The Pulpit Commentary
Vers. 1 — 1. — Section IV. The Apostle's Concern for the Colossian Church. So far the contents of the letter have been of a general and preparatory character. Now the writ«r begins to indicate the special purpose he has in view by declaring, in connection with his concern for the welfare of the Gentile Churches at large (ch 1. 24—29), the deep anxiety which he at present feels respecting the Colossian and neighbouring Churches.

Ver. 1. — For I would have yon know how great a strife I have on behalf of you and those in laodicea (ch. iv. 12, 13; 2 Cor. xi. 28, 29 ; Rom. i. 9— 13 ; Phil. i. 8, 25—30 ; 1 Thess. ii 17, 18 ; Gal. iv. 20). The apostle has dwelt at sucli length and bo earnestly upon his own position and responsibilities (ch. i. 24 — 29) thut the Colossians may feel how real and strong is his interest in their welfare, though personally strangers to him (see next clause). His solicitude for them is in keeping with the toil and strife of his whiile ministry. " I would have you know;" a fan iliar Paulme phrase.(l Cor. xi. 3 ; Phil, i. 12; Rom. i. 13, etc.). 'HAinoi/ ("how great") has, perhaps, a slightly exclamatory force, as m Jas. iii. 5 (only ether instance of the word in the New T» stament), and in classical Greeb. For "strife," see note on "striving" (ch. 1. 29): the energy and abruptness of language characlerizing this second chapter hear witness to the inward wrestling which the Colossian difficulty I'Ccasioued in tne apostlu's mind. (On the close connection of Colussse with Laodicea, comp. ch. iv. 13—17, notes; also Introduction, § I.) The danger which had come to a head in Coloosae was doubtless threatening its neighbours. The words, and as many as have not seen my face in (the) flesh (ver. 5; oh. i 8; Ro.... i. 11; Gal. i. 22; Acts XX 2.5), raise the question whether St. Paul hail ever visited ColosstB. The laniiiiage of ih. i. 7 (see mte) laisis a strong presninption Kgaiiist hi.-- heing the fou der of thi.- Church, ami the narrative of the Acts scarcely admus of any visit to tliis region in former missionary journeys. Theodoret amongst tl\e Greeks, followed by our own Lardner and s few recent oritiCB, contended th*t the apostle distinguishes here between Colossians and Laodiceans (or at least the former), and those who had not seen his face. But the disjunction is grammatically harsh and improbable (see EUicott). (On the general qnestion, see Introduction, § 2.) The apostle is the more anxious for this emlangered Church, as the gifts that his presence might have conveyed (Rom. i. 11) wem wanting to them. He says, " In flesh," for " in spirit " he is closely united with them (ver. 5 ; rh. 1. 8 : comp. 1 Cor. V. 3, 4). The object of his strife on their behalf is —

vers. 1 — 4, shows the true path of deliverance from sensual sin, and in

Vers. 1 — 7. — Sect. 4. The apostle's concern for the Cohnsian Church, Already the apostle has breathed out his " heart's desire and prayer to Gud " lor these Colossians (oh. i. 9 — 12), " uTiknown by face " to him (vers. 1, 5), and yet so dear bt cause of their faith and love (ch. i. 4, 8 ; ii. 6, 11—13 ; ill. 1—3, 9, 10, 15), and the loyalty they have hitherto maintained (ver. 6), and the objects of so much anxiety on account of COLOSSIANS. H •e THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANa [ch. n. 1— 2& the insidious and deadly nature of the assault hems; made upon their faith, of whose real character they seem to have heen little aware. We expect, therefore, in this passage a recurrence of the strain of thought pursued in the prayer of the first chapter. We find a like prominence given to knowledge, the chief desideratum of this Church, and to the need of a Cliristianly instructed understanding as a safeguard against the suhtleties and plausibilities of error. At the same time, the view now presented of this object has gained gnatly in fulness and depth by the development of the apostle's argument in the intervening paragraphs of his letter. The teaching of this section we may summarize in the words of 'A Pet. iii. 18, as setting forth the nature and the elements of — I. Growth in 'ihe gkacb and knowledge of oue Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (

Vera. 1—17.— Section VII. Thu True Christian Life. The apostle, having delivered his attack on the system of error inculcated at CoIosssB, now passes from the controversial to the more practical purport of his letter. There is no break, however, in the current of his thought; for throughout this chapter he urges the pursuit of a practical Christian life in a sense and in a manner silently opposed to the tendencies of Gnostioizing error. How much more congenial was the task to which he now addresses himself we may judge, perhaps, from the ease and simplicity which mark the language of this chapter, as compared with the abrupt and seemingly embarrassed style of the last section. We may analyze the hortatory section of the Epistle (oh. iii. 1 — iv. 6) as follows : (o) ch. iii. 1 — t, urging the Colossians to maintain a lofty spiritual life ; (6)

Vers. 1, 2. — ^If, therefore, ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at God's right hand ; mind the things above, not the things upon the earth (ch. ii. 11—13, 20 ; Bom. vi. 1—11 ; Eph. i. 20—22; Phil. iu. 20; Matt. vi. 19, 20; Luke xii. 13—40). The apostle has already shown that when his readers, entering the gate of baptism, became Christians through faith in Christ, they died with him (ch. ii. 20), were buried, then raised and made alive together with him (ch. u. 11 — 18): comp. Bom. vi. 1 — 11. So they were restored to peace and favour with God (oh. i. 21 — 23; ii. 13, 14), severed from their old life of sin (ch. ii. 11), and set in the path of holiness (en. i. 22). At the same time, they left behind all childish, tentative forms and notions (" rudiments ") of religion, whether Jewish or non-Jewish (ch. ii. 8, 11, 18, 20 — 23). They became dead both from sin and from human modes of salvation. Both are included in " the things upon the earth," to which belong at once the grosser sensual forms of sin (ver. 5) with its " surfeiting of the flesh" (ch. ii. 23), and that vaunted philosophy, which is after all earth-born and earthward tending (ch. ii. 8, 20), bringing the' soul again into bondage to material things. The apostle lifts his readers into a new, heavenly sphere. He bids them make "the things above," i«. "the thin^ of 148 TEE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN9. [cH. ni. J— 25t Christ," the one object of their thought and endeavour. So they will master the flesh by rifing abovg it, instead of fighting it on its own ground by ceremonial rite and asietio regimen. "The things above" are no ab- •traet, transcendental conception, as in the theology of St. Paul's opponents, for they are "wl)ere Christ is." The things "in the heavens" as well as those "upon the earth " \Mere created " in him, through him, unto him " (ch. i. 16) ; there he is Lord, even as here (ch. i. 17; li. 10; Matt, xxviii. IK). His presence gives distinctness and positivenesB tu the Chridtian's view of heaven, and concentrutea his interests and affections there (comp. Phil. i. 23; iii. 20; 1 Thess i 10; Eph. i. 3; ii. 6; Matt. vi. 19, 20; John xii. 26; liv. 3; Acts 1. 11; vii. 56). "Seated" is placed with emphasis at the end of its clause, indicating the completeness of tlie Saviour's work and the dignity of his position (comp. Eph. i. 20 — 22 ; Heb. i. 3; X. 12, 13; Eev. iii. 21 ; and see Pearson on the Creed, art. vi.). (For "the things above," see vers. 3, 4; also oh. i. 5 and ii. 18 compared with Phil. iii. 11—14, 20, 21 ; Eom. ii. 7 ; vUi. 17—23 ; 1 Cor. xv. 42—49 ; 2 Cor. iv. 16— V. 8; John xvii. 24.) To "seek" these things is to strive that they may be ours in the future; to "mind" them is to occupy our thoughts with them in the present. (For the word "mjnd" {ippoviu), comp. Phil. iii. 19 and Bom. vili, 5 — 7 {^p6>n\iw.y minding); in Bom, xjv. 6 it is rendered by " regard.")

vers. 1, 2. And this life comes through death, from that "dying with Christ" out of which we "roee with him" (ver. 1; ch. ii. 11 — 13, 20 ; Eom vi. 3, 4, 8). " The aorigt kTr^BivfTe ('ye died') denotes the past act; the perfect KfKpvnrai (' hath lieen and is hid ') the permanent effects" (Lightfoot), (On the nature of this death, see notes to ch. ii. 11 — 13.) " Died — and your life I " this paradox is explained in Kom. vi. 10, 11, and repeated in Gal. ii. 20; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. The Chribtian's life is lodged in the sphere of " the unseen and eternal." It centres in Christ, and as he is hidden — withdrawn from the world of sense, yet with us always in his Spirit (John xiv. 16—20 ; xvi. 16— 22>— so our life wiih him. And if " with Christ," then "in God;" for "Christ is God's" (I Cor. iii. 23); "lives to God" (Eom. vi. 10), •nd " is at God's right hand " (ver. 1), being "tile Sop of hif Jove" (oh. i. 13; Jobn i 18), The apostle says, "in God" ("in heaven," Phil. iii. 19), to empliasize the fact of the union of Christ with God, or perhaps to deepen the reader's sense of the sacrednesi of this life in Christ (comp. 1 Tim. vi. 14—16). " Is hid" (ch. i. 26, 27 ; ii. 2, 3); another allusion to the fondness of the Colosaian errorists for myeleriee. In ch. i. 26 8t. Paul spoke of the ancient mystery of a Christ for all the world ; then of the new, perpetual mystery of a Christ dwelling within believing hearts. But this second mystery ii equally that of our life in Christ as of Chrint'i life in us, lifting us to heaven while it brings him down to earth. This mutual indwelling of the Head in heaven and the members upon earth is the most intimate and inscrutable of all secrets (John xiv. 20 ; xv. 1—7 ; xvii. 22, 23, 26). " The world knows neither Christ nor Christian.^, and Christians do not even know themselves" (Beiigel). But as the old historic secret had its manifestation at last (ch. i. 26),- so will the new secret that lies ei^pld«d within every Christian life —

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 2. — That their hearts may be enoonraged (ch. iv. 8; Eph. vi. 22; 1 Thess iii. 2 ; iv. 1 8 ; 2 Thess. ii. 1 7 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 1 1 ). For the mischief at work at Colos-se was at once unsettling (vers. 6, 7; oh. i. 23) and discouraging (ch. 1. 23 ; ii. 18 ; iii. 15) in its effects. napoKoXw, a favourite word of St. Paul's, means " to address," " exhort," then more specially ''to enconr.ige," "comfort," (2 Cor. 1. 4), "to beseech" (E^h. iv. 1; 2 Cor. vi. 1), or "to instruct" (Titus i. 9), The heart, in Biblical langua^'e, is not the seat of feeling only, but utaudB for the whole inner man, as the " vital centre " of hi.i personality (see Beck's ' Bibli' al Psycholnity : ' comp. Mark vii 19, 21 ; 1 Pet. iii. 4 ; Rom. vii. 22; Eph. iii. 16, 17). Wuile they are (literally, they having been) drawn together in love, and into all (the) riches of the full assurance of the understanding, unto (or, into) (full) knowledge of the mystery of God, (even) Christ (ver. 19 ; ch. i. 9 ; iii. 10, 14 : iv. 12; Eph. i. 17, IK; iii. 17—19; iv. 2, 3. W, 16; PhU. i. 9; ii. 2; 1 Cor. i. 10; 2 Cor. xiii. 11). In the best Greek copies ' drawn together" is nominative masculine, agreeing with " they," the logical subject implied in "their hearts" (feminine). 2u/i6i;8afa? has the same sense in ver. 19 and Eph. iv. 10; in 1 Cor. ii. 10 it is quoted from the LXX in another sense; and it has a variety ot meanings in the Acts. " Drawn together " expresses the double sense which accrnes tn the verb in comb. nation with the two prepositions " in " and " into : " " united in love," Christians are prepared to be " led into all t^e wealth of Divii^e knowledge." THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN8. 83 This combination of " love and knowledge " appears in all St. Paul's letters of this period (comp. Eph. iv. 12 — 16 ; Phil. i. 9 ; and contrast 1 Cor. viii. 1—3 ; xiii. 1, 2, &— 13). " The riches of the full assurance," etc., and "the knowledge of the mystery" are the counterpart of " the riches of the glory of the mystery," of ch. i. 27 ; the fulness of conviction and completeness of knowledge •ttainable by the Christian correspond to the full and satisfying character of the revelation he receives in Christ (comp. Eph. i. 17—19). (On " understanding," see note, ch. L 9.) "Full assurance," or "conviction" (v\npo4>opla), is a word belonging to St. Luke and St. Paul (with the Kpistle to the Hebrews) in the New Testament (not found in classical Greek), and denotes radically " a bringing to full measure or maturity." Combined with "understanding," it denotes the ripe, intelligent persuasion of one who enters into tlie whole wealth of the " truth as it is in Jesug " (comp. ch. iv. 12, R.V. ; also Bom. iv. 21 and xiv. 5, for corresponding verb). In this inward " assurance," as in a fortress, the Colossians were to entrench themselves against the attacks of error (ch. 1. 9 ; iii. 15, and notes). Eis (iriyvoKrtv is either in explanatory apposition to the previous clause, or rather denotes the further purpose for which this wealth of conviction is to be sought : " knowledge of the Divine mystery, knowledge of Christ " — this is the supreme end, ever leading on and upward, for the pursuit of which all strengthening of heart and understanding are given (ch. iii. 10 ; Epli. iii. 16 — 19 ; Phil. iii. 10). The Revisers have corrected the erroneous "acknowledgment" by their paraphrastic rendering, " that they may know." (On iiriyvwiris (comp. yvaffis, ver. 3), see note, oh. i. 6.) Tlie (jbject of this knowledge is the great manifested mystery of God, namely Christ (oh. i. 27). We confidently accept here the Revised reading, that of nearly all recent textual critics, which umits the words found in the Received Text between " God " and " Christ. " There are extant eleven distinct variations of this reading, and that of the Textus Beceptus is, to all appearance, the latest and worst ; "the passage is altogether an instructive lesson on textual criticism " (Lightfoot, pp. 252, 253 ; also Westcott and Hort, ' Introduction : Notes on Selected Readings,' pp. 125, 126). The words thus read have bten interpreted " mystei y of the God Christ " (the Latin Hilary, and a few moderns); "of tlie God of Christ" (Meyer, quoting Eph. 1. 17; John xx. 17; Matt, xxvii. 46);— both interpretations grammatically correct, but unsuitable here, even if in harmony with Pauline usage elsewhere. Alford omits " of Christ " altogether, distrusting the textual evidence. Meyer objects to the rendering we have followed (that of EUicott, Lightfoot, Revisers), that the apostle, if this be hii meaning, has expressed himself ambiguously; but comp. ch. i. 27 (see note); ^Iso 1 Tim. iii. 16, "The mystery, who was manifested in flesh."

Vers. 2, 3, 6, 7.) 1. St. Paul has spoken of the Church as " the body of Christ" (ch. i. 18, 24), and so he must needs desire that its members may be knit together in love (ver. 19 ; Eph. iv. 16 ; 1 Cor. i. 10). Without such union the Church is no longer a hody, and its members, broken and scattered, become an easy prey to error. The salvaticn of individual souls is but half the work of Christ. "He loved the Church, and gave himself for her " (Eph. v. 25 ; Acts xx. 28). He seeks to build the redeemed, regenerated units of mankind as " living stones " into " a holy temple " (Eph. ii. 20 — 22; 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17) ; to integrate them into the " one body " of which he is the Head and his Spirit is the Soul (Eph. iv. 3 — 6) : comp. sect. 2, II. 4 (homiletics). Of this union, love is the bond (ch. iii. 14 ; Eph. iv. 2 ; .John xiii. 34, 35). In all true and lasting union amongst men some sympathetic affection must exist, either as a basis for the fellowship or as generated by it. Mere identity of beliefs or of interests will never hold men for long together. The heart must Jove or hate, must be attracted or repelled, in some degree, by every personality around it. And the union of souls in Christ, being the most deep and spiritual of any, must be thoroughly peiTaded and determined by love. Moreover, the growth of Christian knowledge and the perfecting of personal character depend mnch more largely than we are apt to suppose, in this age of exaggerated individualism and selfish culture-seeking, on the soundness and completeness of our Church life, of our Christian social life. To St. Paul's mind the " perfect man" and the perfect Church — the perfection of the part and of the whole— are leciprocally dependent, and all but identical (Eph. iv. 11 — 16). 2. But love without knowledge, heat without light, will not suffice. As "faith, being alone, is dead " (Jas. ii. 17), so love in like com.ition is blind and easily falls into error. " I pray that your liive may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment " (Phil. 1. 9). The apostle declared that "God willed to make known to his saints the riches of the glory of his mystery " (cb. 1. 27) ; accordingly he desires for thum " all riches of the full assurance of the understanding," "unto the knowledge of the' mystery " (ver. 2). (1) The former is the subjective counterpart of the latter. The understanding that is enlightened and informed in the truth belonging to the revelation of God in Christ, that ranges freely, yet reverently, through " the breadth, and length, and height, and depth " of this mystery, and learns to comprehend it (Eph. iii. 18), is itself enriched, assured, and satisfied thereby. (2) The object which the mind contemplates, into which it seeks to penetrate ever more deeply, is Christ, the mystery of Ood. " To know him " is its supreme asijiration (Phil. iii. 10), in which intellectual inquiry is guided by spiritual sympathy and inspired by love (Pfiil. iii. 7 ; John xiv. 21). To know him as an historical Person is something; this knowledge supplies the material and the basis for all other knowledge of Christ (Acts x. 36 — 43). To know him as a living, present Saviour is the essential knowledge, the one thing needful (Phil. iii. 8 — 11) ; it is to " gain Christ, and be found in him." But it is yet moie tJ'^sa this to know him as the mystery of Ood — to discover his secret indwelling In nature and in history; to understand how "to him give all the propliets witness ; " to hear the footfall of " the coming One" echoing along the silent chambers and winding corridors of the ages past (oh. i. 21) ; to find in him the centre of all life and law, uniting God and the world, eternity and time (ch. i. 15 — 17); to behold in " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," at the same time " the outbeaming of the Father's glory, the very Image of his sulDstance, through whom also he made the worlds, and who upholds all things by the word of his power" (Heb. i. 2, 3), the " Pirbtborn of all creation," the " Heir of all things." Here is knowledge indeed, and for him who is grounded in it, speculative theories of nature and of God and the mystic dreams of theosophy will have hut little charm. Thii cH. iLl— 23.] THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. »9 mystery of Ood surpasses and includes all others ; for Christ, in nature and in grace, iu history and personal experience, "is all and in all." In view of this Mystery, no wonder that the apostle says that we are " heing renewed unto knowledge " (ch. iii. 10). We can conceive no object worthier of the pursuit of the loftiest and greatest minds than " the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord " (Phil. iii. 8 ; Eph. iii, 9—11; 1 Pet. i. 12). By it "the heart," the whole "inward man" (Eph. iii. 16), is " stablished " (ver. 7) and " encouraged " (ver. 2) by the " comfort of love " (Phil. ii. 1) and "the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (ver. 3) that are "in Christ." 3. Love and knowledge must bear fruit in practical obedience. Christ Jesus was received by the Colossians as " the Lord " (ver. 6 ; ch. iii. 24 ; i v. 1). He is a Master to be obeyed (Bom. xiv. 9 ; John xiii. 13 ; xiv. 15), as well as a Mystery to be known and a Saviour to be loved. In him we must walk. The whole conduct of life must be governed by his Spirit (Rom. viii. 14 ; Gal. v. 25) and directed toward his ends (Phil. i. 20, 21 ; 2 Cor. V. 15). He "in all things" claims to be " pre-emineut " ^ch. i. 18; 1 Cor. xv. 25 ; 2 Cor. x. 5). Every desire, affection, pursuit, of the Christian must " acknowledge him to be the Lord." Py such true obedience the soul grows in sti'ength and security, and is ever being muio completely "builded up in him" (ver. 7: comp. ch. i. 10). 4. And the root of this life of advancing knowledge and obedient love is faith. By this the soul is first "rooted in him" (vers. 5, 12; ch. i. 3, 23; Phil. iii. 9; Eph. ii. 8; Bom. v. 1, 2, etc.). Prom this root springs love (Gral. v. 6), obediunce (Kom. vi. ; viii. 3, 4), satisfying knowledge (Eph. iii. 17 — 19), every good woid and work (1 Thess. i. 3 ; 2 Thess. i. 11 ; ii. 16, 17). If this fails, everything fails (Gal. iii. 1 — 5). Whatever strengthens, comforts, and upbuilds the Christian, does so by ministering to his faith. A growing knowledge, a quickened love, a more steadfast obedience, enable his faith to strike deeper root — stdblish him in his faith (ver. 7). In this world he never ceases to " walk by faith " (2 Cor. iv. 18; v. 7); and his abounding in it is the greatest gain which the furthest advancement in the life of God can bring him. Yet faith, again, has its outward instrument and condition. It "comes by he'aring, and hearing by the word of God" (Bom. x. 17). The Colossians are to be "stablislied in their faith," " even as they were taiight " (ver. 7 : comp. ch. i. 5, 7). To that instruction they owe all they possess in Christ, even their own selves (Philem. 19). 5. And he who abounds in faith will abound in thanksgiving also. The more strongly the Christiau believes in the Son of God and enters into the mysteries of his kingdom, the more joyfully and constantly will he offer his tribute of praise. This, too, is a fruit of laith — " the fruit of the lips " (Heb. xiii. 15 ; Hos. xiv. 2), the only fruit of all his mercies which we can directly render to the great Giver. Of such thanksgiving, called forth by the contemplation of the " mystery of God " in Christ, St. Paul's own act of praise in Eph. i. .3 — 14 is a noble example (comp. Bom. xi. 3d — 36 ; xvi. 25 — 27 ; 1 Tim. i. 12—17 ; 1 Pet. i. 3—5 ; Bev. i. 5—7 ; Matt. xi. 2.i— 28. See sect. 1, IIL 2, homiletics). II. A DANGBB AND A SAFEOUARD. (Vcrs. 4, 5.) 1. There was one thing that specially endangered Christian life and the well-being of the Church at Colossge. It was the charm of perverted eloquence (ver. 4). A clever tongue and a popular style are gifts by no means incompatible with the faithful and spiritual preaching of Christ; but they have their peculiar dangers for their possessor, and for the Church in which they are exercised. St. Paul appears to have admired gifts of this kind in Apollos, but he felt that a plainer and severer method became himself, in which the sheer might and majesty of the truth should stand forth without adornment of rhetoric or drapery of graceful diction that might distract attention from the all-important theme of his address (1 Cor. ii. 1 — 5). The possession of such powers made the men whom he is denouncing at Colossje so formidable. Perhaps their very gifts had proved a snare to them ; and there are indications in St. Paul's description of them (vers. 8, 16, 18, 23 : cump. Acts XX. 29, 30) of the arrogance and self-seeking spirit, and the intellectual dishonesty, into which men of popular powers are liable to fall. 2. On the other hand, tiiere was one specially hopeful feature in the state of this Church — the good order which it had mainfaiued (ver. 5); contrast with 1 Cor. i. 11, 12; xi. 2 — 18; xiv. 40. So far, these "deceitful workers" had not succeeded in disturbing the Church's nnitv or stirring up insubordination against its officers. In every organized body it is a first condition of strength and safety that its members should " obey them that have the rule " (Hcb, xi>i. 17)^ should " all of them be subject one to another " (Eph. v. 21 ; 100 THE EPISTLE TO THE 00L0SSIAN3. [CB. n. 1— 23, 1 Vet, v. 6), each la hU place and rank keeping step and time with the movement of the whole. Vers. 8'^15.->-Seot. 6. T!ie Ohrittlan's completeneit in Christ. I. A false philosophy OP BBLiGioN. (

