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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Colossians 2:8 - 2:8
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8–15. You have in Christ far more than what the false teachers promise you and demand of you, for He is superior to all spiritual powers
(Col 2:8) Be watchful not to be led astray. Many a false teacher is trying to carry you off as booty for himself by means of that philosophy of his of which you know, which is empty both intellectually and morally, which takes for its standard of conduct human tradition and worldly learning (which is really mere A, B, C), not the standard of the personal Christ. (Col 2:9) (It is a mistake to follow any such teaching) because in Christ, and in Him alone, dwells now and for ever nothing less than the sum of all the attributes of Deity, in Him incarnate, (Col 2:10) and also because you have already received all possible fulness in Him, and can get no more elsewhere than from Him, who is supreme in power over, and the one source of life to, every Power and Authority however high. (Col 2:11) Do they urge you to be circumcised? You received once for all the highest circumcision in Christ, a circumcision made without the touch of human hands, when you stripped off your body with its evil tendencies, when you received the circumcision that Christ gives; (Col 2:12) For you were buried with Christ in your baptism, in which, remember, you were also raised with Him, (not, of course, by baptism as a mere mechanical means, but) by your faith in the working of God to bring about such resurrection-life in you as He brought about in Christ’s resurrection. (Col 2:13) He raised Christ from the dead—did He not? So also did He raise you—you who were long dead, slain by your transgressions and the uncircumcised, unconsecrated, state of your bodies—but He made you alive together with Christ, at the same time forgiving (you, nay, I must say) us all our transgressions; (Col 2:14) blotting out the bond of the Law signed by our conscience, with its requirements of innumerable ritual laws and customs, which was in itself our enemy—and Christ hath taken it from its position separating us and God, nailing it up in triumph, as cancelled, to His cross; (Col 2:15) stripping Himself of all the spiritual powers who had before helped Him, and thus unreservedly showed them up in their real weakness, treating them as mere captives drawn in His train, and this on the scene of His own weakness, on His very cross.