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.
buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with [him] through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead.
Paul has just spoken of a circumcision made without hands. Now he shows how that cutting off reaches us. We are buried with Christ, and we rise with Him by God's power. Two questions follow: what does baptism picture, and where should faith look?
The first half of the verse describes an ending. One writer sums up baptism in a single word:
Baptism means, in one word, separation. It is only an outward ceremony, yet it has a meaning, and that is its meaning. It rests on the death and resurrection of Christ, for we are "baptized into His death" (Rom. 6:3), and so we are "buried with Him" (Col. 2:12). Nothing cuts our links with the world, and separates us from the present order of things, more completely than death and burial.
Burial reaches further than bad behaviour. It touches a whole standing before God:
Since we are circumcised, or cut off, in "the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2:11), we have lost the old position we once held before God as men in the flesh linked with Adam. Now that we are risen with Christ, grace has given us a new standing with Him, completely different from the old one.
Romans 6 also speaks of burial with Christ, but stops short of saying we are risen. The difference is deliberate:
Here the doctrine carries one a little farther than either Romans 6 or 1 Peter 3. There is death and burial of all we were; but there is here at least resurrection with Christ — death and resurrection. In Romans the emphatic point is simply death, because the argument of the apostle in chapter 6 does not admit of going beyond the truth that the baptized believer is alive from the dead — not exactly risen, but alive unto God. In Colossians the argument requires that our resurrection with Christ, as well as death and burial, should be distinctly stated.
Another writer traces the same step and shows where it leads: baptism here is not just the end of the old, but an entrance.
In Colossians baptism does more than show what the death of Christ means for our old state. It is the door through which, by faith in God's working, we come into association with Him who is in a new and risen state. In Romans baptism is tied to justification from sin. Justification frees me. Here it is tied to being complete in Him.
The rising comes not from the water but from "the powerful working of God." That is the same power that raised Christ, and it brings full forgiveness with it.
Baptism was the sign and expression of this. Faith in the working of God who raised Him is the means that brings about in us this wonderful resurrection with Christ, into a new state and scene… But it is the power of God Himself, the same power that worked in Christ, that works in us to give us the new standing in life. Seen together with our resurrection with Christ, it means — by the very fact that we receive it — that we are forgiven perfectly and for ever… Raised up with Him, sharing the life He has as risen from the dead, we have left behind — like Him and with Him — all that burden of sin and condemnation, along with the death from which we have been set free.
Notice where the verse points faith. It points to God raising Christ, not to my own experience.
Notice how this comes in. The faith is not faith in my being risen, but faith in Christ's having been raised. That difference matters greatly. Many a sincere soul keeps turning inward to find out whether it is risen. But that is not "faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead."
Commentators differ over how closely resurrection may be tied to baptism itself. One writer keeps the two apart:
This leaves baptism with its own true meaning: the person baptized is buried to death… Faith in God's working comes in at that point and frees baptism from the thought of resurrection — though resurrection does follow where there is faith in God's working.
Chapter 3 opens with a command to seek what is above. That command rests on this verse, not the other way round:
"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above" (Col. 3:1) — that is, since you are risen with Christ, let the power of resurrection show in daily life. "Raised with Him" (Col. 2:12) is the reality, and the appeal calls us to live up to it.
- Buried — Baptism means separation. Death and burial cut the believer's links with the world.
- Cut off — What ends is a position, not just habits. The old standing before God in Adam is gone.
- Raised — Baptism is a door: by faith we are joined to Christ in His risen state.
- God's working — The power that raised Christ gives the new standing. It brings perfect, lasting forgiveness with it.
- Faith's object — Faith rests on Christ being raised, not on checking yourself. That settled fact is the ground for the call to seek the things above.
And you, being dead in offences and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has quickened together with him, having forgiven us all the offences;
Verse 13 turns from what God did in Christ to what He did in the readers themselves. He made dead people alive, and He forgave them everything.
