...because of
the hope being stored for you in heaven which you heard before in the
word of the truth of the Gospel...
In
our last reflection on Colossians, we talked about hope being stored
up for us in Heaven. But how do we know about that? How do we know
that we can
and must desire and expect the eternal life God holds out to us and
the grace He gives us to attain it? How do we know that our hope,
our eternal life, is waiting for us, that God is preparing marvelous
things for us? Paul tells us: we have heard
about it beforehand
in the Gospel.
The
verb for “heard before” is proēkousate.
There
is a delightful anticipation in this verb. We can know something
about our hope, our eternal life, before we realize it in full. The
more we hear about it, the more we desire it;
the greater our expectation becomes. We can start living eternity
now in a limited way because we understand (at least in part) what
is in store for us in the future if only we hold firm to the grace of
God. God doesn't keep secrets from us. He wants us to look forward
to the fullness of life with Him. He wants us to have an idea of
what's coming. He wants us to begin to grasp the greatness of His
gift of salvation even now in this life.
Where,
then, do we hear about our hope? In the word of truth of the Gospel.
This is actually quite a complicated little prepositional phrase in
the Greek. It begins with the preposition en,
which identifies the sphere where the information is located. That
sphere is the word, tō
logō.
Logos
is a loaded word, for Jesus Himself is the Logos,
the Word of God. And indeed, we do hear about our hope through Him.
He is the One Who brings our hope to fruition by His life, death, and
resurrection. He is the One Who opened the gates of Heaven that we
may have eternal life with Him. He
is the One Who speaks hope into our hearts.
God's
word also comes to us through the channels of Divine Revelation:
Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, both of which are interpreted
by the Church's Magisterium. The
Bible and the Church's living Tradition (which includes the
sacraments) are both filled with hope. They teach us that God is
preparing a place for us;
they show us how to get there; and they serve as pathways for the
grace that God pours out upon us. Our job is to read and to listen
and to open our hearts in humility to receive the message.
This
message, this word, is truth.
Paul makes this very clear in the construction he chooses: ō
logō tēs
alētheias,
literally, the word of the truth. Paul
might simply have used the adjective “true,”
but he chose the abstract noun instead to give his phrase greater
punch. This
isn't just any true word; it is the word of truth, something unique,
something special, something amazing.
He might also be hinting at Jesus' assertion, “I am the Way and
the Truth and the Life.” In
that case, the word belongs to Truth Himself, and Truth Himself has
shared it with us.
Where
do we find this word of truth? In the Gospel, the
euaggelion,
the good news. Good news! Isn't that the understatement of the
millennium? The Gospel is the best possible news ever, for it gives
us the word of truth that our God loves us so much that He became one
of us. He died on the cross for us. He
rose again from the dead.
He opened Heaven to us. He pours His divine life into our souls so
we can live with Him and for Him and in Him right
now.
He
gives us hope for
eternal
life that we may be with Him forever. It
doesn't get any better than that.
(Greek
definitions come from Biblehub.com, especially HELPS Word Studies.)
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