| From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase |
Part 5 (final) of a series. Read part 4.
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The love for which the Apostle Paul commended the Colossian church was a genuine love, for genuine saints. Today our Christian love must likewise be exercised with a genuineness that is rooted in discernment.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints... (Colossians 1:1-3)
To Whom Was Paul Writing?
The Apostle Paul addressed his epistle, in chapter 1 verse 2, "to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colosse." Some commentators have tried to say that these are two different classes of people - that there were the saints (the full membership of the church), and that there were the "faithful brethren" (a sub-set of people within the full membership of the church, who were remaining faithful to the things they had been taught). But as we look carefully at the text, and as we consider this passage in the broader context of the whole book of Colossians and the rest of the Word of God, we are compelled to reject this interpretation.
The words "faithful brethren" in verse 2 would be more accurately translated "believing brethren." Two factors in the text support this. First, Paul attaches the words "in Christ" to his description of the Colossian believers. Secondly in the very next verses, it is their belief in Christ for which Paul expresses thanksgiving. It is the saints who are the believing brethren, and the believing brethren who are the saints. They are - to render the Greek term translated "saint" more directly - the holy ones, those who have been justified by faith in Christ and set apart as His own. No other person can make that claim, and Scripture never makes that claim for any other person.
There is no Christian brotherhood apart from faith in Christ. Our fellowship cannot be based on a church building. Our fellowship is not based on geography - the nation, neighborhood, or community in which we live. (There is no such thing, Biblically, as a "Christian nation" - only nations that are more or less influenced by Scripture and the Gospel.) Our fellowship is not based on shared interests. It is not based on church membership. This is not to denigrate the idea of membership in the local, visible church. But the membership that really matters at the Last Day is membership not in the visible church, but in the invisible church - the true Body of Christ, those who are in Christ, those who are "saints and faithful brethren" - that is, true believers.
The Objects of Genuine Grace and Peace
It is for that reason that Paul finished his greeting to the Colossian believers with the words, "Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Grace is the way in which true salvation comes about - the unmerited favor of God. Peace is the result. Paul writes in Romans 5:1, "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God." The warfare is over. The conflict is done. We have been reconciled to God, declared "not guilty" before Him. Therefore, Paul says in Colossians chapter 3 verse 15, "let the peace of God rule in your hearts." Because you are saved, let the peace of God have control of your heart.
Those who are not truly "the saints and faithful brethren" have no peace with God. As the Apostle Paul puts it in chapter 1 verse 21, those who are still outside of Christ are "alienated and enemies" of God. They have no spiritual peace with God. And therefore there can be no spiritual peace between the believer and the unbeliever. There can be no ecumenism. They cannot join in any common spiritual cause. Light and darkness cannot coexist, much less enter into fellowship or partnership.
The Keynote of the Relationship Among True Believers
In these verses Paul shows us the nature of the kinds of spiritual relationships that God desires for believers to have with one another. The keynote of those relationships is loving care for one another.
Paul tells the Colossians, first of all, that there can only be this kind of relationship among true believers - among those who have genuinely been brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit, through the accurate proclamation of the Word of God.
Secondly, Paul shows us that this is a relationship of two kinds. It is, first of all, a relationship of loving care and concern on the part of spiritual parents for their spiritual children. We - Timothy and I - Paul says, your fathers in the faith - "give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you." We are continually in prayer for you as our spiritual offspring, those who have come to faith in Christ because of our labors in the Gospel.
The kind of relationship God desires for believers to have is a relationship not only among believers in a family, or believers within a local church. It is to be a relationship of all true believers to one another. Paul commends the Colossians for "the love which you have for all the saints" - all the holy ones of God, all those who have been set apart by God in Christ, wherever they may be.
The relationship God desires among genuine believers is that which is motivated by love. Paul repeats this thought in many places in his epistles:
Owe no one anything except to love one another (Romans 13:8).
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1, and so on through the entire chapter).
Let all that you do be done with love (1 Corinthians 16:14).
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness... (Galatians 5:22).
Paul says to the church at Philippi,
This I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:9-11).
The relationship among true believers is one that is to be characterized by continual prayer for one another. "We give thanks to ... praying always for you" (verse 3). Paul also expresses this thought in many other places, such as his letter to the Romans:
God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers (Romans 1:9).
