The Faith Log: Colossians

Showing posts with label Colossians. Show all posts

Monday, January 30, 2012

Living from a Higher Realm

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. (Colossians 3:1-2)

Paul has already settled the issue of whether believers in Jesus the Messiah have been buried and raised with Him. Earlier, he affirmed that we have been “buried with Him in baptism” and likewise “raised with Him” through the faithful work of God (Colossians 2:12). Now Paul is building on the significance of that. So we can take the “if” here as “since.”

Since, then, those who believe in Jesus have been raised from the dead with Him, we are now to seek those things which are “above.” This is a reference to heaven, of course, but it in the way many people are accustomed to thinking about it — that is, as some place way far away, at the edge of the universe, perhaps, and off in the vagueness of the future. In that sort of view, heaven is mostly a destination and does not have much to do with earth, except that God or one of His angels pops in every now and then to work some little miracle. But that is not at all what Paul has in mind.

No, Paul conceives of heaven as a realm that is very close to us, a realm of which we are already a part. In Ephesians, he speaks of it as “the heavenlies.” In the heavenlies, we have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). In the heavenlies, we have already been raised up with Jesus the Messiah and seated with Him at the right hand of the Father (Ephesians 2:6). In the heavenlies, we are part of the manifold wisdom of God being made known to the principalities and powers — the same powers that were disarmed by Jesus at the cross (Ephesians 3:10). It is not a distant realm but a higher one, in both position and priority.

This is now what we are to seek, the things that are of that realm. The Greek word for “seek” here is the same one used in Matthew 6:33, where Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” There, Jesus was speaking of the kingdom; here, Peter is speaking of the King — Jesus. We are to seek those things which are above, where Jesus the Messiah is seated at the right hand of God. For Paul, this is enthronement. We can see this in his letter to the Jesus believers at Ephesus, where he speaks about the working of God’s mighty power,

which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:19-23)

To seek the kingdom and the things that are above is not an act of curiosity or idle speculation. We seek them in order to find them, that we may know and benefit from them.

Paul adds this: “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” This is to be our focus now. The lens through which we view everything. The perspective from which we think about and relate to everything. Because we are new creatures who are no longer under the authority of principalities and powers. We no longer have to look at things through the old lens of those broken powers. We can begin to see things as heaven sees them.

Seeking the things above is not about abandoning the earth but is for the sake of the earth. Jesus taught us to pray for the kingdom of God to come and the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are now to look at everything from the perspective of that higher realm so that it may become a reality on earth. Heaven is not our final destination, earth is. We have been raised with Jesus in the spiritual realm, but one day we will receive the resurrection of our physical bodies as well, just as Jesus’ own physical body was raised from the dead, and we shall dwell upon the earth. For heaven and earth will become one.

Heaven is not our final destination, it is our source. Right here, right now. We come from heaven, we live from heaven. We live on the earth but with the life of heaven at work in us. That is why we are to seek the things that of that realm, to set our thinking on how heaven operates. Because it corresponds with who we really are in Jesus and who He is in us. Should we not view things from the perspective of where we are now seated with Jesus? Then we will be able to manifest the reality of heaven on earth.

(See also, Heaven Now and Pursuing Heaven for the Sake of Earth, and my book, The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth: Keys to the Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Matthew.)

Focus Questions

What is your conception of the realm of heaven?
What is your conception of the relationship between heaven and earth?
In what ways might the reality of heaven be made manifest on earth, that is, the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven?

The Focus of Our Faith
Paul’s Letters to the Jesus Believers at Colosse
Bite-Size Studies Through Colossians
by Jeff Doles

Preview with Amazon’s “Look Inside.”

Available in paperback and Kindle (Amazon), epub (Google and iTunes) and PDF.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Live as Free

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations — “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using — according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:20-23)

By “if,” Paul does not question whether the believers at Colosse had died with Messiah — he has already taught them that they have been “buried with Christ in baptism” (Colossians 2:12). He is challenging them to live according to that truth. What happened to Jesus at the cross is counted by God as having happened to us, in our place and for our benefit. Once we were dead in the sinfulness of a fallen human nature. Now, having died with Jesus, we are dead to it. Our “side slips” (transgressions) have been forgiven, the regulation that condemned us has been wiped out and the principalities have been disarmed. “Basic principles of the world” is a reference back to those powers, the demonic influences that so often manipulate human systems governments, cultures and economies.

Since those who are in Jesus are dead to all these things, why should we live as if we were still subject to them? They now have no authority over us. Yet religious teachers were coming around the believers at Colosse and teaching them that they must follow ascetic practices and regulations. Such rules and regulations are not from God but are the “commandments and doctrines of men.” Paul could be referring to Isaiah 29:13, where God says,

Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths
And honor Me with their lips,
But have removed their hearts far from Me,
And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men.

