Colossians 2:11-23
Not Legalism but Christ
11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations— 21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
Our attempts based on the need to fulfill the Law of works completely to deserve salvation from sin’s penalty always fall short (Romans 3:23) because they are ever imperfect and miss the mark of complete perfection (James 2:10) needed. Only Jesus Christ was the the spotless Lamb of God as the only sacrifice required to wipe sin away and pay the perfect price by His divine obedience to keep the entire Law for us. He cleanses our souls to take away the sins of our flesh as a circumcising of the heart which is desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) an incurable sick with sin in its corrupt state ever since the original sin of disbelief and disobedience tainted the world. Though the symbolic sign of the old covenant of our works, physical circumcision, cleansed the outside from infection, the cleansing of the heart by Christ cleanses our inner being from sin’s infectious effects (Romans 2:29) perfectly and completely. Likewise, we who are baptized into Christ are considered dead and buried to our old nature and the curse of the Law and raised up alive from spiritual death in Him who raises us spiritually until the body is also raised incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:52) to join it at the end of days. He has forgiven us all our sins against Him that the Law hold us under in bondage to face an eternal death penalty. In Christ, we find that the written Law of our works as necessary for delivering us from the sentence of divine justice has been taken away from us and put onto God’s Son who was nailed to the cross of our curse (Galatians 3:13) to take such requirements of the Law of perfection out of our way that kept us from God as He kept the Law perfectly and completely (Romans 8:3-4) to do the impossible work for us. By His sacrifice for our sin, Jesus took away the requirement for us to keep the entirety of the Law to work our way to God by keeping it Himself as He then nailed the requirement to the cross to put it to death and give life to all who obey the gospel by trusting His work as we believe and receive Him who did this for us! By doing this, Jesus openly defeated the adversary for all to see, the who is out to destroy God’s work and who brought the temptation to sin into the world (Genesis 3:1, Mark 1:13, Revelation 12:17). This is our triumph in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57, 2 Corinthians 2:14)! Because of the work of Christ done for us, we need not fear judgment of those demanding we keep the Law of works for our salvation as we follow His law written on our heart’s willingly as enabled to put these sinful desires to death by His presence in us. Keeping the sabbath is resting from our works (Hebrews 4:10) and not a ritual to earn God’s grace. We do not worship angels or statues as some erroneously do in Rome, but we worship in spirit and truth based on the finished effectual work done for us by Christ as our only head and no longer by legalistic efforts or papal demands of modern-day Pharisees. Our growth is likewise enabled by God’s work in us as we follow in willing obedience by His working in us to transform (Romans 12:2) us from the inside heart to the outside actions and make us fruitful as we grow in our sanctification. We need this reminder then as the Colossians did then, that we stop pursuing our own legalistic efforts to earn God’s favor and rest in Christ as our Sabbath. He then works in us against the indulgences of our flesh which we war against daily. Rules and laws cannot do what God works in us, so why go back to vainly trying to do this? We may not come from a Jewish background of the Law of Moses, but we do the same thing when we make checklists of rules that are dependencies for grace which has no such requirements because our imperfect works have been nailed to the cross as the curse has been lifted from us and we are now raised in newness of life in our Lord who died for us after keeping the Law for us! He alone saves and keeps us.
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