Complete in Him Part 1, Col, 2:9-10

Good afternoon. We introduce our time looking at the passage this morning by looking at last week's passage, and there's a reason for it. The very last phrase there is kind of the measure, and it's the launching point for what Paul goes into in today's passage, and that is, according to Christ. According to Christ, as we brought up last week, That's the standard, that's the measure. And so what he is about to do is to move from that phrase into the next verses. And we brought up before that this verse 8 in Colossians chapter 2 is a warning phrase, and then ending with, according to Christ, he then goes from verses 9 to 15 into a time of teaching. and according to Christ as the turning point, the launching point that introduces the teaching that he's going to follow with. And it's that passage 9-15 that we'll be looking at starting today and over the next few weeks.

Now, a number of you I'm sure have been to the optometrist and not long after being there they put this large thing in front of you and certainly the question goes through your mind rather quickly Do I have to wear these things all the time? You're hoping not, but I'm sure it's entered your thoughts. Soon, that thought is washed out of your mind by questions that the optometrist is asking you.

He's saying, which is better, this or this? In some cases, it's the this or this, as neither one is good. Other cases, it's like, heaven sakes, why did you ask? But nonetheless, he continues to ask this question. Which is better, this or this? This or this? Paul is really kind of doing the similar kind of thing, isn't he?

He's saying, which is better, this, do you rather be taken captive, or this, according to Christ? He is laying out those alternatives and asking the people in Colossae, he says, let me tell you, which is better, this or this? I've given you this warning, that's the this option that I'm hoping you'll understand is not one you'll want, or this other, Christ, according to Christ?

And that's what he's doing in this passage as he begins with verse 9. And we'll be looking at 9 and 10 of the passage 9 through 15 here this morning. According to Christ, then, is his beginning launching point as he begins to present these truths. Now, as we look at this passage, we'll shrink that down here.

As we go through this, we're going to see a few things show up. One is, we're going to see who Christ is, because after all, this is according to Christ. He's the one who is the standard and the measure, the one with whom all things else must be consistent. We're going to find out what has been accomplished in Him and we're going to find out who we are because we've been identified with Him and are in Him.

Those three things. So we'll look at those first couple of verses here this week and then the next few weeks proceed to the rest of that passage. Now there are three points and I'm I'm just delighted to tell you, three fingers is all it takes this week. Three points that Paul has for this passage, and as we look at the points, what we find are a couple of things. One, all three of those things are things that are true right now. It's not something later on that's going to be like this, or it was like this, but all three of the statements are, these are true right now. They've been affected in the past. They are true right now.

The next thing that we're going to see is there is nothing in here that's demanding that you do something. Isn't that interesting? These are things that you need to know. He didn't just give them superfluously or just capriciously wondering, gee, I wonder if they might like to hear this. These are things we need to know. but they are things that we need to understand, because we need to understand what God has done, and who we are in Him, and who Christ is, not because He's saying, get going and get doing it! Okay? Alright, let's take a look at this first one.

For, now there's a nice simple word to begin with, for, there, hati in the Greek there, all of verses 9 through 15 follows logically. He says, according to Christ. According to Christ, here is all of what follows logically from Christ as the measure. Here is all of what makes sense if Christ is the standard. That's what he's laid out here. Everything else in the universe is to be compared to him. Everything. He is the one with whom and with which everything else must be consistent. So here is, according to Christ, in him. In him.

In him, now, is used in a couple of different ways, and we'll have to look carefully, because it doesn't... although the words may come across the same, it actually has a different sense. Here, in this context, just in verse 9, it refers to the location of the very character of Christ. It is not referring directly, at that point, about us. It's saying about what is true of Christ Himself. It's the character of Christ, and it's what is explained in the rest of the verse after that. In Him, what is true in Him.

