all holy beings in heaven and earth in one happy family (verses 18-22).  In him all fulness dwells, and all believers are complete in him; receiving through him a spiritual circumcision which brings to them holiness of heart, forgiveness of sins, and life from the dead (verses 11-13).  Christ has abolished by his death on the cross “the handwriting of ordinances”—­the Mosaic ordinances under the figure of a bond which was before of binding force, but which he has annulled—­so that the former ground of separation between Jews and Gentiles is done away (2:14).  By the same death on the cross he has “spoiled principalities and powers”—­the powers of darkness, of which Satan is the head—­openly triumphing over them (verse 15).  The Colossians, then, have all that they need in Christ, and the apostle affectionately warns them against being spoiled through the philosophy of these false teachers, which is a compound of ignorance, self-conceit, and will-worship, void alike of reality and power.

The second part is practical.  Chaps. 3, 4.  The duties on which the apostle insists come mainly under two general heads.  The first is that of a heavenly temper of mind growing out of their resurrection with Christ who sits at the right hand of God, and who shall appear again to receive his disciples to himself, that they also may appear with him in glory.  In view of this animating hope he exhorts the Colossians to put away all the sins belonging to their former state of heathenism.  Chap. 3:1-8.  The second is that of mutual love and harmony arising from their union with each other in Christ, whereby they have been made one holy body, in which outward distinctions are nothing “but Christ is all and in all.”  On this ground they are urged to cultivate all the graces of the Spirit, the chief of which is love, and faithfully to discharge, each one in his station, the mutual duty which they owe as husbands and wives, as parents and children, as masters and servants.  Chaps. 3:9-4:1.  They are admonished, moreover, to let the word of Christ dwell in them richly for their mutual edification (chap. 3:16); to be single-hearted in their aim to please Christ (verse 17); to be prayerful and vigilant (chap. 4:2-4); and wise in their intercourse with unbelievers (verses 5, 6).  The epistle closes with notices of a personal character intermingled with salutations (verses 7-18).

In chap. 4:16 the apostle directs that this epistle be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that the Colossians likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.  What was this epistle from Laodicea? (1) Some think it was a letter written by the church of Laodicea to Paul, and forwarded by him to the Colossians. (2) Others understand it of an epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans (perhaps forwarded along with the three epistles now under consideration) and which the Colossians were to obtain from Laodicea.  This is the most probable supposition.  On the attempt to identify this