Bible Study from April 21, 2020 - Colossians 1:21-23

The study begins with a review of Colossians 1:11-20. Paul is certain about all that he writes, because he has been brought to faith by the resurrected Lord Jesus Himself.

Look at this, as recorded in Acts 26:9-18. Paul (called Saul, before his conversion to Christianity) tells about how anti-Christian he was and how much he did against Christianity (v. 9-11) until Jesus Himself appeared to him to bring him to faith, while he journeyed to Damascus, and promised to continue to appear to him to teach him the truth of God’s Word (v. 12-18). Notice that Paul uses some of the same words that Jesus used with him in his letter to the Colossians (1:12-14).

Paul also knows that the way that he describes Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20 is absolutely true. He has seen Jesus and been taught by Him and could no longer look at Him in the old, false ways, as simply a man who led people astray. Paul describes this in a passage we closed with last week: 2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2. Paul knew better than to regard Christ Jesus “according to the flesh” (v.16-17). He is the Son of God, Creator of all things and of the “new creation” that we are, through faith in Him. Jesus forgives and “reconciles” us to Himself and to the Heavenly Father and brings us “grace” and ”salvation” (v.18-6:2). Paul describes all this and so much more in Colossians 1:15-20.

He says, “In Him (Christ) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.”

It is now Paul’s calling to share this news with everyone he could, including the church at Colossae. In verse 21, he begins with the bad news of the natural sinful condition of all human beings, apart from the Lord. Even the Colossians were “alienated” (separated from God) and “hostile” (enemies of God) in their understanding and ”doing evil deeds." (See Ephesians 2:12 and 4:17-19, and Romans 5:6ff and especially verse 10 and Romans 8:7, and Peter’s description in 1 Peter 2:9-10, etc.)

The good news is that in spite of our human condition, Jesus loved us and has now “reconciled” us, made peace between us and God, “in His body of flesh by His death” on the cross (v.19,22). He was God become man, with a real human body, being sacrificed, once for all, for us and our forgiveness. (See Hebrews 10:5-10, 14 as a description of Jesus coming to do God’s will and making us “perfected” and ”sanctified” through His bodily death for us.)

In Colossians 1:22, Paul says that we are presented to God as “holy” (separated out for God, as His people) and “blameless” (spiritually without spot or wrinkle or blemish) and “above reproach” (Lenski: “no one can accuse us in any way”). This is the way God looks at us, through Christ and His sacrifice for us, that washes every sin away. Jesus has done enough to make us acceptable to God. The people at Colossae and we, too, do not need new and different knowledge or to do other things to make ourselves pleasing to God. Jesus is enough, provided that we continue in the faith in Jesus, “stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel" (v.23). 

We don’t just begin in the faith, but are called to continue in the faith, to the end of our life or the return of Jesus, whichever comes first. (See also Matthew 24:12-13, Revelation 2:10, John 8:31-36, etc.) We can remain on the firm foundation of the faith through God’s strength and power. (See Colossians 1:11, 28-29 and Hebrews 12:2, where Jesus is “the Founder and Perfecter” of our faith.) See 1 Corinthians 1:7-9, where Jesus “will sustain us to the end, guiltless (holy and blameless and without reproach) in the day of our Lord Jesus," as we continue in Him and His Word and “do not shift from the hope of the Gospel we have heard” from Paul and the other Biblical writers (v.23). That is our eternal hope in Christ.