Video Transcript: Buried and Raised With Christ

We're continuing our study in the book of Colossians. And we're at a point in Colossians, where the apostle Paul has told the people not to be taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit, and by human tradition and the elemental spirits of the world, not according to Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him who is the head of all rule and authority. That's the past that we considered and now he continues to explain why they shouldn't be taken captive by anything else. They've been filled in Christ. And he goes on to say that they have been buried and raised with Christ after being circumcised with Christ. 

And so let's hear the Word of God from these verses. Colossians two verses 11 through 14. In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him. Having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. This ends the reading of God's Word and God always blesses His Word to those who listen. 

One challenge for some people who are thinking about Christianity a little bit and wondering whether to take it seriously, is that it strikes them as ancient history. Sometimes there are things in the Bible that just seem kind of weird and almost barbaric, insistence on circumcision, for instance. But another real biggie is simply the fact that it happened a long time ago, that it's ancient history. Recently, a young man was saying, you know, it really doesn't matter that much whether Jesus was real or not, whether he rose from the dead or not. It all happened so long ago, and we live now. And he figured that it would make about as much sense to leave Christianity behind as it was to leave behind the religion of the ancient Egyptians. It's ancient history. It happened a long time ago. We live now. 

Now, how would one respond to that sort of thing? One thing to say is that it is possible for a long ago event to have a continuing impact. What if something happened one weekend long ago, that was the key to changing everything, to changing the whole world? That's one part of the response. What if what happened when Jesus died and was resurrected was the key to all of history and everything that happens? Another and more important statement to make is Jesus wasn't just died, buried and raised again 2000 years ago, but for those who trust in Him, they right now are buried with him and rise again in his life. If you think of the death and resurrection of Jesus as just long ago, events, you still haven't caught what it's all about. And something has not yet happened to you, that needs to happen to you. Dying, being buried and rising with him in the now, not just thinking about a long ago, ancient history event. 

Oh, there's one more thing. You want to talk about leaving the past behind? I think that's a great idea. But you might not want to leave Jesus behind and Jesus past accomplishments behind. You might want to consider leaving you behind. That's our big problem. We can't leave ourselves behind. And it's not quite so simple to say that all that we are and have done is just ancient history. We are stuck with what we were born with, and with what we've done, and we need to turn that into ancient history. We need it to be nailed to something that happened 2000 years ago and left 2000 years in the past rather than as something that continues to destroy and haunt us and condemn us and keep us on the road to hell right now. So those in brief are some of the reasons why we shouldn't think of Jesus and what He has done in dying and rising as ancient history. Because what he did changes the whole course of history. What he did happens now in people who trust in Him by faith. We are buried and rise with him, and we need ourselves to leave our old selves and our old history behind. 

So with that kind of as background and as the facts of the matter, let's turn to our passage for today and look at what it has to say about being buried and being raised again with Christ. The first thing in the passage is that this being buried and rising again, achieved a spiritual circumcision. And it makes the old law of circumcision a thing of the past. Second thing to be said about it is that this burying and rising with Christ happens in a baptismal union with Christ, and it happens, by faith in God's power to bring life from the dead. The third thing we're going to see is that this being buried and rising again with Christ is necessary because of our own deadness in sin apart from Christ. And fourth, being buried and then rising again with Christ is made possible by God's forgiveness through nailing our law based obligations, our debts to the cross. Those are the four things that are taught in this passage that we really want to think about and ponder today.

First simply is what is circumcision? He talks about you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. Now, circumcision is mentioned more than 100 times in the Bible. And if you're a little kid, or if you're somebody who just doesn't know what circumcision is, that may just go kind of whoosh, and maybe somebody's parents say that whoosh is just fine. They'll they'll figure that out later. But I'm gonna tell you what circumcision is because it's helpful to know what's being talked about. Every little boy that's born into the world has some plumbing that a little girl doesn't have. And circumcision means cutting around and on the tip of the little boys plumbing has what's called the foreskin and circumcision meant cutting around that with a knife and taking it off stripping away that sheath of skin. That's what circumcision was. And it was not just the physical event, but from the time of Abraham onward, it was an event that had important significance for people's relationship with God. 

