Colossians 1:3-6

Colossians 1:3-6     “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints—the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.  All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth” (NIV).

   This letter starts out with terms galore such as faith, love, saints, heaven, grace, and gospel, yet they are all rooted in Jesus Christ.
   Regarding faith, Jesus is the object of their faith.  Many people who are not followers of Jesus have faith in all kinds of things.  The faith Paul is talking about is faith in Jesus.
   Regarding love, the reason they can love one another is because of Jesus.  Love is a word I heard much in the rock music I listened to during my youth.  The love Paul is referring to is the true love which comes from God in heaven.
   Regarding saints, they are believers in Jesus, the reason there were already a plethora of saints in only 60 A.D.
   Regarding heaven, that is the dominion of Jesus.
   Regarding grace, it is a gift of Jesus, a gift of love and life which came by the love, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
   Regarding the gospel specified here, it is not good tidings announced by a king or a sports broadcaster, rather it is good news Jesus made possible.
   I elaborate on this word gospel.  The hope of a follower of Jesus is rooted in the gospel.  What is the gospel?  The gospel is Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone.  Paul is going to touch on this in Colossians 1:14 and Colossians 1:20.  Jesus was the substitutional atonement for the consequences of sins, which is spiritual death.  Jesus died in our place.  Then He was resurrected from the dead!  And Jesus ascended into heaven.  Because He shed His blood as the atoning sacrifice on the cross, salvation from sins and eternal life in heaven is available.  Why does Paul call this “gospel?”  Gospel means good news, and Paul’s application is specifically to the saving work of Jesus on the cross.  And the gospel is available to all people of all ethnic groups, as can be understood from 1 John 2:2.
   And even at that time around 60 A.D., Paul said the gospel was bearing fruit all over the world.  I find this to be evidence of the truth of Christianity, because all Jesus did was unprecedented in human history, and I would expect such truth to have an immediate impact in the world; it did.
   Do take this statement in context; for example Paul does not mean Christians were already in what is now the United States or Australia preaching the Gospel.  Yet in less than thirty years, because of the obedience of Christ’s early disciples, the Gospel was already being preached in distance places, and was changing lives, and that would continue!
   I close with a statement given by a Christian overseer in Caesarea at the end of the 200’s and in the early 300’s named Eusebius, who was the first Christian to attempt to write a comprehensive history of early Christianity.  His writing style is criticized by most, yet his historical information is valuable.  What Paul states in Colossians 1:6 is supported by a statement by Eusebius regarding the period of early Christianity: “Throughout every city and village, like a replenished barn floor, churches were rapidly found abounding and filled with members from every people.  Those who, in consequence of the delusions that had descended to them from their ancestors, had been fettered by the ancient disease of idolatrous superstition, were now liberated by the power of Christ through the teaching and miracles of his messengers.”(2)  Christianity was rapidly spreading all over the world!
Hunter Irvine

(1) Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, trans. C.F. Cruse (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 39.