The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 30

ile chief Interpreter, the Mnster of poets and philosophers of n:iture who often o·.vo most to him when they nre least aware of it, ns well as of religious thinkers and sncial reformers. While we hold fast this faith in the "Image of God the invisible," the "Firstborn of all creation," we may witness science and philosophy pursuing their inquil'ics without misgiving, and we rn11,y follow them, warily indeed, but without mis- trust; for they can discover no truth which will not in the end support the '' trnth as it is in Jesus," and they labour, though they know it not, only to add their own to the "many crowns" that are pt'eparing for the head of our Immanuel. 2. All the relations which nat'll/l'e holds to God centre in Christ. (1) If the world rests on God, is grounded in him, refers secretly and everywhere to God as the immanent, perpetual Cause of its being and its energy; if in him "we live and move and are; "-then we 11.re to understand all this of Christ. "In him were created, in him consist aH things" (vers. 16, 17). "God was in Christ" creating the heavens and the earth; is "in Christ" sustaining, co-ordinating, directing the march of the circling worlds, the evolution of their teeming, endlessly varied forms of life. The " winds and the sea." that "obeyed him," disease and death and the mighty spirits of darkness that fled at his word, knew something of this secret, if men do not. (2) If through God the universe came to bu (Rom. xi. 36); if he supplied the agencies of creation, the matter and the force (nnlesa matter is really force) out of which it was generated, the laws which shaped its form and governed its development ;-then it appears that all this was done through Christ. (3) If the world moves towards God (Rom. xi. 36), in spite of all divergence and confusion; and if throughout the unmeasured cycles of its duration past and to come it advances towards the fulfilment of its destiny, "that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv. 28) ;-then its course is directed also unto Christ. The will of God respecting the kingdom of his Son was the secret of creation (Eph. iii. 9, 10). Man's sin did not give birth to that purpose. It called for its vindication in new forms of snpera.bound.ing grace; but from the beginning it was "the Father's will that all should honour the Son as they honour the Father" (John v. 23). He is "the Heir of all things" (Heb. i. 2), and it is "the glory of God the Father" "that every knee should bow,of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil. ii. 9-11). So far, therefore, as we can trace any Divine workin11: in the course of nature or history, we may refer it to Christ as truly as the forgiveness of sins or the resurrection of the dead. Nature and grace, body and spirit, history and revelation, the secular and sacred, are essentially one, are parts of the same scheme, each being the complement of the other (instance the inseparable connection of Christ's miracles of healing with his spiritual work), and are working under the same management (Matt. xxviii. 18), towards the same issue, that "purpose of the ages which God purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, to sum up all things in Christ" (Eph. i. 10; iii. 9-11). II. CHRIST THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH. (Vers. 18-23.) 1. Into the world created to be " the kingdom of the Son of God'8 love," "sin entered, and death through sin; " and death became Icing, svn in death (Rom. v. 12, 13, 21), instead of "the Prince of life." Hatred was planted in the human breast, and with it came a darkness that "apprehended not the light of life" (vers. 13, 21; John i. 4, 5; 1 John iii. 8, 11, 12); and men fell under "the dominion of Satan" (Acts xxvi. 18; Eph. ii. 2, 3; Luke iv. 6; 1 John v. 19), the "murderer," the "father of lies;" till it cam,:, to pass that, though Christ ever "was in the world, the world knew him not" (John i. 10). Men were everywhere "cut off from Christ," "alienated," "children of wrath" (ver. 21; Eph. ii. 3, 12); how rebellious against him, his advent proved. Then, in their "wicked works," they not only denied the Son his pre-eminence, but even said, "Come, let us kill him" (Matt. xxi. 38; Luke xix. 14; Ps. ii.). 2. And he submits to die, that he may "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." The Firstborn of all creation becomes Firstborn out of the dead. So high he was in his Divine, eternal birth, so low he stooped-to the Virgin's womb, to" a servant's form," and "unto death, yea, the death of the cross" (vers. 18, 20; Phil. ii. 7, 8; Rom. i. 3; ix. 5; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Gal. iv. 4; Heb. ii. 6-18), to restore his human brethren, to recover bis alii:nated kin"dom, "to reconcile all things unto himself" (vers. 18, 20; Rom. xiv. 9; Phil. ii. 10, 11; Rev. i. 5, 6, Revised 'l'ext). 3. So dying, he lives again that he may ~i,·e us life (Hom. vi. 4-11); descending, in turn he ascends and lifts us with him (Eph.  24 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. [OD, L 1-29.