Paul's Weapons Against Deception

The Weapon of Absolute Certainty (1-5)

Paul’s struggle was for the churches, even the ones he had not seen, to be absolutely certain about Christ so no one could deceive them, no matter how persuasive their argument (1). Paul wanted the Colossians and the Laodiceans to resist deception like a great army, and he saw them making their resistance with encouraged and united hearts, reaching a calm poise and confidence, which resulted from a full understanding of God's promise, Jesus (2).

Paul fully understood who Jesus was—full of hidden treasure, wisdom, and knowledge (3). Paul was writing and saying all He was so the Colossians would be in “good order” (a military term for lining up in formation), remaining “firm” (a military term describing the power of an army to resist an enemy) so no one would be able to deceive them. Paul was seeking to keep them out of deception without his needing to be bodily present to help them. Their real need was to line up firmly behind Christ and resist the devil in Christ's power (4-5).

The Weapon of Absolute Faith (6-8)

The way they received Christ was the way they were to continue to live in Christ. They were not to start one way in Jesus and then change how they related to Him. They started by faith and were to continue by faith—living by faith rooted them like a tree planted and like a house built (6-7). From this position of complete faith, they could never be taken prisoner by humanly-fashioned guiding principles of life or “philosophies,” or by erroneous views of truth, even by “empty deceit,” the cosmic and occult-like “elemental spirits” (8).

The Weapon of Absolute Fullness (9-15)

All deception, whether from philosophy, truth distortion, or religion, was an attack on either the Person of Christ or the identity of the believer in Christ.

Paul begins with whom Jesus absolutely is: fully God and fully in charge (9-10).

Paul then defined the identity of the believer: fully buried, fully raised up (11-12), fully forgiven (13), fully released from debt to religious accusation (14), and fully complete in Christ’s victory (15).

Paul took the Colossians right through what had happened to them: Jesus had separated their sin nature from having power over them (11). Jesus then allowed for them to be buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him so they could live brand new lives (12). Paul contrasted where they had been to where they were at present. Once they were unable to overpower their selfish sin nature, but now, having been forgiven, having had every record of their sin and every demand for non-compliance-punishment nailed to the cross, they were given the power to live like Jesus with selfless and generous lives (13). The fact was, Jesus had, by disarming the sin and Law, disarmed rulers and authority by openly exposing how weak and ineffective their power was (14-15).

The Weapon of Absolute Victory (16-19)

Paul charged the church, first, not to let deception have a place and destroy their identity in Christ by entertaining criticism, accusation, or fault-finding in regard to their failing to keep non-essential religious customs (16). Second, they were not to allow their faith to be disqualified by adding religious disciplines or by worshiping something more than Jesus Christ. All of this pious-sounding religion was mere sensuality (17-18). They were called to hold on to Jesus alone as their supreme focus (19).

The Weapon of Death (20-23)

Paul then made it clear that all this false worship and service merely “sensualized” their souls and was of no use in stopping their real enemy—the indulgence of their appetite. All the elemental spirits of the world based truth on living in lust and required submission to whatever was necessary to get what one lusted after.

Paul’s advice was simple: be dead to all this worldly regulation and accusation—while it all has an appearance of being really religious, it actually has no power in stopping lust. On the other hand, Jesus and His gospel are loaded with the power to change a life (20-23).