Colossians 2:11 - Filthy foreskinned pagans no more!

"...in Whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands in the putting away of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ..." 

-No need for priest or temple or religious ceremony here.  Again, everything we need in order to be accepted by God was accomplished in Christ, and is/was credited to us when we put our trust in Him.

-In this case, Paul mentions circumcision.  In order to be truly [accepted as] one of God’s people, Judaism taught that, among other things, one needed to be circumcised, a physical cutting away of the foreskin, a religious ritual performed by human hands (cf Genesis 17.10-14).  It was in fact a core component of the covenant God made with abraham and the nation which would issue forth from him.  Not only did it delineate the people who had been 'chosen by God', but over the years it developed into a source of religious pride for the Jews, conditioned as they were to equate circumcision with being clean in God's eyes.  All the other nations who were 'uncircumcised' came to be viewed as unclean, filthy foreskinned pagans who were to be avoided in any way possible (cf Acts 10.28, John 4.9).  However, circumcision could only be performed on males, and ultimately it did nothing to effect true spiritual change.  We find early on even among God's people that what is really needed is circumcision of the heart, a cutting away of the 'foreskin' of the heart which is otherwise diabolically devoted to self and sin (Deuteronomy 30.6).  Now, in Christ, and by His Spirit (no hands!) God essentially cuts away a person's entire body of sin (the word means to wholly take it away) - man, woman, child, Jew and Gentile and pagan alike.  In doing so God continues marking out who His people are, albeit not something which could be observed in strictly physical terms.  But all this now happens in and centers on Christ.

Colossians 2:10 - The Ultimate...

"...and you are in Him having been fulfilled, Who is the Head of all rule and authority." 

-See, what we are as Christians, as God’s people, is based and depends entirely on Christ.  In Him we are having been completely filled up.  Everything that we need in order to be accepted by God and to enjoy eternity with Him is found in Christ.  There is nothing and no one we need in life apart from Him, no other hidden knowledge, nothing I need to do or obtain.  There is nothing else which will satisfy or come close to filling the infinite abyss in my heart except for Him.  There is nothing we can do apart from Him.  But in Him, I can do all things, and I have more than enough, both now and forever.  He truly is all we need.

-But Paul adds here that Christ is the Head.  He is over all other sources of power, all other rulers, all those who would purport to lead and instruct and guide.  Whatever power or authority I might think I have or that others might have over me comes from Him.  He is ultimate.  It all comes from Him, and it all goes back to Him.  And if it does not, then something ain’t right, because it should.  Even if it does not, someday it will, it'll all be put right eventually.  But Christ is Head even where He is not acknowledged as such - there is no power given on earth or in heaven which He does not have, which does not ultimately come from Him.  Better by far to point to Him now, to bend my neck and bow my knee freely in this life than to be forced to do so when I stand before Him in eternity.  But those teachers of hidden knowledge in Colossae were not to be listened to if they did not point to Christ.  There is no one else we should ever ultimately look to outside of Christ.

Colossians 2:9 - Poached egg nonsense?

"...since in Him is dwelling all the fullness of deity bodily..."

-Standing in stark contrast to the empty traditions of men, vain philosophies which deceive and ultimately lead people away from a true knowledge of the Creator,  Christ is fully and really God, and thus He is the ultimate reality.  You can trust Him, you can commit your life to Him, you can base your life entirely upon Him.  He is the filter through which we can and should evaluate our lives - our choices, our relationships, our use of time, our values and priorities.  We owe our very existence to Him, and as we will see, we owe our entire salvation to Him.  

-The incarnation is one of those antinomies, those wonderful impossibles, a situation where two things must be true but which for all intensive purposes cannot simultaneously both be true.  There are others, core tenets of the Christian faith.  The trinity is one - God is both three and one.  Another is the wondrous intertwining truths of God’s sovereignty and the free will of man, a both-and.  And this - that the infinite fullness of almighty eternal God would somehow be confined to a finite human body which died.  That is precisely what Paul says here - in the person of Jesus Christ, all the fullness of deity (which is eternal and infinite and spirit, i.e. non-material) inhabits a finite physical body.  He is both fully God and fully man.  Infinite and finite.  Limitless, and yet He is confined.  Eternal and yet He did die.  Utter nonsense, this - incomprehensible and impossible to explain, it becomes foolishness in the fallen mind of man in all his supposed learning and acquired wisdom.  It is a sublime and impenetrable mystery, to be sure, and yet attempts to satisfactorily explain away the seeming contradiction have tended to result in heresy.  The arian focuses on a verse like John 14.28 and suggests that Christ was created, resulting in either a lesser god (essentially polytheism) or simply a man (called modalism or unitarianism - precisely where Jehovah's Witnesses land).  The docetic counters that Christ was purely God and that His body was a separate entity or perhaps only a kind of phantasm.  Yet Scripture again and again clearly presents both, and if the Word of God is true, then both must also be true.  Indeed, rather let God be found true though every man be found a liar.  CS Lewis perhaps puts it best:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”  — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Colossians 2:8 - Watch out!

