BARBARANNE KELLY | CONTRIBUTOR

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. (Colossians 1:3–5a)

I’ve been going through a box of old photos found in my dad’s attic, and I’m seeing the faces of my great and great-great-grandparents for the first time. I’ve seen their names written in the branches of our family tree, but for the first time I’m able to look for family resemblances in their eyes and smiles. I marvel at seeing my infant grandmother tenderly held in the arms of her parents under the shade of their garden, held with the same affection with which I held my own precious children. I’m connected to my great-grandmother in more ways than DNA can explain. I never met her, but her blood flows through my veins, and her love for gardening and family, along with her physical characteristics, have been shared down through the generations.

When Paul wrote to the church in Colossae, he was writing to saints he’d never met. The gospel had been carried to them by his co-laborer Epaphras, had taken root, and was “bearing fruit and increasing” (1:6–7). Paul’s joy overflowed in thankfulness to God as he recognized the family resemblance in these unseen saints when he heard of “[their] faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that [they] have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for [them] in heaven” (1:4–5a).

How did these saints and fellow brothers and sisters at Colossae resemble the family of Christ? They bore the traits of faith in Christ Jesus, love for all the saints, and a hope laid up in heaven. Faith, love, and hope are spiritual characteristics which set the family of God apart from the rest of the world.

Faith

The word “faith” is repeated five times in the letter to the Colossians, and each time it refers to a specifically objective faith in God the Father and/or the Lord Jesus Christ. This isn’t the baseless faith of the world that calls us to “just believe,” or worse, to “believe in yourself.” The faith that characterizes all Christians is “faith in Christ Jesus (1:4; 2:5), “the faith” in which they need to continue (1:23), “the faith” which is key to walking in Christ (2:6–7), and it is faith in the powerful working of God through which they were raised in baptism with Christ (2:12). Paul sees the family resemblance in the Colossians’ faith because he knows it’s nothing they’ve done in themselves; it is God’s gracious gift (Eph. 2:8).

Love

The love that Paul recognizes in the Colossians is the very love which the Lord Jesus commanded of His disciples on the night of His betrayal.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34–35)

“Love one another” is easy to say, less easy to obey. We simply cannot love others by an act of will, so this love must come from the Spirit (1:8). This love is so distinctive of the family of God that the apostle John includes it among his defining characteristics of true believers in Christ when he writes that “Whoever loves his brother abides in the light” (1 John 2:10), and “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers” (1 John 3:14). Paul longs for the Colossians “to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” and the key to unlocking the mystery of Christ is that they be “knit together in love” (2:2–3). Reaching these riches is a community project, as is growing in sanctification into the image of Christ. A believer who is walking alone has no one to love, and therefore no need to exercise kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with others, and Christlike forgiveness (3:12–13). These family traits of God’s holy and beloved chosen ones are bound together in perfect harmony by the Spiritual love that is found in Christ alone (3:14).

Hope

Like their faith, the Colossians’ hope is not a wishy-washy, pie-in-the-sky sort of sentiment. Their “hope laid up in heaven” is a hope in the spiritual realities promised to all Christians. It is the “living hope” to which they’ve been born again “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for them (1 Peter 1:3–5). Our heavenly inheritance is the treasure which Jesus implored His followers to seek instead of treasures on earth (Matt. 6:20), and it’s confirmed by His promise that, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2–3).

While it’s easy to mine the Scriptures for descriptions of the glories of heaven and imagine the gold and jewels and heavenly mansions, the substance of our heavenly inheritance and hope is Christ Himself. He who will greet us upon entry with the words “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34) will “wipe away every tear” from our eyes (Rev. 21:4), and “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). This is the Gospel hope which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven (1:23), the mysterious Gospel treasure shared among the Gentiles—including the Colossian believers— which is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27). Jesus himself is our hope.

Always Thank God

Paul’s response to recognizing the family resemblance in the believers at Colossae was gratitude to God expressed in his prayers for them. In their faith, love, and hope he saw the hand of God, saving for Himself a people to the praise of His glorious grace.

When you recognize the family resemblance among your fellow saints, do you thank God for His work in their hearts and lives? When you look in the mirror, do you bear the family traits of faith, love, and hope?  Can you remember when you didn’t share as strong a resemblance? Until we enter into our heavenly inheritance, none of us will fully resemble our older brother Jesus. But until that day, keep looking for the family resemblance among your church family and in your mirror. And when you see the same characteristics and share the same loves, give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for His work in you, to the praise of His glorious grace.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash