Nielsen’s Nook

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (ESV)

It’s amazing how sometimes just a turn of a phrase will strike you in a way that makes an amalgamation of the familiar burgeon into something fresh and stirring. Writing about Colossians 3:9-11, Farley writes:

The only abiding reality is Christ—He is all and everything and the only thing that matters. And He is in all. He is in everyone in the Church, without regard for their former race, religion, culture, or social position….¹

There is a boldness here that, to some, might verge upon audacity. Farley’s point is that the Apostle Paul seems to intimate that if Christ is the Incarnate Deity, the Savior of the World, the Perfect Imprint of the Father; then, indeed there is a cosmic reordering that is at hand. You see this echoed in Farley’s idea of former. In a very real and transcendent sense there is no longer race (and gender, c.f., Gal 3:28-29). There is no longer religion. There is no longer culture. There is no longer society. There is Christ—all in all.

Have we contemplated what it would be to allow Christ to more fully transform and renew the way I think about race, for example? In Christ, I am formerly a Caucasian. What does that mean? It seems to mean, at least on the surface, that Salvation circumscribes every aspect of the world in which we live, every facet of who I am as an individual and member of humanity. It does not obliterate our distinctions but puts restores them to their purposed places in the mosaic of Creation.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Help us to think cosmically about your work in our lives and in this world. Amen.

__________

¹ Farley, Lawrence. The Prison Epistles, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series. (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2003) , p. 182-3.

Translation

3 And those paying attention to the grace of Christ were despising the worldly tortures, through the span of one hour they were buying out [1] eternal punishment. To them even the fire of their inhuman torturers was cold. For they held before their eyes the escape from the eternal fire that is never extinguished, and with the eyes of the heart they looked again upon good things, that are reserved for those who endure patiently [2] the things that neither the ear heard nor the eye seen, neither have they ascended upon the heart of man, but were made known by the Lord to them, who were no longer with man but were already angels. [3]

[1] ἐξαγοράζω is a work when taken in the context of the NT canon that is unique to Paul. In Gal 3:13 we find Χριστὸς ἡμᾶς ἐξηγόρασεν ἐκ τῆς κατάρας τοῦ νόμου (Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law). In Gal 4:5 it is written ἵνα τοὺς ὑπὸ νόμον ἐξαγοράσῃ (in order that he might redeem those under the law). These are straightforward enough. The last two times we find this word used in the Pauline corpus, they are more ambiguous. Eph 5:15-16 reads Βλέπετε οὖν ἀκριβῶς πῶς περιπατεῖτε μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἀλλʼ ὡς σοφοί, ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν, ὅτι αἱ ἡμέραι πονηραί εἰσιν (Therefore see carefully to it how you walk not as unwise but as wise, who are redeeming/buying out the season/time, for the days are evil). Likewise, Col 4:5 teaches Ἐν σοφίᾳ περιπατεῖτε πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω τὸν καιρὸν ἐξαγοραζόμενοι (In wisdom walk, you who are redeeming/buying out the time, with those outside the church). BAGD reminds us that this middle form of ἐξαγοράζω “cannot be interpreted with certainty” and then ponders the question as to whether the way the writer of the Martyrdom of Polycarp uses the word here does not shed light on the usage in Eph 5:16 and Col 4:5 (BAGD, 271).

[2] ὑπομείνασιν (ὑπομένω) to endure patiently, the same thematic word used in 2:2 and later in 2:4.

[3] Perhaps this is a figure describing the valiant nature of the martyrs’ suffering or it could also be evidence for a belief rooted in a sort of dualism that believed the martyrs had escaped the body and by becoming incorporeal angelic beings.