Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Colossians 1:26

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 26. The mystery which hath been hid — The mystery is this: that God had designed to grant the Gentiles the same privileges with the Jews, and make them his people who were not his people. That this is what St. Paul means by the mystery, see Ephesians 3:3, c.

Made manifest to his saints — It is fully known to all who have embraced the doctrine of Christ crucified to all Christians.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Paul’s service for Christ (1:24-2:5)

Some of the Colossians, confused by the clever arguments of the false teachers, might be tempted to accept their teaching. They might think that this teaching is more advanced, and therefore nearer the truth, than what they heard from Epaphras. Paul emphasizes that the gospel he and Epaphras preach is the only gospel. It has the authority of Christ, and its genuineness is proved in the experiences of those who preach it. Paul illustrates all this from his own life. The Gnostics appoint themselves teachers, but Paul was appointed by Christ. By enduring sufferings in the service of Christ, he is sharing in the sufferings of Christ (24-25).

Paul’s message reveals to people the plan of God that had not been made known to previous generations. This secret plan is that Gentiles are to be his people, indwelt by Christ (26-27). (For the meaning of ‘secret plan’, or ‘mystery’, see notes on Ephesians 1:7-10; Ephesians 3:3-6.)

Once the apostle has brought people to know Christ, he must teach and instruct them so that they might grow to spiritual maturity. Paul knows that much hard work is necessary in order to reach this goal (28-29).
Paul’s concern for the churches in Colossae and Laodicea (churches that he has never visited) shows that his interest is not merely with churches that he himself has founded. He wants all churches to be strong, through the believers loving one another and having a full understanding of their riches in Christ. The hidden treasures of wisdom are found in him, not in Gnosticism (2:1-3). The Colossians must maintain the orderly fellowship and strong faith they have had in Christ from the beginning. They must examine all teaching carefully, and not allow themselves to be easily led astray by the arguments of the false teachers (4-5).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

Even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to his saints.

The mystery … This word occurs 21 times in Paul's letters, three times in the Gospels and four times in Revelation? William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 88. A mystery in the New Testament frame of reference is not something hidden, but something which was once hidden but now revealed. The conviction of this writer is also to the effect that there are elements of amazement and awe in the Scriptural mystery which can never be removed, and that, in some unknown sense, the mystery of God is not even finished yet (see Revelation 10:7). For those interested in an extended discussion of "The Mystery of Redemption," see the entire book under that title. James Burton Coffman, The Mystery of Redemption (Austin, Texas: Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1976).

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Even the mystery - To make that mystery fully known. See this explained in the notes at Ephesians 3:2-9. The great doctrine that salvation was to be proclaimed to all mankind, Paul says, had been concealed for many generations. Hence, it was called a mystery, or a hidden truth.

But now is made manifest to his saints - It was communicated especially to the apostles who were appointed to proclaim it, and through them to all the saints. Paul says that he regarded himself as specially called to make this truth known, as far as possible, to mankind.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

26.Hidden mystery. Here we have a commendation of the gospel — that it is a wonderful secret of God. It is not without good reason that Paul so frequently extols the gospel by bestowing upon it the highest commendations in his power; for he saw that it was

a stumblingblock to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks.
(1 Corinthians 1:23.)

We see also at this day, in what hatred it is held by hypocrites, and how haughtily it is contemned by the world. Paul, accordingly, with the view of setting aside judgments so unfair and perverse, extols in magnificent terms the dignity of the gospel as often as an opportunity presents itself, and for that purpose he makes use of various arguments, according to the connection of the passage. Here he calls it a sublime secret, which was hid from ages and generations, that is, from the beginning of the world, through so many revolutions of ages. ⁽³⁴⁰⁾ Now, that it is of the gospel that he speaks, is evident from Romans 16:25, Ephesians 3:9, and other similar passages.

The reason, however, why it is so called, is demanded. Some, in consequence of Paul’s making express mention of the calling of the Gentiles, are of opinion, that the sole reason why it is so called is, that the Lord had, in a manner, contrary to all expectation, poured out his grace upon the Gentiles, whom he had appeared to have shut out for ever from participation in eternal life. Any one, however, that will examine the whole passage more narrowly, will perceive that this is the third reason, not the only one, in so far, I mean, as relates to the passage before us, and that other in the Romans, to which I have referred. For the first is — that whereas God had, previously to the advent of Christ, governed his Church under dark coverings, both of words and of ceremonies, he has suddenly shone forth in full brightness by means of the doctrine of the gospel. The second is — that whereas nothing was previously seen but external figures, Christ has been exhibited, bringing with him the full truth, which had lain concealed. The third is, what I have mentioned — that the whole world, which had up to this time been estranged from God, is called to the hope of salvation, and the same inheritance of eternal life is offered to all. An attentive consideration of these things constrains us to reverence and adore this mystery which Paul proclaims, however it may be held in contempt by the world, or even in derision.

Which is now revealed. Lest any one should turn aside to another meaning the term mystery, as though he were speaking of a thing that was still secret and unknown, he adds, that it has now at length been published, ⁽³⁴¹⁾ that it might be known by mankind. What, therefore, was in its own nature secret, has been made manifest by the will of God. Hence, there is no reason why its obscurity should alarm us, after the revelation that God has made of it. He adds, however, to the saints, for God ’s arm has not been revealed to all, (Isaiah 53:1,) that they might understand his counsel.

(340) “D’annees et sieclcs;” — “Of years and ages.”

(341) “Publié et manifesté;” — “Published and manifested.”

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn in our Bibles tonight to Colossians, chapter one. The city of Colosse, was in the area known as Pergia, a part of Asia Minor. A couple of other churches are greeted by Paul in this epistle, and the epistle was told to be read also to those churches and that was the Laodicean church. And also the one in Hierapolis. Paul had never personally been to these churches. They had never seen his face. However, the churches were probably started as a bi-product of Paul's ministry in Ephesus, for as Paul was in Ephesus for two years and Ephesus is not that far from Laodicea and from Colosse. There were those who came from these areas, heard Paul, and the word of God was spreading through that area as the result of Paul's ministry in Ephesus.

So, they probably went back to these areas and just began fellowships which grew into churches. Epaphras was the minister of the church in Colosse, and Epaphras had come to Paul while he was in Rome in prison and had related unto Paul some of the dangerous heresies that had begun to be spread there in Colosse. And so Paul is writing the epistle to correct these heresies that were becoming popularized in that community. One of the heresies was that of Gnosticism, which denies the deity of Jesus Christ. Another heresy was that of Judaism, which of course was the mixture of the works along with faith for salvation. The letter was written at the same time that he wrote his letter to the Ephesians and was carried by the same messenger Tychicus, who carried the Ephesian epistle, carried also this epistle to the Colossians, written about 64 A.D. during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus, our brother ( Colossians 1:1 ).

And so, the introduction in greeting is so typically Pauline, that in studying these epistles of Paul to the churches, we have covered this same introduction in various forms. Again, because he is going to be addressing things of doctrinal error, he again takes his title as the apostle of Jesus Christ. And he's speaking with his apostolic authority, "an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." Again, not all are apostles, not all are prophets, not all are evangelists, not all are pastors, not all are teachers. God calls men and women to every vocation of life. And whatever God has called you to be, the important thing is that you be what you are by the will of God.

Now, it is interesting as Paul is praying for the Colossians here, his first request for them is that they might be filled with the knowledge of the will of God. How many of you think that's an important prayer? I pray that for myself all the time; "God help me to know your will in each situation." But I believe that it is important that each day we commit our lives unto God and unto the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And if we will do that, I believe that our lives then become the progressive revelation of God's will. I think that if in the morning I say, "Lord, my life is Yours. I want to be Your servant today. I want You to lead me by Your Spirit. I want You to over rule any wrong decisions that I might be making. Lord, just take control of my life." And I yield myself thus to the Lord, I believe that as the day unfolds, it becomes a progressive revelation of that which God has purposed and planned for me.

My problem: I'd like God to just paint me a picture of the whole day and get me the schedule and say, "All right now, Act 9:00 o'clock you'll do this and Act 10:30 I want you to go over there, and Col 11:00 o'clock if you'll come back here and talk to this fellow and . . . " I'd like the whole daily schedule in the morning so I can just look at it and say, "All right fine. Let's go for it, Lord." But it is interesting how God never gives you the second step until you've taken the first step.

God said to Phillip, "Go down to Gaza." And so he did. Told him it was a desert place, but he knew that. When he got to Gaza and there were a lot of things that actually mitigated against his going to Gaza, because it was such a desert place, and he was in a great movement of the Spirit in Samaria. Hundreds of people were coming to Jesus Christ. Things were really cooking through his ministry there. Miracles were being wrought, and God takes him out of this successful evangelistic campaign down to the desert.

Now he could have stayed in Samaria and said, "Now, Lord, come on. Can't You see the work that is being done? And why do You want me to go to Gaza?" And he could have stayed there and argued with the Lord, and he could have rationalized very easily himself out of going to Gaza. He could have said, "That couldn't have been God that said that to me. That's such a desert place. And surely God wants me to stay where things are really hopping, and it couldn't have been the Lord." And had he never gone to Gaza, he would have never gotten the next instruction. You see, our problem is that we don't always follow the first order, and then we never get the second order. The second order often doesn't come until the first order is obeyed. Go to Gaza. When he came to Gaza, he saw a chariot heading towards Ethiopia, and the Lord said, "Join yourself to the chariot," second order. And progressively, God's will was made known to him. So it happens in our lives.

So whatever I am, I am by the will of God. Paul, an apostle of Jesus of Christ by the will of God. Timothy: Paul calls him his beloved son in the Lord, a companion of Paul. Probably no one understood and was so in harmony with Paul as was Timothy. To the Philippians, he said, "I'm sending Timothy to learn of your safety, because there is no one who is as like-minded in the things of the Gospel as I am, as is Timothy." He had really caught the heart of Paul in his commitment unto the things of the Lord. Somehow, it is extremely difficult to find those who have the same vision, the same commitment to the things of the Lord. He's writing to the saints, those who'd been set apart, and the faithful brethren in Christ, which were at Colosse. Now, remember, heresy is creeping up in the church. He's going to be writing to correct some of these heretical ideas. But he writes to them as, first of all, saints, secondly, as faithful brethren, and thirdly, in Christ. The typical,

Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you ( Colossians 1:2-3 ),

And Paul, it seems, mentions in almost each of his epistles his prayers for those people, "God is my witness," he writes to the Romans, and "I bow my knee before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, making mention of you in my prayers." He offers a couple of prayers in the epistle to the Ephesians, and he mentions his prayers in so many of the epistles. Paul was a man of prayer, as is true of any man who is used mightily of God; they are men of prayer.

Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which you have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven ( Colossians 1:4-5 ),

Again, these three are so often coupled together: the faith, the hope, the love. Remember in Corinthians thirteen, "Now abide these three: faith, hope, love" ( 1 Corinthians 13:13 ). Characteristics that mark the believer: the faith of the believer, the love of the believer, and the hope that is in the believer. These are the characteristics that are the continuing mark of the child of God. And so, "The faith in Jesus Christ, the love for the saints, and the hope which is laid up for you in heaven whereof you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel."

One of Paul's prayers for the Ephesian church is that they might know what is the hope of their calling. If you only knew what awaits you, if you only knew this hope laid up for you in heaven. Peter said, "Thank God we've been born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God" ( 1Pe 1:3 , 1 Peter 1:4 , 1 Peter 1:5 ). This hope of that glorious kingdom, the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And so, the hope laid up for you in heaven which is come unto you, the word of the truth of the gospel which is come unto you, as it is in all the world.

Now, it is interesting here that Paul does declare that the gospel at this time had gone into all of the world. That's amazing! Without jet airliners, without satellite TV, without radio, the early church was able to take the gospel into all of the world. They fulfilled the commission of Jesus Christ, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" ( Mark 16:15 ). Paul here declares that the task was accomplished, and this is just some thirty-two years after the death of Christ. And this is without building a single church, or building a single seminary, or without Campus Crusade for Christ, without programs. How was it accomplished? It was accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the fact that they did depend upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit within the church.

Now, I thoroughly disagree with those that say, "Well, the Holy Spirit was given in the beginning to give them a start, but once they got organized, they no longer needed the Holy Spirit's power. And so, God withdrew that power to let us go now on our own steam, sort of speak, with our own genius and with our seminaries and all." With all that we have today, we are failing to get the gospel into all the world. A smaller percentage of people in the world know of Jesus Christ today than did know of Him thirty years ago. In fact, with the rate of the population growth explosion in the world and with the rate by which the gospel is being preached in the world . . . the declining rate, if things continue status quo, by the year 2021, only 5 percent of the people in the world will have heard of Jesus Christ. With all of our seminaries, and radios, and TV's, and programs, and wisdom, and devices, and schemes, and methods, it's a real indictment against the church. It does say much for the Holy Spirit and for His ability and power. I believe that the only hope for the church to reach this generation with the gospel, is again, the empowering of the Holy Spirit and being led of the Holy Spirit. I don't think it can be done by man's devices; I don't think that we can devise a program to do it. And I don't think God intends us to. I believe that it is only through prayer and through being led by the Spirit that the church can be an effective witness in the world. Jesus said, "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth" ( Acts 1:8 ). But the only power that we have whereby to be that kind of a witness is the power of the Spirit, and if we deny that, and reject that, then surely, we are going to fail in the mission of getting the gospel into the world. Again, in this first chapter, Paul makes mention of the fact of the gospel being preached into all of the world. Verse twenty-three,

If you 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 ( Colossians 1:23 );

There are those who say, "Well, Jesus can't come until the gospel's been preached into all the world." Well, the gospel has been preached in all the world. And it brings forth fruit. The glorious thing about the gospel is it does bring forth fruit. And look where in the world the gospel has been received. Look at the fruit that it has brought forth in the lives of the people and in the nations themselves, those nations that have received the gospel of Jesus Christ, look at the fruit that it's brought forth. Those nations, where other religions are more or less the national religions and reign, look at the fruit of that. Now, I'm talking about the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Because, unfortunately, the church as an institution does not always proclaim the true gospel of Jesus Christ. But the church as an institution, quite often, is just another religious experience and is as another religion in the world, because it doesn't always proclaim the real gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, there are nations that have come under the influence of the church and they're no better off for it. But those that have come under the influence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you can see the fruit; it has brought forth fruit in the lives of the people.

And one of the fruits of the gospel is that of the love of freedom, the love of liberty. Our nation founded really from people who were looking for that freedom of worshiping God without a state church, without the state ordering the church and supporting the church and taking the taxes from the people for the church. The darkness of Europe today is the result of state church systems. And in those European nations where you have the state church, where the church is supported by the taxes of the people, you find that the church is decadent; it's dead. There were men who had a love for freedom because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they established this nation. And that's why freedom and liberty was such an important thing to them, but as other forces have moved in as the church's witness has waned, we see there is also an eroding of our freedoms, an eroding of the liberties. And people are allowing it, because the strength of the gospel is not what it once was in this land. And so, we are not as free as were our forefathers.

There are a lot of things that you could carry on with that, but time doesn't permit. It brings forth fruit. The real fruit of the gospel is love: an appreciation of fellow man, a love for our brothers, a love that manifests itself in deeds of charity and goodness to one another, reaching out.

And bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day you heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth ( Colossians 1:6 ):

And Paul's emphasis here, "You heard and knew the grace of God in truth." How important that we know the grace of God in truth.

As you also learned from Epaphras our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ; who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding ( Colossians 1:7-9 );

So, the first petition that Paul is praying for the church is that they be filled with the knowledge of the will of God in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Secondly,

That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing ( Colossians 1:10 ),

Paul wrote to the Ephesians and told them all that God was and had done for them, and then he said, "Now, walk worthy of the calling, wherewith you were called." You're a child of God. Walk like it, live like it; walk worthy of that which God has called you to be, His child. Walk in a manner that is befitting that of a child of God. You might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. How important that we be increasing in our knowledge of God. And that's what these Sunday night services are dedicated to. For you can only really know God in truth as He is revealed Himself to us through His word. Your only real source of the knowledge of God is here in the Bible. And so, to know God we must know the word of God, whereby He has revealed Himself to man. Increasing in the knowledge of God. And we, week by week, should be increasing in our knowledge of God. That you might be,

Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power [that you might begin to experience more of that power of God's spirit working in your life], unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness ( Colossians 1:11 );

Now, so often, our patience and long-suffering is not with joyfulness. It's with sort of complaining and whining and griping, "I've been waiting so long!" And we just sort of wail when God makes us wait. But that we might wait with joyfulness.

Giving thanks unto the Father, who has made us meet [worthy] to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light ( Colossians 1:12 ):

Paul again wrote of the saints in light to the Ephesians here. And there is a great parallel, of course, both the epistles were written at the same time, and so a lot of parallel thoughts in the two. But we give thanks to God, who has made us worthy to be partakers of this inheritance. Again, Paul prayed for the Ephesians that they might know what is His inheritance. Something different, but he did refer also as one of the blessings of God, that inheritance that is ours of the saints in light.

Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son ( Colossians 1:13 ):

That's what conversion is all about. Being delivered from the power of darkness from our bondage in sin: that power of Satan that once held us. And translated into the kingdom of His dear Son.

We read so much in the scriptures of the kingdom of God, and so often we think of that as something totally future. For many people it is. But for you, it should be a present experience. You see, you become a part of that kingdom the moment you bow your knee to Jesus Christ and acknowledge Him as your King and your Lord. I am in the kingdom of God. I have yielded my life as a faithful subject and servant to that kingdom. He is my King, therefore, I am in His kingdom. And so, I have been delivered from the power of darkness, been translated into that kingdom.

In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins ( Colossians 1:14 ):

Again, one of the glorious blessings of Colossians chapter one, the "redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins."

