4. YOU WERE RAISED WITH CHRIST; THEREFORE … (3:1–4)
1So then, if you were raised with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ is, seated at God’s right hand.
2Set your minds on the things above, not on the things on earth.
3For you died; and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4When Christ, your1 life, is manifested, then you also will be manifested in glory with him.
The Colossians are reminded that they not only died with Christ; they were raised from the dead with him too—as indeed they have already been told (Col. 2:12). When Christ left the tomb, he was raised on high, and is now enthroned in glory, at God’s right hand. What does this mean for those who by faith have been united with him in his death and resurrection? They continue to live on earth in their mortal bodies, but they have embarked on a new way of life. The motive power enabling them to follow this way of life is imparted by him from the glory in which he now lives. Since his people share his risen life, their interests are now centered in him; his interests, in fact, have become theirs. They must therefore pursue those things which belong to the heavenly realm where he reigns; their mind, their attitude, their ambition, their whole outlook must be characterized by their living bond with the ascended Christ. The conclusion is inescapable. Having died with Christ, they now live with him and in him. Their life is bound up with his; it is, in other words, laid up in safekeeping with him, securely hidden in God. Because he lives, his people live also: because he is their life, their life is as eternal as his. The world cannot see their real life at present, just as it cannot see the exalted Christ. A day is coming, however, when Christ will be revealed in glory, and those whose life is at present hidden with him will necessarily be revealed with him and share his glory.
1 The readers knew (in theory, at least) that, like their fellow-Christians throughout the world, they had been brought to new life with Christ when they were spiritually dead, that they had been “raised with him through faith in the power of God” (Col. 2:12). On every occasion when they recalled their baptism and its meaning, they ought to be impressed afresh with the reality of their participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, and draw the logical and practical conclusions. If their death with Christ severed the links that bound them to the old world-order, which was trying to impose its dominion on them again, their resurrection with Christ established new links, binding them to a new and heavenly order, to that spiritual kingdom in which Christ their Lord was sovereign.
When Christ’s present position of supremacy is described in the Pauline writings as being “at the right hand of God,”2 the apostle is usually echoing the language of some primitive confession of faith, presumably familiar to his readers. Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God was an essential and constant element in the earliest apostolic preaching.3 It goes back to the messianic interpretation of Ps. 110:1, one of the most primitive of Christian testimonia.4 There we find reproduced an oracle of Yahweh addressed to someone whom the psalmist calls “my Lord”: “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.”
In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus refers to this oracle on two occasions. During his debate with the scribes of the Pharisaic party in the temple precincts he asked them why they should call the Messiah the son of David since in this psalm David speaks of him as “my lord” (Mark 12:35–37). It is presupposed that they would agree that the person addressed in the divine oracle was the Davidic Messiah. Again, during the inquiry before the high priest and his colleagues which followed his arrest in Gethsemane, he was asked if he was the Messiah, “the Son of the Blessed,” and he replied: “I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the Almighty, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61–62).5 The form of his reply may suggest the sense: “If ‘Messiah’ is the term you insist on using, then I can only say ‘Yes’: but if I am to choose my own form of words, then let me say that you will have the answer to your question when you see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Almighty, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” It was his own chosen form of words—and perhaps in particular his apparent self-identification with the “one like a son of man” who, in Dan. 7:13–14, receives eternal and universal dominion from the Ancient of Days6—that enabled his judges to pronounce him guilty of blasphemy. He was claiming, they held, to be the peer of the Most High. But after his resurrection the apostles proclaimed that the enthronement to which he looked forward had actually taken place: Christ was now reigning as king from the right hand of the Almighty, and would continue so to reign until all opposing forces in the universe had submitted to him.7
The apostles knew very well that they were using figurative language when they spoke of Christ’s exaltation in these terms: they no more thought of a location on a literal throne at God’s literal right hand than their twentieth-century successors do. The static impression made by conventional artistic representations of the heavenly session of Christ obscures the dynamic NT picture of the exalted Christ going forth by his Spirit in all the world, conquering and to conquer.8 What Paul understood by the heavenly session can be gathered from other terms used in his writings to convey the same idea: Christ has been given “the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10–11): he has “ascended high above all the heavens, in order to fill all things” (Eph. 4:10). Because he has been elevated to the position of highest sovereignty over the universe, he pervades the universe with his presence.
This reference to the exaltation of Christ, the seal of divine approval on his saving work, is not introduced here for an ornamental purpose. Paul is about to commence the paraenetic section of his letter, and his paraenetic sections regularly presuppose the content of the apostolic preaching.9 What God has done for his people in Christ is the grand argument and incentive for Christian living. The apostolic teaching or didache may be distinguished from the preaching or merkabah kerygma, but it is founded on the preaching—and in any case the distinction between the two should not be pressed too sharply. Whatever affinities may be traced between Paul’s ethical exhortations and those of contemporary moralists, their whole emphasis in Paul’s writings depends on their arising directly out of the work of Christ.10 It is because believers have died with Christ and been raised to new life with him that their conduct is henceforth to be different.
What, then, are the practical implications of being raised with Christ? In the first place, believers have now no private life of their own. Their life is the life of Christ, maintained in being by him at God’s right hand and shared by him with all his people.11 Their interests must therefore be his interests. Instead of waiting until the last day to receive the resurrection life, those who have been raised with Christ possess it here and now. The new creation12—the “regeneration”13—has already begun in them. Spiritually—that is to say, “in Christ”—they belong already to the age to come and enjoy its life.
2 Aim then at what is above, says Paul; set your minds on that14 and let it give character to your outlook on everything. The Gnostics also believed in aiming at what was above. They were seriously concerned with living on a higher plane than this mundane one. But Paul has in mind a higher plane than theirs. Go in for the higher things (he says)—higher things than the principalities and powers which dominate the planetary spheres, for Christ has ascended far above these.15 Don’t let your ambitions be earthbound, set on transitory and inferior objects. Don’t look at life and the universe from the standpoint of these lower planes; look at them from Christ’s exalted standpoint. Judge everything by the standards of that new creation to which you now belong, not by those of the old order to which you have said a final farewell.16
3 For, you see, you died in relation to that old order.17 The idea is so strange that it must be repeated and emphasized. You died, I say, and as for the new life on which you have entered, its true abode is where Christ himself is. “When our Forerunner triumphed, ‘He bore up with Him into safety the spiritual life of all His people.’ ”18
There is a widespread belief in many cultures that a person’s life is bound up with some external object, some “life-token.”19 This object, sometimes actually referred to as the person’s “life,” is safely hidden away in the belief that, so long as it is preserved intact, no harm can befall that person. There is no such idea in Paul’s mind here; yet the belief could serve as a parable of the truth he expresses. The believer’s life is safely “hidden away” with Christ. Its well-being depends on his. His people’s true life is an extension of that indissoluble life which is his in the Father’s presence.
