_THE FATHER'S GIFTS THROUGH THE SON._
"The Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of
the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness,
and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom
we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins."--COL. i. 12-14
(Rev. Ver.).
We have advanced thus far in this Epistle without having reached its
main subject. We now, however, are on its verge. The next verses to
those now to be considered lead us into the very heart of Paul's
teaching, by which he would oppose the errors rife in the Colossian
Church. The great passages describing the person and work of Jesus
Christ are at hand, and here we have the immediate transition to them.
The skill with which the transition is made is remarkable. How gradually
and surely the sentences, like some hovering winged things, circle more
and more closely round the central light, till in the last words they
touch it, ... "the Son of His love!" It is like some long procession
heralding a king. They that go before, cry Hosanna, and point to him who
comes last and chief. The affectionate greetings which begin the letter,
pass into prayer; the prayer into thanksgiving. The thanksgiving, as in
these words, lingers over and recounts our blessings, as a rich man
counts his treasures, or a lover dwells on his joys. The enumeration of
the blessings leads, as by a golden thread, to the thought and name of
Christ, the fountain of them all, and then, with a burst and a rush, the
flood of the truths about Christ which he had to give them sweeps
through Paul's mind and heart, carrying everything before it. The name
of Christ always opens the floodgates in Paul's heart.
We have here then the deepest grounds for Christian thanksgiving, which
are likewise the preparations for a true estimate of the worth of the
Christ who gives them. These grounds of thanksgiving are but various
aspects of the one great blessing of "Salvation." The diamond flashes
greens and purples, and yellows and reds, according to the angle at
which its facets catch the eye.
It is also to be observed, that all these blessings are the present
possession of Christians. The language of the first three clauses in the
verses before us points distinctly to a definite past act by which the
Father, at some definite point of time, made us meet, delivered and
translated us, while the present tense in the last clause shows that
"our redemption" is not only begun by some definite act in the past, but
is continuously and progressively possessed in the present.
We notice, too, the remarkable correspondence of language with that
which Paul heard when he lay prone on the ground, blinded by the
flashing light, and amazed by the pleading remonstrance from heaven
which rung in his ears. "I send thee to the Gentiles ... that they may
turn from _darkness_ to _light_, and from the power of Satan unto God,
that they may receive _remission of sins_, and an _inheritance_ among
them which are sanctified." All the principal phrases are there, and are
freely recombined by Paul, as if unconsciously his memory was haunted
still by the sound of the transforming words heard so long ago.
I. The first ground of thankfulness which all Christians have is, that
they are fit for the inheritance. Of course the metaphor here is drawn
from the "inheritance" given to the people of Israel, namely, the land
of Canaan. Unfortunately, our use of "heir" and "inheritance" confines
the idea to possession by succession on death, and hence some perplexity
is popularly experienced as to the force of the word in Scripture.
There, it implies possession by lot, if anything more than the simple
notion of possession; and points to the fact that the people did not win
their land by their own swords, but because "God had a favour unto
them." So the Christian inheritance is not won by our own merit, but
given by God's goodness. The words may be literally rendered, "fitted us
for the portion of the lot," and taken to mean the share or portion
which consists in the lot; but perhaps it is clearer, and more accordant
with the analogy of the division of the land among the tribes, to take
them as meaning "for our (individual) share in the broad land which, as
a whole, is the allotted possession of the saints." This possession
belongs to them, and is situated in the world of "light." Such is the
general outline of the thoughts here. The first question that arises is,
whether this inheritance is present or future. The best answer is that
it is both; because, whatever additions of power and splendour as yet
unspeakable may wait to be revealed in the future, the essence of all
which heaven can bring is ours to-day, if we live in the faith and love
of Christ. The difference between a life of communion with God here and
yonder is one of degree and not of kind. True, there are differences of
which we cannot speak, in enlarged capacities, and a "spiritual body,"
and sins cast out, and nearer approach to "the fountain itself of
heavenly radiance;" but he who can say, while he walks amongst the
shadows of earth, "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance," will
neither leave his treasures behind him when he dies, nor enter on the
possession of a wholly new inheritance, when he passes into the heavens.
