Colossians 1:23

εἴ γε with the indicative expresses the Apostle's confidence that the condition will be fulfilled. ἐπιμένετε. This abiding in faith is the only, as it is the sure way, to this presentation of themselves κατ. αὐτ. This is directed against the false teachers' assurance that the gospel they had heard needed to be supplemented if they wished to attain salvation. It needs no supplementing, and it is at the peril of salvation that they lose hold of it. τεθεμελιωμένοι refers to the firm foundation, ἑδραῖοι to the stability of the building. μὴ μετακινούμενοι. The perfect participle here gives way to the present, expressing a continuous process. It may be passive or middle, probably the former. ἀπὸ τ. ἐλπίδος τοῦ εὐαγγελίου : to be taken with μετακιν. alone, not, assuming a zeugma, with the three co-ordinate expressions (Sod.), for it is not at all clear that the last of these keeps up the metaphor of a building. The hope of the Gospel is the hope given by or proclaimed in the Gospel. οὗ ἠκούσατε. Paul again sets his seal on the form of the Gospel which they had received, and again insists on the universality of its proclamation, its catholicity as guaranteeing its truth (see on Colossians 1:5-7). ἐν πασῇ κτίσει : “in presence of every creature”; π. κτ., as in Colossians 1:15, with the limitation τ. ὑ. τ. οὐρ. οὗ ἐγενόμην ἐγὼ Παῦλος διάκονος : cf. Ephesians 3:7. This phrase contains a certain stately self-assertion; the Apostle urges the fact that he is a minister of this Gospel as a reason why they should remain faithful to it. His apostolic authority, so far from being impugned by the false teachers, was more probably invoked; so Paul throws it in the balance against them. It is also true that the Gentile mission was so bound up in his own mind with his apostleship that a reference to the one naturally suggested a reference to the other. By this clause Paul effects the transition to Colossians 1:24.