in every good work, and increasing 'in the knowledge II. of God; 2 strengthened 3 with all power, according to the might of his glory, unto all patience and long12. suffering with joy; giving thanks unto the Father,

and the three which follow define four ways in which they are to live worthily of the Lord and to please God. In every good work. This defines the way in which they are to bear fruit, namely, in every form of good work. It includes all outward activity. And increasing in the knowledge of God. This refers to progress in the inner life which may all be comprehended in the expanding knowledge of God. As was to be expected, the stronger word for knowledge is here used. The participle may be more closely related to the preceding one, bearing fruit, than with the two following; that is, it may be in a way subordinate to it with this meaning: Bearing fruit in every form of good work and so, by that means, increasing in the knowledge of God. If any man wills to do his will he shall know," etc. Obedience is, at least, an organ of knowledge.

II. Strengthened with all power. This participle has a certain hortatory force from the preceding context, as the other participles in this group have; and so it is middle rather than passive voice, and it means "getting yourselves strengthened" or at any rate, "letting yourselves be strengthened." At the same time that you bear fruit and increase in the knowledge of God, you are to get yourself continually strengthened or to let yourself be continually strengthened, or, more strictly, empowered or made powerful (as the margin) with all the power that is available, all the power that God has to give. According to the might of his glory. That is, power is to be supplied in a manner correspondent with the might that befits the glory of God. Unto all patience and longsuffering. This equipment with divine power is not, as we might have expected, said to be given with a view to deeds of prowess and heroism, but for the practice of the passive virtue of patient endurance and perseverance as opposed to cowardice or despondency, and humble meekness and forbearance as opposed to retaliation or revenge. These really put the greater strain on the Christian's strength, while the possession and exemplification of them work a deeper impression and conviction in its beholders than brilliant deeds of heroism. With joy. And all this not in a spirit of sourness or sullenness, but of joyfulness. For this they would need the empowering that God works, but it would be a demonstration of overcoming the world.

12. Giving thanks unto the Father. This is the last of the four

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who made 1 us meet to be partakers of the inheritance 13. of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the king14. dom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins:

* Some ancient authorities read you.

ways in which they are to walk worthily of the Lord and to please him. He here calls God the Father in order to stimulate thanksgiving by reminding the Colossians of what he is to them, as he does in the words immediately following by reminding them of what he has done for them, namely, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance. We may well be thankful to him who is our Father, to him who has fitted us for the inheritance of the saints, as he has fitted the inheritance for us (verse 5). Of the saints in light. The phrase in light seems to be in a sense local — the lot of the saints which is in the realm of light. 13. Who delivered us out of the power of darkness. This and the following clause define how the Father qualified us for the inheritance of the saints and so add other reasons for thankfulness to him. The preceding mention of light suggests the darkness of their pre-Christian condition. But not only had they been in a state of moral darkness, they were in a sense under the power of darkness (cf. Lk. 22:53). This vivid way of conceiving darkness as a power Jesus had used. And translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love. But the Father had done more than deliver them out of, he transported them into. Or, to speak more exactly, he delivered them from under one dominion and brought them under another. For there is here not only the antithesis of darkness and light; there is also the antithesis between one dominion and another the dominion of darkness, the dominion (kingdom) of him who is the Son of the Father's love. This antithesis is stated with greater clearness by Paul in his address before King Agrippa (Acts 26: 18). The double antithesis is well brought out by Lightfoot: "We were slaves in the realm of darkness; God the Father rescued us from this thraldom. He transported us thence and settled us as free citizens in the kingdom of his Son the realm of light."

14. In whom we have our redemption. The clauses of the preceding verse contain a description of the actual experience of the Colossians (and Paul: note the first person plural). In this verse he presents their deliverance as redemption, gives the ground of that redemption, and further identifies it as the forgiveness of our sins. Our redemption is grounded in Christ, the Son of the Father's love; and it is actualized in individual experience in the consciousness of forgiveness.

