All worldly teaching is simply base (bottom rung) teaching, called “elemental” in Colossians 2:8 NIV. It is a philosophy that focuses on our lowest impulses, our fleshly desires: food, sex, sleep, breathing, etc.
When we focus on the human body's base needs, we can become trapped captives, enslaved to learning about common and temporary things, thinking about, and planning our lives around them. Food, like many other things, is a simple, basic need of the human body. Yet, our society has glorified it, made it a subject for deep study, taught us how to combine it and prepare it in a way that gratifies our flesh, leading us to captivity and bondage to our base needs.
We can recognize base and low teaching that leads to captivity easily because it leaves out Christ: “elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8). In other words, it leaves out the message of who Jesus is and what He came to do; specifically, it leaves out “that which is of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This worldly philosophy focuses us downward, riveting our attention on food, macros, calories, nutrients, etc. The end result is that we can become nutrition experts but slaves to our flesh. At its core, the philosophy of the world's weight-loss counsel can be summed up by saying, “Eat this, but don’t eat that,” which completely lacks any power to restrain our sensual (fleshly) selves (Colossians 2:21-23 NIV).
Worldly wisdom leaves us knowledgeable but empty. We have heads filled with information, but hearts vacant of love and lives void of power. But, as believers, we have another option available to us.
Colossians 2:9 NIV teaches us that all of God the Father dwells in Jesus Christ. It says, “all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” The passage draws our attention to Jesus being full of God, the fullness of the Father living in the Son.
Question 4. According to Colossians 2:10 NIV, to what are all believers brought?
The amazing contrast between Colossians 2:8 NIV and Colossians 2:9-10 NIV is that of emptiness through worldly philosophy and fullness in Christ. The teaching of the diet community and worldly gurus is “hollow and deceptive,” that is, empty and misleading, whereas the teaching of the gospel brings all the fullness of God into our hearts and lives. All of the fullness of the Deity lives in Jesus Christ, and you have been given fullness in Him! He, in all of His fullness, every member of the Trinity, lives in you!
The truth that we are brought to fullness in Jesus begs the question: how does this happen? How are we brought to fullness in Him?
As Jesus, fully God and fully man, went to the cross, He emptied Himself completely for you. Philippians 2:6-7 ESV says, “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant…”
See Him there on the cross, emptying Himself of His previous glory, emptying Himself of all riches and honor, emptying Himself of His very life’s blood, all to fill you with the Holy Spirit. You have been given the Holy Spirit now, Christ lives in you and you are brought to fullness in Him.
And along with this fullness comes freedom. This freedom happened through a particular action at the cross and by the Holy Spirit. Notice Colossians 2:11 NIV:
In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ” (Colossians 2:8-11 NIV).
Question 5. According to Colossians 2:11 NIV, what happened to you at the cross of Christ?
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