Do
We Really
Love to Know God's Word? Colossians 2:1-2
The question we should all
ask ourselves on a regular basis is: Do we really love the study of God’s Word?
Do we really love to know God’s Word? There are a lot of people who think that they
love the Word but when life gets tough or when they reach a level of a sort of
self-satisfaction is when we discover the answer to the question. The reason we
should love to know God’s Word is not for some academic reason, because it
stimulates our intellect though that it does. A lot of people stop there. They
just love the stimulation, the thought, the learning of doctrine, learning the
theology, learning God’s Word. But the study of God’s Word is a means to an
end, and the end is to know God. The end is to then be able to live on the
basis of God’s plan for our lives, that God will be glorified and that we can
fulfil the mission that God has given to every single believer generally, and
our ministry to God is given to each of us specifically in terms of our own
spiritual gifts and abilities.
In the latter verses of
Colossians chapter one and the beginning of chapter two Paul has been very
personal in his explanation of the Word and his life and his role as an apostle
and his love for those to whom he ministers, and how he has given of his life
so much and encountered many struggles and conflicts. As he puts it in 2:1,
“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf…” He endured
much opposition and personal adversity and suffering for the objective of
enabling believers to understand the truth of God’s Word and to live for God.
Fundamentally, if we just think about it, if there is only one truth and that
is the Word of God then really nothing else matters than knowing God’s Word and
understanding how we are designed by Him. But if we
don’t live as if that is really important then no matter what we say with the
lips in terms of the significance of God’s Word and the importance of God’s
Word then it really isn’t important.
We are going to stress
that, understand that importance of God’s Word, in different ways with
different emphases as we grow and mature as believers but fundamentally we have
to understand that this is a bedrock to our life, that knowing the Word is more
important than anything else in life. Because there really is a God and He
really has communicated to us, and of there really is a God and He really has
communicated to us then nothing else really matters than being able to know Him
through His Word, because that then provides us with the consequences of being
able to live life to the fullest and being happy and being fulfilled in our
life—not because of our circumstances but because we understand who we
are as creatures of God who have been given many, many blessings.
Colossians 2:1 NASB
“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for
those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my
face.” But what is the purpose of his enduring these struggles? He understood
that the Word of God was true. God had commissioned him for a purpose and he
understood that nothing was more significant for people than to understand that
Jesus Christ died on the cross for them, and that by believing in Christ they
could have eternal life. And that phrase “eternal life” doesn’t just mean life
without end but it means a richness and a fullness of
life that enables us to reach all of the potential that God has given us.
So the end game, that which
gives him the ability to live through whatever opposition and adversity he
faces, is expressed in Colossians 2:2 NASB “ that their hearts may
be encouraged…” That is why he endured all this. “Hearts” is just a figure of
speech, a metaphor for the entire immaterial part of our nature. It is
sometimes used as a synonym for the soul, sometimes for the mind, a few times
as a synonym for emotion; but often it stands for the inner part of man and all
that that represents—his mentality, his emotion, his conscience. It is
“that their hearts may be strengthened, “having been knit together in love”…”
or by being united together by love. So it brings into our thought stream here
the significance and the role that love plays. Then we have another phrase:
“and {attaining} to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of
understanding…”
So his goal is that we are
united in love. Today we live in a world that really doesn’t understand much
about love. Very few people do. The Word of God gives us our real starting
point for understanding love and that is simply expressed in passages such as
Romans 5:8; John 3:16—“God demonstrated His love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” "For God loved the world in this
way that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life". That tells us what love is; that is
God’s picture for us of where love begins. It is doing all that we can do for
the best interest of those to whom we are ministering. A lot of people think
that what is best for the object of my love is what I want for them. That’s a
selfish-centered love. The only way we can identify what is best for somebody
else is if we have an external, eternal absolute of right and what is best; and
the only way we can ever know that is through His Word. That is why as
Christians we understand that then only way we can truly, genuinely love
somebody is to do it on the basis of who God is and who we are as creatures
beings created in the image and likeness of God. And love is not something we
can command, turn on and off in an instant; it is something that we grow and
mature in as we learn other things and as we learn to put aside the default
self-centeredness of our own sin natures and replace it with something that
goes beyond and self-centred orientation of our own fallen self. This can only
come as we focus on the Lord. The only way to get real, genuine biblical love
operational in our own souls is going to come through knowing God. There is no
other way to do it.
