The Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ:
An Introduction to Colossians
Colossians 1:1–2
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
Well, what a privilege it is for me to once again stand in this pulpit, before you, and to have the honor of opening the Word of God to you. Many thanks to Nathan and the rest of our elders for allowing me the opportunity to take the lead in a new series through the Book of Colossians. That will be our plan for Sunday evenings over the next several months.
I couldn’t be more thrilled to study this magnificent letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul. And that is, preeminently, because the overarching theme of Colossians—the burden that he seeks to address as he writes this letter—is: the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ in all things. And if there is one topic of Scripture that is truly evergreen—a theme that is always relevant, always “good for edification,” that always “gives grace according to the need of the moment” (Eph 4:29)—it is that very truth: that Jesus Christ is supreme over all things and sufficient in all things. He is to “have first place in everything,” as chapter 1 verse 19 says. Or chapter 3 verse 11: “Christ is all and in all.”
It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the answer to life. Every evil that we face, every temptation to sin, every cause for fear, every trial or affliction, every sorrow and sadness—the answer to everything is that Christ reigns supreme, and that Christ is sufficient! If we could remember that truth, and believe that truth, and live upon that truth, we would be equipped to face every circumstance that God’s hand of providence leads us through.
And the challenges to Christ’s supremacy and sufficiency are ever present. The world around us, our flesh within us, and the devil against us all conspire together to convince us that Jesus Christ is not enough. False religion challenges Christ’s sufficiency for salvation. They tell sinners that the way to heaven is through good works. If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, then you can have hope for heaven.
But it’s like John MacArthur always said: there are only two religions in the history of the world: the religion of divine accomplishment, and the religion of human achievement. The religion of divine accomplishment is the religion of biblical Christianity, in which man—hopelessly lost in sin and powerless to satisfy the righteous demands of God’s law—is graced with the gift of salvation by the work of Jesus Christ alone, which is received through faith alone apart from works. The religion of human achievement is every other religion in the world: where man has to work his way to heaven. Sure, some may say that faith in Christ is necessary; you can’t get to heaven without believing in Jesus. But they deny that faith in Christ is sufficient. It’s faith in Christ plus the sacraments, faith in Christ plus works of charity, faith in Christ plus religious ceremonies.
But the Book of Colossians tells us, chapter 1 verse 20, that God reconciles men to Himself, “having made peace through the blood of [Christ’s] cross.” Though your evil deeds alienated you from God, verse 21, “yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” What do you need to stand in the presence of God blameless? The blood of Jesus, shed for sinners in His substitutionary death on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God, applied to your account through faith alone. Christ is sufficient for salvation.
But then there are also challenges to Christ’s sufficiency for sanctification. There seems to be an ever-present temptation for the people of God, who have been genuinely justified by faith in Christ alone, to wander from Him as they seek to make progress in holiness. We begin well, but we soon recognize that the law of sin still wages war in our members. We try to fight it, but we mourn over the slowness of our progress and the sluggishness of our heart. And just then, we’re vulnerable to manmade quick-fixes for sanctification. Talk of a “second blessing,” or being “baptized in the Spirit” and speaking in tongues. Or the deeper life, let-go-let-God approach, where you have to try hard to not try hard—to work in order to cease from works.
Or on the other end of the spectrum: concocting rules of our own devising that go beyond what the Word of God says. Paul rebukes the Galatians for this in chapter 3 verse 3 of that letter: “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” If the Spirit of God has united you to Jesus through faith alone, so that you are justified in Him, recognize that same Spirit of God through that same union to Christ, has brought you the blessing of sanctification in Him. And so Paul reasons with the Colossians in chapter 2 verse 20, “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ‘Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch’…—in accordance with the commandments of men?” No, chapter 3 verse 1, “If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is.” Christ is sufficient for sanctification.
