Text -- Colossians 1:9-14 (NET)

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

1:9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 1:10 so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects– bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, 1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully 1:12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. 1:13 He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, 1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Col 1:9

That ye may be filled with ( hina plērōthēte ).

First aorist (effective) passive subjunctive of plēroō , to fill full.

Robertson: Col 1:9

The knowledge of his will ( tēn epignōsin tou thelēmatos autou ).

The accusative case is retained with this passive verb. Epignōsis is a Koiné[28928]š word (Polybius, Plutarch, etc.) for additional (epi ) or full knowledge. The word is the keynote of Paul’ s reply to the conceit of Gnosticism. The cure for these intellectual upstarts is not ignorance, not obscurantism, but more knowledge of the will of God.

Robertson: Col 1:9

In all spiritual wisdom and understanding ( en pasēi sophiāi kai sunesei pneumatikēi ).

Both pasei (all) and pneumatikēi (spiritual) are to be taken with both sophiāi and sunesei . In Eph 1:8 Paul uses phronēsei (from phrēn , intellect) rather than sunesei (grasp, from suniēmi , to send together). Sunesis is the faculty of deciding in particular cases while sophia gives the general principles (Abbott). Paul faces Gnosticism with full front and wishes the freest use of all one’ s intellectual powers in interpreting Christianity. The preacher ought to be the greatest man in the world for he has to deal with the greatest problems of life and death.

Robertson: Col 1:10

To walk worthily of the Lord ( peripatēsai axiōs tou Kuriou ).

This aorist active infinitive may express purpose or result. Certainly this result is the aim of the right knowledge of God. "The end of all knowledge is conduct"(Lightfoot). See note on 1Th 2:12; Phi 1:27; Eph 4:1 for a like use of axiōs (adverb) with the genitive.

Robertson: Col 1:10

In the knowledge of God ( tēi epignōsei tou theou ).

Instrumental case, "by means of the full knowledge of God."This is the way for fruit-bearing and growth to come. Note both participles (karpophorountes kai auxanomenoi ) together as in Col 1:6.

Robertson: Col 1:10

Unto all pleasing ( eis pāsan areskian ).

In order to please God in all things (1Th 4:1). Areskia is late word from areskeuō , to be complaisant (Polybius, Plutarch) and usually in bad sense (obsequiousness). Only here in N.T., but in good sense. It occurs in the good sense in the papyri and inscriptions.

Robertson: Col 1:11

Strengthened ( dunamoumenoi ).

Present passive participle of late verb dunamoō (from dunamis ), to empower, "empowered with all power."In lxx and papyri and modern Greek. In N.T. only here and Heb 11:34 and MSS. in Eph 6:10 (W H in margin).

Robertson: Col 1:11

According to the might of his glory ( kata to kratos tēs doxēs autou ).

Kratos is old word for perfect strength (cf. krateō , kratilos ). In N.T. it is applied only to God. Here his might is accompanied by glory ( Shekinah ).

Robertson: Col 1:11

Unto all patience and longsuffering ( eis pāsan hupomonēn kai makrothumian ).

See both together also in Jam 5:10.; 2Co 6:4, 2Co 6:6; 2Ti 3:10. Hupomonē is remaining under (hupomenō ) difficulties without succumbing, while makrothumia is the long endurance that does not retaliate (Trench).

Robertson: Col 1:12

Who made us meet ( tōi hikanōsanti hēmās ).

Or "you"(humās ). Dative case of the articular participle of hikanoō , late verb from hikanos and in N.T. only here and 2Co 3:6 (which see), "who made us fit or adequate for."

Robertson: Col 1:12

To be partakers ( eis merida ).

"For a share in."Old word for share or portion (from meros ) as in Act 8:21; Act 16:12; 2Co 6:15 (the only other N.T. examples).

Robertson: Col 1:12

Of the inheritance ( tou klērou ).

"Of the lot,""for a share of the lot."Old word. First a pebble or piece of wood used in casting lots (Act 1:26), then the allotted portion or inheritance as here (Act 8:21). Cf. Heb 3:7-4:11.

Robertson: Col 1:12

In light ( en tōi phōti ).

Taken with merida (portion) "situated in the kingdom of light"(Lightfoot).

Robertson: Col 1:13

Delivered ( erusato ).

First aorist middle indicative of ruomai , old verb, to rescue. This appositional relative clause further describes God the Father’ s redemptive work and marks the transition to the wonderful picture of the person and work of Christ in nature and grace in Col 1:14-20, a full and final answer to the Gnostic depreciation of Jesus Christ by speculative philosophy and to all modern efforts after a "reduced"picture of Christ. God rescued us out from (ek ) the power (exousias ) of the kingdom of darkness (skotous ) in which we were held as slaves.

Robertson: Col 1:13

Translated ( metestēsen ).

First aorist active indicative of methistēmi and transitive (not intransitive like second aorist metestē ). Old word. See note on 1Co 13:2. Changed us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

Robertson: Col 1:13

Of the Son of his love ( tou huiou tēs agapēs autou ).

Probably objective genitive (agapēs ), the Son who is the object of the Father’ s love like agapētos (beloved) in Mat 3:17. Others would take it as describing love as the origin of the Son which is true, but hardly pertinent here. But Paul here rules out the whole system of aeons and angels that the Gnostics placed above Christ. It is Christ’ s Kingdom in which he is King. He has moral and spiritual sovereignty.

Robertson: Col 1:14

In whom ( en hōi ).

In Christ as in Eph 1:7. This great sentence about Christ carries on by means of three relatives (en hōi Col 1:14, hos Col 1:15, hos Col 1:18) and repeated personal pronoun (autos ), twice with hoti (Col 1:15, Col 1:19), thrice with kai (Col 1:17, Col 1:18, Col 1:20), twice alone (Col 1:16, Col 1:20).

Robertson: Col 1:14

Our redemption ( tēn apolutrōsin ).

See note on Rom 3:24 for this great word ( Koiné[28928]š ), a release on payment of a ransom for slave or debtor (Heb 9:15) as the inscriptions show (Deissmann, Light, etc. , p. 327).

Robertson: Col 1:14

The forgiveness of our sins ( tēn aphesin tōn hamartiōn ).

Accusative case in apposition with apolutrōsin as in Eph 1:7 ( remission , sending away, aphesis , after the redemption apolutrōsis , buying back). Only here we have hamartiōn (sins, from hamartanō , to miss) while in Eph 1:7 we find paraptōmatōn (slips, fallings aside, from parapiptō ).

Vincent: Col 1:9

We also

Marking the reciprocal feeling of Paul and Timothy with that of the Colossians.

Vincent: Col 1:9

Pray - desire ( προσευχόμενοι - αἰτούμενοι )

The words occur together in Mar 11:24. The former is general, the latter special. Rev. make request is better than desire . The A.V. renders indiscriminately ask and desire . Rev. alters desire to ask . Desire in the sense of ask occurs in Shakespeare and Spenser.

Vincent: Col 1:9

Knowledge ( ἐπίγνωσιν )

See on Rom 3:20; see on Phm 1:6. Full knowledge. See Rom 1:21, Rom 1:28; 1Co 13:12, where Paul contrasts γινώσκειν to know γνῶσις knowledge , with ἐπιγινώσκειν to know fully , ἐπίγνωσις full knowledge . Here appropriate to the knowledge of God in Christ as the perfection of knowledge.

Vincent: Col 1:9

Wisdom and spiritual understanding ( σοφίᾳ καὶ συνέσει πνευματικῇ )

Rev., better, applies spiritual to both - spiritual wisdom and understanding . The kindred adjectives σοφός wise and συνετός prudent , occur together, Mat 11:25; Luk 10:21. For σοφία wisdom , see on Rom 11:33, and on wise , Jam 3:13. For σύνεσις understanding , see on Mar 12:33, and see on prudent , Mat 11:25. The distinction is between general and special. Understanding is the critical apprehension of particulars growing out of wisdom , which apprehension is practically applied by φρόνησις prudence , see on Luk 1:17; see on Eph 1:8. Spiritual is emphatic, as contrasted with the vain philosophy of false teachers.

Vincent: Col 1:10

Walk worthy ( περιπατῆσαι ἀξίως )

The phrase occurs Eph 4:1; 1Th 2:12. Rev. gives the correct adverbial rendering worthily .

Vincent: Col 1:10

Unto all pleasing ( εἰς πᾶσαν ἀρέσκειαν )

So as to please God in all ways. Compare 1Th 4:1, Ἁρέσκεια pleasing , only here in the New Testament. In classical Greek it has a bad sense, obsequiousness , cringing . Compare men-pleasers , Col 3:22.

Vincent: Col 1:10

In the knowledge ( εἰς τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν )

Lit. unto the knowledge. The best texts read τῇ ἐπιγνώσει " by the knowledge:" by means of.

Vincent: Col 1:11

Strengthened ( δυναμούμενοι )

Only here in the New Testament, but found in Septuagint. The compound (ἐνδυναμόω to make strong ) is frequent in Paul, Rom 4:20; Eph 6:10; Phi 4:13; 1Ti 1:12.

Vincent: Col 1:11

Power - might ( δυνάμει - κράτος )

See on 2Pe 2:11; see on Joh 1:12.

Vincent: Col 1:11

Glory

See on Rom 3:23.

Vincent: Col 1:11

Patience - long-suffering ( ὑπομονὴν - μακροθυμίαν )

See on 2Pe 1:6; see on Jam 5:7.

Vincent: Col 1:11

With joyfulness

Compare Col 1:24; Jam 1:2, Jam 1:3; 1Pe 4:13. Some connect with giving thanks , Col 1:12, and this is favored by the construction of the previous clauses: in every good work bearing fruit: with all power strengthened: with joy giving thanks. But Paul is not always careful to maintain the symmetry of his periods. The idea of joy is contained in thanksgiving , which would make the emphatic position of with joy inexplicable; besides which we lose thus the idea of joyful endurance (Col 1:24) and of joyful suffering expressing itself in thanksgiving . Compare Rom 5:3.

Vincent: Col 1:12

Made us meet ( ἱκανώσαντι )

See on 2Co 3:6.

Vincent: Col 1:12

To be partakers of the inheritance ( εἰς τὴν μερίδα τοῦ κλήρου ).

Lit., for the portion of the lot ; that is, the portion which is the lot . Compare Act 8:21, where the two words are coordinated.

Vincent: Col 1:12

In light ( ἐν τῷ φωτί )

Connect with inheritance : the inheritance which is in light. This need not be limited to future glory. The children of God walk in light on earth. See Joh 3:21; Joh 11:9; Joh 12:36; Eph 5:8; 1Th 5:5; 1Jo 1:7; 1Jo 2:10.

Vincent: Col 1:13

Power ( ἐξουσίας )

See on Mar 2:10.

Vincent: Col 1:13

Translated ( μετέστησεν )

The word occurs five times in the New Testament: of putting out of the stewardship, Luk 16:4; of the removal of Saul from the kingdom, Act 13:22; of Paul turning away much people, Act 19:26; and of removing mountains, 1Co 13:2. A change of kingdoms is indicated.

Vincent: Col 1:13

Kingdom

Hence God's kingdom is in the present, no less than in heaven. See on Luk 6:20.

Vincent: Col 1:13

Of His dear Son ( τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ )

Lit., of the Son of His love . So Rev. The Son who is the object of His love, and to whom, therefore, the kingdom is given. See Psa 2:7, Psa 2:8; Heb 1:3-9. It is true that love is the essence of the Son as of the Father; also, that the Son's mission is the revelation of the Father's love; but, as Meyer correctly says, " the language refers to the exalted Christ who rules ."

Vincent: Col 1:14

Redemption ( ἀπολύτρωσιν )

See on Rom 3:24. Continuing the image of an enslaved and ransomed people. Omit through His blood .

Vincent: Col 1:14

Forgiveness ( ἄφεσιν )

See on remission , Rom 3:25; see on forgiven , Jam 5:15. Forgiveness defines redemption . Lightfoot's suggestion is very interesting that this precise definition may convey an allusion to the perversion of the term ἀπολύτρωσις by the Gnostics of a later age, and which was possibly foreshadowed in the teaching of the Colossian heretics. The Gnostics used it to signify the result of initiation into certain mysteries. Lightfoot quotes from Irenaeus the baptismal formula of the Marcosians " into unity and redemption (ἀπολύτρωσιν ) and communion of powers." The idea of a redemption of the world, and (in a perverted form) of the person and work of Christ as having part in it, distinctively marked the Gnostic schools. That from which the world was redeemed, however; was not sin, in the proper sense of the term, but something inherent in the constitution of the world itself, and therefore due to its Creator.

In the following passage the person of Christ is defined as related to God and to creation; and absolute supremacy is claimed for Him. See Introduction to this volume, and compare Eph 1:20-23, and Phi 2:6-11.

Wesley: Col 1:9

This was mentioned in general, Col 1:3, but now more particularly.

Wesley: Col 1:9

Of his revealed will.

Wesley: Col 1:9

With all the wisdom from above.

Wesley: Col 1:9

To discern by that light whatever agrees with, or differs from, his will.

Wesley: Col 1:10

So as actually to please him in all things; daily increasing in the living, experimental knowledge of God, our Father, Saviour, Sanctifier.

Wesley: Col 1:11

This is the highest point: not only to know, to do, to suffer, the whole will of God; but to suffer it to the end, not barely with patience, but with thankful joy.

Wesley: Col 1:12

Who, by justifying and sanctifying us, hath made us meet for glory.

Wesley: Col 1:13

Power detains reluctant captives, a kingdom cherishes willing subjects.

Wesley: Col 1:13

This is treated of in Col 1:15 and following verses.

Wesley: Col 1:14

This is treated of from the middle of Col 1:18. The voluntary passion of our Lord appeased the Father's wrath, obtained pardon and acceptance for us, and, consequently, dissolved the dominion and power which Satan had over us through our sins. So that forgiveness is the beginning of redemption, as the resurrection is the completion of it.

JFB: Col 1:9

On our part.

JFB: Col 1:9

(Col 1:4).

JFB: Col 1:9

Here he states what in particular he prays for; as in Col 1:3 he stated generally the fact of his praying for them.

JFB: Col 1:9

"to make request."

JFB: Col 1:9

Rather, "may be filled"; a verb, often found in this Epistle (Col 4:12, Col 4:17).

JFB: Col 1:9

Greek, "full and accurate knowledge." Akin to the Greek for "knew" (see on Col 1:6).

JFB: Col 1:9

As to how ye ought to walk (Eph 5:17); as well as chiefly that "mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself; that in the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ" (Eph 1:9-10); God's "will," whereby He eternally purposed to reconcile to Himself, and save men by Christ, not by angels, as the false teachers in some degree taught (Col 2:18) [ESTIUS]. There seems to have been a want of knowledge among the Colossians; notwithstanding their general excellencies; hence he so often dwells on this subject (Col 1:28; Col 2:2-3; Col 3:10, Col 3:13; Col 4:5-6). On the contrary he less extols wisdom to the Corinthians, who were puffed up with the conceit of knowledge.

JFB: Col 1:9

Often mentioned in this Epistle, as opposed to the (false) "philosophy" and "show of wisdom" (Col 2:8, Col 2:23; compare Eph 1:8).

JFB: Col 1:9

Sagacity to discern what on each occasion is suited to the place and the time; its seat is "the understanding" or intellect; wisdom is more general and has its seat in the whole compass of the faculties of the soul [BENGEL]. "Wouldst thou know that the matters in the word of Christ are real things? Then never read them for mere knowledge sake" [Quoted by GAUSSEN.] Knowledge is desirable only when seasoned by "spiritual understanding."

JFB: Col 1:10

Greek, "So as to walk"; so that ye may walk. True knowledge of God's will is inseparable from walking conformably to it.

JFB: Col 1:10

(Eph 4:1).

JFB: Col 1:10

So as in every way to be well-pleasing to God.

JFB: Col 1:10

Literally, "desire of pleasing."

JFB: Col 1:10

Greek, "bearing fruit." This is the first manifestation of their "walking worthy of the Lord." The second is, "increasing (growing) in the knowledge of God (or as the oldest manuscripts read, 'growing BY the full knowledge of God')"; thus, as the Gospel word (Col 1:6) was said to "bring forth fruit," and to "grow" in all the world, even as it did in the Colossians, ever since the day they knew the grace of God, so here it is Paul's prayer that they might continue to "bring forth fruit," and "grow" more and more by the full knowledge of God, the more that "knowledge" (Col 1:9) was imparted to them. The full knowledge of God is the real instrument of enlargement in soul and life of the believer [ALFORD]. The third manifestation of their walk is (Col 1:11), "Being strengthened with all might," &c. The fourth is (Col 1:12), "Giving thanks unto the Father," &c.

JFB: Col 1:11

Greek, "Being made mighty with (literally, 'in') all might."

JFB: Col 1:11

Rather, "according to the power (the characteristic of 'His glory,' here appropriate to Paul's argument, Eph 1:19; Eph 6:10; as its exuberant 'riches,' in Eph 3:16) of His glory." His power is inseparable from His glory (Rom 6:4).

JFB: Col 1:11

So as to attain to all patient endurance; persevering, enduring continuance in the faith, in spite of trials of persecutors, and seductions of false teachers.

JFB: Col 1:11

Towards those whom one could repel. "Patience," or "endurance," is exercised in respect to those whom one cannot repel [CHRYSOSTOM].

JFB: Col 1:11

Joyful endurance (Act 16:25; Rom 5:3, Rom 5:11).

JFB: Col 1:12

You "giving thanks unto the Father." See on Col 1:10; this clause is connected with "that ye may be filled" (Col 1:9), and "that ye may walk" (Col 1:10). The connection is not, "We do not cease to pray for you (Col 1:9) giving thanks."

JFB: Col 1:12

Of Jesus Christ, and so our Father by adoption (Gal 3:26; Gal 4:4-6).

JFB: Col 1:12

Greek, "who made us meet." Not "is making us meet" by progressive growth in holiness; but once for all made us meet. It is not primarily the Spirit's work that is meant here, as the text is often used; but the Father's work in putting us by adoption, once for all, in a new standing, namely, that of children. The believers meant here were in different stages of progressive sanctification; but in respect to the meetness specified here, they all alike had it from the Father, in Christ His Son, being "complete in Him" (Col 2:10). Compare Joh 17:17; Jud 1:1, "sanctified by God the Father"; 1Co 1:30. Still, secondarily, this once-for-all meetness contains in it the germ of sanctification, afterwards developed progressively in the life by the Father's Spirit in the believer. The Christian life of heavenliness is the first stage of heaven itself. There must, and will be, a personal meetness for heaven, where there is a judicial meetness.

JFB: Col 1:12

Greek, "for the (or 'our') portion of the inheritance (Act 20:32; Act 26:18; Eph 1:11) of the saints in light." "Light" begins in the believer here, descending from "the Father of lights" by Jesus, "the true light," and is perfected in the kingdom of light, which includes knowledge, purity, love, and joy. It is contrasted here with the "darkness" of the unconverted state (Col 1:13; compare 1Pe 2:9).

JFB: Col 1:13

Greek, "out of the power," out of the sphere in which his power is exercised.

JFB: Col 1:13

Blindness, hatred, misery [BENGEL].

JFB: Col 1:13

Those thus translated as to state, are also transformed as to character. Satan has an organized dominion with various orders of powers of evil (Eph 2:2; Eph 6:12). But the term "kingdom" is rarely applied to his usurped rule (Mat 12:26); it is generally restricted to the kingdom of God.

JFB: Col 1:13

Rather as Greek, "the Son of His love": the Son on whom His love rests (Joh 17:26; Eph 1:6): contrasted with the "darkness" where all is hatred and hateful.

JFB: Col 1:14

(Eph 1:7.)

JFB: Col 1:14

Rather as Greek, "our redemption."

JFB: Col 1:14

Omitted in the oldest manuscripts; probably inserted from Eph 1:7.

JFB: Col 1:14

Translate as Greek, "our sins." The more general term: for which Eph 1:7, Greek, has, "our transgressions," the more special term.

Clarke: Col 1:9

For this cause - See on Eph 1:15-16 (note), where the same sentiment occurs

Clarke: Col 1:9

That ye might be filled - Nothing could satisfy the apostle, either for himself or his hearers, but the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace. The Colossians had knowledge, but they must have more; it is their privilege to be filled with it. As the bright shining of the sun in the firmament of heaven fills the whole world with light and heat, so the light of the Sun of righteousness is to illuminate their whole souls, and fill them with Divine splendor, so that they might know the will of God, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; in a word, that they might have such a knowledge of Divine things as the Spirit of truth can teach to the soul of man.

Clarke: Col 1:10

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord - Suitably to your Christian profession, exemplifying its holy doctrines by a holy and useful life. See the notes on Eph 4:1; and on Phi 1:27 (note)

Clarke: Col 1:10

Unto all pleasing - Doing every thing in the best manner, in the most proper time, and in a becoming spirit. Even a good work may be marred and rendered fruitless by being done improperly, out of season, or in a temper of mind that grieves the Holy Spirit

Clarke: Col 1:10

Being fruitful in every good work - See on Col 1:6 (note). St. Paul exhorts the Christians at Colosse

1.    To walk - to be active in their Christian calling

2.    To walk worthily - suitably to the dignity of that calling, and to the purity of that God who had called them into this state of salvation

3.    To do every thing unto all pleasing; that God might be pleased with the manner, the time, the motive, disposition, design, and object of every act

4.    That they should be fruitful; mere harmlessness would not be sufficient; as God had sown good seed, he expected good fruit

5.    That every work should be good; they must not be fruitful in some works and fruitless in others

6.    That they should increase in religious knowledge as time rolled on, knowing, by genuine Christian experience, more of God, of his love, and of his peace, day by day.

Clarke: Col 1:11

Strengthened with all might - That they might be able to walk worthy of the Lord, bring forth fruit, etc. See the notes on Eph 3:13, etc

Clarke: Col 1:11

According to his glorious power - According to that sufficiency of strength which may be expected from him who has all power both in the heavens and in the earth

Clarke: Col 1:11

Unto all patience - Relieving, hoping, and enduring all things

Clarke: Col 1:11

With joyfulness - Feeling the continual testimony that ye please God, which will be a spring of perpetual comfort. See the notes on Eph 4:2.

Clarke: Col 1:12

Giving thanks unto the Father - Knowing that ye have nothing but what ye have received from his mere mercy, and that in point of merit ye can never claim any thing from him

Clarke: Col 1:12

Which hath made us meet - Ἱκανωσαντι· Who has qualified us to be partakers, etc. Instead of ἱκανωσαντι, some MSS. and versions have καλεσαντι, called; and B (the Codex Vaticanus) has both readings. Giving thanks unto the Father, who hath called and qualified us to be partakers

Clarke: Col 1:12

Of the inheritance - Εις την μεριδα του κληρου . A plain allusion to the division of the promised land by lot among the different families of the twelve Israelitish tribes. The κληρος was the lot or inheritance belonging to the tribe; the μερις was the portion in that lot which belonged to each family of that tribe. This was a type of the kingdom of God, in which portions of eternal blessedness are dispensed to the genuine Israelites; to them who have the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit, whose praise is of God, and not of man

Clarke: Col 1:12

Of the saints in light - Light, in the sacred writings, is used to express knowledge, felicity, purity, comfort, and joy of the most substantial kind; here it is put to point out the state of glory at the right hand of God. As in Egypt, while the judgments of God were upon the land, there was a darkness which might be felt yet all the Israelites had light in their dwellings; so in this world, while the darkness and wretchedness occasioned by sin remain, the disciples of Christ are light in the Lord, walk as children of the light and of the day, have in them no occasion of stumbling, and are on their way to the ineffable light at the right hand of God. Some think there is an allusion here to the Eleusinian mysteries, celebrated in deep caves and darkness in honor of Ceres; but I have already, in the notes to the Epistle to the Ephesians, expressed my doubts that the apostle has ever condescended to use such a simile. The phraseology of the text is frequent through various parts of the sacred writings, where it is most obvious that no such allusion could possibly be intended.

Clarke: Col 1:13

Delivered us from the power of darkness - Darkness is here personified, and is represented as having εξουσια, power, authority, and sway; all Jews and Gentiles, which had not embraced the Gospel, being under this authority and power. And the apostle intimates here that nothing less than the power of God can redeem a man from this darkness, or prince of darkness, who, by means of sin and unbelief, keeps men in ignorance, vice, and misery

Clarke: Col 1:13

Translated us into the kingdom, etc - He has thoroughly changed our state, brought us out of the dark region of vice and impiety, and placed us in the kingdom under the government of his dear Son, Υἱου της αγαπης αὑτου, the Son of his love; the person whom, in his infinite love, he has given to make an atonement for the sin of the world.

Clarke: Col 1:14

In whom we have redemption - Who has paid down the redemption price, even his own blood, that our sins might be cancelled, and we made fit to be partakers of the inheritance among the saints in light

The clause, δια του αἱματος αυτου, Through his blood, is omitted by ABCDEFG, and by most others of weight and importance; by the Syriac, Arabic of Erpen, Coptic, Ethiopic, Sahidic, some copies of the Vulgate and by the Itala; and by most of the Greek fathers. Griesbach has left it out of the text. It is likely that the reading here is not genuine; yet that we have redemption any other way than through the sacrifice of Christ, the Scriptures declare not. The same phrase is used Eph 1:7, where there is no various reading in any of the MSS., versions, or fathers

Clarke: Col 1:14

The forgiveness of sins - Αφεσιν των ἁμαρτιων· The taking away of sins; all the power, guilt, and infection of sin. All sin of every kind, with all its influence and consequences.

Calvin: Col 1:9

9.For this cause we also As he has previously shewn his affection for them in his thanksgivings, so he now shews it still farther in the earnestness of his prayers in their behalf. ²⁸⁸ And, assuredly, the more that the grace of God is conspicuous in any, we ought in that proportion specially to love and esteem them, and to be concerned as to their welfare. But what does he pray for in their behalf? That they may know God more fully; by which he indirectly intimates, that something is still wanting in them, that he may prepare the way for imparting instruction to them, and may secure their attention to a fuller statement of doctrine. For those who think that they have already attained everything that is worthy of being known, despise and disdain everything farther that is presented to them. Hence he removes from the Colossians an impression of this nature, lest it should be a hinderance in the way of their cheerfully making progress, and allowing what had been begun in them to receive an additional polish. But what knowledge does he desire in their behalf? The knowledge of the divine will, by which expression he sets aside all inventions of men, and all speculations that are at variance with the word of God. For his will is not to be sought anywhere else than in his word.

He adds — in all wisdom; by which he intimates that the will of God, of which he had made mention, was the only rule of right knowledge. For if any one is desirous simply to know those things which it has pleased God to reveal, that is the man who accurately knows what it is to be truly wise. If we desire anything beyond that, this will be nothing else than to be foolish, by not keeping within due bounds. By the word συνέσεως which we render prudentiam , (prudence,) I understand — that discrimination which proceeds from intelligence. Both are called spiritual by Paul, because they are not attained in any other way than by the guidance of the Spirit.

For the animal man does not perceive the things that are of God.
(1Co 2:14.)

So long as men are regulated by their own carnal perceptions, they have also their own wisdom, but it is of such a nature as is mere vanity, however much they may delight themselves in it. We see what sort of theology there is under the Papacy, what is contained in the books of philosophers, and what wisdom profane men hold in estimation. Let us, however, bear in mind, that the wisdom which is alone commended by Paul is comprehended in the will of God.

Calvin: Col 1:10

10.That ye may walk worthy of God In the first place he teaches, what is the end of spiritual understanding, and for what purpose we ought to make proficiency in God’s school — that we may walk worthy of God, that is, that it may be manifest in our life, that we have not in vain been taught by God. Whoever they may be that do not direct their endeavors towards this object, may possibly toil and labor much, but they do nothing better than wander about in endless windings, without making any progress. ²⁸⁹ Farther, he admonishes us, that if we would walk worthy of God, we must above all things take heed that we regulate our whole course of life according to the will of God, renouncing our own understanding, and bidding farewell to all the inclinations of our flesh.

This also he again confirms by saying — unto all obedience, or, as they commonly say, well-pleasing. Hence if it is asked, what kind of life is worthy of God, let us always keep in view this definition of Paul — that it is such a life as, leaving the opinions of men, and leaving, in short, all carnal inclination, is regulated so as to be in subjection to God alone. From this follow good works, which are the fruits that God requires from us.

Increasing, in the knowledge of God He again repeats, that they have not arrived at such perfection as not to stand in need of farther increase; by which admonition he prepares them, and as it were leads them by the hand, to an eagerness for proficiency, that they may shew themselves ready to listen, and teachable. What is here said to the Colossians, let all believers take as said to themselves, and draw from this a common exhortation that we must always make progress in the doctrine of piety until death.

