How do you understand Colossians 1:24?

[iaskquestions]

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh** I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions** for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col 1:24)

Paul says that he completes what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. So indirectly, he is saying that Christ’s suffering was incomplete for our sake. But I was under the impression that Christ’s suffering is complete. What does this verse mean?

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Christ’s suffering was indeed complete.

But we need to offer ourselves, each and every one of us, to unite in His suffering, as it were; that is our part, our obligation to the Body of Christ. St. Paul understands this quite well.

He means that in his (Paul’s) suffering, united to that of Christ’s and done FOR Christ, his (Paul’s) suffering was what Christ required for him (Paul). Remember how Jesus tells us that we must ALL “pick up our crosses and follow Him?” That we must all suffer? Remember how St. Paul tells us that we unite ourselves to Christ not just in His life but in His SUFFERING AND DEATH, in order to unite ourselves to Him in His Resurrection?

The ‘completeness’ is for us to give, freely. Our suffering does not ‘earn’ heaven, it does not redeem us, but it is vitally necessary to offer it ‘with’ and ‘for’ Jesus in order for us to ‘complete’ our acceptance of His saving gift of salvation.

 

[ragincajunjoe]

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh** I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions** for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col 1:24)

Paul says that he completes what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. So indirectly, he is saying that Christ’s suffering was incomplete for our sake. But I was under the impression that Christ’s suffering is complete. What does this verse mean?

I think he’s saying that we have to make the leap of faith … God won’t do that for us. This is what my Navarre Bible Commentary says:

Jesus Christ our Lord perfectly accomplished the work the Father gave him to do (cf. Jn 17:4); as he said himself when he was about to die, “It is finished”, it is accomplished (Jn 19:30).

From that point onwards objective redemption is an accomplished fact. All men have been saved by the redemptive death of Christ. However, St. Paul says that he completes in his flesh “what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”; what does he mean by this? The most common explanation of this statement is summarized by St. Alphonsus as follows: “Can it be that Christ’s passion alone was insufficient to save us? It left nothing more to be done, it was entirely sufficient to save all men. However, for the merits of the Passion to be applies to us, according to St. Thomas (Summa theologiae, 3, 49, 3), we need to cooperate (subjective redemption) by patiently bearing the trials God sends us, so as to become like our head, Christ” (St. Alphonsus, Thoughts on the Passion, 10).

St. Paul is applying this truth to himself. Jesus Christ worked and strove in all kinds of ways to communicate his message of salvation, and then he accomplished the redemption by dying on the Cross. The Apostle is mindful of the Master’s teaching and so he follows in his footsteps (cf. 1 Pet 2:21), takes up his cross (cf. Mt 10:38) and continues the task of bringing Christ’s teaching to all men.

Faith in the fact that we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, John Paul II says, gives a person “the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of Redemption he is serving, like Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters. Therefore he is carrying out an irreplaceable service. In the Body of Christ, which is ceaselessly born of the Cross of the Redeemer, it is precisely suffering permeated by the spirit of Christ’s sacrifice that is the irreplaceable mediator and author of the good things which are indispensable for the world’s salvation. It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls. Suffering, more than anything else, makes present in the history of humanity the force of the Redemption” (Salvifici doloris, 27).

(The Navarre Bible: Captivity Letters, note on Colossians 1:24, pp 141-142)

Hope that helps

Joe

 

[COPLAND_3]

I believe St. Thomas Aquinas nails it here…

And along with the above there is the fruit that in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. At first glance these words can be misunderstood to mean that the passion of Christ was not sufficient for our redemption, and that the sufferings of the saints were added to complete it. But this is heretical, because the blood of Christ is sufficient to redeem many worlds: “He is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2).
Rather, we should understand that Christ and the Church are one mystical person, whose head is Christ, and whose body is all the just, for every just person is a member of this head: “individually members” (1 Cor. 12:27). Now God in his predestination has arranged how much merit will exist throughout the entire Church, both in the head and in the members, just as he has predestined the number of the elect. And among these merits, the sufferings of the holy martyrs occupy a prominent place. For while the merits of Christ, the head, are infinite, each saint displays some merits in a limited degree.
This is why he says, I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions, that is, what is lacking in the afflictions of the whole Church, of which Christ is the head. I complete, that is, I add my own amount; and I do this in my flesh, that is, it is I myself who am suffering. Or, we could say that Paul was completing the sufferings that were lacking in his own flesh. for what was lacking was that, just as Christ had suffered in his own body, so he should also suffer in Paul, his member, and in similar ways in others.

 

[iaskquestions]

I believe St. Thomas Aquinas nails it here…

**St. Thomas Aquinas! :tiphat: **

 

[wolfwredroses]

Paul rarely speaks in his writings of Christ’s suffering (as distinguished from his death) and almost never of Christ’s suffering in terms of God’s salvation (as the writer of 1 Peter, for instance, does in 1 Pet 2:20-22). The images of a suffering Christ in Paul’s writings are usually employed to illustrate and interpret his own suffering as a missionary. Here suffering is exemplary of servanthood, but not expiatory of sin. In this way Christ’s suffering is logically parallel to his own; like Christ, Paul is God’s “suffering servant”; and like Christ’s, his suffering indicates obedience to God’s commission. Read Paul’s epistle to the church at Philippi and you’ll see that it was not just given to us to believe on Jesus, but to also suffer for HIS sake. This world is not our home, as we strive to share Jesus with the lost world they’ll mock and ridicule us, we do it for the sake of His church, (not the Catholic church mind you) but His body, that body of believers.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

interresting verse, I’ll have to give it deeper investigation sometime. It may be a good verse for redemtive suffering. or it could relate to II Peter 1