Now, as you can see, on this little picture of a baby being circumcised, it's not all fun. That baby looks kind of upset. Abraham was circumcised when he was 99 years old, and more than 300 men of his household with him. And then from that time on, every baby born in Abraham's household was to be circumcised at the age of eight days. And that was something that continued for 1000s of years. Jesus himself was circumcised in the temple at eight days of age. So that's what circumcision is in the Old Testament. That's what the physical act of circumcision was about and that circumcision was showing a stripping away of the flesh, and that had deeper significance. 

So let's see what circumcision The Old Testament was about very briefly. It pictured blood and pain, as a punishment for sin. That's why a bloody and painful procedure was chosen as a symbol. It was also a sign of faith. The Bible says Abraham receives circumcision as the sign of the faith that he had even before he was circumcised. So circumcision was a sign of faith and a belonging to God's people. It was a mark of commitment to keeping God's law. That was another impact of circumcision. You were committed to keeping God's law. And in that stripping away of that foreskin, it was a symbol of stripping away sin within. Quite often in the Old Testament already, it spoke in the Bible of the need to circumcise your hearts, to strip away the stuff inside that needed to be gotten rid of. 

Now, circumcision is viewed quite a bit more negatively in a lot of New Testament passages. Why is that? Well, one reason is that it is fulfilled in Jesus blood and pain. And so any further ritual that involves blood and pain becomes outdated with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And anybody who continues with this ritual of blood and pain as having spiritual significance has misunderstood what time it is. Jesus has fulfilled all of that and you don't seek the preliminary versions when the fulfillment has come. It's been replaced, the sign of covenant has been replaced by something painless, and bloodless – baptism. Just as the Passover Feast was replaced by something painless and bloodless. 

Under the old Passover system, a lamb would be slaughtered and its blood put around the door and the lamb would be eaten and that was the feast of salvation for Old Testament Israel. After Jesus Christ the Lamb of God came, Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper in which we eat bread and drink a cup, but nothing is slain and there's no blood associated with that, because all the blood and all the pain needed for our salvation has been completely accomplished. And any ritual that once involved blood is left behind. And those two new things – baptism and the Lord's Supper without blood and pain are given to us. Those who continued in circumcision, even in the New Testament time after the coming of Jesus, were receiving it as a mark of trusting in the law, and not relying completely on the grace of Jesus Christ. That is the number one reason why it is treated very negatively in quite a number of New Testament passages. Because they were still obligating themselves to keep the law and whereas it supposed to be a symbol of an interchange. After that interchange of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit came people who were still hung up on circumcision, were showing that they were hung up on something outward and external and bodily and hadn't gotten the real spiritual reality of Jesus. 

So this also helps us to understand some passages that were part of the Bible reading plan this past week in the book of Galatians. Paul is dealing with the challenge of people who were insisting on being circumcised. Book of Acts chapter 15, says that there were some people came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And some of the believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, it is necessary to circumcise the Gentiles in order for them to keep the Law of Moses and then the rest of Acts 15 records a great Council of the early leaders of the church and the apostle of Jesus Christ, who unanimously came to a decision - No, we don't require circumcision, and we don't require Gentiles to keep the Law of Moses or Jews to keep the Law of Moses either for that matter, because in Christ, it's all fulfilled. 

Paul, in this passage we're reading he says, and you also were circumcised. This is some of the background for him saying that. You were circumcised in Jesus Christ and by faith in him and by dying and rising with him, and we'll see what that means in a few moments. But by all of that, you've already been circumcised, you have already received all the circumcision you'll ever need. So if you still go out and get circumcised as something in order to be right with God, you are denying that Jesus makes you right with God. If you got circumcised because you thought faith in Jesus wasn't enough for salvation, you would lose Christ and salvation. That's what the Apostle Paul warned of in Galatians chapter five. He said, I, Paul say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. Now you've heard that sentence and if you're a boy who's been circumcised say, oh, man, I'm lost forever. No, he's talking about circumcision as the spiritual or religious ritual with that kind of meaning. Many boys today are still circumcised for sanitary or Family Preference reasons. 

