Colossians 2:8-15 –
8 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. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 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, 12 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. 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, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Introduction
Welcome back to Colossians.
Two weeks ago, we considered 2:8-10 and the consequences of ideas. Paul warned the Colossian believers about the bad consequences of the bad ideas they were being confronted with. He also reiterated the alternative; the good consequences of the good ideas of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In short, Paul explained that their choice really was binary. Either they would be taken captive by the ideas of the world (philosophy, empty deceit, human tradition, elemental spirits of the world) or captivated by Christ. His point is that a right understanding of Christ makes the choice as easy as it gets. Jesus and nothing is infinitely better than everything without Jesus. Living according to Jesus is eternal life, while living according to anything else is eternal death.
This morning, we’re going to pick up where we left off. That is, we’re going to look more closely at who Jesus is and what He’s done for those who receive Him in faith. As we do, you’ll see the big idea: With even the most child-like understanding of the gospel, the choice between living according to Christ and according to anything else is entirely obvious. The main takeaway is to learn and rehearse the gospel continually.
Captivated by Christ – Who He Is
To be captivated by something is to have it fill you with wonder and delight to the point that you feel enchanted by it. Have you ever been captivated by something like that? For whatever reason, God seems to cause me to be especially captivated by (I’m not really sure what to call it) certain landscapes (Glacier NP, the Canadian Rockies, the views of the North Shore of Superior from the SHT, the Utah NPs, etc.). They give me a sense of God’s presence (and my smallness) that I don’t really experience anywhere else. They really are captivating for me.
In some ways, that idea is at the heart of this passage for Paul. He knows that the Colossians will be captivated by something. For every reason, he urges them to be captivated by Christ.
Remember, then, the question the Colossians were continually confronted with is the same question that continually confronts all of us: Will we be taken captive by the ideas of this world or will we be captivated by Christ?
This sermon is meant to help you see the simple fact that nothing compares with Jesus. At best, every alternative to Christ is a disordering of something which enables it to provide immediate, but temporary and tiny pleasure; pleasure of the sort that ultimately ends in far greater and lasting discouragement and difficulty.
I was recently reading a book that enumerated and documented some of this in alarming detail. The author wrote,
There is plenty of statistical support for the contention that people [who look to the empty and deceptive philosophies of the world] are unhappy. Levels of self-declared depression and clinically diagnosed depressive symptoms have skyrocketed in recent years…
I wish I were merely talking about more adults confessing to being sad, but we are seeing an increase in depressed dispositions leading to an increase in behavior of desperation. The overall suicide rate increased a shocking 30 percent in the first twenty years of this new century. Roughly 5 percent of American adults have reported serious thoughts of suicide.
We know that alcohol and drug abuse has skyrocketed, and, in fact, deaths from alcohol abuse have risen precipitously, even for those over the age of sixty-five. Nearly one million people have died from drug overdoses in America since the year 2000, with a 30 percent increase in the number annually in recent years, and a 256 percent increase over that twenty-year period. The escalation in the rate of growth of opioid deaths began just after the 2008 financial crisis. Separate from those who tragically die from drug and alcohol-related causes, a stunning fifteen million Americans regularly abuse alcohol… The tragedy of lives consumed by drug and alcohol abuse is worsened only by deaths rooted in drug and alcohol abuse.
The use of antidepressants has doubled over the last twenty years, with a 35 percent increase in the last six years alone. It is estimated that thirty-seven million American adults regularly take an antidepressant medication (albeit at varying degrees of severity and dosage). We are talking about 15–20 percent of American adults needing medication for problems related to depression and anxiety.
I do not mean to say that becoming a Christian immediately eliminates all of these things or that mature Christians never deal with them.
But I do mean to say that many of them are the direct result, the consequences, of being taken “captive to philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world.”
I do mean to say that while the philosophers of this age promise much with all their offers of liberation and satisfaction apart from Christ, they simply cannot ultimately deliver anything but the kind of sadness and emptiness (ultimately death) described by the author I quoted.
I do mean to say that Paul was not thinking mainly in the abstract when he wrote of the alternatives to Christ. He knew that whenever we calibrate our minds or hearts to anything other than Jesus, our lives will reflect that in every manner of real-world pathology.
And I do mean to say that many of them will change dramatically when we begin to live “according to Christ.”
I do mean to say that living by faith in Jesus, and Him alone, only and always ultimately leads to fullness of eternal life and joy.
