V.

_THE GLORY OF THE SON IN HIS RELATION TO THE FATHER, THE UNIVERSE AND

THE CHURCH._

"Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all

creation; for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and

upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones

or dominions or principalities or powers, all things have been

created through Him and unto Him; and He is before all things, and

in Him all things consist. 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 pre-eminence."--COL. i. 15-18 (Rev.

Ver.).

As has already been remarked, the Colossian Church was troubled by

teachers who had grafted on Jewish belief many of the strange

speculations about matter and creation which have always had such a

fascination for the Eastern mind. To us, they are apt to seem empty

dreams, baseless and bewildering; but they had force enough to shake the

early Church to its foundation, and in some forms they still live.

These teachers in Colossae seem to have held that all matter was evil and

the seat of sin; that therefore the material creation could not have

come directly from a good God, but was in a certain sense opposed to

Him, or, at all events, was separated from Him by a great gulf. The void

space was bridged by a chain of beings, half abstractions and half

persons, gradually becoming more and more material. The lowest of them

had created the material universe and now governed it, and all were to

be propitiated by worship.

Some such opinions must be presupposed in order to give point and force

to these great verses in which Paul opposes the solid truth to these

dreams, and instead of a crowd of Powers and angelic Beings, in whom the

effulgence of Deity was gradually darkened, and the spirit became more

and more thickened into matter, lifts high and clear against that

background of fable, the solitary figure of the one Christ. He fills all

the space between God and man. There is no need for a crowd of shadowy

beings to link heaven with earth. Jesus Christ lays His hand upon both.

He is the head and source of creation; He is the head and fountain of

life to His Church. Therefore He is first in all things, to be listened

to, loved and worshipped by men. As when the full moon rises, so when

Christ appears, all the lesser stars with which Alexandrian and Eastern

speculation had peopled the abysses of the sky are lost in the mellow

radiance, and instead of a crowd of flickering ineffectual lights there

is one perfect orb, "and heaven is overflowed." "We see no _creature_

any more save Jesus only."

We have outgrown the special forms of error which afflicted the Church

at Colossae, but the truths which are here set over against them are

eternal, and are needed to-day in our conflicts of opinion as much as

then. There are here three grand conceptions of Christ's relations. We

have Christ and God, Christ and Creation, Christ and the Church, and,

built upon all these, the triumphant proclamation of His supremacy over

all creatures in all respects.

I. We have the relation of Christ to God set forth in these grand

words, "the image of the invisible God."

Apparently Paul is here using for his own purposes language which was

familiar on the lips of his antagonists. We know that Alexandrian

Judaism had much to say about the "Word," and spoke of it as the Image

of God: and probably some such teaching had found its way to Colossae. An

"image" is a likeness or representation, as of a king's head on a coin,

or of a face reflected in a mirror. Here it is that which makes the

invisible visible. The God who dwells in the thick darkness, remote from

sense and above thought, has come forth and made Himself known to man,

even in a very real way has come within the reach of man's senses, in

the manhood of Jesus Christ. Where then is there a place for the shadowy

abstractions and emanations with which some would bind together God and

man?

The first thought involved in this statement is, that the Divine Being

in Himself is inconceivable and unapproachable. "No man hath seen God at

any time, nor can see Him." Not only is He beyond the reach of sense,

but above the apprehension of the understanding. Direct and immediate

knowledge of Him is impossible. There may be, there is, written on every

human spirit a dim consciousness of His presence, but that is not

knowledge. Creatural limitations prevent it, and man's sin prevents it.

He is "the King invisible," because He is the "Father of Lights"

dwelling in "a glorious privacy of light," which is to us darkness

because there is in it "no darkness at all."

