THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D..
Editor of “The Expositor,” etc.
COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON
BY
ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D.
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MCMII
THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL
TO
THE COLOSSIANS
AND
PHILEMON
BY
ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D.
TENTH EDITION
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MCMII
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. | |||
---|---|---|---|
PAGE | |||
Chap. I. | v. 1, 2. | The Writer and the Readers | 1 |
v. 3–8. | The Prelude | 21 | |
v. 9–12. | The Prayer | 38 | |
v. 12–14. | The Father’s Gifts through the Son | 54 | |
v. 15–18. | The Glory of the Son in His Relation to the Father, the Universe, and the Church | 70 | |
v. 19–22. | The Reconciling Son | 85 | |
v. 22, 23. | The Ultimate Purpose of Reconciliation and its Human Conditions | 100 | |
v. 24–27. | Joy in Suffering, and Triumph in the Manifested Mystery | 116 | |
v. 28, 29. | The Christian Ministry in its Theme, Methods, and Aim | 132 | |
Chap. II. | v. 1–3. | Paul’s Striving for the Colossians | 151 |
v. 4–7. | Conciliatory and Hortatory Transition to Polemics | 168 | |
|
v. 8–10. | The Bane and the Antidote | 185 |
v. 11–13. | The True Circumcision | 199 | |
v. 14, 15. | The Cross the Death of Law and the Triumph over Evil Powers | 213 | |
v. 16–19. | Warnings against Twin Chief Errors based upon Previous Positive Teaching | 226 | |
v. 20–23. | Two Final Tests of the False Teaching | 242 | |
Chap. III. | v. 1–4. | The Present Christian Life a Risen Life | 257 |
v. 5–9. | Slaying Self the Foundation Precept of Practical Christianity | 271 | |
v. 9–11. | The New Nature wrought out in New Life | 290 | |
v. 12–14. | The Garments of the Renewed Soul | 305 | |
v. 15–17. | The Practical Effects of the Peace of Christ, the Word of Christ, and the Name of Christ | 320 | |
v. 18, Ch. iv., 1. | The Christian Family | 335 | |
Chap. IV. | v. 2–6. | Precepts for the Innermost and Outermost Life | 354 |
v. 7–9. | Tychicus and Onesimus, the Letter-Bearers | 371 | |
v. 10–14. | Salutations from the Prisoner’s Friends | 386 | |
v. 15–18. | Closing Messages | 402 | |
Chap. I. | v. 1–3 | 417 | |
v. 4–7 | 432 | ||
v. 8–11 | 447 | ||
v. 12–14 | 459 | ||
v. 15–19 | 470 | ||
v. 20–25 | 483 |
“Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossæ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”—Col. i, 1, 2 (Rev. Ver.).
Such a thought is emphatically a lesson for the day.
The Christ whom the world needs to have proclaimed
in every deaf ear and lifted up before
blind and reluctant eyes, is not merely the perfect
man, nor only the meek sufferer, but the Source of
creation and its Lord, Who from the beginning has
been the life of all that has lived, and before the
beginning was in the bosom of the Father. The
shallow and starved religion which contents itself
with mere humanitarian conceptions of Jesus of
Nazareth needs to be deepened and filled out by
these lofty truths before it can acquire solidity and
steadfastness sufficient to be the unmoved foundation
I desire, therefore, to present the teachings of this great epistle in a series of expositions.
Before advancing to the consideration of these verses, we must deal with one or two introductory matters, so as to get the frame and the background for the picture.
(1) First, as to the Church of Colossæ to which the letter is addressed.
Perhaps too much has been made of late years of
geographical and topographical elucidations of Paul’s
epistles. A knowledge of the place to which a
Colossæ was a town in the heart of the modern Asia Minor, much decayed in Paul’s time from its earlier importance. It lay in a valley of Phrygia, on the banks of a small stream, the Lycus, down the course of which, at a distance of some ten miles or so, two very much more important cities fronted each other, Hierapolis on the north, and Laodicea on the south bank of the river. In all three cities were Christian Churches, as we know from this letter, one of which has attained the bad eminence of having become the type of tepid religion for all the world. How strange to think of the tiny community in a remote valley of Asia Minor, eighteen centuries since, thus gibbeted for ever! These stray beams of light which fall upon the people in the New Testament, showing them fixed for ever in one attitude, like a lightning flash in the darkness, are solemn precursors of the last Apocalypse, when all men shall be revealed in “the brightness of His coming.”
Paul does not seem to have been the founder of
these Churches, or ever to have visited them at the
date of this letter. That opinion is based on several
(2) Note the occasion and subject of the letter.
Paul is a prisoner, in a certain sense, in Rome;
but the word prisoner conveys a false impression of
the amount of restriction of personal liberty to
which he was subjected. We know from the last
words of the Acts of the Apostles, and from the
Epistle to the Philippians, that his “imprisonment”
did not in the least interfere with his liberty of
preaching, nor with his intercourse with friends.
Rather, in the view of the facilities it gave that by
him “the preaching might be fully known,” it may
be regarded, as indeed the writer of the Acts seems
to regard it, as the very climax and topstone of
Paul’s work, wherewith his history may fitly end,
leaving the champion of the gospel at the very heart
of the world, with unhindered liberty to proclaim
his message by the very throne of Cæsar. He was
The tidings were that a strange disease, hatched
in that hotbed of religious fancies, the dreamy East,
was threatening the faith of the Colossian Christians.
A peculiar form of heresy, singularly compounded
of Jewish ritualism and Oriental mysticism—two
elements as hard to blend in the foundation of a
system as the heterogeneous iron and clay on which
the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream stood unstably—had
appeared among them, and though at present
confined to a few, was being vigorously preached.
The characteristic Eastern dogma, that matter is
evil and the source of evil, which underlies so much
Oriental religion, and crept in so early to corrupt
Christianity, and crops up to-day in so many strange
places and unexpected ways, had begun to infect
them. The conclusion was quickly drawn: “Well,
Such notions, fantastic and remote from daily life as they look, really led by a very short cut to making wild work with the plainest moral teachings both of the natural conscience and of Christianity. For if matter be the source of all evil, then the fountain of each man’s sin is to be found, not in his own perverted will, but in his body, and the cure of it is to be reached, not by faith which plants a new life in a sinful spirit, but simply by ascetic mortification of the flesh.
Strangely united with these mystical Eastern
teachings, which might so easily be perverted to
the coarsest sensuality, and had their heads in the
clouds and their feet in the mud, were the narrowest
doctrines of Jewish ritualism, insisting on circumcision,
laws regulating food, the observance of feast days,
and the whole cumbrous apparatus of a ceremonial
Such, generally speaking, was the error that was beginning to lift its head in Colossæ. Religious fanaticism was at home in that country, from which, both in heathen and in Christian times, wild rites and notions emanated, and the Apostle might well dread the effect of this new teaching, as of a spark on hay, on the excitable natures of the Colossian converts.
Now we may say, “What does all this matter to
us? We are in no danger of being haunted by the
ghosts of these dead heresies.” But the truth which
Paul opposed to them is all important for every age.
It was simply the Person of Christ as the only manifestation
of the Divine, the link between God and
the universe, its Creator and Preserver, the Light and
Life of men, the Lord and Inspirer of the Church,
Christ has come, laying His hand upon both God and
man, therefore there is no need nor place for a misty
crowd of angelic beings or shadowy abstractions to
bridge the gulf across which His incarnation flings
its single solid arch. Christ has been bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh, therefore that cannot be
the source of evil in which the fulness of the Godhead
To urge these and the like truths this letter is written. Its central principle is the sovereign and exclusive mediation of Jesus Christ, the God-man, the victorious antagonist of these dead speculations, and the destined conqueror of all the doubts and confusions of this day. If we grasp with mind and heart that truth, we can possess our souls in patience, and in its light see light where else is darkness and uncertainty.
So much then for introduction, and now a few words of comment on the superscription of the letter contained in these verses.
I. Notice the blending of lowliness and authority in Paul’s designation of himself. “An Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God.”
He does not always bring his apostolic authority
to mind at the beginning of his letters. In his
earliest epistles, those to the Thessalonians, he has
not yet adopted the practice. In the loving and
joyous letter to the Philippians, he has no need to
urge his authority, for no man among them ever
gainsaid it. In that to Philemon, friendship is uppermost,
and though, as he says, he might be much bold
to enjoin, yet he prefers to beseech, and will not
command as “Apostle,” but pleads as “the prisoner
Here he puts forth his claim to the apostolate, in the highest sense of the word. He asserts his equality with the original Apostles, the chosen witnesses for the reality of Christ’s resurrection. He, too, had seen the risen Lord, and heard the words of His mouth. He shared with them the prerogative of certifying from personal experience that Jesus is risen and lives to bless and rule. Paul’s whole Christianity was built on the belief that Jesus Christ had actually appeared to him. That vision on the road to Damascus revolutionised his life. Because he had seen his Lord and heard his duty from His lips, he had become what he was.
“Through the will of God” is at once an assertion
of Divine authority, a declaration of independence
of all human teaching or appointment, and a most
lowly disclaimer of individual merit, or personal
power. Few religious teachers have had so strongly
marked a character as Paul, or have so constantly
brought their own experience into prominence; but
the weight which he expected to be attached to his
words was to be due entirely to their being the
words which God spoke through him. If this opening
clause were to be paraphrased it would be: I
speak to you because God has sent me. I am not
an Apostle by my own will, nor by my own merit.
I am not worthy to be called an Apostle. I am a
poor sinner like yourselves, and it is a miracle of love
So Paul thought of his message; so the uncompromising assertion of authority was united with deep humility. Do we come to his words, believing that we hear God speaking through Paul? Here is no formal doctrine of inspiration, but here is the claim to be the organ of the Divine will and mind, to which we ought to listen as indeed the voice of God.
The gracious humility of the man is further seen in his association with himself, as joint senders of the letter, of his young brother Timothy, who has no apostolic authority, but whose concurrence in its teaching might give it some additional weight. For the first few verses he remembers to speak in the plural, as in the name of both—“we give thanks,” “Epaphras declared to us your love,” and so on; but in the fiery sweep of his thoughts Timothy is soon left out of sight, and Paul alone pours out the wealth of his Divine wisdom and the warmth of his fervid heart.
II. We may observe the noble ideal of the Christian character set forth in the designations of the Colossian Church, as “saints and faithful brethren in Christ.”
In his earlier letters Paul addresses himself to
“the Church;” in his later, beginning with the
Epistle to the Romans, and including the three great
epistles from his captivity, namely, Ephesians, Philippians,
and Colossians, he drops the word Church, and
Be that as it may, the lessons to be drawn from the names here given to the members of the Church are the more important matter for us. It would be interesting and profitable to examine the meaning of all the New Testament names for believers, and to learn the lessons which they teach; but we must for the present confine ourselves to those which occur here.
“Saints”—a word that has been wofully misapplied both by the Church and the world. The former has given it as a special honour to a few, and “decorated” with it mainly the possessors of a false ideal of sanctity—that of the ascetic and monastic sort. The latter uses it with a sarcastic intonation, as if it implied much cry and little wool, loud professions and small performance, not without a touch of hypocrisy and crafty self-seeking.
Saints are not people living in cloisters after a
Sanctity, and saint, are used now mainly with the idea of moral purity, but that is a secondary meaning. The real primary signification is separation to God. Consecration to Him is the root from which the white flower of purity springs most surely. There is a deep lesson in the word as to the true method of attaining cleanness of life and spirit. We cannot make ourselves pure, but we can yield ourselves to God and the purity will come.
But we have not only here the fundamental idea
of holiness, and the connection of purity of character
with self-consecration to God, but also the solemn
obligation on all so-called Christians thus to separate
and devote themselves to Him. We are Christians
as far as we give ourselves up to God, in the surrender
of our wills and the practical obedience of
our lives—so far and not one inch further. We
are not merely bound to this consecration if we are
Christians, but we are not Christians unless we thus
But these Colossian Christians are “faithful” as well as saints. That may either mean trustworthy and true to their stewardship, or trusting. In the parallel verses in the Epistle to the Ephesians (which presents so many resemblances to this epistle) the latter meaning seems to be required, and here it is certainly the more natural, as pointing to the very foundation of all Christian consecration and brotherhood in the act of believing. We are united to Christ by our faith. The Church is a family of faithful, that is to say of believing, men. Faith underlies consecration and is the parent of holiness, for he only will yield himself to God who trustfully grasps the mercies of God and rests on Christ’s great gift of Himself. Faith weaves the bond that unites men in the brotherhood of the Church, for it brings all who share it into a common relation to the Father. He who is faithful, that is, believing, will be faithful in the sense of being worthy of confidence and true to his duty, his profession, and his Lord.
They were brethren too. That strong new bond
of union among men the most unlike, was a strange
phenomenon in Paul’s time, when the Roman world
was falling to pieces, and rent by deep clefts of
hatreds and jealousies such as modern society
scarcely knows; and men might well wonder as
they saw the slave and his master sitting at the
same table, the Greek and the barbarian learning
the same wisdom in the same tongue, the Jew
and the Gentile bowing the knee in the same
But “brethren” means more than this. It points not merely to Christian love, but to the common possession of a new life. If we are brethren, it is because we have one Father, because in us all there is one life. The name is often regarded as sentimental and metaphorical. The obligation of mutual love is supposed to be the main idea in it, and there is a melancholy hollowness and unreality in the very sound of it as applied to the usual average Christians of to-day. But the name leads straight to the doctrine of regeneration, and proclaims that all Christians are born again through their faith in Jesus Christ, and thereby partake of a common new life, which makes all its possessors children of the Highest, and therefore brethren one of another. If regarded as an expression of the affection of Christians for one another, “brethren” is an exaggeration, ludicrous or tragic, as we view it; but if we regard it as the expression of the real bond which gathers all believers into one family, it declares the deepest mystery and mightiest privilege of the gospel that “to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the Sons of God.”
They are “in Christ.” These two words may
apply to all the designations or to the last only.
They are saints in Him, believers in Him, brethren
in Him. That mystical but most real union of
Christians with their Lord is never far away from
the Apostle’s thoughts, and in the twin Epistle to
the Ephesians is the very burden of the whole.
A shallower Christianity tries to weaken that great
phrase to something more intelligible to the unspiritual
This is the deepest mystery of the Christian life.
To be “in Him” is to be complete. “In Him”
we are “blessed with all spiritual blessings.” “In
Him”, we are “chosen,” “In Him,” God “freely
bestows His grace upon us.” “In Him” we “have
redemption through His blood.” “In Him” “all
things in heaven and earth are gathered.” “In
Him we have obtained an inheritance.” In Him is
the better life of all who live. In Him we have
peace though the world be seething with change
and storm. In Him we conquer though earth and
our own evil be all in arms against us. If we live
III. A word or two only can be devoted to the last clause of salutation, the apostolic wish, which sets forth the high ideal to be desired for Churches and individuals: “Grace be unto and peace from God our Father.” The Authorized Version reads, “and the Lord Jesus Christ,” but the Revised Version follows the majority of recent text-critics and their principal authorities in omitting these words, which are supposed to have been imported into our passage from the parallel place in Ephesians. The omission of these familiar words which occur so uniformly in the similar introductory salutations of Paul’s other epistles, is especially singular here, where the main subject of the letter is the office of Christ as channel of all blessings. Perhaps the previous word, “brethren” was lingering in his mind, and so instinctively he stopped with the kindred word “Father.”
“Grace and peace”—Paul’s wishes for those
whom he loves, and the blessings which he expects
every Christian to possess, blend the Western and
the Eastern forms of salutation, and surpass both.
All that the Greek meant by his “Grace,” all that
the Hebrew meant by his “Peace,” the ideally
happy condition which differing nations have placed
in different blessings, and which all loving words
“Grace”—what is that? The word means first—love in exercise to those who are below the lover, or who deserve something else; stooping love that condescends, and patient love that forgives. Then it means the gifts which such love bestows, and then it means the effects of these gifts in the beauties of character and conduct developed in the receivers. So there are here invoked, or we may call it, proffered and promised, to every believing heart, the love and gentleness of that Father whose love to us sinful atoms is a miracle of lowliness and longsuffering; and, next, the outcome of that love which never visits the soul emptyhanded, in all varied spiritual gifts, to strengthen weakness, to enlighten ignorance, to fill the whole being; and as last result of all, every beauty of mind, heart, and temper which can adorn the character, and refine a man into the likeness of God. That great gift will come in continuous bestowment if we are “saints in Christ.” Of His fulness we all receive and grace for grace, wave upon wave as the ripples press shoreward and each in turn pours its tribute on the beach, or as pulsation after pulsation makes one golden beam of unbroken light, strong winged enough to come all the way from the sun, gentle enough to fall on the sensitive eyeball without pain. That one beam will decompose into all colours and brightnesses. That one “grace” will part into sevenfold gifts and be the life in us of whatsoever things are lovely and of good report.
“Peace be unto you.” That old greeting, the
witness of a state of society when every stranger
All this may be ours. Paul could only wish it for these Colossians. We can only long for it for our dearest. No man can fulfil his wishes or turn them into actual gifts. Many precious things we can give, but not peace. But our brother, Jesus Christ, can do more than wish it. He can bestow it, and when we need it most, He stands ever beside us, in our weakness and unrest, with His strong arm stretched out to help, and on His calm lips the old words—“My grace is sufficient for thee,” “My peace I give unto you.”
Let us keep ourselves in Him, believing in Him and yielding ourselves to God for His dear sake, and we shall find His grace ever flowing into our emptiness and His settled “peace keeping our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
“We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God in truth; even as ye learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.”—Col. i. 3–8. (Rev. Ver.).
Before he warns and rebukes, Paul begins by
giving the Colossians credit for all the good which
he can find in them. As soon as he opens his mouth,
he asserts the claims and authority, the truth and
Thus skilfully and lovingly these verses touch a prelude which naturally prepares for the theme of the epistle. Remonstrance and rebuke would more often be effective if they oftener began with showing the rebuker’s love, and with frank acknowledgment of good in the rebuked.
I. We have first a thankful recognition of Christian excellence as introductory to warnings and remonstrances.
Almost all Paul’s letters begin with similar expressions of thankfulness for the good that was in the Church he is addressing. Gentle rain softens the ground and prepares it to receive the heavier downfall which would else mostly run off the hard surface. The exceptions are, 2 Corinthians; Ephesians, which was probably a circular letter; and Galatians, which is too hot throughout for such praises. These expressions are not compliments, or words of course. Still less are they flattery used for personal ends. They are the uncalculated and uncalculating expression of affection which delights to see white patches in the blackest character, and of wisdom which knows that the nauseous medicine of blame is most easily taken if administered wrapped in a capsule of honest praise.
All persons in authority over others, such as masters, parents, leaders of any sort, may be the better for taking the lesson—“provoke not your”—inferiors, dependents, scholars—“to wrath, lest they be discouraged”—and deal out praise where you can, with a liberal hand. It is nourishing food for many virtues, and a powerful antidote to many vices.
This praise is cast in the form of thanksgiving to God, as the true fountain of all that is good in men. How all that might be harmful in direct praise is strained out of it, when it becomes gratitude to God! But we need not dwell on this, nor on the principle underlying these thanks, namely that Christian men’s excellences are God’s gift, and that therefore, admiration of the man should ever be subordinate to thankfulness to God. The fountain, not the pitcher filled from it, should have the credit of the crystal purity and sparkling coolness of the water. Nor do we need to do more than point to the inference from that phrase “having heard of your faith,” an inference confirmed by other statements in the letter, namely, that the Apostle himself had never seen the Colossian Church. But we briefly emphasize the two points which occasioned his thankfulness. They are the familiar two, faith and love.
Faith is sometimes spoken of in the New Testament
as “towards Christ Jesus,” which describes that
great act of the soul by its direction, as if it were a
going out or flight of the man’s nature to the true
goal of all active being. It is sometimes spoken of
as “on Christ Jesus,” which describes it as reposing
on Him as the end of all seeking, and suggests such
images as that of a hand that leans or of a burden
In all, faith is the same,—simple confidence, precisely
like the trust which we put in one another.
But how unlike are the objects!—broken reeds of
human nature in the one case, and the firm pillar of that
Divine power and tenderness in the other, and how
unlike, alas! is the fervency and constancy of the
trust we exercise in each other and in Christ!
“Faith” covers the whole ground of man’s relation
to God. All religion, all devotion, everything which
binds us to the unseen world is included in or evolved
from faith. And mark that this faith is, in Paul’s
teaching, the foundation of love to men and of
everything else good and fair. We may agree or
disagree with that thought, but we can scarcely fail
to see that it is the foundation of all his moral teaching.
From that fruitful source all good will come. From
that deep fountain sweet water will flow, and all
drawn from other sources has a tang of bitterness.
Goodness of all kinds is most surely evolved from
faith—and that faith lacks its best warrant of reality
which does not lead to whatsoever things are lovely
and of good report. Barnabas was a “good man,”
because, as Luke goes on to tell us by way of analysis
of the sources of his goodness, he was “full of the
Therefore we say to every one who is seeking to train his character in excellence, begin with trusting Christ, and out of that will come all lustre and whiteness, all various beauties of mind and heart. It is hard and hopeless work to cultivate our own thorns into grapes, but if we will trust Christ, He will sow good seed in our field and “make it soft with showers and bless the springing thereof.”
As faith is the foundation of all virtue, so it is the parent of love, and as the former sums up every bond that knits men to God, so the latter includes all relations of men to each other, and is the whole law of human conduct packed into one word. But the warmest place in a Christian’s heart will belong to those who are in sympathy with his deepest self, and a true faith in Christ, like a true loyalty to a prince, will weave a special bond between all fellow-subjects. So the sign, on the surface of earthly relations, of the deep-lying central fire of faith to Christ, is the fruitful vintage of brotherly love, as the vineyards bear the heaviest clusters on the slopes of Vesuvius. Faith in Christ and love to Christians—that is the Apostle’s notion of a good man. That is the ideal of character which we have to set before ourselves. Do we desire to be good? Let us trust Christ. Do we profess to trust Christ? Let us show it by the true proof—our goodness and especially our love.
So we have here two members of the familiar triad,
Observe that “hope” here is best taken as meaning
not the emotion, but the object on which the emotion
is fixed; not the faculty, but the thing hoped for; or
in other words, that it is objective not subjective;
and also that the ideas of futurity and security are
conveyed by the thought of this object of expectation
being laid up. This future blessedness, grasped by
our expectant hearts as assured for us, does stimulate
and hearten to all well-doing. Certainly it does not
supply the main reason; we are not to be loving and
good because we hope to win heaven thereby. The
deepest motive for all the graces of Christian character
is the will of God in Christ Jesus, apprehended by
loving hearts. But it is quite legitimate to draw
subordinate motives for the strenuous pursuit of holiness
from the anticipation of future blessedness, and
it is quite legitimate to use that prospect to reinforce
II. The course of thought passes on to a solemn reminder of the truth and worth of that Gospel which was threatened by the budding heresies of the Colossian Church.
That is contained in the clauses from the middle
of the fifth verse to the end of the sixth, and is
introduced with significant abruptness, immediately
after the commendation of the Colossians’ faith.
The Apostle’s mind and heart are so full of the
dangers which he saw them to be in, although
they did not know it, that he cannot refrain from
setting forth an impressive array of considerations,
each of which should make them hold to the gospel
with an iron grasp. They are put with the utmost
compression. Each word almost might be beaten
out into a long discourse, so that we can only
He begins by reminding them that to that
gospel they owed all their knowledge and hope of
heaven—the hope “whereof ye heard before in the
word of the truth of the gospel.” That great word
alone gives light on the darkness. The sole certainty
of a life beyond the grave is built on the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the sole hope of a
blessed life beyond the grave for the poor soul that
has learned its sinfulness is built on the Death of
Christ. Without this light, that land is a land of
darkness, lighted only by glimmering sparks of
conjectures and peradventures. So it is to-day, as
it was then; the centuries have only made more
clear the entire dependence of the living conviction
of immortality on the acceptance of Paul’s gospel,
“how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, and that He was raised again the third
day.” All around us, we see those who reject the
fact of Christ’s resurrection finding themselves forced
to surrender their faith in any life beyond. They
cannot sustain themselves on that height of conviction,
unless they lean on Christ. The black
mountain wall that rings us poor mortals round
about is cloven in one place only. Through one
Then, there is another motive touched in these
words just quoted. The gospel is a word of which
the whole substance and content is truth. You may
say that is the whole question, whether the gospel is
such a word? Of course it is; but observe how
here, at the very outset, the gospel is represented as
having a distinct dogmatic element in it. It is of
value, not because it feeds sentiment or regulates
conduct only, but first and foremost because it gives
us true though incomplete knowledge concerning all
the deepest things of God and man about which,
but for its light, we know nothing. That truthful
word is opposed to the argumentations and speculations
and errors of the heretics. The gospel is not
speculation but fact. It is truth, because it is the
record of a Person who is the Truth. The history
of His life and death is the one source of all
certainty and knowledge with regard to man’s
relations to God, and God’s loving purposes to man.
To leave it and Him of whom it speaks in order
Further, this gospel had been already received by
them. Ye heard before, says he, and again he speaks
of the gospel as “come unto” them, and reminds
them of the past days in which they “heard and
knew the grace of God.” That appeal is, of course,
no argument except to a man who admits the truth
of what he had already received, nor is it meant for
argument with others, but it is equivalent to the
exhortation, “You have heard that word and accepted
it, see that your future be consistent with your past.”
He would have the life a harmonious whole, all in
accordance with the first glad grasp which they had
laid on the truth. Sweet and calm and noble is the
life which preserves to its close the convictions of its
beginning, only deepened and expanded. Blessed
are they whose creed at last can be spoken in the
lessons they learned in childhood, to which experience
has but given new meaning! Blessed they who have
been able to store the treasure of a life’s thought and
learning in the vessels of the early words, which have
grown like the magic coffers in a fairy tale, to hold
all the increased wealth that can be lodged in them!
Beautiful is it when the little children and the young
men and the fathers possess the one faith, and when
he who began as a child, “knowing the Father,” ends
as an old man with the same knowledge of the same
God, only apprehended now in a form which has
gained majesty from the fleeting years, as “Him
That spiritual discipline is no less needful than is intellectual, in facing the conflicts of this day.
Again, this gospel was filling the world: “it is in all the world bearing fruit, and increasing.” There are two marks of life—it is fruitful and it spreads. Of course such words are not to be construed as if they occurred in a statistical table. “All the world” must be taken with an allowance for rhetorical statement; but making such allowance, the rapid spread of Christianity in Paul’s time, and its power to influence character and conduct among all sorts and conditions of men, were facts that needed to be accounted for, if the gospel was not true.
That is surely a noteworthy fact, and one which
may well raise a presumption in favour of the truth
of the message, and make any proposal to cast it aside
for another gospel, a serious matter. Paul is not
suggesting the vulgar argument that a thing must be
The gospel which tells of Christ belongs to all and can touch all, because it brushes aside superficial differences of culture and position, and goes straight to the depths of the one human heart, which is alike in us all, addressing the universal sense of sin, and revealing the Saviour of us all, and in Him the universal Father. Do not fling away a gospel that belongs to all, and can bring forth fruit in all kinds of people, for the sake of accepting what can never live in the popular heart, nor influence more than a handful of very select and “superior persons.” Let who will have the dainties, do you stick to the wholesome wheaten bread.
Another plea for adherence to the gospel is based
upon its continuous and universal fruitfulness. It
brings about results in conduct and character which
This tree not only fruits, but grows. It is not exhausted by fruit-bearing, but it makes wood as well. It is “increasing” as well as “bearing fruit,” and that growth in the circuit of its branches that spread through the world, is another of its claims on the faithful adhesion of the Colossians.
Again, they have heard a gospel which reveals the “true grace of God,” and that is another consideration urging to steadfastness.
In opposition to it there were put then, as there are put to-day, man’s thoughts, and man’s requirements, a human wisdom and a burdensome code. Speculations and arguments on the one hand, and laws and rituals on the other, look thin beside the large free gift of a loving God and the message which tells of it. They are but poor bony things to try to live on. The soul wants something more nourishing than such bread made out of sawdust. We want a loving God to live upon, whom we can love because He loves us. Will anything but the gospel give us that? Will anything be our stay, in all weakness, weariness, sorrow and sin, in the fight of life and the agony of death, except the confidence that in Christ we “know the grace of God in truth”?
So, if we gather together all these characteristics
of the gospel, they bring out the gravity of the issue
when we are asked to tamper with it, or to abandon
the old lamp for the brand new ones which many
eager voices are proclaiming as the light of the future.
May any of us who are on the verge of the precipice
lay to heart these serious thoughts! To that gospel
We do not prejudge the question of the truth of Christianity; but, at all events, let there be no mistake as to the fact that to give it up is to give up the mightiest power that has ever wrought for the world’s good, and that if its light be quenched there will be darkness that may be felt, not dispelled but made more sad and dreary by the ineffectual flickers of some poor rushlights that men have lit, which waver and shine dimly over a little space for a little while, and then die out.
III. We have the Apostolic endorsement of Epaphras, the early teacher of the Colossian Christians.
Paul points his Colossian brethren, finally, to the lessons which they had received from the teacher who had first led them to Christ. No doubt his authority was imperiled by the new direction of thought in the Church, and Paul was desirous of adding the weight of his attestation to the complete correspondence between his own teaching and that of Epaphras.
We know nothing about this Epaphras except
from this letter and that to Philemon. He is “one
of you,” a member of the Colossian Church (iv. 12),
whether a Colossian born or not. He had come
to the prisoner in Rome, and had brought the
tidings of their condition which filled the Apostle’s
heart with strangely mingled feelings—of joy for
their love and Christian walk (verses 4, 8), and of
The further testimony which Paul bears to him is
so emphatic and pointed as to suggest that it was
meant to uphold an authority that had been attacked,
and to eulogize a character that had been maligned.
“He is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf.”
In these words the Apostle endorses his teaching,
as a true representation of his own. Probably
Epaphras founded the Colossian Church and did so
in pursuance of a commission given him by Paul.
He “also declared to us your love in the Spirit.”
As he had truly represented Paul and his message
to them, so he lovingly represented them and their
kindly affection to him. Probably the same people
who questioned Epaphras’ version of Paul’s teaching
would suspect the favourableness of his report of
the Colossian Church, and hence the double witness
borne from the Apostle’s generous heart to both
It is a beautiful though a faint image which shines out on us from these fragmentary notices of this Colossian Epaphras—a true Christian bishop, who had come all the long way from his quiet valley in the depths of Asia Minor, to get guidance about his flock from the great Apostle, and who bore them on his heart day and night, and prayed much for them, while so far away from them. How strange the fortune which has made his name and his solicitudes and prayers immortal! How little he dreamed that such embalming was to be given to his little services, and that they were to be crowned with such exuberant praise!
The smallest work done for Jesus Christ lasts for ever, whether it abide in men’s memories or no. Let us ever live as those who, like painters in fresco, have with swift hand to draw lines and lay on colours which will never fade, and let us, by humble faith and holy life, earn such a character from Paul’s master. He is glad to praise, and praise from His lips is praise indeed. If He approves of us as faithful servants on His behalf, it matters not what others may say. The Master’s “Well done” will outweigh labours and toils, and the depreciating tongues of fellow-servants, or of the Master’s enemies.
“For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and to make request for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks unto the Father.”—Col. i. 9–12 (Rev. Ver.).
This prayer sets forth the ideal of Christian character.
What Paul desired for his friends in Colossæ
is what all true Christian hearts should chiefly desire
for those whom they love, and should strive after and
ask for themselves. If we look carefully at these
words we shall see a clear division into parts which
I. Consider the Fountain or Root of all Christian character—“that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”
One or two remarks in the nature of verbal exposition
may be desirable. Generally speaking, the
thing desired is the perfecting of the Colossians in
religious knowledge, and the perfection is forcibly
expressed in three different aspects. The idea of
completeness up to the height of their capacity is
Passing by many thoughts suggested by the words,
we may touch one or two large principles which they
involve. The first is, that the foundation of all
Christian character and conduct is laid in the knowledge
of the will of God. Every revelation of God
is a law. What it concerns us to know is not abstract
If that had been remembered, two opposite errors would have been avoided. The error that was threatening the Colossian Church, and has haunted the Church in general ever since, was that of fancying Christianity to be merely a system of truth to be believed, a rattling skeleton of abstract dogmas, very many and very dry. An unpractical heterodoxy was their danger. An unpractical orthodoxy is as real a peril. You may swallow all the creeds bodily, you may even find in God’s truth the food of very sweet and real feeling: but neither knowing nor feeling is enough. The one all-important question for us is—does our Christianity work? It is knowledge of His will, which becomes an ever active force in our lives! Any other kind of religious knowledge is windy food; as Paul says, it “puffeth up;” the knowledge which feeds the soul with wholesome nourishment is the knowledge of His will.
The converse error to that of unpractical knowledge,
Again: Progress in knowledge is the law of the
Christian life. There should be a continual advancement
in the apprehension of God’s will, from that
first glimpse which saves, to the mature knowledge
which Paul here desires for his friends. The
progress does not consist in leaving behind old
truths, but in a profounder conception of what is
contained in these truths. How differently a Fijian
just saved, and a Paul on earth, or a Paul in heaven,
look at that verse, “God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son”! The truths
which are dim to the one, like stars seen through a
mist, blaze to the other like the same stars to an eye
that has travelled millions of leagues nearer them,
and sees them to be suns. The law of the Christian
life is continuous increase in the knowledge of the
depths that lie in the old truths, and of their far-reaching
applications. We are to grow in knowledge
II. Consider the River or Stem of Christian conduct.
The purpose and outcome of this full knowledge of the will of God in Christ is to “walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing.” By “walk” is of course meant the whole active life; so that the principle is brought out here very distinctly, that the last result of knowledge of the Divine will is an outward life regulated by that will. And the sort of life which such knowledge leads to, is designated in most general terms as “worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing,” in which we have set forth two aspects of the true Christian life.
“Worthily of the Lord!” The “Lord” here, as
generally, is Christ, and “worthily” seems to mean,
in a manner corresponding to what Christ is to us,
and has done for us. We find other forms of the
same thought in such expressions as “worthy of the
vocation wherewith ye are called” (
These are mainly two. The Christian should
“walk” in a manner corresponding to what Christ
has done for him. “Do ye thus requite the Lord,
O foolish people, and unwise?” was the mournful
wondering question of the dying Moses to his
people, as he summed up the history of unbroken
tenderness and love on the one side, and of disloyalty
almost as uninterrupted on the other. How
much more pathetically and emphatically might the
question be asked of us! We say that we are not
our own, but bought with a price. Then how do
we repay that costly purchase? Do we not requite
His blood and tears, His unquenchable, unalterable
love, with a little tepid love which grudges sacrifices
and has scarcely power enough to influence conduct
at all, with a little trembling faith which but poorly
corresponds to His firm promises, with a little
reluctant obedience? The richest treasure of
heaven has been freely lavished for us, and we
return a sparing expenditure of our hearts and
ourselves, repaying fine gold with tarnished copper,
and the flood of love from the heart of Christ with
a few niggard drops grudgingly squeezed from ours.
Nothing short of complete self-surrender, perfect
obedience, and unwavering unfaltering love can
characterize the walk that corresponds with our profound
obligations to Him. Surely there can be no
stronger cord with which to bind us as sacrifices to
the horns of the altar than the cords of love. This
is the unique glory and power of Christian ethics,
that it brings in this tender personal element to
transmute the coldness of duty into the warmth of
gratitude, so throwing rosy light over the snowy
summits of abstract virtue. Repugnant duties become
The other side of this conception of a worthy walk is, that the Christian should act in a manner corresponding to Christ’s character and conduct. We profess to be His by sacredest ties: then we should set our watches by that dial, being conformed to His likeness, and in all our daily life trying to do as He has done, or as we believe He would do if He were in our place. Nothing less than the effort to tread in His footsteps is a walk worthy of the Lord. All unlikeness to His pattern is a dishonour to Him and to ourselves. It is neither worthy of the Lord, nor of the vocation wherewith we are called, nor of the name of saints. Only when these two things are brought about in my experience—when the glow of His love melts my heart and makes it flow down in answering affection, and when the beauty of His perfect life stands ever before me, and though it be high above me, is not a despair, but a stimulus and a hope—only then do I “walk worthy of the Lord.”
Another thought as to the nature of the life in
which the knowledge of the Divine will should issue,
is expressed in the other clause—“unto all pleasing,”
which sets forth the great aim as being to please
Christ in everything. That is a strange purpose
to propose to men, as the supreme end to be ever
kept in view, to satisfy Jesus Christ by their conduct.
To make the good opinion of men our aim is to be
slaves; but to please this Man ennobles us, and
Men have willingly flung away their lives for a
III. We have finally the fourfold streams or branches into which this general conception of Christian character parts itself.
There are four participial clauses here, which seem all to stand on one level, and to present an analysis in more detail of the component parts of this worthy walk. In general terms it is divided into fruitfulness in work, increase in knowledge, strength for suffering, and, as the climax of all, thankfulness.
The first element is—“bearing fruit in every good work.” These words carry us back to what was said in ver. 6 about the fruitfulness of the gospel. Here the man in whom that word is planted is regarded as the producer of the fruit, by the same natural transition by which, in our Lord’s Parable of the Sower, the men in whose hearts the seed was sown are spoken of as themselves on the one hand, bringing no fruit to perfection, and on the other, bringing forth fruit with patience. The worthy walk will be first manifested in the production of a rich variety of forms of goodness. All profound knowledge of God, and all lofty thoughts of imitating and pleasing Christ, are to be tested at last by their power to make men good, and that not after any monotonous type, nor on one side of their nature only.
One plain principle implied here is that the only true fruit is goodness. We may be busy, as many a man in our great commercial cities is busy, from Monday morning till Saturday night for a long lifetime, and may have had to build bigger barns for our “fruits and our goods,” and yet, in the high and solemn meaning of the word here, our life may be utterly empty and fruitless. Much of our work and of its results is no more fruit than the galls on the oak-leaves are. They are a swelling from a puncture made by an insect, a sign of disease, not of life. The only sort of work which can be called fruit, in the highest meaning of the word, is that which corresponds to a man’s whole nature and relations; and the only work which does so correspond is a life of loving service of God, which cultivates all things lovely and of good report. Goodness, therefore, alone deserves to be called fruit—as for all the rest of our busy lives, they and their toils are like the rootless, lifeless chaff that is whirled out of the threshing-floor by every gust. A life which has not in it holiness and loving obedience, however richly productive it may be in lower respects, is in inmost reality blighted and barren, and is “nigh unto burning.” Goodness is fruit; all else is nothing but leaves.
Again: the Christian life is to be “fruitful in
every good work.” This tree is to be like that in
the apocalyptic vision, which “bare twelve manner
of fruits,” yielding every month a different sort.
So we should fill the whole circuit of the year with
various holiness, and seek to make widely different
forms of goodness our own. We have all certain
kinds of excellence which are more natural and
The second element in the analysis of the true
Christian life is—“increasing in the knowledge of
God.” The figure of the tree is probably continued
here. If it fruits, its girth will increase, its branches
will spread, its top will mount, and next year its
shadow on the grass will cover a larger circle.
Some would take the “knowledge” here as the
instrument or means of growth, and would render
“increasing by the knowledge of God,” supposing
that the knowledge is represented as the rain or the
sunshine which minister to the growth of the plant.
But perhaps it is better to keep to the idea conveyed
by the common rendering, which regards the words
“in knowledge” as the specification of that region
in which the growth enjoined is to be realized. So
here we have the converse of the relation between
work and knowledge which we met in the earlier
part of the chapter. There, knowledge led to a
worthy walk; here, fruitfulness in good works leads
to, or at all events is accompanied with, an increased
knowledge. And both are true. These two work
on each other a reciprocal increase. All true
knowledge which is not mere empty notions,
naturally tends to influence action, and all true
action naturally tends to confirm the knowledge from
Then comes the third element in this resolution of the Christian character into its component parts—“strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.” Knowing and doing are not the whole of life: there are sorrow and suffering too.
Here again we have the Apostle’s favourite “all,”
which occurs so frequently in this connection. As
he desired for the Colossians, all wisdom, unto all
pleasing, and fruitfulness in every good work, so he
prays for all power to strengthen them. Every kind
of strength which God can give and man can receive,
is to be sought after by us, that we may be “girded
with strength,” cast like a brazen wall all round our
human weakness. And that Divine power is to flow
into us, having this for its measure and limit—“the
might of His glory.” His “glory” is the lustrous
light of His self-revelation; and the far-flashing
energy revealed in that self-manifestation is the immeasurable
And what exalted mission is destined for this
wonderful communicated strength? Nothing that
the world thinks great: only helping some lone widow
to stay her heart in patience, and flinging a gleam
of brightness, like sunrise on a stormy sea, over some
tempest-tossed life. The strength is worthily employed
and absorbed in producing “all patience and
longsuffering with joy.” Again the favourite “all”
expresses the universality of the patience and longsuffering.
Patience here is not merely passive
endurance. It includes the idea of perseverance in
the right course, as well as that of uncomplaining
bearing of evil. It is the “steering right onward,”
without bating one jot of heart or hope; the temper
of the traveller who struggles forward, though the
wind in his face dashes the sleet in his eyes, and he
has to wade through deep snow. While “patience”
regards the evil mainly as sent by God, and as making
The crown of all, the last of the elements of the
Christian character, is thankfulness—“giving thanks
unto the Father.” This is the summit of all; and
is to be diffused through all. All our progressive
fruitfulness and insight, as well as our perseverance
and unruffled meekness in suffering, should have a
breath of thankfulness breathed through them. We
shall see the grand enumeration of the reasons for
thankfulness in the next verses. Here we pause
for the present, with this final constituent of the
life which Paul desired for the Colossian Christians.
Thankfulness should mingle with all our
thoughts and feelings, like the fragrance of some
perfume penetrating through the common scentless
air. It should embrace all events. It should be an
operating motive in all actions. We should be
clear-sighted and believing enough to be thankful
“The Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.”—Col. i. 12–14 (Rev. Ver.).
The skill with which the transition is made is
remarkable. How gradually and surely the
sentences, like some hovering winged things, circle
more and more closely round the central light, till
in the last words they touch it, ... “the Son of
His love!” It is like some long procession heralding
a king. They that go before, cry Hosanna, and
point to him who comes last and chief. The
affectionate greetings which begin the letter, pass
into prayer; the prayer into thanksgiving. The
thanksgiving, as in these words, lingers over and
recounts our blessings, as a rich man counts his
We have here then the deepest grounds for Christian thanksgiving, which are likewise the preparations for a true estimate of the worth of the Christ who gives them. These grounds of thanksgiving are but various aspects of the one great blessing of “Salvation.” The diamond flashes greens and purples, and yellows and reds, according to the angle at which its facets catch the eye.
It is also to be observed, that all these blessings are the present possession of Christians. The language of the first three clauses in the verses before us points distinctly to a definite past act by which the Father, at some definite point of time, made us meet, delivered and translated us, while the present tense in the last clause shows that “our redemption” is not only begun by some definite act in the past, but is continuously and progressively possessed in the present.
We notice, too, the remarkable correspondence of
language with that which Paul heard when he lay
prone on the ground, blinded by the flashing light,
and amazed by the pleading remonstrance from
heaven which rung in his ears. “I send thee to
the Gentiles ... that they may turn from darkness
to light, and from the power of Satan unto
God, that they may receive remission of sins, and an
I. The first ground of thankfulness which all
Christians have is, that they are fit for the inheritance.
Of course the metaphor here is drawn from the
“inheritance” given to the people of Israel, namely,
the land of Canaan. Unfortunately, our use of
“heir” and “inheritance” confines the idea to possession
by succession on death, and hence some
perplexity is popularly experienced as to the force
of the word in Scripture. There, it implies possession
by lot, if anything more than the simple
notion of possession; and points to the fact that the
people did not win their land by their own swords,
but because “God had a favour unto them.” So
the Christian inheritance is not won by our own
merit, but given by God’s goodness. The words
may be literally rendered, “fitted us for the portion
of the lot,” and taken to mean the share or portion
which consists in the lot; but perhaps it is clearer,
and more accordant with the analogy of the division
of the land among the tribes, to take them as
meaning “for our (individual) share in the broad
land which, as a whole, is the allotted possession
of the saints.” This possession belongs to them,
and is situated in the world of “light.” Such is
the general outline of the thoughts here. The first
question that arises is, whether this inheritance
is present or future. The best answer is that
it is both; because, whatever additions of power
and splendour as yet unspeakable may wait to
We notice again—where the inheritance is situated—“in the light.” There are several possible ways of connecting that clause with the preceding. But without discussing these, it may be enough to point out that the most satisfactory seems to be to regard it as specifying the region in which the inheritance lies. It lies in a realm where purity and knowledge and gladness dwell undimmed and unbounded by an envious ring of darkness. For these three are the triple rays into which, according to the Biblical use of the figure, that white beam may be resolved.
From this there follows that it is capable of being possessed only by saints. There is no merit or desert which makes men worthy of the inheritance, but there is a congruity, or correspondence between character and the inheritance. If we rightly understand what the essential elements of “heaven” are, we shall have no difficulty in seeing that the possession of it is utterly incompatible with anything but holiness. The vulgar ideas of what heaven is, hinder people from seeing how to get there. They dwell upon the mere outside of the thing, they take symbols for realities and accidents for essentials, and so it appears an arbitrary arrangement that a man must have faith in Christ to enter heaven. If it be a kingdom of light, then only souls that love the light can go thither, and until owls and bats rejoice in the sunshine, there will be no way of being fit for the inheritance which is light, but by ourselves being “light in the Lord.” Light itself is a torture to diseased eyes. Turn up any stone by the roadside and we see how unwelcome light is to crawling creatures that have lived in the darkness till they have come to love it.
Heaven is God and God is heaven. How can a soul possess God, and find its heaven in possessing Him? Certainly only by likeness to Him, and loving Him. The old question, “Who shall stand in the Holy Place?” is not answered in the gospel by reducing the conditions, or negativing the old reply. The common sense of every conscience answers, and Christianity answers, as the Psalmist does, “He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.”
One more step has to be taken to reach the full
meaning of these words, namely, the assertion that
So whoever turns to the love of God in Christ,
and yields in the inmost part of his being to the
power of His grace, is already “light in the Lord.”
The true home and affinities of his real self are in
the kingdom of the light, and he is ready for his
part in the inheritance, either here or yonder. There
is no breach of the great law, that character makes
fitness for heaven—might we not say that character
makes heaven?—for the very roots of character lie
in disposition and desire, rather than in action. Nor
is there in this principle anything inconsistent with
the need for continual growth in congruity of nature
with that land of light. The light within, if it be
truly there, will, however slowly, spread, as surely
as the grey of twilight brightens to the blaze of
noonday. The heart will be more and more filled
with it, and the darkness driven back more and more
to brood in remote corners, and at last will vanish
utterly. True fitness will become more and more
fit. We shall grow more and more capable of God.
The measure of our capacity is the measure of our
possession, and the measure in which we have
become light, is the measure of our capacity for the
light. The land was parted among the tribes of
Israel according to their strength; some had a wider,
some a narrower strip of territory. So, as there are
differences in Christian character here, there will be
differences in Christian participation in the inheritance
But, thank God, we are “fit for the inheritance,” if we have ever so humbly and poorly trusted ourselves to Jesus Christ and received His renewing life into our spirits. Character alone fits for heaven. But character may be in germ or in fruit. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” Do we trust ourselves to Him? Are we trying, with His help, to live as children of the light? Then we need not droop or despair by reason of evil that may still haunt our lives. Let us give it no quarter, for it diminishes our fitness for the full possession of God; but let it not cause our tongue to falter in “giving thanks to the Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”
II. The second ground of thankfulness is, the change of king and country. God “delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” These two clauses embrace the negative and positive sides of the same act which is referred to in the former ground of thankfulness, only stated now in reference to our allegiance and citizenship in the present rather than in the future. In the “deliverance” there maybe a reference to God’s bringing Israel out of Egypt, suggested by the previous mention of the inheritance, while the “translation” into the other kingdom may be an illustration drawn from the well known practice of ancient warfare, the deportation of large bodies of natives from conquered kingdoms to some other part of the conqueror’s realm.