Calvin: Col 1:11

11.Strengthened with all might As he has previously prayed that they might have both a sound understanding and the right use of it, so also now he prays that they may have courage and constancy. In this manner he puts them in mind of their own weakness, for he says, that they will not be strong otherwise than by the Lord’s help; and not only so, but with the view of magnifying this exercise of grace the more, he adds, according to his glorious power. “So far from any one being able to stand, through dependence on his own strength, the power of God shews itself illustriously in helping our infirmity.” Lastly, he shews in what it is that the strength of believers ought to display itself — in all patience and long-suffering. For they are constantly, while in this world, exercised with the cross, and a thousand temptations daily present themselves, so as to weigh them down, and they see nothing of what God has promised. They must, therefore, arm themselves with an admirable patience, that what Isaiah says may be accomplished,

In hope and in silence shall be your strength. ²⁹⁰
(Isa 30:15.)

It is preferable to connect with this sentence the clause, with joy. For although the other reading is more commonly to be met with in the Latin versions, this is more in accordance with the Greek manuscripts, and, unquestionably, patience is not sustained otherwise than by alacrity of mind, and will never be maintained with fortitude by any one that is not satisfied with his condition.

Calvin: Col 1:12

12.Giving thanks Again he returns to thanksgiving, that he may take this opportunity of enumerating the blessings which had been conferred upon them through Christ, and thus he enters upon a full delineation of Christ. For this was the only remedy for fortifying the Colossians against all the snares, by which the false Apostles endeavored to entrap them — to understand accurately what Christ was. For how comes it that we are carried about with so many strange doctrines, (Heb 13:9) but because the excellence of Christ is not perceived by us? For Christ alone makes all other things suddenly vanish. Hence there is nothing that Satan so much endeavors to accomplish as to bring on mists with the view of obscuring Christ, because he knows, that by this means the way is opened up for every kind of falsehood. This, therefore, is the only means of retaining, as well as restoring pure doctrine — to place Christ before the view such as he is with all his blessings, that his excellence may be truly perceived.

The question here is not as to the name. Papists in common with us acknowledge one and the same Christ; yet in the mean time how great a difference there is between us and them, inasmuch as they, after confessing Christ to be the Son of God, transfer his excellence to others, and scatter it hither and thither, and thus leave him next to empty, ²⁹² or at least rob him of a great part of his glory, so that he is called, it is true, by them the Son of God, but, nevertheless, he is not such as the Father designed he should be towards us. If, however, Papists would cordially embrace what is contained in this chapter, we would soon be perfectly agreed, but the whole of Popery would fall to the ground, for it cannot stand otherwise than through ignorance of Christ. This will undoubtedly be acknowledged by every one that will but consider the main article ²⁹³ of this first chapter; for his grand object here is that we may know that Christ is the beginning, middle, and end — that it is from him that all things must be sought — that nothing is, or can be found, apart from him. Now, therefore, let the readers carefully and attentively observe in what colors Paul depicts Christ to us.

Who hath made us meet He is still speaking of the Father, because he is the beginning, and efficient cause (as they speak) of our salvation. As the term God is more distinctly expressive of majesty, so the term Father conveys the idea of clemency and benevolent disposition. It becomes us to contemplate both as existing in God, that his majesty may inspire us with fear and reverence, and that his fatherly love may secure our full confidence. Hence it is not without good reason that Paul has conjoined these two things, if, after all, you prefer the rendering which the old interpreter has followed, and which accords with some very ancient Greek manuscripts. ²⁹⁴ At the same time there will be no inconsistency in saying, that he contents himself with the single term, Father. Farther, as it is necessary that his incomparable grace should be expressed by the term Father, so it is also not less necessary that we should, by the term God, be roused up to admiration of so great goodness, that he, who is God, has condescended thus far. ²⁹⁵

But for what kindness does he give thanks to God? For his having made him, and others, meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints. For we are born children of wrath, exiles from God’s kingdom. It is God’s adoption that alone makes us meet. Now, adoption depends on an unmerited election. The Spirit of regeneration is the seal of adoption. He adds, in light, that there might be a contrast — as opposed to the darkness of Satan’s kingdom. ²⁹⁶

Calvin: Col 1:13

13.Who hath delivered us Mark, here is the beginning of our salvation — when God delivers us from the depth of ruin into which we were plunged. For wherever his grace is not, there is darkness, ²⁹⁷ as it is said in Isa 60:2

Behold darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the nations; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

In the first place, we ourselves are called darkness, and afterwards the whole world, and Satan, the Prince of darkness, ²⁹⁸ under whose tyranny we are held captive, until we are set free by Christ’s hand. ²⁹⁹ From this you may gather that the whole world, with all its pretended wisdom and righteousness, is regarded as nothing but darkness in the sight of God, because, apart from the kingdom of Christ, there is no light.

Hath translated us into the kingdom These form already the beginnings of our blessedness — when we are translated into the kingdom of Christ, because we pass from death into life. (1Jo 3:14.) This, also, Paul ascribes to the grace of God, that no one may imagine that he can attain so great a blessing by his own efforts. As, then, our deliverance from the slavery of sin and death is the work of God, so also our passing into the kingdom of Christ. He calls Christ the Son of his love, or the Son that is beloved by God the Father, because it is in him alone that his soul takes pleasure, as we read in Mat 17:5, and in whom all others are beloved. For we must hold it as a settled point, that we are not acceptable to God otherwise than through Christ. Nor can it be doubted, that Paul had it in view to censure indirectly the mortal enmity that exists between men and God, until love shines forth in the Mediator.

Calvin: Col 1:14

14.In whom we have redemption He now proceeds to set forth in order, that all parts of our salvation are contained in Christ, and that he alone ought to shine forth, and to be seen conspicuous above all creatures, inasmuch as he is the beginning and end of all things. In the first place, he says that we have redemption ³⁰⁰ and immediately explains it as meaning the remission of sins; for these two things agree together by apposition ³⁰¹ For, unquestionably, when God remits our transgressions, he exempts us from condemnation to eternal death. This is our liberty, this our glorying in the face of death — that our sins are not imputed to us. He says that this redemption was procured through the blood of Christ, for by the sacrifice of his death all the sins of the world have been expiated. Let us, therefore, bear in mind, that this is the sole price of reconciliation, and that all the trifling of Papists as to satisfactions is blasphemy. ³⁰²

Defender: Col 1:9

"Filled" is the same word in the Greek as "fulfilled." A Christian who knows and obeys God's will is like a fulfilled prophecy, completed and giving strong testimony to the truth of God and His Word. A fulfilled believer will not only be "filled with the knowledge of His will," but also "filled with the fruits of righteousness" (Phi 1:11), filled "with all joy and peace in believing" (Rom 15:13), "filled with the Spirit" (Eph 5:18), "filled with all the fulness of God" (Eph 3:19), "perfect and complete [filled] in all the will of God" (Col 4:12), and "complete in [Christ]" (Col 2:10).

Defender: Col 1:9

"Knowledge" is the same as "science." The "knowledge of His will" could be considered as the science of God's will; perhaps one could call this science "thelemology" (the Greek word for will is thelema). God has indeed given us guidelines for knowing His will. The principles of "thelemology" could be grouped in two categories: God's general will for all His people, and God's specific will for each individual believer. His general will includes knowledge and acceptance concerning creation (Rev 4:11, the last occurrence of will in the Bible, there translated "pleasure"), redemption (Heb 10:7-10), salvation (2Ti 1:9), regeneration (Joh 1:13; Eph 1:5), security (Joh 6:39; Joh 17:24), sanctification (1Th 4:3; 1Th 5:18; 1Pe 2:15), and our eternal presence with Christ (Joh 17:24; Eph 1:9-11). The knowledge of His particular will is conditioned on willingness to follow it (Joh 7:17; Rom 12:1, Rom 12:2), obedience when known (Jam 1:22; Mat 7:21), prayer for guidance (1Jo 5:14, 1Jo 5:15), obedience to the relevant Scriptures (Psa 119:105), recognition of relevant circumstances (1Co 12:4, 1Co 12:11; Rom 8:26-28), and inner confidence (Phi 4:6, Phi 4:7; Psa 32:8; Pro 3:5, Pro 3:6).

Defender: Col 1:9

It is noteworthy that forty-nine of the sixty-four occurrences of thelema (will) in the New Testament refer directly to God's will, not man's. Of the other fifteen, three refer to Jesus in His humanity and three to the Father as represented in parables by a human father. Thus, only nine (or 14 percent) refer to man's will. Based on this relative frequency of occurrence in the Spirit-inspired Scriptures, it would seem that He considered the will of God far more important than that of man."

Defender: Col 1:10

Among Paul's prayer requests - and evidently the normal results of being fulfilled with the knowledge of God's will - were a "worthy walk," "fruitful in every good work," an "increasing knowledge of God" (Col 1:10), strength and joy in suffering (Col 1:11), and a thankful heart (Col 1:12)."

Defender: Col 1:13

The "power of darkness" (Luk 22:53) is nothing less than the kingdom of Satan, in which we were all once captive slaves (Eph 2:1-3). However, we have now been set free from this bondage and carried into a new kingdom of light rather than darkness (Col 1:12)."

Defender: Col 1:14

The blood of Christ shed on the cross in substitution for we who deserved to die was the redemption price necessary to secure our freedom and forgiveness (Eph 1:7; 1Pe 1:18-20)."

TSK: Col 1:9

since : Col 1:3, Col 1:4, Col 1:6; Rom 1:8-10; Eph 1:15, Eph 1:16

do : 1Sa 12:23; Act 12:5; Phi 1:4; 1Th 1:3, 1Th 5:17; 2Th 1:11; 2Ti 1:3, 2Ti 1:4; Phm 1:4

that ye : 1Co 1:5; Eph 1:15-20, Eph 3:14-19; Phi 1:9-11

of his : Col 4:12; Psa 143:10; Joh 7:17; Rom 12:2; Eph 5:10,Eph 5:17, Eph 6:6; Heb 10:36; Heb 13:21; 1Pe 2:15, 1Pe 4:2; 1Jo 2:17

wisdom : Col 3:16, Col 4:5; Psa 119:99; Eph 1:8; Jam 1:5, Jam 3:17

spiritual : 1Jo 5:20

TSK: Col 1:10

ye : Col 2:6, Col 4:5; Mic 4:5; Rom 4:12, Rom 6:4; Eph 4:1, Eph 5:2, Eph 5:15; Phi 1:27; 1Th 2:12

all : Col 3:20; Pro 16:7; Phi 4:18; 1Th 4:1; 2Ti 2:4; Heb 11:5, Heb 13:16; 1Jo 3:22

fruitful : Joh 15:8, Joh 15:16; Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23; Eph 2:10; Phi 1:11; Tit 3:1, Tit 3:14; Heb 13:21; 2Pe 1:8

increasing : Col 2:19; Isa 53:11; Dan 12:4; Hab 2:14; Joh 17:3; 2Co 2:14, 2Co 4:6, 2Co 9:8; Eph 1:17, Eph 4:13; 2Pe 1:2, 2Pe 1:3, 2Pe 3:18; 1Jo 5:20

TSK: Col 1:11

Strengthened : Isa 45:24; 2Co 12:9; Eph 3:16, Eph 6:10; Phi 4:13

his : Exo 15:6; Psa 63:2; Act 1:8; 2Co 4:7; Jud 1:25

unto : Pro 24:10; Act 5:41; Rom 2:7, Rom 5:3-5; 2Co 6:4-6, 2Co 12:9, 2Co 12:10; Eph 4:2; 1Th 3:3, 1Th 3:4; 2Ti 2:1-3; Heb 10:34-38, Heb 11:34-38, Heb 12:1, Heb 12:2; Jam 1:2-4; Jam 5:7, Jam 5:8; 2Pe 1:6; Rev 14:12

TSK: Col 1:12

Giving : Col 3:15, Col 3:17; 1Ch 29:20; Psa 79:13, Psa 107:21, Psa 107:22, Psa 116:7; Dan 2:23; Eph 5:4, Eph 5:20

the Father : Col 2:2; Joh 4:23, Joh 14:6, Joh 20:17; 1Co 8:6; Eph 4:6; Jam 3:9; 1Jo 1:3

made : 1Ki 6:7; Pro 16:1; Rom 8:29, Rom 8:30, Rom 9:23; 2Co 5:5; Tit 2:14; Rev 22:14

partakers : Rom 11:17, Rom 15:27; 1Co 9:23; Eph 3:6; Heb 3:1, Heb 3:14; 1Pe 5:1; 1Jo 3:1-3

inheritance : Mat 25:34; Act 20:32, Act 26:18; Rom 8:17; Eph 1:11, Eph 1:18; 1Pe 1:2-5

in : Psa 36:9, Psa 97:11; Pro 4:18; Isa 60:19, Isa 60:20; Heb 12:23; Rev 21:23, Rev 22:5

TSK: Col 1:13

delivered : Isa 49:24, Isa 49:25, Isa 53:12; Mat 12:29, Mat 12:30; Act 26:18; Heb 2:14

the power : Luk 22:53; Joh 12:31, Joh 12:32; 2Co 4:4; Eph 4:18, Eph 5:8, Eph 6:12; 1Pe 2:9; 1Jo 2:8, 1Jo 3:8

and : Luk 13:24; Joh 5:24; Rom 6:17-22; 1Co 6:9-11; 2Co 6:17, 2Co 6:18; Eph 2:3-10; 1Th 2:12; Tit 3:3-6; 2Pe 1:11; 1Jo 3:14

the kingdom : Psa 2:6, Psa 2:7; Isa 9:6, Isa 9:7; Dan 7:13, Dan 7:14; Zec 9:9; Mat 25:34; Rom 14:17; 1Co 15:23-25

his dear Son : Gr. the Son of his love, Isa 42:1; Mat 3:17, Mat 17:5; Joh 3:35, Joh 17:24; Eph 1:6

TSK: Col 1:14

whom : Mat 20:28; Act 20:28; Rom 3:24, Rom 3:25; Gal 3:13; Eph 1:7, Eph 5:2; 1Ti 2:6; Tit 2:14; Heb 9:12, Heb 9:22, Heb 10:12-14; 1Pe 1:19, 1Pe 1:20, 1Pe 3:18; 1Jo 2:2; Rev 1:5, Rev 5:9, Rev 14:4

the : Col 2:13, Col 3:13; Psa 32:1, Psa 32:2, Psa 130:4; Luk 5:20, Luk 7:47-50; Act 2:38, Act 10:43; Act 13:38, Act 13:39, Act 26:18; Rom 4:6-8; Eph 4:32; 1Jo 1:9, 1Jo 2:12

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Col 1:9

Do not cease to pray for you - Col 1:3. The progress which they had already made, and the love which they had shown, constituted an encouragement for prayer, and a reason why higher blessings still should be sought. We always feel stimulated and encouraged to pray for those who are doing well.

That ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will - They had shown by their faith and love that they were disposed to do his will, and the apostle now prays that they might be fully acquainted with what he would have them do. He offered a similar prayer in behalf of the Ephesians; see the parallel place in Eph 1:17-19, and the notes at those verses.

In all wisdom - That you may be truly wise in all things; Eph 1:17.

And spiritual understanding - In understanding those things that pertain to the "Spirit;"that is, those things taught by the Holy Spirit, and those which he produces in the work of salvation; see the notes at 1Co 2:12-13; compare 1Jo 2:20; 1Jo 5:20.

Barnes: Col 1:10

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord - That you may live as becomes the followers of the Lord. How this was to be done he states in this and the following verses.

Unto all pleasing - So as to please him in all things; compare Heb 11:5.

Being fruitful in every good work - This is one way in which we are to walk worthy of the Lord, and so as to please him; see the notes at Joh 15:8.

And increasing in the knowledge of God - This is another way in which we may walk worthy of the Lord, and so as to please him. It is by endeavoring to become better acquainted with his true character. God is pleased with those who desire to understand what he is; what he does; what he purposes; what he commands. Hence he not only commands us to study his works (compare Psa 111:2), but he has made a world so beautiful as to invite us to contemplate his perfections as reflected in that world. All good beings desire that others should understand their character, and God delights in those who are sincerely desirous of knowing what he is, and who inquire with humility and reverence into his counsels and his will. People are often displeased when others attempt to look into their plans, for they are sensible they will not bear the light of investigation. God has no plans which would not be seen to be, in the highest degree, glorious to him.

Barnes: Col 1:11

Strengthened with all might - This was also an object of Paul’ s earnest prayer. He desired that they might be strengthened for the performance of duty; to meet temptations; and to bear up under the various trials of life.

According to his glorious power - Not by any human means, but by the power of God. There is a manifestation of power in the spirit with which Christians are enabled to bear up under trials, which shows that it is not of human origin. It is the power which God gives them in the day of trial. This power is "glorious,"or, as it is in the Greek, it is the "power of his glory."It is manifestly the power of the great and glorious God, and it tends to promote his glory, and to show forth his praise.

Unto all patience - So that you may be enabled to bear all your trials without complaining. It is only the power of God that can enable us to do that.

And long-suffering - Notes, 1Co 13:4.

With joyfulness - Rom 5:3, note; 2Co 7:4, note. The Syriac version, Chrysostom, and a few manuscripts attach this to the following verse, and read it: "With joyfulness giving thanks to the Father,"etc. The only difference is in the pointing, and either reading makes good sense.

Barnes: Col 1:12

Giving thanks to the Father - This is another mode by which we may "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing"Col 1:10; to wit, by rendering appropriate thanks to God for his mercy. The particular point which the apostle here says demanded thanksgiving was, that they had been called from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. This had been done by the special mercy of the Father who had provided the plan of salvation, and had sent his Son to redeem them. The connection shows that the word "Father"refers, in this place, not to God as the Father of his creatures, but to the Father as distinguished from the Son. It is the "Father"who has translated us into the kingdom of the "Son."Our special thanks are due to the "Father"in this, as he is represented as the great Author of the whole plan of salvation - as he who sent his Son to redeem us.

Who hath made us meet - The word used here - ἱκανόω hikanoō - means properly to make sufficient, from ἱκανός hikanos - sufficient, abundant, much. The word conveys the idea of having sufficient or enough to accomplish anything; see it explained in the notes at 2Co 3:6. The verb is not elsewhere used in the New Testament. In its use here, there seems to be implied the idea of conferring the privilege or the ability to be thus made the partakers of the kingdom, and the idea also of rendering us fit for it. The sense is, he has conferred on us grace sufficient to make it proper that we should partake of the blessings of his kingdom. In regard to this "fitness"or "meetness"for that kingdom, we may remark:

\caps1 (1) t\caps0 hat it does not mean that we are rendered fit by our own merits, or by anything which we have done; for it is expressly said that it is God who has thus rendered us "meet"for it. No one, by his own merits, even made himself fit for heaven. His good works cannot be an equivalent for the eternal rewards of heaven; nor is the heart when unrenewed, even in the best state, fit for the society and the employments of heaven. There is no adaptedness of such a heart, however amiable and however refined, to the pure spiritual joys of the upper world. Those joys are the joys of religion, of the love of God, of pleasure in holiness; and the unrenewed heart can never be wrought up to a fitness to enter into those joys. Yet.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 here is a fitness or meetness which Christians possess for heaven. It consists in two things. First, in their having complied with the conditions on which God promises heaven, so that, although they have no merit in themselves, and no fitness by their own works, they have that meetness which results from having complied with the terms of favor. They have truly repented of their sins, and believed in the Redeemer; and they are thus in the proper state of mind to receive the mercy of God; for, according to the terms of mercy, there is a propriety that pardon should be bestowed on the penitent, and peace on the believing. A child that is truly brokenhearted for a fault, is in a fit state of mind to be forgiven; a proud, and obstinate, and rebellious child, is not. Secondly, there is, in fact, a fitness in the Christian for the participation of the inheritance of the saints in light. He has a state of feeling that is adapted to that. There is a congruity between his feelings and heaven - a state of mind that can be satisfied with nothing but heaven. He has in his heart substantially the same principles which reign in heaven; and he is suited to find happiness only in the same objects in which the inhabitants of heaven do, He loves the same God and Saviour; has pleasure in the same truths; prefers, as they do, holiness to sin; and, like the inhabitants of heaven, he would choose to seek his pleasure in holy living, rather than in the ways of vanity. His preferences are all on the side of holiness and virtue; and, with such preferences, he is fitted for the enjoyments of heaven. In character, views, feelings, and preferences, therefore, the Christian is made suitable to participate in the employments and joys of the saints in light.

To be partakers of the inheritance - The privileges of religion are often represented as an heirship, or an inheritance; see the notes at Rom 8:17.

Of the saints in light - Called in Col 1:13, "the kingdom of his dear Son."This is a kingdom of light, as opposed to the kingdom of darkness in which they formerly were. In the East, and particularly in Persia, there prevailed early the belief that there were two great kingdoms in the universe - that of light, and that of darkness. We find traces of this opinion in the Scriptures, where the kingdom of God is called "light,"and that of Satan is called "darkness."These are, of course, figurative expressions; but they convoy important truth. Light, in the Scriptures, is the emblem of holiness, knowledge, happiness; and all these are found in the kingdom over which God presides, and of which Christians are the heirs. Accordingly, we find the word "light"often used to describe this kingdom. Thus, it is said of God, who presides over it, that he "is light, and in him is no darkness at all,"1Jo 1:5; of Christ, that he is "the light of man,"Joh 1:4; that he is "the true light,"Joh 1:9; that he is "the light of the world,"Joh 8:12; compare Joh 12:35; Luk 2:32. The angels of that kingdom are "angels of light,"2Co 11:14. Those who compose that kingdom on earth are "the children of light,"Luk 16:8; 1Th 5:5. And all the descriptions of that kingdom in heaven represent it as filled with light and glory, Isa 60:19; Rev 21:23; Rev 22:5.

Barnes: Col 1:13

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness - The power exerted over us in that dark kingdom to which we formerly belonged - the kingdom of Satan. The characteristic of this empire is darkness - the emblem of:

(1)\caps1     s\caps0 in;

(2)\caps1     e\caps0 rror;

(3)\caps1     m\caps0 isery and death.

Over us, by nature, these things had uncontrollable power; but now we are delivered from them, and brought to the enjoyment of the privileges of those who are connected with the kingdom of light. Darkness is often used to represent the state in which men are by nature; compare Luk 1:79; Act 26:18; Rom 13:12; 1Pe 2:9; 1Jo 2:8.

And hath translated us - The word rendered here "translated"is often used in the sense of removing a people from one country to another; see Josephus, Ant . ix. 11. 1. It means, here, that they who are Christians have been transferred from one kingdom to another, as if a people were thus removed. They become subjects of a new kingdom, are under different laws, and belong to a different community. This change is made in regeneration, by which we pass from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light; from the empire of sin, ignorance, and misery, to one of holiness, knowledge, and happiness. No change, therefore, in a man’ s life is so important as this; and no words can suitably express the gratitude which they should feel who are thus transferred from the empire of darkness to that of light.

Barnes: Col 1:14

In whom we have redemption; - See this explained in the notes at Eph 1:7. The passage here proves that we obtain forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ; but it does not prove that this is all that we obtain through that blood.

Poole: Col 1:9

For this cause we also he doth here suggest the motive mentioned in the precedent verses, viz. their faith and love, Col 1:4,5 , and their special love to him, Col 1:8 , why he and his brethren had them so much upon their hearts: See Poole on "Eph 1:15-17" .

Since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you: it seems, from the time they were refreshed with these things they did (as he exhorts the Colossians here, Col 4:2 ) always upon all solemn occasions wait upon God for the Colossians’ spiritual prosperity, as Paul himself did for the Philippians: See Poole on "Luk 18:1" . See Poole on "Rom 12:12" . See Poole on "Phi 1:4" . See Poole on "Phi 1:9" . See Poole on "1Th 5:17" .

And to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will and the subject matter of their instant prayer was, that they might attain to a more distinct, clear, and practical knowledge of the mind of God in Christ, and a greater measure of conformity to what he requires in the gospel, Col 1:6 Eph 5:15-17 .

In all wisdom in (rather than with) all necessary knowledge of the things of faith and manners, according to the prescript of the gospel: for sapience or wisdom doth properly respect the most excellent things, and such we learn most distinctly and satisfactorily from the revealed will of God, which we have in the Bible: this is that which Paul and other holy men spoke as taught of God amongst the perfect or grown Christians, in opposition both to the wisdom of man and of the world, 1Co 2:4,6 , being agreeable to the will of God, Job 28:28 Pro 28:7 Joh 6:40 1Th 4:3 . And with this Christian wisdom some would render the following words, in

spiritual prudence but if we render it understanding, or intelligence, it may be expounded to the same sense; for which there may be very good reason, for the philosopher doth sometimes by the Greek word mean that power or habit whereby men judge aright of things presented conducing to happiness, so as upon a due expense of circumstances to discern the good from the evil, the true from the false, and the real from the apparent: such a gift as Paul prays the Lord would give unto Timothy, 2Ti 2:7 , compared with 1Co 1:5 , that they might rightly distinguish between the simplicity and purity of the gospel, and those false glosses and colours that false teachers went about to sophisticate it with; not be without understanding his some who followed our Saviour, Mat 15:16 what course they should take in the practice of piety, but be able to discern the times, 1Ch 12:32 , and other circumstances, Psa 39:1 50:23 Ecc 5:1 Luk 8:18 ; for the ordering their actions aright, so as they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things, as becomes the gospel, Eph 1:8 , with Phi 1:10,27 Col 4:5 Tit 2:10 . Ignorance then can be no mother of true devotion, nor the inventions of men acceptable service to the living God, whose will alone is the rule of his worship.

Poole: Col 1:10

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord: they prayed for the above mentioned gracious habits, that the Colossians might exercise them in a course of life as it becomes those who are effectually called by the gospel to be the sons of God, and the servants of Christ; suitable to the members of the body of Christ: See Poole on "Eph 4:1" . See Poole on "Phi 1:27" ; compared with Rom 16:2 1Th 2:12 2Th 1:11 . As the word God alone ordinary connotes the Father, so Lord doth Christ; answerable to whose wisdom, holiness, and example, Christians professing a relation to him, and expecting benefit by his purchase, should behave themselves; so that the papists cannot from this walking

worthy of the Lord justly infer a merit of condignity, behaving ourselves as Christians being so far from any merit or desert of ours, that it is a debt, we being indispensably obliged to do so, practice being the end of our knowledge. And this end we are to respect

unto all pleasing i.e. designing and endeavouring not in one thing only, or in few things, but in all things whatsoever are incmnbent on us, we may find aceptance with our Lord and Master, Col 3:20 1Co 7:32 10:31 1Th 2:4 Heb 12:28 : all should be great and generous, such as may best like our Lord, keeping themselves from the defilements of the age, Rev 3:4 .

Being fruitful in every good work particularly fructifying, which in the sense may be joined with being filled, Col 1:8 : being fruitful is a metaphorical expression borrowed from fruit-bearing trees, unto which godly men and real Christians are compared, Psa 1:3 Joh 15:8 ; and

every good work is the fruit which these plants of the Lord, having his Spirit as the seed remaining in them, 1Jo 3:9 , do bring forth of every sort from a right principle, 1Ti 1:5 , according to rule warranted by God, Isa 29:13 Gal 6:16 ; or having a call from him, for his glory: see 2Co 9:8 Phi 1:11 2Th 2:17 Heb 13:21 .

And increasing in the knowledge of God: the Colossians were not yet perfect in knowledge, and therefore they prayed that they might go on, and grow in grace and knowledge of God and Christ, 2Pe 3:18 , the best here knowing but in part, 1Co 13:9 ; therefore they desired these Christians, as the Philippians, Phi 3:10,12 , and the Ephesians, Eph 4:13 , might come to their stature: see on the texts.

Poole: Col 1:11

Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power: whereunto that they might be enabled, it was needful to pray for a power from above, for the best Christians here below are but infirm as well as imperfect, not able to perform what is required of them for doing and suffering the will of God till strengthened: See Poole on "Phi 4:13" , compared with Rev 7:17 . We have here great need of all might, special aids of God, to discharge difficult duties, to mortify strong corruptions, to contemn worldly allurements, to repulse frequent temptations, to bear manifold crosses, and to improve daily mercies, derived from exceeding great and mighty power; See Poole on "Eph 1:19" . See Poole on "Eph 1:20" . See Poole on "Eph 3:16" ; an excellent glorious power, 2Co 4:7,13 , needful to consummate and complete, as well as begin, the work of grace, 2Th 1:11 ; a great reality (and not a metaphor) to sincere converts and sound believers.

Unto all patience every way to bear the things which come hard upon them or continue long. Philosophy, with all its prescriptions, is ineffectual to form the soul to true patience and contentment under sufferings, it must be given on the behalf of Christ, Phi 1:29 , to a believer, to suffer patiently in tongue and heart, without a prevailing mixture of passion, so that evils do not make all impression upon him, but he doth possess his soul with patience to the end.

