Colossians 2:6–15

Original Meaning

Loyalty to Christ the Lord (2:6–7)

THE OPENING STATEMENT of this section affirms that the Colossians have “received Christ Jesus as Lord” and distinguishes them from their opponents.4 They recognize that Jesus is the Lord, not a divine hero, or a lesser household god, or a member of a pantheon of lords. Since they are bound to him as Lord, they are also bound to be obedient to him. Jesus requires that their conduct be consistent with his lordship.5 Being in Christ, therefore, transforms the way Christians live.6 After warning them in 2:8, 16–23 against the enticing detours offered by opponents, which would divert them from their sole allegiance to Christ and mire them in spiritual quicksand, Paul returns in 3:1–4:6 to directions on how believers should live.

In 2:7, Paul lists four characteristics of what it means “to live in [the Lord]” (2:6), each expressed with a participle. The first participle (“rooted”) appears in the perfect tense (expressing the continuing results of an action completed in the past); the next three (“built up,” “strengthened,” and “overflowing”) are in the present tense. Paul attests that what believers have been taught (see 1:7) has effectively “rooted” them in the faith. The image in this word recalls Jeremiah’s blessing on the one who trusts in the Lord and whose confidence is in him (Jer. 17:8):

He will be like a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit.

The next characteristic mixes metaphors, moving from a plant being rooted to a building being constructed in him. The root as a plant’s foundation perhaps inspired the merging of the two images (see 1 Cor. 3:9; Eph. 3:17). “Being built” implies that believers are still under construction and not yet a finished product.

The third characteristic, “strengthened in the faith,” could mean that the Colossians are strengthened by their faith or with respect to their faith. The two options are not mutually exclusive. As we are strengthened in the faith, our faith strengthens us. These first three participles are in the passive voice, “implying that divine action is essential in Christian growth.”7 Paul’s readers have not rooted themselves, built up themselves, or strengthened themselves; God has.

The fourth characteristic, “overflowing with thankfulness,” is in the active voice and means that God’s action in the lives of Christians should evoke overwhelming thanksgiving. As luxuriant green leaves are a sign of a healthy plant, profuse thanksgiving is “the unfailing mark of a healthy spiritual life.”8 Those who bubble over with gratitude for what God has already done are not easy prey to anxiety and doubt. They have no need or desire to look for fulfillment elsewhere and cannot be taken in by false promises or shaken by bigoted detractors.

Bridging Contexts

THIS PASSAGE COMBINES the first warning to the Colossians about the “hollow and deceptive philosophy” (2:8) they were facing with a forceful reminder of what they have received through Christ when they were baptized in him (2:9–15). The theological emphasis falls on three vital issues. (1) Paul stresses the all-sufficiency of Christ for our salvation. Christ is the one in whom “all the fullness of the Deity lives” (2:9) and who is “head over every power and authority” (2:9). His preeminence over all creation should eliminate any qualms that other deliverers might be required. His death and resurrection are the definitive means by which God has reconciled the world, and Christians who have been baptized into that death will be raised from death with him. We need no other mediator except Christ.

(2) Paul emphasizes that God has provided Christians complete forgiveness and fullness in Christ. All charges against us were eradicated by his sacrificial death. Consequently, Christians need not seek any other nostrums promising salvation or make vain attempts to cancel the debt with something they do themselves. We can only have forgiveness in Christ and need no other “fullness” except the fullness given us in Christ.

(3) Paul affirms that God, through Christ’s cross and resurrection, routed all of the threatening powers arrayed against us. This victory should allay any fears that these powers still have any mastery over Christians. We need no other power except the power of Christ.

The message presented in 2:6–15 is central to the Christian faith. Christians need to hear it repeatedly so that it becomes so much a part of our understanding of the world and ourselves that we will not become prey to false religious propaganda from rival religionists or secularists. The problem, however, is that Paul couches this basic Christian message in imagery that is foreign to most modern readers. Our unfamiliarity with his metaphors makes this text more difficult to translate and to interpret. Three issues in this text deserve particular attention in spanning the bridge from the first century to our modern culture: what Paul means by “receiv[ing] Christ Jesus as Lord” (2:6), what he means by “the circumcision of Christ” (lit.) (2:11), and what is the nature of a “hollow and deceptive philosophy” (2:8). After examining these issues, we will then look at the difficult problem of bridging the meaning of ta stoicheia tou kosmou (“elemental spirits”/“basic principles”) and the fear of “powers and authorities.”

Receiving Christ Jesus as Lord. Wright warns of the danger of interpreting the phrase “receiving Christ Jesus as Lord” anachronistically. Today, evangelical Christians use this phrase to mean “to become a Christian.” Believers receive Christ by inviting him “to enter their hearts and life.” The verb “to receive” (paralambano) in 2:6, however, is a technical term taken over from Judaism that refers to “the transmission of teaching from one person or generation to another” (see 1 Cor. 11:2; 15:1–5; Phil. 4:9; 1 Thess. 4:1; 2 Thess. 3:6). This understanding connects it to the clause “as you were taught” (2:7).56 The phrase refers “to the Colossians’ acceptance of the proclamation of Jesus the Lord, to their consequent confession of faith, and to their new status as members of Christ’s body (see 2:19).”57

Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” parallels what Paul says to the Colossians 2:6, 11–12. The Colossians have “received” the proclamation about Christ the Lord: He died for them (Paul uses the image of circumcision and stripping off his physical body), was buried, and was raised. Having received the crucial facts of what Christ has done for them, the Colossians must continue to live (present imperative) in him.