But Paul is saying you're putting your faith in that, if you putting your faith in circumcision, Christ won't help you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision, that he is obligated to keep the whole lot. You get what he's saying. He says, if you want that circumcision deal, then your whole relationship to God is going to be determined by keeping his law perfectly. And that's not where you want to go. Since you are severed cut off from Christ, you who wouldn't be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. If you wanna be justified by law, you just fell away from grace and are cut off from Christ. So people who said, Well, Jesus is kind of necessary and helpful, but he's not enough. You need to tack on you need to add on circumcision. Paul says if you add on circumcision, you subtract Christ, and that is a big problem. 

Now what was going on? One reason why it was so deadly for them to accept circumcision as still necessary was that it would obligate them to keep the whole law and another part was that they didn't realize what circumcision had been all about. All along it had been about a relationship with God and been pointing forward to Christ. And circumcision was given to Old Testament people as a sign, as a foreshadowing of something that hadn't yet come. But after that reality came in Jesus, those who still kept demanding the old sign, were denying the reality that the sign have been pointing to. You know, if you've been following signs on your way to a destination, once you reach the destination, it's not time to go back all the signs again, because then you just left your destination. If this was a sign picturing and leading to Christ, now you back off from Christ and go back to the sign, you are denying the substance of which the sign was just a picture or a foreshadowing. A little later in this chapter Paul talks about a bunch of other things related to the law and he says, These rituals and festivals are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ the reality. Once you have the reality, don't go back to shadows and try to hang on to pictures. 

So circumcision is a positive thing in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we're taught that the real circumcision happens without hands. In him also, Jesus, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. And what does it mean? It's made without hands, it means it is done by God, not by people. And then it is done on the inside in the heart and not just on the foreskin of a boy's body or a man's body. Paul says no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. It's a God thing, and not a human thing. A spiritual inner transformation, not a physical cutting. That's what Paul is saying. And so we've been circumcised in Christ without any knife ever being applied to our body. 

And he says, You were circumcised and you put off the body of the flesh. What does he mean by putting off the body of the flesh. In physical circumcision, there's a little piece of skin removed, but the body of the flesh that he's talking about is the body of the sin  that's ingrained in us. Sometimes flesh refers to that in the scripture where it's almost your sin nature or the sinfulness that's ingrained in you. But flesh can also be a little bit wider than that. The flesh can be the advantages that you have, that you kind of would count in your favor or the connections that you have that you might think would put you a little closer to God. And Paul says that in Christ, all of that is stripped away when you die with Christ, you put off the body of the flesh and the sinful nature is killed and the whole body of sin, but also just the stuff that you thought made you in a good position, or at least in a better position than others with God. 

Look at what Paul says in Philippians chapter three. He says, look out for the dogs. That was nice. Look out for the evildoers and who are these dogs and evildoers? Look out for the ones who mutilate the flesh. He says, now, if they're trying to say that this is how you're right with God, they're just a bunch of mutilators and dogs and evildoers. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, who put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. So he's talking about what kind of confidence he could have in his flesh. If anyone else thinks he has a reason for confidence in the flesh I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Putting  off the body of the flesh, just leaving your old self and whatever you thought counted for something in God's eyes, just trashing it all, ditching it all and say, I'm not counting on any of that. Putting off the body of the flesh. And this happens by the circumcision of Christ. Jesus is the one who really accomplishes what Old Testament circumcision was a sign of. Jesus suffered the pain and poured out the blood that really did satisfy God's law. And Jesus is the one who can change your heart and not just the condition of your foreskin. 

So, the first thing in being buried and raised with Christ. We see this passage is that achieves a spiritual circumcision making the law of circumcision a thing of the past. And then secondly, it happens in a baptismal union with Christ. By faith in God's power to bring life from the dead. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. This involves union with Christ. If you're buried with him and raised with Him, you're somehow joined to him and you get that again and again and again. Just in this couple of verses in him, with him, with him, together with him, and you'll get that kind of phrasing in Christ or with Christ throughout the New Testament. It's all over the place. What's going on with that? Well, there's a legal union with Christ in which he's a representative. If he does something, it involves you, if he represents you. If your president decides to go to war, you're in a war, whether you chose to be or not because he represents you. Jesus, when he acts is acting on behalf of his people. And so what he does is counted by God as ours because he's our legal representative and we have a legal union with Him. 

