Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Colossians 1:1-8 | Date: October 11, 2020 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Introduction: Paul’s Greeting And Thanksgiving

All right, Colossians chapter 1. How about someone read for us verses 1 to 8. I’m going to try to cover all eight verses this morning. Someone read that for us, all right?

All right, as I mentioned last Sunday, these opening few verses of Paul’s letters are typically a greeting and a thanksgiving, sometimes covering a little bit more than that. That’s what we have here in verses 1 to 8—actually on through verse 14, this opening section—but verses 1 to 8 really is what we’ll call the introduction: Paul’s greeting and thanksgiving to the Colossians.

So verse 1. Paul’s typical introduction: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” Again, that’s his rather typical introduction to identify himself and his office. I mentioned this Wednesday night in our reading of Galatians. It always strikes me, and I think it must have struck the apostle Paul as well every time he penned a letter, to write, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus.” What a shocking thing that Paul, the great opponent of the church, would now be writing as an apostle of Christ Jesus.

But that’s his identification. An apostle is a spokesman, an ambassador, someone who is appointed by Christ to speak for Christ. There is some discussion of that in John chapters 14 to 16, where Jesus himself lays the groundwork for the apostolic ministry that they will have. But the bottom line is that they are appointed by Christ to speak for him. So there’s a sense in which—I like to say it for the shock value—there’s a sense in which we can say the apostles are vicars of Christ, substitutes for Christ. Well, not in his redemptive work, of course. But they are his spokesmen, and when they speak, Christ speaks, and we need to hear them that way, and that is what Paul is saying here when he introduces himself that way. An apostle of Christ Jesus.

So he’s writing to the Colossians, as we’ll see, with loving concern for them. He wants to address some problems that are there in the church at Colossae, but he’s establishing the relationship here from the outset. He is an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. It’s a divine appointment. This is not something that he aspired to. It is something God gave him. We read of the initial encounter of that in Acts chapter 9, when the risen Christ appeared to Paul. And then he says, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother.”

He’s frequently mentioned by Paul as his companion. We see that in several of the other epistles as well. Here he’s called “our brother.” A couple of times elsewhere he says that. I think more often it’s “my child in the faith.” Paul is the one who led Timothy to Christ, and so he was in a sense his father, but also being in Christ together, they’re brothers.

And he writes in verse 2, “To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae.” So notice how he describes the people at Colossae. Three ways: they’re saints, they’re faithful brothers, and they’re in Christ.

Saints—now if you have the New International Version, that reads “God’s holy people.” That’s kind of a stretched translation slash paraphrase of the word. I would have preferred that they kept the word “saints” there. I remember sometime years ago talking to a man who was prominent on the translation committee of the NIV, and I asked him about this verse, and I said, “Why did you guys translate this ‘God’s holy people’ instead of ‘saints’?” And his answer was just what I expected. He said, “Well, probably because of the confusion around the word ‘saints’ because of Roman Catholicism.” In Roman Catholic theology, you can become a saint when you’re canonized. Sometimes after your death, your life is evaluated, and the church approves, and you’re canonized, and you become a saint. So a saint has come to be understood as someone who has lived an exemplary Christian life, outstanding, he’s performed miracles, and the church has recognized him as a saint. And because of that confusion that’s so dominant, he said they just smoothed it out to “God’s holy people.”

Well, that’s right enough, but my response was, “Yes, but its use here to the people at Colossae is what corrects that misunderstanding.” But of course, what are you going to do? But all of that just to emphasize the point that this is who we are in Christ, and this opens up a whole theology that we find in Paul: a theology of sanctification. And again, in our lingo, sanctification is something we strive at. We work to be godly. But in the New Testament use of the term, both sanctification and this related term, “saint,” it is something we are in Christ. I have my sainthood. I have my sanctification because I’m in Christ. And Paul is reminding his readers right off the bat of this high status we have because we’re in Christ.