We notice then the two kingdoms and their kings.
What a wonderful contrast the other kingdom and
its King present! “The kingdom of”—not “the
light,” as we are prepared to hear, in order to complete
the antithesis, but—“the Son of His love,” who
is the light. The Son who is the object of His love,
on whom it all and ever rests, as on none besides.
He has a kingdom in existence now, and not merely
hoped for, and to be set up at some future time.
Wherever men lovingly obey Christ, there is His
kingdom. The subjects make the kingdom, and we
may to-day belong to it, and be free from all other
dominion because we bow to His. There then sit
the two kings, like the two in the old story, “either
of them on his throne, clothed in his robes, at the
entering in of the gate of the city.” Darkness and
Light, the ebon throne and the white throne, surrounded
each by their ministers; there Sorrow and
We notice the transference of subjects. The sculptures
on Assyrian monuments explain this metaphor
for us. A great conqueror has come, and speaks to us
as Sennacherib did to the Jews (
If we listen to His voice, He will lead away a long string of willing captives and plant them, not as pining exiles, but as happy naturalized citizens, in the kingdom which the Father has appointed for “the Son of His love.”
That transference is effected on the instant of
our recognising the love of God in Jesus Christ, and
yielding up the heart to Him. We too often speak
as if the “entrance ministered at last to” a believing
soul “into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour,”
were its first entrance therein, and forget that we
enter it as soon as we yield to the drawings of Christ’s
love and take service under the king. The change
then is greater than at death. When we die, we
shall change provinces, and go from an outlying
colony to the mother city and seat of empire, but we
shall not change kingdoms. We shall be under the
same government, only then we shall be nearer the
King and more loyal to Him. That change of king
is the real fitness for heaven. We know little of
III. The heart and centre of all occasions for thankfulness is the Redemption which we receive in Christ.
“In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.” The Authorized Version reads “redemption through His blood,” but these words are not found in the best manuscripts, and are regarded by the principal modern editors as having been inserted from the parallel place in Ephesians (i. 7), where they are genuine. The very heart then of the blessings which God has bestowed, is “redemption,” which consists primarily, though not wholly, in “forgiveness of sins,” and is received by us in “the Son of His love.”
“Redemption,” in its simplest meaning, is the act
of delivering a slave from captivity by the payment
of ransom. So that it contains in its application to
the effect of Christ’s death, substantially the same
The essential and first element in this redemption is “the forgiveness of sins.” Possibly some misconception of the nature of redemption may have been associated with the other errors which threatened the Colossian Church, and thus Paul may have been led to this emphatic declaration of its contents. Forgiveness, and not some mystic deliverance by initiation or otherwise from the captivity of flesh and matter, is redemption. There is more than forgiveness in it, but forgiveness lies on the threshold; and that not only the removal of legal penalties inflicted by a specific act, but the forgiveness of a father. A sovereign pardons when he remits the sentence which law has pronounced. A father forgives when the free flow of his love is unhindered by his child’s fault, and he may forgive and punish at the same moment. The truest “penalty” of sin is that death which consists in separation from God; and the conceptions of judicial pardon and fatherly forgiveness unite when we think of the “remission of sins” as being the removal of that separation, and the deliverance of heart and conscience from the burden of guilt and of a father’s wrath.
Such forgiveness leads to that full deliverance from
the power of darkness, which is the completion of
redemption. There is deep meaning in the fact that
the word here used for “forgiveness,” means literally,
“sending away.” Pardon has a mighty power to
banish sin, not only as guilt, but as habit. The
waters of the gulf stream bear the warmth of the
tropics to the icy north, and lave the foot of the
But we must not overlook the significant words in which the condition of possessing this redemption is stated: “in Whom.” There must be a real living union with Christ, by which we are truly “in Him” in order to our possession of redemption. “Redemption through His blood” is not the whole message of the Gospel; it has to be completed by “In Whom we have redemption through His blood.” That real living union is effected by our faith, and when we are thus “in Him,” our wills, hearts, spirits joined to Him, then, and only then are we borne away from “the kingdom of the darkness” and partake of redemption. We cannot get His gifts without Himself.
We observe, in conclusion, how redemption
appears here as a present and growing possession.
There is emphasis on “we have.” The Colossian
Christians had by one definite act in the past been
fitted for a share in the inheritance, and by the same
act had been transferred to the kingdom of Christ.
Already they possess the inheritance, and are in the
kingdom, although both are to be more gloriously
manifested in the future. Here, however, Paul contemplates
rather the reception, moment by moment,
of redemption. We might almost read “we are
having,” for the present tense seems used on purpose
to convey the idea of a continual communication
from Him to Whom we are to be united by faith.
Daily we may draw what we daily need—daily
And so let us lay to heart humbly these two lessons; that all our Christianity must begin with forgiveness, and that, however far advanced we may be in the Divine life, we never get beyond the need for a continual bestowal upon us of God’s pardoning mercy.
Many of us, like some of these Colossians, are ready to call ourselves in some sense followers of Christ. The speculative side of Christian truth may have attractions for some of us, its lofty morality for others. Some of us may be mainly drawn to it by its comforts for the weary; some may be looking to it chiefly in hope of a future heaven. But whatever we are, and however we may be disposed to Christ and His Gospel, here is a plain message for us; we must begin by going to Him for pardon. It is not enough for any of us to find in Him “wisdom,” or even “righteousness,” for we need “redemption” which is “forgiveness,” and unless He is to us forgiveness, He will not be either righteousness or wisdom.
We can climb a ladder that reaches to heaven,
“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things have been created through Him and unto Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.”—Col. i. 15–18 (Rev. Ver.).
These teachers in Colossæ seem to have held that
all matter was evil and the seat of sin; that therefore
the material creation could not have come directly
from a good God, but was in a certain sense opposed
to Him, or, at all events, was separated from Him
by a great gulf. The void space was bridged by a
chain of beings, half abstractions and half persons,
gradually becoming more and more material. The
lowest of them had created the material universe and
Some such opinions must be presupposed in order to give point and force to these great verses in which Paul opposes the solid truth to these dreams, and instead of a crowd of Powers and angelic Beings, in whom the effulgence of Deity was gradually darkened, and the spirit became more and more thickened into matter, lifts high and clear against that background of fable, the solitary figure of the one Christ. He fills all the space between God and man. There is no need for a crowd of shadowy beings to link heaven with earth. Jesus Christ lays His hand upon both. He is the head and source of creation; He is the head and fountain of life to His Church. Therefore He is first in all things, to be listened to, loved and worshipped by men. As when the full moon rises, so when Christ appears, all the lesser stars with which Alexandrian and Eastern speculation had peopled the abysses of the sky are lost in the mellow radiance, and instead of a crowd of flickering ineffectual lights there is one perfect orb, “and heaven is overflowed.” “We see no creature any more save Jesus only.”
We have outgrown the special forms of error which afflicted the Church at Colossæ, but the truths which are here set over against them are eternal, and are needed to-day in our conflicts of opinion as much as then. There are here three grand conceptions of Christ’s relations. We have Christ and God, Christ and Creation, Christ and the Church, and, built upon all these, the triumphant proclamation of His supremacy over all creatures in all respects.
I. We have the relation of Christ to God set forth
Apparently Paul is here using for his own purposes language which was familiar on the lips of his antagonists. We know that Alexandrian Judaism had much to say about the “Word,” and spoke of it as the Image of God: and probably some such teaching had found its way to Colossæ. An “image” is a likeness or representation, as of a king’s head on a coin, or of a face reflected in a mirror. Here it is that which makes the invisible visible. The God who dwells in the thick darkness, remote from sense and above thought, has come forth and made Himself known to man, even in a very real way has come within the reach of man’s senses, in the manhood of Jesus Christ. Where then is there a place for the shadowy abstractions and emanations with which some would bind together God and man?
The first thought involved in this statement is, that the Divine Being in Himself is inconceivable and unapproachable. “No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him.” Not only is He beyond the reach of sense, but above the apprehension of the understanding. Direct and immediate knowledge of Him is impossible. There may be, there is, written on every human spirit a dim consciousness of His presence, but that is not knowledge. Creatural limitations prevent it, and man’s sin prevents it. He is “the King invisible,” because He is the “Father of Lights” dwelling in “a glorious privacy of light,” which is to us darkness because there is in it “no darkness at all.”
Then, the next truth included here is, that
Christ is the perfect manifestation and image of
In these brief words on so mighty a matter, I
must run the risk of appearing to deal in unsupported
statements. My business is not so much to try to
prove Paul’s words as to explain them, and then to
And that is what we each need. “My soul crieth
out for God, for the living God.” And never will
that orphaned cry be answered, but in the possession
of Christ, in Whom we possess the Father also. No
dead abstractions—no reign of law—still less the
dreary proclamation, “Behold we know not anything,”
least of all, the pottage of material good, will hush
that bitter wail that goes up unconsciously from
many an Esau’s heart—“My father, my father!”
Men will find Him in Christ. They will find Him
nowhere else. It seems to me that the only refuge
for this generation from atheism—if it is still allowable
to use that unfashionable word—is the acceptance of
Christ as the revealer of God. On any other terms
II. We have the relation of Christ to Creation set forth in that great name, “the firstborn of all creation,” and further elucidated by a magnificent series of statements which proclaim Him to be agent or medium, and aim or goal of creation, prior to it in time and dignity, and its present upholder and bond of unity.
“The firstborn of all creation.” At first sight, this name seems to include Him in the great family of creatures as the eldest, and clearly to treat Him as one of them, just because He is declared to be in some sense the first of them. That meaning has been attached to the words; but it is shown not to be their intention by the language of the next verse, which is added to prove and explain the title. It distinctly alleges that Christ was “before” all creation, and that He is the agent of all creation. To insist that the words must be explained so as to include Him in “creation” would be to go right in the teeth of the Apostle’s own justification and explanation of them. So that the true meaning is that He is the firstborn, in comparison with, or in reference to, all creation. Such an understanding of the force of the expression is perfectly allowable grammatically, and is necessary unless this verse is to be put in violent contradiction to the next. The same construction is found in Milton’s
where “of” distinctly means “in comparison with,” and not “belonging to.”
The title implies priority in existence, and supremacy. It substantially means the same thing as the other title of “the only begotten Son,” only that the latter brings into prominence the relation of the Son to the Father, while the former lays stress on His relation to Creation. Further it must be noted, that this name applies to the Eternal Word and not to the incarnation of that Word, or to put it in another form, the divinity and not the humanity of the Lord Jesus is in the Apostle’s view. Such is the briefest outline of the meaning of this great name.
A series of clauses follow, stating more fully the relation of the firstborn Son to Creation, and so confirming and explaining the title.
The whole universe is, as it were, set in one class,
and He alone over against it. No language could
be more emphatically all-comprehensive. Four times
in one sentence we have “all things”—the whole
universe—repeated, and traced to Him as Creator
and Lord. “In the heavens and the earth” is
quoted from Genesis, and is intended here, as there,
to be an exhaustive enumeration of the creation
according to place. “Things visible or invisible”
again includes the whole under a new principle of
division—there are visible things in heaven, as sun
and stars, there may be invisible on earth, but
wherever and of whatever sort they are, He made
them. “Whether thrones or dominions, or principalities
or powers,” an enumeration evidently alluding
to the dreamy speculations about an angelic hierarchy
filling the space between the far off God, and men
immersed in matter. There is a tone of contemptuous
The language employed brings into strong relief
the manifold variety of relations which the Son
sustains to the universe, by the variety of the
prepositions used in the sentence. The whole sum
of created things (for the Greek means not only
“all things,” but “all things considered as a unity”)
was in the original act, created in Him, through
Him, and unto Him. The first of these words, “in
Him,” regards Him as the creative centre, as it
were, or element in which as in a storehouse or
reservoir all creative force resided, and was in a
definite act put forth. The thought may be parallel
with that in the prologue to John’s Gospel, “In Him
was life.” The Word stands to the universe as the
incarnate Christ does to the Church; and as all
spiritual life is in Him, and union to Him is its
condition, so all physical takes its origin within
the depths of His Divine nature. The error of the
Gnostics was to put the act of creation and the
The possible dangers of that profound truth, which has always been more in harmony with Eastern than with Western modes of thought, are averted by the next preposition used, “all things have been created through Him.” That presupposes the full, clear demarcation between creature and creator, and so on the one hand extricates the person of the Firstborn of all creation from all risk of being confounded with the universe, while on the other it emphasizes the thought that He is the medium of the Divine energy, and so brings into clear relief His relation to the inconceivable Divine nature. He is the image of the invisible God, and accordingly, through Him have all things been created. The same connection of ideas is found in the parallel passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the words, “through Whom also He made the worlds,” stand in immediate connection with “being the effulgence of His glory.”
But there remains yet another relation between
Him and the act of creation. “For Him” they
have been made. All things come from and tend
towards Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the ending. All things spring
from His will, draw their being from that fountain,
and return thither again. These relations which
But further, His existence before the whole creation is repeated, with a force in both the words, “He is,” which can scarcely be given in English. The former is emphatic—He Himself—and the latter emphasizes not only pre-existence, but absolute existence. “He was before all things” would not have said so much as “He is before all things.” We are reminded of His own words, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
“In Him all things consist” or hold together. He is the element in which takes place and by which is caused that continued creation which is the preservation of the universe, as He is the element in which the original creative act took place of old. All things came into being and form an ordered unity in Him. He links all creatures and forces into a co-operant whole, reconciling their antagonisms, drawing all their currents into one great tidal wave, melting all their notes into music which God can hear, however discordant it may sometimes sound to us. He is “the bond of perfectness,” the key-stone of the arch, the centre of the wheel.
Such, then, in merest outline is the Apostle’s
teaching about the Eternal Word and the Universe.
What sweetness and what reverential awe such
thoughts should cast around the outer world and the
providences of life! How near they should bring
Jesus Christ to us! What a wonderful thought
that is, that the whole course of human affairs and
of natural processes is directed by Him who died
We need these lessons to-day, when many teachers are trying hard to drive all that is spiritual and Divine out of creation and history, and to set up a merciless law as the only God. Nature is terrible and stern sometimes, and the course of events can inflict crushing blows; but we have not the added horror of thinking both to be controlled by no will. Christ is King in either region, and with our elder brother for the ruler of the land, we shall not lack corn in our sacks, nor a Goshen to dwell in. We need not people the void, as these old heretics did, with imaginary forms, nor with impersonal forces and laws—nor need we, as so many are doing to-day, wander through its many mansions as through a deserted house, finding nowhere a Person who welcomes us; for everywhere we may behold our Saviour, and out of every storm and every solitude hear His voice across the darkness saying, “It is I; be not afraid.”
III. The last of the relations set forth in this great section is that between Christ and His Church. “He is the head of the body, the Church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.”
A parallel is plainly intended to be drawn between
Christ’s relation to the material creation and to the
Church, the spiritual creation. As the Word of
God before incarnation is to the universe, so is the
incarnate Christ to the Church. As in the former,
He is prior in time and superior in dignity, so is He
in the latter. As in the universe He is source and
Briefly, then, we have here first, Christ the head, and the Church His body. In the lower realm the Eternal Word was the power which held all things together, and similar but higher in fashion is the relation between Him and the whole multitude of believing souls. Popular physiology regards the head as the seat of life. So the fundamental idea in the familiar metaphor, when applied to our Lord is that of the source of the mysterious spiritual life which flows from Him into all the members, and is sight in the eye, strength in the arm, swiftness in the foot, colour in the cheek, being richly various in its manifestations but one in its nature, and all His. The same mysterious derivation of life from Him is taught in His own metaphor of the Vine, in which every branch, however far away from the root, lives by the common life circulating through all, which clings in the tendrils, and reddens in the clusters, and is not theirs though it be in them.
That thought of the source of life leads necessarily
to the other, that He is the centre of unity, by Whom
the “many members” become “one body,” and the
maze of branches one vine. The “head,” too,
naturally comes to be the symbol for authority—and
Christ is further the beginning to the Church. In the natural world He was before all, and source of all. The same double idea is contained in this name, “the Beginning.” It does not merely mean the first member of a series who begins it, as the first link in a chain does, but it means the power which causes the series to begin. The root is the beginning of the flowers which blow in succession through the plant’s flowering time, though we may also call the first flower of the number the beginning. But Christ is root; not merely the first flower, though He is also that.
He is head and beginning to His Church by means of His resurrection. He is the firstborn from the dead, and His communication of spiritual life to His Church requires the historical fact of His resurrection as its basis, for a dead Christ could not be the source of life; and that resurrection completes the manifestation of the incarnate Word, by our faith in which, His spiritual life flows into our spirits. Unless He has risen from the dead, all His claims to be anything else than a wise teacher and fair character crumble into nothing, and to think of Him as a source of life is impossible.
He is the beginning through His resurrection, too,
in regard of His raising us from the dead. He is the
first-fruits of them that slept, and bears the promise
of a mighty harvest. He has risen from the dead,
and therein we have not only the one demonstration
for the world that there is a life after death, but the
irrefragable assurance to the Church that because He
So the Apostle concludes that in all things He is first—and all things are, that He may be first. Whether in nature or in grace, that pre-eminence is absolute and supreme. The end of all the majesty of creation and of all the wonders of grace is that His solitary figure may stand clearly out as centre and lord of the universe, and His name be lifted high over all.
So the question of questions for us all is, What think ye of Christ? Our thoughts now have necessarily been turned to subjects which may have seemed abstract and remote—but these truths which we have been trying to make clear and to present in their connection, are not the mere terms or propositions of a half mystical theology far away from our daily life, but bear most gravely and directly on our deepest interests. I would fain press on every conscience the sharp-pointed appeal—What is this Christ to us? Is He any thing to us but a name? Do our hearts leap up with a joyful Amen when we read these great words of this text? Are we ready to crown Him Lord of all? Is He our head, to fill us with vitality, to inspire and to command? Is He the goal and the end of our individual life? Can we each say—I live by Him, in Him, and for Him?
Happy are we, if we give to Christ the pre-eminence, and if our hearts set “Him first, Him last, Him midst and without end.”
“For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death.”—Col. i. 19–22 (Rev. Ver.).
I. As before, we have Christ in relation to God. “It was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell.”
Now, we may well suppose from the use of the word “fulness” here, which we know to have been a very important term in later full-blown Gnostic speculations, that there is a reference to some of the heretical teachers’ expressions, but such a supposition is not needed either to explain the meaning, or to account for the use of the word.
“The fulness”—what fulness? I think, although it has been disputed, that the language of the next chapter (ii. 9), where we read “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” should settle that.
It seems most improbable that with two out of
three significant words the same, the ellipse should
be supplied by anything but the third. The meaning
then will be—the whole abundance, or totality
of Divine powers and attributes. That is, to put it
in homelier words, that all that Divine nature in all
its sweet greatness, in all its infinite wealth of tenderness
and power and wisdom, is embodied in Jesus
Christ. We have no need to look to heavens above
or to earth beneath for fragmentary revelations of
God’s character. We have no need to draw doubtful
inferences as to what God is from the questionable
The word rendered “dwell” implies a permanent abode, and may have been chosen in order to oppose a view which we know to have prevailed later, and may suspect to have been beginning to appear thus early, namely, that the union of the Divine and the human in the person of Christ was but temporary. At all events, emphasis is placed here on the opposite truth that that indwelling does not end with the earthly life of Jesus, and is not like the shadowy and transient incarnations of Eastern mythology or speculation—a mere assumption of a fleshly nature for a moment, which is dropped from the re-ascending Deity, but that, for evermore, manhood is wedded to divinity in the perpetual humanity of Jesus Christ.
And this indwelling is the result of the Father’s
good pleasure. Adopting the supplement in the
Authorized and Revised Versions, we might read
“the Father pleased”—but without making that
change, the force of the words remains the same.
The Incarnation and whole work of Christ are
referred to their deepest ground in the will of the
II. Again, we have here, as before Christ and the Universe, of which He is not only Maker, Sustainer, and Lord, but through “the blood of His cross” reconciles “all things unto Himself.”
Probably these same false teachers had dreams
of reconciling agents among the crowd of shadowy
phantoms with which they peopled the void. Paul
lifts up in opposition to all these the one Sovereign
It is important for the understanding of these great words to observe their distinct reference to the former clauses which dealt with our Lord’s relation to the universe as Creator. The same words are used in order to make the parallelism as close as may be, “Through Him” was creation; “through Him” is reconciliation. “All things”—or as the Greek would rather suggest, “the universe”—all things considered as an aggregate—were made and sustained through Him and subordinated to Him; the same “all things” are reconciled. A significant change in the order of naming the elements of which these are composed is noticeable. When creation is spoken of, the order is “in the heavens and upon the earth”—the order of creation; but when reconciliation is the theme, the order is reversed, and we read “things upon the earth and things in the heavens”—those coming first which stand nearest to the reconciling cross, and are first to feel the power which streams from it.
This obvious intentional correspondence between
these two paragraphs shows us that whatever be the
nature of the “reconciliation” spoken of here, it is
supposed to affect not only rational and responsible
creatures who alone in the full sense of the word
can be reconciled, as they only in the full sense of
the word can be enemies, but to extend to things,
and to send its influence through the universe.
The width of the reconciliation is the same as that
of the creation; they are conterminous. That
being the case, “reconciliation” here must have a
different shade of meaning when applied to the sum
If this be so, then these words refer mainly to
the restitution of the material universe to its primal
obedience, and represent Christ the Creator removing
by His cross the shadow which has passed over
nature by reason of sin. It has been well said,
“How far this restoration of universal nature may be
subjective, as involved in the changed perceptions
of man thus brought into harmony with God, and how far it may
have an objective and independent existence, it were vain to
speculate.” Bp. Lightfoot, On Coloss., p. 226.
Scripture seems to teach that man’s sin has made the physical world “subject to vanity”; for, although much of what it says on this matter is unquestionably metaphor only, portraying the Messianic blessings in poetical language never meant for dogmatic truth, and although unquestionably physical death reigned among animals, and storms and catastrophes swept over the earth long before man or sin were here, still—seeing that man by his sin has compelled dead matter to serve his lusts and to be his instrument in acts of rebellion against God, making “a league with the stones of the field” against his and their Master—seeing that he has used earth to hide heaven and to shut himself out from its glories, and so has made it an unwilling antagonist to God and temptress to evil—seeing that he has actually polluted the beauty of the world and has stained many a lovely scene with his sin, making its rivers run red with blood—seeing that he has laid unnumbered woes on the living creatures—we may feel that there is more than poetry in the affirmation that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together,” and may hear a deep truth, the extent of which we cannot measure, in Milton’s majestic lines—
Here we have held forth in words, the extent of
which we can measure as little, the counter-hope that
wherever and however any such effect has come to
pass on the material universe, it shall be done away
by the reconciling power of the blood shed on the
It may be that the reference to things in heaven
is like the similar reference in the previous verses,
occasioned by some dreams of the heretical teachers.
He may merely mean to say: You speak much
about heavenly things, and have filled the whole
space between God’s throne and man’s earth with
creatures thick as the motes in the sunbeam. I
know nothing about them; but this I know, that, if
they are, Christ made them, and that if among them
there be antagonism to God, it can be overcome by the
cross. As to reconciliation proper,—in the heavens,
meaning by that, among spiritual beings who dwell
in that realm, it is clear there can be no question of
it. There is no enmity among the angels of heaven,
and no place for return to union with God among
their untroubled bands, who “hearken to the voice
of His word.” But still if the hypothetical form of
the clause and the use of the neuter gender permit
any reference to intelligent beings in the heavens, we
On no subject is it more necessary to remember the limitations of our knowledge than on this great theme. On none is confident assertion more out of place. The general truth taught is clear, but the specific applications of it to the various regions of the universe is very doubtful. We have no source of knowledge on that subject but the words of Scripture, and we have no means of verifying or checking the conclusions we may draw from them. We are bound, therefore, if we go beyond the general principle, to remember that it is one thing, and our reckoning up of what it includes is quite another. Our inferences have not the certainty of God’s word. It comes to us with “Verily, verily.” We have no right to venture on more than Perhaps.
Especially is this the case when we have but one or two texts to build on, and these most general in their language. And still more, when we find other words of Scripture which seem hard to reconcile with them, if pressed to their utmost meaning. In such a case our wisdom is to recognise that God has not been pleased to give us the means of constructing a dogma on the subject, and rather to seek to learn the lessons taught by the obscurity that remains than rashly and confidently to proclaim our inferences from half of our materials as if they were the very heart of the gospel.
Sublime and great beyond all our dreams, we
III. Christ, and His Reconciling Work in the
Church. We have still the parallel kept up between
the reconciling and the creative work of Christ.
As in verse 18 He was represented as the giver of
life to the Church, in a higher fashion than to the
universe, so, and probably with a similar heightening
Now observe the solemn emphasis of the description of the condition of men before that reconciling work has told upon their hearts. They are “alienated”—not “aliens,” as if that were their original condition, but “alienated,” as having become so. The same thought that man’s sin and separation from God is a fall, something abnormal and superinduced on humanity, which is implied in “reconciliation” or restoration to an original concord, is implied in this expression. “And enemies in your mind”—the seat of the enmity is in that inner man which thinks, reflects, and wills, and its sphere of manifestation is “in evil works” which are religiously acts of hostility to God because morally they are bad. We should not read “by wicked works,” as the Authorized Version does, for the evil deeds have not made them enemies, but the enmity has originated the evil deeds, and is witnessed to by them.
That is a severe indictment, a plain, rough, and as it is thought now-a-days, a far too harsh description of human nature. Our forefathers no doubt were tempted to paint the “depravity of human nature” in very black colours—but I am very sure that we are tempted just in the opposite direction. It sounds too harsh and rude to press home the old-fashioned truth on cultured, respectable ladies and gentlemen. The charge is not that of conscious, active hostility, but of practical want of affection, as manifested by habitual disobedience or inattention to God’s wishes, and by indifference and separation from Him in heart and mind.
And are these not the habitual temper of multitudes? The signs of love are joy in the company of the beloved, sweet memories and longings if parted, eager fulfilment of their lightest wish, a quick response to the most slender association recalling them to our thoughts. Have we these signs of love to God? If not, it is time to consider what temper of heart and mind towards the most loving of Hearts and the most unwearied of Givers, is indicated by the facts that we scarcely ever think of Him, that we have no delight in His felt presence, that most of our actions have no reference whatever to Him and would be done just the same if there were no God at all. Surely such a condition is liker hostility than love.
Further, here, as uniformly, God Himself is the Reconciler. “He”—that is, God, not Christ, “has reconciled us.” Some, indeed, read “ye have been reconciled,” but the preponderance of authority is in favour of the text as it stands, which yields a sense accordant with the usual mode of representation. It is we who are reconciled. It is God who reconciles. It is we who are enemies. The Divine patience loves on through all our enmity, and though perfect love meeting human sin must become wrath, which is consistent with love, it never becomes hatred, which is love’s opposite.
Observe finally the great means of reconciliation:
“In the body of His flesh”—that is, of course,
Christ’s flesh—God has reconciled us. Why does
the Apostle use this apparently needless exuberance
of language—“the body of His flesh”? It may
have been in order to correct some erroneous
tendencies towards a doctrine which we know was
But that is not all. The Incarnation is not the
whole gospel. The body of His flesh becomes the
means of our reconciliation “through death.” Christ’s
death has so met the requirements of the Divine
law that the Divine love can come freely forth, and
embrace and forgive sinful men. That fact is the
very centre of the revelation of God in Christ, the
very secret of His power. He has died. Voluntarily
and of His own love, as well as in obedience
to the Father’s loving will, He has borne the consequences
of the sin which He had never shared, in
that life of sorrow and sympathy, in that separation
from God which is sin’s deepest penalty, and of which
the solemn witness comes to us in the cry that rent
For us, that wondrous love—mightier than death, and not to be quenched by many waters—is the one power that can change our alienation to glad friendship, and melt the frost and hard-ribbed ice of indifference and dread into love. That, and that alone, is the solvent for stubborn wills, the magnet for distant hearts. The cross of Christ is the key-stone of the universe and the conqueror of all enmity.
If religion is to have sovereign power in our lives, it must be the religion built upon faith in the Incarnate Son of God, who reconciles the world to God upon His cross. That is the only faith which makes men love God and binds them to Him with bands which cannot be broken. Other types of Christianity are but tepid; and lukewarm water is an abomination. The one thing that makes us ground our rebellious arms and say, Lord, I surrender, Thou hast conquered, is to see in Christ’s life the perfect image of God, and in His death the all-sufficient sacrifice for sin.
What does it avail for us that the far-reaching power of Christ’s cross shoots out magnetic forces to the uttermost verge of the heavens, and binds the whole universe by silken blood-red cords to God, if it does not bind me to Him in love and longing? What does it avail that God is in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, if I am unconscious of the enmity, and careless of the friendship? Each man has to ask himself, Am I reconciled to God? Has the sight of His great love on the cross won me, body and soul, to His love and service? Have I flung away self-will, pride and enmity, and yielded myself a glad captive to the loving Christ who died? His cross draws us, His love beckons us. God pleads with all hearts. He who has made peace by so costly means as the sacrifice of His Son, condescends to implore the rebels to come into amity with Him, and “prays us with much entreaty to receive the gift.” God beseeches us to be reconciled to Himself.
“To present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him: if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a minister.”—Col. i. 22, 23 (Rev. Ver.).
And now he shows us here, in the first words of
our text, the purpose of this whole manifestation of
God in Christ to be the presenting of men perfect
in purity, before the perfect judgment of God. He
then appends the condition on which the accomplishment
of this ultimate purpose in each man depends—namely,
the man’s continuance in the faith and
hope of the Gospel. That leads him to gather up,
in a series of clauses characterizing the Gospel,
certain aspects of it which constitute subordinate
I. We have then, first, to consider the ultimate purpose of God in the work of Christ.
“To present you holy and without blemish and
unreproveable before Him.” It may be a question
whether these words should be connected with “now
hath He reconciled,” or whether we are to go farther
back in the long paragraph, and make them
dependent on “it was the good pleasure of the
Father.” The former seems the more natural—namely,
to see here a statement of the great end
contemplated in our reconciliation to God; which,
indeed, whatever may be the grammatical construction
preferred here, is also, of course, the
ultimate object of the Father’s good pleasure. In
the word “present” there is possibly a sacrificial
allusion, as there is unquestionably in its use in
There is, however, no need to suppose any
metaphor at all, nor any allusion beyond the
general meaning of the word—to set in the presence
of. The sacrificial reference is incongruous here,
and the bridal one not indicated by anything in the
context, as it is in the instances just quoted. One
thing is clear, that the reference is to a future
presentation in the day of judgment, as in another
place, where Paul says, “He ... shall raise up us
also ... and shall present us” (
Such, then, is the grand conception of the ultimate
purpose and issue of Christ’s reconciling work.
All the lines of thought in the preceding section lead
up to and converge in this peak. The meaning of
God in creation and redemption cannot be fully
Nothing short of this complete purity and blamelessness
satisfies God’s heart. We may travel back
to the beginning of this section, and connect its first
words with these, “It pleased the Father, to present
us holy and spotless and blameless.” It delights
Him thus to effect the purifying of sinful souls, and
He is glad when He sees Himself surrounded by
spirits thus echoing His will and reflecting His light.
This is what he longs for. This is what He aims
at in all His working—to make good and pure men.
The moral interest is uppermost in His heart and in
His doings. The physical universe is but the scaffolding
by which the true house of God may be built.
The work of Christ is the means to that end, and
Nor will anything short of this complete purity exhaust the power of the Reconciling Christ. His work is like an unfinished column, or Giotto’s Campanile, all shining with marbles and alabasters and set about with fair figures, but waiting for centuries for the glittering apex to gather its glories into a heaven-piercing point. His cross and passion reach no adequate result, short of the perfecting of saints, nor was it worth Christ’s while to die for any less end. His cross and passion have evidently power to effect this perfect purity, and cannot be supposed to have done all that is in them to do, until they have done that with every Christian.
We ought then to keep very clear before us this
as the crowning object of Christianity: not to make
men happy, except as a consequence of holiness; not
to deliver from penalty, except as a means to holiness;
but to make them holy, and being holy, to
set them close by the throne of God. No man
understands the scope of Christianity, or judges it
fairly, who does not give full weight to that as its
own statement of its purpose. The more distinctly
we, as Christians, keep that purpose prominent in
our thoughts, the more shall we have our efforts
stimulated and guided, and our hopes fed, even when
we are saddened by a sense of failure. We have a
power working in us which can make us white as
the angels, pure as our Lord is pure. If it, being
able to produce perfect results, has produced only
Nothing less than our absolute purity will satisfy God about us. Nothing less should satisfy ourselves. The only worthy end of Christ’s work for us is to present us holy, in complete consecration, and without blemish, in perfect homogeneousness and uniformity of white purity and unreproveable in manifest innocence in His sight. If we call ourselves Christians let us make it our life’s business to see that that end is being accomplished in us in some tolerable and growing measure.
II. We have next set forth the conditions on which the accomplishment of that purpose depends: “If so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Gospel.”
The condition is, generally speaking, a stedfast
adherence to the Gospel which the Colossians had
received. “If ye continue in the faith,” means, I suppose,
if ye continue to live in the exercise of your faith.
The word here has its ordinary subjective sense, expressing
the act of the believing man, and there is no need
to suppose that it has the later ecclesiastical objective
sense, expressing the believer’s creed, a meaning in
which it may be questioned whether the word is ever
One or two plain lessons may be drawn from
these words. There is an “if,” then. However
great the powers of Christ and of His work, however
deep the desire and fixed the purpose of God,
no fulfilment of these is possible except on condition
of our habitual exercise of faith. The Gospel does
not work on men by magic. Mind, heart and will
must be exercised on Christ, or all His power to
purify and bless will be of no avail to us. We shall
be like Gideon’s fleece, dry when the dew is falling
thick, unless we are continually putting forth living
faith. That attracts the blessing and fits the soul
to receive it. There is nothing mystical about the
matter. Common sense tells us, that if a man never
thinks about any truth, that truth will do him no
good in any way. If it does not find its road into
his heart through his mind, and thence into his life,
And it must be present faith which leads to
present results. We cannot make an arrangement
by which we exercise faith wholesale once for all,
and secure a delivery of its blessings in small
quantities for a while after, as a buyer may do with
goods. The moment’s act of faith will bring the
moment’s blessings; but to-morrow will have to get
its own grace by its own faith. We cannot lay up
a stock for the future. There must be present
drinking for present thirst; we cannot lay in a
reserve of the water of life, as a camel can drink at
a draught enough for a long desert march. The
Rock follows us all through the wilderness, but we
Then again, if we and our lives are to be firm and stable, we must have a foundation outside of ourselves on which to rest. That thought is involved in the word “grounded” or “founded.” It is possible that this metaphor of the foundation is carried on into the next clause, in which case “the hope of the Gospel” would be the foundation. Strange to make a solid foundation out of so unsubstantial a thing as “hope!” That would be indeed to build a castle on the air, a palace on a soap-bubble, would it not? Yes, it would, if this hope were not “the hope produced by the Gospel,” and therefore as solid as the ever-enduring Word of the Lord on which it is founded. But, more probably, the ordinary application of the figure is preserved here, and Christ is the foundation, the Rock, on which builded, our fleeting lives and our fickle selves may become rock-like too, and every impulsive and changeable Simon Bar Jonas rise to the mature stedfastness of a Peter, the pillar of the Church.
Translate that image of taking Christ for our
foundation into plain English, and what does it
And so “founded,” we shall, as Paul here beautifully
puts it, be “stedfast.” Without that foundation
to give stability and permanence, we never get down
to what abides, but pass our lives amidst fleeting
shadows, and are ourselves transient as they. The
mind whose thoughts about God and the unseen
world are not built on the personal revelation of God
in Christ will have no solid certainties which cannot
be shaken, but, at the best, opinions which cannot
have more fixedness than belongs to human thoughts
upon the great problem. If my love does not rest
on Christ, it will flicker and flutter, lighting now here
and now there, and even where it rests most secure
in human love, sure to have to take wing some day,
when Death with his woodman’s axe fells the tree
where it nestles. If my practical life is not built on
Him, the blows of circumstance will make it reel and
stagger. If we are not well joined to Jesus Christ,
we shall be driven by gusts of passion and storms
of trouble, or borne along on the surface of the slow
stream of all-changing time like thistle-down on the
water. If we are to be stable, it must be because
we are fastened to something outside of ourselves
And, says Paul, that Christ-derived stedfastness will make us able to resist influences that would move us away from the hope of the Gospel. That process which their stedfastness would enable the Colossians successfully to resist, is described by the language of the Apostle as continuous, and as one which acted on them from without. Intellectual dangers arose from false teachings. The ever acting tendencies of worldliness pressed upon them, and they needed to make a distinct effort to keep themselves from being overcome by these.
If we do not take care that imperceptible, steady
pressure of the all-surrounding worldliness, which
is continually acting on us, will push us right off the
foundation without our knowing that we have shifted
at all. If we do not look well after our moorings
we shall drift away down stream, and never
know that we are moving, so smooth is the motion,
till we wake up to see that everything round about
is changed. Many a man is unaware how completely
his Christian faith has gone till some crisis comes
when he needs it, and when he opens the jar there is
nothing. It has evaporated. When white ants eat
away all the inside of a piece of furniture, they leave
the outside shell apparently solid, and it stands till
some weight is laid upon it, and then goes down
with a crash. Many people loose their Christianity
in that fashion, by its being nibbled away in tiny
flakes by a multitude of secretly working little jaws,
The only way to keep firm hold of hope is to keep fast on the foundation. If we do not wish to slide imperceptibly away from Him who alone will make our lives stedfast and our hearts calm with the peacefulness of having found our All, we must continuously make an effort to tighten our grasp on Him, and to resist the subtle forces which, by silent pressure or by sudden blows, seek to get us off the one foundation.
III. Then lastly, we have a threefold motive for adherence to the Gospel.
The three clauses which close these verses seem to be appended as secondary and subordinate encouragements to stedfastness, which encouragements are drawn from certain characteristics of the Gospel. Of course, the main reason for a man’s sticking to the Gospel, or to anything else, is that it is true. And unless we are prepared to say that we believe it true, we have nothing to do with such subordinate motives for professing adherence to it, except to take care that they do not influence us. And that one sole reason is abundantly wrought out in this letter. But then, its truth being established, we may fairly bring in other subsidiary motives to reinforce this, seeing that there may be a certain coldness of belief which needs the warmth of such encouragements.
The first of these lies in the words, “the Gospel,
which ye heard.” That is to say, the Apostle would
have the Colossians, in the face of these heretical
teachers, remember the beginning of their Christian
life, and be consistent with that. They had heard it
To us the same appeal comes. This word has been sounding in our ears ever since childhood. It has done everything for some of us, something for all of us. Its truths have sometimes shone out for us like suns, in the dark, and brought us strength when nothing else could sustain us. If they are not truths, of course they will have to go. But they are not to be abandoned easily. They are interwoven with our very lives. To part with them is a resolution not to be lightly undertaken.
The argument of experience is of no avail to
convince others, but is valid for ourselves. A man
has a perfect right to say, “I have heard Him myself,
and I know that this is indeed the Christ, the
Saviour of the world.” A Christian may wisely
decline to enter on the consideration of many moot
questions which he may feel himself incompetent to
handle, and rest upon the fact that Christ has saved
his soul. The blind man beat the Pharisees in
logic when he sturdily took his stand on experience,
A second encouragement to stedfast adherence
to the Gospel lies in the fact that it “was preached
in all creation under heaven.” We need not be
pedantic about literal accuracy, and may allow that
the statement has a rhetorical colouring. But what
the Apostle means is, that the gospel had spread
so widely, through so many phases of civilisation,
and had proved its power by touching men so
unlike each other in mental furniture and habits,
that it had showed itself to be a word for the whole
race. It is the same thought as we have already
found in verse 6. His implied exhortation is, “Be
not moved away from what belongs to humanity
by teachings which can only belong to a class.”
All errors are transient in duration and limited in
area. One addresses itself to one class of men,
another to another. Each false, or exaggerated, or
partial representation of religious truth, is congenial
to some group with idiosyncrasies of temperament
or mind. Different tastes like different spiced
meats, but the gospel, “human nature’s daily food,”
is the bread of God that everybody can relish, and
which everybody must have for healthy life. What
only a certain class or the men of one generation
or of one stage of culture can find nourishment
in, cannot be meant for all men. But the great
message of God’s love in Jesus Christ commends
The last of these subsidiary encouragements to stedfastness lies in, “whereof I Paul was made a minister.” This is not merely an appeal to their affection for him, though that is perfectly legitimate. Holy words may be holier because dear lips have taught them to us, and even the truth of God may allowably have a firmer hold upon our hearts because of our love for some who have ministered it to us. It is a poor commentary on a preacher’s work if, after long service to a congregation, his words do not come with power given to them by old affection and confidence. The humblest teacher who has done his Master’s errand will have some to whom he can appeal as Paul did, and urge them to keep hold of the message which he has preached.
But there is more than that in the Apostle’s
mind. He was accustomed to quote the fact that
he, the persecutor, had been made the messenger of
Christ, as a living proof of the infinite mercy and
power of that ascended Lord, whom his eyes saw on
the road to Damascus. So here, he puts stress on
the fact that he became a minister of the gospel, as
being an “evidence of Christianity.” The history of
his conversion is one of the strongest proofs of the
resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. You
So the sum of this whole matter is—abide in Christ. Let us root and ground our lives and characters in Him, and then God’s inmost desire will be gratified in regard to us, and He will bring even us stainless and blameless into the blaze of His presence. There we shall all have to stand, and let that all-penetrating light search us through and through. How do we expect to be then “found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless”? There is but one way—to live in constant exercise of faith in Christ, and grip Him so close and sure that the world, the flesh and the devil cannot make us loosen our fingers. Then He will hold us up, and His great purpose, which brought Him to earth, and nailed Him to the cross, will be fulfilled in us, and at last, we shall lift up voices of wondering praise “to Him who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church; whereof I was made a minister according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward to fulfil the word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid from all ages and generations; but now hath it been manifested to His Saints, to Whom God was pleased 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.”—Col. i. 24–27 (Rev. Ver.).
I. We have the Apostle’s triumphant contemplation of his sufferings. “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church.”
The Revised Version, following the best authorities, omits the “who” with which the Authorized Version begins this verse, and marks a new sentence and paragraph, as is obviously right.
The very first word is significant: “Now I
Then come startling words, “I on my part fill up that which is lacking (a better rendering than ‘behind’) of the afflictions of Christ.” It is not surprising that many explanations of these words have tried to soften down their boldness; as, for instance, “afflictions borne for Christ,” or “imposed by Him,” or “like His.” But it seems very clear that the startling meaning is the plain meaning, and that “the sufferings of Christ” here, as everywhere else, are “the sufferings borne by Christ.”
Then at once the questions start up, Does Paul
mean to say that in any sense whatever the sufferings
which Christ endured have anything “lacking”
in them? or does he mean to say that a Christian
man’s sufferings, however they may benefit the
Church, can be put alongside of the Lord’s, and
taken to eke out the incompleteness of His? Surely
that cannot be! Did He not say on the cross,
“It is finished”? Surely that sacrifice needs no
supplement, and can receive none, but stands “the
one sacrifice for sins for ever”! Surely, His
sufferings are absolutely singular in nature and
effect, unique and all-sufficient and eternal. And
does this Apostle, the very heart of whose gospel
was that these were the life of the world, mean to
say that anything which he endures can be tacked
Distinctly not! To say so would be contradictory of the whole spirit and letter of the Apostle’s teaching. But there is no need to suppose that he means anything of the sort. There is an idea frequently presented in Scripture, which gives full meaning to the words, and is in full accordance with Pauline teaching; namely, that Christ truly participates in the sufferings of His people borne for Him. He suffers with them. The head feels the pangs of all the members; and every ache may be thought of as belonging, not only to the limb where it is located, but to the brain which is conscious of it. The pains and sorrows and troubles of His friends and followers to the end of time are one great whole. Each sorrow of each Christian heart is one drop more added to the contents of the measure which has to be filled to the brim, ere the purposes of the Father who leads through suffering to rest are accomplished; and all belong to Him. Whatsoever pain or trial is borne in fellowship with Him is felt and borne by Him. Community of sensation is established between Him and us. Our sorrows are transferred to Him. “In all our afflictions He is afflicted,” both by His mystical but most real oneness with us, and by His brother’s sympathy.
So for us all, and not for the Apostle only, the
whole aspect of our sorrows may be changed, and all
poor struggling souls in this valley of weeping may
take comfort and courage from the wonderful thought
of Christ’s union with us, which makes our griefs His,
and our pain touch Him. Bruise your finger, and the
pain pricks and stabs in your brain. Strike the man
Again, there is prominent here the thought that
the good of sorrow does not end with the sufferer.
His sufferings are borne in his flesh for the body’s
sake, which is the Church,—a remarkable antithesis
between the Apostle’s flesh in which, and Christ’s
body for which, the sufferings are endured. Every
sorrow rightly borne, as it will be when Christ is felt
to be bearing it with us, is fruitful of blessing. Paul’s
trials were in a special sense “for His body’s sake,”
for of course, if he had not preached the gospel, he
would have escaped them all; and on the other hand,
they have been especially fruitful of good, for if he
had not been persecuted, he would never have written
these precious letters from Rome. The Church owes
much to the violence which has shut up confessors
in dungeons. Its prison literature, beginning with
But the same thing is true about us all, though it may be in a narrower sphere. No man gets good for himself alone out of his sorrows. Whatever purifies and makes gentler and more Christlike, whatever teaches or builds up—and sorrows rightly borne do all these—is for the common good. Be our trials great or small, be they minute and every-day—like gnats that hum about us in clouds, and may be swept away by the hand, and irritate rather than hurt where they sting—or be they huge and formidable, like the viper that clings to the wrist and poisons the life blood, they are meant to give us good gifts, which we may transmit to the narrow circle of our homes, and in ever widening rings of influence to all around us. Have we never known a household, where some chronic invalid, lying helpless perhaps on a sofa, was a source of the highest blessing and the centre of holy influence, that made every member of the family gentler, more self-denying and loving? We shall never understand our sorrows, unless we try to answer the question, What good to others is meant to come through me by this? Alas, that grief should so often be self-absorbed, even more than joy is! The heart sometimes opens to unselfish sharing of its gladness with others; but it too often shuts tight over its sorrow, and seeks solitary indulgence in the luxury of woe. Let us learn that our brethren claim benefit from our trials, as well as from our good things, and seek to ennoble our griefs by bearing them for “His body’s sake, which is the Church.”
Christ’s sufferings on His cross are the satisfaction
It is of great moment that we should have such
thoughts of our sorrows whilst their pressure is upon
us, and not only when they are past. “I now rejoice.”
Most of us have had to let years stretch
between us and the blow before we could attain to
that clear insight. We can look back and see how
our past sorrows tended to bless us, and how Christ
was with us in them: but as for this one, that
burdens us to-day, we cannot make it out. We can
even have a solemn thankfulness not altogether
unlike joy as we look on those wounds that we
remember; but how hard it is to feel it about those
that pain us now! There is but one way to secure
that calm wisdom, which feels their meaning even
while they sting and burn, and can smile through
tears, as sorrowful and yet always rejoicing; and that
is to keep in very close communion with our Lord.
