Charles Ellicott Commentary Colossians 1:5

"because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel," — Colossians 1:5 (ASV)

For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.—The union of hope with faith and love is natural enough. Compare the fuller expression of 1 Thessalonians 1:3, your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope. But the place assigned to hope in this passage is notable. “For the hope” is really “on account of the hope.”

Hence faith and love are spoken of, not merely as leading up to hope, but as being actually kindled by it. Similarly in Ephesians 1:18 we find that, while faith and love are taken for granted, there is a special prayer that they may be enlightened to know the hope of His calling as the one thing yet needful. The prominence given to the thought of “the heavenly places” in the Epistles of the captivity, and therefore to Christ in heaven, even more than to Christ risen, is evident to any careful student. Accordingly, the hope, which is the instinct of perfection in man, and which becomes realization of heaven in the Christian, naturally comes out with corresponding emphasis.

You heard before.—That is, at their first conversion. There is an implied warning against the new doctrines, which are more fully noticed in the next chapter.

The truth of the gospel.—This expression is emphatic. It refers to the gospel, not chiefly as a message of graciousness and mercy, but rather as a revelation of eternal truths, itself changeless as the truth it reveals. There is a corresponding emphasis, but stronger still, in St. John. (See, for example, 1 John 2:27; 1 John 5:20; 2 John 1:1–4; 3 John 1:2–3.) The gospel was now winning its way to supremacy over civilized thought. Hence the need of warning against the sudden growth of wild speculations, contrasted with the unchanging simplicity of its main truths.