And “faithful brothers.” I think a loose paraphrase might be “fellow believers in Christ,” “faithful ones in Christ.” That’s the idea here. We’re all Christians. We’re all followers of Christ. And now Paul is leveling the relationship in a way. This is what we all are in Christ. You are a saint. I may have the office of an apostle, but we together are saints and faithful brothers in Christ.

Now then, the last part of verse 2. I want to take a minute here. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” I got the sniffle on the way back from Wuhan this week. It’s nothing, I’m sure. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” Again, I mentioned this last Wednesday evening in the letter to Galatians. It has always kind of intrigued me: what does this mean? Paul says this all the time in his letters: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” And in all of the commentaries that you read, the commentators will wax sometimes long and very well on the meaning of grace and then on the meaning of peace. But in virtually none of them can you find: what does this mean, “Grace to you. Peace to you”? It’s obviously some kind of wish or wish prayer on Paul’s part.

So what does it mean? Grace to you, peace to you. These are salvation kind of terms, salvation language: grace and peace. Our salvation stems wholly from grace—God’s initiative, God’s undeserved favor to us. Peace is what salvation is. We’re at peace with God, and we have a sense of peace within us. God has overwhelmed us with a sense of his grace and his acceptance and love, and so we’re at peace. So this is salvation language. But he’s writing to believers. So he’s not writing “grace and peace to you, I hope you can become Christians.” So what does this mean when he says grace to you and peace?

And I think what we have to do then is just think through what is grace and what is peace as it relates to the Christian and then go back and answer the question: this is what it means when Paul prays grace to you and peace. So grace is always the ground of all saving blessing. It is unmerited favor from God. It is not only doing favor that we don’t deserve, it’s actually contrary to what we deserve. God gives us in Christ all that he requires of us. He does not require on our part so much performance so that he can give it to us, but he favors us in Christ completely undeservedly, and in fact, contrary to what we deserve.

But grace is not just God’s attitude of favor. Grace is power. It is God at work. Grace is God at work in us. It is enablement. So on that first day when we believe, when God first called us to himself, he came to us, and we say, in grace. He came to us and worked. And what he did was he opened our eyes. He broke the grip of sin. He gave us the ability to believe and to run to Christ for salvation. He gave us a heart to serve him. He broke the grip of sin so that we would pursue Christ. That is grace—God at work in us. And that work of God in us, grace at work in us, is something we needed that first day when God called us to himself. And it’s something we need every moment of every day since. For God to keep our eyes and to keep our heart, keep us looking to Christ, keep us serving Him, give us a desire to serve, to enable us to persevere, serve through discouragement, difficulty, whatever. We need this grace every day. And so when Paul says, “Grace to you,” or “May the grace of God be with you,” that’s what he’s praying. May this enabling work of God in you continue and may it be realized in your own experience daily.

“Peace to you.” What is peace? As I mentioned, this is, in a nutshell, what salvation is. We’ve been made one with God. Every hurdle, every obstacle has been broken down. God has broken down the hostility. Hostility on His side toward us because of our sin. Hostility on our side. And God has broken all that down through the redemptive work of Christ. He’s borne the sin, he’s paid the penalty, taken the curse to himself, and now every obstacle between us and God has been removed, and we are at peace with God.

And there’s this objective sense in which we’re at peace with God. Things are good now. But there’s a subjective sense of that as well. When we are saved, the Apostle Paul tells us, God overwhelms us with a sense of his acceptance. You find this in a wonderful way in Romans chapter 8, that God gives us a sense of our sonship so that now instinctively our cry is “Abba, Father.” And there is within every one of us this sense of assurance, this sense of acceptance, that things are good between us and God. And that sense of peace, Paul says, has garrisoned our hearts and minds. It strengthens us and it keeps us, so that there’s no fear. I no longer look at God the way I used to. Things are good. We’re at peace.

And that sense of peace then that was given to us when at first we came to Christ is something we need every moment of every day since. When, as Paul will have to confront here in Colossians, particularly in chapter 2, when legalistic teachings come along and tell us that in order for God to accept us, there has to be so much performance on our part, we need already to have the sense of peace that God has accepted me. Things are good between me and God. I don’t need this. When I stumble and sin, I need to know that my standing with God is safe. I’m at peace with God. When I bow my head to pray, I need to know from the depths of my soul that God accepts me. There must be this sense of peace continued.