Another challenge to the sufficiency of Christ is in the arena of wisdom. We hear it all the time from the world. “Do you mean to tell me you really believe that the words of bronze-age farmers are the words of God? that the earth is only thousands of years old? that a talking snake tricked a woman into eating a forbidden fruit in paradise? that a crucified carpenter rose from the dead?” The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18). And even among those who profess to be Christians! So many have their unique takes on how to decode “hidden messages” in the Bible. The letters really stand for numbers, and when you add up the numbers, it spells out the name of the Antichrist, or the two witnesses in Revelation 11. Or there’s the idea of contemplative spirituality—trying to ascend to a deeper plane of knowledge by turning inward for enlightenment. Colossians tells us, in chapter 2 verse 3, that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”! The most astute and formidable human mind in its search for wisdom can rise no higher than Christ, who is Himself, 1 Corinthians 1:24, “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Christ is sufficient for wisdom.
And truly, the sufficiency of Christ is challenged whenever we are tempted to seek satisfaction and fulfillment outside of Him. That is just what sin is. It is the ordering of our lives in pursuit of pleasure in what is not God. Sin is forsaking the fountain of living waters to hew for ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water, Jeremiah 2:13! Sin is to flee from the One in whose right hand are pleasures forevermore—Psalm 16:11—and to try to find fulfillment in the very things for which, Paul says in Colossians 3:6, “the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.” And Paul’s alternative is to order every aspect our lives to find satisfaction and fulfillment in Christ! Chapter 3 verse 15: the peaceof Christ is to rule in our hearts. Verse 16: the word of Christ is to dwell in our hearts. And verse 17 says, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Relationships between brothers and sisters in the church, between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between employers and employees—the Book of Colossians addresses all of that, and it is summed up in: Do everything you do in the name of Christ. Christ is sufficient for life.
Those are just some of the treasures that are to be mined out of the Book of Colossians, en route to extolling the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ in all things.
Historical Context
But the richness of those treasures are enjoyed most fully when we understand that the letter to the Colossians was not written to us. It certainly was written for us: all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. The Holy Spirit inspired this epistle for our instruction and benefit. But though it was written for us, it was written to the believers at the church of Colossae in the middle of the first century, in response to the specific challenges that that congregation was facing. And so understanding a biblical author’s intent is founded upon understanding the historical context in which they were writing. We can never know what Scripture means until we first understand what it meant. And one step in understanding what it meant is to consider the historical context in which it was written.
The ancient city of Colossae was located in the Lycus River valley of west-central Asia Minor, in the region of Phrygia—which is modern-day western Turkey. It was about 120 miles east of the city of Ephesus, which we know was a main hub for the Apostle Paul’s ministry. Colossae was always associated with two other cities in the Lycus River valley—Laodicea, which was about 11 or 12 miles northwest, and Hierapolis, which was 15 miles north-northwest (Moo, 26; Beale, 9). Churches in both of those cities are mentioned in chapter 4 verse 13, where Paul says Epaphras “has a deep concern for [the Colossians] and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis.”
The church at Colossae was not founded by the Apostle Paul. In fact, it seems that even at the time of writing Colossians in about AD 60, Paul had not yet visited this church. In chapter 2 verse 1, Paul speaks of those believers at both Colosse and Laodicea “who have not personally seen my face.” Instead, the church was planted by Epaphras. Paul speaks of him in chapter 4 verse 12 and calls him “one of your number, a slave of Jesus Christ.” And so Epaphras seems to be a native Colossian. And in chapter 1 verse 7, Paul says that the Colossians “learned [the Gospel] from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-slave, who is a faithful servant of Christ on [Paul’s] behalf.” So, Epaphras taught the Colossians the Gospel of Christ.
Where did Epaphras hear the Gospel? Well, Acts 19 describes Paul’s visit to Ephesus, where he was speaking out boldly in the synagogue, proclaiming the kingdom of God (19:8). And in Acts 19 verse 9, Luke tells us, “But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.” Verse 10: “This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.” Every day for two years Paul reasons in the school of Tyrannus in the major cultural center of Ephesus, which hosts many visitors, so that virtually everyone in Asia Minor comes to hear of the Gospel of Christ. Epaphras was one of those citizens of Asia Minor visiting Ephesus, who heard the Gospel, was converted, returned to his native city of Colossae, preached the Gospel to his countrymen, and founded a church in his hometown.
