Colossians 1:8

8 Who also hath manifested your love in the spirit.

Colossians 1:8 Meaning and Commentary

Colossians 1:8

Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
] Not only their love to God, and Christ, and to all the saints, which is before mentioned, but their love to the apostle; though they had only heard of him, and of his great capacity for, and faithfulness and usefulness in preaching of the Gospel, which had greatly endeared him to them. This, he says, was in the Spirit; it was spiritual love, to distinguish it from a carnal and worldly one; they loved him for the spiritual grace that was in him, the spiritual gifts bestowed on him, the spiritual service he was engaged in, and the spiritual usefulness he was of: or they loved him in, and with their spirits, with all their hearts, sincerely, and without dissimulation; and though they had never seen him in the flesh, yet being, as it were, present with him in spirit, their affections were knit unto him: or this their love was "in the Holy Spirit", as the Ethiopic version reads it; it was a fruit of the Spirit of God, which he had implanted in their hearts in regeneration, as is also love to God, and likewise to Christ.

Colossians 1:8 In-Context

6 Which is come unto you, as also it is in the whole world and bringeth forth fruit and groweth, even as it doth in you, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth.

7 As you learned of Epaphras, our most beloved fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ Jesus;

8 Who also hath manifested your love in the spirit.

9 Therefore we also, from the day that we heard it, cease not to pray for you and to beg that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding:

10 That you may walk worthy of God, in all things pleasing; being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God: