Our Savior has bidden us to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mk. 16:15). He has not said, “Preach it only to the elect,” and though that might seem to be the most logical thing for us to do, yet since He has not been pleased to stamp the elect in their foreheads or put any distinctive mark upon them, it would be an impossible task for us to perform. When we preach the Gospel to every creature, the Gospel makes its own division, and Christ’s sheep hear His voice, and follow Him.
C.H. Spurgeon

Commentary on Colossians

Commentary on Colossians

Part 1 COLOSSIANS The Sufficiency of Christ June 22, 1986 Colossae was a small city in Asia Minor near Hierapolis and Laodicea. This

places it about 100 miles east of Ephesus, the closest Paul apparently ever got to it. Colossae was probably evangalized by Epaphras during Paul’s long stay in Ephesus on his third journey (52-54 AD). Once a major city of the area, it had declined in influence relative to Hierapolis and Laodicea.

Colossae wason a major trade route between Ephesus and the middle east, and as such was a mix of cultures and races. For the most part the society was heavily influenced by Greek thought, and this was responsible for a number of false teachings. It was these false teachings, reported to Paul by Epaphras, that caused Paul to write the letter to the Colossians. Church history through the end of the 4th century records that all sorts of strange heresies came out of the area around Colossae.

In order to better understand Paul’s letter, we should look at the teachings that he is trying to combat. It has been suggested that the errors being taught in Colossae had their beginnings in the Essene sect of the Jews, a sect even more legalistic and austere than the Pharisees. Whether or not this is the case, the teaching seems to have been a blend of Jewish and Greek thought. Basically, what was being taught in Colossae was a sort of pre-Gnostic heresy. The Gnostic line of thought did not really mature until the early second century, but we see the beginnings of it in Colossae.

The underlying theme of the Greek thought that led to Gnosticism was the idea that matter and spirit are completely incompatible. Later this led to heresies like the teaching that, since God is spirit, Jesus could not have been a real man, or, alternately, that He could not have been God since God could not touch matter. At this point (around 63 AD) the teaching had not reached those extremes.

In Colossae this idea seems to have led to a belief that the soul was trapped in a material body and that this body must be beat into submission to the soul. This belief led to extreme asceticism. This asceticism led, in a religion whose roots were in Judaism, to a return to a belief in salvation through works. Some Colossians had reverted to strict Sabbath observance, ritual cleanliness/uncleanliness, and circumcision as legally binding in order to obtain salvation.

Some of these same problems are seen in the letter to the Galatian churches, Galatia is about 200 miles east of Colossae. Another result of this kind of thinking is the idea that man, a material being and therefore inherently evil, is not worthy to approach God directly and must go through some intermediary. This led to the near worship of angels.

Paul’s emphasis on the primacy and sufficiency of Christ indicates that these false teachings put Jesus as merely one of the intermediaries between God and man, and denied that He had delivered His people from sin. As a result, these Colossian christians labored under the burden of fighting a war of salvation against the powers of the Devil and felt he needed the aid of ascetic living and angelic beings in order to obtain salvation and peace.

Of course this sort of teaching was a cause of great distress in Paul, and he counters it with this letter stressing the unique godhood of Jesus and His complete sufficiency in all matters. Paul stresses the completeness of Jesus’ work in the salvation and freedom of His people.

This is a pretty short book compared to our usual studies, but it is packed with good stuff. The shortness of the book will allow us to do a more detailed study than is our custom without the time stretching out to the point that we have forgotten the beginning before we get to the end.

Paul starts out with a normal introduction. These letters were originally written on scrolls, so it was inconvenient to look at the end for a signature (although one existed there). As a consequence it was customary for the writer to identify himself at the beginning. We generally read over these introductions of Paul without any real notice, but there are usually some interesting things in them. One thing of interest is Paul’s claim of apostleship.

An apostle is more than a messenger, he is one in whom the authority of the one sending him is vested. He is empowered to act in place of his master. It is significant that in Paul’s letters to the Philippians and Thessalonians he does not mention his apostleship, while in Galatians he stresses it very strongly. In most of his letters, including this one, he mentions it but not as strongly as in Galatians. A close look at the various letters will show that he stresses his apostleship in proportion to his need to assert his authority over the readers. In Philippians and Thessalonians there is an obvious bond of love between the churches and Paul and no mention is necessary.

