The Mystery of Christ

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Trinitarian Commentary here at Deeper Waters. We are in the Pauline epistles now and tonight, we’re going to finish up Colossians. We’ll be in the fourth chapter and we’re looking at the third verse. This isn’t about the deity of Christ per se, but it brings  it all together. We will simply quote the verse and give a synopsis of what this book has said about the person of Jesus Christ. Having said that, let’s go to the text:

3And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains

How have we come through this book? We began looking at Jesus in his role in relation to creation. (I always feel so odd saying “relation to creation.”) We saw that Jesus has the supremacy in everything. We also saw the problem with saying that Jesus is created in that it makes one fall right into the heresy that Paul is writing this letter against.

Because of that, we saw the problem with the Jehovah’s Witnesses teaching and that ironically, this passage supports the idea of Jesus as the center of all. We saw that all things in existence (Other than God of course) depend on Jesus for their existence. He is the sustainer of all that is.

The next day, we saw that Jesus is the focal point of the world in that he is the one through whom God has revealed himself. We saw that all knowledge lies in Jesus and that this must be a monotheistic belief system as well so that no other lesser gods could be allowed, another blow to the heresy Paul was disputing with and a counter to the Witnesses.

We also saw that Paul is not against philosophy in what he said and I encouraged you dear readers to read the philosophers. I believe every Christian should be familiar with the great philosophical thought that has taken place throughout the ages.

We finally saw that Christ breaks apart political and social barriers as well. We saw that all class distinctions fall apart in him and all racial distinctions. This means for us that all are invited to approach him equally and he will receive all who come.

What do we get from all of this looking at what Paul says in this letter. We get a very dynamic picture of who Christ is. Now I will grant that many scholars do not see this as an authentic Pauline letter. If it is however, it is one of the most amazing letters with a high Christology at a very early time.

I will also say what some have asked me about this study. This has been a blessing to me as well. I have been learning just as much going through here and now see after this study how much depth is in this letter on the person of Christ that I never noticed before and look forward to the next time I can discuss it with a JW.

Tomorrow, we shall begin 1 Corinthians.

Support Deeper Waters on Patreon!