And so when Paul writes, “Grace to you and peace,” it’s a wonderful greeting and it’s a wonderful prayer. And I think it’s the kind of thing we’d do well to adopt ourselves. Grace to you and peace—what else do you want? And so Paul writes to Colossae, may God’s grace that has already been evident in you and God’s peace that you’ve already experienced continue to be your experience as you pursue your service to Christ. It’s a wonderful kind of prayer, and I think, as I say, it’d be a good thing for us to try to adopt it as well, at least in our praying for one another.

Any questions on that? If you want to raise your hand and stop for any questions along the way, feel free to do it.

The Thanksgiving And The Praise For The Gospel’s Power

All right, now we come then to verses 3 to 8: the thanksgiving and the praise for the gospel’s power among the Colossian believers. Let’s look at verses 3 to 5 to begin with. “We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel.”

All right, several things here. Let’s just pick this apart quickly and see what is lying in Paul’s mind as he writes it. First of all, verse 3. “We thank the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Notice he does not say “God our Father.” It’s “God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He’s speaking of the eternal relations within the persons of the Trinity. When Jesus came in his earthly life and prayed, “Our Father”—or he didn’t pray “Our Father,” he prayed “My Father,” “Father”—I imagine that was somewhat stunning to the apostles as they heard him. That kind of familiarity with God was virtually unprecedented. God is exalted. God is high, God is majestic, God is king. And here Jesus shows up and prays, “Father.” And he reflects his eternal relationship with the Father. Now he is incarnate, but the language reflects an eternal relationship that he has had with the Father.

And then when he instructs the disciples how we can pray, He says, “Pray like this: ‘Our Father.'” And so he extends that privilege to us. And so God now is our Father by virtue of our union with his son, Jesus. And in that sense, we too can pray “Our Father.” Jesus always maintained the distinction though. He’ll say, for example, to the apostles, “I now go to my Father and to your Father.” There’s a distinction. Jesus is the Son, and so God is his Father in a unique sense that’s not ours. But because of our relationship with Christ, our union with the Son, he’s our Father too. So we now can pray that as well.

But Paul here is casting it first of all in Trinitarian terms, that they’re the eternal relations of the Father and Son. Now that, what we call high Christology—Christ is the eternal Son of the eternal Father—it’s going to be very important as Paul works through the epistle with some of the problems that have come into Colossae with regard to the supremacy of Christ.

Notice also, “We thank,” verse 3, “we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So the Father is called God, Jesus Christ is called Lord. Now what’s the difference between God and Lord? You don’t have to answer, but think on that. What’s the difference between God and Lord? There may be some difference in connotations, Lordship carrying more the idea of authority. But if you’re God, you’re Lord, right? And if you’re Lord, you’re God. And so again, we have this Trinitarian language that he thanks. Who are you going to thank? You’re going to thank God. But it’s God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. These two who are eternal and co-equal, he’s giving thanks to them.

Again, this is Paul’s usual language. We generally refer to the three persons of the Godhead as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Paul’s usual language is Father, Lord, and Spirit. And not always in that order. He calls Jesus “Lord” more than “Son,” I think because it’s just simply reflecting not the precise language of a theologian, but the language of a worshiper. This is what Jesus is to us. He’s the eternal Lord. And so he gives thanks to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now again then, from the outset, Paul is framing his letter in terms of the highest Christology, and we’re going to see that over and again here in chapter 1 and in chapter 2 as well, even in chapter 3. It’s standard form in Paul’s letters to talk like this, but he expands here a bit, and I think for the particular focus that he has in mind.

Now in verses 3 and 4, notice it is to this God—God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ—that Paul gives thanks because of the Colossians’ faith and love and hope. He gives thanks to God because of the Colossians, first of all, their faith and their love. These are the very basics of the Christian life. Faith in Christ; love being the evidence of a transformed heart and life that comes through faith in Christ. Faith is that by which we’re justified; trusting in Christ, we are accepted. And then love for the saints—it’s that fundamental evidence of a renewed heart.