But we don't just have a legal union with Jesus. We also have a living union with Jesus – a connection. Jesus lives in us and we live in Jesus through this living connection. He is the Living head and we are the living body connected to the head and his actions affect us in our experience. Not just in our legal standing, but in who we are and what we experienced how we behave. His death and His resurrection and his reign flow into our lives. So we are united with Christ and this union with Christ is the key to dying with him being buried with Him rising again with him. And baptism Paul says this happens in baptism. Now what does he mean by that? He doesn't mean that just the water itself has magical properties that bring this about, but that baptism certainly is a picture of what God is doing and a seal of what God is doing. 

In Titus three it says God's saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So you see there, it's the washing of regeneration of new birth, new life, and renewal. A transformation and change by the Holy Spirit. Peter says baptism now saves you. Boy if that was you know, he just took that brief sense you'd say, boy, if I ever got wet at some point in my life, I'm saved. Well, not quite as his baptism now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body. It's not the physical washing that saves you, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The baptism represents your involvement in Jesus death and resurrection, and that's how you're saved. 

And so when a person is baptized and they go down into that water, it's a picture of being buried with Christ. When they rise from that water, it's a picture of rising with Christ, and it is the Holy Spirit who brings about this tremendous baptism, which saves people and unites them to Jesus. Paul says in Romans six one of the classic passages on Baptism into Christ and dying and rising with Christ. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. He's explaining why baptized and saved people shouldn't just say and can't just say, Oh, we're saved now. We can just sin all we want because you know, because it's all taken care of. Says no, you died, your old self died, you're raised again and you're raised into a new kind of life. 

One of the commentaries on Colossians by RC Lucas says Baptism into Christ is the work of the Spirit which unites us to Christ. It's signified and sealed, but not necessarily conveyed by water baptism. So it's not automatic with the water baptism. The water baptism is important. But the truly important thing is what that is pictured is the baptism by Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. Baptism is identifying with Christ in His death, resurrection, and Paul was on Romans six, we know their old self was crucified with Him, in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. So that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus. When you're baptized, it identifies you. You're baptized in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. And you say, I identify with the Lord, I identify with his dying, I identify with his rising. And if you refuse baptism, it may mean that you're still choosing to identify with your body of sin in the flesh, with your old self. 

Now there's a couple of ways to refuse baptism. One is, of course, if you've never been baptized, and you know what the gospel is, and you know the truth of the gospel, and still you choose not to be baptized well then you're rejecting baptism. It's also possible to reject baptism when you've already been baptized. Some people are baptized as babies because they were children as believers, and they grow up but they don't choose Christ and they don't trust Christ, and they don't want to follow Christ. And even though they were baptized, they are refusing to identify with the Christ in whose name they were baptized, and therefore they are rejecting baptism just as surely as somebody who hasn't been baptized and still chooses not to get baptized. Baptism is identifying with Jesus in His death and His resurrection. And so each of us has to ask that question, do I identify with my baptism and with its meaning? How have I been baptized? Not just with the water baptism, but also with that union with Jesus Christ? Is that who I am now, in Jesus? That's my identity. 

Baptism and faith go together. This happens through baptism, Paul says, into Jesus death and resurrection and through faith in the powerful working of God raised Him from the dead. And throughout the New Testament, you see baptism and faith paired, believing and being baptized very, very often. Just a couple of examples here. Paul says in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith, for as many of you, as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, faith and baptism. The book of Acts does have many of the Corinthians hearing Paul, and they believed and were baptized. believing and baptism go together. And this believing is not just a general vague faith. In this particular passage the Apostle writes having been raised with Christ through faith in what? Faith in the powerful working of God who raised Jesus from the dead. It's a particular kind of faith, and it's a belief in God's power to raise from the dead. It's believing the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead, and it is believing that this very same resurrection life giving power is what God will do in you. 

