Christ Preeminent (Part Thirteen): Substance Over Form

Transcript

JRNT 35
10/08/2023
Christ Preeminent (Part Thirteen): Substance over Form
Colossians 2:11-12
Jesse Randolph



At some point in each of our lives most of us have heard of the saying, ‘form over substance.’ It is something that can refer to the phenomenon of voting for the politician with the slick hairdo and the square jawline as opposed to voting for the one on the issues or his position on the issues. It's the take that will lead to somebody maybe hiring somebody because of their GPA as opposed to their skill set or how they would fit within an organization. It can refer to the phenomenon of selecting your favorite football team or baseball team, not based on their performance on the field but instead the color of their jerseys or the logo on their helmets or their hat. Form over substance.

It's also a phenomenon that can sadly leak over not only into politics, not only into the workplaces, not only into sports, but into homes, Christian homes. Even where husbands and wives start to drift and start going through the motions, staying together because they know they are supposed to, staying together because they know it would be bad for the kids if they weren't together, but doing so with very little loving and understanding leadership from the husband and doing so with very little joyful submission by the wife. This is the roommate-style marriage which sadly plagues many Christian homes these days, where husband and wife live under the same roof but they share meals in silence with only the deafening sounds of forks and knives scraping across the plates to break the silence and maybe an occasional ‘how was your day’ type of question. But nothing that comes close to the level of investment and engagement that any Christian marriage ought to have. Form over substance.

And then there is the church. Churches and churchgoers sadly are not immune from the charge of elevating form over substance. Not at all. In fact, if you walk into the average church in America today, I'm talking about the middle-of-the-road, center-cut Christianity today, loving type of church (I won't put a number on that here in Lincoln) you're going to find that there is as much an interest as the lighting on the stage and the number of programs that are being offered and the type of coffee that's being served and the way the place makes us feel as there is a concern about the Word of God being heralded and the people of God being built up and sinners against God being called out and the Gospel of God being proclaimed. In churches like that, seats will fill up, offerings will go up, the pastor's head will fill up, but at best the church is full of a bunch of biblically illiterate, spiritually starved sheep and, in many cases, the church is full of unregenerate goats who are headed straight to hell. Form over substance.

Getting this matter right, in other words, of form and substance and how the two ought to relate is critical because elevating form over substance can be disappointing, it can be damaging, and, even worse, it can be eternally destructive.

That takes us to our text for today, Colossians 2:11-12. And as we turn to this passage we're again going to be planting our feet on ancient Colossian soil and we're again going to be engaging with this body of false and heretical teaching that was starting to infiltrate this young church. And we're going to again see how the Apostle Paul, as he was moved and directed by the Holy Spirit, so skillfully and deftly pointed the Colossian church to this very simple truth, that they already had all that they needed in Christ. There was nothing they needed or nothing they required in this world that had not already been provided for them in Christ. Colossians 2:11-12, God's Word reads, “and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

The title of the message this morning is “Substance over Form,” and I've given the message that title because in our passage for today we're going to see Paul giving the believers here in Colossae these additional reminders in response to the false teaching that was beginning to infiltrate this church, the false teaching they were starting to face, that they already had the real thing. They already had the best thing, salvation by God through Christ, salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And by reminding them of this, by reminding the Colossian believers there, that they already had the most important substantive possession they could ever have, Paul was equipping these young believers to ward off the teachings of those who sought to mislead them and those who sought to deceive them -- by getting them to believe that they needed to elevate various forms of practice over the substance of what they already had, in order to pursue a right relationship with and a meaningful relationship with God. Paul, in other words, here, as we're going to see in this text, was warning the Colossian believers about elevating form over substance. And he was encouraging them instead to do the opposite which was to herald and proclaim this substance that they knew, the substance they had in Christ, rather than the form that the Colossian false teachers were pushing on them.

Now as you can see we are picking things up mid-sentence here in Colossians 2:11 with the first words there, “and in Him,” and those words clearly connect back to some earlier words, in fact the words we looked at last week when we looked at Colossians 2:8-10. Let's look at Colossians 2:9, this is the immediately preceding context to our verse for today. Colossians 2:9 says, “For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” And as we saw in our study of that text last week, you'll remember that Paul here was reminding the Colossians of two equally profound and practical truths. The first being that all the fullness of God the Father dwells eternally in God the Son, meaning that Jesus is fully God. He is not a quasi-God. He is not like God. He didn't become God. No, He is fully and completely and eternally God. That truth in turn led to what Paul would say in Colossians 2:10 last week, which is that as followers of Christ we have been made complete or made full in Him. And so as we saw last week there was no need for the Colossians here to be taken captive or led astray by things like “philosophy,” Colossians 2:8, “and empty deception,” or “according to the tradition of men,” or “according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” Instead they already had, as we have if we believed upon Christ, all they already needed and all they would ever need in Him. And they had, just as we have if we've believed in Christ, all that we ever need based on the salvation that Jesus has already purchased for us through His blood.