Who is the image [talking now of Jesus Christ] of the invisible God ( Colossians 1:15 ),

And he's going to tell us several things now concerning Jesus. Remember, the Gnostics and their heresy that was creeping into Colosse were denying the deity of Jesus. So Paul, here, is going to now tell of the supremacy of Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God. John, chapter one, "No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. He has declared Him, or manifested Him, made Him known" ( John 1:18 ). "For the word was made flesh and He dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" ( John 1:14 ). He was the image of the invisible God. In Hebrews one, He is "the brightness of His glory" or the effulgence of the glory of God, the express image of Himself. Jesus is the express image of God, the image of the invisible God. He is the first born of every creature, or as the word means in the Greek, precedence above, first in, not first, second, third, forth, but first as the above all. And so here, He is above all of the creatures or creation,

For by him were all things created ( Colossians 1:16 ),

Genesis one tells us, "In the beginning, God created." The word God there in Hebrew is Elohiym, which is plural. The Hebrew singular for God is El. The dual tense is Eloi. And Elohiym is the plural tense for God. "In the beginning God," Elohiym, plural. And I believe that that is a hint of the Trinity, right in the very first verse of the Bible, the fact that they would use God in a plural form. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" ( Genesis 1:1 ).

And when it came to man and God said, "Let us make man in our likeness and after our image" ( Genesis 1:26 ), not, "I will make man after My likeness, after My image." But "Let us," in the devine counsels of the Father, Son and the Spirit, man was created in the likeness and the image of God. So in John, chapter one, "In the beginning was (the Logos) the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the same was in the beginning with God. And all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made" ( John 1:3 ). Jesus, the active agent in creation, "For by Him were all things created." The "all things," it does mean just that, to be taken literally for things that are in heaven and things that are in the earth, the whole universe, created by Him. Things that are visible and things that are invisible. So, the visible material universe that you can see, plus the invisible universe that you don't see: the spirit beings, the angels, the various rankings and orders of spirit beings, here referred to as "thrones or dominions or principalities or powers." All things were made by Him and for Him. So, not only is He the creator, but here, He is the object of creation. They were made by Him, and they were made for Him; all of the angles, all of the universe, all of the things within the universe, were made for Him, and that includes you.

You were made for His good pleasure and purpose. People don't like that sometimes. They rebel against that which He has given you the capacity to do. Because, when He created you, He created you with a free will or a choice. You were created in His image, and God is the self-determinate being, and thus He created you, self-determinate, the power of choice. And that was necessary in order that He might have meaningful fellowship with you.

Studying the human body and studying the wisdom of God, I realize how that God could have made us very sophisticated robots, put circuitry boards in us. And could have made us to fulfill all of the functions that we can fulfill as human beings, except meaningful love, meaningful fellowship, and for that, you couldn't have a robot, you've got to have a choice. And so, God created us with a choice, the capacity of choice, and if you will exercise that choice and live for Him, your life will be rich and full and satisfying. If you exercise your choice by living for yourself, your life will be empty, futile and frustrating. He is before all things; "In the beginning, God."

He existed before ever there was a world, or stars, or planets, or life forms. Before there were ever angels, He existed. He is eternal; He has always existed. He is self-existent. He is before all things, and by Him, all things consist. The word in Greek means, are held together. A very interesting statement in the light of the discovery of the atoms and the law of electricity. Coulomb's Law of Electricity declares that like charges repel. Positive charges repel each other; opposite poles attract. So, there's an attracting force between a positive and negative power. That's what we use in our electricity and running our motors and all, the alternating currents, Coulomb's Law of Electricity. But there is the repelling force of like charges, so that there is a repelling force of positive charges.

We used to have a little box that looked like a coffin, and it had a mummy in it. And it was sort of designed rather ingeniously because you could take and pop that little thing on the end. And it had a magnet inside the mummy case, and the magnet would go down to the foot and you'd pop it, and there was a little magnet, or the mummy itself was magnetized, so that when you would pop the magnet down at the foot, you could lay the mummy in it. And it would lie still in the casket. Then, you would take and pop the thing at the head of the casket to pop the little magnet back towards the head, and then you'd hand it to your friend and you say, "See if you can make the mummy lie in the casket." And try as they will, they'd put the little mummy in the casket and it pops right out. Because you've got the positive poles now both at the head of the mummy, and it pops out. And they're mystified, because this mummy pops right out of the casket. And they hold it there for a while and pinch it, you know, and as soon as they let go, it pops out again. And it's just a little trick that was based upon Coulomb's Law of Electricity of the repelling force of like poles.

Now, in the bombarding of the nucleus of an atom, it took six hundred thousand electron volts to insert a proton into the nucleus of an atom. And so, by that they were able to determine that between two protons, there is a power, between ten and fifty pounds, necessary to hold them together. The nucleus of an atom is clustered, protons clustered together. In total defiance to the Law of Electricity, the mystery of the universe is, what holds them together? Science does not have an answer. They created an answer a few years ago with what they called the masons, which were, they called "atomic glue." But then, that has been thoroughly discounted.

There was one man, who received his Ph.D. in science, and his thesis was on why the electrons do not collapse into the nucleus of an atom, the protons, following the Law of Electricity, with the attracting force of opposite poles. There's a double mystery. Why are the protons held together, and why don't the electrons collapse into it? And he wrote his thesis, and his thesis was basically, "They don't collapse into it, because they don't collapse into it." And he got his doctorate. We don't know. And by his confession of the truth, we don't know. There is no answer except here, "By Him all things were held together." If the Lord would just release His hold, just for a second, this whole physical universe would go up in one big gigantic bang. It would all be over. In the nuclei of every atom in the universe, these positive charges would follow their natural bent and they'd just repel each other and the whole universe would just, "pchoo." It would be the end of everything in the material universe. By Him all things are held together; Lord, hang on.

And he is the head of the body, the church ( Colossians 1:18 ):

We need to remember that. There are always those men who are trying to take that position as the head of the body of the church. I think that that is one of the weaknesses of denominations, is that it does sort of carry that power struggle. And men driven by the desire for power seek to gain the control over the denomination. A truly godly minister could care less about being the president of the denomination, or even the Pope. He only wants to be what God wants him to be, if he's truly a godly man. He has no real ambitions to be anything other than what God has called him to be.

But there are men who are driven by the desire for power, and they strive to gain that preeminence and position of the head of the church. And it's always rather sad to see it, for Christ is . . .

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead ( Colossians 1:18 );

Now, others rose from the dead before He did, but He is "the first-born" in that He is never to die again. Those that were raised from the dead before, died again, but His is unto eternal life.

that in all things he might have the preeminence ( Colossians 1:18 ).

Now that is the purpose of God and the plan of God, is that in everything Jesus has the preeminence. All things, again, includes you. And so, the question, does Christ reign preeminently in your life? Does He have the preeminence? You see, that's the purpose and the plan of God for Jesus Christ, that He has the place of preeminence in each of our lives. That He is above everything else in our lives, that nothing supersedes the place of Jesus Christ in my life.

Now, not just a mouthing of it, "Oh yes, Christ is preeminent," but in the reality, the actuality. And I'm afraid, when it comes down to reality, when it comes down to actions, that many of those who do lay claim to being Christians, the truth of it is, Christ is not preeminent in their lives. Now, let's not look at them; let's look at ourselves. You see, I'm not going to have to answer for them; I'm going to have to answer for me. When I stand before God, I'm only going to be responsible for this fellow right here. And I'm going to give an account unto God for me. And therefore, it is important, not that I examine other people's commitment, but that I examine my own commitment. That I not look at other people's failures, but I look at my own failures and judge myself. But that's important for each of us. That we will each just look at ourselves and judge ourselves, for if we will judge ourselves, then we will not be judged of God.

For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell ( Colossians 1:19 );

Our minds cannot really grasp that particular phrase. It's pleased the Father that in Him, in Christ, should all of the fullness of God, that God had dwelt, the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in our Lord. We get that in chapter two, we are complete in Him.

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. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by the wicked works, yet now has he reconciled ( Colossians 1:20-21 )

And so, Jesus has made peace with God possible for man. Man was at war with God. Man was rebelling against God. We all were in that rebellion against God, as we walked our own path, as we went our own way. As we were following after the desires of our flesh and of our mind, we were at war with God, rebelling against the law of God and the commandments of God. But Jesus, through the blood of His cross providing a righteous basis for God's forgiving us of our sins has made peace with God possible. As He reconciles all things unto Himself. So we are told, "Be ye therefore reconciled unto God." Don't be at war with God; be reconciled unto God. And all things have been reconciled through Jesus Christ, whether they are things in earth or in heaven. And you, that at one time were alienated from God; you were enemies of God in your mind and by your wicked works, you've now been reconciled.

In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight ( Colossians 1:22 ):

Now, you see, through my faith in Jesus Christ, I have been forgiven all of my sins and transgressions. So that when Jesus presents me to the Father, He's going to present me blameless, unreprovable, holy. In Jude we read, "Now, unto Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy" ( Jude 1:24 ). Oh, do you realize what Jesus Christ has provided for you? The total pardon and forgiveness of your sins and your transgressions. He has, as you are in Christ. God sees you as holy and pure and righteous, for the righteousness of Christ has been accounted or imputed unto you through your faith in Jesus Christ. Not through your efforts, not through your great commitment. Not through your tremendous sacrifices, but through your simple faith in Jesus Christ, God has accounted you righteous. God looks at me tonight as righteous. Now, I don't even look at myself that way. I look at myself and I see all my flaws. I see all my failures; I see my weaknesses. But God sees me in Jesus. And as He looks at me in Christ, He sees me without blame, holy, unreprovable. Oh, I love that. How thankful I am for that place I have in Christ tonight. Because of Him, God sees me as perfect.

If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister ( Colossians 1:23 );

So again, the mention of the fact that the gospel had been preached to every creature. They were thorough in their evangelism in that first generation.

Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you [and Paul's talking about himself: I 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 ( Colossians 1:24 ):

Now, this is a very difficult scripture to understand. Then I will frankly confess to you, I am not certain that I do understand the full implications of it. Does seem that Paul is saying that, in some way, he is completing the afflictions of Christ in his own body, for Christ's body sake, the church. Now, it can only be understood if we understand the relationship of Jesus to His church or the relationship of Jesus to you. Whatever reproach you bear for your faith in Jesus Christ is really reproach that is being directed at Jesus. Whatever suffering you bear for Jesus Christ's sake, that suffering is being directed at Jesus. And so, Paul recognized that these beatings that he received, the stonings that he received, the suffering that he was subject to, and the imprisonment and all, were because of man's animosities against Jesus Christ. So that he was suffering for Christ's sake; he was in prison for Christ's sake. He was actually taking the sufferings of Jesus Christ, or the reproaches of Christ, the feelings that man had in his natural heart against Jesus. The hatred that man had against Jesus, Paul was privileged to bear it. "I rejoice that I can bear these things that are directed at Jesus, that I have this privilege of filling up the afflictions of Jesus. That is, that the feelings that man have of antagonism towards Jesus are directed at me, and I'm able to take them for Him." And Jesus so identifies with us, that He shares with us in this suffering. He said, "Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, trials" ( James 1:2 ). "Don't count it a strange thing concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing has happened to you. Rejoice!" ( 1 Peter 4:12 ) "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake and for the gospel's, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you" ( Matthew 5:10-12 ). So, filling up of the sufferings of Christ.

Man, the natural man, still hates Jesus, and as you stand there before Him as His representative, you receive his abuse that he is really directing in his heart towards Jesus. Now, they counted it a privilege that they were able to do that. They rejoiced that they were able to take that suffering for Christ's sake. Don't take it personally. A lot of times we are so sensitive. Someone says something and we take it personally, as though they're directing it at us. No, it's being directed at Christ. And it's because that I'm Christ's representative that I'm standing there and receiving it. And if I look at it that way, then I can rejoice, Lord, that you've counted me worthy to suffer for Your sake as did the apostles in Acts, chapter four. Lord, oh my, You counted us worthy to suffer for You. So, I . . .

now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of [in that I am receiving the afflictions that are directed at] Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church: whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God ( Colossians 1:24-25 );

So, Paul is been made a minister, according to God's plan to fulfill the word of God.

Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 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 ( Colossians 1:26-27 ):

The glorious mystery of God is that Christ will come and indwell you.

The other day we had an opportunity of sharing the gospel with the King of Laos. And as I was sharing with him, I knew that he was a Buddhist. And Buddhists . . . Buddha did teach that a man's problems and the evils of the world all stem from the material world, the flesh and the material world, and that if a man could completely disassociate himself from the material world, heaven was to dwell in the spirit and not have anything to do with the material. In other words, to be totally removed from the material is to enter into Nirvana. And so that is, of course, the hope and the goal of the Buddhist, is to, through asceticism and all, denying the flesh, fastings, and all these things, to completely disassociate himself from the physical that he might enter in to the total spirit which is Nirvana. And if you don't make it this round, then hopefully, next round you'll improve, and if you don't make it then, then next round.

Of course, the interesting thing, is there must, you know . . . when we started out with only one, how come we have so many billions today? Where are they coming from to be reincarnated? There have got to be a lot of new bodies being formed, because we started out with fewer spirits than we now have. Look how many spirits we've got around here today in the world, you know, in fact, what is it, about 10 percent of the people who ever lived in the history of man are living at the present time. So, sort of upsets that reincarnation bit.

But, knowing that he had this background as a Buddhist, I shared with him that the Bible teaches that man basically is spirit. He lives in a body; he possesses a consciousness. But if a man lives on the body side of his life, he is living less than God would have him to live, for God would have us to live on the spiritual side of our lives. So, if my body is ruling, and I'm ruled by my fleshly appetites, then I'm living a life alienated from God. But to live in fellowship with God, I must live after the spirit, the spirit-dominated life. Knowing that, essentially, this is what Buddha taught.

And I said, you know, there had been other religious leaders in history who taught important truths concerning how a person should live after the spirit, but I said the problem was, having taught the truth and pointed to the path, they could not give you the power to walk in that path and that often times is totally frustrating. Because I listen to what they say, I consent, and I say, "Hey, that's right; I want to live that way. I don't want to live after my flesh; I want to live after the spirit in fellowship with God." But, I said, not being given the power to do it, it only frustrated me. So, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for my sins, to provide forgiveness for my sins. And then I said He did something else, He rose from the dead. And then He said, "Now, I will come and dwell in you and by My dwelling in you, I will give to you the power to walk this path." You don't have it in yourself; you can't do it in yourself, but I will dwell in you, and I will live in you, empowering you to do it. And I said, that basically is the chief difference between Christianity and the other religions of the world. With Christianity, the power is imparted by the indwelling of Jesus Christ. It isn't just pointing to the path and saying, "That's the way you should walk." But it is coming in and giving you the capacity and the power to do it.

Pray for the King of Laos, that the word of the gospel that was planted will take root. And as he acknowledges his own failures to disassociate himself from the flesh that he will seek that power of the indwelling Christ as we have here, "the mystery . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." That's the hope that we have. I can never do it myself, but He has come to live in me and to give me the capacity to do it.

Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect [complete] in Christ Jesus ( Colossians 1:28 ):

And so, that is the purpose of the ministry, is to bring you into the full maturity in Christ Jesus. And what did God . . . all of the churches were dedicated to this. For years my ministry was dedicated to bringing people to Christ Jesus, but never to bringing them to the full maturity in Christ Jesus. Evangelism was my bag, the big thing. And the church was weak. Paul's desire is teaching. His purpose was to bring them into the full maturity in Christ.

Whereunto I also labor, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily ( Colossians 1:29 ).

You know, I'm going to stop right there, because there is so much in chapter two, and that I don't want to get started and then have to rush the thing at the end, which I have a tendency to do when I get carried away in the first part of the lesson. I have that tendency, you know, to then rush through some extremely important passages of scripture. And chapter two is one of the most important chapters in the New Testament, and I don't want to just rush through it. So, we're going to stop right there for tonight. And next week, we'll take chapter two, three and we might . . . well, four is really just sort of the final greetings and all, so that we can pop through in a hurry. But the real teaching lies in chapters two and three. As I say, four just is, sort of, goodbye and the personal greetings to the different ones.

Father, we thank You tonight for Jesus Christ. Your only begotten Son, who came to this world to manifest the Father, was the express image of God, the creator of this whole vast universe. What a marvel that He should walk upon this planet earth, eat with men, sleep with men, talk with men and touch men. Oh, God, how we marvel at the mysteries of the incarnation, God in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. But even of the greater mystery, that same Jesus, who died and rose again, who created the earth, who holds the worlds together, now dwells in our hearts and empowers our lives. Lord, how awesome that You should dwell in us. May we yield to You our bodies as instruments through which Your will might be accomplished. In Jesus' name we pray, Father. Amen.

May the Lord bless you and help you as you, sort of, digest the truth. That it might become a very part of your life. And that indeed you might discover that great power that resides in you as a child of God. That mystery of God, Christ in you, the hope of glory. And may His power bring strength and victory to your life this week. May He demonstrate that power by giving you victory over an area in your life where you've been stumbling for a long time. May this week you begin to experience real victory there for His glory. Recognizing, "Hey, this is nothing but the power of Jesus Christ dwelling in me." Thank you, Lord. God bless you and be with you as you walk with Him. In Jesus' name. "

Contending for the Faith

Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

Even the mystery: "Mystery" names the message Paul is commissioned to "fully preach." In common usage, the word means something that cannot be understood, but its meaning here is more akin to a secret, something that is deliberately kept hidden, but when revealed is perfectly understandable. In this case, the secret is kept in the counsel of God until He is ready to make it manifest.

which hath been hid from ages and from generations: How long the secret is kept is explained by "from ages and from generations." Ages refers to the Jewish method of reckoning time. It means "from the ages down or from eternity" (Thayer 19). Generations, a Gentile method of grouping years, is defined as "since the generations began" (Thayer 112) or from the first generation of man. Both words suggest the origin of the secret was in the beginning of time.

but now is made manifest: The content of the mystery is that God would give the Gentiles equal access to the gospel with the Jews, that He would take His people from all nations. The coming of the Messiah with His good news of salvation had been predicted in Old Testament prophecies the Jews generally did not understand (Ephesians 3:5), shown by the fact that they rejected Him. The Gentiles ordinarily had no access to these prophecies. The Jews were not prepared to give up the status as God’s chosen people. A special revelation was needed to prepare Peter to accept that "God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18). Ephesians 3:10 implies that even the angels in heaven did not know this mystery.

to his saints: The preceding facts demonstrate the mystery is clearly hidden until God reveals it "to his saints." A companion passage in Ephesians 3:5 says it is revealed to "his holy apostles and prophets." There is no contradiction here. The word is first delivered to the inspired apostles and prophets of the infant church. But through their preaching, it is quickly made known to all saints, those who hear and believe the gospel. This verse contains a wonderful definition of the Biblical concept of "mystery": a secret kept in God’s counsel until revealed by Him in His time and by His means. There are, no doubt, many other glorious mysteries that must wait for revelation at an appropriate time (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

II. EXPLANATION OF THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST 1:15-29

Paul next proceeded to reiterate the "full knowledge" about Jesus Christ, which the false teachers in Colosse were attacking. He did so to give his readers fuller knowledge of God’s will so they would reject the false teaching of those who were demeaning Christ and continue to grow.

