Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Colossians 2:10

And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

10. And ye are complete in him ] Lit. and better And ye are (emphatic) in Him filled full; or perhaps, with Lightfoot, And ye are in Him, filled full two statements in one; you are in Him, and you are filled full in Him. You are in immediate union with Him, and in that union you possess, potentially and as you need it, all grace, as possessing Him in whom is all the Fulness. Cp. Eph 1:23 and our notes. The word rendered “ complete ” is a grammatical echo of the word just above rendered “ Fulness ” or “ Plenitude.”

Such are the resources of the believer, and of the Church, in their wonderful union with the Lord. What need then of alien and lower secrets of succour and strength?

which is the head &c.] See on Col 1:19 above. All the personal Powers of the Unseen, however real and glorious, are but limbs (in their order of being) of this Head; therefore no nearer to Him than you are, and no less dependent on Him. Live then on the Fountain, not on Its streams; use to the full the fulness which in Christ is yours.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And ye are complete in him – Having no need, for the purposes of salvation, of any aid to be derived from the philosophy of the Greeks, or the traditions of the Jews. All that is necessary to secure your salvation is to be found in the Lord Jesus. There is a completion, or a filling up, in him, so as to leave nothing wanting. This is true in respect:

(1)To the wisdom which is needful to guide us;

(2)The atonement to be made for sin;

(3)The merit by which a sinner can be justified; and,

(4)The grace which is needful to sustain us in the trials, and to aid us in the duties, of life; compare the notes at 1Co 1:30.

There is no necessity, therefore, that we should look to the aid of philosophy, as if there was a defect in the teachings of the Saviour; or to human strength, as if he were unable to save us; or to the merits of the saints, as if those of the Redeemer were not sufficient to meet all our wants. The sentiment advanced in this verse would overthrow the whole papal doctrine of the merits of the saints, and, of course, the whole doctrine of papal indulgences.

Which is the head – See the notes at Eph 1:21-22.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Col 2:10

Ye are complete in Him.

The false teachers at Colossae were Jews, but not Judaizers. They were philosophers. They designed to substitute philosophy for Christianity, not by denying the latter, but by explaining it. They distinguished between faith and knowledge. Faith was for the people, knowledge for the educated few. The objects of faith were the historical and doctrinal statements of the Bible. The objects of knowledge were the speculative truths underlying those statements, and into which they were to be sublimated. Pauls object is to prove

I. That philosophy was an utter failure. He pronounces it–

1. Vain, i.e., void

(1) of truth;

(2) of reality;

(3) of worth and power.

2. Deceit. It disappointed expectation, and betrayed those who trusted to its guidance. This was no slight matter, and so he warned his readers lest any man in this way should make a prey of them to their utter destruction.

II. That all the objects which philosophy vainly attempted were effectually accomplished in Christ.

1. What does Paul mean by philosophy? Some say heathen as opposed to Christian philosophy; others that particular system that prevailed at Colossae–the Gnostic. Every one would say false and not true, yours and not mine. There must be some way of deciding this question. The apostle decides for us.

(1) By what he says of the system he opposes. By philosophy he means systems of that nature. This system undertook to determine a priori and from the principles of reason.

(a) The nature of God, or of absolute Being.

(b) His relation to the world, or what the world was in relation to Him.

(c) What the origin, nature, and destiny of man.

(d) What Christ is, and how he effects the restoration of man.

(2) By the arguments he uses against it. He includes in philosophy every system against which those arguments legitimately bear.

(a) He argues that these are matters about which, from the nature of the case, we can know nothing. They are matters of revelation (1Co 2:9-11; Joh 1:18).

(b) He shows that God in the Scriptures has declared the wisdom of this world to be folly (1Co 1:20).

(c) Experience has proved that the world by wisdom knows not God.

(d) God has determined to save man not by philosophy, but by the gospel.

2. Paul does not depreciate reason. The senses have their sphere; so has reason. But there is a supernatural or spiritual sphere into which reason cannot enter. We might as well judge of a syllogism by the tongue. This conclusion is sustained by consciousness. What do you know? There lies the grave! Where does it lead to?

3. We see, therefore, that Paul by philosophy does not mean–

(1) Exclusively the Oriental philosophy; for what he says here he says to the Corinthians.

(2) Not natural, mental, or moral philosophy.

(3) But any attempt to solve the great problems above mentioned a priori.

III. All that philosophy vainly pretends to do is done in Christ.

1. As to knowledge. That is necessary, even of these supreme problems. In Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and He is the only source of knowledge. The knowledge He gives is sure, satisfying, sanctifying.

2. Redemption.

(1) It is objective–pardon, reconciliation. This is accomplished by Christs atoning work.

(2) It is subjective–delivery from inward sin and restoration of Divine life. This Christ does because in Him dwells the fulness of the Godhead, etc. We are filled with God in Him.

3. Restoration to our former status, to the kingdom of light: it is exaltation. This is done by being made partakers of the glory of Christ.

4. All this depends on our union with Him, which is–

(1) Representative.

(2) Spiritual.

(3) Voluntary, by faith.

Lessons:

1. We must not trust to our own reason or to that of others for instruction in these great points.

2. We have sure knowledge in the gospel, and to reject it is certain perdition. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

Ye are complete in Him

1. Christ is the one infallible Teacher of the Church. Elsewhere you tread on the deceptive sand or treacherous marsh which by an appearance of solidity lures you to proceed and then sinks under your weight. His teaching alone places you on the rock. Ancient mariners sailed by the light of the stars, but when clouds intervened they were beset with dangers. Taking the words of Jesus you shall cross the sea of life with safety, but if you allow human philosophy, tradition, priesthoods, etc., to intervene, your course must be perilous.

2. He is the Head of the Church, and alone has a right to command in spiritual things. We honour the Fathers, love the names of saints and reformers, but we must not make them lords. One is your Master.

(1) The constitution of His Person qualifies Him for this spiritual throne. Divine knowledge, wisdom, power, dwell in Him, united to tenderest human sympathies.

(2) Moreover He purchased us with His own blood, and His people are made willing subjects by the power of His Spirit.

3. The spiritual increase of the Church is derived from Him. Religious progress is a growing up into Him in all things. Christ is our life. Reject Him, and you are cast forth as a severed branch and burned; but united to Him a Divine virtue shall pass into your soul, and you shall be made perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

4. These things being so, the teaching that has a tendency to draw us away from Christ is to be rejected. The apostle warns the Colossians against errors which would have this effect. The things he names are still in the world under different forms, and his advice is as needful as ever. They were in danger from–

I. Philosophy.

1. St. Paul does not speak against love of knowledge, for this is as natural as the desire for food. Nor did he suppose that the gospel had anything to fear from it. False religions may thrive in ignorance as bats in the dark, but: pure Christianity, like the eagle, delights to look the sun in the face. Be philosophers if you will, explore the wonders of nature, and the gospel will no more suffer than the finding of new planets will extinguish the sun.

2. But the Colossian philosophy was the vain and bewildering theories of men. Speculations concerning God are of little value, for He is found not by our searching, but by his revealing, and that in Him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead. Extinguish this light and hold in your hand the torch of philosophy, and what do you make of the black expanse before you–the many gods of the heathen, the no-God of the atheist, the blind necessity of the fatalist, or nothing but matter with the materialist, or nothing bat God with the pantheist?

3. Three things are certain.

(1) Man must have a religion.

(2) He cannot discover a satisfying one by himself.

(3) He should receive thankfully that provided by Christ, who is our life and in whom we are complete.

II. The traditions of men.

1. By tradition we mean doctrine, precept, custom not named in the Word of God. Jewish traditions, embodied in the Talmud, were mingled at Colossae with mental philosophy and the truths of the gospel. This Paul regarded as injurious to spiritual life.

2. The belief in tradition is not extinct. The Greek and Roman Churches receive it as a rule of faith co-ordinate with the Bible. And other Churches, more pure and enlightened, are not entirely free.

(1) There are traditional systems of spiritual truth. Men of other days melted the Divine doctrines and cast them in human moulds. The gospel bears the same relation to these forms as a painting to its frame. We may change the frame, but must not efface a single feature of the picture.

(2) There is a traditional mode of speech with which you must clothe the truth or be suspected of heresy.

3. Tradition is at best an uncertain guide. It may be a pillar of fire, or an ignis fatuus. But we have the words of Jesus, the glorious and everlasting gospel; and our faith should rest in that, and not in fairy tales of Jewish, Roman, or Protestant tradition. Ye are complete in Him.

III. The sacred sites and seasons of a former dispensation (verse 16). Many are still Jewish in their feelings.

1. To many the Lords day is still the Jewish Sabbath. Yet its very name shews it to be a different day, and can we fear for its sancitity while we regard it as commemorative of the resurrection. Moreover, it is necessary for rest and devotion. Keep it, then, as given, not by Moses, but by Christ.

2. Baptism as set forth in the New Testament is beautiful and instructive. It acknowledges our sinfulness, symbolizes the purification of the Spirit, and puts a seal on the baptized that he belongs to Christ. But when it is regarded as regenerative, and as creating a relation which it only recognizes, the sign is mistaken for the thing signified, and a simple ordinance converted into a fruitful error.

3. The Lords Supper, in its simplicity, is an impressive representation of Christs sufferings, a vivid expression of His love, an historical evidence for the gospel. Men have built monuments to keep their names in human memory, but time has blotted them out. Therefore our Saviour ordained for His memorials productions of nature that will last as long as the world. Penetrate their meaning, and you will understand what Christ is to you. But when the idea of spiritual magic is introduced, instead of being helpful to piety, it becomes a stumbling-block and an offence.

IV. The worship of angels (verse 18). This old error still lives. The honour paid by Rome to angels exceeds that paid to Christ. It was an error to think that we in England had done with her for ever. She is very busy in this land, and wherever her teaching is received angels are worshipped. We should avoid her and repudiate her claims. Begone, spirit of error; that we may behold God in Jesus Christ. We are complete in Him. (T. Jones, D. D.)

Complete in Christ

Complete is carried on from verse 9. The fulness of the Godhead, and ye are full (same word) in Him.

I. Fulness in Christ. If you had heard Christ speak you would have said nothing can be taken away or added to those words without diminishing their force or beauty. If you had seen Christ act you would have felt that His action came up to the fulness of which that action was capable. His heart was nothing but love; and His work, although confined to a few years, fulfilled the infinite counsel of the Trinity. The Father looked down and saw no flaw and was satisfied.

II. This fulness was to be the one treasure-house of the Church for ever (Joh 1:16; Eph 4:7). And every believer being separately endowed, the whole Church is made His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. So we are filled, complete; and the Church is the complement of Jesus.

III. The process by which the completeness is effected is union with Christ.

1. The union is a simple, positive fact once for all. The Holy Spirit enters a mans mind and unites his thoughts, feelings, desires, etc., with those of Christ, and that Spirit in both is union.

2. If there be union the completeness will follow, just as a vessel must fill itself from the fountain with which it is connected.

