KNOWING AND EXPERIENCING THE ALL-INCLUSIVE, EXTENSIVE CHRIST
Message Four
Knowing and Experiencing the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ as the Reality of All Positive Things
Scripture Reading: Col. 2:16-18a; John 14:6a, 17; 1 John 5:6; John 16:13
I. "Let no one therefore judge you in eating and in drinking or in respect of a feast or of a new moon or of the Sabbath, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ. Let no one defraud you by judging you unworthy of your prize"—Col. 2:16-18a:
A. As with a man's physical body, the body in 2:17 is the substance, and like the shadow of a man's body, the rituals in the law are the shadow of Christ, who is the substance and reality of the gospel; Colossians unveils such an all-inclusive Christ as the focus of God's economy—1:17a, 18a; 3:11.
B. Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, Christ is the reality of every positive thing, implying the universal extensiveness of the all-inclusive Christ:
1. Daily, Christ is our food and drink for our satisfaction and strengthening—1 Cor. 10:3-4.
2. Weekly, Christ is our Sabbath for our completion and rest in Him—Matt. 11:28-29.
3. Monthly, Christ is our new moon as a new beginning with light in darkness—John 1:5; 8:12.
4. Yearly, Christ is our feast for our joy and enjoyment—1 Cor. 5:8.
C. The all-inclusive, extensive Christ, who is full of attractiveness and rich in magnetism, is the essence of the Bible—Luke 24:44; John 5:39-40; Matt. 1:1; cf. Rev. 22:21.
D. According to the context, "the prize" in Colossians 2:18 is the enjoyment of Christ as the body of the shadows; to be defrauded of our prize is to be defrauded of the subjective enjoyment of Christ—cf. Gen. 15:1; Phil. 3:8.
E. Our need is for the subjective Christ to become our enjoyment to complete the divine revelation within us; if we are short in the experience and enjoyment of Christ, we are also short concerning God's revelation—Col. 1:25-28.
F. Whatever we do day by day should remind us of Christ as the reality of that thing; if we follow the practice of taking Christ as the reality of all the material things in our daily life, our daily walk will be revolutionized and transformed, and we will be full of Christ—2 Cor. 4:16; Phil. 1:19-21a.
G. We need to enjoy Christ day by day as the reality of all our necessities:
1. Christ is our breath—John 20:22.
2. Christ is our drink—4:10, 14; 7:37-39a.
3. Christ is our food—6:35, 57.
4. Christ is our light—1:4; 8:12.
5. Christ is our clothing—Gal. 3:27.
6. Christ is our dwelling place—John 15:5, 7a.
II. The all-inclusive, extensive Christ is the reality of all the positive things in the universe—cf. Rom. 1:20; Eph. 3:18; Hymns, #496:
A. Because the universe with the billions of things and persons in it was created for the purpose of describing Christ, He, in revealing Himself to His disciples, could easily find in any environment something or someone to serve as an illustration of Himself—Col. 1:15-17; John 1:51; 10:9-11; 12:24; Matt. 12:41-42.
B. The Old Testament uses six major categories of things as types to describe Christ—human beings, animals, plants, minerals, offerings, and foods:
1. Human beings typify Christ, such as Adam (Rom. 5:14), Melchizedek (Heb. 7:1), Isaac (Matt. 1:1), Jonah (12:41), and Solomon (v. 42).
2. Animals typify Christ, such as a lamb (John 1:29), a lion, an ox, an eagle (Ezek. 1:10), and a gazelle (S. S. 2:9).
3. Plants typify Christ (who is the tree of life—Gen. 2:9), such as the vine tree (John 15:1), the apple tree (S. S. 2:3), the fig tree, the pomegranate tree, and the olive tree (Deut. 8:8); the different parts of a tree are also types of Christ, such as the root, the stump, the sprout, the shoot, the branch, and the fruit (Isa. 11:1, 10; 4:2; Luke 1:42; Rev. 5:5).
4. Minerals typify Christ, such as gold, silver, copper, and iron (Deut. 8:9, 13), and different kinds of stone: the living stone (1 Pet. 2:4), the rock (1 Cor. 10:4), the cornerstone (Matt. 21:42), the topstone (Zech. 4:7), the foundation stone, and precious stones (1 Cor. 3:11-12).
5. Offerings typify Christ, such as the sin offering, trespass offering, burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering, wave offering, heave offering, and drink offering—Lev. 1—7; Exo. 29:26-28; Num. 28:7-10; cf. John 4:24.
6. Foods typify Christ, such as bread, wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, milk, and honey—6:35; Deut. 8:8-9; 26:9.
C. In the New Testament, Christ is the Spirit of reality who makes the untraceable riches of all that He is real to us, guiding us into Himself as the divine reality—John 14:6a; 1 John 5:6; John 14:17; 16:13.
D. The elements of the reality of all the types are in the Spirit, and the Spirit transfuses and dispenses all these riches into us through the Lord's words—Phil. 1:19; John 6:63; Col. 3:16; Eph. 6:17-18; Rev. 2:7.
III. The very Christ who is the reality of all positive things is the One who is the Head of the Body; thus, to hold the Head is simply to enjoy Christ as the reality of all positive things—Col. 2:19:
A. Since the Christ we enjoy as our everything is the Head of the Body, the more we enjoy Him, the more we become Body-conscious:
1. This indicates that the enjoyment of Christ is not an individualistic matter but a Body matter—cf. Eph. 3:8; 4:15-16.
2. The more we enjoy Christ, the more we love the other members of the Body—Col. 1:4, 8.
B. Because Christ's headship is in resurrection (v. 18), the enjoyment of Christ spontaneously brings us into resurrection and saves us from our natural being.
C. The enjoyment of Christ brings us into the heavenlies in ascension; we can be experientially in the heavens only by enjoying Christ, the Head, as the lifegiving Spirit in our spirit—3:1-2; 2 Cor. 3:17; 2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:10, 34.
D. As we enjoy Christ and hold Him as the Head, we absorb the riches of the allinclusive, extensive Christ; these riches become in us the increase of God by which the Body grows for its building up—Col. 2:19, 6-7; Eph. 4:16.