Complete in Him Part 2, Col, 2:11-12

This is a really neat passage we're looking forward to studying here this morning. This is a passage where Paul is continuing on his teaching and remember he's been alternating in Colossians chapter 2 with warnings and then teaching and warnings and teaching. We're in the middle of the largest block of teaching and we're going to be finishing it up here next week as we look at it. So we're right in the middle of that block of teaching that he's brought up in Colossians chapter 2. And as we do this, we'll be looking at verse 11 initially.

That discusses the reality presented by circumcision for the believers of the church. And then in verse 2, the reality represented by baptism for the believers of the church. So two symbols, if you will. Circumcision is the outstanding symbol, the physical symbol, of the covenant with Abraham. And we'll see what application that has here for those who are in the church. and baptism is the outstanding physical symbol representing the believers of the Church. Each one pictures a spiritual reality. It's a physical demonstration of something that is spiritually taking place.

That's the place of each one. What we're going to do here is to break those up verse by verse here and look at each one separately for the sake of our study. Now, here are some important observations as we look at the first verse there, verse 11. The first one is the spiritual accomplishment is reality, what he describes here, only for those who are in him, that is, those who are believers. It is reality only for those who believe. Paul is not certainly prescribing physical circumcision. We see from a number of other places that that's not what he points toward, but is rather describing Spiritual circumcision.

It is done by God in believers' hearts, as we'll see here in further detail. What is described is effective for those who believe, whether Jews or Gentiles. It doesn't matter whether they are Jews or Gentiles, or male or female. He's also going to make that very same point, not only as we directed here in Galatians 3.28, but later on in the book of Colossians as well. It is not something that depends upon your racial background, your gender, it makes no difference. It's a spiritual event for all those who believe, regardless of background.

And finally, given the topic, I'd better be careful what pictures I put on the screen. Okay. Now, in him. In him you were circumcised. This in him here says what is said in verse 11 is true only of those who are in him. Those who are believers in Jesus Christ are, by God's accomplishment, in intimate and eternal union with Christ. That's the character of what's being presented here, isn't it? As believers in Christ, we are in Him, and that's not just some academic announcement. We are intimately connected with Christ. We are intimately related with Him. In Him. We have our spiritual place eternally fixed in Him. We saw last week that this is irreversible. We are in Him and He is in us. Those are both eternally and irreversibly true. This car has no reverse. There is no reverse in the transmission. It's not something that backs up or backs out or slips out. You are eternally and irreversibly in Him and He in you.

And finally, there's nothing we can do to enhance it. We can't say, you know, I think I will kind of make it a little bit better because I do this or that or I'll stop doing this other thing. There is nothing we can do or not do that makes it any better or changes it one iota. It is entirely God's doing. Now, we've got this word circumcision in this verse, and boy, is it prominent. Three times it's brought up, and let's take a look at those.

The first one there, peritemno, it's used of the ritual of circumcision. It's the one that's used in the New Testament. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, that's the word that's used, so it's consistent. This is an aorist passive verb. In him you also were circumcised. It's a done deal, and it is passive, it is done to us. Then, the noun form is brought forth, and both in the English and in the Greek, it's apparent that it's related. One of the things you notice, that shows up twice in this verse, that noun, and the second time it's got a definite article, the circumcision of Christ. And so we want to take a look at that.

How did this whole thing get started? Well, long about 4,000 years ago, God made physical circumcision of the males an outward sign of the covenant of Abraham, initially brought up in Genesis chapter 17. This requirement is initiated, again for the males, in Leviticus, and the practice was on the eighth day to circumcise the males or if later on they were brought into Judaism to circumcise them at some later point in time. But those that are born into the family of Abraham physically were to be circumcised on the 8th day.

Now, as it happened, the Jews elevated the importance of circumcision to, like, it's way up there. Typical of the Jewish traditions, they had to rank things. All right, if we really got to choose, what's most important? And so they said, circumcision is so important, it's even more important than the Sabbath. If you had a choice between one or the other, circumcision would be very important, they would say.

