Holy and Faithful

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS

HOLY AND FAITHFUL

Col 1:1-2

1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.  

NIV

We have not gotten too far past the introduction of this letter as yet after spending time considering apostles and disciples and by the will of God. What we also see is that Paul calls these people, this church in Colosse the holy and faithful brothers in Christ. It would seem these two words, holy and faithful do not fully describe what Paul is saying about them. English words lack the fullness of the meaning as do the Greek words here. The Greek word translated holy is Hagiois and it can also be translated as saints. But the fullest of its meaning in regards to believers is to be set apart for God, as it were, exclusively his. But it also carries the meaning in the moral sense as pure, sinless, and upright. Of course, no man in his own merit is sinless, as we are also told all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. However, it is Jesus who makes us holy or sets us apart for God, or through Jesus, we are seen as sinless, pure and upright. We learned from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that God chose man to be holy and blameless in his sight through Christ, even before the creation. In other words, God’s intent, his will is that it would be through Jesus that we would be holy and blameless in his sight. So then that is why Paul can call them holy because he includes the words, “In Christ”. That is how we are considered as holy as well. We have no holiness in and of ourselves. If we think we are holy because of our ability to act fairly well, or at least appear that we do, we are sadly mistaken. The only holiness we have is in Christ. In addition, Paul calls them the faithful brothers, but also in Christ. This is an act of man. We are the ones who must execute or discharge our duties faithfully or without missing something, doing everything rightly. This would be applied to the command as to work as onto the Lord. We would do our jobs faithfully, even if the boss is not looking. However, our boss, the Lord is always watching, but how can we faithfully live without sinning, or always doing everything right or rightly? That is not what the faithful word means. It also means trusting, or persuaded. So then we are faithful in our trust in Christ. We do not have any doubts that Christ has taken our sin and we are forgiven. We continue to trust in the work of Christ, rather than our own works. Then this is sort of a partnership with the Lord. He makes us holy and blameless and we trust him to do just that. He declares us holy and we faithfully believe it. That seems like a fair and equable exchange. He does it, we believe it.