What We Are in Christ

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

11 views

0 comments

00:02
Take out your Bibles with me and turn to Colossians chapter 2.
00:09
And today we're going to be looking at verses 11 to 15.
00:21
The title of today's message is What We Are in Christ.
00:36
What is the difference between an ought and an are? When we say that we ought to be something, that means we are not that thing yet.
00:53
But when we say that we are something, that means that that is in fact what we have become.
01:02
For instance, if a person is in university, you might say something to the effect of you ought to finish your degree.
01:11
But once the degree is completed and handed to the person, they've passed by the graduating class, they've received their degree, you would say they then are a graduate.
01:25
Right? So the difference between ought and are is a big distinction.
01:32
In the Bible we use the distinction of what is known as the indicative and the imperative.
01:42
The indicative tells us what we are and the imperative tells us what we ought to do.
01:52
Well today we are going to be focusing not on what we ought to be, but we're going to be focusing on what we are in Christ.
02:06
If you are in Christ today, everything the Apostle Paul says from verse 11 to verse 15 is what you are in him.
02:20
And so that's what we're going to look at today.
02:22
Let us stand and read.
02:25
We will read beginning actually at verse 9, even though our study will be 11 to 15, 9 is where we pick up the context of this.
02:39
And it says beginning in verse 9, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.
02:57
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
03:22
And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
03:44
This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
03:51
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.
04:03
What a tremendous passage of scripture.
04:06
Father, I thank you for your word now that we have the opportunity to study it.
04:10
I pray, Lord, as I've been praying all week, God, that you would help me to preach this text with the full weight and power it deserves.
04:19
Lord, I know that I'm a failure and I know that I am able to make many mistakes and I pray that you would keep me from that in the preaching of this text.
04:29
And I pray that your spirit would empower me and that the word of God would go out and be mixed with faith, that it would make its way through the ear and to the heart.
04:40
And Lord God, for those who know you, that they would be comforted in who they are in Christ, that they are in fact circumcised in him, made alive, legally forgiven and triumphant.
04:53
And Lord, for those who do not know him, that today they would be confronted with the only way, the only way to triumph over death, hell and the grave is in the person of Jesus Christ.
05:06
We pray this in his name, amen.
05:22
In our last few messages, we have been talking about the fact that in Colossians chapter 2 we arrive at our first two imperatives and we arrive at those things where Paul is telling us these are the things we ought to do.
05:45
And the last imperative we looked at was the imperative word beware, where he tells us beginning in verse 8 in the ESV it says see to it, but either way we can translate that, we can translate it as watch out for, beware of, see to it that we do not do this.
06:06
And what it is, he says see to it that no one takes you captive, no one enslaves you to empty philosophy, deceitful philosophy and he describes what that looks like.
06:17
He said it's described as human traditions and elementary principles of the world that are not according to Christ.
06:26
So simplified we could say do not let anyone take you captive to something other than Jesus.
06:33
Do not let anyone put anything other than Jesus as the reason for your salvation.
06:42
And I want to read to you a paraphrase, this is the J.B.
06:48
Lightfoot paraphrase of verse 8.
06:53
I meant to read it last week and I didn't and as I got, you don't know this, but every week I get in my car and I kick myself in the leg for something I forgot to say.
07:04
Every week almost, I'll get in the car and I'll say that was the one thing and by God's grace I have another week.
07:13
But this is how J.B.
07:15
Lightfoot translates, it's a paraphrase, it's not a translation, but I like the paraphrase, this is what he says.
07:22
Verse 8 he says, Be on guard, do not suffer yourselves to fall prey to certain people who would lead you captive by a hollow and deceitful system which they call philosophy.
07:33
They substitute the traditions of men for the truth of God.
07:37
They enforce an elementary discipline of mundane ordinances fit only for children.
07:43
Theirs is not the gospel of Christ.
07:48
I just love that as a simple explanation of verses 8 and or verse 8 and then we get into verse 9 and verse 9 says that in him all of the fullness of God dwells bodily.
08:05
Now that by itself is enough for 10 sermons on the nature of God and Christ, but I want you to know that all that is is Paul's way of getting to verse 10.
08:18
Because when he's talking about the fullness of God being in Christ he's already explained that in chapter 1 beginning at verse 15 all the way down to verse 20 he explains God being in Christ so he's reminding us of something he's explained earlier so as to make this point in verse 10 and verse 10 is that we have been filled in him.
08:38
God has filled Christ in him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily and in him we have been filled.
08:48
So that's the point Paul is making is you have been filled in him and the word filled there is actually could be translated to be made complete.
08:58
In fact if you look at John MacArthur's commentary on this particular passage the title of this section is entitled complete in Christ because that is what this is all about.
09:14
What do we have in Christ? Completeness.
09:18
What do we have in Christ? Fulfillment.
09:20
What do we have in Christ? We are made full in him.