IV. We naturally yearn and strive for completeness, but fail everywhere.

1. No man ever yet came up to the point of which he knew his powers were capable.

2. None of those sources of gratification with which God has furnished us ever gave entire satisfaction.

3. There is not a man who has not his weak points; but above all men the Christian feels his incompleteness. The better he prays the more he feels his prayer deficient. The higher his attainments the farther off he seems from what he wants. And no Christian friend, no Church, no ordinance, no grace, is all he once expected they would be.

4. Life is one vast incompleteness.

V. We are complete in Him.

1. From His cross our Lord said It is finished. From the time of creation down to that hour those words could not have been spoken about any human undertaking. But He said it, and mark the consequence. You have to do with a salvation which is perfectly complete. If you think you are to do anything you detract from the completeness of Christ.

2. We have a twofold completeness.

(1) That which we draw from Christ. The whole disposal of Gods gifts is delegated to Christ. In Him all things are treasured up for our sakes. Hence He will supply

(a) our temporal needs. The Christian, therefore, must not be anxious about them.

(b) Strength and wisdom for every work we have to do. The Christian, then, must not despair about his weakness and ignorance.

(c) Grace for Christian growth and comfort. The Christian must not despond when deprived of outward means and help.

(2) That in which we stand in Christ. God sees all who believe in Christ, and accepts Christ for them. Hence everything we do in faith loses itself in some corresponding thing that Christ has done. Our prayer, e.g., mingles with Christs intercession. What is wanting He supplies, what is redundant He deducts. His perfume gives it sweetness, and so it goes to the throne, how different from when it left us, complete. He is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, etc. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Complete in Christ

1. Every valuable mechanism represents a principle peculiar to itself. It may have many important adjuncts, but there must be one principle which imparts its force to all the rest.

2. In the same manner men are of large or small account as they recognize their individuality. Each stone is hewed for its special place, and to fail to appreciate our purpose is to degrade our manhood and to insult the prescience of the Divine Architect.

3. The claim of Christianity to be is that it, in like manner, embodies one distinctive fact. Ethically considered it has much in common with other systems; but its central feature or force is, as its name indicates, the Christ element. The degree in which Christ is present in the heart marks the purity of the Christianity.

4. The declaration, Ye are complete in Him, goes much further than the recognition of Christ as an historic character as we associate Mahomet with Islam, etc. It is Christ interpenetrating Christianity at every point. The Scriptures assert for Christ comprehensive, all-filling character and capacities. I am the Way, etc. Without Me ye can do nothing. In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead, etc. Observe–

I. This completeness in Christ in contrast with all others.

I. No life is or can be in itself alone. We sustain a multitude of important relations, family, civil, He., but it would not be possible to apply the language of the text to them. Of no relation, even the most valuable, can it be said, This is essential. It seems to be the destiny of man to grow out of existing states, and use them only as the oar employs the water that it dips as a leverage for progress. And we may thank God that in a world where death spares nothing that there is no person or condition wherein our completeness lies. The king, hero, father dies; the nation, community, family mourns as if nature had stopped in its courses; but to-morrow the world moves on unchanged save that one grave more has furrowed its surface. That any of us is essential to the place he occupies is but a fiction of his own weakness or a flattering adulation of his admirers. Only in God all things consist.

2. The reason of this, and as marking the essential difference between our relations to any other and to Christ, is that the former are in a sense conventional. We found them, we have become habituated to them, nevertheless they are not essential. Of one only can this be said. That we are complete in Christ renders necessary the preceding declaration which shows that what God can do for us Christ can do.

II. That we are complete in Christ necessarily implies that apart from Him we have no moral standing place.

1. I care not to argue the question of degrees. Incompleteness where perfection is demanded, where the judgment is by an infinitely holy standard, is as condemnatory and destructive of our moral basis as any degree of sin. Some years ago a large object glass was prepared for a telescope. With all the care employed, a single defective spot was found upon the otherwise perfect lens. It was not broken, there was no flaw, but it was condemned. Its purpose was to be a clear undeviating eye turned towards the heavens accurately to determine localities, etc. That single imperfection was its entire condemnation. This is the idea of human depravity. The defect in the web of the cloth renders the whole piece unmarketable. Slight incompleteness is still incompleteness, and when the judgment is upon righteousness the ground is taken from our feet.

2. It would be curious to investigate by what process so many cooly conclude to risk the great ordeal upon their personal moral standing, which even their fellow-men pronounce defective. A principle that may well command this easy-going complacency to halt is that the nature of sincere virtue is ever discontent with attainments. As eminence with the pencil or chisel leads to the detection of manifold deficiencies and desire for a higher ideal, so the advance towards holiness, instead of satisfying, always reveals a disheartening lack, and as invariably leads to a search for some other mode of satisfying the requirement of conscience.

3. May it not be that this failure to perceive our own incompleteness, and the necessity of a better justifying righteousness, is rather to be ascribed to moral blindness than accepted as an evidence of superior virtue? For if once our incompleteness out of Christ be admitted, then the neglect to obey the gospel is reduced to a childish trifling with our eternal interest.

4. Yet how can one more fully commend the completeness there is in Christ than to point to that spotless life consummated by the sacrificial death of the cross? For all the way through–where the suffering by innocence must either mean injustice on the part of God, or justice receiving satisfaction for us–there is not a step or act which is not eloquent with the perfection of that sacrifice. You are asked to trust a Saviour of whom it is asked, Who is he that condemneth, etc. Here is your completeness. It pleads no weak abandonment by God of His holiness. Redemption in Christ is the crown of that holiness as it is the expression of Gods love.

III. This completeness gathers in the circle of its embrace every conscious want. It keeps as well as saves. Christs intercessory prayer is not a supplication such as we offer, but a claim and recapitulation of what had been secured by His expiation. And in virtue of that Christ will bring with Him His saints, and stand at heavens gates claiming for them admission by His victory over the grave. Christs completeness must be one which does not exhaust itself on a past forgiveness. It must not only cleanse, but keep me clean.

2. The independence of God of every human condition, for the success of Christs kingdom, and the completeness for all its requirements, is found in Christ. Men have come and gone; some have seemed so important that hope almost expired in their departure, as Melancthon felt when Luther died. Yet how local are all such influences. God uses men, and so do we; but even with us how inconsiderable is a man. How quickly is the gap filled. Gods Church is not complete in man, but in Christ. (E. P. Terhune, D. D.)

Christians complete in Christ

I. What is meant by Christians being complete?

1. The word means full, wanting nothing; and as applied to Christians, it means that they have everything necessary for life and godliness, happiness and immortality.

2. The things needed in order to being complete.

(1) Wisdom and knowledge–meeting natural ignorance of, and conflicting theories about, God and the way of salvation.

(2) Pardon and righteousness. As sinners men cannot stand before God in judgment. They are unclean in His sight, and without forgiveness and acceptance they must perish.

(3) Holiness and purity. The heart is naturally evil, and by habit and indulgence acquires strength for evil. Unless this is cleansed there can be no meetness for heaven.

(4) Consolation and peace. Forgiveness is not enough, there must be a consciousness of it, so that the sense of shame, the deepest of our discomforts, may be banished, and the sense of reconciliation with God take its place.

(5) Support and strength in view of trials, labours, enemies.

(6) Deliverance from the power of death and the grave.

II. How Christians become complete. In Christ. Because being God and man all fulness dwells in Him, and out of this fulness all our need is supplied.

1. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. By His Word He instructs, by His providence He guides, and by His Spirit He opens the mind to instruct both.

2. He is the propitiation for our sins, and has thus brought in an everlasting righteousness, by means of which believers are accepted.

3. His grace creates the heart anew, subdues sin, and developes in holiness.

4. He brings peace to the troubled conscience and consolation to the broken heart.

5. He is the strength, defence, and support of His people.

6. He hath abolished death. (E. Cooper, M. A.)

Believers complete in Christ

I. On earth.

1. In their union to Christ.

2. In their justification.

3. In Christs fulness.

4. In their title to heaven.

II. In heaven.

1. As regards their persons–the union of body and soul with the perfection of nature and grace.

2. As regards their mental faculties–in receptivity and memory.

3. As regards the graces of the Spirit- faith lost to sight, hope in fruition, love in God.

4. As regards their fellowship- undivided, uninterrupted, with our predecessors, contemporaries, followers, God.

5. As regards their happiness–perfect enjoyment, perfect service. (A. Fletcher, D. D.)

Completed life

We are to look to Christ alone.

I. For the freeing of our spirit from all evil. But how shall this great purification and perfecting be attained? The appeal is to Omnipotent Grace. And Gods response is made known in Jesus Christ: It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell of pardoning and cleansing grace. In Him who is the head of all principality and power are we to look for the sin-expelling force–the force to correct, to purify our deepest life.

1. And we must not call in any foreign aid; we are complete in Him. These Colossians were tempted by Gentile philosophy on one side, and Jewish ecclesiasticism on the other, but the apostle reminds them that everything they wanted was in Christ, and they were to confine themselves severely to His fellowship.

2. And Christ can save us completely, Whiter than snow. Let us remember that Christ aims at our completeness, and let us not rest short of that ideal. It is a present blessing.

II. For the perfecting of our nature in all its powers. It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell. In Christ we behold the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and also the fulness of humanity.

1. We need not travel beyond Christ–He is the ideal and the perfecter of the race. All colours are in the sun, and all the infinite differentiations of colour found on the landscapes of nature, in the vapours of the firmament, in the play of the sea–all are in the light. And in Jesus we have the full-orbed humanity, all the graces by which man can be adorned. When we study the character of ordinary men it is like entering an ordinary garden, in which are a few fair flowers with an unfortunate admixture of weeds; when we study the moral character of extraordinary men it is like entering the grounds of some great rose-grower or orchid connoisseur–many delightful things greeting our eyes. But on beholding Christ, it is like being set down in Kew Gardens, where the vegetation of the whole earth blooms. In these days certain critics are very anxious to send us to the sacred writings of China, India, Arabia, Persia. Very valuable indeed are those writings from certain points of view, but they have nothing to add to the ideal of humanity given in Christ.