"The doctrine of Christ was the principal truth threatened by the false teaching at Colossae, and this is the doctrine Paul presents to his readers before dealing specifically with the false teaching." [Note: Bruce, 562:99.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

B. The reconciling work of Christ 1:21-29

Paul continued his exposition of Christ’s superiority with emphasis on His reconciling work. He did this to ground his readers further in the full truth of God’s revelation so the false teachers among them would not lead them astray.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. As ministered by Paul 1:24-29

Paul had received a unique function to fulfill in the body of Christ. He ministered the gospel of reconciliation to unevangelized Gentiles primarily (Colossians 1:25). He explained his ministry to his readers so they would appreciate the reconciling work of God more deeply and to stimulate them to press on to maturity.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Paul’s message 1:25-27

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

This revelation included a "mystery." This term refers to a truth previously unknown but now revealed by God. In the Greek world it also referred to the secret ceremonies of pagan cults that only the initiated knew. Paul’s use was similar with the difference that God had now revealed this secret.

"The movement of world history is a linear progression which has also been directed by a secret purpose determined from the beginning by the one God." [Note: Dunn, p. 120.]

God had hidden this new revelation from human understanding for ages past. Paul expounded it more fully in Ephesians 3:3-9 and only gave its essence here as "Christ in [among] you [Gentiles]" (cf. Romans 8:10; 2 Corinthians 13:5; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 1:13-14; Ephesians 3:17).

"For Christ to be among the Gentiles involved being in those who believed. And He was and is for them the hope of glory, the pledge that they shall share in His glory to come (cf. Colossians 3:4)." [Note: Johnson, 475:233.]

"The mystery was not that Gentiles would be saved but how they could be ’fellow-heirs’ (Ephesians 3:6, KJV), on the same level with Jews, with no middle wall of partition between them (Ephesians 2:12-14)." [Note: Geisler, p. 675. Cf. McGee, 5:346.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 1

CHRISTIAN GREETINGS ( Colossians 1:1 )

1:1 This is a letter from Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and from Timothy, the brother, to the dedicated people of God and faithful brothers in Christ who are in Colosse.

A dedicated Christian cannot write a single sentence without making clear the great beliefs which underlie all his thought. Paul had never actually been in Colosse and so he has to begin by making clear what right he has to send a letter to the Colossians. He does that in one word; he is an apostle. The word apostolos ( G652) literally means one who is sent out. Paul's right to speak is that he has been sent out by God to be his ambassador to the Gentiles. Moreover, he is an apostle by the will of God. That office is not something which he has earned or achieved; it is something which has been given him by God. "You did not choose me," said Jesus, "but I chose you" ( John 15:16). Here, right at the outset of the letter, is the whole doctrine of grace. A man is not what he has made himself, but what God has made him.

With himself Paul associates Timothy; and he gives him a lovely title. He calls him the brother, a title which is given to Quartus ( Romans 16:23); to Sosthenes ( 1 Corinthians 1:1); to Apollos ( 1 Corinthians 16:12). The fundamental necessity for Christian service and for Christian office is brotherliness.

Premanand, highborn Indian who became a Christian, tells in his autobiography of Father E. F. Brown of the Oxford Mission in Calcutta. E. F. Brown was every man's friend; but he was specially the friend of the hackney carriage drivers, the carters, the tram conductors, the menial servants, and the hundreds of poor street boys. Later in his life, when he was travelling about India, Premanand would often meet people who had stayed in Calcutta, and they would always ask for E. F. Brown, saying, "Is that friend of the Calcutta street boys still alive, who used to walk arm-in-arm with the poor?" Sir Henry Lunn tells how his father used to describe his grandfather: "He was a friend of the poor without patronage, and of the rich without subservience."

To use our modern idiom, the first necessity for Christian service is the ability to "get alongside" all kinds of people. Timothy is not described as the preacher, the teacher, the theologian, the administrator, but as the brother. He who walks in aloofness can never be a real servant of Jesus Christ.

Another interesting and significant fact is that this opening address is to God's dedicated people and to the faithful brothers in Colosse. In the matter of opening addresses Paul's custom changed. In his earlier letters he always addressed the letter to the Church. I and 2 Thessalonians, I and 2 Corinthians and Galatians are all addressed to the Church of the district to which they are sent. But beginning with Romans his letters are all addressed to God's dedicated people in such and such a place. It is so in Romans, Colossians, Philippians and Ephesians. As Paul grew older, he came more and more to see what matters is individual people. The Church is not a kind of abstract entity; it is individual men and women and children. As the years went on, Paul began to see the Church in terms of individuals hence this style of greeting.

The openings, greeting closes with a most significant placing of two things side by side. He writes to the Christians who are in Colosse and who are in Christ. A Christian always moves in two spheres. He is in a certain place in this world; but he is also in Christ. He lives in two dimensions. He lives in this world whose duties he does not treat lightly; but above and beyond that he lives in Christ. In this world he may move from place to place; but wherever he is, he is in Christ. That is why outward circumstances make little difference to the Christian; his peace and his joy are not dependent on them. That is why he will do any job with all his heart. It may be menial, unpleasant, painful, it may be far less distinguished than he might expect to have; its rewards may be small and its praise non-existent; nevertheless the Christian will do it diligently, uncomplainingly and cheerfully, for he is in Christ and does all things as to the Lord. We are all in our own Colosse, but we are all in Christ, and it is Christ who sets the tone of our living.

THE DOUBLE COMMITMENT ( Colossians 1:2-8 )

1:2-8 Grace be to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for you in our prayers; for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have to all God's dedicated people, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. Of that hope you have already heard in the true word of the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world it is bearing fruit and increasing, just as it did among you too, from that day on which you heard and knew the grace of God as it truly is, as you leamed it from Epaphras, my beloved fellow-bondman, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and who has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

Here we are presented with the essence of the Christian life. The fact which delights Paul's heart and for which he gives God thanks is that he has been told that the Colossians are showing two great qualities in their lives, faith in Christ and love for their fellow-men.

These are the two sides of the Christian life. The Christian must have faith; he must know what he believes. But he must also have love for men; he must turn that belief into action. It is not enough simply to have faith, for there can be an orthodoxy which knows no love. It is not enough only to have love for men, for without real belief that love can become mere sentimentality. The Christian has a double commitment--he is committed to Jesus Christ and he is committed to his fellow-men. Faith in Christ and love to men are the twin pillars of the Christian life.

That faith and love depend on the hope that is laid up in heaven. What exactly does Paul mean? Is he asking the Colossians to show faith in Christ and love for men only for the hope of some reward that is going to come to them some day? Is this "pie in the sky"? There is something much deeper than that here.

Think of it this way. Loyalty to Christ may involve a man in all kinds of loss and pain and suffering. There may be many things to which he has to say goodbye. The way of love may seem to many to be the way of a fool. Why spend life in selfless service? Why not use it "to get on" as the world counts getting on? Why not push the weaker brother out of the way? The answer is--because of the hope that is set before us.

As C. F. D. Moule puts it, that hope is the certainty that, in spite of the world's ways, God's way of love has the last word. As James Russell Lowell put it in "The Present Crisis," the hope is that:

Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong... Truth for ever on the scaffold, Wrong for ever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

The Christian hope is that God's way is the best way and that the only real peace, the only real joy, the only true and lasting reward are to be found in it. Loyalty to Christ may bring trouble here--but that is not the last word. The world may laugh contemptuously at the folly of the way of love--but the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. The Christian hope is the confidence that it is better to stake one's life on God than to believe the world.

THE ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL ( Colossians 1:2-8 continued)

Colossians 1:6-8 are a kind of summary of what the gospel is and does. Paul has much to say of the hope, to which the Colossians have already listened and which they have already accepted.

(i) The gospel is good news of God. Its message is of a God who is a Friend and Lover of the souls of men. First and foremost, the gospel sets us in a right relationship with God.

(ii) The gospel is truth. All previous religions could be entitled "guesses about God." The Christian gospel gives a man not guesses but certainties about God.

(iii) The gospel is universal. It is for all the world. It is not confined to any one race or nation, nor to any one class or condition. Very few things in this world are open to all men. A man's mental calibre decides the studies he can undertake. A man's social class decides the circle amidst which he will move. A man's material wealth determines the possessions he can amass. A man's particular gifts decide the things he can do. But the message of the gospel is open without exception to all men.

(iv) The gospel is productive. It bears fruit and increases. It is the plain fact of history and experience that the gospel has power to change individual men and the society in which men live. It can change the sinner into a good man and can slowly take the selfishness and the cruelty out of society so that all men may have the chance God would wish them to have.

(v) The gospel tells of grace. It is not so much the message of what God demands as of what he offers. It tells not so much of his demand from men as of his gift to men.

(vi) The gospel is humanly transmitted. It was Epaphras who brought it to the Colossians. There must be a human channel through which the gospel can come to men. And this is where we come in. The possession of the good news of the gospel involves the obligation to share it. That which is divinely given must be humanly passed on. Jesus Christ needs us to be the hands and feet and lips which will bring his gospel to those who have never heard it.

THE ESSENCE OF PRAYER'S REQUEST ( Colossians 1:9-11 )

1:9-11 That, in fact, is why, from the day we heard about it, we do not cease to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with an ever-growing knowledge of his will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may conduct yourselves worthily of the Lord, and in such a way as to be altogether pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the fuller knowledge of God. May you continue to be strengthened with all strength according to his glorious power, so that you may possess all fortitude and patience with joy.

It is a very precious thing to hear the prayers of a saint for his friends; and that is what we hear in this passage. It may well be said that this passage teaches us more about the essence of prayer's request than almost any other in the New Testament. From it we learn, as C. F. D. Moule has said, that prayer makes two great requests. It asks for the discernment of God's will and then for the power to perform that will.

(i) Prayer begins by asking that we may be filled with an ever-growing knowledge of the will of God. Its great object is to know the will of God. We are trying not so much to make God listen to us as to make ourselves listen to him; we are trying not to persuade God to do what we want, but to find out what he wants us to do. It so often happens that in prayer we are really saying, "Thy will be changed," when we ought to be saying, "Thy will be done." The first object of prayer is not so much to speak to God as to listen to him.

(ii) This knowledge of God must be translated into our human situation. We pray for spiritual wisdom and understanding. Spiritual wisdom is sophia ( G4678) , which we could describe as knowledge of first principles. Understanding is sunesis ( G4907) , which is what the Greeks sometimes described as critical knowledge, meaning the ability to apply first principles to any given situation which may arise in life. So when Paul prays that his friends may have wisdom and understanding, he is praying that they may understand the great truths of Christianity and may be able to apply them to the tasks and decisions which meet them in everyday living. A man may quite easily be a master of theology and a failure in living; able to write and talk about the eternal truths and yet helpless to apply them to the things which meet him every day. The Christian must know what Christianity means, not in a vacuum but in the business of living.

(iii) This knowledge of God's will, and this wisdom and understanding, must issue in right conduct. Paul prays that his friends may conduct themselves in such a way as to please God. There is nothing in this world so practical as prayer. It is not escape from reality. Prayer and action go hand in hand. We pray not in order to escape life but in order to be better able to meet it.

(iv) To do this we need power. Therefore, Paul prays that his friends may be strengthened with the power of God. The great problem in life is not to know what to do but to do it. For the most part, we are well aware in any given situation what we ought to do; our problem is to put that knowledge into action. What we need is power; and that we receive in prayer. If God merely told us what his will was, that might well be a frustrating situation; but he not only tells us his will, he also enables us to perform it.

Knowledge we ask not, knowledge thou hast lent,

But Lord--the will, there lies our deepest need.

Grant us to build above the high intent--

The deed--the deed.

Through prayer we reach the greatest gift in all the world--knowledge plus power.

THE THREE GREAT GIFTS ( Colossians 1:9-11 continued)

What we might call the asking part of Paul's prayer ends with a prayer for three great qualities. He prays that his Colossian friends may possess all fortitude, patience and joy.

Fortitude and patience are two great Greek words which often keep company. Fortitude is hupomone ( G5281) and patience is makrothumia ( G3115) . There is a distinction between these two words. It would not be true to say that Greek always rigidly observes this distinction, but it is there when the words occur together.

Hupomone ( G5281) is translated patience in the King James Version. But it does not mean patience in the sense of simply bowing the head and letting the tide of events flow over one. It means not only the ability to bear things, but the ability, in bearing them, to turn them into glory. It is a conquering patience. Hupomone ( G5281) is the ability to deal triumphantly with anything that life can do to us.

Makrothumia ( G3115) is usually translated long-suffering in the King James Version. Its basic meaning is patience with people. It is the quality of mind and heart which enables a man so to bear with people that their unpleasantness and maliciousness and cruelty will never drive him to bitterness, that their unteachableness will never drive him to despair, that their folly will never drive him to irritation, and that their unloveliness will never alter his love. Makrothumia ( G3115) is the spirit which never loses patience with, belief in, and hope for men.

So Paul prays for hupomone ( G5281) , the fortitude which no situation can defeat, and makrothumia ( G3115) , the patience which no person can defeat. He prays that the Christian may be such that no circumstances will defeat his strength and no human being defeat his love. The Christian's fortitude in events and patience with people must be indestructible.

Added to all this there is joy. The Christian way is not a grim struggle with events and with people; it is a radiant and sunny-hearted attitude to life. The Christian joy is joy in any circumstances. As C. F. D. Moule puts it: "If joy is not rooted in the soil of suffering, it is shallow." It is easy to be joyful when things go well, but the Christian radiance is something which not all the shadows of life can quench.

So the Christian prayer is: "Make me, O Lord, victorious over every circumstance; make me patient with every person; and withal give me the joy which no circumstance and no man will ever take from me."

PRAYER'S GREAT THANKSGIVING ( Colossians 1:12-14 )

1:12-14 May you give thanks to the Father, who enabled us to obtain our share of the inheritance of God's dedicated people in the Kingdom of light; for he rescued us from the power of darkness, and brought us over into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

Paul turns to grateful thanksgiving for the benefits which the Christian has received in Christ. There are two key ideas here.

(i) God has given to the Colossians a share in the inheritance of God's dedicated people. There is in this whole passage a very close correspondence with Paul's words in Acts when he told Agrippa that the work God had given him was: "To open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in God" ( Acts 26:18). The first privilege is that there has been given to the Gentiles a share in the inheritance of the chosen people of God. The Jews had always been God's chosen people, but now the door has been opened to all men.

(ii) The second key idea lies in the phrase which says, as the Revised Standard Version has it, that God has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, or, as we have translated it, that God has brought us over into the kingdom of his beloved son. The word which Paul uses for to transfer or to bring over is the Greek verb methistemi ( G3179) . This is a word with a special use. In the ancient world, when one empire won a victory over another, it was the custom to take the population of the defeated country and transfer it lock, stock and barrel to the conqueror's land. Thus the people of the northern kingdom were taken away to Assyria, and the people of the southern kingdom were taken away to Babylon. So Paul says that God has transferred the Christian to his own kingdom. That was not only a transference but a rescue; and it meant four great things.

(a) It meant a transference from darkness to light. Without God men grope and stumble as if walking in the dark. They know not what to do; they know not where they are going. Life is lived in the shadows of doubt and in the darkness of ignorance. When Bilney the martyr read that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, he said that it was like the dawn breaking on a dark night. In Jesus Christ, God has given us a light by which to live and by which to die.

(b) It meant a transference from slavery to freedom. It was redemption, and that was the word used for the emancipation of a slave and for the buying back of something which was in the power of someone else. Without God men are slaves to their fears, to their sins and slaves to their own helplessness. In Jesus Christ there is liberation.

(c) It meant a transference from condemnation to forgiveness. Man in his sin deserves nothing but the condemnation of God; but through the work of Jesus Christ he discovers God's love and forgiveness. He knows now that he is no longer a condemned criminal at God's judgment seat, but a lost son for whom the way home is always open.

(d) It meant a transference from the power of Satan to the power of God Through Jesus Christ man is liberated from the grip of Satan and is able to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God. Just as an earthly conqueror transferred the citizens of the land he had conquered to a new land, so God in his triumphant love transfers men from the realm of sin and darkness into the realm of holiness and light.

THE TOTAL ADEQUACY OF JESUS CHRIST ( Colossians 1:15-23 )

1:15-23 He is the image of the invisible God, begotten before all creation, because by him all things were created, in heaven and upon earth, the things which are visible and the things which are invisible, whether thrones or lordships or powers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things cohere. He is the head of the body, that is, of the Church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he might be supreme in all things. For in him God in all his fullness was pleased to take up his abode, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, when he had made peace through the blood of his Cross. This was done for all things, whether on the earth or in the heavens. And you, who were once estranged and hostile in your minds, in the midst of evil deeds, he has now reconciled in the body of his flesh, through his death, in order to present you before him consecrated, unblemished, irreproachable, if only you remain grounded and established in the faith, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, have been made a servant.

This is a passage of such difficulty and of such importance that we shall have to spend considerable time on it. We shall divide what we must say about it into certain sections and we begin with the situation which gave it birth and with the whole view of Christ which Paul sets out in the letter.

(1) THE MISTAKEN THINKERS ( Colossians 1:15-23 continued)

It is one of the facts of the human mind that a man thinks only as much as he has to. It is not until a man finds his faith opposed and attacked that he really begins to think out its implications. It is not until the Church is confronted with some dangerous heresy that she begins to realize the riches of orthodoxy. It is characteristic of Christianity that it can always produce new riches to meet a new situation.

When Paul wrote Colossians, he was not writing in a vacuum. He was writing, as we have already seen in the introduction, to meet a very definite situation. There was a tendency of thought in the early Church called Gnosticism. Its devotees were called Gnostics, which more or less means the intellectual ones. These men were dissatisfied with what they considered the rude simplicity of Christianity and wished to turn it into a philosophy and to align it with the other philosophies which held the field at that time.

The Gnostics began with the basic assumption that matter was altogether evil and spirit altogether good. They further held that matter was eternal and that it was out of this evil matter that the world was created. The Christian, to use the technical phrase, believes in creation out of nothing; the Gnostic believed in creation out of evil matter.

Now God was spirit and if spirit was altogether good and matter essentially evil, it followed, as the Gnostic saw it, that the true God could not touch matter and, therefore, could not himself be the agent of creation. So the Gnostics believed that God put forth a series of emanations, each a little further away from God until at last there was one so distant from God, that it could handle matter and create the world.

The Gnostics went further. As the emanations went further and further from God, they became more and more ignorant of him. And in the very distant emanations there was not only ignorance of God, but also hostility to him. The Gnostics came to the conclusion that the emanation who created the world was both ignorant of and hostile to the true God; and sometimes they identified that emanation with the God of the Old Testament.

This has certain logical consequences.

(i) As the Gnostics saw it, the creator was not God but someone hostile to him; and the world was not God's world but that of a power hostile to him. That is why Paul insists that God did create the world, and that his agent in creation was no ignorant and hostile emanation but Jesus Christ, his Son ( Colossians 1:16).

(ii) As the Gnostics saw it, Jesus Christ was by no means unique. We have seen how they postulated a whole series of emanations between the world and God. They insisted that Jesus was merely one of these emanations. He might stand high in the series; he might even stand highest; but he was only one of many. Paul meets this by insisting that in Jesus Christ all fullness dwells ( Colossians 1:19); that in him there is the fullness of the godhead in bodily form ( Colossians 2:9). One of the supreme objects of Colossians is to insist that Jesus is utterly unique and that in him there is the whole of God.

(iii) As the Gnostics saw it, this had another consequence with regard to Jesus. If matter was altogether evil, it followed that the body was altogether evil. It followed further that he who was the revelation of God, could not have had a real body. He could have been nothing more than a spiritual phantom in bodily form. The Gnostics completely denied the real manhood of Jesus. In their own writings they, for instance, set it down that when Jesus walked, he left no footprints on the ground. That is why Paul uses such startling phraseology in Colossians. He speaks of Jesus reconciling man to God in his body of flesh ( Colossians 1:22); he says that the fullness of the godhead dwelt in him bodily. In opposition to the Gnostics, Paul insisted on the flesh and blood manhood of Jesus.

(iv) The task of man is to find his way to God. As the Gnostics saw it, that way was barred. Between this world and God there was this vast series of emanations. Before the soul could rise to God, it had to get past the barrier of each of these emanations. To pass each barrier special knowledge and special passwords were needed; it was these passwords and that knowledge that the Gnostics claimed to give. This meant two things.

(a) It meant that salvation was intellectual knowledge. To meet that Paul insists that salvation is not knowledge; it is redemption and the forgiveness of sins. The Gnostic teachers held that the so-called simple truths of the gospel were not nearly enough. To find its way to God the soul needed far more than that; it needed the elaborate knowledge and the secret passwords which Gnosticism alone could give. So Paul insists that nothing more is needed than the saving truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(b) If salvation depended on this elaborate knowledge, it was clearly not for every man but only for the intellectual. So the Gnostics divided mankind into the spiritual and the earthly; and only the spiritual could be truly saved. Full salvation was beyond the scope of the ordinary man. It is with that in mind that Paul wrote the great verse Colossians 1:28. It was his aim to warn every man and to teach every man, and so to present every man mature in Christ Jesus. Against a salvation possible for only a limited intellectual minority, Paul presents a gospel which is for every man, however simple and unlettered or however wise and learned he may be.

These, then, were the great Gnostic doctrines; and all the time we are studying this passage, and indeed the whole letter, we must have them in our mind, for only against them does Paul's language become intelligible and relevant.

(2) WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS IN HIMSELF ( Colossians 1:15-23 continued)

In this passage Paul says two great things about Jesus, both of which are in answer to the Gnostics. The Gnostics had said that Jesus was merely one among many intermediaries and that, however great he might be, he was only a partial revelation of God.

(i) Paul says that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God ( Colossians 1:15). Here he uses a word and a picture which would waken all kinds of memories in the minds of those who heard it. The word is eikon ( G1504) , and image is its correct translation. Now, as Lightfoot points out, an image can be two things which merge into each other. It can be a representation; but a representation, if it is perfect enough, can become a manifestation. When Paul uses this word, he lays it down that Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God. To see what God is like, we must look at Jesus. He perfectly represents God to men in a form which they can see and know and understand. But it is what is behind this word that is of entrancing interest.

(a) The Old Testament and the inter-testamental books have a great deal to say about Wisdom. In Proverbs the great passages on Wisdom are in Proverbs 2:1-22 and Proverbs 8:1-36. There Wisdom is said to be co-eternal with God and to have been with God when he created the world. Now in the Wis_7:26 , eikon ( G1504) is used of Wisdom; Wisdom is the image of the goodness of God. It is as if Paul turned to the Jews and said, "All your lives you have been thinking and dreaming and writing about this divine Wisdom, which is as old as God, which made the world and which gives wisdom to men. In Jesus Christ this Wisdom has come to men in bodily form for all to see." Jesus is the fulfilment of the dreams of Jewish thought.

(b) The Greeks were haunted by the thought of the Logos ( G3056) , the word, the reason of God. It was that Logos which created the world, which put sense into the universe, which kept the stars in their courses, which made this a dependable world, which put a thinking mind into man. This very word eikon ( G1504) is used again and again by Philo of the Logos of God. "He calls the invisible and divine Logos, which only the mind can perceive, the image (eikon, G1504) of God" (Philo: Concerning the Creator of the World: 8). It is as if Paul said to the Greeks: "For the last six hundred years you have dreamed and thought and written about the reason, the mind, the word, the Logos of God; you called it God's eikon ( G1504) ; in Jesus Christ that Logos has come plain for all to see. Your dreams and philosophies are all come true in him."

(c) In these connections of the word eikon ( G1504) we have been moving in the highest realms of thought, where only the philosophers can move familiarly. But there are two much simpler connections which would immediately flash across the minds of those who heard or read this for the first time. Their minds would at once go back to the creation story. There the old story tells of the culminating act of creation. "God said, Let us make man in our image.... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him" ( Genesis 1:26-27). Here indeed is illumination. Man was made that he might be nothing less than the eikon ( G1504) of God, for the word in the Genesis story is the same. That is what man was meant to be, but sin came in and man never achieved his destiny. By using this word of Jesus, Paul in effect says, "Look at this Jesus. He shows you not only what God is; he also shows you what man was meant to be. Here is manhood as God designed it. Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God and the perfect manifestation of man." There is in Jesus Christ the revelation of godhead and the revelation of manhood.

(d) But we come at last to something much simpler than any of these things. And there is no doubt that many of the simpler of Paul's readers would think of this. Even if they knew nothing of the Wisdom Literature and nothing of Philo and nothing of the Genesis story they would know this.

Eikon ( G1504) --sometimes in its diminutive form eikonion--was the word which was used for a portrait in Greek. There is a papyrus letter from a soldier lad called Apion to his father Epimachus. Near the end he writes: "I send you a little portrait (eikonion) of myself painted by Euctemon." It is the nearest equivalent in ancient Greek to our word photograph. But this word had still another use. When a legal document was drawn up, such as a receipt or an IOU, it always included a description of the chief characteristics and distinguishing marks of the contracting parties, so that there could be no mistake. The Greek word for such a description is eikon ( G1504) . The eikon ( G1504) , therefore, was a kind of brief summary of the personal characteristics and distinguishing marks of the contracting parties. So, then, to the very simplest Paul is saying, "You know how if you enter into a legal agreement, there is included an eikon ( G1504) , a description by which you may be recognized. Jesus is the portrait of God. In him you see the personal characteristics and the distinguishing marks of God. If you want to see what God is like, look at Jesus."

(ii) The other word Paul uses is in Colossians 1:19. He says that Jesus is the pleroma ( G4138) of God. Pleroma ( G4138) means fullness, completeness. This is the word which is needed to complete the picture. Jesus is not simply a sketch of God or a summary and more than a lifeless portrait of him. In him there is nothing left out; he is the full revelation of God, and nothing more is necessary.

(3) WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS TO CREATION ( Colossians 1:15-23 continued)

We will remember that according to the Gnostics the work of creation was carried out by an inferior god, ignorant of and hostile to the true God. It is Paul's teaching that God's agent in creation is the Son and in this passage he has four things to say of the Son in regard to creation.

(i) He is the firstborn of all creation ( Colossians 1:15). We must be very careful to attach the right meaning to this phrase. As it stands in English it might well mean the Son was the first person to be created, but in Hebrew and Greek thought the word firstborn (prototokos, G4416) has only very indirectly a time significance. There are two things to note. Firstborn is very commonly a title of honour. Israel, for instance, as a nation is the firstborn son of God ( Exodus 4:22). The meaning is that the nation of Israel is the most favoured child of God. Second, we must note that firstborn is a title of the Messiah. In Psalms 89:27, as the Jews themselves interpreted it, the promise regarding the Messiah is "I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth." Clearly firstborn is not used in a time sense at all, but in the sense of special honour. So when Paul says of the Son that he is the firstborn of all creation, he means that the highest honour which creation holds belongs to him. If we wish to keep the time sense and the honour sense combined, we may translate the phrase: "He was begotten before all creation."

(ii) It was by the Son that all things were created ( Colossians 1:16). This is true of things in heaven and things in earth, of things seen and unseen. The Jews themselves, and even more the Gnostics, had a highly-developed system of angels. With the Gnostics that was only to be expected with their long series of intermediaries between man and God. Thrones, lordships, powers and authorities were different grades of angels having their places in different spheres of the seven heavens. Paul dismisses them all with complete indifference. He is in effect saying to the Gnostics, "You give a great place in your thinking to angels. You rate Jesus Christ merely as one of them. So far from that, he created them." Paul lays it down that the agent of God in creation is no inferior, ignorant and hostile secondary god, but the Son himself.

(iii) It was for the Son that all things were created ( Colossians 1:17). The Son is not only the agent of creation, he is also the goat of creation. That is to say, creation was created to be his and that in its worship and its love he might find his honour and his joy.

(iv) Paul uses the strange phrase: "In him all things hold together." This means that not only is the Son the agent of creation in the beginning and the goat of creation in the end, but between the beginning and the end, during time as we know it, it is he who holds the world together. That is to say, all the laws by which this world is order and not chaos are an expression of the mind of the Son. The law of gravity and the rest, the laws by which the universe hangs together, are not only scientific laws but also divine.

So, then, the Son is the beginning of creation, and the end of creation, and the power who holds creation together, the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Final Goal of the world.

(4) WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS TO THE CHURCH ( Colossians 1:15-23 continued)

Paul sets out in verse 18 what Jesus Christ is to the Church; and he distinguishes four great facts in that relationship.

(i) He is the head of the body, that is, of the Church. The Church is the body of Christ, that is, the organism through which he acts and which shares all his experiences. But, humanly speaking, the body is the servant of the head and is powerless without it. So Jesus Christ is the guiding spirit of the Church; it is at his bidding that the Church must live and move. Without him the Church cannot think the truth, cannot act correctly, cannot decide its direction. There are two things combined here. There is the idea of privilege. It is the privilege of the Church to be the instrument through which Christ works. There is the idea of warning. If a man neglects or abuses his body, he can make it unfit to be the servant of the great purposes of his mind; so by indisciplined and careless living the Church can unfit herself to be the instrument of Christ, who is her head.

(ii) He is the beginning of the Church. The Greek word for beginning is arche ( G746) , which means beginning in a double sense. It means not only first in the sense of time, as, for instance, A is the beginning of the alphabet and I is the beginning of the series of numbers. It means first in the sense of the source from which something carne, the moving power which set something in operation. We will see more clearly what Paul is getting at, if we remember what he has just said. The world is the creation of Christ; and the Church is the new creation of Christ.

She is his new creation

By water and the word.

Christ is the, source of the Church's life and being and the director of her continued activity.

(iii) He is the firstborn from among the dead. Here Paul comes back to the event which was at the centre of all the thinking and belief and experience of the Early Church--the Resurrection. Christ is not merely someone who lived and died and of whom we read and learn. He is someone who, because of his Resurrection, is alive for evermore and whom we meet and experience, not a dead hero nor a past founder, but a living presence.

(iv) The result of all this is that he has the supremacy in all things. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is his title to supreme lordship. By his Resurrection he has shown that he has conquered every opposing power and that there is nothing in life or in death which can bind him.

So there are four great facts about Jesus Christ in his relationship to the Church, which now we can put in order. He is the living Lord; he is the source and origin of the Church; he is the constant director of the Church; and he is the Lord of all, by virtue of his victory over death.

(5) WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS TO ALL THINGS ( Colossians 1:15-23 continued)

In Colossians 1:19-20 Paul sets down certain great truths about the work of Christ for the whole universe.

(i) The object of his coming was reconciliation. He came to heal the breach and bridge the chasm between God and man. We must note one thing quite clearly and always retain it in our memories. The initiative in reconciliation was with God. The New Testament never talks of God being reconciled to men, but always of men being reconciled to God. God's attitude to men was love, and it was never anything else. Sometimes a theology is preached which implies that something that Jesus did changed God's attitude from wrath into love. There is no justification in the New Testament for any such view. It was God who began the whole process of salvation. It was because God so loved the world that he sent his Son. His one object in sending his Son into this world was to woo men back to himself and, as Paul puts it, to reconcile all things to himself.

(ii) The medium of reconciliation was the blood of the Cross. The dynamic of reconciliation was the death of Jesus Christ. What does Paul mean? He means exactly what he said in Romans 8:32: "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?" In the death of Jesus, God is saying to us, "I love you like that. I love you enough to see my Son suffer and die for you." The Cross is the proof that there is no length to which the love of God will refuse to go in order to win men's hearts; and a love like that demands an answering love. If the Cross will not waken love in men's hearts, nothing will.

(iii) We must note that Paul says that in Christ God was reconciling all things to himself. The Greek is a neuter (panta, G3956) . The point is that the reconciliation of God extends not only to all persons but to all creation, animate and inanimate. The vision of Paul was a universe in which not only the people but the very things were redeemed. This is an amazing thought. There is no doubt that Paul was thinking of the Gnostics. We will remember that they, regarding matter as essentially and incurably evil, therefore regarded the world as evil. But, as Paul sees it, the world is not evil. It is God's world and shares in the universal reconciliation.

There is a lesson and a warning here. Too often in Christianity there has been suspicion of the world. "Earth is a desert drear." We remember the story of the Puritan. Someone said to him, as they walked along the road, "That's a lovely flower". And the Puritan answered, "I have learned to call nothing lovely in this lost and sinful world." So far from being Christian, that attitude is in fact heresy. It was the very attitude of the Gnostic heretics who threatened to destroy the faith. This is God's world and it is a redeemed world, for in some amazing way God in Christ was reconciling the whole universe of men and living creatures and even inanimate things to himself.

(iv) The passage ends with a curious little phrase. Paul says that this reconciliation extended not only to things on earth but also to things in heaven. How was it that any reconciliation was necessary for heavenly things? This has exercised the ingenuity of many commentators; let us look at some of the explanations.

(a) It has been suggested that even the heavenly places and the angels there were under sin and needed to be reconciled to God. In Job we read: "His angels he charges with error" ( Job 4:18). "The heavens are not clean in his sight" ( Job 15:15). So it is suggested that even the angelic beings needed the reconciliation of the Cross.

(b) Origen, the great universalist, thought that the phrase referred to the devil and his angels and he believed that in the end even they would be reconciled to God through the work of Jesus Christ.

(c) It has been suggested that when Paul said that the reconciling work of Christ extended to all things in earth and in heaven, he did not mean anything definite but was simply using a magnificent and sonorous phrase in which the complete adequacy of the reconciling work of Christ was set out.

(d) The most interesting suggestion was made by Theodoret and followed by Erasmus. It was that the point is not that the heavenly angels were reconciled to God, but that they were reconciled to men. The suggestion is that the angels were angry with men for what they had done to God and wished to destroy them; and the work of Christ took away their wrath when they saw how much God still loved men.

However these things may be, this much is certain, God's aim was to reconcile men to himself in Jesus Christ, the medium by which he did so was the death of Christ which proved that there were no limits to his love, and that reconciliation extends to all the universe, earth and heaven alike.

(6) THE AIM AND OBLIGATION OF RECONCILIATION ( Colossians 1:15-23 continued)

In Colossians 1:21-23 are set out the aim and the obligation of reconciliation.

(i) The aim of reconciliation is holiness. Christ carried out his sacrificial work of reconciliation in order to present us to God consecrated and irreproachable. It is easy to twist the idea of the love of God and to say, "Well, if God loves me like this and wishes nothing but reconciliation, sin does not matter. I can do what I like and God will still love me." The reverse is true. The fact that a man is loved does not give him carte blanche to do as he likes; it lays upon him the greatest obligation in the world, the obligation of being worthy of that love. In one sense the love of God makes things easy, for it takes away our fear of him and assures us that we are no longer criminals at the bar of judgment, certain of nothing but condemnation. But in another sense it makes things agonizingly and almost impossibly difficult, for it lays upon us this ultimate obligation of seeking to be worthy of that love.

(ii) Reconciliation has another kind of obligation, that of standing fast in the faith and never abandoning the hope of the gospel. Reconciliation demands that through sunshine and through shadow we should never lose confidence in the love of God. Out of the wonder of reconciliation are born the strength of unshakable loyalty and the radiance of unconquerable hope.

THE PRIVILEGE AND THE TASK ( Colossians 1:24-29 )

1:24-29 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and in my flesh, for the sake of his body, I fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. By his body, I mean the Church, of which I was made a servant, according to the office which God gave me to exercise for your sakes. That office is to make the word of God fully known, that secret which has remained hidden throughout all the ages and the generations, but which has now been made manifest to God's dedicated people; for God desired to make known to them how great was the glorious wealth among the Gentiles of this secret now revealed, and that secret is, Christ in you, your glorious hope. It is that Christ whom we proclaim, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. That is the end for which I toil, striving with his energy, which works mightily within me.

Paul begins this passage with a daring thought. He thinks of the sufferings through which he is passing as completing the sufferings of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus died to save his Church; but the Church must be upbuilt and extended; it must be kept strong and pure and true; therefore, anyone who serves the Church by widening her borders, establishing her faith, saving her from errors, is doing the work of Christ. And if such service involves suffering and sacrifice, that affliction is filling up and sharing the very suffering of Christ. To suffer in the service of Christ is not a penalty but a privilege, for it is sharing in his work.

