_JOY IN SUFFERING, AND TRIUMPH IN THE MANIFESTED MYSTERY._
"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my
part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh
for His body's sake, which is the Church; whereof I was made a
minister according to the dispensation of God which was given me to
you-ward to fulfil the word of God, even the mystery which hath been
hid from all ages and generations; but now hath it been manifested
to His Saints, to Whom God was pleased to make known what is the
riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is
Christ in you, the hope of glory."--COL. i. 24-27 (Rev. Ver.).
There are scarcely any personal references in this Epistle, until we
reach the last chapter. In this respect it contrasts strikingly with
another of Paul's epistles of the captivity, that to the Philippians,
which is running over with affection and with allusions to himself. This
sparseness of personal details strongly confirms the opinion that he had
not been to Colossae. Here, however, we come to one of the very few
sections which may be called personal, though even here it is rather
Paul's office than himself which is in question. He is led to speak of
himself by his desire to enforce his exhortations to faithful
continuance in the gospel, and, as is so often the case with him in
touching on his apostleship, he as it were, catches fire, and blazes up
in a grand flame, which sheds a bright light on his lofty enthusiasm and
evangelistic fervour The words to be considered now are plain enough in
themselves, but they are run together, and thought follows thought in a
fashion which makes them somewhat obscure; and there are also one or two
difficulties in single words which require to be cleared up. We shall
perhaps best bring out the course of thought by dealing with these
verses in three groups, of which the three words, Suffering, Service,
and Mystery, are respectively the centres. First, we have a remarkable
view taken by the prisoner of the meaning of his sufferings, as being
endured for the Church. That leads him to speak of his relation to the
Church generally as being that of a servant or steward appointed by God,
to bring to its completion the work of God; and then, as I said, he
takes fire, and, forgetting himself, flames up in rapturous magnifying
of the grand message hid so long, and now entrusted to him to preach. So
we have his Sufferings for the Church, his service of Stewardship to the
Church, and the great Mystery which in that stewardship he had to
unveil. It may help us to understand both Paul and his message, as well
as our own tasks and trials, if we try to grasp his thoughts here about
his work and his sorrows.
I. We have the Apostle's triumphant contemplation of his sufferings. "I
rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that
which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's
sake, which is the Church."
The Revised Version, following the best authorities, omits the "who"
with which the Authorized Version begins this verse, and marks a new
sentence and paragraph, as is obviously right.
The very first word is significant: "_Now_ I rejoice." Ay; it is easy
to say fine things about patience in sufferings and triumph in sorrow
when we are prosperous and comfortable; but it is different when we are
in the furnace. This man, with the chain on his wrist, and the iron
entering into his soul, with his life in danger, and all the future
uncertain, can say, "_Now_ I rejoice." This bird sings in a darkened
cage.
Then come startling words, "I on my part fill up that which is lacking
(a better rendering than 'behind') of the afflictions of Christ." It is
not surprising that many explanations of these words have tried to
soften down their boldness; as, for instance, "afflictions borne for
Christ," or "imposed by Him," or "like His." But it seems very clear
that the startling meaning is the plain meaning, and that "the
sufferings of Christ" here, as everywhere else, are "the sufferings
borne by Christ."
Then at once the questions start up, Does Paul mean to say that in any
sense whatever the sufferings which Christ endured have anything
"lacking" in them? or does he mean to say that a Christian man's
sufferings, however they may benefit the Church, can be put alongside of
the Lord's, and taken to eke out the incompleteness of His? Surely that
cannot be! Did He not say on the cross, "It is finished"? Surely that
sacrifice needs no supplement, and can receive none, but stands "the one
sacrifice for sins for ever"! Surely, His sufferings are absolutely
singular in nature and effect, unique and all-sufficient and eternal.
And does this Apostle, the very heart of whose gospel was that these
were the life of the world, mean to say that anything which he endures
can be tacked on to them, a bit of the old rags to the new garment?
