“In Christ Alone My Hope Is Found”

British songwriters are conspicuous by their absence from the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. I know of only one. His name is Roger Frederick Cook, who, along with two other lyricists and an advertising executive, gave to us in 1971 the memorable song “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony.” That was fifty years ago. And I think it’s safe to say that fifty years on, the sales of Coca-Cola have fared much better than the longing expressed in that song for reconciliation and for harmony. Because this afternoon, we live in a broken and in a fragmented world—a world that is increasingly confronted with an undeniable fearfulness, whereby people wonder whether they’re going to make it through the next week, the next month, the next year.

And intelligent people have not helped in this regard. The contemporary astronomer royal in the United Kingdom, a Cambridge professor, has given civilization a fifty-fifty chance of surviving in the twenty-first century. There’s nothing new in that. He was preceded by Bertrand Russell, whom some of you will recall. He died in 1970 before he realized that his prophetic word was really pretty useless, because he actually didn’t hold much hope for the twentieth century. This is what he said: “I wouldn’t give a fifty-fifty chance for the continued survival of one human being on this planet by the end of this century.”[1] He’s a very cheerful fellow. He’s the same chap who you could imagine his poor wife as he comes down to breakfast in the morning, and she says, “What do you have for me this morning, Bertrand?” And he said, “You know, I was just thinking: It is only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair that the soul’s habitation can be built.”[2] And she said, “Have a good day!”

Now, we begin in this way because it is in the face of such hopelessness that the Christian, the believer, the follower of Jesus, has a new song to sing. And at the very heart of it all is hope. And when the New Testament uses the word “hope,” it’s not the same as a secular optimism. It’s not uncertainty about what might happen, but rather, it is a confident assurance of what will happen. That’s why in the words of the committal at a graveside, the minister or the pastor will say, “… in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And it is to this matter of hope that Paul gives himself in the opening section of Colossians. I was greatly encouraged to be sitting out here wondering to myself why it is that I chose to base my remarks on Colossians chapter 1 and hoping, “Perhaps there will be some indication that I’m on the right track.” And then to have Blair Linne stand up and actually read my Scripture passage at least said to me, “Begg, keep going. I think you’re all right.” Because 1:3, he addresses the hope that is laid up for them in heaven. In verse 27, he refers to “the hope of glory.” And in verse 23, he urges them concerning their commitment to “the hope of the gospel.” And it is this hope which is found in Christ and in Christ alone.

His concern for them is that they may succumb to a kind of dangerous and slippery variation of the Christian gospel itself. And those who commentate on Paul’s letter to the Colossians abound with explanations as to what those concerns really were. What we do know is that the apostle regarded what was being suggested to these people as being not only deficient in relationship to the gospel but at the same time also dangerous. And so it is to this matter of their stability that he is to give himself. And indeed, the four chapters are addressing this one way or another.

When the New Testament uses the word ‘hope,’ it’s not uncertainty about what might happen, but rather it is a confident assurance of what will happen.

In the verses that were read for us by Blair, he grounds this conviction in two things: first in the supremacy of Christ and then in the sufficiency of Christ. And so that you understand where we’re going, we’ll spend a moment or two on each, and then we can come to this great concern of stability.

The Supremacy of Christ

It would be entirely appropriate if these verses that were read for us—especially beginning in the fifteenth verse and through to verse 20—are, as many people suggest, an early Christian hymn, one of the “spiritual songs” of 3:16 about which Paul writes. But whether Paul is quoting a hymn, whether he is adapting it, or whether he is creating it himself, it is wonderfully striking that within three decades of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the churches that have sprung up and the churches to which Paul addresses himself have ascribed the highest honors of the Godhead to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the hymns that they have begun to sing are an expression of their theological convictions. If you like, their hymnody is grounded in their theology.

And I suggest that if you want to understand a church’s theology, then you might listen to it sing. And here in this little section we have one of the high peaks of Christology. It goes right along with the prologue of John’s Gospel and with the opening section of the book of Hebrews. And these particular verses provide enough material for a long series—which, of course, you’re not looking for and we don’t have time for. We can only fly over the top of it, which will disappoint some and encourage others. That’s a normal experience that I have Sunday by Sunday.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” Think “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”[3] He is “the firstborn.” He is the heir of the Father. He is the agent of all creation. He is, if you like, the Creator entering into his creation. For the world was made “through him,” the world is sustained by him, and the world is accountable to him.

