No. 1
Having received from the saints at Philippi a gift to meet his needs while a prisoner at Rome for Christ’s sake, the apostle Paul, in writing to acknowledge what they had sent, spoke of his prayer for them. The first desire of this prayer reads, “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and all intelligence” (Phil. 1:9). The gift was the expression of their love, as had also been their previous gifts, of which we read in Philippians 4:16. There was no need for the apostle to exhort the saints to express their love, but he desires that the love so touchingly expressed might abound in the features of full knowledge and all intelligence.
The epistle which the apostle writes to the Philippian saints does not exactly open out the truths of full knowledge, but his writing thus would show how interdependent all the divine writings are, and how great the value the apostle places on full knowledge and intelligence in the things of God. Love is altogether indispensable in the things of God; it is the divine nature in activity in the saints, but the divine nature is to be expressed intelligently, and according to the full knowledge which God has given to us in the Scriptures.
This expression, full knowledge, which in the Greek is epignosis, is used by the apostle Paul more often in his prison epistles than in his other epistles. He uses it thrice in Romans, once each in the epistles to Timothy and the Hebrews; the other mentions which we hope to consider are in Ephesians and Colossians. The expression, we understand, means full knowledge, true knowledge or clear knowledge, and in these latter epistles would appear to refer to the knowledge that is brought to us in the full revelation of God. In the Old Testament the knowledge of God was fragmentary but, since the coming of the Son of God and the giving of the Holy Spirit, we are living in the times of full knowledge.
Full Knowledge in Ephesians
There are two mentions of full knowledge in this epistle: the first in Ephesians 1:17, “the full knowledge of Him”, which evidently refers to God; and in Ephesians 4:13, “The full knowledge of the Son of God”. God in His nature was fully revealed in the Person of the Son, even as we read in John 1:18, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him”. In all that the Son was in Manhood, in all His words and works, God was seen in His nature and in the manifestation of His grace. So perfect was the revelation, the Son could say, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father”.
But the knowledge of the love of God comes out fully in the death of His Son, even as it is written, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). The more our souls feed upon the death of Christ, the greater will our knowledge be of God and His love; but whatever our apprehension, the cross is the measure of divine love.
Yet, for the full knowledge of God, there awaited the unfolding of His counsels of love; and these we have in the epistles of Paul. Something of these wonderful counsels were heard by the disciples as they listened to the Son pour out His heart to the Father, but the Lord had to say to His disciples, “I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:12-13). These many things have come to us from the glorified Christ, disclosing to us the Son’s place in the Father’s counsels, and our place as blessed in Him. In these counsels we see what God is in the fulness of His grace towards us.
Do we not learn of God’s rich grace in His blessing the saints with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, having chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world? What a God He is! For the pleasure of His heart He has marked us out for sonship, and has given us this relationship in nearness to Himself that we might enter into the thoughts of His heart and respond to His love. The great secrets of His purpose He has told us, and along with Christ, in whom His purpose centres, He has given us an inheritance. Not only this, but He has given the saints to be the body and the bride of Christ, uniting them to their heavenly Head even now, while they await the time when they shall be at His side when He is displayed as Head over all things to the church. It was necessary for these counsels of grace to be revealed before we could have the full knowledge of God.
Christ, having ascended on high, has given gifts to men, “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ”. God would have all His saints matured through the appropriation of the truth in communion with Himself, and to this end the gifts have been given to the church. But the gifts have also been given for the work of the ministry, a divinely appointed ministry that is altogether independent of man, Christ Himself giving all that is needful for His church. The gifts have also been given for the edifying of Christ’s body, to minister to it what will build it up in the things of Christ, caring for the saints, supplying food convenient, and bringing them consciously into the presence of God.
The gifts that Christ gives will remain with the church until “we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). Nothing less than the maturing of the saints will satisfy God; He would have us every man “a perfect man”, fully grown in the things of Christ. And it is as realising the unity of the faith, the oneness of the great body of Christian teaching set before us in the Word of God, and having the full knowledge of the Son of God, that we shall reach this state of maturity.
In the Old Testament there was prophetic ministry regarding the Son of God, but it was not the full knowledge of the Son of God. He is presented in the second Psalm as Son of God in relation to Israel and, indeed, in regard to the possessing the uttermost parts of the earth. God’s promise to David regarding Solomon, which had Christ in view, is on the same line, “He shall be My son, and I will be His Father; and I will establish the throne of His kingdom over Israel for ever” (1 Chron. 22:10). Both Nathaniel and Martha confessed Jesus as Son of God according to the prophecy of Psalm 2. (See John 1:49; 11:27).
