Verses 8 to 11, But now put ye
away all these anger, wrath, malice, railing,
shameful speaking out of your mouth, lie not
one to another, seeing that ye have put
off the old man with his doing, and
have put on the new man, which is
being renewed unto knowledge after the image of
him that created him, where there cannot be
Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian,
bondman, freeman, but Christ is all, and in
all.
May I say, dear friends, as we approach
the message that is in these words, that
my real, very strong concern is that we
shall touch reality at this time.
That we shall go beyond theory, beyond teaching
as such, and meet the Lord at the
point of deep reality, where his need in
us is really met, our need in him
is met.
For we are in times when the build
-up of Christian truth, teaching, knowledge is immense,
and the corresponding reality in life
is by no means commensurate.
There is a margin, a gap, between what
is known and what is lived.
And we want to get into that gap,
as the Lord may enable us, and close
it up, or let him close it up,
so far as we are concerned, at this
time.
That truth and life shall come close together,
indeed become one.
That is the object that is in my
heart, at this time, not to say so
much more, however true it may be, but
really to touch very vital issues.
Now, there may be a lot said, but
I have one thought and object that is
governing everything that will be said.
All will be gathered around just one issue,
which I trust will become increasingly clear as
we go on.
Having said that, let us look at this
fragment of the word which we have just
read, verses 9 to 11 of the third
chapter of the letter to the Colossians.
And we will analyze it, break it up,
and note the five very distinct points that
are touched upon by the Apostle in these
words.
First of all, there is a retrospect to
the Creator and the created.
Being renewed after the image of him that
created him, that is a throwback to creation
and the creator.
Just note it, we are going to take
up each of these points separately.
But number one is this retrospective touch upon
the beginning of everything in the Creator and
the created.
The image of him that created.
Secondly, the pattern and purpose of the Creator
in the creation being renewed after
the image of him that created.
The pattern, the image, the purpose for renewal
of that image.
Thirdly, the real nature and effect of the
crisis in the life of Christians.
Something has happened in the life of Christians
which marks the beginning of a process.
A process indicated by these words, being renewed,
made anew, made over again.
A crisis in the life of the believer,
when something happened, he put off and he
put on.
That's the nature, the meaning, and the effect
of the great crisis in the life of
the Christian.
Next, fourth, the occupation and energy of the
Holy Spirit.
Who is doing this renewing work?
Being, being renewed.
Well, we are not doing it.
Either for ourselves or for other people.
Other people are not doing it for us.
This is the occupation and the energy of
the Creator Spirit.
He who brooded over the chaos and brought
out of the chaos the divine order.
The same Spirit now occupied with his own
energy in making anew according to the image.
Renewing the activity of the Holy Spirit.
And in the fifth place, the exclusiveness and
the inclusiveness of Christ.
Notice the last statement, where there cannot be.
That's the right kind of exclusiveness or exclusivism.
A whole realm, system, and order, and nature
is excluded.
There cannot be.
But the inclusiveness is just Christ.
Christ is all and in all.
That's the analysis of these verses.
Very simple points.
But how very comprehensive.
And how very important.
Meaningful.
Well, let us begin to take them up.
One at a time.
Firstly, then, man and his Creator.
The Creator and the created.
Perhaps it would be as well if we
arranged several other passages alongside of this one.
Going back to the beginning of this same
letter.
Chapter 1, verse 16.
For in him, in him were all things.
All things created.
In the heavens and upon the earth.
Things visible and things invisible.
Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things have been created through him and
unto him.
He is before all things.
And in him all things consist.
That in all things he might have the
preeminence.
Through him to reconcile all things unto himself.
The center and circumference of all things is
Christ.
The Creator of all things.
Then, familiar words in John's Gospel, Chapter 1.
Verse 3.
All things were made by him.
And without him was not anything made that
had been made.
John and Paul are one.
Perfect agreement on this matter.
Who was the originator of all things.
Then to the letter to the Romans, Chapter
11.
Always good to have, right to have, an
adequate scriptural basis for what we are saying.
11 and verse 36.
For of him and through him and unto
him are all things.
