Do we need enduring faith?

While Paul was in prison in Rome he wrote a letter to the church at Colossae. In the letter he is urging the church to reject false philosophies and points to why we need Jesus. In verses 1:21-23 he presents us with a conditional statement that could be written out as follows:

if you really continue in the faith and do not shift from the gospel (enduring faith)
then you are reconciled by Jesus’ death and will be presented holy and blameless before him

The Martyrdom of Paul

The Martyrdom of Paul

In a conditional statement, like the one here, the if-clause is known as the protasis and the then-clause is called the apodosis. The apodosis can often be expressed as a statement that can stand independent of the protasis. Read Colossians 1:21-22 as if it had a period at the end of verse 22 and you see that this is a complete thought. It can stand on its own. However, the occurrence of an if-clause, like the one we have in 1:23, attaches a condition to this otherwise independent statement.

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