Colossians 1:5

Hope. See on Rom. 8:24; 12:12. Paul now comes to the third in his triad of Christian virtues. Faith and love not only have their impelling power in hope, but this hope is their goal. The Colossians had listened to the story of redemption, and hope had been born in their hearts. This hope was the driving force in all their Christian experiences and philosophy of life. Thus hope precedes faith. It was because God had already devised the plan of salvation that hope was possible for fallen man.

In heaven. The Christian hopes for an “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven” for him (1 Peter 1:4; cf. Phil. 3:21). Hope in the ultimate realization of God’s purpose for a sinless, harmonious universe was the fruitful soil from which sprang the faith and love that the Colossian believers had manifested.

Whereof ye heard before. Paul is reminding the believers of their joy and enthusiasm at the time the gospel message first reached them. He wishes the Colossians to contrast the faith they then had, and the joy that flooded their souls, with the doubts and unsettling tendencies resulting from the messages presented by the false teachers (cf. v. 23; ch. 2:6-8, 16-23).

Word of the truth. That is, the message that contains the truth, the good news of all the revealed will of God (see on John 8:32). Truth is a revelation of the mind of God and deals with ultimate and eternal realities.

Of the gospel. See on Mark 1:1. This phrase may be understood as in apposition with “of the truth.” It is closely connected with the clause that follows.