And then verse 5, “Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” When you see the word “hope” in the New Testament, be careful you understand it correctly. We use the word “hope” in different senses. All words have a range of connotations. And this one in particular, it’s important to recognize. We can say “hope” when what we mean is something like “wish.” “I hope to become president someday.” You don’t really expect to, but there’s a wish. When Paul uses the word “hope” consistently, his idea is not a wish. It’s an anticipation, an expectation. It’s something that’s been promised and he’s looking forward to it. That kind of hope.

And in fact here, what’s interesting is he speaks of hope as a kind of thing. Notice it says “the hope that’s laid up in heaven,” as though hope itself or something was up there in heaven waiting for him. In fact, hope is something he has right now. It’s not up in heaven, but it’s a metonymy. He’s using the word “hope” as an expression for the thing that is hoped for. And “I have this inheritance in heaven that’s coming, and I’m anticipating it.”

Now what’s interesting here, this is called—it’s often called—the Pauline Triad: faith, hope, and love. The leading virtues and the leading graces of the Christian life. Faith, hope, and love. You see this often in Paul. What’s unique here in Colossians 1 is he explains the logical relation between them. Notice again verses 4 and 5. “Since we,” verse 3, “we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray for you. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” So you have faith and you have love, and you have faith and love because of the hope.

So he’s pointing here to the logical relation between them. I don’t think he’s speaking of that initial faith that we have, justifying faith. But what he is saying is that, verse 5, because of the gospel, we have heard of this great Savior and all that he offers, we’ve trusted in him, and now having trusted in him, we have this great hope. And having this great hope of inheritance, it fuels continued faith and continued love for one another. I think that’s the sense of it there.

All right, so we have this faith, hope, and love. I think enough on that. So we have the faith and love that are grounded in and generated by the hope that’s been given to us. And of this hope, we heard in the gospel. So the gospel was proclaimed to the Colossians. They responded with heart-transforming faith, which in turn transformed their hearts, giving them love for one another, and it is energized continually by the hope that they have laid up in heaven.

Two Characteristics Of The Gospel

Now, a couple of observations here in verses 3 to 5 about the gospel. Look at the way Paul describes the gospel here. First of all, verse 5, they learned the hope of the word; they learned through the gospel. And then verses 6 through 8: “Which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing, as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.”

So there are two characteristics of the gospel here generally that he gives us. Number one, it’s true. Verse 5: “The truth of the gospel,” “the word of truth” which has come to you. Now Paul often speaks of it that way. That has some particular application to us in our setting. All last year, remember, in Sunday School Hour, we looked at some aspects of our current culture, trying to understand it. And lying somewhere near the root of it is this new understanding of truth. There is no meta-narrative. There’s no one big truth that informs all the other truths. In fact, if you think you have a truth, capital T, you’re oppressive. The reality is we’re told today that we each have our own truth. You have your truth, I have my truth. They may contradict one another, but it’s true for you and it’s true for me. And there is no overarching truth that determines what is right and what is wrong and what is true and what is false for everybody. That would be oppressive. That would be imposing something on me externally that doesn’t belong.

Paul everywhere wants to say, “Wherever I go, this gospel is true.” It addresses the needs of men and women everywhere. And the truth is, whether you accept it or not, whether you agree with this or not, whether you like it or not, frankly, the truth is there’s one Savior, and it is Jesus. And you may be saved, but only through faith in him. That’s the truth. Receive it and be saved; reject it at your own peril. The gospel is truth. That means, by implication, there’s such a thing as false teaching. There’s such a thing as error. We’re not allowed to believe that today, but it’s the case. And so this is the standard of truth. God has revealed it to us. This is the basic distinctive of the Christian faith. What we want to say is what we have is true. And what we have to say is true. And the reason it is true is because it has come from God himself. It’s been revealed to us. So the first characterization of the gospel is it’s true.

