◄ Colossians 1:2 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Hope Laid Up In Heaven
Colossians 1:1-8
R.M. Edgar
This Epistle, written from Rome to meet and overmaster the "Colossian heresy," begins with a salutation somewhat similar to those at the beginning of other Epistles. There is the assertion of Paul's apostleship as direct from Christ; there is the statement of the brotherhood of Timothy, and the desire that grace and peace may be the constant portion of the saints and faithful brethren at Colossal. But, having thus started, Paul immediately passes to an account of their character as he had got it from Epaphras, and how this character had been produced. He is thankful for it, and he wishes them to remember how it had been formed within them. And here we have to notice that -

I. JESUS CHRIST IS THE OBJECT OF THE COLOSSIANS' FAITH. (Ver. 4.) They had happily been led to this - to trust in the personal Saviour. It is not the promises, but the Promiser; not the proposition, but the Person pledging himself to the fulfilment of the proposition, in whom we believe. Now, the heresy, which will appear more clearly afterwards, made a good deal of angelic and intermediate personages; there was, in fact, a tendency to a mystic peopling of the unseen with needless, forms, explanatory, as the Colossians supposed, of the mysteries of creation. It was important in these circumstances to state with precision that Jesus Christ is the great Object of faith. Faith in such a Being becomes a glorious simplicity. It is a simple extension of that trust to him which we extend to our fellow men. But his glorious personality, embracing a Divine as well as human nature, makes all the difference between faith in men and faith in him. The latter is true saving faith.

II. THE SAINTS WERE THE SPECIAL OBJECTS OF THE COLOSSIANS' LOVE. (Ver. 4.) While faith goes out to a personal Saviour, it worketh by love towards all the saints. For it cannot but be that, in trusting and loving the perfect Saviour, we learn almost instinctively to love those in his image. The saints, all the saints, are seen to have their claim upon the believer's love. The love of good men is the note of a true Christian.

III. HEAVEN WAS INDISPENSABLE TO THE CONSUMMATION OF THEIR HOPE. (Ver. 5.) It is the characteristic of the Christian system to relegate a goodly portion of its promise to the world to come. It has certainly a promise for the life that now is, but chiefly has it a promise for that which is to come. In heaven the hope is laid up. And into this hope the Colossians heartily entered. They looked for more to follow - for a purity, for a power, for a perfection impossible in the present life. There is thus a faith, a love, and a hope characteristic of the saints at Colossae as well as elsewhere.

IV. THIS HOPE HAD BEEN COMMUNICATED THROUGH THE PREACHED GOSPEL. (Vers. 5-8.) Had the Colossians not had the gospel preached to them, they would never have entered into such glorious, heavenly hopes. The word of the gospel is fruit-bearing. It kindles the hopes of men. Everywhere it has the same blessed effects in lifting men's hearts to heaven. It would seem that Epaphras had been the instrument in the Lord's hand in evangelizing the Colossians. He had, as a faithful minister of Christ, preached the Word to them, and they had received it and become the loving disciples he represented them to be in his report to Paul. "Love in the Spirit" was the leading idea in their lives. All this was matter for profound gratitude to God, and so the apostle pours out his thanksgiving to God the Father (ver. 3) because of it. In such circumstances it surely becomes us to see that we rise on the wings of hope to heaven and appreciate the glorious consummation which there awaits us. We need such a hope to complete the demands of our immortal being. We cannot be satisfied with the seen, with the present life, with the present world; we must have more. And this the gospel gives us in that hope which is laid up for us in heaven. - R.M.E.

Biblical Illustrator
To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ.
Colossians 1:2
Saints
T. Watson, B. A.
I. THEIR CHARACTER. Holy persons. The idea is derived from the sacred vessels of the temple, which might not be appropriated to common uses. In a more general sense, saints are those who are eminent for piety, not all who are flattered or derided as such. One who is truly a saint —

1. Acknowledges that he was once a lost and undone sinner, and who daily brings his sins for pardon and his graces for increase to the throne of grace.

2. Has a new heart and a right spirit. He is a new creature — loving what God loves, and hating what He hates.

3. Is zealous for the cause of his Divine Master. Where there are no spiritual actions there is no spiritual life. The chief motives are fortitude and the constraining love of Christ.