And finally, you see the superlative, all. He uses this superlative repeatedly in Colossians, but here twice in this passage. We make note of it here, but also later on in verse 10, it shows up as well. And one of the things that we see, simple word, just like it is in English, He's going to use this word about 40 times, almost 40 times, in this short letter. And I think it's important to make note of it, even though the word is common and simple.

Paul has no hesitation whatsoever in making absolute statements. Ever heard anybody say something like, never say always and never? We are hesitant to make absolute statements. Human beings are often unsure of things. When it comes to things in the spiritual realm, he has absolutely no hesitation to lay things out in absolute terms.

He will tell you specifically, this is how it is with certainty, and will use all a number of times, because these are absolute statements, things that don't need to be hedged or the corners cut. Directly stated what is truth. He is the absolute. He is the one in whom we can have absolute confidence. So Paul feels free to make absolute statements. The character of truth revealed to us by God, about God, has these features. And you'll notice, by the way, if you're visiting us here this morning, this is the page number on your handout in the lower right corner. What God has told us is absolute truth, not relative or variable. as laid out in scripture is not relative. Truth is not variable. It's not a, that's true for you, but not for me. Or that's what you think. That's your opinion.

No. Absolute truth is laid out about God by God. The one who is the absolute speaks absolutely through his word. What God has told us is not different from one person to the next. This is one of the messages that we've been told in our culture, that, oh, there's a truth for you and a truth for somebody else, and truth is different. It's funny, they don't seem to carry that over to the stepping off of a 12-story building. It's true for all. What God has told us is absolute truth, but not exhaustive truth. These passages here, and we could bring up some more, are instances where the Lord has said, no, I'm not going to reveal that yet, or there's something yet to be revealed.

We ourselves saw some weeks ago, Ephesians 2.7. What does it tell us there? It's going to take eternity for the Lord to reveal all of His grace. Eternity. What does that tell us? What we have told to us about God's grace is true, but it is not exhaustive.

Now, the flip side of that is we're not, while we were going to be continuously eternally amazed as the Lord reveals these things, we're not going to get 10,000 years into eternity and say, Aha! Lord! You tricked us. You told us something and now we find out it isn't true. We're not going to find out a reversal. We will find out greater depth as eternity goes on.

What the Lord has told us is true. And a way to say that is it's truth with a capital T. True truth, okay? Genuine truth. The Lord has laid out indeed what is true. What we have not had revealed to us yet tells us we don't know everything exhaustively. However, it does not mean that what we have been given so far is going to be reversed. We simply don't know the depth of it.

The way we expressed it when we went through Ephesians 2.7 is a million years from now, when the Lord is revealing His grace to us and His glory, we'll be going, okay? Eternal gasps, but not in horror, because we've been tricked.

Finally, we know there's great value in learning what God has revealed to us. He says that repeatedly. These truths that the Lord has laid out, that is absolute truth that the Lord has spelled out, There is great value in learning all of it. Immense value. And what is also marvelous is you can study God's Word until the day He takes you home. And still there will be riches yet unmined. Marvelous depth in God's Word.

In John 14.6 Jesus lays out the character of truth this way.

And this is the expanded version from the Greek text there. Jesus said to him, I, being in fact God, this is ego, a me, if you're familiar with that, in contradistinction to anyone else, am the singular way, the singular truth, and the singular life. No one comes to the Father but that he comes through me exclusively.

Now that's specific. That's what the disciples heard. When they heard him say that, I'm sure they were just floored. That's what he said. Now, next word. All the fullness of deity. This word here is pleroma. This is a word we've seen once before. It's not pleroma like this. This is not a pleroma. But this is pleroma. This word is a noun.

It has a very specific correction to the false teachers of Colossae. The false teachers at Colossae used this word, but they had a different idea. We'll take a look at it here. Their idea that they came up with, they would use this word, they would say, God is a really, really good God, and the earth is really, really, really evil, and matter is awful, and so there is this infinite series of angels running between the really good God and the really evil earth. And so the pleroma, the fullness, was this long series of angels that ran between. That was their teaching.

