Holy people, not holy days.

Col 2:16-17 (HCSB) Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah.

Far too often debate about how to interpret this passage focuses on the phrase “Sabbath day,” rather than seeking to understand the picture painted by the apostle. Countless times, the meaning of what we read in the new testament can be rightly understood by having knowledge of the old testament. So it is which this lesson in Colossians 2:16-17.

The phrase “festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day” must be looked at, not merely the Sabbath day. Paul says “these things,” referring to what was mentioned in verse 16 – food, drink, festivals, new moons, and Sabbath days. The phrase “festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day” shows up in 7 Old Covenant passages, provided below. Please read through them and do not be put off if the words are not in the same order as in Colossians 2 – the picture is the same.

1Chr 23:30-32 (HCSB) They are also to stand every morning to give thanks and praise to the LORD, and likewise in the evening. Whenever burnt offerings are offered to the LORD on the Sabbaths, New Moons, and appointed festivals, they are to do so regularly in the LORD’s presence according to the number prescribed for them. They are to carry out their responsibilities for the tent of meeting, for the holy place, and for their relatives, the sons of Aaron, in the service of the LORD’s temple.”

2 Chr 2:4 (HCSB) Now I am building a temple for the name of Yahweh my God in order to dedicate it to Him for burning fragrant incense before Him, for displaying the rows of the bread of the Presence continuously, and for sacrificing burnt offerings for the morning and the evening, the Sabbaths and the New Moons, and the appointed festivals of the LORD our God. This is ordained for Israel forever.

2Chr 8:12-13 (HCSB) At that time Solomon offered burnt offerings to the LORD on the LORD’s altar he had made in front of the portico. He followed the daily requirement for offerings according to the commandment of Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual appointed festivals: the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths.

2Chr 31:2-3 (HCSB) Hezekiah reestablished the divisions of the priests and Levites for the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, for ministry, for giving thanks, and for praise in the gates of the camp of the LORD, each division corresponding to his service among the priests and Levites. The king contributed from his own possessions for the regular morning and evening burnt offerings, the burnt offerings of the Sabbaths, of the New Moons, and of the appointed feasts, as written in the law of the LORD.

Neh 10:32-33 (HCSB) We will impose the following commands on ourselves: To give an eighth of an ounce of silver yearly for the service of the house of our God: the bread displayed before the LORD, the daily grain offering, the regular burnt offering, the Sabbath and New Moon offerings, the appointed festivals, the holy things, the sin offerings to atone for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.

Isa 1:13-14 (HCSB) Stop bringing useless offerings. Your incense is detestable to Me. New Moons and Sabbaths, and the calling of solemn assemblies — I cannot stand iniquity with a festival. I hate your New Moons and prescribed festivals. They have become a burden to Me; I am tired of putting up with them.

Ezek 45:16-17 (HCSB) “All the people of the land must take part in this contribution for the prince in Israel. Then the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings for the festivals, New Moons, and Sabbaths — for all the appointed times of the house of Israel — will be the prince’s responsibility. He will provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and fellowship offerings to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.

Hos 2:10-11 (HCSB) Now I will expose her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from My hands. I will put an end to all her celebrations: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths — all her festivals.

Recall Colossians 2, not to let anyone judge us on questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath because these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

We know that “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). So our focus is on what remains. This pattern of days refers to all of the holy days of the Jews, from yearly feasts to the weekly Sabbath, and comes from repeated descriptions of the Mosaic ritual as shown above. How does it make sense to claim the weekly Sabbath is not part of this summary? Only by blindly following a systematic theology wherein the Jewish weekly Sabbath has been re-skinned as the “Christian Sabbath” is this possible – but that does NOT make it biblical!

Scripture reinforces this idea, that days are not “holy” in the Christian faith, but a matter of personal conviction. Rom 14:5-6a (HCSB) “One person considers one day to be above another day. Someone else considers every day to be the same. Each one must be fully convinced in his own mind. Whoever observes the day, observes it for the honor of the Lord.”

If you think Sunday is a holy day, observe it for the honor of the Lord. That does not provide a platform to condescend toward those who consider every day to be the same.  As one who is in this latter category, I see the gathering of saints (usually on Sunday) as a holy thing; not the day. Same with the day of the Lord’s resurrection – what took place that day is holy, the day is not.

