James Nisbet Commentary - Colossians 1:24 - 1:24

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James Nisbet Commentary - Colossians 1:24 - 1:24


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

‘
THAT WHICH IS BEHIND OF THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST’

‘Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His Body’s sake, which is the Church.’

Col_1:24

St. Paul was accustomed to urge upon his converts that they should ‘rejoice in the Lord alway.’ When we speak about sufferers that we know, we think it high praise to say, ‘How perfectly patient they were!’ Here is a higher note—not patience, but joy. It is a quite unselfish delight that we have here in these difficult words, difficult because does it not come upon us with a shock to hear that there was anything lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Yet’ I fill up on my part that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.’ The words are quite plain, they clearly state that there is something wanting in the afflictions borne by Christ. How can that be so? And, if so, can any man’s be counted with His to fill up the deficiencies? We may nevertheless make a distinction in the Saviour’s sufferings. There were those which no man could share when He trod the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with Him; but the Greek word that is used in the text is not the word in the New Testament in connection with the atoning work of Christ. It tells of afflictions of body and of mind which came upon Him as a holy and self-denying Person, in the midst of a corrupt and selfish world, born as one of the great human family, and to these there was something left to add. Yes, it is for us to say, ‘I fill up on my part that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for His body’s sake, which is the Church.’

I. Our relation to Christ.—But, then, what I bear for the sake of others, these are my afflictions. How can they fill up His? Can they be mine without being His? Depend upon it, unless being a member of His Body is but a phrase, a metaphor, your sufferings are His. To understand that we must understand our oneness with Jesus Christ our Lord. There are different kinds of unions.

(a) External union. There is a merely external union, as when you add one more stone to the fabric which rises from the ground.

(b) Vital union. There is union, not local, but vital, and the sap circulates through the new limb. You injure it now and you injure it not alone, you injure the tree itself. This is a union of that kind, vital, that the baptized believer has with the Saviour. ‘I am the Vine, and ye are the branches. Cut off from Me, you wither; abiding in Me, you bear much fruit.’

And so, because we are one with Christ in that living way, He truly shares in our sufferings. Can the body be injured and the head suffer nothing? Wound a limb and the brain quivers with pain. In all our afflictions He is afflicted. What a different aspect our troubles would wear if that was realised!

II. St. Paul’s sufferings.—How and when did St. Paul learn to identify himself so confidently with Christ that he could speak of his own sufferings for the Church as actually Christ’s sufferings? I think we know, in the blinding splendour of that revelation on the road to Damascus, when he lay, proud Pharisee as he was, prostrate on the earth in the midst of his astonished train. There stood before him, seen by him alone, the majestic, reproachful Christ the Lord. ‘Saul, why persecutest thou Me?’ He never had done so literally, still the sad voice said, ‘Saul, why persecutest thou Me?’ It was because he glorified in persecuting the Church, gloried in a pitiless harrowing of the poor souls who clung to the Lord, that Christ could never forget that they were members of the Lord and their sufferings were His, for ‘Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me.’ That was a crushing thought to Saul the persecutor; it was joy to Paul the Apostle. ‘Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.’ Poor flesh it was, so weary and weatherbeaten, so scarred with the rough handling of the world; but the great, brave heart, so fixed on God, so full of enthusiasm for the Master, cried, ‘I rejoice for His Body’s sake, the Church.’ So you see it was an unselfish joy. His afflictions were for the sake of the brethren.

III. Our relation to one another.—Let us not suppose, as we are sometimes tempted to do, that the pain and trouble to which even the best are subject are plainly so much waste, due to some great mismanagement. Take one of the most difficult cases. In not a few families there is a chronic invalid, whose years have been one long weariness—to the casual eye useless—a piece of wreckage cast up on the shore of the ocean of life. Surely he does not lie there in chastisement for his sins; surely she is not suffering all this for her sanctification? Perhaps not, but there is such a thing as suffering for the sake of others. Little do you know what a centre of influence is that pale face and weakly frame! What gentleness it has called out in natures that grew hard and selfish, what quiet, loving sermons it has preached by a look, by a word! He or she has suffered for His Body’s sake. There was something lacking in the afflictions of Christ which drew these souls to Him, and he or she filled it up, and the weak, faulty mortal becomes as it were a Christ to the brethren.

—
Archdeacon S. M. Taylor.

Illustration

‘St. Paul endured that tedious imprisonment, but it resulted in his writing to his comrades whom he was prevented from going to see, and what he wrote will inspire and comfort the Church to the end. Bunyan spent weary years in Bedford Gaol, but so The Pilgrim’s Progress came to be written, which for two centuries has helped many a devoted, humble soul to live the highest life; and if Tennyson had not suffered the grief of separation from a friend for whom he had more than a brother’s love, those words of hope and tenderness, of faith that struggles in the darkness and conquers, had never been penned, and the world would have been the poorer without the In Memoriam.’