Jesus spoke directly to this in Matthew 13(:44-45), “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
Grace, the rest of this passage and sermon are meant to help you see the simple fact that nothing compares with Jesus; to help you see that He is the greatest treasure and nothing else comes close; to help you see that to really understand who Jesus is and what He’s done for those who trust in Him, is to be shocked that we ever looked anywhere else.
So, the million-dollar question is why would anyone believe that Jesus is the greatest treasure? Or, how is Jesus the greatest treasure? Or, what has He done that is so superior to all the alternative philosophies and traditions?
Paul answers those questions decisively, emphatically, and poetically by describing two aspects of who Jesus is and a handful of things He’s done for those who trust in Him.
Seeing Jesus for who He is and trusting in Him for what He’s done is a gift from God. We don’t deserve it. If we receive it, it is by grace alone. Therefore, as we make our way through Paul’s description of Jesus’ nature and work, my encouragement is to continually ask the Spirit to help you be as amazed by these things as they warrant. Ask the Spirit to help you to see them for what they are and how they compare to everything else. Ask the Spirit to shape your mind and heart, and cause you to live according to the truth and glory of these things above all else.
With that, consider with me the two aspects of Jesus’ nature that Paul highlights.
Whole Fullness of Deity (9)
In v.9, we read, “…in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…
That, of course, is a truly staggering statement. In some ways it is the culmination of all that Paul wrote about Jesus so far. He’s already described Jesus as…
The Son of God (1:3), Lord (1:3), the image of the invisible God (1:15), the firstborn over all creation (1:15), the author, means, and aim of the creation of everything that has been created (1:16), before all things (1:17), the sustainer of all things (1:17), the head of the Church (1:18), the firstborn from the dead (1:18), preeminent over all things (1:18), the one in whom all the fullness of God dwells (1:19), the reconcilier of all things (1:20), God’s mystery (2:2), and the one in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (2:3).
Again, collectively, all of those things describe what Paul means by “in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
Be amazed, Grace. With the Spirit’s help, consider your whole life—all of your desires, affections, ambitions, and decisions—in light of this and they will all look dramatically different. What would it mean to truly live out of the reality that God sent His one and only Son to be born of a woman, truly God and truly man, and to dwell among us? It would mean everything. It would mean that nothing else could compete or compare.
If you can imagine your whole life changing because you won the Powerball Mega Millions, how much more would it change if you truly believed that in Jesus the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and He’s offering Himself to you?
Additionally, almost certainly, Paul wrote this of Jesus to combat some of the claims of the false teachers who were chirping at the Colossian Christians. It’s possible they were denying the full deity or humanity of Jesus. And Paul knew that the true antidote to the empty deceit of the heretics was the fullness of the truth of Jesus.
Head of All Rule and Authority (10b)
The second thing Paul said of Jesus is no less awesome. In the second half of v.10, we read that Jesus “… is the head of all rule and authority.”
Grace, consider what it would mean to have the mayor of your city determined to use all of his/her authority for or against you. Consider how comprehensively that would affect your whole life.
More than that, consider every president, king, and ruler on earth. Consider every earthly power. Consider what it would mean if one of them set their mind to your success or failure, to your life or death. Concretely, imagine what it would mean if Donald Trump or Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin decided to use every ounce of power at their disposal for your good or harm. How much would that shape your life? How much would that affect your thinking? How thoroughly would that influence your every waking and sleeping moment?
It is, of course, impossible to imagine any aspect of your life unaffected by such a scenario. Would the idea ever leave your mind? Would you be able to do anything or go anywhere without that hovering over you? Not a chance.
Now expand that to the spiritual realm—to every angel and demon. Imagine all the power and authority of every spiritual being for or against you. How significant of a portion of your life would that dominate? Without question, all of it!
With all of that in mind, consider afresh Paul’s claim that Jesus “is the head of all rule and authority.” Consider afresh the whole-life-altering reality that as powerful as any and all other earthly and heavenly powers are, Jesus is entirely, sovereignly, imperially above them all. How much more ought that shape every aspect of your being?
If God were to grant us genuine faith in the sovereign reign of Jesus, and the promise that all of it is aimed at the good of His people, whom would we fear? Who else would we ever turn to? What else would shape our thoughts with greater influence? How would we ever give ourselves over to the captivity of something infinitely lesser? What else would we treasure more?
Paul meant to hold up Jesus in His divine glory and sovereignty for the Colossians to consider, knowing that if they were they to look with the eyes of the Spirit, every philosophy, tradition, and elemental spirit would be seen for what they truly are (empty deceit), Jesus would be seen for what He truly is (the fullness of deity and the head of all rule and authority), and the choice before them would be seen for what it truly is (the most lopsided choice in all reality).