4. Grows in grace.

II. THEIR RELATION TO EACH OTHER.

1. There are three kinds of brotherhood — natural, such as that between Esau and Jacob; national, such as existed among the Jews; spiritual, by adoption and grace. The last is the strongest, purest, and most enduring.

2. Of this Christ is the Elder Brother, and as He is not ashamed to own this relationship should we be either in regard to Himself or the poorest member of the family?

3. Love should spring out of this relationship. This is most natural! Christ has made love the badge of Christian discipleship; it is "good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity."

4. Its distinguishing attribute is fidelity. Be thou faithful in defending your brother when defamed, in admonishing him when in the wrong, in helping him in difficulty, in comforting him in trouble. A false brother is worse than an open foe.

III. THEIR SITUATION IN THE WORLD.

1. Christians in the midst of heathens, and exposed to temptation and persecution.

2. Believers surrounded by heretics — their faith exposed to subtle undermining and bold attack.

3. Few as against many. Churches are often thus situated, but if they retain their holiness and faithfulness become more than conquerors.

(T. Watson, B. A.)

Motives to saintliness
P. Bayne, B. D.
I.AS OUR GOD IS HOLY SO MUST WE BE (1 Peter 1:15).

II.IT IS THE END OF OUR DIVINE CHOICE (Ephesians 1:4).

III.OUR CALLING BINDETH US (1 Thessalonians 4:7).

IV.OUR REDEMPTION (Titus 2:14).

V.THE GRACE OF GOD TEACHES US THIS (Titus 2:11-12).

VI.THE FINAL JUDGMENT PERSUADES US THEREUNTO (2 Peter 5:2; 1 John 3:3).

VII.THE RIGHT CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH PROHIBITS THE UNHOLY (Matthew 7:6). Conclusion:

1. This discovers to us the vanity of the Pope in restraining a title common to all believers while they live to some few whom it pleaseth him to canonize after death.

2. We see the lewdness of many profane Esaus who scoff at the name.

3. We must remember what kind of men we must be even such as must profess and practice holiness.

(P. Bayne, B. D.)

In Christ
A. Maclaren, D. D.
This mystical but most real union of Christians with their Lord is never far away from the apostle's thoughts, and in the Epistle to the Ephesians it is the very burden of the whole. A shallower Christianity tries to weaken that great phrase to something more intelligible to the unspiritual temper and poverty-stricken experience proper to it; but no justice can be done to Paul's teaching unless it be taken in all its depth as expressive of the same mutual indwelling and interlacing of spirit with spirit, which ,is so prominent in the writings of John. There is one point of contact between the Pauline and Johannean conceptions, on the difference between which so much exaggeration has been expended; to both the inmost essence of the Christian life is union to Christ, and abiding in Him. If we are Christians we are in Him in a profounder sense than creation lives and moves and has its being in God. 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 is the better life of an that live. In Him we have peace though the world be seething with changed all storm. In Him we conquer though earth and our own evil he all in arms against us. If we live in Him, we live in purity and joy. If we die in Him, we die in tranquil trust. If our gravestones may truly carry the sweet old inscription, carved on many a nameless slab in the Catacombs, "In Christo," they will also bear the other, "In pace." If we sleep in Him, our glory is assured, "For them also that sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him."

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Grace and peace
Bp. Davenant.
Grace is introductory good; peace is final good: he therefore who wishes these two blessings includes every intermediate benefit.

I. GRACE denotes —

1. The gratuitous act of the Divine will accepting man in Christ and pardoning his sins (Ephesians 2:5; Romans 3:24). This free love of God is the first gift in which all other gifts are bestowed.

2. All those habitual gifts which God infuses for the sanctification of the soul. So faith, love, and all virtues and salutary endowments are called graces (Ephesians 4:7).

3. The actual assistance of God, whereby the regenerate, after having received habitual grace, are strengthened to perform good works, and to persevere in faith and godliness. For to man renewed and sanctified by grace, the daily aid of God is still necessary for every single act. The union of all these is necessary: inherent grace is not given unless the grace of acceptance has preceded it; neither being given is it available to the production of fruits, unless also the efficacious help of God follow and accompany it through every individual action.

II. PEACE. The Hebrews used this expression as we use the expression health or joy: it signifies prosperity marked by no calamities either public or private (Genesis 43:27; Psalm 122:6). But with the apostles it is used more extensively, and comprehends more especially spiritual joy and prosperity. Therefore under this term Paul desires for them —

1. Internal peace, or peace of conscience, which arises from the grace of God accepting us for Christ's sake (John 14:27; Romans 5:1; Philippians 4:7).

2. Brotherly peace; "breaking peace they exclude grace." This is a great and desirable good, and is frequently celebrated as the special gift of God (1 Corinthians 14:33; 2 Corinthians 13:11). The seeds of schism had been scattered abroad; there was therefore need of peace.

3. That external peace which is the well-being of the Church; but only yet so far as it does not militate against their spiritual good; for sometimes it conduces more to the welfare of the faithful that they be afflicted than that they enjoy external tranquility.

III. WE MAY GATHER —

1. From the order itself, as he places grace before peace, he teaches us —(1) That this is first of all to be desired, that we may have God propitious. If He be hostile, even blessings will be turned into a curse.(2) That true peace cannot belong except to those only who are in favour with God. "There is no peace to the wicked."(3) That all good things which fall to the lot of the godly are streams from this fountain of Divine grace.

2. From the thing itself desired —(1) Paul shows us by his own example the duty of every minister of the gospel; which is, not only to preach grace and peace to his people, but from their inmost souls to intreat and implore the same from God by incessant prayer: neither is sufficient of itself.(2) He reproves the folly of this world, in which almost all wish for themselves and their friends, health, riches, and honours; but grace, peace, and other spiritual good things, they neither regard nor think of. But Christ commands us to seek "first the kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33).(3) He comforts the godly and faithful by showing them that the grace of God, and the peace of God they always possess; in comparison of which good things whatsoever fall to the wicked are refuse. "A God appeased," says Bernard, "tranquillizes all things, and to behold Him at peace is to be ourselves at peace."

(Bp. Davenant.)

People
Colossians, Epaphras, Paul, Thessalonians, Timotheus, Timothy
Places
Colossae, Philippi
Topics
TRUE, Brethren, Brothers, Christ, Colossae, Colos'sae, Colosse, Faithful, Grace, Granted, Holy, Peace, Saints
Outline
1. After salutation Paul thanks God for the Colossians' faith;
7. confirms the doctrine of Epaphras;
9. prays further for their increase in grace;
14. describes the supremacy of Christ;
21. encourages them to receive Jesus Christ, and commends his own ministry.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Colossians 1:2

     7032   unity, God's people
     7120   Christians
     7155   saints
     8638   benedictions

