The Literature and History of New Testament Times

by J. Gresham Machen

LESSON XXIII

THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST

1. THE EPISTLES OF THE THIRD GROUP

With the lesson for to-day, we are introduced to the third group among the epistles of Paul. The epistles of the second group, which were written during the third missionary journey, are concerned with the problem of sin and salvation; the epistles of the third group are interesting especially for their teaching about the person of Christ and about the Church. A period of about three or four years separates the last epistle of the second group from the first epistle of the third. Most of this interval had been spent by Paul in captivity. Undoubtedly, during this period of enforced leisure, there had been development in Paul's thinking, but it is very difficult to determine exactly wherein that development consisted. The differences of the third group of epistles from the second are due to the difference in the readers at least as much as to a difference in Paul himself. It is hard to say just how much of Colossians and Ephesians Paul would have been incapable of writing during the third missionary journey.

At any rate, the epistles of the captivity differ from those of the former group in being for the most part quieter in tone. During the third journey Paul had had to continue the great battles of his career against various forms of Judaizing error. Christianity at one time seemed to be in danger of being reduced to a mere form of Judaism; the free grace of God was being deserted for a law religion; faith was being deserted for works. In Galatia, the question of principle had been uppermost; in Corinth, the personal attack upon Paul. Everywhere, moreover, the gospel of salvation by faith was exposed to misconception. Pagan license was threatening to creep into the Church. Unless it could be kept out, the legalists would have some apparent show of reason on their side. Taking it all in all, it had been a hard battle. But it had been gloriously fought, and it had been won. Now Paul was able to turn his attention to new fields of labor and to new problems.

2. THE CHRISTOLOGY OF COLOSSIANS

The Epistle to the Colossians is peculiarly "Christological." More fully and more expressly than in any other of his letters Paul here develops his view about the person of Christ. Even here, however, this teaching is incidental; it was simply Paul's way of refuting certain errors that had crept into the Colossian church. Except for those errors Paul would perhaps never have written at length, as he does in Col. 1:14-23, about the relation of Christ to God and to the world. Yet in that case his own views would have been the same, and they would have been just as fundamental to his whole religious life. In the epistles, which are written to Christians, Paul takes many things for granted. Some of the things which are most fundamental appear only incidentally. Just because they were fundamental, just because they were accepted by everyone, they did not need to be discussed at length.

So it is especially with the person of Christ. From the first epistle to the last, Paul presupposes essentially the same view of that great subject. Practically everything that he says in Colossians could have been inferred from scattered hints in the earlier epistles. From the beginning Paul regarded Jesus Christ as a man, who had a real human life and died a real death on the cross. From the beginning, on the other hand, he separated Christ sharply from men and placed him clearly on the side of God. From the beginning, in other words, he attributed to him a double nature—Jesus Christ was always in Paul's thinking both God and man. Finally, the preëxistence of Christ, which is so strongly emphasized in Colossians, is clearly implied in such passages as Gal. 4:4; and his activity in creation appears, according to the best-attested text, in I Cor. 8:6.

Nevertheless, the more systematic exposition in Colossians is of the utmost value. It serves to summarize and explain the scattered implications of the earlier epistles. Christ according to Paul is, in the first place, "the image of the invisible God." Col. 1:15. He is the supreme Revealer of God, a Revealer, however, not merely by words but by his own nature. If you want to know what God is, look upon Christ! In the second place, he is "the firstborn of all creation." Of itself that phrase might be misconstrued. It might be thought to mean that Christ was the first being that God created. Any such interpretation, however, is clearly excluded by the three following verses. There Paul has himself provided an explanation of his puzzling phrase. "The firstborn of all creation" means that Christ, himself uncreated, existed before all created things; he was prior to all things, and, as befits an only son, he possesses all things. Indeed he himself was active in the creation of all things, not only the world, and men, but also those angelic powers—"thrones or dominions or principalities or powers"—upon whom the errorists in Colossæ were inclined to lay too much emphasis. He was the instrument of God the Father in creation. And he was also the end of creation. The world exists not for its own sake, but for the sake of Christ. Especially is he the Head of the Church. His headship is declared by his being the first to rise from the dead into that glorious life into which he will finally bring all his disciples. In a word, the entire "fulness" of the divine nature dwells in Christ. That word "fulness" was much misused in the "Gnostic" speculations of the second century. It is barely possible that the word had already been employed in the incipient Gnosticism of the Colossian errorists. If so, Paul by his repeated use of the word in Colossians and Ephesians, is bringing his readers back to a healthier and simpler and grander conception.