Dunn appeals to this text to argue against the view that Paul had little interest in Jesus’ life and ministry apart from his death and resurrection. Modern scholars have reached this conclusion because Paul so rarely refers to events in Jesus’ life or to his teaching. Dunn makes an important observation that if the Colossians believed that Christ Jesus was Lord, “it would have been necessary for some information to be given about this Jesus and his ministry in the Jewish homeland.”58 In strong language he declares:

It is scarcely credible, that a new movement could be gathered round a single name without a story being told to identify that name and explain its significance and thus to provide foundation (note the metaphor used in 2:7) and identity for the movement itself. And to Gentiles living in Asia Minor, but aware of Judaism and perhaps attracted to its practices (cf. particularly 2:16), that story must have included a fair amount about Jesus’ life and ministry (which had taken place less than thirty years earlier) and not just the bare fact of his death and resurrection.59

Paul believed that the historical traditions about Jesus, what he said and did, provided the foundation and the guidelines for the Colossians’ life as they must continue to do for ours. The salvation stories behind the popular ancient mystery religions competing with early Christianity were rooted in ahistorical myths. By contrast, the story of Christianity is rooted in history, and it can be summarized in a nutshell: Christ died under Pontius Pilate, was buried, and was raised on the third day by God’s power. The Colossians had “received” these facts surrounding the death of Christ and were rooted, built up, and established in the faith. It is one thing to assent to the facts that Christ gave his life for us and was raised by God, however; it is quite another thing for that truth to permeate our whole lives so that it controls all that we think and do.

Paul encourages his readers to understand more fully what those facts mean for their salvation and to allow this new reality to penetrate their soul and being so that it bursts forth in thanksgiving to God. He recognizes that when Christians fully appreciate the significance of the facts of their salvation, they are more thankful to God for all that they have been given and less vulnerable to the “put downs” or “come ons” of competing ideologies. On the other hand, if Christians take for granted, shrug off, or forget what they have received about Christ, they become easy marks for unsound “philosophies” to take them captive with false promises and enchantments. Consequently, the doctrine about what God has accomplished for us in Christ must be engraved on our minds so that it continually inspires and sustains our lives.

The circumcision of Christ. The particular Colossian situation prompted Paul’s reference to the circumcision we have received in Christ (2:11). He chose this unusual metaphor to describe Christ’s death to combat the opponents’ notions about circumcision. Modern readers are likely to find it confusing. As we understand the Colossian situation, the church had been challenged by errant and truculent local Jews, who refused to accept the validity of the Gentile Christians’ hope in Christ.

Such Jewish antagonists presumably argued that unless Gentiles converted fully to Judaism and became circumcised, they remained forever “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). From their perspective, Gentiles who did not become full proselytes had no right to claim or, more pointedly, to filch promises that rightfully belonged only to Israel. If we remember what circumcision meant to Jews as the distinguishing mark of God’s covenant people, we can understand their pique over uncircumcised Gentile Christians claiming the same hope of glory that had been promised to Israel. How could Gentiles be the beneficiaries of God’s promises without going though the proper channels ordained by God in Scripture?

Though Paul did not deny that circumcision might be appropriate for Christians of Jewish descent (see Acts 16:3; Rom. 3:1–2), he vehemently argued that the physical rite was not a prerequisite for the Gentiles’ inclusion in God’s people. He laid his life on the line for his clear vision of the truth of the gospel (Gal. 2:5). All who trust in Christ (2:16) and have been crucified with him (2:20) are now the authentic Israel, the true heirs of God’s promises (Rom. 9–11; Gal. 6:16; Phil. 3:2).

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul takes on Christian Judaizers and insists that Gentiles need not and must not detour through Judaism to get to Christ. Such a detour is only a dead end that will leave them dead in their sins. One becomes a child of Abraham and is justified and blessed with Abraham by faith and faith alone (Gal. 3:6–9). Paul takes on external opponents here in Colossians and argues that Gentiles have received a spiritual circumcision. He understands this spiritual circumcision metaphorically to be Christ’s death. In our baptism, we accept that death as for us. We have been crucified with Christ by being baptized into his death and become full-fledged recipients of God’s salvation. The Colossians do not need a physical circumcision to become heirs of the promises or to receive forgiveness for their sins.

Christ’s death has replaced this rite. God’s chosen people are no longer identified by a minor physical incision, only applicable to males, but by belief in Christ and incorporation into his death and resurrection life. Membership now requires a major excision of the old—death. Christian baptism represents all of this.60

Most important, however, is Paul’s affirmation that this spiritual circumcision, received vicariously through Christ’s death, takes care of a problem that physical circumcision never could. The physical rite could never deliver Jew or Gentile from the power of sin. One could be circumcised in the flesh and still remain uncircumcised in the spirit (see Rom. 2:25–29). Paul insists that real circumcision is spiritual, “of the heart” (Rom. 2:29). The Colossians have received the real thing from Christ who was “circumcised” (put to death) for them. What is more, it means that believers have been forgiven their trespasses. All the charges against us, which are seared on every conscience alive to God, have been blotted out by Christ’s death.

Few, if any, Christians today are bedeviled by opponents who claim that their salvation is deficient because they have not undergone ritual circumcision. But Christians are often pestered by some group within or without the church who allege that they fall short in some area necessary for salvation. These persons contend that baptized Christians still need to do this or that—something, they promise, that will help remedy the fault. In this text, Paul proclaims that everything that ever needs to be done to secure our salvation has been accomplished once for all by God through Christ’s death and resurrection. We lay claim to this salvation when we trust what God has done for us. God gave us a circumcision not “done by the hands of men” (2:11). God made us who were dead in our sins alive in Christ (2:13). God took away all the charges that denounced and doomed us to eternal separation from God (2:14). Thus, those who are in Christ lack nothing.

