John Calvin 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. For the hope of eternal life will never be inactive in us without producing love in us. For it is necessary that the man who is fully persuaded that a treasure of life is laid up for him in heaven will aspire there, looking down upon this world. Meditation, however, on the heavenly life stirs up our affections both to the worship of God and to exercises of love.

The Sophists pervert this passage to extol the merits of works, as if the hope of salvation depended on works. The reasoning, however, is futile. For it does not follow that because hope stimulates us to aim at upright living, it is therefore founded on works, since nothing is more efficacious for this purpose than God’s unmerited goodness, which utterly overthrows all confidence in works.

There is, however, an instance of metonymy in the use of the term hope, as it is taken for the thing hoped for. For the hope that is in our hearts is the glory which we hope for in heaven. At the same time, when he says that there is a hope that is laid up for us in heaven, he means that believers ought to feel assured of the promise of eternal felicity, just as if they already had a treasure laid up in a particular place.

Of which you heard before. Since eternal salvation is a thing that surpasses the comprehension of our understanding, he therefore adds that the assurance of it had been brought to the Colossians by means of the gospel. At the same time, he says at the beginning that he is not bringing forward anything new, but that he merely intends to confirm them in the doctrine which they had previously received.

Erasmus has rendered: it the true word of the gospel. I am also well aware that, according to the Hebrew idiom, the genitive is often used by Paul in place of an epithet, but Paul’s words here are more emphatic. For he calls the gospel, κατ’ ἐξοχήν, (by way of eminence), the word of truth, in order to honor it, so that they may more steadfastly and firmly adhere to the revelation which they have derived from that source. Thus, the term gospel is introduced by way of apposition.