And long-suffering with joyfulness which he could not do with a becoming Christian cheerfulness, when, surcharged with a weight of troubles, he finds himself sinking, if he were not supported with the hands of Heaven, which relieve with present comfort, and raise up to believe a future reward, Mat 5:12 Act 5:41 Rom 5:3 1Co 11:32 2Co 1:5 Heb 11:27 12:10,12 Jas 1:2,4 .

Poole: Col 1:12

Giving thanks unto the Father he passeth from petitioning, Col 1:9 , to thanksgiving to God the Father, upon the consideration of his grace manifested in his Son for our redemption. In the Ephesians, Eph 1:3,4 , he began with election, here with effectual vocation; he acknowledgeth God the Father to be the object and author of what was wrought for us by his Son, and in us by his Spirit.

Which hath made us meet who hath made us capable of communion with himself, or ready and fit, which implies that by nature we are unready and unfit; so that merit cannot be drawn hence, and the Rhemists have done ill, contrary to the translation of the Syriac, to translate it, made us worthy: one copy hath, who hath called us. The original word, in that we follow, seems to be an idiom of the apostle (as the learned think) borrowed from the Hebrew; we find it used only in one other text by the apostle, 2Co 3:5,6 ; and there he shows we are insufficient for, and incapable of, saying good things, till God do capacitate us by making us accepted in the beloved, Eph 1:6 ; we cannot understand things of the Spirit of God, nor affect God, Joh 12:39 Rom 8:5 1Co 2:14 , till God do draw and capacitate us, Joh 6:44,45 Phm 2:13 , and form and work us by his Spirit unto this selfsame thing, Rom 4:17 2Co 5:5 .

To be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light to have a part in the lot of the purchased inheritance with them that are sanctified, Act 26:18 Eph 1:14 . The apostle seems to allude to the land of Canaan, wherein a portion was assigned to every one by lot for his inheritance, that being a type of the rest which remaineth to the people of God, Heb 4:9 ; and this is here said to be

of the saints in light as allegorically connoting the joy and glory of that state and place, in opposition to the power of darkness.

Poole: Col 1:13

The power of darkness which signifies the sadness and despair of the damned, Eph 6:12 Jud 1:8 , that they who are made meet to walk in the light as children of the light, Eph 5:8 , are eternally freed from. The word which the apostle useth to express God’ s delivering of believers from the power of sin and Satan is very emphatical, signifying a gratuitous freedom, where a stranger hath delivered him from slavery who did not deserve it, nor then desire it, Mar 3:27 Luk 1:74,79 Eph 2:2,5,6 Heb 2:14,15 , though he was held fast as in fetters of iron. And which is more, he adds another word,

hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son intimating he did not leave us as Adam was before the fall, but transport us without any precedent will of ours, by the effectual call of his insuperable grace, Joh 6:44 1Th 2:12 1Pe 2:9 , from the dominion of Satan, into that of his own Son, the Son of his love, Mat 3:17 17:5 Eph 1:6 , amongst his subjects and servants, where he reigns, in his kingdom of grace, Mat 13:11 , where Christ dwells in the heart by his Spirit, that is united to him by faith, Eph 3:17 Eph 4:12,13 Heb 12:22,23 ; and of glory indeed in our Head, Col 1:24 , with Eph 2:6 , by right of adoption, Rom 8:17 , and hope of salvation through him promised by the omnipotent and true God, Rom 8:24 1Th 5:23,24 Tit 1:2 ; who may well call it the kingdom of his dear Son, in that he admits none into it but by the mediation of his Son, who makes his subjects willing, Psa 110:3 , and received this government of his Father, Mat 28:18 Luk 22:29 Eph 1:6,7 ; of whose dear Son Paul hath more to say, to the comfort of his faithful subjects at Colosse, and every where.

Poole: Col 1:14

In whom i.e. in the person of Christ alone God-man, deputed of his Father to die for our salvation, Act 4:12 20:28 .

We; as we are in him, made meet, Col 1:12 .

Have redemption we have eternal deliverance, Heb 9:12 , effected by a full ransom paid, 1Co 6:20 7:23 1Pe 1:18,19 . For the freeing us indeed out of a state of sin and misery, Joh 8:36 , or eternal death the wages of sin, Rom 6:23 16:20 ; so that by redemption here is not meant barely laying down the price, Luk 2:38 , nor consummate redemption at the last, Eph 1:14 4:30 , but efficacious redemption.

Through his blood upon the account of Christ’ s offering himself an expiatory sacrifice to God, without which is no remission, Heb 9:22 Rev 5:9 ; effusion of his blood, by a synecdoche, takes in his humiliation to the death of the cross, and the pains of the second death he underwent for us, Isa 53:5,6 Ac 2:24 Gal 3:13 Phi 2:8 .

Even the forgiveness of sins plenary remission of offences is by apposition to, or follows, redemption as a necessary effect, Col 2:13 Luk 1:77 Act 10:43 , by a metonymy transferring the cause to the effect: to see more: See Poole on "Eph 1:7" .

PBC: Col 1:9

I want you to know something but I'm not just concerned about you obtaining a lot of knowledge and being proud of what you know.  I want you to translate that into how you live.  I want you to walk worthy of the Lord.   What Paul has reference to is living up to the position you now have in Christ because positionally in Christ you have been made holy and pure and you're accepted in Him, now live like it.  Live as one who is indeed a new creature in Christ Jesus, being fruitful in every good work

PBC: Col 1:12

" whole verse"

Paul writes that we are to give " thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." {Col 1:12-13} Notice the Father has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance. How? By being placed in Christ by election, by being redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and by being born again by the Spirit.

Our position in Christ is made a reality to us in the work of translation. In the new birth, the Father translates us out of the kingdom of darkness. Remember, we " were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.." {Eph 2:3} " But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved:) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." {Eph 2:4-6}

When a child of God is brought out of the kingdom of darkness (the devil’s kingdom), he is immediately placed into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.

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Haydock: Col 1:9

In all wisdom. He begins by an admonition against false teachers, who it is likely, says St. John Chrysostom, with their philosophical notions mixed errors and fables. (Witham)

Haydock: Col 1:10

Worthy of God: Greek: axios tou kuriou. So St. Ambrose and the Greek doctors; or thus, worthily, pleasing God, and this not by faith only, but fruitful in every good work. (Ibid.) ---

God, in [1] all things pleasing him. This is the construction of the Latin by the Greek. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Ut ambuletis digne Deo per omnia placentes; Greek: axios tou Kuriou eis pasan areskeian.

Haydock: Col 1:14

It is through the blood of Christ, and not by the law of Moses, that we are freed from the power of death. If the law could have saved us, the coming of Christ would have been useless. See then, he says, if it be proper to engage under a law which is so inefficacious. (Calmet) ---

From this verse and from ver. 12, et alibi passim, we are taught that we are not only by imputation made partakers of Christ's benefits, but are by his grace made worthy thereof, and deserve our salvation condignly, ex condigno. (Bristow)

Gill: Col 1:9

For this cause we also,.... Not merely for their love to the apostle, and the rest that were with him; which sense is too much contracted, and carries some appearance of meanness and selfishness; but because of their faith in Christ, their love to all the saints, and the good hope they had of eternal happiness; and because they had heard the Gospel, and truly knew it, and sincerely professed it: therefore,

since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire; which shows that the apostles prayed without ceasing; not that they were every moment praying, without intermission, but that they were frequent and constant every day at the throne of grace; and as often as they were there, they were mindful of these Colossians, even ever since they heard of their reception of the Gospel, of their profession of it, and of the fruit it brought forth in them; and in their petitions "prayed" and "desired", earnestly and importunately entreated God on their behalf:

that ye might he filled with the knowledge of his will; the will "of God", as the Syriac version reads it, by which is meant, not the secret will of God, according to the counsel of which he does all things in nature, providence, and grace, but his revealed will; and that either as it is signified in the law, which declares the good, and perfect, and acceptable will of God, relating to what he would have done, or avoided by his creatures; or rather, as it is exhibited in the Gospel, which contains the will of God respecting the salvation of his chosen ones; as that it is his will that Christ should obtain eternal redemption for them, to do which he voluntarily substituted himself in their room, came into this world, and has accomplished it; and that all those that are redeemed by Christ should be regenerated by the Spirit; and that whoever sees the Son, and believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life; as also, that all those whom he has chosen in Christ, and given to him, and he has redeemed by his blood, and who are sanctified by his Spirit, none of them should be lost, but that they should be all saved with an everlasting salvation. Now the apostle does, not pray that they might have a "knowledge" of this will of God, for some knowledge of it they had already; they had heard of the hope laid up in heaven, in the truth of the word of the Gospel; they had not only had the external, revelation, and had heard the Gospel outwardly preached, but they had known truly the grace of God; and therefore what he asks for is, that they might be "filled" with the knowledge of it; which supposes that they had knowledge, but it was not full and complete; it was imperfect, as is the knowledge of the best of saints in this life; and that they might have a larger measure of it, and such a fulness of it as they were capable of in the present state, and not such an one as the saints will have in heaven, when they shall know even as they are known. He adds,

in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; his meaning is, that they might be led into all the wisdom of God, which is so largely displayed in the revelation of his will concerning the salvation of his people, which is made in the Gospel; which is the manifold wisdom of God, wherein he has abounded in all wisdom and prudence; and contains such a scheme of things, so wisely contrived and formed, that angels desire to look into it; and that they might have a "spiritual understanding" of the mysteries of grace, without which they cannot be discerned to spiritual advantage, nor indeed without the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of them: and the Ethiopic version renders it, by "the prudence of the Holy Ghost": who searches the deep things of God, and reveals them to the saints, and improves and increases their spiritual and experimental knowledge of them, which is what is here intended.

Gill: Col 1:10

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord,.... The Vulgate Latin version reads, "of God"; to which the Ethiopic version agrees; but rather the Lord Jesus Christ seems to be designed: and to "walk worthy" of him, is to walk by faith in him; to walk after his Spirit, and according to his word, and in his ordinances; to have the conversation as becomes his Gospel, and worthy of that calling wherewith the saints are called by grace to the obtaining of his kingdom and glory. The apostle prays that their knowledge might issue in practice; for knowledge, without practice, is of no avail: he first asks for knowledge, and then practice, for how should men act according to the will of God, or Christ, unless they know it? and when they know it, they should not rest in their knowledge, but put it in practice:

unto all pleasing. The Syriac reads it, "that ye may please God in all good works": an unregenerate man cannot please God in anything; without faith in Christ it is impossible to please him by anything man can do; Christ only could, and did always the things that pleased his Father; there are many things done by believers which are displeasing to God; nor is there anything they can do that is pleasing to God but through Christ, in whom their persons and, services are accepted; good works being done in faith, and from a principle of love, and with a view to the glory of God, are acceptable unto him through Christ; and therefore are to be carefully maintained, and studiously performed by all those that have a spiritual understanding of the will of God, and believe in Christ their Lord and Redeemer:

being fruitful in every good work; saints are trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord; good works are the fruit, which, under the influence of divine grace, they bring forth; and this is not of one sort only, as trees usually do, but of every kind; being ingrafted into Christ the true vine, and deriving life, sap, and nourishment from him, they are filled with the fruits of righteousness by him, which they bring forth and bear, to the glory of his heavenly Father; and being such, they are pleasant plants to him, as fruit bearing trees are to the owner of them: wherefore, in order to the saints walking in their lives and conversations unto all pleasing, or pleasing in all things, the apostle prays they might be fruitful in good works, and that in everyone, in every kind of good works:

and increasing in the knowledge of God; not barely of his nature and perfections, as they are displayed in the works of creation; but of his mind, and will, and the mysteries of his grace, as they are revealed in the Gospel; of the knowledge of him in Christ, as the God of all grace, and as a covenant God and Father. The apostle had before prayed for an increase of the knowledge of the will of God, previous to his request, for the putting of it in practice; and now suggests, that an increase of the knowledge of God himself may be expected in a practical use of means, an attendance on the ordinances of Christ, and a diligent performance of good works: from the whole of these petitions, it may be observed by the apostle's asking for them, that all our knowledge, and the increase of it, and all our fruitfulness in good works, are all from the Lord; and therefore we have no reason to boast of our knowledge, nor depend upon our works, but frankly to own, that notwithstanding all we know, and do, we are but unprofitable servants.

Gill: Col 1:11

Strengthened with all might,.... This is still a continuation of the apostle's prayer for these believers; for having prayed for an increase of spiritual knowledge, and that this might be put into practice, he proceeds to pray for strength for them, that they might be enabled to practise what they had knowledge of; to walk worthily, to please God in all things, to bring forth fruit with patience, to persevere in knowledge, practice, fruitfulness, and in an increase thereof. It implies, that believers are weak in themselves, and insufficient to do or bear anything of themselves, but stand in need of strength from above, even of "all might"; of all kind of spiritual might and strength, proportionate to the various kinds of services, temptations, and trials they are called unto, and exercised with: they have need of every kind, degree, and supply of strength, to enable them to resist the temptations of Satan, to stand against them, and bear up under them; to oppose the corruptions of their own nature, that great company which comes upon them, wars against them, threatens to carry them captive, and destroy them, and against which they have no power of their own; to bear the cross, which, without the presence and grace of Christ, is very heavy, and all afflictions and adversities of every sort, which are grievous to the flesh, and at which it recoils; to perform the various duties of religion, and the whole of the work of their generation; which though they have a will unto, yet often know not how to perform, they want renewed strength their souls; and also to persevere in faith and holiness, and hold on and out to the end: and which strength they cannot expect to have from themselves, or from any creature, but

according to his glorious power; the glorious power of God. Power belongs to God, is a perfection of his nature, and has been, and is gloriously displayed in many things; as in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the upholding of all things in their being; in the redemption and salvation of sinners; in their faith and conversion; in supporting the saints under various trials and exercises; and in the safe keeping them through faith unto salvation: from this glorious power of God saints may hope to be supplied with all might, or a sufficient supply of strength for every service, and for every difficulty; as also from the grace that is in Christ, who has strength as well as righteousness for his people, who is the glorious power and arm of the Lord, without whom they can neither do, nor bear anything, but through him strengthening them, they can do, and bear all things; as likewise from the Spirit of the Lord, who is the finger of God, by whom Christ wrought his miracles; and is that glorious power from on high, with which the apostles being endued, did the wondrous things they did; and it is by the same Spirit that believers are strengthened with might in the inner man:

unto all patience; to bring forth fruit with patience; to run with patience the race set before them; to bear patiently all afflictions and tribulations; to wait patiently for the things promised by God, and for the coming and appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the heavenly glory or hope laid up for them in heaven:

and longsuffering; to be slow to anger, and not easily provoked to wrath; to be ready to forgive injuries; and to bear long, and with patience, all reproaches and persecutions for the sake of Christ, and his Gospel; all which require daily fresh supplies of grace and strength, especially to endure all

with joyfulness, as well as with patience and longsuffering, with a cheerful spirit, or with joy in the Holy Ghost; to esteem reproach for Christ's sake above the riches and honours of this world; to rejoice when counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. This requires strength above that of nature, and a renewed supply of that of grace. This last clause, "with joyfulness", the Syriac version connects with the following verse, reading it, "with joy do ye give thanks", &c.

Gill: Col 1:12

Giving thanks unto the Father,.... To God the Father, as the Vulgate Latin and the Syriac versions read the clause; and the Complutensian edition, and some copies, "God and the Father"; who is both the Father of Christ by nature, and of all his people by adoption. The Ethiopic version renders it, as an exhortation or advice, "give ye thanks to the Father"; and so the Syriac version: but the words rather seem to be spoken in the first, than in the second person, and are to be considered in connection with Col 1:9. So when the apostle had made an end of his petitions, he enters upon thanksgiving to God:

which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; by the "inheritance", or "lot", is meant not the common lot of the children of God to suffer persecution for the sake of Christ, and through much tribulation to enter into the kingdom, which they are by God the Father counted and made worthy of, with the rest of saints called out of darkness into light; nor their present state and condition, having a power to become the children of God, and to be fellow citizens with the saints, to enjoy communion with them, under the Gospel dispensation, called "light", in opposition to Jewish and Gentile darkness, to be brought into which state is an high favour of God; but the heavenly glory, so called, in allusion to the land of Canaan, which was divided by lot to the children of Israel, according to the will and purpose of God; and because it is not acquired by the works of men, but is a pure free grace gift of God, and which he, as the Father of his people, has bequeathed unto them; and which they enjoy through the death of the testator Christ; and of which the Spirit is the earnest; and because this glory is peculiar to such as are the children of God by adopting grace. It is no other than that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and which fades not away, reserved in the heavens; and designs that substance, or those solid and substantial things they shall possess hereafter; that kingdom, salvation, and glory, they are heirs of; and includes all things they shall inherit, and even God himself, who is their portion, their inheritance, their exceeding great reward, and of whom they are said to be heirs. This is the inheritance "of the saints", and of none else; who are sanctified or set apart by God the Father in eternal election; who are sanctified by the blood of Christ, or whose sins are expiated by his atoning sacrifice; who are sanctified in Christ, or to whom he is made sanctification; and who are sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, or have the work of sanctification begun upon their souls by him; in consequence of which they live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world. And this inheritance of theirs is "in light"; unless this clause should be read in connection with the word "saints", and be descriptive of them; they being called and brought out of darkness into light, and made light in the Lord, light being infused into them; in which light they see light, sin to be exceeding sinful, and Christ to be exceeding precious: or this phrase should be thought to design the means by which the Father makes meet to partake of the inheritance; namely, in or by the light of the Gospel, showing the way of salvation by Christ, and by the light of grace put into their hearts, and by following Christ the light of the world, which is the way to the light of life: though it rather seems to point out the situation and nature of the heavenly inheritance; it is where God dwells, in light inaccessible to mortal creatures, and who is light itself; and where Christ is, who is the light of the new Jerusalem; and where is the light of endless joy, and uninterrupted happiness; and where the saints are blessed with the clear, full, and beatific vision of God in Christ, and of Christ as he is, seeing him, not through a glass darkly, but face to face. This may be said in reference to a notion of the Jews, that the "light" which God created on the first day is that goodness which he has laid up for them that fear him, and is what he has treasured up for the righteous in the world to come ^d. Now the saints meetness for this is not of themselves; by nature they are very unfit for it, being deserving of the wrath of God, and not of an inheritance; and are impure and unholy, and so not fit to partake of the inheritance of saints, or Holy Ones, and much less to dwell and converse with an holy God; and being darkness itself, cannot bear such light, or have communion with it: but God the Father makes them meet, which includes all the acts of his grace towards them, upon them, and in them; such as his choosing them in Christ, and their inheritance for them; in preparing that for them, and them for that; blessing them with all grace, and all spiritual blessings in Christ; putting them among the children by an act of adoption, of his own sovereign will and free grace, and thereby giving them a goodly heritage, and a title to it; justifying them by the righteousness of his Son, and so making them heirs according to the hope of eternal life, and forgiving all their trespasses for Christ's sake; cleansing them from all in his blood, so that being the undefiled in the way, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, they are fit for the undefiled inheritance; regenerating them by his Spirit, and implanting principles of light and life, grace and holiness, in them, without which no man shall see the Lord, or enter into the kingdom of heaven. One copy, as Beza observes, reads it, "which hath called us to be partakers", &c. and so does the Ethiopic version. And all such as the Father has thus called, and made meet, shall certainly be partakers of the inheritance; they partake of it already in Christ their head, and in faith and hope, having the Spirit as an earnest and pledge of it, and will wholly and perfectly enjoy it hereafter: for though, like Canaan's land, it is disposed of by lot, by the will, counsel, and free grace of God, yet will it not be divided into parts as that was; there is but one undivided inheritance, but one part and portion, which all the saints shall jointly and equally partake of, having all and each the same right and title, claim and meetness. For which they have abundant reason to give thanks to the Father, when they consider what they were, beggars on the dunghill, and now advanced to sit among princes, and to inherit the throne of glory; were bankrupts, over their head in debt, owed ten thousand talents, and had nothing to pay, and now all is frankly, forgiven; and besides, a title to, and meetness for, the heavenly inheritance, are freely bestowed on them; and particularly when they consider they are no more worthy of this favour than others that have no share in it, and also how great the inheritance is,

Gill: Col 1:13

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,.... That is, from the power of Satan; see Act 26:18, who, though once an angel of light, is now darkness itself, and is reserved in chains of darkness; he is a ruler of the darkness of this world; his kingdom is a kingdom of darkness; and he blinds the minds of them that believe not, keeps them in darkness, and increases the natural darkness of their minds; he delights in works of darkness, and tempts men to them; and his everlasting state and portion will be blackness of darkness: his power over men, in a state of unregeneracy, which he usurps, and is suffered to exercise, is very great; he works effectually in them, and leads them captive at his will; and nothing less than the power of God, who is stronger than the strong man armed, can deliver out of his hands; and which is at least one part of the mercy for which thanks are here given; See Gill on Luk 22:53; with the Jews, one of the names of Satan is חשך, "darkness" ^e. Moreover, the darkness of sin, ignorance, and unbelief, with which God's elect, while in a state of nature, are surrounded, and, as it were shut up and imprisoned, so that they have not the least spark of true spiritual light and knowledge, may be also meant; under the power of which they are to such a degree, that they know nothing of God in Christ, of the way of salvation by him, or of the work of the Spirit on their souls, or of the doctrines of the Gospel in an experimental manner; and so they continue, till, by an almighty power, they are turned from darkness to light; when, by powerful grace, they are plucked as brands out of the burning, and delivered from wrath to come, and from that utter darkness of misery and destruction their ways of sin and darkness led and exposed them to. This deliverance is wrought out for them in the effectual calling, when they are internally called, and powerfully brought out of this darkness, by introducing light into them, revealing Christ in them, causing the prince of darkness to flee from them, and the scales of darkness and blindness to fall from their eyes; and which is both an instance or the wonderful grace of God, and of his almighty power, and in which lies in part the saints' meetness for the inheritance; for these words are, in some sort, explanative of the former; for so long as a person is under the power of darkness, he cannot be meet for an inheritance which is in light: it follows, as another branch of this mercy, for which thanks are given,

and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; not into the kingdom of glory; for though the saints are heirs of it, and rejoice in hope of it, they have not yet an entrance into it; which they will have abundantly when Christ shall introduce them into it, not only as his Father's, but as his own kingdom and glory: but the kingdom of grace is here meant, or that state of grace, light, and life, which such are brought into, when rescued out of Satan's hands, and recovered out of their former state of ignorance and infidelity; when they are by the drawings of the Father, by his powerful and efficacious grace, brought to Christ, and, in the day his power on their souls, are made willing to submit to his righteousness, and to embrace him as the alone Saviour and Redeemer, and be subject to him as King of saints, observing his commands, keeping his ordinances, and walking in his statutes and judgments with other saints, in a Gospel church state; which is Christ's kingdom here on earth, where he reigns as King over God's holy hill of Zion, being set there by his Father, from whom he has received this kingdom, and will deliver it to him, when it is complete and perfect. Now those whom Jehovah the Father snatches out of Satan's hands, and breaks in upon their souls with divine light and knowledge, he brings into such a state, and into this kingdom of Christ, who is called "his dear Son": or "the Son of his love"; or "his Son of love"; who being his Son by nature, of the same nature with him, and equal to him, always was, is, and will be, the object of his love, complacency, and delight; as he cannot be otherwise, since he is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person; and even as this Son of his is in an office capacity, as the Mediator between God and man, he is his elect, in whom his soul delights; and he is always well pleased with all the chosen ones in him, who are the sons of God through him, and always beloved in him. This clause is added, partly to distinguish the kingdom of Christ, into which the saints are brought in this life, from the kingdom of the Father, or the ultimate glory they shall possess hereafter; and partly to express the security of the saints, and their continuance in the love of God, being in the kingdom, and under the care and government of the Son of his love; and also to make way for what the apostle has further to discourse concerning the person, office, and grace of Christ, in the following verses,

Gill: Col 1:14

In whom we have redemption,.... Which is an excellent and wonderful blessing of grace saints have in and by Christ; and lies in a deliverance from sin, all sin, original and actual, under which they are held captive, in a state of nature, and by which they are made subject to the punishment of death; but through the sacrifice of Christ it is taken, and put away, finished, and made an end of; and they are freed from the damning power of it, or any obligation to punishment for it; and in consequence of this are delivered from the enslaving governing power of it by his grace and Spirit, and will hereafter be entirely rid of the very being of it: it consists also of a deliverance from the law, the curse and bondage of it, under which they are held on account of sin, the transgression of it; but being delivered from sin, they are also from the law, its accusations, charges, menaces, curses, and condemnation; as likewise out of the hands of Satan, by whom they are led captive; for through the ransom price paid by Christ they are ransomed out of the hands of him that was stronger than they, the prey is taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive delivered by him that has led captivity captive: in short, this redemption is a deliverance out of the hands of all their enemies, and from all evils and misery, the effects of sin, from death, and hell, and wrath to come. The author of it is Christ, the Son of God, the Son of his love, his dear Son: he was called to this work in the council of peace, in which the affair of redemption was consulted; and he agreed to undertake it in the covenant of grace, of which this is a principal article; and being in his constitution, as Mediator, every way fit and proper for it: as man, the right of redemption belonged to him, being the near kinsman of his people, and, as God, he was mighty and able to perform it; as man he had something to offer, and, as God, could make that sacrifice valuable and effectual to all saving purposes; as man, he had compassion on human nature, and, as God, was concerned for things pertaining to his honour and glory. And thus being every way qualified, he was sent, and came on this errand, and has obtained a redemption, which is precious, plenteous, complete and eternal: it is now with him, and "in him"; and he is made this, and everything else to his people, that they want. The subjects of this blessing are, not angels, but men; and not all men, but some that are redeemed from among men, out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation; who are called by the name of Jacob, the people of Christ, a peculiar people, and the church of God; and evidentially are such, who have faith in Christ, love to the saints, and good hope of eternal life; who know the grace of God in truth, are made meet to be partakers of the eternal inheritance, being delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of Christ, and are designed by the we in this text: the means by which this blessing is procured, it

through his blood. This phrase is left out indeed in the Syriac and Ethiopic versions, and in the Complutensian edition, and in some copies; but rightly stands here, as it does in Eph 1:7, where there is another clause added, which is here omitted, at the end of the verse, "according to the riches of his grace". This is the blood of Christ, his own blood, and not the blood of bulls and goats, and the same with that of the persons he redeems, but untainted with sin; the blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and blemish, of original or actual sin, otherwise it would not have been a sufficient redemption price for his people; nor even then, were it not as it was the blood of the Son of God, of one that was God as well as man, whereby it came to have a proper value and efficacy in it to obtain this blessing: Christ's shedding his blood freely on this account is a proof of his great love to his redeemed ones; the efficacy that was in it to answer this purpose shows the dignity and greatness of his person; and it not being to be effected without it, demonstrates the strictness of divine justice, and that the redemption of men is brought about in a way entirely consistent with the righteousness and holiness of God. A particular branch of this blessing follows, and which serves, in some sense, to illustrate and explain it,

even the forgiveness of sins; of all sin, original and actual; of heart, lip, and life, secret and open, past, present, and to come; which lies in a non-imputation of sin, a remembrance of it no more, a removing of it entirely out of the way, a covering and blotting it out of sight, so as to be no more visible and legible: this is in Christ, where all spiritual blessings are; nor is it to be had or expected from an absolute God, but from God in Christ, and through him, through his propitiatory sacrifice; for as redemption, so forgiveness of sin is through his blood, which was shed for it; so that it proceeds upon the foot of satisfaction made to the justice of God by a price paid, and is an act of justice as well as grace, and belongs to the same persons as redemption does; hence those that are redeemed are represented as without fault before the throne; and indeed, the reason why their iniquities are blotted out, and will be remembered no more against them, is, because they are redeemed.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Col 1:9

¹ tn Or “heard about it”; Grk “heard.” There is no direct object stated in the Greek (direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context). A direct object is expected by an English reader, however, so most translations supply one. Here, however, it is not entirely clear what the author “heard”: a number of translations supply “it” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV; NAB “this”), but this could refer back either to (1) “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8, or (2) “your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints” (v. 4). In light of this uncertainty, other translations supply “about you” (TEV, NIV, CEV, NLT). This is preferred by the present translation since, while it does not resolve the ambiguity entirely, it does make it less easy for the English reader to limit the reference only to “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8.

² tn The term “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but the following reference to “the knowledge of his will” makes it clear that “God” is in view as the object of the “praying and asking,” and should therefore be included in the English translation for clarity.

³ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause has been translated as substantival, indicating the content of the prayer and asking. The idea of purpose may also be present in this clause.

NET Notes: Col 1:10

¹ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

² tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

NET Notes: Col 1:11

¹ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.

