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Col_2:12 supplies further information as to how the περιετμήθητε , so far as it has taken place by means of the circumcision of Christ, has been accomplished.
συνταφέντες κ . τ . λ .] synchronous with περιετμ . (comp. on Col_1:20, εἰρηνοποιήσας ): in that ye became buried with Him in baptism. The immersion in baptism, in accordance with its similarity to burial, is—seeing that baptism translates into the fellowship of the death of Christ (see on Rom_6:3)—a burial along with Christ, Rom_6:4. Through that fellowship of death man dies as to his sinful nature, so that the σῶμα τῆς σαρκός (Col_2:11) ceases to live, and by means of the fellowship of burial is put off (Col_2:11). The subject who effects the joint burial is God, as in the whole context. In the burial of Christ this joint burial of all that confess Him as respects their sinful body was objectively completed; but it takes place, as respects each individually and in subjective appropriation, by their baptism, prior to which the realization of that fellowship of burial was, on the part of individuals, still wanting.
ἐν ᾧ καὶ συνηγέρθητε ] A new benefit, which has accrued to the readers ἐν Χριστῷ , and which in their case must bring still more clearly to living consciousness their ἐν Χριστῷ πεπληρωμένον εἶναι ; so that ἐν ᾧ here is parallel to the ἐν ᾧ in Col_2:11, and refers to Christ, as does also αὐτόν subsequently. It is rightly taken thus, following Chrysostom and his successors, by Luther and most others, including Flatt, Bähr, Huther, Ewald. Others have referred it to ἐν τῷ βαπτ . (Beza, Calixtus, Estius, Michaelis, Heinrichs, and others, including Steiger, Böhmer, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Hofmann, Dalmer, Bleek); but, in opposition to this may be urged, first, the very symmetry of the discourse ( ὅς … ἐν ᾧ καί … ἐν ᾧ καί ); secondly, and specially, the fact that, if ἐν ᾧ refers to baptism, ἐν could not be the proper preposition, since ἐν ᾧ βαπτ ., in accordance with the meaning of the word and the figure of burial, refers to the dipping into (not overflowing, as Hofmann thinks), whilst the spiritual awakening to new life, in which sense these expositors take συνηγέρθ ., would have taken place through the emerging again, so that we should expect ἐξ οὗ , or, at all events, the non-local διʼ οὗ ; and, thirdly, the fact that just as συνταφέντες has its own more precise definition by ἐν τῷ βαπτ ., so also has συνηγέρθ . through διὰ τῆς πίστεως κ . τ . λ ., and therefore the text affords no occasion for taking up again for συνηγέρθ . the more precise definition of the previous point, viz. ἐν τῷ βαπτίσματι . No, the first benefit received in Christ which Paul specifies, viz. the moral circumcision, accomplished by God through the joint burial in baptismal immersion, has been fully handled in Col_2:11 down to βαπτίσματι in Col_2:12, and there now follows a second blessing received by the readers in Christ ( ἐν ᾧ καί ): they have been raised up also with Christ, which has taken place through faith, etc. The previous joint burial was the necessary moral preliminary condition of this joint awakening, since through it the σῶμα τῆς σαρκός was put off. This συνηγέρθ . is to be understood in the sense of the fellowship of the bodily resurrection of Christ, into which fellowship man enters by faith in such a way that, in virtue of his union of life and destiny with Christ brought about by means of faith, he knows his own resurrection as having taken place in that of Christ—a benefit of joint resurrection, which is, indeed, prior to the Parousia, an ideal possession, but through the Parousia becomes real (whether its realization be attained by resurrection proper in the case of the dead, or by the change that shall take place in those who are still alive). Usually συνηγέρθ . is taken in the ethical sense, as referring to the spiritual awakening, viz. from moral death, so that Paul, after the negative aspect of the regeneration (Col_2:11; βαπτίσματι , Col_2:12), now describes its positive character; comp. also Huther, Ewald, Bleek, Hofmann. But in opposition to this view is the fact that the fresh commencement ἐν ᾧ καί , corresponding with the similar commencement of Col_2:11, and referring to Christ, makes us expect the mention of a new benefit, and not merely that of another aspect of the previous one, otherwise there would have been no necessity for repeating the ἐν ᾧ καί ; as also, that the inference of participation in the proper resurrection of Christ from death lies at the basis of the following τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν . Comp. on Eph_2:1; Eph_2:5-6. Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Oecumenius have already correctly explained it of the proper resurrection ( καὶ γὰρ ἐγηγέρμεθα τῇ δυνάμει , εἰ καὶ μὴ τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ ), but Theophylact makes it include the ethical awakening also: holding that it is to be explained κατὰ δύο τρόπους , of the actual resurrection in spe, and at the same time ὅτι πνευματικῶς τὴν νέκρωσιν τῶν ἔργων τῆς ἁμαρτίας ἀπεῤῥίψαμεν .
