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Interpretation of Chapter One
The Intervarsity Press Commentary
outlines chapter one as greeting, prayer, theology on the foundation of faith,
new exodus, new creation, new age, and Paul's defense of his ministry.
Paul's Greeting (1:1-2)
Paul's Prayer of Thanksgiving (1:3-12)
The Foundation of Faith: God's Grace in Christ (1:13-23)
The New Exodus (1:13-14)
The New Creation (1:15-20)
The New Age (1:21-23)
Paul's Defense of His Ministry (1:23--2:3)
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Daniel Wallace summarizes Colossians as outlining the sufficiency of Christ,
arguing against heretics and christological heresy, and calling for Christians
to live in the light of Christ's sufficiency:
The apostle Paul, with Timothy, begins the
letter with a greeting to the saints at Colossae (1:1-2).
The body of the letter begins at 1:3.27
Paul begins on a positive note in which he outlines the sufficiency of Christ
(1:3–2:7). He follows this with a negative statement in which he argues
against the views of the heretics at Colossae, who especially imbibe in
christological heresy (2:3–3:4). The body is concluded with a call to live
the Christian life in light of Christ’s sufficiency (3:5–4:6).
The first major section, on the positive
presentation of the sufficiency of Christ, involves four parts. (1) Paul’s
thanksgiving for the Colossians because of their positive response to the
gospel (1:3-8), coupled with a prayer for them to grow in knowledge and
productivity (1:9-14). This prayer deals, though very subtly, with the heart
of the epistle: the heretics claim to have a superior knowledge, yet their
very philosophy chokes out any productivity for God (cf. 2:20-23). (2) Without
so much as an “Amen” to the prayer, Paul continues with a recital of an
early Christian hymn in which Christ is magnified as Deity in the flesh, the
Creator incarnate (1:15-20). (3) The hymn, which ends with a note on Christ as
reconciler of “all things,” serves as a bridge to Paul’s next theme:
Christ has reconciled the Colossians to God—a ministry of reconciliation
which Paul has proclaimed (1:21-23). (4) Finally, Paul addresses his own
ministry in greater detail: (a) he has been commissioned with proclaiming
“the mystery” (again, borrowing terms of his opponents)—“Christ in
you, the hope of glory” (1:27)—so that “we may present everyone perfect
in Christ” (1:24-29); (b) he is presently concerned about the believers in
the Lycus Valley, especially that they might not be “deceived by
fine-sounding arguments” (2:4) which deny the sufficiency of Christ (2:1-7).
http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/colotl.htm
The Catholic Encyclopedia divides Colossians into two main parts, the first
being dogmatic-polemical:
The Epistle consists of two parts the first two chapters being dogmatico-polemical
and the last two practical or moral. In the first part the writer shows the
absurdity of the errors by a direct statement of the supereminent dignity of
Christ, by Whose blood we have the redemption of sins. He is the perfect image
of the invisible God,
begotten before all creatures. By Him and for Him were created all things in
heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, spiritual as well as material, and
by Him are all things upheld. He is the Head of the Church and He has
reconciled all things through the blood of His cross, and the Colossians
"also he hath reconciled . . . through death". St. Paul, as the
Apostle of the Gentiles and a prisoner for their sakes, exhorts them to hold
fast to Christ in Whom the plenitude of the Godhead
dwells, and not to allow themselves under the plausible name of philosophy, to
be re-enslaved by Jewish traditions based on the Law of Moses, which was but
the shadow of which Christ was the reality and which was abrogated by His
coming. They are not to listen to vain and rudimentary speculations of the
false teachers, nor are they to suffer themselves to be deluded by a specious
plea of humility to put angels or demons on a level with Christ, the creator
of all, the master of angels, and conqueror of demons.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04131b.htm
The author addresses himself and his
companion Timothy to their audience. Paul's authority for addressing the saints
and faithful bretheren at Colosse rests in his being an apostle of Jesus Christ.
The reader will note that Paul does not claim a direct and physical relationship
with Jesus Christ; rather, he is apostle by the will of God.
