Jeremy Duncan: All the suffering, all the labor, any contributions we make to see our here on earth look a little bit more like heaven, all of that is in some way Christ's work in us or through us. Or as Paul prefers to say, it's actually us in Christ. Now last week, we also started a new series, and we opened the book of Colossians together, and we grounded ourselves in the stars with Paul's cosmic opening to this letter. And the section that we worked our way toward last week is sometimes called the Colossian hymn. Runs from Colossians one verse 15 through 20.
And there, we looked at a bit of the structure, a bit of the poetry, but really we tried to focus in on three presuppositions that Paul lays out there. Sort of a prolegomena for everything that follows in this letter. Christ is the image of the invisible God. Christ comes from before all things and in him, all things hold together. And finally, the fullness of deity was alive and breathing in Jesus as he walked through this earth.
And my argument is part of what this is telling us is that everything we need to know about God, Probably, maybe not everything we want to know about God, but certainly everything that we need to understand the divine and live well can be found in looking at the way Jesus moves through the world. And as I said last week, this is very much the cosmic grounding of all of Paul's theology. He will absolutely get into the weeds when he needs to, dealing with church politics and personal scandals, all the muck and mire of human beings in community with each other. But at his highest imagination of the universe, at his foundational grounding of belief, there exists this profound trust that the fullness of divine life is revealed in Jesus. And Paul does some fantastic thinking throughout his career, trying to make sense of it all and attempting to piece together the story of God meticulously.
But over the years, spending a lot of time wrestling with Paul's writings, I've really come to believe that the core of Paul's theology is rooted in, can maybe even be summed up by two important poems. That's Colossians one verses 15 to 20, which we looked at last week. And then probably for me, Philippians two verses six through 11 as well. In these two short poems, we get the centrality and the supremacy of Christ through Colossians, and then we learn that all of that supremacy is expressed only in self giving love through Philippians. And that is good news, that Christ is the center and Christ is love.
And even though I am not a poet myself, I love that Paul's theology is really grounded in poetry. Often, I think our theology is like trying to learn all the words when maybe we should just learn to along instead. And maybe that's what Paul invites us to. So let's pray, and then we'll make our way into chapter two today. God who is the fullness of the universe, full of love and grace, full of peace and hope for what might come next.
Might we slowly come to recognize that everything we need exists within you. That you are the fullness we have been searching for with every step that we take through our lives. In that realization, might we finally find ourselves able to properly slow down, stop striving, and simply rest. Trusting that your arms are where we are wanted and welcomed and held safe. Might that safety be the place that we operate from.
Free from fear or greed. Free from hostility and revenge. Free from any drive that moves us away from your self giving love and the confidence that you hold us close through it. Might that slowly change everything about how we live daily. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Amen. Today, we are gonna move through Colossians two. And to do that, we'll cover, yeah, but what is lacking, mystical union, and then finally driving it home. But first, last week, we ended with this big fancy sounding word, apokatostases. This belief that, as Paul says in Colossians one twenty, through Christ God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.
Whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. What's interesting is that apo catastrophes is a somewhat controversial belief, even though it is literally just taking Colossians one twenty at face value. All things will eventually be reconciled. Or as I explained in my paraphrase last week, absolutely everything in Christ will one day find its way home because precisely nothing that points in any direction but Christ could ever be more than fleeting. However, I also conceded last week that there are certainly moments in Paul's writings where he seems, let's say, less optimistic than this.
And so, we have to deal with that tension. Right now, my son is 11, almost 12, which means he's almost 13, which means on any given day at any given moment, he thinks there are actually three adults living in our house these days. Maybe he's not wrong, but one of the ways that he has chosen to embrace and assert that somewhat conspicuous belief is by pouncing upon any perceived mistake that is made, even hinted at anywhere in our house. If you choose the wrong word in a sentence, if you mispronounce a syllable, if you, God forbid, get a fact wrong in front of him, it does not matter in which room he was hiding, my son will be there to connect you. It's astonishing, really, almost like a superpower.
If he didn't incontrovertibly get all of this from me, I might take more offense. And one day, he was correcting his five year old sister on some innocent mistake that she had made, and I said to him, hey, man. You don't need to explain everything. To which he replied, actually, I think you mean mansplain. And I was like, what are we doing here?
