Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Colossians 1:5
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
5. for the hope ] I.e. on account of the hope. “That blessed hope,” full of Christ, and the object of an intensely united expectation, gave special occasion, by its nature, for the exercise alike of the faith and the love just mentioned.
“Faith, love, hope,” thus appear together, as 1Co 13:13; 1Th 1:3; and cp. 1Pe 1:3; 1Pe 1:5; 1Pe 1:22. Lightfoot compares also Polycarp, Ep. to the Philippians, c. 3: “Faith, which is the mother of us all, followed by hope, whose precursor is love.” See Lightfoot’s note on that place ( Apost. Fathers, Pt. ii. vol. ii. sect. ii. p. 911). The interaction of the three great graces has many different aspects. Faith, which alone accepts Christ, and so unites us to Him, is indeed the antecedent in the deepest sense to both the others, and their abiding basis. But in the experience of the life and walk of grace, faith itself may be stimulated by either or both of the sister-graces; and so on.
Meanwhile “ hope ” here, strictly speaking, is not the subjective grace but its glorious object, the Return of the exalted Lord to receive His people to Himself. See e.g. Php 3:20, with our note; Tit 2:13 ; 1Pe 1:4-7; Rev 22:20.
laid up for you in heaven ] See for a close parallel, 1Pe 1:4; and cp. Heb 11:16; Heb 13:14.
“ In heaven: ” lit., in the heavens; as often in N.T. On this plural see our note on Eph 4:10. The hope is “ laid up ” there, because He who is its Essence (1Ti 1:1; cp. below Col 1:27) is there, “sitting at the right hand of God” (below, Col 3:1); and our final enjoyment of it, whatever the details of locality may prove to be, whatever e.g. be the destiny of this earth with regard to the abode of the Blessed, will take place under the full manifestation of His presence in heavenly glory. See our Lord’s own words, Mat 6:20-21; Luk 12:34; Luk 18:22; Joh 14:3; Joh 17:24.
ye heard before ] He might have said simply, “ ye heard.” But the expression “seems intended to contrast their earlier with their later lessons the true Gospel of Epaphras with the false gospel of their recent teachers” (Lightfoot). On that “false gospel” see below, on Col 2:8, etc., and Introd., ch. 4.
the truth of the gospel ] Not merely “ the true Gospel,” but that holy and mighty Truth, “Jesus and the Resurrection” (Act 17:18), which is the basis and the characteristic of the one Gospel. The rivals of that Gospel could produce on the contrary only arbitrary assertions and a priori speculations, the cloud of a theory of existence and of observance instead of the rock of Jesus Christ.
The word “Gospel” ( euangelion) occurs more than 60 times in St Paul’s writings and addresses; elsewhere, 12 times in SS. Matthew and Mark together, once in the Acts, once in St Peter, once in the Revelation. The expositor must never forget its true meaning; “ good tidings.” Paradoxically but truly it has been said that the Gospel as such contains no precepts and no threatenings, though deeply and vitally related to Divine law and judgment. Its burthen is Jesus Christ as our perfect Peace, Life, and Hope, with a Divine welcome in His name to sinful man, believing.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven – That is, I give thanks that there is such a hope laid up for you. The evidence which he had that this hope was theirs, was founded on the faith and love to the saints which he heard they had evinced. He fully believed that where there was such faith and love, there was a well-founded hope of heaven. The word hope here is used, as it often is, for the thing hoped for. The object of hope – to wit, eternal happiness, was reserved for them in heaven.
Whereof ye heard before – When the gospel was first preached to you. You were told of the blessed rewards of a life of faith, in heaven.
In the word of the truth of the gospel – In the true word of the gospel.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Col 1:5
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.
This is
I. A very marvellous hope.
1. If we consider that it is a great act of grace that sinners should have a hope at all, there was a time when we were without Christ, having no hope. We had many false hopes, little will-o-the-wisps, which danced before us, deceived us, and led us into the bogs of presumption and error. Each time we tried to rely on good works, outward ceremonies, and good resolutions, we were disappointed anew. Now, sinners though we be, we have a hope.
2. More marvellous still that our hope should be associated with heaven. It seems almost presumptuous for a sinner who so richly deserves hell even to lift up his eyes towards heaven. He might have some hope of purgatory, if there were such a place, but is not the hope of heaven too much? Yet we have no fear of hell or purgatory. Heaven awaits all believers. Not that we shall have a glance at it; we shall have it and be in it.
3. Still more marvellous, it is so substantial. Paul seems hardly to be speaking of the grace of hope, since that dwells in our bosoms, but rather the object, but not exclusively, because that which is laid up in heaven is not a hope, except to those who hope for it. The hope, then, is so substantial that Paul speaks of it as though it were the thing itself. A man may have hope of wealth, but that is a very different thing from being wealthy; and of old age, and yet not reach middle life; but this Divine hope can never be disappointed.
4. Because it is the subject of Divine revelation. No man could have invented it. The prince of dreamers could not have imagined it, nor the master of logic inferred it. The word of the truth of the gospel has opened a window in heaven, and bidden us look on our own.
5. Inasmuch as it came to us by hearing, Whereof ye heard, not by working, deserving, penance, and sacrifice. We heard that the pierced hand of Jesus had opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers, and we believed. Will we not prize to the uttermost the sacred word which has brought us such a hope?
6. Because the substance of it is most extraordinary.
(1) It is the hope of victory, for we shall overcome every foe;
(2) of perfection, for we shall be like Christ;
(3) of security from every danger, for no temporal evil shall come near us, no mental evil intrude upon us, no spiritual enemy assail us;
(4) of perfect rest, which shall be consistent with continual service, for, like the angels, we shall rest on the wing–no weary limb or fevered brain shall follow us;
(5) of happiness beyond compare;
(6) of everlasting fellowship with Christ.
II. A most secure hope.
1. Because it is laid up. Bank calamities make business men very careful where they lay up their treasures, but there is no room for anxiety for what God takes under His charge. Laid up, hidden in a safe place. We find it hard to lay up our valuables safely.
2. Laid up for you. There is a crown in heaven which will never be worn by any other head but yours.
3. Laid up in heaven, where, as our Saviour says–
(1) Neither moth nor rust doth corrupt–no process of decay will cause your treasure to become stale and worn out.
(2) Nor do thieves break through and steal. We cannot imagine Satan undermining the bastions of heaven. If your hope lies in the bank, it may break; if in an empire, it may melt away; if in an estate, the deeds may be questioned; if in any human creature, death may bereave you; if in yourself, it is deceitful altogether.
4. We have one indisputable certificate and guarantee for it. Notice three emphatic words.
(1) In the word. We take a good mans words freely; and will we not take Gods word much more readily?
(2) Of the truth. It is not a word of guess or probable inference, but of infallible truth. There may be other true things in the world, but Gods word is the essence of truth.
(3) Of the gospel. The sum and substance of the good news is this glorious hope.
III. A powerfully influential hope.
1. It is the parent and nurse of love. The love which ye have to all saints for the hope, etc, That is no trifling fountain of action which leads believing hearts to love,
2. Love is part of its operation on ourselves, but it affects others also.
(1) It leads ministers and gracious people to give thanks to God;
(2) to pray (Col 1:9). (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The heavenly hope
I. There is given to man a prospect of future good. The apostle here speaks about a hope. Hope is the expectation of future good. There is no being who is not the subject of hope. We are not content to exercise this passion merely in reference to objects which are on this side the grave. We all think of the state into which we expect to remove. Man would fain live for ever; futurity rises on the soul; and hope implants the high desire of enjoying it. This hope is inspired by the goodness of the God who formed us; He has been pleased to grant us a knowledge by which our hopes may be confirmed and conducted to their final goal in heaven. A beautiful vista of enjoyment is opened before us, exactly corresponding with our views and wishes. Hope is the balm of life; and but for it life would be but a dreadful dungeon, and we should sink into all the horrors of despair. Now, look on the future; survey the landscape which revelation has sketched out. There are the many mansions in which God the Father, His Son, His people reside. These are the beautiful similitudes which are employed to inspire our hopes. They are abodes of purity; they are the abodes of knowledge. There we shall know even as we are known. They are abodes of triumph; they are the abodes of blessed companionship. There we come to God, to Jesus, to the spirits of the just made perfect. They are the abodes of life and immortality.
II. Certain requisites are necessary for participating in that prospect. Hope is founded on faith; and we must believe before we can hope for the enjoyment of heaven.
1. There must be faith in the declarations of God by which the nature of these prospects is disclosed. No man can hope for that in which he does not believe. There must be faith, else all this beautiful scenery will only be like the work of fancy or falsehood.
