29.05.11 AM Sermon Christ and the Christian Experience # 3
Fulness in Christ (Col 2:6-15) - Fulness in Christ (Col 2:9-12)
Paul’s portrayal of Jesus in his letter to the Colossians has been that Jesus Christ is a sufficient Saviour.
He makes clear that no matter what powers are ranged against you, what authorities seek to imprison you, what philosophies seek to trick you or what traditions seek to enslave you, Jesus is all we need.
And we now come to why this is true – in verse 9 – one of my favourite verses in the Scripture – which unequivocally and for some controversially describes who Jesus Christ is :
1. Incarnation Identity (v9)
“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form …”
Jesus Christ is the one in whom all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.
What an extraordinary description – a unique description.
Scripture declares that though others may have insights into God, or a touch of God about them, Jesus Christ stands alone for uniquely he is God himself – God incarnate – He is the one and only God-Man.
In the incarnate Christ, God has made, as one person describes it “a settled and congenial home.”
Jesus Christ is not less than God, but fully and uniquely God in human flesh.
Paul is, in other words, asking the question of the Colossians, “What more do you want?”
What more do we want when we have Jesus?
Any other route taken in an attempt to get to God is a waste of time.
Any other “saviour” or “power” or “authority” is inferior to Christ Jesus.
Jesus Christ is the self declared, God declared, Way, Truth and Life.
The Message puts it this way : “Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him.”
Dermot MacDonald expresses this truth of the incarnation in a mind-expanding, worship-inducing way: “In him all fullness dwells. He is the fullness of wisdom and knowledge. He is the fullness of space, for in him and through him and unto him are all things. He is the fullness of time for he fills eternity … There is nothing before, nothing after, nothing more, He has no “before” or “after”. Jesus Christ is the Ultimate”
Paul has already stressed Christ’s physicality, his humanity in 1:22.
Again, here in verse 9, he stresses the fact that God has come to us, come to this world, in bodily form.
Some taught and still teach that God could not possibly adopt or assume a physical body, that it is impossible or unworthy – unthinkable that God should do so.
That in doing so, it somehow reduces God or makes him unclean or unholy.
But the Christian gospel message is that it is essential that God took on flesh, however unbelievable, or unthinkable, or incredible or humbling.
Martin Luther admitted that “The mystery of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding.”
Humanity needed Christ Jesus, God as Man, to bring our salvation – no other would suffice.
Gregory Nazianzus pointed out; “that which he has not assumed he has not healed.”
George Eldon Ladd reminds us that “Man does not ascend to God; God descends to man.”
Benjamin B. Warfield, wrote “The glory of the incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze not a humanized God or a deified man, but a true God-man - one who is all that God is and at the same time all that man is: one on whose almighty arm we can rest, and to whose human sympathy we can appeal."
2. Incarnation Implication (v10)
So what is the implication of the incarnation? The apostle Paul says that if there is fullness of deity to be found in Christ then we can find fullness of salvation in him, for we “have been given fullness in Christ.”
Athanasius put it this way: “He became what we are that he might make us what he is.”
The Colossians, as you’ll remember, were succumbing to the teaching that Christ was not a sufficient Saviour. That he could only meet some of their needs. That they still needed to find protection from other spiritual authorities, such as angelic beings or gain deliverance with others help.
But Paul wants to make it clear to them, and to us, that “there is nothing missing that we should need; nothing short that we should have to supply from elsewhere; nothing inadequate that we must supplement from another source.” We need only look to Christ and him alone. He is the Head over all others.
C.S. Lewis “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”
3. Incarnation Medication (v11-12)
Arthur Middleton wrote that “The Incarnation is the medicine of the soul, undoing the Fall and bringing man to the Tree of Life.”
So, here then is the great medicine that humanity needs – the medication of the incarnation.
Through Christ, in whom the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, comes fullness in Christ.
Without Christ we are incomplete, lost, helpless, hopeless. Christ completes us, fulfils us, makes us whole.
But how is the medicine of the incarnation, to be taken so that it might do its work and effect the cure?
Well, the medicine, Paul says, is to be applied by faith.
Faith, in this regard, is about entrusting ourselves fully, completely, unreservedly into God’s hands.
Like entrusting oneself to a surgeon for an operation, or like the pole-vaulter trusting themselves fully to the pole – we need to put our whole weight on Christ and lean on him, and trust that he will uphold us.
And this kind of faith leads to some inner changes which Paul illustrates in reference to the ceremony of circumcision and the ceremony of baptism.
It is more than likely that the false teachers amongst the Colossians were advocating that Gentile Christians should submit themselves to circumcision – they should become Jews first before they could receive Christ.
But Paul explains that in Christ a new meaning has been given to circumcision and the outward rite no longer has the force which it once did – for it was the inner transformation which really mattered.
