“Christ is all and in all.” Col. iii., 11.
HE preeminent purpose of this letter is to exalt the personal glory of Christ. Therefore it is very dear to every devout friend of the Lord Jesus. It was written chiefly to correct certain teachings and tendencies which were creeping into the Church from the philosophizing parties, Jews and Alexandrians, that had already begun to spring up in the early Church, leading ambitious minds away from the simplicity which is in Jesus Christ to novel speculations, “vainly intruding into the things which they had not seen, puffed up with their fleshy mind, and not holding the Head,” introducing forms and ceremonies, and professing to unfold the subtle mysteries of some deeper knowledge.
In contrast with all this, Paul fixes their eyes upon Jesus as the substance of all these rites and shadows, and the source of all fulness and blessing.
I. - ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD.
Christ is to us the complete embodiment of all there is in God. He expresses to us the purpose and design of God for man. His very mission is a revelation of God’s love, and His glorious person is an incarnation of God. In Him the Father is perfectly revealed. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” In Him the Deity of the Son is united. “The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and declare unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto you.” “The Word was made flesh and He dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, even the glory of the duly Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” And He was the very temple of the Holy Ghost, who abode upon Him, and is imported from His own very hands. In His person the whole Deity meets us, poor sinful men. Would you know the character of God? Look at Jesus. Would you receive the presence of God? Receive Jesus. Would you be united with the very being of God? Abide in Jesus. Would you be filled with all the fulness of God? Let “Christ dwell in your heart by faith.“ “No man hath seen God at any time. The only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” And like the ancient Tabernacle where God and the people met in Him the Father dwells, and in Him the redeemed sinner dwells, and thus divinely reconciled they are one forever.
II. - CHRIST IS THE ALL IN ALL OF CREATION.
“For by Him were all things made that are in Heaven and that are on earth, whether they be thrones or principalities or powers, all things were made by Him and for Him.” The whole creation is His work, and made to reveal Him. The natural was made to show forth the spiritual. The world is a microcosm of God. The sun in the Heavens speaks of the Son of Righteousness. The stars that herald the dawn are harbingers of the bright and Morning Star. The light points with its quivering rays to Heaven and cries. “He is the Light of the World.” The bread we eat is but a symbol of Him who is the Living Bread, and its buried seed and bruised corn and burning oven all tell how He became for us the life of our life. We drink from the spring, and, lo! a voice whispers, “that rock was Christ.” We sit in the circle of home and loved ones, and every tender tie whispers
“Jesus, my husband, brother, friend.”
In a German village there is a drinking fountain, where as the farmers, shepherds, gardeners, soldiers, children pass by they can see each a marble spout, emblematic of his calling and a Scripture motto above it, connecting it with some aspect of the Saviour. The shepherd came and drank from the fountain where stood the Good Shepherd, cut in marble, holding in His hands a tender lamb. The husbandman drank from the marble amid the familiar forms of vines and clusters of grapes, and read over the crystal waters, “I am the True Vine, abide in Me.” The soldier saw a shield with the reminder of the shield of faith. The little child held up its tiny vessel to catch the water, and it flowed from the extended hand of Jesus saying, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” So every aspect of nature, and every calling of life, became a type of Christ, and ministered His glory. Should it not be so in all our life. Is it not the song of Heaven about Him. “The whole earth is full of His glory.” “All for Him, and all by Him.” And it is well to remember that our Jesus is the Creator. When He gives us His greatest promises He reminds us that He is able to make their fulfillment out of nothing. Thus saith the Lord THE MAKER thereof, “Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things that thou knowest not.” Why should we doubt His power to help us when we look up into these Heavens and remember that He made them all. He made old Abraham look at the stars, when He was about to give him His greatest promises. O! yes;
“His word of grace is strong
As that which built the skies.
The voice that rolls the stars along
Spake all the promises.”
III. - CHRIST IS ALL IN ALL IN PROVIDENCE.
By Him all things consist or hang together. The system of nature is not a mechanical automaton, running itself, but the intense and ceaseless working of an ever present God. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” And that every living moving presence is Jesus Christ. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” His intervention and prospective atonement saved the world from immediate judgment and destruction. His redemption has secured to us all our earthly blessings and mercies. His wisdom and love direct the whole course of our lives. On His shoulders rests the government of all our interests. The Lamb is in the midst of the throne. The seals are all opened by His hand. To His gentle ordering belong all the issues on which our longing hearts hang with hope and expectation.
Our times are in His hand -
Jesus the Crucified.
The hand our many sins have pierced
Is now our guard and guide.
Our times are in His hand,
Why should we doubt or fear.
A Saviour’s hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.
IV. - CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL IN OUR REDEMPTION.
“Having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, and you, hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight.” “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” “Ye are complete in Him, buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye are also risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, doth He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of consequences that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” Thus has He, and He alone, redeemed us fully forever. It is finished. It is final. It is steadfast as His eternal throne. It is His work alone. And to Him be all the glory. The atonement is made. The peace is made. The reconciliation is complete. The handwriting that was against us is blotted out and cancelled, and, then like a paid-up check, that is placed on the file, it is nailed to His cross. Nay, the very devil that defied us has been forever conquered and openly disgraced, and is now hung up like an old scarecrow on the cross of Jesus, that we may never fear him again. Blessed salvation, glorious Saviour, unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
V. - CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL IN THE TYPES AND SHADOWS OF JUDAISM, AND THE ORDINANCES AND CEREMONIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
“Which were all a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ.” They were in great danger of being led back into the bondage of Jewish ritualism. “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” But He teaches them that all these things have found their fulfillment in Christ Himself. And even the abiding ordinances of the New Testament are only drinking vessels, which are vain if they are not filled by Christ out of the living waters of His Spirit and His presence. Baptism is the hardest and deadest ritualism, the Lord’s Supper - an empty form, confirmation and ordination, and the very ministry of the Gospel itself, as a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. All these are only cups, but He is the water and the wine of life, which fills the vessel and satisfies the hungry soul. A service of silver with an empty table would be a poor dinner. And many a splendid church has royal plate and pauper’s fare.
