Colossians 3:11

Cf. Galatians 3:28. He has been speaking of sins inconsistent with brotherly love, anger and falsehood. Such sins are incompatible with Christianity, which has abolished even those deep distinctions that divided mankind into hostile camps. In the splendid sweep of the great principle, which has cancelled the most radical differences of nationality, ceremonial status, culture and social position, all minor causes of strife are necessarily included. The solvent of national, racial and even religious hate cannot be powerless before the petty strifes of a Christian church. ὅπου οὐκ ἔνι : “where there cannot be”, ὅπ. seems to refer to “the new man,” not to “knowledge” or “the image”. In the new man created by God all these distinctions vanish. ἔνι seems not to be for ἐνεστι, as used to be said, but, as Buttmann maintained, a form of ἐν. Winer-Schmiedel says “ ἔνι is the older form of ἐν, and has the significance of ἔνεστιν ”. Ἕλλην κ. τ. λ. The first two pairs contain opposites, in race and then in religion. For the third pair Paul cannot employ an antithesis, since Ἕλλ., the contrast to βάρ., has already been used in the sense of Gentile. He therefore adds to barbarian the Scythian as the extreme example Scythae barbaris barbariores (Beng.) but reverts to the method of opposition in the last pair. The order Έλλ. κ. Ἰουδ. is unusual, and perhaps due to the fact that he is writing to Gentiles, but in Galatians 3:28 he is writing to Gentiles too. The usual order is resumed in περ. κ. ἀκρ. In δοῦλ. ἐλεύθ. he may have a reference to Philemon and Onesimus, but the terms occur also in the Galatian list. πάντα καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν Χριστός. This expresses the thought that Christ is all, and that He is in all the relations of life; πᾶσιν is neuter, and Χ. is placed at the end for emphasis. Since He is all, and all things are one in Him, He is the principle of unity, through whom all the distinctions that mar the oneness of mankind are done away.