Such as have (literally, are (things) having) word indeed of wisdom (Colossians 2:4, Colossians 2:8; 1 Corinthians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 2:4, 1 Corinthians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 12:8). The antecedent of "such as" is "command merits and teachings" (Meyer, Alford, Ellicott), not "decrees" (Colossians 2:21). For Colossians 2:22 supplies the immediate antecedent, and the wider sense thus given is necessary to support the comprehensive and summary import of Colossians 2:23. The Greek "are having" brings into view the nature and qualities of the subject, in accordance with ἅτινα, such as, the qualitative relative. A certain "word of wisdom" was ascribed to the false teachers in Colossians 2:4 (note the play upon λόγος in St. Paul's Greek). They were plausible dealers in words, and had the jargon of philosophy at their tongue's end (Colossians 2:8, compare note on ἐμβατεύων, Colossians 2:18). On this the apostle had first remarked in his criticism of their teaching, and to this he first, adverts in his final resumé. "Word of wisdom" is one of the "gifts of the Spirit" in 1 Corinthians 12:8; but the disparaging μέν, indeed, with the emphatic position of λόγον throwing σοφίας into the shade, in view also of the censures already passed in 1 Corinthians 12:4, 1 Corinthians 12:8, puts a condemnatory sense upon the phrase: "having word indeed of wisdom"—"that and nothing more, no inner truth, no pith and substance of wisdom" (so Chrysostom and OEcumenius). "Word and deed," "word and truth," form a standing antithesis (Colossians 3:17; Romans 15:18; 1 Corinthians 4:19, 1 Corinthians 4:20; 1 John 3:18, etc.), the second member of which supplies itself to the mind; and the solitary μὲν in such a connection is a well-established classical idiom (see Winer's or A. Buttmann's 'Grammar;' also Meyer). It is superfluous, therefore, as well as confusing to the order of thought, to seek in the sequel for the missing half of the antithesis. Other renderings of λόγον—"show" (English A.V., Bengel, De Wette), "ground" or "reason" (Vulgate, Klopper), "reputation" (Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot)—are partly doubtful or exceptional in point of usage, and partly overlook the pointed reference of 1 Corinthians 12:22, 1 Corinthians 12:23 to the language of 1 Corinthians 12:4 and 1 Corinthians 12:8. And the combination of λόγον ἔχοντα into a single phrase is scarcely justified here in face of the established Pauline association of "word" and "wisdom". Both in this Epistle and in 1 Corinthians the writer is contending against forms of error which found their account in the Greek love of eloquence and of dexterous word-play. While the first part of the predicate, therefore, explains the intellectual attractiveness of the Colossian error, the clause next following accounts for its religious fascination; and the third part of the verse strikes at the root of its ethical and practical applications. (Shown) in (or, with) devotion to (or, delight in) worship (or, voluntary worship) and lowliness of mind (verse 18). The preposition "in" brings us into the moral and religious sphere of life in which this would be wisdom of doctrine had its range and found its application. The prefix ἐθελο- of ἐθελοθρησκεία ordinarily connotes" willingness" rather than "wilfulness;" and the "delighting in worship" of verse 18 (see note) points strongly in this direction. As against Ellicott and Lightfoot on the etymological point, see Hofmann, pp. 102, 103. Only so far as the worship in question (see note, verse 18, on "worship") is evil, can the having a will to worship be evil. The other characteristics of the error marked in this verse seem to be recommendations, and "devotion to worship" is in keeping with them. This disposition, moreover, has an air of "humility," which does not belong to a self-imposed, arbitrary worship. There is a love of worship for mere worship's sake which is a perversion of the religious instinct, and tends to multiply both the forms and objects of devotion. This spurious religiousness took the form, in the Colossian errorists, of worship paid to the angels. On this particular worship the apostle passed his judgment in verse 18, and now points out the tendency from which it springs. In verse 18 "humility" precedes; here it follows "worship," by way of transition from the religious to the moral aspect of tile now teaching. And (or, with) unsparing treatment of (the) body—not in any honour (as) against surfeiting of the flesh (verses 16, 21, 22; Philippians 3:19-21; 1 Timothy 4:3; 1 Corinthians 6:13-20; 1 Corinthians 12:23-25; 1 Thessalonians 4:4). The "and" linking this clause to the last under the government of "in," is textually doubtful; Lightfoot cancels it; Westcott and Hort give the omission as a secondary reading. Mr. Hort regards the passage, like verse 18, as hopelessly corrupt—a verdict which we would fain believe is