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To introduce us to our study, let us just read some famous verses from chapter one of the Epistle to the Colossians, beginning in verse twelve. Colossians chapter one and verse 12. Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were 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. And he is before all things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell, and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him I say, whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens, and you.
God give us good understanding of his holy word. The epistle of Paul to the Colossians is literally ablaze with the glories of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And as such, it is a brilliant example of the fulfillment of the promise that our blessed Lord Jesus made to his disciples before he left them. According to John chapter sixteen, our Lord was explaining to the apostles that when he had gone, he would send the Holy Spirit to them. If I do not go away, he said, the Holy Spirit will not come.
But when he has come, amongst other things, he shall glorify me, for he shall take of the things of mine and declare them and show them and manifest them to you. And then, by way of explanation, he added a clause or two, saying, you know, when I said just now he shall take of the things of mine, I would have you understand, gentlemen, that all that the Father has is mine. That must have sound staggering in the ears of those humble fishermen and men of Galilee. They had known him as the carpenter of Nazareth.
They had come to perceive that he was the Messiah, the Son of God in that sense. But now what extraordinary terms and what vast claims were these that the blessed Lord was making? All that the Father has is mine. True, their little mi- their minds in those pre-scientific days might not have imagined what an immense universe it is that we live in. Theirs was to see but a few thousand stars, but even so, it must have been a magnificent concept in their ears.
All that the Father has is mine, from every creature that moves on the face of the earth, to our sun and its planetary system, to our galaxy up which, at the end of which we are, to all the other galaxies that are whirling space, to the vast principalities and powers, mights and dominions to whom God has delegated the running of a great deal of the universe, and all else besides imaginable and unimaginable. All that the Father has, said he, is mine.
What wonderful words they are, and we pause in awestruck reverence before them, even at this moment. It is a remarkable thing that, according to John, in those last hours before Calvary, our Lord was heard to repeat those words more than once. All that the Father has is mine, and all that is thine, said he to the Father, is mine. And as they stripped him bare of his clothing and nailed him to the cruel cross, who knows but what in the darkness of those moments, in that extreme desolation, he comforted his divine and human heart by the oft repeated phrase, all that the Father has is mine.
So it was the second of the major purposes of the coming of the Holy Spirit, that he should take these things of Christ, all that the Father has that belong to the Savior, and manifest them to us. Of course, I suppose that unaided intelligence, if the apostles had any, would have got them thinking, wouldn't it? Even if the Holy Spirit hadn't come, would have got them thinking about who Jesus Christ must be. If, as he said, his death was a sacrifice as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the whole world, who then must Jesus be?
What is his relationship to this world? If he were now ascended into glory, pray, what was his relationship with the created universe? When the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, he certainly set about it as his prime objective to open the eyes of men and women to see what the answer is to that great question. God has made him, said Peter, both Lord in the highest possible sense of that term, and Christ.
So here in the writings of Paul, the Holy Spirit is at his delightful task explaining to us just exactly who Jesus is, what is his relationship to God, and what his relationship to the vast universe around us. This glorification of Christ fills, as you may see if you care to look at your little map, fills the center part of each of the three sections of Paul's writing to the Colossians. Elevated as the language is, none of it is merely repetitious.
In column one and part two, Paul expounds the glories of the Lord Jesus. He is first and supreme. In him all the vast creation had its beginning. He was first in that sense. He is firstborn, says the Spirit, of all creation, for he is the head of principality, power, might, and dominion. He is not only first in creation, he is supreme in redemption. First born from the dead, he is head of all that great, uh, development that is going on in the heavens.
The population of the heavens by this new and wonderful thing, the creation of the body of Christ. So our Lord says this particular part of the epistle is first and supreme, firstborn of creation, firstborn in resurrection, that in everything he might be first. It is not repetitious, therefore, when in the second column and in the middle of the column, Paul returns to the question of the glories of the Lord Jesus and pronounces Christ now to be not merely first and supreme, but sufficient and triumphant.
In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and you are complete in him. At his cross, when principalities and powers invested him like a besieging army, in his apparent weakness, he stripped them of their weapons and stalked in divine majesty to the throne of God, where now he sits triumphant. Christ sufficient and triumphant. And similarly, in the second paragraph of the last section, Paul brings us once more to the person of the Lord Jesus and pronounces that Christ is all and in all.