Paul sets out the very essence of the task which has been given him by God. That task was to bring to men a new discovery, a secret kept throughout the ages and the generations and now revealed. This was that the glorious hope of the gospel was not only for the Jews but for all men everywhere. Paul's great contribution to the Christian faith was that he took Christ to the Gentiles and destroyed for ever the idea that God's love and mercy were the property of any one people or any one nation. That is why Paul is in a special sense our saint and our apostle. Had it not been for him Christianity might have become nothing wider than a new Judaism, and we and all other Gentiles might never have received it.

So Paul sets down his great aim. It is to warn every man, and to teach every man, and to present every man complete in Christ.

The Jew would never have agreed that God had any use for every man; he would have refused to accept that he was the God of the Gentiles. This idea would have seemed incredible and even blasphemous. The Gnostic would never have agreed that every man could be warned and taught and presented complete to God. He believed that the knowledge necessary for salvation was so involved and difficult that it must be the possession of the spiritual aristocracy and the chosen few. E. J. Goodspeed quotes a passage from Walter Lipman's Preface to Morals: "As yet no teacher has ever appeared who was wise enough to know how to teach his wisdom to all mankind. In fact, the great teachers have attempted nothing so utopian. They were quite well aware how difficult for most men is wisdom, and they have confessed frankly that the perfect life was for the select few. It is arguable, in fact, that the very idea of teaching the highest wisdom to all men is the recent notion of a humanitarian and romantically democratic age, and that it is quite foreign to the thought of all great teachers." It has always been the case that men have openly or tacitly agreed that wisdom is not for every one.

The fact is that the only thing in this world which is for every man is Christ. It is not every man who can be a thinker. There are gifts which are not granted to every man. Not every man can master every craft, or even every game. There are those who are colour-blind and to whom the loveliness of art means nothing. There are those who are tone-deaf and for whom the glory of music does not exist. Not every man can be a writer or a student or a preacher or a singer. Even human love at its highest is not granted to all men. There are gifts a man will never possess; there are privileges a man will never enjoy; there are heights of this world's attainment which a man will never scale; but to every man there is open the good news of the gospel, the love of God in Christ Jesus and the trans-forming power which can bring holiness into life.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Colossians 1:26

cf. Ephesians 3:1-3 Gospel hid in the past! (How God reconciled Jew and Gentile)

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

[Even] the mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations,.... This is said, as explanative of the word of God; signifying that he did not mean the Scriptures in general, which are the word of God, and every part of them; some part of which is historical, another prophetical, another practical, and another doctrinal; nor the law, which also is the word of God, but the Gospel, called "the mystery", as it often is; because it contains things, which, though revealed, are mysteries to a natural man; and even to enlightened persons, who have the clearest view of them, the "modus" of them is not to be accounted for; such as the doctrines of the Trinity, of the union of the two natures in Christ, the incarnation of the Son of God, the union and communion of the church with Christ, the resurrection of the dead, c. And though perhaps great and special regard may be here had to the calling of the Gentiles, which, though revealed in the prophecies of the Old Testament, was in a great measure hid in them, and not so clearly known in ages and generations past as now, yet the whole may be applied to the Gospel mystery in general which was first hid in the heart of God, in his thoughts and purposes, in his counsel and covenant, and in his Son, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; and then in the ceremonies and shadows of the law, which but few had any insight into, and discerning of; and, during that dispensation, was wholly hid from the Gentiles; and but in part known by the Jews, and but by a few, and comparatively by them very darkly; and not so clearly by the angels themselves, who pry into these mysteries, and now, under the Gospel dispensation, learn from the church the manifold wisdom of God; and indeed it was hidden from all men, Jews and Gentiles, in a state of nature, and even from the wise and prudent of this world:

but now is made manifest to his saints; now under the Gospel dispensation, since the coming of Christ; there is an external revelation of the Gospel by him, more clearly, by whom grace and truth came, called the revelation of Christ; and an internal revelation of it by his Spirit, who is the spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of him; which is made to saints, the holy apostles and prophets, who are the saints to whom this faith, and the mystery of it, were first delivered with so much power and evidence; and to all the elect of God, whom he has separated for himself in eternal election; whom Christ has sanctified by his blood, and to whom he is made sanctification; and who are called with an holy calling, have principles of grace and holiness wrought in them by the Spirit of God, and therefore called "his" saints; these have only a spiritual discerning of the Gospel, for the natural man neither knows nor receives it.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:   13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:   14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:   15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:   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:   17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.   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.   19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;   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.   21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled   22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:   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;   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:   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;   26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:   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:   28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:   29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

      Here is a summary of the doctrine of the gospel concerning the great work of our redemption by Christ. It comes in here not as the matter of a sermon, but as the matter of a thanksgiving; for our salvation by Christ furnishes us with abundant matter of thanksgiving in every view of it: Giving thanks unto the Father,Colossians 1:12; Colossians 1:12. He does not discourse of the work of redemption in the natural order of it; for then he would speak of the purchase of it first, and afterwards of the application of it. But here he inverts the order, because, in our sense and feeling of it, the application goes before the purchase. We first find the benefits of redemption in our hearts, and then are led by those streams to the original and fountain-head. The order and connection of the apostle's discourse may be considered in the following manner:--

      I. He speaks concerning the operations of the Spirit of grace upon us. We must give thanks for them, because by these we are qualified for an interest in the mediation of the Son: Giving thanks to the Father, c., Colossians 1:12; Colossians 1:13. It is spoken of as the work of the Father, because the Spirit of grace is the Spirit of the Father, and the Father works in us by his Spirit. Those in whom the work of grace is wrought must give thanks unto the Father. If we have the comfort of it, he must have the glory of it. Now what is it which is wrought for us in the application of redemption? 1. "He hath delivered us from the power of darkness,Colossians 1:13; Colossians 1:13. He has rescued us from the state of heathenish darkness and wickedness. He hath saved us from the dominion of sin, which is darkness (1 John 1:6), from the dominion of Satan, who is the prince of darkness (Ephesians 6:12), and from the damnation of hell, which is utter darkness," Matthew 25:30. They are called out of darkness,1 Peter 2:9. 2. "He hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, brought us into the gospel-state, and made us members of the church of Christ, which is a state of light and purity." You were once darkness, but now are you light in the Lord,Ephesians 5:8. Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light,1 Peter 2:9. Those were made willing subjects of Christ who were the slaves of Satan. The conversion of a sinner is the translation of a soul into the kingdom of Christ out of the kingdom of the devil. The power of sin is shaken off, and the power of Christ submitted to. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes them free from the law of sin and death; and it is the kingdom of his dear Son, or the Son of his peculiar love, his beloved Son (Matthew 3:17), and eminently the beloved, Ephesians 1:6. 3. "He hath not only done this, but hath made us meet to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light,Colossians 1:12; Colossians 1:12. He hath prepared us for the eternal happiness of heaven, as the Israelites divided the promised land by lot; and has given us the earnest and assurance of it." This he mentions first because it is the first indication of the future blessedness, that by the grace of God we find ourselves in some measure prepared for it. God gives grace and glory, and we are here told what they both are. (1.) What that glory is. It is the inheritance of the saints in light. It is an inheritance, and belongs to them as children, which is the best security and the sweetest tenure: If children, then heirs,Romans 8:17. And it is an inheritance of the saints-proper to sanctified souls. Those who are not saints on earth will never be saints in heaven. And it is an inheritance in light; the perfection of knowledge, holiness, and joy, by communion with God, who is light, and the Father of lights, James 1:17; John 1:5. (2.) What this grace is. It is a meetness for the inheritance: "He hath made us meet to be partakers, that is, suited and fitted us for the heavenly state by a proper temper and habit of soul; and he makes us meet by the powerful influence of his Spirit." It is the effect of the divine power to change the heart, and make it heavenly. Observe, All who are designed for heaven hereafter are prepared for heaven now. As those who live and die unsanctified go out of the world with their hell about them, so those who are sanctified and renewed go out of the world with their heaven about them. Those who have the inheritance of sons have the education of sons and the disposition of sons: they have the Spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba, Father.Romans 8:15. And, because you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father,Galatians 4:6. This meetness for heaven is the earnest of the Spirit in our heart, which is part of payment, and assures the full payment. Those who are sanctified shall be glorified (Romans 8:30), and will be for ever indebted to the grace of God, which hath sanctified them.

      II. Concerning the person of the Redeemer. Glorious things are here said of him; for blessed Paul was full of Christ, and took all occasions to speak honourably of him. He speaks of him distinctly as God, and as Mediator. 1. As God he speaks of him, Colossians 1:15-17; Colossians 1:15-17. (1.) He is the image of the invisible God. Not as man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), in his natural faculties and dominion over the creatures: no, he is the express image of his person,Hebrews 1:3. He is so the image of God as the son is the image of his father, who has a natural likeness to him; so that he who has seen him has seen the Father, and his glory was the glory of the only-begotten of the Father,John 1:14; John 14:9. (2.) He is the first-born of every creature. Not that he is himself a creature; for it is prototokos pases ktiseos--born or begotten before all the creation, or before any creature was made, which is the scripture-way of representing eternity, and by which the eternity of God is represented to us: I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was; when there was no depth, before the mountains were settled, while as yet he had not made the earth,Proverbs 8:23-26. It signifies his dominion over all things, as the first-born in a family is heir and lord of all, so he is the heir of all things,Hebrews 1:2. The word, with only the change of the accent, prototokos, signifies actively the first begetter or producer of all things, and so it well agrees with the following clause. Vid. Isidor. Peleus. epist. 30 lib. 3. (3.) He is so far from beginning himself a creature that he is the Creator: For by him were all things created, which are in heaven and earth, visible and invisible,Colossians 1:16; Colossians 1:16. He made all things out of nothing, the highest angel in heaven, as well as men upon earth. He made the world, the upper and lower world, with all the inhabitants of both. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made which was made,John 1:3. He speaks here as if there were several orders of angels: Whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, which must signify either different degrees of excellence or different offices and employments. Angels, authorities, and powers,1 Peter 3:22. Christ is the eternal wisdom of the Father, and the world was made in wisdom. He is the eternal Word, and the world was made by the word of God. He is the arm of the Lord, and the world was made by that arm. All things are created by him and for him; di autou kai eis auton. Being created by him, they were created for him; being made by his power, they were made according to his pleasure and for his praise. He is the end, as well as the cause of all things. To him are all things,Romans 11:36; eis auton ta panta. (4.) He was before all things. He had a being before the world was made, before the beginning of time, and therefore from all eternity. Wisdom was with the Father, and possessed by him in the beginning of his ways, before his works of old, Proverbs 8:22. And in the beginning the Word was with God and was God, John 1:1. He not only had a being before he was born of the virgin, but he had a being before all time. (5.) By him all things consist. They not only subsist in their beings, but consist in their order and dependences. He not only created them all at first, but it is by the word of his power that they are still upheld, Hebrews 1:3. The whole creation is kept together by the power of the Son of God, and made to consist in its proper frame. It is preserved from disbanding and running into confusion.

      2. The apostle next shows what he is as Mediator, Colossians 1:18; Colossians 1:19. (1.) He is the head of the body the church: not only a head of government and direction, as the king is the head of the state and has right to prescribe laws, but a head of vital influence, as the head in the natural body: for all grace and strength are derived from him: and the church is his body, the fulness of him who filleth all in all,Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 1:23. (2.) He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, arche, prototokos--the principle, the first-born from the dead; the principle of our resurrection, as well as the first-born himself. All our hopes and joys take their rise from him who is the author of our salvation. Not that he was the first who ever rose from the dead, but the first and only one who rose by his own power, and was declared to be the Son of God, and Lord of all things. And he is the head of the resurrection, and has given us an example and evidence of our resurrection from the dead. He rose as the first-fruits, 1 Corinthians 15:20. (3.) He hath in all things the pre-eminence. It was the will of the Father that he should have all power in heaven and earth, that he might be preferred above angels and all the powers in heaven (he has obtained a more excellent name than they,Hebrews 1:4), and that in all the affairs of the kingdom of God among men he should have the pre-eminence. He has the pre-eminence in the hearts of his people above the world and the flesh; and by giving him the pre-eminence we comply with the Father's will, That all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father,John 5:23. (4.) All fulness dwells in him, and it pleased the Father it should do so (Colossians 1:19; Colossians 1:19), not only a fulness of abundance for himself, but redundance for us, a fulness of merit and righteousness, of strength and grace. As the head is the seat and source of the animal spirits, so is Christ of all graces to his people. It pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell in him; and we may have free resort to him for all that grace for which we have occasion. He not only intercedes for it, but is the trustee in whose hands it is lodged to dispense to us: Of his fulness we receive, and grace for grace, grace in us answering to that grace which is in him (John 1:16), and he fills all in all,Ephesians 1:23.

      III. Concerning the work of redemption. He speaks of the nature of it, or wherein it consists; and of the means of it, by which it was procured.

      1. Wherein it consists. It is made to lie in two things:-- (1.) In the remission of sin: In whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins,Colossians 1:14; Colossians 1:14. It was sin which sold us, sin which enslaved us: if we are redeemed, we must be redeemed from sin; and this is by forgiveness, or remitting the obligation to punishment. So Ephesians 1:7, In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. (2.) In reconciliation to God. God by him reconciled all things to himself,Colossians 1:20; Colossians 1:20. He is the Mediator of reconciliation, who procures peace as well as pardon for sinners, who brings them into a state of friendship and favour at present, and will bring all holy creatures, angels as well as men, into one glorious and blessed society at last: things in earth, or things in heaven. So Ephesians 1:10, He will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. The word is anakephalaiosasthai--he will bring them all under one head. The Gentiles, who were alienated, and enemies in their minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled,Colossians 1:21; Colossians 1:21. Here see what was their condition by nature, and in their Gentile state--estranged from God, and at enmity with God: and yet this enmity is slain, and, notwithstanding this distance, we are now reconciled. Christ has laid the foundation for our reconciliation; for he has paid the price of it, has purchased the proffer and promise of it, proclaims it as a prophet, applies it as a king. Observe, The greatest enemies to God, who have stood at the greatest distance and bidden him defiance, may be reconciled, if it by not their own fault.

      2. How the redemption is procured: it is through his blood (Colossians 1:14; Colossians 1:14); he has made peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:20; Colossians 1:20), and it is in the body of his flesh through death,Colossians 1:22; Colossians 1:22. It was the blood which made an atonement, for the blood is the life; and without the shedding of blood there is no remission,Hebrews 9:22. There was such a value in the blood of Christ that, on account of Christ's shedding it, God was willing to deal with men upon new terms to bring them under a covenant of grace, and for his sake, and in consideration of his death upon the cross, to pardon and accept to favour all who comply with them.

      IV. Concerning the preaching of this redemption. Here observe,

      1. To whom it was preached: To every creature under heaven (Colossians 1:23; Colossians 1:23), that is, it was ordered to be preached to every creature, Mark 16:15. It may be preached to every creature; for the gospel excludes none who do not exclude themselves. More or less it has been or will be preached to every nation, though many have sinned away the light of it and perhaps some have never yet enjoyed it.

      2. By whom it was preached: Whereof I Paul am made a minister. Paul was a great apostle; but he looks upon it as the highest of his titles of honour to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul takes all occasions to speak of his office; for he magnified his office,Romans 11:13. And again in Colossians 1:25; Colossians 1:25, Whereof I am made a minister. Observe here,

      (1.) Whence Paul had his ministry: it was according to the dispensation of God which was given to him (Colossians 1:25; Colossians 1:25), the economy or wise disposition of things in the house of God. He was steward and master-builder, and this was given to him: he did not usurp it, nor take it to himself; and he could not challenge it as a debt. He received it from God as a gift, and took it as a favour.

      (2.) For whose sake he had his ministry: "It is for you, for your benefit: ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake,2 Corinthians 4:5. We are Christ's ministers for the good of his people, to fulfil the word of God (that is, fully to preach it), of which you will have the greater advantage. The more we fulfil our ministry, or fill up all the parts of it, the greater will be the benefit of the people; they will be the more filled with knowledge, and furnished for service."

      (3.) What kind of preacher Paul was. This is particularly represented.

      [1.] He was a suffering preacher: Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you,Colossians 1:24; Colossians 1:24. He suffered in the cause of Christ, and for the good of the church. He suffered for preaching the gospel to them. And, while he suffered in so good a cause, he could rejoice in his sufferings, rejoice that he was counted worthy to suffer, and esteem it an honour to him. And fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh. Not that the afflictions of Paul, or any other, were expiations for sin, as the sufferings of Christ were. There was nothing wanting in them, nothing which needed to be filled up. They were perfectly sufficient to answer the intention of them, the satisfaction of God's justice, in order to the salvation of his people. But the sufferings of Paul and other good ministers made them conformable to Christ; and they followed him in his suffering state: so they are said to fill up what was behind of the sufferings of Christ, as the wax fills up the vacuities of the seal, when it receives the impression of it. Or it may be meant not of Christ's sufferings, but of his suffering for Christ. He filled that which was behind. He had a certain rate and measure of suffering for Christ assigned him; and, as his sufferings were agreeable to that appointment, so he was still filling up more and more what was behind, or remained of them to his share.

      [2.] He was a close preacher: he preached not only in public, but from house to house, from person to person. Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom,Colossians 1:28; Colossians 1:28. Every man has need to be warned and taught, and therefore let every man have his share. Observe, First, When we warn people of what they do amiss, we must teach them to do better: warning and teaching must go together. Secondly, Men must be warned and taught in all wisdom. We must choose the fittest seasons, and use the likeliest means, and accommodate ourselves to the different circumstances and capacities of those we have to do with, and teach them as they are able to bear. That which he aimed at was to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, teleios, either perfect in the knowledge of the Christian doctrine (Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded,Philippians 3:15; 2 Timothy 3:17), or else crowned with a glorious reward hereafter, when he will present to himself a glorious church (Ephesians 5:27), and bring them to the spirits of just men made perfect,Hebrews 12:23. Observe, Ministers ought to aim at the improvement and salvation of every particular person who hears them. Thirdly, He was a laborious preacher, and one who took pains: he was no loiter, and did not do his work negligently (Colossians 1:29; Colossians 1:29): Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. He laboured and strove, used great diligence and contended with many difficulties, according to the measure of grace afforded to him and the extraordinary presence of Christ which was with him. Observe, As Paul laid out himself to do much good, so he had this favour, that the power of God wrought in him the more effectually. The more we labour in the work of the Lord the greater measures of help we may expect from him in it (Ephesians 3:7): According to the gift of the grace of God given unto me, by the effectual working of his power.