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 3. — In whom (or, which) are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden(ly) (Eph. i. 8, 9; iii. 8; Bom. xi. 33; 1 Cor. i. 5, 6, 30 ; u. 7 ; 2 Cor. iv. 3). Bengel, Meyer, Alford, and others make the relative pronoun neuter, referring to " mystery ; " but " Christ," the nearer antecedent, is preferable (vers. 9, 10 ; ch. i. 16, 17, 19). In him the apostle finds what false teachers sought elsewhere, a satisfaction for the intellect as well as for the heart — treasures of wisdom and knowledge to enrich the understanding, and unsearchable mysteries to exercise the •peculative reason. " Hidden " is, therefore, a secondary predicate : '^ in whom are these treasures, — as hidden treasures" (EUicott, Lightfoot). (For a similar emphasis of position, compare " made complete," ver. 10, and " seated," oh. iii. 1.) Meyer and Alford, with the Vulgate, make "hidden " an attributive: "in whom are hidden treasures." Chrysostom and leading versions make it primary predicate : " in whom are hidden," etc., against the order of the words. This word also belongs to the dialect of the mystic theosophists (see note, ch. i. 27 : comp. 1 Cor. ii. 6—16 ; Isa. xlv. 3 ; Prov. ii. 1 — 11). (On " wisdom," see note, ch. i. 9.) Knowledge (yiiu(ni, not fmyvacns, ver. 2 ; ch. i. 9; iii. 10; for this phrase is more comprehensive) is the more objective and purely intellectual side of wisdom (comp. Rom. xi. 33).

Ver. 3. — For ye died, and yonr life is hid, with Christ, in God (ch. ii. 11—13, 20; Eph. iv. 22; Phil. iU. 20; Bom. vi. 1—14; vii. 1—6 ; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ; Gal. ii. 20 ; 1 Cor. iu. 23; John xv. 5; xii. 26; Eev. iii. 21). In this hidden liff- of the Christian lies the ground and tl e spring of the more outward life of thought aid endeavour of

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 4.— In this verse the apostle first definitely indicates the cause of his anxiety, and the Epistle "begins to assume a polemic tone. This verse is, therefore, the prelude of the impending attack on the false teachers (

Vers. 4, 8, 11, 16—23.) " Not according to Christ " (ver. 8) is the fiital Beutence Which the apostle pronounces upon the system of doctrine that was finding entrance at Oolossae. However plausible in argument (ver. 4) or lofty in its intellectual pretensions (vers. 8, 23), however skilfully it may avail itself of the venerable rites of ancient faith or of the popular predilections and tendencies of the day (vers. 11, 16, 18), and whatever the appartnt sanctity and austerity of its professors (

vers. 4, 16, 20—23), is after all not unnatural ; and is apt to repeat itself, to a ^renter or less extent, in every attempt at religion that is not essentially spiiitual, and that departs from the "one foundation, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. iii. 11). 3. We must also mark the arrogant and overhearing temper of the new teachers at Colossse, their exclusiveness and their endeavour to form a [lersonal pai ty within the Church. They are " men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts xx. 30). They would make simple Christians their booty (ver. 8). They set up to judge their brethren in matters of diet and outward observance (ver. 16). Tliey assume, in this character of judges in the Church, to deny to Christian men, walking in faith and love (ch. i. 4) and having Christ's peace within their hearts (ch. iii. 15), " the prize of their calling " (ver. 18), because they will not accept their notions and practices. They issue their dterees, " Touch not, tuste not," etc., as if they were the very law of God (vers. 22, 14). They are " humble " before the powers of the invisible world, and zealous to offer them a worship which they repudiate and abhor (ver. 15 ; Rev. xix. 10 ; xxii. 9) ; but rob Christ of his honour (vers. 18, 19, 28), and are proud and self-willed towards their brethren " whom they have seen." They heap upon the body invented and misdirected severities (ver. 23), while they are governed by " the mind of the flesh " (ver. 18). They aggrandize themselves, while they destroy the Chui ch of God (ver. 19). 11. The complete Chkist oue completeness. (

Ver. 4. — ^When Christ shall be manifested, our (or, your) life, then shall ye also with tiiTti he manifested in glory (Eom. viii. 18-23; PhiL iii. 21; 1 (3or, L 7; iv. 5; 1 Thess. i. 10; 1 Tim. vi. 15; 2 Tim. ii. 10—12; iv. 8; Titus il. 13; 1 John iij. 2; ii. 28). Our future destiny, with our present redemption (ch. i. J 4), is wrapped up in Christ. Our life is not only "with liim" (ver. 3); it is "himself" (Phil, i. 21 ; John i. 4; vi. 50—57; xjv. 6; 1 John v. X2); he is its source and ground, way and rule, means and end — its all (ver. 11 : comp. ch. i. 20; ii. 6—10; Eph. i. 3, 23; ui. 17-19; iv. 13; Phil. iii. 10 ; iv. 19, etc.). From the hour of his ascension he has been hidden (Acts i. 9; iii. 21; 1 Pet. i. 8); and his nmnifeftation is as much a part of the Christian creed as liis death and resurrection (Acts xvii. 31; 1 Thess. i. XO; iv. 16; 2 Thess. i. 10; ii. 8; 1 Cor. xv. 23; PhU. iii, 20; 2 Tim. iy, 1; Jn)in xiv. 3; 1 John iij. 2, 3; Eev. xxii. 12, 20). Then the Christian will have hit manifestation also with him, in the " revelation of the sons of God " (Eom. yiii. 19); who will receive their second " adoption, to wit, the redemption of their body" (Eom. yiii, 23). "Seeing him as he is" in his glory, "we shall be like him" (1 John iii. 2) in glory. At last the spiritual life of the soul will have its due ori<anio expression, in a body perfect and heavenly as itself (1 Cor. xv. 35—49 ; 2 Cor. v. 1—5). This is already the case with our human nattire in Christ (Phil. jii. 21); and the change will proceed from the Head to the members (1 Cor. xv. 23), who will be conformed to liis " body of glory," as now they I v^ being coiifonited to his spiritut^ iuagf CB,in.l— 25.J THB EPISTLE TO THE OOLOSSTANa 149 (Bom. via. 9—11, 29, 80; xii. 2; 2 Cor. ili. 18; John xvii. 22-2t}; 1 John iv. 17). The textual change from "your" to "onr" b doubtful (see note on ch. ii. 13). Observe that " Christ" is repeated four times in the last four verses.

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 5. — ror if indeed I am absent in the fesh, yet in the spirit I am with yon (1 Thess. ii. 17 ; 1 Cor. v. 3, 4). The connection of this verse with the last is not obvious. Ellicott, following Chrysostom, makes St. Paul's spiritual presence the reason for his being able to give the Oolossiang this warning ; Meyer, his bodily absence the reason for their needing it. It is better, with Lighlfoot, to see here a general explanatory reference to the previous context, a renewed declaration (ver. 1) of watchful interest in these distant brethren and a hearty acknowledgment of their Christian loyalty. The tone of authoritative warning just assumed (ver. 4) is thus justified, and yet softened (compare the apologetic tone of Bom. XV. 14, 15). The phrase, "if I am absent," does not imply a previous presence (see note, ver. I). Rejoicing and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith iu Christ (Phil. i. 4—8, 27; 1 Cor. i. 5—8 ; 1 Thess. ii. 13 ; 2 Thess. i. 4). St. Paul docs not say, " rejoicing in beholding." The oonsoiousnesB of union with brethren far away, whom he has never seen (ver. 1), is itself a joy ; and this joy is heightened by what he sees through the eyes of Epaphrus (ch. i. 4, 6—8 : comp. 2 Cor. vii. 7) of the condition of this Church. Talis and inepiana are military terms, denoting the " ordered array " and " solid front " of an army prepared for battle (Lightfoot, Hofmann) : comp. Eph. vi. 11, etc. ; Phil. i. 27. Others find the figure of a building underlying the second word — ^Vulgate, firmamentum (" solid basis ") — and this is its more usual meaning, and agrees with ver. 7 and ch. i. 23 (comp. 2 Tim. ii. 19 ; 1 Pet. v. 9 ; Acts xvi. 5 ; also Fi. xviii. 2, liXX, for the noun, not found, elsewhere in the New Testament). The precise expression, " faith in Christ " (literally, into — Eis, not ^v, as in ch. i. 4, see note) occurs only here in the New Testament; in Acts xxiv. 24 read "in Christ Jesus." In such passages as Bom. iii. 22, 26 (where ir/o-Tis is followed by the genitive), Christ appears as object of faith ; iu such as ch. i. 4 and ii. 5 he is its ground or stAttratum, that in which it rests and dwelli, into which it roots itself.

vera. 5 — 7 sets forth the Christian asceticism — "unsparing treatment" of fh» flesh indeed 1 The line of teaching adopted by the errorists may be illustrated by Philo's doctrine in his third book of the •Allegories of the Sacred Law,' § 22: " ' God saw that Er was wicked ; ' for he knows that this leathern burden of ours, the body — for Er, being interpreted, is leathern — is evil and ahvays plutting against the soul; and it is ever Under the power of death, indeed actually dead [comp. Rom. viii. 10]. Yet this all do not see, but only God, and those he loves. For when the mind [yoCs: comp. note, ver. 18] becomes engaged in sublime contemplations and is initiiited into the mysteries of the Lord [note, ch. i. 26], it judges the body to be evil and hostile;" ag.iin ('On the Chan^je of Names,' § 4) : " Pale and wasted, and reduced to skeletons as it were, are the men devoted to instruction, having transferred to the powers of the soul their bodily vigour also, BO that they have become, as we might say, dissolved into a single form of being, that of pure soul made bodiless by force of thought [Stavoia; see ch. i. 21, note]. In them the earthly is destroyed and overwhelmed, when reason [vuiJt : ver. 18], pervading them wholly, has set its choice on being well-pleasing to God." The writer has attempted an elucidation of tl.'s verse in the Expositor, first series, voL xii. pp. 289—303. H0M1LETIC3.

vers. 5 — 8, to put off their old vices, impurity, malice, fahehood; (e)

Ver. 5.— Make dead, therefore, the (or, ^<mry members that are upon the earth (eh. it 11 ; iu. 9; Eph. iv. 21, 22; Phil. Hi. l»j Bom. vi. 6; viii. 13; xiii. 14). " Your" li fflttfitted by most textual critics, but English idiom requires it in traoBlation. In its absence a stronger emphasis falls on the defining clause, " that are upon the earth." Ae these things may no longer be pursued o» studied (vers. 1, 2), the organs devoted to them must be put to death. These membert are indeed those of the actual body (Rom. vi. 13, 19; vii. 5, 23; viii. 13) ; but these in 00 far (U ruled hitherto by sinful impulse and habiti constituting the body of "the old man " (ver. 9 ; Eph. iv. 22 ; Kom. vi. 6), " of the flesh " (ch. ii. 11), " of sin," and " of death" (Kom. vi. 6; vH. 24), with "sinful passions working in its members, bearing &uit unto death " (Rom. vii. 5) : comp. note, eh. ii. 11. That body is " made dead " by destruction of the evil passions that animated ii. The body of " the new man " is physically identical with it, but different in Uraial habit and diathesis— a diflference that manifests itself even in bodily expression and manner (2 Oor. v. 17). Viexp6a occurs besides in the New Testament only in Bomi. iv. 19 and Heb. xi. 12 (in Rom. viii 13, a still stronger word is used of " the practices " of the body): as the aged Abraham had been made dead in respect of the natural possibility of fatherhood, so the body of the Christian is to be dead for purposes of Bin. If there were any doubt as to the writer's meaning, the next clanae removes it. His langaage has approached that of the philosophical ascetics (see ch. ii. 23, note and quotations); lience the abrupt explanatory appoBition that follows : forniostion, uneleanness, (sensual) passion, e?il desire, and covetonsness, the which is idolatry (Eph. V. 3— 5; Phil. iii. 19; 1 Oor. vi. 9-11; V. 11; Rom. t 29; 1 Tim. tri. 17; Matt. vi. 24, 31, 32 ; Luke xii. 2t ; Ps. xlix. 6; Iii. 7). To these vices the Colossian Gentiles (some of them at least) had been to ■uch a degree devoted that their membert had become virtually identified therewith. The first two sina are related as particular and general The second pair, itiSos and iitiffunta, are combined in 1 Tliess. iv. 4 in contrast to "(bodily) sanotification and honour " (comp. ch. u. 23, and " passions Of diahoneiur," Bom. i. 26). The former denoles a morbid, inflamed condition of the sensual ftpfietite; the latter, craving for some partioular gMtlScation of it (see Trench's •Synonyms'). Neither of these words is etymologioally, or invariably, evil in Sense. The degradation of such terms in all languages is a sad evidence of the corruption of our nature. TlKeoirella is both wider and more intense in meaning than our "covetoHsness." It denotes radically the disposition to "have more," "grasping greed," "seltisliness grown to a passion." Hence it applies to sins of impurity, greeilinesa for sensual pleasure (1 Tliess. iv. 6; Eph. iv. 19); but by the emphatic use of the article (" the covetousness "), and by the words that follow, it is marked out as a distinct type of sin ; so in Eph. v. 3, 5, where " unoleanness " and " greed " are stigmatized as vile forms of sin. This word, often used by St. Paul, is peculiar to him in the New Testament. "The which" (fi-ns: comp. Utiva, ch. ii. 23) gives a reason while it states a fact (" inasmuch as it is idolatry"). For the thought, comp. Eph. V. 5 and I Tim. vi. 17, also JMatt. vi. 24; it is a commonplace of religion, and appears in Phil) and Jewish rabbis (see Lightfoot). Lightfoot places a colon alter " upon the earth," and supposes " fornication," etc., to be " proleptic accusatives," looking forward to some Verb unexpressed, such as "put off" (ver. 8). But this is needless (see Winer, p. 666), and the command, " make dead your members," requires this qualifying; explanation. The grammatical awkwardness of the apposition is not without rhetorical effect. Ter. 6.— Because of which (things) th* anger of 0od oometh [upon the sons of disobedienoe] (Eph. ii. 2, 3; v. 6; Gal. v. 21; Kom. i. 18; ii. 5— 9; v. 9; 1 Thess. i. 10; ii. 16; 2 Thess. i. 5—10; John iii. 36; Rev. vi. 17; Mai. iii. 2). The latter phrase is cancelled by Tisoliendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort ; but retained by Ellicott and, preferentially, by the Revisers. The witnesses against it, though numerically few, are varied and select, and the parallel (Eph. v. 6) would suggest insertion of the words if originally absent. " Th« anger of God is coming" is a sentence comptete iu itself (comp. Bom. i. 18). God's " afiger " (ipyli) is his settled punitive indignation against sin, of whicli his "wrath" (8tf/j(Jf)is the terrible outflamiag(Hev. xvi. 1; Xlv. 10) ; see Trench's ' Synonyms. ' "Cometh" implies a continuing fact or fixed principle (see Witter, p. 332); of rather, perhaps, signifies that this "anger" is in course of manifestation, is "on the way:" comp. 1 Thess. i. 10, " the anger that is cftmiug," not "to come," also the use of $pxofuu in John xiv. 3, 18; Heb. x. 37. The objects of this anger (" cliildren of wrath," Epii. ii. 2, 3) are " the sons of disobedience. ' The expressive Hebraism by which a man is said to be K child or ton of the dominant qitalit;f ISO THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN8. [oh. tn. 1—28. or influence of his life is frequent in the New TeBtament.

