Pauls Epistle to Colossians (13)

First Baptist Church Leominster

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I think today's set of notes set a record as far as length.

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I know in the world we're going to get through 17 pages of notes, of course. But as I mentioned earlier, the passage we're dealing with is one that is used, is cited frequently in confessions to advocate or defend the understanding of infant baptism.

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And so I thought I would take the occasion to address that in some measure.

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And increasingly I'm aware that these notes are not just for us here, but they're going out to many places and to,

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I don't know, maybe 25 or 30 pastors in Africa and India.

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And so these things are important. I'm thinking also how can they be helped and instructed as well. And so I'm mindful that some of these notes are more than what we can cover on a

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Sunday morning. I hope you understand that. But I think that it will help us.

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Well, today we want to affirm the centrality, sufficiency, and the fullness of life that we

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Christians have in Jesus Christ. And we'll stress or emphasize how it is that we experience this fullness as Christians.

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We're continuing to work through this rather complex paragraph of Colossians 2. The paragraph begins with verse 6, continues to verse 15, and of course that's in the

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Greek text that we're following as far as the grammar. And there are two major divisions in this paragraph which coincide with two

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Greek sentences. The one sentence is verses 6 and 7, and the second, very long sentence, is verses 8 through 15.

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And the first sentence commands Christians to walk in Him and then the second sentence, the emphasis based upon the second finite verb, there's only one finite verb covering all of that, verses 8 through 15 in the

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Greek text. And it carries the idea of beware or see to it that you are watching in Him, being on guard.

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And so that's the outline that we followed and I think this is what, the third Sunday that we're in this paragraph.

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And so, watching in Him, verses 8 through 15, we began to address this last week in a measure.

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And what Paul was pressing, of course stressing, was the identity and sufficiency in Jesus Christ alone, in the faith of these

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Christians. And this Paul regarded as both a preventive and a corrective to false teaching that was plaguing, corrupting the

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Church at Colossae. And so the errors that had troubled the Church were not according to Christ.

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In other words, these false teachings would direct the Christians to other things, to other matters, that essentially had nothing to do with Jesus Christ directly.

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They obscured the Lord, directed them to other things, took their eyes off the

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Lord, the focus on the Lord, the centrality of the Lord. And the Apostle then explained in verses 9 and 10, they should see their sufficiency and fullness in Jesus Christ, and Him alone.

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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.

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And so we might set forth these words in this outline. Verse 9,

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In Him, Jesus Christ, God is incarnate. And then verse 10a, the first part of verse 10,

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Christians have been filled in Him. God is fully in Jesus Christ, and Christians are filled in Jesus Christ.

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The excellent commentator, F .F. Bruce, set forth the meaning of these verses within the context of Paul's epistle that addressed the error threatening the church at Colossae, and he had this good way about him.

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He could stand back, see the context, and show you how any particular verse or a few verses fit within that context.

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And he does that quite well here. The teachers of error might talk as they would of the fullness of divine being, which was filtered down to this world through a hierarchical succession of spiritual powers.

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Bruce is talking about incipient Gnosticism. It was beginning at the time. And Gnostics believed that God is so holy in spirit, and man is so sinful in his flesh, physical, that God cannot come to us directly, but there must be a mediation of various degrees of angels.

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And so it's like God, and then Jesus, and then Michael the archangel, and down to angels until it finally gets to us.

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And so Bruce is commenting about those teachers of error that said you can only know

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God and experience the fullness of God through a series of intermediaries, hierarchical succession of spirit powers.

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Christians had something better. They had Christ, the personal revelation of the

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Father, the one mediator between God and man, the one in whom the plenitude of deity was embodied.

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Far from there being any inherent impossibility in the nature of things for God to communicate directly with this world, one who shared fully in the divine nature had become flesh and tabernacled among men.

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And not only so, but Christians, by their union with Him, shared in His very life, and that's what it means to be filled in Him.

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The fullness of God dwells in Him, and we're filled in Him. That doesn't mean we become gods in Him, but we experience the life of Christ fully in Him.

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If the fullness of deity resided in Him, His fullness was imparted to them without Him we must remain forever dissecta membra, uncompleted, unable to attain the true end of our existence.

