Rev Gav

You have been spiritually circumcised!

Colossians 2:6-15

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

When you came to Christ, you were 'circumcised,' but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision — the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptised. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

Reflect

Did you know you have been spiritually circumcised? I’m not sure circumcision is a metaphor I would use in my own preaching, but hey, why not?

The reason Paul used circumcision as a metaphor was that being circumcised was a way of identifying oneself as being in a covenant (under a promise) with God. Well, in the same way, we who trust in Christ have a new covenant and are under a new promise with God, and this covenant was what Paul goes on to describe in more detail.

Like a physical circumcision, your sinful nature has been cut away, meaning that you have been forgiven all your sins. I love this vivid analogy that Paul used when he wrote, “He canceled the (written) record of the charges against us … by nailing it to the cross,” and as a spiritual exercise, it might be worth allowing yourself to imagine all your sins being written in a book, then that book literally being nailed to the cross of Jesus. But of course, theologically, the ‘record book’ is Jesus, for it was Jesus who was nailed to the cross, carrying the burden of our sins upon himself.

The good news for us is that the only weapon the spiritual rulers and authorities had against us was our guilt, and Paul explained that through the cross, Christ disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities by taking our guilt away, rendering those authorities powerless. There is therefore no-one in heaven or on earth with authority over us, apart from Jesus Christ, and because of Christ we are complete in our union (new covenant) with God.

So, what should be our response? Paul encouraged his readers to:

continue to follow Christ,
put down roots into Christ,
and allow our lives to be built on Christ.

When we do this our faith (trust) will grow strong and will overflow with thankfulness. Why? Because we are no longer condemned but free.

Today, give thanks that you have been forgiven and that you are truly free to be the person God created you to be.

Pray

Holy God
I accept Jesus Christ
as my Sovereign and Saviour
and as I continue to follow
and make Christ my foundation,
may my faith continue to grow
and may I overflow with gratitude.
Now and forever.