Col. 1:1-8 is the introduction to this Epistle. As the introduction, these verses disclose the purpose and subject of the book. Paul’s purpose and subject are not stated explicitly, but rather indirectly through various indications to be found in these verses.
The first of these indications is the phrase “the hope which is being laid up for you in the heavens” (v. 5). Another indication is found in the words “the word of the truth of the gospel” (v. 5). Notice that here Paul says the word of the truth of the gospel, not simply the word of the gospel. A third indication is seen in the words “fully knew the grace of God in truth” (v. 6). The word fully is an adverb that modifies the verb knew. What do the words “in truth” modify? According to many versions, this phrase modifies the word grace. Others regard it as an adverb modifying the predicate knew. If we understand truth here as reality, not just as sincerity, then it is correct to regard the words “in truth” as modifying the predicate knew. According to this understanding, Paul is saying that we must know the grace of God in its reality.
Let us now consider the hope mentioned in verse 5. Hope, faith, and love in verses 4 and 5 are the three things which the apostle stressed in 1 Cor. 13:13. The emphasis there was on love because of the Corinthian situation. The emphasis here is on hope, which, strictly speaking, is Christ Himself (v. 27), for the revelation of Christ as everything to us.
Some think that the hope that is being laid up for us in the heavens refers to a particular blessing or some kind of glorious enjoyment. When I was young, I was told that, according to John 14, the Lord Jesus is preparing a wonderful mansion for us in heaven and that this is the hope laid up for us. What a mistake! Our hope is Christ Himself. According to verse 27, Christ in us is the hope of glory. On the one hand, He is in the heavens, but, on the other hand, He is in us to be our hope.
If we would understand this fully, we need to consider the faith and love spoken of in verse 4. Paul says, “Having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which you have unto all the saints.” Faith is to realize and receive what is in Christ, love is to experience and enjoy what we have received of Christ, and hope is to expect and wait for the glorification in Christ. Every genuine Christian has faith in the Lord Jesus and love toward all the saints. These two things prove that we are real Christians. Suppose I contact a certain person and tell him that I am one who believes in the Lord Jesus. If he does not respond to me in love, he himself may not be a genuine believer in the Lord. Love for the saints must always go along with faith in the Lord Jesus. They cannot be divorced.
From the time we first believe in Christ, we spontaneously have love for other believers, no matter what their nationality may be. According to my nature and my background, I could never love the Japanese. When I was a youth, I actually hated them because of the damage Japan had caused to China. But after I had been saved and had entered into the Lord’s ministry, I was invited to visit some Japanese brothers in Manchuria. I attended a small gathering held in the home of a Japanese believer. As soon as I entered into the room, spontaneously a love for those brothers welled up within me. My hatred for the Japanese vanished. Those brothers believed in the Lord Jesus, and I believed in Him also. Therefore, we could love one another as fellow believers in Christ. This love is not a natural love, but a love that comes out of our faith in the Lord Jesus. We have to love all the saints, just as the Colossians loved all the saints, regardless of their nationality and regardless of whether they were Jew or Gentile.
In the Lord’s recovery there are many nationalities. Humanly speaking, it is impossible for us to be one. However, we praise the Lord that no matter what our nationality may be, we love one another because we all have faith in the Lord Jesus. When I contact brothers from Japan, I do not have any consciousness that they are Japanese brothers and that I am a Chinese brother. On the contrary, I simply have the sense that we are all holy brothers in Christ.
The reason we can love those whom we could never love naturally is that hope is being laid up for us in the heavens. If I had been the writer of Colossians, I would have said “because of the hope in the heavens.” Paul, however, inserted the words “being laid up for you.” This matter of hope being laid up for us in the heavens is actually very subjective. It has very much to do with our daily living. According to the context, the laying up of hope in the heavens has a great deal to do with how we live today. The more we love the saints, the more hope is laid up for us in the heavens. However, if we do not love the saints, there will be very little hope laid up for us.
Suppose a certain brother loves all the saints, no matter what their nationality or cultural background may be. Another brother, on the contrary, loves the saints selectively, according to his taste and preference. The one loves all who have faith in Christ, whereas the other loves only a select number of the saints. When the Lord Jesus comes, which brother will have the greater hope? Certainly it will be the one who loves all the saints. This indicates that how much hope Christ will be to us depends on our living Christ today.
The more we live Christ now, the more hope will be laid up for us in the heavens for our glorification. However, if day by day we do not live Christ, Christ will be there in the heavens, but He will not be laid up as a glory for us. For example, if you deposit a certain amount of the money you earn in the bank, some savings will be laid up for you in your bank account. But if you fail to earn money and have nothing to deposit in the bank, there will be no savings laid up for you. In the same principle, the amount of hope that is being laid up for us in the heavens depends on how much we are living Christ. We need to be those who love the saints without partiality because of the One who is our hope. Such a living is the laying up for ourselves of hope in the heavens.
In this Epistle Paul seemed to be saying, “Dear Colossians, if you follow the Jewish observances or the Gentile ordinances, you will not lay up anything for yourselves in the heavens as a hope. You need to live by Christ. One day, Christ who is our life will appear in glory. At present, both you and Christ are hidden in God. He is your inner life. But He will appear in glory, and you will appear with Him. However, I must warn you of the importance of living by Christ today.”
Yes, in 3:4 Paul says that Christ is our life and that when Christ is manifested, we shall be manifested with Him in glory. But suppose we do not live by Him; instead we live by the self and by our preferences, loving only those saints who match our taste. To love the saints selectively is to live by the self, not by Christ. If we have this kind of living, we shall not be happy when the Lord Jesus Christ appears in glory. Once again I say that how much we shall enjoy Christ as our hope of glory depends on how much we live Him out today. Therefore, the laying up of the hope in the heavens depends on our living.
