Colossians 3:1-4 If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. I. "RISEN WITH CHRIST." 1. In the earliest Christian teaching the resurrection dominates over all other Christian doctrines. It is the palmary proof of the truth of Christianity. It rested upon the evidences of the senses, and accordingly the first ministerial effort of the apostles was to publish the fact, and let it do its proper work in the understandings and consciences of men (Acts 4:32, etc.). The resurrection is equally prominent in the teaching of St. Paul. But here the apostle teaches us its relation, not to Christian belief, but to Christian living. It is not pressed upon us as a "detached and unfruitful dogma"; it is a vitalizing principle in the living soul. Indeed all Christian doctrine in the Christian soul is inseparable from Christian practice. The practical relation between the two is observable in St. Paul's Epistles. They are not separated in the two sections into which he usually divides his letters. With him the moral element interpenetrates doctrine, and rises spontaneously out of it; while the dogmatic truth is continually reasserted as the motive or basis of the morality. In the text the resurrection is a germinant principle out of which the soul derives its new life, and by which the laws and obligations of that life are determined. This is not a mere metaphor (Ephesians 1:18-20); but if it were, a metaphor surely means something: it conveys a truth under the form of an illustration. What, then, is the truth latent beneath the metaphor? 3. This resurrection with Christ is not merely a movement, a shifting of spiritual position from a lower to a higher point in the same sphere. That would be an elevation. (1) It is necessary to mark this distinction, because the one is often confounded with the other. Individuals, families, populations, are often "elevated" without being "risen with Christ." A certain mental and moral elevation is the natural result of contact with a Divine religion; may be received unconsciously; comes as if from some subtle element afloat in the atmosphere; passes unnoticed into a literary school, philosophical system, or political society; and may thenceforward be detected in half-formed ideas, and fitful currents of thought, or turns of expression. It comes to men as they gaze on the fair form of the Church, or as they mark a Christian who is seriously living for another world. (2) But what is this elevation worth? Felix underwent a certain "elevation" of conscience; Agrippa was raised above his natural level; but in each ease the moral pulsation died away. The Emperor Alexander Severus underwent a certain elevation when he assigned a niche in the Imperial Pantheon to the statue of Jesus; so did Julian, who in his letters applauds the love and discipline of the Church. The same may be said of Rousseau, who enhanced the beauty of the French language in expressing his sense of the gospel, and of those modern writers of fiction who lavish their encomiums with no sparing or graceless hand upon the religion of our Lord, and who yet apologize for the errors which His teaching condemns. But these were not risen with Christ. (3) We here touch on a distinction that is vital, and which is based upon the deeper difference which parts nature from grace. Moral elevation lies within the sphere of nature, and may be accounted for by the operation of natural causes; spiritual resurrection belongs to nature just as little as does the resurrection of a corpse. 4. Resurrection with Christ is a supernatural thing. What is meant by this? Any idea of the supernatural — (1) Presupposes belief in God as a personal agent. Clearly, therefore, it must be rejected by those philosophers which deny the primary truths of theism. (a) The Positivist must see in it a stupid phantom to be relegated to "the theological period" of human development. (b) The Pantheist will object to it as implying a distinction which, if it be admitted, must be fatal to the essential principles of his philosophy. (c) Nor does it approve itself to the sensuous materialism which is sceptical of all that lies beyond. (d) But no serious Theist can deny its possibility. He who made the world which we touch can superadd another world which we cannot touch. (2) As the term enters theology it is concerned with the relations which God has established between Himself and man in the higher sphere, such as, e.g., that union with Christ, part of which is expressed in rising with Him. The lesson of our text is often not learnt; because the difficulty of learning it is spiritual rather than intellectual. To understand it we must be living the life of the supernatural resurrection. The apostle elsewhere explains what he means (Ephesians 2:3-6; Ephesians 1:17-20). What wonder that all around us in the Church is supernatural, if it be a continuous exercise of the power which raised Jesus from the dead? Or that in Christian souls we behold graces of which nature is incapable. II. "SEEK THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE ABOVE." 1. Seek, above all, communion with God, work for God, rest in the felt presence of God, and the final reward in God; and then all that is highest and purest in the sphere of nature. 2. What a rule for conversation. All may do something to raise or degrade it. Each may insist that in his presence it shall keep a pure tone; and a few men who are simply determined to maintain an elevated standard of social intercourse can affect for good an entire society. 3. What a rule for making friendships! How much depends for time and eternity on the choice of one whose affections shall be entwined in ours. 4. What a motto for a library, and even for sacred studies! 5. What a solemn word for those who are deciding their line of work for life, particularly if they are seeking the ministry of souls. 6. But above all, the text is a rule for the regulation and employment of secret thought. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. |
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