And over all these things (put on) love, which (thing) is the bond of perfectness (Colossians 2:2; Ephesians 4:2, Ephesians 4:3; Ephesians 5:1; Philippians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.; Galatians 5:13-15, Galatians 5:22; Romans 13:8-10; 2 Peter 1:7; 1 John 4:7-21; John 13:34, John 13:35).
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. "love" is the substance or substratum of the Christian virtues; in Galatians 5:22 it is their head and beginning; here it is that which embraces and completes them. They imply love, but it is more than them all together.
They lie within its circumference; wanting it, they fall to pieces and are nothing. (For συνδεσμός ("bond" or "band"), comp. Colossians 2:19.) In Ephesians 4:3 we have the "bond of peace" (see next verse).
Love is the bond in the active sense, as that wherewith the constituents of a Christian character or the members of a Church are bound together: peace, in a passive sense, as that wherein the union consists.
"Love" (compare "covetousness," Ephesians 4:5) is made conspicuous by the Greek definite article—being that eminent, essential grace of Christian love (Colossians 1:4, Colossians 1:8; Colossians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.
; 1 John 4:16, etc.). "Perfectness" is genitive of object, not of quality: love unifies the elements of Christian goodness and gives them in itself their "perfectness" (Romans 13:10). (For "perfectness," see note on "perfect," Colossians 1:28; and comp.
Colossians 4:12.) Against Galatian teachers of circumcision, and Corinthian exalters of knowledge, the apostle had magnified the supremacy of love (Galatians 5:6; 1 Corinthians 8:1-3); and so against the Colossian mysticism and asceticism he sets it forth as the crown of spiritual perfection, the goal of human excellence (comp.