Complete in Him

It is certainly quite a thought that Jesus Christ, who is creator of all things, who made this earth, put it all into place, would lower himself to be subject to the laws that he created, the law of death, the law of suffering, even being placed on a cross made out of a tree that was a part of his creation. And we're going to look at some of the results of that tonight, some of the impact of what Christ did for us on the cross and what that means to us in Colossians chapter 2. So I want to invite your attention to the second chapter of Colossians as we make our way through Colossians on Sunday evenings. We're looking at the Lordship of Christ, which is really the theme of this book, his Lordship in Creation and the Church is the theme of chapter 1, his Lordship in Doctrine is the theme of chapter 2. The idea is that there was false doctrine being introduced to the church at Colossi. And Paul is stressing the true doctrine of Christ and who he really is, what he's really done for us and what that means to us, the true biblical doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen in the first five verses of chapter 2 that he expressed his concern for the church at Colossi, the one who would warn them against false teaching is one who has them in his heart. And that's true of Paul, it's true of everyone who ministers, the Word of God at least with integrity and honesty, the one who warns should be the one who has those who are being warned in his heart. And certainly that was true with Paul. He was concerned about the church. Within last time we saw in verses 6 through 10 that the Lord Jesus Christ and true understanding of him and being rooted and built up in him is our best defense against false teaching, against false doctrine. We ended those verses in verses 9 and 10 by seeing that Paul talks about all the fullness of the deity is in Christ in bodily form and we are full in Christ, verse 10. You have been given fullness in Christ who is the head over every power and authority. I think it's Taco Bell that has that quirky little commercial about I'm full. You've seen that? Probably not worth seeing. It came across somewhere. I guess I was in Chicago this week and TV was on one night and I saw this commercial about I'm full. I'm not sure I've caught the meaning of the commercial but I think the idea is that you can get full on a meal there and your pocketbook still be full. The idea is I'm full. I thought when I saw that I ought to entitle this message, I'm full. But I thought better of that after I thought about that. It would be a good idea though in some ways because that's what he's saying here. We are full in Christ. Christ has all the fullness of God. That means all of the nature of God, all the attributes of God. Everything that God is is in Jesus Christ and because we are in Christ, we have all of that in our disposal. We are full in Him. We are complete in Him. But I thought a better title would be complete in Him. So that's the one I chose. The idea however is that all the fullness of God is ours because we are full in Christ. There is no lack that requires anything else other than Jesus Christ. What I want us to do tonight is just to revel in the thought, to revel in the idea that everything we need spiritually is found in Jesus Christ. Everything we need is in Him. We don't need anything else. Now in the context that Paul's writing in with this problem that's going on in Colossi, what he was saying is you don't need any other religious ritual to make you right with God, all you need is Christ. Isn't it good to know that we don't need any kind of religious ritual to get us into favor with God? We don't need to go through certain forms of prayer or certain religious rituals that some churches go through. We don't have to do that. We are full in Christ. We have everything we need in Christ. Paul is also saying to these people, you don't need angels to stand between you and God. Remember this cult that was in Colossi as we've seen before, emphasized the fact that there were a number of intermediary beings between God and man, and it took all of those to kind of bridge the gap between God and man. And Paul says, doesn't take that, just takes one Jesus Christ. That's it. He is the God man, and everything we need is in Christ. We don't need all these angels, and he supports that in verse 10. The end of verse 10 when he says, Christ is the head over every power and authority. He's above all the angels. So we don't need angels between us and God. We don't need any other people, pastor, priest, rabbi, whoever between us and God. We have all that we need in Jesus Christ. That's all we need. And then Paul, in this context, is also saying we do not need the law to somehow bridge the gap between us and God. Everything we have, everything we need, we have in Christ. So I want us to revel in that tonight because he's going to develop that thought in verses 11 through 15 that we're going to look at tonight. Christ is all we need. We are complete in him. And what Paul is going to tell us is this. We have complete life in him. We have complete forgiveness in him, and we have complete victory in him. Let's look at those three thoughts of our completeness in Christ. First of all, we have complete life in Christ, verses 11 and 12. Verse 11 says, in him, in Christ, 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, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. The idea of those two verses basically can be summarized in two words. Complete life. We have complete life. All that we need for eternal life is found in Jesus Christ. Now Paul uses the figure of speech here, drawn from the Old Testament. He says in verse 11, you have been circumcised, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men, but with a circumcision done by Christ. Now in the Old Testament, circumcision was instituted