The Hope of Glory: A Contemplative Reading of Colossians 1

By Philip Krill

THE HOPE OF GLORY is a contemplative reading of St. Paul’s first chapter to his letter to the Colossians. Written in the lectio divina key and after the fashion of the works of Adrienne von Speyr and Erasmo Leiva-Merikakas, THE HOPE OF GLORY seeks the mystical meaning of the text. It represents a small contribution to the neo-patristic synthesis and participative exegesis emerging in the contemporary church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Dec 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483477350

Philip Krill

PHILIP KRILL is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, MO.

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Copyright © 2017 Philip Krill.

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ISBN: 978-1-4834-7736-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7735-0 (e)

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Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 12/18/2017

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True freedom is costly, the price - your life in exchange for the Life of Christ in you - our hope of glory!

APOSTLE OF CHRIST JESUS

1:1   "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother…"

F rom the very beginning, everything is Christological for Paul. Paul is Saul’s new name. He is reborn in Christ Jesus. He is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). He has a new identity. His identity is his mission. He is an apostle. His apostolic identity is not something added on to his natural life. He lives a new life, that of an apostle. Paul has been re-defined and re-constituted as an apostle of and in Christ Jesus.

He is an apostle of Christ Jesus. He knows Jesus, not primarily as Jesus Christ but as Christ Jesus. The majesty of Jesus as the Christ of God is what is primary for Paul. He knows Jesus, not according to the flesh (kata sarka) but according to the spirit (kata pneuma) (Rom. 8:5, 13). His knowledge of Christ is illumined from the very beginning in the glory of the Holy Spirit. He encountered Jesus from the moment of his conversion (Acts 9:1-20) according to His heavenly identity as the risen Lord (Lk. 24:34), as the Great High Priest (Heb. 4:14), the Lord of Lord and King of Kings (1 Tim. 6:15).

Because he knows Jesus primarily as Savior and Redeemer, he knows Him also as the One sent by the Father, i.e. as the Apostle within the Trinity. Paul sees himself as an ‘apostle of the Apostle.’ Jesus is the divinely Sent One. Paul is sent by Christ Jesus to continue His own mission as the only Apostle of the Father. As an image of the reality, Paul shares in the identity of the proto-type who is Christ. As Gregory of Nyssa says, An image is not truly an image if it does not possess all the characteristics of its pattern…thus we [who are in Christ Jesus] bear the imprint of the incomprehensible Godhead. As one commissioned directly by Jesus (1 Cor. 9:17; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 3:2; Col. 1:25), Paul bears the imprint, not only of the Godhead, but especially of the crucified Christ, the Apostle of the Father (1 Cor. 2:2).

Everything in Paul is resplendent with Trinitarian glory. Paul lives and writes from a standpoint of life’s final meaning. He experiences a fullness of identity in Christ. His identity is found only in the Trinitarian exchange, which is always more of an event than it is of an arrangement. Paul is begotten and sent by Jesus, just as the Son is begotten and sent by the Father. Paul’s role and his mission as an apostle define everything he says and does in Christ. This is because he is an apostle by the will of God…

God here refers to God the Father. Paul is an apostle by an incomprehensible act of divine election. The Father chose him in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). Paul is living testimony to the mystery of predestination. Paul is the subject of divine predilection. God does indeed have favorites (Nm. 11:28; 1 Sam. 16:1-13; Ps. 89:19; Jn. 13:18; 15:16). As Paul himself says, I was one untimely born…least of the apostles, unfit even to be called an apostle, but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain… (1 Cor. 15:8-9). Paul is aware of the strangeness and specificity of his election. The singularity of his status as a special case (1 Tim. 1:16) is as much a mystery to Paul as is the difference and distance between Father and Son within the Trinity. Union differentiates. Intimacy enhances differences. Paul’s election by the Father is totally gratuitous and incomprehensible from a human point of view, yet it leads to gratitude and a sense of overwhelming responsibility. If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! (1Co 9:16)

God’s will is gracious, inscrutable, and all-determinative. It remakes the person who assumes it obediently. My yoke is easy, my burden light, says the Lord (Mt.11:30). Paul takes up the mantle of Christ without hesitation, once he encounters the real Christ he was persecuting (Acts 9:5). He is quite aware that Apart from me you can do nothing (Jn. 15:5). At the same time Paul realizes that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13). The will of God remains a mystery, even to Paul (1 Cor. 2:1). It makes us or breaks us. Everything is at stake when we are confronted with God’s Will, but He never coerces us to assume our mission and identity in Him, and we are always free to ignore or repudiate the call of the Master (Mk. 10:17-27).

