WHAT WE ARE ‘IN CHRIST’ – Colossians 2:9-15
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 6, 2011 under 2011 |
Preached November 6, 2011
from
Colossians 2:9-15
Theme: Paul shows forth the great blessings of salvation by declaring what we are “in Christ”.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
I wanted to find a Scripture passage to share from this morning that would be appropriate for both the communion meal and baptism. And I believe that, for this, the Lord has led me to the second chapter of Colossians.
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In his letter to the Colossian believers, the apostle Paul was encouraging his brothers and sisters to rest confidently in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ as their Savior. They were being tempted to turn away from a simple trust in Him; and to, instead, seek “completion” in human philosophies and pagan spiritualities and religious rituals. And so, he wrote to them and said;
For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:1-8).
Those are great words for us to hear—especially on a morning when we both celebrate the sacrifice that our Lord made for us on the cross through the communion meal, and declare the new life we enjoy in Him through the waters of baptism. And those words from Paul are particularly important for us to hear in a world such as ours today—when the full sufficiency of what those ordinances declare is either questioned or denied; and when so many deceitful and fruitless alternatives are being offered up in place of a simple faith in Jesus and His cross.
And I ask you to particularly notice what Paul then does. In verses 9-15, he shows us just how sufficient the Lord Jesus is for us by showing us the great blessings we have as a result of a relationship by faith with Him. Paul speaks of our relationship as being “in Christ”; and if you were to count, you’d find that he makes six allusions to being “in” Him. That’s what our salvation really means, by the way—being so related to Jesus Christ by faith that we are “in” Him; so that all He did on our behalf becomes true of us. Paul goes on then to tell us the great benefits we have from being “in” or “with” Christ when he writes;
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (vv. 9-15).
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In our adult Sunday School class recently, we’ve been interacting with some pretty heavy theology. But it has also been a thrilling time of discovery. And in the course of it all last week, we came to a wonderful realization: Good theology also makes for good psychology. We found that, when we come to understand the things that God’s word says are true of us in Christ—and when, by the Holy Spirit’s enabling, we let those truths sink into our innermost being, and sincerely believe them, and faithfully rise up and live in the light of them—they make for sound, healthy, balanced, contented, joyful living!
And if ever it was true that good theology leads to good psychology, then it would most certainly be true of the great theological truths Paul placed before his believing brothers and sisters in this morning’s passage. Each of the wonderful benefits he speaks of in this passage have their basis in a theological truth about Jesus Christ and our relationship with Him by faith. And as we review them, we find that embracing those theological truths will lead us to exciting and fulfilling Christian living.
This morning—as we get ready to commemorate the sacrifice that Jesus made for us through the communion meal, and then celebrate new life in Him through baptism—let’s look through this passage, and relish together what the Bible says we ‘are’ in Christ!
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The first thing that Paul said is that, in Christ, we are . . .
1. MADE COMPLETE BEFORE GOD (vv. 9-10).
Do you realize, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that because of our relationship with Jesus Christ by faith, we stand before God the Father as 100% accepted in His sight? There is not one thing that could be added to our relationship to Jesus Christ—not one ritual, not one ceremony, not one religious act, not one good deed, not one spiritual thing in heaven or earth—that could make us any more accepted in God the Father’s sight than we are in Him! We are made absolutely”complete” in Christ!
The theological truth that stands behind this is that Jesus Christ is who He is. As Paul puts it in verse 9, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily . . .” This speaks of His incarnation. He existed eternally as the second Person of the triune Godhead—God the Son; the Word who was “with God”, and who “was God” (John 1:1). But at a point in human history, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). And in embracing full humanity to Himself, and becoming born into the human family as one of us, He forfeited nothing of His deity. In Him, as Paul says, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Now; wouldn’t you agree that Jesus Christ—in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily—is “complete”? Wouldn’t you agree that He stands as 100% acceptable in the sight of His Father? Of course you would. You don’t even have to guess at it; because, at His baptism, God the Father told us so—when He opened the heavens above Jesus and declared to the world, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). And given that wonderful theological truth, Paul went on to say to his brothers and sisters, “and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (v. 10). All authority has been given to Jesus Christ in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). Every knee will bow to Him (Philippians 5:10). As God in human flesh, He is “complete” before His Father. And if you and I are in Him by faith, then we are made “complete” in the eyes of His Father along with Him.