And one more.
First letter to the Corinthians.
Chapter 8 and verse
6.
There is one God, the Father.
Of whom are all things.
And we unto him.
And one Lord, Jesus Christ.
Through whom are all things.
And we through him.
Well, that establishes this.
What we have called the throwback to the
Creator and the created.
Then we have, of course, in order to
come to these words about renewing or making
anew or starting again a process of recovery.
We have to contemplate that terrible disintegration of
the man to whom these scriptures are referring.
Yes, the disruption of human life.
The disruption of every member of the human
race.
We need not argue, I think, from scripture
on this.
Because the argument is finished immediately.
We consider ourselves a mankind as we know
mankind.
We are perhaps more aware today than ever
of this disruption, disintegration in human life.
But there is a fundamental schism in man
and in mankind.
And schism, wherever it is found, always means
frustration.
Frustration is the evidence of a schism, a
divisiveness in human life and in human nature.
And we see this, of course, right from
the beginning of history as recorded in the
Bible.
All the way through and coming out in
our time in a consummate way.
There is frustration in human life.
Continuous frustration.
Every new step which is thought to be
a step of progress, of advancement, of development,
brings with it its own frustration.
No matter how far advanced, how fully developed,
how phenomenal the enlargement of knowledge and
of ability to do, to achieve.
No matter how great, how large, how amazing,
the frustration goes with it in the same
measure.
Until we reach the point in the world's
development we have reached in our own time,
when discovery, when invention, when the
mastery of forces in this universe, and the
bringing them into the service of man, terrible
and completely amazing.
Never, never have believed it.
Only a few years ago.
There, right alongside of it, is its own
doom.
Its own undoing.
And those who know most are most terrified
of what they have put their hands upon.
The fearful possibilities and potentialities that they wish
they'd never discovered.
Never known.
Frustration runs hand in hand through history with
every fresh development and movement.
It's there in human life.
It's in the creation.
And it's in the universe as it now
is.
And God himself has taken pains to bring
this out for man's realization.
For instance, the law.
As we have it in the Old Testament.
As we have invested in a nation, chosen
for this very purpose, to be God's object
lesson to all the nations, to all the
world.
The law.
The Apostle Paul puts his finger upon that
whole system.
Its long history.
Its meticulous application.
And he says, the law was given in
order to show how impotent man is.
If ever there was a thing employed by
Almighty God to demonstrate and expose the weakness
of man, it was the law.
The law.
That's the law of Moses, as it is
called.
The law of God.
And the Apostle, this same Apostle, who has
made such a terrible declaration as to the
effect of the law, that it has only
brought to light man's weakness, impotence, helplessness.
Hasn't done anything to save him.
Rather, to condemn him.
That man writes a chapter.
A whole chapter.
In these terms.
The good that I would.
And I would with all my heart.
I do not.
And the evil that I would not.
And with all my heart I would not.
I struggle and I strive and I labour
and I groan.
Not to do these things.
The evil that I would not.
That I do.
O wretched man that I am.
Who shall deliver me.
How did ever I know that the thing
was right.
That it should be done.
How ever did I discover that the thing
is wrong.
That I should not do it.
The law made me know right and wrong.
And left me paralysed.
Utterly incapable of rising to it.
Either to say no or to say yes.
O wretched man.
Isn't that frustration.
And isn't that history up to date.
For that's the law of Moses.
You and I dear friends are living.
In a time and a world.
When there is not a law of all
the multiplications of laws.
Which can cope with human nature.
As if.
O what a time.
Of lawlessness.
Which is only another way of saying.
Man's utter inability.
To answer to the law.
Or shall we put it this way.
The law's utter inability.
To cope with man.
There is this schism in human nature.
Dividedness.
Impersonality.
In constitution.
That works out in utter frustration.
That's a word today isn't it.
Frustration.
My work what about.
Is covered by that word today.
And how real it is in every realm.
Yes.
Personal.
As I have just cited Romans 7.
I.
Wretched man that I am.
What I would do.
I don't.
What I would not do.
That I do.
It's all so personal.
This division this schism.
