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.
even as ye learned from Epaphras our beloved fellow-bondman, who is a faithful minister of Christ for you,
Paul never preached at Colosse, yet he thanks God for the faith growing there. Verse 7 names the man who brought the message: Epaphras, whom Paul calls a fellow servant and a faithful minister of Christ.
Paul writes to a church he did not start.
In common with the letter to the Romans, this letter was addressed to saints in a place where Paul had not worked (2:1). The apostle did not found the church at Colosse. It seems God chose Epaphras to bring them the gospel — one of them, a servant of Christ (4:12), Paul's beloved fellow servant, and their faithful minister of Christ (1:7).
Epaphras carried the message to Colosse, and then carried news of Colosse to Rome.
It would appear from verse 7 that Epaphras had been the servant of Christ who brought the light to them. They had learned the Glad Tidings of the grace of God and of the hope of glory from his lips. Then verse 8 shows that he had travelled to Rome. There he told Paul what God had done among the Colossians, and how deep and sincere their Christian love was.
The title Paul gives Epaphras is a servant word, and it covers other workers too.
Paul was a deacon (minister) both of the gospel and of the Church, Christ's body (Col. 1:23 and 25). Tychicus was a faithful minister, or deacon, of Christ (4:7). And Epaphras was another. Both "minister" in Colossians 1:7 and "servant" translate the Greek word diakonos, "deacon."
The manuscripts differ over one word in this verse.
Several manuscripts read "a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf," and the editors Lachmann, Tregelles, and Alford follow them. This is perhaps the more correct reading. By it Paul is vouching for Epaphras' work at Colosse.
Rival teachers at Colosse were pushing speculation and Jewish ritual. They gained ground at a faithful worker's expense.
So the Apostle takes the opportunity, as he often did, to strengthen the hands of one who was Christ's minister and faithful on their behalf. He calls him here, with affection, "Epaphras, our beloved fellow bondman." The speculative views and the Jewish ritual forms no doubt had their promoters. Such men would seek to win favour at a faithful labourer's expense. We can easily see why Colosse needed this word commending Epaphras.
Paul had evidence for this, not just affection.
It seems Epaphras brought them this knowledge. Paul speaks of him as his fellow servant, and as a faithful minister of Christ for them. The work showed what the workman was. Through him, the apostle himself saw their love in the Spirit.
Epaphras founded the church. So why is Paul the one writing them a letter of instruction?
God used Epaphras (Col. 1:7) as His servant for the blessing of the Colossians. Thinking of that, we might be tempted to ask, "Was Paul interfering with somebody else's work when he sent this letter to them?"
The answer takes ownership out of it.
It would help us all to remember this. In Christianity, God works the service, and it is not the private property of a servant. The gospel reaches souls to give them a living link with the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory. He uses one or another, but His object is to form this link with Himself.
The end of the letter shows how he served them once he was far away.
Earlier in the letter we learnt that Epaphras had laboured among the Colossian saints as a faithful minister of Christ. Now we learn that he is no longer with them. Yet he still laboured hard in prayer for them, and for the saints in the neighbouring towns of Laodicea and Hierapolis... A wholesome and encouraging reminder that prayer is a powerful weapon in meeting the opposition of the enemy.
That kind of work never draws a crowd.
His labours, so far as the inspired writer has recorded them, do not seem to have been very showy or attractive. They were not designed to catch the human eye or win human praise. But they were most precious labours — peerless, priceless labours! They were labours done in private, labours behind the closed door, labours in the sanctuary. Without them everything else must prove barren and worthless.
- Learned. Epaphras, not Paul, brought the gospel to Colosse. Paul still thanked God for a church he had never visited.
- Servant. "Minister" translates the ordinary Greek word for a servant. Paul and Tychicus carry the same title. It describes work, not rank.
- Faithful. The work showed what the workman was. Paul said so out loud, where rival teachers were trying to pull a faithful labourer down.
- Not owned. Service is never a servant's private property. The Lord uses one worker or another to link souls to Himself. So Paul could write to converts he had not made.
- Sustained. Later the same man is labouring in prayer for those believers from far away. Hidden work, and without it everything else proves worthless.
who has also manifested to us your love in [the] Spirit.
Paul is thanking God for a church he had never visited, and everything he knows about it came second-hand. Verse 8 names the man who brought the report. It also names the one thing he reported: their love in the Spirit.
The verse points back to the man named in verse 7. He is the link between the church at Colossae and Paul.
It would appear from verse 7 that Epaphras had been the servant of Christ who brought the light to them. They had learned the good news of the grace of God and of the hope of glory from his lips. Then verse 8 shows that he had travelled to Rome. There he made known to Paul what God had worked among the Colossians, and the depth and sincerity of their Christian love. We can see how highly Paul esteemed him. He speaks of him as a faithful servant of Christ. At the end of the letter we learn how truly devoted he was to the spiritual welfare of the Colossians.
What Epaphras reported was also a report on his own work.
The work showed what the workman was. Through him they showed their love in the Spirit to the apostle himself.
Paul had never met these people. Yet he wrote to them with full confidence, and the report from Epaphras is why.
It is remarkable too that Paul had not seen them... He wrote in this way because of a report. A faithful servant of the Lord had been working among them, and Paul heard from him that they did not just profess to be Christians. They also showed the two central marks of Christianity: "faith in Christ Jesus, and love for all the saints." He also declared to the apostle their "love in the Spirit." It hardly needs adding that these activities of soul are never found in the natural man. Only a divine work can produce them. On one hand, there may be much natural kindness and generous, self-denying service to others, without any knowledge of Christ. On the other hand, there may be a boastful faith that can remove mountains, without any sense of the love of God in Christ. But when the apostle heard of their faith in Christ Jesus, and of their love for fellow believers, the Spirit led him to assure them, without hesitation, of their present standing and blessings, and of the certainty that they would be with Christ in glory.
The phrase tells you about the love, not about the Spirit's presence here.
It does not present the Spirit of God as a person down here, though of course He is a person. It presents Him as giving the love its character. The love was not natural affection; it was love in the Spirit.
Ordinary affection needs something attractive to attach to. This love works on another basis, so it reaches further.
Here their love to the saints unfolds and grows. They did not know Paul in the flesh, so it could only be in the Spirit that they loved him. I might know a brother and be drawn to him by something attractive in the flesh. But love in the Spirit loves him because he belongs to Christ. Now love in the Spirit takes in "all the saints," as we have it in verse 4.
The Spirit is named nowhere else in this letter. That silence has a reason.
This is the only mention of the Holy Spirit in Colossians. The letter gives no doctrine about Him at all, unlike Romans, Galatians and Ephesians. Here instead the Holy Spirit is drawing attention to the Person of Christ as enough food for the wilderness. So He says nothing of Himself.
The subject of the letter shows why love takes this form here:
In Colossians the main subject is the glory of Christ, as Head, and the unfolding of His glories as the head of His body. We are all members of that body. So "love in the Spirit" is a mark of the life that each member has.
- Carrier. Epaphras brought the gospel to Colossae and carried the news back to Paul. "The work showed what the workman was."
- Source. This love is not natural warmth. Such faith and love are "never found in the natural man." Only "a divine work" can produce them.
- Character. "In the Spirit" tells you what kind of love this is. The Spirit gives the love its character; He is not the subject here.
- Reach. It loves a person because he belongs to Christ. So it reaches saints it has never seen, and takes in "all the saints."
- Focus. The Spirit is named only once in Colossians. Here He draws attention to Christ and says nothing of Himself.