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COLOSSIANS 1:24
AND THE
SUFFERING CHURCH
STEVEN W. SPIVEY
Ahstract: The essay begins with an analysis of the major interpretations of Paul's
claim to "complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. " The author argues that, in
the context of Colossians, these afflictions are related to sufferings endured in the
course of completing the apostolic mission. These sufferings, as well as the mission,
are corporate in nature, applying to the church at large. Given tendencies within
American churches to confuse culture with the counter-cultural nature ofthe reign of
God, as well as the effort to ignore or deny its cruciform identity and essence, Paul's
words provide a necessary corrective. Mission and suffering are inherent elements
whenever the church functions as the church. When considered in light ofthe historical marks of the church as "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic," suffering is so enmeshed with these marks as to constitute a fifth mark ofthe authentic church.
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suffering in the course of completing his apostolic ministry, but the idea
that Paul endures sufferings so that the Colossians will not have to endure
them is absent. To this we can add Talbert's insights opposing the messianic
woes interpretation:
There are several problems, however, with this option. For example,
the limit that God has set on the final sufferings is a time limit (e.g.
Mark 13:20; cf. 2 Bar. 26-30), not a numerical limit. Moreover, there is
no evidence that Christ's sufferings were intended to complete the
number of sufferings required before the end could come. Nor is there
any hint in Colossians that "Paul" believed the world to have entered
into the period of eschatological suffering. Nowhere does one find the
idea that the measure of suffering predetermined for the church before
the end can be realized through the substitutionary suffering of a particular individual. Finally, the thought of taking on a quota of suffering
to hasten the inauguration of the new age does not fit well in a letter
that contains no mention of an imminent
To Talbert's argument should be added the different terminology used for
the sufferings of Paul and the afflictions of Christ. The language used is not
parallel, but refers to different experiences. As Margaret Y. MacDonald
points out, the term used for Paul's sufferings is thlipsis, which is never used
for Christ's sufferings. She notes that this language is frequently applied to
the hardships of those who proclaim the Gospel, which leads some to believe the afflictions are Paul's and not Christ's. The "afflictions of Christ"
become in effect a metaphor, (similarly, MacDonald argues to the phrase
"the circumcision of Christ" in Col. 2:11). She argues, "Filling up what was
lacking in Christ's afflictions would be a means of expressing the suffering
" Talbert, 201. Talbert's view is in contrast to the position taken by Wright and
Witherington who argue that the language of the text (specifically antanpleroo)
points to Paul suffering, not only on behalf of the Golossians, but also instead of it
(Wright, 90; Witherington, 145). Yet Sumney cites Barth and Blanke's contention
that the use of the double prefix may simply reflect a Hellenistic tendency to prefer
composites, without necessarily changing the meaning. Sumney notes that it is not
until the ninth-century work of Photius of Gonstantinople that an augmented understanding of the word is suggested. Yet even if the augmented reading is correct, there
is still a way of understanding that does not require one to follow Wright and Witherington. Sumney offers this parallel: "While Jesus was present with the disciples, his
sufferings could serve as both the immediate example for them and as expiation.
Once he was absent and seen as the risen Ghrist, the expiation was complete but the
sufferings of others were needed to 'replace' that immediate example that Ghrist's
sufferings had provided to those original followers," (Sumney, "I Fill Up What is
Lacking," 676-7).
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^' Marianne Meye Thompson, Golossians and Philemon (The Two Horizons
New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 45-6. She argues
that the sufferings/afflictions here are not those common to all people, but are specific to those Paul faces in the course of bearing witness to Ghrist and the Gospel. He
fills up the full measure of afflictions by participating in the same reality of suffering
as Christ did, and for the same purpose (i.e. the creation and ultimate redemption of
the world). Michael Cahill, in the similar vein disagrees with Dunn's contention that
the sufferings described in Colossians 1 refer to those unavoidable sufferings that believers face [Michael Cahill, "The Neglected Parallelism in Colossians 1:24-25,"
Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 68, no. 1 (April 1992), 144-5]. To this author
this does not rule out sufferings related to faithful obedience to the task of faithful
evangelization. If there is (as I believe) a link between suffering and evangelization,
then a church engaged in evangelization will always be a suffering church. The unspoken difficulty is analyzing the church(es) that regularly and characteristically
manage to avoid (through varying methods and reasons) the reality of suffering, like
Paul did, for the sake of the body or for "the other."
^^ Sumney, Golossians, 101. See also Sumney's citation of David Seeley's argument on page 669. Cf. David Seeley, The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology
and Paul's Goncept of Salvation (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990).
