Colossians 2:13;15 - What Does Dead in Sin Really Mean (Session 13)

 This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of Colossians 2:13;15, exploring the historical context, theological meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith. 

Do you truly grasp the depth of Jesus's victory over Satan's powers?  In a cosmic battle between divine and demonic forces, Jesus emerges victorious, disarming Satan and stripping him of his authority.  We explain this scenario while considering both the spiritual and human dimensions of these rulers and authorities. If you've ever questioned your victory in Christ, this episode promises to empower you with fresh insights into your spiritual authority.

The Bible tells us that all people are "dead in trespasses and sin," but what does that phrase mean?  Ever pondered on the concept of total depravity in Reformed Theology and its effects on our understanding of sin?   This session asks the question: Can a totally depraved person comprehend and respond to God's salvation offer?  "Dead in sin" is compared against all the other ways the Bible explains how sin has affected people. The conclusion affects how we view other areas of doctrine, teaching, and practice. 

This session explains how, despite being dead to sin, temptation still sometimes affects us. 

Promo announcing next study is Book of Joel

Chapters

• 0:49 Defeated Powers
• 12:20 Different Descriptions of the Lost State
• 28:36 Interpretation of Being Dead in Theology

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:49

Steve, I have a question. If there is a war going on and there's two armies fighting and one of them is forced to give up all of their weapons, then what's going to happen in that war? What's going to happen in the battles?

Speaker 2 1:04

Well, they won't be able to fight anymore, they'll be powerless and they won't have any rule or authority over anybody at any time. They've been completely defeated.

Speaker 1 1:14

What we're going to find today on reasoning through the Bible is we're going to find two warring factions, and one of them becomes completely disarmed. That's in Colossians, chapter 2. And if you have your Bibles, you might want to open them to Colossians, chapter 2, starting in verse 15. And we're going to talk about here a force that has been at war with God. Only it is now disarmed, and that's our first lesson for today. I trust that you'll be falling along as we go through this. So, steve, if you could read Colossians, 2 15.

Speaker 2 1:48

When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them having triumphed over them through him.

Speaker 1 1:55

And it says here these rulers and authorities. So my question is what is that? Who are those or what are they? And I think it had something to do with over in chapter one. It talked about the powers of darkness that had taken us captive. What would be a description of these rulers and authorities?

Speaker 2 2:14

Well, I think there's two. I think there's a spiritual aspect of this, and then there's also a physical or human aspect of it. The spiritual part would be the authority and that Satan has over this world. It says that he's the prince of this world and so he has authority over this current world. And then on the human aspect of it, with Jesus, when he was at the cross, both the Roman authorities and the Jewish leadership they had the authority to put him to death, but yet after his resurrection, he showed and made a public spectacle out of them to show that they really did not have power or authority to put him to death, because now he's resurrected.

Speaker 1 3:00

What I think of here, with rulers and authorities, the first thing that comes to my mind is Satan and his demons. That would be at war with God. And if I stop and think about it, the next thing I think of is well, wait a minute. When I sin, I create something in my life that has some power over me, and the apostle Paul talks about this in other places, about these, the law having power over us, because we in areas where we have sin, and sin as if it's some kind of a force, and if it's defeated, that it has no force against us. So, in any case, there's a spiritual realm here, whether it be something I've created in my own life out of sin, or whether it be Satan and his demons. What it's talking here is that these powers are defeated, they're disarmed. If you will, and again, as I made at the beginning, if you've got two warring factions and one of them has to give up all the weapons, then they've basically defeated.

Speaker 1 3:57

There's three things in verse 15. If we notice verse 15, there's three things that it says happens. First of all, that they're disarmed. All the weapons are gone. Jesus makes a public spectacle of them and he triumphs over them. They're disarmed a public spectacle and triumphed over them. That really sounds like defeated to me. Steve, I'm not sure about you, but if somebody went through all those, there's not much fight left in them.

Speaker 2 4:23

No, and I mentioned before that it was an unconditional surrender. But even though Satan has been disarmed, he hasn't yet surrendered and we're not going to see that totally come to place until the end of the millennium is when Scripture says that he'll be cast into the lake of fire.