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 6. — ^Ab therefore ye received Christ JesuB the Lord, walk in him (Phil. i. 27; ii. 9— 11 ; 1 Thesa. Iv. 1 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13—15; 1 Cor. XV. 1, 2 ; Gal. iii. 2—4 ; v. 1 ; Heb. iu. 6 ; iv. 14 ; X. 23 ; John vii. 17 ; xv. 5—10 ; Bav. iii. 11). Such a walk will be con- «i»tent with their previous steadlastness, ^nd will lead them to larger spiritual attainments (ch. i. 10 ; see note). " Ye received " (TrapaA.ajuSai'w, not Sexofiat, as in oh. iv. 10 : oomp. 1 Thess. ii. 13) reminds the Colossians of what they had received (compare" ye were taught," ver. 7 and oh. I. 7) rather than nf the way of their receiving it. " Christ Jesua the Lord," is literally, the Christ Jesus, the Lorii — an expression found besides only in Eph. iii. 11 (Revised Text). The prefixed article points out Christ Jesus in hid full style and title as the Person whom the Colussians had received, and received as the Lord. " The Lord " has a predicative force, as in 1 Cor. xii. 3 (R.V.); 2 Cor. iv. 5; Phil. ii. 11. "Jesus is Lord" was the testing watchword applied in the discerning of spirits ; " Jesus Clirist is Lord " is to be the final confession of i^re''onciled universe ; and "Christ Jesus is Lord" is the rule of faith that guides all conduct and tests all doctrine within the Church (comp. ver. 19 ; Bom. xvi. 18). It is " a summary of the whole Christian confession" (Meyer). To vindicate this lordship, on which the Colossian error trenched so seriously, is the main object of the Epistle (ch. i. 13 — 20). We must not, therefore, with Alforil, Lightfoot, Hofmann, analyze " Ihe Clirist Jesus: " " Ye received the Christ, (namely) Jesus, who is the Lord." The writer has already used " Christ Jesus" as a single proper name at the outset (ch. 1. 1, 4) ; and it was the Urrdship of Christ Jesus, not the Messiahghip oj Jesus, that was now in question. In Acts xviii. 5, 28 the situation is entirely different. In the following clause, " in him " is emphatic, as in ver. 7 (compare the predominant a^Toi of ch. i. 16 — 22 ; ii. 9 — 15). Hence the contradiction of figure, " walk, rooted, and builded up," does not obtrude itself. (On " walk," see note, ch. i. 10 ; and ou " in Christ " in this connection, sen notes, oh. i. 4 ; ii. 10 ; and comp. Rom. vi. 3 — 11 ; viii. 1 ; 2 Cor, V. 17 ; John xv. 1—7.)

ver. 6.) The latter is once ascribed to God by St. Paul (Rom, ii. 8), more frequently in the Apocalypse. In man it is universally condemned. (Kor KaKta, malignity, badness of disposition, oomp. Eom. i. 29 ; 1 Cor. ziv. 20 ; Titus iii. i; lee Trenoh'i ' Synonyins.') B^wfij/ufa, in its original sense, includes injurious speech of any kind, either against man or God (see Eom. iii. 8; xiv. 16; 1 Gor. x. 30; Titiis iii. 2). AiVxpby in alaxpoXoyla (only here in the New Testament) denotes, like the English " foul," either " scurrilous " or " filthy." The former kind of speech is suggested by the foregoing blasphemia ; but especially in such an atmosphere as that of Greek city-life, scurrility commonly runs into filthiness. In Eph. V. 4, where a slightly different word occur:<, the latter idea is prominent. The two last vices, being sins of speech, must be put away "out of your mouth." "Your" bears the emphasis in the Greek ; such utterance is quite unfit for a Christian mouth (comp. Eph. iv. 29 ; v. 3, 4 ; Jas. iii. 10 ; and the prohibition of lying in the next verse),

The Pulpit Commentary
Yer. 7. — ^Booted and bnilded up in him (ch. i. 23; ii. 5; Eph. ii. 20, 21 ; iii. 18; iv. 16; 1 Cor. iii. 9—12; Jude 20; Luke vi. 47, 48). "Booted " is perfect participle, implying an abiding fuct ("fast-rooted"); while " builded up " (literally, upon or unto) is iu the present teniie of a continued process, the prefix eirl also implying growth and gain (oh. i. 6, 10 ; ii. 19). Meyer and Ellicott view iv aiir^ as a mere complement of the latter participle : " being bnilded in him." This weakens the force of both prepositions (eVl and dp), and the emphasis of the repeated "in him." The ideas of planting and building are similarly combined in 1 Cor. iii. 9; Eph. iii. 18; anil ro.ted is a figure applied to buildings in other Greek writers (Lightfoot). " Christ is the ground for the roots below, and the foundatioQ (ui ch.it. 1—23.] THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN9. 85 the building above" (Meyer). And stablished in (or, hy) your faith, according as ye were taught (ch.i. 5—7, 23 ; 1 Cor. i. 6—8; 1 Thess. ill. 2 ; iv. 1 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13—15 ; 1 Pet. V. 9, 10). ■Ei' before irfo-rt i (" fnitli ") it struck out in the Eevised Text, and is probably a correct gloss. The inBtiumental dative, preferred by Meyer and Lightfoot, does not accord so well with ver. 5 and oh. i. 23 (comp. Phil. i. 27: 1 Cor. xvi. 13; 1 Tim. V. 8; 2 Tim. iv. 7; 1 Pet. v. 9). "Stablished" {ffeffcuoifi.ei'oi, heing kept firm) is prtseu'. in tense, like "buibled up" (ver. 6, see note) : comp. Bum. iv. 16 ; Phil. i. 7 ; Heb. iii. 6 ; vi. 19 ; xiiL 9 ; and distinguish from (TTijpifo), to make stable, fix firmly. In " as ye were taught " the apostle reminds his readers again of their first lessons in the gospel (ch. i. 5 — 7, see notes ; 2 Thess. ii. 15). Abounding in it, with thanksgiving ; or, ahounding in thanksgiving (cb. I 3, 12; iii. 15, 17; iv. 2; Eph. v. 4, 20 J 1 Thess. v. 18 ; Heb. xiii. 15). The Eevisers relegate "in it (your faith)" to the margin, following the judgment of Tisehendorf and Tregelles ; wliile Westoott and Hort, Alford, EUicott, Lightfoot, retain the words in the text. The reading "in him," found in the Vulgate and leading Western documents, throws doubt on these words; but it is difficult to see why they should have been inserted if not authentic, and they might easily be confused by a copyist with the foregoing " in him." The second eV, if iv avrf be retained, becomes ^c of aoeompaniment, and may be rendered " with," as in ch. i. 29 ; Epli. vi, 2. (On " thanksgiving," see note, cli. i. 12.)

Ver. 7. — In which also ye walked onoe, when yon were living in these (things) (Eph. ii. 3; T. 8; Eom. vi. 19—21; 1 Cor. vi. 11; xii. 2; Titus iii 3; 1 Pet. iv. 3). Even retaining " sons of disobedience " in ver. 6, it seems better, with Alford, Lightfoot, and the English Version, to read oh as neuter, "in whicli," referring to the same antecedent (ver. 5) as " because of which "in ver. 6 ; not " amongst whom " (Ellicott, Meyer). The latter interpretation is ugitinst the general usage of "walk in" with St. Paul (ch. iv. 5 ; Eph. ii. 2, 10; iv. 17; v. 2 ; Rom. vi. i ; 2 Cor. iv. 2), and seems to condemn the more fuct of living " amongst the sons of disobedience " (see, on the other hand, 1 Cor. V. 9, 10 ; Phil. u. 15 ; John xvii. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 12). The parallel "because of which" (ver. 6) gives also its force : these sins are visited with the Divine anger, and moreover are the very sins in which the Colossians aforetime Iiad lived ; observe the same connection in Eph. V. 6—8; 1 Cor. vi. 10, 11. "Were living" stands opposed to " make dead " of ver. 5, »nd to " ye died " (ver. 3 : comp. ch. ii. 20 ; Gal. ii. 20); it marks the time when "the old man " (ver. 9), with his " earthly members " (ver. 5) was alive and active (comp. Eom. vii. 5, 9, "sin came to life"). "In ihese things " {Toirois, not airoh : Eevised Text) points to the things enumerated in ver. 6, with a mental gesture of contempt.

The Pulpit Commentary
vers. 8 — 23). This I say, that no one may be deluduig you in persuasive speech (vers. 8, 18, 23; Eph. iv. 14 ; X Cor. u. 1, 4, 13 ; 1 Tim. vi. 20; Ps. Iv. 21). This was the danger which made a more adequate comprehension of Christianity so necessary to the Colossians (vers. 2, 3). ni6ai'oAa7(ii, one of the numerous hapax legomena of this Epistle (words only used here in the New Testament), compounds into one word the ireiflol \6yot (" persuasive words ") of 1 Cor. ii. 4 (compare " word of wibdom," ver. 23). In classical writers it denotes plausible, ad eaptandwn reasoning. Uapa- Xoyi^o/iai (only here and Jas. i. 22 in the N ew Testament) is " to use bad logic," " to play off fallacies (paralogisms)." The new teachers were fluent, specious reasoners, and ' had 4 store of sophistical aigumentg «■ 81 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANa [ch. n. 1— 2a command. The tense of the verb indicates au apprehension as to what may be now goinq on (vers. 8, 16, 18, 20 ; ch. i. 2:i) . We shall see afterwards (

vers. 8 — 23) what was the doctrine underlying this "persuasive speech."

Vers. 8— 15.— Section V. The Christian's C0MPI,ETENE8B W ChRIST. The apostle has first defined hi^ own dortrinal position in the theological delivi ranee of ch. i. 15 — 20, and has then skilfully brought himself into suitable personal relations with bis readers by the statements and appeals of ch. i. 23 — ii. 7. And now, after a general indication in ver. 4 of the direction in which he is about to strike, he unmasks the battery he has been all the while preparing, and delivers his attack on the Coloman error, occupying the rest of this second chapter. He denounces (1) its/alie philosophy of religion (

vers. 8—15); (2) it$ arbitrary and obaolete ceremonialism (vers. 16, 17) ; (3) its visionary angel-worship (vers. 18, 19); (4) its ascetic rules (

Ver. 8. — Beware lest there shall be some one who maketh you his spoil throngh his philosophy and empty deceit (vers. 4, 18, 23 ; Eph. iv. 14 ; 1 Tim. vi. 20 ; 1 Cor. li. 1, 4 ; Gal. i. 7 ; Acts xx. 30). " Beware ; " literally, tee (to it), a common form of warning (ch. iv. 17). The future indicative " shall bo," used instead of the more regular subjunctive "should be," implies that what is feared is too likely to prove the case (comp. Heb. iii. 12 and (with another tense) Gal. iv. 11). "Some one who maketh (you) his spoil (S avKar/mywv) " is an expre.ssion so distinct and individualizing tliat it appears to single out a definite, well-known person. The denunciations of this Epistle are throughout in the singular number (vera. 4, 16, 18), in marked contrast with the plwraX of Gal. i. 17, and that prevails in the apostle's earlier polemical references. It is in harmony with the philosophical, Gnosticizing charactur of the Colossian heresy that it should rest on the authority of some single teacher, rather than on Scripture or tradition, as did the consCTvative legalistic Judaism. ^vXayayyiiv, a very rare word, hapax legomenon in the New Testament, bears its meaning on its face. It indicates the selfish, partisan spirit, and the overbearing conduct of the false teacher. Against such men St. Paul had forewarned the Ephesian elders (Acts xx. 20, 30). " And empty deceit" stands in a qualifying opposition to "philosophy:" "His philosophy, indeed ! ' It is no better than a vain deceit." This kind of irony we shall find the writer using with still greater efiect in

vers. 8 — 10, 18, 19). This verse contains in germ much of the thought of the Kpistle to the Hebrews,

vers. 8, 10 — 13; ch. iii. 3; Eom. vi. 1—11 ; vii. 1—6; 2 Cor. V. 14 — 17) " Therefore" is struck out by the Revisers on the best autliority. It would imply a logical dependence of this verse upon the last, which does not exist. This warning, like those of vers. 16, 18, looks back to the {arevious section, and especially to

vers. 8, 10, 12. It is a new application of St. Paul's fundamental principle of the union of the Chiistian with Christ in his death and resurrection (see notes, vers. 11, 12). Accepting the death of Christ as supplying the means of his redemption (ch. i. 14, 22), and the law of his future life (Phil. iii. 10 ; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ; Gal. ii. 20), the Cliristian breaks with and becomes dead (to and) from, all other, former religious principles; which appear to him now but childish, tentative gropings after and preparations for what is given him in Clirist (oomp. Gal. ii. 19; iii. 24; iv. 2, 3; Bom. vii. 6). On "rudiments," see note,

ver. 8. There these " rudiments of the world " appear as general ("philosophical") principles of relijiion, intrinsically false and empty ; here they are moral rules of life, mean and worthless substitutes for " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." (For the Pauline idiom, " died from (so as to be separate, or free from)," comp. Bom. vii. 2, 6 ; Acts xiii. 39.) Why, as (men) living in (the) world, are you made subject to decrees (Gal. iv. 9 ; T. 1 ; vi. 14 ; 2 Cur. V. 17). To adopt the rules of the new teachers ia to return to the worldly, pre- Christian type of religion which the Christian had once for all abandoned (Gal. iv. 9). " World " bears the emphasis rather than " living " (" having one's principle of life : " comp. 1 Tim. v, 6; Luke xii. 15). Standing without the article, it signifies "the world as such," in its patural character and attainments, without Christ (ver. 8; Eph. ii. 12 ; 1 Cor. i. 21). AoyiiuTLCeaee (the verb only here in the New Testament) is passive r.ither tlian middle in voice (Winer, p. 826 ; see Meyer in loe.); literally, why are you being dogmatized, overridden with decrees 1 Compare " spoil " (ver. 8), "judge " (ver. 16), for the domineering spirit of the false teacher. The "dogmas" or "decrees" of ver. 1 4 (see note) are those of the Divine Law ; these are of human imposition (yers. 8, 22), whio)) their ^uthoifi, howerct, «^u> cB.n. 1— 23.] THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANa. to put vipon a level with the former. In each case the decree is an exteinal enforcement, not au inner principle of life. Yer. 21 gives examples nf tlie diecree* which the Colossiaiis are blamed for regarding - and in this respect more than in any other they seem to have yielded to the demands of the false teacher. 'Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch ' (vers. 16, 23 ; 1 Cor. vi. 12, 13; viii. 8; i. 25—27, 30; Eom. xiv. 14—17 ; 1 Tim. iv. 3—5 ; Titus i. 15). These rules form part of a prohibitory regimen by which sinful tendencies to bodily pleasure were to be repress^^d (vcr. 23), and spiritual truths symbolically enforced (ver. 17 ; see note on " circumcision," ver. 11): comp. Pliilo, 'On Concupiscence ; ' also ' On Victims,' § 3. ©175 s the last of the three verbs, api^ears to be the strongest, forbidding the slightest contact. °Ai|/)) is better rendered " handle " (comp. John xx. 17) ; by itself it will scarcely bear the meaning it has in 1 Cor. vii. 1. The next verse seems to imply that •11 three verbs relate to matters of diet. Ambrose and other Latin Fathers of ascetic tendencies put these prohibitions into the mouth of St. Paul himself, leversing his meaning. Yer. 22 a ii the apostle's comment on these rules, in the firm of a continuation of their terms. Do not touch — things which are all intended to perish (literally, /or corruption) in theii consumption (Matt. xv. 17; Mark vii. 19 ; 1 Cor. vi. 13 ; vui. 8 ; 1 Tim. iv. 3 — 5), which, being destroyed as they are used, therefore do not enter into the soul's life, and are of themselves morally indifferent ; so the Greek Fathers, and most modem interpreters. This is the position which Christ himself takes in regard to Jewish distinctions of meats (Mark vii. 14—23, R.V.). We note the same style ef sarcastic comment on the language of the falte teachers as that exhibited in

Ver. 8. — But now do ye put away indeed all these (things) (ver. 9 ; ch. ii. 1 1 ; Eph. iv. 22, 25; Kom, xiii. 12; 1 Pet. ii. 1). The thought of the death of the old life gives place to that of the divesting of the oldhdbit; the new life wears a new dress. Mark the triumphant emphasis in " but now I " (opposed to the " once " of ver. 8), characteristic of the writer (comp. ch. i. 21, 26 ; Eom. iii. 21 ; vi. 22,- etc.). Ta ircivro ("all these things," "the whole " of them) summarizes the vices specified in ver. 5, and forms the startingpoint of another series, in which malice predominates, as impurity in the previous list ; anger, wrath, malice, evil-spealdng, fonl . speech from your month (Eph. iv. 26-— 31 ; v. 4 ; Eom. i. 29—31 ; 1 Cor, vi. 10 ; Gal. v. 20, 21 ; Titus iii. 3). There is a similar order and division between these two chief classes of sin in the parallel passages. In Eph. iv. 31, 32 and v. 3 — 5 the order is reversed. " Anger " (ipyii) is ascribed to Grod in ver. 6 (comp. Eph. iv. 26; Heb.x..SO). (On"anger" aud " wrath " (or " rage "), see

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 9. — Because in him dwelleth all the fulness (or, completeness) of the Bedhead bodUy (ch. i. 19 ; Phil. ii. 6—8 ; Kom. i. 3, 4; ix. 5; John i. 1, 14). In t;h. i. 18 — 20 we viewed a series of events ; here we have an abiding fact. The whole plenitude of our Lord's Divine-human person and powers, as the complete Christ, was definitively con.-.tituted when, in the exercise of his kingly prerogative, "he sat down on the rit;ht hand of the Majesty on high." " From henceforth " that fulness evermore resides in him (comp. note, ch. i. 19). The undivided pleroma of ch. i. 19 now reveals its twofold nature: it ia "the fulness of the Godhead," and yet " dwells corporeally in him." '• Godhead " (_ee6Tns) is the abstract of " God " (fleiis), not of the adjective "Divine" (9e?or : the Vulgate therefore, wrongly, divinitatis : comp. Rom. i. 20 ; Acts xvii 29 ; Wisd. xviii. 9), and denotes, "not DivineexcellenceSjbut the Divine nature" (Bengel); see Trench's • Synonyms.' Schenkel and others, guided by a conjecture of Theodoret, have found here the Church, supporting their view by a very doubtful interpretation of Eph. 1. 23. Still more groumlless is the identification of this pleroma with the created world. The apostle unmistakably affirms that the Divine nature, in its entirety.belongs to the Church's Christ. The literal sense of "bodily" (maintained by Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, liightfoot, Hofmann, after Chrysostom and Athanasius) has been avoided by those who render it " wholly " (Jerome) ; " essentially, substantially" (Cyril, Theophylaet, Calvin, Klopper), as opposed to " relatively " or " parlially ; " "truly " (Augustine, Erasmus, Bengel, Bleek), as opposed to " figuratively " (ver. 17). The adverb aa/iaTiKus (always literal in classical usage, along with its adjective) occurs only here in the New Testament; the adjective "bodily" in 1 Tim. iv. 8 ; Luke iii. 22. " The body of his flesh" in ch. i. 22 affords a truer parallel than the language of ver. 17, where (Tu/ia bears an exceptional sense (see note). Elsewhere St. Paul balances in simUar fashion expiessions relating to the twofold nature of Christ (see pirfallels). The assertion that "all the fulness of Deity" dwells in Christ negatives the Alexandrine "philosophy," wiih its cloud of mediating angelpowers and spiritual emanations;, tha assertion that it dwells in him bodily equally condemns that contempt for the body an4 0H.0. 1— 23.] THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SS1AN& ei the material world which was the chief practical tenet of the same school (comp. notes on ch. i. 22 and ii. 23).

Vers. 9 — 13.) For the ChrUHan everything depends on what he thinks of Christ and makes him to he. Christ's glory is his security. His greatness and the greatness of our interest in him are commensuriite. For " he gave himself iox us " (Gal. ii. 20). Our salvation is not merely a work vf Christ, a something wrought out for us, and (exteinally) conferred upon us; it is " Christ in us" (ch. i. 2; Eph. iii. 17; Gal. i. 16; John xiv. 20; xvii. 26j. Aiid St. Paul virtually says, " In robbing Christ of his glory, your new teachers are robbing you of your saltation. By so much as his position is lowered, his fulness diminished, by so much is your spiritual life imperilled and impaired. Whatever is taken away from the completeness of his Person and the sufficiency of his mediation, is taken away at the same time from your assurance of pardon (ver. 13 ; ch. i. 14) and your moiivea lor holiness (ch. iii. 1, 2), from the ground of your faith (vers. 6, 7), and the certainty of your heavenly prize (ver. 18 ; ch. i. 23 ; iii. 15). Whatever touches his person touches the centre and vital spring of your life in God, the anchor of your immortal hopes, and the foundation on which rests the whole fabric of the Church " (ver. 19 ; Eph. ii. 20 — 22 ; Matt. xvi. 15 — 18). 1. (1) In him dwells all the fulness qf the Godhead. Then he is not a partial, or an approximate, or temporary manifestation of God — like previous theophanies — a mere phase of the Infinite. He does not rank and share with angels and the various orders of created being in mirroring by scattered, broken rays the glory of God. As the Son, he stands at an infinite distance from, and holds an absolute supremacy over, all creation (ch. i. 15 ; Heb. i. 2 — 4 ; iii. 6). God is what he shows himself to be in Christ, and no other. There, if we could but behold and receive it, is " all tne fulness of the Divine nature." In him we know the only true, the real, veritable Ood (John xvii. 3). At last we grasp the substance of truth and no longer chase its shadows (ver. 17). Here is nothing transient, to be displaced by further evolution : this fulness dwells in him; we reach finality, truth absolute, determinate; and he who knows and has Christ may say, " This is the true God and eternal life " (1 John v. 20). (2) And this fulness duiellt in !iim bodily. For the Divine Word " became flesh," and in a human body " made his tabiTuacle amongst us " (John i. 14). He was " born of a woman, born under the law" (Gal. iv. 4), suffered our bodily ills and temptations, wrought with human hands, looked through human eyes, and spoke in the language of men ; sat as a friendly gueat at our tables, and stood as a mourner by our gravesides ; died a human death, " in the body of his flesh " (ch. i. 22), by the hands of men, and was laid in an earthly grave; he rose, "the same Jesus," in that same body, and ascended into heaven (ch. i. 18, 19 ; iii. 1—4), " far above all principality and power " (v«. 10 ; Eph i, 20 — 23), where he sits a radiant body, " appearing in the presenc* of 102 THE EPISTLE TO THE OOLOSSIANS. [cfi. ii. 1— 23 God tor us " (Heb. ix. 24), and whom one day we shall see (oh. iii. 1 — 4 ; Phil. iii. 90, 21; 1 Pet. i. 8, 9; 1 John iii. 2; Acts i. 11) — "the Man Christ Ji-sns," " who is ove' all, God blessed for ever" (Rom. ix. 5). This was the vision that dying Stephen beheld in the presence of Saul of Tarsus (Acts vii. 55 — 60), which ere long appean d to himself (Acts ix. 3 — H) and was henceforth evermore before his eyes. A nd since he has assume'! it, Christ's humanity is also peimanent. The fulnessof the Godhead still dwells in him hodily. He will not cease to be man any more than he can cease to be God. His relationship to his human brethren, and the nmembrance of his earthly sorrows, of "the wounds that he received in the house of his friends," are too precious to him for that. He is stili " the Lamb, in the midst of the throne," who is " the Shepherd " of his heavenly flock (Rev. vii. 17), the "Firstborn out of the dead" among the "many brethren" that have eternal life in him (ch. i. 18; Bom. viii. 29). And heaven for us is "to be where he is," " to see him as he is" (ch. iii. 4; Phil. i. 23 ; 2 Cor. v. 8 ; John xii. 26 ; xvii. 24 ; 1 J ohn iii. 2) — " the Man Christ Jesus," " the Lord of glory " ! "All the fulness of the Godhead, in bodily form!" — a mystery compared with which the roniradictions that so often baffle and vex us are trifles indeed; and yet an indubitable fact, that astonishes heaven (Epli. iii. 10; 1 Pet. i. 12) and glorifies the earth, and that fills struggling, sinful mortals with a sense of Divine sympathy, an assurance of forgiveness and help that make all things possible. 2. But Christ's fulness does not simjily " dwell in him," terminating in himself; it is an active, outflowinff fulness, that seeks to maize us in turn complete in him, (ver. 10; Eph. i. 23; iii. 19; iv. 8 — 13; John i. 14, 16; xvii. 22, 23, 26). The Judaizers of Colossae, as we understand their position, were urc;ing on their Gentile disciples that they should complete their imperfect Christian state by circumcision and the adoption of various ritual observances (including worsliip of the angels along with Christ) and bodily austerities (

vers. 9 — 14, to put on the new Christian virtues, especially gentleness, forgieingness, love; (d)

