The Divine Son

At length the theme of the Epistle is reached. Prayer /-% and thanksgiving lead to an expression of faith in Christ. The entire passage (vs. 14-20) constitutes one of the most important Christological statements in the New Testament. “As a Christological statement it has scarcely an equal, certainly no superior” (Nicholson). With this may be compared other passages expressive of the Person and Work of Christ: Col. 2 :9-15; Eph. 1 :20-23; Phil. 2 :6-l 1; Heb. 1 :2-14; Rom. 9 :5; Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 1:23, 24, 30. We shall see that in these verses various aspects of Christ’s relationship are taught.

I. Christ’s Relation to Grace (v. 14)

From the thought of the Father comes the natural reference to “the Son of His love,” and then follows the obvious statement that “in Him we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins.” Redemption is one of the six words found in the New Testament to express the work of Christ: Sacrifice (Eph. 5:2); Offering (Heb. 10:10); Propitiation (1 John 2:2); Ransom (1 Tim. 2 :6); Redemption (Heb. 9:12); and Reconciliation (Rom. 5:11). The special thought of redemption is deliverance from slavery by means of payment (Rom. 3:24), just as in verse 13 we see the corresponding thought of a victor and a rescue. The word rendered “redemption” is significant for its emphasis on the completeness of the work. The verb “to redeem” occurs three times in the New Testament (Luke 24:21; Tit. 2:14; 1 Pet. 1:18), and in each case the thought is of deliverance wrought through the death of Christ. But nowhere are we told to whom the payment was made, thereby avoiding the old and oersistent error (which, however, as Dimock in his Death of Christ acutely points out, contained the germ of a real truth) of the devil to whom the payment was made. Scripture is content with emphasising the actual payment of what is valuable in the sight of God, that which can be called “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1 :19).

The specific aspect of redemption mentioned here is “the forgiveness of sins,” and although the word “forgiveness” is one of the most familiar, it may be questioned whether many who use it realise the remarkable force and fulness of its meaning. “Forgiveness” is never defined in Scripture. The word itself means “removal,” or “sending away,” and this necessarily includes the remission of the penalty, the removal of the condemnation, and also the actual sending away both of sin (the root) and sins (the fruit). Never once do we read of the forgiveness of guilt or the forgiveness of condemnation, but only of the forgiveness of sin and sins, and the word must, therefore, mean something equivalent to the fulness of redeeming love and grace, covering past, present, and future, and embracing position and condition, standing and state, character and conduct. Nor can it mean only and merely the negative aspect of release, but must involve also the positive element of restoration, including saving, cleansing, justifying, purifying, sanctifying, illuminating, welcoming, blessing, and glorifying. A careful study of the usage of the word in the New Testament will prove this, however novel and surprising it may seem. Of course, we are accustomed to distinguish between forgiveness and justification, but there is a sense in which forgiveness may be said to include everything from the beginning to the end of Christian experience, because of the clear reference in Scripture to the “sending away” of sin and sins.

The Divine Son, 1 :1 4-17
II. Christ’s Relation to God (v. 15)

The basis of redemption is here seen in the relation of Christ to God. There could be no forgiveness of sins unless Christ were both God and man, for only a Divine act could “send away” our evil doing. Christ is described as “the image of the invisible God,” and the word “image” seems to include the two ideas of representation and manifestation (2 Cor. 4:4; Heb. 1:3). In similar language, St. John speaks of Christ as “the Word” (John 1:1), meaning thereby the thought and expression of God, and for this reason our Lord could say, “No one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father He hath declared Him” (John 1 :18). To the same effect are some other words, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). It has often been pointed out by writers on this Epistle how in these words the Apostle destroys all those erroneous teachings which were already beginning to have influence in Colosse. Instead of the various emanations from the Godhead which were considered to be links of intercourse between God and the world, the Apostle declares this vital and true doctrine of Christ as the One in whom God was manifested in human life. Some years ago a ministers’ meeting was held, when a paper was read drawing the conclusion that Jesus Christ was a little more than man and a little less than God, the old error of the fourth century against which the Nicene Creed was drawn up. A friend of mine who was called upon to open the discussion said that this view would not do for him, because he was a sinner, and needed a Saviour, and that Saviour must be God as well as man. In words that deserve to be quoted again and again, Bishop Moule has said: “A Saviour not quite God is a bridge broken at the farther end.”

