PT-2 "The Sufficiency of Christ" (Col. 2:8b-10)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/14/2017 2:45 PM

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-2 The Sufficiency of Christ

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Colossians 2:8b-10

            Message of the verses:  “rather than according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;”

            We continue looking at these wonderful verses which speak of the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, as they are some of the most important verses in the Word of God to show this truth as Paul was writing them to show the Colossians that Jesus Christ is truly God who came in the flesh.  We spoke in former SD’s that a part of a form of philosophic dualism was what was going on in Colossae.   This speaks of believing that the spirit was good and that the human body was bad so Paul had to counter this false doctrine in order to emphasize that all of the fullness of Deity dwells in Christ “in bodily form.”  They thought that Christ’s body was bad but His Spirit was good, and of course this is false teaching.  MacArthur writes “The One who took upon Himself human nature at Bethlehem will keep that humanity for all eternity.  He will forever be the God-Man.”  So this truth refutes their false philosophy.

            No because Christ is who He is, then we “have been made complete” in Him.  MacArthur writes “His fullness is imparted to us. Pepleromenoi (‘been made complete’) is a form of the verb pleroma, from which the noun pieroma is derived.  Christ is the pleroma of God, and we are filled with His piermoa.  John wrote, ‘For of His fullness we have all received’ (John 1:16).  The perfect tense of the participle Pepleromenoi indicates that the results of our having been filled are eternal.”

            When we go back to the fall of man from Genesis chapter three we see that because of that we are incomplete because we are totally out of fellowship with God.  Before the fall man had complete access with God as Adam use to walk in the garden with God, but when he fell he realized he was naked, and because of that he hid himself from God because he lost fellowship with Him.  Man is now morally incomplete because he lives outside of God’s will, which is caused by sinfulness.  Man is incomplete because He does not know ultimate truth.  I have heard that when Adam was created that he could use 100% of his brain but we only use about 10% of our brain and I believe this happened to keep man from doing wrong things at a faster paste.  Think about the time in Genesis where man only spoke one language and God mixed up the languages so that man could not do evil so fast. 

            Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:4 “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”  This happened at the point of salvation for all who believe the truth of the gospel.  Believers are now spiritually complete because we now have fellowship with God.  We are morally complete in that we now recognize the authority of God’s will, and because we know the ultimate truth whereas unbelievers do not know the ultimate truth, which of course is the truth about Jesus Christ and what He has done on the cross for us.

            Now the Colossians errorists did not believe we were complete in Christ as they thought that after receiving Christ they still lacked something which is absurd as we know we are complete in Christ.  Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:3 “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” 

            MacArthur completes this chapter by writing “Everyone has a choice, whether to follow human wisdom or to come to Christ.  To follow human wisdom is to be kidnapped by the emissaries of Satan and his false system, which leaves a person spiritually incomplete.  To come to Christ is to come to the One who alone offers completeness.  May those of us who have found Christ never doubt His sufficiency by turning aside to follow any human wisdom.”  John MacArthur has written a book entitled “Our Sufficiency in Christ.”

Our next SD in Colossians we begin to look at “Complete in Christ” from Colossians 2:11-15.

3/14/2017 3:14 PM