15 COLOSSIAN STUDIES Jesus Christ is the Centre of everything and the Object of every- thing ; and he who does not know Him knows nothing 5f the order of the world, and -nothing of himself. — Pascal. COLOSSIAN STUDIES LESSONS IN FAITH AND HOLINESS FROM ST PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE COLOSSIANS AND PHILEMON H. C. G.'MOULE, D.D. PRINCIPAL OF RIDLEY HALL, AND FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 51, EAST TENTH STREET 1808 TO THE RIGHT REVEREND JOHN CHARLES RYLE, D.D BISHOP OF LIVERPOOL THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED WITH REVERENT AND GRATEFUL AFFECTION BY HIS SERVANT AND FRIEND Our glorious Leader claims our praise For His own pattern given, And the long cloud of witnesses Shew the same path to heaven. Watts PREFACE THE "Studies" now in the reader's hand have been written with the single object of assisting and stimulating those other " studies" which the Christian can and must carry on by himself alone, with his own Bible before him. It will soon be found out how different is the purpose of these pages from that of the complete and elaborated critical commentary. In one respect only shall I seem to have traversed the lines of that sort of exposition — in the attempt to render every word of the text with careful regard to diction and con- nexion. I have sought to take the Apostle's sentences up, one by one, as if they met my eye for the first time (in a certain respect), PREFACE and to turn them into English so as to convey the freshness. of the impression. en this has been accomplished, with whatever measure of success, my sole further purpose has been to bring out for the reader's notice some of those inexhaustible messages : : r the soul which the study of the God- given utterances of the Apostle has carried home to myself. May the heavenly Master, the same yester- day, and to-day, and for ever, be 'pleased to make some use of His servant's unworthy labours, to the benefit of His Church, in the unending and delightful work of " reading, marking, and inwardly digesting " the Word of peace, of hope, of holiness, of heaven. Ridley Hall, Cambrjd: CONTENTS THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSlANS CHAPTER I - z-z INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER II 5 1V: TIN AMD THAHKSGIVIHG T CHMST1 LIFE AT COL X : ; --:-;. I-l CHAPTER UI THE APOSTLE'S FKA9ES 717 EBB DOUOSSIAHS - ■ -" (core se - - - ::-: after iy EBB HtEHEMOraEHCE 17 IHB SOU OF GOD . . "- (goubsujc ::-;a) CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE REDEMPTION APPLIED : THE CASE OF THE COLOS- SIANS : THE APOSTLE'S JOY AND AIM ... 93 (COLOSSIANS i. 21-29.) CHAPTER VI THE SECRET OF GOD, AND ITS POWER . . . IIJ (colossians ii. 1-7. ) CHAPTER VII PARDON, LIFE, AND VICTORY IN THE CRUCIFIED AND RISEN ONE 139 (colossians ii. 8-15.) 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 PAGE MORE UPON HOLINESS, ITS RULES AND MOTIVES . 209 (colossians iii. 8-17.) CHAPTER XI THE CHRISTIAN HOME 23 I (colossians iii. 18 — iv. 1.) CHAPTER XII LAST WORDS ON PRAYER, CONDUCT, SPEECH : PER- SONAL MESSAGES : FAREWELL . . . -255 (colossians iv. 2-18.) THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON CHAPTER XIII THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON : INTRODUCTORY . . 279 CHAPTER XIV THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON : TRANSLATION : ENVO . 303 Well does the Lord call the Scriptures the Door. For the Scriptures bring us to God, and open to us the knowledge of Him. The Scriptures make the sheep, and guard the sheep, and do not suffer the wolf to enter in. — St Chrysostom, on Joint v. INTRODUCTORY When quiet in my 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 Till 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 3 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 Colossse 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. 1). 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. 1 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 (1, 9, 10, 13). But these references could hardly be made 1 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 Caesarea 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 any, 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 Philippians. I am convinced, after all I have read to the contrary, that Philippians comes early in St Paul's Roman imprisonment, and that Colossians (with Ephesians and Philemon) comes later. I would date Philippians a.d. 61, and Colossians perhaps as late as the spring of a.d. 63. 1 This will be assumed in the following pages. But I think it will 1 See The Cambridge Bible, etc. {Colossians, Introduction, ch. ii., and Philippians ', Introd., ch. 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 COLOSSIAN STUDIES yearly (ii. 16). 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? 1 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 1 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 Q 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 Colossse, 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. IO 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 I I 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 Colossse 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, fof 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 utiiike the authentic BUT CHRIST IS THE GOSPEL 1 3 Gospel. What is the Gospel of the New Testament, or rather of the whole Scriptures, as the New Testament unfolds the hidden glories of 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, of 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 I 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 Colossse. 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 Colossce then. And where, and what, was Colossae ? It COLOSSI 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," l 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 Maeander. 