Then, the next truth included here is, that Christ is the perfect

manifestation and image of God. In Him we have the invisible becoming

visible. Through Him we know all that we know of God, as distinguished

from what we guess or imagine or suspect of Him. On this high theme, it

is not wise to deal much in the scholastic language of systems and

creeds. Few words, and these mainly His own, are best, and he is least

likely to speak wrongly who confines himself most to Scripture in his

presentation of the truth. All the great streams of teaching in the New

Testament concur in the truth which Paul here proclaims. The conception

in John's Gospel of the Word which is the utterance and making audible

of the Divine mind, the conceptions in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the

effulgence or forthshining of God's glory, and the very image, or

stamped impress of His substance, are but other modes of representing

the same facts of full likeness and complete manifestation, which Paul

here asserts by calling the man Christ Jesus, the image of the Invisible

God. The same thoughts are involved in the name by which our Lord called

Himself, the Son of God; and they cannot be separated from many words of

His, such as "he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." In Him the

Divine nature comes near to us in a form that once could be grasped in

part by men's senses, for it was "that of the Word of life" which they

saw with their eyes and their hands handled, and which is to-day and for

ever a form that can be grasped by mind and heart and will. In Christ we

have the revelation of a God who can be known, and loved, and trusted,

with a knowledge which, though it be not complete, is real and valid,

with a love which is solid enough to be the foundation of a life, with

a trust which is conscious that it has touched rock and builds secure.

Nor is that fact that He is the revealer of God, one that began with His

incarnation, or ends with His earthly life. From the beginning and

before the creatural beginning, as we shall see in considering another

part of these great verses, the Word was the agent of all Divine

activity, the "arm of the Lord," and the source of all Divine

illumination, "the face of the Lord," or, as we have the thought put in

the remarkable words of the Book of Proverbs, where the celestial and

pure Wisdom is more than a personification though not yet distinctly

conceived as a person, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His

way. I was by Him as one brought up--or as a master worker--with Him,

and I was daily _His_ delight ... and _My_ delights were with the sons

of men." And after the veils of flesh and sense are done away, and we

see face to face, I believe that the face which we shall see, and

seeing, shall have beauty born of the vision passing into our faces,

will be the face of Jesus Christ, in which the light of the glory of God

shall shine for the redeemed and perfected sons of God, even as it did

for them when they groped amid the shows of earth. The law for time and

for eternity is, "I have declared Thy name unto My brethren and will

declare it." That great fathomless, shoreless ocean of the Divine nature

is like a "closed sea"--Christ is the broad river which brings its

waters to men, and "everything liveth whithersoever the river cometh."

In these brief words on so mighty a matter, I must run the risk of

appearing to deal in unsupported statements. My business is not so much

to try to prove Paul's words as to explain them, and then to press them

home. Therefore I would urge that thought, that we depend on Christ for

all true knowledge of God. Guesses are not knowledge. Speculations are

not knowledge. Peradventures, whether of hope or fear, are not

knowledge. What we poor men need, is a certitude of a God who loves us

and cares for us, has an arm that can help us, and a heart that will.

The God of "pure theism" is little better than a phantom, so

unsubstantial that you can see the stars shining through the pale form,

and when a man tries to lean on him for support, it is like leaning on a

wreath of mist. There is nothing. There is no certitude firm enough for

us to find sustaining power against life's trials in resting upon it,

but in Christ. There is no warmth of love enough for us to thaw our

frozen limbs by, apart from Christ. In Him, and in Him alone, the far

off, awful, doubtful God becomes a God very near, of Whom we are sure,

and sure that He loves and is ready to help and cleanse and save.

And that is what we each need. "My soul crieth out for God, for the

_living_ God." And never will that orphaned cry be answered, but in the

possession of Christ, in Whom we possess the Father also. No dead

abstractions--no reign of law--still less the dreary proclamation,

"Behold we know not anything," least of all, the pottage of material

good, will hush that bitter wail that goes up unconsciously from many an

Esau's heart--"My father, my father!" Men will find Him in Christ. They

will find Him nowhere else. It seems to me that the only refuge for this

generation from atheism--if it is still allowable to use that

unfashionable word--is the acceptance of Christ as the revealer of God.