So what Paul is coming through with here is a correction. He's saying, no, the fullness is not this series of angels, it's the deity that is in Jesus Christ in bodily form. That's the fullness. That's the fullness. This word deity, theotes, is the word. The word only occurs here in the entire New Testament. It means absolute deity.

In him, that is, in Christ, according to Christ, right? In Christ is all the fullness, the full extent of absolute deity. Not just a little divine spark, not just a, boy, he was a really nice guy. Not just a, oh, he was an awfully good example. Fullness of deity is exactly what it's saying about. Complete, full, absolute deity. Can you imagine, Paul is trying to say an absolute statement here. This is not relative. This is not hedged. This isn't, boy, I think so. All the fullness of absolute deity. That's what he's getting across to them.

This is in contrast, for example, Romans 1.20 has a word that looks similar.

There is an iota or i in the English, theiotes, in Romans 1.20, which refers to divinity. There is a divine element. This is a statement, however, that is unique. Absolute deity.

Dwells, katoikeo is the word there. It's a combined word. You mustn't think, when you think of katoukeio, and all these kitties are starting to hear cat, no, not that. It has nothing to do with cats. This katoukeio is to down-dwell, literally, is the way it breaks apart. Katoukeio doesn't mean that Christ lives in the basement. It doesn't mean dwelling down in that sense.

It's a word that meant permanent residence. Permanent residence. Remember when we studied through Ephesians 2, there were a couple of words there They had the idea of visitor, strangers and aliens. It's translated there. And in contrast to this, he used this word here, which means a permanent resident, somebody who lives constantly in one place, not somebody just passing through. The believers at Colossae would have understood well the difference. And why do we know that?

Someone who was permanent or passing through had quite a distinction in Colossae. There were those who lived there in Colossae and had houses and dwellings. But Colossae was at the intersection of two Roman military roads, so there was constantly what? People passing through, going back and forth, constantly through Colossae. And so they had a very strong distinction in their mind between those who lived there, those receiving this letter, and those who are just constantly among those passing through Colossae, back and forth along these roads that met at Colossae.

Alright, so now what we have here is Christ didn't just come to earth as a visitor. He didn't just say, hey, you know, I think I'll go down and come in the form of a man and I'll just visit these folks for a while and then come back up to heaven and call it good.

No. There's a present tense. He dwells now. He now dwells in bodily form. So what's he saying here? For in him all, every bit, of the fullness, the complete extent, of absolute deity continues right now to reside permanently in bodily form. We're not talking about Christ who came as a man, visited, and then left. leaving bodily form, we're talking about a statement of right now. Christ, right now, continues to dwell in bodily form.

Wow. That's the statement he's making here. Permanently. Now, how about this phrase here, shows up in bodily form, or King James has it simply bodily, okay? Somaticos. This is not a minor point. He brings this point forward. There are some reasons why it's not minor.

Remember what we said of the Colossian teachers that were coming in, the false teachers. They said there was this really good God in a really evil world, and so they said, an evil world? A body? God in a body? No, no, that just didn't mix. You've got a really good God, and anything in this material world is evil. So you can't possibly have a good God in an evil body. That was just unbelievable. You couldn't conceive of it. So they taught that no way was Jesus here in true bodily form. It was just sort of an apparition. It appeared like he was in a body, but not really. But look what John says, because John's battling the same teaching when he writes in 1 John.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ, has come in the flesh. And Jesus Christ was understood in the words of those times to include deity. Has come in the flesh. A denial of that is from the Antichrist, is not from God.

He makes a clear statement here. This teaching of the the teachers of Colossae, the false teachers, with poisonous, one that Paul and later here John wants to counter. You have as a rather large insert on your page there, and I made it large so you can make sure to see everything on it, a picture that attempts to convey the understanding of what we have termed the Trinity. And that's not a term you'll find the Bible, but it's a useful handle, if you will, But here's what it explains.