as an outward sign of the Abrahamic covenant. When God called Abraham out from among all the pagan nations so that he could from Abraham form a people who would be called by God's name, the Jewish nation. Circumcision was an outward sign of an inward covenant and a heart relationship with God. Later, it became required by the mosaic law to prove that you were under the covenant. You were a part of that covenant that God had made with Abraham's people. That particular aspect of the mosaic law was being pushed by this cult that was taking root in Colossian affecting the church there as a part of the mosaic law. And they were pushing this idea that you had to come under the mosaic law. In other words, you had to become Jewish, if you will, in order to really be Christian. That was something that the early church struggled with continually. It's quite clear in this passage, as we get on, for instance, in verse 16, as we get on down further next week, we will see that there were other regulations of the law that this cult pushed as well. You can see them there in verse 16. Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are all Jewish regulations from the mosaic law. And so Paul is saying, you don't need to go back to the mosaic law to get life. You don't need to go back under the law given to Moses and the outward rituals and signs that were part of the Old Testament law. You don't need to do that because you already have life if you are in Christ. So that's why he says, you already in him have a circumcision, not a physical kind, he says, in verse 11, but a spiritual kind. This is not a physical operation. This is the spiritual putting off of the sinful nature, he says. What's happened is God has done radical surgery on you spiritually so that now you are not the same person you used to be. The old person, the old self has been put off in this surgical procedure. Now the operation that God performs is described in verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. Now, verse 12 tells us how this spiritual operation was performed by God. It is performed by our being identified with Christ through our faith in him. Now that is the emphasis of verse 12 is the fact that through faith in Christ we are identified with him and God sees us once we trust Christ. God sees us as having been crucified with Christ, buried with him and raised with him in his resurrection. That's what verse 12 is talking about. We've been buried with him in baptism, I'll get to the baptism thing in a minute. We've been buried with him, we've been raised with him through faith in the power of God. You see, this whole operation took place through faith in the power of God. Not any outward ritual or act or work that we do, it's through our faith in Christ that we are identified with him and God looks at us as being crucified with Christ, buried with him and raised with him in his resurrection. So that all of that is applied to us and we're given eternal life through faith in Christ. Now why does he mention baptism in verse 12? Why does he say having been buried with him in baptism? It's my conviction that quite often in the New Testament baptism is simply used as an outward symbol, an illustration of what it's supposed to symbolize and that is our union with Christ. It is not water baptism that saves us. That's not what Paul means here, it's quite clear that he says all this takes place because or through our faith in the power of God. That's what saves us. He simply mentions baptism as an outward symbol, a picture of what takes place by faith we are united with Christ in his death-barrel resurrection. Baptism pictures that, baptism shows that, it's an object lesson that describes that. Had a New Testament professor at Grace Seminary who wrote some commentaries, one of the commentaries he wrote was on the book of Colossians and Homer Kent was his name and in his commentary on Colossians he has a very interesting comment on verse 12. He says it would be strange, however, for Paul to make such a point of a circumcision made without hands that is an act that was not physical and then urge its replacement with simply another physical action. It's quite clear that the emphasis of verse 12 is not on another physical action, baptism, which takes the place of the Old Testament sign of a relationship with God. He's not trading one outward act for another. He's simply using baptism as an illustration of the faith that we have in Christ that gives us our identification with him, our unity with him and that is what gives us eternal life, faith in Christ. So in Christ, because of our faith in him, because of his death, burial, resurrection, we have complete life. Everything we need for eternal life is found in Christ and our faith in Christ brings that to us. Secondly, we not only have complete life in Christ, we have complete forgiveness in Christ. I want us to revel in this tonight. I want us to glory in this, rejoice in this because this is absolutely amazing how Paul states this in verses 13 and 14. The symbolism, the figure, speech that he uses and all that he says about our forgiveness. Let's just read the verses and then we'll kind of pick them apart here. Verse 13, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature that's again talking about our unsaved state, God made you alive with Christ. Now part of that being made alive with Christ, he then describes the end of verse 13, verse 14. Here's what it means. He forgave us all our sins. Having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross. So involved in this transfer from death to life, involved in this new life that we have in Christ is forgiveness, forgiveness of sin. And that forgiveness of sin involves the cancelling of a debt that we owed to God. Now in general that's what verses 13 and 14 are talking about. That our faith in Christ brings us new life which also means our