� 64. - Galatians 1:11-12

¹¹For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. ¹²For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. [NASB]

Paul obviously considers that the revelation he has received from God is more valid and important than anything which other men might have to teach him. But is it conceivable that he could so blithely disparage and reject the value of anything which the apostles who had accompanied Jesus in his earthly ministry might have to offer? Indeed, we never get a hint that Paul derived any information about Jesus from the Jerusalem apostles. Such a turning up of the nose at oral tradition from the men who had known and heard Jesus himself would have drawn justifiable criticism, not only from the Jerusalem apostles themselves, but from other Christian preachers in the field, and Paul would have been forced to respond to it. Some hint of that criticism and its basis would have surfaced in his letters when he discusses the value and validity of his own apostleship and gospel. None ever does.

In such an absence, we can see Paul’s point here. The superior apostle is he who is blessed with direct revelation from God. Others might teach Christ, but they relied on learning about him from those who had favored access to the pipeline of divine disclosure.

We should stand in astonishment at this picture of the premier apostle of the period passionately defining the highest measure of reliability and authenticity for a Christian preacher’s gospel: not that it had its roots in the things Jesus had done and taught on earth, not in Jesus’ own delegation of authority during his ministry, not through any apostolic channel which went back to a genesis in the Lord’s own life, but through a divine revelation, the spirit of God bestowed individually on chosen Christian prophets! Amazingly, Paul is acknowledging no gospel of Jesus going back to Jesus. He is allowing for no primacy of any gospel held by those who had seen, heard and followed the Lord while he was on earth, no superiority of any apostle who had been appointed by Jesus himself. Either Paul was guilty of the most supreme arrogance, or else such concepts simply did not exist for him.

� 65. - Galatians 1:13

You have heard what my manner of life was when I was still a practicing Jew: how savagely I persecuted the church of God, and tried to destroy it. [NEB]

� 66. - Galatians 2:6

But as for the men of high reputation [or, seeming to be important]—not that their importance matters to me: God does not recognize these personal distinctions— [NEB]

� — Galatians 2:8 - See "Top 20" #6

� 67. - Galatians 2:14

But when I saw that their conduct did not square with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, before the whole congregation, "If you, a Jew born and bred, live like a Gentile, and not like a Jew, how can you insist that Gentiles must live like Jews?" [NEB]

Gospel scenes such as Mark 2:15-17 and Luke 5:30-32 have Jesus defending himself against criticism for sharing his table with tax collectors and sinners. Could this exemplary behavior not have served Paul as an argument against Peter’s unwillingness to share meals with gentiles? (The tax gatherers may have been mostly local Jews, but the principle was still the same: engaging in table fellowship with the unclean.) Such considerations belie the whole rationalization that Paul felt no interest in the earthly life of Jesus and would not have wished or needed to draw upon it in his missionary work. The opening line of the above passage should really have read: "But when I saw that their conduct did not square with Jesus’ own conduct . . ."

[ Note that it would not matter if Jesus had actually pronounced on the issue under debate or not. The needs of such polemical situations would inevitably have led to the development of a tradition that he had said something. What we see in the Gospels, of course, is this process in reverse. General developments by reform-minded sectarian circles (here, relaxing the purity rules to allow mixed table fellowship) became focused and personified in a founding figure who had actually taught such things and to whom appeal could now be made for authority. This was one of the paramount purposes served by the Gospels. ]

� 68. - Galatians 3:23-25

²³Before this faith came, we were close prisoners in the custody of the law, pending the revelation of faith. ²⁴Thus the law was a kind of tutor in charge of us until Christ should come [or, tutor to conduct us to Christ], when we should be justified through faith; ²⁵and now that faith has come, the tutor’s charge is at an end. [NEB]

Verse 24’s "until Christ came" (NEB and a few others) is a wishful translation of a simple eis Christon (to Christ), which although conceivably translatable as "to the time of Christ," benefits from the more common translation of "leading one to Christ," meaning to faith in him; alternatively, it could mean to the time of Christ’s revelation. Either one fits the thought voiced in both flanking verses which speak of the arrival of faith, not of Christ himself. Note that in verse 23 Paul speaks of the "revelation" of faith, or the "faith to be revealed." Such an expression makes sense only in the context of what the epistles are continually saying: that the doctrine about the Christ, the very existence of the Son, is something that has been revealed by God in the present time to apostles like Paul (Romans 16:25-27, 1 Peter 1:20, etc.)

