The Time & Space Between Faith & Love

Colossians, Colossians 1:1-29

 Image credit:  RAH

This post is sequel to another, Awareness & our Earliest and Natural Obligations of Love. These two posts are meant to serve a future number of articles, highlighting a point that Paul makes in Colossians’ second chapter.

Among his very first words to the Colossians, Paul calls his readers “saints” because they belong to God by virtue of their faith in Jesus Christ; he also addresses them as “faithful brethren” because they are related to one another by the same faith, which is accordingly expressed among them in love.¹Colossians 1:2 As such, Christian faith first draws upon its source in a common Savior and love thereafter proceeds among believers as the palpable expression of their renewed and redirected affections. This is how redemption mimics and then improves the original creation: What begins in the act of God as an instance of creation—a man’s new birth, much as a germinated seed—also blooms and then blossoms again among the other flowers in a field of perennials. Later, in Colossians 4:16, we come upon Paul’s request that his letter to the Colossians be read in Laodicea also, such that we understand there is something other than familiar or civic ties that unite the readers of this epistle to other believers. Both improbable and unprecedented relations are created by their mutual union with Jesus Christ, hereby recalibrating expectations and obligations in a believer’s growing awareness of the church and its given character.

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It is, then, the constant nature of Christian relation—defined and controlled, as it is, in God’s character and his acts—that informs Paul as to the kind of love that believers are to show one another. It comprehends the most basic expressions of human love, contained in the family, and then extends the family’s natural and temporal limitations by the descriptions of love among believers. This is why we see Paul instructing his readers in his way: “Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; the elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity” (1 Timothy 5:1-2).²Peter writes similarly in 1 Peter 3:8-9, “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.” Paul uses the language of the family—belonging as it does to the first creation—to illustrate and exhort love in the church, which belongs to God’s new creation, conceived in redemption. The very affections that we most easily associate with our intimate family are to be directed to other believers, requiring their supernatural source and strength in the resurrected Lord. This, in turn, is why Paul, in Colossians 1:8, writes of love in its eschatological association with the Holy Spirit: Jesus’ resurrection and the subsequent work by the Spirit brings about the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham, “and in thee shall all families [emphasis added] of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3; Acts 4:12-13). The Holy Spirit fulfills what nature most cherished, then easily forfeited, but what always lay beyond nature’s own powers.

In the movement of history there remains the determinations of God’s will, impeding and facilitating human action in the confirmation of God’s desires for creation. What began with Adam could not be frustrated by Adam. What was denied to Abel by Cain, would find renewed expression in another son, Seth. The hostilities that showed themselves in creation’s first family was, significantly, not indicative of man in his original condition, nor suggestive of God’s desire for him; nevertheless, these became wholly descriptive of man’s fallen character, prompting God’s decision in respect to man’s future (Genesis 3:6-21). Man and woman were cursed for their disobedience; and yet, the curses were made the condition in which redemption would be gifted to believing men by a righteous savior.³Such that man was born in flesh and, though innocent of sin, by death took upon himself the curse of the law (Romans 8:3, Galatians 3:13) In this way we may recognize both the original felicity in Eden’s garden, but also God’s work to redeem man through the Son of God. The incarnation, then, acknowledges the original goodness and integrity of God’s creation, and his reconfirmation of the natural through the spiritual: “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).

As such, we are never to infer an intrinsic competition or animosity between the natural and spiritual (or, similarly, the temporal and eternal worlds), for their present hostility was not part of the original creation order (Genesis 1:31-2:3). Whatever strife exists between these worlds now is by virtue of Adam’s sin, entering the world and proceeding into creation according to sin’s introduction in the Garden of Eden (Romans 5:13-14, I John 2:16-17); but to think of creation as possessing this character by design is to fall into a pagan error. That kind of error is founded in the absence or refusal of revelation, promoting speculation, having nothing but magic⁴By magic, I mean the variety of techniques and practices that attempt to manipulate the order of the world. at its disposal in the absence of a supernatural redemption. Animosities in the supernatural world, we must remember, are no more nor less real and strange to creation than those evils we perceive in the natural realm, and God makes himself and his promises the answer to them both through Jesus Christ, and fulfilled by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:20-22).

