teaching/sermons/col-1-15-20/commentaries/mcknight_sovereignty_in_eschaton.md

McKnight on present sovereignty inside the already / not-yet — Col 1:15–20

Scot McKnight, The Letter to Colossians (NICNT). Line numbers reference mcknight_colossians.md. Where the Jesus Creed is cited, line numbers reference mcknight_jesus_creed.md. The framework underwriting much of this — theocracy → monarchy → Christocracy — comes from McKnight's Jesus and the Gospels course; see mcknight_jesus_and_the_gospels.md for the prior pull.

The question the file answers: how does McKnight keep God's present sovereignty intact while writing within an inaugurated-eschatology frame? Quotes verbatim, lightly punctuated. [...] = trim; brackets = clarification.

§1. McKnight on present sovereignty

The single strongest sentence in the whole commentary, embedded in his exegesis of Col 1:16:

"All this, then, is recapitulated in v. 17 in order to make abundantly clear that the Son who redeems is the Creator Son, and therefore there are in the world absolutely no threats to his sovereignty or redemption." — McKnight on 1:16 [line 2164]

That clause does the heavy lifting: absolutely no threats. It is the strongest sovereignty affirmation in the book, and it sits inside the commentary on the powers-list (thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities). McKnight files the sovereignty claim precisely where a reader might worry about its loss.

Other present-tense affirmations:

"All of this content is tied into one verb in the perfect tense, a tense (as we have indicated already) that is used by authors to depict hyperpresence: the Son is depicted right now in front of our very eyes as sustaining life, holding all things together by virtue of his temporal priority and hierarchical superiority." — McKnight on 1:17 [line 2173]

"Here we come face to face with the gospel itself, which is more than a message of salvation: the gospel is the declaration that Jesus of Nazareth, who lived, who died, and who is risen to the right hand of the Father, is the world's true Lord and King. The gospel announces that Jesus is Prōteuōn!" — McKnight on 1:18b [line 2216]

The synthesis statement from the introduction — McKnight's own one-sentence reduction of Colossians:

"Paul's Christo-theological message of Colossians can be reduced to 'God has conquered the powers, delivered all humans from sin and its powers, and reconciled the entire cosmos to himself in, through, and under Christ.'" — McKnight, introduction [line 1125]

Note the verb tense: has conquered. Past, accomplished, settled. He breaks it out: "In Christ, God entered Israel's story, defeated sin and death, and conquered the powers through his life, death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension to the throne of the one true God" (line 1129).

From the Pauline-theology summary McKnight is willing to be even more sweeping:

"At work, then, in the portal to Paul's theology is God, who providentially acts in history, who indwells history in such a manner that revelation occurs over time in his people Israel and the church, and this history is oriented toward a theocratic-christocratic consummation — the return of Christ in glory to judge and to establish his kingdom." — McKnight on Paul's theology [line 1387]

And the king-in-the-now sentence from the perseverance section:

"Perseverance for Paul is attachment to the objective and already inaugurated reality, that God is now ruling in Christ and that this rule is to be embodied in the fellowship of the churches." — McKnight on 1:23 [line 2291]

In The Jesus Creed the equivalent move is structural, not exegetical, but worth holding next to the commentary:

"The place to stand, the perspective it gives us, is this: The end is the beginning. [...] the Jesus Creed is the creed of life now because the Jesus Creed is the creed of the eternal kingdom." — McKnight, Jesus Creed Ch. 18 [line 2697]

The future doesn't defer the present; the future funds it. Same logic in a different idiom.

§2. McKnight on Col 1:16's powers — "thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities"

The exegesis of 1:16 is where McKnight could most easily drop sovereignty by ceding ground to the powers. He doesn't.

His structural read of the list:

"To anticipate a later discussion from the Excursus on the Powers at 2:15, I read them as earthly, systemic manifestations of (perhaps fallen) angelic powers — hence, the systemic worldly, sociopolitical manifestations of cosmic/angelic rebellion against God. It seems 'thrones' (Dan 7:9) and 'powers' (Eph 1:20–21) are heavenly, invisible potentates, while 'rulers' and 'authorities' are more likely their earthly, visible servants (cf. 1 Cor 15:24; Eph 1:21)." — McKnight on 1:16 [line 2165]

He names them as real (fallen angelic powers; demonic; in rebellion), and under Christ in the very same breath. The exegetical move immediately following that identification is the strongest sovereignty sentence in the book (§1 above): "absolutely no threats to his sovereignty or redemption."