We have to await the New Testament for the full knowledge of the Son of God. But there is a knowledge of the Son that is not man’s, for the Lord, while upon earth, said, “No man knows the Son, but the Father” (Matthew 11:27). There is an intimacy between the Father and the Son into which none can enter; and in this They dwell in light unapproachable, which no man has seen nor can see. While the Son has come out from the Father that we might know Him in such wonderful intimacy, we must never forget who He is in the greatness of His Person as unknown and unknowable.
When Simon Peter, in Matthew 16, confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, it was not because of what he had learned from the second Psalm: it was a divine revelation from the Father. At that moment the Father enabled Peter to discern the divine glory of the Son, not in relation to the throne of Israel, but in His relationship with the living God. It was as if Peter caught a glimpse of the divine glory of the Son shining out from the veil of His Manhood. No human communication had taught Peter who the Lord was: it was the Father Himself. And it was in regard to who the Son is that Jesus presented to Peter the truth of His building the assembly. What is entrusted to man is brought to ruin; the enemy prevails against it; but what the Son of the living God builds cannot be touched by the enemy’s might or by his wiles.
In John’s Gospel, the glory of the Son of God shines radiantly for those who have eyes to behold it. He is not only likened to an only-begotten with a Father; He is the only-begotten Son who dwells in the bosom of the Father. John alone speaks thus of the Lord Jesus. The word only-begotten in Greek is used to speak of one in a peculiar relationship and place of affection. Isaac was not the only son of Abraham; yet God said to him, “Take now thy son, thine only (son) Isaac, whom thou lovest” (Genesis 22:2). Ishmael did not have the peculiar place of Isaac in the thoughts of God or in the affections of Abraham. In this respect, Isaac was Abraham’s only-begotten, or only, son. Such was the eternal Son of God: the bosom of the Father was His peculiar place. We are loved of the Father; but it is only said of the Son that He dwells in His bosom.
No man had seen God at any time; not Abraham, not Moses, nor any of the saints of old; and all the while God was hidden to them, the only-begotten Son dwelt in His bosom. It does not say He was in His bosom, as if He ever left it; the word is tells that the Father’s bosom was His eternal dwelling place. Jesus does not say, “Before Abraham was, I was”; but, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. So it is here: it is the eternal present; it is what is outside of time, and unaffected by time.
Yet if the Father’s bosom was His eternal dwelling place, the Son could also say, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father” (John 16:28). He comes forth from the Father before He comes into the world; and having left the world, He goes to the Father. In the next chapter the Son can say, “Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (verse 5). He asks to receive the glory that He had with the Father before the world was! This request is granted: the Son can speak of it as already answered in verse 24, saying, “Father . . . thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”. How can any dare in the light of this to deny that the Son was loved by the Father in eternity?
If John tells us in chapter 1 of his Gospel that the Eternal Word created all things, Paul tells us in Colossians 1 that the things in the heavens and the things on the earth were created by the Son of the Father’s love; and the writer of the Hebrews joins to say that the worlds were made by the Son.
Paul did not take long to commence preaching after his conversion, for Scripture says, “Straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20). The glory of the Son of God filled the vision of Paul, and he had much to preach and write of Him. To the Romans he wrote of Him as the subject of the Gospel, “and declared the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead” (Rom. 1:3-4). To the Galatians he said, “It pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him” (Gal. 1:15-16); in the Colossian epistle he brings out the glories of the Son of the Father’s love, in His present place of pre-eminence; while to the Ephesians he unfolds by the Spirit of God His place as the Man of God’s purpose.
All the promises of God “in Him are yea, and in Him Amen,” as risen from the dead; so that to have the full knowledge of the Son of God we must know Him where He is, glorified at the Father’s right hand in heaven. To bring the saints to this full knowledge, the gifts have been given to men by the ascended and glorified Christ. What Martha and Nathaniel had learned was not enough; nor did it suffice to know that the Son of God had been here on earth. To have the full knowledge of the Son of God, there was needed the testimony of the Holy Spirit regarding His present place above, both as to His pre-eminence as the Son of the Father’s love, and as to His place in the counsels of God.