In Galatians his authority is under strong attack by self proclaimed apostles. Here, he is reminding the church at Colossae that he has authority to correct them, but that authority is not under direct attack. Notice that there never-the-less remains a distinction between himself and Timothy despite the fact that Timothy was a fine Christian worker and brother.

In verse 3 Paul starts speaking of being thankful for the Colossian church. This is not just idle talk, and indicates that the church as a whole had not yet succumbed to the teachings that prompted this letter. Contrast this with Gal. 1:6 where Paul dispenses with any form of flattery and thanksgiving and starts in, “I am astonished…” He also omits any thanksgiving in II Corinthians, where the church was in great upheaval and revolt.

There are subtle differences between the thanksgiving portions of those letters that contain one. In each can be seen the things that are on Paul’s mind as he writes. In this one we can see Paul thinking about the origin and solidity of their faith as opposed to the shaky position taught by the pre-Gnostics in the church.

Beginning in verse 4 he mentions that the love and faith that he is so thankful for is a direct result of their knowledge of their destiny in Heaven, and places the growth and fruit of the Church as evidence that the gospel as received from Epaphras was true. It is an inevitable result of ascetic teaching that love between church members decreases and the foundation of faith becomes unstable since it rests on the actions of men rather than on the power of God.

In verse 9 Paul starts talking about his prayers for them. A constant refrain in Paul’s prayers is that the churches increase in knowledge of God and His will. It is on the basis of this knowledge that we can refute the kind of heresies that were invading the Colossian church. The result of this knowledge is the ability and desire to live a life pleasing to God. The power to live this life comes from God, not from our own efforts, through Jesus Christ. Paul here (v. 13) begins his attack on the false teachings in earnest with a statement that our redemption and freedom from the forces of the devil comes directly from Christ.

Part 2 COLOSSIANS The Sufficiency of Christ June 29, 1986 We pick up this week at 1:15, as Paul gets seriously into what he wants to

say to these folks.

Remember that the teaching that Paul was trying to combat was beginning to lead toward the idea that Jesus of Nazareth, son of a carpenter, a material man, could not be God. He was being relegated to the position of just another created being, no better than an angel. Paul responds immediately with a strong affirmation of Jesus’ Godhood, and his primacy over the entire created universe.

In 15-18 Paul states the same doctrine that John had to repeat 40 years later in (John 1:1-4) his gospel directed at the Gnostics. That doctrine is that Jesus is God and that He existed before creation, and, indeed, was the agent of that creation. While the greek of verse 15 would allow a reading which places Jesus as the first of the created beings, there is too much other Scripture teaching that He existed from the beginning (like John 1:1, Phil. 2:6, Heb. 1:2) to allow that rendering. We must read it that He was before creation. If He were a created being, part of the created universe, then He could not have been the agent of the creation of that universe.

Verses 16 and 17 speak to the idea that was being spread that Jesus was not sufficient to save from sin, but that there were other, equally powerful, forces that had to be dealt with by various means. This is, as you are well aware by now, in my opinion still being taught in the Church, with all this concern for the devil and spiritual warfare. The Jesus Christ I worship created all beings, both material and spirit. I think I can trust Him to handle His creations. This is what Paul is trying to point out to the Colossians.

In fact, verse 17 goes so far as to state that creation is unstable and would disintegrate without the will of Jesus holding it together. So, if the devil ever gives Him too much trouble He can just quit holding him together and Poof! no more devil – just like the bad guys in Star Wars, just a cloud of dust.

In 18-23 we see that not only is Jesus the beginning and sustaining of the universe, He is the beginning and sustaining of the Church. He started it by His resurrection from the dead, and the Church is maintained by the Father through the Son. Paul here speaks to the idea of working to achieve or maintain salvation.

Since the Church is the sum of all those saved, when God speaks of the Church being reconciled to Himself through the cross, He is talking about individuals as well. Paul personalizes this teaching in 21, just in case it wasn’t clear what he was getting at. Verse 19 is interesting, Paul is assuring the Colossians that Jesus is not part of God, some minor piece of the Godhood, but all of Him. This, of course, gets into the doctrine of the Trinity, which confuses me as much as it does anybody.