too despairing. If καὶ be struck out, then ἀφειδείᾳ must be attached, somewhat loosely, to the principal predicate (" are having") as an instrumental dative. On either construction, the sense appears to be that it was its combination of ascetic rigour with religious devotion that gave to the system in question its undoubted charm, and furnished an adequate field for the eloquence and philosophical skill of its advocate. ἁφειδεία, unsparingness, and πλησμονή, surfeiting—both found only here in the New Testament—and along with them "body" and "flesh," stand opposed to each other. This clause, therefore, contains a complete sense, and we must not look outside it for an explanation of the included words, "not in any honour." As we have seen, the first clause of the predicate (" having word indeed," etc.) needs no such complement. The clause "not... flesh" is a comment on the words, "unsparing treatment of the body." On this topic the apostle had not yet expressed his mind sufficiently. He has in verses 16, 20-22 denounced certain ascetic rules as obsolete, or as trifling and needless; but he has yet to expose the principle and tendency from which they sprang. He is the more bound to be explicit on this subject inasmuch as there were ascetic leanings in his own teaching, and passages in his earlier Epistles such as Romans 8:13; Romans 13:14; 1 Corinthians 7:1; 1 Corinthians 9:27, which the "philosophical" party might net unnaturally wrest to their own purposes. He could not condemn severity to the body absolutely, and in every sense. The Colossian rigorism he does condemn—
These two objections are thrown into a single terse, energetic negative clause, obscure, like so much in this chapter, from its brevity and want of connecting particles. In 1 Thessalonians 4:4 the phrase, "in honour," occurs in a similar connection: "That each one of you know how to 'gain possession of his own vessel" (i.e. "to become master of his body:" see Wordsworth and Alford on the passage; also Meyer's reference on Romans 1:24) "in sanctification and honor". The contempt of Alexandrine theosophists for physical nature was fatal to morality, undermining the basis on which rests the government of the body as the "vessel" and vesture of the spiritual life. Their principles took effect, first, in a morbid and unnatural asceticism; then, by a sure reaction, and with equal consistency, in unrestrained and shocking licence. See, for the latter result, the Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia (Romans 2:1-29. and 3.); in the Pastoral Epistles, the two opposite effects are both signalized. The rendering "value" given by Lightfoot and the Revisers seems to us misleading; τιμὴ means "value" only in the sense of "price," as in 1 Corinthians 6:20, and this surely is not their meaning. πλησμονὴ has been taken in a milder sense by the Greek commentators, Luther, and others: "satisfaction" "(legitimate) gratification." So the apostle is made to charge the false teachers with "not honouring the body, so as to grant the flesh its due gratification." But this rendering confounds the "body" and the "flesh," here contrasted, and gives πλησμονὴ a meaning without lexical warrant (see Meyer and Lightfoot). And the sentiment it expresses errs on the anti-ascetic side, and comes into collision with Romans 13:14 and Galatians 5:16. πλησμονή, in the LXX and in Philo, as in earlier Greek, denotes "physical repletion," and is associated with drunkenness and sensual excess generally. Hence we cannot admit the interpretation of Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, who make the "flesh" here the sinful principle generally, and understand "surfeiting" figuratively, supposing the apostle to mean, that the ascetic rules in question, while they dishonour the body, tend to gratify the carnal mind." This gives an idea true in itself, and agreeing with the sense of "flesh" in Galatians 5:11, Galatians 5:18, but out of place here, while it strains the meaning of πλησμονή (see Lightfoot's exhaustive argument). The preposition πρὸς does not help us, meaning "for" or "against," according to its connection. We combine Lightfoot's interpretation of πρὸς πλησμονὴν τῆς σαρκὸς with Wordsworth's and Alford's of οὐκ ἐν τιμῇ τινί. The saying of Philippians 3:19 ("whose god is their belly, and their glory in their shame") contains the same opposition of "honour" to "fleshly indulgence" as that supposed here, possibly suggested by the phrase, "surfeiting of dishonor" ( πλησμονὴ ἀτιμίας), of the LXX in Habakkuk 2:16. Here, then, the apostle lays hold of the root principle of the false teachers' whole scheme of morality, its hostility to the body as a material organism. Such a treatment, he declares, dishonours the body, while it fails, and for this very reason, to prevent that feeding of the flesh, the fostering of sensual appetency and habit, in which lies our real peril and dishonour in regard to this vessel of our earthly life.
Here we have a suitable starting-point for the exhortations of the next chapter, where the apostle, in Habakkuk 2:1-4, shows the true path of deliverance from sensual sin, and in Habakkuk 2:5-7 sets forth the Christian asceticism—"unsparing treatment" of the flesh indeed! The line of teaching adopted by the errorists may be illustrated by Philo's doctrine in his third book of the 'Allegories of the Sacred Law,' § 22: "'God saw that Er was wicked;' for he knows that this leathern burden of ours, the body—for Er, being interpreted, is leathern—is evil and always plotting against the soul; and it is ever under the power of death, indeed actually dead [comp. Romans 8:10]. Yet this all do not see, but only God, and those he loves. For when the mind [ νοῦς comp. note, Romans 8:18] becomes engaged in sublime contemplations and is initiated into the mysteries of the Lord [note, Colossians 1:26], it judges the body to be evil and hostile;" again ('On the Change of Names,' § 4): "Pale and wasted, and reduced to skeletons as it were, are the men devoted to instruction, having transferred to the powers of the soul their bodily vigour also, so that they have become, as we might say, dissolved into a single form of being, that of pure soul made bodiless by force of thought [ διανοία: see Colossians 1:21, note]. In them the earthly is destroyed and overwhelmed, when reason [ νοῦς: Colossians 1:18], pervading them wholly, has see its choice on being well pleasing to God." The writer has attempted an elucidation of this verse in the Expositor, first series, vol. 12. pp. 289-303.
HOMILETICS
Colossians 2:1-7.—Sect. 4
The apostle's concern for the Colossian Church.
Already the apostle has breathed out his "heart's desire and prayer to God" for these Colossians (Colossians 1:9-12), "unknown by face" to him (verses 1, 5), and yet so dear because of their faith and love (Colossians 1:4, Colossians 1:8; Colossians 2:6, Colossians 2:11-13; Colossians 3:1-3, Colossians 3:9, Colossians 3:10, Colossians 3:15), and the loyalty they have hitherto maintained (verse 5), and the objects of so much anxiety on account of the insidious and deadly nature of the assault being made upon their faith, of whose real character they seem to have been little aware. We expect, therefore, in this passage a recurrence of the strain of thought pursued in the prayer of the first chapter. We find a like prominence given to knowledge, the chief desideratum of this Church, and to the need of a Christianly instructed understanding as a safeguard against the subtleties and plausibilities of error. At the same time, the view now presented of this object has gained greatly in fulness and depth by the development of the apostle's argument in the intervening paragraphs of his letter. The teaching of this section we may summarize in the words of 2 Peter 3:18, as setting forth the nature and the elements of—
I. GROWTH IN THE GRACE AND KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. (2 Peter 3:2, 2 Peter 3:3, 2 Peter 3:6, 2 Peter 3:7.)
