21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.
Universal to the particular – the sufficient to the effective. God’s work in Jesus Christ was adquate to reconcile all things to Himself (vs. 20), but now He has worked effectively in reconciling “you,” that is, the Colossian believers (and by extension all believers). Reconciliation means restoring a broken relationship to its previous, unbroken state. In our case, we were completely separated from God. The Scripture cuts us no slack – we were hostile in mind. That is God’s assessment. When David sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband Uriah, he confesses his sin as, “against You (Lord) only have I sinned” (Psalm 51:4). All sin is an affront to God, it constitutes hostility toward Him and alienates us.
The way God reconciled us is through the human death of Christ. The physicalness of that is emphasized (“in his fleshly body through death” vs. 22), which speaks against the budding Gnostic thinking that physical matter is essentially evil. Spiritual enlightenment is not a matter of humans trying to shake off the physical nature in pursuit of absolute holiness and truth. God’s reconciliation is perfect and restored us to “holy and blameless and beyond reproach” status with God.
This truth, this status, is contingent upon faith, a faith that endures and is rooted in the hope of the gospel. Now some people stumble on this verse, thinking that assurance of salvation is nearly impossible since we cannot know whether our faith is enduring until the end of our lives. However, “if” statements in the Bible can be understoood in different ways. Paul is not questioning whether their faith endures. The translators insert the word “indeed” to reflect what might be called an “if” of certainty. In other words, if you continue in the faith—and for the sake of argument we will assume that to be true—you will be presented before God. The Colossians had that kind of faith. It was not a dead faith (as James refers to in his letter), but an alive faith. Their being “firmly established and steadfast” comes from being made holy, blameless and beyond reproach. It is God’s work. Ours is simply a response.
Lord, thank You for reconciling me from my rebellion against You. Rather than consigning me to an eternal hell, You rescued me through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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