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 Colossae itself with ruinous shocks within a few years after the writing of the Epistle. 2 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 1 Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 472. 3 See Lightfoot, Colossians, ed. i., p. 38, note. 2 1 8 COLOSSIAN STUDIES and cascades of limestone which whiten the sides of the valley. Of the three towns of the Lycus, Colossse 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." l 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 Maeander ; 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 polisma. 1 Xenophon, Anabasis, 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 polisma. 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 polisma 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 Colossal 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 Colossal 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 l 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 xix. 10). It 1 Not to be identified with the Epaphroditus of Philippians. COLOSSIANS AT EPHESUS 2 1 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 of 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 Colossae-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 2 2 COLOSSIAN STUDIES visited Hang-chow, the Ephesus of the region, the glorious Ouin-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. 1 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 Chonav 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 Lycus, the Tchoruk Su of the Turks, rushes as of old between. This is Colossae. " But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever." 1 See The Story of the Cheh-kiang Mission (published by the Church Missionary Society), ed. 4, ch. vi. 2 I.e. "the Funnels"; with allusion probably to the under- ground channels in the limestone. SALUTATION AND THANKSGIVING: NEWS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE AT COLOSSI. 23 What do I not owe 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 I 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. Martyn. 24 CHAPTER II SALUTATION AND THANKSGIVING : NEWS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE AT COLOSSI Colossians i. 1-8 Ver. i. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, 1 His com- missioned Delegate to reveal, teach, and order, through God's will, the will whose sovereign efficacy makes it as it were its own wea?is (Bid with genitive), and Tiniotheus, the brother, the fellow-Christian and Ver. 2. fellow-worker known to all, 2 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 1 Xpicrros 'It](tovs 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 Xpiaros, and so on the Lord's Messianic glory. 2 So I would paraphrase 6 d&eXcpos, the words used likewise of Quartus (Rom. xvi. 23), Sosthenes (1 Cor. i. 1), Apollos (1 Cor. xvi. 12). Every Christian is an dde'kcpos among brethren (see just below, ver. 2) ; but 6 dbf\(p6s seems to indicate something _par 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, 1 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 2 brethren"? They were " in CoIossceT They were " in Christ" From the one side they, as much as any of their neighbours, were the denizens of that small 1 Probably the words koi Kvpiov 'lrjaov Xpiarov 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,' rois iv KoX. ayiois kcu ttmtto'is d8f\(pdis iv Xpia-ra, lose somewhat by translation, as it is impossible in English to keep the Greek order; "the in Colossce," etc. The change of order necessitated by our idiom throws rather too much emphasis on "in Colossse," where emphasis should rather rest on "in Christ." And the paraphrase, "those who in Colossce are holy," etc., is not quite true to the simplicity of the Greek. 2 N. T. usage favours our rendering moros here not "trusty" but "trustful." See e.g. Gal. iii. 9. "IN COLOSSI, IN CHRIST" 27 Asiatic-Greek 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 Colossse." 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). 2 8 COLOSSIAN STUDIES And now, " with Him, in God," their life, as to its inexhaustible principle and secret, was "hid." They moved about Colossae "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 ibut 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 limbs. "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 Colossae that they, being in Him, were in it! As then, so now, for us who " have believed to the saving of the soul." Where are we ? WHAT IS OUR "COLOSSI"? 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 COLOSSIAN STUDIES He. With every call of every hour His word is, "Let us go hence." 1 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 us 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. 1 " '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, I?t the House of the Pilgrimage : Hymns and Sacred Songs (Seeleys). 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 Colossae," were indeed living " in Christ." Ver. 3. We are giving thanks to onr (t&5) God, the Father 1 of our Lord Jesus Christ, always, when praying on your behalf (v7rep v/xoiv, so read) ; approaching Him, as we so often do, in worshipping intercourse (Trpoaevypfievoi) 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 anchored in Him, and of its outcoming effect, the love which you have (read rjv e^ere) 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 {airotceiyikv^v) 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 1 Probably omit Koapa, and thus allows of the rendering above : " in the whole world it is fruit-bearing." — It is scarcely necessary to point out that the words "in all the world" are hyper- bolical, but not therefore untruthful, or even inexact ; they exactly convey, under the well-known circumstances of the time, the meaning of the Apostle ; they just state with emphasis and energy the vast diffusion of the Message in the Roman Empire. 