Colossians 2:15 - Exposition

Having stripped off the principalities and the dominions (Co Colossians 1:16 ; Colossians 2:10 ; Acts 7:38 , Acts 7:53 ; Galatians 3:19 ; Hebrews 1:5 , Hebrews 1:7 , Hebrews 1:14 ; Hebrews 2:2 , Hebrews 2:5 ; Deuteronomy 33:2 ; Psalms 68:17 ). απεκδυσάμενος has been rendered, from the time of the Latin Vulgate, "having spoiled" ( exspolians ) , a rendering which is "not less a violation of St. Paul's usage ( Colossians 3:9 ) than of grammatical rule" (Lightfoot; so Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth, Hofmann, Revisers). It is precisely the same participle that we find in Colossians 3:9 , and the writer has just used the noun ἀπέκδυσις ( Colossians 3:11 ) in a corresponding sense (see note in loc. on the force of the double compound). He employs compounds of δύω in the middle voice seventeen times elsewhere, and always in the sense of "putting off [or, 'on'] from one's self;" and there is no sure instance in Greek of the middle verb bearing any other meaning. Yet such critics as Meyer, Eadie, Klopper, cling to the rendering of the Vulgate and our Authorized Version; and not without reason, as we shall see. The Revised margin follows the earlier Latin Fathers and some ancient versions, supplying "his body" as object of the participle, understanding "Christ" as subject. But the context does not, as in 2 Corinthians 5:3 , suggest this ellipsis, and it is arbitrary to make the participle itself mean "having disembodied himself." Nor has the writer introduced any new subject since 2 Corinthians 5:12 , where" God" appears as agent of each of the acts of salvation set forth in 2 Corinthians 5:12-15 . Moreover, "the principalities and the dominions" of this verse must surely be those of 2 Corinthians 5:10 and of Colossians 1:16 (compare the "angels" of Colossians 1:18 ). We understand St. Patti, therefore, to say "that God [revealing himself in Christ; 'in him,' 15 b] put off and put away those angelic powers through whom he had previously shown himself to men." The Old Testament associates the angels with the creation of the world and the action of the powers of nature ( Job 38:7 ; Psalm cir. 4), and with its great theophanies generally ( Psalms 68:7 ; Deuteronomy 33:2 ; 2 Kings 6:17 , etc.); and its hints in this direction were emphasized and extended by the Greek translators of the LXX . Acts 7:38 , Acts 7:53 (St. Stephen); Galatians 3:19 ; Hebrews 2:2 , ascribe to them a special agency in the giving of the Law. Hebrews 1:1-14 . and it. show how large a place the doctrine of the mediation of angels filled in Jewish thought at this time, and how it tended to limit the mediatorship of Christ. The mystic developments of Judaism among the Essenes and the Ebionites (Christian Essenes), and in the Cabbala, are full of this belief. And it is a cornerstone of the philosophic mysticism of Alexandria. In Philo the angels are the "Divine powers," "words," "images of God," forming the court and entourage of the invisible King, by whose means he created and maintains the material world, and holds converse with the souls of men (see quotation, Hebrews 1:10 ). This doctrine, we may suppose, was a chief article of the Colossian heresy. Theodoret's note on verse 18 is apposite here: "They who defended the Law taught men to worship angels, saying that the Law was given by them. This mischief continued long in Phrygia and Pisidia." The apostle returns to the point from which he started in Hebrews 1:10 . He has just declared that God has cancelled and removed the Law as an instrument of condemnation; and now adds that he has at the same time thrown off and laid aside the veil of angelic mediation under which, in the administration of that Law, he had withdrawn himself. Both these acts take place "in Christ." Both are necessary to that "access to the Father" which, in the apostle's view, is the special prerogative of Christian faith ( Ephesians 2:18 ; Ephesians 3:12 ; Romans 5:2 ), and which the Colossian error doubly barred, by its ascetic ceremonialism and by its angelic mediation. We are compelled, with all deference to its high authority, to reject the view of the Greek Fathers, to which Ellicott, Lightfoot, and Wordsworth have returned, according to which "Christ in his atoning death [in it; 'the cross,' verse 15 b] stripped off from himself the Satanic powers." For it requires us to bring in, without grammatical warrant, "somewhere" (Lightfoot), "Christ" as subject; it puts upon" the principalities and the dominions" a sense foreign to the context, and that cannot be justified by Ephesians 6:12 , where the connection is wholly different and the hostile sense of the