The framing of the story behind the powers, from the Excursus:

"In the powers, then, we are drawn into a story that is at work behind the terms: created by God, these structures have become polluted, distorted, and destructive because they are aligned with Satan and empowered by his minions. The powers are created, fallen, and already defeated and struggling with mighty gasps in the interim period of inaugurated eschatology. The defeat, Paul declares (2:13–15), is accomplished, but the structures are still at work, so it is in the church that this defeat is to be embodied." — McKnight, Excursus on the Powers [line 2799]

That single paragraph is the load-bearing one for our question. Four sequential claims:

  1. Created — the powers are God's creation, not autonomous rivals.
  2. Polluted / fallen — they have been turned by Satan and demonic minions.
  3. Already defeated — past tense, decisive, at the cross.
  4. Struggling with mighty gasps — present-tense ongoing experience, but framed as gasps, the death-throes of an already-broken enemy.

The line "struggling with mighty gasps" is McKnight's distinctive image. It refuses two errors at once: it doesn't pretend the powers are quiet (they're gasping mightily), and it doesn't pretend they're still on the throne (they're already defeated). The metaphor does the eschatological work — gasps are post-mortem, not vital signs.

And then immediately, the same paragraph names where the defeat gets seen in the interim:

"As Berkhof, who also focuses too little on the supernatural beings, puts it: 'The very existence of the church, in which Gentiles and Jews [...] live together in Christ's fellowship, is itself a proclamation, a sign, a token to the Powers that their unbroken dominion has come to an end.'" — McKnight quoting Berkhof, Excursus [line 2799]

The church is the evidence on the ground that the sovereignty already won at the cross is operative now.

McKnight also rejects two opposite errors about what these powers are — pure spirit-beings or pure social structures. He picks both:

"We are to see in the powers structures polluted by more than an 'inner reality' (Wink) but by real demonic beings who seek to destroy God's will for our world. Thus, it is best here to see a via media, a both-and: both demonic and supernatural beings at work in earthly structures." — McKnight on Excursus [line 2805]

The both-and matters for sovereignty: it keeps the powers real enough to be worth defeating (against a Wink-style demythologization that empties Col 2:15 of force) and personal enough to be defeatable (against a structural read in which Christ "defeats" only abstractions).

§3. McKnight on Col 2:15 — disarming, parading, triumphing

McKnight's exegesis of 2:15 reads the verbs in three movements, with the order being deliberate:

"15 Suddenly one element in new creation grows to cosmic dimensions: 'having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them.' The order here matters: first, God disarms the powers; second, God makes a public spectacle of them. And in a conclusive way there will come a third: God triumphs over them in the cross. Each image is a metaphor of new creation and the upside-down theory of Christus victor of Pauline theology." — McKnight on 2:15 [line 2754]

His phrase for what the cross accomplishes:

"The ultimate paradox is now clear: the location to celebrate victory is not the Roman Forum or the public streets of Roman cities but instead the precise place where Rome thought it was dominant: the cross. [...] Jesus himself was stripped, and Jesus both was conquered and conquered at the cross." — McKnight on 2:15 [line 2818]

And — important — McKnight explicitly connects 2:15 back into the hymn:

"Furthermore, we need to connect this verse to the theme of reconciliation in the hymn of 1:15–20: reconciliation entails victory over the powers in 2:15. Marianne Meye Thompson insightfully wonders why the powers are not said to be destroyed in 2:15, suggesting that the triumph may imply 'restoration of the powers to their purposes in creation.'" — McKnight on 2:15 [line 2817]

Two moves are worth lifting:

  1. 2:15 closes the hymn's loop. The reconciliation of "all things" in 1:20 is executed in the disarming/parading/triumphing of 2:15. The hymn does not float on its own; the disarming verb at 2:15 is the redemption-side payoff of the creation-side claim at 1:16.

  2. Restoration over destruction. McKnight registers Thompson's observation without committing fully, but he doesn't push back on it either. The hint is that even the powers are aimed at restoration, not just at obliteration — which keeps sovereignty consistent with the "reconcile all things" of v. 20.

He also reads the verbs with care. The participles are aorist — completed action — while the structures are still at work:

"The defeat, Paul declares (2:13–15), is accomplished, but the structures are still at work, so it is in the church that this defeat is to be embodied." — McKnight, Excursus [line 2799, repeated for emphasis]

That sentence is the past-tense / present-experience pair stated cleanly. McKnight does not minimize either side.