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In other words, the reason for which God made us. But united with Christ, incorporated in Him, we find ourselves joined in a living bond with Him in which

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He and we complement each other as the body does the head, and the head the body.

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Wonderful description of where Paul is going with this whole matter. And so here in these verses before us, in this paragraph, the themes are set forth of God's fullness in Jesus Christ, and God's work through Jesus Christ, in bringing

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His people salvation and glorification as well. I want to read the paragraph noting the phrases in Him and with Him.

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Now actually this is, that verse 8 should not be indented, because the paragraph begins with verse 6 in the

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Greek text. But let me read it for us. And as we do I want you to notice the phrases in Him and with Him.

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Everything is centered in Christ. See to it, in other words beware, that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

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For in Him, here is the first expression, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

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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

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Him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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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.

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This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him.

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And so you see, just in every way He keeps directing people back to Christ, the centrality of Christ, our sufficiency in Christ, our fullness in Jesus Christ.

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Well, after the Apostle declared the truth that Christians had been filled in Him, he then related when it was and how it was that God brought them into this state of blessedness.

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And so he sets forth their union with Jesus Christ that was affected in their regeneration, that is their new birth, spiritual birth, and displayed in their baptism.

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He references baptism. And so let's consider the phrases and the clauses of this passage.

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This is not an easy passage. It is a difficult passage to work through. And many make claims,

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I'm finding, they make statements regarding this passage, and it seems to me they haven't read it carefully.

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First, 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.

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That itself is going to take some explanation, isn't it? Here, the circumcision without hands is a reference to our new birth or regeneration.

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We were delivered from our former way of living for sin by our regeneration. We have been filled in Jesus Christ because our

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God had delivered us from our sinful lives by causing us to be born again or regenerated.

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This is what William Hendrickson rightly said about this. Paul's thought at this point can perhaps be paraphrased somewhat as follows.

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Colossians, Do not allow these teachers of error to deceive you as if in order to triumph over the indulgence of the flesh and to attain to the full measure of salvation you need to be literally circumcised.

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That seems to be what the false teachers were telling them. You were already circumcised, is what

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Paul is arguing. Yes, you were circumcised with a circumcision that excels by far the right that is being recommended so strongly by the teachers of error.

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You were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by the putting off of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ.

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And that's exactly right. Now, of course, in the Old Testament God had given physical circumcision to Abraham in order to bring his people into a physical earthly covenant relationship with himself.

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They entered into that covenant through physical birth and physical circumcision.

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All of Abraham's male descendants were circumcised. They were promised earthly blessings including numerous offspring.

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They were promised physical health and wealth. They were promised a long blessed life in a land that God promised to give

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Abraham and his descendants. Their responsibility in keeping covenant with God was to have faith in him as their

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God and later God had declared to this people, his people, that their faith was to be manifest in their obedience to his law that he gave them through Moses.

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But the physical circumcision that God commanded them as a sign of their covenant, although it distinguished them as God's people from all others in the world, was not a life -changing experience.

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It served to foreshadow the need of the spiritual circumcision of the heart which is regeneration or what the

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New Testament refers to as the new birth. Jesus telling Nicodemus, you must be born again even though Nicodemus was circumcised.

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And here in Colossians 2 .11 it's described as a circumcision made without hands in contrast to the circumcision made with hands.

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And the Old Testament spoke of this need for a spiritual circumcision. For we read in Deuteronomy that even when

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Israel committed to God that they would keep the law, they were without the heart to do so.

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They did not have the desire or the ability to do so. Well they had a desire to do so or at least they expressed that but they didn't have the ability to do so.

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In Deuteronomy 5 if we read about Moses rehearsing the Ten Commandments to Israel.

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Deuteronomy is the second law, Deutero second law, namos law, Greek namos, is rehearsing of the law a second time 40 years after the

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Exodus. The first generation died out, he's rehearsing the law to the new generation about ready to go into the

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Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua. And here we read

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Moses' words. So it was when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, referring back to Sinai, while the mountain was burning with fire that you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders.