Then, even when we are in the whitest heat of the
furnace, we may have the Son of man with us; and
if we have, the fiercest flames will burn up nothing
but the chains that bind us, and we shall “walk at
liberty” in that terrible heat, because we walk with
II. These thoughts naturally lead on to the statement of the Apostle’s lowly and yet lofty conception of his office—“whereof (that is, of which Church) I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God, which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God.”
The first words of this clause are used at the close of the preceding section in verse 23, but the “whereof” there refers to the gospel, not as here to the Church. He is the servant of both, and because he is the servant of the Church he suffers, as he has been saying. The representation of himself as servant gives the reason for the conduct described in the previous clause. Then the next words explain what makes him the Church’s servant. He is so in accordance with, or in pursuance of, the stewardship, or office of administrator, of His household, to which God has called him, “to you-ward,” that is to say, with especial reference to the Gentiles. And the final purpose of his being made a steward is “to fulfil the word of God”; by which is not meant “to accomplish or bring to pass its predictions,” but “to bring it to completion,” or “to give full development to it,” and that possibly in the sense of preaching it fully, without reserve, and far and wide throughout the whole world.
So lofty and yet so lowly was Paul’s thought of
his office. He was the Church’s servant, and therefore
One great lesson to be learned from these words
is that Stewardship means service; and we may
add that, in nine cases out of ten, service means
suffering. What Paul says, if we put it into more
familiar language, is just this: “Because God has
given me something that I can impart to others, I
am their servant, and bound, not only by my duty
to Him, but by my duty to them, to labour that
they may receive the treasure.” That is true for
us all. Every gift from the great Householder involves
the obligation to impart it. It makes us His
stewards and our brethren’s servants. We have
that we may give. The possessions are the Householder’s,
not ours, even after He has given them to
us. He gives us truths of various kinds in our
minds, the gospel in our hearts, influence from our
position, money in our pockets, not to lavish on
self, nor to hide and gloat over in secret, but that
we may transmit His gifts, and “God’s grace
fructify through us to all.” “It is required of
stewards that a man be found faithful”; and the
heaviest charge, “that he had wasted his Lord’s
goods,” lies against every one of us who does not
But that common obligation of stewardship presses
with special force on those who say that they are
Christ’s servants. If we are, we know something
of His love and have felt something of His power;
and there are hundreds of people around us, many of
whom we can influence, who know nothing of either.
That fact makes us their servants, not in the sense
of being under their control, or of taking orders
from them, but in the sense of gladly working for
them, and recognising our obligation to help them.
Our resources may be small. The Master of the
house may have entrusted us with little. Perhaps
we are like the boy with the five barley loaves and
two small fishes; but even if we had only a bit of
the bread and a tail of one of the fishes, we must
not eat our morsel alone. Give it those who have
none, and it will multiply as it is distributed, like
the barrel of meal, which did not fail because its
poor owner shared it with the still poorer prophet.
Give, and not only give, but “pray them with much
entreaty to receive the gift”; for men need to have
the true Bread pressed on them, and they will often
throw it back, or drop it over a wall, as soon as
your back is turned, as beggars do in our streets.
We have to win them by showing that we are their
servants, before they will take what we have to give.
Besides this, if stewardship is service, service is often
suffering; and he will not clear himself of his obligations
to his fellows, or of his responsibility to his
Master, who shrinks from seeking to make known the
love of Christ to his brethren, because he has often to
III. So we come to the last thought here, which is of the grand Mystery of which Paul is the Apostle and Servant. Paul always catches fire when he comes to think of the universal destination of the gospel, and of the honour put upon him as the man to whom the task was entrusted of transforming the Church from a Jewish sect to a world-wide society. That great thought now sweeps him away from his more immediate object, and enriches us with a burst which we could ill spare from the letter.
His task, he says, is to give its full development to the word of God, to proclaim a certain mystery long hid, but now revealed to those who are consecrated to God. To these it has been God’s good pleasure to show the wealth of glory which is contained in this mystery, as exhibited among the Gentile Christians, which mystery is nothing else than the fact that Christ dwells in or among these Gentiles, of whom the Colossians are part, and by His dwelling in them gives them the confident expectation of future glory.
The mystery then of which the Apostle speaks
so rapturously is the fact that the Gentiles were
fellow-heirs and partakers of Christ. “Mystery”
is a word borrowed from the ancient systems, in
which certain rites and doctrines were communicated
to the initiated. There are several allusions to
them in Paul’s writings, as for instance in the
passage in
We talk about “mysteries,” meaning thereby truths that transcend human faculties; but the New Testament “mystery” may be, and most frequently is, a fact perfectly comprehensible when once spoken. “Behold I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” There is nothing incomprehensible in that. We should never have known it if we had not been told; but when told it is quite level with our faculties. And as a matter of fact, the word is most frequently used in connection with the notion, not of concealment, but of declaring. We find too that it occurs frequently in this Epistle, and in the parallel letter to the Ephesians, and in every instance but one refers as it does here, to a fact which was perfectly plain and comprehensible when once made known; namely, the entrance of the Gentiles into the Church.
If that be the true meaning of the word, then “a steward of the mysteries” will simply mean a man who has truths, formerly unknown but now revealed, in charge to make known to all who will hearken, and neither the claims of a priesthood nor the demand for the unquestioning submission of the intellect have any foundation in this much abused term.
But turning from this, we may briefly consider
what was the substance of this grand mystery which
He thinks of these once heathens and now Christians at Colossæ, far away in their lonely valley, and of many another little community—in Judæa, Asia, Greece, and Italy; and as he thinks of how a real solid bond of brotherhood bound them together in spite of their differences of race and culture, the vision of the oneness of mankind in the Cross of Christ shines out before him, as no man had ever seen it till then, and he triumphs in the sorrows that had helped to bring about the great result.
That dwelling of Christ among the Gentiles
reveals the exuberant abundance of glory. To him
the “mystery” was all running over with riches, and
blazing with fresh radiance. To us it is familiar
and somewhat worn. The “vision splendid,” which
was manifestly a revelation of hitherto unknown
Divine treasures of mercy and lustrous light when it
first dawned on the Apostle’s sight, has “faded”
somewhat “into the light of common day” for us,
to whom the centuries since have shown so slow a
progress. But let us not lose more than we can
One last thought is here,—that the possession of
Christ is the pledge of future blessedness. “Hope”
here seems to be equivalent to “the source” or
“ground” of the hope. If we have the experience
of His dwelling in our hearts, we shall have, in that
very experience of His sweetness and of the intimacy
of His love, a marvellous quickener of our hope that
such sweetness and intimacy will continue for ever.
The closer we keep to Him, the clearer will be our
vision of future blessedness. If He is throned in
our hearts, we shall be able to look forward with a
hope, which is not less than certainty, to the perpetual
continuance of His hold of us and of our
blessedness in Him. Anything seems more credible
That hope is offered to us all. If by our faith in His great sacrifice we grasp the great truth of “Christ for us,” our fears will be scattered, sin and guilt taken away, death abolished, condemnation ended, the future a hope and not a dread. If by communion with Him through faith, love, and obedience, we have “Christ in us,” our purity will grow, and our experience will be such as plainly to demand eternity to complete its incompleteness and to bring its folded buds to flower and fruit. If Christ be in us, His life guarantees ours, and we cannot die whilst He lives. The world has come, in the persons of its leading thinkers, to the position of proclaiming that all is dark beyond and above. “Behold! we know not anything,” is the dreary “end of the whole matter”—infinitely sadder than the old Ecclesiastes, which from “vanity of vanities” climbed to “fear God and keep His commandments,” as the sum of human thought and life. “I find no God; I know no future.” Yes! Paul long ago told us that if we were “without Christ” we should “have no hope, and be without God in the world.” And cultivated Europe is finding out that to fling away Christ and to keep a faith in God or in a future life is impossible.
But if we will take Him for our Saviour by
simple trust, He will give us His own presence in
our hearts, and infuse there a hope full of immortality.
“Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; whereunto I labour also, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily,”—Col. i. 28, 29 (Rev. Ver.).
Such absurdities excited Paul’s special abhorrence.
His whole soul rejoiced in a gospel for all men.
He had broken with Judaism on the very ground
that it sought to enforce a ceremonial exclusiveness,
and demanded circumcision and ritual observances
along with faith. That was, in Paul’s estimate, to
destroy the gospel. These Eastern dreamers at
Colossæ were trying to enforce an intellectual exclusiveness
quite as much opposed to the gospel.
Paul fights with all his might against that error.
Its presence in the Church colours this context,
where he uses the very phrases of the false teachers
This is the general scope of the words before us which state the object and methods of the Apostle’s work; partly in order to point the contrast with those other teachers, and partly in order to prepare the way, by this personal reference, for his subsequent exhortations.
I. We have here the Apostle’s own statement of what he conceived his life work to be.
“Whom we proclaim.” All three words are emphatic. “Whom,” not what—a person, not a system; we “proclaim,” not we argue or dissertate about. “We” preach—the Apostle associates himself with all his brethren, puts himself in line with them, points to the unanimity of their testimony—“whether it were they or I, so we preach.” We have all one message, a common type of doctrine.
So then—the Christian teacher’s theme is not to
be a theory or a system, but a living Person. One
peculiarity of Christianity is that you cannot take
its message, and put aside Christ, the speaker of the
message, as you may do with all men’s teachings.
Some people say: “We take the great moral and
religious truths which Jesus declared. They are the
all-important parts of His work. We can disentangle
them from any further connection with Him.
It matters comparatively little who first spoke them.”
But that will not do. His person is inextricably
intertwined with His teaching, for a very large part
of His teaching is exclusively concerned with, and
all of it centres in, Himself. He is not only true,
but He is the truth. His message is, not only what
He said with His lips about God and man, but
also what He said about Himself, and what He did
in His life, death, and resurrection. You may take
Buddha’s sayings, if you can make sure that they
are his, and find much that is beautiful and true in
them, whatever you may think of him; you may
appreciate the teaching of Confucius, though you
know nothing about him but that he said so and so;
but you cannot do thus with Jesus. Our Christianity
takes its whole colour from what we think of Him.
If we think of Him as less than this chapter has
been setting Him forth as being, we shall scarcely
feel that He should be the preacher’s theme; but if
He is to us what He was to this Apostle, the sole
Revealer of God, the Centre and Lord of creation,
the Fountain of life to all which lives, the Reconciler
of men with God by the blood of His cross, then
the one message which a man may be thankful to
spend his life in proclaiming will be, Behold the
To preach Christ is to set forth the person, the facts of His life and death, and to accompany these with that explanation which turns them from being merely a biography into a gospel. So much of “theory” must go with the “facts,” or they will be no more a gospel than the story of another life would be. The Apostle’s own statement of “the gospel which he preached” distinctly lays down what is needed—“how that Jesus Christ died.” That is biography, and to say that and stop there is not to preach Christ; but add, “For our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was raised again the third day,”—preach that, the fact and its meaning and power, and you will preach Christ.
Of course there is a narrower and a wider sense
of this expression. There is the initial teaching,
which brings to a soul, who has never seen it before,
the knowledge of a Saviour, whose Cross is the
propitiation for sin; and there is the fuller teaching,
which opens out the manifold bearings of that
message in every region of moral and religious
thought. I do not plead for any narrow construction
of the words. They have been sorely abused,
by being made the battle-cry for bitter bigotry and
a hard system of abstract theology, as unlike what
Paul means by “Christ” as any cobwebs of Gnostic
heresy could be. Legitimate outgrowths of the
Christian ministry have been checked in their name.
They have been used as a cramping iron, as a
shibboleth, as a stone to fling at honest and especially
But for all that, they are a standard of duty for all workers for God, which it is not difficult to apply, if the will to do so be present, and they are a touch-stone to try the spirits, whether they be of God. A ministry of which the Christ who lived and died for us is manifestly the centre to which all converges and from which all is viewed, may sweep a wide circumference, and include many themes. The requirement bars out no province of thought or experience, nor does it condemn the preacher to a parrot-like repetition of elementary truths, or a narrow round of commonplace. It does demand that all themes shall lead up to Christ, and all teaching point to Him; that He shall be ever present in all the preacher’s words, a diffused even when not a directly perceptible presence; and that His name, like some deep tone on an organ, shall be heard sounding on through all the ripple and change of the higher notes. Preaching Christ does not exclude any theme, but prescribes the bearing and purpose of all; and the widest compass and richest variety are not only possible but obligatory for him who would in any worthy sense take this for the motto of his ministry, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
But these words give us not only the theme but
something of the manner of the Apostle’s activity.
“We proclaim.” The word is emphatic in its form,
meaning to tell out, and representing the proclamation
And the word not only implies the plain, loud earnestness of the speaker, but also that what he speaks is a message, that he is not a speaker of his own words or thoughts, but of what has been told him to tell. His gospel is a good message, and a messenger’s virtue is to say exactly what he has been told, and to say it in such a way that the people to whom he has to carry it cannot but hear and understand it.
This connection of the Christian minister’s office
contrasts on the one hand with the priestly theory.
Paul had known in Judaism a religion of which the
altar was the centre, and the official function of the
“minister” was to sacrifice. But now he has come
to see that “the one sacrifice for sins for ever”
leaves no room for a sacrificing priest in that Church
of which the centre is the Cross. We sorely need
that lesson to be drilled into the minds of men to-day,
when such a strange resurrection of priestism
has taken place, and good, earnest men, whose
devotion cannot be questioned, are looking on
preaching as a very subordinate part of their work.
For three centuries there has not been so much need
as now to fight against the notion of a priesthood in
the Church, and to urge this as the true definition of
the minister’s office: “we preach,” not “we sacrifice,”
not “we do” anything; “we preach,” not “we work
miracles at any altar, or impart grace by any rites,”
This conception contrasts on the other hand, with the false teachers’ style of speech, which finds its parallel in much modern talk. Their business was to argue and refine and speculate, to spin inferences and cobwebby conclusions. They sat in a lecturer’s chair; we stand in a preacher’s pulpit. The Christian minister has not to deal in such wares; he has a message to proclaim, and if he allows the “philosopher” in him to overpower the “herald,” and substitutes his thoughts about the message, or his arguments in favour of the message, for the message itself, he abdicates his highest office and neglects his most important function.
We hear many demands to-day for a “higher
type of preaching,” which I would heartily echo, if
only it be preaching; that is, the proclamation in
loud and plain utterance of the great facts of Christ’s
work. But many who ask for this really want, not
preaching, but something quite different; and many,
as I think, mistaken Christian teachers are trying
to play up to the requirements of the age by turning
their sermons into dissertations, philosophical or
moral or æsthetic. We need to fall back on this
“we preach,” and to urge that the Christian minister
is neither priest nor lecturer, but a herald, whose
business is to tell out his message, and to take good
care that he tells it faithfully. If, instead of blowing
his trumpet and calling aloud his commission, he
were to deliver a discourse on acoustics and the
laws of the vibration of sonorous metal, or to prove
that he had a message, and to dilate on its evident
truth or on the beauty of its phrases, he would
II. We have here the varying methods by which this one great end is pursued. “Admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom.”
There are then two main methods—“admonishing” and “teaching.” The former means “admonishing with blame,” and points, as many commentators remark, to that side of the Christian ministry which corresponds to repentance, while the latter points to that side which corresponds to faith. In other words, the former rebukes and warns, has to do with conduct and the moral side of Christian truth; the latter has chiefly to do with doctrine, and the intellectual side. In the one Christ is proclaimed as the pattern of conduct, the “new commandment”; in the other, as the creed of creeds, the new and perfect knowledge.
The preaching of Christ then is to be unfolded
into all “warning,” or admonishing. The teaching of
morality and the admonishing of the evil and the
end of sin are essential parts of preaching Christ.
We claim for the pulpit the right and the duty of
applying the principles and pattern of Christ’s life
to all human conduct. It is difficult to do, and is
made more so by some of the necessary conditions
of our modern ministry, for the pulpit is not the
place for details; and yet moral teaching which is
Well! whether a sermon of that sort be preaching Christ or not depends on the way in which it is done. But sure I am that there is no “preaching Christ” completely, which does not include plain speaking about plain duties. Everything that a man can either do rightly or wrongly belongs to the sphere of morals, and everything within the sphere of morals belongs to Christianity and to “preaching Christ.”
Nor is such preaching complete without plain warning of the end of sin, as death here and hereafter. This is difficult, for many people like to have the smooth side of truth always put uppermost. But the gospel has a rough side, and is by no means a “soothing syrup” merely. There are no rougher words about what wrongdoers come to than some of Christ’s words; and he has only given half his Master’s message who hides or softens down the grim saying, “The wages of sin is death.”
But all this moral teaching must be closely
This gospel is also to be unfolded into “teaching.”
In the facts of Christ’s life and death, as
we ponder them and grow up to understand them,
we get to see more and more the key to all things.
For thought, as for life, He is the alpha and omega,
the beginning and the ending. All that we can or
need know about God or man, about present duty or
future destiny, about life, death, and the beyond,—all
is in Jesus Christ, and to be drawn from Him
by patient thought and by abiding in Him. The
Christian minister’s business is to be ever learning
and ever teaching more and more of the “manifold
wisdom” of God. He has to draw for himself from
The Christian ministry, then, in the Apostle’s view,
is distinctly educational in its design. Preachers
and hearers equally need to be reminded of this.
We preachers are poor scholars ourselves, and in
our work are tempted, like other people, to do most
frequently what we can do with least trouble.
Besides which, we many of us know, and all suspect,
that our congregations prefer to hear what they have
heard often before, and what gives them the least
trouble. We often hear the cry for “simple preaching,”
by which one school intends “simple instruction
in plain, practical matters, avoiding mere dogma,”
and another intends “the simple gospel,” by which
is meant the repetition over and over again of the
great truth, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.” God forbid that I
should say a word which might even seem to under-estimate
the need for that proclamation being made
in its simple form, as the staple of the Christian
ministry, to all who have not welcomed it into their
hearts, or to forget that, however dimly understood,
it will bring light and hope and new loves and
strengths into a soul! But the New Testament draws
a distinction between evangelists and teachers, and
common sense insists that Christian people need
Observe too the emphatic repetition of “every
man” both in these two clauses and in the following.
It is Paul’s protest against the exclusiveness of the
heretics, who shut out the mob from their mysteries.
An intellectual aristocracy is the proudest and most
exclusive of all. A Church built upon intellectual
qualifications would be as hard and cruel a coterie
as could be imagined. So there is almost vehemence
and scorn in the persistent repetition in each clause
of the obnoxious word, as if he would thrust down
his antagonists’ throats the truth that his gospel has
nothing to do with cliques and sections, but belongs
III. We have here the ultimate aim of these diverse methods. “That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
We found this same word “present” in verse 22.
The remarks made there will apply here. There
the Divine purpose of Christ’s great work, and here
Paul’s purpose in his, are expressed alike. God’s
aim is Paul’s aim too. The Apostle’s thoughts
travel on to the great coming day, when we shall all
be manifested at the judgment seat of Christ, and
preacher and hearer, Apostle and convert, shall be
gathered there. That solemn period will test the
teacher’s work, and should ever be in his view as he
works. There is a real and indissoluble connection
between the teacher and his hearers, so that in some
sense he is to blame if they do not stand perfect
then, and he in some sense has to present them
as in his work—the gold, silver, and precious
stones which he has built on the foundation. So
each preacher should work with that end clear
in view, as Paul did. He is always toiling in the
light of that great vision. One sees him, in all his
And the purpose which the true minister of Christ
has in view is to “present every man perfect in
Christ Jesus.” “Perfect” may be used here with
the technical signification of “initiated,” but it means
absolute moral completeness. Negatively, it implies
the entire removal of all defects; positively, the
complete possession of all that belongs to human
nature as God meant it to be. The Christian aim,
for which the preaching of Christ supplies ample
power, is to make the whole race possess, in fullest
development, the whole circle of possible human
excellences. There is to be no one-sided growth
but men are to grow like a tree in the open, which
has no barrier to hinder its symmetry, but rises and
spreads equally on all sides, with no branch broken
or twisted, no leaf worm-eaten or wind-torn, no fruit
blighted or fallen, no gap in the clouds of foliage,
no bend in the straight stem,—a green and growing
completeness. This absolute completeness is attainable
“in Christ,” by union with Him of that vital
sort brought about by faith, which will pour His
Spirit into our spirits. The preaching of Christ is
And this absolute perfection of character is, in Paul’s belief, possible for every man, no matter what his training or natural disposition may have been. The gospel is confident that it can change the Ethiopian’s skin, because it can change his heart, and the leopard’s spots will be altered when it “eats straw like the ox.” There are no hopeless classes, in the glad, confident view of the man who has learned Christ’s power.
What a vision of the future to animate work! What an aim! What dignity, what consecration, what enthusiasm it would give, making the trivial great and the monotonous interesting, stirring up those who share it to intense effort, overcoming low temptations, and giving precision to the selection of means and use of instruments! The pressure of a great, steady purpose consolidates and strengthens powers, which, without it, become flaccid and feeble. We can make a piece of calico as stiff as a board by putting it under an hydraulic press. Men with a fixed purpose are terrible men. They crash through conventionalities like a cannon ball. They, and they only, can persuade and arouse and impress their own enthusiasm on the inert mass. “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” No Christian minister will work up to the limits of his power, nor do much for Christ or man, unless his whole soul is mastered by this high conception of the possibilities of his office, and unless he is possessed with the ambition to present every man “perfect in Christ Jesus.”
IV. Note the struggle and the strength with which the Apostle reaches toward this aim. “Whereunto I labour also, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.”
As to the object, theme, and method of the
Christian ministry, Paul can speak, as he does in the
previous verses, in the name of all his fellow
workers: “We preach, admonishing and teaching,
that we may present.” There was substantial unity
among them. But he adds a sentence about his
own toil and conflict in doing his work. He will
only speak for himself now. The others may say
what their experience has been. He has found that
he cannot do his work easily. Some people may be
able to get through it with little toil of body or
agony of mind, but for himself it has been laborious
work. He has not learned to “take it easy.” That
great purpose has been ever before him, and made
a slave of him. “I labour also”; I do not only
preach, but I toil—as the word literally implies—like
a man tugging at an oar, and putting all his
weight into each stroke. No great work for God
will be done without physical and mental strain and
effort. Perhaps there were people in Colossæ who
thought that a man who had nothing to do but to
preach had a very easy life, and so the Apostle had
to insist that most exhausting work is brain work
and heart work. Perhaps there were preachers and
teachers there who worked in a leisurely, dignified
fashion, and took great care always to stop a long
way on the safe side of weariness; and so he had
to insist that God’s work cannot be done at all in
that fashion, but has to be done “with both hands,
earnestly.” The “immortal garland” is to be run for,
There must be not only toil, but conflict. He labours, “striving”—that is to say, contending—with hindrances, both without and within, which sought to mar his work. There is the struggle with one’s self, with the temptations to do high work from low motives, or to neglect it, and to substitute routine for inspiration and mechanism for fervour. One’s own evil, one’s weaknesses and fears and falsities, and laziness and torpor and faithlessness, have all to be fought, besides the difficulties and enemies without. In short, all good work is a battle.
The hard strain and stress of this life of effort and conflict made this man “Paul the aged” while he was not old in years. Such soul’s agony and travail is indispensable for all high service of Christ. How can any true, noble Christian life be lived without continuous effort and continual strife? Up to the last particle of our power, it is our duty to work. As for the sleepy, languid, self-indulgent service of modern Christians, who seem to be chiefly anxious not to overstrain themselves, and to manage to win the race set before them without turning a hair, I am afraid that a large deduction will have to be made from it in the day that shall “try every man’s work, of what sort it is.”
So much for the struggle; now for the strength.
The toil and the conflict are to be carried on “according
Let us take courage then for all work and conflict;
and remember that if we have not “striven
according to the power”—that is, if we have not
utilised all our Christ-given strength in His service—we
have not striven enough. There may be a
double defect in us. We may not have taken all
the power that he Has given, and we may not have
used all the power that we have taken. Alas, for us!
we have to confess both faults. How weak we have
been when Omnipotence waited to give Itself to us!
How little we have made our own of the grace that
flows so abundantly past us, catching such a small part
of the broad river in our hands, and spilling so
much even of that before it reached our lips! And
how little of the power given, whether natural or
spiritual, we have used for our Lord! How many
weapons have hung rusty and unused in the fight!
“For I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.”—Col. ii. 1–3 (Rev. Ver.).
All this long outpouring of self-revelation is so
natural and characteristic of Paul that we need
scarcely look for any purpose in it, and yet we may
note with what consummate art he thereby prepares
the way for the warnings which follow. The
unveiling of his own throbbing heart was sure to
work on the affections of his readers and to incline
them to listen. His profound emotion in thinking
of the preciousness of his message would help to
make them feel how much was at stake, and his
So this revelation of the Apostle’s heart is relevant to the great purposes of the whole letter—the warning against error, and the exhortation to stedfastness. In the verses which we are now considering, we have the conflict which Paul was waging set forth in three aspects: first, in itself; second, in regard to the persons for whom it was waged; and, finally and principally, in regard to the object or purpose in view therein. The first and second of these points may be dealt with briefly. The third will require further consideration.
I. There is first the conflict, which he earnestly desired that the Colossian Christians might know to be “great.” The word rendered in the Authorised Version “conflict,” belongs to the same root as that which occurs in the last verse of the previous chapter, and is there rendered “striving.” The Revised Version rightly indicates this connection by its translation, but fails to give the construction as accurately as the older translation does. “What great strife I have” would be nearer the Greek, and more forcible than the somewhat feeble “how greatly I strive,” which the Revisers have adopted. The conflict referred to is, of course, that of the arena, as so often in Paul’s writings.
But how could he, in Rome, wage conflict on behalf of the Church at Colossæ? No external conflict can be meant. He could strike no blows on their behalf. What he could do in that way, he did, and he was now taking part in their battle by this letter. If he could not fight by their side, he could send them ammunition, as he does in this great Epistle, which was, no doubt, to the eager combatants for the truth at Colossæ, what it has been ever since, a magazine and arsenal in all their warfare. But the real struggle was in his own heart. It meant anxiety, sympathy, an agony of solicitude, a passion of intercession. What he says of Epaphras in this very Epistle was true of himself. He was “always striving in prayer for them.” And by these wrestlings of spirit he took his place among the combatants, though they were far away, and though in outward seeming, his life was untouched by any of the difficulties and dangers which hemmed them in. In that lonely prison-cell, remote from their conflict, and with burdens enough of his own to carry, with his life in peril, his heart yet turned to them and, like some soldier left behind to guard the base while his comrades had gone forward to the fight, his ears listened for the sound of battle, and his thoughts were in the field. His prison cell was like the focus of some reverberating gallery in which every whisper spoken all round the circumference was heard, and the heart that was held captive there was set vibrating in all its chords by every sound from any of the Churches.
Let us learn the lesson, that, for all Christian
people, sympathy in the battle for God, which is being
waged all over the world, is plain duty. For all
Wheresoever our prison or our workshop may be,
howsoever Providence or circumstances—which is but
a heathenish word for the same thing—may separate
us from active participation in any battle for God,
we are bound to take an eager share in it by sympathy,
by interest, by such help as we can render,
and by that intercession which may sway the fortunes
of the field, though the uplifted hands grasp no
weapons, and the spot where we pray be far from
the fight. It is not only the men who bear the
brunt of the battle in the high places of the field
who are the combatants. In many a quiet home,
where their wives and mothers sit, with wistful faces
waiting for the news from the front, are an agony of
anxiety, and as true a share in the struggle as amidst
the battery smoke and the gleaming bayonets. It
was a law in Israel, “As his part is that goeth down
to the battle, so shall his part be that abideth by the
II. We notice the persons for whom this conflict
was endured. They are the Christians of Colossæ,
and their neighbours of Laodicea, and “as many
as have not seen my face in the flesh.” It may be
a question whether the Colossians and Laodiceans
belong to those who have not seen his face in the flesh,
but the most natural view of the words is that the last clause
“introduces the whole class to which the persons previously enumerated
belong,” Bishop Lightfoot, in loc.
It is beautiful to see how, here, Paul lays hold of that very fact which seemed to put some film of separation between them, in order to make it the foundation of his especial keenness of interest in them. Precisely because he had never looked them in the eyes, they had a warmer place in his heart, and his solicitude for them was more tender. He was not so enslaved by sense that his love could not travel beyond the limits of his eyesight. He was the more anxious about them because they had not the recollections of his teaching and of his presence to fall back upon.
III. But the most important part of this section is the Apostle’s statement of the great subject of his solicitude, that which he anxiously longed that the Colossians might attain. It is a prophecy, as well as a desire. It is a statement of the deepest purpose of his letter to them, and being so, it is likewise a statement of the Divine desire concerning each of us, and of the Divine design of the gospel. Here is set forth what God would have all Christians to be, and, in Jesus Christ, has given them ample means of being.
(1) The first element in the Apostle’s desire for
them is “that their hearts may be comforted.” Of
course the Biblical use of the word “heart” is much
wider than the modern popular use of it. We mean
by it, when we use it in ordinary talk, the hypothetical
seat of the emotions, and chiefly, the organ
and throne of love; but Scripture means by the
And what does he desire for this inward man? That it may be “comforted.” That word again has a wider signification in Biblical, than in nineteenth century English. It is much more than consolation in trouble. The cloud that hung over the Colossian Church was not about to break in sorrows which they would need consolation to bear, but in doctrinal and practical errors which they would need strength to resist. They were called to fight rather than to endure, and what they needed most was courageous confidence. So Paul desires for them that their hearts should be encouraged or strengthened, that they might not quail before the enemy, but go into the fight with buoyancy, and be of good cheer.
Is there any greater blessing in view both of the conflict which Christianity has to wage to-day, and of the difficulties and warfare of our own lives, than that brave spirit, which plunges into the struggle with the serene assurance that victory sits on our helms and waits upon our swords, and knows that anything is possible rather than defeat? That is the condition of overcoming—even our faith. “The sad heart tires in a mile,” but the strong hopeful heart carries in its very strength the prophecy of triumph.
Such a disposition is not altogether a matter of
temperament, but may be cultivated, and though it
may come easier to some of us than to others, it
certainly ought to belong to all who have God to
trust to, and believe that the gospel is His truth.
(2) The way to secure such joyous confidence and
strength is taught us here, for we have next, Union
in love, as part of the means for obtaining it—“They
being knit together in love.” The persons,
not the hearts, are to be thus united. Love is the
true bond which unites men—the bond of perfectness,
as it is elsewhere called. That unity in love
would, of course, add to the strength of each. The
old fable teaches us that little fagots bound together
are strong, and the tighter the rope is pulled, the
stronger they are. A solitary heart is timid and
weak, but many weaknesses brought together make
a strength, as slimly built houses in a row hold each
other up, or dying embers raked closer burst into
flame. Loose grains of sand are light and moved
by a breath; compacted they are rock against which
the Atlantic beats in vain. So, a Church, of which
the members are bound together by that love which
is the only real bond of Church life, presents a front
to threatening evils through which they cannot break.
A real moral defence against even intellectual error
will be found in such a close compaction in mutual
Christian love. A community so interlocked will
throw off many evils, as a Roman legion with linked
But we must go deeper than this in interpreting these words. The love which is to knit Christian men together is not merely love to one another, but is common love to Jesus Christ. Such common love to Him is the true bond of union, and the true strengthener of men’s hearts.
(3) This compaction in love will lead to a wealth of certitude in the possession of the truth.
Paul is so eagerly desirous for the Colossians’ union in love to each other and all to God, because He knows that such union will materially contribute to their assured and joyful possession of the truth. It tends, he thinks, unto “all riches of the full assurance of understanding,” by which he means the wealth which consists in the entire, unwavering certitude which takes possession of the understanding, the confidence that it has the truth and the life in Jesus Christ. Such a joyful stedfastness of conviction that I have grasped the truth is opposed to hesitating half belief. It is attainable, as this context shows, by paths of moral discipline, and amongst them, by seeking to realize our unity with our brethren, and not proudly rejecting the “common faith” because it is common. Possessing that assurance, we shall be rich and heart-whole. Walking amid certainties we shall walk in paths of peace, and re-echo the triumphant assurance of the Apostle, to whom love had given the key of knowledge:—“we know that we are of God, and we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true.”
In all times of religious unsettlement, when an active propaganda of denial is going on, Christian men are tempted to lower their own tone, and to say, “It is so,” with somewhat less of certainty, because so many are saying, “It is not so.” Little Rhoda needs some courage to affirm constantly that “it was even so,” when apostles and her masters keep assuring her that she has only seen a vision. In this day, many professing Christians falter in the clear assured profession of their faith, and it does not need a keen ear to catch an undertone of doubt making their voices tremulous. Some even are so afraid of being thought “narrow,” that they seek for the reputation of liberality by talking as if there were a film of doubt over even the truths which used to be “most surely believed.” Much of the so-called faith of this day is all honeycombed with secret misgivings, which have in many instances no other intellectual basis than the consciousness of prevalent unbelief and a second-hand acquaintance with its teachings. Few things are more needed among us now than this full assurance and satisfaction of the understanding with the truth as it is in Jesus. Nothing is more wretched than the slow paralysis creeping over faith, the fading of what had been stars into darkness. A tragedy is being wrought in many minds which have had to exchange Christ’s “Verily, verily,” for a miserable “perhaps,” and can no longer say “I know,” but only, “I would fain believe,” or at the best, “I incline to think still.” On the other hand, the “full assurance of the understanding” brings wealth. It breathes peace over the soul, and gives endless riches in the truths which through it are made living and real.
This wealth of conviction is attained by living in the love of God. Of course, there is an intellectual discipline which is also needed. But no intellectual process will lead to an assured grasp of spiritual truth, unless it be accompanied by love. As soon may we lay hold of truth with our hands, as of God in Christ with our understandings alone. This is the constant teaching of Scripture—that, if we would know God and have assurance of Him, we must love Him. “In order to love human things, it is necessary to know them. In order to know Divine things, it is necessary to love them.” When we are rooted and grounded in love, we shall be able to know—for what we have most need to know and what the gospel has mainly to teach us is the love, and “unless the eye with which we look is love, how shall we know love?” If we love, we shall possess an experience which verifies the truth for us, will give us an irrefragable demonstration which will bring certitude to ourselves, however little it may avail to convince others. Rich in the possession of this confirmation of the gospel by the blessings which have come to us from it, and which witness of their source, as the stream that dots some barren plain with a line of green along its course is revealed thereby, we shall have the right to oppose to many a doubt the full assurance born of love, and while others are disputing whether there be any God, or any living Christ, or any forgiveness of sins, or any guiding providence, we shall know that they are, and are ours, because we have felt the power and wealth which they have brought into our lives.
(4) This unity of love will lead to full knowledge
of the mystery of God. Such seems to be the connection
Among the large number of readings of the following words, that adopted by the Revised Version is to be preferred, and the translation which it gives is the most natural and is in accordance with the previous thought in chapter i. 27, where also “the mystery” is explained to be “Christ in you.” A slight variation in the conception is presented here. The “mystery” is Christ, not “in you,” but “in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” The great truth long hidden, now revealed, is that the whole wealth of spiritual insight (knowledge), and of reasoning on the truths thus apprehended so as to gain an ordered system of belief and a coherent law of conduct (wisdom), is stored for us in Christ.
Such being in brief the connection and outline
meaning of these great words, we may touch upon
the various principles embodied in them. We have
seen, in commenting upon a former part of the
Epistle, the force of the great thought that Christ in
His relations to us is the mystery of God, and need
not repeat what was then said. But we may pause
for a moment on the fact that the knowledge of
that mystery has its stages. The revelation of the
mystery is complete. No further stages are possible
in that. But while the revelation is, in Paul’s
estimate, finished, and the long concealed truth now
stands in full sunshine, our apprehension of it may
grow, and there is a mature knowledge possible.
Some poor ignorant soul catches through the gloom
a glimpse of God manifested in the flesh, and bearing
his sins. That soul will never outgrow that knowledge,
but as the years pass, life and reflection and
experience will help to explain and deepen it. God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son—there is nothing beyond that truth. Grasped
however imperfectly, it brings light and peace.
But as it is loved and lived by, it unfolds undreamed-of
depths, and flashes with growing brightness.
Suppose that a man could set out from the great
planet that moves on the outermost rim of our
system, and could travel slowly inwards towards the
central sun, how the disc would grow, and the light
and warmth increase with each million of miles that
he crossed, till what had seemed a point filled the
whole sky! Christian growth is into, not away
from Christ, a penetrating deeper into the centre,
and a drawing out into distinct consciousness as a
coherent system, all that was wrapped, as the leaves
These stages are infinite, because in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These four words, treasures, wisdom, knowledge, hidden, are all familiar on the lips of the latter Gnostics, and were so, no doubt, in the mouths of the false teachers at Colossæ. The Apostle would assert for his gospel all which they falsely claimed for their dreams. As in several other places of this Epistle, he avails himself of his antagonists’ special vocabulary, transferring its terms, from the illusory phantoms which a false knowledge adorned with them, to the truth which he had to preach. He puts special emphasis on the predicate “hidden” by throwing it to the end of the sentence—a peculiarity which is reproduced with advantage in the Revised Version.
All wisdom and knowledge are in Christ. He is the Light of men, and all thought and truth of every sort come from Him Who is the Eternal Word, the Incarnate Wisdom. That Incarnate Word is the perfect Revelation of God, and by His one completed life and death has declared the whole name of God to His brethren, of which all other media of revelation have but uttered broken syllables. That ascended Christ breathes wisdom and knowledge into all who love Him, and still pursues, by giving us the Spirit of wisdom, His great work of revealing God to men, according to His own word, which at once asserted the completeness of the revelation made by His earthly life and promised the perpetual continuance of the revelation from His heavenly seat: “I have declared Thy name unto My brethren, and will declare it.”
In Christ, as in a great storehouse, lie all the riches of spiritual wisdom, the massive ingots of solid gold which when coined into creeds and doctrines are the wealth of the Church. All which we can know concerning God and man, concerning sin and righteousness and duty, concerning another life, is in Him Who is the home and deep mine where truth is stored.
In Christ these treasures are “hidden,” but not, as the heretics’ mysteries were hidden, in order that they might be out of reach of the vulgar crowd. This mystery is hidden indeed, but it is revealed. It is hidden only from the eyes that will not see it. It is hidden that seeking souls may have the joy of seeking and the rest of finding. The very act of revealing is a hiding, as our Lord has said in His great thanksgiving because these things are (by one and the same act) “hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes.” They are hid, as men store provisions in the Arctic regions, in order that the bears may not find them and the shipwrecked sailors may.
Such thoughts have a special message for times
of agitation such as the Colossian Church was passing
through, and such as we have to face. We too are
surrounded by eager confident voices, proclaiming
profounder truths and a deeper wisdom than the
gospel gives us. In joyful antagonism to these,
Christian men have to hold fast by the confidence
that all Divine wisdom is laid up in their Lord.
We need not go to others to learn new truth. The
new problems of each generation to the end of time
will find their answers in Christ, and new issues of
that old message which we have heard from the
The ordinary type of Christian life is contented
with a superficial acquaintance with Christ. Many
understand no more of Him and of His gospel than
they did when first they learned to love Him. So
completely has the very idea of a progressive knowledge
of Jesus Christ faded from the horizon of the
average Christian that “edification,” which ought to
mean the progressive building up of the character
course by course, in new knowledge and grace, has
come to mean little more than the sense of comfort
derived from the reiteration of old and familiar words
which fall on the ear with a pleasant murmur.
There is sadly too little first-hand and growing
knowledge of their Lord, among Christian people,
too little belief that fresh treasures may be found
hidden in that field which, to each soul and each
“This I say, that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.
“As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and builded up in Him, and stablished in your faith, even as ye were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”—Col. ii. 4–7 (Rev. Ver.).
So in this context, the Apostle has said much
about his deep interest in the Colossian Church,
and has dwelt on the passionate earnestness of his
solicitude for them, his conflict of intercession and
sympathy, and the large sweep of his desires for their
good. But he does not feel that he can venture to
begin his warnings till he has said something more,
So before he goes further, he gathers up his motives in giving the following admonitions, and gives his estimate of the condition of the Colossians, in the two first of the verses now under consideration. All that he has been saying has been said not so much because he thinks that they have gone wrong, but because he knows that there are heretical teachers at work, who may lead them astray with plausible lessons. He is not combating errors which have already swept away the faith of the Colossian Christians, but putting them on their guard against such as threaten them. He is not trying to pump the water out of a water-logged vessel, but to stop a little leak which is in danger of gaping wider. And, in his solicitude, he has much confidence and is encouraged to speak because, absent from them as he is, he has a vivid assurance, which gladdens him, of the solidity and firmness of their faith.
So with this distinct definition of the precise
danger which he feared, and this soothing assurance
of his glad confidence in their stedfast order, the
Apostle at last opens his batteries. The 6th and
7th verses are the first shot fired, the beginning of
the monitions so long and carefully prepared for
I. We have then first, the purpose of the Apostle’s
previous self-revelation. “This I say”—this namely
which is contained in the preceding verses, the expression
of his solicitude, and perhaps even more
emphatically, the declaration of Christ as the revealed
secret of God, the inexhaustible storehouse of all
wisdom and knowledge. The purpose of the Apostle,
then, in his foregoing words has been to guard the
Colossians against the danger to which they were
exposed, of being deceived and led astray by “persuasiveness
of speech.” That expression is not
necessarily used in a bad sense, but here it evidently
has a tinge of censure, and implies some doubt
both of the honesty of the speakers and of the truthfulness
of their words. Here we have an important
piece of evidence as to the then condition of the
Colossian Church. There were false teachers busy
amongst them who belonged in some sense to the
Christian community. But probably these were not
Colossians, but wandering emissaries of a Judaizing
Gnosticism, while certainly the great mass of the
Church was untouched by their speculations. They
were in danger of getting bewildered, and being
deceived, that is to say, of being induced to accept
certain teaching because of its speciousness, without
seeing all its bearings, or even knowing its real
meaning. So error ever creeps into the Church.
Men are caught by something fascinating in some
popular teaching, and follow it without knowing
where it will lead them. By slow degrees its
tendencies are disclosed, and at last the followers of
We may learn here, too, the true safeguard
against specious errors. Paul thinks that he can
best fortify these simple-minded disciples against all
harmful teaching by exalting his Master and urging
the inexhaustible significance of His person and
message. To learn the full meaning and preciousness
of Christ is to be armed against error. The
positive truth concerning Him, by preoccupying
mind and heart, guards beforehand against the most
specious teachings. If you fill the coffer with gold,
nobody will want, and there will be no room for,
pinchbeck. A living grasp of Christ will keep us
from being swept away by the current of prevailing
popular opinion, which is always much more likely
to be wrong than right, and is sure to be exaggerated
and one-sided at the best. A personal
consciousness of His power and sweetness will give
an instinctive repugnance to teaching that would
lower His dignity and debase His work. If He be
the centre and anchorage of all our thoughts, we shall
not be tempted to go elsewhere in search of the
“treasures of wisdom and knowledge” which “are
hid in Him.” He who has found the one pearl of
great price, needs no more to go seeking goodly
pearls, but only day by day more completely to lose
self, and give up all else, that he may win more and
more of Christ his All. If we keep our hearts and
minds in communion with our Lord, and have experience
of His preciousness, that will preserve us
from many a snare, will give us a wisdom beyond
much logic, will solve for us many of the questions
II. We see here the joy which blended with the anxiety of the solitary prisoner, and encouraged him to warn the Colossians against impending dangers to their faith.
We need not follow the grammatical commentators
in their discussion of how Paul comes to
invert the natural order here, and to say “joying
and beholding,” instead of “beholding and rejoicing”
as we should expect. No one doubts that
what he saw in spirit was the cause of his joy.
The old man in his prison, loaded with many cares,
compelled to be inactive in the cause which was
more to him than life, is yet full of spirit and
buoyancy. His prison-letters all partake of that
“rejoicing in the Lord,” which is the keynote of
one of them. Old age and apparent failure, and
the exhaustion of long labours, and the disappointments
and sorrows which almost always gather like
evening clouds round a life as it sinks in the west
had not power to quench his fiery energy or to blunt
his keen interest in all the Churches. His cell was
like the centre of a telephonic system. Voices
spoke from all sides. Every Church was connected
with it, and messages were perpetually being
brought. Think of him sitting there, eagerly
listening, and thrilling with sympathy at each word,
so self-oblivious was he, so swallowed up were all
personal ends in the care for the Churches, and in
the swift, deep fellow-feeling with them? Love and
What did he see? “Your order.” That is unquestionably a military metaphor, drawn probably from his experiences of the Prætorians, while in captivity. He had plenty of opportunities of studying both the equipment of the single legionary, who, in the 6th chapter of Ephesians, sat for his portrait to the prisoner to whom he was chained, and also the perfection of discipline in the whole which made the legion so formidable. It was not a multitude but a unit, “moving altogether if it move at all,” as if animated by one will. Paul rejoices to know that the Colossian Church was thus welded into a solid unity.
Further, he beholds “the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.” This may be a continuation of the military metaphor, and may mean “the solid front, the close phalanx” which your faith presents. But whether we suppose the figure to be carried on or dropped, we must, I think, recognise that this second point refers rather to the inward condition than to the outward discipline of the Colossians.
Here then is set forth a lofty ideal of the Church, in two respects. First there is outwardly, an ordered disciplined array; and secondly, there is a stedfast faith.
As to the first, Paul was no martinet, anxious
about the pedantry of the parade ground, but he
Some Churches give more weight to the principle
of authority; others to that of individuality. They
may criticise each other’s polity, but the former has
no right to reproach the latter as being necessarily
defective in “order.” Some Churches are all drill
and their favourite idea of discipline is, Obey them
that have the rule over you. The Churches of looser
organization, on the other hand, are no doubt in
danger of making too little of organization. But
both need that all their members should be more
penetrated by the sense of unity, and should fill each
his place in the work of the body. It was far easier
to secure the true order—a place and a task for
every man and every man in his place and at his
But the perfection of discipline is not enough. That may stiffen into routine if there be not something deeper. We want life even more than order. The description of the soldiers who set David on the throne should describe Christ’s army—“men that could keep rank, they were not of double heart.” They had discipline and had learned to accommodate their stride to the length of their comrades’ step; but they had whole-hearted enthusiasm, which was better. Both are needed. If there be not courage and devotion there is nothing worth disciplining. The Church that has the most complete order and not also stedfastness of faith will be like the German armies, all pipeclay and drill, which ran like hares before the ragged shoeless levies whom the first French Revolution flung across the border with a fierce enthusiasm blazing in their hearts. So the Apostle beholds with joy the stedfastness of the Colossians’ faith toward Christ.
If the rendering “stedfastness” be adopted as in
the Rev. Ver., the phrase will be equivalent to the
Such a rock foundation, and consequent stedfastness, must faith have, if it is to be worthy of the name and to manifest its true power. A tremulous faith may, thank God! be a true faith, but the very idea of faith implies solid assurance and fixed confidence. Our faith should be able to resist pressure and to keep its ground against assaults and gainsaying. It should not be like a child’s card castle, that the light breath of a scornful laugh will throw down, but
We should seek to make it so, nor let the fluctuations of our own hearts cause it to fluctuate. We should try so to control the ebb and flow of religious emotion that it may always be near high water with our faith, a tideless but not stagnant sea. We should oppose a settled conviction and unalterable confidence to the noisy voices which would draw us away.
And that we may do so we must keep up a true
and close communion with Jesus Christ. The faith
which is ever going out “towards” Him, as the sunflower
turns sunwards, will ever draw from Him such
blessed gifts that doubt or distrust will be impossible.