And every conversion is a resurrection. We're going to see in a few moments that you are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. Every person who knows and believes in Jesus Christ has undergone nothing less than a resurrection. Every conversion is a resurrection from the dead, and it's a participation in Jesus resurrection. To make a dead spirit alive God has to use the very same power that he used to raise Jesus from the dead. So when you put your faith in Christ, you are alive with the power that performs the greatest miracle in history. That's what the Scriptures say if you are able to believe in Jesus Christ and trust Him and love Him at all, then God was unleashing in you the very same power that raised Jesus Christ himself from the dead, and your conversion is a similar miracle to that resurrection. We who know Jesus Christ, need to think on this often and think what a marvel and a wonder it is that we know God at all because apart from that miracle, we're dead to God. When we rise from the waters of baptism and of spiritual baptism, we live in Christ and His resurrection power is unleashed in us and His Holy Spirit lives in us and unites us to him. 

Now, before moving on, I have to answer one of those questions about baptism, or maybe I won't even answer it. I'll just say what this passage has to do with the question of who should be baptized. It was interesting. One of the books that I really appreciate on Colossians that I've been using in preparing is by Sam Storms, and one of the little chunks of his book is titled, Why I am a Baptist. And it is a commentary on this couple of verses. I grew up in a church that baptize babies that quoted this couple of verses as one more reason why babies ought to be baptized, because of the connection between circumcision and baptism. And since babies were circumcised under the previous covenant, they ought to be baptized under the new covenant. Sam Storm says, well, it's so clear in here that the baptism is tightly connected with faith. And so you have two different groups of people who hear something a little different coming out of this passage. 

Well, the first thing let's just observe that the new and better covenant does have a new and better sign, no more pain and blood. It's no longer limited to males only. Women and girls can be baptized, and it's no longer limited to Jewish people. It's extended to people from every tribe and language and people in nations. So baptism is a wonderful new sign of the New Covenant. Now there are those who think only professing believers should be baptized have a very strong case, right here, because you just heard me for the last five or 10 minutes saying baptism and faith go together. It is a huge mistake to just separate baptism from faith as though they're unrelated or something. And so if you think that only professing believers should be baptized, you hear this teaching you say now, with the new and better covenant sign, a matter of physical dissent and family ties? I thought you put off the body of the flesh, I thought you left behind all those advantages, and that it was to be totally based on spiritual rebirth, and personal faith. That's what the New Covenant is about. That argument has a lot of force and there's other arguments too. But talking about this passage we need to feel the force and the push of that. 

And those who think that babies of believers should be baptized, they say, Well, with this new and better covenant exclude the babies of believers who would have received the sign under the Old Covenant. You mean the New Covenant is more restrictive, and the little kids who once were considered part of the people of God, who once were part of the family of God are told how you're kind of in no man's land, you're just you don't have an identity until you can personally understand and make that commitment. And so those of course, those believing in baptizing babies have a variety of other reasons for affirming it as well. This is the text run. So this is the text on which Sam Storms can say why I am a Baptist and why people who baptize babies can quote it in their infant baptism forms. 

Now we need to feel the strength of that. I like I probably got I read more Baptist and most of you who are Baptist in your life on baptism, John Piper and Sam storms and Charles Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd Jones all believed in baptism of believers only. They  are some of my favorite writers. In my theology class, I assign Wayne Grudem, a guy who believes in baptizing only believers. So, you know, I'm not allergic to Baptists. And I do see the force of their origin on this particular question as well because it is so deadly to separate baptism as a ritual from the necessity of faith and I do not believe that any child of unbelieving parents who just wanted the baptism to happen on a custom ought to be baptized. 

Let's look at the relation between circumcising converts and babies in the Old Testament? Abraham came to faith as an adult, and he had faith before he was circumcised and his circumcision was a seal of the righteousness that he already had by faith. It was a sign of the covenant between God and him. What about Abraham's kids? Well, Abraham's baby son, Isaac, and baby boys in future generations were to be circumcised at eight days, marking them as part of God's covenant people of faith and also any foreigner who joined the descendants of Abraham had to be circumcised along with all males in his household and in the future any babies that were born would be circumcised at 8th day. So that's how it worked. If you were converted, you were circumcised as a believer. If you were born into that body, then you were circumcised as a baby. 

