Colossians 1:24

[Tom 1]

Hello,

Just curious to hear different takes on what Paul means here by ‘what is still lacking...’

“Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”

Colossians 1:24 NIV

Tom

 

[afishamongmany]

Hi Tom - here is a copy /paste from Got Questions which says it as well as I ever could?

"In summary, Paul was not suffering to merit grace or earn his salvation; neither was he complementing or completing the sufferings that Jesus personally experienced. Rather, Paul saw his suffering as helping conform him into the image of Christ. We, too, can view our trials and afflictions as a means to make us more like Jesus, as we are “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). Until we join Christ in glory, we will experience some of the same suffering that Jesus Christ did as part of God’s sanctifying process."
Got to go
Go well
><>

 

[Hidden In Him]

"In summary, Paul was not suffering to merit grace or earn his salvation; neither was he complementing or completing the sufferings that Jesus personally experienced. Rather, Paul saw his suffering as helping conform him into the image of Christ. We, too, can view our trials and afflictions as a means to make us more like Jesus, as we are “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). Until we join Christ in glory, we will experience some of the same suffering that Jesus Christ did as part of God’s sanctifying process."

This is a standard interpretation and certainly plausible. My problem is that it retranslates the verse into stating, "I am filling up what is still lacking in my afflictions for the sake of His body." But that's not what he actually said.

All true believers make up the body of Christ. And that body still suffers affliction and persecution today just as it did 2,000 years ago. So in a sense, the afflictions of Christ still continue to this very day, and will continue to do so until the church is finally taken out of the world.

It is in this sense that I think Paul is saying he, as part of the body of Christ, was filling up what was still lacking in the afflictions of Christ. That it was for the sake of Christ's body makes the whole thing a bit of a mixed metaphor, but the additional phrase was a pat statement Paul made continually: Called as an apostle to the Gentiles, and as such sacrificing himself to bring the message of the gospel to the nations.

 

[afishamongmany]

This is a standard interpretation and certainly plausible. My problem is that it retranslates the verse into stating, "I am filling up what is still lacking in my afflictions for the sake of His body." But that's not what he actually said.

All true believers make up the body of Christ. And that body still suffers affliction and persecution today just as it did 2,000 years ago. So in a sense, the afflictions of Christ still continue to this very day, and will continue to do so until the church is finally taken out of the world.

It is in this sense that I think Paul is saying he, as part of the body of Christ, was filling up what was still lacking in the afflictions of Christ. That it was for the sake of Christ's body makes the whole thing a bit of a mixed metaphor, but the additional phrase was a pat statement Paul made continually: Called as an apostle to the Gentiles, and as such sacrificing himself to bring the message of the gospel to the nations.

Hello Hidden in Him, agreed, Paul cites himself but that doesn't preclude what he says being something that applies to us all.
Another way of understanding it is that of witness. The present day sufferings of Christians (because they are Christians) are actual and immediate, perhaps communicating the reality of Christ's sufferings in a way that only hearing the 'history' does not.
Go well
><>

 

[Hidden In Him]

The present day sufferings of Christians (because they are Christians) are actual and immediate, perhaps communicating the reality of Christ's sufferings in a way that only hearing the 'history' does not.

Excellent word. My feeling is that if His body is truly manifest in the earth, it will manifest the same things today that He did in His own earthly body while on earth: Miracles, all the spiritual gifts, and all the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And it will likewise bear the marks of Christ's sufferings as well.

 

[Mark51]

The evil that Paul suffered/inferred to was not his own willful sins against God. Prophets of the past did not suffer all the things that they suffered because they had done wrong and sinned against God. They suffered evil unjustly, and there is where the test of their endurance came in. They suffered at the hands of Satan and his opposes because they had faith in God and worshiped him without letup and bore witness to Him. Their sufferings did not therefore come upon them from God’s hand, but God let the sufferings come upon them unjustly, to test them and to see whether their suffering would cause them to turn away from his worship and service, renouncing him to his face. Enduring to the end of the test of their faithfulness, they would vindicate God and as the universal Sovereign.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hello,

Just curious to hear different takes on what Paul means here by ‘what is still lacking...’

“Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”

Colossians 1:24 NIV

Tom

My guess is that it is an indirect reference to those things Jesus said about "our sufferings" at the hands of the world which would be very much like those that Jesus Himself suffered. I think Paul is just alluding to this same suffering that Jesus told us about beforehand.