Not only is their life hidden “with Christ” but “with Christ in God”—“a double rampart, all divine.”20 The expression “in God” is unusual in the Pauline corpus, in comparison with “in Christ” or “in the Lord.” The Thessalonian church is said to have its being “in God the Father” as well as in “the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1). A closer parallel to the present wording appears in Eph. 3:9, where the “mystery” now received and proclaimed by Paul is said to have been “hidden from eternity in God.” The divine purpose enshrined in that mystery is said to have been conceived eternally in Christ (Eph. 1:4, 9–10); it is, indeed, embodied in Christ (Col. 2:2). So the life of believers is hidden “with Christ” because they died with him and have been raised with him: it is hidden “in God” because Christ himself has his being in God21 and therefore those who belong to him have their being there too.22
4 “You know your life to be safely hidden with Christ,” says Paul, “although in the eyes of the world you are, spiritually speaking, without visible means of support. But when Christ, the true life of all his people, is manifested in his merkabah parousia, then you who share his life will share his glorious epiphany.”23
“Christ your life.” The apostle who could say, “For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), does not think of this as something which is true of himself alone. Christ is the life of all those who are united to him by faith, members of his body.
Nor is he their life only; because he is their life, he is also their hope. The indwelling Christ who is at present their hope of glory24 is the Christ whose manifestation at his parousia will bring them the realization of that glory. The inward revelation of his saving glory which has come home to them already is the earnest of a fuller revelation yet to come, the grand consummation of the union between Christ and his people. “The same man whose daily thanksgiving was that ‘it pleased God to reveal His Son’ in him could also hope for a day ‘when Christ, who is our life, shall appear.’ ”25 That is the day for which, as Paul says in another letter, the whole creation looks with eager expectation.26 Hitherto it is fast held in the bondage of frustration: as the Preacher saw, “Vanity” is written large over it.27 But what the Preacher did not see was that creation would one day be liberated from the frustrating cycle of change and decay, and participate in the glorious liberty of the children of God.28 That glorious liberty will be manifested on the day of their revelation, for the revelation of the Son of God in glory carries with it the revelation of the sons and daughters of God in that same glory29—the glory which is his by right and theirs by the grace which unites them with him.
A later NT writer voices the same thought in his own characteristic phraseology: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been manifested, but we know that, when he is manifested, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). To share in the revealed glory of Christ is to attain his likeness, as indeed Paul indicates again when he tells the church in Philippi that its constitution is laid up in heaven, from which “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:20–21). And what is this but the fullness of Christian sanctification? Here and now, according to the teaching of other Pauline letters, it is the province of the Holy Spirit within the people of Christ to reproduce his likeness increasingly in their lives,30 but the consummation of this sanctifying work awaits the day of Christ.31 Indeed, the presence and activity of the Spirit here and now is their guarantee of the heritage which is reserved for believers against that day.32 In this letter, as we have seen, this function is discharged by the indwelling Christ, his people’s “hope of glory.” The day of revelation and glory will but bring to complete and public fruition something that is already true—that Christians have died with Christ and been raised with him, and in him are partakers of the age to come.33
When the day of revelation and glory will dawn Paul does not suggest. Its date is unknown; its advent is certain. This consummating act in the series of saving events is assured by those which have already been accomplished. Those whom God foreknew “he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brethren; and those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified: and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29–30). The day of glory may be future but (as the past tense of the verb “glorified” implies)34 its arrival is as sure as if it were already here. For those whose faith is placed in him, Christ is already their glory, as certainly as he is their hope: the hope and the glory are comprehended in the life which all his people have in him.
With this reaffirmation of the Christian hope, the apostle concludes the more strictly theological section of the letter.
V. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (3:5–4:6)
The teaching contained in the preceding sections of the letter is now applied in detailed practice. As in other Pauline letters, the transition is marked by the conjunction “therefore.”35
Paul’s ethical teaching is evidently cast in forms which were in widespread use among early Christians. These forms may be traced back to the ethical teaching of Jesus himself. But Paul emphasizes the logical connection between theology and practice. He does not inculcate Christian doctrine simply in order that his readers may have a firm intellectual grasp of it; he insists that it must find expression in Christian living.36 On the other hand, his ethical teaching is never left suspended in air: it is firmly founded on the saving revelation of God in Christ. If his theology is a theology of grace, the practical response to that grace is gratitude—gratitude in action as well as in word.37
Here, then, he enunciates general Christian maxims: there are old practices to be abandoned; there is a new way of life to be adopted. The old must be “put off”; the new must be “put on”—a figure of speech which has been associated with the wearing of new garments at one’s baptism.38
It appears that the church began at an early date to classify its ethical teaching in categories which would be easily taught and remembered, each being introduced by a sort of catchword. The steady increase in the number of believing Gentiles made it desirable that they should receive the elements of Christian ethics in a form which could be readily assimilated.39 These catechetical forms are recognizable in several NT letters, and their recurrence is not to be accounted for by the dependence of one letter on another but by the indebtedness of all to a common paradosis of practical teaching.40 Of these forms with their distinctive catchwords four are discernible here: they consist of the paragraphs which expand the injunctions to “put off” (Col. 3:5–11); “put on” (Col. 3:12–17); “be subject” (Col. 3:18–4:1); and “watch and pray” (Col. 4:2–6).
1. “PUT OFF” (3:5–11)
5Therefore, treat your41 earthly members as dead—fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire,42 and covetousness, which is idolatry.
6It is because of these things43 that the wrath of God is coming [on the disobedient].44
7Formerly you also behaved in that way, when you lived in such practices;
8but now you also must put them all off—wrath, anger, malice. Get slander and foul language right out of your mouths.45
9Tell no lies one to another, since you have put off the “old man” with his actions
10and have put on the “new man,” who is being renewed after his Creator’s image so as to attain true knowledge.
11Here there is no46 Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave or47 free; but Christ is all48 and in all.
Now that you are new men and women in Christ, says the apostle, live like new men and women. You have said good-bye to your old life; therefore have done with all those things that were characteristic of it. You have died with Christ; act and speak and think therefore so as to make it plain that this “death” is no mere figure of speech, but a real event which has severed the links which bound you to the dominion of sin. In short, be (in actual practice) what you now are (by a divine act).
There is a true Christian askēsis, which is quite different from the askēsis which the Colossians were being urged to undertake. The Christian askēsis consists in the renunciation of all sinful propensities and pursuits, so that the new nature, divinely implanted within, may find outward expression in the fair fruit of a holy life.