These things might appear to be wisdom, according to how the world thinks and acts, but it is not the wisdom that comes from God. It is “self-imposed religion.” It presents itself as humility, neglect of the body as a way of overcoming the sinful nature, but it actually has the opposite effect — it ends up indulging the sinful nature through the insidiousness of pride.

The problem is, “Don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t touch” is a focus on things, on regulations, on religion, on ourselves, and not on Jesus the Messiah, who has already overcome the sinful nature and defeated the satanic powers. Our focus and our thinking, then, needs to match up with that new reality, then we will learn how to stand in that victory.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Keeping Focus

Imagine this: You have run the race and you have won. You are just about to receive the prize, when a judge comes over, taps you on the shoulder and says, “This does not belong to you — you have been disqualified.” That is the picture Paul paints for us here:

Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. (Colossians 2:18-19)

The believers at Colosse had come to faith in King Jesus the Messiah. They had been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through the faithfulness of God. They were in the “winner’s circle.” But then certain teachers came with elements of Judaism, folk religion and esoteric philosophies and told them that was not enough. That they needed to have special hidden knowledge, certain ascetic practices and unusual revelatory experiences if they were going to know the fullness of God. Otherwise they would not be qualified for the reward.

Paul’s answer to all that was, to paraphrase, “Don’t let them rob you of what it means to be the Church!” These teachers submit themselves to angels, through fasting and acts of self-denial, invoking them for protection from demonic powers. They present themselves as humble but then go about bragging how they have been initiated into the “deeper mysteries” and how they have seen visions. Their egos have been inflated by the kind of thinking that comes from fallen human nature. They are caught up in themselves.
But those are symptoms. The real problem is this: They are not connected to the Head. Imagine a body without a head, still trying to carry on and function — the proverbial “chicken with its head cut off.” That is Paul’s assessment of these false teachers.

They are not connected to the Head of the body. That is, they have no vital relationship with Jesus, who is the head of the Church (Colossians 1:18). They are focused on themselves, their philosophies, their practices, their experiences — but not on Jesus.

Paul’s teaching is that everything we need is found in Jesus the Messiah. Divine fullness does not come from angels or visions or secret knowledge or self-abasements. We already have all the fullness of God in Jesus the Messiah. “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him” (Colossians 1:9-10). Anything that pulls our focus away from Him robs us of knowing His completeness, and our completeness in Him. He is the head, and it is only in Him that we grow together as His body, with all the life that comes from God.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Out of the Shadows

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)

“So” — that is conclusion, the therefore that follows from the preceding verses (and some versions do translate it as “therefore”). It reaches back as far as verse 8, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”

Dietary rules and the calendar of festivals were important in the Law of Moses. The dietary laws were one way of setting apart the people of Israel as the people of God. The festivals reminded them of past deliverance and how God had created them as His covenant people, but they also pointed forward to the final deliverance God had for them when He would set the world right through Messiah.

However, these things were all “shadows.” Their significance was not in themselves but in what they pointed to — that which cast those shadows. Once the substance comes, the shadow is no longer the focus. The substance, Paul says, is Jesus the Messiah, and He has now come, bringing God’s redemption into the world. He not only brought forgiveness for all our “side slips” (transgressions), He also wiped out the indictment that accused us — the Law! He took it and nailed it to the cross (v. 14). What is more, He disarmed all the principalities and powers — the demonic entities behind the human rulers and systems that crucified Him — and made a “public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (v. 15).

“Therefore,” Paul says, “Let no one judge you.” Do not let anyone condemn you or look down on you because of what you do or do not eat or drink, or whether or not you join in the traditional festivals or celebrations. To follow his analogy, do not let anyone drag you away from Jesus the Messiah back into the shadows that pointed to Him in the first place. That is exactly what the false teachers, with their blend of Jewish folk religion and ideas of the occult, were trying to do. It was a misuse, by the principalities and powers, of the Law of Moses and brought only condemnation and bondage.

But Jesus the Messiah has delivered us from all that, and our focus, like that of the Law and the prophets of the Old Testament, is to be set firmly on Him.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Freed from the Powers

Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. (Colossians 2:15)

At the cross, Jesus took on everything that stood against us: our sin, the Law, the principalities and powers — everything — and defeated them all. He released us from our sins. He wiped out our indebtedness. He took the law that condemned us and nailed it to the cross. Now Paul adds that Jesus disarmed the “principalities and powers” and triumphed over them.

The “principalities and powers” (or “rulers” and “authorities,” as the ESV and LEB have it) were thought by the ancient Hebrews to be the spiritual entities or supernatural powers behind earthly kings and kingdoms (see, for example, Daniel 10:12-13 regarding the “prince” of Persia). It was such entities as these that false teachers were presenting as keys to divine understanding, but they lead only to oppression. However, Jesus has disarmed them, stripped them of their power, by the power of God. The apostle John said, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

It is through the cross and the resurrection that these entities have been defeated. See how Paul prayed for believers, that they might know “the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:19-21).

