The Christ Who Holds Creation Also Makes Peace by the Cross

Colosse was a small town in the Lycus valley of Phrygia, a few miles from Laodicea and Hierapolis (4:13), and Paul had never been there (2:1). Timothy is named as co-sender here as in five other letters. Tacitus records a great earthquake in the valley in AD 60, around the time the letter is usually dated.

The town was famous for a dyed wool, a deep purple-red that took its name from the place. “Faithful brethren” can equally be “believing brethren”. In the earliest copies the greeting stops at “God our Father”; “and the Lord Jesus Christ” was added to match Paul’s usual form.

Verses 3 to 8 form one Greek sentence, and verses 9 to 20 another. “Praying always” can belong with the thanksgiving, so that the thanks is what is always offered. The plural “we” keeps Timothy in the prayer with Paul.

“Since we heard” marks this as a church Paul knew by report only. Faith, love and hope appear together, the triad of 1 Corinthians 13:13 and 1 Thessalonians 1:3, and here hope is given as the reason for the other two: they love “for the hope”.

“Laid up” is apokeimai, stored away, as the servant kept his pound “laid up in a napkin” (Luke 19:20) and as Paul later speaks of a crown “laid up for me” (2 Timothy 4:8). “Heard before” is proakouo, found only here: they heard the true word before any rival teaching reached them.

“In all the world” is deliberate breadth for a gospel then a few decades old. Many manuscripts read “bearing fruit and increasing”, two verbs that echo the Greek of Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful, and multiply”; the King James text lacks the second here but has both in verse 10.

Epaphras was a Colossian, “one of you” (4:12), and evidently the founder of the church; his name is a shortened form of Epaphroditus, though he is not the Philippian of that name. “Fellowservant” is syndoulos, fellow slave. Instead of “for you”, the best early witnesses say he serves “on our behalf”, which makes Epaphras Paul’s own representative at Colosse.

“Declared” is deloo, to make plain. “Your love in the Spirit” is the only clear mention of the Holy Spirit in the whole letter, a striking silence in a book that speaks so much of Christ. The report Epaphras brought was about their love, not about their troubles, at least at first.

“Since the day we heard it” answers verse 6, “since the day ye heard of it”: their hearing and Paul’s hearing are set side by side. “Filled” is pleroo, the first touch of the fulness language that runs through the letter (1:19; 2:9–10).

“Unto all pleasing” is areskeia, a word ordinary Greek used in a bad sense, for obsequious people-pleasing; it is found only here in the New Testament, turned to pleasing the Lord. “Fruitful” and “increasing” are the two participles used of the gospel itself in verse 6, now applied to the believers.

“Strengthened with all might” is literally empowered with all power, the root doubled. “Glorious power” is the might of his glory. Older interpreters distinguished the two virtues: “patience”, hypomone, endures hard circumstances, while “longsuffering”, makrothumia, bears with difficult people.

“Made meet” is hikanoo, to make sufficient or qualify, used elsewhere only in 2 Corinthians 3:6, “made us able ministers”. The inheritance is literally “the portion of the lot”, the language of Canaan divided among the tribes by lot in Joshua 14–19.

“Power” is exousia, authority or domain. “Translated” is methistemi, the verb used for resettling a conquered population in another land, as the kings of Assyria did with Israel. “His dear Son” is literally the Son of his love, a Hebrew-shaped phrase.

“Through his blood” is absent from the oldest manuscripts; copyists likely added it from Ephesians 1:7, where it belongs. The phrase “even the forgiveness of sins” defines redemption here by its first and plainest result.

“Image” is eikon, the word of Genesis 1:27 in Greek, and also the word for the emperor’s head on a coin (Mark 12:16). “Firstborn” is a title of rank as well as birth: in Psalm 89:27 God says of David’s line, “I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth”. Arius later pressed this verse in the fourth-century debates.

“By him” is literally “in him”, and the verse closes with two more prepositions, through him and unto him, so that Christ is sphere, agent and goal of creation. Thrones, dominions, principalities and powers were ranks of angels in Jewish writings of the period, and later Christian lists of angelic orders drew on these names.

“He” is emphatic: he himself is before all things. “Consist” is synistemi, perfect in tense, to hold together and stay so. Greek philosophers asked what binds the universe into one; Philo of Alexandria answered that the divine Word is the bond of all things. Colossians gives the answer a name.

“Beginning” is arche, which also means origin or ruler, and may recall “In the beginning” of Genesis 1:1. The first half of the passage called Christ firstborn of creation (verse 15); this verse calls him “firstborn from the dead”. “Have the preeminence” is proteuo, to be first, found only here.

“The Father” is supplied by the King James; the Greek can be read with “all the fulness” as the subject: in him all the fulness was pleased to dwell. The wording echoes the Greek of Psalm 68:16, where God is pleased to dwell on his chosen hill. The temple mountain has become a person.

“Having made peace” is eirenopoieo, peacemaking, the verb behind the “peacemakers” of Matthew 5:9, found only here. The order “things in earth, or things in heaven” reverses the “in heaven, and... in earth” of verse 16, as though reconciliation works from the ground up.

“Sometime” is 1611 English for formerly. The enmity is placed “in your mind”, dianoia, a hostility that begins in thinking and shows in deeds. The grammar of verses 21 and 22 breaks down in several manuscripts, which read “ye were reconciled” instead of “hath he reconciled”, a sign of how early scribes wrestled with it.

“The body of his flesh” is a doubled phrase, perhaps pressed against anyone who thought Christ’s body less than real. A Dead Sea Scroll commentary on Habakkuk uses the same Hebrew phrase. “Unreproveable” is anegkletos, one against whom no charge can be brought in court.

“Settled” is hedraios, seated firmly. “Moved away” is metakineo, to be shifted, as a boundary stone might be moved. “To every creature” is literally in all creation, an echo of the “all things” of verses 16 to 20. “I Paul” puts his name into the sentence, as in Ephesians 3:1.

“Fill up” is antanapleroo, a triple compound found only here, to fill up in turn. The word “afflictions”, thlipsis, is never used in the New Testament for Christ’s saving death. Some connect the verse with the Jewish expectation of a set measure of suffering before the end, the woes of the Messiah; that link is a proposal.

“To fulfil the word of God” means to carry the preaching to completion, to give it its full reach. Romans 15:19 uses the same verb: from Jerusalem to Illyricum Paul had “fully preached the gospel of Christ”. The commission is, once more, given “for you”.

“Hid from ages and from generations” can be read in time, hidden through all past eras, or in persons, hidden from the aions, spiritual powers, and from human generations alike. “Now” is set against both, and the disclosure goes to “his saints”, not a select circle of them.

“God would make known” uses thelo, God willed it; the disclosure is God’s choice. “Christ in you” can equally be “Christ among you”, Christ present among the Gentiles, which fits the phrase “among the Gentiles” just before it. “The riches of the glory” is the phrase of Ephesians 1:18.

“Warning” is noutheteo, to put in mind, correction by word. “Perfect” is teleios, which in the mystery religions described the fully initiated; if the teaching troubling Colosse promised such a rank to a few, Paul answers with “every man” three times. “Present” is the paristemi of verse 22.

“Striving” is agonizomai, the athlete’s straining in the contest, and the theme returns at once in 2:1, “what great conflict I have”. The Greek of the last clause piles up its root, literally according to his energy that energises in me in power.