The verse describes the readers twice over before it says anything about God's action. One writer reads the double description as covering both conduct and condition:
As we begin verse 13 we pass from what has been accomplished in Christ to something accomplished in us. As to our spiritual state we were dead; dead in our sins — what we had done; dead in the uncircumcision of our flesh — what we were. But now made alive — made to live — together with Christ; our new life being of the same order as His.
Another commentator explains why that second phrase matters, and what it rules out:
Verse 13 reminds us of our sad previous condition. We were dead in sins, with no spark of life toward God. We were also in "the uncircumcision of your flesh" — that is, in the state of unjudged corruption. A person in such a condition is totally unfit for God. Out of such a state God has made alive together with Christ every believer. This is God's own direct gift of eternal life. It reminds us of the words of the Lord Jesus: "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (John 5:25). This being made alive is tied to the full forgiveness of all trespasses. So the work done in us and the work done for us go hand in hand.
Life alone would have met our need. But the verse says more. One writer draws the line between what our case demanded and what God chose to give:
We meet with it both in Ephesians 2:5 and Colossians 2:13 — we have been made alive "together with Christ." Both letters describe us as dead — "dead in the trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1), and "dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh" (Col. 2:13). Nothing short of being made alive would meet our case. So being made alive was a necessity. But there was no necessity that we should be made alive together with Christ. That is the fruit of the counsels of God in grace.
One writer shows where that new life begins, and what got left behind:
Instead of its being a question of the flesh getting better, not only is it condemned already, but we have been made alive together with Christ. This is no mere doctrine: Christ is our life. I am in this new man before God. And what has become of all my sins? They are gone. He has made me alive out of Christ's grave, and they are left behind. Christ went down with my sins into the grave. They were put away on the cross — "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" — and the grave is the expression of that. When He rose again they were all gone.
The verse sets life and forgiveness side by side. One writer shows why they cannot be separated:
The very life we have received as believers is the token that our trespasses are gone. If God has made us alive with the life of Christ, He has forgiven us all trespasses. It is impossible that life in Christ dead and risen could have anything against it. Once there was everything against the believer. But having life in a risen Saviour is itself the proof that all is righteously forgiven to the one who believes.
The word all is not decorative. One writer presses it into assurance:
Every believer in Christ is completely and eternally forgiven. He can never again, during his whole life, be in a place where sin can be laid to his charge, as to his salvation. He is out of that place forever… Our union with a risen Christ is tied to our forgiveness. If we are a people made alive, if we have life with Christ risen, we are out of the place where sin is charged to our account, and we are out of it forever.
One writer marks this pardon off from the forgiveness a believer asks for day by day:
The Father always greets the confession of His child with forgiveness of sins and cleansing (1 John 1:9). That is quite distinct from the forgiveness spoken of in Col. 2:13. That forgiveness was granted once, and for that reason it is never repeated.
The change from "you" to "us" in the following verse is deliberate, and one writer traces it to who the readers were:
He applies the truth to the case in hand after this… He does not say "against you," because, in truth, the Colossian saints had never been under the law and its ordinances; they had been Gentiles. But whereas he said, "you, being dead," were now thus raised, so he says, "cancelling it against us"; for all that we, poor Jews, could boast — the ordinances — were against us instead of being for us, and they are gone now.
- Dead — the verse names what we had done (sins) and what we were (uncircumcised flesh). It was a state with no spark of life toward God, unfit for Him.
- Made alive — nothing less could meet that case. God raised us out of the grave Christ left, and our sins stayed behind.
- Together — our need never called for life with Christ. That is the fruit of God's counsels in grace, and it gives us life of the same order as His.
- Forgiven — the life itself is the receipt for the pardon, because life in a risen Christ cannot have anything standing against it.