King Jesus has made a “public spectacle of them, triumphing over them.” This is a victory parade, a triumphal procession, such as kings or generals would make after a great conquest. They would lead the defeated foe, plundered and powerless, along with the spoils of war, for all the people to see.

The powers have been broken and we have been set free. “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place” (2 Corinthians 2:14).

Friday, September 30, 2011

The Great Wipe Out

Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:14)

Paul tells the Jesus believers at Colosse that God made them alive together with King Jesus the Messiah, “having forgiven you all trespasses,” or as the UNT (The Unvarnished New Testament) puts it, “freely letting us off for all our transgressions.” The Greek words for “trespass” and “forgiven” are both interesting.

But there is more to it. Having forgiven all trespasses, yes, but also, “having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us.” The use of the word “handwriting” in this context has a technical meaning, commonly referring to a legal document, a bond, a certificate of indebtedness. The debt we owed was great and the document against us was against us, “hostile to us” (LEB).

Paul is being metaphorical here, of course, but he does have something in mind with the writ of “requirements.” The Greek word is dogma and, in the New Testament, was used of decrees and ordinances. The ESV translates it as “legal demands.” The Good News Bible calls it “binding rules.” What Paul is talking about is the Law of Moses. The Law itself is holy and right and good (Romans 7:12). But for those who violated it — which is everyone — it held condemnation.

But look at what God has done in Jesus the Messiah. He not only wiped out the debt note, He wiped out the ordinance along with it! He cancelled it, erased it, washed it all out. “He obliterated the arrest warrant with our names on it that had been in force against us, with all its dogmas” (UNT).

How did He wipe it all out? He nailed it. To the cross. In the body of Jesus. Jesus took it all off of us and put it on Himself. “Hauled it right out of the way and nailed it to the cross” (UNT).

Now it no longer stands against us. It no longer has a voice to condemn us. We are dead to it (Romans 7:4) and it is dead to us. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8:1-2).

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Side Slips Forgiven

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. (Colossians 2:13)

The Greek word for “trespasses,” paraptoma is an interesting one. Strong’s Greek Dictionary calls it a “side slip,” which puts me in mind of Paul Simon’s old song, “Slip Sliding Away.” Vine’s Expository Dictionary calls it “a false step, a blunder.” The Bauer-Ardnt-Gingrich Greek Lexicon calls it a “false step.” Our English word “trespass” comes from a compound Latin word that literally means to “pass across.”

In the Bible, “trespass” refers to stepping outside the boundaries of God’s law, whether by unintentional error or by willful transgression. The result is death, and it affected us all, just as we were also all affected by what Paul calls “the uncircumcision of your flesh” — human nature in rebellion against God and devoid of the life that comes from Him (see Circumcision of the Heart). The good news is that though we were once dead in these things, we have been made alive together with King Jesus the Messiah. This is possible because, in Jesus, God has forgiven us all our trespasses.

The Greek word for “forgiven” here, charizomai, is not the one we usually find in the New Testament, though Paul does favor it in his letters. The root word is charis, “grace” or “favor.” Charizomai speaks of what is given or granted or released because of grace. Our English word “forgive” derives from the Latin word, perdonare (“pardon”), which means to give thoroughly or wholeheartedly. So it is a good translation here. In Jesus, God has graciously pardoned us, released us from all the ways we have violated His commandments.

There is more to it, as we will see in the next verse. But I will talk about in the next post. I am trying to keep my posts shorter, although that can be difficult because Paul’s letter to the Jesus believers at Colosse is so rich.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Buried with Jesus, Raised with Jesus

Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. (Colossians 2:12)

Paul quickly moves from one sign to another, from circumcision to baptism. In verse 11, he contrasted physical circumcision with a non-physical one, a circumcision of the heart. This circumcision is one Jesus does for us and is “made without hands.” It is the “putting off the body of the sins of the flesh.” That is, it frees us from the sinfulness of human nature, which is put off, stripped from us like old clothes, because it is dead and does not have the life that comes from God.

All that is left for a body that is dead is to be buried. Which brings us to verse 12, where Paul explains to the believers at Colosse that they were buried together with Him in baptism. Baptism was practiced in the Old Testament as “various washings” (Hebrews 9:10), rituals of purification. But in the New Testament it is given new meaning for the community of Jesus believers. It signifies the spiritual circumcision that Jesus has performed for us. It says that we are dead to sin and that we have been buried together with Jesus, as if in the tomb. But that is not all, for we have also been raised with Him.

Pay close attention to tense, voice and mood in this verse: “Buried with Him” and “raised with Him” are in the Greek aorist tense, indicating completed action. Both are in the passive voice, indicating what was done to and for us, not something we did for ourselves. However, the moods are different. “Buried” is a participle — “having been buried,” as the Lexham English Bible has it — and “raised” is in the indicative mood. The two go together: having been buried with Him, we have also been raised with Him. Baptism signifies both!