1. St. Paul has spoken of the. Church as "the body of Christ" (Colossians 1:18, Colossians 1:24), and so he must needs desire that its members may be knit together in love (verse 19; Ephesians 4:16; 1 Corinthians 1:10), Without such union the Church is no longer a body, and its members, broken and scattered, become an easy prey to error. The salvation of individual souls is but half the work of Christ. "He loved the Church, and gave himself for her" (Ephesians 5:25; Acts 20:28). He seeks to build the redeemed, regenerated units of mankind as "living stones" into "a holy temple" (Ephesians 2:20-22; 1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 3:17); to integrate them into the "one body" of which he is the Head and his Spirit is the Soul (Ephesians 4:3-6): comp. sect. 2, II. 4 (homiletics). Of this union, love is the bond (Colossians 3:14; Ephesians 4:2; John 13:34, John 13:35). In all true and lasting union amongst men some sympathetic affection must exist, either as a basis for the fellowship or as generated by it. Mere identity of beliefs or of interests will never hold men for long together. The heart must love or hate, must be attracted or repelled, in some degree, by every personality around it. And the union of souls in Christ, being the most deep and spiritual of any, must be thoroughly pervaded and determined by love. Moreover, the growth of Christian knowledge and the perfecting of personal character depend much more largely than we are apt to suppose, in this age of exaggerated individualism and selfish culture seeking, on the soundness and completeness of cur Church life, of our Christian social life. To St. Paul's mind the "perfect man" and the perfect Church—the perfection of the part and of the whole—are reciprocally dependent, and all but identical (Ephesians 4:11-16).
2. But love without knowledge, heat without light, will not suffice. As "faith, being alone, is dead" (James 2:17), so love in like condition is blind and easily falls into error. "I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment" (Philippians 1:9). The apostle declared that "God willed to make known to his saints the riches of the glory of his mystery" (Colossians 1:27); accordingly he desires for them "all riches of the full assurance of the understanding," "unto the knowledge of the mystery" (2 Peter 3:2).
3. Love and knowledge must bear fruit in practical obedience. Christ Jesus was received by the Colossians as "the Lord" (verse 6; Colossians 3:21; Colossians 4:1). He is a Master to be obeyed (Romans 14:9; John 13:13; John 14:15), as well as a Mystery to be known and a Saviour to be loved. In him we must walk. The whole conduct of life must be governed by his Spirit (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:25) and directed toward his ends (Philippians 1:20, Philippians 1:21; 2 Corinthians 5:15). He "in all things" claims to be "pre-eminent" (Colossians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 15:25; 2 Corinthians 10:5). Every desire, affection, pursuit, of the Christian must "acknowledge him to be the Lord." By such true obedience the soul grows in strength and security, and is ever being more completely "builded up in him" (verse 7. comp. Colossians 1:10).
4. And the root of this life of advancing knowledge and obedient love is faith. By this the soul is first "rooted in him" (verses 5, 12; Colossians 1:3, Colossians 1:23; Philippians 3:9; Ephesians 2:8; Romans 5:1, Romans 5:2, etc.). From this root springs love (Galatians 5:6), obedience (Romans 6:1-23.; Romans 8:3, Romans 8:4), satisfying knowledge (Ephesians 3:17-19), every good word and work (1 Thessalonians 1:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:16, 2 Thessalonians 2:17). If this fails, everything fails (Galatians 3:1-5). Whatever strengthens, comforts, and upbuilds the Christian, does so by ministering to his faith. A growing knowledge, a quickened love, a more steadfast obedience, enable his faith to strike deeper root—stablish him in his faith (verse 7). In this world he never ceases to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 4:18; 2 Corinthians 5:7); and his abounding in it is the greatest gain which the furthest advancement in the life of God can bring him. Yet faith, again, has its outward instrument and condition. It "comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). The Colossians are to be "stablished in their faith," "even as they were taught" (verse 7: comp. Colossians 1:5, Colossians 1:7). To that instruction they owe all they possess in Christ, even their own selves (Philippians 1:19).
5. And he who abounds in faith will abound in thanksgiving also. The more strongly the Christian believes in the Son of God and enters into the mysteries of his kingdom, the more joyfully and constantly will he offer his tribute of praise. This, too, is a fruit of faith—" the fruit of the lips" (Hebrews 13:15; Hosea 14:2), the only fruit of all his mercies which we can directly render to the great Giver. Of such thanksgiving, called forth by the contemplation of the "mystery of God" in Christ, St. Paul's own act of praise in Ephesians 1:3-14 is a noble example (comp. Romans 11:33-36; Romans 16:25-27; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; 1 Peter 1:3-5; Revelation 1:5-7; Matthew 11:25-28. See sect. 1, III. 2, homiletics).
