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Col_2:15.[111] In this doing away of the law was involved the victory and triumph of God over the devilish powers, since the strength of the latter, antagonistic to God, is in sin, and the strength of sin is in the law (1Co_15:56); with the law, therefore, the power of the devil stands or falls.
If ἀπεκδυσ . ran parallel, as the majority suppose, with ΠΡΟΣΗΛΏΣΑς , there must have been a ΚΑΊ inserted before ἘΔΕΙΓΜΆΤ ., as in Col_2:14 before the finite verb, because otherwise no connection would be established. Hence a full stop (Beza) must be placed before ἈΠΕΚΔΥΣ ., or at least a colon (Elzevir, Bleek); and without any connecting particle the significant verb heads all the more forcibly the description of this final result expressed with triumphant fulness: Having stripped the lordships and powers, he has made a show of them boldly, holding triumph over them in the same. Observe the symmetrical emphatic prefixing of ἀπεκδυσ ., ἐδειγμάτ .,., and ΘΡΙΑΜΒ . The subject is still always God, not Christ,[112] as Baur and Ewald hold, following Augustine, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Erasmus, Grotius, Calovius, and many others; hence the reading ἀπεκδ . τὴν σάρκα in F G (which omit Τ . ἈΡΧ . Κ . Τ . ἘΞΟΥΣ .) Syr. Goth. Hil. Aug. was an erroneous gloss; and at the close, not αὑτῷ (Syr. Vulg. It. Theodoret, Luther, Melanchthon, Elzevir, Griesbach, and Scholz), instead of which G has ἙΑΥΤῷ , but ΑὐΤῷ should be written; see Wolf in loc. The figurative ἀπεκδυσ ., which illustrates the deprivation of power that has taken place through the divine work of reconciliation, represents the ἀρχὰς καὶ ἐξουσ . as having been clothed in armour (comp. Rom_13:12; Eph_6:11; 1Th_5:8), which God as their conqueror stripped off and took from them; Vulg.: exspolians. Comp. on ἐκδύειν and ἈΠΟΔΎΕΙΝ , used from Homer’s time in the sense of spoliare, Dem. 763. 28, 1259. 11; Hesiod, Scut. 447; Xen. Anab. v. 8. 23; 2Ma_8:27; and on the subject-matter, Mat_12:19; Luk_11:22. Moreover, we might expect, in accordance with the common usage of the middle, instead of ἀπεκδυσάμενος , which is elsewhere used intransitively (comp. Col_3:9), the active ἀπεκδύσας (comp. Mat_27:28; Mat_27:31; Luk_10:30); yet even in Plat. Rep. p. 612 A, the (right) reading ἀπεδυσάμεθα is to taken in the sense of nudavimus; and Xenophon uses the perfect ἀποδέδυκεν , which is likewise intransitive elsewhere (see Kühner, I. p. 803), actively, see Anab. l.c.: πολλοὺς ἤδη ἀποδέδυκεν , multos veste spoliavit; comp. Dio Cass. xlv. 47. Further, the middle, as indicating the victorious self-interest of the action (sibi exspoliavit), is here selected even with nicety, and by no means conveys (as Hofmann, in order to refute this explanation, erroneously lays to its charge) the idea: in order to appropriate to Himself this armour; see on the contrary generally, Krüger, § 52. 10. 1; Kühner, II. 1, p. 93 f. The disarming in itself, and not the possession of the enemy’s weapons, is the interest of the victor. Lastly, the whole connection does not admit of any intransitive interpretation, such as Hofmann, in his Schriftbew. I. p. 350 f. (and substantially also in his Heil. Schr. in loc.), has attempted, making the sense: God has laid aside from Himself the powers ruling in the Gentile world—which were round about Him like a veil concealing Him from the Gentiles—by manifesting Himself in unveiled clearness. Something such as this, which is held to amount to the meaning that God has put an end to the ignorance of the Gentile world and revealed Himself to it, Paul must necessarily have said; no reader could unravel it from so strange a mode of veiling the conception, the more especially seeing that there is no mention at all of the victorious word of Christ[113] converting the Gentiles, as Hofmann thinks, but on the contrary of what God has effected in reference to the ἀρχαὶ and ἐξουσίαι by the fact of reconciliation accomplished on the cross; He has by it rendered powerless the powers which previously held sway among mankind; comp. Joh_12:30 f., Joh_16:11.
That these ἀρχαί and ἐξουσίαι are two categories of evil angels (comp. Eph_6:12), corresponding to two classes of good angels similarly named (comp. Col_2:10), is taught by the context, which has nothing to do with mediating beings intervening between God and the world (Sabatier), or even with human rulers. Ritschl, in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1863, p. 522, understands the angels of the law-giving (comp. on Col_1:20), of whom God has divested Himself (middle), i.e. from whose environment He has withdrawn Himself. Even apart from the singular expression ἀπεκδυσάμ . in this sense, this explanation is inappropriate, because the ἀρχαί and ἐξουσίαι appear here as hostile to God, as beings over whom He has triumphed; secondly, because the angels who ministered at the law-giving (see on Gal_3:19) have no share in the contents of the law, which, as the νόμος Θεοῦ , is holy, righteous, good, and spiritual (Romans 7), and hence no deviation from God’s plan of salvation can be attributed to the angels of the law; and, finally, because the expression τὰς ἀρχὰς κ . τὰς ἐξουσίας is so comprehensive that, in the absence of any more precise indication in the text, it cannot be specially limited to the powers that were active in the law-giving, but must denote the collective angelic powers—hostile, however, and therefore devilish. Them God has disarmed, put to shame, and triumphed over, through the abrogation of men’s legal debt-bond that took place by means of the atoning death. The emphatic and triumphant prominence given to this statement was, doubtless, specially occasioned by those speculations regarding the power of demons, with which the false teachers were encroaching on the work of Christ.
δειγματίζειν , preserved only here and in Mat_1:19 (comp. however, παραδειγματίζειν , especially frequent in Polybius; see Schweighäuser, Lex. p. 429), denotes, in virtue of its connection with the conception of triumph, the making a show (Augustine, ep. 59: “exemplavit;” Hilary, de trin. 9: “ostentui esse fecit”) for the purpose of humiliation and disgrace (comp. Chrysostom), not in order to exhibit the weakness of the conquered (Theodoret, Böhmer), but simply their accomplished subjugation; comp. Nah_3:6 : θήσομαί σε εἰς παράδειγμα .
ἐν παῤῥησίᾳ ] is usually rendered publicly, before the eyes of all, consequently as equivalent to φανερῶς in Joh_7:10 (the opposite: ἐν κρυπτῷ , Joh_7:4; Mat_6:4; Rom_2:28); but this the word does not mean (see on Joh_7:4); moreover, the verb already implies this idea;[114] and the usage of Paul elsewhere warrants only the rendering: boldly, freely and frankly. Comp. Eph_6:19; Php_1:20. Hilary: “cum fiducia;” Vulgate: “confidenter palam.” The objection that this sense is not appropriate to the action of God (Hofmann), overlooks the fact that God is here represented just as a human triumpher, who freely and boldly, with remorseless disposal of the spoils acquired by victory, subjects the conquered to ignominious exhibition.[115]
θριαμβεύσας αὐτ . ἐν αὐτῷ ] synchronous with ἐδειγμ .: while He triumphed over them. Respecting θριαμβεύειν τινα , to triumph over some one, see on 2Co_2:14. Comp. the passive θριαμβεύεσθαι , to be led in triumph, Plut. Coriol. 35. αὐτούς refers κατὰ σύνεσιν to the devils individually, who are conceived as masculine (as δαίμονες , κοσμοκράτορες , Eph_6:12), see generally Winer, p. 138 [E. T. 183]; and ἐν αὐτῷ is referred either to the cross (hence, also, the readings ἐν τῷ ξύλῳ or σταυρῷ ) or to Christ. The former reference is maintained by the majority of the Fathers (Theophylact: ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ τοὺς δαίμονας ἡττημένους δείξας ), Beza, Calvin, Grotius, and many others, including Böhmer, Steiger, Olshausen, Ewald, Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p. 432, ed. 2; and the latter, by Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon, Wolf, Estius, Bengel, and many others, including Flatt, Bähr, Huther, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bisping, Bleek, Hofmann, Rich. Schmidt. The reference to Christ is erroneous, because Christ is not mentioned at all in Col_2:14, and God pervades as subject the entire discourse from Col_2:11 onwards. We must hold, therefore, by the reference to τῷ σταυρῷ , so that ἐν αὐτῷ once more places the cross significantly before our eyes, just as it stood emphatically at the close of the previous sentence. At the cross God celebrated His triumph, inasmuch as through the death of Christ on the cross obliterating and removing out of the way the debt-bill of the law He completed the work of redemption, by which the devil and his powers were deprived of their strength, which rested on the law and its debt-bond. The ascension is not to be here included.
[111] Holtzmann, p. 156 f., rejects this verse because it interrupts the transition of thought to ver. 16 (which is not the case); because δειγματίζειν is un-Pauline (but in what sense is it un-Pauline? it is in any sense a very rare word); because θριαμβεύειν is used here otherwise than in 2Co_2:14 (this is incorrect); but, especially, because ver. 15 can only be explained by the circle of ideas of Eph_3:10 and Col_1:10; Eph_4:8; Eph_2:15 f. (passages which touch our present one either not at all, or at the most very indirectly).
[112] Through this erroneous definition of the subject it was possible to discover in our passage the descent into hell (Anselm and others).
[113] In which sense also Grotius explained it, though he takes ἀπεκδυσάμ . rightly as exarmatos. See, in opposition to him, Calovius. Hofmann’s explanation is also followed by Holtzmann, p. 222; it is an unfortunate attempt at rationalizing.
[114] Hence Hofmann joins it with θριαμβεύσας , in which, however, the idea of publicity is obviously already contained. Hofmann, indeed, assumes a reference of contrast to the invisible triumphs, which God has ever been celebrating over those powers. But thus the idea of θριαμβεύειν is extended to an unwarranted amplitude of metaphorical meaning, while, nevertheless, the entire anthropopathic imagery of the passage requires the strict conception of the public θρίαμβος Moreover, the pretended contrast is altogether foreign to the context.
[115] It is an inconsiderate fancy of Hofmann to say, by way of controverting our explanation: Who would be surprised, that the triumpher should make a show of the conquered, “without previously asking their permission”? As if such a thought, no doubt very silly for the victor, were necessarily the contrast to the frank daring action, with which a general, crowned with victory, is in a position to exhibit his captives without any scruple, without sparing or hesitation! He has the ἐξουσία for the δειγματίζειν , and uses it ἐν παῤῥησίᾳ .