If we keep near our Lord and wait expectant on
III. We have here, the exhortation which comprehends all duty, and covers the whole ground of Christian belief and practice.
“Therefore”—the following exhortation is based upon the warning and commendation of the preceding verses. There is first a wide general injunction. “As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,” i.e. let your active life be in accord with what you learned and obtained when you first became Christians. Then this exhortation is defined or broken up into four particulars in the following clauses, which explain in detail how it is to be kept.
The general exhortation is to a true Christian
walk. The main force lies upon the “as.” The
command is to order all life in accordance with the
early lessons and acquisitions. The phrase “ye
received Christ Jesus the Lord” presents several
points requiring notice. It is obviously parallel
with “as ye were taught” in the next verse; so that
it was from their first teachers, and probably from
Epaphras (i. 7) that they had “received Christ.” So
then what we receive, when, from human lips, we
hear the gospel and accept it, is not merely the
word about the Saviour, but the Saviour Himself.
This expression of our text is no mere loose or
rhetorical mode of speech, but a literal and blessed
The solemnity of the full name of our Saviour in
this connection is most significant. Paul reminds
the Colossians, in view of the teaching which
degraded the person and curtailed the work of
Christ, that they had received the man Jesus, the
promised Christ, the universal Lord. As if he had
said, Remember whom you received in your conversion—Christ,
the Messiah, anointed, that is, fitted
by the unmeasured possession of the Divine Spirit
to fulfil all prophecy and to be the world’s deliverer.
Remember Jesus, the man, our brother;—therefore
listen to no misty speculations nor look to whispered
mysteries nor to angel hierarchies for knowledge of
God or for help in conflict. Our gospel is not
theory spun out of men’s brains, but is, first and
foremost, the history of a brother’s life and death.
You received Jesus, so you are delivered from the
tyranny of these unsubstantial and portentous
systems, and relegated to the facts of a human life
for your knowledge of God. You received Jesus
Christ as Lord. He was proclaimed as Lord of men,
angels, and the universe, Lord and Creator of the
spiritual and material worlds, Lord of history and
providence. Therefore you need not give heed to
those teachers who would fill the gulf between men
and God with a crowd of powers and rulers. You
have all that your mind or heart or will can need in
the human Divine Jesus, who is the Christ and the
Lord for you and all men. You have received Him
in the all-sufficiency of His revealed nature and
To that gospel, to that Lord, the walk, the active life, is to be conformed, and the manner thereof is more fully explained in the following clauses.
“Rooted and built up in Him.” Here again we have the profound “in Him,” which appears so frequently in this and in the companion Epistle to the Ephesians, and which must be allowed its proper force, as expressing a most real indwelling of the believer in Christ, if the depth of the meaning is to be sounded.
Paul drives his fiery chariot through rhetorical proprieties, and never shrinks from “mixed metaphors” if they more vigorously express his thought. Here we have three incongruous ones close on each other’s heels. The Christian is to walk, to be rooted like a tree, to be built up like a house. What does the incongruity matter to Paul as the stream of thought and feeling hurries him along?
The tenses of the verbs, too, are studiously and significantly varied. Fully rendered they would be “having been rooted and being builded up.” The one is a past act done once for all, the effects of which are permanent; the other is a continuous resulting process which is going on now. The Christian has been rooted in Jesus Christ at the beginning of his Christian course. His faith has brought him into living contact with the Saviour, who has become as the fruitful soil into which the believer sends his roots, and both feeds and anchors there. The familiar image of the first Psalm may have been in the writer’s mind, and naturally recurs to ours. If we draw nourishment and stability from Christ, round whom the roots of our being twine and cling, we shall flourish and grow and bear fruit. No man can do without some person beyond himself on whom to repose, nor can any of us find in ourselves or on earth the sufficient soil for our growth. We are like seedlings dropped on some great rock, which send their rootlets down the hard stone and are stunted till they reach the rich leaf-mould at its base. We blindly feel through all the barrenness of the world for something into which our roots may plunge that we may be nourished and firm. In Christ we may be “like a tree planted by the river of water;” out of Him we are “as the chaff,” rootless, lifeless, profitless, and swept at last by the wind from the threshing floor. The choice is before every man—either to be rooted in Christ by faith, or to be rootless.
“Being built up in Him.” The gradual continuous
building up of the structure of a Christian
character is doubly expressed in this word by the
“Stablished in your faith, even as ye were taught.”
This is apparently simply a more definite way of
putting substantially the same thoughts as in the
former clauses. Possibly the meaning is “stablished
by faith,” the Colossians’ faith being the instrument
of their establishment. But the Revised Version is
probably right in its rendering, “stablished in,” or
as to, “your faith.” Their faith, as Paul had just
been saying, was stedfast, but it needed yet increased
firmness. And this exhortation, as it were, translates
the previous ones into more homely language,
that if any man stumbled at the mysticism of the
There then is a very plain practical issue of these deep thoughts of union with Jesus. A progressive increase of our faith is the condition of all Christian progress. The faith which is already the firmest, and by its firmness may gladden an Apostle, is still capable of and needs strengthening. Its range can be enlarged, its tenacity increased, its power over heart and life reinforced. The eye of faith is never so keen but that it may become more longsighted; its grasp never so close but that it may be tightened; its realisation never so solid but that it may be more substantial; its authority never so great but that it may be made more absolute. This continual strengthening of faith is the most essential form of a Christian’s effort at self-improvement. Strengthen faith and you strengthen all graces; for it measures our reception of Divine help.
And the furthest development which faith can attain should ever be sedulously kept in harmony with the initial teaching—“even as ye were taught.” Progress does not consist in dropping the early truths of Jesus Christ the Lord for newer wisdom and more speculative religion, but in discovering ever deeper lessons and larger powers in these rudiments which are likewise the last and highest lessons which men can learn.
Further, as the daily effort of the believing soul
ought to be to strengthen the quality of his faith, so
it should be to increase its amount—“abounding in
That constant temper of gratitude implies a
habitual presence to the mind, of God’s great mercy
in His unspeakable gift, a continual glow of heart
as we gaze, a continual appropriation of that gift for
our very own, and a continual outflow of our heart’s
love to the Incarnate and Immortal Love. Such
thankfulness will bind us to glad obedience, and will
give swiftness to the foot and eagerness to the will,
to run in the way of God’s commandments. It is
like genial sunshine, all flowers breathe perfume and
fruits ripen under its influence. It is the fire which
kindles the sacrifice of life and makes it go up in
fragrant incense-clouds, acceptable to God. The
highest nobleness of which man is capable is reached
when, moved by the mercies of God, we yield ourselves
living sacrifices, thank-offerings to Him Who
yielded Himself the sin-offering for us. The life
which is all influenced by thanksgiving will be pure,
strong, happy, in its continual counting of its gifts,
and in its thoughts of the Giver, and not least happy
and beautiful in its glad surrender of itself to Him
who has given Himself for and to it. The noblest
offering that we can bring, the only recompense
which Christ asks, is that our hearts and our lives
“Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are made full, Who is the head of all principality and power.”—Col. ii. 8–10 (Rev. Ver.).
In these words the Bane and Antidote are both before us. Let us consider each.
I. The Poison against which Paul warns the Colossians is plainly described in our first verse, the terms of which may require a brief comment.
“Take heed lest there shall be.” The construction implies that it is a real and not a hypothetical danger which he sees threatening. He is not crying “wolf” before there is need.
“Any one”—perhaps the tone of the warning would be better conveyed if we read the more familiar “somebody”; as if he had said—“I name no names—it is not the persons but the principles that I fight against—but you know whom I mean well enough. Let him be anonymous, you understand who it is.” Perhaps there was even a single “somebody” who was the centre of the mischief.
“That maketh spoil of you.” Such is the full meaning of the word—and not “injure” or “rob,” which the translation in the Authorized Version suggests to an English reader. Paul sees the converts in Colossæ taken prisoners and led away with a cord round their necks, like the long strings of captives on the Assyrian monuments. He had spoken in the previous chapter (ver. 13) of the merciful conqueror who had “translated” them from the realm of darkness into a kingdom of light, and now he fears lest a robber horde, making a raid upon the peaceful colonists in their happy new homes, may sweep them away again into bondage.
The instrument which the man-stealer uses, or
perhaps we may say, the cord, whose fatal noose will
be tightened round them, if they do not take care,
is “philosophy and vain deceit.” If Paul had been
writing in English, he would have put “philosophy”
in inverted commas, to show that he was quoting
The form of the expression in the original shows clearly that “vain deceit,” or more literally “empty deceit,” describes the “philosophy” which Paul is bidding them beware of. They are not two things, but one. It is like a blown bladder, full of wind, and nothing else. In its lofty pretensions, and if we take its own account of itself, it is a love of and search after wisdom; but if we look at it more closely, it is a swollen nothing, empty and a fraud. This is what he is condemning. The genuine thing he has nothing to say about here.
He goes on to describe more closely this impostor,
masquerading in the philosopher’s cloak. It
is “after the traditions of men.” We have seen in
a former chapter what a strange heterogeneous conglomerate
of Jewish ceremonial and Oriental dreams
The Oriental element in the heresy, on the other hand, prided itself on a hidden teaching which was too sacred to be entrusted to books, and was passed from lip to lip in some close conclave of muttering teachers and listening adepts. The fact that all this, be it Jewish, be it Oriental teaching, had no higher source than men’s imaginings and refinings, seems to Paul the condemnation of the whole system. His theory is that in Jesus Christ, every Christian man has the full truth concerning God and man, in their mutual relations,—the authoritative Divine declaration of all that can be known, the perfect exemplar of all that ought to be done, the sun-clear illumination and proof of all that dare be hoped. What an absurd descent, then, from the highest of our prerogatives, to “turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven,” in order to listen to poor human voices, speaking men’s thoughts!
The lesson is as needful to-day as ever. The
Another mark of this empty pretence of wisdom
which threatens to captivate the Colossians is, that
it is “after the rudiments of the world.” The word
rendered “rudiments” means the letters of the alphabet,
and hence comes naturally to acquire the
meaning of “elements,” or “first principles,” just as
we speak of the A B C of a science. The application
of such a designation to the false teaching, is,
like the appropriation of the term “mystery” to the
gospel, an instance of turning the tables and giving
back the teachers their own words. They boasted
of mysterious doctrines reserved for the initiated, of
which the plain truths that Paul preached were but
the elements, and they looked down contemptuously
on his message as “milk for babes.” Paul retorts on
them, asserting that the true mystery, the profound
truth long hidden and revealed, is the word which
he preached, and that the poverty-stricken elements,
fit only for infants, are in that swelling inanity which
called itself wisdom and was not. Not only does
he brand it as “rudiments,” but as “rudiments of
the world,” which is worse—that is to say, as
We need the lesson in this day no less than did
these Christians in the little community in that
remote valley of Phrygia. The forms which were
Paul sums up his indictment in one damning
clause, the result of the two preceding. If the
heresy have no higher source than men’s traditions,
and no more solid contents than ceremonial observances,
it cannot be “after Christ.” He is
neither its origin, nor its substance, nor its rule and
standard. There is a fundamental discord between
every such system, however it may call itself Christian,
and Christ. The opposition may be concealed by
its teachers. They and their victims may not be
aware of it. They may not themselves be conscious
that by adopting it they have slipped off the
foundation; but they have done so, and though
in their own hearts they be loyal to Him, they have
II. The Antidote.—“For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power.”
These words may be a reason for the warning—“Take
heed, for”; or they may be a reason for the
implied exclusion of any teaching which is not after
Christ. The statement of its characteristics carries
in itself its condemnation. Anything “not after
Christ” is ipso facto wrong, and to be avoided—“for,”
etc. “In Him” is placed with emphasis at the beginning,
and implies “and nowhere else.” “Dwelleth,”
that is, has its permanent abode; where the tense
is to be noticed also, as pointing to the ascended
If He be the one sole temple of Deity in whom
all Divine glories are stored, why go anywhere else
in order to see or to possess God? It is folly; for
not only are all these glories stored in Him, but
they are so stored on purpose to be reached by us.
Therefore the Apostle goes on, “and in Him ye are
made full;” which sets forth two things as true in
the inward life of all Christians, namely, their living
incorporation in and union with Christ, and their
consequent participation in His fulness. Every one
of us may enter into that most real and close union
with Jesus Christ by the power of continuous faith
in Him. So may we be grafted into the Vine, and
builded into the Rock. If thus we keep our hearts
in contact with His heart and let Him lay His lip
This process of receiving of all the Divine fulness
is a continuous one. We can but be approximating
to the possession of the infinite treasure which is
ours in Christ; and since the treasure is infinite, and
we can indefinitely grow in capacity of receiving
From all such thoughts Paul would have us draw
the conclusion—how foolish, then, it must be to go
to any other source for the supply of our needs!
Christ is “the head of all principality and power,”
he adds, with a reference to the doctrine of angel
mediators, which evidently played a great part in
the heretical teaching. If He is sovereign head of
all dignity and power on earth and heaven, why go
to the ministers, when we have access to the King;
or have recourse to erring human teachers, when we
have the Eternal Word to enlighten us; or flee to
creatures to replenish our emptiness, when we may
draw from the depths of God in Christ? Why should
Though all the earth were covered with helpers and lovers of my soul, “as the sand by the sea shore innumerable,” and all the heavens were sown with faces of angels who cared for me and succoured me, thick as the stars in the milky way—all could not do for me what I need. Yea, though all these were gathered into one mighty and loving creature, even he were no sufficient stay for one soul of man. We want more than creature help. We need the whole fulness of the Godhead to draw from. It is all there in Christ, for each of us. Whosoever will, let him draw freely. Why should we leave the fountain of living waters to hew out for ourselves, with infinite pains, broken cisterns that can hold no water? All we need is in Christ. Let us lift our eyes from the low earth and all creatures, and behold “no man any more,” as Lord and Helper, “save Jesus only,” “that we may be filled with all the fulness of God.”
“In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he quicken together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.”—Col. ii. 11–13 (Rev. Ver.).
I. To this teaching of the necessity of circumcision,
he first opposes the position that all Christian
men, by virtue of their union with Christ, have received
the true circumcision, of which the outward
His language is emphatic and remarkable. It points to a definite past time—no doubt the time when they became Christians—when, because they were in Christ, a change passed on them which is fitly paralleled with circumcision. This Christian circumcision is described in three particulars: as “not made with hands;” as consisting in “putting off the body of the flesh;” and as being “of Christ.”
It is “not made with hands,” that is, it is not a
rite but a reality, not transacted in flesh but in spirit.
It is not the removal of ceremonial impurity, but
the cleansing of the heart. This idea of ethical
circumcision, of which the bodily rite is the type,
is common in the Old Testament, as, for instance,
“The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart ...
to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart”
(
It consists in the “putting off the body of the
flesh”—for “the sins of” is an interpolation. Of
course a man does not shuffle off this mortal coil
when he becomes a Christian, so that we have to
look for some other meaning of the strong words.
They are very strong, for the word “putting off” is
intensified so as to express a complete stripping off
from oneself, as of clothes which are laid aside, and
is evidently intended to contrast the partial outward
circumcision as the removal of a small part of the
body, with the entire removal effected by union with
Christ. If that removal of “the body of the flesh”
is “not made with hands,” then it can only be in the
sphere of the spiritual life, that is to say, it must
Finally, this circumcision is described as “of
Such being the force of this statement, what is its bearing on the Apostle’s purpose? He desires to destroy the teaching that the rite of circumcision was binding on the Christian converts, and he does so by asserting that the gospel has brought the reality, of which the rite was but a picture and a prophecy. The underlying principle is that when we have the thing signified by any Jewish rites, which were all prophetic as well as symbolic, the rite may—must go. Its retention is an anachronism, “as if a flower should shut, and be a bud again.” That is a wise and pregnant principle, but as it comes to the surface again immediately hereafter, and is applied to a whole series of subjects, we may defer the consideration of it, and rather dwell briefly on other matters suggested by this verse.
We notice, then, the intense moral earnestness
which leads the Apostle here to put the true centre
of gravity of Christianity in moral transformation,
and to set all outward rites and ceremonies in a
very subordinate place. What had Jesus Christ
come from heaven for, and for what had He borne
His bitter passion? To what end were the Colossians
knit to Him by a tie so strong, tender and
strange? Had they been carried into that inmost
depth of union with Him, and were they still to be
laying stress on ceremonies? Had Christ’s work,
then, no higher issue than to leave religion bound in
the cords of outward observances? Surely Jesus
Christ, who gives men a new life by union with
Himself, which union is brought about through faith
alone, has delivered men from that “yoke of bondage,”
We notice again, that the conquest of the animal nature and the material body is the certain outcome of true union with Christ, and of that alone.
Paul did not regard matter as necessarily evil, as
these teachers at Colossæ did, nor did he think of
the body as the source of all sin. But he knew that
the fiercest and most fiery temptations came from
it, and that the foulest and most indelible stains on
conscience were splashed from the mud which it
threw. We all know that too. It is a matter of
life and death for each of us to find some means of
taming and holding in the animal that is in us all.
We all know of wrecked lives, which have been driven
on the rocks by the wild passions belonging to the
II. The Apostle meets the false teaching of the need for circumcision, by a second consideration; namely, a reference to Christian Baptism, as being the Christian sign of that inward change.
Ye were circumcised, says he—being buried with
Him in baptism. The form of expression in the
Greek implies that the two things are cotemporaneous.
As if he had said—Do you want any
further rite to express that mighty change which
passed on you when you came to be “in Christ”?
You have been baptised, does not that express all
the meaning that circumcision ever had, and much
more? What can you want with the less significant
rite when you have the more significant? This
reference to baptism is quite consistent with what
has been said as to the subordinate importance of
ritual. Some forms we must have, if there is to be
any outward visible Church, and Christ has yielded
to the necessity, and given us two, of which the one
symbolises the initial spiritual act of the Christian
life, and the other the constantly repeated process of
Christian nourishment. They are symbols and outward
representations, nothing more. They convey
We see that the form of baptism here presupposed is by immersion, and that the form is regarded as significant. All but entire unanimity prevails among commentators on this point. The burial and the resurrection spoken of point unmistakably to the primitive mode of baptism, as Bishop Lightfoot, the latest and best English expositor of this book, puts it in his paraphrase: “Ye were buried with Christ to your old selves beneath the baptismal waters, and were raised with Him from these same waters, to a new and better life.”
If so, two questions deserve consideration—first, is it right to alter a form which has a meaning that is lost by the change? second, can we alter a significant form without destroying it? Is the new thing rightly called by the old name? If baptism be immersion, and immersion express a substantial part of its meaning, can sprinkling or pouring be baptism?
Again, baptism is associated in time with the inward change, which is the true circumcision. There are but two theories on which these two things are cotemporaneous. The one is the theory that baptism effects the change, the other is the theory that baptism goes with the change as its sign. The association is justified if men are “circumcised,” that is, changed when they are baptised, or if men are baptised when they have been “circumcised.” No other theory gives full weight to these words.
The former theory elevates baptism into more than the importance of which Paul sought to deprive circumcision, it confuses the distinction between the Church and the world, it lulls men into a false security, it obscures the very central truth of Christianity—namely that faith in Christ, working by love, makes a Christian—it gives the basis for a portentous reproduction of sacerdotalism, and it is shivered to pieces against the plain facts of daily life. But it may be worth while to notice in a sentence, that it is conclusively disposed of by the language before us—it is “through faith in the operation of God” that we are raised again in baptism. Not the rite, then, but faith is the means of this participation with Christ in burial and resurrection. What remains but that baptism is associated with that spiritual change by which we are delivered from the body of the flesh, because in the Divine order it is meant to be the outward symbol of that change which is effected by no rite or sacrament, but by faith alone, uniting us to the transforming Christ?
We observe the solemnity and the thoroughness of
the change thus symbolised. It is more than a circumcision.
It is burial and a resurrection, an entire
dying of the old self by union with Christ, a real and
present rising again by participation in His risen life.
This and nothing less makes a Christian. We partake
of His death, inasmuch as we ally ourselves to
it by our faith, as the sacrifice for our sins, and make
it the ground of all our hope. But that is not all.
We partake of His death, inasmuch as, by the power
of His cross, we are drawn to sever ourselves from
the selfish life, and to slay our own old nature; dying
for His dear sake to the habits, tastes, desires and
If we are thus made conformable to His death, we shall know the power of His resurrection, in all its aspects. It will be to us the guarantee of our own, and we shall know its power as a prophecy for our future. It will be to us the seal of His perfect work on the cross, and we shall know its power as God’s token of acceptance of His sacrifice in the past. It will be to us the type of our spiritual resurrection now, and we shall know its power as the pattern and source of our supernatural life in the present. Thus we must die in and with Christ that we may live in and with Him, and that twofold process is the very heart of personal religion. No lofty participation in the immortal hopes which spring from the empty grave of Jesus is warranted, unless we have His quickening power raising us to-day by a better resurrection; and no participation in the present power of His heavenly life is possible, unless we have such a share in His death, as that by it the world is crucified to us, and we unto the world.
III. The Apostle adds another phase of this great
contrast of life and death, which brings home still
“And you, being dead through your trespasses,
and the uncircumcision of your flesh.” The separate
acts of transgression of which they had been guilty,
and the unchastened, unpurified, carnal nature from
which these had flowed, were the reasons of a very
real and awful death; or, as the parallel passage in
Ephesians (ii. 2) puts it with a slight variation, they
made the condition or sphere in which that death
inhered. That solemn thought, so pregnant in its
dread emphasis in Scripture, is not to be put aside as
a mere metaphor. All life stands in union with
God. The physical universe exists by reason of its
perpetual contact with His sustaining hand, in the
hollow of which all Being lies, and it is, because He
touches it. “In Him we live.” So also the life of
mind is sustained by His perpetual inbreathing, and
in the deepest sense “we see light” in His light.
So, lastly, the highest life of the spirit stands in union
in still higher manner with Him, and to be separated
from Him is death to it. Sin breaks that union, and
therefore sin is death, in the very inmost centre of
man’s being. The awful warning, “In the day thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” was fulfilled.
That separation by sin, in which the soul is wrenched
from God, is the real death, and the thing that men
call by the name is only an outward symbol of a far
sadder fact—the shadow of that which is the awful
So men may live in the body, and toil and think and feel, and be dead. The world is full of “sheeted dead,” that “squeak and gibber” in “our streets,” for every soul that lives to self and has rent itself away from God, so far as a creature can, is “dead while he liveth.” The other death, of which the previous verse spoke, is therefore but the putting off of a death. We lose nothing of real life in putting off self, but only that which keeps us in a separation from God, and slays our true and highest being. To die to self is but “the death of death.”
The same life of which the previous verse spoke
as coming from the risen Lord is here set forth as
able to raise us from that death of sin. “He hath
quickened you together with Him.” Union with
Christ floods our dead souls with His own vitality,
as water will pour from a reservoir through a tube
inserted in it. There is the actual communication
of a new life when we touch Christ by faith. The
prophet of old laid himself upon the dead child, the
warm lip on the pallid mouth, the throbbing heart
on the still one, and the contact rekindled the extinguished
spark. So Christ lays His full life on
our deadness, and does more than recall a departed
glow of vitality. He communicates a new life kindred
with His own. That life makes us free here
and now from the law of sin and death, and it shall
be perfected hereafter when the working of His
mighty power shall change the body of our humiliation
into the likeness of the body of His glory, and
the leaven of His new life shall leaven the three
measures in which it is hidden, body, soul, and spirit,
But to all this one preliminary is needful—“having forgiven us all trespasses.” Paul’s eagerness to associate himself with his brethren, and to claim his share in the forgiveness, as well as to unite in the acknowledgment of sin, makes him change his word from “you” to “us.” So the best manuscripts give the text, and the reading is obviously full of interest and suggestiveness. There must be a removal of the cause of deadness before there can be a quickening to new life. That cause was sin, which cannot be cancelled as guilt by any self-denial however great, nor even by the impartation of a new life from God for the future. A gospel which only enjoined dying to self would be as inadequate as a gospel which only provided for a higher life in the future. The stained and faultful past must be cared for. Christ must bring pardon for it, as well as a new spirit for the future. So the condition prior to our being quickened together with Him is God’s forgiveness, free and universal, covering all our sins, and given to us without anything on our part. That condition is satisfied. Christ’s death brings to us God’s pardon, and when the great barrier of unforgiven sin is cleared away, Christ’s life pours into our hearts, and “everything lives whithersoever the river cometh.”
Here then we have the deepest ground of Paul’s
intense hatred of every attempt to make anything
but faith in Christ and moral purity essential to the
perfect Christian life. Circumcision and baptism
and all other rites or sacraments of Judaism or
Christianity are equally powerless to quicken dead
We need the profound truth which lies in the threefold form which Paul gives to one of his great watchwords: “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.” And how, says my despairing conscience, shall I keep the commandments? The answer lies in the second form of the saying—“In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” And how, replies my saddened heart, can I become a new creature? The answer lies in the final form of the saying—“In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh.” Faith brings the life which makes us new men, and then we can keep the commandments. If we have faith, and are new men and do God’s will, we need no rites but as helps. If we have not faith, all rites are nothing.
“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”—Col. ii. 14, 15 (Rev. Ver.).
I. The Cross of Christ is the death of Law.
The law is a written document. It has an
antagonistic aspect to us all, Gentiles as well as
Jews. Christ has blotted it out. More than that,
We have first, then, to consider the “handwriting,” or, as some would render the word, “the bond.” Of course, by law here is primarily meant the Mosaic ceremonial law, which was being pressed upon the Colossians. It is so completely antiquated for us, that we have difficulty in realising what a fight for life and death raged round the question of its observance by the primitive Church. It is always harder to change customs than creeds, and religious observances live on, as every maypole on a village green tells us, long after the beliefs which animated them are forgotten. So there was a strong body among the early believers to whom it was flat blasphemy to speak of allowing the Gentile Christian to come into the Church, except through the old doorway of circumcision, and to whom the outward ceremonial of Judaism was the only visible religion. That is the point directly at issue between Paul and these teachers.
But the modern distinction between moral and
ceremonial law had no existence in Paul’s mind, any
Further, we must give a still wider extension to the thought. The principles laid down are true not only in regard to “the law,” but about all law, whether it be written on the tables of stone, or on “the fleshy tables of the heart” or conscience, or in the systems of ethics, or in the customs of society. Law, as such, howsoever enacted and whatever the bases of its rule, is dealt with by Christianity in precisely the same way as the venerable and God-given code of the Old Testament. When we recognise that fact, these discussions in Paul’s Epistles flash up into startling vitality and interest. It has long since been settled that Jewish ritual is nothing to us. But it ever remains a burning question for each of us, What Christianity does for us in relation to the solemn law of duty under which we are all placed, and which we have all broken?
The antagonism of law is the next point presented
by these words. Twice, to add to the
emphasis, Paul tells us that the law is against us.
It stands opposite us fronting us and frowning at us,
We all know that. Strange and tragic it is, but
alas! it is true, that God’s law presents itself before
us as an enemy. Each of us has seen that apparition,
severe in beauty, like the sword-bearing angel
that Balaam saw “standing in the way” between
the vineyards, blocking our path when we wanted
to “go frowardly in the way of our heart.” Each
of us knows what it is to see our sentence in the
But the great principle here asserted is—the destruction of law in the cross of Christ. The cross ends the law’s power of punishment. Paul believed that the burden and penalty of sin had been laid on Jesus Christ and borne by Him on His cross. In deep, mysterious, but most real identification of Himself with the whole race of man, He not only Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, by the might of His sympathy and the reality of His manhood, but “the Lord made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all”; and He, the Lamb of God, willingly accepted the load, and bare away our sins by bearing their penalty.
To philosophise on that teaching of Scripture is
not my business here. It is my business to assert
it. We can never penetrate to a full understanding
of the rationale of Christ’s bearing the world’s sins,
but that has nothing to do with the earnestness of
our belief in the fact. Enough for us that in His
person He willingly made experience of all the bitterness
of sin: that when He agonised in the dark on
Christ’s cross is the end of law as ceremonial. The
whole elaborate ritual of the Jew had sacrifice for its
vital centre, and the prediction of the Great Sacrifice
for its highest purpose. Without the admission of
these principles, Paul’s position is unintelligible, for
he holds, as in this context, that Christ’s coming puts
the whole system out of date, because it fulfils it all.
When the fruit has set, there is no more need for
petals; or, as the Apostle himself puts it, “when
that which is perfect is come, that which is in part is
done away.” We have the reality, and do not need
the shadow. There is but one temple for the Christian
soul—the “temple of His body.” Local sanctity
Christ’s cross is the end of law as moral rule.
Nothing in Paul’s writings warrants the restriction to
the ceremonial law of the strong assertion in the
text, and its many parallels. Of course, such words
do not mean that Christian men are freed from the
obligations of morality, but they do mean that we
are not bound to do the “things contained in the
law” because they are there. Duty is duty now
because we see the pattern of conduct and character
in Christ. Conscience is not our standard, nor is
the Old Testament conception of the perfect ideal
of manhood. We have neither to read law in the
fleshy tables of the heart, nor in the tables graven
by God’s own finger, nor in men’s parchments and
prescriptions. Our law is the perfect life and death
The weakness of all law is that it merely commands, but has no power to get its commandments obeyed. Like a discrowned king, it posts its proclamations, but has no army at its back to execute them. But Christ puts His own power within us, and His love in our hearts; and so we pass from under the dominion of an external commandment into the liberty of an inward spirit. He is to His followers both “law and impulse.” He gives not the “law of a carnal commandment, but the power of an endless life.” The long schism between inclination and duty is at an end, in so far as we are under the influence of Christ’s cross. The great promise is fulfilled, “I will put My law into their minds and write it in their hearts”; and so, glad obedience with the whole power of the new life, for the sake of the love of the dear Lord who has bought us by His death, supersedes the constrained submission to outward precept. A higher morality ought to characterise the partakers of the life of Christ, who have His example for their code, and His love for their motive. The tender voice that says, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments,” wins us to purer and more self-sacrificing goodness than the stern accents that can only say, “Thou shalt—or else!” can ever enforce. He came “not to destroy, but to fulfil.” The fulfilment was destruction in order to reconstruction in higher form. Law died with Christ on the cross in order that it might rise and reign with Him in our inmost hearts.
II. The Cross is the triumph over all the powers of evil.
There are considerable difficulties in the interpretation of verse 15; the main question being the meaning of the word rendered in the Authorized Version “spoiled,” and in the R. V. “having put off from Himself.” It is the same word as is used in iii. 9, and is there rendered “have put off”; while a cognate noun is found in verse 11 of this chapter, and is there translated “the putting off.” The form here must either mean “having put off from oneself,” or “having stripped (others) for oneself.” The former meaning is adopted by many commentators, as well as by the R. V., and is explained to mean that Christ having assumed our humanity, was, as it were, wrapped about and invested with Satanic temptations, which He finally flung from Him for ever in His death, which was His triumph over the powers of evil. The figure seems far-fetched and obscure, and the rendering necessitates the supposition of a change in the person spoken of, which must be God in the earlier part of the period, and Christ in the latter.
But if we adopt the other meaning, which has
equal warrant in the Greek form, “having stripped
for Himself,” we get the thought that in the cross,
God has, for His greater glory, stripped principalities
and powers. Taking this meaning, we avoid the
necessity of supposing with Bishop Lightfoot that
there is a change of subject from God to Christ
at some point in the period including verses 13 to
15—an expedient which is made necessary by the
impossibility of supposing that God “divested Himself
of principalities or powers”—and also avoid the
other necessity of referring the whole period to
Christ, which is another way out of that impossibility.
The words point us into dim regions of which we know nothing more than Scripture tells us. These dreamers at Colossæ had much to say about a crowd of beings, bad and good, which linked men and matter with spirit and God. We have heard already the emphasis with which Paul has claimed for his Master the sovereign authority of Creator over all orders of being, the headship over all principality and power. He has declared, too, that from Christ’s cross a magnetic influence streams out upwards as well as earthwards, binding all things together in the great reconciliation—and now he tells us that from that same cross shoot downwards darts of conquering power which subdue and despoil reluctant foes of other realms and regions than ours, in so far as they work among men.
That there are such seems plainly enough asserted
But the position which Christianity takes in
reference to the whole matter is to maintain that
Christ has conquered the banded kingdom of evil,
and that no man owes it fear or obedience, if he
will only hold fast by his Lord. In the cross is the
judgment of this world, and by it is the prince of
this world cast out. He has taken away the power
of these Powers who were so mighty amongst men.
They held men captive by temptations too strong
to be overcome, but He has conquered the lesser
temptations of the wilderness and the sorer of the
cross, and therein has made us more than conquerors.
They held men captive by ignorance of God, and
the cross reveals Him; by the lie that sin was a
trifle, but the cross teaches us its gravity and power;
by the opposite lie that sin was unforgivable, but
the cross brings pardon for every transgression and
cleansing for every stain. By the cross the world is
a redeemed world, and, as our Lord said in words
which may have suggested the figure of our text, the
strong man is bound, and his house spoiled of all his
armour wherein he trusted. The prey is taken from
the mighty and men are delivered from the dominion
of evil. So that dark kingdom is robbed of its
subjects and its rulers impoverished and restrained.
The devout imagination of the monk-painter drew
on the wall of the cell in his convent the conquering
Christ with white banner bearing a blood-red cross,
before whose glad coming the heavy doors of the
So we learn to think of evil as conquered, and for ourselves in our own conflicts with the world, the flesh, and the devil, as well as for the whole race of man, to be of good cheer. True, the victory is but slowly being realised in all its consequences, and often it seems as if no territory had been won. But the main position has been carried, and though the struggle is still obstinate, it can end only in one way. The brute dies hard, but the naked heel of our Christ has bruised his head, and though still the dragon
his death will come sooner or later. The regenerating
power is lodged in the heart of humanity, and
Let us see that we have our own personal part in that victory. Holding to Christ, and drawing from Him by faith a share in His new life, we shall no longer be under the yoke of law, but enfranchised into the obedience of love, which is liberty. We shall no longer be slaves of evil, but sons and servants of our conquering God, who woos and wins us by showing us all His love in Christ, and by giving us His own Son on the Cross, our peace-offering. If we let Him overcome, His victory will be life, not death. He will strip us of nothing but rags, and clothe us in garments of purity; He will so breathe beauty into us that He will show us openly to the universe as examples of His transforming power, and He will bind us glad captives to His chariot wheels, partakers of His victory as well as trophies of His all-conquering love. “Now thanks be unto God, which always triumphs over us in Jesus Christ.”
“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is Christ’s. Let no man rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he hath seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God.”—Col. ii. 16–19 (Rev. Ver.).
I. Here then we have first, the claim for Christian liberty, with the great truth on which it is built.
The points in regard to which that liberty is to be exercised are specified. They are no doubt those, in addition to circumcision, which were principally in question then and there. “Meat and drink” refers to restrictions in diet, such as the prohibition of “unclean” things in the Mosaic law, and the question of the lawfulness of eating meat offered to idols; perhaps also, such as the Nazarite vow. There were few regulations as to “drink” in the Old Testament, so that probably other ascetic practices besides the Mosaic regulations were in question, but these must have been unimportant, else Paul could not have spoken of the whole as being a “shadow of things to come.” The second point in regard to which liberty is here claimed is that of the sacred seasons of Judaism: the annual festivals, the monthly feast of the new moon, the weekly Sabbath.
The relation of the Gentile converts to these Jewish practices was an all-important question for the early Church. It was really the question whether Christianity was to be more than a Jewish sect—and the main force which, under God, settled the contest, was the vehemence and logic of the Apostle Paul.
Here he lays down the ground on which that whole
question about diet and days, and all such matters, is
to be settled. They “are a shadow of things to come”
Now that involves two thoughts about the Mosaic
law and whole system. First, the purely prophetic
and symbolic character of the Old Testament order,
and especially of the Old Testament ritual. The
absurd extravagance of many attempts to “spiritualize”
the latter should not blind us to the truth
which they caricature. Nor, on the other hand,
should we be so taken with new attempts to reconstruct
our notions of Jewish history and the
dates of Old Testament books, as to forget that,
though the New Testament is committed to no
theory on these points, it is committed to the Divine
origin and prophetic purpose of the Mosaic law and
Levitical worship. We should thankfully accept all
teaching which free criticism and scholarship can
give us as to the process by which, and the time
when, that great symbolic system of acted prophecy
was built up; but we shall be further away than
ever from understanding the Old Testament if we
have gained critical knowledge of its genesis, and
have lost the belief that its symbols were given by
God to prophesy of His Son. That is the key to
both Testaments; and I cannot but believe that
the uncritical reader who reads his book of the
Sacrifice, altar, priest, temple spake of Him. The distinctions of meats were meant, among other purposes, to familiarize men with the conceptions of purity and impurity, and so, by stimulating conscience, to wake the sense of need of a Purifier. The yearly feasts set forth various aspects of the great work of Christ, and the sabbath showed in outward form the rest into which He leads those who cease from their own works and wear His yoke. All these observances, and the whole system to which they belong, are like out-riders who precede a prince on his progress, and as they gallop through sleeping villages, rouse them with the cry, “The king is coming!”
And when the king has come, where are the heralds? and when the reality has come, who wants symbols? and if that which threw the shadow forward through the ages has arrived, how shall the shadow be visible too? Therefore the second principle here laid down, namely the cessation of all these observances, and their like, is really involved in the first, namely their prophetic character.
The practical conclusion drawn is very noteworthy,
because it seems much narrower than the premises
warrant. Paul does not say—therefore let no man
observe any of these any more; but takes up the
much more modest ground—let no man judge you
about them. He claims a wide liberty of variation,
and all that he repels is the right of anybody to
dragoon Christian men into ceremonial observances
on the ground that they are necessary. He does
In his own practice he gave the best commentary on his meaning. When they said to him, “You must circumcise Titus,” he said, “Then I will not.” When nobody tried to compel him, he took Timothy, and of his own accord circumcised him to avoid scandals. When it was needful as a protest, he rode right over all the prescriptions of the law, and “did eat with Gentiles.” When it was advisable as a demonstration that he himself “walked orderly and kept the law,” he performed the rites of purification and united in the temple worship.
In times of transition wise supporters of the new will not be in a hurry to break with the old. “I will lead on softly, according as the flock and the children be able to endure,” said Jacob, and so says every good shepherd.
The brown sheaths remain on the twig after the
tender green leaf has burst from within them, but
there is no need to pull them off, for they will drop
presently. “I will wear three surplices if they like,”
said Luther once. “Neither if we eat are we the
better, neither if we eat not are we the worse,” said
Paul. Such is the spirit of the words here. It is
a plea for Christian liberty. If not insisted on as
necessary, the outward observances may be allowed.
If they are regarded as helps, or as seemly adjuncts
or the like, there is plenty of room for difference
of opinion and for variety of practice, according
to temperament and taste and usage. There are
principles which should regulate even these diversities
of practice, and Paul has set these forth, in the great
chapter about meats in the Epistle to the Romans.
A few words may be said here on the bearing
of the principles laid down in these verses on the
religious observance of Sunday. The obligation of
the Jewish sabbath has passed away as much as
sacrifices and circumcision. That seems unmistakably
the teaching here. But the institution of a weekly
day of rest is distinctly put in Scripture as independent
of, and prior to, the special form and meaning
given to the institution in the Mosaic law. That
is the natural conclusion from the narrative of the
creative rest in Genesis, and from our Lord’s emphatic
declaration that the sabbath was made for “man”—that
is to say, for the race. Many traces of the pre-Mosaic
sabbath have been adduced, and among
others we may recall the fact that recent researches
show it to have been observed by the Accadians, the
early inhabitants of Assyria. It is a physical and
moral necessity, and that is a sadly mistaken benevolence
The religious observance of the first day of the week rests on no recorded command, but has a higher origin, inasmuch as it is the outcome of a felt want. The early disciples naturally gathered together for worship on the day which had become so sacred to them. At first, no doubt, they observed the Jewish sabbath, and only gradually came to the practice which we almost see growing before our eyes in the Acts of the Apostles, in the mention of the disciples at Troas coming together on the first day of the week to break bread, and which we gather, from the Apostle’s instructions as to weekly setting apart money for charitable purposes, to have existed in the Church at Corinth; as we know, that even in his lonely island prison far away from the company of his brethren, the Apostle John was in a condition of high religious contemplation on the Lord’s day, ere yet he heard the solemn voice and saw “the things which are.”
This gradual growing up of the practice is in
accordance with the whole spirit of the New Covenant,
which has next to nothing to say about the externals
of worship, and leaves the new life to shape itself.
Judaism gave prescriptions and minute regulations;
Christianity, the religion of the spirit, gives principles.
The necessity, for the nourishment of the Divine life,
of the religious observance of the day of rest is
certainly not less now than at first. In the hurry
and drive of our modern life with the world forcing
itself on us at every moment, we cannot keep up
II. The Apostle passes on to his second peal of warning,—that against the teaching about angel mediators, which would rob the Colossian Christians of their prize,—and draws a rapid portrait of the teachers of whom they are to beware.
“Let no man rob you of your prize.” The
metaphor is the familiar one of the race or the
wrestling ground; the umpire or judge is Christ;
the reward is that incorruptible crown of glory, of
righteousness, woven not of fading bay leaves, but
of sprays from the “tree of life,” which dower with
undying blessedness the brows round which they are
So very humble were these people that they would not venture to pray to God! There was humility indeed. So far beneath did they feel themselves, that the utmost they could do was to lay hold of the lowest link of a long chain of angel mediators, in hope that the vibration might run upwards through all the links, and perhaps reach the throne at last. Such fantastic abasement which would not take God at His word, nor draw near to Him in His Son, was really the very height of pride.
Then follows a second descriptive clause, of which
no altogether satisfactory interpretation has yet been
“Vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind” is the next feature in the portrait. The self-conscious humility was only skin deep, and covered the utmost intellectual arrogance. The heretic teacher, like a blown bladder, was swollen with what after all was only wind; he was dropsical from conceit of “mind,” or, as we should say, “intellectual ability,” which after all was only the instrument and organ of the “flesh,” the sinful self. And, of course, being all these things, he would have no firm grip of Christ, from whom such tempers and views were sure to detach him. Therefore the damning last clause of the indictment is “not holding the Head.” How could he do so? And the slackness of his grasp of the Lord Jesus would make all these errors and faults ten times worse.
Now the special forms of these errors which are
here dealt with are all gone past recall. But the
tendencies which underlay these special forms are as
rampant as ever, and work unceasingly to loosen our
hold of our dear Lord. The worship of angels is
We do not see visions and dream dreams any
more, except here and there some one led astray by a
so-called “spiritualism,” but plenty of us attach more
importance to our own subjective fancies or speculations
about the obscurer parts of Christianity than to
the clear revelation of God in Christ. The “unseen
world” has for many minds an unwholesome attraction.
The Gnostic spirit is still in full force among
us, which despises the foundation facts and truths of
the gospel as “milk for babes,” and values its own
baseless artificial speculations about subordinate
matters, which are unrevealed because they are
subordinate, and fascinating to some minds because
unrevealed, far above the truths which are clear because
they are vital, and insipid to such minds because
they are clear. We need to be reminded that Christianity
is not for speculation, but to make us good,
and that “He who has fashioned their hearts alike,”
has made us all to live by the same air, to be
nourished by the same bread from heaven, to be
And a swollen self-conceit is of all things the most certain to keep a man away from Christ. We must feel our utter helplessness and need, before we shall lay hold on Him, and if ever that wholesome lowly sense of our own emptiness is clouded over, that moment will our fingers relax their tension, and that moment will the flow of life into our deadness run slow and pause. Whatever slackens our hold of Christ tends to rob us of the final prize, that crown of life which He gives.
Hence the solemn earnestness of these warnings.
It was not only a doctrine more or less that was at
stake, but it was their eternal life. Certain truths
believed would increase the firmness of their hold
on their Lord, and thereby would secure the prize.
Disbelieved, the disbelief would slacken their grasp
of Him, and thereby would deprive them of it. We
are often told that the gospel gives heaven for right
belief, and that that is unjust. But if a man does
not believe a thing, he cannot have in his character
or feelings the influence which the belief of it would
produce. If he does not believe that Christ died
for his sins, and that all his hopes are built on that
great Saviour, he will not cleave to Him in love and
dependence. If he does not so cleave to Him he
III. The source and manner of all true growth is next set forth, in order to enforce the warning, and to emphasize the need of holding the Head.
Christ is not merely represented supreme and
sovereign, when He is called “the head.” The
metaphor goes much deeper, and points to Him as
the source of a real spiritual life, from Him communicated
to all the members of the true Church, and
constituting it an organic whole. We have found
the same expression twice already in the Epistle;
These blessed results of supply and unity are
effected through the action of the various parts. If
each organ is in healthy action, the body grows.
There is diversity in offices; the same life is light
A community where each member thus holds
firmly by the Head, and each ministers in his degree
to the nourishment and compaction of the members,
will, says Paul, increase with the increase of God.
The increase will come from Him, will be pleasing
to Him, will be essentially the growth of His own
life in the body. There is an increase not of God.
These heretical teachers were swollen with dropsical
self-conceit; but this is wholesome, solid growth.
For individuals and communities of professing Christians
the lesson is always seasonable, that it is very
easy to get an increase of the other kind. The
individual may increase in apparent knowledge, in
volubility, in visions and speculations, in so-called
Christian work; the Church may increase in members,
in wealth, in culture, in influence in the world, in
apparent activities, in subscription lists, and the like—and
“If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances. Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.”—Col. ii. 20–23 (Rev. Ver.).
I. We have then to consider the great fact of the Christian’s death with Christ, and to apply it as a touch-stone.
The language of the Apostle points to a definite time when the Colossian Christians “died” with Christ. That carries us back to former words in the chapter, where, as we found, the period of their baptism considered as the symbol and profession of their conversion, was regarded as the time of their burial. They died with Christ when they clave with penitent trust to the truth that Christ died for them. When a man unites himself by faith to the dying Christ as his Peace, Pardon, and Saviour, then he too in a very real sense dies with Jesus.
That thought that every Christian is dead with
Christ, runs through the whole of Paul’s teaching.
It is no mere piece of mysticism on his lips, though
it has often become so, when divorced from morality,
as it has been by some Christian teachers. It is no
mere piece of rhetoric, though it has often become
so, when men have lost the true thought of what
Christ’s death is for the world. But to Paul the
cross of Christ was, first and foremost, the altar of
The plain English of it all is, that when a man becomes a Christian by putting his trust in Christ Who died, as the ground of his acceptance and salvation, such a change takes place upon his whole nature and relationship to externals as is fairly comparable to a death.
The same illustration is frequent in ordinary
speech. What do we mean when we talk of an old
man being dead to youthful passions or follies or
ambitions? We mean that they have ceased to
interest him, that he is separated from them and
insensible to them. Death is the separator. What
an awful gulf there is between that fixed white face
beneath the sheet, and all the things about which the
man was so eager an hour ago! How impossible
for any cries of love to pass the chasm! “His
sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not.” The
“business” which filled his thoughts, crumbles to
pieces, and he cares not. Nothing reaches him or
interests him any more. So, if we have got hold of
Christ as our Saviour, and have found in His cross
the anchor of souls, that experience will deaden us
to all which was our life, and the measure in which
we are joined to Jesus by our faith in His great
sacrifice, will be the measure in which we are
detached from our former selves, and from old
objects of interest and pursuit. The change may
either be called dying with Christ, or rising with
Him. The one phrase takes hold of it at an earlier
stage than the other; the one puts stress on our
Such detachment from externals and separation from a former self is not unknown in ordinary life. Strong emotion of any kind makes us insensible to things around, and even to physical pain. Many a man with the excitement of the battle-field boiling in his brain, “receives but recks not of a wound.” Absorption of thought and interest leads to what is called “absence of mind,” where the surroundings are entirely unfelt, as in the case of the saint who rode all day on the banks of the Swiss lake, plunged in theological converse, and at evening asked where the lake was, though its waves had been rippling for twenty miles at his mule’s feet. Higher tastes drive out lower ones, as some great stream turned into a new channel will sweep it clear of mud and rubbish. So, if we are joined to Christ, He will fill our souls with strong emotions and interests which will deaden our sensitiveness to things around us, and will inspire new loves, tastes and desires, which will make us indifferent to much that we used to be eager about and hostile to much that we once cherished.
