Application of the Reconciliation to the Special Case of the Colossians
T. Croskery Colossians 1:21-23 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled… I. THE NATURAL STATE OF THE COLOSSIANS. "And you, being in time past estranged and enemies in your mind in evil works,... hath he reconciled." 1. They were estranged from God. The original term denotes that they had fallen from a prior relationship of amity. It points suggestively to the original innocence of man in Eden, and to the deplorable effects of the Fall, as separating between God and man (Isaiah 59:2). They had become strangers to God, (1) because strangers to the life of God (Ephesians 4:10; (2) because they followed strange gods (Deuteronomy 32:16; Romans 1:25); (3) because they were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel" (Ephesians 2:12). 2. They were hostile to God both in thought and deed. A strange thought that man should cherish a living enmity in a dead heart! It is enmity to God as Lawgiver and Punisher of sin. (1) Mark the reality of this enmity. (a) The threatening of the second command asserts it: "Them that hate me" (Exodus 20:5). (b) The friendship of the world involves it: "Whosoever will be a friend of the world will be an enemy of God" (James 4:4). (c) The carnal mind is full of it (Romans 8:7). (d) All scoffs and blasphemies manifest it (Psalm 74:18). (2) The seat of this enmity. "In your mind." It is an essentially carnal mind. The enmity lies deep down in the heart, which is a "chamber of imagery," full of all shapes of hatred to God and man. Strange that there should be hatred to him who is Author of our being and Fountain of our happiness! We need, indeed, in regeneration to be "renewed in our mind" (Ephesians 4:23), that we may exchange our hatred for love. (3) The practical sphere of this enmity. "In evil works." The enmity is not caused by evil works, but is manifested through them (Matthew 15:19). They whose "mind and conscience are defiled" are "unto all good works reprobate" (Titus 1:16). II. THE RECONCILIATION OF THE COLOSSIANS. "Yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death." The reconciliation has been already explained. The means of it are here expressively set forth by the apostle. The passage suggests: 1. That the atonement was a great historic fact; so that no person might conclude that the reconciliation was effected apart from the person of the incarnate Son or after his return to glory. 2. That he was a real man in a human body, as if to refute Gnostic theories as to a phantom body or as to the body being essentially evil. It was a heresy to say that "Jesus Christ had not come in the flesh" (1 John 4:2, 3). 3. That he carried about with him on earth a sin-bearing humanity. It was, therefore, a "weak, abased, and suffering humanity" (Romans 8:3). 4. That his life was consummated by death, as the completion of his atoning sacrifice for sin. III. THE FRUIT OR EFFECT OF THE RECONCILIATION, "To present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him." 1. We see that sanctification follows reconciliation and does not precede it. It confounds the relations of things and perverts Christian doctrine to reverse the order. 2. The atonement provides for our sanctification. It purchased for us all the communications of Divine life. Christ is made to us at once "Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30); 3. The nature of this sanctification. "Holy and without blemish and unreprovable." The words point, not to the relative standing before God, but to the externally observable advances in spiritual life. These are represented, first, positively - "holy;" and then negatively - "without blemish and unreprovable." 4. The end of this sanctification. "To present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him." Not, as some allege, at the day of judgment, but for his personal approbation, implying (1) that all we do is in God's presence (Luke 2:18; Luke 13:26; Acts 10:33); (2) that God is the Witness of all our acts (Luke 8:47; 2 Corinthians 7:12; Galatians 1:20); (3) that God not only accepts what is in any measure good (Luke 1:75), but highly esteems what is good in the saints (Luke 1:25; 2 Timothy 2:2, 3; 5:4). IV. AN EXHORTATION TO PERSEVERANCE IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROVISION FOR THEIR RECONCILIATION. "If at least ye continue in the faith grounded and steadfast, and are not constantly shifting from the hope of the gospel, which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven." 1. There is nothing strictly hypothetical in this passage, as the tense clearly indicates; yet warning is needed as the divinely ordered means of averting failure. There were risks to faith in the presence of Judaeo- Gnostic teachers. We need to be reminded that "he that endureth to the end shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13); but God himself provides for us the grace of continuance. 2. The mode of this continuance. "Grounded and steadfast." (1) Marking its positive side. (a) We must be built on the true Foundation (Ephesians 2:20). We must be grounded in the doctrines of grace as well as "built as living stones" on "the precious Cornerstone" laid in Zion (1 Peter 2:6). Otherwise we shall be swept away in the rising floods of judgment (Luke 6:48, 49). (b) We must be steadfast as the result of this grounding. An ungrounded Christian cannot be a growing Christian. It is well to be settled in the faith if we would make progress in Christian life. Suffering has its influence in increasing our stability. Therefore our apostle prays that the God of grace, "after that ye have suffered a while," may "make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you" (1 Peter 5:10). (2) Marking its negative side. "And are not constantly shifting from the hope of the gospel, which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven." (a) The apostle points to the danger of drifting. When the anchors are lifted, it is impossible to know where the ship may go on a dangerous shore. The false teachers were subtle and plausible and speculative. It may have been hard to resist their logic. But the end of their speculations was death - the sacrifice of the hope of the gospel. (b) He points to a sure anchorage - "the hope of the gospel, which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven." (α ) This hope may have been that of the resurrection, of which the false teachers said it "was past already" (2 Timothy 2:18), and thus cut up by the roots the true expectations of the Christian. (β ) It was more probably the "hope of the gospel" generally, which is described in Ephesians 1:18 as "the hope of our calling," including all the blessings of redemption with resurrection itself. (γ ) It was a hope (i.) made known by the gospel; (ii.) imparted to them by Epaphras, the delegate of the apostle - "which ye heard;" (iii.) and proclaimed as the universal hope of man to all creation. It was not, therefore, reserved for a select coterie of men. "Its universal tendency was already realized," and its wide publicity was not to be called in question. (3) Consider the importance of religious steadfastness. "We must hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of hope unto the end" (Hebrews 3:6). Let us, therefore, bless God that "he has begotten us to a lively hope" (1 Peter 1:3). (4) Seek wisdom from on high "to know what is the hope of our calling" (Ephesians 1:18). (5) Let us read the Scriptures prayerfully, that "through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we may have hope" (Romans 15:4). (6) Let us acknowledge that "truth that is according to godliness" (Titus 1:1, 2). - T. C. Parallel Verses KJV: And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled WEB: You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works,