And then what he spends his time on is the second characterization of the gospel: it is powerful. Look at verse 6. It’s bearing fruit and increasing. It’s bearing fruit and increasing. So verses 3 to 5 then are the gospel effects: it produces faith and love and hope. In verse 6, the gospel produces an advance in the whole world. It’s bearing fruit and increasing and making changes. And it’s doing that with you. And it’s doing that with you just as it has everywhere it’s gone. The gospel is a power; it is a force. It is God at work through this means, the means of this true gospel. So again, this love, verse 8, “this love that you have in the Spirit,” that’s the result of God’s powerful working. It’s the gospel at work transforming hearts and lives.

So what we have here then is Paul referring to the gospel that came to Colossae; it transformed them. By now it has gone from Jerusalem to Samaria, through Judea, Samaria to the ends of the world. It’s working its way through the Roman Empire. It has come to Colossae and it does what it does everywhere it goes: it changes people. The gospel is true, and the gospel is powerful. And that’s one of the themes that we find often in Paul: that the gospel is vindicated by its effectiveness in the lives of people. Look what it has done. More of that in just a minute.

First of all, notice again this language, verses 5 and 6: “Bearing fruit and increasing… in the whole world.” Bearing fruit and increasing in the whole world. Does that language ring a bell from anywhere else in the Bible? How about this? Let me change it just a little bit: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Does that ring a bell? Yeah. Genesis chapters 1 and 2. God creates Adam and Eve, gives them the command—chapter 1, verses 26 to 28, the creation mandate—be fruitful, multiply, replenish, fill the earth.

We find that again, actually, several times through the Old Testament. It’s stated again after the flood with Noah. We find it again in Genesis chapter 17, his promise to Abraham. We find it again in promises to Israel. We find it again in promises to Israel’s return from exile: be fruitful, multiply. And the idea was that God, creating man in his image, seeks to extend his dominion over the whole world through his image-bearers. Of course, there’s a major problem in it: Genesis chapter 3. Man failed. But God’s intent to fill the earth with his image-bearers continues.

And so we come to the New Testament and Christ, who is the image of God, gives his life in sacrifice for sins, secures the redemption of his people, and then commands his disciples to go into all the world and make disciples. And his creation mandate continues through the gospel. And over and again, through the book of Acts, we read of the gospel increasing and multiplying. The word of God increased and multiplied. The word of God increased and multiplied. We see that throughout the book of Acts. That’s the story, linking all the way back to Genesis chapter 1. And now Paul says, that’s what’s been happening in Colossae as well. The gospel came and it transformed lives. And it made you who you are.

All right, Paul’s pastoral letter to the church at Colossae then has just now, with the end of verse 8, just begun, but he has already set it in a firm Christian context with the highest of Trinitarian language, the highest Christology, and then speaking about the power of the gospel in the hearts and lives of God’s people.

I want to read something else here in just a second, but any questions first? All right. This is an article. I think it complements this very well. It’s an article that appeared, first of all, in Reader’s Digest in 1960. This is just 15 years after World War II, written by a man named Clarence Hall, who was a war correspondent back during the war. It’s a bit of a read, but I think you’ll appreciate the story.

“It was early in 1945 when, as a war correspondent on Okinawa, I first came upon Shimabuku, the strangest and most inspiring community I ever saw. Huddled beneath its groves of banyan and twisted pine trees, this remote village of some 1,000 souls was in the path of the American advance, and so received a severe shelling. But when an advance patrol swept up to the village compound, the GIs stopped dead in their tracks. Barring their way were two little old men. They bowed low and began to speak.

The battle-hardened sergeant, wary of tricks, held up his hand, summoned an interpreter. The interpreter shook his head. ‘I don’t get it. Seems we’re being welcomed as fellow Christians. One says he’s the mayor of the village, the other’s the schoolmaster. That’s a Bible the old one has in his hand.’

