Homilies on Colossians

<!--<span class="stiki"></span>--><!--<span class="stiki"></span>-->Colossians 2:6, 7

“As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in your faith, even as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Again, he takes hold on them beforehand with their own testimony, saying, “As therefore ye received.” We introduce no strange addition, he says, neither do ye. “Walk ye in Him,” for He is the Way that leads to the Father: not in the Angels; this way leads not there. “Rooted,” that is, fixed; not one while going this way, another that, but “rooted”: now that which is rooted, never can remove. Observe how appropriate are the expressions he employs. “And built up,” that is, in thought attaining unto Him. “And established” in Him, that is, holding Him, built as on a foundation. He shows that they had fallen down, for the word “built” has this force. For the faith is in truth a building; and needs both a strong foundation, and secure construction. For both if any one build not upon a secure foundation it will shake; and even though he do, if it be not firm, it will not stand. “As you were taught.” Again, the word “As.” “Abounding,” he says, “in thanksgiving”; for this is the part of well-disposed persons, I say not simply to give thanks, but with great abundance, more than ye learned, if possible, with much ambition.

Ver. 8. “Take heed lest there shall be any one that makes spoil of you.”

Do you see how he shows him to be a thief, and an alien, and one that enters in softly? For he has already represented him to be entering in. “Beware.” And he well said “makes spoil.” As one digging away a mound from underneath, may give no perceptible sign, yet it gradually settles, so do you also beware; for this is his main point, not even to let himself be perceived. As if some one were robbing every day, and he (the owner of the house) were told, “Beware lest there be some one”; and he shows the way— through this way— as if we were to say, through this chamber; so, “through philosophy,” says he.

Then because the term “philosophy” has an appearance of dignity, he added, “and vain deceit.” For there is also a good deceit; such as many have been deceived by, which one ought not even to call a deceit at all. Whereof Jeremiah speaks; “O Lord, You have deceived me, and I was deceived”; for such as this one ought not to call a deceit at all; for Jacob also deceived his father, but that was not a deceit, but an economy. “Through his philosophy,” he says, “and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Now he sets about to reprove their observance of particular days, meaning by elements of the world the sun and moon; as he also said in the Epistle to the Galatians, “How turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly elements?” And he said not observances of days, but in general of the present world, to show its worthlessness: for if the present world be nothing, much more then its elements. Having first shown how great benefits and kindnesses they had received, he afterwards brings on his accusation, thereby to show its greater seriousness, and to convict his hearers. Thus too the Prophets do. They always first point out the benefits, and then they magnify their accusation; as Esaias says, “I have begotten children, and exalted them, but they have rejected me”; and again, “O my people, what have I done unto you, or wherein have I grieved you, or wherein have I wearied you”? and David; as when he says, “I heard you in the secret place of the tempest”; and again, “Open your mouth, and I will fill it.” And everywhere you will find it the same.

That indeed were most one's duty, not to be persuaded by them, even did they say anything to the purpose; as it is, however, obligations apart even, it would be our duty to shun those things. “And not after Christ,” he says. For were it in such sort a matter done by halves, that you were able to serve both the one and the other, not even so ought ye to do it; as it is, however, he suffers you not to be “after Christ.” Those things withdraw you from Him. Having first shaken to pieces the Grecian observances, he next overthrows the Jewish ones also. For both Greeks and Jews practiced many observances, but the former from philosophy, the latter from the Law. First then, he makes at those against whom lay the heavier accusation. How, “not after Christ”?

<!--<span class="stiki"></span>-->Ver. 9, 10. “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily: and in Him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power.”

Observe how in his accusing of the one he thrusts through the other, by first giving the solution, and then the objection. For such a solution is not suspected, and the hearer accepts it the rather, that the speaker is not making it his aim. For in that case indeed he would make a point of not coming off worsted, but in this, not so. “For in Him dwells,” that is, for God dwells in Him. But that you may not think Him enclosed, as in a body, he says, “All the fullness of the Godhead bodily: and you are made full in Him.” Others say that he intends the Church filled by His Godhead, as he elsewhere says, “of Him that fills all in all”, and that the term “bodily” is here, as the body in the head. How is it then that he did not add, “which is the Church”? Some again say it is with reference to The Father, that he says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, but wrongly. First, because “to dwell,” cannot strictly be said of God: next, because the “fullness” is not that which receives, for “the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof”; and again the Apostle, “until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” By “fullness” is meant “the whole.” Then the word “bodily,” what did it intend? “As in a head.” But why does he say the same thing over again? “And you are made full in Him.” What then does it mean? That you have nothing less than He. As it dwelt in Him, so also in you. For Paul is ever straining to bring us near to Christ; as when he says, “Hath raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him”: and, “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him”: and, “How shall He not also with Him freely give us all things”: and calling us “fellow-heirs.” Then as for His dignity. And He “is the head of all principality and power.” He that is above all, The Cause, is He not Consubstantial? Then he has added the benefit in a marvelous way; and far more marvelous than in the Epistle to the Romans. For there indeed he says, “circumcision of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter”, but here, in Christ.

Ver. 11. “In whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ.”

See how near he has come to the thing. He says, “In the putting” quite away, not putting off merely. “The body of sins.” He means, “the old life.” He is continually adverting to this in different ways, as he said above, “Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and reconciled us who were alienated,” that we should be “holy and without blemish.” No longer, he says, is the circumcision with the knife, but in Christ Himself; for no hand imparts this circumcision, as is the case there, but the Spirit. It circumcises not a part, but the whole man. It is the body both in the one and the other case, but in the one it is carnally, in the other it is spiritually circumcised; but not as the Jews, for you have not put off flesh, but sins. When and where? In Baptism. And what he calls circumcision, he again calls burial. Observe how he again passes on to the subject of righteous doings; “of the sins,” he says, “of the flesh,” the things they had done in the flesh. He speaks of a greater thing than circumcision, for they did not merely cast away that of which they were circumcised, but they destroyed it, they annihilated it.

Ver. 12. “Buried with him,” he says, “in Baptism, wherein you were also raised with Him, through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”