09:24
Everything that we need is in him.
09:29
And this leads to the question well in what way are we made complete? In what way are we filled? What is it that happened in Christ that is so important to us? And that's what takes us to verse 11.
09:46
And verse 11 to verse 15 is one idea in like 20 different parts but it's one idea and here's what I'm going to do.
09:57
And it's a fool's errand.
09:59
I'm going to try to preach verses 11 to 15 as one message.
10:03
But I'm going to tell you that in my heart of hearts I know next week I'm going to have to go back and fill in some gaps.
10:10
So when I say I'm going to do 11 to 15 as one message I have at least one extra message that's going to go along with this that's from the same text.
10:17
Maybe two.
10:19
Because there's so much here.
10:20
It's so full.
10:21
Because he's going to talk about circumcision and baptism and being raised from spiritual death to spiritual life.
10:28
He's going to talk about legal forgiveness in the cross.
10:32
And he's going to talk about victory and triumphing in Christ.
10:36
I mean that's a series.
10:39
But I'm going to try to show you how it all fits together today.
10:43
And then maybe fill in some holes that we may miss today in the weeks to come.
10:49
That sound fair? You guys know I do this a lot, right? I'll do a long section and then go back and put some pieces together.
10:55
That's just my way.
10:56
Because I don't like to miss the forest for the trees.
10:59
The reason why I look at a long section is we got to see the forest.
11:04
I know a guy, there's a book I recommend, Dr.
11:08
Howard Hendricks' book, and he tells a story in the book where he says he visited a church and he said, what do you want me to preach? And they said, preach anything you want, just don't preach Ephesians.
11:19
Why? He says, because our pastor's been preaching Ephesians for three years.
11:25
And he says, what's the main purpose of Ephesians? And nobody knew the answer.
11:32
Pastor been preaching the same book three years and nobody knew the main theme or purpose of Ephesians.
11:38
Beloved, that is my hope that would never happen while I'm preaching, that we get so bogged down in the particulars that we miss the forest for the trees.
11:46
Understand, that's not good.
11:49
Long expositions can be valuable, but we have to maintain the integrity of the theme of the book and what Paul is trying to get across.
11:57
Alright? And what Paul is getting across, in case you haven't heard it yet, Paul is getting across the supremacy, superiority, and sufficiency of Christ, that's what Colossians is.
12:08
The Christ is sufficient for all that you need, especially salvation.
12:12
So we're going to look today, three things that we are in Christ, from these passages.
12:20
Number one, and I'll put it up here because I do like having this.
12:26
The first thing is, you are circumcised.
12:33
Now, I know that may seem a little weird, but that is what we're going to learn.
12:37
You are circumcised in Him.
12:39
That's an important thing.
12:41
The second thing you're going to find out is that you are alive in Him.
12:45
The third thing we're going to see is that you are legally forgiven, legally forgiven in Him.
13:00
And that's important, because we often think of forgiveness as like something that we give to someone else, somebody harms us, we forgive them all as well.
13:08
But that's not legal forgiveness.
13:10
Legal forgiveness is when your debt has been taken care of, your debt has been wiped clean.
13:15
Right? And there's a legal term that Paul is going to use here, where he talks about wiping away our debt.
13:22
It's very important.
13:24
And the fourth thing we're going to see is that we have been made triumphant.
13:29
You are triumphant in Him.
13:35
So those are the four things that we're going to focus on today.
13:38
Let's look at the first one.
13:40
It says in verse 11, in Him also, and the word also just saying because He's already said you've been filled in Him.
13:49
So now He's adding to that idea, you've also been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
14:07
Now right away we need to understand what circumcision is.
14:13
I think we all at least have an idea of the surgical procedure that circumcision is.
14:19
It's the removal of the foreskin of the infant male, which was a sign that was given by God to Abraham and it had a two-fold purpose.
14:31
Circumcision had the purpose of separation and inclusion, which sounds like two opposite things, but it's not.
14:39
Circumcision was intended to separate from the world and include in the covenant community.
14:46
So it was separation from the world and inclusion in the covenant community.
14:52
So it had a specific purpose given by God to Abraham as a sign that this person was made distinct from the rest of the world.
15:05
Circumcision is an external sign.
15:11
It's made on the outside of the body, but it carried an internal expectation.
15:23
If you were made part of the covenant community, you were expected to be part of the covenant system.
15:32
It meant someone was in the covenant community and they were responsible for what that covenant entailed, but it did not always mean that the person would fulfill those things because there were people who were brought into the covenant by virtue of receiving the sign who would not be right with God.
16:02
You can have the external sign of circumcision in the old covenant and you can be part of the covenant people of God and yet not be right with God.
16:18
And that's why in the Old Testament several writers, including Moses, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel said that there must be something that accompanies the outward circumcision and that was inward.
16:35
I'll give you just a few verses, Deuteronomy 10, 16, Moses writing, he says, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn.