But as you will notice, the middle section of the epistle not only cons- makes its grand statements as to the glory of the Lord Jesus, but inseparably related and connected with those grand statements of Christ's glory is the statement about ourselves. It is the fact that we should not even understand ourselves, uh, properly and truly, unless we first understand who Jesus Christ is. We shall not even understand our sin unless we diagnose it in the light of our relationship with him.
For the great paragraph in the first column tells us that all things were made for him. If you would understand our sin as human beings, you must le- read it in the light of that grand statement, whereas we, along with all other things, were made for him. We have been caught up in the cosmic rebellion against our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. We too have become enemies of his will. We too have added our perversities to the creation of the world.
We have rebelled against the very reason for our existence. We were alienated and enemies in our minds. We shall not only fail to understand the nature of our sin unless we relate us it to him, we shall not understand either the goal of our redemption unless we understand who Jesus is. He is the firstborn from the dead. He is the head of the body of the church, and the goal of our redemption is not merely to save us from the awkward consequences and penalties of our sin.
It is to conform us. It is to reconcile us. It is to make us fit into the grand schemes that God has devised for the pleasure of his great son in the great eternity that is to be. We shall not understand either what is to be our lifestyle in this present world while we are on the way to being glorified with Christ, unless we see that the whole of our lifestyle now as believers is designed to be controlled in all its aspects by Jesus Christ, our Lord.
He is, says Paul in the third section of the book, to be the pattern of our forgiveness. We are to forgive others as the Lord forgave us. His peace is to rule in our hearts as an em- umpire rules in a game. The word of Christ is constantly to be in our hearts and in our minds, it to be the constant subject of our thoughts. His, it is his word that is the motivation of our singing, as in the joy of our salvation, our hearts respond to God in singing his praise.
Every activity of ours, says Paul, excepting none of them, is to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. Wives are to be in subjection to their husbands in the name of the Lord Jesus, says Paul. Children to obey their parents in all things, for this is well pleasing in the Lord. Whatsoever you do, says Paul to the slaves, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, fearing the Lord and as unto the Lord, knowing that from the Lord you shall receive the recompense of reward.
For if our lifestyle is to conform to that of the new man that God is devising, its secret is this, that everything we do and everything in life's relationships shall be done now under the lordship and mastership of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. So the second section, the great middle sections of each part of the epistle are ablaze with the glory of the Lord Jesus, not merely as some exotic exercise to beguile a few moments with its heavenly glories, but as linked to ourselves in our understanding of ourselves, our sin, our salvation, our redemption, our coming glory, and our present lifestyle.
Tonight we are to consider the first of these great sections of the epistle. But let us spend just a few moments more noticing now that each of the three major sections of the book has its jewels strung like a necklace upon a single major thread. For instance, the first major section of the book talks in its paragraph one about the hope that is laid up for us in the heavens. Look, if you care, to chapter one and verse five.
Because, says Paul, the love which you have toward all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens. Then, having mentioned hope, he comes round to the topic again in verse twenty three where he says, if so be that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven, whereby Paul was made a minister. The hope laid up for us then in heaven, the hope of the gospel.
And in verse twenty seven, at the end of the verse, the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Hope, then, is the thread that s- is used to string the great jewels of Paul's doctrine onto the necklace that forms the first major part of this epistle. When it comes to the second section, it's a different thread. Just look at it for sake of completeness. Chapter two in its first paragraph, verse 3, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
We've changed over from the theme of hope to the theme of wisdom. It is mentioned in the first paragraph, it is repeated in the second. Look, if you please, at verse eight: Take heed, lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy. But then philosophy, a long English word, but is two simple Greek words meaning a love of wisdom. Here, of course, is a false wisdom contrasting vividly with the wisdom of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Wisdom, divine wisdom and knowledge in paragraph 1, false wisdom in paragraph 2.
And look how paragraph three ends, verse twenty three: which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship and humility and severity to the body. False wisdom again, but wisdom, the theme on which the jewels of paragraph two are, uh, held. And finally, in the third section of the book, the theme is life. You see it in verse three, chapter three, verse three: for you died and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall you also with him be manifested in glory. And as we have already thought, the rest of that section will deal with the lifestyle of the new man that has been created after God in his knowledge and likeness. Let that serve then for our introduction, for our reading of the map, so that we may now come down to the detail of the first great section of the epistle. We're not going to get through the whole of the epistle in these three short studies, hence the value again of the initial survey.
