Those Brought into the Kingdom of Christ
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which you have toward all the saints, 5because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Good News, 6which has come to you; even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; 7even as you learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, 8who also declared to us your love in the Spirit. 9For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy; 12giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; 13who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love; 14in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins;
Colossians is a letter the apostle Paul sent to the saints in Colossae around AD 62. Although he had never met them, Paul labored through this letter to set the church on a sound footing by making plain the supremacy of Jesus Christ. The name Colossae means “abandonment.” It was a town in Asia Minor, then a province of Rome, lying in the southwest of Phrygia, and it was also a key junction on the east–west road toward Laodicea and Syria.
Paul wrote to them because the gospel was in danger of being corrupted there: paganism and idolatry were commonplace in Colossae, and philosophies and religious ideas ran rampant. Within the congregation, a growing number had decided that faith in Christ alone was not enough; some worshiped angels, while others slid into asceticism and legalism and came to prize works above faith. Syncretism spread widely through those who diluted the truth. When Paul preached the cross of Jesus, they dismissed it as an event of the past. They dressed up their false gospel as a new word discovered through deep insight, and in this way they watered down the truth the saints held. But in this letter Paul delivered the sure word of truth so that the church would not be deceived by false teaching.
Together with Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon, this letter to the church in Colossae is one of the Prison Epistles. The term refers to the letters Paul wrote while he was held under arrest in Rome for two years, awaiting trial before the emperor. On his third missionary journey Paul stayed in Ephesus for about two years, and the church in Colossae was planted by Epaphras, who learned the word from Paul at that time. Paul wanted to visit the church in Colossae, but he never actually did.
Colossians 1:1
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
When heretics stirred up trouble in the church in Colossae, Paul introduced himself to the church as one who had become an apostle through the will of God. Because the will of God includes both his choosing and his purpose, Paul insisted that his apostleship rested entirely on God’s choice and decision. The letter, in other words, carries not the wishes of one man but the firm resolve of God himself. Paul had once been a legalist and a persecutor of Christians. So even after he received Christ and preached the true gospel, he could not hold his head high before the saints. If he was to teach them the truth, then, he had no choice but to say in every letter that his apostleship was God’s decision, God’s choice, and God’s will. Because they trusted him so little, he had to stress in letter after letter that God had chosen him for the salvation of the Gentiles. Yet Paul had met Christ face to face; he was already a man born again, and he had brought many souls to stand complete before God.
The gospel is Christ himself. Unless we are made one by the love and the word of Christ, we cannot fight the powers of darkness and win. That is why we must be born again in Christ. The grace of forgiveness we have received is a blessing we would not trade for anything in the world, and the peace we have in that grace is the assurance of salvation and the hope of heaven.
Colossians 1:3
3We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
When Paul introduced God as the Father of Christ, he was teaching that God is not only Christ’s Father but the Father of all of us who are in Christ. The atonement, in which God made Jesus the atoning sacrifice, is the grace by which he rescued every soul from death through Christ. We who have received new life in Jesus, who paid the price of sin, have become children of God through Christ, and now we call God our Father. Jesus is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the Almighty. Because he understood this, Paul longed for the church to lean on the only begotten Son of God and not on its own strength. The peace we enjoy in grace, calling God Father because of Christ’s sacrifice, is a privilege and a blessing the world can neither give nor know. Paul prayed constantly that the Colossians would share in this blessing. Prayer is our duty as God’s people and a calling that goes without saying. Prayer for the salvation of souls is how we keep company with God, and it is also how wisdom and grace reach us. In Paul’s day no one could preach the gospel without staking their life on it. So when Paul heard that those he had won at the risk of death were being shaken by heretics, he prayed with all his might to protect them. His one desire was that they would discern the spirits and resist the temptations of Satan, which came disguised as good.
