“See to It That No One Takes You Captive-2”
Paul urges the Colossians in v. 6, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him….” These words make it clear that we cannot just receive Christ and stop there. When we receive Christ, we receive a person, not a thing. When we deal with things, we can do whatever we want to do: we can play with them or use them; we can store them away or put them on the mantel for display. Our relationship with inanimate things--if we can call it a relationship--is one-sided and unilateral. Our relationship with another person cannot be so one-sided. A person has the mind to think, the soul to feel and the heart to will. His intellect, his emotion and his will must be respected just as we want our intellect, emotion and will to be respected. We cannot treat a person like a thing and do whatever we want to do with him/her at will.
When we receive Christ, we receive not a thing but a person. And in receiving Christ we receive not just any person but the Lord Jesus Christ! We know that each person should be respected regardless of his position in the society. But we also know that some receive more respect than others because of their character, their accomplishments or their position in society and the office they hold. If so, how much more respect and honor should be rendered to Jesus Christ, the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things and the Redeemer of His people? We must gladly submit to His sovereign will, follow His infinite wisdom and seek to please Him above all else.
No, we cannot receive Christ merely as a means of forgiveness, just a ticket to heaven. Salvation is not simply about getting into heaven. We can say that our salvation is essentially having a right relationship with God. Think about it: can heaven be heaven if one’s relationship with God is strained and sour? What does it profit a man to find himself amid all the glories and riches of heaven when his heart is hostile toward God? To a rebel, heaven will be a most miserable place, a hell. But if we have the right relationship with God, we can sing, “What matters where on earth we dwell? / On mountaintop or in the dell, / In cottage or a mansion fair, / Where Jesus is, ’tis heaven there…” (C.F. Butler, “Since Christ My Soul From Sin Set Free”).
We cannot receive Christ without getting into relationship with Him. So Paul said, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him….” To walk in Him is to live and conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of being identified as His people, as His disciples. What does it look like?
We have a positive description in v. 7: “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Paul mixes two metaphors together: botanical (or, arboreal, “rooted”) and architectural (“built up”). The botanical image (“rooted”) underscores the organic connection we have with Christ: we derive our life from Christ, who is the Source of our new life from above. Our union with Christ is not just in name or theory only. It is a real, vital union through which we receive the life of Christ: “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4); “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…” (Gal. 2:20). Jesus Christ is our life. There is no life apart from Him.
The second image (“built up”) highlights the firmness and
strength of our life in Christ. In Christ Jesus we are built up as an
invincible, indestructible structure, perhaps as the holy
Together they show how vital and living as well as firm and strong our union is with Christ.
Together the two metaphors also show how completely dependent we are on Christ in every stage of our redemption and in every aspect: it is in Christ that we are rooted (notice how Christ is pictured as supporting us from underneath) and it is in Christ that we are built up (notice how Christ is pictured as being all around and above us, building us up). Christ surrounds us completely with His love and power--underneath us, above us and all around us--to give us life and to build us up strong and high against all foes and enemies.
Positively speaking, then, to walk in Christ is to be thus deeply rooted in Christ and to be firmly built up in Christ. Paul expresses this in the same verse as “established in your faith” (v. 7). To be rooted and built up in Christ is to be established in the faith because the faith they received had Christ as its object.
Then we have three negative descriptions of what it means to follow Christ in the three negative sub-commands (vv. 8-15; 16-17; 18-19). These negative commands tell us what we ought not to do if we walk in Christ.
The first command says, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” With these words Paul presents a simple dichotomy which covers the whole world. The dichotomy is between Christ and everything else. Notice how dramatic the contrast is between the two: the long, drawn-out and varied descriptions of the world countered by the simple phrase, “according to Christ”. The world is a vast, complex and complicated machinery that often seems chaotic, out-of-control and even self-contradicting--who can make sense of it? But it is simple and united when placed next to Christ: it can all be lumped together as one category, one camp, in its opposition to Christ. All different human traditions and all the countless elemental spirits of the world are joined together to make up one philosophy of empty deceit against the truth of Christ. This is not to reject all scientific and philosophical pursuits. The question is whether it is according to Christ or not, whether it recognizes the sovereign lordship of Christ over all. This dichotomy, this opposition, is at the foundation of Paul’s warning and it would be well for us to keep it in mind as we examine Paul’s warning.
