Imagine going into a BANK, innocently filling out a withdrawal slip, and within MINUTES being arrested by the police. When RON SCHATZ filled out a withdrawal slip in an American bank, he had no idea that HANDCUFFS would soon be place upon him. It took a while to straighten out the story. The teller had had pressed the silent ALARM button after turning the withdrawal slip over and seeing the words, ‘This is a hold up’.
As it turned out, some WISE GUY had written ‘this is a hold up’ on the back of EVERY withdrawal slip sitting on the counter. It’s was someone’s idea of a practical joke. A few words written on a piece of paper caused a terribly embarrassing CHAIN REACTION.
In his letter to the Colossian Church, the Apostle Paul points us to the most important CHAIN REACTION of all. It began with the Son in the image of the invisible God, the Son’s SACRIFICE on the cross and the possibility of RECONCILIATION with God. And the gospel bearing fruit throughout the world. A chain reaction which echoes through the CORRIDORS of eternity. This is the point Paul is making in chapter 1. In verses 15 to 19, in a rather compact hymn, the apostle unpacks the supremacy of Christ in creation and in the NEW CREATION which is the church. And this supreme Christ—the one BEFORE all things and the one who HOLDS all things together—he set off a chain of events which began with his INCARNATION and through his death ‘all things’ will eventually be reconciled to him.
Today we remind ourselves of SIMPLE gospel truths. Christ REIGNS supreme—he is sufficient for our salvation—we must CONTINUE to trust in him. Paul has already commended the Colossians for their simple but profound FAITH in Christ (Col 1:3–8), he has prayed for MORE of the same (Col 1:9–14), and he has EXPOUNDED the supremacy of Christ (Col 1:15–18). If we hold fast to these basic gospel truths, then FALSE TEACHING will find no footing in our lives, and soon the HOPE of heaven will be our eternal reality.
So let’s begin with verses 19 and 20, ‘For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross’.
Christ is SUFFICIENT for our salvation because God in all his FULLNESS has chosen to dwell in him. Since all the fullness of God DWELT in Jesus, God was able to RECONCILE himself with the world and the world to himself. On the cross, it was the Son ABSORBING the wrath of the Father. The Son being an ADEQUATE and a just sacrifice for the SINS of the world.
‘For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him’. An ACTION by a loving Father to redeem a fallen CREATION. Though the language of ‘fullness’ is NOT an Old Testament word laden with theological overtones. It’s more LIKELY the language of the false teachers. These SCOUNDRELS were inviting Christians to experience true ‘fullness’ by following their philosophy and rules. And PAUL responds: ‘the “fullness” that you are SEEKING is found in Christ. He is SUFFICIENT to meet your needs because he is God in the FLESH whose death presents you ‘holy in God’s sight’.
For Paul there was NOTHING in the Godhead that was not in Christ. The FULL complement of divine attributes are FOUND in him. But for the new teachers, union with Christ DIDN’T bring anyone into the fullness of divine life. They were saying that God still had MORE of himself to give and so it was a matter of reaching BEYOND Christ to find spiritual fullness.
‘The Mind, Body, Spirit’ Festival was on at DARLING HARBOUR in May, 2009. In the Psychic Reading Room, you could ‘See what life has in store for you. Gain insight into your love life, career, finances and life in general. Come along and have a reading from Australia’s best Psychics, handpicked for their skill, integrity and honesty. Each day is booked out, so arrive early and book your reading as soon as you enter the Festival’.
Christians KNOW what life is about. Everything we need for GODLINESS has been revealed to us and is AVAILABLE in Christ. So don’t even contemplate SUPPLEMENTING your Christian life with tarot cards, palmistry, clairvoyance, mediumship, angel readings, astrology, numerology, past lives and psychometry. DON’T fill yourself with knowledge from UNSEEN powers, for Christ created them and he rules over them.
The message of Colossians is that EVERYTHING we need for salvation is found in Christ. While VERSE 19 tells us that all of God’s fullness is found in Christ, VERSE 20 asserts that God’s reconciling work in Christ embraces the whole universe. Notice the SIGNIFICANCE of the little word ‘all’ in both these verses. All God’s fullness is in Christ, all things will be reconciled to God through Christ. ‘All things’ includes ‘things in earth and things in heaven’—that’s everything—‘all things’ in the created universe will be reconciled to Christ.
The CONCLUSION is inescapable: Christ is SUPREME—he is Lord. Christ is SUFFICIENT—in him all creation is being reconciled to God.
We therefore need NOT go anywhere outside Christ. OBJECTIVELY, Christ is the only source of our salvation. His actions in the real world effect a real salvation. SUBJECTIVELY, Christ embraces our fears and our failures, our CONCERNS and our weaknesses, our tears and our cares; we are reconciled to him. There’s lots of SERIOUS sickness in our church family, and with this comes the prospect of death. We need to REMEMBER that Christ is sufficient. Ron Wilson was an elderly man at church in our WINDSOR days. A great old saint who walked with Christ for many years. He told me one day that he WASN’T AFRAID of death, although he sensed it would be upon him soon. He said the process of dying SCARED him a little during those last few days or weeks when death is immanent.