Col 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,
Col 1:2 To the saints and faithful
brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul says in verse one that
he is an apostle of Jesus Christ by God. The Intervarsity Press Commentary
suggests Paul establishes his authority in the face of expected opposition. The
gentile mission was quite controversial for early Christianity:
Recall that Paul's Gentile mission
was quite controversial in earliest Christianity, when many believers
understood themselves as belonging to a messianic movement within Judaism.
Boundaries between the church and synagogue were still quite fuzzy; Paul's
preaching of a "law-free" gospel (as in Galatians) and his
conversion of Gentiles without compliance to the most basic proselyte
requirements of Greek-speaking Judaism (as in Romans) were increasingly
difficult for religious Jews, and even for many Jewish Christians, to accept
(see Acts 11:1-18; 15:1-5; 21:15-26). Moreover, although Paul had witnessed
the resurrection of Christ on the Damascus Road, some early Christian leaders
still doubted his apostolic credentials. After all, he had persecuted Christ's
disciples and had not been with Christ from the beginning (see Acts 1:21-22; 1
Cor 15:8-11).
This ambivalence toward Paul's
apostolic credentials within the early church is reflected in Acts, where
Paul's ministry is commissioned by the Lord (Acts 9:15-6) but his apostleship
results from a congregation's ordination (Acts 13:3; cf. 1 Thess 2:6-7). Even
the church's mission to the Gentiles was initiated by Peter, the leader of the
Twelve who immediately succeeded Jesus; he, not Paul, was appointed by God to
bring salvation to the Gentile soldier Cornelius. Paul himself adds other
reasons, including the itinerant nature of his evangelistic ministry, which
was widely scorned in the ancient world (cf. 1 Thess 2:1-16).
Against this background of
controversy, then, the pointed manner of Paul's introduction is made necessary
by readers who know him only by "muddy" reputation. Paul reminds
them that his personal authority (and by implication the trustworthiness of
his advice) is not granted by another person nor by some more prominent
congregation but by Christ Jesus, the Lord of the church. Moreover, Christ's
decision to do so was by the will of God. Since the will of God is the
redemption of all creation, Paul does not use this idiom to
"strong-arm" his readers into an undesirable submission. Rather, he
understands that his ministry to the Colossians--given by Christ, who gave
himself for their redemption (1:14)--conforms with the will of the One who
wills their rescue from the reign of darkness (1:13). Some have even linked
this reference to the will of God with Paul's commission on the Damascus Road
(cf. Acts 22:14), an event that harks back to God'
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
In addition to establishing his
authority, Paul greets the people of Colosse in a familiar apostolic
greeting:
The apostolical benediction is the
same as usual: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ. He wishes them grace and peace, the free favour of God and all
the blessed fruits of it; every kind of spiritual blessings, and that from God
our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ; jointly from both, and distinctly from
each; as in the former epistle.
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/MatthewHenryComplete/mhc-com.cgi?book+col
The Intervarsity Press Commentary
points out that the first part of the greeting is a familiar Roman greeting:
The apostle's conventional salutation
wonderfully expresses the theology of his Gentile mission. Grace to you was a
common greeting between people living in the Roman world. In Paul's vocabulary
of God's salvation, however, it underscores the stark contrast between God's
saving grace and the secular forms of salvation offered by the ruling elites
of the Roman world. Every event Paul recites in the story of God's
salvation--beginning with God's election of a people for salvation (3:11-12),
climaxing with God's sending of Jesus as Son (1:15-20) in order to lead that
people on a new exodus from sin (1:13-14), and concluding with God's call of
Paul as apostle (1:24--2:5) in order to lead Gentiles into God's final triumph
over evil in Christ (1:21-23)--is understood as the work of God's grace. That
is, grace empowers a holy and faithful life from which death and sin are
absent (see Rom 6:4). Unlike the Roman offer of secular salvation, often
repressive and always conditional, God's salvation is offered as a free gift,
even to those without social merit or political power.
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
Charles Hess, however, argues the
greeting is not quite that of the Romans:
Grace to you. Paul did not use the
customary Greek salutation, CHAIRE Hail! (see Lu 1:28) but, more appropriate
to Christians, CHARIS Grace!
And peace from God our Father.[ 12 ]
The Hebrew SHALOM peace[ 13 ]
is equivalent to the Greek EIREENEE peace but in Paul's greeting
"peace" has the special meaning that Christ gave to it. He said to
His disciples, "Peace I leave with you," adding that His peace is
"not as the world gives" (Joh 14:27; compare Col 3:15).