And Epaphras is with Paul as he was writes this letter, because in chapter 4 verse 12 Paul tells the Colossians that Epaphras “sends his greetings” to them. And we also know that Paul was in prison at the time of writing. In chapter 4 verse 3, Paul says “I have also been imprisoned” for the mystery of Christ. And in the final verse of the book, chapter 4 verse 18, he tells the Colossians to “Remember my imprisonment.” This is a reference to his first Roman imprisonment, which Acts 28:30 says lasted “two full years,” where Paul had “his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him.” This was also the time when Paul wrote his other so-called “prison epistles”—Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon—which scholars agree took place in the early 60s.
We learn that along with Epaphras, Timothy was with Paul, as Timothy is named in the opening of the letter; so also several of his brothers in the Lord, whom we read about in chapter 4 verses 7 to 18. And in Philemon, verse 23, Paul calls Epaphras “my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus.” And so it seems what likely happened was that Epaphras visited Paul in prison in Rome, and doing so identified him as a subverter of the Roman Emperor alongside Paul. And as a result, they threw him in prison alongside Paul! And so since Epaphras stays with Paul in prison in Rome, Paul sends Tychicus and Onesimus back to Colossae with the letter that has now become the topic of our study.
Well, why did Epaphras make the 1,100-mile journey from Colossae to Rome? As best we can discern from the content of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, it was to bring Paul news of false teaching that had infiltrated the church of Colossae, and to seek his advice on how to handle it. Why do I say that? Well, in chapter 2 verse 4, Paul says, “I say this so that”—and that’s a clue for the overall purpose that he’s writing—“I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.” In verse 7 he calls them to continue “just as you were instructed,” and in verse 8 he calls them to “see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” So there seems to have been a philosophy—a somewhat coherent system of thought, according to the tradition of men rather than according to Christ—that was threatening to take them captive, to delude them, to deceive them. And Paul’s chief purpose in writing them this letter is to warn them against being duped by this false, manmade system.
But what was that false, manmade system? What was the Colossian heresy that Paul writes to warn the believers of? Well, it’s somewhat difficult to say, largely because it doesn’t fit into a neat category of well-known philosophies of the day. It’s something of a mix between a perversion of Judaism, a perversion of Christianity, with some Greek philosophy thrown in. One commentator says the Colossian heresy was “a combination of Phrygian folk belief, local folk Judaism, and Christianity” (Arnold, as in Moo, 57). And I think that captures it well. Another scholar says, “It does not seem to have been the more straightforward Judaism against which the Galatian churches had to be warned, … [but] ‘more probably a Phrygian development in which a local variety of Judaism had been fused with a philosophy of non-Jewish origin—an early and simple form of Gnosticism’” (O’Brien, xxxii–xxxiii).
On the one hand, the reference to a circumcision made without hands in chapter 2 verse 11 seems to indicate a polemic against some sort of Jewish insistence upon receiving the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. In verse 16, Paul tells them that no one is to judge them in regard to dietary laws, festivals, or Sabbath days—all of which fit with the ceremonialism of Mosaic covenant worship. In verse 17, he’ll call those things shadows whose substance belongs to Christ—similar language to Hebrews chapter 10, where the Mosaic Law itself “has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things.” And then in verses 18 to 23, he speaks of a kind of asceticism—a self-abasement that intentionally deprives oneself of certain lawful pleasures as a show of legalistic spirituality. He calls it “self-made religion” and “severe treatment of the body” that are “in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men.” These are elements that would fit well—not with a pure Judaism, but with some perversion of Judaism.
