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Colossians 1:1-2 - Homilies By R. Finlayson

Address and salutation.

It is common to compare the Epistle to the Colossians with the Epistle to the Ephesians. Written about the same time (both conveyed by Tychicus), there are many coincidences in thought. But there is this difference—that the thought in this Epistle does not centre round the Church of Christ (the word occurs only twice, as compared with nine times in the Epistle to the Ephesians), but round the Person of Christ. There is also this difference—that this Epistle has not the catholic form of the Epistle to the Ephesians, but has a certain controversial form, with reference to the peculiar state of the Colossian Church. In order to understand the Colossian heresy, it is necessary to bear in mind that the type of religion to which the Eastern mind was inclined was mysticism. One feature was the belief in a good and a bad principle (Isaiah refers to them as light and darkness), the latter having its abode in matter. Another feature is the postulation of emanations, or intermediate agencies between heaven and earth. This mysticism seems to have had congenial soil in Phrygia, to which Colossae belonged. It had an ascetic side (communication with matter being to be eschewed), and, readily combining with Judaism, it formed Essenism. In the Galatian Churches it was Judaism that was struggling to modify Christianity. In the Colossian Church it was rather this Essenism that was the modifying element. The modification of Christianity by Eastern philosophy (its finding a place for redemption and the Person of Christ) was afterward known as Gnosticism.

I. ADDRESS .

1. The writers. "Paul." He is the principal writer. The thought has a distinctively Pauline character. We cannot mistake its coming from the writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians. He has a relation to two personalities, who are yet one (Jesus being the Christ of God).

2. The persons addressed.

II. THE SALUTATION .

1. The two words of salutation.

2. Source to which we look in salutation. "From God our Father." In the Revised translation the usual addition is omitted, "and the Lord Jesus Christ." It does not enter into the plan of the apostle to connect his thought with the Father and the Spirit in this Epistle, as in the Epistle to the Ephesians (they are named twenty-four times in Ephesians, and only six times in Colossians). But here in the forefront prominence is given to the Father (all the more because of the unusual omission) as the original Source whence all blessings flow. The Divine fatherhood (not apart from Christ) is the natural guarantee for provision being made for ourselves and for our friends, for individuals and for Churches.—R.F.

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