- All — the pardon is complete: granted once, never repeated. It puts the believer outside the place where sin is charged to his account, and he never returns to it.
having effaced the handwriting in ordinances which [stood out] against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it also out of the way, having nailed it to the cross;
Teachers at Colossae were urging Christians to take up religious rules. Paul answers them from the cross, where God dealt with a written record that stood against us.
Older translations call that record "the handwriting of ordinances." One commentator explains the two key words:
The word translated "blotted out" is one "used for annulling a decree of law." "Handwriting" carries the idea of an "obligation to which a man is subject by his signature." Paul used a very graphic figure. We had bound ourselves by our signature to Jewish ordinances. Christ's death has cancelled that document. As far as we are concerned it was nailed to the cross when He was nailed to the cross.
The document was not forged by an enemy. The people bound by it had signed it themselves:
All the ordinances were blotted out too. They belonged to the basic principles of this world and applied to man in the flesh. They weighed on the Jews as an unbearable yoke, and the Jews tried to bring others under it as well. They kept the conscience always under the burden of a service man had never completed, and a righteousness that never satisfied God. In them the Jew had put his signature, so to speak, to his own guilt. But God destroyed that obligation and nailed it to the cross of Christ. We receive liberty as well as life and pardon.
Another writer traces the signing back to a specific moment in Israel's history:
"The handwriting of requirements that was against us" points to a legal document that binds a person by his own signature. Israel fully committed themselves to keep the law in Exodus 19:8: "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." Every honest conscience knows it should obey some standard of conduct, such as the ordinances of the law of Moses. But we find the law is against us because of our disobedience.
Commentators are careful here. The verse does not say God erased His own law. He cancelled its claim on us:
So the "handwriting in ordinances" stood against us and was contrary to us, and He has taken it out of the way. Paul is not speaking of the law itself, but of our obligation to it. That is what the "handwriting" means, and that is what the cross wipes out for us, since it was nailed there. The law is not dead, as we have seen in Romans, but we have died to it.
The cross did not push the law aside as worthless:
The cross blotted out our sins truly, but it did more than this: it also blotted out the whole system of legal ordinances which had been against us. The law was not blotted out — far from it, for it was vindicated and magnified in the death of Christ. We died from under the law in His death, and we are now under grace.
The change of pronoun matters. Paul had just told the Colossians what God had done for them. Now he speaks as one of a people who had lived under those rules:
He does not say "against you," because the Colossian believers had never been under the law and its ordinances. They had been Gentiles. He had said, "that you, being dead," were now raised; so now he says, "blotting it out against us." All that we, poor Jews, could boast in — the ordinances — were against us instead of being for us. And they are gone now.
The benefit is not locked inside one nation:
Their sins are discharged, like an account settled for ever. Christ has taken that record out of the way, "nailing it to His cross" (Col. 2:14). This is true of the Jew. It is just as true of every man who has put himself under law and then turned to Christ to have his debt to God discharged.
One writer points to the nail itself:
"Taken out of the way," with the nail run through it, so that it can never appear again against the believer.
Paul's aim is not history but freedom. One writer applies that to religious acts:
Christ has taken ordinances out of the way; it is the flesh that performs them. Let it be penance — it is the flesh that does it. But the flesh is dead. The same thing that put away sin put away ordinances. The man who had the sin and was to keep the ordinances is dead, because Christ has died. I do not need to gain a standing before God through any ordinance. Suppose I had to perform the smallest act to be complete before God. That would deny the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Signed — the "handwriting" is a written obligation that binds a person by his own signature. Israel signed it when they promised to do all the Lord had spoken.
- Against — that same signature became a record of guilt. It kept the conscience under a service never finished and a righteousness never satisfied.
- Cancelled — God did not blot out His law but our obligation to it. The law stands, and we have died to it.
- Nailed — the record was not filed away. The nail went through it, so it can never appear against the believer again.
- Free — the result is liberty along with life and pardon. Adding any religious act to complete your standing denies the perfection of Christ's work.
having spoiled principalities and authorities, he made a show of them publicly, leading them in triumph by it.