NET Notes: Col 1:12

¹ tn BDAG 473 s.v. ἱκανόω states, “τινὰ εἴς τι someone for someth. Col 1:12.” The point of the text is that God has qualified the saints for a “share” or “portion” in the inheritance of the saints.

² tn Grk “the inheritance of the saints.” The genitive noun τῶν ἁγίων (twn Jagiwn) is a possessive genitive: “the saints’ inheritance.”

NET Notes: Col 1:13

¹ tn Here αὐτοῦ (autou) has been translated as a subjective genitive (“he loves”).

NET Notes: Col 1:14

¹ tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou {aimato" autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule mss (614 630 1505 2464 al) as well as a few, mostly secondary, versional and patristic witnesses. But the reading was prompted by the parallel in Eph 1:7 where the wording is solid. If these words had been in the original of Colossians, why would scribes omit them here but not in Eph 1:7? Further, the testimony on behalf of the shorter reading is quite overwhelming: {א A B C D F G Ψ 075 0150 6 33 1739 1881 Ï latt co as well as several other versions and fathers}. The conviction that “through his blood” is not authentic in Col 1:14 is as strong as the conviction that these words are authentic in Eph 1:7.

Geneva Bible: Col 1:9

For this cause we also, since the day we heard [it], do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of ^{( f )} his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

^{( f )} God's will.

Geneva Bible: Col 1:11

^{( 3 )} Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with ^{( g )} joyfulness;

^{( 3 )} The gift of continuance is not from us, but it proceeds from the power of God, which he freely gives us.

^{( g )} It must not be unwilling, and as it were drawn out of us by force, but proceed from a merry and joyful mind.

Geneva Bible: Col 1:12

^{( 4 )} Giving thanks unto the ^{( 5 )} Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in ^{( h )} light:

^{( 4 )} Having ended the preface, he goes to the matter itself, that is to say, to an excellent description (although it is but short) of complete Christianity, which is fitly divided into three treatises: for first of all he expounds the true doctrine according to the order of the causes, beginning from this verse to (Col 1:12-21). And from there he begins to apply the same to the Colossians with various exhortations to (Colossians 1:22-2:6). And last of all in the third place, even to (Col. 2:6-23), he refutes the corruptions of true doctrine. ^{( 5 )} The efficient cause of our salvation is only the mercy of God the Father, who makes us fit to be partakers of eternal life, delivering us from the darkness in which we were born, and bringing us to the light of the knowledge of the glory of his Son.

^{( h )} In that glorious and heavenly kingdom.

Geneva Bible: Col 1:14

^{( 6 )} In whom we have redemption through his blood, [even] the forgiveness of sins:

^{( 6 )} The matter itself of our salvation is Christ the Son of God, who has obtained remission of sins for us by the offering up of himself.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Col 1:1-29

1 After salutation Paul thanks God for their faith;

7 confirms the doctrine of Epaphras;

9 prays further for their increase in grace;

14 describes the true Christ;

21 encourages them to receive Jesus Christ, and commends his own ministry.

Maclaren: Col 1:11

All Power'

Strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy.'--Col. 1:11 (R.V.).

THERE is a wonderful rush and fervour in the prayers of Paul. No parts of his letters are so lofty, so impassioned, so full of his soul, as when he rises from speaking of God to men to speaking to God for men. We have him here setting forth his loving desires for the Colossian Christians in a prayer of remarkable fulness and sweep. Broadly taken, it is for their perfecting in religious and moral excellence, and it is very instructive to note the idea of what a good man is which is put forth here.

The main petition is for wisdom and spiritual understanding applied chiefly, as is to be carefully noted, to the knowledge of God's will. The thought is that what it most imports us to know is the Will of God, a knowledge not of merely speculative points in the mysteries of the divine nature, but of that Will which it concerns us to know because it is our life to do it. The next element in Paul's desires, as set forth in the ideal here, is a worthy walk, a practical life, or course of conduct which is worthy of Jesus Christ, and in every respect pleases Him. The highest purpose of knowledge is a good life. The surest foundation for a good life is a full and clear knowledge of the Will of God.

Then follow a series of clauses which seem to expand the idea of the worthy walk and to be co-ordinate or perhaps slightly causal, and to express the continuous condition of the soul which is walking worthily. Let us endeavour to gather from these words some hints as to what it is God's purpose that we should become.

I. The Many-Sided Strength Which May Be Ours.

The form of the word strengthened' here would be more fully represented by being strengthened,' and suggests an unintermitted process of bestowal and reception of God's might rendered necessary by our continuous human weakness, and by the tear and wear of life. As in the physical life there must be constant renewal because there is constant waste, and as every bodily action involves destruction of tissue so that living is a continual dying, so is it in the mental and still more in the spiritual life. Just as there must be a perpetual oxygenation of blood in the lungs, so there must be an uninterrupted renewal of spiritual strength for the highest life. It is demanded by the conditions of our human weakness. It is no less rendered necessary by the nature of the divine strength imparted, which is ever communicating itself, and like the ocean cannot but pour so much of its fulness as can be received into every creek and crack on its shore.

The Apostle not merely emphasises the continuousness of this communicated strength, but its many-sided variety, by designating it all power.' In this whole context that word all' seems to have a charm for him. We read in this prayer of all spiritual wisdom,' of walking worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing,' of fruit in every good work,' and now of all power,' and lastly of all patience and longsuffering.' These are not instances of being obsessed with a word, but each of them has its own appropriate force, and here the comprehensive completeness of the strength available for our many-sided weakness is marvellously revealed. There is infinite riches in a narrow room.' All power means every kind of power, be it bodily or mental, for all variety of circumstances, and, Protean, to take the shape of all exigencies. Most of us are strong only at points, and weak in others. In all human experience there is a vulnerable spot on the heel. The most glorious image, though it has a head of gold, ends in feet, part of iron and part of clay.'

And if this ideal of many-sided power stands in contrast with the limitations of human strength, how does it rebuke and condemn the very partial manifestations of a very narrow and one-sided power which we who profess to have received it set forth! We have access to a source which can fill our whole nature, can flower into all gracious forms, can cope with all our exigencies, and make us all-round men, complete in Jesus Christ, and, having this, what do we make of it, what do we show for it? Does not God say to us, Ye are not straitened in me, ye are straitened in yourselves; I beseech you be ye enlarged.'

The conditions on our part requisite for possessing all might' are plain enough. The earlier portion of the prayer plainly points to them. The knowledge of God's Will and the walk worthy of the Lord' are the means whereby the power which is ever eager to make its dwelling in us, can reach its end. If we keep the channel unchoked, no doubt the river of the water of life which proceedeth from the throne of God and the Lamb' will rejoice to fill it to the brim with its flashing waters. If we do not wrench away ourselves from contact with Him, He will strengthen us with all might.' If we keep near Him we may have calm confidence that power will be ours that shall equal our need and outstrip our desires.

II. The Measure Of The Strength.

It is according to the power of His glory.' The Authorised Version but poorly represents the fulness of the Apostle's thought, which is more adequately and accurately expressed in the Revised Version. His glory' is the flashing brightness of the divine self-manifestation, and in that Light resides the strength which is the standard or measure of the gift to us. The tremendous force of the sunbeam which still falls so gently on a sleeper's face as not to disturb the closed eyes is but a parable of the strength which characterises the divine glory. And wonderful and condemnatory as the thought is, that power is the unlimited limit of the possibilities of our possession. His gifts are proportioned to His resources. While He is rich, can I be poor? The only real limit to His bestowal is His own fulness. Of course, at each moment, our capacity of receiving is for the time being the practical limit of our possession, but that capacity varies indefinitely, and may be, and should be, indefinitely and continuously increasing. It is an elastic boundary, and hence we may go on making our own as much as we will, and progressively more and more, of God's strength. He gives it all, but there is a tragical difference between the full cup put into our hands and the few drops carried to our lips. The key of the treasure-chamber is in our possession, and on each of us His gracious face smiles the permission which His gracious lips utter in words,' Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.' If we are conscious of defect, if our weakness is beaten by the assaults of temptation, or crushed by sorrows that ride it down in a fierce attack, the fault is our own. We have, if we choose to make it our own and to use it as ours, more than enough to make us' more than conquerors' over all sins and all sorrows.

But when we contrast what we have by God's gift and what we have in our personal experience and use in our daily life, the contrast may well bring shame, even though the contrast brings to us hope to lighten the shame. The average experience of present-day Christians reminds one of the great tanks that may be seen in India, that have been suffered to go to ruin, and so an elaborate system of irrigation comes to nothing, and the great river that should have been drawn off into them runs past them, all but unused. Repair them and keep the sluices open, and all will blossom again.

III. The Great Purpose Of This Strength.

Patience and longsuffering with joyfulness' seems at first but a poor result of such a force, but it comes from a heart that was under no illusions as to the facts of human life, and it finds a response in us all. It may be difficult to discriminate patience' from longsuffering,' but the general notion here is that one of the highest uses for which divine strength is given to us, is to make us able to meet the antagonism of evil without its shaking our souls. He who patiently endures without despondency or the desire to recompense evil for evil,' and to whom by faith even the night is light about him,' is far on the way to perfection. God is always near us, but never nearer than when our hearts are heavy and our way rough and dark. Our sorrows make rents through which His strength flows. We can see more of heaven when the leaves are off the trees. It is a law of the Divine dealings that His strength is made perfect in weakness.' God leads us in to a darkened room to show us His wonders.

That strength is to be manifested by us in' patience and longsuffering,' both of which are to have blended with them a real though apparently antagonistic joy. True and profound grief is not opposed to such patience, but the excess of it, the hopeless and hysterical outbursts certainly are. We are all like the figures in some old Greek temples which stand upright with their burdens on their heads. God's strength is given that we may bear ours calmly, and upright like these fair forms that hold up the heavy architecture as if it were a feather, or like women with water-jars on their heads, which only make their carriage more graceful and their step more firm.

How different the patience which God gives by His own imparted strength, from the sullen submission or hysterical abandonment to sorrow, or the angry rebellion characterising Godless grief! Many of us think that we can get on very well in prosperity and fine weather without Him. We had better ask ourselves what we are going to do when the storm comes, which comes to all some time or other.

The word here rendered patience' is more properly perseverance.' It is not merely a passive but an active virtue. We do not receive that great gift of divine strength to bear only, but also to work, and such work is one of the best ways of bearing and one of the best helps to doing so. So in our sorrows and trials let us feel that God's strength is not all given us to be expended in our own consolation, but also to be used in our plain duties. These remain as imperative though our hearts are beating like hammers, and there is no more unwise and cowardly surrender to trouble than to fling away our tools and fold our hands idly on our laps.

But Paul lays a harder duty on us even in promising a great gift to us, when he puts before us an ideal of joy mingling with patience and longsuffering. The command would be an impossible one if there were not the assurance that we should be strengthened with all might.' We plainly need an infusion of diviner strength than our own, if that strange marriage of joy and sorrow should take place, and they should at once occupy our hearts. Yet if His strength be ours we shall be strong to submit and acquiesce, strong to look deep enough to see His will as the foundation of all and as ever busy for our good, strong to hope, strong to discern the love at work, strong to trust the Father even when He chastens. And all this will make it possible to have the paradox practically realised in our own experience, As sorrowful yet always rejoicing.' One has seen potassium burning underwater. Our joy may burn under waves of sorrow. Let us bring our weakness to Jesus Christ and grasp Him as did the sinking Peter. He will breathe His own grace into us, and speak to our feeble and perchance sorrowful hearts, as He had done long before Paul's words to the Colossians, My grace is sufficient for thee, and my strength is made perfect in weakness.'

Maclaren: Col 1:12

Thankful For Inheritance

Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.'--Col. 1:12 (R.V.)

IT is interesting to notice how much the thought of inheritance seems to have been filling the Apostle's mind during his writing of Ephesians and Colossians. Its recurrence is one of the points of contact between them. For example, in Ephesians, we read, In whom also were made a heritage' (Col. 1:11); An earnest of our inheritance' (Col. 1:14); His inheritance in the saints' (Col. 1:18); Inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ' (Eph. 5:5). We notice too that in the address to the Elders of the Church at Ephesus, we read of the inheritance among all them that are sanctified' (Acts 20:32).

In the text the climax of the Apostle's prayer is presented as thankfulness, the perpetual recognition of the Divine hand in all that befalls us, the perpetual confidence that all which befalls us is good, and the perpetual gushing out towards Him of love and praise. The highest diligence, the most strenuous fruit-bearing, and the most submissive patience and longsuffering would be incomplete without the consecration of a grateful heart, and the noblest beauty of a Christian character would lack its rarest lustre. This crown of Christian perfectness the Apostle regards as being called into action mainly by the contemplation of that great act and continuous work of God's Fatherly love by which he makes us fit for our portion of the inheritance which the same love has prepared for us. That inheritance is the great cause for Christian thankfulness; the more immediate cause is His preparation of us for it. So we have three points here to consider; the inheritance; God's Fatherly preparation of His children for it; the continual temper of thankfulness which these should evoke.

I. The Inheritance.

The frequent recurrence of this idea in the Old Testament supplies Paul with a thought which he uses to set forth the most characteristic blessings of the New. The promised land belonged to Israel, and each member of each tribe had his own little holding in the tribal territory. Christians have in common the higher spiritual blessings which Christ brings, "and Himself is, and each individual has his own portion of, the general good.

We must begin by dismissing from our minds the common idea, which a shallow experience tends to find confirmed by the associations ordinarily attached to the word inheritance,' that it is entered upon by death. No doubt, that great change does effect an unspeakable change in our fitness for, and consequently in our possession of, the gifts which we receive from Christ's pierced hands, and, as the Apostle has told us, the highest of these possessed on earth is but the earnest of the inheritance ; but we must ever bear in mind that the distinction between a Christian life on earth and one in heaven is by no means so sharply drawn in Scripture as it generally is by us, and that death has by no means so great importance as we faithlessly attribute to it. The life here and hereafter is like a road which passes the frontiers of two kingdoms divided by a bridged river, but runs on in the same direction on both sides of the stream. The flood had to be forded until Jesus bridged it. The elements of the future and the present are the same, as the apostolic metaphor of the earnest of the inheritance' teaches us. The handful of soil which constitutes the arles' is part of the broad acres made over by it.

We should be saved from many unworthy conceptions of the future life, if we held more steadfastly to the great truth that God Himself is the portion of the inheritance. The human spirit is too great and too exacting to be satisfied with anything less than Him, and the possession of Him opens out into every blessedness, and includes all the minor joys and privileges that can gladden and enrich the soul. We degrade the future if we think of it only, or even chiefly, as a state in which faculties are enlarged, and sorrows and sins are for ever ended. Neither such negatives as' no night there,' neither sorrow nor crime,' no more pain,' nor such metaphors as' white robes' and golden crowns and seats on thrones' are enough. We are heirs of God,' and only as we possess Him, and know that we are His, and He is ours, are we rich to all intents of bliss.' That inheritance is here set forth as being' in light' and as belonging to saints. Light is the element and atmosphere of God. He is in light. He is the fountain of all light. He is light; perfect in wisdom, perfect in purity. The sun has its spots, but in Him is no darkness at all, Moons wax and wane, shadows of eclipse fall, stars have their time to set, but He Is the Father of lights with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.' All that light is focussed in Jesus the Light of the world. That Light fills the earth, but here it shineth in darkness that obstructs its rays. But there must be a place and a time where the manifestation of God corresponds with the reality of God, where His beams pour out and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof, nothing which they do not bless, nothing which does not flash them back rejoicing. There is a land whereof the Lord God is the Light. In it is the inheritance of the saints,' and in its light live the nations of the saved, and have God for their companion. All darkness of ignorance, of sorrow, and of sin will fade away as the night flees and ceases to be, before the rising sun.

The phrase to be partakers' is accurately rendered for the portion,' and carries a distinct allusion to the partition of the promised land to Israel by which each man had his lot or share in the common inheritance. So the one word inheritance brings with it blessed thoughts of a common possession of a happy society in which no man's gain is another's loss, and all envyings, rivalries, and jealousies have ceased to be, and the other word, the portion,' suggests the individual possession by each of his own vision and experience. Each man's portion' is capable of growth; each has as much of God as he can hold. The measure of his desire is the measure of his capacity. There are infinite differences in the portions' of the saints on earth, and heaven is robbed of one of its chief charms unless we recognise that there are infinite differences among the saints there. For both states the charter by which the portion is held is' Be it unto thee even as thou wilt,' and in both the law holds To him that hath shall be given.'

II. The Fatherly Preparation For The Inheritance.

It is obvious from all which we have been saying that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. The inheritance being what it is, the possession, the enjoyment of communion with a Holy God, it is absolutely incapable of being entered upon by any who are unholy. That is true about both the partial possession of the earnest of it here and of its fulness hereafter. In the present life all tolerated sin bars us out from enjoying God, and in the future nothing can enter that defileth nor whatsoever worketh or maketh a lie. There are many people who think that they would like to go to heaven,' but who would find it difficult to answer such questions as these: Do you like to think of God? Do you find any joy in holy thoughts? What do you feel about prayer? Does the name of Christ make your heart leap? Is righteousness your passion? If you have to answer these questions with a silence which is the saddest negative, what do you think you would do in heaven? I remember that the Greenlanders told the Moravian missionaries who were trying to move them by conventional pictures of its delights, that the heaven which these pious souls had painted would not do for them, for there were no seals there. There are thousands of us who, if we spoke the truth, would say the same thing, with the necessary variations arising from our environment. There is not a spinning-mill in it all. How would some of us like that? There is not a ledger, nor a theatre, no novels, no amusements. Would it not be intolerable ennui to be put down in such an order of things? You would be like the Israelites, loathing this tight bread' and hungering for the strong-smelling and savoury-tasting leeks and garlic, even if in order to taste them you had to be slaves again.

Heaven would be no heaven to you if you could go there and be thus minded. But you could not. God Himself cannot carry men thither but by fitting them for it. It is not a place so much as a state, and the mighty hand that works on one side of the thick curtain preparing the inheritance in light for the saints, is equally busy on this side making the saints meet for the inheritance.

I do not wish to enter here on grammatical niceties, but I must point out that the form of the word which the Apostle employs to express it points to an act in the past which still runs on.

The Revised Version's rendering,' made us meet,' is preferable to the Authorised Version's, because of its omission of the' hath' which relegates the whole process of preparation to the past. And it is of importance to recognise that the difference between these two representations of the divine preparation is not a piece of pedantry, for that preparation has indeed its beginnings in the past of every Christian soul, but is continuous throughout its whole earthly experience. There is the great act of forgiveness and justifying which is contemporaneous with the earliest and most imperfect faith, and there is the being born again, the implanting of a new life which is the life of Christ Himself, and has no spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing. That new life is infantile, but it is there, the real man, and it will grow and conquer. Take an extreme case and suppose a man who has just received forgiveness for his past and the endowment of a new nature. Though he were to die at that moment he would still in the basis of his being and real self be meet for the inheritance. He who truly trusts in Jesus is passed from death unto life, though the habits of sins which are forgiven still cling to him, and his new life has not yet exercised a controlling power or begun to build up character. So Christians ought not to think that, because they are conscious of much unholiness, they are not ready for the inheritance. The wild brigand through whose glazing eyeballs faith looked out to his fellow-sufferer on the central cross was adjudged meet to be with him in Paradise, and if all his deeds of violence and wild outrages on the laws of God and man did not make him unmeet, who amongst us need write bitter things against himself? The preparation is further effected through all the future earthly life. The only true way to regard everything that befalls us here is to see in it the Fatherly discipline preparing us for a fuller possession of a richer inheritance. Gains and losses, joys and sorrows, and all the endless variety of experiences through which we all have to pass, are an unintelligible mystery unless we apply to them this solution, He for our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness.' It is not a blind Fate or a still blinder Chance that hurtles sorrows and changes at us, but a loving Father; and we do not grasp the meaning of our lives unless we feel, even about their darkest moments, that the end of them all is to make us more capable of possessing more of Himself.

III. The Thankfulness Which These Thoughts Should Evoke.

Thankfulness ought to be a sweet duty. It is a joy to cherish gratitude. Generous hearts do not need to be told to be thankful, and they who are only thankful to order are not thankful at all. In nothing is the ordinary experience of the ordinary Christian more defective, and significant of the deficiencies of their faith, than in the tepidness and interruptedness of their gratitude. The blessings bestowed are continuous and unspeakable. The thanks returned are grudging and scanty. The river that flows from God is full of water' and pours out unceasingly, and all that we return is a tiny trickle, often choked and sometimes lost in the sands:

Our thankfulness ought to be constant. The fire on the altar should never be quenched. The odour of the sweet-smelling incense should ever ascend. Why is it that we have so little of this grace which the Apostle in our text regards as the precious stone that binds all Christian graces together, the sparkling crest of the wave of a Christian life? Mainly because we have so little of the habit of regarding all things as God's Fatherly discipline and meditating on that for which they are making us meet. We need a far more habitual contemplation of our inheritance, of our experience as lovingly given by God to fit us for it and of the darkest hours which would otherwise try our faith and silence our praise as necessary parts of that preparation. If this be our habitual attitude of mind, and these be ever present to us, our song will be always of His mercy and our whole lives a thank-offering.

The text is a prophecy describing the inheritance in its perfect form. Earthly life must be ended before it is fully understood. Down in the valleys we praised God, but tears and mysteries sometimes saddened our songs; but now on the summit surveying all behind, and knowing by a blessed eternity of experience to what it has led, even an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, we shall praise Him with a new song for ever.

Thankfulness is the one element of worship common to earth and heaven, to angels and to us. Whilst they sing,' Bless the Lord all ye His hosts,' redeemed men have still better reason to join in the chorus and answer, Bless the Lord, O my soul.'

MHCC: Col 1:9-14

The apostle was constant in prayer, that the believers might be filled with the knowledge of God's will, in all wisdom. Good words will not do without good works. He who undertakes to give strength to his people, is a God of power, and of glorious power. The blessed Spirit is the author of this. In praying for spiritual strength, we are not straitened, or confined in the promises, and should not be so in our hopes and desires. The grace of God in the hearts of believers is the power of God; and there is glory in this power. The special use of this strength was for sufferings. There is work to be done, even when we are suffering. Amidst all their trials they gave thanks to the Father of our Lord Jesus, whose special grace fitted them to partake of the inheritance provided for the saints. To bring about this change, those were made willing subjects of Christ, who were slaves of Satan. All who are designed for heaven hereafter, are prepared for heaven now. Those who have the inheritance of sons, have the education of sons, and the disposition of sons. By faith in Christ they enjoyed this redemption, as the purchase of his atoning blood, whereby forgiveness of sins, and all other spiritual blessings were bestowed. Surely then we shall deem it a favour to be delivered from Satan's kingdom and brought into that of Christ, knowing that all trials will soon end, and that every believer will be found among those who come out of great tribulation.

Matthew Henry: Col 1:9-11

The apostle proceeds in these verses to pray for them. He heard that they were good, and he prayed that they might be better. He was constant in this prayer: We do not cease to pray for you. It may be he could hear of them but seldom, but he constantly prayed for them. - And desire that you may be filled with the knowledge, etc. Observe what it is that he begs of God for them,

I. That they might be knowing intelligent Christians: filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Observe, 1. The knowledge of our duty is the best knowledge. A mere empty notion of the greatest truths is insignificant. Our knowledge of the will of God must be always practical: we must know it, in order to do it. 2. Our knowledge is then a blessing indeed when it is in wisdom, when we know how to apply our general knowledge to our particular occasions, and to suit it to all emergencies. 3. Christians should endeavour to be filled with knowledge; not only to know the will of God, but to know more of it, and to increase in the knowledge of God (as it is Col 1:10), and to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, 2Pe 3:18.

II. That their conversation might be good. Good knowledge without a good life will not profit. Our understanding is then a spiritual understanding when we exemplify it in our way of living: That you may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing (Col 1:10), that is, as becomes the relation we stand in to him and the profession we make of him. The agreeableness of our conversation to our religion is pleasing to God as well as to good men. We walk unto all well-pleasing when we walk in all things according to the will of God. Being fruitful in every good work. This is what we should aim at. Good words will not do without good works. We must abound in good works, and in every good work: not in some only, which are more easy, and suitable, and safe, but in all, and every instance of them. There must be a regular uniform regard to all the will of God. And the more fruitful we are in good works the more we shall increase in the knowledge of God. He who doeth his will shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, Joh 7:17.

III. That they might be strengthened: Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power (Col 1:11), fortified against the temptations of Satan and furnished for all their duty. It is a great comfort to us that he who undertakes to give strength to his people is a God of power and of glorious power. Where there is spiritual life there is still need of spiritual strength, strength for all the actions of the spiritual life. To be strengthened is to be furnished by the grace of God for every good work, and fortified by that grace against every evil one: it is to be enabled to do our duty, and still to hold fast our integrity. The blessed Spirit is the author of this strength; for we are strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inward man, Eph 3:16. The word of God is the means of it, by which he conveys it; and it must be fetched in by prayer. It was in answer to earnest prayer that the apostle obtained sufficient grace. In praying for spiritual strength we are not straitened in the promises, and therefore should not be straitened in our own hopes and desires. Observe, 1. He prayed that they might be strengthened with might: this seems a tautology; but he means, that they might be mightily strengthened, or strengthened with might derived from another. 2. It is with all might. It seems unreasonable that a creature should be strengthened with all might, for that is to make him almighty; but he means, with all that might which we have occasion for, to enable us to discharge our duty or preserve our innocence, that grace which is sufficient for us in all the trials of life and able to help us in time of need. 3. It is according to his glorious power. He means, according to the grace of God: but the grace of God in the hearts of believers is the power of God; and there is a glory in this power; it is an excellent and sufficient power. And the communications of strength are not according to our weakness, to whom the strength is communicated, but according to his power, from whom it is received. When God gives he gives like himself, and when he strengthens he strengthens like himself. 4. The special use of this strength was for suffering work: That you may be strengthened unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. He prays not only that they may be supported under their troubles, but strengthened for them: the reason is there is work to be done even when we are suffering. And those who are strengthened according to his glorious power are strengthened, (1.) To all patience. When patience hath its perfect work (Jam 1:4) then we are strengthened to all patience - when we not only bear our troubles patiently, but receive them as gifts from God, and are thankful for them. To you it is given to suffer, Phi 1:29. When we bear our troubles well, though ever so many, and the circumstances of them ever so aggravating, then we bear them with all patience. And the same reason for bearing one trouble will hold for bearing another, if it be a good reason. All patience includes all the kinds of it; not only bearing patience, but waiting patience. (2.) This is even unto long-suffering, that is, drawn out to a great length: not only to bear trouble awhile, but to bear it as long as God pleases to continue it. (3.) It is with joyfulness, to rejoice in tribulation, to take joyfully the spoiling of our goods, and rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer for his name, to have joy as well as patience in the troubles of life. This we could never do by any strength of our own, but as we are strengthened by the grace of God.

Matthew Henry: Col 1:12-29

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, Col 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, etc., Col 1:12, Col 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, Col 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 (1Jo 1:6), from the dominion of Satan, who is the prince of darkness (Eph 6:12), and from the damnation of hell, which is utter darkness, "Mat 25:30. They are called out of darkness, 1Pe 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, Eph 5:8. Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light, 1Pe 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 (Mat 3:17), and eminently the beloved, Eph 1:6. 3. "He hath not only done this, but hath made us meet to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light, Col 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, Rom 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, Jam 1:17; Joh 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. Rom 8:15. And, because you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, Gal 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 (Rom 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, Col 1:15-17. (1.) He is the image of the invisible God. Not as man was made in the image of God (Gen 1:27), in his natural faculties and dominion over the creatures: no, he is the express image of his person, Heb 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, Joh 1:14; Joh 14:9. (2.) He is the first-born of every creature. Not that he is himself a creature; for it is prōtotokos pasēs ktiseōs - 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, Pro 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, Heb 1:2. The word, with only the change of the accent, prōtotokos , 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, Col 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, Joh 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, 1Pe 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, Rom 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, Pro 8:22. And in the beginning the Word was with God and was God, Joh 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, Heb 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, Col 1:18, Col 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, Eph 1:22, Eph 1:23. (2.) He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, archē , prōtotokos - 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, 1Co 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, Heb 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, Joh 5:23. (4.) All fulness dwells in him, and it pleased the Father it should do so (Col 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 (Joh 1:16), and he fills all in all, Eph 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, Col 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 Eph 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, Col 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 Eph 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 anakephalaiōsasthai - 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, Col 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 (Col 1:14); he has made peace through the blood of his cross (Col 1:20), and it is in the body of his flesh through death, Col 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, Heb 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 (Col 1:23), that is, it was ordered to be preached to every creature, Mar 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, Rom 11:13. And again in Col 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 (Col 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, 2Co 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, Col 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, Col 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, Phi 3:15; 2Ti 3:17), or else crowned with a glorious reward hereafter, when he will present to himself a glorious church (Eph 5:27), and bring them to the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb 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 (Col 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 (Eph 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, Col 1:26, Col 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, 2Co 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, 2Co 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, Eph 3:4, Eph 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, Eph 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, Col 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 (1Co 15:58) and hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, Heb 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, Heb 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, 1Pe 1:9.