Distinctly not! To say so would be contradictory of the whole spirit and
letter of the Apostle's teaching. But there is no need to suppose that
he means anything of the sort. There is an idea frequently presented in
Scripture, which gives full meaning to the words, and is in full
accordance with Pauline teaching; namely, that Christ truly participates
in the sufferings of His people borne for Him. He suffers with them. The
head feels the pangs of all the members; and every ache may be thought
of as belonging, not only to the limb where it is located, but to the
brain which is conscious of it. The pains and sorrows and troubles of
His friends and followers to the end of time are one great whole. Each
sorrow of each Christian heart is one drop more added to the contents of
the measure which has to be filled to the brim, ere the purposes of the
Father who leads through suffering to rest are accomplished; and all
belong to Him. Whatsoever pain or trial is borne in fellowship with Him
is felt and borne by Him. Community of sensation is established between
Him and us. Our sorrows are transferred to Him. "In all our afflictions
He is afflicted," both by His mystical but most real oneness with us,
and by His brother's sympathy.
So for us all, and not for the Apostle only, the whole aspect of our
sorrows may be changed, and all poor struggling souls in this valley of
weeping may take comfort and courage from the wonderful thought of
Christ's union with us, which makes our griefs His, and our pain touch
Him. Bruise your finger, and the pain pricks and stabs in your brain.
Strike the man that is joined to Christ here, and Christ up yonder
feels it. "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye." Where
did Paul learn this deep lesson, that the sufferings of Christ's
servants were Christ's sufferings? I wonder whether, as he wrote these
words of confident yet humble identification of himself the persecuted
with Christ the Lord, there came back to his memory what he heard on
that fateful day as he rode to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou Me?" The thought so crushing to the persecutor had become balm and
glory to the prisoner,--that every blow aimed at the servant falls on
the Master, who stoops from amid the glory of the throne to declare that
whatsoever is done, whether it be kindness or cruelty, to the least of
His brethren, is done to Him. So every one of us may take the comfort
and strength of that wonderful assurance, and roll all our burdens and
sorrows on Him.
Again, there is prominent here the thought that the good of sorrow does
not end with the sufferer. His sufferings are borne in his _flesh_ for
the _body's_ sake, which is the Church,--a remarkable antithesis between
the Apostle's flesh in which, and Christ's body for which, the
sufferings are endured. Every sorrow rightly borne, as it will be when
Christ is felt to be bearing it with us, is fruitful of blessing. Paul's
trials were in a special sense "for His body's sake," for of course, if
he had not preached the gospel, he would have escaped them all; and on
the other hand, they have been especially fruitful of good, for if he
had not been persecuted, he would never have written these precious
letters from Rome. The Church owes much to the violence which has shut
up confessors in dungeons. Its prison literature, beginning with this
letter, and ending with "Pilgrim's Progress," has been among its most
cherished treasures.
But the same thing is true about us all, though it may be in a narrower
sphere. No man gets good for himself alone out of his sorrows. Whatever
purifies and makes gentler and more Christlike, whatever teaches or
builds up--and sorrows rightly borne do all these--is for the common
good. Be our trials great or small, be they minute and every-day--like
gnats that hum about us in clouds, and may be swept away by the hand,
and irritate rather than hurt where they sting--or be they huge and
formidable, like the viper that clings to the wrist and poisons the life
blood, they are meant to give us good gifts, which we may transmit to
the narrow circle of our homes, and in ever widening rings of influence
to all around us. Have we never known a household, where some chronic
invalid, lying helpless perhaps on a sofa, was a source of the highest
blessing and the centre of holy influence, that made every member of the
family gentler, more self-denying and loving? We shall never understand
our sorrows, unless we try to answer the question, What good to others
is meant to come through me by this? Alas, that grief should so often be
self-absorbed, even more than joy is! The heart sometimes opens to
unselfish sharing of its gladness with others; but it too often shuts
tight over its sorrow, and seeks solitary indulgence in the luxury of
woe. Let us learn that our brethren claim benefit from our trials, as
well as from our good things, and seek to ennoble our griefs by bearing
them for "His body's sake, which is the Church."
Christ's sufferings on His cross are the satisfaction for a world's
sins, and in that view can have no supplement, and stand alone in kind.