God is three persons, three personal beings, and by that we mean God is not impersonal. God is one who communicates with us. God is one who has desires and loves genuinely, not impersonally. So God is three beings, one essence. Truly, that easily blows our circuits, I know. Because we're used to thinking of one being one essence, right? You look at me and you don't say, look, three persons, okay? You say, there's one person and there's one essence. And that's the way we're used to thinking. So when we think of three persons, one essence, yes, that does blow our circuits. But that's what Scripture reveals repeatedly and consistently from one end to the other.

And so we put in these verses here, John 18.6 conveys the Father is not just the Son. There is a difference, and yet both are God. Is God the Father and God the Son both God? Yeah, they are, but the Father is not the Son.

Similarly, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, John 14.26.

And similarly, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, Acts 10.38. So you have a distinction between those persons but one God. You also find these passages, and this is not exhaustive by any means, but at least it gives something to begin from, a number of passages that point out the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are each God. So this makes the statement they are each God. So three persons, one essence, all God.

Now, the statement, of course, that we have here in Colossians 2.9 is that the Son is God, absolute deity, the fullness of absolute deity in bodily form. In Him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

We also have some other passages. Here are some, for example, from the Gospel of John, seven of them. John records where Jesus says, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the gate. Each of these in the Greek text is ego eimi, which is a statement found in the Greek Old Testament.

Remember in Exodus 3.14, Moses is talking to the Lord who is speaking out of the burning bush, and Moses says, who, shall I say, is sending me? I am, okay, is the Lord's response. The Greek Old Testament records ego eimi.

Those are the words that Jesus uses here, seven times in these places in John. I am. So when he said to them, I am the way, the truth, and the life, he didn't simply say, I am the path, and I am the truth, and I am the life. I, the one who is self-existent, I, the one who is God, am the way, the truth, and the life.

Why do I have these guys? You're going to find that once in a while, depending on your neighborhood, maybe fairly often, you'll find a pair of very nice-looking fellows, maybe in other times some ladies, maybe a mixture. A couple of them, usually very nicely dressed folks, will come to your door and they will want to talk to you, typically at an inconvenient moment, but don't let that bother you. You have really good news for them. They're not going to want to hear the things that you just heard, okay?

But there's a reason why you have some very good news for them, even though they won't believe the things that you just heard, and the things that Colossians 2.9 just pointed to. They will not want to hear that. But here's the really good news. You can tell them, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved in your household. You and your household. You can tell them that. You have no problems telling them that.

Beyond that, 1 John 5.13, here's John again writing, and one of John's patterns is he says at the end of 1 John and at the end of the Gospel of John, this is why I'm writing. Want to know why I wrote? Here's why. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Know. That's something that those people who come knocking two by two on your door, don't. They don't know. You can ask them, do you have absolute assurance that you will be spending eternity with Jesus Christ? And they will have to honestly answer, no. And I've had them tell me that, because I've asked them exactly that. And then, as I'm talking to them, I look at them and I say, oh, that's terrible. That's awful.

And that usually shuts down anything they plan to say. But I said, do you know that this has been written so that you may know? How come you don't know? Well, you need to know. And then you can bring them down a few verses. Here's what John writes. This is phenomenal stuff. Look at this.

And we know, oh boy, I love that word, that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding. So that we may know Him who is true. Not just factual, but we know Him personally. Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, and in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

You can know it. You can understand it. You can tell them. They need to know it. They may not jump up and down with excitement, but you can. And if they come to understand it, They will too. But you've got wonderful news for them. If it's a bad moment, tell them, hey, I'd love to make an appointment. I've done that. They'll be glad to come back. Make an appointment, have them come back at a time when it is convenient for you. You've got wonderful news to tell them. Wonderful news. News that they can't ever hope for.