“Well,” you say, “this is a kind of arm’s-length theological perspective. Surely it has very little to say to us today.” Well, I think it has a tremendous amount to say to us today, first because it is the Bible and also because we know today. One of the things that Paul is doing in this section and then into chapter 2 is warning his readers about being deluded by specious arguments and by plausible theories.[4]

And I want to pause just for a moment to help us realize that the doctrine of creation, and particularly Christ as the agent of creation, is of fundamental importance in our day. And I’ll tell you why: because pantheism is vastly advancing in its impact. Radical environmentalism, in keeping with other self-centered and self-authenticating spiritualities, assumes in one way or another that nature—nature, creation—encloses and contains the sacred. The significance of this is found in the fact that since we are part of creation, then we then, as part of the created order, if we choose to engage with the sacred or with the divine, we do not look out of ourselves; we look inside of ourselves.

And we have to recognize that when Paul writes in the first century, the importance of it in every century remains the same. We have to teach our grandchildren that before there was time, before there was anything, there was God; that creation is not coeternal with God; that before creation, before its beginning, God dwelt alone: “In the beginning, God…”[5] And so Paul says to these folks, “It is vitally important, if you are going to hold your line, if you are going to make an impact in your day, if you, if you like, are going to sing songs that make a difference, that you understand just how supreme Jesus is.”

Now, if we were to go on through this little section and through the hymn, as it were, we would understand this: He is the Lord of creation. He is the head of the church. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in him. In other words, all that can ever be known of the fullness of God in bodily form is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in this, he has come in order that he might reconcile—reconcile all that is disrupted and all that is broken, all that is in need of restoration to be brought back under the domain of his power and of his authority—which, of course, ultimately, will be for us in a new heaven and in a new earth. And this will be on account of the fact that this has been accomplished at the cross, where, in chapter 2, he says it is there that he has “disarmed [all] the rulers,” all the “authorities,” putting them “to open shame, by triumphing over them in him”[6]—“nailing it to the cross.”[7] “To the cross.” Not to an ideology. Not to an idea. Not to a philosophy. Not to a program. Not to some ability to try and engage in a way that we advance his cause. No. He has taken care of it. Jesus Christ is supreme.

The head that once was crowned with thorns
Is crowned with glory now. …

The highest place that heaven affords
Is his by sovereign right.[8]

Now, remember what he’s doing. He’s going to say to them in just a moment, when we get to the end, “You better make sure that you do not shift from the hope that is held out for you in the gospel.”

Number one: you need to make sure you understand and you bow beneath the supremacy of Christ.

The Sufficiency of the Work of Christ

Secondly: that you are absolutely convinced of the sufficiency of the work of Christ—a work that has been accomplished at the cross.

Why would there be a necessity for such a thing? Well, the answer that the Bible gives to us is that the reason our world is broken, the reason our world is sick, the reason we are in the predicament in which we find ourselves is because of an estrangement that exists between God, who has made us, and we, who find ourselves vastly removed from him, in a chasm over which we cannot move. It is a two-sided enmity: on our side, on account of our rebellion against God; and on God’s side, on account of his settled wrath against sin.

In that predicament, there is no hope of peace without God taking the initiative. And taking the initiative is what he has done in Jesus. John puts it in this way: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” and “he is the propitiation for our sins.”[9] “And on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.”[10]

Paul’s writing to them, and he says, “Now, think about this, would you? You were alienated from him. You were hostile in your minds. You were wicked in your deeds. You had no interest in God, no interest in reconciliation. Furthermore, you would be happy to acknowledge, ‘Once I was blind but believed I saw everything.’”

There is no hope of peace without God taking the initiative. And taking the initiative is what he has done in Jesus.

And what had happened to them? Well, the gospel had come to them. The gospel had not come to the Colossae Valley through the lips of Paul himself but through the lips of Epaphras. And Epaphras had been the one who was to explain to them the wonder of what God had done in Jesus. And that’s what he refers to in verse 7. He says, “You learned it from Epaphras, who is our beloved faithful servant. He’s a faithful minister of Christ, and he’s told us about your love in the Spirit.”[11] So it had been announced to them, and it had been accepted by them.

Calvin is very helpful when in his writings he says all that Christ has done for us is of no value to us so long as we remain outside of Christ.[12] Because Jesus shed his blood on the cross, men and women are not automatically forgiven. The reconciliation that has been accomplished is a reconciliation which then must be proclaimed, which then, having been proclaimed, must then be believed or accepted.

And when that reconciliation, understood and applied, comes to the life of a man or a woman, then what Paul says here of them is absolutely true: that in the wonder of his dealings, we are “holy,” “blameless,” and “above reproach”—or, in the NIV, “free from accusation.” Why has Christ gone to this extent? Why has God given to us Jesus? In order that in him we might be presented holy, blameless, and free from accusation.

Now, let me ask you: How does this work? This is how God views us in Christ.

