Colossians 1.22a-The Father Reconciled Unregenerate Humanity to Himself By Means of the Death of the Human Nature of His Son
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday June 14, 2015
Colossians: Colossians 1:22a-The Father Reconciled Unregenerate Humanity to Himself By Means of the Death of the Human Nature of His Son
Lesson # 28
Colossians 1:21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. (NASB95)
“Now” is the adverb of time nuni, which refers to the state of these faithful Christians in Colossae as reconciled to God when Paul penned this epistle.
The word nuni is employed with the conjunction de which means “indeed, in fact” since it is functioning as an emphatic marker which indicates that it is placing emphasis upon the statement to follow because of its critical importance.
Most English translations interpret the conjunction de here at the beginning of verse 22 as adversative meaning it is marking a contrast between the unregenerate condition of these faithful Christians in Colossae and the work of Jesus Christ on the cross to deal with this sinful condition.
However, Paul is not attempting to contrast the unregenerate state of the Colossians with the Son’s work on their behalf to deal with this condition.
But rather he is presenting the reason why the Father had to reconcile the Colossians to Himself through His Son’s death on the cross in order to deal with their unregenerate condition before their conversion to Christianity.
“He has reconciled” is the verb apokatallassō (ἀποκαταλλάσσω), which indicates that the Father “reconciled” them to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ’s substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths on the cross.
His cross restored this broken relationship between a holy God and fallen unregenerate humanity to its former peaceful state prior to the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden.
“In His fleshly body” is composed of the following: (1) preposition en (ἐν), “in” (2) noun sōma (σῶμα), “body” (6) noun sarx (σάρξ), “fleshly” (3) intensive personal pronoun autos (αὐτός), “His.”
The noun sōma is used in a literal sense referring to the human body of Jesus Christ and is the object of the preposition en which is functioning as a marker of means indicating that the human body of Jesus Christ was the means by which the Father reconciled these faithful Christians in Colossae to Himself.
The noun sarx refers to the impeccable human nature of Jesus Christ and appears often in the New Testament for the impeccable human nature of the Son of God (cf. John 1:14; Romans 1:3; 8:3; 9:5; Ephesians 2:15; Hebrews 5:7; 10:20; 1 Peter 3:18; 4:1; 1 John 4:2; 2 John 7).
The noun sarx is also in the genitive case and is a genitive of material which indicates that the body of Jesus Christ was composed of flesh.
“Through death” is composed of the following: (1) preposition dia (διά), “through” (2) noun thanatos (θάνατος), “death.”
The noun thanatos means “death” and refers to both the spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the cross which He experienced on the cross in His human body.
The noun thanatos is the object of the preposition dia and functions as a genitive of means, which indicates that Jesus Christ’s spiritual and physical deaths on the cross were the “means” by which sinful mankind was reconciled to God the Father.
Colossians 1:21 Indeed, because each and every one of you at one time existed in the state of being alienated, specifically enemies because of your attitude, because of your evil actions, 22 He has now in fact reconciled each and every one of you by means of His body composed of human flesh by means of His death. (Author’s translation)
In Colossians 1:22, Paul is emphasizing with the Colossians the sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross to reconcile unregenerate humanity to a holy God.
It is emphasizing that Jesus Christ is undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever or in other words, it is teaching that Jesus Christ is both God and man.
It is thus affirming the incarnation of the Son of God as well which is indicated by a comparison of Colossians 1:15-20 and 1:22.
The former teaches that Jesus of Nazareth is God and the Creator.
The latter emphatically teaches that the Son had a human body, a human nature and that He suffered death in this body.
Jesus’ death on the cross reconciled all of unregenerate humanity to a holy God because He was the Son of God.
The Father was propitiated by Jesus’s death because Jesus was His Son.
The Father could only accept perfection and Jesus was perfect because He is God.
“Now” speaks of their present state of being reconciled to the Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ and sets up Paul’s teaching in the purpose clause to follow in verse 22 which serves as the apodosis of the protasis of the first class condition in verse 23.
This first class conditional statement speaks of the experiential sanctification of these Colossian believers.
Thus, here in verse 22 “now” is emphasizing the present state of these believers being reconciled to God which is directly related to their experiencing sanctification after their conversion experience.
Therefore, verses 22-23 are teaching these faithful believers in Colossae that the purpose of God the Father reconciling them to Himself through the substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross was so that they might experience sanctification as His people and grow up to spiritual maturity.
By accomplishing the Father’s purpose for reconciling them to Himself through His Son, they would be rewarded by the Son at the Bema Seat Evaluation of the church which immediately follows the rapture or the resurrection of the church.
Paul is teaching in Colossians 1:22 that the Father reconciled them to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ’s substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths on the cross.
Paul is emphasizing with the Colossians in verse 22 that the human body of Jesus Christ was the means by which the Father reconciled these faithful Christians in Colossae when they were in their unregenerate state prior to their conversion.
This verse is emphasizing the fact that the Son did in fact have a human body which made Him susceptible to physical suffering such as the torture of the cross.
The reason for this emphasis is that Paul is attempting to refute the false teachers in Colossae who belonged to the Essene branch of Judaism which also adhered to an incipient form of Gnosticism.
Thus, he is addressing the false teaching of this Essence branch of Judaism which argued that matter is evil.
They saw evil as residing in the material universe.
Thus they would argue that the human nature of Jesus Christ could not have possibly died on the cross to reconcile humanity to a holy God because they argued His body would be evil because it is matter.
Paul appears to be also dealing with an incipient form of Docetic Gnosticism which contended that Christ’s humanity was a mere appearance or aberration.
This is indicated by the fact that Paul is emphasizing that the death of the human nature of the Father’s Son was the means by which the Father reconciled unregenerate humanity to Himself and Docetic Gnosticism denied the incarnation.
The apostle John also in the last decade of the first century appeared also to be dealing with this type of incipient form of Gnosticism (John 1:18; 1 John 1:1-3; 4:1-6; 2 John 7).
Now, in Colossians 1:22 “death” refers to both the spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the cross which He experienced on the cross in His human body since it contains the figure of heterosis of number which means that the singular form of a word is put for the plural form of the word.
Here the noun thanatos is in the singular but refers to both the spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the cross and the design of this figure is to make emphatic that the Father reconciled sinful humanity to Himself through His Son sacrifice on the cross as a human being.
That the figure of heterosis is being employed with this noun is indicated by the fact that both of the spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ reconciled the entire human race to a holy God.
Adam died first spiritually as a result of his disobedience in the Garden of Eden and then physically.
Therefore, the Last Adam, Jesus Christ had to die spiritually first and then physically to negate the fall of Adam and to reconcile the first Adam and his progeny, i.e. the human race to a holy God.
So therefore Colossians 1:22 teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ’s spiritual and physical deaths on the cross were the means by which sinful mankind was reconciled to God the Father.
His spiritual death was “unique” in that He suffered spiritual death as a “sinless” human being whereas every member of the human race suffers spiritual death the moment they are born into the world.
His physical death was “unique” in that He died physically of His own volition.
The Lord Jesus Christ did “not” die from suffocation or exhaustion, nor did He bleed to death, or die of a broken heart but rather He died unlike any person in history, namely by His own volition according to John 10:18.
The apostle Paul is teaching in Colossians 1:21-22 that Jesus Christ is the Mediator between a holy God and sinful humanity since these verses teach that He is both God and man and that His death on the cross reconciled all of sinful humanity to a holy God (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5).