The Christian faith is not food or drink, holy places or holy days. It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which every child of God should recognize, enjoy, and praise God for His continued goodness towards us. Our predilection with calendars should not color over our focus on the One who saves sinners. 

Better than Passover

You can listen to this sermon here.

This evening, we will compare and contrast the Lord’s Supper with the Passover given to national Israel. So many things given to the Old Covenant people point to partial or final fulfillment in what has been given to New Covenant people - they are there to teach about and point us to Christ. They are intended to give us a richer understanding of how the Bible fits all things together and has a deeper meaning than a superficial read can provide.

The Lord's Supper is given to God's people in the New Covenant as the sign of that covenant (Luke 22:19-20), just as the weekly Sabbath was given to God's people in the Mosaic Covenant as the sign of that covenant (Exod. 31:12-18; Ezek. 20:11-20). In Ex 31, national Israel was commanded to keep the weekly Sabbath for it was a sign between Him and them. In 1 Cor 11 we are told that the Lord’s Supper is a declaration of His victorious death, whereby He conquered sin on our behalf. While the sign of the Old Covenant could be seen and practiced by anyone, the sign of the New Covenant cannot be understood or practiced by anyone unless they have been born again by God.

The Lord's Supper is connected to the last Passover (Matt 26:17-30), observed in conjunction with weekly fellowship meal (Acts 2:42; 20:7) Just as the Passover meal signified the passing-over of the angel of death, so the Lord’s Supper signifies the passing through death of our Savior.

The first Passover anticipated the redemption of ethnic Israel from the bondage of Egypt (Deut 16:1). The first Lord’s Supper anticipated the redemption of spiritual Israel from the bondage of sin (1 Cor 11:23-26). The annual Passover reminded ethnic Israel of the freedom from Egypt their God had given them. The regular observance of the Lord’s Supper reminds spiritual Israel of the freedom from sin their Savior has given them.

The Passover was the covenant meal of the Old Covenant (Ex 12:17). The Lord’s Supper is the covenant meal of the New Covenant. The Passover was a mostly bitter meal, reminding the Jews of their time of want and the faithful provision of their God. The Lord’s Supper was usually observed after a fellowship meal, reminding the children of God of His provision of food for the body and the soul and the faithfulness of the One Who said He would return.

The Passover was observed with family or close friends within the covenant community (Exod 12:43-49). The Lord’s Supper is observed with all who are in Christ, within the local fellowship of saints.

The Old Covenant required observance of certain religious rites for membership: make circumcision, weekly rest from work, the Passover, occasional monthly and annual feast days. Faith in God, belief in the promised seed was not required for membership – only observance of a few religious rites. Those who fail to observe these rites were cut off from the covenant community. This is termed “formalism” and it is a sign of dead religion and must be guarded against within the local fellowship of saints.

The New Covenant requires the application of one truth: you must be born again by the Spirit of God; you must be circumcised of the heart, done without human hands (Col 2:11). Faith in the promised seed is required for membership – no one can enter the wedding feast of the Lamb without the required clothes (Matt 22:12) – the righteousness of Christ! Failure to participate in the fellowship of the saints and the observation of the Lord's Supper neglect the care of their own souls and could be cut off from the New Covenant community until such time repentance might be granted.

Jewish parents used the Passover to teach their children about YHWH and their physical redemption. Christian parents should use the Lord’s Supper to teach their children about the redemptive death of Jesus and the need to believe on Him to be delivered from sin. Belief in God and the promised seed was not a requirement to eat the Passover. Belief on the promised Seed is a requirement to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Great teaching opportunity.

If people did not prepare for the initial Passover as directed, they would die (Ex 12:12-13). If Christians take the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner, they may die (1 Cor 11:27-30). This is the most graphic reminder that only believers are permitted to take this ordinance seriously. As the people in the Old Covenant taught their children about the need for YHWH's redemption from Egypt and His faithful provision thereof, so parents in the New Covenant should teach their children about their need for redemption from sin and Jesus' faithful provision to save. Both ordinances given the New Covenant community are great teaching opportunities for those who have not been brought near by the blood of Christ; and they are great teaching opportunities for all who have been redeemed, as we each need to be reminded of what He has done on our behalf, lest we drift into thinking little of sin and of His payment for it.