5 While the first of the four ethical paragraphs contains the catchword “put off” (v. 8), the paragraph is introduced by the equivalent injunction “put to death” or, as it might be rendered, “reckon as dead.”49 “Reckon as dead those ‘members’ of yours which partake of the nature of the old earthly life.” Paul is not talking here of the actual members of the human body, nor is he expressing himself in quite the sense intended by Jesus when he said that the offending hand or foot should be cut off or the offending eye plucked out, if entrance into life could not otherwise be gained. This seems plain from the apposition of the noun “members” with the following list of vices.50 Yet this apposition is so abrupt that attempts have been made to ease the difficulty of the construction by expedients which nevertheless are unconvincing. Thus Lightfoot puts a heavy stop after “treat your earthly members as dead” and regards the following nouns (“fornication, impurity, …”) as “prospective accusatives” governed by some such verb as “put off” in v. 8.51 On this showing, Paul intended to make the accusatives directly dependent on the verb “put off,” but before he reached the verb he introduced intervening clauses which led to a change in the structure of the sentence. To be sure, such breaches of construction (anacolutha) are by no means uncommon in Paul’s epistolary style; but in this place, if he had meant to make the accusatives directly dependent on the verb “put off,” he would almost certainly have put that verb in front of them.52 Even less convincing is Charles Masson’s expedient: he takes “members” as vocative and interprets the passage thus: “You members [of the body of Christ] are therefore to reckon as dead the things which are on the earth—fornication, impurity, etc.”53
What we have here is rather an extension of the ordinary sense of “members.” Since these people’s bodily members had been used as instruments of sin in their former life (cf. Rom. 6:19), they are viewed here as comprehending the various kinds of sin which were committed by their means. In Rom. 7:23 Paul speaks of “the law of sin which dwells in my members”; here he goes farther and practically identifies the members with the sins of which they had once been the instruments.54 But what he really has in mind is the practices and attitudes to which his readers’ bodily activity and strength had been devoted in the old life. Of these he mentions first of all fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, proceeding from the more overt to the less overt. These things had to be regarded as dead. Since believers have died with Christ, the domination of the old habits and instincts has been broken. But this severance of the old relation by reason of death can equally well be expressed the other way around: if, from one point of view, believers have died to these things, then, from another point of view, these things are dead so far as believers are concerned: they are no longer able to enforce their claims as they once did. So, in Rom. 6:11, Paul exhorts his readers to reckon themselves as dead to sin but alive to righteousness, while in Rom. 8:13 he says, “if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live” (the “deeds of the body” being such things as are listed here in Col. 3:5).55
It has been said that, in his oscillation between the idea of the Christian’s having died with Christ and the idea of his still having to “put to death” the old bad habits, or to reckon himself as dead, Paul can be charged with inconsistency. “He is working with an abstract theological idea which does not fit in with the facts of life, and in his effort to assert it he is involved in constant trouble.”56 This criticism does less than justice to the reality of the believer’s union with Christ and reception of new life in him, which is much more than an “abstract theological idea.” The difficulty arises rather from the circumstance that believers, in fact and in conscious experience, exist on two planes so long as mortal life endures: spiritually they already belong to the age to come, while temporally they are involved in this present age; spiritually they are united to Christ at God’s right hand, while temporally they live on earth. The impartation of the new nature by Christ does not effect the immediate annihilation of the old hereditary nature; so long as they live in this world, the old nature persists like a dormant force which may spring into activity at any time. Hence the tension, which arises not from any inconsistency between Paul’s premises and his recognition of the facts of human life, but from well-known conditions of Christian existence.
The believer is dead to the world with Christ (Col. 2:20; 3:3), having put off the old nature in him (Col. 2:11; 3:9) and been liberated from sin (Rom. 6:6–7, 11, 18, 22); on the other hand, the believer is still in the world in a mortal body and exposed to sinful temptations. Hence this antinomy in the apostle’s thought; hence his transition back and forth between the indicative and the imperative:57 “Be what you are!”58
In moving from the outward manifestations of sin to the cravings of the heart—from improper acts to their inner springs—Paul proceeds in the manner of our Lord, who in the Sermon on the Mount traces murder back to the angry thought, and adultery to the lustful glance (Matt. 5:21–22, 27–29). Catalogues of vices were common form among pagan moralists and in the antipagan polemic of Jewish propagandists.59 Such lists appear repeatedly in Paul’s letters (cf. Rom. 1:29–31; 1 Cor. 5:11; 6:9–10; Gal. 5:19–21; Eph. 5:3–4), receiving a special significance from the Christian context in which they are set.
Fornication,60 which appears first in the list of sins, receives the same preeminence among the “works of the flesh” enumerated in Gal. 5:19–21. It means primarily traffic with harlots; it is found also as a near-technical term for sexual relations within prohibited degrees61 and, more widely, of sexual irregularity in general. In its primary sense it was so common in Graeco-Roman antiquity that, except when carried to excess, it was not regarded as especially reprehensible. Some of Paul’s churches had difficulty in abandoning their former pagan tolerance of it; hence his specific warnings against it: “Shun fornication” (1 Cor. 6:18); “abstain from fornication” (1 Thess. 4:3).
Impurity62 has a wider range of meaning than fornication. It includes the misuse of sex, but is applicable to various forms of moral evil: Demosthenes, for example, uses it of one who, pretending to be a man’s friend, commits perjury to do him an injury.63
The word translated “passion” covers a variety of emotion and affection, but when it appears in this kind of context it denotes “dishonorable passions,”64 as it is put explicitly in Rom. 1:26. So also the word translated “desire” denotes strong desire whether good or bad, but here it is expressly qualified as “evil.” (Even if the adjective be omitted, as it is in some textual witnesses, the context would be sufficient to indicate that evil desire is meant, which indeed is the usual significance of the word in Paul’s writings.)65
The climax of the present list is covetousness, which is equated with idolatry, as in Eph. 5:5.66 Covetousness is idolatry because it involves the setting of one’s affections on earthly things and not on things above, and therefore the putting of some other object of desire in the place which God should occupy in his people’s hearts. So, in Phil. 3:19–20, the contrast is pointed between those whose minds are “set on earthly things” and those whose citizenship is in heaven. The exceeding sinfulness of covetousness was revealed to Paul, according to Rom. 7:7–13, when he became aware of the commandment “Thou shalt not covet” (and even if that passage is not truly autobiographical, the validity of his argument is not affected). The sins which precede covetousness in the catalogue appear regularly in such lists, and certainly they were sins against which converts from paganism needed to be put on their guard; but covetousness is the more dangerous because it may assume so many respectable forms.