Closing summary from his Dunn citation:

"'The unseen powers and invisible forces that dominated and determined so much of life need no longer be feared. A greater power and force was at work, which could rule and determine their lives more effectively — in a word "Christ." Triumph indeed!'" — McKnight quoting Dunn on 2:15 [line 2820]

"Need no longer be feared" is present-tense pastoral payload. The triumph at the cross has present pastoral consequences right now.

§4. McKnight's specific moves to guard sovereignty inside the already/not-yet

The heart of the deliverable. Reading the commentary structurally, McKnight makes at least five distinct moves to keep present sovereignty intact while honoring eschatological tension.

Move 1 — File the sovereignty affirmation exactly where a reader could lose it.

When McKnight introduces the powers in 1:16, he names them as real, possibly fallen, in rebellion — and then in the next sentence writes "absolutely no threats to his sovereignty or redemption" (line 2164). The location is rhetorical. He doesn't let the powers-list sit on the page without the sovereignty sentence chasing it. A careless reader cannot pick up the powers from McKnight's commentary without also picking up "no threats."

Move 2 — Use the perfect tense (and the verb-aspect grammar) to depict "hyperpresence."

On 1:17 ("in him all things hold together", perfect tense in Greek): "a tense [...] that is used by authors to depict hyperpresence: the Son is depicted right now in front of our very eyes as sustaining life" (line 2173).

McKnight makes the Greek grammar do sovereignty work. The perfect tense puts the holding-together act in continuous, settled, present effect. This is the technical move; the pastoral payload is "right now in front of our very eyes." He uses the grammar to defeat any reading that pushes sovereignty into the not-yet.

Parallel move at 1:13 — "we have been transferred":

"But Col 1:13 fashions the peril in cosmic terms — 'from the dominion of darkness' — and this cosmic rescue work of God emphasizes what has already happened." — McKnight on 1:13 [line 1927]

The perfect-tense transfer is, again, already done — even while the structures are still pressing.

Move 3 — "Created, fallen, already defeated, gasping" as the four-term frame.

The Excursus paragraph at line 2799 is McKnight's compressed answer to the whole question. He gives the powers a four-stage biography:

  1. Created (origin under Christ; 1:16).
  2. Fallen / polluted (origin of evil and structural distortion).
  3. Already defeated (at the cross; 2:13–15, aorist).
  4. Gasping (present-tense ongoing experience; pre-parousia).

This four-term frame is what guards sovereignty and honors the not-yet. The powers are never autonomous (created and fallen, both under God), never invincible (already defeated), and never quiet (gasping). A reader cannot keep all four terms in mind and still conclude either (a) God has lost control or (b) the church should be living triumphalistically as if no struggle remained.

Move 4 — Locate the present of the defeat in the church.

Twice in close succession McKnight grounds the present-tense embodiment of Christ's sovereignty in the body of Christ:

"The defeat, Paul declares (2:13–15), is accomplished, but the structures are still at work, so it is in the church that this defeat is to be embodied." — Excursus [line 2799]

"Perseverance for Paul is attachment to the objective and already inaugurated reality, that God is now ruling in Christ and that this rule is to be embodied in the fellowship of the churches." — On 1:23 [line 2291]

The risk in inaugurated-eschatology preaching is that the "already" becomes invisible — a doctrinal datum without a visible referent. McKnight gives it a body: the ecclesia is where the not-yet-of-the-world meets the already-of-the-cross. The church is the placement of present sovereignty.

That move also explains why his Pauline-theology section weights ecclesiology as heavily as Christology — and why in Jesus Creed the Creed becomes a society (mcknight_jesus_creed_extracts_v2.md §2.1).

Move 5 — Frame eschatology as cosmic-vision-swallowing-plot, not future-pushing-past-the-present.

From the Pauline-theology section:

"There can be no doubt that Colossians, not unlike the Fourth Gospel, spells out a more realized emphasis in eschatology. But the construction of a classroom graph of Paul's eschatology with more instances on the right (future) than on the left (present) misses the core of the eschatology of Colossians. Once again, the indwelt-Son's mission is to reconcile the cosmos, and from that vantage point all of history finds its origin, its meaning, and its teleology. [...] what Colossians does is swallow up the plot of the future into a cosmic vision. That is, the imminent is more immanent, the future resurrection becomes more a present reality in an ongoing transformation, but it nonetheless anticipates the future resurrection, and it means that hope is not just what will happen in the future but what is driving the ecclesial group forward in anticipation." — McKnight on Pauline eschatology [line 1420]

The phrase "the imminent is more immanent" is the load-bearing one. McKnight does not collapse the future into the present — he reaffirms "it nonetheless anticipates the future resurrection" — but he reframes the present so that future hope shows up as present transformation. Sovereignty is not waiting to be inaugurated; it is the driver of present church-life. Same logic as Jesus Creed's "the end is the beginning."

