Scripture Reading: Col. 1:12-14; Gen. 12:2b, Gen. 12:3b, Gen. 12:7; Gal. 3:14
In this message we shall consider Christ as the portion of the saints. In 1:12 Paul says, “Giving thanks to the Father, Who qualified you for a share of the portion of the saints in the light.” As we shall see, the portion of the saints is the all-inclusive Christ for our enjoyment.
According to the book of Genesis, no promises were given that involved blessing or enjoyment before the call of Abraham. Of course, in Gen. 3:15 there is the promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. This promise, however, does not involve a promise of blessing or enjoyment. In chapters four through eleven of Genesis there is no record of such a promise. A promise of blessing is first mentioned in Genesis 12, at the time God called Abraham out of his country and his father’s house. Here the Lord specifically mentions the land (Gen. 12:1).
We may be familiar with the story of Abraham and assume that we understand everything related to it. As we read of God’s calling of Abraham and of the promises made to him, we may take things for granted. Thus, when we read about the land, we may have no impression of its significance. However, if we read the Word carefully, we shall surely realize that God’s promise to Abraham concerning the land is striking and very important. This promise made in Genesis is a seed that grows and develops throughout the Old Testament. In a very real sense, apart from the first eleven chapters of Genesis, the entire Old Testament is a story about the land of Canaan. The subject of the Old Testament is this good land, the land flowing with milk and honey. Nevertheless, few Christians pay adequate attention to this.
When I was with the Brethren, I was encouraged to study typology and prophecy. However, three important matters were not brought to my attention, and I received no help with respect to them. These three matters were God’s creation of man in His own image, after His likeness, and with His dominion; the tree of life, the river with the precious materials, and the bride built from Adam’s rib; and the promise of the good land. Only after I had been a Christian for years did I begin to focus my attention on these things. Those familiar with my messages realize that, in one way or other, they deal with these three things.
God’s promise to Abraham with respect to the good land is of great significance. When Paul was writing the Epistle to the Colossians and was speaking of the portion of the saints, he no doubt had in mind the picture of the allotting of the good land to the children of Israel in the Old Testament. The Greek word rendered portion in 1:12 can be also rendered lot. Paul used this term with the Old Testament record of the land as the background. God gave His chosen people, the children of Israel, the good land for their inheritance and enjoyment. The land meant everything to them. In fact, the question of the land is a serious issue in the Middle East even today. The problem in the Middle East regarding Israel and the surrounding nations is a problem of the land.
The promise to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 was the promise of the seed of the woman. But the promise God made to Abraham was not only that of the seed, but also that of the land. The seed promised in Genesis 3:15 becomes the land in Genesis 12. When the children of Israel entered into the land of Canaan, they inherited not only the seed, but also the land. We may interpret the seed both as a person and also as a seed sown into soil. This means that Christ is not only a descendant, but a seed sown into the land. Christ is both the seed and the land.
In Colossians do we have Christ as the seed or the land? In this book Christ is both the seed and the land. Colossians 2:7 says that we have been rooted in Christ. This indicates that He is the land. But in 3:4 we are told that Christ is our life. This indicates that He is also the seed. However, in Colossians Christ is revealed more as the land than as the seed. Christ is our portion, our lot, our everything, just as the land was all things to the children of Israel. The land provided whatever the children of Israel needed: milk, honey, water, cattle, grain, minerals. In writing this Epistle, Paul employed the concept of the all-inclusive land in order to charge the misled Colossians not to take anything other than Christ Himself. Anything that is not Christ is related to the authority of darkness, and we should not accept it. Rather, we should simply remain in the good land and not allow any foreign element to come in. Christ alone is our portion, and we should accept only what is of Him.
Before Paul wrote Colossians, he wrote the Epistle to the Galatians. In Galatians 3:14 he says, “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Some Christian teachers believe that the blessing of Abraham refers to justification by faith. According to the context, however, this blessing must refer to the good land. In Genesis 12 the blessing God promised to give Abraham was the land. In Galatians 3:14 Paul links the blessing of Abraham to the promise of the Spirit. This indicates that the promise of Abraham, the promise of the good land, is the Spirit. Hence, the Spirit is the good land.
In Galatians 3:14 Paul speaks of the Spirit. This should remind us of John 7:39. This verse says, “The Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The Spirit in Galatians 3:14 and John 7:39 is the ultimate expression of the Triune God. The Spirit is a unique term which denotes the processed God. The Father is the source. The Son of God as the course was incarnated, lived on earth, was crucified, and on the third day was resurrected. Incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection are all aspects of a process. In resurrection, Christ, the last Adam, became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). According to John 1:14, the Word, who was God, became flesh. According to 1 Corinthians 15:45, the last Adam, who is Christ, became the life-giving Spirit. Many Christian teachers argue that the life-giving Spirit in this verse is not the Holy Spirit. To believe this is to believe that there are two Spirits who can give life, the Holy Spirit and the life-giving Spirit. The life-giving Spirit is no doubt the very Holy Spirit who gives life. This Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the processed God. This Spirit is nothing less than the all-inclusive Christ. As the good land is an all-inclusive type of Christ, and as Christ has become the Spirit, so the Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit as the processed God, is eventually the good land to us, the New Testament believers, as a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in him (Gen. 12:3).
