Richard Bauckham on Colossians 1:24

I have just uploaded the following short article in PDF:

Richard J. Bauckham, "Colossians 1:24 Again: The Apocalypse Note," The Evangelical Quarterly 47.3 (July-Sept. 1975): 168-170.

Dr Bauckham concludes in part:

But the force of tou christou is not that Christ (individual or corporate) suffers: it is that suffering is required by the ministry of bearing witness to Christ. The afflictions are “Christ’s” in precisely the sense in which Luke conceives the Church in Acts as continuing the work begun by Christ in his earthly ministry. They are not the redemptive sufferings of Christ (for which thlipsis is never used), but those subsequent afflictions of the Church through which the new age is being brought to birth. They are “deficient” so long as the work of suffering witness is incomplete, i.e. until the parousia, but Paul sees himself as playing a large part in marking up the deficiency by virtue of his apostolic ministry. This interpretation of Col. 1: 24 meets the requirements of its context as Dr. Trudinger’s does not, but at the same time avoids the difficult notions of corporate personality or mystical union and can only be accused of detracting from the sufficiency of Christ’s sufferings if the missionary task of the Church be thought to do that.