Then, on the other hand, there are also elements of pagan philosophy that Paul is combatting. Particularly, it seems the false teachers in Colossae were teaching several of the tenets of what would later come to be known as Gnosticism. Sometimes the Colossian heresy is called a proto-Gnosticism, or an incipient Gnosticism. “Gnosticism” comes from Greek word gnosis, which means “knowledge.” The Greeks highly prized knowledge and the sophistication of human wisdom. In 1 Corinthians 1:22, Paul generalizes and says, “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom.” And so in their search for wisdom, they created entire religions built around gaining access to superior knowledge that could be attained only by an elite few.
And there are many details to work through as to the precise nature of Gnosticism; perhaps we’ll save those for another time as we deal with the exposition of individual texts. But for now, suffice it to say that Gnosticism challenged thedeity of Christ—supposing Him to be one of several “emanations” from a greater divine Being; it challenged the humanity of Christ—because it believed that matter was inherently evil and so Jesus couldn’t have really been immaterial God and material man; it challenged Christ’s sufficiency for wisdom, even as we mentioned before; and it challenged Christ sufficiency for a spiritual life of holiness that is pleasing to God.
And so if there is an attack on the deity of Christ, Paul will say, chapter 1 verse 15, “He is the [very] image of the invisible God,” the One who stands supreme over all creation. Verse 16: He is the One who created all things—“visibleand invisible,” matter and spirit, earthly kings and spiritual powers—“all things have been created through Him and for Him.” The fullness of Deity dwells in Him! He is seated at the right hand of God, chapter 3 verse 1. The kingdom of God is, chapter 1 verse 13, the kingdom of the Father’s beloved Son, Jesus! He is God of very God!
And if there is an attack on the humanity of Christ, Paul will speak of the blood of His cross (1:20), His fleshly body(1:22), and that in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form (2:9). If there is an attack on the sufficiency of Christ for perfect and pure wisdom—if some suppose that the secret to spiritual exaltation is the possession of a secret knowledge through revelatory visions—Paul will say, chapter 2 verses 2 and 3, that Christ is the mystery of God, and in Him “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And if there is an attack on the sufficiency of Christ for a holy life that is pleasing to God—if some suppose that the key to holiness is the fulfilling of Jewish ceremonies, the feast days, the dietary laws, sabbath-keeping, and harsh treatment of the body—Paul will say, “Those things have the appearance of wisdom, but they are of no value in restraining the flesh. Instead,” chapter 2 verse 19, the key is to “hold fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.”
And so one commentator summed it up like this. He said, “The design of the whole Epistle is this, That all hope of human Salvation is to be reposed in Christ alone; therefore, that we must rest entirely on the faith of Christ, and live according to the rule of the Gospel, rejecting Mosaic Ceremonies, and Philosophical speculations” (Davenant, lxxiii). John Calvin said something similar. He wrote, The false teachers of Colossae “contrived a way of access to God through means of angels, and put forth many speculations of that nature… This, therefore, is the principal object at which he aims—to teach that all things are in Christ, and that he alone ought to be reckoned amply sufficient by the Colossians” (133). “They need not seek, since they cannot find, perfection anywhere else but in him” (O’Brien, xxxix). “In Him,” chapter 2 verse 10, “you have been made complete.” All spiritual fullness is found in Him. And you are united with Him! You have died to sin in Him! You have been raised with Him, now to walk in newness of life! And your life is hidden with Him, in God. He is supreme over all things, and He is sufficient in all things.
I can’t wait to study this treasure chest of a letter with you. And having covered that necessary historical background, we come now, in the brief time we have left together this evening, to the opening two verses—to Paul’s greeting. And it is a greeting that follows the same basic pattern of normal letter-writing in the Greco-Roman world: the name of the author, the name of the recipient, and then a brief salutation. But Paul is so dominated by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel that even something as mundane and simple as the way he says, “Hello,” is transformed to reflect our true identity in Christ. Rather than just saying, “Paul, to the Colossians: Greetings,”—which is sort of the standard formula—even this opening salutation is packed with distinctively Christian theology. Let’s read verses 1 and 2: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ inColossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” And even in this brief introduction, we find three truths that are profitable for us to take note of. We find {deliberate} (1) the minister’s derived authority; (2) the Christian’s exalted identity; and (3) the Gospel’s blessed sufficiency.