I am a new creation,
No more in condemnation.
Here in the grace of God I stand.[13]

“Ah, yes,” but you say, “but what about the fact of my sins and my blemishes and my failures that are obvious not only to me, but they’re obvious to my wife, to those who know me best? What am I to do when my conscience accuses me, when I look at this and I say, ‘Is this my hope? Is this where it is to be found? I look at this?’”

Now, you see, here is the reason why Murray M’Cheyne, who died at twenty-nine—the Presbyterian minister in Dundee—why he used to say to his congregation, “For every look that you take at yourself, take ten looks at the Lord Jesus.”[14] “Take ten looks at the Lord Jesus.” Because when you only look inside of yourself, what do you see? Reason for despair. Reason for disappointment. But when you look at Christ, what do you see? All that is provided for us there in him.

Now, here is the point—and it’s an important point. The work of reconciliation took place “on a hill far away.”[15] It didn’t take place in my heart, and it didn’t take place in your heart either—not the work of reconciliation. That is why Luther used to say we need to realize that in a realistic sense, the Christian life is all outside of us. Now, what did he mean by that? Well, he meant simply this: We are not justified, we are not put right with God, on the basis of anything done by us. But nor are we put right with God on the basis of anything done in us. We are put right with God on the basis of that which has been done for us. For us.

Here, you see, is the Christian’s hope. And the change of status—and change of status it is—is always accompanied by a change in character, so that our position, our standing before God in Jesus as justified, wherein lies the ground of our hope, is then giving rise to this process of sanctification, where, having been “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,”[16] we are now “being transformed into” his image,[17] and one day, when we see him, we will be like him.[18] So in a very realistic sense, we are all still under construction. It’s a wonderful thought that the ground of our acceptance with God is in the work of the cross, and the evidence of our justification is in our continuance.

I well remember at one of our congregations in Hamilton many, many years ago—the lady was a nurse. She was a single woman. She had nursed very effectively in the South of England. For some reason, she had seen the light and had decided that Scotland would be a far better place to live, and she had come up. I guess she realized that there will always be an England while Scotland’s on the top. And she had arrived, and she made herself a very happy member of our congregation. She told us her story. She was baptized. She told of how she had lived a fairly selfish life and had been really disinterested in Jesus and in the Bible, and were it not for some friends who had reached out to her, she would never have known. She found out what Jesus had done, and her life was pretty hopeless, and she found her hope in him.

And she told me that one day, she got a telephone call from some of the women with whom she had spent time as a younger lady. They had come up to Scotland, I think, to see how beautiful it is, and they had called her. And they said, “You know, Miriam, why don’t we go out and, you know, hit the town and—you know, like the good old days?” And she said, “Well, no, I don’t really want to do that.” And somebody said—one of the girls said to her—“You know, you don’t sound like the old Miriam.” And she said, “That is because I am not the old Miriam.”

One of the great lies that is abroad in contemporary evangelicalism, particularly amongst the younger generation, is that the best way to reach our contemporaries is to show them how like them we are. Read church history. Read your Bible. The church in every generation has advanced by showing the surrounding world how unlike it it is. And the work of the gospel in our lives is to fulfill that purpose.

The Colossians’ Stability

Now to my final point, which was really the start. I said that what he’s doing here is he’s concerned about their stability, and he is dealing with that by reminding them of Christ’s supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ’s work. So what he does is very straightforward: He reminds them of what they have been previously by nature and now the wonder of what they are by grace.

And so, in driving this home, he sounds, if you like, a warning note. He sounds a warning note, albeit in a positive way: “present[ing] you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if”—“if”—“indeed you continue in the faith, stable … steadfast, not shifting from the hope [that is yours in] the gospel.”

Now, I take it from what he goes on to write, particularly in 2:5, that he is convinced about the fact of their continuance. But what he’s really saying is this: Not only will they persevere, but they must persevere. It is only those who are kept that keep themselves. You remember Jude? “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”[19] “How in the world am I going to do that?” How does it end? “Now unto him [who] is able to keep you from falling…”[20] “You will continue. Keep continuing.”

Now, we have to understand this in relationship to his concern for their welfare. Because the issue that was confronting them was not a problem that was coming from the outside. It was something from within. The people were advancing a notion of the gospel that was, as he says, “not according to Christ,”[21] or that gave testimony to the fact that somehow or another, those who were suggesting these things were “not holding [on] to the Head,”[22] disengaged from Jesus.

Now, think about this for just a moment: We’re not in the first century. Clearly, we’re not in Colossae. We’re not even in Cleveland. We’re in Nashville. And what do we know? That we’re involved in “a continual and irreconcilable war”[23] on three fronts: against the world, against the flesh, and against the devil. We are the proponents of “a living hope,”[24] of a powerful triumph that is ours in Jesus. Right? And the Evil One—the Evil One is aware of what? He’s aware of the fact that the place where power and authority was disarmed, disassembled, and destabilized was at the cross. Therefore, would we ever be surprised that his strategy in every generation is to divert believers from the only one person and from the only one place where reconciliation is achieved and discovered?

