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Let us follow the teaching of these passages step by step. First as to
the methods adopted by these two servants of the Lord. The one employed
`warning and teaching' the other `praying'. The apostle has recognized this
double ministry elsewhere:
`I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then
neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but
God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that
watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according
to his own labour. God's fellow -workers are we, God's husbandry,
God's building are ye' (1 Cor. 3:6 -9).
The ministry of the apostle in this special labour for the Colossians
is described as `warning and teaching'. If the reader will refer to the
structure of the epistle given in the article entitled Colossians1, he will
see that the central member commences with the word `beware'. The great
difference between Ephesians and Colossians is in this central section (Col.
2:4 -23) with its warning notes:
`And this I say, lest any man should beguile you'.
`Beware lest any man spoil you'.
`Let no man therefore judge you'.
`Let no man beguile you of your reward'.
Admonition or warning belongs to the training and discipline of
children; it presupposes life and position in the family:
`Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord' (Eph. 6:4).
Admonition or warning belongs to growth, to walk, to the things that
accompany salvation, to the prize or reward, not so much to salvation in its
first phase:
`Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth
the prize? So run, that ye may obtain ... All our fathers were under
the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized ...
and did all eat ... and did all drink ... But with many of them God was
not well pleased ... Now all these things happened unto them for
ensamples: and they are written for our admonition' (or warning) (1
Cor. 9:24 to 10:11).
`Warning and teaching' are related as `practice and doctrine' are
related.
We must now turn our attention to the central theme.
In this chapter there are two `presentings', and they are intimately
associated:
(1)
`In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and
unblameable and unreproveable in His sight' (Col. 1:22).
(2)
`That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus' (Col.
1:28).
The reader is sufficiently taught, we trust, to realize that the work
of Christ on our behalf is so complete, that to speak of adding to it or
`perfecting' it is nothing short of treason. The words used preclude all