Because either that was actually really funny, or you're gonna get yourself in a lot of trouble one day, and I'm not sure entirely which yet. Well, if my son had been listening last week, and if his study of Colossians had been thorough enough, he might have heard Paul in chapter one verse 20 talking about all things reconciled to God and responded, well, actually, you said in Colossians three, put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. Thing is, he would have been absolutely right to do that because that is exactly what Paul says just two chapters later. Now again, I am not going to pretend that I'm going to settle a debate that has been raging for two thousand years in church history and counting, but I will say it's a lot like no one but my son have ever noticed this.
And so for, let's say, the first five hundred years of Christianity and still today in the orthodox traditions of Christianity, these two verses have both largely been taken at face value. That indeed all things will be reconciled, which is precisely why the wrath of God has to come. Or as Paul would also say in Romans one, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people. In other words, everything that takes us away from Christ, everything that hurts us, everything that injures our neighbor, everything that tears at God's good creation, all of that kindles the anger of God with every injury. And therefore, all of it will eventually come to an end.
And the most appropriate language we find in scripture to talk about this final destination for everything that is not in Christ is hell. The place where all evil is finally consumed by God. And to read that is clear and it's sobering and it should give us good reason to look at our lives with some careful consideration. What would be left of us if all evil were to come to an end? But at the same time, that should not in fact, I might even say it better not steal from us the hope that Paul offers in his cosmic foundation for faith.
Because in Christ, all things are created. In Christ, all things hold together. In Christ, all things will one day be reconciled. And that's important to hold on to because at the end of the day, our highest ideals about the universe and where everything is heading, that's really where our daily choices will come from, what shapes the person that we are becoming, which is exactly where Paul goes next. So, is Colossians one starting in verse 24.
Now, I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body which is the church. Now notice here, Paul goes straight from the foundations of the universe directly into, I mean, things he's struggling with. The the way the world is not what it could, what it should be given what he believes about the universe. He says, become the church's servant by the commission that God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. Now, this is that word logos here, the word of God from John one.
We talked about some of the connections there last week. But like John, I would argue, he's not talking about the Bible here. He's talking about Jesus, the word of God. Here's why. Because the word of God in its fullness is the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed.
So that's not the Bible. That's Christ. The final word of God now spoken to us. For God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now, we've a lot to cover today.
We are going to make our way into chapter two, but already we have again stumbled into yet another theological quagmire in Colossians. Because Paul starts this section by saying that he rejoices in what he is suffering, but then he goes on to say that in his suffering he, Paul himself that is, fills up in his flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions. And that is a mess theologically. Because at least on its surface, it sounds like Paul is saying that not only were Christ's sufferings lacking something, like unable to accomplish everything they were intended to, but that he himself can finish the job for old JC. And even for Paul, that is a little presumptuous.
And so while this is maybe not as exciting as Colossians one two, it's probably even more difficult to reconcile, pun intended, theologically. We do, however, from church history, have a few options here. A popular protestant approach has been to read the genitive in the phrase Christ's afflictions objectively. In Greek, you don't do the possessive the way we do in English. You there's no apostrophe s that you can just tag onto the end of a noun.
Instead, you use a particular construction called the genitive. And so more literally, what it says here is the afflictions of Christ with Christ being the subject of the genitive. However, that could also be translated objectively, meaning Christ is the object of the genitive. Therefore, the afflictions don't belong to Christ. They are making their way toward Christ or they are for Christ.
In that sense, Paul would be saying something like, I fill up in my body what is still lacking in regard to my afflictions on behalf of Jesus. Maybe we could paraphrase him this way. I wanna align my life with Jesus so I consider any suffering that I experience part of my attempt to live for him and like him. Now, I haven't suffered the way that Christ did, but I consider even any little bit of suffering part of my dedication to his way. That makes sense.
And that would be the objective genitive. There is another approach. It's very similar. It uses a less common reading of the genitive called a genitive of quality. Greek genitives are very useful.
