📖 New Testament Survey — Unit 8: The Prison Epistles: The Body of Christ

I. Four Letters from a Rented House

Some of the most beautiful music in the Bible was written behind bars. Four letters in the New Testament — Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon — share something worth noticing. The answer is the address line at the bottom of each one. All four were written by the apostle Paul during his first imprisonment in Rome, around AD 60 to 62, from the rented house where he was kept under guard for two years (Acts 28:30). A Roman soldier was chained to his wrist day and night. He could not preach in synagogues. He could not travel. He could not stand in marketplaces. So he picked up a pen, and from that chained right hand the Holy Spirit dictated four of the most theologically rich letters ever written.

These four letters belong together like four windows of a single house. Each one looks out at the same Christ from a different angle. Ephesians looks at the wealth of the Body of Christ. Philippians looks at the joy of the Body of Christ. Colossians looks at the Head of the Body of Christ. Philemon looks at the fellowship of the Body of Christ. Four windows. One house. One Christ. One Body.

II. Ephesians — The Wealth of the Believer

Ephesians is the most theological of the four prison epistles. It was almost certainly written as a circular letter, intended to be passed among the churches of Asia Minor with Ephesus as the lead city. The first three chapters spread the table of doctrine. The last three chapters serve the meal of duty. Henrietta Mears used to summarize it this way: chapters 1 through 3 tell you what God has done for you in Christ; chapters 4 through 6 tell you what you must now do because of it. Every "therefore" in the second half of Ephesians depends on every "in Christ" in the first half.

Chapter 1 is one of the most majestic single sentences in the Greek New Testament — verses 3 through 14 in our Bibles are actually one unbroken sentence in the original, and it lists the spiritual blessings of the believer the way a bank statement lists deposits. We were chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined to adoption, accepted in the Beloved, redeemed through His blood, forgiven of trespasses, given the inheritance, and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. The chapter divides into three movements that correspond to the three Persons of the Trinity. The Father chose us (verses 3–6). The Son redeemed us (verses 7–12). The Spirit sealed us (verses 13–14). Every blessing the human soul ever needed is already in the account.

Chapter 2 contains the most famous verses of Ephesians: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8–9). Paul then sweeps from individual salvation to corporate identity. Christ has broken down "the middle wall of separation" (2:14) between Jew and Gentile. The two have become "one new man" (2:15). And both together are being built into "a holy temple in the Lord" (2:21). The wealth of the believer is not only personal — it is corporate. Christ has formed one Body out of every tribe and tongue.

Chapters 4 through 6 then tell us how to walk in that wealth. Chapter 4 is the unity-and-gifts chapter: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all" (4:5–6). Chapter 5 is the husband-wife-Christ-Church mystery, where Paul lifts marriage off the human plane and shows it as a picture of Christ and His Church. Chapter 6 closes with the armor of God — the believer's wardrobe for the spiritual war. Truth as the belt. Righteousness as the breastplate. Peace as the shoes. Faith as the shield. Salvation as the helmet. The Word of God as the sword. Six pieces of armor for the believer who has now read the first three chapters and knows what he is fighting for. The key verse of Ephesians: "That He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27).

III. Philippians — The Joy of the Believer

If Ephesians is doctrine, Philippians is delight. It is Paul's most personal letter. He was writing to a church that he loved more than any other on earth — the church at Philippi, the first church he had founded on European soil (Acts 16). They had stood by him for over ten years. They had sent him money in prison. They had sent Epaphroditus, one of their own, to look after him personally in Rome. Philippians is Paul's thank-you letter, and his pastoral love overflows on every page.

The recurring word in Philippians is joy — used sixteen times in four short chapters. Note the irony: the apostle is writing the most joyful book in the Bible from a Roman prison, with his neck possibly under threat of execution. "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4). And he means it. He has learned a secret: "I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content" (4:11). The secret is not circumstances. The secret is the Person.

The structural backbone of Philippians is a single image that runs through each of the four chapters: the mind of Christ. Chapter 1 — "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (1:21). The mind of Christ on living and dying. Chapter 2 — the great kenosis hymn: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God... made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant" (2:5–7). The mind of Christ on humility. Chapter 3 — "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (3:13–14). The mind of Christ on running the race. Chapter 4 — "Be anxious for nothing... and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds" (4:6–7). The mind of Christ on worry.

