The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 99

(R0m. xi\·. 5, (,; Gal. iv. !l, 10). The yearly Ver. 18.-Let no one defrnud you of your Jens/,, the monthly ne10 moon, Rnd the weekly prire (eh. i. 5, 23; iii. 15; l'hil. iii. H; ,al,batl, (1 Chron. u:iii. 31; ho. i. 13, 14) Gal. v. 7; 1 Cor. ix. 24-27; 2 Tim. iv. 7, co,·er the whole round of Jewish saered 8; Jns. i. 12; l Pot. v. i; Rev. ii. 10; iii. scRsons. These the Oolossian Gentile 11). These eight wordsrepresent but three Christians, disciples of St. raul through in the Greek. (On ,urraf3pa/h6.,, see Meyer's Epo.phras, had not hitherto observed (Gal. elaborate note.) Bpaf3c6"' is used nan.in in iv. 9, 10). Philosophic Judnists insisted on eh. iii. 15 ( see note), moaning primarily" tc these institutions, gi\·ing them a symbolical net as f3pa.6,6s," arbiter of the prize in the nnd ethical interpretation (see Philo, • On public games ; f3pa{3,iov, the p,-i.ze, is CLlso tlie N um Tier ia:even;' also,• On the Migration figuratively used in Phil. iii. 14, and litei·- of Abroham,' § 16, "\Vhere he warns his ally in 1 Cor. ix. 24, and is synonymous reo.ders lest, "beco.urn the feast is a symbol with the " crown " of other pnsso.ges. KaT<\ of the joy of the soul and of thanksgiving gives the verb n hostile sens.i; anci the towards God," tlwy should imagine they present tense, ns in vcrs. 4, 8, 16, 20, implies could dispense with it, or " break through n con tin ucd ntt empt. Let no one be acting nny established customs which divine men the umpire ag,1inst you, i& the literal seuse. hn ve instituted"). The errorist condemns tl,e Co!Gssian Chris- Yer. 17.-Wbioh are a shadow of the tian for his neglect of Jewish observances things to Col.Qe, but the body is of Christ (ver. 16), and warns him that in his present (Gal. iii. 23-2S; iv. 4; 2 Cor. iii. 11, 13; state he will miss the heavenly ;prize, "the Ileb. vii. 1S, 19; ix. 11-14; x. 1-4). The hope " he had supposed to be " in store for apostle's opponents, we imagine, taught in him in heaven" (ver. 5; comp. notes on eh. Platonic fashion that these thing3 were i. 5 o.nd iii.15 ; also Eph. i. 13, 14). Delight- shadows of ideal truth and of the invisibT.e ing in lowliness <-f mind and worship of the u;orld ( comp. Heb. viii. 5), forms necessary angels (ver. 23; Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 8, 9: to our npprel,ension of spiritual things. J udg. xiii. 17, 18). By these means the false With St. Paul, they shadow forth pro- teacher impressed his disciples. His angel- phetically the concrete facts of the Ch,-istian worship commended itself as the mark of o. revelation, and therefore are displo.ced by its devout and humble mind, reverent towards ndvent. Tile singular verb (literally, is) the unseen powers above us, and made quite grammatically combines the particu- purely Christian worship seem insufficient. lars of ver. 16 under their common idea of a " Delighting in" is the rendering of 61/1,.,,, foreshadowing of the things of Christ; and iv given by Bengel, Hofmann, Lightfoot, the present tense affirms here a general truth, Klopper, and is preferable to that of Meyer not a mere historical facl How this was o.nd Ellicott, who, with several Greek inter- true of the "sabbath," e.g., appears in Heb. preters, supply the sense of the previous iv. l-11; comp. I Cor. v. 6--8; John xi..x. 36, verb "desiring(todoso )in lowliness,"etc.; and for the Christian import of the Passover- to that followed in the Revisers' margin, which fenst. The fignrative antithesis of" shadow" puts a sort of adverbial sense on Be:>,.0,11-" of and "body" is sufficiently ohvions; it occurs his mere will, by humility," etc. This latter in Pllilo and in Josephus: to refer to ver. rendering underlies the paraphrastic" volun- 19 an<l eh. i. 18 for the sense of body, is mis- tary humility" of the A. V., aud agrees with leading. For" the things to come" (the things the common interpretation of i6,:>-06p71.-Keia of Chmt and of the new, Christian era, now in ver. 23 (see note). el:>-0,11 iv is, no doubt, commencing), comp. Hom. iv. 24; v. 14; Gal. a marked Hebraism, and St. Paul's language iii. 23 ; lleb. ii. 5 ; x. 1. '.l.'his substance of is "singularly free from Hebraisms" (com- tile new, abiding revelation (2 Car. iii. 11) pare, however, the use of ,16,va,, to ltnow, in 1 is" Christ's," inasmuch as it centres in and is 'l'hess. v. 12; the similar eb6oKEOJ iv is well pervaded and governed Ly Christ ( eh. i. 18; established, 1 Cor. x. 5; 2 Cor. xii. 10; 2 iii. 11 ; Rom. x. 4; 2 Cor. iii. 14). Nothing Thess. ii. 12). 'l'his very idiom is frequently is said here to discountenance positive used in the LXX, and occurs in the ' Tes- Christian institutions, or the observance of tament of the Twelve Patriarchs,' a Chris- tLe Lord's clay in particular, unless enforced tian writing of the second century. The in a J udaiJ;tic spirit. The apostle is pro- apostle may surely be allowed occasionally tecting Gentile Christians from the re- to have used a Hebraistic phrase, especially imposition of Jewish institutions as such, when so convenient and expressive as this. 68 impairing their faith in Christ (comp. Westcott and Hort, with scrupulous Gal. v. 2--9), and as, in the case of the purism, mark the reading on this account as Colossians, involving a deference to the doubtful. Ta:1mvo,Ppo.-6v11 (" lowliness of authority of angels which limited his miud "'), a word, perhaps, compounded by sovereignty and sufficiency (vere. 8-10, 18, St. Paul himself (oee 'l'rench's' Syuonyms '), 19). Thi,; verse contains in germ much of is almo2t confined to the Epistles of tins the lhoughl of the Epistle to tile Hebrews. group (comp. vcr. 23; eh. iii. 12 ; Eph. iv. en, n. 1-2:3.] THE EPISTLE 'TO 'rHE COLOSSIANS.