Kris and I went up to Cape Reinga earlier this year, it was our first time to that most northern windswept tip of New Zealand… along the track down to the light house are plaques pointing out features of the landscape. One plaque points to a Pohutukawa tree known as Kahika or the survivor. It may be easily overlooked, it’s probably not a great specimen tree. You can see it in this photo to the right of that outcrop. There it is right at the end of the point on a rock face in a very precarious and exposed place. It has always been there as long as people can remember. Always standing strong in the salt air, battered by wind and storms, tide and time. As the plaque says it’s miraculously rooted firmly on a rock. It’s a good illustration of one of the metaphors Paul uses in the passage we had read today as he encourages the church at Colossae to continue to live their lives in Jesus Christ who they have received as Lord. Rooted in him.
We are working our way through Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae, the series is called Colossians: Christ and Christ alone. Colossae is a church in the Lycos valley in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. Paul had never been there, but he writes as he feels one with them in spirit but not body, and he’s writing from prison. He is writing to encourage the church and warn them against those who would try and say that the new Christians in Colossae need these extra things for salvation, something as well as Christ to lead a full life, something else for their future hope. He writes to assure them of the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ. Christ and Christ alone.
Verse 6 and 7 actually form the centre of Paul’s letter. This is where the body of the letter begins.
In verse 6 Paul starts this section with the word therefore or so then. All that has gone before is leading to this point. His introduction where he had placed the churches identity and address in Christ. Where he had given thanks for their faith and love and prayed for their growth in knowing Gods will and living in a way that pleased God. Then the wonderful affirmation and hymn focusing on the person of Jesus, and the sufficiency of his life, death and resurrection. Then speaking of his own passion, his own work and suffering for the gospel. Now because of all that he turns and encourages the Colossians to walk in Christ and warns them against false teaching that would try and drag them away from that and back into captivity.
therefore he says… Since you have received Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live your lives in him. Epaphras has proclaimed the gospel to them and they had come to receive it, committed themselves to it. Jesus Christ is Lord is one of the most ancient of the confessions of the church. It is acknowledging Jesus, God’s anointed one, the long awaited Jewish messiah as king of their lives. In the roman world the affirmation was Caesar is Lord, the roman emperor ruled, his will was what guided people’s lives, but for Christians it is different they/we acknowledge that Jesus is king, they we are citizens of his kingdom and live by his rule. But it is a confession that was even more than that. Lord or the Greek word kurios is used in the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Old Testament to translate LORD, written in capitals which Jews used for the name of God YHWH, so they wouldn’t accidently say it in vein. It is a confession of the divine nature of Jesus. As Paul will say in verse 9 in Christ the fullness of the deity lived in bodily form. That confession was the core of the message they and we received and it is what calls them and us to live that out in Christ
Then Paul uses a series metaphors to fill out what it means to live or walk in Christ. The first is an agricultural one… rooted in Christ. That we may find our foundations in Jesus Christ. Like Kahika that northern most Pohutukawa, something solid for the whole of life. Where we get our sustenance from, that provides a solid base for who we are and how we live, despite lifes storms and difficulties. As Paul had found with Jesus amidst his sufferings.
You’d think Paul would carry on with agricultural metaphors but he unashamedly mixes his metaphors. He moves to an architectural metaphor. Built up in him, you might expect it to be growing from the roots, but it is the idea of being built up like a building. It picks up the corporate nature of the church… As it says in 1 Peter we are living stones being built together into the dwelling place of God. We have a foundation in Jesus Christ we build on that together. Remember in his thanksgiving for Colossae Paul had talked of their faith in Christ and their love for all God’s people springing from the hope that was stored up in heaven. Our corperate life is so much how we grow in Christ.
He moves on to what Scott McKnight says is a judicial metaphor. They are strengthened by what they were taught. We can have assurance because what we have been taught about God is that God keeps his promise and can be trusted. NT wright sums it up as it’s confirmed and settled like a legal document. We have confidence that in Christ we have been justified and set right. It’s a done deal.
Finally overflowing with thanksgiving, the metaphor here is of a cup of wine brimming over the top. Of festivities and celebration. In Christ and what Christ has done for us we have a joy in life. Wine also is an image of the spirit in the scriptures and picks up the idea of a spring of living water overflowing from the presence of Christ in us.
With these mixed metaphor’s Paul sums up the fullness of the Christian life. It picks up what Paul had prayed for the Colossians in his opening prayer as well… that they would produce fruit, grow, be strengthened by the spirit and rejoice with thanksgiving. It is a great summary of what it means to walk in Christ for us today as well as for them.
Then Paul turns and warns them about those who would try and take them captive to a human philosophy. A hollow and deceptive, or fake hope. Of course we come up again with the question of who Paul’s opponents are in Colossae. Is Paul anti all types of philosophy? Where in places like Acts in Athens he seems quite comfortable in engaging with it. What are the elemental spiritual forces? Evil spirits or the spirit of our age in human structures. I feel that it is both human structures and traditions and dark forces as well. It seems as we read through the text that Paul has the Judieisers, in mind here. Jewish christians who want gentile Christians to conform to the Jewish religious system . That is borne out in the two warnings Paul gives. His focus in verses 9-12 on circumcision, then in verse 16 and onwards about the Jewish ritual laws round food and special days. We know that they were causing lots of trouble in Galatia which wasn’t too far away from Colossae and Paul fears their empty ideas were causing trouble here as well.