But while this is true, it is also true that that future possession of
God will be so deepened and enlarged that its beginnings here are but
the "earnest," of the same nature indeed as the estate, but limited in
comparison as is the tuft of grass which used to be given to a new
possessor, when set against the broad lands from which it was plucked.
Here certainly the predominant idea is that of a present fitness for a
mainly future possession.
We notice again--where the inheritance is situated--"in the light."
There are several possible ways of connecting that clause with the
preceding. But without discussing these, it may be enough to point out
that the most satisfactory seems to be to regard it as specifying the
region in which the inheritance lies. It lies in a realm where purity
and knowledge and gladness dwell undimmed and unbounded by an envious
ring of darkness. For these three are the triple rays into which,
according to the Biblical use of the figure, that white beam may be
resolved.
From this there follows that it is capable of being possessed only by
_saints_. There is no merit or desert which makes men worthy of the
inheritance, but there is a congruity, or correspondence between
character and the inheritance. If we rightly understand what the
essential elements of "heaven" are, we shall have no difficulty in
seeing that the possession of it is utterly incompatible with anything
but holiness. The vulgar ideas of what heaven is, hinder people from
seeing how to get there. They dwell upon the mere outside of the thing,
they take symbols for realities and accidents for essentials, and so it
appears an arbitrary arrangement that a man must have faith in Christ to
enter heaven. If it be a kingdom of light, then only souls that love the
light can go thither, and until owls and bats rejoice in the sunshine,
there will be no way of being fit for the inheritance which is light,
but by ourselves being "light in the Lord." Light itself is a torture to
diseased eyes. Turn up any stone by the roadside and we see how
unwelcome light is to crawling creatures that have lived in the darkness
till they have come to love it.
Heaven is God and God is heaven. How can a soul possess God, and find
its heaven in possessing Him? Certainly only by likeness to Him, and
loving Him. The old question, "Who shall stand in the Holy Place?" is
not answered in the gospel by reducing the conditions, or negativing the
old reply. The common sense of every conscience answers, and
Christianity answers, as the Psalmist does, "He that hath clean hands
and a pure heart."
One more step has to be taken to reach the full meaning of these words,
namely, the assertion that men who are not yet perfectly pure are
already fit to be partakers of the inheritance. The tense of the verb in
the original points back to a definite act by which the Colossians were
made meet, namely, their conversion; and the plain emphatic teaching of
the New Testament is that incipient and feeble faith in Christ works a
change so great, that through it we are fitted for the inheritance by
the impartation of a new nature, which, though it be but as a grain of
mustard seed, shapes from henceforth the very inmost centre of our
personal being. In due time that spark will convert into its own fiery
brightness the whole mass, however green and smokily it begins to burn.
Not the absence of sin, but the presence of faith working by love, and
longing for the light, makes fitness. No doubt flesh and blood cannot
inherit the Kingdom of God, and we must put off the vesture of the body
which has wrapped us during the wild weather here, before we can be
fully fit to enter the banqueting hall; nor do we know how much evil
which has not its seat in the soul may drop away therewith--but the
spirit is fit for heaven as soon as a man turns to God in Christ.
Suppose a company of rebels, and one of them, melted by some reason or
other, is brought back to loyalty. He is fit by that inward change,
although he has not done a single act of loyalty, for the society of
loyal subjects, and unfit for that of traitors. Suppose a prodigal son
away in the far off land. Some remembrance comes over him of what home
used to be like, and of the bountiful house-keeping that is still there;
and though it may begin with nothing more exalted than an empty stomach,
if it ends in "I will arise and go to my Father," at that instant a gulf
opens between him and the riotous living of "the citizens of that
country," and he is no longer fitted for their company. He is meet for
the fellowship of his father's house, though he has a weary journey
before he gets there, and needs to have his rags changed, and his filth
washed off him, ere he can sit down at the feast.
