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Colossians, part 2, Greetings and Thanksgiving

Paul begins his letter to the Colossians this way in Colossians 1:1, 2,

¹ Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, ² to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

Here Paul identifies himself as an apostle, a divinely commissioned ambassador. In the Roman world, the term apostle (apostolos, Greek ἀπόστολος) was not originally a Christian word. It already existed in Greek and was used in the wider Greco-Roman environment long before Paul or Jesus applied it to the Twelve. The root verb apostellō (ἀποστέλλω) means “to send out on a mission.”

In classical and Hellenistic Greek, apostolos was a messenger, commissioned and sent with the authority to represent the government in an official capacity. This made the term ideal for early Christians to describe the Twelve and Paul: they were authorized envoys of King Jesus.

In the Greek-speaking Jewish world (Diaspora Judaism), the term apostolos was used for authorized envoys of the Sanhedrin, for agents who carried temple funds, and for delegates sent on behalf of Jewish communities.

Therefore, when the early church used the word apostle, it deliberately echoed the Jewish idea of an authorized envoy, as well as the Roman imperial idea of an official representative who speaks with the authority of the government.

Paul identifies himself not only as an apostle but “an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.” In other words, he was not self-appointed. Jesus Christ had appeared to him on the road to Damascus and had commissioned him to go to the ethnos, “nations” (Acts 22:21). The term was sometimes applied to Judea itself (as in Luke 7:5; John 11:48, 50, 52; Acts 10:22) but often was understood to mean “gentiles,” or nations other than Judea.

In this case, Paul was sent to “The saints and faithful brothers in Christ who are at Colossae.” The church’s identity had two locations: “In Christ” was their spiritual position; “In Colossae was their earthly geographical location. Paul often pairs these two spheres to remind believers that the heavenly identity determines the quality of their life on earth.

Paul greets them with “grace” and “peace.” The common Jewish greeting was Shalom, Shalom! Paul modifies this to say, “Grace, Peace” to show that grace, an act of God, results in peace (wholeness).

Paul’s Thanksgiving

Colossians 1:3-6 says,

³ We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, ⁴ since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; ⁵ because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel ⁶ which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understand the grace of God in truth.

Paul had “heard” of their faith and love, but apparently, he had not witnessed it in person, because he had not been the (direct) founder of that church. The saints in Colossae also had “hope laid up for you in heaven.” In Romans 8:24 Paul says,

²⁴ For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?

Biblical hope is not based on wishful thinking but upon confident expectation of things to come. So Paul speaks of the promise of God “laid up for you in heaven.” It is not a present reality on earth. What is it that they hoped for? In Romans 8:19 it is “the revealing of the sons of God,” and in Romans 8:23 it is defined further as “the redemption of our body.”

Our Passover experience (justification) saved our spirit; through Pentecost our soul is being saved and transformed by the renewing of our mind; and (in the future) the fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles will save (or redeem) the body. It is only when the third feast is fulfilled that we will experience the ultimate shalom (“peace, wholeness”) mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 5:23,

²³ Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Colossians had both “heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth.” Hence, their hope lay in the expectation of complete salvation of spirit, soul, and body. Their spirit was saved when they first believed the gospel (Ephesians 2:5, 8); their soul was being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15), and their body will be saved (Romans 5:9, 10; 13:11; 1 Peter 1:5).

Scripture thus speaks of salvation as past, present, and future. The Colossians saints, then, had already experienced the first phase of salvation and were currently experiencing the second, but their “hope” was in the third and final phase of salvation.

Epaphras’ Gospel

Colossians 1:7, 8 tells us,

⁷ Just as you learned it [the gospel] from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, ⁸ and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.

Here Paul explicitly affirms that Epaphras had preached the gospel in Colossae “on our behalf.” He was one of Paul’s disciples who had founded the Colossian church. For this, Paul gave thanks to God. Colossians 1:9-12 says,

⁹ For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰ that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

Having been saved (justified by faith), Paul expected the church to increase in “the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” This is sanctification, the salvation of the soul, which Paul refers to as being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Jewish culture, Greek culture, and Roman culture into which they had been born and raised must be examined according to the standard of God’s own character as expressed in the law, the prophets, and the gospels. That which falls short of God’s nature must be discarded and replaced by God’s standard of righteousness.

Only in this way can they “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.” This is the secret of “bearing fruit” that God requires of His saints who have a share in the inheritance of Christ.

Colossians 1:13, 14 concludes Paul’s greeting and thanksgiving:

¹³ For He rescued us (errysato hēmas) from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The Greek verb (errysato) is used in the Septuagint for God delivering Israel from Egypt (Exodus 6:6). Paul deliberately invokes the Exodus pattern. The saints have been rescued from slavery, oppression, ignorance, and bondage to sin. They have been delivered from “the domain” (ἐξουσία, “jurisdiction, legal dominion”) of sin as well. Salvation is not merely moral improvement; it is a change of spiritual jurisdiction. We were under the authority of darkness; God intervened in power to extract us and to transfer us to “the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

As citizens of Christ’s kingdom, we are no longer required by Satan’s law to sin. We have come under the jurisdiction of Christ’s kingdom, which adheres to the law of God. So Paul says in Romans 7:22,

²² For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,

even though the outer man (i.e., the body, the flesh) still retains the desire to sin and must be subjected to the commands of the spirit. The salvation of the body remains a hope for the future when the plan of God for us and for creation is fully complete.