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 PrintableVersion ColossiansFull of the Son of GodCOLOSSIANS Christian ministers owe a great debt to the publisher for the Geneva Series of Commentaries. So many rich volumes have been produced. If the dust jacket blurb on this commentary is to be believed, then we truly have a gem of exposition here. The claim is made that there will never be a better commentary on Colossians ‘so long as the world endures’. For review purposes it is not possible to read a commentary like this from cover to cover. Yet to dip into it, at those passages that come to mind most readily, truly gives a flavour of the whole. For example, in the 15 or so pages devoted to 1.15, the doctrine of Christ is set forth with meticulous attention, never hard to read and full of the Son of God. The author was clearly a man full of the Spirit and knowledge of his Redeemer. The text is analysed, scrutinised, expounded and applied in masterly fashion. Here is material that will stir the mind and heart of the preacher and warm the soul of the devout believer. Here is weaponry to ward off the attacks of heretics who would deny the true revelation of Christ as very God of very God in his Person and work. Here is provision that will help to set the mind on things above and not on the earth. Here are expository riches indeed. The reader will be amply rewarded as he or she reads this book, whether for study or devotional purposes. The preacher will be well equipped by its suggestiveness. There is much that is practical, even if at times fuller than what we might need. In his comments on lying (3.9-10), for example, he deals at length with what lying is and its various forms, refuting the casuistry of the Jesuits along with other subtle forms of lying. The book was originally a series of lectures given before the University of Cambridge. Davenant, who died in 1641, delivered them in Latin. Josiah Allport translated them and had them published in 1831. This edition is a reprint of that one. At the beginning of the book, there is a 46-page Life of Bishop Davenant which tells us much about him, including the fact that he was one of the English deputies to the Synod of Dort. Mr. Allport also renders great service in the profuse notes which accompany the text, ranging from biographical notes of scholars cited to elucidation of the historical context of many of the comments. All in all, the volume is quite encyclopaedic. The general index is copious. There is an index of questions dealt with in the commentary and another on the subjects and works referred to in Allport’s notes. The book concludes with an index of other passages of Scripture explained in the course of the work. I can see why the blurb speaks so highly of this commentary and I believe C.H. Spurgeon was right when he wrote about this book : ‘No exposition on a detached portion of Scripture (with the exception of Owen on the Hebrews) … will compare with it in all parts … in depth, accuracy and discursiveness’. David J. Ellis, © Evangelicals Now - March 2006 |
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