Colossians 1:1-2

     5328   greeting

Library
February 11. "Strengthened with all Might unto all Patience" (Col. I. 11).
"Strengthened with all might unto all patience" (Col. i. 11). The apostle prays for the Colossians, that they may be "strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." It is one thing to endure and show the strain on every muscle of your face, and seem to say with every wrinkle, "Why does not somebody sympathize with me?" It is another to endure the cross, "despising the shame" for the joy set before us. There are some trees in the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 18. "Christ in You" (Col. I. 27).
"Christ in you" (Col. i. 27). How great the difference between the old and the new way of deliverance! One touch of Christ is worth a lifetime of struggling. A sufferer in one of our hospitals was in danger of losing his sight from a small piece of broken needle that had entered his eye. Operation after operation had only irritated it, and driven the foreign substance farther still into the delicate nerves of the sensitive organ. At length a skilful young physician thought of a new expedient. He …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Twenty Fourth Sunday after Trinity Prayer and Spiritual Knowledge.
Text: Colossians 1, 3-14. 3 We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, 5 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, 6 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 …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'All Power'
'Strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy.'--COL. i. 11 (R.V.). There is a wonderful rush and fervour in the prayers of Paul. No parts of his letters are so lofty, so impassioned, so full of his soul, as when he rises from speaking of God to men to speaking to God for men. We have him here setting forth his loving desires for the Colossian Christians in a prayer of remarkable fulness and sweep. Broadly taken, it is for their perfecting …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Thankful for Inheritance
'Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.'--COL. i. 12 (R.V.) It is interesting to notice how much the thought of inheritance seems to have been filling the Apostle's mind during his writing of Ephesians and Colossians. Its recurrence is one of the points of contact between them. For example, in Ephesians, we read, 'In whom also were made a heritage' (i. 11); 'An earnest of our inheritance' (i. 14); 'His inheritance in the saints' …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Saints, Believers, Brethren
' . . . The saints and faithful brethren in Christ.'--COL. i. 2. 'The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,' says the Acts of the Apostles. It was a name given by outsiders, and like most of the instances where a sect, or school, or party is labelled with the name of its founder, it was given in scorn. It hit and yet missed its mark. The early believers were Christians, that is, Christ's men, but they were not merely a group of followers of a man, like many other groups of whom the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Christian Endeavour
'I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.'--COL. i. 29. I have chosen this text principally because it brings together the two subjects which are naturally before us to-day. All 'Western Christendom,' as it is called, is to-day commemorating the Pentecostal gift. My text speaks about that power that 'worketh in us mightily.' True, the Apostle is speaking in reference to the fiery energy and persistent toil which characterised him in proclaiming Christ, that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Gospel-Hope
'The hope of the Gospel.'--COL. i. 5. 'God never sends mouths but He sends meat to feed them,' says the old proverb. And yet it seems as if that were scarcely true in regard to that strange faculty called Hope. It may well be a question whether on the whole it has given us more pleasure than pain. How seldom it has been a true prophet! How perpetually its pictures have been too highly coloured! It has cast illusions over the future, colouring the far-off hills with glorious purple which, reached, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Next Performance is Mainly Directed against Faith in the Church...
The next performance is mainly directed against faith in the Church, as a society of Divine origin. "The Rev. Henry Bristow Wilson, B.D., Vicar of Great Staughton, Hunts," claims that a National Church shall be regarded as a purely secular Institution,--the spontaneous development of the State. "If all priests and ministers of religion could at one moment be swept from the face of the Earth, they would soon be reproduced [76] ." The Church is concerned with Ethics, not with Divinity. It should therefore …
John William Burgon—Inspiration and Interpretation

All Fulness in Christ
The text is a great deep, we cannot explore it, but we will voyage over its surface joyously, the Holy Spirit giving us a favorable wind. Here are plenteous provisions far exceeding, those of Solomon, though at the sight of that royal profusion, Sheba's queen felt that there was no more spirit in her, and declared that the half had not been told to her. It may give some sort of order to our thoughts if they fall under four heads. What is here spoken of--"all fullness." Where is it placed--"in him," …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Thankful Service.
(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.) COL. i. 12. "Giving thanks." In one of our northern coal-pits there was a little boy employed in a lonely and dangerous part of the mine. One day a visitor to the coal-pit asked the boy about his work, and the child answered, "Yes, it is very lonely here, but I pick up the little bits of candle thrown away by the colliers, and join them together, and when I get a light I sing." My brothers, every day of our lives we are picking up blessings which the loving …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Twenty-Third Day for the Holy Spirit in Your Own Work
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Holy Spirit in your own Work "I labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily."--COL. i. 29. You have your own special work; make it a work of intercession. Paul laboured, striving according to the working of God in him. Remember, God is not only the Creator, but the Great Workman, who worketh all in all. You can only do your work in His strength, by Him working in you through the Spirit. Intercede much for those among whom you work, till God gives …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Knowledge and Obedience.
"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; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father."--COL. i. 9-12. The Epistles …
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

The Inheritance.
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.--Ep. to the Colossians i. 12. To have a share in any earthly inheritance, is to diminish the share of the other inheritors. In the inheritance of the saints, that which each has, goes to increase the possession of the rest. Hear what Dante puts in the mouth of his guide, as they pass through Purgatory:-- Perche s'appuntano i vostri desiri Dove per compagnia parte si scema, Invidia muove …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

