Category Archives: Heresy

“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.