By far, the most important question that can be asked by a man or a woman has to do with the reality of eternity: Can I live forever? The Old Testament Patriarch Job asked that question this way, “If a man dies, will he live again?” (Job 14:14). Once we arrive at the conclusion that the human soul has eternal existence the next question is: What must I do to have eternal life? That question was asked by an unnamed government employee in the New Testament who said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). In another example, a group of people listened carefully as a preacher concluded his sermon with the words, “Know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ–this Jesus whom you crucified.” Feeling the full weight of true guilt for their arrogant disobedience and spiritual blindness, and being under deep conviction, they asked the preacher, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:36-37).
To this group, the Apostle Peter responded, “Repent and be saved from this perverse generation.” To the jailer of Philippi, the Apostle Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” These examples clearly mark the focus of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as His crucifixion, His burial, and His resurrection, and that is to save souls and grant them everlasting life. Certainly, you know this from the familiar verse in John’s gospel, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Whoever believes in Him will have eternal life, that is why God gave Jesus His Son.
The salvation Jesus gives is a complete salvation. Absolutely nothing else needs to be added. This one, true salvation given by Jesus by grace, does not need to be supplemented by false human philosophy, psychology, rituals, mysticism, self-denial, or any human work. According to Colossians 2:10, in Jesus Christ we have been made complete. If you have trusted in Jesus for your salvation, you are completely and eternally saved. The Scriptures teach us, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
In these verses in the second chapter of Colossians, Paul explained this great salvation that is supplied by the Lord Jesus Christ. First, he tells us salvation in Christ is a complete salvation and that no human effort is necessary to receive it or to keep it. Everything required for eternal salvation has already been provided by the Lord Jesus. Second, He provides a complete forgiveness. When He forgives our sins, all of them, past, present, and future, are completely pardoned and removed forever. And, third, salvation in Jesus Christ gives to each believer a complete triumph. All believers live in a constant state of victory because Jesus has triumphed over Satan and the powers of darkness. We begin by considering our complete salvation in Christ.
SALVATION IS COMPLETE IN CHRIST. Colossians 2:11-12
The False Teaching of Legalism. We recall the text from Acts 15 where false teachers came to the church in Syrian Antioch teaching the Christians, Jew and Gentile alike, that “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Understand that they were imposing a human work as a requirement for eternal salvation. Unless you acquiesced to this work, there could be no salvation. Although the first church council agreed with the Apostle Peter, that, Gentiles and Jews “are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus,” this false teaching continued to be taught to Christians in churches.
Legalism is the act of putting law above the gospel by teaching requirements for salvation beyond repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Ultimately, it creates a system that obligates God to bless those who have proven themselves worthy. The legalist claims he or she can do things that merit God’s favor. But this is contrary to the Bible’s teaching. Isaiah tells us that “All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment” (Isaiah 64:6), and Jeremiah reminds us that “the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). Paul tells us that “there is none righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10), and “all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). And since we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), there is no good thing we can do to show we deserve God’s grace. For the unredeemed, every supposed good deed is done by an evil, unregenerate heart and is therefore corrupt and unclean. No one does good. Anyone who tries to earn God’s favor by doing good works only deepens the condemnation on themselves.
In the Old Testament, God established circumcision as a sign of His covenant with Abraham in Genesis seventeen, but circumcision did not save Abraham, that was not its intention. Abraham was saved by faith in God in Genesis fifteen when Scripture says, Abraham “believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Salvation came to Abraham by faith and in no other way. Paul speaks of the spiritual circumcision of Christ. We know he means spiritual circumcision because it is done “without hands”. Moses spoke of this spiritual circumcision when he said, “So circumcise your heart and stiffen your neck no longer” (Deuteronomy 10:16). This spiritual action was done by the Lord Jesus immediately when we received Christ and all the benefits of His death, burial and resurrection were applied to us. God has always been more concerned with a person’s heart and not external, physical rites.
This spiritual circumcision was done by the Lord Jesus, not by human works. It was in fact a crucifixion or putting off of the body, a circumcision of the heart. The unbeliever’s sinful nature is decisively put off by Christ’s death and resurrection. What people were in Adam, sinful, fallen, and corrupt, was destroyed by Christ. Now in Christ a believer is a new creation. Believers are given a new authority for his or her life, not the Law of Moses but the life of Jesus Christ.
Buried with Christ. At the moment of salvation, the new believer is “buried” in Christ. The baptism here is our baptism in the Holy Spirit, immersing us in the Lord Jesus Christ. To speak of water baptism here would be as superfluous as circumcision as a rite for salvation. Water baptism simply paints a picture of what has happened in the believer’s life.
Believers were buried with Him indicating our death to sin. Paul wrote in Romans six, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” The verb “having been buried” is passive and shows this is the work of God, not the believer. When a person receives Christ as Savior, they are immediately identified with the death and burial of Christ.
Raised Up with Christ. From God’s point of view, He has already identified the believer in Christ as risen from the dead. The moment you invited Jesus to come into your life, God declared that you have already been raised with Christ. The resurrection then becomes an active principle in the believer’s life. It is not an action God will do at some later date; believers are already in a continuous state of being raised up with the Lord Jesus.
