and ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and authority,
Some were telling these believers to add something to Christ: philosophy, rules, respect for angels. Paul's answer is not a longer list of duties. It is a Person. The verse states two facts. It says what the believer already is in Christ, and what Christ already is over everything else.
Older translations say "complete in Him." Newer ones say "filled." Both translate one Greek word. Its root ties this verse to the fullness of God named just before it.
The word comes from a Greek verb meaning "to fill full." The believer is complete in Christ, or filled full. This points to all fullness dwelling in Christ. The fullness of the Godhead is in Christ, as toward the believer. And the believer, as toward God, is complete in Him.
Another writer names where that fullness now dwells: in a Man on high.
Here then is the grand antidote! The fullness of the Infinite One dwells in Him in whom we are complete. He came down beneath all for our salvation, and He is now above all in exaltation. He is the glorified Man who glorified God on earth and is now crowned on high. In Him the Godhead fullness dwells bodily, and we too are filled full in Him.
If the word means "filled full," the answer to every proposed add-on is already given. One writer lists the extras people were pressing on these believers, then asks what any of them could contribute.
"You are complete in Him." This surely covers everything. What can anyone add to a person who is already "complete"? Take philosophy, human tradition, the basic principles of the world, food and drink, festivals, new moons and Sabbaths, "Do not touch" this, "do not taste" that, "do not handle" the other, the commandments and teachings of men, days and months and seasons and years. Could any of these things, or all of them put together, add the smallest thing to one whom God has pronounced "complete"?
The verse states where the believer stands, not how far they have progressed. So it does not measure how complete anyone feels.
This is not experience, but a fact which all believers have title to enjoy. Also, Christ is the Head of all rule and authority. That is, the highest ranks and powers are under Him and depend on Him. So we do not depend on them. We depend on Him.
The second half of the verse meets one particular error: treating angels as go-betweens. Christ is Head over every rule and authority, so no middleman has any place.
"You are complete in Him." Notice this: far from having anyone between us and Christ, we are in Him who is the Head of all rule and authority. We lose our standing if we allow an angel to come between Christ and us, even though an angel, as a creature, is far above us. There is no mediator between us and Christ. There is one between us and God, and that mediator is Christ Himself.
The same principle covers any figure put between the believer and Christ. It also shows where spiritual growth comes from.
To bring angels, or any other creature, whether the Virgin or saints, between our souls and Christ is to deny our direct union with Christ. He is the head of all rule and authority. As Head to the body, He Himself gives all spiritual nourishment, through the spiritual help that the members of the body supply. In this way the soul's spiritual growth is kept up, and the body of Christ grows with the increase of God, quite apart from any ministry of angels.
The extras on offer today have different names. The verse answers them the same way.
There is a Man upon the throne of God in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. All the mighty resources of God are in Him for us; we are complete in Him. That means there is no necessity to go outside Him for anything we need. We do not need philosophy, the wisdom of man, religious organizations, or anything men can produce.
- Full — "Complete" translates a word meaning "filled full." All the fullness that dwells in Christ is the measure of what the believer has in Him.
- Fact — This is standing, not experience. Every believer already has title to enjoy it, whatever their feelings say.
- Finished — Nothing adds to one God has called complete: not philosophy, tradition, food rules or holy days.
- First — He in whom we are filled is Head over every rule and authority. So no creature, angel or human, may stand between Him and us.
- Free — All the resources of God are in Him. So we need nothing outside Him, and we can draw everything from Him.
in whom also ye have been circumcised with circumcision not done by hand, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Christ;
Circumcision was an outward rite, cut into the body by a human hand. This verse tells believers they already have a circumcision no hand performed — and the question is what it cut away, and when.
The verse opens with "in him." That phrase leans on the verse before, which says believers are filled up in Christ. One writer draws both halves together:
"In Him," says the apostle, "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." All is in Christ, nothing is lacking in Him. But in verse 10, it is we who have all in Him. Nothing is lacking for us: "You have been filled in Him." So we cannot seek to add anything to ourselves apart from Him. Now we come to circumcision. Not only, says the apostle, is there nothing to add, but there is nothing to cut off from those who are in Him. The body of the flesh is judged, you are deprived of it; it is a thing done, it is the circumcision of Christ… Here, then, we have two great truths: we are complete before God in Christ, and perfectly delivered from all that we are in ourselves.
A human hand did the old rite on a human body. This one is different, and the difference goes deeper than method.
This stands in clear contrast with the outward rite of circumcision. It should be "putting off the body of the flesh," not the body "of the sins" of the flesh. The true reading makes it a fuller thing. It is not a question of sins, but of sin in the nature… It does not refer to the literal act of circumcising, but to Christ's death. When we believe in Christ, all the value of His death is made true of us… We are brought into association with His death. When we receive Him by faith, we have all its value in parting with our own ruined condition, "the body of the flesh." This circumcision supersedes all others, which in no way stripped off our evil state as man in the flesh.
Older English Bibles read "the body of the sins of the flesh." Commentators say the shorter reading is the true one, and the ESV follows it.
Whose circumcision does the verse mean? One writer traces the outward rite forward:
This outward rite — a cutting around and off of man's flesh — pointed forward to what the death of Christ accomplished, as Colossians 2:11 shows… As Christians we are to recognise that we have put off the flesh in its totality in the death of Christ. We are "circumcised" in His "circumcision"; that is, His death.
Philippians 3 sets a counterfeit against the real thing:
The word translated "concision" means a mere lopping off, in contrast to the complete cutting off of death, which was pictured in circumcision. The men Paul calls "the concision" believed in lopping off the uglier outgrowths of the flesh. But they would not have that bringing in of death, "by the circumcision of Christ," which is the truth of Christianity… Men cannot really boast in the grosser expressions of the flesh. So they aim at lopping them off, to encourage more likeable and refined expressions in which to make their boast. But it is still boasting in the flesh.
Another writer names where this instinct starts:
In his religious hopes, man looks to cut this and that evil thing away from himself, and so make himself fit for God's service. But in Christ we are complete. In Him we are also circumcised, and by nothing less than the putting off of the body of the flesh itself!
The letter states this as already done. Yet it also tells believers to put to death what is earthly. One writer shows how the two fit:
Circumcision means that I disown and put the flesh to death, I will have nothing to do with it and put it off. It is the practical working out of what I have in title in Christ (Col. 2:11), being a figure of having put off the old man, not that one has to put him off. Having Christ as my life, Christ dead and risen, I can say that this is not I, but sin in the flesh… "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you." This assumes power in Christ. It means, not that I am to die, but that I am to put to death.
- In Him — those who are complete in Christ have nothing to add to themselves, and nothing left to cut off.
- Without hands — a human hand did the old rite. This circumcision is God's work, and it supersedes every rite that never touched our real condition.
- His cutting off — "the circumcision of Christ" is His death, and we are "circumcised" in it.
- The whole flesh — not sins picked off one by one, but the body of the flesh in its totality. False religion only lops off the uglier growths, so it can still boast in what remains.
- Title, then practice — what is already true in Christ is the ground for putting to death what is earthly. We disown the flesh because His death has already put it off.