Ver. 9. — Lie not one to another, having stripped off the old man with his deeds (Eph. iv. 14, 15; 20—25; 1 Tim. i. 6; Eev. xxi. 8; oh. ii. 11; Eom. vi. 6; viii. 12, 13; Gal. V. 16, 24). The imperatives of vers. 5 and 8 were aorists, enjoining a single, decisive act; this is present, as in vers. 1, 2, 15, 18, etc., giving a rule of life. Only in Colossians and Ephesians do we find the apostle give a general warning against lying. What reason there was for this we cannot tell; unless it lay in the deceit of the heretical teachers (ch. ii. 8: comp. Eph. iv. 14, 15; Acts XX. 30; 2 Cor. xi. 13; 1 Tim. iv. 2; 2 Pet. ii. 1; 1 John iv, 1; Eev. iL 2; iii. 9). The lying in question is uttered within the Church (" to one another "), and is fatal to its unity (ver. 1 1 ; Eph. iv. 25 ; Acts XX. 28 — 30). The following aorist participles, "having stripped off" and "having put on" (ver. 10), may, grammatically, be part of the commond— "strip off," etc., and "lie not" — as e.g. in 1 Thess. v, 8; Heb. xii. 1; or may state the fact on which that command is based. The latter view is preferable (Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, English Version; but see Lightfoot); for the participles describe a change already realized — a change ot principle, which has, however, still to be more fully carried out in practice (ch. ii. 11 — 13, 20; iii. 1,3,7,11; Eph. iv. 20— 24 ; Gal. iii. 27, 28): in ver. 12 the imperative mood ia resumed with an emphatic " therefore," implying a previous reference to fact. (On the double compound air-cK-Suca^ei'oi, "having stripped off (and put) awav," see notes, ch. ii, 11 , 16,) The ".old man "" is the former self, the " I no longer living " (Gal. ii, 20) of the Colossian believer, to whom " the members that are upon the earth " (ver. n) belonged — the entire sinful personality of "him who is in the flesh " (Eom. viii. 8). His " deeds " (" practices," " habits of doing," Rom, viiL 13; see Trench's 'Synonyms' on irfjiirira) are the pursuits of which vers, 5, 8, 9 lupplf example*. OS. m. 1-260 tHfi EP18TLB fO THE COLOSSIANS. 151

The Pulpit Commentary
Yer. 10.— And (because) ye are in him made complete; or, fulfilled (Eph. i. 3,7 — 11, 23; iil. IS, 19; It. 13; Phil. iv. 19; Gal. iii. 14, 2i; V. 1, 4; 1 Cor. i. 80; ii. 2). A complete Christ makes his people complete ; his pleroma is our plerosis. Finding the whole fulness of God brought within our reach and engaged in our behalf (Phil, ii. 7; Matt. xx. 28) in him, we need not resort elsewhere to supply our spiritual needs (Phil. Iv. 19). " In him " is the primary predicate (see Alford, Ellicott, against Meyer: comp. ver. 3): "Ye are in him" is the assumption (Eom. viii. 1 ; xvi. 7) ; " (ye are) made complete " is the inference. (On the verb T\rip6a> (the basis of pleroma), used in peifect participle of abiding result, see notes, oh. i. 9, 19.) This completenest includes the furnishing of men with all that is required for their present and final salvation as individuals (

ver. 10. He has just declared that God has CHiicelled and removed the Law as an instrument of condemnation ; and now adds that he has at the same time thrown ofl and laid aside the veil of angi lie mediation under which, in the administration of tliat Law, he had withdrawn himself. Both these acts take place " in Christ." Both are necessary to that " access to the Father " which, in the apostle's view, is the special prerogative of Christian faith (Eph. ii. 18 ; iii. 12 ; Enm. v. 2), and which the Colossian error doubly b.irred, by its ascetic ceremonialism and by its angelic mediation. (See, on this passage, Alford ; also Peirce's ' Paraphrase and Notes,' 2nd edit., 1729 ; Robertson Smith, on 'Christ and the Angels,' Expositor, second series, vol. i. 138, etc.; A Sabatier's 'L'Apotre Paul,' p. 220, 2nd edit, 1881.) We are compelled, with all deference to its high authority, to reject the view of the Greek Fathers, to which EUicott, Lightfoot, and Wordsworth have returned, according to which " Christ in his at' ming death [in it ; ' the cross,' ver. 15 6] stripped off from himself the Satanic powers." For it requires us to bring in, without grammatical warrant, " somewhere " (Lightfoot), " Christ " as subject ; it puts upon" the principalities and the dominions" a sense foreign to the context, and that cannot be justified by Eph. vi. 12, where the connection is wholly different and the hostile sense of the terms is most explicitly defined; and it presents an idea harsh and unfitting in itself, -the incongruity of which such illustrations as those of the Nes%us robe and Joseph's garment only make more apparent. It is one thing to say that the powers of evil surrounded Christ, and quite another thing to say that he wore them as we have worn " the body of the flesh " (ver. 11 ; oh. iii. 9). He made a show (of them) openly, having led them in triumph in Mm ; or, it (Eph. i. 21, 22; Phil. ii. 10; 1 Pet. iii. 22; Heb. i: 5,6; John 1.52; Matt. xxv. 31; xxvi. 53; Bev. xix. 10 ; xxii. 9). In this, as in the last verse, we have a finite verb between two participles, one introductory (" having stripped off"), the other explanatory. AeiYjuariXm, to make a show or example, occtirs in the New Testament besides only in Matt. i. 17, where it is compounded with iropo- (Eevised Text), giving it a sinister meaning, not belonging to the simple verb. With the angelic " principalities," etc., for object, the verb denotes, not a shameful exposure, but " an exhibition of them in their true character and position," such as forbids tiiem to be regardi'd superstitiously (ver. 18). God exhibited the uugelsas the subordinates and servants of his Bon (ver. 10 : comp. Luke i. 26; ii 10, 13; Mark i. 13; Loks ei.n.1-23.] THE EPISTLE TO THE OOLOS8IAK8. M xxii.43. Matt, xxviii. 2, etc.). "Openly" (eV TTup^Tjirict : literally, in freedom of speech, a favourite word of St. Paul's) implies the absence of reserve or restraint, rather than mere publicity (comp. Eph. vi. 19 ; Phil. i. 20). @piaii$eia-a.s ("having triumphed;" 2 Cor. ii. 14 only other instance of the verb in the New Testament; its use in classical Greek confined to Latinist writers, referring, historically, to the Boman triumph) presents a formidable difficulty in the way of the interpretation of the verse followed so far. For the common acoeijtation of the word " triumph " compels us to think of the " principalities," etc., as hostile (Satanic) ; and this, again, as Meyer strongly contends, dictates the rendering " having spoilid" for airfKSvtrd/iems. So we are brought into collision with two fixed points of our former exegesis. If we are bound lexically to abide by the reference to the Roman military tiiumph, then the angelic principalities must be supposedto have stood in a quasi-hostile position to " the kingdom of God and of Christ," in so far as men had exaggerated their powers and exalted them at Christ's expense, and to have been now robbed of this false pre-eminence. The writer however, ventures to qiieBtion whether, on philological grounds, a better, native Greek sense cannot be found for this verb. The noun thriambos (" triumph "), on which it is based, is used, indeed, in the Latin sense as early as Polybius, a writer on Roman history (160 B.C.). But it is extant in a much earlier classical fragment as synonymous with dithyrambos, denoting " a festal song ; " and again in Plutarch, contemporary with St. Paul, it is a name of the Greek god Dionysus, in whose honour such songs were sung, and whose worship was of a choral, processional character. This kind of triumph was, one may imagine, familiar to the eyes of St. Paul and of liis readers, while the spectacle of the Roman triumph was distant and foreign (at least when he wrote 2 Corinthians). We suggest that the apostle's image is taken, both here and in 2 Cor. ii. 14, from the festal procession of the Greek divinity, who leads his worshippers along as witnesses of his power and celebrants of his glory. Such a figure fittingly describes the relation and the attitude of the angels to the Divine presence ia Christ. Let this suggestion, however, be regarded as precarious' or fanciful, the general exposition of the verse is not thereby invalidated. (For further elucidation, see the Expositor, first series, vol. x. pp.403— 42] ; xi. p. 78. On "triumph," in 2 Corinthians see Mr. Waite's Additional note in ' Speaker's Commentary.') The Revisers omit the marginal "in himself" of the Authorized Version, which correctly, a» we think, refers the final iv abr^ to Christ (ver. 10), though incorrectly implying "Christ" as subject of the verse. It was not only " in the cross " that God unveiled himself, dispensing with angelic theophauics, but in the entire person and work of his Son (ch. i. 15 ; 2 (3or. iv. 4; John i. 14, 18; xiv. 9). "Which veil " (for here we may apply the words of 2 Cor. iii. 14) "is done away in Christ." So the whole passage (

vers. 10 — 15) ends, as it begins, " in him : " " We are complete in him" — in our conversion from sin to holiness set forth in baptism, and our resurrection from death to life experienced in forgiveness (

Ver. 10. — And having pnt on the new (man), which is being renewed nnto (full) knowledge, after (the) image of him that created him (Eph. iv. 23, 24 ; ii. 15 ; Eom. vi. 4 j vii. 6; viii. 1—4 ; xiii. 12—14 ; 2 Oor. v. 17; Gal. vi. 15 ; ch. 1. 9 ; ii. 2, 3 ; Gen. i. 26—28 ; Matt. V. 48; Heb. xii. 10; 1 Pet. i. 16; Kom. viii. 29). New (i/e'os) is " young," " of recent date" (compare the "once," "but now " of vers. 7, 8 ; also oh. i. 5—8 ; 1 Pet. ii. 1, 2), whose birtli was well remembered, and which presented so vivid a oontnist to the "old man with his deeds." "Being renewed" {iwaxaivoilinevoy, derived from the adjective kcuvSs) sets forth the other side of this newness, its tuyoelty of quality and condition (compare "newness of life," Bom. vi. 4). And this participle is in the present tense (continuous), while the former is in the aorigt (historical). So the notions are combined of a new birth taking place once for all, and a new character in course of formation. In Eph. iv. 23, 24 these ideas are in the same order (see Trench's ' Synonyms '). " Full knowledge " was one purpose of this renewal, the purpose most necessary to be set before the Colossians. The nature and objects of this knowledge have been already specified (ch. i. 6, 9, 27, 28 ; ii. 2, 3, 9, 10: comp. Eph i. 18, 19; iii. 18, 19 ; Phil, iii. 8 — 14 ; 1 Cor. i. 18 — 31 ; and on Myi/axris, see note, ch. i. 6). "After (the) image" is clearly an allusion to Gen i. 26 — 28 ; so in Eph. iv. 24 ( " after God "). It is adverbial ti) "renewed," not to "koowledge." Man's renewal in Christ makes him what the Cr.:atoi at first designed him to be, namely, liis own image (compare iiote on " reconcile," ch. i. 20). Olirysostom and others take "Christ" as "hiin that created," in view of ch. i. 15, 16; but then it is said that all things " were created in . . . through . . . for Christ," not absolutely that Christ created them. But " the image of God after which " man was created and is now recreated, is seen in Christ (Bom. viii. 29; 2 Cor. iii 18: iv. 4; John i. 18).

The Pulpit Commentary
vers. 11—15; oh. i. 21, 22, 28), and for their collective perfection as foriiiinj; the Church, the body of Christ (vers. 2, 19 ; ch. i. 19 ; Eph. i. 23 ; V. 26, 27); for this twofold completeness, comp. Eph. iv. 12 — 16. Who is the Head of all principality and dominion (vers. 15 IS; oh. i. 16; Eph. i. 21; Phil. ii. 10, 11; 1 Cor. XV. 24; Heb. i. 6, 14; 1 Pet. iii. 22). (On " principality," etc., see note, oh. i. 16.) The Colossians were being taught to replace or supplement Christ's offices by those of angel-powers (see notes, vers. 15, 18). Pliilo (' Concerning Dreams,' i. §§ 22, 23) wiites thus of the angels: "Free from all bodily encumbrance, endowed with larger and diviner mtrlleot, tliey are lieutenants of the All-ruler, eyes and ears of the great K-ing. Philosophers in general call them demons (Sal/M>v(s); the sacred Scripture angels, for they report (Sio77^AAou(ri) the injunctions of the Fatlier to his children, ai id the wants of the oliildren to their Father. . . . Angels, the Divine words, walk about [comp. 2 Cor. vi. 16] in the souls of those who have not yet completely washed off the (old) life, foul and stained through their cumbersome bodies, making them bright to the eyes of virtue." In such a strain the Colossian "philosopher" may have lieen talking. But if Christ is the Maker aud Lord of these invisible powers (oh. i. 15, 16), and we are in Mm, tiien we must uo longer look to mem as our saviours.

Var. 11. — In whom also ye ware circumcised, with a circumcision not wrought by hands (Eph. ii. 11 ; Phil. iii. 3; Gal. v. 2— 6; vi. 12—15; Eom. ii. 25—29; iv. 9—12; 1 Cor. vii. 18; Acts xv. 1, 5; Dent, xxx, 6). Circumcision was insisted on by the new "philosophical" teacher as necessary to spiritual completeness; but from a different standpoint, and in a manner different irom that of the Pharisaic Judaizers of Galatia and of Acts xv. 1. Bv the latter it was preached as matter of Law and external requirement, and so became the critical point in the decision between the opposing principles of " faith " and " works." By the philosophical school it was enjoined as matter of symbolic moral efficiency. So Philo speaks of circumcision (' On the Migration of Abraham,' § 16) as " setting forth the excision of all the pleasures and passions, and the destruction of impious vain opinion ' (see also his treatise ' On Circumcision '). From this point of view, baptism is the Christian circumcision, the new symbolic expression of the moral change which St. Paul and his opponents alike deemed necessary, though they understood it in a different sense from him (see

vers. 11 — 13); and in the removal at once of the legal bar which forbade our access to God (ver. 14), and of the veil of inferior and partial mediation which obscured his manifestation to us (ver. 15).

Ver. 11.— Where there is (or, can he) no Greek and Jew, oiroumoision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Soythian, bondman, freeman (Gal. iii. 28; vi. 15; Eph. ii. 14 — 18; iv. 25; 1 Cor. xii. 13; Eom. xv. .5—12; I'hilem. 15, 16; John ivii. 20—23; Luke xxii. 24—27 ; John xiii. 12—17). That ^vi means "can be," "negativing, not merely the fact, but the possibility," is doubtful in view of 1 Cor. vi. 5 (Bevised Text). " In Christ " these distinctions are non-existent. There is no place for them. These and the following words indicate the sphere, as " unto knowledge " the end, and " after the image " the ideal or norm, of the progressive renewal to bo effected in the Colossian (j^liever. It can be carried on only where and so far as these distinctions are set Mide. The "new man" knows nothing of them. The enmity between Greek and Jew being removed, the malice and falsehood that grew out of it will disappear (vers. 8, 9 : comp. Eom. XV. 7 ; Eph. iv. 25). In Gal. iii. 28 "Jew" stands first, and the distinction of tex is added. The distinctions here enumerated appear as looked at from the Greek side. Only here in the New Testament does " Greek " precede " Jew " (comp. Bom. i. 10; 1 Cor. xii. 13, etc.). "Barbarian" (Bom. i. 14) and "Seythian" (only here in tlie New Testament) are together opposed to " Greek," and imply want of culture rather than alien nationality, the Scythian being the rudest of barbarians (see Lightfoot's full note). Such terms of contempt would, in Asia Minor, be commonly applied by Greeks to the native population. The party who affected philosophic culture (ch. ii. 8, 23) may, perhaps, have applied them to simple, uneducated Christians (see note on ch. i. 28). (On "circumcision," see ch. ii. 11 ; and for the connection with ver. 9, comp. Gal. vi. 15.) For " bond " and " free," a division then pervading society universally, comp. Gulatian list. Onesimus and Philemon are doubtless in the apostle's mind. On this relationship he enlarges in the next section (oh. iii. 22 — iv. 1). The four pairs of opposed terms represent distinctions (1) of race, (2) of religious privilege, (3) of culture, (4) of social rank. But Christ is all things, and in aU (ch. i. 15—20; ii. 9, 10; iii. 4, 17; Eph. i. 3, K, 22, 23; ii. 13—22; iii. 8, 19; PhiL i. 21; iii. 7—14; iv. 19; Gal. u. 20; v. 2, 4; Eom. v. 10; viii. 32, 39). "Christ" stands at the end of the sentence, with accumulated emphasis. The Church regards and values each man in his relation to Christ, and bids every other consideration bow to tliis. He is "all things" — our common centre, our standard of reference, and fount of honour, the sum of all we acknowledge and desire ; and he is " in all " — ^the common life and soul of his people, the substance of all we experience and possess as Christians. The second " all " is masculine (so most commentators, from Chrysoatom downwards), referring more specially to the classes just enumerated. Similarly, in Eph. iv. 6: comp. ch. i. 27; Eph. iii. 17; Gal. i. 15; ii. 20; iv. 19. (While he is " in all," it is equally true that all are " in him:" comp. John xv. 4; xvii. 23, 26.) Just as in the spiritual sphere, and in thci relations between God and man, Christ is shown to be aU, so that " principalities and powers" are comparatively insignificant (ch. I. 16 ; ii. 9, 10, 15) ; so in the moral sphere, and in the relations between man and man All human distinctions, like all angelic ofSces, must pay homage to his lupremac^, 152 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANa |_0H. m. 1 — 25. and sabmit to &« leconeiling unity of hii kingdnm (Eph. i. 10).

