Colossians 2 (web)

Stand Firm
in the Knowledge of Christ

Being Established 
in the Knowledge of Christ

2:1 For I desire to have you know how greatly I struggle for you, and for those at Laodicea,
and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;

2:2 that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love,
and gaining all riches of the full assurance of understanding,
that they may know the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ,
 
2:3 in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
2:4 Now this I say that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech.
 
2:5 For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit,
rejoicing and seeing your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
2:6 As therefore you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, walk in him,
 
2:7 rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith,
even as you were taught, abounding in it in thanksgiving.

Comparing Dogma 
against the Knowledge of Christ

2:8 Be careful that you don't let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ.
A 2:9 For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily,
2:10 and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power;
 
B 2:11 in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands,
in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;
2:12 having been buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God,
who raised him from the dead.

B* 2:13 You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh.
He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
2:14 wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us;
and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;
 

A* 2:15 having stripped the principalities and the powers,
he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

 Exercising Freedom in Accordance 
with the Knowledge of Christ

2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking,
or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day,
2:17 which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's.

2:18 Let no one rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels,
dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
2:19 and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body,
being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God's growth.

2:20 If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why,
as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
2:21 "Don't handle, nor taste, nor touch"
2:22 (all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men?

2:23 Which things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, and humility,
and severity to the body; but aren't of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Discussion Questions

vs 2 What riches come from understanding Christ?
vs 5 What in particular do you suppose that Paul was looking for when he says "I delight to see how orderly you are"? Orderly in what way? And how would he measure the firmness of their faith in Christ?
vs 6 How did you receive Christ? What assumptions did you have about what the Christian life would be like and were your expectations met?
vs 8 What were human philosophies at the time that threatened to take them captive? And what about today?
vs 9 What does it mean that the fullness of the Deity dwells in Christ?
vs 10-15 What fullness were we given in Christ?
vs 11,12 Is the burial spoken of here physical? Is this resurrection physical? In the circumcision physical? So is the baptism physical?
vs 13,14 How much of your sins has God forgiven? What about future sins?
vs 16 How do Christians judge one another with respect to the treating of Sunday as a holy day?
vs 17 What "shadows" exist in practice of Christianity today that perhaps some treat too substantively in your opinion?
vs 18,19 Do you know of examples of such people as described by these verses?
vs 20-23 What value have you found in developing restrictions and personal rules and regulations in living your Christian life?

 

 
 
 

Comments

vs 1 Laodicea later became the luke warm church of Rev 3:14+.

vs 2 Discouragement can often hinder understanding, as can a lack of a sense of common fellowship among believers. Not only is it encouraging to meet others who think like you do and are excited about knowing Christ, but also this is a motivation to get to know Christ more.

vs 3 "And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure." Isa 33:6

vs 4 Religions and Philosophies without Christ are in the end vain and futile.

vs 5 What kind of "order" was Paul looking for?

Orderliness on a corporate level would tend to indicate unity.

The firmness of their faith can be measured by their response to persecution and by what kinds of applications they have developed.

vs 6 People tend to live the Christian life the way they received Christ. Those who receive Christ answering an altar call in a church service tend to focus on institutional ministry. If they want to save a friend, they'll invite him to church for the pastor to preach the gospel to him. Or someone comes to Christ through a parachurch group like a campus ministry, they will tend to have a vision and respect for that type of ministry. What is disturbing is that those who come to Christ through the gospel of easy-believism, accepting Christ as Savior but not as Lord, tend to live the Christian life that way.

vs 7 "As you were taught" indicates that these people did not simply receive the gospel, but were discipled. In other words, Paul did not simply teach them what to believe, but in what manner to believe it. Although being born of God occurs at a point in time, yet there is a process of the development of the quality of saving faith both before and after one is born of God. It is like a tree that grows by first being rooted in the foundational message of justification through faith in the atoning work of Christ. Then it is built up into applications of faith and one's convictions are made strong. And ultimately it is inevitable that genuine faith in Christ will produce fruits, like thanksgiving:

vs 8 The "hollow and deceptive philosophies" are simply those ideas that the world generates so as to justify its attitude and behavior apart from Christ. No one can say anything absolute about meaning and purpose in life unless God has spoken. Thus in vain do people rely on human traditions and the teachings of men.

