THE ABIDING IMPACT OF THE CROSS – Colossians 2:11-12

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 20, 2013 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group; March 20, 2013

Colossians 2:11-12

Theme: This passage teaches us about the spiritual impact that the death of Jesus on the cross has upon us.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

Paul’s theme in this morning’s passage is one of the most glorious that we could ever talk about—the cross of Jesus Christ and the impact it has on us as His followers. Paul wanted the truth of the absolute sufficiency of Christ to sink deeply into the thinking of his Colossian brothers and sisters. And as a key part of that effort, he stressed how Jesus’ sacrifice for us renders all religious rituals and ceremonies and ordinances utterly unnecessary to accomplish righteousness before God.

The abiding impact of the cross of Jesus on us is experienced that it delivers us from the dreadful cycle of the law, sin and death. It invalidates the power that the law possessed to condemn us and bring the curse of the guilt of sin upon us. It makes us brand-new creatures in Christ—set free to follow after God’s will for us as those who are already in His complete, loving favor. Can there be any greater news for poor, tired, struggling sinners like us than what it is that the cross means to us today?

I. THE REASON THAT THE CROSS CAN HAVE AN ABIDING IMPACT ON US.

A. The basis of the impact that the Jesus’ death on the cross has upon us is found in the word “baptism”. Paul writes; “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” (vv. 11-12; emphasis added). When someone asks how it could be that the cross of Jesus could actually have anything to do with anyone living today—or how it could impact the lives of people living in various parts of the world and in various times throughout the centuries—the answer is through the work of the Holy Spirit that is here called “baptism”.

1. The baptism being spoken of here is not the ceremony that is performed on a professing believer in a church, but rather the spiritual reality that baptism in a church is meant to symbolize. The baptism Paul speaks of is a spiritual work of the Holy Spirit upon a believer; one in which He connects the believer directly to the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord. Galatians 3:26-27 speaks of this when it says, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” It also brings the believer into complete spiritual union with the Church—all those who have been redeemed by Jesus. As 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.”

2. The Greek word that’s used—baptizmo—is related to the idea of “dipping” something into something else in such a way that the item dipped becomes permanently “identified” with the thing into which it is dipped. (If, for example, someone were to dip a piece of white cloth into a pot of purple dye, that white cloth would become “purple”—permanently identified with the dye into which it had been ‘baptized’.) This pictures for us the way the Holy Spirit forever unites the believer with the work of Jesus in all its dimensions— spiritually “dipping” the believer, as it were, into Jesus, and causing the believer to be permanently “identified” with Him in His death, burial and resurrection.

B. As Paul wrote in Romans 6:1-11; “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.” Why does the cross have anything to do with us? It’s certainly because of who it was that died—the Son of God in human flesh. And it’s also because He died as our God-appointed Substitute. But most of all, it’s because we have been—by faith—”baptized” into His substitutionary death. Jesus’ death on the cross doesn’t simply impact us as a great ‘example’—although it certainly is that. Rather, because of the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, it truly does have a real, immediate, direct, abiding impact on us as something that we are united to and for ever identified with. That’s how it can be that the cross of Jesus Christ can have so much to with us today.

II. THE NATURE OF THE ABIDING IMPACT OF THE CROSS UPON US.

A. What, then, does our having been “baptized” into Christ mean? How does it result in the cross having a real, actual impact on us as believers? First, it removes from us the dominating power of the flesh. Paul writes, “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 . . . (v. 11).

1. It may seem strange that Paul talks about the Old Testament rite of “circumcision” and the New Testament ordinance of “baptism” in almost the same breath. But it’s not really strange at all when you consider that they were both symbols of “identification”. Just as baptism symbolizes someone’s spiritual “identification” with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, so also circumcision symbolized a Jewish man’s identification with the covenant promise of God. Circumcision was something that was established by God in the Old Testament law by which He distinguished the Jewish people for a special purpose in His great plan of salvation (see Genesis 17). Every male child born of Abraham was to bear on his body the mark of the removal of flesh; and he was to bear this mark on that part of his body by which his own offspring would be brought into the world. It would always serve as a reminder—from generation to generation—of God’s covenant promise that He would one day deal with that cursed principle of sin and set people free from it.

2. What has been spiritually “put off” from us—removed from us as if by circumcision—is (literally) “the body of the flesh”. This speaks of the dominating power of the principle of sin in us (the word “of the sins” is not in the best copies of the text). The death of Jesus on the cross means that we are no longer slaves to the principle of sin. The dominating power of the principle of sin has been “circumcised” from our hearts by our having died with Him on the cross. As Paul writes elsewhere, “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness” (Romans 6:17-19). Now, when we feel the pull of the principle of the flesh in us toward sin, we can declare with Paul, “No! I won’t obey you! ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me’” (Galatians 2:20).

B. The cross also makes us dead to the condemning power of the law. Paul goes on to say that we were “buried with Him in baptism . . .” (v. 12a); and “buried” here is representative of our having died with Him in His death on the cross.

1. The Bible tells us that the principle of sin is a very deceptive thing. It gets its power through something good—the law of God. It gains its opportunity to condemn us through the commandment of God. In Romans 7, Paul writes that “sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me” (Romans 7:8-11).

2. But our death in Christ severs us from our impossible relationship to the letter of the law— the law which was impossible for us to keep because of the principle of indwelling sin that was aroused by it. When we died in Jesus, we died also to the curse of the law. “For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:5-6). We’ve died to the old relationship to the law that condemned us; have now been placed in God’s favor “in Christ”; and are now free to keep His law out of the motive of love, under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, we often fail and stumble along the way in our attempts to keep God’s commandments; but we have no need to fear that we’ll ever be lost to God’s favor because of that failure, because the law is not how we enter into His favor, and obedience to the law isn’t how we are kept in His favor. We’ve “died” to that old, impossible path to His favor; and have been “raised” to a state of eternal favor in His Son Jesus.

C. Finally, the cross results in our being raised to newness of life. Paul says that it was by this same “baptism”—this same work of the Spirit by which we were forever identified with the death of Jesus on the cross—”in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (v. 12b).

1. God placed us in the death of Jesus through the Spirit’s work of baptizing us into it. But God didn’t leave us dead. He also baptized us into Jesus’ resurrection; so that we have been raised with Him and are now ‘positionally’ seated with Him in glory. As Paul tells us in Ephesians 2; “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, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7). The religious rules and regulations now no more condemn us than they would a man who had died and had been raised from the grave. “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” (Colossians 2:13-14).

2. This means, in actual, real-life practice that we should no longer allow ourselves to be placed under the bondage of the principle of righteousness through works. As Paul writes, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:1-4).

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God has accomplished everything we need at the cross of Jesus Christ. By faith, we can rest assured that He has placed us “in Christ”. By His death, we have been severed from the dominating principle of sin, have been put to death with respect to the binding curse of the law, and have been raised to follow Christ in love as those who are made righteous in God’s sight. Nothing else is needed to place us—and keep us—in God’s full favor. Let’s put our full confidence in what our all-sufficient Savior accomplished for us there; and rest confidently in Him.