Complete in Jesus Christ

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of Cod, who hath raised him from the dead. (Col. 2:8-12)

Chalcedon is often falsely accused of just the sort of thing Paul here warns against. Many see in our writing terms they do not understand, allusions to historical trends, and calls to apply the Faith in ways they have never heard it being applied. Their immediate reaction is to accuse us of polluting the gospel with extraneous matters, of following “philosophy and vain deceit” and “traditions of men.” Others are even so frightened that our theological view has a name, “Christian Reconstruction,” that they assume we must be a cult.

At least most of such critics care whether we are Scripturally sound. This is to their credit. But it is important to remember that God is the Sovereign over all creation, and Jesus Christ must be given the preeminence in all things (1:18). This is how Paul began his letter to the Colossians. It is wrong to limit the Father or the Son to the work of salvation, and as His children we must not put restrictions on the claims of the head of all “principality and power” (v. 10). Unfortunately, in the name of the “pure gospel,” that is just what too many do.

If we look at what Paul is saying, however, we see that his condemnation was not of those who seek to expand the kingdom of Christ, or knowledge of it, but on those who thought there was another way than through Christ. These false teachers implied that Jesus Christ was insufficient and that their “philosophy” or “traditions of men” offered a better way. Paul is speaking harshly here of those who added rules and traditions to the gospel, not to those who were building on it as their cornerstone.

“Beware lest any man spoil you” (v. 8), Paul warned. That is, beware lest any steal you from loyalty to Jesus Christ. The warning against philosophy must not be separated from vain deceit. It is a warning against the ideas of men who in their vanity seek to be wise without God. The content of these false ideas will change from generation to generation but they always carry an air of newness and persuasiveness about them. For our most modern such ideas, look at current self-help books or listen to the talk shows for the accepted human wisdom of our day. There are two reasons such so-called wisdom is “vain deceit.” One is that it follows after the traditions of men, not Christ, and another is that it follows after the “rudiments” or the elements of the world.

The focus of orthodox Christianity must always be that in Jesus Christ “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (v. 9). It is because Jesus our Savior was the incarnate God that there was no deficiency in His person or work. We need not add the ideas or traditions of men to make His work more efficacious. In fact, to do so implies Christ was in some way deficient. Does Christ provide our salvation, or does Christ plus something else provide our salvation? If the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus Christ and we require more than Jesus Christ, then we ask for more than God. What would that be? Paul says   the Godhead dwells in Jesus Christ “bodily.” That means substantially, or essentially: “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father” (1 Jn. 2:23).

We are “complete in Him.” Christ’s perfection is to the be the basis of our completeness. To look for any element of salvation outside Christ detracts from His claim to all principality and power and shows ingratitude by seeking elsewhere what we already have in Christ.

The sufficiency of Jesus Christ was in opposition to those who sought to add requirements to faith. In particular, the Judaizers brought Pharisaical teachings and demands into the church. Chief among these was the requirement of circumcision. But Paul reminded the Colossians that the ultimate circumcision was of the heart (Dt. 10:16; 30:6; Rom. 3:29), not the flesh. As he told the church at Philippi, those of the true circumcision were those “which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (3:3). All he had as a circumcised Jew and Pharisee he counted as loss and dung, wishing rather to be found in “the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:7-9).

If Christ alone provides our salvation and circumcises our hearts, it is at best presumption to look for more. If Christ has circumcised the foreskin of our hearts, what spiritual benefit can be claimed for the physical rite? Circumcision, we must remember, was (usually) performed on the infant. It did not involve the child’s will and thus represented a covenant of grace, not race, of God’s will, not man’s. The Judaizers were now using circumcision not as a rite of a gracious covenant but as an act of initiation into a “Christianized” Judaism. They thus made it a work, and as such had turned it into a Pharisaical tradition of men, completely contrary to its original purpose and antithetical to salvation by grace alone through faith in the all-sufficient atonement of Jesus Christ.

Circumcision was to illustrate man’s inability and need for God’s salvation. Adding it as a required initiation to that salvation perverted both circumcision and the gospel. In the Christian church, circumcision was replaced as the sign of the covenant by baptism. Just as circumcision represented man’s inability and God’s grace, baptism represented covenant man’s death and resurrection to life in the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ.

Like Moses’ brass serpent and even the ark of the covenant, circumcision was misused and, as a religious rite, was dropped. Man is able to misuse and pervert anything he touches. When any object, person, institution, of rite is misused as an element of salvation, its usefulness in promoting true salvation may have been permanently compromised. Fortunately, our salvation depends solely on God, Who changeth not.

It is good to be wary of new ideas. But the dangerous additions are those which add to the gospel of salvation exclusively by the work of Jesus Christ, not those which seek to proclaim it in ever-broader ways.