Psalms 24:7-10

24:7 Look up, ¹  you gates!

Rise up, ²  you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king ³  will enter! ⁴ 

24:8 Who is this majestic king? ⁵ 

The Lord who is strong and mighty!

The Lord who is mighty in battle!

24:9 Look up, you gates!

Rise up, you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king will enter!

24:10 Who is this majestic king?

The Lord who commands armies! ⁶ 

He is the majestic king! (Selah)

John 1:14

1:14 Now ⁷  the Word became flesh ⁸  and took up residence ⁹  among us. We ¹⁰  saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, ¹¹  full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.

John 1:2

1:2 The Word ¹²  was with God in the beginning.

Colossians 3:9-10

3:9 Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with its practices 3:10 and have been clothed with the new man ¹³  that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it.

Colossians 3:1

Exhortations to Seek the Things Above

3:1 Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 3:16

3:16 Let the word of Christ ¹⁴  dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace ¹⁵  in your hearts to God.

James 2:1

Prejudice and the Law of Love

2:1 My brothers and sisters, ¹⁶  do not show prejudice ¹⁷  if you possess faith ¹⁸  in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁹ 

[24:7]  ¹ tn Heb “lift up your heads.” The gates of the Lord’s dwelling place are here personified. The idiom “lift up the head” often means “be confident, bold” (see Judg 8:28; Job 10:15; Ps 83:2; Zech 1:21).

[24:7]  ² tn Heb “lift yourselves up.”

[24:7]  ³ tn Or “king of glory.”

[24:7]  ⁴ tn Following the imperatives of the preceding lines, the prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.

[24:8]  ⁵ sn Who is this majestic king? Perhaps the personified gates/doors ask this question, in response to the command given in v. 7.

[24:10]  ⁶ tn Traditionally, “the Lord of hosts,” a title which here pictures the Lord as a mighty warrior-king who leads armies into battle.

[1:14]  ⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic, the incarnation of the Word. Greek style often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” but English style generally does not.

[1:14]  ⁸ tn This looks at the Word incarnate in humility and weakness; the word σάρξ (sarx) does not carry overtones of sinfulness here as it frequently does in Pauline usage. See also John 3:6.

[1:14]  ⁹ tn Grk “and tabernacled.”

[1:14]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “and we saw.”

[1:14]  ¹¹ tn Or “of the unique one.” Although this word is often translated “only begotten,” such a translation is misleading, since in English it appears to express a metaphysical relationship. The word in Greek was used of an only child (a son [Luke 7:12, 9:38] or a daughter [Luke 8:42]). It was also used of something unique (only one of its kind) such as the mythological Phoenix (1 Clem. 25:2). From here it passes easily to a description of Isaac (Heb 11:17 and Josephus, Ant., 1.13.1 [1.222]) who was not Abraham’s only son, but was one-of-a-kind because he was the child of the promise. Thus the word means “one-of-a-kind” and is reserved for Jesus in the Johannine literature of the NT. While all Christians are children of God, Jesus is God’s Son in a unique, one-of-a-kind sense. The word is used in this way in all its uses in the Gospel of John (1:14, 1:18, 3:16, and 3:18).

[1:2]  ¹² tn Grk “He”; the referent (the Word) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:10]  ¹³ sn Put off all such things. The commands in vv. 8-9 are based on two reasons given in vv. 9-10 – reasons which are expressed in terms of a metaphor about clothing oneself. Paul says that they have put off the old man and have put on the new man. Two things need to be discussed in reference to Paul’s statement. (1) What is the meaning of the clothing imagery (i.e., the “have put off” and “have been clothed”)? (2) What is the meaning of the old man and the new man? Though some commentators understand the participles “have put off” (v. 9) and “have been clothed” (v. 10) as imperatives (i.e., “put off!” and “put on!”), this use of participles is extremely rare in the NT and thus unlikely here. It is better to take them as having the semantic force of indicatives, and thus they give an explanation of what had happened to the Colossians at the time of their conversion – they had taken off the old man and put on the new when they trusted in Christ (cf. 1:4). While it is difficult to say for certain what the background to Paul’s “clothing” metaphor might be (whether it is primarily Jewish and comes from the OT, or primarily Gentile and comes from some facet of the Greco-Roman religious milieu), it is nonetheless clear, on the basis of Paul’s usage of the expression, that the old man refers to man as he is in Adam and dominated by sin (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22), while the new man refers to the Christian whose new sphere of existence is in Christ. Though the metaphor of clothing oneself primarily reflects outward actions, there is a distinct inward aspect to it, as the rest of v. 10 indicates: being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Paul’s point, then, is that Christians should take off their dirty clothing (inappropriate behavior) and put on clean clothing (behavior consistent with knowing Christ) because this has already been accomplished in a positional sense at the time of their conversion (cf. Gal 3:27 with Rom 13:14).

[3:16]  ¹⁴ tc Since “the word of Christ” occurs nowhere else in the NT, two predictable variants arose: “word of God” and “word of the Lord.” Even though some of the witnesses for these variants are impressive (κυρίου [kuriou, “of the Lord”] in א* I 1175 pc bo; θεοῦ [qeou, “of God”] in A C* 33 104 323 945 al), the reading Χριστοῦ (Cristou, “of Christ”) is read by an excellent cross-section of witnesses (Ì⁴⁶ א² B C² D F G Ψ 075 1739 1881 Ï lat sa). On both internal and external grounds, Χριστοῦ is strongly preferred.

[3:16]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “with grace”; “all” is supplied as it is implicitly related to all the previous instructions in the verse.

[2:1]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[2:1]  ¹⁷ tn Or “partiality.”

[2:1]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “do not have faith with personal prejudice,” with emphasis on the last phrase.

[2:1]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “our Lord Jesus Christ of glory.” Here δόξης (doxhs) has been translated as an attributive genitive.