So as we turn to our two verses for today, Colossians 2:11-12, we're going to encounter yet another way that the false teachers here were apparently attempting to turn these believers away from the substantive truths they knew about Christ and their sufficiency in Him. And now instead to appeal to these religious rituals and practices and customs, which no doubt had their place, but offered ultimately no saving or eternal benefit. And again, Paul's charge here to the Colossians, and by extension to us here this morning, was that they not elevate form over substance. But instead allow the substantive truths of who they already were in Christ to take precedence over any formal rituals or practices or customs that might have been pushed their way.

With that as background let's reengage with the text, I'll read it once more. It says, “and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” Now as you can see from the plain reading of the text and the plain hearing of it as I read it out to you, Paul here mentions two specific practices, one being circumcision and the other being baptism. And that's where our text is going to take us today, to circumcision and baptism. As we're going to see, what Paul is getting after in our text today is not so much the mechanics and the formalities of the practices themselves. Rather he is making far more profound points about the spiritual realities that undergird both practices. In verse 11 he is going to take us to the spiritual realities underlying the truth that as believers we have been circumcised in Christ. And then in verse 12 he is going to look at the spiritual realities underlying the truth that as believers we have been buried in baptism. Those will be the two headings this morning, by the way, point 1, is that we have been “Circumcised in Christ” and point 2 is that we have been “Buried in Baptism.”

We'll take it from the top, starting with the fact that we have been circumcised in Christ. Again, look at verse 11, “and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” Now as is true of this letter to the Colossians in its entirety, this verse and the one that follows is loaded with theologically rich meaning. In fact, I've had a couple of people ask me, and I think they are serious, when I'm going to pick up the pace and get through the book of Colossians. And my answer has been twofold pretty consistently. Number one is I don't have the faintest idea, and number two is I'm in no rush, and number three, I'm tempted to say, and don't ask that again. It's going to take as long as it is going to take. It may take fifty sermons to get through the book of Colossians. And that would be okay because of the Christological richness that we have in this book.

And we have an example of that here in verse 11 where it says, “and in Him.” Paul starts with those simple words, “and in Him.” And the word “and” is connecting that thought at the beginning of the verse with what he has said earlier in verses 9-10 as we have already seen. In other words, the Apostle Paul was no weirdo or oddball who had some sort of imbalanced or inappropriate fascination with the practice of circumcision. Rather, what he says here in verse 11 about circumcision is tethered to, and anchored to, what he said in the preceding verses about the fullness and the completeness that all believers already have in Christ.

And look what he says next, “And in Him you were also circumcised.” Now those two little words, “in Him,” -- with the Him, of course, referring to Christ, so you could also say something like “in Christ” -- those words “in Him” are a favorite expression of Paul, especially here in Colossians. Some variation of those words, “in Him” or “in Christ” or “in whom” are woven throughout the letter of Colossians. In fact, go with me over to Colossians 1:2 and we'll kind of run through some of the ways that the Apostle Paul uses this similar formulation. Colossians 1:2, “To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ,” that's how he starts the address. Or verse 4, “Since we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.” Or down in verse 14, “In Christ,” that's “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Or verse 17, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Verse 19, “it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.” Turning over to verse 28, “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” Colossians 2:3, it is Christ “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:6, “as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” Verse 7, “Having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith.” Verse 9, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” Verse 10, “in Him you have been made complete.” And now verse 11, “in Him you were also circumcised.”

And those words, “in Him” or “in Christ” or “in whom,” mean everything to us, or at least they ought to mean everything to us, because they say so much with so little space about what our chief identity in this world is, or stated better, in whom we find our identity. Our chief identity is not in our skin tone or skin color, it's not in our gender, it's not in our last name, it's not in our zip code or our area code, it's not in our preferences like Ford over Chevy, or football over volleyball, or Culvers over Runza. It's none of that. No, our chief identity is in Christ. Our chief identity as we walk through this world is that we are in Him.

