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Paul’s Concern

Last week, Paul told the Colossians that they have Christ in them, the hope of a future glory (1:27). And because of this future glory, Paul is laboring to exhort the Colossians to live a life growing in faithfulness. But he is concerned because their long-term perseverance in the faith seems to be threatened.  He hinted at that in the previous chapter (1:23). But now he gets more explicit about his concerns. He has “a great conflict” for them (v. 1). He is concerned about the people that they are talking to, who threaten to deceive them with persuasive word (v. 4) and cheat them through philosophy and empty deceit (v. 8).

The Root of the Problem

Paul unpacked for us in the previous chapter the redemptive work of Christ. Now he identifies the real root of this error as a challenge to the sufficiency of Christ (v. 8). This is the error of “Christ plus something else.” The saints at Colossae have mixed their faith in Christ with

• A fascination with extra-biblical teaching (v. 8 and 22)
• A commitment to the law that was the shadow of Christ rather than the reality of the Christ who has come (v. 11, 14, 16)
• A fixation with a power structure that has passed away (15 and 18)
• An asceticism born of prideful human wisdom rather than humble submission to God (21 and 23)

Paul has two fundamental answers to the erring Colossians.

Complete in Christ

A right understanding of who Christ is should eliminate the need to add anything to Christ. Paul returns to the image of a body with Christ as its head (v. 19), which he actually introduced previously (1:18). Our union with Christ means that we are complete in him (v. 9-10) because we share in all his victorious work (v. 11-15).

So Walk in Him

The difficulty we have is that we forget. We grow cold (Rev. 3:15). We begin in the Spirit and then shift to the flesh (Gal. 3:3). We think that the work of salvation was merely a first step that we can somehow then improve upon with our own accessorizing. But Paul says that we must continue to walk in Christ, in the same way that we began in Christ – through the simplicity of faith in the complete and total sufficiency of the work of Christ (v. 6-7). This is the only foundation on which we can build (1 Cor. 3:11-15). And the clear indicator that Paul has given us to demonstrate whether or not we are building on that foundation is gratitude (v. 7).

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1:1-2 Greetings

Colossae was an ancient Phrygian city in the southwest of modern day Turkey. It sat on the banks of the Lycus River, just upstream for Laodicea and Hierapolis.

1:3-8 A fruit-bearing Gospel

Paul is thankful because the Gospel came to the Colossians and brought forth fruit. Real faith is a hope that bears fruit. And the Colossians had begun to live out this hope in such a way that Paul could hear about it from prison in Rome.

1:9-12 The Power of a Message

Now note something about how this fruitful hope comes about. It comes from hearing and believing the Gospel. We have a promise from God, delivered to us in the Bible, that creates this kind of faith in us. This is why it behooves us to spend time unpacking this word. The more we do so, the more it creates in us this fruitful hope that Paul describes.

1:13-23 Who Immanuel Is and What He Has Done

This is a very straightforward declaration of the doctrine of the incarnation, that in Jesus, God became man. In Jesus we have Immanuel. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

He has created all things in heaven and earth, delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into his kingdom, redeemed us with his blood, forgiven our sins, reconciled all things to himself, and presented you holy, blameless, and above reproach.

1:24-29 The Mystery

This Christ is the one that is in you. And he is the hope of glory. And just as the whole world waited for 4000 years for the coming of the second Adam, waiting for that mystery to be revealed, now you wait for the glory that is to come. You wait in hope for the glory that Paul just described that is still to come. You have seen the beginning, but you haven’t seen the end. Hope is what reaches out to that end while you are still sitting here. But you have Christ in you. And that is the hope of a great glory, a glory still unimaginable.

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