On any other terms religion is rapidly becoming impossible for the

cultivated class. The great word which Paul opposed to the cobwebs of

Gnostic speculation is the word for our own time with all its

perplexities--Christ is the Image of the Invisible God.

II. We have the relation of Christ to Creation set forth in that great

name, "the firstborn of all creation," and further elucidated by a

magnificent series of statements which proclaim Him to be agent or

medium, and aim or goal of creation, prior to it in time and dignity,

and its present upholder and bond of unity.

"The firstborn of all creation." At first sight, this name seems to

include Him in the great family of creatures as the eldest, and clearly

to treat Him as one of them, just because He is declared to be in some

sense the first of them. That meaning has been attached to the words;

but it is shown not to be their intention by the language of the next

verse, which is added to prove and explain the title. It distinctly

alleges that Christ was "before" all creation, and that He is the agent

of all creation. To insist that the words must be explained so as to

include Him in "creation" would be to go right in the teeth of the

Apostle's own justification and explanation of them. So that the true

meaning is that He is the firstborn, in comparison with, or in reference

to, all creation. Such an understanding of the force of the expression

is perfectly allowable grammatically, and is necessary unless this verse

is to be put in violent contradiction to the next. The same construction

is found in Milton's

"Adam, the goodliest man of men since born,

His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve."

where "of" distinctly means "in comparison with," and not "belonging

to."

The title implies priority in existence, and supremacy. It substantially

means the same thing as the other title of "the only begotten Son," only

that the latter brings into prominence the relation of the Son to the

Father, while the former lays stress on His relation to Creation.

Further it must be noted, that this name applies to the Eternal Word and

not to the incarnation of that Word, or to put it in another form, the

divinity and not the humanity of the Lord Jesus is in the Apostle's

view. Such is the briefest outline of the meaning of this great name.

A series of clauses follow, stating more fully the relation of the

firstborn Son to Creation, and so confirming and explaining the title.

The whole universe is, as it were, set in one class, and He alone over

against it. No language could be more emphatically all-comprehensive.

Four times in one sentence we have "all things"--the whole

universe--repeated, and traced to Him as Creator and Lord. "In the

heavens and the earth" is quoted from Genesis, and is intended here, as

there, to be an exhaustive enumeration of the creation according to

place. "Things visible or invisible" again includes the whole under a

new principle of division--there are visible things in heaven, as sun

and stars, there may be invisible on earth, but wherever and of whatever

sort they are, He made them. "Whether thrones or dominions, or

principalities or powers," an enumeration evidently alluding to the

dreamy speculations about an angelic hierarchy filling the space between

the far off God, and men immersed in matter. There is a tone of

contemptuous impatience in Paul's voice, as he quotes the pompous list

of sonorous titles which a busy fancy had coined. It is as if he had

said, You are being told a great deal about these angel hierarchies, and

know all about their ranks and gradations. I do not know anything about

them; but this I know, that if, amid the unseen things in the heavens or

the earth, there be any such, my Lord made them, and is their master. So

he groups together the whole universe of created beings, actual or

imaginary, and then high above it, separate from it, its Lord and

Creator, its upholder and end, he points to the majestic person of the

only begotten Son of God, His Firstborn, higher than all the rulers of

the earth, whether human or superhuman.

The language employed brings into strong relief the manifold variety of

relations which the Son sustains to the universe, by the variety of the

prepositions used in the sentence. The whole sum of created things (for

the Greek means not only "all things," but "all things considered as a

unity") was in the original act, created _in_ Him, _through_ Him, and

_unto_ Him. The first of these words, "in Him," regards Him as the

creative centre, as it were, or element in which as in a storehouse or

reservoir all creative force resided, and was in a definite act put

forth. The thought may be parallel with that in the prologue to John's

Gospel, "In Him was life." The Word stands to the universe as the

incarnate Christ does to the Church; and as all spiritual life is in

Him, and union to Him is its condition, so all physical takes its origin

within the depths of His Divine nature. The error of the Gnostics was to

put the act of creation and the thing created, as far away as possible

from God, and it is met by this remarkable expression, which brings

creation and the creatures in a very real sense within the confines of

the Divine nature, as manifested in the Word, and asserts the truth of

which pantheism so called is the exaggeration, that all things are in

Him, like seeds in a seed vessel, while yet they are not identified with

Him.

