transfixed by the sharp point of this precept. + +"But in singleness of heart," that is, with undivided motive, which is +the antithesis and the cure for "eyeservice"--and "fearing God," which +is opposed to "pleasing men." Then follows the positive injunction, +covering the whole ground of action and lifting the constrained +obedience to the earthly master up into the sacred and serene loftiness +of religious duty, "whatsoever ye do, work heartily," or from the soul. +The word for _work_ is stronger than that for _do_, and implies effort +and toil. They are to put all their power into their work, and not be +afraid of hard toil. And they are not only to bend their backs but their +wills, and to labour "from the soul," that is, cheerfully and with +interest--a hard lesson for a slave and asking more than could be +expected from human nature, as many of them would, no doubt, think. Paul +goes on to transfigure the squalor and misery of the slave's lot by a +sudden beam of light--"as to the Lord"--your true "Master," for it is +the same word as in the previous verse--"and not unto men." Do not think +of your tasks as only enjoined by harsh, capricious, selfish men, but +lift your thoughts to Christ, who is your Lord, and glorify all these +sordid duties by seeing _His_ will in them. He only who works as "to +the Lord," will work "heartily." The thought of Christ's command, and of +my poor toil as done for His sake, will change constraint into +cheerfulness, and make unwelcome tasks pleasant, and monotonous ones +fresh, and trivial ones great. It will evoke new powers, and renewed +consecration. In that atmosphere, the dim flame of servile obedience +will burn more brightly, as a lamp plunged into a jar of pure oxygen. + +The stimulus of a great hope for the ill-used, unpaid slave, is added. +Whatever their earthly masters might fail to give them, the true Master +whom they really served would accept no work for which He did not return +more than sufficient wages. "From the Lord ye shall receive the +recompense of the inheritance." Blows and scanty food and poor lodging +may be all that they get from their owners for all their sweat and toil, +but if they are Christ's slaves, they will be treated no more as slaves, +but as sons, and receive a son's portion, the exact recompense which +consists of the "inheritance." The juxtaposition of the two ideas of the +slave and the inheritance evidently hints at the unspoken thought, that +they are heirs because they are sons--a thought which might well lift up +bowed backs and brighten dull faces. The hope of that reward came like +an angel into the smoky huts and hopeless lives of these poor slaves. It +shone athwart all the gloom and squalor, and taught patience beneath +"the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely." Through long, weary +generations it has lived in the hearts of men driven to God by man's +tyranny, and forced to clutch at heaven's brightness to keep them from +being made mad by earth's blackness. It may irradiate our poor lives, +especially when we fail, as we all do sometimes, to get recognition of +our work, or fruit from it. If we labour for man's appreciation or +gratitude, we shall certainly be disappointed; but if for Christ, we +have abundant wages beforehand, and we shall have an overabundant +requital, the munificence of which will make us more ashamed of our +unworthy service than anything else could do. Christ remains in no man's +debt. "Who hath first given, and it shall be recompensed to him again?" + +The last word to the slave is a warning against neglect of duty. There +is to be a double recompense--to the slave of Christ the portion of a +son; to the wrong doer retribution "for the wrong that he has done." +Then, though slavery was itself a wrong, though the master who held a +man in bondage was himself inflicting the greatest of all wrongs, yet +Paul will have the slave think that he still has duties to his master. +That is part of Paul's general position as to slavery. He will not wage +war against it, but for the present accept it. Whether he saw the full +bearing of the gospel on that and other infamous institutions may be +questioned. He has given us the principles which will destroy them, but +he is no revolutionist, and so his present counsel is to remember the +master's rights, even though they be founded on wrong, and he has no +hesitation in condemning and predicting retribution for evil things done +by a slave to his master. A superior's injustice does not warrant an +inferior's breach of moral law, though it may excuse it. Two blacks do +not make a white. Herein lies the condemnation of all the crimes which +enslaved nations and classes have done, of many a deed which has been +honoured and sung, of the sanguinary cruelties of servile revolts, as +well as of the questionable means to which labour often resorts in +modern industrial warfare. The homely, plain principle, that a man does +not receive the right to break God's laws because he is ill-treated, +would clear away much fog from some people's notions of how to advance +the cause of the oppressed. + +But, on the other hand, this warning may look towards the masters also; +and probably the same double reference is also to be discerned in the +closing words to the slaves, "and there is no respect of persons." The +servants were naturally tempted to think that God was on their side, as +indeed He was, but also to think that the great coming day of judgment +was mostly meant to be terrible to tyrants and oppressors, and so to +look forward to it with a fierce un-Christian joy, as well as with a +false confidence built only on their present misery. They would be apt +to think that God did "respect persons," in the opposite fashion from +that of a partial judge--namely, that He would incline the scale in +favour of the ill-used, the poor, the down-trodden; that they would have +an easy test and a light sentence, while His frowns and His severity +would be kept for the powerful and the rich who had ground the faces of +the poor and kept back the hire of the labourer. It was therefore a +needful reminder for them, and for us all, that that judgment has +nothing to do with earthly conditions, but only with conduct and +character; that sorrow and calamity here do not open heaven's gates +hereafter, and that the slave and master are tried by the same law. + +The series of precepts closes with a brief but most pregnant word to +masters. They are bid to give to their slaves "that which is just and +equal," that is to say, "equitable." A startling criterion for a +master's duty to the slave who was denied to have any rights at all. +They were chattels, not persons. A master might, in regard to them, do +what he liked with his own; he might crucify or torture, or commit any +crime against manhood either in body or soul, and no voice would +question or forbid. How astonished Roman lawgivers would have been if +they could have heard Paul talking about justice and equity as applied +to a slave! What a strange new dialect it must have sounded to the +slave-owners in the Colossian Church! They would not see how far the +principle, thus quietly introduced, was to carry succeeding ages; they +could not dream of the great tree that was to spring from this tiny +seed-precept; but no doubt the instinct which seldom fails an unjustly +privileged class, would make them blindly dislike the exhortation, and +feel as if they were getting out of their depth when they were bid to +consider what was "right" and "equitable" in their dealings with their +slaves. + +The Apostle does not define what _is_ "right and equal." That will come. +The main thing is to drive home the conviction that there are duties +owing to slaves, inferiors, employes. We are far enough from a +satisfactory discharge of these yet; but, at any rate, everybody now +admits the principle--and we have mainly to thank Christianity for that. +Slowly the general conscience is coming to recognise that simple truth +more and more clearly, and its application is becoming more decisive +with each generation. There is much to be done before society is +organized on that principle, but the time is coming--and till it is +come, there will be no peace. All masters and employers of labour, in +their mills and warehouses, are bid to base their relations to "hands" +and servants on the one firm foundation of "justice." Paul does not say, +Give your servants what is kind and patronising. He wants a great deal +more than that. Charity likes to come in and supply the wants which +would never have been felt had there been equity. An ounce of justice is +sometimes worth a ton of charity. + +This duty of the masters is enforced by the same thought which was to +stimulate the servants to their tasks: "ye also have a Master in +heaven." That is not only stimulus, but it is pattern. I said that Paul +did not specify what was just and right, and that his precept might +therefore be objected to as vague. Does the introduction of this thought +of the master's Master in heaven, take away any of the vagueness? If +Christ is our Master, then we are to look to Him to see what a master +ought to be, and to try to be masters like that. That is precise enough, +is it not? That grips tight enough, does it not? Give your servants what +you expect and need to get from Christ. If we try to live that +commandment for twenty-four hours, it will probably not be its vagueness +of which we complain. + +"Ye have a Master in heaven" is the great principle on which all +Christian duty reposes. Christ's command is my law, His will is supreme, +His authority absolute, His example all-sufficient. My soul, my life, my +all are His. My will is not my own. My possessions are not my own. My +being is not my own. All duty is elevated into obedience to Him, and +obedience to Him, utter and absolute, is dignity and freedom. We are +Christ's slaves, for He has bought us for Himself, by giving Himself for +us. Let that great sacrifice win our heart's love and our perfect +submission. "O Lord, truly I am Thy servant, Thou hast loosed my bonds." +Then all earthly relationships will be fulfilled by us; and we shall +move among men, breathing blessing and raying out brightness, when in +all, we remember that we have a Master in heaven, and do all our work +from the soul as to Him and not to men. + + + + +XXIII. + +_PRECEPTS FOR THE INNERMOST AND OUTERMOST LIFE._ + + "Continue stedfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving; + withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us a door for the + word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; + that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom + toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be + always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought + to answer each one."--COL. iv. 2-6 (Rev. Ver.). + + +So ends the ethical portion of the Epistle. A glance over the series of +practical exhortations, from the beginning of the preceding chapter +onwards, will show that, in general terms we may say that they deal +successively with a Christian's duties to himself, the Church, and the +family. And now, these last advices touch the two extremes of life, the +first of them having reference to the hidden life of prayer, and the +second and third to the outward, busy life of the market-place and the +street. That bringing together of the extremes seems to be the link of +connection here. The Christian life is first regarded as gathered into +itself--coiled as it were on its centre, like some strong spring. Next, +it is regarded as it operates in the world, and, like the uncoiling +spring, gives motion to wheels and pinions. These two sides of +experience and duty are often hard to blend harmoniously. The conflict +between busy Martha, who serves, and quiet Mary, who only sits and +gazes, goes on in every age and in every heart. Here we may find, in +some measure, the principle of reconciliation between their antagonistic +claims. Here is, at all events, the protest against allowing either to +oust the other. Continual prayer is to blend with unwearied action. We +are so to walk the dusty ways of life as to be ever in the secret place +of the Most High. "Continue stedfastly in prayer," and withal let there +be no unwholesome withdrawal from the duties and relationships of the +outer world, but let the prayer pass into, first, a wise walk, and +second, an ever-gracious speech. + +I. So we have here, first, an exhortation to a hidden life of constant +prayer. + +The word rendered "continue" in the Authorised Version, and more fully +in the Revised Version by "continue stedfastly," is frequently found in +reference to prayer, as well as in other connections. A mere enumeration +of some of these instances may help to illustrate its full meaning. "We +_will give ourselves_ to prayer," said the apostles in proposing the +creation of the office of deacon. "_Continuing instant_ in prayer" says +Paul to the Roman Church. "They _continuing_ daily with one accord in +the Temple" is the description of the early believers after Pentecost. +Simon Magus is said to have "continued with Philip," where there is +evidently the idea of close adherence as well as of uninterrupted +companionship. These examples seem to show that the word implies both +earnestness and continuity; so that this injunction not only covers the +ground of Paul's other exhortation, "Pray without ceasing," but includes +fervour also. + +The Christian life, then, ought to be one of unbroken prayer. + +What manner of prayer can that be which is to be continuous through a +life that must needs be full of toil on outward things? How can such a +precept be obeyed? Surely there is no need for paring down its +comprehensiveness, and saying that it merely means--a very frequent +recurrence to devout exercises, as often as the pressure of daily duties +will permit. That is not the direction in which the harmonising of such +a precept with the obvious necessities of our position is to be sought. +We must seek it in a more inward and spiritual notion of prayer. We must +separate between the form and the substance, the treasure and the +earthen vessel which carries it. What is prayer? Not the utterance of +words--they are but the vehicle; but the attitude of the spirit. +Communion, aspiration, and submission, these three are the elements of +prayer--and these three may be diffused through a life. It is possible, +though difficult. There may be unbroken communion, a constant +consciousness of God's presence, and of our contact with Him, thrilling +through our souls and freshening them, like some breath of spring +reaching the toilers in choky factories and busy streets; or even if the +communion do not run like an absolutely unbroken line of light through +our lives, the points may be so near together as all but to touch. In +such communion words are needless. When spirits draw closest together +there is no need for speech. Silently the heart may be kept fragrant +with God's felt presence, and sunny with the light of His face. There +are towns nestling beneath the Alps, every narrow filthy alley of which +looks to the great solemn snow-peaks, and the inhabitants, amid all the +squalor of their surroundings, have that apocalypse of wonder ever +before them, if they would only lift their eyes. So we, if we will, may +live with the majesties and beauties of the great white throne and of +Him that sat on it closing every vista and filling the end of every +commonplace passage in our lives. + +In like manner, there may be a continual, unspoken and unbroken presence +of the second element of prayer, which is aspiration, or desire after +God. All circumstances, whether duty, sorrow or joy, should and may be +used to stamp more deeply on my consciousness the sense of my weakness +and need; and every moment, with its experience of God's swift and +punctual grace, and all my communion with Him which unveils to me His +beauty--should combine to move longings for Him, for more of Him. The +very deepest cry of the heart which understands its own yearnings, is +for the living God; and perpetual as the hunger of the spirit for the +food which will stay its profound desires, will be the prayer, though it +may often be voiceless, of the soul which knows where alone that food +is. + +Continual too may be our submission to His will, which is an essential +of all prayer. Many people's notion is that our prayer is urging our +wishes on God, and that His answer is giving us what we desire. But true +prayer is the meeting in harmony of God's will and man's, and its +deepest expression is not, Do this, because I desire it, O Lord; but, I +do this because Thou desirest it, O Lord. That submission may be the +very spring of all life, and whatsoever work is done in such spirit, +however "secular" and however small it be, were it making buttons, is +truly prayer. + +So there should run all through our lives the music of that continual +prayer, heard beneath all our varying occupations like some prolonged +deep bass note, that bears up and gives dignity to the lighter melody +that rises and falls and changes above it, like the spray on the crest +of a great wave. Our lives will then be noble and grave, and woven into +a harmonious unity, when they are based upon continual communion with, +continual desire after, and continual submission to, God. If they are +not, they will be worth nothing and will come to nothing. + +But such continuity of prayer is not to be attained without effort; +therefore Paul goes on to say, "Watching therein." We are apt to do +drowsily whatever we do constantly. Men fall asleep at any continuous +work. There is also the constant influence of externals, drawing our +thoughts away from their true home in God, so that if we are to keep up +continuous devotion, we shall have to rouse ourselves often when in the +very act of dropping off to sleep. "Awake up, my glory!" we shall often +have to say to our souls. Do we not all know that subtly approaching +languor? and have we not often caught ourselves in the very act of +falling asleep at our prayers? We must make distinct and resolute +efforts to rouse ourselves--we must concentrate our attention and apply +the needed stimulants, and bring the interest and activity of our whole +nature to bear on this work of continual prayer, else it will become +drowsy mumbling as of a man but half awake. The world has strong +opiates for the soul, and we must stedfastly resist their influence, if +we are to "continue in prayer." + +One way of so watching is to have and to observe definite times of +spoken prayer. We hear much now-a-days about the small value of times +and forms of prayer, and how, as I have been saying, true prayer is +independent of these, and needs no words. All that, of course, is true; +but when the practical conclusion is drawn that therefore we can do +without the outward form, a grave mistake, full of mischief, is +committed. I do not, for my part, believe in a devotion diffused through +a life and never concentrated and coming to the surface in visible +outward acts or audible words; and, as far as I have seen, the men whose +religion is spread all through their lives most really are the men who +keep the central reservoir full, if I may so say, by regular and +frequent hours and words of prayer. The Christ, whose whole life was +devotion and communion with the Father, had His nights on the mountains, +and rising up a great while before day, He watched unto prayer. We must +do the like. + +One more word has still to be said. This continual prayer is to be "with +thanksgiving"--again the injunction so frequent in this letter, in such +various connections. Every prayer should be blended with gratitude, +without the perfume of which, the incense of devotion lacks one element +of fragrance. The sense of need, or the consciousness of sin, may evoke +"strong crying and tears," but the completest prayer rises confident +from a grateful heart, which weaves memory into hope, and asks much +because it has received much. A true recognition of the lovingkindness +of the past has much to do with making our communion sweet, our desires +believing, our submission cheerful. Thankfulness is the feather that +wings the arrow of prayer--the height from which our souls rise most +easily to the sky. + +And now the Apostle's tone softens from exhortation to entreaty, and +with very sweet and touching humility he begs a supplemental corner in +their prayers. "Withal praying also for us." The "withal" and "also" +have a tone of lowliness in them, while the "us," including as it does +Timothy, who is associated with him in the superscription of the letter, +and possibly others also, increases the impression of modesty. The +subject of their prayers for Paul and the others is to be that "God may +open unto us a door for the word." That phrase apparently means an +unhindered opportunity of preaching the gospel, for the consequence of +the door's being opened is added--"to speak (so that I may speak) the +mystery of Christ." The special reason for this prayer is, "for which I +am also (in addition to my other sufferings) in bonds." + +He was a prisoner. He cared little about that or about the fetters on +his wrists, so far as his own comfort was concerned; but his spirit +chafed at the restraint laid upon him in spreading the good news of +Christ, though he had been able to do much in his prison, both among the +Praetorian guard, and throughout the whole population of Rome. Therefore +he would engage his friends to ask God to open the prison doors, as He +had done for Peter, not that Paul might come out, but that the gospel +might. The personal was swallowed up; all that he cared for was to do +his work. + +But he wants their prayers for more than that--"that I may make it +manifest as I ought to speak." This is probably explained most naturally +as meaning his endowment with power to set forth the message in a manner +adequate to its greatness. When he thought of what it was that he, +unworthy, had to preach, its majesty and wonderfulness brought a kind of +awe over his spirit; and endowed, as he was, with apostolic functions +and apostolic grace; conscious, as he was, of being anointed and +inspired by God, he yet felt that the richness of the treasure made the +earthen vessel seem terribly unworthy to bear it. His utterances seemed +to himself poor and unmelodious beside the majestic harmonies of the +gospel. He could not soften his voice to breathe tenderly enough a +message of such love, nor give it strength enough to peal forth a +message of such tremendous import and world-wide destination. + +If Paul felt his conception of the greatness of the gospel dwarfing into +nothing _his_ words when he tried to preach it, what must every other +true minister of Christ feel? If he, in the fulness of his inspiration, +besought a place in his brethren's prayers, how much more must they need +it, who try with stammering tongues to preach the truth that made his +fiery words seem ice? Every such man must turn to those who love him and +listen to his poor presentment of the riches of Christ, with Paul's +entreaty. His friends cannot do a kinder thing to him than to bear him +on their hearts in their prayers to God. + +II. We have here next, a couple of precepts, which spring at a bound +from the inmost secret of the Christian life to its circumference, and +refer to the outward life in regard to the non-Christian world, +enjoining, in view of it, a wise walk and gracious speech. + +"Walk in wisdom towards them that are without." Those that are within +are those who have "fled for refuge" to Christ, and are within the fold, +the fortress, the ark. Men who sit safe within while the storm howls, +may simply think with selfish complacency of the poor wretches exposed +to its fierceness. The phrase may express spiritual pride and even +contempt. All close corporations tend to generate dislike and scorn of +outsiders, and the Church has had its own share of such feeling; but +there is no trace of anything of the sort here. Rather is there pathos +and pity in the word, and a recognition that their sad condition gives +these outsiders a claim on Christian men, who are bound to go out to +their help and bring them in. Precisely because they are "without" do +those within owe them a wise walk, that "if any will not hear the word, +they may without the word be won." The thought is in some measure +parallel to our Lord's words, of which perhaps it is a reminiscence. +"Behold I send you forth"--a strange thing for a careful shepherd to +do--"as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents." +Think of that picture--the handful of cowering frightened creatures +huddled against each other, and ringed round by that yelping, +white-toothed crowd, ready to tear them to pieces! So are Christ's +followers in the world. Of course, things have changed in many respects +since those days; partly because persecution has gone out of fashion, +and partly because "the world" has been largely influenced by Christian +morality, and partly because the Church has been largely secularized. +The temperature of the two has become nearly equalized over a large +tract of professing Christendom. So a tolerably good understanding and a +brisk trade has sprung up between the sheep and the wolves. But for all +that, there is fundamental discord, however changed may be its +exhibition, and if we are true to our Master and insist on shaping our +lives by His rules, we shall find out that there is. + +We need, therefore, to "walk in wisdom" towards the non-Christian world; +that is, to let practical prudence shape all our conduct. If we are +Christians, we have to live under the eyes of vigilant and not +altogether friendly observers, who derive satisfaction and harm from any +inconsistency of ours. A plainly Christian life that needs no commentary +to exhibit its harmony with Christ's commandments is the first duty we +owe to them. + +And the wisdom which is to mould our lives in view of these outsiders +will "discern both time and judgment," will try to take the measure of +men and act accordingly. Common sense and practical sagacity are +important accompaniments of Christian zeal. What a singularly complex +character, in this respect, was Paul's--enthusiastic and yet capable of +such diplomatic adaptation; and withal never dropping to cunning, nor +sacrificing truth! Enthusiasts who despise worldly wisdom, and therefore +often dash themselves against stone walls, are not rare; cool +calculators who abhor all generous glow of feeling and have ever a +pailful of cold water for any project which shows it, are only too +common--but fire and ice together, like a volcano with glaciers +streaming down its cone, are rare. Fervour married to tact, common +sense which keeps close to earth and enthusiasm which flames heaven +high, are a rare combination. It is not often that the same voice can +say, "I count not my life dear to myself," and "I became all things to +all men." + +A dangerous principle that last, a very slippery piece of ground to get +upon!