Colossians 1:21-23

21 "Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds expressed in your evil actions. 22 "But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—23 "if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.” ()

Paul has concluded his section of praise to Christ (1:15–20),

an extended treatment of the greatness of

the Christian’s Saviour.

In that section we discovered that Jesus is supreme, that he is exalted far above all things.

We also saw that he is sufficient.

He is all that we need as a Savior,

for he is well able to save all His people to the utmost degree.

His power to save is limitless.

No case of human need, however desperate, is beyond him.

Now Paul moves on from considering who Christ is, the

splendour of His being and the

endless resources of His sovereign mercy,

to look instead at what Christ has done for His people.

This was enormously relevant to his original readers.

The church in Colosse was troubled by a new breed of teachers

offering a form of spirituality that posed a subtle threat to their spiritual well-being.

These men were careful not to say anything that belittled the Lord Jesus Christ and his achievement directly,

but Paul could see that this would be an inevitable consequence of their teaching.

By insisting that the believer should look beyond mere salvation for

an experience of ‘fulness’, the new teachers hinted that what Christ has done for us

is only effective up to a point.

We need something more to make our Christian experience complete.

Paul’s response in these verses is just as relevant to believers today,

because the Colossian syndrome has not gone away.

It has been repackaged in a variety of ways, but believers are still being enticed with

the notion that salvation is only a beginning.

We must move on to greater things, we are told.

In the end, if all we have is Christ and His salvation, something is missing.

In the previous section Paul’s response was to make much of Christ himself.

How can a person who is united to such a complete and excellent Savior be lacking something vital?

Now, in this new section, Paul makes much of salvation;

he emphasizes the greatness of it.

Far from being a necessary but relatively minor prelude to a blessing that would surpass it,

the salvation of a soul is an experience entirely without parallel.

The change that has come over every believer cannot be minimized.

No greater experience is possible in this life. (board)

Let’s get familiar with the text a bit.

At the heart of this paragraph is a favorite classic resource of Paul’s: a contrast between “once” and “now.”

“Once” the Colossians were estranged from God because of their evil thoughts and deeds (v. 21).

“But now” they are reconciled to God through Christ’s death and with the hope of being presented before God as blameless (v. 22).

But this hope is contingent on their continuing in the faith,

as Paul adds in a concluding warning statement (v. 23).

The gospel, the source of this hope, has had a powerful effect on the Colossians (1:6).

But it will secure what the Colossians hope for only if they continue in their faith (2:7).

This brief paragraph is marked by a shift in style.

The impersonal, third-person, descriptive style of vv. 15–20 is dropped

in favor of direct address in the second person:

once you.… he has reconciled you … if you continue.

The high theology of vv. 15–20 is being applied.

And, of course, the focus on reconciliation in vv. 21–22 shows that

it is the universal reconciling work of God in Christ (v. 20)

that is being especially applied here.

Because God in all “His fullness” is present in Christ (v. 19),

His death (v. 20) and resurrection (v. 18) have

the power to initiate

(“beginning,” “firstborn” in v. 18)

a new creation

(“the body, the church,” v. 18).

This new creation work rests on the universal reconciling, or “peacemaking” power of the cross of Christ.

It is God’s intention

to bring “peace” to His fallen and fractured universe,

to bring all things again into subjection to His sovereignty,

to bring all His enemies into subjection.

This intention will be finally accomplished only when Christ returns in glory

to establish the kingdom in its final form (cf. 1:22b; 3:4).

But God invites human beings in the present time both to

participate in this reconciliation (by being saved) and

to become agents through whom God’s work of reconciliation can begin to be carried out.

Because they have responded to this invitation, the Colossians have been turned from God’s enemies into his “friends” and

anticipate the day when they will stand before God fully transformed into His image—

if, that is, they continue to maintain their commitment to the gospel (v. 23).

So let’s look at each verse separately, that we might seek how it all fits together.

Think of what you once were dear believer.

21 "Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds expressed in your evil actions.” ()

v21 describe the people who receive this reconciling action (v22).

If you go over to we see the same verb.

Here this is speaking about non-believers...

18 "They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts.” ()

What unbelievers excluded from? “the life of God”.

Go back (please) to .

Just as in this alienation from the life of God is connected with our thinking process.

“hostile in your minds expressed in your evil actions.”

This is the basic mind-set of the non-Christian that is hostile toward God.

Enemies in our minds.

It’s this alienation that makes reconciliation necessary!

We are in this condition, of being hostile to God, naturally because of our involvement in Adam’s original sin.

God responds in wrath, in that He is holy and perfectly just.

He is just when He responds in wrath against “your evil actions.” (v21).

Our evil behavior is the result of our hostility towards God in our minds.

This leads up to this glorious contrast, which Paul loves to do.

Highlighting the glorious new status by contrasting it with our former life of sinfulness and condemnation.

(see also 1:26; ; ; ; ; ; ; ).

So here Paul contrasts the former state of enmity with the present state of reconciliation (“once … but now”).

This leads us to:

Thinking about what you have become dear believer.

22 "But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—” ()

But now sounds like a trumpet blast. God has acted mightily on their behalf:

He has brought them into a new relationship with Himself and

made changes in their attitudes. All this was achieved by Christ’s physical body through death.

God’s reconciliation of the Colossians had as its aim

their preparation for the final day

when they would stand before Him:

“to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before Him”

As a person is forgiven and reconciled they are declared

blameless (cf. ),

they are declared blameless (cf. ), without fault or stain (cf. ; ; ) on that final day.

without fault or stain (cf. ; ; )

on that final day.

So because of the work of Christ alone believers have become reconciled to God and justified before God.

He now sees no fault at all in those who were once his sworn foes,

and this is all and only because Jesus has taken all the blame for all the sins of all his people.

This is our new status. Those who are holy, faultless, and blameless in status

are to actually and progressively become holy, faultless, and blameless in their walk.

We are not just saved from the penalty of our sin.

We are also saved from the power of sin.

The thought of being presented this way before Christ is to be a stimulate for our growth.

And, while God himself supplies this growth,

the growth nevertheless does not take place apart from the willingness of believers—as v. 23 forcefully indicates.

This is what you must continue to be dear believer.

23 "if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.” ()

Given that conversion to Christ involves a cataclysmic change

of enormous dimensions in everyone who undergoes it,

what is the real test that a person has truly undergone this far-reaching transformation?

1. They Persevere… “if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast...”

They Persevere… “if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith”

The litmus test isn’t did you say the prayer and really mean it in your heart!!

The litmus test is perseverance.

True conversion is a lasting change.

Those who do not stay the course have a question mark hanging over them.

If we say, ‘Jesus has saved me,’ we have a point to prove.

This explains Paul’s phrase, ‘if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast …’

It’s a true and real warning. We need to take these words to the utmost sincerity.

We can declare at the same time that all those who will be presented before Christ as holy, faultless, and blameless

will have all continued in their faith in Christ and to the true gospel.

It’s a real warning.

What happens is this:

By God’s grace and through His Spirit,

He works to preserve His people so that they will be vindicated in the judgment;

but, at the same time,

God’s people are responsible to persevere in their faith

if they expect to see that vindication.

look at the word, “grounded” “if indeed you remain grounded”

This refers to laying a foundation of a building (cf ).

25 "The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock.” ()

Believers are in constant need to live in a state of being securely founded.

That’s the positive way to continue in the faith. To “remain grounded and steadfast”

Negatively is by not shifting away from the hope of the gospel.

They don’t just 1. persevere, they:

2. They Abide in Christ… “...are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel...”

The Christ described in vv15-20,

‘… the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things consist.

And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the pre-eminence.

For it pleased the Father that in him all the fulness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself,

by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.’

We are to continue in the faith that unites us to Him.

We are to remain grounded and settled in this glorious Christ.

That’s the positive way to continue in the faith.

We are not to be ‘moved away from the hope of the gospel’.

There is to be no slippage.

Christians must not lose their moorings like a boat that has drifted away from a safe anchorage.

For the Colossians this would mean being attracted to something less than

the gospel they had embraced at the outset,

the gospel that had brought such a great salvation to them.

CONCLUSION

In seeking to reassure the believers in Colosse that what

Christ had done for them in saving them was a blessing beyond compare,

Paul gave them in passing a working definition of what it is to be a Christian.

A Christian was once God’s enemy.

He has been reconciled to God and owes this transformation entirely to Jesus Christ.

He is under a tremendous obligation to go on, not to new things,

but to go on entrusting himself to the Christ whom he first trusted at the outset.

The Christian life begins with faith in Christ; it continues with faith in Christ all the way to the gate of heaven.

It never moves beyond, or away from, faith in Christ. Where do you fit into this pattern of things?