terms is most explicitly defined; and it presents an idea harsh and unfitting in itself, the incongruity of which such illustrations as those of the Nessus robe and Joseph's garment only make more apparent. It is one thing to say that the powers of evil surrounded Christ and quite another thing to say that he wore them as we have worn "the body of the flesh" ( Ephesians 6:11 ; Colossians 3:9 ). He made a show (of them) openly, having led them in triumph in him; or, it ( Ephesians 1:21 , Ephesians 1:22 ; Philippians 2:10 ; 1 Peter 3:22 ; Hebrews 1:5 , Hebrews 1:6 ; John 1:1-51 :52; Matthew 25:31 ; Matthew 26:53 ; Revelation 19:10 ; Revelation 22:9 ). In this, as in the last verse, we have a finite verb between two participles, one introductory ("having stripped off"), the other explanatory, δειγματίζω , to make a show or example, occurs in the New Testament besides only in Matthew 1:17 , where it is compounded with παρα (Revised Text), giving it a sinister meaning of not belonging to the simple verb. With the angelic "principalities," etc., for object, the verb denotes, not a shameful exposure, but "an exhibition of them in their true character and position," such as forbids them to be regarded superstitiously ( Matthew 1:18 ). God exhibited the angels as the subordinates and servants of his Son. "Openly" ( ἐν παρρησίᾳ : literally, in freedom of speech, a favourite word of St. Paul s) implies the absence of reserve or restraint, rather than mere publicity (comp. Ephesians 6:19 ; Philippians 1:20 ). θριαμβεύσας ("having triumphed;" 2 Corinthians 2:14 only other instance of the verb in the New Testament; its use in classical Greek confined to Latinist writers, referring, historically, to the Roman triumph ) presents a formidable difficulty in the way of the interpretation of the verse followed so far. For the common acceptation of the word "triumph" compels us to think of the "principalities," etc., as hostile ( Satanic ) ; and this, again, as Meyer strongly contends, dictates the rendering "having spoiled" for ἀπεκδυσάμενος . So we are brought into collision with two fixed points of our former exegesis. If we are bound lexically to abide by the reference to the Roman military triumph, then the angelic principalities must be supposed to have stood in a quasi-hostile position to "the kingdom of God and of Christ," in so far as men had exaggerated their powers and exalted them at Christ's expense, and to have been now robbed of this false pre-eminence. The writer however, ventures to question whether, on philological grounds, a better, native Greek sense cannot be found for this verb. The noun thriambos ("triumph"), on which it is based, is used, indeed, in the Latin sense as early as Polybius, a writer on Roman history. But it is extant in a much earlier classical fragment as synonymous with dithyrambos, denoting "a festal song;" and again in Plutarch, contemporary with St. Paul, it is a name of the Greek god Dionysus, in whose honour such songs were sung, and whose worship was of a choral, processional character. This kinder triumph was, one may imagine, familiar to the eyes of St. Paul and of his readers, while the spectacle of the Roman triumph was distant and foreign (at least when he wrote 2 Corinthians). We suggest that the apostle's image is taken, beth here and in 2 Corinthians 2:14 , from the festal procession of the Greek divinity, who leads his worshippers along as witnesses of his power and celebrants of his glory. Such a figure fittingly describes the relation and the attitude of the angels to the Divine presence in Christ. Let this suggestion, however, be regarded as precarious or fanciful, the general exposition of the verse is not thereby invalidated. The Revisers omit the marginal "in himself" of the Authorized Version, which correctly, as we think, refers the final ἐν αὐτῷ to Christ ( 2 Corinthians 2:10 ), though incorrectly implying "Christ" as subject of the verse. It was not only "in the cross" that God unveiled himself, dispensing with angelic theophanies, but in the entire person and work of his Son ( Colossians 1:15 ; 2 Corinthians 4:4 ; John 1:14 , John 1:18 ; John 14:9 ). "Which veil" "is done away in Christ." So the whole passage ( 2 Corinthians 2:10-15 ) ends, as it begins, "in him:" "We are complete in him"—in our conversion from sin to holiness set forth in baptism, and our resurrection from death to life experienced in forgiveness ( 2 Corinthians 2:11-13 ); and in the removal at once of the legal bar which forbade our access to God ( 2 Corinthians 2:14 ), and of the veil of inferior and partial mediation which obscured his manifestation to us ( 2 Corinthians 2:15 ).