Colossians 1:5
The hope stored up in heaven
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγέλιον euangelion · gospel
Original
Translations
the faith and love proceeding from the hope stored up for you in heaven, of which you have already heard in the word of truth, the gospel
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
because of the hope that is laid up for you in the heavens, which you heard of beforehand by the word of the truth of the good news,
너희를 위하여 하늘에 쌓아 둔 소망을 인함이니 곧 너희가 전에 복음 진리의 말씀을 들은 것이라
또 너희를 위하여 하늘에 쌓아 둔 소망으로 인함이니 이 소망은 너희가 전에 복음의 진리의 말씀 안에서 들은 것이라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Col 1:1-8 as a whole
All true Christians are brethren one to another. Faithfulness runs through every character and relation of the Christian life. Faith, hope, and love, are the three principal graces in the Christian life, and proper matter for prayer and thanksgiving. …
Read the whole commentary →Wesley Col 1:5
Ye heard before - I wrote to you. In the word of truth, of the gospel - The true gospel preached to you.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Paul writes to a church that has never seen his face, and he begins with thanks. He has heard of their faith and their love, and both spring from the hope stored up for them in heaven. That hope they first heard in the gospel.
the faith and love proceeding from the hope stored up for you in heaven, of which you have already heard in the word of truth, the gospel
Colossians 1:5The Colossians did not learn the gospel from Paul. "You learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant" (Colossians 1:7), and Paul counts them among "all who have not met me face to face" (Colossians 2:1). Faith, love and hope stand together in verses 4 and 5, as they do elsewhere in Paul (1 Corinthians 13:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:3), but here hope comes first in order of cause: faith and love proceed from it. The hope is apokeimenēn, "stored up" or "laid up," already kept in heaven. At the end of his life Paul uses the same verb: "From now on there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness" (2 Timothy 4:8).
The noun closes a chain of genitives: en tō logō tēs alētheias tou euangeliou, "in the word of the truth of the gospel." What they heard was a word of truth, the truth of the gospel, and it was that gospel which first told them of the hope in heaven. The verb proēkousate means "you heard before." Before what? Before this letter, or before the other teaching that was now unsettling Colossae; Paul warns in chapter 2 against "philosophy and empty deception" (Colossians 2:8). Either way the point is the same. What they heard first was true, and the letter is built on that. The next verse adds that "All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing" (Colossians 1:6).
The versions divide the genitives differently. The KJV keeps the chain: "whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel," so that "the truth of the gospel" reads as one phrase, the same one Paul defends in Galatians, "so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you" (Galatians 2:5). The BSB sets the gospel in apposition, "the word of truth, the gospel," which makes the gospel and the word of truth one and the same. The LSV stays close to the Greek: "which you heard of beforehand by the word of the truth of the good news." The BSB also ends its verse 5 at "the gospel," carrying "that has come to you" into verse 6.
Wesley glosses the phrase as "The true gospel preached to you" Wesley. Matthew Henry writes, "The gospel is the word of truth, and we may safely venture our souls upon it," and draws out what hope does now: "The more we fix our hopes on the reward in the other world, the more free shall we be in doing good with our earthly treasure" Matthew Henry.
Here the gospel is news from the future: it tells of a hope already kept in heaven, and that hope gives rise, here and now, to faith and love.