6 As Paul emphasizes elsewhere, and above all in the great arraignment of the pagan world in Rom. 1:18–32, these vices incur divine retribution.67 God has written his decree against them not only in the law as Israel received it, but in the conscience and constitution of men and women, so that it cannot be violated with impunity. The retribution manifests itself in the inevitable consequences incurred by those who freely choose a course of life that sets the Creator’s law at nought. The textually doubtful phrase “on the disobedient” (lit., “on the sons of disobedience”),68 which may have been imported from Eph. 5:6, denotes those whose lives are characterized by defiance of the law of God and consequent liability to his wrath; the opposite idea is conveyed by the phrase “obedient children” (lit., “children of obedience”) in 1 Pet. 1:14.69
7 You yourselves used to practice these vices,70 Paul reminds the Colossians; you too were numbered among “the disobedient.” This is not the only place in the NT where a catalogue of pagan vices is immediately followed by a reminder to the readers that not so long ago their own lives were marked by these things.71 It was largely for this reason that Paul’s critics thought him so foolishly impractical in stressing gospel liberty where such people were concerned. Gospel liberty, they thought, might be all very good for Jews and God-fearers who had learned to acknowledge the law of God in their lives, but people so lately weaned from pagan immorality ought to be subjected first to a period of probation before they could be properly recognized as full members of the church. Paul’s policy was different: pagans though these people had once been, they had now received a new nature; they were in Christ and Christ lived in them. If they accepted the logic of this new situation, if they looked on themselves as dead to their former desires and alive to God in Christ, then the Christ-life now coming to maturity within them would manifest itself in a new pattern of behavior.
8 So, he tells them, put off72 all those old habits, just as you would discard an outworn suit of clothes which no longer fitted you. And a repulsive collection of habits they are, to be sure—anger, quick temper,73 malice,74 and the language which accompanies these things, slander and foul talk.75 Get rid of them all; do not let your mouths be polluted with the scurrilous and filthy language that used to flow readily from them.
9 Another thing that polluted your mouths was lying: you used to tell lies as though it were the natural thing to do; have done with such conduct.76 Your tongues were given you to speak the truth; be known as men and women of your word.
You see, he goes on, you have stripped off77 the “old man” that you used to be, together with the practices in which he loved to indulge.78 This was emphasized in Col. 2:11–22, where their baptism was said to be, in effect, not the removal of an insignificant scrap of bodily tissue, as the old circumcision was, but the stripping off of the whole “body of flesh”—the renunciation of the sinful nature in its entirety. This they had already done, in principle at least, and by the same token they had put on a new nature.79 But what was that new nature? It was the “new man” who was being continually renewed80 with a view to their progressive increase in true knowledge81—renewed in conformity with the Creator’s image.
10 When Paul speaks of the renewal of the new man, his intention is much the same as when he says in 2 Cor. 4:16, “though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.” The life and power of Christ within is thus being constantly renewed, as the Christ-likeness is being reproduced more and more in the believer’s life.82
In the phrase “after his Creator’s image” it is impossible to miss the allusion to Gen. 1:27, where the first Adam is said to have been created by God “in his own image.”83 But the first Adam is now seen as the “old man” who must be discarded, in order that the believer may put on the new man, the “last Adam.” Nor is there any doubt about the identity of the new man. Paul had already told the Corinthians that, as “the first man Adam became a living being” (Gen. 2:7), so “the last Adam became a life-giving spirit … the first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven” … and “just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:45–49).84 The “last Adam” or “new man,” that is to say, is effectively Christ. So, in Gal. 3:27, instead of telling his readers (as here) that they have put on the “new man,” Paul says directly, “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”85 To “put on Christ” is the necessary corollary of being “in Christ.”
The conception of Christ as the Second Man, the last Adam, head of a new creation as the first Adam was of the old creation, is thoroughly biblical, and there is no need to look for its sources outside the biblical tradition. The age to come is pictured as a new creation in the OT86 and postbiblical Judaism,87 and in that new creation (as in the old) dominion is divinely bestowed on “one like a son of man” (Dan. 7:13). In the NT this “one like a son of man” is identified with Jesus.88 While the presentation of Jesus as the second Adam in the NT is predominantly Pauline,89 it is not exclusively so: it may be traced in the Gospels,90 in Hebrews,91 and in Revelation.92 As the first Adam’s posterity, by virtue of their solidarity with him in the old creation, are involved in his transgression, so the people of Christ, by virtue of their solidarity with him in the new creation, share the redemption and eternal life which he has procured.93
One result of the putting on of the new man is a new knowledge. The “knowledge” (gnōsis) that was held out to the Colossians was a distorted and imperfect thing in comparison with the true knowledge accessible to those who, through their union with Christ, had been transformed by the renewing of their minds. This true knowledge was, in short, nothing less than the knowledge of God in Christ, the highest knowledge to which human beings can aspire.
11 It is not only the old sinful habits and attitudes that are done away with in this new creation. The barriers that divided human beings from one another are done away with as well. There were racial barriers, like that between Gentile94 and Jew; this was also a religious barrier, as the reference to circumcision and uncircumcision indicates. There were cultural barriers, which divided Greeks and barbarians—or, in the circumstances of the first century A.D., divided those outside the pale of Graeco-Roman civilization, like the Scythians, from those within. There were social barriers, such as that between slaves and free persons. Outside the Christian fellowship those barriers stood as high as ever, and there were Christians on the one side and on the other. From the viewpoint of the old order these Christians were classified in terms of their position on this side or that of the barriers. But within the community of the new creation—“in Christ”—these barriers were irrelevant; indeed, they had no existence.
There is a close similarity between this passage and Gal. 3:28, where Paul affirms that for those who have been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no ‘male and female’; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” There the choice of antitheses is apparently made so as to assert the abolition of the religious privileges enjoyed in Judaism by a Jew over a Gentile, a slave over a free person, a man over a woman.95 Here the wording is more general.
As for the obliteration in Christ of the old religious distinction between Jew and Gentile, this was one of the most remarkable achievements of the gospel within a few decades. The wonder of it is especially celebrated in the first three chapters of Ephesians. No iron curtain of the present day presents a more forbidding barrier than did the middle wall of partition which separated Jew from Gentile. As to the Galatians, so now to the Colossians Paul no doubt found it necessary to emphasize the abolition of this distinction in view of elements of the teaching which he was countering in the one situation as in the other. “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek” either in respect of their need of salvation or in respect of the grace of God, bestowed impartially on both; “for God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Rom. 3:22; 10:12; 11:32). Natural and racial idiosyncrasies may survive, but in such a way as to contribute to the living variety of the people of Christ, not so as to create or perpetuate any difference in spiritual status.
Where cultural differences exist, the gospel ignores them. Paul reckoned himself to be debtor “both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish” (Rom. 1:14)—that is, to all sorts and conditions of men and women. Greeks divided the human race into two camps—Greeks and barbarians (those whose language was not Greek). As the area of Greek civilization spread, especially after the Roman conquest, when “captured Greece took her savage captor captive,”96 so people like the Romans, who were not Greeks by nationality, came to be included in the wider Graeco-Roman civilization of the Mediterranean world. Outside this area of civilization were the barbarians, and among the barbarians the Scythians had for long been looked on as particularly outlandish. “Scythian” is not set here in antithesis to “barbarian”; it intensifies the concept expressed by “barbarian.” Since the Scythian invasion of the Fertile Crescent toward the end of the seventh century B.C.,97 “Scythian” had been a byword for uncultured barbarism. In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Scythian slaves did police duty in Athens, and Scythian policemen are figures of fun in Attic comedy because of their uncouth ways and speech.98 But the gospel overrides cultural frontiers; they have no place in the Christian church.