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These connections help us to understand what else Paul is getting at when he addresses the Colossians in respect to their households, as recorded in Colossians 3:18-24.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.

Here, we have something more than biblical and practical recommendations for a happy family life; rather, Paul takes account of household relations as they commonly existed in the Roman empire, but also the perverse (and unnatural) expectations that often attended them in the culture. He then uses the cultural assumptions to highlight what, conversely, is to exist in the church as the will of the Spirit.

A significant feature of the family, as it was understood in the Roman Empire, is that it was, foremost, a legal framework, more concerned with the maintenance and transmission of property than regulating human relations.⁵The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture,  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 215. In other words, though it is not quite correct to generalize unto a concept of the imperial family—the Roman Empire was too large and diverse to allow this, it remains possible to reflect upon the Roman ideal,⁶The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, ff. 208-209. for it was the imperial ideal that was reinforced by Roman law. In pressing the necessity of Roman marriage and its character as an ideal, we may recall how Caesar Augustus once read aloud an old speech by a magistrate, which he intended for his subjects. The “message was that though marriage was a disagreeable burden, it was nevertheless what the citizen owed to his country.”⁷The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 228. In such a conception, the family ideal was subjected to Roman power and prosperity. The father was the patria potestas, the supreme authority in the family—the state within a state.⁸The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 212. His powers were surprising, and often expressed in the economic priorities that connected families. Technically, the father could hand over his daughter for marriage to any man with whose family he desired an alliance.⁹The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 227. For instance, Cicero first betrothed his daughter when she was nine years old. She died at 30, her father having arranged her marriage three different times.¹⁰The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 227. Also, slaves regarded as property, were part of the Roman “family, in a way that wives often not. In fact, there was no formal bond between a husband and wife, at least in imperial Law. The decision of a man and woman to live together as husband and wife constituted a marriage; their separation—a right available to either party—constituted a divorce,¹¹The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 214-215. which was frequent among the empire’s upper classes.¹²The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 215.

Paul’s exhortation to the church, we then see, differs significantly from both the natural and legal assumptions that existed in the Roman mind and were established in law. The real differences are rather subtlety demonstrated in Paul’s letter to the Colossians: He addresses the women; he implores servants. This is more remarkable than some readers might initially appreciate. Indeed, wives, children, and servants would not have, in the Roman conception, received this kind of exhortation at all. Admittedly, it is not difficult to imagine them being assigned various obligations, but Paul’s point is that they are honored¹³Similarly, Larry Hurtado writes that “the advice on household management found in the various ‘pagan’ philosophical texts was written for the males in charges of households, exhorting them how to manages their wives, children, and slaves. In contrast, these early Christian texts directly address each of the parties concerned in these relationships, not simply the dominant males… This sort of direct address to these various subordinate groups is a distinctively Christian innovation in these household codes.” See Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016), 177-178. On page 157 Hurtado makes a related point from another angle in writing about the way that Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians conferred honor upon women in the churches. “This involved the unusual move of positing the same standards of ‘holiness and honor’ [upon men] that were expected of women, especially of wives, in that culture more generally, thereby challenging the dominant ‘double standard’ morality of the time.” with obligation—as are the men—because their place in the church is indispensable, and their part in the giving and receiving of mutual love is essential. As such, Paul writes to them as belonging to the same society as the men, and addresses them in the same charge. They are all members of the one and same society, despite the ways that relations were defined in the Roman Empire.

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The early Roman republic placed authority within the father, but later modifications addressed the fact that there were few instruments to bring about expectations within the family. As such “imperial rule brought a new ethos. The welfare of the state took priority over the independence of the family.”¹⁴The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 217. This brought about a variety of reforms in the family: It limited the ability of the father to kill an adulteress daughter; the adulteress could be publicly prosecuted; it provided incentives for producing children, etc.¹⁵The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 217.