Colossians, Chapter One http://www.oldpaths.org/Library/Comments/Hess/Col/col1.html
Not only, though, does Paul say
"Grace be onto you," but "peace, from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
The second critical word of Paul's
salutation, peace, has a biblical background, reflecting the prophetic
catchword shalom. The prophets of the Old Testament speak of shalom when
describing the fulfillment of God's promise to restore all things to their
created order: peace is the word that summarizes a "new world,"
transformed from its fallen state into the form of life intended by the
Creator God. More than a reference to internal and spiritual contentment,
then, the biblical idea of peace embraces every dimension of human
existence--past, present and future. Certainly in Colossian Christianity,
God's victory in Christ is celebrated and confessed as a cosmic event: the
exalted Christ now mediates God's rule over the natural order as well as over
the spiritual order (1:15-20). As a result, peace is more than a good feeling
or mystical experience; it presumes a universal condition, in which all of
human life is brought into conformity with the Creator's intentions for all
things (3:5--4:6).
Both Paul and Timothy give thanks that
the people addressed have faith in Christ Jesus and a love for all the saints;
they are grateful, too, for the hope laid up for them in heaven heard in the
word of the truth of the gospel. This gospel is "in all the world, and
bringeth forth fruit." Interestingly, "the truth of the gospel"
is heard "in the word." This trilogy of faith, hope, love will be
matched by another trilogy in verse 11 of endurance, patience, and joy:
Col 1:3 We give thanks to God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
Col 1:4 Since we heard of your faith
in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,
Col 1:5 For the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel;
Col 1:6 Which is come unto you, as it
is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since
the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:
The reader should note that the
position of the believers in Colosse is on earth with "the hope ...laid
up.. in heaven." John Nelson Darby says:
The address to the Ephesians places
them perhaps more immediately in connection with God Himself, instead of
presenting them as in brotherly communion on earth. They are not called
brethren in Ephesians 1:1, only saints and faithful in Christ Jesus. They are
viewed as walking on earth in Colossians, though risen. Hence there is a long
prayer for their walk, though on high and holy ground as delivered. In
Ephesians it begins with the full purpose and fruit of God's counsels. In that
epistle the apostle's heart expands at once in the sense of the blessings
enjoyed by the Ephesians. They were blessed with all spiritual blessings in
the heavenly places in Christ. For the Colossians there was a hope laid up in
heaven. And there is a preface of many verses referring to the gospel they had
heard, and introducing his prayer for their walk and state down here. This
brings us where Ephesians 1:7 brings us, but with a much more enlarged
development of the personal glory of Christ, and more in an historical way of
God's actual dealings. It is also a more personal church address than the
Ephesians.
http://www.ccel.org/d/darby/synopsis/Colossians.html
Another fellow laborer, Epaphras, has
also been instrumental in this labor of love:
Col 1:7 As ye also learned of
Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;
Col 1:8 Who also declared unto us
your love in the Spirit.
Epaphras has, in fact, declared to Paul
and Timothy the love of this people.
Prayer of Thanks
Having heard of this people and their
love, Paul and Timothy have since been much in prayer. The prayer is a practical
one that they may be "filled with the knowledge of his [God's] will...
increasing in knowledge...strengthened with all might." Paul and Timothy
are grateful that they have been able to meet in the common inheritance of
light, delivered from darkness, and "translated into the kingdom of his
dear Son....[having] redemption through his blood":
Col 1:9 For this cause we also, since
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might
be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding;
Col 1:10 That ye might walk worthy of
the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing
in the knowledge of God;
Col 1:11 Strengthened with all might,
according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with
joyfulness;
Col 1:12 Giving thanks unto the
Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the
saints in light:
Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from
the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son:
Col 1:14 In whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
The Intervarsity Press adds an
intriguing explanation of poetic structure in verses three through eleven,
reminding readers how very much can sometimes be missed. The chiasmus is a
literary logic illustrating the figure X:
Viewed as a literary chiasmus, Paul's
thanksgiving contains two parallel although inverted series of three
theological ideas (vv. 3-6 and vv. 9-12), with the vertex in between (vv.