In me.
In the personal realm.
In society.
I need not dwell upon each of these.
Society.
What a disruptive thing human society is.
What an unstable thing it is.
What a restless thing it is.
The competitiveness.
Why there it is.
It makes you heartily sick does it not.
See how in society.
No one can.
Can show something.
New or fresh.
Without the other person eyeing it.
And going one bit or trying to.
Out do.
Out do the other.
Oh the many sidedness of this.
Conflict in the social order.
Amongst people.
In the.
Economical realm.
I'm not here to talk about.
Economics.
But let's put another word in place of
that.
It means money doesn't it.
The realm of money.
Surely.
The love of it is the root of
all evil.
Isn't it the cause.
Of conflict.
Of strife.
Of rivalries.
Of everything that speaks of.
On the one side schism.
Divisiveness.
On the other frustration.
Frustration.
Never before.
Had people in this world so much money.
In this country.
Alone.
Never before in the history of this country.
Had people had so much money.
And never before was there so much dissatisfaction.
And grasping for more.
Day by day.
Our papers are just full of this.
Grasping scheming.
To have money.
And more money.
What does it lead to?
It doesn't lead to rest and peace and
satisfaction.
Or at all.
More.
And still more.
How divided human nature is.
You'd think if they had so much.
They'd be content.
Human nature would settle down as they are.
Got all this.
Let me be satisfied.
It just works the other way doesn't it.
In the economical realm.
In the political realm.
There's this schism at work.
And frustration.
There's a lot we could say about frustration.
Frustration in politics.
Oh we are not going to stop at
politics.
And as I have said before in the
matter of science.
No matter how far man goes.
To the moon or to the planets.
He's got some drive that will send him
beyond.
All the time.
He'll never never come to rest.
There's something in him.
That defeats him.
Tries and then it's got so far.
And so very far.
Still.
He's a restless being.
Driven on and on.
Never satisfied.
So we could go on with the frustration
in the industrial world.
And frustration in the national life.
And frustration in international relationship.
What a world it is.
It's also true isn't it?
And why?
Come back to where we started.
Why?
Sometime at some point for some reason human
nature became disrupted.
And disintegrated.
And schismatic.
Divided.
A conflict.
Even in the individual.
We all here know the conflict in ourselves.
The Bible opens with a picture very different
from that.
Everything beautiful.
God almighty who is meticulously perfect in his
requirements.
Utter in his standards of satisfaction.
Infinite God being able to look at all
things and say it is very good.
It is very good.
It's something if the Lord can look upon
one little bit and say it's very good.
Isn't it?
You and I would feel very happy if
there was one little thing about us that
the Lord could say that's very good.
But looking on all things and saying it
is good.
It is very good.
That's the opening picture of the Bible.
Something happened.
Disrupted the universe.
Shot through this universe.
This schism.
And this resultant frustration.
And what is the ultimate frustration?
The ultimate frustration is death.
There is nothing that speaks more of frustration
than death.
It says defeat.
It says imperfection.
Nothing finalized in this life.
The final frustration is death.
They are talking now about science arriving perhaps
before long at the point where they will
be able to destroy death.
Where death will be defeated.
To imagine such a thing.
And another way of saying such a thing
is to find everything in this universe saying
that's a lie.
For death has a date with every mortal
being.
And you'll never defeat that one.
He's defeating you all the way along.
You may, by your science, prolong life.
Add to your tenure.
But that is not always a blessing, you
know.
A lot of people today, if the Lord
would take them, live by reason.
For a few more years, that is, says
the Bible.
Yes, this is very nice.
Well, that may not be true of all
you very old people.
But, but, you know, the prolonging of life
is very often a doubtful blessing.
I remember many years ago reading something on
a sundial in Stirling Castle in the Crown.
And it went like this.
Our life is like a winter's day.
Some only breakfast and away.
Others to dinner stay and are full fed.
The oldest man butts up and goes to
bed.
Large is his debt who lingers out the
day.
And he that goes through it soonest has
the least to pay.
Well, that's not the Bible.
Not scripture.
But I don't know who wrote it.
