Complete in Christ - 260110

SPEAKER A Hello, I'm Sven Ostring. Welcome to Let God Speak. Have the Ten Commandments been done away with by the death and resurrection of Jesus? Are we living today only under grace with no law? If that is not the case and the law is still in force, what role does it play in our salvation when we're saved by faith alone? These are two important questions for Christians. Stay tuned as we see what the letter to the Colossians says about what it means to be complete in Christ. Joining me on the panel today are Daniel Vokurka and Rosemary Malkiewycz. Welcome. It's good to have both of you here today. SPEAKER B Good to be here. SPEAKER A And before we begin, before we dive into the Bible, I'd like to invite you to pray with me and join me as I talk to God. Father in Heaven, it is so amazing that we're able to spend time just reflecting on Your Word. But today in particular, we're diving to such an important topic for us as Christians. The relationship between the law and our grace and the salvation that we have through faith. Father, I pray that you would give us understanding as we move forward today in faith. In Jesus' name. Amen. SPEAKER B Amen. SPEAKER A You know, the interesting thing is that the, uh, the letter to the Colossians was written by Paul to a church he'd never visited. The church at Kolossae formed because of Paul's preaching. And Ephesus made its way there. He wanted to have them united in their love for Christ and for one another. And what Paul did is he took his personal responsibility for the faith of the Colossians. And we are going to discuss his message to them in chapter 2 of Colossians. And I want to— today, as we head into God's word, I want to just start by reading it, just dive in. So if you'd like to turn with me in your Bibles, we're going to be looking at Colossians 2:1, starting there right at the very beginning of this chapter. And it reads as follows: For I want you to know how great a struggle or conflict I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face. And there we have it. They have not actually met Paul. But my question is this: Why would Paul be facing such— or experiencing such a great conflict? And inner turmoil because of the Colossians. What, what was it about the situation? SPEAKER B Yeah, so, um, the word there, um, that's translated as conflict in many translations is also translated as struggle, as the one that you read, or anxiety, contending, even agonizing. So Paul wanted these faithful believers to know the mental struggle and the anxiety that he— had for their spiritual welfare because of the danger of the false teachings he saw creeping into the early church. SPEAKER A But Daniel, the, the concept of, of false teachings in the church, in God's church, sounds, sounds almost like self-contradictory. I mean, what were these false teachings that he was talking about? SPEAKER C Ah, okay then, let me answer that. I'm going to read Kolossians 2:8. It says, "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ." So here, his danger, um, is implied through the word "beware." SPEAKER B Mm-hmm. SPEAKER C When you say beware, it's There's something dangerous happening around. And so, he's talking there about these false teachings, the philosophy, the empty deceit, the traditions of men according to the principles of the world. And those things were a danger because what they were doing was leading them away from Christ because they were not according to Christ. So, they were being exposed to these, strange teachings of other people and taken from the purity of the gospel. Beware. SPEAKER A So, so what Paul wanted to do here is he wanted the, the believers in Colossae to be able to recognize these false teachings, to avoid them, and then to be united in the love of Christ. SPEAKER C In the truth. SPEAKER A And the truth as well. And that's what we find. Turn with me just a few verses earlier to Colossians 2:5. We find there, it says, "For though I'm absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness or steadfastness of your, your faith." And so what he was commending them for, what he was encouraging them for, is their order and their steadfastness. Now, can you unpack for me what that means? SPEAKER B Sure. So, um, the word there, order, is translated from the Greek word "taxis," and this is is a common military term for organization, firmness, and well-ordered battle array. So this suggests that Paul heard the church had proper decorum, or order in worship. This, along with the correct teachings that the Colossians received, gave them steadfastness of faith, uh, of faith that rested on a solid biblical foundation. Mm. SPEAKER A And, and Daniel, that's really amazing to, to go back to the original Greek And also the military connotations. But I mean, us living here today, we may not be involved in, in any kind of military kind of action. So how is this, this commendation relevant to us today? SPEAKER C Okay. It's very important because God created the universe in structure. There was order. Everything operates under certain laws. You know, we have the laws of nature, gravity. Exactly. And God created everything based on laws that govern those things. Um, He didn't do it in spontaneity or haphazardly or in any form of disorder. SPEAKER A Everything— [Speaker:RB] And how does that relate