Footnote 523:
How little can be made out of Philo’s Messianic utterances by one who
is anxious to make the most possible out of them, may be seen from
Gfrörer’s treatment of the subject, Philo I. p. 486 sq. The treatises
which bear on this topic are the _de Præmiis et Pœnis_ (I. p. 408,
ed. Mangey) and the _de Execrationibus_ (I. p. 429). They deserve to
be read, if only for the negative results which they yield.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III.
CHARACTER AND CONTENTS OF THE EPISTLE.
[Sidenote: The understanding of the heresy necessary.]
Without the preceding investigation the teaching of this epistle would
be very imperfectly understood; for its direction was necessarily
determined by the occasion which gave rise to it. Only when we have once
grasped the nature of the doctrine which St Paul is combating, do we
perceive that every sentence is instinct with life and meaning.
[Sidenote: The errors though twofold sprang from one root.]
We have seen that the error of the heretical teachers was twofold. They
had a false conception in theology, and they had a false basis of
morals. It has been pointed out also, that these two were closely
connected together, and had their root in the same fundamental error,
the idea of matter as the abode of evil and thus antagonistic to God.
[Sidenote: So the answer to both is in the same truth.]
As the two elements of the heretical doctrine were derived from the same
source, so the reply to both was sought by the Apostle in the same idea,
the conception of the Person of Christ as the one absolute mediator
between God and man, the true and only reconciler of heaven and earth.
But though they are thus ultimately connected, yet it will be necessary
for the fuller understanding of St Paul’s position to take them apart,
and to consider first the theological and then the ethical teaching of
the epistle.
[Sidenote: 1. The _theological_ teaching of the heretics.]
1. This Colossian heresy was no coarse and vulgar development of
falsehood. It soared far above the Pharisaic Judaism which St Paul
refutes in the Epistle to the Galatians. The questions in which it was
interested lie at the very root of our religious consciousness.
[Sidenote: Its lofty motive,]The impulse was given to its speculations
by an overwhelming sense of the unapproachable majesty of God, by an
instinctive recognition of the chasm which separates God from man, from
the world, from matter. Its energy was sustained by the intense yearning
after some mediation which might bridge over this chasm, might establish
inter-communion between the finite and the Infinite. Up to this point it
was deeply religious in the best sense of the term.
[Sidenote: but complete failure.]
The answer which it gave to these questions we have already seen. In two
respects this answer failed signally. On the one hand it was drawn from
the atmosphere of mystical speculation. It had no foundation in history,
and made no appeal to experience. On the other hand, notwithstanding its
complexity, it was unsatisfactory in its results; for in this plurality
of mediators none was competent to meet the requirements of the case.
God here and man there—no angel or spirit, whether one or more, being
neither God nor man, could truly reconcile the two. Thus as regards
credentials it was without a guarantee; while as regards efficiency it
was wholly inadequate.
[Sidenote: The Apostle’s answer is in the Person of Christ.]
The Apostle pointed out to the Colossians a more excellent way. It was
the one purpose of Christianity to satisfy those very yearnings which
were working in their hearts, to solve that very problem which had
exercised their minds. In Christ they would find the answer which they
sought. His life—His cross and resurrection—was the guarantee;
[Sidenote: The mediator in the world and in the Church.]His Person—the
Word Incarnate—was the solution. He alone filled up, He alone could fill
up, the void which lay between God and man, could span the gulf which
separated the Creator and creation. This solution offered by the Gospel
is as simple as it is adequate. To their cosmical speculations, and to
their religious yearnings alike, Jesus Christ is the true answer. In the
World, as in the Church, He is the one only mediator, the one only
reconciler. This two-fold idea runs like a double thread through the
fabric of the Apostle’s teaching in those passages of the epistle where
he is describing the Person of Christ.
It will be convenient for the better understanding of St Paul’s teaching
to consider these two aspects of Christ’s mediation apart—its function
in the natural and in the spiritual order respectively.
[Sidenote: (i) In the _Universe_.]
(i) The heresy of the Colossian teachers took its rise, as we saw, in
their cosmical speculations. It was therefore natural that the Apostle
in replying should lay stress on the function of the Word in the
creation and government of the world. This is the aspect of His work
most prominent in the first of the two distinctly Christological
passages. The Apostle there predicates of the Word, not only prior, but
absolute existence. All things were created through Him, are sustained
in Him, are tending towards Him. Thus He is the beginning, middle, and
end, of creation. This He is, because He is the very _image_ of the
Invisible God, because in Him dwells the _plenitude_ of Deity.