Speaker 1 4:40

I've seen over the years a lot of differences of opinion and some just sort of fuzzy teaching sometimes on exactly what happens to Satan, and there's some, I think, some legitimate differences of opinion that can happen between Christian brothers. But what I think can be drawn here from passages like this is that I think we can be sure and confident of two or three or four things. One is that Satan is the devil and he is officially defeated at the cross. He is officially, formally, legally defeated at the cross and at the resurrection. When Satan had any sort of a claim over a sinner, that is defeated at the cross because the sins were paid for.

Speaker 1 5:28

Different places in the Bible talk about being sold under sin. There's an idea of being sold to the devil or there's a debt there. He owns us because of sin. Some sort of a legal claim has been done away with and nailed to the cross, and that's what he was already just said in previous verses. Right here in Colossians, chapter two, the certificate of debt was nailed to the cross. So when that happens, satan is officially, legally, formally defeated. He was practically defeated today when believers resist the devil's temptations through the Holy Spirit. So right now, today, satan is defeated when we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, just resist the temptations. So in that sense, satan is defeated. Satan will actually be finally defeated at the resurrection, when Christ returns and we're raised. Then that's when he's officially defeated. Bible talks about Christ coming back and Satan being in chains. That's the three places I see him defeated officially defeated at the cross, defeated practically today when we resist him through the Holy Spirit and when Jesus comes back and puts him in chains.

Speaker 2 6:43

So if we can just get in our mind, as we've talked about and what Paul has talked about, that being in Christ, we have these characteristics and attributes and one of them is that Satan, his authority, has been disarmed and he doesn't have that authority over us spiritually or practically, as you just mentioned.

Speaker 2 7:05

If we could just get in our mind that the temptations that he has, it's not temptations that have anything to do with our salvation, but it is a disruption to the relationship that we have with God, and he also would like to use us, even though we're still believers and we're Christians, followers of Christ, and we have that salvation. If he can use a Christian to be a stumbling block or be the negative influence to somebody else, somehow, some way, satan is always going to try and use that. If he can keep somebody else from putting their faith in Jesus Christ by using a Christian, he's going to try and do that. We just need to resist him. We need to understand that there's nothing left for us to do, we're in Christ and that we can resist Satan and that we should do that.

Speaker 1 7:58

And we can resist the devil through the power of the Holy Spirit. Just to sort of wrap up that topic I've seen Christians that when they start talking about demonic things or Satan, they get very afraid, they get nervous, they're a little unsure. I just want to give some reassurance in the sense that there's no reason for us to be afraid of Satan or the devil or demonic activity simply because he's been officially, formally defeated at the cross. And even before the cross.

Speaker 1 8:29

At no time in history Old Testament or New was there ever any sort of a real challenge to God's authority. If you go all the way back to Job in the Old Testament, the first two chapters of Job, satan has to ask permission to do anything to God's child, which was Job. God said in Job chapter one this far and no further. And in Job chapter two this far and no further. God always was and still is in complete and total control over what Satan can do and what he can't do. So the child of God may see some sort of something happen, but it's only because God's allowing it and it's for a purpose and God's in control here. Satan will never overpower us simply because God's not going to allow it Now, if you're not in Christ, I'd be worried about Satan, and they're the ones that generally aren't. If you're not a Christian, then Satan's got free reign over you and you ought to be worried Am.

Speaker 2 9:27

I right, You're absolutely right, and we should also not try and tempt Satan by doing things. Even though we're in Christ and we have that protection. We don't need to be playing with things, with the occult tarot cards, Ouija boards, anything like that. We don't need to be placing ourselves in a position where we might come in contact with those types of spirits. Definitely don't be afraid of them, but at the same time, we need to be smart.

