Introduction to Colossians

Title and authorship

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother. The letter is written from prison — remember my chains, it ends Colossians 4:18 — and it names its own carrier: Tychicus, traveling with Onesimus, who is called one of you Colossians 4:7–9.

That detail ties this letter to another. Onesimus is the runaway slave whose case the letter to Philemon exists to settle, and the greetings at the end of both name the same circle — Aristarchus, Mark, Epaphras, Luke, Demas Colossians 4:10–14 Philemon 1:23–24. Archippus is charged here Colossians 4:17 and greeted there Philemon 1:2. The two letters left the same room on the same day, carried by the same men.

Paul had never visited the city Colossians 2:1. The church was founded by Epaphras, one of their own, and the letter is written to people who knew the apostle only by report.

Date

The letter belongs to an imprisonment, and the traditional setting is the Roman custody with which Acts ends Acts 28:30–31 — placing it in the early sixties of the first century.

What is certain is relative rather than absolute: Colossians, Philemon, and the letter to the Ephesians travel together, sharing a messenger and a moment. Onesimus is going home, which fixes this letter and Philemon to the same journey. Scripture gives no year, and the argument does not need one.

Backgrounds

Colossae  was a small town in the Lycus valley of Asia Minor, overshadowed by its neighbors Laodicea  and Hierapolis , both named in the letter Colossians 4:13. It is the least important place Paul ever wrote to, and it received one of the highest statements about Christ in Scripture.

Something was being taught there, and the letter describes it only by what it demanded rather than by naming it. There was philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition and the elemental principles of the world Colossians 2:8. There were rules about eating and drinking and a calendar of observances Colossians 2:16. There was self-imposed humility and the worship of angels, with people claiming visions Colossians 2:18, and a regime of prohibitions — do not handle, do not taste, do not touch Colossians 2:21.

What those elements added up to is not stated, and a system Scripture leaves undescribed cannot be rebuilt from its parts. What the letter names as the problem is structural rather than doctrinal: such a person is not holding fast to the Head Colossians 2:19.

Theology and purpose

Paul's answer to whatever was being added is not a counter-argument. It is a description of Christ so complete that nothing can be added to it, and the whole letter runs on that strategy.

The hymn of Colossians 1:15–20 is its center. He is the image of the invisible God; all things were created in him, through him, and for him; he is before all things and in him all things hold together; he is head of the body and firstborn from the dead; in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell; and through him all things are reconciled by the blood of his cross. Creation, coherence, church, resurrection, fullness, reconciliation — six claims, and each removes a place where a supplement might be inserted.

Chapter 2 then applies it. In him dwells all the fullness of Deity bodily, and in him you are made full Colossians 2:9–10 — the same word for fullness used of Christ and of the believer, which is the letter's whole argument in one sentence. A person joined to someone in whom everything already is has nowhere left to go for more.

And because the answer is a person rather than a rule, the practical half of the letter is not a counter-code. It is death and resurrection worked out in ordinary life: you died, your life is hidden with Christ in God Colossians 3:3, so put off these things and put on these. The regime the teachers offered has an appearance of wisdom and is of no value against the indulgence of the flesh Colossians 2:23; what actually kills it is having died already.

Additional notes

Note — "firstborn of all creation" Colossians 1:15. The phrase has long been read by some as making Christ the first created being. Four things in Scripture tell against it, and the strongest is in the same passage.

Prōtotokos is used twice in this hymn. The second is firstborn from the dead Colossians 1:18 — and Christ was not chronologically the first person raised, since Scripture records others raised before him. The word there cannot mean first in time, and the verse supplies its own definition in the next clause: that in all things he might have the preeminence. Rank, not sequence.

Second, the verse immediately following the disputed phrase says all things were created in him, through him, and for him Colossians 1:16. A being included among created things cannot be the one in whom all created things were made.

Third, verse 17 places him before all things — a statement about existence, not rank.

Fourth, Scripture uses firstborn this way elsewhere. God says of David: I will appoint him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth Psalms 89:27. David was the youngest of eight sons 1 Samuel 16:11. The title had already been detached from birth order centuries before Paul used it.

Note — the shadow and the calendar Colossians 2:16–17. The verse tells the readers to let no one judge them in eating or drinking, or regarding a feast, a new moon, or a sabbath — things called a shadow of what was coming, whose body is Christ.

Two observations from Scripture shape how the list is read. First, the three terms together are a standing Old Testament formula for the sanctuary's offering calendar, and it recurs with the offerings attached: burnt offerings on the sabbaths, the new moons, and the set feasts 1 Chronicles 23:31 2 Chronicles 31:3 Nehemiah 10:33 Ezekiel 45:17 Hosea 2:11. Paul is using a recognized phrase, and its home is the sacrificial system. The accompanying mention of eating and drinking points the same way, since those offerings were eaten and poured.

Second, what the verse says of the whole list is that it is a shadow of things to come. A shadow is cast by something ahead of it, and that is what the sanctuary service was — a system pointing forward to Christ.

The weekly Sabbath of the fourth commandment is grounded elsewhere and earlier. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy at the close of creation Genesis 2:3, and the commandment itself gives that as its reason Exodus 20:11 — a memorial of something finished rather than a shadow of something coming, and instituted before any sanctuary, sacrifice, or feast existed.

Honest readers differ here, and the difference is old. What can be shown from the text is the formula, the shadow's direction, and the seventh day's earlier ground; the question's age does not change what those three are.

Outline

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