on account of the hope which [is] laid up for you in the heavens; of which ye heard before in the word of the truth of the glad tidings,
Paul thanks God for the Colossians' faith and love. Then he names what stands behind both: a hope already stored up for them in heaven. What is kept there? And why does a future hope change the way people live and love now?
"Laid up" is the language of storage, and the place matters as much as the fact. One writer sets both against two pressures on this church: philosophy and strict religious rules.
Their hope was laid up. It was safe. It was "in the heavens," not on the earth — despite philosophy and rules about denying the body. They had to beware of all these, whatever they looked like and whatever they promised. He would remind them of their own true hope, calling them back to the heavens where Christ is. That is the true and only deliverance from all the working of the human mind in divine things, and from earthly religion.
What is stored there is not a list of benefits. It is a Person, and everything else is bound up in Him.
It is not merely that we shall be there. Nor is it just that we have put all our interests into the hand of Christ, and that He will take care of all our happiness and joy in heaven. Christ Himself in glory is our hope. God has treasured up all that is ours in Him in the heavens, and we are to enjoy it now as hope.
The opening words tie the hope back to the faith and love of verse 4. One writer reads that hope as the reason these Colossians loved as they did.
It was "for" or "because of" the hope that love to all the saints marked them out. They would all be together with the Lord Jesus Christ and like Him, sharing with Him the coming glory. That hope was laid up for them in heaven, not on earth as Israel's hope is. So they loved all the saints.
Paul says they had heard of this hope already. It came to them with the gospel that first converted them — which means the gospel itself carries more than pardon.
The gospel, the good news of grace, had good news of glory wrapped up in it too. Such was the range and scope of the gospel they had heard. It was God's good news not only of the forgiveness of sins through the blood of His Son, but of eternal blessedness with Him in heaven.
That has a direct consequence for anyone who preaches, and the balance cuts both ways.
We learn from this that those who preach the gospel should stress its present effect, which is deliverance from the power of sin. They should stress its final effect too — bringing the believer into glory. It would of course be just as much a mistake to preach the final effect without insisting on the present one.
Paul piles up three weighty terms instead of just saying "the gospel." Each one answers a pull the Colossians felt.
It was not intellectual groping, but "the word" sent to them — God's revelation. It was not dabbling in legal forms, but "the truth," the truth of the gospel. The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The gospel came to them, and was still there with them, as unchanging as the One who is its sum and substance. Real truth, even when new, never sets aside the old. Instead it supplies the missing links, deepens the foundations and widens the scope.
In everyday speech "hope" means a wish that may not come true. Here it means the opposite. Paul urges it on them for a practical reason.
Hope in Scripture is not something uncertain. It is looking ahead to the future with no doubt at all involved… It was necessary to press this prospect on them, since they were travelling through a wilderness, exposed to present dangers and temptations. How vital it is for us all to keep the end in view!
One writer compares this letter with Ephesians, and the difference shapes daily life.
Heavenly things are our hope. Colossians does not begin with the counsels of God, as Ephesians does. Instead we get a long opening in which the apostle longs to settle the saints in this hope of heavenly things… My hope is laid up in heaven, but I am not sitting there.
- Hope stored. God has already stored the hope safely in heaven, not on earth — out of reach of philosophy and religious rule-keeping.
- Hope is a Person. God has treasured up everything for us in Christ in glory. Christ Himself is the hope, and we enjoy it now in anticipation.
- Hope fuels love. The Colossians loved all believers because of the hope. They were all heading for the same glory.
- Hope was preached. They heard it in the gospel itself. It announces forgiveness through the blood of God's Son, and eternal blessedness with Him. Preaching that drops either half is unbalanced.
- Hope keeps you walking. It is certainty, not guesswork. It steadies travellers still exposed to danger, whose hope is in heaven though they do not sit there yet.
which are come to you, as [they are] in all the world, [and] are bearing fruit and growing, even as also among you, from the day ye heard [them] and knew indeed the grace of God, in truth
The gospel had come to Colossae, and the same message was bearing fruit and growing across the world. Paul points to that fruit, and to the day they first heard, as the marks of grace known in truth.
The first thing Paul says about this gospel is where it goes.
A second mark of the gospel was that it was for everyone. It had reached them, and was among them, just as it was in the world. It was not merely Jewish news; it was for man. Offences abounded among the Jews; but sin is a far wider thing, and where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.
That scope was not a side detail. It answered a real pressure on these believers.
Then, as now, there were people who tried to draw believers back onto Jewish ground. So the Apostle reminds them that the gospel is for everyone. The grace of God cannot be limited to the Jew; it is for "all the world".
A small group in one town can feel cut off from anything bigger.
This same gospel had produced fruit in all the world as well as in them, so they were not isolated, whether they felt so or not. Fruit had been coming from the day they heard and knew the grace of God in truth (v.6). What a precious encouragement about the power of the truth they had learned!
Some fear that a message of free grace makes people careless.
Does grace make us careless or indifferent? It does not; it works in exactly the opposite direction; it produces fruit. Another rendering of this passage reads: "The Glad Tidings … are bearing fruit and growing, even as also among you." Both growth and fruit-bearing prove that life is there. Where people truly receive the Gospel, there is no standing still and no decay.
Set beside the law, the difference is sharp.
Grace is not like the law. The Ten Commandments are mostly negative. The law mostly deals with what is evil, and it condemns it. But the gospel reveals Christ as a power that gives life, strengthens, and produces fruit. Because it is a principle of life, it expands and grows as well as bearing fruit.
So who bears the fruit here — the message, or the people who receive it?
What is more, in that day the gospel itself was "bearing fruit and growing". Later we learn that the saints are to bear fruit and grow (Col. 1:10); here it is the gospel that bears fruit and grows. The saints themselves are the fruit of the gospel, and the character of Christ in the saints is the fruit that believers are to bear.
The phrase marks a starting point, not a finished event. What began at conversion kept producing.
It was gathering souls to God through Christ wherever it went, but besides, it was bringing forth fruit in those who were gathered. The clause that follows implies this: "since the day you heard it, and knew the grace of God in truth." Ever since that day it has been the power that bears fruit, just as at the start it was the seed of eternal life. And the grace of God, when known in truth, sets us before God in Christ; the fruits of that union we are to show here on earth.
Colossae had other teachings on offer.
The same gospel was going out into all the world, bearing fruit wherever people received it in faith. Could this be said of the various philosophical systems being introduced among the Colossians? Or could mysticism and law-keeping show such results? Only those who hear and believe the gospel know the grace of God in truth.
This knowledge is not all that Paul wants for them.
The Apostle sees two kinds of knowledge in the saints. One is the knowledge of "the grace of God in truth." The other is the knowledge of "His will in all wisdom and understanding" (verses 6 and 9). The saints at Colossae had reached the first; he longed for them to reach the second.
- Came. The gospel reached Colossae as a message already going out to the whole world — for man, not for one nation.
- Bore fruit. Grace does not make people careless. Fruit and growth prove that the message truly took hold.
- Fruit twice over. In verse 6 the gospel bears the fruit, and the believers are that fruit. By verse 10 they bear fruit themselves.
- Since that day. The same message that gave life keeps producing life — a starting date, not a closing one.
- More to know. They knew the grace of God in truth. Paul prayed they would go on to know His will as well.