Paul elaborates on this idea a little further in verse 11, look what he says. He says, “And in Him you were also circumcised.” Now those words, “you were also,” they seem sort of insignificant, sort of like throw-ins here, but they actually jump right off the page, because as we are about to see, Paul is about to go into the topic of circumcision, a Jewish practice. And he is about to do so to an audience in Colossae which was mostly Gentile. We saw that earlier in Colossians 1:27, just up the page, that this was a Gentile audience. He says, “to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you,” Colossian Gentiles, “the hope of glory.” And to distinguish them from the Jewish people in these times, Gentiles were in Paul's day known as the uncircumcision, the uncircumcised. For instance, Paul reports in Galatians 2:7, he says, “I have been entrusted with the Gospel to the uncircumcised,” that means Gentile, “just as Peter had been,” entrusted with the Gospel, “to the circumcised,” meaning the Jews. Paul also says in Ephesians 2:11, “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision.” And so the point is, Paul's words here in Colossians 2:11 would have, at least initially, sounded very strange to his first century audience. Because he appeared here to be blurring that line that traditionally had been drawn, as he referred to those who previously had been known as the uncircumcised, now as having been circumcised. Or as we'll see in a few minutes, having received a circumcision.

And that then naturally leads to the question, what in the world is Paul talking about here? In what sense have these Colossian believers been circumcised? And the answer to that question, we need to go back further in history, we need to reach back further beyond Paul's first century context as he wrote here at Colossae. We need to cross certain cultural and religious boundaries into Judaism, the Judaism that Paul once practiced, the Judaism from which he had been saved, and the Judaism which apparently was still having an influence on these false teachers there at Colossae who were trying to persuade these new believers in that city that they needed to incorporate various Jewish rituals and practices into their newfound Christian faith. And what was circumcision to the Jew? Well, physically, (and I'll keep this G-rated here or a PG this morning) all circumcision was, was a minor surgical operation done on an 8-day old baby boy where a knife was applied to certain flesh surrounding his male organ. I'll leave it there. Circumcision though physical, that wasn't all it was. It wasn't only physical, it wasn't merely a medical best practice.

We know from Genesis 17 that circumcision was a God-ordained sign or a reminder of the covenant that Yahweh, God, had made with Abraham. Circumcision was meant to show one's belief in the promises that God had made to Israel through the Abrahamic Covenant, that those promises would indeed be fulfilled. But even then, in these Old Testament times, circumcision wasn't merely physical, it wasn't merely medical. It had this spiritual component to it. In fact, the Old Testament repeatedly testifies to the need of God's original covenant people, the Jews, to be circumcised not only in their flesh, but in their hearts. Deuteronomy 10:16 says, “So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.” Deuteronomy 30:6 says, “Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” Jeremiah 4:4, speaking to unrepentant Israel at this point, says, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.” In other words, just as the physical act of circumcision was thought of as removing from that 8-day-old baby boy some part of him that was considered to be unclean, there was the recognition within the Old Testament Scriptures themselves that there was a need to have that which was unclean purged from one's life spiritually, to be circumcised in heart.

Well, unfortunately by the first century, meaning, by the time Paul wrote this letter here to the Colossians, there was this now Jewish preoccupation with the literal and physical ceremony of circumcision, the physical cutting away of the flesh on 8-day-old baby boys, but there was this neglect of the spiritual importance of being circumcised in one's heart. Meaning, that for most in these days, circumcision had become just this ceremonial action, this ritual that had to be performed, just one more good deed that people did. Which is why, you'll recall, Stephen before he is about to be stoned and executed in Acts 7, he says to the Pharisees who were about to do what they were about to do to him, he says in Acts 7:51, “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” In other words, the Jewish people of Paul's day, though their males may have been circumcised in flesh, were not circumcised in heart. A rotten root had produced rotten fruit.

Now getting back to Colossae, there apparently was some sort of Jewish influence upon the false teaching that was being promoted in the city. And the false teachers that Paul is here writing against, these promoters of the Colossian heresy as a part of that dangerous brew of teaching that they were serving up in this city, they were seeking to impose circumcision, the physical act of circumcision, as some part of initiation into their brand of Christianity. And they weren't unique in doing so. We know from other parts of Scripture, as we'll get to in a second, that this happened in Galatia as well. But we know this was a Jewish influence from what we see later in Colossians 2. Look at Colossians 2:16, just down the page, where we see the Jewish element of this false teaching. It says, “Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day -- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.” So in other words there was some sort of imposition of reinstituting Sabbath practices here in Colossae. This was a Jewish-influenced set of false teachings.