They can be used for a lot of things, but they can also be used to compare two different ideas. So in this sense, it would Paul be saying something like, I consider all of my suffering to be closing the gap or filling up what is lacking between my experiences and the life of Jesus. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean he thinks his suffering will ever equal what Jesus went through, or that his suffering has any kind of effect on salvation the way that Jesus' sufferings did. It's just simply his way of comparing the two. Saying like, I want to be like just Jesus and suffering is going to be part of that.
I want to make my way toward him. Now, maybe you think it's still a little arrogant to even compare the two, but hey, this is Paul, so what are you gonna do here? That's the genitive of quality. There is still yet another approach to this verse, and it is often referred to as mystical union. The idea here is that Christ has suffered to save the world and reconcile all things, and that work is done.
See Colossians one twenty. It's over. But clearly, if we look around us today, the working out of salvation is not yet finished. And so those of us who are in Christ or unified with Christ, but that means not only are we saved by Christ, it also means we're now working alongside Christ to see the world that we want to see take shape. And so because of that, we could say there's this important spiritual mystical union about our lives between the completed work of Christ that's already done and the ongoing work to see Christ's kingdom made real.
And so in that sense, all the suffering, all the labor, any contributions we make to see our here on earth look a little bit more like heaven. All of that is in some way Christ's work in us or through us. Or as Paul prefers to say, it's actually us in Christ. So Paul is not saying Jesus didn't get the job done. I'm here to finish it.
He's saying the world is reconciled through Christ, but the path ahead is still unfolding in front of us. And we now, those of us who've already found ourselves on that path, we get to see our lives as part of the healing of the universe. So every time you pay even a small cost to do what's right, every time you sacrifice something to care for someone that you love, every time you offer even a kind word to someone that changes the trajectory of their day, these aren't just nice things to do. They are in some mystical way part of how Christ brings everything back home to God. And interestingly, this is actually the primary way that one of the most famous Old Testament verses about Christ and Christ's sufferings is used in the New Testament.
Isaiah 51 to 53 gives us the song of the suffering servant. It's often been read as a prophecy pointing us to Jesus. It's beautiful. Some of its most famous lines say things like this, we all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was to design the grave with the wicked, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Though it was the Lord's will to crush him, to cause him to suffer, the Lord makes his life an offering for sin. As Christians, we see this as obviously pointing us to Jesus. But historically, the Jewish readers have seen this as a symbol or a metaphor for the suffering of the righteous anywhere in the world.
What's interesting is that the New Testament affirms both. We see this song quoted throughout the New Testament, particularly applied to Jesus in Matthew, in Romans, and again in Revelation. But there it's not to frame Christ as a substitute for our suffering as if to suggest, look, there's no price for us to pay in following the way of Jesus. Instead, this suffering servant is the paradigm which we follow through the world. The one who saves us by demonstrating a way forward through suffering toward reconciliation.
And so in that sense, the suffering servant of Isaiah is Christ, but specifically because the servant is also the paradigm for all of us who follow the way of God even at a cost. We are in Christ as we follow his way through the world. And because of that, even our most miniscule efforts, our tiny bits of suffering, our smallest contributions are somehow part of God's grand repair of all things. And I don't know about you, but I find that incredibly compelling. To think that my choices can be part of healing the world, not because Christ didn't get it done, but specifically only because Christ did.
That's the mystery of God that Paul is talking about here. You in Christ, enacting the hope of glory for the universe. And that's done through you and I and everyone who places even a foot on the path of Jesus. Now I would argue that even though Paul has already started to make the shift from the cosmic opening poem of chapter one, I mean he's talking about personal sufferings here and how our choices as human beings can be part of shaping tomorrow. But at the same time, let's be honest, this is all very heady.
And I'm not sure I would call any of this yet even close to thoughts for daily life. Enter chapter two. Now we're not gonna go through this chapter verse by verse today. We just don't have time for that. Perhaps one day that would be fun to come back and do.
But I do wanna read through a few verses in chapter two to show you how Paul is starting to make that dive into the daily. This is verse one here. I want you to know how hard I'm contending for you and for those in Laodicea, for all those who've not yet met me personally. Now, we mentioned Laodicea in passing last week. There's a section in chapter four of upside down apocalypse talking about the city and that famous line about lukewarm water in Revelation.