Ron DIED not long after we arrived in Springwood. He was a FAITHFUL MAN who knew that his eternity was bound up with the Lord Jesus. He knew he was reconciled to God. He had every CONFIDENCE that he would face judgment day free from accusation, holy and blameless in his sight. His example lifted these words in Colossians OFF THE PAGE and into the centre of my life.
Verses 19 to 23 are the GOSPEL of reconciliation. It’s NOT Paul’s gospel, its God’s gospel given to Paul. It’s a gospel which is far BIGGER than you and I—it’s a gospel which EMBRACES the future of the ENTIRE universe—it’s therefore a gospel which embraces US. It’s not a gospel of universal salvation as VERSE 20 is sometimes taken to mean. Some take verse 20 as meaning that in the end no-one will perish.
Certainly, the SCOPE of God’s reconciliation is universal. It does embrace ‘all things’. The universe is in CONFLICT with its Creator and needs to be RECONCILED to God: the conflict will be replaced by peace. And this peace has been made through Christ, by the shedding of his blood on the cross (F.F. Bruce, Colossians, 74).
But this is NOT the same as saying that everyone will be saved. Those who are saved FREELY accept God’s offer of life made possible through death and resurrection of Jesus. Others refuse this offer, and so they will be UNWILLINGLY pacified and subject to the consequences of their REFUSAL of Christ. In this way all creation will be SUBDUED and brought under the lordship of Christ. The means of reconciliation is therefore DEPENDENT upon a one’s personal response to divine grace. For some people punishment, for others reward—but in the end EVERYTHING and everyone will be reconciled to Christ. PAUL says this much in Eph 1:10, it is God’s will ‘to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ’.
The apostle then shifts from this universal picture of cosmic RECONCILIATION to the Colossian situation. He begins in verse 21 with the way they once WERE, ‘Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour’. For you see, we CANNOT understand the greatness of the power of God’s salvation until we firmly BELIEVE that at one time we were by nature spiritually dead.
It seems a HARSH diagnosis—our natural self wants to DENY this, our old self wanted to DEFEND our integrity before God. But Paul retorts that once we had NO integrity before God. It’s not the first time Paul has spoken this way. He reminded the EPHESIANS that once your were ‘dead in your transgressions’, we once lived to satisfy the ‘cravings of our sinful nature’, by nature we were ‘objects of wrath’ (Eph 2:1–3).
I have Christians say to me from time-to-time that we SHOULD forget about our past because now we are SPIRIT-FILLED people and we live for the present and the future, the PAST is gone. But not according to the Apostle Paul! Certainly we REJOICE because there is no more condemnation for sin, we are forgiven and free—but we need to be REMINDED of the past—we need to be reminded of the way we ONCE were: we were ‘alienated’ from God. We displayed a HOSTILITY toward God and we were excluded from his favour.
The basic mindset of the non-Christian is one of HOSTILITY toward God because of an involvement and PARTICIPATION in Adam’s sin. As Paul puts it in Rom 1:21, ‘their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened’. And God reacts to human sin with ANGER –so the hostility FLOWS both ways (Rom 5:10). Martyn Lloyd-Jones is a helpful conversation partner:
the apostle’s teaching is that life for the non-Christian is a living death. He is spiritually dead […] There is no stronger term that ‘death’. How categorical he is! You cannot say anything beyond saying that a man is dead. It is not ‘almost dead’, he is actually dead; it is not desperately ‘ill’, he is ‘dead’. There is no life there. Now this is the apostle’s word, not mine, the word that is used everywhere in Scripture; and it is the word that is used about man in a state of sin before the power of God unto salvation in the gospel comes and does something to him. He is dead!
The person alienated by God is CONTROLLED by the mind of this world, he is CONTROLLED by the principle of evil operating in this world which in turn is CONTROLLED by ‘Satan’, the god of this world. For the natural person, it is this PROCESS that determines the kind of life which is lived.
This is the state, the CONDITION, of the non-Christian. From the desperate position of verse 21 the COLOSSIANS have been rescued. WE have been rescued from this position if we have put our faith Christ Jesus. ‘But now he (God) has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight’. Through the death of Christ, through a CONTINUING trust in him, we are reconciled us to God.
What does ‘reconciliation’ mean? We also saw the word in verse 20, but we DIDN’T pause and give due consideration. So lets look a little CLOSER because it’s the verb which describes God’s response to life in the pit of alienation. ‘Reconciliation’ refers to the RESTORATION of fellowship between God and sinners. Jim PACKER says that reconciliation means to ‘bring together again persons who had previously fallen out; to replace alienation, hostility and opposition by a new relationship of favour, goodwill and peace’ (J.I. Packer, God’s Words).
