COLOSSIANS - 2

REVIEW

Remember this recurring theme of Colossians: The authority and power of Christ’s atonement on the cross - PLUS NOTHING ELSE = Salvation, sanctification, fruitfulness, holiness, faith, and life.

4 TRUTHS ABOUT HERESY

1) Heresies don’t just spring up out of nowhere. they are demonically inspired deception.

2) Heresy is designed by Satan to blind, bind, damn, and destroy human beings.

3) Heresies appeal to ignorance of truth or a perceived unmet need.

4) Heresy grows in a life that is not centered in Christ.

This is why it is important to understand the heresies that attacked the early church; they are the product of eternal demonic spirits and those same spirits and demonically inspired doctrines still exist today.

Colossians 1:20–29 NLT

20 and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. 21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. 23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it. 24 I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church. 25 God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you. 26 This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. 27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory. 28 So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. 29 That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me.

COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 2

Colossians 2:1–9 NLT

1 I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other believers who have never met me personally. 2 I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. 3 In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments. 5 For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you. And I rejoice that you are living as you should and that your faith in Christ is strong. 6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. 8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. 9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.

Colossians 2:8 AMP

8 See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men’s ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).

Jesus is perfect theology: any theology you have that is not demonstrated in Christ is at the least flawed, at the worst heretical.

4747. στοιχεῖον stŏichĕiŏn, stoy-khi´-on; neut. of a presumed der. of the base of 4748; something orderly in arrangement, i.e. (by impl.) a serial (basal, fundamental, initial) constituent (lit.), proposition (fig.):—element, principle, rudiment.

στοιχέω stŏichĕō, stoy-kheh´-o; from a der. of στείχω stĕichō (to range in regular line); to march in (military) rank (keep step), i.e. (fig.) to conform to virtue and piety:—walk (orderly).

3180 κόσμος (kosmos), ου (ou), ὁ (ho): n.masc.; ≡ Str 2889; 1. universe, as an ordered structure; 2. earth, the surface of the earth, where mankind dwells; 3. world system, godless world standards; 4. people, those estranged from God; 5. adorning, for another; 6. adornment, an object which adorns.

Adorning (External Appearance)

1 Samuel 16:7 NLT

7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Le-bab לֵבָב (lē·ḇāḇ): Str 3824; 1. heart, mind, soul, spirit, self, i.e., the source of the life of the inner person in various aspects, with a focus on feelings, thoughts, volition, and other areas of inner life; middle, center, midst, formally, heart, i.e., a position among or in the middle, relatively to other points of space; 3. LN 26 conscience, i.e., the psychological faculty to distinguish right and wrong; 4. chest, formally, heart, i.e., the thorax cavity of a creature;

There are actually 19 possible renderings with slight modifications.

Colossians 2:10 (NLT)

10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

Mark 2:28 NLT

28 So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”

Hebrews 8:7 NLT

7 If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it.

Colossians 2:11–13 NLT

11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.

You weren’t changed by the law, which defined and pointed out your sins; you were changed by the forgiveness of those sins and the utter destruction of sin’s power over your life.

Not only did your old man die with Christ, but in baptism, your new man was co-resurrected in and with Him.

Have you been baptized? If not, why not? If you need to be baptized, let us know.

Colossians 2:14–15 NLT

14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

Colossians 2:14–15 TPT

14 He canceled out every legal violation we had on our record and the old arrest warrant that stood to indict us. He erased it all—our sins, our stained soul—he deleted it all and they cannot be retrieved! Everything we once were in Adam has been placed onto his cross and nailed permanently there as a public display of cancellation. 15 Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his!

Colossians 2:16–19 NLT

16 So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.

Stop trying to do anything that turns a relationship into a religion!

Colossians 2:20–23 NLT

20 You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, 21 “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.