Colossians - Holy Tightly to Christ, the Head

Colossians – Hold Tightly to Christ, the Head

 

We will continue our Bible study of the book of Colossians, which was written by Paul, probably from his prison cell, to the Colossian Church during a difficult time.  The Colossian Christians had been infiltrated with false teachers who were laughing at them for believing that Christ was the Son of God and Savior and trying to teach their false religions.

 

The new Christians in Colossae were becoming confused.  So, Paul writes this letter to them praying that it will build up in their Christian faith.  God speaks through Paul and challenges these new Christians to cut through all the bogus and fake spiritual clutter of their culture and make Jesus Christ the center of their faith. We need Paul’s challenge today because there are false teachers among us as there were among the Colossian Christians so long ago.  Today we will study Colossians 2:11-23. 

 

Colossians 2:11-23

“In Christ you had a different kind of circumcision, a circumcision not done by hands.  It was through Christ’s circumcision, that is, His death, that you were made free from the power of your sinful self.  When you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and you were raised up with Him through your faith in God’s power that was shown when He raised Christ from the dead.  When you were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self, God made you alive with Christ, and He forgave all our sins.  He canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow.  He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross.

God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority.  With the cross, He won the victory and showed the world that they were powerless.  So, do not let anyone make rules for you about eating and drinking or about a religious feast, a New Moon Festival, or a Sabbath day.  These things were like shadow of what was to come.  But what is true and real has come and is found in Christ. 

Do not let anyone disqualify you by making you humiliate yourself and worship angels.  Such people enter into visions, which fill them with foolish pride because of their human way of thinking.  They do not hold tightly to Christ, the head.  It is from Him that all the parts of the body are cared for and held together.  So, it grows in the way God wants it to grow.

Since you died with Christ and were made free from the ruling spirits of the world, why do you act as if you still belong to this world by following rules like these: “Don’t eat this,” “Don’t even touch that thing”?  These rules refer to earthly things that are gone as soon as they are used.  They are only man-made commands and teachings.  They seem to be wise, but they are only part of a man-made religion.  They make people pretend not to be proud and make them punish their bodies, but they do not really control the evil desires of the sinful self.”   

(End of Scripture Reading)

 

Paul compares our faith in Christ as Savior and Lord as a “different kind of circumcision – not done by hands”.  (Colossians 2:11)   Our salvation was not done by human hands – it is a supernatural act that was done by God!  This verse in Colossians compares Christ’s death as a “circumcision” and then goes on to say that through His death we are made free from the power of our sinful self!  We are to put off or die to our old sinful self – and live in the new self we inherit in Christ, which Christ gives us when we believe. The next verse (verse 12) says that we are buried with Christ, but we are raised up with Him through our faith in God’s working.

 

Our amazing salvation is described here in these verses and the mystery and wonder of this gift from God - our circumcision not made with human hands, - is more than our little minds can completely understand. We are told here that we were spiritually dead (Colossians 2:13) because of our sins, but God has made us alive with Christ, and He forgives all our sins. With our salvation, God has “stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority.  And He has canceled our debt, taken away the record of our wrongs with its rules against us, and nailed it all to the cross.” (Colossians 2:15)

 

The fact that God “canceled our debt and took away the record of our wrong doings which caused rules to be broken and then He nailed them all to the cross” (Colossians 2:15)  It reminds me of all the debts and negative records we can run up in this earthly life that are sometimes never canceled. Personally, our credit report was slightly damaged some years ago because just once over a period of thirty years, my husband and I were nine days late in paying one of our many bills.  The records were still there years later to prove our mistake and lower our credit score!

 

And several friends of mine have shared with me that even though all those years they lovingly did their best to be a good parent, their beloved adult children were angrily holding something against them.  Carrying a grudge over a mistake they made decades ago. If we live long enough, we humans will all make mistakes.  Even with the people we love best.

 

 In this life, even when we spend years faithfully and lovingly serving and doing our best, years later just one mistake can be held against us, with careful records to prove that we were wrong!  We humans hold grudges, but I am so glad that God, our heavenly Father, doesn’t hold grudges! He forgives (and forgets) all our sins and cancels all our debt and takes away all our bad records with the rules we have broken, and He nails them all to the cross!   And we, His children, are commanded to do the same in our relationships with one another! 

 

In our Scripture reading today, Paul tells the Colossians to “hold tightly to Christ, the head.  It is from Him that all the parts of the body (the church) are cared for and held together.  So, it grows in the way God wants it to grow.” (Colossians 2:19.)

 

 Do we forget that Christ is the “head” and we, His followers, are the “body”?  That Christ places us in His body and gives us a part to accomplish.  He holds us all together, so we can all grow.  Otherwise the Christian Church would never have lasted down through the ages. Underneath are the Everlasting Arms.  Earlier in our studies of Colossians we read that “In Him (Christ) all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17) Do we realize that Jesus Christ holds our lives and our faith and everything together?  

 

In our readings in Colossians today we see that Paul is trying to show the Colossian Christians that all that they need is Jesus.  He warns them that false teachers will come along tempting them to turn away from their simple trust in Christ.  Or insisting that they must follow man-made commands for salvation. Paul’s warnings are not only for the Christians living two thousand years ago, but also, they are meant for Christians living today.

 

We must remain on high alert and stand firm in our faith in Christ as Lord and Savior.  It is easy for well-meaning Christians to become sidetracked by the exotic claims of religious cults and forget that Jesus is the only Way. (John 14:6) We must remember that Christ came to set us free. Rely on God’s indwelling Spirit to be our Counselor and Guide.  And remember to always hold tightly to Christ, the Head of the Church and our Lord and Savior.   

 

Some of the ideas from this blog were taken from Max Lucado’s book, “Colossiand and Philemon”  and “The Wiersbe Bible Study Series”