2. In Christ we are to attain the perfection of our nature. We have not only completeness in Him, but we arc to become complete in Him. Men talk about the narrowness of Christianity, its commandments and prohibitions; they want a system of religion, wider, freer. Now, the tree on the heath or in the street may rebel against the iron bars which girdle it. Says the grumbling sapling, I dont like this iron cage; I want liberty, I want room. Room l it has plenty of room at the top. It has room for its branches to stir with every wind of heaven, to catch all the dew of the morning, all the light of the sun, all the wealth of the shower; room for the singing birds, room to leaf, to blossom, to fruit. Room! The iron bars protect you from beneath, but a whole sky is waiting for you up above. So, whilst the New Testament rings us round with protective prohibitions, Jesus Christ stands over us like a sky, pouring down upon us richest influence, and drawing forth all the powers of our nature to their fullest perfection. There is room for our whole personality, our bodily instincts, mental faculties, imagination, wit, judgment, logic, speculation; for our social instincts, all the sensibilities of kinship, friendship, patriotism; for our ethical sense, for our heart with all its wealth of affection. Christianity is not wide enough for a theatre at one end and a prize ring at the other, but wide enough for whatever is true and pure in knowledge, science, art, pleasure, patriotism, business, love. We are not straitened in Christ; let us not be straitened in ourselves, but so live in the faith of the Lord Jesus that all the riches of our nature may be realized, that we may come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

III. For the strengthening of our life in all righteousness.

1. In Christ we attain completeness alike in spiritual and in practical virtue. Holiness is that side of goodness which looks towards God; morality is that side which looks towards society. And in both Christ perfects us–filling us with reverence, admiration, love toward God, and strengthening us to fulfil all practical virtue.

2. In Christ we attain completeness in universal virtue. If we have the Spirit of Christ, it will display itself in every possible virtue–that Spirit being the essence of universal virtue. Just as in the doctrine of the convertibility of force, we are taught that heat may become light, and light electricity, and electricity magnetism, and magnetism chemical affinity, and chemical affinity be changed into motion–one force with many manifestations–so the Spirit of Christ displays itself, now as meekness, now as courage, now as temperance, now as purity, just as circumstances require, but yet is all the time the one same Divine force. It makes of one a good master, another a good servant; one a good prince, another a good subject; one a good husband, another a good wife; one a good parent, another a good child. The Spirit of Christ fits men for every rank, adorns them with every grace. Ye are complete in Him. Conclusion: We must feel condemned for our incompleteness; and yet from time to time how near we come to a life altogether full, rich, glorious 1 One of our magazines had a striking paragraph, entitled, I have touched the gold, and it went on to relate how a diver uttered these words on coming up from a sunken gold ship, and the writer proceeded to show how in religion we often touch the gold and yet never quite realize it. Oh! how often have we touched the gold–the strength that more than overcomes, the perfect peace, the faith which asks and receives, the love that many waters cannot quench, the purity that keeps itself pure, the joy that is unspeakable, the hope full of glory–we touch the gold, we always know when we touch gold it is such a pleasant feeling, and yet fail to possess it. Let us trust in Christ- with all our heart; let us do it now, so shall every man be presented perfect in Him. (W. L. Watkinson.)

The completing of the soul

If we are only to be complete in Christ, then we must be incomplete without Him. It follows then that a soul after being made is still to be completed. It may be a germ to be developed, or a blasted germ to be restored. Here then is the true work of Christs salvation, the completing of the soul.

I. What do we mean by the completing of the soul?

1. We constantly assume the necessity of a great afterwork to be done on the soul of our child to make it the complete man or woman we desire it to be. What we call education is only our attempt to bring it to completeness. The result is a being in higher quantity and finer quality, and of enlarged capacity for action and enjoyment.

2. But it is not to be assumed that we are right in all our conceptions of what takes place in the training of minds.

(1) They will not be complete if only fully educated intellectually. Sometimes they will be hampered by scholarly attainments, drugged by great authorities, and incapacitated by the overload they have taken. Perhaps one hour with God would have done more in the widening of consciousness and the kindling of divinist fires than whole years of school drill.

(2) Sometimes we think our child is only going to be complete when educated away from certain ranges of employment. If he can only be a blacksmith, or a school teacher even, we think that we have not made enough of him. Were he a qualified commander, physician, lawyer, etc., we should think him more nearly up to the measure of his possibilities. But God does not grade our completeness by any such law. He may have rated Bezaleel the brazier far above Aaron the priest. Whoever came nearer to being mated with Shakespeare than the tinker Bunyan? A great soul can be fashioned anywhere if only God is with him. God nowhere allows that souls are kept back from completeness by their employments.

3. No mere schooling, to whatever grade of life or social estimation it may lead, is any but the faintest approximation to the completion of the soul.

II. How does it appear to need any such completion? If this were a question relating to Adam in his innocence, we should say that he was a full-grown, beautiful child, but yet a child; that his perceptions are all to be gotten, his will trained, habits formed, etc. Until then he is so incomplete that he will not stand fast in good, but plunge into wrong. Our first man, commonly thought so grandly perfect, is put on probation only that he may get his nature so matured in good that he will come out able to stand. Our question after this relates to him under the conditions of moral disaster into which he has fallen.

1. The soul scarcely at all answers its true end. There is a feeling everywhere that souls are going wide of the mark. A watch is complete when it keeps time, not when it quarrels with the notations of suns and dials and almanacks. A vintage process is complete when it makes wine, not when it makes vinegar. Souls in like manner are complete when they make the good they were made for.

2. Their enjoyment is not full, but confessedly a great way short of it. Their instincts are unfulfilled, their wants unsupplied, their objects not found. They are tormented with a general unrest. It would not be so if they were complete. They would be exactly full of enjoyment, just as by their inborn necessity they crave to be. No bee misses the shape of its cells, no bird the direction of its flight, no plant the colour and kind of its flower. No more will a soul its enjoyment unless incomplete, sweltering in some torment of inbred disorder.

3. Souls do not fulfil the standards of beauty, truth, and right. These are standards we all admit, just as all flowers and fruits have standard colours and figures of their kind. An apple is not complete when it comes out a gourd; nor a rose when it comes forth blue. When a soul, then, misses its kind, and puts forth itself in deformity, falsity, and wrong, it is a witness to its incompleteness.

4. Take a more surface view, and let the question settle itself under mere first impressions. How then is it that there is so much meanness, passion, want of self-government in individuals; and so many quarrels, acts of injustice, and bloodshed in society? Who can imagine mere creatures complete in their order? Suppose all the grains in a bushel of wheat were to act on themselves and towards one another thus! And the reason why they do not do so is because they are complete creatures, resting in their own perfect mould, and in harmony with each other–they that are at the top lying just as heavily, and those at the bottom supporting the weight just as bravely as they must. Souls completed in their order would do the same, just as all Gods finished worlds and societies in glory do, without one rasping of a bad thought, or pang of mutual accusation.

5. We have a way of saying concerning a man that he is rained or blasted by his vices: in which we refer mentally to the incomplete state of the flower which we say is blasted when it does not come to fruit. And the figure is rightly chosen. Such men are incomplete.

6. It is a very curious distinction of souls that, being finite, they have yet infinite wants and aspirations; their very longing is to be completed in the outspreading of some infinite possession. What a falling short, therefore, is it when they fall short of God.

III. How in Christ they can be made complete. Here we discover three great agencies provided for the purpose.

1. Inspirations.

(1) Separated from God man is nothing. Existing in mere self-hood he cannot push himself out in any way so as to be complete as from himself. A sponge might as well complete itself in dry air; it must let in and possess the sea. Just so a soul must have Gods properties flowing in and through–liberty and life in His life, power in His power; it must be true in His truth, righteous in His righteousness.

(2) Now, it is in this inspiration force that Christ arranges for in His gift of the Spirit. He enters the soul to fill out every lack, configuring it inwardly to all that is most perfect in Himself, turning its very liberty towards all it wants and needs to receive.

2. We have ideals in Christ, who lives God in human figure and relation, so that we have in Him all that requires to be completed in us. Christ is the mirror that glasses Gods image before us, and the Spirit is the plastic force within that transfers and photographs that image, so that beholding as in an image, etc. (2Co 4:6).

3. To make the provision perfect, we are set in a various scheme of relations that we may have a training in duties and qualities, and be perfected by means of them. And we have as our remarkable advantage Christ the Divine man with us in these relations, so that trying to do the exact Christly thing in them all we are to get benefit in so many forms and degrees, and be brought when all is done and suffered to a completeness in the will of God. In this wondrous mill every blemish is to be removed, till at last there will be no spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

IV. The gospel of Christ is the only power able to bring men thus forward.

1. We try education, getting much from it, but never anything which approaches a standard of completeness.

2. What we call self-improvement is a poor desultory affair, polishing one thing, while another goes rough by neglect, and all issuing in a great self-consciousness painful to behold, and in itself how dry.

3. We try self-government under the standards of morality, but the most we obtain is to pile up what we think good acts on one another, as a man piles his days wages, but then they will be as dry and with as little continuity.

4. There is another way greatly praised–philosophy. But its ideals are for ever out-running its possible attainments, and the fine philosophic consciousness will be only a kind of equilibrium under dryness and felt limitation. And the wars of the mind are perhaps kenneled by it but not composed.

5. There is nothing, in short, but religion that can be looked to for the completing of the soul; because as nothing else does–

(1) It takes hold of the soul s eternity and its sin, to raise up, harmonize, purify, and settle it in a rest of everlasting equilibrium in God.

(2) It takes hold of all possible conditions, completing as truly the menial as the employer, the unlettered as the scholar.

(3) It completes one degree of capacity as certainly as another, preparing the feeblest to fill out his measure as roundly and blissfully as the highest. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)

Every need of man supplied in Christ

I. The errors Paul desires to counteract. These were the current philosophy of the day. There were many forms of thought which preceded Christianity. For hundreds of years men had been indulging in speculation, groping after light, and weaving systems; and the Colossian philosophy seems to have been an amalgamation of the four principal.

1. The philosophy of Plato, with its mystic doctrine of everything having an archetypal model.

2. Jewish fables and endless genealogies picked up by the exiles in Babylon.

3. Ceremonialism and the observing of days, etc.

4. Gnosticism, the affectation of superior knowledge.

II. The doctrine with which he would counteract these errors. Ye are complete in Him.

1. Note who and what Christ is. The glory of Christ is set over against these speculations.

(1) He possesses the loftiest ideal–All the fulness of the Godhead, not one of His emanations, and that fulness bodily, brought within the comprehension of man.

2. He has done a great work (Col 1:20). It is not matter that is sinful, but man, and from this Christ redeems him.

(3) He sustains a glorious relation to the universe (Col 1:15; Col 1:18; Col 2:19). He is not one of an illustrious order, but Creator and Head of all.

4. He maintains a close union to the man who accepts Him (Col 1:27).

2. If Christ is all this to a man, then that man is complete in Him.

(1) If a man be striving after the knowledge of God, he is complete in Christ. This has been the problem of philosophy from Thales till now. What is the first principle? Water, air, fire, mind, love, have each in turn been the answer. And now a philosophy is confessing the problem insoluble, calling God by a name more hopeless than that on the Athenian altar–the Unknowable. But who that knows Christ can ever be thus in the dark (Joh 14:9).

(2) If a man would approach God he is complete in Christ. Afar from God man cannot rest, but sin keeps him away. But through Christ we have access (Joh 14:6; Heb 10:19) and close fellowship.

(3) If a man is anxious about his standing before God he is complete in Christ. Through Him we may have a better and firmer one than Adams. In Christ a man stands accepted and welcomed with nought wanting to the fulness of his redemption.

