11/5/18
Tom Lowe
IVB2: You are Made Alive in Christ (Col. 2:13-15)
• “Special Notes” and “Scripture” appear as endnotes.
• NIV Bible is used throughout unless noted otherwise.
Colossians 2:13-15 (NIV)
(13) When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you [some manuscripts use “us”] alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, (14) having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. (15) And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross [Or them in Him.]
INTRODUCTION
The author of this passage (Paul) makes an important point; recall what usually happened. We think baptism mostly symbolizes the washing away of our sins. The New Testament also thinks of it as a dying and a rising, for New Testament baptism was founded on Christ’s own blood-baptism for us. Recall what normally happened. As Christ had gone down into His baptism of death, so the communicant in the moment of baptism was “buried,” as Christ had been in the grave. Then he “rose” into “new life,” as Christ had risen on the first Easter Day. Through the Holy Spirit’s working, the convert really rose from his own bad past into a new life; and henceforth he was called to become what he now potentially was?a new man in Christ, united with his living Lord, and incorporated into His body; the Church. This is the experience Paul talks about in verse 13.
The theme of verses 14 and 15 is the Atonement and its effectiveness. What Paul says is that Christ by His death has destroyed the Law and has set us free from the tyranny of the evil powers that lie behind the Law.
Now Paul says, by the Cross of Christ God has not merely cancelled the Law with all its damning charges against us, but has triumphed over the angelic beings that stand behind the Law. “He disarmed the principalities and powers [the angelic beings] and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in Him.
COMMENTARY
(2:13) When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you [some manuscripts use “us”] alive[1] with Christ. He forgave us all our sins
In this verse Paul appeals to the Colossian believers, desiring that they realize their present possession (or position) in Christianity. The quickening and raising from spiritual deadness have already been experienced and can now be enjoyed. Life in Christ is not a blessing that can be enjoyed only beyond the grave, but here and now too. Paul does not say that believers will soon die?and when they are raised from the grave and given new bodies they will then enjoy eternal life and the blessings of spiritual life; he appeals to them to enjoy the spiritual birthright already conferred upon them through the divine power of God because they have accepted the Lord Jesus by faith. Before they accepted Jesus they were truly dead spiritually; but now they are just as truly alive unto God?not “going to be alive,” but a present possession, “Christ in you NOW. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”
Paul referred to this spiritual deadness as dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, and then explained that Christians have been quickened[1] together with Jesus and all trespasses have been forgiven. Jesus does not forgive up to a point?and then supplement that forgiveness with works or law; He forgives all trespasses completely and forever. Some of the Colossians wanted their flesh to bear the seal of the Abrahamic covenant for circumcision of the flesh as taught by the Law. The teachers of error in Colosse were overbearing and arrogant when insisting on circumcision after the manner of the Law. Many believing Jews were very zealous of the Law during the days of transition and Paul had a difficult task in persuading these believers that salvation is by grace?and only grace.
When a person is saved, he is immediately baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-13) and identified with the head, Jesus Christ. This identification means that whatever happened to Christ also happened to us. When He died, we died with him. When He was buried we were buried. When He arose again, we arose with Him?and we left the grave clothes of the old life behind (Colossians 3:1-14). It was the power of God that changed us, not the power of water. The Spirit of God identified us with Jesus Christ, and we were buried with Him, raised with Him, and made alive with Him.
The Apostle Paul preached that Salvation is not the improvement of the old nature, but the impartation of a new nature. Remember that Paul had to deal with two systems of Greek Philosophy which were very popular in his day. They were diametrically opposed to each other, but they both came out at the very same end of the horn. One philosophy was “Stoicism,” and the other was “Epicureanism.”
1. The Stoic taught that man was to live nobly and that death could not matter. The idea was to hold the appetites in check, and to become indifferent to changing conditions. The problem these people had was how to live this kind of life.
2. The Epicurean taught that everything is uncertain?”we don’t know where we came from, nor do we know where we are going. We only know that after a brief life we disappear from this scene, and it is vain to deny ourselves any present joy in view of the possible future unpleasantness that could happen to a person.