16:50
Now from a scientific standpoint we know that the heart does not have that particular part, so he's not talking about a physical surgery.
17:01
When he says circumcise the foreskin of your heart, he's talking about something on the inside, not on the outside.
17:10
And he's talking about something spiritual, not something physical.
17:15
We see this again in Deuteronomy 30, and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul that you may live.
17:26
So what does spiritual circumcision do? It causes you to love God.
17:31
It gives you the ability to love God.
17:34
You know what we lack? The ability to love God.
17:39
And so God circumcises the heart and he gives us that ability to love him.
17:43
He's good all the time, amen.
17:53
Later in the prophets we would see that the way that the prophets would chastise the unbeliever who was a covenant member, is that they would call them uncircumcised in the heart.
18:09
Read from Ezekiel chapter 44 verse 7.
18:14
In admitting foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh, I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong verse, excuse me, I am, Jeremiah 4.4, excuse me.
18:30
Circumcise yourself to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your heart, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn, with none to quench it because of the evil deeds.
18:41
You know what, it was Ezekiel 44, it was 44.9.
18:45
Y'all do this sometime, it's not, it's not the easiest thing in the world, there's a lot of verses here.
18:54
I apologize, I really do, I just got off my line.
18:56
Ezekiel 44.9, thus says the Lord God, no foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel shall enter my sanctuary.
19:05
Notice he's saying it's not just the uncircumcision of the physical, it's the uncircumcision of the heart that makes them unfit.
19:13
Later Stephen will stand before the Sanhedrin.
19:18
You remember Stephen was being put on trial for preaching Jesus.
19:23
And when he stands before the Sanhedrin, what does he say to them? He says you stiff necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears.
19:34
You always resist the spirit as your fathers did.
19:39
So you do.
19:41
So Stephen referring to the unbelieving Pharisees and Sadducees, he says to them you are uncircumcised in your heart.
19:50
And he says ears, uncircumcised in ears and heart.
19:52
So circumcision then is a picture of that separation and inclusion.
19:58
Separation from the world, inclusion in the people of God.
20:00
And you can have the physical sign without being part of the spiritual people.
20:11
So now we come back to Colossians 2 and we ask ourselves what is Paul talking about in Colossians 2.11? Because he says we have been circumcised.
20:20
Notice what it says, in him, actually the Greek says in whom, speaking of Christ because it was just talking about Christ in verses 9 and 10, it says in whom also you were circumcised.
20:33
That's one word.
20:34
It's an aorist verb and it's indicative, meaning it's not something you did, it's something that has been done.
20:41
And aorist meaning it's a past tense, simple past tense.
20:44
It's happened.
20:46
You were circumcised with a circumcision and here's the key word.
20:52
It's an adjective.
20:54
Without hands.
20:56
The circumcision you received was not a circumcision applied to you by a man.
21:02
The circumcision you received was not a circumcision applied to you in a surgical procedure.
21:08
It was done spiritually.
21:11
It was done inwardly.
21:13
And that's what he goes on in the next two clauses of verse 11, he says in whom you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.
21:21
And then he goes in the removal of the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ.
21:26
So we have two prepositions.
21:29
The preposition is in and it's two of them back to back, both of them indicating what happened when you were circumcised in Christ.
21:35
When you were circumcised in Christ, the body of flesh was removed and the circumcision of Christ was applied.
21:43
Now there's a lot of argument about the second clause.
21:46
What does it mean when it says the removal of the body of flesh? Because you might say, I still have a body of flesh.
21:52
Now some people think that's referring to Christ and his body on the cross.
21:56
I don't think that that's what's the picture here.
21:59
Because the picture here is the circumcision that's been done to us and what he's referring to in the removal of the body of the flesh, the somatitas tes sarcas, the body of the flesh is referring to, I believe, is referring to our regeneration.
22:14
Because regeneration is something that gives life to the dead.
22:19
And it brings us out of our spiritual deadness.
22:26
And there's the removing of the body of flesh that was killing us and gives us life.
22:33
And then he says, in the circumcision of Christ.
22:35
Now you may want to argue with me a little bit on the semantics of that later, but here's my point.
22:39
Old Testament circumcision points to New Testament rebirth.
22:44
And in the rebirth of the New Testament we have a spiritual change that happens that makes us alive.
22:54
Now we're going to get to the alive part in just a moment.
22:57
But we were dead and were made alive by this thing that God has done on our behalf.
23:04
That's the point.
23:06
We have been given a spiritual circumcision.
23:11
Now here comes the hard part.
23:15
Like that weren't hard enough.
23:18
Here comes the hard part.
23:20
Verse 11 is followed by verse 12.
23:25
And verse 12, the apostle ties in baptism with this, with this spiritual circumcision that he just referred to.
23:37
Listen to what it says in the ESV.