--say people, and quite truly. It _is_ dangerous, and one thing +only will keep a man's feet when on it, and that is, that his wise +adaptation shall be perfectly unselfish, and that he shall ever keep +clear before him the great object to be gained, which is nothing +personal, but "that I might by all means save some." If that end is held +in view, we shall be saved from the temptation of hiding or maiming the +very truth which we desire should be received, and our wise adaptation +of ourselves and of our message to the needs and weaknesses and +peculiarities of those "who are without," will not degenerate into +handling the word of God deceitfully. Paul advised "walking in wisdom;" +he abhorred "walking in craftiness." + +We owe them that are without such a walk as may tend to bring them in. +Our life is to a large extent their Bible. They know a great deal more +about Christianity, as they see it in us, than as it is revealed in +Christ, or recorded in Scripture--and if, as seen in us, it does not +strike them as very attractive, small wonder if they still prefer to +remain where they are. Let us take care lest instead of being +doorkeepers to the house of the Lord, to beckon passers-by and draw them +in, we block the doorway, and keep them from seeing the wonders within. + +The Apostle adds a special way in which this wisdom shows +itself--namely, "redeeming the time." The last word here does not denote +time in general, but a definite season, or _opportunity_. The lesson, +then, is not that of making the best use of all the moments as they fly, +precious as that lesson is, but that of discerning and eagerly using +appropriate opportunities for Christian service. The figure is simple +enough; to "buy up" means to make one's own. "Make much of time, let not +advantage slip," is an advice in exactly the same spirit. Two things are +included in it; the watchful study of characters, so as to know the +right times to bring influences to bear on them, and an earnest +diligence in utilizing these for the highest purposes. We have not acted +wisely towards those who are without unless we have used every +opportunity to draw them in. + +But besides a wise walk, there is to be "gracious speech." "Let your +speech be always with grace." A similar juxtaposition of "wisdom" and +"grace" occurred in chapter iii. 16. "Let the word of Christ dwell in +you richly in all wisdom ... singing with grace in your hearts"; and +there as here, "grace" may be taken either in its lower aesthetic sense, +or in its higher spiritual. It may mean either favour, agreeableness, or +the Divine gift, bestowed by the indwelling Spirit. The former is +supposed by many good expositors to be the meaning here. But is it a +Christian's duty to make his speech always agreeable? Sometimes it is +his plain duty to make it very disagreeable indeed. If our speech is to +be true, and wholesome, it must sometimes rasp and go against the grain. +Its pleasantness depends on the inclinations of the hearers rather than +on the will of the honest speaker. If he is to "redeem the time" and +"walk wisely to them that are without," his speech cannot be always with +such grace. The advice to make our words always pleasing may be a very +good maxim for worldly success, but it smacks of Chesterfield's Letters +rather than of Paul's Epistles. + +We must go much deeper for the true import of this exhortation. It is +substantially this--whether you can speak smooth things or no, and +whether your talk is always directly religious or no--and it need not +and cannot always be that--let there ever be in it the manifest +influence of God's Spirit, Who dwells in the Christian heart, and will +mould and sanctify your speech. Of you, as of your Master, let it be +true, "Grace is poured into thy lips." He in whose spirit the Divine +Spirit abides will be truly "Golden-mouthed"; his speech shall distil as +the dew, and whether his grave and lofty words please frivolous and +prurient ears or no, they will be beautiful in the truest sense, and +show the Divine life pulsing through them, as some transparent skin +shows the throbbing of the blue veins. Men who feed their souls on great +authors catch their style, as some of our great living orators, who are +eager students of English poetry. So if we converse much with God, +listening to His voice in our hearts, our speech will have in it a tone +that will echo that deep music. Our accent will betray our country. Then +our speech will be with grace in the lower sense of pleasingness. The +truest gracefulness, both of words and conduct, comes from heavenly +grace. The beauty caught from God, the fountain of all things lovely, is +the highest. + +The speech is to be "seasoned with salt." That does not mean the "Attic +salt" of wit. There is nothing more wearisome than the talk of men who +are always trying to be piquant and brilliant. Such speech is like a +"pillar of salt"--it sparkles, but is cold, and has points that wound, +and it tastes bitter. That is not what Paul recommends. Salt was used in +sacrifice--let the sacrificial salt be applied to all our words; that +is, let all we say be offered up to God, "a sacrifice of praise to God +continually." Salt preserves. Put into your speech what will keep it +from rotting, or, as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it, "let no +_corrupt_ communication proceed out of your mouth." Frivolous talk, +dreary gossip, ill-natured talk, idle talk, to say nothing of foul and +wicked words, will be silenced when your speech is seasoned with salt. + +The following words make it probable that salt here is used also with +some allusion to its power of giving savour to food. Do not deal in +insipid generalities, but suit your words to your hearers, "that ye may +know how ye ought to answer each one." Speech that fits close to the +characteristics and wants of the people to whom it is spoken is sure to +be interesting, and that which does not will for them be insipid. +Commonplaces that hit full against the hearer will be no commonplaces to +him, and the most brilliant words that do not meet his mind or needs +will to him be tasteless "as the white of an egg." + +Individual peculiarities, then, must determine the wise way of approach +to each man, and there will be wide variety in the methods. Paul's +language to the wild hill tribes of Lycaonia was not the same as to the +cultivated, curious crowd on Mars' Hill, and his sermons in the +synagogues have a different tone from his reasonings of judgment to come +before Felix. + +All that is too plain to need illustration. But one word may be added. +The Apostle here regards it as the task of every Christian man to speak +for Christ. Further, he recommends dealing with individuals rather than +masses, as being within the scope of each Christian, and as being much +more efficacious. Salt has to be rubbed in, if it is to do any good. It +is better for most of us to fish with the rod than with the net, to +angle for single souls, rather than to try and enclose a multitude at +once. Preaching to a congregation has its own place and value; but +private and personal talk, honestly and wisely done, will effect more +than the most eloquent preaching. Better to drill in the seeds, dropping +them one by one into the little pits made for their reception, than to +sow them broadcast. + +And what shall we say of Christian men and women, who can talk +animatedly and interestingly of anything but of their Saviour and His +kingdom? Timidity, misplaced reverence, a dread of seeming to be +self-righteous, a regard for conventional proprieties, and the national +reserve account for much of the lamentable fact that there are so many +such. But all these barriers would be floated away like straws, if a +great stream of Christian feeling were pouring from the heart. What +fills the heart will overflow by the floodgates of speech. So that the +real reason for the unbroken silence in which many Christian people +conceal their faith is mainly the small quantity of it which there is to +conceal. + +A solemn ideal is set before us in these parting injunctions--a higher +righteousness than was thundered from Sinai. When we think of our +hurried, formal devotion, our prayers forced from us sometimes by the +pressure of calamity, and so often suspended when the weight is lifted; +of the occasional glimpses that we get of God--as sailors may catch +sight of a guiding star for a moment through driving fog, and of the +long tracts of life which would be precisely the same, as far as our +thoughts are concerned, if there were no God at all, or He had nothing +to do with us--what an awful command that seems, "Continue stedfastly in +prayer"! + +When we think of our selfish disregard of the woes and dangers of the +poor wanderers without, exposed to the storm, while we think ourselves +safe in the fold, and of how little we have meditated on and still less +discharged our obligations to them, and of how we have let precious +opportunities slip through our slack hands, we may well bow rebuked +before the exhortation, "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without." + +When we think of the stream of words ever flowing from our lips, and how +few grains of gold that stream has brought down amid all its sand, and +how seldom Christ's name has been spoken by us to hearts that heed Him +not nor know Him, the exhortation, "Let your speech be always with +grace," becomes an indictment as truly as a command. + +There is but one place for us, the foot of the cross, that there we may +obtain forgiveness for all the faulty past and thence may draw +consecration and strength for the future, to enable us to keep that +lofty law of Christian morality, which is high and hard if we think only +of its precepts, but becomes light and easy when we open our hearts to +receive the power for obedience, "which," as this great Epistle +manifoldly teaches, "is Christ in you, the hope of glory." + + + + +XXIV. + +_TYCHICUS AND ONESIMUS, THE LETTER-BEARERS._ + + "All my affairs shall Tychicus make known unto you, the beloved + brother and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I + have sent unto you for this very purpose, that ye may know our + estate, and that he may comfort your hearts; together with Onesimus, + the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make + known unto you all things that _are done_ here."--COL. iv. 7-9 (Rev. + Ver.). + + +In Paul's days it was perhaps more difficult to get letters delivered +than to write them. It was a long, weary journey from Rome to +Colossae,--across Italy, then by sea to Greece, across Greece, then by +sea to the port of Ephesus, and thence by rough ways to the upland +valley where lay Colossae, with its neighbouring towns of Laodicea and +Hierapolis. So one thing which the Apostle has to think about is to find +messengers to carry his letter. He pitches upon these two, Tychicus and +Onesimus. The former is one of his personal attendants, told off for +this duty; the other, who has been in Rome under very peculiar +circumstances, is going home to Colossae, on a strange errand, in which +he may be helped by having a message from Paul to carry. + +We shall not now deal with the words before us, so much as with these +two figures, whom we may regard as representing certain principles, and +embodying some useful lessons. + +I. Tychicus may stand as representing the greatness and sacredness of +small and secular service done for Christ. + +We must first try, in as few words as may be, to change the name into a +man. There is something very solemn and pathetic in these shadowy names +which appear for a moment on the page of Scripture, and are swallowed up +of black night, like stars that suddenly blaze out for a week or two, +and then dwindle and at last disappear altogether. They too lived, and +loved, and strove, and suffered, and enjoyed: and now--all is gone, +gone; the hot fire burned down to such a little handful of white ashes. +Tychicus and Onesimus! two shadows that once were men! and as they are, +so we shall be. + +As to Tychicus, there are several fragmentary notices about him in the +Acts of the Apostles and in Paul's letters, and although they do not +amount to much, still by piecing them together, and looking at them with +some sympathy, we can get a notion of the man. + +He does not appear till near the end of Paul's missionary work, and was +probably one of the fruits of the Apostle's long residence in Ephesus on +his last missionary tour, as we do not hear of him till after that +period. That stay in Ephesus was cut short by the silversmiths' +riot--the earliest example of trades' unions--when they wanted to +silence the preaching of the gospel because it damaged the market for +"shrines," and "_also_" was an insult to the great goddess! Thereupon +Paul retired to Europe, and after some months there, decided on his last +fateful journey to Jerusalem. On the way he was joined by a remarkable +group of friends seven in number, and apparently carefully selected so +as to represent the principal fields of the Apostle's labours. There +were three Europeans, two from "Asia"--meaning by that name, of course, +only the Roman province, which included mainly the western seaboard--and +two from the wilder inland country of Lycaonia. Tychicus was one of the +two from Asia; the other was Trophimus, whom we know to have been an +Ephesian (Acts xxi. 29), as Tychicus may not improbably have also been. + +We do not know that all the seven accompanied Paul to Jerusalem. +Trophimus we know did, and another of them, Aristarchus, is mentioned as +having sailed with him on the return voyage from Palestine (Acts xxvii. +2). But if they were not intended to go to Jerusalem, why did they meet +him at all? The sacredness of the number seven, the apparent care to +secure a representation of the whole field of apostolic activity, and +the long distances that some of them must have travelled, make it +extremely unlikely that these men should have met him at a little port +in Asia Minor for the mere sake of being with him for a few days. It +certainly seems much more probable that they joined his company and went +on to Jerusalem. What for? Probably as bearers of money contributions +from the whole area of the Gentile Churches, to the "poor saints" +there--a purpose which would explain the composition of the delegation. +Paul was too sensitive and too sagacious to have more to do with money +matters than he could help. We learn from his letter to the Church at +Corinth that he insisted on another brother being associated with him in +the administration of their alms, so that no man could raise suspicions +against him. Paul's principle was that which ought to guide every man +entrusted with other people's money to spend for religious or charitable +purposes--"I shall not be your almoner unless some one appointed by you +stands by me to see that I spend your money rightly"--a good example +which, it is much to be desired, were followed by all workers, and +required to be followed as a condition of all giving. + +These seven, at all events, began the long journey with Paul. Among them +is our friend Tychicus, who may have learned to know the Apostle more +intimately during it, and perhaps developed qualities in travel which +marked him out as fit for the errand on which we here find him. + +This voyage was about the year 58 A.D. Then comes an interval of some +three or four years, in which occur Paul's arrest and imprisonment at +Caesarea, his appearance before governors and kings, his voyage to Italy +and shipwreck, with his residence in Rome. Whether Tychicus was with him +during all this period, as Luke seems to have been, we do not know, nor +at what point he joined the Apostle, if he was not his companion +throughout. But the verses before us show that he was with Paul during +part of his first Roman captivity, probably about A.D. 62 or 63; and +their commendation of him as "a faithful minister," or helper of Paul, +implies that for a considerable period before this he had been rendering +services to the Apostle. + +He is now despatched all the long way to Colossae to carry this letter, +and to tell the Church by word of mouth all that had happened in Rome. +No information of that kind is in the letter itself. That silence forms +a remarkable contrast to the affectionate abundance of personal details +in another prison letter, that to the Philippians, and probably marks +this Epistle as addressed to a Church never visited by Paul. Tychicus is +sent, according to the most probable reading, that "ye may know our +estate, and that he may comfort your hearts"--encouraging the brethren +to Christian stedfastness, not only by his news of Paul, but by his own +company and exhortations. + +The very same words are employed about him in the contemporaneous letter +to the Ephesians. Evidently, then, he carried both epistles on the same +journey; and one reason for selecting him as messenger is plainly that +he was a native of the province, and probably of Ephesus. When Paul +looked round his little circle of attendant friends, his eye fell on +Tychicus, as the very man for such an errand. "You go, Tychicus. It is +your home; they all know you." + +The most careful students now think that the Epistle to the Ephesians +was meant to go the round of the Churches of Asia Minor, beginning, no +doubt, with that in the great city of Ephesus. If that be so, and +Tychicus had to carry it to these Churches in turn, he would necessarily +come, in the course of his duty, to Laodicea, which was only a few miles +from Colossae, and so could most conveniently deliver this Epistle. The +wider and the narrower mission fitted into each other. + +No doubt he went, and did his work. We can fancy the eager groups, +perhaps in some upper room, perhaps in some quiet place of prayer by the +river side; in their midst the two messengers, with a little knot of +listeners and questioners round each. How they would have to tell the +story a dozen times over! how every detail would be precious! how tears +would come and hearts would glow! how deep into the night they would +talk! and how many a heart that had begun to waver would be confirmed in +cleaving to Christ by the exhortations of Tychicus, by the very sight of +Onesimus, and by Paul's words of fire! + +What became of Tychicus after that journey we do not know. Perhaps he +settled down at Ephesus for a time, perhaps he returned to Paul. At any +rate, we get two more glimpses of him at a later period--one in the +Epistle to Titus, in which we hear of the Apostle's intention to +despatch him on another journey to Crete, and the last in the close of +the second Epistle to Timothy, written from Rome probably about A.D. 67. +The Apostle believes that his death is near, and seems to have sent away +most of his staff. Among the notices of their various appointments we +read, "Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus." He is not said to have been +sent on any mission connected with the Churches. It may be that he was +simply sent away because, by reason of his impending martyrdom, Paul had +no more need of him. True, he still has Luke by him, and he wishes +Timothy to come and bring his first "minister," Mark, with him. But he +has sent away Tychicus, as if he had said, Now, go back to your home, my +friend! You have been a faithful servant for ten years. I need you no +more. Go to your own people, and take my blessing. God be with you! So +they parted, he that was for death, to die! and he that was for life, to +live and to treasure the memory of Paul in his heart for the rest of +his days. These are the facts; ten years of faithful service to the +Apostle, partly during his detention in Rome, and much of it spent in +wearisome and dangerous travelling undertaken to carry a couple of +letters. + +As for his character, Paul has given us something of it in these few +words, which have commended him to a wider circle than the handful of +Christians at Colossae. As for his personal godliness and goodness, he is +"a beloved brother," as are all who love Christ; but he is also a +"faithful minister," or personal attendant upon the Apostle. Paul always +seems to have had one or two such about him, from the time of his first +journey, when John Mark filled the post, to the end of his career. +Probably he was no great hand at managing affairs, and needed some plain +common-sense nature beside him, who would be secretary or amanuensis +sometimes, and general helper and factotum. Men of genius and men +devoted to some great cause which tyrannously absorbs attention, want +some person to fill such a homely office. The person who filled it would +be likely to be a plain man, not gifted in any special degree for higher +service. Common sense, willingness to be troubled with small details of +purely secular arrangements, and a hearty love for the chief, and desire +to spare him annoyance and work, were the qualifications. Such probably +was Tychicus--no orator, no organiser, no thinker, but simply an honest, +loving soul, who did not shrink from rough outward work, if only it +might help the cause. We do not read that he was a teacher or preacher, +or miracle worker. His gift was--ministry, and he gave himself to his +ministry. His business was to run Paul's errands, and, like a true man, +he ran them "faithfully." + +So then, he is fairly taken as representing the greatness and sacredness +of small and secular service for Christ. For the Apostle goes on to add +something to his eulogium as a "faithful minister"--when he calls him "a +fellow-servant," or slave, "in the Lord." As if he had said, Do not +suppose that because I write this letter, and Tychicus carries it, there +is much difference between us. We are both slaves of the same Lord who +has set each of us his tasks; and though the tasks be different, the +obedience is the same, and the doers stand on one level. I am not +Tychicus' master, though he be my minister. We have both, as I have been +reminding you that you all have, an owner in heaven. The delicacy of the +turn thus given to the commendation is a beautiful indication of Paul's +generous, chivalrous nature. No wonder that such a soul bound men like +Tychicus to him! + +But there is more than merely a revelation of a beautiful character in +the words; there are great truths in them. We may draw them out in two +or three thoughts. + +Small things done for Christ are great. Trifles that contribute and are +indispensable to a great result are great; or perhaps, more properly, +both words are out of place. In some powerful engine there is a little +screw, and if it drop out, the great piston cannot rise nor the huge +crank turn. What have big and little to do with things which are equally +indispensable? There is a great rudder that steers an ironclad. It moves +on a "pintle" a few inches long. If that bit of iron were gone, what +would become of the rudder, and what would be the use of the ship with +all her guns? There is an old jingling rhyme about losing a shoe for +want of a nail, and a horse for want of a shoe, and a man for want of a +horse, and a battle for want of a man, and a kingdom for loss of a +battle. The intervening links may be left out--and the nail and the +kingdom brought together. In a similar spirit, we may say that the +trifles done for Christ which help the great things are as important as +these. What is the use of writing letters, if you cannot get them +delivered? It takes both Paul and Tychicus to get the letter into the +hands of the people at Colossae. + +Another thought suggested by the figure of Paul's minister, who was also +his fellow-slave, is the sacredness of secular work done for Christ. +When Tychicus is caring for Paul's comfort, and looking after common +things for him, he is serving Christ, and his work is "in the Lord." +That is equivalent to saying that the distinction between sacred and +secular, religious and non-religious, like that of great and small, +disappears from work done for and in Jesus. Whenever there is +organization, there must be much work concerned with purely material +things: and the most spiritual forces must have some organization. There +must be men for "the outward business of the house of God" as well as +white-robed priests at the altar, and the rapt gazer in the secret place +of the Most High. There are a hundred matters of detail and of purely +outward and mechanical sort which must be seen to by somebody. The +alternative is to do them in a purely mechanical and secular manner and +so to make the work utterly dreary and contemptible, or in a devout and +earnest manner and so to hallow them all, and make worship of them all. +The difference between two lives is not in the material on which, but in +the motive from which, and in the end for which, they are respectively +lived. All work done in obedience to the same Lord is the same in +essence; for it is all obedience; and all work done for the same God is +the same in essence, for it is all worship. The distinction between +secular and sacred ought never to have found its way into Christian +morals, and ought for evermore to be expelled from Christian life. + +Another thought may be suggested--fleeting things done for Christ are +eternal. How astonished Tychicus would have been if anybody had told him +on that day when he got away from Rome, with the two precious letters in +his scrip, that these bits of parchment would outlast all the +ostentatious pomp of the city, and that his name, because written in +them, would be known to the end of time all over the world! The eternal +things are the things done for Christ. They are eternal in His memory +who has said, "I will never forget any of their works," however they may +fall from man's remembrance. They are perpetual in their consequences. +True, no man's contribution to the mighty sum of things "that make for +righteousness" can very long be traced as separate from the others, any +more than the raindrop that refreshed the harebell on the moor can be +traced in burn, and river, and sea. But for all that, it is there. So +our influence for good blends with a thousand others, and may not be +traceable beyond a short distance, still it is there: and no true work +for Christ, abortive as it may seem, but goes to swell the great +aggregate of forces which are working on through the ages to bring the +perfect Order. + +That Colossian Church seems a failure. Where is it now? Gone. Where are +its sister Churches of Asia? Gone. Paul's work and Tychicus' seem to +have vanished from the earth, and Mohammedanism to have taken its place. +Yes! and here are we to-day in England, and Christian men all over the +world in lands that were mere slaughterhouses of savagery then, learning +our best lessons from Paul's words, and owing something for our +knowledge of them to Tychicus' humble care. Paul meant to teach a +handful of obscure believers--he has edified the world. Tychicus thought +to carry the precious letter safely over the sea--he was helping to send +it across the centuries, and to put it into our hands. So little do we +know where our work will terminate. Our only concern is where it begins. +Let us look after this end, the motive; and leave God to take care of +the other, the consequences. + +Such work will be perpetual in its consequences on ourselves. "Though +Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious." Whether our service +for Christ does others any good or no, it will bless ourselves, by +strengthening the motives from which it springs, by enlarging our own +knowledge and enriching our own characters, and by a hundred other +gracious influences which His work exerts upon the devout worker, and +which become indissoluble parts of himself, and abide with him for ever, +over and above the crown of glory that fadeth not away. + +And, as the reward is given not to the outward deed, but to the motive +which settles its value, all work done from the same motive is alike in +reward, howsoever different in form. Paul in the front, and Tychicus +obscure in the rear, the great teachers and path-openers whom Christ +through the ages raises up for large spiritual work, and the little +people whom Christ through the ages raises up to help and +sympathize--shall share alike at last, if the Spirit that moved them has +been the same, and if in different administrations they have served the +same Lord. "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a +prophet"--though no prophecy come from his lips--"shall receive a +prophet's reward." + +II. We must now turn to a much briefer consideration of the second +figure here, Onesimus, as representing the transforming and uniting +power of Christian faith. + +No doubt this is the same Onesimus as we read of in the Epistle to +Philemon. His story is familiar and need not be dwelt on. He had been an +"unprofitable servant," good-for-nothing, and apparently had robbed his +master, and then fled. He had found his way to Rome, to which all the +scum of the empire seemed to drift. There he had burrowed in some hole, +and found obscurity and security. Somehow or other he had come across +Paul--surely not, as has been supposed, having sought the Apostle as a +friend of his master's, which would rather have been a reason for +avoiding him. However that may be, he had found Paul, and Paul's Master +had found _him_ by the gospel which Paul spoke. His heart had been +touched. And now he is to go back to his owner. With beautiful +considerateness the Apostle unites him with Tychicus in his mission, and +refers the Church to him as an authority. That is most delicate and +thoughtful. The same sensitive regard for his feelings marks the +language in which he is commended to them. There is now no word about "a +fellow-slave"--that might have been misunderstood and might have hurt. +Paul will only say about him half of what he said about Tychicus. He +cannot leave out the "faithful," because Onesimus had been eminently +unfaithful, and so he attaches it to that half of his former +commendation which he retains, and testifies to him as "a faithful and +beloved brother." There are no references to his flight or to his +peculations. Philemon is the person to be spoken to about these. The +Church has nothing to do with them. The man's past was blotted +out--enough that he is "faithful," exercising trust in Christ, and +therefore to be trusted. His condition was of no moment--enough that he +is "a brother," therefore to be beloved. + +Does not then that figure stand forth a living illustration of the +_transforming_ power of Christianity? Slaves had well-known vices, +largely the result of their position--idleness, heartlessness, lying, +dishonesty. And this man had had his full share of the sins of his +class. Think of him as he left Colossae, slinking from his master, with +stolen property in his bosom, madness and mutiny in his heart, an +ignorant heathen, with vices and sensualities holding carnival in his +soul. Think of him as he came back, Paul's trusted representative, with +desires after holiness in his deepest nature, the light of the knowledge +of a loving and pure God in his soul, a great hope before him, ready for +all service and even to put on again the abhorred yoke! What had +happened? Nothing but this--the message had come to him, "Onesimus! +fugitive, rebel, thief as thou art, Jesus Christ has died for thee, and +lives to cleanse and bless thee. Believest thou this?" And he believed, +and leant his whole sinful self on that Saviour, and the corruption +faded away from his heart, and out of the thief was made a trustworthy +man, and out of the slave a beloved brother. The cross had touched his +heart and will. That was all. It had changed his whole being. He is a +living illustration of Paul's teaching in this very letter. He is dead +with Christ to his old self; he lives with Christ a new life. + +The gospel can do that. It can and does do so to-day and to us, if we +will. Nothing else can; nothing else ever has done it; nothing else ever +will. Culture may do much; social reformation may do much; but the +radical transformation of the nature is only effected by the "love of +God shed abroad in the heart," and by the new life which we receive +through our faith in Christ. + +That change can be produced on all sorts and conditions of men. The +gospel despairs of none. It knows of no hopelessly irreclaimable +classes. It can kindle a soul under the ribs of death. The filthiest +rags can be cleaned and made into spotlessly white paper, which may have +the name of God written upon it. None are beyond its power; neither the +savages in other lands, nor the more hopeless heathens festering and +rotting in our back slums, the opprobrium of our civilization and the +indictment of our Christianity. Take the gospel that transformed this +poor slave, to them, and some hearts will own it, and we shall pick out +of the kennel souls blacker than his, and make them like him, brethren, +faithful and beloved. + +Further, here is a living illustration of the power which the gospel has +of binding men into a true brotherhood. We can scarcely picture to +ourselves the gulf which separated the master from his slave. "So many +slaves, so many enemies," said Seneca. That great crack running through +society was a chief weakness and peril of the ancient world. +Christianity gathered master and slave into one family, and set them +down at one table to commemorate the death of the Saviour who held them +all in the embrace of His great love. + +All true union among men must be based upon their oneness in Jesus +Christ. The brotherhood of man is a consequence of the fatherhood of +God, and Christ shows us the Father. If the dreams of men's being knit +together in harmony are ever to be more than dreams, the power that +makes them facts must flow from the cross. The world must recognise that +"One is your master," before it comes to believe as anything more than +the merest sentimentality that "all ye are brethren." + +Much has to be done before the dawn of that day reddens in the east, +"when, man to man, the wide world o'er, shall brothers be," and much in +political and social life has to be swept away before society is +organized on the basis of Christian fraternity. The vision tarries. But +we may remember how certainly, though slowly, the curse of slavery has +disappeared, and take courage to believe that all other evils will fade +away in like manner, until the cords of love shall bind all hearts in +fraternal unity, because they bind each to the cross of the Elder +Brother, through whom we are no more slaves but sons, and if sons of +God, then brethren of one another. + + + + +XXV. + +_SALUTATIONS FROM THE PRISONER'S FRIENDS._ + + "Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth you, and Mark, the cousin + of Barnabas (touching whom ye received commandments; if he come unto + you, receive him), and Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the + circumcision: these only _are my_ fellow-workers unto the kingdom of + God, men that have been a comfort unto me. Epaphras, who is one of + you, a servant of Christ Jesus, saluteth you, always striving for + you in his prayers, that ye may stand perfect and fully assured in + all the will of God. For I bear him witness, that he hath much + labour for you, and for them in Laodicea, and for them in + Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas salute + you."