Paul warns us not to be taken captive: to be led astray from Christ is to be taken captive by the enemy. Captivity--that is how Paul characterizes what it is like to be outside of Christ. We can imagine how miserable it would be to be a captive. To be taken captive is to live out, and taste every bit, of the degradation and humiliation of defeat, to be an object of scorn and mockery from the victor. He who is a captive has no freedom, no human right to claim, no justice to appeal to--this must have been true particularly in the ancient world. He who is a captive can only look forward to a life of hard labor under the constant threat of death. What a wretched way to live!
But
the problem is that the people of the world do not look so miserable to us.
They don’t look like miserable captives, waiting and longing to be set free!
Many of them seem rather happy, enjoying and thriving in this world! Is Paul’s
characterization wrong, then? No! There are captives and there are captives. Why
were the tax-collectors so hated by the Jews? Under the Roman occupation all
Jews were captives. But these Jewish tax-collectors worked for
But
is there any patriot left in the world, anyone remaining loyal to God even in
his captivity in the world, under Satan? No! “All we like sheep have gone
astray; we have turned every one to his own way…” (Isa. 53:6). “For the mind that is set on the flesh is
hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot” (
Paul’s warning to the Colossians reminds them that they are no longer captives. By implication he declares that they are free--remember the dichotomy / contrast between Christ and the world. To be in the world apart from Christ is to be in captivity; to be in Christ, by contrast, is to be free. But maybe the contrast does not exist at that level: maybe the contrast is--it is possible, grammatically speaking--between the captivity in the world and the captivity in Christ. Often Paul would introduce himself as a bondservant of Christ. Thus he would boast in his slavery to Christ. He did this as a polemic against the worldly principle of seeking power to lord it over others. But he also did it because it was true: Christ was after all the Lord of all and he was a bondservant to Christ the Lord. And he saw himself as a trophy of God’s victory (Eph. 4:8). And if in our passage Paul is contrasting between our captivity to Christ and our captivity to the world, it is because those are the only two options we have. Our freedom cannot be defined in terms of not having any lord or master over us because we are creatures, created to worship. If we do not worship and serve the one and only true God, we worship and serve the creatures. After all, when do we feel truly free? Not when we do whatever we want to do but when we do what we ought to do, when our conscience is free from guilt and regret.
True freedom is not found in shaking all other masters but our own selves. To be the master of our own lives can mean no more than a miserable bondage to our carnal, sinful desires. What happens when we follow these sinful desires? We destroy ourselves and harm those around us. If the Colossians were free, it was not because they emancipated themselves from the Roman occupation and served no one but themselves. It was because they had Christ as the Lord, living and walking in Him. It was indeed because of Christ and in Christ they found true freedom from the captivity of the world. Whatever good had become of them, it was in Christ.
As we go further down in our passage, we see this point expanded and illustrated. It is easy to see Christ’s preeminence in our redemption and our liberation. Just see how replete our passage is with phrases like “in Him” or “with Him”, which indicate that our salvation is in Christ: v. 9, “in Him”; v. 10, “in Him”; v. 11, “in Him”; v. 12, “with Him” twice; v. 13, “with Him”; v. 15, “in Him”. These words show how our salvation is found in what Christ has done on our behalf, not in ourselves or what we have done. We see in our passage how we were before and what we have become in Jesus Christ.
· V. 10 says, “you have been filled in him”. What does this imply but that we were once empty and void because we were without God? To be created in the image of God means that we have a vacuum in our soul that only God can fill. The ultimate reason for the restlessness and insecurity of our soul, the insatiable hungers and unfulfilled longings of our heart, is that “God-shaped-vacuum” in us. We go from one thing to another, from one relationship to another, trying to fill that void, only to be left with a greater sense of emptiness. But Christ can fill that void--something that no man, no treasure, no pleasure can do. For “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (v. 9). God the Son, the very God of very God, has come in flesh that we might behold the glory of God. In possessing Him, we possess the fullness of God. So we can be “abounding in thanksgiving”. Our life is no longer characterized and plagued by emptiness and vacuum: it is abounding and overflowing with the fullness of God. And see what it is abounding with--thanksgiving! Our grumbling, bitterness, resentment and discontentment are replaced with abounding thanksgiving for the fullness of our life in Christ!
