Guard against man-centered philosophies and false religion by acknowledging the believers union with Christ.
Colossians 2:11-12
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
One trick of a man-made and man-centered philosophy is to add some sort of religious work to what Christ did in order for a person to be saved. In the early first century, for example, Jewish believers tried to force gentile believers to follow their traditions. They tried to impose on the gentiles dietary laws, rules about holidays, and even the practice of circumcision. In many of Paul’s letters, we see him have to fight tooth and nail against the notion that, for a person to be saved, they have to have something physically done to their body.
Paul here takes away any notion of salvation having to do with something we physically do. Speaking to a gentile church, a group of mainly uncircumcised people, Paul says that they were spiritually circumcised by Christ. This means that Christ spiritually marked them as his own and cut away from their souls the worthless works of the dead flesh. When did Christ do this? He did this at the moment of their salvation.
Paul shows that there is some similarity between circumcision and baptism. What is baptism displaying? Baptism is the act of obedience in which a believer publicly declares that he has been united with or identified with Christ. When a person is lowered into the waters of baptism, it displays the spiritual truth that God counts us as having died on the cross with Christ so that our sin can be completely paid for. When a person is raised from the waters of baptism, it displays that Christ is risen from the dead and we too are raised with him to live new lives.
Putting all this together, then, we see that Paul is using the work of Christ and baptism to help protect us from false teachers. Baptism depicts union with Christ. If you are saved, you are united with Jesus. If you are saved, God looks at you with the love he has for his own Son.
Picture it this way. Imagine that there are two files side-by-side. One file is the list of all of the perfections of Jesus. The other is the list of your failures. If you are united with Christ, God no longer looks at the record of your failures when he looks at you. Instead, God looks at the file of Jesus’ perfections, and he counts that as yours.
How does this protect against false and worldly philosophies? Every false religion in the world tells you that you have to do some kind of spiritual work to maintain your salvation. Every type of false philosophy tells you that you can lose your standing with God if you do not keep up the good work. Only Christianity, genuine Christianity, tells you that, if you have faith in the risen Son of God, you are counted as one with him. You can never be lost. You will never be lost. You will live differently, there is no doubt of that; but that different living is not what saves you. You are saved by grace alone through faith alone. Guard against man-centered philosophies and false religion by acknowledging the believers union with Christ.
Pastor Travis Peterson 