Bonus move — Tie sovereignty to incarnation, not just enthronement.

"because God indwelt the Son fully bodily and because the mission of that indwelt Son is cosmic reconciliation, the mystery of Paul's mission is to incorporate the Gentiles into the one family of God under this ascended and cosmic Lord Jesus." — McKnight on 1:19 [line 1395]

The implication for sovereignty: Christ's lordship is not extrinsic (a title bestowed after victory) but intrinsic (the indwelt fullness is what made cosmic reconciliation possible in the first place). The Son rules from inside the incarnation outward — sovereignty is anchored ontologically, not just legally, and therefore cannot be eroded by the powers' continued gasping.

§5. Where McKnight could be misread

Honest framing. Places where a careless reader might miss his sovereignty affirmation and reach the wrong pastoral conclusion.

  1. The "gasping" metaphor cuts both ways. "Struggling with mighty gasps" (line 2799) is meant to keep the powers from looking either alive or autonomous. But a reader who pulls the word "struggling" without the word "defeated" could come away thinking the cosmic contest is genuinely undecided — that Christ is still working to win, rather than working to enact a victory already won. Pastorally: the "gasps" are post-mortem, not vital signs. That has to be made explicit; the metaphor doesn't make it so.

  2. The both-and on the powers can be heard as Wink-lite. When McKnight insists the powers are both demonic beings and social structures (line 2805), some readers (especially those allergic to spiritual-warfare language) will collapse it back to structures alone. McKnight is explicit that he disagrees with Wink's inner-reality move — "polluted by more than an 'inner reality' (Wink) but by real demonic beings" — but the disagreement is one sentence and easy to miss. The pastor needs to keep the demonic-beings half loud, not just the structures half. Otherwise sovereignty becomes "Christ defeats sociopolitical injustice," which softens the language of Col 1:16 substantially.

  3. The Marianne Meye Thompson "restoration of the powers" line (line 2817) is left dangling. McKnight cites it approvingly enough not to dispute it but does not commit. A reader could press this into a universal-restoration / quasi-universalist reading. McKnight himself has a careful "no" to universalism a few pages earlier — "so many run from the word 'all' straight into full-blooded universalism [...] the fact remains in Pauline letters that not all are saved and the enemies of God are defeated" (line 2240) — but that "no" sits in a different paragraph from the Thompson "yes." The pastor should know they belong together.

  4. "In the church the defeat is to be embodied" (line 2799) can become "the defeat depends on the church." McKnight does not say that, but the location of the embodiment in the ecclesia, combined with his ecclesiocentric Pauline-theology framing, can be heard that way. The correct reading is: the defeat is already accomplished by Christ at the cross; the church is the visible sign and proclamation of that defeat, not its agent or condition. That distinction has to be carried into the sermon explicitly.

  5. "Christ now rules but will eventually assert his rule over all" (line 2291) can sound like deferred sovereignty. Read alone, "will eventually assert" can sound as if the assertion is still pending. The context makes clear that the assertion-to-all is what is pending; the rule itself is already operative. The sentence has to be read whole.

§6. One-sentence answer

McKnight guards present sovereignty inside the already/not-yet by filing the sovereignty affirmation precisely at the verses where it could be lost (1:16, 2:15), reading the Greek verb-aspects ("hyperpresence" of the perfect tense; "already accomplished" of the aorist) to push the force of Christ's rule into the present moment, and locating the visible enactment of that rule in the body of Christ — so that the powers' present "mighty gasps" are read as post-mortem twitches of an enemy already defeated, while the church is the visible sign on earth that the rule won at the cross is operative right now.

Citation source map

What this file complements (not duplicates)

The Jesus Creed v2 extracts touch the already/not-yet at §2.4 ("the end is the beginning") and the Society move at §3.5; the Jesus and the Gospels file gives the historical-rule frame (theocracy → monarchy → Christocracy). Both treat present sovereignty obliquely. This file treats it head-on, from the Colossians commentary itself.