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Col_2:11. Respecting the connection and its reference to the false teachers, so far as they “Iegem evangelio miscebant” (Calvin), see on Col_2:10.
ἐν ᾧ ] like ἐν αὐτῷ in Col_2:10 : on whom it also causally depends that ye, etc. This applies to the point of time of their entrance into the union with Christ, as is clear from the historical περιετμ ., which took place on them through their conversion (comp. Col_2:12).
καί ] also circumcised were ye. The καί is the simple also, which, however, does not introduce an element included under πεπληρωμ . ἐστε (Hofmann), but to the previous relative statement ( ὅς ἐστιν κ . τ . λ .) appends another; comp. Col_2:12. Hofmann’s objection, that the foregoing relative statement has indeed reference to the readers, but is made without reference to them, is an empty subtlety, which is connected with the erroneous rendering of πάσης ἀρχῆς κ . ἐξουσ .
περιτομῇ ἀχειροπ .] is not supplementary and parenthetical (Hofmann), as if Paul had written περιτομῇ δὲ ἀχειροπ ., but appends immediately to περιετμηθ . its characteristic, whereby it is distinguished from what is elsewhere meant by circumcision; hence the thought is: “in your union with Christ there has also taken place a circumcision upon you (Gentiles), which is not (like the Jewish circumcision) the work of hands;” comp. Eph_2:11. On the word ἀχειροπ . itself (which is similar to ἀχειρούργητος , Poll. ii. 154), in analogous antithetical reference, comp. Mar_14:58; 2Co_5:1; and on the idea of the inner ethical circumcision, of which the bodily is the type, comp. Deu_10:16; Deu_30:6; Eze_44:7; Act_7:51. See Michaelis in loc., and the expositors on Rom_2:29; Schoettgen, Hor. I. p. 815.
ἐν τῇ ἀπεκδύσει κ . τ . λ .] This characteristic περειτμήθητε περιτ . ἀχειρ . took place by means of the putting off of the body of the flesh, which was accomplished in your case (observe the passive connection), i.e. in that the body, whose essence and nature are flesh, was taken off and put away from you by God.[96] With reference to ἐν τῇ ἀπεκδύσει κ . τ . λ ., which is to be coupled not merely with ΠΕΡΙΕΤΜΉΘΗΤΕ (Hofmann), but with the entire specifically defined conception of circumcision ΠΕΡΙΕΤΜ . ΠΕΡΙΤ . ἈΧΕΙΡΟΠ ., it is to be noticed: (1) that the genitive Τῆς ΣΆΡΚΟς is the genitivus materiae, as in Col_1:22; (2) that the σάρξ here is not indifferent, but means the flesh as the seat of sin, and of its lusts and strivings (Rom_7:23; Rom_7:25; Rom_8:3; Rom_8:13; Gal_5:16; Eph_2:3; Col_3:5, et al.); so that Paul (3) might have conveyed the idea of τὸ σῶμα τῆς σαρκ . also by ΤῸ ΣῶΜΑ Τῆς ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑς (Rom_6:6), but the description by Τῆς ΣΑΡΚΌς was suggested to him by the thought of the circumcision (Rom_2:28; Eph_2:11). (4) The significant and weighty expression ἈΠΕΚΔΎΣΕΙ (the substantive used only here, the verb also in Col_2:15; Col_3:9; Josephus, Antt. vi. 14. 2) is selected in contrast to the operation of the legal circumcision, which only wounded the σῶμα τ . σαρκός and removed a portion of one member of it; whereas the spiritual circumcision, divinely performed, consisted in a complete parting and doing away with this body, in so far as God, by means of this ethical circumcision, has taken off and removed the sinful body from man (the two acts are expressed by the double compound), like a garment which is drawn off and laid aside. Ethically circumcised, i.e. translated by conversion from the estate of sin into that of the Christian life of faith and righteousness (see Col_2:12), consequently born again as καινὴ κτίσις ,[97] as a καινὸς ἄνθρωπος created after God (Eph_4:24), man has no longer any σῶμα τῆς σαρκός at all, because the body which he has is rid of the sinful ΣΆΡΞ as such, as regards its sinful quality; he is no longer ἘΝ Τῇ ΣΑΡΚΊ as previously, when lust ἘΝΗΡΓΕῖΤΟ ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ΜΈΛΕΣΙΝ (Rom_7:5; comp. Col_2:23); he is no longer ΣΆΡΚΙΝΟς , ΠΕΠΡΑΜΈΝΟς ὙΠῸ ΤῊΝ ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑΝ (Rom_7:14), but is dead for sin (Rom_6:11); he has crucified the ΣΆΡΞ (Gal_5:24), and no longer walks ΚΑΤᾺ ΣΆΡΚΑ , but ἘΝ ΚΑΙΝΌΤΗΤΙ ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΟς (Rom_7:6); by the law of the Holy Spirit he is freed from the law of sin and death (Rom_8:2), ἘΝ ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΙ (Rom_8:9), dead with Christ (Gal_2:19; 2Co_5:14; Col_3:3), and risen, so that his members are ὍΠΛΑ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΎΝΗς Τῷ ΘΕῷ (Rom_6:13). This Christian transformation is represented in its ideal aspect, which disregards the empirical imperfection, according to which the σάρξ is still doubtless even in the regenerate at variance with the ΠΝΕῦΜΑ (Gal_5:17). Our dogmatists well describe regeneration as perfecta a parte Dei, but as imperfecta a parte hominum recipientium. To take σῶμα in the sense of massa or aggregate (Calvin, Grotius, Calovius, and others, including Steiger and Bähr[98]), is opposed as well to the context, in which the discourse turns upon circumcision and (Col_2:12) upon burial and resurrection, as also to the linguistic usage of the N. T. In classic authors it expresses the notion in question in the physical sense, e.g. Plat. Tim. p. 32 C: τὸ τοῦ κόσμου σῶμα (comp. p. 31 B, Hipp. maj. p. 301 B), and in later writers may also denote generally a whole consisting of parts (comp. Cicero, ad Att. 2:1. 4). In opposition to the erroneous assumption that σῶμα must have a figurative meaning here, as Julius Müller, v. d. Sünde, I. p. 459 f., still in the 5th ed., thinks,[99] see on Rom_6:6; comp. also Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 560 f.
ἐν τῇ περιτομῇ τοῦ Χ .] by means of the circumcision of Christ, parallel to the previous ἐν τῇ ἀπεκσύσει κ . τ . λ ., naming specifically (as different from that of the Old Testament) the circumcision described previously according to its nature. The genitive τοῦ Χριστοῦ is to be rendered: the circumcision, which is produced through Christ. The context requires this by the further explanation of the thing itself in Col_2:12. Comp. above, ἐν ᾧ . But Christ is not conceived of as Himself the circumciser, in so far, namely, as by baptism (Theophylact, Beza, and others), or by His Spirit (Bleek), He accomplishes the cleansing and sanctification of man (see on Col_2:12); but as the One through whom, in virtue of the effective living union that takes place in conversion between man and Himself, this divine περιτομή , in its character specifically different from the Israelite circumcision, is practically brought about and rendered a reality, and in so far it is based on Christ as its αἴτιος (Theodoret). It is not, however, baptism itself (Hofmann, following older expositors) that is meant by the circumcision of Christ, although the predicate ἀχειροπ . would not be in opposition to this view, but the spiritual transformation, that consecration of a holy state of life, which takes place in baptism; see Col_2:12 : ἐν τῷ βαπτίσματι . According to Schneckenburger, in the Theol. Jahrb. 1848, p. 286 ff., the ἀπέκδυσις τ . σώμ . τ . σαρκ . is meant of the death of Christ, and also the περιτομὴ τοῦ Χ . is meant to denote this death, so that the latter is an explanation by way of application of the former, in opposition to the heretical recommendation of a bodily or mystical περιτομή . It may be decisively urged against this view, that after τῆς σαρκός there is no αὐτοῦ , (comp. Col_1:22), which was absolutely necessary, if the reader was to think of another subject than that of περιετμήθητε ; further, that τῇ ἀκροβυστίᾳ τῆς σαρκὸς ὑμῶν , in Col_2:13, stands in significant retrospective reference to the ἀπέκδυσις τ . σώμ . τῆς σαρκός ; and that συνταφέντες κ . τ . λ . in Col_2:12 is synchronous with περιετμήθητε κ . τ . λ ., and represents substantially the same thing. Moreover, the description of the death of Christ as His circumcision would be all the more inappropriate, since, in the case of Christ, the actual circumcision was not absent. According to Holtzmann, the entire clause: ἐν τ . ἀπεκδ . τοῦ σώμ . τ . σαρκ ., ἐν τ . περιτ . τ . Χ ., should be deleted as an addition of the interpolator, because the expression σῶμα τῆς σαρκός has occurred at Col_1:22 in quite another—namely, an indifferent, genuinely Pauline—reference. This reason is incorrect, because in Col_1:22 it is not τῆς σαρκός , but τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ , and this αὐτοῦ makes the great essential difference between the expression in that passage and that employed in our present one.
[96] Compare Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 171. The same writer, however, now objects that ἀπέκδυσις cannot have passive significance. But this it is not alleged to have: God is the ἀπεκδύων i.e. He who, as author of regeneration, puts off from man the body of flesh.
[97] The epoch of this transformation is baptism (see Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p. 439, ed. 2; comp. Holtzmann, p. 178), by which, however, the baptism of Christian, children is by no means assumed as the antitype of circumcision (Steiger, Philippi). Comp. on 1Co_7:14; Act_16:15.
[98] Comp. also Philippi, Glaubensl. V. 2, p. 225, who declares my explanation to be forced, without proof, and contrary to the Scripture; and Reiche, Comm. crit. p. 274, who understands σῶμα of the “toto quasi vitiositatis ( τ . σαρκός ) corpore,” so that the putting away of all immorality is denoted. Similarly Dalmer.
[99] Müller also holds that Paul here conceives the old sinful nature as a body which, in regeneration, the Christian puts off; and that σάρξ is to be understood only of the earthly-human life.