So whoever turns to the love of God in Christ, and yields in the inmost
part of his being to the power of His grace, is already "light in the
Lord." The true home and affinities of his real self are in the kingdom
of the light, and he is ready for his part in the inheritance, either
here or yonder. There is no breach of the great law, that character
makes fitness for heaven--might we not say that character makes
heaven?--for the very roots of character lie in disposition and desire,
rather than in action. Nor is there in this principle anything
inconsistent with the need for continual growth in congruity of nature
with that land of light. The light within, if it be truly there, will,
however slowly, spread, as surely as the grey of twilight brightens to
the blaze of noonday. The heart will be more and more filled with it,
and the darkness driven back more and more to brood in remote corners,
and at last will vanish utterly. True fitness will become more and more
fit. We shall grow more and more capable of God. The measure of our
capacity is the measure of our possession, and the measure in which we
have become light, is the measure of our capacity for the light. The
land was parted among the tribes of Israel according to their strength;
some had a wider, some a narrower strip of territory. So, as there are
differences in Christian character here, there will be differences in
Christian participation in the inheritance hereafter. "Star differeth
from star." Some will blaze in brighter radiance and glow with more
fervent heat because they move in orbits closer to the sun.
But, thank God, we are "fit for the inheritance," if we have ever so
humbly and poorly trusted ourselves to Jesus Christ and received His
renewing life into our spirits. Character alone fits for heaven. But
character may be in germ or in fruit. "If any man be in Christ, he _is_
a new creature." Do we trust ourselves to Him? Are we trying, with His
help, to live as children of the light? Then we need not droop or
despair by reason of evil that may still haunt our lives. Let us give it
no quarter, for it diminishes our fitness for the full possession of
God; but let it not cause our tongue to falter in "giving thanks to the
Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light."
II. The second ground of thankfulness is, the change of king and
country. God "delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated
us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." These two clauses embrace
the negative and positive sides of the same act which is referred to in
the former ground of thankfulness, only stated now in reference to our
allegiance and citizenship in the present rather than in the future. In
the "deliverance" there maybe a reference to God's bringing Israel out
of Egypt, suggested by the previous mention of the inheritance, while
the "translation" into the other kingdom may be an illustration drawn
from the well known practice of ancient warfare, the deportation of
large bodies of natives from conquered kingdoms to some other part of
the conqueror's realm.
We notice then the two kingdoms and their kings. "The power of
darkness," is an expression found in Luke's Gospel (xxii. 18), and it
may be used here as a reminiscence of our Lord's solemn words. "Power"
here seems to imply the conception of harsh, arbitrary dominion, in
contrast with the gracious rule of the other kingdom. It is a realm of
cruel and grinding sway. Its prince is personified in an image that
AEschylus or Dante might have spoken. Darkness sits sovereign there, a
vast and gloomy form on an ebon throne, wielding a heavy sceptre over
wide regions wrapped in night. The plain meaning of that tremendous
metaphor is just this--that the men who are not Christians live in a
state of subjection to darkness of ignorance, darkness of misery,
darkness of sin. If I am not a Christian man, that black three-headed
hound of hell sits baying on my doorstep.
What a wonderful contrast the other kingdom and its King present! "The
kingdom of"--not "the light," as we are prepared to hear, in order to
complete the antithesis, but--"the Son of His love," who is the light.
The Son who is the object of His love, on whom it all and ever rests, as
on none besides. He has a kingdom in existence now, and not merely hoped
for, and to be set up at some future time. Wherever men lovingly obey
Christ, there is His kingdom. The subjects make the kingdom, and we may
to-day belong to it, and be free from all other dominion because we bow
to His. There then sit the two kings, like the two in the old story,
"either of them on his throne, clothed in his robes, at the entering in
of the gate of the city." Darkness and Light, the ebon throne and the
white throne, surrounded each by their ministers; there Sorrow and
Gloom, here Gladness and Hope; there Ignorance with blind eyes and idle
aimless hands, here Knowledge with the sunlight on her face, and
Diligence for her handmaid; here Sin, the pillar of the gloomy realm,
there Righteousness, in robes so as no fuller on earth could white them.
Under which king, my brother?
