Reading:
Colossians 1:9-29.
The
clause in the thirteenth verse very largely represents
what has been laid on my heart for this time: "The
Son of his love"; then that which follows, the
position which He occupies according to the will of the
Father - "He is before all things, and in him all
things consist" and He in all things having the
pre-eminence: then, "Christ in you, the hope of
glory." I think we can well sum up all that in the
phrase "The Centrality and Supremacy of the Lord
Jesus Christ," and with that be wholly occupied for
the rest of our lives, not only for this present time.
And so
it is upon the centrality and supremacy of the Son of
God's love that we shall dwell as the Lord will enable
us. The Word of God brings into view four spheres in
which that thought and purpose of God concerning the Son
of His love is to be realized. There is the sphere of the
believer's own individual life; then secondly, there is
the sphere of the Church which is His Body; in the third
place there is the sphere of the kingdoms of this world,
the nations of the earth; and in the fourth place He is
to be central and supreme in the whole universe, heaven
and earth and what is under the earth.
We may
not be able, in the time which we have in these days, to
reach unto all those spheres and see what the Word of God
has to say about the Lord Jesus in relation thereto, but
we shall move as the Lord enables and at least take the
first one or two of those spheres. But before coming to
the first of them may I remind you also that
THE CENTRALITY AND SUPREMACY OF
THE LORD JESUS IS THE PIVOT AND THE KEY TO ALL THE
SCRIPTURES
Of course the Lord Jesus Himself has told
us as much. We know from Luke 24 that that is so. There
we find Him taking Moses, the Psalms, and all the
Prophets, and in them all speaking of the things
concerning Himself. So that in our reading of the Word of
God, WHEREVER we happen to be reading, the
question that should always be in our minds is "What
has this to do with Christ?"; and if you bring that
question to your reading of the Word of God, wherever you
may read (and that is not said without thought) you will
at once get a new understanding of the Word, you will
have a new value in your reading; for the Scriptures, and
ALL the Scriptures, are they which speak of Him;
although you may have difficulty sometimes in tracing
Him, yet He is there. The cumulative effect of all parts
of the Word of God is to bring you to Christ. You must
not read the Word of God as history, narrative, prophecy,
or as anything else as a theme in itself, but always ask
the question: "What has this to do with
Christ?" and until you can find what it has to do
with Christ you have not found the key. You will probably
be thinking of certain portions of Scripture which will
be difficult. You will think of such books as the Book of
Proverbs, and you will say: "What has this to do
with Christ?" One little suggestion will at once
illuminate that book for you. Wherever you read the word
Wisdom, put Christ in the place of Wisdom and you have
transformed the book and you have got its essence - and
that is quite legitimate, quite proper, quite right, as
your reading will prove to you. He is the Wisdom of God,
the Eternal Logos. Well, just in passing we mention that
because what we are after is to see the centrality and
universality of the Lord Jesus, and He is by Divine
appointment at the centre of everything in this universe,
every phase and every aspect, and He is its explanation.
IT IS ALSO THE EXPLANATION OF THE
INCARNATION
Not only is this true as to the
Scriptures, but this is the object and the explanation of
His own incarnation. When you are studying the person and
the life and the work of the Lord Jesus, there must be a
Divine quest in your heart, and that quest must be for
those features which suggest universality. Approach again
the reading of the life of the Lord Jesus with that
thought; you will not want for helpful, profitable Bible
study, and you will find that things begin to enlarge in
a way which throws back your horizon and enlarges your
own heart and makes you feel the wonder of Christ.
Looking for features of universality you will not go very
far before you find them. They can be traced in the
prophecies concerning His incarnation. You can trace them
in the annunciation; you can trace them in the words of
His forerunner as He is introduced. You can trace them in
His birth with all its associations and incidents; the
universe is there. It is so also in His circumcision. In
the light of the rest of the Scriptures which are now
ours in the New Testament you will find that there are
universal features even in His circumcision, and even in
His presentation in the temple. In His visit to
Jerusalem, in His baptism, His anointing, His temptation,
His teaching, His works, His transfiguration, His
passion, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His
sending of the Spirit, His present activity, and His
coming again, it is that which is universal that is in
view. Every one of these things is marked by universal
features, they are things which reach out to the very
bounds of the universe and embrace all the ages and the
eternities and all realms. That is not uncommon ground to
most of us, but it is said again in order to bring afresh
to our remembrance the way in which we should regard the
Lord Jesus.