      3. The gospel which was preached. We have an account of this: Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages, and from generations, but is now made manifest to his saints,Colossians 1:26; Colossians 1:27. Observe, (1.) The mystery of the gospel was long hidden: it was concealed from ages and generations, the several ages of the church under the Old-Testament dispensation. They were in a state of minority, and training up for a more perfect state of things, and could not look to the end of those things which were ordained, 2 Corinthians 3:13. (2.) This mystery now, in the fulness of time, is made manifest to the saints, or clearly revealed and made apparent. The veil which was over Moses's face is done away in Christ, 2 Corinthians 3:14. The meanest saint under the gospel understands more than the greatest prophets under the law. He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than they. The mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,Ephesians 3:4; Ephesians 3:5. And what is this mystery? It is the riches of God's glory among the Gentiles. The peculiar doctrine of the gospel was a mystery which was before hidden, and is now made manifest and made known. But the great mystery here referred to is the breaking down of the partition-wall between the Jew and Gentile, and preaching the gospel to the Gentile world, and making those partakers of the privileges of the gospel state who before lay in ignorance and idolatry: That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers together of his promise in Christ by the gospel,Ephesians 3:6. This mystery, thus made known, is Christ in you (or among you) the hope of glory. Observe, Christ is the hope of glory. The ground of our hope is Christ in the word, or the gospel revelation, declaring the nature and methods of obtaining it. The evidence of our hope is Christ in the heart, or the sanctification of the soul, and its preparation for the heavenly glory.

      4. The duty of those who are interested in this redemption: If you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard,Colossians 1:23; Colossians 1:23. We must continue in the faith grounded and settled, and not be moved away from the hope of the gospel; that is, we must be so well fixed in our minds as not to be moved from it by any temptations. We must be stedfast and immovable (1 Corinthians 15:58) and hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,Hebrews 10:23. Observe, We can expect the happy end of our faith only when we continue in the faith, and are so far grounded and settled in it as not to be moved from it. We must not draw back unto perdition, but believe unto the saving of the soul,Hebrews 10:39. We must be faithful to death, through all trials, that we may receive the crown of life, and receive the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls,1 Peter 1:9.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The most cursory reader discerns at once that the epistle to the Colossians is the counterpart of that to the Ephesians. They are in nowise the same, but may be viewed each as a supplement to the other. The epistle to the Ephesians develops the body in its rich and varied privileges; the epistle to the Colossians brings before us the Head, and not only this, but the glories of Him who holds that relation to the church. There was no doubt a suitability for each line of truth in the wants of the saints respectively addressed; nor do I think it can be intelligently questioned that the condition of the Ephesian saints was better than that of those at Colosse.

To the former the Holy Ghost could launch out into the fulness of our blessing in Christ. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our God and Father; and He has blessed with every possible blessing, and in the highest sphere and on the best ground. There was no hindrance to the flow of the Spirit in unfolding the truth. To the Colossians the Holy Ghost has to speak about their state, and along with this to present the truth of Christ as a remedy for it; not so much as the centre of blessedness and joy in the communion of the saints, but as supplying the true and only divine corrective to the efforts of Satan, who would drag them down into tradition on the one hand, and into philosophy on the other, the too common snares of human nature, and the latter more particularly for cultivated and reasoning minds. It is evident, therefore, that to enter on the privileges of the church, the body of Christ, would have in nowise met the evil which the enemy was seeking to inflict on the Colossians. They needed to be drawn away from every theme and object but Christ Himself. They needed to learn especially the vanity of all that man's mind delights in. They needed to know, I will not say, that Christ suffices only; but that there is such fulness of blessing and glory in Christ as utterly to eclipse and condemn all that flesh would glory in. Hence, too, a main part of the difference between these two epistles. There are many nice shades in detail; but I have referred now to that which is the principal point whence the two lines of truth diverge. It is, however, evident from what has been remarked, that the two letters do in the most remarkable manner correspond to each other; the one presenting the Head, the other the body. Thus they have a closer connection than any others in the New Testament.

We may proceed to trace now the course of the Spirit of God in this deeply instructive epistle. The apostle addresses the Colossian Christians in terms substantially similar to those which are addressed to the saints at Ephesus. Here he gives prominence, it is true, to their being "brethren." Of course the Ephesian saints were so; but here it is expressed. It was not so unmingled an address as where he views them simply as they were in Christ. The expression "brethren," though of course flowing from Christ, brings forward their relationship by grace to each other.

Next we enter on the apostle's thanksgiving. It was not so in the Ephesian epistle, where one of the richest developments of divine truth precedes any particular allusion to the saints in that city. Here he at once addresses himself, after the thanksgiving, to their condition and of course to their need First, as usual, he owns what they had of God. "We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven." It is not, as in the Ephesian epistle, the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints, but closely resembles a comparatively lower line of things which comes before us in the first epistle of Peter. It need hardly be said that they were equally true, and each in its place most appropriate, but not all equally elevated. The hope laid up for us in heaven supposes a position on the earth. The epistle to the Ephesians views the saint as already blessed by God in heavenly places in Christ. In the one they are waiting to be taken to heaven in an actual sense; in the other they belong already to heaven by virtue of their union with Christ.

Yet it remains true, that "the hope is laid up for you," as he says, "in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; which is dome unto you, as it is in all the world: and bringeth forth fruit and groweth, as also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth." All momentous and blessed, but nevertheless by no means the same fulness of privilege of which he could discourse at once in writing to the Ephesians. "As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellow-servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ; who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit." This is the only allusion to the Spirit, as far as I remember, in the epistle. It does not present the Spirit of God as a person down here, though He is a person of course, but rather as characterizing the love. The love was not natural affection; it was love in the Spirit: but this is very far from the rich place given to His personal presence and action elsewhere.

On the other hand, the epistle to the Ephesians abounds with such allusions. There is not a chapter in it where the Holy Ghost has not a most important and essential place. If you look at the saints individually, He is the seal and the earnest. He is also the power of all their growth in understanding the things of God. Only through Him are the eyes of the heart enlightened to know what God has wrought and secured for the saints. So again by Him alone do all, Jews and Gentiles, draw near to the Father. In the Spirit are both built together for God's habitation. He it is who has now revealed the mystery that was kept hid through ages and generations. He it is who strengthens the inner man to enjoy through Christ all the fulness of God. He only is the constitutive power of the unity that we are exhorted to keep. He it is who works in the various gifts of Christ, welding them together, so that it may be truly Christ through His body. He it is, the Holy Spirit of God, who we are warned not to grieve. He it is who fills the saints, guarding them from the excitement of the flesh, and guiding into that holy joy which issues in thanksgiving and praise. For the Christian and the church must sing their own psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. He it is finally who gives vigour for all the holy conflicts we have to wage with the adversary. Thus it matters not what part of Ephesians is looked at. We have now traversed the varied contents of the epistle, and it is evident that the Holy Ghost forms an integral part of the divine truth unfolded in it from beginning to end.

This makes it so much the more striking, the epistle to the Colossians being the complement of an epistle so full of the Spirit, that there should be in the former so marked an absence of Him, that He is only referred to once, and only as characterizing the love of the saints. It may be added that what is said of the same truth is in Colossians attributed to Christ, or that life which we have in Christ. To the Ephesians, the Holy Ghost is treated as a divine person acting for the glory of Christ, but this in the saints and in the church. Also the reason seems obvious. When men's eyes are turned away from Christ, the doctrine of the Spirit might add to the danger and delusion, as it has wrought in all ages to puff up men not established in Christ. For inasmuch as the Spirit does act in the church in man, if the eye be not on Christ and only on Him, the action of the Spirit, whether in the individual or the church, gives importance to both. In such a state dwelling on it would detract from Christ's glory; whereas when Christ alone is the object of believers, they can bear to know and to dwell upon, and to enter into, and understand, the various operations of the Spirit, which turns so much the more to the glory of Christ.

Another reason is this, that the presence of the Spirit of God, both in the individual and in the church, is a most essential part of christian privileges, while, for the reasons already alleged, it was not for the well-being of their souls that it should be unfolded here. The whole point therefore of this epistle is a recall to Christ Himself, because of what had crept in through Satan's wiles. The needed and only remedy was to turn the eyes of the saints from other objects, even their own privileges, and to fix them on Christ. Hence, though the Holy Ghost is really on earth, dwelling in the saint and in the church, yet under such circumstances, to occupy the mind even with the blessed Spirit, would clearly have interfered with His own great aim in glorifying Jesus. Therefore, as it seems, does He call away undividedly to Christ. When the soul has been in peace weaned from all else, and found all its joy and boast in Christ, it can then hear more freely. Not that there may not be danger even then; save that as long as the eye is on Christ there is none, because what is inconsistent with His name is refused. The Spirit, having secured His glory, is more at liberty as to every other topic.

In the next place, we have the apostle's prayer: "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; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and growing by the knowledge of God." It is plain that however blessed this is, still it supposes wants, and a measure of weakness, and this for the ordinary walk of the Christian; that they might "walk worthy of the Lord," says he. He could not say in this epistle "worthy of your vocation," as in writing to the Ephesians. He does not even say worthy of Christ, but "of the Lord." That is, he brings in His authority, for there can be no mistake for the Christian more profound than to suppose that the presentation of the Lord as such is the more elevated for the saint. It is most true in its place; but it addresses rather the sense of responsibility than the communion of affections of the children of God. If a man does not own Him to be Lord, he is nothing whatever; but one may bow to Him as Lord, and yet be painfully insensible to the higher glory of His person, and to the depths of His grace. Alas! multitudes have so failed, nor is anything more common at this present moment, even as it was always so.

The Spirit of God, as in the Acts of the Apostles, began with the simplest confession of Christ's name. This is habitually His way. That which brought in thousands on the day of Pentecost and afterwards was the preaching and the faith that Jesus was made Lord. But not a few of those that were baptized from early as in later days turned out untrue to the glory of Christ. We can readily understand that the Spirit did not bring out the fulness of the glory of Christ then, but as it was needed. Nor is it denied that some souls enjoyed a remarkable maturity of intelligence, so that from the beginning they saw, believed, and preached Jesus in a deeper glory than His Lordship. There is no one that rises before our mind's eye more readily and strikingly in this respect than the apostle Paul himself. But the apostle was singular in this; for even those who did know that Christ was the Son of the living God, in the highest and eternal sense, seemed but little to have preached it, at any rate in their earlier testimony. As the withering evils of Satan came in, the value of that which their hearts clung to formed an increasing part of their testimony, until at last the full, undiminished, and even brightening truth of His divine glory was brought out in all its fulness. True, and known to some from the first, the Spirit would brook no hiding of it in order to meet the daring of men and the subtilty of the enemy, who were taking advantage of the lower glory of Christ, so as to deny all that was higher His deity and eternal Sonship.

It appears to me then that, in writing to the Colossians, the terms employed by the Spirit of God afford clear evidence that their souls at Colosse rested on by no means the same firm and lofty ground as that which the epistle to the Ephesians contemplates; and the apostle consequently could not appeal in their case to the same mighty motives which at once rose, by the Holy Ghost's inspiration, in the apostle's heart in writing the kindred epistle. "That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing," urges he, "being fruitful in every good work." For Christianity is not a mere thing of doing this or not doing that; it is a growth, because it is of the Spirit in life and power. If, as men have fabled, spiritual beings sprang forth ready armed, as well as in fulness of wisdom and vigour, it would not be Christianity. Babes, young men, and fathers: such is in grace as in nature the divine way with us. God has been pleased to call the church a body; and so in truth it is. As also, looked at individually, the Christian is a son of God, so there should be a growth up to Christ in all things. There is scarce anything more offensive than a child who looks, talks, and acts the old man. Every right-minded person revolts from it as a lusus naturae, and a piece of affectation or acting. So, in spiritual things, the mere taking up and repeating thoughts, deep and high but unproved experience, cannot be the fruit of the Spirit of God's teaching. Nothing more lovely (whether spiritually, or even in its place naturally) than that each should be just what God has made him, only thenceforth diligently seeking increase of inward power by the operation of God's grace. There is then a healthful progress in the Lord. While there is no doubt that which requires to be cut down or pruned on every side, there is a gradual development of divine life in the saints of God; and this, as being through the Spirit's use of the truth, by no means can be all at once. In no case indeed is it really so.

Thus it is then that for these saints the desire is that they should steadily advance. In material science it is not so, in schools of doctrine it is not so: there is something altogether circumscribed, in known limits, and definite enough to satisfy the mind of man. All that is to be got in certain provinces may be acquired after no long study. The Spirit of God applies the truth of Jesus Christ, which resists all such thoughts as human. The Colossians from their dabbling with tradition and philosophy were in danger on this side. So, says he, "being fruitful in every good work, and growing (not exactly in, but) by the knowledge of God." But still there is growth supposed. How could it be otherwise if by the knowledge of God? He is the only divine source, sphere, and means of real growth for the soul. But there is far more than growth in knowledge, or even by the knowledge of God. There is not only the contemplative side but the active, and this makes the saint truly passive; for if we are strengthened, it is mainly not to do, but to endure in a world which knows not Christ. Thus we are "strengthened with all might, according to the power of his glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness."

How good as well as vast the mind of the Spirit of God! Who could ever have combined with God's glory such a place for man too? No man, I will not say anticipated, but approached in thought such a portion for souls on earth. See how and for what the apostle gives thanks again. Although there were difficulties and hindrances, how much, he feels, there is for which to praise our God and Father: "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet" (and observe well, it is not merely for the certainty that He will, but in the peaceful assurance that He has made us meet) "to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." Human words fail to add to such a thought. His grace has qualified us now for His glory: such, as far as this goes, is the clear meaning of the Holy Ghost. He looks not at some advanced souls at Colosse, but at all the saints there. There were evils to be corrected, dancers to be warned against; but if he thinks of that which the Father has in view for them, and of them in view of His glory, less he could not say, neither could he say more. The Father has made them meet already for the inheritance of the saints in light; and this, too, fully taking into account the awful state of the heathen world, and their past personal wickedness when drawn to God in the name of the Lord Jesus, "who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love: in whom we have redemption [through his blood, is added to the Ephesians] even the forgiveness of sins."

At this point we come to one of the main and distinctive objects of the epistle. Who and what is the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption? Little did the Colossians conceive that their endeavour to add to the truth of the gospel was in reality to detract from His glory. Their desire, we may be sure, was as well meant as any mistake can be. Like others, they may have reasoned that if Christianity had done such great things in the hands of fishermen, tax-gatherers, or the like (who could be of no great account in the world's scale, or in the schools of men), what might it not accomplish if it were but arrayed in the wisdom of philosophy; if it possessed the ornaments of literature and science; if it went forth on its career of victory with that which attracts the feelings and commands the intellect among humanity? The Holy Spirit brings in that which completely judges and sets aside all such speculations. No one, no thing, can add to Christ's power, lustre, or value in any one respect. If you knew Him better, you would feel it yourself. Infinitely vainer is the thought for any man to impart fresh worth to Christ, than for David to have met Goliath in Saul's armour. Indeed, the trappings which men so cry up are a positive hindrance to Christ; and in the precise measure in which they are prized, they reduce their votaries to slavery, and the faith they profess to zero. Judge these same things, and they may become of some account to the glory of God. But treat them as means desirable to attract the world, or as objects to be valued for their own sake by Christians, and as they are intruders, so they will prove to be aliens, and enemies of the glory of Christ.

Christ is the image of God, in fulness and perfection; He only showed out the invisible God. Tradition never manifested the true God. Philosophy, on the contrary, made matters worse, as indeed did the resources of human religion. Christ, and Christ alone, has truly represented God to man, as He alone was perfect man before God. And as He is the image of the invisible God, so is He the first-born of all creation; for the Holy Spirit here brings together a kind of antithesis as to Christ in relation to God, and in relation to the creature. Of God He is the image, not exactly in an exclusive, but assuredly in the only adequate sense. Others may be as the Christian is we know, and man even in a certain and real way as a creature. But, as truly and fully making God known, there is none but Christ. He is the truth; He is the expression of what God is. This is the fountain of all true knowledge, and so Christ is the truth as to everything and every one. In this phrase, however, all that the apostle asserts is in relation to the invisible God. Utterly impossible that man should see Him who is invisible: he needed one to bring God down to him, and display His word and ways, and Christ is that one image of the invisible God.

Besides, Christ is the first-born of all creation. Not, of course, that He was the earliest on the earth like Adam. In point of time the world had grown comparatively old before Jesus appeared. How then could He that came and was seen in the midst of men four thousand years after Adam was made, how could He be in any sense first-born of all creation? We have not to imagine a reason, for the Spirit of God has given His own, and this will be found to set aside all others. Every thought of man is vain in the presence of His wisdom. Jesus is the first-born, no matter when He appeared. Had it been possible, consistently with other plans of God (which it was not), for Him to be the last (in point of fact) born here below, He had been the first-born all the same. Impossible that He could be aught but the first-born. And why? Because He was the greatest, the best, the holiest? For none of these reasons, though He was all this, and more. Still less was it because of anything conferred on Him, whether of power or office. On no such ground, nor on all together, was He the firstborn. The word of God assigns one greater than all, which is the true and only key to the person and work of Christ: "For by him were all things created."

Oh, what majesty, as well as adaptation to need, in the truth of God! It has only to be heard by a heart touched by grace to carry conviction. But alas! there is in fallen man, as such, a will that hates the truth, and despises the grace of God. Does it not prove both by being jealous of the glory of Christ? It remains, however, that He is the first-born of all creation, because he is the Creator of all things, above or below, material or spiritual: "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible." It is not a question of the lower ranks of creation only, but takes in the highest "whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him." Do you say, Yes, but why not God create by the highest as an instrument? There is more said even here to maintain the full glory of Christ. All things were created by Him, no doubt; but they were created for Him also not by Him for the Father. They were created by Him, and for Him, equally with the Father. And as if this were not enough, we are farther told that He is before all things, and by ( ἐν ) Him all things consist. He is the upholder of all creation, so that the very universe of God subsists in virtue of Him. Without Him all sinks at once into dissolution.

