The sentence, begun in verse 24, continues without a break, “to whom (that is, to God’s people) God willed to make known….” Good News Translation and others make a full break and start a new sentence. God’s plan is translates a verb “to plan,” “to will,” “to purpose,” any of which carry the meaning; care must be taken, however, not to translate in such a way as to imply that God only “planned” or “purposed” to do it, without actually doing it. In place of God’s plan it is possible to speak of “God’s desire” or “God’s wish.” The use of the present tense is is preferable in that this represents not only what God has done, but what he continues to wish to do. The first clause may be translated as “God desires to have his people know what he hasn’t made known before.”
To make known … this rich glorious secret: the causative “to make known” is equivalent in meaning to revealed in the previous verse. In Greek the direct object is in the form of an indirect question, “what (is) the wealth of the glory of this mystery,” a biblical construction employing genitive phrases where in English one more naturally uses nouns and adjectives. It is hard to determine precisely what the phrase “the wealth of the glory” means in this passage, since it is rather incongruous to attribute “wealth” and “glory” to a secret. Translations handle the phrase (also in Rom 9.23, Eph 1.18, 3.16) in various ways: New International Version “the glorious riches,” Moffatt “the glorious wealth,” Phillips “the wonder and splendor of his secret plan.” Perhaps something like “how magnificent and splendid the secret is” or “the inexhaustible wonder contained in this secret” achieves something of the effect intended.
Since it is the content of the secret which is rich and glorious rather than the fact of its being unknown, it may be best to make the attributives rich and glorious apply to the content, for example, “how rich and glorious is the truth which he has not revealed before” or “how rich and wonderful is what he has not previously made known.” Rather than attempt to use two different adjectives such as “rich” and “glorious,” it may be better in some languages to use a term such as “wonderful” and employ an attributive so as to emphasize the importance of grandeur of the secret, “how truly wonderful is the message which has not previously been known!”
Which he has for all peoples represents the Greek “in/among the Gentiles.” Translator’s New Testament is like Revised Standard Version, “God’s plan is to show his people how rich and glorious this secret is among the Gentiles.” While the translation is defensible, it would seem that the Greek does not intend to say that “the secret already exist among the Gentiles or is already known by them, and that God’s plan consists in making it known to his people.” It would seem rather to indicate that the scope of God’s plan encompasses all mankind. The relevance of the contents of the secret for all peoples may be expressed as “this applies to all people,” or “this message concerns all people,” or “… is for the benefit of all peoples,” or even “people speaking all different languages,” since a reference to different languages is often a means by which different kinds of people can be identified.
The content of “the secret” is literally “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Revised Standard Version). The preposition en could mean “among,” that is Christ is present with the believers, but “in” seems preferable: “Christ is in you.” As often in the NT, “hope” is more than an uncertain expectation; it is assurance, confidence. Good News Translation has expressed this assurance by use of a statement of fact; Goodspeed has “promise,” Bible en français courant “he gives you the assurance,” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “you can depend on it that God gives you a share of his glory.”
The secret is that Christ is in you may be rendered as “what hasn’t been known before is that Christ is in you,” but to express in you in a meaningful form one must often say “dwells in your hearts.” If the meaning is to be interpreted merely as “among you,” then one may say “Christ continues, as it were, to live among you.”
If one wishes to emphasize the assurance which is involved in the Greek term of “hope,” it is possible to introduce the last clause of verse 27 as “you may be sure that you will share.”
In rendering share, it is so easy to introduce the wrong meaning, for one can speak of “sharing the glory” as meaning distributing the glory to others or as obtaining one’s own part in the glory. It is this latter meaning which is to be understood in this context; therefore, “you will have your share in.”
It is impossible to state dogmatically the precise content of glory in this passage. The basic idea of the word is God’s saving presence with his people (see 1.11); here it refers to the eschatological fulfillment of God’s promise to live among his people, who will share in his might, majesty, power, triumph; or, in a general way, as Phillips has it, “all the glorious things to come.”
A literal translation of share in the glory of God might suggest that God’s glory is actually distributed to the believer and that accordingly God ends up with much less glory than he had before. One way this problem can be handled is to translate share in the glory of God as “caused by God to become wonderful just as God is wonderful.”
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 .