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 12— When ye were (literally, having heen) buried with him in your baptism (vtr. 20 ; ch. iii. 3 ; Bom. vi. 1— H ; Gal. iji. 26, 27 ; Eph. iv. 5 ; V. 26 ; Titus iii. 5 ; 1 Pet, iii. 21 ). BuiTTio-Mfis, the rarer form of the word, is preferred byTregelles,Alford, Lightfoot (see his note), being found in Codex B, with other good authorities; it indicates the process (" in your baptizing "). B6,TrTi<riJ.tt, the usual tbrin of the word, is retained by Revisers, after Tisohendorf, Ellicott, Westcott and Hort. Baptism stands for the entire change of the nian which it symbolizes and seals (Bom. vi. 3—5 ; Gal. iii. 27). The double aspect of this change was indicated by the twofold moyement taking place in immersion, the usual form of primitive baptism—first the KoT(£5u(rij, the descent of the baptized person beneath the symbolic waters, figuring his death with Christ as a separation from sin and the evil past (ver. 20), — there for a moment he is buried, and burial is death made complete and final (Horn. vi. 2 — i); then the amSuiris, the emerging ftom the baptismal wave, which gave baptism the positive side of its significance. In which (or, whom) also ye were raised with (him), through your faith in the workuig of God, who raised him from the dead (ch. iii, 1 ; i. 18 ; Eph, ii, 6, 8 ; Bom, vi, 4 ; iv. 24, 25 ; 1 Pet. i. 21). We refer the relative pronoun to the immediately antecedent " baptism," although the previous eV 4 refers to " CJhrist " (ver. 11 : comp. Eph, ii. 6) and some good interpreters follow the rendering" in whom." For the Christian's being raised with Christ is not contrasted with his circumcision (ver. H)— that tiguru has been dismissed— but with his burial in baptism (ver. 12 o); so Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot, Eevisers. " Hft'ing been buried " is replaced in the antithesis by the more assertive " ye were raised" (comp. vers. 13, 14; oh. i. 22, 26). " With " points to the " hlrn " (Christ) of the previous clause (comp. Eph. ii. 6 ; Bom, vi, 6). Faith is the instiumental cause of that which baptism sets forth (comp. Gal. iii. 26, 27), and has for its object (not its cause: so Bengel) "the working" livejry^ia: see note, ch. i. 29 ; also Eph. i, 20 ; iii. 20) " of God." And the special Divine work on which it rests is " tlie resurrection of Christ " (Bom. iv. 24, 25 ; x. 9 ; 1 Oor. iv. 18—17) : comp. note on " Firstborn out of the dead," oh. i. 19. Bising frdm the baptismal waters, the Cliristian convert decliires the faith of his heart in that supreme act of God, which attests and makes sure all thut he has bestowed upon us in his Son (ch. i. 12 — 14: comp. Bom. i. 4; also 1 Pet. i. 21; Acts ii. 36; xiii. 33, 38, etc.). Baptism symbolizes all that circumcision did, and more. It expresses more fully than the older sacrament our parting with the life of sin ; and also that of which oircum«ision knew nothing — the union of the man with the dying and risen Christ, which makes him "dead unto sin, and alive unto God." How needless, then, even if it were legitimate, for a Cliristian to return to this superseded rite I To heighten his readers' sense of the reality and completeness of the chringe which as baptized (i.e. believing) Christians they had undergone, he describes it now more directly as matter of personal experience.

ver. 12. Death, in St. Paul's theology, is " a collective expression for the entire judicial consequences of sin " (see Cremer's ' Lexicon,' on fliii/aTos and veKp<!s), of which the primary spiritual element is the sundering of the soul's fellowship with God, from which flow all other evils contained in it. Life, therefore, begins with justification (Bom, v. 18). " Trespasses " are particular acts of sin (Eph. i. 7 ; ii. 1, 5 ; Bom. V. 15 — 20 ; xi. 11) ; •' unoircumcision of the flesh" is general sinful impurity sf nature. The false teachers probably stigmatized the unoiroumcised state as unholy. The apostle adopts the expression, but refera it to the pre-Christian life of his readers (see vers. 11, 12), when their Gentile unoircumcision was a true type of their moral condition (Bom. ii. 25 ; Eph. ii. 11). These sinful acts and this sinful condition were the cause of their former state of death (Bom. V. 1 2). The Bevisers rightly restore the second emphatio " you " — " you, unoiroumcised Gentiles " (comp. ch. i. 21, 22, 27 ; Eph. i. 13; ii. 11—18; Bom. iv. 9). It is God who " made you alive " as he " raised him (Christ)," (ver. 12); the second act being the consequence and counterpart of the first, tiud faith the subjective link between them. XapliouM, to show grace, used of Divine foj?> OH. n. 1-23*] THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSTANS. m given ess only in this and the Ephesian Epistle (ch. iii. 13 J Eph. iv. 32 : conip. Luke vii. 42, 43; 2 Cor, ii. 7, 10; xii IH), points to the canse or principle of forgiveness in the Divine grace (Eph. ii. 4, 5 ; Eom. iii. 26 ; V. 17). In " having forgiven «» " tlie writer signiiicantly passes from the second to tlie first person : so in Eph. ii, 1 — 5 (comp. Rom. iii. 9, 30; 1 Tim. i. 15). The thought of the new life hestowed on the Colossians with himself in their individual forgiveness calls to his mind the great act of Divine mercy from which it sprang (the connection corresponds, in reverse order, to that of oh. i. 20, 21 ; 2 Cor. t. 19, 20), and he continues— Ver. 1 4. — Having blotted out the bond (that was) against us with (or, written in) decrees, which was opposed to us (Eph. ii. 14 — li; ; Eom. iii. 9—26; vii. 7—14; 2 Cor. v. 19; Gal. iii. 10—22; 1 Cor. xv. 56; Acts xiii. 88, 39). The ancients commonly used wax tablets in writing, and the flat end of the pointed stylus drawn over the writing smeared it out (expunged) and so cancelled it (comp. Acts iii. 19 ; Ps. li. 9 ; Isa. xliii. 25, LXX). " God," not " Christ," is the sul)- ject of this verb, which stands in immediate sequence to those of vers. 12, 13 (comp. 2 Cor. V. 19). It is the receiver rather than the offerer of satisfaction who cancels the debt : in Eph. ii. 15 (comp. oh. i. 22) a different verb is used. Xstpdjpcupov (" hand-wri tttn ; " a word of later Greek, only here in the New Testament) is used specially of an account of debt, a bond signed by the debtor's hand (see Meyer and Lightfoot). This bond (with its decrees) can be nothing other than " the law " (Eph. ii. 14—16 ; Acts xiii. 38, 39 ; Eom. iii. 20 ; vii. 25 ; Gal. iii. 21, 22, etc.) ; not, however, the ritual law, nor even the Mosaic Law as such (as Meyer contends), but law as law, the Divine rule of human life impressed even on Gentile hearts (Eom. ii, 14, 15), to which man's conscience gives its consent (Bum. vii. 16, 22), and yet which becomes by his disobedience just a list of charges against him (so Neander and Lightfoot ; see the latter on Gal. ii. 19), Exod. xxiv. 3 and Deut. xxyii. 14 — 26, indeed, illustrate this wider relation of Divine law to the human conscience generally. Tois S6yii.aau/ is dative of reference either to koA' thiHv (" against us: " qualifying or explanatory — <« respect of its decrees} or to the verbal idea contained in x^'Py^P"'!""' ("written in," or "with decrees"). The former explanation (that of Winer and Ellioott) is preferable. The Greek Fathers made it instrumental dative to e^aKi(<j/a9, understanding by these Siiy/daTa the doctrines {dogmas) of the gospel by which the charges of the Law against us are expunged. But this puts on t6yfi.a a later theological sense fonign to St, Paul, and universally rejected by modem interpreters, In the New Te8f»< ment (comp. Luke ii. 1 ; Acts xvi. 4; Heb. xi. 23), as in classical Greek, dogma it a decree, setting forth the will of some public authority (comp. note on SoyfiaTl^a, ver. 20). The added clause, "which wag opposed to us," afBrius the active O[iposition, as " against us " the essential Ijostility of the decrees of God's law to our sinful naturo (Rom. iv. 15 ; Gal. iii. 10 : comp. Eom. vii. 13, 14). The emphasis with which St. Paul dwells on this point is characteristic of the author of Romans and Galatians. 'TttsvdvTws occurs besiiles only in Heb. x. 27 ; the prefix iirh implies close and persistent opposition (Lightfoot). And he hath taken it out of the midst, having nailed it to the cross (ch. i. 20—22 ; Eph. ii. 18 ; 2 Cor. v. 19; Rom. iii. 24—26; v. 1,2; Gal. iii. 13; Heb. i. 3; Joliu i. 29; 1 John iv. 10). A third time in these three verses (12 — 14) we note the transition from participle to co-ordinate finite verb; and here, in addition, the aorist tense passes into the perfect (" hath taken "), marking the finality of the removal of the Law's condemning power (Rom. viii. 1 ; Acts xiii. 39) : comp. the opposite transition in oh. i. 26, 27. The moral deliverance of ver. 11 is traced up to tliis legal release, both contained in our completeness in Christ (ver. 10). The subject is still "God." Cancelling the bond which he held against us in his Law, God has for ever removed the ba/rrier which stood between mankind and himself (2 Cor. v. 19). Christ's place in this work, already shown in oh. i. 18 — 23 (in its relation to himself), is vividly recalled by the mention of the cross. And the abolition of the Law's condemnation is finally set forth by a yet bolder metaphor — "having nailed it to the cross." The nails of the cross in piercing Christ pierced the legal instrument which held us debtors, and nullified it; see Gal. iii. 13 (comp. Gal. ii. 19, 20); Eom. vii. 4 — 6. UpoariKdaas may suggest the further idea of nailing up the cancelled document, by way of publication. At the cross all may read, "There is now no condemnation" (compare the " making a show " of ver. 15 ; also Eom, iii. 25 ; Gal. iii. 1). (For

vers. 12 — 15. Moreover, " the principalities and the dominions" of this verse must surely be those of ver. 10 and of ch. i 16 (compare the " angels " of ver. 18). We understand St. Paul, therefore, to say " that God [revealing himself in Christ ; ' in him,' 15 6] put off and put away thoae angelic powers through whom he had previously shown himself to men." The Old Testament associates the Kugels with the creation of the world and the action of the powers of nature (Job xxxviii. 7; Ps. civ. 4), and with its great theophanies generally (Ps. Ixviii. 7 ; Cent, xxxiii. 2 ; 2 Kings vi. 17, etc.) ; and its hints in this direction were emphasized and extended by the Greek translators of the LXX. Acts vU. 38, 53 (St. Stephen) ; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2, ascribe to them a special agency in the giving of the Law. Heb. i. and ii. show how large a place the doctrine of the mediation of angels filled in Jewish thought at this time, and how it tended to limit the mediatorship of Christ. The mystic developments of Judaism among the lOssenes and the Ebioiiites (Christian Fissenes), and in the Cabbala, are full of this belief. And it is a corner-stone of the philosophic mysticism of Alexandria. In Fhilo the angels are the " Divine powers," " words," " images of God," forming the court and entourage of the invisible King, by whose means he created and maintains the material world, and holds converse with the souls of men (see quotation, ver. 10). This doctrine, we may suppose, was a chief article of the Colossian heie-y. Theodoret's note on ver. 18 is apposite here : " They who defended the Law taught men to worship angels, Baying that the Law was given by them. This mischief continued long in Fiirygia and Fisidia." The apostle returns to the point from which he started in

Yer. 12. — Put on, therefore, as elect of Ood, holy, [and] beloved (vers. 9, 14 ; Eph. ir. 24 ; i. 3—5 ; Gal. til. 27 ; Bom. xiii. 14 ; 1 ThesB. T. 8 ; i. 4 ; 2 ThesB. iu 13 r Titus L 1 ; Bom. Tiii. 28—39 ; 1 Pet. i 1, 2 ; 1 John iii. 1). The terms " elect," " holy " (same as " 8siiitB>" oh. i. 2 ; see note), '^beloTed," apply alike aud separatdy to those addressed. Bengel, Meyer, Alford, EUicott prefer to read " holy and beloved elect (ones) ; " but "holy" and "beloved" are used frequently by St. Paul as distinct subs.tantiye expieaaions, and indicate conditions ensuing on, rather tlian determining, election. ColoEsian believers are "elect" in virtue of •n aatecedent choice of them to salvation on the part of God, as those who would belieTe on his Son (1 Thess. i. 4 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13; Eph. i. 4, 5 ; ii. 8 ; Bom. viii. 28— 3ft; 1 Pet i. 1, 2). Their whole Christian standing springs from and witnesses to God's eternal (Eph. i. 4) election nf them- an election .whieb, however, presumes faith on their part from begiuning to end (ch. i. 22, 23; Bom. ix. 30—33 ; xi. 5—10, 17—24). « Elect" and " called," with St Paul, are coextensive trams: Cdmp. Eom. 1 7 (B.V.) with this passage, also 1 Cor. i. 26, 27. To address the Coloesian Christians as elect is to remind them of all that they owe to God's grace. " Elect " as chosen by God, they are "holy " as devoted to God. By the latter title they were first addressed (ch. i. 2); holiness is the essence of Christian character. That tiiey should gain this character and appear in it at tlie last judgment wa4s the purpose of Christ's atoniug death (ch. i. 21 , 22X as it was the purpose of God's eternal election of believers (Epli. i. 4 ; 2 These, ii 13 ; 1 Pet ii. 9). "And" is marked as dimhtful by Lightfoot, Westeott and Hort; "it is impobsible not to feel how much the sentence gains in form by its omission " (Lightfoot). " Beloved " (jiyairrifievoi) is the perfect participle passive ; it describes the position of those who, carrying out by their present holiness the purpose of their ps/st election, axe the objects of God's abiding love (1 Thess. i. 4). This love dic-tated their election and Bet at work the means by which it should be secured (Eph. i 3 — 14 ; Hw 4 ; Bom. viiL 38 —30, 39 : 1 John iii. 1 ; Iv. 9, 10). As its purposes are increasingly fulfilled in them, it rests on them with an abiding complacency and satisfaction (Eph^ v. 1 ; John xiv. 21 — 23). Christ is "the beloved One" (Eph. i. 6 ; Matt iii 17, etc.), and thoso who ure " in him " in their measure share the same title (John xviL 23 — 2G). But their choice by God and devotion lO' Gofl, who is aM love to them (Bom. viii. 39 ; 1 John iv. 16), must in turn beget a loring hsaztin them (1 Jolui iv. IIX A heart of pity, kindness, IsirUnest of mind, meekntss, lang-gnffering (Eph. iv. 1, 2, 32— V. 2 ; PhU. ii. 1-4 ; Gal. v. 22 ; 1 Cor. xiii. 4; Titus iii. 2; 1 Pet iii. 8, 9; Matt. v. 5, 7; xi. 29; Luke vi. 35, 36). "The airAiyxva are properly the nobler viscera" rather than the bmoels. The use of this figure, found three times in Philemon, is Hebraistic (comp. Luke i. 78; 2 Cor. vi. 12; Philem. 7, 12, 20; Jas. t. 11; 1 John iii. 17), though similar expressions occur in Grec k poets. " Pity " (or, " compassion ") is an attribute of God in Bom. xii. 1 ; 2 Cor. i. 3: comp. Luke vi. 38 ("pitiful"). (On " kindness," or "kindliness," see Gal. v. 22; 1 Cor. xiii. 4 ; 2 Cor. vi. 6 — ^in each case following "long-suffering;" Eom. li. 22, where it is opposed to "severity" in God (comp. Bom. ii. 4) ; Eph. ii. 7 ; Titus iii. 4, where it is ascribed to God in his dealing with men in Christ; also Matt. xi. 30.) It is synonymouB with " goodness " (Gal. T. 22; Eph. V. 9; Matt yii. 11 ; xii. 35, etc.); but " goodness " louks chiefly to benefit intended or conferred, "kimdnesa" to the spirit acd manner of bestowal (see Trench's 'Synonyms'), The objects of "pity " are the suffering and miserable ; ef " kindnras," the needy and dependent. The "lowliness of mind " of ch. ii. 18, 23 was something specious and to be guarded againvt ; here it is the central and essential element of the true Christian temper (Acts xx. 19 ; PhU. ii. 8 ; 1 Pet V 5; Luke si v. 11; xviii. 14), ita self-regarding element (Bom. xii. 3). It is linked with " meekness," as in Eph. iv. 2 and Matt xi. 29. " Pity " and " kiadness," preceding "humility," relate to the claims of others upon ns ; " meekness " and " longsuffering," to our bearing towards them. "Meekneae," the opposite of rudeness and self-assertion (1 Cor. xiii. 5), la a delicate consideration for the rights and feelings of others, especiatly necessary in administering rebuke or discipline (Gal. vi. 1 ; 2 Tim. ii. 25; 1 Cor. iv. 21; Titus iii. 2)i and conspicuous in Christ (Matt. xi. 29 ; xxi. 5 ; 2 Cor. X. 1). St. Peter marks it as a womanly virtue (1 Pet iii. 4). "Long-suffering" is called forth by the conduct of " the evS and unthankful" (see ch. i. 11, and note). St. Paul claims this quality for himself (2 Cor. vi. 6 ; 2 Tim. iii. 10). Throughout Scripture rt isi ascribed to God (Exod. xxxiv. 6 ; Bum. ii. 4; ix. 22 ; 1 Tim. i. 16 ; 2 Pet. iii. », 15, elc).

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 13. — And you, being dead by reason of (or, in) your trespasses and the nnoircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses (Eph. ii. 1 — 5 ; i. 7 ; Bom. v. 12—21 ; vi. 23; vii. 9—13, 24; viii. 1, 2, 8, 10 ; 1 Cor. XV. .56 ; John v. 24 ; vi. 51 ; 1 John iii. 14 ; Gen. ii. 17). (For the transition from " having raised " (ver. 12) to this verse, comp. Eph. i. 20 — ii. 1 ; also ch. i. 20, 21.) Again the participle gives place to the finite verb : a colon is a sufficient stop at the end of

Yer. 13.^ — Zearing -with ane anethsr, and fsrgiviag ea«h other (literally, yourselves), if any one have a complaint against any (Eph. iv. 1,2,32; v. 1 ; 1 These, v. 14; 1 Cot. vi. 7, 8; 2 Cor. ii. 10; Matt. vi. 14, 1£ • xyiii. 21—35 ; Mark xL 25; Luke xvii. 8; 4). (On " bearing with " or " forbearing," see 1 Cor. iv. 12; 2 Cor. xi. 19, 20 ; Matt. xvii. 17.) It is weribed to Ck>d, vtth " tong-suSering,"

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 15.— Having stripped off the principalities and the dominions (eh. i. 16 ; ii. 10 : Acts vii. 38, 53 ; Gal. iii. 19 ; Heb. i. 5, 7, 14 ; ii. 2, 5 ; Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; Pa. Ixviii. 17). 'AirfieSvffiinepos has been rendered, from the time of the Latin Vulgate, " having spoiled " (exspolians), a rendering which is " not leas a violation of St. Paul's usage (ch. iii. 9) than of grammatical rule" (Lightfoot; so Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth, Hofmann, Eevisers). It is precisely the same participle that ve flitd in oh, iii, 9, wd tb« writer ow) 96 THE EHSTLE TO THE COLOSSlANS. tea. It. 1—28. just user! the noun &wfKSv(ris (ver 11) in s eoiTeBiKiniliiip: simse (see note in he. ou the force of the duuble ooiupouiul). He emjiloys coiiipouniU of biw iu Ihe middle voice seventeen tiineu elsewhere, .end always in the gensu of "putting off [or, 'on'] from one's self;" and tliere is no sure instance in ©reok of the middle verb bearing any other meaning. Yet such critics as Meyer, Eadie, Klopper, cling to the rendering of the Vulgate and our Authorized Version ; and not without reason, as we shall see. The Kevised margin follows the earlier Latin Fathers and some ancient versions, supplying " his body " as object of the participle, understanding " Christ " as subject. But the contc xt dops not, as in 2 Cor. v. 3, Bugge.4 this ellipsis, and it is arbitrary to make the participl- itself mean "having disembodied himself." Nor has the writer introduced any new subject since ver. 12, where " God " appears as agent of each of the acts of salvation set forth in

vers. 15 — 17, to let the sovereign influence of Christ sway their whole life — inward, social, secular; (e)