This is important stuff here. Maybe I am attracted to it because I once had a problem with it, but I really feel it is crucial to our peace. This idea of Christ being the power behind the universe and salvation is the thing that gives Christians the “peace that passes understanding” instead of the peace that passes in the night. Salvation is entirely safe in the hand of God, through Jesus Christ.

Verse 23 might cause some problems. It can easily be read to mean that salvation is conditional on our continued faith. In fact, I used to subscribe to that reading. But the majority of Scripture, and the general sense of it, argue against that view. Paul’s security was based on a past act, “He reconciled” (aorist tense, finished act), but the evidence he sought for it was based on day-to-day life. See II Cor. 13:5. The power behind salvation is sure, nothing can overcome that power, or change His will. However, the certainty of whether or not an individual is one of the elect is to some extent based on his actions.

Paul is asking the Colossian Christians to prove that their salvation is real by not straying into these false teachings, but to continue in the teaching that was the original basis of their acceptance of Christ – that same gospel that had been preached all over.

We come now to verse 24, a source of great controversy. The Catholics latched onto this verse to indicate that there was a great reservoir of suffering based merit, including both that of Christ and that of the saints.

This was the basis of the granting of indulgences, some of the excess merit could be handed out (sold) to those without enough merit to be saved by themselves. That noise you heard was Paul spinning in his grave. If you think Paul was upset with the Colossians and Galatians, just consider yourselves lucky he was in Heaven by the time this silliness was thought up. Nothing could be farther from Paul’s constant preaching of the sufficiency of Jesus’ death on the cross.

Paul was not suffering to add to the suffering of Christ in order to save people, he was suffering as part of the continuing suffering of Christ. Listen up here. Jesus continues to suffer with His church. Paul, ever amazed that he was privileged enough to be a Christian, is rejoicing at being counted worthy to be a part of that suffering. In case you think that Jesus does not suffer with us as we suffer, read Acts 9:5 – who is being persecuted here? What a comfort to know that our Savior suffers right along with us when we are troubled; we do not have to go through life alone.

Part 3 COLOSSIANS The Sufficiency of Christ July 13, 1986 We pick up this week with chapter 2, as Paul continues to attempt to

combat the false teachings that are entering the Asian churches.

Paul starts the chapter by making known his wishes for the churches of the area, that they be bound together in love and have the “riches of the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, of Christ,…”

This “full assurance”, plerophoria, is used a number of places in the N.T., and speaks of the certainty and comfort that God gives to those who seek Him. Here it specifically speaks of the peace and security that comes from understanding and knowledge of Christ. Paul calls Christ a mystery. Mystery religions were in vogue at this time, with only the leadership being given access to the “mystery”. Paul borrows that common terminology, and applies it to Jesus in the sense that His exact nature had been “hidden” in the past.

Paul’s constant talk of the knowledge of Christ being open to all shows us that he did not see Christianity as one of these mystery religions.

Paul says in verse 4 that the reason he desires this certainty and knowledge for the Christians at Colossae was so that they would be stable enough that they could not be drawn away by false teaching.

In verse 6 he exorts them to continue in the gospel that they had received originally, “rooted” in Christ and growing.

In verses 8-15 Paul once again returns to the sufficiency of Christ, the backbone teaching of this letter. The greek in verse 8 is in the form of an alert, “Look, you, lest anyone there shall be robbing you…” The “Look” is placed at the beginning for emphasis.

Stoicheion, in verse 8 is “elements” in some translations, and “elementary spirits” in some. The last is perhaps a misleading translation; related words are used for marching in rank, for the letters of the alphabet, for parts of speech, etc.

Here it seems to refer to the elementary (as in elementary school) principles or understandings that were in the world before the knowledge of Christ. Remember that, while the false teachings that Paul was fighting were primarily Greek in origin, they had been blended with Jewish and Christian thoughts and vocabulary to make them more palatable. In that light Paul’s argument here is consistent with his belief stated in Gal. 3:24 that the Law was a custodian or schoolmaster, with the purpose of preparing man for a fuller relationship with God through Christ. Essentially Paul is telling them not to go back to school now that they have graduated.