The story is told of a pastor who was on a long flight when the storm broke. The captain's voice came on: "Please be sure your seat belt is fastened; we are expecting turbulence." The plane began to be tossed by violent winds. Cracks of thunder rattled above the engines. Lightning lit up the cabin. The pastor looked around and saw passengers white-knuckled in their seats, some praying, some weeping. Then his eye fell on a small girl two rows up, sitting calmly with her feet tucked under her, reading a book. The plane lurched and dropped; she turned a page. When at last the plane landed and they were filing out, the pastor knelt down beside her and asked, "Were you not afraid?" She looked up at him with no surprise on her face at all. "No," she said. "My Daddy's the pilot. He's taking me home." That is the joy of Philippians. The plane is shaking. The Father is flying.

IV. Colossians — The Head of the Body

If Ephesians proclaims the riches of the Body, and Philippians proclaims the joy of the Body, Colossians proclaims the supremacy of the Head. Paul wrote it to a small church in the Lycus Valley of Asia Minor that he had never personally visited. It had been founded by Epaphras (Colossians 1:7), one of Paul's converts from Ephesus. But a strange teaching had crept into the Colossian church — a hybrid heresy that mixed Greek philosophy with Jewish ritual, angelic mysticism, and ascetic legalism. The Colossian error denied that Christ alone was enough. Colossians is Paul's answer.

The towering passage is Colossians 1:15–20, which most scholars believe was an early Christian hymn that Paul either quoted or composed. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible... all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist... For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell" (Colossians 1:15–19). It is the highest Christology Paul ever wrote. The Christ of Colossians is bigger than every angel, bigger than every philosophy, bigger than every law, bigger than every demon, bigger than the universe itself. He is not one religious option among many. He is the Head over every power and principality (2:10), and the Body of which He is the Head is sufficient for every human need.

The key verse of Colossians stands like a wall of defense around the gospel: "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him" (Colossians 2:9–10). Complete in Him. Not partly complete. Not 90 percent complete. Not complete-plus-circumcision-plus-angel-worship-plus-special-diet. Complete. The rest of Colossians is a series of warnings about anything that would add to the all-sufficient Christ. "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit" (2:8). The Christian life does not need supplements. It needs the Christ who already supplies every need.

V. Philemon — A Brother Restored

The shortest of the prison letters is the most personal. Philemon is a single chapter, twenty-five verses, written by Paul to a wealthy believer in Colossae whom Paul had personally led to the Lord. Philemon had a runaway slave named Onesimus, whose name means useful. Onesimus had stolen from his master, fled to Rome to disappear into the crowds of the imperial capital, and in the providence of God had ended up sitting at the feet of Paul under house arrest. Onesimus was converted. Paul kept him as a personal helper for a while, and then, in obedience to the law and to love, sent him back to Philemon with a letter in his hand.

The letter is one of the great masterpieces of pastoral tact in the literature of the world. Paul does not pull rank. He does not invoke apostolic authority. He simply asks. "Though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you" (Philemon 1:8–9). And then, in the most beautiful single sentence of substitutionary love in the New Testament outside the Gospels, Paul writes the verses 17 through 19: "If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay." Martin Luther was so moved by that paragraph that he once wrote: "All of us are God's Onesimus." We were the runaway. We stole. We disgraced the Name. We deserved punishment. And another Voice spoke up and said to the Father: "If he has wronged you or owes you anything, put that on My account." And the nail-pierced hand of the Lord Jesus Christ signed the bill. The Lord Jesus is the Paul of every prodigal. The Father is the Philemon. The believer is the Onesimus, no longer a slave but a beloved brother in the family.

The key verse of Philemon ties the whole prison epistle cluster together: "No longer as a slave but more than a slave — a beloved brother... both in the flesh and in the Lord" (Philemon 1:16).

VI. The Body of Christ — One Theme, Four Letters

There were a handful of unifying images in the New Testament that the Christian needed to memorize, and one of them was the Body of Christ. Paul speaks of it briefly in Romans 12 and at length in 1 Corinthians 12, but in the prison epistles the image reaches its full development. Christ is the Head of the Body (Colossians 1:18). Believers are the members of the Body (Ephesians 4:25). The Body is the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 1:23). The Body is built up by the gifts of every member (Ephesians 4:11–12). The Body is held together by love (Ephesians 4:16). And the Body is what every prodigal Onesimus is reconciled into — not as a slave, but as a brother in the family of God (Philemon 1:16).