2 Kal avJ-av6fievov. This is to be added here to the Received Text, on ample documentary evidence. 3 'EneyvuiTe. Almost always, by usage and connexion, tniyivcaa-Kciv in the N. T. means knowledge which goes deeper than the surface of facts ; and so, continually, it is to be explained as the spiritual knowledge which sees the truth i?i the fact, and finds the exfierie7ice in the truth. A TRULY PAULINE PASSAGE 33 learnt your lesson of salvation from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-bondsman in the sacred slavery of the Lord ; who is a faithful worker of Christ on our Ver. 8. behalf ; x who also informed us of your love in the Spirit ; the love resulting from that " love of God" which the Holy Spirit "poured out in your hearts " (Rom. v. 5), and which He maintains within you. So the Epistle opens. Nothing could be more characteristic of St Paul, as regards thought, feeling, and expression. His heart and his mind are in every phrase, we may say in every word. It is entirely like him to feel, and to speak out, all this affection and all this honour for these converts to Christ, recent as they were at the longest, and his own children — in many cases his own grandchildren — in the faith. It is just like him to speak of Epaphras, though only in passing, in these terms of warm regard and personal grateful confidence, throwing himself wholly into his subordinate's life, and work, and pastoral 1 'Ynep T}jj.a>v. On the whole the evidence, documentary and internal together, is for this reading, and not for virep v/xwj/. 3 34 COLOSSIAN STUDIES joys. And it is just like St Paul to write of the Gospel as he does, to speak of it in " words that burn," to dwell with an intensity of soul which cannot be hid upon its supreme reality, its dhjOeua, and upon its blessed fulness of "fruit," its KapTTO(f>opia, as it traverses "the world " calling forth the golden harvest of faith, love, and hope at every step. All comes from the bright depths of that mighty but tender personality, the heart of the man whom the Lord had made so rich in the capacities of nature, and then had transfigured all through by revealing Himself to him, and taking possession of him in the new life. And the style of the passage is eminently characteristic. The long sentence, in which clause flows out of clause without a break, all the way from ev^apiaroviiey to ayaTrqv iv TrvevfjiaTL, is as Pauline as it well can be ; the repeated kclOojs, the "doubling back" of the thought where KaOois koI iv vpHv follows upon Kadajs kglL iv ttolvtI tco Kocrfxa). The individu- ality of the style, which puts into legible shape the personality of the man, is obvious to every one. We are certainly not allowed SCRIPTURE IS HUMAN BUT DIVINE 35 here to forget that the Scripture is human as well as divine. Paul is as truly in this paragraph as Sophocles is in the opening lines of the Antigone, or Bunyan in the closing scene of the Pilgrims Progress. The Holy Ghost moved His vehicles to speak ; but His vehicles were "holy men of God" (2 Pet. i. 21). But then on the other side the "men" were His vehicles. And we turn to their words, as the Church from the first has turned, (taught by the Lord Jesus, who thus turned in His own sacred experience to the words of the Old Testament writers,) as to the Word of God. Let any one who pleases call this view of Scripture "a dead dogma" ; it is as living a thing as the precept of Jesus Christ can make it, backed by His personal example. So we take our paragraph, and ask not only what it tells us of the heart of a wonder- ful man, but what it says to us as the Word of life, our Master's own message, divine, direct, authoritative, to our souls. As such, it has much to tell us, more 36 COLOSSIAN STUDIES than I can even indicate here. It points out to us, for example, the glorious secret, eternally wonderful, of our sonship to God in Christ. " Grace and peace from God our Father " ; " We are giving thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Let us read this again as if we had never read it before. When, long ago, some of the Danish missionaries in India set their educated con- verts to translate a catechism in which the Christian's privilege of sonship was expounded, one of the translators hesitated, and almost protested, at the boldness, the incredibility, of the words. "It is too much," he said; "let me rather render it, They shall be permitted to kiss His feet" It would indeed be incredible, were it not revealed. " Behold, what manner of love ! " But the central and characteristic utterance of our paragraph lies in the fourth and fifth verses. There the Apostle, who, years before, had written to the Corinthians " the psalm of love" (i Cor. xiii.), and at its close had grouped the blessed three, faith, hope, and love, to shine for ever together in Christian FAITH 37 thought, recurs to the same theme, in the concrete example of the Colossians. He has heard of " their faith in Christ Jesus," and of " the love which they have to all the saints " ; and he knows that this faith and this love have their life and energy " on account of the hope laid up for them in the heavens." Let us take the three words up for a simple meditation in brief detail. i. "Their faith in Christ Jesus"; that is to say, (to repeat what we can never too distinctly recollect,) their souls' reliance, anchored in Him, resting in Him. (For such, as I un- doubtedly take it, is the imagery of the phrase here, "in Christ Jesus." 