Colossians 1:5
5because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Good News,
The hope laid up in heaven is a hope no one can hold without a wholehearted faith in Jesus Christ. Such hope is a wisdom that comes from a firm faith: that Christ, the mystery hidden from before the ages, has now, in the fullness of time, borne the cross. Only when we trust that Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for us will we stand unshaken by the world’s temptations and the false teachings of heretics. Those who have given themselves without reserve to the gospel will one day receive the fruit of the tree of life in paradise. Those who hold firmly to this truth can know, even on this earth, the joy of living the life of heaven with Christ. The apostle Paul could not put into words all the grace he had received from God, but he longed for the Colossians to keep the faith to the end. He urged them to endure even when people mocked and persecuted their faith, and he wanted them to shake off every false gospel that tempted them and to remain in Christ. As Paul knew well, Satan’s temptations and the persecution of others have to be borne in one’s own body, which is why overcoming fear is never easy. But if we rely on Christ in our hope toward heaven, the day will surely come when we see God face to face and are comforted. To understand Paul’s wisdom, we must first come to know what is true and gain real knowledge. As we labor to live according to God’s will, we will someday understand all that Paul has been saying.
Colossians 1:7-8
7even as you learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, 8who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
Epaphras taught the church in Colossae the precious gospel just as he had learned it from Paul in Ephesus. Scripture is handed on in this way: those who believed first teach it, and those who learn it go on to teach others. Learning the word earlier does not make one’s faith fuller than that of those who learned it later, yet God has seen to it that the gospel is passed on through people. As his people learned and taught the word, God made them wise and made their faith grow. So when we teach the word, we must pass on the truth honestly and nothing else, and we must live upright lives that set an example for other believers. Teaching the word is never easy. If the gospel we preach is to become grace to others, our own lives must first be pure. And only when we show our faith can those who hear the word meet God. Because it is God’s gracious word, of course, some may come to faith the moment they hear it, but the faith of the one who brings it remains absolutely necessary.
Judas Iscariot was a disciple of Jesus, but when he failed to live by the word, he could no longer make use of the holy word he had been given. Yet the word Judas preached had belonged to God from the beginning, so among those who heard it there would have been some who came to faith, and some who were saved. If we know that the word saves souls, then whenever we have the chance to speak it, we must preach the gospel with the greatest humility and fear. Only then will God make those who carry the word wiser still and give them strength and power for mission.
Because Epaphras preached nothing but Jesus Christ, who is the truth, Paul commends him as a faithful servant of Christ, a worthy servant who enlarged the Kingdom of God. As a center of trade and travel, Colossae offered a prosperous life, but heresies and philosophies flourished there as well, so it must have been a hard place for Epaphras to plant a church. Antiochus III of Syria had once forcibly resettled two thousand Jews there, which gave the Jews a strong influence in the city. Spreading Christianity among a people so steeped in the law was an uphill task. Epaphras consulted Paul about the faith of his congregation and asked him to pray. This shows how deeply he loved the church in Colossae and its people. He was also a faithful co-worker who attended Paul in his Roman prison and endured hardship alongside him. To help a prisoner like Paul was to put himself in danger, yet he risked his life to serve Paul in this ministry. It was because of people like him that Christianity grew.
Colossians 1:9
9For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
Paul knew the church in Colossae well from Epaphras, so he never ceased praying for them. He did hope they would live in peace in Christ, but his greater desire was for them to know the word accurately, with spiritual wisdom and understanding. He prayed that they would not have a faith that only hears with the ears in church, but would understand the truth, live by the word, and be sanctified. In Colossae, where heresy ran wild, anyone who would become a child of God first had to gain wisdom from the word of Scripture.
Friends, when you buy something, you probably read the instructions carefully first. In the same way, the work of God should be done only after we know the Bible. If you know clearly why God has called you, what Christ has to do with your life, and what you must do to serve God, you can make his good will visible. In the Bible are written God’s will, his wisdom, and the way of escape from evil temptations, so we must make a point of reading it. Scripture says that pride goes before destruction. If we cannot connect God’s purpose in creation, worked out over countless ages, and the sacrifice of Christ with our own lives, we cannot help growing proud. God has set it out plainly in the Bible so that his people may come to faith.