To what shall we die if we are Christians? The
Apostle answers that question in various ways,
which we may profitably group together. “Reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin”
(
This day needs that truth to be strongly urged.
The whole meaning of the death of Christ is not
reached when it is regarded as the great propitiation
for our sins. Is it the pattern for our lives? has it
drawn us away from our love of the world, from our
sinful self, from the temptations to sin, from cowering
before duties which we hate but dare not neglect?
has it changed the current of our lives, and lifted us
into a new region where we find new interests, loves
and aims, before which the twinkling lights, which
once were stars to us, pale their ineffectual fires?
If so, then, just in as much as it is so, and not
one hair’s breadth the more, may we call ourselves
Christians. If not, it is of no use for us to talk
This great fact of the Christian’s death with
Christ comes into view here mainly as pointing the
contradiction between the Christian’s position, and
his subjection to the prescriptions and prohibitions of
a religion which consists chiefly in petty rules about
conduct. We are “dead” says Paul, “to the rudiments
of the world,”—a phrase which we have
already heard in verse 8 of this chapter, where we
found its meaning to be “precepts of an elementary
character, fit for babes, not for men in Christ, and
moving principally in the region of the material.”
It implies a condemnation of all such regulation
religion on the two grounds, that it is an anachronism,
seeking to perpetuate an earlier stage which has been
left behind, and that it has to do with the outsides of
things, with the material and visible only. To such
rudiments we are dead with Christ. Then, queries
Paul, with irresistible triumphant question—why, in
the name of consistency, “do you subject yourself
to ordinances” (of which we have already heard in
verse 14 of the chapter) such as “handle not, nor
taste, nor touch?” These three prohibitions are
not Paul’s, but are quoted by him as specimens of
the kind of rules and regulations which he is protesting
against. The ascetic teachers kept on
vehemently reiterating their prohibitions, and as the
correct rendering of the words shows, with a
constantly increasing intolerance. “Handle not”
The parenthesis which follows in the text, “all which things are to perish with the using,” contains an incidental remark intended to show the mistake of attaching such importance to regulations about diet and the like, from the consideration of the perishableness of these meats and drinks about which so much was said by the false teachers. “They are all destined for corruption, for physical decomposition—in the very act of consumption.” You cannot use them without using them up. They are destroyed in the very moment of being used. Is it fitting for men who have died with Christ to this fleeting world, to make so much of its perishable things?
May we not widen this thought beyond its specific
application here, and say that death with Christ to
the world should deliver us from the temptation of
making much of the things which perish with the
using, whether that temptation is presented in the
form of attaching exaggerated religious importance
to ascetic abstinence from them or in that of
exaggerated regard and unbridled use of them?
Asceticism and Sybaritic luxury have in common
an over-estimate of the importance of the material
things. The one is the other turned inside out.
The final inconsistency between the Christian
position and the practical errors in question is
glanced at in the words “after the commandments
and doctrines of men,” which refer, of course, to
the ordinances of which Paul is speaking. The
expression is a quotation from Isaiah’s (xxix. 13)
denunciation of the Pharisees of his day, and as
used here seems to suggest that our Lord’s great
discourse on the worthlessness of the Jewish
punctilios about meats and drinks was in the
Apostle’s mind, since the same words of Isaiah
II. We have to consider one great purpose of all teaching and external worship, by its power in attaining which any system is to be tried.
“Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in
will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body,
but are not of any value against the indulgence of
the flesh.” Here is the conclusion of the whole
matter, the parting summary of the indictment
against the whole irritating tangle of restrictions and
prescriptions. From a moral point of view it is
worthless, as having no coercive power over “the
flesh.” Therein lies its conclusive condemnation, for
The Apostle knows very well that the system which he was opposing had much which commended it to people, especially to those who did not look very deep. It had a “show of wisdom” very fascinating on a superficial glance, and that in three points, all of which caught the vulgar eye, and all of which turned into the opposite on closer examination.
It has the look of being exceeding devotion and
zealous worship. These teachers with their abundant
forms impose upon the popular imagination, as if
they were altogether given up to devout contemplation
and prayer. But if one looks a little more
closely at them, one sees that their devotion is the
indulgence of their own will and not surrender to
God’s. They are not worshipping Him as He has
appointed, but as they have themselves chosen, and
as they are rendering services which He has not
required, they are in a very true sense worshipping
their own wills, and not God at all. By “will-worship”
seems to be meant self-imposed forms of
religious service which are the outcome not of
obedience, nor of the instincts of a devout heart, but
of a man’s own will. And the Apostle implies that
such supererogatory and volunteered worship is no
worship. Whether offered in a cathedral or a barn,
whether the worshipper wear a cope or a fustian
jacket, such service is not accepted. A prayer which
is but the expression of the worshipper’s own will,
instead of being “not my will but Thine be done,”
reaches no higher than the lips that utter it. If we
are subtly and half unconsciously obeying self even
The deceptive appearance of wisdom in these teachers and their doctrines is further manifest in the humility which felt so profoundly the gulf between man and God that it was fain to fill the void with its fantastic creations of angel mediators. Humility is a good thing, and it looked very humble to say, We cannot suppose that such insignificant flesh-encompassed creatures as we can come into contact and fellowship with God; but it was a great deal more humble to take God at His word, and to let Him lay down the possibilities and conditions of intercourse, and to tread the way of approach to Him which He has appointed. If a great king were to say to all the beggars and ragged losels of his capital, Come to the palace to-morrow; which would be the humbler, he who went, rags and leprosy and all, or he who hung back because he was so keenly conscious of his squalor? God says to men, “Come to My arms through My Son. Never mind the dirt, come.” Which is the humbler: he who takes God at His word, and runs to hide his face on his Father’s breast, having access to Him through Christ the Way, or he who will not venture near till he has found some other mediators besides Christ? A humility so profound that it cannot think God’s promise and Christ’s mediation enough for it, has gone so far West that it has reached the East, and from humility has become pride.
Further, this system has a show of wisdom in “severity to the body.” Any asceticism is a great deal more to men’s taste than abandoning self. They will rather stick hooks in their backs and do the “swinging poojah,” than give up their sins or yield up their wills. It is easier to travel the whole distance from Cape Comorin to the shrine of Juggernaut, measuring every foot of it by the body laid prostrate in the dust, than to surrender the heart to the love of God. In the same manner the milder forms of putting oneself to pain, hair shirts, scourgings, abstinence from pleasant things with the notion that thereby merit is acquired, or sin atoned for, have a deep root in human nature, and hence “a show of wisdom.” It is strange, and yet not strange, that people should think that, somehow or other, they recommend themselves to God by making themselves uncomfortable, but so it is that religion presents itself to many minds mainly as a system of restrictions and injunctions which forbids the agreeable and commands the unpleasant. So does our poor human nature vulgarise and travesty Christ’s solemn command to deny ourselves and take up our cross after Him.
The conclusive condemnation of all the crowd of punctilious restrictions of which the Apostle has been speaking lies in the fact that, however they may correspond to men’s mistaken notions, and so seem to be the dictate of wisdom, they “are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.” This is one great end of all moral and spiritual discipline, and if practical regulations do not tend to secure it, they are worthless.
Of course by “flesh” here we are to understand,
A man may be keeping the whole round of them and seven devils may be in his heart. They distinctly tend to foster some of the “works of the flesh,” such as self-righteousness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, and they as distinctly altogether fail to subdue any of them. A man may stand on a pillar like Simeon Stylites for years, and be none the better. Historically, the ascetic tendency has not been associated with the highest types of real saintliness except by accident, and has never been their productive cause. The bones rot as surely inside the sepulchre though the whitewash on its dome be ever so thick.
So the world and the flesh are very willing that
Christianity should shrivel into a religion of prohibitions
and ceremonials, because all manner of
vices and meannesses may thrive and breed under
these, like scorpions under stones. There is only
one thing that will put the collar on the neck of
the animal within us, and that is the power of the
indwelling Christ. The evil that is in us all is too
strong for every other fetter. Its cry to all these
“If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.”—Col. iii. 1–4 (Rev. Ver.).
The paragraph which we have now to consider is the transition from the controversial to the ethical portion of the Epistle. It touches the former by its first words, “If ye then were raised together with Christ,” which correspond in form and refer in meaning to the beginning of the previous paragraph, “If ye died with Christ.” It touches the latter because it embodies the broad general precept, “Seek the things that are above,” of which the following practical directions are but varying applications in different spheres of duty.
In considering these words we must begin by endeavouring to put clearly their connection and substance. As they flew from Paul’s eager lips, motive and precept, symbol and fact, the present and future are blended together. It may conduce to clearness if we try to part these elements.
There are here two similar exhortations, side by side. “Seek the things that are above,” and “Set your mind on the things that are above.” The first is preceded, and the second is followed by its reason. So the two laws of conduct are, as it were, enclosed like a kernel in its shell, or a jewel in a gold setting, by encompassing motives. These considerations, in which the commandment are imbedded, are the double thought of union with Christ in His resurrection, and in His death, and as consequent thereon, participation in His present hidden life, and in His future glorious manifestation. So we have here the present budding life of the Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ; the future consummate flower of the Christian life in union with the glorious manifested Christ; and the practical aim and direction which alone is consistent with either bud or flower.
I. The present budding life of the Christian in union with the risen, hidden Christ.
Two aspects of this life are set forth in verses 1 and 3—“raised with Christ,” and “ye died, and your life is hid with Christ.” A still profounder thought lies in the words of verse 4, “Christ is our life.”
We have seen in former parts of this Epistle that
Paul believed that, when a man puts His faith in
Jesus Christ, he is joined to Him in such a way
Union with Christ by faith is the condition of a
real communication of life. “In Him was life,” says
John’s Gospel, meaning thereby to assert, in the
language of our Epistle, that “in Him were all
things created, and in Him all things consist.” Life
in all its forms is dependent on union in varying
manner with the Divine, and upheld only by His
continual energy. The creature must touch God or
perish. Of that energy the Uncreated Word of God
is the channel—“with Thee is the fountain of life.”
As the life of the body, so the higher self-conscious
life of the thinking, feeling, striving soul, is also fed
and kept alight by the perpetual operation of a
higher Divine energy, imparted in like manner by
the Divine Word. Therefore, with deep truth, the
psalm just quoted, goes on to say, “In Thy light
But there is a still higher plane on which life may be manifested, and nobler energies which may accompany it. The body may live, and mind and heart be dead. Therefore Scripture speaks of a threefold life: that of the animal nature, that of the intellectual and emotional nature, and that of the spirit, which lives when it is conscious of God, and touches Him by aspiration, hope, and love. This is the loftiest life. Without it, a man is dead while he lives. With it, he lives though he dies. And like the others, it depends on union with the Divine life as it is stored in Jesus Christ—but in this case, the union is a conscious union by faith. If I trust to Him, and am thereby holding firmly by Him, my union with Him is so real, that, in the measure of my faith, His fulness passes over into my emptiness, His righteousness into my sinfulness, His life into my death, as surely as the electric shock thrills my nerves when I grasp the poles of the battery.
No man can breathe into another’s nostrils the
breath of life. But Christ can and does breathe
His life into us; and this true miracle of a communication
of spiritual life takes place in every man
who humbly trusts himself to Him. So the question
comes home to each of us—am I living by my
union with Christ? do I draw from Him that better
being which He is longing to pour into my withered,
dead spirit? It is not enough to live the animal life;
the more it is fed, the more are the higher lives
starved and dwindled. It is not enough to live the life
of intellect and feeling. That may be in brightest,
keenest exercise, and yet we—our best selves—may
This life from Christ is a resurrection life. “The
power of Christ’s resurrection” is threefold—as a
seal of His mission and Messiahship, “declared to
be the Son of God, by His resurrection from the
dead;” as a prophecy and pledge of ours, “now
is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits
of them that slept;” and as a symbol and
pattern of our new life of Christian consecration,
“likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be indeed
dead unto sin.” This last use of the resurrection of
Christ is a plain witness of the firm, universal and
uncontested belief in the historical fact, throughout
the Churches which Paul addressed. The fact must
have been long familiar and known as undoubted,
before it could have been thus moulded into a
symbol. But, passing from that, consider that our
union to Christ produces a moral and spiritual change
analogous to His resurrection. After all, it is the
moral and not the mystical side which is the main
thing in Paul’s use of this thought. He would
insist, that all true Christianity operates a death to
the old self, to sin and to the whole present order
of things, and endows a man with new tastes, desires
and capacities, like a resurrection to a new being.
These heathen converts—picked from the filthy cesspools
in which many of them had been living, and set
on a pure path, with the astounding light of a Divine
love flooding it, and a bright hope painted on the
But the believing soul is risen with Christ also,
inasmuch as our union with Him makes us partakers
of His resurrection as our victory over death. The
water in the reservoir and in the fountain is the
same; the sunbeam in the chamber and in the sky
are one. The life which flows into our spirits from
Christ is a life that has conquered death, and makes
us victors in that last conflict, even though we have
to go down into the darkness. If Christ live in us,
we can never die. “It is not possible that we should
This risen life is a hidden life. Its roots are in
Him. He has passed in His ascension into the light
which is inaccessible, and is hidden in its blaze, bearing
with Him our life, concealed there with Him in
God. Faith stands gazing into heaven, as the
cloud, the visible manifestation from of old of the
Divine presence, hides Him from sight, and turns
away feeling that the best part of its true self is gone
with Him. So here Paul points his finger upwards
to where “Christ is, sitting at the right hand of
God,” and says—We are here in outward seeming,
but our true life is there, if we are His. And what
majestic, pregnant words these are! How full, and
yet how empty for a prurient curiosity, and how
reverently reticent even while they are triumphantly
confident! How gently they suggest repose—deep
and unbroken, and yet full of active energy! For
if the attitude imply rest, the locality—“at the right
hand of God”—expresses not only the most intimate
approach to, but also the wielding of the Divine
omnipotence. What is the right hand of God but
the activity of His power? and what less can be
He has gone in thither, bearing with Him the true source and root of our lives into the secret place of the Most High. Therefore we no longer belong to this visible order of things in the midst of which we tarry for a while. The true spring that feeds our lives lies deep beneath all the surface waters. These may dry up, but it will flow. These may be muddied with rain, but it will be limpid as ever. The things seen do not go deep enough to touch our real life. They are but as the winds that fret, and the currents that sway the surface and shallower levels of the ocean, while the great depths are still. The circumference is all a whirl; the centre is at rest.
Nor need we leave out of sight, though it be not
the main thought here, that the Christian life is
hidden, inasmuch as here on earth action ever falls
short of thought, and the love and faith by which a
good man lives can never be fully revealed in his
conduct and character. You cannot carry electricity
from the generator to the point where it is to work
without losing two-thirds of it by the way. Neither
word nor deed can adequately set forth a soul; and
the profounder and nobler the emotion, the more
II. We have the future consummate flower of the Christian life in union with the manifested, glorious Christ.
The future personal manifestation of Jesus Christ
in visible glory is, in the teaching of all the New
Testament writers, the last stage in the series of His
Divine human conditions. As surely as the Incarnation
led to the cross, and the cross to the empty
grave, and the empty grave to the throne, so surely
does the throne lead to the coming again in glory.
And as with Christ, so with His servants, the
manifestation in glory is the certain end of all the
preceding, as surely as the flower is of the tiny green
leaves that peep above the frost-bound earth in
bleak March days. Nothing in that future, however
glorious and wonderful, but has its germ and vital
beginning in our union with Christ here by humble
faith. The great hopes which we may cherish are
gathered up here into these words—“shall be
manifested with Him.” That is far more than was
conveyed by the old translation—“shall appear.”
The roots of our being shall be disclosed, for He
shall come, “and every eye shall see Him.” We
shall be seen for what we are. The outward life
But this is not all. The manifestation is to be “with Him.” The union which was here effected by faith, and marred by many an interposing obstacle of sin and selfishness, of flesh and sense, is to be perfected then. No film of separation is any more to break its completeness. Here we often lose our hold of Him amidst the distractions of work, even when done for His sake; and our life is at best but an imperfect compromise between contemplation and action; but then, according to that great saying, “His servants shall serve Him, and see His face,” the utmost activity of consecrated service, though it be far more intense and on a nobler scale than anything here, will not interfere with the fixed gaze on His countenance. We shall serve like Martha, and yet never remove from sitting with Mary, rapt and blessed at His feet.
This is the one thought of that solemn future worth cherishing. Other hopes may feed sentiment, and be precious sometimes to aching hearts. A reverent longing or an irreverent curiosity, may seek to discern something more in the far-off light. But it is enough for the heart to know that “we shall ever be with the Lord;” and the more we have that one hope in its solitary grandeur, the better. We shall be with Him in “in glory.” That is the climax of all that Paul would have us hope. “Glory” is the splendour and light of the self-revealing God. In the heart of the blaze stands Christ; the bright cloud enwraps Him, as it did on the mountain of transfiguration, and into the dazzling radiance His disciples will pass as His companions did then, nor “fear as they enter into the cloud.” They walk unshrinking in that beneficent fire, because with them is one like unto a Son of man, through whom they dwell, as in their own calm home, amidst “the everlasting burning,” which shall not destroy them, but kindle them into the likeness of its own flashing glory.
Then shall the life which here was but in bud, often unkindly nipt and struggling, burst into the consummate beauty of the perfect flower “which fadeth not away.”
III. We have the practical aim and direction which alone is consistent with either stage of the Christian life.
Two injunctions are based upon these considerations—“seek,”
and “set your mind upon,” the
things that are above. The one points to the outward
life of effort and aim; the other to the inward
life of thought and longing. Let the things above
“Set your mind on” these things, says the
Apostle further. Let them occupy mind and heart—and
this in order that we may seek them. The
direction of the aims will follow the set and current
of the thoughts. “As a man thinketh in his heart,
“Where Christ is.” Yes, that is the only thought
which gives definiteness and solidity to that else
vague and nebulous unseen universe; the only
thought which draws our affections thither. Without
Him, there is no footing for us there. Rolling
mists of doubt and dim hopes warring with fears,
strangeness and terrors wrap it all. But if He be
there, it becomes a home for our hearts. “I go to
prepare a place for you”—a place where desire and
Into that solemn world we shall all pass. We can choose whether we shall go to it as to our long-sought home, to find in it Him who is our life; or whether we shall go reluctant and afraid, leaving all for which we have cared, and going to Him whom we have neglected and that which we have feared. Christ will be manifested, and we shall see Him. We can choose whether it will be to us the joy of beholding the soul of our soul, the friend long-loved when dimly seen from afar; or whether it shall be the vision of a face that will stiffen us to stone and stab us with its light. We must make our choice. If we give our hearts to Him, and by faith unite ourselves with Him, then, “when He shall appear, we shall have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”
“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, the which is idolatry; for which things’ sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience; in the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye lived in these things. But now put ye also away all these; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth: lie not one to another.”—Col. iii. 5–9 (Rev. Ver.).
Accordingly the section of the Epistle which deals with Christian character now begins, and this “therefore” knits the two halves together. That word protests against opposite errors. On the one hand, some good people are to be found impatient of exhortations to duties, and ready to say, Preach the gospel, and the duties will spring up spontaneously where it is received; on the other hand, some people are to be found who see no connection between the practice of common morality and the belief of Christian truths, and are ready to say, Put away your theology; it is useless lumber, the machine will work as well without it. But Paul believed that the firmest basis for moral teaching and the most powerful motive for moral conduct is “the truth as it is in Jesus.”
I. We have here put very plainly the paradox of continual self-slaying as the all-embracing duty of a Christian.
It is a pity that the R. V. has retained “mortify”
here, as that Latinized word says to an ordinary
reader much less than is meant, and hides the
allusion to the preceding contest. The marginal
alternative “make dead” is, to say the least, not
idiomatic English. The suggestion of the American
revisers, which is printed at the end of the R. V.,
“put to death,” is much better, and perhaps a single
“Slay your members which are upon the earth.” It is a vehement and paradoxical injunction, though it be but the echo of still more solemn and stringent words—“pluck it out, cut it off, and cast it from thee.” The possibility of misunderstanding it and bringing it down to the level of that spurious asceticism and “severity to the body” against which he has just been thundering, seems to occur to the Apostle, and therefore he hastens to explain that he does not mean the maiming of selves, or hacking away limbs, but the slaying of the passions and desires which root themselves in our bodily constitution. The eager haste of the explanation destroys the congruity of the sentence, but he does not mind that. And then follows a grim catalogue of the evil-doers on whom sentence of death is passed.
Before dealing with that list, two points of some
importance may be observed. The first is that the
practical exhortations of this letter begin with this
command to put off certain characteristics which are
assumed to belong to the Colossian Christians in
their natural state, and that only afterwards comes
the precept to put on (ver. 12) the fairer robes of
Christlike purity, clasped about by the girdle of
perfectness. That is to say, Paul’s anthropology
regards men as wrong and having to get right. A
great deal of the moral teaching which is outside
of Christianity, and which does not sufficiently
recognise that the first thing to be done is to cure
and alter, but talks as if men were, on the whole,
rather inclined to be good, is for that very reason
perfectly useless. Its fine precepts and lofty sentiments
Another point to be carefully noted is that,
according to the Apostle’s teaching, the root and
beginning of all such slaying of the evil which is
in us all, lies in our being dead with Christ to the
world. In the former chapter we found that the
Apostle’s final condemnation of the false asceticism
which was beginning to infect the Colossian Church,
was that it was of no value as a counteractive of
fleshly indulgence. But here he proclaims that what
There must, however, be a very vigorous act of personal determination if the power of that union is to be manifested in us. The act of “slaying” can never be pleasant or easy. The vehemence of the command and the form of the metaphor express the strenuousness of the effort and the painfulness of the process, in the same way as Paul’s other saying, “crucify the flesh,” does. Suppose a man working at some machine. His fingers get drawn between the rollers or caught in some belting. Another minute and he will be flattened to a shapeless bloody mass. He catches up an axe lying by and with his own arm hacks off his own hand at the wrist. It takes some nerve to do that. It is not easy nor pleasant, but it is the only alternative to a horrible death. I know of no stimulus that will string a man up to the analogous spiritual act here enjoined, and enjoined by conscience also, except participation in the death of Christ and in the resulting life.
“Slay your members which are upon the earth”
means tears and blood and more than blood. It
is easier far to cut off the hand, which after all is
not me, than to sacrifice passions and desires which,
though they be my worst self, are myself. It is
useless to blink the fact that the only road to holiness
II. We have here a grim catalogue of the condemned to death.
The Apostle stands like a jailer at the prison
door, with the fatal roll in his hand, and reads out
the names of the evil doers for whom the tumbril
waits to carry them to the guillotine. It is an
ugly list but we need plain speaking that there may
Then follows covetousness. The juxtaposition of
that vice with the grosser forms of sensuality is profoundly
A reason for this warning against covetousness is appended, “inasmuch as (for such is the force of the word rendered ‘the which’) it is idolatry.” If we say of anything, no matter what, “If I have only enough of this, I shall be satisfied; it is my real aim, my sufficient good,” that thing is a god to me, and my real worship is paid to it, whatever may be my nominal religion. The lowest form of idolatry is the giving of supreme trust to a material thing, and making that a god. There is no lower form of fetish-worship than this, which is the real working religion to-day of thousands of Englishmen who go masquerading as Christians.
III. The exhortation is enforced by a solemn
note of warning: “For which things’ sake the wrath
of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.”
Some authorities omit the words “upon the children
of disobedience,” which are supposed to have crept
In the previous chapter the Apostle included “warning” in his statement of the various branches into which his Apostolic activity was divided. His duty seemed to him to embrace the plain stern setting forth of that terrible reality, the wrath of God. Here we have it urged as a reason for shaking off these evil habits.
That thought of wrath as an element in the Divine nature has become very unwelcome to this generation. The great revelation of God in Jesus Christ has taught the world His love, as it never knew it before, and knows it now by no other means. So profoundly has that truth that God is love penetrated the consciousness of the European world, that many people will not hear of the wrath of God because they think it inconsistent with His love—and sometimes reject the very gospel to which they owe their lofty conceptions of the Divine heart, because it speaks solemn words about His anger and its issues.
But surely these two thoughts of God’s love and
God’s wrath are not inconsistent, for His wrath is
His love, pained, wounded, thrown back upon itself,
rejected and compelled to assume the form of
aversion and to do its “strange work”—that which
is not its natural operation—of punishment. When
we ascribe wrath to God, we must take care of
lowering the conception of it to the level of human
God would not be a holy God if it were all the same to Him whether a man were good or bad. As a matter of fact, the modern revulsion against the representation of the wrath of God is usually accompanied with weakened conceptions of His holiness, and of His moral government of the world. Instead of exalting, it degrades His love to free it from the admixture of wrath, which is like alloy with gold, giving firmness to what were else too soft for use. Such a God is not love, but impotent good nature. If there be no wrath, there is no love; if there were no love, there would be no wrath. It is more blessed and hopeful for sinful men to believe in a God who is angry with the wicked, whom yet He loves, every day, and who cannot look upon sin, than in one who does not love righteousness enough to hate iniquity, and from whose too indulgent hand the rod has dropped, to the spoiling of His children. “With the froward Thou wilt show Thyself froward.” The mists of our sins intercept the gracious beams and turn the blessed sun into a ball of fire.
The wrath “cometh.” That majestic present
tense may express either the continuous present
incidence of the wrath as exemplified in the moral
And the present retribution may well be taken as
the herald and prophet of a still more solemn manifestation
of the Divine displeasure, which is already
as it were on the road, has set out from the throne
of God, and will certainly arrive here one day.
These consequences of sin already realised serve to
show the set and drift of things, and to suggest
what will happen when retribution and the harvest
of our present life of sowing come. The first fiery
drops that fell on Lot’s path as he fled from Sodom
were not more surely precursors of an overwhelming
rain, nor bade him flee for his life more urgently,
than the present punishment of sin proclaims its
IV. A further motive enforcing the main precept of self-slaying is the remembrance of a sinful past, which remembrance is at once penitent and grateful. “In the which ye also walked aforetime, when ye lived in them.”
What is the difference between “walking” and
“living” in these things? The two phrases seem
synonymous, and might often be used indifferently;
but here there is evidently a well marked diversity
of meaning. The former is an expression frequent
in the Pauline Epistles as well as in John’s; as for
instance, “to walk in love” or “in truth.” That in
which men walk is conceived of as an atmosphere
encompassing them; or, without a metaphor, to walk
in anything is to have the active life or conduct
guided or occupied by it. These Colossian Christians,
then, had in the past trodden that evil path, or their
active life had been spent in that poisonous atmosphere—which
is equivalent to saying that they had
committed these sins. At what time? “When you
lived in them.” That does not mean merely “when
your natural life was passed among them.” That
would be a trivial thing to say, and it would imply
that their outward life now was not so passed, which
would not be true. In that sense they still lived in
the poisonous atmosphere. In such an age of unnameable
moral corruption no man could live out
of the foul stench which filled his nostrils whenever
he walked abroad or opened his window. But the
This retrospect enforces the main exhortation. It
is meant to awaken penitence, and the thought that
time enough has been wasted and incense enough
offered on these foul altars. It is also meant to
kindle thankfulness for the strong, loving hand which
has drawn them from that pit of filth, and by both
emotions to stimulate the resolute casting aside of
that evil in which they once, like others, wallowed.
Their joy on the one hand and their contrition on
the other should lead them to discern the inconsistency
of professing to be Christians and yet
keeping terms with these old sins. They could not
have the roots of half their lives above and of the
other half down here. The gulf between the present
and past of a regenerate man is too wide and deep
to be bridged by flimsy compromises. “A man
who is perverse in his two ways,” that is, in double
ways, “shall fall in one of them,” as the Book of
Proverbs has it. The attempt to combine incompatibles
is sure to fail. It is impossible to walk
firmly if one foot be down in the gutter and the
other up on the curb-stone. We have to settle
V. We have, as conclusion, a still wider exhortation to an entire stripping off of the sins of the old state.
The whole force of the contrast and contrariety between the Colossian Christians’ past and present lies in that emphatic “now.” They as well as other heathen had been walking, because they had been living, in these muddy ways. But now that their life was hid with Christ in God; now that they had been made partakers of His death and resurrection, and of all the new loves and affinities which therein became theirs; now they must take heed that they bring not that dead and foul past into this bright and pure present, nor prolong winter and its frosts into the summer of the soul.
“Ye also.” There is another “ye also” in the previous verse—“ye also walked,” that is, you in company with other Gentiles followed a certain course of life. Here, by contrast, the expression means “you, in common with other Christians.” A motive enforcing the subsequent exhortation is in it hinted rather than fully spoken. The Christians at Colossæ had belonged to a community which they have now left in order to join another. Let them behave as their company behaves. Let them keep step with their new comrades. Let them strip themselves, as their new associates do, of the uniform which they wore in that other regiment.
The metaphor of putting clothing on or off is
very frequent in this Epistle. The precept here is
substantially equivalent to the previous command to
“slay,” with the difference that the conception of
As to this second catalogue of vices, they may be summarised as, on the whole, being various forms of wicked hatred, in contrast with the former list, which consisted of various forms of wicked love. They have less to do with bodily appetites. But perhaps it is not without profound meaning that the fierce rush of unhallowed passion over the soul is put first, and the contrary flow of chill malignity comes second; for in the spiritual world, as in the physical, a storm blowing from one quarter is usually followed by violent gales from the opposite. Lust ever passes into cruelty, and dwells “hard by hate.” A licentious epoch or man is generally a cruel epoch or man. Nero made torches of the Christians. Malice is evil desire iced.
This second list goes in the opposite direction to the former. That began with actions and went up the stream to desire; this begins with the sources, which are emotions, and comes down stream to their manifestations in action.
First we have anger. There is a just and righteous
anger, which is part of the new man, and essential to
his completeness, even as it is part of the image after
which he is created. But here of course the anger
Christian people do not sufficiently bring the greatest forces of their religion and of God’s Spirit to bear upon the homely task of curing small hastinesses of temper, and sometimes seem to think it a sufficient excuse to say, “I have naturally a hot disposition.” But Christianity was sent to subdue and change natural dispositions. An angry man cannot have communion with God, any more than the sky can be reflected in the storm-swept tide; and a man in communion with God cannot be angry with a passionate and evil anger any more than a dove can croak like a raven or strike like a hawk. Such anger disturbs our insight into everything; eyes suffused with it cannot see; and it weakens all good in the soul, and degrades it before its own conscience.
“Malice” designates another step in the process.
The anger boils over in wrath, and then cools down
into malignity—the disposition which means mischief,
and plans or rejoices in evil falling on the hated
head. That malice, as cold, as clear, as colourless
An advance is now made in the direction of outward manifestation. It is significant that while the expressions of wicked love were deeds, those of wicked hate are words. The “blasphemy” of the Authorised Version is better taken, with the Revised, as “railing.” The word means “speech that injures,” and such speech may be directed either against God, which is blasphemy in the usual sense of the word, or against man. The hate blossoms into hurtful speech. The heated metal of anger is forged into poisoned arrows of the tongue. Then follows “shameful speaking out of your mouth,” which is probably to be understood not so much of obscenities, which would more properly belong to the former catalogue, as of foul-mouthed abuse of the hated persons, that copiousness of vituperation and those volcanic explosions of mud, which are so natural to the angry Eastern.
Finally, we have a dehortation from lying, especially
to those within the circle of the Church, as if
that sin too were the child of hatred and anger. It
comes from a deficiency of love, or a predominance
of selfishness, which is the same thing. A lie ignores
my brother’s claims on me, and my union with him.
“Ye are members one of another,” is the great obligation
to love which is denied and sinned against by
hatred in all its forms and manifestations, and not
least by giving my brother the poisoned bread of lies
On the whole, this catalogue brings out the importance to be attached to sins of speech, which are ranked here as in parallel lines with the grossest forms of animal passion. Men’s words ought to be fountains of consolation and sources of illumination, encouragement, revelations of love and pity. And what are they? What floods of idle words, foul words, words that wound like knives and sting and bite like serpents, deluge the world! If all the talk that has its sources in these evils rebuked here, were to be suddenly made inaudible, what a dead silence would fall on many brilliant circles, and how many of us would stand making mouths but saying nothing.
All the practical exhortations of this section concern common homely duties which everybody knows to be such. It may be asked—does Christianity then only lay down such plain precepts? What need was there of all that prelude of mysterious doctrines, if we are only to be landed at last in such elementary and obvious moralities? No doubt they are elementary and obvious, but the main matter is—how to get them kept. And in respect to that, Christianity does two things which nothing else does. It breaks the entail of evil habits by the great gift of pardon for the past, and by the greater gift of a new spirit and life principle within, which is foreign to all evil, being the effluence of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Therefore the gospel of Jesus Christ makes it
possible that men should slay themselves, and put
on the new life, which will expel the old as the new
“Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.”—Col. iii. 9–11 (Rev. Ver.).
I. The first thing to be observed is the change
of the spirit’s dress, which is taken for granted
We have already found the same idea presented under the forms of death and resurrection. The “death” is equivalent to the “putting off of the old,” and the “resurrection” to “the putting on of the new man.” That figure of a change of dress to express a change of moral character is very obvious, and is frequent in Scripture. Many a psalm breathes such prayers as, “Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness.” Zechariah in vision saw the high-priestly representative of the nation standing before the Lord “in filthy garments,” and heard the command to strip them off him, and clothe him in festival robes, in token that God had “caused his iniquity to pass from him.” Christ spoke His parable of the man at the wedding feast without the wedding garment, and of the prodigal, who was stripped of his rags stained with the filth of the swine troughs, and clothed with the best robe. Paul in many places touches the same image, as in his ringing exhortation—clear and rousing in its notes like the morning bugle—to Christ’s soldiers, to put off their night gear, “the works of darkness,” and to brace on the armour of light, which sparkles in the morning sunrise. Every reformatory and orphanage yields an illustration of the image, where the first thing done is to strip off and burn the rags of the new comers, then to give them a bath and dress them in clean, sweet, new clothes. Most naturally dress is taken as the emblem of character, which is indeed the garb of the soul. Most naturally habit means both costume and custom.
But here we have a strange paradox introduced,
This entire change is taken for granted by Paul as having been realised in every Christian. It is here treated as having taken place at a certain point of time, namely when these Colossians began to put their trust in Jesus Christ, and in profession of that trust, and as a symbol of that change, were baptized.
Of course the contrast between the character
before and after faith in Christ is strongest when,
Why should such sudden change be regarded
as impossible? Is it not a matter of every-day
experience that some long ignored principle may
suddenly come, like a meteor into the atmosphere,
into a man’s mind and will, may catch fire as it
travels, and may explode and blow to pieces the
solid habits of a lifetime? And why should not the
truth concerning God’s great love in Christ, which
in too sad certainty is ignored by many, flame in
upon blind eyes, and change the look of everything?
The New Testament doctrine of conversion asserts
that it may and does. It does not insist that
But however brought about, this putting off of the old sinful self, is a certain mark of a Christian man. It can be assumed as true universally, and appealed to as the basis of exhortations such as those of the context. Believing certain truths does not make a Christian. If there have been any reality in the act by which we have laid hold of Christ as our Saviour, our whole being will be revolutionized; old things will have passed away—tastes, desires, ways of looking at the world, memories, habits, pricks of conscience and all cords that bound us to our God-forgetting past—and all things will have become new, because we ourselves move in the midst of the old things as new creatures with new love burning in our hearts and new motives changing all our lives, and a new aim shining before us, and a new hope illuminating the blackness beyond, and a new song on our lips, and a new power in our hands, and a new Friend by our sides.
This is a wholesome and most needful test for all
who call themselves Christians, and who are often
tempted to put too much stress on believing and
feeling, and to forget the supreme importance of the
moral change which true Christianity effects. Nor
But there is a practical conclusion drawn from this taken-for-granted change. Our text is introduced by “seeing that;” and though some doubts may be raised as to that translation and the logical connection of the paragraph, it appears on the whole most congruous with both the preceding and the following context, to retain it and to see here the reason for the exhortation which goes before—“Put off all these,” and for that which follows—“Put on, therefore,” the beautiful garment of love and compassion.
That great change, though taking place in the inmost nature whensoever a heart turns to Christ, needs to be wrought into character, and to be wrought out in conduct. The leaven is in the dough, but to knead it thoroughly into the mass is a lifelong task, which is only accomplished by our own continually repeated efforts. The old garment clings to the limbs like the wet clothes of a half-drowned man, and it takes the work of a lifetime to get quite rid of it. The “old man” dies hard, and we have to repeat the sacrifice hour by hour. The new man has to be put on afresh day by day.
So the apparently illogical exhortation, Put off
what you have put off, and put on what you have
II. We have here, the continuous growth of the new man, its aim and pattern.
The thought of the garment passes for the moment out of sight, and the Apostle enlarges on the greatness and glory of this “new man,” partly as a stimulus to obeying the exhortation, partly, with allusion to some of the errors which he had been combating, and partly because his fervid spirit kindles at the mention of the mighty transformation.
The new man, says he, is “being renewed.”
This is one of the instances where minute accuracy
in translation is not pedantic, but clear gain. When
we say, with the Authorised Version, “is renewed,”
we speak of a completed act; when we say with the
Revised Version, “is being renewed,” we speak of a
continuous process; and there can be no question
that the latter is the true idea intended here. The
growth of the new man is constant, perhaps slow
and difficult to discern, if the intervals of comparison
be short. But like all habits and powers it steadily
increases. On the other hand, a similar process
works to opposite results in the “old man,” which,
as Paul says in the instructive parallel passage in
the Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 22), “waxeth
It is to be observed that this renewing is represented in this clause, as done on the new man, not by him. We have heard the exhortation to a continuous appropriation and increase of the new life by our own efforts. But there is a Divine side too, and the renewing is not merely effected by us, nor due only to the vital power of the new man, though growth is the sign of life there as everywhere, but is “the renewing by the Holy Ghost,” whose touch quickens and whose indwelling renovates the inward man day by day. So there is hope for us in our striving, for He helps us; and the thought of that Divine renewal is not a pillow for indolence, but a spur to intenser energy, as Paul well knew when he wove the apparent paradox, “work out your own salvation, for it is God that worketh in you.”
The new man is being renewed “unto knowledge.”
An advanced knowledge of God and Divine realities
is the result of the progressive renewal. Possibly
there may be a passing reference to the pretensions
of the false teachers, who had so much to say about
a higher wisdom open to the initiated, and to be
won by ceremonial and asceticism. Their claims,
hints Paul, are baseless; their pretended secrets a
This new man is being renewed after the image of
Him that created him. As in the first creation man
was made in the image of God, so in the new
creation. From the first moment in which the
supernatural life is derived from Christ into the regenerated
spirit, that new life is like its source. It
is kindred, therefore it is like, as all derived life is.
The child’s life is like the father’s. But the image
of God which the new man bears is more than that
which was stamped on man in his creation. That
consisted mainly, if not wholly, in the reasonable
soul, and the self-conscious personality, the broad
distinctions which separate man from other animals.
The image of God is often said to have been lost
by sin, but Scripture seems rather to consider it
as inseparable from humanity, even when stained by
transgression. Men are still images of God, though
darkened and “carved in ebony.” The coin bears
His image and superscription, though rusty and defaced.
But the image of God, which the new man
bears from the beginning in a rudimentary form, and
which is continually imprinting itself more deeply
upon him, has for its principal feature holiness.
Though the majestic infinitudes of God can have
no likeness in man, however exalted, and our feebleness
cannot copy His strength, nor our poor blind
knowledge, with its vast circumference of ignorance,
be like His ungrowing and unerring knowledge, we
may be “holy as He is holy”; we may be “imitators
of God as beloved children, and walk in love
as He hath loved us”; we may “walk in the light
as He is in the light,” with only the difference
between His calm, eternal being, and our changeful
and progressive motion therein; we may even “be
III. We have here finally the grand unity of this new creation.
We may reverse the order of the words as they stand here, and consider the last clause first, inasmuch as it is the reason for the doing away of all distinctions of race, or ceremony, or culture, or social condition.
“Christ is all.” Wherever that new nature is found, it lives by the life of Christ. He dwells in all who possess it. The Spirit of life in Christ is in them. His blood passes into their veins. The holy desires, the new tastes, the kindling love, the clearer vision, the gentleness and the strength, and whatsoever things beside are lovely and of good report, are all His—nay, we may say, are all Himself.
And, of course, all who are His are partakers of that
common gift, and He is in all. There is no privileged
class in Christ’s Church, as these false teachers
in Colossæ had taught. Against every attempt to
Necessarily, therefore, surface distinctions disappear. There is triumph in the roll of his rapid enumeration of these clefts that have so long kept brothers apart, and are now being filled up. He looks round on a world, the antagonisms of which we can but faintly imagine, and his eye kindles and his voice rises into vibrating emotion, as he thinks of the mighty magnetism that is drawing enemies towards the one centre in Christ. His catalogue here may profitably be compared with his other in the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 28). There he enumerates the three great distinctions which parted the old world: race (Jew and Greek), social condition (bond and free), and sex (male and female.) These, he says, as separating powers, are done away in Christ. Here the list is modified, probably with reference to the errors in the Colossian Church.
“There cannot be Greek and Jew.” The cleft of
national distinctions, which certainly never yawned
more widely than between the Jew and every other
people, ceases to separate, and the teachers who had
been trying to perpetuate that distinction in the
Church were blind to the very meaning of the
gospel. “Circumcision and uncircumcision” separated.
Nothing makes deeper and bitterer antagonisms
than differences in religious forms, and
people who have not been born into them are
“Bondman, freeman” is again an antithesis.
That gulf between master and slave was indeed wide
and deep; too wide for compassion to cross, though
not for hatred to stride over. The untold miseries
of slavery in the old world are but dimly known;
but it and war and the degradation of women made
an infernal trio which crushed more than half the
race into a hell of horrors. Perhaps Paul may have
been the more ready to add this clause to his catalogue
because his thoughts had been occupied with
Christianity waged no direct war against these social evils of antiquity, but it killed them much more effectually by breathing into the conscience of the world truths which made their continuance impossible. It girdled the tree, and left it to die—a much better and more thorough plan than dragging it out of the ground by main force. Revolution cures nothing. The only way to get rid of evils engrained in the constitution of society is to elevate and change the tone of thought and feeling, and then they die of atrophy. Change the climate, and you change the vegetation. Until you do, neither mowing nor uprooting will get rid of the foul growths.
So the gospel does with all these lines of demarcation
between men. What becomes of them?
What becomes of the ridges of sand that separate
pool from pool at low water? The tide comes up
over them and makes them all one, gathered into
the oneness of the great sea. They may remain,
but they are seen no more, and the roll of the wave
is not interrupted by them. The powers and blessings
of the Christ pass freely from heart to heart,
hindered by no barriers. Christ founds a deeper
unity independent of all these superficial distinctions,
for the very conception of humanity is the product
of Christianity, and the true foundation for the
brotherhood of mankind is the revelation in Christ
of the fatherhood of God. Christ is the brother
of us all; His death is for every man; the blessing
of His gospel is offered to each; He will dwell in
“Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.”—Col. iii.12–14 (Rev. Ver.).
But besides the foundation for the exhortations
I. We have here then an enumeration of the fair garments of the new man.
Let us go over the items of this list of the wardrobe of the consecrated soul.
“A heart of compassion.” So the Revised Version renders the words given literally in the Authorised as “bowels of mercies,” an expression which that very strange thing called conventional propriety regards as coarse, simply because Jews chose one part of the body and we another as the supposed seat of the emotions. Either phrase expresses substantially the Apostle’s meaning.
Is it not beautiful that the series should begin
with pity? It is the most often needed, for the sea
of sorrow stretches so widely that nothing less than
a universal compassion can arch it over as with the
blue of heaven. Every man would seem in some
respect deserving of and needing sympathy, if his
whole heart and history could be laid bare. Such
compassion is difficult to achieve, for its healing
streams are dammed back by many obstructions of
inattention and occupation, and dried up by the
fierce heat of selfishness. Custom, with its deadening
influence, comes in to make us feel least the
sorrows which are most common in the society
around us. As a man might live so long in an
asylum that lunacy would seem to him almost the
normal condition, so the most widely diffused griefs
are those least observed and least compassionated;
and good, tender-hearted men and women walk the
streets of our great cities and see sights—children
growing up for the gallows and the devil, gin-shops
at every corner—which might make angels weep,
and suppose them to be as inseparable from our
“civilization” as the noise of wheels from a carriage
or bilge water from a ship. Therefore we have to
make conscious efforts to “put on” that sympathetic
disposition, and to fight against the faults which
Above all things, the practical discipline which cultivates pity will beware of letting it be excited and then not allowing the emotion to act. To stimulate feeling and do nothing in consequence is a short road to destroy the feeling. Pity is meant to be the impulse toward help, and if it is checked and suffered to pass away idly, it is weakened, as certainly as a plant is weakened by being kept close nipped and hindered from bringing its buds to flower and fruit.
“Kindness” comes next—a wider benignity, not
only exercised where there is manifest room for
pity, but turning a face of goodwill to all. Some
souls are so dowered that they have this grace without
effort, and come like the sunshine with welcome
and cheer for all the world. But even less happily
endowed natures can cultivate the disposition, and
the best way to cultivate it is to be much in communion
with God. When Moses came down from
the mount, his face shone. When we come out from
the secret place of the Most High we shall bear
some reflection of His great kindness whose “tender
Then follows “humility.” That seems to break the current of thought by bringing a virtue entirely occupied with self into the middle of a series referring exclusively to others. But it does not really do so. From this point onwards all the graces named have reference to our demeanour under slights and injuries—and humility comes into view here only as constituting the foundation for the right bearing of these. Meekness and longsuffering must stand on a basis of humility. The proud man, who thinks highly of himself and of his own claims, will be the touchy man, if any one derogates from these.
“Humility,” or lowly-mindedness, a lowly estimate
of ourselves, is not necessarily blindness to our
strong points. If a man can do certain things better
than his neighbours, he can hardly help knowing it,
Then follow “meekness, long-suffering.” The
distinction between these two is slight. According
The general meaning is plain enough. The “hate of hate,” the “scorn of scorn,” is not the Christian ideal. I am not to allow my enemy always to settle the terms on which we are to be. Why should I scowl back at him, though he frowns at me? It is hard work, as we all know, to repress the retort that would wound and be so neat. It is hard not to repay slights and offences in kind. But, if the basis of our dispositions to others be laid in a wise and lowly estimate of ourselves, such graces of conduct will be possible, and they will give beauty to our characters.
“Forbearing and forgiving” are not new virtues.
They are meekness and long-suffering in exercise,
and if we were right in saying that “long-suffering”
was not soon angry, and “meekness” was not
angry at all, then “forbearance” would correspond
to the former and “forgiveness” to the latter;
for a man may exercise forbearance, and bite
Such is the Apostle’s outline sketch of the Christian character in its social aspect, all rooted in pity, and full of soft compassion; quick to apprehend, to feel, and to succour sorrow; a kindliness, equable and widespread, illuminating all who come within its reach; a patient acceptance of wrongs without resentment or revenge, because a lowly judgment of self and its claims, a spirit schooled to calmness under all provocations, disdaining to requite wrong by wrong, and quick to forgive.