See Luke 24:35 – He opened their eyes when He broke the bread. He vanished from their presence after opening their eyes of faith. This served the same purpose for these two as His ascension does for all the saints - He departed from this world to send the Spirit as we learn to walk by faith and not by sight. Pagan religions require a god they can see and handle, because they walk by sight and not faith.

Paul tells us that Jesus was our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7), showing us the Passover is not a continuing observance, but a ceremonial shadow or type that pointed God’s people to the promised seed who would save His people from their sin. The Lord’s Supper has connections to the Passover but is itself the sign of a better covenant (Luke 22:20 & Hebrews 8:6).

Jesus is our (believers’) Passover (1 Cor 5:7): Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast permeates the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch. You are indeed unleavened, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old yeast or with the yeast of malice and evil but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The call is to remember our need of salvation, the spiritual application of the temporal redemption given national Israel on their first Passover. No room for boasting within the New Covenant except for the cross of Christ. We are called to not tolerate the mixing of Old Covenant bondage or unbelievers (those infected with malice and evil) within the body of Christ; but welcome only those who are possessed by sincerity and truth.

This ordinance belongs exclusively to the gospel age, being typified in several Old Testament passages, such as when Melchizedek brought wine and bread to refresh Abram and his warriors who had just defeated several pagan kings (Genesis 14:17-20). Even so, we who are born again by the will of God are immediately at war with our flesh, the system of the world and its present ruler. Christ gives us spiritual nourishment with this simple symbol, the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, of His victory over sin and death and hell and Satan. 'Tis a far, far better respite than what Melchizedek gave Abram. We see another reference to this church ordinance in Proverbs 9:1-6, as lady wisdom bids God's people come to the table she has set, bread and wine, for refreshment and refuge from lure of the culture which wars against our souls.

And read the prophet Isaiah on this topic: On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:6-9)

This is the message of the Lord's Table: “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

This is just one aspect of how the OT points to spiritual things. Think about how rich the entire OT is in its revelation of Christ; that was the Scripture from which Jesus and the apostles preached the gospel to the first century world.

While the Bible does not explicitly command us on the frequency, we do see a narrative showing it was an important part of their weekly gatherings, some 30 to 40 years after Pentacost. Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight (Acts 20:7). One author (Terrance O’Hare) observed: “Most commentators agree that this was a Sunday evening meeting, at a recurring gathering of Christians on the first day of the week following their normal activities and work. [Note: this was before Christianity was legal and before Sunday was a regular day off for workers.] They came together in order to break bread. This does not mean that preaching was secondary, but when they came together, they purposed to commune in the symbolism of the covenant meal as the Lord had commended and as the apostles has established by tradition." We should no more neglect the Lord’s Supper than the Israelites did their Passover.

While Scripture does not tell us how frequently to observe this ordinance, it does command us to take it, revealing that it is nourishing to our souls, enhances our fellowship. This puts a new light on this question about frequency; perhaps the question for some should be, why don't we take this ordinance more frequently? The commonly discussed down-side to observing this ordinance regularly is that it can (they often mean will) become routine, dull, meaningless. That was my first thought when I served in a church that took the Lord’s Table weekly. My time at that church showed me that, properly handled, the weekly observance of this ordinance is not routine, dull, or meaningless. If Christ be rightly presented, if we are put in our place of coming to Him with gratitude, in humility, aware of our not-yet status of being conformed to Him, then this simple ordinance is what God intended it to be, bringing glory to the Father through the Son and building up His people spiritually.

The beloved Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, declared, “Shame on the Christian Church that she should put it off to once a month, and mar the first day of the week by depriving it of its glory in the meeting together for fellowship and breaking of bread, and showing forth the death of Christ til He comes.” Throughout the history of the church, weekly observance of the Lord's Supper has been the traditional practice, ably supported by the Word of God.

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16)

When we take the cup of the Lord's Supper, we should remember the cup of wrath He took on our behalf. The cup we hold is a symbol of the glorious benefit of being redeemed by His sacrifice, so we thank our God for His grace while we also soberly remember the price that was paid. No small price; He drank the cup of wrath and shed His blood to secure our redemption. As we drink the cup of His peace, the New Covenant, we do drink vicariously the cup of wrath. When we eat the bread or cracker, which is broken in remembrance of His atoning death, we participate vicariously in the death He died. This is why Paul said Galatians 2:19-20: For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. This is what is real – our spiritual life. It is what is eternal.