Barclay: Col 1:9-11

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 (4678), which we could describe as knowledge of first principles. Understanding is sunesis (4907), 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.

Barclay: Col 1:9-11

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 (5281) and patience is makrothumia (3115). 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 (5281) 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 (5281) is the ability to deal triumphantly with anything that life can do to us.

Makrothumia (3115) 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 (3115) is the spirit which never loses patience with, belief in, and hope for men.

So Paul prays for hupomone (5281), the fortitude which no situation can defeat, and makrothumia (3115), 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."

Barclay: Col 1:12-14

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" (Act 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 (3179). 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.

© 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.

Constable: Col 1:9-14

C. Prayer 1:9-14

Paul told his readers that he prayed for their full perception and deepest understanding of God's will for them and for all believers. He did this so they would be able to glorify God in their conduct. He told them this to remind them that their understanding must come through the working of God's Spirit in them and that correct understanding is foundational to correct behavior.

1:9 In view of the Colossians' trust in Christ, Paul and his companions had been praying consistently for them. They had prayed both thanksgivings and petitions since they had heard of the Colossians' reception of the Word and their consequent love, which the Holy Spirit produced in them. Specifically they asked that God would give them full and exact knowledge of all His desires for them. The Greek word translated "knowledge" is epignosis. This word can mean either full knowledge or more precise knowledge.¹⁹ Probably Paul prayed for greater knowledge in both respects. This word always describes moral and religious knowledge in the New Testament. Especially it refers to full and comprehensive knowledge of God's will that rests on the knowledge of God and of Christ.²⁰ Gnosis ("knowledge") was a favorite term of the gnostic philosophers, and Paul undoubtedly had them in mind when he prayed for epignosis for his readers.

The "will" (thelematos) of God is what God has revealed in His Word to be correct regarding both belief (faith) and behavior (works, morality; cf. 4:12; Acts 22:14; Rom. 12:2). In the broadest sense, the will of God is the whole purpose of God revealed in Christ.²¹

"For a theist who believes that God's active purpose determines the ordering of the world, lies behind events on earth, and shapes their consequences, one of the most desirable objectives must be to know God's will."²²

This knowledge included wisdom (the broadest term covering the whole range of mental faculties) and understanding (how to apply wisdom in specific cases).

"Wisdom' and understanding' probably should not be treated separately but should be looked on as expressing a single thought, something like practical wisdom or clear discernment."²³

This knowledge would come to them only by the illumination of the Holy Spirit ("spiritual wisdom"). The false teachers in Colosse were evidently promoting what they called a deeper knowledge attainable only by the privileged few.

"The false teachers promised the Colossian believers that they would be in the know' if they accepted the new doctrines. Words like knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual understanding were a part of their religious vocabulary; so Paul used these words in his prayer."²⁴

"The true antidote to heresy is always a deeper and richer knowledge of the truth concerning Jesus Christ."²⁵

1:10-12a The goal of understanding God's will fully was that the Colossians would be able to live one day at a time in a manner that would glorify and please their Lord.²⁶ "Please" (Gr. aresko) refers to an attitude that anticipates every wish.

"In my pastoral ministry, I have met people who have become intoxicated with studying the deeper truths of the Bible.' Usually they have been given a book or introduced to some teacher's tapes. Before long, they get so smart they become dumb! The deeper truths' they discover only detour them from practical Christian living. Instead of getting burning hearts of devotion to Christ (Luke 24:32), they get big heads and start creating problems in their homes and churches. All Bible truths are practical, not theoretical. If we are growing in knowledge, we should also be growing in grace (2 Peter 3:18)."²⁷

Four characteristics (each a present participle) mark this worthy walk (an aorist infinitive in the Greek text, vv. 10-12). First, it includes continuously bearing fruit in character and conduct in every type of good work (cf. Gal. 5:22-23). Second, it includes growing. Paul's idea was that the Christian can continue to grow in his knowledge of God's will revealed in Scripture. As he does so, he not only bears fruit but grows in his ability to bear fruit, as a fruit tree does.

"What rain and sunshine are to the nurture of plants, the knowledge of God is to the growth and maturing of the spiritual life."²⁸

Third, it includes gaining strength manifested in steadfastness (endurance under trial, "the capacity to see things through"²⁹), patience (longsuffering restraint), and joy (cf. Phil. 4:13; 2 Tim. 2:1). Fourth, it includes expressing gratitude to God consistently.

"There is s kind of patience that endures but does not enjoy.' Paul prayed that the Colossian Christians might experience joyful patience and longsuffering."³⁰

Three causes for thankful gratitude follow in verses 12b-13.

1:12b-13 God qualifies the believer by His grace. He makes us heirs of an inheritance (cf. 1 Pet. 1:4).³¹ The qualification to receive an inheritance took place at conversion, though actual possession of the inheritance is future. Second, He delivers us from Satan's domain (v. 13a). This, too, took place at conversion but will become more evident in the future. Third, He transferred us to Christ's kingdom (v. 13b). The verb translated "transferred" (metestesen) described the relocation of large groups of people such as captured armies or colonists from one country to another.³² This kingdom is probably a reference to Christ's millennial kingdom rather than to the general sphere of God's rule.³³ Paul pictured it here (vv. 12-13) as a kingdom of light as opposed to Satan's domain of darkness.³⁴ The apostle probably used these figures because the false teachers in Colosse seem to have been promoting a form of Gnosticism that became very influential in the second century. Gnosticism made much of the light-darkness contrast in its philosophic system.³⁵

1:14 Perhaps Paul explained redemption because the false teachers were redefining that term too. Redemption is a benefit of union with Christ (v. 13b). "Emancipation" expresses this aspect of Christ's work for us.

"The real redemption [apolutrosis, lit. ransoming away] needed by men is not a redemption from fate by gnostic aeons; it is a redemption from sin by a Divine-human Mediator."³⁶

"Redemption and forgiveness are not exactly parallel or identical concepts, but by putting the two terms in apposition to each other, the apostle teaches that the central feature of redemption is the forgiveness of sins."³⁷

This pericope contains a beautiful picture of Christian growth that is God's will for every believer. Paul alluded to the same concept later (2:7). The Christian grows more as a fruit tree than as a stalk of wheat. We do not just bear fruit and then die. We continue to grow in our ability to bear fruit as we increase in the knowledge of God. Each passing year should see both growth in the Christian's spiritual life and an increase in his or her fruitfulness.

College: Col 1:1-29

COLOSSIANS 1

SALUTATION (1:1-2)

¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

² To the holy and faithful ^a brothers in Christ at Colosse:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father. ^b

^a 2 Or believing ^b 2 Some manuscripts Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

The epistle opens in the usual form for letters of the day. To most Colossian Christians Paul was just a name, since he had never been there personally. In all his letters except Philippians, Philemon, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians he introduced himself as an "apostle." This was probably done for various reasons, and here it may have been to give weight to his words for a church he had never visited. The impression was enhanced by his indication of the source of his call ("of Jesus Christ by the will of God"). Such a person's words could not be taken lightly.

and Timothy our brother,

Timothy's name was joined to Paul's in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians and Philemon. Colossians 4:18 indicates he was not a coauthor of the letter. Of all Paul's companions "in chains" (4:7-14) Timothy may have been singled out because of a special relation to Paul as a permanent coworker. We do not know what previous relations, if any, he had with the Colossian church, though we can suppose he was known to them by name. Was inclusion of his name a second-person verification of Paul's message, or was it to mark Timothy as a preacher of the true gospel? Or was there some other reason?

1:2 To the holy and faithful

The word for "holy" (a{gioi , hagioi ) or a cognate is the term of greeting in all of Paul's letters to churches except 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Galatians. It indicates that they had been chosen and set apart by God - a special people. In some contexts the term indicates a holy lifestyle, but that would be a strange meaning in greeting a church like Corinth. Thus "saints" (the noun form) is the preferred meaning, and even with "holy" as in the NIV, it is God's choice, not their conduct, which is to be understood.

"Faithful" (pistoiv , pistoi ) could mean "believers" in contrast to the outsiders who did not believe in Christ. But that meaning could be indicated simply by saying "in Christ." Therefore we prefer to see "faithful" as meaning "steadfast." Thus it would be an early encouragement to be true to Christ in the face of heresy.

brothers in Christ at Colosse:

"In Christ" or a similar expression punctuates the book at many points (1:4,14,16,17,19; 2:3,9,10,11,12,15 [in Greek]; 3:18,20 [Greek]; 4:7 and 17). It meant "as Christians" and the frequency of such references here as elsewhere indicated the all-encompassing scope of the new life.

Grace and peace to you

The greeting "grace and peace" was a Christian application of the form of secular letters (see the comments on Phil 1:2). Given the nature of Christian interrelationships, it would indicate a deep and prayerful concern for one another, rather than a perfunctory greeting. Among the blessings made possible by divine grace was "peace" (eijrhvnh , eirçnç , "well-being"). On peace see 1:15 and 3:20. The salutation thus combines Greek and Hebrew greetings in a Christian context and wishes an enhancement of blessings already received. "From God" says that they were not generated just from man, but were divinely granted. The highest power in the universe was called upon in these simple words. Grace surrounds the letter, being found again in 4:18.

from God our Father.

Normally Pauline greetings were from God and from "the Lord Jesus Christ." Though the reference to Christ is absent here, the body of the letter will present Christ to readers in an unforgettable way.

I. THANKSGIVING (1:3-8)

³ We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴ because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints - ⁵ the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel ⁶ that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. ⁷ You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our ^a behalf, ⁸ and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

^a 7 Some manuscripts your

These verses thank God for his grace given to the Colossians as well as given all over the world. Verses 3 through 8 are one sentence in Greek, and it is at times difficult to interpret exactly. The Hellenistic letter form is followed, but it is given a distinctly Christian stamp. Following this paragraph is Paul's prayer, based upon what is described in the present verses. Paul speaks of the Colossians in verses 3-6a, then of the worldwide influence of the gospel in 6b. In the remainder of verse 6 and in verse 7 he returns to consider the Colossians. The progress of their faith was from preaching (by Epaphras, v. 7) to hope (v. 5) to love (v. 4) to Paul's prayers (vv. 8ff).

1:3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

Jesus is first mentioned in this verse. He is introduced as "Lord" (kuvrio" , kyrios ), and his Lordship is constantly on display throughout the epistle. It draws powerful significance from the hymn in 1:15-20. We are invited by the ways this book will describe Jesus to make comparison with the way he is presented in the first three gospels. Such a comparison helps us appreciate how God had enlarged the church's perception of the one who was "Lord and Christ."

"Thanks" to God is a conspicuous note in Colossians (cf. 1:12; 2:7; 3:15,16,17; 4:2). Here it was a plural thanksgiving, indicating Timothy, and likely others, joined Paul in prayer. Perhaps regular group prayers by those in Paul's company are implied. "Always" implies a constancy in the prayers, as well as a continuing gratitude. God was called "Father" in a scattering of Old Testament references, but fatherhood here is because of Christ, his Son, and because Christians are God's sons in a special way. In other words, God is seen differently because of Jesus.

The content of the prayer will be given in verses 9-12. See also 4:2-4,12.

1:4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus

Now the reason for the thanks is given. It was due to their faith and love response to the hope given by God. Faith, hope, and love are often grouped in Paul's writings (1 Cor 13:13; Rom 5:1-5; Gal 5:5f; 1 Thess 3:5-8) and one or more, as here, is often the reason for his thanksgiving. Reference to their love recurs in verse 8.

Two views are held of the expression "in Christ Jesus." One maintains that it was trust in Christ as the way of salvation. The other, which most commentators prefer, sees it as the sphere in which Christians lived. Thus those "in Christ Jesus" were the people who lived by faith. This makes "in Christ Jesus" parallel with "all the saints." This preferable view still leads one to ask "faith in what or whom," and the answer must have included, but was not limited to, the first view.

and of the love you have for all the saints -

Though Jesus called upon his followers to exercise universal love (Luke 6:27ff) here the special love within the believing community is noted.

1:5 the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven

"The faith and the love" of the NIV are repeated for clarity, though the expression is not in the Greek. As the NIV renders it, faith and love spring from hope. This is the most likely meaning, though some suggest it was the prayer (v. 3) that sprang from awareness of their hope. Perhaps the ultimate difference in the views is slight. Hope is referred to again in verse 23, as a sustaining foundation. Since Paul's primary concern in this letter was the heresy (2:8-23) he may have been implying that the false teaching robbed them of the hope Jesus gave them, or that it made the achieving of hope more difficult through its requirements. If they had hope as Christians, what more could the heresy offer? Of course uncertainty about the exact nature of the heresy makes this only a conjecture. Though hope has to do with the future, it also influences the present.

"Stored up in heaven" indicates the origin of hope, as well as the sureness of it. It is safe beyond man's meddling and thus assures ultimate glory (1:27; 3:4).

and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel

The hope-giving message, the "word of truth," had been basic to their calling from the beginning (v. 6a), unlike any "johnny-come-lately" philosophy (2:8). "Truth" (ajlhvqeia , alçtheia ) is found both here and in the next verse. The Hebrew sense of the word was "reliability." The Greek sense indicated the true in contrast to the false. Perhaps both ideas are implied here. Truth could be depended upon to give hope, and it dealt the death knell to false teaching (as Paul would go on to show).

1:6 that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing,

A more appropriate verse division would include the first five words of verse 6 (four words in Greek) with verse 5. The gospel is universal, and powerfully produces fruit and grows. These qualities contrasted with the heresy, and marked the heresy for what it was - something other than the true gospel (assuming the false teaching presented itself as Christian.) It did not bear the appropriate marks.

just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth.

Though the gospel was preached by men like Epaphras and Paul, the stress was on the power of God's message ("an internal energy," says one author), beyond the realm of human effort. This power resulted in multiplication of converts as well as in transforming lives more and more into the likeness of Christ. Paul prayed for this growth to happen in the experience of the Colossians in verse 10.

"Grace" picks up the greeting of verse 2, and "in truth" restates the language of verse 5.

1:7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf,

"Learned" (from manqavnw , manthanô ) is not the term Paul normally used for communication or reception of the gospel. Perhaps the term had significance in contrast to the false teaching. Epaphras is mentioned also in 4:12f and Philemon 23 (called a "fellow prisoner for Christ Jesus"). He planted the gospel in Colosse. Paul's reference to him authenticated the message he brought as "the word of truth of the gospel" - again against heresy, and also complimented him generously. The Greek term translated "fellow servant" (sundou'lo" , syndoulos ) is found elsewhere only in 4:7 (of Tychicus). If "our" behalf is read this fits Paul's endorsement of Epaphras. He did his work as Paul's emissary. However, some translators prefer "your" (NIV footnote) and the Greek would allow either reading. "Your" would fit verse 8, which indicates Epaphras was sent from Colosse to Paul with news of the church.

1:8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

This verse testifies to the universality of the love Christians practiced. They had never met Paul, but loved him. This may have been partly because they knew Paul had sent Epaphras their way in the beginning. It may also imply more communication between Paul and this church than the New Testament reveals.

This verse has the only reference to the Spirit in the book (though see 2:5). It speaks to God's working within them to create a loving lifestyle.

II. PAUL'S PRAYER FOR THE COLOSSIANS (1:9-14)

⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. ¹⁰ And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you ^a to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, ^b the forgiveness of sins.

^a 12 Some manuscripts us ^b 14 A few late manuscripts redemption through his blood

The prayer, beginning here, is consequent upon what has been said in verses three through eight. There is disagreement over the structure of this section. Some see the prayer as extending through verse 12, but with an exposition of 12 in the next two verses. Others have the prayer ending in verse 11, with verses 12-14 being drawn from a baptismal confession of the church. Verses 12-14, then, would introduce the Christ hymn of verses 15-20. Verses 12-14 certainly seem to be baptismal language, and the importance of baptism is pivotal to Paul's development of the idea of what it meant to be in Christ (2:11f). The way the text is analyzed, however, does not significantly alter the meaning of it.

There are numerous correspondences between this paragraph and the thanksgiving in verses 3 through 8. This follows Paul's usual procedure of praying for what he had noted in his thanksgiving. O'Brien lists the following: "since the day" (vv. 6, 9), "we heard" (vv. 4,9), "knowledge" (vv. 4,9,10), "bearing fruit and increasing" (vv. 6,10), "giving thanks" (vv. 3,12), "the Father" (vv. 3,12), "the saints" (vv. 4, 12), "Spirit/in spirit" (vv. 8,9), "hope/inheritance" (vv. 5,12), and "all" (vv. 4,6, 9,10,11).

1:9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you

Prayers of intercession can vary in motivation and in content. Paul's special prayers here fit the Colossian situation. They were not just "prayer in general." The motivation/reason of this prayer was stated in verses 3-5. The "day we heard" may indicate particular information about the Colossian church, perhaps even about the intrusion of the heresy. Or it may indicate all the time since the very first report to Paul about the church. In the latter case the verse testifies to the persistence and depth of Paul's concern, even for those he had not met personally.

and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will

Three terms indicate the burden of the prayer. The word for "knowledge" (ejpivgnwsi" , epignôsis ) used here (also in 2:2; 3:10) is not the usual Greek gnw'si" (gnôsis ). The Greek term for "wisdom" (sofiva , sophia ) is also in 1:28; 2:3; 3:16 and 4:5; and that for "understanding" (suvnesi" , synesis ) recurs in 2:2. These three terms were significant against the claims of the heresy, with its "hollow and deceptive philosophies" (2:8).

Paul prayed they would be filled with "knowledge." The filling idea is used often in Colossians (1:19,24,25; 2:2,3,9,10; 4:12,17) and likely confuted any claims by the false teachers to offer fullness. "Knowledge," "wisdom" and "understanding" would lead to proper living (v. 10). The process would be empowered by God (v. 11). But exactly what was this knowledge "of his will"? The basic truths of Christianity were already at their disposal. Likely what was involved was a deeper understanding which would enhance obedience to God (cf. "growing in knowledge" in v. 10), fruit bearing, and the insight to discern how the heresy was destructive of God's work in Christ. Such a prayer is appropriate for all Christians in every age, since none has completely grasped the complete significance of what Christ has done and how men may respond to it.

through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

We are not told how this knowledge would be given. It would involve God's power. It would be spiritual (some see the Spirit's work here). There were many ways God could work to accomplish these ends. They could include interaction, meditation, divinely guided insight, instruction and worship.

1:10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way:

"And we pray this" is added by the NIV translators for clarity, as is "him" in midverse. To know was to obey, and knowledge was the instrument to obedience, as obedience furthered knowledge. Being Christian builds on itself, through God's power (v. 11). Clearly there is no division here between mental grasp and Christian action. The two work in tandem, strengthening one another.

bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

Paul used four participles to carry his petition for their spiritual growth. They are the words translated "bearing," "growing," "being strengthened" (v. 11), and "giving thanks" (v. 12). Because verse 12 continues the participial construction some scholars are reluctant to see a separate baptismal confession beginning at this point (see the discussion preceding v. 9). These four explain the "worthy" and pleasing life. The first two terms described the progress of the gospel in verse 6.

1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might

Prayer implies divine action. Paul did not just exhort the Colossians to try harder. He assured them resources would be more than adequate for their needs. Who could doubt that the heresy would be successfully encountered when confronted by God's "glorious might"? "Glorious" (dovxa , doxa ) gives a qualitative dimension that goes beyond force or energy (cf. the term in 1:29). The term kravto" ( kratos ), translated "might," never refers to merely human power in the New Testament.

so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully

"Endurance," "patience" and "joy," when inspired by God's power, would be more than passive qualities. Endurance was the quality that would hold against enemy assaults in battle, or that would persevere in a race (cf. Heb 12:1; Luke 8:15). It would stand against heretical pressure. Patience was a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22; and see Col 3:12). The term basically denoted relations to one's fellow.

NIV connects "joyfully" with "thanksgiving" (v. 12), but others maintain it could modify "endurance" and "patience." The Stoics admired patience, but it was the Christians who combined patience with joy.

1:12 giving thanks to the Father,

Though "giving thanks" is the last of the four participles in verses 10-12 (see discussion at v. 10) the act could be seen as a human response to the divine empowering of verses 10 and 11. Lohse argues that Paul never closed his intercessions with thanks, and thus this was a new beginning. There are parallels in verses 12-14 to baptismal language. Deliverance from death and forgiveness parallel 2:12f (similar concepts are found in 1 Cor 1:30 and 1 Pet 1:3-5). Thus these verses could reflect baptismal language employed in the early church. If so, the brothers were called to reflect on their conversions and the great gratitude generated by what God had done for them. There may be no higher and more powerful motivation for submission to the Lord than gratitude for his grace.

who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints

The "inheritance" (klh'ro" , klçros ) draws from the Old Testament background of Israel's possession of Canaan. The word recurs in 3:24. The "blessing" here is present, but a present with a future. There are two views of "saints," or "holy ones." One holds them to be fellow believers, as in other usages in Colossians as well as in Acts 20:32 and 26:18. The other considers them to be angels, on the basis of parallels at Qumran (cf. Dan 7:18,22). This position argues that such fellowship is set against the heretical "worship of angels" in 2:18. Linguistically and theologically either is possible, though we do not know which Paul had in mind. We consider the former more likely.

in the kingdom of light.

"Kingdom of light" and "dominion of darkness" (v. 13) reflect a theme often employed in Scripture for the contrast of good and evil (see Acts 26:18). It was found both in Hellenistic Judaism and at Qumran.

1:13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

Paul now includes himself among the "rescued" (contrast "you" in v. 12 with "us" here). "Rescued" and "brought" imply an act of transfer. If this was baptismal language then baptism was that act. God had moved a population from danger to safety, from Satan's dominion to Christ's. "Kingdom" is repeated from verse 12, but here it is not the usual "kingdom of God" but "kingdom of his Son." Paul refers to Christ's present rule, before that time when the kingdom would be delivered up to the Father (1 Cor 15:23-28). "Kingdom of the Son" also prepares for the depiction of Christ to follow in verses 15-20.

1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The transition involved deliverance from sin. The expression "forgiveness of sins," though often in Acts, is in Paul only here and in Ephesians 1:7. The emphasis here may have related to some claim of the heretics to offer forgiveness, though we have no direct evidence on the point.

III. THE HYMN ABOUT CHRIST (1:15-20)

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

These magnificent words form the heart of Paul's presentation of Christ in Colossians, and it is from this base that he attacked the heresy described in chapter 2. Had one known the human Jesus personally, one could hardly have imagined the truths about him expressed here. But when Jesus was raised from the dead, Christian understanding broadened and deepened, as the wonder of God's action became known in increasingly greater glory.

These verses are stylistically different from the first person "confession" which preceded in verses 12-14, and from the direct application style of the following verses (1:21ff). Because of style and language there is general agreement that verses 15-20 were a hymn, though we must recognize the ancient and modern definitions of that term are not identical. Even in English translation one can sense the rhythm and symmetry of these words.

When and where, then, did the hymn originate? Was it in a context outside Christianity, then taken and adapted by Christians? Those holding this view have suggested both Greek and Jewish (Hellenistic and rabbinic) origins, but no scholarly consensus has arisen. Was it originally Christian, drawing on concepts which were in the surrounding world, but were not in hymnic form? In any of these cases, did Paul take available material and rework it for his purposes? If so, and if one could determine the points in the hymn at which Paul edited and revised, that would be helpful in determining the ideas he was combatting. Numerous suggestions have been made regarding any Pauline revisions, but again there is no consensus.

Those convinced that an earlier hymn received Christian adaptation have conjectured how the original might have been structured. By theorizing what additions or changes were made various original strophic arrangements have been suggested. Some of the possible changes can be seen in the following discussion. Whatever its original form, the hymn as it stands first describes Christ and the cosmos (vv. 15-17) and then Christ and the church (vv. 18-20). Parallels can be seen within the two parts of the hymn. For example both parts describe him as "firstborn" (vv. 15,18), and in each case the following clause has the same Greek construction. "Thrones . . . authorities" in verse 16 parallels "things . . . heaven" in verse 20.

A minority of scholars consider the hymn to be entirely Paul's composition. Though perhaps not an insurmountable argument, critics of this view point out that the language of the hymn differs from Paul's other writings both in vocabulary and in form. Pauline authorship could still allow his use of materials and concepts from the surrounding thought world. And if Paul were the author, had he composed this hymn on some other occasion and modified it here, or was it composed just for this letter? And if just for this letter, why did he employ the apparent hymn form? Would he intend that his depiction of Christ in refutation of the heresy would be given greater force by working it into Christian worship? The hymn form would certainly be more memorable. Paul's effective use of the hymn indicates the heretics would also know of it, and that the church would understand the concepts set forth in it.

1:15 He is the image of the invisible God,

These are amazing assertions about one whom the Romans had executed as a troublemaker short decades before. Jesus is first called the image of the invisible God (cf. 2 Cor 4:4). He revealed God's nature and will to man, making the unseen seen, the unknown known, the known revealed with greater clarity. Why was the term "image" (eijkwvn , eikôn ) used? A possible source was the story of the creation of man in God's image (Gen 1:27), with the implication that Jesus was what Adam, because of the fall, failed to be. But elsewhere the hymn uses language associated with the wisdom tradition in Israel. Wisdom 7:25 depicts wisdom, personified, as being the "image" (eikôn ) of God. Proverbs 8:22 speaks of wisdom being with God at the beginning of creation. Some Jewish traditions also associate "in the beginning" of Gen 1:1 with wisdom. So if the image was wisdom, and "firstborn" indicated creation, the idea would be that by wisdom God created. Thus Paul may have borrowed from these ideas to give substance to the word "image" used of Jesus. He revealed God's wisdom, his will, to man. He was also the Creator, thus existed from the beginning. The "image" concept may have drawn its meaning from one of the backgrounds indicated, but this does not exhaust the implications of the language for the reflective believer. Jesus was the one who possessed God's authority among men. He made possible a kind of access to God previously unknown. These words set the Christ in a position from which no heresy dare unseat him.

the firstborn over all creation.

Next Jesus is designated "the firstborn" (prwtovtoko" , prôtotokos ) over all creation. Any suspicion that this would imply Jesus was part of creation is dispelled as the text continues into verse 16, which twice speaks of his creation of "all things," and verse 17 with "he is before all things." Here Paul pictured him as unique beyond the creation. The Old Testament twice (Exod 4:22, Jer 31:9) uses "firstborn" to describe one specially loved by the Father. Here the idea also stresses his supremacy over creation, especially as developed in subsequent verses. Cf. also Heb 1:6 where the word "firstborn" is a Messianic title.

1:16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;

The meaning of "firstborn" is fleshed out in this and the following verse. The first reference to creation indicates completed action in the past (aorist), while the second reference (perfect) stresses the continuance of the creation's existence. "By him" is literally "in him," and some translations so render the Greek. Some see Christ as the instrument of creation, as in John 1:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6; and on the basis of the Jewish wisdom tradition. Others see "in him" as the location or sphere of creation, as in Ephesians 1:4. Some argue both meanings may have been intended. How nuanced did Paul intend to be in his use of prepositions?

"All things" are defined by the rest of the verse. Since all have one creator, all that exists has a unity. It was cosmos, not chaos. Things in heaven, on earth, visible and invisible, include thrones, powers, rulers and authorities. In Jewish thought thrones and power often indicated angelic hosts (2 Enoch 20:1; Test Levi 3:8). Rulers and authorities are referred to in Romans 8:38; 1 Corinthians 15:24; Ephesians 1:21 and 6:12. These are generally held to be spiritual powers as well. The New Testament, however, does not give enough data to depict a hierarchy of such powers. Whether good or evil, all were his creations. Paul does not discuss the problem of God creating evil powers. It is usual to affirm God made them free and they chose evil. Scholars differ regarding whether any moral implications regarding the "thrones," etc., are even intended here. Quite likely there was reference here to some aspect of the heresy, so that the supremacy of Christ over any role given to any of them is clear.

all things were created by him and for him.

The absoluteness of the creative power is enforced by the twofold repetition of "all things." The verse ends by repeating the creative refrain, but now as "by him and for him." Here different prepositions were used from the opening statement of the verse. "By (through) him" clearly shows him as the creative agent. He was both originator and goal (further stressed in v. 17) of all creation. Any movement in history in any other direction was in the wrong direction. So was any system that sought to move beyond or escape history.