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See the people came to Moses. And you said, surely the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness and we've heard his voice in the midst of the fire.

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We've seen this day that God speaks with man yet he still lives. And now therefore, why should we die?

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For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore, then we shall die.

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For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we haven't lived?

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You go near, hear all that the Lord our God may say and tell us all that the

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Lord our God says to you and we will hear and do it. And so the people said, we don't want to hear

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God directly. Moses, you go on our behalf. And it's really the beginning of a prophetic and priestly ministry, formal prophetic ministry.

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Moses went to hear from God and came and delivered that news to the people. Now look at verse 28 and following,

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Then the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me. And the Lord said to me, I've heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you.

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They are right in all that they have spoken. It was good that they wanted to keep the law of God and God commends them for that.

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By the way, in my old dispensational days, I remember, I think it was a comment of Schofield. Maybe I shouldn't say that because my memory might be faulty.

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But their teaching was that Israel was coming under the law as a covenant of works and they were formally under grace, the grace of Abrahamic covenant.

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And they shouldn't have agreed to obey the law. They should have rejected the law. No, God, we want to stay under grace, not law.

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Incredible. God here said, No, it's good that they said that they wanted to keep the law of God.

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But look at the exclamation that God gives, revealing their great need. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me always, keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and their children forever.

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They didn't have a heart to do so. Even though they had been physically circumcised, even though they had been given the law, even though they said they would keep the law, they didn't have the heart to do so because physical circumcision had not transformed them.

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They needed a circumcision of the heart. And so even back in Deuteronomy, God revealed that they were in need of their hearts, needing transformed, so that they would be able to conform themselves to the law of God.

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Now, that's Deuteronomy 5 at the beginning of the book. And then we can look toward the end of the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 30, verses 1 and following, and we read that God intended that He would do this work of grace in His people.

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Deuteronomy 30. Now it shall come to pass when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which

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I have set before you, you shall call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the

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Lord your God and obey His voice according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the

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Lord your God will bring you back from captivity. You see, God through Moses had rehearsed the blessings of keeping the

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Mosaic Covenant and the curses if they failed to do so. And if they failed to do so,

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God would jettison them out of the land, exile them. But here He is telling them, He is foretelling a return of those exiles, which took place under the leadership of Nehemiah, Ezra, and Zerubbabel after the

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Babylonian exile. God brought them back into the land. And here He says that He would do so.

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The Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the

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Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the

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Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. And then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it.

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That happened. He fulfilled that. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.

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And then here it is in verse 6. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, that you may live. And so, whereas in Deuteronomy 5

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God expressed the absence of a heart to do His will, in Deuteronomy 30

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He said there is going to be a time come after you have broken the law, transgressed the law,

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I have exiled you out of the land, I'm going to bring you back, and I'm going to circumcise your heart so that you will love

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Me and follow Me. And that's of course a prophecy of what Jesus Christ came and did. The people were unable and over time would show they were unwilling to order their lives according to God's law.

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And on one occasion, much later, when the Lord was denouncing rebellious Israel, He spoke these words to them,

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Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, take away the foreskins of your hearts, you men of Judah, inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My fury come forth like fire and burn so that no one can quench it because of the evil of your doings.

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Physical circumcision was not enough. They needed to have a circumcision of the heart.

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That sinful heart transformed, changed. That sinful nature, propensity, cut from it.

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And later still, after God had judged Israel for having transgressed His covenant, He declared to His prophets repeatedly the time would come when

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He'd cause them to return from exile. He would then circumcise the hearts of His people so as to secure their love for Him and their compliance to His law.

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And so we read, for example, in Jeremiah 24, 4 -7,

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Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Like these good figs, so will

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I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the

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Chaldeans. That would be the Babylonians. For I will set my eyes on them for good. I will bring them back to this land.

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He did so. I will build them and not pull them down. I will plant them and not pluck them up.

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And here it is, Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be

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My people, and I shall be their God. They shall return to Me with their whole heart.

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And so there again God says He's going to give them a heart. They didn't have a heart back in Deuteronomy 5.

