For this cause we also
Not merely for their love to the apostle, and the rest that were
with him; which sense is too much contracted, and carries some
appearance of meanness and selfishness; but because of their
faith in Christ, their love to all the saints, and the good hope
they had of eternal happiness; and because they had heard the
Gospel, and truly knew it, and sincerely professed it: therefore,
since the day we heard [it], do not cease to pray for you,
and to
desire;
which shows that the apostles prayed without ceasing; not that
they were every moment praying, without intermission, but that
they were frequent and constant every day at the throne of grace;
and as often as they were there, they were mindful of these
Colossians, even ever since they heard of their reception of the
Gospel, of their profession of it, and of the fruit it brought
forth in them; and in their petitions "prayed" and "desired",
earnestly and importunately entreated God on their behalf:
that ye might he filled with the knowledge of his
will;
the will "of God", as the Syriac version reads it, by which is
meant, not the secret will of God, according to the counsel of
which he does all things in nature, providence, and grace, but
his revealed will; and that either as it is signified in the law,
which declares the good, and perfect, and acceptable will of God,
relating to what he would have done, or avoided by his creatures;
or rather, as it is exhibited in the Gospel, which contains the
will of God respecting the salvation of his chosen ones; as that
it is his will that Christ should obtain eternal redemption for
them, to do which he voluntarily substituted himself in their
room, came into this world, and has accomplished it; and that all
those that are redeemed by Christ should be regenerated by the
Spirit; and that whoever sees the Son, and believes in him,
should not perish, but have everlasting life; as also, that all
those whom he has chosen in Christ, and given to him, and he has
redeemed by his blood, and who are sanctified by his Spirit, none
of them should be lost, but that they should be all saved with an
everlasting salvation. Now the apostle does, not pray that they
might have a "knowledge" of this will of God, for some knowledge
of it they had already; they had heard of the hope laid up in
heaven, in the truth of the word of the Gospel; they had not only
had the external, revelation, and had heard the Gospel outwardly
preached, but they had known truly the grace of God; and
therefore what he asks for is, that they might be "filled" with
the knowledge of it; which supposes that they had knowledge, but
it was not full and complete; it was imperfect, as is the
knowledge of the best of saints in this life; and that they might
have a larger measure of it, and such a fulness of it as they
were capable of in the present state, and not such an one as the
saints will have in heaven, when they shall know even as they are
known. He adds,
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
his meaning is, that they might be led into all the wisdom of
God, which is so largely displayed in the revelation of his will
concerning the salvation of his people, which is made in the
Gospel; which is the manifold wisdom of God, wherein he has
abounded in all wisdom and prudence; and contains such a scheme
of things, so wisely contrived and formed, that angels desire to
look into it; and that they might have a "spiritual
understanding" of the mysteries of grace, without which they
cannot be discerned to spiritual advantage, nor indeed without
the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of them: and
the Ethiopic version renders it, by "the prudence of the Holy
Ghost": who searches the deep things of God, and reveals them to
the saints, and improves and increases their spiritual and
experimental knowledge of them, which is what is here intended.