^M OF PRI/VCfJg^ V'S, COLOSSIAN AND PHILEMON STUDIES COLOSSIAN AND PHILEMON STUDIES LESSONS IN FAITH AND HOLINESS HANDLEY C. G. MOULE, D.D. ^ SEP 22 1958 Fleming H. Revell Company Ffinttd in Gnal Britain Westwood, N.J. — 316 Third Avenue Los Angeles 41 — 2173 Colorado Boulevard London, E.C.4 — 29 Ludgate Hill Glasgow, C.2 — 229 Bothvvell Street CONTENTS THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY . • . • • 3 CHAPTER II SALUTATION AND THANKSGIVING : NEWS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE AT COLOSS/E .••••• ^5 (COLOSSIANS I 1-8.) CHAPTER III THE apostle's PRAYER FOR THE COLOSSIANS . « 47 (COLOSSIANS i. 9-14.) CHAPTER IV THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE SON OF GOD . f 1^ (coiossiANS i. 15-20.) CONTENTS CHAPTER V TACE REDEMPTION APPLIED : THE CASE OF THE COLOS- SIANS : THE apostle's JOY AND AIM • . e 93 (COLOSSIANS i. ai 29.) CHAPTER VI THE SECRET OF GOD, AND ITS POWEU . , . H? (COLOSSIANS ii. 1-7.) CHAPTER VII PARDON, LIFE, AND VICTORY IN THE CRUCIFIED AND RISEN ONE , , (coi.ossiANS ii. 8-15.) 139 CHAPTER VIII HOLY LIBERTY IN UNION WITH CHRIST . , , 163 (COLOSSIANS ii. 16-23,) CHAPTER IX THE ROOT AND FRUIT OF HOLINESS , , » 187 (COLOSSIANS iii. 1-7.) CONTENTS xi CHAPTER X rAGT. MORE UPON HOLINESS, ITS RULES AND MOTIVES 209 (coLOSSiANS iii. y-17.) CHAPTER XI THE CHRISTIAN HOMK 231 {coi,ossiANS iii. 18 — iv, i.) CHAPTER XII LAST WORDS ON PRAYER, CONDUCT, SPEECH : PER- SONAL MESSAGES : FAREWELL .... 255 (COLOSSIANS iw. a-18.) THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON CHAPTER XIH THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON: INTRODUCTORY . 279 CHAPTER XIV THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON : TRANSLATION : M.vya . 303 Well dors the Lord call the bcnpturcs the Door. For the Scriptures bring us to God, arid open lo us the knowledge of Him. The Scriptures make the sheep, and guard the sheep, and do not suffer the wolf to enter in. — St Ciirysostom, ottjohn x. INTRODUCTORY When quiet in ray house I sit Thy Book is my companion still; My joy Thy sayings to repeat, Talk o'er the records of Thy will, And search the oracles divine rill every heart-felt word be mine. Oh may the gracious words divine Subject of all my converse be; So will the Lord His follower join And walk and talk Himself with me; So shall my heart His presence prove, And burn with everlasting love. C Wesley CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY THE purpose of the following pages is altogether devotional. To speak more exactly, my aim is to assist the believing reader of the Epistle to the Colossians not in the way of historical and critical discussion (for which the Epistle offers rich material) but in the way of such exposition and reflect- ion as may, under the blessing of God, tend to edify. Throughout the expository portions will run a careful translation, and it will be necessary in the course of this to remark upon words and grammar. Inevitably also there will come in references to history and to geography. Yet for a treatment of many topics prominent in the strict critical discus- sion of Colossians the reader will look here COLOSSIAN STUDIES in vain ; they will not be touched upon, or at most the allusion will be passing. For example, I avoid altogether the much agitated problem of St Paul's route on his third missionary journey. That problem in- volves the question whether St Paul, on his way through the "inner regions" of Asia Minor to Ephesus (Acts xix, i), when he " went over all the Phrygian and Galatian country" (xviii. 23), did or did not pass down the river-valley in which Colossse stood. This question has of course its interest, as every detail in that wonderful life has. But it does not materially affect the sort of study of the Epistle which I have in view ; for on any theory St Paul had never stayed at Colossae when he wrote the Epistle to the Colossians. If he did pass there, it was at most but " as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night." When he wrote, the Colossian mission-converts, as a body, had "not seen his face in the flesh" (ii. i). Nor shall I discuss at any length the question whether or no the Epistle was written not from Rome but from Caesarea WHERE WAS THE EPISTLE WRITTEN ? 5 on the Sea, where (Acts xxiv. 27) St Paul spent two years in forced retirement. The question has been elaborately debated in modern times ; and no one who has not studied it should lightly think that the case for Rome is self-evident. For myself, the conviction is complete that Rome was the place of the writing of the Epistle.