Bernardin de Piconio’s Commentary on Colossians 1:21-23

This post includes commentary on verse 21-25.

21. And you, though once you were ahenated and enemies in sense in evil works:
22. But now lie has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and immaculate and blameless before him;
23. If however you remain founded in the faith, and settled and immoveable from the hope of the Gospel which you heard, which was preached in the whole creation which is under heaven; of which I Paul was made a minister.
24. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up want is wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church,
25. Of which I was made a minister according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you, to fulfil the word of God.

Saint Paul here applies to the Colossians in particular what he has just said of the world in general. God has reconciled all things to himself; he has therefore reconciled you, although once, and not very long since, you were alienated from him, and in mind and disposition, as the Syriac says by hostile feeling, had become his enemies, acting as such by wicked (evil)  works (vs 21), by which he is offended. All mortal sins are overt acts of hostility against God, and cause him to regard those who do them as his enemies; although of this fact sinners are sometimes wholly unconscious, as the Colossians probably were before their conversion to the Christian faith. Now, however, Jesus Christ has reconciled you to his Father by his death, and presented you before him holy, immaculate, free from all blame (vs 22), by the complete remission of your sins in Baptism. The statement that Christ suffered death in the body of his flesh (Latin: corpore carnis eius) is probably insisted on, because it was one of the errors of the heretics that the body of Christ was visionary and not real, and his death only apparent. Holding as they did the pseudo-philosophical doctrine of the inherent and original impurity of matter, they pretended that contact of the Deity with the material world was impossible, and they therefore denied the reality of the Incarnation of the Word, of his body, and of his death and resurrection. And immaculate and blameless you will still remain, in God’s sight, as long as you adhere to the Catholic faith, and hold to the hope of eternal life which the Gospel sets before you (vs 23), namely at the resurrection of the dead, another dogma of the faith whicli the heretics derided and denied. This faith and hope, delivered to you by Epaphras, is no invention of his, or of mine, but is the same Gospel which for years past has been proclaimed by all the apostles to all nations under heaven, west and east, to the furthest limits of the Roman empire and beyond them, and which I Paul have myself proclaimed all over the West of Asia, and in great part of Europe. I am proclaiming it now in the centre and capital of the empire, where I suffer imprisonment on your behalf (vs 24), on a charge, the recognition of the Son of Mary as our Lord and King, of which you are equally guilty with myself, and I bear this and all my other sufferings, not only patiently, but actually with joy, because I have a share in the sufferings of Christ, who, though his own were sufficient for the redemption of the world, and many worlds, did they exist, has nevertheless left a legacy of suffering to be filled up and completed by those who proclaim his empire, and those who embrace it, to the end of time, that they may be partakers with him of his eternal reward. As Christ suffered in the body of his mortal flesh when he dwelt on earth, so now he suffers in his mystical body, the Church, and prolongs his passion until his coming again. And I, and all who believe in him, suffer, as he suffered, in the flesh, while in heart and soul I rejoice. And my choice and appointment to the office I hold was not made in any ordinary way, nor was I chosen like the other Apostles, my colleagues, but according to the dispensation of God towards you (vs 25), the Gentile nations, for the fulfilment of God’s great promise and purpose, the call of the Gentile nations to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. It would seem that the Colossians, dwelling as they did in a somewhat remote portion of Phrygia, had been puzzled and bewildered by the confident assertions of the heretical teachers who had found their way among them, and who assured them that the teaching of Epaphras was an invention of his own, or an inaccurate representation of that of St. Paul, that neither Paul nor Epaphras could be trusted as correctly conveying to them these important truths, and that the real doctrine of Christ was only to be found in the heretic philosophy. The assurance thus solemnly given them by Saint Paul, and sent from his prison in Rome, could not but be highly satisfactory, and calculated to ensure their full confidence in their pastor and prelate. It is also not improbable that they had been told that Saint Paul’s imprisonment was a proof that he was an impostor and a criminal, on which account he assures them that he is only filling up what remained of the passion of Christ, and that while he suffered in the flesh he rejoiced in hope.