The True Temple in Colossae: Allusion to the Temple in Colossians 1:19
from Psalm 67:17-18 (LXX; 68:116-17 MT)
The second allusion
to the OT temple is in Colossians 1:19. The combined wording of “well-pleased” and
“dwell” in verse 19 is traceable to Psalm 67:17-18 (LXX).
|
Psalm
67:17-18 (LXX; 68:16-17 MT) |
Colossians
1:19 |
|
“God was well-pleased [ευδοκησεν] to
dwell [κατοικειν] in it [εν αυτω {Zion}]
. . . the Lord will dwell [there] forever . . . in the holy place [αγιω].” |
“because in him [εν αυτω] all
the fullness [of deity] was well-pleased [ευδοκησεν] to
dwell [κατοικησαι]} (alternatively, “in him he was
well-pleased for all the fullness [of deity] to dwell”). |
The unique wording in
common between Psalm 67 and Colossians 1 indicates the probability of such an
allusion: Psalm 67:17a is the only place in the LXX where the verbs “well-pleased”
[ευδοκεω] and “dwell” [κατοικεω] occur together (see also “dwell” [κατασκηνοω] in vv.
17b and 19). In addition, Psalm 67:18 is a reference to the temple, as most
English translations render the last phrase of the verse.
There are
other OT passages that are very similar to the Psalm 67 passage and that could
be echoed together with the psalm allusion. The notion of Christ as the temple
of God’s presence occurs elsewhere in the NT (e.g., John 2:19-21; Rev 21:22)
and in Paul (Eph 2:20-22), though Paul usually highlights the church at the
temple, no doubt because of its identification with Christ (as in Eph 2:20-22
and 1 Cor 3:17; for the church as a temple, see also 1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Cor
6:16; Rev 3:12; 7:15; 11:1-2).
Beasley-Murray
explains that the temple background in Colossians 1:19 has often been
overlooked because there has been too narrow of a focus on πληρωμα (“fullness”), though
consideration of the language of the whole verse reveals that “Christ is
portrayed as fulfilling the role assigned to the Temple in the Old Testament,”
particularly in Psalm 67:18 (G.R. Beasley-Murray, “The Second Chapter of
Colossians,” RevExp 70 [1973]:469-79, here 477). If the allusion is intentional,
as some rightly think, then the point would be that God’s presence on earth is
no longer in the earthly temple (the Holy of Holies), but it is now in Christ,
who eschatologically instantiates and typologically fulfils all that the temple
represented (the subject of “well-pleased” could be God or “all the fullness [of
deity],” which amounts to the same thing). God has now expressed his
tabernacling presence on earth more greatly in Christ’s incarnation than in the
old inanimate architectural temple, and God was “well-pleased” to do so. Since
Christ’s ascension, the Spirit of Jesus continues that earthly presence in the
church as the true form of the temple.
But the Psalm 67
background does not appear to provide the language of “fullness” that is
integrated into the psalm allusion. However, the repeated idea of divine “glory
filling the temple [or tabernacle]” is found in the Greek OT (In this respect,
see uses of πιμπλημι [a synonym of the πληρωμα/πληροω word group] in the tabernacle/temple
texts of Exod 40:34-35; 1 Kgs 8:10-11; 2 Chr 7:2; Hag 2:8; Ezek 10:3-4; cf. Isa
6:4), and πληρης (πληρης is part
of the same word group as πληρωμα/πληροω in Col 1:19 and 2:9 and almost synonymous
with it) (“full”) is used in some of these LXX texts, where the temple is “full
of glory” of God (Isa 6:1; Ezek 43:5; 44:4; cf. Isa 6:3. This background likely
supplements the Psalm 67 temple allusion. That this “fullness” is God’s is
clear from the development of this passage in Colossians 2:9: “for in him all
the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.”
God’s Holy of Holies
presence on earth was the most preeminent reality in all of Israel. So, also
the reason (οτι) that Christ should “come to have first place in everything” (v. 18b)
is because he is the inaugurated end-time temple in which God’s fullness has
begun to dwell. He is the escalated form of God’s presence in the Holy of
Holies, and as such he himself is identified with God and the most preeminent
one together with God in the church and in all the cosmos. The idea is not that
God’s presence is in Christ but “that all that God is dwells in Christ” (Jerry
L. Sumney, Colossians NTL [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008],
74). The point is that God should be the preeminent one in all of his creation.
Since Christ is divine, he also is the preeminent one in the entire creation (It
is then hard to understand why Sumney [Colossians, 79] goes on to say
that “the point of this liturgical piece” in 1:15-20 “is not to declare Christ’s
equality with God but to identify Christ as the mediator of all God’s acts.”
While Christ is certainly a mediator, he is more). (Greg Beale, “The Temple and Anti-Temple at
Colossae,” in Craig A. Evans and Aaron W. White, Who Created Christianity?
Fresh Approaches to the Relationship Between Paul and Jesus [Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson, 2020], 411-31, here, pp. 414-16)