There are several considerations which help to account for it. When St Paul first arrived at Ephesus, eight years before this time, he "found certain disciples" there who had been "baptized into John's baptism," but had not "received the Holy Spirit" nor even heard of such a thing (Acts xix. 1-7). Apollos formerly belonged to this company, having preached and "taught carefully the things about Jesus," while he "knew only the baptism of John" (Acts xviii. 25). One very much desires to know more about this Church of the Baptist's disciples in Asia Minor. Its existence so far away from Palestine testifies to the power of John's ministry and the deep impression that his witness to the Messiahship of Jesus made on his disciples. The ready reception of Paul's fuller gospel by this little circle indicates that their knowledge of Jesus Christ erred only by defect; they had received it from Judaea by a source dating earlier than the day of Pentecost. The partial knowledge of Jesus current for so long at Ephesus, may have extended to other parts of the province, where St Paul had not been able to correct it as he had done in the metropolis.
Judaistic Christians, such as those who at Rome "preached Christ of envy and strife," were also disseminating an imperfect Christian doctrine. They limited the rights of uncircumcised believers; they misrepresented the Gentile apostle and undermined his influence. A third and still more lamentable cause of uncertainty in regard to the Christian belief of Asian Churches, was introduced by the rise of Gnosticizing error in this quarter. Some who read the epistle had, it might be, received their first knowledge of Christ through channels tainted with error similar to that which was propagated at Colossae. With the seed of the kingdom the enemy was mingling vicious tares. The apostle has reason to fear that there were those within the wide circle to which his letter is addressed, who had in one form or other heard a different gospel and a Christ other than the true Christ of apostolic teaching.
Where does he find the test and touchstone of the true Christian doctrine?--In the historical Jesus: "as there is truth _in Jesus_." Not often, nor without distinct meaning, does St Paul use the birth-name of the Saviour by itself. Where he does, it is most significant. He has in mind the facts of the gospel history; he speaks of "the Jesus"[122] of Nazareth and Calvary. The Christ whom St Paul feared that some of his readers might have heard of was not the veritable _Jesus_ Christ, but a shadowy and notional Christ, lost amongst the crowd of angels, such as was now being taught to the Colossians. This Christ was neither the image of God, nor the true Son of man. He supplied no sufficient redemption from sin, no ideal of character, no sure guidance and authority to direct the daily walk. Those who followed such a Christ would fall back unchecked into Gentile vice. Instead of the light of life shining in the character and words of Jesus, they must resort to "the doctrines and commandments of men" (Col. ii. 8-23).
Amongst the Gnostics of the second century there was held a distinction between the human (fleshly and imperfect) _Jesus_ and the Divine _Christ_, who were regarded as distinct beings, united to each other from the time of the baptism of Jesus to His death. The critics who assert the late and non-Pauline authorship of the epistle, assert that this peculiar doctrine is aimed at in the words before us, and that the identification of Christ with Jesus has a polemical reference to this advanced Gnostic error. The verses that follow show that the writer has a different and entirely practical aim. The apostle points us to our true ideal, to "the Christ" of all revelation manifest in "the Jesus" of the gospel. Here we see "the new man created after God," whose nature we must embody in ourselves. The counteractive of a false spiritualism is found in the incarnate life of the Son of God. The dualism which separated God from the world and man's spirit from his flesh, had its refutation in "the Jesus" of Paul's preaching, whom we see in the Four Gospels. Those who persisted in the attempt to graft the dualistic theosophy upon the Christian faith, were in the end compelled to divide and destroy the Christ Himself. They broke up into _Jesus and Christ_ the unity of His incarnate Person.