And again I mentioned Galatia earlier, but we know that Paul had to fight a similar heretical teaching which he lays out in the book of Galatians where the same thing was happening -- where the churches in that region of Galatia were having teachers come in and indicating and saying that one must be circumcised in addition to having faith in Christ in order to be made right with God. And Paul goes off on that teaching back in Galatians, Galatians 5:2-3. He says, “Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.” In other words, if you want to yoke yourself back under the Law by keeping circumcision rules and requirements, that's great. But just know, like James says, you'll have to keep the whole Law. And if you fail in one point, you'll be accountable for all of it. Or Galatians 5:6, it says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.”

Well, old heresies die hard because here in Colossae we see that Paul again was forced to contend with and refute the notion that Gentile believers in this church, believers who had come to faith in Jesus, who had come to believe on the name of the Jewish Messiah as Savior and Lord, they were now being taught that they needed to be circumcised as well. To which Paul in our text, Colossians 2:11, is saying you have already been circumcised, it has already happened. Look at the text, “in Him you were also circumcised.” And Paul here is speaking in the past tense, he is speaking of a completed event, he is speaking of something that has already occurred. “You were also circumcised.”

And again it's a very odd term when applied to Gentiles who, again Ephesians 2:11, were called the “Uncircumcision.” So in what sense did the uncircumcision or the uncircumcised become circumcised? Paul tells us, the uncircumcised became circumcised, as we continue on in verse 11, “with a circumcision made without hands.” Those words “without hands” refers to something that was done by God. Those words refer to something that was done by God as opposed to something that was done by human beings. We see those words “without hands” in a couple other places in the New Testament. For instance in II Corinthians 5:1 Paul there says, “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Or Hebrews 9:11 says, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation.” So in both of those passages that I just read out, “without hands” refers to our eternal God-constructed dwelling place. And then here in Colossians Paul is referring to our God-ordained circumcision as believers. He is not referring to a hands-free physical circumcision, he's referring instead to a God-directed spiritual circumcision.

And what does that mean when I say spiritual circumcision? Well, look a few verses ahead to Colossians 2:13, a passage we'll get to next week. Note what Paul says in Colossians 2:13, he says, “When you were dead in your transgressions and,” then what? “the uncircumcision of your flesh,” and then note what happens, “He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.” Uncircumcision, in other words, is associated with being spiritually dead. Uncircumcision refers to our former state. Uncircumcision refers to that period, as it says in Ephesians 2:1, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Uncircumcision refers to that time in our past, Ephesians 2:2, where we “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Uncircumcision refers to that period, as Ephesians 2:3 says, where we “all formerly lived in the lusst of our flesh, indulging the desires of our flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.” Uncircumcision is what Paul says to Titus was our former state in Titus 3:3 when he says, “We… were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” That was the old state, that was the former condition, that was the original condition, that was the state of our spiritual uncircumcision, our state of pursuing our basest fleshly desires. Or as Galatians 5:19 will put it, “the deeds of the flesh… immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these.”

But then we were circumcised, spiritually speaking, which is just a way of referring to the fact that we were saved. At that moment of conversion, at that moment of justification, at that moment of regeneration, a moment that had nothing to do with us or any aisle we walked or any prayer we prayed -- but instead was a moment that was divinely brought about according to the foreknowledge of God and the power of God and the great mercy of God -- at that moment we became new creatures in Christ. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 puts it, “the old things passed away,” and, “behold, new things [came].” And at that moment as our text Colossians 2:11 puts it, we experienced “the removal,” this is the last part of the verse, “the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.”

And that's another important phrase that we need to work through this morning, starting with those words, “the removal of the body of the flesh.” What is that referring to? Is that referring to the fact that when a person comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ they are no longer in bodies of flesh? Here is a very simple way to test that. Pinch your arm or pinch your neighbor's arm and see if they think or if you think that you are not in a body of flesh. Once you've passed that test, we've ruled that one out, we look at another option here. Is this language where it says, verse 11, “the removal of the body of flesh,” is this referring to the fact that when a person comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ that they no longer war against the flesh or they no longer battle against the flesh. Again we know that can't be the answer, in light of the Scriptures which routinely command Christians to continue fighting against the desires of the flesh and to warn against the flesh as we live in these bodies of flesh. We think of Romans 13:14, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” it says, “and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” What is that doing but assuming that there is still flesh that we live in and there still is flesh that we fight.