Guided by the two old men, Mojun Nakamura, the mayor, and Shosei Kina, the schoolmaster, we cautiously toured the compound. We’d seen other Okinawan villages uniformly down at the heels and despairing. By contrast, this one shone like a diamond in a dung heap. Everywhere we were greeted by smiles and dignified bows. Proudly, the two old men showed us their spotless homes, their terraced fields—fertile and neat—their storehouses and granaries, their prized sugar mill. Gravely, the old man talked on. And the interpreter said, ‘They’ve met only one American before, long ago. Because he was a Christian, they assume we are too, though they can’t quite understand why we came in shooting.’

Piecemeal, the incredible story came out. Thirty years before, an American missionary on his way to Japan paused at Shimabuku. He’d stayed only long enough to make a pair of converts, these same two old men, teaching them a couple of hymns, leaving them a Japanese translation of the Bible, and exhorted them to live by it. They had no contact with any Christians since. Yet during those 30 years, guided by the Bible, they had managed to create a Christian democracy at its purest.

How had it happened? Picking their way through the Bible, the two converts found not only an inspiring person on whom to pattern a life, but sound precepts on which to base their society. They’d adopted the Ten Commandments as Shimabuku’s legal code, the Sermon on the Mount as their guide to social conduct. In Kina’s school, the Bible was the chief literature. It was read daily by all students and major passages were memorized. In Nakamura’s village government, the precepts of the Bible were law. Nurtured on this book, a whole generation of Shimabukuns had drawn from it their ideas of human dignity and of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The result was plain to see. Shimabuku, for years, had had no jail, no brothel, no drunkenness, no divorce. There was a high level of health and happiness.

Next day, the tide of battle swept us on. But a few days later, during a lull, I requisitioned a jeep and a speaking driver, and we went back to Shimabuku. Over the winding roads outside the village, huge truck convoys and endless lines of American troops moved dustily. Behind them lumbered armored tanks, heavy artillery. But inside Shimabuku was an oasis of serenity. Once again, I strolled through the quiet village streets, soaking up Shimabuku’s calm. There was a sound of singing. We followed it and came to Nakamura’s house, where a curious religious service was underway.

Having no knowledge of churchly forms or ritual, the Shimabukuns had developed their own. There was much Bible reading by Kina, repeated in sing-song fashion by the worshipers. And then came the hymn singing. The tunes of the two hymns the missionaries had taught them, ‘Fairest Lord Jesus’ and ‘All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,’ had naturally suffered some changes, but they were recognizable. Swept up in the spirit of ‘All Hail the Power,’ we joined in. After many prayers voiced spontaneously by the people in the crowd, there was a discussion of community problems. With each question, Kina turned quickly to some Bible passage to find the answer. The book’s imitation leather cover was cracked and worn. Its pages stained and dog-eared from 30 years constant use. Kina held it with reverent care, the reverent care one would use in handling the original Magna Carta.

The service over, we waited as the crowd moved out. My driver whispered hoarsely, ‘So this is what comes out of only a Bible and a couple of old guys who want to live like Jesus.’ And then with a glance at a shell hole, he murmured, ‘Maybe we’re using the wrong kind of weapons.’

Time had dimmed the Shimabukun’s memory of the missionary. Neither Kina nor Nakamura could recall his name. They did remember his parting statement. As expressed by Nakamura, it was, ‘Study this book well. It will give you strong faith. And when faith is strong, everything is strong.'”

I think that illustrates so well what Paul is saying here, that the gospel is a powerful force in the hands of the Spirit of God. He takes it where he will, and people are changed.

Any questions? Comments? All right, next time we will begin working through the next passage, beginning at verse 9, and we’ll see how far we get with that.

Yes? “Where can we find that story?” Email me, and I’ll send it to you. I searched and searched, finally found it online. I happen to know it’s from—because the person that showed it to me—that it was from originally 1960 Reader’s Digest. It appears now just as a standalone somewhere on the net, but I’ll send it to you.

All right, let’s be dismissed in prayer. Pastor Greg, would you pray for us, please? Our Father, we thank you for this wonderful opening up