I. The Minister’s Derived Authority (v. 1)
First, the minister’s derived authority. Paul begins by identifying himself as the author. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.” Now, as we mentioned, the Colossians had never met Paul, but through the ministry of Epaphras among them, they would have heard about Paul—the Hebrew of Hebrews, educated under the Pharisee Gamaliel, so zealous for Judaism that, as he says in Acts 22:4, “I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons.” The man who, as he was breathing threats and murder against the Christians, was knocked to the ground by a blazing light from heaven, where on the Damascus road, the Risen Christ blinded Paul’s physical eyes but opened his spiritual eyes to treasure the glory of Jesus, and called him into ministry. The persecutor had become the preacher of the very faith he once tried to destroy (cf. Gal 1:23). And by the Lord’s grace he became, as John MacArthur called him, “the most important and influential person in history since our Lord…. His personality was the remarkable combination of a brilliant mind, an indomitable will, and a tender heart” (13).
And he identifies himself as “an apostle of Christ Jesus.” The most basic sense of the Greek term apostolos just means “one who is sent.” And while it’s used in the New Testament to describe messengers of the churches, or even to missionaries sent out from the churches, here Paul is using it in its official sense. An Apostle of Christ Jesus is an eye-witness of the resurrected Messiah, personally commissioned by Christ Himself to represent Him in the world and proclaim Him through their preaching, and in this way to be the foundation of the early church—as Ephesians 2:20 says the household of God is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.”
So when Paul identifies himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus, he is declaring that the Lord Himself had sent him, and therefore, that he bears all the authority of Christ Himself. At the very outset of this letter, Paul is assuring the Colossians, whom he had not yet met, that he is nevertheless their apostle, authorized by the Lord Himself to speak into their lives. And so the things that he writes in this letter are to be received as if the risen Lord Jesus were Himself speaking to this congregation from the throne room of heaven. And that’s true for us as well. This letter that we hold in our hands is the Word of the Lord to us by means of His chosen apostle. And we owe all the reverence and trust to Paul’s letter to the Colossians that we owe to Christ’s own words, for by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, these areChrist’s own words.
But the point is not only that Paul has apostolic authority. The point is that the authority of the ministers of Christ is a derived authority. Speaking of the term apostolos, one scholar writes, “the one who is sent is of interest only to the degree that in some measure he embodies in his existence…the one who sends him” (Rengstorf, TDNT). An apostle was a representative, a delegate. He had no intrinsic authority. There is no interest in his originality. The only thing that mattered was that he was authorized by the one who sent him, and that he represented his sender accurately. This wasn’t an office that Paul seized for himself. He was “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” It was Christ who said of Paul, Acts 9:15, “He is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles.”
And so Paul comes to this dear congregation, assaulted by false teaching, and at the very outset, at one and the same time he claims the apostolic authority that makes him fit to speak into their lives and instruct them in Chrisitan doctrine; and he disclaims any authority that derives from himself. He speaks only as a messenger, precisely according to the will of the God who sent him. And if that is true for apostles, surely it is true for elders and pastors, today. Church leaders are ministers, not masters. “We do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:5). We do have an authority in the church; 1 Thessalonians 5:12 speaks of elders as those who “have charge over [us] in the Lord,” and therefore we are to “esteem them very highly in love.” But our elders understand: the minister’s authority is a derived authority. We do not speak in our own name, and so everything we say has to be squared with Christ’s own revelation of Himself in the Scriptures.
