Colossians 1:11

Colossae was a fairly small inland city in Phrygia, in the Roman province of Asia, in what is now Turkey. It lay on an important trade route, but by Paul’s day it had less standing than its neighbours Laodicea and Hierapolis. The church there was most likely founded by Epaphras, who came from the city and whom Paul calls his fellow servant (Colossians 1:7, 4:12–13). Paul had not visited it himself, and he wrote this letter from prison to believers who were mostly Gentile converts.

“For this cause” ties the prayer to the thanksgiving just before it, for their faith in Christ Jesus, their love for all the saints and the hope laid up for them in heaven (Colossians 1:3–8). The Greek is diá toûto, “because of this”. Good news about a church moves Paul to pray for it all the more, and his request is shaped for people who already show real spiritual life and now need to grow.

The prayer also prepares for the trouble the letter goes on to address. A teaching had reached Colossae that mixed Jewish rules about food, festivals and circumcision (Colossians 2:16), the worship of angels (Colossians 2:18), harsh self-denial, visions, and a claim to special knowledge, with ideas that resemble what later grew into Gnosticism. It made Christ one help among many. Paul’s first answer is to pray. He asks God for the very things the false teachers promised, knowledge, wisdom and spiritual understanding, and he will go on to show that all of it is found in Christ, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). The prayer and its thanksgiving lead straight into the great passage on the supremacy of Christ in creation and redemption (Colossians 1:15–20).

At the heart of Paul’s prayer is the request “that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”. To be filled, plēróō, is to be made full, and Strong’s gives senses such as “to make replete”, “to furnish” and “to imbue”. Paul wants God’s will to fill them, the way water fills a vessel, so that it reaches every part of their lives.

The word for knowledge, epígnōsis, is built on the ordinary word for knowing, gnōsis, and means recognition, full discernment and acknowledgement. It is knowledge that has taken hold of a person, known well and owned, and so it shows in the way they live. Paul uses the same word again in verse 10 for “the knowledge of God”, so knowing God’s will and knowing God himself belong together.

The will they are to know is God’s thélēma, his determination, choice, purpose and decree. It covers his moral commands, his plan of redemption, and his guidance for each of his people. Paul has above all God’s moral will and saving purposes in mind, which is how a life comes into line with his kingdom. Elsewhere Paul says that a renewed mind proves “what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).

Verse 10 gives the purpose of all this knowledge: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing”. Knowing God’s will leads to living it. To walk, peripatéō, is Paul’s usual picture for a whole manner of life, a road travelled day by day. “Worthy”, axíōs, is an adverb meaning “appropriately” or “as becometh”. Our conduct is meant to fit the Lord we belong to and the high calling he has given us, as Paul urges the Ephesians to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (Ephesians 4:1–3).

“Unto all pleasing” (eis pâsan areskeían) means pleasing God in every respect. The approval Paul has in view is God’s. Jesus lived this perfectly, saying of his Father, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).

Verse 11 asks for the strength to live this way: “Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power”. The verb dynamóō comes from dýnamis, power, and means to enable or make strong. It is passive, so God is the one who gives the strength. Paul piles up words for strength. “All might” is en pásē dynámei, and “power” is krátos, and placing them side by side stresses how great God’s enabling power is. The measure of the strength is God’s own power, which matches his greatness and owes nothing to our capacity or deserving.

“Glorious” renders dóxa, glory, which Strong’s describes as something very apparent and which carries dignity, honour and praise. This is power that shows God’s own majesty. Its greatest display is the resurrection of Christ, and by the Holy Spirit the same power is at work in believers. Scripture speaks of it often: “they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31), “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13), and “my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

God gives this power “unto all patience and longsuffering”. Its purpose is the steady virtues of a godly life, the strength to keep going under trials and to bear with people. In Colossae that meant standing firm against attractive but false teaching and living out the faith consistently.

With verse 12 the prayer turns back to thanksgiving, the note on which Paul’s prayer began (Colossians 1:3), after the petitions of Colossians 1:9–11. “Giving thanks”, eucharistéō, is to be grateful and to say so, and here it is a continuing habit of thanks to the Father. Paul asks the same of all believers: “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).

