J. L. Terveen Colossians 2
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Paul will enunciate more fully in 2:9-15 where his pastoral paraenesis merges seamlessly
now into distinctive christological affirmations.
Pleroma Christology and Polemics
With the subordinating conjunction
Paul in 2:9-10 turns emphatically first to
a two-fold christological affirmation with clearly polemical overtones which sets out
why the Colossian "philosophy" should be rejected while holding securely to the received
tradition and teachings of his
gospel.
Terminological Keystone for Christology (
). The distinctive Pauline
locution
calls the readers attention back to that phrase at the thematic core of
Pauls paraenesis in 2:6: "walk in him." Pauls front-positioning of this phrase here in
2:9 at the outset of his crucial movement to christological considerations forming a
noteworthy inclusio with the concluding
in Col.2:15 serves to underscore its
centrality for the entirety of his argument that follows in 2:9-15. Indeed, the extensive
and emphatic use of such participationist language not only
(2:6,7,9,10,15),
but also
(2:11,12), the associative dative
(2:12), and the
-compounds of
2:12-13 (
) marks this passage with the
unmistakeable christological imprint of the believers union with Christ. Therefore, the
true gospel criterion of
now finds its voice in the "in him/whom" motif, a
christological hub around which all Pauls affirmations in 2:9-15 will turn.
Christ: The Accessible God. The two "in him" phrases in 2:9-10 provide a dual
christological aspect for consideration. Paul uses the first "in him" (2:9) in the context of
the relationship between Christ and God, a theological christology. Though not the
dominant perspective for the developing Pauline argument here,
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it does establish an