Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Colossians 1:6

"which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as [it doth] in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God in truth;" — Colossians 1:6 (ASV)

Paul is now led to develop the thought of the progress of the Gospel in the world. This is brought out in such a way as to suggest that this, as well as the report of the Colossians’ welfare, was for Paul a basis for thankfulness. Two ideas are stressed.

(1) The Gospel was a fruit-bearing power in the many places where it was preached throughout the ancient world. Perhaps Paul means that the ever-widening scope and deepening influence of the Gospel on its recipients was a mark of its authenticity. “Bearing fruit” suggests that the Gospel is like a living organism whose seed is in itself. “Growing” denotes the rapid spread of the Gospel. Thus these two terms speak of the inner working and the outward extension of the Gospel.

(2) The Gospel conveys the knowledge of “God’s grace in all its truth.” This phrase suggests that the “gospel” that had been recently introduced to the Colossians by the heretical teachers was a travesty. Their so-called “gospel” was not a message of divine grace and truth; it was a system of legal bondage and human traditions.