(4) If a man wants to lead a holy life he is complete in Christ. This was the aim of the Gnostics; not holiness indeed, but freedom from the impurities of matter. Hence they tried asceticism. But sin is not to be purged by scourging the body. Christ however can kill it by the power of a new life which His Spirit implants.

(5) If a man is longing for light on the great questions of destiny he is complete in Christ, who has brought life and immortality to light.

(6) Do we ask for a bond of brotherhood in the human race? We are complete in Christ in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, etc.

(7) Do we ask for a redemption that shall perfect body, as well as soul and spirit? We are complete in Him who is the Saviour of the body and the resurrection and the life.

III. The suitability of this doctrine for counteracting modern errors. The true method of meeting false doctrine is to show that all our nature craves is to be found in Christ. But since Christ is enough in Himself He must be accepted as being so, and not as the mere complement of some other system.

1. Are you in peril of Rationalism? Learn what Jesus is, and you will find reason and conscience to say, Here is one at whose feet we can sit to be their enlightener and lord.

2. Are you attracted by Positivism? Here in Christ is all that is attractive in its assertions, and nought of its dismal negations. They worship they know not what in worshipping Humanity. But no one who has ever caught a glimpse of Christ can ever barter a living Saviour for that. One in the race and yet over it. Over it, that He might redeem, educate, and glorify it; and yet who can give to each member eternal life.

3. Do the claims of a so-called priesthood attract you? If you knew what Christ is you would let no one have the impertinence to come between you and Him. We need a mediator between God and man; but none between us and Jesus. Con clusion: This doctrine is grand enough for the philosopher, yet simple enough for us all. We are complete in Christ for living or dying; for time or eternity. (C. Clemance, D. D.)

Completely furnished

Manton says He that is in a journey to heaven must be provided for all weathers: for though it be sunshine when ha first sets forth, a storm will overtake him before he cometh to his journeys end. Have faith in Christ and you are ready for anything, thankful for everything, afraid of nothing. Ye are complete in him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Which is the head of all principality and power.

Angels

I. In themselves. For their excellency of nature, as they are here called principalities, so elsewhere they are called stars of the morning, sons of God, yea, Gods.

II. In relation to Christ so they are implied to be of the body, and Christ to be their Head. Now we may not marvel at it, that Christ should be the head of angels, for there be divers distinct benefits, which angels from thence do receive, which by natural creation they had not.

1. They are vouchsafed a place in the mystical body under Christ, that they might be received, as it were into the new order in Christ.

2. A peace is made between them and man in Christ.

3. The room of angels fallen is supplied by the elect, the society of angels being much maimed by their fall.

4. They are refreshed with singular joy for the conversion of the elect; besides the enlarging of their knowledge, that they are vouchsafed the understanding of the secrets of the gospel.

5. They receive from Christ confirming grace, and so assurance that they shall never fall: which is their chief benefit.

6. Their obedience in its own nature is imperfect, though not sinful, and therefore may need to be covered by Christs perfections.

III. In relation to the body of Christ.

1. They are like masters and tutors, to whom the great King of heaven sends out His children to nurse. God doth adopt children, and after commit them to be kept by those most noble citizens of heaven.

2. They execute judgment upon the enemies of the Church. They attend us at the hour of death, and carry our souls to heaven. They shall gather our bodies together at the last day.

3. For the accomplishment of all designments for our good, they stand always looking on the face of God to receive commandments.

Conclusion: Inasmuch as Christ is the head of all principalities and powers, we may comfort ourselves divers ways.

1. If Christ fill the angels, how much more can He out of His fulness fill us in the supply of all our wants.

2. Shall we not rejoice in the grace here is done to us, in that we are united into communion with angels under our Head? yea, and that such glorious creatures, are appointed to be our attendants, why should we fear when Christ and His angels will be so ready about us.

3. This may also instruct us, we need not be ashamed of Christs service, seeing the very angels follow Him and depend upon Him. A prince that kept great princes to be his domestic servants, were like to be much sought to for preferment of such as would follow him. Oh! how should we long after Christ who is Head over such glorious creatures as the angels are! (N. Byfield.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 10. And ye are complete in him] . And, ye are filled with him. Our word complete quite destroys the connection subsisting in the apostle’s ideas. The philosophy of the world was empty, , but there was a , or fulness, in Christ; the Colossians were empty-spoiled and deprived of every good, while following the empty philosophy and groundless traditions of Jewish and Gentile teachers; but since they had received Christ Jesus they were , filled with him. This is the true meaning of the word, and by this the connection and assemblage of ideas in the apostle’s mind are preserved. No fanciful completeness in Christ, of a believer, while incomplete in himself, is either expressed or intended by St. Paul. It is too bad a doctrine to exist in the oracles of God.

The head of all principality] See the notes on Col 1:16; Col 1:17.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

And ye; ye saints and holy brethren, Col 1:2, who have received Christ, Col 2:6,7, and so are mystically united to him, in whom dwelleth all fulness (as you have heard); being in him, having one Spirit with him, as members with the head, Rom 8:1,9; Eph 1:23,

are complete; are implete, or filled, and so mediately and causally complete from the all-fulness that is in your Head, yet not immediately and properly complete with it (as some have been apt to think). But

in him ye have that completeness and perfection which is reckoned and made over to you and accepted for you to justification, so that of his fulness ye receive, and grace for grace, Joh 1:16; 1Co 1:30; 2Co 5:21; Eph 1:6; Phi 3:9; derive in and from him all spiritual blessings, Eph 1:3; so that every one hath grace sufficient, 2Co 12:9, to do all things incrumbent on him, through Christ strengthening him, Phi 4:13. It is true there is here in this state no being complete or perfect actually, as to glorification, yet, virtually and seminally, that may in a sort be said of true believers not only in regard of their Head, but in regard of their certain hope of being saved in Christ, yea, and indeed as to the earnest, the seed and root of it, having already that life which shall never have an end, Joh 3:36; 4:14; Rom 5:2; Eph 4:30; 2Th 2:13; Heb 9:15; 10:14; 1Pe 1:3,4; 1Jo 5:12.

Which is the head of all principality and power: the apostle, for consolation of the saints, and in opposition to those who did endeavour a withdrawing from Christ to the worshipping of angels. Col 2:18, doth further infer, from the personal union, the dignity of the human nature of Christ, in regard of the good angels, which are here meant by

principality and power, by reason of their excellency by nature and grace, and their authority delegated to them by God over other creatures, Mat 24:36; 2Co 11:14; 1Ti 5:21. Christ having the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily, is Head unto the good angels in regard of his excellency and eminency above them, who are far below him in perfection, Eph 1:21; Heb 1:4; the best of them are ministering spirits and subject to him, and so under his authority and at his command, Mat 13:41; 16:27; 24:31; Eph 3:10; Heb 1:14; 1Pe 3:22; Rev 1:1; 22:16.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

10. AndAnd therefore;and so. Translate in the Greek order, “Ye are in Him (byvirtue of union with Him) filled full” of all that youneed (Joh 1:16). Believersreceive of the divine unction which flows down from their Divine Headand High Priest (Ps 133:2). Heis full of the “fulness” itself; we, filledfrom Him. Paul implies, Therefore ye Colossians need no supplementarysources of grace, such as the false teachers dream of. Christ is “theHead of all rule and authority” (so the Greek),Eph 1:10; He, therefore, alone,not these subject “authorities” also, is to be adored (Col2:18).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And ye are complete in him,…. Or “filled up”, or “filled full” in him; that is, are perfect in him: saints are in Christ, and all fulness being in him, they are full too, of as much as they stand in need, and are capable of containing: for these words are not an exhortation to perfection, as the Arabic version reads then, be ye complete in him, like those in Ge 17:1; but are an affirmation, asserting not what the saints shall be hereafter, or in heaven, but what they now are; not in themselves, for in themselves none are perfect, not even those who are truly sanctified; for though all grace is seminally implanted in them, and they have a perfection of parts, of all the parts of the new man, or new creature, and are perfect in comparison of what they sometimes were, and of profane persons and hypocrites, and with respect to weaker believers, yet none are absolutely perfect; the good work of grace is not yet finished in them, sin dwells in them, they are full of wants and complaints; the best of them disclaim perfection as attained to by them, and express their desires of it; but they are perfect in Christ their head, who has all fulness in him, in whom they are chosen and blessed: they are complete and perfect in him as to sanctification; he having all fulness of grace and holiness for them, they have it in him; and he is made perfect sanctification to them: and as to justification, he has perfectly fulfilled the law for them, he has made full atonement for sin, has obtained eternal redemption, brought in a complete and perfect righteousness, by which they are justified from all things; are freed from sin, and made perfectly comely, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing: and as to knowledge, though it is imperfect in them in their present state, yet in Christ all the treasures of it are, and they have no need to go elsewhere for any; they are filled with the knowledge of God and of his will, and are complete therein in Christ; and what knowledge they have, is eternal life, the beginning, pledge, and earnest of it; so that they have no reason to be beholden to angels or men, only to Christ:

which is the head of all principality and power; not only of the body the church, and who is to be held unto as such, from whom all light, life, grace, and strength, are to be derived; but of all others, though in a different sense; and not only of the kings, princes, and potentates of this world, who hold their kingdoms, and receive their crowns from him, and rule by him; but also of the angels, good and bad, often called principalities and powers; especially the former is here meant, of whom Christ is head, being their Creator, Governor, and upholder; who not only maintains them in their beings, but has confirmed them in their state of holiness; so that they are dependent upon him, and beholden to him for all they have and are: with the Jews, “Metatron”, which with them is the name of the angel in Ex 23:20 and seems to be a corruption of the word “mediator”, and to design the Messiah, is said w to be King over all the angels. This is mentioned, partly to set forth the glory and excellency of Christ; and partly against worshipping of angels, making use of them as mediators, or applying to them on any account, since Christ is the head of these, and of every creature; therefore no creature is to be looked and applied unto, trusted and depended on: unless rather should be meant the Jewish rulers, Scribes, and Pharisees, their doctors, wise men, and Rabbins, called the princes of this world; the Jews’ tutors and governors, to whom Christ is superior; he is the only master and Father, and in whom perfection of wisdom is, and not in them; and therefore should not regard them, their vain philosophy, worldly rudiments and traditions.

w Zohar in Deut. fol. 120. 8.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Ye are made full ( ). Periphrastic perfect passive indicative of , but only one predicate, not two. Christ is our fulness of which we all partake (John 1:16; Eph 1:23) and our goal is to be made full of God in Christ (Eph 3:19). “In Christ they find the satisfaction of every spiritual want” (Peake).

The head ( ). There is no other place for Christ. He is first (1:18) in time and in rank. All rule and authority comes after Christ whether angels, aeons, kings, what not.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Ye are complete in Him [ ] . Rev., made full. Compare Joh 1:16; Eph 1:23; Eph 3:19; Eph 4:13. Not, ye are made full in Him, but ye are in Him, made full. In Him dwells the fullness; being in Him, ye are filled. Compare Joh 17:21; Act 17:28. 19 7

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And ye are complete in him” (kai este en auto pepleromenoi) “and ye are (exist as) having been filled in him;” your redemption fullness exists in Him, Jesus Christ, not Moses Law, or vain traditions and Philosophies of the world order. Every spiritual want is satisfied in Christ Eph 1:7; Joh 1:16.

