This evening, we come to the close of these meditations on the new creation in Christ Jesus. We shall take the letter to the Colossians and, if we have time, say a very brief word about the Thessalonians.
Before we come to the letter to the Colossians, let me remind you that this is one of the letters that the apostle wrote in his prison in Rome. I think that is a very wonderful thing.
Paul did not know that all his work was coming to an end. He was no longer free to travel about visiting the churches, and he did not know but that any day the sentence of death would be passed upon him.
He might have been a very sad man. He might have been occupied with his own troubles, thinking about himself. Yet we find him writing these wonderful letters. In these letters, he was moving over the greatest distances of spiritual life. The very greatest things that have ever been given to the church came from him at that time.
The reason why I mention that is this: the best way of getting free from our own troubles is to be occupied with the great things of Christ.
Paul went right back to the beginning—before the foundation of the world—and then moved down through all time and into the ages to come. As he thought about the great things of God, he was delivered from all his own personal troubles.
This man was really, in spirit, not in prison at all. His body was in prison, but his spirit was free because he was occupied with the greatness of the Lord Jesus.
I think that is a great lesson for us. Whenever we are tempted to be occupied with our own troubles, the way of salvation is to think about the greatness of Christ.
So we come to this letter to the Colossians, and we find it full of the purposes of a new creation. It takes us back to the first creation and shows us the thoughts of God before the world was—the thoughts that God had concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus.
We have this word creation in the first chapter and the fifteenth verse. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, the apostle says:
Who is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.—Colossians 1:15
Now, Paul says about Christ as the firstborn of all creation:
For in Him were all things created.
—Colossians 1:16
You need to look very closely at the words. It is a very little word, but a very big word. The first statement is that in Him were all things created.
What does that mean? It means that God created nothing outside of the Lord Jesus. Jesus was the sphere of all God’s creation. God summed up all things in Christ.
Very little things, perhaps, have very big meanings. I hope you have got hold of that very difficult word: in Him were all things created.
Can you say, “all things”? You cannot leave anything out. In this chapter, that phrase, “all things,” occurs six times. God created nothing that was to be outside of His Son, Jesus Christ. In God’s intention, Christ was to be all and in all.
Then the same verse says that through Him all things were created. He was not only the sphere of all creation; He was the instrument of all creation. The Father used the Son for the creation of all things.
Nothing was made without Him. All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made. God’s Son was the Creator of all things.
Then there is another statement: in Him were all things created, through Him, and unto Him. He was the object of all created things. All the things that God created were to be given to His Son. God created all things by Jesus Christ for His Son’s inheritance.
Then another statement is made:
In Him all things consist.
—Colossians 1:17
That is a very difficult thing to understand. But if we put it round the other way, it means this: if you take the Son of God out of the creation, the creation will go to pieces.
There is no reason at all why the creation should hold together when Jesus is put out of it. We have two illustrations of that in the New Testament.
When they crucified God’s Son, when He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,” when He bowed His head and died, we are told that there was darkness over the face of the earth until the ninth hour. That was the time when it ought to have been most light, but there was complete darkness over the face of the earth.
It is as though the sun said, “When you destroy God’s Son, there is no further purpose for me to shine.” All things were created for Him, and all things hold together in Him. Destroy Him, and you destroy the very unity of the creation.
Then we are told that at that time there was a great earthquake. It is as though the very earth said, “Put out the Son of God, and there is no reason for the earth to continue.”
You see, heaven and earth were in a state of distress. It was as though heaven and earth were saying, “The very purpose of our existence has been destroyed.” Because in Him all things hold together. Put Him out, and nothing holds together.
How true that is in the new creation. Why are things as they are today in the world? No one will ever say that this world is in a state of unity. The world is in a state of discord and disintegration.
What is true of the whole world is true on every hand. We know that as unconverted men and women, we are not a unity in ourselves. We are confusion. We are contradiction. We are division. We are not one; we are two, more than two people in one. There is civil war in our nature. There is no harmony or unity.
But when we are born again, a great change takes place. He comes into our hearts, and we become one person—with one heart, one mind, and one will. We are now united in the Son of God.
The whole state of disruption and discord in the world and in man is because God’s Son has not got His place. The real purpose of creation has not been given its place.
