Complete in Christ
Colossians 2:10-15
We have the privilege tonight of continuing in our series in Colossians. So if you'll take your bible and look with me in Colossians chapter 2, verse 10 we'll get a start on what is a tremendous, tremendous portion of scripture. Colossians 2:10‑15. I am going to read it to you so you have it in your mind and get the total impact of It. Colossians 2:10, "And you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power and whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Buried with him in baptism in which also you are risen with him through the operation of God who hath raised Him from the dead, and you being dead in your sins in the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his cross and having spoiled principalities and powers he made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it." Now that passage is so loaded with theology and doctrine that it just oozes out of every phrase. And we are going to endeavor to at least get a careful overview of all that is here.
In our continuing study of Colossians we have been made aware as we have gone verse by verse that the apostle Paul in making repeatedly a tremendous statement regarding the person of Jesus Christ and his ability to save, and that is no less true in this section. Although this section is a rebuttal against the false philosophies and heresies which are right at the door step of the Colossians. As a rebuttal it comes out very positive, because Paul's approach against false systems is always the positive approach. You don't need to argue against the falsity of the system if you just present the truth of Jesus Christ, and that is precisely what he is doing as he argues against human philosophy.
Do you remember last time we began by looking at verses 8 & 9 and we saw that Paul says, "Beware, lest anybody spoil you through philosophy which is vain deceit." But Paul is here arguing against the four facets of the false heresy that was attacking the Colossians. And facet #1 was as heresy had as part of it human philosophy. And so Paul in digging into that, and in the midst of that he gets into this concept of who Christ is and what Christ can do and the idea is that you don't need any human philosophy, you don't need any human wisdom, you are complete in him. That's the great truth that he is signaling there in verse 10.
Now in order to introduce our thoughts tonight I want to just kind of draw your attention to something else other than this passage, and it in the healings of our Lord. Because I think the healing of our Lord illustrate a great principle relative to salvation, so take your bible and let's go back to the beginning of the New Testament in the book of Matthew. And I want to see if you all by yourself without making, me making much editorial comment, can pick out of the verses that I read to you a consisting pattern or principle. Matthew chapter 9, I am going to go pretty quickly so, there that's better.
Matthew 9:22, there went 42 tabs on the floor, I saw them. 9:22, "Jesus turned about and when he saw her he said," and I am going to, read you just the way the Old English has it because the translation I think given the complete meaning of the word. "Daughter be of good comfort thy faith hath made thee whole, and the woman was made whole from that hour." Matthew 12:13, "Then saith he to the man, stretch forth thine hand and he stretched it forth and it was restored whole like the other." Matthew 15:28, "Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great in thy faith, be it unto thee then as thou wilt, and her daughter was made whole from that very hour." Verse 31, "Insomuch that the multitude wondered when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, the blind to see, and they glorified the God of Israel." The gospel of Mark, chapter 3, verse 5. "And when he had looked around about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, stretch forth thine hand, and he stretched it out and his hand was restored whole as the other." Mark 5, verse 28, "For she said if I may touch but his clothes I shall be whole." Verse 34, he said, "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace and be whole of the plague." Luke 6:10, "And looking round about on them, he said, stretch forth thy hand, he did so and his hand was restored whole like the other." Seventh chapter, 10th verse, "They that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole, that had been sick." Luke 8:48, I know you are seeing a pattern here, very obvious. Luke 8:48, he said, "Daughter give good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace." And further on in the 17th chapter of Luke, the 19th verse he said to him, "Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole." The gospel of John, no less a part of this same thought pattern. John 5:6, "Jesus said to him, wilt thou to made whole?" Verse 14, "Behold, thou art made whole." Verse 15, "Jesus had made him whole." John 7:23, "If a man on a Sabbath day receives circumcision that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with me because Ihave made a man whole on the Sabbath." And the new Scoffield has the clear meaning of that, it says, "entirely well on the Sabbath." Whole.
Now you have the same thing carried out in apostolic miracles as well. In Acts 4:9, "If we this day be examined of the good deed done to theimpotent man, by what means he is made whole. Be it known unto you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom youcrucified, whom God raised fromthe dead, even by him, doth this man stand here before you whole." You'll find it again in Acts 9:34, Peter said, "Anias, Jesus Christ makes thee whole, arise, make your bed, and he rose immediately."
