When Paul is writing his letter to the Colossian church his constant theme is Christ. He is in prison at the time but he asks the Christians to pray, “God may open a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ” (Colossians 4:3). Apparently this was Paul’s ‘distinctive;’ in the words of Charles Wesley, his “heart was full of Christ and longed its glorious matter to declare!” Is the gospel Paul taught, and the New Testament reveals, summed up in the doctrine of justification by faith or is it ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ and (in the words of a phrase I came across the other day) “He is the inner logic of all things.” What a phrase that is! We all know that He is called the Logos (John 1:1) and that the word logic is derived from the word logos, in Christ the Logos all things find their origin and system, appropriately connected each with the other and in no way taking on a life of their own and this includes every doctrine as well as all created things. The gospel of Christ brings us to a living relationship with Him and thus we find that in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). The Greek word translated ‘hold together’ is the one from which we get our word system and systematize, so, we can say that in Him every truth, every doctrine is joined in perfect symmetry and we are continually blessed with every spiritual blessing only in Him and these only ‘work’ in us as we are increasingly intimate in our fellowship with Him (Ephesians 1:3).
At this point perhaps we should ask ourselves Who it is that the Father has eternally looked upon with unveiled face? The answer is simple, He looks upon His Son, John’s gospel chapter one verse one which says, “the Word was with God,” could be translated, “was face to face with God.” This is none other that an attempt to express the eternal relationship of the Father with the Son and the Son with the Father and the Holy Spirit Who is the Spirit of that fellowship. It is no wonder that when the Holy Spirit is given to us, He Who comes from the Father and the Son ever works to introduce and sustain us in life giving intimacy with Jesus the Son and through Him with the Father. We must not excuse ourselves and say that these things are “too deep for us to think about,” we must be challenged to a profound amazement and gratitude that we are called by God “into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” (1 Corinthians 1:8) not into a life that only believes certain truths about Him. It is precisely because many in the Corinthian church had forgotten that fact that they detached the gifts of the Spirit, especially tongues from Him, they were factious and made much of their favorite teachers and teachings, even got into the idea that there was no resurrection of the dead, distortion and imbalance pervaded their church, they had succumbed to the pride that comes of listening to the old serpent, the devil who by various means had been leading them away from a sincere devotion to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).
Should we be surprised that the god of this world is ever busy in his attempts to throw a veil over us so that we should not see Christ? By subtle mechanisms our enemy seeks to obscure the Lord from our sight. We must not allow Him to succeed as he has done in the case of some (2 Corinthians 4:4). “To keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God.” Sometimes, it would seem that we can be tricked into a preoccupation with one of the great truths of the gospel and it gradually takes on a place and power all its own. The obvious example of this is the fascination and obsession with so called ‘end times things’ that some believers display. Everything is seen through that lens; perhaps some of us have erred in seeing everything through the lens of the doctrine of justification, or, in other cases, the higher life of the sanctified state of perfection. The danger of detachment is always near. The Father eternally looks on His Son and He believed and believes in Him. He trusted His Son to accomplish all His will in the work of salvation, He did not doubt Him, “this is My beloved Son, He shall do all My will,” this was the Father’s confidence before ever it was ours! A statement of the obvious no doubt but it should not shock us that God the Father is offended if we believe not, or trust in Him Who He has Himself believed and trusted. We must not be unbelieving but follow the Father’s example and trust His Son for refusing Him carries with it dire consequences. “This is My Son, My beloved, listen to Him” (Matthew 17:5) are the words that came to Peter on the holy mountain when he was voicing the idea of making tabernacles, shrines to Jesus, Moses and Elijah. We are not called to be shrine builders, reminding ourselves of blessings received but be built up in fellowship with the Living Christ.
Several months ago someone gave me a copy of a little book, I am glad he did. It had been a blessing to him and it certainly has been to me and I commend it to you. The title is, “A Gospel Primer for Christians,” and is written by a man named Milton Vincent, a pastor from California. What is the gospel? He defines it as good news of salvation for hell deserving sinners through THE PERSON AND WORK OF JESUS CHRIST. What is a primer? And the answer is “a book that covers all the basic elements of a subject” and Milton Vincent does exactly that, in a prose version and one that is poetic. All the many doctrines that make up salvation are covered, in short concise statements; there is so much Christ has done! The book is a little gem and one to be examined slowly, carefully and repeatedly reminding us of the never fully drawn out riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8). But, what is the overall outcome of doing so? Christ is magnified; the wonder of His Person will fill those who take time to ponder it and follow up the many Bible references that are footnoted on each page. Christ (and through Him, God the Father) is seen to be all in all, the Wonderful Counselor, the joy of the Father and of angels and of those who believe in Him. How many blessings are contained in the gospel! We can enumerate a few- repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, justification, sanctification, transformation through crucifixion, eternity with God, all these and many more can never be fully traced and are among the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). They are all parts and elements of the Christ Who is Himself God’s inexpressible, indescribable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15).
Just recently I was in conversation with a group of men who asked about the subject of living free from sin. I suddenly realized how rarely, nowadays, I meet those who are who voice these kinds of concerns. Perfection and holiness are not commonly discussed and my questioners spoke of their anxiety about the frequent mention of things like, “I am only human and so sin is more or less is inevitable in my life.” They felt that it was a way of making excuses for continuing in sin and accommodating failure in the churches. Inevitably the statements of the apostle John came into our discussion, phrases such as “if we say we have not sinned” (1 John 1:10) “if we say we have no sin” (1 John 1:8) “if anyone does sin” (1 John 2:1) and finally “anyone born of God cannot keep on sinning” (1 John 3:9) figured largely. For some, the idea of perfection is anathema, freedom from sin is an impossibility, we will continue in sin until we are saved not so much by the Lord Jesus but by the fact of our departure from this life in death, thus making death our savior! Others, at times, have made perfection and freedom from sin a state to which they have attained, a condition of heart that has been achieved and often this degenerates into an obnoxious perfectionism laced with pride. Where lies the truth and does the subject of our musing today provide some clue? Is freedom from continuing in sin the result of a blessing received at some point in our Christian walk or is it the natural outcome of a living, daily, empowering relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? The second alternative is most certainly the context of all those phrases from John’s epistle. His whole letter is based on the fact “our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3) and “if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). John thinks in terms of the family of the sons of God dwelling together in unity and sharing in the same nature. There is no room for sin to continue in sons who are living in that holy household and who are beholding their Father and His Son. Dwelling in the light of His love, enjoying the constant food of His house, His body broken for us, will be the mighty preventative that enables us to resist the temptations proffered to us by the world and the devil. The love of the Father will be the purifying fire consuming the love of the world (1 John 2:15). As an illustration of this, picture the young father pushing his infant son in a stroller on a sidewalk in New York, right alongside him, on the pavement the buses rush by. Can he push the stroller complete with its precious cargo into the path of the oncoming bus? Can he or can’t he? The answer is a definite ‘yes’ and a powerful ‘no.’ Yes, he has the muscle power to shove the toddler to his death, but no, he cannot do it because of his love for his boy. Now apply this to these words, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9 ESV). “He cannot keep on sinning,” cannot, because he is born of God, blessed in sharing the spiritual nature that comes from the Father through the Son freely given by God’s grace. Mercy has been lavished upon him as a “hell deserving sinner,” the forgiving love of God and the beauty of Jesus and the fellowship he enjoys in the Holy Spirit and with others constitute the preciousness that makes sinning a passing foolishness to be excluded from his life. “How can I sin against God and do this thing” (Genesis 39:9) is the way the young Joseph puts it to his temptress. He knew it would grieve God Who He loved more than all and Who had lavished such bounty upon him. Thus we find, yet again, it is of Christ that we make our loftiest songs, we can sing of His mercies and blessings, rejoicing in them more and more, but none of them must be allowed to take on some independent life of their own in our thinking, nor become the preoccupation of our hearts, He is the fount of all and He alone. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us” (1 John 3:1). Let this “expulsive power of a new affection” obliterate the way of sin from our lives so that we can be certain that if, day by day, with unveiled face, we behold the glory of the Lord, we will be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another and all this shall be accomplished by the Lord Who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).