^ And this position will be assumed throughout the exposition. But for our purpose this also is a question of no primary importance. The allusions to the Writer's position and con- dition in the Epistle are very slight indeed ; a contrast to the graphic touches of Philip- pians. We hear of a " fellow-prisoner " (iv. 10), and of " sufferings " in which the Apostle " rejoices " (i. 24), and of brethren few among many, who are " a comfort " to him (iv. 11). And in the companion Letter, or rather Note, to Philemon, we have re- peated allusions to a captivity (i, 9, 10, 13). But these references could hardly be made • In The Cambridge Bible for Schools, etc. {Colossians, Introduction, ch. ii.), I have attempted to state carefully the evidence on the two sides. COLOSSIAN STUDIES more significant for our purpose by any discovery for certain that Rome or that Csesarea was the place where the Writer was detained. Again, the relation in time between Philip- pians and this Epistle will not be discussed. It will be enough for me, meaning what I do in this exposition, to refer thus once and briefly to it, for it has little bearing, if liny, on the positive revelations and messages of Colossians. I am then one of (I admit) the few who go altogether in this matter with the reasonings and conclusions of Light- foot in his commentary on Philipplans. I am convinced, after all I have read to the contrary, that Philipplans comes early in St Paul's Roman imprisonment, and that Colossians (with Ephesians and Philemon) comes later. I would date Philipplans a.d. 6i, and Colossians perhaps as late as the spring of.A.D. 63.^ This will be assumed in the following pages. But I think it will ' See T/ie Cambridge Bible, etc. {Colossians, Introduction, ch. ii., and Philippians, Introd., cli. ii.), for a statement of the questions involved. WHAT WAS THE COLOSSIAN HERESY ? 7 be seen that such an assumption will leave the study of the divine message of Colossians very much alone. It may here and there give to our picture of the Apostle as he writes a colour which the reader may think borrowed too freely from imagination. But if so, he will easily obliterate it in his mind ; and what the Apostle has actually -written will remain as it stands, in its truth and glory. Another question presented by the Epistle calls for ample discussion from the critical expounder, but may be stated with much more brevity for our purpose. I mean the question, what was the special form of religious error which had invaded the Colossian Mission, when Epaphras came to St Paul to report upon the state of things, and especially upon a dangerous propaganda which was unsettling the converts. Certain features of this mischief are apparent at first sight, and are recognized by all students of the Epistle. It was evidently in some sort and degree Judaistic. It insisted upon circumcision, and upon the observance of the Jewish holy days, weekly, monthly, and 8 COLOSSIAN STUDIES yearly (ii. i6). It laid a strong emphasis upon " ordinances " of restriction in food and drink. The difficult question in the case is how far these elements do or do not explain the whole movement. Was it, or was it not, simply the Judaeo-Christianity which had withstood St Paul at Antioch (Acts xv.), and later in Galatia? Was it this and no more, or was it this affected and altered by more mystic elements from "the pensive East"; by specu- lations on the mysteries of Being, and of Evil ? ^ In other words, was "the Colossian Heresy " an amalgam of Judaism and Gnosti- cism, in a wide reference of the latter word ? My belief is that on the whole this view of the matter is the right one, and that this alone fully satisfies the language of some parts of the Epistle. But it will be best to consider the question as it comes up from time to time in the text itself. And it must be considered with a caution emphasized by the fact that in our English expository literature the great • See Mansel's Gnostic Heresies^ Lecture i., for an able statement of the constant presence to the Gnostic of the two great enigmas, the Origin of finite Being, and of Evil. IT OBSCURED THE GLORY OF CHRIST 9 names of Lightfoot and Hort appear in it on opposite sides. One thing is certain as to " the Colossian Heresy." It was a doctrine of God, and of salvation, which cast a cloud over the glory of Jesus Christ. For the present at least, it will be enough to remember this. St Paul, writing to Colossae, had to deal with an error which, whatever else it did, did this — it put Jesus Christ into the background. It found the Pauline converts, we may safely assume, acting upon the Pauline Gospel ; " worshipping by God's Spirit, exulting in Christ Jesus, and confident — but not in the flesh " (Phil. iii. 3). They had heard a message which was, first and last, Jesus Christ — "who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification," and lives to be our life, by His all-sufficient grace. Their baptism had been to them the divine seal and summary of all this ; and in the strong simplicity of first faith and love they were enjoying " the light of the Lord," without a misgiving. But then came in certain mes- sengers who undertook to set them right ; to shew them what they did not fully understand. 