Nor is this all. He is the Head of the body one of the chief topics of this epistle. Such is His relationship to the church. And how is He the Head of the body? Not because He is the first-born of all creation simply, nay, nor because He is the creator of all. Neither His headship of all creation as the Heir of all things, nor His creatorial rights, would in themselves give a sufficient title to be the Head of the body. In it is another kind of blessedness and glory; for it a new order of existence appears; and not least of all beings we ought to understand this difference. Who can be so deeply concerned as the Christian? for if we have any part or lot in Christ, if we belong to the church of God, we ought clearly to know the character of our own blessing. Christ it is who determines this, as all else. But the distinctive character is that He is "the beginning, the firstborn from the dead" not merely the firstborn of, but the first-born out of. He is the first-born from among the dead, as well as the Head and firstborn Heir of all subsisting creation. Thus it is that He rises into a new condition, leaving behind that which had fallen under vanity or death through its sinning chief, the first Adam. He has annulled the power of him that had the power of death that word so terrible for the heart of man, and most surely foreign to the mind and heart of our God and Father, but a stern necessity that came in through rebellion.

Where sin brought man, grace brought Christ. And the glory of His person enabled Him in grace and obedience to go down into depths never before fathomed; and out of the whole scene, not of a rejecting guilty world only, but of the realm of death (and such a death!) Jesus emerged. And now He is risen from the dead, the beginning of a new order of existence altogether; and as He is the Head, so the church is His body founded, indeed, on Christ, but on Him dead and risen. As such not born merely, but risen again from the dead He is the beginning. All question, therefore, of what existed before His death and resurrection is at once excluded. He who believes this would understand that it was still an unrevealed secret during Old Testament times. The dealings of God were not only not on the principle of a body on earth, united to a glorified Head, once dead and risen, but incompatible with such a state of things. Thus whoever by faith receives simply the intimation of this verse, as of a crowd of other scriptures, has all this very needless controversy closed for him; he knows and is sure by divine teaching that Jesus was not merely the highest of that creation which had been already, but the beginning of a new thing and its Head. This He was pleased to begin in resurrection from the dead. It was in no wise the old thing, elevated by the glory of Him who had deigned to descend into it, but a new state of things, of which the risen Christ is both the Head and beginning; as it is said, "Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence."

As this gives us the new estate, and position, and relation in which stands the glorious person of the Lord Jesus, so next we have a view of His work suitably to the object of the epistle: "For all the fulness was pleased in him to dwell." I take the liberty of rendering the verse correctly, as is well known to most of my brethren now present. There are few here, it is to be supposed, who are not already aware that to put in "the Father" (as is done in the Authorized Version in italics) is to take away from the Son without warrant and dangerously. It was not the Father, but the Godhead. It pleased the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Him. Yet even this did not reconcile man to God, but the very reverse rather; it proved that man was irreconcilable as far as he was concerned.

If a divine person was pleased to appear here below, and to bring in unimagined goodness and power, dealing with every need and every one with whom He came in contact, and who sought or even accepted His gracious action, it might have been supposed that man could not resist such unhesitating love and unmeasured power. But the actual result demonstrated beyond doubt that never before Was witnessed such hearty, universal, and causeless hatred as against Jesus the Son of God. There was, there could be, no lack of the attractiveness of love and power in Him who went about doing good; yet miserable hearts did not turn to Him, save where the grace of God the Father drew them to the only adequate expression of Himself. None could pretend that He had ever refused a single soul; none could say that they had gone empty away. Their motives were far from good sometimes. They might come for what they could get; but at length they would not have Him or anything He had to give on any terms. They had done with Him, and, as far as will was concerned, they had done with Him for ever. The cross terminated the awful struggle and heartbreaking sight of man thus manifestly led captive of the devil at his will.

And what was to be done? Ah! this was the serious question, and this it was which God was waiting to solve. He meant to reconcile man spite of himself; He would prove His own love to be the conqueror of his hatred. Let man be unmendable, let his enmity be beyond all thought, God, in the calmness of His own wisdom, and in the strength of His unwearied grace, accomplishes His purpose of redeeming love at the very moment when man consummates his wickedness. It was at the cross of Christ And so it was that, when all seemed to fail, all was won. The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Jesus; but man would have none of it, and proved it above all in the cross. Yet the cross was the precise and only place where the foundation that cannot be moved was laid. As he says, "having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether it be things on earth or things in heaven."

First the apostle brings in all things as a whole, the universal creaturehood, earthly and heavenly; thus giving us an adequate notion of the perfect triumph of God at the time when it seemed as if Satan had completely succeeded through man against the counsels of God. But is this all? Is it merely that all the universe has thus, in the cross of the Lord Jesus, a foundation laid for their reconciliation? There is a present witness of the victory of Jesus. The universe goes on as before, the lower creation at least subject to vanity; but God (and it is like Him) hastens to use His victory, though not yet as far as outward things are concerned. This remains for the day of Christ's glory, and will fill a most important part in the purposes of God. But God has even now a far greater purpose at heart. What could be more vast than the reconciliation of all things in heaven and earth? The veriest victims of Satan, the open enemies of Christ, the fiercest powerless let them be, but the fiercest in their will of opposition against God are precisely those that God has already reconciled to Himself; and this where Satan had but just appeared to conquer in leading them to crucify Christ., In that field of blood where His ancient people joined the idolatrous Gentiles, and indeed incited them to plant the cross for their own Messiah there it is that God's grace has established a righteous deliverance for such as He has reconciled.

Satan is allowed apparently to go on as if he had won the final victory; but God brings the truth of what He has done into the heart where Satan had most of all deceived before. "You that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind," says he (for the full truth is brought before them as to their condition), "enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death." While He lived, this work was wholly unaccomplished. The incarnation, blessed and precious as it is, never reconciled man to God. It presented to us the person of Him who was to reconcile; in itself it was thus a most important step towards the reconciliation; but, in fact, there was no reconciliation yet for a solitary soul: the cross of Christ wrought it all. "In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight." What a change!

But he adds: "If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled;" and we must not weaken this. It is not at all, " since ye continue." Scripture must not be sacrificed rudely to our seeming comfort. Besides, when men, thus slur over its true force, and would extract consolation where God intends warning, it is a proof not of firm but of weak faith. For assuredly God is not trusted where there is so much as a desire thus to alter or turn aside a single word, for one's own convenience or any pretext whatsoever. Yet there is nothing more common; it is precisely what men, and sometimes Christians to no small extent, are doing now very generally; and what have they gained by it?

A father's stroke that chastises the erring is a mercy. To receive it as the faithful blow of our best friend in His own word may not seem the readiest way toward comfort; but the comfort that we get in the end from Him who thus smites is both real and stable, and rich in profit to the soul. But the apostle meant not so much to administer consolation to these Colossian saints as to caution them. They needed rather reproof, and they are warned that the course on which they were entering was slippery and perilous. The pursuit of tradition or of philosophy, as a graft on Christianity, continually tends to bring in that which poisons the springs of truth, and grace is always annulled by either. Therefore he might well press, "If ye continue."

All the blessedness that Christ has procured is for those that believe; but this of course supposes that they hold Him fast. Hence it runs: "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." The language does not in the smallest degree insinuate that there is any uncertainty for a believer. We must never allow one truth to be either shut out or enfeebled by another; but then we need also to remember that there are, and have always been, those that, having begun seemingly well, have ended by becoming the enemies of Christ and the church. Even antichrists are not from without in their origin. "They went out from us, because they were not of us." There are no enemies so deadly as those who, having received enough truth to over-balance them and to abuse to their own self-exaltation, turn again, and would rend the church of God, wherein they learnt all that gives them power to be specially mischievous. The apostle could not but dread the slide on which the Colossians found themselves; and the more so as they themselves had no fears, but on the contrary thought highly of that which had attracted their minds. If there was danger, certainly it was love to admonish them; and in this spirit he therefore says, "If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled."

As for the apostle he lays before them another point. He was a minister both of the gospel, and, as is said a little later, of the church two very different spheres, seldom united in the same individual. He was minister of both, and of the latter, it would seem, in a peculiar and weighty sense: not merely as ministering to the church, but as the instrument that God has employed to make known to us its character and calling more than any other. Indeed we may say that Paul presents the gospel as the display of divine righteousness beyond all, while he alone develops in his epistles the mystery of Christ and the church. This may seem a strong statement, and I wonder at none feeling surprised, till they have rigidly examined it with the scriptures; for probably no one could believe it unless he had proved its truth.

But I must repeat that there is not a single apostle who so much as speaks of being justified by faith, except the apostle of the Gentiles. James notoriously presents what many think hard in my judgment quite reconcilable, equally inspired of God, and most important for man, but not the same thing, nor for the same end. It is somewhat startling at first sight to realize such a fact, but if it be a fact as I unqualifiedly assert is it not of great moment to understand it? Neither James nor Peter, neither John nor Jude, treat of justification before God by faith in Jesus. Who has done so? Paul only. I am very far from insinuating that Peter, James, John, Jude, and all the rest, did not preach justification by faith. But it was given to Paul, and to Paul alone, to communicate this great truth in his epistles; and he alone has used the well-known phrase. None of the others has touched on it not one. They have undoubtedly taught that which is consistent with it and even supposes it. They have pressed other truth, which is incompatible with anything else but justification by faith; he asserts it often and openly.

Thus the most perfect harmony reigns between all the apostles; but Paul was emphatically minister of the gospel, and minister of the church. Not only did he preach the one and teach the other (which the others no doubt did too), but he has committed to inspired writings the gospel as none other did; and he has, alone of all, brought out the church in the fullest way. He might well, therefore, say (and what a serious occasion for the Colossians that it was needful to say it as an admonition!) he was minister of both. Yet there were men not wanting then that denied him to be an apostle. The most honoured servants of God invariably stir up the keenest opposition from man. But woe to such iniquitous and ungrateful adversaries! and none the less because they name the name of the Lord. Some of old were not Jews nor Gentiles, but baptized men and women. It was they that yielded to these feelings of hostility. They might detract little or nothing as to his personal qualities; they might even affect to condescend and patronize. But that for which they were opposed to him was the very thing for which, most of all, they should have owned their debt under God. Satan knew well what he sought in alienating many a Christian from this blessed man of God, and in carping at his ministry, and the testimony he was given to bear.

The apostle, however, speaks of his service in these two respects: the gospel, which is universal in its aspect to every creature under heaven; and the church, which is a special and chosen body. As for the gospel, it is not a question whether every creature hears, but such is the sphere; and doubtless if the apostle could have preached to every individual in the world, he would have gladly done it. At any rate this was his mission. There was no class under ban, nor was any individual refused the beams of its heavenly light. In its own nature like the rays from the sky, it was the sun not for one part of the world alone, but for every quarter. So to the church he says, "I 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: whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation [or stewardship] of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God."

Space was left: a revelation was yet lacking. God had given the law; He had embodied His past ways in an inspired history of His people; He had given prophets to proclaim what was future. But for all that a gap was left on which, when filled up, types might more or less bear, wholly different from the history, and not more answering to the prophecy. How was it then to be filled up? Our Lord Himself marked the break in His reading of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth. See the same thing in the famous seventy weeks of Daniel. You come to that space from time to time in the prophets. Paul was the one that God raised up to fill the gap. Not that others did not supplement this or that. As we know, the church is built on the foundation, not of Paul, but of His holy apostles and prophets. Mark and Luke, although they were not apostles, were surely prophets. The foundation of the apostles and prophets took in the New Testament writers in general. The apostle brings in his own special part. It was neither a gospel contributed, nor a sublime series of prophetic visions. His function was to fill up the word of God, "even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: 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."

Hence we learn, it may be seasonable to remark, that the shape given to the mystery here is not that Christ is exalted in heaven, and that the church, by the Holy Ghost sent down thence, is united to Him the Head there. This is the doctrine of the epistle to the Ephesians. Here we see the other side Christ in or among you Gentiles, "the hope of glory." In the epistle to the Colossians, glory is always that which we are waiting for. There is no such thing here as our sitting in heavenly places. It is heavenly glory that is waited for, but only in hope. Christ was now in these Gentiles who believed the hope of a heavenly glory in prospect for them. It is another aspect of the mystery, but as true in its place as what we find in Ephesians; not so high, but in itself precious, and not less differing from the expectation raised by the Old Testament. What we read of there is that, when Christ had come, He forthwith sets up His kingdom, in which the Jews are promised to be His specially favoured subjects. They are not indeed to reign with Him: this was by no man and at no time promised to them. But they are to be the people in whose midst the glory of Jehovah will take up its abode. Here the apostle speaks of another system altogether: Christ come, but the glory not yet apparent, but only coming. Meanwhile, instead of the Jews enjoying glory along with Christ in their midst, rejected by the Jews, Christ is in the Gentiles; and they who receive His name are waiting for heavenly glory with Christ. It is a quite different state of things from what could be gathered from the Old Testament. Not a prophet, not even the smallest shred of any prophecy, reveals such a truth. It was an absolutely new truth, in contrast with the ancient and millennial order, yet altogether different from what is found in the Ephesians; nevertheless they both constitute substantive parts of the mystery.

Thus the mystery includes, first, Christ as Head above, we though here being united by the Holy Ghost to Him glorified. Secondly, Christ, meanwhile, is in or among the Gentiles here below. Were He among the Jews, it would be the introduction of the promised earthly glory. But it is not so. The Jews are enemies, and unbelieving; the Gentiles are specially the object of God's present ways. Having Christ among them, heavenly glory is their hope, even to share with Him that glory. This, then, shows Christ, in a certain sense, in the Gentiles here below; as, in the Ephesians, Christ is seen above and we in Him. There Jew or Gentile is all alike, and those who believe the gospel are by the Spirit united to Him as His body, Here the Gentiles in particular have Him in them, the pledge of their participating in His heavenly glory by and by. And as this was so blessed and novel a truth, the apostle states his own earnestness about it "whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ."

There is no slovenliness here; no careless assumption that, because you are members of Christ's body, all else must be right, and may be left; for he who knew best the faithful love of Christ is none the less urgent individually with "every man." Hence his unflagging expenditure of labour. Hence the spending of heart and thought that "every man" might be thus built up in the truth, and especially the heavenly truth of Christ, which was entrusted to his stewardship and ministry, "warning, every man and teaching every man, that we may present every man full grown in Christ." This is the meaning of "perfect." There is no reference to a question of evil within, but of arriving at maturity in Christ, instead of babes, resting merely in forgiveness. "Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." Thus the striving of the apostle was by no means only in the way of evangelizing. There was much more than this. It influenced him deeply and habitually in all the anxieties of love.

"For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom [or rather which] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The mystery is now revealed, even the relation of Christ and the church; the actual testimony of God's counsels in Christ to those who compose His body. And as a rule, it is always what God is actually doing that is the urgently needed truth. Special wants may spring up and claim attention at particular moments; but since Christ was set on high, this is the truth for the saints, and for a very simple and sufficient reason it is what God the Father designed for the day of salvation. It is of this Christ is the objective centre and Head. In this we have what the Spirit occupies Himself with as sent down from heaven. Satan being invariably the personal and persistent antagonist of Christ, whatever is God's purpose in Christ becomes peculiarly the object of Satan's hatred and hostility.

Hence, as the apostle Paul was one on whom God set particular honour in developing the mystery, and communicating it in inspired words also, so he was more than any other called to suffer the consequences in this present evil world. His labours were not merely indefatigable, but accompanied by the sorest trial and anguish of spirit, as well as continual detraction with public hatred and persecution. Everything which could break the heart of a holy man from day to day he passed through. Yet, carrying out his ministry with continual tears, he looked before men as one whom none of these things moved. Nevertheless, he lets the Colossians know what he went through for their sakes and other saints who were before his heart, even though unknown in the flesh. "And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ." There was much that was blessed at Colosse; and the apostle loves to give full credit for it. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." In fact, this was their fault: they were not content with Christ and Him only. Not appreciating His glory and fulness, they did not see that the secret of true wisdom and blessing, is in going on to know more of Christ than is already possessed. Such is the only sure root of all blessing, and in this above all is real faith and spirituality shown. Is the heart satisfied with Him? Do we feel and know that we can add nothing to Him? Is it all we want to draw from Him?

Then he brings in, accordingly, his first solemn caution. "Beware," says he, "lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Here we have the mingling, I apprehend, of natural man's philosophy, and religions man's tradition. These things at first sight appear far apart, but they are not so in result. They may seem to be far as the poles asunder; but in point of fact, there is nothing that more shows an energetic spirit of evil at work in the world than the way in which he marshals and combines these two armies, that outwardly look enemies to each other. Have you not proved it? Somehow or another, freethinkers and superstitious men coalesce in reality. There is no feature of the present day more remarkable than the success with which Satan is massing as it were, his forces, bringing together at the very same point, where they are wanted, these two parties; that is to say, the heavier arms of human tradition, and the lighter ones of man's philosophy. This is the reason why at each grave juncture you will find that ritualists will as a rule support rationalists, and rationalists will try to extenuate the proceedings of ritualists. They may wear the semblance of being altogether hostile to each other: they are both of them only hostile to the truth. They both are thoroughly and essentially ignorant of Christ; but the Christ that they ignore, for religion or reason, is that blessed Person not so much as He who here lived and laboured, as especially dead and risen. They use freely His name; they in word and bodily exercise do Him no small reverence; but without faith all is vain.

Beloved, the Christ that we know gives no glory to the first man; neither does He put honour on ordinances or human priesthood. How He would have been exalted, if He had consented to shed the halo of His own glory on the race as such! But our Lord is the Christ who condemned the first man, Fallen humanity by Him was detected and judged root and branch. This cannot be forgiven by all who cleave to the first man, on the side either of ordinances or of philosophy. How can man brook that lie, and the world that he has built up since he lost Eden, should be made nothing of? it is impossible to look for it from human nature. He who probed it all cannot be endured. We must and do judge all things as they are. This is truth about them; and He who is the truth told it out. The cross of Christ is the death-knell of the world in all its pretensions before God. His grave is man's grave. Brethren, the Christ that God has made known to us is the Christ that man scorned, cast out and crucified. But He is the Christ that God raised from the dead and seated in heavenly glory. And this is the truth that is so offensive to flesh in every form. Never will it be received, either by the world's religion, or by its philosophy.