to us in the church? SPEAKER C [Speaker:JH] Because God has everything done properly. You even look at the priesthood and the sanctuary, the whole sanctuary structure itself. Everything was done precisely in a certain way, at a certain time, even certain ages for the people involved. So when we come to worship God, we worship a God who doesn't work on a hap-hazard way. It's not what— whatever just happens at the time. Everything is structured. Our worship services should have a structure to them. They should be ordered because that— we are worshipping God. And people tend to forget that we've come to worship God. And they just act as though it's just any, um, event that they've gone to. Any sort of place where there are a lot of people and people they know. And forget that God wants things done in order because He wants us to worship Him in the beauty of holiness. And the beauty of holiness includes God's structure. SPEAKER A And the question is, how can we live in this, this holiness? And in verse 6, the very next verse, the very next verse, it says, "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him." What a beautiful idea there. The beauty of harmony. But also, how do we do it? Paul is saying, "Walk in Christ." But, but that's quite a theological term. Daniel, what— can you explain? Can you unpack what that means, walking in Christ? SPEAKER B Yeah, so, um, we walk or, um, live our lives in Him by allowing His Word, the Bible, and His Spirit to guide us in all our decisions and practices. Uh, we are to talk to Jesus constantly in prayer as we go about our day. And also Jesus says in John 14:15, and we know this quite well, If you love me, keep my commandments. We are to know what the Bible says and do what it says, and we are to ask the Holy Spirit to give us power to do so. And also, just as Rosemary was talking about order, uh, it came, it came to me that when Jesus rose from the dead, that, um, He placed His grave clothes in an orderly way. And we have that recorded because Jesus, um, he was orderly. SPEAKER C And it just— because it's, it's recorded, it shows how important it is to God. SPEAKER B Yeah, that's very beautiful. And, uh, and so if we are to walk with him, you know, to do those things that he did, we SPEAKER A also need to do that. We see the order here, we see the, the walking with Christ, in Christ, but there's another metaphor, another an analogy that the Bible uses, Paul uses right here. And that is that Christians are like plants that we can, we can grow in, in Christ. And my question is, you know, what, what does this teach us? How does, how does this analogy of a plant help us to understand what life in Christ is like? SPEAKER C Okay, let me read that verse, Colossians 2:7. It says, "Rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." So plants send their roots down and they get the nutrients and the water from the soil. But the soil has to be good soil. It has to have nutrition. And the same, we need that nutrition for our Christian lives. And the only way that we get that To be rooted in Christ, as Paul is saying, is by not only accepting Him as our Lord and Savior, but spending time in His Word, learning more about Him. Um, and that way we grow and absorb the information of Christ. SPEAKER A Mm-hmm. SPEAKER C As we spend time every day in His Word and we become established in the faith because we're spending that time with God and, establishing a relationship. SPEAKER A But with plants and gardening, there's not only the, the planting and the growing, there's also the possibility that a plant gets rooted, you know, pulled out, uprooted, and loses that connection with the soil. And what could we learn from this aspect of the metaphor, the analogy being used here? SPEAKER B Yes.— as you have said, we can lose the connection if we are uprooted. So as long as we are connected to Christ, the vine, we have life. And we can actually read that in, in John 15 and verse 5. So Jesus says here, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him —bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing. So that's very clear, isn't it? So if you, if you are out of that, so if you're not part of the, the vine, then you can do nothing. And so Christ has set us free, but we will be enslaved again if we follow false doctrine. Accepting human authorities over the authority of Scripture. And we can read that, uh, in Galatians 5:1, and it says the following: Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. SPEAKER A You know, it's been really good to lay an amazing foundation here, uh, walking with Christ, growing in Christ, abiding in Christ. But I want to dive into a specific issue that the church in Colossae was dealing with. And we find that in verses 11 and 12 of Colossians chapter 2. So just turn with me in your Bibles to, to those verses. Colossians 2, verses 11 and 12. 