10 COLOSSIAN STUDIES Jesus Christ might be much, but He was not all. The Law was still the fence around the Gospel. Baptism must be approached through circumcision, or at least supported by it. The believer must be a devotee, in an ordered round of qualifying observances ; or he would not be acceptable, or pure. And while Jesus Christ, in the vast hierarchy of the Unseen, occupied no doubt a place of majesty, He must not cast into the shade other powers of that world. The disciple must know that the Angels of glory called also for his worship, and for his reliance. They, with the Christ, as the Christ with them, were necessary links in the mysterious chain which must put man on earth, man in the body, man in matter, in contact with the Eternal. Would they have rest to their consciences ? They must supple- ment *Christ with other mediations. Would they have emancipation from evil and its tyranny ? They must supplement Christ with a strict ascetic and ritual discipline. It is perfectly clear that the new propa- gandists did not, at least in any avowed and perhaps in any intentional way, deny Jesus CHRIST WAS MUCH BUT NOT ALL II Christ as the Leader and in some sense the Saviour and Lord of men. There is no hint in the Epistle that the Colossians had ever heard His blessed Name blasphemed by their visitors ; as it would have been by emissaries of a Caiaphas, or again by accomplices of a Demetrius the silversmith. Probably the new Gospel was very far indeed from confessing anything like the true glory of Christ's Person ; He probably was, in it, by no means "the Son of God with power." Yet He was enough ac- knowledged to allow the teachers to pass, even in their own eyes, for " brethren." Only, there was this fatal difference ; He was practically minimized. He might in some sense preside over the difficult processes of religion. But He was not — Salvation. He was something. He was some great thing. But He was very far indeed from All. He was mysterious and venerable. But He was not " the Way, and the Truth, and the Life " ; " Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption " ; Light and Love, and Power ; " Alpha and Omega." The new voices at Colossal would have many things to discourse upon ; and among those 12 COLOSSIAN STUDIES many things would be Jesus Christ. But He would not be the magnetic Centre of their discourses. They would not gravitate to Him, and be as if they could never have done with setting forth His holy greatness, and His vital necessity, and His " all-sufficiency in all things." His dying love would not set the speakers' hearts and words on fire, nor would they dilate upon His rising power, and the double blessedness of His presence, for His disciples upon the Throne, and in His disciples in the heart. The wonder of His Incarnation would be little spoken of, and the solemn joy of the hope of His Return as little. The favourite topics of conversation and of preach- ing would be of a very different kind. Cir- cumcision, a calendar of obligatory holidays, a code of ceremonial abstinence, a philosophy of unseen powers, and secret ways and rules for approach to them in adoration ; these would be the congenial and really characteristic themes of this " other Gospel." Now this, as we know, (thanks under God to our Colossian Epistle among other oracles of the Truth,) is exactly unWke the authentic BUT CHRIST IS THE GOSPEL 13 G^^ What is the Gospel of the New Testament, or rather of the whole Scriptures, as the New Testament unfolds the hidden glories ot the Old ? It is not this thing, or that, and the other; it is our Lord Jesus Christ. It is "the proclamation of Jesus Christ." He is, in it, "the First, and with the last." From every point of view it is thus in the Gospel. Do we approach the Gospel to ask for oracles about God? It replies that Jesus Christ is "the express Image of His Person." One with Him. Do we come to ask answers about the mystery of Being, the majestic secret of Creation ? It replies that '' all things were made through the Son. and without Him was not anything made that was made. Do we interrogate the Gospel about pardon? Its answer, full of the musical harmony of eternal Law and eternal Love, tells us that " the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin " ; that we are " accepted in the Beloved " ; that our " sins are forgiven us for His Name's sake"; for "He is the Propitiation for our sins." ' Do we enquire about the inmost way of Holiness ? We listen, and learn that " if 14 COLOSSIAN STUDIES the Son shall make us free, we shall be free indeed"; " He is made unto us Sanctification ' ; He is able to " dwell in our hearts, by faith," and thence to rule our being; "His grace is sufficient"; " His power overshadows" us in our deep moral weakness. Do we feel the burthen of our awful mortality, and ask for a real antidote? He Himself answers, out of the heart of His Gospel, " I am the Resurrec- tion and the Life"; "He that believeth in Me hath everlasting life " ; " shall never die." His servant says that "He hath abolished death," and that He, the blessed Lord of Resurrection, " is able to subdue all things unto Himself" Do we come to the Gospel for an answer which shall make tangible to us the infinite mystery of the future life ? " To^ depart and to be with Christ is far better" ; that is the answer for death. "We shall be for ever. with the Lord" ; that is the answer for resurrection. Yes indeed, in the Gospel of God, of Christ, ot the Apostles, of the Prophets, Christ is All. He is the Revelation of the Father, the Bond of Man and God, the Giver of the Spirit, CHRIST IS THE CENTRAL SUN 1 5 the Merit of the guilty, the Purity of the sinful, the Power of the weak, the everlasting Life for our mortality. No surer test, according to the Holy Scriptures, can be applied to anything claiming to be Christian teaching, than this : Where does it put Jesus Christ ? What does it make of Jesus Christ ? Is He something in it, or is He all ? Is He the Sun of the true solar system, so that every planet gets its place and its light from Him ? Or is He at best a sort of Ptolemaic sun, rolling together with other luminaries around an earthly centre — whether that centre take the form of an ob- servance, a constitution, or a philosophy ? If such is the character of the one Gospel which has really descended from the heavens, it is no wonder that St Paul takes the line he does in writing to Colossae. From first to last the dogmatics of the Epistle consist in just this, the infinite glory of the Person of the Son of God, and the grandeur of His finished Work, and the abundant fulness of His Grace. And the noble ethics of the Epistle are just this, the Son of God applied 1 6 COLOSSIAN STUDIES to the believer's daily path, in this perfection of what He is and what He has done. We shall appreciate this better of course as we proceed. But let it guide and govern our studies from the beginning, as it is so amply entitled to do. We are to read an inspired Epistle, an Oracle of God, whose utterances are conditioned by the approach of a theory of religion which puts Jesus Christ out of the central place. Let us listen to the sentences and paragraphs ; they will more than re-affirm all the oracles that have gone before concern- ing this wonderful Saviour. They will assert again and again eternal truths which earlier Scriptures have emphasized. But they will lift the veil still further from His inexhaustible glory, as they tell us things about which we had not so explicitly heard before — about His Headship in Creation, and His Headship in the Church ; about His being our very Life ; " that in all things He may have the pre- eminence." So be it, with us now, as in Colossae then. And where, and what, was Colossae? It COLOSS.E 1 7 was a country-town of Asia Minor, about a hundred miles east of Ephesus. It lay at the mouth of ** a narrow glen some ten miles long," ^ on the south of which towers Mount Cadmus, a snowy pyramid, now called by the Turks Baba Dagh, Father of Mountains. Down the glen, and out of it, runs the Lycus, the Wolf-stream, soon to pour its waters into the Mseander. Within the day's walk of an active pedestrian, in the same Lycus valley, lie the sites of Laodicea and of Hierapolis, looking at each other across the fields and the river. It is a strange region, betraying everywhere the presence of volcanic fires, and the traces of their action ; an action which has repeatedly in the past devastated the district, and which struck Colossee itself with ruinous shocks within a few years after the writing of the Epistle." Travellers describe with equal warmth the splendid picturesqueness of the scenery, seen under the glowing sun of Asia, and the weird desolateness of the streams ^ Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 473, 2 See Lightfoot, Colossians, ed. i., p. 38, note. I 8 COLOSSIAN STUDIES and cascades of limestone which whiten the sides of the valley. Of the three towns of the Lycus, Colossae was by far the smallest, and at the date of the Epistle it was in a state of decline and decay. It had had its days of fame. Here Xerxes had halted on his way to the Grecian wars, letting his countless host rest at the western mouth of the Cadmian pass. The younger Cyrus, the Cyrus of Xenophon's Anabasis, paused here for a week with his Greek mercenaries on his way upward to attack his brother ; it was then " a populous and prosperous city."