Raised With Him
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Introduction
Introduction
This morning we celebrate the happiest day that the universe has ever known: the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God, and Savior of humanity. When he was buried on Friday, no one understood that he would rise again on Sunday. Though he explained it to his disciples time and again, they did not understand it. They did not believe it. But despite the lack of understanding and in spite of their lack of faith, Jesus rose from the grave.
This morning, we are looking at what happened behind the scenes. There for all of Judea and in many ways, the world, to see was a trial, a scourging, a crucifixion, and a burial. And then for hardly anyone initially to see Jesus arose from the grave. But behind all of that, God the Father was doing an amazing work.
God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness was uniting us with Jesus in three ways: in his circumcision, in his resurrection, and in one sense, his fullness. And what this means for us who place our trust in the risen Christ is complete forgiveness and fulfillment.
In his Circumcision
In his Resurrection
In his Fullness
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
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,
by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
United in His Circumcision
United in His Circumcision
The first way I want us to see that the Father united us is when he united us with his Son in circumcision. We’ll come back to verses 9-10 later, but for now, let’s look at verse 11.
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
Now, to understand this part of the letter to the Colossians, we need to understand that Paul was writing to the church against the early stages of gnosticism. Gnosticism had its early stages in the mid-first century, but became very popular in the second century. There are many facets to the belief-system, but in its early stages, it mainly focused on the idea that the material world (including the body) was evil and the spirit was good. They could not see that the body, the physical, was part of God’s good creation and was meant to be used to glorify God. Instead, they wanted to shed the body, get rid of the physical—the material, and only have the spiritual. And death was certainly a way to do that, as was circumcision as it was a cutting away of the flesh.
Now, quickly, we see that in Colossians 2:9, repeating what he wrote in Colossians 1:19, Paul made it a point to show that deity, God himself, dwelt fully in Jesus in his body. We’ll deal with what all this means in a moment, but we cannot miss the fact that all of God dwelt in the human body of Jesus.
The reason we need to understand what gnosticism believed about the flesh and the spirit is because what we see in verse 11. Paul told the Colossians that they were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. Circumcision is a matter of the flesh being removed from flesh. But only if we are talking about a circumcision made with hands. When a baby boy was eight days old, he would go to a rabbi and be circumcised. But Paul wasn’t talking about a circumcision made with hands, but one that was made without hands. In other words, he wasn’t talking about fleshly circumcision, but a spiritual circumcision. Not a removal of the flesh being needed, but something removed from the spirit—from the soul. So it is not that the flesh is bad in itself and the spirit is good, but it is the spirit that is what’s in need of being circumcised.
We as Christians are spiritually circumcised. Another way of saying it, is that we as Christians were circumcised of the heart. That was what physical circumcision was supposed to point to in the Bible. When Moses delivered the people out of Israel, he reinstituted circumcision. But he told them that they were really to be circumcising their hearts. Yet, he knew that they would not, they could not do it. They’d end up rejecting the God who delivered them and end up in exile, but God would once again deliver them. And he told them in
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.
Ezekiel promised the same thing in his prophecies.
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.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
God will circumcise their hearts. God, having no body, would circumcise the hearts of his people. This is what Paul said had happened to the Colossians. But notice how it happened: “By putting off the body of the flesh.” And in case someone misunderstood, he explained what he meant in the next clause: “By the circumcision of Christ.” When Christ died, his body and spirit were separated. That isn’t to say that the Son of God removed himself from the body before or at the crucifixion, like some heresies assert. But rather, like everyone, when the body dies, the spirit continues to live on separated from the body. Thus, Christ’s removal of the body at his death was a complete circumcision, not just a tiny piece of skin that was removed.
Quickly, we need to understand that Paul used the phrase “body of flesh” when referring to Jesus because the gnostics would talk about Jesus only looking as if he had a physical body. It was a body of spirit—a spiritual body, but not a body of flesh—a physical body. So when Paul pointed out that Jesus removed his body of flesh, it is to say that he had a physical body. And when he died—when he was removed from the body of the flesh, circumcised—so were we. Except ours was spiritual, not physical.
That’s why I say this was something going on behind the scenes. Jesus died physically in front of the people of Judea and the soldiers in Rome. What they could not see was that as he shed his body, so God shed our sin from us. That’s what it means to be spiritually circumcised. Sin is removed by divine action.
