Colossians is simply colossal. For it's about how big Christ is.
Pascal said, "Without Christ we cannot know the meaning of life, or death, or God, or ourselves." Those are life's four most important questions. Colossians is even more colossal than Ephesians. Ephesians was about the greatness of the Body of Christ; Colossians is about the greatness of the Head.
Paul's answer in Colossians to this basic question - How big isChrist-is the key passage, 1:15-20. It says that Christ is no less then the full and complete expression of God, the purpose of the whole universe and the savior of all things in heaven and earth.
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creaion. For in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, he visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rinicipalities or powers-all things were created through Him nd for Him.
"He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He himself might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness [of God] was pleased to well, and through Him to reconcile all things for Him, making peace by the blood of His cross [through Him], whether those on earth or those in heaven."
Like most of Paul's letters, Colossians is divided into two parts: first doctrine (Chapters 1 and 2), then practice (Chapters 3 and 4). The two are connected, as is everything, by Christ: Because
Christ is the center of everything (the fundamental doctrine), Christians must put him first in everything (the fundamental practical point).
This connection can be seen in Paul's little transition words, at the beginning of key sentences. Because "he is the image of the invisible God" ( 15), because "he is before all things" (17), because "he is the head" (18), Paul concludes, "And you, who once were alienated ... He has now reconciled ... to present you holy" (21-23).
The basic moral point of Colossians is that we must live according to this vision of ourselves in the colossal cosmic Christ.
The argument is this 1) Christ is divine. 2) And you are in Christ. 3) Therefore "if then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (3:1-3).
What a liberation: We're already dead! Old Adam died with Christ on the cross, and was buried with Christ in Baptism. Now I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. (Gal. 2:20). Christ crossed out "I" with a cross.
The Church at Colossae was infected with an early form of Gnosticism. Gnosticism, the popular Greek philosophy of the day, became the source of just about all the heresies in the early Church. At least five elements of the Gnostic heresy can be seen in Colossians:
1) It confused Christianity with the speculations of Greek philosophy (2:4-10).
2) It confused Christianity with legalism, inherited from branches of Judaism which insisted on circumcision and strict dietary laws (2:11-17).
3) It confused Christianity with occult lore, which involved the idolatrous and superstitious worship of angels as mediators or intermediaries with God (2:20).
4) It confused Christianity with ascetic views and practices which sought to flee matter, the body and the physical world (2:21-23).
Just as the Church would do for the next 2,000 years, Paul said no to these little heresies because he knew how big Christ was. Whenever the Church condemns a heresy, it's for this reason. All heresies reduce Christ, and the Church, which knows how big Christ is, out of love and loyalty will not tolerate narrowmindedness and reductionism.
Gnosticism displaced Christ from the center and replaced Him with five smaller things: speculation, legalism, mysticism, occultism and asceticism. So Paul first states the truth positively about who Christ is (1:15-20); then, in that light, he condemns the Gnostic heretical theories (Chapter 2); then, he applies this vision to daily life. After refuting Gnosticism doctrinally, he refutes it practically, for Christian doctrine and practice, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, are inseparable.
All heresies are answered by one truth: Christ, "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). All heresies deny or reduce something about the complete Christ or the Christian's completeness in Christ.
These are the two fundamental themes of Colossians because they are the two fundamental themes of the whole Christian life:
1) "Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2:3), "for in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (2:9); 2) "And you share in the fullness in Him" (2:10).
In his Soliloquies, St. Augustine dialogues with his own reason and seeks to know only. two things- the only two things we absolutely need to know because they are the only two things we can never, to all eternity, escape or avoid. Colossians supplies these two things:
Augustine: Behold, I have prayed to God.
Reason: What, then, do you desire to know?
Augustine: Those things for which I have prayed.
Reason: Sum them up, briefly.
Augustine: I desire to know God and my soul.
Reason: Nothing more?
Augustine: Nothing more.
You can know God without knowing yourself, and you can know yourself without knowing God, but you cannot know Christ without knowing both, and you cannot know either without knowing Christ.
Peter Kreeft is the author of many books including "Making Choices'' (Servant Books) and Back to Virtue (Ignatius).
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