February 2016

Paul's Epistle to the Colossians Part 3: The Handwriting Against Us

Thus far three topics have stood out in the discussion found in Paul’s epistle to the Colossians: the fact that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh, and that He had come to reconcile His household to Himself, redeeming them and forgiving their sins. In relation to this, Paul explains that he, being assigned the administration of this household, suffered many things for their benefit in the execution of that assignment. Here in Colossians chapter 2 Paul will continue expounding upon all three of these topics as he also adds some admonitions as to how Christians should conduct themselves on account of these things.

1 For I wish you to know that as great a struggle as I have for you, and those in Laodikeia, and as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,

Laodikeia was about 10 miles from Colossae. In Colossians chapter 4 we learn that Paul also wrote an epistle to the Laodikeians (popularly Laodiceans), which has not survived to us. The Laodikeians are mentioned again in the Revelation, where they are the seventh of the seven assemblies which had received messages from Yahshua Christ.

Jesus Christ is God, or as we are more inclined to say, Yahshua Christ is Yahweh. I was startled, when I first became acquainted with the Christian Identity world, that so many people have not understood that, and there are still those who deny it. They want to limit God to a spirit world disassociated from reality. Those are seeds that the jews have sewn, and they still do, but in the end, they shall bear no fruit.

Paul's Epistle to the Colossians Part 2: Jesus Christ is God

The children of Israel had in ancient times sold themselves into sin, and for their sin Yahweh their God delivered them into captivity. From thence they were alienated from God, having been lost in paganism and a multitude of errors, and the resulting state in which they were found is frequently described in the books of the prophets and in the Gospel as darkness. This brief description encapsulates one aspect of the prophecies such as that which is found in Isaiah chapter 59, where in verse 2 the words of Isaiah in reference to Yahweh read: “2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” Then in verse 9 he speaks for all of Israel and says: “9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.”

The Gospel message is a message of reconciliation for those same children of Israel, that they repent and return to obedience to Yahweh their God in the mercy which is offered through Christ. So in the opening of this epistle to the Colossians, Paul exhorts them to “to walk worthily of the Prince in all complaisance”, and to do so while “12 being thankful to the Father, who qualifies us for that share of the inheritance of the saints in the light, 13 who has rescued us from the authority of darkness, and instead gave us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption: the dismissal of errors.”

Paul's Epistle to the Colossians Part 1: Rescued from the Authority of Darkness

Colossae was a city of Phrygia on the Lycus River, one of the branches of the Maeander, and 3 miles from Mount Cadmus, which is 8,013 feet high. It stood at the head of a gorge where the two streams unite, 13 miles from Hierapolis and 10 from Laodicea. Colossae, which was situated along the great highway that crossed Anatolia from Ephesus to the Euphrates valley, was mentioned by Herodotus, where he described it as being along the route of the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes. It was also mentioned in Xenophon's Anabasis, where he described it as being along the route taken by Cyrus when he marched against his brother, the Persian king Artaxerxes II, around 401 BC.

According to William Smith's Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology and Geography, Colossae was “a city of Great Phrygia in the plain on the river Lycus, once of great importance [citing Strabo and others], but so reduced by the rise of the neighbouring cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis, that the later geographers do not even mention it, and it might have been forgotten but for its place in the early history of the Christian Church. A fortress called Chonae was formed (probably by Justinian) on a precipitous hill 8 miles S. of Colossae, the position of which was not not defensible; and in the course of the 8th cent. [B.C.] A.D. altogether absorbed its population, so that its name passed away, and the village near its site bears the name Khonae.” While Smith, whose dictionary was published in 1904, believed the site of ancient Colossae to have been 8 miles north of Chonae (the modern Khonos), another site has since been discovered, 3 miles north of Chonae, where the remains of the ancient Greek city of Colossae have been located. There have been found extensive ruins of an ancient city, large blocks of stone, foundations of buildings, and fragments of columns. For a long time the ruins were known, but the site was not excavated. Recently, within the past 20 years, the site has been excavated and many inscriptions and other discoveries have been made and published.