[Sidenote: Importance of this aspect of the Person of Christ,]
This creative and administrative work of Christ the Word in the natural
order of things is always emphasized in the writings of the Apostles,
when they touch upon the doctrine of His Person. It stands in the
forefront of the prologue to St John’s Gospel: it is hardly less
prominent in the opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews. His mediatorial
function in the Church is represented as flowing from His mediatorial
function in the world. With ourselves this idea has retired very much
into the background. Though in the creed common to all the Churches we
profess our belief in Him, as the Being ‘through whom all things were
created,’ yet in reality this confession seems to exercise very little
influence on our thoughts. And the loss is serious. How much our
theological conceptions suffer in breadth and fulness by the neglect, a
moment’s reflexion will show. How much more hearty would be the sympathy
of theologians with the revelations of science and the developments of
history, if they habitually connected them with the operation of the
same Divine Word who is the centre of all their religious aspirations,
it is needless to say. Through the recognition of this idea with all the
consequences which flow from it, as a living influence, more than in any
other way, may we hope to strike the chords of that ‘vaster music,’
which results only from the harmony of knowledge and faith, of reverence
and research.
[Sidenote: notwithstanding difficulties yet unsolved.]
It will be said indeed, that this conception leaves untouched the
philosophical difficulties which beset the subject; that creation still
remains as much a mystery as before. This may be allowed. But is there
any reason to think that with our present limited capacities the veil
which shrouds it ever will be or can be removed? The metaphysical
speculations of twenty-five centuries have done nothing to raise it. The
physical investigations of our own age from their very nature can do
nothing; for, busied with the evolution of phenomena, they lie wholly
outside this question, and do not even touch the fringe of the
difficulty. But meanwhile revelation has interposed and thrown out the
idea, which, if it leaves many questions unsolved, gives a breadth and
unity to our conceptions, at once satisfying our religious needs and
linking our scientific instincts with our theological beliefs.
[Sidenote: (ii) In the _Church_.]
(ii) But, if Christ’s mediatorial office in the physical creation was
the starting point of the Apostle’s teaching, His mediatorial office in
the spiritual creation is its principal theme. The cosmogonies of the
false teachers were framed not so much in the interests of philosophy as
in the interests of religion; and the Apostle replies to them in the
same spirit and with the same motive. If the function of Christ is
unique in the Universe, so is it also in the Church. [Sidenote: Its
absolute character.]He is the sole and absolute link between God and
humanity. Nothing short of His personality would suffice as a medium of
reconciliation between the two. Nothing short of His life and work in
the flesh, as consummated in His passion, would serve as an assurance of
God’s love and pardon. His cross is the atonement of mankind with God.
He is the Head with whom all the living members of the body are in
direct and immediate communication, who suggests their manifold
activities to each, who directs their several functions in subordination
to the healthy working of the whole, from whom they individually receive
their inspiration and their strength.
[Sidenote: Hence angelic mediations are fundamentally wrong.]
And being all this He cannot consent to share His prerogative with
others. He absorbs in Himself the whole function of mediation. Through
Him alone, without any interposing link of communication, the human soul
has access to the Father. Here was the true answer to those deep
yearnings after spiritual communion with God, which sought, and could
not find, satisfaction in the manifold and fantastic creations of a
dreamy mysticism. The worship of angels might have the semblance of
humility; but it was in fact a contemptuous defiance of the fundamental
idea of the Gospel, a flat denial of the absolute character of Christ’s
Person and office. It was a severance of the proper connexion with the
Head, an amputation of the disordered limb, which was thus disjoined
from the source of life and left to perish for want of spiritual
nourishment.
[Sidenote: Christ’s mediation in the Church justified by His mediation
in the World.]
The language of the New Testament writers is beset with difficulties, so
long as we conceive of our Lord only in connexion with the Gospel
revelation: but, when with the Apostles we realise in Him the same
Divine Lord who is and ever has been the light of the whole world, who
before Christianity wrought first in mankind at large through the
avenues of the conscience, and afterwards more particularly in the Jews
through a special though still imperfect revelation, then all these
difficulties fall away. Then we understand the significance, and we
recognise the truth, of such passages as these: ‘No man cometh unto the
Father, but by me’: ‘There is no salvation in any other’; ‘He that
disbelieveth the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth
upon him[524].’ The exclusive claims advanced in Christ’s name have
their full and perfect justification in the doctrine of the Eternal
Word.
