Christ in you, the hope of glory

The Saviour’s unique glory, invested with the ‘fulness’, 1. 19, as the Reconciler of all things to God, is the basis of our blessing. Our past, as enemies of God, has been removed from God’s reckoning by the work of Christ ‘in the body of his flesh’, v. 22. We note again how Paul rejects any suggestion that Christ lost anything of His deity in His taking on humanity in a literal human body.

But our acceptance with God when we were justified is not the end of what God has in mind for us: He aims to ‘make us holy, without blemish and unreprovable in his sight’. It is clear that this is not a mere theory, for Paul writes of our continuing ‘in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel’, v. 23 ESV. These three terms are taken from the language of building, solidly constructed, and not shaken (as in an earthquake). Christian progress in the things of God is a down-to-earth practical thing, not a matter of visionary ecstasy.

Paul’s ambition, pursued in his service at great physical cost (his ‘flesh’, v. 24), was directed towards the blessing and promoting of the body of Christ. He suffered on behalf of Christ and His church. He valued highly God’s purpose to bless the Gentiles in this age of grace. So he can write to the Colossians, who had been sinners of the Gentiles, of ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’, v. 27. Whether he means Christ dwelling in individual believers, or Christ ‘among’ Gentile believers corporately, this is a great wonder. But he goes further - he writes of ‘every’ person, v. 28, in the Colossian assembly being brought to maturity through the power of God working in the ministry of Paul. This is an answer to the elitist visionary aspiration of the questionable teachers whom Paul opposes.

He accepts that this goal involves struggles on his part. All this on behalf of Gentile believers whom he has never met! The goal is that they may reach ‘the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ’, 2. 2 ESV. This is open to all believers. Did they desire wisdom and knowledge? It is all in Christ, hidden from the world at large, but open to all believers - ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’. This will be lived out in a steady walk, solidly founded, and gratefully enjoyed.