Thank you for joining us. Whether you’ve read the Bible many times or just recently started following Jesus, there is something here for all of us, and with God’s help, we will learn together.
Think back to the first week of creation. God created the earth, and then each day, he created things to fill the earth. On day six, he created the land, animals, and man. Sometime after the first week, God saw that man was alone, and this was not good. So, God put Adam to sleep, and from his rib, God made a woman. This story is familiar, but it is incredible. Now, Adam has a wife; he is no longer alone.
We would say Eve completed Adam. Before her, there was something missing; with her, he was now complete. This idea of being complete is the topic of today’s lesson. If you can, turn to Colossians 2, and we will learn how to be “Complete in Christ.”
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” That statement has frustrated many people.
It’s hard for proud people to accept the Gospel because it is simple. It’s hard for them to admit that their knowledge, efforts, or whatever, are of no help in acquiring salvation.
One author discusses her epiphany while reading the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas during graduate school. The passage was: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” She says, “The strength of this saying is that it does not tell us what to believe but challenges us to discover what lies hidden within ourselves….” This Gnostic perspective essentially says that salvation is within us and that it is in a process of self-discovery that we find redemption. Many prominent people, past and present, in organized religion, academia, and the arts, embrace this false gospel.
But, German Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a different perspective. He wrote, “The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is “external to us.” I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ. Only he who allows himself to be found in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, cross, and resurrection, is with God and God with him.” Bonhoeffer understood that we can add nothing to our salvation; it is all of Christ, and we are complete in Him.
As we continue our study in the book of Colossians, we are brought face-to-face once again with Christ’s preeminence. The Gnostics at Colossae promoted the idea that you had to embrace their philosophy to be a genuine Believer. The Judaizers said you had to keep certain parts of the Law to be accepted by God. People today are still trying to add things they say we need to be genuinely saved.
In our text, Paul attacks both groups and refutes their errors, clearly teaching that we are “Complete in Christ.” That’s the title of our study today: “Complete in Christ.” Now, listen carefully as I read Colossians 2:8 to 15.
8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;
10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
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