Circumcised, Buried, and Raised with Christ

Dear friend in Christ,

Come and sit with me a while. Pour yourself a cup of something warm, open your Bible to Colossians 2, and let these words from Paul settle gently over your heart. He is writing with the tender concern of a shepherd who loves his sheep. He has just warned them about hollow and deceptive philosophies that promise something more than Christ. Now he steadies them with a deeper truth—what has already been done for them in Jesus.

“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Colossians 2:11–12, ESV)

Beloved, do you hear the quiet confidence in these verses? Paul is not asking them to achieve a higher level of spirituality. He is reminding them of a work already accomplished. In Christ they have been circumcised—not with the hands of men, not by outward ritual, but by a cutting away that only God can do. The “body of the flesh,” that old nature ruled by sin and self, has been put off. It is the circumcision of Christ Himself. What the law could only point toward, Jesus has completed. The old self has been dealt with at the cross. You do not have to keep cutting away at your own heart in a desperate effort to make yourself acceptable. The decisive cut has already been made.

Then Paul moves to the picture of baptism. You were buried with Him. The old life, the one that lived under the power of the flesh, went down into the grave with Jesus. And just as God raised Christ from the dead, you were raised with Him. This is not a mere symbol of your decision. It is a declaration of what God has already done. You were raised through faith in the powerful working of God—the same power that brought Jesus out of the tomb. That power is not distant or theoretical. It is the very power that has already acted on your behalf. You live now on the other side of that resurrection. The old has gone; the new has come.

Picture a seed planted in the earth. It is buried, hidden, seemingly gone. Yet the life within it is not destroyed. In the proper time, by the working of God, it rises. That is what has happened to you in Christ. Your old life of striving, of trying to measure up by human rules or spiritual techniques, has been buried. You have been raised to walk in newness of life, not by your own strength, but by the same power that raised Jesus. There is no need to dig up the past or to add extra practices in the hope that you will finally feel complete. The completeness is already yours because you are in Him.

My dear friend, if you are weary today from the voices that say you still need something more—another rule, another experience, another discipline to prove you belong—hear Paul again. You have been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. You have been buried with Christ. You have been raised with Him. Rest in that. Let thankfulness rise, not because you have performed well this week, but because God has already acted powerfully on your behalf. The life you now live is His life in you.

Reflection Questions

• Where have I been tempted to treat my standing with God as something I must still complete by my own effort rather than something already finished in Christ?
• What would it look like today to live as someone who has already been raised with Jesus rather than as someone still trying to bury the old self by my own strength?
• Is there an area where I keep returning to human traditions or self-imposed rules, and how does the truth of Christ’s circumcision free me from that?
• How might remembering the powerful working of God—who raised Jesus and raised me with Him—bring rest to a place of striving or fear in my life right now?

Prayer

Father, thank You for the gentle care You show us in these words. Thank You that in Christ we have already been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, that the body of the flesh has been put off, and that we have been buried and raised with Him through faith in Your powerful working. When we feel the pull of other voices or the ache of feeling we still need to do more, draw us back to the quiet confidence that we are already complete in Christ. Root us more deeply in Him. Let thankfulness rise as we remember how fully we are held. Keep us close to Jesus, the One who has done the decisive work and who loves us completely. Amen.

Always remember, dear ones, how much God loves you.

Your fellow sheep.