· V. 13 says that we were once dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh. We were dead in trespasses because as guilty sinners we were under the condemnation of God’s justice. For the wages of sin is death--not just the physical death but the eternal death in hell. So great is our sin against God that we deserve nothing less than a perpetual existence of hopelessness, an unending, backbreaking labor in vain, a pain that never goes away, a hunger that is never satisfied, a thirst that is never quenched. We were dead also in the uncircumcision of our flesh. For our physical uncircumcision separated us from the covenants of promise and the attending means of grace. Our physical uncircumcision also signified the uncircumcision of our sin-sick soul. But we are now made alive. How? Because we received the Jewish circumcision made with hands? Because somehow we freed ourselves of our sins through our moral reformation? No! We were made alive--notice the passive. We were made alive in the death and resurrection of Christ (vv. 12, 13)--in His sin-atoning death and in His life-giving resurrection. And we were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands--the circumcision of Christ. Our circumcision is so called because it is the circumcision that Christ gives (spiritually). It is the circumcision of Christ also because it is accomplished by Christ’s being cut off from the land of the living: when Jesus bore our sins upon Himself, He became the foreskin, as it were, and was cut off in judgment. By His being cut off, we have been spared.
· V. 14 says that we were indebted to God. Think about all that we owe to God: our undivided allegiance; our love and devotion; our service and worship; our offerings of thanksgiving and praise; our time, our energy, our resources and our life. And what about the penalty that we owe because we did not fulfill our rightful obligations to God as well as the guilt offerings and the sin offerings for all the sins we have committed against God and others? We lived with the certificate of debt hanging over us always, ready to confiscate all we have and thrust us into the eternal lake of fire. So many people lose sleep over their credit card debt or whatever debt they owe. They stop answering the phone for fear that it is from the collection agencies hounding them. But we have something much more to be fearful of if we do not take of the record of debt to God. Even if we have no debt in this world, if we do not take care of this debt to God, we will have to spend all eternity to pay back this debt. But Paul declares to us that we are debt-free! God has cancelled the record of debt completely. He has taken it out of the way so that we may be completely debt-free! How did He do this? By nailing the record of debt to the cross. That is, He accepted the payment that Christ paid for us by dying on the cross--all the penalty we deserve for transgressing the law of God and all the righteousness and allegiance and service and love we owe to God.
· Vv. 10, 15 imply that we were once captive to the elemental spirits of the world (v. 8), the rulers and authorities (of the heavenlies). But Christ has triumphed over them through His death and resurrection on our behalf. He triumphed over them by His death. For His death demonstrated His unconquerable love for us, willing to go all the way to the cross to set us free. He triumphed by His resurrection. For His resurrection destroyed death which represented all the powers and forces of this world and its rulers.
This is who we are in Christ! That is why we must take care that we are not taken captive again by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. What did Paul mean by “philosophy and empty deceit”? All the “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5). They represent the finest and loftiest that human knowledge can offer; they represent the most militant and antagonistic forces of the world against Christ and His kingdom. They can be alluring. They can be intimidating. Their voice of attack against Christ may be loud and cutting. Their boastful claim to have the answer may sound convincing at times. But do they have the power to set our conscience free? Who of them has not violated his own conscience? Who has not broken his promise to himself?
But the freedom we have in Christ is more than the freedom of our conscience. Our conscience is fallen and defective. Even if we do nothing against our conscience, such a conscience, fallen and defective, can offer us no defense against the condemnation of God’s perfect law. But our freedom in Christ sets us free from the condemnation of the law of God.
Freedom is valuable to people. And there are many different kinds of freedom that people seek in the world--political, social, economic, etc. And many in the world lived and died by the dictum, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Oh, what people are willing to do to attain and preserve their freedom! They know how precious freedom is! We may take the freedoms we have in this country for granted. But imagine being a political refuge from an oppressive regime. Just being able to speak our mind openly--how wonderful that would be! If people are willing to die for their freedom in the world, how much greater should be our willingness not to give up or lose the freedom we have in Jesus Christ! For this freedom in Christ, which sets us free from the condemnation of the law and the eternal punishment in hell, is far more precious than any freedom in the world! This freedom has been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ: this freedom alone deserves to be defended even by death! What does it profit a man to die for his freedom if he has no life to enjoy it?
We must reject the lures of the worldly philosophies and fight against the false doctrines that rob us of Christ! To that end, we must be rooted deeply and built up high and strong in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. We must know what we believe. We must know it well enough to detect and fight off the false teachings when we encounter them! So then, let us take advantage of all the means of grace and every opportunity to receive them. Let us walk in Christ and see to it that on one takes us captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition and the elemental spirits of the world, not according to Christ! Let us persevere, then, for the day will come when we shall be free, not only from the punishment and power of sin but also from the presence of sin altogether! We shall behold our Lord with a conscience free of shame and fear, with a love that is not divided or cold, to have a fellowship that is eternal and not hindered by anything obstacle or friction!
© Copyright 2007 by Jeong Woo "James" Lee
All Rights Reserved.