Thus conceived, however, the family is no longer that of pagan Rome, a creature of the state, deriving its constitution from law and reflecting the paramount demands of the economico-political order. It is [instead] pre-eminently a natural association, based upon on consanguinity and devotion to common ideals, rather than on property—the real seed-bed of the social virtues, the most powerful instrument available for the sublimation of the passions, which it the seeks, not to eradicate, but to subordinate to the true end of life.

…In this ideal there is embodied the vision of life as a continuous process of self-development which presupposes, in all external relationships, a respect for humanity such as had been but imperfectly realized in the classical commonwealth.¹⁶Charles Norris Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine (Carmel, Indiana: Liberty Fund), 214.

The significant point stands, however, that whatever amendments to ideals and policy found their eventual expression, these were but formally effected by law and the imposition of imperial power, limited in its scope of the past and its vision of the future. “Rome’s ancient experiment in government, to rule many people under one authority, did not break down the cultural and linguistic diversity of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean, nor did it temper the regional loyalties of its people.”¹⁷Robert Lewis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 7. Though eventually amenable to good changes in some constituent present, Rome often had no end in view but its own subsistence in a changeable world. In contrast, the apostolic witness, preserved in scriptures and proclaimed among Rome’s occupants, eventually changed the public from beneath, such that the family, itself, and not merely its economic advantages, were elevated in Roman law. The gospel had effected the change, for it was the resurrected Lord and the descended Spirit that confirmed the connection between man’s created past and his provisional future in the resurrection. There was, first, the recollection of the past by the Incarnation; as such, there was also the hope now firmly attached to the future, the refitting of purpose through the Spirit—the gracious display of God’s power.

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In neither scenario—to that which belongs to the Roman nor in that which belongs to the church—is there an absence of obligations; neither is there an absence of power that requires and facilitates their acknowledgement. The first power, however, belongs to the empire, imposing a standard and obligation that must eventually reside in the survival and justification of the regime, according to popular tastes. (This possesses some analogy to recent efforts in the Massachusetts state senate to amend a house bill so that the words “father” and “mother” no longer appear on a child’s birth certificate.¹⁸See also, https://www.foxnews.com/media/massachusetts-bill-redefining-parenthood-stripping-away-mother-father-could-soon-state-law and https://www.mass.gov/news/governor-healey-signs-parentage-act-ensuring-equality-for-all-families-in-massachusetts.) The second display of power belongs to God, forming the church and uniting it in obligations of love, which originate in God’s created order and return to him in praise. Harmony, what the Romans called concordia, was the regime’s standard expectation; actual affection could only exist as an unenforceable ideal.¹⁹The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture, 228. To this point, Paul’s exhortation to fathers, wives, children, and servants (Colossians 3:18-24) is an inclusion of Rome’s segregated and isolated members, understood as inseparable members of Christ’s own body. “And above all these things” Paul writes, “put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful” (Colossians 3:14-15).

Paul thus reminds his readers that they belong to another society of persons, possessing its unique set of obligations and their expressions, regardless of those construed by the state. Paul does not write to them, “You are no longer Romans, but Christians, act as if you are Christians;” rather, he so much as writes, “There is a new and different bond that unites all of you, beyond the reach of the empire’s arm.” Charity, Paul writes, governs and also perfects human relations within nation’s corresponding society, the church (cf. Colossians 3:14). It comprehends the object of faith and, therefore, recognizes the source and definition of love. We might, in the record of Roman history, quite expect to read that wives, children, and servants were required to submit and obey husbands, parents, and masters, for the ancient world, broadly speaking, recognized and codified hierarchies of order; but here, we also see that husbands are commanded to love their wives; as well, fathers are commanded to honor and encourage their children. This was the order that overturned all false displays of order. The fact of natural and legal categories are not denied in Paul’s exhortations, for they existed in the civil realm; rather, they are, in every case, transformed by the proper display of love in the church.