The reason for thanks is that the Father “hath made us meet”, which in older English means “made us fit”. The verb hikanóō comes from a word meaning “sufficient” or “able”, and means to make sufficient, to qualify. The Father himself has made believers fit, and this is his gift of grace. In Colossae, where teachers said that standing with God came through special knowledge, rituals or self-denial, this was good news. Through Christ’s death and resurrection God has made us fit, and our standing rests on his finished work.

Believers differ on what this fitness chiefly consists of. Some see in it the perfect righteousness of Christ counted to us, so that God declares us fit for his presence. Others see the Holy Spirit’s work in us, fitting the soul for heaven. Both hold that it is God’s work from start to finish.

Verse 13 says how the Father brought us into that inheritance (Colossians 1:12). “Who” is the Father, and he did two things. First, he “hath delivered us from the power of darkness”. The verb rhýomai means to rescue or deliver, and Strong’s gives its root sense as drawing someone to oneself. God’s rescue is his own act, and we were in real danger. The word for power, exousía, covers both authority and plain power. “The power of darkness” is the rule of sin and Satan that held us captive, with all its ignorance, corruption and distance from God. Jesus used the same phrase at his arrest: “this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53). Paul speaks of wrestling against “the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Ephesians 6:12), and many Colossians had come from a pagan world that believed spirits and the stars held sway over them.

Second, the Father “hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son”. The verb methístēmi means to transfer, carry away or remove, and it pictures a complete move from one place and rule to another, with a new citizenship and a new allegiance. “Our conversation is in heaven”, Paul writes (Philippians 3:20). The same rescue is described when the risen Lord sends Paul “to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts 26:18), and when Peter speaks of God “who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9). It is wholly God’s work of grace, received through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9), and the Holy Spirit carries it out by uniting us with Christ.

“His dear Son” is literally “the Son of his love”, where “dear” translates the noun agápē, love. The kingdom we enter is ruled by the one the Father loves, which makes it a loving and secure rule, and the passage that follows shows his preeminence over all things (Colossians 1:15–17). Christ’s cross broke the power of darkness, for there God “spoiled principalities and powers” and “made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). His resurrection and ascension set him “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion” (Ephesians 1:20–22). The prophets foretold a son whose government would have no end (Isaiah 9:6–7), and Jesus began his preaching with “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Both verbs in this verse say “hath”, because the rescue and the move are already done.

Verse 14 names the means of all this: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13–14). “In whom” (en) places our redemption in Christ, in our union with him, and so he is its one source. “We have” is échō, to have, hold or possess. Believers hold this redemption now.

Redemption, apolýtrōsis, means “ransom in full” and “riddance”, being bought back or set free from captivity by the payment of a price. To Jewish readers it recalled the Exodus and the sacrifices of the law. Gentile readers knew the everyday practice of ransoming slaves and paying off debts. Here it is freedom from slavery to sin, its penalty and its power.

The price is “his blood”. The preposition diá here marks the channel or means, “by means of” his blood. The word haîma, blood, stands for Christ’s life poured out in his sacrificial death on the cross. Scripture says, “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22), and Peter writes that we were redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19). The sacrifices of the old covenant pointed to this one. Christ entered the holy place “by his own blood”, once for all, obtaining eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–14), and at the Last Supper he said, “This cup is the new testament in my blood” (Luke 22:20). He bore the penalty for our sins in our place, because he “hath loved us, and hath given himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2). Paul writes almost the same sentence to the Ephesians: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7).

Forgiveness, áphesis, means release or a sending away, and Strong’s gives “freedom”, “pardon”, “deliverance”, “liberty” and “remission”. The sins forgiven are hamartía, the word for sin. Forgiveness is a full pardon from God, the debt cancelled and the guilt and condemnation taken away.

This prayer gives us a pattern for our own prayers for other believers. Paul asks first for knowledge of God’s will, wisdom and spiritual understanding, and then for a life that pleases the Lord, bears fruit and keeps growing. He asks for strength to endure trials and difficult people with joy. And he keeps on asking. We can pray the same things for those we love, especially for those who are already walking with Christ and need to grow.

The thanksgiving at the end gives the prayer its footing. The Father has already made us fit for the inheritance, rescued us from darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his Son, where our sins are forgiven. Our standing rests on what Christ has done, so you can thank God for it on hard days as well as good ones, and look to his glorious power for the patience and joy he promises.