We are not trying to make Him bigger than
He is, but we are trying to reach His real dimensions;
and the need of the Lord's people is to have a new
apprehension of the greatness of their Christ, a new
appreciation of the Son of God's love - and what a
mighty, majestic, glorious, wonderful Son He is - and
then to remember that unto us that Son is given. That
will lift us, that will enlarge us, it will do a good
many things which we shall see as we go along.
CHRIST'S CENTRALITY AND SUPREMACY
IN THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER
Coming now to those more specific
applications of this universality to the spheres of His
centrality and supremacy already mentioned, we take first
His centrality and supremacy in the life of the believer.
Let us look at that word again - "Christ in you, the
hope of glory." You will notice in the context that
the first chapter of the Colossian letter carries us
right back into the mind and heart of God before the
world was, and we are shown what was going on in the mind
and heart of the Father concerning His Son. It is called
"the mystery," that is, the Divine secret. It
is impressive to see that before any creative activities
commenced, God was cherishing a secret in His heart, the
Father had a secret, something which He had shown to no
one, told to no one, a cherished secret; it related to
His Son. Out of the secret of His heart concerning His
Son, every activity of God proceeded, and down through
the ages He was occupied in many activities, in many
forms and ways, working with His secret, enshrining His
secret in those many activities, in those many forms and
ways of His self-expression, never giving out what the
secret was, never proclaiming what was in His heart in so
many words, but hiding it, hiding it within symbols and
types and many things; they all enshrined a secret,
"the mystery". Then at length, in the fullness
of the times, at the end of these times, He sent forth
His Son, the Son of His love; then by revelation of the
Holy Spirit He was pleased to make known the mystery,
pleased to disclose the secret, and the first chapter of
the letter to the Colossians is the matchless,
incomparable unveiling of the secret of God's heart
concerning the Son of His love, what that secret was.
Read it again, every fragment of it, what God's secret
was. It is all gathered up, every fragment of it, in
this: "That in all things he might have the
pre-eminence." "In ALL things"; and then -
and this seems to me to be the wonder of it, this is a
thing which is so far beyond our comprehending - that all
that, the eternal heart secret of God in its mighty
meaning and outworking, was to have its beginning of
realization within the individual heart of a believer. So
far as the actual and practical realization of the
mystery, the secret of God, is concerned, its beginning
is within the heart of the individual believers. This
mystery is: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
This secret of God, this thing that God has had in His
heart from eternity is: "Christ in you". I want
to emphasize that once more. That which was in God's
heart from eternity, for its realization has to be put
into our hearts in time. That which was in the mind of
God from before the foundation of the world, has its
commencement in the receiving of Christ into the heart by
faith on the part of the believer, the individual
believer. That is not the end, that is the beginning.
What will follow will be the Church which is His Body.
That has been foreseen and is complete in the eternal
thought, but it will follow the individual believer's
reception of Christ. The Church which is His Body is not
the end. It will be the centre of another sphere, the
kingdoms of this world, the nations will walk in the
light thereof. And then again, that will not be the end,
it will expand to the universe. Not only glorified
humanity but the celestial forces and hosts will be in
the light of that. But we come back to the individual.
God begins on the inside. Paul has a good
deal to say about this eternal thought as to Christ and
His centrality to the believer, and he speaks concerning
this matter very largely from his own life and his own
spiritual ambition, and as far as I can see he gathers it
all up into five main aspects. There is the revelation of
Christ within; there is the living of Christ within;
there is the forming of Christ within; there is the
home-making of Christ within, and there is the
consummation of Christ within.
1. THE REVELATION OF CHRIST WITHIN
Firstly, the revelation of Christ within.
You know to what we refer: Gal. 1:15,16. You look back to
verse 12 and you see what it means: "For I neither
received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the
revelation of Jesus Christ." "It was the good
pleasure of God... to reveal his Son in me, that I might
preach him among the Gentiles." Now that represents
the inner side of the Damascus Road experience. There was
an objective, an outward, side. There was an inner side
into which he entered because it had entered into him,
and I think that inner side was not confined to the
moment when the light from heaven above the noon-day sun
in brightness was shining; that probably was very
transient, swiftly passing. It seems to me that that
inner side continued for three days. He was blind for
three days, not having sight, and yet he was seeing. You
notice that the connection was this, that "when it
pleased God... to reveal his Son in me...
IMMEDIATELY" - and if you look back at Acts 9
you will find that it was at the end of the three days
when Ananias came in and laid his hands upon him and he
received his natural sightedness there was a revelation
given on the inside, there was an inwardness of the
unveiling of Jesus Christ. It pleased God to reveal His
Son in him. We shall never know all that those three days
meant to Saul. They were three mighty days, three
tremendous days, we might say three terrific days. He was
seeing the Lord Jesus inwardly, and when inwardly he had
seen Him, straightway he preached that Jesus is the Son
of God; immediately.
