Colossians
By Richard P. Joseph
It is difficult for me to use scripture to prove my point. Sounds crazy doesn’t it but let me explain it another way. It is unethical to pull short passages out of the bible in a scattered manner and piece them together like a politician creating a gerrymandered map of congressional districts and present it as a meaningful and sane work of civil representation. Once scripture verses are pulled out of context and pasted into a conglomerate of other verses that have been pulled out of context, you end up with blasphemy. You can just as easily gather all of the letters in this article, rearrange them into other words and come up with a totally different article. In fact that is what I did with the alphabet. I used the 26 letters and arranged them into words that mean something in particular and wrote this article. Someone else can use those same 26 letters and write an article about hunting elephants in Africa. That is why “context is king” when it comes to interpreting scripture. The general meaning of the epistle must always be maintained at all cost. So what does that have to do with the book of Colossians?
In this article I will attempt to explain what I have been promoting in most of my articles, that there is a theme, or in other words, a context that must be maintained in all of Paul’s epistles as well as the greater scope of the New Testament. Once you see this pattern, you can’t unsee it. In this article I am going to cite multiple verses but only for the purpose of highlighting the context. But again, please don’t just read these articles without reading your bible. These articles are only meant to point out things that you won’t hear from a pulpit. After reading this article, please read the entire book of Colossians. Nothing replaces scripture.
Remember that the overarching theme of the new testament is that the era of Judaism is coming to an end (the end of the age) and a new era (the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ) is coming. The entire new testament is eschatological in nature. The vineyard is being taken from the chosen people and given to the elect which was completed by AD 70. .
Col 1:18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
This verse describes Jesus as the firstborn from the dead. The carcass here is Israel. I am not against the notion of the dead also including the gentiles that were dead for a long time either. Jesus then becomes the head of the body (the church). Note that there is a transfer here from one system and group to another.
Next we go to Col 2:16-17
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a [j]festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the [k]substance is of Christ.
Here is an expansion of the verse;
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a [j]festival or a new moon or sabbaths, (Judaism/law) 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the [k]substance is of Christ (The new covenant which replaced the old covenant).
Col 3:11
11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
This is again self explanatory. It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew anymore, it only matters if you are a follower of Christ.
As you read the entire third chapter it is as if Paul is telling them, not to obey, but to perform the ten commandments. The ten commandments are no longer a civil law but a heart change. The law becomes alive in the Christian unlike it did before that time. In Christ we can live out the law because the law was conquered by Jesus Christ. He is our salvation. He is our redemption. He is our resurrection. He is our eternal life. While the letter of the law was passing away, the spirit of the law became alive.