Whenever we take this ordinance, let us seek out those within this fellowship whom we have sinned against or who has sinned against us and seek true reconciliation as the Lord's Supper represents unity that can only exist by those indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Colossians 1:21-23 Changed by the Gospel

Colossians 1:21-23 (HCSB) Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds because of your evil actions. But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him — if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. ⌊This gospel⌋ has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.

This epistle is addressed to the saints in Christ at Colossae, faithful brothers (chap 1:2). Paul says to them, ONCE, you were alienated and hostile in your minds because of evil actions. It is a truth that the children of God were chosen unto salvation before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-6; 2 Timothy 1:9-10; Titus 1:1-4; Revelation 17:8). At the same time, we are raised up to new life in Christ IN TIME, at God's timing. The point being, until a person is brought to life spiritually, he is dead in Adam, an enemy of God, full of evil and unwilling and unable to want God or what is good. ONCE, we were alienated and hostile - hostile toward God (Romans 5:10) and others. Alienated is a word pretty much lost in our culture. We aren't supposed to call people aliens, they're undocumented. To be alienated means to be at odds with, unreconciled, lacking peace.

You will hear politicians proclaim that man is naturally good and in need only of the right education, etc. Some will teach that God's elect are not under condemnation, but born as "covenant children" and members of the New Covenant by fleshly heritage. Paul will have none of either of these arguments. He said much the same to the church at Ephesus: Ephesians 2:1-2 (HCSB)  And you were dead in your trespasses and sins  in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. These saints were in the same boat as the ones in Colossae! They HAD walked in disobedience, being dead in sins and trespasses. Paul went on, Ephesians 2:3 (HCSB) We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. Paul changes from YOU to WE, to show that he - an apostle - was no better off than they were. Children of God are BY NATURE children of wrath, like the others - the people of the world that do not love God and will not be reconciled to God. If this was not so, what would be our need of Christ to reconcile us to the Father?

Before we came to faith in Christ, each of us was alienated, hostile, disobedient, fleshly, and children of wrath. This is why no man can tell who the elect are until God effects salvation. Once made new in Christ, the believer has different appetites, is no longer alienated, etc. While we cannot hold to a litmus test, we must hold to the truth that a good tree will bear good fruit.

And this is the next point Paul brings to our attention. Colossians 1:21-22 (HCSB) Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds because of your evil actions. But now He has reconciled you by His physical body through His death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him. Being born again by the Spirit of God happens in time - today is the day of salvation! BUT NOW, He has reconciled us - this is something God has done. Those who think man makes the initial or determinative move in being reconciled to God overlook many passages that show Who does this all important work. Christ reconciles spiritually dead sinners to holy God by His physical body which was broken for us, put to death on our account, so He could present us to the Father as holy, faultless, and blameless.

Compare those attributes to those attached to us before He reconciled us to God. Between our text and Ephesians 1 there are about 11 descriptions of how evil and deserving of God's wrath we were before He bestowed the riches of His grace on us. BUT NOW, having been reconciled, there are three words that describe us: holy, faultless, blameless. We should hang on that first word, for God is holy and without holiness no one will see Him.

A.W. Pink is helpful in our understanding God's holiness:

He only is independently, infinitely, immutably holy. In Scripture He is frequently styled “The Holy One”: He is so because the sum of all moral excellency is found in Him. He is absolute Purity, unsullied even by the shadow of sin.

This perfection, as none other, is solemnly celebrated before the Throne of Heaven, the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts” (Isa 6:3). God Himself singles out this perfection, “Once have I sworn by My holiness” (Psa 89:35). God swears by His “holiness” because that is a fuller expression of Himself than any thing else.

“The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the LORD” (Prov 15:26). It follows, therefore, that He must necessarily punish sin. Sin can no more exist without demanding His punishment than without requiring His hatred of it. God has often forgiven sinners, but He never forgives sin; and the sinner is only forgiven on the ground of Another having borne his punishment: for “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22). Therefore we are told “The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies” (Nah 1:2).

