Colossians 2 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Col 2:1-5

A. Find Out:

1. What did Paul say he was doing for all in that area? v.1
   •  I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.
2. What two things did he say he wanted to achieve? v.2a
   • My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love
3. With what consequence? v.2b
   • so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,
4. What did he say were in Christ? v.3
   •  in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
5. What did he want to avoid happening to them? v.4
   •  I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.
6. What did he say he felt about them? v.5
   • For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

B. Think:

1. What was obviously a problem that Paul feared?
2. So what did he see was the answer to that problem?
3. Yet how was that more than a merely intellectual thing?

C. Comment:

You may have gathered from the three ‘Think’ questions above that we are going to consider this passage in reverse order.   First we note the concern Paul had: that the church at Colosse might be led astray by fine sounding philosophical arguments.  There were cultic groups around in those days who worked on either mystical knowledge or on philosophical argument to create a following.  Paul knows that neither of those things is the answer, simply knowing Christ.

This is why Paul keeps on talking about the “mystery”, for there were “mystery religions” around at that time emphasising “special knowledge” that only came through them.  For Paul the mystery is the plan that God had from the foundation of the world but which had only become obvious with the coming of Jesus and the establishing of the church.

So, he says, if you want wisdom and knowledge you need to know Christ, and having received the Gospel and believed, you will go on to know Christ more and more as your hearts are encouraged and you are built together in love. Your heart needs to be touched, not only your mind.  This, says Paul, is what I am striving for with all the churches, that as you are built up in love and are encouraged, you will KNOW Christ in your daily experience.

D. Application:

1. No love? You don’t know Christ.
2. True knowledge only comes in knowing Christ.

Passage: Col 2:6-8

A. Find Out:

1. What does Paul now encourage them to do, and how? v.6
   •  So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,
2. What is to be basis for that? v.7a
   •  rooted and built up in him
3. And how are they to continue in it? v.7b,c
   • strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
4. What are they to avoid? v.8a
   •  See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,
5. Why is that wrong? v.8b
   • hich depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

B. Think:

1. What is the very basis for every Christian’s life?
2. What is the alternative that Paul warns against?
3. How might this be seen to be relationship versus rules?

C. Comment:

Already Paul has warned them against being led astray by fine sounding arguments (v.4), and so now, as a good teacher, he repeats that warning.  Paul knows that in the world people come up with lots of weird and wonderful ideas, self-help methods, philosophical ideas that focus on self, and mystic ideas that dwell on unknown elements in the world.  That was how it was then and that is exactly how it is today.  People will come up with and bright idea focused on man rather than submit to the will of God. That’s what sin is all about!

Paul reminds these believers how they started out and encourages them to go on in the same way.  When they received the Gospel they received Jesus Christ as Lord, the one who would rule over their entire lives as their Redeemer-Saviour.  It was a matter of relationship.   That’s how you started says Paul so make sure you continue like that, being built up in (your relationship with) Christ, a relationship that is based on faith and results in joy and thanksgiving. ,This is what you were called to, so make sure you don’t getting led astray to anything else.

We need the same warning today.  Get back to fundamentals!   Get back to your relationship with Jesus Christ.  Don’t let any variation creep in that is based on human thinking or human origins.

D. Application:

1. Our faith is all about our relationship with God through Jesus.
2. Our faith has divine origins, not human reasoning.

Passage: Col 2:9-12

A. Find Out:

1. How is Christ first described? v.9
   • For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
2. What have we been given? v.10a
   • and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.
3. How is Christ then described? v.10b
   • He is the head over every power and authority.
4. What has also happened to us? v.11
   •  In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ,
5. How have we been ‘buried’ with Christ? v.12a
   •  having been buried with him in baptism
6. How have we been ‘raised with him’? v.12b
   • in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

B. Think:

1. What do these verses tell us about Christ?
2. What do they tell us about the reality of what’s happened to us?
3. How should this help us in our daily walk with God?

C. Comment:

As opposed to the foolish ways of thinking in the world, Paul now reminds us what the truth is about Christ and about ourselves.  In Christ God lived in human form.  Not a stunted or limited form of God, but really God!   Because of that and because of what Christ achieved on the Cross, Christ is now the head over all things while he reigns until he has put all things under his feet, when he will hand it all back to the Father (1 Cor 15:24,25).  This is the one who lives in us by his Spirit.

Now it’s probable that some of the opposition that Paul was thinking about was from the Jewish circumcision party, so he tells us that all of us Christians HAVE been circumcised, not in a physical way but in a spiritual way, that is real circumcision.   It’s the cutting off of the old life that took place when we were saved.   The old sinful nature is thus dead, cut off (see also Rom 6, esp. v.6,11).  

But it’s not just a removing of the old it’s also a receiving of power to live for God, to live a completely new life.  When we were baptised that was a picture of us dying and being buried, the old life going, but when we were lifted up it was also a picture of the new resurrected life that we have been given by God through Christ.   THAT is the power living in us today!