Now beloved, for ourselves that principle
holds true as it did for Paul, that everything hangs upon
an inward revelation of Jesus Christ. Our lives as
children of God are constituted by that, and all that we
are and all that we do in relation to Him rests upon that
inward revelation which has resulted in His centrality
and supremacy so far as our lives are concerned. It is
so, even for religious people, for Saul was an exceeding
religious man. I say that because so often there is a
kind of a mental kick back when we speak of Paul's
conversion and the radical nature of it, and the attitude
is mentally taken - "Yes, well, we have never had
such an experience; God has never done to us what He did
to Saul of Tarsus, therefore the same thing cannot be
expected of us, and cannot be basic to our lives."
Now in spite of such a mental reaction, we want to
reaffirm that the law holds good and that you and I will
never be Christians, or servants of the Lord, in real
spiritual life and effectiveness beyond the measure of
our inward apprehension of the Lord Jesus. That is basic
to everything. Many have not had a thorough-going
revelation or knowledge of the Lord Jesus because they
themselves are not thorough-going in anything. Saul of
Tarsus was thorough-going and the Lord met him on his own
basis, on his own ground, and because he was so
thorough-going the Lord was thorough-going with him.
"With the froward thou wilt shew thyself
froward," and the Lord did it. If you and I are more
or less careless about spiritual things the Lord will
meet us on that ground, and we shall never get anywhere;
but when we get to the point of being burnt up to the
last ounce in the interests of the Lord, even though we
may be mistaken, nevertheless out and out, God will meet
us on that ground. Is it not true with so many that the
Lord has had to bring them to the place where it was a
matter of desperation, life or death hanging upon a new
knowledge of Himself? He has not been able to give them
that inward unveiling until there could be for them no
more life unless there was a new knowledge of the Lord.
They wished not to live unless the Lord came to them in a
new way. I think the Lord very often works to precipitate
that. Well, even for religious persons this principle
holds good, that everything hangs, not upon our religion,
not upon our religious zeal, but upon the inward
revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God's love. Christ
brings the glory of God in His face, into our hearts,
says the Apostle; just as Moses brought the glory of God
upon his face from the mountain into the camp. That glory
of God made him as God unto the people, for the Lord
said: "... shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and
thou shalt be to him instead of God." "You
shall be as God to these people, you shall stand for
Me." So in a far more true, utter, intrinsic way
Jesus brings the glory of God in His face into our
hearts. "For God... hath shined in our hearts, to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ."
EVERYTHING TESTED BY THIS
INWARDNESS
"... that I might preach him."
Everything hangs on that. "It pleased God... to
reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him," or
proclaim Him; underline the last word "Him,"
that goes to the heart of everything, that interrogates
everything, that weighs up the value of everything, Him!
Since Paul's day so very much of Christian activity has
been the furthering of a movement, the propagating of a
teaching, the furthering of the interests of an
institution. It is not a movement, nor to establish a
movement in the earth and to get followers, adherents,
members, support. It is not an institution, even though
we might call that institution the Church. The Church has
no existence in the thought of God apart from the
revelation of Jesus Christ, and it is judged according to
the measure in which Christ the Son of God's love is in
evidence by its existence. It is not a testimony, if by
that you mean a specific form of teaching, a systematized
doctrine. No, it is not a testimony. Let us be careful
what we mean when we speak about "the
testimony". We may have in our minds some
arrangement of truth, and that truth couched in certain
phraseology, form of words, and thus speak about
"the testimony"; it is not the testimony in
that sense. It is not a denomination, and it is not an
"undenomination," and it is not an
"interdenomination". It is not Christianity. It
is not "the work" - oh, we are always talking
about "the work": "How is the work getting
on?" - we are giving ourselves to the work, we are
interested in the work, we are out in the work. It is not
a mission. It is Christ. "... that I might preach HIM."
If that had remained central and pre-eminent all these
horrible disintegrating jealousies would never have had a
chance. All the wretched mess that exists in the
organization of Christianity today would never have come
about. It is because something specific in itself, either
a movement, a mission, a teaching, a testimony, a
fellowship, has taken the place of Christ. People have
gone out to further THAT, to project THAT, to
establish THAT. It would not be confessed,
nevertheless it is true, that today it is not so much
Christ as our work. It is true! Now beloved, an inward
revelation is the cure of all that, and all that - am I
saying too hard a thing, too sweeping a thing? - the
existence of all that represents the absence of an
adequate inward revelation of Christ. If Christ the Son
of God's love is central and supreme in the heart of the
believer so much else goes down, it must go down.