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 16. — Do not let any one, therefore, be judging you in eating or in drinking (

ver. 16. Such visions would be suitable for the purpose of the errorist, and congenial to the Phrygian temperament, with its tendency to mysticism and ecstasy (see Theodoret, quilted under ver. 15, who also says that angel-worship was specially forbidden by the Council of Laodicea, a.d. 364). If the false teacher were accustomed to say with an imposing air, " I lave seen, ah t I have leen!" In referring to his revelations, the apostle's allusion would be obvious and telling. The language of 2 Cor. zii. 1 (R.V.) sugL'Csts a similar reliance on supernatural visions on the part of the apostle's earlier opponents. This pre teutioua v isionary is, however, a " philosopher " and a " reasoner" first of all (vers. 4, 8). Accordingly he investigates what he has seen; inquires into the import of his visiims, rationally develops their principles, and deduces their consequences. So far, the apostle continues in tlie ironical vein in which the first words of the verse are written, setting forth the pretensions of his opponent in his own terras, his irony " restraining itself till, after the word in&aTsiiuv, the indignation of truth breaks forth from it " (Steiger) in the caustic and decisive " vainly." Ei/c? qualifies the foregoing participle (so Origen, apparently, in Cramei's ' Catena,' vol. iv. p. 69 ; Steiger, De Wette, Hoftnann, Co;iybeare) more suitably than the following. Thus it signifies " idly,' " to no purpose." as everywhere else in Sc. Paul (Bom. xiii. 4 ; 1 Cor. xv. 2 ; Gal. iii. 4 ; iv. 11) ; not " without cause," as joined to tfivinoiixivos (" puffed up "), whose force it could only weaken. " Vainly " stigmatizes the futility, " puffed up " the coneeit, and " by the reason of his flesh " the low and sensuous origin of these vaunted revelations and of the high-flown theosophy wliich tliey were used to support. (For the sarcastic force of " puffed up," comp. 1 Cor. iv. 6, 19 ; V. 2; viii. 1 ; xiii. 4). The "reaso i" (yovs) is, in Greek philosophy, the philosophical faculty, the power of supersensible intuition ; and in Plato and Philo, tlie organ of the higher, mystical knowledge of Divine things (see Philo, ' Who is Heir of Divine Things ? ' §§ 13, 20, and •passim). The Colossian " philosopher" (ver. 8) would, we may imagine, speak of himself as " borne aloft " in his visions " by heavenly reason," "lifted, high in angelical communion," or the like. Hence the apostle's sarcasm, " Exalted are they? say ratlier, inflated: lifted high by Divine reason 1 nay, but swollen high by the reason of their flesh." Some such allusion to the language of the errorists best accounts for the paradoxical vovs ttjs aapK6s (see Lightfoot); contrast with Eom. vii. 25, and compare the disparaging reference to Siaroia, ch. i. 21 (note). Difficult as this passage is, we hesitate to follow Lightfoot, and Westcott and Hort, who have given their weighty sanction to the perilous remedy of conjectural enumdalion ; the latter editors for the second time in this verse, and again in

vers. 16, 20 — 22 denounced certain ascetic rules as obsolete, or as trifling and needleos ; but he has yet to expose the principle and tendency from whicli they sprang. He is the more bound to be explicit on this subject inasmuch as there were ascetic leanings in his own teaching, and passages in his earlier Epistles such as Eom. viii. 13; xiii. 14; 1 Cor. vii. 1; ix. 27, which the " philosophical " party might mjt uunaturully wrest to their own purposes. He could not condemn severity to the body absolutely, and in every sense. The Colossian rigorism he does condemn — (1) as not in heaping with bodily self-respect, which is the safeguard of Cliristian purity ; and (2) as not in reality directed against sensual indulgence, the prevention of which is the proper end of rules of abstinence. These two objections are thrown into a single terse, energetic negative claute, obscure, like so much in this chapter, from its brevity and want of connecting particles. In 1 Thess. iv. 4 the phrase, " iu honour," occurs in a similar connection : " That each one of you know how to gain possession of his own vessel" (i.e. "to become master of his body : " see Wordsworth and Alford on the passage; also Meyer'* reference on ♦-H. n. 1— 23.] THE EPTRTLTl! TO THE OOLOSSTANS. Bom. l 24) "In Balictification Rnd hnnnnr" (comp. 1 Cor. vi. 13—20 for the i.postle's teaching respecting the dignity of the human body; also Phil. iii. 19 — 21). Tlie contempt of Alexandrine theosophists for physical nature was fatal to morality, undermining the basis on which rests the government of the body ns the " vessel " and vesture of the spiritual life. Their principles took effect, first, in a morbid and unnatural asceticism ; then, by a sure reaction, and with equal consistency, in unrestrained and shocking licence. See, for the latter result, the Epistles to the seven Churches of Asia (fiev. ii. and iii.) ; in the Pastoral Epistles, the two opposite effects are both Signalized. The rendering "value" given by LightfoOt and the Revisers seems to us misleading ; rtfiii means " value " only in the sense of "price," as in 1 Cor. vi. 20, and this surely is not their meaning. tlKTiiTfiavi) has been taken in a milder sense by the Greek commentators, Lutlier, and others: "satisfaction" " (legitimate) gratification." So the apostle is made to charge the false teachers with " not honouring the body, so as to grant the flesh its due gratification." But tills rendeiing confounds the "body" and the "flesh," here contrasted, and gives vATitr/iOvii a meaning without lexical warrant (see Meyer and Lightfoot). And the sentiment it expresses errs on the anti-ascetic side, and comes into collision with Bom. xiii. 14 and Gal. v. 16. n\riiriiovli, in the LXX and in Phllo, as in earlier Greek, denotes "physical repletion," and is associated with drunkenness and sensual excess gener.illy. Hence we cannot admit the interpretation of Meyer, Alford, BUicott, who make the "flesh" here the sinful principle generally, and understand "surfeiting" figuratively, supposing the apostle to mean that the ascetic rules in question, "while they dishonour the body, tend to gratify the carnal mind." Tliis gives an idea true in itselif, and agreeing with the sense of "flesh" in vers. 11, 18, but out of place here, while it strains the meaning of irXtiffiiovl) (see Liglitfoot's exhaustive argument). The preposition irpbs does not help Us, meaning " lor" or "against," according to its connection. We combine Lightfoot's interpretation of *pbs irMi&iiov^v rris cafieis with Wordsworth's and Alford's of eiit 4¥ TiMV Ti"'- The saying of Phil. iii. 19 ("whose god is thoir 'iHly, and their glory iu their shame") contains the same opposition of " honour " to " fleshly indulgence " as that supposed here, possibly suggested by the phrase, " surfeiting of dishonour " ^wKniTiioy^ arifittts), of the LXX in Hab. ii. 16. Here, then, the apostle lays hold of the root-principle of the false teachers' whole scheme of morality, its hostility to the body as a material orrjnmsm. Such a treatment, he declares, dishonours the body, while it fails, and lor this very reason, to prevent that /eedt'nf; of ihejlesh, the fostering of sensual appetency and habit, in which lies our real peril and dishonour in regard to this vessel of our earthly life. Here we have a suitable starting-point for the exhortations of the next chapter, where the apostle, in

vers. 16 — 23). These requirements they enforced by philosophical reasoning, under considerations of the symbolic meaning of ancient rites and the beneficial effect upon the soul of the regimen prescribed as cleansing and elevating to its proper level man's spiritual nature. St. Paul acknowledges by implication that, to a certain extent (but see ver. 23 6), the aim of this teaching is right ; but the means it inculcates he utterly disallows, being " not according to Christ." The whole tendeiioy of the system was to draw away attention and trust from Christ. Other objections, such as misjht easily present themselves, he does not care to argue. (1) In him ye were circumcised. " The inward reality of which this rite was the imperfect and prophetic symbol, the consecration of the present life to God, the put'ing off of the old sinful nature, the body of the flesh, has already taken place in you. This is the circumcision of Christ, the change from sin to holiness, from mora; filthiness to purity ; and you know that you have passed through it, if you are in him (1 Cor. vi. 11 ; Gal. iii. 27 ; v. 24 ; Bom. xiii. 14). Do not grasp at the shadow when you have the substance. Be content to believe that in this, the ' one thing needful,' you are complete in him." (2) Prom this point the apostle goes a step further bad?, exactly on the line of his previous teaching in Rom. vi., respecting the connection of sanctificatiori with justification, when he adds, " having betn buried with him in your baptism, wherein also ye were raised with him." For a state of sinfulness is a state ot death. The sitmer lies immediately under the wrath of God (ch. 1. 21; iii. 6; Eph. ii. 3; Bom. v. 10); and that anger, with the sense of alienation it brings and the shadow of condemnation it casts upon the conscience, is virtually death, is the death of death (comp. Rom. vii. 24, 25 and viii. 1, 2). Tliere is no cleansing of the soul of a dead sinner till this sentence is repealed, and " the love of God'" is again " shed abroad in his heart" (Rom. v. 5). Christ gives life that he may give purity (ch. i. 21, 22 ; Bom. vi. 13 ; Titus ii. 14 ; 1 Pet. ii. 24:)— purity with life. And life comes through his resurrection ; by the same law, the same power, which " raised Jesus our Lord from the dead," are our souls also raised from their death of sin. The operation in both cases is equally supernatural and Divine. The first event is the warrant and the pledge of the second. The return of our Surety and Champion from the grave assures us that his sacrifice is accepted and his victory complete (ch. i. 18 ; Bom. iv. 25 ; Acts ii. 32 — 36 ; xiii. 34 — 39 ; John xx. 19, 20). On this fact our faith in him as Lord and Saviour rests (Bom. iv. 24; vi. 7 — 11; x. 9; 2 Cor. iv. 14); it is a "faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead." Through this faith we are justified— /t/r^'mreess becomes ours (ver. 13 ; ch. L 14 ; Bom. t. 1) ; and in this consciousness of pardon sinful man first THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN3. lOJ comes to know the life of God (Eph. ii. 1 — 5 ; Rom. vi. 7 — 11) ; ho :k re'-nnriltii, and a new existence of peace and purity is born within him (2 Cor. v. 17 — 21), to culminate in his fin.il presentation perfect in Christ (ch. i. 21, 22, 28). (3) Of this pass! ng from death to life, not circumcision, but baptism, is the appointed and proper Christian symbol. Theiein the believer is " buried with Christ " in his grave (ver. 12 ; Rom. vi. 3, 5) ; Ids old self, his former condemned existence, is put off and washed away for ever. He emerges from the cleansing stream, " a new creature in Christ Jesus." All this baptism sets forth and sets forward, so far as the picturing and outward acting of the matter may. And being the authoritative public sign of the grace of a new life, it seals that life on the con.sciousness and memory of the believing and understanding recipient, and binds its obligations upon him before God and man; so that henceforth he can only " reckon himself to be dead unto sin, but living unto God in Chri.st Jesus " (l^om. vi. 11). III. The BAB REMOVED : THE VEIL LIFTED. (Vcrs. 14, 15.) What the individual Christian now realizes for himself in Christ — his new life in God and the cleansing and sanctifying of his nature — is but the personal appropiiation of that which was revealed to the whole world and addresses itself to the wants of human nature everywhere. It meets the conditions brought about by God's previous dealings with mankind (ch. i. 23, 26—28; Eom. i. 2—5; xvi. 25—27; Acts xiv. 15—17; xvii. 26—31; Heb. i. 1, 2). In two respects the apostle signalizes the earlier relations of men to God as imperfect : two hindrances there were to that "access to the Father" now secured (Eph. ii. 18; Eom. T. 2; Heb. vii. 19; x. 19 — 22) — ^hindrances congruoas in nature and effect, felt in the quick and instructed religious consciousness of Judaism more keenly than elsewhere— that are " taken out of the way " in Christ. There was the law with its condemning voice for the conscience, and the angelic mediation with its terrors and its mysteries for the heart and understanding. The first guilty pair " hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden" (Gen. iii. 8); and a sinful, weak-hearted people, chosen to be brought near unto him, said, " Let not God speak with us lest we die" (Exod. xx. 19). And God in mercy and in justice heard their prayer. He veiled himself behind his laws and his providence, behind the forms of nature, and the oracles of prophecy, and the progress of history, and the flashing forth of his glory in the angels of his presence, until Law, the TraiSayayos, " ordained through angels," should have done its work, "and the fulness of the times should be come" (Gal. iii. 19 — 24; Bora. V. 20). 1. Till then it was increasingly felt that the law.with its decrees was against us. It " wrought wrath" (Rom. iv. 15). It brought us " under a curse" (Gal. iii. 10). It stirred up and brought to its crisis in an agony of self-despair the conflict between the better nature and the worse in man (Rum. vii. 7 — 25). It invoked death with its anticipatory terrors as the seal to its authority and the witness to our guilt (Rom. v. 12 — 14, 21 ; vii. 24 ; 1 Cor. xv. 56). The list of its commandments is but a catalogue of our offences, a tale of debts, not one of which we are prepared to meet, and yet which must be discharged " to the uttermost farthing." In Christ's cross, God has, at a stroke, wiped out the whole bill of our offences. He has removed it from between us and himself, and nailed it, with Christ's body, to the crofs, where he bids us read, " There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus " (Eom. viii. 1 ; iii. 26). This the apostle had taught already, and it is the glory of his earlier Epistles, addressed to Churches infested with Pharisaic Judaism and its teaching of salvation by works of law, to have established this truth in the understanding and the faith of the Church for all time. 2. But the philosophic Judaism with which he has now to deal requires him to insist more strongly on the immediate revelation of Ood himself to the world that is made in Christ. Now that One has been " manifested at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. ix. 26 ; Isa. lix. 2), it is possible to behold God by a nearer vision. With the revelation of his pardoning meicy and sin-avenging justice in Christ, " the Son of his love " (Eph. ii. 4 ; Rom. iii. 26), he makes known his inmost name and nature. To Israel, in comparison with other nations, " God was nigh " (Deut. iv. 7 ; Lev. xx. 26) ; and yet even Israel complains, " Verily thou art a Gud that hidest thyself" (Isa. xlv. 15). He "came with ten thousand of his holy ones, and from his right hand went a fiery law for them " (Deut. xxxiii. 2); and "the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God" (Ps. Ixviii. 8), " He made the clouds his chariot ; " his " way was in the sea, and his path in the great waters, and his footsteps were not known" (Ps. Ixxvii. 19, 20). The mystia 104 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. lou.n.l~i& veil that screened his presence was as splendid as the law hy which he ruled the consciences of men was sleru and terrible. But in Christ, lie " laid his glory by." God appiared in the Babe of Bethlehem, in the Man of soirows, in Christ crucified, as (he Father of the children of men. He bids all his angels worship and wait upon the lowly form of the Son of man, and the elements of nature (more closely linked with the angelic powers, peihaps, than we can imagine) are made to do his bidding, "that all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father " (John v. 23). " They shall call his name Immanuel, Ood with us" (Matt. i. 23). None had "seen God at any time;" the angels that had been his ministers, the glories of the created world in which he robed himself (Ps. cii. 26 ; civ. 2), these could not utter his Name : " the onlybegotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, the Word made flesh, he declared him " (John i. 14, 18). " The veil is done away in Chi ist." But " the same veil," which* in St. Paul's day hung between the Jewish mind and the true knowledge of God, "remaineth unlifted" for those who will not behold "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ " (2 Uor. iii. 14 ; iv. 3 — 6). God at once " reconciled the world unto him- 6i.lf " and unveiled himself to the world in him. This is the sum of these two verses, Vir.". 16 — 23. — Sect. 6. The claims of the false teacher. The Colossian error is the earliest Christian heresy, undcrsianding the word in its stricter sense as denoting a movement in the direction ot error, originating within the Church itself. It first answers to the terms of St. Pj,u1's prediction in Ads xx. 29 — 31. The powerful Judaizing reaction with which St. Paul and the Gentile Church had previously to struggle, and which drew from him the Galatian and Homan Epistles, was negative and retrograde in its character, originating from without rather than from within the Church, and stimulated by the increasing violence and desperation of Jewish national feeling. But here we discern the rise of a heterodox school of thought within Christianity itself. At this point, first of all, were those elements of error introduced, those seeds of division sown, which ripened into the wild and disastrous Gnostic apostasy of the second century ; and that may be said to have persisted to the present day. For our inveterate and multiplied ecclesiastical divisions and our deeply rooted doctrinal differences, with the animosities and prejudices that attend them, show too plainly that the rents which then began to open in the Church's unity are far from being closed. Accordingly, the Colossian error presents heresy in its germinal form. It cout.iins and combines in itself the rootprinciples and incipient forms of those errors which have most widely prevailed in after ages. It unites evil tendencies wliich afterwards parted asunder and became opposed to each other, which seem indeed to be radically inconsistent. But this was an age of eclecticism and amalgamation. Moreover, there is a latent contradiction inherent in falsehood and error. It must needs be inconsistent and witnesses against itself. Its principles, when carried forward and pushed to their issues in logic and practice, become mutually destructive ; and the s^ stem built upon them and the party which has e.spoused them of themselves break up into contending fragments. Hence the shifting phases and combinations of religious error — Protean, many-headed — under which the same elements constantly reappear, identical in essence, incessantly varying in form. " The truth as it is in Jesus " is alone self-consistent, harmonious, and enduring. But who will assure himself that he has in all things, so far as he might, truly ascertained and followed it? Tjie first heresy. We have distinguished in the Colossian heresy four elements of error, which may be roughly designatea under the iMimes of rationalism, ceremonialism, tiiysticism, and asceticism. They are the heresies, respectively, of the intellect, of the religious instinct, of the spiritual consciousness, and of the moral will, — aberrations, each of them, of functions belonging to the highest and divinest part of man's nature. 1. The false teachers are evidently rationalists. It is this characteristic which' the apostle first expressly specifies (vers. 8, 23), and to which ihe whole tenor of the Epistle bears witness (see, especially, oh. i. 9, 28 ; ii. 2 — 4; iii. IC, 16 ; and compaie the introductory remarks in our homiletics, sect. 2, 1, and sect. 5, I.). They construed Christianity in terms of their preconceived philosophic theory. They were philosophers first, and Christians afterwards, or only Christians so far as their philosophy permitted. Christ was not the centre of their thoughts, the Master of their intellect and heart (oh. ii, 19 ; iii. 11) ; but they made an idol of their intellectual system, and he must OB. n. 1—23.] THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSI ANS. lOfi perforce be mride to pay homage to it and fit himself into soma limited and vacai.t space where it might be aUe to make room for him! Not in Cbrist, it appears, but in themselves and in " the tradition of men," were " the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," out of which the Cliristian teaching, in its uncultured crudeiiess and poverty of thought, must have its errors corrected and its deficiencies supplied 1 But the philosophy of thtse Colossian iWuniinaii was clearly wrong in its views both of the world and of human Jiature ; and no one would be found now to advocate it. Their attempts to recast and rationalize Christianity proved an utter failure, and bore fruit in the next age only in immorality and schism. Their wisdom was but a "wisdom of words" (vers. 2, 3) ; they were " ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth " (2 Tim. iii. 7). Every system of philosophy, every sehemo of human life, which attempts to patronize and to pervert to its own purposes the Christian teaching, has, we may be sure, a like doom awaiting it. St. Paul does not seek to check the rationalistic movement at Colosste by mere repression, by discourii;;ing intellectual inquiry. On the contrary, he impresses on his readers again and a^ain the necessity of a better understanding, a deeper knowledge of " the mysiery of God " (oh. i. 6, 9, 10, 25 — 28; ii. 1 — 4; iii. 10, 16). It was their slight and imperfect Christian education which laid them open to the attacks of sophistry and a shallow philosophy. The letter is one that appeals to and stimulates Christian thought in an exiraordiuary degree, and is itself a theological discipline. The spurious and plausible gnoHs, " the knowledge falsely so called" (1 Tim. vi. 20), which was fascinating the Colossians, could be cast out only by the epignosis, the advanced and perfect knowledge (compare homiletics, sects. 1, IIL and 4, 1., II.). What Lord Bacon said of atheism may apply with equal truth to heresy : " A little philosophy inolineth men's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." 2. With their philosophical, a priori interpretation of Christianity, the false teachers of Colossas combined o love of c remonialism and a devotion to the exte7nals of worship. Here we note the Jewish element in their training, while their Gieek sympathies and habits of tliought betray themselves in their fundamental philosophic bias. The motive of their religiousness was, however, radically different- from that of the tradidonal Jewish legalism, and St. Paul deals with it in quite another method from that which he follows inGalatians. The " philosophers " of Colossse valued Jewish ritual for its expressiveness and symbolic truth, and practised it as a means of spiritual self-culture rather than in mere obedience to law. Hence they insisted much on the sacred seasons and feasts, on the distinctions of meats (vers. 16, 17), on circumcision (ver. 11), and studied greatly the art of worship (vers. 18, 23) ; while, like the Esseties, they attached little importance to the sacrificial system of Judaism. So, at least, we should infer from the apostle's silence on these latter topics, as contrasted with the leading part they play in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Their system was Jewish in its materials, but wholly different from the Jewish in spirit and tendency. IBut their piety was wanting in spiritual depth and reality, or they could scarcely have failed to recognize in Christ " the Image of God " (oh. i. 15), and the " new and living way " to the Father. God was to them so far off that they would not seek to approach him directly in the Peisoc of his Son, but supposed a whole hierarchy of mediators necessary, to make worship possible. He was, in their view, a great abstract Infinitude, no " living Father," no listening, answering Presence. Their religion was an elaborate artifice, beneficial chiefly in its reaction on themselves ; and their God was shrouded, like an Oriental monarch, behind a multitude of vague and fugitive mediators, whom practically they worshipped instead of him. A like result ensues wherever the idea of a personal God is obscured and weakened in the minds of men, whether by philosophical reflection making him a formula, or by superstitious ignorance treating him as a fetish. For true worship is the converse — '' in spirit ancj in truth " (John iv. 23, 24), of the human children with their living Father in heaven. And this cannot well be maintained where an ornate ceremonialism overpowers the senses and fills the imagination with its external pomp; or where the living God "in whom we live," and Christ the " one Mediator " (1 Tim. ii. 5), are so distant from the realizations of faith, that angels, or departed saints, or the blessed virgin-mother, or earthly priests and confessors, are thrust in to fill the void, and are made in reality to intercept the soul's reverence and devotion. There may be a sincere " zeal for worship " in the anxious study of ecclesiastical dress and 106 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. [ch. it 1— M decoration, and under the sensuous impvessiveness of a splendid and elaborate ritualism. But this is nut what " the Father seeketh " (John iv. 23, 24:),aud such aids to devotion often hiuder his childreu from seeking him. Our worship must, indeed, have its forms ; and order and propriety (1 Cor. xiv. 40) must be studied in their regulation, and in all the appointments of the house of God. And men of varying temperament and mental habit are aided by a greater or less degree, and by different kinds, of outward expression in their worship. But when the form is cultivated for its own sake, and the sensuous and the artistic predominate over and displace the spiritual, the end of worship itself is frustrated, and the service that professes to be rendered to the Most High becomes a mockery to him, and a blind to his worshippers that effectually hides him from them. Yet this tendency has often a strong attraction for devout and humble spirits, "delighting in humility " (vers. 18, 23) ; who love to worship, and readily bow before any superior influence, but are not so anxious to " worship what they hnow" (John iv. 22). A multiplying of the objects of worship (ver. 18) very commonly attends the excessive elaboration of its forms ; for both are due to the same cause, and are the manifestations of a religion weak in spiritual faith in God. The dissatisfaction and emptiness of soul which ensue on seeking God thus, lead to our making still more cumbrous and exacting the forms of devotion, and to our resorting to new mediators and new methods of approach to him, till Cl)ristian worship sinks into a round of ritual performance and semi-idolatry, and becomes an imposture in itself and an aversion to thoughtful, truth -seeking men. 8. There was, in the third place, a strong vein of false mysticism in the Colossian heresy. This element, in the nature of the case, is more difficult to distinguish and to delineate than those already set forth. The mysticism of Greece was chiefly derived and fed from Oriental sources. Pythagoras, in tl)e latter half of the sixth century B.C., founded a school of mystical and ascetic philosophy, whose principles were largely adopted in the comprehensive system of Plato. The Pythagorean and Platonic mysticism was at this time greatly in vogue, especially in Asia Minor and in Egypt, where it found a conseuial soil. The Alexandrine school of Philu imported its principles into Judaism. Tlie Neo-Platonism, in wliich, in the fourth and fifth centuries a.d., pagan pliilosophy made a last splendid strugi;le for existence, and which has left deep marks of its influence on the develoiiment of Christian thought, was a revival of Greek mysticism in a more intense and religious form. The Montanism of the second century, a product of the same Phrygian soil on which the Colossian heresy sprang up, attested the persistence of the mysiic tendency within the Church. Its later manifestations, as allied no»v with pantheistic rationalism, now with devout ceremonialism, now with rigid asceticism, we cannot endeavour here to follow. There has always been in the Church a mystical school, side by side with the rationalistic, and the ritualistic or sacerdotal. And, within certain limits, the mystic principle has its righte, and must be recognized as essential to spiritual religion. To mysticism, the spiiitual consciousness of the individual is the source and the test of truth. God is to be reached by intuition. Meditative contemplation, aided by suitable iidtiatory and disciplinaiy symbolic rites, is the way of salvation, whose goal is absorption in the Divine nature. Such was the teaching of ancient mystics generally ; and the esoteric doctrines introduced at Colossae were, doubtless, of the same stamp. That God, indeed, reveals himself by his Spirit to the individual consciousness, is the teaching of St. Paul, and, as we believe, of the whole Bible (R'm. viii. 16 ; Gal. i. 16 ; Ps. cxxxix., etc.). But when the inner consciousness, the spiritual reason, is regarded as in itself the primary source of revelation, then error begins and hallucination supervenes. The mind turns itself in upon its own self-generated phantasies, instead of fixing its gaze on the historical revelation of God and seeking to comprehend and mirror its glory (2 Cor. iii. 18 ; iv. 6 ; Eom. i. 20 ; Ps. xix., etc.). The Colossian errorist, walking in the light of his self-coufldent, self-contemiilating reason, saw visions of angels as he imagineil, and heard messages and teachings that were but the echo of his owii speculations. With these deceived and deceiving subjective ruiaginings the apostle confronts the •ctual historic Person and work of Christ, as the supreme Object of contemplation and of trust (ch. i. 13—15, 21, 22, 27—29 ; ii. 6, 7 ; iii. 11, 15—17). Only through "belief of the truth " come the testifying and sanctifying visitations of "the Spirit of the truth" (2 Thess. ii. 9—14 ; Eph. i. 13, 14; Acts ii. 38 ; xix. 1—7). The objective reyelation of God to the soul and the subjective attestation and experieuse vf its powei OH. 11.1—23.] THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN8. 107 are reciprocally linked together, and advance pari passu. Compare the teaching ol Christ in promising the Holy Spirit to his disciples (John xiv. 15 — 24). The doctiine of the Holy Spirit was indirectly hut vitally affected by the Colossian error ; and this topic, though not brought forvpard in this Epistle, is prominent in the Ephesian letter, which is in many respects a complement to this and, in our beliel, is " the letter" to be sent "from Laodicea" for the perusal of the Colossian Church (oh. iv. 16). " Christ the Mystery of God," "Christ in you the hope of glory," — this is the apostle's mysticism, the true mystery that is to expel the false, unhallowed mysteries, that seek by self-directed intuitions and self-invented lustrations and incantations to penetrate the secrets of the spiritual world and to enter into union with the Infinite. 4. In the sphere of morals and practical life, the Colossian errorists inculcated a strict asceticism. This part of their system is consistent with each of the other three, though it proceeded rather from its philosophical and mystical than from its Judaistio and ceremonial constituent factor. In the early Christian ages, asceticism was frequently associated with theoretic rationalism; in later times, it has been more frequently the ally of a sacerdotal type of Christianity. Asceticism was a thing foreign to Jurlaism. It was a religion too healthy and practical for that. Ps. cxxviii. expresses what has always been the true religious feeling of Israel in regard to the bles^in;is of this life. The Pharisaic yoke was indeed " grievous to be borne," and pressed on the externals of life with the weight of a slavery; but, after all, it concerned matters which habit makes comparatively easy, and its spirit was that of a formal legalism, aiming at precisioii in the performance of all external acts, and by no means valuing hard treatment of the tody in itself. But the latter was the distinguishing feature of the new Colossian ethics, as of the ethics of Eastern mysticism and of Chiistian monachism, and, in some sort, of Puiitanism too. (1) Asceticism is the perversion of a true and noble impulse. In it the maxim, Gorruptio optimi pessima, has its saddest illustration. How natural it is for an earnest soul, striving after purity and fellowship with God, to fall into a hatred of the body and the material world! How all but irresistible must this tendency have been in the midst of the reeking impurities and the social dissolution of the pagan and barbarian worlds I (2) Moreover, the very nature of religions language, with its necessities of figurative expression, lends itself to misconstruction of scri[jtural truth in this direction. Witness the interpretations still prevalent of St. Paul's own terminology. It is difficult, both in thought and in practice, to distinguish always between the lody, which Christ raised, which becomes the temple of his Spirit, whose members are to be instruments of righteousness, which is the symbol of the Church the bride of Christ, which nature itself teaches every man to nourish and to cherish (1 Cor. vi. 12—20; Eom. vi. 12—14; viii. 11; Eph. v. 22—30), and the flesh, which has to be stripped off, to be put to death, to be crucified with its affections and lusts, by all who are " of Christ Jesus " (ch. ii. 11 ; iii. 5 ; Gal. v. 24). (3) With the Colossian errorist, as in the Alexandrine theosophy, the body was the source of sin, the prison in which the soul is shut up and severed from God. To break the chains of sense, to cast off the burden of the flesh and become pure spirit, and thus to rise towards God, — this was the aspiration of the ancient mystics. Matter and spirit were the two opposite poles of being ; and the distinction between moral good and evil, for them, merged itself in this. They declared indiscriminate war against the physical life and natural enjoyment as itself sinful or tending to sin. Their conception of lioliness it was, of course, impossible absolutely to realize ; but he would approximate to it the most nearly who maintained himself in as feeble and impoverished a bodily condition as was consistent with active thought. (4) Such doctrine was, we may be sure, more often preached than practised. But it took effect, within a little time, in the denunciation vf marriage (1 'I im. iv. 3 ; Heb. xiii. 4), as among the Jewish Essenes, with the dishonouring of the family life and the weakening of social bonds which necessarily ensue. To this source we trace that false ideal of Christian purity which, before many centuries, became prevalent in the Church Catholic, and the rise of the gigantic and baleful institution of monasticism and the celibate priesthood, which, by withdrawing from the world the most powerful elements of Christian character and influence, and by the immorality and social disorganization -which it engendered, has blighted the Church's history and delayed indefinitely the conversion of mankind to the faith of Christ. (5) Let U8 listen to our heavenly Intercessor, who asks the Father, " Not that thou shouldest 108 THE EPI8TI,E TO THE COLOSSlANS. Ton. n. 1— 2» take them out of the world, hut that thou shouldest keep them from its evil ! " who bills his disciples he " the salt of the earth," " the liglit of the world " (John xvii. 15 ; Matt. V. 13, 14). Let us have faith in the power of his Spirit, wlio can so sanctify our mortalhody that "sin shall not reign in it" (Roin. vi. 12 ; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20); and can so hallow the temperate and grateful use of tiie natural blessings God bestows upon us (1 Tim. iv. 3 — 5 ; ch. iii. 21, 22) that, " whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do," we shall "do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. x. 31 ; ch. iii. 17). Let us hear St. Paul, while he .teaches us to " make not provision for the flesh to fulfil its lusts" (Rom, xiii. 14), y< t to "abide with God," each in that secular state " wherein he was called" (1 Cor. vii. 24). (6) Gud's Law regulates, does not suppress, the natural life. The home, the field, the mart, the senate, all that belongs to the natural fabric and constitution of human life, is his creation, the arena for the exercise of his superintending providence, and the field of probation in which he trains bis children for their spiritual manhood. He sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world, not of the individual soul alone, but of human society in its widest sense, including business and politics, art and science, all the public interests and constituent elements of collective Luman life, which are to find their sanctiHcatiun, that is, their perfection and their unity, as they are penetrated and ruled by " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." So " the kingdom of the world " shall " become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (Rev. xi. 15). (7) The Gospel puts high iionour on the human body. The fact that Christ was " born of a woman " redeems its birth fiom dishonour and contempt. The Incarnation is fatal to all theosophy based on the hostility of the material to the spiritual, and to the false s]iiritiialisiu which would seek God by fleeing from the body. Christ has incorporated our flesh with his own Divinity, and in the body of his flesh (ch. i. 22) he redeemed us, and reconciled the world to God. To the meanest human person there belongs an unspeakable dignity and saoredness as partaking of that " blood and flesh " in which he shared (Hfb. ii. 14), and through which he " poured out his soul unto death " (Isa. liii. 12). Christ's work will be completed and " the travail of his soul satisfied" only by "the redemption of our body," which will consummate our "adoption "and will bring with it the deliverance of "the creiition itself" from "the bondage of corruption " (Kom. viii. 18— ?5). For this end, we still " wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ," descending from heaven (Piiil. iii. 20, 21). So waiting, we shall keep pure and clean this " earthly house of our tabernacle " (2 Cor. v. 1 ; 1 John iii. 3). Nothing that belongs to it can we " call common or unclean " (Acts x. 15), "body of humiliation" though it is (Phil. iii. 21). We occupy it for Christ our Master. It is the "temple of the Holy Spirit" — the Spirit of delicate purity, the Spirit of order and of beauty, the Spirit of health and unity, whose " communion " is the Church's breath of life, and the secret, pervasive atmosphere and inspiration that brings all that is pure and healthful into the society of men.

