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For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
Verse 9. In all wisdom. He begins by an admonition against false teachers, who it is likely, says Saint John Chrysostom with their philosophical notions mixed errors and fables. Witham.
that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,
Verse 10. Worthy of God: αξιως του κυριου. So Saint Ambrose and the Greek doctors; or thus, worthily, pleasing God, and this not by faith only, but fruitful in every good work. Ibid.—God, in [1] all things pleasing him. This is the construction of the Latin by the Greek. Witham.
strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy,
giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,
who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love,
in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
Verse 14. It is through the blood of Christ, and not by the law of Moses, that we are freed from the power of death. If the law could have saved us, the coming of Christ would have been useless. See then, he says, if it be proper to engage under a law which is so inefficacious. Calmet.—From this verse and from verse 12, et alibi passim, we are taught that we are not only by imputation made partakers of Christ’s benefits, but are by his grace made worthy thereof, and deserve our salvation condignly, ex condigno. B.
TR adds “through his blood,”
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Verse 15. The first [2] born of every creature. Saint John Chrysostom takes notice against the Arians, that the apostle calls Christ the first-begotten, or first-born, not the first created, because he was not created at all. And the sense is, that he was before all creatures, proceeding from all eternity from the Father; though some expound the words of Christ as man, and that he was greater in dignity. See Romans 8:29. Witham.
For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and for him.
Verse 16. Thrones, and so forth are commonly understood to refer to the celestial hierarchy of Angels, though as to their particular rank, and so forth nothing certain is known. We may here observe, that the Holy Spirit proportions itself and speaks according to our ideas of a temporal kingdom, in which one authority is subject to another. In the same manner the Angels seem subordinate to one another. S. Dionysius in Calmet.—All things were created by him, and in him, and [3]consist in him. If all things that are were made by him, he himself was not made. And his divine power is also signified, when it is said all things consist or are preserved by him. Witham.
He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.
He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Verse 18. He is the head of the body, the church. He now speaks of what applies to Christ as man.—The first-born from the dead; that is the first that rose to an immortal life. Witham.
For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him,
Verse 19. In him it was pleasing, that all fulness should dwell. [4] The greatest plenitude of graces was conferred on him as man, and from him, as he was our head, derived to all the members of his Church. The Prot. translation, followed by Mr. N. by way of explanation adds, it hath pleased the Father; but, as Dr. Wells observes in his paraphrase, there is no reason to restrain it to the Father, seeing the work of the incarnation, and the blessings by it conferred on all mankind, are equally the work of the blessed Trinity, though the Second Person only was joined to our nature. Witham.
and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
Verse 20. To reconcile all things unto himself, … through the blood of his cross, (that is which Christ shed on the cross) both as to the things on earth, and … in heaven: not that Christ died for the Angels, but, says Saint John Chrysostom the Angels were in a manner at war with men, with sinners, as they stood for the cause and glory of God; but Christ put an end to this enmity, by restoring men to his favour. Witham.—In heaven. Not by pardoning the wicked angels did Christ reconcile the things in heaven, but by reconciling good Angels to man, who were enemies to him before the birth of Christ. Saint Augustine.