Colossians 2 — Complete in Christ, the Debt Nailed to the Cross

Today’s Passage: Colossians 2

In chapter one Paul lifted our eyes to the towering greatness of Christ, the image of the invisible God, the One in whom all things hold together, the head of the body. Now in chapter two he brings that greatness down to the anxious life of a small church he had never even visited, and he does it for a reason. Voices had come to Colossae offering a fuller wisdom, a higher spirituality, a stricter discipline, and they were quietly teaching the believers that Christ was a fine beginning but not quite enough. Paul answers that whisper with the whole weight of the gospel. If in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form, and if you have been made complete in Him, then there is nothing to add. The certificate of debt against you is not being managed or reduced. It has been nailed to the cross and cancelled outright, and the powers that once held it over you have been stripped and led away in Christ’s triumph.

As you read, hold this: In Christ dwells all the fullness of God, and in Him you have been made complete.

Colossians 2:1–3 (BSB)

¹ For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me face to face, ² that they may be encouraged in heart, knit together in love, and filled with the full riches of complete understanding, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, ³ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Paul lets these strangers overhear his prayers and his labor. He is struggling for them, wrestling on their behalf for people who have never seen his face, and the word he uses is the language of an athlete straining in the contest. What does he strain toward. Not that they would gain more information, but that they would be encouraged in heart and knit together in love, bound into one another by the very thing that binds them to Christ. And the goal of it all is knowledge, but a particular kind of knowledge. Not the secret wisdom the false teachers were peddling, but the mystery of God, which Paul says plainly is Christ Himself. Here is the answer to every claim of a deeper wisdom lying somewhere beyond Jesus. In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Every last one. If you have Christ, you are not standing in the outer courtyard of God’s wisdom. You are standing in the treasury.

Colossians 2:4–5 (BSB)

⁴ I say this so that no one will deceive you by smooth rhetoric. ⁵ For although I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and I delight to see your orderly condition and firm faith in Christ.

Now Paul names the danger he has been circling. There are those who would deceive the Colossians by smooth rhetoric, arguments so well-turned and persuasive that a young believer could be talked out of his footing before he knew what had happened. This is why Paul has labored to root them in the treasures hidden in Christ. A heart that knows where the treasure lies is not so easily led away by clever words. And though he cannot be with them in body, his affection reaches across the miles. He is present with them in spirit, and he delights, like a father glimpsing a distant child standing tall, to see their orderly condition and the firm front of their faith in Christ. The words carry a soldierly ring, a line that has not broken. Paul writes not to scold a wavering church but to strengthen a standing one before the assault comes.

Colossians 2:6–7 (BSB)

⁶ Therefore, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him, ⁷ rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Here is the hinge of the whole warning, and it is beautifully simple. You did not begin the Christian life by one door and then advance by another. Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, so continue to walk in Him. The way forward is the way you came in. Paul then stacks up four pictures of that ongoing walk, and they move from root to fruit. Rooted in Him, like a tree sunk deep into good soil, a settled past act that goes on holding. Built up in Him, like a house rising course by course, a work still under construction. Established in the faith, made firm and sure in what they were taught. And overflowing with thankfulness, the whole life running over its banks with gratitude. Notice that a growing believer is not one who has moved on from Christ to something more advanced. He is one who has sunk his roots deeper into the same Christ. Depth here is not distance from Jesus but nearness to Him.

Colossians 2:8–10 (BSB)

⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. ⁹ For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form. ¹⁰ And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

Now the warning grows sharp. See to it, watch, that no one takes you captive, for the word Paul chooses is the picture of a slaver leading off human plunder in chains. The weapon is philosophy and empty deception, a hollow system dressed in the robes of wisdom, resting on mere human tradition and on the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. Against that whole edifice Paul sets one shining sentence. In Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily (σωματικῶς) sōmatikōs, pronounced soh-mah-tee-KOSE. Strong's G4985, bodily, in bodily form. This single adverb carries an immense weight, and it appears only here in all the New Testament. It comes from the ordinary Greek word for a body, and Paul deliberately plants it at the center of his sentence: in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells bodily, in bodily form. He is guarding against two errors at once. Against the teachers who imagined the divine fullness scattered among many spiritual intermediaries, Paul says the whole of it dwells in one Person. And against any notion that the physical body of Jesus was a mere costume or illusion, he says the fullness dwells there in true, embodied reality. The infinite God took a real human body, and in that body the whole fullness made its home, and makes its home still, for the risen Christ retains His flesh. This is why the believer needs no ladder of angels or ranks of hidden powers to reach God. All that God is has drawn near in a body that could be touched, and to be united to that Christ is to have the fullness itself. form. Not a spark of the divine, not an emanation or a portion, but the entire fullness of God, and dwelling not in a phantom but in a true body, the Word made flesh. And then the wonder turns toward the reader. Because the fullness dwells in Him, and because you are in Him, you have been made complete in Christ. The very One in whom God’s fullness lives is the head over every ruler and authority, over all the powers the false teachers wanted you to court. You are already joined to the top of all things. What could the whisper of a deeper wisdom possibly add to a person who has been filled from the fullness of God.

Colossians 2:11–12 (BSB)

¹¹ In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. ¹² And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

The false teachers evidently prized the old covenant sign of circumcision, the cutting away of flesh that marked out the people of God. Paul answers that the Colossians have already received a far greater circumcision, one made without human hands. In Christ they have undergone the true cutting away, not of a small piece of the body, but of the whole sinful nature, the entire old self stripped off and cast aside. And he presses the union further. They were buried with Him in baptism, lowered into His death as into a grave, and they were raised with Him through faith in the power of God who raised Jesus from the dead. This is the pattern that governs everything Paul will say about freedom. The Christian is not a bystander watching the cross and the empty tomb from a distance. He was joined to both. He died in Christ’s death and rose in Christ’s rising, so that the very power that emptied the tomb is the power now at work in him. The old life is buried. The new life is a gift of resurrection.

Colossians 2:13–15 (BSB)

¹³ When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross! ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Here the chapter reaches its summit, and Paul can hardly contain the grandeur of it. He begins where every one of us begins, dead in trespasses, unable to lift a hand toward heaven. And into that grave God spoke life. He made you alive with Christ, and He forgave us all our trespasses, every one, holding nothing back in reserve. Then Paul reaches for a picture from the marketplace and the courtroom. There was a certificate of debt (χειρόγραφον) cheirographon, pronounced khay-ROG-rah-fon. Strong's G5498, a handwritten certificate of debt, a signed bond or IOU. This vivid word appears only here in the New Testament, and it repays a slow look. It is a compound of the word for the hand and the word to write, so it means literally something written by hand, a handwritten document. In the ancient world it named a bond of debt, a signed IOU, a certificate in which a person acknowledged in his own writing what he owed and bound himself to pay it. Paul takes that image and lays it against the whole demand of God’s law upon us. Standing against every one of us was a certificate, and the terrible thing about it was that it was valid. The debt was real, the decrees were just, and the signature was ours. What could be done with such a document. God took it away, and the verb Paul uses is that of wiping a wax tablet clean until not a mark remains. Then, so that we would know the cancellation was total and public and final, He nailed the emptied certificate to the cross. The bond that testified against us was fastened to the very place where its debt was paid in full. This is what forgiveness is. Not a debt overlooked, but a debt discharged, wiped clean, and pinned in plain sight to the wood where the Son of God poured out His life. , a handwritten record of everything the law required and we had failed to pay, and it stood against us like a signed confession. God did not lower the figure or arrange easier terms. He cancelled it entirely. He took it away and nailed it to the cross, driving it through with the same nails that pierced His Son, so that the debt died where Christ died. And in that one act something more was accomplished than the clearing of a ledger. The powers and authorities, the unseen forces the Colossians were being urged to fear and appease, were disarmed, stripped of their weapons like a defeated army. Christ made a public spectacle of them, leading them in open procession as a conqueror leads his captives, triumphing over them by the very cross that looked to the watching world like His defeat. The place of deepest shame was the scene of God’s greatest victory.

Colossians 2:16–17 (BSB)

¹⁶ Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.

Because the debt is cancelled and the powers are conquered, Paul can draw the practical freedom out with a firm hand. Therefore let no one sit as your judge over what you eat or drink, or over the keeping of a festival, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. These observances were never worthless. They were given by God as a shadow of the things to come, an outline traced ahead of time of the good that was arriving. But a shadow is only ever the promise of a solid thing, and once the solid thing has come, no one goes on clinging to its outline on the ground. The body that casts the shadow, Paul says, belongs to Christ. He is the reality toward which the festivals and the Sabbaths always pointed. To go back to living by the shadow, once the substance has come in person, is to prize the sketch over the One it was drawn to announce. The Colossians are not to let anyone shame them for standing in the daylight of Christ.

Colossians 2:18–19 (BSB)

¹⁸ Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you with speculation about what he has seen. Such a person is puffed up without basis by his unspiritual mind. ¹⁹ He has lost connection to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God causes it to grow.

Paul turns now to the teachers themselves, and he strips the disguise from their piety. They delight in what looks like humility, a lowliness that will not approach God directly but insists on the mediation of angels, and they parade visions and speculation about what they claim to have seen. It appears very devout. Paul calls it what it is. Such a person is puffed up, swollen with pride, and the engine of it all is not the Spirit but a merely human mind spinning out its fancies. Then he names the fatal flaw beneath the whole system. The false teacher has lost his connection to the Head. He has let go of Christ, and in doing so he has cut himself off from the only source of true growth. For it is from the Head that the whole body, supported and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that God supplies. A limb severed from the body does not flourish on its own private wisdom. It withers. All the visions in the world cannot feed a soul that has released its grip on Christ.

Colossians 2:20–23 (BSB)

²⁰ If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations: ²¹ “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”? ²² These will all perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. ²³ Such restrictions indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-prescribed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body; but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Paul closes the argument by appealing to what the Colossians already are. If you died with Christ, and you did, you died to the spiritual forces of the world and their whole system of regulation. Why then live as though you still belonged to that world, bowing again to its rules. He even quotes the rules in their own clipped voice: do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. It sounds strict and holy, but Paul points out how small and passing the objects of these prohibitions really are. They concern things meant to perish with use, ordinary food and drink that goes into the stomach and is gone, and the rules themselves rest on nothing higher than human commands and teachings. He grants that such restrictions have an appearance of wisdom. Their self-prescribed worship looks devout, their false humility looks lowly, their harsh treatment of the body looks disciplined and severe. But then he lays down the verdict that unmasks the whole enterprise. For all their outward rigor, these rules have no value at all against the indulgence of the flesh. Rule-keeping can bind the hands, but it cannot cleanse the heart. Only Christ, in whom we have died and been raised, can do that. The freedom Paul defends is not a lowering of the bar. It is the discovery that the bar was cleared, once for all, by Another.