Good news that moves you.

Colossians, Part 3: On the dynamism of God’s word of grace and promise.

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A version of this article originally appeared on 1517.

To have a “gospel” intrinsically means you have news to share. This news could be concerned about any number of things, such as a victory on the battlefield or a discovery in a laboratory. Not all news is created equal, though, as some news bulletins bear more weight and resonance than others. An update about a sporting event, for instance, is nothing more than a report that gives you a series of facts and figures about something that has already occurred. This flavor of news doesn’t really do anything to you or for you, though. It’s static. However, some news is dynamic, that is, it is brimming with emotion and often calls you to action. This strain of news is just as informative, but it also does something to you and in you. It moves you. There was nothing static about the news concerning the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Those images left an indelible mark on an entire generation. Some news is so potent, so dynamic that it does something to you.

This is insightful, especially when considering the best news of all, otherwise known as the gospel. After all, the gospel isn’t a static report of information. It doesn’t merely convey the facts about what Jesus did in his life, death, and resurrection (although it does do that). More cogently, the gospel is God’s dynamic word of promise that announces salvation for all through Christ alone. Elsewhere, Paul designates the gospel as “the power [dunamis] of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). Within the proclamation of the gospel is the energy and efficacy of God himself, which redeems all those who put their faith in it. And every time the word of God’s gospel is proclaimed, that same power and energy is present and goes forth. This, of course, is because God’s words are alive — they teem and bubble with life (Isa. 55:11; Jer. 23:29; Heb. 4:12). “God’s word,” writes James A. Nestingen and Gerhard O. Forde, “is living and active, a word that snaps and crackles with life, making things happen” (154).

But what exactly does God’s word of power and life “do” to us and in us? What are some of the things that happen when this dynamic word of promise goes forth?

1. The gospel of Christ fills us with faith in Christ.

The first thing Paul mentions and thanks the Lord for is the Colossians’ “faith in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:3–4), which is the defining characteristic of all those who belong to Christ. They are persuaded and assured that what Jesus did on the cross is more than enough to save their souls from eternal death and redeem “everyone who believes.” This is what the gospel announces: that the work of redemption and deliverance from sin has already been finished. In a remarkable feat of grace, all of the gifts and blessings contained in the gospel are already ours in Christ. The vocabulary of faith is riddled with past-tense hope that permeates the present. As Paul puts it, God in Christ “has” qualified us, “has” delivered us, and “has” transferred us into his kingdom (Col. 1:12–14). These results are all true by virtue of Christ’s passion and death. “Christ,” Peter T. O’Brien asserts, “has done all that was necessary for the Colossians’ salvation. They had died with Christ, been raised with him and given new life with him” (150). In him, it is all finished.

The gospel, you see, is not an announcement of something partially done. After all, there’s no semblance of good news in a gospel that tells us about a Savior who is only 99 percent effective. While that might be pretty good marketing for Clorox, it’s bad news for sinners. We who are “alienated” and estranged from God (Col. 1:21) don’t need a “most of the way” Savior; we need a Savior who saves “to the uttermost,” which is exactly who Christ is for us (Heb. 7:25). The gospel is the word of God’s power precisely because it tells us all about how Christ died and rose again for every sinner ever. It’s not an invitation to get busy or get to work. All it asks is that we put our faith in what he’s done. Faith is the empty hand that receives and clings to Christ’s ability to save and not our own. It is, as Alexander Maclaren says in his commentary on Colossians, “the opening of the heart, by which all His power can be poured into us” (88). This is what the gospel does for us and in us. It fills us to the brim with God’s saving power as the sufficiency of Christ’s cross is put on repeat.

