Smoodock's Blog

According to Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians, in so far as our present study has taken us, the Beginning, which is Christ (Colossians 1:18), represents a new creation, wherein we become a part, when we embrace him as our Savior. Being in Christ, therefore, is like putting on a set of new clothes (Colossians 3:10). However, this isn’t merely our imagination convincing us of something that isn’t real. By embracing Christ, we have, indeed, become part of a new creation (1Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15), wherein God is creating us anew through Christ (Ephesians 2:10; cp. John 3:3, 5).

Put another way, Paul points to the Jewish rite of circumcision, telling the Colossian believers that they are “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands” (Colossians 2:11). In other words, being in Christ is a spiritual matter, which the physical rite of circumcision symbolized. Most folks, when they try to explain spiritual circumcision, interpret it as “putting away sin.” However, Paul explains it as “putting off the body of sins of the flesh”[1] (Colossians 2:11), which he elsewhere describes, simply, as “the body of sin” (Romans 6:6). What I find in most of the commentaries I’m familiar with is that, becoming Christian, somehow stops (wholly or partially) us from sinning or puts a check on or removes our sinful nature. Yet, none of this is so, because Paul states elsewhere that he is confronted with a problem. He would like to be sinless, but there is a law within him (sinful nature) that keeps him from being perfectly obedient to God. He doesn’t want to sin, but he does (Romans 7:18-23). So, he cries out to God: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of death? (Romans 7:24) and he answers his question, saying: “Thanks be to God (who will deliver me) through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25).

Therefore, if spiritual circumcision isn’t actually “putting away sin,” what is it. Consider our text at this point in Paul’s epistle. Paul is still writing in the context of the preeminence of Christ (Colossians 1:15-20). Here, Paul refers to Christ as the Beginning (Colossians 1:18), in whom God had caused all his fullness to dwell (Colossians 1:19), which Paul then repeats in Colossians 2:9 to show context. Moreover, he also claims believers are complete in Christ (the Beginning of the creation of God – Revelation 3:14; cp. Ephesians 2:10). In other words, we are complete in the new creation (1Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). Thus, spiritual circumcision involves our putting off the old creation in Adam and embracing the new creation in Christ by faith (cp. 1Corinthians 15:22, 45-49).

It may be clearer if we look at it this way, visualizing Christ as the Beginning of the creation of God (Revelation 3:14), and applying it both to Colossians 1:18 and Genesis 1:1. In other words, “In the Beginning GOD created “the heavens and the Earth…” (Genesis 1:1), and a new humanity in Ephesians 2:10 (Colossians 1:18). In this context, Adam (the beginning of humanity) corrupted himself (Genesis 3) and thereby corrupted all his descendants (Romans 5:12). Therefore, the Beginning, vis-à-vis Christ, in whom God created the heavens and the Earth and all that was in them (Genesis 1:1), was slain from the moment of the rebellion (Genesis 3:15; cp. Revelation 13:8). In other words, the old creation (the Beginning in Genesis 1:1) is brought to an end in the crucifixion of Christ, and the new creation (the Beginning in Colossians 1:18) comes into existence with the resurrection of Christ (the Beginning of the creation of God – Revelation 3:14), and this whole process is understood in the idea of our being circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, vis-à-vis the putting off of the body of sin (the old creation) by the circumcision of Christ, which was his crucifixion, and therein he brought the “old creation” to an end (Colossians 2:11).

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[1] This is the way the KJV translates it. Other translations may have “putting off the body of flesh” or the “sin nature” or “selfish desires” or the “removal of the corrupt nature” or “stripping you of your lower nature” etc.