Colossians 1:24 - Joy AND suffering? Yes!

"Now I am rejoicing in the sufferings on behalf of you [all] and I am filling up the lackings of afflictions of Christ in my flesh on behalf of His body, which is the assembly..."  

-Paul is suffering, yet he is rejoicing.  Really, who does that?  Well, as it turns out, Jesus says WE should do that.  Those who follow Christ can and should be rejoicing in suffering, because the hatred and suffering and persecution He promises for those who follow Him (Matthew 10.22, John 15.18-20) are signs that one is truly saved, assurances of future glory (cf Matthew 5.10-11, Romans 8.17-18).  The early church actually considered it an honor when they were persecuted for following Jesus (Acts 5.41, Philippians 1.29).  The same should be true for the modern day church.

-And how can it be that the afflictions of Christ are somehow lacking?  With regard to what Jesus needed to suffer in order to accomplish our salvation, He clearly did say, ‘It is finished’, and yet Paul is talking about what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.  Truth be told, the Body of Christ grows best and strongest through times of suffering.  It is carried on the backs of martyrs.  Jesus Himself said it, ‘You will be My martyrs to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1.8).  The Good News is carried and the Church is built by those who daily die to self and pick up their cross, who are willing to do whatever Jesus asks them to do and whatever it takes for the sake of the Kingdom.  Following Christ, and more importantly helping others to follow Him, is rarely easy or convenient.  It almost always means going out of my way, out of my comfort zone, almost always inconvenient, unnatural, counter-culture, swimming against the current and at times into overt opposition.  It involves suffering - yes, inconvenience and possibly worse, even dying, most assuredly dying to self every day - for Jesus.  And to the extent that this suffering is what is necessary in order for the Body of Christ to grow and for the Gospel to advance among my neighbors and the nations, then it is fair to say that by extension Christ thru His Body is still suffering. Paul for his part did have a particular calling which specifically included suffering for the sake of Christ (Acts 9.16).  He is not only suffering for Christ, he is suffering for Christ’s people.  As it turns out, he is glad to experience affliction for the sake of the assembly of God’s people, as he explains in the following verses...

Colossians 1:23 - The IF clause

"...IF indeed you are remaining upon the faith having been settled and not being moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, the [one] having been proclaimed in all creation the [one] under the heaven, of which I, Paul, came to be a servant." 

-So it turns out that everybody does not make it into heaven.  No universalism in play here.  There is in fact an ‘if’ clause, a condition on which the prospect of standing before God does hinge.  One must show evidence of true faith in the Good News of Jesus which does not fizzle before the finish.  To not do so would in fact show that said faith was faulty from the first (cf Hebrews 3.6, 6.11). 

-True faith and repentance is something which endures, persevering through persecution and hardship because it is a completely transforming soul rebirth worked into a person’s heart by God Himself.  He is the One Who begins the good work of salvation and Who carries it through to completion (Philippians 1.6).  It is not merely a state of mind that is subject to prevailing opinion or whimsy and which can be abandoned at some misopportune moment.  What you will observe in the life of one who is truly destined to one day stand faultless before their Maker is hope, steadfast hope in Jesus (Romans 15.12, 2Corinthians 1.10, Colossians 1.27, 1Thessalonians 1.3, 1Timothy 1.1, 1John 3.3) which endures and which is an anchor to the soul.  You will not see despair rise up and take hold in spite of life’s hardships (cf Psalm 42.5), nor will you see Jesus replaced as the source of hope (Galatians 5.5).  Ours is good hope (2Thessalonians 2.16), living hope (1Peter 1.3), abiding hope (1Corinthians 13.13), abounding hope (Romans 15.13).

-Hope is desiring something good to happen, expecting and believing that something good is going to happen.   The something good in this case is eternal life and the prospect of being right with our Maker and being able to stand in His presence without fault or shame or guilt, having done everything right (knowing that nothing short of perfection will suffice).  And there is indeed no hope of this apart from Christ, because nobody has any hope of expunging the morass of moral and spiritual imperfections which pervade their life, to say nothing of trying to atone for the accumulated mountain of guilt for transgressions already committed.  nobody has any hope of removing or of somehow reversing the curse which has been placed on the sons and daughters of Adam.  No amount of good works or religious rituals will ever be able to make me right with God.  But to the one who has hope in the Good News, who is continuing steadfast in the expectation that their sins have been completely covered, washed white and forgotten forever through the blood of Jesus - theirs is indeed a living and abiding hope complete with a seal of assurance from God Himself!

Colossians 1:22 - The way we ARE.

"...but now He reconciled [you] in the body of His flesh through the death to present you holy and spotless and blameless before Him." 

-The way we ARE.  Whether Paul is thinking strictly of a present condition or a future time when we stand face-to-face before the King of the universe, we are now and forever finally in good standing with our Maker.  Only those things which in fact are holy without spot or blemish are able to stand in His presence.

