Colossians 2:13 - Exposition

And you, being dead by reason of (or, in) your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses ( Ephesians 2:1-5 ; Ephesians 1:7 ; Romans 5:12-21 ; Romans 6:23 ; Romans 7:9-13 , Romans 7:24 ; Romans 8:1 , Romans 8:2 , Romans 8:6 , Romans 8:10 ; 1 Corinthians 15:56 ; John 5:24 ; John 6:51 ; 1 John 3:14 ; Genesis 2:17 ). (For the transition from "having raised" ( Colossians 2:12 ) to this verse, comp. Eph 1:20—2:1; also Colossians 1:20 , Colossians 1:21 .) Again the participle gives place to the finite verb: a colon is a sufficient stop at the end of Colossians 1:12 . Death, in St. Paul's theology, is "a collective expression for the entire judicial consequences of sin" (see Cromer's ' Lexicon,' on θάνατος and νεκρόζς ), of which the primary spiritual element is the sundering of the soul's fellowship with God, from which flew all other evils contained, in it. Life, therefore, begins with justification, ( Romans 5:18 ). "Trespasses" are particular acts of sin ( Ephesians 1:7 ; Ephesians 2:1 , Ephesians 2:5 ; Romans 5:15-20 ; Romans 11:11 ); "uncircumcision of the flesh" is general sinful impurity of nature. The false teachers probably stigmatized the uncircumcised state as unholy. The apostle adopts the expression, but refers it to the pro-Christian life of his readers (see Colossians 1:11 , Colossians 1:12 ), when their Gentile uncircumcision was a true type of their moral condition ( Romans 2:25 ; Ephesians 2:11 ). These sinful acts and this sinful condition were the cause of their former state of death ( Romans 5:12 ). The Revisers rightly restore the second emphatic "you"—"you, uncircumcised Gentiles" (comp. Colossians 1:21 , Colossians 1:22 , Colossians 1:27 ; Ephesians 1:13 ; Ephesians 2:11-18 ; Romans 15:9 ). It is God who "made you alive" as he "raised him (Christ)," ( Colossians 1:12 ); the second act being the consequence and counterpart of the first, and faith the subjective link between them. χαρίζομαι to show grace, used of Divine forgiveness only in this and the Ephesian Epistle ( Colossians 3:13 ; Ephesians 4:32 : comp. Luke 7:42 , Luke 7:43 ; 2 Corinthians 2:7 , 2 Corinthians 2:10 ; 2 Corinthians 12:13 ), points to the cause or principle of forgiveness in the Divine grace ( Ephesians 2:4 , Ephesians 2:5 ; Romans 3:26 ; Romans 5:17 ). In "having forgiven us" the writer significantly passes from the second to the first person: so in Ephesians 2:1-5 (comp. Romans 3:9 , Romans 3:30 ; 1 Timothy 1:15 ). The thought of the new life bestowed on the Colossians with himself in their individual forgiveness calls to his mind the great act of Divine mercy from which it sprang (the connection corresponds, in reverse order, to that of Colossians 1:20 , Colossians 1:21 ; 2 Corinthians 5:19 , 2 Corinthians 5:20 ), and he continues—