Dividing things will go, insofar as they are things which
are not controversies with the Lord. Controversies with
God will divide, but those artificial things, those
things resultant from man's activity and his projecting
of himself, insinuating of himself into the interests of
God, those things cannot abide where there is an adequate
inward revelation of the Lord Jesus; they cannot be.
These two things are before us: one, because of the
revelation of Jesus Christ in our heart we have a passion
for Him; on the other hand, because of the absence of a
sufficient revelation of Christ in our hearts we are out
for other things which we would say were in His
interests, and for Him, but which can never, never
satisfy God's heart. It is the satisfaction of the heart
of the Father which is in view.
GOD'S ETERNAL SECRET
From eternity God had a secret in His
heart - a heart secret. I say a "heart secret"
because this term, this designation, "the Son of his
LOVE" is linked with the mystery, the
secret. It was not what God was doing to make His Son an
official, in an official sense. It was not some activity
(pardon me if it seems irreverent) of a great managing
director of the universe seeking to promote someone in
whom he had an interest. No, it was the Son of His love;
His heart was in this thing, and there was a secret in
His heart concerning His Son. He is beloved of the
Father. Study the references to the Lord Jesus from the
Divine side, the unveiling of God's heart as to Christ,
and you will have a new appreciation of what we are
saying. The Lord Jesus, speaking that parable of the
wicked husbandmen, at last arrived at the sending of the
son, and do you remember how He put it? "But last of
all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will
reverence my son." Why should they reverence His
Son? Because He was the Son of the Father. Because of
whose Son He was; because of the relationship. They had
evil entreated all servants, but now surely they will
change their attitude when the Son comes; surely they
will reverence, respect, honour Him. And it was because
they said: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him,
and let us seize on his inheritance"; because of
their utter denial, rejection of the rights of God as
represented by His Son, that so great a judgment was
pronounced upon them.
Well, it is the Son of God's love, and
what is bound up with this whole thing is the
satisfaction of the heart of God in relation to that
eternal heart secret of His. That lies beneath what we
are and all that we do. We are believers on the ground of
"Christ in you." Yes, but Christ in you
represents the realization of God's heart purposes, that
is the way in which He is going to realize it, that is
His manner of coming to the end that was in His heart in
eternity past: "Christ in you." We can say that
God can never realize that heart desire of His concerning
His Son, save as there are believers who receive Christ
into their hearts. Therefore, it is not converting people
to Christianity, or getting them to be followers of a
movement; it is receiving Christ, God's satisfaction.
Then when we have received Christ, everything with which
we have to do in relation to Him, anything in which we
have a voice or an influence, any part that we can take
in the Lord's interests, must be wholly, utterly and
always for the expression of Christ, the revelation of
Jesus Christ, the bringing into view of Christ. No
assembly, no church, no movement, no testimony, no
fellowship, is justified in its existence from God's
standpoint except insofar as Christ is expressed by it.
Beloved, we are speaking about the
individual. I am not justified, and you are not
justified, in claiming to be Christians except in the
measure in which Christ is manifested in me, in you; and
all the force and weight and ingenuity of hell is out
against that. Believers have far more to provoke them to
un-Christ-likeness than anyone else in this world.
Believers have far more assaults to churn them up and to
make them betray Christ than anyone else. Hell is dead
set against the revelation of Jesus Christ. Everything
begins with this, the revelation of Christ within.
Now we must have this very much in our
hearts in its double out-working, in life and service.
"What am I here for?" "Why do I bear the
Name of Christ?" "What is the meaning of my
being related to the Lord?" "What is the point
in my salvation?" The answer is: Not my
satisfaction, not my gratification, not my salvation as
the end in itself, but the revelation of Jesus Christ,
the realization of His centrality and supremacy according
to the Father's desire. And then in the second place the
question is: "What am I going to work for?"
"Am I going to work to try to establish some
society, some denomination, or some 'undenomination,' to
win a place for a teaching, or an interpretation, or a
system of truth?" "Is it to some THING that
I am devoted, or is it to secure for the Lord Jesus His
absolute centrality and supremacy?" Whatever we may
say, we shall never get past that, we begin and end
there. Christ is the beginning and Christ is the end, the
A to Z, the Alpha and Omega.
We must have dealings with the Lord very
earnestly about a new inward apprehension and
appreciation of the Lord Jesus. It is the only way of
deliverance from all the unworthy things in ourselves,
and in things with which we may be linked. It is:
"Christ in you, the hope of glory," and the
only hope of glory, and if it is not that it will
certainly mean shame and not glory.
The Lord just write this first fragment
deeply in our hearts for His Name's sake.