^ It was celebrated too for a natural wonder ; a gulph into which the Lycus disappeared, to issue five stadia lower down, before its junction with the Masander ; a limestone tunnel, which seems to have been changed long ago, by earth- quake or decay, into an open cutting. But by the Christian era Colossae was small and obscure ; a place which hovered between town and village, a townlet, a poLisnia. * Xenophon, Anabasis y i. 2, § 6. IT WAS ONLY A POLISMA 1 9 We probably know, by observation or description, perhaps some of my readers by residence, what life is like in a polisfna. It has its brighter side, of close neighbour- hood and almost domestic friendships. But there is a sadder side also, a certain stagna- tion of thought and action, and a melancholy inseparable from what seems a destiny of decline. Let us take such impressions as a foil to the glory of the Colossian Epistle, and thank God that in that old, remote polisina this grace had so gloriously begun to '* make all things new " in human hearts. And is it not characteristic of Him that this wonderful Epistle, this great treasure for all time in the universal Church, should have been written for Colossce} It is read and pondered now wherever man has heard of Christ. It is dear to innumerable hearts in Europe, in Australia, in India, on the central table-land of Africa, in the islands of the Ocean, in the cities and on the prairies of America. But it was first sent, with all its unsearchable wealth of truth, to the mission- church of that small decaying town of the 20 COLOSSIAN STUDIES Levant. So did the Author of Scripture "give liberally." And this liberality with His written Word long ago is an index of His heart towards the believer, and the Church, for ever. There is nothing which He will grudge, in their real need, to the feeblest of His disciples and to the least noticed of their communities. How was Colossae evangelized ? Certainly not by the direct ministry of St Paul him- self The disciples there — as a community — " had not seen his face in the flesh." The work was probably done through the Epaphras ^ who appears so prominently in the Epistle. We may reasonably assume that Epaphras himself entered into the light of Christ as a hearer of St Paul at Ephesus, at some time during the '• three whole years " (probably a.d. 55 — a.d. 57) which the Apostle spent continuously in the great city. During that time " all they that dwelt in Asia," the proconsular province of which Ephesus was capital, "heard the Word" (Acts xvx jo). It ' Not to be identified with the Epaphroditus of Philippians. COLOSSIANS AT EPHESUS 21 was one of those periods of which the Church has seen many since, when the Spirit of God moved in human hearts with what we may presume to call an epidemic power ; from town to town, from village to village, the longing to hear the heavenly message spread, men knew not how. We seem to see a group of friends coming down the Mseander valley from the quiet old town among the limestone hills ; Philemon is there, and Apphia, and Archippus, and Epaphras, and perhaps Onesimus in attendance on them. And they find out the new teacher, and ot some of them at least "the Lord opens the heart," and they believe on the blessed Name. And we may think that Paul soon recognizes in Epaphras the gifts of evangelist and pastor, and lays his hands on him in due time, and sends him back to be the missionary of his home. Even thus many an incident of evangelization has been shaped in later days. There is a Colossse-like district in the highlands of the Chinese province of Cheh-kiang, the district of Chu-ki. Not very many years ago it was evangelized by one of its own sons, who had 22 COLOSSIAN STUDIES visited Hang-chow, the Ephesus of the region, the glorious Quin-say of Marco Polo, and there had read the unknown word Jesus over the door of a mission-room. So began his en- quiries, and so came his conversion, followed in time (after a period of earnest witnessing, antecedent to any ministerial calling) by his ordination as the missionary-pastor of Chu-ki.