Colossians 2:10-15
Paul loves to exalt Jesus Christ, and as long as we are in Colossians, we will be exalting Christ. Christ is unique and glorious. He is both deity and humanity. In chapter two every believer is complete in Him. He is your sufficiency. Paul would vigorously reject the current idea that you have to add social justice to the sufficiency of Christ. You don’t add anything to Christ. Dr. Russell Fuller, a Hebrew professor fired from Southern Seminary for his stand for truth, said in an interview, “Anytime you take secular views and combine them with the Scripture you’re corrupting and perverting the gospel.” Christ is all you need. He is your all-sufficient Savior, period.
That’s why last week Paul warned us in vs. 8 to beware of any human teaching, tradition, or philosophy that detracts from Christ alone. “Yes, you need Jesus, but you need our special knowledge.” “Jesus is fine, but you need to speak in tongues.” Or, as in our passage, “Jesus is fine, but you Gentiles need circumcision, too.” God tells us in these verses before us why Christ is your All-Sufficiency. This is a fascinating and rich portion of God’s Word:
Col 2:10-15, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
IN HIM – UNION WITH CHRIST
Col. 2:10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
Before we get into the text, you’ve got to see the phrase “in Him.” Everything is in Him, with Him, through Him. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones says in his sermons on Romans 6, nothing is more important for understanding your relationship with Christ than the New Testament teaching of your union with Christ. Everything here rests on Christ and our union with Christ. And notice that we don’t do anything in these verses. All the verbs are passive: were circumcised, having been buried, were raised, made alive. This is all about Christ alone and grace alone and it all comes to us through faith alone!
Verse 10 focuses on our union with Christ. “In Him” means you are part of Christ. You have everything you need because you are in Him. He is your new identity. Doctors can surgically implant a donated liver into a person, connect all the blood vessels, hook up the nerves, and whatever livers need to thrive. That implanted organ takes on a totally new identity, with new life coursing through its veins, functioning as the donor’s own liver. Whenever you came to Christ, God implanted you into Christ. He has become your life, your resource, your new identity. You are in Him. You used to be in Adam, condemned; now you’re in Christ. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Now Paul proves Christ’s all-sufficiency for every believer with four great truths, all connected to your union with Christ and the cross. Stay with me here; this isn’t exactly easy. But it’s good.
You’ve been circumcised in Christ – vs. 11
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;
Obviously, Paul isn’t talking about physical circumcision. Circumcision was a sign of God’s covenant with Israel, begun back in Genesis 17. It was God’s graphic way of showing that man is born a sinner. It appears that our sinful nature is passed on by the male. Romans 5:12 – By one man sin entered the world. God miraculously caused Mary to conceive Jesus as fully human but without a sin nature. He’s the only human being ever born without a human father.
Some of the false teachers were apparently telling the Gentiles they had to be circumcised, just like the Judaizers in Galatians. But Paul says, No! Christ fulfilled the symbol of circumcision in His death. He was made sin when He died and through His death, the body of our flesh, our slavery to sin was cut off or spiritually circumcised from sin’s dominion. We still sin as believers, but in Christ we are no longer slaves to sin.
See the word “removal”? That’s a picture of tearing off filthy clothes and throwing them away. I worked for a fertilizer company for about a day. We went to farms and picked up dead stinky stuff. When I came home I quickly tore off my stinky old clothes and threw them in a garbage can and probably never wore them again. Christ has torn off your stinky old body of flesh so your sin nature no longer rules your life. Paul said the exact same thing in Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him (or circumcised with Him) in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” Christ is your all-sufficiency over sin. Are you with me?
Before continuing we must ask, does water baptism replace circumcision in the Bible? The answer is absolutely “No!” Nowhere in the New Testament do we read about baptism taking the place of circumcision. The church is not Israel. That’s why not only do we not baptize infants and why we do baptize believing females. Christ fulfilled the symbolism of circumcision through the cross and then ordained baptism to picture our identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. This takes us to our second grand truth about the all-sufficiency of Christ.
You’ve been baptized into Christ – vv. 12-13a
12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him.
Now, what about this baptism? It is not water baptism in this context. It is the same as Romans 6. Baptism speaks of being brought into union with. Spiritually when you came to Christ, God baptized you into Christ so that now you are in Christ, in union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection to new life. This is how you became a new creation in Christ. You were dead spiritually. Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 2:1-3. We were dead, walking according to the lusts of our flesh. We were the walking dead. Before God brought new life to your soul, you had zero response to God. You had no spiritual appetite, smell, or taste, or even hearing. You were dead to God. But God in His rich grace worked mightily, raising Christ from the dead and giving you new life to believe in Christ.
How do you know this is true of you? Through faith! “You were raised up with Him through faith in God’s working.” Do you believe in what the Scriptures say about Christ and that God raised Him from the dead? That faith proves you are in Christ! That faith links you to all that God is for you in His Son. That’s why faith is absolutely necessary. No one goes to heaven without faith in Jesus Christ. No empty philosophy, no social justice teaching, no Marxist philosophy that sets groups of people against each other, no psychology, no liberalism, no ritualism brings you these riches of grace. By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone you have been made complete and you have all you need spiritually; Christ is your all-sufficiency. Don’t even think of looking anywhere else!
