In Christ You Have A Circumcision Made Without Hands (Series: Lessons On Colossians) Series

10/24/18

Tom Lowe

IVB1: In Christ You Have a Circumcision Made Without Hands (Col. 2:11-12)

• “Special Notes” and “Scripture” follow associated verses.

• NIV Bible is used throughout unless noted otherwise.

Colossians 2:11-12 (NIV)

(11) 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, (12) having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raise him from the dead.

BACKGROUND

There were two principal errors lying at the root of the heresy that was doing so much damage at Colessae.

1. They made the theological error of substituting inferior and created angelic mediators for the divine Head Himself.

2. They made a practical error, in insisting upon ritual and harsh observances as the foundation of moral teaching.

Thus their theological speculations and ethical code alike were at fault. Both errors flowed from a common source?the false conception that evil resides in matter, a fruitful source of many fatal heresies. Some contend the Colossians could not be complete in Christ without submitting to the Jewish rite of circumcision; but the apostle showed that they were the subjects of a superior circumcision.

INTRODUCTION

All through the history of Israel there had been two views of circumcision. There was the view of those who said that in itself it was enough to put a man right with God. It didn’t matter whether an Israelite was a good man or a bad man; all that mattered was that he was an Israelite and that he had been circumcised. But the great spiritual leaders of Israel and the great prophets took a very different view. They insisted that circumcision was only the outward mark of a man who was inwardly dedicated to God. They used the very word in an adventurous sense. They talked of uncircumcised lips (Exodus 6:12), of a heart that was circumcised or uncircumcised (Leviticus 26:41; Ezekiel 44:7, 9; Deut. 30:6), of the uncircumcised ear (Jer. 6:10). To them being circumcised did not mean having a certain operation carried out on a man’s flesh but having a change take place in his life.

Remember that the false teaching that threatened the Colossian church was made up of several different elements; Oriental mysticism, astrology, philosophy, and Jewish legalism. It is the latter element that Paul dealt with in this section of his letter. Apparently, the false teachers insisted that their converts submit to circumcision and obey the Old Testament Law.

Paul made it clear that the Christian is not subject in any way to the Old Testament legal system, nor can it do him any good spiritually. Jesus Christ alone is sufficient for our every spiritual need, for all of God’s fullness is in Him. We are identified with Jesus Christ because He is the Head of the body (Colossians 1:18) and we are members of the body (1 Cor. 12:12-13). It is not necessary for the believer to submit to Circumcision, because he has already experienced a spiritual circumcision through his identification with Jesus Christ.

Christ is more than adequate in His ministry as Savior. After Paul emphatically states, “ye are complete in Him” (2:10), he unfolds the glories of God’s saving work. [Verses 11-15 of chapter 2 serve as the theological high point of this letter.] God saves us through Christ through spiritual circumcision, for Christ’s death proved to be death for the flesh of those who trust Him. God also saves us by raising us to new life with Christ.

COMMENTARY

(2:11) 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,

It was because the Colossians were in Christ through the miracle of faith in His finished work that they possessed and enjoyed the privileges that were the results of SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION, one “not made with hands”?that is, a nonphysical one. But surely [someone may say] Paul spent most of the letter to the Galatians in proving that the Christian has no need for Circumcision? Yes, but Paul here is thinking not of the Jewish rite but of its Christian equivalent, baptism. He says that the Colossian Christians “were . . . circumcised, [by] putting off . . . the sinful nature . . . with the circumcision done by Christ.” Why then should such privileged sons of God return to the things of the flesh and to the ordinances of men?

The allusion in the last phrase?“the circumcision done by Christ”?is to Christ’s own parting with His flesh, His death, which He had called a “baptism.” When Christ stripped off His physical body, He was inaugurating that death to self and the old nature in which the Christian is united with Him through baptism. For when at baptism a man is joined with Christ, he shares in the virtue of all that Christ did for him by His dying and rising.