The passive verbs in 2:6 imply that God has even rooted and built us up in Christ and has strengthened us in the faith. Christians have been given everything that God demands from us and everything that God can possibly give to us. Our task is, then, to continue to live exclusively in Christ and to abound in thanksgiving for what God has done for us through Christ. Any religious tenet or philosophy of life that professes to offer forgiveness of sins, “deeper” knowledge, deliverance, or the finishing touches to salvation through any other means than Christ’s death and resurrection is fundamentally flawed and dangerous to the spiritual health of Christians. This leads to the next issue: the danger of an enticing false “philosophy” capturing our fancy and pulling us away from Christ.

False philosophies. The discipline of philosophy has often become the object of ridicule. Ambrose Bierce defined philosophy as “a route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.”61 People joke half seriously that philosophy turns solutions into problems and the simplest things into the most unintelligible. Some Christians have appealed to Paul’s statement in 2:8 to argue that Christians should have nothing to do with any philosophical speculation. They say that we must rely only on faith and not reason.

This text, however, should not be used as a proof text against philosophy. Paul does not reject philosophy in principle, nor does he discount the value of sound learning or intellectual inquiry.62 He rejects a particular manifestation of “philosophy” in Colosse, a religious position that pretended to a wisdom that it did not possess. The discipline of philosophy is not inherently empty, deceptive, or dangerous. Phillips paraphrased 2:8: “Be careful that no one spoils your faith through intellectualism or high-sounding nonsense.” There is nothing wrong with intellectualism except that it has a tendency to become high-sounding nonsense.

In Paul’s context, what made the “philosophy” worthless was that it was “hollow and deceptive” and opposed to Christ. Religion, for example, is not bad, but hollow and deceptive religion is. MacLeod comments that Christians are not “to despise knowledge, nor the love of knowledge, nor the search for wider knowledge. But they are called upon to approach all knowledge in the light of Christ.”63 Anything that draws us away from Christ or looks for salvation outside Christ is empty and vain.

Paul does not disparage critical thinking or the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct, as long as it conforms to Christ. Consequently, we put references to the Colossian “philosophy” in quotation marks in an attempt to distinguish it from the discipline of philosophy. In bridging the contexts, “philosophy” applies to any belief system or way of life that competes for allegiance due only to Christ—even if it claims to revere Christ or incorporates elements of biblical teaching. The key is that it is not according to Christ (2:8, the literal rendering of the phrase translated “rather than on Christ” in the NIV).

Those “philosophies” of life that are overtly hostile to Christ are easy to recognize. They cast aspersions on his name and harass his followers. How does one detect if some “philosophy” is “not according to Christ” when it may appropriate some or many Christian beliefs? Its bogus character usually reveals itself whenever it proceeds along these lines: “Faith in Christ is fine as far as it goes, but you are not really right with God, accepted by God, or protected by God unless you also….” It makes no difference how the sentence is completed; it is false and not according to Christ.

The elemental spirits and the powers and authorities. Paul affirms in this section that Christ “is the head over every power and authority” (2:10) and that through the cross God has “disarmed the powers and authorities,” making “a public spectacle of them [and] triumphing over them” (2:15). In Christ we do not simply have forgiveness of sins and a clean slate with God. God has also delivered us from every power that would try to claim title to our lives, to win possession of us, or generally to bring harm to us. I would include ta stoicheia tou kosmou (“the elemental spirits”; NIV, “the basic principles”) in this category of oppressive powers, but this interpretation of the phrase is not necessary for the general affirmation in the text to hold true. We have been delivered from the thralldom of evil powers and inflexible forces.

The wide disagreement among scholars about what the term ta stoicheia tou kosmou in 2:8, 20 meant in the first century presents some difficulty in relating what it applies to today. Crossing the bridge into our context becomes even more difficult when we take a position that disagrees with the translation that people may be using, and the various translations differ significantly. If we refer to “elemental spirits of the world” and people read “basic principles of this world” in their translation, they are likely to be confused. I have concluded that the contextual evidence suggests that the expression referred to the gods of the stars, which the ancients thought controlled the world for good or ill. But this interpretation may create further problems for bridging its meaning to our world.

After the lunar landings and the astounding exploration of our solar system, we might assume that most people in our culture view the moon, planets, and stars as “lifeless matter, moving according to energy forces which are as impersonal as they are unconcerned with our lives and our destiny on earth.”64 The boom in interest in astrology challenges this assumption. A poll conducted near the turn of the twenty-first century reports that 48 percent of Americans believe that astrology is “probably” or “definitely” valid. Heads of states in the United States, Russia, and India have been known to consult astrologers to help guide them in making decisions. Many ordinary citizens believe that the movement of stars and planets determine more than just the calendar; they also reflect our souls and govern our lives. Some carry handy pocket reference cards listing the auspicious times dictated by the movement of the stars for every activity. Most people who buy into astrology today look at the planetary transits and sun signs as a beneficial way to explore their inner lives and yearnings and to prepare themselves for future events. By contrast, many people in Paul’s day viewed the stars more ominously as potent spiritual lords who could tyrannize as well as benefit human lives.

The Colossian error may have held out the promise of solving a fundamental human predicament that troubled everyone in the Hellenistic world: How do people survive “in a world filled with hostile supernatural forces”?65 Whether this view of the Colossian situation is correct, the text does allude to fears that weighed heavily on the minds of many in Paul’s day. They believed that the world was beset by hobgoblins of various sorts. These unseen forces were pitted against humans and controlled their lives in capricious ways, and they needed to be propitiated. The villains were everywhere, and many were convinced that they were helpless pawns in the iron grip of these powers that ruled the cosmos. A. E. Housman’s lines aptly describe the same disease felt by many in Paul’s era:

I, a stranger and afraid

In a world I never made.66

These pessimistic lines penned in the twentieth century also reveal that no matter how much we progress in science and technology, the problem of human spiritual discomfort has not disappeared.

People in the ancient world fretted about how to neutralize the evil powers and tried to exploit divine champions to their own advantage. At every level of society people resorted to magic (see Acts 19:19). Savage notes that “peasants and senators alike hung amulets round their necks to chase away evil spirits.” According to Suetonius’s account of Nero, the emperor “solicited rites from the magi in order to escape his mother’s ghost” (Nero 34.4). Savage concludes, “Astrology, oracles, portents and dreams filled out an atmosphere of enchantment. The abundance of the evidence suggests that vast segments of first-century society were engrossed in superhuman schemes and engulfed in superstition.”67 We can safely assume that the same attitudes prevailed in Colosse.

Most people appealed to subaltern deities, what we might call the small fries in the divine world, to handle day-to-day life. This approach stemmed from vague notions of an organizational flow chart for the divine world that assigned the various powers their roles and level of potency. At the top were the Olympian gods of ancient Greece or the gods and goddesses of the powerful mystery religions, such as Isis, Serapis, Cybele, and Artemis, who spoke with fearsome voices. At the bottom of this pyramid was a vast array of lesser gods and spirits.

Many may have imagined that one deity reigned supreme over this spiritual realm in the same way that the Roman emperor reigned supreme over his earthly empire. But they assumed that the deity or deities at the top of the heap were also like the Roman emperor in that they did not care about or bother with the daily lives of the average person. The lesser deities, they believed, did involve themselves directly in the everyday affairs of life. They had an impact on such things as illness, luck, love, and business success. Consequently, most thought it was more important to curry favor with these subordinate, but more approachable, deities. One could not safely neglect the higher gods, but attention to these more imminent powers was more apt to pay off in day-to-day life. Others may have insisted that there was only one all-powerful God. But the belief that this supreme God was remote and worked through an assortment of angelic intermediaries or star gods opened the door for a witch’s brew of pagan notions to seep in.68 Even some Jews believed that the planets were God’s angels and the rules of astrology were evidence of God’s laws.69

Christians in Colosse may have been seeking to venerate or appease starry gods in some way. Even if they were not, Paul suggests three key problems with such attempts. (1) By trying to protect themselves from the realm of dark forces, people actually will get caught in their web. (2) Believers waste their attentions on impotent powers rather than focusing on the reality of God revealed in Christ, their Head. (3) People mistakenly assume that the major problems besetting human beings are these spiritual forces that control us. The real problem is human sin, which makes us susceptible to the rulers and powers. Salvation is not redemption from the elemental spirits, from fate, or from the flesh. Instead, it is redemption from sin. This passage connects the leverage of the powers in human lives directly to sin. In rebelling against God, humans submit to the forces of darkness.

Paul makes it clear that God is not some impersonal, universal force, uncaring and distant. God does not rule the universe through the stars and planets, nor has he sent lowly intermediaries to redeem us or help us. God has created and sustains the universe through Christ (1:16–17), in whom the fullness of Deity dwells (1:19; 2:9). He took on our flesh and died on the cross for us (1:20; 2:11, 14). Christ now reigns supreme over the powers and authorities (2:10). All were created in him (1:16), and all were stripped of their potency through his death (2:15).

Christ’s death does more than reveal to a sinful world how much God loved it. What is most important, Christ’s death brings forgiveness of sins (2:13–14) and the defeat of evil, including demonic evil. On the cross the indebtedness from our sins was canceled and the powers were harnessed. Since Christians have died with Christ, we have been set free completely from these adversaries. The consequence of salvation from sin is deliverance from the tyranny of evil powers and so-called inexorable forces. Those who are in Christ are no longer the playthings of forces and powers—however we conceptualize them—that seem beyond our control.

Paul does not specify what the elemental spirits are, and it is sometimes difficult to convey the patchwork of ancient beliefs about the supernatural world to a modern audience. If we conclude that Paul was referring to star gods, that does not mean that we can only understand them in this sense when we apply the passage to our context—particularly when translations such as the NIV offer an alternative view. The best procedure is to examine the text to see what these powers do so that we can spot the parallels and apply it to any contemporary phenomenon that takes on those aspects.

In Colossians, the stoicheia tou kosmou are connected to a “philosophy” that makes a prey of people (2:8), passes judgments (2:16), disqualifies them (2:18), and makes legalistic regulations (2:20). We can sketch out the following main characteristics:

• They are things that want to take over the role of lord. They consequently become rivals to Christ. Humans mistakenly give them a godlike status and submit to them, though they are not by nature gods (see Gal. 4:3, 8).

• They enslave and seek control (Gal. 4:3). Obedience to their supposed demands does not lead to human fulfillment but to greater enslavement.

• They thwart God’s creative purposes for humans.

• They create a climate of fear and heighten the terror of existence for humans by making us feel that we are at their mercy.

• They heighten the sense of human insignificance and helplessness.