^ The seasons and scenes are various indeed, but the power of the Gospel is above all time. Colossse is nothing now but ruins. Ages ago the site was deserted for Chonae,^ now called Chonos, three miles away. The visitor finds a field full of broken structures and mutilated columns, and at a little distance another field shewing the debris of a cemetery ; the l^ycus, the Tchoruk Su of the Turks, rushes as of old between. This is Colossce. " But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever." ' See The Story of the Cheh-kiang Mission (published by the Church Missionary Society), ed. 4, ch. vi. * I.e. "the Funnels"; with allusion probably to the under- ground channels in the limestone. SALUTATION AND THANKSGIVING : NEWS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE AT COLOSSI What do I not ewe to the Lord for permitting me to take a part in the translation of His Word ? Never did I see such wonders, and wisdom, and love, in this blessed Book as since 1 have been obliged to study every expression. And it is a delightful reflection that death cannot deprive us of the pleasure of studying its mysteries. H. Martvn CHAPTER U SALUTATION AND THANKSGIVING : NEWS Oi- CHRISTIAN LIFE AT COLOSS^E CoLOSblANS i. 1-8 Ver. I. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus,^ His com- missioned Delegate to reveal, teach, and order, through God's will, the will whose sovereign efficac}' makes it as it were its own means (Sta with genitive), and Tiinotheus, the brother, the fellow-Christian and Ver. 2. fellow- worker known to all,^ to the holy and faithful brethren in Christ in Colossae, the men and women there who, joined to the Lord, are "hallowed" from sin and the world and are living the life of " faith " in Him ; grace be to you and * XpiorAs 'Iijo-ouf is the best-attested order. It is almost peculiar to St Paul, and with him is the more frequent. It lays a certain emphasis on the Xptards, and so on the Lord's Messianic glory. * So I would paraphrase 6 a8eX(^dy, the words used likewise of Quartus (Rom. xvi. 23), Sosthenes (1 Cor, i. i), Apollos (1 Cor. xvi. 12). Every Christian is an dSeX^o'j among brethren (see just below, ver. 2) ; but 6 ahi\(^6i seems to indicate something ^ar excellence. 25 26 COLOSSIAN STUDIES peace, all that is free and loving in divine favour and presence, and all that is tranquil and happy in divine regard for you, and in your repose in divine salvation, from God our Father,^ that Name of infinite nearness and love, revealed to us in the beloved Son, who has made us His own brethren. Let us pause over this familiar greeting, for one simple purpose. It puts before us the persons greeted, as to their location, their connexion, from two very different points of sight. Where were these " hallowed and believing ^ brethren " ? They were ' 171 Colossce!' They were ** in Christ." From the one side they, as much as any ot their neighbours, were the denizens of that small ' Probably the words kcu, Kvpiov 'Irjcrov XpioTou in the Received Text are to be omitted ; they may have been in- serted early by copyists from the parallel passage Eph. i. 2. —The words just above, vols iu KoX. dyiois km. jnaro'ts aSeX^oIs (V Xpia-Tw, lose somewhat by translation, as it is impossible in English to keep the Greek order; " J/ie m Colosscs," etc. The change of order necessitated by our idiom throws rather too much emphasis on "in Colossai," where emphasis should rather rest on "in Christ." And the paraphrase, ''those who in ColosscB are holy," etc., is not quite true to the simplicity of the Greek. * N. T. usage favours our rendering nicrros here not "trusty" but "trustful." See e.g. Gal. iii. 9. IN COLOSS.E, IN CHRIST 2/ Asiatic-jGreek town ; probably its natives ; habituated to the scenery of its streets, and fields, and rushing river, and limestone chasms, and overlooking hills, and to the scenes of its daily life in home, and shop, and market. They were " in " it, hour by hour, as to all its unfavourable spiritual circumstances ; its immemorial idolatry, its pagan vice, its pro- vincialism, its narrowness, its decay. All that was formidable in a life lived amidst old and intimate surroundings, yet with the confession of a new creed ; all that was depressing in a life lived where the stream of energy around ran low, and the " brethren " were but a little flock ; this was involved in their being placed " in Colossal." And they were as sensitive as we are to what the pressure of hour and company means for the weak human heart. But then on the other side they were, while in Colossae, also '* in Christ." Here was their supernatural secret for life, power, purity, love, cheerfulness, " everlasting comfort and good hope." Their spiritual locality was — the Lord. To Him they had "come." And so to Him, by the Spirit, they were "joined" (i Cor. vi. 17). 