United in His Resurrection
United in His Resurrection
Which leads us to the second way we see that the Father has united us with his Son. The first is that we are united to his circumcision. But now we see that we are united with him in his resurrection. Jesus was made alive, and we are made alive with him.
having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
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,
by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
The emphasis in this verse is on the resurrection. However, we know (and Paul knew) that Jesus did not just die. He was also buried. He only rose from the dead after he was buried. Hence, Paul wrote, “Having been buried,” as if it were giving a time-frame of events, rather than an emphasis of what happened. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not important; it just means that the focus is on something else. So quickly, let’s deal with the burial phase.
We were buried with him in baptism.
Just as Jesus was buried physically speaking (his body laid in a tomb), so we were buried spiritually speaking. But we need to understand that the very act of water baptism is the sign of the spiritual baptism that occurred. This spiritual baptism, represented by water baptism, is the seal of our being in God’s New Covenant. This is, in part, why Baptists take baptism so seriously. It is our seal of the New Covenant. We have entered into the New Covenant by spiritual baptism—spiritual death and burial to our sins—represented by water baptism. In our water baptism, we see what has happened in our spiritual baptism. This is why we are careful about credible professions of faith before baptism. Being a seal, we can point back to it and be reminded of the grace of God to bring us out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved Son.
It is not in miracles or tongues that manifest the movement of the Spirit in our lives at salvation; it is the sign and seal of baptism that manifests what the Spirit did for us in our salvation. Incidentally, the Lord’s Supper is our ongoing sign of covenant membership. The two work hand in hand.
In verse 12, Paul made it a point to remind the Colossians that it was God who had the power to raise Christ from the dead. And in that same power, God worked out our resurrection from the dead as well. When Jesus was raised, so were we. Again, no one in Judea were able to see this happening. God was doing all of this in the spiritual realm—behind the scenes.
But what does it mean to be raised to new life? Well, it’s right there in the text. Paul kind of switches gears here. Whereas Paul was talking about Christ’s death in circumcision terms to relate it to our spiritual circumcision, he now is talking about our being dead—spiritually speaking.
It means the opposite of what it means to be dead. Paul wrote, that we were dead in our transgressions, in the uncircumcision of the flesh. There’s that word again! Paul was not saying that the Colossians were dead because they were Gentiles, Jews being circumcised and Gentiles not being. But that the Colossians (and anyone else for that matter) had the flesh—the sin nature—attached to them. It had not been removed.
If Moses were to write it, he would say that they had their hearts circumcised. If Ezekiel was to write it, he’d say that they had stony hearts that needed to be replaced with fleshly hearts. Paul used the term flesh often to describe our sin nature. So Paul’s point was that the Colossians at one point had the sin nature still attached to them. And this sin nature was what made them dead. This is everyone’s condition from conception to conversion. This was yours and mine; and still is everyone’s who have not yet put their trust in Jesus Christ.
But for those who have, God has raised you to new life. And again, I ask, “what does it mean to be raised to new life?” It’s right there in the text.
It means our sins are forgiven. Every. single. one. Forgiven!
2. He cancels every debt we have incurred. God doesn’t pretend they do not exist. They exist. We have done all that is in that book of records. He records every deed, every word, every thought. It’s all there. So much incriminating evidence against us. But it is all canceled. All the debt is removed. It’s obliterated. With any criminal code there comes legal demands. If you’re speeding, you get a fine, until you reach criminal speed and then its an arrest. If you steal something then it comes with a fine or imprisonment or perhaps both, but grand larceny comes with even stricter demands. It’s no different with God’s law, except that every sin leads ultimately to hell. But God, when he raised us to new life with Christ, he not only canceled the record of debt against us, but he canceled the legal demands that came with it.
3. He set them aside. In reality, Paul is saying the same thing here. He wants his point to get across and so he keeps increasing the emphasis. He forgave us. He canceled the debt and its legal demands. He killed our sin on the cross with Christ!
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
That’s what it means to be raised to new life! Completely forgiven. Never having to worry about when or if our sin will catch up with us. No longer being uncircumcised in the flesh, but being spiritually circumcised with Christ.
United in His Fullness
United in His Fullness
Which leads us to the third way Paul shows how the Father united us with his Son. The first was in his circumcision. When Jesus was physically circumcised from his whole body (death), we were spiritually circumcised. When Jesus rose from the dead, we spiritually rose as well. But all of this was possible because Jesus was God in the flesh. God took on a body of flesh.
