Listen to this post NOW on Beyond Everything Radio!

Leading up to this paragraph, Paul has built a thesis from the following themes:

1. Gratitude for this community faith, resulting from the gospel, which produces global results. (Hope of Heaven)
2. Prayer this community gets stronger and produce more results through “super knowledge“, and gratitude for being transferred from the authority of darkness, to the Kingdom of Christ. (Superknowledge)
3. Reminding this community about the scale and scope of Christ, His work on the cross, and His message which has made peace between God and all creation. (Christocosmology)

Now Paul moves from a cosmic perspective to a personal focus. In this paragraph, he pulls from his highlight reel and reminding Colossae that the Gospel’s isn’t powerful because it’s believed, it’s powerful and thus we believe. The Gospel (word of truth) is a message of reconciling power.

“And you, who once being (àpellotrioménous) strangers and (èxthrós) enemies/hostel in your (dianoia) way of thinking/mind, in the (poneroís) evil/worthless deeds, but now he has (àpokatallàsso) reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, to cause you to be holy and blameless and free from accusation before/in the sight of him, if indeed you (epimeno) continue in (tē) your/the faith, (themeliów) foundation/stable and (èdraĩos) steadfast/firm, not moving away/shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, the one been proclaimed in all creation/every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a servant.” (Colossians 1:21-23)

Paul’s words to Colossae echo those he wrote to Ephesus. Both letters were likely written during his Roman imprisonment around AD 60-62.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,…carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind…”(Ephesians 2:1,3)

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8)

Modern evangelicalism teaches us that belief is a choice, a rational decision which comes about by a reasoned presentation of the gospel. That’s where I’m convinced we’ve read into this scripture our biases and prejudices. For Paul, the Gospel isn’t intellectualized as the “word of truth” that is “heard“, but it’s actually the power of God working a miracle within “all creatures” enabling the human heart to hear. The Gospel isn’t a presentation to a mind, it’s the power to live.

Paul doesn’t mince words. We are strangers, aliens, foreigners, to God…we are dead. In our state of spiritual deadness, we are all hostile, enemies, and living from a mind not tethered to reality. We live a delusion, self-delusion, evidenced by our lack of love for God and others. A dead person cannot do anything about their deadness. An alien remains alien until a kingdom outside themselves includes them. A hostel mind remains hostel until it knows a greater power. He’s saying we lived as dead shells of people, but now we actually live as intended. We don’t have spiritual lives, we are spiritual lives.

Since the Christian religion didn’t exist in Colossae, this letter wasn’t their bible. The experience of a living faith was. Thus, Paul’s teaching isn’t intended to convert anyone to a religion. Our belief is not what gets us back to God, Christ’s sacrifice did that “once for all”. Faith is not a belief system, it’s experientially living Christ’s life as our life. Face it, if we don’t experience Christ AS life, how would anyone have faith He is alive by word alone?

Most commentators see Paul’s words as a theological treatise or framework for religious conversion. In my view, this misses the largess in this letter. Religion teaches us to think our way into our faith, but Paul’s Gospel of grace is the embodied life experience whereby we faith (not ours but God’s) our way into a new way of thinking.

The early church assembled the pieces differently. For Paul and Colossae, Christ’s sacrifice isn’t “potential” as it is in modern understanding. Religion has so coopted conversion, that we see the atonement as either extremely limited, or that it only makes people savable. But the “word of truth” that the Colossians heard, was that the suffering Jesus’ wasn’t merely historical, but “actual… NOW” (v.22) Paul’s hope for the Colossians isn’t evacuating earth one day for Heaven, but that of experiencing Christ, presently (embodied as the ecclessia-not business of church) in and AS their very existence.

This is the impetus of the letter, Paul is admonishing Colossae to keep experiencing Christ as their life?

Consider this sentence that is often misunderstood.

²³ “…if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard…”

If you read this as a conditional statement, you wouldn’t be alone. Religion has highjacked this verse to justify participation in the church machinery. Look closer. The Greek reveals that the “steadfast, non shifting, non moving away” thing is “The Faith” NOT ourselves. “The faith” isn’t religion, but experience with Christ. Paul uses the word “epimeno”-(over-abide, super abide, really live, truly exist). In other words, Paul is saying, in order to keep experiencing your life as Christ’s life, this faith causes our mind to see things as they really are. “Christ is with you…as you. Paraphrasing Aquinas, “God exists by giving away existence, we exist by receiving existence.”

If we fail to see that Paul’s idea of “walking in Christ” means “walking as Christ” we will end up in a quagmire of confusion in the rest of Paul’s letter. However, for our modern minds to truly understand this letter, we must not park this teaching in our “figure-outers.” If Christ is not living in our lives, where exactly does He live? If you answered: Heaven or some spiritualized existence, then you possess the exact mind Paul will take to task in the coming chapters. If Christ ceases to be the living “ikon” that Paul speaks of, then Christ is relegated to a history lesson instead of the “proto” the first born example of a universal pattern that each and every one of us will experience by the grace of God. If we miss this, the gospel becomes mere words, not The Word which becoming flesh, again and again, in and as each and every one of us.

Paul is not saying we are Christ, he’s saying we are nothing apart from Christ…we are little Christs existing…or Christians and this has nothing to do with the religion.

When have you suffered? When have you been forsaken or overlooked by others? When has the system maligned you or failed to recognize your worth? These are all Christ experiences. Each of our lives is the gospel story being retold whether we want to or not. Now consider that nothing keeps us from God. God has come to us. Christ opens direct access for all people all creation. No religion is needed. No pastor, priest, Imam, or guru can connect us. No prayer or ritual can get us closer than our very existence, which is Christ existing in us in our nothingness apart from God. Thus a spiritual life is first a life, and if we all possess one, then we all possess something of Christ.

If this idea rewrites how we think, then we are no longer hostile in our minds.