Colossians 2:8 - 23

Colossians 2:8 – 23
We MUST reject inadequate teachings about Jesus as well as the behavior that incorrect teachings lead. We MUST be committed to TRUTH!
This week a couple was driving on a highway. The woman/wife – because of what she thought she was seeing – jumped out through the sunroof of her car! What she thought she saw was the “rapture” taking place. What she saw was: a man dressed for a costume party in a toga. He was driving a truck that has some inflated human “sex” figures. The tarp that was holding the figures in place had loosened and the figures began to float up into the air. The man in costume, stopped his truck and jumped out of the truck. Standing on the side of the highway, in frustration, he threw his arms up into the air. WHAT TRUTH COULD HAVE PROTECTED THIS WOMAN FROM SUCH WRONG THINKING AND PREVENTED HER UNFORTUNATE DEATH? She had partial knowledge, but had missed a KEY element of the rapture.
Many Christians recognize false ideas and know Biblical standards for Truth. Some teachings contain subtle errors; some teachers accept and pass on false teachings out of ignorance; and some believers do not know how to find Biblical standards to help them. BEING ABLE TO RECOGNIZE FALSE TEACHINGS ABOUT JESUS IS IMPORTANT FOR ALL CHRISTIANS!
We closed our lesson last week with emphasis where we will begin…v. 8-10. Paul warns the Colossians how easily even intelligent persons can become a victim of false teaching. Often those who feel they are intellectually sophisticated because they have been well educated are especially likely to fall prey to the kind of false teaching the Gnostics brought to the Colossian church. Paul warns against philosophy – a very high-class sounding word. It is empty deception because it arises from ‘the tradition of men’ rather than divine revelation; and it deals with ‘the elementary principles of the world.”…including the various levels of superhuman powers and intelligences that – according to the Gnostics – controlled human destiny. The loftiest production of the greatest human mind is elementary when compared to the Truth as revealed by God through Christ.
Paul is making it very clear that all the FULLNESS is in Christ and that all the levels of reality and all the truth of the universe are contained in Christ.
v. 10-12…the mood changes somewhat…Paul turns to the individual believer’s experience of God in Christ. If it is difficult to understand that all of God’s fullness can be contained in one human person, Jesus, it seems even more peculiar to the rational mind that this fullness can be experienced in the body of any average human being. But that is exactly what Paul is saying!!!
THE ‘PUTTING OFF’ AND THE ‘PUTTING ON’…Baptism: symbolic act saying that the born again believes his old nature has died with Christ on the cross and has been buried with Him. Also believes that he has been raised in Christ with a new nature, one that will conquer death and enter eternity… An expression faith in the work which Christ has done on the believer’s behalf. In v. 13-15 Paul is describing what eternal transactions were going on behind the scenes while we were experiencing conversion.
Three problems were solved IN Christ!
The problem of sin v. 13: spiritually DEAD! Spiritual life came because God acted…not the result of any resolutions to live a new kind of life—dead people don’t make resolutions. Spiritual life came through being united with Christ. Our identification with Christ is not just a doctrine; it is a fact. Spiritual life was a result of being forgiven of sins. Because sin is the cause of spiritual death, forgiveness of sin is the key to spiritual life. God does not treat our terminal disease superficially…he gets to the root of the problem. ALL…there is no sin too great for the grace of God to overcome. There is no sinner too far gone for Him to save.
The problem of legal debt v. 14 Before being saved, I had an impossible debt. KJV uses the word handwriting…personalized the debt. Listing of specific charges to the account of each individual. What a predicament! Our legal obligations to God are not just covered; they are gone from the books. The pages are clean. The handwriting against me is “nailed to the cross.” When Jesus was nailed to the cross, it was to pay the spiritual debts accumulated by every individual … the debt is not ignored; it has been settled by Jesus.
The problem of Spiritual Warfare v. 15 Eph. 6:12. The Gnostics tried to settle the problem of sp. Warfare by making friends with these rulers and authorities. They viewed them as mediators…Paul is telling us that they are enemies to be conquered. Christ has fought that battle for us…He has ‘disarmed’ these rulers and authorities…rendered them impotent. The truth of a ROARING LION!
An individual’s experience at conversion is a wonderful, but that subjective experience is only the tip of the iceberg. The transformation of the life of a person on earth is possible only because of the greater objective event…Christ’s death on the cross. Christ solved the three problems. The problems that Christ faced were immense. The price He paid was staggering. Paul wanted us to appreciate Christ’s work in salvation as much as they appreciated the change it precipitates in our lives.
The Christian life is not just a pattern of Behavior v. 16 – 17 The Christian faith as not been immune from the tendency to reduce religion to rules. Like Judaism and Gnosticism, Christianity has at times been made into a list of petty dos and don’ts. Stand fast in your freedom. We are responsible to resist false teachers and teachings that attempt to reduce our Christian walk to a list of dos and don’ts. Don’t be attracted to a mere shadow when ‘the substance’ has been revealed to us in Christ.
The Christian Life is not just a certain kind of spiritual experience v. 18 We must resist the equally dangerous teaching that spirituality can be measure by certain special experiences. Self abasement = mortification of the flesh through self-denial and fasting…Motive to lead to some greater experience…visions.
The mind was designed by God to be a channel by which the spiritual could flow into human experience, has become instead the channel for the flesh to flow into and corrupt the spiritual.
The Christian life is being united with the living Christ. V. 19 Paul has shown us that the ChristIan life is NOT A matter of behavior or ecstatic experience. Paul uses a metaphor to describe what the Christian life IS. It IS being part of a total organism which is ruled, powered, and coordinated by a single Head, Christ. Be cautious of drawing your spiritual input from your OWN heads rather than from”THE Head.” A person whose religion comes from his own head really is trying to draw spirit from flesh, for his source is ‘ the mind of his own flesh.” What appears to be spiritual aspirations of the human mind are really fleshly without Christ.
Poor imitations of the Christian life. V. 20-23 As fanciful and attractive as some of these false teachings may appear, Paul is assuring that nothing can be compared to being part of the Body of which Christ is the Head. The Christian life is not a code which one must religiously follow. It is a relationship with the living Christ Who as our Head, lovingly and wisely directs our lives. “Christ in me, the Hope of glory!