Welcome to this week’s Shabbat teaching.
In this week’s teaching, we will study Colossians 2:6-3:2, and we will see how Paul in these verses teaches us to obey the written law of Moses and why we ought to obey.
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So let us now open our Bibles in Colossians 2:6
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him
Have you received Christ Jesus as Lord? Paul says that if you have received Him, you are obligated to continue to live in Him. What does it mean to live our lives in Christ? 1. John 2 says all who claim to live in Christ have to live as He lived. We all know and believe Jesus kept every commandment in the written law of Moses that was applicable to Him as a Jewish man living in Israel with access to the temple. So what Paul is saying here, in verse 6, is this: If you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, you have to keep every commandment in the written law of Moses applicable to your gender living outside of Israel without access to a temple.
7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
If you do live in Him, you will be built up in Jesus, rooted in Him, strengthened in the faith you were taught, overflowing with thankfulness. Notice how it says this is something that will be done for us, not something we have to do. We have to choose to obey and live in Him; He will do the rest if we do.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
Paul says we need to make sure we will not surrender to human traditions and hollow deceptive philosophy instead of living in Christ. And the source of human traditions and hollow deceptive philosophy is the elemental spiritual forces of this world.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
If we stay in Him, we will be complete and have fullness in our lives.
11 In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ.
Living in Him (which means to obey the written law of Moses), circumcises us and the one who does the circumcision is Christ.
12 Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Living in Him means obeying the written law of Moses, and one of the commandments in the law is cleansing baptism. So what Paul is saying here is that having cleansed ourselves in baptism, being raised with him because of our obedience to the law (the workings of Yehovah), we have become circumcised by Jesus.
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
When we did not obey the law, we were not circumcised.
God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,
When we repented back to the law and applied the Blood to our sins (Romans 3), Jesus circumcised us, and Yehovah forgave us all our sins.
14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
He (Yehovah) nailed our sins to the cross and canceled the charge against us because of our repentance and faith in the Blood.
15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Yehovah disarmed and triumphed over the powers and authorities. These powers and authorities are the sources of human traditions (verse 8); all of this was done by the cross. But the doorway we need to go through to get to the cross is repentance from lawlessness to law.
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
Because we have triumphed over these powers and authorities by the cross, we should never allow anyone to judge us for obeying the law of Moses.
17 These are a shadow of the things that are to come; however, reality is found in Christ.
We obey the law to be in Christ, so the reality and fulfillment of the commandment can only be experienced when it is done to be united with Him.
18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Now that we have Christ, we should never allow anyone who rejects the truth in the scripture in favor of spiritual experiences to disqualify us. So what Paul is saying here is this; if someone says, “we dont have to keep the law anymore because I have been given a spiritual revelation that tells me we are now under grace and not law,” we should reject such a person because they have lost connection with Christ.
20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
We have died with Christ from these spirits who give wisdom and inspiration to human commands and teachings. Therefore we should never submit to human commands and teachings again.
1.Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Because we have been raised with Christ, we should not focus on earthly things and human traditions. We are instead to focus on the life of Christ, being one with Him, living as He lived.
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