Just as Jesus was buried but did not remain in the grave, because God raised Him up, so baptism shows that that we, too, have been “buried together with Him” and also “raised together with Him.” Baptism is a physical sign indicating a spiritual reality, but there is also a physical resurrection coming, of which the resurrection of Jesus’ physical body from the dead is the beginning (Paul details this in 1 Corinthians 15). So baptism also prophesies our future bodily resurrection even as it portrays Jesus’ own bodily resurrection.

However, we have already been raised spiritually with Jesus. How was this done? The NKJV says it was “through faith in the working of God,” as do many other versions. So it is usually taken to mean that God raised us up through our faith in the working of God, or that we appropriate this truth through our faith. Indeed, we do come to God by faith. “By grace you have been saved through faith,” Paul says (Ephesians 2:8). However, although the Greek text can be translated as “through faith in the working of God” it can also be “through the faith of the working of God.”

So there is another way of approaching this. Actually, there are a few different ways. One is to take it as Weymouth translates it in his New Testament in Modern Speech: “through faith produced within you by God.” Adam Clarke’s commentary also treats it this way, as faith produced by the working, or energy (the Greek word for “working” is energeo) of God. This would go along with what Paul teaches us elsewhere, faith is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8) and comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

Yet there is still another way to translate this phrase, and the one I am most inclined to. The Greek word for “faith,” pistis, can also mean “faithfulness,” and I think this is one place where that fits better. The emphasis here is not on us but on Jesus, in whom all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9), and what He is doing in us. It seems to me, then, that what Paul has in mind here is not so much about our faith, even though that faith comes to us from God, as it is about God’s faithfulness.

Having been buried together with Jesus, we have also been raised up together with Him through the faithfulness of God’s work. Baptism is an outward, visible sign of this inward, invisible condition.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Circumcision of the Heart

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ. (Colossians 2:11)

Here we see one of the issues of the Judaizing influence that was trying to make its way into the Church at Colosse: the matter of circumcision (removal of the foreskin). In the Old Testament, circumcision was a token of the covenant God made with Abraham (Genesis 17:11-14) and was passed down to his descendants as a sign. Every male Israelite was to be circumcised. It marked them out as belonging to the chosen people.

Now there were Jewish teachers coming into the churches, saying that Gentiles who believed in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, needed to be circumcised, and this would make them full and complete members of the people of God. That is contrary to the heart of the gospel, which is that we are made complete in Jesus the Messiah, who is ruler over every principality and power, and in whom all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:10).

And yet there is still a circumcision for all those who are in Jesus. As important a sign as physical circumcision was in the Old Testament, and one commanded by God, God was much more concerned with what was going in the heart, the inward reality of which circumcision was meant to be the outward sign:

Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. (Deuteronomy 10:16)

And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30:6)

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your hearts. (Jeremiah 4:4)

The physical rite was the cutting away of the flesh and symbolized faithfulness to the covenant God made with Israel. Removing that little fold of skin, however, could not produce what it signified. But Jesus has accomplished for us what physical circumcision never could. Paul says, “In Him you were circumcised.” The Greek text has it in the aorist tense and passive voice. The aorist tense means that it has been completed; the passive voice means that it was something done for us, not something we did for ourselves.

This circumcision is one “made without hands.” Not a physical one performed by a man with a knife, but a circumcision of the heart. “Putting off the body of the flesh,” is how Paul has it here (in the oldest Greek manuscripts). The NIV says, “the putting off of the sinful nature.” Paul frequently used the word “flesh” (Greek, sarx) to refer to human sinfulness, the state of those without the life and power of God at work in them. The circumcision Jesus performs, the circumcision of the heart, frees us from the deadness of our fallen human nature and breathes new life, divine life, the life of the Spirit of God, into us.

In the Old Testament, circumcision was a sign of who God’s chosen people were, through whom He would bring the redemption of the whole world. Now what matters is not circumcision or uncircumcision, but “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). What Paul means is faith in Jesus, God’s Messiah, Redeemer of the whole world, His love working in and through us.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

His Fullness and Ours

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (Colossians 2:9-10)

There are two mysteries Paul is speaking of here and the second is dependent upon the first: In Jesus the Messiah all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form. And in Him, Jesus, we have ourselves been made full. Paul’s concern is that we be not robbed — plundered! — of these twin truths. For it is in these, not in Jewish ethnos and ritual or pagan mysticism, that we discover all fullness. And it is “fullness” (Greek, pleroma) that the false teachers were offering, through ascetic practices and the worship of angels, but were not able to deliver.

All the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. This goes back to Colossians 1:19, where Paul identifies it as a matter of God’s sovereign pleasure that all the divine fullness should dwell in Jesus. Now he tweaks that to emphasize that this fullness dwells bodily, in human form. John says the same thing, though in a different way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). The nature of this fullness is such that Jesus declared, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father … Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me” (John 14:9, 11).