"Be seeing someone is not the [one] leading you away as booty through the philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ."

-There are a lot of things about which the world and people will try to convince you.  There are a lot of values, priorities, opinions and beliefs which people hold that sound good and even make sense, but they leave no room for the eternal and worse, they leave out Christ.  Anything that puts man first and exalts the things of this world over Christ is likely a waste of time, chasing after the wind. 

-Remember there are three that oppose: the world, the flesh, and the devil.  All three stand in stubborn opposition to the truth and desires of God, and you will often find them doing their level best to lead God’s people astray.  The world, the people of the world, most of them have not yet bent the knee to the God Who made them, all too ready to embrace ideas and traditions which do not necessitate any kind of surrender of the will.  They are rebels still, desperate to get others to join with them in a futile attempt to assuage their guilty conscience.  They love wisdom, particularly when it comes wrapped in pretty, "tolerant" packaging.  Some are directly engaged in the spread of false teaching, twisting Scripture - anything that can somehow get others to join with them and make them feel better about themselves.  Others are merely devoted to causes which will perish, which have no ultimate bearing on eternity, but they try to get others to join in because they have convinced themselves that their cause is of utmost importance.  Some of these causes are legitimately important, to be sure, but none of them are ultimate apart from Christ.  Paul warns his readers to be vigilant, constantly on the lookout against anyone who might be emphasizing anything which would detract from the supremacy of Christ and from full-on white-hot devotion to Him.

-My own flesh is similarly predisposed to resist what God wants and is more than ready to be led down some primrose path, towards something the world values, towards something I’d rather do than what God wants me to do, something temporal and ultimately empty and which literally does next-to-nothing to populate heaven with ardent Christ-worshippers.  I carry that kernel of rebellion in my own body for as long as I live, until that day in heaven when I get a new glorified body.  Many times heaven itself seems only like some distant foggy concept, whereas the here-and-now world is so real, so tangible, so insistent, so much more tantalizing, more compelling.  Here, right now, do this.  Want this.  Care about this.  Devote yourself to this.  This is important - everybody is doing it.  This is true - everybody believes it.  Or seemingly so.  And I thus find myself caring about and believing things which have little or nothing to do with Christ and becoming more like Him.  I must be constantly vigilant to take every thought captive to the obedience and devotion of Christ (2Corinthians 10.5).

-And when it comes to matters of deceit, of captive minds and imprisoned souls, of lofty ideas rasied against the knowledge of God and of outright rebellion against Him, the devil is peerless, without equal.  A liar from the beginning, the original rebel, challenging the supremacy of God and trying desperately to take His place, he was cast down from heaven to rule the world (albeit temporarily) and is now literally hell-bent on holding prisoner as many people as possible, complicit in his rebellion against the primacy and purposes and plans of God (2Timothy 2.26).  Whether in the form of outright opposition against what God wants, against the things of God and His people, or in the guise of things which are morally neutral but which have the appearance of something good and important, the devil and his host of fallen angels are relentless in their scheming to lead people astray from pure and simple devotion to Christ (cf Luke 4.13, Ephesians 6.11, 1Peter 5.8, 2Corinthians 11.3).  We neglect (or deny) his efforts and very existence to the detriment of our souls and to that of the Church itself.  Watch out!  Christ first, Christ better, better than anything or anyone, first in my heart - led no one or no thing lead you astray from that!

Colossians 2:7 - The Amazonian River of Gratitude

"...having been rooted and being built up in Him and being confirmed to the faith just as you were taught, overflowing in thanksgiving." 