2. Faith in the method of mercy revealed by God as the only way through which a participation in these prospects can be enjoyed. God has not only revealed these prospects, but also the way to the enjoyment of them.
III. The prospect of future good rests on the most firm and inviolable security. It is said to be laid up. The apostle uses the same expression, There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. In Heb 9:27 the same word is rendered appointed. It is a thing granted on a firm and imperishable security. How different, then, is it from the hopes of earth. Here the object is as certain as if you grasped it in your hand.
1. It rests on the authority of the Word of God. Let it be assumed that the author of your hope is God. Did He ever inspire hope, and plunge into despair? Did He ever erect a building which He will not protect? Has He not power? Is He not wise? Is He destitute of goodness? My counsel shall stand, and will do all My pleasure.
2. The word of God is ratified by the work of the Redeemer. All the work of Christ is to give firmness to what God has sworn. All the promises of God in Christ Jesus are yea, and in Him amen. The death of Christ does its part, as it is the sacrifice by which the curse is taken away. The resurrection of Christ is the testimony that the atonement is accepted. The present residence of the Saviour is another foundation on which this hope rests. I go to prepare a place for you. Jesus the forerunner hath entered in.
IV. These prospects, when enjoyed and possessed, must produce the most powerful influence on the heart.
1. It excites to moral purity and holiness of life. You hope to enter heaven. Heaven is a holy place. God is holy. The inhabitants are holy. All their praises centre in this perfection. You must be holy in heaven; and will you not be so here? Every one that hath this hope purifieth himself as He is pure.
2. It produces calmness and peace amidst the troubles and trials of the world. The man who has so good a hope of heaven need not grudge to encounter a few troubles on earth.
3. It gives confidence amid the approaches of decay and dissolution. This is the hope which is laid up for Christians in heaven! It is a good hope, a lively hope, a sweet hope–a hope which makes the coward bold, a hope which bears above the world, etc. But is it mine? (J. Parsons.)
Hope laid up in heaven
What is this hope but the glorious life we look for? Now, where should the life of the branches of a tree be kept but where the root is? So where should our glorious life be hid but where Christ, the root of us all, is with him? Yea, this is most meet and behoveful for us. If an Englishman should sojourn in France a while, and had great treasure to receive, would he not choose rather to have it paid him at the Exchange in his own country than to have it there, far from his home, and stand to the hazard of transporting of it? So it fareth with us. It is safer that our wealth should be paid us in heaven, our own country, than here where we are but strangers wayfaring for a season. (P. Bayne, B. D.)
Christian hope
Our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as I imagine so, or It is likely; but the cable, the strong rope of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him who is eternal verity; our salvation is fastened with Gods own hand, and Christs own strength, to the strong stake of Gods unchangeable nature. (S. Rutherford.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Col 1:5-6
The word of the truth of the gospel which is come unto you.
The argument for the gospel based on the triumphs of missions
I. Think of the gospel as it affords inspiration to disseminate itself. Christianity is the religion of universal man. It recognizes no exception.
1. The principles of the kingdom of Jesus Christ are themselves universal. They deal with conditions which belong to all men. They impose rules which all can obey. They grant their privileges without distinction. The sin they would destroy is the sin of all men. The salvation they illustrate is offered to every child of Adam. Christ indicated this universality by explicit declaration in the conversation with Nicodemus, the parables of the kingdom, and the great commission. This idea was fully gained by the apostles. Not at first, although Peter touched it in his address to Cornelius; but Paul fully developed it. Is not this in itself unique? Has it not such a supreme character that it at least suggests the idea of a Divine origin? Why should it belong to Christianity alone?
2. But this universalism is much more than an intellectual idea. It is a vital and energizing force. It propagates itself. The moment a man becomes a Christian he is filled with a desire that others should be Christians.
3. Hence we find two facts in the history of the Church–its aggressive character, and its exclusive relation to all other faiths. The Roman pantheon included all the gods of the nations conquered by Rome, and would have welcomed Christ, but He would not enter it. He demanded the extrusion of every other divinity; His altar alone could receive the sacrifices of a worshipping world. And it is still so. Christianity brooks no other faith. Is not this a noteworthy fact? Whence has it come?
4. It is in modern missions that we may find the practical illustration of this universalism and its most effective illustration.
II. Think of the unselfish spirit in which this attempt to win a world has been projected and carried out.
1. The mere desire for imperial sway over an entire race may of itself be no very Divine emotion. Many have experienced it, and it has proved to be a spawn of hell rather than a birth of heaven–Nimrod, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. But this is not the spirit that animates the modern herald of the Cross. He seeks no personal glory, his gains are small, his comforts few; with no weapons but a book, the name of Jesus, and a holy life, he moves to the victory of a world.
2. I know all that can be said about the restless spirit, love of adventure, desire to escape the dulness of average home life, and the glamour of missionary fame. But these emotions are fleeting, and perish if there be no recognition in places of note, and wither before old age. But this is not the experience of missionaries. It is nearly a century since evangelical missions were started, but the spirit is as fresh as ever. If the romance has disappeared, it has been replaced by a greater devotion, and a wiser, because more experienced, energy. What is the earthly fame the missionary gains? Mention half a dozen names out of hundreds of thousands which the world signalizes. What his wealth? Scarce a pittance for old age. What does a thoughtful inquirer make of this system which begets such a quality of moral nature, which summons to its work such a noble spirit? Does it not suggest that God must be the author of the truth these men carry forth, and the inspirer of the sentiment with which they do their work?
III. Think of the marvellous force which the gospel has manifested in its spread through the world.
1. We are not considering the advance of a nation which is extending its government, arms, commerce, language, or tracing the progress of a trade, science, or any other force which spends itself on our physical existence, and may minister to the baser side of our nature. We are estimating the power of a force which comes to each man personally, and demands thought, obedience, self-conquest, and the dissolution, it may be, of bonds which hold him to his past, his family, and his interest. There is nothing like it. It is the only moral propagander of the world.
2. And yet what victories it has gained. Napoleon confessed that his paled before them.: But putting aside the past gains of the gospel, its victories over Jewish faith, Greek philosophy, Roman law, its contest with Islam, and its conquest of Europe, consider its modern achievements. Modern missions found the South Sea Islands the home of naked savages; to-day they are for the most part civilized, and reckoned among the nations. Think of what it has done in Madagascar, and what it is doing in India, China, Japan. Wherever we turn we find the missionary. He has created written languages, clothed the naked, changed the savage into a saint, made lands safe for the trader, freed the slave, dec.
IV. Think of the adaptation to the wants of man which the gospel has exhibited in its spread throughout the world. It has proved itself to be exactly what all men want, and what they could readily accept.
1. How varied are the climes into which it has been carried, but it breathes every air, and finds each as if its native breath.
2. All colours are alike to the gospel.
3. Age makes no difference, and culture renders it neither needless nor ineffectual.
4. No nation outgrows it.
5. It presents a point at which all can unite. It has realized the unity and brotherhood of the race. There is an old Arabic proverb which declares that Islam can flourish only where the palm tree grows, but the Tree of Life is planted in every soil, and blossoms all over the world. What can be the answer of a thoughtful mind to such facts as these? (Ll. D. Bevan, D. D.)
The perennial fruitfulness of the gospel
The gospel is not like those plants which exhaust themselves in bearing fruit, and wither away. The external growth keeps pace with the reproductive energy. While beareth fruit describes the inner working, increasing gives the outward extension of the gospel. The words and increasing are not found in the received text, but the authority in their favour is overwhelming. (Bishop Lightfoot.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven: hope here, in this description of it, seems chiefly by a metonymy to be put for the glorious eternal salvation hoped for, Rom 8:24; Eph 1:18 which may also include that lively grace whereby we lay hold of eternal life contained in the promise, Tit 1:2. This indeed is set before believers here to encourage them to fly unto Christ for refuge, Heb 6:18, and reserved in heaven for them, 1Pe 1:4; which may well quicken in Christian love all the members of Christ in every condition; yet not with a mercenary of affection, 2Co 5:14, as if any by offices of Christian love to brethren could merit what is laid up for those who exercise faith, love, and hope, but that God of his mere grace and undeserved love is pleased to reward such as diligently seek him, and thereby gives an exact evidence of his admirable liberality, Heb 11:6, which will abundantly weigh down those light afflictions they sustain here, 2Co 4:17.
Whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; hereupon he puts them in mind of the means whereby they attained to this good hope when they first embraced the gospel, viz. by hearing, Rom 10:14, the word of truth, eminently, 2Co 6:7; Eph 1:13; not only because it is the word of Jesus Christ, who is the truth, and the life, Joh 14:6, but because the gospel (which is here put appositively) is the most excellent of all truths, surpassing all in philosophy, and the law, Joh 1:17.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. Forto be joined with thewords immediately preceding: “The love which ye have to all thesaints because of (literally, ‘on account of‘) thehope,” c. The hope of eternal life will never be in us aninactive principle but will always produce “love.” Thispassage is abused by Romanists, as if the hope of salvation dependedupon works. A false argument. It does not follow that our hope isfounded on our works because we are strongly stimulated to live wellsince nothing is more effectual for this purpose than the sense ofGod’s free grace [CALVIN].
laid upa treasure laidup so as to be out of danger of being lost (2Ti4:8). Faith, love, and hope (Col 1:4;Col 1:5), comprise the sum ofChristianity. Compare Col 1:23,”the hope of the Gospel.”
in heavenGreek,“in the heavens.”
whereof ye heardbeforenamely, at the time when it was preached to you.
in the word, &c.That”hope” formed part of “the word of the truth of theGospel” (compare Eph 1:13),that is, part of the Gospel truth preached unto you.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven,…. These words may be considered either in connection with the foregoing, and express the reason or motive which encouraged these saints to believe in Christ, and to go on believing in him, and hold fast the profession of their faith in him, and to love the saints, and show it upon all occasions, and in every case; because of the rich treasure of glory and happiness in reserve for them in heaven, which they were hoping and waiting for; this encouraged their faith in Christ, and enlarged their love and beneficence to the saints: or else with the thanksgiving of the apostle, and so contains fresh matter of it, that as thanks were given for faith and love, so for “hope”; by which is meant, not the grace of hope, for that is not in heaven, though it enters within the vail, and is conversant with heavenly things, but is in the heart; and though it supposes it, and which these persons had; they were not without it; they had a good hope through grace of eternal glory, for faith, hope, and love, always go together: nor Christ the foundation of hope; there are many things in him, which are a ground of hope of happiness, as his sufferings, and death, and redemption thereby; his resurrection from the dead, his intercessions and preparations; the promise of life in him, and the thing itself being in his gift; his righteousness and grace, which, give a title to it, and meetness for it; and he is also in heaven, but then he cannot be said to be laid up there: but the thing hoped for, everlasting happiness, is intended; see Tit 2:13 Ga 5:5; which is so called, because it is the object of hope; is not yet possessed; is future; is not seen; is difficult, and yet possible to be enjoyed: this is said to be “laid up”; which denotes the preciousness and valuableness of it, it is a treasure, an inheritance, a kingdom, and riches of glory; and the secrecy and hiddenness of it, it consists of things invisible to the bodily eye, and which are out of the reach of carnal sense and reason, of which faith only has some small glimpse; and also the safety of it, it is hid in Christ, it is reserved “in heaven”, and cannot be come at, and spoiled by men or devils; and likewise the free grace and goodness of God in laying up and providing things of such a nature for his children and friends: the place where it is, in heaven, where moth and rust corrupt not, and thieves cannot break through and steal; and so is safe, and must be of an heavenly nature, as it is for heavenly persons: “for you”; the saints and faithful brethren in Christ, for those who were chosen in Christ, for whom it was prepared from the foundation of the world; for this is not laid up for any, for everyone, but for the chosen of God, and precious; whom God has distinguished by his grace, Christ has redeemed by his blood, and the Spirit regenerates and sanctifies, and who have faith, hope, and love, given unto them; and this was not only laid up for them, but they knew of it, they were made acquainted with it:
whereof ye heard before; before the writing of this epistle, under the ministry of their faithful teacher Epaphras:
in the word of the truth of the Gospel; or in the true word of the Gospel; which comes from the God of truth, is indited by the Spirit of truth, is concerning Christ the truth, and which contains nothing but truth, and lies in the Scriptures of truth: or “in the word of truth”, even the Gospel; which explains what word of truth is meant. The law is the word of truth; and many of the words of men, of the philosophers, were words of truth; but it was not in either of them they had heard of eternal life laid up in heaven; of which there were hopes to be entertained by sinful creatures, enjoying it through Christ: this is what only the Gospel brings an account of; life and immortality are only brought to light by the Gospel; which not only speaks of it, but lays that before men, which give them ground and encouragement to hope for it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Because of the hope ( ). See Ro 8:24. It is not clear whether this phrase is to be linked with at the beginning of verse 3 or (more likely) with just before. Note also here (faith), (love), (hope), though not grouped together so sharply as in 1Co 13:13. Here hope is objective, the goal ahead.
Laid up (). Literally, “laid away or by.” Old word used in Lu 19:20 of the pound laid away in a napkin. See also , to store away for future use (1Ti 6:19). The same idea occurs in Mt 6:20 (treasure in heaven) and 1Pe 1:4 and it is involved in Phm 3:20.
Ye heard before (). First aorist indicative active of this old compound , though only here in the N.T. Before what? Before Paul wrote? Before the realization? Before the error of the Gnostics crept in? Each view is possible and has advocates. Lightfoot argues for the last and it is probably correct as is indicated by the next clause.
In the word of the truth of the gospel ( ). “In the preaching of the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:5; Gal 2:14) which is come (, present active participle agreeing with , being present, a classical use of as in Ac 12:20). They heard the pure gospel from Epaphras before the Gnostics came.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
For the hope [ ] . The A. V. connects with we give thanks (ver. 3). But the two are too far apart, and Paul ‘s introductory thanksgiving is habitually grounded on the spiritual condition of his readers, not on something objective. See Rom 1:8; 1Co 1:4; Eph 1:15. Better connect with what immediately precedes, love which ye have, and render as Rev., because of the hope, etc. Faith works by love, and the ground of their love is found in the hope set before them. Compare Rom 8:24. The motive is subordinate, but legitimate. “The hope laid up in heaven is not the deepest reason or motive for faith and love, but both are made more vivid when it is strong. It is not the light at which their lamps are lit, but it is the odorous oil which feeds their flame” [] . Hope. See on 1Pe 1:3. In the New Testament the word signifies both the sentiment of hope and the thing hoped for. Here the latter. Compare Tit 2:13; Gal 5:5; Heb 6:18; also Rom 8:24, where both meanings appear. Lightfoot observes that the sense oscillates between the subjective feeling and the objective realization. The combination of faith, hope, and love is a favorite one with Paul. See 1Th 1:3; 1Co 13:13; Rom 5:1 – 5; Rom 12:6 – 12.
Laid up [] . Lit., laid away, as the pound in the napkin, Luk 19:20. With the derivative sense of reserved or awaiting, as the crown, 2Ti 4:8. In Heb 9:27, it is rendered appointed (unto men to die), where, however, the sense is the same : death awaits men as something laid up. Rev., in margin, laid up for. Compare treasure in heaven, Mt 6:20; Mt 19:21; Luk 12:34. “Deposited, reserved, put by in store out of the reach of all enemies and sorrows” (Bishop Wilson).
Ye heard before [] . Only here in the New Testament, not in Septuagint, and not frequent in classical Greek. It is variously explained as denoting either an undefined period in the past, or as contrasting the earlier Christian teaching with the later heresies, or as related to Paul ‘s letter (before I wrote), or as related to the fulfillment of the hope (ye have had the hope pre – announced). It occurs several times in Herodotus in this last sense, as 2 5, of one who has heard of Egypt without seeing it : 5, 86, of the Aeginetans who had learned beforehand what the Athenians intended. Compare Col 8:79; Col 6:16. Xenophon uses it of a horse, which signifies by pricking up its ears what it hears beforehand. In the sense of mere priority of time without the idea of anticipation, Plato : “Hear me once more, though you have heard me say the same before” (” Laws, ” 7, 797). I incline to the more general reference, ye heard in the past. The sense of hearing before the fulfillment of the hope would seem rather to require the perfect tense, since the hope still remained unfulfilled.
The word of the truth of the Gospel. The truth is the contents of the word, and the Gospel defines the character of the truth.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven” (dia ten elpida ten apokeimenen humin en tois ouranois) “Because of the hope (already) laid up for you in the heavens;” Christ is that hope, sure anchor of, the Soul, sure and steadfast, blessed Hope for whom faithful saints, church brethren wait, Heb 6:17-19; Tit 2:14; Eph 1:13-14.