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 17. — Which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ (Gal. iii. 23— 28; iv. 4; 2 Cor. iii. 11, 13; Heb. vii. 18, 19 ; is. 11—14 ; x. 1—4). The apostle's opponents, we imagine, taught in Platonic fashion that these things were shadows of ideal truth and of the invisible world (comp. Heb. viii. 6), forms necessary to our appreliension of spiritual things. With St. Paul, they shadow forth prophetically the concrete facts of the Christian revelation, and therefore are displaced by its advent. The singular verb (literally, is) quite grammatically combines the particulars of ver. 16 under their common idea of a foreshadowing of the things of Christ; and the present tense affirms here a general truth, not a miro historical fact. How this was true of the " sabbath," e.g., appears in Heb. iv. 1 — 11 ; comp. 1 Cor. v. 6 — 8; John xiX. 36, for the Christian import of the Passoverfeast. The figurati ve antithesis of " shadow " and " body " is suiHciently obvious ; it occurs in Pbilo and in Josephus: to refer to ver. 19 and oh. i. 18 for the sense of body, is mis- Ifading. For"thethingstooome"(tliethings of Christ and of the new. Christian era, now commencing), comp. Bom. iv. 24 ; v. 14 ; Gal. iii. 23 ; Heb. ii. 5 ; x. 1. This substance of the new, abiding revelation (2 Cor. iii. 11) is " Christ's," inasmuch as it centres in and is pervaded and governed by Christ (oh. i. 18 ; iii. 11 ; Kom. x. 4 ; 2 Cor. iii. 14). Nothing is said here to discounlenance positive Christian institutions, or the observance of the Lord's day in particular, unless enforced in a Judaistic spirit. The apostle is protecting Gentile Christians from the reimposition of Jewish institutions as such, as impatiring their faith in Christ (comp. Gal. v. 2—9), and as, in the case of the Colofsians, involving a deference to the authority of angels which limited his sovereignty and sufficiency (

The Pulpit Commentary
ver. 18. Deceit is empty (/cEj/iir : comp. Eph. V. 6; 1 Thess. ii. 1 ; 1 Coj-. xv. 14; distinguish from fidraios, fruitless, vain), which deceives by being a show of what it is not, a hollow pretence, from the prominence given to this aspect of the new teaching, we infer that it claimed to be a philosophy, and made this its special distinction and ground of buperiority. And this consideration points (comp. Introduction, § 4), to some connection between the system of the Culossian errorists and the Alexandrine Judaism, of which Philo, an elder contemporary of St. Paul, is our chief exponent. The aim of this school, which had now existed for two centuries at least, and had diifused its ideas far and wide, was to transform and sublimate Judaism by interpreting it under philosophical principles, lis teachers endeavoured, in fact, to put tlie " new wine " of Plato into the " old bottles " of Muses, persuading themselves that it was originahy there (comp. note on "mystery," ch. i. 27). In PhUo, philosophy is tb* oajae for ^m^ religion. S6 THE EWSTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAN8. [ok. it. I— 2& whoie essence consists in the pursuit and cnn teraplation of pure spiritual truth. II ses and the patriarchs are, with him, till "philosophers;" the writers of tlie Old Tesiament " pliilosophize;" it is"the philosophical man" who holds converse with God. This is the only place where philosnphy is expressly mentioned in the New Testament ; in 1 Cor. i. 2^ and context it is, however, only verhally wanting. According to the tradition of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to Christ (vers. 17, 20, 22; Gal. i. 11. 12; iv. 3, 9; 1 Cor. i. 20, 21 ; iii. 19—21 ; Matt. XV. 2; Mark vii. 8; 1 John iv. 5; 1 Pet. i. 1 8). This clause qualifies " making spoil " (Meyer, Ellicott) rather tlian " deceit ; " b iiman authority and natural reason furnish the principles and the method according to wliich the false teacher proceeds. " Trailiiion" does not necessarrly imply antiquity (oomp. 1 Cor. xi. 2; 2 Tliess. ii. 15 ; iii. 6); "of men" is the emphatic part of the phrase. These words are cliaraoteristio of St. Paul, who was so profoundly conscious of the supernatural origin of his own doctrine (see Gal. L 11 — 17; 1 Cor. xi. 23; 1 Thess. iv. 15 : comp. John iii. 31 — 35 ; viii. 23; 1 John iv. 5). Similarly, "the rudiments of the world" are the crude beginnings of truth, the childishly faulty - and imperfect religious conceptions and usages to which the world had attained apart from the revelation of Christ (oomp. Gal. iv. 3, 9; also Heb. v. 12, for this use of rroixeia) It is not eitlier Jewish or non- Jewish elements specifically that are intended. Jew and Greek are one in so far as their religious ideas are "not according to Christ." Greek thought had also contributed its rudiments to the world's education for Christ : hence, comprehensively, " the rudiments of the world " (comp. 1 Cor. i. 21). The blending of Greek and Jewish elements in the Colossian theosophy would of itself Bug;; est this generalization, already shadowed forth in Gal. iv. 3. Neander, Hofmann, and Klopper (the latest German commentator), have returned to the view that prevailed amongst the Fathers, from Origen downwards, reading this phrase, both here and in Galatians, in a physical sense, as in 2 Pet. iii. 10, 12; the elementa mundi, " the powers of nature," " heavenly bodies," etc., worshipped by the Gentiles as gods, and which the JewB identified with the angels (ver. 18; Heb. i. 7) as Gods agents in the direction of the world. This interpretation has much to recommend it, but it scarcely harmonizes with the parallel "tradition of men," slill less with the context of ver. 20, and is absolutely at variance, as it seem* to us, with the argument inyolveil in Qal. ir. 8. Not the doctrine of Christ, but Christ himself is the substitute for these discarded rudiments (vers. 17, 20). His Person is the norm and test of truth (1 Cor. xii. 3 ; 1 John iv. 1 — 3). Tbe views combatted were " not according to Christ," for they made him something less and lower than that wliich he is.

Ver. 18. — let no one defraud you of youl prire (ch. t 5, 23; iii. 15; Phil. iii. 14; Gal. V. 7; 1 Cor. ix. 24—27 ; 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8 ; Jas. i. 12 ; 1 Pet. v. 4 ; Rev. ii. 10 ; iiL 11). These eight words represent but three > in the Greek. (On KaraffpaBdm, see Meyer's elaborate note.) 'BpaPdw is used again in ch. iii. 15 (see note), meaning primarily " to act as Ppa0svs," arbiter of the prize in the public games ; &pafie1ov, the prize, is also figuratively used in Phil. iii. 14, and literally in 1 Cor. ix. 24, and is synonymous with the " crown " of other passages. Kwri, gives the verb a hostile sense ; and the present tense, as in vers. 4, 8, 16, 20, implies a continued attempt. Let no one be acting the umpire against you, is the literal sense. The errorist condemns tlie Colossiau Christian for his neglect of Jewish observances (ver. 16), and warns him that in his present state he will miss the heavenly prize, " the hope " he had supposed to be " in store for him in heaven " (ver. 5 : comp. notes on oh. i. 5 and iii. 15 ; also Eph. i 13, 14). Delighting in lowliness rf mind and worship of the angels (ver. 23; Eev. xix. 10; xxii. 8, 9; Judg. xiii. 17, 18). By these means the false teacher impressed liis disciples. His angelworship commended itself as the mark of a devout and humble mind, reverent towards the unseen powers above us, and made purely Christian worship seem insufficient. " Delighting in " is the rendering of e4xav 4v given by Bengel, Hofmann, Lightfoot, Klopper, and is preferable to that of Meyer and EUicott, who, with several Greek interpreters, supply the sense of the previous verb "desiring(lodoso)in lowlines8,"etc ; and to that followed intheEeviserB'margin,which puts a sort of adverbial sense on $eKav — " of his mere will by humility," etc This latter rendering underlies the paraphrastic" voluntary humility " of the A.V., and agrees with the common interpretation of iBe^oepniTKela in ver. 23 (see note). &4\aiy 4r is, no doubt, a marked Hebraism, and St. Paul's language is " singularly free from Hebraisms " (compare, however, the use of eiSfVai, to know, in 1 Thess. y. 12 ; the similar fiSoKea 4v is well established, 1 Cor. x. 5 ; 2 Cor. xii. 10 ; 2 Thess. ii. 12). 'J'his very idiom is frequently used in the LXX, and occurs in the ' Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,' a Christian writing of tlie second century. The apostle may surely be allowed occasionally to have used a Hebraistic phrase, especially when so convenient and expressive ai this. Westcott and Hort, with scrupulous purism, mark the reading on this account as doubtful, taireiva^poairti ("lowliness of mind '), a word, perhaps, compounded by St. Paul himself (see Trench's ' Synonyms '), is almost confined to the Epistles of this group (comp. ver. 23 ; ch. iii, 12 ; Eph. iy. THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANa 2; Phil. ii. 3; also Acta xT. 19 ; 1 Pet. v. 5). TJiis quality is asciibed ironically to the false teacher (oonipAre the " puffed up ' of the next clause, and for similar irony see 1 Cor. viii, 1, 2 ; Gal. iv. 17). eprjirKciais " outward wor.-hip " or " devotion : " comp. note on ver. 23 ; elsewhere in New T(^stament only in Acts xxvi. 5 and Jas. i. 26, 27 (see Tremli's ■'Synonyms')- "Worship of the angels" is that paid to the angels ; not " oifered by them," as Luther and Hofmann interpret, supposing that the erroiists pretended to imitate the worship of heaven. ' Investigating (or, dwelling on) the things which he hath seen ' ! vainly — being puifed up by ' the reason ' of his flesh (2 Cor. xii. ] , 7 ; 1 Cor. viii. 1; 1 Tim. vi. 3—5; 2 Pet. ii. 1« ; Jude 16). Kor €ij,^ttTevaiv, "we adopt the sense which it bears in 2 M.icc. ii. 30; in I'liilo, 'On the Planting of Xnah,' § 19. and in patristic and later Gr^ek generally, viz. "to search into," " examine," " discuss " (see Suicer's ' Thesaurus '). The rendering " proceeding " or "dwelling on," though near the ladical sense of the word (" to step on " or " in "), wants lexical support The same may be said of the rendering " inti uding into," which suits the Received reading, "which he hath not seen." Tha " not " of the relative clause is wanting in nearly all our oldest and best witnesses, and is cancelled by the Eevisers, with Tre^ellcs, Tisohendorf, Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort, etc. Its appearance in two diff- rent forms (oux "id fiij) in the documents that present it, makes it still more certain that it is a copyist's insertion. The common reading gives, after all, an unsatisfactory sense ; it is not likely the apostle would blame the errorist simply for entering into things beyond his sight (comp. 2 Cor. iv. 18; v. 7). Meyer, after Steiger and Huther, gives the best explanation of " which he hath seen," supposing the writer to allude ironically to pretended visions of angels or of the spiritual world, by which the false teacher sought to impose on the Colossians. This view is suggested by TertuUian in the passage cited under