The question may well be asked—is that a type
of character which the world generally admires? Is
it not uncommonly like what most people would
call “a poor spiritless creature.” It was “a new
man,” most emphatically, when Paul drew that
sketch, for the heathen world had never seen anything
like it. It is a “new man” still; for although
the modern world has had some kind of Christianity—at
least has had a Church—for all these centuries,
that is not the kind of character which is its ideal.
Look at the heroes of history and of literature.
Look at the tone of so much contemporary biography
and criticism of public actions. Think of
the ridicule which is poured on the attempt to
regulate politics by Christian principles, or, as a
distinguished soldier called them in public recently,
“puling principles.” It may be true that Christianity
has not added any new virtues to those which are
By the side of its serene and lofty beauty, the “heroic virtues” embodied in the world’s type of excellence show vulgar and glaring, like some daub representing a soldier, the sign-post of a public-house, by the side of Angelico’s white-robed visions on the still convent walls. The highest exercise of these more gaudy and conspicuous qualities is to produce the pity and meekness of the Christian ideal. More self-command, more heroic firmness, more contempt for the popular estimate, more of everything strong and manly, will find a nobler field in subduing passion and cherishing forgiveness, which the world thinks folly and spiritless, than anywhere else. Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
The great pattern and motive of forgiveness is next set forth. We are to forgive as Christ has forgiven us; and that “as” may be applied either as meaning “in like manner,” or as meaning “because.” The Revised Version, with many others, adopts the various reading of “the Lord,” instead of “Christ,” which has the advantage of recalling the parable that was no doubt in Paul’s mind, about the servant who, having been forgiven by his “Lord” all his great debt, took his fellow-servant by the throat and squeezed the last farthing out of him.
The great transcendent act of God’s mercy
We have already had the death of Christ set forth as in a very profound sense our pattern. Here we have one special case of the general law that the life and death of our Lord are the embodied ideal of human character and conduct. His forgiveness is not merely revealed to us that trembling hearts may be calm, and that a fearful looking for of judgment may no more trouble a foreboding conscience. For whilst we must ever begin with cleaving to it as our hope, we must never stop there. A heart touched and softened by pardon will be a heart apt to pardon, and the miracle of forgiveness which has been wrought for it will constitute the law of its life as well as the ground of its joyful security.
This new pattern and new motive, both in one,
make the true novelty and specific difference of
Christian morality. “As I have loved you,” makes
the commandment “love one another” a new commandment.
And all that is difficult in obedience
becomes easier by the power of that motive. Imitation
of one whom we love is instinctive. Obedience
to one whom we love is delightful. The far off
ideal becomes near and real in the person of our
best friend. Bound to him by obligations so
immense, and a forgiveness so costly and complete,
we shall joyfully yield to “the cords of love” which
draw us after Him. We have each to choose what
Paul says, “Even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye.” The Lord’s prayer teaches us to ask, Forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive. In the one case Christ’s forgiveness is the example and the motive for ours. In the other, our forgiveness is the condition of God’s. Both are true. We shall find the strongest impulse to pardon others in the consciousness that we have been pardoned by Him. And if we have grudgings against our offending brother in our hearts, we shall not be conscious of the tender forgiveness of our Father in heaven. That is no arbitrary limitation, but inherent in the very nature of the case.
II. We have here the girdle which keeps all the garments in their places.
“Above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.”
“Above all these” does not mean “besides,” or
“more important than,” but is clearly used in its
simplest local sense, as equivalent to “over,” and
thus carries on the metaphor of the dress. Over
the other garments is to be put the silken sash or
girdle of love, which will brace and confine all the
rest into a unity. It is “the girdle of perfectness,”
by which is not meant, as is often supposed, the
perfect principle of union among men. Perfectness
is not the quality of the girdle, but the thing which
it girds, and is a collective expression for “the
various graces and virtues, which together make up
We can conceive of all the dispositions already named as existing in some fashion without love. There might be pity which was not love, though we know it is akin to it. The feeling with which one looks upon some poor outcast, or on some stranger in sorrow, or even on an enemy in misery, may be very genuine compassion, and yet clearly separate from love. So with all the others. There may be kindness most real without any of the diviner emotion, and there may even be forbearance reaching up to forgiveness, and yet leaving the heart untouched in its deepest recesses. But if these virtues were thus exercised, in the absence of love they would be fragmentary, shallow, and would have no guarantee for their own continuance. Let love come into the heart and knit a man to the poor creature whom he had only pitied before, or to the enemy whom he had at the most been able with an effort to forgive; and it lifts these other emotions into a nobler life. He who pities may not love, but he who loves cannot but pity; and that compassion will flow with a deeper current and be of a purer quality than the shrunken stream which does not rise from that higher source.
Nor is it only the virtues enumerated here for which
love performs this office; but all the else isolated
graces of character, it binds or welds into a harmonious
whole. As the broad Eastern girdle holds
the flowing robes in position, and gives needed
firmness to the figure as well as composed order to
Perhaps it is a yet deeper truth that love produces all these graces. Whatsoever things men call virtues, are best cultivated by cultivating it. So with a somewhat similar meaning to that of our text, but if anything, going deeper down, Paul in another place calls love the fulfilling of the law, even as his Master had taught him that all the complex of duties incumbent upon us were summed up in love to God, and love to men. Whatever I owe to my brother will be discharged if I love God, and live my love. Nothing of it, not even the smallest mite of the debt will be discharged, however vast my sacrifices and services, if I do not.
So end the frequent references in this letter to putting off the old and putting on the new. The sum of them all is, that we must first put on Christ by faith, and then by daily effort clothe our spirits in the graces of character which He gives us, and by which we shall be like Him.
We have said that this dress of the Christian soul which we have been now considering does not include the whole of Christian duty. We may recall the other application of the same figure which occurs in the parallel Epistle to the Ephesians, where Paul sketches for us in a few rapid touches the armed Christian soldier. The two pictures may profitably be set side by side. Here he dresses the Christian soul in the robes of peace, bidding him put on pity and meekness, and above all, the silken girdle of love.
then “put on the whole armour of God,” the leathern girdle of truth, the shining breastplate of righteousness, and above all, the shield of faith—and so stand a flashing pillar of steel. Are the two pictures inconsistent? must we doff the robes of peace to don the armour, or put off the armour to resume the robes of peace? Not so; both must be worn together, for neither is found in its completeness without the other. Beneath the armour must be the fine linen, clean and white—and at one and the same time, our souls may be clad in all pity, mercifulness and love, and in all the sparkling panoply of courage and strength for battle.
But both the armour and the dress of peace presuppose
that we have listened to Christ’s pleading
counsel to buy of Him “white raiment that we may
be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness
do not appear.” The garment for the soul, which
is to hide its deformities and to replace our own
filthy rags, is woven in no earthly looms, and no
efforts of ours will bring us into possession of it.
We must be content to owe it wholly to Christ’s
gift, or else we shall have to go without it altogether.
The first step in the Christian life is by simple faith
to receive from Him the forgiveness of all our sins,
and that new nature which He alone can impart,
and which we can neither create nor win, but must
simply accept. Then, after that, come the field and
the time for efforts put forth in His strength, to
array our souls in His likeness, and day by day to
put on the beautiful garments which He bestows.
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also ye were called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God. And whatsoever ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”—Col. iii. 15–17 (Rev. Vers.).
I. The Ruling Peace of Christ.
The various reading “peace of Christ,” for “peace
of God,” is not only recommended by manuscript
authority, but has the advantage of bringing the expression
into connection with the great words of the
Lord, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give
unto you.” A strange legacy to leave, and a
strange moment at which to speak of His peace!
It was but an hour or so since He had been
“troubled in spirit,” as He thought of the betrayer—and
in an hour more He would be beneath the
olives of Gethsemane; and yet, even at such a time,
He bestows on His friends some share in His own
deep repose of spirit. Surely “the peace of Christ”
must mean what “My peace” meant; not only the
peace which He gives, but the peace which lay, like
a great calm on the sea, on His own deep heart;
and surely we cannot restrict so solemn an expression
to the meaning of mutual concord among
brethren. That, no doubt, is included in it, but
there is much more than that. Whatever made the
strange calm which leaves such unmistakable traces
in the picture of Christ drawn in the Gospels, may
be ours. When He gave us His peace, He gave us
some share in that meek submission of will to His
Father’s will, and in that stainless purity, which
were its chief elements. The hearts and lives of
men are made troubled, not by circumstances, but
by themselves. Whoever can keep his own will in
harmony with God’s enters into rest, though many
trials and sorrows may be his. Even if within and
without are fightings, there may be a central “peace
subsisting at the heart of endless agitation.” We
are our own disturbers. The eager swift motions of
We are summoned to improve that gift—to “let the peace of Christ” have its way in our hearts. The surest way to increase our possession of it is to decrease our separation from Him. The fulness of our possession of His gift of peace depends altogether on our proximity to the Giver. It evaporates in carrying. It “diminishes as the square of the distance” from the source. So the exhortation to let it rule in us will be best fulfilled by keeping thought and affection in close union with our Lord.
This peace is to “rule” in our hearts. The
figure contained in the word here translated rule is
that of the umpire or arbitrator at the games, who,
looking down on the arena, watches that the combatants
strive lawfully, and adjudges the prize.
Possibly the force of the figure may have been
washed out of the word by use, and the “rule” of
our rendering may be all that it means. But there
seems no reason against keeping the full force of the
expression, which adds picturesqueness and point
to the precept. The peace of Christ, then, is to sit
Then follows appended a reason for cultivating
the peace of Christ “to which also ye were called
in one body.” The very purpose of God’s merciful
summons and invitation to them in the gospel was
that they might share in this peace. There are
many ways of putting God’s design in His call by
the gospel—it may be represented under many
angles and from many points of view, and is glorious
from all and each. No one word can state all the
fulness to which we are called by His wonderful
love, but none can be tenderer and more blessed than
The very abruptness of the introduction of the
next precept gives it force, “and be ye thankful,” or,
as we might translate with an accuracy which perhaps
is not too minute, “become thankful,” striving
towards deeper gratitude than you have yet attained.
Paul is ever apt to catch fire as often as his thought
brings him in sight of God’s great love in drawing
men to Himself, and in giving them such rich gifts.
It is quite a feature of his style to break into sudden
bursts of praise as often as his path leads him to
a summit from which he catches a glimpse of that
great miracle of love. This interjected precept is
precisely like these sudden jets of praise. It is as
if he had broken off for a moment from the line
of his thought, and had said to his hearers—Think
of that wonderful love of your Father God. He has
called you from the midst of your heathenism, He
II. The Indwelling Word of Christ.
The main reference of this verse seems to be to
the worship of the Church—the highest expression
of its oneness. There are three points enforced in
its three clauses, of which the first is the dwelling
in the hearts of the Colossian Christians of the
“word of Christ,” by which is meant, as I conceive,
not simply “the presence of Christ in the heart, as an inward
monitor,” Lightfoot.
That word is to dwell in Christian men richly. It is their own fault if they possess it, as so many do, in scant measure. It might be a full tide. Why in so many is it a mere trickle, like an Australian river in the heat, a line of shallow ponds with no life or motion, scarcely connected by a thread of moisture, and surrounded by great stretches of blinding shingle, when it might be a broad water—“waters to swim in”? Why, but because they do not do with this word, what all students do with the studies which they love?
The word should manifest the rich abundance of
its dwelling in men by opening out in their minds
into “every kind of wisdom.” Where the gospel in
its power dwells in a man’s spirit, and is intelligently
meditated on and studied, it will effloresce into
principles of thought and action applicable to all
subjects, and touching the whole round horizon of
human life. All, and more than all, the wisdom
which these false teachers promised in their mysteries,
is given to the babes and the simple ones
who treasure the word of Christ in their hearts, and
the least among them may say, “I have more understanding
The second clause of this verse deals with the manifestations of the indwelling word in the worship of the Church. The individual possession of the word in one’s own heart does not make us independent of brotherly help. Rather, it is the very foundation of the duty of sharing our riches with our fellows, and of increasing ours by contributions from their stores. And so—“teaching and admonishing one another” is the outcome of it. The universal possession of Christ’s word involves the equally universal right and duty of mutual instruction.
We have already heard the Apostle declaring it
to be his work to “admonish every man and to
teach every man,” and found that the former office
pointed to practical ethical instruction, not without
rebuke and warning, while the latter referred rather
to doctrinal teaching. What he there claimed for
himself, he here enjoins on the whole Christian
community. We have here a glimpse of the
perfectly simple, informal public services of the early
The teaching and admonishing is here regarded as
being effected by means of song. That strikes one
as singular, and tempts to another punctuation of the
verse, by which “In all wisdom teaching and admonishing
one another” should make a separate clause,
and “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”
should be attached to the following words. But
probably the ordinary arrangement of clauses is best
on the whole. The distinction between “psalms”
and “hymns” appears to be that the former is a
song with a musical accompaniment, and that the
latter is vocal praise to God. No doubt the “psalms”
meant were chiefly those of the Psalter, the Old
Testament element in the early Christian worship,
while the “hymns” were the new product of the
spirit of devotion which had naturally broken into
song, the first beginnings of the great treasure of
These early hymns were of a dogmatic character.
No doubt, just as in many a missionary Church a
hymn is found to be the best vehicle for conveying
the truth, so it was in these early Churches, which
were made up largely of slaves and women—both
uneducated. “Singing the gospel” is a very old
invention, though the name be new. The picture
which we get here of the meetings of the early
Christians is very remarkable. Evidently their
gatherings were free and social, with the minimum
of form, and that most elastic. If a man had any
word of exhortation for the people, he might say on.
“Every one of you hath a psalm, a doctrine.” If a
man had some fragment of an old psalm, or some
The best praise, however, is a heart song. So the Apostle adds “singing in your hearts unto God.” And it is to be in “grace,” that is to say, in it as the atmosphere and element in which the song moves, which is nearly equivalent to “by means of the Divine grace” which works in the heart, and impels to that perpetual music of silent praise. If we have the peace of Christ in our hearts, and the word of Christ dwelling in us richly in all wisdom, then an unspoken and perpetual music will dwell there too, “a noise like of a hidden brook” singing for ever its “quiet tune.”
III. The all-hallowing Name of Jesus.
From worship the Apostle passes to life, and
crowns the entire series of injunctions with an all-comprehensive
precept, covering the whole ground
of action. “Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed”—then,
not merely worship, specially so called, but
everything is to come under the influence of the same
motive. That expresses emphatically the sanctity of
common life, and extends the idea of worship to all
deeds. “Whatsoever ye do in word”—then words
are doings, and in many respects the most important
of our doings. Some words, though they fade off
the ear so quickly, outlast all contemporary deeds, and
are more lasting than brass. Not only “the word
Do all “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” That means at least two things—in obedience to His authority, and in dependence on His help. These two are the twin talismans which change the whole character of our actions, and preserve us, in doing them, from every harm. That name hallows and ennobles all work. Nothing can be so small but this will make it great, nor so monotonous and tame but this will make it beautiful and fresh. The name now, as of old, casts out devils and stills storms. “For the name of the Lord Jesus” is the silken padding which makes our yokes easy. It brings the sudden strength which makes our burdens light. We may write it over all our actions. If there be any on which we dare not inscribe it, they are not for us.
Thus done in the name of Christ, all deeds will
become thanksgiving, and so reach their highest
consecration and their truest blessedness. “Giving
thanks to God the Father through Him” is ever
to accompany the work in the name of Jesus. The
exhortation to thanksgiving, which is in a sense the
Alpha and the Omega of the Christian life, is perpetually
on the Apostle’s lips, because thankfulness
should be in perpetual operation in our hearts. It
is so important because it presupposes all-important
things, and because it certainly leads to every
Christian grace. For continual thankfulness there
must be a continual direction of mind towards God
and towards the great gifts of our salvation in Jesus
Christ. There must be a continual going forth of
our love and our desire to these, that is to say—thankfulness
So we should keep thoughts of Jesus Christ, and of all we owe to Him, ever before us in our common work, in shop and mill and counting-house, in study and street and home. We should try to bring all our actions more under their influence, and, moved by the mercies of God, should yield ourselves living thank-offerings to Him, who is the sin-offering for us. If, as every fresh duty arises, we hear Christ saying, “This do in remembrance of Me,” all life will become a true communion with Him, and every common vessel will be as a sacramental chalice, and the bells of the horses will bear the same inscription as the high priest’s mitre—“Holiness to the Lord.” To lay work on that altar sanctifies both the giver and the gift. Presented through Him, by whom all blessings come to man and all thanks go to God, and kindled by the flame of gratitude, our poor deeds, for all their grossness and earthliness, shall go up in curling wreaths of incense, an odour of a sweet smell acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
“Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
“Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children, that they be not discouraged.
“Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord: whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that from the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ. For he that doeth wrong shall receive again for the wrong that he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.
“Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven.”—Col. iii. 18–iv. 1 (Rev. Ver.).
We do not know what may have led Paul to dwell
with special emphasis on the domestic duties, in this
letter, and in the contemporaneous Epistle of the
The precepts given are extremely simple and obvious. Domestic happiness and family Christianity are made up of very homely elements. One duty is prescribed for the one member of each of the three family groups, and varying forms of another for the other. The wife, the child, the servant are bid to obey; the husband to love, the father to show his love in gentle considerateness; the master to yield his servants their dues. Like some perfume distilled from common flowers that grow on every bank, the domestic piety which makes home a house of God, and a gate of heaven, is prepared from these two simples—obedience and love. These are all.
We have here then the ideal Christian household in the three ordinary relationships which make up the family; wife and husband, children and father, servant and master.
I. The Reciprocal Duties of wife and husband—subjection and love.
The duty of the wife is “subjection,” and it is
enforced on the ground that it is “fitting in the
Lord”—that is, “it is,” or perhaps “it became” at
the time of conversion, “the conduct corresponding
Some of us will smile at that; some of us will think it an old-fashioned notion, a survival of a more barbarous theory of marriage than this century recognises. But, before we decide upon the correctness of the apostolic precept, let us make quite sure of its meaning. Now, if we turn to the corresponding passage in Ephesians, we find that marriage is regarded from a high and sacred point of view, as being an earthly shadow and faint adumbration of the union between Christ and the Church.
To Paul, all human and earthly relationships were moulded after the patterns of things in the heavens, and the whole fleeting visible life of man was a parable of the “things which are” in the spiritual realm. Most chiefly, the holy and mysterious union of man and woman in marriage is fashioned in the likeness of the only union which is closer and more mysterious than itself, namely that between Christ and His Church.
Such then as are the nature and the spring of
the Church’s “subjection” to Christ, such will be the
nature and the spring of the wife’s “subjection” to
the husband. That is to say, it is a subjection of
which love is the very soul and animating principle.
In a true marriage, as in the loving obedience of a
believing soul to Christ, the wife submits not because
she has found a master, but because her heart has
found its rest. Everything harsh or degrading melts
away from the requirement when thus looked at.
It is a joy to serve where the heart is engaged, and
that is eminently true of the feminine nature. For
Of course the subjection has its limitations. “We must obey God rather than man” bounds the field of all human authority and control. Then there are cases in which, on the principle of “the tools to the hands that can use them,” the rule falls naturally to the wife as the stronger character. Popular sarcasm, however, shows that such instances are felt to be contrary to the true ideal, and such a wife lacks something of repose for her heart.
No doubt, too, since Paul wrote, and very largely by Christian influences, women have been educated and elevated, so as to make mere subjection impossible now, if ever it were so. Woman’s quick instinct as to persons, her finer wisdom, her purer discernment as to moral questions, make it in a thousand cases the wisest thing a man can do to listen to the “subtle flow of silver-paced counsel” which his wife gives him. All such considerations are fully consistent with this apostolic teaching, and it remains true that the wife who does not reverence and lovingly obey is to be pitied if she cannot, and to be condemned if she will not.
And what of the husband’s duty? He is to love,
and because he loves, not to be harsh or bitter, in
Where there is such love, there will be no question
of mere command and obedience, no tenacious adherence
to rights, or jealous defence of independence.
Law will be transformed into choice. To obey will
be joy; to serve, the natural expression of the heart.
Love uttering a wish speaks music to love listening;
and love obeying the wish is free and a queen.
Such sacred beauty may light up wedded life, if it
catches a gleam from the fountain of all light, and
II. The Reciprocal Duties of children and parents—obedience and gentle loving authority.
The injunction to children is laconic, decisive,
universal. “Obey your parents in all things.” Of
course, there is one limitation to that. If God’s
command looks one way, and a parent’s the opposite,
disobedience is duty—but such extreme case is
probably the only one which Christian ethics admit
as an exception to the rule. The Spartan brevity
of the command is enforced by one consideration,
“for this is well-pleasing in the Lord,” as the Revised
Version rightly reads, instead of “to the Lord,” as
in the Authorised, thus making an exact parallel
to the former “fitting in the Lord.” Not only to
Christ, but to all who can appreciate the beauty of
goodness, is filial obedience beautiful. The parallel
in Ephesians substitutes “for this is right,” appealing
to the natural conscience. Right and fair in itself,
it is accordant with the law stamped on the very
No doubt, the moral sentiment of Paul’s age stretched parental authority to an extreme, and we need not hesitate to admit that the Christian idea of a father’s power and a child’s obedience has been much softened by Christianity; but the softening has come from the greater prominence given to love, rather than from the limitation given to obedience.
Our present domestic life seems to me to stand sorely in need of Paul’s injunction. One cannot but see that there is great laxity in this matter in many Christian households, in reaction perhaps from the too great severity of past times. Many causes lead to this unwholesome relaxation of parental authority. In our great cities, especially among the commercial classes, children are generally better educated than their fathers and mothers, they know less of early struggles, and one often sees a sense of inferiority making a parent hesitate to command, as well as a misplaced tenderness making him hesitate to forbid. A very misplaced and cruel tenderness it is to say “would you like?” when he ought to say “I wish.” It is unkind to lay on young shoulders “the weight of too much liberty,” and to introduce young hearts too soon to the sad responsibility of choosing between good and evil. It were better and more loving by far to put off that day, and to let the children feel that in the safe nest of home, their feeble and ignorant goodness is sheltered behind a strong barrier of command, and their lives simplified by having the one duty of obedience. By many parents the advice is needed—consult your children less, command them more.
And as for children, here is the one thing which God would have them do: “Obey your parents in all things.” As fathers used to say when I was a boy—“not only obedience, but prompt obedience.” It is right. That should be enough. But children may also remember that it is “pleasing”—fair and good to see, making them agreeable in the eyes of all whose approbation is worth having, and pleasing to themselves, saving them from many a bitter thought in after days, when the grave has closed over father and mother. One remembers the story of how Dr. Johnson, when a man, stood in the market place at Lichfield, bareheaded, with the rain pouring on him, in remorseful remembrance of boyish disobedience to his dead father. There is nothing bitterer than the too late tears for wrongs done to those who are gone beyond the reach of our penitence. “Children obey your parents in all things,” that you may be spared the sting of conscience for childish faults, which may be set tingling and smarting again even in old age.
The law for parents is addressed to “fathers,”
partly because a mother’s tenderness has less need
of the warning “provoke not your children,” than a
father’s more rigorous rule usually has, and partly
because the father is regarded as the head of the
household. The advice is full of practical sagacity.
How do parents provoke their children? By unreasonable
commands, by perpetual restrictions, by
capricious jerks at the bridle, alternating with as
capricious dropping of the reins altogether, by not
governing their own tempers, by shrill or stern tones
where quiet, soft ones would do, by frequent checks
and rebukes, and sparing praise. And what is sure
So parents are to let the sunshine of their smile
ripen their children’s love to fruit of obedience, and
remember that frost in spring scatters the blossoms
on the grass. Many a parent, especially many a
father, drives his child into evil by keeping him at a
distance. He should make his boy a companion
and playmate, teach him to think of his father as
his confidant, try to keep his child nearer to himself
than to anybody beside, and then his authority will
be absolute, his opinions an oracle, and his lightest
wish a law. Is not the kingdom of Jesus Christ
There is added to this precept, in Ephesians, an
injunction on the positive side of parental duty:
“Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord.” I fear that is a duty fallen wofully into
disuse in many Christian households. Many parents
think it wise to send their children away from home
for their education, and so hand over their moral
and religious training to teachers. That may be
right, but it makes the fulfilment of this precept all
but impossible. Others, who have their children
beside them, are too busy all the week, and too fond
of “rest” on Sunday. Many send their children to
a Sunday school chiefly that they themselves may
have a quiet house and a sound sleep in the afternoon.
Every Christian minister, if he keeps his
eyes open, must see that there is no religious instruction
worth calling by the name in a very large
number of professedly Christian households; and he
is bound to press very earnestly on his hearers the
question, whether the Christian fathers and mothers
among them do their duty in this matter. Many of
them, I fear, have never opened their lips to their
children on religious subjects. Is it not a grief and
a shame that men and women with some religion in
them, and loving their little ones dearly, should be
tongue-tied before them on the most important of all
III. The Reciprocal Duties of servants and masters—obedience and justice.
The first thing to observe here is, that these
“servants” are slaves, not persons who have voluntarily
given their work for wages. The relation of
Christianity to slavery is too wide a subject to be
touched here. It must be enough to point out that
Paul recognises that “sum of all villanies,” gives instructions
to both parties in it, never says one word
in condemnation of it. More remarkable still; the
messenger who carried this letter to Colossæ carried
in the same bag the Epistle to Philemon, and was
accompanied by the fugitive slave Onesimus, on
whose neck Paul bound again the chain, so to
speak, with his own hands. And yet the gospel
which Paul preached has in it principles which cut
up slavery by the roots; as we read in this very
letter, “In Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor
free.” Why then did not Christ and His apostles
make war against slavery? For the same reason for
But the principles laid down here are quite as applicable to our form of domestic and other service as to the slaves and masters of Colossæ.
Note then the extent of the servant’s obedience—“in
all things.” Here, of course, as in former cases,
is there presupposed the limit of supreme obedience
to God’s commands; that being safe, all else is to
give way to the duty of submission. It is a stern
command, that seems all on the side of the masters.
It might strike a chill into many a slave, who had
been drawn to the gospel by the hope of finding
some little lightening of the yoke that pressed so
heavily on his poor galled neck, and of hearing some
voice speaking in tenderer tones than those of harsh
command. Still more emphatically, and, as it might
seem, still more harshly, the Apostle goes on to
insist on the inward completeness of the obedience—“not
with eyeservice (a word of Paul’s own coining)
as men-pleasers.” We have a proverb about the
worth of the master’s eye, which bears witness that
the same fault still clings to hired service. One has
only to look at the next set of bricklayers one sees
on a scaffold, or of haymakers one comes across in
“But in singleness of heart,” that is, with undivided
motive, which is the antithesis and the
cure for “eyeservice”—and “fearing God,” which
is opposed to “pleasing men.” Then follows the
positive injunction, covering the whole ground of
action and lifting the constrained obedience to the
earthly master up into the sacred and serene loftiness
of religious duty, “whatsoever ye do, work
heartily,” or from the soul. The word for work is
stronger than that for do, and implies effort and toil.
They are to put all their power into their work, and
not be afraid of hard toil. And they are not only
to bend their backs but their wills, and to labour
“from the soul,” that is, cheerfully and with interest—a
hard lesson for a slave and asking more than
could be expected from human nature, as many of
them would, no doubt, think. Paul goes on to
transfigure the squalor and misery of the slave’s lot
by a sudden beam of light—“as to the Lord”—your
true “Master,” for it is the same word as in
the previous verse—“and not unto men.” Do not
think of your tasks as only enjoined by harsh,
capricious, selfish men, but lift your thoughts to
Christ, who is your Lord, and glorify all these sordid
duties by seeing His will in them. He only who
The stimulus of a great hope for the ill-used, unpaid
slave, is added. Whatever their earthly masters
might fail to give them, the true Master whom they
really served would accept no work for which He
did not return more than sufficient wages. “From
the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the
inheritance.” Blows and scanty food and poor
lodging may be all that they get from their owners
for all their sweat and toil, but if they are Christ’s
slaves, they will be treated no more as slaves, but
as sons, and receive a son’s portion, the exact recompense
which consists of the “inheritance.” The
juxtaposition of the two ideas of the slave and the
inheritance evidently hints at the unspoken thought,
that they are heirs because they are sons—a thought
which might well lift up bowed backs and brighten
dull faces. The hope of that reward came like an
angel into the smoky huts and hopeless lives of
these poor slaves. It shone athwart all the gloom
and squalor, and taught patience beneath “the
oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely.”
Through long, weary generations it has lived in
the hearts of men driven to God by man’s tyranny,
and forced to clutch at heaven’s brightness to keep
them from being made mad by earth’s blackness.
The last word to the slave is a warning against
neglect of duty. There is to be a double recompense—to
the slave of Christ the portion of a son;
to the wrong doer retribution “for the wrong that
he has done.” Then, though slavery was itself a
wrong, though the master who held a man in bondage
was himself inflicting the greatest of all wrongs, yet
Paul will have the slave think that he still has duties
to his master. That is part of Paul’s general position
as to slavery. He will not wage war against it, but
for the present accept it. Whether he saw the full
bearing of the gospel on that and other infamous
institutions may be questioned. He has given us
the principles which will destroy them, but he is no
revolutionist, and so his present counsel is to remember
the master’s rights, even though they be
founded on wrong, and he has no hesitation in condemning
and predicting retribution for evil things
done by a slave to his master. A superior’s injustice
does not warrant an inferior’s breach of moral law,
though it may excuse it. Two blacks do not make
a white. Herein lies the condemnation of all the
crimes which enslaved nations and classes have done,
But, on the other hand, this warning may look towards the masters also; and probably the same double reference is also to be discerned in the closing words to the slaves, “and there is no respect of persons.” The servants were naturally tempted to think that God was on their side, as indeed He was, but also to think that the great coming day of judgment was mostly meant to be terrible to tyrants and oppressors, and so to look forward to it with a fierce un-Christian joy, as well as with a false confidence built only on their present misery. They would be apt to think that God did “respect persons,” in the opposite fashion from that of a partial judge—namely, that He would incline the scale in favour of the ill-used, the poor, the down-trodden; that they would have an easy test and a light sentence, while His frowns and His severity would be kept for the powerful and the rich who had ground the faces of the poor and kept back the hire of the labourer. It was therefore a needful reminder for them, and for us all, that that judgment has nothing to do with earthly conditions, but only with conduct and character; that sorrow and calamity here do not open heaven’s gates hereafter, and that the slave and master are tried by the same law.
The series of precepts closes with a brief but most
The Apostle does not define what is “right and
equal.” That will come. The main thing is to
drive home the conviction that there are duties
owing to slaves, inferiors, employés. We are far
enough from a satisfactory discharge of these yet;
but, at any rate, everybody now admits the principle—and
we have mainly to thank Christianity for
that. Slowly the general conscience is coming to
recognise that simple truth more and more clearly,
and its application is becoming more decisive with
each generation. There is much to be done before
This duty of the masters is enforced by the same thought which was to stimulate the servants to their tasks: “ye also have a Master in heaven.” That is not only stimulus, but it is pattern. I said that Paul did not specify what was just and right, and that his precept might therefore be objected to as vague. Does the introduction of this thought of the master’s Master in heaven, take away any of the vagueness? If Christ is our Master, then we are to look to Him to see what a master ought to be, and to try to be masters like that. That is precise enough, is it not? That grips tight enough, does it not? Give your servants what you expect and need to get from Christ. If we try to live that commandment for twenty-four hours, it will probably not be its vagueness of which we complain.
“Ye have a Master in heaven” is the great principle
on which all Christian duty reposes. Christ’s
command is my law, His will is supreme, His
authority absolute, His example all-sufficient. My
soul, my life, my all are His. My will is not my
own. My possessions are not my own. My being
is not my own. All duty is elevated into obedience
“Continue stedfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving; withal praying for us also, that God may open unto us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one.”—Col. iv. 2–6 (Rev. Ver.).
I. So we have here, first, an exhortation to a hidden life of constant prayer.
The word rendered “continue” in the Authorised Version, and more fully in the Revised Version by “continue stedfastly,” is frequently found in reference to prayer, as well as in other connections. A mere enumeration of some of these instances may help to illustrate its full meaning. “We will give ourselves to prayer,” said the apostles in proposing the creation of the office of deacon. “Continuing instant in prayer” says Paul to the Roman Church. “They continuing daily with one accord in the Temple” is the description of the early believers after Pentecost. Simon Magus is said to have “continued with Philip,” where there is evidently the idea of close adherence as well as of uninterrupted companionship. These examples seem to show that the word implies both earnestness and continuity; so that this injunction not only covers the ground of Paul’s other exhortation, “Pray without ceasing,” but includes fervour also.
The Christian life, then, ought to be one of unbroken prayer.
What manner of prayer can that be which is to
be continuous through a life that must needs be full
of toil on outward things? How can such a precept
be obeyed? Surely there is no need for paring down
its comprehensiveness, and saying that it merely
means—a very frequent recurrence to devout exercises,
as often as the pressure of daily duties will
permit. That is not the direction in which the
harmonising of such a precept with the obvious
necessities of our position is to be sought. We
must seek it in a more inward and spiritual notion
of prayer. We must separate between the form and
the substance, the treasure and the earthen vessel
which carries it. What is prayer? Not the utterance
of words—they are but the vehicle; but the
attitude of the spirit. Communion, aspiration, and
submission, these three are the elements of prayer—and
these three may be diffused through a life.
It is possible, though difficult. There may be unbroken
communion, a constant consciousness of God’s
presence, and of our contact with Him, thrilling
through our souls and freshening them, like some
breath of spring reaching the toilers in choky factories
and busy streets; or even if the communion do not
run like an absolutely unbroken line of light through
our lives, the points may be so near together as all
but to touch. In such communion words are needless.
When spirits draw closest together there is no
need for speech. Silently the heart may be kept
fragrant with God’s felt presence, and sunny with
the light of His face. There are towns nestling
beneath the Alps, every narrow filthy alley of which
In like manner, there may be a continual, unspoken and unbroken presence of the second element of prayer, which is aspiration, or desire after God. All circumstances, whether duty, sorrow or joy, should and may be used to stamp more deeply on my consciousness the sense of my weakness and need; and every moment, with its experience of God’s swift and punctual grace, and all my communion with Him which unveils to me His beauty—should combine to move longings for Him, for more of Him. The very deepest cry of the heart which understands its own yearnings, is for the living God; and perpetual as the hunger of the spirit for the food which will stay its profound desires, will be the prayer, though it may often be voiceless, of the soul which knows where alone that food is.
Continual too may be our submission to His will,
which is an essential of all prayer. Many people’s
notion is that our prayer is urging our wishes on
God, and that His answer is giving us what we
desire. But true prayer is the meeting in harmony
of God’s will and man’s, and its deepest expression
is not, Do this, because I desire it, O Lord; but, I
do this because Thou desirest it, O Lord. That
submission may be the very spring of all life, and
So there should run all through our lives the music of that continual prayer, heard beneath all our varying occupations like some prolonged deep bass note, that bears up and gives dignity to the lighter melody that rises and falls and changes above it, like the spray on the crest of a great wave. Our lives will then be noble and grave, and woven into a harmonious unity, when they are based upon continual communion with, continual desire after, and continual submission to, God. If they are not, they will be worth nothing and will come to nothing.
But such continuity of prayer is not to be attained
without effort; therefore Paul goes on to say,
“Watching therein.” We are apt to do drowsily
whatever we do constantly. Men fall asleep at any
continuous work. There is also the constant influence
of externals, drawing our thoughts away
from their true home in God, so that if we are to
keep up continuous devotion, we shall have to rouse
ourselves often when in the very act of dropping off
to sleep. “Awake up, my glory!” we shall often
have to say to our souls. Do we not all know that
subtly approaching languor? and have we not often
caught ourselves in the very act of falling asleep at
our prayers? We must make distinct and resolute
efforts to rouse ourselves—we must concentrate our
attention and apply the needed stimulants, and
bring the interest and activity of our whole nature
to bear on this work of continual prayer, else it will
become drowsy mumbling as of a man but half
One way of so watching is to have and to observe definite times of spoken prayer. We hear much now-a-days about the small value of times and forms of prayer, and how, as I have been saying, true prayer is independent of these, and needs no words. All that, of course, is true; but when the practical conclusion is drawn that therefore we can do without the outward form, a grave mistake, full of mischief, is committed. I do not, for my part, believe in a devotion diffused through a life and never concentrated and coming to the surface in visible outward acts or audible words; and, as far as I have seen, the men whose religion is spread all through their lives most really are the men who keep the central reservoir full, if I may so say, by regular and frequent hours and words of prayer. The Christ, whose whole life was devotion and communion with the Father, had His nights on the mountains, and rising up a great while before day, He watched unto prayer. We must do the like.
One more word has still to be said. This continual
prayer is to be “with thanksgiving”—again
the injunction so frequent in this letter, in such
various connections. Every prayer should be blended
with gratitude, without the perfume of which, the
incense of devotion lacks one element of fragrance.
The sense of need, or the consciousness of sin, may
evoke “strong crying and tears,” but the completest
prayer rises confident from a grateful heart, which
weaves memory into hope, and asks much because
it has received much. A true recognition of the
And now the Apostle’s tone softens from exhortation to entreaty, and with very sweet and touching humility he begs a supplemental corner in their prayers. “Withal praying also for us.” The “withal” and “also” have a tone of lowliness in them, while the “us,” including as it does Timothy, who is associated with him in the superscription of the letter, and possibly others also, increases the impression of modesty. The subject of their prayers for Paul and the others is to be that “God may open unto us a door for the word.” That phrase apparently means an unhindered opportunity of preaching the gospel, for the consequence of the door’s being opened is added—“to speak (so that I may speak) the mystery of Christ.” The special reason for this prayer is, “for which I am also (in addition to my other sufferings) in bonds.”
He was a prisoner. He cared little about that or about the fetters on his wrists, so far as his own comfort was concerned; but his spirit chafed at the restraint laid upon him in spreading the good news of Christ, though he had been able to do much in his prison, both among the Prætorian guard, and throughout the whole population of Rome. Therefore he would engage his friends to ask God to open the prison doors, as He had done for Peter, not that Paul might come out, but that the gospel might. The personal was swallowed up; all that he cared for was to do his work.
But he wants their prayers for more than that—“that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” This is probably explained most naturally as meaning his endowment with power to set forth the message in a manner adequate to its greatness. When he thought of what it was that he, unworthy, had to preach, its majesty and wonderfulness brought a kind of awe over his spirit; and endowed, as he was, with apostolic functions and apostolic grace; conscious, as he was, of being anointed and inspired by God, he yet felt that the richness of the treasure made the earthen vessel seem terribly unworthy to bear it. His utterances seemed to himself poor and unmelodious beside the majestic harmonies of the gospel. He could not soften his voice to breathe tenderly enough a message of such love, nor give it strength enough to peal forth a message of such tremendous import and world-wide destination.
If Paul felt his conception of the greatness of the gospel dwarfing into nothing his words when he tried to preach it, what must every other true minister of Christ feel? If he, in the fulness of his inspiration, besought a place in his brethren’s prayers, how much more must they need it, who try with stammering tongues to preach the truth that made his fiery words seem ice? Every such man must turn to those who love him and listen to his poor presentment of the riches of Christ, with Paul’s entreaty. His friends cannot do a kinder thing to him than to bear him on their hearts in their prayers to God.
II. We have here next, a couple of precepts,
which spring at a bound from the inmost secret
of the Christian life to its circumference, and refer
“Walk in wisdom towards them that are without.”
Those that are within are those who have “fled for
refuge” to Christ, and are within the fold, the fortress,
the ark. Men who sit safe within while the storm
howls, may simply think with selfish complacency of
the poor wretches exposed to its fierceness. The
phrase may express spiritual pride and even contempt.
All close corporations tend to generate
dislike and scorn of outsiders, and the Church has
had its own share of such feeling; but there is no
trace of anything of the sort here. Rather is there
pathos and pity in the word, and a recognition that
their sad condition gives these outsiders a claim on
Christian men, who are bound to go out to their
help and bring them in. Precisely because they are
“without” do those within owe them a wise walk,
that “if any will not hear the word, they may without
the word be won.” The thought is in some
measure parallel to our Lord’s words, of which
perhaps it is a reminiscence. “Behold I send you
forth”—a strange thing for a careful shepherd to
do—“as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore
wise as serpents.” Think of that picture—the
handful of cowering frightened creatures huddled
against each other, and ringed round by that yelping,
white-toothed crowd, ready to tear them to pieces!
So are Christ’s followers in the world. Of course,
things have changed in many respects since those
days; partly because persecution has gone out of
fashion, and partly because “the world” has been
largely influenced by Christian morality, and partly
We need, therefore, to “walk in wisdom” towards the non-Christian world; that is, to let practical prudence shape all our conduct. If we are Christians, we have to live under the eyes of vigilant and not altogether friendly observers, who derive satisfaction and harm from any inconsistency of ours. A plainly Christian life that needs no commentary to exhibit its harmony with Christ’s commandments is the first duty we owe to them.
And the wisdom which is to mould our lives in
view of these outsiders will “discern both time and
judgment,” will try to take the measure of men
and act accordingly. Common sense and practical
sagacity are important accompaniments of Christian
zeal. What a singularly complex character, in this
respect, was Paul’s—enthusiastic and yet capable
of such diplomatic adaptation; and withal never
dropping to cunning, nor sacrificing truth! Enthusiasts
who despise worldly wisdom, and therefore
often dash themselves against stone walls, are not
rare; cool calculators who abhor all generous glow
of feeling and have ever a pailful of cold water for
any project which shows it, are only too common—but
fire and ice together, like a volcano with glaciers
streaming down its cone, are rare. Fervour married
A dangerous principle that last, a very slippery piece of ground to get upon!—say people, and quite truly. It is dangerous, and one thing only will keep a man’s feet when on it, and that is, that his wise adaptation shall be perfectly unselfish, and that he shall ever keep clear before him the great object to be gained, which is nothing personal, but “that I might by all means save some.” If that end is held in view, we shall be saved from the temptation of hiding or maiming the very truth which we desire should be received, and our wise adaptation of ourselves and of our message to the needs and weaknesses and peculiarities of those “who are without,” will not degenerate into handling the word of God deceitfully. Paul advised “walking in wisdom;” he abhorred “walking in craftiness.”
We owe them that are without such a walk as may tend to bring them in. Our life is to a large extent their Bible. They know a great deal more about Christianity, as they see it in us, than as it is revealed in Christ, or recorded in Scripture—and if, as seen in us, it does not strike them as very attractive, small wonder if they still prefer to remain where they are. Let us take care lest instead of being doorkeepers to the house of the Lord, to beckon passers-by and draw them in, we block the doorway, and keep them from seeing the wonders within.
The Apostle adds a special way in which this wisdom shows itself—namely, “redeeming the time.” The last word here does not denote time in general, but a definite season, or opportunity. The lesson, then, is not that of making the best use of all the moments as they fly, precious as that lesson is, but that of discerning and eagerly using appropriate opportunities for Christian service. The figure is simple enough; to “buy up” means to make one’s own. “Make much of time, let not advantage slip,” is an advice in exactly the same spirit. Two things are included in it; the watchful study of characters, so as to know the right times to bring influences to bear on them, and an earnest diligence in utilizing these for the highest purposes. We have not acted wisely towards those who are without unless we have used every opportunity to draw them in.
But besides a wise walk, there is to be “gracious
speech.” “Let your speech be always with grace.”
A similar juxtaposition of “wisdom” and “grace”
occurred in chapter iii. 16. “Let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom ... singing
with grace in your hearts”; and there as here,
“grace” may be taken either in its lower æsthetic
sense, or in its higher spiritual. It may mean either
favour, agreeableness, or the Divine gift, bestowed
by the indwelling Spirit. The former is supposed
by many good expositors to be the meaning here.
But is it a Christian’s duty to make his speech
always agreeable? Sometimes it is his plain duty
to make it very disagreeable indeed. If our speech
is to be true, and wholesome, it must sometimes
rasp and go against the grain. Its pleasantness
depends on the inclinations of the hearers rather
We must go much deeper for the true import of this exhortation. It is substantially this—whether you can speak smooth things or no, and whether your talk is always directly religious or no—and it need not and cannot always be that—let there ever be in it the manifest influence of God’s Spirit, Who dwells in the Christian heart, and will mould and sanctify your speech. Of you, as of your Master, let it be true, “Grace is poured into thy lips.” He in whose spirit the Divine Spirit abides will be truly “Golden-mouthed”; his speech shall distil as the dew, and whether his grave and lofty words please frivolous and prurient ears or no, they will be beautiful in the truest sense, and show the Divine life pulsing through them, as some transparent skin shows the throbbing of the blue veins. Men who feed their souls on great authors catch their style, as some of our great living orators, who are eager students of English poetry. So if we converse much with God, listening to His voice in our hearts, our speech will have in it a tone that will echo that deep music. Our accent will betray our country. Then our speech will be with grace in the lower sense of pleasingness. The truest gracefulness, both of words and conduct, comes from heavenly grace. The beauty caught from God, the fountain of all things lovely, is the highest.
The speech is to be “seasoned with salt.” That does not mean the “Attic salt” of wit. There is nothing more wearisome than the talk of men who are always trying to be piquant and brilliant. Such speech is like a “pillar of salt”—it sparkles, but is cold, and has points that wound, and it tastes bitter. That is not what Paul recommends. Salt was used in sacrifice—let the sacrificial salt be applied to all our words; that is, let all we say be offered up to God, “a sacrifice of praise to God continually.” Salt preserves. Put into your speech what will keep it from rotting, or, as the parallel passage in Ephesians has it, “let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.” Frivolous talk, dreary gossip, ill-natured talk, idle talk, to say nothing of foul and wicked words, will be silenced when your speech is seasoned with salt.
The following words make it probable that salt here is used also with some allusion to its power of giving savour to food. Do not deal in insipid generalities, but suit your words to your hearers, “that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one.” Speech that fits close to the characteristics and wants of the people to whom it is spoken is sure to be interesting, and that which does not will for them be insipid. Commonplaces that hit full against the hearer will be no commonplaces to him, and the most brilliant words that do not meet his mind or needs will to him be tasteless “as the white of an egg.”
Individual peculiarities, then, must determine the
wise way of approach to each man, and there will be
wide variety in the methods. Paul’s language to
the wild hill tribes of Lycaonia was not the same as
All that is too plain to need illustration. But one word may be added. The Apostle here regards it as the task of every Christian man to speak for Christ. Further, he recommends dealing with individuals rather than masses, as being within the scope of each Christian, and as being much more efficacious. Salt has to be rubbed in, if it is to do any good. It is better for most of us to fish with the rod than with the net, to angle for single souls, rather than to try and enclose a multitude at once. Preaching to a congregation has its own place and value; but private and personal talk, honestly and wisely done, will effect more than the most eloquent preaching. Better to drill in the seeds, dropping them one by one into the little pits made for their reception, than to sow them broadcast.
And what shall we say of Christian men and women, who can talk animatedly and interestingly of anything but of their Saviour and His kingdom? Timidity, misplaced reverence, a dread of seeming to be self-righteous, a regard for conventional proprieties, and the national reserve account for much of the lamentable fact that there are so many such. But all these barriers would be floated away like straws, if a great stream of Christian feeling were pouring from the heart. What fills the heart will overflow by the floodgates of speech. So that the real reason for the unbroken silence in which many Christian people conceal their faith is mainly the small quantity of it which there is to conceal.
A solemn ideal is set before us in these parting injunctions—a higher righteousness than was thundered from Sinai. When we think of our hurried, formal devotion, our prayers forced from us sometimes by the pressure of calamity, and so often suspended when the weight is lifted; of the occasional glimpses that we get of God—as sailors may catch sight of a guiding star for a moment through driving fog, and of the long tracts of life which would be precisely the same, as far as our thoughts are concerned, if there were no God at all, or He had nothing to do with us—what an awful command that seems, “Continue stedfastly in prayer”!