The possible dangers of that profound truth, which has always been more

in harmony with Eastern than with Western modes of thought, are averted

by the next preposition used, "all things have been created _through_

Him." That presupposes the full, clear demarcation between creature and

creator, and so on the one hand extricates the person of the Firstborn

of all creation from all risk of being confounded with the universe,

while on the other it emphasizes the thought that He is the medium of

the Divine energy, and so brings into clear relief His relation to the

inconceivable Divine nature. He is the image of the invisible God, and

accordingly, _through_ Him have all things been created. The same

connection of ideas is found in the parallel passage in the Epistle to

the Hebrews, where the words, "_through_ Whom also He made the worlds,"

stand in immediate connection with "being the effulgence of His glory."

But there remains yet another relation between Him and the act of

creation. "_For_ Him" they have been made. All things come from and tend

towards Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the

ending. All things spring from His will, draw their being from that

fountain, and return thither again. These relations which are here

declared of the Son, are in more than one place declared of the Father.

Do we face the question fairly--what theory of the person of Jesus

Christ explains that fact?

But further, His existence before the whole creation is repeated, with a

force in both the words, "He is," which can scarcely be given in

English. The former is emphatic--He Himself--and the latter emphasizes

not only pre-existence, but absolute existence. "He _was_ before all

things" would not have said so much as "He _is_ before all things." We

are reminded of His own words, "Before Abraham was, I am."

"In Him all things consist" or hold together. He is the element in which

takes place and by which is caused that continued creation which is the

preservation of the universe, as He is the element in which the original

creative act took place of old. All things came into being and form an

ordered unity in Him. He links all creatures and forces into a

co-operant whole, reconciling their antagonisms, drawing all their

currents into one great tidal wave, melting all their notes into music

which God can hear, however discordant it may sometimes sound to us. He

is "the bond of perfectness," the key-stone of the arch, the centre of

the wheel.

Such, then, in merest outline is the Apostle's teaching about the

Eternal Word and the Universe. What sweetness and what reverential awe

such thoughts should cast around the outer world and the providences of

life! How near they should bring Jesus Christ to us! What a wonderful

thought that is, that the whole course of human affairs and of natural

processes is directed by Him who died upon the cross! The helm of the

universe is held by the hands which were pierced for us. The Lord of

Nature and the Mover of all things is that Saviour on whose love we may

pillow our aching heads.

We need these lessons to-day, when many teachers are trying hard to

drive all that is spiritual and Divine out of creation and history, and

to set up a merciless law as the only God. Nature is terrible and stern

sometimes, and the course of events can inflict crushing blows; but we

have not the added horror of thinking both to be controlled by no will.

Christ is King in either region, and with our elder brother for the

ruler of the land, we shall not lack corn in our sacks, nor a Goshen to

dwell in. We need not people the void, as these old heretics did, with

imaginary forms, nor with impersonal forces and laws--nor need we, as so

many are doing to-day, wander through its many mansions as through a

deserted house, finding nowhere a Person who welcomes us; for everywhere

we may behold our Saviour, and out of every storm and every solitude

hear His voice across the darkness saying, "It is I; be not afraid."

III. The last of the relations set forth in this great section is that

between Christ and His Church. "He is the head of the body, the Church;

who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead."