We notice the transference of subjects. The sculptures on Assyrian
monuments explain this metaphor for us. A great conqueror has come, and
speaks to us as Sennacherib did to the Jews (2 Kings xviii. 31, 32),
"Come out to me ... and I will take you away to a land of corn and wine,
that ye may live and not die."
If we listen to His voice, He will lead away a long string of willing
captives and plant them, not as pining exiles, but as happy naturalized
citizens, in the kingdom which the Father has appointed for "the Son of
His love."
That transference is effected on the instant of our recognising the love
of God in Jesus Christ, and yielding up the heart to Him. We too often
speak as if the "entrance ministered at last to" a believing soul "into
the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour," were its first entrance therein,
and forget that we enter it as soon as we yield to the drawings of
Christ's love and take service under the king. The change then is
greater than at death. When we die, we shall change provinces, and go
from an outlying colony to the mother city and seat of empire, but we
shall not change kingdoms. We shall be under the same government, only
then we shall be nearer the King and more loyal to Him. That change of
king is the real fitness for heaven. We know little of what profound
changes death may make, but clearly a physical change cannot effect a
spiritual revolution. They who are not Christ's subjects will not become
so by dying. If here we are trying to serve a King who has delivered us
from the tyranny of darkness, we may be very sure that He will not lose
His subjects in the darkness of the grave. Let us choose our king. If we
take Christ for our heart's Lord, every thought of Him here, every piece
of partial obedience and stained service, as well as every sorrow and
every joy, our fading possessions and our undying treasures, the feeble
new life that wars against our sins, and even the very sins themselves
as contradictory of our deepest self, unite to seal to us the assurance,
"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. They shall behold the land
that is very far off."
III. The heart and centre of all occasions for thankfulness is the
Redemption which we receive in Christ.
"In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins." The
Authorized Version reads "redemption _through His blood_," but these
words are not found in the best manuscripts, and are regarded by the
principal modern editors as having been inserted from the parallel place
in Ephesians (i. 7), where they are genuine. The very heart then of the
blessings which God has bestowed, is "redemption," which consists
primarily, though not wholly, in "forgiveness of sins," and is received
by us in "the Son of His love."
"Redemption," in its simplest meaning, is the act of delivering a slave
from captivity by the payment of ransom. So that it contains in its
application to the effect of Christ's death, substantially the same
figure as in the previous clause which spoke of a deliverance from a
tyrant, only that what was there represented as an act of Power is here
set forth as the act of self-sacrificing Love which purchases our
freedom at a heavy cost. That ransom price is said by Christ Himself to
be "His life," and His Incarnation to have the paying of that price as
one of its two chief objects. So the words added here by quotation from
the companion Epistle are in full accordance with New Testament
teaching; but even omitting them, the meaning of the clause is
unmistakable. Christ's death breaks the chains which bind us, and sets
us free. By it He acquires us for Himself. That transcendent act of
sacrifice has such a relation to the Divine government on the one hand,
and to the "sin of the world," as a whole, on the other, that by it all
who trust in Him are delivered from the most real penal consequences of
sin and from the dominion of its darkness over their natures. We freely
admit that we cannot penetrate to the understanding of _how_ Christ's
death thus avails. But just because the _rationale_ of the doctrine is
avowedly beyond our limits, we are barred from asserting that it is
incompatible with God's character, or with common justice, or that it is
immoral, and the like. When we know God through and through, to all the
depths and heights and lengths and breadths of His nature, and when we
know man in like manner, and when, consequently, we know the relation
between God and man as perfectly, and not till then, we shall have a
right to reject the teaching of Scripture on this matter, on such
grounds. Till then, let our faith lay hold on the fact, though we do not
understand the "how" of the fact, and cling to that cross which is the
great power of God unto salvation, and the heart-changing exponent of
the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.