23:40
It says, in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
23:49
Verse 12, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
24:03
Now you ask the question, where did baptism come in? And this is one of those times where our Presbyterian brethren, who I love with a love that is beyond measure.
24:16
Men like R.C.
24:16
Sproul have had more influence in my life than just about any other man.
24:20
And so I can say I love my Presbyterian brethren.
24:23
But what they see here is they see baptism as the new circumcision.
24:30
That you have circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in the New Testament.
24:35
And that they are both the same thing, just different administrations of the same covenant of grace.
24:42
Now next week, I said if I come back to this again, I may talk about that at more length.
24:48
Because I do think we should ask the question, who is the right candidate for baptism? And that is a question everyone should be able to answer, especially if you be a Baptist.
24:57
You ought to be able to answer the question, who is the right candidate for baptism? But, one thing I like to point out in verse 11, is that the circumcision in verse 11 is made without hands.
25:14
So I don't believe that baptism is the circumcision, because baptism is made with hands, guys.
25:22
I ain't never seen somebody baptized where they didn't use their hands, except for one little kid.
25:27
I was watching a baptism one time on YouTube.
25:29
This little boy is waiting to be baptized.
25:32
And the guy is going on and on, he's praying and preaching, and the little boy finally got tired of it, held his nose and went on down by himself.
25:39
He just said, he got tired of waiting.
25:43
I don't know if they did it again or not, but it's cute.
25:46
The point is, baptism does have something to do with this, because Paul uses it.
25:57
And there's a couple of different ways that people have interpreted this.
26:00
One of the ways that it's sometimes interpreted, I do not agree with, but I will mention it, because if you have a MacArthur Study Bible, it might mention it, because I know that this is the position that Dr.
26:10
MacArthur takes.
26:11
And as godly as Dr.
26:13
MacArthur is, just like Dr.
26:14
Sproul, I can disagree with him too.
26:17
And by the way, if you can't ever disagree with your teacher, that's not good.
26:23
That means you've stopped thinking for yourself.
26:25
You've got to be able to think for yourself, you've got to be able to disagree, even with godly men.
26:33
John MacArthur believes that the baptism mentioned in verse 12 is what he calls a dry baptism, meaning that it's not referring to the water that we undergo in baptism, but rather it's referring to our being immersed into Christ.
26:45
There are times where that term, baptism, doesn't refer to water.
26:52
Like, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 12, it talks about us being baptized into the church by one spirit.
26:57
That's not referring to the water, it's talking about the spirit immersing us as part of the body of Christ.
27:02
And so, there are times where baptism is referring to being immersed or put into something, and if you look up the history of the word baptism, it does mean to put into something, to dip, or to immerse, or to submerge.
27:17
And we were told in 1 Corinthians, I think 10, it says we were baptized, or that the Israelites were baptized into Moses, right? And so there are times when it's referring to union, and it's not referring to wetness.
27:33
And so, John MacArthur's interpretation is that in verse 12, this baptism here is referring to the union that we have with Christ, which in fact would be our circumcision of the heart, which brings union with Christ.
27:44
And so, I can understand how he gets there, but I don't think that's what Paul meant.
27:51
And here's why.
27:53
Because in the early church, you have to understand one thing was certain.
28:00
If you got saved, you were baptized.
28:04
And your baptism was an immediate thing.
28:08
You want proof? Read the book of Acts.
28:11
The Philippian jailer hears Paul singing, and he goes in, takes him out, takes him home.
28:18
He hears the gospel.
28:19
His family hears the gospel.
28:20
What did they do? Wait six weeks and do a baptism ceremony? No, they went out that night and baptized them.
28:28
When the Ethiopian eunuch is with Philip, and they're traveling, and Philip is explaining to him the Isaiah passage, and he says, there is water.
28:37
What prevents me from being baptized? So they come down out of the carriage immediately and get baptized.
28:46
So baptism in the early church was not something that was optional.
28:54
If you believed, you were baptized.
28:57
What was Peter's words on the day of Pentecost? Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will receive the forgiveness of sins.
29:07
So the act of baptism was accompanying the act of belief.
29:13
And it would have made no sense to the early church to say you were a believer who had not been baptized.
29:18
It just didn't make sense.
29:20
And honestly, it still sort of doesn't make sense.
29:25
Now we counsel people for baptism, and I'm going to talk about that a little more next week, about recognizing whether or not someone's a genuine believer, and walking through them with the text, making sure they understand the gospel, because some people grow up in church.
29:37
I mean, I was baptized when I was eight years old.
29:39
I didn't understand the gospel.
29:41
So I was baptized again when I was an adult, because I didn't understand the gospel the first time I was baptized.
29:46
So I do think that we do have a responsibility to make sure somebody understands the gospel.
29:50
I think Philip did that with the eunuch.
29:51
I think Paul did that with the Philippian jailer.