But His "afflictions"--a word which would not naturally be applied to
His death--do operate also to set the pattern of holy endurance, and to
teach many a lesson; and in that view every suffering borne for Him and
with Him may be regarded as associated with His, and helping to bless
the Church and the world. God makes the rough iron of our natures into
shining, flexible, sharp steel, by heavy hammers and hot furnaces, that
He may shape us as His instruments to help and heal.
It is of great moment that we should have such thoughts of our sorrows
whilst their pressure is upon us, and not only when they are past. "I
_now_ rejoice." Most of us have had to let years stretch between us and
the blow before we could attain to that clear insight. We can look back
and see how our past sorrows tended to bless us, and how Christ was with
us in them: but as for this one, that burdens us to-day, we cannot make
_it_ out. We can even have a solemn thankfulness not altogether unlike
joy as we look on those wounds that we remember; but how hard it is to
feel it about those that pain us now! There is but one way to secure
that calm wisdom, which feels their meaning even while they sting and
burn, and can smile through tears, as sorrowful and yet always
rejoicing; and that is to keep in very close communion with our Lord.
Then, even when we are in the whitest heat of the furnace, we may have
the Son of man with us; and if we have, the fiercest flames will burn up
nothing but the chains that bind us, and we shall "walk at liberty" in
that terrible heat, because we walk with Him. It is a high attainment
of Christian fortitude and faith to feel the blessed meaning, not only
of the six tribulations which are past, but of the present seventh, and
to say, even while the iron is entering the quivering flesh, "I _now_
rejoice in my sufferings," and try to turn them to others' good.
II. These thoughts naturally lead on to the statement of the Apostle's
lowly and yet lofty conception of his office--"whereof (that is, of
which _Church_) I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of
God, which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God."
The first words of this clause are used at the close of the preceding
section in verse 23, but the "whereof" there refers to the gospel, not
as here to the Church. He is the servant of both, and because he is the
servant of the Church he suffers, as he has been saying. The
representation of himself as servant gives the reason for the conduct
described in the previous clause. Then the next words explain what makes
him the Church's servant. He is so in accordance with, or in pursuance
of, the stewardship, or office of administrator, of His household, to
which God has called him, "to you-ward," that is to say, with especial
reference to the Gentiles. And the final purpose of his being made a
steward is "to fulfil the word of God"; by which is not meant "to
accomplish or bring to pass its predictions," but "to bring it to
completion," or "to give full development to it," and that possibly in
the sense of preaching it fully, without reserve, and far and wide
throughout the whole world.
So lofty and yet so lowly was Paul's thought of his office. He was the
Church's servant, and therefore bound to suffer cheerfully for its
sake. He was so, because a high honour had been conferred on him by God,
nothing less than the stewardship of His great household the Church, in
which he had to give to every man his portion, and to exercise
authority. He is the Church's servant indeed, but it is because he is
the Lord's steward. And the purpose of his appointment goes far beyond
the interests of any single Church; for while his office sends him
especially to the Colossians, its scope is as wide as the world.
One great lesson to be learned from these words is that Stewardship
means service; and we may add that, in nine cases out of ten, service
means suffering. What Paul says, if we put it into more familiar
language, is just this: "Because God has given me something that I can
impart to others, I am their servant, and bound, not only by my duty to
Him, but by my duty to them, to labour that they may receive the
treasure." That is true for us all. Every gift from the great
Householder involves the obligation to impart it. It makes us His
stewards and our brethren's servants. We have that we may give. The
possessions are the Householder's, not ours, even after He has given
them to us. He gives us truths of various kinds in our minds, the gospel
in our hearts, influence from our position, money in our pockets, not to
lavish on self, nor to hide and gloat over in secret, but that we may
transmit His gifts, and "God's grace fructify through us to all." "It is
required of stewards that a man be found faithful"; and the heaviest
charge, "that he had wasted his Lord's goods," lies against every one of
us who does not use all that he possesses, whether of material or
intellectual or spiritual wealth, for the common advantage.