--COL. iv. 10-14 (Rev. Ver.). + + +Here are men of different races, unknown to each other by face, clasping +hands across the seas, and feeling that the repulsions of nationality, +language, conflicting interests, have disappeared in the unity of faith. +These greetings are a most striking, because unconscious, testimony to +the reality and strength of the new bond that knit Christian souls +together. + +There are three sets of salutations here, sent from Rome to the little +far-off Phrygian town in its secluded valley. The first is from three +large-hearted Jewish Christians, whose greeting has a special meaning as +coming from that wing of the Church which had least sympathy with Paul's +work or converts. The second is from the Colossians' towns-man Epaphras; +and the third is from two Gentiles like themselves, one well known as +Paul's most faithful friend, one almost unknown, of whom Paul has +nothing to say, and of whom nothing good can be said. All these may +yield us matter for consideration. It is interesting to piece together +what we know of the bearers of these shadowy names. It is profitable to +regard them as exponents of certain tendencies and principles. + +1. These three sympathetic Jewish Christians may stand as types of a +progressive and non-ceremonial Christianity. + +We need spend little time in outlining the figures of these three, for +he in the centre is well known to every one, and his two supporters are +little known to any one. Aristarchus was a Thessalonian (Acts xx. 4), +and so perhaps one of Paul's early converts on his first journey to +Europe. His purely Gentile name would not have led us to expect him to +be a Jew. But we have many similar instances in the New Testament, such +for instance, as the names of six of the seven deacons (Acts vii. 5), +which show that the Jews of "the dispersion," who resided in foreign +countries, often bore no trace of their nationality in their names. He +was with Paul in Ephesus at the time of the riot, and was one of the two +whom the excited mob, in their zeal for trade and religion, dragged into +the theatre, to the peril of their lives. We next find him like +Tychicus, a member of the deputation which joined Paul on his voyage to +Jerusalem. Whatever was the case with the other, Aristarchus was in +Palestine with Paul, for we learn that he sailed with him thence (Acts +xxvii. 2). Whether he kept company with Paul during all the journey we +do not know. But more probably he went home to Thessalonica, and +afterwards rejoined Paul at some point in his Roman captivity. At any +rate here he is, standing by Paul, having drunk in his spirit, and +enthusiastically devoted to him and his work. + +He receives here a remarkable and honourable title, "my +fellow-prisoner." I suppose that it is to be taken literally, and that +Aristarchus was, in some way, at the moment of writing, sharing Paul's +imprisonment. Now it has been often noticed that, in the Epistle to +Philemon, where almost all these names re-appear, it is not Aristarchus, +but Epaphras, who is honoured with this epithet; and that interchange +has been explained by an ingenious supposition that Paul's friends took +it in turn to keep him company, and were allowed to live with him, on +condition of submitting to the same restrictions, military guardianship, +and so on. There is no positive evidence in favour of this, but it is +not improbable, and, if accepted, helps to give an interesting glimpse +of Paul's prison life, and of the loyal devotion which surrounded him. + +Mark comes next. His story is well known--how twelve years before, he +had joined the first missionary band from Antioch, of which his cousin +Barnabas was the leader, and had done well enough as long as they were +on known ground, in Barnabas' (and perhaps his own) native island of +Cyprus, but had lost heart and run home to his mother as soon as they +crossed into Asia Minor. He had long ago effaced the distrust of him +which Paul naturally conceived on account of this collapse. How he came +to be with Paul at Rome is unknown. It has been conjectured that +Barnabas was dead, and that so, Mark was free to join the Apostle; but +that is unsupported supposition. Apparently he is now purposing a +journey to Asia Minor, in the course of which, if he should come to +Colossae (which was doubtful, perhaps on account of its insignificance), +Paul repeats his previous injunction, that the church should give him a +cordial welcome. Probably this commendation was given because the evil +odour of his old fault might still hang about his name. The calculated +emphasis of the exhortation, "receive him," seems to show that there was +some reluctance to give him a hearty reception and take him to their +hearts. So we have an "undesigned coincidence." The tone of the +injunction here is naturally explained by the story in the Acts. + +So faithful a friend did he prove, that the lonely old man, fronting +death, longed to have his affectionate tending once more; and his last +word about him, "Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is +profitable to me for _the ministry_," condones the early fault, and +restores him to the office which, in a moment of selfish weakness, he +had abandoned. So it is possible to efface a faultful past, and to +acquire strength and fitness for work, to which we are by nature most +inapt and indisposed. Mark is an instance of early faults nobly atoned +for, and a witness of the power of repentance and faith to overcome +natural weakness. Many a ragged colt makes a noble horse. + +The third man is utterly unknown--"Jesus, which is called Justus." How +startling to come across that name, borne by this obscure Christian! How +it helps us to feel the humble manhood of Christ, by showing us that +many another Jewish boy bore the same name; common and undistinguished +then, though too holy to be given to any since. His surname Justus may, +perhaps, like the same name given to James, the first bishop of the +Church in Jerusalem, hint his rigorous adherence to Judaism, and so may +indicate that, like Paul himself, he came from the straitest sect of +their religion into the large liberty in which he now rejoiced. + +He seems to have been of no importance in the Church, for his name is +the only one in this context which does not re-appear in Philemon, and +we never hear of him again. A strange fate his! to be made immortal by +three words--and because he wanted to send a loving message to the +Church at Colossae! Why, men have striven and schemed, and broken their +hearts, and flung away their lives, to grasp the bubble of posthumous +fame; and how easily this good "Jesus which is called Justus" has got +it! He has his name written for ever on the world's memory, and he very +likely never knew it, and does not know it, and was never a bit the +better for it! What a satire on "the last infirmity of noble minds!" + +These three men are united in this salutation, because they are all +three, "of the circumcision;" that is to say, are Jews, and being so, +have separated themselves from all the other Jewish Christians in Rome, +and have flung themselves with ardour into Paul's missionary work among +the Gentiles, and have been his fellow-workers for the advancement of +the kingdom--aiding him, that is, in seeking to win willing subjects to +the loving, kingly will of God. By this co-operation in the aim of his +life, they have been a "comfort" to him. He uses a half medical term, +which perhaps he had caught from the physician at his elbow, which we +might perhaps parallel by saying they had been a "cordial" to him--like +a refreshing draught to a weary man, or some whiff of pure air stealing +into a close chamber and lifting the damp curls on some hot brow. + +Now these three men, the only three Jewish Christians in Rome who had +the least sympathy with Paul and his work, give us, in their isolation, +a vivid illustration of the antagonism which he had to face from that +portion of the early Church. The great question for the first generation +of Christians was, not whether Gentiles might enter the Christian +community, but whether they must do so by circumcision, and pass through +Judaism on their road to Christianity. The bulk of the Palestinian +Jewish Christians naturally held that they must; while the bulk of +Jewish Christians who had been born in other countries as naturally held +that they need not. As the champion of this latter decision, Paul was +worried and counter-worked and hindered all his life by the other party. +They had no missionary zeal, or next to none, but they followed in his +wake and made mischief wherever they could. If we can fancy some modern +sect that sends out no missionaries of its own, but delights to come in +where better men have forced a passage, and to upset their work by +preaching its own crotchets, we get precisely the kind of thing which +dogged Paul all his life. + +There was evidently a considerable body of these men in Rome; good men +no doubt in a fashion, believing in Jesus as the Messiah, but unable to +comprehend that he had antiquated Moses, as the dawning day makes +useless the light in a dark place. Even when he was a prisoner, their +unrelenting antagonism pursued the Apostle. They preached Christ of +"envy and strife." Not one of them lifted a finger to help him, or spoke +a word to cheer him. With none of them to say, God bless him! he toiled +on. Only these three were large-hearted enough to take their stand by +his side, and by this greeting to clasp the hands of their Gentile +brethren in Colossae and thereby to endorse the teaching of this letter +as to the abrogation of Jewish rites. + +It was a brave thing to do, and the exuberance of the eulogium shows how +keenly Paul felt his countrymen's coldness, and how grateful he was to +"the dauntless three." Only those who have lived in an atmosphere of +misconstruction, surrounded by scowls and sneers, can understand what a +cordial the clasp of a hand, or the word of sympathy is. These men were +like the old soldier that stood on the street of Worms, as Luther passed +in to the Diet, and clapped him on the shoulder, with "Little monk! +little monk! you are about to make a nobler stand to-day than we in all +our battles have ever done. If your cause is just, and you are sure of +it, go forward in God's name, and fear nothing." If we can do no more, +we can give some one who is doing more a cup of cold water, by our +sympathy and taking our place at his side, and _so_ can be +fellow-workers to the kingdom of God. + +We note, too, that the best comfort Paul could have was help in his +work. He did not go about the world whimpering for sympathy. He was much +too strong a man for that. He wanted men to come down into the trench +with him, and to shovel and wheel there till they had made in the +wilderness some kind of a highway for the King. The true cordial for a +true worker is that others get into the traces and pull by his side. + +But we may further look at these men as representing for us progressive +as opposed to reactionary, and spiritual as opposed to ceremonial +Christianity. Jewish Christians looked backwards; Paul and his three +sympathisers looked forward. There was much excuse for the former. No +wonder that they shrank from the idea that things divinely appointed +could be laid aside. Now there is a broad distinction between the divine +in Christianity and the divine in Judaism. For Jesus Christ is God's +last word, and abides for ever. His divinity, His perfect sacrifice, His +present life in glory for us, His life within us, these and their +related truths are the perennial possession of the Church. To Him we +must look back, and every generation till the end of time will have to +look back, as the full and final expression of the wisdom and will and +mercy of God. "Last of all He sent unto them His Son." + +That being distinctly understood, we need not hesitate to recognise the +transitory nature of much of the embodiment of the eternal truth +concerning the eternal Christ. To draw the line accurately between the +permanent and the transient would be to anticipate history and read the +future. But the clear recognition of the distinction between the Divine +revelation and the vessels in which it is contained, between Christ and +creed, between Churches, forms of worship, formularies of faith on the +one hand, and the everlasting word of God spoken to us once for all in +His Son, and recorded in Scripture, on the other, is needful at all +times, and especially at such times of sifting and unsettlement as the +present. It will save some of us from an obstinate conservatism which +might read its fate in the decline and disappearance of Jewish +Christianity. It will save us equally from needless fears, as if the +stars were going out, when it is only men-made lamps that are paling. +Men's hearts often tremble for the ark of God, when the only things in +peril are the cart that carries it, or the oxen that draw it. "We have +received a kingdom that cannot be moved," because we have received a +King eternal, and therefore may calmly see the removal of things that +can be shaken, assured that the things which cannot be shaken will but +the more conspicuously assert their permanence. The existing embodiments +of God's truth are not the highest, and if Churches and forms crumble +and disintegrate, their disappearance will not be the abolition of +Christianity, but its progress. These Jewish Christians would have found +all that they strove to keep, in higher form and more real reality, in +Christ; and what seemed to them the destruction of Judaism was really +its coronation with undying life. + +II. Epaphras is for us the type of the highest service which love can +render. + +All our knowledge of Epaphras is contained in these brief notices in +this Epistle. We learn from the first chapter that he had introduced the +gospel to Colossae, and perhaps also to Laodicea and Hierapolis. He was +"one of you," a member of the Colossian community, and a resident in, +possibly a native of, Colossae. He had come to Rome, apparently to +consult the Apostle about the views which threatened to disturb the +Church. He had told him, too, of their love, not painting the picture +too black, and gladly giving full prominence to any bits of brightness. +It was his report which led to the writing of this letter. + +Perhaps some of the Colossians were not over pleased with his having +gone to speak with Paul, and having brought down this thunderbolt on +their heads; and such a feeling may account for the warmth of Paul's +praises of him as his "fellow-slave," and for the emphasis of his +testimony on his behalf. However they might doubt it, Epaphras' love for +them was warm. It showed itself by continual fervent prayers that they +might stand "perfect and fully persuaded in all the will of God," and by +toil of body and mind for them. We can see the anxious Epaphras, far +away from the Church of his solicitude, always burdened with the thought +of their danger, and ever wrestling in prayer on their behalf. + +So we may learn the noblest service which Christian love can do--prayer. +There is a real power in Christian intercession. There are many +difficulties and mysteries round that thought. The manner of the +blessing is not revealed, but the fact that we help one another by +prayer is plainly taught, and confirmed by many examples, from the day +when God heard Abraham and delivered Lot, to the hour when the loving +authoritative words were spoken, "Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee +that thy faith fail not." A spoonful of water sets a hydraulic press in +motion, and brings into operation a force of tons' weight; so a drop of +prayer at the one end may move an influence at the other which is +omnipotent. It is a service which all can render. Epaphras could not +have written this letter, but he could pray. Love has no higher way of +utterance than prayer. A prayerless love may be very tender, and may +speak murmured words of sweetest sound, but it lacks the deepest +expression, and the noblest music of speech. We never help our dear ones +so well as when we pray for them. Do we thus show and consecrate our +family loves and our friendships? + +We notice too the kind of prayer which love naturally presents. It is +constant and earnest--"always striving," or as the word might be +rendered, "agonizing." That word suggests first the familiar metaphor of +the wrestling-ground. True prayer is the intensest energy of the spirit +pleading for blessing with a great striving of faithful desire. But a +more solemn memory gathers round the word, for it can scarcely fail to +recall the hour beneath the olives of Gethsemane, when the clear paschal +moon shone down on the suppliant who, "being in an agony, prayed the +more earnestly." And both Paul's word here, and the evangelist's there, +carry us back to that mysterious scene by the brook Jabbok, where Jacob +"wrestled" with "a man" until the breaking of the day, and prevailed. +Such is prayer; the wrestle in the arena, the agony in Gethsemane, the +solitary grapple with the "traveller unknown"; and such is the highest +expression of Christian love. + +Here, too, we learn what love asks for its beloved. Not perishable +blessings, not the prizes of earth--fame, fortune, friends; but that "ye +may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God." The first +petition is for stedfastness. To stand has for opposites--to fall, or +totter, or give ground; so the prayer is that they may not yield to +temptation, or opposition, nor waver in their fixed faith, nor go down +in the struggle; but keep erect, their feet planted on the rock, and +holding their own against every foe. The prayer is also for their +maturity of Christian character, that they may stand firm, because +perfect, having attained that condition which Paul in this Epistle tell +us is the aim of all preaching and warning. As for ourselves, so for our +dear ones, we are to be content with nothing short of entire conformity +to the will of God. His merciful purpose for us all is to be the goal of +our efforts for ourselves, and of our prayers for others. We are to +widen our desires to coincide with His gift, and our prayers are to +cover no narrower space than His promises enclose. + +Epaphras' last desire for his friends, according to the true reading, is +that they may be "fully assured" in all the will of God. There can be no +higher blessing than that--to be quite sure of what God desires me to +know and do and be--if the assurance comes from the clear light of His +illumination, and not from hasty self-confidence in my own penetration. +To be free from the misery of intellectual doubts and practical +uncertainties, to walk in the sunshine--is the purest joy. And it is +granted in needful measure to all who have silenced their own wills, +that they may hear what God says,--"If any man wills to do His will, he +shall know." + +Does our love speak in prayer? and do our prayers for our dear ones +plead chiefly for such gifts? Both our love and our desires need +purifying if this is to be their natural language. How can we offer such +prayers for them if, at the bottom of our hearts, we had rather see +them well off in the world than stedfast, matured and assured +Christians? How can we expect an answer to such prayers if the whole +current of our lives shows that neither for them nor for ourselves do we +"seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness"? + +III. The last salutation comes from a singularly contrasted couple--Luke +and Demas, the types respectively of faithfulness and apostasy. These +two unequally yoked together stand before us like the light and the dark +figures that Ary Scheffer delights to paint, each bringing out the +colouring of the other more vividly by contrast. They bear the same +relation to Paul which John, the beloved disciple, and Judas did to +Paul's master. + +As for Luke, his long and faithful companionship of the Apostle is too +well known to need repetition here. His first appearance in the Acts +nearly coincides with an attack of Paul's constitutional malady, which +gives probability to the suggestion that one reason for Luke's close +attendance on the Apostle was the state of his health. Thus the form and +warmth of the reference here would be explained--"Luke the physician, +the beloved." We trace Luke as sharing the perils of the winter voyage +to Italy, making his presence known only by the modest "we" of the +narrative. We find him here sharing the Roman captivity, and, in the +second imprisonment, he was Paul's only companion. All others had been +sent away, or had fled; but Luke could not be spared, and would not +desert him, and no doubt was by his side till the end, which soon came. + +As for Demas, we know no more about him except the melancholy record, +"Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world; and is +departed unto Thessalonica." Perhaps he was a Thessalonian, and so went +home. His love of the world, then, was his reason for abandoning Paul. +Probably it was on the side of danger that the world tempted him. He was +a coward, and preferred a whole skin to a clear conscience. In immediate +connection with the record of his desertion we read, "At my first +answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me." As the same word +is used, probably Demas may have been one of those timid friends, whose +courage was not equal to standing by Paul when, to use his own metaphor, +he thrust his head into the lion's mouth. Let us not be too hard on the +constancy that warped in so fierce a heat. All that Paul charges him +with is, that he was a faithless friend, and too fond of the present +world. Perhaps his crime did not reach the darker hue. He may not have +been an apostate Christian, though he was a faithless friend. Perhaps, +if there were departure from Christ as well as from Paul, he came back +again, like Peter, whose sins against love and friendship were greater +than his--and, like Peter, found pardon and a welcome. Perhaps, away in +Thessalonica, he repented him of his evil, and perhaps Paul and Demas +met again before the throne, and there clasped inseparable hands. Let us +not judge a man of whom we know so little, but take to ourselves the +lesson of humility and self-distrust! + +How strikingly these two contrasted characters bring out the possibility +of men being exposed to the same influences and yet ending far away from +each other! These two set out from the same point, and travelled side by +side, subject to the same training, in contact with the magnetic +attraction of Paul's strong personality, and at the end they are wide as +the poles asunder. Starting from the same level, one line inclines ever +so little upwards, the other imperceptibly downwards. Pursue them far +enough, and there is room for the whole solar system with all its orbits +in the space between them. So two children trained at one mother's knee, +subjects of the same prayers, with the same sunshine of love and rain of +good influences upon them both, may grow up, one to break a mother's +heart and disgrace a father's home, and the other to walk in the ways of +godliness and serve the God of his fathers. Circumstances are mighty; +but the use we make of circumstances lies with ourselves. As we trim our +sails and set our rudder, the same breeze will take us in opposite +directions. We are the architects and builders of our own characters, +and may so use the most unfavourable influences as to strengthen and +wholesomely harden our natures thereby, and may so misuse the most +favourable as only thereby to increase our blameworthiness for wasted +opportunities. + +We are reminded, also, from these two men who stand before us like a +double star--one bright and one dark--that no loftiness of Christian +position, nor length of Christian profession is a guarantee against +falling and apostasy. As we read in another book, for which also the +Church has to thank a prison cell--the place where so many of its +precious possessions have been written--there is a backway to the pit +from the gate of the Celestial City. Demas had stood high in the Church, +had been admitted to the close intimacy of the Apostle, was evidently +no raw novice, and yet the world could drag him back from so eminent a +place in which he had long stood. "Let him that thinketh he standeth +take heed lest he fall." + +The world that was too strong for Demas will be too strong for us if we +front it in our own strength. It is ubiquitous, working on us everywhere +and always, like the pressure of the atmosphere on our bodies. Its +weight will crush us unless we can climb to and dwell on the heights of +communion with God, where pressure is diminished. It acted on Demas +through his fears. It acts on us through our ambitions, affections and +desires. So, seeing that miserable wreck of Christian constancy, and +considering ourselves lest we also be tempted, let us not judge another, +but look at home. There is more than enough there to make profound +self-distrust our truest wisdom, and to teach us to pray, "Hold Thou me +up, and I shall be safe." + + + + +XXVI. + +_CLOSING MESSAGES._ + + "Salute the brethren that are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the + Church that is in their house. And when this epistle hath been read + among you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the + Laodiceans; and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea. And say + to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in + the Lord, that thou fulfil it. The salutation of me Paul with mine + own hand. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you."