29:54
But as soon as they knew they understood the gospel, man, they were baptizing them.
29:59
So my point is this.
30:01
Baptism and salvation were linked, not causally, as baptism causes salvation, no, no, no, but in the sense of relationally.
30:14
If I'm saved, I get baptized.
30:18
It was part of what a believer did.
30:22
Therefore, Paul can use baptism as a picture of rebirth.
30:30
And that's what he does in verse 12.
30:31
Notice what he says.
30:32
Having been buried with him in baptism, and if you're familiar with that term, you should be, because he says almost the same thing in Romans 6, right? Buried with him in baptism, raised a new life, right? We say that when we baptize someone.
30:44
Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him, but notice he says raised with him through faith.
30:53
You see, we are raised through faith.
30:57
You can be baptized and not be a saved person.
31:03
Salvation is not by baptism.
31:05
Salvation is by faith.
31:07
And that's why he goes on.
31:09
He says we were buried with him in baptism, raised through faith, not raised by the act of baptism.
31:16
There is a false teaching.
31:19
It's known as ex opera operato.
31:22
It's Latin for the thing working does the work.
31:25
And what it means is if you are baptized, the baptism itself does the work of regeneration.
31:30
It's what's believed in Roman Catholicism.
31:32
That's why they baptize infants.
31:33
Because they believe infants are born dead in sin.
31:36
We believe that too.
31:37
But what they believe the solution to that is, is to baptize them as infants, which gives them regeneration, which brings them to life.
31:43
Because they believe that the baptism actually gives spiritual life.
31:49
We do not believe that.
31:50
We don't believe that baptism gives spiritual life.
31:53
But we do believe it accompanies spiritual life, because if you're spiritually alive, you ought to be baptized.
32:01
So Paul can use that picture, and he can say here's the picture.
32:07
You were dead and made alive.
32:09
It's pictured in being buried and baptized, being raised a new life.
32:12
And here's what's really happened.
32:15
What's really happened is you didn't just get wet.
32:18
What's really happened is God has circumcised your heart.
32:21
God has given you new life in Christ.
32:24
And it's pictured in that labor.
32:27
It's pictured in that pool.
32:29
But it's what's happening inside, made without hands, that actually does the difference.
32:36
So now we see the relationship.
32:40
Now, somebody's going to ask, so I'm going to go ahead and answer before somebody asks.
32:45
Do I believe baptism is a sign in the way circumcision is a sign? I do, in this sense.
32:53
I believe it is an outward thing that pictures an inward thing.
32:58
Same way circumcision was an outward thing that pictured an inward thing.
33:01
And so in that sense, it's a picture, in the same way that the table, I don't agree with the Roman Catholics, and I don't agree with the Lutherans, because I don't believe the table becomes Jesus's body and blood, but I believe it is a picture of what Christ did.
33:15
And it's a reminder, do this in remembrance of me, of what he did.
33:19
And therefore every time we do it, we are brought into remembrance and union with what he did.
33:27
Does this make sense? Signs are important.
33:29
Don't ever think that because something is a sign, it doesn't mean it's not valuable.
33:33
Signs are important.
33:34
If it weren't, you couldn't ever find a restaurant on your way home.
33:37
You got to know where the signs are.
33:39
Signs point you to things.
33:41
Baptism points you to your regeneration, it points you to your rebirth, it points you to the change that Christ made in your heart.
33:49
And that's what Paul is saying.
33:50
You were buried with him in baptism.
33:52
Baptism you've been raised with him through faith.
33:55
And the faith, I love this because it's a little hard to translate.
33:59
In the ESV it says raised through faith in the powerful working of God, but it's actually can be translated slightly different here because Luther, Luther translates it this way.
34:15
He translates it in what's known as the subjunctive genitive.
34:19
And he says faith produced by the working of God.
34:24
That your faith is actually produced by God's power.
34:30
And I like that.
34:31
Now, I'm not smart enough in the Greek to tell you whether or not he was right.
34:36
But I think it's close because Paul does use that word, which comes from the word ergos, the word for power, strength, or energy.
34:44
And that's he applies it to God and he's talking about our faith.
34:48
So it's either faith in God's power or faith that came through God's power.
34:54
I'll leave it to you to decide.
34:55
I like the second one.
34:57
That it's faith because of the power of God.
35:02
But notice what, because notice what he says, raised, it was God raised him from the dead.
35:09
Guess what? Christ was raised from the dead by the power of God.
35:16
You too were raised from spiritual deadness by the power of God.
35:21
And that's exactly what goes to verse 13.
35:23
And that's why, again, tying it all to a context, verse 13 brings you to the next point.
35:28
But it's all the same idea because verse 13 he says, and you, you were dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh.
35:39
God made you alive together with him.
35:42
Notice God did it.
35:44
God made you alive with him.
35:48
Now real quick, I have to say this.
35:53
Thinking about how, yeah, I'm going to do it.