In writing to the Romans Paul clearly sets forth the fundamental truth that the Law could not save: “Therefore [Rather, because] no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin” (Romans 3:20). All mankind alike owe the penalty for their sins. Because not even the Law can protect its votaries[converts, disciples, followers]. It has no power to justify. All it can do is to expose in its true colors the sinfulness of sin.
The proposition is thrown into a general form: not by the works of the (Jewish) Law, but by "works of law"?i.e., by any works done in obedience to any law. Law, in the abstract, as such, is unable to justify. It might perhaps, we gather from later portions of the Epistle, if men could really keep it, but no law can be kept strictly and entirely.
Later on Paul shed some more light on the subject: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. FOR WHAT THE LAW WAS POWERLESS TO DO BECAUSE IT WAS WEAKENED BY THE FLESH[2] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the RIGHTEOUS REQUIREMENT of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1-4).
What Paul is saying to the Colossians in verse 13 is this: “God brought you to life together with Christ; He raised up Christ from the dead; and by the same power He raises dead sinners when they believe on the Lord Jesus.” “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins . . . made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:1, 5). Before a person is liberated to this new life in Christ, he is dead in his sins and in his sinful nature (3:5; 3:9). Sin is the death of the soul. A man dead in trespasses and sins has no desire for spiritual pleasures. When we look upon a corpse, it gives us an awful feeling. A never-dying spirit has now fled, and has left nothing behind but the ruins of a man. But if we viewed things correctly, we should be far more affected by the thought of a dead soul, a lost, fallen spirit. A state of sin is a state of conformity to this world. Wicked men are slaves to Satan. Satan is the author of that proud, carnal disposition which there is in ungodly men; he rules in the hearts of men. From Scripture it is clear, that whether men have been most prone to sensual or to spiritual wickedness, all men, being naturally children of disobedience, are also by nature children of wrath. What reason have sinners, then, to seek earnestly for that grace which will make of them, children of wrath, children of God and heirs of glory!
Death means separation, not annihilation. Even the unsaved still bear the image of God (Genesis 9:6; James 3:9), but they are separated from God. Cut off from Spiritual life, they still have human life. But now God made you alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:1-6). The same power that raised Christ from the dead (2:12) resurrects believing sinners to spiritual life (v. 13).
(2:14) having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
What God demands, God provides. God was satisfied with Jesus. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” No one should suppose that Christ allows His people to trifle with any commands of God's holy law. No sinner partakes of Christ's justifying righteousness, till he repents of his evil deeds. The mercy revealed in the gospel leads the believer to still deeper self-abhorrence. The law is the Christian's rule of duty, and he delights in it. If a man acts as if he were Christ's disciple, but commits acts of disobedience to the holy law of God, or teaches others to do the same, whatever his station or reputation among men may be, he can be no true disciple. Christ's righteousness, imputed to us by faith alone, is needed by everyone that enters the Kingdom of God as a new creation and with a heart committed to holiness and which produces a thorough change in a man's temperament and behavior. Romans 10:4 says, “Christ is the culmination (end) of the law[2] so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”
It was God who consented to the death of Jesus; what Christ did, God did by Christ, willingly; both Father and Son were in agreement. Jesus willingly laid down His life for sinners. He said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father" (John 10:17-18). The words apply also to the human nature of our Lord, and the "power" spoken of is the authority derived from the Father. It is of His own will that He lays down His life and takes it again; but this, as the whole of the life of the Son, is in moral subordination to the Father. Hence it is that He speaks of taking His life again, while the general language of the New Testament speaks of His being raised by the Father. The taking again was under the Father's authority, and was therefore itself the Father's gift.
God accepted the sacrifice of the blood of Jesus; and through His shed blood we have remission of sin. The thought contained in verse 14 is that Jesus “plastered over” God’s Law. God’s Law has not been destroyed, nor will it ever be. He did not destroy it?He satisfied God’s Law; every jot and tittle of it. Therefore, since these ordinances are abolished, it is now the height of foolishness and vanity for believers to reenact or to observe them, or to practice any part of them.
