Introduction

Last time we dealt with Paul’s explicit warning to the Colossians and with his solution concerning how to effectively deal with the challenges they were facing. Paul warned against being captivated or taken captive by human traditions that are not according to Christ.

Christ—God in a Body!

If anyone might ask, “Paul, why are you placing so great an importance on Christ?” Paul is ready with the answer. He begins with a restatement of Col. 1.19. This time he says, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Two things to notice about this restatement: First, the tense is now present as opposed to past as in 1.19. This provides the basis for continuing to keep Jesus central. Second, Paul adds the word “bodily.” This comes into play in the verses that follow where Paul emphasizes Jesus’ death.

Fullness in Christ

Not only does the fullness of deity dwell in Jesus. Also the church has come to fullness—or the church has been brought to completion—in him. But also, he is top dog, as it were—head of every ruler and authority. In other words, there is no authority that can undermine his goal of bringing the church to completion and perfection.

The Circumcision of Christ

How does Christ accomplish this? When we think of circumcision, what comes to mind? What is a circumcision not made with hands?
Now Paul’s use of the imagery of circumcision is telling. Circumcision is a thoroughly Jewish rite. Paul uses circumcision and uncircumcision in this passage. Now non-Jews would hardly use this terminology. After all, for non-Jews circumcision is religiously inconsequential. However, for Jews, circumcision is religiously vital. This indicates that the challenges that the Colossians were facing came from Jews or Jewish-Christians. We should keep this in mind as we proceed.
As Christians, when we hear the word “circumcision” we would immediately think of conversion or salvation. However, Paul uses a strange phrase “by stripping off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ.” The problem lies in the use of “body” and “flesh” together. With circumcision the man does not strip off his body, but only the foreskin, which could be characterized as flesh. With a circumcision made without hands the Christian could be said to strip off the old sinful nature—how the NIV translates this. However, we are not called to strip off our bodies!
What Paul is referring to here is not the conversion of the Christian but the death of Christ. It is the fleshly body of Christ, which Paul earlier said was the mode by which God dwells in Christ, that was stripped off. And Paul likens this to a circumcision. In circumcision the whole of a man is consecrated and made to participate in God’s covenants by stripping off a small bit of flesh. So also by the stripping off of Jesus on the cross, his entire spiritual body, that is the church, is consecrated and made to participate in God’s covenants.

Burial and Resurrection

Christians benefit from this circumcision of Christ by having faith in the power of God. But it is very specific. The power of God is here related to God’s raising Jesus from the dead. We believe that the same power of God by which he raised Jesus from the dead raises us to new life now. But only those who have died can be raised! Paul says that this death is actualized in the initiatory rite of baptism.
There is a tension in this metaphor. On the one hand, if we insist on voluntary baptism, that is baptism of a believer, then we are faced with the fact that people do not attend their burial voluntarily. On the other hand, if we argue for involuntary baptism, that is infant baptism, from the point that burials are involuntary, we are faced with the fact that the subsequent raising from the dead is accomplished only through faith. The crucial point for Paul is that God has made us alive with Jesus and that he simultaneously forgives us our trespasses.

The Record of Infringements

Now v. 14 often interpreted to mean that Christians are not required to obey the Old Testament law. However, this is not in Paul’s mind here. What he is saying is that our trespasses were infringements of God’s law. According to Jewish thought, each such infringement was written down in a book that was similar to but strikingly different from the Book of Life. So each of us had a record of our infringements. And it is this that Christ has erased or set aside by nailing it to the cross. That is, in the death of Jesus, the records that sounded our death knells died! In other words, the stripping off of Jesus—what Paul calls the circumcision of Christ—caused the record to be stripped off or dissociated from us, thereby resulting in our forgiveness.
Moreover, the death of Jesus is not to be seen as a defeat. Rather, it is the greatest victory of all in which Jesus triumphed over all rulers and authorities. And in his crucifixion Jesus leads these defeated powers in a humiliating victory procession.