We begin our study with a review of Colossians 2:8 and the warning of Paul about the dangers of philosophy and deceitful ideas that are empty of real value and human traditions and other ideas that conflict with the Christian faith and pull us away from Christ our Savior.
This does not mean that we cannot read philosophy or study various moral and cultural ideas. I used the example of an ancient Chinese proverb that warns of the danger of pride and the value of modesty and humility. There...
We begin our study with a review of Colossians 2:8 and the warning of Paul about the dangers of philosophy and deceitful ideas that are empty of real value and human traditions and other ideas that conflict with the Christian faith and pull us away from Christ our Savior.
This does not mean that we cannot read philosophy or study various moral and cultural ideas. I used the example of an ancient Chinese proverb that warns of the danger of pride and the value of modesty and humility. There are many such good ideas in many cultures. The problem is that we do not do well living up to these good ideas, whatever they are (because, Christians say, of our sinfulness and our sinful nature). All of us have trouble at times with pride and with being humble, for example. As a result, various people have come up with ideas of what we need to do. We need to try harder to live a higher level of life. We need to focus on spiritual life and get away from the physical and deny physical pleasures to ourselves. We need lots of reincarnations - living a lot of different lives where we hopefully work our way up to being the right person (sort of like the weatherman in Groundhog Day, if you have ever seen that movie). We need to be humanists - forget God and just focus on human beings and human progress and improving our personal lives. And on and on.
All of these ideas are wrong ideas because they contradict Scripture and because they focus on us and our efforts to be the perfect person who always does the right thing. We can and should try to do better in our lives. But because of sin and our sinful nature and the sinful world we live in, with other sinful people all around us, we can never measure up no matter what the standard is - even the standard of God. If we want to be acceptable to God by our own efforts, we have to be perfect (Matthew 5:48, Galatians 3:10, James 2:10, etc.) None of us can do that.
Our Christian hope is not in ourselves, but in God and His mercy and grace for us, in sending His only Son to do in our place what we cannot do. That is why Paul keeps pointing us to Christ Jesus. Three times in Colossians 2:9-11, Paul says that our hope is “in Him” - in Jesus. As Paul had said in Colossians 1:19 and here, “in Him the whole fullness of Deity dwells” - and “dwells bodily.” Jesus was truly and fully God, capable of helping us as only God can, and yet also a true man with a real body, who could live as we do, and yet do it without the sins we commit. The Son of God, “the Word, became flesh“ (John 1:1-14). “He was manifested in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:15). He lived in that flesh from conception and birth through His whole life and death on the cross and the resurrection of His body and His bodily ascension into heaven and still today. “In Him the fullness of Deity dwells (present tense ) bodily.” “And you have been filled in Him," Paul says (v.10).
Everything we really need we receive in Him, the God-man Who came for us. We don’t need to look for anything more, for real spiritual fulfillment. Our whole person is important to God. Even though we die, we look forward to being with Christ in heaven and even for the resurrection of our body when Jesus returns on the last day. This is very different from so many human philosophies and ideas, that the soul is good, but the physical body is evil. Even now, Jesus is described as “the Head” (v.10) and we are connected to Him, members of His body of believers, the church, by faith in Him. See Ephesians 4:10-16. Jesus Christ is our “Head," and he is the “Head" (Ruler) of all rule and authority” (v.10) - both human and supernatural, as we shall hear more of in the verses that follow.
In v.11, then, Paul begins to talk about a “circumcision” we have all received “in Him” - in Christ, “made without hands” - and ties it in with our baptism, as we shall see next week in verses 12 and 13. For now, just look at Genesis 17:10-14, for God instituting circumcision for all Jewish males, at 8 days of age, to be part of His chosen people. If they are not circumcised they are not part of the people of God (v.14). See also Deuteronomy 10:14-16. Many of the circumcised people rebelled against God and began to worship a “golden calf” (chapter 9), instead of worshipping only the one true God. They have shattered God's First Commandment and are called to repentance. They need a “circumcised heart," God says (Deuteronomy 10:16).
We need a new heart and new spirit, too, through Baptism, as we will hear next week.