What I was saying the other evening is so true. As people who are not in Christ, we belong to all kinds of nations. There are national differences, and we speak of one another as belonging to this nation or that nation.
But when we are in Christ, we forget all about that. We do not talk about one another as belonging to a certain nation. All these national and international problems are solved in Christ.
It is just very wonderful. I have known, in some of our conferences in London, eighteen different nationalities to be represented. We thought nothing about it. We were all together as though we all belonged to one family.
All the problems of the United Nations were solved. That is how it is in the new creation: in Him all things hold together.
These nationalities, which can never hold together outside of Christ, do hold together in Him. All the other things which, in the old creation, are broken and divided are brought together in Christ.
It is always good to be able to prove the Scripture to be true. In a very little way, this gathering tonight proves the Scripture to be true.
Usually on this earth, we belong to different nationalities. We speak different languages, and there are many other differences about us. But tonight we are all speaking one language. We are speaking a language which we all understand. It is the language of heaven.
When we speak about the Lord Jesus, we all understand that. We are not thinking about ourselves as separate. The differences do not count. We are all one in Christ.
So we are a testimony to this truth: in Him all things hold together. Take Christ away from us and see how long we shall hold together—not very long. But this is a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Let us go along with this first chapter:
Through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself.
—Colossians 1:20
Now let us go back over all these steps.
There is a great space between those statements. It is in that space that all things became disunited. The whole story of the entrance of sin and the disruption of creation is there: all things went to pieces. Then, in redemption, He comes in to reconcile all things unto Himself.
What does all this amount to? What is the purpose of this letter? It is to set forth the absolute supremacy of the Lord Jesus. That explains the new creation.
The new creation is that in which the Lord Jesus has His place: His place as the One who inherits all things; His place as the One who is the object of all things; His place as the One who unites all things; and His place as the One who reconciles all things.
To use one phrase from this letter:
That in all things He might have the preeminence.
—Colossians 1:18
The new creation is that in which Jesus Christ has His place—in all things He might have the preeminence.
Now there is a second part of this letter, and that tells us that the church is the vessel of all this. We are told:
He is the head of the body, the church.
—Colossians 1:18
As Head of the body, the church, and as having all things in Himself, He holds all things in fullness for the church.
It says that in Him all the fullness dwells, and He is the Head of the body, the church. He holds all things in Himself as Head, and the body receives what is in the Head.
Our body is for receiving what is in the head. Everything that our body does, it gets from the head. The body has no meaning without the head, and the head has no meaning without the body. Take the head off from the body, and neither of them is of any use.
But He is the Head of the body, which is His church. All the fullness that is in Him is for the body.
In the companion letter, the letter to the Ephesians, it says that God gave Him to be Head over all things to the church.
It does not say that He was made Head over all things in the church. Of course, that is quite true. But it does say that He was made Head over all things to the church. Do you recognize what that means?
All things which were created and are in Him are for the church in the first place. The apostle says to the Corinthians:
All things are yours.
—1 Corinthians 3:21
Life, death, principalities, powers—all things are yours. He holds all things in fullness for the church. Of His fullness have all we received.
The church inherits all things in Christ. The letter to the Hebrews puts it in this way: we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s Heir to all things, and we, the church, are joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.
This is a wonderful new-creation truth.
Now look at the eighteenth verse:
He is the head of the body, the church:
who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.—Colossians 1:18
Jesus is the firstborn from the dead. The church is also the church of the firstborn. That is a quotation from the letter to the Hebrews:
Ye are come unto the church of the firstborn.
—Hebrews 12:23
That means two things. First, it means that the beginning of Christ is with the church. All that Christ is, at the beginning, is for the church.
These are the first two things in the mind of God: His Son and His Son’s church. The firstborn is always the heir. He inherits all things.
You know what an important place the firstborn has in the Bible. If the church is the church of the firstborn, then the church is the heir with Christ of all things. The point is that the church comes first, next to the Lord Jesus.
Then there is one other statement:
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
and in Him ye are made full.—Colossians 2:9-10
In the letter to the Ephesians, this is put in this way:
And gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.—Ephesians 1:22-23
If the church is the church of the firstborn, if the church is the beginning with Christ, then the church is chosen to be the vessel of His fullness.