verses 9-15 form a literary inversion common in Biblical literature. AB-BA

vs 9,10 "deity" (theotes in greek) which is the word being used here differs from "divinity" (theiotes) as essence differs from quality or attribute. The Jehovah Witnesses, who deny the deity of Christ, are mistaken in their New World Translation where they translate verse 9 as "because it is in him that all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily." It is not speaking of quality, but the nature or essence of Christ. Those who reject the deity of Christ, not recognizing that all the fullness of the Deity dwells in him bodily, not only devalue the person of Christ, but also tend to devalue Christ's atoning work, since he would be only a created being.

But those who have been born of God have been fully justified. Those born of God have Christ fully living in them. And I object to some of those of a charismatic persuasion who teach that fullness in Christ is given as a second experience whereby there are some born of God who have not received fullness in Christ. This is the sort of false philosophy that Paul was speaking against.

vs 11 For example, all believers have been circumcised, not in flesh but in their hearts, which is part of the New Covenant.

Also, That's why true believers never fall away, because our hearts have been circumcised.

vs 12 The circumcision of verse 11 was obviously not physical. Neither is this "baptism" the physical water baptism. Nor the "buried" a physical burial. Paul is speaking of spiritual things, not physical. Baptism simply means to immerse one thing into another. In this case we are spiritually immersed into Christ's grave, being buried with Christ. Our flesh still has to die because sin dwells in it, but we have payed for the sins of our soul through association with Christ's atoning work on the cross and his burial. And by identifying with his resurrection, we reckon that we are now reconciled to God.

vs 13,14 When were we buried and made alive? We were buried and made alive with Christ 2000 years ago. Paul is not speaking on an individual basis, but on a categorical basis. He is speaking of those who have been born of God. Once you are in that category through faith, then you would have retroactively been buring and raised with Christ. You need not seek a second "experience" to achieve this.

What is essential to being made alive in Christ? It is not simply feeling good about yourself, or even becoming a "good Christian". It is the forgiveness of sins. If your sins have been forgiven there is no basis for condemnation and nothing that separates you from God. But I find that Christians are often confused about what sins have been forgiven. If Christ's atoning work did not pay for all your sins, past, present and future, then he died in vain. Because you will sin. So do you lose your salvation each time you sin? And then how do you gain it back? Rather what Paul is describing is a permanent state of the justified believer. And those who reject this concept of the permanence of the state of forgiveness I would say have yet to understand the gospel and the grace of God.

The "written code with its regulations" was not a man-made document, but rather it was God's requirement for righteous behavior as exemplified in the Law of Moses, to justify oneself. Righteousness by the law was not a bad or even incorrect concept. It is simply ineffective because eveyone is sinful. But the righteousess of faith is a different concept, as Paul writes:

The main stumbling block to receiving such righteousness is that few have the humility to recognize themselves as "wicked".

vs 15 refers back to vs 10 dealing with the issue of authority. Authorities are armed with laws. If you break their law, then you are subject to punishment. But Christ, the ultimate authority, took the law out of the way when it comes to the believer's relationship with God. And so the believer will not be subject to a judgment which will lead to condemnation, as it is written

vs 16,17 So what is the application of these ideas? One has to make a distinction between what is symbolic and what is substantive. We read in this chapter Paul's use of "circumcision" in its substantive sense. The ritual of circumcision is only symbolic of its substantive meaning. And the same for much of the Law of Moses. It is not that rituals should be avoided, but rather they should be thought of with respect to their substantive meaning. (An ideal example of this is 1Cor 11 in which Paul endorses women covering their heads when praying and prophecying)

One of the common faults of post-Biblical Christianity is the demand that everyone legalistically treat Sunday as a holy day, which is contrary to much of Paul's writings.

However, post-Biblical Christianity has been dominated by institutionalism with it's inherent legalism and demand for conformity in areas which should be left open to one's personal freedom. So while devaluing individuals through the neglect of personal discipleship, institutions tend to put programs over people and symbolism over substance. For example one cannot join a Southern Baptist church without agreeing to treat Sunday as a holy day, refraiming from worldly amusements and secular employments on that day.

vs 18 Worship of angels? Isn't that what those groups are doing who deny the deity of Christ and relegate his nature to being simply that of an angel? Worshipping an angel puts a creature on the level of the Creator.

Beware of the cults who make the opinions of their founders to override the Word of God. They may humble themselves before their own leaders and even worship angels, but such is not Biblical humility when it compromises with Biblical truth. Those who follow them are not qualified to receive the rewards that eternal life has to offer.

The charismatic community is most easily led astry on this point. "(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)" 2Cor 5:7 Yet seemingly in a desperate attempt to substantiate their faith, some "go into great detail about what they have seen, and their unspiritual minds puffs themselves up with idle notions." Some will treat their own dreams as prophecy, but God says

So stick with the Bible. Everything else is straw.

vs 19 Christ is the head. But it is the Christ of the Bible and not the Christ one makes up in one's own mind according to one's own image. In vs 13, God makes us alive. In this verse God makes the body of Christ to grow. Human effort is devalued as we play a more passive role, God taking the responsibility and thus the glory.

vs 20-23 Paul is not advocating civil disobedience, but rather he is referring to world's concept of obtaining righteousness and living a righteous lifestyle. The world writes its own prescription for righteousness as following a set of rules and rituals. This may be convenient and measureable, but it is of the flesh and not of faith. But because of the innate tendency of the flesh to dominate, this is not uncommon even in Christian circles. This is partly due to the great deal of nominalism that exists in "Christian" institutions.

Asceticism

There were two extreme lifestyles advocated by the greek philosophies at the time. One was Epicurean whose followers were devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. And there were Christian cults that integrated such a viewpoint into the Christian lifestyle such as the Nicolatians. The other was asceticism whose followers would practice extreme self-denial and austerity, considering anything physical to be evil and that the ascetic life releases the soul from bondage to the body and permits union with the divine. And there were Christian cults who also took on this philosophy, like the docetists who denied Christ had come in the flesh (1John 4:2). The group of the circumcision, although coming from a Jewish persuasion, also held similar ideas as ascetics, reckoning one can obtain righteousness through the cutting of one's flesh and obedience to strict rules and regulations.

In the light of the auster lifestyle of Jesus, Paul and other Christians in the Bible, one can be left with the false impression that the Bible advocates asceticism. It doesn't. Rather it preaches contentment. The problem with riches is that they tend to corrupt a person. They make one idolatrous and cause one to fall into all kinds of evil temptations. But while the New Testament advocates generosity, it doesn't demand one practice extreme austerity.

There are also those who misinterpret Jesus teachings to infer a harsh treatment of the body: But what Jesus' point was that if it were simply the members of our body that cause us to sin, and simply cutting off such members would free us from sin, then we should do so. But he is not saying that such is the case. (The "if"s should be read as "if it were the fact that") For sin is much more innate in us. It is not the members of our body that cause us to sin, but rather sin that dwells in us, which is not so easy to get rid of.

It is not a matter of simply of not tasting, touching or handling things whereby we can restrain sensual indulgence. "Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." Of course Paul is not referring to restraining oneself from sinning itself, nor is he discouraging moderation in all things. But that it is not the regulations themselves which will cause one to live a holy life. For sin is too innate and its influence should not be underestimated. Self-control must be exercised.

Inevitably if one relies on techniques to develop holiness, such techniques and restrictions become idolatrous. But realize also the other extreme that if one allows one's flesh to go on unrestrained, it will also naturally lead to sin. The Christian life is one that strikes a balance between legalism and licentiousness. Either extreme is sin.

The Berean Christian Bible Study Resources


Feb 10,2009