Colossians 1
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
An apostle is someone sent by God to preach the whole truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ to a place where it has never been preached before.
Apostles are needed even today, for even today, certain truths about the gospel are not clearly preached, even though Christianity is known all over the world.
You can’t decide to become an apostle. God has to appoint you to be an apostle.
Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ – that is, he preached the gospel of Jesus, and not some arbitrary truth.
Paul acknowledged the value of Timothy in his ministry. He could have simply omitted Timothy’s name, but he didn’t.
2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ {who are} at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
Saints are those who are born again. A saint is faithful if he is also living the way he said he would. This letter was written not just those who are born again, but also to those who are faithful in Christ.
Grace is help from God to solve spiritual problems. Peace from God is a condition wherein God is not at war with you, judging and disciplining you for something. Without grace and peace from God, you cannot do anything of eternal value. That is why Paul wishes grace and peace to his readers.
We should routinely check to ensure that our personal condition is such that we can receive grace and peace from God. If you are walking with God, and have wronged anyone, God will discipline you, and until you repent there will be no peace with God. If you are proud, God will oppose you, and you will not receive grace from God.
3 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints;
5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel
6 which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as {it has been doing} in you also since the day you heard {of it} and understood the grace of God in truth;
7 just as you learned {it} from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf,
8 and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.
Note the relationship between the Father and Son mentioned in verse 3. Paul mentions it often, and it is not something we should forget. Jesus is not a mere mortal, but He is the Son of the Most High God, and we should always treat Him (and His words) with utmost respect.
Paul was very thankful for those who were born again, and he prayed for them. We too should uphold in prayer our brothers and sisters who exhibit faith and love.
Christians express faith and operate in love because of the hope laid up in heaven for them. What is this hope? It is the hope that when Jesus returns, they will receive a new body that cannot be tempted. There are many places in the Bible where this hope is mentioned, but I’ve not heard too many sermons about it.
Just imagine if someone promised you that you would win the lottery. Living in the hope of winning the lottery will enable you to overlook all the slights that people around you throw at you. The reason why Christians are so bothered about what someone said to them or did to them or how they treated them is because they don’t realize that (in a manner of speaking) God has promised to let them win the spiritual lottery – which is the nature of God. People who are in that zone have no trouble loving others even in the face of injustice.
Epaphras, a member of Paul’s team, was the one who preached this truth to the Colossians, and Paul acknowledges his value. Paul was not one to withhold praise of the members of his team.
9 For this reason also, since the day we heard {of it,} we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please {Him} in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
Paul greatly desired that all believers everywhere be the best that they can be. He recognized that believers need knowledge and wisdom and understanding to be the best that they can be. Knowledge refers to knowing what to do. Wisdom refers to knowing when to do it. Understanding refers to knowing why it is important to do it and what it will achieve in the big picture. If you want to please God, and walk in a manner that is worthy of Him, and bear fruit, you need these three things.
These three things also help you to tap into the great power of God that you have access to, and the end result is patience in all situations, and a steadfastness of purpose in life. You begin to realize the great value of what God has made available to you, and you are filled with thankfulness towards God for all that He has done for you.
Stars are formed when gravity creates the enormous pressure needed for huge amounts of hydrogen to come together and fuse into other elements. In the same way, when knowledge and wisdom and understanding come together in a believer, a spiritual star is formed – in a manner of speaking.
Paul experienced this himself, and his great desire was to see others experience this too.
13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The domain of darkness is Satan’s kingdom. Satan has power over those who are not born again. But when a person is born again, that person is transferred from Satan’s kingdom to God’s kingdom, and Satan no longer has power over that person. As long as a person has unforgiven sin in his account, Satan has power over him, but at our redemption, our sins are forgiven, and that causes us to get transferred to God’s kingdom.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created, {both} in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Paul now explains some of the awesomeness of Jesus, the beloved Son of God…
We can’t see God, but when Jesus became man, we could see Jesus, and Jesus demonstrated what God is like. Throughout history, whenever scientists discovered something new about the universe, they experienced awe and great satisfaction. In the same way, seekers of God (such as Paul) experience a similar satisfaction when they study Jesus and have their eyes opened to see the beauty of God.
