A. OCCASION
In writing the Epistle to the Colossians, Paul engages in combat (2:1) with one of the most formidable opponents of his career. This enemy of the Church is a strange blending of Judaistic and Oriental religious practices with Christianity. It is called Gnosticism by later writers. “But a wholesale equation of the Colossian error with the later gnostic systems is certainly a rash assumption.”1
This subtle heresy, revealed in c. 2 of the Epistle, is not necessarily an attempt to eliminate Christ from religion, but to show Him inadequate as man's Saviour. Christ, in this view, is a created being, greater than man certainly, but less than God, one of many mediators between God and man. Christ is stripped of His essential deity and robbed of His propitiatory work at Calvary. Emphasis is placed on externals in religion—works of righteousness, ritualism, asceticism, abuse of the flesh, angelolatry, etc.—as marks of the Christian way. To Paul, such a view is unthinkable, in view of his own firsthand knowledge (Acts 26:13 ff.). And with one stroke of his brush—“in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (2:9)—he puts the whole picture in proper perspective. Christ is All; that is all.
This Gnostic view, however, seriously threatened the church at Colossae. It occasioned the meeting between Pastor Epaphras (1:7-8) and the Apostle Paul to deal with the problem.
B. AUTHORSHIP
The consensus of Christian scholarship is that Paul is the author of the Epistle; the method and content are Pauline. Some scholars still question the Pauline authorship.2 However, the Early Church attests its authenticity. And it is included in the most important P 46 papyrus (the Chester Beatty Papyrus), which was written about A.D. 200. 3 M. Renan says that Colossians should be received unhesitatingly as the work of St. Paul.4
C. DATE
Paul, at the time of writing, was in prison, it appears (4:10), but free to preach (Acts 28:30-31; Col. 4:18). Demas was still with him (4:14; II Tim. 4:10). It is concluded, then, that the time of writing was near the close of Paul's first imprisonment at Rome, about A.D. 625 (perhaps as early as 60).
D. DESTINATION
The letter is addressed to the “saints” (1:2) in Colossae (see map 1), a small town on a small stream in the Lycus Valley in Phrygia, about one hundred miles inland from Ephesus. It is about ten miles south of two more important towns mentioned in the Epistle, Hierapolis on the north bank and Laodicea on the south bank.6
The church could have been organized when Paul was at Ephesus (Acts 19:10), and probably met in a house (4:15). However, Epaphras, or Paul, could have established the church earlier (Acts 16:6; 18:23). It is strange to hold the view, as some do, that Paul never visited the Lycus Valley churches (cf. Acts 18:23), especially when Paul was such a tireless worker and traveler and was nearby in Ephesus for two whole years. The wording of Col. 2:1 seems to indicate that Paul did indeed know some of the believers there, while some, it is indicated, he did not know, nor had he seen.
Though the town was small and relatively insignificant, the Christians there and the issues in the church were vitally important. They called forth this superb statement by Paul on Christology. The letter was delivered by Tychicus (4:7-8).
E. PURPOSE
Paul's “achievement lies in his refusal to confine the Person of Christ to the limits of Messianic Judaism or on the other hand to leave any room for the extravagant systems of Gnostic theosophy in which the historical Jesus played a merely subsidiary role.”7
Paul shows the uniqueness of the Christian faith and its inevitable conflict with all other systems of religion and human philosophy. The uniqueness is bound up in the person of Christ, and the fruit of faith in Him is ethical righteousness (Col. 3:9). Paul will isolate all pretenders to Christ and His position, and will eliminate the practice of formulating doctrine according to human wisdom rather than according to divine revelation. He will refute those who would add any other requirements but Christ for salvation, all those who would in any way depreciate Jesus Christ. He will do so by declaring that the divine fullness dwells in Jesus Christ, that He is the mystery that has been revealed, that all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in and through Him, and that perfection is in union with Him alone. The Christ of Paul's gospel brings one to “the point of rest instead of being hurried along by the whirl of conflicting opinions.”8
It is becoming more evident that the problem in the Colossian community is pertinent to our day in a way not felt a generation ago. The world is rapidly opening up to accept the so-called Gnostic notion of Christ, that He fits in with all religions and systems. The Colossian errors are also today's errors. In the face of so many cults the issue becomes again the perennial one: “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?” (Matt. 22:42) So, once again, each individual must identify Jesus Christ for himself in scriptural terms and understanding. And the Epistle to the Colossians is superbly suited to make that identification possible.