[Nov. 13th, 1864.]
God is the God of history and of the Bible. He guides the course of events and of revelation. All the books of the Scriptures are historical, i.e., they have their place in history. In one sense they are the product of history. They were written not only in different periods of history, but they meet the wants of persons living in those periods.
Thus in two great parallel lines, as it were, of historical events and of divine revelations, controlled by the same hand, the whole of the great system of truths was gradually brought out. The books of the Old Testament were written to meet the wants of God’s people before Moses, under Moses, and in the successive periods from Moses to the advent. The books of the New Testament, especially the epistles, were not written as essays or discourses, but as letters to particular congregations to meet their historical wants. But all, both under the old and the new economy, was so ordered that all truth necessary or desirable has been made known.
The epistle to the Colossians could have been sent appropriately to no other people and at no other time. They were exposed to the seductions of a peculiar class of heretics, such as never existed before or since. They were Jews, but Jewish Christians, who held much of the old system and much of the new. They acknowledged Christ to be the Messiah and the Saviour, but held to the necessity of circumcision, to the efficacy of rites, to the observance of months, days and years. In this, however, they did not differ from the Judaizing teachers by whom the churches of Galatia, Jerusalem, Antioch and Rome, had been corrupted and disturbed. The peculiarity of the false teachers in Colosse was that they were philosophers as well as Judaizers. They combined the theosophy of the east with the traditions of the Jews. They held to the elements of the Gnostic system, to emanation, to the existence of æons, to the evil of matter, to angel worship, and to the necessity of asceticism. They regarded Christ not as God, but as one of the higher æons, and therefore taught that we were not complete in him, that the believer needed more than he could give, and more than could be attained through his work and Spirit.
Paul’s design in the epistle is to teach the all-sufficiency of Christ and the worthlessness of everything else, especially of the vain philosophy and the vain observances on which the Colossians had been taught to rely. He teaches therefore
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That Christ is God, the Creator of all things visible and invisible; that all things are for him and by him.
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That he is the head of the Church, the source of its life, from whom comes all good, and union with whom is the indispensable condition of salvation.
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That he is the Saviour of the Church. a. Because through the blood of the cross we are reconciled unto God, and b. Because from him through the Spirit, spiritual and eternal life is diffused by joints and bands, as in the natural body.
This being the case, they should beware lest any one had beguiled them and led them to look elsewhere than to Christ; or to depend on any thing except the merit of his death and the efficacy of his power.
If they had a divine Saviour, a Saviour truly God, what did they want besides? This is the main point. It is want of faith in this great doctrine in some form that leads to false dependence on something else, or something in addition to Christ and his work for salvation. It is Christ and Christ alone that we need. This is Paul’s doctrine.
As we have Christ Jesus we should walk in him, be rooted and built up in him; and beware lest any man should spoil us through philosophy or vain deceit. Why? Because in Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
The means the plenitude of the divine essence. It dwells in him , not merely really or essentially, but clothed in a body. As in Luke 3:22, the Holy Spirit is said to have appeared . If this be so then we are complete, , filled in him. Filled, not with the fulness of the Godhead, as Christ was and is, but with all the fulness of God, with the plenitude of all the good of which God is the author, and which flows from fellowship with him. We are thus filled; we need nothing more. A divine Saviour as Christ, being truly God and God clothed in our nature, is all-sufficient.
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Because he has in himself all that is necessary as an object of worship, and of supreme admiration and love. We are finite, but nothing short of what is infinite can satisfy the soul. It is because Christ is infinite in his being and perfections that he is a full and satisfying portion of the soul.
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Because he is not only God but God clothed in our nature. Therefore, a. God is more perfectly known. b. He is more accessible. c. Who can have more intimate union and fellowship with us.
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Because infinite merit thus belongs to his righteousness, and infinite efficacy to his blood; superseding the necessity of all things else.
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Because he is infinite in power, by his Spirit, to subdue our sins, to transform our souls into his likeness, to protect us from all his and our enemies, to deliver us from all evil, to bestow upon us all good.
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Because in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So that full provision is made not only for our wants as sinners and as religious beings, but for our minds.
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Because he is everywhere present, so as to be always accessible, and eternal so as to save , both perfectly and always, all who come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
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