Here Paul describes their present status with a sharp contrastive phrase: but now, followed by the verb “to reconcile” (see verse 20). The textual evidence is divided over whether the verb is active indicative third singular “he (God) reconciled (you),” or a passive participle “you having been reconciled,” or a passive second plural indicative “you have been reconciled.” The hardest reading is the participle; as the United Bible Societies Textual Commentary says, the majority of the Committee considered “a passive participle to be totally unsuitable in the context.” The 2nd edition of the UBS Greek New Testament had the passive indicative in the text, but in the 3rd edition the text has the active indicative “he has reconciled.” For the translation, the textual problem does not present a very great difficulty; and in most cases, it will be preferable to represent the meaning by using the verb in the active voice, not the passive. The subject of the verb is probably to be taken as God, who is spoken of as the actor in the work of reconciliation, with Christ as the agent through whom God effects the reconciliation, that is, God has made you his friends. However, New American Bible Goodspeed Moffatt make Christ the subject of the verb.
The process of reconciliation is often expressed in figurative language, even as it is in the English figure of speech God has made you his friends. In other languages, the process of reconciliation may be described as “he has tied you together again,” or “he has brought you together to snap fingers” (in certain parts of Africa snapping fingers together is equivalent to shaking hands), or “he has caused you to cut your differences.”
By means of the physical death of his Son represents what is literally “by the body of his flesh through the death,” which quite clearly means what Good News Translation says. The reference is to the death of Christ, not of God, and a translation must make that explicit. The phrase “the body of flesh” appears again in 2.11; as Moule points out, it may be that this phrase stresses not only the physical body of Christ (as contrasted with the Church as his spiritual body, verse 18) but the reality of his physical death. Translator’s New Testament translates “through his Son, who lived and died,” Barclay, more felicitously, “by the incarnation and death of his Son,” New English Bible “by Christ’s death in his body of flesh and blood,” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “But because his Son died as a human being, God has accepted you as his friends.”
In a number of languages, there are problems involved in making clear the distinction between means and cause. If one translates by means of the physical death of his Son as “because his Son really died,” this might suggest only a reason which prompted God to do something, not the means by which God effected a particular result. Sometimes means must be expressed essentially as a cause, but it should be a so-called “effective cause” and not merely a reason, for example, “God’s son died and this has made possible God’s making you his friends” or even “God has used the fact that his son died to make you his friends.”
(In order) to bring you … into his presence: as translated by Good News Translation, God is the subject of the verb and his refers to God; so also the translations that make God the subject of “he reconciled.” Those that make Christ the subject of “he reconciled,” also make him the subject of “to present” and take “before him,” as a reference to God. The Greek “to present you” may be understood as transitive, with God (or Christ) as subject, and “you” as object; or it may be understood intransitively, meaning “(for) you to stand.” Most understand it as transitive, but Jerusalem Bible takes it as intransitive (“now you are able to appear before him”); and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch takes it as an imperative, “Stand before him.” The language is that of an offering or sacrifice (compare such use of the verb in this kind of context in Luke 2.22, Rom 12.1, Eph 5.27, Col 1.28); it may seem odd to say that God “presents” a gift, or offering to himself (but see also Eph 5.27). Most translators take the infinitive to express purpose, as do Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, in order to; Jerusalem Bible, however, takes it to represent result. This “presentation” is probably thought of as an eschatological event, when all will be brought into his presence.
To bring you … into his presence may be rendered as a causative, for example, “to cause you to stand before him” or “to cause you to be where he is.”
The three adjectives holy, pure, and faultless describe moral and spiritual qualities (in Greek there is a rhetorical effect, achieved through alliteration; all three begin with the letter alpha). No precise and discrete areas of meaning are to be sought for each separate adjective; the three are used for effect, to denote complete and total purity, the effect of Christ’s redemptive death in purifying his people from all their sins, blemishes, and faults.
Since the three adjectives holy, pure, and faultless serve primarily to intensify the concept of being without blame, this may be expressed in some languages by using qualifying expressions, for example, “completely without blame in any way,” or “completely without the slightest amount of guilt,” or “not having guilt for anything at all.” This somewhat negative way of speaking of something which is holy and pure is not at all unusual. These adjectives which are positives in English are more often than not expressed negatively in other languages; that is to say, the focus is upon the absence of something bad rather than some positive quality.
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .