Colossians - An Expositional Study
PAUL'S MAIN EMPHASIS
Scripture Reading: Colossians 1:12-14 (KJV)
The passage is so full that in a brief expositional study we cannot deal with all the points and matters raised. But, the great theme throughout Colossians is the theme of the entire Bible – Christ. Considering the assessment of its contents, the Bible could be called, "The Jesus Book". In the Old Testament we have preparation for His coming. In the Gospels we have presentation – He has come, here He is. In the Acts we have proclamation, the message of the gospel of His grace and salvation. In the Epistles we have personification, "for me to live is Christ." In Revelation we have predomination, the lamb on the throne.
Yes, the whole Bible is fundamentally about Jesus Christ. An Ethiopian puzzles over an abstruse passage in Isaiah 53, about a lamb being led to the slaughter. He can't understand what it means. But Philip, "beginning at that same Scripture, preached unto him Jesus" (Acts 8:35). Our Lord overtakes two grief-stricken disciples who are mystified at the death of their beloved Master and Friend, and He resolves their problem, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27).
Consider the following:
In light of all this, we should not be surprised to learn that in our present text from Colossians the theme is Jesus Christ. God has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us. In Christ, God has revealed His faithfulness to us from the beginning of time.
"redemption"
"Redemption" is the result of His work; the price of it, "through His blood." Praise God, we do not have to pay for our redemption – it has already been paid for by Jesus Christ.
No amount of good deeds or character can avail to purchase our redemption, "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us" (Tit. 3:5). We do not earn it as "wages," we receive it as "the gift of God" (Rom. 6:23). The pardon of it – "even the forgiveness of sins", blessed release from an evil conscience and eternal doom. This is, of course, the first result of His work of redemption. The primary nature of this blessing is strikingly illustrated in the familiar story of the man sick of palsy. Before the Master dealt with his body, He went down to the fundamental need of his soul. "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee" (Matt. 9:2). Was his illness caused by sin? Or, being so long in bed he had time to think, becoming convicted of his sinfulness? It appears he was worrying about his sinfulness; and he would have been "of good cheer" with his sins forgiven, even if he had gone back without bodily healing. Yes, the Lord's forgiveness is our prime necessity. Another thing is the positive side of it – "the inheritance" (v. 12); "the kingdom" (v. 13). Believers are privileged indeed, seeing that they are negatively brought out, and positively brought in. "He brought us out, that He might bring us in" (Deut. 6:23). We have a share in a glorious inheritance along with all the believers in Him who is "the Light" (John 8:12), together with all such who have passed on into the Eternal Light beyond, an inheritance comprising all the joys, all the blessings, all the riches that are in Christ. "If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17). But are we "meet" to be partakers of such bounty? Not in the sense of being worthy. The word means "qualified", not on our own account. Only by His infinite mercy and sovereign grace are we qualified to be beneficiaries of His blessed Will and Testament. Further, we have a place in a wondrous kingdom. "Translated" from the rebellious and dark sway of Satan the usurper, into the all-blessed realm of Him "whose right it is" to reign (Ezek. 21:27), a kingdom of "righteousness, and peace, and joys (Rom. 14:17). Blessed are the subjects of such a Sovereign. "Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants" (1 Kin. 10:8), said Sheba's queen to King Solomon. Thrice happy are they who serve "a greater than Solomon" (Matt. 12:42). Consider this: we say a lot and sing a lot about His kingdom, but is it truly a reality in our lives? Dr. William Harrison wrote, "Make Jesus King, Make Jesus King, through Him we shall live, Our souls and our bodies to Him we will give. His praises we'll sing, and others we'll bring, Till the whole of creation shall make Jesus King".
Scripture Reading: Colossians 1:15-18 (KJV)
We now consider some of the descriptive names given to Christ:
"the image"
Verse 15 reminds us, "No man hath seen God at any time" (1 John 4:12). Consider when Moses asked to see God's glory, the Almighty replied, "Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me and live" (Ex. 33:20). When Jacob said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved" (Gen. 32:30), he may have been referring to the Son, Who, in coming to wrestle with the patriarch, assumed one of His many preincarnation appearances in the Old Testament. The Son of God is the very Image of God. Want to know what God is like? You can, for the Lord said, "he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). It is thrilling to realize that we can resemble Him, "we all, with open face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of God, are changed into the same Image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3: 18). One day we shall be perfectly like Him, "we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).
Meanwhile, through obedience to His Word we seek a growing likeness while on this earth. But thanks be to the grace of God, we shall be as He is. To Christians, Romans 5:17 says, "They shall reign in life". We have the name, but is our personality the same? Is there anything kingly about our character?
"the first-born"
This name accords Him the priority. We look around at "every creature", at every created thing and we know He was here first. The description seems to cling to Him. At His incarnation, it is recorded that "she brought forth her first-born Son" (Luke 2:7). There were other children by Mary, as we learn from Matthew 13:55-56, but He was first. Regarding His resurrection, our text speaks of Him as "the first-born from the dead" (v. 18). Others were before Him, miraculously brought back from the dead, but they all eventually died again. In other words, they were not true resurrections but resuscitations. Our Lord's was the first real rising forever, "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more" (Rom. 6:9). Yes, His is the priority: should He not also be Priority No. 1 in the life of every Christian?