So, for the last 4,000 years, male circumcision has been a long-standing tradition, even to the point now it's continued on. And rabbis would carry this out. Don't ask me to please. Anyway, rabbis would carry this out and it's done and you even get a certificate to certify that this has been properly done. Now, why was it such a big deal in Colossae? Colossae was in the middle of an area that was Greek speaking, Greek culture. And so you got to ask, how come?

Interestingly, 2-11, the numbers I'm not sure have any significance, but it makes it easier to remember. 2-11, 3-11, 4-11. Each time it gets brought up. So, for one thing, not only does it conveniently end up on the 11th verse, but it is brought up again and again.

So, this must have been an important thing. And what it turns out, and remember we talked about earlier, the false teachers who are coming into Colossae typically would bring in this It was a spiritual concoction. When we think of a concoction, we usually think of something in chemistry that would blow something up, or something that somebody drinks that's a mixture of something.

They brought in a spiritual concoction. It was a mixture of various things. So they were happy to bring in, okay, let's bring in some circumcision, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And it was part of the spiritual concoction that they were making. Gnosticism. Pagan religions and a little bit of Jewish law thrown in.

Think about this a little bit, very much like our culture. Our culture is very much in the idea of people kind of picking and choosing, mixing this with that. So the mentality is not entirely different. The false teachers then were like the false teachers of today.

They said, for example, salvation is by special knowledge. You can be saved, but you've got to know this special stuff. Or you've got to be a part of our elite group. If you're with our group, then you can be saved. If you come join our special little organization, we've got some rigmarole and some rituals and some things you've got to know, and if you do that, well, then you can be saved. Or, here's the list of things you've got to do and things you shouldn't do. If you get the right list, well, that's just exactly what you need. And so what they're doing is a concoction. They mix a little bit of this, a little bit of that, they brought that into Colossae and said, hey, we can sell this stuff. Sounds like church marketing. Okay, alright. Here we go. Now, we've got this little phrase that comes up, made with hands. Oh, excuse me, without hands.

Very important distinction. It's a compound word here. Paul loves those, you know. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, we have a lot of references to things either made with hands or made without hands. and they usually vary the pattern a little bit from one passage to the next, but it was a common phrase, something made with hands or without hands. So let's figure out, because Paul is using it according to a pattern here. For example, the physical universe or things that are made by people. All those things are made with hands or without hands. Let's look at the pattern.

The work of God in the physical realm, such as creation, are spoken of consistently as the work of His hands. Isn't that interesting? The figure of speech is as if God had hands, but that's how it's typically spoken of. God made the stars. They are the work of His hands. We see that where God creates the universe and the earth and things on the earth. All those are spoken of as being made Here are the passages, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, which use the work of God's hands in that way.

Then there's the work of man's hands. There's both things that are good, that are the things that God has appointed man to do. For example, the temple was built, and they said, oh, this is the work of man's hands, and that was good. But there's also things that are the work of man's hands, And that includes idols, and that was not a good thing. And so that's called the work of man's hands, but said in a negative light. So we have things, for example, here's the idol of Artemis, and that was a work of man's hands, but in a negative light. The work on the temple is spoken of in a positive light.

That's the work of man's hands. Here are some of the passages, Old Testament to New, that use the work of man's hands that way. We have physical circumcision, spoken of as the work of man's hands. Ephesians 2.11 is where it's explicitly put that way, and then there's other passages, and I give an example there in Joshua, where it's obviously implied that man's hands were to do it, not God's.

Now, here's the distinction. When God does something in the spiritual realm, unlike when he creates something in the physical realm, when God does something in the spiritual realm, The phrase that is used is not made with hands or made without hands. And we give the example Daniel 2 verses 34 and 35, it says cut without hands because it's a spiritual accomplishment. So cut without hands. These other passages in the New Testament are places where made without hands or not made with hands, is used as a phrase for things that God does in the spiritual realm, His accomplishments.