• They heighten a sense of determinism and create the feeling that humans are puppets under the control of some external force.

The stoicheia, powers, and authorities come in all sorts of guises, and in different cultures they receive different names and definitions. But they share a common characteristic in that humans take them to be unrelenting forces that suppress us and squelch our happiness. More important, humans open themselves up to their power through sin and ignorance. But to those who are in Christ, these forces, powers, and authorities are completely impotent.

Contemporary Significance

THE COLOSSIANS FACED theological danger from opponents who offered persuasive religious arguments that undermined their confidence in the truth they had received about Christ. Every generation of Christians faces such threats. The best defense Christians have against such onslaughts is to be thoroughly grounded in the basics of their faith in Christ and to understand fully the significance of his death and resurrection and our baptism. We will then be better fortified in fending off the seduction of false ideologies and will have no anxiety about external powers controlling or ruining our lives.

Reiterating the truth of the gospel. In this section, Paul counters the attacks on the Christian hope and assuages the Colossians’ fears by reviewing what Christ’s death and resurrection mean and what God has done in Christ for us. He reiterates the truth of the gospel for them with vivid images.

The teachings about human sin and Christ’s death, resurrection, and triumph, which reconcile us to God, were not something new to the Colossians. They had been taught it by Epaphras (1:7) and had “received Christ” (2:6)—that is, what had happened to Christ and what it meant. But Paul recognizes they need to hear it again. This need is particularly pressing when Christians find themselves besieged by those who mock, deride, or try to discredit their faith.

Sometimes pastors and teachers concentrate all their energy on attacking the opposition rather than first bolstering Christians’ understanding of their faith and their confidence in its trustworthiness. Pastors may take for granted that their listeners know the basic doctrines of the Christian faith and so neglect to preach regularly on them. The inevitable result is that many in the pews become less familiar with and less certain of the Christian faith’s powerful and life-transforming distinctives. This is not to say that preachers should become like broken records, repeating the same things over and over. But they should plan to address the central doctrines of the Christian faith each year in their preaching. Just as Paul needed to expound more than once the meaning of Christ’s death for Christians and used vivid imagery that spoke to his day, so preachers and teachers today need to expound the significance of this mystery repeatedly.

We tend to be more adept at attacking others than we are at justifying our faith to them or training believers in the faith. In this section of his warnings to the Colossians, Paul does not combat the error simply with a withering attack against the opposition. In fact, because he spends more time stressing the sufficiency and supremacy of Christ than in berating the opposition, it makes it difficult to pinpoint precisely who the opponents are.

We can learn from this approach. Paul argues that Christ is superior to every power and authority, and the passage concludes with a picture of his triumphal procession, with his prisoners, beaten and disarmed, bringing up the rear. He reaffirms this truth for Colossians, who may be growing less assured of their victory in Christ. Paul also affirms that believers have already attained fullness in Christ and already have the resurrection life energizing them. Schweizer contends:

It needs to be said today as well to a world no longer convinced in any sense of the absolute and undisputed superiority of the church, but convinced rather of the superior position of every other kind of power. It needs to be said to a world for which heaven is locked away, a world in danger of becoming heavenless. And it needs to be said with complete assurance.70

Paul’s also uses graphic and colorful imagery in this section to convey the truth of what Christ’s death and resurrection meant. He speaks of kidnapping, of Christ’s death as a circumcision, of a stripping off of the flesh, of baptism as burial, of canceling an IOU, of nailing charges to a cross, and of leading defeated captives in a triumphal parade. This imagery, which was so fresh and compelling in a first-century context, may frustrate the modern interpreter since the passage of time has blurred its transparency. But the compelling power of such imagery in its original context provides a model for us when we communicate this truth today. We should always be attuned to metaphors that will both grip our contemporaries and convey faithfully what Christ’s death and resurrection means so that the gospel message speaks afresh in every generation and culture.

We therefore need to find ways of making the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection just as vivid and meaningful as Paul did for his original readers. This task is not easy. How does one convey that we have received “a circumcision [not] done by the hands of men” in language that people will understand today? Most literal-minded people do not want any such thing. But they may feel deep down the need for some atonement on their behalf. They may recognize that they need something from God that they cannot offer themselves. They can then understand that Jesus suffered the most gruesome of deaths for us so that we might be set free from the bondage of sin and death.

Besides understanding the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection for our lives, the text demands two things of us: that we continue to live in Christ and that we abound in thanksgiving. If the truth of what Christ’s death and resurrection mean sinks into the core of our being, we will live with more thanksgiving, and it will expel all our fears and worries over any unknown, unseen, or seemingly implacable forces. Failure to grasp this great truth, however, will only breed anxiety and dissatisfaction with life and make us susceptible to all manner of fraudulent promises.

The lure of false ideologies. Albert Camus once wrote, “Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”71 Paul warns about persuasive opponents who undermine Christian claims to truth with “twilight” delusions. Every generation of Christians faces new assaults on their faith. But these challenges are only a serious problem for those who are not thoroughly grounded and growing in their faith. Those who are uncertain in their faith can easily fall victim to half truths, misrepresentations, pious fables, and outright lies. They also become vulnerable, depending on their personal inclinations, to anything that may pass itself off as wisdom that appears to be more chic, more cut and dried, more profound, or more esoteric.