The same is true of the distinction between slave and free. For Greeks and Romans alike, a slave in law was not a person but a piece of property. Aristotle could define a slave as “a living tool, as a tool is an inanimate slave.”99 But within the believing community slaves as much as free persons were brothers and sisters “for whom Christ died.”100 Paul did something revolutionary when he sent Onesimus back to his former owner Philemon “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave—a dear brother,” since to the previous temporal bond between them there was now added the bond which united them “in the Lord” (Philem. 16).101 Philemon might still receive obedience from Onesimus, but now it would be obedience gladly rendered by one Christian brother to another. The old relationship is transformed by the new. “We might say that the distinction of social function remains but the distinction of class is destroyed—because all are brothers in Christ. It is only when the latter is added to the former that snobbery is produced and ill-feeling is bred between those of different social function.”102 (Similarly, when Paul says in Gal. 3:28 that in Christ “there is no ‘male and female,’ ” he does not mean that the distinctive roles and capacities of man and woman are abolished, but that any inequality between them in religious status or function has been removed.)
Perhaps in this way the gospel made its deepest impression on the pagan world. A slave might be a leader in a Christian church by virtue of his spiritual stature and ability, and freeborn members of the church would humbly and gratefully accept his direction.103 In times of persecution slaves showed that they could face the trial and suffer for their faith as courageously as freeborn Romans. The slave-girl Blandina and her mistress both suffered in the persecution which broke out against the churches of the Rhone valley in A.D. 177, but it was the slave-girl who was the hero of the persecution, impressing friend and foe alike as a “noble athlete” in the contest of martyrdom.104 In the arena of Carthage in A.D. 202 a profound impression was made on the spectators when the Roman matron Perpetua stood hand-in-hand with her slave Felicitas, as both women faced a common death for a common faith.105 What real difference could there be for a Christian between bond and free?106
Nor has the time gone by when this note needed to be sounded. Our world is crossed and recrossed by barriers of one kind and another, and our life is scarred by the animosities cherished by one side against the other. But in Christ these barriers must come down—iron curtains, color bars, class distinctions, national and cultural divisions, political and sectarian partisanship. It is not difficult to rephrase, in terms of the divisions of modern life, Paul’s declaration that “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free” (1 Cor. 12:13). In the unity of that body there is no room for old cleavages: Christ is all, and in all.107 The Christ who lives in each of his people is the Christ who binds them together in one. This “restoration of the original image of creation”108 will yet be universally displayed; but how good and pleasant it is when here and now that day of the revelation of the sons and daughters of God is anticipated and our divided world is confronted with a witness more eloquent than all our preaching and feels constrained to say, as in Tertullian’s time, “See how they love one another!”109
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dear to him, put on a compassionate heart, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience,
13bearing with one another and forgiving whatever complaint110 one may have against another. As the Lord111 forgave you, so do you also forgive.
14And above all these put on love, the perfect bond.112
15Let the peace of Christ,113 to which you were called in one114 body, be arbiter in your hearts; and be thankful.
16Let the word of Christ115 dwell in you richly, as you teach and instruct one another in all wisdom, singing with thanksgiving in your hearts to God, in psalms, hymns and Spirit-inspired songs.116
17Whatever you do, in word or in action, do117 it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,118 giving thanks through him to God the Father.
As those who have put on the “new man,” the apostle continues, Christians should cultivate and manifest the qualities which are characteristic of him. Those qualities, as one considers them, are seen to be those which were preeminently displayed in the life of Jesus; no wonder, then, that when Paul in another place wishes to commend the whole body of Christian graces, he sums them up by saying, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14).
12 Believers in Christ are God’s chosen people.119 As the nation which God chose in OT times “to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth,” was enjoined to be “careful” to keep his commandments (Deut. 7:6–11) and to be holy, as he was holy (Lev. 11:44, etc.), so men and women of the new creation, his choice souls, whom he has set apart for himself and into whose hearts he has poured his love, should inevitably exhibit something of his nature. Jesus made this point in the Sermon on the Mount when he said that peacemakers would be known as the sons of God, and that members of God’s family ought to be compassionate like their heavenly Father (Matt. 5:9; Luke 6:36).120 So here, and probably by way of echoing the teaching of Jesus, Paul tells his readers to “put on” compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience—graces that were perfectly blended in their Master’s character and conduct.
The “compassionate heart” is literally “bowels of compassion”121 (because the tender emotions in biblical idiom have their seat in the bowels). From the Greek word for “bowels” is derived a verb which is repeatedly used of Jesus’ compassionate reaction to people in need, as when he “had compassion” on the leaderless multitude of Mark 6:34.122 As for the noun translated “compassion,” Paul uses it when he appeals to the Roman Christians “by the mercies of God” (Rom. 12:1)123 and when, writing to the Corinthians, he calls God “the Father of mercies” (2 Cor. 1:3).124 Like Father, like children.
“Kindness”125 (included in the ninefold “fruit of the Spirit” in Gal. 5:22) is also a quality of God. “Taste and see that the LORD is kind,” says the psalmist (Ps. 34:8).126 Jesus taught his hearers to be kind, because God is “kind to the ungrateful and ungenerous,” and those who imitate him in this “will be sons of the Most High” (Luke 6:35). His “kindness and severity” are displayed in his dealings with human beings (Rom. 11:22); his kindness is designed to bring them to repentance (Rom. 2:4) and his children are urged to “continue in his kindness” (Rom. 11:22).
True humility (by contrast with the pride that apes humility of which the Colossian heresy made much) was not esteemed as a virtue in pagan antiquity; the word meant “mean-spiritedness.”127 The OT attitude is different: those who would walk with God must humble themselves to do so (Mic. 6:8), because he makes his dwelling by preference with those who are “of a humble and contrite spirit” (Isa. 57:15). Humility is especially fitting for the followers of Jesus, who was “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29),128 and a community in which this grace is cultivated is likely to be free from the tensions which spring from pride and self-assertiveness.
Gentleness,129 included (like kindness) in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:23), is the quality which has traditionally been rendered “meekness.” Moses was “very gentle” (Num. 12:3)130 in the sense that, faced with undeserved criticism, he did not give way to rage but interceded with God for the offenders. “The gentle shall inherit the land” (or “the earth”), according to Ps. 37:11131—a saying which is taken over in the Matthaean beatitudes (Matt. 5:5)—the implication being perhaps that the militants will wipe one another out and leave the gentle in possession. Jesus was “gentle” (Matt. 11:29), but was perfectly capable of indignation. Paul entreats his Corinthian friends “by the gentleness and forbearance of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1),132 but if the language which follows that entreaty is an expression of gentleness and forbearance, one wonders what he would have said had he been unrestrained by those graces. Yet those graces are evident in his affectionate concern for his converts—a concern matched by his indignation against those who were leading them astray.