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Such a link between faithful discipleship and the call to suffering for the
sake of Christ and a broken world may serve as a reminder that the evangelical mission Paul gave himself to, and which is part of the church's identity,
is inextricably tied to the nature of the kingdom of God. This discipleshipsuffering-kingdom should remind the contemporary churches of the West
that the final expression of the eschaton has not arrived. The church is still
living under the sign of the cross, acting out of a theology of the cross. In a
creation in which much remains to be reconciled, a triumphal theology of
glory is still a thing of the future. A church that seeks to define itself in
terms of such a theology of glory is a church that seeks to escape its own
mission and its cruciform identity; in essence it is a church abandoning or
rejecting its most basic identity. Like its surrounding culture, the North
American expression of the church is too often individualized and narcissistic, unlike the church depicted by William T. Cavanaugh. For him, a cruciform church embodies the promise of the kingdom in the present, and as
cruciform prevents the promise from becoming discredited or marginalized.
Yet, as he writes, "It does so not by conquering bodies but by making a sacrifice of its own body." In this sense the church is called to "make up what
is lacking in Christ's afflictions" (Col. 1:24). The church is the continuation
of the presence of Christ in the world, hut the church is most properly the
church when it exists as a gift and sustenance for others."'"
Hall underscores the necessity of the church as an "ecclesia crucis."
Such an understanding would (and should) see suffering as a mark of the
church. Yet he sees the modern error resting in the tendency to turn our understanding of suffering inward, treating it as something subject. He rejects
the popular view of "bearing the cross" in terms of the mundane difficulties
which are a normal part of living. Hall goes on to stress that there is more
in the New Testament about the suffering of the church than any other ecclesiological theme (e.g. Mark 8:34; Rom. 5:1-5; 2 Cor. 4:5-11; 1 Pet.
4:12-17). Yet, he correctly notes that, "It would be difficult on this continent [North America] to find even one Christian congregation that could
immediately identify with this statement [suffering as a mark of the
church], except among African American congregations here and there, or
" Hall, 152.
'" Cavanaugh, 232.
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Hall, as well as Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmat confront the contemporary church with the claim that the "earliest and most prominent
manner of discerning the true church and distinguishing it from false claims
to Christian identity was to observe the nature and extent of the suffering
experienced by a community of faith."''* Such an approach lifts theory and
doctrine out of the realm of speculation, so that a Christian ecclesia that
preaches the cross without also being an ecclesia crucis is contradicting its
fundamental identity, and well deserves the accusation of hypocrisy.
The claim that Christian community is, of necessity and nature, a suffering community is not restricted to localized, individual communities, as
if the community suffers in isolation or independently. While the church is
expressed in diverse forms throughout the world, it remains, in the creedal
understanding, "one church." The belief that this unity consists in institutional or organizational terms has been de facto discredited. Such a statement is not intended to dismiss or discredit past or current ecumenical efforts, but to acknowledge that the foundational unity of the church must be
found in other ways. Paul's "body" imagery, whether in letters considered
Pauline or deuteron-Pauline, becomes a likely starting point. When Paul responds to the Corinthian divisions and misunderstandings about spiritual
gifts, he utilizes the image of church as the body of Christ as a corrective
image. Even as he writes of the body's unity and diversity, he writes not of
institutional organizations but in terms of a common life and functions. Diversity is linked to the different tasks of the church, both inside and outside
the community. Gifts are given in order for the community to fulfill its
role(s). As Paul writes of the special need to take care of the "less presentable" parts of the body (Col. 12:22-24), the language is in terms of mutual
care and support. When we add to this Paul's call for mutual ministry in
Galatians 6, it is not difficult to understand the unity of the church as a
unity defined in terms of mutual care, mutual support, and the apostolic
mission to the world. It is not unreasonable to see mutual suffering as part
of this unity (Col. 12:25-26). Such suffering, regardless of its cause, expresses both the community's internal unity as well as its unity with its crucified Head, who continues to suffer until the mission of evangelization and
reconciliation is complete. Body imagery then can be seen as both suffering
imagery and mission imagery. As Walsh and Keesmat remind the reader:
For Paul the church is one body. It may have various local manifestationsin Colossae, Laodicea, Cape Town, Auckland, Santiago, Belize
City, Caledoniabut the church is not plural, it is one. Now this
church participates in its Savior's redemption of the world by sharing
and Micah, and repeated in the corporate economic failures of the early twenty-first
century), and is unavoidably the church's experience as well, [Brian J. Walsh and
Sylvia C. Keesmat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004) 228-9].
''' Hall, 140.
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the church's task may differ from locality to locality, suffering in one locality means that the entire church is suffering. This is illustrated in part by
Paul's words to the Colossians about suffering on their behalf, even though
Paul had had no part in their founding nor had visited them in Colossae. It
is representative of the contemporary church's failure to recognize this universal unity that ignorance of suffering in one portion of the body by the remainder of the body is more often the rule than the exception. Such ignorance extends not only to the fact of suffering (save in very vague terms) but
also to the mutual impact that the suffering has on the rest of the body. The
church in North America has the additional responsibility of considering
whether its actions (or inaction) contribute to causing or alleviating the suffering of fellow believers engaged in mission and ministry, and, by extension those unreconciled individuals, communities, and cultures the suffering church is seeking to reconcile.