7-8), as follows:
A We always thank God, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you (v. 3),
B because we have heard of
your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints--the
faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven
(vv. 4-5)
C and that you have already
heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over
the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing
among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its
truth (vv. 5-6).
D You learned [the gospel]
from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ
on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit (vv. 7-8).
C' For this reason, since the
day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to
fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and
understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of
the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work,
growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according
to his glorious might (vv. 9-11)
B' so that you may have great
endurance and patience, and joyfully (v. 11)
A' giving thanks to the
Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the
kingdom of light (v. 12).
Paul first (A/A') gives thanks to
God, because he has heard reports of the readers' piety, described by two
related triads of good works (B, faith, love and hope, and B', endurance,
patience and joy). He concludes by interpreting their piety to be the natural
fruit and logical growth of accepting the gospel's truth (C/C').
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
That Epaphras is the vertex seems
to be consciously chosen: "Epaphras's relationship with the Colossian
church is a key to unlocking the reason Paul wrote Colossians"
(Intervarsity Press Commentaries). This commentary suggests Paul may be
concerned about Epaphras's status among the Colossian believers, and "this
comment at the thanksgiving's vertex to help secure his reputation as an
exemplary believer."
First, church tradition asserts that
the Epaphras who shared Paul's prison cell according to Philemon 23 is the
same Epaphras Paul mentions in Colossians. While the references to Epaphras in
Colossians do not suggest that he is in prison, Philemon, which was written
before Colossians, could refer to an earlier imprisonment. Epaphras's past
imprisonment could well have resulted in a prolonged absence from Colosse,
during which time others (including theological opponents) could have taken
charge of the congregation's spiritual nurture. Now that he is able to return
to his former ministry, Paul's prayer recalls the importance of Epaphras's
earlier ministry to reestablish him in this congregation.
A second and more important clue
comes from Colossians 4:12-13, where Paul vouches for Epaphras's commitment to
the Colossian congregation. Why would Paul sense a need to vouch for Epaphras
and to stress the close tie the two men share in the Gentile mission? Masson
has suggested that Paul wants to overturn Epaphras's reputation for
incompetence, and even laziness, which has helped the false teachers succeed
(1950:156). While this speculation seems strained to me, it is true that Paul
is concerned with Epaphras's reputation. I suspect Paul is concerned because
the truth of Epaphras's teaching, which had converted the readers to Christ,
is now jeopardized. In this sense, Paul's letter defines and defends the
content of Epaphras's teaching and witness.
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
In Philemon 23, Epaphras is identified
as a fellow prisoner: Phi 1:23 There
salute thee Epaphras, my fellowprisoner in Christ Jesus;
Darby points to the fact that the
Colossians are sitting on earth:
But let us consider more closely that
which is said to the Colossians. The blessed calling of which the apostle
speaks (Eph. 1:3-10), and the privileges of the inheritance (11-14), are
wanting in Colossians; risen but on earth, they are not sitting in heavenly
places, all things being thus their inheritance. It is not they in Christ
there, but Christ in them the hope of glory, and the prayer referred to above
fills up the chapter till we come to the common ground of Christ's glory in
Colossians 1:15; and even here the divine glory of Christ is brought out in
Colossians, the simple fact of the purpose of God as to Christ in
Ephesians.
Already, the writer begins to
theologize with verses thirteen and fourteen:
Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from
the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son:
Col 1:14 In whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
The Intervarsity Press Commentary shows
the rescue as echoing Old Testament stories of God's intervention:
Paul's confession of God's gracious
decision to usher the church into the promised land continues by specifying
its result: God rescued us . . . and brought us into the kingdom of the
Son. God's action is described in the aorist tense (has rescued),
which suggests that the defeat of demonic enemies and the church's entrance
into God's kingdom have already taken place. The verb translated rescue (rhyomai)
echoes the Old Testament stories of God's intervention to deliver an embattled
Israel from its enemies, especially the master story of the exodus, when God
delivered Israel from the pharaoh's tyranny and the avenging angel. For Paul,
the climactic act of God's intervening grace, which constitutes the church's
Passover, occurred when Christ trusted God even to death. In a sense, the
saving result of Christ's death reoccurs whenever a person trusts in Christ
for salvation (compare Rom 3:22; 7:24--8:1).