-That which made this possible, this complete change of spiritual condition and status, was the physical death of Jesus, our Savior.  A perfect, spotless, unblemished sacrificial passover Lamb (Exodus 12.5, 1Peter 1.19).  His death, the precious blood He shed on the cross, saved us and rescued us from the place of being on hostile terms with God.  There is a catch, however...

Colossians 1:21 - The Way. We. Were.

"...and you once being having been alienated and hostile in mind in evil works...’

-Oh, what a wretched state, this.  The way.  We.  Were.  Enemies of God.  Separated from Him in just about every way, but most importantly in our mind and in our deeds.  Our deeds were evil - they were dangerous, destructive, and the exact opposite of what God wanted us to do.  And we were born that way, completely unable to save ourselves or rectify the situation, unable to not do evil, unable to secure peace with God in any way, and doomed to pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the Lord.  

-This is the life lived apart from God.  He is out of mind completely, or He is rebelled against directly, or at best we try to mollify Him with filthy rags.  Man's instinct is to do his best on his own to make his way through life apart from God and achieve whatever peace he might feel is needed with his Maker on his own terms in his own strength.  At his best in this fallen state he tries to pursue altruism and kindness as virtues.  At his worst he is capable of the utmost selfishness and horrific cruelty.  But even at his best he is separated from God, his best efforts being inconsistent and falling terribly short of the perfection of God.  This state continues for every person until such a time as we come to the end of ourselves, the end of our rebellion and our efforts to live apart from God.  For these Colossian believers, this is who they once were.  But God...

Colossians 1:20 - Lasting peace at last

"...and through Him to reconcile the all things unto Him, having made peace through the blood of His cross, [through Him] whether the [things] upon the earth or the [things] in the heavens." 

-The Father was well-pleased to accomplish another thing through Jesus: make peace.  Reconciliation, to exchange back, a strengthened form of changing the relation of hostile parties into a relation of peace.  The hostility could be mutual or just one-sided.  Paul says that all things in heaven and earth are included in this, which could mean that all things must have needed to be reconciled, or perhaps peace was made only for all the things that needed to be reconciled.  But it makes the most sense to connect the ‘all things’ being reconciled to the ‘all things’ of the preceeding verses, all the things which were made and which are held together by Jesus.  Which means that at some level, to some degree God has worked (and is still working) out some kind of universal reconciliation between all He has made and Himself, and not just for the church (cf Acts 3.21).  This implies a universal hostility or separation (mentioned in Romans 8.21).  Restoration would, however, seem to contradict verses like Isaiah 65.17 and 2Peter 3.13 and Revelation 21.1-5 where it looks like the current (old) heavens/earth are going to be replaced rather than redeemed, but perhaps we are talking about a kind of restoration where the old things are replaced with new things of exactly the same type but instead these are no longer corrupted?  That would be consistent with what we are already told about those who believe in Christ (Romans 6.4, Galatians 6.15, 2Corinthians 5.17).  To be sure, a universal reconciliation should not be construed to mean a universal salvation, nor a kind of already-completed restoration, inasmuch as Scripture clearly does not teach universalism, and we can clearly see that even the redeemed in Christ are not yet fully free from the effects of the fall.  But peace - real, lasting, soul-satisfying peace - at last is on its way, and in fact is already making its appearance in the lives of those who do follow Christ.

-Specifically, it is the blood of the cross, that which Jesus shed, which secured peace with God.  Indeed, there is no other way to find peace with God.  Note that this actually was the essence of Jesus’ prayer in the garden on the night He was betrayed, repeatedly entreating His Father that if there was any other way to make peace that He might be spared the passion, that ordeal which loomed before Him.  But there was and is no other way to true peace - nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Colossians 1:19 - Only God

"...since in Him He was well-pleased all the fullness to dwell..."

-Paul has been talking about two divine supernatural acts: the making of all things, and the redeeming of all things, and the Son accomplished both.  He is the Architect of Creation and the Architect of salvation.  So now Paul restates the truth that inasmuch as He was fully responsible for both, Jesus Christ is fully God.  He is first and is before and over all things because He both made and sustains all things, which is the sole prerogative of Deity.  Only God has the requisite power and creative intellect to make the universe.  Only God can create something out of nothing, or in this case everything out of nothing.  Only God is able to hold everything together.  Only God is the true Strong Force, and God the Father was indeed well pleased to share all this power and authority and wisdom with His only begotten Son, and that from all eternity - yes, even in the Incarnation (wonder of wonders) - as there has never been nor will there ever be a time when Jesus is less than fully God.  And let us be perfectly clear about this - Jesus Himself said the very same thing about Himself.  He made it perfectly clear to His Jewish audience that He understood Himself to be God (John 8.56-59, 10.30-33).  I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”  C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

-In the end, ours is not to try and completely understand or explain it.  Ours is to accept it, embrace it, and fall on our knees in worship.  Praise the Father, and praise the Son...

Colossians 1:18 - Jesus. First.

"...and He Himself is the Head of the body, the assembly, Who is beginning, firstborn out of the dead, in order that He should come to be in all things Himself having first place..."  

