The Risen Christ and the Things Above
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” — Col. iii. 1.
This new identity or new self is not a thing gradually formed; wrought out step by step as we advance in likeness to Christ; it is not a thing dependent upon our graces, a thing which is more or less complete, as we are more or less holy men; it is a thing of state, not of character; a thing of law, not of moral fitness; it is therefore formed at once, — the moment that we believe. Then we become one with a dying and rising Saviour; as truly and thoroughly one with him as we shall ever be during a whole long life of holy doings. In believing, we are crucified with Christ; we die, and are buried with him. Thus our former self is gone. It perishes. Twice over it is declared to be gone; once on the cross, and a second time in the grave of Christ. Then we rise to a new life, and acquire a new self, — a new personality. We come forth out of the grave, where we had been buried with Christ, new men; not the same individuals in the eye of the law, but others altogether. We obtain a new life, a risen life, a life corresponding to that of him who rose as well as died, who was not only delivered for our offences, but raised again for our justification. We are risen with Christ. He is the risen Head, and we the risen members. “We are risen with Christ l” It is not merely that we are forgiven, reconciled, justified, but we have entered on a new and more elevated condition of being, a resurrection-life, a life which is truly the earnest and anticipation of the glorious state of being which is finally to be ours in the day when this mortal shall put on immortality, and death be swallowed up in victory. This resurrection-life let us realise as already ours; ours in right and title now, soon to be ours in reality, when He who is our life shall appear.
The expression “with Christ,” which the apostle uses here, is one which applies to much more than to resurrection. All that we receive we receive with Christ: in conjunction with him; as sharers with him in what he has received from the Father. We are not simply said to receive blessings from Christ or from the Father for Christ’s sake, but to receive them from the Father as joint-possessors, joint-claimants, jointheirs with the Son. “We are made ‘partakers of Christ,” that is, made fellow-sharers, fellow-partners with him in all that he is and has. He is ours, and all that he has is ours. The love wherewith the Father loves him, the blessedness with which the lather has blest him, the honour with which the Father has honoured him, — all this he shares with us as being one with him; the members of his body; the bride in whose love he rejoices.
And as it is on this oneness between us and Christ that God acts in his treatment of us, so it is upon this that we are to act continually in our intercourse with him, and in our whole life on earth. Our life is to be the life of risen ones. Our whole walk and conversation are to be those of men wrho feel that they have died and risen, and that in this sense also they have become new creatures in Christ Jesus; old things having passed away, and all things having become new.
It is to this that the apostle refers in the words of our text, when he says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God,” as if he would remind us that they who have died with Christ have died to all things beneath; and that they wrho have risen with Christ have, by their new life, been brought into connection with things above. Their death with Christ severed for ever the tie to earthly things; their resurrection with Christ fastened at once and for ever a new tie which links them to what is heavenly; their former connection with what is earthly has ceased, and a new connection has begun with heavenly things; they are to be not so much dwellers upon the earth as inhabitants in heave:., like angels come down to visit earth on some gracious errand, yet still mindful of their own proper home, their true descent, and rank, and character. “Our conversation is in heaven, whence we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” And if our conversation is in heaven, should not everything about us, everything said or done by us, correspond to this dignity?
What have Christ’s risen ones to do with the vanities, or pomps, or pleasures of earth? The world has its own followers, and these things are for them! But for us who are risen with Christ, there are other things provided. We have other company, other joys, other hopes. Earth has too long detained us; heaven is now the home of our souls.
Seek the things that are above! Do we not need the counsel? Are not our eyes ever turning downwards? Are we not, like Lot’s wife, too often looking back, remembering that Sodom out of which we have been taken? And what attraction do we find there, so fascinating, so irresistible, that we experience such difficulty in looking upwards? Is the bleak desert fairer than the blue starry heavens? Is the society of the world better than the companionship of angels and saints, nay, of God and Christ and the eternal Comforter? Strange that we should need a command to do what seems so natural, so unavoidable, so blessed! Yet we do require the command; and that not once in a lifetime, when some sore temptation besets us, but each day and hour! *
Seek the things that are above! Heaven and the things of heaven; God and Christ, and the angels, and the saints, the kingdom, the city, the glory, the crown; — these are all above, and these are our treasures; why then should we still cling to earth and mind the things below?