--COL. iv. 15-end + (Rev. Ver.). + + +There is a marked love of triplets in these closing messages. There were +three of the circumcision who desired to salute the Colossians; and +there were three Gentiles whose greetings followed these. Now we have a +triple message from the Apostle himself--his greeting to Laodicea, his +message as to the interchange of letters with that Church, and his +grave, stringent charge to Archippus. Finally, the letter closes with a +few hurried words in his own handwriting, which also are threefold, and +seem to have been added in extreme haste, and to be compressed to the +utmost possible brevity. + +I. We shall first look at the threefold greeting and warnings to +Laodicea. + +In the first part of this triple message we have a glimpse of the +Christian life of that city, "Salute the brethren that are in +Laodicea." These are, of course, the whole body of Christians in the +neighbouring town, which was a much more important place than Colossae. +They are the same persons as "the Church of the Laodiceans." Then comes +a special greeting to "Nymphas," who was obviously a brother of some +importance and influence in the Laodicean Church, though to us he has +sunk to be an empty name. With him Paul salutes "the Church that is in +_their_ house" (Rev. Ver.). Whose house? Probably that belonging to +Nymphas and his family. Perhaps that belonging to Nymphas and the Church +that met in it, if these were other than his family. The more difficult +expression is adopted by preponderating textual authorities, and "_his_ +house" is regarded as a correction to make the sense easier. If so, then +the expression is one of which in our ignorance we have lost the key, +and which must be content to leave unexplained. + +But what was this "Church in the house"? We read that Prisca and Aquila +had such both in their house in Rome (Rom. xvi. 5) and in Ephesus (1 +Cor. xvi. 19), and that Philemon had such in his house at Colossae. It +may be that only the household of Nymphas is meant, and that the words +import no more than that it was a Christian household; or it may be, and +more probably is, that in all these cases there was some gathering of a +few of the Christians resident in each city, who were closely connected +with the heads of the household, and met in their houses more or less +regularly to worship and to help one another in the Christian life. We +have no facts that decide which of these two suppositions is correct. +The early Christians had, of course no buildings especially used for +their meetings, and there may often have been difficulty in finding +suitable places, particularly in cities where the Church was numerous. +It may have been customary, therefore, for brethren who had large and +convenient houses, to gather together portions of the whole community in +these. In any case, the expression gives us a glimpse of the primitive +elasticity of Church order, and of the early fluidity, so to speak, of +ecclesiastical language. The word "Church" has not yet been hardened and +fixed to its present technical sense. There was but one Church in +Laodicea, and yet within it there was this little Church--an _imperium +in imperio_--as if the word had not yet come to mean more than an +assembly, and as if all arrangements of order and worship, and all the +terminology of later days, were undreamed of yet. The life was there, +but the forms which were to grow out of the life, and to protect it +sometimes, and to stifle it often, were only beginning to show +themselves, and were certainly not yet felt to be forms. + +We may note, too, the beautiful glimpse we get here of domestic and +social religion. + +If the Church in the house of Nymphas consisted of his own family and +dependants, it stands for us as a lesson of what every family, which has +a Christian man or woman at its head, ought to be. Little knowledge of +the ordering of so-called Christian households is needed to be sure that +domestic religion is wofully neglected to-day. Family worship and family +instruction are disused, one fears, in many homes, the heads of which +can remember both in their father's houses; and the unspoken aroma and +atmosphere of religion does not fill the house with its odour, as it +ought to do. If a Christian householder have not "a Church in his +house," the family union is tending to become "a synagogue of Satan." +One or other it is sure to be. It is a solemn question for all parents +and heads of households, What am I doing to make my house a Church, my +family a family united by faith in Jesus Christ? + +A like suggestion may be made if, as is possible, the Church in the +house of Nymphas included more than relatives and dependants. It is a +miserable thing when social intercourse plays freely round every other +subject, and taboos all mention of religion. It is a miserable thing +when Christian people choose and cultivate society for worldly +advantages, business connections, family advancement, and for every +reason under heaven--sometimes a long way under--except those of a +common faith, and of the desire to increase it. + +It is not needful to lay down extravagant, impracticable restrictions, +by insisting either that we should limit our society to religious men, +or our conversation to religious subjects. But it is a bad sign when our +chosen associates are chosen for every other reason but their religion, +and when our talk flows copiously on all other subjects, and becomes a +constrained driblet when religion comes to be spoken of. Let us try to +carry about with us an influence which shall permeate all our social +intercourse, and make it, if not directly religious, yet never +antagonistic to religion, and always capable of passing easily and +naturally into the highest regions. Our godly forefathers used to carve +texts over their house doors. Let us do the same in another fashion, so +that all who cross the threshold may feel that they have come into a +Christian household, where cheerful godliness sweetens and brightens the +sanctities of home. + +We have next a remarkable direction as to the interchange of Paul's +letters to Colossae and Laodicea. The present Epistle is to be sent over +to the neighbouring Church of Laodicea--that is quite clear. But what is +"the Epistle from Laodicea" which the Colossians are to be sure to get +and to read? The connection forbids us to suppose that a letter written +by the Laodicean Church is meant. Both letters are plainly Pauline +epistles, and the latter is said to be "from Laodicea," simply because +the Colossians were to procure it from that place. The "from" does not +imply authorship, but transmission. What then has become of this letter? +Is it lost? So say some commentators; but a more probable opinion is +that it is no other than the Epistle which we know as that to the +Ephesians. This is not the occasion to enter on a discussion of that +view. It will be enough to notice that very weighty textual authorities +omit the words "In Ephesus," in the first verse of that Epistle. The +conjecture is a very reasonable one, that the letter was intended for a +circle of Churches, and had originally no place named in the +superscription, just as we might issue circulars "To the Church in----," +leaving a blank to be filled in with different names. This conjecture is +strengthened by the marked absence of personal references in the letter, +which in that respect forms a striking contrast to the Epistle to the +Colossians, which it so strongly resembles in other particulars. +Probably, therefore, Tychicus had both letters put into his hands for +delivery. The circular would go first to Ephesus as the most important +Church in Asia, and thence would be carried by him to one community +after another, till he reached Laodicea, from which he would come +further up the valley to Colossae, bringing both letters with him. The +Colossians are not told to _get_ the letter from Laodicea, but to be +sure that they _read_ it. Tychicus would see that it came to them; their +business was to see that they marked, learned, and inwardly digested it. + +The urgency of these instructions that Paul's letters should be read, +reminds us of a similar but still more stringent injunction in his +earliest epistle (1 Thess. v. 27), "I charge you by the Lord that this +epistle be read unto all the holy brethren." Is it possible that these +Churches did not much care for Paul's words, and were more willing to +admit that they were weighty and powerful, than to study them and lay +them to heart? It looks almost like it. Perhaps they got the same +treatment then as they often do now, and were more praised than read, +even by those who professed to look upon him as their teacher in Christ! + +But passing by that, we come to the last part of this threefold message, +the solemn warning to a slothful servant. + +"Say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in +the Lord, that thou fulfil it." A sharp message that--and especially +sharp, as being sent through others, and not spoken directly to the man +himself. If this Archippus were a member of the Church at Colossae, it is +remarkable that Paul should not have spoken to him directly, as he did +to Euodia and Syntyche, the two good women at Philippi, who had fallen +out. But it is by no means certain that he was. We find him named again, +indeed, at the beginning of the Epistle to Philemon, in such immediate +connection with the latter, and with his wife Apphia, that he has been +supposed to be their son. At all events, he was intimately associated +with the Church in the house of Philemon, who, as we know, was a +Colossian. The conclusion, therefore, seems at first sight most natural +that Archippus too belonged to the Colossian Church. But on the other +hand the difficulty already referred to seems to point in another +direction; and if it be further remembered that this whole section is +concerned with the Church at Laodicea, it will be seen to be a likely +conclusion from all the facts that Archippus, though perhaps a native of +Colossae, or even a resident there, had his "ministry" in connection with +that other neighbouring Church. + +It may be worth notice, in passing, that all these messages to Laodicea +occurring here, strongly favour the supposition that the epistle from +that place cannot have been a letter especially meant for the Laodicean +church, as, if it had been, these would have naturally been inserted in +it. So far, therefore, they confirm the hypothesis that it was a +circular. + +Some may say, Well, what in the world does it matter where Archippus +worked? Not very much perhaps; and yet one cannot but read this grave +exhortation to a man who was evidently getting languid and negligent, +without remembering what we hear about Laodicea and the angel of the +Church there, when next we meet it in the page of Scripture. It is not +impossible that Archippus was that very "angel," to whom the Lord +Himself sent the message through His servant John, more awful than that +which Paul had sent through his brethren at Colossae, "Because thou art +neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth." + +Be that as it may, the message is for us all. Each of us has a +"ministry," a sphere of service. We may either fill it full, with +earnest devotion and patient heroism, as some expanding gas fills out +the silken round of its containing vessel, or we may breathe into it +only enough to occupy a little portion, while all the rest hangs empty +and flaccid. We have to "fulfil our ministry." + +A sacred motive enhances the obligation--we have received it "_in_ the +Lord." In union with Him it has been laid on us. No human hand has +imposed it, nor does it arise merely from earthly relationships, but our +fellowship with Jesus Christ, and incorporation into the true Vine, has +laid on us responsibilities, and exalted us by service. + +There must be diligent watchfulness, in order to fulfil our ministry. We +must take heed to our service, and we must take heed to ourselves. We +have to reflect upon it, its extent, nature, imperativeness, upon the +manner of discharging it, and the means of fitness for it. We have to +keep our work ever before us. Unless we are absorbed in it, we shall not +fulfil it. And we have to take heed to ourselves, ever feeling our +weakness and the strong antagonisms in our own natures which hinder our +discharge of the plainest, most imperative duties. + +And let us remember, too, that if once we begin, like Archippus, to be a +little languid and perfunctory in our work, we may end where the Church +of Laodicea ended, whether he were its angel or no, with that nauseous +lukewarmness which sickens even Christ's longsuffering love, and forces +Him to reject it with loathing. + +II. And now we come to the end of our task, and have to consider the +hasty last words in Paul's own hand. + +We can see him taking the reed from the amanuensis and adding the three +brief sentences which close the letter. He first writes that which is +equivalent to our modern usage of signing the letter--"the salutation of +me Paul with mine own hand." This appears to have been his usual +practice, or, as he says in 2 Thess. (iii. 17), it was "his token in +every epistle"--the evidence that each was the genuine expression of his +mind. Probably his weak eyesight, which appears certain, may have had +something to do with his employing a secretary, as we may assume him to +have done, even when there is no express mention of his autograph in the +closing salutations. We find for example in the Epistle to the Romans no +words corresponding to these, but the modest amanuensis steps for a +moment into the light near the end: "I Tertius, who write the epistle, +salute you in the Lord." + +The endorsement with his name is followed by a request singularly +pathetic in its abrupt brevity, "Remember my bonds." This is the one +personal reference in the letter, unless we add as a second, his request +for their prayers that he may speak the mystery of Christ, for which he +is in bonds. There is a striking contrast in this respect with the +abundant allusions to his circumstances in the Epistle to the +Philippians, which also belongs to the period of his captivity. He had +been swept far away from thoughts of self by the enthusiasm of his +subject. The vision that opened before him of his Lord in His glory, the +Lord of Creation, the Head of the Church, the throned helper of every +trusting soul, had flooded his chamber with light, and swept guards and +chains and restrictions out of his consciousness. But now the spell is +broken, and common things re-assert their power. He stretches out his +hand for the reed to write his last words, and as he does so, the chain +which fastens him to the Praetorian guard at his side pulls and hinders +him. He wakes to the consciousness of his prison. The seer, swept along +by the storm wind of a Divine inspiration, is gone. The weak man +remains. The exhaustion after such an hour of high communion makes him +more than usually dependent; and all his subtle profound teachings, all +his thunderings and lightnings, end in the simple cry, which goes +straight to the heart: "Remember my bonds." + +He wished their remembrance because he needed their sympathy. Like the +old rags put round the ropes by which the prophet was hauled out of his +dungeon, the poorest bit of sympathy twisted round a fetter makes it +chafe less. The petition helps us to conceive how heavy a trial Paul +felt his imprisonment, to be little as he said about it, and bravely as +he bore it. He wished their remembrance too, because his bonds added +weight to his words. His sufferings gave him a right to speak. In times +of persecution confessors are the highest teachers, and the marks of the +Lord Jesus borne in a man's body give more authority than diplomas and +learning. He wished their remembrance because his bonds might encourage +them to steadfast endurance if need for it should arise. He points to +his own sufferings, and would have them take heart to bear their lighter +crosses and to fight their easier battle. + +One cannot but recall the words of Paul's Master, so like these in +sound, so unlike them in deepest meaning. Can there be a greater +contrast than between "Remember my bonds," the plaintive appeal of a +weak man seeking sympathy, coming as an appendix, quite apart from the +subject of the letter, and "Do this in remembrance of Me," the royal +words of the Master? Why is the memory of Christ's death so unlike the +memory of Paul's chains? Why is the one merely for the play of sympathy, +and the enforcement of his teaching, and the other the very centre of +our religion? For one reason alone. Because Christ's death is the life +of the world, and Paul's sufferings, whatever their worth, had nothing +in them that bore, except indirectly, on man's redemption. "Was Paul +crucified for you?" We remember his chains, and they give him sacredness +in our eyes. But we remember the broken body and shed blood of our Lord, +and cleave to it in faith as the one sacrifice for the world's sin. + +And then comes the last word: "Grace be with you." The apostolic +benediction, with which he closes all his letters, occurs in many +different stages of expression. Here it is pared down to the very quick. +No shorter form is possible--and yet even in this condition of extreme +compression, all good is in it. + +All possible blessing is wrapped up in that one word, Grace. Like the +sunshine, it carries life and fruitfulness in itself. If the favour and +kindness of God, flowing out to men so far beneath Him, who deserve such +different treatment, be ours, then in our hearts will be rest and a +great peacefulness, whatever may be about us, and in our characters will +be all beauties and capacities, in the measure of our possession of that +grace. + +That all-productive germ of joy and excellence is here parted among the +whole body of Colossian Christians. The dew of this benediction falls +upon them all--the teachers of error if they still held by Christ, the +Judaisers, the slothful Archippus, even as the grace which it invokes +will pour itself into imperfect natures and adorn very sinful +characters, if beneath the imperfection and the evil there be the true +affiance of the soul on Christ. + +That communication of grace to a sinful world is the end of all God's +deeds, as it is the end of this letter. That great revelation which +began when man began, which has spoken its complete message in the Son, +the heir of all things, as this Epistle tells us, has this for the +purpose of all its words--whether they are terrible or gentle, deep or +simple--that God's grace may dwell among men. The mystery of Christ's +being, the agony of Christ's cross, the hidden glories of Christ's +dominion are all for this end, that of His fulness we may all receive, +and grace for grace. The Old Testament, true to its genius, ends with +stern onward-looking words which point to a future coming of the Lord +and to the possible terrible aspect of that coming--"Lest I come and +smite the earth with a curse." It is the last echo of the long drawn +blast of the trumpets of Sinai. The New Testament ends, as our Epistle +ends, and as we believe the weary history of the world will end, with +the benediction: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." + +That grace, the love which pardons and quickens and makes good and fair +and wise and strong, is offered to all in Christ. Unless we have +accepted it, God's revelation and Christ's work have failed as far as we +are concerned. "We therefore, as fellow-workers with Him, beseech you +that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." + + * * * * * + + + + +THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. + + + + +I. + + "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to + Philemon our beloved and fellow-worker, and to Apphia our sister, + and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church in thy house: + Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus + Christ."--PHILEM. 1-3 (Rev. Ver.). + + +This Epistle stands alone among Paul's letters in being addressed to a +private Christian, and in being entirely occupied with a small though +very singular private matter; its aim being merely to bespeak a kindly +welcome for a runaway slave who had been induced to perform the +unheard-of act of voluntarily returning to servitude. If the New +Testament were simply a book of doctrinal teaching, this Epistle would +certainly be out of place in it; and if the great purpose of revelation +were to supply material for creeds, it would be hard to see what value +could be attached to a simple, short letter, from which no contribution +to theological doctrine or ecclesiastical order can be extracted. But if +we do not turn to it for discoveries of truth, we can find in it very +beautiful illustrations of Christianity at work. It shows us the +operation of the new forces which Christ has lodged in humanity--and +that on two planes of action. It exhibits a perfect model of Christian +friendship, refined and ennobled by a half-conscious reflection of the +love which has called us "no longer slaves but friends," and adorned by +delicate courtesies and quick consideration, which divines with subtlest +instinct what it will be sweetest to the friend to hear, while it never +approaches by a hair-breadth to flattery, nor forgets to counsel high +duties. But still more important is the light which the letter casts on +the relation of Christianity to slavery, which may be taken as a +specimen of its relation to social and political evils generally, and +yields fruitful results for the guidance of all who would deal with +such. + +It may be observed, too, that most of the considerations which Paul +urges on Philemon as reasons for his kindly reception of Onesimus do not +even need the alteration of a word, but simply a change in their +application, to become worthy statements of the highest Christian +truths. As Luther puts it, "We are all God's Onesimuses"; and the +welcome which Paul seeks to secure for the returning fugitive, as well +as the motives to which he appeals in order to secure it, do shadow +forth in no uncertain outline our welcome from God, and the treasures of +His heart towards us, because they are at bottom the same. The Epistle +then is valuable, as showing in a concrete instance how the Christian +life, in its attitude to others, and especially to those who have +injured us, is all modelled upon God's forgiving love to us. Our Lord's +parable of the forgiven servant who took his brother by the throat finds +here a commentary, and the Apostle's own precept, "Be imitators of God, +and walk in love," a practical exemplification. + +Nor is the light which the letter throws on the character of the Apostle +to be regarded as unimportant. The warmth, the delicacy, and what, if it +were not so spontaneous, we might call tact, the graceful ingenuity with +which he pleads for the fugitive, the perfect courtesy of every word, +the gleam of playfulness--all fused together and harmonized to one end, +and that in so brief a compass and with such unstudied ease and complete +self-oblivion, make this Epistle a pure gem. Without thought of effect, +and with complete unconsciousness, this man beats all the famous +letter-writers on their own ground. That must have been a great +intellect, and closely conversant with the Fountain of all light and +beauty, which could shape the profound and far-reaching teachings of the +Epistle to the Colossians, and pass from them to the graceful simplicity +and sweet kindliness of this exquisite letter; as if Michael Angelo had +gone straight from smiting his magnificent Moses from the marble mass to +incise some delicate and tiny figure of Love or Friendship on a cameo. + +The structure of the letter is of the utmost simplicity. It is not so +much a structure as a flow. There is the usual superscription and +salutation, followed, according to Paul's custom, by the expression of +his thankful recognition of the love and faith of Philemon and his +prayer for the perfecting of these. Then he goes straight to the +business in hand, and with incomparable persuasiveness pleads for a +welcome to Onesimus, bringing all possible reasons to converge on that +one request, with an ingenious eloquence born of earnestness. Having +poured out his heart in this pleasure adds no more but affectionate +greetings from his companions and himself. + +In the present section we shall confine our attention to the +superscription and opening salutation. + +I. We may observe the Apostle's designation of himself, as marked by +consummate and instinctive appreciation of the claims of friendship, and +of his own position in this letter as a suppliant. He does not come to +his friend clothed with apostolic authority. In his letters to the +Churches he always puts that in the forefront, and when he expected to +be met by opponents, as in Galatia, there is a certain ring of defiance +in his claim to receive his commission through no human intervention, +but straight from heaven. Sometimes, as in the Epistle to the +Colossians, he unites another strangely contrasted title, and calls +himself also "the slave" of Christ; the one name asserting authority, +the other bowing in humility before his Owner and Master. But here he is +writing as a friend to a friend, and his object is to win his friend to +a piece of Christian conduct which may be somewhat against the grain. +Apostolic authority will not go half so far as personal influence in +this case. So he drops all reference to it, and, instead, lets Philemon +hear the fetters jangling on his limbs--a more powerful plea. "Paul, a +prisoner," surely that would go straight to Philemon's heart, and give +all but irresistible force to the request which follows. Surely if he +could do anything to show his love and gratify even momentarily his +friend in prison, he would not refuse it. If this designation had been +calculated to produce effect, it would have lost all its grace; but no +one with any ear for the accents of inartificial spontaneousness, can +fail to hear them in the unconscious pathos of these opening words, +which say the right thing, all unaware of how right it is. + +There is great dignity also, as well as profound faith, in the next +words, in which the Apostle calls himself a prisoner "of Christ Jesus." +With what calm ignoring of all subordinate agencies he looks to the true +author of his captivity! Neither Jewish hatred nor Roman policy had shut +him up in Rome. Christ Himself had riveted his manacles on his wrists, +therefore he bore them as lightly and proudly as a bride might wear the +bracelet that her husband had clasped on her arm. The expression reveals +both the author of and the reason for his imprisonment, and discloses +the conviction which held him up in it. He thinks of his Lord as the +Lord of providence, whose hand moves the pieces on the board--Pharisees, +and Roman governors, and guards, and Caesar; and he knows that he is an +ambassador in bonds, for no crime, but for the testimony of Jesus. We +need only notice that his younger companion Timothy is associated with +the Apostle in the superscription, but disappears at once. The reason +for the introduction of his name may either have been the slight +additional weight thereby given to the request of the letter, or more +probably, the additional authority thereby given to the junior, who +would, in all likelihood, have much of Paul's work devolved on him when +Paul was gone. + +The names of the receivers of the letter bring before us a picture seen, +as by one glimmering light across the centuries, of a Christian +household in that Phrygian valley. The head of it, Philemon, appears to +have been a native of, or at all events a resident in, Colossae; for +Onesimus, his slave, is spoken of in the Epistle to the Church there as +"one of _you_." He was a person of some standing and wealth, for he had +a house large enough to admit of a "Church" assembling in it, and to +accommodate the Apostle and his travelling companions if he should visit +Colossae. He had apparently the means for large pecuniary help to poor +brethren, and willingness to use them, for we read of the refreshment +which his kindly deeds had imparted. He had been one of Paul's converts, +and owed his own self to him; so that he must have met the Apostle,--who +had probably not been in Colossae,--on some of his journeys, perhaps +during his three years' residence in Ephesus. He was of mature years, +if, as is probable, Archippus, who was old enough to have service to do +in the Church (Col. iv. 17), was his son. + +He is called "our fellow-labourer." The designation may imply some +actual co-operation at a former time. But more probably, the phrase, +like the similar one in the next verse, "our fellow-soldier," is but +Paul's gracefully affectionate way of lifting these good people's +humbler work out of its narrowness, by associating it with his own. They +in their little sphere, and he in his wider, were workers at the same +task. All who toil for furtherance of Christ's kingdom, however widely +they may be parted by time or distance, are fellow-workers. Division of +labour does not impair unity of service. The field is wide, and the +months between seedtime and harvest are long; but all the husbandmen +have been engaged in the same great work, and though they have toiled +alone shall "rejoice together." The first man who dug a shovelful of +earth for the foundations of Cologne Cathedral, and he who fixed the +last stone on the topmost spire a thousand years after, are +fellow-workers. So Paul and Philemon, though their tasks were widely +different in kind, in range, and in importance, and were carried on +apart and independent of each other, were fellow-workers. The one lived +a Christian life and helped some humble saints in an insignificant, +remote corner; the other flamed through the whole then civilized western +world, and sheds light to-day: but the obscure, twinkling taper and the +blazing torch were kindled at the same source, shone with the same +light, and were parts of one great whole. Our narrowness is rebuked, our +despondency cheered, our vulgar tendency to think little of modest, +obscure service rendered by commonplace people, and to exaggerate the +worth of the more conspicuous, is corrected by such a thought. However +small may be our capacity or sphere, and however solitary we may feel, +we may summon up before the eyes of our faith a mighty multitude of +apostles, martyrs, toilers in every land and age as _our_--even +our--work-fellows. The field stretches far beyond our vision, and many +are toiling in it for Him, whose work never comes near ours. There are +differences of service, but the same Lord, and all who have the same +master are companions in labour. Therefore Paul, the greatest of the +servants of Christ, reaches down his hand to the obscure Philemon, and +says, "He works the work of the Lord, as I also do." + +In the house at Colossae there was a Christian wife by the side of a +Christian husband; at least, the mention of Apphia here in so prominent +a position is most naturally accounted for by supposing her to be the +wife of Philemon. Her friendly reception of the runaway would be quite +as important as his, and it is therefore most natural that the letter +bespeaking it should be addressed to both. The probable reading "our +sister" (R.V.), instead of "our beloved" (A.V.), gives the distinct +assurance that she too was a Christian, and like-minded with her +husband. + +The prominent mention of this Phrygian matron is an illustration of the +way in which Christianity, without meddling with social usages, +introduced a new tone of feeling about the position of woman, which +gradually changed the face of the world, is still working, and has +further revolutions to affect. The degraded classes of the Greek world +were slaves and women. This