When we think of our selfish disregard of the woes and dangers of the poor wanderers without, exposed to the storm, while we think ourselves safe in the fold, and of how little we have meditated on and still less discharged our obligations to them, and of how we have let precious opportunities slip through our slack hands, we may well bow rebuked before the exhortation, “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without.”
When we think of the stream of words ever flowing from our lips, and how few grains of gold that stream has brought down amid all its sand, and how seldom Christ’s name has been spoken by us to hearts that heed Him not nor know Him, the exhortation, “Let your speech be always with grace,” becomes an indictment as truly as a command.
There is but one place for us, the foot of the
cross, that there we may obtain forgiveness for all
the faulty past and thence may draw consecration
and strength for the future, to enable us to keep
“All my affairs shall Tychicus make known unto you, the beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I have sent unto you for this very purpose, that ye may know our estate, and that he may comfort your hearts; together with Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things that are done here.”—Col. iv. 7–9 (Rev. Ver.).
We shall not now deal with the words before us, so much as with these two figures, whom we may regard as representing certain principles, and embodying some useful lessons.
I. Tychicus may stand as representing the greatness and sacredness of small and secular service done for Christ.
We must first try, in as few words as may be, to change the name into a man. There is something very solemn and pathetic in these shadowy names which appear for a moment on the page of Scripture, and are swallowed up of black night, like stars that suddenly blaze out for a week or two, and then dwindle and at last disappear altogether. They too lived, and loved, and strove, and suffered, and enjoyed: and now—all is gone, gone; the hot fire burned down to such a little handful of white ashes. Tychicus and Onesimus! two shadows that once were men! and as they are, so we shall be.
As to Tychicus, there are several fragmentary notices about him in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s letters, and although they do not amount to much, still by piecing them together, and looking at them with some sympathy, we can get a notion of the man.
He does not appear till near the end of Paul’s
missionary work, and was probably one of the fruits
of the Apostle’s long residence in Ephesus on his
last missionary tour, as we do not hear of him till
after that period. That stay in Ephesus was cut
short by the silversmiths’ riot—the earliest example
of trades’ unions—when they wanted to silence the
preaching of the gospel because it damaged the
market for “shrines,” and “also” was an insult to
the great goddess! Thereupon Paul retired to
Europe, and after some months there, decided on
his last fateful journey to Jerusalem. On the way
he was joined by a remarkable group of friends
We do not know that all the seven accompanied
Paul to Jerusalem. Trophimus we know did, and
another of them, Aristarchus, is mentioned as having
sailed with him on the return voyage from Palestine
(
These seven, at all events, began the long journey with Paul. Among them is our friend Tychicus, who may have learned to know the Apostle more intimately during it, and perhaps developed qualities in travel which marked him out as fit for the errand on which we here find him.
This voyage was about the year 58 A.D. Then comes an interval of some three or four years, in which occur Paul’s arrest and imprisonment at Cæsarea, his appearance before governors and kings, his voyage to Italy and shipwreck, with his residence in Rome. Whether Tychicus was with him during all this period, as Luke seems to have been, we do not know, nor at what point he joined the Apostle, if he was not his companion throughout. But the verses before us show that he was with Paul during part of his first Roman captivity, probably about A.D. 62 or 63; and their commendation of him as “a faithful minister,” or helper of Paul, implies that for a considerable period before this he had been rendering services to the Apostle.
He is now despatched all the long way to Colossæ
to carry this letter, and to tell the Church by word
of mouth all that had happened in Rome. No information
of that kind is in the letter itself. That
The very same words are employed about him in the contemporaneous letter to the Ephesians. Evidently, then, he carried both epistles on the same journey; and one reason for selecting him as messenger is plainly that he was a native of the province, and probably of Ephesus. When Paul looked round his little circle of attendant friends, his eye fell on Tychicus, as the very man for such an errand. “You go, Tychicus. It is your home; they all know you.”
The most careful students now think that the Epistle to the Ephesians was meant to go the round of the Churches of Asia Minor, beginning, no doubt, with that in the great city of Ephesus. If that be so, and Tychicus had to carry it to these Churches in turn, he would necessarily come, in the course of his duty, to Laodicea, which was only a few miles from Colossæ, and so could most conveniently deliver this Epistle. The wider and the narrower mission fitted into each other.
No doubt he went, and did his work. We can
fancy the eager groups, perhaps in some upper room,
perhaps in some quiet place of prayer by the river
side; in their midst the two messengers, with a little
What became of Tychicus after that journey we
do not know. Perhaps he settled down at Ephesus
for a time, perhaps he returned to Paul. At any
rate, we get two more glimpses of him at a later
period—one in the Epistle to Titus, in which we
hear of the Apostle’s intention to despatch him
on another journey to Crete, and the last in the
close of the second Epistle to Timothy, written
from Rome probably about A.D. 67. The Apostle
believes that his death is near, and seems to have
sent away most of his staff. Among the notices of
their various appointments we read, “Tychicus have
I sent to Ephesus.” He is not said to have been
sent on any mission connected with the Churches.
It may be that he was simply sent away because,
by reason of his impending martyrdom, Paul had no
more need of him. True, he still has Luke by him,
and he wishes Timothy to come and bring his first
“minister,” Mark, with him. But he has sent away
Tychicus, as if he had said, Now, go back to your
home, my friend! You have been a faithful servant
for ten years. I need you no more. Go to your
own people, and take my blessing. God be with
you! So they parted, he that was for death, to
die! and he that was for life, to live and to treasure
As for his character, Paul has given us something
of it in these few words, which have commended
him to a wider circle than the handful of Christians
at Colossæ. As for his personal godliness and
goodness, he is “a beloved brother,” as are all who
love Christ; but he is also a “faithful minister,” or
personal attendant upon the Apostle. Paul always
seems to have had one or two such about him, from
the time of his first journey, when John Mark filled
the post, to the end of his career. Probably he was
no great hand at managing affairs, and needed some
plain common-sense nature beside him, who would
be secretary or amanuensis sometimes, and general
helper and factotum. Men of genius and men
devoted to some great cause which tyrannously
absorbs attention, want some person to fill such a
homely office. The person who filled it would be
likely to be a plain man, not gifted in any special
degree for higher service. Common sense, willingness
to be troubled with small details of purely
secular arrangements, and a hearty love for the chief,
and desire to spare him annoyance and work, were
the qualifications. Such probably was Tychicus—no
orator, no organiser, no thinker, but simply an
honest, loving soul, who did not shrink from rough
outward work, if only it might help the cause. We
do not read that he was a teacher or preacher, or
miracle worker. His gift was—ministry, and he
So then, he is fairly taken as representing the greatness and sacredness of small and secular service for Christ. For the Apostle goes on to add something to his eulogium as a “faithful minister”—when he calls him “a fellow-servant,” or slave, “in the Lord.” As if he had said, Do not suppose that because I write this letter, and Tychicus carries it, there is much difference between us. We are both slaves of the same Lord who has set each of us his tasks; and though the tasks be different, the obedience is the same, and the doers stand on one level. I am not Tychicus’ master, though he be my minister. We have both, as I have been reminding you that you all have, an owner in heaven. The delicacy of the turn thus given to the commendation is a beautiful indication of Paul’s generous, chivalrous nature. No wonder that such a soul bound men like Tychicus to him!
But there is more than merely a revelation of a beautiful character in the words; there are great truths in them. We may draw them out in two or three thoughts.
Small things done for Christ are great. Trifles
that contribute and are indispensable to a great
result are great; or perhaps, more properly, both
words are out of place. In some powerful engine
there is a little screw, and if it drop out, the great
piston cannot rise nor the huge crank turn. What
have big and little to do with things which are
equally indispensable? There is a great rudder that
steers an ironclad. It moves on a “pintle” a few
Another thought suggested by the figure of
Paul’s minister, who was also his fellow-slave, is the
sacredness of secular work done for Christ. When
Tychicus is caring for Paul’s comfort, and looking
after common things for him, he is serving Christ,
and his work is “in the Lord.” That is equivalent
to saying that the distinction between sacred and
secular, religious and non-religious, like that of great
and small, disappears from work done for and in
Jesus. Whenever there is organization, there must
be much work concerned with purely material
things: and the most spiritual forces must have
some organization. There must be men for “the
outward business of the house of God” as well as
white-robed priests at the altar, and the rapt gazer
in the secret place of the Most High. There are
a hundred matters of detail and of purely outward
and mechanical sort which must be seen to by
somebody. The alternative is to do them in a
purely mechanical and secular manner and so to
Another thought may be suggested—fleeting
things done for Christ are eternal. How astonished
Tychicus would have been if anybody had told him
on that day when he got away from Rome, with
the two precious letters in his scrip, that these bits
of parchment would outlast all the ostentatious
pomp of the city, and that his name, because written
in them, would be known to the end of time all over
the world! The eternal things are the things done
for Christ. They are eternal in His memory who
has said, “I will never forget any of their works,”
however they may fall from man’s remembrance.
They are perpetual in their consequences. True, no
man’s contribution to the mighty sum of things
“that make for righteousness” can very long be
traced as separate from the others, any more than
the raindrop that refreshed the harebell on the moor
can be traced in burn, and river, and sea. But for
all that, it is there. So our influence for good blends
with a thousand others, and may not be traceable
beyond a short distance, still it is there: and no true
That Colossian Church seems a failure. Where is it now? Gone. Where are its sister Churches of Asia? Gone. Paul’s work and Tychicus’ seem to have vanished from the earth, and Mohammedanism to have taken its place. Yes! and here are we to-day in England, and Christian men all over the world in lands that were mere slaughterhouses of savagery then, learning our best lessons from Paul’s words, and owing something for our knowledge of them to Tychicus’ humble care. Paul meant to teach a handful of obscure believers—he has edified the world. Tychicus thought to carry the precious letter safely over the sea—he was helping to send it across the centuries, and to put it into our hands. So little do we know where our work will terminate. Our only concern is where it begins. Let us look after this end, the motive; and leave God to take care of the other, the consequences.
Such work will be perpetual in its consequences on ourselves. “Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious.” Whether our service for Christ does others any good or no, it will bless ourselves, by strengthening the motives from which it springs, by enlarging our own knowledge and enriching our own characters, and by a hundred other gracious influences which His work exerts upon the devout worker, and which become indissoluble parts of himself, and abide with him for ever, over and above the crown of glory that fadeth not away.
And, as the reward is given not to the outward
deed, but to the motive which settles its value, all
II. We must now turn to a much briefer consideration of the second figure here, Onesimus, as representing the transforming and uniting power of Christian faith.
No doubt this is the same Onesimus as we read
of in the Epistle to Philemon. His story is familiar
and need not be dwelt on. He had been an “unprofitable
servant,” good-for-nothing, and apparently
had robbed his master, and then fled. He had
found his way to Rome, to which all the scum of
the empire seemed to drift. There he had burrowed
in some hole, and found obscurity and security.
Somehow or other he had come across Paul—surely
not, as has been supposed, having sought the
Apostle as a friend of his master’s, which would
rather have been a reason for avoiding him. However
that may be, he had found Paul, and Paul’s
Master had found him by the gospel which Paul
spoke. His heart had been touched. And now he
is to go back to his owner. With beautiful considerateness
the Apostle unites him with Tychicus in his
mission, and refers the Church to him as an authority.
Does not then that figure stand forth a living
illustration of the transforming power of Christianity?
Slaves had well-known vices, largely the result of
their position—idleness, heartlessness, lying, dishonesty.
And this man had had his full share of
the sins of his class. Think of him as he left Colossæ,
slinking from his master, with stolen property in his
bosom, madness and mutiny in his heart, an ignorant
heathen, with vices and sensualities holding carnival
in his soul. Think of him as he came back, Paul’s
trusted representative, with desires after holiness in
his deepest nature, the light of the knowledge of a
loving and pure God in his soul, a great hope before
him, ready for all service and even to put on again
the abhorred yoke! What had happened? Nothing
but this—the message had come to him, “Onesimus!
The gospel can do that. It can and does do so to-day and to us, if we will. Nothing else can; nothing else ever has done it; nothing else ever will. Culture may do much; social reformation may do much; but the radical transformation of the nature is only effected by the “love of God shed abroad in the heart,” and by the new life which we receive through our faith in Christ.
That change can be produced on all sorts and conditions of men. The gospel despairs of none. It knows of no hopelessly irreclaimable classes. It can kindle a soul under the ribs of death. The filthiest rags can be cleaned and made into spotlessly white paper, which may have the name of God written upon it. None are beyond its power; neither the savages in other lands, nor the more hopeless heathens festering and rotting in our back slums, the opprobrium of our civilization and the indictment of our Christianity. Take the gospel that transformed this poor slave, to them, and some hearts will own it, and we shall pick out of the kennel souls blacker than his, and make them like him, brethren, faithful and beloved.
Further, here is a living illustration of the power which the gospel has of binding men into a true brotherhood. We can scarcely picture to ourselves the gulf which separated the master from his slave. “So many slaves, so many enemies,” said Seneca. That great crack running through society was a chief weakness and peril of the ancient world. Christianity gathered master and slave into one family, and set them down at one table to commemorate the death of the Saviour who held them all in the embrace of His great love.
All true union among men must be based upon their oneness in Jesus Christ. The brotherhood of man is a consequence of the fatherhood of God, and Christ shows us the Father. If the dreams of men’s being knit together in harmony are ever to be more than dreams, the power that makes them facts must flow from the cross. The world must recognise that “One is your master,” before it comes to believe as anything more than the merest sentimentality that “all ye are brethren.”
Much has to be done before the dawn of that day reddens in the east, “when, man to man, the wide world o’er, shall brothers be,” and much in political and social life has to be swept away before society is organized on the basis of Christian fraternity. The vision tarries. But we may remember how certainly, though slowly, the curse of slavery has disappeared, and take courage to believe that all other evils will fade away in like manner, until the cords of love shall bind all hearts in fraternal unity, because they bind each to the cross of the Elder Brother, through whom we are no more slaves but sons, and if sons of God, then brethren of one another.
“Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth you, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas (touching whom ye received commandments; if he come unto you, receive him), and Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the circumcision: these only are my fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God, men that have been a comfort unto me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, saluteth you, always striving for you in his prayers, that ye may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness, that he hath much labour for you, and for them in Laodicea, and for them in Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas salute you.”—Col. iv. 10–14 (Rev. Ver.).
There are three sets of salutations here, sent
from Rome to the little far-off Phrygian town in
its secluded valley. The first is from three large-hearted
Jewish Christians, whose greeting has a
special meaning as coming from that wing of the
Church which had least sympathy with Paul’s work or
converts. The second is from the Colossians’ towns-man
Epaphras; and the third is from two Gentiles like
1. These three sympathetic Jewish Christians may stand as types of a progressive and non-ceremonial Christianity.
We need spend little time in outlining the figures
of these three, for he in the centre is well known to
every one, and his two supporters are little known
to any one. Aristarchus was a Thessalonian
(
He receives here a remarkable and honourable title, “my fellow-prisoner.” I suppose that it is to be taken literally, and that Aristarchus was, in some way, at the moment of writing, sharing Paul’s imprisonment. Now it has been often noticed that, in the Epistle to Philemon, where almost all these names re-appear, it is not Aristarchus, but Epaphras, who is honoured with this epithet; and that interchange has been explained by an ingenious supposition that Paul’s friends took it in turn to keep him company, and were allowed to live with him, on condition of submitting to the same restrictions, military guardianship, and so on. There is no positive evidence in favour of this, but it is not improbable, and, if accepted, helps to give an interesting glimpse of Paul’s prison life, and of the loyal devotion which surrounded him.
Mark comes next. His story is well known—how
twelve years before, he had joined the first
missionary band from Antioch, of which his cousin
Barnabas was the leader, and had done well enough
as long as they were on known ground, in Barnabas’
(and perhaps his own) native island of Cyprus, but
had lost heart and run home to his mother as soon
as they crossed into Asia Minor. He had long ago
effaced the distrust of him which Paul naturally
conceived on account of this collapse. How he
came to be with Paul at Rome is unknown. It has
been conjectured that Barnabas was dead, and that
So faithful a friend did he prove, that the lonely old man, fronting death, longed to have his affectionate tending once more; and his last word about him, “Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry,” condones the early fault, and restores him to the office which, in a moment of selfish weakness, he had abandoned. So it is possible to efface a faultful past, and to acquire strength and fitness for work, to which we are by nature most inapt and indisposed. Mark is an instance of early faults nobly atoned for, and a witness of the power of repentance and faith to overcome natural weakness. Many a ragged colt makes a noble horse.
The third man is utterly unknown—“Jesus, which
is called Justus.” How startling to come across
that name, borne by this obscure Christian! How
it helps us to feel the humble manhood of Christ,
by showing us that many another Jewish boy bore
He seems to have been of no importance in the Church, for his name is the only one in this context which does not re-appear in Philemon, and we never hear of him again. A strange fate his! to be made immortal by three words—and because he wanted to send a loving message to the Church at Colossæ! Why, men have striven and schemed, and broken their hearts, and flung away their lives, to grasp the bubble of posthumous fame; and how easily this good “Jesus which is called Justus” has got it! He has his name written for ever on the world’s memory, and he very likely never knew it, and does not know it, and was never a bit the better for it! What a satire on “the last infirmity of noble minds!”
These three men are united in this salutation,
because they are all three, “of the circumcision;”
that is to say, are Jews, and being so, have separated
themselves from all the other Jewish Christians in
Rome, and have flung themselves with ardour into
Paul’s missionary work among the Gentiles, and
have been his fellow-workers for the advancement of
the kingdom—aiding him, that is, in seeking to win
willing subjects to the loving, kingly will of God.
By this co-operation in the aim of his life, they have
been a “comfort” to him. He uses a half medical
term, which perhaps he had caught from the physician
Now these three men, the only three Jewish Christians in Rome who had the least sympathy with Paul and his work, give us, in their isolation, a vivid illustration of the antagonism which he had to face from that portion of the early Church. The great question for the first generation of Christians was, not whether Gentiles might enter the Christian community, but whether they must do so by circumcision, and pass through Judaism on their road to Christianity. The bulk of the Palestinian Jewish Christians naturally held that they must; while the bulk of Jewish Christians who had been born in other countries as naturally held that they need not. As the champion of this latter decision, Paul was worried and counter-worked and hindered all his life by the other party. They had no missionary zeal, or next to none, but they followed in his wake and made mischief wherever they could. If we can fancy some modern sect that sends out no missionaries of its own, but delights to come in where better men have forced a passage, and to upset their work by preaching its own crotchets, we get precisely the kind of thing which dogged Paul all his life.
There was evidently a considerable body of these
men in Rome; good men no doubt in a fashion,
believing in Jesus as the Messiah, but unable to
comprehend that he had antiquated Moses, as the
dawning day makes useless the light in a dark place.
Even when he was a prisoner, their unrelenting
It was a brave thing to do, and the exuberance of the eulogium shows how keenly Paul felt his countrymen’s coldness, and how grateful he was to “the dauntless three.” Only those who have lived in an atmosphere of misconstruction, surrounded by scowls and sneers, can understand what a cordial the clasp of a hand, or the word of sympathy is. These men were like the old soldier that stood on the street of Worms, as Luther passed in to the Diet, and clapped him on the shoulder, with “Little monk! little monk! you are about to make a nobler stand to-day than we in all our battles have ever done. If your cause is just, and you are sure of it, go forward in God’s name, and fear nothing.” If we can do no more, we can give some one who is doing more a cup of cold water, by our sympathy and taking our place at his side, and so can be fellow-workers to the kingdom of God.
We note, too, that the best comfort Paul could
have was help in his work. He did not go about
the world whimpering for sympathy. He was much
too strong a man for that. He wanted men to come
down into the trench with him, and to shovel and
wheel there till they had made in the wilderness
some kind of a highway for the King. The true
But we may further look at these men as representing for us progressive as opposed to reactionary, and spiritual as opposed to ceremonial Christianity. Jewish Christians looked backwards; Paul and his three sympathisers looked forward. There was much excuse for the former. No wonder that they shrank from the idea that things divinely appointed could be laid aside. Now there is a broad distinction between the divine in Christianity and the divine in Judaism. For Jesus Christ is God’s last word, and abides for ever. His divinity, His perfect sacrifice, His present life in glory for us, His life within us, these and their related truths are the perennial possession of the Church. To Him we must look back, and every generation till the end of time will have to look back, as the full and final expression of the wisdom and will and mercy of God. “Last of all He sent unto them His Son.”
That being distinctly understood, we need not
hesitate to recognise the transitory nature of much
of the embodiment of the eternal truth concerning
the eternal Christ. To draw the line accurately
between the permanent and the transient
would be to anticipate history and read the future.
But the clear recognition of the distinction between
the Divine revelation and the vessels in which it
is contained, between Christ and creed, between
Churches, forms of worship, formularies of faith on
the one hand, and the everlasting word of God
spoken to us once for all in His Son, and recorded
in Scripture, on the other, is needful at all times,
and especially at such times of sifting and unsettlement
II. Epaphras is for us the type of the highest service which love can render.
All our knowledge of Epaphras is contained in
these brief notices in this Epistle. We learn from
the first chapter that he had introduced the gospel
to Colossæ, and perhaps also to Laodicea and
Hierapolis. He was “one of you,” a member of the
Colossian community, and a resident in, possibly a
native of, Colossæ. He had come to Rome, apparently
to consult the Apostle about the views
which threatened to disturb the Church. He had
told him, too, of their love, not painting the picture
Perhaps some of the Colossians were not over pleased with his having gone to speak with Paul, and having brought down this thunderbolt on their heads; and such a feeling may account for the warmth of Paul’s praises of him as his “fellow-slave,” and for the emphasis of his testimony on his behalf. However they might doubt it, Epaphras’ love for them was warm. It showed itself by continual fervent prayers that they might stand “perfect and fully persuaded in all the will of God,” and by toil of body and mind for them. We can see the anxious Epaphras, far away from the Church of his solicitude, always burdened with the thought of their danger, and ever wrestling in prayer on their behalf.
So we may learn the noblest service which
Christian love can do—prayer. There is a real
power in Christian intercession. There are many
difficulties and mysteries round that thought. The
manner of the blessing is not revealed, but the fact
that we help one another by prayer is plainly
taught, and confirmed by many examples, from the
day when God heard Abraham and delivered Lot,
to the hour when the loving authoritative words
were spoken, “Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee
that thy faith fail not.” A spoonful of water sets
a hydraulic press in motion, and brings into
operation a force of tons’ weight; so a drop of
prayer at the one end may move an influence at the
other which is omnipotent. It is a service which
all can render. Epaphras could not have written
We notice too the kind of prayer which love naturally presents. It is constant and earnest—“always striving,” or as the word might be rendered, “agonizing.” That word suggests first the familiar metaphor of the wrestling-ground. True prayer is the intensest energy of the spirit pleading for blessing with a great striving of faithful desire. But a more solemn memory gathers round the word, for it can scarcely fail to recall the hour beneath the olives of Gethsemane, when the clear paschal moon shone down on the suppliant who, “being in an agony, prayed the more earnestly.” And both Paul’s word here, and the evangelist’s there, carry us back to that mysterious scene by the brook Jabbok, where Jacob “wrestled” with “a man” until the breaking of the day, and prevailed. Such is prayer; the wrestle in the arena, the agony in Gethsemane, the solitary grapple with the “traveller unknown”; and such is the highest expression of Christian love.
Here, too, we learn what love asks for its beloved.
Not perishable blessings, not the prizes of earth—fame,
fortune, friends; but that “ye may stand
perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.”
The first petition is for stedfastness. To stand has
for opposites—to fall, or totter, or give ground; so
Epaphras’ last desire for his friends, according to the true reading, is that they may be “fully assured” in all the will of God. There can be no higher blessing than that—to be quite sure of what God desires me to know and do and be—if the assurance comes from the clear light of His illumination, and not from hasty self-confidence in my own penetration. To be free from the misery of intellectual doubts and practical uncertainties, to walk in the sunshine—is the purest joy. And it is granted in needful measure to all who have silenced their own wills, that they may hear what God says,—“If any man wills to do His will, he shall know.”
Does our love speak in prayer? and do our
prayers for our dear ones plead chiefly for such gifts?
Both our love and our desires need purifying if this
is to be their natural language. How can we offer
such prayers for them if, at the bottom of our hearts,
III. The last salutation comes from a singularly contrasted couple—Luke and Demas, the types respectively of faithfulness and apostasy. These two unequally yoked together stand before us like the light and the dark figures that Ary Scheffer delights to paint, each bringing out the colouring of the other more vividly by contrast. They bear the same relation to Paul which John, the beloved disciple, and Judas did to Paul’s master.
As for Luke, his long and faithful companionship of the Apostle is too well known to need repetition here. His first appearance in the Acts nearly coincides with an attack of Paul’s constitutional malady, which gives probability to the suggestion that one reason for Luke’s close attendance on the Apostle was the state of his health. Thus the form and warmth of the reference here would be explained—“Luke the physician, the beloved.” We trace Luke as sharing the perils of the winter voyage to Italy, making his presence known only by the modest “we” of the narrative. We find him here sharing the Roman captivity, and, in the second imprisonment, he was Paul’s only companion. All others had been sent away, or had fled; but Luke could not be spared, and would not desert him, and no doubt was by his side till the end, which soon came.
As for Demas, we know no more about him except
the melancholy record, “Demas hath forsaken
How strikingly these two contrasted characters
bring out the possibility of men being exposed to
the same influences and yet ending far away from
each other! These two set out from the same
point, and travelled side by side, subject to the same
We are reminded, also, from these two men who
stand before us like a double star—one bright and
one dark—that no loftiness of Christian position,
nor length of Christian profession is a guarantee
against falling and apostasy. As we read in another
book, for which also the Church has to thank a
prison cell—the place where so many of its precious
possessions have been written—there is a backway
to the pit from the gate of the Celestial City.
Demas had stood high in the Church, had been
admitted to the close intimacy of the Apostle, was
The world that was too strong for Demas will be too strong for us if we front it in our own strength. It is ubiquitous, working on us everywhere and always, like the pressure of the atmosphere on our bodies. Its weight will crush us unless we can climb to and dwell on the heights of communion with God, where pressure is diminished. It acted on Demas through his fears. It acts on us through our ambitions, affections and desires. So, seeing that miserable wreck of Christian constancy, and considering ourselves lest we also be tempted, let us not judge another, but look at home. There is more than enough there to make profound self-distrust our truest wisdom, and to teach us to pray, “Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.”
“Salute the brethren that are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the Church that is in their house. And when this epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans; and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it. The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you.”—Col. iv. 15–end (Rev. Ver.).
I. We shall first look at the threefold greeting and warnings to Laodicea.
In the first part of this triple message we have a
glimpse of the Christian life of that city, “Salute
But what was this “Church in the house”? We
read that Prisca and Aquila had such both in their
house in Rome (
We may note, too, the beautiful glimpse we get here of domestic and social religion.
If the Church in the house of Nymphas consisted
of his own family and dependants, it stands for us
as a lesson of what every family, which has a Christian
man or woman at its head, ought to be. Little
knowledge of the ordering of so-called Christian
households is needed to be sure that domestic religion
is wofully neglected to-day. Family worship
and family instruction are disused, one fears, in
many homes, the heads of which can remember both
in their father’s houses; and the unspoken aroma
A like suggestion may be made if, as is possible, the Church in the house of Nymphas included more than relatives and dependants. It is a miserable thing when social intercourse plays freely round every other subject, and taboos all mention of religion. It is a miserable thing when Christian people choose and cultivate society for worldly advantages, business connections, family advancement, and for every reason under heaven—sometimes a long way under—except those of a common faith, and of the desire to increase it.
It is not needful to lay down extravagant, impracticable
restrictions, by insisting either that we
should limit our society to religious men, or our
conversation to religious subjects. But it is a bad
sign when our chosen associates are chosen for every
other reason but their religion, and when our talk
flows copiously on all other subjects, and becomes
a constrained driblet when religion comes to be
spoken of. Let us try to carry about with us an
influence which shall permeate all our social intercourse,
and make it, if not directly religious, yet
never antagonistic to religion, and always capable of
passing easily and naturally into the highest regions.
Our godly forefathers used to carve texts over their
house doors. Let us do the same in another fashion,
We have next a remarkable direction as to the
interchange of Paul’s letters to Colossæ and Laodicea.
The present Epistle is to be sent over to
the neighbouring Church of Laodicea—that is quite
clear. But what is “the Epistle from Laodicea”
which the Colossians are to be sure to get and to read?
The connection forbids us to suppose that a letter
written by the Laodicean Church is meant. Both
letters are plainly Pauline epistles, and the latter is
said to be “from Laodicea,” simply because the
Colossians were to procure it from that place. The
“from” does not imply authorship, but transmission.
What then has become of this letter? Is it lost?
So say some commentators; but a more probable
opinion is that it is no other than the Epistle which
we know as that to the Ephesians. This is not the
occasion to enter on a discussion of that view. It
will be enough to notice that very weighty textual
authorities omit the words “In Ephesus,” in the first
verse of that Epistle. The conjecture is a very
reasonable one, that the letter was intended for a
circle of Churches, and had originally no place named
in the superscription, just as we might issue circulars
“To the Church in——,” leaving a blank to be
filled in with different names. This conjecture is
strengthened by the marked absence of personal
references in the letter, which in that respect forms
a striking contrast to the Epistle to the Colossians,
which it so strongly resembles in other particulars.
Probably, therefore, Tychicus had both letters put
The urgency of these instructions that Paul’s
letters should be read, reminds us of a similar but
still more stringent injunction in his earliest epistle
(
But passing by that, we come to the last part of this threefold message, the solemn warning to a slothful servant.
“Say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry
which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil
it.” A sharp message that—and especially sharp,
as being sent through others, and not spoken directly
to the man himself. If this Archippus were a
member of the Church at Colossæ, it is remarkable
that Paul should not have spoken to him directly, as
It may be worth notice, in passing, that all these messages to Laodicea occurring here, strongly favour the supposition that the epistle from that place cannot have been a letter especially meant for the Laodicean church, as, if it had been, these would have naturally been inserted in it. So far, therefore, they confirm the hypothesis that it was a circular.
Some may say, Well, what in the world does it
matter where Archippus worked? Not very much
perhaps; and yet one cannot but read this grave
exhortation to a man who was evidently getting
languid and negligent, without remembering what
we hear about Laodicea and the angel of the Church
there, when next we meet it in the page of Scripture.
Be that as it may, the message is for us all. Each of us has a “ministry,” a sphere of service. We may either fill it full, with earnest devotion and patient heroism, as some expanding gas fills out the silken round of its containing vessel, or we may breathe into it only enough to occupy a little portion, while all the rest hangs empty and flaccid. We have to “fulfil our ministry.”
A sacred motive enhances the obligation—we have received it “in the Lord.” In union with Him it has been laid on us. No human hand has imposed it, nor does it arise merely from earthly relationships, but our fellowship with Jesus Christ, and incorporation into the true Vine, has laid on us responsibilities, and exalted us by service.
There must be diligent watchfulness, in order to fulfil our ministry. We must take heed to our service, and we must take heed to ourselves. We have to reflect upon it, its extent, nature, imperativeness, upon the manner of discharging it, and the means of fitness for it. We have to keep our work ever before us. Unless we are absorbed in it, we shall not fulfil it. And we have to take heed to ourselves, ever feeling our weakness and the strong antagonisms in our own natures which hinder our discharge of the plainest, most imperative duties.
And let us remember, too, that if once we begin,
like Archippus, to be a little languid and perfunctory
II. And now we come to the end of our task, and have to consider the hasty last words in Paul’s own hand.
We can see him taking the reed from the amanuensis and adding the three brief sentences which close the letter. He first writes that which is equivalent to our modern usage of signing the letter—“the salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.” This appears to have been his usual practice, or, as he says in 2 Thess. (iii. 17), it was “his token in every epistle”—the evidence that each was the genuine expression of his mind. Probably his weak eyesight, which appears certain, may have had something to do with his employing a secretary, as we may assume him to have done, even when there is no express mention of his autograph in the closing salutations. We find for example in the Epistle to the Romans no words corresponding to these, but the modest amanuensis steps for a moment into the light near the end: “I Tertius, who write the epistle, salute you in the Lord.”
The endorsement with his name is followed by a
request singularly pathetic in its abrupt brevity,
“Remember my bonds.” This is the one personal
reference in the letter, unless we add as a second,
his request for their prayers that he may speak the
mystery of Christ, for which he is in bonds. There
is a striking contrast in this respect with the abundant
allusions to his circumstances in the Epistle to
He wished their remembrance because he needed
their sympathy. Like the old rags put round the
ropes by which the prophet was hauled out of his
dungeon, the poorest bit of sympathy twisted round
a fetter makes it chafe less. The petition helps us
to conceive how heavy a trial Paul felt his imprisonment,
to be little as he said about it, and bravely as he
bore it. He wished their remembrance too, because
his bonds added weight to his words. His sufferings
gave him a right to speak. In times of
persecution confessors are the highest teachers, and
the marks of the Lord Jesus borne in a man’s body
give more authority than diplomas and learning.
One cannot but recall the words of Paul’s Master, so like these in sound, so unlike them in deepest meaning. Can there be a greater contrast than between “Remember my bonds,” the plaintive appeal of a weak man seeking sympathy, coming as an appendix, quite apart from the subject of the letter, and “Do this in remembrance of Me,” the royal words of the Master? Why is the memory of Christ’s death so unlike the memory of Paul’s chains? Why is the one merely for the play of sympathy, and the enforcement of his teaching, and the other the very centre of our religion? For one reason alone. Because Christ’s death is the life of the world, and Paul’s sufferings, whatever their worth, had nothing in them that bore, except indirectly, on man’s redemption. “Was Paul crucified for you?” We remember his chains, and they give him sacredness in our eyes. But we remember the broken body and shed blood of our Lord, and cleave to it in faith as the one sacrifice for the world’s sin.
And then comes the last word: “Grace be with you.” The apostolic benediction, with which he closes all his letters, occurs in many different stages of expression. Here it is pared down to the very quick. No shorter form is possible—and yet even in this condition of extreme compression, all good is in it.
All possible blessing is wrapped up in that one
word, Grace. Like the sunshine, it carries life and
That all-productive germ of joy and excellence is here parted among the whole body of Colossian Christians. The dew of this benediction falls upon them all—the teachers of error if they still held by Christ, the Judaisers, the slothful Archippus, even as the grace which it invokes will pour itself into imperfect natures and adorn very sinful characters, if beneath the imperfection and the evil there be the true affiance of the soul on Christ.
That communication of grace to a sinful world is
the end of all God’s deeds, as it is the end of this
letter. That great revelation which began when
man began, which has spoken its complete message
in the Son, the heir of all things, as this Epistle
tells us, has this for the purpose of all its words—whether
they are terrible or gentle, deep or simple—that
God’s grace may dwell among men. The
mystery of Christ’s being, the agony of Christ’s
cross, the hidden glories of Christ’s dominion are
all for this end, that of His fulness we may all
receive, and grace for grace. The Old Testament,
true to its genius, ends with stern onward-looking
words which point to a future coming of the Lord
and to the possible terrible aspect of that coming—“Lest
I come and smite the earth with a curse.”
It is the last echo of the long drawn blast of the
trumpets of Sinai. The New Testament ends, as
That grace, the love which pardons and quickens and makes good and fair and wise and strong, is offered to all in Christ. Unless we have accepted it, God’s revelation and Christ’s work have failed as far as we are concerned. “We therefore, as fellow-workers with Him, beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.”
“Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our beloved and fellow-worker, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church in thy house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”—Philem. 1–3 (Rev. Ver.).
It may be observed, too, that most of the considerations which Paul urges on Philemon as reasons for his kindly reception of Onesimus do not even need the alteration of a word, but simply a change in their application, to become worthy statements of the highest Christian truths. As Luther puts it, “We are all God’s Onesimuses”; and the welcome which Paul seeks to secure for the returning fugitive, as well as the motives to which he appeals in order to secure it, do shadow forth in no uncertain outline our welcome from God, and the treasures of His heart towards us, because they are at bottom the same. The Epistle then is valuable, as showing in a concrete instance how the Christian life, in its attitude to others, and especially to those who have injured us, is all modelled upon God’s forgiving love to us. Our Lord’s parable of the forgiven servant who took his brother by the throat finds here a commentary, and the Apostle’s own precept, “Be imitators of God, and walk in love,” a practical exemplification.
Nor is the light which the letter throws on the character of the Apostle to be regarded as unimportant. The warmth, the delicacy, and what, if it were not so spontaneous, we might call tact, the graceful ingenuity with which he pleads for the fugitive, the perfect courtesy of every word, the gleam of playfulness—all fused together and harmonized to one end, and that in so brief a compass and with such unstudied ease and complete self-oblivion, make this Epistle a pure gem. Without thought of effect, and with complete unconsciousness, this man beats all the famous letter-writers on their own ground. That must have been a great intellect, and closely conversant with the Fountain of all light and beauty, which could shape the profound and far-reaching teachings of the Epistle to the Colossians, and pass from them to the graceful simplicity and sweet kindliness of this exquisite letter; as if Michael Angelo had gone straight from smiting his magnificent Moses from the marble mass to incise some delicate and tiny figure of Love or Friendship on a cameo.
The structure of the letter is of the utmost
simplicity. It is not so much a structure as a flow.
There is the usual superscription and salutation,
followed, according to Paul’s custom, by the expression
of his thankful recognition of the love and
faith of Philemon and his prayer for the perfecting
of these. Then he goes straight to the business in
hand, and with incomparable persuasiveness pleads
for a welcome to Onesimus, bringing all possible
reasons to converge on that one request, with an
ingenious eloquence born of earnestness. Having
poured out his heart in this pleasure adds no more
In the present section we shall confine our attention to the superscription and opening salutation.
I. We may observe the Apostle’s designation of
himself, as marked by consummate and instinctive
appreciation of the claims of friendship, and of his
own position in this letter as a suppliant. He does
not come to his friend clothed with apostolic
authority. In his letters to the Churches he always
puts that in the forefront, and when he expected to
be met by opponents, as in Galatia, there is a certain
ring of defiance in his claim to receive his commission
through no human intervention, but straight
from heaven. Sometimes, as in the Epistle to the
Colossians, he unites another strangely contrasted
title, and calls himself also “the slave” of Christ;
the one name asserting authority, the other bowing
in humility before his Owner and Master. But here
he is writing as a friend to a friend, and his object
is to win his friend to a piece of Christian conduct
which may be somewhat against the grain. Apostolic
authority will not go half so far as personal
influence in this case. So he drops all reference
to it, and, instead, lets Philemon hear the fetters
jangling on his limbs—a more powerful plea. “Paul,
a prisoner,” surely that would go straight to Philemon’s
heart, and give all but irresistible force to
the request which follows. Surely if he could do
anything to show his love and gratify even momentarily
his friend in prison, he would not refuse it. If
this designation had been calculated to produce effect,
it would have lost all its grace; but no one with
any ear for the accents of inartificial spontaneousness,
There is great dignity also, as well as profound faith, in the next words, in which the Apostle calls himself a prisoner “of Christ Jesus.” With what calm ignoring of all subordinate agencies he looks to the true author of his captivity! Neither Jewish hatred nor Roman policy had shut him up in Rome. Christ Himself had riveted his manacles on his wrists, therefore he bore them as lightly and proudly as a bride might wear the bracelet that her husband had clasped on her arm. The expression reveals both the author of and the reason for his imprisonment, and discloses the conviction which held him up in it. He thinks of his Lord as the Lord of providence, whose hand moves the pieces on the board—Pharisees, and Roman governors, and guards, and Cæsar; and he knows that he is an ambassador in bonds, for no crime, but for the testimony of Jesus. We need only notice that his younger companion Timothy is associated with the Apostle in the superscription, but disappears at once. The reason for the introduction of his name may either have been the slight additional weight thereby given to the request of the letter, or more probably, the additional authority thereby given to the junior, who would, in all likelihood, have much of Paul’s work devolved on him when Paul was gone.
The names of the receivers of the letter bring
before us a picture seen, as by one glimmering light
across the centuries, of a Christian household in that
Phrygian valley. The head of it, Philemon, appears
to have been a native of, or at all events a resident
He is called “our fellow-labourer.” The designation
may imply some actual co-operation at a
former time. But more probably, the phrase, like
the similar one in the next verse, “our fellow-soldier,”
is but Paul’s gracefully affectionate way of lifting
these good people’s humbler work out of its narrowness,
by associating it with his own. They in their
little sphere, and he in his wider, were workers at
the same task. All who toil for furtherance of
Christ’s kingdom, however widely they may be
parted by time or distance, are fellow-workers.
Division of labour does not impair unity of service.
The field is wide, and the months between seedtime
and harvest are long; but all the husbandmen have
been engaged in the same great work, and though
they have toiled alone shall “rejoice together.”
The first man who dug a shovelful of earth for the
In the house at Colossæ there was a Christian
wife by the side of a Christian husband; at least,
the mention of Apphia here in so prominent a position
is most naturally accounted for by supposing her
The prominent mention of this Phrygian matron is an illustration of the way in which Christianity, without meddling with social usages, introduced a new tone of feeling about the position of woman, which gradually changed the face of the world, is still working, and has further revolutions to affect. The degraded classes of the Greek world were slaves and women. This Epistle touches both, and shows us Christianity in the very act of elevating both. The same process strikes the fetters from the slave and sets the wife by the side of the husband, “yoked in all exercise of noble end,”—namely, the proclamation of Christ as the Saviour of all mankind, and of all human creatures as equally capable of receiving an equal salvation. That annihilates all distinctions. The old world was parted by deep gulfs. There were three of special depth and width, across which it was hard for sympathy to fly. These were the distinctions of race, sex, and condition. But the good news that Christ has died for all men, and is ready to live in all men, has thrown a bridge across, or rather has filled up, the ravine; so the Apostle bursts into his triumphant proclamation, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
A third name is united with those of husband and wife, that of Archippus. The close relation in which the names stand, and the purely domestic character of the letter, make it probable that he was a son of the wedded pair. At all events, he was in some way part of their household, possibly some kind of teacher and guide. We meet his name also in the Epistle to the Colossians, and, from the nature of the reference to him there, we draw the inference that he filled some “ministry” in the Church of Laodicea. The nearness of the two cities made it quite possible that he should live in Philemon’s house in Colossæ and yet go over to Laodicea for his work.
The Apostle calls him “his fellow-soldier,” a phrase which is best explained in the same fashion as is the previous “fellow-worker,” namely, that by it Paul graciously associates Archippus with himself, different as their tasks were. The variation of soldier for worker probably is due to the fact of Archippus’ being the bishop of the Laodicean Church. In any case, it is very beautiful that the grizzled veteran officer should thus, as it were, clasp the hand of this young recruit, and call him his comrade. How it would go to the heart of Archippus!
A somewhat stern message is sent to Archippus
in the Colossian letter. Why did not Paul send it
quietly in this Epistle instead of letting a whole
Church know of it? It seems at first sight as if he
had chosen the harshest way; but perhaps further
consideration may suggest that the reason was an
instinctive unwillingness to introduce a jarring note
into the joyous friendship and confidence which
sounds through this Epistle, and to bring public
A greeting is sent, too, to “the Church in thy
house.” As in the case of the similar community
in the house of Nymphas (
So we have here shown to us, by one stray beam
of twinkling light, for a moment, a very sweet
picture of the domestic life of that Christian household
in their remote valley. It shines still to us
across the centuries, which have swallowed up so
much that seemed more permanent, and silenced so
much that made far more noise in its day. The
picture may well set us asking ourselves the question
whether we, with all our boasted advancement, have
been able to realize the true ideal of Christian family
life as these three did. The husband and wife
dwelling as heirs together of the grace of life, their
child beside them sharing their faith and service,
their household ordered in the ways of the Lord,
II. We may deal briefly with the apostolic salutation, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” as we have already had to speak of it in considering the greeting to the Colossians. The two main points to be observed in these words are the comprehensiveness of the Apostle’s loving wish, and the source to which he looks for its fulfilment. Just as the regal title of the King, whose Throne was the Cross, was written in the languages of culture, of law, and of religion, as an unconscious prophecy of His universal reign; so, with like unintentional felicity, we have blended here the ideals of good which the East and the West have framed for those to whom they wish good, in token that Christ is able to slake all the thirsts of the soul, and that whatsoever things any races of men have dreamed as the chiefest blessings, these are all to be reached through Him and Him only.
But the deeper lesson here is to be found by
observing that “grace” refers to the action of the
Divine heart, and “peace” to the result thereof in
man’s experience. As we have noted in commenting
on
The fruit of such grace received is peace. In other places the Apostle twice gives a fuller form of this salutation, inserting “mercy” between the two here named; as also does St. John in his second Epistle. That fuller form gives us the source in the Divine heart, the manifestation of grace in the Divine act, and the outcome in human experience; or as we may say, carrying on the metaphor, the broad, calm lake which the grace, flowing to us in the stream of mercy, makes, when it opens out in our hearts. Here, however, we have but the ultimate source, and the effect in us.
All the discords of our nature and circumstances
can be harmonized by that grace which is ready to
flow into our hearts. Peace with God, with ourselves,
with our fellows, repose in the midst of
change, calm in conflict, may be ours. All these
various applications of the one idea should be included
in our interpretation, for they are all included
in fact in the peace which God’s grace brings where
it lights. The first and deepest need of the soul is
conscious amity and harmony with God, and nothing
We are compassed about by foes with whom we have to wage undying warfare, and by hostile circumstances and difficult tasks which need continual conflict; but a man with God’s grace in his heart may have the rest of submission, the repose of trust, the tranquillity of him who “has ceased from his own works”: and so, while the daily struggle goes on and the battle rages round, there may be quiet, deep and sacred, in his heart.
The life of nature, which is a selfish life, flings us into unfriendly rivalries with others, and sets us battling for our own hands, and it is hard to pass out of ourselves sufficiently to live peaceably with all men. But the grace of God in our hearts drives out self, and changes the man who truly has it into its own likeness. He who knows that he owes everything to a Divine love which stooped to his lowliness, and pardoned his sins, and enriched him with all which he has that is worthy and noble, cannot but move among men, doing with them, in his poor fashion, what God has done with him.
Thus, in all the manifold forms in which restless
The elliptical form of this salutation leaves it doubtful whether we are to see in it a prayer or a prophecy, a wish or an assurance. According to the probable reading of the parallel greeting in the second Epistle of John, the latter would be the construction; but probably it is best to combine both ideas, and to see here, as Bengel does in the passage referred to in John’s Epistle, “votum cum affirmatione”—a desire which is so certain of its own fulfilment, that it is a prophecy, just because it is a prayer.
The ground of the certainty lies in the source
from which the grace and peace come. They flow
“from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The placing of both names under the government of
one preposition implies the mysterious unity of the
Father with the Son; while conversely St. John, in
the parallel passage just mentioned, by employing
two prepositions, brings out the distinction between
the Father, who is the fontal source, and the Son,
who is the flowing stream. But both forms of the
expression demand for their honest explanation the
recognition of the divinity of Jesus Christ. How
dare a man, who thought of Him as other than
Divine, put His name thus by the side of God’s, as
associated with the Father in the bestowal of grace?
Surely such words, spoken without any thought of
a doctrine of the Trinity, and which are the spontaneous
“I thank my God always, making mention of thee in my prayers, hearing of thy love, and of the faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints; that the fellowship of thy faith may become effectual, in the knowledge of every good thing which is in you, unto Christ. For I had much joy and comfort in thy love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through thee, brother.”—Philem. 4–7 (Rev. Ver.).