Our phrase, "the first-born," also carries the idea of superiority. In speaking of Him, John the Baptizer not only says that "He was before me" in priority, but that He "is preferred before me" in superiority (John 1:30). Superior in moral splendor; superior in saving power; superior in practical guidance; superior in transforming influence; superior in gracious friendship (John 15:14). Shall we not also "prefer" Him to all other people and things, "the chiefest among ten thousand" (Song of Solomon 5:10)? But we have not yet finished with His uniqueness.
"the Creator"
Verse 16: "By Him were all things created." Yes, but consider, "In the beginning God created" (Gen. 1:1). The word for Deity (Elohim) is a plural word, which is said by commentators to be understood as the plural of majesty, as a king speaks of himself in his proclamations as "we" – but is it more than that? Can we not see in it the plural of trinity: God, at the very start of His revelation to man, introducing Himself as the Trinity in the
Unity – a matter never discussed or explained anywhere in the Bible, but always assumed and taken for granted. Our finite minds cannot understand this infinite truth, therefore God has not disclosed it; but as Robert Browning said: "God, stooping, [Shows] sufficient of His light For us to rise by – and I rise." It is clear that all Three Persons were concerned with Creation. God created, God the Father was in it. God the Spirit was in it, "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen. 1:2). God the Son was in it, "All things were made by Him" (John 1:3); God "the Word" (cf. "God said," Gen. 1:3). It seems Our Lord was in that early dispensation, the Executive of the Godhead. Is that why He so frequently comes to the aid of men in His preincarnation appearances, such as Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Balaam and others? In our present Age, the Holy Spirit is the Executive of the Godhead. Returning to our text we notice that Paul refers to our Lord as the Creator. A certain false teaching, called Gnosticism, was being propagated among the Colossian Christians. It appears that it was to counteract this that Epaphras had gone to Rome to consult Paul, as suggested in our first chapter. The basis of this heresy is the inherent evil of matter. Therefore, the entirely holy God could not have directly created nor touched it. The only way for Him to act in the affair was to work through a descending and deteriorating series of agencies, angels perhaps, which
Gnostic teachers called aeons. It is easy to see what havoc all this would wreak on Bible revelation if the bundle of errors were accepted. So Paul, master-tactician that he was, loses no time in stating explicitly, definitely, directly and categorically that "all things were created by Him". In our Age, the Lord's creative activity is certainly at work in the hearts and lives of men, for "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17; Moffatt).
"the Head"
Verse 18: "He is the Head of the body." Under what impulses, instructions, and influences does your body function? The answer is clear to each of us: the direction of all our movement, whether of the body as a whole or of any particular part comes from the brain, the head. Under the figure of the body corporate, the church of our Lord, the blessed company of believers, is taught to look upon Christ as the Instigator and Controller of all its actions, whether as a group or individually. Each Christian has a privileged place in the body and a specific function therein, "ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular" (1 Cor. 12:27). Some are there for manual work, "the hand"; some for pedal work, "the foot"; some for optical work, "the eye"; some for aural work, "the ear." There are some who have a rare sense of smell for detecting false doctrine. Our main consideration here is that every member is to be motivated and moved by the Head. May none of us become paralyzed limbs, but be quick to respond to the dictates of the
Head – "that in all things He might have the pre-eminence."
Scripture Reading: Colossians 1:20-23 (KJV)
"reconciliation"
"Reconciliation": First, "All things" (v. 20). To grasp the real significance of this verse, we must go back to the dramatic happening of Genesis 3, where we learn that because of man's fall, the whole universe was put out of joint. For the first time, the vegetable realm was invaded by weeds, "thorns and thistles" (Gen. 3:18), awaiting that day when "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree" (Is. 55:13). Because of sin, the animal world exchanged its domestic tameness, as observed when "God...brought [every beast of the field] unto Adam, to see what he would call them," for the fierceness which so many now possess, until this world as we know it comes to an end, and "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain" (Is. 65:25); "For the earnest expectation of the creatures waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Rom. 8:19-22). The malady is the consequence of sin. "Through the blood of His cross" is found salvation from sin, i.e., the remedy whereby the sinful creature man can again be set right with God. Second, "And you" (v. 21). Enemies though we were, He "died for us" (Rom. 5:10), and through that death, "reconciled us to God," which holy estate is ours if "we have now received reconciliation" (Rom. 5:11; NIV). If we have, He has entrusted us with the privilege and responsibility of bearing to others the "word," the message of reconciliation, as "ambassadors," speaking in His Name (2 Cor. 5:18-21). Let us then "continue" (Col. 1:23) to hold and proclaim that faith, so that He shall never have to reprove us for fostering and furthering another "gospel." Can we ever be too thankful for all that His redemption, His reconciliation through His precious blood, means for us?
