The gospel ministry proclaims the all-sufficient Christ
Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
The gospel to which the Colossians needed to hold fast was the universal gospel message of the all-sufficient Christ. Paul was a minister, a servant of that gospel. At the time he wrote this epistle, however, he was not making mission journeys or ministering to the Colossians in person as he desired to do. He was a political prisoner in Rome. He had been deprived of his freedom and was now suffering hardship for the sake of his faithful proclamation of the gospel.
The physical circumstances of the apostle’s imprisonment may not have been particularly harsh, but the fact remained that Paul was not a free man. He could not move about and carry out his apostolic labors as he had in the past. For the apostle, just that fact meant hardship and suffering. Instead of complaining about his situation, however, he rejoiced. He rejoiced because he knew that the troubles he was enduring confirmed his apostleship. He rejoiced because, as a servant of the gospel, he was more than willing to endure hardship on account of his work for Christ and on behalf of Christ’s church.
As he suffered because of his commitment to Christ, Paul was filling up what was still lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of Christ’s body, the church. What does Paul mean with this unusual phrase? He cannot be saying that his sufferings, or the sufferings of any believer, completed Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. Jesus’ sufferings to atone for the world’s sins were complete when from the cross he declared, “It is finished.” His atoning sacrifice provided a full and perfect ransom payment for the sins of all the world. Paul consistently testifies to the all-sufficiency of Christ’s atonement. So do the other sacred writers.
The expression “fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions” here is simply a reference to the treatment believers can expect as followers of Jesus in the world. When Jesus was here on earth, his enemies hated him. That hatred led them to reject him, falsely accuse him, and finally even put him to death. Even after they crucified Jesus, his enemies were not satisfied. They are not satisfied yet. They want to continue to add to his afflictions. Since Jesus is no longer physically present on earth, the hatred that his enemies once directed toward him personally is now directed toward his disciples. By suffering for the sake of the gospel, therefore, Paul was undergoing hardship in Jesus’ place. He was not doing it at all by himself, of course, but he was contributing his share, just as other believers were contributing theirs, to that measure of suffering the Lord has allotted to his believers on earth.
In his divine wisdom, the Lord allows much suffering to come on certain believers for the gospel’s sake. Paul and the other apostles certainly fell into that category. Other believers may not be called on to suffer much at all, but whenever believers suffer anything for the sake of their commitment to Christ, Jesus’ afflictions are overflowing to them, and they are filling up what is still lacking in the afflictions of Christ.
Believers should not be surprised when they are called upon to do this. The disciple is not above his master, and Jesus warned his followers that they should expect the hatred of a world that hated him. Fellowship with Jesus means also sharing in his sufferings. Believers can still regard the mockery, ridicule, and all other physical and psychological blows struck against them because they are Christians as blows struck against Jesus himself.
Paul’s sufferings as an apostle could also bring him calming joy, because he knew those sufferings were benefiting the church. When the enemies of the gospel directed a special measure of hatred and violence against well-known leaders of the church like Paul, the practical result was often that lesser-known Christians were spared. By enduring hardship as their apostle, Paul was absorbing from them some of the things that the Colossians and others might otherwise have had to suffer. By his calm endurance and clear testimony even in suffering, Paul was encouraging believers everywhere to follow his example and stand firm in the faith.
Paul’s office as an apostle connected him in a special way with the gentile church. He had been called and commissioned as an apostle to serve non-Jews like the Colossians. As their apostle, he was now warning and encouraging those gentile believers who were in danger of being misled by false teachers. Paul regarded his ministry as a service and himself as a servant entrusted with great riches, because he served a great master.
In Paul’s day it was customary that certain servants of wealthy masters were appointed as stewards, or managers, and placed in charge of their master’s entire estate. These servants had the right and the duty to dispense the master’s wealth as necessary for the benefit of those in the household.
The apostle Paul had been commissioned by God as his manager, the servant who was to dispense God’s spiritual treasures through the preaching of the gospel, especially to the Gentiles. He regarded that calling as a marvelous blessing of God’s grace to him. Early in his life, Paul (then known as Saul) had been a blasphemer of Christ and a persecutor of the church. But by a miracle of grace, God called Paul to be a follower of Christ and a servant in the ministry (see Acts 9).
Paul never forgot that grace or that calling. Nor did he forget the great purpose of his ministry: to proclaim the Word of God in all its fullness wherever God would send him. In carrying out his ministry, Paul had proclaimed the gospel in a great circle from Jerusalem to Rome. Through his pupil Epaphras, the Colossians had the spiritual riches of the gospel proclaimed to them.
At the heart of the message that Paul had been called to proclaim was “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” The word “mystery” does not have to do with secrets or ceremonies known only to some exclusive group, as the false teachers apparently used the term. “Mystery” here means a truth that can be known only when God reveals it to men.
The great truths of forgiveness and salvation in Christ are a mystery to sinful human beings. In their naturally sinful, spiritually ignorant state, human beings cannot discover this mystery for themselves, but the mystery is made known as God discloses his will to men through the proclamation of the gospel.
In Old Testament times, this mystery was revealed primarily to the people of Israel, but even they did not have the mystery made known in all its completeness. They were saved by faith in the coming Savior. How the Savior would carry out his work and break down the Old Testament barrier between the Jews and the Gentiles would not be fully revealed until Christ’s appearance in the flesh.
In the New Testament age, that mystery is fully revealed. Christ came to fulfill all the promises of God and to complete the work of salvation also for Gentiles. To his New Testament church that Savior has given the task of proclaiming the good news of salvation in all the world. The ascended Lord wants sinners everywhere to know him as their Savior. He wants them to hear the good news of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The gospel announces to sinners that the hope for eternal glory lies in Christ Jesus alone, not in becoming Jewish or in following human regulations.
When sinners come to faith in Jesus through the gospel, he dwells in their hearts and transforms their lives. The fact that Jesus dwells in believers now is the basis for their hope. Yes, it is the guarantee that one day they will share in eternal glory with him. Christ is the heart of the gospel, the key that unlocks the mystery, the sinner’s only hope for eternal glory. The gospel proclaims Christ and offers the blessings he earned for sinners, not just to one ethnic group or to an exclusive sect somewhere but to all sinners everywhere.