1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

"Before" introduces a fourth Greek pronoun (prov , pro ), with "by" (ejn , en ), "by" (dia , dia ), and "for" (eij" , eis , "into/unto") of verse 16. "Before" probably picks up the sense of "firstborn" of verse 15. The prevailing idea seems to indicate his priority over all things. "Hold together" (sunivsthmi , synistçmi ) is implied by his creative activity. Jesus is the "glue" of all that exists. The Greek term means to continue or endure. Without him there would be chaos, dissolution, disintegration (cf. a similar role for wisdom in Wisd Sol 1:4; 7:24). Consider how this concept would impact any teaching which minimized the significance and role of Christ. Note how later exhortation constantly refers back to Christ (3:10,13,15,16,17,18,24).

1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church;

We have already noted scholarly disagreement over the division of this hymn into sections. One view considers 15f as describing the creative Christ, and 17-18a as depicting him as Lord of the universe and head of the church. Then the rest of the passage stresses his role as reconciler. Other discussion has centered on "the church." It has been argued that "body" (sw'ma , sôma ) in Hellenistic thought could refer to the cosmos. Thus, the position states, the hymn originally continued its cosmic significance through the term "body," and the reference to "beginning and firstborn," parallel to verse 15, begins the second section of the hymn. Paul, on this view, added "the church," thus giving a different meaning to "body," and changing the thrust of verse 17. Of course all these theories are only conjectural. An objection to this view is that Paul never used "body" in the Hellenistic sense. On the other hand it would be a powerful statement of the importance of the church for a term which had indicated the cosmos to now indicate Christ's followers.

It can be asked why Paul chose the body image to describe the church. It may come from the Old Testament concept of the unity of the people of God, "corporate personality," in which the entire community was seen as a single entity and suffered or was blessed because of the actions of one part (cf. Achan in Josh 7), usually a leader. It is possible the idea became significant when the Lord told Paul on the Damascus road that to persecute Jesus' people was to persecute Jesus himself (Acts 9:5).

The body image was also used by Paul in Romans 12:4f; 1 Corinthians 12:12-26; Ephesians 4:15f, 5:23, and later in Colossians 2:9 and 3:15. It stresses the organic connection of Christ and his people, beyond the connection already implied by creation and sustaining power. It indicates the special place of the church to the Creator of the cosmos. "Thrones . . . authorities" are not called his body. As Bruce observes, we think of the head as vitalizing and energizing the church and using it as the instrument for his work on earth. As the church preached Christ, his Lordship over the cosmos was forthtold as well. The high significance thus given the church may have been to counter an individualistic tendency in the "heresy."

he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,

"Beginning" (archv , archç ) and "firstborn" here refer to the "creation" of the church through Christ's resurrection. Since he was firstborn he made it possible for others to be "born from the dead." "Firstborn" may mean he was the first victor over death, but it may indicate his authority (as it did in v. 15) over death as it was over all creation. He produced and ruled both the old and the new creation. The "and" between "beginning" and "firstborn" is not in the Greek, so that "firstborn" modifies "beginning" rather than being a separate description.

so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

"Everything" catches the universal language ("all" in 15, 16 twice, 17 twice, 19 and 20) found throughout this paragraph. "Supremacy" (the verb prwteuvw , prôteuô , "to be first") underlines the point already made. The following two verses will give further substance to Christ's relation to his body.

1:19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

"God" is not found in the Greek, so the verse could be translated with "fullness" (plhvrwma , plçrôma ) as the subject ("all fullness was pleased to dwell in him"), or a subject could be supplied, which would be "God." In context both translations say the same thing about Christ (cf. 2:9). The reference to "fullness" may be aimed at some claim of the heresy, perhaps that some (intermediate between God and man) beings other than Christ possessed God's fullness. Though the concept has depths we cannot fathom, here it should probably be understood as indicating the role of Christ described in this paragraph. In him God's attributes and activities, directed toward reconciliation, were found. Nothing necessary for that to occur was missing. And if the fullness was in Christ, why accept any system of thought ("philosophy" - 2:8) that indicated otherwise?

1:20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven,

When the central theme of salvation and reconciliation is at last broached, it comes with the greatest of all introductions, set into a background of absolute power and majesty (vv. 15-19). It is in reconciliation that human concerns touch divine action. But Paul's view of reconciliation was broader than peace between man and God. It sweeps through earth and heaven and encompasses all of reality. Some maintain that the heresy posited an inherent conflict between God and the creation. Paul denied it. He saw all discord in humanity and nature resolved through Christ. The chaos brought on by the fall was overcome. What had gone wrong God then made right. Enmity was replaced by love.

All this was made possible but was actualized only in part - primarily in the redeemed community. The powers still had their day and could oppose God. But they were not sovereign. Implied here is a safety in Christ from such forces. Whether the powers, human or transhuman, that continue to resist God would one day be compelled to submission is a topic Paul does not address here. But the picture painted of Christ leaves no doubt as to what this outcome would be.

by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

If ever there was a shocking contrast, the last of this verse affords it. Having been carried to cosmic heights and having contemplated the very originating and sustaining power of the universe, we are now transported to the dismal scene of crucifixion and shed blood. Yet that was how God, the "master of surprises," had made reconciliation possible (cf. Phil 2:5-11). Could this scene of victory through humiliation have any application to heretical pride?

IV. THE HYMN APPLIED (1:21-23)

²¹ Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of ^a your evil behavior. ²² But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation - ²³ if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

^a 21 Or minds as shown by

The style of writing changes abruptly here as Paul applies the truths he has just depicted to his readers. One author has called it a homiletic adaptation of the hymn. (Of what use is theology if it does not impact human existence?) The NIV supplies "from God." The theme of reconciliation, resumed from verse 20, is first discussed from the negative side (alienation). In his extensive depiction of their status in Christ here and in 2:9-15 Paul indicates the utter folly of turning from Christ. Verse 23 is an exhortation to insure it would not happen. The point is reinforced by the "once" and "now" of verses 21 and 22.

1:21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

The language here applies, in a sense, to all men. But in this letter the application was primarily to Gentiles (cf. 3:7) who had never been in covenant with God. Now the alienation implied in verse 20 is made specific. It consisted of thoughts and deeds (behavior). On "minds" (diavnoia , dianoia ) cf. Ephesians 2:3 and 4:18. This was the way of the "dominion of darkness" (v. 13). The reference to their evil prepares us for the next verse, and for the paranetic materials in chapters 3 and 4.

"From God," not in the Greek, is added in the NIV for clarity.

1:22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death

The first half of this verse repeats the thought of verse 20. The last half echoes the prayer of 1:10. "Reconciled" is picked up from verse 20, and "all things" of that verse is drawn into narrower focus on the Colossians. The reference to Christ's physical body distinguishes it from the church as his body. Man, God's enemy, could not heal the rupture with his Creator. No effort, no matter how great, would avail. Only Christ's death could abolish the hostility.

to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation -

The goal in practice was holiness, freedom from blemish and freedom from accusation. Some consider this language to be drawn from sacrificial terminology, though the fit is not exact. Others consider it judicial, as if one were presented blameless in court. The blessed consequence was the same, whether Paul had in mind one or neither of these images.

When was the presenting to be done? At the second coming? Certainly that. But a person is also so presented in this life, through the reconciling blood. There could be no such presentation at the second coming if the reality were not operating in the present. Verse 23 speaks of continuing in the faith. This would be done, in part, by maintaining the proper conduct.

"Holy" (a{gioi , hagioi ) basically means "set apart" and is the same word as "saints" (1:4). The context here, however, seems also to imply the meaning of holiness which indicates purity of life - the usual meaning given today.

1:23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.

Christ's death was the divine act, but the resultant holiness and life quality was both a divine gift and a human responsibility. The NIV translates "your" faith, indicating personal faith. Other translations, in accord with the Greek, translate "the faith," which could mean the Christian teaching handed down. The result in life is the same in either case. On faith and hope see 1:5. "Established" (from qemeliovw , themeliôo ) and "firm" (eJdrai'oi , hedraioi ) use building imagery and employ the same terminology used in describing building on the rock in Matthew 7:24f. See also Ephesians 2:20. "Hope" prepares us for 1:27, and implies that movement to a heretical position could destroy that hope.

This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven,

The NIV also adds "This is the gospel," repeating for clearer sentence structure. "Every creature under heaven" is obviously not to be taken literally. Paul's point was that the message they accepted was the same one offered wherever Christianity had gone. This was no doubt to counter the local nature of the false teaching. The concept fits the theme of Christ as Creator and sustainer of all things in 1:15-20. If Christ rules all creatures, then all should heed the message of their Sovereign. And if "all things" are reconciled through Christ, then he must be proclaimed everywhere for that program to be realized.

and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

"I, Paul" indicates that Timothy's name in 1:1 is not to be understood in the sense of authorship. Paul, in calling himself a servant, put himself on the same footing as Epaphras (1:7) and Tychicus (4:7).

V. PAUL'S MINISTRY TO THE CHURCHES AND TO THE COLOSSIANS (1:24-2:5)

A. PAUL'S LABORS IN GOD'S POWER (1:24-29)

²⁴ Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. ²⁵ I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness - ²⁶ the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. ²⁷ To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ²⁸ We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. ²⁹ To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

Paul called himself a servant in verse 23, and he enlarges on that in the following verses. He stresses God as the source of his message and as the one who commissioned him. In describing his work he employs a number of terms that doubtless characterized the heresy, but he relates the terms to Christ. His ultimate purpose was to keep his readers from being deceived and led away from Christ (2:4,8).

1:24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

This verse has been one of the most puzzling in Colossians because it speaks of filling what was lacking of Christ's afflictions. Bypassing that for the moment, Paul paralleled his fleshly suffering with Christ's (v. 22). Jesus died for the Colossians, and Paul suffered for them. This lent urgency to his ministry and to his appeal that they not be drawn away from Christ. For Paul the discomfort of suffering was transcended by the joy of bringing men reconciliation with God. From the first Paul knew he would suffer (Acts 9:16), and it was a continual feature of his ministry (cf. 1 Cor 4:9-13; 2 Cor 11:23-33; Gal 6:17).

Paul suffered for the Colossians (and for the Laodiceans, 2:1f). We are not told how this was done. Was it some special suffering just related to them? More probably he meant that all his suffering for the church was for them as well as for anyone else. Could suffering include inner agony experienced because of the threat to the church? Verses 26-29 may indicate it was related to preaching to the Gentiles.

As indicated above, the interpretive puzzle here centers in the statements "fill up" (ajntanaplhrw' , antanaplçrô ) and "lacking" (uJstevrhma , hysterçma ) in regard to Christ's afflictions. O'Brien gives an admirable summary and critique of the various interpretations:

1) Paul filled a lack in the vicarious sufferings of Christ. But this would deny the all-sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, which the New Testament strongly affirms.

2) Paul suffered "for the sake of Christ." This was true but it leaves "fill up" and "lacking" unexplained.

3) The same objection applies to the view that Paul's sufferings resembled those of Christ.

4) Paul suffered Christ's afflictions because he was in a mystical fellowship with Christ, and this would in some way benefit the church. Besides the problem of establishing a "mystical fellowship" from Paul's writings, this position also fails to adequately explain "fill up" and "lacking." Yet without going to mystical extremes, there could be a sense in which Christian suffering would "complete" the suffering of Christ.

5) Paul was employing apocalyptic language. Verse 26, and 2:2,3 employ language that has an apocalyptic sound. Building on Daniel 12:1, Jewish literature pictured the end time as being accompanied or preceded by suffering and catastrophe, which would afflict even the faithful. Those assuming that Christianity was influenced by this perspective pull into its orbit such texts about suffering as Acts 14:22 (which uses the Greek term translated "affliction" here), Mark 13:19-24 (and parallels), 1 Thessalonians 3:3,7, and Romans 8:17f, 38f. It is also held that God would limit these end time afflictions (the amount of suffering was predetermined), which would be related to the "filling up" of the present text. Thus Paul would be helping complete the Messianic woes to precede the end.

Paul has no doubt employed language familiar in apocalyptic writing. Exegesis of the passages cited, however, could challenge the use to which this position puts them. Were these passages truly apocalyptic? And what were the Christian views of the end time? In one sense it had already come (1:13f; 3:3) though there was still the Second Coming (3:4). O'Brien objects, too, to the concept of a predetermined amount of suffering.

Beyond these theories, we believe Paul was primarily concerned that the Colossians be encouraged and understand Christ, God's mystery (2:2). To accomplish this he had suffered. He may be saying that the task of proclaiming the gospel would frequently (perhaps not inevitably) involve affliction. No matter. The greater work was being done (cf. Rom 8:18). The task, thus the affliction, would go on to the end. Without preaching, the death of Christ would not have been known to unsaved humanity. Perhaps in spreading the message Christ's afflictions would be filled in that their meaning would be made known. As the preachers were afflicted, so would Christ be (Acts 9:4). It has been suggested that the particular affliction to which Paul referred here was reaction by Jews to his preaching to Gentiles, and verses 26-29 would support this. This statement of dedication, resultant from God's commission (v. 25) gave a personal dimension (in addition to the doctrinal) to Paul's case against the false teaching at Colosse.

1:25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness -

The word translated "commission" (oijkonomiva , oikonomia ), often used in tandem with "mystery," was probably Paul's call by God to preach, especially to the Gentiles. The commission gave him insight into the mystery, and involved him as a "servant." Presenting the Word of God in "fullness" roughly parallels the language of Romans 15:19 (in both cases Paul uses the verb "fill up" [plhrovw , plçroô ]) and seems to imply the complete message that was preached to the entire world, particularly to Gentiles. The fullness of preaching led to the fullness of life in Christ (cf. 1:9; 2:10).

1:26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.

The word of God was the "mystery" (musthvrion , mystçrion ). If the mystery (acceptance of Gentiles) had not been preached, then the word of God would not have been proclaimed in fullness (v. 25). "Mystery" is used by Paul three times as often as in all the rest of the New Testament. It was a term, known in the Semitic world, which indicated something hidden and unknown. God would make it known in his time. So Paul asserts God had done just that, and the reality hidden so long was the acceptance of Gentiles into his community in equal standing with Jews. Not only was the mystery revealed, it was to be among the nations (v. 27) since it affected them directly. But it was grasped by the saints, the believers, since they had responded to its offer of deliverance from the "dominion of darkness" (1:13). Other references to the mystery are found in Romans 16:25; Ephesians 1:9; 3:3,4,9; 6:19; and Colossians 2:2; 4:3. Use of the term here may have been to give it its Christian meaning, contrary to any meaning the heresy may have accorded to it.

1:27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

The veil is lifted, and the identity of the mystery appears - gloriously (cf. 2:2f; Eph 1:7,18; 3:8,16)! God's choice had led to Paul's commission (v. 24). The Old Testament does indicate that God's plan was ultimately for all men (Gen 12:3; Isa 49:6), but the manner and time of it were not in the way it was anticipated by the Jews. Thus we witness the early struggles in the church regarding Gentiles becoming Jews before they could become Christians (Acts 15; Galatians).

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

"Christ in you" could refer to the fact Christ was preached to Gentiles, or, less likely in this context, to the indwelling Christ in the life of each Christian. If parallel to "among the Gentiles" it would mean "among" you. On hope cf. 1:5,22. Paul refers to the "glory" in 3:4. It will come when Christ appears, and we see the magnificent culmination of the believer's pilgrimage.

1:28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.

This further description of the Christian ministry seems expressed in particular opposition to the false teaching. "Wisdom" (sofiva , sophia ) and "perfect" (tevleio" , teleios ) may both be terms which the heretics connected with their philosophy. Paul connects them with Christ. If the false teachers promulgated a view for the "spiritually elite," Paul's threefold use of the expression "all men" (in the Greek; NIV "everyone") combatted that by indicating the universality of Christ's offer of salvation.

Paul's proclamation includes admonition (lit. "putting in mind") and teaching. The same two terms occur in 3:16. Wisdom here is practical, referring to the manner of preaching. Cf. another practical application in 4:5. Paul's wisdom in preaching can be verified from 1 Corinthians 9:23ff, and from his delicate treatment of the matter of Onesimus in Philemon. His goal was to present everyone perfect in Christ, similar to the statement of verse 22. Here the Second Coming seems to be the occasion meant.

1:29 To this end I labor,

In verse 28 the first person plural was used as Paul included his associates, but here he speaks of his personal activity. As he suffered for the Colossians (v. 24), now he labors. In the next verse he relates his efforts specifically to the Colossians. Though Paul was a prisoner this did not diminish the fire within him to do God's work. Later he asked the Colossians to pray for an opportunity for him to preach (4:2-4).

struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

Two strong impressions arise from this verse. The first is Paul's intensity, reflected in the words "labor" (kopiavw , kopiaô ) and "struggling" (from ajgwnivzomai , agônizomai ). The first indicates severe labor (cf. 1 Cor 4:12; 15:10; Phil 2:16). The latter is an intensive form of the Greek term from which our "agony" comes. But beyond this depiction of extreme effort is grace. God's power was at work within Paul. Twice in the Greek he used the term ejnergeiva ( energeia ) from which "energy" is derived, and once he used duvnami" ( dynamis , root of dynamic, dynamite, etc.). On this power see 1:11; 2:12 and cf. Ephesians 1:19; 3:7,16,20; and 6:10. Divine empowering made possible Paul's great devotion to his mission. Work and grace go hand in hand.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Colossians (Book Introduction)

The Epistle to the Colossians

From Rome a.d. 63

By Way of Introduction

Genuineness

The author claims to be Paul (Col_1:1) and there is no real doubt about it in spite of Baur’s denial of the Pauline authorship which did not suit his Tendenz theory of the New Testament books. There is every mark of Paul’s style and power in the little Epistle and there is no evidence that any one else took Paul’s name to palm off this striking and vigorous polemic.

The Date

Clearly it was sent at the same time with the Epistle to Philemon and the one to the Ephesians since Tychicus the bearer of the letter to Ephesus (Eph_6:21.) and the one to Colossae (Col_4:7.) was a companion of Onesimus (Col_4:9) the bearer of that to Philemon (Phm_1:10-12). If Paul is a prisoner (Col_4:3; Eph_6:20; Phm_1:9) in Rome, as most scholars hold, and not in Ephesus as Deissmann and Duncan argue, the probable date would be a.d. 63. I still believe that Paul is in Rome when he sends out these epistles. If so, the time would be after the arrival in Rome from Jerusalem as told in Acts 28 and before the burning of Rome by Nero in a.d. 64. If Philippians was already sent, a.d. 63 marks the last probable year for the writing of this group of letters.

The Occasion

The Epistle itself gives it as being due to the arrival of Epaphras from Colossae (Col_1:7-9; Col_4:12.). He is probably one of Paul’s converts while in Ephesus who in behalf of Paul (Col_1:7) evangelized the Lycus Valley (Colossae, Hierapolis, Laodicea) where Paul had never been himself (Col_2:1; Col_4:13-16). Since Paul’s departure for Rome, the " grievous wolves" whom he foresaw in Miletus (Act_20:29.) had descended upon these churches and were playing havoc with many and leading them astray much as new cults today mislead the unwary. These men were later called Gnostics (see Ignatius) and had a subtle appeal that was not easy to withstand. The air was full of the mystery cults like the Eleusinian mysteries, Mithraism, the vogue of Isis, what not. These new teachers professed new thought with a world-view that sought to explain everything on the assumption that matter was essentially evil and that the good God could only touch evil matter by means of a series of aeons or emanations so far removed from him as to prevent contamination by God and yet with enough power to create evil matter. This jejune theory satisfied many just as today some are content to deny the existence of sin, disease, death in spite of the evidence of the senses to the contrary. In his perplexity Epaphras journeyed all the way to Rome to obtain Paul’s help.

Purpose of the Epistle

Epaphras did not come in vain, for Paul was tremendously stirred by the peril to Christianity from the Gnostics ( hoi gnōstikoi , the knowing ones). He had won his fight for freedom in Christ against the Judaizers who tried to fasten Jewish sacramentarianism upon spiritual Christianity. Now there is an equal danger of the dissipation of vital Christianity in philosophic speculation. In particular, the peril was keen concerning the Person of Christ when the Gnostics embraced Christianity and applied their theory of the universe to him. They split into factions on the subject of Christ. The Docetic (from dokeō , to seem) Gnostics held that Jesus did not have a real human body, but only a phantom body. He was, in fact, an aeon and had no real humanity. The Cerinthian (followers of Cerinthus) Gnostics admitted the humanity of the man Jesus, but claimed that the Christ was an aeon that came on Jesus at his baptism in the form of a dove and left him on the Cross so that only the man Jesus died. At once this heresy sharpened the issue concerning the Person of Christ already set forth in Phi_2:5-11. Paul met the issue squarely and powerfully portrayed his full-length portrait of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Son of Man (both deity and humanity) in opposition to both types of Gnostics. So then Colossians seems written expressly for our own day when so many are trying to rob Jesus Christ of his deity. The Gnostics took varying views of moral issues also as men do now. There were the ascetics with rigorous rules and the licentious element that let down all the bars for the flesh while the spirit communed with God. One cannot understand Colossians without some knowledge of Gnosticism such as may be obtained in such books as Angus’s The Mystery-Religions and Christianity , Glover’s The Conflict of Religion in the Early Roman Empire , Kennedy’s St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions , Lightfoot’s Commentary on Colossians .

JFB: Colossians (Book Introduction)

The GENUINENESS of this Epistle is attested by JUSTIN MARTYR [Dialogue with Trypho, p. 311, B.], who quotes "the first-born of every creature," in reference to Christ, from Col 1:15. THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH [To Autolychus, 2, p. 100]. IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3.14.1], quotes expressly from this "Epistle to the Colossians" (Col 4:14). CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA [Miscellanies, 1. p. 325], quotes Col 1:28; also elsewhere he quotes Col 1:9-11, Col 1:28; Col 2:2, &c.; Col 2:8; Col 3:12, Col 3:14; Col 4:2-3, &c. TERTULLIAN [The Prescription against Heretics, 7], quotes Col 2:8; [On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 23], and quotes Col 2:12, Col 2:20; Col 3:1-2. ORIGEN [Against Celsus, 5.8], quotes Col 2:18-19.

Colosse (or, as it is spelt in the best manuscripts, "Colassæ") was a city of Phrygia, on the river Lycus, a branch of the Meander. The Church there was mainly composed of Gentiles (compare Col 2:13). ALFORD infers from Col 2:1 (see on Col 2:1), that Paul had not seen its members, and therefore could not have been its founder, as THEODORET thought. Col 1:7-8 suggests the probability that Epaphras was the first founder of the Church there. The date of its foundation must have been subsequent to Paul's visitation, "strengthening in order" all the churches of Galatia and Phrygia (Act 18:24); for otherwise we must have visited the Colossians, which Col 2:1 implies he had not. Had Paul been their father in the faith, he would doubtless have alluded to the fact, as in 1Co 3:6, 1Co 3:10; 1Co 4:15; 1Th 1:5; 1Th 2:1. It is only in the Epistles, Romans and Ephesians, and this Epistle, such allusions are wanting; in that to the Romans, because, as in this Church of Colosse, he had not been the instrument of their conversion; in that to the Ephesians, owing to the general nature of the Epistle. Probably during the "two years" of Paul's stay at Ephesus, when "all which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus" (Act 19:10, Act 19:26), Epaphras, Philemon, Archippus, Apphia and the other natives of Colosse, becoming converted at Ephesus, were subsequently the first sowers of the Gospel seed in their own city. This will account for their personal acquaintance with, and attachment to, Paul and his fellow ministers, and for his loving language as to them, and their counter salutations to him. So also with respect to "them at Laodicea," (Col 2:1).

The OBJECT of the Epistle is to counteract Jewish false teaching, by setting before the Colossians their true standing in Christ alone (exclusive of all other heavenly beings), the majesty of His person, and the completeness of the redemption wrought by Him; hence they ought to be conformed to their risen Lord, and to exhibit that conformity in all the relations of ordinary life Col 2:16, "new moon, sabbath days," shows that the false teaching opposed in this Epistle is that of Judaizing Christians. These mixed up with pure Christianity Oriental theosophy and angel-worship, and the asceticism of certain sections of the Jews, especially the Essenes. Compare JOSEPHUS [Wars of the Jews, 2.8,13]. These theosophists promised to their followers a deeper insight into the world of spirits, and a nearer approach to heavenly purity and intelligence, than the simple Gospel affords. CONYBEARE and HOWSON think that some Alexandrian Jew had appeared at Colosse, imbued with the Greek philosophy of PHILO'S school, combining with it the Rabbinical theosophy and angelology which afterwards was embodied in the Cabbala. Compare JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 12.3,4], from which we know that Alexander the Great had garrisoned the towns of Lydia and Phrygia with two thousand Mesopotamian and Babylonian Jews in the time of a threatened revolt. The Phrygians themselves had a mystic tendency in their worship of Cybele, which inclined them to receive the more readily the incipient Gnosticism of Judaizers, which afterward developed itself into the strangest heresies. In the Pastoral Epistles, the evil is spoken of as having reached a more deadly phase (1Ti 4:1-3; 1Ti 6:5), whereas he brings no charge of immorality in this Epistle: a proof of its being much earlier in date.

The PLACE from which it was written seems to have been Rome, during his first imprisonment there (Act 28:17-31). In my Introduction to the Epistle to the Ephesians, it was shown that the three Epistles, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, were sent at the same time, namely, during the freer portion of his imprisonment, before the death of Burrus. Col 4:3-4; Eph 6:19-20, imply greater freedom than he had while writing to the Philippians, after the promotion of Tigellinus to be Prætorian Prefect. See Introduction to Philippians.

This Epistle, though carried by the same bearer, Tychicus, who bore that to the Ephesians, was written previously to that Epistle; for many phrases similar in both appear in the more expanded form in the Epistle to the Ephesians (compare also Note, see on Eph 6:21). The Epistle to the Laodiceans (Col 4:16) was written before that to the Colossians, but probably was sent by him to Laodicea at the same time with that to the Church at Colosse.

The STYLE is peculiar: many Greek phrases occur here, found nowhere else. Compare Col 2:8, "spoil you"; "making a show of them openly" (Col 2:15); "beguile of your reward," and "intruding" (Col 2:18); "will-worship"; "satisfying" (Col 2:23); "filthy communication" (Col 3:8); "rule" (Col 3:15); "comfort" (Col 4:11). The loftiness and artificial elaboration of style correspond to the majestic nature of his theme, the majesty of Christ's person and office, in contrast to the beggarly system of the Judaizers, the discussion of which was forced on him by the controversy. Hence arises his use of unusual phraseology. On the other hand, in the Epistle of the Ephesians, subsequently written, in which he was not so hampered by the exigencies of controversy, he dilates on the same glorious truths, so congenial to him, more at large, freely and uncontroversially, in the fuller outpouring of his spirit, with less of the elaborate and antithetical language of system, such as was needed in cautioning the Colossians against the particular errors threatening them. Hence arises the striking similarity of many of the phrases in the two Epistles written about the same time, and generally in the same vein of spiritual thought; while the peculiar phrases of the Epistle to the Colossians are such as are natural, considering the controversial purpose of that Epistle.

JFB: Colossians (Outline)

• ADDRESS: INTRODUCTION: CONFIRMING EPAPHRAS' TEACHING: THE GLORIES OF CHRIST: THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER FOR THE COLOSSIANS: HIS OWN MINISTRY OF THE MYSTERY. (Col. 1:1-29)
• HIS STRIVINGS IN PRAYER FOR THEIR STEADFASTNESS IN CHRIST; FROM WHOM HE WARNS THEM NOT TO BE LED AWAY BY FALSE WISDOM. (Col. 2:1-23)
• EXHORTATIONS TO HEAVENLY AIMS, AS OPPOSED TO EARTHLY, ON THE GROUND OF UNION TO THE RISEN SAVIOUR; TO MORTIFY AND PUT OFF THE OLD MAN, AND TO PUT ON THE NEW; IN CHARITY, HUMILITY, WORDS OF EDIFICATION, THANKFULNESS; RELATIVE DUTIES. (Col. 3:1-25)
• EXHORTATIONS CONTINUED. TO PRAYER: WISDOM IN RELATION TO THE UNCONVERTED: AS TO THE BEARERS OF THE EPISTLE, TYCHICUS AND ONESIMUS: CLOSING SALUTATIONS. (Col. 4:1-18)

TSK: Colossians (Book Introduction)

Colosse was a large and populous city of Phrygia Pacatiana, in Asia Minor, seated on an eminence to the south of the river Meander. It is supposed to have occupied a site now covered with ruins, near the village of Konous or Khonas, and about twenty miles nw of Degnizlu. By whom, or at what time, the church at Colosse was founded is wholly uncertain; but it would appear from the apostle’s declaration, Col 2:1, that he was not the honoured instrument. It appears from the tenor of this epistle to have been, upon the whole, in a very flourishing state; but some difficulties having arisen among them, they sent Epaphras to Rome, where the apostle was now imprisoned (Col 4:3) to acquaint him with the state of their affairs. It is remarkable for a peculiar pathos and ardour, which is generally ascribed to the extraordinary divine consolations enjoyed by the apostle during his sufferings for the sake of Christ. Whoever, says Michaelis, would understand the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, must read them together. The one is in most places a commentary on the other; the meaning of single passages in one epistle, which, if considered alone, might be variously interpreted, being determined by the parallel passages in the other epistle.