� 69. - Galatians 4:4-6

⁴But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of (a) woman, born under the law, ⁵in order that he [God] might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. ⁶And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying "Father!" ⁷Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. [NASB]

The two "sent" verbs of verses 4 and 6 are exactly the same, yet the latter specifies that it is the Son’s spirit which God sends, not his bodily person. And when is it that God "sent his son"? When "we were children" (4:1) in order to confer the rights of sons, which happens when God sends the Son’s spirit, all of which happens in the Pauline present. Most perplexing of all, why in the phrase "to redeem those under the law" is it, grammatically speaking, God who is doing the redeeming and not Jesus himself? The same oddity occurs in verse 7. As the NEB phrases it: "You are . . . also by God’s own act an heir." Why is Paul incapable of focusing on Jesus, in his recent incarnation and historical deeds of redemption, as the source of all these benefits?

[ I often quote Burton’s observation (International Critical Commentary, Galatians, p.218-19) that, grammatically speaking, the phrases "born of woman [Burton prefers it without the article], born under the law" are not necessarily linked temporally with the "God sent his Son," but are simply stated characteristics of the Son. And why is Paul bothering to say at all that Jesus was born of (a) woman? Would this not be self-evident if he was an historical man? Rather, he needs to make a paradigmatic parallel with those being redeemed, who were themselves born of woman and born under the law. Heavenly counterpart figures could guarantee certain effects on their initiates precisely because they reflected, or underwent, the same features and experiences as their earthly counterparts. Can a spirit world deity be ‘born of woman’? He can in the mythical sense (as with the savior god Dionysos), and he can if scripture says that he was. The famous Isaiah 7:14, "A young woman is with child, and she will bear a son and will call him Immanuel," was a prominent messianic text which early Christians could not ignore. Even the "born under the law" might, in Paul’s very imaginative use of scripture, be derived from his interpretation of Christ as Abraham’s "seed" in Galatians 3:16. ]

� 70. - Galatians 4:22-31

For it is written that Abraham had two sons . . . (etc.)

Paul strains for some of this allegory, but on the surface the whole thing might seem to hang together. Yet something seems to be missing here, something we would expect to find, especially as Christ "born of woman" is still fresh in Paul’s mind. He is talking about mothers and sons. Why is Mary not worked into this analogy, if only as a secondary part of the interpretation? She was after all the mother of Jesus himself who established the new convenant. She is surely a type to Sarah’s archetype (meaning a later representation of some archetypal figure in scripture; or to put it another way, the scriptural figure or element prefigures the later one). So is Jesus himself to Isaac, both symbols of sacrificed victims. (Even though Isaac was not actually killed, he assumed this significance in Jewish thinking.)

Paul has spent much of Galatians 3 linking the gentiles to Abraham through Christ as his "seed": why not double such a link through Mary and Sarah? Could not Mary be allegorized as the mother of Christians? Where, for that matter, is the thing which should have been obvious as the symbol of the new covenant, in parallel to Mount Sinai as the symbol of the old one: not the heavenly Jerusalem but the Mount of Calvary where Jesus was crucified, site of the blood sacrifice which had established that new convenant?

Paul once again shows himself to be totally immune in his thought and expression to all aspects of the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth.

