The life and work of St. Paul

THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 815
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS.
" Per Me venitur, ad Me pervenitur, in Me permanetur." AUG. In Joann. xii.
" 'E,v avrf trtpnrarrtiTt. In eo ambulate ; in illo solo. Hie Epistolae acopus est.'
BENGEL.
" Viva, pressa, solida, nervis plena, mascula." BOHMER, Isag. Ix.
"Brevis Epistola, sed nucleum Evangelii continens." CALVIN.
AFTER a brief greeting " to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which
are in Colossse," 1 he enters on the usual "thanksgiving," telling them how in
his prayers he ever thanked God our Father 2 on their behalf, on hearing of
their faith in Christ and love to all the saints, because of the hope stored up
for them in heaven. Of that hope they had heard when the Gospel was first
preached to them in its true genuineness ; and as that Gospel grew and bore
fruit 3 in all the world, so it was doing in them, from the day when they heard
of the grace of God, and recognised it in all its fulness, from the teaching of
Epaphras, the Apostle's beloved fellow-prisoner and their faithful pastor on
the Apostle's behalf.* By Epaphras he has been informed of their spiritual
charism of love, and from the day that he heard of their Christian graces it
was his earnest and constant prayer that their knowledge of God's will might
be fully completed in all spiritual wisdom and intelligence, in practical holi-
ness, in fresh fruit-fulness and growth, in increasing power to endure even
suffering with joy, and in perpetual thanksgiving to God, who qualified us for
our share in the heritage of the saints in light, and who rescued us from the
power of darkness, and transferred us by baptism into the kingdom of the
Son of His love, in whom we have our redemption, the remission of our
sins. 5
Of the nature of that Son of God, on whose redemption he has finis
touched, he proceeds to speak in the next five verses. They form one of the
two memorable passages which contain the theological essence of this Epistle.
They are the full statement of those truths with respect to the person of
Christ which were alone adequate to meet the errors, both of theory and
practice, into which the Colossians were sliding under the influence of some
1 Ver. 2, Ko\o