The essential and first element in this redemption is "the forgiveness
of sins." Possibly some misconception of the nature of redemption may
have been associated with the other errors which threatened the
Colossian Church, and thus Paul may have been led to this emphatic
declaration of its contents. Forgiveness, and not some mystic
deliverance by initiation or otherwise from the captivity of flesh and
matter, is redemption. There is more than forgiveness in it, but
forgiveness lies on the threshold; and that not only the removal of
legal penalties inflicted by a specific act, but the forgiveness of a
father. A sovereign pardons when he remits the sentence which law has
pronounced. A father forgives when the free flow of his love is
unhindered by his child's fault, and he may forgive and punish at the
same moment. The truest "penalty" of sin is that death which consists in
separation from God; and the conceptions of judicial pardon and fatherly
forgiveness unite when we think of the "remission of sins" as being the
removal of that separation, and the deliverance of heart and conscience
from the burden of guilt and of a father's wrath.
Such forgiveness leads to that full deliverance from the power of
darkness, which is the completion of redemption. There is deep meaning
in the fact that the word here used for "forgiveness," means literally,
"sending away." Pardon has a mighty power to banish sin, not only as
guilt, but as habit. The waters of the gulf stream bear the warmth of
the tropics to the icy north, and lave the foot of the glaciers on its
coast till they melt and mingle with the liberating waves. So the flow
of the forgiving love of God thaws the hearts frozen in the obstinacy of
sin, and blends our wills with itself in glad submission and grateful
service.
But we must not overlook the significant words in which the condition of
possessing this redemption is stated: "in Whom." There must be a real
living union with Christ, by which we are truly "in Him" in order to our
possession of redemption. "Redemption through His blood" is not the
whole message of the Gospel; it has to be completed by "_In Whom_ we
have redemption through His blood." That real living union is effected
by our faith, and when we are thus "in Him," our wills, hearts, spirits
joined to Him, then, and only then are we borne away from "the kingdom
of the darkness" and partake of redemption. We cannot get His gifts
without Himself.
We observe, in conclusion, how redemption appears here as a present and
growing possession. There is emphasis on "we _have_." The Colossian
Christians had by one definite act in the past been fitted for a share
in the inheritance, and by the same act had been transferred to the
kingdom of Christ. Already they possess the inheritance, and are in the
kingdom, although both are to be more gloriously manifested in the
future. Here, however, Paul contemplates rather the reception, moment by
moment, of redemption. We might almost read "we are having," for the
present tense seems used on purpose to convey the idea of a continual
communication from Him to Whom we are to be united by faith. Daily we
may draw what we daily need--daily forgiveness for daily sins, the
washing of the feet which even he who has been bathed requires after
each day's march through muddy roads, daily bread for daily hunger, and
daily strength for daily effort. So day unto day may, in our narrow
lives, as in the wide heavens with all their stars, utter speech, and
night unto night show knowledge of the redeeming love of our Father.
Like the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness, according
to Jewish legend, and poured out water for their thirst, His grace flows
ever by our sides and from its bright waters we may daily draw with joy.
And so let us lay to heart humbly these two lessons; that all our
Christianity must begin with forgiveness, and that, however far advanced
we may be in the Divine life, we never get beyond the need for a
continual bestowal upon us of God's pardoning mercy.
Many of us, like some of these Colossians, are ready to call ourselves
in some sense followers of Christ. The speculative side of Christian
truth may have attractions for some of us, its lofty morality for
others. Some of us may be mainly drawn to it by its comforts for the
weary; some may be looking to it chiefly in hope of a future heaven. But
whatever we are, and however we may be disposed to Christ and His
Gospel, here is a plain message for us; we must begin by going to Him
for pardon. It is not enough for any of us to find in Him "wisdom," or
even "righteousness," for we need "redemption" which is "forgiveness,"
and unless He is to us forgiveness, He will not be either righteousness
or wisdom.
We can climb a ladder that reaches to heaven, but its foot must be in
"the horrible pit and miry clay" of our sins. Little as we like to hear
it, the first need for us all is forgiveness. Everything begins with
that. "The inheritance of the saints," with all its wealth of glory, its
immortal life and unfading joys, its changeless security, and its
unending progress deeper and deeper into the light and likeness of God,
is the goal, but the _only_ entrance is through the strait gate of
penitence. Christ will forgive on our cry for pardon, and that is the
first link of a golden chain unwinding from His hand by which we may
ascend to the perfect possession of our inheritance in God. "Whom He
justified, them," and them only, He will glorify.