That's exactly the pattern we see here. Under the law, the Jews were told to circumcise their own hearts. This was the law. Remember, the law is the spiritual things you've got to do. These are all things you've got to do because that's spiritual. The law is your own accomplishment of it. So the Jews were told, okay, now this is yours to do.

Circumcise your hearts. Okay, how do you do that? Then they were told several times, both in the Old and Stephen told them in the New Testament, they didn't like it, that they had not circumcised their own hearts. Here's what you're to do, but by the way, you're not doing it. Interesting.

So this made without hands is explicitly referring to something not physical but spiritual. It's accomplished by God and not by man. Very clear in the pattern, the way that phrase is used. There's no exception to it that I've seen. Now, we're going to jump ahead a bit. You can stay in your seat, don't worry. We're going to jump ahead a bit, but for good reason, and you'll see that in a minute why. This made without hands We're going to go from there to by the circumcision of Christ.

Now, when we say by the circumcision of Christ, we're not referring to the time when Jesus was eight days old and he was circumcised, like you see in Luke 2.21. That's not the circumcision of Christ that we're talking about, okay? The circumcision of Christ, because remember this is without hands, was instead accomplished by Christ. Christ was the instrument of bringing this about. the spiritual circumcision in the believer, accomplished by Christ, okay?

That is God's instrument for bringing about the spiritual change. That's what he's pointing to here. Now, there's a consistent pattern here in verse 11. I show the quilt as an example because I'm just fascinated with the patterns they come up with. But, the pattern we see is this. Initially in the verse, here's reference to circumcised, then made without hands by the circumcision of Christ. And the pattern we see is this. The first one circumcises passive voice. We receive the action in Him.

And to underscore the point, 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, by His doing you are in Christ.

Very definitely this is God's accomplishment, isn't it? Made without hands, the next phrase there, as we've seen the pattern of the phrase, this is God's doing, not ours. Paul is underscoring the point. It's something God accomplishes, not something we do. And finally, by means of Christ, is what the last phrase comes up. By the circumcision of Christ, it's the circumcision which Christ accomplishes, not what we do. Now, having that removal of the body of the flesh.

Romans 6, 1 through 11 provides a parallel to what God has accomplished here. Very much the same, with some further insights in that particular passage. Paul has kind of compressed the truths for here in verse 11. And I won't ask you to read all of that, and I won't try to read it all either, but mostly to focus on this point.

Our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. Notice the similarity here. Removal of the body of flesh. God's doing. The body of sin might be done away with. God's doing. God's accomplishment.

Now, if we compare and contrast these verses, here's what we come up with. Both are in the context of baptism, if you look at the passage, being placed into. That's what baptizo means. We're baptized in Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Both those passages bring that forward. Both make reference to the body, soma. By the way, the word soma sometimes was sort of the slang for a slave.

Romans 6.6 is in a context of crucifixion, and Colossians 2.11 is in a context of circumcision. So they are using two different illustrations to make the same point.

Romans 6.6 says that the body of sin nature is done away with.

Colossians 2.11 says that the body of flesh is removed. Are they saying the same thing? I submit to you that they are.

The sin nature is the flesh expressed in different terms. The sin nature is the nature of man, apart from salvation, the nature of man that is contrary to God and that is against God. It is the nature of man that misses the mark. The flesh is the attachment to this human body, is the association with this human body. Unlike the Gnostic teachers, it's not saying our body is sinful. but it is instead saying that we have this body to which the flesh, this sinful inclination is attached.

In Romans 6.6, it doesn't mean the eradication of the sin nature, but the putting of the sin nature out of business. Here in Colossians is the removal, and it's using as a picture, just as they would remove the foreskin flesh, from the male being circumcised, the removal of clothing.