2) “Which is the head” (hos estin h e kephale) “who is the head, the head means Supreme authority, first in order in all conduct and service to God and men, Joh 3:35; Joh 5:22; Eph 1:22-23.

3) “Of all principality and power” (pases arches kai eksousias)of all rule and authority;” both in heaven and on earth, 1Pe 3:22; Php_2:9-11.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

10. And ye are complete in him. He adds, that this perfect essence of Deity, which is in Christ, is profitable to us in this respect, that we are also perfect in him. “As to God’s dwelling wholly in Christ, it is in order that we, having obtained him, may posses in him an entire perfection.” Those, therefore, who do not rest satisfied with Christ alone, do injury to God in two ways, for besides detracting from the glory of God, by desiring something above his perfection, they are also ungrateful, inasmuch as they seek elsewhere what they already have in Christ. Paul, however, does not mean that the perfection of Christ is transfused into us, but that there are in him resources from which we may be filled, that nothing may be wanting to us.

Who is the head. He has introduced this clause again on account of the angels, meaning that the angels, also, will be ours, if we have Christ. But of this afterwards. In the mean time, we must observe this, that we are hemmed in, above and below, with railings, (370) that our faith may not deviate even to the slightest extent from Christ.

(370) See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. 1, p. 474, n. 2.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(10) Ye are complete.Literally, ye have been filled up in His fulness, as in Joh. 1:16. So St. Paul had prayed for the Ephesians that they might be filled with (or rather, up to) all the fulness of God, and grow into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. 3:19; Eph. 4:13). To partake of the divine plerorna is not the special privilege of the initiated; it belongs to all who are united to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Principality and power.See Col. 1:16. His headship over all angelic natures is dwelt upon (as in Heb. 1:1-14) with obvious reference to the worshipping of angels. They are our fellowservants under the same Head. (See Rev. 22:8-9.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

10. Complete The statement is double. First, Ye are in union with him; second, in virtue of that union, ye are filled full, as the word complete means, with all the plenitude of his gracious gifts. An empty philosophy can add nothing to this, and is therefore needless. Perfectly conclusive as this is, it is confirmed by the relation of Christ to the angels whom it is proposed to worship. He is the head of every order of them. As the unincarnate Son, he created them, Col 1:16; through his death (Col 2:15) he has brought them under the Headship of the divine-human Christ. He is their Lord, and alone to be adored, and they depend on him.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Col 2:10 . .] still depending on : and ( since ) ye are filled in Him, i.e . and since the which ye possess rests on Him, the bodily Bearer of the divine . The two are correlative: from the , which dwells in the exalted Christ, flows the of the Christian, which has its basis, therefore, in no other than in Christ, and in nothing else than just in fellowship with Him. Filled with what? was self-evident to the consciousness of the reader. It is the dynamic, charismatic , which Christians, in virtue of their union of life with the Lord, whose Spirit and are in them, have received, and continuously possess, out of the metaphysical dwelling in Christ, out of the .

The emphasis is not upon , but, as shown by the subsequent relative definitions, upon . If the depends on Him , on nothing and on no one but on Him , then everything else which men may teach you, and with which they may wish to seize you and conduct you in leading strings, is . With due attention to this emphasis of , we should neither have expected (in opposition to de Wette; comp. Estius and others: “ et vos ”) nor have explained in an imperative sense (in opposition to Grotius, Bos, Heumann); which latter view is to be rejected, because the entire connection is not paraenetic, and generally because, whilst a (Eph 5:18 ) or . may, . cannot, logically be enjoined. [94] There is, moreover (comp. also Hofmann), nothing to be supplied with . ( usually : , see Theophylact and Huther; de Wette, Bleek: . . .), since the specifically ontological sense of the purposely-chosen would not even be consistent with the supposed equalization of the Christians with Christ ( , , Theophylact), and this equalization does not exist at all, because Paul has not written . In what their being filled consisted, was known to the readers from their own experience, without further explanation; their thoughts, however, were to dwell upon the fact that, since their being full depended on Christ , those labours of the false teachers were of quite another character than .

. . .] This, as also Col 2:11 , now supplies confirmatory information regarding the fact that they have their being filled not otherwise than just in Christ; namely, neither through . , since Christ is the head of every and ; nor yet through circumcision , since they have received in Christ the real ethical circumcision.

. . .] is not more precisely defined as in Eph 3:10 ; hence, in virtue of the munus regium of the Lord quite generally: every principality and power , but with the tacit apologetic reference: consequently also of the angelic powers (Col 1:16 ) belonging to these categories and bearing these names, to whose mediation, to be attained through , the false teachers direct you, a reference which Hofmann, understanding the expressions in the sense of spiritual beings ruling arbitrarily and in opposition to God especially over the Gentile world (notwithstanding the fact that Christ is their Head! ), groundlessly denies; see Col 2:18 . If Christ be the Head of every and , i.e . their governing sovereign, the Christian cannot have anything to expect from any angelic powers subordinate to Christ, a result involved in the union in which He stands to the Higher, to Christ Himself .

With the reading (see the critical remarks), which is also preferred by Ewald, [95] Lachmann has placed . in a parenthesis. But, while this important thought would neither have motive nor be appropriate as a mere parenthesis, it would also be improper that the neuter subject . . should be designated as . . . , which applies rather to the personal possessor of the , to Christ.

[94] Calovius has well said: “Beneficium Christi, non nostrum officium;” comp. Wolf. In complete opposition to the context, Grotius brings out the sense: “illo contenti estote,” which he supports by the remark: “quia quod plenum est, nihil aliud desiderat.”

[95] Inasmuch as he takes directly as scilicet, utpote, and regards this usage as a linguistic peculiarity of this Epistle. But this rendering is not required either in Col 1:24 or in Col 3:17 ; and respecting Col 1:27 , see the critical remarks.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2177
THE CHRISTIANS COMPLETENESS IN CHRIST

Col 2:10-12. Ye are complete in him, which is the Head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

MAN is prone to corrupt whatever proceeds from God. He himself came pure out of his Makers hands: hut he soon corrupted his way; as it is said, God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions [Note: Ecc 7:29.]. As man has effaced the law originally written upon his heart, so has he, by imaginations of his own, obscured the revelation which God has given to the world. The Mosaic code was perverted by the Jews: the Christian code has been no less perverted by those who have called themselves Christians. Even in the apostolic age, and whilst the Apostles were yet in the full exercise of their ministry, persons arose to mutilate and destroy the faith of Christ. The very professors of Christianity, instead of receiving implicitly the truth as it was revealed, introduced into it their own corrupt notions: the heathen converts retaining their predilection for their former idolatry; and Jewish converts striving to encumber it with their former superstitions. It is against such persons that St. Paul is cautioning the Colossian Church: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ [Note: ver. 8.]. The heathen philosophers having multiplied their deities, and assigned to them a variety of ranks and offices, those who had been converted from amongst them still felt inclined to look to subordinate deities as their mediators and protectors: whilst others from among the Jews, who had, or pretended to have, a great veneration for Moses, could not part with the traditions which they had received from their fathers, and which they supposed to he highly conducive to their spiritual benefit. But St. Paul tells both the one and the other, that they needed no help from the creature, since in Christ dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead; and no created power could do any thing for them, any farther than he was expressly commissioned by Christ to do it: in a word, that they were complete in Christ; and all attempts to add any thing to him, would retard, rather than advance, their conformity to his will, and would ultimately deprive them of all the benefits which they were thus erroneously labouring to secure.

This being the scope of the whole passage, we will draw your attention to the two things mentioned in our text; namely

I.

The Christians completeness in Christ

In Christ we have all that we can possibly need or desire
[As God, he has all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily; and consequently is an almighty and all-sufficient Saviour. But as man also, he has, by virtue of his mediatorial office, a fulness committed to him for the supply of his believing people; according as it is said, It hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell [Note: Col 1:19.]. In our corporeal frame there is, if I may so say, a fulness imparted to the head for the use of all the members, that being the chief depository of all the senses: so there is in Christ, for the use of all his members: all that we need is treasured up in him: and he of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption [Note: 1Co 1:30.] ]

Nor can the creature add any thing to us
[What, I would ask, can philosophy, with all its vain deceits, add to us? Can it suggest one single truth which is not contained in the Holy Scriptures, or give us one atom of spiritual discernment? Can it devise any other way for a sinners justification before God, besides that which the Scripture reveals, through the blood and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ? Can it add any thing to the operations of the Holy Spirit for the transformation of our souls into the Divine image? Can it further, in any one respect, the everlasting redemption of our souls, so that we shall say, this is the work of philosophy, and not of Christ? If the maxims of philosophy cannot effect any thing, can its deities? Can they help us, either by their personal efficiency, or by their mediation with any other? I ask further, can Jewish rites, whether those that have been devised by man, or those which were originally ordained of God, add to us in any of these respects! No; we confidently say, that the Christian is complete in Christ: he has in Christ all that he can stand in need of; and to confide in any other is to rob him of his glory, and fatally to deceive our own souls.]

But besides the Christians completeness in Christ, we are called to notice,

II.

His conformity to Christ

That Christ is an example to us, is what every Christian well knows. But there is a distinction which is not generally adverted to, which yet it is of importance to remark; namely, that as he is an example to us in his life, so is he also, if we may so express it, an exemplar or pattern to us in his work. We will explain our meaning.

Christ having undertaken to redeem our souls, submitted to all that was necessary for that end: he was circumcised, as being made under the law for us: he died under the curse of that law; and after having been buried in the grave, he rose again for our justification before God. Now all this which was done in him corporeally, is to be done in us spiritually: the one was intended to be a pattern of the other. This is very minutely set forth by the Apostle Paul, who tells us that the power exercised towards us who believe, exactly accords with that which was exercised towards our Lord Jesus Christ in all the fore-mentioned particulars: his quickening from the dead, his rising from the grave, his ascension to heaven, and his session at the right hand of God far above all the principalities and powers of heaven or hell, have all a counterpart in us, wrought by the same divine Agent [Note: Compare attentively Eph 1:19-22; Eph 2:4-6.].