35:55
I'm going to get it all.
35:58
Because this is important stuff and it all, it all hangs together.
36:00
Verse 13, you were dead in your trespasses.
36:03
Where do we hear that? Ephesians 2, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked in the, you know, according to the prince of the power of the air, all that, we're Ephesians, most people are really familiar with Ephesians 2, 1.
36:16
But Paul's saying the same thing here, but different because he says here, you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh.
36:28
So in my opinion, what that means is he is now focusing on the Colossian Gentiles because the Colossian Jews would have been circumcised in the flesh, but not the Colossian Gentiles and Colossae was mostly Gentiles.
36:44
And he's saying to them, you were dead in two ways.
36:49
You were dead in your sins, which is spiritual deadness, but you were also dead in the uncircumcision of your flesh because you were outside of the covenant people of God.
37:00
You were separated from God's covenant people.
37:03
And if you go to Ephesians 2 and you read further than we normally do, because most of us think Ephesians 2 ends at verse 10, it don't, but we think it does because we like verses 1 through 10.
37:12
After verse 10 in chapter 2 of Ephesians, he talks about how we were estranged from God outside of the covenant and God brought us in by the work of Christ.
37:22
He's talking about the Gentiles who were outside of the covenant and God brought them in.
37:27
Well here he says, you were dead in trespasses and uncircumcision.
37:32
You were dead two ways.
37:33
You were dead in spirit and you were dead outside the covenant people.
37:38
You had a double dose of dead.
37:40
And God did a miraculous work.
37:47
First, he gave you the circumcision that you needed by circumcising your heart.
37:51
And second, he gave the forgiveness that you needed because your spirit was dead in sin.
37:56
You were dead in two ways.
37:58
God made you alive in two ways.
38:01
See how that works and how that comes together? He has taken our deadness and made us alive.
38:14
Now, I'm going to tell you, as a Calvinist, I just want to camp out on that word dead and stay there for like six weeks.
38:19
But I ain't going to.
38:21
Y'all have heard me talk about it before.
38:22
But I will say this just real quick.
38:25
Being dead in sin does not mean that your spirit doesn't function.
38:33
What it means is that your spirit is estranged from God and unable to bridge the gap back and without a desire to do so.
38:42
And here's the picture that we have of that.
38:45
Remember the prodigal son? When he ran off from his daddy, took all of his stuff, went off, ended up in the pig slop.
38:52
He came to himself.
38:54
He went back to his father.
38:55
And what did his father say to him? You were dead, but now you're alive.
39:00
See deadness refers to estrangement.
39:02
But deadness also refers to being cut off in our ability or right.
39:09
Here's an idea of that.
39:10
Think of James chapter 2 when he says your faith, if it is without works, is what? Dead.
39:16
It's not functioning right.
39:18
It's not doing what it should do.
39:20
So there's all kinds of ways the word dead is used.
39:24
And we as Calvinists, we tend to focus on this.
39:26
As dead in our sin, we're not able to return unless God draws us.
39:30
That's true.
39:30
He's got to give us life so we can come.
39:33
That's true.
39:34
But it also means we're separated and estranged.
39:38
And that's the thing that Paul is focusing on here because he talks about our estrangement from God because of sin and our estrangement from the covenant people because we're uncircumcised in the flesh.
39:48
So we have to always take everything within its context.
39:53
But the beauty is God made you alive.
39:57
You were dead.
39:58
God made you alive.
39:59
And he made you alive having forgiven us all our trespasses.
40:06
How many? Some? Most? Here's the reason why I can't be an Arminian.
40:17
Because the Arminian will say, God has forgiven all your sins, but you have to believe.
40:26
My response is, is unbelief not a sin? Unbelief is a sin.
40:30
See, God not only forgives my unbelief, but he gives me the ability to believe by his power.
40:38
See, I can see all of my sins, even my unbelief.
40:45
That's one thing I don't forget.
40:46
There was some guy up north.
40:47
He said, God can't, God can't overcome your unbelief.
40:53
My response was very simple.
40:55
Anytime you start with God can't, you better be real careful what comes out of your mouth next.
41:00
Because I can say God can't do some things.
41:02
God can't lie.
41:03
God can't deny himself.
41:04
God can't cease to be God.
41:05
God can't deny his own nature.
41:07
I can say that.
41:07
But be real careful where that ellipsis comes in.
41:11
God can't dot, dot, dot, that's the ellipsis.
41:13
Real careful what comes next.
41:15
Because if it has anything to do with your will, God can't overcome your will.
41:22
Just go talk to Jonah and come back and talk to me.
41:29
God is sovereign over our will.
41:33
Praise the Lord.
41:37
But notice what it says.
41:38
God made alive together with him, you who are dead in your trespasses, God made alive together with him, having, and here's what, I just want to point it out, and I have this in a chart here.