Different Descriptions of the Lost State

Speaker 1 9:57

So at this point we've gotten to the end of Colossians, chapter two, verse 15. And there's a bit of a transition point here in the text because starting at verse 16, it goes on to some different things. So what I want to do here for a minute is to talk about some doctrinal things that have been covered up to this point in the book of Colossians. And again, the main themes that have happened are lifting up Jesus Christ and this radical transformation that goes from the state of a lost person to the state of a saved person. We've gone through this in detail, but what I want to do is go back and touch on a couple of things that really deals with some of these issues. And the first issue is in Colossians 2.13, uses the term dead in trespasses and sins, and we'll read it again in Colossians 2.13, when you are dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh. Well, therefore, he makes you alive. So that idea here of being dead in trespasses and sins needs to be talked about a bit, because it has become a thing as the technical word I put on it. It's a thing in Christian theological circles theologians being what they are, they make things out of verses. First thing I want to assure people is, yes, it says dead in trespasses and sins, and it says it in other places Colossians, right here, in Colossians 2.13,. It mentions dead in sins, also in Ephesians 2.1 and 2.5, and it mentions the dead again in John 6.53. All of those passages talk about being dead in sin. Romans 1, 3 chapters makes it very clear that we are entirely, thoroughly, completely sinful. There's no way to weasel out of that. There's no part of us that's not sinful. This idea, though, of being dead and sin, in my opinion, has been a little out of balance, simply because I think that it's been taken in a way that the scriptures don't always support, and what I'm gonna do is take a few minutes here and go through some detail of what the scriptures actually teach. A little bit of context first.

Speaker 1 12:20

There is an area of theology that is called Reformed Theology.

Speaker 1 12:24

It came out of the Protestant Reformation, also known as Calvinism, and Reformed Theology puts a lot of emphasis on God's sovereignty.

Speaker 1 12:35

I've heard very good, very respectful Christian scholars that I have a lot of respect for, learned a lot for, still use them in my studies say that the cornerstone of Reformed Theology becomes this idea of how depraved you are total depravity. And the linchpin of the cornerstone if I can mix a metaphor is this idea of being dead in trespasses and sins, because in Reformed Theology, if we're not entirely thoroughly dead not just merely dead, but really most sincerely dead if that's not the case, then we end up with a lot of issues with down the road with theology. Reformed Theologians are very quick to point out that we are dead in trespasses and sins. I wanna take that for a second and kinda look at what else does the Bible say about sin, because what I think we can make is a pretty solid case that there's a great deal, in fact a rather massive view of other ways that the Bible describes the state of the lost person, and all those areas have to be taken into account, don't you agree, steve?

Speaker 2 13:48

I absolutely agree and I've got the listing here that you're gonna go through and I think that one of the things that maybe a clarification. I look at dead, what Dead in something, and there's different listings whenever that comes up. I never see there's anything that we're dead to God. But, that said, I think that both of us agree. We don't picture dead as being an annihilation. We just look at it as being separate from God or separated from God, and part of the way that we came to that conclusion is through all of these different ways that are described, which put the whole perspective of our relationship with God together in context. As you go through here, our listeners, I hope, will be able to see that this situation of separation from God, not having a good standing with God, is described many, many ways in scripture. It's not just the one way.

Speaker 1 14:50

And that's what we're gonna go through in just a second. For those of our listeners that are familiar with the theological discussions, we're already gonna know this, but for those of you that might not be, let me give a little bit of context. There's a simple little story that often gets told. It's batted around by different people and used in a couple of different ways, and the story goes like this It'll help us illustrate the significance of what we're talking about here with this dead incense. And the story goes like this there's a farmer, he has a pond. He realizes it's kind of dangerous, so he puts a fence around it and he puts up a sign on the fence that says no trespassing and no swimming. Well, the neighbor kid he wants to go swimming, so he violates the rule, jumps the fence, trespasses which is a violation of the rule, and goes swimming in the pond and drowns in the pond.