Consider distinctly wherein this conformity consists
[Was he circumcised? We have the true circumcision of the heart; that which is made without hands, and which consists in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh: and this we have by virtue of our own union with Christ, in whom we have experienced this mystically, and through whom we derive it spiritually. Was he buried? We also, in our baptism, were, as it were, buried with him; and coming up also from the water, (for here immersion seems to be referred to, as sprinkling evidently is in other places, the mode being not determinate to either, but left optional according to circumstances,) we are risen with him to a new and heavenly life. That this is the true import of the passage is beyond all doubt; as any one will see by comparing what the same writer has stated in his Epistle to the Romans [Note: Rom 6:3-11.] Here, I say, the parallel between what was corporeally wrought in Christ, and spiritually to be wrought in his members, is clear and manifest: we, by faith in that power which raised him from the dead, experience a similar resurrection to newness of life ]

In reference to this then, as well as to the former, we ask,
What can philosophy add to us?
[Has philosophy any principles whereby we can be stimulated more entirely to crucify the flesh with it? affections and lusts, than we are led by the Gospel of Christ; or can it impart to us any strength beyond that which we derive from Christ? Did it ever operate thus in any instance from the foundation of the world? No; it never did, nor ever can. We further ask, Is there any such virtue in Judaizing principles, that we should have recourse to any of them for aid? No; we are expressly told, that by seeking aid from philosophical conceits or Jewish superstitions we shall not only not add to our safety, but shall actually be beguiled and robbed of our ultimate reward [Note: ver. 18.]. It is to Christ alone that we must look, and from Christ we must receive all that is necessary for the carrying on and perfecting of our everlasting salvation.]

To improve this subject, we say to all,
1.

Be thankful to God that your lot is cast where the Gospel is plainly and faithfully dispensed

[The corruptions which began in the apostolic age have since been carried to such an extent as altogether to subvert the Gospel of Christ. If I be asked before God, what popery is; I am constrained to answer, that, whatever it be in theory, it is in practice little better than a compound of Pagan idolatry and Jewish superstition. For want of seeing it before our eyes, we are apt to conceive of it as differing but little from the religion we profess: but it is in all its masses, penances, indulgences, such a system of delusion and impiety as makes ones very blood run cold. It is inconceivable how such a system of tyranny and imposture should have ever gained footing in the world. Little do the Protestants of the present day reflect on the obligations which they owe to their forefathers, and on the responsibility attaching to them for the advantages they enjoy. But could your eyes see in what darkness and bondage those who are of the Roman Catholic persuasion are held, you would never cease to bless God, that you have been born in a Protestant land, and been brought up members of a Church that is alike free from the errors of fanaticism, and the bonds of superstition. I know indeed that even in our Protestant Church there is still, in some places, as there was even in the apostolic age, a leaven of these deadly evils: but we speak, to those who have learned to seek a completeness in Christ and a conformity to Christ, as the unalienable privilege, not of themselves only, but of every true believer.]

2.

Beware of that false humility which would lead you to intrench upon the sufficiency of Christ

[It was a false humility that led those in the apostolic age to seek other mediators or protectors besides Christ, and other means of obtaining his blessings than by faith alone. But whilst they assumed this voluntary humility, they in reality were vainly puffed up with a fleshly mind [Note: ver. 18.]. So it is with those in the present day, who look for something to recommend them to Christ, whilst they should be receiving all out of his fulness as a free unmerited gift. Their principle is precisely that of which the Apostle complained in the Colossian Church. They think it would be presumption in them to go directly to Christ, and to expect to be admitted by him with such a load of guilt and corruption as they feel: and therefore they hope to make themselves better before they go, that so they may find a readier acceptance with him. But this is to dishonour Christ, and to take from him both the sovereignty, and the riches, of his grace. We must never forget the terms on which alone we are to obtain the blessings of his salvation: we are to buy them, it is true; but we are to buy them all without money and without price ]

3.

Live simply by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

[It is through faith in the Divine power that all our completeness in Christ, or conformity to Christ, is to be obtained; and to exercise that faith, we are encouraged by the recollection of what that power has effected in raising Christ from the dead [Note: The text.]. Take a view then of the Lord Jesus after his crucifixion: see him dead, and buried, and guarded by a host of enemies who were determined in a few hours to prove him an impostor. Is he beyond the reach of Divine power? No; at the appointed moment he rises, and ascends to heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, far above all the principalities and powers of earth and hell. Are you then in a more desperate state than he? or is not the power of God alike able to effect this change for you? Yea, is it not as much pledged for you as it was for him? Fear not then, nor stagger at the promises of God through unbelief; but as Abraham before you was, be strong in faith, giving glory to God.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

The Science of Christian Education

Col 2:10-19

Men are of different capacities. No two men can contain exactly the same quantity (if that term may be permitted) of Christ: each man has his own portion. This is a fact which is overlooked, and in consequence of its being overlooked we have no end of conflict and soul-distressing controversy. We cannot all contain the same quantity of nature. The earth is enough for some; others seem to be able to take in the whole heaven; whether they are poets or mystics or rhapsodists or saints, we stay not to inquire; they shame us by a capacity which seems to extend every time it presents itself for new gifts from the Cross and from the throne. Let a man know what his capacity is, and let him rejoice that, according to the measure of that capacity, he is filled up with Christ, has all the God he can hold. What a doctrine is that, what a consolation, what an inspiration! The Lord has not started us all with the same intellectual or moral capacity. Some men have hardly any mental capacity, and some men seem as if they were doomed never to be morally right. We cannot understand these mysteries, nor are we called upon to explain them; ours is not the judgment-seat, it is God’s.

“… which is the head of all principality and power.” Paul persists in extending the sovereignty of Christ beyond what we know as earth, time, space, and Church. He will not have Christ confined in his ministry to any one spot in space; wherever there is a life he will find a subject of Christ’s crown; wherever there is a soul Paul will find a psalm of homage to him who bore the Cross and died upon it. We are not complete in one another, we are complete in Christ; yet we cannot do without one another, such is the action of sympathy, the comforting, sustaining, and animating result of trustful fellowship in Christ.

Now the Apostle turns to all things preparatory and symbolic, and speaks of them thus:

“In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” ( Col 2:11 ).

The meaning is that there was an earlier circumcision done with hands, a kind of surgical operation; nothing in itself, but very much in its significance; it was the mark of a Divine covenant. But in Christ there are no such marks; we enter into liberty, joy, transport, consciousness of the Divine presence, which enables us to judge everything, and to escape all criticism of a humiliating kind ourselves. Circumcision was not done away, it was consummated; that is to say, it was brought up to all its meaning, it realised all its significance; so we are now of the circumcision, not the circumcision of the knife or the sharp-edged stone, but the circumcision which is wrought by the Spirit: we, too, bear signs and marks and tokens, but wholly of a spiritual kind.

“Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” ( Col 2:12 ).

What baptism was this? Not of water, for then Judas was baptised, and Judas rose again with his Lord. Said Christ, “I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” That is the baptism in which we are buried with Christ. Your self-conceited, pompous ritualism must be banished from the Church, whether circumcision or baptism, and the great spiritual thought must be realised in all the fulness of its glory. If there be those who imagine that being put into so much water they are buried with Christ in baptism, then they know not the spirit of the Christianity which has been given to them. We are buried with Christ when we are one with him, in spirit, in resignation, in obedience, in the consciousness that only by sacrifice can certain great spiritual results be realised. It would indeed be a cheap form of burial with Christ to go down into a reservoir, or to be submerged for a moment in some classic river: only they are buried with Christ in baptism who have been buried with him in Gethsemane; only they know the baptism of Christ who have said in speechless, blanched agony, Thy will be done. It is at that point we must join Christ. We do not come in after the victory and enjoy all the fruits of triumph; we do not go up to a risen Lord and say, Now that the resurrection has taken place we will join thee in thy kingdom; we see now where the power is, and where the light shines, and where all the sovereignty will consummate itself in eternal dominion, and therefore we have come to offer ourselves to thee. That would be the worst infidelity, the meanest, basest patronage. We join the Church in Gethsemane, we become Christians where we sweat great drops of blood: we cannot have those who come in and say they will subscribe to a thousand dogmas; only they can come to this feast of victory who come through the garden, through Gethsemane, and over Calvary. We must be buried with him in his baptism of blood, we must be crucified with Christ. We are not to confer a favour upon a crowned Victor; we are to join a soul in paroxysms of agony. We, too, must pass through the valley of the shadow of death to the eternal city, full of light, full of summer, full of God.

Is there, then, aught of merit due to us? are we self-raised? Let the Apostle answer:

“And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him” ( Col 2:13 ).

The action is Divine. When we confess our sins we but obey a Divine inspiration; when we have lain down in all the deepest humiliation of soul, it is not that we have covenanted with ourselves to win a prize, but that we have seen the abominableness of sin, and have come to hate it in every aspect and issue. If we are raised again we are miracles of God: every new thought is a Divine gift, every aspiration that is determined to find out what is beyond the clouds is a creation of Divine power; whenever any soul said, “I will pray,” it was not the soul that said it, or only the soul as the medium of the Holy Ghost. The more we get rid of ourselves in all these particulars the truer shall be our humility, and the more rational our piety and our homage.

What then became of the old deeds?

“Having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, who was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his Cross” ( Col 2:14 ).

How easy to read these words! how impossible to comprehend this ocean of love! How easy to say “forgiven you all trespasses”! This was not the act of a sovereign, this was the act of a priest: here is no sovereign pomp, here is a suffering God. If God could forgive as a Sovereign, there were no need of the Cross. God needed the Christ as much as we did: he needed the Christ in relation to righteousness, holiness, law, the music and harmony of his universe; and we needed the Christ, because there are times in the soul’s history when we want something to cling to, something to look at, something about which we can say, That is the hope of my soul. Into these mysteries there is no door through language: the door opening upon such glories opens in the consciousness of the soul, for which there is no adequate speech: we leave this mystery, and thus come to understand it in some degree. As to our omitted ordinances, the grace that is in Christ Jesus covers up all the past of our neglect; as for the handwriting that was against us, it is cancelled, it is removed by blood; as to the whole covenant that we had broken, it is taken out of the way, and nailed to the Cross. It is supposed that in ancient times the nailing of a bond meant its cancellation; a nail was put through it, the meaning that the bond was fulfilled, cancelled, or dismissed. To-day we signify such results by perforation in some cases. The figure is graphic, striking, and memorable: there was a written paper against us, we had written it and signed it with our own hand; it was ours, and we could not deny it without stultifying ourselves: how was it to be got out of the way? Christ took it, and nailed it to his Cross; and he only could do this.

“And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” ( Col 2:15 ).

Having spoiled all wickedness, all diabolical presences, and ministries; having gone into the spiritual world, and searched out every foe, and killed him, his triumph was clean and complete. There is a singular idea in this word “spoiled,” an idea of stripping, as if he had thrown off the body, the only thing that principalities and powers could get hold of in his case. They could not touch that soul of purity, ineffable, impeccable, everlasting; they could make some assault on the flesh, so he stripped it, threw off all the medium and surface on which principalities and powers could operate; he said, Take the body, make of it what you will. So he worked out the mystery of reconciliation with God. So we may read, Having conquered all principalities and powers, either by discipline, or by sheer spiritual energy, or by ineffable holiness, having proved himself to be master, he has given us all the advantage of his sovereignty.