But let's think now together for a while of this question of our Christian hope. The hope, says Paul, that is laid up for us in heaven. That, of course, is a reference to our blessed Lord Jesus. He is the ground of our hope, and our hope is in heaven. Then in the second paragraph, the hope of the gospel. The hope of the gospel turns out to be, to be based on our Lord at Calvary, who by the blood of his cross reconciles all things to God.
And finally, in verse twenty seven, the hope of glory, that turns out to be not our Lord in heaven, nor our Lord at Calvary, but our blessed Lord within each one of us. Christ in heaven, Christ at Calvary, Christ in you. This sums up our Christian hope. Now let's begin at the beginning. The hope that is laid up for you, says Paul, in heaven. My imagination is taken by the verb, the hope laid up for you, and I like the word exceedingly.
It reminds me of another place where that verb is used. It is used in the famous parable of the rich fool. You remember the story which the Lord Jesus told, do you not? Of this farmer who had prospered in his farming and had so bumper harvests that he had a, a storage problem, said he, scratching his agricultural head, uh, what shall I do? My barns are too small to cope with all the stuff that I've acquired. So he sat down and came to his conclusion. I know what I'll do, said he. I'll pull down my barns and I'll build greater, and there will I store all my goods, and I shall say to myself, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.
Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. And I can see him, can't you, rather portly and red-faced farmer, sitting on his very expensive city and looking out at his windows from time to time, his leg up on the footstool, doing what he told his soul to do. Soul, take your ease, looking out on all the goods that was stored up for him for many years to come, and what a consummate fool he was. For that very night his life was to be taken. He'd solved his storage problem in the foolishest of ways. He might have sent on his goods in advance to heaven, mightn't he, and laid up a good foundation against the time to come.
Stupid fellow, that he went and stored them here on earth, and when his life was required of them, had to say farewell to them forever. Forgive, uh, forgive the, um, diversion. But, you know, I, I like the verb, and I'm not going to ask you to be rich fools, of course not. No, but I'm now going to ask you, uh, suggest to you that you might ca- care to relax just now, this moment, from the heat and pressures of the day, and indulge yourself just a little bit, ladies and gentlemen. It's good for the soul sometimes, isn't it? From the sterner things of life to sit back a minute and look out of the windows, through the window of God's word, and perceive, contemplate, enjoy right now at this very moment the hope that is laid up for you in the heavens.
Oh, count it on your fingers, if you've got enough fingers to count. Go over the blessed thing again. The hope that is laid up for you in the heavens for a great while yet to come. And pray, what is that hope, you say? What is the hope that's laid up for me? Oh, the wonderful news is this. If you have been reconciled to God through the death of his son, God has joined you to his son and joined you forever, and in consequence, because your savior has been raised to the right hand of God and sat at the head of all principality, might, power, and dominion, you have a hope laid up in the heavens for you because you are united and reconciled to God's dear son.
Pray, consider him for a moment. He is the firstborn of all creation, says Paul, because in him were all things made, through him were all things made, for him were all things made. He is before all things, and in him all things consist. He is the firstborn of all creation, heir of it all. Even the heir to our little planet and all its history and all its progress finds its consummation in Jesus Christ our Lord.
He is the heir of all things, and he is your savior and your Lord. Ponder it again. In him were all things created. The very first word of the Bible, of course, is in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And perhaps its major meaning is a time reference, who knows, that in the beginning, when all things started, if you will, in the beginning God created heavens and the earth. But if that is what Genesis means, there is an earlier beginning than even that beginning, is there not?
For our Lord Jesus Christ himself, talking to one of his churches, declared himself to be the beginning, the beginning of the creation of God. Our blessed Lord is the beginning of the vast creation around us. If I were to, uh, come to one of your great factories, and I were to ask you, where did that factory have its beginning? You could reply it had its beginning when they dug for the foundations and laid the concrete. Well, that would be one beginning, wouldn't it?
