What Does Colossians 1:6 Mean?

(6) **Which is come unto you . . .**—There is much variety of reading here, but the text followed by our version is certainly incorrect. The probable reading is, *which is come unto you, just as in all the world it is now bringing forth fruit and growing, as also it does in you.* In this sentence there are two lessons implied. First, the universality of the gospel, in which it stands contrasted, as with all local and national religions, whether of Judaism or of Paganism, so also with the secret doctrines of Gnostic speculation, intelligible only to the initiated few. Next, the test of its reality both by practical fruit of action, and by the spiritual growth connected therewith. In relation to the former, “faith without works” is “dead”; in relation to the other it is “imperfect,” needing to be developed into maturity (James 2:20; James 2:22). Both these lessons were evidently needed, in consequence of the appearance at Colossæ of the occult mysticism and the unpractical speculation noted in Colossians 2:8; Colossians 2:10; Colossians 2:18. But the Church itself was still faithful. Hence the last words, “as also it does in you,” turning back again to Colossæ in particular, are an insertion of kindly courtesy—one of the insertions of apparent afterthought not unfrequent in St. Paul’s Epistles—intended to show that the implied warning is by no means a condemnation.