II. The Christian’s Exalted Identity (v. 2a)
Now, time constrains me to pass rather quickly over Timothy, whom Paul here calls his “brother.” In Philippians 2:20, Paul said Timothy was of kindred spirit—literally, of the “same soul”—as Paul. In 1 Corinthians 4:17 he calls him “my beloved and faithful child in the Lord,” who was capable of reminding the churches of Paul’s ways in Christ Jesus. His spiritual son he here calls his brother, showing the bond of affection that exists between likeminded servants of the Gospel. But having considered the minister’s derived authority, we come, in the second place, to the Christian’s exalted identity. Look at verse 2: “To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ in Colossae.” There is an ocean of theology in that phrase, as to the believer’s identity.
He calls them first, “saints.” Set-apart ones. Believers in Jesus must understand ourselves as those who have been specially chosen, graciously loved, and set apart—set apart by God, and set apart for God to be His special possession, and to serve Him in a life of dedicated worship. That’s a whole sermon right there! A saint is set apart by God and set apart for God, to be His special possession, and to serve Him in a life of dedicated worship.
Sainthood is not a category reserved for the spiritually elite on the basis of their own merits. It’s a title that belongs to every believer whom the Father has set apart for Himself through the work of Christ applied by the Holy Spirit. And far from being based on a believer’s own merits, it is applied to a believer on the merit of Christ alone. The great 18th-century Baptist preacher John Gill put this so well. He said that believers are saints, “not by birth, for all are unclean and holy by nature; nor by baptism, for that neither takes away sin nor gives grace; nor merely externally, by an outward reformation; but by separation, being an act of eternal election set apart for God, for holiness, and happiness; and by imputation, Christ being made sanctification to them; and by the sanctifying grace of the Spirit of God in regeneration, being called with an holy calling, and having principles of grace and holiness wrought in them.” It’s hard to improve on that, except to emphasize that, though we are not made saints by our holiness, we are made saints for our holiness, or unto our holiness—so that, as Colossians 3:12 says, “as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Paul also calls the believers “faithful brethren.” Christians relate to one another as brothers and sisters, as spiritual family. All those who are united to Jesus by faith have been adopted into the family of our Heavenly Father. And our adoption puts us all on a level. The things we now have in common with one another as we share in Christ far outweigh any natural differences between us. No matter what country you come from, what language you speak, what color your skin, what degree you hold, what paycheck you earn, you are united to a spiritual family of brothers and sisters, who bear your burdens; who rejoice with you and weep with you; who strengthen your hands in the battle against sin; and who employ their Spirit-given gifts to help you press forward on your journey toward heaven. Though we are strangers and aliens in this world, exiled in a land that is not our home, we can look one another in the eye and assure each other: “You’ve got family, here. You belong with me, and I’m here for you whenever you need me.”
And then Paul says: They are saints and faithful brethren in Christ Jesus. And this speaks to that great doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ: that all that we are is wrapped up in a spiritual union with all that Christ is. He is our head and we are His body, so that all that He has done on our behalf counts for us, and so that life and vitality flow from Him to us, like a vine supports the branches that are in it. Paul will tell the Colossians that they are being built up in Christ, chapter 2 verse 7; that they have been made complete in Him, verse 10; that by union with Him they received the heart circumcision of regeneration, verse 11; that they have died with Him to the elementary principles of the world, verse 20; that they have been raised up from the dead with Christ, chapter 3 verse 1; and indeed that their entire life his hidden with Christ in God, chapter 3 verse 3. Every blessing that you enjoy as a Christian, you enjoy on the basis of your union with Jesus. You are saints in Christ; you are faithful in Christ; and you are brethren in Christ.
And the fact that he calls them “brethren in Christ in Colossae” speaks to the fact that their spiritual location in Christ should shape and drive every aspect of their lives as they live in their physical location. And there’s so much we could say about that, but we must hasten on.
III. The Gospel’s Blessed Sufficiency (v. 2b)
We’ve seen the minister’s derived authority and the Christian’s exalted identity. Consider with me, in the third place, what I’m calling the Gospel’s blessed sufficiency. Verse 2: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” This brief greeting, which occurs in some form of all thirteen of Paul’s letters to the churches, is the Gospel in miniature: the very essence of the message of Christ—that through the work of Jesus, God our Father has granted us grace, and by that grace has given us peace.