2) “Whereof ye heard before” (hen proekousate) which (hope) ye previously heard”; of the hour of rewards reserved for the faithful at the coming of the Lord and the marriage of the Lamb, 1Co 3:14; Rev 22:12; 2Co 1:1-3; 2Jn 1:8.
3) “In the word of the truth of the gospel” (en to logotes aletheias tou auangeliou). “In the word of the truth of the gospel;” The good news of the truth of the gospel offers and assures salvation to every believer in Jesus Christ and rewards for good and faithful services rendered to the Lord after one is saved, born again, or becomes a child of God; Joh 5:24; 1Co 3:13-15. Every child of God is guaranteed an entrance into heaven but only faithful, fruitbearing servants shall have an 11 abundant entrance” into the everlasting heirsetting kingdom, 2Pe 1:5-12; Rom 8:17-18. Everyone with a pure heart, saved by faith in Christ, shall see God, enter heaven, Mat 5:8; Act 15:9. But only those who serve Him faithfully are promised an “abundant” entrance, with greater rewards and glory for him.
CONTINUANCE IN PRAYER AND PRAISE
Tis great reason that we should continue to pray, because our wants continue; and ’tis as great reason that we should continue to praise, because our mercies continue. Who is there so full that wants nothing? and who so empty, but hath something? Let none give over praying, but he that wants nothing; and let none give over praising, that hath anything. Is not the mercy we want worth asking? and is not the mercy we have worth asking? and is not the mercy we have worth acknowledging?
–Venning
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
5. For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. For the hope of eternal life will never be inactive in us, so as not to produce love in us. For it is of necessity, that the man who is fully persuaded that a treasure of life is laid up for him in heaven will aspire thither, looking down upon this world. Meditation, however, upon the heavenly life stirs up our affections both to the worship of God, and to exercises of love. The Sophists pervert this passage for the purpose of extolling the merits of works, as if the hope of salvation depended on works. The reasoning, however, is futile. For it does not follow, that because hope stimulates us to aim at upright living, it is therefore founded upon works, inasmuch as nothing is more efficacious for this purpose than God’s unmerited goodness, which utterly overthrows all confidence in works.
There is, however, an instance of metonymy in the use of the term hope, as it is taken for the thing hoped for. For the hope that is in our hearts is the glory which we hope for in heaven. At the same time, when he says, that there is a hope that is laid up for us in heaven, he means, that believers ought to feel assured as to the promise of eternal felicity, equally as though they had already a treasure laid up (280) in a particular place.
Of which ye heard before. As eternal salvation is a thing that surpasses the comprehension of our understanding, he therefore adds, that the assurance of it had been brought to the Colossians by means of the gospel; and at the same time he says in the outset, (281) that he is not to bring forward anything new, but that he has merely in view to confirm them in the doctrine which they had previously received. Erasmus has rendered — it the true word of the gospel. I am also well aware that, according to the Hebrew idiom, the genitive is often made use of by Paul in place of an epithet; but the words of Paul here are more emphatic. (282) For he calls the gospel, καψ ἐξοχήν, ( by way of eminence,) the word of truth, with the view of putting honor upon it, that they may more steadfastly and firmly adhere to the revelation which they have derived from that source. Thus the term gospel is introduced by way of apposition (283)
(280) “ Vn tresor en seure garde;” — “A treasure in safe keeping.”
(281) “ Il dit auant que passer plus outre;” — “He says before proceeding farther.”
(282) “ Ont yci plus grande signifiance, et emportent plus;” — “Have here more significancy, and are more emphatic.”
(283) The term apposition, in grammar, signifies the putting of two nouns in the same case. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.The union of hope with faith and love is natural enough. Compare the fuller expression of 1Th. 1:3, your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope. But the place assigned to hope in this passage is notable. For the hope is really on account of the hope. Hence faith and love are spoken of, not merely as leading up to hope, but as being actually kindled by it. Similarly in Eph. 1:18 we find that, while faith and love are taken for granted, there is a special prayer that they may be enlightened to know the hope of His calling as the one thing yet needful. The prominence given to the thought of the heavenly places in the Epistles of the captivity, and therefore to Christ in heaven, even more than to Christ risen, is evident to any careful student. Accordingly, the hope, which is the instinct of perfection in man, and which becomes realisation of heaven in the Christian, naturally comes out with corresponding emphasis.
Ye heard before.That is, at their first conversion. There is an implied warning against the new doctrines, which are more fully noticed in the next chapter.
The truth of the gospel.This expression (as in Gal. 2:14) is emphatic. It refers to the gospel, not chiefly as a message of graciousness and mercy, but rather as a revelation of eternal truths, itself changeless as the truth it reveals. There is a corresponding emphasis, but stronger still, in St. John. (See, for example, 1Jn. 2:27; 1Jn. 5:20; 2Jn. 1:1-4; 3Jn. 1:2-3.) The gospel was now winning its way to supremacy over civilised thought. Hence the need of warning against the sudden growth of wild speculations, contrasted with the unchanging simplicity of its main truths.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Col 1:5. For the hope which is laid up, &c. There is an ambiguity in the connection of this clause. It may either signify that the Apostle gives thanks for this their hope, (supposing the 4th verse to come in as a parenthesis,) or it may more directlyrefer to the immediately preceding words, and intimate, that a partnership in this blessed hope cemented the hearts of these good men. In either sense the connexion is instructive; but the former appears most natural.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Col 1:5 . . . .] on account of the hope , etc., does not belong to . Col 1:3 (Bengel, “ex spe patet, quanta sit causa gratias agendi pro dono fidei et amoris;” comp. Bullinger, Zanchius, Calovius, Elsner, Michaelis, Zachariae, Storr, Rosenmller, Hofmann, and others), because the ground for the apostolic thanksgiving at the beginnings of the Epistles, as also here at Col 1:4 , always consists in the Christian character of the readers (Rom 1:8 ; 1Co 1:4 ff.; Eph 1:15 ; Phi 1:5 ; 1Th 1:3 ; 2Th 1:3 ; 2Ti 1:5 ; Phm 1:5 ), and that indeed as a ground in itself , [12] and therefore not merely on account of what one has in future to hope from it; and, moreover, because with and the accusative does not occur anywhere in the N. T. It is connected with . . . , and thus specifies the motive ground of the love; for love guarantees the realization of the salvation hoped for. So correctly, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Calvin, Estius, Steiger, Bleek, and others. The more faith is active through love, the richer one becomes (Luk 12:21 ), and this riches forms the contents of hope. He who does not love remains subject to death (1Jn 3:14 ), and his faith profits him nothing (1Co 13:1-3 ). It is erroneous to refer it jointly to , so as to make the hope appear here as ground of the faith and the love; so Grotius and others, including Bhr, Olshausen, and de Wette; comp. Baumgarten-Crusius and Ewald. For (or the Rec . ) indicates a further statement merely as regards ; and with this accords the close of the whole outburst, which in Col 1:8 emphatically reverts to .
The is here conceived objectively (comp. . , Rom 8:24 ): our hope as to its objective contents , that which we hope for. Comp. Job 6:8 ; 2Ma 7:14 , and see on Rom 8:24 and Gal 5:5 ; Zckler, de vi ac notione voc . , Giss. 1856, p. 26 ff.
. . . ] What is meant is the Messianic salvation forming the contents of the hope (1Th 5:8 ; Rom 5:2 ; Rom 8:18 ff.; Col 3:3 f.), which remains deposited , that is, preserved, laid up (Luk 19:20 ), in heaven for the Christian until the Parousia, in order to be then given to him. [13] On . comp. 2Ti 4:8 ; 2Ma 12:45 ; Kypke, II. p. 320 f.; Loesner, p. 360; Jacobs, ad Ach. Tat . p. 678. Used of death, Heb 9:27 ; of punishments, Plat. Locr . p. 104 D, 4Ma 8:10 . As to the idea, comp. the conception of the treasure in heaven (Mat 6:20 ; Mat 19:21 ; 1Ti 6:19 ), of the reward in heaven (see on Mat 5:12 ), of the in heaven (see on Phi 3:20 ), of the . (1Pe 1:4 ), and of the (Phi 3:14 ).
