This is what baptism indicates. It is an identity with the victor. It is comforting that the enemies have no hold on me, on us.
This chapter of Colossians is all about the baptismal life. What does baptizing do? What does it indicate for the Colossian hearer/reader? What Paul delivers to them, you get to deliver to your hearer this week as you preach this epistle.
“Rooted” and “built up” in Colossians 2:7! The Apostle is mixing his metaphors, and they are both rich with Christological freight. Consider the Christ at the center of the agricultural metaphor and the Christ at the center of the edifice metaphor, and you will easily have a homiletical hook or two to call your hearer’s attention back.
The life that has its seed and its root in Christ bears the fruit thereof. The baptismal life is one which is passively received (pay attention to the voice of those participles!) and organically productive. It does the things baptized believers do, just like branches do what the vine does (John 15). Christ Himself abounds with agricultural talk. The bullseye for the death and life talk of baptism in Colossian 2 is Christ’s death and life talk in John 12:24; seeds die and produce roots, death goes down and life comes up, old Adam drowns in the flood and new Adam rises to newness of life. “Rooted” gets at the radical nature of Christ planted and raised as well as the radical content of his own proclamation (repent and believe the Gospel; Mark 1:15).
Christ’s edifice talk is just as rich. Tear down this temple and I will build it again in three days (John 2). The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes (see Luke 20:17 and Psalm 118 among others). Pauline and Petrine temple talk and building vocabulary reinforces the idea. For example, Christians are built up “in Him” (in Christ), that most important prepositional phrase of the scriptures. The focus is not on being personally, individually torn down and built up (which would devolve into a spiritually damaging self-help sermon) but rather on integration. In other words, being built into Christ, being built upon Christ, into and upon His person and work. Peter’s picture of living stones (1 Peter 2:4-10) resonates with this, as does Christ’s concluding call for wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount with the wise and foolish builders (Matthew 7:24-27).
Colossians 2 delivers a picture of life in Christ, living in Christ, which concentrates the Romans 6 baptismal lesson (buried with Christ, raised with Christ to walk in newness of life, Colossians 2:12) and nuances it Colossians-style twofold. First, Paul calls baptism a circumcision without hands, a circumcision of Christ (2:11). Second, the baptismal life is not just a life along with Christ, Christ beside me or my leader or some such, but a radical indwelling, a being filled (2:10). This filling vocabulary helps fill the passage full of fullness language (compare “abounding” (2:7), in contrast to “empty” (2:8); you have been filled in Him in Colossians 2:10), with the nut of the whole fullness passage being Colossians 2:9: In Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
Colossians answers the question, “Who is Jesus in His person?” That answer, encapsulated in 2:9, is simply description, fact, and no good news at all unless it is for you. And that is what this pericope drives home: That his being God, the whole fullness of deity dwelling bodily in Him, is in fact for you, as you are filled in Him. You are filled with the one who is fully God (the finitum is, in fact, capax infiniti est),[1] the finitum being your hearer and every baptized believer. It is baptism that realizes this “mystery which is Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27); not wishing it so, not a personal decision for Jesus, or some other private moxie or gumption or acceptance of a purpose-filled challenge, no. Taking Paul at his words is glorious good news for those who appreciate God’s work in the active voice and man’s passive reception. Baptism is the point of application for the riches God bestows.
Baptism is the point of application for the riches God bestows.
And what riches! See what God delivers. You have been filled (Colossians 2:9-10), circumcised with the circumcision of Christ (2:11), that is, baptized – dead, buried, and raised with Christ in that baptism (2:12). What riches are delivered in that delivery? You who once were dead are made alive together with Christ (2:13). Your sins are forgiven (2:13). The debt written against you is plastered over, covered, blotted out, whitewashed, cancelled (2:14). Notice this is all about what God is doing in Christ. What does He do in Christ with the enemies that once stood in your way: Death, your sin, the debt you owe the Law? He lifts them up and takes them away. He removes them. Like the enemies of a conquering commander, removed from their positions of power and authority, and chained to walk in public display, in order to tout the preeminence of the vanquisher and his retinue of victorious soldiers (one ceremonial element of the ancient triumph), so Christ leads your enemies in chains to be displayed, mocked, jeered at, made fun of, humiliated, and await their ultimate consequence in the hereafter.
This, says Colossians 2, is what baptism does for the believer. This is what baptism indicates. It is an identity with the victor. It is comforting that the enemies have no hold on me, on us. It is a power to live knowing that what fills me is the One in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily. It is a daily resurrection life rooted and built up in Christ the victor. Notice what this does not mean: A new kind of super-piety with external institutional regulations (Colossians 2:16-17), devotion to latter-day fanatics and false prophets (2:18). Rather, the life of Paul’s readers/hearers is the same life as your hearers: Simply being rooted and built up in Christ (reinforced by Paul’s coda at 2:19; notice, once again, the passive participles describing the Body of Christ and its growth as a growth that comes from God!).
That clever Latin protestant-apologetic theological phrasing above notwithstanding, the sermon that delivers the goods this week will not justify a dogma, official position, or church body. That is not what a sermon is for (nor yet a Bible class, despite popular practice and opinion to the contrary). A sermon is not meant to justify your denominational affiliation. It is meant to justify your hearer. Crafting a sermon that does that requires your attention to the text and what it delivers. In Colossians 2 this is no less than Christ Himself, delivered in the gift given to all baptized believers. The promise of Christ’s deity and being filled in Him will deliver to your hearers the comfort that their enemies are in chains, worthy of nothing but mockery. And the promise of Christ’s deity and being filled in Him will move your hearers to the ultimate comfort of eternal significance, even while living in the penultimate and the finite. And the application of that comfort comes not from within, such that your hearer need do something to achieve it. Rather, it comes from the outside (what God is doing in Christ) such that they get to receive it.
God bless you in your sermoncraft this week!
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Colossians 2:6–15 (16–19).
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Colossians 2:6–15 (16–19).
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
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[1] “Finitum” is Latin for “finite” and “capax infiniti est” translates to “is capable of containing the infinite.” This second phrase indicates the idea that finite beings or entities can hold or receive the infinite and is most often used in academic theological discussions.