Paul reminds them that Jesus was not just another man, but that “in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” This is consistent with John’s teaching in John 1 that Jesus was God. Furthermore, since we are in spiritual union with Christ, we share (however dimly we perceive it) this fullness, that is, God lives in us.

Apparently some teaching was going around, similar to that in Galatia, that Gentiles had to be circumsized before they could be saved. Paul states that this physical circumcision was not necessary because of our union with Christ. In this sense Christians share in the promise of Deut. 30:6. Through Jesus, God has freed us from the penalty that the Law demanded by forgiving our sins on the basis of the crucifiction.

Almost as an aside, Paul takes a stab at those who taught that Jesus was not sufficient to combat the devil and his crowd.

In 16-23, Paul strikes out against asceticism. As we have talked about before, Gnosticism led, in one of it’s forms, to asceticism, the practice of extreme self-denial.

Paul says that if Christ is sufficient, if He has conquered the powers of evil, this asceticism has no value. He shows one of his major frustrations in life, his inability to understand why a person would willingly give up the freedom and peace of Christ and turn to the works based religious life of the past with its constant uncertainty as to that person’s standing with God. Paul’s love and compassion for other Christians caused him great pain when he saw Christians sinking toward this second class relationship with God.

The question is still valid today, and equally beyond my understanding. I see a lot of my fellow Christians who are somehow unable to accept that Jesus finished our salvation on the cross, and that our relationship with God is not based on our merit, but Jesus’s merit combined with God’s love. This performance based approach to God invariably leads to insecurity, to the peace that passes in the night instead of the peace that passes understanding. (I like that, I’m going to keep using it)

Part 4 COLOSSIANS The Sufficiency of Christ July 20, 1986 This week we start chapter 3. Here Paul makes a change of direction.

Having dealt with the spiritual foundation of Christ, he now turns to how we should build on that foundation.

He starts out saying that the focus of the Christian’s life is in Heaven, not on earth; that we are to set our minds on our relationship with God rather than the day to day things of this world. This is because, as we are told on II Cor. 5:14+, we have died to the world and been reborn into the presence of God.

Our lives are linked with God, not the world and therefore the things of this world are of little importance outside those things that relate directly to God. Now, this life “in Christ” that we lead in Heaven is “hidden” from the lost world, but it will be revealed to them when He returns, and we will share His glory.

Having explained our position of being dead to the world and sin, Paul exorts us to put that reality into practice. We are to give up the evil things of this world like those mentioned in 5-11, and replace them with the things of God. I thought it might be interesting to go through the list in 12 and 13:

splanchna oikteiron – “bowels of compassion” – a gut wrenching concern for the troubles of others. This speaks of a little stronger feeling than you might expect from the modern concept of “agape” love, more than the appreciation of another’s feelings based on our respect for them.

chrestotes – “kindness” or “gentleness” – Vine says, “…not merely goodness as a quality, rather it is goodness in action, goodness expressing itself in deeds; yet not goodness expressing itself in indignation against sin, for it is contrasted with severity in Rom. 11:22, but in grace and tenderness and compassion.”

tapeinophrosun – “humility” – from tapeinos, “low lying”, and phronema,

which is what one has in his mind, or thinks.

praotata – “meekness” – This is a hard word to translate into english, at least in our modern culture. We equate meekness with weakness, thinking that a man is meek only because he cannot defend himself. But Jesus used the noun of Himself, and He certainly had the power to defend Himself. Also, the greeks did not consider this a derogatory term, but one of power. It is perhaps the opposite of self- assertiveness, the restraint of power that one does possess. It is also used in our dealings with God to talk of restraining our arguments and complaints against Him because we trust His work and love for us.

makrothumia – “long-suffering” – from makros, “far off (place)” or “long (time)”, and thumia, “passion” or “anger”. This word means patient in the face of persecution, slow to anger.

anechomenoi al-lelon – “forbearing one another” – to “hold up” oneanother, to keep them erect. We are to help each other bear our burdens, offer support.

charizomai – “forgiving” – to give a favor unconditionally. We are to forgive one another unconditionally, without hope of future reward or keeping score. In verse 14 we are told to “put on love…” This is as you might expect,

agape. The problem with this word is that we do not understand it despite the great amount of teaching in the modern church. Of course Peter didn’t understand it either, so we can hardly fault that teaching too much. In the greek, the word denotes a rather cold respect of a person based on his intrinsic worth as a person. It is distinguished from eros, sexual attraction, and phileo, friendship, in that these last two depend on some action of the one loved. We have friendships based on how the friend treats us. If the friend does us dirty, the friendship ends. The greeks considered agape a less desirable love than the other two, but clearly God does not.

