We will see the object for which this epistle was written as we look into it.
Verses 1, 2. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus, our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace unto you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is important to notice that all God’s redeemed ones are called saints, or holy and faithful brethren, because they are truly believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace they can enjoy from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, for they are children of God. Our behavior in our lives, flows from our conscious knowledge that we are His.
Verses 3-6. The Apostle gives thanks for them. He heard of their faith in Christ Jesus, and of their love to all the saints, and of the hope laid up for them in heaven, which they had heard before in the Word of the truth of the gospel. This characterizes believers; faith, love, and hope are qualities of the life they have in Christ (see 1 Thess. 1:33Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; (1 Thessalonians 1:3)), and bring forth fruit in those who have received and known the grace of God in truth.
Verses 7, 8. Epaphras, a dear fellow-servant, and a faithful minister, or servant of Christ for them, had been used for their blessing, and he told the Apostle of their love in the Spirit, and how they prayed together (chapter 4:12) about their state, which led the Apostle under God to write this letter, which the Lord foresaw would be needed down through all the ages, till Christ comes to take home all His people.
Verses 9-14. He desired for them that they might be filled with the full knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so as to walk worthy of the Lord unto all well pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing by the true knowledge of God; strengthened with all might according to His power in glory; unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.
In this epistle we see the Lord risen and glorified, sitting at the right hand of God. So that the life we have in Him is resurrection life, and we are one with Him. We are to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, and we can only do this by being strengthened with all might according to His power in glory. We draw our strength from Him. He is the fountain of a life on high which flows in us now on earth; we are to keep our eyes on Him. We find too that we are in the path that He walked in, a path of trial and difficulty where we need to exercise patience and longsuffering, yet with joyfulness.
When the Lord Jesus walked through this world as a dependent man, He was sustained by communion with the Father (John 6:5757As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57)); so with us now, we need to be sustained by Him strengthened with all might according to His power in glory, for the path of trial and faithfulness for God on earth. It is strength to endure suffering. It is the character of the life of Christ in this world. We lay aside our own will in the world, to bear with others, and yet enjoy happy fellowship with God.
We give thanks to the Father who has already made us fit to share the inheritance of the saints in light. Our relationship is established with the Father. We are not yet with Him there, but in spirit taste the bliss that belongs to it.
“In spirit there already;
Soon we ourselves shall be
In soul and body perfect,
All glorified with Thee.”
Thus we see, the state of the soul; the character of the walk; and the strength to carry it out, and fitness for our place with the saints in light. We are delivered from the power of darkness, and are translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. In no other place is it thus written. (The Kingdom of the Son of Man is His manifestation when He comes in glory and in government).
It is what expresses to us our position in grace now, as loved with the love wherewith the Father loves the Son. And wondrous grace it is that has given us a place in the kingdom of the Son of His love now. How perfect and precious is this favor of God! It is what is needed to keep our souls now away from the bondage of fleshly religion, and reasonings of the mind of the flesh. There is to be occupation with Him in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. It is the knowledge of Him that keeps our hearts.
Verses 15-17. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Adam was the figure of this, and was set in dominion as the center, but the Lord is the Firstborn. This does not mean the first one that was born, it means the highest, it means that the Lord, when He took part in what He created, must necessarily be the Highest of it all. He was God, and became man, and was, and is the image of the invisible God, and set over all creation—the Highest. He is the Head. He created it. It is the Son who creates.
“For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.”
He declared all that God is (John 1:1818No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18); 1 John 1:22(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1 John 1:2)). This is His personal glory, all else radiates, from it. Being God Himself, He fills all things perfectly and declares all that God is. The Son, the Word, is the creator God, and by Him all things consist, upholding all things by the Word of His power, the effulgence of His glory, and the expression of His substance (Heb. 1:33Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (Hebrews 1:3) N. T.). Yet He took manhood, perfect sinless manhood, and in it tasted death by the grace of God. Death had no claim upon Him, yet that was before Him in coming into this world.
It was part of God’s counsels seen in type in Genesis 1 that He should have dominion, His bride with Him, and for this He had to make atonement, passed through death, into glory, as a victorious man over sin and death and Satan’s power. He is the Redeemer as well as the Creator, and now in resurrection we have more of His glory unfolded.
Verses 18-20. “And He is the Head of the body, the assembly; who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.” He, the risen glorified Man, is Head of His body the assembly, the beginning of the creation of God (Rev. 3:1414And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14)). Atonement is completed, God is glorified, every claim of the throne is settled. He is the victorious Man now crowned with glory and honor. And He will have His companions with Him in that same glory, before He claims the kingdom as His own. The work is complete, He is seated on the Father’s throne, the highest place is His. He is waiting now in patience, and we are waiting with Him (2 Thess. 3:55And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. (2 Thessalonians 3:5) N.T.).
His headship over creation was His divine right.
His headship of the assembly was gained by His work and victory over the enemy’s power as a man.
His place now in glory proclaims God glorified, and the enemy vanquished, and we are now, as believers, one with Him as the glorified Man our Head in Heaven.
The Man Christ Jesus, God manifest in flesh, is our Saviour, Lord and Head. We know the Father revealed in Him, and the Holy Spirit in all His fullness was and is in Him. As the one who finished the work of atonement, He also received the Holy Spirit for us (Acts 2:3333Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. (Acts 2:33)). God Himself in all His fullness was revealed in the person of Christ. All the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him (Verse 19 and chapter 2:9).
He has fully declared that God is light and love, and this has given us title to be with Him; for creation, and those who were to compose the assembly were alike far from God. We were alienated in our minds by wicked works. Our wills were antagonistic to God, and we thus needed reconciliation. This was done by the Lord’s death, He made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven. And these things will be yet reconciled perfectly in the new heavens and the new earth. The groundwork is laid in His finished work (John 1:2929The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1:29)).
Verses 21, 22. But Christians, “You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet how hath He reconciled, in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight:”
We are to see how His blessed work has glorified God, and given us the consciousness that nothing now stands against us in the sight of God, and God has there shown His love, and thus our hearts are captured in chains of love by the death of God’s Son. What wondrous ways of love! What grace to make us holy, unblameable and unreproveable in His sight.
Verse 23 alludes to the tendency seen in some to get occupied with keeping days and ordinances, or of allowing vain superstitions or philosophies to get into their minds. He therefore dwells much on our union with Christ, the living Head in glory. The grace proclaimed in the gospel has now gone beyond the Jews, to every creature, taking in mankind wherever found.
Verse 24. The Apostle was its minister, he was also minister of the assembly according to God’s dispensation. And for this he had to suffer in the path of rejection with Christ, and in His body go through what was necessary of the afflictions of Christ in His flesh, to make the truth plain to them. Paul in this way suffered with the gospel (2 Tim. 1:88Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; (2 Timothy 1:8)). Christ alone suffered in atonement. Paul suffered in his path as a servant in his ministry, and will share the glory with Him, and those he preached to (2 Tim. 2:1010Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. (2 Timothy 2:10)).
Verses 25-29 are to tell us that the subjects of Scripture were completed by his ministry. The truth of the church or assembly of God is the last; others wrote after him, but no new subject was told out. This that was committed to him, was the mystery that the assembly and Christ are one. This was never known before it was given to Paul: it was hid in God from ages and generations, but is now made manifest to the believers of the present time, to whom God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Wondrous truth! Christ dwelling in the hearts of men who once had no hope, and were without God in the world, and are now made one with Him on high. And Paul preached Christ, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom: that he might present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. All his labor in subjection to the Lord, and by the power of the Lord working in him mightily, was to this end.