II. A DANGER AND A SAFEGUARD. (Ephesians 1:4, Ephesians 1:5.)
1. There was one thing that specially endangered Christian life and the well being of the Church at Colossal. It was the charts of perverted eloquence (Ephesians 1:4). A clever tongue and a popular style are gifts by no means incompatible with the faithful and spiritual preaching of Christ; but they have their peculiar dangers for their possessor, and for the Church in which they are exercised. St. Paul appears to have admired gifts of this kind in Apollos, but he felt that a plainer and severer method became himself, in which the sheer might and majesty of the truth should stand forth without adornment of rhetoric or drapery of graceful diction that might distract attention from the all important theme of his address (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). The possession of such powers made the men whom he is denouncing at Colossae so formidable. Perhaps their very gifts had proved a snare to them; and there are indications in St. Paul's description of them (Ephesians 1:8, Ephesians 1:16, Ephesians 1:18, Ephesians 1:23: comp. Acts 20:29, Acts 20:30) of the arrogance and self-seeking spirit, and the intellectual dishonesty, into which men of popular powers are liable to fall
2. On the other hand, there was one specially hopeful feature in the state of this Church—the good order which it had maintained (Ephesians 1:5); contrast with 1 Corinthians 1:11, 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 11:2-18; 1 Corinthians 14:40. So far, these "deceitful workers" had not succeeded in disturbing the Church's unity or stirring up insubordination against its officers. In every organized body it is a first condition of strength and safety that its members should "obey them that have the rule" (Hebrews 13:17), should "all of them be subject one to another" (Ephesians 5:21; 1 Peter 5:5), each in his place and rank keeping step and time with the movement of the whole.
Colossians 2:8-15.—Sect. 5
The Christian's completeness in Christ.
I. A FALSE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. (Colossians 2:4, Colossians 2:8,Colossians 2:11, Colossians 2:16-23.) "Not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8) is the fatal sentence which the apostle pronounces upon the system of doctrine that was finding entrance at Colossal. However plausible in argument (Colossians 2:4) or lofty in its intellectual pretensions (Colossians 2:8, Colossians 2:23), however skilfully it may avail itself of the venerable rites of ancient faith or of the popular predilections and tendencies of the day (Colossians 2:11, Colossians 2:16, Colossians 2:18), and whatever the apparent sanctity and austerity of its professors (Colossians 2:18, Colossians 2:20-23), the religious system which sets him aside and professes to lead men into communion with God and to the moral perfection of their nature otherwise than "in him," must after all be, at the heart of it, "a vain deceit." For he is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," the Lord and Life of nature and the Light of men (Colossians 1:15-17; John 1:3, John 1:4), the "Beginning" of the "new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness;" he is simply "all things and in all" to the Church of God. All true philosophy, though standing on natural grounds and drawing its premisses from natural experience and intuition, yet, rightly understood, must needs harmonize with the Christian faith, and will be "according to Christ." For no two truths, however differently grounded or expressed, can really be contradictory. And the facts on which philosophy rests, the menial and material constitution of things concerning which it theorizes, "were created" and "consist in him" (Colossians 1:16, Colossians 1:17). "In Christ" must lie, therefore, the ultimate rationale of the finite universe. The Colossian error presented itself as philosophy, advanced on rational grounds, and claiming the attention of men of thought and culture within the Church. It inculcated the religious traditions of the Jew under the forms and methods of the Greek intellect, seeking to reanimate both by the aid of the new spiritual fervour and lofty moral aspirations of the Christian faith. There was nothing in itself blameworthy in such an attempt. Endeavours must be continually made, though they can never be final, to harmonize the current philosophy of the age with the Divine revelation as received in the Church. St. Paul himself makes large contributions in this direction. But those who take this work in hand should understand both sides of the question. This the Colossian errorists failed to do. They tried to fit Christ into some place in their preconceived philosophy, instead of allowing themselves to be led, as St. Paul would have taught them (Colossians 1:15-20), through Christ to a deeper and more sound philosophy. Hence their teaching, put forward as Christian truth and claiming to be the Christian theory of life, is condemned as "philosophy and empty deceit."