Love not the world! for if we love this world we cannot love the world to come; if we love the world, we cannot love the Father; if we love the world, we cannot seek the things above. The friendship of the world is enmity with God, and therefore companionship with the things of the world cannot fail to hinder us from setting our affection on the things above. There must be no compromise, no lingering, no half-heartedness. All must be decided; for what can be more expressive of decision and unwavering consistency than the idea of our being actually risen men! This sets aside all vain excuses, all idle pleas for mingling with the world. Either you are risen, or you are not risen. If you are not risen, then, of course, there can be no appeal of this kind to the conscience at all. Go on in your worldliness; fling yourselves headlong into the torrent of earth’s vanities; but know that the end of these things is death! But if you are risen, then there is an end of all debate. The point is settled. You cannot take part with the world in its follies, and gaieties, and sins! What, risen with Christ and yet a worldling! Impossible. Risen with Christ, yet singing its idle songs, hurrying through its mazy dance, partaking in its mirth and revelry! Impossible. If you be risen with Christ there is no alternative; you mud seek the things above.
The apostle evidently takes this for granted; that there is no alternative in such a case. The unrisen may seek the things below, but the risen mud seek the things above. The unrisen may linger amid the vanities of earth, but the risen must set their affection on the things of heaven!
The things that are above, are those on which our eye, our heart, our hopes, are resting; we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, and hence our delight in the things connected with these ’ heavenly places; we are come to mount Sion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant. And having come to these, we are conversant with these; we live amongst these; we realise these more truly than the things around, which we hear, and see, and handle. These are the scenes, and sights, and sounds, that occupy our souls! We have ceased to be citizens of earth’s polluted cities; we are citizens of the New Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from God. We have ceased to be inhabitants of earth; we have become the inhabitants of heaven. We have ceased to call anything on earth our own, for we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, so that all things are our heritage; as it is written, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” We have a home, but not in the palaces or haunts of the world; a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
The things that are above are the real and the enduring; therefore we seek them, for all below is shadowy and transient; passing away like the morning cloud. The things that are above are the things congenial to our risen natures, therefore we seek them. All other things are repulsive, not attractive, because unsuitable and uncongenial; they have nothing in common with us, nor we with them. The things that are above are the satisfying and gladdening, and therefore we seek them. Nothing here can fill us, nor impart one hour’s real enjoyment. But the things above both fill and gladden; we feel, even in the anticipation of them, far more of rest and peace diffusing themselves through our souls than in the full poss&ssion of what the world calls joy. The things that are above are the infinite and eternal. All else are narrow and limited; the v have at the most but a life- time’s duration; no more. But the things above have no limit either as to space or time. All connected with them is illimitable; so that we can look forward to an enjoyment of them which fades not, and changes not, and shall never end! Of this we have the earnest already, and the reality will not be long behind. It only awaits the coming of Him who is to shake the things that can be shaken, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
The things that are above are thus those round
AND TlIE THINGS ABOVE. 201
which all our hopes and joys are daily gathering. They are our portion, our heritage, our treasure. What have we upon earth to compare with them, or to desire beside them? Day by day they are gathering more of our hopes and joys. One by one the affections of earth are loosening from the things of earth, and fastening themselves to the kingdom that is to come. One by one the objects of endearment here are detached from us and pass upwards, becoming part of the things above. We begin to feel as if heaven contained far more of our heart’s affections than earth; and as if the command to seek the things above were becoming easier and more natural, seeing we have so many fewer objects now to love on earth, so many more to love in heaven. And as flower after flower is transplanted from the wilderness below to the paradise above, we feel as if that paradise were assuming more and more truly the aspect of our real and proper home; the home of our kindred, and the home of our hearts; the home into which no foe shall enter, and out of which no friend departeth; the home where the shadow never falls, but where the sunshine ever rests; where the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall lead us to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes.