Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Where (opou). In this "new man" in Christ. Cf. Galatians 3:28.
There cannot be (ouk eni). Eni is the long (original) form of en and estin is to be understood. "There does not exist." This is the ideal which is still a long way ahead of modern Christians as the Great War proved. Race distinctions (Greek ellhn and Jew Ioudaiov) disappear in Christ and in the new man in Christ. The Jews looked on all others as Greeks (Gentiles). Circumcision (peritomh) and uncircumcision (akrobustia) put the Jewish picture with the cleavage made plainer (cf. Eph. 2). The Greeks and Romans regarded all others as barbarians (barbaroi, Romans 1:14), users of outlandish jargon or gibberish, onomatopoetic repetition (bar-bar).
A Scythian (Skuqhv) was simply the climax of barbarity, bar-baris barbariores (Bengel), used for any rough person like our "Goths and Vandals."
Bondman (doulov, from dew, to bind),
freeman (eleuqerov, from erxomai, to go). Class distinctions vanish in Christ. In the Christian churches were found slaves, freedmen, freemen, masters. Perhaps Paul has Philemon and Onesimus in mind. But labour and capital still furnish a problem for modern Christianity.
But Christ is all (alla panta Xristov). Demosthenes and Lucian use the neuter plural to describe persons as Paul does here of Christ. The plural panta is more inclusive than the singular pan would be.
And in all (kai en pasin). Locative plural and neuter also. "Christ occupies the whole sphere of human life and permeates all its developments" (Lightfoot). Christ has obliterated the words barbarian, master, slave, all of them and has substituted the word adelfov (brother).
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing Colossians 3:11:
Acts 28:2
Romans 1:14
Romans 13:12
1 Corinthians 15:28
Ephesians 2:15
James 1:17
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