Reconciliation means PEACE-MAKING. We are reconciled to God when we are at PEACE with God. When Paul uses the word ‘peace’ he is thinking of the Old Testament prophetic HOPE that God’s people will live in an era of SHALOM. This will be a time when they will be delivered from their enemies and enjoy both physical and spiritual well-being. SHALOM has to do with blessing, richness, abundance and a far reaching HARMONY that characterises all our relationships. Peace is knowing the fullness of the PRESENCE of God himself.
In an amazing act of grace God made RECONCILIATION possible through his Son, ‘by the blood of his cross’ (Col 1:20). Through his blood shed, the ENMITY between us and God was destroyed, the divine anger was TURNED away for ever. This happened through a JUDICIAL exchange, as Paul explains in 2 Cor 5:21, ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’. The reason why we do NOT need to bear our own sins is that Christ BORE them in our place. His death, my life. Christ as a SUBSTITUTE for me, he bore my sin by ABSORBING God’s anger stored for me.
But, as we have already seen, there is NO universal salvation. Reconciliation was made by Christ’s death, but it is not POSSESSED until it is received. Indeed, Paul links the great gospel of reconciliation with the Colossian situation in verse 23. Remember that Paul is ENCOURAGING the saints to resist the false teachers and to CONTINUE to grow in their knowledge of Christ. So Paul confronts the Colossians with the reality that their final salvation depends upon remaining faithful to Christ who is the true gospel TAUGHT to them.
Only by continuing in our faith in Christ can we EXPECT to meet with God’s favour on judgment day. Verse 23 is a warning, ‘If you continue in your faith’. Douglas MOO puts it this way, ‘God does, indeed, by his grace and through his Spirit, work to preserve his people so that they will be vindicated in the judgment; but at the same time, God’s people are RESPONSIBLE to persevere in their faith if they expect to see that vindication’ (Moo, Colossians, 144).
During a frightful STORM in the Georgian Bay of Canada, a ship was WRECKED and many perished. But the MATE, with six strong men and one timid GIRL, escaped in a life-boat. The WAVES were high and the craft turned over and over until one by one the strong men LOST their hold and they DROWNED. But BEFORE the mate perished, he had lashed the girl onto the boat and so she DRIFTED to the shore where she was found, safe and unharmed. Even though the robust men went down with SHRIEKS of despair, the timid girl was saved. She didn’t escape by her skill or wisdom. She escaped because she was FASTENED firmly to that which would NOT sink.
We shall escape God’s PUNISHMENT when, by faith, we continue to remain firmly STRAPPED to the Lord Jesus. Maybe the girl could have pulled out a knife and CUT herself free of the boat—she could have TRIED to go it alone. But she persevered, she CONTINUED to put her confidence in the boat. The storm was raging around her and she CONTINUED in her faith and it saw her home.
We must CONTINUE in our faith if we expect to see our heavenly HOME—if we expect to be presented holy in God’s sight. Verse 23 says that our Christian faith must REMAIN ‘established and firm’. This is a BUILDING metaphor, it conjures the picture of a life laid upon a firm FOUNDATION which is the gospel of truth. To move from the GOSPEL is to move from the foundations on which Christ has built his church, and if we move we LOSE our Christian ‘stability’.
Verse 23 also says that ‘continuing in your faith’ means NOT doing certain things. It means NOT moving from our HOPE held out in the gospel. Paul has in VIEW the false teachers who are trying to move the Colossians to a NEW HOPE constructed on a new foundation. The chief BLESSING of the gospel is the hope it gives us for the future. At the present time we have a TASTE of the world to come—we’ve tasted the ENTRÉE (which is of course Oysters Kilpatrick)—but the MAIN MEAL is yet to come. Perhaps the false teachers were ARGUING that our future hope can be experienced in this life, that we DON’T need to wait because we can have it all now. But for Paul this is a REFUSAL to walk by faith. As Dick Lucas says, ‘it is to bring Christ down to earth. It is to give oneself to “another” gospel’.
But Christ is in heaven. And so we need to continue in our faith, ‘not moved from the hope held out in the gospel’.
Each day we are confronted by NEW challenges and we cannot escape their CLAIM on our lives. Many of these intrusions ERODE us physically and mentally, we must take care that they do not ERODE us spiritually. The apostle says elsewhere, ‘Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day’ (2 Cor 4:16).
When the Christian life seems to ADD to our burdens rather than RELIEVE them, especially then, we must CLING to the gospel of the Lord Jesus whose BLOOD will carry us home. We have the PERFECT Saviour, for he is God himself, and by his ONCE and for all sacrifice his has made our peace with the Father. So CONTINUE in him—trust in him—SHARE your lives with him. And don’t FORGET the way you once were: ALIENATED from God, but now you are ALIVE in Christ. So hold firm! Don’t be persuaded by ANOTHER gospel which is really no gospel at all. You are RECONCILED to God, living by FAITH in Christ, having an unshakeable HOPE for your heavenly home.
So press on! Live a life WORTHY of the Lord. Love another. BEAR each others burdens. Give thanks to the Father for he has RESCUED you from the dominion of darkness and brought you into the KINGDOM of his Son.