But be assured there was another beginning before that. That factory began in the mind of its owner, who decided that he needed a factory for his purposes. And thus the great factory had its beginning, not when the foundations were dug, it had its beginning in the mind of the owner. The Bible tells us here that the vast universe had its beginning in Christ, was in his mind.
His was the idea. His the thought behind it all. Your factory may have begun in the mind of the owner, but very probably it was not carried out through him. He hired himself an architect and a builder that the factory might be built through them. Not so with creation. If it was, had its origin in the Lord Jesus, says Paul, then the whole thing was brought into being through the Christ. It was in him, it was through him. Not only did he begin it, not only was he the agent in its creation, but the Bible says this next superb thing, it was made for him.
Every tiny little bit of it, down to the slenderest blade of grass, down to the tiniest cell that composes our bodies. It was made for him. I came from Perth, as some of you know, across to Sydney by your famous Nullarbor or railway, and one of its many delights and wonders was at night time, when the sky was dark and clear, such as we never have it in my country at home, and you would wake up in the middle of the night and look out of the train window and see such a spectacle as left one breathless.
There one night, I vividly remember it, were the great Milky Way coming down like a cataract of fiery light from heaven to earth. There were the constellations, and far more of them down here in the south than we can ever see in the north. And as I gazed at them in all their wonder and brilliance, the thought came again, as it has often come many times to my heart. What's it all for? Why all these vast millions? What are they for? I am a backyard astronomer. I can name at least three stars. Sometimes when I go out of a night time in our part of the world and look at the galaxy in Andromeda and remember what the astronomers say.
It's only a tiny little galaxy. It only has fifty billion suns in it. I say to myself, what is all for? I hope, incidentally, when we get home to heaven, if it's not all been changed, I should get some time off singing in the choir to go and investigate the same things, to see what they're really doing up there. But meantime, we're told what they're for. They are for the Lord Jesus, that's what they're for. They were made for him, says scripture. Not only so, but uh, it is said here that he is before all things.
He was before them in the sense that he existed before they existed, but he is before them. This universe of ours, we have learned, is relative. Something happens in Australia. They don't know it's happened in Britain until the news is flashed across by telephone or fax or something. Something happens on the sun. It doesn't get here, the news of it doesn't get here until eight minutes afterwards. Some things happen on remote galaxies, they don't get here for thousands and thousands and thousands of year, the light travels before it reaches us.
And even in life's little circumstances. Here's a man going home from work, he's involved in an accident and seriously injured, and they've taken him to hospital. The news hasn't got to his wife yet. It's going to be a desperate shock when it arrives. It hasn't got to her yet. She's still preparing his dinner, you'll see, expecting him to come. We tiny creatures are always after the event, aren't we? Or very often after the event. Christ is always before every event. Nothing takes him by surprise.
He then is before all things, and he it is that holds everything together at this present moment. Sit back, my brother and sister, and think of the hope that is laid up for you in the heavens. If he is the rightful heir of these all things, the Bible assures you as a believer that you are an heir of God and a joint Jesus Christ, our Lord. Oh, what will it be to get above and inherit with Christ all the vast unimaginable glories and wonders that there are in store for him in the eternal world.
He's not only the firstborn of all creation, is he? He is the firstborn from the dead. He is the head of the church, which is his body. And here we come upon a breathtaking marvel. For Christ is not only going to restore the original creation to its pristine glory, he has already begun to add a thing that never the greatest saint on earth ever dreamed of in past ages. There is a new thing in the universe that before Pentecost was not there, but since that day has been in process of forming, it is a new kind of humanity.
It is formed of multi-millions of human beings, each an individual personality, each a redeemed personality, but now so constructed that they are not merely individual personalities, but are wonderfully joined together in a common life so that they constitute a common body. It is God's solution to the problem of personality. I dare say you have noticed many a time through hard experience what a problem human personality is, is it not? We know it even since we have been saved.
More troubles come in more churches through the difficulties of human personality and clash of personality than perhaps from any other cause. Human personality is a wonderful thing, but so far in human history it is proved to be a very costly and a very dangerous thing. And God has his answer to the matter. The great new heavens and new earth are not to be cursed by the difficulty of human personality. All the wealth of individual personalities, not one duplicating another, every star different in glory. The difficulty is going to be solved by the creation and perfecting of this great new organism in the heavens, that is the very body of Christ.