How vain and perilous at least for themselves was the effort of the Colossians! They were endeavouring to strike an alliance between Christ and the world. They had really themselves slipped away in heart: no such hope had found favour otherwise. It was not wonderful that he said in Colossians 1:1-29, "If ye continue in the faith rooted and grounded, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel." They had been moving away, not perhaps so rapidly as the Galatians; in faith they had been infirm. And now the apostle would recall them: "Walk in him, rooted and built up in him." Let them beware of philosophy and tradition; "for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." It is not to be found in tradition, still less in philosophy.

Philosophy is an idol of man or nature, a blind substitute for the knowledge of God. It is false and ruinous, whether it leaves Him out or brings Him in whether it denies the true God, or makes everything a sham god. Atheism and Pantheism are the ultimate results of philosophy, and both in reality set. God aside. As to tradition, it invariably puts man as far off from God as it can, and calls this religion. The truth in Christ is not merely that God came down to man in love, but that man, the believer in Christ, is now dead and risen in Him. Is Christ in the glorious presence of God? The Christian is one with Him. Accordingly, he brings in now for this object the twofold truth: "for in him," says he, "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him." How blessed! If He is, the fulness, you are made full in Him, "which is the head of all principality and power." Away, then, with every pretence to add to Him; away with all possible expedients to give lustre to Christ! "He is the head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh [for so it runs] by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen."

Constructively, to my mind, this points to the great sign of His death. It is in baptism rather than in Him. Hence it seems to me not in whom, but rightly "wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God." Thus baptism is not limited to signifying death. Yet it is never the sign either of life or of bloodshedding, but of a state of privilege beyond. When the apostle was told to wash away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord, blood does not seem to have been meant, but water. For this is the sign not so much of what would expiate as cleanse. But the cleansing as well as expiation is by the death of Christ out of whose side flowed both.

Here the doctrine carries one a little farther than eitherRomans 6:1-23; Romans 6:1-23 or 1 Peter 3:1-22. There is death and burial of all we were; but there is here at least resurrection with Christ death and resurrection. In Romans the emphatic point is simply death, because the argument of the apostle in chapter 6 does not admit of going beyond the truth that the baptized believer is alive from the dead not exactly risen, but alive unto God. In Colossians the argument requires that our resurrection with Christ, as well as death and burial, should be distinctly stated. And so it is. "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead."

He applies the truth to the case in hand after this: "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven us all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us." He does not say "against you," because, in truth, the Colossian saints had never been under the law and its ordinances; they had been Gentiles. But whereas he said, "that you, being dead," were now thus raised, so he says, "blotting it out against us;" for all that we, poor Jews, could boast the ordinances were against us instead of being for us, and they are gone now.

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." Thus is seen first of all, in virtue of the dead and risen Christ in whom they believed, that they were quickened and all their trespasses forgiven, two things here strikingly united together. The very life that I have in Christ is a witness that my sins are forgiven. It is not merely the life of a Christ that lived in this world, but the life of Him that was lifted up on the cross, and bore my sins there. But now the work is done, and the atonement is accepted before that new life is given me in Him risen.

One cannot therefore be quickened together with Christ without having one's trespasses, yea, all (for if not all, none) forgiven. The guilt which a broken law charged on the conscience is gone by an act infinitely more glorifying to God than the personal righteousnesses of all the men that ever lived, not to speak of the conscious pardon which is also secured to those who possess it. Had you to do with the law? The mighty work of Christ has entirely delivered from it. The sentence is blotted out; the power of Satan is spoiled openly; Christ risen triumphs over all. There is no new means of grace; there is no development, still less supplement to Christ. The one and same Christ it is who has settled everything.

As to the Jewish rites and feasts that some were endeavouring to re-impose, take for an instance the Sabbath, which is the stronger, because it was from the beginning of the first man, yet unfallen, and of course long before the Jewish people. "Let no man judge you" is the exhortation. They were shadows. Have you not got the substance? Why be found running from the substance after the shadow? "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head." Thus the fact of prying into that which God has not revealed, and man has not seen, such as speculations about angels, is the patent proof that the heart is not really satisfied with its portion. This is not holding the Head. He who keeps fast Christ thus, in conscious union with Him, could never be craving after angels. In Christ the saint is above them, and leaves them to God without anxiety or envy. We know well that God is making a good use of them, and that, in point of fact, if we meddle, it can only be to loss and confusion. "And not holding the head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God."

Next, the doctrine is applied still more definitely. "Wherefore," says he, "if ye be dead with Christ "which is one grand part of his subject "if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living [or alive] in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" Of course it is not at all being dead to what a man had as a natural life in the world. Such is not the Christian life, which is really the life of Him that died and rose again. He died this is the point here and therefore I am dead too. But if I am dead, what have I to do with those things that only affect men as long as they live? Certainly they have no relation to me now risen with Him. A man alive in the world is under these ordinances, and owns them. Such was the position of Israel. They were a people living in the world, and the whole system of Judaism supposed and dealt with a people in the world.

In moral truth, as well as literal fact, the veil, shadowing their state, was not yet lifted up from the unseen world. But the first characteristic result of Christ's work on the cross was the veil that shut up the holiest rent from top to bottom. Thus it begins, not with the incarnation (for sin was not yet judged, nor man brought to God), but with the cross, with redemption. There was no Christianity i.e., no deliverance of man and setting him in the Second Man before Christ became first-born from among the dead. Clearly, therefore, the whole character of the new system depends, first, on the Deity of the incarnate Saviour, and, secondly, on the glorious truths of His atoning death and of His resurrection. Thus we should hold Him fast, not only in other respects, but in this special relation of "Head."

So he says, "If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" Then he gives a specimen of these: "Touch not; taste not; handle not." But this is not the character of Christianity, but of Judaism. It pertains to a life in this world to say, "Touch not; taste not; handle not." It is all well for a Jew, because he has got his abstinences and his restrictions. But this is not at all the divine way of dealing with the Christian. We are not Jews; we have our place in Christ dead and risen, or are nothing. Such prohibitory commands had their day; but the time of reformation is come. It is a question now of truth and holiness in the Spirit of Christ, in short. These restrictions dealt with meats and drinks, and such like things, which perish in the using. The Christian never stood on any such fleshly ground. He is dead with Christ; consequently he has passed out of the sphere to which such dealings apply. "Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh." Proud, fallen nature is satisfied even by these efforts to put down the body; whereas God would have the body to have a certain honour in its own place, and that of the Christian is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Thus in every way the ritualistic system is false, and a traitor to Him who died on the cross.

But there is far more than that: "If ye then be risen with Christ." Here we enter not merely what clears one out from the rudiments of the world, but what introduces us into the new thing. We need the positive as well as the negative; and as we have just had the latter, so the former now comes before us. Instead of letting the reins free now to run in the race of improving the world and bettering society, or any of the objects that occupy men as such, the saints of God should abstain altogether. Many who really love the Lord are in this quite misguided as to the duty of the Christian here below. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." And as if that were not precise enough, it is added, "Set your affection on things above." It is rather "your mind;" for here, however important the state of the heart, it is a question simply of the whole bent and judgment. "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." It is not merely bringing the heavenly into them, so to speak; and decidedly not of joining the two things together. The Colossians, like others, would have liked this well enough; it is just what they were about, and the very thing that the apostle is here correcting. The apostle will not sanction such an amalgam, but refuses it; and we must remember that in these exhortations it was the Lord acting by the Spirit in His servant. "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead."

Note well again that it is not here man striving to become dead, which is a notion unknown to the revelation of God, new or old. In fact there was not even the thought of striving to be dead before the death of Christ came; and when He died, the Spirit in due time revealed not alone that He died for us, but that we died in Him. Thus no room was left for striving to die. The Christian owns his death in his very baptism; and what is wanted is not effort to attain, but the Spirit's power in acting on the truth by faith. This it is that always settles the difficulties in the great conflict that rages now as ever, and more than ever, between human religion and the truth of God. Since men have a certain knowledge of Christ's death, they are striving to die. It is the law in a new and impossible shape. That is the meaning of all that seems good in the world's piety. It is an effort to become dead to what is wrong; to cultivate what is felt to be glorifying to God; to avoid what is contrary to His will, and injurious to the soul. But does this so much as resemble the provision of grace for the Christian? Is this the truth? Must we not first and foremost be subject to the truth? If I have Christ as a Saviour at all, instead of struggling to die in the sense meant, I am called to believe that I am already dead.

It is remarkable that the two well-known and standing institutions I will not call them ordinances of Christianity, baptism and the Lord's supper, are the plain and certain expression of death in grace. When a person is baptized, this is the meaning of the act; nor has it any true force, but is an illusion, otherwise. For the baptized soul confesses that the grace of God gives death to sin in Him who died and rose again. The Jew looked only for a mighty King Messiah; the Christian is baptized into the death of Him who suffered on the cross, and finds not alone his sins forgiven, but sin, the flesh, condemned, and himself now viewed of God as dead to all; for nothing less is set forth in baptism. Thus it is from the first the expression of a most needed truth, which remains the comfort of grace throughout the whole Christian career, and is therefore never repeated. Again, on each Lord's day, when we are gathered together to Christ's name, what is before us according to God's word and will? A substantially similar blessing is stamped on the table of the Lord. When the Christians unite in breaking bread, they show forth the death of Christ till He come. It is not a mere duty that has to be done; but the heart is in presence of the objective fact that He died for us, His body. As believing in Him, this is our place. Such is the basis of the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free. It is a liberty founded on death, displayed in resurrection, known in the Spirit. Having this in the soul, one is entitled to have it in the body also at His coming. Besides, we are one bread, one body.

Hence we find the glorious future display referred to here: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear;" for we have both "ye are dead," and "your life is hid with Christ in God." We may be content to be hidden while He is hidden; but He is not always to be out of sight. The Christian will have all the desires of the new man gratified. Now he may have the blessed enjoyment of communion with Christ, but it is a Christ crucified on earth. His glory is in heaven. A man seeks to shine in the world now; it is a heedless if not heartless forgetfulness, that here He knew nothing but rejection.

Am I then false or true to the constant sign of my Master's death? Am I to court the honour of those who refused Christ, and gave Him a cross? Am I to forget His glory in the presence of God? Ought I not, in my measure of faith, to be the expression of both? Ought I not to share my Master's shame and dishonour here? Ought I not to wait to enter the same glory with the Christ of God? So it is said here, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." Accordingly the path of Christian duty is grounded on these wondrous truths. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." What a humbling consideration that those so blessed (dead, as we have said, and risen with Christ) are here told to mortify what is most shameful and shameless! But so it is. It is really what man is; and such is the nature which alone we had as children of Adam. These are alas! in the singularly energetic language of the Spirit of God here called the members of the man. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things' sake, the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked sometime."

It is no use denying the plain truth "when ye lived in them;" it is blessed to know that we are dead now. Let us hearken, "But now, ye also put off all these." Here we come not merely to that which is displayed in the forms of the corruption that goes on through things or persons outside us, as it were, but by inner feelings of violence: "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." Falsehood, too, is judged as it never was before, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Not Adam, but Christ is the standard Christ who is God as well as man; "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." How blessed! "Christ is all, and in all."

Thus the believer can look round full of joy upon his brethren; he can count up souls from every tribe, tongue, and station. Who has been overlooked in the comprehensive and active grace of our God? And what is he then entitled to see? Christ in them. And what a deliverance from self to see Christ in them! Yes, but Christ is "all" as truly as He is "in all." Oh, to forget all that which produces jealousy, pride, vanity, each and every feeling contrary to God and unedifying to man; to be comforted and to comfort others with such a truth Christ is all, and Christ is in all! Such is God's word, and are we, or are we not, entitled to say so now? Sorrowful circumstances may, alas! require us to pronounce on evil ways in order to look into this evil doctrine or that; but the apostle speaks now of the saints in their ordinary and normal manner. Does not this still abide true? Am I entitled, as I look upon Christians henceforth, to see nothing but Christ in any and Christ in every one? Yes, Christ is in all, and Christ is all. "Put on, therefore" (says he, in the enjoyment of such grace. Now comes the positive character to be borne) "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved." How like the description is to Christ Himself! He was God's chosen One in the highest sense; He was the holy and beloved. Who ever appealed in distress, and did not find in Him bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering? Then follows that which could be said of us alone. "If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." Forgiving one another is fortified by His example who did no sin, neither was evil found in His mouth. Christ on earth was a blessed pattern of forgiveness and forbearance. "Even as Christ forgave you." He now brings Him in openly, and to ourselves.

But there is a crowning quality: "And above all these things put on charity," because this is, as nothing else can be, the fullest sign of that which God is Himself, the energy of His nature. His light may detect, but His love is the spring of all His ways. No matter what may be the demand, love is after all most essential and influential too. It lies at the bottom when we think of the wants of the saints of God here below. There is a figure especially characteristic of the divine nature morally considered I need not say light, as we are told more fully in the epistle to the Ephesians. Yet above all the saints are to put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness; "and let the peace of Christ rule," for so it reads, not the peace of God, but the peace of Christ. Everything in our epistle is traced up to Christ as the head of all possible blessing.

So "let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts;" that is, the very peace which Christ Himself lived and moved in. Let His peace rule. He knows everything and feels everything. I may be perfectly certain, whatever may be my sorrow or travail of spirit about anything, Christ feels far more deeply (yea, infinitely deeper than any other) those that may excite any of us. Yet He has absolute peace, never broken or ruffled for an instant. And in us, poor feeble souls, why should not this peace rule in our hearts, to the which also we are called in one body? "And be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ" (it was God's word, but still called the word of Christ here) "dwell in you richly in all wisdom." There might be a word of God which was not in the same way the word of Christ. There are many portions of the scriptures that do not by any means suit or suppose the estate and path of the Christian. "And let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another." It is not Christ Himself, as inEphesians 3:1-21; Ephesians 3:1-21, the wondrous issue even now in us by the power of the Spirit; but, at least, in His word is found (what the Colossians needed) an active and most pure spring of instruction and counsel, and mutuality of help by it. Such is the fruit of His word thus dwelling in us. Nor is this all. "In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." It matters little how well taught the saint may be, nor how he may know the moral beauty and the unfailing wisdom of the word, if positive fruit be not increased: if the spirit and power of worship abound not, there is something altogether short, or wrong. "And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." Thus, even if there be not actually formal praise, the Lord looks for thankfulness of heart, as counting on love in everything.

After this follow particular exhortations, on which we need not at present dwell. We have wives and husbands, children and fathers, servants and masters, brought together successively up to the first verse of Colossians 4:1-18, which should, of course, closeColossians 3:1-25; Colossians 3:1-25 rather than begin a new one.

Then come general injunctions. "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." Neither completeness in Christ, nor joyful sense of heavenly relationship, nor heed to our own relations in this life, should weaken for an instant, but rather minister to an increased sense of the need and value of depending on God. Nor is continuance in prayer all; but vigilant watch in the same, which does not let slip the just occasion for supplication; and as all things were to be done with thanksgiving, so prayer also, which would assuredly not forget the need of those in the forefront of the spiritual warfare and toil of love. "Watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak." Nor is there to be unwatchfulness, but consideration in love of those without. "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." The fit time and suited speech, always in grace, not without faithfulness Godward, how good and needful they are!

Further, we see how Christian love delights to communicate and to hear. It was his confidence in their love; and this is shown not merely in his desire to hear about them, but in the conviction that they would like to hear about him. Can anything be sweeter than this genuine simplicity of affection and mutual interest? In a man it would be vain and curious: it is blessed in a Christian. No right-minded man, as such, could take for granted that others would care to know about his affairs any more than be theirs, unless indeed in case of a relation, or a friend, or a public and extraordinary personage. But here writes the lowly-minded apostle, in the full assurance that, though he had never seen them, or they him, it would be real and mutual gratification to know about one another from him who went between them. What a spring of power is the love of Christ Truly charity is "the bond of perfectness." "And my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your state, and comfort your hearts; with Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here."

Then come allusions to his various fellow-prisoners and fellow-servants, particularly noting Epaphras, who laboured fervently in prayer for them. This, I am sure, should not be weakened, brethren. We know that there is danger on all sides. We may have proved how sadly everything of the sort has been perverted; but there is a sense, and a most weighty one too, in which we cannot too much strengthen the links of love between the saints of God, and that too where there is a real holy ministry for their good. And this the apostle was doing, and particularly for one that came from them. We might well suppose that there was some hindrance to the full flow of affection an their part. But the apostle took every pains to, show how great was the love of Epaphras for them; for his faithful spirit knew some little of that which the apostle knew well, that the more abundantly he loved, the less he was loved. "For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea." His was by no means a love inactive or limited. There was no such notion as only caring for the saints in his own particular place. Paul narrowed himself to no local ties, nor should we allow such a thing for an instant. All the saints belong to us, as we belong to all of them. And so he mentions particularly others, even if some little felt this link. "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you. Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, Nymphas, and the church which is in his house. And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans." It is evident, therefore, that these apostolic epistles were meant to circulate among the saints. And perhaps this may be the key to what we are next told: "And ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea." The epistle to Laodicea is not said: so we have no sufficient reason to trouble ourselves about there being a lost portion of the inspired writings. There is no proof of the sort. I am aware that men have reasoned much about it; but this is a proof that evidence fails. Why should we heed conjecture? Had they prayed more, the result might have been to better purpose. Possibly apostles may have written epistles that were not intended for the permanent instruction of the church; but that what was so intended is lost we may resolutely deny from all we know of our God. Whatever insinuates it denies that He has adequately provided for His church here below: this He has surely done in every form in His word. There is no imperfectness in that word, neither does any ground exist to suppose that any part of it has vanished away. No doubt we may detect the flaws of man's negligence, not knowing how to treat with becoming care the precious deposit of truth; but there is nothing more. That is to say, there may be a difference of reading here and there which impairs the full beauty and accuracy of the blessed word of God; but, as to the substance, the most timid may be assured that you have it in the worst editions of Christendom. Do not be uneasy at the talk of critics: it is natural for dealers to cry up their wares. They live in minute points and uncertainty.

As this epistle then is not said to have been addressed to Laodicea, we may gather that it was either from that church, or, if apostolic, going its round from one assembly to another. If the latter, it had got to Laodicea, whence the Colossians were to procure it in their turn.

Archippus was to take heed to the ministry he had received in the Lord. No doubt the hint is wanted by some of us still. May He make and keep us faithful!