According to Galatians 3:14, the promise is the promise of the Spirit. But Galatians 3:16 says that the promises were made to Abraham’s seed, which is Christ. It is difficult to reconcile these verses. On the one hand, the Spirit is the all-inclusive Christ. On the other hand, this promise, this Spirit, was given to Christ as the seed. Although this is difficult to explain doctrinally, it is rather easy to understand according to experience. When we believed in the Lord Jesus, we received Him as the seed, as life. However, this seed is the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, the reality of the good land. This means that the very Christ whom we received as the seed is the Spirit typified by the good land. Christ came into us as the seed. But as we live by Him, He becomes the land which is our portion.
Just as the good land was the portion of the children of Israel, so Christ today is the portion of the saints. We have pointed out that as Paul was composing 1:12 he had in mind the type of the land of Canaan. In 1:13 he goes on to say, “Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” This verse reminds us of the way the children of Israel were delivered out of Egypt and transferred into the good land. Thus, Paul’s concept in 1:13 is the same as that revealed in the exodus from Egypt and in the entering into the good land. In ancient times, God delivered His people out of Egypt and brought them into the good land. God the Father has done the same thing with us. He has delivered us out of the authority of darkness, typified by Pharaoh and Egypt, and has transferred us into the all-inclusive Christ, typified by the good land. Just as the children of Israel were transferred out of Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where there was no tyranny, so we have been transferred into a marvelous realm, called the kingdom of the Son of the Father’s love. Therefore, to be qualified for a share of the portion of the saints is actually to enter into the good land. Paul’s composition of 1:12 and 13 is thus according to the picture in the Old Testament.
In writing 1 Corinthians Paul also used pictures from the Old Testament. In 1 Corinthians 5:7 we see that Christ is the Passover, and in 10:3 and 4, that He is the manna. According to the pictures in the Old Testament, it was by the passover lamb that the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, and it was by the manna that they were sustained in the wilderness. The tabernacle erected in the wilderness typifies the movable church life. This kind of church life is not solid or well established. After the children of Israel had entered into the good land and had enjoyed the blessing promised to Abraham, they built the temple with stone, by the unsearchably rich supply of the good land. The temple typifies the solid church life. In 1 Corinthians we have the church typified by the tabernacle, but in Colossians and Ephesians, the church typified by the temple. The Christ we enjoy in Colossians is not simply the lamb and the manna, but the good land, the lot, the portion of the saints.
Many Christian teachers speak about the passover, the manna, and the tabernacle. But I doubt that any have seen that the good land is a type of the all-inclusive Christ. This type of Christ can be fulfilled only by the Spirit. Christians may know the Spirit of God, but they may not know the Spirit, the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit as the ultimate expression of the processed Triune God as the fulfillment of the promise of the good land. For us, the good land promised by God to Abraham is the Spirit. In other words, the Spirit is the blessing God promised to Abraham.
In Galatians 5:16 Paul charges us to walk in spirit. The spirit should be our realm, the sphere, in which we walk. Furthermore, in Galatians 5:25 Paul says, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in spirit” (Gk.). This indicates that the Spirit is our good land. The Christ revealed in the New Testament, especially in Colossians, is the all-inclusive land. This land is Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit. Hallelujah, we have received a share in such a portion!
If we see this, we shall not allow things other than Christ to invade the church. The Colossians were troubled by ordinances, practices, philosophy, and asceticism because they did not see that Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit was their portion, their good land. In place of this portion, they accepted observances, ordinances, and philosophy. In principle, the same is true of today’s Christianity. Christianity has been invaded by culture. Not one part of Christianity has been exempt from this. All of Christianity has been flooded by culture. The purpose of the Lord’s recovery is to bring us out of all this to Christ Himself. At first, the world was Egypt. Now the religion of Christianity has become an Egypt where God’s people are held in bondage. The Lord’s people today need an exodus. Many of us can testify that when we came into the church life, we made an exodus and were delivered out of the authority of darkness.
When the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, they remembered the flavor of the leeks, onions, and garlic they enjoyed in Egypt, and they still longed to eat that kind of food. But when the children of Israel entered into the good land, nothing with an Egyptian flavor was brought into Canaan. That would have been blasphemous to God. To bring into the church something other than Christ is also a blasphemy. In the good land there are no Egyptian leeks, onions, and garlic. In the good land we enjoy only the produce of the land. In the same principle, there is no worldly “garlic” in the church life, only Christ as the portion of the saints. If we see this, we shall be kept from bringing any foreign element into the Body of Christ.
We have seen that the portion of the saints is Christ as the good land, the all-inclusive Christ as the life-giving Spirit. Firstly, Christ is the seed that gives us life. Then He becomes the kingdom, the realm, the sphere, in which we live and walk. Therefore, Christ is our seed and our land, our life and our realm. This is Christ as the portion of the saints.
