Colossians 1:24-2:23 (Wednesday Evening Bible Study)

Colossians 1:24-2:23

• Colossians 1:24-29
• 24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body, that is, the church. 25 I have become its servant, according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.
  • Paul begins this passage with a daring thought. He thinks of the sufferings through which he is passing as completing the sufferings of Jesus himself. Jesus died to save His Church; but the Church must be increased and extended; it must be kept strong, pure, and true; therefore, anyone who serves the Church by widening its borders, establishing its faith, saving it from errors, is doing the work of Christ. And if such service involves suffering and sacrifice, that affliction is filling up and sharing the very suffering of Christ. To suffer in the service of Christ is not a penalty but a privilege, for it is sharing in His work
  • Paul sets out the very essence of the task which has been given to him by God. That task was to bring to men and women a new discovery, a secret kept throughout the ages and the generations, now revealed. This was that the glorious hope of the gospel was not only for the Jews but for all people everywhere. Pal’s great contribution to the Christian faith was that he took Christ to the Gentiles and destroyed forever the idea that God’s love and mercy were the property of any one people or nation
  • So Paul sets down his great aim; to warn everyone, to teach everyone, and present everyone complete in Christ
    • The Jews would never have agreed that God had any use for everyone; they would have refused to accept that God was the God of the Gentiles. That idea would have seemed incredible and even blasphemous
    • The Gnostics would never have agreed that everyone could be warned, taught, and presented complete to God. They believed that the knowledge necessary for salvation was so involved and difficult that it must be the possession of the spiritual elite and the chosen few 
    • It has always been the case that there has been open or sometimes unspoken agreement that wisdom is not for everyone
  • The fact is that the only thing in this world which is for everyone is Christ. There are gifts that some will never possess; there are privileges that some will never enjoy; there are heights of this world’s attainment that some will never scale; but open to everyone is the good news of the gospel, the love of God in Christ and the transforming power which can bring holiness into life
• Colossians 2:1
• For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.
  • Here is a brief lifting of the curtain and a deeply moving glimpse into Paul’s heart. He is going though. Struggle for these Christians whom he had never seen but whom he loved
  • He associates the Laodiceans with the Colossians, and speaks of all those who have never met him. He is thinking of the Christians in that group of three towns in the Locus valley, Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Colossae
  • The word he uses for struggle is a vivid word; it’s agon, where we get our word agony
    • Paul is fighting a hard battle for his friends. We must remember that he was in prison in Rome awaiting judgement and almost certain condemnation. What was his struggle?
      • It was a struggle in prayer
        • He must have longed to go there himself. He must have longed to face the false teachers and deal with their arguments to bring back those who were straying from the truth. But he was in prison. There had come a time when there was nothing left to do but to pray; what he could not do himself, he must leave to God. So Paul wrestled in prayer for those whose he could not see. When time, distance, and circumstance separate us from those whom we long to help, there is always one way left to help them, and that is the way of prayer
      • It may well be that there was another struggle going on in Paul’s mind. He was a human being with fears and emotions like anyone. He was in prison, awaiting trial before Nero, and the outcome would almost certainly be death. It would have been easy to act like a coward and abandon truth for the sake of safety
        • Paul knew very well that desertion would have disastrous consequences. If the young churches knew that Paul had denied Christ, the heart would be taken from them and it would be the end of Christianity for many. His struggle was not only for himself; it was also for those whose eyes were fixed upon him as their leader
        • We do well to remember that in any situation there are those who are watching, and that our action will either confirm or destroy their faith. Our struggle is never for ourselves alone; the honor of Christ is always in our hands, and the faith of others is always in our keeping
• Colossians 2:2-7
• 2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ. 3 In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. 5 For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ. 6 So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, 7 being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.
  • Here’s Paul’s prayer for the church, and in it we ascertain the great marks which should distinguish a living and faithful church
    • It should be a church of courageous hearts
      • Paul prays that their hearts may be encouraged. The word he uses sometimes means to comfort, sometimes to exhort; but alway behind it there is the idea of enabling a person to meet some difficult situation bravely and with confidence
      • One of the Greek historians uses it in an interesting and thought provoking way. There was a Greek regiment which had lost heart and was utterly dejected. The general sent a leader to talk to it to such purpose that courage was reborn and a body of dispirited men became fit again for heroic action. That is what encouraged means here. It is Paul’s prayer that the church may be filled with that courage which can cope with any situation
    • It should e a church in which the members are united together in love
      • Without love, there is no real church. Methods of church government and ritual are not what matter. These things change from time to time and from place to place. The one mark which distinguishes a true church I love for God and for one another in community. When love dies, the church dies
    • It should be a church equipped with every kind of wisdom. Paul uses three words for wisdom in this passage
      • In verse 2 he sunesis, which is translated as understanding
        • This is what we might call critical knowledge. It is the ability to assess any situation and decide what practical course of action is necessary within it. A real church will have the practical knowledge of what to do whenever action is called for
      • He says that in Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is Sophia, and knowledge is gnosis. These tow words do not simply repeat each other; there is a difference between them
        • Gnosis is the power, almost intuitive and instinctive, to grasp the truth when we see it and hear it
        • Sophia is the power to confirm and commend the truth with wise and intelligent argument, once it has been intuitively grasped
        • Gnosis is that by which people grasp the truth
        • Sophia is that by which people are enable to give a reason for the hope that is in them
        • So the real church will have the clear-sighted wisdom which can act for the best in any given situation; the wisdom which can instinctively recognize and grasp the truth when it sees it; and the wisdom which can make the truth intelligible to the thinking mind, and persuasively commend it to others
          • All this wisdom is hidden in Christ. The word he uses for hidden is a blow aimed at the Gnostics. It means hidden form the common gaze, and therefore secret
          • We have seen that the Gnostics believed that a great mass of elaborate knowledge was necessary for salvation. That knowledge they set down in their books, which the called “hidden” because they were barred to ordinary people
          • By using this one word, Paul is saying; “You Gnostics have your wisdom hidden from ordinary people; we too have our knowledge, but it is to hidden in unintelligible books; it is hidden in Christ and open to all men and women everywhere.”
