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The word 'mystery' has great significance in the book of Colossians. At the time of its writing mystery had to do with greater and greater spiritual experiences. The more 'experiences' you had the more the mystery was unlocked (2:18). The experiences were not to exalt god but rather to hold it over the heads of the people who had NOT had the experience. It was to make them feel inferior and certainly less spiritual. It was an exercise of power.
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Christ is the source of creative power (1:16). The passage our church is trying to memorize throughout this series on Colossians (1: 15-20) tells of the powers of this world...and how Christ is BEFORE them all. These things (1:16) in and of themselves are a shadow of power (2:17). The Roman empire which is ruling at the time of this letter was a shadow of power. The vast forms of spirituality of the day were all shadows of power. The key to understanding power was that the power is power to LORD OVER others. The mystery of the challengers of the Colossian Christians was to lord over them and make them feel inferior. Here again we confront the thought of power as something to be used against others.
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Not so with Jesus. The mystery of Christ was power not used to lord over but to bring freedom and liberation (1:13-14; 2: 9-12, 14, 15). He doesn't use power to condemn us but to free us...to reconcile us and the world to God (1:20). And herein we see one of the first things we must take note of about the book of Colossians: the difference in the understanding of power.