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
Verses 9 and 10 are actually the crux of this text in Colossians 2. Don’t forget the Christmas gift from a couple of years ago: “Because/For.” What I have been preaching on is actually supporting text for Paul’s point here in verses 9 and 10. As important as the supporting verses are (and they are so important!), these two verses are even more so.
Remember that Gnosticism was in its beginning stages. Spirit good; body bad. Here Paul wrote that God—perfect God—dwelt in a body. And he did so fully! In him—in Jesus—the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily. The “whole fullness.” That’s an odd way to say it. But that’s the point. Paul overemphasized Jesus’s deity. It wasn’t enough to say Jesus was 100% God and 100% Man. It wasn’t enough to say that the fullness of God dwelt bodily. There could be too much wiggle room for detractors. Instead, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
But then look, “and you have been filled in him.” This is not saying that we are the fullness of God just like Jesus. Instead Paul was saying that we were incomplete. We were empty in and of ourselves. As Augustine would say, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Humanity seeks to fill up what is empty inside them. As we talked about in Sunday School last week, there is this brokenness and we are trying to heal it in so many different ways. Some of us try religion. Some try alcohol and drugs. Some of us throw ourselves into our families and being the best mom, dad, brother, sister, we can be. Some of us try to just love everyone, coexist, and be mindful or centered. We take on causes from green energy to 2nd amendment rights. We are trying to have purpose. We are trying to feel full because if we stopped doing these things, we’d feel our true state of being—emptiness.
Paul wrote, You’ve been filled in him. You are complete in him. It’s the same word that he used for “the whole fullness of deity...” just in its verbal form. Pleroma. The whole pleroma of deity dwells, and you have been peplerominoi. Only Christ who is the fullness of God can bring fulfillment to your life. That’s Paul’s point.
How do I know? Because of verse 8 actually.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
There are so many ideas of what can make a person whole. So many philosophies out there, but notice the kind of deceit they are. They are empty deceit. Human traditions according to the elemental spirits of the world. In other words, things people do based off of those lesser spiritual beings and not based on Christ. If you are not into watching commercials, you may have missed the sudden onslaught of psychic and paranormal ads. Usually they are trying to be funny and cute, but others are selling zodiac products and pushing ancient paganism philosophies and religions. The world is becoming a much more pagan place. People are seeking to fill their emptiness but not according to Christ, but rather with lesser things.
In fact, many Christians are attempting to do the same thing, not realizing that their fullness is in Christ. That’s why Paul is warning the Colossians here. See to it that no one takes you captive, because it is so easy to miss that our fullness is found only in Christ. We look for more. We want the experiences. We want the feelings. We want those things (whatever those things are)!
Hence, Paul wrote just a few verses later,
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
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—
“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”
(referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?
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.
All those things, based on the elemental spirits—those lesser beings—will never bring fullness. Only Christ can. Jesus is the head of all those things. He is the substance. He is the ruler of all rule and authority. Look at what Paul wrote in
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Like David going from city to city showing off the head of Goliath, or Israel paraded through Babylon, so God paraded the rulers and authorities, the elemental spirits, around; he disarmed them by the death and resurrection of his Son. He triumphed over them. They are not to be worshiped. They are not to be gone after. They are not to be seen as that which brings fulness and joy. They are disarmed. They are empty-handed. They have no power and no way to bring fulness. Only in Christ can fulness be found.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Beloved, you were once dead, but are now made alive in Christ. In these few verses the terms “in him” or “with him” were used five times because Paul wanted us to so clearly and so wonderfully identify ourselves in and with Jesus. If you count all of Colossians, Paul used those terms 12 times! He is where our fullness is found. And he became our fullness because of what he did on the cross; he spiritually circumcised us. And he is our fullness because of what he did in the grave; when he rose, we rose to new life. Everything else that we are tempted to seek are lesser things that will never fill us.
If you’ve never trusted Jesus, let me ask you what is it that you’re seeking to bring fullness in your life? You see, there’s a difference between doing in order to bring fullness into one’s life, and doing out of the fullness in life. Jesus wants to be your fullness. Nothing else and no one else can be. You can be full today. Today we celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead, but it could also be yours, being raised with him to new life.