Pray, sit back a moment and consider the hope that is laid up for you in the heavens. But as we think of that, we ought to move on now to the second strand in our Christian hope. Not merely the hope laid up for us in heaven, as Paul puts it, but the hope of the gospel. The hope of the gospel. To come at that as nearly and as briefly as we can, let us consider, first of all, the background of our gospel, the background of our hope, and why there was any need for a gospel in the first place.
And here we come down to the matter that we expressed in the title of tonight's talk. We need a gospel, and we need a hope attached to that gospel, because there has been a cosmic rebellion against God and his Christ. For here in these verses, mention is made that our Lord Jesus was creator not only of our planet and the universe around it, he is the creator of these thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, to which originally was delegated the power of organization and administration of the vast universe of God.
Some of those principalities and powers have apparently remained loyal to the Most High. Others of them have rebelled against the Most High. We have to take the words of Holy Scripture seriously. I know that in modern times, theologians have said that we mustn't take these words as though they appear- applied to some heavenly beings, spirits. They were Paul's way of referring to what we should call the difficulties inherent in the structures of human life.
These theologians have argued that in the structures, the political structures and the economic structures of our world, there is built in a certain evil. Not necessarily the personal responsibility of all those who are engaged in politics or economics or whatever, but by the very nature that these economic and political structures of our world are built by fallen men and women, there is in the very structures of life, its economics, its politics, its law, its commerce, evil forces that work to the distress and impoverishment and sometimes the imprisonment and death of men and women.
And they have said that these verses tell us that Christ is our hope, that one day he will rid earth of all its the evil in its structures. That the principalities and powers are simply a poetic way of talking about these things. It is certain, of course, that when the Lord Jesus comes, he will put down all evil in earth's politics, economics, commerce, and law, and in every other field. But such demythologizations of the words of scripture are not enough to satisfy Paul's plain intention.
For Holy Scripture, in talking about principalities and powers, includes within them his satanic majesty himself. The Bible teaches that he is a personal being of immense wonder and original glory, so high indeed that he was not ash- uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, he was not ashamed or unable to challenge the authority of Almighty God himself. The great spirit of evil. The Bible indicates that not only has Satan rebelled against God, but that Satan has led a great array of high intelligences against God, against his government, against his rule, and against his Christ.
If we are to understand the position of our world and the dimensions of our gospel, we must take into our purview these serious and awesome facts of Holy Scripture. I know, of course, it is a matter smiled upon by many a modern man. Say there, you're not asking us to believe in angels, are you? How could we possibly believe in angels? Ah. But when they've forgotten what the Bible says about angels, then presently listen to them, and they will tell you all that people like Carl Sagan in America, the great cosmologist, is convinced that there are intelligent beings within the crea- within the universe around us, and thousands upon thousands of dollars are spent annually tracking the signals that come in from outer space in the hope of one day capturing in their, uh, de- hearing devices codes that indicate messages that are coming from outer space from intelligent beings.
For many a scientist is convinced these days, because he is an evolutionist, that if evolution has brought us humans into this planet as intelligent beings, statistically the likelihood is that there will be intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe. And if they are intelligent, maybe they're trying to get in touch with us, though if they were, you might doubt perhaps their intelligence. Why ever would they wish to do it, you'll see? But that is the theory, and the curious thing is that when the scientists say to it, multitudes of men and women say, oh yes, we can see that is a theoretical possibility and worth our while spending millions of dollars to try and establish contact with these beings.
The curious thing is that God has been saying it for centuries, hasn't he? These principalities, powers, mights, and dominions are by definition creatures, and therefore they are within the great creation. They may not necessarily be in our universe, but they have access to our universe. That is the plain statement of Holy Scripture. They have not only had access and knowledge of our universe, they have interfered with catastrophic results, haven't they?
They that are not loyal to God. And not only rebelled against him themselves, but have involved our planet in that rebellion. And listen to the Apostle Paul, as now he begins to express what is the need of our gospel. Not only has there been a cosmic rebellion in high places, but, says Paul, and you, and you, you too have been involved in this cosmic rebellion.