Jesus is the firstborn (i.e. root cause) of all creation. That is, the Father created all things through Jesus. All the laws of physics and other sciences; all the powers and dominions and authorities – Jesus made all that happen!
What’s more, Jesus sustains (or holds together) all things. Who ensures that the law of gravity always applies? Who ensures that Planck’s constant always remains constant? Who ensures that the speed of light in vacuum never changes with time? Jesus!
18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
It is this Jesus who died for our sins, and thus became the head of the church (the group of those who are born again).
It is this Jesus who became man, and was tempted and yet did not sin, and who died and then was the first person who rose again in a body that cannot be tempted.
You can see how great Jesus is. It is because He is so great that we need to pay attention to His Word.
19 For it was the {Father's} good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him,
20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, {I say,} whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Before Jesus became man, He was fully God, and all the fulness of deity dwelt in Him. But when He became man, He emptied Himself of that fulness in order to become fully man. He didn’t empty Himself of His privileges as God (like the privilege of forgiving sins or the privilege of receiving worship), as some teach. Those privileges are tied to identity, and He never stopped being God in identity. He emptied Himself of His capabilities, like omniscience or being Almighty. Whatever amazing things He did (like calming the storm, for example) He did through the power of the Holy Spirit.
After Jesus lived a perfect life (one without sin) He paid the price for sins while on the cross. It was because Jesus didn’t sin even once that God was pleased to raise Him from the dead and give Him the glory that He had before He became man – which was the fulness of deity that He emptied Himself of.
God was also able to use Jesus’ sacrifice to pay for our sins and reconcile mankind to Himself.
21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, {engaged} in evil deeds,
22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach –
23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.
That sacrifice can now be applied to us as we enter into covenant with God for the forgiveness of sins based on the atoning work of Jesus. It now becomes possible for us to be holy and blameless, and no one can accuse us of sin anymore (because all our sins are forgiven).
But we can only be saved if we continue in the faith. If we stop meeting the requirements for salvation then we will not be saved.
This salvation was proclaimed in all creation under heaven. In the original Greek, the aorist tense is used for the word ‘proclaimed’. The Greek aorist tense is used to describe an action that has already happened, or an action that will surely happen – so surely, that you may consider it as already happened. It is the best tense to describe the promises of God – things that may not have already happened but will surely happen.
So what Paul is alluding to here is that you can be sure that everyone will hear the gospel before they are judged. Some hear it while they are alive on earth. Those who didn’t get a chance to hear it while they were alive will hear it at the time of death – perhaps through an angel. Those who died before Jesus made it available heard it when Jesus descended into the depths of the earth while He was dead.
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.
Paul joyfully accepted the sufferings he had to endure in order to fulfill his ministry in the church. These sufferings helped him to become more like Jesus.
25 Of {this church} I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the {preaching of} the word of God,
26 {that is,} the mystery which has been hidden from the {past} ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints,
27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Paul describes his ministry – which was to preach the gospel. This gospel was hidden in the past generations, but now has been made known to His saints. One thing that was hidden was that Holy Spirit would dwell in those of us who are born again, and He would serve as a seal of our inheritance (the body that cannot be tempted). Paul refers to this as ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’.
A person’s glory is that which is great about that person. To hope for glory is to hope for some great thing. What great thing? The body that cannot be tempted, allowing us to have the very nature of God.
28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.
It was Paul’s goal to make this mystery known to every man (and woman), and to help every man (and woman) to be the best that he (and she) can be.
29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.
Paul felt God’s power working in him, and he allowed God to use him to build His kingdom. We too should do the same.
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