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, having been buried with him in baptism, which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. So what was this issue, circumcision? What, what was causing some of the conflict in the Colossian church? SPEAKER C Okay. It wasn't just in the Colossian church. It was in many of the churches. There were Jews who had become Christians and they were going to the Gentiles who are now becoming Christians and saying, "You need to be physically circumcised, otherwise you are not saved." Hmm. Because it was part of the Jewish tradition. To be a Jew, you had to be circumcised. The male children had to be circumcised 8 days old. And any proselyte that became a Jew had to be circumcised no matter what their age. And so there was this question of circumcision. Well, it was instituted by God for Abraham to follow with his people as part of the covenant between Abraham and God in, uh, Genesis 17:10-14. You can read that, but the Bible is also talking about The circumcision that God really wants, this outward circumcision was a sign of an inner circumcision that in Deuteronomy 10:16 and 30:6, Moses talked about the circumcision of the heart. And God mentions it in Jeremiah, verse 4 of chapter 4. So to God, the circumcision of the heart is the most important thing. And if we read Romans 2:28-29, this is what it says. Paul wrote, "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter." [Hebrews 12:3] "Whose praise is not from men, but from God." So Paul is taking the concept from the Old Testament where God said it's circumcision of the heart that I'm looking for, not of the flesh. And he is saying here that they are not to be confused with what these Jews are saying or these converted Jews are saying because it wasn't the truth of God. And so they were now— dead to their old lives, they're alive to the new life in Christ, and the baptism of Christ by immersion is a figure of that new life because you die to your old self by going under the water and you come up in new life with a circumcised heart. SPEAKER A That's really powerful. That's really powerful. But you know, some people might be saying to us, um, they may be saying, look, you know, circumcision was way back then, in, you know, first century AD. You know, it doesn't have anything really to do with us sitting right here or in church today. But, you know, Paul was taking them on a journey and leading them further. The question is, how does the law relate to us as Christians? What does that mean? So come with me to Colossians 2:13. We're going to continue reading here. And it says, "And you who were dead in your sins and who were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him, in Christ. Wow, that's amazing. But it says that— it talks about in some translations, the handwriting of the requirements or the handwriting of the ordinance. And we need to know what this is. What are we talking about here? Can you, can you help us, Daniel? SPEAKER B Sure. And actually, that's very interesting because it's handwriting. That's, that's quite important. But it says they are translated from the Greek word dogma. And they— it refers to them, to the Mosaic ceremonial law that were the regulations in the 5 books of Moses. Governing how Israel was to worship God, maintain ritual purity, and visibly mark themselves as God's holy separated people. They were written by Moses with his pen— with his finger— and were kept by the side of the Ark. And we can actually read that in Deuteronomy, um, 31, 26. So if we could go there and just read that. Deuteronomy 31 and verse 26. Um, it says, "Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you." So it's clear that these words that Moses wrote, those were placed beside the ark. It's very important. SPEAKER A Very— So we really want to get to the point here, and the point is this, um, is that some people say that it was the Ten Commandments, the law of God, that was nailed to the cross, which was destroyed. So how do we know that that SPEAKER C was not the case? Well, the verse that— oh, the verses that Daniel just read are very pointed in, in this. The Ten Commandments are part of the moral law given by God in Exodus 20:2-17. Those are different to the ordinances that were written by Moses' hand. The Ten Commandments were written by God's finger in stone. They're permanent, whereas Moses wrote on paper and put them outside the ark. The Ten Commandments were inside the ark, which also shows their permanence. They were not to be taken out. SPEAKER A And something that is very close to, to our hearts and our experiences, Daniel and Rosemary, is the concept of the Sabbath. And come with me to Colossians 2:16. And there it says, "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath." And, and so to be very, very, um, specific, some Christians say that this verse is very clear proof or confirmation that we don't need to keep the Sabbath. And what would you say to that, Daniel? How would you respond to a Christian that you have worked, worked with? SPEAKER B Well, you see, the Sabbath is a very interesting commandment. It is, it is beautiful. It, um, it is not only it's not only for the Jews because God— because Jesus himself said Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And Sabbath was made for, for our benefit. And so I guess I would respond that it's— well, God wrote it in the Ten Commandments on the stone with his own finger And certainly Jesus respected the Sabbath commandment. He even said in Matthew 24 that we shouldn't— that they should pray that like the fall of Jerusalem doesn't happen on the Sabbath. So Sabbath was still binding even after Jesus' death. And so if He kept it, if He can— considers it important, if it was written on, on stone, well, then I'm going to keep it as