sins are forgiven, our sins are forgiven in the sense that a debt that we had was canceled. Now I want you to see how Paul states that and we're just going to get into the words here that he uses and kind of pick it apart because it's beautiful, the symbolism here. In verse 14 Paul talks about the need for forgiveness and then the work of forgiveness, how it was taken place. I want you to see first of all the need for forgiveness in verse 14. It is due to our debt of sin. Notice in verse 14 he says in verse 13 he forgave us all our sins, now verse 14. He's being canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us. Now that expresses our need for forgiveness, why we need to be forgiven. First of all there was a written code that condemned us. Now that written code interestingly enough in New Testament times was a formal document. It was a written acknowledgement of debt that was signed by the debtor. Give you an example of this in the book of Philemon. If you can turn over just a few pages toward the end of your Bible, go through 1st and 2nd Thessalonians and 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus and there it is. Philemon, right after Titus, right before Hebrews. Look at the little book of Philemon. In verse 19 it is a beautiful example of this kind of written code, this legal document of a debtor signed by the person who owes the debt. Remember that Paul is writing to Philemon about a slave who has escaped from him, made his way to Rome and evidently gets thrown in the same prison. Paul leads him to the Lord and writes a letter back to his friend Philemon and says, this guy ran away from you, stole a bunch of money. Now he is a brother in Christ, he has gotten saved. Let's pick it up in verse 17. He says, so if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. On the notice verse 19, I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back not to mention that you owe me your very self. But you see what Paul is saying? He was carrying out a legal document in New Testament times which was you make out a bill, a written code of everything you owe and then you sign it as the debtor to admit and recognize the fact that you owe a debt. Now that's exactly the same concept that Paul is talking about back in Colossians 214. This written code against us is an acknowledgement of debt signed by the debtor. What it is is it's the code or I think the King James says handwriting of ordinances, that's what I'm talking about the law of Moses. The law of Moses pencils out, writes out all the charges against us, condemns us by those charges and we are forced honestly to sign that and say you are right. The word of God is right. I owe a debt. I am in debt to God a debt which I cannot pay at all. This written code, this document that condemns us, that points out our sin, our penalty, our debt and we are forced to sign it and say God you are right, I am a sinner. That's what he's talking about here. So that's why we need to be forgiven is we are condemned by the law. Now notice the second thing he says about this need for forgiveness. He says this written code with its regulations was against us. Literally what he's saying is in financial terms, legal terms of the New Testament, it was on the debit side of the ledger. All of these charges against us from the mosaic law which condemn us and describe us as sinners is on the debit side of the ledger. Isn't it amazing how some people think they can get to heaven by keeping the law? There's nothing on the positive side from the law. There's nothing on the positive side of the ledger from law keeping because the purpose of the law was not to make us righteous. It was to show us that we're sinners. That was purpose of the law. Purpose of the law was to show us you got a bunch of stuff here on the debit side. It's piling up quick. The purpose of the law was for us as we read the law to see man, I don't measure up. I don't measure up to what God expects. I'm a law breaker. I'm a condemned sinner. That's the purpose of the law. That's why Paul says over and over again book of Galatians, by the keeping of the law, no flesh will be justified in God's sight. Nobody can get saved by the keeping of the law because the law was never intended to put stuff on the positive side of the ledger. The law was always designed to show us how big the debit side is, that we are deaders to God. And so this law, this written code which condemns us was against us. But not only that, there's a third reason that we need to be forgiven. He also says this written code that condemns us and showed all that stuff on the debit side. Notice, He also says in verse 14, it stood opposed to us. That's an interesting statement. The idea there is that not only did it show that we're deaders to God, but it was crying out for punishment. It was crying out for justice. The idea of standing opposed to us is literally the idea of someone who is declaring guilt, crying that justice be carried out. Over the holidays, Christmas, by the way, and New Year's, just in case you wonder, over the holidays, a genius went to see the Chronicles of Narnia movie. Fascinating movie. Obviously it comes from CS Lewis's book, Books on the Chronicles of Narnia, that series of books he wrote which were really written for children to help describe the gospel story. And I was kind of skeptical, even though I had read some things about, they were true to the books. I was kind of skeptical, but I was amazed at how the symbolism of the gospel is still maintained so clearly in the movie. And I said, well, yay Disney on this one. They got it right this time. One of the most fascinating parts of that movie to me was when the witch who symbolizes Satan walks up to Aslan the lion who symbolizes Christ and points at the son of Adam, little Edmund who has rebelled and send and done wrong and says, you know the agreement to Aslan. You know