Colossians 2:13

Partially parallel to Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:5. καὶ ὑμᾶς : “and you”. Frequently this is taken to mean “you also,” i.e., you Gentiles. But since Paul has been using the second person before, he can hardly be introducing a contrast. We should therefore take καὶ as simply copulative. It means “you as well as Christ,” as is shown also by the verbal parallel between ἐκ τ. νεκρῶν and νεκροὺς ὄντας. νεκροὺς. Here Paul varies the sense of death. In the preceding verses it is death to the old life, here the old life itself is described as a condition of spiritual death. It is not of liability to eternal death (Mey.), or to physical death as the certain consequence of sin that he is speaking, but of a state of actual death, which can only be spiritual (cf. “sin revived and I died,” Romans 7:9). τοῖς παραπτώμασιν : “by your trespasses”. The dative is probably one of Cause, but it could be translated by “in”. παραπτ. are individual acts of transgression, of which ἁμαρτία is the principle. τῇ ἀκροβυστίᾳ της σαρκὸς ὑμῶν : “by the uncircumcision of your flesh”. This is often supposed to refer to literal uncircumcision, i.e., to the fact that they were Gentiles. But we have already seen that there is no emphasis on this fact. And the implied contrast that Jews were not, while Gentiles were, spiritually dead, is impossible in Paul. He cannot have said that they were dead by reason of uncircumcision, and, if the dative is taken otherwise, yet the coupling of τῇ ἀκρ. with τ. παραπτ. shows that physical uncircumcision is not referred to, but an ethical state. And this would not, as Abbott thinks, be unintelligible to Gentile readers, for he had already explained the metaphor in Colossians 2:11. τ. σαρκὸς is accordingly to be taken as an epexegetical genitive, “the uncircumcision which consisted in your flesh”. συνεζωοποίησεν : to be taken in the same sense as συνηγέρθητε, not in any of the senses wrongly attributed to that word, which are reintroduced here. Chrysostom (followed by Ew., Ell.) makes Christ the subject. This is defended by Ellicott on the ground of the prominence of Christ through the passage, of the difficulty of supplying Θεός from Θεοῦ, and of referring the acts in Colossians 2:14-15 to the Father. But this last difficulty, urged also by Lightfoot, rests on a probably wrong interpretation of Colossians 2:15. Neither of the others is of any weight against the argument from Pauline usage, which always refers such actions to God. This view would also involve the awkwardness of making Christ raise Himself and us with Him, whereas in Colossians 2:12 His resurrection is referred to God. It is therefore best to regard ὁ Θεός as the subject, as in the parallel Ephesians 2:4-5. χαρισάμενος : “forgiving”. Forgiveness is contemporary with quickening. ἡμῖν : the change from the second person may be due to Paul's wish gratefully to acknowledge his own participation in this blessing. It must not (with Hofm.) be referred to Jewish Christians.