The reference to the Christians having been delivered by God from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son (v. 13) sets the stage for the remaining discussion in the letter, which concerns itself with both the intellectual and the moral consequences of having been delivered from the “dominion of darkness.” Such a radical shift has apparently been difficult for the Colossian Christians to absorb completely, and this letter is an attempt to spell out the consequences of that shift.[1]
The first strophe is at pains to point out that there is no order of reality, visible or invisible, natural or supernatural, that was not created through the agency of Christ (Col 1:16). This means that, apart from Christ, the whole of creation would have no coherent centre and would fly apart or revert to the chaos from which it emerged (1:17). Christ is thus not only the agent of creation, he is also the agent of the world’s preservation.[2]
It may be that the Colossians confronted a religious amalgam made up of parts of Judaism and parts drawn from the worldview that permeated the Hellenistic world, with its fear of malevolent astral powers that would wreak havoc on the unwary.[3]
Whatever the origin of this “heresy,” it is clear that it argued that one needed to do more than just trust in Christ if one was to survive in a world dominated by powerful supernatural forces. One needed somehow to propitiate those forces. Against this, Paul argues for the total sufficiency of Christ… By his death and resurrection, he has defeated all other supernatural powers as surely as a Roman emperor has defeated the enemies he brings back to Rome and parades through the streets before their execution (that is the figure called forth by the language of 2:15). The Colossians are free to ignore this “heresy,” with its calls for further acts needed to protect a person from the depredations of evil supernatural powers, because Christ, working in the full and embodied power of almighty God, has in fact become ruler over all other powers that exercise any kind of rule in any portion of reality (2:9). Relation to Christ is quite literally relation to Almighty God, and hence any need to worry about any other spiritual powers, malevolent or otherwise, is rendered irrelevant.[4]
The word the RSV translates as “nature” and the NRSV as “self” (“old nature/self” in 3:9, “new nature/self” in 3:10) is the Greek word meaning “human being.” What is described is the “old” and “new humanity,” the point being that as persons develop within the structure of the Christian faith, they have the opportunity, now that sin’s hold has been broken, to become new human beings, with a human nature renewed now in the true image of their Creation. The image of God, lost to Adam in his rebellion against God, can now be recovered and restored because of the new reality God has introduced into the world with the death and resurrection of Christ. That is why the church is so central for Paul’s theology: it is the new community that be begin to reshape a humanity previously warped and corrupted by sinful rebellion against God.[5]
The second guideline Paul enunciates here is the need to do everything one does in the name of Jesus Christ, by whose self-sacrificing love the new reality has been brought into being. This guideline suggests that if one cannot perform an act in the name of Jesus, one ought not to do it.[6] [3:17]
Tychicus, named first, is apparently the one who is to deliver this letter. It was customary in the Greco-Roman world for the bearer of a letter to expand on its context and answer any questions the recipients might have about the letter or the situation of the sender (so 4:9b).[7]
[1] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 409
[2] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 409
[4] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 414
[5] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 415
[6] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 415
[7] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 416
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