07 - Don't Get Robbed 2011

Last time we saw that we are to be “rooted” and “built up” in Christ Jesus. As go the roots, so goes the fruit. We are rooted! Built up! Established! Overflowing! Taught! And thankful in Him! This paints a picture of the abundant life God promised.

Next, Paul takes a direct shot at the claim of Gnosticism to have “secret knowledge” that saves the soul:

“See to it that nobody spoils you with philosophy and vain deceit, which conform to human traditions and the way the world thinks and acts rather than Christ.”—vs.8

The word “spoil” means “goods stolen in a time of war.” Paul is saying, “Don’t allow you yourself to be taken captive and stolen away by the enemy in a time of spiritual war.” Spoil can also be a term used for kidnapping or the plundering of a house. Look out lest someone robs you! says Paul.

This is the menace of false teaching. Those who persuade people to abandon truth for error are seducers and robbers! How were the Colossians (and all Christians) in danger of being robbed?

Through philosophy and vain deceit, or as one commentator put it, “through intellectualism and high sounding nonsense.”

God’s view of men’s philosophies is that they are vain and based in pride. They are vain because they don’t lead men to Him. They are based in pride because they do not seek to give God the glory for creation or truth.

In Romans 1 we are told that when men turned from God to false idols, the mark of their turning was, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him…”vs.21

And when they refused to give God glory or to thank Him, the consequences were…

“…their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”—vs.21-22

Rather than becoming wise they became fools. Rather than growing in the light of wisdom they stepped into the darkness of deception. The Bible goes on to say concerning worldly wisdom that has no room for God:

1 Cor. 1:21 “In God’s wisdom, he determined that the world wouldn’t come to know him through its wisdom. Instead, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of preaching.”

The Bible says that man is incapable of arriving at genuine divine truth on his own:

2 Cor. 4:4 “The god of this age has blinded the minds of those who don’t have faith so they couldn’t see the light of the gospel that reveals Christ’s glory.”

Human wisdom brings us into conformity to the world and its way of thinking. Godly wisdom brings us into the knowledge of God’s will:

Ro. 12:2 “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.”

No matter how brilliant, how educated, how witty, or how talented, the natural mind of man in all his philosophizing cannot arrive at the truth:

1 Cor. 3:20 “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise; he knows they are worthless.”

BOTTOM LINE: Any philosophy that is “not after Christ” is worthless. Next, Paul tells us that we need no other. Christ is our completion:

2: 9-10 “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”

The Bible’s message is clear: What happened at Bethlehem sets Jesus apart from all others. The Apostle John wrote, “The Word was made flesh” (John 1:14). Deity wrapped itself in skin. God came down to “pitch His tent” among us, to dwell among us bodily filled with all the fullness of God. This can be said of no other but Jesus.

The entire Godhead has taken up permanent residence in the body of Jesus. Paul says “all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” dwells in Him. The word for fullness is plenitude, which speaks of all of the glorious totality of what God is in His nature, person, personality, character, attributes and essence.

All of this inhabited Jesus “bodily.” In every sense the Lord Jesus was “God…manifest in the flesh” (2 Tim 3:16). And we are “complete in Him.” The word complete means “to be made full.” We are filled full in Him.

The truth of all this we can only partially grasp. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely” (1 Cor. 13:12).

Nevertheless, we are “filled to the full” in Him. He is our all. He is all we need. God help the apostate church leaders of our day who voice their reprobate view of Christ with statements like, “Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed are saints.”

Another declared, “We utter their names with reverence as great souls who have received God’s message for their contemporaries and all after time”—this despite the fact that Confucius sacrificed to the dead, and that Buddha was a false god who declared, “No one is like me; in the world of men and of gods, no one is like me.” Or that Muhammad was a false prophet.

But the Bible brings us back to the simplicity that is in Christ—You are complete in Him.

NOW GET READY FOR PAUL WILL NEXT FILL US IN ON SEVERAL AMAZING MIRACLES JESUS WROUGHT FOR US IN HIS DEATH, BURIAL AND RESURRECTION!

2: 11 “When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision— by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.”

Old Testament circumcision was done away with in Christ Jesus. Because in Christ the physical is replaced by the spiritual. The ritual is replaced by the reality. The pictorial is replaced by the actual. In Christ, the believer sheds the whole body of carnal affection, lust, self-effort, and reliance on the flesh.

A Jewish boy was made a partaker of the Abrahamic covenant by the rite of circumcision. We are made partakers of the new covenant by means of the Cross.

When Paul uses the expression “putting off” the body of the sins of the flesh, it comes from a word used of the stripping off of one’s clothes, but it involves more than that. The word conveys the idea of leaving them behind forever.

The body that was controlled by the flesh has been cut away by the cross of Christ! In Christ Jesus, we can experience a glorious deliverance from the assaults of evil that come through our body.

2:12 “…buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

Baptism is intended to be an outward expression of an inward experience. In baptism, we first take our stand in the water (Acts 8:38-39). Water is an element that spells death to us because we weren’t designed to live in it. So to stand in water is to stand in an element that spells death to all that we are by natural birth.

Then we are immersed under the water, symbolically buried. We are then raised up by the power of another person’s arm to stand on resurrection ground and to walk henceforth in newness of life. Baptism, then, is a graphic illustration to a watching world that we have now identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

Because I am a believer, when He died, I died; when He was buried, I was buried; when He arose, I arose. This is not a mere ritual. It is a glorious reality!

2:13 “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses…”

What the knife did to the flesh by way of circumcision, The Cross does to the heart by way of crucifixion. We are now “made alive” in Christ Jesus. And all of our trespasses are forgiven!

But it gets even better! Next, Paul says:

2:14 “…having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

The NLT puts it this way, “He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.”

The cross deals not only with the question of “self” (v.13), but also with the question of sin (v.14) and the question of Satan (v.15). As to our sin, our problem was “the handwriting of ordinances,” the record of all the charges against us.

God had a case against us. All of the vast machinery of sacrifices and offerings that were such a part of the Mosaic Law did not really cancel sin. All it did was cover sin—sweep it under the rug (Heb. 10:1-4).

Our dilemma was and is that we could not and cannot keep God’s law in our own strength. And with each passing day the record against us only grew. We were, in essence, fugitives from justice. God required a reckoning. There was a WANTED poster out there for each of us. Our day of judgment was set.

And then Jesus came, lived out a perfect life, died in our place, took our judgment upon himself, and “canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.”

We could say that the WANTED poster with all the charges against us attached was nailed to the cross of Christ, and all the charges against us were canceled!

But it gets even better yet!

2:15 “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

Paul has in his mind’s eye a Roman triumph. He sees the conquering general approach the capital as the cheering crowds line the streets. Chained to his chariot wheels are the warriors whom he has taken captive in war.

Thus has Christ Jesus triumphed over Satan and all of his principalities and powers. They had all gathered at Calvary. There, they added to his torments on the tree, glaring delightedly at His death. But it was all premature. When His sufferings were over, the Lord of Glory bowed His head and released His Spirit.

Down he went to the underworld of Hades. He preached to the spirits in prison. Satan and his minions learned there of the extent of their defeat and doom. The keys of death and Hades were wrenched from the hand of Satan.

The tidings ran back and forth across the underworld. Soon Jesus rose from the dead, ascended back to glory, and is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high! But there was more. The Holy Spirit was coming! The church was coming! Eternity was coming! The lake of fire was coming!

And where was the devil then? Chained to His chariot wheels. Spoiled! A public spectacle to all of the heavenly hosts. The cross was Satan’s greatest mistake! Now he has been exposed to public infamy. The devil is today a dog on a leash. He is allowed some of the length of the chain, but is chained just the same. He is now a doomed foe, all because of the cross!

NEXT TIME: DON’T LET PEOPLE JUDGE YOU