Joshua and Judges: Circumcision of the heart, part 5. Jos 5:2-3; Col 2:8-11; Php 2:6-7.

Title: Joshua and Judges: Circumcision of the heart, part 5. JOS 5:2-3; COL 2:8-11; Php 2:6-7.

 

Announcements/opening prayer:

 

Php 2:6 who, although He existed [huparcho = being before and after the essence of God] in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped

 

Php 2:7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

 

Our Lord entered into a new state of being when He became Man. But His becoming Man did not exclude His possession of Deity.

 

He was and is today a Person with two natures, that of absolute and undiminished Deity and that of true humanity. "Likeness" refers a real likeness - that which is made like something else.

 

The text says, "He became in the likeness of men." The word "likeness" in the Greek text refers to "that which is made like something else."

 

Our Lord's humanity was a real likeness, not a phantom, nor an incomplete copy of humanity. But this likeness did not express the whole of Christ's being [deity].

 

His mode of manifestation resembled what men are. But His humanity was not all that there was of Him. He was also Deity. He was man and the Son of God manifest in the flesh and nature of man.

 

Our Lord emptied Himself of self. He set aside the expression of Himself as deity. It is the greatest example of humility and self-abnegation for the benefit of others.

 

This agrees perfectly with the context. This setting aside of self by the Son of God was the example that Paul held before the saints at Philippi. If each one would set self aside, then unity would prevail.

 

COL 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

 

COL 2:9 For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form,

 

COL 2:10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;

 

The fullness of the Godhead dwelt in His person from His birth to His ascension. He carried His human body with Him into heaven, and in His glorified body now and ever dwells the fullness of the Godhead.

 

He is in direct contrast to human tradition that puts an ever ascending chorus of spiritual creatures or angels between God and man. Man has to climb from one to the other to get closer to God and do the almost impossible task of climbing up all of them to actually be with God. This is the way that was taught by Plato and was incorporated by Augustine through whom it infiltrated the catholic church and it has always been a tenet of Gnosticism. As he descends lower the divine glory is shaded. Yet tradition is this respect is far from being true. In Christ is the fullness, which is the totality of the divine powers and attributes.

 

We do not ascend to Him. He came down to us. He who was rich became poor that we might become rich. As the next verse states, in Him we have been made complete.

 

The believer is not ascending to Him by steps but is in Him. With a circumcised heart we may turn to behold Him, and when we do, we are beholding the fullness of deity.

 

Paul is declaring that in the Son there dwells all the fullness of absolute Godhead; they were no mere rays of divine glory which gilded Him, lighting up His Person for a season and with splendor not His own; but He was, and is, absolute and perfect God.

 

It is well in these days of apostasy to speak of Christ as divinity, but the modern conception of this word is far from the biblical reality concerning who Christ is.

 

Modernism believes in His divinity, but in a way different from the scriptural conception of the term. Modernism has the pantheistic conception of the deity permeating all things and every man.

 

Pantheism - all components of the universe, including all creatures, composes an all encompassing, immanent god.

 

Pantheists do not believe in a personal God but that god is the sum total of all things in the universe and so divinity is in everything and in everyone. This philosophy of men goes back thousands of years and is found in many ancient philosophies and religions as it is such in our day.  

 

Thus divinity, it says, is resident in every human being. It was resident in Christ as in all men. The difference between the divinity of Christ and that of all other men, it says, is one of degree, not of kind, in other words He had more of it and you and I have less of it. Paul never speaks of the divinity of Christ, only of His deity. Our Lord has divine attributes since He is deity, but that is quite another matter from the Modernistic conception.

 

COL 2:10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;

 

If "in Him" dwells the fullness and you are in Him, then you are made full in Him. In other words, through Him, you lack nothing. Your fullness comes from His fullness.

 

This does not make us deity but it does open up for us certain attributes of deity such as holiness, righteousness and love.

 

"And you are in Him, having been filled full, with the present result that you are in a state of fullness."

 

There is nothing more that you need and nothing that you lack. Every believer is given their inheritance in Christ, Christ's inheritance because they are children of God and so, heirs also. You do not have to look to people or circumstances to fill you, which was the case as an unbeliever, and still then, it was impossible. Yet now, fullness is not only possible it is a fact at salvation, but we must be warned and alert to the falsehood that says fullness is in someone or something else other than the One who has truly given it.

 

Being made full we have every right and opportunity to turn to Him and learn of Him. For instance, His fullness in us engages us in the process of learning His love.

 

Being made full in Him leads us to have the greatest of all divine virtues.

 

EPH 3:14 For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father,

 

EPH 3:15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,

 

EPH 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man;

 

EPH 3:17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

 

EPH 3:18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

 

EPH 3:19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.

 

In Christ we find the satisfaction of every spiritual want. It therefore follows of itself that we do not need the angelic or human powers.

 

That Christ is the Head of every principality and power is a further reason why we should not seek to them. All we need we have in Christ.

 

Part of the false teaching at the time was that the believing Gentiles needed to get circumcised. But Paul makes clear here that we were circumcised at salvation, but not overtly, but with a different and far superior circumcision of the heart.

 

COL 2:11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;