Everything God is can be found in Jesus. Indeed, everything God is, Jesus is. All the fullness of humanity and all the fullness of divinity are in Him. He is not half and half, half human and half divine; He is fully both, fully human and fully divine. He is not the demigod the false teachers might have supposed Him to be; He is the God-man!

Jesus is filled with all the fullness of God, and those who belong to Jesus are filled with Him. Earlier, Paul revealed the mystery, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:29). Jesus is in the Father, and we are in Jesus, and being in Jesus, we are “complete.” The Greek word (pleroo, from which comes pleroma) means to be full or fulfilled and is set in the perfect tense and the passive voice. The perfect tense refers to something that has done; the passive voice means that it has been done to or for us, not something we have done to or for ourselves. So, in Jesus we have been made full, with the result that we are now — already! — full and complete in Him.

What the false teachers offered, through the tradition of men and the elemental spirits, but could not deliver, has been done for us in Jesus the Messiah. And now Paul adds a stinger: This same Jesus is the head over all principality and power. This goes back to Colossians 1:16, where Paul teaches that Jesus is the creator of all things “visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.” All of them, including whatever angels and spirits there may be, have been created through Him and for Him. He is Lord over them all, and He is in us and we are in Him.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Don’t Be Plundered

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (Colossians 2:8-10)

“Beware.” The Greek word behind it literally means “to see,” but Paul uses it here to warn the Jesus believers at Colosse: “Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism or high-sounding nonsense” (J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English). “Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything” (The Message). There are people who would “cheat” you — literally, to take you captive and carry you away as spoil — to plunder you!

Paul does not mean that all philosophy is “vain deceit,” he has a particular one in mind. The Greek word philosophia literally means “love of wisdom” (philo, love and sophia, wisdom). The false teachers Paul warns about presented themselves as possessing a special, secret wisdom not available to everyone. They learned to speak persuasively but their philosophy was hollow and deceptive, a toxic mixture of Jewish and pagan folk religion, mystical tradition and occultic teaching that was very strong in the region.

“Tradition of men” and “basic principles of the world” (stoicheion) is how Paul calls it. The “basic principles” are elemental spirits of nature, the worship of which is what these false teachers were promoting (as we will see later). The Message puts it this way: “They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings.”

Paul chided the believers at Galatia over the same sort of issue: “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements [stoicheion], to which you desire again to be in bondage?” (Galatians 4:9). These were pagan ways of thinking, dressed in Jewish garb and presented as Christian faith. But they were seriously out of alignment with who Jesus is and what He came to do.

That is how such false teachers would plunder us, by pulling us away from Jesus. They cannot pull Him away from us, because He will never deny His own. But they can waste our lives away — our life with Him — by “high-sounding nonsense” and “endless arguments that never amount to anything.” That would be a great tragedy, because it is in Jesus, not in human traditions or elemental spirits, that all the fullness of God dwells. And it is in Him alone that we are “complete,” literally, have been made full. In other words, we share in His fullness!

Be very watchful, then, and don’t let yourself be plundered and pulled away from Jesus as the center of your faith and life.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Rooted and Built Up in Jesus

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6-7)

Paul wants the Jesus believers as Colosse to continue living according to who Jesus is: both Messiah and Lord. They have begun in that faith and now he wants them to “walk it out.”

Verse 7 elaborates. Paul speaks of being “rooted and built up.” Mixing these metaphors is not new for Paul, and that should probably tell us something about how important they are for our understanding. In Ephesians 3:17, he speaks of believers being “rooted and grounded in love.” In 1 Corinthians 3:9, he says, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.”

“Rooted” is an agricultural metaphor; “built up” is an architectural one. Craig Keener, in The IVP Bible Background Commentary says of this verse, “The Old Testament prophets used this language for Israel (if they obeyed God, they would take root, be planted, built up, etc.), and early Christians probably took this language from their preaching of the Old Testament.” Use of this kind of language identifies the New Testament Church along with obedient Old Testament Israel as the people of God.

We should pay attention to the tenses of these words, though they are not readily apparent in most English translations. Wuest’s New Testament: An Expanded Translation, however, captures them well: “having been rooted with the result that your are firmly established, and constantly being built up in Him and constantly being established with reference to the Faith.”

In the Greek text, the word for “rooted” is a perfect, passive participle. The perfect tense means that it is something that has already been done, with results that continue. The passive voice means that is some that has happened to us. God is the one who roots us in Jesus.

The Old Testament often spoke of the people of the Lord as being “planted.” For example, those who delight in His instruction are like trees “planted by rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in its season” (Psalm 1:3). In another psalm, the writer sings about God’s relationship with Israel, “You have brought a vine out of Egypt; You have cast out the nations, and planted it” (Psalm 80:8-9). The prophet Isaiah speaks of Messiah, who will come to comfort all those who mourn in Zion, “that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (Isaiah 61:3). This is the work of God in our lives.