Pannenberg argues that many in our secularist culture today dismiss Christianity as a conventional religion, and this perception helps explain the widespread enthusiasm for “alternative religions.”72 People, including some who have been raised in traditional Christian homes, are looking elsewhere for novel approaches and more trendy strategies on how to cope with life. They chase after threadbare “philosophies” that promise to unlock the secrets of just about anything. They buy the tapes and books and attend conferences. Some even make treks to Egypt to sit inside a pyramid and soak up its supposed magical powers. All are searching for that something extra that they hope will put them over the top. But most of the answers that attract people today have no doctrine of human sin—or only a flimsy one—and therefore they never address the real problem that plagues human beings, nor do their adherents experience real redemption.

We also live in an era in which many are looking for personal fulfillment. People reject the fullness offered in Christ and search for other ways to fill themselves. “Selfism” is usually the result. Selfism takes the idea that we were created in God’s image too far and ignores the idea that we have been corrupted by our sins and are culpable for them. It makes the self god and makes life’s ultimate purpose reaching the self’s fullest potential and satisfying its utmost desires.73 Those who fill themselves only with themselves, however, remain empty. Those who are filled by Christ do not feel any chronic dissatisfaction with life or sense of insecurity, and they long only to please God and to pour their lives out for others. They can even rejoice amidst suffering and afflictions (Col. 1:24).

Death and baptism: Receiving the benefits of Christ’s circumcision. In Paul’s day, a Gentile male became a Jewish proselyte by becoming circumcised, being washed in a ritual bath, and, if possible, offering a sacrifice at the temple. Paul picks up on these three elements of Jewish initiation and redefines them to assure the Colossians of their new status as full members of God’s people. His redefinition centers on Christ’s death. Christ’s death is our circumcision, and we have been baptized (washed) into his death. His sacrificial death supersedes all temple sacrifices by canceling forever the charges that placed us on death row. Davis writes:

The cross is the point chosen in time where all the evil in time and space, all the defiance against God can be concentrated into one visible decisive action against him. The cross is the wisdom of God to choose this point to make this attempt manifest and to defeat it. The cross is the power of God to absorb the ignorant blind rage of humanity into himself and avert its deadly consequences.74

While baptism marks out our entry into the church, Christ’s body, it has more wide-ranging significance than simply as an initiatory rite. (1) In the New Testament, baptism is connected more to death than washing.75 In Mark 10:38–39, Jesus uses the image of baptism for his death and says that it is something his disciples can and will share. Baptism becomes a performative visual aid in which we symbolically reenact Christ’s death and resurrection.76 In baptism, we voluntarily accept God’s judgment on our sin and the sentence of death (Rom. 6:3–5; 2 Cor. 5:14), but we do not die alone. We die with Christ, who died for us. John Donne’s “Hymne to God My God, in My Sicknesse” poetically expresses Paul’s thought:

We thinke that Paradise and Calvarie,

Christs Crosse, and Adams tree, stood in one place;

Looke, Lord, and finde both Adams met in me;

As the first Adams sweat surrounds my face,

May the last Adams blood my soule embrace.77

(2) Baptism marks a break with the past. We die to the old—the old ways of living, the old alliances, the old powers that formerly held sway over our lives. In baptism we repudiate our sinful members (3:5). This renunciation is more effective than our puny attempts to restrain “sensual indulgence” through our own will power and “harsh treatment of the body” (2:23). The reason it is more effective is because it is done with Christ.

(3) Baptism is not only the grave for “the old self”; it is the birthplace of the “new” (cf. 3:9–10). It proclaims death to the old order and the old lifestyle, but we do not “remain in the baptismal water.” Baptism also proclaims that the new order is inaugurated.78 Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).

The transformation, however, is not magical. In the movie “Tender Mercies,” a former country music star whose career has been ruined by alcohol winds up working at a run-down motel for a widow with a young son. Eventually they marry, and both the son and his new stepfather are baptized on the same day. As they drive home in their pickup truck, the son reflects on the experience and says to his stepfather, “Everyone said I would feel like a changed person. I guess I do feel a little different but not a whole lot different. Do you?” “Not yet,” came the reply. The son continues, “You don’t look any different. You think I look any different?” “Not yet,” came the reply again.

The “not yet” answer reveals that we should not always expect the transformation at conversion to be instantaneous or even dramatic. For some it is; but for others it is not. Braaten quotes Bishop Bergrav of Norway who said, “In baptism we take the old man and put him under. But the old man can sure swim.”79 Yet the death sentence for the “old man” has been pronounced, and the seeds for our transformation have taken root. Jones reminds us that

baptism provides the initiation into God’s story of forgiving and reconciling love, definitively embodied in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In response, people are called to embody the forgiveness by unlearning patterns of sin and struggling for reconciliation wherever there is brokenness.80

Some experience a dramatic and immediate turnaround when Christ enters their lives, but the process of unlearning years of sinful habits still takes time and struggle. The need for this continuing struggle explains why Paul adds the ethical exhortation that follows in 3:1–4:6. But because a new, divine power has been released into our lives, the struggle is no longer ours alone. The “not yet” will become a reality as God’s loving power works in and through us and as we yield ever more of ourselves to God.81 Baptism attests to the beginning of our transformation.

(4) Baptism marks the defeat of the powers that formerly held sway over us. Those who have died with Christ and have been raised with him no longer live under the old regime, where the authorities and powers hold sway. Baptism is the sign to the world that we are owned, secured, and empowered by Christ. Christians owe the authorities and powers of this world no allegiance; and, in turn, the authorities and powers have no control over our lives.

