Total Commitment To Christ # 1

Total Commitment To Christ # 1

In the first chapter of Colossians we read that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness in Him" (Col. 1:15-19).

Then in Ephesians, the first chapter, Paul says that God's power was exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet, and appointed Him to be head over everything for the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. (1:20-23).

Now before we talk about our union with Christ and our conscious and volitional attachment to Christ in total commitment, we must look at who Christ is and what His relation is to the redeemed company we call the Church. In the passage I have quoted, you will find this truth set forth, which I may imperfectly condense into three words: centrality, basicality, preeminence.

Within the Church, Jesus Christ the Lord is central. The old writers used to say that Christ is to the Church what the soul is to the body - it is that which gives it life. Once the soul flees the body there is nothing that can keep the body alive. When the soul is gone the embalmer takes over. In the Church of Christ - any church anywhere, of any denomination - as long as Christ is there imparting life, being the life of that redeemed company, you have a Church; for Christ is central in His Church. He holds it together.

Then there is the next word, basicality.  Jesus Christ is basic to the Church. He's underneath it - the whole redeemed company rests down upon the Lord Jesus Christ. I know this sounds like a string of religious cliches, but I'd like to say it at least in such a tone of voice that the cliche element will go out of it and you will hear it as though you are hearing it for the first time: The whole Church of God rests down upon the shoulders of His Son. I think we might be able to go around the world and simply cry "Christ is enough!" Jesus Christ is enough.

There is a weakness among us in evangelical circles - we put a plus sign after Christ: Christ plus something else. It is always the pluses that ruin our spiritual lives personally, and it is always the additions that weaken the Church. God has declared that Christ, His Son, is sufficient. He is the way, the truth and the life. He is wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.  He is the wisdom of God and the power of God and He gathers up in Himself all things and in Him all things consist. So we do not want Jesus Christ plus something else.

"Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For the LORD has spoken" (Isaiah 1:2). And what He has said is, "This is My Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!" (Mark 9:7). So the Lord Jesus Christ is enough. We of the evangelical faith should not preach Christ plus science, or Christ plus philosophy, or Christ plus psychology, or Christ plus education, or Christ plus civilization, but Christ alone and Christ enough. These other things may have their place and fit in and be used. But we are not leaning on any of them; we are resting down on Him who is basic to the faith of our fathers.

Then there is the word preeminent. Christ is preeminent. He is above all things and underneath all things and outside of all things and inside of all things. As the old bishop said, "he is above all things but not pushed up, and He is beneath all, upholding; and outside all, embracing and inside of all, filling."

Now our relation to Him is all that really matters. A true Christian faith is an attachment to the Person of Christ. The attachment of the individual person to Jesus Christ is intellectual and volitional and exclusive and irrevocable.

Intellectual Attachment

To follow Christ in complete and total commitment means that there must be an intellectual attachment to Christ. That is, we cannot run on our feelings or on wisps of poetic notions about Christ. There are a great many bogus Christs among us these days, and we must show them for what they are and then point to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. John Owen, the old Puritan, warned people in his day: "You have an imaginary Christ, and if you are satisfied with an imaginary Christ you must be satisfied with imaginary salvation." In finality there is only one Christ, and the truly saved man has an attachment to Christ that is intellectual in that he knows who Christ is theologically. For you know there is the romantic Christ of the romance novelist and there is the sentimental Christ of the half-converted cowboy and there is the philosophical Christ of the academic egghead and there is the cozy Christ of the effeminate poet and there is the muscular Christ of the all-American halfback. But there is only one true Christ, and God has said that He is His Son.

I like what they say of Him in the creeds - that He is God of the substance of His Father, begotten before all ages; Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world; perfect God and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting, equal to His Father as touching His Godhead, less than His Father as touching His manhood; who although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ; for us the reasonable soul and flesh are one man, so God and Man are one Christ. This is the Christ we adore, and we must have the Christ of Christian theology and we must have an intellectual attachment to Christ. We must believe in the Christ of God, that He is what God says He is.

Volitional Attachment

There is also the volitional attachment to Christ. If I am going to follow Christ in complete and total commitment I must do it by a continuous act of my will. Christians who try to live on impulse and inspiration, who hope to sail to heaven over the undulating sea of religious sea of feeling, are making a bad mistake. Christians who live on their feelings are not living very well and are not going to last very long. The old writers used to tell us of the dark night of the soul. There's a place where a Christian goes through darkness, where there is heaviness. God isn't going to take us off to heaven all wrapped in cellophane, looking as if we ought to be hanging on a Christmas tree. God is going to take us there after He has purged us and disciplined us and dragged us through the fire and has made us strong and taught us that faith and feeling are not the same - although faith, thank God, brings feeling sometimes.

~A. W. Tozer~

(continued with # 2)