And please notice, that this was an action that happened through the “working of God.” No human effort, work, or ritual at all but only God’s power gave each believer this blessing. So to counter the legalists’ claims that good works were needed, Paul contends that all that is necessary to be accepted by God has already been done for the believer by the Lord Jesus. Each and every believer, man, woman, and child, has been eternally identified in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is true salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
FORGIVENESS IS COMPLETE IN CHRIST. Colossians 2:13-14
Made Alive. Having explained how Christians are saved by God’s grace through Jesus Christ, Paul now turns to two benefits immediately granted to each believer at the instant of salvation. The first is our complete forgiveness and the second is our eternal triumph in Christ. Paul reminds us that we were dead in our transgressions and the uncircumcision of our flesh. The death of which he speaks is a spiritual death, unbelief and disobedience that had closed us off from God and we could not know Him. I am sure that you will remember that in the Garden of Eden, God told Adam that if he disobeyed and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day he would surely die. As soon as Adam sinned, he was plunged into spiritual death and darkness and that is the condition all people find themselves unless they receive Christ as Savior.
But, in Christ, something amazing happens. At the moment of salvation, God removes the sentence of death and gives the believing sinner life. He makes us alive together with Christ. Christ is our life and in giving us life, we are eternally secure because this life is eternal life and it is guaranteed by Jesus forever.
Forgiven All Our Transgressions. After preaching a sermon some years ago, a man came up to me and told me there was no hope for him. He was too great a sinner and had done too many bad things and that he was beyond forgiveness. But look carefully at this verse. There is no restriction on the number or depravity of sin, only that when someone believes in Jesus, all of them are forgiven.
This forgiveness is completely apart from any human work. Forgiveness is what guilty sinners need to be made right with God. What sins does God forgive? All of them. None remain to corrupt the eternal relationship the believer has with God. From the cross the Lord Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). In Christ alone we can be eternally forgiven. David wrote, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity” (Psalm 32:1-2).
The Certificate of Debt. Paul then gave a picture of the wonder of God’s great forgiveness. To do that, we are going to go back in time to the day of our Savior’s crucifixion. There, on Mount Calvary, the soldiers have placed the Lord Jesus on the cross and proceeded to nail both of His hands to the cross as well as His feet. Three nails have secured the Son of God to that old cross. But then, there was a fourth nail. What was that for?
It seems that in the first century, when a prisoner was executed for a capital crime, a certificate explaining his guilt was nailed to the cross above his head. In this case, John 19:19 tells us, “Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.” A soldier, with the fourth nail, fastened our Lord’s death warrant to the cross. It was His certificate of debt. And He paid it with His death.
Paul said God nailed our certificate of debt to the cross of Jesus. This certificate included all of our sins and transgression: past, present, and future. Included on this certificate is the decrees against us, proclaiming our guilt, and declaring that we must pay for our sins through our own condemnation and eternal death. But something else happened. Jesus took it out of the way. How? By nailing it to His cross. Our sins were placed on Him. He paid for our guilt. He took the penalty for our sins upon Himself. How? Through His death on the cross. Believers are forgiven from all their sins and their guilt is forever removed and there is no longer any penalty. Not because of any works or rituals or sacraments but only because of what Jesus did by dying on the cross for us. And now, through Him, our sins are gone.
TRIUMPH IS COMPLETE IN CHRIST. Colossians 2:15
Disarmed the Rulers. Jesus not only dealt with our sin and debt on the cross, but He also dealt with Satan. Speaking about His crucifixion, Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). The death of Christ on the cross looked like a great victory for Satan, instead it turned out to be the great defeat from which Satan can never recover.
Jesus accomplished three great victories on the cross. First, He disarmed the powers and authorities, depriving Satan and his army of whatever weapons they held. Satan can no longer harm the believer. Second, Jesus made a public display of the enemy, exposing Satan’s deceit and vileness. In His death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ vindicated God and vanquished the devil. The writer of Hebrews tells us, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Triumphant in Jesus. Our Lord’s third victory is found in the word triumph. Whenever a Roman general won a great victory on foreign soil, took many captives and many treasures, and gained new territory for Rome, he was honored by an official parade known as the Roman triumph. Jesus Christ won a complete victory, and He returned to glory in a great triumphal procession. In this, He disgraced and defeated Satan. Salvation in Jesus allows you and I to share in His victory over the devil. The satanic armies of principalities and powers are defeated and disgraced! As we claim the victory of Christ, we use the resources He has provided for us and trust Him, we are free from the influence of the devil.
Paul has told us that by believing in Jesus Christ, we are given a complete salvation, are completely forgiven, and are totally triumphant. The Scriptures say, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” All of our blessings come through Jesus Christ. Nothing needs to be added, thus allowing us to glorify the Lord who has done all of this for us.
As we prepare our hearts to partake of the Lord’s Table today, let us take a few moments to worship and express our gratitude to the Lord for His great salvation. And if you have never received Christ as your Savior and Lord, I urge you to do that now, as we pray.