This is also true for Timothy our brother…

Amidst his Trinitarian revelations (2 Cor. 12:2-4), Paul never loses sight of immediate, human realities, particularly those involving his co-workers in truth (Rom. 16:9, 21; 2 Cor. 8:23; 1 Th. 3:2). Relationships emerge in clearer light the more they are seen in light of the Trinity. Timothy is Paul’s brother, not according to the flesh, but more profoundly according to the spirit. In Christ all relationships are divinized. They assume a supernatural purpose and connection. A link is formed through mission that engrafts co-workers in Christ as adopted children in the Trinity (Rom. 8-15; Eph. 1:5).

What Paul describes as his bond service with Timothy, Epaphras, Luke, Titus, Barnabas, and others (1 Tim. 1:12; Acts 15:35) is no mere figment of speech. If Christ’s mission is to gather all the nations unto His Father, Paul and his brothers are gathered together and given a share in the gathering mission of Christ. They are chosen and called by Christ to partake of His own mission as the redemptive Apostle of the Father. Engrafted into Him as so many members of His apostolic Body, Paul and his associates are given a share in the life flowing from the Father into the Son through which Jesus draws all men to myself (Jn. 12:32). Paul and Timothy are yoked to Christ and magnetized by Him in order to implement His desire that all men be saved and come to knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Paul and Timothy are ambassadors for God (2 Cor. 5:20) and stewards of the mysteries of Christ (1 Cor. 4:1).

Friendship, mission, identity, and destiny are all tied together in Christ. There is no non-purposeful relationship for those reborn in the Lord. Paul and Timothy are as close, in human terms, as Father and Son are in Trinitarian terms. All relationships in Christ derive from and mirror the Trinity. Within the Trinity, the Son lives from and to the Father; from the Trinity, the Father sends the Son for the life of the world (Jn. 6:33). As partakers of the divine nature (2 Pt. 1:4), Paul and his brother, Timothy, share a kinship in Christ that is of a piece with the Son’s indissoluble union with the Father in and through the Holy Spirit.

GRACE AND PEACE

1:2   "…to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ as Colossae: grace and peace to you from God Our Father…"

P aul is an apostle, Timothy is his brother, and the Colossians are saints and faithful brethren in Christ. In Christ all persons and functions are linked together. For to be in Christ, is to be in the Trinity. It is to be taken into the Trinitarian exchange itself, to partake of the inseparable bonds that exist among the Trinitarian Persons. This mystical participation is made possible by the Holy Spirit who Himself is the Bond and Power of unity among all persons, both human and divine.

Colossae is a place in Christ as well. The saints are at Colossae in Christ. Christ contains Colossae, Colossae does not exist apart from Christ. God precedes time and space. Indeed, time and space, as we experience them, are expressions, in their own iconic ways, of certain aspects of Trinitarian love. Space, in particular, reveals the roominess in God where He embraces all those in Christ with the same Fatherly love that He embraces His Son. Our experience of space also connotes the way in which, within the Trinity, each of the Persons leaves room (Raumlassen) for the others to be themselves without confusion or blending with each other. Such ‘distance’ is in no way contrary to that intimacy which the Trinitarian [love] requires, for it precisely establishes the singularity of the persons. The Trinitarian persons not only give each other space within their divine embrace, but also make space and leave room for each of us to be totally who we are in their sight, while at the same time entering ever more deeply into a surrendered communion with them. In the Trinity, the more differentiated persons are the more closely are they united… The ‘infinite distance’ between persons in the Trinity is matched by incomparable closeness, a paradox of alterity (otherness) and coincidence of desire (union of wills) that characterizes all relationships that are truly in Christ."

Saints and faithful brethren are synonymous for Paul. Holiness and fidelity are the same. Sanctity is obedient trust in the God whose promises are true because He is the Truth. The only Holy One is Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Jn. 14:6). Human holiness is participation in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:22; Gal. 2:16).

Holiness also makes us all brothers and sisters in Christ. Sanctification results in an intensification of sibling appreciation. Consecrated in His truth, we become as open and attached to each other as Jesus is to His Father and their Holy Spirit. All connectedness comes from and returns to the Trinity. Sanctity is our initiation into, and sharing deeply in, the divine life of the Trinitarian Communion. Persons inundated in the divine Life participate not only in the holiness of God but also acquire bonds of communion with each other that resemble those of the