Our symbolic death in baptism delivers us from real fears and powers. But this message is not always clearly communicated. A child’s view about baptism in the novel A Day No Pigs Would Die may match the opinion that some adults secretly hold. A matronly aunt remonstrates with her young nephew about his bad grammar and says if he were a “fearing Baptist,” he would do better in English. The frightened lad thought to himself:

That was it! That there was the time my heart almost stopped. I’d heard about Baptists from Jacob Henry’s mother. According to her, Baptists were a strange lot. They put you in water to see how holy you were. Then they ducked you under the water three times. Didn’t matter a whit if you could swim or no. If you didn’t come up, you got dead and your mortal soul went to Hell. But if you did come up, it was even worse. You had to be a Baptist.82

Baptism represents more than our death; it proclaims our triumph with Christ. We are raised with Christ, who is head over every power and authority (2:10), who has disarmed every power and authority (2:15), and who sits triumphantly at the right hand of God (3:1).

Deliverance from controlling forces. Most people in our culture do not live in terror of stars or sky gods regulating our fortunes. But even those who dismiss these elemental spirits as silly myths still may regard the world as a chamber of horrors. Many live in fear of the randomness of evil—random violence, random storms, random accidents—that wreaks havoc in their lives. Most want to experience some control over what will happen to them, and they fall victim to all sorts of self-deceptions and scams. We can spot something of the elemental spirits of the world when individuals consult astrologers, palm readers, Tarot cards, channelers, and psychics, and when they try to commune with ancient spirits, purify their auras with crystals, or make pilgrimages to vortex centers and sites of harmonic convergence to get in sync with powerful earth forces. MacLeod also connects the ancient apprehension with modern views that

our character, personality and behavior are determined not by moral choices, but by the particular combination of genes, hormones, and glandular secretions that make each individual human body what it is. On any such view, whether ancient or modern, both the sense of guilt and the experience of forgiveness vanish with the lost conviction of moral freedom and responsibility.83

Long goes as far as to say that the Myers-Briggs test, so popular in revealing our differing styles, can be misused and comes perilously close to “fortune cookies for the human potential movement.”84 DeMaris critiques the work of Mary Daly as “uncannily” like the Colossian philosophy (as he reconstructs it).85 She calls for women to tap their elemental potency, to reclaim their “capacity to receive inspiration, truth from the elements of the natural world.” MacLeod points out that any quest for harmony with the forces of sheer power ignores that “the power behind the universe is a moral power, loving righteousness and hating iniquity.”86

In our “biologized” world, DNA and the rigid laws of genetics have also taken the place of the tyrannous rule of powers and authorities in our understanding of the causative factors in our lives. Scott maintains that “we still think of ourselves as held in bondage by iron forces, inexorable laws, in the face of which all our struggles and aspirations are futile.”87 Many have become convinced that they are simply the products of the forces of nature over which they have no control or remedy. Everything from criminality, to addictions, to sexual orientation, to shyness is understood as a matter of genetic destiny rather than choice. It results in a sense of helplessness and a lack of moral responsibility—“I cannot help the way I am.”

If most do not believe that their fate is written in the stars, many still believe that they do not make moral choices but simply fulfill unalterable genetic traits. If biological explanations lead us to believe that we cannot help ourselves, we are less likely to try to do battle with destructive behavior and more likely to succumb to it. The Christian faith offers the only remedy to this miasmic spiritual worldview. We find deliverance from everything in Christ.

We can also see these elemental spirits at work when the goal of life is to become successful as the world defines success, rather than to become godly as God requires. I received recently an advertisement that offered several enticements to subscribe to a magazine. The publisher promised to send a booklet that would list “the secrets of health and better living,” “the secrets of shrewd money management,” “the secrets of being a smarter consumer,” “the secrets of winning at almost anything,” and a book entitled How to Do Everything Right. Learning these secrets presumably will lead to what they define as a successful life. It will not lead to salvation, however. MacLeod again is on target when he says:

Moral salvation consists in the response of the moral will to the righteous purpose and the forgiving love of the living God. It is imparted to those who are brought into vital relationship with Christ, by first learning of him, and then committing their lives to him.88

Paul declares that all who have been buried in baptism with Christ have been set free from personal and/or impersonal powers that supposedly rule the universe. We have been set free from all those things that would enslave us, whether they be principles (worldly visions of what constitutes success) or principalities (other worldly or earthly forces). An African Christian song from the Transvaal captures the gist of Paul’s argument:

Jesus Christ is the conqueror;

by his resurrection he overcame death itself,

by his resurrection he overcame all things:

he overcame magic,

he overcame amulets and charms,

he overcame the darkness of demon-possession,

he overcame dread.

When we are with him,

we also conquer.89

It may be a helpful exercise for us to list all of our fears, whatever they may be. In Christ, we can cross them out one by one.

Original Meaning

The Flawed “Philosophy” (2:8)

THE WARNING IN 2:8 provides the first direct clue in the letter that the Colossian church faces an outside danger.9 Compared to Galatians, the polemic that follows is relatively mild. This constraint suggests that Paul does not despair that the Colossians are courting disaster as the Galatians were. They do, however, need to hear a word of caution about the dangers of being hijacked.

Paul describes the potential abductor as a “hollow and deceptive philosophy.”10 One should be cautious not to extend this repudiation of a specific vacuous “philosophy” to a rejection of philosophy in general. The term philosophy had a broader meaning in the ancient world than it does in ours. It was not limited to the speculative systems of thought familiar to us in Greek and Roman philosophy; it could also refer to all sorts of groups, tendencies, and points of view, including magical practices.11 This broad meaning of the term and the fact that Paul describes the “philosophy” in terms of religious practices, such as judgments about eating and drinking and observing festivals and Sabbaths, makes the word “religion” a more suitable translation for us.