“Grace” translates the Greek word charis. In a normal greeting in first-century Greek letters, you’d find the word chairein, which just means “greetings.” But Paul adapts the familiar chairein to the distinctively Christian, highly theological charis: “grace.” One commentator says of this switch, “Here is a marvelous example of Paul’s ‘turning into gospel’ everything he sets his hand to” (Fee, Philippians, 70). And it’s certainly legitimate to see “Gospel” in Paul’s mention of grace, here, because grace is the very foundation of the Gospel, and of all Christian experience. The natural man is so sinful that, in every way we relate to God, we can accomplish nothing for ourselves. Everything must be provided to us as an undeserved gift. And that is precisely what grace is: the unmerited favor of God, freely bestowed upon unworthy sinners as an overflow of God’s abundant sufficiency.
It is grace for God the Son, the eternal Word, to be made flesh and dwell among us. It is grace for Jesus to live a perfect life of obedience, fulfilling for us every demand of God’s law that we had broken. It is grace for such a holy, harmless, and undefiled One, to lay down His life in the place of sinners, to bear the wrath of God that we deserved and then to rise again in victory. It is grace for news of that glorious Gospel to be spoken in the ears of sinners so vile as we are. It is grace for the Holy Spirit to overcome our natural resistance to that Good News by opening our blind eyes and quickening our dead hearts. It is grace to be granted the gifts of repentance and faith, whereby we are united to Christ such that His death pays for our sins and His righteousness is counted to be ours. It is grace that sanctifies us throughout our Christian lives, so that we become more and more like Jesus—increasingly holy as we put off sin and put on righteousness. And it is grace sustains us, and causes us to persevere, until we arrive safely home upon the shores of heaven.
And the result of that grace is peace. This stands in the place of the traditional Hebrew greeting, shalom, which speaks of well-being, salvation, deliverance, wholeness, and tranquility. The grace of God brought to us in the Gospel brings us peace with God through our being justified by faith alone. The sure hope that grace will accomplish all God’s saving pleasure and one day soon bring us into His presence, gives peace. And the result of peace with God is experiencing the peace of God, which Philippians 4:7 says, banishes anxiety and “guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” One commentator said, “Grace is introductory good; peace is final good” (Davenant, 29).
And where does this grace and peace come from? “From God our Father.” The author of every good and perfect gift, James 1:17. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 2 Corinthians 1:3. Our Father is the source of our peace, as it is mediated through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus.
This is the Gospel in miniature, friends. And as Paul is about to undertake this apostolic search and rescue mission for this precious congregation that is being assaulted by false teaching, he lays the groundwork for that mission by greeting the Colossians with the truth—not only of his own apostolic authority, derived from Christ though it may be; and not only of their exalted identity, as saints and faithful brethren in Christ—but also of the Gospel’s blessed sufficiency: that message of grace that accomplishes peace from God our Father.
Conclusion
Have you trusted that Gospel, friends? Do you know this grace and peace? Have you turned from your sin and abandoned all hope in your good works to commend yourself to God? Have you beheld the glory of God shining in the face of the crucified and risen Jesus? And have you trusted in Him? Have you fixed all your hope for the forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God squarely upon His righteousness?
If not, you need to do that before you leave your seat tonight. You could sit through every single exposition of every verse of Colossians for the next six months. And you could applaud Paul’s valiant efforts at warning this dear church against soul-ravaging heresy. And your heart could swell with admiration as you behold the sufficiency of Christ for every aspect of our lives! And you could marvel at how Paul applies the Gospel to every relationship that you have. You can intellectually apprehend the content. But none of it will profit you if you remain a stranger to the grace and peace of God that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.
Turn from your sin. Submit your thinking, your behavior, your entire life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Trust in Him for the perfect righteousness that is necessary to enjoy eternal fellowship with God, and know this grace and peace. And then, your soul can rejoice with integrity in the truth that Jesus Christ is supreme over all things and sufficient inall things.