1 It gives us the thought of reliance going forth to Christ, and reposing on Christ, so as to sink as it were into Him, and find fixture in Him ; as the anchor sinks to the floor of the sea, and then into it, that it may be held in it.) This comes first in the order ; their faith, with its glorious Object — Christ Jesus. Not 1 nia-Tis, Trio-Tfvciv, k.t.X., are but rarely constructed with eV. But the idea conveyed is as intelligible, and valuable, as that conveyed by etV. 38 COLOSSIAN STUDIES first their love, nor their hope, but first their faith — in Him. In other words, He must come first (in the ideal order) as the Object of their reliance ; then He will be revealed fully and more fully for ever as the Object of their love, as it goes out to Him and to His members. Let us hold fast this principle ; in the theology of our spiritual life, let us put first faith — that is to say, Christ relied upon. Let us not fall into the specious fallacy which would discredit faith in favour of love ; with the almost inevi- table result of discrediting a distinct, revealed, and infinitely needed, ground and warrant of faith, in favour of a religion of subjectivity and mere emotion. Faith, in the realities of the soul, is as needful to love as the fulcrum to the lever, or as the wick to the flame. Love indeed is " greater than " faith, from one glorious point of view ; because faith is for the sake of love rather than love for the sake of faith. But who ever discredited the foundations of the Temple in favour of the Gate Beautiful, or thought that the Gate Beautiful could ever get beyond its need of the founda- tions ? In the architect's thought the founda- love 39 tion was for the Gate, not the Gate for the foundation. But the foundation, vast, immove- able, planned with perfect skill, was majestically and for ever needful to the whole super- structure. Christ the Object of faith gives faith all its value. 1 But the value of faith therefore is incalculable and eternal. For in practice it means just this, Christ relied upon by me a sinner, who immeasurably need Him. "Faith in Christ Jesus " is the soul's rest, underlying always all its true action. ii. " The love which they had to all the saints!' If faith is the soul's rest, love is the soul's resultant action. I say resultant, for it is no less. If faith is faith indeed, if it is a genuine and practical reliance upon the revealed Lord Jesus Christ, then, in the spiritual nature of things, it must result in love. For it implies some sight of Him. And as it goes on in its exercise and experience, relying on Him, using Him as Refuge, Strength, and Peace, it implies a genuine intercourse 1 I venture to refer to the first chapter of a little book of mine, Patience and Comfort (Marshall, 1897). 40 C0L0SSIAN STUDIES with Him. It implies a reception of Him into the intimacy of the soul. It opens the door to Him to "dwell in the heart, by faith " (see Eph. iii. 17). And the heart where the revealed and trusted Christ dwells must expand, and flow out of itself, to Him, and to others because of Him. It learns, because He is there, in His practically experienced reality, to " find its delight in the felicity of others " ; being itself possessed of such felicity in Him. It is at rest ; therefore it is both capacitated and animated to work. And its work is "'the labour of love " ; the sweet energies and sweet sympathies of a being which has found its ultimate safety and strength, and will migrate no more. No wonder then that the Apostle, hearing of the " faith " of the Colossians, their " faith in Christ Jesus," heard also of their warm, practical, and comprehensive " love." . Nor will it be a wonder that the connexion and sequence should be the like for us, by the grace of God. When are we most unselfish as Christians, most ready, most happy, to sympathize, to serve, to seek ? When we are personally most HOPE 4 1 at rest in faith. When we are most simply, most humbly, most freely, relying on the Lord Jesus, and finding Him to be to us " according to our faith," then, as never at other seasons, the heart swells with love to others, and rejoices to take the most useful line it can, whatever the line be, to shew it. When we are at rest in Him, the work of love is but the glad expression of our rest. iii. " On accozmt of the hope laid up for them in the heavens." This phrase, " on account of," Sta with the accusative, is noteworthy. It links closely together in a suggestive way " that blessed hope " (as it becomes an experience, reflecting itself in the believer's heart as the glad feeling of hope of the Lord's Coming and Glory) with the faith and love which have just been mentioned. Not that the hope is the ground of either the faith, or the love. But it is a grand occasion to develope them, and call them out into action. " Because of" that wonderful prospect, that promise that " Christ, which is our life, shall appear" " this same Jesus, in like manner " — because of that, and of all the bliss which it means to His disciples 42 COLOSSIAN STUDIES — the believing heart believes more consciously and boldly, and the loving heart loves more gladly, and with a more heaven-like kindness of affection. In particular, with that hope in view, a peculiar warmth and sense of coherence comes into the "love towards all the saints." The thought of the one blessed goal, radiant with the light of the countenance of the coming King, draws nearer and nearer together the hearts of the scattered groups on all the paths of the pilgrimage towards it. The thought, the fact, the irrevocable promise, of " our gathering together unto Him" acts already, so far as it is allowed its full and natural force within us, to gather us together unto one another. St Peter makes beautiful use of this truth, though less obviously, in his First Epistle (v. 9), to animate tempted believers in faith's resistance to the tempter ; he reminds them of their fellow-believers, and of the common goal ; "whom resist, stedfast through your faith (crrepeot rfj moTei, solid, impenetrable, because reliant on the Lord) ; as knowing that the same experiences of tribulations (to. avra roiv 7ra6r)ixdT