And you, that were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled
All Commentaries on Colossians 1:21 Go To Colossians 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Again he lays down also the manner of the reconciliation, that it was in the Body, not by being merely beaten, nor scourged, nor sold, but even by dying a death the most shameful. Again he makes mention of the Cross, and again lays down another benefit. For He did not only deliver, but, as he says above, Who made us meet Colossians 1:12, to the same he alludes here also. Through His death, he says, to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before Him. For truly, He has not only delivered from sins, but has also placed among the approved. For, not that He might deliver us from evils only, did He suffer so great things, but that also we might obtain the first rewards; as if one should not only free a condemned criminal from his punishment, but also advance him to honor. And he has ranked you with those who have not sinned, yea rather not with those who have done no sin only, but even with those who have wrought the greatest righteousness; and, what is truly a great thing, has given the holiness which is before Him, and the being unreprovable. Now an advance upon unblamable is unreprovable, when we have done nothing either to be condemned for, or charged with. But, since he ascribed the whole to Him, because through His death He achieved these things; what then, says one, is it to us? We need nothing.
