Colossians and the Glory of Christ
What is the glory of Christ that the church was saved to behold? Christ’s glory is expressed both in His Person (Who He is as the God-man), and in His work of redemption (what He has done to purchase His Bride). The glory of Christ is God’s two-pronged wisdom: Christ, and Him crucified (His Person as the ‘Godman’, and His work as Redeemer) (1 Cor 2:2). Christ’s glory is the very goal of all existence because God the Father has determined that Christ should have first place in everything. His Son has first place in creation (as Creator, Heir, all made ‘for Him’, upholds it, etc.). His Son has first place in redemption (Christ is first-born from the dead). His Son has first place in judgment (all judgment has been given to the Son, John 5:22-23, every knee shall bow, Philippians 2:9-11, all things will be reconciled and summed up in Him, Ephesians 1:10).
The glory of Christ is bound up in Him being God’s Mystery, in whom are all of the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:2-3). In referring to the incarnation of Christ (taking on our human nature in order to redeem the elect), Paul designates this taking on of flesh in order to save us as: the mystery of godliness (1 Tim 3:16). ‘Mystery’ is the truth hidden in the O.T. age and revealed in the N.T. concerning the truths of salvation and righteousness in Christ, which produce holiness in believers and perfect righteousness, all through Jesus Christ. The two natures of Christ are a vital part of this glorious mystery of godliness. For in order for us to be saved, the nature that sinned (our human nature) must be punished by death under the wrath of God. And the nature that failed to obey (our human nature) must obey perfectly—that means obeying the law of God with perfect love to God and neighbor. This is what Christ did for our sake. “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:21).
How deep is this mystery, for until the incarnation, the divine Son of God could not nurse as a baby. Until the incarnation, He could not cry real salty tears. Until the incarnation, He could not wash feet, or bleed and die. And, because Jesus has two natures, human and divine, it means He was able to still a storm with a word, feed 5000 from one boy’s lunch. Because He is one Person with two natures, what He does in His humanity counts as His whole Person doing it (whether, weeping, praying, suffering, or dying and rising). And what He does in His deity, placing an eyeball in an empty socket, or walking on water, counts as His single Person doing it. So because He is both human and divine, His death has infinite value: and could save a universe full of sinners if God so willed it. We cannot grow past this over-arching truth that His supremacy as the God-man is the source of His sufficiency as the Savior. One of the necessary benefits of studying Colossians is to delve into the question: who really is our celestial Husband with Whom we are in union—who is this divine Person who loves enough to give His life’s blood for us? We were created anew to behold this glory of the Lord, and to be transformed by it (2 Cor 3:18). The communication of this glory without interruption is what will make heaven a place of endless bliss. What are some of the symptoms of being malnourished on the glory of Christ? If we are not staggered and rocked by the glory of Christ, how will we be able to speak of His glory to others? How will we, who are created for the communication of His glory be able to tell of it? When we are starved for the sight of that glory, our calling as true worshippers becomes frustrated. Religion gets jammed into a shrunken compartment in our lives, and fragmentation results. The life of the soul withers. Circumstances yank us around so that our emotions are whipsawed all over the place. We find ourselves going to things that cannot cure and heal our brokenness; indulgence, escapism, cynicism, or we go the other direction: frenetic goal-setting, perfectionism, and egoism. When malnourished on the glory of Christ we tend to be self-conscious, self-consumed, fragmented, with the remnants of our lower natures pulling us toward diversions. The world leaves us vacant, vain, despairing, it cannot satisfy a new creature, for we are made anew to behold the glory of the Lord. When the glory of Christ is not regularly displayed and exhibited to the church, a kind of spiritual deadness/numbness sets in. Church life becomes routine, meetings an obligation, time with believers an exercise in shallow social needs. My friends the message of the book of Colossians is the cure. Many of you in your own Christian walk, have felt this spiritual dryness of just going through the motions, a state of unquenched thirst in which you are slogging up and down one sand dune after another without a shady oasis. The good news is we are going to find our well-watered oasis in the message of Colossians. And, the Christ Hymn of Colossians chapter one gives us a quintessential portrait of the glory of Christ. Puritans pastors 200 years ago said most Christians are living secretly defeated lives, what would they say about living in today’s world? What are the great healing benefits God intends for us when we behold the glory of Christ? Beholding His glory transforms us into Christ’s likeness (2 Cor 3:18). It makes our burden light (Mt 11:28-30). The effect of beholding His glory creates the desire to forsake our lusts and selfish fleshly desires. For, when we see by faith, our human nature glorified in Christ, we see our glorious destiny—that an imperishable body like Christ’s glorified body awaits us—a body perfectly suited to our glorious existence in the next world. This hope purifies (1 Jn 3:1-3). His glory delivers us from carnal self-focus and self-consciousness. His glory integrates and unifies our fragmented lives. It has a rectifying effect—that is, a fresh consecrated adjustment to the holiness of God, and to panting after the God of holiness. For beholding lifts us out of HVP and raises us up to DVP—perceiving by spiritual sight that the Son has first place in everything—that is the very essence of glory—we find that we are controlled by what really matters, the glory of the Lord. Self-forgetfulness in which we are stirred to love (1 Tim 1:5).
Benefits continued: in beholding the glory of the Lord, we become OK with His purposes (in this joyful resignation, our pain is not accidental, not without use, it is temporary, it gives us hope, for He is making all work together for the good of conforming us to the image of Christ—thus even our suffering is joined to His glory. Momentary light affliction is working for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison (2 Cor 4:17-18). Beholding Christ’s glory lifts us out of a temporal focus—we gain clarity of spiritual sight—that under God’s sovereign care, everything is moving the church toward that promise of gaining the glory of Christ, that is conformity to His image (2 Thess 2:13-14).