Epistle touches both, and shows us +Christianity in the very act of elevating both. The same process strikes +the fetters from the slave and sets the wife by the side of the husband, +"yoked in all exercise of noble end,"--namely, the proclamation of +Christ as the Saviour of all mankind, and of all human creatures as +equally capable of receiving an equal salvation. That annihilates all +distinctions. The old world was parted by deep gulfs. There were three +of special depth and width, across which it was hard for sympathy to +fly. These were the distinctions of race, sex, and condition. But the +good news that Christ has died for all men, and is ready to live in all +men, has thrown a bridge across, or rather has filled up, the ravine; so +the Apostle bursts into his triumphant proclamation, "There is neither +Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor +female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." + +A third name is united with those of husband and wife, that of +Archippus. The close relation in which the names stand, and the purely +domestic character of the letter, make it probable that he was a son of +the wedded pair. At all events, he was in some way part of their +household, possibly some kind of teacher and guide. We meet his name +also in the Epistle to the Colossians, and, from the nature of the +reference to him there, we draw the inference that he filled some +"ministry" in the Church of Laodicea. The nearness of the two cities +made it quite possible that he should live in Philemon's house in +Colossae and yet go over to Laodicea for his work. + +The Apostle calls him "his fellow-soldier," a phrase which is best +explained in the same fashion as is the previous "fellow-worker," +namely, that by it Paul graciously associates Archippus with himself, +different as their tasks were. The variation of _soldier_ for _worker_ +probably is due to the fact of Archippus' being the bishop of the +Laodicean Church. In any case, it is very beautiful that the grizzled +veteran officer should thus, as it were, clasp the hand of this young +recruit, and call him his comrade. How it would go to the heart of +Archippus! + +A somewhat stern message is sent to Archippus in the Colossian letter. +Why did not Paul send it quietly in this Epistle instead of letting a +whole Church know of it? It seems at first sight as if he had chosen the +harshest way; but perhaps further consideration may suggest that the +reason was an instinctive unwillingness to introduce a jarring note into +the joyous friendship and confidence which sounds through this Epistle, +and to bring public matters into this private communication. The +warning would come with more effect from the Church, and this cordial +message of goodwill and confidence would prepare Archippus to receive +the other, as rain showers make the ground soft for the good seed. The +private affection would mitigate the public exhortation with whatever +rebuke may have been in it. + +A greeting is sent, too, to "the Church in thy house." As in the case of +the similar community in the house of Nymphas (Col. iv. 15), we cannot +decide whether by this expression is meant simply a Christian family, or +some little company of believers who were wont to meet beneath +Philemon's roof for Christian converse and worship. The latter seems the +more probable supposition. It is natural that they should be addressed; +for Onesimus, if received by Philemon, would naturally become a member +of the group, and therefore it was important to secure their good will. + +So we have here shown to us, by one stray beam of twinkling light, for a +moment, a very sweet picture of the domestic life of that Christian +household in their remote valley. It shines still to us across the +centuries, which have swallowed up so much that seemed more permanent, +and silenced so much that made far more noise in its day. The picture +may well set us asking ourselves the question whether we, with all our +boasted advancement, have been able to realize the true ideal of +Christian family life as these three did. The husband and wife dwelling +as heirs together of the grace of life, their child beside them sharing +their faith and service, their household ordered in the ways of the +Lord, their friends Christ's friends, and their social joys hallowed +and serene--what nobler form of family life can be conceived than that? +What a rebuke to, and satire on, many a so-called Christian household! + +II. We may deal briefly with the apostolic salutation, "Grace to you and +peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," as we have already +had to speak of it in considering the greeting to the Colossians. The +two main points to be observed in these words are the comprehensiveness +of the Apostle's loving wish, and the source to which he looks for its +fulfilment. Just as the regal title of the King, whose Throne was the +Cross, was written in the languages of culture, of law, and of religion, +as an unconscious prophecy of His universal reign; so, with like +unintentional felicity, we have blended here the ideals of good which +the East and the West have framed for those to whom they wish good, in +token that Christ is able to slake all the thirsts of the soul, and that +whatsoever things any races of men have dreamed as the chiefest +blessings, these are all to be reached through Him and Him only. + +But the deeper lesson here is to be found by observing that "grace" +refers to the action of the Divine heart, and "peace" to the result +thereof in man's experience. As we have noted in commenting on Col. i. +2, "grace" is free, undeserved, unmotived, self-springing love. Hence it +comes to mean, not only the deep fountain in the Divine nature, that His +love, which, like some strong spring, leaps up and gushes forth by an +inward impulse, in neglect of all motives drawn from the lovableness of +its objects, such as determine our poor human loves, but also the +results of that bestowing love in men's characters, or, as we say, the +"graces" of the Christian soul. They are "grace," not only because in +the aesthetic sense of the word they are beautiful, but because, in the +theological meaning of it, they are the products of the giving love and +power of God. "Whatsoever things are lovely and of good report," all +nobilities, tendernesses, exquisite beauties, and steadfast strengths of +mind and heart, of will and disposition--all are the gifts of God's +undeserved and open-handed love. + +The fruit of such grace received is peace. In other places the Apostle +twice gives a fuller form of this salutation, inserting "mercy" between +the two here named; as also does St. John in his second Epistle. That +fuller form gives us the source in the Divine heart, the manifestation +of grace in the Divine act, and the outcome in human experience; or as +we may say, carrying on the metaphor, the broad, calm lake which the +grace, flowing to us in the stream of mercy, makes, when it opens out in +our hearts. Here, however, we have but the ultimate source, and the +effect in us. + +All the discords of our nature and circumstances can be harmonized by +that grace which is ready to flow into our hearts. Peace with God, with +ourselves, with our fellows, repose in the midst of change, calm in +conflict, may be ours. All these various applications of the one idea +should be included in our interpretation, for they are all included in +fact in the peace which God's grace brings where it lights. The first +and deepest need of the soul is conscious amity and harmony with God, +and nothing but the consciousness of His love as forgiving and healing +brings that. We are torn asunder by conflicting passions, and our hearts +are the battleground for conscience and inclination, sin and goodness, +hopes and fears, and a hundred other contending emotions. Nothing but a +heavenly power can make the lion within lie down with the lamb. Our +natures are "like the troubled sea, which cannot rest," whose churning +waters cast up the foul things that lie in their slimy beds; but where +God's grace comes, a great calm hushes the tempests, "and birds of peace +sit brooding on the charmed wave." + +We are compassed about by foes with whom we have to wage undying +warfare, and by hostile circumstances and difficult tasks which need +continual conflict; but a man with God's grace in his heart may have the +rest of submission, the repose of trust, the tranquillity of him who +"has ceased from his own works": and so, while the daily struggle goes +on and the battle rages round, there may be quiet, deep and sacred, in +his heart. + +The life of nature, which is a selfish life, flings us into unfriendly +rivalries with others, and sets us battling for our own hands, and it is +hard to pass out of ourselves sufficiently to live peaceably with all +men. But the grace of God in our hearts drives out self, and changes the +man who truly has it into its own likeness. He who knows that he owes +everything to a Divine love which stooped to his lowliness, and pardoned +his sins, and enriched him with all which he has that is worthy and +noble, cannot but move among men, doing with them, in his poor fashion, +what God has done with him. + +Thus, in all the manifold forms in which restless hearts need peace, +the grace of God brings it to them. The great river of mercy which has +its source deep in the heart of God, and in His free, undeserved love, +pours into poor, unquiet spirits, and there spreads itself into a placid +lake, on whose still surface all heaven is mirrored. + +The elliptical form of this salutation leaves it doubtful whether we are +to see in it a prayer or a prophecy, a wish or an assurance. According +to the probable reading of the parallel greeting in the second Epistle +of John, the latter would be the construction; but probably it is best +to combine both ideas, and to see here, as Bengel does in the passage +referred to in John's Epistle, "votum cum affirmatione"--a desire which +is so certain of its own fulfilment, that it is a prophecy, just because +it is a prayer. + +The ground of the certainty lies in the source from which the grace and +peace come. They flow "from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." +The placing of both names under the government of one preposition +implies the mysterious unity of the Father with the Son; while +conversely St. John, in the parallel passage just mentioned, by +employing two prepositions, brings out the distinction between the +Father, who is the fontal source, and the Son, who is the flowing +stream. But both forms of the expression demand for their honest +explanation the recognition of the divinity of Jesus Christ. How dare a +man, who thought of Him as other than Divine, put His name thus by the +side of God's, as associated with the Father in the bestowal of grace? +Surely such words, spoken without any thought of a doctrine of the +Trinity, and which are the spontaneous utterance of Christian devotion, +are demonstration, not to be gainsaid, that to Paul, at all events, +Jesus Christ was, in the fullest sense, Divine. The double source is one +source, for in the Son is the whole fulness of the Godhead; and the +grace of God, bringing with it the peace of God, is poured into that +spirit which bows humbly before Jesus Christ, and trusts Him when He +says, with love in His eyes and comfort in His tones, "My grace is +sufficient for thee"; "My peace give I unto you." + + + + +II. + + "I thank my God always, making mention of thee in my prayers, + hearing of thy love, and of the faith which thou hast toward the + Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints; that the fellowship of thy + faith may become effectual, in the knowledge of every good thing + which is in you, unto Christ. For I had much joy and comfort in thy + love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through + thee, brother."--PHILEM. 4-7 (Rev. Ver.). + + +Paul's was one of those regal natures to which things are possible that +other men dare not do. No suspicion of weakness attaches to him when he +pours out his heart in love, nor any of insincerity when he speaks of +his continual prayers for his friends, or when he runs over in praise of +his converts. Few men have been able to talk so much of their love +without betraying its shallowness and self-consciousness, or of their +prayers without exciting a doubt of their manly sincerity. But the +Apostle could venture to do these things without being thought either +feeble or false, and could unveil his deepest affections and his most +secret devotions without provoking either a smile or a shrug. + +He has the habit of beginning all his letters with thankful +commendations and assurances of a place in his prayers. The exceptions +are 2 Corinthians, where he writes under strong and painful emotion, and +Galatians, where a vehement accusation of fickleness takes the place of +the usual greeting. But these exceptions make the habit more +conspicuous. Though this is a habit, it is not a form, but the perfectly +simple and natural expression of the moment's feelings. He begins his +letters so, not in order to please and to say smooth things, but because +he feels lovingly, and his heart fills with a pure joy which speaks most +fitly in prayer. To recognise good is the way to make good better. +Teachers must love if their teaching is to help. The best way to secure +the doing of any signal act of Christian generosity, such as Paul wished +of Philemon, is to show absolute confidence that it will be done, +because it is in accordance with what we know of the doer's character. +"It's a shame to tell Arnold a lie: he always trusts us," the Rugby boys +used to say. Nothing could so powerfully have swayed Philemon to grant +Paul's request, as Paul's graceful mention of his beneficence, which +mention is yet by no means conscious diplomacy, but instinctive +kindliness. + +The words of this section are simple enough, but their order is not +altogether clear. They are a good example of the hurry and rush of the +Apostle's style, arising from his impetuosity of nature. His thoughts +and feelings come knocking at "the door of his lips" in a crowd, and do +not always make their way out in logical order. For instance, he begins +here with thankfulness, and that suggests the mention of his prayers, +_v._ 4. Then he gives the occasion of his thankfulness in _v._ 5, +"Hearing of thy love and of the faith which thou hast," etc. He next +tells Philemon the subject matter of his prayers in _v._ 6, "That the +fellowship of thy faith may become effectual," etc. These two verses +thus correspond to the two clauses of _v._ 4, and finally in _v._ 7 he +harks back once more to his reasons for thankfulness in Philemon's love +and faith, adding, in a very lovely and pathetic way, that the good +deeds done in far off Colossae had wafted a refreshing air to the Roman +prison house, and, little as the doer knew it, had been a joy and +comfort to the solitary prisoner there. + +I. We have,--then, here the character of Philemon, which made Paul glad +and thankful. The order of the language is noteworthy. Love is put +before faith. The significance of this sequence comes out by contrast +with similar expressions in Ephesians i. 15: "Your faith in the Lord +Jesus, and love unto all the saints" (A.V.) and Colossians i. 4: "Your +faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which ye have toward all the +saints," where the same elements are arranged in the more natural order, +corresponding to their logical relation; viz., faith first, and love as +its consequence. The reason for the change here is probably that +Onesimus and Epaphras, from whom Paul would be likely to hear of +Philemon, would enlarge upon his practical benevolence, and would +naturally say less about the root than about the sweet and visible +fruit. The arrangement then is an echo of the talks which had gladdened +the Apostle. Possibly, too, love is put first, because the object of the +whole letter is to secure its exercise towards the fugitive slave; and +seeing that the Apostle would listen with that purpose in view, each +story which was told of Philemon's kindness to others made the deeper +impression on Paul. The order here is the order of analysis, digging +down from manifestation to cause: the order in the parallel passages +quoted is the order of production ascending from root to flower. + +Another peculiarity in the arrangement of the words is that the objects +of love and faith are named in the reverse order to that in which these +graces are mentioned, "the Lord Jesus" being first, and "all the saints" +last. Thus we have, as it were, "faith towards the Lord Jesus" imbedded +in the centre of the verse, while "thy love ... toward all the saints," +which flows from it, wraps it round. The arrangement is like some forms +of Hebrew poetical parallelism, in which the first and fourth members +correspond, and the second and third, or like the pathetic measure of +_In Memoriam_, and has the same sweet lingering cadence; while it also +implies important truths as to the central place in regard to the +virtues which knit hearts in soft bonds of love and help, of the faith +which finds its sole object in Jesus Christ. + +The source and foundation of goodness and nobility of character is faith +in Jesus the Lord. That must be buried deep in the soul if tender love +toward men is to flow from it. It is "the very pulse of the machine." +All the pearls of goodness are held in solution in faith. Or, to speak +more accurately, faith in Christ gives possession of His life and +Spirit, from which all good is unfolded; and it further sets in action +strong motives by which to lead to every form of purity and beauty of +soul; and, still further, it brings the heart into glad contact with a +Divine love which forgives its Onesimuses, and so it cannot but touch +the heart into some glad imitation of that love which is its own dearest +treasure. So that, for all these and many more reasons, love to men is +the truest visible expression, as it is the direct and necessary result, +of faith in Christ. What is exhaled from the heart and drawn upwards by +the fervours of Christ's self-sacrificing love is faith; when it falls +on earth again, as a sweet rain of pity and tenderness, it is love. + +Further, the true object of faith and one phase of its attitude towards +that object are brought out in this central clause. We have the two +names which express, the one the divinity, the other the humanity of +Christ. So the proper object of faith is the whole Christ, in both His +natures, the Divine-human Saviour. Christian faith sees the divinity in +the humanity, and the humanity around the divinity. A faith which grasps +only the manhood is maimed, and indeed has no right to the name. +Humanity is not a fit object of trust. It may change; it has limits; it +must die. "Cursed be the man that maketh flesh his arm," is as true +about faith in a merely human Christ as about faith in any other man. +There may be reverence, there may be in some sense love, obedience, +imitation; but there should not be, and I see not how there can be, the +absolute reliance, the utter dependence, the unconditional submission, +which are of the very essence of faith, in the emotions which men +cherish towards a human Christ. The Lord Jesus only can evoke these. On +the other hand, the far off splendour and stupendous glory of the Divine +nature becomes the object of untrembling trust, and draws near enough to +be known and loved, when we have it mellowed to our weak eyes by shining +through the tempering medium of His humanity. + +The preposition here used to define the relation of faith to its object +is noteworthy. Faith is "toward" Him. The idea is that of a movement of +yearning after an unattained good. And that is one part of the true +office of faith. There is in it an element of aspiration, as of the +soaring eagle to the sun, or the climbing tendrils to the summit of the +supporting stem. In Christ there is always something beyond, which +discloses itself the more clearly, the fuller is our present possession +of Him. Faith builds upon and rests in the Christ possessed and +experienced, and just therefore will it, if it be true, yearn towards +the Christ unpossessed. A great reach of flashing glory beyond opens on +us, as we round each new headland in that unending voyage. Our faith +should and will be an ever-increasing fruition of Christ, accompanied +with increasing perception of unreached depths in Him, and increasing +longing after enlarged possession of His infinite fulness. + +Where the centre is such a faith, its circumference and outward +expression will be a widely diffused love. That deep and most private +emotion of the soul, which is the flight of the lonely spirit to the +single Christ, as if these two were alone in the world, does not bar a +man off from his kind, but effloresces into the largest and most +practical love. When one point of the compasses is struck deeply and +firmly into that centre of all things, the other can steadily sweep a +wide circle. The widest is not here drawn, but a somewhat narrower, +concentric one. The love is "toward all saints." Clearly their relation +to Jesus Christ puts all Christians into relation with one another. That +was an astounding thought in Philemon's days, when such high walls +separated race from race, the slave from the free, woman from man; but +the new faith leaped all barriers, and put a sense of brotherhood into +every heart that learned God's fatherhood in Jesus. The nave of the +wheel holds all the spokes in place. The sun makes the system called by +its name a unity, though some planets be of giant bulk and swing through +a mighty orbit, waited on by obedient satellites, and some be but specks +and move through a narrow circle, and some have scarce been seen by +human eye. All are one, because all revolve round one sun, though solemn +abysses part them, and though no message has ever crossed the gulfs from +one to another. + +The recognition of the common relation which all who bear the same +relation to Christ bear to one another has more formidable difficulties +to encounter to-day than it had in these times when the Church had no +stereotyped creeds and no stiffened organizations, and when to the +flexibility of its youth were added the warmth of new conviction and the +joy of a new field for expanding emotions of brotherly kindness. But +nothing can absolve from the duty. Creeds separate, Christ unites. The +road to "the reunion of Christendom" is through closer union to Jesus +Christ. When that is secured, barriers which now keep brethren apart +will be leaped, or pulled down, or got rid of somehow. It is of no use +to say, "Go to, let us love one another." That will be unreal, mawkish, +histrionic. "The faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus" will be +the productive cause, as it is the measure, of "thy love toward all the +saints." + +But the love which is here commended is not a mere feeling, nor does it +go off in gushes, however fervid, of eloquent emotion. Clearly Philemon +was a benefactor of the brotherhood, and his love did not spend only the +paper money of words and promises to pay, but the solid coin of kindly +deeds. Practical charity is plainly included in that love of which it +had cheered Paul in his imprisonment to hear. Its mention, then, is one +step nearer to the object of the letter. Paul conducts his siege of +Philemon's heart skilfully, and opens here a fresh parallel, and creeps +a yard or two closer up. "Surely you are not going to shut out one of +your own household from that wide-reaching kindness." So much is most +delicately hinted, or rather, left to Philemon to infer, by the +recognition of his brotherly love. A hint lies in it that there may be a +danger of cherishing a cheap and easy charity that reverses the law of +gravity, and _in_creases as the square of the distance, having +tenderness and smiles for people and Churches which are well out of our +road, and frowns for some nearer home. "He that loveth not his brother +whom he hath seen, how shall he love" his brother "whom he hath not +seen?" + +II. In _v._ 6 we have the apostolic prayer for Philemon, grounded on the +tidings of his love and faith. It is immediately connected with "the +prayers" of _v._ 4 by the introductory "that," which is best understood +as introducing the subject matter of the prayer. Whatever then may be +the meaning of this supplication, it is a prayer for Philemon, and not +for others. That remark disposes of the explanations which widen its +scope, contrary, as it seems to me, to the natural understanding of the +context. + +"The fellowship of thy faith" is capable of more than one meaning. The +signification of the principal word and the relation expressed by the +preposition may be variously determined. "Fellowship" is more than once +used in the sense of sharing material wealth with Christ's poor, or more +harshly and plainly, charitable contribution. So we find it in Romans +xv. 26 and 2 Corinthians ix. 13. Adopting that meaning here, the "of" +must express, as it often does, the origin of Philemon's kindly gifts, +namely, his faith; and the whole phrase accords with the preceding verse +in its view of the genesis of beneficence to the brethren as the result +of faith in the Lord. + +The Apostle prays that this faith-begotten practical liberality may +become efficacious, or may acquire still more power; _i.e._ may increase +in activity, and so may lead to "the knowledge of every good thing that +is in us." The interpretation has found extensive support, which takes +this as equivalent to a desire that Philemon's good deeds might lead +others, whether enemies or friends, to recognise the beauties of +sympathetic goodness in the true Christian character. Such an +explanation hopelessly confuses the whole, and does violence to the +plain requirements of the context, which limit the prayer to Philemon. +It is _his_ "knowledge" of which Paul is thinking. The same profound and +pregnant word is used here which occurs so frequently in the other +epistles of the captivity, and which always means that deep and vital +knowledge which knows because it possesses. Usually its object is God as +revealed in the great work and person of Christ. Here its object is the +sum total of spiritual blessings, the whole fulness of the gifts given +us by, and, at bottom, consisting of, that same Christ dwelling in the +heart, who is revealer, because He is communicator, of God. The full, +deep knowledge of this manifold and yet one good is no mere theoretical +work of the understanding, but is an experience which is only possible +to him who enjoys it. + +The meaning of the whole prayer, then, put into feebler and more modern +dress is simply that Philemon's liberality and Christian love may grow +more and more, and may help him to a fuller appropriation and experience +of the large treasures "which are in us," though in germ and +potentiality only, until brought into consciousness by our own Christian +growth. The various readings "in us," or "in you" only widen the circle +of possessors of these gifts to the whole Church, or narrow it to the +believers of Colossae. + +There still remain for consideration the last words of the clause, "unto +Christ" They must be referred back to the main subject of the sentence, +"may become effectual." They seem to express the condition on which +Christian "fellowship," like all Christian acts, can be quickened with +energy, and tend to spiritual progress; namely, that it shall be done as +to the Lord. There is perhaps in this appended clause a kind of +lingering echo of our Lord's own words, in which He accepts as done unto +Him the kindly deeds done to the least of His brethren. + +So then this great prayer brings out very strongly the goal to which the +highest perfection of Christian character has still to aspire. Philemon +was no weakling or laggard in the Christian conflict and race. His +attainments sent a thrill of thankfulness through the Apostle's spirit. +But there remained "very much land to be possessed"; and precisely +because he had climbed so far, does his friend pray that he may mount +still higher, where the sweep of view is wider, and the air clearer +still. It is an endless task to bring into conscious possession and +exercise all the fulness with which Christ endows His feeblest servant. +Not till all that God can give, or rather has given, has been +incorporated in the nature and wrought out in the life, is the term +reached. This is the true sublime of the Christian life, that it begins +with the reception of a strictly infinite gift, and demands immortality +as the field for unfolding its worth. Continual progress in all that +ennobles the nature, satisfies the heart, and floods the mind with light +is the destiny of the Christian soul, and of it alone. Therefore +unwearied effort, buoyancy, and hope which no dark memories can dash nor +any fears darken should mark _their_ temper, to whom the future offers +an absolutely endless and limitless increase in the possession of the +infinite God. + +There is also brought out in this prayer the value of Christian +beneficence as a means of spiritual growth. Philemon's "communication of +faith" will help him to the knowledge of the fulness of Christ. The +reaction of conduct on character and growth in godliness is a familiar +idea with Paul, especially in the prison epistles. Thus we read in his +prayer for the Colossians, "fruitful in every good work, and increasing +in the knowledge of God." The faithful carrying out in life of what we +already know is not the least important condition of increasing +knowledge. If a man does not live up to his religion, his religion +shrinks to the level of his life. Unoccupied territory lapses. We hold +our spiritual gifts on the terms of using them. The practice of +convictions deepens convictions; not that the exercise of Christian +graces will make theologians, but it will give larger