-'Being confirmed’ here is to cause something to be known as certain.  In this case, we are talking about the verification of these Colossians faith, that they have truly trusted in and are following Jesus.  The most direct sign of this will be overflowing thanksgiving.  Yes, the surest sign that a person is following Christ is a heart of gratitude.  When things are good, most assuredly, but also and particularly when things go wrong.  When things don’t happen the way I wanted.  Even when I don’t get my preference.  In persecution and hardship and illness and poverty - there is irrepressible joy and hope and peace which eclipse the human experience and defy any earthly explanation.  Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail are perfect illustrations of this (Act 16.22-25).  They had been publicly humiliated, severely beaten and unjustly imprisoned - and yet deep into the night, they were singing.  And no dirge, this - their hearts were full of praise to God.  Theirs was a contagion that spread thru the prison to the other prisoners, to the jailer and his entire family, throughout the city and the region and beyond, infectious gratitude flowing out of true faith.  Yes, thanksgiving overflowed out of their hearts, it was unnatural, unearthly, and it was uncontainable.   The heart of the redeemed is an amazonian river of gratitude, flowing wide and strong and washing over its banks with regularity.  Or should be...

Colossians 2:6 - 100% Faith, 100% Grace

"Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, in Him be walking..." 

-The simple point here is that Paul wants these folks who have put their faith in Christ for their salvation to continue to do so for their sanctification.  Man cannot achieve salvation and forgiveness of sins on his own, it is something which is impossible apart from the grace and work of God.  He is similarly unable to effect any subsequent development of godliness or Christ-likeness on his own.  Every inch of spiritual progress towards heaven must gained by faith - trusting in Christ Jesus the Lord to do the heavy lifting.  It's all by faith, 100%.

-Now, at a deeper level it is possible to peel away and peer into some layers of what is involved in receiving Christ that also applies to continually walking with Him.  Yes, there is faith (Colossians 1.4).  And there is the Word of truth (Colossians 1.5) - saving faith comes through hearing the Word of Christ (Romans 10.17), but there can be no good progress in walking after Christ without continued hearing of and trusting in God’s Word (we’ll see this addressed further in Colossians 2.20-23 and 3.16).  There is hope in heaven (Colossians 1.5) - a transfer and shifting of desires and expectations from the things of earth, the temporary goals and passing pleasures of this life, and setting them on the things of heaven, on the pleasures and goals of those things which will outstrip and outlast our brief sojourn on a broken planet.  There is also the understanding of grace (Colossians 1.6) - again, this realization that there is nothing I can do to earn favor with God or make progress towards any spiritual goal, neither as it relates to securing a place in eternity nor as it relates to experiencing and manifesting more of the eternal in this life.  Anything that comes to me of a divine spiritual nature is a undeserved gift from God.  All of it, 100%.  We are saved by grace through faith, and we continue in that same vein.  We walk with Christ each day, moment by moment, by grace through faith.  And as much as anything else there is also Lordship involved in both receiving and walking with Christ, a surrendering to Jesus as King and Lord and Master.  Ours is no mere easy-believism which takes hold of an offer of salvation without a transfer of life-ownership, without a shifting of goals and desires and focus, without a surrender of my wants and desires to those of my new Owner.  To have faith in Christ is to be owned by Him.  I have been set free, yes, but I have been bought with a price, with His precious blood, and I am no longer master of my domain.  I belong to Him, and I live for Him, this One Who died for me and rose again for me, each and every day, more and more as I walk by faith, get to know Him and increasingly hope in heaven.  I am free indeed, free to be a slave of Jesus Christ every day, and increasingly I live to do what He wants.

Colossians 2:5 - A heavenly phalanx

"For if even to the flesh i am absent, but rather to the spirit with you i am, rejoicing and seeing of you the order and the firmness of the faith unto Christ of you [all]." 

-Separation and distance are never ultimate deal breakers when it comes to blessing and encouraging others to know and follow Jesus, to help them keep going.  Words ascend to heaven in an instant, and on earth retain their potency even over great distances, especially with the advances in technology and the advent of social media in our wireless digital age.  What’s more, Christ-followers journey in the realm of the Spirit.  Space is transcend able.  Paul says he actually sees how these believers are doing, even though he has never been to Colossae.  In his spirit he is with them.  Thus we see that the words of the believer are loaded with potential even when one is not physically present.

-The words Paul uses here to describe their faith in Christ are used in military contexts.  Most likely the image he’s picturing is a phalanx, a military unit that is marching together, line upon line, precise, orderly, shields up and overlapping, a solid, impenetrable, indomitable force.  Our English translation here can conjure up notions of conservatively trying to maintain the status quo, of being on the defensive and not losing ground.  But the actual imagery is that of believers being on the offensive, of conquering the forces of darkness and taking spiritual ground in their lives and in those of neighbors and nations.  These believers faith and growth in Christ were inseparably linked to their connectedness and healthy functioning within an assembly of other Christ-followers.  It is important to note that the effectiveness of a phalanx is dependent on each and every member of the group.  God's people need one another, and need every member to pull their own weight, to carry out their God-given calling and ministry (cf Ephesans 4.16).  Even just a single gap in the line could adversely affect the effectiveness of the formation.  But apparently the believers in Colossae were doing well in this regard and for Paul this was a cause for rejoicing, even in the midst of his suffering.