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He promised that He would circumcise their heart, and here again He is saying that He will put within them a heart, so that they will love

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Him, and conform to Him entirely. It is declared in Ezekiel 36, verses 23 and following,

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God declared, I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations. Ezekiel was a prophet to the

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Jewish exiles in Babylon. Which you have profaned in their midst, and the nations shall know that I am the

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Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all the countries, and bring you into your own land.

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Again He did that. That's a prophecy of what Nehemiah did, Ezra did, Zerubbabel did.

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And then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols.

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See His people would be different. This is not all the people that came back, but His elect, that remnant, those

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Jews that believed on Jesus. They had their hearts transformed. They were given a new birth.

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They had circumcised hearts. And so Ezekiel 36, 26, I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you.

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I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments.

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In other words, you will keep my law, and do them. And then you will dwell in the land

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I gave to your fathers. You shall be my people, and I will be your God. And they did.

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Now granted, 80 -70 happened, and the Jews were exiled from the land. But this permanent dwelling in the land foreshadows the new heavens and the new earth that the

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New Testament delineates for us most clearly. For indeed God promised these people, and these only,

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I will deliver you from your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it, bring no famine upon you.

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These would have been evidences of God's blessing to these people in this time. I'll multiply the fruit of your trees, the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations.

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And then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations.

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Not for your sake do I do this. Let it be known to you. Be ashamed, confounded in your own ways. O house of Israel."

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And that's the experience of Christians, isn't it? You're going along, life is going fine as a

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Christian, and then all of a sudden you remember something you did back when you were unconverted, and you break out in a sweat, don't you?

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My God, how could I have done that? That's characteristic of the Christian, when he has remorse over his past deeds.

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And then Ezekiel 11, 29, we also read it. Again, this idea of return.

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I'll just drop down to verse 19, the bold italic. Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take away the stony heart of their flesh.

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Give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statute, keep My judgments, and do them, and they shall be

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My people, and I will be their God. That's a covenant relationship. And notice again, these people are obedient to God and to His law.

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And John declares in 1 John, this is one of the ways you can know you're a Christian, if you keep the commandments of God.

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The spiritual circumcision of the heart is a work of God, in which He causes the sinner to be born again, thereby securing for God, His love for God, and His desire to live in compliance to God's law.

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And what Paul was declaring to the Christians at Colossae, is that they had been the objects of this work of God's grace, bringing them salvation.

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Again, Colossians 2 .11 reads, 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.

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He's declaring to them that they were the recipients of these glorious promises in the Old Testament.

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You've been spiritually circumcised. It's the circumcision of the heart.

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Spiritual circumcision, not physical circumcision, by which the true Israel of God may be distinguished.

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Even today among evangelicals, they think Israel is to be identified as physical descendants of Abraham.

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That's the true Israel. That's not what Paul declared. Paul declared the true Jew is not one who is circumcised physically, but circumcised spiritually.

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As Abraham was, by the way. And so Romans 2, Paul declared,

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Circumcision is indeed profitable, if you keep the law. But if you're a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

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In other words, you're regarded as not one of God's people, if your life is not ordered according to God's law.

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And therefore, if an uncircumcised man, physically uncircumcised, keeps the righteousness requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?

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In other words, that would indicate, here's a man who's circumcised of heart. He loves God, he keeps

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God's law. If he fulfills the law, judge you, even with your written code and circumcision, or a transgressor of the law.

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And then he makes this declaration, which is earth -shattering. It changes everything.

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For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a

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Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God.

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The true Israel, the true Jew, is the one who has been born again by the Spirit of God, through Jesus Christ.

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And Paul declares in Romans 4, it doesn't matter whether you're Jewish or Gentile, if you have the faith of Abraham, you're a child of Abraham.

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And God, way back in Genesis, said to Abraham, you will be the father of many nations. And we who believe on Jesus have been spiritually circumcised in heart.

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We're the Israel of God, the people on whom the promises of God rest. It's not physical descendants of Abraham that's the true

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Israel, but rather those that are tied to Jesus Christ. Because in Him the fullness of God dwells bodily, and you are filled in Him.

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All the blessings of God promised to God's people are centered in Jesus Christ. And Paul argued that too, didn't he, in Galatians?

