Christ Triumphant Through the Cross

MEMORY SELECTION: “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him.” —Colossians 2:9,10

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Colossians 2:6-15

THE translators of our common English Bible (King James translation) have chosen a word that causes confusion in the minds of many sincere-hearted Christians. The word is “godhead,” and it appears in our memory selection. Due to false teachings that have arisen from the darker past, the word “godhead” suggests, perhaps, the unscriptural idea in which there is a god with several bodies but with only one head.

When the passage is read from the Revised Standard Version, Moffatt’s Translation, or the Emphatic Diaglott, the word “deity” has been used instead of “godhead.” Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance defines the word (#2320) as “divinity,” and Young’s Analytical Concordance renders the word “deity.”

Christ Jesus was chosen by God as the Head of the church. He is the Advocate and Guide of the body members of the church during the present Gospel Age, and he will carry out the plan of God during the future millennial kingdom for the restoration of the whole human family from sin and death. He has been given “all power … in heaven and in earth” by the Heavenly Father.—Matt. 28:18

Paul’s counsel to the prospective members of the church is outlined in the selected scripture reading. He says, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.”—2:6,7

As our Lord was triumphant, so must we also be if we would share with him in that blessed kingdom. We have received our justification through the merit of Jesus’ sacrifice, and we must “walk in him” and follow his standards of truth and righteousness which have been established for us.

We are living in a time of great temptation, and the apostle’s words of caution to the Colossian brethren are even more noteworthy in the closing years of the Gospel Age. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (vs. 8) With so much of the wisdom of men and their idle philosophies in evidence in our present-day world, we note particular interest in our Lord’s words (Matt. 24:24), “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”

The apostle speaks to the Colossian brethren about the meaning of circumcision. He says, “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, bath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.”—vss. 11-14

The practice of circumcision was given to the nation of Israel to represent further their obedience to God and his commandments and their turning away from sin. To the Jews, however, circumcision became largely a ceremony with little evidence of faith in its true meaning. Paul sought to bring the matter to the attention of the Lord’s people. We learn that true Christians become the spiritual seed of Abraham and therefore heirs of the spiritual promises. And, as it was necessary for the natural seed of Abraham to maintain faith in circumcision as evidence of their separateness from the Gentiles, even so must the spiritual seed of Abraham recognize the antitypical significance of circumcision of the heart, which should be more effective in separating them from the world and from sin. Thus are they marked off as God’s peculiar people zealous of good works.—Rom. 2:28,29; Titus 2:14

Let us keep the faith, take up our cross, and follow our Lord, even unto the end of our way.

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