Paul tells us that prayer for the saints is part of our spiritual warfare:
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints... (Ephesians 6:17-18)
A Supreme Test of Love: The Correction of Erring Saints
Scripture is also clear that genuine love for all the saints is not mere emotionalism. The great test of this is when an individual Christian or a church encounters a fellow saint who has fallen into personal sin or doctrinal deviancy.
Every Christian must face a disturbing reality: In today's postmodern church environment, there is a high statistical probability that at some point you will need to stand up and expose apostasy within your church. The time may well come when you will need to sound an alarm because the word of man is being substituted for the Word of God in the life and ministry of the church. The time may well come when you will need to wave a red flag because there is false teaching, because the one true Gospel is being watered down, or a false gospel has taken its place. Or, the time may come when you will need to point out moral sin - violation of God's holy law - within the body.
The reason you will need to do this is the imperative of agape love. You will come to this crisis point because Jesus Christ is precious to you - and I certainly hope that He is. You will face the decision to speak out rather than keep quiet, because those around you in the church, your fellow believers, are precious to you - and I certainly hope they are. Your motivation will be rooted in the fact that those people are precious to God - and I hope you understand that they certainly are precious to God, so precious that His agape love meant the sacrifice of His own Son for their sins.
Based on that motivation, you may well be called upon to demonstrate your agape love by making the self-sacrifice of putting your reputation on the line by pointing out error within the church. If you are called upon to do that, you will need to do it in a way that is respectful and Christ-honoring - but never in a way that compromises the truth of God's Word.
As the Apostle Paul instructs the Colossian church regarding life in the body of Christ, his over-arching theme is the preeminence of the Lord Jesus. He tells the Colossian believers that Jesus Christ is to have first place in everything. The imperative of standing against apostasy is an aspect of life in the Body of Christ in which you as a Christian must prove that you really believe this. Your personal response to apostasy will prove whether or not you truly mean it when you say that Jesus Christ is to have first place in your own life, and in the life of the church, and that you truly love the saints.
How Do You Measure Up?
How do you measure up to these things today? Are you thanking God the Father, through Christ, for other believers? Are you engaging in intercessory prayer for your fellow believers, both seen and unseen? Do you understand who is truly a fellow believer, and who is not?
Are you thanking God and praying for your fellow saints on account of your expectation of Heaven and all its glories, our great inheritance in Christ, and the fact that we are going to be together for eternity in the presence of Christ?
Are you personally, and is your church, proclaiming the fact that Christ alone is the object of saving faith; that saving faith is believing "the word of the truth of the Gospel"? Are you, and is your church, proclaiming the fact that saving faith produces a changed life, just as surely as day follows night? And is your own life, and the life of your church as a body of believers, demonstrating that fact? Dear friends, if there is not that kind of spiritual fruit, God's Word tells us that we have reason to question whether there is in fact spiritual life.
We must be proclaiming that the Gospel is the answer to every problem, every challenge, every evil - in the lives of individuals, in the life of the church as a body, and in the life of the nation. Jesus Christ is the only hope for this world. Politics cannot save this world. Economics cannot change this world. Social action cannot rescue this world. Jesus told us that this world and its system are passing away. Our only hope is to be prepared for the world to come. The only way to be prepared for the world to come is to be washed and cleansed of your sins by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today many Christians are getting that backwards. Christians are trying to change the culture without proclaiming and standing upon the only thing that can change the culture - and that is what happens when people come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and their changed lives exert a positive influence on those around them. You cannot have the effect without the cause. You cannot have changed lives, you cannot have a changed church, you cannot have a changed nation, unless the truth of the Gospel is fully and accurately proclaimed. You cannot have changed lives, you cannot have a changed church, you cannot have a changed nation, unless people receive Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, and their lives and their thinking are changed by the power of God's Word illuminated by His Spirit.
Today many Christians are busy in the kind of political and social activity that tries to bring about the fruit of the Spirit without first seeking the saving work of the Spirit, through the Word of God and the power of the Gospel. It is only the Gospel, the Gospel alone, that changes everything.
Are You Truly a Saint of God?
Perhaps as you read this you have come to understand that you are among those who have never received grace and peace from God. You have never admitted to God that you are a sinner who cannot save yourself from eternal damnation. You have never been reconciled to God by receiving the free and gracious gift of salvation through that God has made available as the only way to heaven, through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If God is speaking to you through this exposition of His Word today, and you understand that you need to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin, and walk in newness of life in Him, I encourage you to stop where you are right now, and call upon the Lord and ask Him to save you. If you are taking that step today, we would love to hear from you, and we would be happy to provide you with free resources that will help you grow in your new-found faith.
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