Now what you see in all of those passages is the consistency in the styleof healing that Jesus did. When Jesus healed somebody he made them what, whole, entirely well, no missing parts. Now there are some synonyms used in those various things, but the dominant term inthe word hugiai, from which we get the medical word hygiene. And it means healthy. Jesus made them well, healthy,sound. The best translation, 'entirely well'. the absence of any infirmities. Now listen, and we are going to see more about this next Sunday morning. All the healing miracles of Jesus made people completely healthy.There was no progression involved. They were whole instantly.
Now you say, "What in the world doesthat have to do with Colossians 2?" Just this, it serves at least in my mind, and I trust in yours, and a beautiful picture of the way Jesus heals spiritually.If Jesus heals physical illness and makes people entirely whole, then that is precisely what is meant by the apostle Paul In chapter 2, verse 10 when he says, "and ye are complete inHim." You can put the word 'whole' in there. Just as Jesus Christ did miracles ofhealing that made people entirely well, so when Jesus touches a life spirituallyand gives salvation, it is entire salvation, it in whole salvation. That person becomes spiritually entirely well. In fact if you want to choose another Pauline term, "if any man bein Christ, he is a," what, "new creation."I meanthat is brand new wholeness.
Now this is nothing new. God has always done that. when David cried out in the midst of his sin in Psalm 51:10 he knew what God would do, and he said "God create in me a", what, "a clean heart." Whole, no spot, no blemish. When God acts, against sin in his saving grace, there is a wholeness. In Ezekiel 11:19, "I will give them one heart, I will put a new spirit within you, I will take stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heartof flesh," and that is repeated laterin Ezekiel and you know. God says, a new heart, a new soul as it were. A new clean inside so that spiritual healing which is salvation, is as whole as is the physical. In John 1:16, it's a great statement. He is talking here about Christ, and John the Baptist says this, "Of his fullness have all we received." When you were saved you received of Christ's what, fullness. You receive the fullness of Christ; the wholeness of Christ became your wholeness, so that somebody who becomes a Christian is spiritually whole, and that's Paul's whole standard here. That's his whole point here.
He is trying to say to these people, look when you receive Christ, you were made whole. A healthy man doesn't need anymore medicine. You don't need human philosophy, you don't need Jewish legalism, you don't need strange pagan mysticism, you don't need abstaining aestheticism, you don't need anything when you receive Christ and his salvation. You were made whole, and that's his point. And John says here, John the Baptist in John 1:16, "Of his fullness have all we received and grace for grace." In Galatians at the end in the 6th chapter in the 15th verse he says, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision," listen, "but a new creation." Same as II Corinthians 5:17, "a new creation." Listen to II Peter 1:3, "According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness." You say, "But when do you get that?" Next phrase, "through the knowledge of him." When do you come to know Christ? At salvation. Then when do you get all things pertaining to life and godliness? The moment you believe in Christ.
And so I say if we can say the miracles of Jesus made people whole we can also say the spiritual transformation is salvation, makes them just as whole spiritually. So that when you become a Christian you are a clean heart, a new heart, a new spirit, a soundness, a wholeness. You have become spiritually well and you don't need to add anything to that, nothing. Not legalism, aestheticism, mysticism or hum" philosophy.
Now let's look at Colossians 2:10. Colossians 2:10 says, "and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power." Literally it says you have been made full. You have been made full in him. There is nothing missing. Christ fills you up. There aren't any other things to add to that. You have been made full with the fullness of him who fills all in all. Human philosophy based on the traditions of men as verse 8 says and the elementary marks of infantile human religion has nothing to add to what is already completed. When Jesus died on the cross the last thing he said is, "It is finished." and when he said it he meant it; not only in terms of his own deed, but in terms of securing the fullness of salvation by that deed. "And this one who rules all principality and power," that is all other beings, all created authorities, all created rulers, particularly referring here to the angelic ones. He rules them all. They have nothing to add to his work. These people who are influencing the Colossians are dead wrong. You don't need to get to God through a series of intermediary aons or angels. Listen good angels can't help make you complete, and bad angels can't harm you once you are complete.
And so Paul deals a blow to the heresy of human philosophy and religion which tries to deny that Christ has the power to give complete salvation. And we have discussed that enough to know that that was the basic heresy they were facing. The Colossians who have in Jesus Christ the fountain that never fails would be fools to listen to these false teachers who would have them hue out broken cisterns that hold no water. You don't need philosophy and you need angelic intermediaries. Christ in the completer. He makes anything he touches whole. All his healing miracles, whether physical or spiritual, instantaneous and complete these two things of physical and spiritual salvation are brought together I think beautifully in a statement of III John.
Verse 2. It's kind of tucked away there. This is kind of beautiful really. John in writing to his beloved Gayus whom he loved in the truth and he says in verse 2. Watch this, this is beautiful, "Beloved," beloved Gayus, "I wish above all things, that thou mayest prosper and be in health." Now watch this, "even as thy soul is healthy." He says, oh Gayeus, if your physical body could only be an healthy as your soul, would you be in terrific shape. Bow what's the implication? The implication is that because the guys is a believer, his soul prospers, his soul is healthy. Now sin plays a part in the practical aspect of this, but positionally a soul is healthy. And John is simply saying if your body could only know the health that your soul knows. Back to Colossians 2, "you're complete in him, you have been made complete."
Now what does that mean? You say, "Well what do you mean John when you say complete, complete what?" "What is the definition of that completeness" Well Paul can't just say it either, so he has got a preach a sermon on it just like I would. He's got to explain it, so he does in the nextverses and he shown you three ways in which you are complete. These are just basic, beautiful thing. Three ways, three kinds of completeness, three aspects to our completeness. #1, complete salvation, #2, complete forgiveness, and#3, complete victory. Complete salvation, verses 11 & 12, complete forgiveness, verses 13 & 14, complete victory in verse 15.
Let's look first of all at the complete salvation. How are we complete Paul? #1, your salvation incomplete, verse 14 "In when you also are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision‑of Christ, buried with him in baptism in which also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who has raised him from the dead."
Now we'll look at this. He says, "Look, your salvation is absolutely complete. There is no need for you to be circumcised, you have been baptized." Now remember, the heresy which the apostle in combating is the somewhat baffling mixture of the pagan beliefs of these various intermediaries and Jewish beliefs of legalism. And along with it they are trying to propagate the idea that you have to be circumcised, and this isn't anything new, the Judaizers did it in Galatia didn't they? So that's fine that you believe. That's wonderful thatyou believe but you have to get circumcised, you have to have this operation, surgical salvation. And he says, "look," verse 11, "in whomalso you are circumcised." Don't let anybody come along, whuff you about some circumcision. You have been circumcised. Oh really, how? How could these Colossian gentiles be circumcised with the circumcision made without hands?
We are not talking about surgery here, we're talking about putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision which Christ did. We're talking about a spiritual operation not a physical one. And all through the history of Israel there were two views of circumcision. Every little Hebrew boy was circumcised the eighth day after he was born and that was the sign of his belonging to the nation of Israel. And it became a controversial thing and there were two schools of thought on it. One, there was the view that circumcision in, itself was enough to save. Surgical salvation If you just got circumcised you were in the covenant people and that was it. The physical in all that was required and you know many in the history of the church picked that up and that's whoreinfant baptism came from. You just baptize all the babies, that was Constantine's idea. we'll make everybody a Christian, we'll just get all the babies and baptize them and they'll be instant Christians. And the Israelite believing this would argue it didn't matter whether an Israelite is good, it didn't matter whether he was bad, all it mattered was that he was circumcised.
That was the typical view of the Jews in Jesus' day, the typical view of the Jewish leaders of Paul's day as well. That's why in Romans, chapter 2 and verse 25 he says, "circumcision profits if you keep the law." It's fine if you keep the law, but if you break the law circumcision is just like uncircumcision. My Dad used to always tell the story about the fighter that went in and before every fight he crossed himself. And the says, "does it help?" Somebody else said, "It does if he can punch." If he can't it won't do him any good at all. Same thing with circumcision. If you keep the law it's fine, if you don't it doesn't help. Therefore he says, even if the uscircumcision keeps the righteous in the law," in other words people who haven't had the operation, obey the law.
That'll be like being circumcised. They'll move into the covenant blessing. Verse 28, "He is not a Jew who is won outwardly, neither is that circumcision outward in the flesh, he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart. You see that's what we are getting at, but this was the typical Jewish view that if you just had the external operation you were in good shape. But there was another view. And there were some true spiritual Jews, there were some remnants all through Israel's history, and they believed that circumcision was only an outward mark of a man inwardly committed to God. And they believed right. They believed that it just realty was simply a symbol on the outside, and what really mattered was the heart. And this had always been what God told them anyway. You can go clear back to Exodus when God was first laying down the rules. Exodus 6:12, "Moses spoke before the Lord saying the children of Israel have not harkened to me, how then shall Pharaoh hear me who have of uncircumcised lips." And here you see Moses at the very beginning is using the concept of uncircumcision in a metaphorical sense, showing that what God is really after, God is really, after, is somebody who has a circumcised heart. That is heart dedicated to God, circumcised lips, lips dedicated to God, not simply the act of surgery on a child. But that the real issue was the heart. In Leviticus 26, I think it is verse 41 and, "that I also have walked contrary unto them andbrought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised heart be humbled and then they accept of the punishment of their iniquity." God is talking to them. He says, they are uncircumcised hearts, and that is always what God has been after. He has always been after the fact that the heart would be set apart unto him and that that outward sign was simply a symbol of that. In verse 7 of Ezekiel 44, "Uncircumcised in heart, uncircumcised in flesh, are drawn on two different things." That's exactly what God has been saying all along. You can check Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, and Jeremiah 6:10 you find the same thing.
Now we know then what physical circumcision was, but here in Colossians 2:11, it says, "you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands." You have had a special circumcision. What is it? It is the cutting away of the body of the sins of the flesh. When you became a Christian, Christ out away everythingsinful from your life. The cutting away of the sinful things. Now I want you to stay with me because I don't want you to extract out of that till I am done.
In Romans chapter 4 in verse 11 it says, "And he received the sign of circumcision." Abraham, "a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had yet being uncircumcised." You know people say, "well Abraham was circumcised," yeah 14 years after he believed God and was saved. So circumcision didn't save him. He was circumcised as a sign of a righteous heart, and that's the message. And what is true circumcision? Listen to me. It is cutting away everything from the life but the will of God. And Paul's message in Colossians 2:11 is this, it is the spiritual surgery, the cutting away of self and sin, and only Christ can do that. I love the New International Version translation of verse 11, this is what it says, "In him you are also circumcised in the putting off of your sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with a circumcision done by Christ." What kind of circumcision? The putting off of your sinful nature. When you became a Christian your old nature was taken away and you became a new creature with a new nature. Ok?
Now listen, any old priest or any old anybody can circumcise a man's foreskin, but only Christ can circumcise a man's heart, and that means cut away the old sin nature. So, Christian he says, you don't need any right of circumcision. You have received from Christ a spiritual surgery of which that old right was only a picture and a symbol. You know you look at that symbol in the Old Testament, it's kind of interesting. It pictured the removal of sin, and listen to me, and by it's association with the organ of generation it stressed the sin inherit of our fallen nature as the offspring of Adam. But even the Old Testament constantly emphasizes that an inward change is the real issue. The insistence in the Old Testament, check it out, Jeremiah 4:4, Jeremiah 9:25, it says it there. The insistence is that the inwardness, the heart be circumcised. But that picture, and the fact that it is the organ that produces life, it must be circumcised, pictures the influence of that old sin nature on the next generation, how it's passed down. And so the actual form of the right emphasizes that it was human nature that needed to be dealt with, that it was prodigy that was the problem, that it was a thing being passed on from father to son to son to son, and all the way down the line and that this nature had to be dealt with.
You say, "are you trying to tell me that when you become a Christian God takes away the old nature?" Yes I believe that. I believe it. I believe he gives you a new nature, all new, brand new, and that's what he is talking about in verse 11. Look what he says. "This in made without hands," and what is it, "putting off the body of the sins of the flesh." You say, but wait a minute John, if we have had our fallen nature put away, if we have put off the body of the sins of the flesh, human nature and it's fallen condition, and we have a new nature, how come we still sin," right? Fair question. The answer is this, because you not only have a new nature but you have an old body. You have a new inside and an old outside. Look with me at Romans 7.
First sermon I ever preached at Grace Church , I was preaching here, I didn't know it at the time, but they were going to talk to me about being the pastor, I preached on Romans 7, never forget it. Afterwards they told me I preached an hour and twenty minutes. So they knew what, they were getting long ago. Romans 7:15, great chapter. Paul says, "For that which I do I understand not, for what I would that do I not, and what I hate that do I." Sounds like me, right? Sounds like me. "If then I do that which I don't want to do I consent to the law that it is good."
Now then "it is no more I that do it but sin that dwells, in me." He says, look, it is not my new nature doing this , it in the old flesh that is in me. I know verse 18, "that in me that is not in my new nature but in my flesh dwells no good thing." He makes a distinction, verse 20, "If I do that I would not, it is no more I. it is not my new nature, it is sin that dwells in me" "I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me, I delight in the law of God after my inward man." He says, my new nature just loves God. My new nature wants to do all kinds of good things. My new nature wants to obey God. My new nature wants to respond to God, but I see another principle, verse 23, "in my members, warring against the, law and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my," what, "mymembers." The law of God is in my what, mind, but sin is my members.
The new nature that is in me h