Bible Study on Colossians

This is Part 9 of a 15 part Bible Study on the book of Colossians.

Compiled and written by Norma Becker – a true woman of God and God’s word.

Part 9 – Colossians Chapter 2

Paul goes on in chapter 2 to speak of his work. Read verses 1-3:

“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 personally. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

How do you think he worked and struggled for them? By preaching, teaching and praying. He worked as though the success depended on him, but he prayed knowing the success of his work depended completely upon God.

From this, we can learn that service for God that counts – costs. It requires sacrifice of time and self.

Paul’s Goals

Verse 2: Let’s look and see the specific goals he wanted to accomplish. He wanted them to be:

encouraged in heart and

united in love

so they would have the full riches of complete understanding….

Understanding of the mystery of God – namely Christ – which means having the full meaning of who He is and what He has done.

Verse 3: Paul is saying that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ – it doesn’t mean hidden so it can’t be found – but something that is there to be found by those with the right key. And that key is accepting Christ and having the Spirit in you.

“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Does that answers our question of, “How come I can tell someone about Christ, but they don’t accept?” The false teachers were saying that because of their special revelations, they had a higher knowledge than that possessed by ordinary believers. Paul says, no, all wisdom and knowledge are in Christ and that it is accessible to every believer. It is laid up or stored away as a treasure for them.

Wisdom and Knowledge

Even today we have to be aware there are those who teach they have a special revelation from God and they write their special interpretation of what the Bible says. When you read a Christian book, hear a sermon, or listen to a Bible teacher, do as the people in Berea did when they heard Paul preach:

“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).

Make sure what you hear can be backed up by Scripture not by man’s ideas. Then we can ask, “Who is going to help me do that?”

“But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26).

That is Quite a Job Description

Live in union with Him, or walk as He walked. How did Christ walk? What did He do?

He loved.

He gave of Himself.

He prayed.

He spent time in his Father’s house regularly.

He knew and used the Scriptures.

He was baptized.

He was holy.

In order to do this, we are to keep our roots deep in Him. Like a tree, the deeper the roots are, the higher the tree can rise. The higher the tree rises, the further the branches reach out. If the roots or foundation are deep and secure, we can keep building and not worry about drying up or toppling over. As your roots go deeper, your faith will grow stronger. As we are more rooted in Him, we are more overflowing with thankfulness. If we are full of gratefulness and thanksgiving we will be less vulnerable to doubt and also less open to the false philosophies.

Then comes a warning as he goes on to condemn the Colossian heresy that was diverting them from Christ.

Verse 8:

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

The Phillips translations puts it in modern terms when it says:

“Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism or high sounding nonsense. Such stuff is at best founded on men’s ideas of the nature of the world and disregards Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

He is not condemning philosophy as such, he was a gifted philosopher and could debate with the best of them. He is condemning teaching that credits humanity, not Christ, with being the answer to life’s problems. This starts back in verse 4 where, after talking about how hard he has worked to tell them that Christ is the key that opens all of God’s wisdom and knowledge, he says:

“Don’t let anyone fool them with false arguments – no matter how good they seem” (Colossians 2:4).

Since they have accepted Christ, they were to keep growing in their faith that is based on the truth and not on false teaching. Now they were to make sure that no one tried to confuse them or draw them away with teachings based on only human thought or arguments.

Learn to be Discerning

We are to learn to be discerning in what we hear or read. Human reasoning can often sound good and right, but if it downgrades Christ and what He did on the cross, don’t fall for it. Everyone has a faith in something – we have to be sure our faith is in the right thing.

Let’s look at some of the “faiths” some people have.

Verses 8-12:

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.”

Humanism and Tolerance

We can often hear the social gospel of humanism. This is the self-effort to reform. We can do anything we want to do. All the world needs is for us to reform ourselves and we will reform the world. Examples of this would be humanitarianism – all the world needs is for people to help the poor and disadvantaged and to accept people as they are.

Tolerance is another – many try to say that tolerance is all the Bible really teaches: love thy neighbour. They want us to believe that the only parts of the Bible that are inspired or meant for us are the ones that teach love, forgiveness and acceptance of all people and all they do. They go on to say that morals are only relative to the customs and environments that a particular society sanctions. In other words, if the majority of society says it is okay for this day and age, it is okay. What the Bible said, was just for that day and age. So they are only keeping the Bible relevant for today.

Paul says this teaching is worthless because it does not contain the truth and it is deceitful because it captivates people and prevents them from seeing the truth. Paul is preaching that all theology should begin with Christ – not man. The Word of God, rather than man’s own reason, should be the final bases of truth.

According to Colossians 2:8, we need to avoid human philosophies based on things other than Christ. Don’t become captive of human wisdom handed down by men. Some teachings you can hear today that might fall into this category are:

the Bible is not inspired,

the teachings were for then – not today,

Christ didn’t really die so He wasn’t resurrected or

it was just a spiritual resurrection – not a bodily resurrection.

1 John 4:1-6 has good advice:

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

Know What You Believe and Why

Think of some of the things you believe – are they God’s ideas or man’s ideas? Can they be backed up by the Word of God?

Like today, both Christ’s deity and humanity were challenged by the early Gnostics so Paul continues his teaching that he first started in 1:19 where he says:

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.”

Note: verse 9 goes on:

“For in Christ all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form and you (meaning we) have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”

If someone asks what verse 9 really says and means, we can say that Christ is God in bodily form. Both Christ’s deity and humanity were challenged by the early Gnostic-like heresy. They diminished Christ to an angel whose “body” was only apparent, not real. Paul is affirming here that Christ is both fully God and truly man.

This correlates with the gospel of John that says:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John l:1).

and John 1:14:

“The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Being Made Full in Christ

Back to Colossians – verse 10 says:

“and you have been given fullness in Christ….”

We have mind, body and spirit; let’s see how they are made full in Christ and how we can answer someone who asks: “What do you have that I don’t have?”

When he says, “You have been given fullness in Christ,” this statement crowns Paul’s argument. Because Christ is fully God and fully man, believers, in union with Him, are made full – or share in His fullness. We are filled with God when we are in union with Christ. Those who don’t have Christ are spiritually incomplete because they are out of touch with God.

“Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Sons’ sacrificial death on the cross and brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven. At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought” (Colossians 1:20-21).

Those without Christ are morally incomplete because, although they may be very good, they lack the final standard of conduct and the ability or desire to chose what is right in all things.

Morally Complete

In union with Him, we are morally complete, not in the sense of being perfect, but in God’s eyes we are seen as perfect and we now have the Holy Spirit within us to give us the desire and ability to know and do the will of God.

Without Christ, they are mentally incomplete because they are blind to spiritual truths and to the fact that they are spiritually and morally incomplete. As believers, we don’t have all knowledge, but with help from the Holy Spirit, we can discern spiritual truths, which according to the Bible, is foolishness to the unbeliever.

Again, that doesn’t mean that Christ’s perfection is given to us or that we are, or can be, like God. It doesn’t mean that we are little gods ourselves, as some teach, but that in Him, there are resources we can draw on so that we may be filled and nothing will be lacking in us.

In other words, in union with Christ, all of our spiritual needs will be fully met. We no longer have to search for “the meaning of life” or ask “Why are we here?” We are spiritually complete.

Since the Colossians had Christ, there was no need for them to turn to the “philosophy” of the false teachers. He is head or sovereign Lord over all.

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