Circumcision and baptism again, those who believe in believer baptism will put more of a focus on the on the break or discontinuity between the old and new covenant. And there is a difference. I've been emphasizing there's a big difference between the old or the New Covenant and how much weight you put on that can have a lot of influence on whether you on how you see the relationship between circumcision and baptism. Circumcision picture the putting off of the body of flesh in the Old Testament yet so it was baptism. Circumcision was the sign of becoming a part of God's covenant community. Now baptism is. Circumcision in the Old Testament very often called for a heart in tune with God. Even if they'd already been physically circumcised they were told again and again about circumcise your hearts and get right with God. And baptism issues that same call. If you've been baptized as a baby, it is not simply a blank check. It is an everyday call to trust in Christ and to live in his burial and His resurrection. Circumcision was for believers and their children in the Old Covenant and I believe so his baptism in the new covenant. And let me emphasize again, here's where you have to even if you don't believe in believer only baptism, you have to take the case for believer only baptism to heart. Circumcision as an outer sign calls for inner faith and so does baptism. You cannot separate faith from baptism, or it will be a fatal separation. Well, buried and raised with Christ, achieving a spiritual circumcision through a baptismal union with Christ by faith in God's power to bring light from the dead. 

And thirdly, why why do we need it? Well, Paul goes on to say as for you, you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. You were dead, not somewhat ill or having some minor problems, you were dead. The Bible teaches that we are dead to God. We are spiritually dead apart from the grace of Jesus Christ. And when we look around, and they say, Well, that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, because I know some people seem to be really quite lively and quite good, in fact, and others Yeah, I can, I can see where they're pretty rotten. Well, it's true that there are differences of rottenness, but not differences in degrees of deadness. When you're dead. You're dead. 

I remember in our apologetics class, one of the questions that came up about the resurrection was well, what about people who were cremated? You know, how does resurrection happen in their case? Their bodies are burned down to nothing. And the same kind of question applies to Well, what about a terrible accident where the body was mangled badly and so on? Well, the answer to that particular question is all of us end up decaying down to nothing if there's enough time given and so we ended up equally decayed as well as dead. But initially, the fact is, corpses can be in different condition. Somebody who died in a fire, there'll be almost nothing. Somebody was mangled in a terrible accident, the body will look terrible. Somebody's been dead a few years, we will have rotted and just the skeleton and somebody who had a sudden heart attack and has been dead for only a day looks very good, and is not very rotten at all. 

Now, are they any less dead than the person who's been decaying for 1000 years and has just some dust and a few bones left? No, they are just as dead, dead is dead. And the point is, there are people who have different conditions of rottenness, some people are still better behaved than others, and the corpse is a little prettier. They are not as rotten as perhaps someone else is, but all apart from Jesus Christ are equally dead. And this is the teaching of the Christian faith is not a popular one in today's world, especially a world that says all religions are equally good. I don't believe that all religions are equally good because I believe all people are equally dead. And they all need what the only life giver can give them. Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter two you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Therefore remember that one time you Gentiles in the flesh were called the Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. He's talking again about these people who insisted that you ought to be circumcised in order to be saved. He says you Gentiles weren’t circumcised. And you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope, and without God in the world. What a desperate predicament to be in. dead in trespasses, uncircumcised and the Gentiles in Ephesus are in Colossae their circumcision meant they weren't part of the people of God throughout all those years and years that God dealt only with Israel. And so they had a double problem. They were dead in our trespasses, and they just weren't part of God's people in any way, and without hope without God. 

But it wasn't just trouble for them. It was trouble for Jews who were outwardly circumcised but weren't receiving Jesus as their Messiah. The Bible talks about being uncircumcised in heart. The Old Testament it said no foreign or uncircumcised in heart and flesh of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel shall enter my sanctuary. If you're a foreigner, and your body wasn't circumcised and your heart wasn't circumcised, you couldn't come to God. Stephen told some Israelites, you stiff necked people, uncircumcised in heart. Now their bodies were circumcised but they were uncircumcised in heart, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you. So you're dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, and you who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision your flesh God made alive together with Him. What a statement! In Ephesians it says, you know, talks about being dead than it just gives you two words. But God and that's it in a nutshell. Here's you, but God. And just as Jesus rose from the dead and walked out of his tomb, God made us alive together with Him.

