The main reference of this verse seems to be to the worship of the
Church--the highest expression of its oneness. There are three points
enforced in its three clauses, of which the first is the dwelling in the
hearts of the Colossian Christians of the "word of Christ," by which is
meant, as I conceive, not simply "the presence of Christ in the heart,
as an inward monitor,"[3] but the indwelling of the definite body of
truths contained in the gospel which had been preached to them. That
gospel is the word of Christ, inasmuch as He is its subject. These early
Christians received that body of truth by oral teaching. To us it comes
in the history of Christ's life and death, and in the exposition of the
significance and far-reaching depth and power of these, which are
contained in the rest of the New Testament--a very definite body of
teaching. How can it abide in the heart? or what is the dwelling of
that word within us but the occupation of mind and heart and will with
the truth concerning Jesus revealed to us in Scripture? This indwelling
is in our own power, for it is matter of precept and not of promise--and
if we want to have it we must do with religious truth just what we do
with other truths that we want to keep in our minds--ponder them, use
our faculties on them, be perpetually recurring to them, fix them in our
memories, like nails fastened in a sure place, and, that we may remember
them, "get them by heart," as the children say. Few things are more
wanting to-day than this. The popular Christianity of the day is strong
in philanthropic service, and some phases of it are full of
"evangelistic" activity, but it is wofully lacking in intelligent grasp
of the great principles involved and revealed in the gospel. Some
Christians have yielded to the popular prejudice against "dogma," and
have come to dislike and neglect the doctrinal side of religion, and
others are so busy in good works of various kinds that they have no time
nor inclination to reflect nor to learn, and for others "the cares of
this world and the lusts of other things, entering in, choke the word."
A merely intellectual Christianity is a very poor thing, no doubt; but
that has been dinned into our ears so long and loudly for a generation
now, that there is much need for a clear preaching of the other
side--namely, that a merely emotional Christianity is a still poorer,
and that if feeling on the one hand and conduct on the other are to be
worthy of men with heads on their shoulders and brains in their heads,
both feeling and conduct must be built on a foundation of truth believed
and pondered. In the ordered monarchy of human nature, reason is meant
to govern, but she is also meant to submit, and for her the law holds
good, she must learn to obey that she may be able to rule. She must bow
to the word of Christ, and then she will sway aright the kingdom of the
soul. It becomes us to make conscience of seeking to get a firm and
intelligent grasp of Christian truth as a whole, and not to be always
living on milk meant for babes, nor to expect that teachers and
preachers should only repeat for ever the things which we know already.
That word is to dwell in Christian men _richly_. It is their own fault
if they possess it, as so many do, in scant measure. It might be a full
tide. Why in so many is it a mere trickle, like an Australian river in
the heat, a line of shallow ponds with no life or motion, scarcely
connected by a thread of moisture, and surrounded by great stretches of
blinding shingle, when it might be a broad water--"waters to swim in"?
Why, but because they do not do with this word, what all students do
with the studies which they love?
The word should manifest the rich abundance of its dwelling in men by
opening out in their minds into "every kind of wisdom." Where the gospel
in its power dwells in a man's spirit, and is intelligently meditated on
and studied, it will effloresce into principles of thought and action
applicable to all subjects, and touching the whole round horizon of
human life. All, and more than all, the wisdom which these false
teachers promised in their mysteries, is given to the babes and the
simple ones who treasure the word of Christ in their hearts, and the
least among them may say, "I have more understanding than all my
teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation." That gospel which the
child may receive, has "infinite riches in a narrow room," and, like
some tiny black seed, for all its humble form, has hidden in it the
promise and potency of wondrous beauty of flower, and nourishment of
fruit. Cultured and cared for in the heart where it is sown, it will
unfold into all truth which a man can receive or God can give,
concerning God and man, our nature, duties, hopes and destinies, the
tasks of the moment, and the glories of eternity. He who has it and lets
it dwell richly in his heart is wise; he who has it not, "at his latter
end shall be a fool."
The second clause of this verse deals with the manifestations of the
indwelling word in the worship of the Church. The individual possession
of the word in one's own heart does not make us independent of brotherly
help. Rather, it is the very foundation of the duty of sharing our
riches with our fellows, and of increasing ours by contributions from
their stores. And so--"teaching and admonishing one another" is the
outcome of it. The universal possession of Christ's word involves the
equally universal right and duty of mutual instruction.