It is imperative, he says to them, that they are unmoved (i.e., “stable and steadfast”), that they are unmovable. “I’m not going to shift. No, I won’t back down,” to quote Luther and Tom Petty—but mainly Tom Petty: “You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.”[25] Now, he had something else in mind than what I have in mind right now, but this is the challenge in our generation. This is the challenge. We are the great proponents of this news and this beautiful story of reconciliation in a world of alienation.

“Now,” he says, “don’t shift from the hope of the gospel. Don’t be like Hymenaeus and Philetus,” whom he addresses when he writes to Timothy, who said, you know, “The resurrection has already happened. There’s nothing still to come. It’s all about now. It’s all about fixing everything now. We need to take care of these things.”[26] “No,” he says, “listen: You have heard this message from Epaphroditus. This is the message that has been proclaimed throughout all of creation. This is the message,” he says, “of which I am myself a servant.”

Social engagement flows from the gospel. It dare not replace the gospel.

“And what,” he says, “you must understand is this: that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the one universal answer to man’s quest for spiritual fulfillment. It is the one answer to our sick world.” And he’s saying to them, “Beware of the virus that is endangering your spiritual health. It is only as you are absolutely convinced of the truth and the power and the relevance of the gospel that you will hold to it firmly, that you will proclaim it bravely.”

And here we are, and our world is as it is. Nothing really changes very much. Once again, people are here to tell us we need to adapt to it; we need to adopt it; we need to make sure that our social engagement is sufficient. Social engagement flows from the gospel. It dare not replace the gospel. We need to make sure—we need to make sure—that we are making clear the basis of our unity and our harmony and our racial engagement. Listen: That is a byproduct of the gospel. It can never be the gospel.

William Booth was never more engaged in this kind of thing than anyone else in the nineteenth century. They asked him at the end of the nineteenth century, “What is your concern for the church in the twentieth century?” This is what he said: “My concern is that the coming century”—that’s the last century now—“will involve religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”[27]

Now, listen: It wouldn’t be me speaking if I didn’t quote either the Beatles or Paul Simon before I finish. So let me finish in this way. In 1964, Paul Simon took a road trip with his then-girlfriend, Kathy. She lives in England or Wales, even now. Anyway, that trip that he took was the inspiration for the song that he wrote entitled “America.” You remember it: “Let us be lovers; we’ll marry our fortunes together,” and so on. And at one point in the journey he says,

“Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
“I’m empty and aching. and I don’t know why,”
[Just] counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike;
[We]’ve all come to look for America.[28]

Well, guess what? We’ve found America. Why is that the cry? Why does that remain a cry tonight? Because we are alienated from God. Because it is only in Jesus that the reconciliation is provided.

O Christ, in thee my soul ha[s] found,
And found in thee alone,
The peace, the joy I sought so long,
The bliss till now unknown.[29]

Or, in the words of a better-known hymn writer, “In Christ alone my hope is found.”[30]

[1] This is a paraphrase of a frequently repeated quotation attributed to Bertrand Russell: “The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival.”

[2] Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1917), 41. Paraphrased.

[3] John 14:9 (RSV).

[4] See Colossians 2:4.

[5] Genesis 1:1 (ESV).

[6] Colossians 2:15 (ESV).

[7] Colossians 2:14 (ESV).

[8] Thomas Kelly, “The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns” (1820).

[9] 1 John 2:1–2 (ESV).

[10] Stuart Townend and Keith Getty, “In Christ Alone” (2001).

[11] Colossians 1:7–8 (paraphrased).

[12] John Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1.

[13] David Bilbrough, “I Am a New Creation” (1983).

[14] See, for example, Andrew Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert McCheyne (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Education, 1844), 236, 253.

[15] George Bennard, “The Old Rugged Cross” (1913).

[16] Romans 8:29 (ESV).

[17] 2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV).

[18] See 1 John 3:2.

[19] Jude 21 (ESV).

[20] Jude 24 (KJV).

[21] Colossians 2:8 (ESV).

[22] Colossians 2:19 (ESV).

[23] The Westminster Confession of Faith 13.2.

[24] 1 Peter 1:3 (ESV).

[25] Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, “I Won’t Back Down” (1989). Lyrics lightly altered.

[26] See 2 Timothy 2:17–18.

[27] Attributed to William Booth in, for example, Record of Christian Work 22, no. 3 (1903): 145. Paraphrased.

[28] Paul Simon, “America” (1968).

[29] [Emma Frances Bevan?], “None but Christ.”

[30] Townend and Getty, “In Christ Alone.”