J. L. Terveen Colossians 2
23
teaches a two stage resurrection. The Corinthian eschatological abberation in their theology of resurrection
appears not to have been an issue in Colossae.
47
In Col. 2:16-23 Paul immediately highlights a sampling of the religious practices and phenomenology
being promoted by the Colossian churchs antagonists.
48
The contrast is just as plain in 2:13 as in 1:21-22, though without the indicator particles lighting the
grammatical way.
49
Paul grammatically front-loads an expanded description of the object (
, repeated for emphasis) of
the finite main verb
. By doing so he highlights the contrastive structure of this thought.
The participle
may be concessive (or temporal), drawing further attention to the contrast of then and
now. D. Wallace, Grammar, p. 190f., cites 2:13 as an example of a predicate accusative construction.
50
The figurative use of
for a spiritual kind of death is commonplace in the NT (e.g. Rev. 3:1;
James 2:17-26, faith without works is "dead"). Physical death is clearly not in view in Col. 2:13.
51
contains the idea, seen especially in Ro. 5:15-18, 20 (Adams disobedience), of deliberate
disobedience to a revealed command of God. It can be used sometimes synonymously with "sin," the
missing of the mark set forth by divine revelation.
52
BDAG, p. 39. Paul spells out this concept of "uncircumcised" much more fully in Eph. 2:11-12.
Contrasted with this state of "uncircumcision" stands the remedy of the "circumcision not made with
hands" (Col. 2:11), a remedy of which the Colossian gentile believers had already availed themselves. In
passing, it should be observed that the language of "circumcision" and "uncircumcision" are Jewish
categories that indicate once again that the debate and/or threat at Colossae was one of Jewish character
through and through.
53
Elsewhere in the NT this verb occurs only in the close parallel of Eph. 2:5. In Ro. 8:11 the virtually
synonymous character of
and
seems clear (cf. 1 Cor. 15:22).
54
Dunn, Colossians, p. 162f., lists several places where this concept of God as one "who gives life to the
dead" appears in contemporary Jewish literature. Of particular interest is Joseph and Asenath 20:7 where
uncircumcised gentiles are given life by God.
55
OBrien, Colossians, p. 169-171, examines the less frequent (than "in Christ") Pauline "with Christ"
terminology in Colossians. Four of Pauls twelve uses of this phrase occur in Colossians (2:13,20; 3:3,4).
"A brief glace at these references shows that no single expression completely agrees with any other, but
that the preposition
("with") was suited to express intimate personal union with Christ, the Lord, Jesus
or him in various contexts (rather than
, "with," which was more suited to indicate close association
or attendant circumstances" (p. 169). OBrien also takes a brief look at the
-compound verb forms in
thet NT.
56
BDAG, p. 1078, highlights the ruling idea of giving graciously. In context here in Col. 2 this gracious
giving is seen in the forgiving of wrongdoing.
57
Ibid. Of particular interest here is the use in Lk. 7:42f. for the cancellation of debt, the very theme Paul
immediately transitions to in Col. 2:14. See also Louw-Nida, Lexicon, p. 503, 582f.
58
J. Jeremias, "
," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Friedrich, trans. G. W.
Bromiley, I (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), p. 185f.
59
OBrien, Colossians, p. 126, notes A. Deissmanns (Light from the Ancient East) speculation that there
lay behind this phrase the practice of marking a cancelled promissory note with a cross-like "x" over the
bond itself. Evidently, as Moule, Colossians, p. 99, states, no evidence for such a practice or for
language like this to describe such a practice exists.
60
This "indictment" interpretation remains common popularly, though it sits rather awkwardly if not
impossibly with the dominant idea in the text of debt-record removal.