Complete Salvation in Christ, Col 2:11-12

(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; (12) having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. (13) When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, (14) having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (15) When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. (2:11-15)

In this next passage, one commentator describes Paul as a master painter, painting a picture for us of what salvation in Christ really means. He starts by using circumcision, which symbolizes the cleansing of man's heart, and then uses baptism to symbolize a believer’s new life in Christ.

He then goes on to picture mankind as dead in his sins, having no power to either overcome or atone for his sins. Jesus is then depicted as mankind's deliverer from both the power and the consequences of sin. The work of Christ is a work of power that puts life into dead men, and a work of grace that reaches out to those who had no reason to expect the deliverance of God. Paul continues by using the symbolism of a set of decrees or laws that we've violated. Although these laws condemn us, Jesus has canceled this debt. And not only these two, the rulers and authorities that condemn us have been stripped of their power to affect us.

Paul's purpose is clear; he once again wants to show that Jesus has done everything that needs to be done to provide mankind salvation from his sins. Jesus has done everything that needs to be done and we do not need any other intermediaries to help us. Jesus provides a complete salvation that does not require any external works to help us understand or appropriate the work of salvation which Jesus has freely supplied us. Nothing is missing. Jesus' “... salvation does not need to be supplemented by false human philosophy or psychology, ritualism, mysticism, self-denial, or any other human work.” [1]

Our Salvation

There are two opposite tendencies ever at work in human nature to corrupt religion. One is of the intellect, the other of the senses. The one is the temptation of the cultured few; the other, that of the vulgar many. The one turns religion into theological speculation; the other, into a theatrical spectacle. But, opposite as these tendencies usually are, they were united in that strange chaos of erroneous opinion and practice which Paul had to [confront] at Colossae. From right and from left he was assailed, and his batteries had to face both ways. Here he is mainly engaged with the error which insisted on imposing circumcision on these Gentile converts. [2]

This seems to be a fitting way to put into context some of the verses we are about to cover.

‘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;’ (2:11)

‘and in Him you were also circumcised’ –

Definition: ‘circumcise’ – The Greek word, peritemno { per-ee-tem’-no } literally means to cut around. Circumcision was a religious covenant rite performed on every Jewish male child on their eighth day of life where the priest would remove the foreskin from the male's penis.
Circumcision was an ordinance that symbolized that all sin was being cut off or renounced, and that he who was circumcised was to be devoted to God and to a life of holiness.
Throughout Israel's history there had been two views on circumcision. One view stated that circumcision was enough to put a man right with God. It didn't matter whether he was good or bad; all that mattered was that he was an Israelite and that he had been circumcised. The other view was supported by the great spiritual leaders and prophets of Israel. As William Barclay put it,

They insisted that circumcision was only the outward mark of a man who was inwardly dedicated to God. They used the very word in an adventurous [symbolic] sense. They talked of uncircumcised lips (Ex 6:30), of a heart which was circumcised or uncircumcised (Lev 26:41; Deut 6:10; Eze 44:7, 9; Deut 30:6; Jer 9:26; Act 7:51); of the uncircumcised ear (Jer 6:10). To them being circumcised did not mean having a certain operation carried out on a man’s flesh but having a change effected in his life. Circumcision was, indeed, the badge of a person dedicated to God; but the dedication lay not in the cutting of the flesh but in the excision from his life of everything which was against the will of God. [3]

John MacArthur put it this way:

... The cutting away of the male foreskin on the reproductive organ was a graphic way to demonstrate that man needed cleansing at the deepest level of his being. No other part of the human anatomy so demonstrates that depth of sin, inasmuch as that is the part of man that produces life – and all that he produces is sinful. That is the biblical view. From the beginning, circumcision was used symbolically to illustrate the desperate need man had for cleansing of the heart. In Deut 10:16 Moses commanded the people of Israel, saying ‘Circumcise then your heart, and stiffen your neck no more.’ Deut 30:6 adds, ‘Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.’ The Lord commanded the Israelites of Jeremiah's time to circumcise themselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of their hearts (Jer 4:4; cf. 9:26). God was always concerned with the heart, not with the physical rite. [4] (emphasis added)