possession of the +knowledge which is life. + +While this general principle is abundantly enforced in Scripture and +confirmed by experience, the specific form of it here is that the right +administration of wealth is a direct means of increasing a Christian's +possession of the large store treasured in Christ. Every loving thought +towards the sorrowful and the needy, every touch of sympathy yielded to, +and every kindly, Christlike deed flowing from these, thins away some +film of the barriers between the believing soul and a full possession of +God, and thus makes it more capable of beholding Him and of rising to +communion with Him. The possibilities of wealth lie, not only in the +direction of earthly advantages, but in the fact that men may so use it +as to secure their being "received into everlasting habitations." Modern +evangelical teachers have been afraid to say what Paul ventured to say +on this matter, for fear of obscuring the truth which Paul gave his life +to preach. Surely they need not be more jealous for the doctrine of +"justification by faith" than he was; and if he had no scruples in +telling rich men to "lay up in store for themselves a good foundation +for the time to come," by being "ready to communicate," they may safely +follow. There is probably no more powerful cause of the comparative +feebleness of average English Christianity than the selfish use of +money, and no surer means of securing a great increase in the depth and +richness of the individual Christian life than the fuller application of +Christian principle, that is, of the law of sacrifice, to the +administration of property. + +The final clause of the verse seems to state the condition on which +Philemon's good deeds will avail for his own growth in grace, and +implies that in him that condition is fulfilled. If a man does deeds of +kindness and help to one of these little ones, as "unto Christ," then +his beneficence will come back in spiritual blessing on his own head. If +they are the result of simple natural compassion, beautiful as it is, +they will reinforce _it_, but have no tendency to strengthen that from +which they do _not_ flow. If they are tainted by any self-regard, then +they are not charitable deeds at all. What is done for Christ will bring +to the doer more of Christ as its consequence and reward. All life, with +all its varied forms of endurance and service, comes under this same +law, and tends to make more assured and more blessed and more profound +the knowledge and grasp of the fulness of Christ, in the measure in +which it is directed to Him, and done or suffered for His sake. + +III. The present section closes with a very sweet and pathetic +representation of the Apostle's joy in the character of his friend. + +The "for" of _v._ 7 connects not with the words of petition immediately +before, but with "I thank my God" (_v._ 4), and gives a graceful +turn--graceful only because so unforced and true--to the sentence. "My +thanks are due to you for your kindness to others, for, though you did +not think of it, you have done me as much good as you did them." The +"love" which gives Paul such "great joy and consolation" is not love +directed to himself, but to others; and the reason why it gladdened the +Apostle was because it had "refreshed the hearts" of sorrowful and needy +saints in Colossae. This tender expression of affectionate joy in +Philemon's good deeds is made wonderfully emotional by that emphatic +"brother" which ends the verse, and by its unusual position in the +sentence assumes the character of a sudden, irrepressible shoot of love +from Paul's heart towards Philemon, like the quick impulse with which a +mother will catch up her child, and cover it with caresses. Paul was +never ashamed of showing his tenderness, and it never repels us. + +These final words suggest the unexpected good which good deeds may do. +No man can ever tell how far the blessing of his trivial acts of +kindness, or other pieces of Christian conduct, may travel. They may +benefit one in material fashion, but the fragrance may reach many +others. Philemon little dreamed that his small charity to some suffering +brother in Colossae would find its way across the sea, and bring a waft +of coolness and refreshing into the hot prison house. Neither Paul nor +Philemon dreamed that, made immortal by the word of the former, the same +transient act would find its way across the centuries, and would "smell +sweet and blossom in the dust" to-day. Men know not who are their +audiences, or who may be spectators of their works; for they are all +bound so mystically and closely together, that none can tell how far the +vibrations which he sets in motion will thrill. This is true about all +deeds, good and bad, and invests them all with solemn importance. The +arrow shot travels beyond the archer's eye, and may wound where he +knows not. The only thing certain about the deed once done is, that its +irrevocable consequences will reach much farther than the doer dreamed, +and that no limits can be set to the subtle influence which, for +blessing or harm, it exerts. + +Since the diameter of the circle which our acts may fill is unknown and +unknowable, the doer who stands at the centre is all the more solemnly +bound to make sure of the only thing of which he can make sure, the +quality of the influence sent forth; and since his deed may blight or +bless so widely, to clarify his motives and guard his doings, that they +may bring only good wherever they light. + +May we not venture to see shining through the Apostle's words the +Master's face? "Even as Christ did for us with God the Father," says +Luther, "thus also doth St. Paul for Onesimus with Philemon"; and that +thought may permissibly be applied to many parts of this letter, to +which it gives much beauty. It may not be all fanciful to say that, as +Paul's heart was gladdened when he heard of the good deeds done in +far-off Colossae by a man who "owed to him his own self" so we may +believe that Christ is glad and has "great joy in our love" to His +servants and in our kindliness, when He beholds the poor work done by +the humblest for His sake. He sees and rejoices, and approves when there +are none but Himself to know or praise; and at last many, who did lowly +service to His friends, will be surprised to hear from His lips the +acknowledgment that it was Himself whom they had visited and succoured, +and that they had been ministering to the Master's joy when they had +only known themselves to be succouring His servants' need. + + + + +III. + + "Wherefore, though I have all boldness in Christ to enjoin thee that + which is befitting, yet for love's sake I rather beseech, being such + a one as Paul the aged, and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ; I + beseech thee for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, + Onesimus; who was aforetime unprofitable to thee, but now is + profitable to thee, and to me."--PHILEM. 8-11 (Rev. Ver.). + + +After honest and affectionate praise of Philemon, the Apostle now +approaches the main purpose of his letter. But even now he does not +blurt it out at once. He probably anticipated that his friend was justly +angry with his runaway slave, and therefore, in these verses, he touches +a kind of prelude to his request with what we should call the finest +tact, if it were not so manifestly the unconscious product of simple +good feeling. Even by the end of them he has not ventured to say what he +wishes done, though he has ventured to introduce the obnoxious name. So +much persuading and sanctified ingenuity does it sometimes take to +induce good men to do plain duties which may be unwelcome. + +These verses not only present a model for efforts to lead men in right +paths, but they unveil the very spirit of Christianity in their +pleadings. Paul's persuasives to Philemon are echoes of Christ's +persuasives to Paul. He had learned his method from his Master, and had +himself experienced that gentle love was more than commandments. +Therefore he softens his voice to speak to Philemon, as Christ had +softened His to speak to Paul. We do not arbitrarily "spiritualize" the +words, but simply recognise that the Apostle moulded his conduct after +Christ's pattern, when we see here a mirror reflecting some of the +highest truths of Christian ethics. + +I. Here is seen love which beseeches where it might command. The first +word, "wherefore," leads back to the preceding sentence, and makes +Philemon's past kindness to the saints the reason for his being asked to +be kind now. The Apostle's confidence in his friend's character, and in +his being amenable to the appeal of love, made Paul waive his apostolic +authority, and sue instead of commanding. There are people, like the +horse and the mule, who understand only rough imperatives, backed by +force; but they are fewer than we are apt to think, and perhaps +gentleness is never wholly thrown away. No doubt, there must be +adaptation of method to different characters, but we should try +gentleness before we make up our minds that to try it is to throw pearls +before swine. + +The careful limits put to apostolic authority here deserve notice. "I +might be much bold in Christ to command." He has no authority in +himself, but he has "in Christ." His own personality gives him none, but +his relation to his Master does. It is a distinct assertion of right to +command, and an equally distinct repudiation of any such right, except +as derived from his union with Jesus. + +He still further limits his authority by that noteworthy clause, "that +which is befitting." His authority does not stretch so far as to create +new obligations, or to repeal plain laws of duty. There was a standard +by which his commands were to be tried. He appeals to Philemon's own +sense of moral fitness, to his natural conscience, enlightened by +communion with Christ. + +Then comes the great motive which he will urge, "for love's sake,"--not +merely his to Philemon, nor Philemon's to him, but the bond which unites +all Christian souls together, and binds them all to Christ. "That grand, +sacred principle," says Paul, "bids me put away authority, and speak in +entreaty." Love naturally beseeches, and does not order. The harsh voice +of command is simply the imposition of another's will, and it belongs to +relationships in which the heart has no share. But wherever love is the +bond, grace is poured into the lips, and "I enjoin" becomes "I pray." So +that even where the outward form of authority is still kept, as in a +parent to young children, there will ever be some endearing word to +swathe the harsh imperative in tenderness, like a sword blade wrapped +about with wool, lest it should wound. Love tends to obliterate the hard +distinction of superior and inferior, which finds its expression in +laconic imperatives and silent obedience. It seeks not for mere +compliance with commands, but for oneness of will. The lightest wish +breathed by loved lips is stronger than all stern injunctions, often, +alas! than all laws of duty. The heart is so tuned as only to vibrate to +that one tone. The rocking stones, which all the storms of winter may +howl round and not move, can be set swinging by a light touch. Una leads +the lion in a silken leash. Love controls the wildest nature. The +demoniac, whom no chains can bind, is found sitting at the feet of +incarnate gentleness. So the wish of love is all-powerful with loving +hearts, and its faintest whisper louder and more constraining than all +the trumpets of Sinai. + +There is a large lesson here for all human relationships. Fathers and +mothers, husbands and wives, friends and companions, teachers and guides +of all sorts, should set their conduct by this pattern, and let the law +of love sit ever upon their lips. Authority is the weapon of a weak man, +who is doubtful of his own power to get himself obeyed, or of a selfish +one, who seeks for mechanical submission rather than for the fealty of +willing hearts. Love is the weapon of a strong man who can cast aside +the trappings of superiority, and is never loftier than when he +descends, nor more absolute than when he abjures authority, and appeals +with love to love. Men are not to be dragooned into goodness. If mere +outward acts are sought, it may be enough to impose another's will in +orders as curt as a soldier's word of command; but if the joyful +inclination of the heart to the good deed is to be secured, that can +only be done when law melts into love, and is thereby transformed to a +more imperative obligation, written not on tables of stone, but on +fleshy tables of the heart. + +There is a glimpse here into the very heart of Christ's rule over men. +He too does not merely impose commands, but stoops to entreat, where He +indeed might command. "Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends"; +and though He does go on to say, "Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever +I command you," yet His commandment has in it so much tenderness, +condescension, and pleading love, that it sounds far liker beseeching +than enjoining. His yoke is easy, for this among other reasons, that it +is, if one may so say, padded with love. His burden is light, because it +is laid on His servant's shoulders by a loving hand; and so, as St. +Bernard says, it is _onus quod portantem portat_, a burden which carries +him who carries it. + +II. There is in these verses the appeal which gives weight to the +entreaties of love. The Apostle brings personal considerations to bear +on the enforcement of impersonal duty, and therein follows the example +of his Lord. He presents his own circumstances as adding power to his +request, and as it were puts himself into the scale. He touches with +singular pathos on two things which should sway his friend. "Such a one +as Paul the aged." The alternative rendering "ambassador," while quite +possible, has not congruity in its favour, and would be a recurrence to +that very motive of official authority which he has just disclaimed. The +other rendering is every way preferable. How old was he? Probably +somewhere about sixty--not a very great age, but life was somewhat +shorter then than now, and Paul was, no doubt, aged by work, by worry, +and by the unresting spirit that "o'er-informed his tenement of clay." +Such temperaments as his soon grow old. Perhaps Philemon was not much +younger; but the prosperous Colossian gentleman had had a smoother life, +and, no doubt, carried his years more lightly. + +The requests of old age should have weight. In our days, what with the +improvements in education, and the general loosening of the bonds of +reverence, the old maxim that "the utmost respect is due to children," +receives a strange interpretation, and in many a household the Divine +order is turned upside down, and the juniors regulate all things. Other +still more sacred things will be likely to lose their due reverence when +silver hairs no longer receive theirs. + +But usually the aged who are "such" aged "as Paul" was, will not fail of +obtaining honour and deference. No more beautiful picture of the bright +energy and freshness still possible to the old was ever painted than may +be gathered from the Apostle's unconscious sketch of himself. He +delighted in having young life about him--Timothy, Titus, Mark, and +others, boys in comparison with himself, whom yet he admitted to close +intimacy as some old general might the youths of his staff, warming his +age at the genial flame of their growing energies and unworn hopes. His +was a joyful old age too, notwithstanding many burdens of anxiety and +sorrow. We hear the clear song of his gladness ringing through the +epistle of joy, that to the Philippians, which, like this, dates from +his Roman captivity. A Christian old age should be joyful, and only it +will be; for the joys of the natural life burn low, when the fuel that +fed them is nearly exhausted, and withered hands are held in vain over +the dying embers. But Christ's joy "remains," and a Christian old age +may be like the polar midsummer days, when the sun shines till midnight, +and dips but for an imperceptible interval ere it rises for the unending +day of heaven. + +Paul the aged was full of interest in the things of the day; no mere +"praiser of time gone by," but a strenuous worker, cherishing a quick +sympathy and an eager interest which kept him young to the end. Witness +that last chapter of the second Epistle to Timothy, where he is seen, in +the immediate expectation of death, entering heartily into passing +trifles, and thinking it worth while to give little pieces of +information about the movements of his friends, and wishful to get his +books and parchments, that he might do some more work while waiting for +the headsman's sword. And over his cheery, sympathetic, busy old age +there is thrown the light of a great hope, which kindles desire and +onward looks in his dim eyes, and parts "such a one as Paul the aged" by +a whole universe from the old whose future is dark and their past +dreary, whose hope is a phantom and their memory a pang. + +The Apostle adds yet another personal characteristic as a motive with +Philemon to grant his request: "Now a prisoner also of Christ Jesus." He +has already spoken of himself in these terms in _v._ 1. His sufferings +were imposed by and endured for Christ. He holds up his fettered wrist, +and in effect says, "Surely you will not refuse anything that you can do +to wrap a silken softness round the cold, hard iron, especially when you +remember for Whose sake and by Whose will I am bound with this chain." +He thus brings personal motives to reinforce duty which is binding from +other and higher considerations. He does not merely tell Philemon that +he ought to take back Onesimus as a piece of self-sacrificing Christian +duty. He does imply that highest motive throughout his pleadings, and +urges that such action is "fitting" or in consonance with the position +and obligations of a Christian man. But he backs up this highest reason +with these others: "If you hesitate to take him back because you ought, +will you do it because I ask you? and, before you answer that question, +will you remember my age, and what I am bearing for the Master?" If he +can get his friend to do the right thing by the help of these subsidiary +motives, still, it is the right thing; and the appeal to these motives +will do Philemon no harm, and, if successful, will do both him and +Onesimus a great deal of good. + +Does not this action of Paul remind us of the highest example of a +similar use of motives of personal attachment as aids to duty? Christ +does thus with His servants. He does not simply hold up before us a cold +law of duty, but warms it by introducing our personal relation to Him as +the main motive for keeping it. Apart from Him, Morality can only point +to the tables of stone and say: "There! that is what you ought to do. Do +it, or face the consequences." But Christ says: "I have given Myself for +you. My will is your law. Will you do it for My sake?" Instead of the +chilling, statuesque ideal, as pure as marble and as cold, a Brother +stands before us with a heart that beats, a smile on His face, a hand +outstretched to help; and His word is, "If ye love Me, keep My +commandments." The specific difference of Christian morality lies not in +its precepts, but in its motive, and in its gift of power to obey. Paul +could only urge regard to him as a subsidiary inducement. Christ puts it +as the chief, nay, as the sole motive for obedience. + +III. The last point suggested by these verses is the gradual opening up +of the main subject matter of the Apostle's request. Very noteworthy is +the tenderness of the description of the fugitive as "my child, whom I +have begotten in my bonds." Paul does not venture to name him at once, +but prepares the way by the warmth of this affectionate reference. The +position of the name in the sentence is most unusual, and suggests a +kind of hesitation to take the plunge, while the hurried passing on to +meet the objection which he knew would spring immediately to Philemon's +mind is almost as if Paul laid his hand on his friend's lips to stop his +words,--"Onesimus then is it? that good-for-nothing!" Paul admits the +indictment, will say no word to mitigate the condemnation due to his +past worthlessness, but, with a playful allusion to the slave's name, +which conceals his deep earnestness, assures Philemon that he will find +the formerly inappropriate name, Onesimus--_i.e._ profitable--true yet, +for all that is past. He is sure of this, because he, Paul, has proved +his value. Surely never were the natural feelings of indignation and +suspicion more skilfully soothed, and never did repentant +good-for-nothing get sent back to regain the confidence which he had +forfeited, with such a certificate of character in his hand! + +But there is something of more importance than Paul's inborn delicacy +and tact to notice here. Onesimus had been a bad specimen of a bad +class. Slavery must needs corrupt both the owner and the chattel; and, +as a matter of fact, we have classical allusions enough to show that the +slaves of Paul's period were deeply tainted with the characteristic +vices of their condition. Liars, thieves, idle, treacherous, nourishing +a hatred of their masters all the more deadly that it was smothered, but +ready to flame out, if opportunity served, in blood-curdling +cruelties--they constituted an ever-present danger, and needed an +ever-wakeful watchfulness. Onesimus had been known to Philemon only as +one of the idlers who were more of a nuisance than a benefit, and cost +more than they earned; and he apparently ended his career by theft. And +this degraded creature, with scars on his soul deeper and worse than the +marks of fetters on his limbs, had somehow found his way to the great +jungle of a city, where all foul vermin could crawl and hiss and sting +with comparative safety. There he had somehow come across the Apostle, +and had received into his heart, filled with ugly desires and lusts, the +message of Christ's love, which had swept it clean, and made him over +again. The Apostle has had but short experience of his convert, but he +is quite sure that he is a Christian; and, that being the case, he is as +sure that all the bad black past is buried, and that the new leaf now +turned over will be covered with fair writing, not in the least like the +blots that were on the former page, and have now been dissolved from off +it, by the touch of Christ's blood. + +It is a typical instance of the miracles which the gospel wrought as +every-day events in its transforming career. Christianity knows nothing +of hopeless cases. It professes its ability to take the most crooked +stick and bring it straight, to flash a new power into the blackest +carbon, which will turn it into a diamond. Every duty will be done +better by a man if he have the love and grace of Jesus Christ in his +heart. New motives are brought into play, new powers are given, new +standards of duty are set up. The small tasks become great, and the +unwelcome sweet, and the difficult easy, when done for and through +Christ. Old vices are crushed in their deepest source; old habits driven +out by the force of a new affection, as the young leaf-buds push the +withered foliage from the tree. Christ can make any man over again, and +does so re-create every heart that trusts to him. Such miracles of +transformation are wrought to-day as truly as of old. Many professing +Christians experience little of that quickening and revolutionising +energy; many observers see little of it, and some begin to croak, as if +the old power had ebbed away. But wherever men give the gospel fair play +in their lives, and open their spirits, in truth and not merely in +profession, to its influence, it vindicates its undiminished possession +of all its former energy; and if ever it seems to fail, it is not that +the medicine is ineffectual, but that the sick man has not really taken +it. The low tone of much modern Christianity and its dim exhibition of +the transforming power of the gospel is easily and sadly accounted for +without charging decrepitude on that which was once so mighty, by the +patent fact that much modern Christianity is little better than lip +acknowledgment, and that much more of it is wofully unfamiliar with the +truth which it in some fashion believes, and is sinfully negligent of +the spiritual gifts which it professes to treasure. If a Christian man +does not show that his religion is changing him into the fair likeness +of his Master, and fitting him for all relations of life, the reason is +simply that he has so little of it, and that little so mechanical and +tepid. + +Paul pleads with Philemon to take back his worthless servant, and +assures him that he will find Onesimus helpful now. Christ does not +need to be besought to welcome His runaway good-for-nothings, however +unprofitable they have been. That Divine charity of His forgives all +things, and "hopes all things" of the worst, and can fulfil its own hope +in the most degraded. With bright, unfaltering confidence in His own +power He fronts the most evil, sure that He can cleanse; and that, no +matter what the past has been, His power can overcome all defects of +character, education, or surroundings, can set free from all moral +disadvantages adhering to men's station, class, or calling, can break +the entail of sin. The worst needs no intercessor to sway that tender +heart of our great Master whom we may dimly see shadowed in the very +name of "Philemon," which means one who is loving or kindly. Whoever +confesses to him that he has "been an unprofitable servant," will be +welcomed to His heart, made pure and good by the Divine Spirit breathing +new life into him, will be trained by Christ for all joyful toil as His +slave, and yet His freedman and friend; and at last each once fugitive +and unprofitable Onesimus will hear the "Well done, good and faithful +servant!" + + + + +IV. + + "Whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, that is, my very + heart: whom I would fain have kept with me, that in my behalf he + might minister unto me in the bonds of the gospel: but without thy + mind I would do nothing; that thy goodness should not be as of + necessity, but of free will."--PHILEM. 