But that common obligation of stewardship presses with special force on
those who say that they are Christ's servants. If we are, we know
something of His love and have felt something of His power; and there
are hundreds of people around us, many of whom we can influence, who
know nothing of either. That fact makes us their servants, not in the
sense of being under their control, or of taking orders from them, but
in the sense of gladly working for them, and recognising our obligation
to help them. Our resources may be small. The Master of the house may
have entrusted us with little. Perhaps we are like the boy with the five
barley loaves and two small fishes; but even if we had only a bit of the
bread and a tail of one of the fishes, we must not eat our morsel alone.
Give it those who have none, and it will multiply as it is distributed,
like the barrel of meal, which did not fail because its poor owner
shared it with the still poorer prophet. Give, and not only give, but
"pray them with much entreaty to receive the gift"; for men need to have
the true Bread pressed on them, and they will often throw it back, or
drop it over a wall, as soon as your back is turned, as beggars do in
our streets. We have to win them by showing that we are their servants,
before they will take what we have to give. Besides this, if stewardship
is service, service is often suffering; and he will not clear himself of
his obligations to his fellows, or of his responsibility to his Master,
who shrinks from seeking to make known the love of Christ to his
brethren, because he has often to "go forth weeping" whilst he bears
the precious seed.
III. So we come to the last thought here, which is of the grand Mystery
of which Paul is the Apostle and Servant. Paul always catches fire when
he comes to think of the universal destination of the gospel, and of the
honour put upon him as the man to whom the task was entrusted of
transforming the Church from a Jewish sect to a world-wide society. That
great thought now sweeps him away from his more immediate object, and
enriches us with a burst which we could ill spare from the letter.
His task, he says, is to give its full development to the word of God,
to proclaim a certain mystery long hid, but now revealed to those who
are consecrated to God. To these it has been God's good pleasure to show
the wealth of glory which is contained in this mystery, as exhibited
among the Gentile Christians, which mystery is nothing else than the
fact that Christ dwells in or among these Gentiles, of whom the
Colossians are part, and by His dwelling in them gives them the
confident expectation of future glory.
The mystery then of which the Apostle speaks so rapturously is the fact
that the Gentiles were fellow-heirs and partakers of Christ. "Mystery"
is a word borrowed from the ancient systems, in which certain rites and
doctrines were communicated to the initiated. There are several
allusions to them in Paul's writings, as for instance in the passage in
Philippians iv. 12, which the Revised Version gives as "I have learned
the secret both to be filled and to be hungry," and probably in the
immediate context here, where the characteristic word "perfect" means
"initiated." Portentous theories which have no warrant have been spun
out of this word. The Greek mysteries implied secrecy; the rites were
done in deep obscurity; the esoteric doctrines were muttered in the ear.
The Christian mysteries are spoken on the housetop, nor does the word
imply anything as to the comprehensibility of the doctrines or facts
which are so called.
We talk about "mysteries," meaning thereby truths that transcend human
faculties; but the New Testament "mystery" may be, and most frequently
is, a fact perfectly comprehensible when once spoken. "Behold I show you
a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." There
is nothing incomprehensible in that. We should never have known it if we
had not been told; but when told it is quite level with our faculties.
And as a matter of fact, the word is most frequently used in connection
with the notion, not of concealment, but of declaring. We find too that
it occurs frequently in this Epistle, and in the parallel letter to the
Ephesians, and in every instance but one refers as it does here, to a
fact which was perfectly plain and comprehensible when once made known;
namely, the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church.
If that be the true meaning of the word, then "a steward of the
mysteries" will simply mean a man who has truths, formerly unknown but
now revealed, in charge to make known to all who will hearken, and
neither the claims of a priesthood nor the demand for the unquestioning
submission of the intellect have any foundation in this much abused
term.
But turning from this, we may briefly consider what was the substance of
this grand mystery which thrilled Paul's soul. It is the wonderful fact
that all barriers were broken down, and that Christ dwelt in the hearts
of these Colossians. He saw in that the proof and the prophecy of the
world-wide destination of the gospel. No wonder that his heart burned as
he thought of the marvellous work which God had wrought by him. For
there is no greater revolution in the history of the world than that
accomplished through him, the cutting loose of Christianity from Judaism
and widening the Church to the width of the race. No wonder that he was
misunderstood and hated by Jewish Christians all his days!