We have already heard the Apostle declaring it to be his work to
"admonish every man and to teach every man," and found that the former
office pointed to practical ethical instruction, not without rebuke and
warning, while the latter referred rather to doctrinal teaching. What he
there claimed for himself, he here enjoins on the whole Christian
community. We have here a glimpse of the perfectly simple, informal
public services of the early Church, which seem to have partaken much
more of the nature of a free conference than of any of the forms of
worship at present in use in any Church. The evidence both of this
passage and of the other Pauline Epistles, especially of the first
Epistle to the Corinthians (xiv.) unmistakably shows this. The forms of
worship in the apostolic Church are not meant for models, and we do not
prove a usage as intended to be permanent because we prove it to be
primitive; but the principles which underlie the usages are valid always
and everywhere, and one of these principles is the universal though not
equal inspiration of Christian men, which results in their universal
calling to teach and admonish. In what forms that principle shall be
expressed, how safeguarded and controlled, is of secondary importance.
Different stages of culture and a hundred other circumstances will
modify these, and nobody but a pedant or religious martinet will care
about uniformity. But I cannot but believe that the present practice of
confining the public teaching of the Church to an official class has
done harm. Why should one man be for ever speaking, and hundreds of
people who are able to teach, sitting dumb to listen or pretend to
listen to him? Surely there is a wasteful expenditure there. I hate
forcible revolution, and do not believe that any institutions, either
political or ecclesiastical, which need violence to sweep them away, are
ready to be removed; but I believe that if the level of spiritual life
were raised among us, new forms would naturally be evolved, in which
there should be a more adequate recognition of the great principle on
which the democracy of Christianity is founded, namely, "I will pour
out My Spirit on all flesh--and on My servants and on My handmaidens I
will pour out in these days of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy."
There are not wanting signs that many different classes of Christian
worshippers have ceased to find edification in the present manner of
teaching. The more cultured write books on "the decay of preaching;" the
more earnest take to mission halls and a "freer service," and "lay
preaching;" the more indifferent stay at home. When the tide rises, all
the idle craft stranded on the mud are set in motion; such a time is
surely coming for the Church, when the aspiration that has waited
millenniums for its fulfilment, and received but a partial
accomplishment at Pentecost, shall at last be a fact: "would God that
all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His
Spirit upon them!"
The teaching and admonishing is here regarded as being effected by means
of song. That strikes one as singular, and tempts to another punctuation
of the verse, by which "In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one
another" should make a separate clause, and "in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs" should be attached to the following words. But probably
the ordinary arrangement of clauses is best on the whole. The
distinction between "psalms" and "hymns" appears to be that the former
is a song with a musical accompaniment, and that the latter is vocal
praise to God. No doubt the "psalms" meant were chiefly those of the
Psalter, the Old Testament element in the early Christian worship, while
the "hymns" were the new product of the spirit of devotion which had
naturally broken into song, the first beginnings of the great treasure
of Christian hymnody. "Spiritual songs" is a more general expression,
including all varieties of Christian poesy, provided that they come from
the Spirit moving in the heart. We know from many sources that song had
a large part in the worship of the early Church. Indeed, whenever a
great quickening of religious life comes, a great burst of Christian
song comes with it. The onward march of the Church has ever been
attended by music of praise; "as well the singers as the players on
instruments" have been there. The mediaeval Latin hymns cluster round the
early pure days of the monastic orders; Luther's rough stormy hymns were
as powerful as his treatises; the mystic tenderness and rapture of
Charles Wesley's have become the possession of the whole Church. We hear
from outside observers, that one of the practices of the early
Christians which most attracted heathen notice was, that they assembled
daily before it was light and "sang hymns of praise to one Christus as
to a god."
These early hymns were of a dogmatic character. No doubt, just as in
many a missionary Church a hymn is found to be the best vehicle for
conveying the truth, so it was in these early Churches, which were made
up largely of slaves and women--both uneducated. "Singing the gospel" is
a very old invention, though the name be new. The picture which we get
here of the meetings of the early Christians is very remarkable.
Evidently their gatherings were free and social, with the minimum of
form, and that most elastic. If a man had any word of exhortation for
the people, he might say on. "Every one of you hath a psalm, a
doctrine." If a man had some fragment of an old psalm, or some strain
that had come fresh from the Christian heart, he might sing it, and his
brethren would listen. We do not have that sort of psalmody now. But
what a long way we have travelled from it to a modern congregation,
standing with books that they scarcely look at, and "worshipping" in a
hymn which half of them do not open their mouths to sing at all, and the
other half do in a voice inaudible three pews off.
The best praise, however, is a heart song. So the Apostle adds "singing
in your hearts unto God." And it is to be in "grace," that is to say,
_in_ it as the atmosphere and element in which the song moves, which is
nearly equivalent to "by means of the Divine grace" which works in the
heart, and impels to that perpetual music of silent praise. If we have
the peace of Christ in our hearts, and the word of Christ dwelling in us
richly in all wisdom, then an unspoken and perpetual music will dwell
there too, "a noise like of a hidden brook" singing for ever its "quiet
tune."