28 COLOSSIAN STUDIES And now, " with Him, in God," their life, as to its inexhaustible principle and secret, was "hid." They moved about Colossal "in Christ." They worked, served, kept the house, followed the business, met the neighbours, entered into their sorrows and joys, " walked in wisdom towards them," suffered their abuse and insults when such things came — all " in Christ." They carried about with them a " private atmosphere," which was not of Asia but of heaven. To them Christ was the inner home, the dear invisible but real resting-place. He was " the strong City " of refuge and strength. He was the Paradise, with its deep shades, and golden flowers, and living streams. Or to put it otherwise. He was the blessed Head, "in" whom they now found themselves the limb^. "In Him " they lived and moved, as knowing that His life could indeed be trusted to fill them, and His thought and will to guide them. In Colossae, they were yet much more in Him. And what a rich gain for poor Colossai that they, being in Him, were in it! As then, so now, for us who " iiave believed to the saving of the soul." Where are we ? WHAT IS OUR "COLOSS.E"? 29 In some locality of earth's surface, where the will of God has set us. Perhaps in a spot familiar to us from the dawn of memory, made to be to us what it is by a thousand associa- tions of love, of loss, of joy, of grief; intensely near to our consciousness, whether to absorb affections or to make trial felt. Perhaps in some strange and alien place, remote in miles from the home of old (it may be on the other side of the globe), or remoter still in character and circumstances. And we are meant not to ignore this locality, but to accept it, to enter into it, to sympathize with it, to submit, to love. But in order to do this aright we are called to remember our other and trans- cendent locality ; we are " in Christ." Yes, quite as much as our Colossian brethren, quite as supernaturally as they, and quite as genuinely, we in our modern life (their life to them was as modern) are "joined to the Lord." Around us, in London, in Liverpool, in Cornwall, in India, in Canada, in China, in Africa, there lies the "surrounding" of Jesus Christ, for our life of faith and love, just where we are. Where we are, there is 30 COLOSSI AN STUDIES He. With every call of every hour His word is, '^ Let us go hence." ^ And His com- panionship is not that only of the Companion ; it is that of the Hiding-place, the Sanctuary, the enfolding Presence, the living and life- giving Head. Lord Jesus Christ, enable Uo to recollect this with a quiet mind, to act upon it with a restful will ; so shall we realize it ever more and more with a happy heart, full of thanks- giving to Thee. * Let us go hence. And must we go ? go from this quiet place, This paschal Chamber, where we listening rest, And hear Thy blessed voice, and see Thy face, And lean upon Thy breast ? Go to that awful Garden ? to these throngs Of midnight violence ? to the unjust bar ? To all the dreadful world's insulting wrongs And impious war ? • Yes, we can go, arising at Thy word ; — Our sacred Place goes too, our vast Defence ; For Thou hast said, Companion, Leader, Lord, 'Let us go hence.' From the writer's book. In the House of the Pilgrimage : Hymns a?id Sacred So?2gs (Sceleys). The lines were suggested by a remark made to him by M. Theodore Monod, of Paris ST PAUL'S THANKSGIVING 3 1 But let US follow the Apostle as he dictates. He is about to speak with joy of his know- ledge, through Epaphras, that the converts, " in Colossai," were indeed living " in Christ." Ver. 3. We are giving thanks to our (tm) God, the Father* of our Lord Jesus Christ, always, when praying on your behalf (virep v^ioiv, so read) ; approaching Him, as we so often do, in worshipping intercourse {'Trpoaev)(Ofi€voi) about you, and " always," at such moments, filled first and most with thanksgiving for Ver. 4. His blessing manifested in you ; having heard, just now, from Epaphras, of your faith in Christ Jesus, of your reliance which rests anchorec in Him, and of its outcoming effect, the love which you have (read tjv e\eTe) to all the saints, all your Ver. 5. fellow-believers, near and far ; on account of the hope, " that blessed Hope," the Return of your Lord, laid up for you in safe keeping (aTroKei/jievrjv) in the heavens, from which, in its season, it shall be manifested ; the hope which you heard of at the first ^ in the word, the message, of the truth of the ' Probably omit Kai before narpi. ' npoTjKoixraTe: thus perhaps the npo- may be explained, as Bishop Lightfoot suggests. It contrasts (in this view) the original teaching of St Paul and his helpers with the unsound later "Gospel," 32 COLOSSIAN STUDIES Gospel, that " good news " so infinitely superior to all man-originated speculations, that " authentic message of the skies " which in divine reality (aXr]6eia) comes from above, instead of being a Ver. 6. mere echo to voices from below ; which Gospel has arrived among you {irapovro^ eh vfia