It is not an exaggeration, ladies and gentlemen, to describe our human sin in cosmic terms, because the serious thing about our human sin is that it runs clean counter to the whole reason why the vast universe was made. And you were sometimes alienated in your minds and enemies of God in your sinful works, and you. But as we thought earlier, the whole universe was made not only in Christ and through Christ, but for Christ.
We human beings have been involved in that cosmic and impertinent rebellion that has put ourselves in the place of Christ, and we have turned everyone to his own way. I was traveling once on a train after the war, and opposite me sat a young gentleman, and I shared my tea with him, and he shared his sandwiches with me, and we got talking. In the course of the conversation, the topic of human sin came up, and the young gentleman expressed himself quite firmly on the point that he didn't think sin was a really modern concept.
He was not interested in sin anyway. It wasn't a concept with him. I said, tell me, good man, do you think you would be clever enough to make a motor car? He said he thought he was. I said, well, now tell me, if you made a motor car and, uh, five times out of ten it went where you wanted it to go, and the other five times, even though you sat behind the wheel and pulled it in this way and that way, it took no notice of you and went exactly where it wanted to go itself. What would you do to the thing? He said, I'd scrap it. I said, yes, I thought you would. I said, tell me, if you made a motor car and nine times out of ten it went where you wanted it to go, and just once in ten uh it refused the guidance of your hand and still went where it wanted to go itself, what would you do to it then?
He said, I'd scrap the thing. He said, if I made a motor car, I should want it to go ten times out of ten where I wanted it to go. And I said, scrap it. I said, yes, I'd rather think you would. I fancy God ho- holds the same view too, my, my good man. For he tells us that the trouble with us is that all we, like sheep, have gone astray. He made us to do his wor- will, to go his way, to serve his purpose. And our sin is this, that we have turned everyone to his own way, in cosmic defiance, the very purpose for which the universe was made.
And I said, young man, you want to be careful that if you persist as you are, you want to be careful that God doesn't put you too on the scrap heap of eternity. And you know, we must take this diagnosis seriously, mustn't we? Because sometimes, even after we get saved, it hasn't really dawned on us yet how immensely sinful was our sin. And if we were not careful, we could misapprehend salvation in that same way. To imagine that salvation is geared with us at the center of it, and that Jesus Christ is there to minister to us in our times of need.
Last year I had to go and see a surgeon. My, my doctor sent me to see the surgeon because the doctor was worried about one of my big toes, you'll see. And the surgeon was, uh, explaining to me how good a surgeon he was and what a marvelous operation he could do upon big toes, you'll see. And to encourage me in that thought, he told me of one of his colleagues. He said, you know, one of my colleagues let me do the operation the other, the other month. He said, because his left toe became very rigid, he said, like yours, you'll see, and it was interfering with his swing at golf, you'll see. And I did the operation for him, and now he's rejoicing that he can swing his golf club, do you see?
And I pondered the, uh, the idea that the whole of the British National Health Service, so to speak, was geared through the surgeon to putting right his colleague's rigid toe to, uh, facilitate his, uh, swing at golf. Yes. And sometimes we have that concept of Christ, don't we? When our marriages break down, well, Christ is there to fix them. When we get depressed, then he's there to, to encourage us. If we fall into sin, well, he's there to forgive us. He's there, and his salvation is there for us.
And if we're not careful, we fall or else continue in that same old egocentric attitude to life, that hedonistic, that pleasure-seeking attitude to life that has it that when we get into trouble, Christ exists to put us right. Like my garage man, you know, I've got an excellent garage man at home. Hm. When my car, as it does repeatedly nowadays, for like me, it's getting elderly, uh, gets into trouble, I go and pester the garage man, and being a very charming gentleman, he puts the thing right, you'll see. And when he's put it right, I don't say, well, now, garage man, that's marvelous, you know, please take my car and have it at your disposal.
I'll drive it anywhere where you want me to drive it, you'll see. No, I think not. As soon as he's fixed the car, I say, well, bye-bye, garage man, you'll see, and I forget all about him after that. It's only when the car needs fixing again that I go to the garage man, and as far as I'm concerned, the garage man exists just to fix my car. And we could be in danger, couldn't we, of preaching a gospel to men and women today that suggests that that's what Christ is. He's the universal fixer up of human beings when they get into difficulty, and that's the sum of the matter. He exists for them. And if we so misrepresent the gospel, it would be what Chuck Colson calls a hedonistic blasphemy.