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Because when God gave His promises to Abraham, He didn't say, and to your seeds, but to your seed, singular meaning to Christ.

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The spiritual promises of God to Abraham were centered in Christ. And therefore those who are in Christ are filled in Christ.

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Every blessing of God that comes to us from God is in Jesus Christ and Him alone.

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This is profound. This would change a lot of geopolitics in the world if this were understood rightly.

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And so Israel in the Old Testament was comprised of physical descendants of Abraham brought into covenant relationship with God in a physical covenant through physical circumcision.

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Israel in the New Testament is comprised of spiritual descendants of Abraham, whether Jewish or Gentile, brought into covenant relationship with God through spiritual circumcision.

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It is in this way that Abraham fulfilled God's promise to him that he would be a father of many nations.

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And this is what Paul declared in Philippians 3 .3. We are the circumcision.

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Paul is including himself and those Gentiles in the church at Philippi. We are the circumcision, who worship

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God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus. In other words, we are centered in Him and Him alone.

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Rejoice in Him and have no confidence in the flesh. We don't put any confidence in our physical descent, physical circumcision, anything we do.

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Don't do. We put our confidence in Christ and Christ alone. And so Paul stated, those who have faith in Jesus Christ are spiritual worshipers through the

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Holy Spirit. They are the true Israel, the true circumcision, those who have been spiritually circumcised.

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Their hearts and lives were committed to Jesus Christ and they trusted in Him alone for salvation.

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Now, as we look at verse 11, what is meant by the words, in Him also you were circumcised, with a circumcision made without hands.

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And then here, these two phrases, by putting off the body of the flesh and by the circumcision of Christ.

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What was Paul talking about in those two phrases? Well, the first expression, by putting off the body of the flesh, describes both the literal death of Jesus, He basically put off His flesh when

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He died upon the cross. And then secondly, it describes the believer's spiritual death that we underwent with respect to our former life.

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We died with respect to who we once were. That former life before Christ is no longer.

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We died in Christ. Here again is a good word from F .F.

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Bruce. He was an English commentator. He was at the University of Manchester. And what I really liked about him is he was a true

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New Testament biblical scholar, but he engaged all the liberals. And he did it with utter confidence in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.

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And he took them to task, and he won the day. And I had great respect for him when

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I was dealing with these matters in the past. Here are his words, No longer is there any place for a circumcision performed by hands.

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The death of Christ has affected the inward cleansing which the prophets associated with the new covenant, and this, our baptism, is a visible sign.

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Insofar as the putting off of the body of the flesh refers to the death of Christ, the expression readily intelligible, especially in the light of the earlier mention the body of His flesh in connection with His death in chapter 122.

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But the expression in our present passage includes also the Christian's baptismal experience.

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What is involved is much more than the removal of a small piece of flesh as in old circumcision.

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It is a removal of the whole body of flesh, what Paul describes as putting off the old man, reckoning one's former self with its desirous and propensities to be dead as a necessary prelude to putting on the new man, putting on Christ Himself in His resurrection life.

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What they believe puts off is the whole personality organized for and geared into rebellion against God.

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That former way of life is over. It's dead. It's buried in and through our union with Christ in His death.

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What about the second phrase? What is the meaning of the circumcision of Christ? There have been several proposals to its meaning.

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Some have said Paul is referring to the actual physical circumcision of Jesus when He was eight days old.

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Others, however, say this circumcision of Christ is a reference to Christ's death on the cross. And that is what is accurate,

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I believe. It's talking again about His death on the cross. Here again are Bruce's words.

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What was their baptism? It was, in the first place, a participation in the circumcision of Christ.

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This circumcision of Christ is not primarily His circumcision as a Jewish infant of eight days old.

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It's rather His crucifixion. The putting off of the body of the flesh of which

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His literal circumcision was at best a token anticipation. In other words, the physical circumcision of the male child was a token of foreshadowing of the putting off of the body of death, of sin itself.

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Very good. Well, we see this to be true when we also consider the next clause of verse 11, having been buried, and here is the phrase again, with Him in baptism.

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The Apostle connects the experience of salvation which involves the new birth with baptism.