the agreement. The agreement is he must die for what he has done. I demand his life. That's exactly what the law does. You see, the law stands opposed to us crying out for justice. And of course, that's when Aslan says, I will speak with you alone about this. They walk into Aslan's tent and that's where Aslan makes the covenant, if you will, with the witch that he will lay down his own life instead of the fallen son of Adam. What a beautiful picture of our salvation. But the whole idea of Satan demanding justice, the law makes it clear, God, the law you yourself have written. The law makes it clear. It demands justice. It demands it to be penalty paid. It demands that blood be shed because of guilt of sin. That's exactly what the law does to us. It stands opposed to us yelling for justice, demanding that the penalty be paid. So how's it going to be paid? Well, Jesus has arranged for that. He's arranged for the payment to be made and Paul not only addresses the need for forgiveness. He talks about the worker forgiveness. This is what God has done to make it possible for that code, that written code that was against us showed everything we owed God and was crying out for justice. This is the way Jesus satisfied that. Notice again, verse 14, having canceled, canceled the written code. It means to erase, to wipe out, to blot off the record, to completely cancel the debt. Now Jesus did that. We're going to see as we move on through the verse how he did it, but just stop for a moment to rejoice in the fact that on your record book in heaven, if you've trusted Jesus as your Savior, the debt is canceled. All that debit side of the ledger is wiped clean. Everything is erased off of that side of the ledger. Wow, we can thank God for that. That the debit side is clear that it's been erased, it's been blotted out, it's been canceled. So how did he do that? How did he can't? Why did he erase it? Again, at verse 14, canceled the written code with his regulations that was against us instead of post us, he took it away. It literally removed it from being a barrier between us and God. Literally took it on himself. There's an interesting, actually an interesting verb tense that Paul uses here called the perfect tense, which emphasizes the results, the continuing results of an action. What he's saying is when Jesus took it away, he took it away for good, and it can never come back and be put on your debit account again. There are lingering eternal results of what Jesus did when he put your sin on the cross. And no one, not even Satan himself, can ever tack it back on the debit side of the ledger. Once he takes it away, it's gone forever. I love the old story of the doctor back in depression years who used to visit many of his patients out in the country. He would go out to their homes and some of them were too poor to pay him. Sometimes he got a chicken or a few eggs, something like that. But most of them were too poor to pay him. He kept good records, kept good books. He was just that kind of a professional. When he died, his wife, knowing that he had never collected from many of his patients, decided to go back and check the books and see what they were owed. As she looked through the books that he had kept over and over again, she found in his handwriting in red letters forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. Those that were due him had been written off. She was infuriated. She thought, well, surely I can collect these debts and so she went to court, went to a judge. And in the proceedings, the judge asked her, is this the handwriting of your husband? Yes, she was forced to admit. The judge says there is not a court in this land that can collect on those debts. If your husband forgave those debts, they are forever forgiven. Now, that's exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. He wrote in red with his own blood forgiven, canceled. He took it away and it can never be put on your debit record again. It can never be placed on your account again. Now, how did he erase it? How did he blot it out? How did he take it away? Well Paul goes on to explain even more clearly. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. Now, it's not just the law. Paul is not saying that it was the law itself, the mosaic law that was done away with, but it was that debit list of charges against us that the law pointed out to us, made us aware of and condemned us about. It was that that written record against us that Jesus took with him to the cross and nailed it to the cross. Our sin was nailed to the cross and paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine a more forcible way of picturing the complete release from the sin debt we owe God than the one Paul has used here. What a forceful picture of the fact that our sin has once and for all completely been forgiven, taken away in Christ, my friend, you have complete forgiveness. We need to grasp the fullness of that, the completeness of that, the finality of the forgiveness that we have in Christ. That nothing can ever bring up our past or our sin to condemn us before God again. It has once and for all been nailed to the cross, wiped off our record, taken away by Jesus Christ himself. In Him we are complete. We have complete life, we have complete forgiveness, but we also have complete victory. He kind of wraps it up in verse 15. This is the icing on the cake. If you have complete life in Him because your sins have been completely forgiven, then you also have complete victory in Him. Verse 15 says, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Who are these rulers and authorities that He's talking about? Well consistently in the New Testament, Paul, especially, but other New Testament writers as well, uses those kinds of expressions to refer to angelic powers, angels. Sometimes those words, powers, authorities, rulers, those kinds of things, those