THE PARENTHETIC PERFECTION EPISTLES – LOVE

COLOSSIANS

 Colossians is the complement of Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. Two mysteries dominate both.

• Ephesians elaborates the present Secret Economy, which concerns the MEMBERS of the body of Christ.
• Colossians dwells upon the Mystery of Christ, whose is the HEAD of that body.

Ephesians, however, TEACHES the truth, whilst Colossians CORRECTS departure from it.

The literary framework gives us a clear clue to its contents. Within the Salutations and Mutual Reports, the whole body of the Epistle deals with the details of the mystery of Christ. First the Apostle, in one of the most sublime passages of Holy Writ, sets forth the secret glories of Christ as the Son of God.  At the close of the Epistle he speaks of this again, desiring to make it known.

The bulk of this epistle deals with correction in doctrine and deportment necessitated by departure from the mystery of Christ.  Knowledge of this mystery is vital to the spiritual welfare of all who know God.

• Rationalism and ritual, the philosophy of the nations and the religion of Israel, are the two great enemies of the truth, which find correction in Colossians.
• Gnosticism, (mystical knowledge) with its false fullness of angelic intermediaries between God and man, is set aside by the great truth that Christ is God’s Complement.

As our Complement He displaces all the decrees and rites of Judaism.  In Christ we are complete and need nothing else to fit us for the Father’s presence.

The mystery of Christ is presented in its future aspect in Ephesians.  There is to be a harvest era in which Christ is to be supreme, not only on earth, but in the heavens also. His sway will be universal

“…making known to us the secret of His will (in accord with His delight, which He purposed in Him) to have an administration of the complement of the eras, to head up the universe in the Christ – in the heavens as well as on the earth”. Ephesians 1:9-10.

In Colossians, however, the emphasis is placed on His past headship in redemption., with a view to a future reconciliation of the universe.  The unity of the earth has led philosophers to trace it back to a common origin, by some called a  “primordial germ”.  This first element in creation, however simple it may said to be,  must possess within itself a potential universe.   The Son of God, the Firstborn of creation, is the satisfactory to all questions which concern creation.

                                   Creation did not begin in chaos, but in the Word, Christ.