Acts 20:17-20
17From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the assembly. 18When they had come to him, he said to them, “You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you all the time, 19serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears, and with trials which happened to me by the plots of the Jews; 20how I didn’t shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house,
As soon as Paul landed at the port of Miletus, he sent to Ephesus, about 50 kilometers away, and called for the elders.
Paul had a special concern and love for the church in Ephesus, and there was much he wanted to tell them one last time. The Holy Spirit had told him that in Jerusalem a situation far worse than his present troubles awaited him, so he knew that affliction lay ahead. Since he would never see them again, he wanted to give the Ephesian elders the truth one final time and build up their faith.
Paul told the Ephesian elders that because God had called him to be an apostle, he had persevered with tears to the end. Even when he was tried by the plots of the Jews, he said, he had endured, and he had declared to the church the glory of God, the atoning work of Jesus, and the working of the Holy Spirit, holding nothing back. He would never see them again in this life, he told them, but he earnestly begged them to live as he had lived, keeping the faith. If you had been there with the elders, listening to the apostle Paul, what would you have resolved? Could you have told him with confidence not to worry, because, like the Ephesian elders, you believe that Jesus became flesh, bore the cross to atone for sin, rose again, and ascended into heaven?
If you know the truth, you must preach the unchanging word as Paul did. As he closed his address, the apostle Paul made a truly startling confession: he was clean from the blood of all men. To be clean from people’s blood means that, having preached nothing but the truth, he would not be ashamed whenever he stood before God. He was saying that if, after hearing nothing but the truth, you drift away from God, the responsibility is yours. From this we can see that after Paul received the gospel, he was faithful to his calling and never strayed from the way of truth. If Paul proclaimed the gospel rightly, he need not answer for the sins of those who hear the truth and refuse it.
Colossians 1:10
10that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
We do not walk with God in order to win the world’s blessings. To know God, to trust in Christ, and to be led by the Holy Spirit — that life is itself the blessing. Those who live this life of goodness know the peace and rest God gives, and they come to have a faith that gives thanks in all things. Paul longed for the church in Colossae to have such deep spiritual experience and be sanctified.
Colossians 1:13-14
13who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love; 14in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins;
The power of darkness means sin, death, and the power of Satan. Satan blinds the minds of believers and of people in general to keep the light of Christ’s glory from shining, but darkness cannot hold back the light. Cast out for the sin of opposing God, Satan has seized the power of the air and now works in the children of disobedience. God went so far as to give his own Son up to death in order to forgive sin, yet anyone who does not believe in Christ has no choice but to live forever as Satan’s slave.
Ephesians 2:1-2
1You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, 2in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;
When God saw the people of Israel suffering under Pharaoh, he made Moses lead them out of Egypt. Just as he led Israel into the land of Canaan, he has rescued us from the power of Satan and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love.
The Kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of light and an everlasting kingdom, with not so much as a pinhole through which the power of darkness could strike. The key that opens that kingdom is the gospel. The gospel is this: that Jesus, who came in the flesh, conquered sin and death and rose from the dead, and that after preparing a place for us he will come again. Those who hear this good news and still do not believe will bear the responsibility themselves.
Friends, there is nothing in this world for which we can be more thankful than the salvation Jesus Christ has given us. If we cannot give thanks for what plainly calls for thanks, we are not mature believers. Those who are not thankful cannot have wisdom, understanding, or faith, and so they will not see the glory of God either. God has won, and he has given that victory to us. When you live trusting that the victory is yours, you can live a life of goodness, and you can take up not only your own salvation but also the calling to bring salvation to those around you. The apostle Paul longed for the church in Colossae to overflow with grace and peace through a full faith in Christ. Such faith can discern heresy, and it does not depart from the word of truth.
I hope that you, too, will always overflow with the grace and peace the church in Colossae knew, that you will hold fast to the salvation you have received from Christ, and that you will go further still, and take up the calling each of God’s people shares: to preach the gospel.