� 71. - Galatians 5:14

For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ [NEB]

� 72. - Ephesians 1:7-10

(After speaking of the redemption and forgiveness of sin gained through the blood of the Son) ⁷. . . Therein lies the richness of God’s free grace lavished upon us, ⁸imparting full wisdom and insight. ⁹He [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in him(self)—¹⁰to be put into effect in the fullness of time, namely that the universe, all things in heaven and on earth, should be brought into a unity in Christ. [NEB/KJ]

There are many uses of "in Christ" in this passage (see 1:3f), but all of them fit the context of Christ as spiritual channel and divine agency operating in a mythical setting; what we do not find is the phrase attached to any mention of an historical event.

� 73. - Ephesians 1:19-23

¹⁹. . . They (God’s resources and power) are measured by his strength and the might ²⁰which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead, when he enthroned him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹far above all government and authority, all power and dominion, and any title of sovereignty that can be named, not only in this age but in the age to come. ²²He put everything in subjection beneath his feet, and appointed him as supreme head to the church, ²³which is his body and as such holds within it the fullness of him who himself receives the entire fullness of God. [NEB]

� 74. - Ephesians 2:17-18

¹⁷And he came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near, ¹⁸for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. [NASB]

This passage is not a reference to an historical event, but an interpretation of scripture, an expression of the early Christian idea (found notably in Hebrews) that the Son inhabited the spiritual world of the scriptures and spoke from there. Another common idea was that Christ had "come" through his revelation by God to Christian prophets. He was now active in the world and speaking through those prophets (the verb euangelidzo, to proclaim good news, is used to describe the work of apostles like Paul). Verse 18 also reflects the role of the spiritual Christ in providing a channel to the Father.

In this connection we might ask why the writer would have passed up Gospel sayings of Jesus about himself as providing access to God, such as John 10:7, "I am the door," or 14:16, "No one comes to the Father except by me," or Luke 10:22, "No one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

(This passage will be dealt with again in the Appendix.)

� 75. - Ephesians 2:20-21

You are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, and Christ Jesus himself is the foundation-stone. In him the whole building is bonded together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. [NEB]

C. L. Mitton (Ephesians, p.113) suggests that the meaning of akrogoniaios (cornerstone) in LXX Isaiah 28:16 determines its meaning in Ephesians, but this merely serves to show that the idea has been derived not from historical tradition but from scriptural exegesis. Mitton also suggests that the apostles and prophets are to be regarded as part of the foundation as well, alongside Christ, but there is no justification for this in the text.

� 76. - Ephesians 3:4-6 (+7-11)

⁴In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to God’s holy apostles and prophets through the spirit, ⁶that through the gospel the Gentiles are to be fellow heirs and fellow members of the promise in Christ Jesus. . . . [NIV]

But is this really a legitimate ‘out’? Would apostles preaching such a doctrine not seek to find its legitimacy and precedent in the preaching of Jesus, to anchor it in the example of Jesus welcoming the sinner, having contact with non-Jews, etc.? It is virtually impossible that they would not, for sectarian impulses are always to give the sect’s important doctrines the strongest possible foundation and authority. Indeed, it is unthinkable that in all the references to revealing the secret of Christ, whatever its nature, no Christian writer would ever express the thought that the first and primary revealer of such secrets had been Christ himself during his ministry on earth. This silence is a devastating one.

Besides, what of Jesus directives (Mt. 28:19, Acts 1:8) to go and preach to all the nations, an instruction which would automatically have encompassed Ephesians’ idea here that the gentiles were to be included in the redemptive promise? How could this writer not possess any tradition of such a directive (even if not an historical one) by Jesus? Mitton (p.123) states (based on the Gospels) that "this breaking down of barriers (between Jew and gentile) had been the mark of Jesus in his life and teachings," but if modern scholars can recognize the obvious, can we believe that Paul and other early writers did not, or chose to ignore it?