God's holiness is a characteristic of His person, not merely something He does. There are some who teach that we become holy, as required, by doing the good works He prepared for us. One popular teacher in Baptist circles says our good works are what saves us at what he calls our "final salvation." On the other extreme are Baptists who say NO good works are necessary for one to have assurance of his salvation. But in our text, Paul was led to declare that our Savior presents us before the Father as holy. This makes clear that the holiness without which we will not see God is His holiness! While our good deeds are judged, they are not part of the determination of whether we are saved. Rev 20:11-15 is one depiction of Judgment Day; this passage makes it crystal clear: our works have NOTHING to do with our destiny. The determining factor is whether or not your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, something that was done before the foundation of the world (Rev 17:8). Since our redemption and resulting good works take place in time, and our destiny was determined before the foundation of the world, nothing we could do could influence God's choosing His sheep.

Without a clear picture of God, we cannot have a right view of sin or self. Left to ourselves or distracted from Biblical truth we will see self in a far better light than is warranted; we will see our sin as a light thing; and we will see God as One who winks at our sin. One author observed, "There is a god we want and there is a God Who is. They are not the same God." When we come to grips with Who God is, we will see OUR sin as more grievous than our neighbors, we will long for His holiness. Take comfort that if you are IN Christ, He WILL present you to His Father as holy, faultless, and blameless.

Those last two words supplement holiness with sinlessness and giving no opportunity for God's name to be profaned. Having sin - which includes causing His name to be profaned - renders a verdict no man can withstand. In Christ, being in union with Him, is the essential aspect of our salvation that guarantees, insures, our right standing with God. None but Jesus can do helpless sinners good. Trust Him wholly - let no other trust intrude. Good words from an old hymn!

We come now to what causes some to think salvation is conditional upon our performance. What we see as verse 23 is a continuation of verse 22. Paul writes that we HAVE been reconciled, we WILL be presented; IF we continue, grounded and steadfast in the faith and not shifted away from the hope of the gospel.

What do we make of this? Considering how the Scriptures reveal the saving work of God being a certainty (Romans 8:28-30; John 6; Ephesians 2), we must not think in this place Paul speaks of conditions that put our eternal souls at risk. But care must be taken so our preconceived ideas do not lead us astray. The word we see as "if" is from a Greek word that means, if. Paul is not telling us our destiny is in question; he's telling how we can KNOW we are reconciled, to be presented holy, faultless and blameless.

One who has had an experience, claims Christ but does not remain grounded and steadfast in the faith, should not think he is reconciled to God. The Bible is full of these "conditional statements" which are there to prompt us to examine ourselves to make sure we are in the faith. Hebrews 3:6 (HCSB) But Christ was faithful as a Son over His household. And we are that household if we hold on to the courage and the confidence of our hope. This warning is repeated in verse 14. Romans 8:16-17 (ESV) The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 1 John 2:24 (HCSB) What you have heard from the beginning must remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. 2 Peter 1:10 (HCSB) Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble. These warnings are not there to make us think we can lose our standing and be damned; they are there so none of us will take for granted what we profess with our lips.

Today in our country, far too many fellowships are full of people who wrote down the date they made their decision for Christ, as they say. But we are never told to look back on our decision for assurance; always and only are we told to look unto Christ and the work He is doing in us today. Our salvation is a "done deal" in that Christ has paid our sin debt. But it is very much a current status - IF we hold onto the confidence of our hope. Since we know it is the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom to His children, that His Spirit works in us to will and to do what please Him; since we know that Christ Jesus will lose none of the sheep He was sent to redeem, we CAN have confidence in our hope that is in Christ! Rather than worry about the IF statements, let us look unto Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, seeing His Spirit work in us that which is pleasing to Him. Others will see and hear of these things and rejoice that God is faithful to His promises, even on our account. So we do not lose heart, we do not grow weary, we do not get shifted away from the sure hope we have Christ, as announced in the gospel.

The last part of verse 23 ties back to the opening of this letter. Recall from verse 6: the gospel has come to you and is bearing fruit and growing all over the world. Here Paul says this gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. What does he mean by this? If the gospel had been proclaimed to the entire world and was bearing fruit all over the world back then, why are we still here? Why did Jesus tell us to preach the gospel to all creatures (Mark 16:15) if Paul was going to get that done?