Notice that Paul uses the word “us” in verse 14, denoting both Jew and Gentile. In this dispensation of grace, God does not distinguish between the Jews and Gentiles. He puts no stamp of approval upon circumcision or disapproval upon uncircumcision as having to do with flesh. All of that ceased when Jesus finished redemption.
Not only has Jesus blotted out the handwriting, but He went further: “he has taken it away.” What Paul is saying to the believers at Colosse is that the very document that has declared judgment upon one and all, has not only had the handwriting upon it blotted out, but the very document itself, even the very parchment upon which the handwriting was written, has been taken away.
In the last part of verse 14 we are clearly told how Christ blotted out the handwriting, took away the very parchment, and satisfied God Almighty in all of His holiness and purity: by “nailing it to the cross.” The idea Paul sets forth here is that when Christ was nailed to the cross, the condemning power of the Law was nailed there with Him.
Jesus not only took our sins to the cross (1 Peter 2:24), but He also took the Law to the cross, and nailed it there, forever out of the way. The Law was certainly against us, because it was impossible for us to meet its holy demands. Even though God never gave the Ten Commandments to the Gentiles, the righteous demands of the Law?God’s holy standards?”were written in their hearts (Romans 2:12-16).
When He shed His blood for sinners, Jesus Christ cancelled the huge debt that was against sinners because of their disobedience to God’s Holy Law. In Bible days, financial records were often kept on parchment, and the writing could be washed off. This is the picture Paul painted.
The divine truth here is this: When a sinner believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, God exempts him from the divine sentence he deserves due to his sin; this sentence being cancelled because of the sufferings of Jesus. The guilt of the sinner was born by the man Christ Jesus when He died on the cross. The guilt was laid on Him by God?and when God lay on Jesus the Guilt of all sinners and Jesus bore the sin of all the world, through this method God took away the handwriting of the Law that was against us. Jesus bore the sentence of that handwriting; therefore God now remits (cancels) its penalty. He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
?Isaiah 53:3-4
(2:15) And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross [Or them in Him.]
In blotting out “our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us” (2:14), God at the same time vanquished Satan?the evil one, the old devil, the deceiver and dammar of souls. This verse plainly refers to the wicked spiritual powers of the underworld. Paul speaks of the same wicked powers in Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
The devil has a kingdom; he is the head of untold millions of demons and wicked spirits. He is called “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4) and “the prince of this world” (John 16:11). He is not an “evil influence,” nor is he “just an evil spirit.”
Jesus met the devil in person? [Yes, there is a personal devil]. Matthew gives an account of the baptism of Jesus, and immediately after His baptism He was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Satan met Him face to face and personally tempted Him through the avenues of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.
And when Jesus had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was hungry afterward. And when the tempter (Satan) came to Him, and said, “If you are the Son of God, demand that these stones be made into bread.” Jesus replied, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.”
The devil does not give up easily. He then took Jesus into the holy city Jerusalem, placed Him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge over you: and in their hands they shall bear you up, in case at any time you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus replied, “It is written again, thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God.”
Satan then took Jesus to an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the nations of the world and said to Him, All these things will I give to you, if you will just fall down and worship me. Jesus then said to him, “Go away Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord thy God, Then the devil left Him, and angels came and ministered unto Him (Matthew 4:2-10).” Jesus conquered every temptation. He was tempted in all points as we are?yet was without sin.
“And having disarmed the powers and authorities . . .” Greek scholars tell us that the language here in the original tongue sets forth the idea of open warfare, with the victor conquering and then making the vanquished a spoil?like what is done when a fallen foe is stripped of his armor. The impression we get from this is that Christ striped His spiritual foes of all power and authority.
The words “He made a public spectacle of them” plainly portrays a celebration after the battle. The spiritual foes which Jesus vanquished were exhibited after the victory and angels came and ministered to the victor! All the spiritual world witnessed that battle and the exhibit which followed. Jesus utterly defeated the devil, triumphed over and conquered him; and now Jesus has in his possession the keys of death, hell and the grave.
