Colossians 1:24

Colossians 1:24. Now I rejoice. The reading ‘who,' which is not well supported, can readily be accounted for. ‘Now' is not to be taken as a conjunction: ‘at the present time,' as a prisoner, contrasted with his previous preaching, not with a previous time of sorrow.

In my sufferings; lit, ‘the sufferings;' the possessive pronoun is poorly sustained, but the article has here the same force. His joy was not on account of his sufferings, but ‘in' them: while thus suffering he yet rejoiced.

In behalf of you. Comp. Ephesians 3:1, which is parallel. He suffered because of his Apostleship to the Gentiles, but his afflictions turned out to their advantage.

And fill up. The verb occurs only here, and means ‘fill up fully.' Some explain: ‘fill up in my turn,' i.e., as Christ suffered for me, so I now suffer for Him; but the best commentators adopt the former sense, finding in the compared word a contrast between the defect and the supply which meets it.

That which is lacking (so rendered elsewhere in E. V.) of the afflictions of Christ. Ellicott: ‘And am filling up fully the lacking measures of the sufferings of Christ.' It is generally agreed among recent commentators that the last phrase means ‘afflictions belonging to Christ;' Christ mystical, not Christ corporeally, is suggested by the latter part of the verse. The Apostle represents himself as filling up the deficiencies of the full measure of these sufferings. There is no thought of vicariously atoning by means of such afflictions. Meyer: ‘Paul describes his own sufferings, according to the idea of “the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 4:13; comp. Matthew 20:22; Hebrews 13:13) as “the afflictions of Christ,” in case the Apostolic suffering was of essentially the same kind which Christ had endured (the same cup of which Christ had drunk, the same baptism with which Christ had been baptized). The sum of these afflictions is conceived of as a definite measure, as is frequent in classical usage in similar figurative representation: “I rejoice in my sufferings which I endure for you, and how great and glorious is that which I am engaged in accomplishing through these sufferings! the full completion of that which is lacking on my part in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ.”‘ He might well term them ‘the afflictions of Christ.'

In my flesh. This is to be connected with ‘fill up,' and the ‘flesh,' the seat of physical weakness and pain, is the seat of this filling up.

In behalf of his body. The individual affliction is for the benefit of the whole Body; comp. Ephesians 3:13.

Which is the church; comp. Ephesians 1:23. Alford: ‘Whatever the whole Church has to suffer, even to the end, she suffers for her perfection in holiness and her completion in Him; and the tribulations of Christ will not be complete till the last pang shall have passed, and the last tear have been shed. Every suffering saint of God in every age and position is in fact filling up, in his place and degree, the afflictions of Christ, in his flesh, and on behalf of His body. Not a pang, not a tear is in vain. The Apostle, as standing out prominent among this suffering body, predicates this of himself especially.' So substantially many of the best ancient and modern commentators.