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
The prayer gives way to theology in
Colossians 1: 15:
Col 1:15 Who is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Col 1:16 For by him were all things
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all
things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17 And he is before all things,
and by him all things consist.
The Colossians are reminded that
"Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every
creature." As such, Christ is the Creator of both the visible and
invisible, and all things belong to him. As Christ is the firstborn of all
things created in heaven and earth, the church is the firstborn from the dead
for the purpose that Christ might have preeminence. The language is poetic as
the writer strains to link the lordship of Christ to the cosmos. As the
Intervarsity Commentary says, Jesus "is the cosmic Christ," Lord of
the material and spiritual, and as Lord over all, Christ has reconciled the two
into a new world.
In this passage Paul employs various
images of creation to clarify "the word of truth, the gospel"
(1:5-6). By linking the lordship of Christ to God's creation of the entire
cosmos, Paul's tacit claim is that Christians have been remade into a new
humanity, characterized by their holistic spirituality. Against his ascetic
opponents at Colosse, who have rejected the material for the spiritual, Paul
confesses Christ as Lord over both worlds; he is the "cosmic
Christ." Therefore, believers are to resist any teaching that divides
their life into separate spheres, material and spiritual, which would also
divide their loyalty to Christ. If Christ is Lord over all of God's creation,
then those in Christ have been re-formed into a new creation and embody God's
reconciliation of all things (v. 20).
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
Furthermore, since nothing in the
structure of Colossians seems to be without purpose, the parallelism in fifteen
and eighteen declares the lordship of Christ. In seventeen, he is the
"image" while in eighteen, he is the "beginning and the firstborn
among the dead":
Thus, in verses 15 and 18 Christ is
introduced by a relative pronoun (hos, "he") combined with
the linking verb (estin, "is"), resulting in a crucial
parallelism that sets forth Paul's essential convictions about the lordship of
Jesus Christ: (1) he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over
all creation (v. 15) and (2) he is the beginning and the firstborn from
among the dead (v. 18).
This grammatical clue is crucial for
interpretation, not only because it provides a nice balance to the passage
but, more important, because it divides the passage into two integral
christological themes that Paul will develop in the main body of his letter.
The first theme, introduced in verses 15-17, considers the role of Christ
within the created order, while the second, introduced in verses 18-20,
considers his role within the new order of his kingdom now populated by God's
people (compare v. 13). Paul's parallel claims about the Lord Christ nicely
frame the Bible's conviction that God's creation and redemption are two parts
of an integral whole. This theological conviction implies a practical point as
well: the redeemed community is a new creation, and the current demonstration
that God's grace has reconciled and reintegrated all things spiritual with all
things material in accord with God's will.
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
The Intervarsity Press Commentary links
Paul's Christology to the Jewish understanding of wisdom:
The similarity of terminology with
Jewish interpretation of Wisdom's work in both creation (Prov 8) and salvation
(Is 40) provides yet another important clue to the teacher of this passage.
Many religious Jews of the first century, such as Paul, ordered their lives by
biblical Wisdom, not only because it provided practical advice for a wide
assortment of daily affairs but indeed because this advice was viewed as the
very "word of God" (Prov 30:5-9), necessary for salvation (Wisdom
6:24). Various New Testament writers make this same point. James, for example,
views Wisdom as the heavenly "word" from God, necessary for
salvation (Jas 1:17-21; compare 2 Tim 3:15). Matthew's gospel shows how Jesus
taught his disciples the Wisdom of God for their salvation (Mt 7:24; 10:24;
11:25; 24:45; 25:1-9). Paul makes it clear that he follows in the way of the
earliest church, then, by drawing upon Jewish Wisdom to explain his faith in
Christ (compare 1 Cor 1:30).
Two core convictions of biblical
Wisdom are important as background to Paul's understanding of Christ's cosmic
lordship. First, Wisdom teaches that every aspect of human life (including its
religious, social, political, family and economic dimensions) is to make
visible the Creator's invisible intentions (see Heb 11:1-2). If God is true
and good, so are the intentions for all that the Creator has made. So Israel's
sages distilled their observations of human life into the Old Testament
Proverbs to express the Creator's good intentions as guides toward the good
life and away from misfortune.
Second, the messianic Jews (Jews
waiting for Messiah to come) who lived around the time of Jesus and Paul
linked Israel's practice of biblical Wisdom to the coming of the Messiah. What
had first been composed as a social ethic to order Israel's national life now
took on eschatological importance: the practice of Wisdom became a condition
for Israel's entrance into God's promised salvation.
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
Paul makes an important theological
point in establishing the lordship of Christ:
For the apostle's confession that
Jesus is cosmic Lord makes the even more profound claim that in the Lord Jesus
Christ, God has been made one of us, for us. Certainly Paul's primary point in
this compositional context is to claim something decisive for the Lord's messiahship:
that is, Jesus' messianic work, especially his death (v. 20), embodies or
incarnates the work of God. In fact, the truth about God's grace (vv. 4-5) is
disclosed personally and within history by Jesus from Nazareth.
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
Col 1:18 And he is the head of the
body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in
all things he might have the preeminence.
Interestingly, the writer uses
"firstborn from the dead" in echo of verse fifteen's "firstborn
of every creature," suggesting Christ is head of a new and reconciled
order:
The second stanza of Paul's
christological confession begins with a different point: Christ is the
beginning. The word beginning comes from the same word-family as rulers
(1:16) and probably carries the same idea: the Lord Christ is at "the
beginning of"--or "rules over"--God's new creation, the church,
even as he is Lord now over the various elites of God's created order. At
times the word carries a temporal meaning, referring to the beginning or first
event of a sequence of events. So this claim for Christ's lordship over the
church may have a historical aspect: Jesus' death and resurrection begins his
cosmic lordship (compare Phil 2:9-11) and inaugurates the new age of
salvation's history in him (1 Cor 15:12-28). Paul further expands the
confession here by adding the appositional phrase the firstborn from among
the dead. The new age initiated by Christ's death and resurrection
constitutes nothing less than a new order of human life in Christ, the
essential ingredient of which is victory over death in its various
expressions.
Significantly, Paul recycles the word
firstborn (prototokos), which he used earlier to stake out Christ's
status as Lord over all creation (v. 15). This word, found in both
stanzas, stakes a common claim in two different spheres, creation and church.
The histories of God's salvation and God's creation are joined together under
the lordship of Christ. God's triumph over spiritual darkness and human sins
through Christ results in the restoration of a fallen creation and of sinful
creatures, who now share a common Lord. This truth, made real in our common
experience of God's powerful grace, will be completely demonstrated at
Christ's return.
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
In Christ, Paul declares, the fullness
of the Father dwells:
Col 1:19 For it pleased the Father
that in him should all fulness dwell;
Through the blood of Christ on the
cross, reconciliation of things in earth and in heaven has been effected;
likewise, the work of Christ is reconciling "all things unto himself,"
including those who been alienated formerly from him and enemies in wicked work.
Col 1:20 And, having made peace
through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself;
by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
Col 1:21 And you, that were sometime
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he
reconciled.
This reconciliation, Paul reminds them,
came in the body of Christ's "flesh through death" for the purpose
that these people would present themselves holy, unblamable, and unreprovable:
Col 1:22 In the body of his flesh
through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his
sight:
Col 1:23 If ye continue in the faith
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which
ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven;
whereof I Paul am made a minister;
John Nelson Darby describes this
reconciliation and its connection to the later mystery revealed:
It will be noticed also, that the
apostle speaks of his gospel as spread abroad in all the world. Grace had
overstepped the narrow limits of Judaism and the expectation of the Messiah,
in order to make known the testimony of the perfect love of God in the whole
creation under heaven, of which Paul was the instrument as the apostle of the
Gentiles. [12]
Hitherto, then, the Spirit of God has set before us the two preeminences of
Christ, that over creation and that over the assembly, and the two
reconciliations which answer to them, namely, first, that of the things over
which Christ is set as Head, that is, of all things in heaven and earth; and
second, that of Christians themselves: the latter already accomplished, the
former yet to come. The ministry of the apostle had now the same double
character. He has not undoubtedly to preach in heaven; but his ministry is
exercised in every place under heaven where there is a soul to hearken. He is
a minister of that gospel; and then he is a minister of the assembly, a
distinct service or ministry, making known its true position and its
privileges, connected indeed with the other, in that the gospel went out also
to the Gentiles to bring them in. (Vers. 23, 25) By this last instruction he
completed the word of God: an important principle with regard to the exclusive
authority of the written word, which shews that its totality already exists,
demonstrated by the subjects which it comprises; subjects which are entirely
completed, to the exclusion of others which people may seek to introduce. The
circle of truths which God had to treat, in order to reveal to us the glory of
Christ and to give us complete instruction according to His wisdom, is entire,
when the doctrine of the assembly is revealed. There were no others to be
added. [13]
It is not a question here as to the dates of the books, but of the circle of
subjects. The law, the kingdom, the Person of Christ, redemption and the ways
of God, had already been brought out; the doctrine of the assembly was then to
be revealed, in order to make the communications of God complete as to their
subjects.