[ Consider verses 10-11: "(God’s hidden purpose was concealed for long ages) ¹⁰in order that now, through the church, the wisdom of God in all its varied forms might be made known to the powers and authorities in the realm of heaven, ¹¹in accord with his age-long purpose which he effected in Christ Jesus our Lord." Again, the long-hidden wisdom of God in all its forms is revealed not by an historical Jesus in his life and ministry, but only now, in Paul’s time, by apostles like himself and "the church." The role of Christ in verse 11 relates to that "age-long purpose" and not specifically to the present time, in which (as in v.10) Christ plays no role alongside the church that reveals God’s wisdom. Mitton (p.128) insists on interpreting the "in Christ" as referring to the actions or example of Jesus of Nazareth in his earthly life, but it better fits the general meaning of this kind of phrase as used throughout the epistles: God is the agent, Christ is the ‘enabling force’ he employs for both redemption and intermediary communication, all of it within a mythological and spiritual setting in keeping with the philosophy of the time.

And who, in these verses, is the recipient of that long-hidden wisdom of God? If there is any passage which stops us short and indicates that the writer is operating in a different realm of thought from our own, it is this one. The revelation of the wisdom of God is being aimed at the rulers and authorities in the realms of heaven, so that they will become aware of God’s plan and the world’s destiny! In other words, the hostile spirits and wicked powers are real and key elements in the world view and theology of the New Testament writers. (Mitton’s "rather surprisingly" is an understatement, and his suggestion that "this may have meant little more to the writer than it can mean to us, except as rhetorical flourish," reflects the inability of many a modern commentator to perceive and accept the gap that exists between the ancient mind and ours, and with it how shaky are all the assumptions and mindsets we often bring to the originators of the Western world’s faith. See also Ephesians 6:11-12, #85.) ]

� 77. - Ephesians 4:1-2

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. [NIV]

In reality, this is a wisdom saying, similar to those placed in the mouth of personified Wisdom in documents like Proverbs, and was eventually placed in the mouth of the Gospel Jesus.

� 78. - Ephesians 4:8-12

⁸Scripture says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train, and gave gifts to men." ⁹Now, the word ‘ascended’ implies that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth. ¹⁰He who descended is no other than he who ascended far above the heavens, so that he might fill the universe. ¹¹And these were his gifts: some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip God’s people for work in his service, to the building up of the body of Christ. [NEB/NIV]

And what had he done while in that lower location? In fact, the writer seems not to be trying to imply a ‘life’ at all, no physical presence on earth. Certainly there is no description of physical events, let alone Gospel details. Rather, he is concerned with Christ’s bestowing of gifts which are spiritual in nature (and bestowed through spiritual channels), namely the calling of various people to roles in the spread of the faith, in the building up of the body of Christ, which is an entirely mystical concept. The gifts enumerated betray no sense of the Gospel career of Jesus of Nazareth, but fit the concept that the spirit of God or Christ had implanted inspirational qualifications for a call to Christian community service. This is the second purpose of the Psalm quote, to indicate that Christ had come down to bestow these gifts—although to do so the writer reverses the actual content of the Psalm’s verse, where the figure addressed is receiving gifts from men. Such were the liberties of midrash.

Note that the significance for the writer of the "captives in his train" relates to the cosmic powers of the heavens, over which Christ is said to triumph through his spirit world sacrifice. (Compare Col. 2:15 and, as always, 1 Cor. 2:8.)

� 79. - Ephesians 4:23-24

You must be made new in mind and spirit, and put on the new nature of God’s creating. [NEB]

� 80. - Ephesians 4:26

If you are angry, do not let anger lead you into sin. [NEB]

� 81. - Ephesians 4:32

Be generous to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. [NEB]

� 82. - Ephesians 5:2

Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. [NEB]

� 83. - Ephesians 5:8

For though you were once all darkness, now as Christians you are light. Live like men who are at home in daylight, for where light is, there all goodness springs up, all justice and truth. [NEB]

The writer of Ephesians can know nothing about any teachings of Jesus to so consistently fail to appeal to them in the many and varied contexts of ethical admonition throughout his letter. In this, of course, he joins company with every other epistle writer.

