Colossians 1

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We constantly render God thanks for you, that by his grace ye have embraced the gospel of his Son

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To which we are the more incited by hearing the news, as of your faith, so of your charity also and liberality extended to the Christians every where;

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That being an effect of your Christian hope, which being fastened on a rich treasure in heaven, the reward of all your good works, makes you very liberal of your earthy treasure, and that is fully agreeable to the doctrine of the gospel of Christ, Matt. vi. 20.

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Which gospel, as it hath been preached, and brings forth this fruit among you, and hath done so from the time of the first preaching of it, (see note [d] Heb. xiii,) so all the world over, where it is preached and received into honest hearts, it brings forth the same fruit, and by doing so attracts multitudes to the profession.

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This indeed was according to that doctrine preached to you by Epaphras, whom we sent to publish the gospel unto you, and he hath faithfully discharged his duty toward you;

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And hath given me an account of your ready receiving the faith, and the effect of that, your Christian charity.

⁸ abound to all perfection of divine knowledge, both in understanding the mysteries of Christianity, and in ordering and regulating your lives according to the rules thereof.

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That your behaviour may be such as is agreeable to the divine promises and precepts of the gospel, perfectly such as God will accept of, upon all occasions bringing forth the fruit of Christian living, and by that means daily increasing in divine knowledge, which as it is itself the practice of all virtue,

² hearing, or, having heard, ἀκούσαντες. ³ of the gospel of truth, τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου.

⁴ also through all the world, or, through all the world it bears fruit and increases even— for the King’s MS. reads ἐν παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστι καρποφοροῦμενον καὶ αὐξανόμενον καθὼς—

⁵ acknowledged the grace of God in the truth, ἐπέγνωτε τὴν χάριν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ.

⁶ acknowledgment, ἐπίγνωσιν. ⁷ prudence, συνέσει.

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To which it is consequent, that through the grace and divine power of God ye shall be enabled to continue to the end, and bear whatever afflictions and persecutions ye meet with in your Christian course, not only patiently, but cheerfully.

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And even acknowledging it with thanksgiving as a special mercy and favour of God’s, that hath enabled us to bear persecutions and afflictions, and so to have our part in that inheritance which is allowed Christians under the gospel, that is, to be persecuted here, and rewarded eternally:

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That God, I say, who hath rescued you from a state of ignorance and heathenism, and made you heirs of everlasting glory, to which he will bring you in the same method and manner as he hath brought his own dearest Son (who was first crucified, then glorified):

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Through whom we have pardon of sin, purchased by his death, and so are redeemed out of the power of Satan, and made capable of a resurrection unto life:

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In whom God, who is invisible, is to be seen, and his will clearly declared by the gospel, (so that he that seeth him seeth the Father, John xiv. 9,) and who being first raised out of the grave, and assumed to heaven as the first begotten from the dead, ver. 18, hath all power given unto him by right of inheritance, as dominion is the birthright of the firstborn.

[a] firstborn] The word πρωτότοκος, beside the ordinary notion of firstborn, (which cannot so well here refer to Christ’s eternal generation, because of that which is added to it, the first-born of every creature, which only gives him a precedence before all other creatures, and doth not attribute eternity to him,) is used sometimes for a lord, or person in power, who hath the privilege of the firstborn, dominion over all his brethren: and according to this notion it is used, κοινώς, in scripture for a prince or principal person. So psalm lxviii. 27, David is called the firstborn of the kings of the earth, that is, the most glorious among them; and Job xviii. 13, we have the firstborn of death. And so among the civilians, hæres, “heir,” signifies dominus, “lord,” Justinian Instit. l. 2. tit. 19. de Hæred. Qualit. et Diff. §. ult. And thus may it fitly be a title of Christ incarnate, in respect of his power over his church, the key of the house of David laid upon him. But it is possible it may peculiarly refer to his resurrection, in which he was the

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And this very agreeably, he being that eternal Word by whom, saith the psalmist, were the heavens made; and all the creatures in the world, both those which are to be seen, being corporeal, and those which, being spiritual, as angels, souls of men, cannot be seen, all these, I say, what degree soever they are of, they were all by him created, and therefore are in reason to serve him, as the Lord of all.

[b] thrones] These several titles here rehearsed may possibly be no more but the expressions of several degrees of dignity among men. So θρόνοι, thrones, may denote kings, or monarchs and princes; κυριό-τητες, dominions, (or lordships,) may be the reguli, the honours (whether of dukes or earls) next under princes; ἀρχαί, the prefects of provinces and cities; and ἐξουσία, inferior magistrates: and if so, then may they be here set down to denote all sorts and conditions of men in the Gentile world, by the chief dignities among them here on earth. But because they may also signify the several degrees of angels, and because there follows mention of ὁρὰ καὶ ἀόρα, visible and invisible, and the angels may most probably be contained by the latter of them, as this lower world of men by the former, and because it is the creation that is here referred to, and the creating of the angels, as well as men, &c., belongs truly to Christ as God, therefore it will be most reasonable in this place to interpret it in the greater extent, to comprehend angels and men too, the highest and most eminent of both sorts, thereby to set out the eternal divinity and power of Christ, who is Creator of all, and consequently before the most principal angels, which were created before men: see ver. 17. Of the great blasphemies of the Gnostics and their followers the Valentinians in this matter, of angels creating the world, &c., see Irenæus, and note [d] on 1 Tim. i. And to that theology of theirs the apostle may here refer.