2. The gospel of Christ animates us by the love of Christ.

The second quality Paul notices is “the love” that oozes out of the Colossians “for all the saints” (Col. 1:4). This is a critical point to consider since the faith that saves us was never meant to stop with us. Those whom God saves are those whom God desires to love others just as they have been loved by him. In many ways, this is why the church exists — namely, to be a vehicle by which and through which the love of God in Christ is made known. Accordingly, those who are filled with faith in Christ are those whom Christ’s Spirit animates to love their neighbors (John 13:34; 15:12, 17). The Holy Spirit’s job is to conform us to Christ’s likeness (Rom. 8:28), which he does as he inundates us with what Christ has done for us (John 14:26; 15:26). Consequently, the more we are filled with faith in Christ, the more we are propelled to evidence that love for others.

This corresponds with what Paul says elsewhere, that our “faith [works] through love” (Gal. 5:6). The energeō or activity of faith, therefore, is love. No, to be sure, we cannot earn God’s favor by loving our neighbor, but the evidence of God’s favor is shown when we love them. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). According to Paul, the preaching of the gospel had not only filled the Colossians with faith in Christ but also moved them to love others as Christ loved them. As Christ’s church hears again what they’ve “heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel” (Col. 1:5), they are suffused with Christ’s “wisdom and understanding” (Col. 1:9–10), which is what instigates the church to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” by loving their neighbor. This is the dynamism of grace at work.

3. The gospel of Christ anchors us in the hope of Christ.

Paul caps off the trio of reasons he is thanking God for the Colossians by mentioning their “hope” (Col. 1:4–5). What distinguishes “Christian hope” from every other idea of it “under the sun” is the fact that it is irrefragably tethered to what is knowable and certain. The hope of the gospel is not a “wish upon a star” kind of longing, nor is it the same as saying we hope our team wins on Sunday or that it doesn’t rain on Saturday. In contrast to these realities of maybes and wishes is the hope of the gospel, which is a confident expectation emerging out of what has been revealed to us in the person and work of Christ alone. “The hope which is through grace,” Alexander Maclaren says in his Expositions, is the full assurance of hope, and that full assurance is just what every other hope lacks” (14:2.97).

The scaffolding on which our faith and love hang is the hope that is laid up for us in heaven. This is what makes us sturdy, giving our faith and love structure. We can be generous with our love and confident in what we believe precisely because our hope isn’t rooted in a “possibility” of redemption. The proclamation of the gospel, Maclaren continues in his Expositions, “breeds hope because it grasps the divine facts concerning Jesus from which hope springs” (14.2.98). The good news is not a matter of conjecture. “The gospel,” Maclaren says elsewhere, “is not speculation but fact. It is truth because it is the record of a Person who is the Truth” (29). Its message is one of blessing “in the here and now” through the forgiveness of sins and of an “inheritance” that is being preserved safe and secure in Christ alone (Col. 1:5, 12).

This coheres with what Peter says is our “living hope,” which, as he elaborates, is “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Pet. 1:3–4). Our hope is under the management and maintenance of Christ, which is just to say that it is infinitely unassailable. By grace, we are imbued with the hope of a future of unbroken intimacy with our Maker, Redeemer, and Friend. This, of course, is not something we are bound to strive after or win for ourselves. Rather, this inheritance is a certainty of the gospel itself, guaranteed by Christ himself. “The Christian inheritance,” Maclaren concludes in his commentary, “is not won by our own merit, but given by God’s goodness” (56).

This is what the gospel does to us and in us. It gives us faith, hope, and love, all of which proceed from Christ’s death and resurrection. We, the Body of Christ, are strengthened and made steady by nothing more or less than the gospel of Christ, which never loses any of its potency, no matter how many times we’ve heard it. It is this dynamic word of promise, power, and grace that sweeps us up into the heart of God as it leaves us breathless in the spectacle of what the Christ of God has done for us. This is far more than just a message. This is life. This is the Word of God, which does in us what God wills and creates in us what it proclaims.

Works cited:

Alexander Maclaren, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Colossians and Philemon (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1901).

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vols. 1–17 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1944).

James A. Nestingen and Gerhard O. Forde, Free to Be: A Handbook to Luther’s Small Catechism (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing, 1975).

Peter T. O’Brien, “Colossians, Letter to the,” Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, edited by Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 147–53.