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In a number of places in the New Testament, baptism is so joined with the initial experience of coming to salvation it is seen as one event.

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I was in a conference a little over a week ago, and Michael Hagen talked about this, how in the first century baptism and conversion was seen as one event.

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They believed they were baptized. The same day, Pentecost. But he explained that this was true really in the early church with the

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Jewish context. All the Jews had an understanding of all the truths of Scripture, and they embraced

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Christ, Jesus as the Messiah, and they were ready to be baptized. But it was shortly, not long, after the first century that the early churches began to practice a period in which they would have persons trained and taught after professing faith in preparation to their baptism.

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And it was common then, perhaps it's too long a period, but it was common then to wait upwards to a year before they would baptize a convert because they wanted time for these catechumens to be catechized in the faith before they were entered fully and formally into the

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Church of Jesus Christ. But in the New Testament, baptism is seen as simultaneous with coming to Christ in conversion.

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And so oftentimes it's as though baptism is seen as the instrument of bringing salvation, as we'll see.

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And so here it says, in which, that is, or in baptism, we have this experience of death, spiritual death, our former life being no longer.

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But in addition to being buried with Christ in our baptism, we also read that we are raised with Him in our baptism.

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And this is the third clause of this portion of this paragraph.

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In which, and Paul's referring to baptism here, in which you are also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised

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Him from the dead. Now notice here, it was not baptism that brought about being raised, but rather it was through faith in the powerful working of God that coincide with being baptized.

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You see that? It wasn't the act of baptism, but it was the faith that was demonstrated in baptism that brought about and declared this union with Christ in His death and resurrection.

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Not only did we die with Christ with respect to our former life, but we rose with Christ onto new life in Him.

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And so we share in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, that life which is His when He was raised from the dead.

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And so through faith, and again here at the time of our conversion, coinciding with our baptism, we are no longer what we once were.

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We are now creatures in Jesus Christ. Now each of these two verbal ideas, having been buried with Him and being raised with Him, are in the passive voice.

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Do you notice that? Having been buried, in other words, it happened to you. Having been raised, it happened to you.

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And what Paul is suggesting here, is that it's an act of God working upon us. It's God who buried you.

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It's God who raised you. It's in the passive voice. Everett Ferguson, it's a book about that thick, on baptism in the early church, that I began working through this week, wrote these words, "...Baptism

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is a confession of faith in the resurrection of Jesus by God. It is done in faith in the activity of God, who raised

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Him from the dead. God, as it were, throughout the passage, the passive voices were circumcised, were buried, were raised, are the divine passives for what

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God did." Not only did He raise

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Christ, but He also made the one baptized, alive, and forgave his or her sins. The with Christ emphasis is obvious.

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Buried with Him, raised with Him, made alive with Him. This is all what God did when we were converted.

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He caused you to be buried with Christ, caused you to be raised with Christ, because you were in union with Christ when

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Christ died. And God caused this spiritual union to take place. But lest one misunderstands,

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Ferguson wanted to make sure that you don't see a magical quality in baptism, as though that were what brought it about.

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Ferguson included, on the relation of faith and baptism, in Paul, Cus concludes, with references to Galatians 3 and Colossians 2, that faith can never be excluded.

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But Paul gives no indication of a Christian without baptism. And that's a good point. No place in the

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New Testament is there a Christian who wasn't baptized. One might argue, well, the thief on the cross, the thief on the cross.

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Yeah, well, you know, there's no way he could be baptized. He was dying, wasn't he? But every

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Christian that's converted to Christ underwent baptism, and that very soon, after conversion in the

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New Testament. Baptism had an initiatory character for individual salvation.

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Baptism introduces one to the body of Christ, but Paul warned against a magical view of baptism.

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Verses 13 and 14 make this very clear. And you who are dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with his legal demands, and this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

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Before we came to be in Christ, we had this great record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, a debt that none of us could pay.

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We were guilty and damned before God due to that debt to God's justice for the innumerable transgressions against God's law that each of us had committed in life.

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But because of our union with Jesus Christ in his death, that debt that was against us was canceled.

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And so as far as God is concerned, our debt was paid in full by the death of his Son on our behalf.