I would propose to you that Jesus gave new meaning to this old word just as Christians have adopted many words and changed their meanings. Jesus was looking for a word that described the love that God felt for man, the love that Jesus came to demonstrate.

This love is of a type that originates with God, and is of an extent which man does not understand or have words for. He used agape because it talks of a love that does not depend on the actions of the loved one, and is therefore an act of will. The fact that it is an act of will is what makes it possible for God to command us to love each other. You can hardly make yourself love (phileo) a person if that love is based on his actions, he is the determiner of that kind of love. Jesus redefined agape and made it describe a higher kind of love. That was Peter’s problem when Jesus asked him if he loved (agape) him, and Peter kept saying, “Better than that, Jesus, I phileo you.”

The problem is that we don’t really understand this kind of love. It is certainly not the cold thing we have made of it, that kind of “respect” does not send God’s Son to the cross. It is the love that God has for man that made Him create the universe and causes Him to guide it to fulfill the promise of Rom. 8:28.

I do not pretend to understand agape, I can only look at its characteristics. Vine says in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, “In respect of agapao as used of God, it expresses the deep and constant love and interest of a perfect Being towards entirely unworthy objects, producing and fostering a reverential love in them towards the Giver, and a practical love towards those who are partakers of the same, and a desire to help others to seek the Giver.” Verse 15 tells us to let the “peace of Christ rule” in our hearts. Once

again we see a command, so we see that this is an act of our will. The peace is available to us at all times, all we have to do is “let it rule.” We don’t have to find it, we don’t have to work to get it, we just have to allow it to be there. It is pitiful, all these Christians running around trying to find the mystical “peace that passes understanding”, and it is there all the time.

Verse 16 tells us to “let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly,” and (I believe as a result) teach and admonish in wisdom and sing praises in thanksgiving. I guess that’s why were here, so I don’t need to say much about this. I don’t know how people who don’t study the Word can expect to have any wisdom and thanksgiving without the Word hiding in their hearts.

Verse 17 tells us to do everything we do thankfully and to the glory of God.

It is important at this point to look back at the beginning words of verse 12, “Put on, then,….”. Don’t miss that “then”. “Then” what? We have here a list of things to do, and verses 5-11 are a list of things not to do, so the “then” must point to before that.

Of course, it points to verses 1-3, the fact that we are dead to the world and raised to life in Christ. This relates back to the first half of the book, where Paul is teaching about the fact that nothing is necessary in our relationship with God outside of the actions of Christ. Our salvation, our separation from the evil forces of the world, and our acceptance before God are secure and secured in the finished work of Christ. THEREFORE we are to act as described in these verses and the ones to follow.

Part 5 COLOSSIANS The Sufficiency of Christ July 27, 1986 We begin this week with Col. 3:18, a familiar area, concerned with

personal relationships, especially the family.

I think that we will look at the parallel teaching in Ephesians 5:21-6:9, since that passage is a more complete discussion on the same subject.

We had so much fun with the Greek last week, and we have such a tendency to stretch the meaning of these translations to our own desires, I think we will have another Greek oriented lesson.

The Greek of Eph. 5:21 is really a continuation of the previous sentence, rather than a new thought as the sentence break at verse 21 indicates, so we have to go back to the beginning. Since in Ephesians the beginning is back somewhere in chapter 4, we will compromise at 5:15. If we read the “Be” in 5:21 as “, being subject…” the sense of the Greek is maintained.

