Last post on Colossians 1:1-2.
What is the letter to the Colossians about?
The answer to that question could be long – it will be long
in that we’ll spend the next few weeks thinking about the answer. But it can be
summarised in what Paul says at the end of his greeting in verse 2;
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”
The summary that these words give us is that God offers us
grace and peace. In fact that could be a summary not just of Paul’s letter to
the Colossians, but of the whole Bible.
What is grace?
Grace is the unearned, unmerited, undeserved favour and love
of God lavishly poured out upon his people. Grace is God giving us the complete
opposite of what we deserve, which is his judgement, his anger, his punishment
for the way we have all lived lives of rebellion against him. That’s what we
deserve, but what God the Father offers us in his Son Jesus Christ, is grace.
And it’s an offer of grace that can bring us peace. Peace
with God, through Christ, and peace with one another, in Christ.
That’s the message of Colossians – that’s the message of the
Bible. Despite our rebellion against him, which has ruined both the world we
live in, and our own individual lives, God the Father graciously offers us
peace through his Son, Christ Jesus.
We’ll learn much more about the peace that God graciously
gives in Christ as we read through this letter over the next few weeks, but let
me finish by quoting a couple of verses that demonstrate these core truths in
this letter, and that point us to the cross where God graciously makes peace
possible. Colossians 1:19 – 20 – the gracious peace that God gives through
Jesus;
“For in Jesus Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to
dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or
in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
This letter, like the rest of the Bible, is about God making
peace through the sacrifice of his Son on the cross, where his blood was shed
for the saints.
It’s an awesome and wonderful message, and I hope it will
grip us and thrill us all over the next few weeks in Colossians.
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