The Disciple, -- Master, if Thou Wouldst Make a Special Manifestation of Thyself to The...
The Disciple,--Master, if Thou wouldst make a special manifestation of Thyself to the world, men would no longer doubt the existence of God and Thy own divinity, but all would believe and enter on the path of righteousness. The Master,--1. My son, the inner state of every man I know well, and to each heart in accordance with its needs I make Myself known; and for bringing men into the way of righteousness there is no better means than the manifestation of Myself. For man I became man that he might …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

Victory Found
AT THE close of this little volume it seems fitting to recount again a wonderful personal experience, narrated in The Sunday School Times of December 7, 1918. I do not remember the time when I did not have in some degree a love for the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour. When not quite twelve years of age, at a revival meeting, I publicly accepted and confessed Christ as my Lord and Master. From that time there grew up in my heart a deep yearning to know Christ in a more real way, for he seemed so unreal, …
Rosalind Goforth—How I Know God Answers Prayer

section 3
But we will go back from this glimpse of God's ultimate purpose for us, to watch the process by which it is reached, so far as we can trace it in the ripening of the little annuals. The figure will not give us all the steps by which God gets His way in the intricacies of a human soul: we shall see no hint in it of the cleansing and filling that is needed in sinful man before he can follow the path of the plant. It shows us some of the Divine principles of the new life rather than a set sequence of …
I. Lilias Trotter—Parables of the Christ-life

Christ and Man in the Atonement
OUR conception of the relations subsisting between God and man, of the manner in which these relations are affected by sin, and particularly of the Scripture doctrine of the connection between sin and death, must determine, to a great extent, our attitude to the Atonement. The Atonement, as the New Testament presents it, assumes the connection of sin and death. Apart from some sense and recognition of such connection, the mediation of forgiveness through the death of Christ can only appear an arbitrary, …
James Denney—The Death of Christ

The Mystical Union with Immanuel.
"Christ in you the hope of glory." --Col. i. 27. The union of believers with Christ their Head is not effected by instilling a divine-human life-tincture into the soul. There is no divine-human life. There is a most holy Person, who unites in Himself the divine and the human life; but both natures continue unmixed, unblended, each retaining its own properties. And since there is no divine-human life in Jesus, He can not instil it into us. We do heartily acknowledge that there is a certain conformity …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

A Preliminary Discourse to Catechising
'If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' - Col 1:23. Intending next Lord's day to enter upon the work of catechising, it will not be amiss to give you a preliminary discourse, to show you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the grounds of religion. If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' I. It is the duty of Christians to be settled in the doctrine of faith. II. The best way for Christians to be settled is to be well grounded. I. It is the duty of Christians …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Fourthly; all the [Credenda, Or] Doctrines, which the True, Simple, and Uncorrupted Christian Religion Teaches,
(that is, not only those plain doctrines which it requires to be believed as fundamental and of necessity to eternal salvation, but even all the doctrines which it teaches as matters of truth,) are, though indeed many of them not discoverable by bare reason unassisted with revelation; yet, when discovered by revelation, apparently most agreeable to sound unprejudiced reason, have every one of them a natural tendency, and a direct and powerful influence to reform men's minds, and correct their manners, …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly
WE shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things. 1. God's attributes work for good to the godly. (1). God's power works for good. It is a glorious power (Col. i. 11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect. God's power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. "Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii. 27). What upheld Daniel in the lion's den? …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Of Love to God
I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children's bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Rise of the Assyrian Empire
PHOENICIA AND THE NORTHERN NATIONS AFTER THE DEATH OP RAMSES III.--THE FIRST ASSYRIAN EMPIRE: TIGLATH-PILESUR I.--THE ARAMAEANS AND THE KHATI. The continuance of Egyptian influence over Syrian civilization after the death of Ramses III.--Egyptian myths in Phoenicia: Osiris and Isis at Byblos--Horus, Thot, and the origin of the Egyptian alphabet--The tombs at Arvad and the Kabr-Hiram; Egyptian designs in Phoenician glass and goldsmiths'work--Commerce with Egypt, the withdrawal of Phoenician colonies …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 6

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