Well, how are we to do that? How are we to fight against the flesh? How are we to war against the temptation to sin which still clings? Well, Paul gives us our answer at the end of verse 11, “by the circumcision of Christ.” And we see that, we might think, is this referring to that scene back in Luke 2 where 8-day-old baby Jesus is actually physically circumcised? No. The circumcision of Christ here is a reference to Christ's death, His death on the cross. The thought that is being conveyed here in Colossians 2:11 is that when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, there is a sense in which the believer did, too. The Christian, the one who has believed upon the name of Jesus Christ, has died to sin. Romans 6:6, “our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” Romans 6:11, “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” So the Christian has died to sin.

The Christian has also died to the Law. Romans 7:4, “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.”

The Christian has died to the Law, the Christian has also died to self. Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” I now live in the flesh by faith in the Son of God.

And last, the Christian has died to the world. Galatians 6:14, “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” So the idea here is that while still living in the flesh and still alert to the war that the flesh presents, the follower of Christ, the one who, back in our text, has been “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ,” is no longer a slave to the flesh. They are no longer dominated by the flesh. Here is how Robert Gromacki puts it, he says, “Inner spiritual circumcision results ‘in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. This action occurs at conversion and removes the guilt, penalty and pollution of the sin principle with its impure thoughts and deeds. It does not eradicate the sin nature, but it does strip away the power of the sin nature so that a believer does not need to obey its dictates anymore.” See, because the true believer has the necessary spiritual resources at hand, because of the death that Christ died, and because of the Holy Spirit life that He has imparted to them, we can, as Galatians 5:16 puts it, “walk by the Spirit” and not gratify or not “carry out the desire of the flesh.”

Bringing it back to Colossae, what Paul is communicating to this dear church in their immediate context is that no matter what these false teachers were telling them, they had no need to conform to these Jewish rules and regulations, such as the physical act of circumcision. Because in Christ they had already been circumcised, spiritually circumcised. And the result of that, was that they, like you and I today if we put our faith in Christ, were the truly circumcised ones, as we're going to see in a couple of these verses here. Romans 2:29 speaks of the Jew being the one who is one “inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.” Or Ephesians 2:11 says, “Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called ‘Uncircumcision’ by the so-called ‘Circumcision,’ which is performed in the flesh by human hands -- remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Or Philippians 3:1 says, “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”

So what Paul is driving at here is that as the Colossians already had the greater possession, they had spiritual circumcision. So, contrary to the false teachers, why would they run back to some so-called need to be physically circumcised? They had fullness in Christ, so why pursue some empty ritual? They had the substance down, so why go after the form?

That brings us to the second part of our passage this morning, and our second heading this morning. Point #1 was “Circumcised in Christ,” point #2 is “Buried in Baptism.” Look at verse 12, it says, “having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” With these words Paul now turns from the subject of circumcision to the subject of baptism. But as we are about to see, he is actually really on the same topic, that topic being faith and justification and conversion and regeneration. In this second verse here Paul is very much hanging the same picture in a new frame and he is starting with the words, “having been buried with Him in baptism.” Who has been buried with Him in baptism? Well, it's the “you” of verse 11. In other words, Paul here is still referring to the Colossians. And while the believers at Colossae, of course, were Paul's immediate audience here, his words, since they are part of God's timeless Word and God's inerrant and inspired Word, echo and ripple out across all generations so they apply to us in our context as well. As those who have been “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands,” we, too, like the Colossians here, have “been buried with Him in baptism.” And these words communicate the truth that every follower of Jesus Christ is identified with the Lord in His death. He, meaning Christ, is the Him who is in view here where it says, “having been buried with Him in baptism.” And when we get saved, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are identifying with Him. We are identifying with Him first in His death, that's what the first part of verse 12 is saying, “having been buried with Him in baptism.” But we also identify with Him in His resurrection, that's what we see in the second part, “in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God.”

And we'll take those two ideas, being identified with the Lord's death and identifying with His resurrection, one by one here, starting with the first one, first part of verse 12, “having been buried with Him in baptism.” Now we need to first note here that the word “baptism” there is not a translation of the underlying Greek word, which is “baptizmo.” Rather it is a transliteration, meaning we took the English-sounding word and just sort of layered it on top of the Greek word, “baptizmo.” And of course, when we hear in English that word “baptism,” our minds go straight to water baptism (which happens next Sunday night behind me). The thing is, our English Bibles haven't truly translated the word, they have transliterated the word, and that word that we now have in our English Bibles is baptize. But what is the idea that Paul is actually conveying here when he uses this word baptize or baptism? The word baptism in Greek, “baptizmo,” actually has a far broader range of meaning than we might think of it as just being dunked in water. The word means to dip, to plunge, to wash, to immerse. You could even say to place into. And the most vivid picture, the most vivid illustration I have ever heard of what the Greek term actually means is it is picturing a piece of white fabric or a cloth that is being dipped into a bowl full of red dye as you seek to have it come out a different color or look different than when it first went in. And this piece of white cloth or fabric is covered and submerged and sloshed around and it is eventually completely changed so that when it comes out of that liquid, it is something entirely new.

