«　WEEK 1　DAY 6　»

　　Col. 1:27 To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

　　Heb. 7:25 Hence also He is able to save to the uttermost those who come forward to God through Him, since He lives always to intercede for them.

　　In His salvation God saves us not only from sin, judgment, the lake of fire, the world, and the self; He also saves us from everything which replaces Christ, including our culture. Because culture replaces Christ in a practical way in our daily living, it is hateful in the eyes of God. What kind of Christ can replace our culture? The Christ who replaces culture is the extensive Christ, not the limited Christ known by most Christians…. The Christ who can replace our culture and become everything to us is the all-inclusive, extensive Christ. (Life-study of Colossians, p. 391)

　　Although we had lost God, Christ has brought us back, reconciled us, to Him. Now we once again have God as the factor which gives meaning and purpose to our existence…. The book of Colossians was written in order to reveal the extensive, all-inclusive Christ who deals with our culture and even replaces our culture. There is no need for us to observe ordinances about eating—we are eating Christ. We do not need to keep certain days, feasts, or new moons—Christ is our new moon, feast, and Sabbath. Since Christ is ever the same and since He is the reality of every day of the week to us, every day is the same. But if we insist on having ordinances concerning food and days, others will judge us with respect to these things. If we care only for the all-inclusive Christ and live according to Him instead of according to culture, no one will have ground to judge us. Christ is the meaning and purpose of life. We all need to see an extensive revelation of such an all-inclusive Christ.

　　Now that we have received Christ, He, the all-inclusive, extensive One, must replace every aspect of our culture with Himself. We have seen that fallen man uses culture as a substitute for God. First, such a culture is a substitute for God. Then Christ comes in to replace this substitute with Himself… We should love Christ. If we are filled to the brim with Christ, there will not be any room in our being for anything else. Every part of us will be occupied by Christ and with Christ. Then in our experience we shall have the fullness of Christ. We shall be filled with Christ to the extent of our capacity. The Christ who fills our being will replace our culture with Himself. This is the revelation in the book of Colossians.

　　Because Christ is extensive and all-inclusive, with Him there is no scarcity. If we have such a Christ in our experience, we shall not need anything else. There is no need that He cannot meet, and no capacity to receive Him that He cannot fill. Since we have the all-inclusive Christ, we do not need Judaism, Gnosticism, or asceticism. We have the all-inclusive and extensive Christ with His fullness. He could fill the whole universe, and still He would not be exhausted. We do not need anything, ancient or modern, in place of Christ. We do not even need our self-made and self-imposed culture. I am concerned that many among us still live according to their self-imposed culture. These saints are always imposing restrictions on themselves and living according to them. There is no need for us to remain in the custody of our self-made culture. Instead, we should stay in Christ and in the freedom we have in Christ. We need to be filled to the brim with Christ…. Christ, the extensive One, must replace every element of our natural human life…. Let us allow the pure Christ to fill our being and replace every aspect of our natural human life with Himself. (Life-study of Colossians, pp. 391-392, 426-427)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1964, vol. 2, “A General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, Part 2—Romans through Philemon, ” chs. 19-20