Christ Against the Counterfeits Text: Colossians 2:8-15
Introduction: No Neutral Ground
The Christian faith is not a hobby. It is not a set of pious platitudes that we tack onto the edges of our real lives. It is an all-encompassing claim about the nature of all reality. And because it is such a totalizing claim, it is constantly at war with other totalizing claims. The Colossian church was facing a barrage of such claims, a syncretistic stew of Jewish legalism, pagan mysticism, and Greek philosophy. Paul does not tell them to find a little common ground. He does not advise them to add Jesus to their intellectual smorgasbord. He tells them to see it for what it is: kidnapping. He tells them to see to it that no one takes them captive.
We live in an age that prides itself on its open-mindedness, but this is usually just a euphemism for being empty-headed. Our universities and media centers are churning out philosophies and empty deceptions by the truckload. They are traditions of men, elementary principles of the world, and they all have one thing in common: they are "not according to Christ." Every worldview is a circle, and the question is what you put in the center. The Colossian heretics were trying to keep Christ somewhere out on the circumference, as an interesting add-on. Paul grabs the whole mess, erases the board, and puts Christ squarely in the center, declaring that He is not just an important thing; He is everything.
This passage is a declaration of the absolute, unqualified, all-sufficient, and total supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a frontal assault on every worldview that would seek to diminish Him. It is not enough to say that Jesus is Lord. We must say, as Kuyper did, that there is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, "Mine!" This passage shows us why. It is because all the fullness of God is in Him, and because we are made full in Him, and because He has accomplished a total and final victory for us on the cross.
The Text
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily, and in Him you have been filled, who is the head over all rule and authority; in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you being dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him, having graciously forgiven us all our transgressions. Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us, He also has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them in Him.
(Colossians 2:8-15 LSB)
Intellectual Kidnapping (v. 8)
Paul begins with a sharp warning.
"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:8)
The verb here for "takes you captive" means to carry off as spoils, as plunder in war. Bad ideas are not neutral. They are predatory. They are out to kidnap your mind, to lead you away from the glorious liberty of Christ into the slavery of man-made systems. Paul is not condemning all philosophy, but rather the kind of philosophy that is not "according to Christ." Any thought system that does not begin and end with Jesus Christ is, by definition, empty deception.
He identifies the source of these dangerous ideas. First, they are "according to the tradition of men." This is human religion, the endless project of trying to climb up to God on a rickety ladder of our own making. It is the Pharisees with their oral law, the Gnostics with their secret knowledge, and the modern secularists with their ever-shifting consensus. Second, they are "according to the elementary principles of the world." The Greek word is stoicheia, which can refer to the basic elements of the universe (earth, air, fire, water) or to the rudimentary religious principles of paganism, the ABCs of a fallen world. It is religion for spiritual kindergartners, a return to shadows and regulations when the reality has come.
The ultimate test for any idea, any philosophy, any tradition is this: is it "according to Christ?" Does it bow the knee to Him? Does it find its source and its goal in Him? If not, it is a spiritual dead end. It is a kidnapper's van, promising intellectual candy but delivering only bondage.
The Fullness of God in a Body (v. 9-10)
Why is Christ the standard for all things? Because He is God in the flesh.
"For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily, and in Him you have been filled, who is the head over all rule and authority;" (Colossians 2:9-10 LSB)
This is one of the most potent statements of Christ's divinity in all of Scripture. The Gnostics and other mystics tried to drive a wedge between the spiritual and the material. They taught that God was a distant, ethereal being, and that matter was evil. Paul demolishes this by saying that "all the fullness of Deity" makes its permanent home in a physical, human body. The infinite has become an infant. The eternal Word has taken on flesh and blood. God is not somewhere "out there;" He has come down here, in Christ.
And the glorious result of this is found in the next phrase: "and in Him you have been filled." Because He is full, we are made full. We are not missing anything. The Judaizers said you need Christ plus circumcision. The mystics said you need Christ plus ascetic rules. The philosophers said you need Christ plus their intellectual system. Paul says you need Christ plus nothing. To be united to Him by faith is to be made complete. He is the head, the sovereign ruler, over every other rule and authority, whether angelic or human. There is no power in the universe that is not under His feet. Therefore, to have Him is to have everything.
The True Circumcision and Baptism (v. 11-12)
Paul then uses two covenant signs, circumcision and baptism, to illustrate how this fullness in Christ is applied to us.
"in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." (Colossians 2:11-12 LSB)
The false teachers were pushing the old covenant sign of circumcision as necessary for salvation. Paul says that Christians have received a far superior circumcision, one "made without hands." This is not a physical cutting of the flesh, but a spiritual one. It is the "removal of the body of the flesh," which is not a call to self-mutilation, but a description of what happens at conversion. God, through the cross of Christ, performs radical heart surgery. He cuts away our old, fallen nature, that "body of sin." This is the true circumcision, the circumcision of the heart that the Old Testament prophets pointed toward.
And when did this happen? It happened in "the circumcision of Christ." This refers to Christ's own death on the cross, where He was "cut off" from the land of the living on our behalf. In the crucifixion of Christ, we see the circumcision of the world. And this reality is signified and sealed to us in our baptism. Baptism is our burial. We are plunged under the water, signifying our death with Christ. We have died to the old way of life, to the elementary principles of the world, to the traditions of men. But we do not stay dead. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the "working of God," so we are "raised up with Him" out of the water. This is not just a symbol of something that happened; Paul says we are raised "through faith in the working of God." Baptism is a sacrament, an effectual sign, where God is at work, uniting us to the death and resurrection of His Son.
From Death to Life (v. 13-15)
Paul concludes this section by summarizing the magnificent results of Christ's work. He gives us three powerful images: a resurrection, a canceled debt, and a triumphant parade.
"And you being dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him, having graciously forgiven us all our transgressions." (Colossians 2:13 LSB)
First, the resurrection. Before Christ, we were not just sick or misguided. We were dead. We were spiritual corpses, rotting in our sins. The "uncircumcision of your flesh" here is not just about the physical state of the Gentiles, but their spiritual state of being outside the covenant, alienated from God. But God, in a sheer act of creative power, "made you alive with Him." This is regeneration. It is a spiritual resurrection, and it is accomplished by the complete forgiveness of all our sins. Not some, not most, but all.
Second, the canceled debt.
"Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us, He also has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." (Colossians 2:14 LSB)
Every one of us had a rap sheet, a certificate of debt before God. Every broken commandment was written on it. The Law of God, which is holy and good, stood against us because we had violated it. It was hostile to us. And what did God do with this list of charges? He "canceled it out." The Greek word means to wipe clean. He took this document that condemned us, and He nailed it to the cross of His own Son. In the ancient world, when a debt was paid, the certificate was nailed to the post and marked "paid in full." When Christ was nailed to the cross, our debt was nailed there with Him. God treated Him as if He were guilty of every sin on our charge sheet, so that He could treat us as if we were as righteous as His Son.
Finally, the triumphant parade.
"Having disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them in Him." (Colossians 2:15 LSB)
The cross was not a defeat. It looked like one. The rulers and authorities, both human and demonic, thought they had won. But in the very act of the crucifixion, God was disarming them. Their ultimate weapon was accusation, pointing to our sin and demanding our condemnation. But when the certificate of debt was nailed to the cross, their weapon was shattered. They have nothing left to accuse us of. The cross was not a quiet, back-alley transaction. It was a "public display." God paraded these defeated, disarmed spiritual powers through the universe as a spectacle of their own failure, like a Roman general parading his conquered enemies in a victory procession. And He did it all "in Him," in Christ. The cross is the center point of all history, where our sin was judged, our debt was paid, and our enemies were utterly and publicly defeated. Christ is not just a teacher or an example. He is a conqueror.