It doesn't make it cease to exist, but it puts it off. This is not what I wear. It uses the analogy of clothing in this word that he uses, as we'll see here. By the way, I want to make a correction. I have on your handout what is worn should be what was worn, because obviously a believer is no longer wearing the sin nature. Colossians 3, 9 and 10, we'll get to there in a few weeks, has a call to live in our condition based on our position. You have laid aside, as in clothing, the old self with its evil practices and then put on the new self. You see the connection in the words. They're different forms of the same root word. So he uses clothing throughout the book of Colossians an illustration of our spiritual condition. Now, why the repeated references to clothing?

Well, it turns out like this. In the area of Colossae, they raised sheep, and the wool from those sheep would be dyed a reddish-purple color, and the wool once it was dyed that color was known as Colossinus. So Paul, being very aware of this, knew that this would be something they would key to, so he says, I'll use that clothing analogy to illustrate that they have put off the sin nature. Is it eradicated? No. But it is not worn, not used. It's set aside, taken off. There are also some sheep in the area that had a highly prized black wool.

Now, we're going to shift to verse And so, ready to shift? We're going to take off here. Hopefully it's like this and not like this. Anyway, verse 12 shifts the picture, okay? It's an outward symbol from circumcision to baptism. And verse 12 is explaining how the end of verse 11 takes place. Got that? Verse 12 is explaining how the end of verse 11 takes place.

The means by which God carries out spiritual circumcision, and the one who believes in God's work, without hands, that was accomplished through Christ. That's the idea. Starting off, having been buried with Him, and the Him is implied in the verb, sunthopto is the word there.

The same word is used elsewhere in the New Testament, in Romans 6.4, where it tells about our having been buried with Christ, identified with Christ, in his burial by God's doing.

Romans 6.6 and our co-crucifixion with Christ is clearly put out as well, but Colossians 2.12 it is implied that we are co-crucified, because obviously how do you get buried, right? Later on in this chapter, a couple of verses down, he will talk about our being crucified with Christ, and we'll talk about that next week. So what is he conveying We've said here before that we have been identified with Christ in His crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. It's the second of these that's said explicitly in this verse. The crucifixion is then implied. Now, the next thing that comes up there, hymn, is autos, okay? And it looks like this cars thing. It's not cars, okay? It's not any of those. It's autos, not autos. All right, altos, since the Greek verb has a pronoun built into it there, the addition of a pronoun beyond what's already built into the word is put there for clarity and emphasis. There's no question about who it applies to, and so it almost says it twice.

It is the idea that you are buried with Him in baptism. It emphasizes it. The one with whom we were buried is most certainly Christ. He wants to make it quite clear to them and put the focus upon Him. Christ is the means for our spiritual circumcision. And that's what he's emphasizing. As he ends verse 11 and comes into verse 12, that's his emphasis. He said, you have been circumcised by means of Christ and you have been buried with Him, specifically.

And then finally this word baptism here, baptizmos. Some people, of course, want to say, Aha! You see, it happens because I got baptized. And they'll make a big point of it and say, See, I got baptized, that's what did it, and now this spiritual accomplishment took place because I got wet. A couple of things to note.

You see later on there, faith is in the working of God through Christ and not in baptism. Beyond that, In some other passages parallel to this, like Ephesians 2, 4-9 that we looked at, baptism isn't even mentioned at all, and yet this takes place. But faith is doubly mentioned.

So, the other thing we notice, it's without hands. Okay? No hands. It's not the hands and what the hands do and what you do with the body, but it's without hands. It's what God does in the heart, not what we do with our hands to get somebody wet. And baptism means being placed into and is done by God.

It's passive. It's not something that we do. So there are multiple things built into it that say no. Getting wet, like we do here behind this curtain, that is something that is a symbol. It's not the reality. It's not causative. It doesn't make something happen. Physical baptism is not effective for bringing about salvation.

It's a spiritual picture and a public proclamation. That's what it's for. It's to demonstrate and to proclaim what has taken place spiritually. That's the value and importance of it. We have been identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. That's what baptism says has taken place. Now, in which you were raised up with Him through faith in the working of God. This is sun egairo, together raised. You were together raised with Christ.

