Colossians 1:9-14 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you… The petition asks — I. FOR A BESTOWMENT OF A KNOWLEDGE OF THE DIVINE WILL AS ATTAINED BY A SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING AND WISDOM. The faith and charity of the Colossians had been so reported to the apostle as to fill his heart with thankfulness, which took its habitual course, that of unceasing prayer. Blending the subject of his prayer with his purpose in offering it, St. Paul asks — 1. Generally that they may he filled, etc. — three terms which in their union signify an impartation from above of a thorough insight into the will of God as directing the practical life. Based on the eternal purpose of redemption, this will is the counsel of human sanctification. As a matter of request it is the Holy Spirit's operation on our faculties making the knowledge experimental, rewriting the moral law on the heart, and making it there supreme. 2. Particularly the apostle connects with this the spiritual wisdom and understanding which bring Divine knowledge into the sphere of the human faculties. The Holy Spirit imparts it to the "understanding" which makes it the object of study, and aggregates the whole into wisdom, which is the practical application to life of the precepts which the understanding embraces. But both are spiritual. The unregenerate understanding may make the moral law an object of study, and arrange the whole into a system of rules for the wisdom of human ethics. But in the regenerate the precepts are studied in the light of the new nature, and the whole wisdom of holiness is the result of a teaching that is "from above" (James 1:17). II. FOR PRACTICAL CONFORMITY WITH THAT WILL in — 1. Fruitfulness(1) in every good work. All the manifestations of godliness are the fruit of a Divine life within wrought by Christ indwelling by His Spirit. But the phrase "every good work" teaches us that the thoughts, words, and deeds of holiness are our own. In their secret source they have a heavenly origin, in their manifestation they are human. The wonderful completeness arrests attention. The tree brings forth all the fruits that the infinite diversity of the relations of life permit. (2) The words "increasing in the knowledge of God" suggests that Christian fruitfulness knows no limitation. As the knowledge of God and His will grows, the fruits of obedience grow likewise, and with growing sanctity the notion of the Divine Being becomes more clear. But the general spirit of the prayer recommends the former, viz., that the enlarging knowledge of God's will, as "proved" in its varying applications in daily life, leads to an unlimited increase in good works. To the Christian the interior law of God unfolds perpetually new obligations; and as it does this, the obedient life puts on new aspects of perfection. (3) We now go back to the glowing words which precede "That ye might walk," etc. Here is a twofold standard. (a) Such a walk as should do honour to God. (b) Such an aim to secure His approval as should win His complacency always and in all things.There is a daring completeness in this sentence. There is no reservation for human infirmity, no undertone of deprecation of the Divine severity, no hint of a tolerant construction of our conduct. 2. Endurance presented as a passive patience combined with an active longsuffering. (1) While the Divine knowledge is the instrument or energy of the holy life, it is the Divine power which is connected with the patience of that holiness. The strength of God of course accomplishes all; but that strength is "made perfect in weakness." The interior discipline of religion is both endurance of what is imposed, and resistance of all temptation to rebel. Thus the grandeur of the Christian conflict is that the omnipotence of God is brought down into the secret arena of the struggle. He infuses every kind of strength — strength to bear the inflictions of the Divine will in the sorrows of life, its disappointments, the oppositions of evil, the inexhaustible varieties of the pressure of the one great cross; strength to resist temptations from without, in the assaults of Satan, the waywardness of men, persecution, etc. (2) If this be the case, surely the believer should "count it all joy" to be undergoing temptation and that only in the feeling of victory. The very conflict itself is joyous, if Divine and human strength unite; the spirit feels most here what it is to be one with Christ. 3. Thanksgiving enters into all the other elements of the Christian life, and is not merely their supplement. It is here made to spring solely from the sense of redemption. But since the perfecting of the redemptional scheme all the benedictions of providence become redemptional. To pass from the kingdom of darkness into that of God's dear Son is not to leave the kingdoms of nature and providence, but to add to them, as he shows further on, all the glory of the inheritance of the saints in light. (W. B. Pope, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; |
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