Because of this as well as what was said throughout the NT, it is the second view which Christians understand as what was intended by God from the beginning. Circumcision was a physical act to symbolize the covenant God had made with Abraham and his descendants, but it was never intended to be merely a ceremonial act of obedience. In Deut 10:16, God tells Israel that they need to circumcise their hearts, in which His intention was for them to start manifesting the spiritual qualities of commitment and obedience to His will in their lives. And this was repeated in Jer 4:4 because of Israel's evil deeds. However, it would seem that the vast majority of Jews saw the first view [that only circumcision was required to make man right with God] as what God intended.
It should also be noted as is stated in Baker's Evangelical Dictionary that,

When Greek paganism threatened to swamp Judaism some two centuries before Christ was born, circumcision became a distinctive indication of Jewish fidelity to the covenant. Thus, John the Baptist was circumcised (Luke 1:59), as were both Jesus (Luke 2:21) and Saul of Tarsus (Php 3:5), on the eighth day of life, making them accredited members of the covenant people. But Jesus was already casting doubt on the preeminence of the rite when he stated that his healings made people completely whole (John 7:22-23). Stephen reinforced this by accusing contemporary Judaism of the very tendencies that Jeremiah had condemned (Acts 7:51). Although in the period of the primitive church the believers maintained Jewish religious traditions, problems began to arise when the gospel was preached among Gentiles. Christians who had come from a Jewish background felt that Gentiles should become Jews through circumcision before being able to experience Christ’s saving work.
This attitude rested partly upon the contemporary notion that circumcision was a necessary part of salvation, as well as being its effective guarantee. Others repudiated this view of salvation by works, particularly when uncircumcised Gentiles received God’s outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44-48). They saw that the prophecies of Ezekiel, in which the Lord promised a clean heart and an indwelling of his Holy Spirit (36:25-27), and the dramatic proclamation of Joel that God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh (2:28; cf. Acts 2:17), were now being fulfilled. The spiritual significance of circumcision had been achieved by divine grace without the performance of the physical rite, thus making the latter obsolete. [5]

So concerning this portion of the verse, it would seem that there was a Jewish bent to the false teachers, a teaching that seemed to demand that Gentile Christians be circumcised to be considered God's people (Gen 17:10). Paul reminds the Colossians that circumcision was not about what was done to the physical body but about what was done to the believer's heart. It was not about cutting off a piece of flesh, but about putting off the body of sin.
For the Christian, circumcision was not intended to be a mere outward ceremony, but to symbolize the believer's renunciation of the flesh with its corrupt tendencies. It was a putting off of every part of mankind's human nature that was in opposition to God. Believers were to be spiritually separated from an unclean world by being completely dedicated to God. Anyone can perform a ritual like circumcision, but a ritual does not change the heart of a person. Only God can cut away those things that keep us from being obedient children of Him. (De 10:16; 30:6; Jer 4:4; Rom 2:29; Php 3:3)

‘with a circumcision made without hands’ –

And here, Paul drives home one of the central themes of Scripture, that circumcision is not about a ceremonial rite, but about a spiritual truth. It was not a transaction in the flesh, but one in the spirit because human involvement is not required for it to take place. It was not the removal of some ceremonial impurity of the body, but the spiritual cleansing of the human heart from sin. A ceremony does not bring salvation. Circumcision was to be done in the heart by the cutting off or renouncing of all sin. It was something that Christ did by His actions, not something that mankind could do by their actions. The circumcision that God intended from the beginning was supposed to be a spiritual act, done by the Holy Spirit to affect a change in the human heart. (Deut 30:6)
A man may be physically circumcised and be spiritually uncircumcised because there is no understanding or renunciation of the sin in his life. Spiritual “heart” circumcision cannot occur until a person comes to a true understanding of his own sin and how much that sin hurts God and keeps him from God’s presence. This does not mean that everyone else sees his sins, but that the sinner sees his sin for what it is. As John Gill put it, “when the callousness and hardness of his heart is taken off and removed, and the iniquity of it is laid open, the plague and corruption in it discerned, and all made naked and bare to the sinner’s view; and when he is in pain on account of it, is broken and groans under a sense of it, and is filled with shame for it, and loathing and abhorrence of it:” it is then that he can be “circumcised with a circumcision made without hands”, a true circumcision of the heart. (Mark 14:58; Acts 7:48; 17:24; 2 Co 5:1; Eph 2:11; Heb 9:11,24)