But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up with Him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So we are made alive with Christ and there's a sense in which we're already participating in the reign of Jesus Christ as He reigns in us and through us. In our Bible reading plan for this past week. John, chapter five, Jesus says, Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who here will live. Now Jesus is not talking there yet about the final resurrection of bodies coming out and being glorified. All that's part of his promises. And he talks about that in John as well. 

Here he's saying the hour has come when the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and you live. When you hear Jesus’ voice, he speaks life into you. And as faith comes into you you go from being dead, to being alive. And all of this is based on something Jesus did. He had to get rid of a barrier, he had to get rid of the accusation that's against us. And so this burial and rising with Christ is made possible by forgiveness through nailing the law based obligation to the cross. Paul says having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. 

Quite a few of you here have mortgages, sometimes big ones. Sometimes ones that are hard to pay. A mortgage is a debt that you take on a house and you sign off on a document that you're going to be paying a certain amount per month and if you don't, part of the document also is that you will have your house taken away from you. And in our tough economy, that exact thing has happened to a lot of people. It's a devastating thing. But what they have is a written document that says you agreed to this, you didn't or couldn't come through, and so, you lose it. We have a similar problem, only much greater in relation to God. There is a written code of God that identifies wrongdoing that charges sinners with those wrongs, and it states the penalty. The penalty is death and hell for those who break God's law and can't live up to his law. And so what we need desperately is to have that law and in particular, the record of debt or the legal charges against us dealt with somehow. Those legal charges have to be dealt with, or we will be lost forever. And God deals with those. It says he forgave us all our trespasses. To trespass is crossing a boundary. You know a sign that says No Trespassing means you don't go into this area. Don't cross this boundary. A trespass is you chose to cross a boundary again and again and again. And God forgives all those trespasses, all those boundary breaking, all those sins, by cancelling this record of death, this accusation, these legal charges that stood against us.

How did he do that? He set it aside or took it away, nailing it to the cross. When Jesus was crucified, there was a sign nailed above him in four different languages Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. It was not meant to be a title. It was meant to be the charge against him. He claimed to be a king. In the Jews eyes a claim to be equal with God and the Romans eyes the claim to be a king meant that you might be guilty of treason. So this was the legal charge. It was nailed to the cross above Jesus. What scripture is telling us here is that was not the only thing nailed to that cross. That was not the only thing nailed to that cross. My sin Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought my sin not in part with the whole is nailed to the cross. And I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul. That legal accusation was nailed to the cross. And so Jesus took our sins on himself and all of that accusation of God's law against us was nailed to the cross and set aside or taken away. 

John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Again from the book of Galatians. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written cursed is everyone who is hanging on a tree. And so you have that record of debt. And what was one of the very last things that Jesus said as he hung on that cross? He said, Tetestai. That was a word that was stamped. They found it the archaeologists have found that very word stamped in a whole bunch of financial documents and legal documents and it means finished, paid in full. And so your legal debt is Tetelestai. It is finished, it is cancelled, set aside, nailed to a cross when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Well, this is one of the central and clearest presentations of the gospel in the whole Bible. I just state it again in a slightly different order, the gospel in a nutshell. God's holy law condemns my crimes, my sins, my rebellion against Him. And because God is just, his justice requires painful punishment in hell. Fact number two without Jesus, I'm spiritually and eternally dead, and I can't make myself alive or right again, and I can't prevent myself from rotting further. Third fact God the Father puts my sins and the guilt of them on his Son, Jesus Christ, the God man, fully God and fully man. He punished Jesus on the cross, and He removed the laws charges against me. Fourth fact God raised Jesus to life again, and he gives me spiritual life and newness of life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and through my faith connection to Jesus, and then trusting in Jesus and baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit my sinful self, my old life is buried, and I live, I come alive to God now, and I live forever. That friends, is the gospel in a nutshell. Believe it, rejoice in it. Live in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.