TSK: Colossians 1 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Col 1:1, After salutation Paul thanks God for their faith; Col 1:7, confirms the doctrine of Epaphras; Col 1:9, prays further for their increase in grace; Col 1:14, describes the true Christ; Col 1:21, encourages them to receive Jesus Christ, and commends his own ministry.

Poole: Colossians 1 (Chapter Introduction)

ARGUMENT

God having a church planted in the city of Colosse, (by some since called Chone), situated at the conflux of the rivers Meander and Lycus, in the neighbourhood of Laodicea and Hierapolis, Col 4:13 , in Phrygia of the lesser Asia; whether at first only by the preaching of Epaphras, one of them who was a servant of Christ, and faithful minister, Col 1:7 4:12 ; or by Paul himself, who (we learn from Luke that accompanied him) had gone throughout Phrygia, Act 16:6 , and again, over all the country of Phrygia in order, Act 18:23 , having staid for a season in Asia, where he wrought miracles, and was complained of for turning away much people from idolatry almost throughout all Asia, Act 19:11,22,26 ; we may leave undetermined. But whoever was God’ s prime instrument in planting the gospel here, upon Paul’ s being advertised by Epaphras, Col 1:8 Col 4:12 Phm 1:23that weeds sprang up to choke the good seed; as he was careful for the Philippians during his imprisonment, so for the Colossians, that they might not be perverted by those Judaizing false teachers who mingled Moses with Christ, stickling for the necessity of abrogated ceremonies to salvation, Col 2:4,8 , &c., varnishing their doctrines with notions of vain or abused philosophy, did seek to introduce a superstitious worship grounded on human traditions, Col 2:8,18 , &c.; but, reposing all their hope of salvation in Christ alone, persevere in that doctrine they had received according to his mind, and in the practice of real holiness with heavenly affections, both personally and relatively in heart and life, craving help of God; unto whom, having blessed God for the grace wrought in them, he doth recommend them in his own and brethren’ s salutations, contracting as it were the matter he had more fully written to the Ephesians, that Epistle and this, as the Evangelists, explaining each other.

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 1

Col 1:1,2 After saluting the saints at Colosse,

Col 1:3-8 Paul testifieth his thankfulness to God for the good

account he had heard of their faith and love,

Col 1:9-14 and his continual prayers for their improvement in

spiritual knowledge, right practice, and thanksgiving

to God for the benefits of redemption by his Son.

Col 1:15-20 He showeth them the exalted nature and mediatorial

office of Christ,

Col 1:21,22 by whom they, who were once enemies, were now

reconciled, if they continued true to the gospel,

Col 1:23-29 whereof he Paul was made a minister to preach to the

Gentiles.

Paul he who of a persecutor was become a preacher, and that amongst the Gentiles laid aside his Hebrew name Saul and made use of this, which was more familiar amongst the Gentiles, viz. Paul, Act 13:2,3,9 .

An apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God one of those extraordinary persons immediately deputed by the special command of our Lord himself, with sovereign authority to preach the gospel, and establish his church, which is the highest charge God ever gave to men, Mat 10:2 Luk 6:13 1Co 12:28 Gal 1:12 : See Poole on "Eph 1:1" . See Poole on "Eph 4:11" .

And Timotheus our brother he joins Timothy, as elsewhere Sosthenes, 1Co 1:1 , by the title of

brother as being of the same faith, labouring in one and the same work, which might be more for their satisfaction.

MHCC: Colossians (Book Introduction)

This epistle was sent because of some difficulties which arose among the Colossians, probably from false teachers, in consequence of which they sent to the apostle. The scope of the epistle is to show, that all hope of man's redemption is founded on Christ, in whom alone are all complete fulness, perfections, and sufficiency. The Colossians are cautioned against the devices of judaizing teachers, and also against the notions of carnal wisdom, and human inventions and traditions, as not consistent with full reliance on Christ. In the first two chapters the apostle tells them what they must believe, and in the two last what they must do; the doctrine of faith, and the precepts of life for salvation.

MHCC: Colossians 1 (Chapter Introduction)

(Col 1:1-8) The apostle Paul salutes the Colossians, and blesses God for their faith, love, and hope.

(Col 1:9-14) Prays for their fruitfulness in spiritual knowledge.

(Col 1:15-23) Gives a glorious view of Christ.

(Col 1:24-29) And sets out his own character, as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Matthew Henry: Colossians (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians

Colosse was a considerable city of Phrygia, and probably not far from Laodicea and Hierapolis; we find these mentioned together, Col 4:13. It is now buried in ruins, and the memory of it chiefly preserved in this epistle. The design of the epistle is to warn them of the danger of the Jewish zealots, who pressed the necessity of observing the ceremonial law; and to fortify them against the mixture of the Gentile philosophy with their Christian principles. He professes a great satisfaction in their stedfastness and constancy, and encourages them to perseverance. It was written about the same time with the epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, a.d. 62, and in the same place, while he was now a prisoner at Rome. He was not idle in his confinement, and the word of God was not bound.

This epistle, like that to the Romans, was written to those he had never seen, nor had any personal acquaintance with. The church planted at Colosse was not by Paul's ministry, but by the ministry of Epaphras or Epaphroditus, an evangelist, one whom he delegated to preach the gospel among the Gentiles; and yet, I. There was a flourishing church at Colosse, and one which was eminent and famous among the churches. One would have thought none would have come to be flourishing churches but those which Paul himself had planted; but here was a flourishing church planted by Epaphras. God is sometimes pleased to make use of the ministry of those who are of less note, and lower gifts, for doing great service to his church. God uses what hands he pleases, and is not tied to those of note, that the excellence of the power may appear to be of God and not of men, 2Co 4:7. II. Though Paul had not the planting of this church, yet he did not therefore neglect it; nor, in writing his epistles, does he make any difference between that and other churches. The Colossians, who were converted by the ministry of Epaphras, were as dear to him, and he was as much concerned for their welfare, as the Philippians, or any others who were converted by his ministry. Thus he put an honour upon an inferior minister, and teaches us not to be selfish, nor think all that honour lost which goes beside ourselves. We learn, in his example, not to think it a disparagement to us to water what others have planted, or build upon the foundation which others have laid: as he himself, as a wise master-builder, laid the foundation, and another built thereon, 1Co 3:10.

Matthew Henry: Colossians 1 (Chapter Introduction)

We have here, I. The inscription, as usual (Col 1:1, Col 1:2). II. His thanksgiving to God for what he had heard concerning them - their faith, love, and hope (Col 1:3-8). III. His prayer for their knowledge, fruitfulness, and strength (Col 1:9-11). IV. An admirable summary of the Christian doctrine concerning the operation of the Spirit, the person of the Redeemer, the work of redemption, and the preaching of it in the gospel (v. 12-29).

Barclay: Colossians (Book Introduction)

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS OF PAUL

The Letters Of Paul

There is no more interesting body of documents in the New Testament than the letters of Paul. That is because of all forms of literature a letter is most personal. Demetrius, one of the old Greek literary critics, once wrote, "Every one reveals his own soul in his letters. In every other form of composition it is possible to discern the writercharacter, but in none so clearly as the epistolary." (Demetrius, On Style, 227). It is just because he left us so many letters that we feel we know Paul so well. In them he opened his mind and heart to the folk he loved so much; and in them, to this day, we can see that great mind grappling with the problems of the early church, and feel that great heart throbbing with love for men, even when they were misguided and mistaken.

The Difficulty Of Letters

At the same time, there is often nothing so difficult to understand as a letter. Demetrius (On Style, 223) quotes a saying of Artemon, who edited the letters of Aristotle. Artemon said that a letter ought to be written in the same manner as a dialogue, because it was one of the two sides of a dialogue. In other words, to read a letter is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. So when we read the letters of Paul we are often in a difficulty. We do not possess the letter which he was answering; we do not fully know the circumstances with which he was dealing; it is only from the letter itself that we can deduce the situation which prompted it. Before we can hope to understand fully any letter Paul wrote, we must try to reconstruct the situation which produced it.

The Ancient Letters

It is a great pity that Paulletters were ever called epistles. They are in the most literal sense letters. One of the great lights shed on the interpretation of the New Testament has been the discovery and the publication of the papyri. In the ancient world, papyrus was the substance on which most documents were written. It was composed of strips of the pith of a certain bulrush that grew on the banks of the Nile. These strips were laid one on top of the other to form a substance very like brown paper. The sands of the Egyptian desert were ideal for preservation, for papyrus, although very brittle, will last forever so long as moisture does not get at it. As a result, from the Egyptian rubbish heaps, archaeologists have rescued hundreds of documents, marriage contracts, legal agreements, government forms, and, most interesting of all, private letters. When we read these private letters we find that there was a pattern to which nearly all conformed; and we find that Paulletters reproduce exactly that pattern. Here is one of these ancient letters. It is from a soldier, called Apion, to his father Epimachus. He is writing from Misenum to tell his father that he has arrived safely after a stormy passage.

"Apion sends heartiest greetings to his father and lord Epimachus.

I pray above all that you are well and fit; and that things are

going well with you and my sister and her daughter and my brother.

I thank my Lord Serapis [his god] that he kept me safe when I was

in peril on the sea. As soon as I got to Misenum I got my journey

money from Caesar--three gold pieces. And things are going fine

with me. So I beg you, my dear father, send me a line, first to let

me know how you are, and then about my brothers, and thirdly, that

I may kiss your hand, because you brought me up well, and because

of that I hope, God willing, soon to be promoted. Give Capito my

heartiest greetings, and my brothers and Serenilla and my friends.

I sent you a little picture of myself painted by Euctemon. My

military name is Antonius Maximus. I pray for your good health.

Serenus sends good wishes, Agathos Daimonboy, and Turbo,

Galloniuson." (G. Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri,

36.)

Little did Apion think that we would be reading his letter to his father 1800 years after he had written it. It shows how little human nature changes. The lad is hoping for promotion quickly. Who would Serenilla be but the girl he left behind him? He sends the ancient equivalent of a photograph to the folk at home. Now that letter falls into certain sections. (i) There is a greeting. (ii) There is a prayer for the health of the recipients. (iii) There is a thanksgiving to the gods. (iv) There are the special contents. (v) Finally, there are the special salutations and the personal greetings. Practically every one of Paulletters shows exactly the same sections, as we now demonstrate.

(i) The Greeting: Rom_1:1 ; 1Co_1:1 ; 2Co_1:1 ; Gal_1:1 ; Eph_1:1 ; Phi_1:1 ; Col_1:1-2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:1 .

(ii) The Prayer: in every case Paul prays for the grace of God on the people to whom he writes: Rom_1:7 ; 1Co_1:3 ; 2Co_1:2 ; Gal_1:3 ; Eph_1:2 ; Phi_1:3 ; Col_1:2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:2 .

(iii) The Thanksgiving: Rom_1:8 ; 1Co_1:4 ; 2Co_1:3 ; Eph_1:3 ; Phi_1:3 ; 1Th_1:3 ; 2Th_1:3 .

(iv) The Special Contents: the main body of the letters.

(v) Special Salutations and Personal Greetings: Rom 16 ; 1Co_16:19 ; 2Co_13:13 ; Phi_4:21-22 ; Col_4:12-15 ; 1Th_5:26 .

When Paul wrote letters, he wrote them on the pattern which everyone used. Deissmann says of them, "They differ from the messages of the homely papyrus leaves of Egypt, not as letters but only as the letters of Paul." When we read Paulletters we are not reading things which were meant to be academic exercises and theological treatises, but human documents written by a friend to his friends.

The Immediate Situation

With a very few exceptions, all Paulletters were written to meet an immediate situation and not treatises which he sat down to write in the peace and silence of his study. There was some threatening situation in Corinth, or Galatia, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, and he wrote a letter to meet it. He was not in the least thinking of us when he wrote, but solely of the people to whom he was writing. Deissmann writes, "Paul had no thought of adding a few fresh compositions to the already extant Jewish epistles; still less of enriching the sacred literature of his nation.... He had no presentiment of the place his words would occupy in universal history; not so much that they would be in existence in the next generation, far less that one day people would look at them as Holy Scripture." We must always remember that a thing need not be transient because it was written to meet an immediate situation. All the great love songs of the world were written for one person, but they live on for the whole of mankind. It is just because Paulletters were written to meet a threatening danger or a clamant need that they still throb with life. And it is because human need and the human situation do not change that God speaks to us through them today.

The Spoken Word

One other thing we must note about these letters. Paul did what most people did in his day. He did not normally pen his own letters but dictated them to a secretary, and then added Ws own authenticating signature. (We actually know the name of one of the people who did the writing for him. In Rom_16:22 Tertius, the secretary, slips in his own greeting before the letter draws to an end). In 1Co_16:21 Paul says, "This is my own signature, my autograph, so that you can be sure this letter comes from me." (compare Col_4:18 ; 2Th_3:17 .)

This explains a great deal. Sometimes Paul is hard to understand, because his sentences begin and never finish; his grammar breaks down and the construction becomes involved. We must not think of him sitting quietly at a desk, carefully polishing each sentence as he writes. We must think of him striding up and down some little room, pouring out a torrent of words, while his secretary races to get them down. When Paul composed his letters, he had in his mindeye a vision of the folk to whom he was writing, and he was pouring out his heart to them in words that fell over each other in his eagerness to help.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS

The Towns Of The Lycus Valley

About one hundred miles from Ephesus, in the valley of the River Lycus, near where it joins the Maeander, there once stood three important cities--Laodicaea, Hierapolis and Colosse. Originally they had been Phrygian cities but now they were part of the Roman province of Asia. They stood almost within sight of each other. Hierapolis and Laodicaea stood on either side of the valley with the River Lycus flowing between, only six miles apart and in full view of each other; Colosse straddled the river twelve miles farther up.

The Lycus Valley had two remarkable characteristics.

(i) It was notorious for earthquakes. Strabo describes it by the curious adjective euseistos, which in English means good for earthquakes. More than once Laodicaea had been destroyed by an earthquake, but she was a city so rich and so independent that she had risen from the ruins without the financial help which the Roman government had offered. As the John who wrote the Revelation was to say of her, in her own eyes she was rich and had need of nothing (Rev_3:17 ).

(ii) The waters of the River Lycus and of its tributaries were impregnated with chalk. This chalk gathered and all over the countryside built up the most amazing natural formations. Lightfoot writes in description of that area: "Ancient monuments are buried; fertile land is overlaid; rivers beds choked up and streams diverted; fantastic grottoes and cascades and archways of stone are formed, by this strange, capricious power, at once destructive and creative, working silently throughout the ages. Fatal to vegetation, these incrustations spread like a stony shroud over the ground. Gleaming like glaciers on the hillside, they attract the eye of the traveller at a distance of twenty miles, and form a singularly striking feature in scenery of more than common beauty and impressiveness."

A Wealthy Area

In spite of these things this was a wealthy area and famous for two closely allied trades. Volcanic ground is always fertile; and what was not covered by the chalky incrustations was magnificent pasture land. On these pastures there were great flocks of sheep and the area was perhaps the greatest centre of the woollen industry in the world. Laodicaea was specially famous for the production of garments of the finest quality. The allied trade was dyeing. There was some quality in those chalky waters which made them specially suitable for dyeing cloth, and Colosse was so famous for this trade that a certain dye was called by its name.

So, then, these three cities stood in a district of considerable geographical interest and of great commercial prosperity.

The Unimportant City

Originally the three cities had been of equal importance, but, as the years went on, their ways parted. Laodicaea became the political centre of the district and the financial headquarters of the whole area, a city of splendid prosperity. Hierapolis became a great trade-centre and a notable spa. In that volcanic area there were many chasms in the ground from which came hot vapours and springs, famous for their medicinal quality; and people came in their thousands to Hierapolis to bathe and to drink the waters.

Colosse at one time was as great as the other two. Behind her rose the Cadmus range of mountains and she commanded the roads to the mountain passes. Both Xerxes and Cyrus had halted there with their invading armies, and Herodotus had called her "a great city of Phrygia." But for some reason the glory departed. How great that departure was can be seen from the fact that Hierapolis and Laodicaea are both to this day clearly discernible because the ruins of some great buildings still stand; but there is not a stone to show where Colosse stood and her site can only be guessed at. Even when Paul wrote Colosse was a small town; and Lightfoot says that she was the most unimportant town to which Paul ever wrote a letter.

The fact remains that in this town of Colosse there had arisen a heresy which, if it had been allowed to develop unchecked, might well have been the ruination of the Christian faith.

The Jews In Phrygia

One other fact must be added to complete the picture. These three cities stood in an area in which there were many Jews. Many years before, Antiochus the Great had transported two thousand Jewish families from Babylon and Mesopotamia into the regions of Lydia and Phrygia. These Jews had prospered and, as always happens in such a case, more of their fellow-countrymen had come into the area to share their prosperity. So many came that the stricter Jews of Palestine lamented the number of Jews who left the rigours of their ancestral land for "the wines and baths of Phrygia."

The number of Jews who resided there can be seen from the following historical incident. Laodicaea, as we have seen, was the administrative centre of the district. In the year 62 B.C., Flaccus was the Roman governor resident there. He sought to put a stop to the practice of the Jews of sending money out of the province to pay the Temple tax. He did so by placing an embargo on the export of currency; and in his own part of the province alone he seized as contraband no less than twenty pounds of gold which was meant for the Temple at Jerusalem. That amount of gold would represent the Temple tax of no fewer than 11,000 people. Since women and children were exempt from the tax and since many Jews would successfully evade the capture of their money, we may well put the Jewish population as high as almost 50,000.

The Church At Colosse

The Christian Church at Colosse was one which Paul had not himself founded and which he had never visited. He classes the Colossians and the Laodicaeans with those who had never seen his face in the flesh (Col_2:1 ). But no doubt the founding of the Church sprang from his directing. During his three years in Ephesus the whole province of Asia was evangelized, so that all its inhabitants, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord (Act_19:10 ). Colosse was about one hundred miles from Ephesus and it was no doubt in that campaign of expansion that the Colossian Church was founded. We do not know who its founder was; but it may well have been Epaphras, who is described as Paulfellow-servant and the faithful minister of the Colossian Church and who is later connected also with Hierapolis and Laodicaea (Col_1:7 ; Col_4:12-13 ). If Epaphras was not the founder of the Christian Church there, he was certainly the minister in charge of the area.

A Gentile Church

It is clear that the Colossian Church was mainly Gentile. The phrase estranged and hostile in mind (Col_1:21 ) is the kind of phrase which Paul regularly uses of those who had once been strangers to the covenant of promise. In Col_1:27 he speaks of making known the mystery of Christ among the Gentiles, when the reference is clearly to the Colossians themselves. In Col_3:5-7 he gives a list of their sins before they became Christians, and these are characteristically Gentile sins. We may confidently conclude that the membership of the Church at Colosse was largely composed of Gentiles.

The Threat To The Church

It must have been Epaphras who brought to Paul, in prison in Rome, news of the situation which was developing in Colosse. Much of the news that he brought was good. Paul is grateful for news of their faith in Christ and their love of the saints (Col_1:4 ). He rejoices at the Christian fruit which they are producing (Col_1:6 ). Epaphras has brought him news of their love in the Spirit (Col_1:8 ). He is glad when he hears of their order and steadfastness in the faith (Col_2:5 ). There was trouble at Colosse certainly; but it had not yet become an epidemic. Paul believed that prevention was better than cure; and in this letter he is grasping this evil before it has time to spread.

The Heresy At Colosse

What the heresy was which was threatening the life of the Church at Colosse no one can tell for sure. "The Colossian Heresy" is one of the great problems of New Testament scholarship. All we can do is to go to the letter itself, list the characteristics we find indicated there and then see if we can find any general heretical tendency to fit the list.

(i) It was clearly a heresy which attacked the total adequacy and the unique supremacy of Christ. No Pauline letter has such a lofty view of Jesus Christ or such insistence on his completeness and finality. Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God; in him all fullness dwells (Col_1:15 , Col_1:19 ). In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge (Col_2:2 ). In him dwells the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form (Col_2:9 ).

(ii) Paul goes out of his way to stress the part that Christ played in creation. By him all things were created (Col_1:16 ); in him all things cohere (Col_1:17 ). The Son was the Fatherinstrument in the creation of the universe.

(iii) At the same time he goes out of his way to stress the real humanity of Christ. It was in the body of his flesh that he did his redeeming work (Col_1:22 ). The fullness of the Godhead dwells in him somatikos (G4984), in bodily form (Col_2:9 ). For all his deity Jesus Christ was truly human flesh and blood.

(iv) There seems to have been an astrological element in this heresy. In Col_2:8 , as the King James Version has it, he says that they were walking after the rudiments of this world, and in Col_2:20 that they ought to be dead to the rudiments of this world. The word translated rudiments is stoicheia (G4747), which has two meanings.

(a) Its basic meaning is a row of things; it can, for instance, be used for a file of soldiers. But one of its commonest meanings is the A B C, the letters of the alphabet, set out, as it were, in a row. From that it develops the meaning of the elements of any subject, the rudiments. It is in that sense that the King James Version takes it; and, if that is the correct sense, Paul means that the Colossians are slipping back to an elementary kind of Christianity when they ought to be going on to maturity.

(b) We think that the second meaning is more likely. Stoicheia (G4747) can mean the elemental spirits of the world, and especially the spirits of the stars and planets. The ancient world was dominated by thought of the influence of the stars; and even the greatest and the wisest men would not act without consulting them. It believed that all things were in the grip of an iron fatalism settled by the stars; and the science of astrology professed to provide men with the secret knowledge which would rid them of their slavery to the elemental spirits. It is most likely that the Colossian false teachers were teaching that it needed something more than Jesus Christ to rid men of their subjection to these elemental spirits.

(v) This heresy made much of the powers of demonic spirits. There are frequent references to principalities or authorities, which are Paulnames for these spirits (Col_1:16 ; Col_2:10 ; Col_2:15 ). The ancient world believed implicitly in demonic powers. The air was full of them. Every natural force--the wind, the thunder, the lightning, the rain--had its demonic superintendent. Every place, every tree, every river, every lake had its spirit. They were in one sense intermediaries to God and in another sense barriers to him, for the vast majority of them were hostile to men. The ancient world lived in a demon-haunted universe. The Colossian false teachers were clearly saying that something more than Jesus Christ was needed to defeat the power of the demons.

(vi) There was clearly what we might call a philosophical element in this heresy. The heretics are out to spoil men with philosophy and empty deceit (Col_2:8 ). Clearly the Colossian heretics were saying that the simplicities of the gospel needed a far more elaborate and recondite knowledge added to them.

(vii) There was a tendency in this heresy to insist on the observance of special days and rituals--festivals, new moons and sabbaths (Col_2:16 ).

(viii) Clearly there was a would-be ascetic element in this heresy. It laid down laws about food and drink (Col_2:16 ). Its slogans were: "Touch not; taste not; handle not" (Col_2:21 ). It was a heresy which was out to limit Christian freedom by insistence on all kinds of legalistic ordinances.

(ix) Equally this heresy had at least sometimes an antinomian streak in it. It tended to make men careless of the chastity which the Christian should have and to make him think lightly of the bodily sins (Col_3:5-8 ).

(x) Apparently this heresy gave at least some place to the worship of angels (Col_2:18 ). Beside the demons it introduced angelic intermediaries between man and God.

(xi) Lastly, there seems to have been in this heresy something which can only be called spiritual and intellectual snobbery. In Col_1:28 Paul lays down his aim; it is to warn every man; to teach every man in all wisdom; and to present every man mature in Jesus Christ. We see how the phrase every man is reiterated and how the aim is to make him mature in all wisdom. The clear implication is that the heretics limited the gospel to some chosen few and introduced a spiritual and intellectual aristocracy into the wide welcome of the Christian faith.

The Gnostic Heresy

Was there then any general heretical tendency of thought which would include all this? There was what was called Gnosticism. Gnosticism began with two basic assumptions about matter. First, it believed that spirit alone was good and that matter was essentially evil. Second, it believed that matter was eternal; and that the universe was not created out of nothing--which is orthodox belief--but out of this flawed matter. Now this basic belief had certain inevitable consequences.

(i) It had an effect on the doctrine of creation. If God was spirit, then he was altogether good and could not possibly work with this evil matter. Therefore God was not the creator of the world. He put out a series of emanations, each of which was a little more distant from God until at the end of the series there was an emanation so distant that it could handle matter; and it was this emanation which created the world. The Gnostics went further. Since each emanation was more distant from God. It was also more ignorant of him. As the series went on that ignorance turned to hostility. So the emanations most distant from God were at once ignorant of him and hostile to him. It followed that he who created the world was at once completely ignorant of, and utterly hostile to, the true God. It was to meet that Gnostic doctrine of creation that Paul insisted that the agent of God in creation was not some ignorant and hostile power, but the Son who perfectly knew and loved the Father.

(ii) It had its effect on the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ. If matter was altogether evil and if Jesus was the Son of God, then Jesus could not have had a flesh and blood body--so the Gnostic argued. He must have been a kind of spiritual phantom. So the Gnostic romances say that when Jesus walked, he left no footprints on the ground. This, of course, completely removed Jesus from humanity and made it impossible for him to be the Saviour of men. It was to meet this Gnostic doctrine that Paul insisted on the flesh and blood body of Jesus and insisted that Jesus saved men in the body of his flesh.

(iii) It had its effect on the ethical approach to life. If matter was evil, then it followed that our bodies were evil. If our bodies were evil, one of two consequences followed. (a) We must starve and beat and deny the body; we must practise a rigid asceticism in which the body was kept under, and in which its every need and desire were refused. (b) It was possible to take precisely the opposite point of view. If the body was evil, it did not matter what a man did with it; spirit was all that mattered. Therefore a man could sate the bodydesires and it would make no difference.

Gnosticism could, therefore, issue in asceticism, with all kinds of laws and restrictions; or, it could issue in anti-nomianism, in which any immorality was justified. And we can see precisely both these tendencies at work in the false teachers at Colosse.

(iv) One thing followed from all this--Gnosticism was a highly intellectual way of life and thought. There was this long series of emanations between a man and God; man must fight his way up a long ladder to get to God. In order to do that he would need all kinds of secret knowledge and esoteric learning and hidden passwords. If he was to practise a rigid asceticism, he would need to know the rules; and so rigid would his asceticism be that it would be impossible for him to embark on the ordinary activities of life. The Gnostics were, therefore, quite clear that the higher reaches of religion were open only to the chosen few. This conviction of the necessity of belonging to an intellectual religious aristocracy precisely suits the situation at Colosse.

(v) There remains one thing to fit into this picture. It is quite obvious that there was a Jewish element in the false teaching threatening the Church at Colosse. The festivals and the new moons and the sabbaths were characteristically Jewish; the laws about food and drink were essentially Jewish levitical laws. Where then did the Jews come in? It is a strange thing that many Jews were sympathetic to Gnosticism. They knew all about angels and demons and spirits. But, above all, they said, "We know quite well that it takes special knowledge to reach God. We know quite well that Jesus and his gospel are far too simple--and that special knowledge is to be found nowhere else than in the Jewish law. It is our ritual and ceremonial law which is indeed the special knowledge which enables a man to reach God." The result was that there was not infrequently a strange alliance between Gnosticism and Judaism; and it is just such an alliance that we find in Colosse, where, as we have seen, there were many Jews.

It is clear that the false teachers of Colosse were tinged with Gnostic heresy. They were trying to turn Christianity into a philosophy and a theosophy, and, if they had been successful,. the Christian faith would have been destroyed.

The Authorship Of The Letter

One question remains. Many scholars do not believe that Paul wrote this letter at all. They have three reasons.

(i) They say that in Colossians there are many words and phrases which do not appear in any other of Paulletters. That is perfectly true. But it does not prove anything. We cannot demand that a man should always write in the same way and with the same vocabulary. In Colossians we may well believe that Paul had new things to say and found new ways to say them.

(ii) They say that the development of Gnostic thought was, in fact, much later than the time of Paul so that, if the Colossian heresy was connected with Gnosticism, the letter is necessarily later than Paul. It is true that the great written Gnostic systems are later. But the idea of two worlds and the idea of the evil of matter are deeply woven into both Jewish and Greek thought. There is nothing in Colossians which cannot be explained by long-standing Gnostic tendencies in ancient thought, although it is true that the systematization of Gnosticism came later.

(iii) They say that the view of Christ in Colossians is far in advance of any of the letters certainly written by Paul. There are two answers to that.