It was the great burden of Paul’s heart to encourage his believing brothers and sisters to rest fully in their “completion” in Christ. In Colossians 1:28, he wrote, “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” If we are in Him, nothing more is needed! Phony philosophies, self-help scams, man-made religious rituals and ceremonies—none of those things can give us any more than we already have in Jesus Christ!
Salvation means being “in” Christ. And by being in Him, we are already—right now, as a spiritual reality—made complete in God’s sight! What a great blessing we have in our salvation!
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Now; even though it’s absolutely true that we who believe on Jesus are made positionally complete in God’s sight through Him, that doesn’t mean we’re perfect in a practical sense. We still have a long way to go toward perfection in the way we live.
Many of us, who have placed our faith in Jesus for salvation, come from backgrounds and life-stories that are very imperfect. Many come from a life-style built around sin. Many have come to Jesus from alcoholism, or an addiction to drugs. Some come from sexual addictions—such things as promiscuity, or pornography, or pedophilia, or homosexuality. Some come while still feeling under the grip of such things as gambling or theft or chronic lying. These are things that this world says someone cannot break free from—things to which this world says someone who is caught in them must always be in bondage.
But another remarkable thing that Paul said that we are in Christ is . . .
2. LIBERATED FROM BONDAGE TO SIN (vv. 11-12a).
Look at how Paul affirmed this. In verse 11, he said, “In Him [that is, in Christ] you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ . . .” It used to be that, before we were in Christ, we were the utter slaves of sin. We had to do whatever it told us to do. But now, in Christ, we no longer ‘have’ to do what sin commands. In Christ, we are no longer its helpless slaves.
Circumcision was the covenant sign that God gave to His Jewish people immediately after they were freed from their bondage to Egypt. Each Jewish male was to be marked, by that symbol, as having entered into a covenant relationship with God. The skin of their flesh was put off from them as a sign that they were a people who were longer the slaves of the forces and influences of this world. God had set them free, brought them into a relationship with Himself, and entered into an agreement with them that they would now be His liberated, holy people.
But Paul wasn’t talking in our passage about the literal rite of Jewish circumcision. In fact, he told his Colossian brothers and sisters that they—all of them who were in Christ; both male and female—were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. He was pointing to the great spiritual reality for which literal circumcision was merely a symbol. He was talking about a ‘spiritual circumcision’ that God Himself performed on them in Christ, “by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh”.
When did this “circumcision without hands” in Christ occur—this spiritual act by which “the body of the sins of the flesh” was put away from them? Paul told them in the beginning of verse 12 that it was when they were “buried with Him in baptism . . .” Being in Christ, they were also “baptized” into His death—so that when He died, they died with Him. And now, having died with Jesus, they were no longer alive to their old slave master ‘sin’. Sin may tell them what to do, but they were no longer obligated to obey. They had been completely liberated—through death by dying with Jesus—from bondage to sin.
I believe the best way to understand this is through what Paul wrote in Romans 6:1-14:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:1-14).
When our old slave-master ‘sin’ barks its orders at us, it’s as if it’s giving orders to a dead body. We are no longer alive to its authority. The theological fact is that we have died with Jesus. And this means that no one who is “in Christ” is a slave any longer to their past way of life. They are set free to be brand-new people—fully liberated from the sins of the past.
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Now; it’s not just that we have died to the sins of the past. Paul went on to show that, in Christ, we are also . . .
3. RESURRECTED TO NEW LIFE (vv. 12b-13a).
To have been baptized into Jesus’ death—united to Him and completely identified with Him in it—means that we have also been baptized into His resurrection. We’re not “in” only one part of what Jesus did; but, rather, are “in” all that He did. If we died with Him, then we’re also raised with Him. And so; Paul went on to say in verses 12-13 that we were “buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”
That’s the theological truth that Paul wanted to stress to his readers. As he puts it in Ephesians 2:4-6; “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . .” Right now—when God looks upon us in His Son Jesus Christ—He looks upon us as people who had been dead in our sins, but who are now raised from death to newness of life. And the practical implication of this is that we are to now live the lives of people who have been raised from the dead. As Paul says in our passage, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him . . .”
Have you ever looked over your past, seen the way you have lived, and wished with all your being that you could just ‘start over’? Well; if you are “in Christ”, then—before God—you have started over! You’re not simply the same old person who simply had a super-spiritual ‘make-over’. As far as God is concerned, the old “you” has died and has been buried in Christ; and a brand-new “you” has been raised up together with Him. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17; “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Resurrected to a brand-new life in Christ! What a great blessing we have in our salvation!
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Another blessing that is ours “in Christ” is that we are . . .
4. FORGIVEN OF ALL OUR FAILURES (vv. 13b-14).
Paul went on, in verses 13-14, to tell his believing brothers and sisters that God had raised them to newness of life in Christ, “having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
Did you notice how complete Paul said that forgiveness from God was? He said that God had forgiven them “all trespasses”. They probably bore a great sense of guilt for the sins that they had committed in the past. But Paul assured them that all those sins of the past were forgiven. But they would also probably have felt guilt over the fact that, even though they had been forgiven and were new creations in Christ, they still stumbled and fell in sin. They didn’t want to, of course. They wanted to go on and live as perfect in practice as they were in position before God. But they occasionally failed. And so do you and I. But even those sins that we may occasionally commit—and even the sins that we will, no doubt, commit tomorrow—are forgiven. They too are included in the “all trespasses” that Paul said were now “forgiven”.
Paul tells us what the theological truth is that makes such a complete forgiveness possible. He said that God had “wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us.” The requirements were given to us in God’s law. His law is good and holy, because it is an expression of God’s own character. But that same law also condemns us because we have broken it and have not kept true to its standards. We have sinned against it; and it puts us in a horrible state of debt before God.
It’s as if we could walk around with the copy of the law around our necks—and with the bold letters at the bottom: “In Debt”. But God took that record of our debt from around our necks; and He nailed it to the cross—where Jesus Christ, His Son, paid the debt for us—and writes on it, “Paid in Full.”
What a great blessings our salvation gives us! As Paul said in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus . . .”
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And this leads us to one more thing that Paul tells us we are in Christ; and that is . . .
5. SET FREE FROM ALL ACCUSATION (v. 15).
We have a great enemy. He’s called the devil—which is a name that means “slanderer”. In the Book of Revelation, he is referred to as “the accuser of our brethren, who accuses them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:10). He and his fallen angels constantly point at God’s people and say, “God; how can You love them—how can You call them Your children—how can You allow them into heaven—and still be a just God? They have sinned against You! They deserve death for their sins! See how often they fail You? See how unfaithful they are to You?” Not only does the devil and his angelic forces accuse us in this way; but so do many of the people who are under the devil’s influence.
And God doesn’t silence their accusations by simply ignoring His own law. He can never deny His own holy character. Nor does He simply overlook our sin; because that would be unjust. Instead, when spiritual forces in wicked places point an accusing finger at the record of our indebtedness, God Himself points to the cross where our debt has been “paid in full”. Thus, as Paul said in verse 15, “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”
That’s a theological truth. And the result of it is that, in Christ, we are set free from all accusation before the throne of God. As Paul put it in Romans 8:31-39:
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31-39).
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Dear brothers and sisters; in Christ, we are made complete before God, liberated from our former bondage to sin, resurrected to new life, forgiven of all our failures, and set absolutely free from all possible accusation before the throne of God forever! These are blessings are ours based on solid theological truths.
As we come to the Lord’s supper this morning—and as we celebrate new life through the waters of baptism—let’s do so with great praise and thanks to God! What a great salvation is ours “in Christ”!
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