D. Application:

1. The old has been cut off.   It has gone.    Rejoice in that.
2. God’s power is in us to help and change us today.   Thank Him.

Passage: Col 2:13-15

A. Find Out:

1. What 2 descriptions of our past are given? v.13a
   • When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
2. What 2 things has God then done? v.13b
   • God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,
3. What has He cancelled? v.14a
   •  having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us;
4. What had He done with it? v.14b
   • he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
5. What had He done with the enemy? v.15a
   •  And having disarmed the powers and authorities
6. What did He then do with them? v.15b
   • he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

B. Think:

1. What was our past state?
2. How has God changed that?
3. What was His means of doing that?

C. Comment:

Paul now continues to express what he has already said, that God has set us free from the sinful nature by the work of the Cross and the power of His Spirit. Now he focuses more on the work of the Cross.

First he states WHAT WE HAD BEEN LIKE – we were spiritually dead and had no hope of a future because of the wrong things we did (our sins) and because of the sinful nature that was at our core, that drove us to do those things.    But God changed this!

So then he declares WHAT GOD HAS DONE – He’s made us alive and forgiven us.   He has brought us life so that we have become spiritually alive and we now have an eternal future, we are now fully functioning spiritual beings.   But more than that, we are not guilty, condemned spiritual beings, we are forgiven spiritual beings.  The life we live we live without a haunted, hunted look, forever fearful because of our guilt.  No, we’re new and we’re free!

Then He says HOW GOD ACHIEVED THIS – He took all the Law’s requirements to obey the Law, and it’s subsequent failure, and nailed it to the Cross, so all failure was paid for by Christ.  Therefore He took away all grounds of accusation that the enemy might have against us, and then raised Christ as a sign of His approval of his achievement.

D. Application:

1. Christ took our guilt, shame & punishment. We’re free!
2. Christ gave us his Spirit. We have new life!

Passage: Col 2:16-19

A. Find Out:

1. What were they to not let happen? v.16
   • Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
2. What were these things? v.17
   •  These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
3. What again were they not to let happen? v.18a
   • Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you.
4. What does such a person do? v.18b
   • Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.
5. What has happened to that person? v.19a
   •  They have lost connection with the head,
6. What should be happening to the body? v.19b
   • from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

B. Think:

1. How may behaviour be sometime, that leads us from the truth?
2. How may asceticism also lead us astray?
3. How may we overcome the temptations to these?

C. Comment:

In v.8 Paul warned against human philosophy and in v.14 he said rule keeping has been abolished as the basis for faith. Now he warns against other things that detract and lead us from the faith.

First, he warns against those who would restrict us in respect of eating or drinking. Restriction on these have nothing to do with faith (greed & drunkenness are still to be avoided).  Then there are those who would keep special days as if somehow doing that earns special merit.  No, says Paul, where such days were prescribed in the past, they were merely a shadow of what was to come, where 365 days a year are special because of our relationship with God through Jesus.

Then there as the ascetics, who delight in false humility. The history of the church was littered with such people who tried to be humble, tried to be pious, but found it was all self and didn’t work.

Finally, he mentions people who claim to have a special relationship with God because they’ve seen angels. In all of these cases the person in question has lost contact with Jesus, the head of the body, his church. When we keep close to the rest of the body (for correction) and in direct relationships with Jesus, then we will see these things for what they truly are.

D. Application:

1. The Cross, not rule-keeping is the basis of our faith.
2. “Doing things” is not what impresses God. Faith does.

Passage: Col 2:20-23

A. Find Out:

1. What HAVE we done? v.20a
   • Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world
2. Yet what were these believers doing? v.20b,21
   • why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’?
3. What is the destiny of these things? v.22a
   • These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use
4. Why? v.22b
   • are based on merely human commands and teachings.
5. How do such regulations appear? v.23a
   • Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body,
6. Yet what is their lack? v.23b
   • but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

B. Think:

1. What sort of “Christian approach” is out according to Paul?
2. Why?
3. What place do you think rules have therefore?

C. Comment:

Throughout this chapter Paul has been arguing against the form of Christianity that focuses on “keeping the rules”.   Here he sums up his opposition to rule keeping.   Rule keeping he says belongs to the world.  They are the ones who say “You mustn’t do this or that”, but you died to their way of working when you came alive to God, so don’t follow their way any longer.

Why does he say this?  He gives two reasons.  First because they are HUMAN commands, the product of human thinking, and as such their life is limited!  Second, they are deception!  They give an appearance of wisdom but in fact they have no power to restrain self-centred indulgence.

In many parts of the church rule keeping is the prevalent form of Christianity, and yet the apostle Paul was adamant that trying to always keep the rules was no good in producing a holy life. Why? Because rule keeping guarantees failure and failure quenches faith.  No, the form of Christianity shown in the New Testament focuses on WHO we are rather than what we do.   Rule keeping happens automatically when you know who you are and who you are related to.   When your heart is filled with love for Jesus, you will live righteously.

D. Application:

1. Making rules the focus of our lives only brings failure.
2. Focus on Jesus brings release of life and righteous living.