The True Temple in Colossae: The Church at the Temple of Christ in Colossians
2:10 (Continuation of Psalm 67:17-18)
If the “fullness”
that is “in him” expresses Christ’s divine presence as the true temple in
Colossians 2:9, then it is likely that the filling of believers in verse 10
also relates to the filling of the temple by Christ, as the verbal parallelism
between verse 9 and 10a demonstrates:
|
Colossians
2:9 |
Colossians
2:10a |
|
Because in him all the Divine fulness dwells in bodily
form οτι εν αυτω κατοικει παν το πληρωμα της θεοτητος σωματικως |
αnd in
him you have been filled και εστε εν αυτω πεπληρωμενοι |
Believers’ union with
Christ means that, just as Christ has become the divine temple presence of God,
so they have begun to experience being “filled” and identified with that
tabernacling presence of Christ’s divine “fullness” (A similar pattern
is apparent in Ps 65:4: “How blessed is the one whom you do choose, and bring
near to dwell in your courts. We will be satisfied [the LXX (Ps 64:5)
has “we shall be filled” (πλησθησομεθα)] with the goodness
of your house, your holy temple”) (just as their union with him in vv. 11-13 means
they have been circumcised in him, buried with him, and raised with him). Thus
verse 10a is to be understood in line with other Pauline passages about the
church being identified with the temple because they are in Christ. This is
similar to 1 Corinthians 3 and Ephesians 2, built on him as part of that temple
(cf. 1 Cor 3:10-17; Eph 2:19-22). In Ephesians 1:22-23, “the church” is “the
fullness [το πληρωμα] of the one [Christ] who fills [του . . . πληρουμενου] all
things [not only the church] in every way.” This is developed in Ephesians
3:6-19 is a development of the temple text in Ephesians 2:20-22, so that, in
light of its parallel with Colossians 2:9-10, it should not be surprising that
the “filling” language in the former passage should also be about Christ
filling the temple of believers, and that this “filling” is equivalent to the
glory of deity filling the church.
Many translations of
verse 10 have “you have become complete in him,” but this conveys the
possible notion of final eschatological perfection. Instead, the idea here is
that the church is beginning to be identified and thus “filled” with Christ’s tabernacling
divine presence as the end-time temple (The perfect tense πεπληρωμενοι conveys
the idea of a condition or state of filling), as is the case in 1 Corinthians 3 and
Ephesians 2. In light of the Psalm 67 temple allusion in 1:19, the continuation
of that idea in 2:9 and into verse 10 suggests that the church has begun to be
identified with the latter-day temple because of its union with Christ (“in him”).
Accordingly, this does not refer to an eschatologically consummate completeness,
as does Colossians 1:28 (“that we may present every man complete in Christ”).
Thus in Colossians
1:9-10, 1:19, and 2:9-10, we have seen references to Christ or believers as the
true temple, Paul’s purpose in making these temple allusions is to prepare us
to see a contrast with pseudo-temple references in the immediately following
context of Colossians 2:16 and 18 . . . (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. 417-19, emphasis added)