Maybe a morbid view of life.
But there's some truth in it.
That while it is possible to have a
long life with the blessing of the Lord,
the length of days is no guarantee of
happiness.
And if they're going to destroy death, they
think they can.
They think they can.
Doesn't mean that they're going to be benefactors
of humanity.
Maybe very much the other way.
And men long to die all the more
because of conditions.
Well, be that as it may, the point
is that the final consummate outworking of frustration
is death.
And when we have said all this about
the schism and frustration in every realm, to
where do we trace it?
To man himself.
It's just man, isn't it?
It's just man.
It's this that has happened in man.
This devastation in human nature and human life.
Indeed, the image of God has been lost.
The purpose of the Creator in the creation
itself is such a frustration.
As we see human life today, the divine
property in the beginning is under frustration.
Well, that's the dark, miserable side.
It's so true.
We have to note it before we can
get on to the other side.
Our scriptures appear.
While they touch on that, and my word,
don't they touch upon it?
You'll see them later.
They toss over to the other side.
Being renewed after the image of him that
created him.
The reintegration.
The reunification in the Creator.
In Christ all and in all.
You notice every schismatic element is touched upon
here.
Every schismatic element is touched upon.
In man's nature, they'll see.
Perhaps we'll upon that again in a minute.
Or presently.
In man's nature.
And then, at the end of the paragraph,
all the racial divisions, Jews, Gentiles, and so
on.
Every disintegrated element, excluded from Christ, the
unifier and the unification of all, beginning in
the individual, and ultimately manifested in a whole
race, beside which there will be no other
race, because you cannot have something extra to
all.
Can you?
If you come to all, then there's nothing
more.
Nothing more than all.
And how we underline that phrase, didn't we?
In all these passages we've read, all, all
things, all things, all things, that final consummate.
Everything reunited.
Now, it's at that point that we begin
the great positive revelation of the meaning of
Christ.
We light upon the real significance of the
Incarnation.
Son of God becoming man.
Man.
Made in the likeness of man, says Paul.
Himself man.
And his own favoured, chosen, cherished title for
himself, Son of Man.
Son of Man.
He loved it, Mary.
He constantly used it, in preference to every
other title.
Son of Man.
His Possum.
His Incarnation.
The very object of his coming out of
eternity into time.
Out of eternity into history.
A very mean, pompous object.
Explanation of himself as having come from glory
is found in this word man.
Man.
That is not just a proper name, Son
of Man.
That's a purpose.
A purposeful title.
That's a meaning.
That's an explanation.
That's a definition.
Man.
Man, Christ Jesus.
This Son of Man is a unity in
himself.
There is no system in this Possum, in
this humanity.
He is a one.
Not dual, but one.
A unity.
An integration in him.
You know the Lord Jesus, in all his
life here, never suffered from conscience.
I don't mean he didn't have a conscience.
Conscience is a constituent of full personality.
But Jesus never, for a split second, suffered
from conscience.
If he had done that, he would not
have been a unity in his personality, in
his nature.
Because conscience is always a divisive element, isn't
it?
It suggests strife, doesn't it?
Conflict.
Two things.
Paul says it either accuses or it excuses.
Whichever it does, it speaks of something to
be combated in the Possum concern.
Conscience!
Oh, have I proved conscience?
Argued about conscience?
Don't we know all about conscience?
It's this conscience that is accountable for 90
% of our misery.
Isn't that true?
Oh, my conscience.
What a time it is.
Jesus never suffered from conscience.
Not for long.
There was no duality in his thinking.
It was single.
One.
A unity.
No fighting in his nature.
No.
You see, if there is perfect obedience, perfect
obedience, there's no place for conscience.
Isn't that true?
No place for conscience to trouble.
A perfectly obedient life.
And he was able to say, as no
other part of the human race could ever
say, I do always those things which are
well-pleasing.
And to him, I do always.
What a claim.
What a statement.
In a world like this, a man, in
the human creation, standing up before heaven and
earth and hell and saying, I do always
those things which are well-pleasing, and Moses
and him, because of perfect obedience.
