READ: Col. 2:3–7: “… Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge … walk in Him … with thanksgiving.”
Paul points to Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Only through faith in Him and knowledge of Him through His Word do you receive true wisdom. True wisdom is knowledge of God’s counsel and way of salvation insofar as He has revealed these, and at the same time also God’s will as it must be carried out by us as believers.
All this is present in Christ. He fulfilled God’s counsel through His speaking and acting, and in God’s Word He shows us the way to our salvation, which He has opened for us. The treasures of this wisdom are the riches of salvation that will be fully visible at the final realisation of His promises. He Himself is for us the wisdom of God, Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:24 and 30.
The congregation of Colossae, and we also, must therefore continually direct themselves to Jesus Christ and His Word in order to live by that wisdom. At the same time this means rejecting everything that conflicts with it. In verse 4 Paul therefore warns them not to be deceived by reasonings that sound attractive to man, but that deviate from God’s Word and lead us away from Christ.
Let us also realize that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the man of the world, precisely because this man stumbles over the crucified Christ; He is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness (see 1 Cor. 1:18ff.).
Jews do not perceive that they need redemption through the crucifixion of Christ as One cursed by God and men, and Greeks believe in man with his self-directed progress. So it was in Paul’s time, and so it still is in our time. Man thinks he needs no Mediator and boasts in his own advancement. And the Jews, in overwhelming majority, remain bound to their ritual thinking.
As a Christian you are in a small minority and run the danger of being carried away by human reasonings. Paul therefore also points us to the necessity of walking in close communion with Christ, with increasing knowledge of Him, growing love for Him, and conscious obedience to Him.
Does your life continually correspond with Christ?
Singing:
Hymn 35:2,3 (1984) / 44:2,3 (2014)