Captivated by Christ – What He’s Done
But Paul didn’t stop there for he knew that the contrast between life according to the world and life according to Christ is even greater when we consider not only who Jesus is, but also what He’s done for His people.
Filled in Him (10a)
Paul’s first description of the grace that is ours in Christ is meant to fill us with wonder at both our union with Jesus in His fullness and the emptiness of every alternative. Remember that in Jesus is “the whole fullness of deity” and that in every philosophy of the world is only “empty deceit”.
10 and you have been filled in him…
We’ll see shortly that we are in Him (in Jesus) “through faith,” but we see here that being in Him is not only to escape from the emptiness of our old selves, but also to be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).
What’s more, Paul told the Colossians that this had already happened for them. They had been filled (not would be filled). From the moment they trusted in Jesus, the fullness of Jesus was theirs. The fullness of His grace, mercy, power, blessing, circumcision, rule, authority, death, resurrection, and victory were already theirs. They were growing to understand and accept those things, but the fullness of them was already theirs…so why would they ever consider returning to the emptiness—the death, the sin, the debt, the uncircumcision, the slavery—of their former selves?
Grace, you too have been filled in Him if your hope is in Him. How many empty internet searches and purchases would you avoid if you really believed that? How many empty hours of worry and anxiety would you avoid if you were to truly accept that? How many empty bouts with laziness and lust would you avoid if you really appreciated that? How many empty dreams and ambitions would you avoid if you were really captivated by that? How many empty attempts to find greener pastures and more immediate pleasure would you avoid if you fully embraced that?
Jesus came to bring fullness of life (John 10:10) and joy (Psalm 16:11) and that stands in stark contrast to every empty promise of the world that so easily entangles for all to whom the Spirit has given eyes to see.
Circumcision of Christ (11)
As strange as it may sound at first, the fullness that is ours in Jesus comes by way of circumcision.
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…
Paul’s precise meaning with some of the words/phrases in v.11 is somewhat elusive. Nevertheless, His overall point is clear. Through faith in Jesus, we share in the fullness of Jesus, because Jesus provides for us what God requires of us. Let me explain a bit.
As you may know, in the OT, the people of God were to demonstrate their ongoing faithfulness to their covenant with God (in part) by continually marking their children with the covenant sign, circumcision (the literal removal of the foreskin). But as you may also know, the sign itself was utterly useless when their hearts were with foreign gods or their own sinful appetites.
Paul wrote elsewhere that “circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision” (Romans 2:25). In other words, when Jews circumcised their children as an expression of faithful obedience, it honored God, but when it was a faithless formality, it was entirely futile.
In that way, circumcision with idolatry is like a serial adulterer who still wears a wedding ring.
Circumcision (like a wedding ring) was always meant to be a sign of a devoted heart (where the devoted heart was the key), but it got turned into a box to check as a means of bypassing a godward heart posture.
The point of all of that is that since Adam’s Fall, no one has been able to maintain a godward heart posture. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us can, therefore, properly take the sign of the covenant on our own merit.
But what we were powerless to do on our own, Christ did for us. He perfectly obeyed God. He perfectly kept every covenant term with a proper heart. And because of that, He provided for us what God requires of us. By grace, through faith, Jesus gives us new hearts and fills them with His fullness.
Therefore, “circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Romans 2:29).
Jesus is the fullness of the deity of God and He is the head of all rule and authority and because He is those things, God is pleased to fill us in Him and to mark us as righteous through our union with Christ who alone is righteous.
Buried with Him in Baptism and Raised through Faith (12)
The next description of God’s blessings in Christ is a sort of continuation of the last one. Where the OT covenant sign was circumcision, the NT covenant sign in Christ is baptism. V.12, in part, is meant to expand on the nature of the circumcision of Christ. You were circumcised…by the circumcision of Christ,
12 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.
More than likely, v.12 is not as much teaching something new from v.11 as it is describing it from another angle.
In other words, just as circumcision is pointless apart from it being a genuine act of faith (of the parents), so too is baptism (of the one being baptized). That is, Paul’s point is certainly not that faithless baptism merits our salvation any more than faithless circumcision. Rather, his point is that just as circumcision was meant to be inseparably tied to faithfulness, so too is baptism in Christ. In that way it both symbolizes and is an essential component of our union with Jesus in His death and resurrection.