As Paul expresses the goal
of his ministry—which has to do with what should be the goal of our
lives—he uses this terminology, that our hearts, our souls should be
strengthened. How do we strengthen our heart? What is the basis for having a
strong soul? It is a compound object here, that their hearts might be
encouraged by, first of all, being knit together in love, and secondly by
“{attaining} to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of
understanding…” We have a string of genitives here. First of all this word that
is translated “wealth/riches” is the Greek word ploutos
[ploutoj] which can be translated riches, wealth, abundance of
something, and in similar contexts it is usually followed by a
genitive—the wealth of something, the abundance of something. It is used
in a descriptive way: the abundance of God’s grace, the wealth of God’s
provision. It is describing in a superlative way the expanse of all that God
has provided for us. The English word “attaining” is put in here simply as an
expression of the fact that there is a Greek preposition indicating the goal,
the objective. The goal or objective has to do with actualising in our own
live, or bringing into full experience in our own lives the understanding of
the wealth, the abundance, the fullness of everything that we have in Christ.
When we ask ourselves the
question, do we really love the Word of God, do we really love to know the Word
of God; that is the only way we can know about the wealth, the abundance, the riches that God has given us. We don’t find out about it
any other way. Part of the key to living a life where we experience all of the
fullness, all of the happiness, all of the richness that God has for each of us
as believers, is that we have to learn what it is that God is giving us so that
that we can live on the basis of that. Otherwise we are not any different from
someone who is living under a bridge somewhere unaware of the fact that they
have a million dollars in a bank account somewhere. But that
is the life of many Christians—most Christians. They’re living
like a homeless person completely ignorant of the fact that they have a billion
dollars in the bank account somewhere and it is all theirs. They haven’t
learned that they have it and they have no clue how to use it. They really
don’t understand the wealth that God has given us, the abundance of grace that
God has already given us at salvation, or how to live on the basis of that so
that they can encounter and face any number of problems, difficulties,
challenges, whatever in life and still have emotional stability because it is
grounded on that which never changes, the character of God.
Romans 11:33 NASB
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” Paul is using the
terms “wisdom and knowledge of God.” That is that wealth that we have. He is
using the term “riches” there in the same way as “the abundance of wisdom and
knowledge” that is available to us. God has given us everything we need to
know, yet how much of it do we know? We can only know it by studying His Word.
This is the primary focus of Paul’s ministry. In Ephesians 3:8 he said, NASB
“To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the
Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.” The word “unfathomable” doesn’t
mean we can’t know it; it is just that we can’t know it on our own. It is
beyond anything that we could ever imagine. So we can only get there through
the study of the Word.
Ephesians 1:3 NASB
“Blessed {be} the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly {places} in Christ.” This is the
riches, the wealth, the abundance that is ours. It is
one of those things that God does for every person the moment they trust in
Christ. He opens up a bank account and puts a billion dollars in it for our
spiritual life. How do we learn about that? Only by studying His Word. How do
we then learn how to manage those resources, our spiritual blessings? Only by studying God’s Word. We can’t get there any other
way.
Peter says it another way.
2 Peter 1:3 NASB “seeing that His divine power has granted to us
everything [all things] pertaining to life and godliness, through the true
knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” The two words
used there, “life” and “godliness,” indicate both our physical life [bios] and our spiritual life [eusebeia]. God didn’t forget. He didn’t
just give us some spiritual blessings and living the Christian life is just
going to church and living in another plane. That’s more like eastern
mysticism. They relate—“everything related to life,” so that we can
fulfil that which God has planed for us. He is not going to give us resources
we don’t need to accomplish the goal or that which will distract us from
accomplishing the goal. So He has given us everything we need related to our
physical life so that we can achieve that which He has for us in our spiritual
life “through the knowledge of Him.” It is not apart from the knowledge of Him;
it is through the knowledge of God’s Word. [4] “For by these He has granted to
us His precious and magnificent promises [in His Word]…”
We need to apply promises
in all kinds of circumstances where we can’t get to the Word to find the
promises. So what do we do? It has to be in our souls, and we need to learn
them. “… so that by them you may become partakers of
{the} divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by
lust.” What that means is that we benefit from God’s grace and when we grow,
the Scripture says, God is conforming us to the image of Christ. That is what
Peter means by partaking of the divine nature. We become more and more
Christlike. The character of Christ is formed in us by God
the Holy Spirit. So we have to learn to live upon the sufficiency of
God’s Word. That is what this is talking about. God has given us everything
pertaining to life and godliness, and it is in His Word. That tells us that
God’s Word is sufficient. We don’t need to go anywhere else to get the
knowledge. We have everything we need right now to excel in our spiritual life
through the Word of God.
