Seeds for 2/27/2023 - Colossians 2:13a, part 1

Scripture: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

Observation: Paul has been speaking about baptism and what it teaches about salvation through participatory action over the last few verses prior to today. This leads naturally into a discussion of the power of the cross in Colossians 2:13-15. In Christian theology “atonement” speaks to how the work of Christ addresses the human condition before God. Crucially, it assumes that our situation before God has problems that need to be addressed. 

Each of these three sentences offers a different image, speaks to a different issue, and highlights another dimension of the significance of the work of Christ. The cumulative effect is a more robust understanding of atonement. 

The first image of what Christ accomplishes is bringing the dead back to life. Paul presents this as a simple contrast.

Two things contributed to the Colossians’ (and our) situation as being dead before God. We don’t need to take this as an exhaustive list, simply what Paul is highlighting here. We’ll look at one today and the other tomorrow.

First, our sins. At its heart sin is a rejection of relationship. When we sin against a friend, spouse, parent, child, neighbor, even an enemy, it is because we have substituted what we want for what the relationship needs and appropriately requires. Honesty, fidelity, understanding, kind truth-telling, mercy, generosity, and all the rest. Our relationship with God is no different. When we sin and break relationship with God, the giver of life, this logically means exactly what Paul says: “you were dead in your sins.” 

Christianity is not about making bad people good or good people better. It’s about making dead people alive. Goodness is a fruit, but it’s not the root. The root is being brought from death to new life. The good news, the Gospel, is that God has made that new life possible for each of us in Jesus Christ. 

Application: How have you seen sin impact relationships? What is your response to the assertion, “Christianity is not about making bad people good or good people better. It’s about making dead people alive”?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for dealing with my sin and making me alive with Christ. Help me to live fully alive in Him today. Amen. 

---

“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)

If you liked this post from Seeds of Faith, why not share it and/or subscribe?

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™