Colossians 2:4 - Word up...

'This I am saying, in order that no one may be deceiving you in persuasive word."

-One typically does not wake up one day and suddenly embrace a lie or follow some pied piper down the primrose path.  Deceit tends to happen more slowly, gradually.  persuasion generally takes time.  But the lie as well as the argument are borne on the wings of words.  The Greek word logos appears three times in various forms in this verse.  It is the words to which we expose ourselves, the ones we hear, read, and begin to repeat that profoundly influence what we will one day believe (and then begin to do), and thus who we become.  Paul knew that our hearts and minds need a steady diet of truth, the truth about Jesus.  And so in this letter he is intent on giving his readers a massive dose.

-Let there be light.  I love you.  I hate you.  I forgive you.  You are special.  You are worthless.  I want you.  Chicken.  What, are you afraid?  You look fat.  You are ugly.  You are beautiful.  I’m sorry.  I do.  I am with you always.  I am for you.  Did God really say...?  Kill the infidels.  Love your enemies.  Love one another.  Please.  Thank you.  Yes, words are powerful things.  They can guide, heal, wound, deceive, build up, spur on,entice, cast doubt.  The gift of speech was given to man alone (apart from the angels) as the pinnacle of God’s creation, made in the image of this One Who USED WORDS to make the universe.  The words we say and to which we listen and pay attention profoundly influence how we feel and what we do and who we are and what we become.  As well as what we believe.

-Words.  Indeed, they are powerful.  Spoken words, written words.  For example, words of blessing from a dad can make a young man, and yet how many men have never heard their dad say ‘I love you’ or ‘I am proud of you’?  How many men today are walking wounded, carrying around daddy wounds that they received from wounded dads, shut down, silent and/or abusive, distant, disengaged, angry, hurting and hurting others.  The silence of Adam did more than allow Eve to eat the forbidden fruit - his sons continue the legacy and daily deprive those around them of words of life.  It does take more than words of course to make a difference, to wound someone, to encourage, to impart healing and forgiveness, but words are key.

-Paul knew this.  He knew the power of the logos.  And so even tho he was confined to using the written word, he knew the importance of the words he employed on behalf of these believers.  Words were being used to try and persuade these believers to believe something different about Jesus and about how to follow Him.  He understood that eternal consequences (Colossians 3.24-25) and the glory of God (Colossians 3.17) were at stake!  And he knew that words were the way to win the day - words of intercession spoken to God in prayer and words of truth and exhortation communicated in this letter.  In fact this is exactly what he will relate in the last two imperatives of this letter.  He will tell his readers to make the most of their words, to devote themselves to prayer (Colossians 4.2-4) and to make the most of their God-given oppportunities to influence others.  With their words (Colossians 4.5-6). 

Colossians 2:3 - THE Treasure above all treasures

"...in Whom are all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge." 

-To be sure, all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Jesus.  There is no hidden knowledge to be found outside of Him.  Those gnostics were wasting their time.  We can and should and must make it our goal to simply get to know Him, to follow Him, to pursue Him, to learn all we can about Him.  Because He IS the Treasure.  He is THE Treasure above all treasures.  He is God incarnate, fully God and yet fully man.  He died, and yet He lives forever at God’s right hand.  He was tempted like us, experienced brokenness and hardship like us, yet He never gave in and He never gave up.  During His time on earth He lived perfectly into what God wanted, and now while He is seated in heaven He also lives inside each one of those whose heart is fully His, recreating and manifesting His life - His love, His goodness, His holiness - in and through His people.  He changed history, and He changes hearts, redeeming our pasts, our presents, and our futures in order to show off His breathtaking goodness.  He made the universe, and He made each and every person, unique, special, marvelous and wonderful, beautiful and beloved.  To know Him, to come to trust and fear and love Him is the beginning of knowledge, the fountainhead of true wisdom.  He is Jesus, the Christ, God’s Messiah, and there is no better Name, no one else...

Colossians 2:2 - All we need is love. And Jesus.

"...in order that their hearts should be encouraged, having been brought together in love and unto all wealth of the full assurance of understanding, unto a full knowledge of the mystery of God, of Christ..." 

-So the goal, the desired outcome of Paul’s agonizing and praying is for believers to be encouraged.  The word is parakaleo, to comfort, console, encourage, urge on, implore, exhort.  The gist is that people are helped to follow through or keep going as a result of someone bringing this parakaleo to bear in their lives.  Paul wants to help these believers to keep going, for them to continue in the faith and to be following hard after Jesus wherever He leads for the rest of their lives (Acts 14.22, 16.40, 20.1-2, 1Thessalonians 2.11).  In fact, this is what Paul does - the consummate encourager (and of course he had a great teacher, cf Acts 4.36, 9.27).  Parakaleo appears over and over throughout his letters - he is constantly exhorting and encouraging people to keep going, doing whatever he can towards that end, laboring in prayer leading by example, and then he urges others to be doing the same (Ephesians 6.22, 1Thessalonians 3.2, 5.11). 

-Now, do you know what is fundamentally needed in order for people to keep going?  Love.  That’s what Paul says here.  And it is not Paul’s love for them, but rather the experience of God’s love in community - the amazing everlasting love of God that is found within and through the fellowship of God’s people.  God - no doubt by His Spirit - joins the hearts of His people together with the love that He has for them and gives them that same love for one another.  It’s the experience of this sacrificial giving love that helps them keep going no matter what form of opposition or hardship they might be enduring.

-The other thing that helps them keep going is growing in their understanding of Jesus.  These believers were actually being confronted with some of the teachings of gnosticism, a movement which claimed to pursue and to have found hidden knowledge about the mysterious things of God.  Paul’s letter is an attempt in part to counter this claim of hidden knowledge, and to affirm that the beginning and the end of the Christian life (and everything in between) is Jesus.  To be sure, God is a mystery to some, but He has shown Himself to the world through Jesus Christ, and reveals everything we need to know about Him through the Word of Christ and the Spirit of Christ, Who lives inside every true believer.  No hidden knowledge here, but buried treasure awaits, an inexhaustible supply of life-changing world-changing truth ready to be gleaned by those who make it their goal to know and understand Jesus.

"...to live is Christ... More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings..." -Paul in Philippians 1.21, 3.8-10

Colossians 2:1 - Blessed agony

"For I want you [all] to have known how great an agony I am having on behalf of you [all] and the [ones] in Laodicea and as many as have not seen my face in flesh..."

-Paul has never even met these believers.  Yet he is agonizing over them.  Every man complete in Christ - that is his stated purpose, the goal to which he is giving his all.  To that end he is fully aware that he can even make an eternal difference in the lives of those he doesn’t know through the multiplied impact of his disciples and especially through prayer (cf Colossians 4.12, Luke 22.44).  Yes, in person he was preaching and proclaiming in order to build people up towards perfection.  And of course Paul was gifted and called to do this.  But preaching has its limitations.  Paul was not physically in Colossae - he had never even been there.  But prayer knows no such limits - it has no boundaries.  Everyone can make a difference in the lives of others through prayer.  Remember that Paul says he has not ceased to be praying for these who he has never even met (Colossians 1.3, 1.9-11).  In studying this letter, it is not possible to overstate the primary place prayer has in Paul’s life and ministry (Colossians 4.2-3, 4.12).  HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU THINK PAUL SPENT IN PRAYER EACH DAY?  He who would serve Christ who has not learned to pray - to agonize in prayer - still has much to learn...

-’When you pray... Keep watching and praying... While He was praying (heaven was opened, He was transformed), they were continually devoting themselves to prayer, after they prayed the house was shaken, we will devote ourselves to prayer, pray at all times, in everything by prayer, praying always for you, we have not ceased to pray for you, devote yourselves to prayer, we night and day keep praying most earnestly, pray without ceasing, pray for us, we pray for you always, I urge that entreaties prayers petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, entreaties and prayers night and day, I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, I thank my God always making mention of you in my prayers, the energized prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer...’  HOW WOULD YOU SUMMARIZE THIS COLLECTION OF NEW TESTAMENT PHRASES?  WHAT DO WE LEARN ABOUT PRAYER FROM THEM?

-Prayer is a struggle, yes, but beyond prayer, the Gospel life itself is a kind of agony, a blessed agony, this (a bit like a marathon).  It is a struggle unending against self, against the forces of darkness, against a world bent on not bending its collective knees to its Maker.  It is a fight to be fought well, like the apostle Paul before us (1Timothy 6.12, 2Timothy 4.7).  It is a cause worthy of our every last breath, our last ounce of strength and then some.  Yet in spending ourselves in it’s cause, for Jesus’ sake, we actually find ourselves.  There is renewal, hope, incomprehensible peace and unspeakable joy...