And now as our time has gone, or
tonight, do you begin to see perhaps a
little, a little more of a little, to
your own heart, satisfaction?
Why the apostle was always, always using one
little phrase, and what he meant by it,
what it meant to him, what it meant
to him, how heart-ravishing it was to
him, in its meaning, in Christ.
In Christ.
There is therefore now no condemnation for them
that are in Christ.
Conscience is redeemed in Christ.
In this matter, a condemnation which carries with
it more than anything else, frustration.
In Christ we stop.
There is none in Christ.
And when he uses that phrase, it's always
we are in Christ.
We in Christ.
Are you a man, he says, in Christ?
A man in Christ.
In Christ.
Positioned, positioned in the realm of all that
terrible contradiction and conflict, is
arrested, and we're put into a position, in
righteousness of God through faith in Christ.
Righteousness of God in Christ.
Through faith.
Would that I could grasp it.
Would that we could all grasp that.
It is reality because there's never a time
when the saints of God are more assailed
and harassed by accusation and condemnation than at
this time.
Frustration in the Christian life.
Very largely due to a failure to apprehend,
to grasp the real meaning of being in
Christ.
This one, this one, in whom there is
no conscience worrying, in whom there is no
system, that's the position that we are brought
into.
I have more to say about that when
we come to the crisis.
Oh, the infinite blessedness if only we could
grasp it.
And we're all defeated here, we all fail
here, every one of us failing here, to
grasp this initial, fundamental, blessedness of being, what
it means to be placed in Christ.
Well, so far as God and we are
concerned there's no controversy, no conflict.
God is not against us and yet we
believe so often that he is.
And the devil tells us a thousand times
every day that God is not for us,
he's against us, anything that he can use
as a ground of argument to bring us
under condemnation, a shadow again of that terrible
habit he has brought about in human life.
The infinite preciousness of our position before ever
the work is taken up of perfecting our
position in Christ.
A new humanity.
A different kind of humanity.
In Christ a humanity has been regenerated.
In Christ a humanity has been introduced into
this creation, the destiny of which is final
conformity to his image.
Being renewed, made anew after his image.
No wonder with all that he had to
meet, encounter and suffer he went tranquilly on
his way.
Tranquilly on his way.
Not until that day, that hour, that moment
when he made sin for us and a
curse for us.
Taking the place of this disruptive creation when
his soul was torn asunder.
But not until then was he ever disturbed
by any kind of controversy with his father
or his father with him.
Frankly dear friends I'm saying tremendous things to
you but after all this is after all
the simple truth of a Christian's position by
faith in Jesus Christ.
No more controversy between us and heaven.
Heaven and us.
No condemnation in Christ.
Created by him.
Created by him for a position and a
state like that.
And he has come back to redeem from
all that contradicts that state to redeem man.
To redeem man.
I'll stop there.
But what I want and I said I
had one object one thought this time around
which all this is being governed I want
to emphasize this that it's man that God
is after.
It is man that God is after.
Not things.
Not system.
Not orders.
But man he is after human life.
He's come to get it.
To redeem it.
To make it again.
It's our humanity upon which he has focused
his attention.
There if I could go on we should
find so much help in the explanation of
his dealings with us.
What is he up to and after in
his attention upon us.
His attention to us.
What's he up to?
What's he after?
He's after a humanity.
A man.
A human life.
To be the expression of himself.
His own image.
Renewed after the image of him.
The explanation.
We ask a thousand questions to what the
Lord is doing and why he's doing this
and that and so many things with us.
Why he's taking this way.
And all the questions are answered in this
one thing.
He's after our manhood.
After our human nature.
He's after our humanity.
He's after this creation.
This truly unique creation.
Human beings to make them after his own
image.
That's why he's dealing with us.
Sometimes it seems he's dealing with us as
though we were the only individual in the
dark universe.
It's all so real.
Sometimes so terrible.
So drastic.
Sometimes he's singled us out from everybody else
to deal with us.
Here's the answer.
In Colossians 3.
9 to 11.
Being renewed.
Made anew.
After the image of him.
That creator.