Why does beholding Christ’s glory have such a powerful effect upon us? Christ having first place in everything is joined to God’s gift of Himself. How would God give us Himself? He is invisible, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, no one has seen Him or can see Him (Ex 33:20; Jn 1:18; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:16; 1 Jn 4:12). All communion with Him, and knowledge of Him must come through the Mediator. Christ mediates the Father to us, so that God through Christ imparts Himself as the greatest of all gifts. For, God has determined to commune with us after our human form (Isaac Ambrose). This is not a sidebar in human history; this is the very purpose of the ages. “ To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ,
and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things;
so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose (purpose of the ages) which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord
, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him” (Eph 3:8-12). God’s gift of Himself will bring us into the relational love of the Trinity (see Jn 17:22-26).
All the other religions in the world do not have a divine Savior, their religious traditions, might seek from their gods, health, or prosperity, but never a love relationship of mutuality (mutual self-giving). The false gods of this world cannot bring the worshipper into a love relationship of mutual ownership. Only in the gospel is this self-giving of love of God in mutual giving of one to the other.
This covenant love given to us in Christ was prefigured in Eve’s creation. For Adam underwent a death-like sleep so that from the opening of his side his bride could be formed from his own flesh and bone (Gen 2:23). Christ underwent an agonizing death so that the Church could be formed through His wounds—taken from His wounded side. Think upon this, Christ, the glorious Lord of the cosmos, the One who created all things, and for Whom all things were created, and who upholds all things by the Word of His power is the One who became Jesus of Nazareth. A human being was brought into the heart of the Trinity so that you could live with God.
ROBE: The greatness of God’s purpose stretches our ability to comprehend it. Think of it, that from His conception to His ascension, by His obedience He wove a perfect robe—so that when He finished weaving that robe, He would take it off to clothe you and me, His bride. We could not have everything pertaining to life and to righteousness unless we had been given this robe as our covering (2 Pet 1:3). Now the believer wears this robe woven by Christ, his Substitute—it is why we will be in heaven.
What is the state of our lives in which the gospel finds us? Unfit for life with God, but the Savior says, I will clothe your defects. The gospel comes to us, up front with God acting in freeness, out of pure grace. The love of the Savior speaks thus, “I will fit you for life in Me and with Me, I will be all your qualification for this incredible eternal love relationship with Me. I will cover you.”
The believer can say: ‘God is for me’; what a thought (Rom 8:31-32)! Because of God’s plan to glorify Himself in Christ, God is for God in God being for me. God’s plan of the ages is that Christ have first place in everything— my Savior and His work is the heart of God’s purpose to glorify Himself. Your heart must hunger for this—that God’s chosen place to show His glory is revealed in my Redeemer and in my redemption of unworthy sinners. This strong meat, must be the food of our souls if we are to grow to maturity in Christ.
You know what a commodity is, it is a product, an economic good which can be packaged, marketed, and purchased. Our proposition this morning is that Christianity without the glory of Christ at its center tends to move toward commodification—or a ‘glory-less’ version of Christianity. When the church is starved for the glory of Christ, religion can become reduced to a set of spiritual things, laws, rules, commodities, blessings for religious consumers. Sometimes our language betrays our tendency to commodify the benefits of salvation: we can recite even in our sleep that: those who have received Christ receive forgiveness, adoption, and eternal life. But these infinite blessings of grace are not free-floating gifts, they are inseparable from the believer’s union with Christ. The true Christian possesses these eternal blessings because he is possessed by the Lord, is owned by Christ, is joined to Him. [Pastors can feel in a bind when congregations are unmotivated, not volunteering, cold, detached, lethargic, stagnant—but guilt and shaming won’t work if the real problem is the need to see the glory of Christ. This glory of Christ equips the believer to be a physician of his own soul—he can see that this delicious strong meat has been missing in his spiritual diet.] My quarrel with commodification is that it overshadows the awe and majesty of Christ, and replaces His preeminence with a set of spiritual laws and objectives to be managed and harnessed. The glory and transcendence of Christ cannot be controlled, managed, or commodified, in fact His glory destroys commodification. You cannot control, catalog, or commodify His glory and transcendence. For, His glory and transcendence produce trauma, wonder, worship, adoration, and awe in us. If false religion is the attempt to protect ourselves from God—knowing conscience is an extension of His divine justice, then true religion is drawing near through my Savior who is all sufficient because He is absolutely supreme (having first place in all things).
Do we run to distractions rather than experience the tension of this relationship that is all of grace? Do these eternal blessings for the unworthy really exist? Does the God of the universe really want to meet with me? Am I more comfortable keeping my distance, versus stepping out in holy expectation that He desires my intimate fellowship? Can I honestly admit daring to continually draw near is contrary to all of my self-protection strategies? As we feed on the Word of life, the gospel, we slowly grow in courage to draw near.
The issue comes down to the private, subjective, upper story, ethereal, Jesus—versus the Lord of creation. Christ’s relation to the creation anchors me in a Christo-centric reality of the world. Paul began his address to the unsaved in Acts 17 by explaining God’s relationship to the created world. Paganism is idolatrous because it looks at the glory pointers in the creation which belong to Christ, and then worships these created things. But, as we have learned from the Christ Hymn, the creation was made by God to give praise, not receive it. In Colossians 1:15-18, Paul sets forth Christ’s glory as His right to occupy first place in everything. In the Christ Hymn, the Apostle gives us three comprehensive regions of Christ’s glory: His glory in creation, in redemption, and in judgment.