The cross looked like Christ's defeat, yet Paul calls it the moment He stripped unseen enemies and paraded them as beaten. Two questions follow: who are these rulers and authorities, and who watched the shaming?
Note: the writers below use an older translation. Where the ESV says Christ "disarmed the rulers and authorities," it says He "spoiled principalities and powers" and "made a show of them openly."
How the cross looked to onlookers and what it actually did are two different things.
Whatever these spiritual powers may be, from Satan downwards, in the cross the divine triumph has been shown. On the surface it looked like the triumph of the powers of evil. Really it was their undoing. Since this is so, we can see what verse 10 meant when it called the Lord Jesus "the Head of all principality and power." That was true not only on the ground of creation, but also on the ground of what He accomplished at the cross.
The words behind "rulers and authorities" have more than one use.
The word can describe those who hold the first place, as rulers among men (Titus 3:1). But it especially refers to the spiritual high powers in the unseen world, whether good or bad. They were created by the Lord, and He is head of them all. Col. 1:16; Col. 2:10. Some fell from the position of trust given them: they did not keep their first estate or principality. Jude 6. Others contend against the heavenly position of the saints. Eph. 6:12.
"Spoiled" means to plunder — to take from a strong man what he was holding.
One stronger than Satan spoiled his kingdom. The Lord Jesus did it when He cast demons out of the people they held, and above all when He brought Satan's power to nothing on the cross. Matt. 12:29; Mark 3:27; Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14. The Colossians were warned in case anyone should spoil them — make a prey of them — through philosophy (Col. 2:8), a caution surely needed today.
The display had an audience, though not a human one.
It was a far greater sight when the seemingly defeated Man rose from the dead, not only rebuking but scattering His spiritual foes... It was all done in the open. The triumph was over opposing evil spiritual powers, and it was public in the sight of all the holy spiritual powers.
The loss goes back to the first man, Adam. The "Second Adam" below is Christ.
When Satan defeated the first Adam, he became master of Adam's possessions and of his inheritance: "the creation was subjected to futility." Then the Second Adam defeated Satan and spoiled him of all that he had taken from the first Adam.
Kelly compares the cross with what Ephesians 4 says about Christ going up on high.
Here we have the effect of the work of Christ upon these powers — He led them in triumph on the cross. It is not so high a tone of triumph as in Ephesians 4, where it says that Christ "led a host of captives." The powers that led believers into captivity were themselves defeated... Here we hear of what was done on the cross, the power of the cross. There it is the public showing of the victory, in His going up on high. The great battle was won.
The verse is not a detour. It arms the reader against the error named a few lines later in verse 18.
We come in verse 18 to what we may call the ritualistic snare. We shall easily see that it is a snare if we go back to the truth of the cross as it was presented to us in verse 15. The only angels that desire to have our homage are evil ones. The holy angels always refuse human worship, ascribing all worship to God... Now the evil angels have been stripped and defeated at the cross. Who then would wish to worship them?
This defeat reaches daily life: accusation, temptation and death.
Does Satan come and accuse me? It is all true, but my sins are gone. God has said He will remember them no more. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Why flee? Because he has already met Christ. Is it temptation through the agreeable things of the world, or the sorrows and trials of life, or the power of death? He has been "spoiled," and as far as faith is concerned his power is gone. Death, to the believer, is only a departing to be with Christ.
- Undoing — What looked on the surface like the triumph of evil powers was in fact their undoing.
- Spoiled — The word means plundered. The stronger One took back what Satan had seized from the first Adam.
- Openly — Men saw nothing of the parade; it was public in the sight of all the holy spiritual powers.
- Therefore no angels — The evil angels were beaten at the cross, so none of them deserve our worship.
- Therefore no fear — Accusation, temptation and death lose their grip. The one behind them has already met Christ.