Footnote 524:
Joh. xiv. 6, Acts iv. 12, Joh. iii. 36.
[Sidenote: Relation of the doctrine of the Word]
The old dispensation is primarily the revelation of the absolute
sovereignty of God. It vindicates this truth against two opposing forms
of error, which in their extreme types are represented by Pantheism and
Manicheism respectively. [Sidenote: to the monotheism of the Old
Testament.]The Pantheist identifies God with the world: the Manichee
attributes to the world an absolute existence, independent of God. With
the Pantheist sin ceases to have any existence: for it is only one form
of God’s working. With the Manichee sin is inherent in matter, which is
antagonistic to God. The teaching of the Old Testament, of which the
key-note is struck in the opening chapters of Genesis, is a refutation
of both these errors. God is distinct from the world, and He is the
Creator of the world. Evil is not inherent in God, but neither is it
inherent in the material world. Sin is the disobedience of intelligent
beings whom He has created, and whom He has endowed with a free-will,
which they can use or misuse.
[Sidenote: The New Testament is complementary to the Old.]
The revelation of the New Testament is the proper complement to the
revelation of the Old. It holds this position in two main respects. If
the Old Testament sets forth the absolute unity of God—His distinctness
from and sovereignty over His creatures—the New Testament points out how
He holds communion with the world and with humanity, how man becomes one
with Him. And again, if the Old Testament shows the true character of
sin, the New Testament teaches the appointed means of redemption. On the
one hand the monotheism of the Old Testament is supplemented by the
theanthropism[525] of the New. Thus the _theology_ of revelation is
completed. On the other hand, the hamartiology of the Old Testament has
its counterpart in the soteriology of the New. Thus the _economy_ of
revelation is perfected.
Footnote 525:
I am indebted for the term _theanthropism_, as describing the
substance of the new dispensation, to an article by Prof. Westcott in
the _Contemporary Review_ IV. p. 417 (December, 1867); but it has been
used independently, though in very rare instances, by other writers.
The value of terms such as I have employed here in fixing ideas is
enhanced by their strangeness, and will excuse any appearance of
affectation.
In applying the terms _theanthropism_ and _soteriology_ to the New
Testament, as distinguished from the Old, it is not meant to suggest
that the ideas involved in them were wholly wanting in the Old, but
only to indicate that the conceptions, which were inchoate and
tentative and subsidiary in the one, attain the most prominent
position and are distinctly realised in the other.
[Sidenote: 2. The _ethical_ error of the heretics.]
2. When we turn from the theology of these Colossian heretics to their
ethical teaching, we find it characterised by the same earnestness. Of
them it might indeed be said that they did ‘hunger and thirst after
righteousness.’ [Sidenote: Their practical earnestness,]Escape from
impurity, immunity from evil, was a passion with them. But it was no
less true that notwithstanding all their sincerity they ‘went astray in
the wilderness’; ‘hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.’
By their fatal transference of the abode of sin from the human heart
within to the material world without, they had incapacitated themselves
from finding the true antidote. [Sidenote: but fundamental misconception
and consequent failure.] Where they placed the evil, there they
necessarily sought the remedy. Hence they attempted to fence themselves
about, and to purify their lives by a code of rigorous prohibitions.
Their energy was expended on battling with the physical conditions of
human life. Their whole mind was absorbed in the struggle with imaginary
forms of evil. Necessarily their character was moulded by the thoughts
which habitually engaged them. Where the ‘elements of the world,’ the
‘things which perish in the using[526],’ engrossed all their attention,
it could not fail but that they should be dragged down from the serene
heights of the spiritual life into the cloudy atmosphere which shrouds
this lower earth.
Footnote 526:
ii. 20, 22.
[Sidenote: St Paul substitutes a principle for ordinances.]
St Paul sets himself to combat this false tendency. For negative
prohibitions he substitutes a positive principle; for special
enactments, a comprehensive motive. He tells them that all their
scrupulous restrictions are vain, because they fail to touch the springs
of action. If they would overcome the evil, they must strike at the root
of the evil. Their point of view must be entirely changed. They must
transfer themselves into a wholly new sphere of energy. This
transference is nothing less than a migration from earth to heaven—from
the region of the external and transitory to the region of the spiritual
and eternal[527]. For a code of rules they must substitute a principle
of life, which is one in its essence but infinite in its application,
which will meet every emergency, will control every action, will resist
every form of evil.
