COLOSSIANS 2:6-12
COMPLETE IN CHRIST TO LIVE A NEW LIFE
Colossians 2:6 (Berean Study Bible) Therefore, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him,
SUSIE: How did we receive Christ?
SUSAN: God’s grace gave us the faith needed to trust in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and surrender our lives to His lordship—control.
SUSIE: Therefore, we live by faith in the grace of God as well. We know that there is more to life than what we see. There is an unseen spiritual realm as well.
…for we walk by faith, not by sight [living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises]
2 Corinthians 5:7 (AMP)
SUSAN: What unifies all Christians regardless of denomination is Christ’s cross and resurrection—that we have trusted in the final sacrifice of the Father’s sinless Lamb, Jesus. Because we have trusted in the work of Jesus’s cross and nothing else for salvation and believe God raised Him from the dead, we have been united with the Father and, therefore, with all believers.
QUESTION: What does it look like to live “in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises?” What effect does that have on our attitudes, emotions, and actions?
Colossians 2:7. . . rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
SUSAN: When Jesus is your root system, your fruit will be thanksgiving.
SUSIE: Strong roots require food. For example, my mom used bone meal as a food to strengthen peony plants. Our spiritual food is the word of God, the Bible. The teachings of Paul were letters written to believers which are now a part of our New Testament scriptures.
SUSAN: Paul was the human author of 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. Just as we need physical food daily, we need to feed on scripture daily (maybe several times per day) for optimum results.
PONDER THIS: We eat several meals a day. Not all of us eat three hearty meals. Some graze all day. Some eat small meals with snacks in between. Think about how you digest God’s word. Are you satisfied with just an occasional snack? Or are you ready to dine on the steak of the Word? Do you require snacks (devotionals, a scripture meme, etc.) between more substantial portions to help you through a lull in the day? Think about your “eating” habits when it comes to the Bible. Do you need to revamp your spiritual diet or “live-it” as Susan calls it? Do you have an eating-plan (reading plan) to help you stay in the word of God?
Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ.
SUSAN: Paul warns them about listening to and living by philosophies other than Christ alone.
SUSIE: Tradition should not take precedent over the revelation God has given us through Jesus and His word, the Bible.
Colossians 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.
For in him, bodily, lives the fullness of all that God is.
Colossians 2:9 (CJB)
SUSAN: Jesus is the totality of God in human form.
SUSIE: Everything that makes up the essence of the God-Head dwelt in Jesus’ earthly body. He was not a man with a little bit of God in Him, nor was He God with a few characteristics of a body.
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 (BSB)
SUSAN: He was all God and all man simultaneously at all times.
SUSIE: There is no higher authority than Jesus, no greater knowledge than what is found in knowing Him.
Colossians 2:10 And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
And in Him you have been made complete [achieving spiritual stature through Christ], and He is the head over all rule and authority [of every angelic and earthly power].
Colossians 2:10 (AMP)
SUSAN: Jesus’ righteousness has been deposited to our accounts. Father God sees us as righteous because Jesus shed His blood for us on the cross, to wash away our sin. God sees us through the filter of Jesus’ righteousness.
SUSIE: In Christ, we have also been given all the tools necessary to live a godly life, a life that brings glory to the Lord.
SUSAN: If Jesus is in our tool belt, we have need of no other tools.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
2 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV)
SUSIE: We derive our ability to please God through faith by His grace from the One who is completely in charge of EVERYTHING—Jesus. There is no greater power.
SUSAN: Jesus is large and in charge.
Colossians 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands.
SUSIE: Circumcision was a custom that set Jewish men apart from those of other nations and beliefs. It was an outward expression . . .
SUSAN: . . . of their inward commitment to the one true God.
SUSIE: The circumcision done by Christ is done without physical surgery to our hearts, our natures, to cut away anything that hinders our relationship to Him.
The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
Deuteronomy 30:6 (NIV)
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 (BSB)
Colossians 2:12 And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
SUSAN: Baptism by immersion symbolizes what Jesus has done in the person’s life: the old person has been buried; and a brand-new person emerges to walk with Jesus. The person is now free to live according to the purposes of God rather than to be enslaved to and controlled by Satan. Like circumcision, it is an outward expression of an inward surrender to God, His ways, and His will.
We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:4 (BSB)
SUSIE: It symbolizes the believer’s death to sin and being resurrected to life with Jesus and is a foreshadowing of the day when we will be raised to life in order to be with our Lord forever.
PONDER THIS: Complete in Christ—no missing pieces, no need of tradition or works—complete peace (shalom)—nothing missing, nothing broken. Christ enters us via the Holy Spirit and surgically removes our insufficiencies to be replaced with His sufficiency.