-In no uncertain terms, Christ is first in every way as it relates to both God's creation and His people. He should and will have first place in all things and in every heart.  He specifically is the beginning, the author of the Church, this new or ultimate version of the people of God Who He is gathering to Himself out of every nation and tribe on planet earth.  Jesus is the First of many brothers and sisters, those who are part of God’s forever family through faith in Christ, those who in fact have put Him first in their hearts.

-All of history, particularly since the resurrection, has been the unfolding of this process of Christ coming to have first place in all hearts and in all things.  Yes, in these final days we see increasing desperation on the part of the ones who persist in their rebellion against the One Who created them. but make no mistake, He will be first.  The reason this has not yet been fully consummated is the mercy and grace of God, Who does not want any to perish and is giving all everywhere last chances to freely bow their knee to Jesus in receiving forgiveness and eternal life before they are otherwise forced to do so in judgment.

-So the question is, how can I get in step with what God is doing and be a part of this process? What are some ways that I can put Jesus first today? In what areas of my life have I NOT been putting Him first, where do I NEED to put Him first? And how can I help others learn to put Jesus first in their hearts and lives?

Colossians 1:17 - The "Strong Force"

"...and He Himself is before all things, and the all things in Him has been put together..." 

-Some suggest that ‘before’ refers to time, but that could more properly be phrased as ‘He WAS before all things,’ imperfect (or aorist) tense, as in He was existing before anything else.  Jesus actually did employ the present tense in referring to His pre-existence in John 8.58.  ‘Before’ can also refer to His rank, that He is first in all respects.  This is the place He should have in our hearts and lives - He should come before anything or anyone.  To be sure, one day every knee will bow before Him and every tongue will confess before Him that He is in fact God Almighty, that He does come before them (cf Philippians 2.9, 3.21).  To say then that ‘He is before all things’ can fairly capture the idea that He always was, always is, and always will be first, both in the ever-present now that exists outside of our finite time, as well as in the created order of things.  He stands outside and above and comes before all things, even if temporarily we do not yet see that to fully be the case (cf Hebrews 2.8, 1Corinthians 15.25-28, 1Peter 3.22).

-’All things’ (plural) ‘has been put together’ (singular) - perfect tense, meaning a completed action in the past with continuing results in the present.  All things in the universe, everything that there is, was put together in the beginning when Christ created all things, and they were put together in a way that continues to this day.  From the simplest particles and molecules to the most amazing creatures and cosmic wonders, all matter was created out of nothing and assembled such that it is still being held together as we speak.  Science tells us that the electric forces inside of protons are more than strong enough to cause every atomic nucleus in the universe to fly apart.  But it turns out that there is another stronger force that holds these nuclei together.  Brilliant minds have named it the ‘strong force’, and it is described as the strongest force in the universe.  The strong force is hypothesized in terms of unseen particles called quarks and gluons, but whatever mechanism is used, Paul states it quite clearly here, reminding us that in fact this strongest force in the universe originates in God Himself.  In Him all of this stuff that might otherwise fly apart has been put together and continues to be held together to this day.  Hebrews 1.3 says something quite similar - He upholds all things by the Word of His power.  This is Jesus, by the way.  He is Almighty Creator God, co-equal with God the Father.  We do indeed owe both our origin and our ongoing existence to Him, and He is deserving of nothing less than our highest devotion.

Colossians 1:16 - The Prime Direct-or

"...since in Him were created the all things in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - the all things through Him and unto Him have been created."  

-All things, even the highest things, the most powerful beings we might ever encounter, they were all created by Christ - through Him and for Him (John 1.3).  This of course is something that would only be said of God Almighty Himself (1Chronicles 29.14, Ecclesiastes 11.5, Isaiah 44.24, Ephesians 3.9, Revelation 4.11) - a clear statement of deity of Christ, this.  All things exist, have come into existence for Him, to increase the knowledge and celebration of His glory, His breathtaking goodness (cf Romans 11.36-37, Psalm 8.6, 1Corinthians 8.6).  Thus to the extent that any thing is not serving this ultimate purpose of showing off the goodness of this One Who made them, they are in violation of their purpose, this great prime directive.  He is the great Prime Director.

-This created-status and accompanying purpose extend to the greatest, most powerful people and beings in all the universe.  Kings and rulers, angels and demons, nations and empires - both those which are seen as well as those which are not - the mightiest ones anywhere throughout heaven and earth have been created by Christ Himself.  They exist for Him and get their power and authority from Him (cf John 19.11, Romans 13.1, Daniel 2.36).  How great the tragedy then when those who have been given much fail to revere or serve or honor or even acknowledge Him (cf Luke 12.48).  Peter puts it right - honor and submit to the king, but fear God, and that includes the king (1Peter 2.17).  This was the lesson which King Nebuchadnezzar needed to learn (Daniel 3.28-29) and relearn (Daniel 4.28-32).  And this is the One Who is the image of the invisible God, in Whom we have forgiveness of sins and in Whom everything and everyone was made - He ranks first.  May He be blessed forever.