To live in Christ, to be rooted and built up in Him

Some reflections after prayer

In my prayers this, I was reading today’s daily reading from the Norwegian Bible society; Colossians 2:6-11. And I wanted to write some reflections on the text, as it really captures a central truth of our faith, that we are to be rooted in Christ and built up in Him. I might do these random textual reflections more.

The reading goes (after the RSV):

As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ.

The first set of exhortations sets the tone for the rest. The starting point is not something we have done, it is not some achievement on our end, or some offering given by us to God, but what we have received. And what, or who, we have received is Christ Himself. This is important. As human beings, we tend to want to “deserve” what we get but in Christ we get it all completely free. And not just that. It is not just that we do not have to do anything positive to gain this, we gain it despite our trespasses and sins, because Christ has reconciled us to God. Though this is not mentioned in the passage cited, St. Paul notes it later, in vv.13-14: “And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.” And because this has been done for us, we can render thanks. St. Paul urges us to “live in him [Christ], rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” But this is not just a reactionary response to something Christ once did for us. Note that what the Apostle is saying is that we have received Christ. And because He dwells in us, we can live in Him. St. Paul expands on this in chapter 3, vv.1-4:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

St. Paul’s exhortation to live in Christ takes as its starting point, then, that we can live in Christ because He already dwells in us. It is a metaphysical truth before it is a practical or ethical one.

Having established that, St. Paul goes in to warn us not to fall prey to “philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.” I think it is important to note that St. Paul is not saying that philosophy is bad in and of itself. It is, after all, the love of wisdom. In Acts 17, he uses philosophy to preach Christ. But all philosophy has a starting point, a foundation. And the true philosophy, the true love of wisdom, does not find its foundation in “human tradition” (though traditions can surely grow out of it, as have been happening throughout the history of the Church and is continuing now). And neither does it find its foundation in “the elemental spirits of the universe.” But what or who are these “elemental spirits”? The Greek noun is stoikeĩon, ‘elements’, often used about the material elements of the cosmos or the heavenly bodies (often seen as gods by ancient people). The point is surely to not trust those who claim to be gods or those people claim to be gods, and to not be a slave to the elements of the earth. We should not be enslaved by that which is created, as St. Paul says in Galatians 4:3: “When we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe.”¹ No, the true love of wisdom finds its foundation in Christ, in a person, a divine person. Wisdom and Truth are not first and foremost epistemological categories but metaphysical ones – and theological ones, as I have discussed before. There, I note that Christ is “the very Logos which grounds rationality in the first place.” In Him, we find not mere human philosophy or empty deceit but the One who grounds everything. He is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And as St. Paul notes in the following verses of today’s reading, vv.9-10, this is true because in Christ, we find the ultimate union of God and humanity: “For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” The incarnation makes the true philosophy possible.

Because of the incarnation, because God has revealed Himself in a man, Jesus Christ, we can achieve union with Him, not just externally but on a metaphysical level. And through Him, who is Truth incarnate, we can become true. In fact, as I noted in the aforementioned post, “we can be true, and express truth, because we participate in God”, which is manifested in Jesus, because “Truth Himself became a human being in Christ.” Because of the incarnation, the supreme God, beyond being, has come to us, in human flesh, to unite us to Him, so that we can “live in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as [we] were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7).

But how can we receive Him? In the last verse of today’s daily reading (v.11), St. Paul says: “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ.” Read in context, with the next verse, we see that this is baptism: “And you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12). In baptism, we were given the gift of new life, which can be grasped in faith. But faith in what? We do not place our faith in the unknown essence of God, which is beyond being and intelligibility, but in the activity or work of God, which we can, in some way perceive (but which still cannot be separated from His essence). We trust God because of what He has done and is doing. The point is the divine work, or the theurgy, to use Neoplatonic language. We have received Christ, God incarnate, who works continuously (John 5:17). And in an through that divine work, which is manifested through the man Jesus Christ, and which is mediated to us through the word and the sacraments, we can live the new, divine, life, because we participate in Christ, in His death, His resurrection, and in His new glorious life, given to us freely to grasp in faith (which is a gift). Let me give St. Paul the last words, from Galatians 2:19-21:

For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.

1. NTR – Det nye testamente revidert I (Oslo: Det Norske Bibelselskap, 2003), B108; Per Øverland, Fortolkning til Kolosserbrevet og Brevet til Filemon (Bibelverket; Luther forlag/Lunde forlag, 1976), 155-158.