12-14 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The characteristic features of the Epistle are all embodied in these +verses. They set forth, in the most striking manner, the relation of +Christianity to slavery and to other social evils. They afford an +exquisite example of the courteous delicacy and tact of the Apostle's +intervention on behalf of Onesimus; and there shine through them, as +through a semi-transparent medium, adumbrations and shimmering hints of +the greatest truths of Christianity. + +I. The first point to notice is that decisive step of sending back the +fugitive slave. Not many years ago the conscience of England was stirred +because the Government of the day sent out a circular instructing +captains of men-of-war, on the decks of which fugitive slaves sought +asylum, to restore them to their "owners." Here an Apostle does the same +thing--seems to side with the oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from +the sole refuge left him, the horns of the very altar. More +extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily going back, +travelling all the weary way from Rome to Colossae in order to put his +neck once more beneath the yoke. Both men were acting from Christian +motives, and thought that they were doing a piece of plain Christian +duty. Then does Christianity sanction slavery? Certainly not; its +principles cut it up by the roots. A gospel, of which the starting-point +is that all men stand on the same level, as loved by the one Lord, and +redeemed by the one cross, can have no place for such an institution. A +religion which attaches the highest importance to man's awful +prerogative of freedom, because it insists on every man's individual +responsibility to God, can keep no terms with a system which turns men +into chattels. Therefore Christianity cannot but regard slavery as sin +against God, and as treason towards man. The principles of the gospel +worked into the conscience of a nation destroy slavery. Historically it +is true that as Christianity has grown slavery has withered. But the New +Testament never directly condemns it, and by regulating the conduct of +Christian masters, and recognising the obligations of Christian slaves, +seems to contemplate its continuance, and to be deaf to the sighing of +the captives. + +This attitude was probably not a piece of policy or a matter of +calculated wisdom on the part of the Apostle. He no doubt saw that the +Gospel brought a great unity in which all distinctions were merged, and +rejoiced in thinking that "in Christ Jesus there is neither bond or +free"; but whether he expected the distinction ever to disappear from +actual life is less certain. He may have thought of slavery as he did of +sex, that the fact would remain, while yet "we are all one in Christ +Jesus." It is by no means necessary to suppose that the Apostles saw +the full bearing of the truths they had to preach, in their relation to +social conditions. They were inspired to give the Church the principles. +It remained for future ages, under Divine guidance, to apprehend the +destructive and formative range of these principles. + +However this may be, the attitude of the New Testament to slavery is the +same as to other unchristian institutions. It brings the leaven, and +lets it work. That attitude is determined by three great principles. +First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only +secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to +influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment, +and only afterwards and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it +hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it +meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down +principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak +into the general mind. If an evil needs force for its removal, it is not +ready for removal. If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the +root will certainly be left and will grow again. When a dandelion head +is ripe, a child's breath can detach the winged seeds; but until it is, +no tempest can move them. The method of violence is noisy and wasteful, +like the winter torrents that cover acres of good ground with mud and +rocks, and are past in a day. The only true way is, by slow degrees to +create a state of feeling which shall instinctively abhor and cast off +the evil. Then there will be no hubbub and no waste, and the thing once +done will be done for ever. + +So has it been with slavery; so will it be with war, and intemperance, +and impurity, and the miserable anomalies of our present civilization. +It has taken eighteen hundred years for the whole Church to learn the +inconsistency of Christianity with slavery. We are no quicker learners +than the past generations were. God is patient, and does not seek to +hurry the march of His purposes. We have to be imitators of God, and +shun the "raw haste" which is "half-sister to delay." + +But patience is not passivity. It is a Christian's duty to "hasten the +day of the Lord," and to take part in the educational process which +Christ is carrying on through the ages, by submitting himself to it in +the first place, and then by endeavouring to bring others under its +influence. His place should be in the van of all social progress. It +does not become Christ's servants to be content with the attainments of +any past or present, in the matter of the organization of society on +Christian principles. "God has more light to break forth from His word." +Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness of the moral +perceptions of nineteenth century Christians in regard to matters of +Christian duty which, hidden from us, are sun-clear to them, with the +same half-amused, half-tragic wonder with which we look back to Jamaica +planters or South Carolina rice growers, who defended slavery as a +missionary institution, and saw no contradiction between their religion +and their practice. We have to stretch our charity to believe in these +men's sincere religion. Succeeding ages will have to make the same +allowance for us, and will need it for themselves from their successors. +The main thing is, for us to try to keep our spirits open to all the +incidence of the gospel on social and civic life, and to see that we are +on the right side, and trying to help on the approach of that kingdom +which does "not cry, nor lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the +streets," but has its coming "prepared as the morning," that swims up, +silent and slow, and flushes the heaven with an unsetting light. + +II. The next point in these verses is Paul's loving identification of +himself with Onesimus. + +The A.V. here follows another reading from the R.V.; the former has +"thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels." The additional +words are unquestionably inserted without authority in order to patch a +broken construction. The R.V. cuts the knot in a different fashion by +putting the abrupt words, "himself that is, my very own heart," under +the government of the preceding verb. But it seems more probable that +the Apostle began a new sentence with them, which he meant to have +finished as the A.V. does for him, but which, in fact, got hopelessly +upset in the swift rush of his thoughts, and does not right itself +grammatically till the "receive him" of _v._ 17. + +In any case the main thing to observe is the affectionate plea which he +puts in for the cordial reception of Onesimus. Of course "mine own +bowels" is simply the Hebrew way of saying "mine own heart." We think +the one phrase graceful and sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did +not think so, and it might be difficult to say why he should. It is a +mere question of difference in localizing certain emotions. Onesimus was +a piece of Paul's very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable slave +had wound himself round his affections, and become so dear that to part +with him was like cutting his heart out of his bosom. Perhaps some of +the virtues, which the servile condition helps to develop in undue +proportion, such as docility, lightheartedness, serviceableness, had +made him a soothing and helpful companion. What a plea that would be +with one who loved Paul as well as Philemon did! He could not receive +harshly one whom the Apostle had so honoured with his love. "Take care +of him, be kind to him as if it were to me." + +Such language from an Apostle about a slave would do more to destroy +slavery than any violence would do. Love leaps the barrier, and it +ceases to separate. So these simple, heart-felt words are an instance of +one method by which Christianity wars against all social wrongs, by +casting its caressing arm around the outcast, and showing that the +abject and oppressed are objects of its special love. + +They teach too how interceding love makes its object part of its very +self; the same thought recurs still more distinctly in _v._ 17, "Receive +him as myself." It is the natural language of love; some of the deepest +and most blessed Christian truths are but the carrying out of that +identification to its fullest extent. We are all Christ's Onesimuses, +and He, out of His pure love, makes Himself one with us, and us one with +Him. The union of Christ with all who trust in Him, no doubt, +presupposes His Divine nature, but still there is a human side to it, +and it is the result of His perfect love. All love delights to fuse +itself with its object, and as far as may be to abolish the distinction +of "I" and "thou." But human love can travel but a little way on that +road; Christ's goes much farther. He that pleads for some poor creature +feels that the kindness is done to himself when the former is helped or +pardoned. Imperfectly but really these words shadow forth the great fact +of Christ's intercession for us sinners, and our acceptance in Him. We +need no better symbol of the stooping love of Christ, Who identifies +Himself with His brethren, and of our wondrous identification with Him, +our High Priest and Intercessor, than this picture of the Apostle +pleading for the runaway and bespeaking a welcome for him as part of +himself. When Paul says, "Receive him, that is, my very heart," his +words remind us of the yet more blessed ones, which reveal a deeper love +and more marvellous condescension, "He that receiveth you receiveth Me," +and may reverently be taken as a faint shadow of that prevailing +intercession, through which he that is joined to the Lord and is one +spirit with Him, is received of God as part of Christ's mystical body, +bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh. + +III. Next comes the expression of a half-formed purpose which was put +aside for a reason to be immediately stated. "Whom I would fain have +kept with me"; the tense of the verb indicating the incompleteness of +the desire. The very statement of it is turned into a graceful +expression of Paul's confidence in Philemon's goodwill to him, by the +addition of that "on thy behalf." He is sure that, if his friend had +been beside him, he would have been glad to lend him his servant, and so +he would have liked to have had Onesimus as a kind of representative of +the service which he knows would have been so willingly rendered. The +purpose for which he would have liked to keep him is defined as being, +"that he might minister to me in the bonds of the Gospel." If the last +words be connected with "me," they suggest a tender reason why Paul +should be ministered to, as suffering for Christ, their common Master, +and for the truth, their common possession. If, as is perhaps less +probable, they be connected with "minister," they describe the sphere in +which the service is to be rendered. Either the master or the slave +would be bound by the obligations which the Gospel laid on them to serve +Paul. Both were his converts, and therefore knit to him by a welcome +chain, which made service a delight. + +There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy of these words, so +full of happy confidence in the friend's disposition, that they could +not but evoke the love to which they trusted so completely. Nor need I +do more than point their force for the purpose of the whole letter, the +procuring a cordial reception for the returning fugitive. So dear had he +become, that Paul would like to have kept him. He goes back with a kind +of halo round him, now that he is not only a good-for-nothing runaway, +but Paul's friend, and so much prized by him. It would be impossible to +do anything but welcome him, bringing such credentials; and yet all this +is done with scarcely a word of direct praise, which might have provoked +contradiction. One does not know whether the confidence in Onesimus or +in Philemon is the dominant note in the harmony. In the preceding +clause, he was spoken of as, in some sense, part of the Apostle's very +self. In this, he is regarded as, in some sense, part of Philemon. So he +is a link between them. Paul would have taken his service as if it had +been his master's. Can the master fail to take him as if he were Paul? + +IV. The last topic in these verses is the decision which arrested the +half-formed wish. "I was _wishing_ indeed, but I _willed_ otherwise." +The language is exact. There is a universe between "I wished" and "I +willed." Many a good wish remains fruitless, because it never passes +into the stage of firm resolve. Many who wish to be better will to be +bad. One strong "I will" can paralyse a million wishes. + +The Apostle's final determination was, to do nothing without Philemon's +cognisance and consent. The reason for the decision is at once a very +triumph of persuasiveness, which would be ingenious if it were not so +spontaneous, and an adumbration of the very spirit of Christ's appeal +for service to us. "That thy benefit"--the good done to me by him, which +would in my eyes be done by you--"should not be as of necessity, but +willingly." That "as" is a delicate addition. He will not think that the +benefit would really have been by constraint, but it might have looked +as if it were. + +Do not these words go much deeper than this small matter? And did not +Paul learn the spirit that suggested them from his own experience of how +Christ treated him? The principle underlying them is, that where the +bond is love, compulsion takes the sweetness and goodness out of even +sweet and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue. If a man "could +not help it" there is neither praise nor blame due. That freedom +Christianity honours and respects. So in reference to the offer of the +gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them but appealed to, +and can turn deaf ears to the pleading voice, "Why will ye die?" Sorrows +and sins and miseries without end continue, and the gospel is rejected, +and lives of wretched godlessness are lived, and a dark future pulled +down on the rejecters' heads--and all because God knows that these +things are better than that men should be forced into goodness, which +indeed would cease to be goodness if they were. For nothing is good but +the free turning of the will to goodness, and nothing bad but its +aversion therefrom. + +The same solemn regard for the freedom of the individual and low +estimate of the worth of constrained service influence the whole aspect +of Christian ethics. Christ wants no pressed men in His army. The +victorious host of priestly warriors, which the Psalmist saw following +the priest-king in the day of his power, numerous as the dewdrops, and +radiant with reflected beauty as these, were all "willing"--volunteers. +There are no conscripts in the ranks. These words might be said to be +graven over the gates of the kingdom of heaven, "Not as of necessity, +but willingly." In Christian morals, law becomes love, and love, law. +"Must" is not in the Christian vocabulary, except as expressing the +sweet constraint which bows the will of him who loves to harmony, which +is joy, with the will of Him who is loved. Christ takes no offerings +which the giver is not glad to render. Money, influence, service, which +are not offered by a will moved by love, which love, in its turn, is set +in motion by the recognition of the infinite love of Christ in His +sacrifice, are, in His eyes, nought. An earthenware cup with a drop of +cold water in it, freely given out of a glad heart, is richer and more +precious in His sight than golden chalices swimming with wine and melted +pearls, which are laid by constraint on His table. "I delight to do Thy +will" is the foundation of all Christian obedience; and the servant had +caught the very tone of the Lord's voice when he said, "Without thy mind +I will do nothing, that thy benefit should not be, as it were, of +necessity, but willingly." + + + + +V. + + "For perhaps he was therefore parted from thee for a season, that + thou shouldest have him for ever; no longer as a servant, but more + than a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much + rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then thou + countest me a partner, receive him as myself. But if he hath wronged + thee at all, or oweth thee aught, put that to mine account; I Paul + write it with mine own hand, I will repay it: that I say not unto + thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self + besides."--PHILEM. 15-19 (Rev. Ver.). + + +The first words of these verses are connected with the preceding by the +"for" at the beginning; that is to say, the thought that possibly the +Divine purpose in permitting the flight of Onesimus was his restoration, +in eternal and holy relationship, to Philemon, was Paul's reason for not +carrying out his wish to keep Onesimus as his own attendant and helper. +"I did not decide, though I very much wished, to retain him without your +consent, because it is possible that he was allowed to flee from you, +though his flight was his own blamable act, in order that he might be +given back to you, a richer possession, a brother instead of a slave." + +I. There is here a Divine purpose discerned as shining through a +questionable human act. + +The first point to note is, with what charitable delicacy of feeling the +Apostle uses a mild word to express the fugitive's flight. He will not +employ the harsh naked word "ran away." It might irritate Philemon. +Besides, Onesimus has repented of his faults, as is plain from the fact +of his voluntary return, and therefore there is no need for dwelling on +them. The harshest, sharpest words are best when callous consciences are +to be made to wince; but words that are balm and healing are to be used +when men are heartily ashamed of their sins. So the deed for which +Philemon's forgiveness is asked is half veiled in the phrase "he was +parted." + +Not only so, but the word suggests that behind the slave's mutiny and +flight there was another Will working, of which, in some sense, Onesimus +was but the instrument. He "_was_ parted"--not that he was not +responsible for his flight, but that, through his act, which in the eyes +of all concerned was wrong, Paul discerns as dimly visible a great +Divine purpose. + +But he puts that as only a possibility: "_Perhaps_ he departed from +thee."----He will not be too sure of what God means by such and such a +thing, as some of us are wont to be, as if we had been sworn of God's +privy council. "Perhaps" is one of the hardest words for minds of a +certain class to say; but in regard to all such subjects, and to many +more, it is the motto of the wise man, and the shibboleth which sifts +out the patient, modest lovers of truth from rash theorists and +precipitate dogmatisers. Impatience of uncertainty is a moral fault +which mars many an intellectual process; and its evil effects are +nowhere mote visible than in the field of theology. A humble "perhaps" +often grows into a "verily, verily"--and a hasty, over-confident +"verily, verily," often dwindles to a hesitating "perhaps." Let us not +be in too great a hurry to make sure that we have the key of the +cabinet where God keeps His purposes, but content ourselves with +"perhaps" when we are interpreting the often questionable ways of His +providences, each of which has many meanings and many ends. + +But however modestly he may hesitate as to the application of the +principle, Paul has no doubt as to the principle itself: namely, that +God, in the sweep of His wise providence, utilizes even men's evil, and +works it in, to the accomplishment of great purposes far beyond their +ken, as nature, in her patient chemistry, takes the rubbish and filth of +the dunghill and turns them into beauty and food. Onesimus had no high +motives in his flight; he had run away under discreditable +circumstances, and perhaps to escape deserved punishment. Laziness and +theft had been the hopeful companions of his flight, which, so far as he +was concerned, had been the outcome of low and probably criminal +impulses; and yet God had known how to use it so as to lead to his +becoming a Christian. "With the wrath of man Thou girdest Thyself," +twisting and bending it so as to be flexible in Thy hands, and "the +remainder Thou dost restrain," How unlike were the seed and the +fruit--the flight of a good-for-nothing thief and the return of a +Christian brother! He meant it not so; but in running away from his +master, he was running straight into the arms of his Saviour. How little +Onesimus knew what was to be the end of that day's work, when he slunk +out of Philemon's house with his stolen booty hid away in his bosom! And +how little any of us know where we are going, and what strange results +may evolve themselves from our actions! Blessed they who can rest in +the confidence that, however modest we should be in our interpretation +of the events of our own or of other men's lives, the infinitely complex +web of circumstance is woven by a loving, wise Hand, and takes shape, +with all its interlacing threads, according to a pattern in His hand, +which will vindicate itself when it is finished! + +The contrast is emphatic between the short absence and the eternity of +the new relationship: "for a season"--literally an hour--and "for ever." +There is but one point of view which gives importance to this material +world, with all its fleeting joys and fallacious possessions. Life is +not worth living, unless it be the vestibule to a life beyond. Why all +its discipline, whether of sorrow or joy, unless there be another, +ampler life, where we can use to nobler ends the powers acquired and +greatened by use here? What an inconsequent piece of work is man, if the +few years of earth are his all! Surely, if nothing is to come of all +this life here, men are made in vain, and had better not have been at +all. Here is a narrow sound, with a mere ribbon of sea in it, shut in +between grim, echoing rocks. How small and meaningless it looks as long +as the fog hides the great ocean beyond! But when the mist lifts, and we +see that the narrow strait leads out into a boundless sea that lies +flashing in the sunshine to the horizon, then we find out the worth of +that little driblet of water at our feet. It connects with the open sea, +and that swathes the world. So is it with "the hour" of life; it opens +out and debouches into the "for ever," and therefore it is great and +solemn. This moment is one of the moments of that hour. We are the sport +of our own generalisations, and ready to admit all these fine and +solemn things about life, but we are less willing to apply them to the +single moments as they fly. We should not rest content with recognising +the general truth, but ever make conscious effort to feel that _this_ +passing instant has something to do with our eternal character and with +our eternal destiny. + +That is an exquisitely beautiful and tender thought which the Apostle +puts here, and one which is susceptible of many applications. The +temporary loss may be eternal gain. The dropping away of the earthly +form of a relationship may, in God's great mercy, be a step towards its +renewal in higher fashion and for evermore. All our blessings need to be +past before reflection can be brought to bear upon them, to make us +conscious how blessed we were. The blossoms have to perish before the +rich perfume, which can be kept in undiminished fragrance for years, can +be distilled from them. When death takes away dear ones, we first learn +that we were entertaining angels unawares; and as they float away from +us into the light, they look back with faces already beginning to +brighten into the likeness of Christ, and take leave of us with His +valediction, "It is expedient for you that I go away." Memory teaches us +the true character of life. We can best estimate the height of the +mountain peaks when we have left them behind. The softening and +hallowing influence of death reveals the nobleness and sweetness of +those who are gone. Fair country never looks so fair as when it has a +curving river for a foreground; and fair lives look fairer than before, +when seen across the Jordan of death. + +To us who believe that life and love are not killed by death, the end of +their earthly form is but the beginning of a higher heavenly. Love which +is "in Christ" is eternal. Because Philemon and Onesimus were two +Christians, therefore their relationship was eternal. Is it not yet more +true, if that were possible, that the sweet bonds which unite Christian +souls here on earth are in their essence indestructible, and are +affected by death only as the body is? Sown in weakness, will they not +be raised in power? Nothing of them shall die but the encompassing +death. Their mortal part shall put on immortality. As the farmer gathers +the green flax with its blue bells blooming on it, and throws it into a +tank to rot, in order to get the firm fibre which cannot rot, and spin +it into a strong cable, so God does with our earthly loves. He causes +all about them that is perishable to perish, that the central fibre, +which is eternal, may stand clear and disengaged from all that was less +Divine than itself. Wherefore mourning hearts may stay themselves on +this assurance, that they will never lose the dear ones whom they have +loved in Christ, and that death itself but changes the manner of the +communion, and refines the tie. They were as for a moment dead, but they +are alive again. To our bewildered sight they departed and were lost for +a season, but they are found, and we can fold them in our heart of +hearts for ever. + +But there is also set forth here a change, not only in the duration but +in the quality of the relation between the Christian master and his +former slave, who continues a slave indeed, but is also a brother. "No +longer as a servant, but more than a servant, a brother beloved, +specially to me, but how much rather to thee, both in the flesh and in +the Lord." It is clear from these words that Paul did not anticipate the +manumission of Onesimus. What he asks is, that he should not be received +_as_ a slave. Evidently then he is to be still a slave in so far as the +outward fact goes--but a new spirit is to be breathed into the +relationship. "Specially to me"; he is more than a slave to me. I have +not looked on him as such, but have taken him to my heart as a brother, +as a son indeed, for he is especially dear to me as my convert. But +however dear he is to me, he should be more so to thee, to whom his +relation is permanent, while to me it is temporary. And this Brotherhood +of the slave is to be felt and made visible "both in the flesh"--that +is, in the earthly and personal relations of common life, "and in the +Lord"--that is, in the spiritual and religious relationships of worship +and the Church. + +As has been well said, "In the flesh, Philemon has the brother for his +slave; in the Lord, Philemon has the slave for his brother." He is to +treat him as his brother therefore both in the common relationships of +every-day life and in the acts of religious worship. + +That is a pregnant word. True, there is no gulf between Christian people +now-a-days like that which in the old times parted owner and slave; but, +as society becomes more and more differentiated, as the diversities of +wealth become more extreme in our commercial communities, as education +comes to make the educated man's whole way of looking at life differ +more and more from that of the less cultured classes, the injunction +implied in our text encounters enemies quite as formidable as slavery +ever was. The highly educated man is apt to be very oblivious of the +brotherhood of the ignorant Christian, and he, on his part, finds the +recognition just as hard. The rich mill-owner has not much sympathy with +the poor brother who works at his spinning-jennies. It is often +difficult for the Christian mistress to remember that her cook is her +sister in Christ. There is quite as much sin against fraternity on the +side of the poor Christians who are servants and illiterate, as on the +side of the rich who are masters or cultured. But the principle that +Christian brotherhood is to reach across the wall of class distinctions +is as binding to-day as it was on these two good people, Philemon the +master and Onesimus the slave. + +That brotherhood is not to be confined to acts and times of Christian +communion, but is to be shown and to shape conduct in common life. "Both +in the flesh and in the Lord" may be put into plain English thus: A rich +man and a poor one belong to the same church; they unite in the same +worship, they are "partakers of the one bread," and therefore, Paul +thinks, "are one bread." They go outside the church door. Do they ever +dream of speaking to one another outside? "A brother beloved in the +Lord"--on Sundays, and during worship and in Church matters--is often a +stranger "in the flesh" on Mondays, in the street and in common life. +Some good people seem to keep their brotherly love in the same wardrobe +with their Sunday clothes. Philemon was bid, and all are bid, to wear it +all the week, at market as well as church. + +II. In the next verse, the essential purpose for which the whole letter +was written is put at last in an articulate request, based upon a very +tender motive. "If then thou countest me as a partner, receive him as +myself," Paul now at last completes the sentence which he began in _v_. +12, and from which he was hurried away by the other thoughts that came +crowding in upon him. This plea for the kindly welcome to be accorded to +Onesimus has been knocking at the door of his lips for utterance from +the beginning of the letter; but only now, so near the end, after so +much conciliation, he ventures to put it into plain words; and even now +he does not dwell on it, but goes quickly on to another point. He puts +his requests on a modest and yet a strong ground, appealing to +Philemon's sense of comradeship--"if thou countest me a partner"--a +comrade or a sharer in Christian blessings. He sinks all reference to +apostolic authority, and only points to their common possession of +faith, hope, and joy in Christ. "Receive him as myself." That request +was sufficiently illustrated in the preceding chapter, so that I need +only refer to what was then said on this instance of interceding love +identifying itself with its object, and on the enunciation in it of +great Christian truth. + +III. The course of thought next shows--Love taking the slave's debts on +itself. + +"If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught." Paul makes an "if" of +what he knew well enough to be the fact; for no doubt Onesimus had told +him all his faults, and the whole context shows that there was no +uncertainty in Paul's mind, but that he puts the wrong hypothetically +for the same reason for which he chooses to say, "was parted" instead +of "ran away," namely, to keep some thin veil over the crimes of a +penitent, and not to rasp him with rough words. For the same reason, +too, he falls back upon the gentler expressions, "wronged" and "oweth," +instead of blurting out the ugly word "stolen." And then, with a +half-playful assumption of lawyer-like phraseology, he bids Philemon put +that to his account. Here is my autograph--"I Paul write it with mine +own hand"--I make this letter into a bond. Witness my hand; "I will +repay it." The formal tone of the promise, rendered more formal by the +insertion of the name--and perhaps by that sentence only being in his +own handwriting--seems to warrant the explanation that it is half +playful; for he could never have supposed that Philemon would exact the +fulfilment of the bond, and we have no reason to suppose that, if he +had, Paul could really have paid the amount. But beneath the playfulness +there lies the implied exhortation to forgive the money wrong as well as +the others which Onesimus had done him. + +The verb used here for _put to the account of_ is, according to the +commentators, a very rare word; and perhaps the singular phrase may be +chosen to let another great Christian truth shine through. Was Paul's +love the only one that we know of which took the slave's debts on +itself? Did anybody else ever say, "Put that on mine account"? We have +been taught to ask for the forgiveness of our sins as "debts," and we +have been taught that there is One on whom God has made to meet the +iniquities of us all. Christ takes on Himself all Paul's debt, all +Philemon's, all ours. He has paid the ransom for all, and He so +identifies Himself with men that He takes all their sins upon Him, and +so identifies men with Himself that they are "received as Himself." It +is His great example that Paul is trying to copy here. Forgiven all that +great debt, he dare not rise from his knees to take his brother by the +throat, but goes forth to show to his fellow the mercy which he has +found, and to model his life after the pattern of that miracle of love +in which is his trust. It is Christ's own voice which echoes in "put +that on mine account." + +IV. Finally, these verses pass to a gentle reminder of a greater debt: +"That I say not unto thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self +besides." + +As his child in the Gospel, Philemon owed to Paul much more than the +trifle of money of which Onesimus had robbed him; namely his spiritual +life, which he had received through the Apostle's ministry. But he will +not insist on that. True love never presses its claims, nor recounts its +services. Claims which need to be urged are not worth urging. A true, +generous heart will never say, "You ought to do so much for me, because +I have done so much for you." To come down to that low level of +chaffering and barter is a dreadful descent from the heights where the +love which delights in giving should ever dwell. + +Does not Christ speak to us in the same language? We owe ourselves to +Him, as Lazarus did, for He raises us from the death of sin to a share +in His own new, undying life. As a sick man owes his life to the doctor +who has cured him, as a drowning man owes his to his rescuer, who +dragged him from the water and breathed into his lungs till they began +to work of themselves, as a child owes its life to its parent--so we owe +ourselves to Christ. But He does not insist upon the debt; He gently +reminds us of it, as making His commandment sweeter and easier to obey. +Every heart that is really touched with gratitude will feel, that the +less the giver insists upon his gifts, the more do they impel to +affectionate service. To be perpetually reminded of them weakens their +force as motives to obedience, for it then appears as if they had not +been gifts of love at all, but bribes given by self-interest; and the +frequent reference to them sounds like complaint. But Christ does not +insist on His claims, and therefore the remembrance of them ought to +underlie all our lives and to lead to constant glad devotion. + +One more thought may be drawn from the words. The great debt which can +never be discharged does not prevent the debtor from receiving reward +for the obedience of love. "I will repay it," even though thou owest me +thyself. Christ has bought us for His servants by giving Himself and +ourselves to us. No work, no devotion, no love can ever repay our debt +to Him. From His love alone comes the desire to serve Him; from His +grace comes the power. The best works are stained and incomplete, and +could only be acceptable to a Love that was glad to welcome even +unworthy offerings, and to forgive their imperfections. Nevertheless He +treats them as worthy of reward, and crowns His own grace in men with an +exuberance of recompense far beyond their deserts. He will suffer no man +to work for Him for nothing; but to each He gives even here great +reward _in_ keeping His commandments, and hereafter "an exceeding great +reward," of which the inward joys and outward blessings that now flow +from obedience are but the earnest His merciful allowance of +imperfections treats even our poor deeds as rewardable; and though +eternal life must ever be the _gift_ of God, and no claim of merit can +be sustained before His judgment seat, yet the measure of that life +which is possessed here or hereafter is accurately proportioned to and +is, in a very real sense, the consequence of obedience and service, "If +any man's work abide, he shall receive a reward," and Christ's own +tender voice speaks the promise, "I will repay, albeit I say not unto +thee how thou owest to Me even thine own self besides." Men do not +really possess themselves unless they yield themselves to Jesus Christ. +He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth himself, in +glad surrender of himself to his Saviour, he and only he is truly lord +and owner of his own soul. And to such an one shall be given rewards +beyond hope and beyond measure--and, as the crown of all, the blessed +possession of Christ, and in it the full, true, eternal possession of +himself, glorified and changed into the image of the Lord who loved him +and gave Himself for him. + + + + +VI. + + "Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord refresh my heart + in Christ. Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, + knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say. But withal prepare + me a lodging: for I hope that through your prayers I shall be + granted unto you. + + "Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, saluteth thee; and so + do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers. + + "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. + Amen."--PHILEM. 20-25 (Rev. Ver.). + + +We have already had occasion to point out that Paul's pleading with +Philemon, and the motives which he adduces, are expressions, on a lower +level, of the greatest principles of Christian ethics. If the closing +salutations be left out of sight for the moment, there are here three +verses, each containing a thought which needs only to be cast into its +most general form to show itself as a large Christian truth. + +I. Verse 20 gives the final moving form of the Apostle's request. +Onesimus disappears, and the final plea is based altogether on the fact +that compliance will pleasure and help Paul. There is but the faintest +gleam of a possible allusion to the former in the use of the verb from +which the name Onesimus is derived--"Let me have _help_ of thee"; as if +he had said, "Be you an Onesimus, a helpful one to me, as I trust he is +going to be to you." "Refresh my heart" points back to _v._ 7, "The +hearts of the saints have been refreshed by thee," and lightly suggests +that Philemon should do for Paul what he had done for many others. But +the Apostle does not merely ask help and refreshing; he desires that +they should be of a right Christian sort. "In Christ" is very +significant. If Philemon receives his slave for Christ's sake and in the +strength of that communion with Christ which fits for all virtue, and so +for this good deed--a deed which is of too high and rare a strain of +goodness for his unaided nature,--then "in Christ" he will be helpful to +the Apostle. In that case the phrase expresses the element or sphere in +which the act is done. But it may apply rather, or even also, to Paul, +and then it expresses the element or sphere in which he is helped and +refreshed. In communion with Jesus, taught and inspired by Him, the +Apostle is brought to such true and tender sympathy with the runaway +that his heart is refreshed, as by a cup of cold water, by kindness +shown to him. Such keen sympathy is as much beyond the reach of nature +as Philemon's kindness would be. Both are "in Christ." Union with Him +refines selfishness, and makes men quick to feel another's sorrows and +joys as theirs, after the pattern of Him who makes the case of God's +fugitives His own. It makes them easy to be entreated and ready to +forgive. So to be in Him is to be sympathetic like Paul, and placable as +He would have Onesimus. "In Christ" carries in it the secret of all +sweet humanities and beneficence, is the spell which calls out fairest +charity, and is the only victorious antagonist of harshness and +selfishness. + +The request for the sake of which the whole letter is written is here +put as a kindness to Paul himself, and thus an entirely different motive +is appealed to. "Surely you would be glad to give me pleasure. Then do +this thing which I ask you." It is permissible to seek to draw to +virtuous acts by such a motive, and to reinforce higher reasons by the +desire to please dear ones, or to win the approbation of the wise and +good. It must be rigidly kept as a subsidiary motive, and distinguished +from the mere love of applause. Most men have some one whose opinion of +their acts is a kind of embodied conscience, and whose satisfaction is +reward. But pleasing the dearest and purest among men can never be more +than at most a crutch to help lameness or a spur to stimulate. + +If however this motive be lifted to the higher level, and these words +thought of as Paul's echo of Christ's appeal to those who love Him, they +beautifully express the peculiar blessedness of Christian ethics. The +strongest motive, the very mainspring and pulsing heart of Christian +duty, is to please Christ. His language to His followers is not, "Do +this because it is right," but, "Do this because it pleaseth Me." They +have a living Person to gratify, not a mere law of duty to obey. The +help which is given to weakness by the hope of winning golden opinions +from, or giving pleasure to, those whom men love is transferred in the +Christian relation to Jesus. So the cold thought of duty is warmed, and +the weight of obedience to a stony, impersonal law is lightened, and a +new power is enlisted on the side of goodness, which sways more mightily +than all the abstractions of duty. The Christ Himself makes His appeal +to men in the same tender fashion as Paul to Philemon. He will move to +holy obedience by the thought--wonderful as it is--that it gladdens Him. +Many a weak heart has been braced and made capable of heroisms of +endurance and effort, and of angel deeds of mercy, all beyond its own +strength, by that great thought, "We labour that, whether present or +absent, we may be well-pleasing to Him." + +II. Verse 21 exhibits love commanding, in the confidence of love +obeying. "Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, +knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say." In _v_. 8 the Apostle +had waived his right to enjoin, because he had rather speak the speech +of love, and request. But here, with the slightest possible touch, he +just lets the note of authority sound for a single moment, and then +passes into the old music of affection and trust. He but names the word +"obedience," and that in such a way as to present it as the child of +love, and the privilege of his friend. He trusts Philemon's obedience, +because he knows his love, and is sure that it is love of such a sort as +will not stand on the exact measure, but will delight in giving it +"pressed down and running over." + +What could he mean by "do more than I say"? Was he hinting at +emancipation, which he would rather have to come from Philemon's own +sense of what was due to the slave who was now a brother, than be +granted, perhaps hesitatingly, in deference to his request? Possibly, +but more probably he had no definite thing in his mind, but only desired +to express his loving confidence in his friend's willingness to please +him. Commands given in such a tone, where authority audibly trusts the +subordinate, are far more likely to be obeyed than if they were shouted +with the hoarse voice of a drill-sergeant. Men will do much to fulfil +generous expectations. Even debased natures will respond to such appeal; +and if they see that good is expected from them, that will go far to +evoke it. Some masters have always good servants, and part of the secret +is that they trust them to obey. "England expects" fulfilled itself. +When love enjoins there should be trust in its tones. It will act like a +magnet to draw reluctant feet into the path of duty. A will which mere +authority could not bend, like iron when cold, may be made flexible when +warmed by this gentle heat. If parents oftener let their children feel +that they had confidence in their obedience, they would seldomer have to +complain of their disobedience. + +Christ's commands follow, or rather set, this pattern. He trusts His +servants, and speaks to them in a voice softened and confiding. He tells +them His wish, and commits Himself and His cause to His disciples' love. + +Obedience beyond the strict limits of command will always be given by +love. It is a poor, grudging service which weighs obedience as a chemist +does some precious medicine, and is careful that not the hundredth part +of a grain more than the prescribed amount shall be doled out. A hired +workman will fling down his lifted trowel full of mortar at the first +stroke of the clock, though it would be easier to lay it on the bricks; +but where affection moves the hand, it is delight to add something over +and above to bare duty. The artist who loves his work will put many a +touch on it beyond the minimum which will fulfil his contract. Those +who adequately feel the power of Christian motives will not be anxious +to find the least that they durst, but the most that they can do. If +obvious duty requires them to go a mile, they will rather go two, than +be scrupulous to stop as soon as they see the milestone. A child who is +always trying to find out how little would satisfy his father cannot +have much love. Obedience to Christ is joy, peace, love. The grudging +servants are limiting their possession of these, by limiting their +active surrender of themselves. They seem to be afraid of having too +much of these blessings. A heart truly touched by the love of Jesus +Christ will not seek to know the lowest limit of duty, but the highest +possibility of service. + + "Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore + Of nicely calculated less or more." + +III. Verse 22 may be summed up as the language of love, hoping for +reunion. "Withal prepare me a lodging: for I hope that through your +prayers I shall be granted unto you." We do not know whether the +Apostle's expectation was fulfilled. Believing that he was set free from +his first imprisonment, and that his second was separated from it by a +considerable interval, during which he visited Macedonia and Asia Minor, +we have yet nothing to show whether or not he reached Colossae; but +whether fulfilled or not, the expectation of meeting would tend to +secure compliance with his request, and would be all the more likely to +do so, for the very delicacy with which it is stated, so as not to seem +to be mentioned for the sake of adding force to his intercession. + +The limits of Paul's expectation as to the power of his brethren's +prayers for temporal blessings are worth noting. He does believe that +these good people in Colossae could help him by prayer for his +liberation, but he does not believe that their prayer will certainly be +heard. In some circles much is said now about "the prayer of faith"--a +phrase which, singularly enough, is in such cases almost confined to +prayers for external blessings,--and about its power to bring money for +work which the person praying believes to be desirable, or to send away +diseases. But surely there can be no "faith" without a definite Divine +_word_ to lay hold of. Faith and God's promise are correlative; and +unless a man has God's plain promise that A. B. will be cured by his +prayer, the belief that he will is not faith, but something deserving a +much less noble name. The prayer of faith is not forcing our wills on +God, but bending our wills to God's. The prayer which Christ has taught +in regard to all outward things is, "Not my will but Thine be done," +and, "May Thy will become mine." That is the prayer of faith, which is +always answered. The Church prayed for Peter, and he was delivered; the +Church, no doubt, prayed for Stephen, and he was stoned. Was then the +prayer for him refused? Not so, but if it were prayer at all, the inmost +meaning of it was "be it as Thou wilt"; and that was accepted and +answered. Petitions for outward blessings, whether for the petitioner or +for others, are to be presented with submission; and the highest +confidence which can be entertained concerning them is that which Paul +here expresses: "I _hope_ that through your prayers I shall be set +free." + +The prospect of meeting enhances the force of the Apostle's wish; nor +are Christians without an analogous motive to give weight to their +obligations to their Lord. Just as Paul quickened Philemon's loving wish +to serve him by the thought that he might have the gladness of seeing +him before long, so Christ quickens His servant's diligence by the +thought that before very many days He will come, or they will go--at any +rate, they will be with Him,--and He will see what they have been doing +in His absence. Such a prospect should increase diligence, and should +not inspire terror. It is a mark of true Christians that they "love His +appearing." Their hearts should glow at the hope of meeting. That hope +should make work happier and lighter. When a husband has been away at +sea, the prospect of his return makes the wife sing at her work, and +take more pains or rather pleasure with it, because his eye is to see +it. So should it be with the bride in the prospect of her bridegroom's +return. The Church should not be driven to unwelcome duties by the fear +of a strict judgment, but drawn to large, cheerful service, by the hope +of spreading her work before her returning Lord. + +Thus, on the whole, in this letter, the central springs of Christian +service are touched, and the motives used to sway Philemon are the echo +of the motives which Christ uses to sway men. The keynote of all is +love. Love beseeches when it might command. To love we owe our own +selves beside. Love will do nothing without the glad consent of him to +whom it speaks, and cares for no service which is of necessity. Its +finest wine is not made from juice which is pressed out of the grapes, +but from that which flows from them for very ripeness. Love identifies +itself with those who need its help, and treats kindnesses to them as +done to itself. Love finds joy and heart solace in willing, though it be +imperfect, service. Love expects more than it asks. Love hopes for +reunion, and by the hope makes its wish more weighty. These are the +points of Paul's pleading with Philemon. Are they not the elements of +Christ's pleading with His friends? + +He too prefers the tone of friendship to that of authority. To Him His +servants owe themselves, and remain for ever in His debt, after all +payment of reverence and thankful self-surrender. He does not count +constrained service as service at all, and has only volunteers in His +army. He makes Himself one with the needy, and counts kindness to the +least as done to Him. He binds Himself to repay and overpay all +sacrifice in His service. He finds delight in His people's work. He asks +them to prepare an abode for Him in their own hearts, and in souls +opened by their agency for His entrance. He has gone to prepare a +mansion for them, and He comes to receive account of their obedience and +to crown their poor deeds. It is impossible to suppose that Paul's +pleading for Philemon failed. How much less powerful is Christ's, even +with those who love Him best? + +IV. The parting greetings may be very briefly considered, for much that +would have naturally been said about them has already presented itself +in dealing with the similar salutations in the epistle to Colossae. The +same people send messages here as there; only Jesus called Justus being +omitted, probably for no other reason than because he was not at hand +at the moment. Epaphras is naturally mentioned singly, as being a +Colossian, and therefore more closely connected with Philemon than were +the others. After him come the two Jews and the two Gentiles, as in +Colossians. + +The parting benediction ends the letter. At the beginning of the epistle +Paul invoked grace upon the household "from God our Father and the Lord +Jesus Christ." Now he conceives of it as Christ's gift. In him all the +stooping, bestowing love of God is gathered, that from Him it may be +poured on the world. That grace is not diffused like stellar light, +through some nebulous heaven, but concentrated in the Sun of +Righteousness, who is the light of men. That fire is piled on a hearth +that, from it, warmth may ray out to all that are in the house. + +That grace has man's spirit for the field of its highest operation. +Thither it can enter, and there it can abide, in union more close and +communion more real and blessed than aught else can attain. The spirit +which has the grace of Christ with it can never be utterly solitary or +desolate. + +The grace of Christ is the best bond of family life. Here it is prayed +for on behalf of all the group, the husband, wife, child, and the +friends in their home Church. Like grains of sweet incense cast on an +altar flame, and making fragrant what was already holy, that grace +sprinkled on the household fire will give it an odour of a sweet smell, +grateful to men and acceptable to God. + +That wish is the purest expression of Christian friendship, of which the +whole letter is so exquisite an example. Written as it is about a +common, every-day matter, which could have been settled without a +single religious reference, it is saturated with Christian thought and +feeling. So it becomes an example of how to blend Christian sentiment +with ordinary affairs, and to carry a Christian atmosphere everywhere. +Friendship and social intercourse will be all the nobler and happier, if +pervaded by such a tone. Such words as these closing ones would be a sad +contrast to much of the intercourse of professedly Christian men. But +every Christian ought by his life to be, as it were, floating the grace +of God to others sinking for want of it to lay hold of, and all his +speech should be of a piece with this benediction. + +A Christian's life should be "an epistle of Christ" written with His own +hand, wherein dim eyes might read the transcript of His own gracious +love, and through all his words and deeds should shine the image of his +Master, even as it does through the delicate tendernesses and gracious +pleadings of this pure pearl of a letter, which the slave, become a +brother, bore to the responsive hearts in quiet Colossae. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. + +_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._ + +FIRST SERIES, 1887-8. + + Colossians. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. + + St. Mark. + By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. + + Genesis. + By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + 1 Samuel. + By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D. + + 2 Samuel. + By the same Author. + + Hebrews. + By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D. + +SECOND SERIES, 1888-9. + + Galatians. + By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. + + The Pastoral Epistles. + By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + + Isaiah I.--XXXIX. + By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I. + + The Book of Revelation. + By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D. + + 1 Corinthians. + By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + + The Epistles of St. John. + By the Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh. + +THIRD SERIES, 1889-90. + + Judges and Ruth. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + Jeremiah. + By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A. + + Isaiah XL.--LXVI. + By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. II. + + St. Matthew. + By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D. + + Exodus. + By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. + + St. Luke. + By the Rev. H. BURTON, M.A. + +FOURTH SERIES, 1890-91. + + Ecclesiastes. + By the Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D. + + St. James and St. Jude. + By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + + Proverbs. + By the Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D. + + Leviticus. + By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D. + + The Gospel of St. John. + By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I. + + The Acts of the Apostles. + By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I. + +FIFTH SERIES, 1891-2. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I. + + 1 and 2 Thessalonians. + By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + + The Book of Job. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + Ephesians. + By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D. + + The Gospel of St. John. + By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol II. + + The Acts of the Apostles. + By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II. + +SIXTH SERIES, 1892-3. + + 1 Kings. + By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. + + Philippians. + By Principal RAINY, D.D. + + Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. + By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + + Joshua. + By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II. + + The Epistles of St. Peter. + By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D. + +SEVENTH SERIES, 1893-4. + + 2 Kings. + By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. + + Romans. + By the Right Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, D.D. + + The Books of Chronicles. + By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + + 2 Corinthians. + By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + + Numbers. + By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D. + + The Psalms. + By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III. + +EIGHTH SERIES, 1895-6. + + Daniel. + By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. + + The Book of Jeremiah. + By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + + Deuteronomy. + By Prof. ANDREW HARPER, B.D. + + The Song of Solomon and Lamentations. + By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + + Ezekiel. + By Prof. JOHN SKINNER, M.A. + + The Book of the Twelve Prophets. + By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Two Vols. + + + + +The Expositor's Bible. + +Edited by Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + +_Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. each._ + + +OLD TESTAMENT VOLUMES. + +_GENESIS._ By Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + +_EXODUS._ By the Right Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Bishop of Derry. + +_LEVITICUS._ By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D. + +_Numbers._ By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D. + +_DEUTERONOMY._ By Rev. Prof. ANDREW HARPER, M.A., B.D. + +_JOSHUA._ By Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + +_JUDGES AND RUTH._ By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D. + +_1 SAMUEL._ By Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + +_2 SAMUEL._ By Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D. + +_1 KINGS._ By the Very Rev. DEAN FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. + +_2 KINGS._ By the Very Rev, DEAN FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. + +_THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES._ By Rev. Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + +_EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER._ By Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. + +_JOB._ By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D. + +_PSALMS._ By Rev. ALEX. MACLAREN, D.D. Three Volumes. + +_PROVERBS._ By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A. + +_ECCLESIASTES._ By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D. + +_THE SONG OF SOLOMON AND THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH._ By the Rev. W. +F. ADENEY, M.A. + +_ISAIAH._ By Rev. Prof. G. ADAM SMITH, D.D. Two Volumes. + +_JEREMIAH._ By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A. + +_JEREMIAH._ Chaps. xxi.-lii. By Rev. Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A. + +_EZEKIEL._ By Rev. Prof. SKINNER, M.A. + +_DANIEL._ By the Very Rev. DEAN FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. + +_THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE PROPHETS._ By Rev. Prof. G. ADAM SMITH, D.D. Two +Volumes. + + + + +The Expositor's Bible. + +Edited by Rev. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. + +_Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. each._ + + +NEW TESTAMENT VOLUMES. + +_ST. MATTHEW._ By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D. + +_ST. MARK._ By the Right Rev. G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., Bishop of Derry. + +_ST. LUKE._ By Rev. HENRY BURTON, M.A. + +_ST. JOHN._ By Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. Two Volumes. + +_THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES._ By Rev. Prof. G. T. STOKES, D.D. Two +Volumes. + +_ROMANS._ By Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, M.A. + +_1 CORINTHIANS._ By Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D. + +_2 CORINTHIANS._ By Rev. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + +_GALATIANS._ By Rev, Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A. + +_EPHESIANS._ By Rev. Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A. + +_PHILIPPIANS._ By Rev. Principal RAINY, D.D. + +_COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON._ By Rev. ALEX. MACLAREN, D.D. + +_THESSALONIANS._ By Rev. JAMES DENNEY, D.D. + +_THE PASTORAL EPISTLES._ By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + +_HEBREWS._ By Rev. Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D. + +_THE EPISTLES OF ST. JAMES AND ST. JUDE._ By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. + +_THE EPISTLES OF ST. PETER._ By Rev. Prof. LUMBY, D.D. + +_THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN._ By the Most Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D., Lord +Archbishop of Armagh. + +_THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION._ By Rev. Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D. + + +LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and +Philemon, by Alexander Maclaren + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE: COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON *** + +***** This file should be named 37345.txt or 37345.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/3/4/37345/ + +Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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