Christ Is All

There are two worlds, the old and the new.

These are peopled by two sorts of manhood, the old man, and the new man, concerning whom see verses 9, 10.

In the first are many things which are not in the second.

In the second are many things which are not in the first.

Our text tells us what there is not, and what there is, in the new man.

Let us begin by asking whether the hearer knows where he is; for the text turns on that word “where.”

I. WHAT THERE IS NOT IN THE NEW.

When we come to be renewed after the image of him that created us, we find an obliteration of

1. National distinctions: “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew.”

   • Jesus is a man. In the broadest sense he is neither Jew nor Gentile. We see in him no restrictive nationality: and our own peculiar nationality sinks before union with him.
   • Jesus is now our nationality, our charter, and our fatherland.
   • Jesus is our hero, legislator, ancestor, leader, etc.
   • Jesus gives us laws, customs, history, genealogy, prestige, privilege, reliance, power, heritage, conquest, etc.
   • Jesus furnishes us with a new patriotism, loyalty, and clanship, which we may safely indulge to the utmost.

2. Ceremonial distinctions: “There is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision.” The typical separation is removed.

   • The separating rite is abolished, and the peculiar privilege of a nation born after the flesh is gone with it.
   • Those who were reckoned far off are brought near.
   • Both Jew and Gentile are united in one body by the cross.

3. Social distinctions: “There is neither bond nor free.”

   • We are enabled through divine grace to see that
   • These distinctions are transient.
   • These distinctions are superficial.
   • These distinctions are of small value.
   • These distinctions are non-existent in the spiritual realm.
   • What a blessed blending of all men in one body is brought about by our Lord Jesus! Let us all work in the direction of unity.

II. WHAT THERE IS IN THE NEW.

“Christ is all and in all;” and that in many senses.

1. Christ is all our culture. In him we emulate and excel the “Greek.”

2. Christ is all our revelation. We glory in him even as the “Jew” gloried in receiving the oracles of God.

3. Christ is all our ritual. We have no “circumcision,” neither have we seven sacraments, nor a heap of carnal ordinances: he is far more than these. All Scriptural ordinances are of him.

4. Christ is all our simplicity. We place no confidence in the bare Puritanism which may be called “uncircumcision.”

5. Christ is all our natural traditions. He is more to us than the freshest ideas which cross the mind of the “Barbarian.”

6. Christ is all our unconquerableness and liberty. The “Scythian” had not such boundless independence as we find in him.

7. Christ is all as our Master, if we be “bond.” Happy servitude of which he is the head!

8. Christ is our Magna Charta: yes, our liberty itself if we be “free.”

   • In closing we will use the words “Christ is all and in all” as our text for application to ourselves. It furnishes a test question for us.
   • Is Christ so great with us that he is our all?
   • Is Christ so broadly and fully with us that he is all in our all?
   • Is he, then, all in our trust, our hope, our assurance, our joy, our aim, our strength, our wisdom—in a word, “all in all”?
   • If so, are we living in all for him?
   • Are we doing all for him, because he is all to us?

Embroideries

What a rich inheritance have all those who are truly interested in Jesus Christ! Christus meus et omnia. They possess him that is all in all, and in possessing him they possess all. “I have all things, my brother,” says Jacob to Esau: Genesis 33:11 (Margin). He who has him that is all in all cannot want anything. “All things are yours,” says the apostle, “whether things present or things to come, and you are Christ’s”: 1 Corinthians 3:22, 23. A true believer, let him be never so poor outwardly, is in truth the richest man in all the world; he has all in all, and what can be added to all?—Ralph Robinson.

Christ is not valued at all unless he be valued above all.—Augustine.

He is a path, if any be misled; He is a robe, if any naked be; If any chance to hunger, he is bread; If any be a bondman, he is free;

If any be but weak, how strong is he!

To dead men life he is, to sick men health, To blind men sight, and to the needy wealth; A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth.

—Giles Fletcher.

All, then, let him be in all our desires and wishes. Who is that wise merchant that has heart large enough to conceive and believe as to this? Let him go sell all his nothings, that he may compass this pearl, barter his bugles for this diamond. Truly, all the haberdash stuff the whole pack of the world has, is not worthy to be valued with this jewel.

I cannot but reverence the memory of that reverend divine (Mr. Welsh) who, being in a deep muse after some discourse that had passed of Christ, and tears trickling abundantly from his eyes before he was aware, being urged for the cause thereof, he honestly confessed that he wept because he could not draw his dull heart to prize Christ aright. I fear this is a rare mind in Christians, for many think a very little to be quite enough for Jesus, and even too much for him!—Samuel Ward.

“At length, one evening, while engaged in a prayer-meeting, the great deliverance came. I received the full witness of the Spirit that the blood of Jesus had cleansed me from all sin. I felt I was nothing, and Christ was all in all. Him I now cheerfully received in all his offices: my Prophet, to teach me; my Priest, to atone for me; my King, to reign over me. Oh what boundless, boundless happiness there is in Christ, and all for such a poor sinner as I am! This happy change took place in my soul March 13th, 1772.”—William Carvosso.

Dannecker, the German sculptor, spent eight years in producing a face of Christ; and at last wrought out one in which the emotions of love and sorrow were so perfectly blended that beholders wept as they looked upon it. Subsequently, being solicited to employ his great talent on a statue of Venus, he replied, “After gazing so long into the face of Christ, think you that I can now turn my attention to a heathen goddess?” Here is the true secret of weanedness from worldly idols, “the expulsive power of a new affection.”

“I have heard the voice of Jesus, Tell me not of anything beside; I have seen the face of Jesus,

All my soul is satisfied.”

Dr. A. J. Gordon.