Do you remember that? Do you remember that? You don't. Well, that's because we have to understand it by faith, faith in the facts here. We are identified with Christ in his resurrection from the grave, made alive together with him. So now we have in this passage that we were buried with him and raised with him. assumed in this passage, brought it more clearly elsewhere. And finally, through faith.

It is specifically here, through the faith, and that's not talking about a list of doctrines and teachings, but it's specific to the faith that is put into Christ. In His work, in His work, His accomplishment, it is believing, and that's not a work, that God says, I will deal with you on the basis of your belief, and nothing more and nothing less. There's nothing we can add to it. There's certainly nothing to be taken away from it.

And then this word working. Energeia. This is the word that we've seen elsewhere in our studies as we've looked in Colossians and Ephesians so far. And we're going to look at this word in Ephesians here. Paul says in the middle of Ephesians 19 and 20, these are in accordance with the working, energeia, the strength of his might which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him in his right hand in the heavenly places. When you think of this working and God's power and its expression, what do you think of here?

Here on planet Earth, we might think, okay, there's a powerful car. That's working. We might think, oh, that's a powerful rocket there. That's working. That's a lot of energy being expended. I might say, this guy is expending a lot of energy and I'm glad he's got it on his chest and not me. But anyway, God says this is tremendous power. God says this being raised to life is tremendous expenditure of energy. That's what he says. He says the placing of Christ in the heavenlies, that's powerful. That's potent.

That's how God measures it. raised him from the dead. This is the same word which we saw before with the sun prefix, together with. When God raised Christ from the dead, you also were raised with him, is the message that gets conveyed here. God identified us with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and feeding, and God raised Christ at the same time. Tremendous power and you were identified with Him in that unparalleled expression of power and energy. Now, we've got this word, ek, and it's a small word, but I want to put focus on it here. Now, first we've got to clarify something.

Ek is not what this little baby is saying after whatever that doggie did, I don't know. It has nothing to do with that. This is not what Paul means by ek. This isn't even what ek means, okay? It's not that. Ek here is out from. That's the idea. Out from the dead. Entirely out from the dead. Christ didn't say, hey, let's make him a little bit less dead. Entirely out from the dead so that you are alive. You are made alive with him. Not just out from the dead, but to the point of being completely and fully alive. Eternally alive.

Now, this baby wants out of the pumpkin. That's probably a little bit closer. Maybe it's Eck, I don't know. Finally, the last word there for dead is nekros. The is inserted prior to dead in many English translations for the sake of smoother English, but the Greek text doesn't really have a definite article here, so the implication refers to a character of deadness.

You were taken out of a character of deadness, out of that state of deadness, to being alive. And this is the focus here, raised him out from the dead, and you were identified with Him in that raising. You were taken out of that character of deadness, completely out to the point of being alive.

Now, as we look at this passage, what's Paul doing? He's been trying to convey here to the believers at Colossae, here are the truths that you need to have. I've given you some warnings. Here's the groundwork for the truths that you've got to have. He's got a few more verses to lay out before he gives another warning. And so what he's doing here in the next passage, he's going to look ahead and he's going to say, alright, I want you to see where you started to the point of unbelief and I'm going to take you back through it because there's some additional things we've got to learn and to know about here. Things that you need to learn to grow and things that you need to know in order to understand why I'm warning you. Not only is there negative statement, watch out for this, but there's positive statement because that's what we need to grow on.

Let's pray. Lord, thank You as we look at this passage. You have done it all. You have accomplished it. And Lord, what marvelous things You have done. We are in You. We have life in You. And yes indeed, we have died. We have been separated. Spiritually separated from that sin nature, that flesh has been put off like clothing never to be worn again. And Lord, we thank you for your spiritual accomplishment in our life. We thank you for what you have done. And all we did was believe, and that does not even count as a work. You have been the one who has worked it all. We thank you for your work, and we put our trust in you for that. In Jesus' name, Amen.