Certificates of Sin Colossians 2

Let us review where we are. –Galatians is addressed to a church in heresy. –Ephesians, to a church surrounded by paganism. –Philippians, to a church under attack. –Colossians, to a church struggling with Christ. What we have learned: –Salvation is through Christ alone. –Christ is all sufficient. –We must walk worthy of Christ. –Colossians chapter 2 focuses on Christ our Redeemer.

Colossians 2 The book of Colossians is very different from most of his other writings. –Scroggie says that Paul’s tone is anxious and perturbed. –He is wrestling with a different kind of heresy than he has ever faced before. –This heresy is so outside the realm of Greek and Jewish thought as Paul knows it that he must be inventive with his language. He uses 55 new words, 34 of which show up nowhere else in the New Testament.

Colossians 2 Chapter 2 of the book of Colossians is both rich and complicated. Paul’s writing is complicated to begin with: in Chapter 2 of Colossians, he is going to address what I like to call the heresy of knowledge and challenge it with a clear statement of Christology. The chapters relatively short, but is very complicated.

Colossians 2 Chapter 2 begins very similarly to Galatians Chapter 3, except for the tone. –Paul expresses his concern by using the word struggle. Paul uses this word most often in relation to his prayer life. –Paul is struggling in spirit for Christians he has never met. –What does he pray for them?

Colossians 2 Paul’s prayer –He prays that they may be encouraged. Being a Christian is hard. Knowing that your faith is true and will be awarded is important. –He prays that the church will be bound in love. Look at Ephesians 2:19. Paul prays for the love of Christ to flow through the church on a number of occasions.

Colossians 2 Paul’s prayer –Paul wants us to gain, to capture something. What is it (verse two)? –Why does Paul pray for the full assurance of understanding? The Greek word for full assurance is the root word for plethora. – the word for knowledge here is σ ύ νεσις, synesis, the root for our word synthesis.

Colossians 2 Paul’s prayer –The final thing that he prays for is that we would have knowledge of the mystery of God. What is that mystery? –He answers it in the last part of the verse. Now the chapter gets into the meat. I suspect we are going to have to do this in two sections. –Verse six (a good verse to memorize) starts us off. Walk in Christ.

Colossians 2 Notice that Paul is addressing mature Christians. –They are rooted in Christ. –They are established in the Faith –They abound with the joy that comes from that Faith. Verse 8 and verse 4 give the same warning: do not let anyone cheat you from your faith.

Colossians 2 How can someone cheat us from our faith in Christ? –Philosophy. I am a doctor of philosophy, which means I like nifty ideas. I must be on guard that those ideas match the truth of Christ. –Notice that verse 8, “basic principles” is repeated in verse 20. –What are these basic principles?

Colossians 2 To understand the structure of the chapter, go to verse 8. Find the phrase “according to Christ”. Paul is going to demonstrate to us what it means to be in Christ. Seven times Paul tells us what it means to be in Christ or with Christ. (v 9) –In Christ dwells the Godhead bodily. No nonsense about a Spirit Christ in a physical Christ. No nonsense about Christ being just a man. –He is the God-Man.

Colossians 2 Verse 10: we are complete in Him. Verse 11: we are circumcised, that is put off the body of sin. Paul addresses this to outline his doctrine of circumcision. Verse 12: our old man is buried with Christ, the new man risen with Him through... What? Verse 13: alive and forgiven

Colossians 2 Verse 14: there are dozens of interpretations of this passage. Fortunately, they all lead up to the same thing. –The handwriting of requirement. The New American Standard translates this as certificate of debt. The Greek says the handwriting of dogmasin, dogma. Somebody wrote out in long hand the charges against us. And Hebrew tradition, we would write out the debt ourselves (Nehemiah 9:38)

Colossians 2 Christ wiped out the hand writing against us. –In some ancient scrolls, you could blot out the ink that had been written, and write something else over it. Modern technology can recover the earlier draft. –If you are using papyri or an animal skin, you could scrape the ink off. –In any case, Christ has removed the charges against us. –He has taken it away—it cannot be seen. It is hidden.

Colossians 2 Verses 14 and 15 –He nailed them to the Cross. Some commentaries refer to a tradition of nailing a paid debt to a house post. Other commentaries dispute that. –I think Paul is being allegorical here: as Christ was nailed to the Cross and atoned for sins, so our sins are nailed there as well. Verse 15 finishes the thought: Christ’s death defeats Satan, makes a spectacle of him, and shows Christ’s triumph.

Colossians 2 We will finish here for now. Next week we will finish Colossians 2. We will also start Philippians chapter 3. What should we learn from Colossians 2? –Christ is all sufficient for us. –We should walk in the doctrines of Christ. –We should rejoice in the eternal triumph of the Cross.