The first part of this letter presents the greatness of Christ. There is no place in Scripture where the greatness of Christ is set forth as it is in this letter. This is the greatest presentation of the Lord Jesus that we have in the Bible.
And all that is true as to the Lord Jesus is to find expression in the church. The church is the vessel for all that. Therefore, the church must be a very great thing. It must be a very wonderful thing.
Let us pass to the next thing. Look at Colossians 2:20 and Colossians 3:1:
If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world—
If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
—Colossians 2:20; 3:1
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.—Colossians 3:2-3
What does that mean? If we are to come into all the meaning of that fullness in Christ, we must live on heavenly ground and not on earthly ground.
Our hearts must be occupied with heavenly things. Our lives must be taken up with heavenly things. We have died from merely earthly living as being our life. We were raised with Christ, and that means that we are alive unto heavenly things.
The sisters have to look after their homes and their children. The brothers have to look after their business. But a man who is raised with Christ has higher things than those.
They do their business for the glory of Christ, and they should do their business thoroughly. But they also have the interests of the Lord more at heart than their business.
When they have done their day’s work thoroughly, their real interests begin. It is the things of heaven. That is why you are here tonight. Some of you have had a busy day in the home and in the business. You have done your work for the glory of Christ, and you were glad that you could leave it and come to the place where the things of the Lord are being spoken about.
You got your work done as quickly as you could, settled the things in the home, and completed the business. Your heart said, “Let me get to that meeting.” These things are all right in their place, but the main thing is the Lord.
If your hearts are really set on heavenly things, we shall come into the fullness of Christ more and more. If our homes or our businesses are the only things we live for, we certainly shall not come to the fullness of Christ.
Here we are told that if we are to come to the fullness, we must set our minds on things above.
There are a lot of other things in this letter. We are not really studying the letter to the Colossians; we are only looking at it from one standpoint, and that is the standpoint of the new creation.
I think we have said enough to show what the new creation is. May I repeat this? First of all, Christ in His place: in all things having the preeminence. Then it is the church living on heavenly ground. That is the new creation.
Now we have to finish tonight, and I cannot begin to give you the message of the two letters to the Thessalonians. There is only time for me to say this one thing.
The two letters to the Thessalonians are occupied with one subject. It is one subject in two parts. In the first letter to the Thessalonians, it is the Lord’s coming in relation to believers. In the second letter, it is the Lord’s coming in relation to the world.
I am so glad that these letters come where they do in the arrangement of the New Testament. You will remember, when we began these meditations, I said that the arrangement we have in our New Testament is not the order in which the books were written.
If we had the arrangement as the books were written, it would be very different. For instance, we should have to have the Gospel of John right at the end of the New Testament, for it was practically the last thing written by an apostle.
But we have the divine order. Romans comes first in these letters, and Romans is a foundation of the new creation. In our arrangement, the letters to the Thessalonians come last. That is quite right, because they are about the Lord’s coming.
Everything leads on from Romans to the coming of the Lord. And when the Lord comes, the new creation will be completed.
All we have to say is that the topstone will be brought forth. You will recognize that this is a quotation from the Old Testament:
And he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of,
Grace, grace, unto it.—Zechariah 4:7
The crown of all will be grace. If you go through all these nine letters, you will find that a large place is given in every one of them to grace. Everything is of grace. All His works are crowned with grace.
When the work is finished and the Lord comes, we shall all shout, “It is all of grace.” They shall bring forth the topstone with shoutings of “Grace, grace.”
We owe everything to the grace of God.
Lord, we do thank Thee for the wonderful revelation that Thou hast given us in Thy Word. We thank Thee for the greatness of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus.
We thank Thee for the greatness of the church into which we are brought. We thank Thee for the glorious hope of His coming again.
And if we thank Thee for anything more than anything else, it is all of grace. How wonderful is the grace of God.
Again, we thank Thee that we have been called into the fellowship of Thy Son. We have been called into membership of His body, and we have been called into the glorious hope of His coming again.
At the end of these hours together, we want to worship Thee. We want to praise Thee together. We pray that Thy Word may be written deeply in our hearts.
Although we do not understand it all, it makes a very great impression upon us. May we live from day to day under the impression of the greatness of Christ and the greatness of our calling in Him.
So we take up the words of the apostle, and we say:
Unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
—Ephesians 3:21