R. 15.10.57
No. 2
Full Knowledge in Colossians
In Colossians 1:9. we read of “the full knowledge of His (God’s) will”; and in the next verse of “the full knowledge of God”. “The full knowledge of the mystery of God” is spoken of on Colossians 2:2; and in Colossians 3:10 we learn that the new man is “renewed into full knowledge according to the image of Him that has created him”.
The Lord Jesus delighted to do the Father’s will when here on earth, and said, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). He knew that will perfectly, and did it perfectly, and had nothing else before Him, saying, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me” (John 6:38–40). When the great test came, He could say, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” What delight for our hearts to contemplate the Son of God in His path of perfect devotion and obedience to His Father’s will; and what an example for us.
That we might have the full knowledge of God’s will, He has given us His word, in which there is presented to us all His thoughts. God does not only wish us to know His will in regard to our individual path, or in regard to our gatherings in the assembly, important as these are: He also desires us to know all His will in regard to Christ, and in relation to Himself. To this end He has told us of “the good pleasure of His will”, “the mystery of His will”, and “the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:5, 9, 11). These things relate to God’s purpose, and tell us of what God has determined to do for His own pleasure, for the glory and honour of His Son, and for the blessing of those He has chosen to share Christ’s place before His face, and in the display of His glory in the coming day.
At Colosse there was the danger of philosophy and Judaism affecting the saints, and so enticing them from the path of God’s will. To give God’s will its true place in the heart and life is the great preservative from this snare, and the means of deliverance from those affected by it. We must be filled with the full knowledge of God’s will if we are to live pleasing to God; without this knowledge we cannot walk intelligently for God in this world. Judaism belonged to a dispensation that came to an end in the cross of Christ; while philosophy comes from the mind of man; neither can direct the saints in the way that gives God pleasure or fulfils His will.
The Christian revelation not only brings to us the full knowledge of God, but also unfolds the full knowledge of His will. This is found in the writings of the New Testament particularly, although the Old Testament gives us God’s will for the saints of old, and was written for our learning. The Holy Spirit enables us to apprehend God’s will from both the Old and New Testaments, and God’s word must ever be paramount with us, the touchstone of every thought, and the final court of appeal, for the Holy Scriptures ever remain as God’s standard of truth. Teachers may come with great pretension to piety and spirituality, but their words must be tested by Scripture; and they must be refused if they are endeavouring to present their own will instead of God’s will.
Alas! in Christendom today much attention is paid to the thoughts of men. Men will gladly exchange their own ideas of divine things, while refusing or paying little heed to the word and will of God. The question so often is, “What do you think?”, instead of, “What has God said?” Nor is it enough to have some of God’s thoughts and some of our own, or our own thoughts of what God has said. We need to receive the word of God in all meekness and lowliness, waiting upon Him to receive His mind. Only as our hearts and minds are emptied of what is of man can they be filled with what is of God.
Wisdom and understanding are to accompany the full knowledge of God’s will, so that our walk may be worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him. Another result will be fruit-bearing in every good work for God’s glory. The third result will be growth in or by the full knowledge of God.
Each New Testament book gives a part of this wonderful divine knowledge. Colossians, in which these expressions are found, tells us something of God’s grace. In Colossians 1:12-13 we learn of the Father making us fit to enter the glorious portion that belongs to the saints in light; of His having delivered us from the authority of darkness; and His having translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. These are things of which the saints of old knew nothing: nor did the disciples know them until the Holy Spirit came.
In Colossians 2:2 the Spirit of God would have the saints united together in love, and to all the riches of wisdom and knowledge that lie for us in the mystery of God. If there was the need for the saints to lay hold of the clear knowledge of the mystery of God in that day, is there not just as great a need for this in our day? Yet how few seem to be at all acquainted with it, or even appear to be desirous of acquiring the great treasures that God has hidden in this great secret for us.
The mystery of God is a great secret that belongs to God, hidden in His bosom from eternity, and which He only disclosed after the Lord Jesus had taken His place in heaven, and the Holy Spirit had come to make known the purpose and counsels of God. God is specially desirous of having us brought into this great secret, for He says in Colossians 1:27, “To whom (His saints) God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles”. God made known to Abraham His mind about the destruction of Sodom, telling him beforehand what He was about to do. He has brought us into a wonderful secret, that we might be enriched with all the treasures that are in it.