Gentleness has much in common with patience,133 the fifth of the virtues listed here. Patience, too, belongs to the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22); like compassion and kindness it is a quality of God which should be reproduced in those who bear his image. In the revelation of the divine name in Exod. 34:6 patience is included along with compassion and mercy. In the NT God shows patience not only toward his chosen people (Luke 18:7) but toward the impenitent also (Rom. 2:4); in his patience he postpones the day of retribution (Rom. 9:22). Love is patient, says Paul (1 Cor. 13:4), and he urges his Christian friends to show patience to one another and to all (Eph. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:14).
13 Mutual forbearance, mutual tolerance, and mutual forgivingness should mark all their relations with one another.134 Did not Jesus himself inculcate the principle of unwearying and unceasing forgiveness, until “seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22)? More than that, had they not received his forgiveness, in far greater measure than they were ever likely to have to emulate in forgiving others? For he taught the lesson of unlimited forgiveness by example and not only by precept. In his teaching, too, he made it clear that those who seek the forgiveness of God must be ready to forgive others.135 Not that human forgiveness is a work that earns the divine forgiveness—the initiative in forgiveness lies with God—but an unforgiving spirit is an effective barrier to the reception of his forgiveness. So, in the parallel passage in Eph. 4:32, the readers are directed to be kind and tenderhearted to one another, “forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” In fact, Paul reproduces Jesus’ insistence on the close relation between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others in a way that suggests he may have known the Lord’s Prayer.136
14 Above all else, Paul adds, put on the grace which binds all the other graces together, the crowning grace of love.137 In Gal. 5:6 love is the active expression of justifying faith; in Gal. 5:22 it is the primary fruit of the Spirit; in 1 Cor. 13:13 it is the supreme Christian grace; in Rom. 13:9–10 all the commandments are summed up in one: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”138 Love is the fulfilment of the law of God because love does a neighbor nothing but good. In all these places Paul’s ethic is directly dependent on the teaching of Jesus, according to whom the whole OT ethic hung on the twin commandments of love to God and love to one’s neighbor. God’s love in Christ to human beings and their answering love to him are presupposed here as the basis of that mutual love which the readers of the letter are called on to practice. It is by such love that the body of Christ is built up; “love,” as Moffatt renders it, “is the link of the perfect life.”139
15 From love the apostle moves to peace. It is noteworthy that in Eph. 4:3 peace itself is the bond in which the unity of the Spirit is maintained. This is one of the incidental indications that the two letters are the product of the same mind around the same time. If, in the author’s mind, the general idea of love and peace was linked with the idea of a unifying bond uniting believers in one common life, manifesting itself in the Christian graces, this would sufficiently account for the similar, if divergent, modes of expression.
“Let the peace of Christ be arbiter140 in your hearts,” he says. When hostile forces have to be kept at bay, the peace of God garrisons141 the believer’s heart, as in Phil. 4:7. But here the common life of fellow-members of the body of Christ is in view; when differences threaten to spring up among them, the peace of Christ142 must be accepted as arbitrator. If the members are subject to Christ, the peace which he imparts must regulate their relations with one another. It was not to strife but to peace that God called them in the unity of the body of Christ.143 Peace in this sense figures prominently in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). In a healthy body harmony prevails among the various parts. Christians, having been reconciled to God,144 enjoying peace with him through Christ,145 should naturally live at peace with one another.146 Strife inevitably results when men and women are out of touch with him who is the one source of true peace; but there is no reason why those who have received the peace which Christ established by his death on the cross should have any other than peaceful relations among themselves.
“And be thankful,” he adds, for Christian behavior (to repeat what has been said before) can be viewed as the response of gratitude to the grace of God. One of the counts in Paul’s indictment of the pagan world in his letter to the Romans is that, “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks147 to him” (Rom. 1:21). If thanksgiving is God’s due from all humanity for his gifts of creation and providence, how much more is it his due from those who have received the surpassing gift of his grace?
16 What is meant by the injunction: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”? Does “in you” mean “within you” (as individual Christians) or “among you” (as a Christian community)? Perhaps it would be unwise to rule either alternative out completely, although the collective sense may be uppermost in view of the context. Let there be ample scope for the proclamation of the Christian message and the impartation of Christian teaching in their meetings. Christian teaching must be based on the teaching of Jesus himself; it must be unmistakably “the word of Christ.”148 It would “dwell richly” in their fellowship and in their hearts if they paid heed to what they heard, bowed to its authority, assimilated its lessons, and translated them into daily living.
The punctuation of this sentence is disputed, but it makes better sense if the phrase “in all wisdom” is attached to “teach and instruct” (not to “dwell richly”) and the words “in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” modify the verb “singing” (and not “teach and instruct”).149
The Colossian Christians, like those at Rome,150 should be able to instruct one another;151 but such instruction should be given wisely and tactfully. If wisdom or tact be absent, the instruction, however well intentioned, could provoke the opposite reaction to that which is designed.
Whatever view is taken of the punctuation or construction of the sentence, the collocation of the two participial clauses (as they are in the Greek text), “teaching and instructing …” and “singing … ,”152 suggests that the singing might be a means of mutual edification as well as a vehicle of praise to God. In 1 Cor. 14:26 Paul insists that, when Christians come to their meetings prepared with a psalm or any other spiritual exercise, they must have regard to the essential requirements of general helpfulness and good order. In our present passage, as in the closely similar Eph. 5:19, antiphonal praise or solo singing at church meetings is probably recommended. We recall the younger Pliny’s report to the Emperor Trajan (A.D. 111–112) of the way in which Christians in Bithynia met on a fixed day before dawn and “recited an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God”;153 or Tertullian’s description eighty or ninety years later of the Christian love-feast at which, “after water for the hands and lights have been brought in, each is invited to sing to God in the presence of the others from what he knows of the holy scriptures or from his own heart.”154
It has been asked sometimes if a strict threefold classification of praise is signified in the mention of “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” It is unlikely that any sharply demarcated division is intended, although the “psalms” might be drawn from the OT Psalter (which has supplied a chief vehicle for Christian praise from primitive times),155 the “hymns” might be Christian canticles (some of which are reproduced, in whole or in part, in the NT text),156 and the “spiritual songs” might be unpremeditated words sung “in the Spirit,”157 voicing holy aspirations.
Plainly, when early Christians came together for worship, they not only realized the presence of Christ in the breaking of the bread but also addressed prayers and praises to him in a manner which tacitly, and at times expressly, acknowledged him to be no less than God. If here the Colossian Christians are encouraged to sing in their hearts to God, the parallel Ephesian passage speaks of “singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord” (meaning, presumably, Christ). The voice must express the praise of the heart if the singing is to be really addressed to God. Again, the necessity of a thankful spirit is emphasized, although the phrase rendered “with thanksgiving” might mean “with grace” or “in a state of grace.”158
17 Finally, these general injunctions are summed up in an exhortation of universal scope, covering every aspect of life.
The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere,159 are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.”160 What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life.