. . .] Certainty of this hope, which is not an unwarranted subjective fancy, but is objectively conveyed to them through the word of truth previously announced. The in (Herod, viii. 79; Plat. Legg vii. p. 797 A; Xen. Mem . ii. 4. 7; Dem. 759. 26, 955. 1; Joseph. Antt . viii. 12. 3) does not denote already formerly , whereby Paul premises se nihil allaturum novi (Calvin and many), but must be said with reference to the future , to which the hope belongs; hence the sense imported by Ewald: where with the word of truth began among you (Mar 1:15 ), is the less admissible. The conception is rather, that the contents of the , the heavenly salvation, is the great future blessing, the infallible pre-announcement of which they have heard . As previously announced , it is also previously heard .
is the contents of the (comp. on Eph 1:13 ); and by ., the , that is, the absolute truth, is specifically defined as that of the gospel , that is, as that which is announced in the gospel . Both genitives are therefore to be left in their substantive form (Erasmus, Heinrichs, Baumgarten-Crusius, and many others understand . as adjectival: sermo verax; comp. on the contrary, on . ., Gal 2:5 ; Gal 2:14 ), so that the expression advances to greater definiteness. The circumstantiality has something solemn about it (comp. 2Co 9:4 ); but this is arbitrarily done away, if we regard . as the genitive of apposition to . (Calvin, Beza, and many others, including Flatt, Bhr, Steiger, Bhmer, Huther, Olshausen, de Wette, Hofmann); following Eph 1:13 , Paul would have written .
[12] In opposition to the view of Hofmann, that Paul names the reason why the news of the faith and love of the readers had become to him a cause of thanksgiving.
[13] It is erroneous to say that the Parousia no longer occurs in our Epistle. It is the substratum of the . . . Comp. Col 3:1 ff. (in opposition to Mayerhoff, and Holtzmann, p. 203 f.).
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel; which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth.” (Col 1:5 , Col 1:6 .)
See how Paul magnifies the religious element! He will not confine himself even to moral behaviour or useful conduct, or those initial exhibitions of piety which we are only too glad to observe. Paul instantly lifts up the whole level from which his observation is so conducted, and from that level he surveys with delight and rapture all the heavenly blessings which have been treasured for those who love the Saviour. Paul helps earth by the ministry of heaven. The earth is blessed by the sun: why should not the earth be blessed by the light that is above the brightness of the sun? We must lift up our present life by the power of the life that is endless. If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable. In effect Paul says, You are tired, weary, distressed, or bitterly disappointed; lift up your eyes and behold afar beyond the clouds the shining of an immortal hope: yonder is the city of your rest; behold it; draw yourselves onward towards it, and be assured that all the fatigue of present service, and all the bitterness of present disappointment, will be forgotten by one hour’s experience of the world that is in store for saintly souls. Yet Paul will never be content unless he sees love to the saints and the “fruit” which is brought forth in the character. The salutation is a striking mixture of the metaphysical and the practical, the doctrinal and the experimental. In this salutation we have indeed a full-length portraiture of Paul himself. He sends to the Colossians a photograph of his soul. But if, indeed, he exaggerate the excellence of the Colossians, it is that he may encourage towards nobler endeavour. Lavish commendation coming from such an authority as the Apostle Paul would not be ill-expended sentiment, but would work as a new and noble inspiration in honest souls.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
5 For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
Ver. 5. For the hope ] It is hope (saith an interpreter here) that plucks up the heart of a man to a constant desire of union by faith with God and of communion by love with man. But by “hope” is here meant the “object of hope.”
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
5 .] on account of (not to be joined with . as Beng., Eadie, al.: for, as Mey., the ground of such thanksgiving is ever in the spiritual state of the person addressed, see Rom 1:8 ; 1Co 1:4 ff.; Eph 1:15 &c., and this can hardly (against Eadie) be said to be of such a kind: but with so Chr.: , . ; , , . So also Calvin, who combats the argument of Est., al., deriving support for the idea of meritorious works from this verse. It is obvious that we must not include in the reference, as Grot., Olsh., De W., al., have done: for . . cannot be referred to any such motive: besides, see Col 1:8 , where he returns again to ) the hope (on the objective sense of , see reff.) which is laid up (Kypke quotes Plut. Cs. p. 715 , and Jos. B. J. ii. 8. 11, ( ) ) for you in the heavens (reff.), of which ye heard (aorist, referring to the time when it was preached among them) before (not, before this letter was written , as Beng., and usually: nor, as Mey., before ye had the hope : nor, as De Wette, al., before the hope is fulfilled : nor exactly as Eadie, ‘ have (see above) already heard :’ but ‘before,’ in the absolute indefinite sense which is often given to the idea of priority, ‘ere this’ olim, aliquando ) in (as part of) the word of the truth (no hendiadys) of the Gospel (the word or preaching whose substance was that truth of which the Gospel is the depository and vehicle),
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Col 1:5 . . This is connected by Bengel, followed by several recent commentators (Hofm., Kl [2] , Ol., Haupt, Weiss, Abb.), with . Having heard of their faith and love, Paul gives thanks for the hope laid up for them in heaven. Lightfoot and Soden urge that in this way the triad of Christian graces, faith, hope and love, is broken up. But “hope” is objective here, not the grace of hope, but the object of that hope. It is true that Paul glides from the subjective to the objective use of in Rom 8:24 , but if this combination had been intended here he would probably have simply co-ordinated the three terms. A more serious objection is that . is so far away, though Haupt urges that . . could not have come in earlier. Further, Paul never uses this constr. . . It is also his custom, at the beginning of his Epistles, to give thanks for the Christian character of his readers (which he hardly does in Col 1:4 ), not for the heavenly reward that awaits them. Others (De W., Lightf., Sod.) connect it with . . . This gives a good sense, their faith and love have their ground in their hope of reward. But we should have expected the article before a clause thus added to substantives. It is simplest to refer it to . (Chrys., Mey., Ell., Alf., Franke), and interpret it of the love which is due to the hope of a heavenly reward. It is urged that a love of this calculating kind is foreign to Paul, but Cf. 2Co 9:6 , Gal 6:9 . . . Cf. the reward or treasure in heaven (Mat 5:12 ; Mat 6:20 ; Mat 19:21 ), the citizenship in heaven (Phi 3:20 ), the inheritance reserved in heaven (1Pe 1:4 ). . The reference in . is disputed. Bengel and Klpper think it means before the writing of this letter; Meyer, Hofmann and Haupt before its fulfilment. But more probably it is to be taken of their first hearing of the Gospel (so Lightf., Ol., Abb.), perhaps in tacit contrast to the false teaching they had recently heard. Haupt, it is true, denies that there is any reference to the false teachers in Col 1:2-8 ; but though none can be proved, it is surely probable that the turn of several expressions should be determined by the subject which was uppermost in the Apostle’s mind, and that he should thus prepare his readers for the direct attack. . Cf. Eph 1:13 , according to which . . should be taken as in apposition to . . ., “the word of truth, even the Gospel,” though it is often explained as the word of truth announced in the Gospel. It is not clear what . . . means. Several give the genitive an adjectival force, “the true word,” but more probably it expresses the content, the word which contains the truth. Perhaps here also there is a side-thrust at the false teachers.
[2] Klpper.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Colossians
THE GOSPEL-HOPE
Col 1:5 .
‘God never sends mouths but He sends meat to feed them,’ says the old proverb. And yet it seems as if that were scarcely true in regard to that strange faculty called Hope. It may well be a question whether on the whole it has given us more pleasure than pain. How seldom it has been a true prophet! How perpetually its pictures have been too highly coloured! It has cast illusions over the future, colouring the far-off hills with glorious purple which, reached, are barren rocks and cold snow. It has held out prizes never won. It has made us toil and struggle and aspire and fed us on empty husks. Either we have not got what we expected or have found it to be less good than it appeared from afar.
If we think of all the lies that hope has told us, of all the vain expenditure of effort to which it has tempted us, of the little that any of us have of what we began by thinking we should surely attain, hope seems a questionable good, and yet how obstinate it is, living on after all disappointments and drawing the oldest amongst us onwards. Surely somewhere there must be a reason for this great and in some respects awful faculty, a vindication of its existence in an adequate object for its grasp.
The New Testament has much to say about hope. Christianity lays hold of it and professes to supply it with its true nourishment and support. Let us look at the characteristics of Christian hope, or, as our text calls it, the hope of the Gospel, that is, the hope which the Gospel creates and feeds in our souls.
I. What does it hope for?
The weakness of our earthly hopes is that they are fixed on things which are contingent and are inadequate to make us blessed. Even when tinted with the rainbow hues, which it lends them, they are poor and small. How much more so when seen in the plain colourless light of common day. In contrast with these the objects of the Christian hope are certain and sufficient for all blessedness. In the most general terms they may be stated as ‘That blessed hope, even the appearing of the Great God and our Saviour.’ That is the specific Christian hope, precise and definite, a real historical event, filling the future with a certain steadfast light. Much is lost in the daily experience of all believers by the failure to set that great and precise hope in its true place of prominence. It is often discredited by millenarian dreams, but altogether apart from these it has solidity and substance enough to bear the whole weight of a world rested upon it.