� 84. - Ephesians 6:8

For you know that whatever good each man may do, slave or free, will be repaid him by the Lord. [NEB]

� 85. - Ephesians 6:11-12

¹¹Put on all the armor which God provides, so that you may be able to stand firm against the devices of the devil. ¹²For our fight is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark world, against the superhuman forces of evil in the heavens. [NEB]

Every salvation religion of the day sought to fill this need for "armor" and reassurance against the hostile powers. Any savior god worth his or her salt had to possess power over such spirits and be willing to exercise it on their followers’ behalf; Isis, for example, held a prominent role as just such a protector. But what of the great benefit Christ possessed over all the others? How are we to explain the failure of Ephesians and Colossians to point to dramatic, historical evidence which the Gospels record, evidence that Jesus did indeed possess and had demonstrated power over the demons and devices of the devil? For he had shown it even while he was on earth. The unclean spirits had surrendered to expulsion from the sick; they had cried for mercy. Even Jesus’ apostles had been given the power to drive out devils. Yet these two letters have not a word to say about such healing exorcisms. Nor do they hold up Jesus’ declaration (Mk. 3:21-7) that his purpose was to overthrow Satan and all his house.

Given the pagan preoccupation with evil spirits, the claim that Paul had felt no interest in Jesus’ life and deeds is thoroughly discredited, for this aspect of Jesus’ career would have been an immense asset to the appeal of his message, and of great interest to his listeners and converts. More broadly speaking, Christ in his incarnation would have enjoyed a dramatic advantage over his mythical Graeco-Roman rivals: for unlike them, he had recently been on earth in flesh and blood, seen by countless thousands, had dealt with evil forces first-hand, on humanity’s own turf. In his personal dealings Jesus had shown compassion, tolerance, generosity, all those things men and women thirsted for in confronting a hostile, uncaring world. It is simply unthinkable that Paul and the writers of such letters as Colossians and Ephesians would choose to remain silent on all these advantages of the human Jesus when presenting to their readers (gentile and Jew as well) their agent of salvation.

� 86. - Philippians 1:6

Of one thing I am certain: the One who started the good work in you will bring it to completion by the Day of Christ Jesus. [NEB]

Whether Jesus had had any contact with the Philippians or not, whether he was long dead before the Philippians were converted or not, the image of the Son recently on earth as the force behind the origin and growth of the faith could not help but be present in the minds of preachers and believers alike. And yet it is consistently God who is presented as the mover and ‘personality’ behind the spread of Christianity. Christ Jesus may have provided the sacrifice, but as the above verse would indicate, there is an unmistakable sense throughout the epistles that he was not to put in an appearance on the earthly scene until the day he arrived from heaven to bring about the judgment and transformation of the world.

� — Philippians 3:10 - See "Top 20" #20

� 87. - Colossians 1:15-20

¹⁵(The Son) is the image of the invisible God, his is the primacy over all created things. ¹⁶In him everything in heaven and on earth was created, not only things visible but also the invisible orders of thrones, sovereignties, authorities and powers: the whole universe has been created through him and for him. ¹⁷And he exists before everything, and all things are held together in him. ¹⁸He is also the head of the church; and he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. [NEB]

Raised from the dead—but when and where is not stated, and its purpose is to have Christ achieve primacy in all things, a mythological concept in a spirit-world setting. As for being head of the church, Paul’s genuine letters show that this is intended in a purely mystical sense. Why would all of these hymn writers (cf. Philippians 2:6-11, 1 Timothy 3:16, Ephesians 1:19-23) consistently remain silent on all aspects of the Son’s earthly identity and activities?

The answer, of course, is that this language—most graphically here and in Hebrews 1—belongs to the primary philosophical concept of the age, the Son as the knowable image and emanation of a transcendent God and an intermediary force between deity and humanity, an entirely spiritual being. This concept is reflected in the Greek Logos and Jewish personified Wisdom. (See Supplementary Article No. 5: Tracing the Christian Lineage in Alexandria.) This is why the hymn describes the Son in terms of what he is, a present, eternal entity, and not with any sense of a human figure of the recent past upon whom this colossal theological superstructure has been heaped. (See also the section "A Cosmic Force" in my review of Burton Mack’s book, Who Wrote the New Testament?)