And yet, as true and critical as those things are, Paul’s main point is not to describe baptism’s relationship to circumcision or even salvation. Rather, his main point is that the Colossians had been united to Jesus in His death and resurrection and both entirely on account of the powerful working of God and accessed only through faith in God.
Again, then, given these radial, unmerited, gracious blessings that were theirs in Christ, why, why, why, why, why would they ever hand themselves over to captivity to something that can’t provide any of that, but only disorderliness, difficulty, disappointment, and death?!
Paul was pleading with the Colossians, as I plead with you, let go of the things that can only bring a death that leads to death and embrace the only thing (Jesus) that brings a death that leads to eternal life. Be immersed in, entirely consumed by, baptized in Jesus that you might know the powerful working and resurrection of God.
Made Alive with Christ (13a)
As remarkable as all of that is, Paul still wasn’t done.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him…
As we’ve seen, the Colossians were dead in their sins and uncircumcision, as is every mere man and woman since Adam. Indeed, the wages of sin have forever been and will forever be, death. And that, once again, is all that every philosophy of this world can actually offer.
But as we also saw, the Colossians, having placed their trust in Jesus, were made alive together with Him. Instead of death, they’d been given life. Instead of trespasses, they were given righteousness. Instead of uncircumcision, they were given the circumcision of Christ. Instead of being baptized into empty deceit, they were baptized into Jesus’ fullness and truth.
Why look anywhere else, Grace? With even the most blurred eyesight, it is easy to see that nothing compares to Jesus and that which He alone offers to all who will receive Him in faith.
Forgiven of Trespasses (13b-14)
But that’s still not all. Paul went on to further explain the means by which Jesus was able to provide these blessings to mankind.
13 … having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Because God is just, He will never go back on His word concerning the consequences of sin (or anything else). But because God is loving, He made a way to be both just and justifier. Our salvation, then, is not about God overlooking our offense or ignoring its promised consequence, but about accepting Jesus as a substitute sacrifice. The penalty for our sin is death and death was paid.
Among men, Jesus alone had no debt to pay. At the same time, in Jesus alone was the fullness of the deity of God, and, therefore, Jesus alone was sufficient to pay the full debt of all who would trust in Him.
God had a list of all the sins of all the Colossians. Their record of debt was staggering. He had an airtight, indefensible legal case against them. He would have been perfectly just to execute judgment upon them at any moment. And yet, in His patience, He waited until the fullness of time, until the mystery that had been kept hidden for ages and generations was revealed. He waited until Jesus Christ hung on the cross, that He might poor out all His wrath for all the trespasses of all who would call upon the name of Jesus, that He might justly forgive and cancel and set aside our death-debt forever.
O, what amazing grace, Grace!
How can we chose anything else?
Disarmed Rulers and Authorities (15)
Finally, consider one more aspect of the grace and victory of Jesus.
15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
When we combine the fact that Jesus is the head of all rule and authority with the sacrificial death and victorious resurrection of Jesus, we should not be surprised to read that at the cross and empty tomb, He successfully disarmed all competing powers decisively.
The word translated “disarmed” literally means “stripped”. The picture is vivid. He striped them of their robes of power, leaving them exposed in their shameful impotence for all to see.
Why, then, would the Colossians, would we, would anyone, willingly subject themselves to the demands of disarmed, exposed, shamed, impotent rulers and authorities when the One who is head of all rulers and authorities offers Himself to us to be filled, spiritually circumcised, united with Him in His death and resurrection, made eternally alive with Him, and forgiven of our trespasses and the infinite and eternal debt we incurred because of them?!!!
Conclusion
In the remarkable paragraph that is Colossians 2:8-15, Paul gets a bit into the deep end of the pool concerning how and why the Colossians ought to do everything possible to avoid being taken captive by the empty and deceptive philosophies of the world.
All of it, though, amounts to two simple things. First, Jesus Christ is preeminent over all things. And second, the gospel is the best news of all time. Jesus is more glorious and His grace is more awesome than any of us can ever imagine.
While we were born into sin and death and enmity with God, blinded to the glory of God, Jesus came in perfect righteousness and died and rose from the dead to atone for our sin and fill us with the righteousness God requires and the life that God is. That atonement and righteousness and life are ours, not through sufficient obedience, through the act of circumcision or baptism, but through simple faith. With spiritual vision that itself is ours only as a gracious gift of God, we can see that Jesus Christ is the greatest treasure, our only salvation, and infinitely superior to every alternative philosophy, human tradition, and elemental spirit. And once we see that, we cannot not be captivated by Jesus and hold fast to Him who is above all and in all.