He has the habit of beginning all his letters with
thankful commendations and assurances of a place
in his prayers. The exceptions are 2 Corinthians,
where he writes under strong and painful emotion,
and Galatians, where a vehement accusation of
fickleness takes the place of the usual greeting. But
The words of this section are simple enough, but
their order is not altogether clear. They are a good
example of the hurry and rush of the Apostle’s style,
arising from his impetuosity of nature. His thoughts
and feelings come knocking at “the door of his
lips” in a crowd, and do not always make their way
out in logical order. For instance, he begins here
with thankfulness, and that suggests the mention
of his prayers, v. 4. Then he gives the occasion of
his thankfulness in v. 5, “Hearing of thy love and
of the faith which thou hast,” etc. He next tells
Philemon the subject matter of his prayers in v. 6,
“That the fellowship of thy faith may become
effectual,” etc. These two verses thus correspond
I. We have,—then, here the character of Philemon,
which made Paul glad and thankful. The order
of the language is noteworthy. Love is put before
faith. The significance of this sequence comes out
by contrast with similar expressions in
Another peculiarity in the arrangement of the words is that the objects of love and faith are named in the reverse order to that in which these graces are mentioned, “the Lord Jesus” being first, and “all the saints” last. Thus we have, as it were, “faith towards the Lord Jesus” imbedded in the centre of the verse, while “thy love ... toward all the saints,” which flows from it, wraps it round. The arrangement is like some forms of Hebrew poetical parallelism, in which the first and fourth members correspond, and the second and third, or like the pathetic measure of In Memoriam, and has the same sweet lingering cadence; while it also implies important truths as to the central place in regard to the virtues which knit hearts in soft bonds of love and help, of the faith which finds its sole object in Jesus Christ.
The source and foundation of goodness and
nobility of character is faith in Jesus the Lord.
That must be buried deep in the soul if tender love
toward men is to flow from it. It is “the very
pulse of the machine.” All the pearls of goodness
are held in solution in faith. Or, to speak more
accurately, faith in Christ gives possession of His
life and Spirit, from which all good is unfolded;
and it further sets in action strong motives by which
to lead to every form of purity and beauty of soul;
and, still further, it brings the heart into glad contact
with a Divine love which forgives its Onesimuses,
and so it cannot but touch the heart into some
glad imitation of that love which is its own dearest
treasure. So that, for all these and many more
Further, the true object of faith and one phase of its attitude towards that object are brought out in this central clause. We have the two names which express, the one the divinity, the other the humanity of Christ. So the proper object of faith is the whole Christ, in both His natures, the Divine-human Saviour. Christian faith sees the divinity in the humanity, and the humanity around the divinity. A faith which grasps only the manhood is maimed, and indeed has no right to the name. Humanity is not a fit object of trust. It may change; it has limits; it must die. “Cursed be the man that maketh flesh his arm,” is as true about faith in a merely human Christ as about faith in any other man. There may be reverence, there may be in some sense love, obedience, imitation; but there should not be, and I see not how there can be, the absolute reliance, the utter dependence, the unconditional submission, which are of the very essence of faith, in the emotions which men cherish towards a human Christ. The Lord Jesus only can evoke these. On the other hand, the far off splendour and stupendous glory of the Divine nature becomes the object of untrembling trust, and draws near enough to be known and loved, when we have it mellowed to our weak eyes by shining through the tempering medium of His humanity.
The preposition here used to define the relation
Where the centre is such a faith, its circumference
and outward expression will be a widely diffused
love. That deep and most private emotion of the
soul, which is the flight of the lonely spirit to the
single Christ, as if these two were alone in the world,
does not bar a man off from his kind, but effloresces
into the largest and most practical love. When one
point of the compasses is struck deeply and firmly
into that centre of all things, the other can steadily
sweep a wide circle. The widest is not here drawn,
but a somewhat narrower, concentric one. The love
is “toward all saints.” Clearly their relation to
Jesus Christ puts all Christians into relation with
one another. That was an astounding thought in
Philemon’s days, when such high walls separated
The recognition of the common relation which all who bear the same relation to Christ bear to one another has more formidable difficulties to encounter to-day than it had in these times when the Church had no stereotyped creeds and no stiffened organizations, and when to the flexibility of its youth were added the warmth of new conviction and the joy of a new field for expanding emotions of brotherly kindness. But nothing can absolve from the duty. Creeds separate, Christ unites. The road to “the reunion of Christendom” is through closer union to Jesus Christ. When that is secured, barriers which now keep brethren apart will be leaped, or pulled down, or got rid of somehow. It is of no use to say, “Go to, let us love one another.” That will be unreal, mawkish, histrionic. “The faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus” will be the productive cause, as it is the measure, of “thy love toward all the saints.”
But the love which is here commended is not a
mere feeling, nor does it go off in gushes, however
II. In v. 6 we have the apostolic prayer for Philemon, grounded on the tidings of his love and faith. It is immediately connected with “the prayers” of v. 4 by the introductory “that,” which is best understood as introducing the subject matter of the prayer. Whatever then may be the meaning of this supplication, it is a prayer for Philemon, and not for others. That remark disposes of the explanations which widen its scope, contrary, as it seems to me, to the natural understanding of the context.
“The fellowship of thy faith” is capable of more
than one meaning. The signification of the principal
word and the relation expressed by the preposition
may be variously determined. “Fellowship” is more
than once used in the sense of sharing material
wealth with Christ’s poor, or more harshly and
plainly, charitable contribution. So we find it in
The Apostle prays that this faith-begotten practical
liberality may become efficacious, or may acquire
still more power; i.e. may increase in activity, and
so may lead to “the knowledge of every good thing
that is in us.” The interpretation has found extensive
support, which takes this as equivalent to
a desire that Philemon’s good deeds might lead
others, whether enemies or friends, to recognise the
beauties of sympathetic goodness in the true Christian
character. Such an explanation hopelessly
confuses the whole, and does violence to the plain
requirements of the context, which limit the prayer
to Philemon. It is his “knowledge” of which Paul
is thinking. The same profound and pregnant word
is used here which occurs so frequently in the other
epistles of the captivity, and which always means
that deep and vital knowledge which knows because
it possesses. Usually its object is God as revealed
in the great work and person of Christ. Here its
object is the sum total of spiritual blessings, the
The meaning of the whole prayer, then, put into feebler and more modern dress is simply that Philemon’s liberality and Christian love may grow more and more, and may help him to a fuller appropriation and experience of the large treasures “which are in us,” though in germ and potentiality only, until brought into consciousness by our own Christian growth. The various readings “in us,” or “in you” only widen the circle of possessors of these gifts to the whole Church, or narrow it to the believers of Colossæ.
There still remain for consideration the last words of the clause, “unto Christ” They must be referred back to the main subject of the sentence, “may become effectual.” They seem to express the condition on which Christian “fellowship,” like all Christian acts, can be quickened with energy, and tend to spiritual progress; namely, that it shall be done as to the Lord. There is perhaps in this appended clause a kind of lingering echo of our Lord’s own words, in which He accepts as done unto Him the kindly deeds done to the least of His brethren.
So then this great prayer brings out very strongly
the goal to which the highest perfection of Christian
character has still to aspire. Philemon was no
weakling or laggard in the Christian conflict and
There is also brought out in this prayer the value
of Christian beneficence as a means of spiritual
growth. Philemon’s “communication of faith” will
help him to the knowledge of the fulness of Christ.
The reaction of conduct on character and growth in
godliness is a familiar idea with Paul, especially in
the prison epistles. Thus we read in his prayer for
the Colossians, “fruitful in every good work, and
increasing in the knowledge of God.” The faithful
carrying out in life of what we already know is not
the least important condition of increasing knowledge.
While this general principle is abundantly enforced
in Scripture and confirmed by experience, the specific
form of it here is that the right administration of
wealth is a direct means of increasing a Christian’s
possession of the large store treasured in Christ.
Every loving thought towards the sorrowful and the
needy, every touch of sympathy yielded to, and
every kindly, Christlike deed flowing from these,
thins away some film of the barriers between the
believing soul and a full possession of God, and thus
makes it more capable of beholding Him and of
rising to communion with Him. The possibilities
of wealth lie, not only in the direction of earthly
advantages, but in the fact that men may so use it
as to secure their being “received into everlasting
habitations.” Modern evangelical teachers have been
afraid to say what Paul ventured to say on this
matter, for fear of obscuring the truth which Paul
gave his life to preach. Surely they need not be
more jealous for the doctrine of “justification by
faith” than he was; and if he had no scruples in
telling rich men to “lay up in store for themselves
a good foundation for the time to come,” by being
“ready to communicate,” they may safely follow.
There is probably no more powerful cause of the
comparative feebleness of average English Christianity
than the selfish use of money, and no surer
The final clause of the verse seems to state the condition on which Philemon’s good deeds will avail for his own growth in grace, and implies that in him that condition is fulfilled. If a man does deeds of kindness and help to one of these little ones, as “unto Christ,” then his beneficence will come back in spiritual blessing on his own head. If they are the result of simple natural compassion, beautiful as it is, they will reinforce it, but have no tendency to strengthen that from which they do not flow. If they are tainted by any self-regard, then they are not charitable deeds at all. What is done for Christ will bring to the doer more of Christ as its consequence and reward. All life, with all its varied forms of endurance and service, comes under this same law, and tends to make more assured and more blessed and more profound the knowledge and grasp of the fulness of Christ, in the measure in which it is directed to Him, and done or suffered for His sake.
III. The present section closes with a very sweet and pathetic representation of the Apostle’s joy in the character of his friend.
The “for” of v. 7 connects not with the words of
petition immediately before, but with “I thank my
God” (v. 4), and gives a graceful turn—graceful
only because so unforced and true—to the sentence.
“My thanks are due to you for your kindness to
others, for, though you did not think of it, you have
done me as much good as you did them.” The
“love” which gives Paul such “great joy and consolation”
These final words suggest the unexpected good
which good deeds may do. No man can ever tell
how far the blessing of his trivial acts of kindness,
or other pieces of Christian conduct, may travel.
They may benefit one in material fashion, but the
fragrance may reach many others. Philemon little
dreamed that his small charity to some suffering
brother in Colossæ would find its way across the sea,
and bring a waft of coolness and refreshing into the
hot prison house. Neither Paul nor Philemon
dreamed that, made immortal by the word of the
former, the same transient act would find its way
across the centuries, and would “smell sweet and
blossom in the dust” to-day. Men know not who
are their audiences, or who may be spectators of
their works; for they are all bound so mystically and
closely together, that none can tell how far the
vibrations which he sets in motion will thrill. This
is true about all deeds, good and bad, and invests
them all with solemn importance. The arrow shot
travels beyond the archer’s eye, and may wound
Since the diameter of the circle which our acts may fill is unknown and unknowable, the doer who stands at the centre is all the more solemnly bound to make sure of the only thing of which he can make sure, the quality of the influence sent forth; and since his deed may blight or bless so widely, to clarify his motives and guard his doings, that they may bring only good wherever they light.
May we not venture to see shining through the Apostle’s words the Master’s face? “Even as Christ did for us with God the Father,” says Luther, “thus also doth St. Paul for Onesimus with Philemon”; and that thought may permissibly be applied to many parts of this letter, to which it gives much beauty. It may not be all fanciful to say that, as Paul’s heart was gladdened when he heard of the good deeds done in far-off Colossæ by a man who “owed to him his own self” so we may believe that Christ is glad and has “great joy in our love” to His servants and in our kindliness, when He beholds the poor work done by the humblest for His sake. He sees and rejoices, and approves when there are none but Himself to know or praise; and at last many, who did lowly service to His friends, will be surprised to hear from His lips the acknowledgment that it was Himself whom they had visited and succoured, and that they had been ministering to the Master’s joy when they had only known themselves to be succouring His servants’ need.
“Wherefore, though I have all boldness in Christ to enjoin thee that which is befitting, yet for love’s sake I rather beseech, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ; I beseech thee for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus; who was aforetime unprofitable to thee, but now is profitable to thee, and to me.”—Philem. 8–11 (Rev. Ver.).
These verses not only present a model for efforts
to lead men in right paths, but they unveil the very
spirit of Christianity in their pleadings. Paul’s
persuasives to Philemon are echoes of Christ’s
persuasives to Paul. He had learned his method
from his Master, and had himself experienced that
I. Here is seen love which beseeches where it might command. The first word, “wherefore,” leads back to the preceding sentence, and makes Philemon’s past kindness to the saints the reason for his being asked to be kind now. The Apostle’s confidence in his friend’s character, and in his being amenable to the appeal of love, made Paul waive his apostolic authority, and sue instead of commanding. There are people, like the horse and the mule, who understand only rough imperatives, backed by force; but they are fewer than we are apt to think, and perhaps gentleness is never wholly thrown away. No doubt, there must be adaptation of method to different characters, but we should try gentleness before we make up our minds that to try it is to throw pearls before swine.
The careful limits put to apostolic authority here deserve notice. “I might be much bold in Christ to command.” He has no authority in himself, but he has “in Christ.” His own personality gives him none, but his relation to his Master does. It is a distinct assertion of right to command, and an equally distinct repudiation of any such right, except as derived from his union with Jesus.
He still further limits his authority by that noteworthy
clause, “that which is befitting.” His
Then comes the great motive which he will urge,
“for love’s sake,”—not merely his to Philemon, nor
Philemon’s to him, but the bond which unites all
Christian souls together, and binds them all to
Christ. “That grand, sacred principle,” says Paul,
“bids me put away authority, and speak in entreaty.”
Love naturally beseeches, and does not order. The
harsh voice of command is simply the imposition of
another’s will, and it belongs to relationships in
which the heart has no share. But wherever love
is the bond, grace is poured into the lips, and “I
enjoin” becomes “I pray.” So that even where the
outward form of authority is still kept, as in a
parent to young children, there will ever be some
endearing word to swathe the harsh imperative in
tenderness, like a sword blade wrapped about with
wool, lest it should wound. Love tends to obliterate
the hard distinction of superior and inferior, which
finds its expression in laconic imperatives and silent
obedience. It seeks not for mere compliance with
commands, but for oneness of will. The lightest
wish breathed by loved lips is stronger than all stern
injunctions, often, alas! than all laws of duty. The
heart is so tuned as only to vibrate to that one tone.
The rocking stones, which all the storms of winter
may howl round and not move, can be set swinging
by a light touch. Una leads the lion in a silken
leash. Love controls the wildest nature. The
There is a large lesson here for all human relationships. Fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, friends and companions, teachers and guides of all sorts, should set their conduct by this pattern, and let the law of love sit ever upon their lips. Authority is the weapon of a weak man, who is doubtful of his own power to get himself obeyed, or of a selfish one, who seeks for mechanical submission rather than for the fealty of willing hearts. Love is the weapon of a strong man who can cast aside the trappings of superiority, and is never loftier than when he descends, nor more absolute than when he abjures authority, and appeals with love to love. Men are not to be dragooned into goodness. If mere outward acts are sought, it may be enough to impose another’s will in orders as curt as a soldier’s word of command; but if the joyful inclination of the heart to the good deed is to be secured, that can only be done when law melts into love, and is thereby transformed to a more imperative obligation, written not on tables of stone, but on fleshy tables of the heart.
There is a glimpse here into the very heart of
Christ’s rule over men. He too does not merely
impose commands, but stoops to entreat, where He
indeed might command. “Henceforth I call you
not servants, but friends”; and though He does go
on to say, “Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I
command you,” yet His commandment has in it so
II. There is in these verses the appeal which gives weight to the entreaties of love. The Apostle brings personal considerations to bear on the enforcement of impersonal duty, and therein follows the example of his Lord. He presents his own circumstances as adding power to his request, and as it were puts himself into the scale. He touches with singular pathos on two things which should sway his friend. “Such a one as Paul the aged.” The alternative rendering “ambassador,” while quite possible, has not congruity in its favour, and would be a recurrence to that very motive of official authority which he has just disclaimed. The other rendering is every way preferable. How old was he? Probably somewhere about sixty—not a very great age, but life was somewhat shorter then than now, and Paul was, no doubt, aged by work, by worry, and by the unresting spirit that “o’er-informed his tenement of clay.” Such temperaments as his soon grow old. Perhaps Philemon was not much younger; but the prosperous Colossian gentleman had had a smoother life, and, no doubt, carried his years more lightly.
The requests of old age should have weight. In
our days, what with the improvements in education,
and the general loosening of the bonds of reverence,
the old maxim that “the utmost respect is due to
But usually the aged who are “such” aged “as Paul” was, will not fail of obtaining honour and deference. No more beautiful picture of the bright energy and freshness still possible to the old was ever painted than may be gathered from the Apostle’s unconscious sketch of himself. He delighted in having young life about him—Timothy, Titus, Mark, and others, boys in comparison with himself, whom yet he admitted to close intimacy as some old general might the youths of his staff, warming his age at the genial flame of their growing energies and unworn hopes. His was a joyful old age too, notwithstanding many burdens of anxiety and sorrow. We hear the clear song of his gladness ringing through the epistle of joy, that to the Philippians, which, like this, dates from his Roman captivity. A Christian old age should be joyful, and only it will be; for the joys of the natural life burn low, when the fuel that fed them is nearly exhausted, and withered hands are held in vain over the dying embers. But Christ’s joy “remains,” and a Christian old age may be like the polar midsummer days, when the sun shines till midnight, and dips but for an imperceptible interval ere it rises for the unending day of heaven.
Paul the aged was full of interest in the things of
the day; no mere “praiser of time gone by,” but a
strenuous worker, cherishing a quick sympathy and
The Apostle adds yet another personal characteristic
as a motive with Philemon to grant his request:
“Now a prisoner also of Christ Jesus.” He has
already spoken of himself in these terms in v. 1.
His sufferings were imposed by and endured for
Christ. He holds up his fettered wrist, and in effect
says, “Surely you will not refuse anything that you
can do to wrap a silken softness round the cold, hard
iron, especially when you remember for Whose sake
and by Whose will I am bound with this chain.”
He thus brings personal motives to reinforce duty
which is binding from other and higher considerations.
He does not merely tell Philemon that he
ought to take back Onesimus as a piece of self-sacrificing
Christian duty. He does imply that
highest motive throughout his pleadings, and urges
that such action is “fitting” or in consonance with
the position and obligations of a Christian man.
But he backs up this highest reason with these
Does not this action of Paul remind us of the highest example of a similar use of motives of personal attachment as aids to duty? Christ does thus with His servants. He does not simply hold up before us a cold law of duty, but warms it by introducing our personal relation to Him as the main motive for keeping it. Apart from Him, Morality can only point to the tables of stone and say: “There! that is what you ought to do. Do it, or face the consequences.” But Christ says: “I have given Myself for you. My will is your law. Will you do it for My sake?” Instead of the chilling, statuesque ideal, as pure as marble and as cold, a Brother stands before us with a heart that beats, a smile on His face, a hand outstretched to help; and His word is, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” The specific difference of Christian morality lies not in its precepts, but in its motive, and in its gift of power to obey. Paul could only urge regard to him as a subsidiary inducement. Christ puts it as the chief, nay, as the sole motive for obedience.
III. The last point suggested by these verses is
the gradual opening up of the main subject matter
of the Apostle’s request. Very noteworthy is the
tenderness of the description of the fugitive as “my
But there is something of more importance than
Paul’s inborn delicacy and tact to notice here.
Onesimus had been a bad specimen of a bad class.
Slavery must needs corrupt both the owner and the
chattel; and, as a matter of fact, we have classical
allusions enough to show that the slaves of Paul’s
period were deeply tainted with the characteristic
vices of their condition. Liars, thieves, idle, treacherous,
nourishing a hatred of their masters all the more
deadly that it was smothered, but ready to flame
out, if opportunity served, in blood-curdling cruelties—they
It is a typical instance of the miracles which the
gospel wrought as every-day events in its transforming
career. Christianity knows nothing of
hopeless cases. It professes its ability to take the
most crooked stick and bring it straight, to flash a
new power into the blackest carbon, which will turn
it into a diamond. Every duty will be done better
by a man if he have the love and grace of Jesus
Christ in his heart. New motives are brought into
play, new powers are given, new standards of duty
are set up. The small tasks become great, and the
unwelcome sweet, and the difficult easy, when done
Paul pleads with Philemon to take back his
worthless servant, and assures him that he will find
“Whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, that is, my very heart: whom I would fain have kept with me, that in my behalf he might minister unto me in the bonds of the gospel: but without thy mind I would do nothing; that thy goodness should not be as of necessity, but of free will.”—Philem. 12–14 (Rev. Ver.).
I. The first point to notice is that decisive step
of sending back the fugitive slave. Not many
years ago the conscience of England was stirred
because the Government of the day sent out a
circular instructing captains of men-of-war, on the
decks of which fugitive slaves sought asylum, to
restore them to their “owners.” Here an Apostle
does the same thing—seems to side with the
oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from the sole
refuge left him, the horns of the very altar. More
extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily
going back, travelling all the weary way from Rome
to Colossæ in order to put his neck once more
This attitude was probably not a piece of policy
or a matter of calculated wisdom on the part of
the Apostle. He no doubt saw that the Gospel
brought a great unity in which all distinctions were
merged, and rejoiced in thinking that “in Christ
Jesus there is neither bond or free”; but whether
he expected the distinction ever to disappear from
actual life is less certain. He may have thought
of slavery as he did of sex, that the fact would
remain, while yet “we are all one in Christ Jesus.”
It is by no means necessary to suppose that the
However this may be, the attitude of the New Testament to slavery is the same as to other unchristian institutions. It brings the leaven, and lets it work. That attitude is determined by three great principles. First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment, and only afterwards and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak into the general mind. If an evil needs force for its removal, it is not ready for removal. If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the root will certainly be left and will grow again. When a dandelion head is ripe, a child’s breath can detach the winged seeds; but until it is, no tempest can move them. The method of violence is noisy and wasteful, like the winter torrents that cover acres of good ground with mud and rocks, and are past in a day. The only true way is, by slow degrees to create a state of feeling which shall instinctively abhor and cast off the evil. Then there will be no hubbub and no waste, and the thing once done will be done for ever.
So has it been with slavery; so will it be with war, and intemperance, and impurity, and the miserable anomalies of our present civilization. It has taken eighteen hundred years for the whole Church to learn the inconsistency of Christianity with slavery. We are no quicker learners than the past generations were. God is patient, and does not seek to hurry the march of His purposes. We have to be imitators of God, and shun the “raw haste” which is “half-sister to delay.”
But patience is not passivity. It is a Christian’s
duty to “hasten the day of the Lord,” and to take
part in the educational process which Christ is
carrying on through the ages, by submitting himself
to it in the first place, and then by endeavouring to
bring others under its influence. His place should
be in the van of all social progress. It does not
become Christ’s servants to be content with the
attainments of any past or present, in the matter of
the organization of society on Christian principles.
“God has more light to break forth from His word.”
Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness
of the moral perceptions of nineteenth century
Christians in regard to matters of Christian duty
which, hidden from us, are sun-clear to them, with
the same half-amused, half-tragic wonder with which
we look back to Jamaica planters or South Carolina
rice growers, who defended slavery as a missionary
institution, and saw no contradiction between their
religion and their practice. We have to stretch our
charity to believe in these men’s sincere religion.
Succeeding ages will have to make the same allowance
for us, and will need it for themselves from
their successors. The main thing is, for us to try to
II. The next point in these verses is Paul’s loving identification of himself with Onesimus.
The A.V. here follows another reading from the R.V.; the former has “thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels.” The additional words are unquestionably inserted without authority in order to patch a broken construction. The R.V. cuts the knot in a different fashion by putting the abrupt words, “himself that is, my very own heart,” under the government of the preceding verb. But it seems more probable that the Apostle began a new sentence with them, which he meant to have finished as the A.V. does for him, but which, in fact, got hopelessly upset in the swift rush of his thoughts, and does not right itself grammatically till the “receive him” of v. 17.
In any case the main thing to observe is the
affectionate plea which he puts in for the cordial
reception of Onesimus. Of course “mine own
bowels” is simply the Hebrew way of saying “mine
own heart.” We think the one phrase graceful and
sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did not
think so, and it might be difficult to say why he
should. It is a mere question of difference in
localizing certain emotions. Onesimus was a piece
of Paul’s very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable
Such language from an Apostle about a slave would do more to destroy slavery than any violence would do. Love leaps the barrier, and it ceases to separate. So these simple, heart-felt words are an instance of one method by which Christianity wars against all social wrongs, by casting its caressing arm around the outcast, and showing that the abject and oppressed are objects of its special love.
They teach too how interceding love makes its
object part of its very self; the same thought recurs
still more distinctly in v. 17, “Receive him as myself.”
It is the natural language of love; some of
the deepest and most blessed Christian truths are but
the carrying out of that identification to its fullest
extent. We are all Christ’s Onesimuses, and He,
out of His pure love, makes Himself one with us,
and us one with Him. The union of Christ with all
who trust in Him, no doubt, presupposes His Divine
nature, but still there is a human side to it, and it is
the result of His perfect love. All love delights to
fuse itself with its object, and as far as may be
to abolish the distinction of “I” and “thou.” But
III. Next comes the expression of a half-formed
purpose which was put aside for a reason to be immediately
stated. “Whom I would fain have kept
with me”; the tense of the verb indicating the incompleteness
of the desire. The very statement of
it is turned into a graceful expression of Paul’s confidence
in Philemon’s goodwill to him, by the addition
of that “on thy behalf.” He is sure that, if his friend
had been beside him, he would have been glad to
lend him his servant, and so he would have liked to
have had Onesimus as a kind of representative of the
service which he knows would have been so willingly
rendered. The purpose for which he would have
There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy
of these words, so full of happy confidence in
the friend’s disposition, that they could not but evoke
the love to which they trusted so completely. Nor
need I do more than point their force for the purpose
of the whole letter, the procuring a cordial reception
for the returning fugitive. So dear had he become,
that Paul would like to have kept him. He goes
back with a kind of halo round him, now that he is
not only a good-for-nothing runaway, but Paul’s
friend, and so much prized by him. It would be
impossible to do anything but welcome him, bringing
such credentials; and yet all this is done with
scarcely a word of direct praise, which might have
provoked contradiction. One does not know whether
the confidence in Onesimus or in Philemon is the
dominant note in the harmony. In the preceding
clause, he was spoken of as, in some sense, part of
the Apostle’s very self. In this, he is regarded as,
in some sense, part of Philemon. So he is a link
between them. Paul would have taken his service
IV. The last topic in these verses is the decision which arrested the half-formed wish. “I was wishing indeed, but I willed otherwise.” The language is exact. There is a universe between “I wished” and “I willed.” Many a good wish remains fruitless, because it never passes into the stage of firm resolve. Many who wish to be better will to be bad. One strong “I will” can paralyse a million wishes.
The Apostle’s final determination was, to do nothing without Philemon’s cognisance and consent. The reason for the decision is at once a very triumph of persuasiveness, which would be ingenious if it were not so spontaneous, and an adumbration of the very spirit of Christ’s appeal for service to us. “That thy benefit”—the good done to me by him, which would in my eyes be done by you—“should not be as of necessity, but willingly.” That “as” is a delicate addition. He will not think that the benefit would really have been by constraint, but it might have looked as if it were.
Do not these words go much deeper than this
small matter? And did not Paul learn the spirit
that suggested them from his own experience of
how Christ treated him? The principle underlying
them is, that where the bond is love, compulsion
takes the sweetness and goodness out of even sweet
and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue.
If a man “could not help it” there is neither praise
nor blame due. That freedom Christianity honours
and respects. So in reference to the offer of the
gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them
The same solemn regard for the freedom of the
individual and low estimate of the worth of constrained
service influence the whole aspect of Christian
ethics. Christ wants no pressed men in His army.
The victorious host of priestly warriors, which the
Psalmist saw following the priest-king in the day of
his power, numerous as the dewdrops, and radiant
with reflected beauty as these, were all “willing”—volunteers.
There are no conscripts in the ranks.
These words might be said to be graven over the
gates of the kingdom of heaven, “Not as of necessity,
but willingly.” In Christian morals, law becomes
love, and love, law. “Must” is not in the Christian
vocabulary, except as expressing the sweet constraint
which bows the will of him who loves to harmony,
which is joy, with the will of Him who is loved.
Christ takes no offerings which the giver is not glad
to render. Money, influence, service, which are not
offered by a will moved by love, which love, in its
turn, is set in motion by the recognition of the
infinite love of Christ in His sacrifice, are, in His
eyes, nought. An earthenware cup with a drop of
cold water in it, freely given out of a glad heart, is
“For perhaps he was therefore parted from thee for a season, that thou shouldest have him for ever; no longer as a servant, but more than a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then thou countest me a partner, receive him as myself. But if he hath wronged thee at all, or oweth thee aught, put that to mine account; I Paul write it with mine own hand, I will repay it: that I say not unto thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self besides.”—Philem. 15–19 (Rev. Ver.).
I. There is here a Divine purpose discerned as shining through a questionable human act.
The first point to note is, with what charitable
delicacy of feeling the Apostle uses a mild word to
express the fugitive’s flight. He will not employ
the harsh naked word “ran away.” It might irritate
Not only so, but the word suggests that behind the slave’s mutiny and flight there was another Will working, of which, in some sense, Onesimus was but the instrument. He “was parted”—not that he was not responsible for his flight, but that, through his act, which in the eyes of all concerned was wrong, Paul discerns as dimly visible a great Divine purpose.
But he puts that as only a possibility: “Perhaps
he departed from thee.”——He will not be too
sure of what God means by such and such a thing,
as some of us are wont to be, as if we had been
sworn of God’s privy council. “Perhaps” is one of
the hardest words for minds of a certain class to
say; but in regard to all such subjects, and to many
more, it is the motto of the wise man, and the
shibboleth which sifts out the patient, modest lovers
of truth from rash theorists and precipitate dogmatisers.
Impatience of uncertainty is a moral
fault which mars many an intellectual process; and
its evil effects are nowhere mote visible than in the
field of theology. A humble “perhaps” often grows
into a “verily, verily”—and a hasty, over-confident
“verily, verily,” often dwindles to a hesitating “perhaps.”
Let us not be in too great a hurry to make
But however modestly he may hesitate as to the
application of the principle, Paul has no doubt as to
the principle itself: namely, that God, in the sweep
of His wise providence, utilizes even men’s evil, and
works it in, to the accomplishment of great purposes
far beyond their ken, as nature, in her patient
chemistry, takes the rubbish and filth of the dunghill
and turns them into beauty and food. Onesimus
had no high motives in his flight; he had run away
under discreditable circumstances, and perhaps to
escape deserved punishment. Laziness and theft had
been the hopeful companions of his flight, which,
so far as he was concerned, had been the outcome
of low and probably criminal impulses; and yet
God had known how to use it so as to lead to his
becoming a Christian. “With the wrath of man
Thou girdest Thyself,” twisting and bending it so as
to be flexible in Thy hands, and “the remainder
Thou dost restrain,” How unlike were the seed
and the fruit—the flight of a good-for-nothing thief
and the return of a Christian brother! He meant
it not so; but in running away from his master, he
was running straight into the arms of his Saviour.
How little Onesimus knew what was to be the end
of that day’s work, when he slunk out of Philemon’s
house with his stolen booty hid away in his bosom!
And how little any of us know where we are going,
and what strange results may evolve themselves
from our actions! Blessed they who can rest in the
The contrast is emphatic between the short
absence and the eternity of the new relationship:
“for a season”—literally an hour—and “for ever.”
There is but one point of view which gives importance
to this material world, with all its fleeting joys
and fallacious possessions. Life is not worth living,
unless it be the vestibule to a life beyond. Why all
its discipline, whether of sorrow or joy, unless there
be another, ampler life, where we can use to nobler
ends the powers acquired and greatened by use
here? What an inconsequent piece of work is
man, if the few years of earth are his all! Surely,
if nothing is to come of all this life here, men are
made in vain, and had better not have been at all.
Here is a narrow sound, with a mere ribbon of sea
in it, shut in between grim, echoing rocks. How
small and meaningless it looks as long as the fog
hides the great ocean beyond! But when the mist
lifts, and we see that the narrow strait leads out into
a boundless sea that lies flashing in the sunshine to
the horizon, then we find out the worth of that little
driblet of water at our feet. It connects with the
open sea, and that swathes the world. So is it with
“the hour” of life; it opens out and debouches into
the “for ever,” and therefore it is great and solemn.
This moment is one of the moments of that hour.
We are the sport of our own generalisations, and
That is an exquisitely beautiful and tender thought which the Apostle puts here, and one which is susceptible of many applications. The temporary loss may be eternal gain. The dropping away of the earthly form of a relationship may, in God’s great mercy, be a step towards its renewal in higher fashion and for evermore. All our blessings need to be past before reflection can be brought to bear upon them, to make us conscious how blessed we were. The blossoms have to perish before the rich perfume, which can be kept in undiminished fragrance for years, can be distilled from them. When death takes away dear ones, we first learn that we were entertaining angels unawares; and as they float away from us into the light, they look back with faces already beginning to brighten into the likeness of Christ, and take leave of us with His valediction, “It is expedient for you that I go away.” Memory teaches us the true character of life. We can best estimate the height of the mountain peaks when we have left them behind. The softening and hallowing influence of death reveals the nobleness and sweetness of those who are gone. Fair country never looks so fair as when it has a curving river for a foreground; and fair lives look fairer than before, when seen across the Jordan of death.
To us who believe that life and love are not killed by death, the end of their earthly form is but the beginning of a higher heavenly. Love which is “in Christ” is eternal. Because Philemon and Onesimus were two Christians, therefore their relationship was eternal. Is it not yet more true, if that were possible, that the sweet bonds which unite Christian souls here on earth are in their essence indestructible, and are affected by death only as the body is? Sown in weakness, will they not be raised in power? Nothing of them shall die but the encompassing death. Their mortal part shall put on immortality. As the farmer gathers the green flax with its blue bells blooming on it, and throws it into a tank to rot, in order to get the firm fibre which cannot rot, and spin it into a strong cable, so God does with our earthly loves. He causes all about them that is perishable to perish, that the central fibre, which is eternal, may stand clear and disengaged from all that was less Divine than itself. Wherefore mourning hearts may stay themselves on this assurance, that they will never lose the dear ones whom they have loved in Christ, and that death itself but changes the manner of the communion, and refines the tie. They were as for a moment dead, but they are alive again. To our bewildered sight they departed and were lost for a season, but they are found, and we can fold them in our heart of hearts for ever.
But there is also set forth here a change, not
only in the duration but in the quality of the relation
between the Christian master and his former slave,
who continues a slave indeed, but is also a brother.
“No longer as a servant, but more than a servant,
As has been well said, “In the flesh, Philemon has the brother for his slave; in the Lord, Philemon has the slave for his brother.” He is to treat him as his brother therefore both in the common relationships of every-day life and in the acts of religious worship.
That is a pregnant word. True, there is no gulf
between Christian people now-a-days like that which
in the old times parted owner and slave; but, as
society becomes more and more differentiated, as
the diversities of wealth become more extreme in
our commercial communities, as education comes to
make the educated man’s whole way of looking at
life differ more and more from that of the less
cultured classes, the injunction implied in our text
That brotherhood is not to be confined to acts and times of Christian communion, but is to be shown and to shape conduct in common life. “Both in the flesh and in the Lord” may be put into plain English thus: A rich man and a poor one belong to the same church; they unite in the same worship, they are “partakers of the one bread,” and therefore, Paul thinks, “are one bread.” They go outside the church door. Do they ever dream of speaking to one another outside? “A brother beloved in the Lord”—on Sundays, and during worship and in Church matters—is often a stranger “in the flesh” on Mondays, in the street and in common life. Some good people seem to keep their brotherly love in the same wardrobe with their Sunday clothes. Philemon was bid, and all are bid, to wear it all the week, at market as well as church.
II. In the next verse, the essential purpose for which the whole letter was written is put at last in an articulate request, based upon a very tender motive. “If then thou countest me as a partner, receive him as myself,” Paul now at last completes the sentence which he began in v. 12, and from which he was hurried away by the other thoughts that came crowding in upon him. This plea for the kindly welcome to be accorded to Onesimus has been knocking at the door of his lips for utterance from the beginning of the letter; but only now, so near the end, after so much conciliation, he ventures to put it into plain words; and even now he does not dwell on it, but goes quickly on to another point. He puts his requests on a modest and yet a strong ground, appealing to Philemon’s sense of comradeship—“if thou countest me a partner”—a comrade or a sharer in Christian blessings. He sinks all reference to apostolic authority, and only points to their common possession of faith, hope, and joy in Christ. “Receive him as myself.” That request was sufficiently illustrated in the preceding chapter, so that I need only refer to what was then said on this instance of interceding love identifying itself with its object, and on the enunciation in it of great Christian truth.
III. The course of thought next shows—Love taking the slave’s debts on itself.
“If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught.”
Paul makes an “if” of what he knew well enough
to be the fact; for no doubt Onesimus had told
him all his faults, and the whole context shows that
there was no uncertainty in Paul’s mind, but that
he puts the wrong hypothetically for the same
The verb used here for put to the account of is,
according to the commentators, a very rare word;
and perhaps the singular phrase may be chosen to
let another great Christian truth shine through.
Was Paul’s love the only one that we know of which
took the slave’s debts on itself? Did anybody else
ever say, “Put that on mine account”? We have
been taught to ask for the forgiveness of our sins
as “debts,” and we have been taught that there
is One on whom God has made to meet the
iniquities of us all. Christ takes on Himself all
IV. Finally, these verses pass to a gentle reminder of a greater debt: “That I say not unto thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self besides.”
As his child in the Gospel, Philemon owed to Paul much more than the trifle of money of which Onesimus had robbed him; namely his spiritual life, which he had received through the Apostle’s ministry. But he will not insist on that. True love never presses its claims, nor recounts its services. Claims which need to be urged are not worth urging. A true, generous heart will never say, “You ought to do so much for me, because I have done so much for you.” To come down to that low level of chaffering and barter is a dreadful descent from the heights where the love which delights in giving should ever dwell.
Does not Christ speak to us in the same language?
We owe ourselves to Him, as Lazarus
did, for He raises us from the death of sin to a
share in His own new, undying life. As a sick man
owes his life to the doctor who has cured him, as
One more thought may be drawn from the words.
The great debt which can never be discharged does
not prevent the debtor from receiving reward for the
obedience of love. “I will repay it,” even though
thou owest me thyself. Christ has bought us for
His servants by giving Himself and ourselves to us.
No work, no devotion, no love can ever repay our
debt to Him. From His love alone comes the
desire to serve Him; from His grace comes the
power. The best works are stained and incomplete,
and could only be acceptable to a Love that was
glad to welcome even unworthy offerings, and to
forgive their imperfections. Nevertheless He treats
them as worthy of reward, and crowns His own
grace in men with an exuberance of recompense far
beyond their deserts. He will suffer no man to
“Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord refresh my heart in Christ. Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say. But withal prepare me a lodging: for I hope that through your prayers I shall be granted unto you.
“Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, saluteth thee; and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”—Philem. 20–25 (Rev. Ver.).
I. Verse 20 gives the final moving form of the
Apostle’s request. Onesimus disappears, and the
final plea is based altogether on the fact that compliance
will pleasure and help Paul. There is but
the faintest gleam of a possible allusion to the
former in the use of the verb from which the name
Onesimus is derived—“Let me have help of thee”;
as if he had said, “Be you an Onesimus, a helpful
one to me, as I trust he is going to be to you.”
The request for the sake of which the whole letter is written is here put as a kindness to Paul himself, and thus an entirely different motive is appealed to. “Surely you would be glad to give me pleasure. Then do this thing which I ask you.” It is permissible to seek to draw to virtuous acts by such a motive, and to reinforce higher reasons by the desire to please dear ones, or to win the approbation of the wise and good. It must be rigidly kept as a subsidiary motive, and distinguished from the mere love of applause. Most men have some one whose opinion of their acts is a kind of embodied conscience, and whose satisfaction is reward. But pleasing the dearest and purest among men can never be more than at most a crutch to help lameness or a spur to stimulate.
If however this motive be lifted to the higher
level, and these words thought of as Paul’s echo of
Christ’s appeal to those who love Him, they beautifully
express the peculiar blessedness of Christian
ethics. The strongest motive, the very mainspring
and pulsing heart of Christian duty, is to please
Christ. His language to His followers is not, “Do
this because it is right,” but, “Do this because it
pleaseth Me.” They have a living Person to gratify,
not a mere law of duty to obey. The help which
is given to weakness by the hope of winning golden
opinions from, or giving pleasure to, those whom
men love is transferred in the Christian relation
to Jesus. So the cold thought of duty is warmed,
and the weight of obedience to a stony, impersonal
law is lightened, and a new power is enlisted on
the side of goodness, which sways more mightily
than all the abstractions of duty. The Christ
II. Verse 21 exhibits love commanding, in the confidence of love obeying. “Having confidence in thine obedience I write unto thee, knowing that thou wilt do even beyond what I say.” In v. 8 the Apostle had waived his right to enjoin, because he had rather speak the speech of love, and request. But here, with the slightest possible touch, he just lets the note of authority sound for a single moment, and then passes into the old music of affection and trust. He but names the word “obedience,” and that in such a way as to present it as the child of love, and the privilege of his friend. He trusts Philemon’s obedience, because he knows his love, and is sure that it is love of such a sort as will not stand on the exact measure, but will delight in giving it “pressed down and running over.”
What could he mean by “do more than I say”?
Was he hinting at emancipation, which he would
rather have to come from Philemon’s own sense of
what was due to the slave who was now a brother,
than be granted, perhaps hesitatingly, in deference to
his request? Possibly, but more probably he had
no definite thing in his mind, but only desired to
express his loving confidence in his friend’s willingness
to please him. Commands given in such a
Christ’s commands follow, or rather set, this pattern. He trusts His servants, and speaks to them in a voice softened and confiding. He tells them His wish, and commits Himself and His cause to His disciples’ love.
Obedience beyond the strict limits of command
will always be given by love. It is a poor, grudging
service which weighs obedience as a chemist does
some precious medicine, and is careful that not the
hundredth part of a grain more than the prescribed
amount shall be doled out. A hired workman will
fling down his lifted trowel full of mortar at the first
stroke of the clock, though it would be easier to lay
it on the bricks; but where affection moves the
hand, it is delight to add something over and above
to bare duty. The artist who loves his work will
put many a touch on it beyond the minimum which
III. Verse 22 may be summed up as the language of love, hoping for reunion. “Withal prepare me a lodging: for I hope that through your prayers I shall be granted unto you.” We do not know whether the Apostle’s expectation was fulfilled. Believing that he was set free from his first imprisonment, and that his second was separated from it by a considerable interval, during which he visited Macedonia and Asia Minor, we have yet nothing to show whether or not he reached Colossæ; but whether fulfilled or not, the expectation of meeting would tend to secure compliance with his request, and would be all the more likely to do so, for the very delicacy with which it is stated, so as not to seem to be mentioned for the sake of adding force to his intercession.
The limits of Paul’s expectation as to the power of his brethren’s prayers for temporal blessings are worth noting. He does believe that these good people in Colossæ could help him by prayer for his liberation, but he does not believe that their prayer will certainly be heard. In some circles much is said now about “the prayer of faith”—a phrase which, singularly enough, is in such cases almost confined to prayers for external blessings,—and about its power to bring money for work which the person praying believes to be desirable, or to send away diseases. But surely there can be no “faith” without a definite Divine word to lay hold of. Faith and God’s promise are correlative; and unless a man has God’s plain promise that A. B. will be cured by his prayer, the belief that he will is not faith, but something deserving a much less noble name. The prayer of faith is not forcing our wills on God, but bending our wills to God’s. The prayer which Christ has taught in regard to all outward things is, “Not my will but Thine be done,” and, “May Thy will become mine.” That is the prayer of faith, which is always answered. The Church prayed for Peter, and he was delivered; the Church, no doubt, prayed for Stephen, and he was stoned. Was then the prayer for him refused? Not so, but if it were prayer at all, the inmost meaning of it was “be it as Thou wilt”; and that was accepted and answered. Petitions for outward blessings, whether for the petitioner or for others, are to be presented with submission; and the highest confidence which can be entertained concerning them is that which Paul here expresses: “I hope that through your prayers I shall be set free.”
The prospect of meeting enhances the force of the Apostle’s wish; nor are Christians without an analogous motive to give weight to their obligations to their Lord. Just as Paul quickened Philemon’s loving wish to serve him by the thought that he might have the gladness of seeing him before long, so Christ quickens His servant’s diligence by the thought that before very many days He will come, or they will go—at any rate, they will be with Him,—and He will see what they have been doing in His absence. Such a prospect should increase diligence, and should not inspire terror. It is a mark of true Christians that they “love His appearing.” Their hearts should glow at the hope of meeting. That hope should make work happier and lighter. When a husband has been away at sea, the prospect of his return makes the wife sing at her work, and take more pains or rather pleasure with it, because his eye is to see it. So should it be with the bride in the prospect of her bridegroom’s return. The Church should not be driven to unwelcome duties by the fear of a strict judgment, but drawn to large, cheerful service, by the hope of spreading her work before her returning Lord.
Thus, on the whole, in this letter, the central
springs of Christian service are touched, and the
motives used to sway Philemon are the echo of the
motives which Christ uses to sway men. The keynote
of all is love. Love beseeches when it might
command. To love we owe our own selves beside.
Love will do nothing without the glad consent of
him to whom it speaks, and cares for no service
which is of necessity. Its finest wine is not made
from juice which is pressed out of the grapes, but
He too prefers the tone of friendship to that of authority. To Him His servants owe themselves, and remain for ever in His debt, after all payment of reverence and thankful self-surrender. He does not count constrained service as service at all, and has only volunteers in His army. He makes Himself one with the needy, and counts kindness to the least as done to Him. He binds Himself to repay and overpay all sacrifice in His service. He finds delight in His people’s work. He asks them to prepare an abode for Him in their own hearts, and in souls opened by their agency for His entrance. He has gone to prepare a mansion for them, and He comes to receive account of their obedience and to crown their poor deeds. It is impossible to suppose that Paul’s pleading for Philemon failed. How much less powerful is Christ’s, even with those who love Him best?
IV. The parting greetings may be very briefly
considered, for much that would have naturally been
said about them has already presented itself in
dealing with the similar salutations in the epistle
to Colossæ. The same people send messages here
as there; only Jesus called Justus being omitted,
probably for no other reason than because he was
The parting benediction ends the letter. At the beginning of the epistle Paul invoked grace upon the household “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now he conceives of it as Christ’s gift. In him all the stooping, bestowing love of God is gathered, that from Him it may be poured on the world. That grace is not diffused like stellar light, through some nebulous heaven, but concentrated in the Sun of Righteousness, who is the light of men. That fire is piled on a hearth that, from it, warmth may ray out to all that are in the house.
That grace has man’s spirit for the field of its highest operation. Thither it can enter, and there it can abide, in union more close and communion more real and blessed than aught else can attain. The spirit which has the grace of Christ with it can never be utterly solitary or desolate.
The grace of Christ is the best bond of family life. Here it is prayed for on behalf of all the group, the husband, wife, child, and the friends in their home Church. Like grains of sweet incense cast on an altar flame, and making fragrant what was already holy, that grace sprinkled on the household fire will give it an odour of a sweet smell, grateful to men and acceptable to God.
That wish is the purest expression of Christian
friendship, of which the whole letter is so exquisite
an example. Written as it is about a common,
A Christian’s life should be “an epistle of Christ” written with His own hand, wherein dim eyes might read the transcript of His own gracious love, and through all his words and deeds should shine the image of his Master, even as it does through the delicate tendernesses and gracious pleadings of this pure pearl of a letter, which the slave, become a brother, bore to the responsive hearts in quiet Colossæ.
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