First, Paul speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ. In Colosse a new situation met him and out of these unsearchable riches he drew new answers to meet it. It is true that the Christology of Colossians is an advance on anything in the earlier letters of Paul; but that is far from saying that Paul did not write it, unless we are willing to argue that his thought remained for ever static. It is true to say that a man thinks out the implications of his faith only as circumstances compel him to do so; and in face of a new set of circumstances Paul thought out new implications of Christ.

Second, the germ of all Paulthought about Christ in Colossians does, in fact, exist in one of his earlier letters. In 1Co_8:6 he writes of one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. In that phrase is the essence of all he says in Colossians. The seed was there in his mind, ready to blossom when a new climate and new circumstances called it into growth.

We need not hesitate to accept Colossians as a letter written by Paul.

The Great Letter

It remains a strange and wonderful fact that Paul wrote the letter which contains the highest reach of his thought to so unimportant a town as Colosse then was. But in doing so he checked a tendency, which, had it been allowed to develop, would have wrecked Asian Christianity and might well have done irreparable damage to the faith of the whole Church.

FURTHER READINGS

Colossians

T. K. Abbott, Ephesians and Colossians (ICC; G)

J. B. Lightfoot, St. PaulEpistles to the Colossians and Philemon (MmC; G)

C. F. D. Moule, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians and to Philemon (CGT; G)

E. F. Scott, The Epistles to Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians (MC; E)

Abbreviations

CGT: Cambridge Greek Testament

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: Colossians 1 (Chapter Introduction)

Christian Greetings (Col_1:1)

The Double Commitment (Col_1:2-8)

The Essence Of The Gospel (Col_1:2-8 Continued)

The Essence Of Prayer's Request (Col_1:9-11)

The Three Great Gifts (Col_1:9-11 Continued)

Prayer's Great Thanksgiving (Col_1:12-14)

The Total Adequacy Of Jesus Christ (Col_1:15-23)

(1) The Mistaken Thinkers (Col_1:15-23 Continued)

(2) What Jesus Christ Is In Himself (Col_1:15-23 Continued)

(3) What Jesus Christ Is To Creation (Col_1:15-23 Continued)

(4) What Jesus Christ Is To The Church (Col_1:15-23 Continued)

(5) What Jesus Christ Is To All Things (Col_1:15-23 Continued)

(6) The Aim And Obligation Of Reconciliation (Col_1:15-23 Continued)

The Privilege And The Task (Col_1:24-29)

Constable: Colossians (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Historical background

The city of Colosse lay in the beautiful Lycus Valley about 100 miles east of Ephesus. It had been an important town during the Persian War of the fifth century B.C. Since then new trade routes had carried most traffic to its neighboring towns of Laodicea and Hierapolis and had left Colosse only a country village.¹ The inhabitants were mainly Greek colonists and native Phrygians when Paul wrote this epistle, though there were many Jews living in the area as well. Antiochus the Great (223-187 B.C.) had relocated hundreds of Jewish families from Mesopotamia to this region.

"Without doubt Colossae was the least important church to which any epistle of St Paul is addressed."²

Churches had taken root in Colosse, Laodicea (4:16), and probably Hierapolis (4:13). Paul had not visited the Lycus Valley when he wrote this epistle (1:4; 2:1), but he had learned of the spread of the gospel there through Epaphras (1:8) and probably others.³

Epaphras seems to have been the founder or one of the founders of the Colossian church (1:7; 4:12-13). He was a Colossian and had instructed the Christians there (1:7) and probably in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Perhaps Paul led him to Christ, maybe at Ephesus (cf. Acts 19:10).

Epaphras may have traveled to Rome to meet with Paul to secure his help in combating the influence of false teachers that were preaching in Colosse. Archippus may have stood in for Epaphras during his absence (4:17; Phile. 2).

The only information available to help us reconstruct the heresy threatening the church comes from indirect allusions and the emphases in this epistle. We conclude that the false teachers were not giving the person and work of Christ proper interpretation or emphasis. They were distorting and minimizing these doctrines. The false teaching also contained a philosophic appeal, whether Oriental or Hellenistic we cannot be sure (2:8). Notwithstanding there was an emphasis on higher knowledge of the cosmic order. There were also elements of Judaistic ritualism and traditionalism present (2:8, 11, 16; 3:11). However, contrary to orthodox Judaism, the false teachers were encouraging the veneration of angels who they believed controlled the operations of nature to some degree (2:18-19). There was an emphasis on ascetic self-denial (2:20-23) and apparently the idea that only those with full knowledge of the truth as taught by the false teachers could understand and experience spiritual maturity (1:20, 28; 3:11). These emphases later developed into Gnosticism, though in Colosse the Jewish emphasis was more prominent than in later Greek Gnosticism.⁴ It is easy to see how such a cult could develop and gain adherents in the Greek-Jewish culture of the Lycus Valley.

". . . given . . . various factors . . ., including the probable origin of the Colossian church from within synagogue circles, the likely presence of Israelite sectarianism within the diaspora, the lack of other evidence of Jewish syncretism in Asia Minor, and the readiness of some Jews to promote their distinctive religious practices in self-confident apology . . ., we need look no further than one or more of the Jewish synagogues in Colossae for the source of whatever influences were thought to threaten the young church there."⁵

The primary purpose of the letter was clearly to combat this false teaching. The two main problems were the doctrine of Christ and how this doctrine affects Christian living. The primary Christological passages (1:14-23; 2:9-15) present Christ as absolutely preeminent and perfectly adequate for the Christian. The Christian life, Paul explained, flows naturally out of this revelation. The Christian life is really the life of the indwelling Christ that God manifests through the believer.

Paul probably wrote this epistle from Rome toward the middle or end of his first house arrest there between 60 and 62 A.D. He experienced confinement though he enjoyed considerable liberty there for about two years. Many of Paul's fellow workers were with him when he composed this epistle (4:7-14). This view of the letter's origin generally fits the facts better than the Caesarean and Ephesian theories of origin.

There are many similarities between Ephesians and Colossians. The major distinction between them is that in Ephesians the emphasis is on the church as the body of Christ. In Colossians the emphasis is on Christ as the head of the body. Stylistically Colossians is somewhat tense and abrupt whereas Ephesians is more diffuse and flowing. Colossians tends to be more specific, concrete, and elliptical while Ephesians is more abstract, didactic, and general. The mood of Colossians is argumentative and polemical, but that of Ephesians is calm and irenic. The former is a letter of discussion; the latter is a letter of reflection.⁶ Paul evidently wrote both letters about the same time. These two epistles, along with Philippians and Philemon, constitute the Prison Epistles of Paul.⁷

Purpose

Three purposes emerge from the contents of the epistle. Paul wanted to express his personal interest in this church, which he had evidently not visited. He wrote to warn the Colossians of the danger of returning to their former beliefs and practices. He also refuted the false teaching that was threatening this congregation. The outstanding Christian doctrine that this letter deals with is Christology. Paul's great purpose was to set forth the absolute supremacy and sole sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

"The church today desperately needs the message of Colossians. We live in a day when religious toleration is interpreted to mean one religion is just as good as another.' Some people try to take the best from various religious systems and manufacture their own private religion. To many people, Jesus Christ is only one of several great religious teachers, with no more authority than they. He may be prominent, but He is definitely not preeminent.

"This is an age of syncretism.' People are trying to harmonize and unite many different schools of thought and come up with a superior religion. Our evangelical churches are in danger of diluting the faith in their loving attempt to understand the beliefs of others. Mysticism, legalism, Eastern religions, asceticism, and man-made philosophies are secretly creeping into churches. They are not denying Christ, but they are dethroning Him and robbing Him of His rightful place of preeminence."⁸

Message⁹

The whole message of this epistle finds expression in 2:9-10a. The two declarations in this sentence are the great revelations of the Colossian letter.

The fullness of the godhead is in Christ. This is an eternal fact that is always true. The Greek word translated "deity" (theotetos) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It does not mean divinity. Divinity is an attribute of God. Deity is the essence of God. It is not enough to say Jesus Christ was divine. In a sense every person is divine. Jesus Christ was deity. He alone possesses the unique nature of God. In Him the fullness of essential deity dwells in bodily manifestation. The Apostle Paul expounded Christ's fullness in three respects in this epistle.

In relation to creation He is the originator and sustainer of all things (1:16-17). This includes all life.

In relation to redemption He is the first-born from the dead (1:18). Resurrection presupposes death. Death is due to sin. Between creation and resurrection there was sin and death. In resurrection Christ was victor over sin, death, and the grave. He is the master of death.

In relation to reconciliation Christ is the maker of peace (1:19-20). The result of Christ's victory over death is peace. He is the reconciler of all things that sin has separated. His reconciliation affects both people and the created world. In Christ we see all the fullness of deity: creating, rising triumphantly out of death, and reconciling to the farthest reaches of the universe. That is the Christ of Christianity.

The second declaration is that in Christ God makes us full (2:10a). Not only is the fullness of the godhead in Christ, but the filling of the saints is in Christ too. Paul explained what this means.

First, it means God restores us to our true place in creation in Christ. We can regain the scepter and the crown as kings of the earth under God's authority. God has sent us out into all the cosmos to make Christ known. Unfortunately we do not always realize our position. We choose instead to grovel among the world's garbage heaps. Nevertheless in this sense God makes us full in Christ. We come into a new relationship to all creation through Christ. God restores us to our divinely intended position in creation in Him. We are His trophies.

Second, God restores us to our true relation to Himself through Christ's resurrection. God communicates His very life to us so that we take our rightful place as subject to God. God does not break our will. He captures our will by the indwelling grace of Christ's life. God makes us full in this sense too. We are His instruments.

Third, God restores us to true fellowship with Himself in Christ. We not only receive from God, but we can also give to God in service. Thus our fellowship is reciprocal. We are His partners.

We experience fullness in Christ for in Him God restores us to our true place in creation, to our true relation to Himself, and to our true fellowship with Himself. This restoration enables us to cooperate with God in His purposes. We become not only trophies of His grace but His instruments and even His partners in our generation. In view of this revelation Paul made a threefold appeal.

The first appeal is a warning against a false philosophy (2:8). Paul described this false philosophy in two ways.

It is the tradition of men, which is essentially speculation. In this context Paul meant human guessing that leaves God out of His universe.

It is also the rudiments of the world. This philosophy is rudimentary because it tries to explain everything within the limits of the material. The material part of life is rudimentary.

We correct this false philosophy by recognizing that Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem of the universe. When we realize that Jesus Christ is the first-born (first in rank and sovereignty, not in temporal sequence) then we gain a true view of the universe. He is the great cohesive agent in the universe.

Paul's second warning is against false mediation (2:16-18).

Paul pointed out that ceremonies such as observing certain kinds of foods and festivals are only shadows. We should not think that observing these ceremonies will improve our relationship to God. We have Jesus Christ who is the substance to which these ceremonies pointed.

Another type of false mediation involves the worship of angels. We should have nothing to do with this practice because we have direct access to Jesus Christ. He is the Creator and Master of all creatures including the angels.

To summarize, we should not allow religious ceremonies or created mediators to come between ourselves and Christ.

Paul's third warning is against false confidences (2:20-23).

Our enemy may tempt us to have confidence in the opinions of others. When false teachers say, "Do not touch this or taste that or handle something," we may think those statements are authoritative. Paul urges us not to follow such opinions but to get our direction from the Lord Jesus.

Our enemy may tempt us to put confidence in ascetic practices of abstention and self-affliction. Paul tells us to forget these things and to set our thinking on the things of Christ rather than on ourselves.

When we have a true view of Jesus Christ He will be the focus of our thinking. That view will deliver us from the domination of the flesh. We need to base our confidence on God's Word rather than on human traditions that do not reflect scriptural revelation accurately.

The matter of supreme importance to the church is her doctrine of Christ. Our Christian life and service will flow out of our doctrine of Christ. We are what we think. "As a man thinks in his heart so is he." Not only must Christ occupy the central place in our lives, but our understanding of Christ must be accurate. We can avoid all the errors Paul warned against in this epistle by keeping a proper view of Christ.

Constable: Colossians (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction 1:1-14

A. Salutation 1:1-2

B. Thanksgiving 1:3-8

C. Prayer 1:9-14

II. Explanation of the person and work of Christ 1:15-29

A. The preeminent person of Christ 1:15-20

1. In relation to God the Father 1:15a

2. In relation to all creation 1:15b-17

3. In relation to the church 1:18-20

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

1. As experienced by the Colossians 1:21-23

2. As ministered by Paul 1:24-29

III. Warnings against the philosophies of men ch. 2

A. Exhortation to persevere in the truth 2:1-7

1. Paul's concern 2:1-5

2. Paul's exhortation 2:6-7

B. The true doctrine of Christ 2:8-15

C. The false doctrines of men 2:16-23

IV. Exhortations to practical Christian living 3:1-4:6

A. The basic principle 3:1-4

B. The proper method 3:5-17

1. Things to put off 3:5-11

2. Things to put on 3:12-17

C. The fundamental relationships 3:18-4:1

1. Wives and husbands 3:18-19

2. Children and parents 3:20-21

3. Slaves and masters 3:22-4:1

D. The essential practice 4:2-6

V. Conclusion 4:7-18

A. The bearers of this epistle 4:7-9

B. Greetings from Paul's companions 4:10-14

C. Greetings to others 4:15-17

D. Paul's personal conclusion 4:18

Constable: Colossians

Colossians

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Colossians (Book Introduction)

THE

EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

TO THE COLOSSIANS.

INTRODUCTION.

Colosse was a city of Phrygia, near Laodicea. It does not appear that St. Paul had preached there himself, (see Chap. ii. 1.) but that the Colossians were converted by Epaphras, a disciple of the apostles. However, as St. Paul was the great apostle of the Gentiles, he wrote this epistle to the Colossians when he was in prison, and about the same time that he wrote to the Ephesians and Philippians. The exhortations and doctrine it contains, are similar to those which are set forth in his epistle to the Ephesians. St. John Chrysostom takes notice, that the epistles he wrote in prison seem even more spiritual than the rest: the chief design of which was to hinder them from being seduced by false teachers. (Challoner; Witham) --- The Colossians were first instructed in the faith by Epaphras, who is considered their first bishop. He was a prisoner, at Rome, with St. Paul, when this epistle was written. The intent of it was to disabuse the Colossians of worshipping the Angels; for Cerinthus and others, had taught them to look upon Angels as superior to Christ, whom they looked upon as a mere man; to observe the law of Moses, with all its legal rites and ceremonies. He begins his epistle by insisting chiefly on the exalted state of Christ, saying that he is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature, by whom all things visible and invisible were created, whether thrones, principalities, or powers, and that in him the divinity essentially exists. From this he proves the inutility of the ceremonies of the law, &c. (Fleury and Calmet) and takes great pains to prevent their relapsing either into paganism or Judaism. (Bible de Vence)

====================

Gill: Colossians (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO COLOSSIANS

The Colossians, to whom this epistle is written, were not the Rhodians, by some called Colossians, from Colossus, the large statue of the sun, which stood in the island of Rhodes, and was one of the seven wonders of the world; but the inhabitants of Colosse, a city of the greater Phrygia, in the lesser Asia, near to which stood the cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis, mentioned in this epistle. Pliny ^a speaks of it as one of the chief towns in Phrygia, and ^b Herodotus calls it the great city of Phrygia; it is said to have perished a very little time after the writing of this epistle, with the above cities, by an earthquake, in the year of Christ 66, and in the tenth of Nero ^c; though it was afterwards rebuilt; for Theophylact says, that in his time it was called Chonae. When the Gospel was brought hither, and by whom, is not known, nor who was the founder of the church in this place; for the Apostle Paul was not, since his face had never been seen by them, Col 2:1, though it is said that Epaphras, the same name with Epaphroditus, was fixed by him pastor of this church; and others say Philemon was set over it by him. The occasion of this epistle was this, Epaphras, who had preached the Gospel to the Colossians, and very likely was the first that did, came to Rome, where the Apostle Paul was a prisoner, and gave him an account of them, how they had heard and received the Gospel, and of their faith Christ, and love to the saints; and also declared to him in what danger they were through some false teachers that had got among them, who were for introducing the philosophy of the Gentiles, the ceremonies of the law of Moses, and some pernicious tenets of the followers of Simon Magus, and the Gnostics; upon which the apostle writes this epistle to them, to confirm them in the faith of the Gospel Epaphras had preached unto them, and which was the same he himself preached; and to warn them against those bad men, and their principles; and to exhort them to a discharge of their duty to God, and men, and one another. It was written by the apostle, when in bonds at Rome, as many passages in it show, and about the same time with those to the Philippians and Ephesians; and the epistle to the latter greatly agrees with this, both as to subject and style. Dr. Lightfoot places it in the year of Christ 60, in the second of the apostle's imprisonment, and in the sixth of Nero's reign.

Gill: Colossians 1 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO COLOSSIANS 1

This chapter contains the inscription of the epistle; the apostle's usual salutation; his thanksgiving to God on behalf of the Colossians for grace received; his prayers, that more might be given them; an enumeration of various blessings of grace, which require thankfulness, in which the glories and excellencies of Christ are particularly set forth: and it is concluded with an exhortation to a steadfast adherence to the Gospel, taken from the nature, excellency, and usefulness of the ministry of it. The inscription, and the salutation, are in Col 1:1, and are the same with those in the epistle to the Ephesians, only Timothy is joined with the apostle here, and the Colossians have the additional character of brethren given them. The thanksgiving is in Col 1:3, the object of it is God, the Father of Christ; the time when made, when in prayer to him; its subject matter, the faith and love of the saints; to which is added, their happiness secured for them in heaven, their hope was conversant with: and whereas the Gospel was the means by which they came to the hearing and knowledge of it, this is commended from the subject of it, the doctrine of truth; from the spread of it in the world; and from its efficacy in bringing forth fruit in all, to whom it came in power, and that with constancy, Col 1:5, and also from the testimony of Epaphras, a faithful minister of Christ, and theirs, who was dear to the apostle, and of whom he had the above account of them, Col 1:7. And then follow his prayers for them, that they might have an increase of spiritual knowledge, and that they might put in practice what they knew; and for that purpose he entreats they might be blessed with strength, patience, and longsuffering, Col 1:9. And in order to excite thankfulness in himself and them, he takes notice of various blessings of grace; of the Father's grace in giving a meetness for eternal glory and happiness, by delivering from the power of darkness, and translating into the kingdom of his Son, Col 1:12, and of the Son's grace in obtaining redemption by his blood, and procuring the remission of sins, Col 1:14, which leads the apostle to enlarge upon the excellencies of the author of these blessings, in his divine person, as the image of God, and the first cause of all created beings, Col 1:15, which he proves by an enumeration of them, as created by him, and for his sake, by his pre-existence to them, and their dependence on him, Col 1:16, and in his office capacity, as Mediator, being the head of the church, the governor of it, and the first that rose from the dead; by all which it appears that he has, and ought to have the pre-eminence, Col 1:18. And this is still more manifest from his having all fulness dwelling in him, to supply his body the church, of which he is the head, Col 1:19, and from the reconciliation of all the members of it to God by him, Col 1:20, which blessing of grace is amplified partly by the subjects of it, who are described by their former state and condition, aliens and enemies, and by their present one, reconciled by the death of Christ in his fleshly body; and partly by the end of it, the presentation of them holy, blameless, and irreprovable in the sight of God, Col 1:21. Wherefore it is a duty incumbent on such to abide by the Gospel of Christ, which brings the good tidings of peace and reconciliation, and is the means of faith and hope; and the rather, since they had heard it themselves, and others also, even every creature under heaven; and the apostle was a minister of it, Col 1:23, and on his ministration of it he enlarges, by observing his sufferings for the church on account of the Gospel, which he endured with pleasure; and therefore they should, by his example, be encouraged to continue in it, Col 1:24. Moreover, he argues the same from his commission of God to preach it for their sakes, Col 1:25, and from the nature and subject matter of it, being a hidden mystery, and containing riches and glory in it; yea, Christ himself, the foundation of hope of eternal glory, Col 1:26, and from the end of preaching it, which was to present every man perfect in Christ; which end the apostle laboured and strove to obtain through the power and energy of divine grace, which wrought in him, and with him, Col 1:28.

College: Colossians (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION

THE CITY

Colosse had been a thriving and important city several centuries before Christ, but by the time this letter was written its importance had diminished considerably, and it was overshadowed by its neighbors Hierapolis and Laodicea, both short distances to the west. Colosse was approximately 100 miles east of Ephesus, located in the Lycus valley in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). It was located on a major trade route moving inland from the coast.

A severe earthquake had shaken Laodicea either in 60 or 64 AD, and it is supposed Colosse, being near, would also have suffered. This may have been one cause of a decline in population.

The primary economic significance of the city was due to textiles, and a highly prized wool came from the area. The site of the city was rediscovered in 1835, but it has not been excavated. The city is mentioned in the New Testament only in Paul's letter.

THE CHURCH

Paul would have been in the general vicinity of Colosse during his Ephesian ministry (Acts 19) but there is no reference in Acts to a visit there, though Ephesus did become a mission center (Acts 19:10). In Colossians 1:4 Paul states that he had heard of the faith of the Colossians, and in 2:1 he speaks of those who had not met him personally. These notes, and the references to Epaphras in 1:7f and 4:12f, have led to the conclusion that Paul had not personally visited the city (though he anticipated doing so - Phlm 22), and that Epaphras was the evangelist who founded the church (1:7f). Epaphras may also have founded the congregations in Hierapolis and Laodicea (Col 4:13,16).

Several Christians from Colosse are named by Paul, including Nympha, Archippus (Col 4:15,17), Philemon, Apphia (Phlm 1f), and, of course, Epaphras. Epaphras had gone to visit Paul and is designated in Philemon 23 as Paul's "fellow prisoner" (see the notes there). The text of Colossians indicates the membership was primarily Gentiles, though the "heresy" which Paul opposed contains Jewish elements (see 2:16f and the discussion there).

OCCASION

Personal information is generally shared in letters like Colossians. This would be especially important because there would be concern over Paul's condition as a prisoner. The most likely theory is that Epaphras traveled to see Paul, primarily because of concern over certain teachings that were troubling the church and seemed to seriously diminish the significance of Christ. For some reason (imprisonment - Phlm 1:23?) Epaphras was unable to carry Paul's letter back to Colosse, so that task was entrusted to Tychicus, who also carried a letter to Philemon, and who was accompanied by Onesimus, a runaway slave (Col 4:7-9; Phlm 1:12,17).

But the troublesome teaching is the chief burden of the letter. Paul describes this heresy in 2:8,16-23, and in the rest of the book he attacks it, either frontally or in more subtle ways. The nature of the heresy has been a continuing puzzlement to scholars, and many theoretical explanations have been offered. It seems to have involved Jewish elements (2:16f), angelic worship (2:18), and extreme asceticism (2:20-23). But attempts at more precise definition have had to recognize ambiguities in the text, problems with seeing a coherent relation of the elements of the false teaching, the incompleteness of Paul's description (remembering he had to rely on the reports of others), and finding any known teaching from the period that embodied all these elements. See the discussion in the commentary proper.

The effect of this teaching was to lessen the significance of Christ's saving work. If the tenets of the heresy provided the path to salvation, then Christ's sacrifice was not as important. The heresy seems to have imported another form of works salvation, much as the circumcision party in the church attempted to do. Paul attacks the error by a powerful affirmation of Christ's identity (1:15-20) and his role in salvation. His thesis was that an understanding of Christ and life in him would completely refute the heresy. In addition to the magnificent texts in 1:15-20 and 2:9-15 he constantly makes references to benefits which the heretics sought after, but which only Christ truly gave. These included such things as wisdom, knowledge, and fullness (cf. 1:9). Note also the references to the mystery (1:26; 2:2). Even the ethical appeals from 3:1-4:6 powerfully emphasize the relation of the ethical life to Christ (note the references listed before 3:1).

PAUL'S LOCALE

The commonly accepted tradition holds that Paul wrote Colossians and Philemon from the Roman imprisonment described in Acts 28. The apostle does not name the city from which he writes, but numerous factors support Rome. Luke (Col 4:14) and Aristarchus (Colossians 4:10) were with him there, and were in Rome according to Acts 27:2 (the "we" implies Luke). Acts indicates Paul's Roman imprisonment was not unduly restrictive (Acts 28:30f) and this fits the relatively unfettered activities described in Colossians 4:7-15. Onesimus was with Paul (Col 4:9; cf. Phlm) and it is quite possible he had migrated to Rome to lose himself in the urban populace. If we accept the Roman hypothesis, Colossians would be dated in the early 60s.

Due to the perceived presence of problems with a Roman origin, however, other locales have been suggested. One is Caesarea, since that is the only other Pauline imprisonment documented in Acts. This theory has not gained any significant following, since the circumstances described in Acts do not fit those depicted in Colossians and Philemon, especially Paul's expectation to visit Colosse (Phlm 1:22). From Caesarea Paul expected only to go to Rome, and before his appeal to Caesar he was kept in continual uncertainty.

A more likely case has been formed for Ephesus. It was relatively close to Colosse and could thus conveniently explain Paul's travel plans (i.e., an eventual trip to Rome after a detour to Colosse). Paul did encounter some problems in Ephesus (1 Cor 4:9-13; 2 Cor 4:8-12; 6:4f; 11:23-25; and perhaps 1 Cor 15:32). They might have included prison, but Acts gives no evidence of it, and details are uncertain enough to disallow any definite conclusion. Since Luke details Paul's problems so carefully, it seems strange he would not mention an Ephesian imprisonment had there been one. Further, Acts has no indication Luke was even in Ephesus. He was left in Philippi on Paul's second tour, and did not resume the apostle's company till the third tour (Acts 16:16,40; 20:5). If Colossians was written from Ephesus, it would be dated in the early to mid 50s.

The case for Ephesus depends, in part, on certain perceived weaknesses in the Roman view. One is the divergence between Paul's announced intent to go to Spain (Rom 15:28) and his desire to return to Colosse (Phlm 1:22). In our comments on Philemon 22 we have argued that a change of plans by Paul is a reasonable supposition. Another objection is the distance from Rome to Colosse, well over 1000 miles. If Paul expected Onesimus to be returned to him (see notes on Philemon) that seems a long distance for him to be sent only to retrace his steps. However, the Roman road system was good, and Paul's honor demanded that he send Onesimus and give Philemon the option of voluntary response, whatever the distance. We do not think Paul could have written as he did to Philemon and not have sent Onesimus.

A third argument has to do with Paul's request for lodging with Philemon ( v. 22). Would he have made such a request when so many miles and days away? But once we accept Paul's intent to visit Colosse (perhaps to deal with the heresy) and consider his graciousness in dealing with Philemon, the request seems reasonable enough.

A fair case can be made for Ephesus, but we hold that the case for Rome is the stronger alternative.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

COLOSSIANS

Bruce, F.F. The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

Lohse, Eduard. Colossians and Philemon . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971.

Melick, Richard. Philippians, Colossians, Philemon . Nashville: Broadman, 1991.

O'Brien, Peter. Colossians, Philemon . Waco: Word Books, 1982.

Patzia, Arthur. Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984.

Pokorn΄y, Petr. Colossians, A Commentary . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991.

Weed, Michael. The Letters of Paul to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon . Austin: Sweet, 1971.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: Colossians (Outline)

OUTLINE

SALUTATION - 1:1-2

I. THANKSGIVING - 1:3-8

II. PAUL'S PRAYER FOR THE COLOSSIANS - 1:9-14

III. THE HYMN ABOUT CHRIST - 1:15-20

IV. THE HYMN APPLIED - 1:21-23

V. PAUL'S MINISTRY TO THE CHURCHES AND TO THE COLOSSIANS - 1:24-2:5

A. Paul's Labors in God's Power - 1:24-29

B. Warning Against Being Deceived - 2:1-5

VI. RECEIVING CHRIST AS LORD - 2:6-15

A. Continue in Christ: Don't Be Deceived! - 2:6-8

B. "In Christ" - 2:9-12

C. Death to Life - 2:13-15

VII. WARNINGS AGAINST THE HERESY - 2:16-23

A. Don't Lose the Prize! - 2:16-19

B. Shun Worldly Rules! - 2:20-23

VIII. SEEK THE THINGS ABOVE - 3:1-4

IX. THINGS TO PUT TO DEATH - 3:5-11

X. THINGS TO PUT ON - 3:12-17

XI. RULES FOR THE CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLD - 3:18-4:1

A. Husbands and Wives - 3:18-19

B. Children and Fathers - 3:20-21

C. Slaves and Masters - 3:22-4:1

XII. FINAL EXHORTATIONS TO PRAYER AND PROPER BEHAVIOR - 4:2-6

XIII. FINAL INSTRUCTIONS AND GREETINGS - 4:7-18

A. Tychicus and Onesimus - 4:7-9

B. Greetings - 4:10-15

C. Concluding Instructions - 4:16-18

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV