"In him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in
him ye are made full" (Col. 2:9-10).
"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 preeminence" (Col. 1:18).
"Who is the
head of all principality and power" (Col. 2:10).
"...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. 2:19).
"...where
there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman;
but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3:11).
Christ's
Absolute Headship
Colossians 1 is the
greatest and most magnificent statement in the Bible
concerning the Lord Jesus, and, in a word, it sums up all
things in Christ. It is a very wonderful unveiling of the
place which Christ occupies in relation to all things,
and of course that is the standpoint from which
everything has to be viewed as to the Lord Jesus - His
relationship to all things; and what the Apostle is
seeking to make very clear, because of that which had
arisen to call forth this letter, is that Christ is at no
point, in no way, second in God's universe. He does not
come in the slightest degree below the place of absolute
pre-eminence, however great might be the position
accorded Him by those against whom the Apostle was
writing. They were quite prepared to say very good and
great and wonderful things about Him, and to accord Him a
very high place; and yet that place was less than
absolute pre-eminence. So the Apostle wrote this letter
in the first place to reveal and declare that the Lord
Jesus is in every realm supreme.
You notice the above
passages touching upon His headship, and that headship is
seen in the several connections as complete. There are no
two heads or three heads in God's universe; only one head
is possible, and Christ occupies that in every realm. So
it is stated here - "that in all things he
might have the pre-eminence." You cannot get outside
of that. When you say 'all,' that is final. He is head
over all things.
Our
Position in that Headship
Chapter 2 brings us
firstly to our position in that headship. Verses 9 and 10
are a statement of our position. "In him dwelleth
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are
made full." Now, that is a positional fulness. That
simply means that, by our being in Christ, we come into
the place of fulness, and we are made to stand in the
fulness of Christ; we are positioned there.
Our
Progress in the Position
But when you pass to
verse 19 of Chapter 2, it is a matter of progress,
progress in the position and by reason of that
relatedness. "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." "In him ye are made full," but in
Him you have got to increase. That is not a
contradiction. Made full by reason of your position, but
increasing in that fulness by reason of your spiritual
progress. Progress is a matter of making good all that is
in your position. We see in Ephesians the correspondence
between that letter and the book of Joshua. When the
people came into the land, they were in the land flowing
with milk and honey, they were in the place where all the
fulness dwelt, but they had to do something about it; and
so we find that it was a matter of making good all that
was theirs, progressing in the fulness into which they
had been placed positionally; and that is exactly what is
here. "Increaseth with the increase of God" is
a matter of going on in that position to appropriate,
apply and make ours the fulness which we have inherited
in Christ; or, to put it more closely to the figure of
the Body and the Head here in this letter, it is taking
everything from the Head.
Now the temptation
which was being presented to these Colossian believers
was to let go of Christ as supreme, and the Apostle made
it perfectly clear that to let Christ's supreme position
go was to let the fulness go, and that only as they held
fast, not simply to Christ personally - all these people
were prepared to hold fast to Christ and not to let Him
go - but also to Him as Head, and so recognized that
everything came from the headship of Christ, only so
would they come experimentally to His fulness.
The
Practical Application of Christ's Headship
That is a statement,
but what it means is shown in Chapter 3 -
"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."
That is the practical
application of headship. "Ye died" - that is
necessary to put Christ in His place. "Ye were
raised together with Christ" - not apart from Him;
not leaving any place for self-government,
self-direction, self-sufficiency, self-assertiveness, or
any other expression of self at all. "Ye died";
your own headship of your life died with you. All other
governments of your life died when you died. You died to
all other authorities, to all other rule; to every other
kind of direction, government, headship in principle; you
died to all except to the headship of Christ; and, being
raised, you were raised with Christ. It is "together
with Christ"; and now in resurrection it is Christ
Who is Head of the Body, the Church.
While this has a
personal and individual application, it is the Church
which is in view again. This elect body of people called
the Church died to all other governments, just as Israel
were set aside and buried in Babylon. It was the
crucifixion - the death and the burial - of Israel when
the captivity took place. They were sent away, out of the
place of covenant blessing, the place where the Lord was,
the place of the inheritance, the place where everything
had been provided for their very existence. They were
sent right out of it and were for that time dead and
buried, simply because they had let in other headships.
Idolatry was the cause; that meant that another headship,
that of Satan mediately through the gods of the nations
round about, had taken God's place, and God would not
tolerate any other headship of any kind at all. So He
slew them and buried them in Babylon, and when there was
a raising from that grave of a company that came back, it
was under the absolute headship of the Lord, and that
alone. That is the principle of it. It was a corporate
thing, a corporate resurrection, and under one head. From
that time, whatever Israel became, however they failed,
never again was idolatry found among them. There is that
about it; it cured them of idolatry - that is, of another
headship. You see the principle.
Now here it is the
Church, an elect people, having died and been buried to
all other headships; and to be in the Church in
resurrection carries with it that which is not optional
at all. It is not an option - whether we like it or not,
whether we will have it or not - it is an established
thing, that you cannot be truly in the meaning of
the Body of Christ and have any other government than the
government of Christ, any other headship than the
headship of Christ. It is implicit in resurrection. So
then, "If... ye were raised together with Christ,
seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated
on the right hand of God." Here Christ as Head is
seated at the right hand of God. That means He has taken
the seat of absolute authority. There is nothing more to
be done about this, nothing to be added to it. It is
finished, it is final. He sits down in the complete
authority which is His. He is on the Throne. And that is
the position of the Church, and the Church in every part
has to be brought to that place where all direction, all
government, all decisions, are taken from the Head,
everything is referred to the Head, the whole life has to
come right under the Head. There is to be no self-will,
no self-choice, no self-direction, nothing at all that
comes out from any other quarter. There is no division in
the mind of God between our natural will and the will of
Satan - they are the same. Satan has put his very will
into the fallen creation. It is a self-willed creation
working against God, and it comes from the devil. So
everything now has to be transferred to the Head and
taken from the Head if there is going to be any spiritual
enlargement.
It is practical.
"Ye died"; "ye were raised";
"Christ who is our life." Those are statements
of fact, utter and absolute. Therefore "seek the
things that are above"; therefore "put to death
your members which are upon the earth... seeing that ye
have put off the old man and have put on the new
man" (Col. 3:5-10). You see the things that are to
be put away because you put on the new man. It is a new
position with a government altogether in all matters, and
a complete subjection to Him at every point. That is the
way to progress in the fulness to which we have been
brought positionally.