Speaker 1 15:39

In one version of the story, the farmer comes along, sees the child out there drowning, throws him a life preserver. And in this way the story gets told. The boy has an option he can grab ahold of the life preserver and he's saved. Or you can say no, I'm not gonna take that and drown In that version of the story, the farmer does all the saving. All the boy has to do is receive the life preserver. The Reformed theologian at least the strict ones would come along and say no, no, 1000 times, no, that's not how the story works In their version of the story. Same pond, same farmer, same fence, same sign. Same little kid jumps the fence, trespasses, goes swimming in the pond. Only this time he's dead and trespasses and sins. He's trespassed and he's dead. Dead, drowned at the bottom of the pond. A dead body on the bottom of the pond, incapable of receiving a life jacket, and in this one, the farmer, which represents God, has to resurrect him first and then give him the life preserver that he would then choose to take the life preserver and take. So that's the significance of the thing here is, what does dead mean? Is it so dead that I can't receive the gift of salvation, or is it I'm dead but I can still make some choices here?

Speaker 1 17:04

That's the real hinge point of not just this passage in Colossians, which is what we're going through here, but an entire section of theology. So what I wanna do is take a few minutes and get a little bit of tedious here, if you will if you could bear with me and just go through a bunch of passages that talk about the lost state. So I already gave you, yes, ephesians 2, colossians 2, john 6,. There's other places where it talks about being dead and trespasses and sins. That said, we have to look at all the others also in order to make a good systematic theology, right? Right?

Speaker 1 17:42

So in Colossians 2, how does it describe the lost person? In verse 11, in need of circumcision, in debt, in verse 14. And in Colossians 1, 20 and 21, the enemies are alienated, in need of peace and reconciliation quote having made peace through the blood of his cross. So that's one, two, three things right there in Colossians, in addition to debt and sins, it's talking about in need of circumcision. You're unclean, needing something circumcised, you're in debt and you're an enemy being alienated.

Speaker 1 18:24

In Ephesians 2, which is one of the main passages that people used for debt and trespasses and sins, yes, it says that two verses already gave them to you. But right there in Ephesians 2, what does it also give? It says Ephesians 212, strangers or aliens quote excluded from Israel and strangers to the covenant, far away in needing to be brought near. Ephesians 2, 13,. Quote you who formerly were far off, have been brought near, is separated by a wall. Ephesians 2, 14, quote broke down the middle wall of separation. So that's three more. That's right there in Ephesians 2. In addition to the three we just gave you in Colossians, that's six that are given in the same context of the primary passages of debt and trespasses and sins. We're in debt, we're far away, needing to be brought near, we're separated by a wall that needs to get broken down. There's all of these illustrations. Those are just the ones that are in the same context as the passages with debt and trespasses and sins. So both of the chapters that talk about that are the primary passages about debt and trespasses and sins also have six other descriptions of the state of the lost person.

Speaker 1 19:53

If you look at all the rest of the Bible at least all the rest of the New Testament, it goes on and on. For example, lost needing to be found Luke 15, 24, quote this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. So this is the parable of the prodigal son. So yeah, it uses it right there. Luke 15, 24, dead needing to become alive again. The rest of the same sentence says he was lost and needs to be found. So that's another one lost, needing to be found, sick, in need of healing. 1 Peter 2, 24, quote by his wounds you were healed. So that verse in 1 Peter 2, 24, quotes Isaiah, and in both the New Testament and the Old, when it says by his wounds you were healed, the phrase just before that verse and the phrase just after it, both in Old Testament, new, are talking about forgiveness of sins. So when he says by his wounds you're healed of the sin problem that you have so sick or wounded in need of healing.

Speaker 1 21:00

Another one is unclean and clean, in need of purifying or washing. Titus 2, 5 says quote he saved us through the washing of regeneration. Titus 2, 14, Jesus will quote purify for himself a people for his possession. Still another one, blind and in the dark, in need of light. In addition to the one we already talked about in Colossians 1, 13, there's also Acts 26, 18, quote open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light.

Speaker 1 21:34

Another illustration of the lost person is slaves needing freedom. Romans 6, 6, quote we should no longer be slaves to sin. Another one in debt Matthew 18, verse 23 to 35, is the parable of the wicked servant that he forgave them, that forgave the servant this vast, huge quantity of money. And then the servant goes out and doesn't forgive his neighbor. Well, the forgiveness of the huge debt is a symbol of the sin debt being forgiven. It also had it right here in Colossians.