In Colossians 2:7, the word for “built up” is a present, passive participles. The present tense, in Greek, speaks of a continuing process. Paul shifts metaphors with “built up,” which gives us a picture of construction. We are God’s building, “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20) But we are a particular kind of building: “in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21-22). We are God’s temple, being built together (not just as individuals but as God’s people) to be a dwelling place for Himself. Peter picks up the same theme in his letter, teaching us that we, “as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house,” with Jesus as the chief cornerstone (1 Peter 2:-6). Again, this is the work of God in our lives.

The word for “established,” bebaioo, is also a present, passive participle, indicating a continuing process. It is a word about firmness and stability, and it is used here of being stabilized in the faith. Not just “in faith” but “in the faith.” The content of faith is as important as the act of believing it, and the content Paul has in mind is the Messiah, Jesus, the Lord. The NIV translates bebaioo as “strengthened.” In stability there is strength. As we continue to “walk” in Jesus, we will become stronger in the faith, being strengthened by God. We will not be confused or wavering in faith, nor susceptible to those who would try to charm us away from Jesus.

“As you have been taught.” The believers at Colosse had received the good news about the Lord Jesus from Epaphras (Colossians 1:7). This is the same faith Paul taught, and it stands in sharp contrast to the message being brought by the Gnostic teachers and Jewish mystics who worshipped angels instead of Messiah.

Paul adds a thought about thanksgiving: “abounding in it [the faith] with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is about being appreciative for what one has received: in this case, the good news of Jesus the Messiah. Thanksgiving is important to the stability and strength of our faith, for what we do not appreciate we will eventually become discontent with and let go.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Walking It Out

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. (Colossians 2:6)

The Jesus believers at Colosse were holding steady together. Paul encourages them now to continue in the path on which they have begun. They had “received” Jesus the Messiah. The Greek word, paralambano, indicates that Jesus, that is, the message about Him, had been presented to them and that they had taken hold of Him by faith. They had learned the gospel, the “good news” about the Messiah from Epaphras, who most likely learned it from Paul.

Now they were to “walk” in it, or more accurately, in Him, Jesus. “Walk” is a metaphor for how one lives. It is a continuous process, one step after another in a consistent manner. It is progressive, not regressive. That is, it is moving forward, not turning back or straying from the path. It is active, not passive. That is, it is something we do, not something that happens to us. When we receive Jesus, we are in Him. That part is passive, part of who we are. But then, being in Him, we proceed in accordance with who He is and who we are in Him. We walk it out.

This particular construction, “Christ Jesus the Lord,” notes A. T. Robertson, in Word Pictures in the New Testament, is not used anywhere else by Paul. “Hence it is plain that Paul here meets the two forms of Gnostic heresy about the Person of Christ (the recognition of the historical Jesus in his actual humanity against the Docetic Gnostics, the identity of the Christ or Messiah with this historical Jesus against the Cerinthian Gnostics, and the acknowledgment of him as Lord).”

Docetism (from the Greek word dokeo, “to seem”) taught that Jesus was purely spirit and that his physical body merely “seemed” to be real. Cerinthianism made a distinction between Jesus and Christ, teaching that Jesus was merely human but that the Christ descended upon him at his baptism. Paul however, in calling Him “Christ Jesus the Lord,” identifies Him all in one — in His humanity, His divinity and His messianic identity.

It is in the fullness of this Jesus, who is man, messiah and Lord, that we now live. Having received Him by faith, we continue in the truth of who the Messiah, Jesus, the Lord, really it. Hold steady to that and do not allow yourself to be charmed away from Him.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Holding Steady Together

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. (Colossians 2:4-5)

The Greek word for “deceive” here is paralogizomai, which means to miscalculate, reason falsely or mislead. “Beguile” is how the King James Version puts it. The word for “persuasive words” is pithanologia, which appears only once in the New Testament. According to A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, by Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich, it speaks of the “art of persuasion” and is used here of “plausible (but false) arguments.”

False teachers can be very charming, feeding you and deceiving you with arguments that sound good on first hearing but fall apart on closer inspection. That is why Paul wanted the Jesus believers at Colosse to be woven together in love and have the confidence that comes from knowing and experiencing God in an intimate way through Jesus the Messiah.

Most of these believers Paul had probably never seen in person but he knew about them through Epaphras, who related to him their faith in Jesus and their love for all the believers everywhere. So, though he was not with them “in the flesh,” he was able to identify with them “in the spirit” and perceive their spiritual condition. And what he saw in them filled him with joy. He rejoiced to see their “good order” and the “steadfastness” of their faith in the Messiah.

The Greek word for “good order” is a military term, which Paul uses metaphorically. It means that they held the line without any breaches. The word for “steadfastness” is similar. They were holding steady in their faith against the attacks of the enemy, maintaining a solid formation like a Roman phalanx.

