Colossians 2:1,2

Colossians 2:1

I. The first wish of the Apostle appears as if it embodied the whole, "that their hearts might be comforted," that is, that by Divine preparation and discipline, they might be prepared, and strengthened, and become heirs of sanctification and rest. "That their hearts might be comforted." Here is the design of the Apostle, God's purpose which His messenger declares, that the end of our religion is our happiness. "That their hearts might be comforted," and that this may be brought about through the processes of obedience, and of faith, is the burden of the Apostolic prayer.

II. The verse then proceeds to unfold the elements, the constituents by which this prosperity of the spirit is to come; and the first and highest of these would appear to be "that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love." The word here rendered "knit together" applies to the fitting of the parts of a house in completeness and harmony. So the heart is to be knit together in unity: not united after many dislocations by bonds from without; bonds which the body may fray away, bonds which the hands of violence may sunder, but compelled from within, weaving the web of its defence, like the spider that is in kings' palaces, out of the texture of its own frame. Love is the root of all other graces, and the ground upon which the temple is to rise.

III. "Unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding." The possession of an assured faith, the importance of an intellectual perception of the truth, and of a decisive grasp of its great principles in the inner man, is urged by the Apostle in many exhortations, and enforced upon us as surely by the experiences of our own witnessing hearts. The faith that is so carefully concealed that only those who enter into the Shekinah of the spirit are aware of its existence, is in sad danger of dying from the very closeness of the air in which alone it permits itself to breathe; but the faith that gives itself to acknowledgment, to testimony, to witness-bearing, is traced by the air of the mountain, and breathes and thrives healthily among the free fellowships of men.

W. M. Punshon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 168.

References: Colossians 2:2. Expositor,1st series, vol. ix., p. 384.Colossians 2:6. R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 85; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 536; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 313; Ibid., Sermons,vol. viii., p. 488; W. Cunningham, Sermons,p. 292; T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons,p. 0 2 Chronicles 2:6; Colossians 2:7. Preacher's Monthly,vol. viii., p. 216. Colossians 2:7. Church of England Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 245.Colossians 2:8. R. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., pp. 120, 104.Colossians 2:8. Good Words,vol. iii., pp. 373, 575.Colossians 2:9. G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 18. Colossians 2:9. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 139; H. Goodwin, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 24 1 Chronicles 2:10. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 65; I. Taylor, Saturday Evening,p. 344; R. S. Candlish, The Sonship and Brotherhood of Believers,pp. 38, 54; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,9th series, p. 285.