That appearance of God brings with it the fulfilment of our highest hopes in the ‘grace that is to be brought to us at His appearing.’ All our blessedness of every kind is to be the result of the manifestation of God in His unobscured glory. The mirrors that are set round the fountain of light flash into hitherto undreamed-of brightness. It is but a variation in terms when we describe the blessedness which is to be the result of God’s appearing as being the Hope of Salvation in its fullest sense, or, in still other words, as being the Hope of Eternal Life. Nothing short of the great word of the Apostle John, that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, exhausts the greatness of the hope which the humblest and weakest Christian is not only allowed but commanded to cherish. And that great future is certainly capable of, and in Scripture receives, a still more detailed specification. We hear, for example, of the hope of Resurrection, and it is most natural that the bodily redemption which Paul calls the adoption of the body should first emerge into distinct consciousness as the principal object of hope in the earliest Christian experience, and that the mighty working whereby Jesus is able to subdue all things unto Himself, should first of all be discerned to operate in changing the body of our humiliation into the body of His glory.
But equally natural was it that no merely corporeal transformation should suffice to meet the deep longings of Christian souls which had learned to entertain the wondrous thought of likeness to God as the certain result of the vision of Him, and so believers ‘wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.’ The moral likeness to God, the perfecting of our nature into His image, will not always be the issue of struggle and restraint, but in its highest form will follow on sight, even as here and now it is to be won by faith, and is more surely attained by waiting than by effort.
The highest form which the object of our hope takes is, the Hope of the Glory of God. This goes furthest; there is nothing beyond this. The eyes that have been wearied by looking at many fading gleams and seen them die away, may look undazzled into the central brightness, and we may be sure that even we shall walk there like the men in the furnace, unconsumed, purging our sight at the fountain of radiance, and being ourselves glorious with the image of God. This is the crown of glory which He has promised to them that love Him. Nothing less than this is what our hope has to entertain, and that not as a possibility, but as a certainty. The language of Christian hope is not perhaps this may be, but verily it shall be. To embrace its transcendent certainties with a tremulous faith broken by much unbelief, is sin.
II. The grounds on which the hope of the Gospel rests.
The grounds of our earthly hopes are for the most part possibilities, or, at the best, probabilities turned by our wishes into certainties. We moor our ships to floating islands which we resolve to think continents. So our earthly hopes vary indefinitely in firmness and substance. They are sometimes but wishes turned confident, and can never rise higher than their source, or be more certain than it is. At the best they are building on sand. At the surest there is an element of risk in them. One singer indeed may take for his theme ‘The pleasures of Hope,’ but another answers by singing of ‘The fallacies of Hope.’ Earth-born hopes carry no anchor and have always a latent dread looking out of their blue eyes.
But it is possible for us to dig down to and build on rock, to have a future as certain as our past, to escape in our anticipations from the region of the Contingent, and this we assuredly do when we take the hope of the Gospel for ours, and listen to Paul proclaiming to us ‘Christ which is our Hope,’ or ‘Christ in you the Hope of glory.’ If our faith grasps Jesus Christ risen from the dead and for us entered into the heavenly state as our forerunner, our hope will see in Him the pattern and the pledge of our manhood, and will begin to experience even here and now the first real though faint accomplishments of itself. The Gospel sets forth the facts concerning Christ which fully warrant and imperatively require our regarding Him as the perfect realised ideal of manhood as God meant it to be, and as bearing in Himself the power to make all men even as He is. He has entered into the fellowship of our humiliation and become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh that we might become life of His Life and spirit of His Spirit. As certain as it is that ‘we have borne the image of the earthy,’ so certain is it that ‘we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.’
What cruel waste of a divine faculty it is, then, of which we are all guilty when we allow our hopes to be frittered away and dissipated on uncertain and transient goods which they may never secure, and which, even if secured, would be ludicrously or rather tragically insufficient to make us blessed, instead of withdrawing them from all these and fixing them on Him who alone is able to satisfy our hungry souls in all their faculties for ever!
The hope of the Gospel is firm enough to rest our all upon because in it, by ‘two immutable things in which it is impossible that God should lie,’ His counsel and His oath, He has given strong encouragement to them who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them. Well may the hope for which God’s own eternal character is the guarantee be called ‘sure and steadfast.’ The hope of the Gospel rests at last on the Being and Heart of God. It is that which God ‘who cannot lie hath promised before the world was’ is working towards whilst the world lasts, and will accomplish when the world is no more. He has made known His purpose and has pledged all the energies and tendernesses of His Being to its realisation. Surely on this rock-foundation we may rest secure. The hopes that grow on other soils creep along the surface. The hope of the Gospel strikes its roots deep into the heart of God.
III. What the hope of the Gospel is and does for us.
We cannot do better than to lay hold of some of the New Testament descriptions of it. We recall first that great designation ‘A good hope through grace.’ This hope is no illusion; it does not come from fumes of fancy or the play of imagination. The wish is not father to the thought. We do not make bricks without straw nor spin ropes of sand on the shore of the great waste sea that waits to swallow us up. The cup of Tantalus has had its leaks stopped; the sieve carries the treasure unspilled. The rock can be rolled to the hill-top. All the disappointments, fallacies, and torments of hope pass away. It never makes ashamed. We have a solid certainty as solid as memory. The hope which is through grace is the full assurance of hope, and that full assurance is just what every other hope lacks. In that region and in that region only we can either say I hope or I know.
Another designation is ‘A lively hope.’ It is no poor pale ghost brightening and fading, fading and brightening, through which one can see the stars shine, and of little power in practical life, but strong and vigorous and not the least active amongst the many forces that make up the sum of our lives.
It is most significantly designated as ‘The blessed hope.’ All others quickly pass into sorrows. This alone gives lasting joys, for this alone is blessed whilst it is only anticipation, and still more blessed when its blossoms ripen into full fruition. In all earthly hopes there is an element of unrest, but the hope of the Gospel is so remote, so certain, and so satisfying, that it works stillness, and they who most firmly grasp it ‘do with patience wait for it.’ Earthly hopes have little moral effect and often loosen the sinews of the soul, and are distinctly unfavourable to all strenuous effort. But ‘every man that hath this hope in Jesus purifieth himself even as He is pure,’ and the Apostle, whose keen insight most surely discerns the character-building value of the fundamental facts of Christian experience, was not wrong when he bid us find in the hope of the Gospel deeply rooted within us the driving force of the most strenuous efforts after purity like His whom it is our deepest desire and humble hope to become like.
Let us remember the double account which Scripture gives of the discipline by which the hope of the Gospel is won for our very own. On the one hand, we have ‘joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope.’ Our faith breeds hope because it grasps the divine facts concerning Jesus from which hope springs. And faith further breeds hope because it kindles joy and peace, which are the foretastes and earnests of the future blessedness. On the other hand, the very opposite experiences work to the same end, for ‘tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.’ Sorrow rightly borne tests for us the power of the Gospel and the reality of our faith, and so gives us a firmer grip of hope and of Him on whom in the last result it all depends. Out of this collision of flint and steel the spark springs. The water churned into foam and tortured in the cataract has the fair bow bending above it.
But this discipline will not achieve its result, therefore comes the exhortation to us all, ‘Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end.’ The hope of the Gospel is the one thing that we need. Without it all else is futile and frail. God alone is worthy to have the whole weight and burden of a creature’s hope fixed on Him, and it is an everlasting truth that they who are ‘without God in the world’ also ‘have no hope.’ Saints of old held fast by an assurance, which they must often have felt left many questions still to be asked, and because they were sure that they were continually with Him, were also sure of His guidance through life and of His afterwards receiving them to glory. But for us the twilight has broadened into day, and we shall be wise if, knowing our defencelessness, and forsaking all the lies and illusions of this vain present, we flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us in the Gospel.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
For. App-104. Col 1:2.
laid up = stored away. Greek. apokeimai. Only here, Luk 19:23. 2Ti 4:8. Heb 9:27.
heaven = the heavens. See Mat 6:9, Mat 6:10.
heard before. Gr. proakouo, Only here.
word. App-121.10.