I know that illustration breaks down because as Christians we went in red and we come out white, our sins are washed as white as snow. But you get the point, you go in one color and you come out the other, as you are dipped, as you are submerged, as you are dunked. So it is with the follower of Christ as we come to saving faith -- as we come to see what a dark and sinful world this world is -- as we come to see how foolish and dark our hearts are -- as we come to realize that we will never be able to approach the holy God that we once lived in absolute rebellion to through our own actions or our own effort or our own will -- as we come to see that every world system of man-made religion is false except for the one that offers salvation through faith in the finished work of Christ -- as we come to realize that true life, eternal life, is found only in Christ's name -- as we come to see that repenting and believing in the Gospel and trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is the only means by which a person can be saved from their sin.

Do you know what happens when all those beliefs are laid out? We die. We die. Now our bodies don't expire physically. As we've already established, we go on living in these bodies of flesh. But the old man is buried, buried with Christ. You could even say placed into Christ or baptized into Christ. And at that moment of salvation, though our heart goes on ticking and our brain goes on functioning, the old man ends up dying -- dying in the sense that the old body of sin that once defined us no longer has a grip on us and it no longer has sway over us -- dying in the sense that the debt that once hung over us no longer is a concern for us because it is no longer a debt that we fear will come due. Because as Colossians 2:14 says it has been canceled out, “the certificate of debt consisting of decrees which was once hostile to us, He has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross.” Our love for sin is no longer there, I John 2:15, we “do not love the world nor the things in the world.” I John 2:17, we know that “the world is passing away, and also its lusts.” Galatians 6:14, we know that “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” So as our Lord's limp body went into the tomb, we are spiritually identified with Him. We share in His death, we are buried with Him, we are placed into His body meaning the Church. That is what is known as Spirit baptism. I Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” So we are buried with Him.

But the story doesn't end there, does it? There is a reason Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday. Just as our Lord defeated death by rising from the grave, so, too, does the believer when we are by the power of God raised to newness of life. Look at the next part of verse 12 where he says, “having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” So having died spiritually, having been buried with Him in baptism, we have also been raised up with Him, meaning we have been raised up with Christ. Just as we have through faith been identified with Christ in His death, in His burial, so we have through faith been identified with the fact that Jesus our Lord was brought back through His resurrection to life. Having died with Christ, we have been raised with Christ, and he have imparted to us His resurrection life. That's the point here. Paul says it so concisely here in Colossians 2:12.

He expands on this over in Romans 6. Why don't you turn over with me to Romans 6 where we will see the full-color version, the expanded version, of the simple truth that Paul is delivering in our text. Romans 6. And as we work through this I just want you to note, as we're going through some deep theological waters here in Romans 6, note the practical realities for living, for Christian living that Paul is identifying here. Romans 6, we'll start in verse 3 where he says, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”

Again, that's an expanded version of what we have just seen in Colossians 2:12 and it's communicating the same essential truths that our passage is today, which is that as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ we have been given new life, eternal life to be sure, but also the power to live a vibrant spiritual life in Christ which ultimately, Colossians 2, is fueled by resurrection power. The same power through which God raised Christ from the grave is the same power which enables us as believers today to live in victory over sin. Perfectly? No. But progressively, absolutely.

We see another example of what this resurrection-powered new life in Christ looks like a little bit later in our book, Colossians. Look at Colossians 3 where again we're going to see Paul communicating like he is in our text, about what it means to have been raised up through faith. And again this is not something that should just go in one ear and out the other. This is not some deep theological truth that we read off and not have it impact our lives. Look at the practical nature of these powerful truths in Colossians 3:1. “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him -- a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”

To summarize, the old man dead, buried. “For you have died,” Colossians 3:3. “Consider the members of your earthly body as dead,” Colossians 3:5. Meaning the passions and the sins which once enslaved us no longer have a hold on us now that there is a new man raised with Christ, risen to newness of life, a life that “is hidden,” it says, with Christ in God,” a life that is committed to walking worthy of the One who has brought about that new life.

