Freedom from Rules and New Life in Christ
(Colossians 2:6-15)
6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.
7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.
9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.
10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.
12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.
14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
Ok here is the meat- chew on it!!!
Observations:
vs. 6- Amplified version says to "regulate your lives and conduct yourselves in union with and conformity to Him." This is how we should be living our lives, according to His, and using His life as our personal yard stick.
vs. 7- If we "plant" ourselves in Him, we will grow deep root in Him so that we begin to grow up, increase, and mature in our faith. That growth also brings a harvest of thanksgiving. How could we reflect on all that He has done for us and in our lives and NOT be thankful?
vs. 8- This verse is so key- we are so easily strayed by flesh-pleasing words. Paul warns us to be careful not to be swayed by ideas that are deceptive because they cater to the world, and not to Christ. We are to weigh everything that we are tempted to follow or believe in against the Word of God and the Spirit.
vs. 9- This verse essentially establishes the concept of the trinity.
vs. 10- (Amplified) "You are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life (in Christ) you are too filled with the God head- Father, Spirit, Son- and reach full spiritual stature." In my maturing Christianity, I learned that you have to ask the Holy Spirit to come on a separate occasion than regular salvation. This confirmed that I either learned it wrong, or was taught wrong. Upon our salvation, we receive the fullness of the God-head unto ourselves. Now, having spoken to someone about my confusion over this, it was brought to my attention that in actuality, you do receive all of Him upon salvation, but asking for the "baptism" of the Holy Spirit is like asking for a new level in Him... essentially referring to the time in Luke when we heard Jesus tell His disciples to wait to be endued with power from on high, or, taking on the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can follow Christ's prophesy that "these things, and more" can we do.
vs. 11- This was so profound to me. I read this as - when we come to Christ, He cuts off all of the natural desire for sin, natural desire or curiosity. We are not left with no desire to sin at all, the taste of sin is still in our mouths, but He actually performs a work on a spiritual level to remove that fleshy desire.
vs. 12- There is a spiritual step-by-step walk through going alongside the physical act of baptism. People say that baptism is an outward sign of an inward act, which is more deeply true than it seems. As we lay back (during water immersion baptism), we surrender our own two feet supporting us, laying down both as an act of death (of the flesh) and surrender. When we again rise, we rise fresh and anew, clean, rising symbolically from death (sin) as Christ also rose from death.
vs. 13- Many times in the Bible it says that death is the payment for sin, but here we see that even death can be "cured", through Christ. Also, again here it tells us that our flesh or sinful nature is "cut away" when we receive Christ, because He removes it and forgives our sins.
vs. 14 I got such a visual image when reading this verse. Christ takes the list that is written of our sins, our spiritual "rap sheet", and then he nails it to the cross. But even more than that, in reality, when sin was nailed to the cross, it was Jesus' body. Our sins were tattooed into His flesh and onto His spirit to be crucified with Him. Woo... if that doesn't get you on your knees in gratitude....
vs. 15- The act of salvation was like a slap in the face to those "rulers and principalities" that we war against. Jesus literally disarmed them, and took away their weapons, stripped them of their ammunition. He took the keys of hell and death, and had victory over them! I feel a shouting, dancing match coming on right now! What an amazing, powerful, glorious, righteous, and wonderful God we serve, amen??