gospel. App-140.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
5.] on account of (not to be joined with . as Beng., Eadie, al.: for, as Mey., the ground of such thanksgiving is ever in the spiritual state of the person addressed, see Rom 1:8; 1Co 1:4 ff.; Eph 1:15 &c., and this can hardly (against Eadie) be said to be of such a kind: but with -so Chr.: , . ; , , . So also Calvin, who combats the argument of Est., al., deriving support for the idea of meritorious works from this verse. It is obvious that we must not include in the reference, as Grot., Olsh., De W., al., have done: for . . cannot be referred to any such motive: besides, see Col 1:8, where he returns again to ) the hope (on the objective sense of , see reff.) which is laid up (Kypke quotes Plut. Cs. p. 715- , and Jos. B. J. ii. 8. 11,- () ) for you in the heavens (reff.), of which ye heard (aorist, referring to the time when it was preached among them) before (not, before this letter was written, as Beng., and usually: nor, as Mey., before ye had the hope: nor, as De Wette, al., before the hope is fulfilled: nor exactly as Eadie, have (see above) already heard: but before, in the absolute indefinite sense which is often given to the idea of priority,-ere this-olim, aliquando) in (as part of) the word of the truth (no hendiadys) of the Gospel (the word or preaching whose substance was that truth of which the Gospel is the depository and vehicle),
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Col 1:5. , for) From [the greatness of the object of] hope, it is evident how great a cause of thanksgiving there is for the gift of faith and love; for () is construed with we give thanks, Col 1:3. [Faith, hope, love, Col 1:4-5, the sum of Christianity. Comp. Col 1:9-11.-V. g.]-, laid up) so as to be without danger [of its being lost].-, which) hope, comp. Col 1:23.-) ye have heard of, before I wrote.- , in the word of the truth) Eph 1:13. The truth of knowledge, Col 1:6 [ye-knew-the grace of God], corresponds to the truth of preaching in this verse. Neither admits of artifice (being tricked out for show).
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Col 1:5
Col 1:5
because of the hope which is laid up for you-Paul gives thanks (connecting back with verses 3, 4) for the hope laid up in heaven of which they had learned through the gospel. The thing reserved in heaven for them, which they learned through the gospel, was eternal life, with its blessings and glories. Jesus came to bring life and immortality to light. He died on the cross to open the future to man, showing how little this short and sorrowful life is compared with the future eternal life.
in the heavens,-[The plural is a Hebrew conception, which probably originated in such language as: Behold, unto Jehovah thy God belongeth heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that is therein. (Deu 10:14). Solomon in his prayer (1Ki 8:27) used the same expression. The rabbis spoke of two heavens, and Paul of the third heaven (2Co 12:2). It appears to be a superlative expression here, including all regions and spheres of the unseen world.]
whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel,-[This refers to the gospel not chiefly of graciousness and mercy, but rather as the revelation of eternal truths, itself changeless as the truth it reveals. He was not teaching them anything new, but his purpose was to confirm them in the true doctrine which they had already received. The gospel was then winning its way over the hearts of sincere men and women. Hence the need of warning against the growth of the wild speculations of false teachers who had crept in among them.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
the hope: Col 1:23, Col 1:27, Act 23:6, Act 24:15, Act 26:6, Act 26:7, 1Co 13:13, 1Co 15:19, Gal 5:5, Eph 1:18, Eph 1:19, 2Th 2:16, Heb 7:19, 1Pe 3:15, 1Jo 3:3
laid: Psa 31:19, Mat 6:19, Mat 6:20, Luk 12:33, 2Ti 4:8, 1Pe 1:3, 1Pe 1:4
the word: Col 3:16, Act 10:36, Act 13:26, Rom 10:8, 2Co 5:19, 2Co 6:7, Eph 1:13, 1Th 2:13, 1Ti 1:15, 1Pe 2:2
Reciprocal: Exo 28:34 – General Ecc 12:10 – written Mat 13:24 – good Mar 4:14 – the word Joh 15:2 – may Rom 1:16 – for it is Rom 8:24 – saved 2Co 10:14 – the gospel Gal 2:5 – that Eph 2:12 – having Eph 4:4 – as Phi 3:20 – our Col 3:3 – your 2Th 2:13 – belief 1Ti 3:15 – the truth Tit 2:13 – blessed Heb 6:11 – of hope Heb 6:18 – the hope Heb 10:34 – in yourselves that ye have 2Jo 1:1 – known
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
(Col 1:5.) -On account of the hope laid up for you in heaven. It is not easy to fix precisely on the connection between this clause and the preceding statement. It is a lame and superficial exegesis simply to say that the apostle merely alludes to his three favourite graces, faith, love, and hope.
But 1. Grotius, Wolf, Davenant, Estius, Pierce, Olshausen, De Wette, Bhr, Heinrichs, and the Socinian expositors, Crellius and Slichting, connect it with the two preceding clauses, as if it told the reason why faith and love were formed and cherished within them-your faith in Christ, and love to all the saints-graces possessed and nurtured in consequence of the hope laid up for you in heaven. With such a view, the connection appears to be elliptical, and not very clearly expressed in the language before us. Nor do we think it a Pauline sentiment. The apostle’s references to future glory are not of this nature, and we cannot regard him as placing faith and love on so selfish a basis as the mere hope of a coming recompense; for Christ is worthy of that faith, and saints, from their very character, elicit that love. The evangelical expositors who hold this view have to maintain a stout protest against the idea that they favour the Popish doctrine of merit. Davenant formally proposes the question, whether it be lawful to do good works with a view to, or for the reward laid up in heaven?
2. A modified and more tenable view is held by Chrysostom, and some of the Greek Fathers, as well as Estius, Calvin, Macknight, Meyer, and Steiger, who refer solely to , as if the meaning were, This love is not cherished under the expectation of any immediate return, but in the hope of ultimate remuneration. Still, under this hypothesis, the connection appears strained. If the apostle had said that they loved one another on account of the common hope which they had in heaven, or that the prospect of a joint inheritance deepened their attachments on their journey towards it, then the meaning might have been easily apprehended. But why the hope in itself should be selected as the prop of such love, we know not. Was their love to all the saints so selfish, that it could live only in expectation of a future reward? We do not deny the Christian doctrine of rewards, but we cannot put so selfish a valuation on Christian love as this exegesis implies; for of all the graces, it has the least of self in its nature, and its instinctive gratification is its own disinterested reward.
3. We incline, then, to take the words with the initial verb . Having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which ye have to all the saints, as often as we pray for you, we thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, on account of the hope laid up for you in heaven. That is to say, the report of their faith and love prompted him to give thanks; but as he gave thanks, the final issue and crown of those graces rose into prominence before him, and he adds, on account of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Their faith and love, viewed not merely in present exercise, but also in their ultimate consummation and bliss, were the grounds of his thanksgiving. The hope, as Bengel suggests, shows quanta sit causa gratias agendi pro dono fidei et amoris. The fourth verse can scarcely be called a parenthesis. This view is, generally, that of Athanasius, Bullinger, Calixtus, Elsner, Cocceius, Storr, Zanchius, Bengel, Schrader, Peile, and Conybeare. Meyer objects that in the other epistles the foundations of thanksgiving are subjective in their nature. Nor is this phraseology, when properly viewed, any exception. For faith and love are not excluded from the grounds of thanksgiving, and hope laid up is not wholly objective, as it signifies a blessing so sure and attainable that it creates hope. Had the apostle said, for the happiness laid up, the objection of Meyer might have applied, but he calls it hope laid up-a reality which excites and sustains the emotion of hope in the present state. It is further argued that is never used in the New Testament with to express the ground of thanksgiving. It is so; but unless the objector can produce a parallel place to this, there is really no difficulty. If a writer means to express a different shade of idea, he will use a different preposition. N either nor conveyed the precise idea of the clause before us. These prepositions would have denoted that the hope was in itself the great ground of gratitude; but the apostle, in using , says that the hope, while it is so noble and promising, has a special and ultimate connection with the faith and love, the report of which so cheered his heart. The hope was present to his mind when he said , but other and subordinate thoughts intervene, and his idea is so far modified, that when he came to write , he prefixes .