Paul draws several contrasts between the gospel and this “philosophy.” The gospel is the word of truth (1:5–6); the “philosophy” is deception. Christ rescues and liberates hostages (1:13); the “philosophy” takes the gullible captive, makes them slaves of error, and yanks them back into the dominion of darkness (1:13).12 One may think of the twisted plots in novels and movies where the hero or heroine is captured by villains and then rescued only to fall again into their hands. The “philosophy” is defined further in 2:8 by three prepositional phrases with kata (“depends on”), but Paul has no intention of providing us with a full description of its features in this section. He only intends to stress the glories that the Colossians already possess in Christ so that they can see how much the “philosophy” falls short.

(1) The “philosophy … depends on human tradition.” In Paul’s world, ancient tradition insured the excellence and sanctity of knowledge. If it was old, then it was considered good and not to be lightly dismissed. Today, we have convinced ourselves that the newest development is better. New, we assume, means improved; consequently we are inclined to be interested in the latest thing. In the Hellenistic period, the ancient age of a religion authenticated it and made it deserving of honor because it had stood the test of time.

There is nothing inherently wrong with human tradition. Paul, however, discredits the “philosophy” as a tradition that derives from humans (see Mark 7:8) and contrasts it with divine revelation that the Colossians have received in Christ. In 2:6, Paul writes that they have “received Christ Jesus as Lord.” Paul uses the verb “receive” (paralambano) in his letters as a technical term to refer to the transmission of teaching or tradition.13 The contrast is clear: The Colossians did not receive a tradition created by humans but a person, the Lord Jesus, the regent and reconciler of all creation.

(2) The “philosophy … depends on … the elemental spirits of the world” (“the basic principles of the world,” NIV). The term “elemental spirits of the world” (ta stoicheia tou kosmou) does not reflect some important feature of the opponents’ teaching but derives from Paul’s derisive appraisal of the “philosophy.” This phrase meshes with the other pejorative descriptions used to discredit a “philosophy” that “kidnaps,” is “empty and deceptive,” and “depends on human tradition.”14 Just as the key word in the phrase “tradition of men” (NIV, “human tradition”) is “of men,” the key word in this phrase is “of the world.”15 Paul debunks the “philosophy” as belonging to the material sphere created by Christ but now alienated from God and in need of redemption and reconciling. It belongs to the domain of flesh, sin, and death, where demonic powers still wield their influence.

Exactly what Paul meant by the phrase ta stoicheia tou kosmou is much debated. The noun stoicheion derives from the verb stoicheo, which means “to be in line” (see Phil. 3:16) and refers to the basic components that make up a whole, similar to the links in a chain. The noun appears in ancient literature to designate the letters of the alphabet, the foundation principles of a science or institution, the rudiments or initial basis for something, the physical components of the body (see 4 Macc. 12:13), and the physical elements of the world (earth, air, fire, water).16 Does the phrase in 2:8, 20 refer to something elementary, as in teaching, or to something elemental, as in the foundational elements regulating the present world? Does it signify impersonal elemental substances or personal powers, such as star-spirits?

The NIV translation settles the matter for the reader by interpreting the phrase to mean elementary (impersonal) principles (see also NASB, JB). These could refer to the basic principles, the religious ABC’s, common to all religion. The reference to a “philosophy” and to human tradition suggests some mode of instruction; and circumcision, calendrical observances, and distinctions about food (2:16) can fall under the category of elementary rules. Others make the case that in literature written before Paul the word designates the elemental substances that make up the cosmos.

The word stoicheia, however, was extended to refer to the heavenly bodies, which were widely assumed to be either governed by angels or were themselves personified as lesser divine powers (see Deut. 4:19).17 It could then refer to malevolent, elemental spirit beings (see NRSV, NEB, TEV) and would be another label for the celestial godlings named in 1:16 and mentioned again in 2:15.18 Dunn contends that the phrase ta stoicheia tou kosmou alludes to a common belief “that human beings had to live their lives under the influence or sway of primal and cosmic forces, however precisely conceptualized….”19 These heavenly powers are part of creation and exercise regulatory control over nature and rule a world corrupted by sin.

I understand the term to refer to the quasi-demonic spirits to which humans have foolishly given their allegiance and awe (see Acts 7:42). The contrast between according to the stoicheia to kosmou and according to Christ in 2:8 may signify that Paul regards them as rivals to Christ. Paul contends that the “philosophy” he is warning against depends on these created, malignant powers, not on the beneficent Creator. It observes set feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—divisions of time governed by the movements of the heavenly bodies, which, in turn, are animated by the elemental spirits.20 The apostle does not dismiss these astral powers as nonexistent or as myths (see 1 Cor. 8:5) but asserts that they are all subservient to Christ (although they may not yet acknowledge it, 15:24–25). Because they are “of the world” they have been created in, through, and for Christ and therefore must be subservient to him (Col. 1:15–17). Paul reaffirms that Christ is “the head over every power and authority” (2:10).

(3) Paul also characterizes the “philosophy” as devoid of truth. This opinion reflects Paul’s deep conviction that all Christ-less teaching is empty at its core. As something “hollow,” the “philosophy” cannot fill anyone except with more emptiness. By contrast, the Colossians have received the word of God in its fullness (1:25), have the full riches of complete understanding in Christ (2:2; see 1:9), and have been given fullness in Christ (2:10).21 Humans, however, are forever taken in by appearances and by high-sounding drivel. The “philosophy” can captivate people and beguile them into thinking that it has truth.