1. It was according to the tradition of men. It could claim only human authority for its principles. They were not found in Christ's doctrine, and had received no authentication from his lips (Galatians 1:11, Galatians 1:12), no Divine attestation or proof of their being "from heaven" (Matthew 21:25, Matthew 21:26; Hebrews 1:4). And any scheme of religion, whether calling itself "philosophy" or not, that is in this position, stands self condemned. "The world by wisdom knew not God" (1 Corinthians 1:21). What he is, how he is disposed towards the children of men, it is for him to say. They know full well that they have lost his favour and defaced his image in their souls; but how their recovery is possible is to them "past finding out." And therefore, to fix and measure the nature of God and the relations he may assume to us, "according to the tradition of men," is the height of ignorance and presumption. But Christ is "the faithful Witness," "the Word who was in the beginning with God" Revelation 1:5; John 1:2); and an authentic voice from heaven declares, "This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him" (Luke 9:35; John 1:18).
2. And such systems, leaving the clear and firm ground of obedience to the supremacy of Christ, are compelled to fall hack, in some form or other, on the rudiments of the world. Their advocates discover that the influence of human names and the force of general reasoning do not command the deference of the conscience or stir the spiritual emotions, are indeed without that "power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24, 1 Corinthians 1:25; 1 Thessalonians 1:5) which attends the word of Christ. They return, therefore, to the dead forms of old religions, putting, as they suppose, a new meaning into them. They are at once "advanced," and reactionary. They dress up the newest rationalism in the cast-off garments of faith's childhood. They combine a puerile ritualism, borrowing its forms and practices from the mere rudiments of an age of sensuous "feeling after God," with the most bare and abstract, the most arid and joyless, conceptions of his nature, or of a nature that is their substitute for him. The combination of "philosophy" and "circumcision" (John 1:8, John 1:11), of eloquent and subtle reasonings with minute and arbitrary rules as to "eating and drinking," and the physical culture of the soul (John 1:4, John 1:16, John 1:20-23), is after all not unnatural; and is apt to repeat itself, to a greater or less extent, in every attempt at religion that is not essentially spiritual, and that departs from the "one foundation, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11).
3. We must also mark the arrogant and overbearing temper of the new teachers at Colossae, their exclusiveness and their endeavour to form a personal party within the Church. They are men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). They would make simple Christians their booty (John 1:8). They set up to judge their brethren in matters of diet and outward observance (John 1:16). They assume, in this character of judges in the Church, to deny to Christian men, walking in faith and love (Colossians 1:4) and having Christ's peace within their hearts (Colossians 3:15), "the prize of their calling" (John 1:18), because they will not accept their notions and practices. They issue their decrees, "Touch not, taste not," etc., as if they were the very law of God (John 1:22, John 1:14). They are "humble" before the powers of the invisible world, and zealous to offer them a worship which they repudiate and abhor (John 1:15; Revelation 19:10; Revelation 22:9); but rob Christ of his honour (John 1:18, John 1:19, John 1:23), and are proud and self willed towards their brethren "whom they have seen." They heap upon the body invented and misdirected severities (John 1:23), while they are governed by "the mind of the flesh" (John 1:18). They aggrandize themselves, while they destroy the Church of God (John 1:19).
II. THE COMPLETE CHRIST OUR COMPLETENESS. (John 1:9-13.) For the Christian everything depends on what he thinks of Christ and makes him to be. Christ's glory is his security. His greatness and the greatness of our interest in him are commensurate. For "he gave himself for us" (Galatians 2:20). Our salvation is not merely a work of Christ, a something wrought out for us, and (externally) conferred upon us; it is "Christ in us" (Colossians 1:2; Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 1:16; John 14:20; John 17:26). And St. Paul virtually says, "In robbing Christ of his glory, your new teachers are robbing you of your salvation. By so much as his position is lowered, his fulness diminished, by so much is your spiritual life imperilled and impaired. Whatever is taken away from the completeness of his Person and the sufficiency of his mediation, is taken away at the same time from your assurance of pardon (John 1:13; Colossians 1:14) and your motives for holiness (Colossians 3:1, Colossians 3:2), from the ground of your faith (John 1:6, John 1:7), and the certainty of your heavenly prize (John 1:18; Colossians 1:23; Colossians 3:15). Whatever touches his person touches the centre and vital spring of your life in God, the anchor of your immortal hopes, and the foundation on which rests the whole fabric of the Church" (John 1:19; Ephesians 2:20-22; Matthew 16:15-18). 1.