Paul addresses those things in two ways. Firstly he puts Jesus over and against human traditions. In Christ the fullness of the deity dwelt, making Jesus so much more superior to the traditions of man. Why then says Paul should we still be asking gentile Christians to be circumcised. Circumcision of course was a sign of Jews from birth being part of the God’s covenant people. Why says Paul would you want to much around with cutting off a small part of the body, when in our baptism in Christ the whole of our old sinful self has been cut off, has been buried with Christ and raised with Christ. It’s God not human endeavour that has done this. Even in the Old Testament there was a longing for something more than just an inward sign, but rather a change at the very core of our being and in many places in scripture they talk of that as a circumcision of the heart. A term which Paul picks up in romans 2 to talk of true circumcision not done on the outside by human hands but by the spirit (romans 2:25-29).
Paul then moves on to talk of what Jesus has done for us by his crucifixion and resurrection. He does it in a way which shows clearly the irony of cross. The upside down nature of his kingdom. In crucifying Jesus the authorities thought they were defeating Jesus. But Paul uses the very language of a king and his triumphant victory to argue that Jesus is sufficient. While we were dead he made us alive again. He forgave our sins, cancelling the charge of indebtedness which stood against and condemned us. Paul here uses the idea of the titilus, the list of charges that were nailed above a criminal when they were crucified so everyone could see what they had done. But here instead of being for our condemnation, they are nailed to the cross and we are released and set free. Because the innocent one Jesus Christ, the king of the Jews died in our place. So it’s taken away. It and spiritual forces behind it have been disarmed and made a public spectacle of and triumphed over. The image here comes from the victory a roman emperor would have once they had defeated an enemy, they and all their soldiers and wealth would be paraded through the streets and publicly humiliated and they would end in death at the cross. But Paul says in Christ’s death he has done that to the hollow philosophies of humanity, the structures of this world as well as our sin.
He then moves on to give his second warning in verse 16-19. Don’t let people put you down because of what you eat or drink or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. New moon festivals and special religious days probably also tied in with the Jewish sacrificial system. So again Paul has the Judeisers in mind who are wanting gentile Christians to observe the ritual laws of the torah. Again Paul says why, why bother with these things they were foreshadows, things that pointed to a reality that has come in Jesus. The sacrifice once and for all for the forgiveness of sins that would reconcile us to God.
Paul goes on to talk about people to be aware of, on guard against. He speaks of people who have a false humility. Some of these early false teachers practiced a type of extreme asceticism, that on the surface looked spiritual, but was seen as a way of trying to appease God, outside of what Christ had done. The worship of angels is a hard one for us to get our heads round… Angel worship may have been part of pagan worship in the area, you’ll remember when we looked at Revelation that twice John has to be reminded not to worship the angel who was showing him what was to happen, but to only worship God. Another scholar suggests that part of it was also that the false teachers may have focused on angels to come and help them, and prayed to them rather than trusting and praying to Jesus. He also warns about people who focus on he dreams and visions that they have seen, recounting them in great detail, there focus is on these things not on Christ. Such people can try and pull us away from Christ. Paul says they are not connected to the Head in Christ. There focus is in puffing themselves up rather than Christ whose focus is the body of Christ being bought together rooted, built up strengthened and overflowing in Christ.
How does this apply to us today?
Two ways firstly, the encouragement just as we have received Jesus Christ as Lord to continue to live in him. To have confidence and hope and find unity and joy in who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Christ and Christ alone. Allow that to be the focus the foundation and the guide and joy for our lives
Secondly, the same warning. It’s easy for our for us to be moved away from Christ to manmade religious things, to traditions and thinking they are as important or more so than Jesus …to be weary of any form of Christ plus. Ritual, and traditions and expressions of faith spiritual disciples are helpful, as long as they focus us on Christ. We also still need to be careful in listening to people who might lead us away from Jesus. It was interesting while I was preparing this message that On Monday I was walking round the Hatea river loop tack and a man stopped me asked me if I was a Christian. He told me because Jesus was coming soon he had given up his job and was going round talking to people. He told me at great length of the visions he had been given. I listened politely and in the end had to go because I had an appointment. But as I left I started to weigh what he’d said I realised his focus was on what he had experienced not on Jesus. What he was doing and what he saw didn’t add up and conform to scripture. We need to evaluate what we hear in light of Christ, in light of the gospel of Jesus we have been taught. That has been passed on to us by people like Paul and his epistles.
We started with the illustration of the Pohutukawa at the northern most point of New Zealand kahika, the survivor. That was rooted firmly on a rock, and grew even in the most adverse of conditions. It’s a great illustration. But I was a bit reluctant to use it as because the plaque said that no one remembered the tree ever flowering. So maybe it is a good illustration of what Paul encourages us of and what he warns us of in this passage, that Christ plus is not a foundation for a fruitful and full life. It is only as we find ourselves rooted and being built up together in Christ, and being strengthened by what you have been taught and overflow with thanksgiving for what God has done for you in Christ you will find that your life blossoms and grows even in those hard places. Its Christ and Christ alone.
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