Speaker 1 22:07

Thirsty in need of a drink? John 737,. If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Hungry, john 635, quote I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger. It goes on and on. Foolish needing wisdom Titus 3, 3, quote we who once were foolish. Is the state of the lost person fallen short? Romans 3 23, quote all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Helpless and without strength? Romans 5 6, quote while we were still helpless, or some translations say, without strength. Christ died for the ungodly Enemies in need of reconciliation. In addition to Colossians 121, there's also Romans 5 10, quote while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God.

Speaker 1 22:59

So the Bible uses at least 16 other descriptions of the lost person in addition to dead, interest, passes and sins, the concepts used more often. What I didn't do, steve, is I didn't go through and do an exhaustive count of how many times each one of those concepts were used. But if I were to just take an estimation, I would say that the ones probably used more often to describe the lost person were probably in debt, having some sort of a bond, or our certificate of debt was forgiven Jesus paid for our sins probably used more often or unclean he talks about the washing of regeneration or the washing in Jesus' blood. So the ones that are at very minimum you could say, if you add up all of the different times that it describes a lost person, dead and sins is used two or three, four, few times, and then add that to all these others added together or used many more times than dead, interest, passes and sins. I guess if we really want to do a systematic theology here, if we really want a consistent view of the state of the lost person, we have to take all of these together and use it.

Speaker 1 24:19

In my case it's not that we're not dead and sins Agree, it says it right here in the Bible. My case is that some theologians and I say some have the emphasis on the wrong syllable. They've got the tail wagging the dog. They've created a definition of dead and sins that these other 16 plus different views of the state of the lost person just don't support. We're not so dead that we can't receive Right there in Ephesians 1, and we'll get it to Ephesians 1, it's one of the primary passages that the Reformed theologians like to use.

Speaker 1 24:56

Yes, god did like 10 or 11 different things that are all entirely by God, until you get to the part where we receive by faith. That's ours salvation, that's my basic case is that, yes, we're dead and trespasses and sins, but what we can't do is take one view of dead and sins out of about a dozen and a half and ignore all the others and build an entire cornerstone of a theology around this one idea of being dead and then just never even talk or deal with all these others. So your thoughts, steve?

Speaker 2 25:29

Yeah just before I get my thoughts, let me do this the quick review of what you had there. So here's the descriptors or adjectives of the lost person dead, enemies and alienated, strangers and aliens, far away, separated by a wall, lost, sick, unclean, blind, slaves in debt, thirsty, hungry, foolish, fallen short, helpless and enemies. So that's the quick list of what you just described and that's the balanced part of everything that you meant. It's not just dead, it's all these other descriptors of what a lost person is, and I think that that gives a lot more meaning to a lot more people to describe how we are in our relationship to God.

Speaker 2 26:20

Now, a question that comes up is related to faith. So, whether we have faith in God's plan of salvation or not, believing that his plan of salvation is going to take care of all of these conditions, that's a major factor that we need to put our trust into and our belief into, and knowing that all of these conditions are rectified or taken care of in Christ whenever we become in Christ. So, once again, doing evaluation, are we in Christ or are we not in Christ? And if we're in Christ, then all of these items that we just talked about are taken care of and now we can move on with our Christian lives and become the influence and the light of the world and the salt of the earth that Christ calls us to be, if we do careful exegesis of the passages.

Interpretation of Being Dead in Theology

Speaker 1 27:14

I gave a minute ago the lists of the definitions of the lost person that are in Ephesians and in Colossians and what he's doing in both places. Those are the two primary places where it talks about dead and sins, and I happen to have the Colossians one right here in front of me because this is the one we've been dealing with most recently. But he's making a list in the chapter of the state of the lost person and we've said several times it's a dramatic transformation from the state of the lost person to the state of the saved person. At no point in here is there any room at all for human effort to get ourselves out. So we're not saying we're putting some credit on humans here. Look at what at the list he's giving in Colossians, chapter 2.

Speaker 1 28:04

210, we were incomplete and he made us complete. 211, we had unclean flesh and he circumcised us. 212, we were buried and he raised us through faith. 213, we were dead in sin and he made us alive. 214, we were in debt and he cancelled the debt. 215, we were under rulers and authorities and he disarmed them. So the emphasis in all of it is what he did.

Speaker 1 28:37

There's no room in here for me doing anything and I think it's improper. It's out of balance, the nicest way I could describe this. My reformed friends, I've learned from some of the same teachers that you have and I highly respect them. But things are out of balance here. When I have a list of one, two, three, four, five, six things in Colossians 2 and I take one of them to the exclusion of the other five, build a doctrine around that and make it say something that I am so dead that I can't comprehend or respond to God's offer of salvation, I just don't think that's what it's saying in the text. If I'm incomplete, can I not understand that? If I'm unclean, can I not understand that I'm unclean? It'd be really nice if he cleaned me up, If I were in debt, would I not understand it and be able to accept or respond the offer to take away the debt? If I were unclean and he offered to clean me up, would I not understand or respond to that?

Speaker 1 29:44

Adam and Eve in the garden he tells them what? The day you sin, you'll die. And they sin. And then God comes in. And what do they do? They hear, they understand, they respond. They were dead in their sins at the point that God came after the fall and they still heard, understood and responded. I just think it's the nicest way I can say this is that the linchpin of all of this theology hinges on this dead and trespasses and sins and it's just out of balance. That's not a balanced biblical view of the lost person, it's just not.

Speaker 2 30:23

Let me just add two other things to that. If we're going to take that part of it and the descriptor of dead being something that you can't respond to or you can't relate to the gospel, what? Because you're dead and a dead person is dead and a dead person can't respond and a dead person can't do that, we also have the opposite, or the other side of that coin, at least in a couple of places. In Romans 6, 11, it says even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in in Christ Jesus. Well, I don't think there's anybody that would say that, yes, we're dead to sin, but yet we're still tempted by sin. We're still tempted to miss the mark with God and our fleshly body. We have that fleshly body. That's part of this world that we have to resist the temptation.

Speaker 2 31:17

So we don't take it from that perspective and say, oh, you're dead to sin, therefore you can no longer sin, or we don't take that position in that using that word dead. And then another place where it talks about that is it says in Colossians. It says therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead. To this is in Colossians 3, 5, that we're going to get to in the next few sessions. It says therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to a immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire and greed which amounts to idolatry. So now I don't know of any teaching, hey.

Speaker 1 31:57

Steve, I have met Christians that had all those and some of them when I looked in the mirror.

Speaker 2 32:03

And that's my point is I don't think there's the teaching on that side that says, oh, you're dead and therefore you cannot no longer do any of those things because you're in Christ.

Speaker 1 32:15

No, and it's very cool. Let me get this right. What you're saying I think is an excellent point, is that okay? If we take dead and sins to mean what it has been held by some of these theologians, then they would have to hold that same definition over here in that list you just made. It'd have to be the same application, same definition, which you can't have as one sense of the word dead in one spot, in a different sense than the other, without being inconsistent in our hermeneutics.

Speaker 2 32:42

Yes, that's what I'm saying is, if you're going to use that definition of dead in the in the one sense, then you need to use it in the definition of dead in the other sense. And we don't see that. It's very clear. Nobody, at least that I know of, believes that we're completely dead to all of these sinful things. They're all still temptations for us, they're all still things that we have to fight and we have to resist. We're not completely cut off from them.

Speaker 1 33:12

So, yeah, I agree, steve, and what we'll do here is stop for today, because I think we've got to a really good stopping point. Next time we'll do a summary of the whole first part of what we've done in Colossians so far and then get into starting in 216. We'll get into some of the practical teachings that had been happening at the church at Colossae. So we'll be here next time reasoning through the Bible, and we trust that you'll be here with us as well.

Speaker 2 33:36

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.