It is important to remember that a line is not a line of one nor can one man form a phalanx all by himself. Paul is not writing to a collection of individuals but to a community of faith. They were not each one left to fend for themselves but were all in this together. They were a tight band of believers with a common love for one another and a common faith in and love for the Lord Jesus. And there was great strength in that.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Woven Together in Love

I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s Great mystery. (Colossians 2:2 The Message)

Paul had an intense desire — and concern — that the Jesus believers at Colosse be “woven together into a tapestry of love.” Because he wanted them to know and experience, in a very intimate way, the revelation of God in Jesus the Messiah. The one does not come without the other. Until we are bound to each other in love, we will not really know or understand God — because love is of God and God is love (1 John 4:7-8).

God Himself is “woven together” in love. The early Church Fathers have a special word to describe the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: perichoresis. It is a Greek word made up of two parts: peri, which means “around,” and choresis, from which we get the word “choreography.” It was used to describe the interaction, the interrelationship, the divine dance of the three persons of the Godhead. Love in love with love.

They mystery of God, which is not hidden away for a select few but is made available to all, is revealed to us in Jesus the Messiah by the Holy Spirit. Divine love throughout. God so loved the world that He gave His Son (John 3:16). “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” Jesus said, and then He did. And “the fruit of the Spirit is love” (Galatians 5:22).

If we would know and experience and enjoy and dwell in this mystery, we must enter into a life of love for each other. Understand, though, that this love is not something we must work up on our own. We cannot. But it comes to us as a gift from God, who is love, and who is the giver of all good gifts. Our part is to yield to it and let it work in us and through us. As we submit to divine love, God will weave us into a rich tapestry and we will experience that love which has existed from eternity.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Hidden Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge

For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and* of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:1-3)

Paul had an intense concern for the Jesus believers at Colosse and Laodicea and the entire region. They had been targeted by Gnostic teachers who promoted a “secret” wisdom and knowledge to which only a few attained. Paul was determined to protect them from this error. Not that he did not want them to have wisdom and knowledge — he very much desired that they should experience the “mystery” of God it in all its fullness. But the Gnostics taught that God was a distant deity whose fullness was too pure for the material realm and was separated from us by a hierarchy of angelic beings.

“As many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” It almost seems like Paul says this as a dig against this false teaching. For the Gnostics, only the spiritual realm was good; the material world was not merely corrupt but was inherently evil. So Paul gets in their face, so to speak, with reference to material things: his face and his flesh. Ha!

Paul wanted the believers at Colosse to “know” (Greek, eido, to “see” or “perceive”) what “conflict” (Greek, agon, from which we get “agony”) he was going through on their behalf. This was a serious matter and he was engaged in a magnificent purpose. Let me share with you how various translations have put it:

In order that their hearts may be cheered, they themselves being welded together in love and enjoying all the advantages of a reasonable certainty, till at last they attain the full knowledge of God’s truth, which is Christ Himself. (Weymouth New Testament)

How I long that you may be encouraged, and find out more and more how strong are the bonds of Christian love. How I long for you to grow more certain in your knowledge and more sure in your grasp of God himself. May your spiritual experience become richer as you see more and more fully God’s great secret, Christ himself! (The New Testament in Modern English, J. B. Phillips)

Know that I’m on your side, right alongside you. You’re not in this alone. I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s Great mystery. (The Message)

There is one purpose here but with three facets:

That they may be encouraged, comforted, cheered.
That they may be knit together, woven together, bonded together, even welded together in love.
That they may have a full, rich “knowledge” (Greek, epignosis) of God, that is, to know Him not just in theory but in experience.

This full, rich, experiential knowledge of the Father comes to us in Jesus the Messiah. He is the “mystery” of God. For the Gnostics, divine mystery was a secret knowledge revealed only to a few, but for Paul, the mystery of God was something that was once hidden but is now revealed to everyone — it is the “good news” of the gospel.

Paul’s emphasis is ever and always on Jesus. It is in Him — not in the esoteric teachings and angelic hierarchies of the Gnostics, but in Jesus alone — that we find all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and come to experience, with confident assurance, the fullness of knowing God.

* The NKJV adds “both of the Father and,” but there is no basis for this in the earliest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Gospel of God’s Pleasure

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

The good news of the gospel is that it pleased the Father that all the fullness of divinity should dwell in Jesus the Son, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

The good news of the gospel is that it pleased God to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth to Himself. When Jesus came, He announced that the kingdom of heaven, a.k.a, the kingdom of God, was now at hand — present on earth. All His works on earth were a demonstration of the authority and power of the kingdom, and He taught the disciples to pray, “Kingdom of God, come! Will of God, be done on earth as it is in heaven!”

The good news of the gospel is that it pleased God to make peace — shalom, wholeness, oneness — through the violence of Jesus’ blood shed on the cross. There the battle was fought and there the victory was won.

