In Him & With Him

Intro

3 warnings

Kidnap

Condemn

Disqualify

Looked at kidnap

Some are trying to kidnap you with empty & deceptive philosophy that does not accord with Christ

The reason that its wrong that anything that is promising you spiritual freedom or fulfillment in christ is wrong is because in christ the fullness of deity dwells

You have been filled in him, and he is head over all

Freedom & fulfillment

Paul is now going to elaborate a little bit on our being filled in him, how is it that we can say we’ve been filled in Christ

“In Him”

Pauls point is our union w/ Christ

2 pictures of our union

Circumcision

Baptism

First lets look at what circumcision is and why paul is saying it here

Circumcision

Old Covenant symbol of the people of God

God makes a covenant with Abraham and promises to make him the father of a multitude of nations

God promises

make him fruitful

be God to him and his offspring

Give to him and his offspring the promise land

Offspring - israel - Jew

Tells Abraham that all the males must be circumcised

All males 8 days old would be circumcised

Your circumcision “marked” you as one of Gods people

So what about this circumcision

Aspects of this circumcision

Made without hands

By putting off the body of the flesh

By the circumcision of Christ

Made without hands

It’s interesting when you look at this circumcision it says that is is done without hands. There are a lot of things that can be said of circumcision, but one of them is that it is certainly done with hands. But Paul says this circumcision is without hands

It’s not a physical circumcision

It’s not a human circumcision

“made by God”

Mark 14:58 ““We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’ ””

So what does Paul mean when he says that we have been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands?

We actually don’t have to go to the NT to see that circumcision was actually a used as a metaphor of spiritual reality

After the 10 commandments and the golden calf. God tells moses to come back up the mountain with two tablets and rewrites the 10 commandments but then he says this

Deuteronomy 10:12–16 ““And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”

Fast forward to chapter 30 and the covenant is renewed in Moab and Moses says to the people

Deuteronomy 30:5–6 “And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

Jeremiah 4:4 “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.””

Physical circumcision ultimately points to spiritual circumcision

The mark of the people of God is not a physical removal of flesh but a spiritual removal

Ezekiel 36:26 “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

The physical ritual of circumcision in the old covenant points us forward to the spiritual circumcision of the new

This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 2 when he says:

Romans 2:28–29 “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”

2 By putting off the body of the flesh

Worth asking the question, why is Paul talking about circumcision?

Polemic against false teaching?

Perhaps pressure for new gentile believers to be circumcised cf Gal

Pressure to “strip off the flesh” or “subduing the flesh” via strict man made rules

Paul is going to tell us to kill sin and put off the old self but we do not kill sin in order to get a new heart or be one of Gods people we do it because we have a new heart and are Gods people

by putting off the body of the flesh

At first glance this looks like this could be a problem.

False teachers saying the body is bad and evil

The body hinders you in your search for God

Can be easy to start to believe. As you age, as you get sick, as things start to break, you can start to believe the lie that the body is bad.

“Engine good, wiring is good, chassis is shot”

Listen, we are going to spend eternity in a body. A glorified body free from the effect of sin. No the body is a part of Gods good design

So then what is Paul saying?

We need to understand that Paul makes a distinction between the body and the flesh.

Colossians 2:23 “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

Also in:

Galatians 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

1 John 2:16 “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

Romans 13:14 “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

Paul is saying that this circumcision was cutting away “the flesh”

Your old heart was removed

Your sinful flesh was cut away

Old self 3:9

In our unregenerate state, we need a new heart

Nicodemus

We have been given a new heart

and this happens by the circumcision of Christ

A metaphor for his death on the cross

Colossians 1:21–22 “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,”

Circumcision that Christ performs on us. makes effective. enabled by christ

Either way, This circumcision is a circumcision that is purchased on the cross. It is a Christian circumcision that is found in Christ alone. It is Christs death and it is Christ who enables and makes effective

Baptism

Paul says “having been buried with him in baptism”

I want us to see the assumption about baptisms in the early church

Paul is assuming that all of these believers have been baptized already

Baptism is the first step of obedience to Jesus

Believe & be baptized

So if you are a believer and have not been baptized since becoming a believer, you ought to be

The second picture Paul uses is that of baptism

The two realities that the picture of baptism shows is death and life

Apart from Christ we are alive to sin, alive to the world, and dead to God

Colossians 2:13 “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,”

Colossians 2:20 “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—”

First, death

Buried with him

Burial is the final stage of death.

Paul is saying that when you come to faith, your old self dies.

The old self is the you that alive to the world and dead to God

When Christ goes into the grave, that version of you goes with him. Its as though all of your sin, guilt, your shame. The condemnation that was owed to you, the debt that you had compiled, the wages of sin that were owed. All slid into the tomb. Dead

But in a beautiful paradox, you not only die, but live.

Raised with him

Raised to what?

LIFE

Certainly there is the future reality of our resurrection that we wait with eager anticipation but Paul is saying that this resurrection has already happened. That as the old you was brought to death, the new creature in Christ has been brought to life

This is why Paul says that you are a new creation in Christ

Romans 6:4–5 “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

What does it mean to be buried with him and alive with him

Sin no longer has power over you

You are free not to sin

You have the power to defeat sin

You could only sin before

Not from faith is sin

Satan no longer has authority over you

You were a child of wrath

Christ is head of all rule & authority

You are no longer subject to satan’s power

Death no longer has dominion over you

We spend billions of dollars doing all we can to defeat death

Cryogenic freezing

No matter how wealthy you are, healthy you may be, you cannot defeat death. It’s coming for you.

In Christ we have defeated death

“Death has been defeated, yet we still die; it has been disarmed, yet it still wounds. But for the Christian, death can no longer destroy.” - D.A Carson

Is Paul saying your baptism does this for you?

No, in fact, that is right in line with what the false teachers are saying.

Catholicism teaches

Washes away your original sin

Regenerates you

Justifies you

“We know he was baptized”

Emergency baptisms

Thats exactly what these false teachers are doing. Saying ‘yes jesus’ BUT you need to participate here in order to experience this

So Paul is not saying baptism does this, rather he is saying that baptism is a picture of this internal reality that has already happened

Laid down into the water you are buried with him, and raised up out of the water you come.

Picture not Power

Through faith

Paul says through faith.

Note: faith precedes baptism

Through faith - the means by which you are spiritually circumcised, the means by which you are buried with him and raised with him, the means by which you are united to Christ is faith

The interesting thing about faith is it is only as good as the object you place it into

Truck & brakes

Paul finishes this out by telling us that our faith is on solid ground

All of that according to Gods power

He doesn’t tell us the power of his creation here

the power of his providence

his upholding of the universe

Here Pauls comforts us in the working of God by grounding it in the resurrection of Christ

How can we be sure God

Theres an empty tomb

How can we be sure that we christ is sufficient

theres an empty tomb

How can we be sure that man-mad philosophies not according to christ are empty & hollow

Theres an empty tomb

So what does this mean?

It means that everything you find yourself trying to become, Christ has already made you

Finish