The possibility of the church's actions exacerbating the suffering of
those both inside and outside the church, whether from ignorance or a reluctance (or even refusal) to incarnate a cruciform life and mentality, is
compounded in instances where the church appears not to suffer at all. It is
not difficult to apply John's description of the Laodiceans as believers who
did not recognize their true condition to churches not experiencing suffering. This is not to encourage individual believers or Christian communities
to seek opportunities to suffer out of a masochistic sense of "oughtness." It
is to ask, in the language of the Sermon on the Mount, if the saltiness or
light of the community has devolved to the point where the community is
no longer engaged in its divine assignments or is indistinguishable from its
larger environment. Has the church, particularly in its expression in the
United States, been so successful in avoiding pain, so successful in securing
cultural power and respectability, that it is no longer demonstrating the
catholicity in suffering essential to its identity?
Finally, the idea of suffering as a fifth mark of the church also applies
to the fourth classic markapostolicity. This fourth mark is, I believe best
understood in these terms:
1. The church's message and self-understanding is derived from the
preaching and teaching of the leaders of the church's first generation
of leaders.
2. Along with the example of Christ, the experiences and priorities of
that first generation inform the contemporary church's priorities
and serve to interpret its experiences and relationships.
3. In the original sense of apostello, the church is always being "sent
forth" into the world in the name of its Head and for the sake of
both the world and the Gospels.
If we define apostolicity in such terms, then the mission to the world outside the church and the discipling of those entering the body become paramount. The church comes to realize, in Emil Brunner's apt phrase, that the
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church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning.'" If we allow the experiences of the first generation to interpret our calling and experiences, then
the reality of suffering for the sake of Christ, the body and the world cannot
be avoided. It is such suffering that marks the church as Christ's church, as
cruciform people being conformed to Christ's image. This in turn brings the
church back to Colossians 1:24. Like Paul, the church itself suffers for the
sake of Christ and the body, and continues to do so until the mission to
the cosmos is completed, or in Paul's words to the Corinthians, until God is
"all in all."^''
The implications of Paul's understanding of suffering in relation to the
church's mission for the work of spiritual formation may be obvious to
some. Yet some final, summarizing words of application may be in order.
Both in terms of individual and corporate formation, Paul re-emphasizes
here that the life of the disciple is not simply social or privatistic, hut vocational. An underlying question for efforts toward spiritual formation is that
of purpose and rationale: Why does the individual or church cooperate
with the Spirit in the sanctifying work of heing conformed to the image and
likeness of Christ? In other words, why concern ourselves with the formation of healthy souls? On one level, the rationale sees formation as an act of
obedience for the glory of God. Yet on another, the rationale is missional:
the advance of the kingdom of God into the lives and structures of humanity. Paul's words thus serve as a corrective for individualistic or egocentric
approaches to formation and soul care. He reminds us that for a disciple or
congregation to be inwardly focused is to forget or abandon both our true
identity and calling in the world.
Further, this text corrects an easy triumphalism, which too often infects
contemporary American churches. The missional task, the reason for the
church's presence in the world as salt and light, is not yet complete. Instead,
this is a task, which must he resumed, even accelerated. This does not mean
exporting American versions of the faith, which often confuses American
values and cultures with those exemplified by Paul as he followed Christ.
Instead, the authentic church incarnates the reality of the kingdom, which
is not only unlike any earthly structure, but also reveals the actual condition of a fallen creation and the sole solvent of the Gospel. Colossians
makes explicit the cruciform nature of both the task and the spiritual formation, which occurs both before and during the missional work. This
task, assigned both to individual believers and to the church, will inevitably
involve suffering. This reality of missional suffering is not unique to Paul's
thought, but may be found in the Gospel and Catholic letters as well. Such
suffering may or may not include persecution, but does include the daily
struggle in which believers are fellow-laborers with God. The lesson in formation, which is to be learned and re-learned, is that glory remains a future
"' Emil Brunner, The Word and the World (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1931), 108
^ 1 Corinthians 15:28
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experience. The present mission is carried out in the light (and under the
shadows) of the cross. For believers, churches, and other agencies concerned with spiritual formation, to recognize the value of classic disciplines
(e.g. prayer, fasting, study, service, confession, and worship) for forming
healthy souls, without also acknowledging the role of suffering in both formation and the church's vocation, is to engage in mission ill-equipped and
half-prepared. It is to deny who and what Christ's church has been redeemed to be and to do.
Author: Steven W. Spivey. Title: Adjunct Instructor. Affiliation: Wayland Baptist University (San Antonio, TX). Highest Degree: Ph.D., Baylor University. Areas
of interest/specialization: New Testament, systematics, and historical theology.
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