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Wipe clean. Wipe clear. Debt free before God. Now that's a blessing.

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And then fifthly, lastly, Paul declares he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to an open shame by triumphing over them in it.

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Again, the era of Colossus, the teachers were saying that there are these angelic powers that have authority over us and you have to do homage to them and thereby you can please

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God from doing so. But Paul is saying this is not the case.

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For not only did God forgive us our debts when we were converted, but he delivered us from slavery as well.

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The forces of evil, even the devil and his minions, had power over us when we were in our sins. We had sold ourselves into servitude to him.

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We were subject to them like indentured servants due to the debt we owed. You know what indentured servanthood is, don't you?

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Shortly after Jamestown, within 20 years, they realized they needed people, manpower to clear woods and whatnot.

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And so the people over here in the colonies would basically pay for the passage of people to come over from England, and when they came they were indentured servants.

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In other words they had to pay back the cost of travel. And so it was commonly for five or seven years they would work off this indentured servanthood and then they would be granted a number of acres and plow and whatnot to get off on their own.

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And so much of early America was comprised of these indentured servants. What happened is later they found that this was so costly is when the indentured servanthood gave way to slavery and the institution of slavery.

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One gave way to the other. But here it seems like the idea is that we were indentured servants to the devil and his minions because of this debt that we owed and they held over us and we couldn't pay it.

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And so we were forever enslaved. But what Paul is saying, God has defeated those powers through the death of Jesus.

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Those powers to which we were formerly in servitude. And so he delivered us into a state of liberty whereby we are free to live before him.

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Not in sin as formerly but in righteousness. Because God has conquered their forces that held us in bondage.

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We are free in Christ. And again I read F. F. Bruce and I thought this is wonderful.

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I wish I could think like this and write like this. The very instrument of disgrace and death by which the hostile forces thought they had him,

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Christ, in their grasp and had conquered him forever was turned by him into the instrument of their defeat and captivity.

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As he was suspended there bound hand and foot to the wood in apparent weakness, they imagined that they had him at their mercy and flung themselves upon him with hostile intent.

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But far from suffering their assault without resistance he grappled with them and mastered them, stripping them of all the armor in which they trusted and held them aloft in his mighty outstretched hands, displaying to the universe their helplessness and his own unvanquished strength.

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Had they but realized the truth, those archons of this age, had they, as Paul puts it in another epistle, known the hidden wisdom of God which decreed the glory of Christ in his people, they would not have crucified the

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Lord of glory. But now they are disabled and dethroned and the shameful tree has become the victor's triumphal chariot before which his captives are driven in humiliating procession, the involuntary and impotent confessors of their overcomer's superiority.

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Now it's at this point we basically concluded our exposition of this passage and it's there that we began to address this matter of infant baptism, commonly called pedo -baptism.

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But I think we need to stop here rather than launching off onto this whole other matter.

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I would encourage you to read it through. I've given a lot of thought to this. And as I do so,

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I do so with a humble respect. My best friends are pedo -baptist pastors.

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I mean good friends. We work with them and shoulder to shoulder in the gospel. But these are convictions.

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They're not essential, but they're important. They have implications. And so let me urge you to take some time and read through these.

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I don't know that I'm going to address these next Sunday. Rather, we'll probably move on.

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And if you have any questions, let me know. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the wonderful glorious privilege we have as being in union with Jesus Christ, our

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Lord and Savior. We confess that the fullness of deity dwells in Him.

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And we also confess that we are filled in Him. Everything that we're in need of, every possible blessing, it comes to us through Him.

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Help us, our Lord, not to be distracted or diverted from the centrality of our faith and confidence, our rejoicing in Him.

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Thank you, our Father, for this wonderful work of circumcision that you performed.

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Certainly not through baptism because it was a circumcision without hands. It was a work of your grace in which you caused us to be born again.

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Help us to rejoice in Jesus Christ and Him alone. And help us to go forth from this place.

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Father, living in the light of this truth, our former life with Christ is dead and gone.

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And now we resolve, as you enable us by the Holy Spirit, to live for our Savior, in whose name we pray.