2. Colossians 2:13

" And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses."
The Epistle to the Ephesians presents us with the doctrine of " ye in Me" (John 14:20), if I may so say; that is, the doctrine of the believer's being blessed in Christ Jesus - as being hidden by God in Christ. The privileges which go along with being in Christ being the special object of that epistle when it speaks of the quickening of a believer together with Christ - the mind has that subject brought before it, as connected with the character and date of the first blessing of having association with Christ in His life, as taken anew after He had borne our sins in His own body on the tree. The Epistle to the Colossians gives us rather, " I in the Father" (John 14:20); and accordingly, as it seems to me, when we have the quickening together with Christ spoken of in it, it is more in that connection. Ordinances and man's doings were being plied by Satan on the Colossians, as things necessary to make their salvation complete, to make their blessing perfect and secure. Such a thought was worthy of Satan; to Paul and the Spirit of God it seemed to be nothing short of calling into question the Sonship of Jesus, and all the counsels, plans, and thoughts of God the Father about that Son. The present day is a day in which the busy energy of man's flesh lends itself, in many places, to Satan in this way; and in Romanism, Puseyism, and a good many other " isms," which are but the expression of the workings of the flesh, it is held and taught that there is an " unless ye do" this or that (in addition to having Christ for salvation), ye cannot be saved. This evil may have two phases of it; the one (as in Colossians),:the being subject to ordinances; and the other (as in Galatians), the subjecting of the flesh to rites and ceremonies; but, in both cases, it is, in essence, the same thing. The flesh in us is accredited, man honored, and worldliness sanctioned; and so the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost dishonored, discredited, and contemned.
Satan is very crafty; he hates Christ with a perfect hatred; and hates those who stand upon Christ as the foundation for His sake. If he cannot injure Christ in His own person, he is glad in any way to show his own hatred against Him, and to mar: His honor in His people. He will attack them, and Christ's honor in them, in foundation and superstructure. Is a soul brought into peace, and at rest, to the praise of God's grace and mercy, upon Christ? Satan sees it, and his spite is kindled. He knows the self-righteousness of our flesh, he knows the love of man for having something to do; he does not like that hanging, that dependance of ours, upon what is above in Christ; he would like to have us occupied for rest with something round us in that world which is enmity against God. Some one comes to the place where such are, no one may know whence or why, and sets forth most beautifully the great work which God has done in Christ, and all the wondrous benefits connected with it; and that all man has to do to get the benefit, is to observe a rite (as circumcision, etc.), or some ordinance, a sabbath-day or a moon. O how little a thing to give for so great a benefit! Only just suffer yourself to be dipped, only just do this or that little thing! What heart will refuse? And oft he so succeeds, and draws the very hearts which were full of mercy and grace, in their folly and simplicity, to allow all the impulse which mercy and grace had to their hearts to be turned round against the Giver. Such a little thing! such a nothing! Yes: but it is man's little thing,-it is a nothing of this world which is at enmity with God. God will not give His glory to another; and if you substitute anything for mercy as the fountain, if you give anything in exchange for Christ, man, and not God, is glorified. The energy that raises my foot to go into the water, or leads me to forbear touching a dog, is quite as bad in this place, little as it be, as the energy which would compass sea and land to make one proselyte. The gift to God of a prayer, even, would be as great an insult, if it were in exchange for Christ, as a bag of gold. The Spirit's severity in meeting both cases is awfully stern: " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8,9).
And though the rebuke be couched in softer words in Colossians, yet is the judgment of the apostle quite as clear. Such things are tantamount to " not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God" (Col. 2:19).
See who and what the Christ is, in whom we are complete; and then, as a man, say whether we can add anything to Him, and whether, it is not worse than madness to think of doing so. " The Father hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light;.: -bath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Such is our blessing; and who is He in whom it is?
He is, 1st, the Son of God's love (Col. 1:13); and He is, 2ndly, the image of the invisible God; 3rdly, born. pre-eminent to every creature; (necessarily so, because) 4thly, all things were created by and for Him; who is, 5thly, the one by whom all is upheld; 6thly, He is the Head of the body, the church; the beginning; the first-born from the dead; and in Him, too, it was pleasing that all fullness should dwell -Redeemer, for heaven and for earth. He being such, and the one in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power, how can we add to or take from him as foundation? If quickened together with Rim, no ordinance, no rite, can possibly be necessary in order that we be blessed; for we are blessed in Him. And to say otherwise was, according to Paul, to give up Christ as the Head, and to compromise the faith.
There is this difference in the two contexts, Eph. 2 and Col. 2 In the first, the quickening comes in as the starting-point of all the vast range of blessing attendant upon faith. In Colossians, it comes in as showing that law and ordinance had no hold of a Christian, because they had no hold upon Christ when He took His life anew - we were quickened together with Him. And the life so communicated is given without ordinances or rites; and it leads us to walk as they could not give us power to do.
Note.-If any have, or make, any difficulty as to the meaning of quickening in Scripture, the following texts will serve them:-
"That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die;…the last Adam was made a quickening [or life-giving] spirit" (1 Cor. 15:36, 45).
" If there had been a law which could have given life" (Gal. 3:21).