Actually, 5:22 is also a continuation of the earlier “sentence”. Greek does not have punctuation or any other overt sentence structure, and when it is translated into English, with our choppy structure, some of the flow is lost. If we just translate the Greek without changing word order or anything (except adding an occasional artical), and add no punctuation starting at the beginning of verse 20 we get: “giving thanks always for all things in (the) name of the Lord of us Jesus Christ to God even (the) father being subject to one another in (the)fear of Christ the wives to their own husbands as to the Lord because man is head of the woman as also Christ (is) head of the church (him)self savior of the body” I guess the point of all that is to reinforce my constant teaching that

it is necessary to look ahead and behind any Scripture and find out what the flow of thought is. Greek flows much more than English, and does not change subject as fast as we are used to. That is one of the reasons for all the “For”s and “Therefore”s in the English translations of Paul’s writing.

The interesting thing to me is that all this teaching on relationships in Ephesians flows directly out of “Be ye not drunk with wine… but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit.” It is not a separate teaching that follows the teaching about being filled, it is a continuation. Having these kinds of relationships is the will of God and comes as a part of being Spirit filled.

So, if you are trying to run your own life rather than let the Holy Spirit control (fill) it, then you might as well ignore these teachings, your chances of success are slim. We have to get filled with the Spirit first, then these relationships come as part of that and as a result of that (along with some work on our part of course).

Now, that out of the way, we can look at the relationships. Immediately we are deep in the middle of potential controversy with, “Wives be subject to your husbands…” This is an unpopular teaching in our world of liberated women, the wives tend to get up tight here, so maybe we can find some way to soften it. Let’s look at the Greek and see.

“Subject” here is an unpronouncable version of hupotasso, a compound word of hupo, “under”, and tasso, “arrange”. It is a military term, used of rank. Oops, no help there, we better look at some other N.T. uses. Luke 2:51 – “And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them…” Luke 10:17 – “Lord, even the demons were subject to us in your name.” I Cor. 15:27 – “For God has placed all things in subjection, under His feet.” Heb. 2:8 – “putting everything in subjection under His feet.”

No help there, sorry ladies. The clear teaching of Eph; 5:22-23 is that the husband is intended to be as much lord over the wife as Jesus is Lord over the Church. It has been my experience that you can look at a wife’s attitude toward the lordship of her husband and get a very good idea of her attitude toward the Lordship of Jesus in her life.

Good stuff there, but if I quit here the girls will kill me. There is a catch to all this as far as the husbands are concerned. Husbands cannot misuse this authority over their wives any more than Christ would misuse His authority over the Church. We husbands have a hard time with this, we want to stop at verse 24. In fact, Paul seems to think that it is harder to teach us to behave than the wives, considering how much time he spent on each partner’s part of the relationship.

Husbands are to love their wives as much as they love themselves. Even more, we are to love them enough to die for them just as Christ was willing to die for us.

Without this love it is not safe for the wives to be in submission to us, we would misuse that trust. Since we are to love them as we love ourselves, we are unlikely to misuse our authority to hurt them any more than we would hurt ourselves. Indeed the teaching of Scripture on marriage is that our wives ARE a part of us, and we cannot mistreat them without mistreating ourselves. Again, it has been my experience that you can judge a man’s understanding of God’s love for him by his treatment of his wife. This is certainly true if that treatment is bad.

The word in 6:1 for obey, hupakouo, is related to hupotasso, and our children are to submit to our authority, despite what the modern world would teach them.

Of more interest to me, since I tend to pester my children in fun, is 6:4. “provoke them to wrath” is all one Greek word, parorgizo. It is a strengthened form of orgizo, which translates the same way. Orgizo is used in the parable in Matt. 18:23-35 (verse 34) which seems to indicate pretty strong anger, and again in Matt. 22:7, for an anger which resulted in the murder of many people. I assume from all this that God is talking about a very strong, long lasting anger, not the kind of anger we get from our kids when we kid them too much or when we punish them (correctly, abuse begets this kind of anger).

The other subject covered in these passages is the relationship between slave and master. We don’t have that to worry about now, but I believe that we can transfer the teaching to our employer/employee relationships. Christians are to obey their bosses. If they can’t obey their bosses, they should quit (a luxury the slaves didn’t have). We are not to pretend to be good workers when the boss is around and then fight him and complain when he is not, but are to be committed to him. The boss on the other hand, is to treat his workers well, understanding that he is really no better than they are.

I can’t help but notice that all these relationships are authority based. In this society that believes that the only authority is yourself, these are unusual teachings. But God is a God of order, not anarchy.

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