The four prison letters together give us the complete picture. Ephesians tells us what the Body has. Philippians tells us what the Body feels. Colossians tells us what the Body's Head is like. Philemon tells us what the Body does when one of its members falls and needs to be restored. You cannot read these four letters without seeing that the Christian life is not a private spirituality. It is membership in a Body whose Head is Jesus Christ.

VII. Two Stories of Restoration

When the news broke that Adolph Coors III had been kidnapped and murdered in 1960, his fifteen-year-old son Adolph Coors IV lost the most important man in his life. For fifteen years young Coors carried a hatred for Joseph Corbett, the man who had murdered his father, like a stone in his chest. In 1975 Adolph Coors IV became a Christian, gave up his interest in the family brewery, and tried to walk with the Lord. But the hatred would not leave. It blocked his prayers. It chilled his fellowship. At last, claiming the help of the Holy Spirit, he drove to the maximum-security wing of the Colorado state penitentiary at Canon City and asked to see Joseph Corbett. Corbett refused. Coors left behind a Bible with a note written on the flyleaf. "I'm here to see you today and I'm sorry that we could not meet. As a Christian I am summoned by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to forgive. I do forgive you, and I ask you to forgive me for the hatred I've held in my heart for you." Coors said afterward, "I have a love for that man that only Jesus Christ could have put in my heart." That is the Body of Christ. That is Philemon in modern dress. That is forgiveness across the prison wall.

And there is one more story of restoration to close on. Two hundred years ago a young Member of Parliament in England named William Wilberforce was converted at the age of twenty-three. The night of his conversion he wrote in his diary: "I am wretched, miserable, blind, and naked. What infinite love that Christ should die to save such a sinner as me." From that night forward Wilberforce gave his life to a single cause — the abolition of the British slave trade. He stood in the House of Commons year after year, decade after decade. He was opposed, mocked, betrayed. In 1807 the slave trade was abolished. In 1833, three days before Wilberforce died, the act passed that ended slavery in all British dominions. One man, one converted Member of Parliament, brought down a global trade that had stood for centuries. No longer as a slave but as a beloved brother. That is the Body of Christ working through history. That is the prison-epistles' theology lived out on the floor of the House of Commons. That is grace going further than law.

VIII. The Wardrobe of the Body

Paul closes Ephesians, and effectively closes this whole prison cluster, by handing the believer a wardrobe. "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil" (Ephesians 6:11). Six pieces. The belt of truth, that holds the rest of the armor in place. The breastplate of righteousness, that covers the heart from the kill-shot of accusation. The shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace, that let the soldier move forward without slipping. The shield of faith, that quenches the fiery darts of the enemy. The helmet of salvation, that protects the mind from doubt. And the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, the only offensive weapon in the list and the most powerful of all.

You do not achieve the armor. You wear it. Every piece is already in the believer's wardrobe by virtue of being in Christ. The first three chapters of Ephesians have put the armor in the closet. The sixth chapter simply says, get dressed. No Christian gets out of bed in the morning fully clothed by accident. Every day, the believer chooses the belt, the breastplate, the shoes, the shield, the helmet, the sword. Every day, the Body of Christ goes out into the world dressed for the fight.

IX. Four Letters, One Lord

The apostle Paul wrote these four letters from a rented house in Rome with a soldier chained to his wrist, never imagining that two thousand years later students sitting in Mexico, in Africa, in Asia, and in every other corner of the earth would still be reading what he scratched onto papyrus by the light of an oil lamp. He thought he was writing to Ephesus and Philippi and Colossae and a man named Philemon. He was writing to you. Ephesians put the wealth in your account. Philippians put the song in your throat. Colossians put the supremacy of Christ over every rival power. Philemon put the runaway back into the family.

Press on, my friend, into the rest of the New Testament with the same Lord who sustained Paul in his rented house, who walked Wilberforce through forty-six years of parliamentary battle, who broke the hatred in the heart of Adolph Coors IV, and who is the same Lord today. Wear the armor. Sing the joy. Receive the wealth. Welcome the prodigal home. The Head of the Body is on the throne. The Body of Christ is on the move. He is your Lord, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.

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