VI. - CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL IN THE WORLD OF TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE, AND THE WORD OF GOD.
“In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” They were in great danger of being led away into the new and fascinating errors of Gnosticism, which just meant knowledge. False and plausible teachers were leading them aside after the speculations of Jewish and heathen philosophy, and the mysteries of forbidden knowledge. And He tells them that Christ holds the key of all true knowledge; nay, is the sum and substance of all truth Himself. The Bible is a portraiture of Jesus, and all we need to know of God is in the Living Word, and it is a great thing when the soul gets beyond ideas, theories, doctrines, feelings, revelations, and rests in Him. “This is eternal life to know Thee and Jesus Christ, whom Thou sent.”
Christ to trust and Christ to know,
Constitute our bliss below.
Christ to see and Christ to love,
Constitute our bliss above.
VII. - CHRIST IS THE ALL IN ALL OF OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE.
“Ye are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power. Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ siteth on the right hand of God.”
It is not a slowly acquired state, a character built up, a series of virtues gradually attained. It is Christ in us, our complete life. This is the great secret, “the mystery that has been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to his saints, which is CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY.” This is the very core of spiritual life. It is not a subjective state so much as a divine person received to abide and rule in the heart. Christ for us is the source of our justification. Christ in us of our sanctification. When this becomes real, “ye are dead,” your own condition, states and resources are no longer counted upon any more than a dead man’s, but “your life is hid with Christ in God.” It is not even always manifest to you. It is hid and so wrapped up and enfolded in Him that only as you abide in Him does it appear and abide. Nay, “Christ, who is your life,” must Himself ever maintain it, and be made unto you of God all you need. Therefore, Christian life is not to come to Christ to save you, and then go on and work out your sanctification yourself, but, “as ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so to walk in Him, just as dependent and as simply trusting as for your pardon and salvation. And so the successive stages are all as personal. “Rooted and grounded in Him.” “Built up in Him.” “Complete in Him.” “And have put on the new man, where Christ is all and all.” Blessed simplicity of life and rest, only to abide in Him, and find Him all we need - peace, purity, power and victory, moment by moment.
VIII. - CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL IN OUR OUTWARD LIFE.
“Whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men.” That is in all the words and actions of our life let us act just as if it was the Lord Jesus Himself, for that is really the meaning of the phrase, “in His name,” that is in His very character and personality; and then, having taken this attitude, expect Him to stand by us, and sustain and carry us through it. We can thus represent Christ in our business, in our household, in our public and private ministries, in our social relationships, in our conversations, in our pleasures, in our trials, so act that people will truly say, as one said of a dear child of God, “I never meet him but I am reminded of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Every act in such a life will be sacramental, and over every door His footsteps enter will be this inscription, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Over such a life will hover, evermore, that nameless, viewless, and yet unmistakable presence, which will make men think of God, and seem to bring the Heavenly world so near that there is but a vail between! So we may and should ever walk with the holy majesty of men and women who remember, “I am representing Jesus here, and He is representing me there.” My name is written yonder on His breastplate, and His is reflected here in my life. Let us grow less, let Him increase. In old European cities you always find the market under a great wooden cross. O ! that all our business were done under the shadow of the cross. So let us lift up Jesus, and make every market place, and every spot we touch a sacramental emblem of our Lord.
IX. - CHRIST IS THE ALL IN ALL OF OUR FUTURE HOPES.
“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear then shall we also appear with Him in glory.” This glorious Christ is coming in His kingdom, and going to bring our crowns and our inheritance. The world is looking forward for its golden age, when culture, civilization and liberty shall have covered the earth. The Christian’s future is all bound up with the appearing of our Lord. He is not looking for perfect government, social reform, or even the world’s conversion, apart from the personal return, and omnipotent reign of its rightful Master and Lord. And for this He is waiting, working, praying and preparing. It is “the blessed hope.” It will bring a regenerated world, a resurrection, life, a restitution of all we have lost, and, above all besides, our Lord Himself. For in this too Christ is to be all and In all. He is to be the dear personal object of our desire, and source of our supreme and eternal joy.
The bride eyes not her garments,
But her dear bridegroom’s face.
I will not gaze at glory,
But on the King of Grace,
Not on the crown He giveth,
But on His pierced hand.
The Lamb is all the glory
In Immanuel’s land.
X. - CHRIST IS ALL IN ALL IN HIS CHURCH.
“The Head from whom the whole body, by joints and bands having nourishment, ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.” O, that we were, indeed so in the Church of God! O, that this living fellowship were better understood! O, that men and methods and mere ideas might make room for the Master Himself! And in her name and her testimony, her separation from the world, and her devoted love to Him alone, the Church were, indeed, the bride - the Lamb’s wife,” and on her brow this jeweled memorial shining like a band of burning stars. “Christ is all and in all.”