Colossians 2 goes on to say
“and {attaining} to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance…” This is
the Greek word plerosophia—pleroo = fullness of something; sophia =
wisdom, combined to indicate a conviction, a confidence, a certainty about
something. We have to understand that we have a wealth, an abundance of
something. An abundance of something comes from understanding. Paraphrase:
“abundance that results from the full assurance of [something].” We don’t
really come to understand how much is in the bank account and how to use it
until we are sure it is ours. The only way we become sure it is ours is because
we have to learn from God’s Word. That is the understanding part. Confidence
comes from understanding—“understanding…” This is the word sunesis which means a comprehension or
perception, understanding, intelligence. It comes to mean the content of our
understanding of what we know to be true, what we understand. So it is the
assurance based on what we understand. We have a confidence and a conviction
based on what we understand to be true. To understand something we have to
learn it; to learn it means we have to study it. To study means we have to
mentally sweat, plan and prioritize and prepare to be in Bible class—more
than three times a week; every day! That doesn’t mean
we have to sit down and listen to a whole class every day, we can listen for
just fifteen or twenty minutes. But there is a constant reminder in that
teaching that fortifies our souls, because we forget very, very easily what God
has provided for us.
The way that our hearts are
strengthened is twofold: a) By being united in love.
Our unity is a unity of the faith based on knowing certain things to be true.
There is a group of doctrines, a layer of teaching and belief expressed in
God’s Word that we can’t compromise on. b) By realizing, coming to a goal of
understanding and applying all the things that God has given us is Christ, and
that only comes through studying His Word.
To summarize, the goal of
the Christian life is unity. We should be united together or brought together,
bound together, grow together. It is not for the sake of unity for unity’s sake
but of unity of the faith. Secondly, Paul says that this unity is uniquely
expressed by the manifestation of love within the body of Christ. That is a
goal; it doesn’t happen instantly when we are saved. First of all we have to
git rid of all the superficial, sentimental, shallow notions of love that we
have been brainwashed from all the romance movies we see and other things; that
really doesn’t have anything to do with biblical love. So we have to come to
understand that we don’t really know that much about what love experiences,
what love is. This goes back to some basics in Scripture. When Jesus was about
to go to the cross He gave His disciples a lot of instructions that were all
related to what the spiritual life would be like after He left and after He
ascended into heaven. He gave a new commandment. John 13:34, 35 NASB
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have
loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know
that you are My disciples, if you have love for one
another.” This sets the bar very high. This is something that is going to
distinguish the way a mature believer lives and operates and relates to other
people from everybody else. It is manifested in how we treat people.
We are to love one another
as Christ loved us. If that is the standard then the only way we can know how
to love somebody else is by going through the Scripture and analysing how
Christ related to everybody in His environment. Immediately we are going to run
into places where Christ had a hostile confrontation with the legalistic
Pharisees. Wasn’t He loving that Pharisee? Sure He
was. So love is not always this sort of gooey I’m just going to just approve of
everything you do kind of thing. Love is expressed in terms of holding to a
standard, and when that standard is violated there has to be a challenge to
return to the standard. Without the challenge there really isn’t any love. So
love is not this permissive approval of everything somebody does. Ephesians
4:32 tells us what is also involved in that. NASB
“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in
Christ also has forgiven you.” The love for one another isn’t just the idea of
doing good things for people or helping people, or just the idea of not having
certain mental attitude sins toward them. There is a positive initiation of
action; we are kind to one another. That is not just staying away; it is an
engagement. E.g. the good Samaritan.