          • The truth of Christianity is not a secret which is hidden but a secret which is revealed
      • The true church must have the power to resist arguments that sound reasonable
        • It must be able to resist those who would deceive it with persuasive arguments. This was a word of the law courts; it was the word used for the seductive power of a lawyer’s arguments, which could enable the criminal to escape from a just punishment. The true church should have such a grip of the truth that it is unmoved by such arguments
      • The true church should have in it a soldier’s discipline
        • Paul is glad to hear of the order and strength of their faith in Christ. These two words are military words
          • The word order means a rank or an ordered arrangement. The church should be like an ordered army, with every member in his or her appointed place, ready and willing to obey the word or command
          • The word strength means a solid defense, an immoveable formation. It describes an army set out in an unbreakable square, solidly immoveable against the impact of the enemy’s charge
        • Within the church, there should be disciplined order and strong steadiness, like the order and strength of a trained and disciplined body of troops
      • In the church, life must be in Christ
        • Its members must walk in Christ; their whole lives must be lived in His conscious presence. They must be rooted  and built up in Him
          • Rooted is the word which would be used of a tree with its roots deep in the soil
          • Built up is the word which would be used of a house built on a firm foundation
        • Just as the great tree is deep-rooted in the soil and draws its nourishment from it, so Christians are rooted in Christ, the source of their lives and their strength. Just as the house stands fast because it is built on strong foundations, so the Christian life is resistant to any storm because it is founded on the strength of Christ. Christ is both the source of the Christian life and the foundation of stability for all Christians
      • The true church is established in the faith
        • It never forgets the teaching about Christ which it has been taught. This does not meant a fixed and rigid orthodoxy in which all creative thought is heresy. We have only to remember how in Colossians Paul strikes out new lines in his thinking about Jesus to see how far that was from his intention. But it does mean that there are certain beliefs which remain the foundation and do not change. Paul might travel down new pathways of thought, but he always began and ended with the unchanging and unchangeable truth that Jesus is Lord
      • The distinguishing mark of the true church is an overflowing gratitude
        • Thanksgiving is the constant and characteristic not of the Christian life. The one concern of Christians is to tell in words and to show in life their gratitude for all that God has done for them in nature and in grace. Christians will always praise God, from whom all blessings flow
• Colossians 2:8-23 (overview)
• 8 Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ. 9 For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, 10 and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority. 11 You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. 14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him. 16 Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ. 18 Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind. 19 They don’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God. 20 If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: 21 “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”? 22 All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines. 23 Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.
  • There can be no doubt that this is one of the most difficult passages Paul ever wrote. But for those who heard it or read it for the first time, it would be crystal clear. The trouble is it is packed from beginning to end with allusions to the false teaching which was threatening to wreck the Colossian church. We do not know precisely what that teaching was. Therefore the allusions are obscure, and we can only guess. But every sentence and every phrase would go straight home to the minds and the hearts of the Colossians
  • We’re going to look at the main themes of this section tonight and then go into more detail through them next week. The one thing that is clear is that the false teachers wanted the Colossians to accept what can only be called additions to Christ. They were teaching that Jesus Himself is not enough, that He was not unique, that He was one among many manifestations of God, and that it was necessary to know and serve other divine powers in additions to Him
  • We can distinguish five additions to christ which these false teachers wanted to make
    • They wanted to teach people an additional philosophy
      • As they saw it, the simple truth preached by Jesus and preserved in the gospel was not enough. It had to be filled out by an elaborate system of pseudo-philosophical thought which was far too difficulty for ordinary people e and which only intellectuals could understand
    • They wanted people to accept a system of astrology
      • There is a doubt about the meaning; but  it is thought most likely that the elements of the world were the elemental spirits of the universe, especially of the stars and the planets. It was the message of these false teachers that men and women were still under these influences and needed a special knowledge, beyond that which Jesus could give, to be liberated from them
    • They wanted to impose circumcision on Christians
      • Faith was not enough; circumcision had to be added. A mark in the flesh was to take the place of, or at least be an addition to, an attitude of the heart
    • They wanted to lay down rules and regulations for self-denial
      • They wanted to introduce all kinds of rules and regulations about what might be eaten and drunk, and about what days must be observed as festivals and feasts. All the old Jewish regulations and more were to be brought back
    • They wanted to introduce the worship of angels
      • They were teaching that Jesus was only one of many intermediaries between God and mankind, and that all these intermediaries must receive their worship
  • It can be seen that here there is a mixture of Gnosticism and Judaism. The intellectual knowledge and the astrology come direct from Gnosticism; self-denial and the rules and regulations come from Judaism. We have seen that the Gnostics believed that all kinds of special knowledge, beyond the gospel, were needed for salvation. There were Jews who joined forces with the Gnostics and declared that the special knowledge required was none other than the knowledge which Judaism could give. This explains why the teaching of the Colossians’ false teachers combined the beliefs of Gnosticism with the practices of Judaism
  • The one thing that is certain is that the case teachers taught that Jesus and His teaching and work were not sufficient for salvation