III. Christ’s Relation to Nature (vs. 16, 17)

Christ’s connection with earth is next mentioned, and He is described as “the first begotten of all creation.” The context makes it perfectly clear that this reference to Him is to One who is separate from and above creation, and not simply a created Being. It indicates His unique supremacy over creation, just as in verse 18, as we shall see, the same word is used of His relation to the Church. There are also three prepositions which further show the relation of Christ to creation: “In Him all things were created,” and also “all things have been created through Him and for Him.” Thus He is seen to be at once the sphere, the agent, and the purpose of creation. This creation is also stated to include all things in heaven and on earth, both visible and invisible, “whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or authorities.” Even more than this, Providence is associated with Him, for the very same Being (“He Himself”) is said to be before all things, and all things in Him find their coherence and continuity (v. 17). Nothing, therefore, could be clearer than these statements, expressive of the priority, sovereignty, and continuity of Christ in relation to nature. It will be seen that in these terms the Apostle is not referring at all to the Incarnation, but to the priority of Christ to creation, His essential relation to God and to the universe.

In this wonderful passage, in which the Apostle seems almost incapable of expressing fully the Divine thought in human language, we find some of the deep things of life, and we may consider the passage as teaching a threefold philosophy which Christians will do well to heed.

1. The Philosophy of Religion. This is seen in Christ’s relation to God. A modern book tells of a man who had been brought up without religious teaching and of his

The Divine Son, 1 :1 4-17 beginning to read the Bible. He said he was always coming on bits of the New Testament in books, and he tried to believe that the appeal of the New Testament lay in its style. “But then I took my courage in both hands and read the New Testament right through and saw there was no contact with God except in Christ.” This is the fundamental and vital problem of today and of all other days, the essential Deity of Jesus Christ. Nothing less than this will suffice, and nothing can be called Christianity which does not start here in the absolute oneness of Christ with the Father as the “image of the invisible God.” This is no mere abstract theological principle, but a truly vital necessity which touches ordinary life at every point. People sometimes are apt to think lightly of the words in the Nicene Creed: “Being of one substance with the Father,” but it must never be forgotten that these words commended themselves to the whole Christian Church after the Council of Nicaea had dispersed, because they represented the vital truth of Christ’s oneness with the Father as the sole basis of human redemption.

2. The Philosophy of the Universe. This is seen in the fact that Christ has the same relation to the natural world as He has to the spiritual world. Bishop Lightfoot, in an ever-memorable passage, calls attention to the great loss which we suffer by neglecting this wonderful truth of Christ’s relation to nature. He very pointedly remarks that “the sympathy of theologians with the revelations of science and the developments of history” would be much more hearty “if they habitually connected them with the operations of the same Divine Word who is the Centre of all their religious aspirations.” He also remarks that by the neglect of this “our theological conceptions suffer in breadth and fulness,” while, on the other hand, “the recognition of this idea, with all the consequences which flow from it,” would more than any other way make possible that “harmony of knowledge and faith of revelations and research” which we all feel to be essential to complete life and strong influence (Lightfoot, Colos - sians, pp. 114, 115). Lightfoot’s successor, the late Bishop of Durham, similarly points out how this thought of Christ as the “Cause, Head, and Goal of the created Uni¬ verse” binds both worlds into one, and “this is a precious gain when our hearts fail us on the border-line between the two.” Not only so, it makes nature so much more real and precious, because “it connects the remotest aeon of the past with Him; it connects the remotest star with Him; it bids us, when we feel as if lost in the enormity of space and time, fall back upon the Centre of both, our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us.” This and much more should be pondered by every earnest thinker who rejoices to realise that Christ is not only the Saviour of the soul, but “the ultimate law” of the universe (Moule, Colossian Studies, pp. 80-82).

3. The Philosophy of Individual Life. This is seen in the fact of the power of redemption (v. 14), and it is of special importance to realise that this redemption is in union with Christ and is also a present possession. Notice the forces of the two phrases: “in Him” and “we have.” When this unspeakable blessing of redemption is seen to be ours as a blessed reality here and now, because of our union with Christ, we have learned the secret of true living and can rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”