The Lord Jesus Christ is still the prevailing theme of our text, and here the apostle unfolds for us the duty and delight of serving Him. Over and over again Paul calls himself "a servant [doulos, slave] of Jesus Christ" (Rom. 1:1), implying an all-in energy and an all-out endeavor for the Master, Whose service is perfect freedom. Consider what Paul, an outstanding laborer (1 Cor. 15:10), now commends to us.
Scripture Reading: Colossians 1:24-29 (KJV)
A readiness to suffer (v. 24). There is a difficulty in this verse. What does Paul mean by "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ?" It cannot mean that the apostle thinks of himself as supplementing anything lacking in the Savior's atoning suffering. That would be completely contrary to his teaching about the completeness and sufficiency of His offering on Calvary. It would also be contrary to the Master's own triumphant cry, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Let us not paraphrase the verse, "Fulfill what yet remains of the appointed tale of afflictions that I must suffer for Christ's sake, and for the advancement of His church." One cannot help recalling that prognostication of the Master's concerning him at the time of his conversion, "I will shew him how great things he must suffer for My Name's sake" (Acts 9:16). Was he, then, made aware of what was to befall him in the service of the One Whose Name he had so violently persecuted, and which now he was so earnestly to proclaim? And was he now aware, as he wrote from his imprisonment, that the limit had not yet been reached? All this is difficult to be sure; but one thing is certain, this intrepid missionary was joyfully ready to "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 2:3). Yet, some of us, weaklings that we are, curl up at the very thought of what others may think, say or do. Is there one among us who is not amazed at the catalogue of sufferings recorded by Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28. Are there not some among us who have a feeling of shame that our allegiance to Christ has cost so little? If called on, are we ready to suffer for His Name?
A readiness to spread the news (v. 28). In verse 23, when Paul speaks of the Gospel being preached to "every creature," he is not thinking of preaching to the birds. He means every kind of creature, every kind of person. For example, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, persons are mentioned as creatures. He has the widest conception of the Gospel's reach, i.e., "every man...every man...every man." To that end, without benefit of cars, trains, or planes, he was one of the most prolific travelers of his time. "So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome" (Rom. 1:15). He was always anxious to get to the Imperial City, the hub of the then known world. Paul was a great strategist, spending much of his tireless energy in big, metropolitan towns from which his influence could reach out in many directions, near and far. But oh how he must have wanted Rome. God promised him, "Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome" (Acts 2:11). Yet, his eventual witnessing in Rome was no doubt much different than even Paul imagined. In Rome? Yes, but in prison. Yet, through correspondence (example: this letter to the Colossians) and many contacts, his witness was faithful and fruitful. Are we as eager to spread the Good Tidings? Dr. Harrison wrote, "The greatest crime in the desert is to know where water is located and not to share it." Let your mind travel back to far Samaria, where four desperately hungry men, reveling in an unexpected feast, suddenly pause in thought of starving people in the city, "We do not well; this is a day of good tidings [a Gospel Day], and we hold our peace" (2 Kin. 7:9). Are we holding our peace? Are we zealous to reach dying souls with news of the Bread of Life, the Water of Life?
A readiness to strive hard (v. 29). "Labour" is the word he used. Among the ranks of Christians there are workers and shirkers. There is no doubt regarding the category to which Paul belongs. He was so imbued with the Holy Spirit that "he could no other." Notice his explanation, "striving according to His working, which worketh in my mightily." It is always the inner that governs the outer. We cannot whip our energy to work harder for God. We may do so for a little while, but soon we will exhaust ourselves, reverting again to "tepid." Paul's enthusiasm abides and abounds. Listen to him, "I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me" (1 Cor. 15:10). Listen again: "the love of Christ constraineth us" (2 Cor. 5:14). And in our text: "His working...in me." All this is the motive-power, inward and Godward, available to us all. Let us then be up and doing. "Son, go work today in My vineyard" (Matt. 21:28). "Be strong...and work, for I am with you" (Hag. 2:4).
"riches of this mystery"
Here is what Paul calls a "mystery" – a word which does not bear the connotation that we usually attach. In the New Testament it indicates something shrouded but awaiting disclosure; the unveiling has now come – "The mystery which has been hid from ages...but now is made manifest to the saints" (Col. 1:26). When Paul speaks of "the riches of this mystery" (v. 27), he refers first to the wealth of the mercy and grace of God, Who conceived and revealed such a wonderful proposition. Then to the wealth of spiritual experience wrapped up in the matter, the uttermost grace of the Giver; the uttermost grace of the Recipient. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good thing (2 Cor. 9:8). So what more do we want?
"Christ in you"
What is this mystery that means so much to us? In three monosyllables: multum in parvo – "Christ in you" (v. 27). A poker grows hot in the flames – the poker in the fire; yes, but also the fire in the poker; the sponge in water; yes, but also the water in the sponge; our bodies in the air; yes, but also air in our bodies. "Abide in Me, and I in you" (John 15: 4). Now, writing to the Colossians and using one of his favorite phrases, Paul speaks of believers as being "in Christ (v. 2). Then, in our present text, he says, "Christ in you" – in Him, for your salvation; in you, for your full salvation, with all the "riches" implied in such amazing grace. No wonder that in this text, as well as throughout this Letter, Paul's chief emphasis is Christ. The sum of it all is "Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