Now, Paul’s reference to “the circumcision done by Christ” can be understood in two main ways: Firstly, Paul may be referring to the non-physical but spiritual circumcision that Christ does in the believer’s life.
As a reminder, circumcision was the initiation rite which provided a Jewish boy with an identity in his family and race and made him a member of the covenant people of God with all the privileges and obligations that entailed.
So one way to take verse 11 which is the way the NIV translates it in the main body of the text, is to say that we do not have to undergo physical circumcision (“circumcision done by human hands”) for Jesus has circumcised us metaphorically and spiritually and caused us to put off our “sinful nature” – to have that sinful nature cut away from us.
By his physical death he has dealt with our sensual natures, broken their power over us, stripped them of their authority in our lives, and initiated us into a new way of living in union with him.
It is not the undergoing of any religious ritual which has achieved this transformation in us, but the reality of what Christ has done for us on the cross that makes it possible.
However, the Second way that this reference to circumcision could be understood is that is that it does not refer to our spiritual circumcision, but a circumcision that Jesus Christ underwent on our behalf on the cross and that we enter into.
You see, to be precise, Paul does not write here of our “sinful nature” (as translated in the body of the NIV text) but of the sins of “the flesh” (referred to in the footnotes in the NIV).
He uses a word sarkos, meaning ‘flesh’ that he has already used in 1:22 where he speaks about the death of Christ referring to the body of the flesh.
So Paul may be making reference to Christ stripping off his body of flesh through the act of crucifixion - the circumcision therefore may be his, rather than ours.
If so, the circumcision in this case is not the removal of a tiny piece of flesh but a symbol for a violent and gruesome agonising stripping away of Christ’s whole body on the cross – ending in the death of that body of flesh.
Whichever interpretation of “the circumcision done by Christ” you choose, the next step in Paul’s argument is clear : In verse 12 we see that Christ’s death, burial and resurrection are intimately interwoven with our own.
Christ died, his death was sealed by his burial and followed by his resurrection.
And Paul states that what happened to him, happens spiritually to us.
As believers we participate in his death by dying to self and to the world and its systems. (Gal 5:24, 6:15)
We confirm this truth by burying our old way of living and rising to a new way of living with him.
We don’t die like him (as in physically and literally on a cross), but spiritually with him.
We are not buried like him (as placed in a tomb) but with him.
We have been raised not like him but with him.
This sharing in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, all of which are spoken of in the past tense as having already happened, is what incorporates the believer into Christ and releases the fullness of his life in theirs.
All of this is graphically and powerfully symbolised, Paul says, in the act of the believer’s baptism through full immersion.
Paul refers to believer’s baptism as the outward physical symbol and sign of what has already taken place inwardly spiritually.
It isn’t baptism which brings a person’s spiritual death, burial and resurrection about but it portrays a spiritual reality that has already taken place through faith.
This is why believer’s baptism is such a powerful witness to the believer themselves and to others.
Paul tells the Colossians that it is the exercise of faith in the power of God that makes the benefits of Christ’s finished work available to the believer and admits the believer into the closest of relationships with Christ the Lord, who ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures … was buried … and was raised on the third day.”
So Paul points the Colossians who were looking elsewhere and points us today, to Christ’s incarnation and its implications and its effect as a medicine upon our human condition.
His incarnation, crucifixion, burial and resurrection are what we need to bring completeness, fullness.
“Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: “a virgin’s womb and an empty tomb”. Jesus entered our world through a door marked, “No Entrance” and left through a door marked “No Exit.”” (Peter Larson)
This is the unique Jesus, the God-Man. Who else do we need?
Questions to Ponder
29thMay 2011
Read Colossians 2:9-12
1. (v9) “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form …” What are the implications of this statement, if true, (i) for all the world’s religions, (ii) for our understanding of the nature of God, (iii) for our worship and witness.
2. Why does our Saviour have to be both God and Man? What if Jesus were merely a man, or was God but did not really have a physical body of flesh?
3. What does it mean for the believer to (v10) “have been given fullness in Christ”? What do you feel that you lack, that you might be able to look to Christ for?
4. Christ is the “Head over every power and authority.” Why should this bring us strength, comfort and peace when we face persecution of whatever degree?
5. Have you placed your faith in Christ who died, was buried and rose again? In what ways do the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ play out in your life? (eg. How are you incarnating the gospel where you live or work? What aspects of your sinful nature still need to be crucified? How are you experiencing resurrection power day by day?)
6. Have you been buried with Christ in believer’s baptism? (v12) If not, then why not?
7.“Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: “a virgin’s womb and an empty tomb”. Jesus entered our world through a door marked, ‘No Entrance’ and left through a door marked ‘No Exit.’” (Peter Larson) Why not spend some time worshipping this unique Jesus? How might you make him better known to those around you?