He thinks of these once heathens and now Christians at Colossae, far away
in their lonely valley, and of many another little community--in Judaea,
Asia, Greece, and Italy; and as he thinks of how a real solid bond of
brotherhood bound them together in spite of their differences of race
and culture, the vision of the oneness of mankind in the Cross of Christ
shines out before him, as no man had ever seen it till then, and he
triumphs in the sorrows that had helped to bring about the great result.
That dwelling of Christ among the Gentiles reveals the exuberant
abundance of glory. To him the "mystery" was all running over with
riches, and blazing with fresh radiance. To us it is familiar and
somewhat worn. The "vision splendid," which was manifestly a revelation
of hitherto unknown Divine treasures of mercy and lustrous light when it
first dawned on the Apostle's sight, has "faded" somewhat "into the
light of common day" for us, to whom the centuries since have shown so
slow a progress. But let us not lose more than we can help, either by
our familiarity with the thought, or by the discouragements arising from
the chequered history of its partial realization. Christianity is still
the only religion which has been able to make permanent conquests. It is
the only one that has been able to disregard latitude and longitude, and
to address and guide condition of civilization and modes of life quite
unlike those of its origin. It is the only one that sets itself the task
of conquering the world without the sword, and has kept true to the
design for centuries. It is the only one whose claims to be world-wide
in its adaptation and destiny would not be laughed out of court by its
history. It is the only one which is to-day a missionary religion. And
so, notwithstanding the long centuries of arrested growth and the wide
tracts of remaining darkness, the mystery which fired Paul's enthusiasm
is still able to kindle ours, and the wealth of glory that lies in it
has not been impoverished nor stricken with eclipse.
One last thought is here,--that the possession of Christ is the pledge
of future blessedness. "Hope" here seems to be equivalent to "the
source" or "ground" of the hope. If we have the experience of His
dwelling in our hearts, we shall have, in that very experience of His
sweetness and of the intimacy of His love, a marvellous quickener of our
hope that such sweetness and intimacy will continue for ever. The closer
we keep to Him, the clearer will be our vision of future blessedness. If
He is throned in our hearts, we shall be able to look forward with a
hope, which is not less than certainty, to the perpetual continuance of
His hold of us and of our blessedness in Him. Anything seems more
credible to a man who habitually has Christ abiding in him, than that
such a trifle as death should have power to end such a union. To have
Him is to have life. To have Him will be heaven. To have Him is to have
a hope certain as memory and careless of death or change.
That hope is offered to us all. If by our faith in His great sacrifice
we grasp the great truth of "Christ for us," our fears will be
scattered, sin and guilt taken away, death abolished, condemnation
ended, the future a hope and not a dread. If by communion with Him
through faith, love, and obedience, we have "Christ in us," our purity
will grow, and our experience will be such as plainly to demand eternity
to complete its incompleteness and to bring its folded buds to flower
and fruit. If Christ be in us, His life guarantees ours, and we cannot
die whilst He lives. The world has come, in the persons of its leading
thinkers, to the position of proclaiming that all is dark beyond and
above. "Behold! we know not anything," is the dreary "end of the whole
matter"--infinitely sadder than the old Ecclesiastes, which from "vanity
of vanities" climbed to "fear God and keep His commandments," as the sum
of human thought and life. "I find no God; I know no future." Yes! Paul
long ago told us that if we were "without Christ" we should "have no
hope, and be without God in the world." And cultivated Europe is finding
out that to fling away Christ and to keep a faith in God or in a future
life is impossible.
But if we will take Him for our Saviour by simple trust, He will give us
His own presence in our hearts, and infuse there a hope full of
immortality. If we live in close communion with Him, we shall need no
other assurance of an eternal life beyond than that deep, calm
blessedness springing from the imperfect fellowship of earth which must
needs lead to and be lost in the everlasting and completed union of
heaven.