Aug 3

“... to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;” Colossians 2:2

The apostle desires the hearts of the saints to be comforted, knit together in love and reassured in the understanding they have been imparted of the truths of God. In particular he points here to the doctrinal truth, the ‘mystery’ of God, now revealed. This has to do with the powerful truth that God is One. Some would divide God into three separate, distinct persons rather than to see He is but One God, who manifests Himself in multiple ways. This is in part the truth over which Paul wanted the saints at Colossi to rejoice and be assured in. He also instructs them, later in the same chapter, not to be deterred from this truth by traditions, deceptions, philosophies or man’s reasoning. He reminds them that in Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and that they and all believers are complete in Him! This powerful and liberating truth identifies God and focuses all the glory, the honour, the power and the worship to the One to Whom it belongs! Hearing from, obeying and following the ways of the Holy One of Israel, was and remains core doctrine among the Hebrews and should be so among all Christians also. All of deity, the fullness of it, is in Christ Jesus! It is all in Him! Scholars agree that ‘and’ (kai, in the Greek) may be rendered to mean ‘even’, or ‘that is’, and does not always imply a ‘copulative’ (addition) action. Thus the mystery of God ‘and’ of the Father, ‘and’ of Christ, in our verse, is not a mystery involving three beings, persons or gods. It is the mystery of God, now revealed to man through His word involving God, that is, the Father that is, Christ! We are told in 1Timothy 3 that the great mystery of the Godhead is how that God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory! Jesus fits all of that description! Paul confirms that the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwelt in Jesus, not just a portion, a second person, a third or a partial aspect! The same One God, who was the Father in eternity, took on the form of man and became known as the Son of God in redemption, died on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead, and now abides as the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers! This is a great assurance, a cause of great comfort, and an establishing, stabilising truth to all the faithful - that we may personally know the God we have believed in and trusted for our salvation! 

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