What, then, are we to do now that Christ has risen and proved himself to be the Lord of all? We have to enter into and claim and justify a great liberty:

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” ( Col 2:16-17 ).

All littleness, meanness of method, smallness of literal discipline, was to be done away in the liberty that is in Christ Jesus. We are no longer Jews, ritualists, observers of times and seasons; we have escaped the region of narrow and false criticism, and we have entered into the glorious liberty of the sons or God. We have not entered into licence; we have entered into certain rights of personal conscience, and in the exercise of those rights we are to realise what Christ meant by liberty. We have not done with meat or drink or holydays or new moons or Sabbath days, or with any shadows; if they can help us, let their help be made welcome: but no man is to come into the Church and say his way is the right way, and that if we do not submit to his plan we are aliens against the commonwealth of Israel. A new court of arbitrament has been set up, the conscience has been re-created; in every man who helps Christ there is a power of the Holy Ghost, by which he can judge all things for himself. Who art thou, then, that judgest thy brother?

“Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind” ( Col 2:18 ).

There had been a great scheme of morality and discipline and self-preparation, whereby the soul could draw upon God as if by right of merit. “Voluntary humility,” studied modesty; humility at the mirror, looking at itself and wondering how much nicer it could make itself, how much humbler it could make its humility, and in what attitude it might go forth, so as to attract the attention of others, who should say concerning it, Behold what beautiful modesty, what really exquisite humility is this! We are not brought into this kind of discipline, but into unconscious humility; sometimes into humility so unconscious that it is mistaken by others, who know not that an erect form may be perfectly consistent with a prostrate soul. Then the “worshipping of angels” had to be done away with. There has always been in the Church a sect which believed in angelology. They built their theories and hopes upon odd expressions in the Scriptures; they know that we receive the law by the disposition of angels; they say, Are not all angels ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? There are innumerable passages of Scripture in which the word “angels” occurs; and these have been all brought together, and have been made to constitute what is termed angelology. All this has to be done away, and we are to stand face to face with Christ: the medium destroyed, the Lord himself immediately realised by every soul. So there must be no encroachment into things not seen, no spirit of trespass, no standing at the door, saying, I will enter here, or I will be outside for ever. There is to be nothing of that kind, but all other things are to be absorbed in “holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God” ( Col 2:19 ). Why do not men go immediately to the Eternal himself? Why palter with spirits when you might speak to The Spirit? Why wait for angels, however bright they may be, when you may speak to their Lord? Why the dark seance, waiting for vagrant spirits to talk nonsense to you, when you might hold communion with the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost? How much men are upset or beguiled by details! There shall be this possibility in human life, which is so laughable, so absurd, as to be incredible, that men will betake themselves to such association as they think will enable them to hear the goings of spirits, when they might advance into the very centre of the sanctuary, and say, We have come to see God, God the Spirit literally, God is the Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Why this illegitimate spiritualism when we might have the vital association with God who is offered us in the Gospel of Christ? Why chaffer with the servants when you might banquet with the Lord? These are the great inquiries urged upon us by Christian doctrine and expostulation. But such is the littleness of man, that he prefers some little intercommunion of his own with anonymous spirits to the prayer that takes heaven by sacred violence. Do we then destroy spiritualism? Nothing of the kind: we qualify it, we lift it up to its right meaning and use. We should condemn the man who stands outside talking to the servants of the monarch, when the monarch himself is waiting to receive that very man and give him direct communications. What would be thought of any one who came to the metropolis, and had been assured that the monarch wished to see him, if that traveller contented himself with making external inquiries? What would be said of him when he went home again? Did you see the monarch? No: but I conversed with the monarch’s servants. Did not the monarch send for you? Yes. Why did you not go? Because I felt that I would like to talk with the monarch’s servants. A fool’s answer, a fool’s policy: such a statement as that would be received with ridicule, and the man who made it would be hooted out of society: he had the chance to confer with the monarch, and he went behind doors and chaffered with the servants. Yes, all the angels are ministering spirits; yes, all the air is full of holy ones as it is full of light; yes, the wind is the sanctuary of immortals, creatures that have been with the Lord long and much, creatures that are watching over creation in his name and on his account, but I do not want to see one of them, or speak to one of them, or have any sign from one of them, if I can have an interview with the King himself. Take me to head-quarters! If you have access to the throne, to the throne I appeal. This is the offer that is made in the Christian Scriptures. We do not condemn any idea of spirituality or spiritualism, we think it is an idea in the right direction; but when men ask us to stop there we say, No; we will not sacrifice the greater privilege for the smaller opportunity: if we can see God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, admit us to that sacred Presence, that we may commune immediately, and not intermediately, with the God of our creation.

Thus does Paul speak in this Epistle, and thus does he make it out that Christian education is a kind of science. Read the verses through which we have gone up to this point, and see what Paul thinks of Christian culture. See how he asserts that Christian culture was daily, personal, searching discipline. How ruthless he is in his requirements that we should attend to every detail, as if everything depended upon the very least action of our lives. Hear what words he uses as to Christian progress: “In all wisdom and spiritual understanding” ( Col 1:9 ); “Increasing in the knowledge of God” ( Col 1:10 ); “Every man perfect in Christ Jesus” ( Col 1:28 ); “Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith” ( Col 2:7 ). Then the cautions: “Lest any man should beguile you” ( Col 2:4 ); “Beware lest any man spoil you” ( Col 2:8 ); “Let no man beguile you” ( Col 2:18 ). This is Paul’s idea of progress; this is Christian science. Surely there is a science of conduct. Is conduct, the end for which all means were made, to be spoken of generally, jauntily? or is it to be regarded as the sum of a thousand processes, every one of which is watched with an eager criticism? Let no man imagine that he can easily pass on to perfectness of character. He who would be perfect in Christ Jesus must work at the detail, at the habits of life, and at all the little excitements which make up the urgency of need. And he must omit nothing; the one element which he omits will be the element that will wreck him in the end. In Christian culture there are to be no omissions.

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee that through Jesus Christ thy Son thou hast now spoken unto us. He is the last speaker. We know that these are the last times; thou wilt send no more vision upon us, for thou hast given us thy Son, the express image of thy Person. May we hear thy Son, and understand somewhat of his meaning. Thy voice unto us is clear, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear ye him. Oh, for the hearing ear! Thou wilt give us the hearing ear, thou wilt also give us the understanding heart. We have not heard thy Son; we want to hear all that he says: not only would we hear his voice, we would hear the hidden music of his tone, which is kept from all but those who listen with their hearts. We have heard the words but not the music; we have listened with the outward ear but not with the attention of the soul: may we listen to this Master of speech, and wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth; yea, may we notice their graciousness, their soft, river-like flow; may we hear what they mean; may they bring with them their own interpretation, may the tone that reaches us be such that no man must speak afterwards. We bless thee for the manner of the speech; now so mysterious, weird, ghostly, like voices in the wind at night-time; and now so simple, clear, childlike, and winning, as if all meant for little hearts and opening minds and childlike souls; and now so solemn with judgment and rebuke that the most dauntless of thy servants must exclaim, I exceedingly fear and quake! Never man spake like this man. He could speak to men, and to women, and to little children, and they could all understand him in their hearts, though not in their minds; they felt him to be the Son of God. May we look, therefore, for the eternal meaning; may we watch with continual and thankful interest all changefulness of method and form, and yet find under all changefulness the abiding thought of love divine. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

Ver. 10. And ye are complete ] Ye have that true happiness of a man, which philosophers hunted after in the thicket of earthly vanities, and lost themselves in the chase. Varro makes report of 288 different opinions that they had about this subject, and were out in all, while they caught at the shadow of fruits in a hedge of thorns, but could not come at the Tree of Life, Christ Jesus, in whom we are complete.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Col 2:10 . . This still depends on . is obviously not an imperative. We should, perhaps, reject the view of Ellicott and Lightfoot that there are two predicates. The thoughts thus obtained that they are in Him, and that they are made full, are true in themselves. But, as Abbott points out, the context requires the emphasis to be thrown on the , so that the sense is “and it is in Him that ye are made full”. . is chosen on account of in Col 2:9 , but we cannot explain it as filled with the Godhead, because such an equalising of Christians with their Lord would have been impossible to Paul, and would have required to express it. This meets Oltramare’s objection to the translation adopted. He says that if . means filled, they must be filled with something, but since the most obvious explanation that they are filled with the fulness of the Godhead is so largely rejected, it is clear that the translation breaks down. He translates “in Him you are perfect,” and urges that this also overthrows the usual interpretation of . . . But apart from the fact that does not mean moral perfection, . cannot be supplied. What Paul means is that in Christ they find the satisfaction of every spiritual want. It therefore follows of itself that they do not need the angelic powers. : cf. Col 1:18 . That Christ is the Head of every principality and power is a further reason why they should not seek to them. All they need they have in Christ. Paul does not mention here the thrones or lordships as in Col 1:16 . But it is a questionable inference that they, unlike the principalities and powers, had no place in the false teaching. The latter are probably adduced only as examples.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

complete. See Col 1:9.

Which = Who.

principality. App-172.

power. App-172.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Col 2:10. ) and therefore.-) ye are.-, filled up, made full [complete]) Joh 1:16. The fulness of Christ redounds to the Church; Psa 133:2. Therefore His fulness is infinitely more abundant. He Himself is full; we are filled [by and from Him] with wisdom and power.- , the head of all) Eph 1:10.- , of all principality) Therefore we ought to present our petitions to Christ, not to angels.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Col 2:10

Col 2:10

and in him ye are made full,-By entering into Christ, and living up to his requirements, they were completed and perfected in work and in character. [The divine gifts thus obtained are ample, hence they ought not to seek to supplement this sufficient supply by looking to other sources.]

who is the head of all principality and power:-The repetition of these terms indicates that the false teachers presented the angels as mediators, or in a manner which detracted from the sufficiency of Christ. This affirmation of the absolute supremacy of Christ to the angelic world meets this error. Nor is this superiority simply one of position, since the head is in vital connection with the members, who derive their life from it. [To partake of the divine fullness is not the special privilege of the initiated; it belongs to all who are united to the Lord Jesus Christ.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

complete: Col 3:11, Joh 1:16, 1Co 1:30, 1Co 1:31, Gal 3:26-29, Heb 5:9

the head: Col 1:16-18, Eph 1:20-23, Eph 4:15, Eph 4:16, Phi 2:9-11, 1Pe 3:22, Rev 5:9-13

Reciprocal: Exo 25:20 – toward Lev 8:35 – the tabernacle Eze 37:27 – tabernacle Dan 10:13 – one Luk 10:42 – one Joh 17:23 – made Joh 17:26 – and I Rom 3:30 – General Rom 10:4 – Christ 1Co 11:3 – the head of every Gal 3:27 – as many Eph 1:21 – above Eph 1:22 – gave Eph 1:23 – fulness Eph 2:14 – the middle Eph 3:19 – that ye Col 1:18 – he is Col 1:28 – perfect 2Th 1:12 – and ye Heb 1:4 – so Heb 7:11 – perfection 1Pe 2:7 – the head 1Jo 2:5 – hereby

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

COMPLETE IN CHRIST

And ye are complete in Him, Which is the head of all principality and power.