‘in the removal of the body of the flesh’ –

Definition: ‘removal’ (‘putting off’ - KJV) – The Greek word, apekdusis { ap-ek’-doo-sis } literally means a putting off, laying aside, a stripping off. It is a stripping off from one's self as with clothes or armor (getting out of your clothes).
The 'body of the flesh' is a symbolic reference to man's corrupt human nature. Although this really isn't one of Paul's topics in Colossians, it is important for us to remember that we are all born into sin, that our human nature is corrupt at its very core. In the book of Romans, Paul demonstrates that sin is not simply something which we do, but is a condition of our heart. (Rom 3:10-12) And in Ephesians Paul states that we are “by nature children of wrath.” (Eph 2:3; cf. Rom 3:9; Gen 6:5; 8:21; Job 14:4; 15:14-16; Ps 51:5; Mr 7:21,22; Ro 5:12-19; 7:18) Of this there is no doubt. And that is what Paul is referring to when he uses the phase 'body of the flesh.' And it is also why Paul relates the physical act of circumcision to the removal of sin in one’s life. The removal of the 'body of the flesh' is the renouncing of the deeds of the flesh, that is, renouncing sin in one's life. Sin is to be repudiated, cut out, cast off, and eradicated from one's life. Jesus spoke of this too when He said, if your eye causes you to sin, cut it out, get rid of it! (Mt 5:29) And again in Mt 6:23, Jesus said “if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” According to Jesus, if you have the slightest bit of sin in you, then you are drenched in it, sin will permeate your entire being. There is no such thing as a 'little sinful.'
It’s as if we are clothed with a garment of sin – and a very filthy, dirty one at that. The intent of the 'circumcision of the heart' is to strip off that garment of sin from us.
The 'body' is the perfect metaphor to describe sin's impact on us. The human body is not made up of independent pieces unrelated to each other. Every part is connected together to form a working unit. So, as we saw above, sin is not isolated to a specific part of us, it encompasses every part of who we are.
'Circumcision of the heart' is not something that we elect to have, even though we could live just fine or mostly fine without it. It is not a nice little outpatient elective surgery, something akin to the removal of a hang-nail. It is a radical invasive surgery, something much more like quadruple bypass open heart surgery. It is an immediate need, something that cannot wait. Think of yourself being on life support, kept alive by a machine, and both your body and the machine are failing. Without the 'removal of the body of sin', we have no real existence. We are the living dead. (Col 3:8-9; Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22)

‘by the circumcision of Christ’ –

This seems to indicate that Jesus' circumcision is one that removes the whole corrupt human nature from those that have received Him. We are then enabled to renounce sin and devote ourselves to God. We should never again be enticed to return to ceremonial rites as if they somehow enable us to attain any deliverance from our sins. (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 2:20; 4:4-5; Eph 2:10-18; Php 3:3; Rom 2:29)
It would also seem that Paul had as his intention to utterly destroy the concept that Christians were required to be circumcised to receive Christ. Obviously, there was some Jewish element teaching that circumcision was required for salvation, but Paul reminds the Colossians that God had always intended circumcision to be of the heart. The outward rite was only to be a visual reminder of the work God desired to do in their hearts.

