The contrast between the fallacious deceit of human
traditions and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lies in the fact that
in Christ there dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. This verse is
the only verse which might seem to indicate that Paul is directly attacking
Gnosticism. In the schemes of Basilides and Valentinus, all the fullness of the
Godhead, or plērōma, was indeed contained in Christ, but not
bodily. Thus the divine person did not die on the cross. However, this verse
does not require a Gnostic reference, for the same is true of Docetism also;
and from another point of view the Jews also rejected the proposition.
Aside from any
reference to Gnosticism, the general question remains as to the force of the
word bodily. The word fulness indicates the contents; for
example, “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” The fulness of the
Godhead is the totality of perfections, attributes, or qualities of deity.
These include self-existence, sovereignty, omnipotence, and the like. The
question now is, how do these exist in Christ bodily?
The question is
sharpened by the word Godhead. Commentators regularly contrast the word
in this verse (theotēs) with a similar but different word (theiotēs)
in Romans 1:20, where the King James uses the same translation:
“Godhead.” The latter refers to divine qualities and can be diluted to the
level of such qualities as they appear in exceptionally qualified men. Or, as
in Romans, the word can refer to some divine attributes while excluding
others. But theotēs refers strictly to the full divine nature as such –
to deity itself.
C. F. D. Moule
acknowledges this distinction, but when the word bodily is added, he
writes,
“Commentators…group themselves…round five interpretations:
(i) “as an organized body,” i.e., the totality of the Godhead is “not
distributed through a hierarchy of beings” …but gathered into one “organism” in
Christ…; (ii) expressing itself through the Body [of Christ, that is, the
church]; (iii) “actually” – in concrete reality, not in mere seeming…; (iv) “in
essence” so the Greek Fathers and Calvin; (v) “assuming a bodily form,”
“becoming incarnate.” Of these, (iv) seems highly improbable, if intelligible
at all.”
Putting it a little more strongly than does Moule, the
present writer notes that the first of these five requires either a Gnostic
reference or a reference to Philo. Ronald Nash thinks that the phraseology of
the Epistle to the Hebrews betrays a knowledge of Philo. This is
chronologically possible, since Philo died around A.D. 40 or 50. But as for Colossians,
Moule remarks that it depends on a single adverb, “a slender peg on which to hang
so mighty a thought.” The second interpretation is so far-fetched that we shall
waste no time on it.
The third and fifth together, as Moule says, “seem on the
whole to present the fewest difficulties.” This is certainly so: The fulness of
the Godhead was actually and really there, not there in mere appearance only.
And there is the incarnate Christ. But however true this is, it is vague
and incomplete.
To complete (iii) and (v), number (iv) must be added. Moule
dismissed it as hardly intelligible. But the Greek fathers and Calvin are not
usually unintelligible. The three views are compatible and complementary. The
fourth means that the essence, that is, the definition, the reality of God,
dwelt in the body of Jesus. Of course Jesus’ body as such was not omniscient,
for bodies know nothing; nor was it omnipresent, for bodies are locally
restricted. But the ego, the person, whose body and instrument it was,
satisfied the complete definition of deity.
Another possible interpretation, or implication, one that
Moule does not mention, is the Lutheran doctrine of the communicatio
idiomatum. This means that the characteristics of the divine nature are
also common to the human nature.
But a communicatio idiomatum ought to work both ways.
If the divine attributes are common to the physical body, the characteristics
of time, space, form, and tactual qualities should be held in common by the
divine essence. But this implication, that God has physical and temporal form,
is hard to swallow. Perhaps the communicatio relates only to mental, not
physical, characteristics. In this case the thinking of the Father would be
temporal, and he also would be ignorant of the date of Christ’s return. At any
rate, the Lutheran interest is not in Jesus’ mind or soul. The communicatio
refers to Jesus’ body. And for this reason the word bodily in the verse
under consideration serves Lutheran purposes. The reason is that their doctrine
of the communicatio idiomatum is essential to their sacramental theory
of consubstantiation. Christ’s body is ubiquitous, and therefore that body is
in, with, and under the bread wherever communion is celebrated. Calvinists
object that, first, this violates the law of contradiction; and, second, its
sacramentarianism is as un-Biblical as Romish transubstantiation.
So much for that. But before leaving this verse, the word
Godhead needs further comment. To what was said a few paragraphs back, a remark
should be made relative to the doctrine of the Trinity. American Christians in
their pews – Bible-believing Christians – are apt to think of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then stop thinking. If they are not consciously
tritheists, neither do they clearly envisage the unity of the Godhead. Some who
think a little more and have just a smattering of philosophic terms consider
the Father as the unity, and the Son and Spirit as the diversity. Thus they
attempt to solve “the One-and-the-Many problem” which Parmenides discovered and
removed by denying plurality, which Democritus hardly considered at all, which
embarrassed Plato, in which Plotinus failed horribly, and in which also William
James turned Parmenides upside down by denying unity. The contemporary
theologians may go further and constructively propose that unity and plurality
are “equally ultimate” in the Godhead. They are not apt to have a very clear
idea of what “equally ultimate” means.
The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity certainly teaches that
the Father and the Son are equal in power and glory, and, as equally eternal,
they may be called equally ultimate. But the Father is not to be equated with
unity and the Son with plurality. The three persons are the plurality and the
Godhead is the unity. The Godhead is not one of the persons as distinct from
another, but rather the common reality shared by the three. Such is our partial
answer to the objection of Islam, and also to some confused American
theologians. But whether the group of common qualities, the Godhead, is more
ultimate than any one of the three persons who share these attributes, and
whether “ultimate” means “generic,” for certainly there is no chronological
precedence in this argument, are questions more properly discussed in a
systematic theology than in an exegesis of Colossians.
Gordon H. Clark, Colossians, in Commentaries on
Paul’s Epistles, “The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark Vol. 12” (Unicoi, TN: The
Trinity Foundation, 1979, 2005), 202-203. Commenting on Col. 2.9
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