You have been made complete in Christ

All people look for fulfilment. The most look for it in the things that are able to bring fulfilment the least. Others look for it in career, in studies, in human glory which is known as “empty” in the Bible. God teaches us in the Bible that we can have true fulfilment only in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have been made complete. The problem is that most people and a big part of Christians overlook the treasures of fulfilment which they have in Christ and they run after unworthy things, things of no value, after garbage. They behave as they don’t know that we have been made complete in Him. Here is what specifically we have in Christ:

All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge

Apostle Paul wrote his epistle to Colossians because Christians from that city were attacked by many heresies, one of which were gnostics. This very harmful teaching was initiated by those who had practised Greek philosophy before that knew Christ. They didn’t want to renounce to their old teachings trying to combine them with Christianity. So they were telling that it is not sufficient to believe in Christ the way He is described in the Old Testament and in the teaching of the apostles, that is the New Testament. They were saying that in order to become a truly spiritual man you have to gain a cognition of a special wisdom and knowledge, which was called “gnosis”, that is cognititon. That’s why Paul wrote to Colossians this way:

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. (Colossians 2:1–4)(NASB)

Further on in the same chapter he would warn them for three more times with regard to this evil people and their teachings. The next warning had dealings with the same subject of “full wisdom and knowledge”, that heretics were promising. The Apostle says:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority. (Colossians 2:8–10)(NASB)

When one comes up with understanding and realizing that he has access to all treasures of wisdom and knowledge of God through Christ, will try to know the Savior more and more and he will dedicate himself to studying the Holy Scriptures. We have also in Jesus Christ…

The true circumcision

Circumcision is a simple operation where the foreskin from the male sexual organ is removed. This practice was insituted by God and let to Abraham and his descendants as a sign of rememberance about the covenant between God and them. This sign had to remind everyone who had it that he had to live a holy life before Him. As time went on Jewish people began to consider that physical circumcision as the pledge of salvation and they didn’t pay attention to the covenant let by God according to which, salvation was only by faith in Jesus Christ. Today it is the same way; many Christians in name only, consider that they will enter the Kingdom of heavens only because they have been baptized and it is written about this in the records of the church. What a great deceit.

In the first century, in the beginning of the church Christians were supposed to a great attack of the judaists, another heresy, that said again that it is not sufficient to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is also necessary to be circumcised if you want to inherit the Kingdom of heavens and eternal life. That’s why, Apostle Paul teaches people continuously and he writes in the Epistle to Colossians that only those who believe from all their heart in Jesus Christ have the true circumcision:

In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions. (Colossians 2:11–13)(NASB)

The true circumcision consists in the removal of the body of flesh and we, those who have believed in Christ, were also circumcised this way. Who and what could give such a realization in this world? Only Christ who performed…

Forgiveness of our sins

This is the thing that makes us glad the most. The Lord Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice on the cross performed a complete forgiveness for us and He cleaned up our sins totally, as the Scripture says:

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13–14)(NASB)

We have forgiveness of all our sins in Christ. Only so we can become children of God and make up the Church whose Head is Christ and through Him we have…

The Growth of the Church

Apostle Paul mentiones this truth in the context of two other warnings that he said to the Christians from Colossae, and that is:

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day– things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. (Colossians 2:16–19)(NASB)

In Christ and through Christ the whole Church and each Christian receives spiritual growth. That’s why we have to stick close to Him.

We have been made complete in Christ!

Translated by Djugostran Felicia