‘having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.’ (2:12)

‘having been buried with Him in baptism’ –

Definition: ‘buried’ – The Greek word, sunthapto { soon-thap’-to } means to bury together with.
Being buried with Christ means that we are partakers in His death. For Calvin, this meant much more than being crucified with Christ. He saw it as a continual process of mortification of the flesh, or essentially a constant never-ending battle to do away with our old nature that continually tries to assert control over us and lead us in the opposite direction from where Jesus is leading us.
Definition: ‘baptism’ – The Greek word, baptisma { bap’-tis-mah } means a washing, purification affected by means of water; immersion, submersion. It is an immersion into the suffering, pain and humiliation where someone is completely overwhelmed.
Baptism in OT times, which would have been what John’s baptism was, was a purification rite in which men, upon confessing of their sins, were then bound to spiritual reformation in their lives. This confession of sin obtained a forgiveness for their past sins, which qualified them for the benefits of the Messiah’s kingdom which was soon to be established. As part of this purification, the person would be immersed in water. Consequently, this was also a valid baptism for Christians, since it is not recorded anywhere that anyone was ever re-baptized after the church was established. For the Christian, baptism involves confession of sin, profession of faith in Christ alone as one's Lord and Savior, along with the immersion in water. (Some churches sprinkle or pour water on the person. Generally, both are viewed as valid forms of baptism, although immersion does seem to be the Scriptural mode intended.) Baptism symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. The old sinful nature of the person dies with Christ, and the person that resurrects with Christ is a new person, no longer the old person that went under the water. [6] (Rom 6:3-4; 1 Cor 12:13; Tit 3:5-6; 1 Pet 3:21)
Some commentators who would seem to be of the sprinkling or pouring denominations, seem to minimize the focus of one aspect of the phrase Paul uses here. They maintain that Paul's intent is not to describe the universal mode of baptism required, but his intent was to emphasize the profession of faith being made at baptism, and that we had become dead to sin, being buried with Him and raised to new life, as He had been. [7] This does in fact seem to be the emphasis of Paul in this passage, but one cannot ignore the implications inherent in the definitions of the words used, nor the example which Christ left us. One is not 'buried' by sprinkling or pouring, one is buried by immersion. Jesus was buried when the stone was rolled in front of the tomb, isolating and separating Him from everyone and everything. In the same way, believers are isolating and separating from everything when they are submerged under water. Historically, it is easy to see how and why sprinkling and pouring began during the underground persecution times of the early church. For that reason, one should not be dogmatic about a mode of baptism, but neither should some be quite so cavalier. We should strive to be biblical in all that we do, allowing for grace during times where that may not be possible.
The death and burial of Christ Jesus is the cause of the death of our 'old man', signed, sealed and delivered in the symbolism inherent in baptism. Our old carnal life, with it lusts and cravings, is put away, buried under the water, washed away. Baptism doesn't save us anymore than circumcision saved the Jews. It is the visual representation of our heartfelt conviction and repudiation of our sin and our acceptance of Christ's death in our place, the rightful punishment we deserve for our sin, our acceptance of God's free gift to us, and our commitment to follow Christ the rest of our lives. As with circumcision, baptism is a spiritual representation of our sins being buried with Christ in His death and the new cleansed person raised in spiritual life with Christ’s resurrection. Baptism is a visual picture of this reality. (1 Cor 12:13; Rom 6:3-4)
It is also important to remember why Paul is linking circumcision and baptism. It is because they are both intended to be viewed as outward expressions of inward changes in the heart of man. If baptism saves you, then what is the difference between the two, since Jews believed their circumcision saved them even though the OT makes it very clear that this act does not? As Christians, would we not be exchanging one ritual for another?
The Expositor's Bible Commentary for the end of this verse says the following:

We partake of His death, inasmuch as, by the power of His cross, we are drawn to sever ourselves from the selfish life, and to slay our own old nature; dying for His dear sake to the habits, tastes, desires, and purposes in which we lived. Self-crucifixion for the love of Christ is the law for us all. His cross is the pattern for our conduct, as well as the pledge and means of our acceptance. We must die to sin that we may live to righteousness. We must die to self, that we may live to God and our brethren. We have no right to trust in Christ for us, except as we have Christ in us. His cross is not saving us from our guilt unless it is [molding] our lives to some faint likeness of Him who died that we may live, and might live a real life by dying daily to the world, sin, and self. [8]