Col 2:10

St. Paul in the text asserts the sufficiency of Christ for all spiritual needs of the Colossians.

I. The union of believers with Christ.This is emphatic in the original.

(a) It is representativeformed in eternity, and gives rise to the twofold imputation of sin and righteousness, and the identification of believers in all that Christ did and suffered and won for them.

(b) Actual, spiritual, vital. A real living connection with Christ formed in time flows from the representative union, and is established by faith. One life common, interests common. This is the mystical union, real but beyond full comprehension.

II. The completeness which believers have in union with Christ.He is all-sufficient and alone-sufficient. There is no lack or deficiency which He cannot make good. All that we need for our perfection dwells in Him, and is ours in Him. He gives, not some of His fulness, so much of this grace, and little or none of that, but all His gifts and graces that He has received for men. What a fulness it is!

III. The ground of this completeness.Christs pre-eminence as the Head of all principality and power. This involves His authority and ability to impart His fulness: He has no equal and no superior. All things are His.

Illustration

If you could have asked a true believer, in Christs day, What is your creed? he would have pointed to his Master; he would not have repeated certain articles of faith, but he would have said, I believe that glorious Man; my trust is in Him; I believe Him. We have seen many books labelled upon their backs, Body of Divinity, but of a truth Jesus is the only real Body of Divinity. If you want theology, He is the true Theologos, the essential Word of God. It is a grand thing when a man believes Jesus to be what Jesus isa Saviour from sin; and then believes the Christ to be what Christ isthe Anointed of the Lord; and so makes Him to be his Alpha and Omegaall his salvation and all his desire.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

(Col 2:10.) -And ye are made full in Him. The clause is still in continuation of the warning, and crowns the argument. It is in entire opposition to the usus loquendi of the New Testament, on the part of Grotius, Bos, and Heumann, to make an imperative, for it emphasizes their present state. The phrase has a meaning found with peculiar frequency-in Him-in union with Him; and it is wrong in Erasmus to render it-by, or by means of Him. The participle is evidently used with a reference to the of the preceding verse-ye are filled out of Christ’s fulness, or are full in His fulness.

Opinions on the sense or reference of the participle are modified by the view entertained of the meaning of the preceding verse. Schoettgen narrows the meaning by far too much, and gives but one aspect of the sense, which he renders-per istum estis perfecte edocti; for though the apostle has been referring to instruction, yet far more is here implied. The exegesis of Grotius is rather an inference-illo contenti estote; for if they were complete in Jesus, it followed that they needed no supplemental endowments from any other quarter. The meaning of the clause is much the same as that found in Eph 3:19, to the exposition of which the reader may turn. Meyer says that nothing is to be supplied after ., neither with Theophylact, nor with De Wette. But the question recurs, of what elements is this fulness composed? or, if the participle be rendered perfect-ye are perfect in Him, of what elements is this perfection made up? The clause has a very close connection with the foregoing verse, and with the phrase-all the fulness of the Godhead. It is because that fulness dwells in Christ that they are filled up in Him. Being in Him, they are brought into contact with what is in Him; and that fulness of God contains a life whose pulsations create a responsive throbbing within them. There is in Christ complete provision, and what is so furnished is pledged to be conferred. There needs, therefore, be no want, and no casting about for any other source of supply. Believers have actual and present completeness of provided blessing, and there is the guaranteed completeness of prospective gifts. Ye ARE complete in Him, for the scriptural view of Christ’s person meets the deepest necessities of our spiritual nature. What does it mean? asks Chrysostom, that you have no thing less than Him- . The apostle adds another and striking clause-

-Who is the head of all principality and power. On the authority of B, D, E, F, G, Lachmann reads , but is retained on the authority of A, C, J, K, and that of the Greek Fathers. Lachmann’s choice is vindicated by Steiger and Bhmer, though it appears to have sprung from a grammatical fondness for as the principal preceding noun. If this reading be adopted, the foregoing clause must be placed in a parenthesis. In Him, and that bodily, dwells all the Godhead’s fulness . . . which is the Head of all principalities and powers. The authorities are nearly balanced, but the reading is most in analogy with the apostle’s style of thought and expression. Besides, with the reading , the words in Col 2:11 must refer also to , and no tolerable sense could be extracted from such a connection. The terms and are abstract ones, having reference to celestial dignities, and to such as were unfallen. The relative, as in Col 1:18, may be rendered-as being He who is; or, perhaps, inasmuch as He is. Jelf, 836, 3. The Head of principalities and powers. Eph 1:21. There is no exception; the entire hierarchy, even its mightiest and noblest chieftains and dignities, own submission to Christ, and form a portion of His spiritual dominions. Col 1:16. There was some special reason why he intimates Christ’s headship not generally over the church or the universe, but specially over the angelic hosts. If we can rely on accounts of the teaching ascribed to Simon Magus, we might find in them an illustration of the apostle’s statement. Epiphanius relates, that Simon Magus invented names of principalities and powers, and insisted that the learning of such names was essential to salvation. Similar biza rrerie is ascribed to Cerinthus. See Whitby, in loc. Whatever be its source, there is no doubt that the apostle alludes to some prevalent error-which interposed angels, in some sense, as mediators-and so far derogated from the personal glory and saving merit of Christ. That theosophy which was invading them seems to have dealt largely in idle and delusive speculation on the rank and office of angels-assigning to them provinces of operation which belong to the Son of God-looking to them as guardians or saviours, and forgetting that they are but His servants, executing His commission and doing Him homage. Why rely upon the courtiers, when access may be had at once to the King? why be taken up with our fellow-servants, who are only stewards of limited resources, when the Master has not only the fulness of Divinity, but has it in a human shape-has the heart of a brother to love you, and the arm of a God to protect and bless you? Alas! that saints so called have the usurped place of principalities and powers in the Church of Rome.

If they were complete in Christ, they had no need to go beyond Christ, and to resort to any ceremonies imposed upon them by the Judaizers. They had everything which it was alleged they wanted, and everything already in Christ. The heretical preceptors had enjoined upon them the rite of circumcision, but the apostle shows that it would be really a superfluous ceremony, since they had already experienced a nobler circumcision than that of the knife-for it was executed by no material hand. They were, in short, the true circumcision-for the apostle proceeds-

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Col 2:10. Since the entire Godhead is represented by Christ, nothing of value will be lacking to those who are in Him. Principality is the same as seniority or priority, and power means authority. He is senior because he is the “firstborn of every creature” (chapter 1:15), and He is head of all power or authority because it was all given to Him after his resurrection (Mat 28:18). If we believe the teaching of Paul in this verse, we will not clamor for things in our religious life that Christ has not authorized.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Col 2:10. And ye are made full in him. Ye are in Him, and being in Him ye are made full and continue thus. This is closely connected with Col 2:9; because of the fulness which dwells in Christ, those in fellowship with Him are made full. The divine gifts thus obtained are ample, hence they ought not to seek to supplement this sufficient supply by looking to other sources.

Who is the head of all principality and power. The repetition of these terms indicates that the false teachers presented the angels as mediators, or in manner which detracted from the sufficiency of Christ. This affirmation of the absolute superiority of Christ to the angelic world meets this error. Nor is this superiority simply one of position, since the head is in vital connection with the members, which derive their life from it; see marginal references.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The false teachers may have suggested the road to completeness began with Christ but had to be finished with some others. Paul says completeness comes in Christ who is the head of all (Compare Mat 28:18 ). The Greeks thought there were various emanations from God and each had a specific area of authority, but Paul says Christ has all authority ( Col 2:10 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

“And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:”

We are complete in Him. We have no need of anything else in our lives. He is our all in all.

We are in Him — the “head of all principality and power;”

He has the position that I want my Lord to have. He is Lord over all there is!!!

Let’s look at some terms briefly.

CIRCUMCISION =

1. The Old Testament right of circumcision was done as a sign of obedience to Jehovah. This was a sign for Israel.

2. The New Testament idea that something of our old self or old nature has been cut away.

UNCIRCUMCISION

1. The state of not being circumcised in the Old Testament.

2. The state of not being regenerated or saved in the New Testament time.

BAPTISM

1. Water baptism is an outward sign of an inward change. When the believer realizes the significance of baptism, he wants to be identified with his Lord and Savior.

Some suggest that circumcision in the Old Testament is baptism in the New Testament, both are a sign that you have placed yourself under God’s covenant. I have never figured out why only males took the sign of the covenant in the Old Testament and both male and female are told to be baptized in the New Testament.

Baptism is a voluntary step to signify you are Christ’s while the circumcision of the Old Testament was a sign of the covenant.

2. Spiritual baptism. The baptizing of the newly saved believer into the body of Christ. This occurs automatically and you never know that it has taken place. We are told in the Word that it happens.

NOW READ VSS. 11-13

11 “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:”

12 “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.”

13 “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;”

What is Paul talking about here?

Is he telling the Christians in Colosse to be circumcised?

No. Indeed there is no basis in the New Testament for physical circumcision.

Act 15:1-41 tells of a discussion and decision on the right of circumcision in the early church. Gal 2:3 is the outworking of that decision in that Titus was not circumcised. Indeed, Col 2:11 states that this was a circumcision without hands so we know that it is speaking of the cutting away of the old flesh.

“in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” Paul is stating that the flesh is gone due to this operation of Christ.

We can be free from the sins of the flesh if we desire it.

It is up to us to chose which way we want to live:

1. In the flesh serving the Devil.

2. In the Spirit serving the Lord.

In verse 12 what baptism is Paul speaking of? Verse 13 shows that this baptism is related to Spiritual baptism because forgiveness is not linked with water baptism unless you belong to one of the Christian church movements that make baptism a requirement for salvation.

The context is the old nature and it’s being put off so water baptism would not fit. (Act 10:44-48 show water baptism after they received the Holy Spirit.)

In verse 13 we are made alive “together with him,”.

He has forgiven ALL TRESPASSES!

Not only did He forgive all our trespasses at salvation, but he also has provided 1Jn 1:9 as the answer to those times when we fall into sin after salvation!

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

Christ is the head over all spirit beings ("rule and authority"). Christ’s sufficiency is evident in three things that God has done for us in Him: spiritually circumcised us (Col 2:11-12), forgiven our sins (Col 2:13-14), and given us victory over the forces of evil (Col 2:15).

Our spiritual circumcision (Col 2:11) took place when God regenerated us (cf. Gal 5:24). It involved Christ cutting off the domination of our sinful nature (flesh), which slavery characterizes the unregenerate person (cf. Rom 7:24-25). "Baptism" (Col 2:12) is Spirit baptism.

"Paul turned [in Col 2:11] from the theological errors of the false teachers to their practical errors-from ’Gnosticism’ to legalism." [Note: Geisler, "Colossians," p. 677.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)