ver. 18. Augustine, Calvin, and some others render, " which (decrees) tend to (spiritual) destruction in their use;" but diroxp^<r« never means simply "use," and the antecedent " decrees " is awkwardly supplied. More plausibly, De Wette and some moderns interpret, " things which tend to (spiritual) destruction in their abuse," putting the words in the mouth, of the false teacher, as though he said, "Abstain frum everything the use of which may be fatal to the sonl." But this ascribes to the errorist an argument which falls short of his principles (see note on " hard treatment of the body," ver. 23) ; and to whicli, specious as it is, and m harmony with the apostle's own teaching (1 Cor. vi. 12 ; ix. 2t), 27), he makes no reply. According to the commandments and 0aohin^3 of men (Xsa. txix. 13, L^X; | Matt. XV. 9; Mark vii. 7; ver. 8; 1 Cor. i. 20; ii. 5, 13); the only passage in this Epibtle which distinctly alludes to the language of the Old Testament. But the words are, we may suppose, primarily a reminiscence of the language of Christ, whO' uses them in connection with his announcement of the abolition of the sacred distinctions of meats (comp. Mark vii. 1 — 23). This clause points out the method after which, and direction in which, the new teachers were leading their disciples, on the line of a man-made instead of a God-given jeligion. "Commandments" (or, "injunctions") include the prescriptions of ver. 21 and all others like them; "teachings" embrace the general principles and doctrines on which these rules were based. So this expression, following "rudiments of the world " (ver. 20), leads us back by a rapid generalization fr(im the particulars specifii d in ver. 21 to the general starting point given in ver. 8 (see note), and prepares us for the brief and energetic summary of the whole Oolossian error which we find in —

vers. 18, 20-— >23), the religious system which sets him aside and professes to lead men into cummunloti with God and to the moral perfection of their nature otherwise than " in him," must after all be, at th» heart of It, " a vain deceit." For he is " tlie Way, the Truth, and the Life," the Lord and Life of nature and the Light of men (ch. i. 15 — 17 ; John i. 3, 4), the "Beginning" of the "new heavens and the new earth wherein drtelleth righteousness ; " he is simply " all things and in all " to the Church of God. All true philosophy, though standing on natural grounds and drawing its premisses from natural experience and intuition, yet, rightly understood, must needs harmonize with the Christian faith, and will be " according to Christ." For no two truths, however differently grounded or expressed, can really be contradictory. And the facts on which philosophy rest*, ihe mental and material constitution of things concerning which it theorizes, " were created" and "consist in liim" (ch. i. 16, 17). "In Christ" must lie, therefore, the ultimate rationale of the finite universe. The Colossiau error presented itself as philoi-ophy, advanced on rational grounds, and claiming the attention of men of thought and culture within the Church. It inculcated the religious traditions of the Jew under the forms and methods of the Greek intellect, seeking to reanimate both by the aid of the new spiritual fervour and lofty moral aspirations of the (Jhristian faith. There was nothing in itself blameworthy in such an attempt. Endeavours must be continually made, though they can never be final, to harmonize the current philo.sophy of the age with the Divine revelation as received in the Church. St. Paul birasolf makes large contributions in this direction. But those who take this work in hand should understand both sidus of the question. This the Colossian errorists failed to do. They tried to fit Christ into some place in their preconceived philosophy, instead of allowing themselves to be led, as St. Paul would have taught them (ch. i. 15^20), through Chri.st to a deeper and more sound philosophy. Hence their teachina;, put forward as Christian truth and claiming to be the Christian theory of life, is condemned as " philosophy and empty deceit." 1. It was according to the tradition of men. It could claim only human authority for its principles. They were not found in Christ's doctrine, and had received no authentication from his lips (Gal. i. 11, 12), no Di\lhe attestation or proof of their being " from heaven " (Matt. xxi. 25, 26 ; Heb. i. 4). And any scheme of religion, whether calling itself " pliilosophy " or not, that is in this position, stands self-condemned. " The world by wisdom knew not God " (1 Cor. !. 21). What he is, how he is disposed towards the children of men, it is for him to say. They know full well that they have lost his favour and defaced his image in their souls ; but how their recovery is possible is to them " past finding out." And therefore, to fix and measure the nature of God and the relations lie may assume to us, " according to the tradition of men," istlie height of ignorance and presumption. But Christ Is " the laithful Witness," " the Word who was in the beginning with God " (ReT. 1, 5 ; John i. 2) ; and an authentic voice from heaven declares, " This is my Son, my chosen : hear ye him" (Luke ix. 35; John i. 18) 2. And such systems, leaving the clear and firm ground of obedience to the aiipremacy of Curist, are compelled to fall back, in some form or other, on the rudiments of the world. Their advocates discover that the influence of human names and the force of general reasoning do not command the deference of the conscience or stir the spiritual emotions, are indeed without that "power of God" (1 Cor. i. 24, 26; 1 Thesa. i. 5) which attends the word of Christ. They return, thereloie, to the dead forms of old religions, putting, as they supi ose, a new mcauing into them. They are at once "advanced," and reaetionaiy. They dress up the newest rationalism in the cast-off garments of faith's childhood. They comUne H puerile ritualism, borrowing its forms and practices from the mere rudiments of en (M.n.1— 23.J THE EPISTLt! TO TaE COLOSRlANS. 101 age of sensuous " feeling after God," with the most bare and abstract, the most arid and joyless, oonce|)Uons of his nature, or of a nature that is their substitute lor liiiii. TIjb combination of " philosophy" and "circumcision" (vers. 8, 11), of eloquent and subtle reasonings with minute and arbitrary rules as to "eating and drmkin;;," and the physical culture of the soul (

ver. 18 — ch. iv. 1, enjoining the Christian discharge of their relative duties, as wives and hushands, children and fathers, ser cants and masters, under the sense of their allegiance to the Lord Christ; (/) ch. iv. 2 — 4, exhorting to constant prayer, and especially for the apostle himself at the present juncture; and (y) vers. 5, 6, to wise conduct and edifying speech toward them that are without. It will be seen how much more comprehensive and systematic ii the view thus presented of Christian duty than that furnished by uglier Epistles; and how the ideai of the supremaey of Christ, the unity of the Christian brotherhood, and the sacredness of tlte natural constitution of human life, which were threatened by the rise of Gnosticism in Colossffi, underlie the apostle's exposition of Christian ethics. Paragraphs (o) to (d) in the above analysis we have grouped together imder the title given to this section ; (e) demands a separate treatment ; and (/) and (g} will finally be bracketed together.

The Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 19.— And not holding fast the Head (vers. 6, 8; ch. i. 15—20; Eph. i. 20—23; Phil. ii. 9—11 ; Bom. ix. 5; xiv. 9 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; Bev. xix. 16). In the last verse the errorist was judged " out of his own mouth," and the intrinsic hoUowness of his pretensions was exposed. Now " he appears before the judgment-seat of Christ," charged with high treason against him, the Lord alike 9t 94 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. [ch. n. 1— 23. the kingdoms of nature and of grace. So the apostle falls back once more (comp. ver. 10) on tlie foundation laid down in oh. i. 15 — 20, on which his whole polemic rests. Both in creation and redemption, the philosophic Judaists assigned to the angels a rSle inconsistent with the sovereign mediatoiship of Christ (see notes on vers. 10 and 15). Trom whom all the body, through its joinings and bands being supplied and knit together, increaseth with the increase of Ood (ch. i 18; Eph. i. 22, 23; iv. 15, 16; John xv. 1 — 6 ; 1 Cor. id. 6). Disloyalty to " the head " works destruction to " the body," which in this case " proceeds from " (" grows out of," e'l . . . aS|€i) its Head, while it depends upon him. Gnosticism from the beginn ing tended to disintegrate the Church, by the castefeeling (ch. i. 28, note ; iii. 11) and the sectarian spirit to which it gave birth (ver. 8 ; Acts IX. 30). Its vague and subjective doctrines were ready to assume a different form with each new exponent. Here lies the connection between this and the Ephesiau letter, the doctrine of the Church following upon and growing out of tliat of the person of Christ, each being threatened — the latter immediately, the former more remotely — by the rise of the new JudsBO-CJjristiau mystic rationalism. Colossians asserts the " thou in me " of John xvii. 23 ; Ephesiang the corresponding " 1 in tliem ; " and both the consequent " tliey made perfect in one " (comp., especially, Eph. iii. 14 — 21 and iv. 7 —16 with ch. i, 15—20 and ii. 9—15). (On "body," see note, ch. i. 18.) 'A(()al signifies, not "joints " as parts of the bony skeleton,but includes all points of contact and connection in the body; Latin nexus, junctura (see Lightfoot). Bengel and Meyer, following Clirysostom, interpret it as " senses," or " nerves ;" but this does not commend itself eitlier lexically or contextually. The a-wSea-fiol (comp. ch. iii. 14) are the "ligaments," the stronger and more distinct connections that give the bodily framework unity and solidity. So, by the organic co-operation of the whole structure, the body of Christ is /urnUhed with it» supplies, enabled to receive and dispense to each member the needed sustenance ; and " knit together " (ver. 2), drawn into a close and firm unity. "Supplied" (comp. 2 Cor. ix. 10 ; Gal. iii. 5) indicates a sustenance botli required and due. In ch. i. 6 we read of the increase of the gospel, in ch. i. 10 01 the individual believer, and now of the Church as a body (Eph. ii. 21 ; iv. 16). " Tlie increase of Goil ' is that which (iod bestows (1 Cor. iii. 6), as it proceeds " from Christ " (^f ol : ver. 10 ; ch. iii. 11 ; John i 16), ra whom is " tlie fulness of tlie Godhead " (ver. 9 : oomp. Eph. i. VS and iii. 17 — 19). In Eph. iv. 16 the same idea is f xpressed in almost the same term?. There, however, the growth appears as proper to the body, resulting from its very constitution ; here, as a bestowment of God, dependent, therefore, upon Christ, and ceasing if tlie Church ceases to hold fast to him.

The Pulpit Commentary
vers. 20 — 22 ; ver. 23 reviewing the whole system is a brief characterization of its most prominent and dangerous features. It will be convenient to treat separately the first of these topics, under the heading already given, which indicates the positive tfuth developed by St. Paul in antagonism \/o the «Ror against which he contends — • truth which is the practical applicaticn ol the theological teaching of the first chapter.

vers. 20 — 23). In this respect the Christian is already complete, for his circumcision took place in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ (ch. iii. 5, 8, 9 ; E| .h. iv. 22—25 ; Eom. vi. 6 ; vii. 18—25 ; xiii. 12 ; 1 Pet. ii. 1 ; iv. 1, 2). The inserted "of the sins" is an ancient gloss. 'Air-EK-Suiris, a double compound, found only in this Epistle (see corresponding verb in ver. 15; ch. iii. 9), denotes both " stripping off" and " putting away." " The stripping off of the body" was the ideal of the philosophical ascetics (see note on " body," ver. 23, and quotations from Philo). The apostle adds " of the flesh ; " i.e. of the body in so far as it was the body of the flesh (vers. 13, 18, 23 ; oh. iii. 5). " The flesh " (in oh. i. 22 that which Christ had put on ; here that which the Christian puts off: comp. Eom. viii. 3) is " the flesh of sin," of Eom. viii. 3 ; Gal. v. 19 ; Eph. ii. 3, etc. " The body," while identified with this " flesh," is " the body of sin " and " of death " (Eom. vi. 6 ; vii. 24 ; see Meyer, Godet, or Beet) ; sin inhabits it, clothes itself with it, aud presents itself to us in its form; and this being the normal condition of unregenerate human nature, the sinful piinciple is naturally called the flesh. So " the (bodily) members " become " the members that are upon the earth," employed in the pursuit of lust and greed, till they become practically one with these vices (ch. iii. 5, see note ; also Eom. vii. 5, 23). Yet " the body " and "the (sinful) flesh," while in the natural man one in practice, are in piinciple ilistingoishable (ver. 23 : comp. ch. i. 22), aud separ.Jile (Bom. vi. 12). The deliverance from tlie pliysical acts and habits of the old sinful life, experienced by him who is " in Christ "(ver. 10; Eom. viii. 1 — 1; 2 Cor, V. 17), is "the cirenmcision according to the Christ," or here more pointedly " of ()hrist " — a real and complete, instead of a partia) 88 THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. LoH. II. 1— 2a and symbiilic, pulling away of tha orgBnio life and dominalion of sin which made the body its scat nnd its instrument. The genitive " of Christ " is neither objective ("undergone by Christ "). nor subjective (" wrought by Christ "), but stands in a more general relation — " belonging to Christ," " the Christian ciroumoitiion." The occasion of this new birth in the Colossiana was their lapiiim —

Vers. 20— 23.— The apostle's fourth and last warning is directed against ascetic rules of life.

Ver. 20. — If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world (

The Pulpit Commentary
vers. 21—23; 1 Tim iv. 1—5; Rom. xiv. 17; Heb. ix. 10 ; xiii. 9 ; Mark vii. 14—19). Tlie new teachers dictated to the Colossians in these matters from the philfisophical, ascetic point of view (see notes on "philosophy," " circumcision," vers. 8, 11), condemning their previous liberty. (For the adverse sense of "judge," comp. Rom. xiv. 4, 10, 13.) The scruples of the "weak brethren " at Rome (Rom. xiv.) were partly of an ascetic character, but are not ascribed to any philosophic views. In 1 Cor. viii. 8 and X. the question stands on a different footiiig, beins; connected with that of the recognition of idolatry (comp. Acts xv. 29). In Heb. ix. 10 it is purely a point of Jewish law. In one form or other it was sure to be raised wherever Jewish and Gentile Christians were in social intercourse. Ver. 17 shows that such restrictions are " not according to Christ" (ver. 8), belonging to the system which he has superseded. "Tbeiefore" bases this warning upon the reasoning of the previous context. Tertullian (' Against Marcion,' v. 19) supplies the link connecting this verse with vers. 10, 15, 18, when he says, "The apostle blames those who alleged visions of angels as their authority for saying that men must abstain from meats." The abolishing of angel mediation (ver. 15) robs these restrictions Of their supposed authority. The Essenes found in the Nazarite life and the rules for the ministering Jewish priest (Numb. vi. 3 ; Lev. X. 8 — U; Ezek. xliv. 21) their ideal of holiness. Philo also attached a high moral value to abstinence from flesh and wine, and regarded the Levitical distinctions of meats as profoundly symbolic. Or in respect of feast, or new moon, or Bahbatb. 92 THE EPISTLE TO THE C0L0SSIAW9. [ch. n. 1— Si (Kom. xiv. 5, C, ; Gal. iv. 9, 10). The yearly 'east, the inonthly new moon, and the weekly sabbath (1 Chron. xxili. 31 ; Jea. i. 13, 14) cover the whole round of Jewish sacred eeasong. These the Colosslan Gentile Christians, disciples of St. Paul through Epaphras, had not hitherto observed (Gal. iv. 9, 10). Philosophic Judaists insisted on these institutions, giving them a symbolical and ethical Interpretation (see Philo, ' On tlie Number Seven;' also, ' On the Migration of Abraham,' § 16, where he warns his readers lest, " because the feast is a symbol of the joy of the soul and of thanksgiving towards God," they should imagine ttiey Oduld di>pense with it, or " break through liny establislieO customs which divine men have instituted ").

The Pulpit Commentary
ver. 23. The line of interpretation here adopted is advocated in the Expositor, first series, vol. li. pp. 385—398.

Yer. 23. — Such as have (literally, are (things) having) word indeed of wisdom (vers. 4, 8; 1 Cor. ii. 1, 4, 13; xii. 8). The antecedent of "such as" Is "commandments and teachings" (Meyer, Alfurd, EUiontt), not "decrees" (ver. 21). For ver. 22 supplies the immediate antecedent, and the wider sense thus given is necessary to support the comprehensive and summary import of

ver. 23. The Greek "are having" brings into view the nature and qualities of the subject, in accordance with ariva, such as, the qualitative relative (comp, fJTis, ch. iii. 5; see Moulton's Winer, pp. 209, 210 ; also Meyer and Ellioott, on the grammaticsd point). A certain "word of wisdom " was ascribed to the false teachers in ver. 4 (note the play upon \6yos in St. Paul's Greek). They were plausible dealers in words, and had the jargon of philosophy at their tongue's end (ver. 8 : compare note on ii/L^anvaiv, ver. 18). On this the apostle had first remarked in his criticism of their teaching, and to this he first adverts in his final resume. " Word of wisdom " is one of the " gifts of the Spirit " in 1 Cor. xii. 8; but the disparaging niv, indeed, with the emphatic position of Kiyov throwing aoipias into the shade, in view also of the censures already passed in vers. 4, 8, puts a condemnatory sense upon the phrase: " having word indeed of wisdom " — " that and nothing more, no inner truth, no pith and substanceof wisdom'' (so Chrysostomand Qicumenius). "Word and deed," "word and truth," form a standing antithesis (ch. iii. 17; Eom. xv. 18; 1 Cor. iv. 19, 20; 1 John iii. 18, etc.), the second member of whivh supplies itself if) th^ wind; aQ<| 96 THE EPISTLE TO THE COT.OSSIANS. [oh. n. 1—23 the military ftiv in inch a connection is a well-established classical idiom (sec Winer's or A. Buttniiinn's 'Grammar;' aUo Meyer). It is superfluous, therefore, as well as confusing to the order of thought, to seek in the Biquel for the missing half of the •ntithosis. Other renderings of \6yov — " show" (English A.V- Bensel, Ue Wette), " ground " or " reason " (Vulgate, Klopper), " reputation " (Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot) — are partly doubtful or exceptional in point of usage, and paitly overlook the pointed reference of vers. 22, 23 to the language of vers. 4 and 8. And the combination of kiyov ^x""''''^ ^^^° * single phrase is scarcely justified here in face of the established Pauline association of " word " and " wisdom " (cqmp. 1 Cor. i. 17— ii. 16, as well as xii. 8). Both in this Epistle and in 1 Corinthians the writer is contending against forms of error which found their account in the Greek love of eloquence and of dexterous word-play. While the first part of the predicate, theiefore, explains the intellectual attractivenest ol the OoloBsian error, the clause next following accounts for its religious fascination; and the third part of the verse strikes at the root of its ethical and practical applications. (Shown) in (or, with) devotion to (or, delight in) worship (or, voluntary worship) and lowliness of mind (ver. 18). The preposition "in" brings us into the moral and religious sphere of life in which this would-be wisdom of doctrine had its range and found its application. The prefix fBeKo- of t'eeXoSpTjjKeia ordinarily connotes "willingness" rather than "wilfulness ; '■ and the " deligliting in worship " of ver. 18 (see note) points strongly in this direction. As against Ellicott and Lightfoot on the etymological point, see Hofmann, pp. 102, 103.' Only so far as the worship in question (see note, ver. 18, on " worship ") is evil, can the having a will to worship be evil. The other characteristics of the error marked in this verie seem to be recf>mmendatioiiB, and "devotion to worship" is in keeping with them. This disposition, moreover, has an air of "humility," which iocs not belong to a self-imposed, arbitrary varship. There is a love of worship for mere worship's sake which is a perversion of the religious instinct, and tends to multi- 51y both the forms and objects of devotion, 'his ipuriouB religiousness took the form, in the Colossian errorists, of worship paid to the angels. On this particular worship tlie a])ostle passed his judgment in ver. 18, and now point* out the tendency from which it springs. In ver. 18 " humility " precedes j here it follows " worship," by way of tran- ■ition from the religious to the moral aspect of tlie new teaching. And (or, with) uasparing treatment of (the) body — not in any honour (as) against surfeiting of the flesh (vers. 16, 21, 22 ; Phil. iii. 19—21 ; 1 Tim. iv. 3; 1 Cor. vi. 13—20; xii. 23—25; 1 Thess. iv. 4). The "and" linking this clause to the last under the goverument of "in," is textually doubtful; Lightfoot cancels it; 'Westcott and Hort give the omission as a secondary reading. Mr. Hort regards the passage, like ver. 18, as hopelessly corrupt — a verdict which we would fain believe is too despairing. If koI be struck out, then a^EiScfa must be attached, somewhat loosely, to the principal predicate (" are having ") as an instrumental dative. On either construction, the sense appears to be that it w:is its combination of ascetic rigour with religious devotion that g.ive to the system in question its undoubted charm, and furnished an adequate field for the eloquence and philosophical skill of its advocate. 'A(fiji5e/o, unsparingness, and TtK-nafiovii, surfeiting — both found only here in the New Testament — and along with them " body " and " flesh," stand opposed to each other. This clause, therefore, contains a complete sense, and we must not look outside it for an explanation of the included words, " not in any honour." As we have seen, the first clause of the predicate ("having word indeed," etc.) needs no suuh complement. The clau.^e "not .... flesh" is a comment on the words, " unsparing treatment of the body." On this topic the apostle had not yet expressed his mind sufiiciently. He has in