Now I have to say there are some who will engage with this text here, Colossians 2:12 -- and I specifically have Roman Catholics and Disciples of Christ in mind when I say this -- and they'll say that when Paul here says, “having been buried with him in baptism,” what Paul is referring to are the actual physical elements of water. In other words, their argument is that what Paul has in mind here is H2O, not so much the spiritual realities of all that we've covered so far this morning. But how can that be so? First of all how would that fit with what Paul has said back in verse 11? Was Paul speaking of physical circumcision in verse 11? No. We've already established that he was speaking of spiritual circumcision, “a circumcision made without hands.” So does it really make sense that all of a sudden Paul in verse 12 would be, after describing spiritual realities in verse 11, is now shifting to physical elements in baptism in verse 12? Does it really make sense that in a letter like Colossians where his whole focus is getting the Colossian believers here to keep their minds fixed on eternal spiritual realities associated with who they are in Christ, is now troubling himself with the means and the methods by which they are dunked, like if they are going to hold their nose when they go under the water or if they get their hair all wet? No. I find that very difficult to believe. These are spiritual things and spiritual realities that Paul is dealing with here, including baptism.

And not only that, to add to that point, we have to continue on in verse 12, where Paul after speaking about “baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him,” note what he adds here. Note the means by which we have been raised up. It's “through faith.” That's the instrumental cause of the baptism that he is referring to here. We were raised through faith. This is a matter of belief and faith and trust, this is not a matter of form. And then look at the object to which the believer's faith is attached as we finish out verse 12 here. It is “faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” We have been buried with Him in baptism through that type of “faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

See, back in Colossians 1:29, a few weeks ago, you might remember that Paul speaks of how it was the power of God which fueled his own ministry, where he says, “For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” Now here at the end of verse 12 he gives us a similar idea, which is that as we seek to live faithfully for Christ in our day-to-day living, we are able to tap into that same power, that same infinite source of power, which God used to raise Jesus the Son from the dead. That language here in 2:12 is similar to what Paul says over in Ephesians 1:19-20 where he refers to the “surpassing greatness of God's power toward us who believe, which is in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead.” And that presents quite the challenge to us and an encouragement to us to know that that type of power is at our disposal. It's an encouragement to know what a bottomless reservoir of power is there. God's power which is available to us at any time, it's always available to us at our disposal. We can tap into it no matter the season that we're in or the struggle that we're in or the sin that we find ourselves in. It's always there. And that's an encouragement. But this is also a challenge to us when we think about how much of God's power we leave untapped in our day-to-day lives, whether that's on account of prayerlessness or pride or lack of faith or all the above.

Back to our text, Colossians 2:12. What Paul is describing here, just as he did when addressing circumcision back in verse 11 and really as he is doing throughout this letter of Colossians, he is addressing spiritual matters. He is bringing up the transcendent spiritual reality, indeed the eternal reality that the true follower of Christ has undergone a spiritual metamorphosis. The old man has been buried with Christ in baptism and the new man has been “raised up,” verse 12, “with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” This was an important word for the Colossian church, a church that was made up of individuals who were still newer in their faith, a church which had been infiltrated, as we've seen, by these false teachers who were trying to persuade the members of this church to add various matters of form to the substantive truths they already knew. This was a timely word from Paul to remind these new believers here in Colossae that they had already been spiritually circumcised, that they had already received the circumcision that he calls as “a circumcision made without hands,” one which united them in “the circumcision of Christ,” meaning the death of Christ, a death He died only once, a death which was perfectly sufficient in its atoning power and provision, a death to which nothing could ever be added. Not only that, it was important and timely of Paul to remind the Colossians here in verse 12 of the death that they had already died, “having been buried with Him in baptism,” and of the fact that they had now been “raised up with Him through faith.”

As we wrap up our time this morning, what a simple and a crucial word for each of us to understand, even this last word, this matter of faith. See, without faith, without faith in Jesus Christ specifically, no rite or ceremony or anything done in this world ultimately has any meaning or significance. Think about this (and challenge me after this, if you disagree, in the south lobby if you want to talk about it more), but dinner parties, birthday parties, weddings, graduations, football games, church attendance, religious activities, baptism, circumcision, they are all, without faith in Jesus Christ, pointless, empty, meaningless. “Without faith,” faith in Jesus Christ specifically, we know from Hebrews 11:6 “it is impossible to please Him [God].” And without faith, faith in Jesus Christ specifically, what unrepentant sinners face, those who have not put their faith in Jesus Christ, is an eternity spent in hell, an unending future of facing God's unmitigated wrath in fury in a place where the flames are never quenched and the worm never dies and the torment never ends.

