NOTES for Col 3:17
For Paul, Christian life is life in Christ in the most literal sense of the word. It unfolds in the spiritual space of the relationships that bind the Son to the Father. And all relationships among Christians, as well as their very life, must exist precisely there. The apostle speaks of peace for a reason: inner peace is inseparable from abiding in the Kingdom as the space of the relationship of the Father and the Son.
But the fullness of the Kingdom is revealed in love. In the Kingdom, love becomes not merely a relationship; there it also becomes the environment within which all relationships exist: relationships among people, each person's relationship with God and with Christ, and finally Christ's own relationship with His heavenly Father. In itself, the Kingdom is the space of God's prevailing breath, but in the context of all interpersonal relationships possible in such a space, it is the space and environment of love.
God's breath is connected with His life, with His very existence, but when someone else is included in His existence, at the point of meeting there arises a space of love as the dynamic of that very meeting. Love itself, arising by God's will directed toward the one whom God loves, turns out to be the bridge that connects the uncreated God with all created beings loved by Him, including the human person. In relation to what cannot recognize God's will, His love is revealed as God's Wisdom, present in the world even where no one can recognize it; but in relation to a person who recognizes God's will and his own existence, it is revealed precisely as love.
And if relationships between people are built in the space of the relationships of the Kingdom, the relationships that bind the Father and the Son, then they too can only be relationships of love - not because in God's presence a person ceases to be a creature, but because in any relationships in which God participates and which He defines, it is His love that becomes predominant and forms the environment within which those relationships exist.
Such relationships cease to be purely human and become divine-human, since they are defined not only by people but also by God. This is the environment of love among Christians that Paul calls the addressees of his letter to form, whether in relationships between spouses, between children and parents, or between slaves and their masters. As long as these relationships remain purely functional, they cannot be relationships of love; but if the Kingdom comes to the forefront in each person's life, and relationships become relationships of the Kingdom, function, including social function, recedes into the background. It is precisely such relationships that the apostle speaks of in his letter to the Colossians.