If we live Christ and are one with Him, we should be able to say, “Lord Jesus, I love You, and I take You as my life and as my person. Lord, I want to be with You in Your glory and see You face to face. I want to enjoy Your presence, even Your physical presence, in a practical way. Lord, I’m waiting for this and I’m expecting this.” If you contact the Lord in this way day by day, you will be very happy at His coming.
Suppose, however, that you do not care for the Lord or contact Him. You may not sin or go into the world, but you continually live by the self. You respect the Lord Jesus as the Savior and as the Lord. But although you honor Him, He is not dear or precious to you, and you do not have intimate fellowship with Him. You neither live Him nor take Him as your person. Do you think that, if this is your daily living with respect to the Lord Jesus, you will be excited and shout praises at His coming? Certainly not! Rather, you will withdraw from Him in shame. Whether or not Christ’s coming back will be glory to you depends on how much hope you have laid up in the heavens by living Christ today.
To lay up hope in the heavens is to live Christ and to take Him as our person. Colossians 3:4 is the only verse in the Bible which says that Christ is our life. In John 14:6 the Lord Jesus says, “I am the life.” But in 3:4 Paul says that Christ is our life, an expression which is very subjective. Since Christ is our life, we must live by Him and thereby lay up hope for ourselves in the heavens. This is what it means to love all the saints because of the hope which is laid up for us in the heavens.
In 1:5 Paul goes on to say “of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel.” The truth of the gospel is the reality, the real facts, not the doctrine of the gospel. The word, not the truth, may be considered the doctrine of the gospel. In our preaching of the gospel there must be not only the word of the gospel, but also the truth of the gospel, which is Christ Himself. Christ, the reality of the gospel, must be the reality in our preaching.
However, in much gospel preaching there is only the word, perhaps the eloquent or persuasive word, but no reality. This means that Christ is not ministered as reality to those who hear. Our gospel preaching must be different. Although we may be slow in speech, the listeners must be able to sense that the reality of Christ is being infused into them. Those under such a preaching of the gospel will soak in Christ as their reality.
We need to tell the Lord in prayer that what we desire is not knowledge in letters, but His presence with Himself being infused into us and ourselves being saturated with Him. We want to be under His heavenly shining. The longer we stay under His shining, the more reality will saturate and pervade us. This is the truth which is Christ Himself.
Because the Colossians had heard the word of the truth, the reality, of the gospel, they could lay up for themselves a hope in the heavens by living Christ in loving the saints. By taking Christ as their life, they could love those whom it was humanly impossible for them to love. They could enjoy Christ as life by soaking Him in as the truth of the gospel. In this way, they could experience Christ as their hope. Therefore, in these verses both the hope and the truth are the Christ we experience subjectively.
Verse 6 continues, “Which is come to you, as also in all the world it is bearing fruit and growing, as also in you, since the day you heard and fully knew the grace of God in truth.” The love for the saints is the fruit borne by the gospel. When the gospel is preached in reality, it bears fruit. In those who receive it, it produces love for all believers.
The church in Colosse was composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Humanly speaking, the Jews and the Gentiles despised and hated each other. But after the Colossians had believed in the Lord Jesus, the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers came to love one another. Although such a love is a human impossibility, it is a fruit of the gospel. This gospel which grows and bears fruit is also Christ Himself. It was Christ who was growing in the Colossians from the day they first heard the word of the truth of the gospel.
In this verse Paul says that the Colossians “fully knew the grace of God in truth.” To know the grace of God fully is to know it in full, not in part. The grace of God is what God is to us and what God gives to us in Christ (John 1:17; 1 Cor. 15:10). Actually, grace is Christ Himself. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John we are told that the Word which was with God and which was God became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth (vv. 1, 14). Furthermore, of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace (v. 16). Truth here means reality. To know the grace of God in truth is to know it in its reality experientially, not just in word or in doctrine mentally. Truth is Christ as reality, and grace is Christ as our enjoyment. As we experience Christ and enjoy Him, Christ as the truth becomes our grace. The way the gospel grows in us and bears fruit is through our enjoying Christ and experiencing Him as our grace.
In these few verses we see that Christ is so much to us: our hope, our truth, our reality, and our grace. Only when Christ becomes grace to us can we enjoy Him and experience Him. The more we enjoy and experience Christ, the more we grow, bear fruit, live by Him, and lay up hope for ourselves in the heavens.
The words “in truth” may be regarded either as an adverb modifying the predicate knew or as an adjective modifying the noun grace. The grace of God is in truth, in reality, not in mere doctrine or knowledge. As we listen to messages given in the Lord’s recovery, we often enjoy grace in reality. Through such a ministry of the Word, grace in reality is infused into us. Because this grace is solid and substantial, we can taste it, enjoy it, and live by it.
If we take the words “in truth” as an adverb modifying knew, we see that our knowledge of grace should not be in doctrine, but in reality. This means that our knowing Christ as grace must be in reality. In the gospel Christ is conveyed to us and infused into us both as truth and as grace. We have Christ as our reality, and this reality is our enjoyment. As we live by the Christ whom we experience as truth and grace, we lay up for ourselves hope in the heavens.
In verse 7 Paul says, “As you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-slave, who is a minister of Christ faithful for you.” Here Paul points out that Epaphras was a minister of Christ. A minister of Christ is not only a servant of Christ who serves Christ, but a serving one who serves others with Christ by ministering Christ to them.