� 88. - Colossians 1:25-27

²⁵I have become (the church’s) servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness, ²⁶the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. ²⁷To them God has chosen to make known among the gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. [NIV]

The next passage also deals with God’s revealed secret of Christ, and this time there is no narrowing of the mystery.

� 89. - Colossians 2:2-3

²I want them . . . to come to the full wealth of conviction which understanding brings, and grasp God’s secret. That secret is Christ himself; ³in him lie hidden all God’s treasures of wisdom and knowledge. [NEB] (Compare also 4:3.)

� 90. - Colossians 2:8-10

⁸Do not let your mind be captured by hollow and delusive speculations, based on traditions of man (man-made teachings) and centered on the elemental spirits of the world and not on Christ. ⁹For it is in Christ that the complete being of the Godhead dwells embodied, and in him you have been brought to completion. ¹⁰Every power and authority in the universe is subject to him as Head. [NEB]

In verse 10 the writer, like the writer of Ephesians (6:12, #85), fails to mention Jesus’ ministry in which as miracle-worker and exorcist he demonstrated for all to see that he did indeed have power over the evil spirits. Such power is referred to in verse 15: "There (on the cross) Christ stripped the demonic rulers and authorities of their power over him, and in his own triumph made a public show of them." [Translator's New Testament; whether Christ or God is to be considered the subject of this sentence is uncertain.] But it is a power clearly exercised in the spiritual dimension, supporting the view that the entire crucifixion took place in the spirit realm.

� 91. - Colossians 2:11

In him also you were circumcised, not in a physical sense, but by being divested of the lower nature; this is Christ’s way of circumcision. [NEB]

Though the point may at first glance seem fatuous, it actually bears some consideration. For if the Pauline outlook advocated the rejection of the circumcision requirement for gentiles ("There is no such thing as Jew or Greek . . .") in favor of being "in Christ Jesus," one might expect that some accommodation would have to be made for the physical discrepancy between the believer and the historical Jesus. At the very least, we would not expect a Pauline writer to come up with a metaphor which not only ignored the discrepancy, but implied that it did not exist.

� 92. - Colossians 3:2-4

²Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. ³For you have died and your [new] life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, you also will be revealed with him in glory. [NASB]

If Christ had recently been on earth and left it, what writer would not simply have said the equivalent of "return" or "come back," some phrase which was cognizant of the fact that this would be a second coming? Ironically, most Lexicons specify that one definition of this verb is its reference to Christ’s Second Advent, but the examples given are of passages like this one in the epistles, where such a meaning is read into the word based on Gospel preconceptions. In actual fact, none of the quoted passages (here in Col. 3:4, 1 Pet. 5:4, 1 Jn 2:28 & 3:2—though the latter refer to God) contain any suggestion of a previous Advent, making such a definition circular and without foundation.

While phaneroo can mean to ‘put in an appearance,’ it is also one of several ‘revelation’ words used throughout the epistles that clearly speak of the ‘making known’ of Christ in the present time (eg, 1 Peter 1:20) which, if one sets aside Gospel preconceptions, tell us that this is a revelation of knowledge about the Son and Savior in a spiritual way, with no physical or visible presence, past or present, involved.

� 93. - Colossians 3:9-10

⁹Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. [NIV]

� 94. - Colossians 3:12-14

¹²Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. [NIV]

Does "the Lord" in verse 13 refer to God or to Christ? The Expositor’s Greek Testament observes that "there is no reason for referring kurios to God, since Jesus when on earth forgave sins." But that is reading the Gospels into it, and in fact here the term is almost certainly a reference to God. Not only has the writer just spoken of God in the preceding verse, he speaks of God forgiving the readers’ sins in 2:13. Even 1:14 has God doing the forgiving of sins "in the Son," the same idea as that expressed in Ephesians 4:32. One might also point out that since Jesus on no occasion forgave the sins of the Colossians, the writer would not have tended to express it thus. Jesus’ sacrifice made forgiveness possible, but its source was God.

To File No. 6: 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus

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