Christ doesn't exist in that sense for us. We were made for him. The terrible fact is that ever we took our free will and rebelled against him and went our own way. We must not interpret salvation as merely a fixing up job that Christ does for us, to put us on our wheels again. The gospel is that we need to be reconciled to God, brought back to God to fulfill the pleasure that God had and the purpose God had in our creation.
This is the hope of the gospel, to be reconciled to God, to may be made to square with God's purpose. So far, the account of our lives have been out of gear. We haven't been able to reconcile it, have we? It doesn't make sense if it doesn't live for God. Great purpose of the gospel is to reconcile our accounts so that they square with the purposes of God. And herein is the wonder of the gospel. This is what God has ordained that Jesus Christ our Lord should do.
And you, has he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you without blemish and absolutely unreprovable in his sight. Oh, lovely words. One day the blessed Lord Jesus will present us before the throne of God's glory with exceeding joy. God himself be unable to find a blemish within us perfectly reconciled to God by the death of his son.
I bid you ponder a moment. Not only the wonder of the fact that shall be, but the wonder of the method that God has chosen to accomplish it. To reconcile all things to him through the blood of his cross, thus making peace. The slander of the devil and all his hosts has been that in making our world and making us men and women upon it, God has laid down such conditions of life and such stringent laws as God has shown himself to be an intolerable tyrant.
That is the slander that has gained the hearts and minds of multitudes of our fellow men and women. God, the tyrant. How will God reconcile the world to himself if that is what they have in their hearts? We've had it ourselves too, haven't we? By some exhibition of power? No, of course not. There never has been any doubt in the universe who holds the ultimate power. Even Satan himself, when he came to tempt our blessed Lord Jesus, he said, Bow down and worship me, and I will give you all the cities of the world and the kingdoms of the world, for to me they have been given.
There speaks a creature who knows he is not almighty. It is by God's permission that he is allowed to continue with the power that he has so diverted from God's purpose. There never has been any question to who has ultimate power. The question has always been, who has the greatest claim to man's loyalty? Who is it that really loves? You see, my brother, my sister, when you first sinned, God could have squashed, squashed the blood out of a mus- But what would that have proved?
It demonstrated that was God was almighty to create, almighty to destroy, but not almighty as, would he not? A God that could not retain the loyalty and love of his creatures was a God who, in that sense, must be just failed. Tell me this, my good man, why should it you think of... guess concerned I of you, you're so too much about what the almighty depths of God's heart set out to reconcile all things to himself, that all might come to know and acknowledge that he is no tyrant.
He is the God of almighty power and the God of measureless love. And thus the method. It was ordained that to bring us rebels back to God, that in Christ should all the fullness dwell, and he, the Christ, should die for us, the rebels. We had been made for him. It was our sin that we had rebelled against him. The divine decree was that not we, but he should die, and he for whom we were made should die for the rebels that had rebelled against him.
There are moments when, as a backyard astronomer, I'm looking up at the sky. There were moments as I passed through the Nullabor looking up at your fantastic sky, and I thought of it all. And why was it made? And the answer comes ringing back, it was made for Christ. Then can I believe it? That he for whom uncountable galaxies were created, would, when I rebel, die for me, the rebel.
Well, if God is like that, I can't fight him anymore. If God will do that for me, then by his grace, I will be his slave forever. When God eventually destroys, uh, s- uh, sends dismissers to an eternal perdition, those who reject that love, no voice will be raised in the whole universe to say that God is a tyrant for so doing.
God has demonstrated exactly what his heart's attitude is. It was his decree that his son should die for the rebel. Hear then the hope of the gospel. One day, the blessed Lord Jesus shall take you, rebel though you were, and present you before the presence of his Father's glory with exceeding joy. God will find you without blemish and without charge, perfectly and forever acceptable to him through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
So then tonight we have thought about the hope that is laid up for us. We have thought about the hope of the gospel. There is just one more thing to add. The glorious statement that he shall present us without blemish and without charge before God is followed by an if. If you continue. It will be our duty tomorrow, if the Lord will, to discuss together what is implied by that tremendous if.
But for the moment, may the Lord's grace fill our hearts as we contemplate the hope set before us and the hope of the gospel.