A parallel is plainly intended to be drawn between Christ's relation to

the material creation and to the Church, the spiritual creation. As the

Word of God before incarnation is to the universe, so is the incarnate

Christ to the Church. As in the former, He is prior in time and superior

in dignity, so is He in the latter. As in the universe He is source and

origin of all being, so in the Church He is the beginning, both as being

first and as being origin of all spiritual life. As the glowing words

which described His relation to creation began with the great title "the

Firstborn," so those which describe His relation to the Church close

with the same name in a different application. Thus the two halves of

His work are as it were moulded into a golden circle, and the end of the

description bends round towards the beginning.

Briefly, then, we have here first, Christ the head, and the Church His

body. In the lower realm the Eternal Word was the power which held all

things together, and similar but higher in fashion is the relation

between Him and the whole multitude of believing souls. Popular

physiology regards the head as the seat of life. So the fundamental idea

in the familiar metaphor, when applied to our Lord is that of the source

of the mysterious spiritual life which flows from Him into all the

members, and is sight in the eye, strength in the arm, swiftness in the

foot, colour in the cheek, being richly various in its manifestations

but one in its nature, and all His. The same mysterious derivation of

life from Him is taught in His own metaphor of the Vine, in which every

branch, however far away from the root, lives by the common life

circulating through all, which clings in the tendrils, and reddens in

the clusters, and is not theirs though it be in them.

That thought of the source of life leads necessarily to the other, that

He is the centre of unity, by Whom the "many members" become "one body,"

and the maze of branches one vine. The "head," too, naturally comes to

be the symbol for authority--and these three ideas of seat of life,

centre of unity, and emblem of absolute power, appear to be those

principally meant here.

Christ is further the _beginning_ to the Church. In the natural world He

was before all, and source of all. The same double idea is contained in

this name, "the Beginning." It does not merely mean the first member of

a series who begins it, as the first link in a chain does, but it means

the power which causes the series to begin. The root is the beginning of

the flowers which blow in succession through the plant's flowering time,

though we may also call the first flower of the number the beginning.

But Christ is root; not merely the first flower, though He is also that.

He is head and beginning to His Church by means of His resurrection. He

is the firstborn from the dead, and His communication of spiritual life

to His Church requires the historical fact of His resurrection as its

basis, for a dead Christ could not be the source of life; and that

resurrection completes the manifestation of the incarnate Word, by our

faith in which, His spiritual life flows into our spirits. Unless He has

risen from the dead, all His claims to be anything else than a wise

teacher and fair character crumble into nothing, and to think of Him as

a source of life is impossible.

He is the beginning through His resurrection, too, in regard of His

raising us from the dead. He is the first-fruits of them that slept, and

bears the promise of a mighty harvest. He has risen from the dead, and

therein we have not only the one demonstration for the world that there

is a life after death, but the irrefragable assurance to the Church that

because He lives it shall live also. A dead body and a living head

cannot be. We are knit to Him too closely for the Fury "with the

abhorred shears" to cut the thread. He has risen that He might be the

firstborn among many brethren.

So the Apostle concludes that in all things He is first--and all things

are, that He _may_ be first. Whether in nature or in grace, that

pre-eminence is absolute and supreme. The end of all the majesty of

creation and of all the wonders of grace is that His solitary figure may

stand clearly out as centre and lord of the universe, and His name be

lifted high over all.

So the question of questions for us all is, What think ye of Christ? Our

thoughts now have necessarily been turned to subjects which may have

seemed abstract and remote--but these truths which we have been trying

to make clear and to present in their connection, are not the mere terms

or propositions of a half mystical theology far away from our daily

life, but bear most gravely and directly on our deepest interests. I

would fain press on every conscience the sharp-pointed appeal--What is

this Christ to us? Is He _any_ thing to us but a name? Do our hearts

leap up with a joyful Amen when we read these great words of this text?

Are we ready to crown Him Lord of all? Is He our head, to fill us with

vitality, to inspire and to command? Is He the goal and the end of our

individual life? Can we each say--I live by Him, in Him, and for Him?

Happy are we, if we give to Christ the pre-eminence, and if our hearts

set "Him first, Him last, Him midst and without end."