‘in which you were also raised up with Him’ –

Definition: ‘raised up with Him’ – The Greek word, synegeirō { soon-eg-i'-ro } means to raise together, to cause to raise together; to raise up together from mortal death to a new and blessed life dedicated to God.
Believers are raised up to be both 'in Christ' and 'with Christ'. It was to be 'in Christ' because believers are to walk in newness of life as new creations (2 Cor 5:17) and have an inward union with Christ. It was also to be 'with Christ' because it was God's intent that we enter into a lifelong fellowship with Christ. (Rom 6:4, 8-11; Gal 3:27-28; Eph 2:5-6; 4:23-24; Col 3:10-11) Baptism is the burial and the resurrection, a dying of the old person we used to be, by uniting with Christ and becoming the new person God always intended us to be.

‘through faith in the working of God’ –

Definition: ‘faith’ – The Greek word, pistis { pis'-tis } means conviction of the truth of anything, belief; a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervor born of faith and joined with it.
Definition: ‘working’ – The Greek word, energeia { en-erg’-i-ah } means working, efficiency, and is only used of supernatural power of either God or the devil. In this context it refers to God's active power. The English word energy comes from this word.
It is through faith that believers see themselves as buried and risen in Christ. Jesus' resurrection is the foundation of all of our hopes, for without it, there is no hope available for mankind to grasp onto. Without faith, there is no working of God in our lives. How can He work in us if we do not believe that He has the power to do anything in our lives? Baptism then becomes meaningless as a symbol of anything beneficial to mankind.
John Gill also points out that even faith is not natural for mankind. Faith is a gift given to believers by God (Eph 2:8), and he can't even exercise it without Christ enabling him to do so. Faith is what works in man, but only by God's gracious power can it be exercised by him. (Rom 3:22; Php 3:9, 21; Eph 1:19; 3:17; 2 Th 2:13; Heb 11:6)

‘who raised Him from the dead’ –

Paul is showing here that the grace that we have obtained in Christ, through His death and resurrection, is far superior to anything that could be ascribed to circumcision. It is by faith, founded upon the power of God, that allows us to receive the salvation symbolized in baptism. (Act 2:24; Rom 4:24; Heb 13:20,21)
If God has the power to raise Christ from the dead, then He has the power to give believers new life, for we were all dead in our sins at one time, and now we have been made alive in Christ. (Rom 6:6, 11, 14) If Jesus has not risen from the dead, then we have no reason to put our faith in Him, nor any expectation that we will rise with Him. If Jesus has not risen from the dead, then we have no hope of deliverance from sin, nor should we have a desire to be delivered from anything. What would be the purpose of living moral and righteous lives?

[11] In Him you were also circumcised [sin was being cut off, removed and renounced] with a circumcision not made with hands, but by the [spiritual] circumcision of Christ in the stripping off of the body of the flesh [the sinful carnal nature], [12] having been buried [as a partaker in Christ’s death] with Him in baptism [immersed into the your sufferings, your pain and humiliation where all of that is wiped away, cleansed] and raised with Him [to a new life dedicated to God] through [your] faith in the working [of supernatural power] of God, [as displayed] when He raised Christ from the dead. (Col 2:11-12)

Footnotes

The primary sources for this study use J. Hampton Keathley III, Paul’s Letter to the Colossians: An Exegetical and Devotional Commentary, from bible.org, Copyright ©1996-2020 Bible.org, and all attributions are reprinted with permission granted by bible.org, and John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Colossians & Philemon, (Moody Bible Institute: ©1992).

This study uses many of the commentaries, dictionaries and the Greek Lexicon which are all part of 'The Online Bible', Computer Program, © 2023, Larry Pierce, http://www.onlinebible.net/, unless otherwise referenced. See Colossians Bible Study for full attribution. All word definitions are from either Strong's and/or part of the Online Bible Program.

Where noted, Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), p/o Logos Bible Software, Faithlife, LLC, © 2023.

All Scriptures quotes are from the New American Standard Bible, 1995 Revision, unless otherwise noted. Verse links from Blue Letter Bible, https://ww w.blueletterbible.org/

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