Summary of Colossians

 

Paul writes this letter to the church at Colossae, a city in the Lycus Valley of Asia Minor, almost certainly during his imprisonment, likely in Rome around A.D. 60–62. Though Paul had not personally founded this congregation — that work belonged to Epaphras, his fellow servant — he writes with apostolic authority to address a serious theological threat that had begun to take root among the believers there. The letter is at once a warning against error and a magnificent celebration of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The occasion for the letter is what scholars have long called "the Colossian heresy," though Paul never names it as such. From his responses, we can piece together its contours: it appears to have been a syncretistic mixture of Jewish ceremonial observance, speculative philosophy, and a reverence for angelic powers that together formed a system of supposed spiritual advancement. Its teachers evidently argued that faith in Christ alone was insufficient — that the fullness of spiritual life required additional practices, calendar observances, dietary regulations, and perhaps visionary experiences mediated by or through angelic intermediaries. Whatever its precise form, its effect was to diminish Christ, to push him to the margins of the spiritual life and replace him with a more elaborate system of attainment.

Paul's response is thunderously Christological. He does not argue at length with the false teachers directly but instead holds Christ up in such towering terms that the heresy collapses under the weight of his glory. The great Christological hymn of 1:15–20 is the theological heart of the letter and one of the most exalted passages in all the New Testament. Here Paul declares that Christ is the image of the invisible God — not a pale reflection but the very outshining of the Father's nature. He is the firstborn over all creation, meaning not that he was the first creature, but that he holds the supreme rank over everything that exists. All things were created through him and for him, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — precisely the categories the false teachers were elevating. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church, the firstborn from the dead, and the one in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. This last phrase is decisive: all the fullness — not a portion of divinity parceled out among various powers, but the complete fullness of the Godhead — dwells bodily in Christ. There is no spiritual reality that lies beyond him or behind him. He is the sum and substance of all that God is and all that God gives.

From this foundation, Paul draws immediate practical consequences. The Colossians have already been given fullness in Christ (2:10). They have been buried and raised with him in baptism. Their trespasses have been forgiven; the record of debt that stood against them has been nailed to the cross. The principalities and powers have been disarmed and publicly shamed at Calvary. Why, then, would anyone seek supplementary wisdom from a system of observances and spiritual hierarchies that Christ has already defeated? The shadows of the old ceremonial system belonged to a former age; the substance belongs to Christ. To submit again to regulations — "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" — is to embrace the appearance of wisdom while missing the reality. Self-imposed religion and asceticism have no power to restrain the flesh; only union with the risen Christ does.

The third chapter applies these truths to the believer's whole life. If you have been raised with Christ, Paul argues, then set your mind on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. This is not an invitation to mystical speculation but a call to moral transformation. Believers are to put to death the earthly habits that marked their old life — sexual immorality, covetousness, anger, malice, slander, lying — and to put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. In Christ, there is no longer Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, for Christ is all and in all.

What replaces the old life is a community clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience — bearing with one another, forgiving one another as Christ has forgiven them. Above all, they are to put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. The peace of Christ is to rule in their hearts; the word of Christ is to dwell among them richly in teaching and admonition and song.

Paul then addresses the household in what is sometimes called a Haustafeln, or household code: wives and husbands, children and fathers, bondservants and masters. Each relationship is reordered under the lordship of Christ, who stands as the one to whom every member of the household ultimately answers. The guiding principle is that whatever one does, in word or deed, it should all be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The letter closes with greetings and personal instructions, including a reference to the letter's carrier Tychicus, a commendation of Epaphras as a faithful minister, and a word about a companion letter to Laodicea. Paul asks for prayer that he might speak the mystery of Christ clearly, even in his chains.