διὰ τῆς πίστεως κ . τ . λ .] The τῆς πίστεως is described by Holtzmann, p. 70, as syntactically clumsy and offensive; he regards it as an interpolation borrowed from Eph_1:19 f. Groundlessly; Paul is describing the subjective medium, without which the joint awakening, though objectively and historically accomplished in the resurrection of Christ, would not be appropriated individually, the ληπτικόν for this appropriation being wanting. The unbeliever has not the blessing of having risen with Christ, because he stands apart from the fellowship of life with Christ, just as also he has not the reconciliation, although the reconciliation of all has been accomplished objectively through Christ’s death. The genitive τῆς ἐνεργείας τ . Θ . is the object of faith; so Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Castalio, Beza, Calvin, Zeger, Grotius, Estius, Cornelius a Lapide, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, and others, including Baumgarten-Crusius, Ewald, Bleek, and Hofmann, in the 2d ed. of the Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 174 f. But others, such as Luther (“through the faith which God works”), Bengel, Flatt, Bähr, Steiger, de Wette, Böhmer, Huther, et al., take τῆς ἐνεργ . τ . Θ . as genitivus causae, for which, however, Eph_1:19 is not to be adduced (see in loc.), and in opposition to which it is decisive that in all passages, where the genitive with πίστις is not the believing subject, it denotes the object (Mar_11:22; Act_3:16; Rom_3:22; Gal_2:16; Gal_2:20; Gal_3:22; Eph_3:12; Php_1:27; Php_3:9; 2Th_2:13; Jam_2:1; Rev_2:13; Rev_14:12), and that the description of God as the Being who has raised up Christ from the dead stands most naturally and directly in significant reference to the divine activity which procures, not the faith, but the συνεγείρεσθαι , and which is therefore set forth in a very appropriate manner as the special object[100] of faith (comp. 4:17, 24, 6:8, 10:9; 2Co_4:13-14; Eph_1:19 f.; 1Pe_1:21). At the basis, namely, of the τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτ . ἐκ νεκρ . lies the certainty in the believer’s consciousness: since God has raised up Christ, His activity, which has produced this principale and majus, will have included therein the consequens and minus, my resurrection with Him. To the believer the two stand in such essential connection, that in the operation of God which raised up Christ he beholds, by virtue of his fellowship of life with Christ, the assurance of his own resurrection having taken place along with that act; in the former he has the pledge, the ἐνέχυρον (Theodoret) of the latter. Hofmann now again (as in the first ed. of the Schriftbeweis) explains τῆς ἐνεργ . τ . Θ . as in apposition to τῆς πίστεως , in such a way that Paul, “as if correcting himself,” makes the former take the place of the latter, in order to guard against the danger of his readers conceiving to themselves faith as a conduct on man’s part making possible the participation in the resurrection of Christ by God, while in reality it is nothing else than the product of the ἐνέργεια of God. A quite gratuitously invented self-correction, without precedent, and undiscoverable by the reader; although the thought, if it had entered the mind of Paul, might have been indicated with the utmost simplicity and ease (possibly by διὰ τῆς πίστεως , μᾶλλον δὲ διὰ τῆς ἐνεργ . τ . Θ .).
[100] The efficacy of the divine power shown in the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee of the certainty of salvation.