The Risen Christ and the Things Above
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” — Col. iii. 1.
The word “if” is not, in this place, expressive of doubt. It does not imply that those “saints at Colosse” were uncertain as to whether they were risen with Christ. Rather, it is the apostle’s way of denoting the surest of all certainties. Thus he uses it in Rom. v. 10, “If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God;” and in verse 15, “If through the offence of one many be dead.” So that more truly it might be rendered “since,” as assuming the fact, and setting it down as beyond all doubt.
No countenance is here given to uncertainty or non-assurance on the part of a saint, as if he were one not entitled to say more for himself than “If I be a saint.” The gospel does in no way, and by no word, directly or indirectly spoken, encourage uncertainty, or give us leave to call it humility. The result of a believed gospel is not uncertainty, but certainty; not trouble, but peace; not the continuance, but the expulsion of all anxiety. The
gospel presents me with that, in believing which I am entitled to say, “lama, child; forgiven, saved, risen.” Such is its nature that, in receiving it, so far from being brought into uncertainty, or kept in uncertainty, I am relieved from all uncertainty; my soul is set at rest. I am not only warranted, but commanded to claim my sonship. My not claiming it, my standing still in doubt as to reconciliation between me and God, shews that I have not yet fully understood the freeness and meetness of the grace which the gospel makes known. For God here presents to us such a gospel as to shut each hearer of it up to this alternative, — either to doubt the good news, or enter into conscious friendship with himself.
Sad it is that uncertainty such as this should be so common amongst us, as if there were no sin in it, no blame attaching to those in whom it exists; as if God’s sovereignty would account for it entirely, and as if man’s rooted self-righteousness, his evil heart of unbelief, were not the true and real cause.
Yet -sadder still, that man should be contented with this uncertainty; soothing his conscience to sleep with the idea that he may be a Christian though he has no assurance; nay, that his very doublings are the best evidences of his faith; as if unbelief could be the fruit of faith, or distrust the offspring of confidence! Surely matters have come to a low ebb indeed, when such is the case with us; not in rare examples, but in instances innumerable; when assurance is the exception, and doubting the rule; when peace with God is strange in the Church, and uncertainty tinges with gloom the religion and the life of so many who name the name of Christ.
May we not ask, What is there about this uncertainty so attractive and loveable, that we should fondle it so tenderly, and cling to it so desperately? Does it bring peace? That it cannot do: for its very nature is to distract and trouble as. Does it console us under the pressure of life’s sore calamities? It cannot; for it is itself our heaviest burden. Does it heal our wounds? No; it is daily inflicting wounds, but healing none. Does it sweep off the clouds that overshadow us in our pilgrimage, or brush aside the entangling thorns and briars of the wilderness? No; it is itself the thickest cloud, the sharpest thorn that can wound us. Does it raise us above the world, or make us holier men? That it cannot do. It drags us down, and hinders all holy walking. Does it enable us to serve the Lord more truly or fervently? No; it keeps us in dark bondage; so that thus chained and prisoned, we cannot serve him. Does it conform us to the image of God’s Son? Ah, no; in him we see the true filial spirit and the devoted life; and how can these exist in us so long as we know not in what relationship we stand to God; so long as we are uncertain whose we are, and whom we serve.
If, then, uncertainty be such a thoroughly unprofitable thing; if it be such a hindrance, such a sore evil, such an enemy to our souls, why cherish it as many seem to do? Why cling to it, instead of casting it away? Why not abhor it, and ourselves because of it?
The condition, then, of a saint, is one of certainty. That certainty is this, — he is risen with Christ. It is not that he ought to be risen, or that he hopes to be risen, but that he has risen. This is the blessed fact that forms the commencement of his history as a saint. This event stands at the very threshold of his career; nay, constitutes its outset. His life is the life of a risen one. His story is that of one who has risen. He cannot tell of his change without telling of resurrection. He cannot speak of his new course and conversation, without referring to resurrection. He cannot account for the high level on which he stands, or the privileges which encompass him, or the hopes that rise before him, save by tracing all these back to this one fountain-head, — resurrection.
What, then, is the meaning of this fact or event in the life of a saint, which forms the commencement of his history? It cannot in any way be understood of the resurrection of the body, which is the Church’s hope. For that is altogether future; and is, besides, connected with the second coming of the Lord, whereas this is connected with His first. The privilege or blessing, pointed at by the apostle here, is something ‘past, something which had commenced when they believed; whereas the resurrection of the body is still a thing for which we wait and long.
Nor does the apostle’s statement simply mean that the resurrection of Christ has secured to us certain blessings, or opened a door for us into the participation of certain privileges, or made sure to us the title or right to certain future glories. All this is true; but it is much below the whole truth, and only very partially expresses the apostle’s great idea regarding the standing and privilege of a saint.
He is telling us in what light God looks upon the soul that has believed on his Son, and therefore in what light we are to look upon ourselves. He is shewing us under what special character God is dealing with us; on what footing he has set us; to what extent he is placing to our credit the work of his Son; in what way he regards him as our complete substitute, and us as doing, suffering, passing through, and deserving, all that he did, suffered, passed through, and deserved.
Hence, pointing to the cross of Christ, he says, that cross was your cross — “Ye were crucified with Christ,” and on that cross you endured the wrath which you had incurred; you paid the whole penalty, so that there is not a farthing of it remaining unpaid. Pointing to the death of Christ, he says, that death was your death — “Ye died with Christ;” it was you who then died, and in dying met the full demand of the inexorable sentence; “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Pointing to the grave of Christ, he says, that grave was your grave; — “Ye were buried with Christ;” there you lay, victims to the law’s righteous requirements, and the Lawgiver’s righteous execution of these in full; there you lay, during the three days in which your Substitute was lying there, just as those who have refused the Substitute shall lie eternally, bearing the penalty which no time can cancel or exhaust. Pointing to the resurrection of Christ, he says: That resurrection was your resurrection; “Ye rose with Christ;” having exhausted every claim against you, and paid to the full each farthing of the righteous penalty, so that law has nothing now to insist upon against you. Yes; it was you that rose eighteen hundred years ago, when your Substitute arose. In rising, you left behind you in the grave all the guilt that laid you there. It was the prisoners dungeon in which you were laid; but you have come forth from it, because the reasons why you entered it no longer exist. It was law that chained you there, and it is the same law that now unchains you; because it has nothing now to say against you. It was righteousness that cast you into that prison, and barred its gates against your return from it; and it is the same righteousness that has brought you forth in triumph, having found far more and stronger reasons for your deliverance than for your imprisonment. You have thus come forth from the cell to which your transgressions had consigned you; and not as one that has evaded justice, but as one who has satisfied it to the full, having given it far more than it sought. You have come forth, not with the felon’s brand upon you, not with the shame and stigma of your former life, to darken and disgrace you, but as one risen to a new life altogether; a new life in the eye of righteousness, in the eye of the law, and in the eye of God; as one entirely severed from his former self; between whose present and former self there is such a great gulf fixed that he is entitled to say, I am no longer the same individual, I have acquired a new personality, a new legal identity.
The mighty truth here taught is, in fact, just this: Being identified with our Substitute in death, ice, i. e., our former self, perished. That death destroyed our identity; it cut the legal link for ever between our present and our former selves, so that law cannot identify us as the individuals against whom it thought to urge its overwhelming claims. It is baffled; it is brought to a stand; and to every one of its charges we can confidently plead “not guilty,” on the score of not being the same individuals against whom the charges are laid. Again; being identified with our Substitute in resurrection, a new personality has been formed; a new individuality has been established in law; and it is on the footing of that new personality, that new individuality, that we stand, and bid defiance to every accusation that the law without, or conscience within, can press against us.
In believing, this identification between us and our Surety took place. In believing, we became legally one with Him, in death and resurrection; that is, we died and rose again. In believing, the mighty legal spell was wrought, the mighty legal miracle was accomplished, whereby our former self passed entirely away, and a new self came up into glorious being.
Nor is this new personality a mere figure, or Actio, or romance. Those who never realised the moment ousness of that central doctrine of the Word of God, the substitution of the righteous for the unrighteous, nor tasted the peace which comes from the knowledge of that substitution, may say that this is but a figure. But they who feel that this legal transference of guilt from themselves to their Surety lies at the root of all their peace and hope, will neither be stumbled at the apostle’s statement in our text, nor look upon it as the mere boldness of figure. For whatever difficulty there may be in understanding the nature of the transaction, or the very manner in which it is accomplished, still the thing itself is sure, and its results, in so far as God and we are concerned, are of the most real and blessed kind.
It is on this new legal personality that God acts in his treatment of us. It is on this ground that he confers his favour, and pours out his blessings. He deals with us, not according to what we were, but according to what we have now become, in consequence of our oneness with him in whom his soul delighteth. This oneness is our claim for blessing. This is the plea which we present, and which we know God rejoices to accept.
Why, then, should there be such unwillingness to identify ourselves with the Son of God? Is
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oneness with him a thing so shameful, or so terrible? Is our own identity so precious a thing that we are unwilling to part with it, and to sink it in his? Surely this cannot be. What can be more blessed than to lose ourselves in him; to be so completely identified with him that the law and the Lawgiver should treat us as entirely one! What can give our souls a surer resting-place than the knowledge that this treatment of us is the very thing that magnifies the righteousness of Jehovah, and enhances the glory of his incarnate Son!