Category Archives: Colossians

“The whole God is found in Him” by John Calvin

“When Paul says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, he means simply that the whole God is found in Him, so that he who is not satisfied with Christ alone, desires something better and more excellent than God. The sum is that God has manifested Himself to us fully and perfectly in Christ.”

–John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, trans. T.H.L. Parker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 330. Calvin is commenting on Colossians 2:9.

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“The motto for this year” by Charles Spurgeon

“Continue in prayer.”—Colossians 4:2

It is interesting to remark how large a portion of Sacred Writ is occupied with the subject of prayer, either in furnishing examples, enforcing precepts, or pronouncing promises. We scarcely open the Bible before we read, ‘Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord;’ and just as we are about to close the volume, the ‘Amen’ of an earnest supplication meets our ear.

Instances are plentiful. Here we find a wrestling Jacob—there a Daniel who prayed three times a day—and a David who with all his heart called upon his God. On the mountain we see Elias; in the dungeon Paul and Silas. We have multitudes of commands, and myriads of promises.

What does this teach us, but the sacred importance and necessity of prayer? We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. If He has said much about prayer, it is because He knows we have much need of it.

So deep are our necessities, that until we are in heaven we must not cease to pray. Dost thou want nothing? Then, I fear thou dost not know thy poverty. Hast thou no mercy to ask of God? Then, may the Lord’s mercy show thee thy misery!

A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus. It is the breath, the watchword, the comfort, the strength, the honour of a Christian.

If thou be a child of God, thou wilt seek thy Father’s face, and live in thy Father’s love. Pray that this year thou mayst be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; have closer communion with Christ, and enter oftener into the banqueting-house of His love.

Pray that thou mayst be an example and a blessing unto others, and that thou mayst live more to the glory of thy Master. The motto for this year must be, ‘Continue in prayer.'”

–Charles Spurgeon, “January 2 — Morning” in Morning and Evening (Geanies House, Fearn, Scotland, UK: Christian Focus, 1994),  12.

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“The only real life” by Henry Alford

“The only real life of the Christian is his resurrection life in and with Christ.”

–Henry Alford, Alford’s Greek Testament: An Exegetical and Critical Commentary, Vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 3:231. Alford is commenting on Colossians 3:1.

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“In Him all things hold together” by Douglas Moo

“What holds the universe together is not an idea or a virtue, but a person: the resurrected Christ. Without Him, electrons would not continue to circle nuclei, gravity would cease to work, and the planets would not stay in their orbits.”

–Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI : Eerdmans., 2008), 125.

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“We may behold Him as in a mirror” by John Calvin

“Paul calls the Son the ‘image of the invisible God’, meaning by this, that it is in Him alone that God, who is otherwise invisible, is manifested to us, in accordance with what is said in John 1:18, ‘No man hath ever seen God: the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath Himself manifested Him to us.’

For Christ is called the image of God on this ground– that He makes God in a manner visible to us. The sum is this– that God in Himself, that is, in His naked majesty, is invisible, and that not to the eyes of the body merely, but also to the understandings of men, and that He is revealed to us in Christ alone, that we may behold Him as in a mirror.

For in Christ He shows us His righteousness, goodness, wisdom, power, in short, His entire self. We must, therefore, beware of seeking Him elsewhere, for everything that would set itself off as a representation of God, apart from Christ, will be an idol.”

–John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, trans. T.H.L. Parker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 308. Calvin is commenting on Colossians 1:15.

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“The only remedy for false teaching” by John Calvin

“Again Paul returns to thanksgiving, that he may take this opportunity of enumerating the blessings which had been conferred upon them through Christ, and thus he enters upon a full delineation of Christ. For this was the only remedy for fortifying the Colossians against all the snares, by which the false Apostles endeavored to entrap them– to understand accurately who Christ was. For how comes it that we are carried about with so many strange doctrines, but because the excellence of Christ is not perceived by us?

For Christ alone makes all other things suddenly vanish. Hence there is nothing that Satan so much endeavors to accomplish as to bring on mists with the view of obscuring Christ, because he knows, that by this means the way is opened up for every kind of falsehood. This, therefore, is the only means of retaining, as well as restoring pure doctrine: to place Christ before the view such as He is with all His blessings, that His excellence may be truly perceived.”

–John Calvin, commenting on Colossians 1:12 in Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, trans. William Pringle (repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 145-146.

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