41:49
If you, if you look at the participles, and I know this is, two people in this room care about this, me and Mike.
41:55
Everybody else just looks at me sideways.
42:00
He made alive together is one word in the Greek, and it is the main verb.
42:07
It's in the aorist indicative, it's something that happened in the past, and it's something that is not a command, it's something that happened, indicative.
42:16
This term, he made alive together with him, is followed by four participles.
42:24
All of them in the ESV, I think, are translated with the ING, that's how I normally see participles, like having something or doing something.
42:33
This is all following up that having been made alive, and here's what it is.
42:39
He made alive together, having forgiven, having blotted out, having nailed it to the cross, and having disarmed the rulers and authorities.
42:47
That's the four thing, the four participles that all go with that main verb.
42:50
So Paul's explaining what has happened because he made you alive.
42:56
He made you alive, and as a result, these things happened.
43:00
And here they are.
43:00
He made you alive, therefore, one, you've been forgiven all your trespasses.
43:07
All of them, all your sins.
43:09
You say, Keith, does that mean my past sins? Yes.
43:13
Does that mean my present sins? Yes.
43:15
Does that mean my future sins? It better.
43:17
Amen.
43:22
As much as I pray the Lord sanctify me, and I do pray he will sanctify me by his spirit, I have a pretty good idea that sometime between now and next week, I'm going to sin.
43:34
And I pray that that sin is also covered by Christ's blood.
43:38
And if it's not, then I'm living a precarious life.
43:42
Did you know why this is why the Catholics created purgatory? The entire doctrine of purgatory is based on the idea that once you go to the mass, your sins are forgiven.
43:53
It's like an etch-a-sketch.
43:55
It's over.
43:56
Right? It's all erased.
43:57
But then you go back.
43:58
Hey, I saw a Catholic say that.
44:00
I didn't make that up.
44:01
I saw a Roman Catholic say, he said it's like an etch-a-sketch.
44:03
When I go take the bread, it's all clean.
44:08
But then it starts to rot on it again, and that's in sins.
44:13
Purgatory exists because you can die without having your sins forgiven, therefore, you have to go to a place of purging to have your sins forgiven.
44:22
That is damnable heresy.
44:25
Because that says Christ's death is insufficient.
44:38
Trespasses.
44:39
And by the way, you say, well, why does he use the word sin? Why does he use the word trespasses? There's like 30 different words for sin in the Bible.
44:47
Sin, trespass, ungodliness, unrighteousness, wickedness, you just go down.
44:51
It's like the Eskimos.
44:52
Eskimos have like 20 words for snow.
44:55
In Florida, we got like no words, because we never see snow.
44:59
But Eskimos have like, there's wet snow, hard snow, dry snow, there's all kinds of different words that they use for snow.
45:07
We have one, and we never use it.
45:12
The Bible uses all different kinds of words.
45:14
Sins of commission, sins of omission, sins of, you know, against God, sins against man.
45:20
And in this term, the two words that are used here, because he says in verse 13, you were dead in your trespasses, then in verse 14, I'm sorry, at the end of verse 13, he says, he has forgiven us our trespass.
45:31
It's the same word.
45:33
And he's using this word to indicate all of our sins have been forgiven.
45:39
And then he goes to verse 14.
45:40
This tells us how he did it.
45:42
By canceling the record of debt, and the Greek actually says, blotting out, having blotted out, that's the participle, having blotted out against us, the handwriting of the decrees against us.
45:58
That's what the term here, kyrographon, is the word handwriting, and dogmason is where we get the word dogma, or the word for law, you know what a dogma is, like a law.
46:09
He says the kyrographon tois dogmason, which is the writings of the laws against you.
46:15
The certificate of the debt that was written against you is what's in view here.
46:22
And you say, well, what is that? Beloved, every sin you've ever done is like a debt that you owe against God.
46:33
And if you've ever purchased anything on credit, like your house, or your car, and you sat down and they put that piece of paper in front of you, and they slid it across the table, and they told you to follow the line down, and this is how much you're going to pay, and this is how much interest, and this is how many payments, and this is how many years, and at the bottom of that piece of paper, there was a place for your signature where you took and signed that paper.
47:01
As soon as you signed that paper, you became legally indebted to that individual.
47:08
You then had a legal written note of your indebtedness.
47:14
And at any point, if you were too thorough to pay, they could hold up that legal note in court and say, this person signed this note that they owed this debt.
47:26
So that note was a debt, a certificate of debt against you, legal document.
47:32
And notice going back what it says.
47:35
God made us alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us.
47:44
With its legal demands, this He set aside.
47:51
And did He just set it aside, beloved? Did He just throw it away? Did He just crumple it up and put it in a trash can and say, your debt's paid? No, He nailed it to the cross.
48:01
You see, our debt is not just forgotten, it's paid in full.
48:10
Our debt is paid by Christ.