Because to them, they've got to go knocking door to door, two at a time, telling the stuff that they've been told they have to tell people, and if they don't, they're not going to be saved. That's what they think. And one door short of what they're supposed to, one publication short of what they're supposed to, and they might miss it. And if they think about that, that ought to have them shaking in their boots, or sandals, whatever they got on. Now, next one. In Him you've been made complete.

Now, there's a phrase here that's in the Greek that doesn't necessarily come out real clearly, and we don't mind expanding things here at Holly Hills, okay? We don't mind expanding things at all. So we'll take this passage and expand it a little bit. The Greek text here is a present active indicative verb. It's just simply este, and most translations just try to compress it, and so you don't really see it. So what we want to point out is that it makes an explicit statement, and you are in him, okay? And I'd like you to know that because you need that explicit statement. Are you a believer here this morning? You are in Him. There's no qualifications for it. There's no ifs. There's no caveats. There's no small lettering at the bottom. There's no ten pages of quid pro quos and squids and everything else.

Simply, you are in Him. Now, he says, in Him. Verse 9 refers to the character of Christ. This is different. It refers to what has been accomplished in the believer because the believer is in Him. Okay? So, the distinction there. Even though in Him is repeated, it has a different significance. Take note of that. Scripture teaches that both Christ is in the believer and the believer is in Christ. Both those things are taught.

Okay? Got that? Alright. Colossians 1.25-27, we saw there, the statement at the end of verse 27, Christ in you, okay? There's a statement there.

We see multiple references in the New Testament to Christ in you. That's something that is clearly taught. Christ is in you, and you are in Christ, okay? Repeatedly, those are two messages that the New Testament brings across to believers. Both of these serve as an understanding that the believer is to have, positionally, we are in Him. And Christ is in us. These are things that it's good for us to get an understanding of and keep fixed in our minds. Both are taught. One of those is taught here. What's taught here clearly is we're in Him.

Okay? And you have been made complete. Believe it or not, that's just one word in the Greek. This verb is a perfect passive. It's a completed past action with ongoing results into the future implying permanence. Remember what we said before is the energizer bunny is kind of the mascot of the perfect tense because it keeps going and going and going. You have been made complete, complete, complete, complete, complete, complete, and it doesn't stop. It also implies permanence unless there's an indication that something has been changed that perfect tense continues on and is assumed to be the case in the text.

You have been made complete, totally complete, full on, full out, permanently, no backing up. Okay? It's a done deal. And, it's passive voice. It isn't, work really hard and you'll get completed. It is, you have been made complete, God did it, it's a done deal. God accomplished it. It's part of the character of these three phrases There are statements of fact right now. Done deal.

Now, so we've got this word pleroma in verse 9, 10, plerao, platypus, what's the big deal? Okay, alright, that's all these funny pluh words here. Alright, now, Paul uses two clearly related Greek words in verses 9 and 10 which are not brought across as related in most English translations. Pardon the moose.

Okay, in verse 9 there he has fullness which is pleroma, In verse 10 is plurao, and those are related words. Pluroma is the noun, and plurao is the verb. But those are part of a related family of words here. Pluroma, the fullness, is a descriptive noun.

It conveys the extent of the deity of Christ. How much deity is there in Christ? Full! The fullness! is having been made permanently and totally complete, spiritually filled out in him. So he's using these words that are related words right together, and it doesn't show up in most English translations. Now, alright, so what is this guy saying? Because in him there is a permanent and continuing residence of all the fullness of absolute deity in bodily form since Christ is fully God and fully man, and you are constantly having a position in him, having been completely and permanently filled in the past, and with that filling, continuing into the present and into the future. Whoa. Wow, Vern, that was great, but whoa. Okay, let's try it again. Christ was and remains now fully God and fully man. Let's boil this down.

Every believer has been 100% spiritually blessed in Christ and in the heavenlies. There's nothing less filling or light or minisized about who we are in Him. Nothing little about this thing. We are full on, full out, completely, totally, pedal to the metal, all the way to the walls, completing Him. Nothing short.