http://www.ccel.org/d/darby/synopsis/Colossians.html
Paul next reminds his audience
that he, also, has suffered for their sake, having been afflicted in the flesh
for Christ's sake in the cause of the church. Of this church, Paul proclaims
himself a minister "according to the dispensation of God which is given to
me for you, to fulfil the word of God:
Col 1:24 Who now rejoice in my
sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of
Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church:
Col 1:25 Whereof I am made a
minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you,
to fulfil the word of God;
The RSV translates Colossians 1.24
somewhat differently:
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your
sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for
the sake of his body, that is, the church,
What is meant by "lacking in Christ's afflictions"?
What, however, is the plain meaning of Paul's cryptic phrase that his
suffering fill[s] up . . . what is still lacking in regard to Christ's
afflictions? In what sense does the suffering of Christ "lack"
anything? And in what sense does Paul's suffering "fill up" what
Christ's suffering lacks, if anything? I have argued that here Paul's emphasis
is not on God's salvation, as before, but on Christ's church. To the point, Paul
is surely not saying that the Lord Christ lacks anything as the messianic agent
of God's salvation; nor does he mean that the redemptive results of his death
need to be supplemented by Paul. His previous confession of Christ's lordship
(1:15-20) and his subsequent assertion of God's forgiveness (2:13-14) testify to
Paul's confidence in the sufficiency of Christ's work. Lohse is quite right,
then, to object to any interpretation that renders this phrase as a reference to
the community's "mystical union" with a suffering Christ, whereby the
community is absorbed into and derives spiritual benefit from Christ's passion
(1971:69). In fact, Paul rarely speaks in his writings of Christ's suffering (as
distinguished from his death) and almost never of Christ's suffering in terms of
God's salvation (as the writer of 1 Peter, for instance, does in 1 Pet 2:20-22).
The images of a suffering Christ in Paul's writings are usually employed to
illustrate and interpret his own suffering as a missionary. Here suffering is
exemplary of servanthood, but not expiatory of sin. In this way Christ's
suffering is logically parallel to his own; like Christ, Paul is God's
"suffering servant"; and like Christ's, his suffering indicates
obedience to God's commission.
http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary
Certainly, the church has much to suffer in servanthood: suffering abounds in
the temporal, and faith, love, and hope requires endurance, patience, and an
understanding of real joy.
Back to theology, Paul proclaims a
mystery hidden from former ages and generations is not manifest to God's saints.
God has made this mystery known among the gentiles, a manifestation of Christ in
the gentiles:
Col 1:26 Even the mystery which hath
been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known
what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is
Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Salutation
Paul concludes the greeting with a
universal sweep: it is his purpose, and God's, that "every man [be
presented] perfect in Christ Jesus; to this common end, Paul labors:
Col 1:28 Whom we preach, warning
every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man
perfect in Christ Jesus:
Col 1:29 Whereunto I also labour,
striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
Summary of Theology
1. Jesus embodies or incarnates the
work of God.
2. Jesus is head of the church, the
body.
3. God's fullness dwells in Jesus.
4. Jesus reconciled all things in
heaven and in earth.
4. The church is to present itself
holy, unblameable, unreprovable.
5. In Jesus, God has revealed the
mystery hidden for ages that God works effectively among gentiles to the end
that every man be presented perfect in Christ.
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