48:14
Jesus on the cross when He died said, Tetelestai, which is a term of transaction, which means paid in full.
48:25
The note has been paid.
48:34
One of the things that they would often do is they would take whatever the crime that the person had committed and they would write it down and they would nail it onto the cross so that the person would, people seeing them on the cross would know what they did.
48:50
We see this in Jesus' story, right? When Pilate writes King of the Jews, he writes it in Greek and Latin and it was Aramaic, yeah.
49:00
And he nails it to the cross.
49:02
Remember what he said? He said, write King of the Jews, and the Jews got mad, no, no, say it, he said he was the King of the Jews.
49:11
And Pilate said, what I have written, I have written.
49:16
Pilate nailed to the cross a sign that said King of the Jews.
49:22
But that sign was not unique in the sense that there were signs on the crosses that would read out their reason for condemnation.
49:31
Christ is our sign nailed to the cross.
49:35
He's our forgiveness because he took in his body our sin debt and he became sin for us.
49:48
God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us.
49:54
Beloved, this is a, it's a sublime truth.
50:01
And because of that, we now can look at this world different.
50:09
Prior to Christ, we were defeated.
50:14
Prior to Christ, we were defeated by sin every day.
50:18
Prior to Christ, we had nothing to look forward to except for death, disease, destruction, and everlasting punishment.
50:27
But he has disarmed the rulers and authorities.
50:37
He has put our enemies to open shame by triumphing over them.
50:46
And this is translated two different ways.
50:48
Some translations say translated, say triumphing over them in him, that's what the ESV says, but I think it's actually better because the use of this pronoun, triumphing over them in it, the it is the cross.
51:03
Christ triumphed over our enemies through the cross.
51:15
What does all this mean? Paul, again, I cannot emphasize this enough, Paul is dealing with the Colossian people who are being told that what they have in Christ is not enough.
51:35
They are being told that what they have in Christ is insufficient.
51:40
That what they have in Christ is a good start, but you need to add to it Jewish ceremonies like circumcision.
51:48
You need to add to it Greek philosophy.
51:52
You need to add to it other traditions and the worship of angels and asceticism, which we're going to get to when we get down to verses 18, 19, 20 and those verses.
52:00
You need to add these things and Paul is saying, don't you dare add anything to Jesus because in him you've been circumcised, in him you've been made alive, in him you've been forgiven, in him you're triumphant over all those things.
52:14
Why would you bow down to the false teachings when you have the teacher as your savior? It don't make sense.
52:28
I get a little excited.
52:31
I want to read this and we'll be done.
52:34
This is a writing from a man named Theodore Epp and it's just a quick note that he made on this passage, but I thought it was so good I said, this is how I want to end the sermon.
52:48
This is entitled, Not Ought, But Are.
52:51
Not Ought, But Are by Theodore Epp.
52:58
Realizing that all of the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form in Lord Jesus Christ, it is then awesome to consider that we are complete in him.
53:08
We are filled with his fullness.
53:12
Notice it does not say we ought to be complete in him.
53:15
It says we are complete in him.
53:19
Of course, believers are to constantly grow in the knowledge of him as they progress from babes in Christ to those who are spiritually mature, but the completeness exists from the moment of salvation.
53:31
You are complete in Christ from the moment you are saved.
53:37
This is why it can be said in 2 Peter 1.3 that Christ has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, all things.
53:46
Even in our day, it is common for people to tell believers, it's wonderful that you know Christ as savior and that you're endeavoring to live the Christian life the best you can, but you need something special in order to really have all that God wants you to have.
54:00
They may not say it in these words, but this sort of teaching is causing mass confusion among Christians today.
54:06
But what we need to understand is that having trusted Jesus Christ as savior, we are complete in him and need nothing else.
54:13
There is no special ordinance or any other special experience that needs to be tacked on to the person of Christ.
54:19
What can be added that the believer does not already possess in Jesus Christ? Our need is simply to appropriate what we have in Christ and thus by faith live accordingly.
54:30
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with what? All spiritual blessings in heavenly places in him.
54:42
Beloved, if you're in Christ, you are complete in him.
54:46
And if you're not, all that exists for you is an expectation of judgment, so I say to you today, turn from your sins and trust in him.
54:56
Let's pray.
54:58
Father, I thank you for your word.
55:01
I thank you for this powerful text of scripture, which reminds us of so many truths.
55:07
So important are those truths, especially the one that tells us we have been forgiven, having had our debt nailed to the cross in the person of Jesus Christ.
55:16
Lord, help us to never forget that penalty that has been paid, the substitution that has been made, and the atonement that has been completed in him.
55:24
We pray this in his name.
55:27
Amen.
55:28
It's quite easy for us this morning concerning this table.
55:38
If you're in Christ, you're complete.
55:42
And if you're complete, the table is for you.
55:47
The only other thing that we would ask is that you would be in right standing, if you remember here, with this church.