If you are here this morning as someone who has never come to faith in Jesus Christ, I beg of you, turn to Him in faith today. Don't rely on the artificial substitutes: I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 5, I got baptized when I was 9, I've gone to church all my life, my parents have taken me to this place forever. Don't make any more excuses like: I'll do it when I'm older, or I'll do it when my husband finally gets his act together, or I'll do it when my parents finally get off my back. Don't rely on the hope of tomorrow when death could snatch you away today, as we know from Luke 12:20, “This very night your soul [may be] required of you.”

Instead, acknowledge that you live on a planet that was created by and is ruled and governed by an all-wise, sovereign, and holy God, the very God who formed you in your mother's womb and the very God who is giving you life and breath right now. Acknowledge that God has laid out standards of what is right and wrong in His sight in His Word and that there really is such a thing as sin, no matter how much the world might try to scrub that term from its collective consciousness. Acknowledge that you are a sinner no matter how many library books you have checked in on time, and no matter how many meals you have delivered on Thanksgiving, and no matter the fact that you might be, in horizontal terms, considered better than 95% of the world. Acknowledge that in the eyes of a holy and transcendent God, the living God, the God of all, you are a sinner. God's Word reveals that about you and about all of us, that “all have sinned,” Romans 3:23, “and fall short of the glory of God.” And not only does God's Word reveal it -- and that's the ultimate standard -- but your conscience reveals that about you, which is why you feel guilty when you lie, why your face flushes or your heart races or the hair on your back starts to stand up when you are caught doing something you shouldn't be doing. Acknowledge that your sin deserves punishment, just as a judge here in Lancaster County wouldn't be doing his job in allowing guilty parties to go free. The judge of all the earth cannot, consistent with His justice, allow sinners like you to go unpunished.

And here is the heart of it, and here is what you absolutely must do: acknowledge that God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world to die a death that your sin deserves, and that because of His great love, the Lord Jesus Christ took the wrath of Almighty God on His shoulders so that you wouldn't have to face it. Jesus bled and He suffered and He died so that you wouldn't have to face the divine and deserved punishment that was coming on account of your sin. Jesus went through the agony of the cross so that you might have eternal life. John 3:16 (we'll see it behind goalposts all day today), “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.” Repent of your sin, believe in these truths and be saved. Or to use the terminology here from our text, be circumcised, be baptized. You do so by believing.

And for those of us in the room who have already come to know these truths and believe in these truths, and now live in light of these truths, the charge is to heed the words that Paul has given us here, the words he gave the Colossians -- to refute the notion that anything can be added to the finished work of Christ on the cross on your behalf, to reject any idea of anybody who would try to sell you on some form of Christ-plus theology -- and to run daily to the truth. As we've seen this morning, that you have already been “circumcised with [the] circumcision made without hands,” and you have already “been buried with Him in baptism.” Praise Him for those truths.

Let's pray. God, thank You for the time that we have had this morning to get into Your Word and to take on a couple of texts, couple of verses, that have some abstraction to them, that seem a bit detached in various ways from our realities today. But I pray, what has been heard this morning has been clear, which is that when we are in Christ, if we are in Christ, we have all that we need. We have all that we need in the finished work of our Lord on the cross. His death has paid the debt of our sin and we don't need to add anything to it. We don't need to add physical circumcision, we don't need to add physical baptism, as a means by which we are saved. We don't need to add any work, any deed. It has been done, it truly is finished. And I pray, that as believers we would rejoice in that fact and rejoice in that truth, to know that that weight has been taken off our shoulders as it was placed on the shoulders of our Lord at Calvary. And I pray, God, if there is anyone here who is not truly saved and has not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith, that today would be the day that they would reckon and account for who they are before You. And that the truth of the gospel would not just go in one ear and out the other. But that it would land in a convicted heart, a heart that understands how far they are away from You right now. And that the only means by which they would be close to You and have fellowship to You restored, the only means by which they would have eternal life secured and have their sins forgiven, would be not to be baptized and not to go through any process or procedure, but to place their faith in the living God through His Son Jesus Christ. So God, as we leave this place I pray, that the truth of the cross, the truth of Calvary, the truth of the saving Gospel, in its simplicity and in its beauty would move us to live faithfully for You. In Jesus' name, amen.