Passage: Colossians Study | Lesson 04
Joshua Yuan | January 25, 2015
Opening Question: What is a myth, weird tradition or false teaching that you have been taught that you once believed to be true for some reason?
Take some time to read over the passage, underlining words or phrases that don't make sense to you.
Let's compare notes. This is what I underlined:
"so walk in Him" & "being built up in Him" & "overflowing with gratitude"
In 2:6-7 the audience is urged to make their conduct reflective of the world in which they now dwell; by continuing to be rooted and built up in Christ.
In these verses Paul tells the Colossians to continue in Christ in the same way as they had always done, and when they first believed. This is faith in Jesus as an all-sufficient Savior, without any dependence on human's effort and works.
He tells them that they must be 'rooted' in such faith. The analogy being that plants that aren't deeply rooted into the ground are easily swayed or knocked over by natural elements. Thus, the same will happen to us if our roots are shallow.
He tells them to build up their Christian life in faith. That's the only way they can be strengthened, and know overflowing thankfulness.
Paul encourages the Colossians to keep discovering the hidden depths of knowing Christ so that their attention isn’t diverted from developing a deeper relationship with him (vs 6,7).
"takes you captive"
The brunt of the negative arguments are in this verse (negative warnings or commands).
In this verse Paul warns the Colossians against the teachers that had come in who were suggesting that their faith in Christ needed to have additions to become perfect.
Their faith was being derived from earthly or human wisdom, rather than godly wisdom.
These teachers were know as Gnostics, or people who combine ideas from different religions, philosophies, traditions..
(not to be confused with Agnostics). An extreme example would be mixing the concept of karma and grace as reasoning behind the fortune or luck we receive. A more understandable example may be assuming that doing well in school will lead to God blessing us. Although we are called to be good stewards, this isn't necessarily the case. For the time of the Colossians, these Gnostics believed that Jesus only appeared to have a human form but He was actually spirit only or that His divine spirit came upon his human body at baptism and departed before the crucifixion (Rather than Jesus being fully man and fully God).
"all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form"
In these verses Paul seeks to show that in Christ and faith in Him there is everything, and it needs no additions. In Christ there is the fullness of God. Christ is the head of the Church and his authority is the only authority. His authority is the Bible.
Circumcision is used by Paul as a reference to the new birth and new life which comes through faith in Christ. This new birth is the death of the 'sinful nature'. This not an outward action but the operation of God in our soul. It is achieved by the believer being united to Christ, so that sinful nature is put to death with Christ on the cross. So a new nature was given to us because we are raised to new life in the resurrection of Jesus. This was achieved not by human effort, but by the power of God.
"circumcision" & "buried with Him in baptism" & "dead in your transgressions" & "the certificate of debt" & "nailed it to the cross"
In 2:11-15 the author uses the imagery of circumcision and the actual rite of baptism to describe our former and current lives. All who were baptized experienced a type of circumcision in that they were established as God’s people and transferred out of the realm where sin enslaves our existence. By depicting this as the circumcision of Christ it highlights that Christ is our new reality and identity.
God eliminated our former sinful nature and made us alive by forgiving us. Thus God expunged the heavenly record of our sinfulness by nailing it to the cross. God also disarmed human and cosmic rulers and powers. In a closing he draws on imagery from a Roman triumph in which the defeated imperial enemies are publicly paraded to demonstrate their defeat and disgrace as well as the power and honor of the Roman military. Ironically this grand, sweeping divine victory over the rulers and powers occurred in Christ’s crucifixion.
Paul reminds us we have new life in Christ. Through what happened on the cross when Jesus died and then rose, every barrier that keeps us from a meaningful relationship with Christ has been removed.
"triumphed over them through Him"
In these verses Paul describes the whole nature of Christian salvation in Christ.
Before we are saved through faith in Christ we are dead in our sins. We sin because we have a sinful nature, and therefore the life of God is not in us, and we are children of wrath under the wrath of God. When we believed and were saved from this condition it was God working. God made us alive with Christ.
Then Paul shows how God has done this, and made it possible. Our sins are the problem. They have to be cancelled, otherwise he must punish the sinner. We are condemned to everlasting death. Our sins are cancelled by the cross. God nailed the sins to the cross.
This means that all the condemnation was placed on Jesus on the cross. Jesus took all the punishment for sin which we deserve. By this, sin loses all its power. Satan loses his power to hold the sinner. God's wrath is turned away from the sinner. So the cross was a spectacle of triumph. So through faith in Christ we are saved.
To tie back to the Question... Obviously some things that you were taught or learned of are silly and none of them would potentially lead you to fall from faith. And some of those things we grew up hearing don't matter if we did them anyway (eating watermelon seeds, storing batteries in a refrigerator or not finishing all of your food). Those said myths or traditions could be easily believed until we researched or found out for ourselves. Sometimes in life, we hear something it sounds right or okay, and we kind of end of believing it. In some cases, we listen more to the person, rather than the facts they are saying. With that said, be careful. Don't believe everything you hear, take the time to match it to scripture on your own. I'm not saying to assume everything as heresy, but it's a good way to go about learning in general.
Application (If anything, remember these verse summaries!):
1. Don't let anyone deceive you (v.6-8)
2. Don't let anyone take Christ's place (v.9-13)
3. Don't let anyone cause you to deny Him (v.14-15)
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