IV. THE NATURE, RANK, AND ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF THE SON, THROUGH WHOM REDEMPTION HAS

COME, I 15-20

15. who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn

1. He is the visible manifestation of the invisible (unknowable) God, I: 15a

15. In the preceding verses (13, 14), Paul has recalled to the Colossian Christians, about whom Epaphras has given him full information, the facts of their own experience: They have been delivered from the power of darkness; they have been deported and have come under the gracious sway of the Son of God's love; they have had actual experience of the redemption which has its ground in him, receiving the forgiveness of their sins. So much, at least, you know about him through the facts of your own experience, Paul would say. But I will tell you more at length who and what he is, so that you may not be misled by the false teachers there, who would fain turn you away from him and persuade you that it is necessary to trust in other mediators. I will show you that he is supreme and all-sufficient, and that, because all the plenitude of deity is in him. The image of the invisible God. The word "invisible" is here clearly the antithesis of image, so that the meaning is, who is the visible embodiment, incarnation, manifestation, of the invisible God. The present tense in this sentence does not limit Paul's statement to the exalted Christ, as some hold. The statement is one of general scope: The fact holds good of Christ that he is the image of God. The whole passage views Christ, not "divided" into preincarnate, incarnate, and exalted, but as one Christ in his undivided totality, so to speak. The thought of Paul is contained substantially in John's gospel: "No man has ever at any time seen God. . . He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The firstborn of all creation. He is the one born before all creation. The word creation is not the partitive genitive, which would imply that Christ was part of creation himself; it is the genitive of comparison after the word "first" in firstborn. There are two instances of this in Jn. 1: 15, 30. In later Greek the word "first," which is a superlative, is used with the genitive where the comparative of the same word might have been expected (Thayer). Moreover, notice that, in contrast with all other things and beings in heaven and on earth, Christ is born, not created. He is thus in nature different from all else, just as a woman's child, which is born

16. of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created

of her, differs from something that is made by her. The word (firstborn), then, implies that in some way, inscrutable and incomprehensible, Christ is derived from God, the Father. This is involved in the word "only begotten," also, in Jn. 1: 18. The word "firstborn" is used in Hebrews also (1:6). "When he bringeth in the firstborn into the world."

2. He is the ground, the agent, and the goal of creation, the head and upholder of the universe, 1: 16, 17

16. For in him were all things created. Here is the proof of his priority to all creation, namely, that in him creation had its origin, its ground, its realization; which is to say, that apart from him and but for him, there would have been no ground of creation, no motive for creation, no justification of creation, and no creation. The emphasis on the words "in him" is exclusive it was in him and not in any other that creation had its ground. "The conditioning cause of creation resided in him " (Abbott). And what is this but what we call "The Christian View of the World"? This relation of Christ to creation is acceptable to our reason and reasonable to our understanding. Blot out Christ and creation becomes a failure, a blunder, a crime. "Apart from Christ there would have been no creation, with him creation was a necessity" (Haupt). In the heavens and upon the earth. What Paul would say is this: When I said all things I meant all things in the most unqualified, absolute sense, with no limitation or exception. I meant the whole universe, all that is, not only what is on earth but what is in the heavens, not only what is visible but all that is invisible, such, for example, as those beings that compose the hierarchy of the unseen, by whatever name or title they may be designated, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers. There is no doubt that Paul has reference here to those angelic beings or Gnostic eons, as the case may have been, which the propagandists of error believed in and preached among the Christian believers of Colossæ. All things have been created through him. Not only was Christ the conditioning cause of creation, the raison d'être of creation, it was through his agency that creation actually took place. It was through his agential act or activity that the cosmos emerged out of vacuity. If it is reasonable, as we have seen, that without Christ there would have been no justifying reason of creation and no creation, why should

17. through him, 18. all things,

and unto him; and he is before and in him all things consist. And

That is, hold together.

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it be thought a thing incredible that he should have accomplished it? It is not any greater to be the agent of creation than to be the conditioning cause of creation, and no harder to believe Christ was the one than the other. And unto him. This does not mean that it was for Christ's advantage or glorification or any such thing. It means that creation took place with reference to what Christ was going to be to it and do for it in the course of the ages. It was effected for his future relation to it and his future effects upon it. Of course, it was for the revelation of himself, for he was brought out of the hidden depths and made known both in creation and redemption, of which process incarnation was a part. Thus Christ is the cause, the agent, and the goal of creation. "Tout a été créé à cause de lui, par lui, et pour lui." All men are coming to see, some slowly and confusedly to be sure, that the kingdom of God, as pictured by Christ, is the goal of history, the final end of creation, indeed; and we know that Christ himself is the creator, the life, the centre, the head of this kingdom, which being translated into contemporary thought and interpreted in contemporary terms means, "The Christian View of the World" the world was made for the kingdom.

17. And he is before all things. The word "before" does not here denote priority in time. That would be only a tame repetition of what has already been strongly said in verse 15. This difficulty is probably the explanation of the curious construction of Lightfoot, followed by Westcott and Hort, who take "is" as the predicate with the meaning "he exists," a construction which is indefensible for at least three good reasons. The word "before" is here used of rank. This occurs in classical Greek, though there is no certain instance of it in the New Testament. What Paul here asserts is that he, Christ (with emphasis), is still at the head of the universe, as he was when he created it at the beginning. This is an advance in thought upon anything that has previously been said, and it aptly and admirably prepares the way for the declaration that follows, namely, and in him all things consist. Not only is he still the head of the universe, he is the cohesive force that holds it together in its cosmical completeness and order, "maintaining the relations of things and combining them into an ordered whole so that there is cosmos and not chaos." This also is an advance on what Paul has said before and follows with beautiful appositeness the assertion that he is still the head of all things.