< Colossians 2 >

The apostle exhorted the disciples, not only to be “knit together in love” but also, in view of the beguiling and enticing words promulgated by the Gnostics v.4,Waiting for response for Colossians 2:4 to have “all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”.vs.2-3Waiting for response for Colossians 2:2-3 They had received the truth as it is in Jesus, so they should “walk in him”,v.6Waiting for response for Colossians 2:6 be “rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as they had been taught”,v.7Waiting for response for Colossians 2:7 and “beware lest any man spoil them through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men”.v.8Waiting for response for Colossians 2:8 They were “in Christ” by baptism v.12Waiting for response for Colossians 2:12 and were “complete in him who is the head of all principality and power” v.10Waiting for response for Colossians 2:10 “for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”,v.9Waiting for response for Colossians 2:9 i.e. Jesus is the head of the body, and the saints in him are members of this body, in whom God will dwell and manifest himself to the world.

Some disciples wanted to keep the law of Moses which Paul called “the handwriting of ordinances that was against us”. He explained, however, that Jesus had nailed these commandments to his cross, and blotted them out, so that laws concerning “meat and drink, and holy days and sabbaths” v.16Waiting for response for Colossians 2:16 no longer needed to be kept. The Law, he says, was “a shadow of things to come; but the body [casting the shadow] is of Christ”,v.17Waiting for response for Colossians 2:17 i.e. the ordinances of the law of Moses foreshadowed Jesus, enabling us to read the law in the Old Testament and see him represented. For example, the sacrifice of lambs without blemish prefigured the sacrifice of “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world”.

The Gnostics thought they would be rewarded for asceticism, “touch not; handle not” v.21Waiting for response for Colossians 2:21 “will worship, and punishing the body”.v.23Waiting for response for Colossians 2:23 A disciple who succumbed to this teaching was “vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God”.vs.18-19Waiting for response for Colossians 2:18-19 Faithful disciples are “dead with Christ” v.20Waiting for response for Colossians 2:20 and having risen with him, after burial by baptism, are part of the new creation of God. As such they are required to “hold the head” which is Christ and associate closely in love with all other faithful believers as members of the one body.