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight — if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. (Colossians 1:21-23)

The good news of the gospel is that it pleased God that those who were once alienated from Him, whose thoughts and works were against Him, should now be reconciled to Him in the flesh-and-blood body of Jesus. It pleased God that through Jesus’ death on the cross, we should be presented holy, blameless and above reproach before Him, now and at the last day.

The good news of the gospel is that it pleased God that we should participate in this reconciliation, not by the futility of human striving, but purely through faith in Jesus, in whom all the fullness of God dwells in human flesh. This is the “hope” of the gospel. In the Bible, hope is not about wishful thinking; it is not tentative or uncertain. It is about positive expectation, joyful anticipation.

The gospel of God’s pleasure presents us with this good news, this hope, this expectation: The wholeness of God’s shalom in the world — the reconciliation of heaven and earth, of God and humanity, through faith in King Jesus the Messiah.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Taken By Surprise

Although I have been working through Paul's letter to the Colossians pretty much in a linear fashion, I would like to bounce back to something that impressed me recently as I read through it once again.

Paul, an apostle of the Messiah, Jesus, by the will of God. (Colossians 1:1 JVD)

Nobody was more surprised than Paul that he should be an apostle of Jesus the Messiah, and that this was the will of God. He had once been very violently opposed to Jesus and those who followed Him as Messiah. This was back when Paul was known as Saul.

As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. (Acts 8:3)

Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1-2)

But then, of course, he had his “Damascus road experience” — which was the original Damascus road experience. He had a dramatic encounter with Jesus. The story is told in Acts 9. As Saul came near the city, a bright light shone around him and he fell to the ground. He heard a voice speaking to him.

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

“Who are You, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

“Lord, what do You want me to do?”

“Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Saul, his eyes blinded by that moment, continued on to Damascus, not knowing what would happen next. There was a man there named Ananias, whom the Lord Jesus directed to go to Saul, lay hands on him and restore his sight. Ananias did not understand why, because he had heard of how Saul persecuted Jesus’ followers at Jerusalem. The Lord answered, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

Ananias went and Saul was healed. Immediately Saul went to the synagogues of Damascus and began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God. He became part of the very movement he had originally intended to rub out there. Now he himself became a target and the Jewish leaders there plotted to kill him. But the believers there help him get away safely.

Saul went back to Jerusalem to join with the believers there, the ones he had once persecuted. But his former reputation was still with him, and the disciples at Jerusalem feared him. They did not believe he was now one of them. But Barnabas took him before the apostles and told them what had happened, how Saul had seen the Lord on the road to Damascus, how he had preached the name of Jesus boldly about Jesus there and was himself persecuted for it. Then the believers at Jerusalem received him as a disciple.

So now, in his letter to the believers at Colosse, Paul identifies himself, as he does in many of his other letters, as an apostle of Jesus the Messiah. He who had once rejected Jesus and persecuted His followers was now sent by Jesus to represent him before the nations.

It was the will of God, and no one was more surprised by it than Paul.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

His Energy Energizing Me

To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily. (Colossians 1:29)

Paul’s purpose in preaching the good news about Jesus was to present everyone perfect in Him. Everything in him was focused on that goal. This little verse is loaded with the power by which he went about that work. “To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily. “To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.”

The Greek word for “labor” means to toil to the point of fatigue.
The word for “striving” is agonizomai, which is where we get our English word “agony.” We often think of it as intense pain, but Paul is actually talking about intense effort.
The word for “working” is energeia, from which we get the English word “energy.” It is the ability or strength to operate efficiently and get things done.
The word for “work” is the verb form, energeo.
The word “mightily” actually translates two words that are more literally rendered as “in power.” The Greek word for power is dynamis. When Paul uses it, it is almost always about supernatural power and usually about the miraculous power of God.

Paul labored hard and put forth great effort for the sake of Jesus and the Church. Yet, it was not his energy that did the work. His whole life now was about Jesus the Messiah and the life of Messiah living in him. He was energized with the energy of Jesus! “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). This energy was the supernatural power of God at work in and through him to accomplish mighty things, which he could never have hoped to do on his own. His whole ministry was a display of God’s mighty power through Jesus the Messiah.

And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:4-5)

For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. (1 Corinthians 4:19-20)

The energy that worked in Paul so powerfully was not just for him but is available to every believer in Jesus. For it is the His power, the power by which He did so many miraculous things. Indeed, it is the power that raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father. It is the power of the Holy Spirit, which He promised to the Church at Pentecost (Acts 1:8). Paul prayed for the believers at Colosse that they would be “strengthened with all might,” according to this glorious power” (Colossians 1:11). It is power of Jesus living in them — and us! — as well as in Paul.

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All blog entries are copyright by Jeff Doles on the date they are posted, unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.

After January 1, 2015, unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are taken from the New International Version. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Before January 1, 2015, unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are taken from the New King James Bible. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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