is the object hoped for- . [Eph 1:18.] In is the idea of reservation and security. (Luk 19:20; 2Ti 4:8; 1Pe 1:4.) It is not enjoyed now-but it exists now; it is kept in store, and will certainly be possessed. And it is laid up , in the heavens-in that high region of felicity and splendour-at God’s right hand, which guards it, and in the presence of Christ, who won it, and will bestow it. And this heavenly glory is an object of hope to them who possess this faith and love for these good reasons:-1. It is future-as it is not yet enjoyed, but it is lying over; hope that is seen is not hope. 2. It is future good, for it is in heaven, the scene of all that is fair and satisfying. Coming evil excites terror, but distant good creates hopeful desire and anticipation. For it is the unimagined glory of spiritual perfection, of living in the unshaded radiance of God’s face, and in uninterrupted fellowship with Him, and the thronging myriads round about Him-the signet of eternity stamped on every enjoyment. 3. Such future good is attainable. Were it completely beyond reach, it might excite a romantic wish in one heart, and cover another with despair. But the apostle says it is laid up for you. It will therefore be enjoyed, for Christ has given His pledge. This faith, too, will elevate the spirit to heaven, and that love will prepare it for those supreme enjoyments,
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
-Of which ye have already heard in the word of the truth of the gospel. The verb occurs only in this place of the New Testament, but it is found in Herodotus, Xenophon, and Josephus. In the compounded with the verb, De Wette and Olshausen think that the meaning is-they had heard of the hope in promise before the enjoyment of it. Such an exegesis is a species of truism, since they must have heard before they could cherish it. Therefore the interpretation of Meyer is equally objectionable-before ye had this hope, it was made known to you, it was communicated to you as a novelty. Nor can we say, generally, that the sense is-ye have heard of it before I now write it. But the meaning seems to be-that the hope laid up in heaven was, and had been, a prominent topic of preaching, and therefore an invariable topic of hearing in the Christian church. That has the sense of already we have shown fully under Eph 1:12. It is as if he meant to say-I need not expatiate on this hope, bright and glorious though it be; you are not unacquainted with it, for in the earliest teachings of the gospel when it came to you, ye heard of it-heard of it-
. We cannot agree with Chrysostom, Erasmus, Heinrichs, Baumgarten-Crusius, Storr, and others, in giving the genitive an adjectival sense, as if the meaning were the true and genuine gospel. The noun is made prominent by the article prefixed to it, and the idiom denotes that the truth was the sum and substance of the , or oral communication made to them by the first teachers of Christianity. refers to the fact that their first teaching was oral, and not epistolary, or by inspired manuscript; and this word, or verbal tuition, had the truth for its pith and marrow. But the form of truth which had been presented to their minds was no common aspect of it. It belonged, not to philosophy or human speculation-it was the truth , of the gospel. This genitive is not in apposition with , as Calvin, Beza, Olshausen, De Wette, Bhmer, and Huther suppose, but it has its distinctive meaning-the truth which belongs to the gospel, or is its peculiar and characteristic message. [, , Eph 1:13.] The word of the truth of the gospel could alone reveal the nature and the certainty of future and celestial blessedness. The idea and expectation of spiritual felicity and glory in heaven are not connected with the sciences of earth, which deal so subtly with the properties and relations of mind and matter. These forms of knowledge and discovery lead but to the lip of the grave, and desert us amidst the dreary wail of dust to dust and ashes to ashes, but the truth contained in the gospel throws its radiance beyond the sepulchre, unvails the portals of eternity, and discloses the reality, magnitude, and character of the hope laid up in heaven. And, therefore, every blessing which the gospel makes known has futurity in its eye-an eye that pierces beyond the present horizon; and the Christian life, in the meantime, is one as much of expectation as of positive enjoyment.
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Col 1:5. For is from DIA which means “on account of.” It is connected with the preceding verse which asserts the love the Colossians had to all the saints. The idea is that the hope for heaven they had, was an inducement for them to act the part of true brethren in Christ by showing genuine love for them. Heard before refers to the fact that they had heard these great truths in the beginning of their contact with the Gospel, by the ones who brought the good news to them.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Col 1:5. On account of, etc. This verse is to be closely joined with what precedes. Which ye have on account of, etc. It is improper to connect it with give thanks.
The hope, i.e., the thing hoped for, the hope as respects its contents, since only in this sense could it be defined by the clause: which is laid up for you in heaven. Laid up suggests the thought of a treasure set aside for future use and securely placed. In heaven is not strictly local here, but may point to the future kingdom of heaven.
Whereof ye heard before. The exact reference of before has occasioned much discussion. It is perhaps safest to take it indefinitely: of this hope they previously heard (when the gospel came to them), since it was prominent in the gospel preaching. Other views: before the Epistle was written; before the hope was cherished; before the fulfilment of the hope. In any case the clause suggests that the hope was not an unfounded fancy, but was based upon the proclamation of the truth.
In the word of the truth of the gospel. Comp. Eph 1:13. The word refers to the preaching, the substance of that preaching was the truth, and this truth was specifically that contained in the gospel (so Meyer, Ellicott, and others). Gospel is not in apposition with the word of the truth as in Eph 1:13. The hope of which they heard before was in (as an essential part of) this word.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here, 1. St. Paul discovers the motive which excited the Colossians to such steadiness and constancy in the faith of Christ, and in love one to another; and that was the hope laid up for them in heaven; that is, the great and good things here hoped for, and there to be enjoyed.
As the sinners misery consists not in what he feels, but what he fears; so the believer’s happiness lies not in what he has in his hand, but in what he has in hope: the reward which encourages his perseverance in faith and love, is laid up in heaven; that is, safely and plentifully, as a parent lays up his treasures for the use of his children: It is both lawful and laudable then for Christians to have an eye to the promised reward, as an encouragement to duty, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.
Observe, 2. Ther means by which they came to the knowledge of this hope, it was by the word of truth, the preaching of the gospel to them by the ministry of Epaphras; this was so exceedingly blessed by God, that thereby the saving hope of this reward was wrought in them.
Where note, The title given to the gospel, it is eminently the word of truth, having Christ for its main subject, who is the way, the truth, and the life; and being confirmed by Christ the testator’s blood.
Note farther, That the preaching of this word of truth, the doctrine of the gospel, is the great instrumental mean, appointed by God for begetting in us a lively hope of the reward laid up for us in heaven; for the hope laid up for you in heaven, whereof you have heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel.
Observe, 3. The commendation here given of the gospel, which had begot in these Colossians a lively hope of the heavenly reward:
It is commended, 1. For being one and the same gospel which was preached by the apostles throughout all the world, which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; that is, with incredible swiftness into the most eminent parts and places of the world then known; an infallible proof of the divinity of the gospel, that it was thus owned and blessed of God.
The gospel, at all times, and in all places, is one and the same; and Christ, when he pleases, can swiftly drive the chariot of the gospel round about the world, and bring in not only persons and familiers, but cities, nations, and kingdoms, to the obedience of it.
2. The gospel preached to them is commended for its fruitfulness, it bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you; that is, fruits of piety and holiness towards God, and fruits of righteousness and charity towards man.
Learn hence, That it is matter of praise, and unspeakable thanksgiving, to the ministers of Christ, when the light of the gospel breaks forth among a people, where it never befoe shined, and is accompanied with early and constant fruits of piety, humility, faith and love, in the hearts and lives of those to whom it is preached. The gospel bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day you heard of it, &c.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
The reason for their faith and love was the hope reserved for them in heaven. They had learned of that hope by the preaching of the Truth which is found in the gospel. This truth was in stark contrast to the false teaching they had been hearing near the time of Paul’s writing, which he confronts in this letter. By the time this letter was written, the good news of hope had spread throughout all of the world (compare Act 19:10 ; Act 19:20 ; Php 1:12-13 ; 1Th 1:8 ). Wherever the gospel had been preached, fruit had been produced, by the gospel, not the preacher ( Col 1:5-6 ; 1Co 3:4-9 , Rom 1:16 )!
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
“For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel”
Not “I hope I’ll be resurrected” but “I’m thoroughly confident that I’ll be resurrected.” Our hope is to be raised with Christ and so we shall be.
The Colossians hope produced love and faith.
What can a hope like this produce in us today?
First of all what is hope?
From the text it is the confidence that we will live eternally with God.
In light of that concept – if we really believed it what would that hope produce in us?
1. A close walk with the Lord.
2. Desire to be a fruitful Christian.
3. Desire to share hope with others that we meet.
4. Living for things above and future, not for things here and now.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
1:5 For the {d} hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
(d) For the glory that is hoped for.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Third, Paul gave thanks for the hope of blessings ahead that his readers possessed but had not yet experienced. They demonstrated their hope in their living by presently manifesting faith (Col 1:4) and love (Col 1:8). The Colossians had heard of this hope when they had heard the gospel preached to them. Paul reminded his readers that the gospel had not come to them exclusively but was spreading through the whole world. Reference to "the whole world" is probably hyperbole, though some take it literally. [Note: E.g., J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee, 5:335-36.] Paul may have intended this reference to contrast the gospel with the exclusive message that the false teachers in Colosse were trying to get the Christians to adopt. Paul further glorified the gospel message by referring to its dynamic power to change lives and to its uniquely gracious content (Col 1:6).