Of this secret we read, “In which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”. No doubt the Colossians thought there was remarkable wisdom and knowledge in the teachings of the philosophies of this world, the religious and moral philosophies with such great pretensions; but God would have them to know that not one single treasure of wisdom and knowledge lay outside the great secret that manifested what He was in His wisdom and grace, and that directed their attention to the Christ.
The mystery, as brought out in this epistle, presents “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27). How much is involved in these few simple words! Christ is not presented in relation to the Jew, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, but He is seen in relationship with the Gentiles. This was something that had not been previously revealed. True, we do find in the Old Testament that the Gentiles would be blessed through Christ; but when this took place Israel would be pre-eminent among the nations of the world. Here, we have Christ in relationship with a company of saints where Israel as a nation has no part. From Ephesians we learn that this company is made up of those called from among Jews and Gentiles, but where all their distinctions have disappeared, and where nothing of Jew and Gentile has any part.
“Christ in you” is something entirely new as regards a Gentile company. When upon earth the Lord Jesus could say of His disciples, in an individual way, “At that day ye shall know that . . . ye (are) in me, and I in you” (John 14:20); but this was not in relation to the mystery of which we read in Colossians 1 and 2. Moreover, the disciples, when the Lord was upon earth were from Israel. Christ, as presented in Colossians 1, dwelt in His own, for they were united to Him as His body.
In Colossians 1 we learn of the greatness of Christ, and after the Spirit has shown His creatorial glories, He records, “And He is the Head of the body, the assembly” (verse 18). It is because He is the Head of the body that we can understand the truth of “Christ in you”. The saints at Colosse were indissolubly united to Christ in heaven; He was their life, and He dwelt in them. The Christ, who dwelt in them, was for them the hope of glory. Although united to Christ their Head as having His life, they had not all that God had given to them with Christ; the glory was still in prospect. When Israel is blest with Christ, He will be among them on earth, His glory covering the earth as the waters cover the sea; but the glory that the church will share is not on earth, but in heaven.
What enrichment there is for us in having the clear knowledge of the mystery of God! It enables us to realise that all God’s thoughts for His own glory are bound up with Christ, and that God has given us to share all with Him. Now we have His life, which is a hidden life with Christ in God, and this we can enjoy in communion with Him as we seek it where He is. But the prospect is bright for us: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4).
The final passage in Colossians using the term full knowledge is in Colossians 3:10, where we read, “Ye . . . have put on the new (man), which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him”. Of old, God had brought the Jew into a privileged relationship with Himself, but he grievously failed, so that God had to write upon the nation of Israel “Lo-Ammi”, which means, “not my people”. Israel will yet be taken up by God, but not as formerly, under the old covenant. Their relationship with God will be under the New Covenant, secured through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
On the cross there was the complete setting aside of man after the flesh. It was there that man was fully exposed in the incorrigible nature of his heart, and judged as a sinner that could not be improved. Jew and Gentile, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, are all alike in nature; not one feature of any is suitable for God.
Yet God has created a man that is for His pleasure, and not one trait of man after the flesh is in him: his every feature has come from Christ. Every beautiful trait that was evinced in Christ here upon earth is to be found in the new man. God found infinite delight in Christ down here, and will have a race of men like Christ. This is the new kind of man that God brings before us. Here, “Christ is all, and in all.” Not a single feature of any other man is to be found, only Christ: He is all. And Christ is in all who, by God’s grace, have their part in this new man. He is not only in the church corporately, but in each one who is blessed of God, in all that have Christ as their life.
This new man is renewed into full knowledge, after the image of Him that created him. His knowledge is very different from that of Adam in innocency, for it is the full knowledge of God in Christ, both as regards the revelation of the Father in the Person of the Son, and all that is to be learned of God in His counsels of love, which centre in Christ glorified at His right hand in heaven.
How deeply thankful we should be to God for giving to us this full knowledge! That which is unknown to the great of this world has been opened out to those whom God has called by His grace to be His sons and His saints. Our lives are to be lived in the light of all that God has unfolded to us; our love is to abound in this full knowledge and in all intelligence, so that we might be here for the pleasure and the will of God, awaiting the time when only that which is of the new man will remain in us; the old, which has already gone in the cross, will have been left behind for ever.
R. 19.10.57