It's mostly like that Paul meant was that, by this time, the gospel had been preached to all the world, as Paul knew it. As we see throughout the Bible men say things that reveal their limited human understanding, it shouldn't be unthinkable that Paul might be saying this, based on what he knew of the world. As far as he knew the world, the gospel had been preached to all of it. Paul quotes Psalm 19:4. Romans 10:17-18 (HCSB) So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. But I ask, “Did they not hear?” Yes, they did: Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the inhabited world. The proclamation in Psalms refers to general revelation, as the sun and stars testify to the glory of God. At the writing of Romans, Paul uses that message to describe the world-wide testimony of the apostolic gospel of Jesus Christ. So it makes sense in our text that Paul was speaking about the growth and success and spread of the gospel over the whole known world. Hard for Paul to know the unknown world!

The last words we have from Paul in this section is his oft-mentioned connection with this life-giving gospel: he was a servant thereof. He did not serve his own ambition, but worked and labored to make the name of Christ known everywhere to everyone. This ought to be our ambition as well! It will be if we've been changed by the gospel.

Introduction to Paul’s Letter to the church at Colossae

You can listen to this sermon here.

He (Christ Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. This is the thesis statement, the core truth of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. A study of this epistle will reveal Jesus as the answer to life.

Nearly every New Testament letter from Paul was written to combat heresy in one or more local churches; Ephesians is the exception. While Colossians doesn’t specify what heresy had infected that church, one can almost hear the whispers, “Jesus is not enough.” Many think an early form of Gnosticism was emerging. What makes this epistle so vital for life in the church in this age, until Christ returns, is the glorious picture of our Lord Jesus is painted in words by the apostle. It is instructive for us to see the evil distractions from the gospel the enemy put into the church in Paul’s day, but it is essential for life and godliness that we grasp the gospel and the person of Christ as held forth in Scripture. In this short letter, the lord Jesus is presented as our life – quite a contrast to our drab routine; something that ought to bring renewed life to weary saints.

This introduction follows the commentary by John Kitchens and covers 5 questions we should answer:

1.      Who wrote this letter?

2.      To whom was it written?

3.      What were the circumstances?

4.      Why did Paul write it?

5.      What does this letter teach us?

1. This first topic is important but not vital. We who believe in the inspiration of Scripture know the dual-authorship of the Bible and know God is the Author of what His people wrote. Yet knowing the human author helps us when we can learn about him through other passages. This is particularly helpful in rightly understanding Proverbs, for example.

Nobody questioned Paul’s authorship of this epistle until a few 19^th century scholars offered up an alternative. The first two verses seem pretty clear to us: Colossians 1:1-2 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. But some smart people, as men see them, said the vocabulary, theology, and style of writing is too different from Paul’s other letters; that Paul works against Gnosticism which was not fully developed until the 2^nd century. None of these objections stand up in light of a basic understanding of the Bible. Liberals seem to have it as their goal to cause us to doubt the Word of God.

2. Written to the saints in Colossae, a town that had been prominent but was now bypassed by the major highway that had driven its commerce; not unlike Gowen or Hartshorne – both of which were prosperous in the mid-20^th century as goal mining and defense electronics provided a large bounty of gainful employment. The region Colossae is in was also severely affected by an earthquake, and commerce went with the new highway to Laodicea and Hierapolis. We see in 2:1 that, at the time of this epistle, Paul had not been to Colossae or Laodicea: For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face. What kindness of God, to have this apostle write to these people in a small neglected town he had never met, yet loved in Christ having been told of the work the Lord had been doing in their midst.

Most likely, Epaphrus had established this church, as we read in 4:12-13 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis. Paul’s confidence was not in his personal work, but in the work done through him and others by the Spirit of God.

One thought occurred to me –apostles were foundational to the New Covenant church (see Eph 2:20) yet most of them wrote no Scripture and are not mentioned much by those who did. Men who labor in obscurity, in man’s perspective, always are in view of our heavenly Father. Our service to one another is pleasing in His sight, even if we are not famous among men; as it is His Spirit that wills and equips us to do so. Let us never drift away from seeking God’s approval in favor of man’s.