Colossians;- How God released us

In Paul’s time, Colossae was a small town in Asia Minor, rather less important than Ephesus. Paul’s letter to the Colossians shares many themes with his letter to the Ephesians. The two letters would have been written under similar circumstances (the later stage of his life, when he was out of the region) and for similar reasons. So these description of what God has done for us will certainly overlap with the statements made in Ephesians.

In the second chapter, beginning with v8, Paul warns them not to be drawn astray by human tradition and the STOICHEIA of the universe. I will have to return to the question of what that much-disputed Greek word means. This warning is based upon the principle that we should be following Christ instead, because of what he has done for us.

What Christ has done for us is founded upon what Christ is, as explained in the first chapter. “In him, the whole fullness of God dwells bodily”, and he is the head of all rule and authority (vv8-9).

Therefore he has done for us all that is necessary to give us fullness of life. We have been circumcised, dedicated to God, in a spiritual sense. That is, we have “died together with Christ” on the Cross, and in that action our “body of flesh” has been cut off from us. Our baptism is the symbolic experience of dying together with him and being raised together with him. As a result, we are now alive in God, our sins having been forgiven (vv11-13).

There follow two classic images. The first is about what happened to the “bond” which made us into debt-slaves, which “stood against us with its legal demands” (v14). This stands for the legal code of Moses. God cancelled this by “nailing it to the Cross”. Whatever commentators may say about the inscription which Pilate had placed on the Cross, and about the way that legal documents were nailed in public places, the real point here is that Christ “took up” the bond and it was nailed to the Cross and “put to death” there in his person. This is the same point that is being made in Galatians, when Paul says that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians ch3 v13). When Christ died, the legal claim of the law died with him. This verse ties in with or perhaps inspired the traditional assumption that Jesus was attached to the Cross by nails (a modern suggestion is that his arms would have been tied there).

The image of v15 is the Roman “triumph”. A victorious general would enter the city, followed by a long procession of his captives, for the gratification of the crowd. Here it is the “principalities and powers” who have been defeated.

Because of what he has done for us, we need to hold fast to Christ, who is the Head (v19) “from whom the whole body grows, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments”. This idea that the body grows outwards from the head is also found in Ephesians ch4 v16. This is one of the points that modern scholars will seize upon if they are trying to prove that one letter was “borrowing from” the other. I don’t think there’s much in it., though. Any teacher who frequently presents the same arguments will begin to repeat himself in his wording. I have been known to re-use my own sentences or whole paragraphs, on the principle that I found the best way of putting it the first time round, and anything that is worth using once is worth using twice.

It is more interesting to compare this image with the other Ephesians image, of Christ as the corner-stone from whom the whole building grows (Ephesians ch2 vv20-21). Both images are expressing the same personal relationship, and they are both slightly incongruous, for different reasons. It is appropriate that a building should start from a corner stone, but we don’t expect that building to be growing organically. On the other hand, it is appropriate that a body should grow organically, but we don’t expect the head of the body to be the starting-point. It’s hard to find a metaphor that gets both points right, but I suppose they cover both aspects between them.

He is the substance, human tradition is the shadow. As far as I can tell, Paul is talking mainly about Jewish tradition. In v16, he encourages the Colossians not to allow people to judge them on questions relating to food or drink, or religious festivals or new moon celebrations or sabbaths, which would all come from the laws of Moses. Similarly the regulations which have no genuine value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (v23), such as “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”, could also be derived from the laws of Moses.

In v18, he warns them off the kind of spiritual guide who insists on worship of angels and takes his stand on visions, “puffed up without reasons by his sensuous mind”. Many modern scholars are eager to find signs of “early Gnosticism”, but I think this too is derived from the Jewish culture of the time. There are indications in the New Testament that contemporary Jews were emphasising the status of angels. They were trying to show respect for their God by distancing themselves from him, denying the possibility of direct contact, and introducing intermediaries. I still think, incidentally, that this was the side-effect of their experience of the Persian empire, when their human ruler was a distant and unapproachable figure. So Stephen testifies to a belief that the laws of Moses had come to them “delivered by angels” (Acts ch7 v51). He gives this as a reason why they should have kept it, but Paul quotes the same point as a reason why the laws of Moses were inferior to something received directly (Galatians ch3 vv19-20). The first two chapters of Hebrews go to great lengths to explain how the Son is superior to the angels. This may have been necessary the authority of the angels was supposed to support the authority of the laws of Moses, Though the more conservative Jude (vv8-9) thinks that the devaluing of angels can be carried too far.

But there is also the much-debated claim (v20) that we have died to the STOICHEIA of the world. The “rudiments”, as the AV calls them. The same word appears in Galatians (ch4, v3&v8), which is a letter urging resistance to the Judaizers, and I’m convinced that this is the same argument.

The word originally applied to the letters of the alphabet, as ranked in rows. A secondary meaning was the basic “elements” of the material world, as Greek physical science understood them. The RSV freely translates “elementary spirits of the universe”, which implies a claim that regulations were being imposed by secondary powers. This comes from the modern fashion of looking for signs of “early Gnosticism”. But I think we need to think of these regulations as “elementary” in the educational sense, referring to the laws of Moses in contrast with the better understanding of God’s will offered through Christ. In that case, the claim that we have “died to” these elemental things in Christ is only repeating the claim of Galatians ch2 v19, that we have “died to” the law.

The reference to “philosophy” in v8 may suggest that some speculative thinking is involved, but I don’t think this speculation has moved very far from its Jewish roots.

a reply to: DISRAELI2

Papias, a Christian bishop of Hierapolis, Phrygia in Asia Minor about the year 130, collected and analysed the "sayings and deeds of the Lord", and yet he was unfamiliar with the gospels. He also appears to have been unaware of St Paul's Epistles even though he lived a few miles from Colossae.

I've been digging into Paul's letters lately, and the connections between Colossians and Ephesians are truly eye-opening. I often find myself pondering what it means to follow Christ in a world full of distractions. His reminder of Christ's fullness resonates deeply. It's like those moments when I gaze at christian wall art and feel a sense of peace amidst life's chaos.