2. But Christ's fulness does not simply "dwell in him," terminating in himself; it is an active, out flowing fulness, that seeks to make us in turn complete in him (John 1:10; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 3:19; Ephesians 4:8-13; John 1:14, John 1:16; John 17:22, John 17:23, John 17:26). The Judaizers of Colossae, as we understand their position, were urging on their Gentile disciples that they should complete their imperfect Christian state by circumcision and the adoption of various ritual observances (including worship of the angels along with Christ) and bodily austerities (John 1:16-23). These requirements they enforced by philosophical reasoning, under considerations of the symbolic meaning of ancient rites and the beneficial effect upon the soul of the regimen prescribed as cleansing and elevating to its proper level man's spiritual nature. St. Paul acknowledges by implication that, to a certain extent (but see John 1:23 b), the aim of this teaching is right; but the means it inculcates he utterly disallows, being "not according to Christ." The whole tendency of the system was to draw away attention and trust from Christ. Other objections, such as might easily present themselves, he does not care to argue.
III. THE BAR REMOVED: THE VEIL LIFTED. (Romans 6:14, Romans 6:15.) What the individual Christian now realizes for himself in Christ—his new life in God and the cleansing and sanctifying of his nature—is but the personal appropriation of that which was revealed to the whole world and addresses itself to the wants of human nature everywhere. It meets the conditions brought about by God's previous dealings with mankind (Colossians 1:23, Colossians 1:26-28; Romans 1:2-5; Romans 16:25-27; Acts 14:15-17; Acts 17:26-31; Hebrews 1:1, Hebrews 1:2). In two respects the apostle signalizes the earlier relations of men to God as imperfect: two hindrances there were to that "access to the Father" now secured (Ephesians 2:18; Romans 5:2; Hebrews 7:19; Hebrews 10:19-22)—hindrances congruous in nature and effect., felt in the quick and instructed religious consciousness of Judaism more keenly than elsewhere—that are "taken out of the way" in Christ. There was the law with its condemning voice for the conscience, and the angelic mediation with its terrors and its mysteries for the heart and understanding. The first guilty pair "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden" (Genesis 3:8); and a sinful, weak-hearted people, chosen to be brought near unto him, said, "Let not God speak with us lest we die" (Exodus 20:19). And God in mercy and in justice heard their prayer. He veiled himself behind his laws and his providence, behind the forms of nature, and the oracles of prophecy, and the progress of history, and the flashing forth of his glory in the angels of his presence, until Law, the παιδαγωγός," ordained through angels," should have done its work, "and the fulness of the times should be come" (Galatians 3:19-24; Romans 5:20).
1. Till then it was increasingly felt that the law with its decrees was against us. It "wrought wrath" (Romans 4:15). It brought us "under a curse" (Galatians 3:10). It stirred up and brought to its crisis in an agony of self despair the conflict between the better nature and the worse in man (Romans 7:7-25). It invoked death with its anticipatory terrors as the seal to its authority and the witness to our guilt (Romans 5:12-14, Romans 5:21; Romans 7:24; 1 Corinthians 15:56). The list of its commandments is but a catalogue of our offences, a tale of debts, not one of which we are prepared to meet, and yet which must be discharged "to the uttermost farthing." In Christ's cross, God has, at a stroke, wiped out the whole bill of our offences. He has removed it from between us and himself; and nailed it, with Christ's body, to the cross, where he bids us read, "There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1; Romans 3:26). This the apostle had taught already, and it is the glory of his earlier Epistles, addressed to Churches infested with Pharisaic Judaism and its teaching of salvation by works of law, to have established this truth in the understanding and the faith of the Church for all time.