They have their own interesting tale to tell. But I want you to notice here is that Paul is starting to signal a shift for us. He's already gone up and out in chapter one. He's taken us into the stars. Now he's starting to pull us back down to earth just a little bit at the end of chapter one.
Here he's rig he's signaling the shift. It's almost like he's saying, okay. All that was great, but if it's gonna matter, it's eventually got to land in relationships. And so he reminds them, look. All of this, all the things I'm saying, all this poetry I'm reading, at the end of the day, it's here because I'm here for you.
For your neighbors down the road, for those I haven't even met yet, all of my brightest thoughts are ultimately predicated on the idea that they will one day find purchase in our relationships. Poetry and prose are powerful, but it's love that will change the world. So what are the implications then of Paul's cosmic theology? Well, we can grab a couple highlights here in chapter two before we start to get into the meat of that in the chapters that will follow. This is verse six.
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught it, overflowing with thankfulness. It's community. It's mentorship. It's kindness. It's gratitude.
That's where our beliefs about the universe start to take root. See to it then that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Now once again, section's a little tricky here particularly because of this phrase, the elemental spiritual forces of the world. We don't entirely know what he's talking about here. Part of the problem is if we're gonna be literal, all he talks about here are the elements of this world.
It's a single world, And you could certainly take that in a spiritual sense if you wanted to, the spiritual elements of this world as opposed to the way of Christ. That is fair, but this is also a word that was used in common Greek language, in Greek philosophy to describe the foundational elements of a tradition or a philosophy, even basic words in a language. So there's a lot of debate here, but given that Paul is very specifically talking about deceptive philosophies and human traditions, I would argue it's probably best to simply translate this word as literally as possible in line with that. He's talking about the foundational elements of all of the patterns that we already know from all of the world around us. That now set against this new path we've embarked on in Christ.
In other words, your eyes have been opened to the mystery of your life in Christ, this conviction that all things are actually on their way back to God, and that you get to play even a small part in that. So don't now let yourself slowly get sucked back into the things that you once thought were super important. Things like money and status, things like revenge or greed, things like looking the part rather than letting Christ transform you from the inside out. You're on a different path now. Let that come out.
Which is why it's really interesting to see the specific examples that Paul offers as he closes this chapter out. He says, therefore, don't let anyone judge you by what you eat or what you drink or regard to religious festivals, whether a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day, whether it's Greek cultural expectations or religious ones, you need to start to choose for yourself. Because those are only ever a shadow of things to come. The reality, that's in Christ. So don't handle, don't taste, don't touch.
These rules pertaining to all that are destined to perish anyway, they're all based on nothing more than human best intentions. They have an appearance of wisdom with their self imposed worship and their false humility, their harsh treatments of the body, but none of that will get the job done. In fact, they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. In other words, what he's saying here is that rules won't fix you no matter how well intentioned. Because it's only once you actually begin to see yourself in Christ.
It's only once you begin to see your life as part of something bigger. It's only once you begin to trust that love actually sits at the center of all things and love is the destination for all that has been created. It's only once your imagination is as big as the cosmos reconciled to God that your daily choices can begin to instinctively follow that path. Not rules, but naturally flow from the conviction that God is really good. That you are perfectly loved just like every other person you encounter, and because of that cosmic conviction, you can now allow your daily thoughts to flow out of that same source of love.
What Paul is talking about here is the difference between religions and rules and a new imagination for the universe shaping our daily thoughts. That is what takes us toward and down the path of Christ. Let's pray. God, thank you that your invitation is so much bigger than a set or a list, a string of rules that we're meant to follow, but instead an entirely to imagination for what is possible. A belief that you are good, and therefore your creation is good, and therefore even our worst mistakes could never take us too far from you to be redeemed.
Might we believe that that is possible for everyone that we encounter? And then might it shape our thoughts about them, our actions toward them, the invitations that we extend to them, and the ways that we move through this world full of this imagination for all that is good and on its way back to you. God, in our best moments, let our best actions flow from that conviction. And in our worst moments, would you remind us by your spirit that you are near to us even then, calling us all the way back to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Amen. Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website, commons.church, for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community.
You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.
We'll talk to you soon.