kinds words. Sometimes they're used of good angels. Sometimes they're used of bad angels. In this context, in a warfare kind of setting, which is quite clearly what He's talking about in verse 15, it's obviously speaking of bad angels. So the rulers and authorities here are satanic forces over which Christ won a great victory at the cross. That's why your debit account can never be started again. That's why nothing else can be put on your record because Satan is already a defeated foe because of the cross. These rulers and authorities, these powers are defeated by the cross and their defeat is complete. This is the way He says it again using beautiful, descriptive military pictures from the day He says in verse 15, having disarmed the powers. The Greek word literally means to strip. Now in New Testament times when the Roman army conquered another army, they would force their conquered foes to be stripped of their armor and their weapons. All of their armor had to be piled up. All of their weapons had to be piled up. Interestingly enough, that was commonly done in warfare right up into somewhat modern times in the American Revolution when the British forces surrendered at Yorktown in 1781. They surrendered by taking their arms and piling them up in piles. They were disarmed. They were stripped of their weapons and that was a sign of defeat. It was a sign for the conquering army of victory. Jesus literally stripped His enemies, these authorities, these powers Satan and all of His demons of their armor, of their weapons. You say, oh wait a second, I sure don't feel like their weapons are gone. I feel them quite a bit. Well Satan has already defeated foe. The sentence has already passed. It's just hadn't been carried out yet. See, he's got a little time before the sentence is carried out and he's doing as much damage as he can before it's carried out. But mark it down, the sentence is already passed. The defeat is already real. Satan is already a defeated foe. He knows it. So he's disarmed. I love what he says next. He's doing disarmed the powers and authorities. He made a public spectacle of them. Public disgrace. And how is that disgrace? Take place. What is that public spectacle about? He says at the end of the verse, triumphant over them by the cross. In Bible times when a Roman general would conquer a foe, an opposing army, he would come home to Rome to lead what was called a victory parade. And in this victory parade, the general would be at the front riding his horse that he used in battle. Behind him would be his troops and they would be like a ticker-tap parade in the United States. They're riding going down through the streets of Rome to great applause. Behind the general's troops would be the vanquished king of this defeated enemy. Behind him would be the officers of the defeated army, some of the soldiers of the defeated army without their armor, without their weapons being made a public spectacle, if you will, with everyone recognizing and realizing that Jesus Christ or the general in that day was the victor and who the vanquished foe was. Now this is exactly what happened when Jesus Christ went back into heaven after the resurrection. You'll look back at Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Paul is talking at the end of the chapter about the power that we have in Christ because of his resurrection. In the middle of verse 19, he says, that power is like the working of his mighty strength, now verse 20, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power and dominion and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed him to be the head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who feels everything in every way. It was like a celebration when Jesus entered heaven, like a victory celebration. You can almost see the procession down the streets of heaven. As Jesus returns to heaven, victorious over death, hell and the grave and vanquishes, all of His foes, Satan and His demons are made a public spectacle because they've been defeated and Jesus walks to the throne where God seats him far above all those principalities and powers, all of them are placed under His feet and all of that because of the cross. We have complete victory in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Yes, we are complete in Him. Everything we need for salvation is in Christ. And you, it is not in us. It is not in us to work our way to complete eternal life. It is not in us to obtain complete forgiveness by trying to make up for our sin. It is not in us to have complete victory over Satan. It is not in us. It is in Christ only through Him. Aren't you glad that the Bible says we are as Christians, as believers in the Lord Jesus? Aren't you glad the Bible says we are in Christ? We are in Christ which means complete life, complete forgiveness, complete victory. Let's rejoice in all that we have in our Savior. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you tonight for that which we have in our Savior, the Lord Jesus. We are thankful for who He is, what He has done for us, that in Him we have life, not through any external observances or rituals that we do. But because by faith we have been united with His death and burial resurrection, thank you God for that. We are so thankful that we have complete forgiveness that our sins are completely wiped off the record books because they were nailed to your cross. Thank you for that. Thank you that we have complete victory. And even though we're still in the battle, victory is one. Victory is already assured because of Jesus and His death and burial resurrection. Thank you that we are complete in Him. We rejoice in that tonight, Father. Would I pray if there's anyone here tonight who's not complete in Christ, who's never trusted Christ, that this would be the night when they realize what they're missing and what they need in Jesus' name we pray.