Colossae was a town in Roman Asia, which had once been
a place of considerable importance, but which, at the time of
this Letter, had lost much of its former prosperity. It does
not appear that St. Paul had had any close personal connexion
with the Church at Colossae, but it is plain from the Letter
itself that his authority was recognized over a wide area. The
Apostle's attention had been drawn to the Church at Colossae
by a visit which he had received from Epaphras, who had been
closely associated with the Christians living there, and who had
told St. Paul of a dangerous heresy which threatened to undermine
the religious life of his fellow-Christians in that place.
This heresy consisted in a teaching, ‘drawn from the
atmosphere of mystical speculation,’ and ‘with no foundation
in history,’ which attempted to bridge the chasm between God
and Man by the assumption that there were many angelic
mediators. The necessity for this assumption lay in the prevalent
error that all matter was evil and, therefore, in direct
opposition to God.
Two obvious inferences from this heresy were the duty of the
worship of angels, and the need for rigid asceticism.
Against such unsatisfying mediation, and its consequent
dangers, St. Paul sets the Life, Work, and Person of the
historical Christ—the one, all-sufficient mediator, the Head of
all creation.
The obscurity of this Letter is due partly to the ruggedness
and compression of the Apostle's style, and partly to the fact
that the Letter combats a form of heretical teaching which is
by no means familiar to the reader of to-day.
-- --
TO THE COLOSSIANS.
Twentieth Century [1904], THE TWENTIETH CENTURY NEW TESTAMENT A TRANSLATION INTO MODERN ENGLISH Made from the Original Greek (Westcott & Hort's Text) (The Fleming H. Revell Company, NEW YORK & CHICAGO) [word count] [B14200].