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And he hath an eternal being, before any thing which now is created was; and as all was created by him, ver. 16, so do all owe their continuance and preservation to him.

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And another title he hath to us beside that of Creator, as he hath redeemed us, and purchased us to

[e] an odour of a sweet smell] There were two altars in the temple of the Jews, θυμιατήριον, the altar of incense, within the temple, and θυσιαστήριον, the altar of sacrifice, without in the court. On these two were offered all things that were offered to God; and under these two heads, of incense and burnt-offering, are almsdeeds or works of charity here set down, as being the prime things now under the gospel to obtain God’s favour and acceptation.

Colossæ was a city in Phrygia, not far from Laodicea and Hierapolis, in the Lydian or proconsular Asia. To these St. Paul had not personally preached the gospel, nor so much as been among them, ch. ii. 1, but had sent Epaphras his disciple to them, and he had converted them to the faith, ch. i. 7. This Epaphras was at the writing of this Epistle (from Rome, about the year of Christ 59) a fellow-prisoner of St. Paul there, Philem. 23. And by him (as an eyewitness and principal actor in it) St. Paul, being advertised of the reception of Christianity among them, and the agreeableness of their actions to their faith, sends them this Epistle of consolation, to strengthen and confirm them: and the tenure and subject (and ofttimes the expressions) of it is muchwhat the same as that to the Ephesians had been, and we may thence conclude it to have been written near upon the same time with that.

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For in the man Christ Jesus it was thought fit that the whole divine nature should reside and inhabit, ch. ii. 9.

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And that having, by his sufferings and satisfaction for our sins, made peace between God and the world, he should reconcile all mankind unto God, not only the Jews, among whom he was born, and who had formerly been his people, and had the promises of Christ made to them, but the very Gentiles also.

[c] whether they be things in earth, or—] What is here meant by εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, whether the things on earth, or the things in the heavens, will, I conceive, be best discerned, 1st, by comparing this place of the reconciliation wrought by Christ with the parallel, Ephes. ii. 14. 16, where it clearly signifies the compacting the Jews and Gentiles into one church; and so again Ephes. i. 10, the gathering in one all things, both which are in heaven and on earth, doth signify all men of all sorts. Secondly, by remembering two observations frequent in this book: 1st, that it is the manner of the Hebrew writers to express this inferior world (for want of one word to signify it) by these two, the heavens and the earth, and indeed any aggregate body or totum, by mentioning and enumerating its parts, as the natural day, by the evening and the morning, and so to set down so many days and so many nights, where the truth of the story will not allow us to interpret it literally of so many nights distinctly, but of so many νυκθήμερα, or natural days, of which any the least part is computed for one. (See note [a] on Matt. xii, and note [h] on Ephes. v.) And not to multiply examples, but to confine the discourse to this particular, thus very frequently the heavens and the earth are set to signify the whole lower world, made up of the firmament of the air, that expansum which is called heaven, (as when we read, the fowls of the heaven,) and of the terrestrial globe of earth and water, (see note [e] on 2 Pet. iii,) and then (consequently to this) τὰ πάντα, all things here, explained and interpreted by εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς, εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, whether the things on earth, or the things in heaven; and in the like phrase, ver. 16, τὰ πάντα τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, all things that are in the heavens and on the earth, shall signify no more than what is in other places

Colossians 1:21

My love I present to every Christian among you. All the believers that are constantly with me, Titus, Linus, Clemens, &c. salute you.

And you that were strangers from the worship of the true God, and had engaged yourselves in idolary, and all the wicked practices that attend that, he hath now brought back to his service, used means, by preaching of the gospel, to reform you, to make you lay down your hostilities against God, the wickednesses of your lives;

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Nay, all the Christians in Rome, but especially they that belong to the emperor’s family, the servants of his court, salute you. # THE # EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE # TO # THE [a] COLOSSIANS. # CHAP. I. PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,

And to that end laid down his very life for you, by that means to present you to his Father, as those which, though sinners, are yet reconciled unto him, and are now acceptable in his sight, free from all charge of sin from the accuser of the brethren;

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Upon this condition only; that having given up your names to him, (received the faith,) ye continue firm and constant to the end, and whatever persecutions assault you, hold out by virtue of that hope which the gospel hath furnished you with, that gospel, I mean, which is now made known and preached to all the heathen world, (see note [d] Rom. viii,) and of which I am by Christ constituted an apostle and publisher of it.

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And though it cost me dear, bring many persecutions upon me, yet is not this matter of any thing but joy unto me, as knowing that what I suffer is but some small proportion and remnant of those sufferings which Christ began on the cross for the church, his body, and doth now again, though he be in heaven, endure in the persecuting of me an apostle of his,

¹² it seemed good that in him, ἐν αὐτῷ εἰδάκησε. ¹³ him, αὐτόν. ¹⁴ Or, a preacher

and apostle and minister: for the King’s MS. reads κήρυξ καὶ ἀπόστολος καὶ διάκονος. ¹⁵ by

way of correspondence fill up the remainders, ἀνταναπληρῶ τὰ ὑστερήματα.