The Christian (whether of the apostolic age or any other generation), when confronted by a moral issue, may not find any explicit word of Christ relating to its particular details. But the question may be asked: “What is the Christian thing to do here? Can I do this without compromising my Christian confession? Can I do it (that is to say) ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus’—whose reputation is at stake in the conduct of his known followers? And can I thank God the Father through him161 for the opportunity of doing this thing?” Even then, the right course of action may not be unambiguously clear, but such questions, honestly faced, will commonly provide surer ethical guidance than special regulations may do. It is often easy to get around special regulations; it is less easy to get around so comprehensive a statement of Christian duty as this verse supplies. In the NT and the OT alike it is insisted that our relation to God embraces and controls the whole of life, and not only those occasions which are sometimes described as “religious” in a narrow sense of the word.
3. “BE SUBJECT” (3:18–4:1)
The Christian duty of mutual deference is inculcated in several of the ethical sections of the NT letters.162 Thus, in the section of Ephesians which corresponds to Col. 3:18–4:1 the Christian wife’s deference to her husband is enjoined as a particular expression of the general duty of submissiveness which all Christians are encouraged to show to one another. “Be subject one to another in the fear of Christ—wives [in particular] to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Eph. 5:21–22).163
Here in Colossians, however, there is a more definite paragraph division between the preceding general instructions (“Put on”) and the specific directions for the Christian household. Certainly in Col. 3:18–4:1 the general principles of Christian behavior laid down in the foregoing paragraph (Col. 3:12–17) are applied in the special setting of the Christian home, but the exposition of the theme “be subject” is confined to that setting.
The household (familia) was recognized as a stabilizing element in ancient society, and treatises on household administration were common.164 The household was wider than the nuclear family of the Western world today: it included all who were under the authority of its head. In NT times the head of a household might be a woman, like Lydia of Philippi (Acts 16:15), Chloe of Corinth, who may or may not have been a Christian (1 Cor. 1:11), and Nympha of the Lycus valley (Col. 4:15). But usually the head of the household was a man, who exercised within it the authority of a husband, a father, and a master.165
As in society in general, so in the Christian community the household appears to have been the basic unit or cell. Where the family home was of a convenient size, the household could be expanded for certain purposes by the inclusion of fellow-believers who joined its members from time to time to form, with them, the “church” in So-and-so’s house.166 When the head of a household was converted to Christianity, the whole household appears normally to have joined in adhering to the new faith and receiving baptism, but it was not invariably so, and in 1 Cor. 7:12–16 provision was made for tensions which might arise from divided religious allegiance.
In the literary treatment of household administration, codes of domestic behavior were a regular feature. In these the mutual duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves, and so forth were prescribed. The Byzantine anthologist Stobaeus has some very interesting quotations from ancient authors on these mutual duties.167 Similar summaries of domestic duties are found here and there in the NT; that in Col. 3:18–4:1 is the earliest extant instance of such a Christian summary. Its relation to summaries given elsewhere in the NT letters suggests that such instruction formed part of a fairly well-defined body of catechesis imparted to converts from early times.168
While many of the ethical emphases in these Christian summaries can be paralleled from Jewish and Stoic sources,169 to say that the addition of such a phrase as “in the Lord” (vv. 18, 20) “Christianizes them in the simplest possible way”170 is to say everything, for such an addition introduces a difference in kind and not merely in degree. Here is a new and powerful dynamic:
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold.171
If the Stoic disciple asked why he should behave in a particular way, his teacher would no doubt tell him that it was “fitting” because it was in conformity with nature.172 When a Christian convert asked the same question, he was told that such behavior was “fitting in the Lord”;173 members of the believing community should live thus for Christ’s sake. The added words, simple as they are, transform the whole approach to ethics.
The inclusion of such summaries of domestic responsibilities here and in Eph. 5:22–6:9, it has been said, shows “a sense of the values of ordinary family life.”174 That is an understatement. It is in the closest and most familiar relationships of daily living that the reality of one’s Christian profession will normally be manifest, if at all.
Luther referred to these domestic codes as the Haustafeln, and it has become customary to refer to them in English, in a literal (or over-literal) translation of the German, as the “house tables” or “household tables.” They are here divided into three correlative pairs.
(1) Wives and Husbands (3:18–19)
18Wives, be subject to your husbands,175 as is fitting in the Lord.
19Husbands, love your wives176 and do not treat them harshly.
The first of the three pairs deals with the mutual duties of wives and husbands.
18 The family was a long-established social unit, as the church was not. The church was God’s new creation, and provided a setting in which the principles of the new creation could be put into practice. In the church, therefore, women had equal status with men and slaves with free persons, just as Gentiles had with Jews. But the structure of the family was already in being, and it was no part of the business of early Christianity to destabilize society, which would have been the effect of radically changing the family structure. That structure, hierarchical as it was, was left unaltered, apart from the introduction of the new principle, “as is fitting in the Lord”—which indeed was to be more revolutionary in its effect than was generally foreseen in the first Christian century. The authority of the husband, father, and master continued to be exercised, but only “as was fitting in the Lord,” and it continued to be acknowledged by the wife, children, and household slaves—similarly, “as was fitting in the Lord.”
It is not suggested here or anywhere else in the NT that the woman is naturally or spiritually inferior to the man, or the wife to the husband.177 The phrase “as is fitting” has a thoroughly Stoic ring about it; but it ceases to be Stoic when it is baptized into Christ by the added words: “in the Lord.”178 When the relation between man and woman, husband and wife, is viewed in the context expressed by these words, the essential dignity of women in general and of wives in particular is placed on a firm foundation.
Paul believed that there was a hierarchical order in creation, and that in this order the man was the “head” of the woman (1 Cor. 11:3).179 But when he speaks his own language instead of reproducing Christian household codes, he shows himself to be ahead of his time in the liberality with which he insists on equal rights between husbands and wives, especially where their marital relationship is concerned (1 Cor. 7:3–4).
19 The wife’s subordination to her husband has as its counterpart the husband’s obligation to love his wife. This is not simply a matter of affectionate feeling or sexual attraction; it involves his active and unceasing care for her well-being.180 The accompanying clause, “and do not treat them harshly,”181 indicates the meaning of the positive injunction more precisely by prohibiting the opposite attitude and treatment. A husband’s legal authority over his wife was such that she had little hope of redress at law for harsh or unfeeling conduct on his part. But such a situation should not arise in a Christian household: the forbearance and forgiveness which are enjoined in the preceding section of the letter, together with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, forbid a Christian man to be harsh in his treatment of anyone, especially of his own wife.
(2) Children and Parents (3:20–21)
20Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing in the Lord.182
21Fathers, do not irritate183 your children, lest they be disheartened.
20 Then come the mutual duties of children and parents. Children are enjoined to render complete obedience to their parents, as something which is acceptable or delightful “in the Lord.” The RSV rendering, “for this pleases the Lord,” is based on a slightly different Greek reading.184 When obedience “in all things”185 is laid down, it is a Christian family that is in view: the situation is not contemplated here in which parental orders might be contrary to the law of Christ. In such a situation the law of Christ would have to take precedence even over parental orders, but in a spirit of love, not of defiance, since the law of Christ is the law of love. In the household codes, however, children and parents are bound together “in the Lord” as well as by ties of natural kinship.
21 If children are exhorted to render obedience, parents, and specifically fathers,186 are urged not to irritate their children by being so unreasonable in their demands that the children lose heart and come to think that it is useless trying to please their parents. On this Sir Robert Anderson (head of the C.I.D. at Scotland Yard in his day) had some wise remarks to make in a little-known book:
The late Mr Justice Wills, who combined the heart of a philanthropist with the brain of a lawyer, used to deplore the ill-advised legislation which so multiplies petty offences that high-spirited lads, without any criminal intention, are caught in the meshes of the criminal law. But the traps laid by modern bye-law legislation are few compared with the “don’ts” which confront the children of many a home during all their waking hours. And against this it is that the Apostle’s “Don’t” is aimed: “You fathers, don’t irritate your children.”
For the children his only precept is “Obey your parents”; let parents see to it that they deserve obedience: and more than this, that they make obedience easy. The law, which for the Christian is summed up in the word “love,” is formulated in “thou shalt not” for the lawless and disobedient. And the “thou-shalt-not’s” of Sinai have their counterpart in the “don’ts” of the nursery. Grace teaches us to keep His commandments; law warns us not to break them. And it is on this latter principle that children are generally trained. “Don’t be naughty” is the nursery version of it….
William Carey … wrote to his son: “Remember, a gentleman is the next best character to a Christian, and the Christian includes the gentleman.” And if a little of the effort used to teach the children not to be naughty were devoted to training them to be gentlemen and ladies, parents would come nearer to fulfilling the Apostolic precept!187
Stobaeus follows up a consideration of the duty of children with a collection of passages from ancient authors under the general heading: “How fathers ought to behave to their children.” He quotes many sayings to much the same effect as the present household code, including these two from Menander: “A father who is always threatening does not receive much reverence,” and “One should correct a child not by hurting him but by persuading him.”188 In the setting of this letter, however, these ethical observations, good as they were in their pagan expression, are given a Christian significance and emphasis, which are made the more explicit in Eph. 6:4 with the appending of the positive injunction: “but bring them up in the nurture and instruction of the Lord.”189
(3) Slaves and Masters (3:22–4:1)
22Slaves, obey your earthly190 masters in all things,191 not with eye-service,192 as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.193
23Whatever you do, do it heartily,194 as for the Lord195 and not for human beings.
24You should know that it is from the Lord that you will receive the reward you have inherited;196 for197 the master whom you serve is Christ.
25He who does wrong will be requited for his wrongdoing; there is no favoritism198 (with your heavenly master).
4:1Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven.
22–24 Christian slaves are next addressed. Within the context of a household code household slaves are primarily in view, and slaves in a Christian household at that. But the directions given would be applicable to slaves whose duties were not within the household (slaves employed in agriculture or industry, for example), and to slaves of pagan masters.
Both in this letter and in Ephesians the injunctions to slaves are more extended than those to masters, and are accompanied by special encouragement. This, it has been suggested, is “a reflection of the social structure of these churches”199 (the implication being that they contained more slaves than masters). That may well be so. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that “the content of the admonitions would certainly be more readily approved by owners than by slaves.”200
The companion letter to Philemon affords an illuminating commentary on the mutual responsibilities of slaves and masters within the Christian fellowship, and on the transforming effect of this fellowship on their relationship.201 The relationship belongs to this present world-order; it is “earthly” (lit., “according to the flesh”).202 In the higher and abiding relationship which is theirs in Christ, believing slaves and masters are brothers. The slave/master relationship might persist in the home and business life: within the church it was swallowed up in the new relationship (cf. Col. 3:11). Paul treats the distinction in status between the slave and the free person as irrelevant in the new order (which perhaps was easier for him than it would have been for one who was enslaved to an earthly master). He sees the advantages of being free rather than enslaved, and the slave who has an opportunity of gaining freedom is encouraged to make use of the opportunity; but if there is no such opportunity, “never mind…. For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord; likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ” (1 Cor. 7:21–22).203 If a Christian slave came to be recognized as a leader in the church, he would be entitled to receive due deference from his Christian master.204 But the Christian slave would not presume on this new relationship or make it an excuse for serving his master less assiduously; on the contrary, he would serve him more faithfully because of this new relationship.
If a Christian slave had an unbelieving master, he would serve him more faithfully now because the reputation of Christ and Christianity was bound up with the quality of his service.205 Slaves in general might work hard when the master’s eye or the foreman’s eye was on them;206 they would slack off as soon as they could get away with it. And why not? They owed their masters nothing. Far more culpable is the attitude of modern “clockwatchers,” who have contracted to serve their employer and receive an agreed fixed remuneration for their labor. But Christian slaves—or Christian employees today—have the highest of all motives for faithful and conscientious performance of duty; they are above all else servants of Christ, and will work first and foremost so as to please him.207 Not fear of an earthly master, but reverence for their heavenly Lord,208 should be the primary motive with them. This would encourage Christian servants to work eagerly and zestfully even for a master who was harsh, unconscionable, and ungrateful; for they would receive their thanks not from him but from Christ.209 A rich recompense is the assured heritage of all who work for Christ;210 and the Christian servant can work for Christ by serving an earthly master in such a way as to “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything” (Tit. 2:10).
25 All believers, according to Paul, must “appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor. 5:10).211 In the household codes of Colossians and Ephesians these words are applied especially to slaves, with requital for evil emphasized in Colossians and requital for good in Ephesians. It is uncertain why the emphasis here should be on requital for the wrongdoer. It has been suggested that there was unrest at the time among the slaves of Colossae, so that a warning was thought necessary; but there is no substantial evidence for this.212
The judgment on disobedience is as certain as the reward for faithfulness. While salvation in the Bible is according to grace, judgment is according to works, whether good or bad, for believers as for unbelievers. It is probably implied that, while the sowing is now, the reaping is hereafter—before the tribunal of Christ (as in 2 Cor. 5:10).213 It may be difficult to understand how one who by grace is blessed with God’s salvation in Christ will nevertheless be requited for wrongdoing before the divine tribunal, but it is in accordance with biblical teaching that judgment should “begin with the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17),214 and even if the tribunal is a domestic one, for members of the family of God, it is by no means to be contemplated lightly.
Whereas here the statement that there is no favoritism215 is attached to the admonition to slaves, in Eph. 6:9 it is attached to the admonition to masters. God arbitrates with impartial fairness toward both masters and servants. So in the OT legislation impartiality was prescribed in lawsuits between rich and poor: “you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor” (Lev. 19:15).