Let me make sure I get this across. Are you ready? Your truck is fully loaded, folks. Spiritually speaking, your truck is loaded. You're not lacking anything. Here is Jesus Christ. who is the full expression of deity in bodily form, full out, nothing missing, nothing lacking, nothing short, and you are completely and totally in Him. Folks, spiritually speaking, your elevator goes to the top floor, okay? Your load of bricks is full, okay?

Nothing shy of a full load. That's what He's trying to tell them here. We're talking full out, full on, full to the top. Complete in Him. Now the last point. He is head over all rule of authority. He, of course, is Christ. And then the word head, He's the one having final authority. Okay? Over all rule and authority. Let's take a look at that. Looking at this head and overall rule of authority. Ephesians and Colossians, if you look at the passages there, we've looked at several passages and we'll look at some more to come.

In those two books, Ephesians 1.22 says that Christ is at the head of everything. That's just plain everything. The next four verses that pop up there all speak of Christ as the head of the church. And by the way, Ephesians and Colossians are special books in that regard in that it makes the specific and clear connection Christ is the head. We, the church, are his body.

And these verses make that point. Colossians 118 is one that we've already looked at up to this point and will continue as we go through here. Now, this particular one parallels with Ephesians 121. Both have that phrase rule and authority. And we have several passages here that have similar expression.

What's going on here is rule and authority is a term that is used in these passages we have listed here on the right. in the sense of the angelic realm, where it's interesting that we're not given lots of detail, we're not given a lot of detail on the hierarchy and who reports to who and who all the names are, but it's very clear there is an angelic hierarchy and what's being spelled out in this verse is Jesus Christ is head of any and all angelic hierarchy.

Remember what the Colossian false teachers were teaching? We've got angels that are between a good God and an evil world, and Jesus Christ is down here in the evil world, kind of at the bottom of the angels. And he says, whoa, wait a minute, you've got something out of order here. And so he says, nope, he's at the head, not at the bottom.

And very interesting to note, you remember I noted those guys that come two by two to your front door. Almost every one of those groups has some angel giving an additional gospel. The Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, they've got some angel with an additional gospel. It's also true, by the way, of the Koran. There's supplemental scriptures often relying on angels passing them along. What he says here, hey, every single angel out there, Jesus Christ is the head. There isn't any of this upside down going on.

Probably most of us don't view the world like this, so we say, well, that's too terribly relevant to me. But, without God's Word to give us the right perspective, it's possible that we could focus our attention away from Christ. It's possible we could get distracted and put our attention elsewhere. It's also possible if something happens in life, and there's plenty of both religions and the world itself, cause us to think, well, maybe there's some dark spiritual creature out there I've got to battle. Or maybe I need to call upon some angels. A few additional saints wouldn't hurt.

When in fact, Christ is the head of all. Any ruler and authority. Any power that claims any power. Christ is at the head, not the tail. We don't need to supplement our appeal to anybody else. We can go to Him. If we look at this passage here, Paul's made three statements. None of those statements come to us and say, look, you better do this. All three of those statements tell us what is true. And he doesn't waste words here. This isn't supplemental, superficial information.

These are things that we need to know, not because we're just told to believe it, you're in the church, you're supposed to, but because these are truths to live by. These are truths that we can trust in and put our confidence in because ultimately the confidence is in a person, the person of Jesus Christ. Absolute truth that we can live by because He is the truth.

He said so. Let's pray. Lord, how wonderful, how wonderful a set of clear statements you've made here. And Lord, how marvelous it is to look to these statements and to be able to rely on them, and to rely even more importantly on you, and depend upon you, your life, your truth, and what you have done, and what you've accomplished, and who we are in you. Thank you, Lord, that our blessings are indeed of every spiritual blessing. Our spiritual truck, so to speak, is indeed loaded full. Thank you ever so much. We give you praise for it all. In Jesus' name. Amen.