The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 108

age of sensuous "feeling 11fter God," with the most bare and abstract, the most arid an,l joyless, conceptions of his nature, or of a nature that is their substitute for him. The combination of" philosophy" and "circumcision" (vers. 8, 11), of eloquent and subtle reasonings with minute and arbitrary rules as to "ea.Un" and drinkinO'" and the 0 physical c1;1lture of the soul (vers. 4, 16, 20-23), is after all not unnatural~• and is apt to repeat itself, to a greater or less extent, in every attempt at religion that is not essentially spiritual, 11nd that departs from the "one foundation, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. iii. 11). 3. We must also mark the arrogant and overbearing temper of the new teachers at Colossm, their exclusiveness and their endeavour to form a personal party within the Church. They are "men speaking perverse things, to draw away ihe dis- ciples after them" (Acts xx. 30). They would make simple Christians their "booty (ver. 8). They set up to judge their brethren in matters of diet and outward observance (ver. 16). They assume, in this character of judges in the Church, to deny to Christian men, walking in faith and love (eh. i. 4) and having Christ's peace within their heartg (eh. iii. 15), "the prize of their calling" (ver. 18), because they will not accept their notions and practices. 'l.'hey issue their decrees, "'rouch not, taste not," etc., as if they were the very law of God (vers. 22, 14). They are "humble" before the powers of the invisible world, and zealous to offer them a worship which they repudiate and abhor (ver. 15; Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 9); but rob Christ of his honour (vers. 18, 19, 23), and are proud and self-willed towards their brethren "whom they have seen." They heap upon the body invented and misdirected severities (ver. 23), while they are governed by "the mind of the flesh" (ver.18). 'l'hey aggrandize themselves, while they destroy the Church of God (ver. 19). II. THE COMPLETE CHRIST OUR COMPLETENESS, (Vers. 9-13.) For the Christian everything depends on what luJ thinks of Christ and malces him to be. Christ's glory is his security. His greatness and the greatness of our interest in him are commen- surate. For" he gave himself for us" (Gal. ii. 20). Our salvation is not merely a u·ork of Christ, a something wrought out for us, and (externally) conferred upon us; it is "Christ in us" (eh. i. 2; Eph. iii. 17; Gal. i. 16; John xiv. 20; xvii. 26). A.nd St. Paul virtually says, "In robbing Christ of his glory, your new teachers nre robbing you of your salvation. By so much as his position is lowered, his fulness diminished, by so much is your spiritual life imperilled and impaired. Whatever is taken away from the completeness of his Person 2.nd the sufficiency of his mediation, is taken away at the same time from yom assurance of pardon (ver. 13; eh. i. 14) and your motives for holiness (eh. iii. 1, 2), from the ground of your faith (vers. 6, 7), and the certainty of your heavenly prize (ver. 18; eh. i. 23; iii. 15). Whatever touches his person touches the centre and vital spring of your life in God, the anchor of your immortal hopes, ancl the foundation on which rests the whole fabric of the Church" (ver. 19; Eph. ii. 20-22; Matt. xvi.15-18). 1. (1) In him dwells all thefulness of the Godhead. Then he is not a partial, or e.n approximate, or temporary manifestation of God-like previous theophanies-a mere phase of the Infinite. He does not rank and share with angels and the various orders of created being in mirroring by scattered, broken rays the glory of God. A.s the Son, he stands at an infinite distance from, and holds an absolute supre- macy over, all creation (eh. i. 15; Heb. i. 2-4; iii. 6). God is what he shows him- self to be in Christ, and no other. There, if we could but behold and receive it, is" all the fuluess of the Divine nature." In him we know the only true, the real, veritable God (John xvii. 3). A.t last we grasp the substance of truth and no longer chase its shadows (ver. 17). Here is nothing transient, to be displaced by further evolution: this fulness dwells in him; we reach finality, truth absolute, determinate; and ho who knows and has Christ may say, "This is the true God and eternal life" (1 John v. 20). (2) And this fulness dwells in liiin bodily. For the Divine Word" became flesh," ancl in a human body" made his tabcrnaclo amongst us" (John i. 14). Ila was" born of a woman, born under the law" (Gal. iv. 4), su!Tered our bodily ills and temptations, wrought with human hands, looked through human eyes, a.nd spoke in the languag<J of men; snt as a friendly guest at our tables, and stood as a mourner by our gravesides; died a human death, "in the body of his flesh" (eh. i. 22), by the hands of men, and was laid in an earthly grave; he rose, "the same Jesus," in that same body, and nscendcd into heaven ( eh. i. 18, 19; iii. 1-4), "far above all principality and power" (ver. 10; Eph. i 20-23), where ho sits a radiant body, "appeariug in tho presence of  102 THE EPISTLE TO 'l'IlE OOLOSSIANS. [ Cll, 11, 1-23,