well. SPEAKER A What about you, Rosemary? SPEAKER C Would you add anything to that? I certainly would like to add something to that because that verse talked about meal and drink offerings and, and Sabbaths and saying, you know, don't criticize anybody for it. But those things were parts of the ordinances. In the Old Testament, part of the temple ordinances. They were not to do with the weekly Sabbath. And if you do away with the Sabbath commandment, you've got to do away with all of the other Nine Commandments. But if we look at Hosea 2:11, it says, "And I will cause all their mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, her Sabbaths, all her appointed feasts." During those appointed feasts, there were ceremonial Sabbaths. Involved, and they're the Sabbath days that are being referred to, not the weekly Sabbath of the Ten Commandments. SPEAKER A Mm. So Daniel, right at the beginning of this verse it says, "Let no one pass judgment on you," or, "Let no man therefore judge you." Can you just explain to us what, what is that phrase referring to? SPEAKER B Sure. So Paul is making the point that the ceremonial law of Moses is at an end. It was pointing to something. Um, there must have been false teachers around who were judging Christians for not keeping the ceremonial law. So Paul is just saying to ignore them. Because the ceremonial law was pointing to Jesus, to what He was going to do. And that had been completed, so it had been fulfilled. No reason to keep it. SPEAKER A And if we continue on with this verse right here, verse 17, it says, "These are a shadow—" of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. There's another metaphor there, Rosemary, and can you explain the, the shadow metaphor? SPEAKER C There, there is a metaphor there. The Jewish ceremonial days, like the sacrifices, were pointed to the work that Christ was going to do, ah, not just on earth but also in heaven. So they were pointing to that. That's why they were done away with at the cross. Because they were pointing to His work. They were not pointing to the Ten Commandments, which people get wrong. That's why they were part of those ceremonial days that I talked about before, the feasts, the, the offerings, the certain Sabbaths that were part of ceremonies. And those things no longer apply. They were fulfilled by Christ. SPEAKER A They were nailed to the cross. Mm. So it's interesting though, some Christians, actually believe that they should practice the, the Jewish festivals, and they would even come to us and say, well, we should be doing that as well. Um, what do you, what do you make of that kind of a claim? SPEAKER B Yeah, look, um, again, they were all pointing to either what Jesus was going to do on the cross or after his resurrection, what would happen. Before His resurrection, like all of these sorts of things. So they were pointing to things that were fulfilled when, when Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross. So they were pointing to Christ, the Lamb of God. And so they've been nailed to the cross and there's no need to keep them. SPEAKER A You know, in the, in the Bible it says that we are We're saved by faith. We're saved by faith in Jesus. And so in that context, what role does the, the law, the Ten Commandments have for our, our faith, our Christian walk? SPEAKER C The Bible tells us that the Ten Commandments are the basis of God's covenant with His people and what is going to be the judgment in, in The judgment hour. We're going to be judged by our works. And that because the Ten Commandments are part of faith, they are the things that we will be judged on. Um, let's look at Revelation 20:12. It says, "And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works." "By the things which were written in the books." We're not— so, we're judged by what's in the books, by our works, but our works don't save us. We're saved by faith in Jesus, but our works show our faith. If we really love God, Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." And the Ten Commandments actually say that, uh, God blesses the, The thousands of them that love Him and keep His commandments. So, when Jesus said that, He's actually referring to what is in the Ten Commandments. SPEAKER A Mm-hmm. Wow. What an amazing message. So practical and so deep. Our completion in Christ involves the process of getting to know Him through His Word, the Bible. We cannot remain in Him, in Jesus, unless His words abide in us. From the Word of God, we receive nourishment for spiritual growth in faith. The Ten Commandments were not nailed to the cross. Today we are saved by grace through faith alone and show our love for Jesus by our obedience to his Ten Commandments. You know, I'm so glad that you were able to join us today on Let God Speak. We were talking about a very important, uh, topic. And remember that all of the past programs are there on our website. Website, and you can also email us on [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you. Tell your friends about the program and join us next time. SPEAKER B You have been listening to let God speak, a production of 3ABN Australia television. To catch up on past programmes, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au. Call us in Australia on 02 4973 3456. Or email [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you.