You’ve been forgiven in Christ – vv. 13b-14
13b Having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
This is just fantastic truth. The result of your union with Christ is that God has forgiven you. There’s no greater need that sinners have! How many of your transgressions has God forgiven you? All. God has freely, graciously forgiven every sin you ever did or ever will commit in Christ. They are buried in the deepest sea, cast behind God’s back, separated as far as the east is from the west, blotted out, removed. God will never use them against you, ever, forever. Acts 10:43 says clearly, “Everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.”
Did you sin like the devil in your past life? Could you describe thoughts, words, actions that would turn everyone’s face red with embarrassment today? Did you have a secret life hidden from all eyes? God saw them all. God has forgiven every single one of them and will never dredge one of them up and use it against you. You are completely forgiven, forever, in Christ. Christian and Hopeful in Pilgrim’s Progress found themselves in Doubting Castle being threatened by Giant Despair. I’ve had some bouts with Giant Despair in Doubting Castle and promises like this, full, free forgiveness, open those gates and take you out into the joy of God’s forgiveness.
Now watch this. Paul uses several object lessons to teach us what happened to our sins.
First, God cancelled out your certificate of debt you owed to God. You have offended every single command of God if not in deed then in spirit. None of us has lived a life of constant love for God and neighbor. We are all guilty and this certificate of debt is ours, charging us as guilty. How many of you have creditors knocking at your door? Don’t answer that. I worked for Household Finance for a short, very short, while. They sent me out into the villages and hamlets of our area to collect on past due bills. I carried “certificates of debt.” No one was happy to see me. That certificate of debt was hostile to them. Unlike Christ, I wasn’t about to pay it off for them. The law of Moses was hostile to us because it condemned us and threatened us with God’s wrath!
But second, what did God do? He cancelled out your entire debt! He wiped the slate clean of all your sins. He doesn’t leave any smudges. No, your debt is removed. He took it out of the way, bore it away, like the scapegoat in the Old Testament. All outstanding warrants have been removed, thrown into the sea of God’s forgiveness. He’ll never remember your sins against you again!
Third, He nailed it to the cross. Picture Jesus hanging on the cross and all these certificates of debt, yours and mine, were nailed to the cross, to his hands and feet! Millions of them. Every last believer’s certificate was nailed there. Jesus died there, paying our debt! He cried out, “It is finished,” or “Tetelestai,” paid in full. Do you want God’s forgiveness? There’s only one place in the entire universe where you will receive it. The hymn, “It is Well With My Soul,” puts it perfectly.
“My sin–O the bliss of this glorious thought,
My sin–not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”
You are triumphant in Christ – v. 15
When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
This verse takes us into the spiritual realities of what was going on at the cross. This was the war of all wars. The rulers and authorities are demonic hordes, Satan’s minions. F. F. Bruce described the scene like this.
“We can only imagine how Satan and every dark gleeful demon attacked Jesus as He hung on the cross on our behalf, as if He were a guilty sinner. As he was suspended there, bound hand and foot to the wood in apparent weakness, they imagined they had him at their mercy, and flung themselves on him with hostile intent.”
But through the very instrument Satan thought he would destroy Christ, Christ demolished Satan. Here on the cross is where Christ crushed His head! Christ destroyed all Satan’s weapons he uses to terrorize mankind – death and sin and judgment. It’s like Christ hung on that cross holding Satan and his demonic hordes by the scruff of the neck, completely destroying them and all their work against believers. Satan is still running around accusing and deceiving, but he knows his end will be in the lake of fire.
Christ disarmed these spirit beings at the cross. He publicly shamed them, and triumphed over them. His triumph and public display are a picture of a Roman general who conquered the enemy. The General with his family would ride in a chariot pulled by four horses in a triumphal procession displaying publicly all the captured enemies. Christ was triumphant and all the angels in God’s heavens looked on to see the end result of Satan’s rebellion against God. The result was Jesus Christ had disarmed, defeated, conquered, and vanquished the rebellious spirit beings and they were shamed publicly.
Christ is your all-sufficient One. You are complete in Him. If you have Christ, you have everything God has for you. What an amazing story, an amazingly true story as God unites us with His Son and gives us all we need to live for Him and spend eternity with Him.
If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by faith, a faith that has changed your life because of your union with Christ, His forgiveness, and His victory. If you don’t have this, you need Him more than life itself. Through repentance of your sin and faith in Christ, God will unite you to His Son and make you a new creation in Him.
And if you are in Christ, regardless of what your family background, your financial status, your marriage struggles, your depressions and anxieties, all the craziness in your life, YOU HAVE ALL YOU WILL EVER NEED IN CHRIST. Or as Paul says in Romans 8:37, you are more than conquerors through Christ who loved you. Love Him, adore Him, worship Him, grow in Him, obey Him.