How did Christ forgive us?
If we don’t understand the Scriptures and the biblical doctrine of forgiveness
then how can we forgive other people? There is a non-personal aspect to love,
sometimes referred to as unconditional. By that we simply mean that the person
we are being kind to and gracious to is not
necessarily somebody we know. It is not based on our knowledge of them. We can
treat them in a gracious way and at a level of kindness simply because they a
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ or someone created in the image and likeness
of God. Sometimes it is easier to do that because we don’t know then than it is
with some people we know who are family members or close friends.
Another thing we have seen
in this passage is that the unifying aspect of love is inseparable from the knowledge
aspect. We can’t really love one another if we don’t love God. Scripture has a
lot to say about what is involved in loving God. Our love for God, Scripture
says, is only as robust as our knowledge of God. It doesn’t matter how we feel
about God. Sometimes we feel very close and intimate with God; sometimes we
don’t. Feelings are not a barometer in Scripture of our maturity or our love
for God. Jesus said, John 14:15 NASB “If you love Me,
you will keep My commandments.” That tells us right away that there is a
correlation between our obedience to the Word and our love for God. We can’t
obey what we don’t know, and we can’t know it if we don’t take the time to
study it and make it a priority to internalise it. John 14:21 NASB
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who
loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose
Myself to him.” That is an intimacy of our fellowship with God expressed there,
but it is predicated upon learning and applying what we know. [23] “If anyone
loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will
love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” That is not
talking about the personal or positional indwelling of the Father and the Son
in the believer, it is talking about the fellowship and the intimacy that we
can have with the Father and the Son in terms of our own spiritual life and our
walk with the Lord.
John 14:24 NASB
“He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and
the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”
John 15:10 NASB
“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My
Father’s commandments and abide in His love…..[12]
This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”
So the pattern is Christ; we have to study that; we have to know the Word to
know that.
Some seventy years later
John wrote 1 John. In 1 John 3:10 he said NASB “By this the children
of God and the children of the devil are obvious…” By that he doesn’t mean
whether you are saved or not saved, it is whether you are living like a child
of God or whether you are living like a child of Satan. “… anyone
who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not
love his brother.” He is not talking about salvation here. There are a lot of
believers who still live like children of the world because they don’t know any
better; they haven’t studied the Word. It takes time to love your brother, it is not something that instantly happens the day
you are saved. [11] “For this is the message which you have heard from the
beginning, that we should love one another… [14] We know that we have passed
out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love
abides in death.” This is not talking about eternal death and condemnation, it
is talking about living like a dead person, one who is spiritually alive but
who has never learned or grown spiritually and so still lives like he did when
an unbeliever. Sometimes we refer to this as carnal death or temporal death as
opposed to experiencing the riches and abundance of life. John 10:10 NASB
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have
life [eternal life at salvation], and have {it} abundantly [the richness and
fullness of life that is ours as we grow and mature as believers].”
1 John 3:14 NASB
“We know that we have passed out of death into life…” In other words we are
living on the basis of this new life that we have in Christ. “…because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in
death [carnal death].” John is not giving a contrast in 1 John between
believers and unbelievers but between growing, maturing believers who are
living like it and those who aren’t—those who are in fellowship and those
who are out of fellowship.
Another thing that we see
in this passage that we say is a unifying factor in the body of Christ comes
from living in light of the abundance of blessing: the riches which derive from
the full assurance of confidence which we have from our understanding of the
Word. We have to believe that the Word of God is the total, sufficient, and
final complete Word of God. But people don’t live that way. Ryrie quote: “We
always have to remember that we judge our experiences by the Word of God, and
we never judge or evaluate or interpret the Word of God on the basis of our
experiences.” That is the difference between the believer who can grow and the
believer who doesn’t. The believer who judges his experiences by the Word of
God understands the power, the authority and the sufficiency of the Word of
God. But the believer who experiences what he can’t explain or who is similar
to what he thinks is Christian and then tries to conform that to the Word of
God is a believer who doesn’t understand the sufficiency of God’s Word.