Footnote 527:
iii. 1 sq.
[Sidenote: This principle is the heavenly life in Christ.]
This principle they have in Christ. With Him they have died to the
world; with Him they have risen to God. Christ, the revelation of God’s
holiness, of God’s righteousness, of God’s love, is light, is life, is
heaven. With Him they have been translated into a higher sphere, have
been brought face to face with the Eternal Presence. Let them only
realise this translation. It involves new insight, new motives, new
energies. They will no more waste themselves upon vexatious special
restrictions: for they will be furnished with a higher inspiration which
will cover all the minute details of action. They will not exhaust their
energies in crushing this or that rising desire but they will kill the
whole body[528] of their earthly passions through the strong arm of this
personal communion with God in Christ.
Footnote 528:
ii. 11 ἐν τῇ ἀπεκδύσει τοῦ σώματος τῆς σαρκός, iii. 5 νεκρώσατε οὖν τὰ
μέλη with ver. 8 νυνὶ δὲ ἀπόθεσθε καὶ ὑμεῖς τὰ πάντα, and ver. 9
ἀπεκδυσάμενοι τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον. See the notes on the several
passages.
[Sidenote: St Paul’s doctrine of faith and works considered in the light
of this principle.]
When we once grasp this idea, which lies at the root of St Paul’s
ethical teaching, the moral difficulty which is supposed to attach to
his doctrine of faith and works has vanished. It is simply an
impossibility that faith should exist without works. Though in form he
states his doctrine as a relation of contrast between the two, in
substance it resolves itself into a question of precedence. Faith and
works are related as principle and practice. Faith—the repose in the
unseen, the recognition of eternal principles of truth and right, the
sense of personal obligations to an Eternal Being who vindicates these
principles—must come first. Faith is not an intellectual assent, nor a
sympathetic sentiment merely. It is the absolute surrender of self to
the will of a Being who has a right to command this surrender. It is
this which places men in personal relation to God, which (in St Paul’s
language) justifies them before God. For it touches the springs of their
actions; it fastens not on this or that detail of conduct, but extends
throughout the whole sphere of moral activity; and thus it determines
their character as responsible beings in the sight of God.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Christology of this epistle]
From the above account it will have appeared that the distinctive
feature of this epistle is its Christology. The doctrine of the Person
of Christ is here stated with greater precision and fulness than in any
other of St Paul’s epistles. It is therefore pertinent to ask (even
though the answer must necessarily be brief) what relation this
statement bears to certain other enunciations of the same doctrine;
[Sidenote: considered in relation to]to those for instance which occur
elsewhere in St Paul’s own letters, to those which are found in other
Apostolic writings, and to those which appear in the fathers of the
succeeding generations.
[Sidenote: 1. The Christology of St Paul’s earlier epistles]
1. The Christology of the Colossian Epistle is in no way different from
that of the Apostle’s earlier letters. It may indeed be called a
development of his former teaching, but only as exhibiting the doctrine
in fresh relations, as drawing new deductions from it, as defining what
had hitherto been left undefined, not as superadding any foreign element
to it. The doctrine is practically involved in the opening and closing
words of his earliest extant epistle: ‘The Church which is in God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’; ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you[529].’ The main conception of the Person of Christ, as
enforced in the Colossian Epistle, alone justifies and explains this
language, which otherwise would be emptied of all significance. And
again; it had been enunciated by the Apostle explicitly, though briefly,
in the earliest directly doctrinal passage which bears on the subject;
‘One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through
Him[530].’ [Sidenote: the same in substance but]The absolute universal
mediation of the Son is declared as unreservedly in this passage from
the First Epistle to the Corinthians, as in any later statement of the
Apostle: and, [Sidenote: less fully developed]if all the doctrinal and
practical inferences which it implicitly involves were not directly
emphasized at this early date, it was because the circumstances did not
yet require explicitness on these points. New forms of error bring into
prominence new aspects of the truth. The heresies of Laodicea and
Colossæ have been invaluable to the later Church in this respect. The
Apostle himself, it is not too much to say, realised with ever
increasing force the manifoldness, the adaptability, the completeness of
the Christian idea, notwithstanding its simplicity, as he opposed it to
each successive development of error. The Person of Christ proved the
complete answer to false speculations at Colossæ, as it had been found
the sovereign antidote to false practices at Corinth. All these
unforeseen harmonies must have appeared to him, as they will appear to
us, fresh evidences of its truth.
Footnote 529: