Colossians - Christ Alone

Complete In Christ (Colossians 2)

Have you ever been bothered by something? Illustration?

As we begin this chapter, Paul is bothered by something. He is in great conflict about something. As we read Chapter 2, this is his concern for the church in Colossae.

Paul didn’t start this church, he’s never been there. He’s in prison in Rome. Epaphras may have started this, he’s a church leader, and he comes and finds Paul in prison and tells him what is going on. This report bothered him so much that he felt the need to write a letter to the church.

What’s the conflict? There are new ideas infiltrating the church at Colossae and Laodicea about Jesus. He’s concerned that these false teachers will be so good and convincing that the church is going to be swayed by what they hear.

Review of Chapter 1.

Chapter 1 is heavy with Christology. That is the doctrine of Christ.

Christ is Supreme (preeminence)

Christ is Creator

Christ is Redeemer (saved from our sins and the consequences of them)

Christ is Reconciler (relationship made right with God)

WWHG - What Would Honor God?

Paul is going to continue with more truths about Christ, and then we’re going to spend some time looking at the false teachings that were heading the church’s way.

It’s All About Christ (1-7)

Colossians 2:1–3 NKJV

For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

You can see that Paul has this great conflict inside of him, and he wants them to be encouraged (Laodicea as well). If you’re going through a difficult situation, in this case, spiritual warfare with the philosophies of the world, a little encouragement would be nice, wouldn’t it? THE apostle Paul wrote their church a letter. How encouraging!

How is he encouraging them? He wants them to be united in love and then to understand who Christ is. He is the key. It’s through God the Father and Christ that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found. Everything about Christ that Paul’s laid out up to this point is important to know.

Paul then gives them a warning:

Colossians 2:4 NKJV

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words.

Lies are often very persuasive, aren’t they? Now, notice, they are not deceived yet, but Paul’s great conflict is that they will become deceived. How? by persuasive words. It’s going to sound good, it’s going to sound reasonable and logical. Satan is so deceptive (Rev 19:12), and he uses deception to lead believers astray. He is the father of lies (Jn 8:44).

Paul says don’t be deceived from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Look at verse 5,

Colossians 2:5 NKJV

For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

Paul is confident in these believers he’s never met. Why? How? Because of their faith.

It says because of your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. This is why church hadn’t given in to heresy yet, they were in good order and steadfastness. Paul liked his metaphors, and here he uses military terms to paint the picture of the believers not breaking rank or defecting from the battle.

Their faith is in Christ. It’s all about Christ. Keep that concept in mind as we go forward.

Colossians 2:6–7 NKJV

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Those who have received Christ, because you have to receive Him. Let me pause there for a moment. God extends a free gift to all people, but you have to receive it. John said this very clearly, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (Jn 1:12).

Paul says that those who have received Christ are to walk in Him. Some more dynamic translations, such as the NIV, will say “live your lives” in Him. It’s referring to your lifestyle, the way you regularly behave and follow God’s commands. It’s all about Christ, receive Him, then obey Him. Your behavior should reflect your belief.

Now this is really important. by having faith in Christ, and walking in Him, you will be rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith. Plants draw their nutrients and get their strength from the roots. We must be rooted in Christ. John 15. This is how we grow and they protect ourselves from persuasive deceptions.

So, in these first 7 verses, Paul is in great conflict and he is concerned these believers will start to have doubts as a result from the persuasive heresies headed their way. They begin to doubt their faith, who Jesus Christ really is and if He is sufficient for them. Paul’s instruction so far is to know who Jesus is and stand firmly on Him.

Colossian Heresy (8-23)

This is where the Colossian Heresy begins. We will be going over some big words, but hang in there with me as I try to make them understandable.

First of all, heresy is any opinion, doctrine, teaching that goes against orthodox Christianity; the core beliefs of the faith. The Colossian Heresy has to do with Syncretism. Syncretism is the blended together of beliefs, and the Colossian heresy consists of is Jewish and pagan beliefs being mixed in with the Christian doctrine.

We also see the early beginnings of Gnosticism. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. It was about special spiritual insights one needed to have. It’s a secret and deeper knowledge that is necessary for one to discover in order for enlightenment and even salvation. Now, this isn’t full out Gnosticism, since that began in the late 1st century, and this is written around 60-62 AD.

So you’ll see here as we go, the false teachings are coming syncretistically.

Colossians 2:8 NKJV

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

Paul reveals how the persuasive deception is going to come: through philosophy and empty deceit. Now is all philosophy wrong? No. Philosophy is the study of wisdom. Do you want wisdom? Should you want wisdom? Yes. The problem here is where the philosophy is coming from; it’s coming from the tradition of men and the basic principles of the world, and not from Christ.

The battle that was coming was going to be in the mind. And it’s still there today.

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” - A.W. Tozer

That is where the battle is. And remember, it’s going to be persuasive. People are going to listen to this philosophy that is presented. But he says, don’t be cheated by it. This word comes from the idea of being led away as prey, to be robbed and plundered. What you have in Christ will be taken from you. These deceptions will lead you away from the truths of Christianity.

Now look what Paul says next. These are some verses you need to take note of and remember.

Colossians 2:9–10 NKJV

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

If you mark your Bible, mark verse 9. This may be the clearest verse on the deity of Jesus. Jesus was God. He wasn’t part of God, He wasn’t created by God, He is fully God.

Now, when false teachers attack the faith, it will usually be on two fronts: (1) the person of Jesus Christ, and (2) the believer’s identity in Him. So Paul is going to make clear those two distinctions here.

Make no mistake, Jesus is fully God, so our fullness comes from Him. Our salvation, our righteousness, our ability to live in obedience comes from Him. Wisdom and knowledge need to be attained from Him. Then Paul says, you are complete in Him.

As we get into the Colossian Heresy, two of the main groups that would attack the faith were the Gnostics and branch off of Judiazers. Gnostics believed in a higher or superior knowledge. So The Christians in Colosse weren’t complete, they needed deeper knowledge. The Judiazers taught that you needed to keep parts of the Old Covenant; it wasn’t just by grace through faith alone in Christ. So they weren’t complete in Christ because they weren’t following the Old Covenant.

Paul says, don’t fall for any of that. He affirms, “You are complete in Christ.” You are completely righteous in God’s eyes, and what you do or don’t do doesn’t affect your standing before God. Why? Because of Christ. He is head of all principality and power.

He is the Head. Remember His preeminence in chapter 1 (Col 1:17-18)? He is the leader. He’s the one in charge. Here Paul declares that He is head over all principality and power. Principalities and powers are rankings of spirits. When this is used in the New Testament, it refers to ranks of angelic beings. Christ is over all, including every spirit being.

It was the Gnostics who were all about this philosophy and higher knowledge, now Paul turns and addresses some of the false teaching from the sect of Judiazers.

Colossians 2:11–12 NKJV

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 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.

Most of the believers in Colosse were Gentiles (non-Jews) who had never been circumcised.

Circumcision in the Old Testament was a sign of God’s covenant with the Jewish people. It was a physical operation that had spiritual significance. The problem is that the Jews were depending on the physical and not the spiritual. They were saying one had to be physically circumcised to be right with God.

Paul assures the church that they have been circumcised in a spiritual sense, which is more important than physical circumcision. They were circumcised when they put off the sins of the flesh. It’s to put off, or cast away, the old man.

Paul then mentions baptism. Baptism illustrates our identification with the death and resurrection of Jesus. We were buried with Jesus when we went down into the water, and we were raised to new life when we came up out of the water. It symbolizes something that has taken place on the inside.

Basically, what Paul is saying is, physical rituals don’t do anything. It’s what happens in the heart and the reality of my life. I think Paul would have told these Jews, we don’t look to circumcision, we now look to our baptism as a spiritual mark in our life when transformation began to take place.

Colossians 2:13–15 NKJV

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, 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. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Paul takes a step back here. He explains our position before we receive Christ.

We are all spiritually dead, separated from God because of sin. There is nothing that we can do to earn right standing with God. This is why adhering to legalism, or following the law, doesn’t make us righteous before God. The law shows us our faults, so that we see the need of Christ and a Savior. When we receive Christ, He make us alive together with Him. He imputes His righteousness to us. There is nothing I can do with my actions, there is no rules and regulations I can follow, that will make me right with God. It is only through faith in Christ.

And when I place my faith in Christ He makes me alive with Him, and I’ve been forgiven of all my sin. And look at how Paul describes it. It’s as if Jesus took our payment of debt we owe because of sin, the guilty charges we’ve accumulated, and He nailed it to the cross. He did everything necessary to pay for our sins, but He also took our debt and removed it forever. It will never be used against us. He has wiped us clean.

Criminals charges were attached to the cross above their head. All Jesus’ said was, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

It’s all about Christ. Look what Paul has been saying: you are complete in Him (10), in Him you have a spiritual circumcision (11), and you are made alive in Him (13). It’s all because of Christ and our union with Him. It has nothing to do with who we are or what we do.

Look again at verse 15 to see else Christ’s death accomplished, He has disarmed principalities and powers, making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them.

I imagine that when Jesus was there hanging on that cross, Satan and his demons were rejoicing because they thought they had won. They thought they had stopped God’s plan of redemption. We sang “Death Was Arrested” last week, and there’s a line that says “Darkness rejoiced as though heaven had lost.” But the fallen angels, and even Satan himself, were no match for the Son of God. The text says they were disarmed, they have no power over believers (deceive, lie, create fear), and Christ triumphed it over them.

There are cultural implications here that the Colossians would have been familiar with. In Roman triumphs, the general or emperor would dress as the chief god Jupiter and would lead a triumph parade through the city, leading those behind him who were the humiliated captives, stripped of their possessions. Here Paul says that Jesus’ work on the cross, he took captive, like prisoners of war, all the principalities and powers. They were defeated and were humiliated in their loss.

Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Second Edition, IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2014, p. 574.

Paul is now going to end this chapter with applying the truth of Jesus’ victory in light of the Colossian heresy. Paul has stressed the importance of Christ, understanding that you are complete in Him and that He had absolute victory at the cross. As we keep that in mind, let’s look at three false beliefs that were headed their way: Legalism, Mysticism, Asceticism. These are false religious practices that coming persuasively.

1. Legalism (16-17)

Colossians 2:16–17 NKJV

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

Legalism is following external practices. Legalism is essentially the religion of human achievement. It’s works based. I will earn my way to God by what I do. All the religions of the world are based on human achievement, except one. Christianity is about divine accomplishment.

It’s easy to sniff out legalism, because Jesus is never enough. It’s always Jesus + ...

There is a false system of faith that teaches that receiving the sacraments are essential for salvation. You must be baptized, receive confirmation, take the Eucharist or Holy Communion, etc. This is all Jesus + something.

This is not just Catholics either. Human achievement is prevalent in protestant and evangelical circles as well. I’ve been helping Pastor Frank meet with new people who come and check out our church. We’ll ask when they were saved, when they trusted Christ, and I’ve heard more than once the time when they were baptized. That’s not what we asked, but earning our way has infiltrated the minds of many.

Paul mentions two of the external practices they were requiring: food and days.

There is nothing in the New Testament, under the new covenant, that tells you what you can and can’t eat (for spiritual reason). There is nothing you can eat that will make you holy.

Same with days. No where in the New Testament are Christians told to keep the Sabbath or any other holy days. Believers can worship God on any day they please. The early believers chose to meet together on Sundays as a commemoration of the resurrection. (Rom. 14:5, Paul said it didn’t matter)

Legalism is still a problem in the church today. Many teach that it’s about following rules in order to be righteous and holy, rather than a relationship with God. Here are some examples of legalism in the church today:

Required to really be saved: Baptism, Church Membership, prayer life, reading the Bible every day, giver of finances.

But also just spirituality:

Dress codes: you need to dress a certain way to be spiritual.

When you worship: you have to have Sunday School and Wednesday night. Can’t meet on Saturday.

Certain instruments and music:

You have to read your Bible everyday:

Legalism is so dangerous because anyone can conform to it. It makes us self-righteous and judgmental of others. It’s all about external standards and has nothing to do with salvation and what’s happening on the inside.

2. Mysticism (18-19)

Colossians 2:18–19 NKJV

Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

Mysticism is about desiring a deeper spiritual experience. It’s all about the experience.

He says here that they were worshipping angles, trying to delve into more spiritual things. Paul just made it very clear that Christ is the Head of all principality and power (v. 10), so why would you worship the creation over the creator?

They were also introducing things apart from the Head, which is Christ, that vainly puffs up ones fleshly minds. They’re not following God’s rules, but in their spiritual arrogance that start making stuff up.

Legalism looks for truth in externals, mysticism is all internal.

All about sensation, not revelation. Feelings, moods, which are all subjective, they change. To a mystic, the feelings you get during a worship song are far more important and valid than just Bible study. So the question becomes, it’s not just what you know, but how do you feel? Why is this dangerous? It’s dangerous in secular society as well, not just church. Think about what’s happening with the beliefs about gender right now. It’s not about what is real or true, it’s about identity and who you feel you are.

Some other issues with mysticism in the church today.

Contemplative (ken-tem-pletive) prayer. The belief that spiritual truth is somewhere inside of you. You start looking into yourself for further spiritual insight. There must be something I have to find.

There are many people who are not content with the revelations of Scripture. They want more, so they seek out deeper understandings through thought processes and meditation. They try to hear more from God. “The Spirit will speak to me and tell me what I need to know.” There are many best selling books on Christian websites that sell this kind of stuff.

Remember that the false teachings were syncretistic, taking from other belief systems. I hear Christians using vocabulary that is foreign to the Scriptures, such as crossing our fingers and hoping everything goes well, or knocking on wood for good fortune or preventing bad luck, or talking about karma that has happened. You might say, Mark, these are little things, but these come directly from belief systems that are opposed to Christ, so why do you use them?

Christians seem to be trying to communicate with God in every way imaginable except the way we’re instructed to, through Scripture. The problem with this is that the Scriptures never commands us to look inward for direction, or anywhere else other than the revealed word of God.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable to us, it makes us complete and equips us for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). Here in verse 19 it tells us how we are to grow. We grow when we rooted in Christ, abiding in Him (John 15), connected to the Head over all. Increase and growth comes from God, not some experience that you’ve had.

3. Asceticism (20-23)

Colossians 2:20–23 NKJV

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Asceticism is a strict self denial in order to be righteous. I’m going to keep “these rules” to prove that I love God, and when I see other people breaking “my rules,” then whoa, you’re not as spiritual.

Legalism is about what you do, mysticism is about how you feel, asceticism is all about what you don’t do.

People live believing isolation enhances spirituality. Monks living in a monastic order.

Some ways that we may be affected by asceticism:

Examples:

Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t go to movies, don’t use playing cards, don’t do certain activities on Sunday’s.

Fasting: (abstinence from certain foods and drinks)

Celibacy: (reject marriage, children)

Simple living:

Poverty gospel: (withdrawing from the material world)

Missionary work:

If we all look inside, probably at some time or another, we have practiced denial of something thinking that it will earn us favor with God.

What Paul wants you to know: all of these rules are made up. They have not come from God but from people. Look at verse 22: according to the commandments and doctrines of men.

The flaw of asceticism is in verse 23 - those who live this way will gain a reputation of being spiritual. But external rules and restraints do not produce internal righteousness or change. In fact, it feeds pride and gives you a false humility.

Here’s the awesome thing about coming to Christ. When you believe in Him, He puts new desires on the inside! He will change your heart and they will work their way from the inside out. (share my experience).

Don’t let let people tell you that you have to follow certain rules and regulations to be righteous. It has nothing to do with externals. It has everything to do with the person of Jesus Christ. He is the substance. He will change your life. It’s about a relationship with Christ.

Summary

There were persuasive deceptions coming through false teaching.

Paul instructs them to remain faithful to Christ. (be rooted in Him)

Believers are complete in Christ.

Since you are complete, walk in Him.

Paul will begin to tell us how we can practically live a life of obedience to God starting in chapter 3 next week.

Prayer

Believe in Christ today.

Help us to be rooted in Christ.

Help some today know that they are complete in you.

Help us to walk in You because of everything You’ve done for us.