Paul describes this victory in Hebrews 2:9, 14-16:
But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone . . . Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.
The devil is a defeated foe, a conquered enemy. He is still on the loose and “as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”; but in the by and by Jesus will put him in the lake of fire and brimstone where he will be tormented forever and ever. He is defeated and he knows it; that is the reason he is working overtime today to damn every soul he possibly can. The battle between Jesus and the devil was not a hidden affair; it was done openly. The battle was fought and Jesus won the victory openly, in the eyes of all.
Verse 15 closes with the words, “. . . triumphing over them by the cross [Or them in Him.] “In the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father achieved victory over the ungodly powers of spiritual wickedness in high places [including the devil?the prince of all wicked powers]. Through the death of His only begotten Son, God conquered him who had the power of death . . . that is, the devil.
On the cross Jesus purchased redemption, and the work of redemption was completed. Salvation was purchased and Satan was defeated. The blood of the Lamb of God wiped out the sentence passed upon all men. “The wages of sin is death,” but the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son, cleanses from all sin. In Jesus, through His blood, we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. Through the cross of Jesus, “the prince of this world is cast out.”
To the believers in Colosse Paul says, “Do not let your minds be troubled concerning the teaching about the spirit world, for all spirits are subject to Jesus, their divine Master. If the spirits are good, they are His servants. [All good spirits are ministering spirits to the heir of salvation.] If the spirits are evil they are conquered by Him, for He spoiled principalities and powers and conquered Satan with all his emissaries.
My friend, I will give you the same advice Paul gave to the Colossians: Do not seek to know things that are God’s secret (Deut. 29:29). What God wants us to know will be revealed to us by the Holy Ghost (1 John 2:27; 1 Peter 2:6); and things having to do with the spirit-world; not revealed in the word of God, and taught to us by the Holy Ghost, should be left alone. We dare not step into the secret chambers of God’s unrevealed truth concerning the spirit-world. Let me emphasize, ?good spirits, good angels, are servants of the most high God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Evil spirits are conquered and in subjection to His power! Leave the spirit-world alone and do not seek to know those things not clearly revealed in God’s holy Word.
FOUR BENEFITS OF BEING IN CHRIST
Paul mentions in this passage Four Benefits of Being in Christ:
1st. Genuine circumcision?that is, a new heart. It is not literal (not performed by hands), but spiritual, being performed by the Holy Spirit (see Deut. 10:16; Jer. 9:26; Ezek. 36:27; Rom. 2:25-29; Phil. 3:3).
2nd. Being buried with and raised up with Christ is a way of saying we have passed from old life to new life (Rom. 6:1-4). Thus, although baptism is important, it does not make alive (v. 13) or cause salvation.
3rd. Believers have new life (are made . . . alive) with Christ (v.13). New life is not given because of our merit, but rather it comes to us while we are in the helpless state of being dead in Transgressions and being uncircumcised (a reference to literal lack of circumcision as a symbol of spiritual alienation.)
4th. The forth benefit is forgiveness of transgressions (v. 13). Transgression is the specific word for breaking commandments; thus verse 14 mentions the OT Law, calling it a certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us. A debt is owed because of disobedience; but this debt is cancelled out by the cross. On this cross Christ not only saved His people but also was victorious over the rulers and authorities (evil spiritual forces), making a public display of them (v. 15).
Scripture and Special Notes
[1] God made you alive [The King James Bible uses “quickened”], meaning to vivify; to revive or resuscitate, as from death or an inanimate state; hence, to excite; to stimulate; to incite, to make lively, active, or sprightly; to impart additional energy to; to stimulate.
[2] The end of the law.--"End," in the proper sense of termination or conclusion. Christ is that which brings the functions of the Law to an end by superseding it. "The Law pursues a man until he takes refuge in Christ; then it says, Thou hast found thine asylum; I shall trouble thee no more, now thou art wise; now thou art safe."
