Beloved brethren, you are dead with Christ! Yes, you are crucified, dead, and buried with him! Being dead in your trespasses and sins, you have been quickened together with Christ; you sit now in heavenly places; your conversation is in heaven; and your life is hid with him in heaven.

Gracious salvation! You are perfect in Christ, and in him you are already in heaven.

In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. God is the only God. He is good and only good. In him is light and no darkness. There is no lie in him. There is no evil in him or associated with him, and no evil proceeds from him. As the only good God, he is absolutely consecrated to his glory as God. He is fullness itself. He is perfection, and he is the implication of all perfection. In himself his fullness consists in the fullness of his covenant life among the three persons of the Trinity. They are with one another, and they are in one another: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the one true and living God.

To know God is life eternal and the purpose of all things. For this purpose he made all things: that he might be glorified as the living, covenant God in the revelation of his covenant with his people so that they taste, understand, know, and are conformed in their whole beings and lives to his covenant. To have him as your God is salvation and blessedness itself. To be his sons and daughters is to be heirs of the whole world and to have all things serve you, for all things serve God and the revelation of his glory in the covenant.

In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, and thus there is no wisdom and no knowledge apart from Christ. All man’s wisdom outside of Christ is foolishness, indeed, earthly, sensual, and devilish. All man’s knowledge outside of Christ is ignorance, indeed, damning ignorance. In Christ you know God, and that is eternal life. In Christ you apprehend God in his works and purposes and adapt yourselves to those purposes.

Especially this do you come to know and understand and conform yourselves to: in Christ is all the fullness of the salvation of God. Christ came from God as the revelation of God. Christ came from God to fulfill all of God’s purpose for salvation. Christ came to fulfill the promise, to perfect God’s covenant of grace, to satisfy the justice of God, to fulfill all righteousness, and to glorify God in all things. On Christ alone rests the saving purpose of God. In Christ alone are all the blessings of God’s covenant. Christ is, wonder of wonders, in his own person the fulfillment of God’s covenant; for in his person—the person of the Son and Word of God—God and man are perfectly and permanently united. In Christ God and man are one, and in Christ then is the man who is perfectly consecrated to the glory of God.

And you are in Christ by faith. Rooted in him as a plant in the ground. Built up in him as a building upon the foundation. He is the tree, and you are the branches joined in him. He is the head, and you are the body. Eternally you are one with him. For he is the elect one, and you are chosen in him and for his sake. And you are joined to him by faith; so that by the operation of the Holy Spirit, you become one plant, building, body, and married couple.

You are complete in him! Overflowing grace!

You lack nothing in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus you are already perfect. You stand before God in heaven in the holy of holies without sin. You are heirs of eternal life and shall surely and without doubt enter into eternal life. You who are dead in trespasses and sins were raised with him. You died with Christ. When he was crucified, you were crucified. When he died, you died. When he was buried, you were buried. And so in Christ your sin-lives and all the handwriting of your debts and trespasses that were against you are finished. For dead men cannot be debtors, and in Christ’s death you suffered the death that was due to you for your sins. And having died with Christ, you were also raised with him, raised to another and better life, a heavenly and immortal life. Dead with Christ, you have passed already into that immortal state in which you cannot die. You have a life that cannot die and in which there is no possibility of death. It is life with God. Life with God that begins now and life with God that will continue progressing ever deeper and ever higher into the blessed knowledge and understanding of the glory of God and of the wonders of his covenant, world without end in the new heavens and the new earth. It is life with God that now is through a glass darkly, but then that life will be face to face. Dead with Christ, you have passed beyond guilt and condemnation and thus also beyond the power of sin and death, and you live with him. Nevermore can the law condemn you or demand of you that you must keep its precepts and commands in order to have fellowship with God or to enter into the enjoyment of his rest. Never again can you be brought under the power of sin and death. You have life. You have immortal, everlasting, blessed life with God. You have life in Christ and for his sake. In Christ you have God as your God. In Christ is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Christ you come to God, know God, and live before God in the joyful freedom of conscience that all your sins are forgiven.

In Christ God forgave your sins. There is the ground of all blessedness. In his death Christ took away the cause of death, namely sin and guilt, and he earned for himself and for his people eternal life because of his perfect and divine righteousness. There is no righteousness like the righteousness of Jesus Christ. No man can keep the law as Christ did. No man can do as Christ did. He obeyed as the lawgiver who came under the law, as the righteous one who became a curse, as the just for the unjust, in perfect love for God and his neighbor, and under the terrible wrath of God, so that Christ loved God out of the depths of hell. Christ’s righteousness is the righteousness of the obedience, holiness, suffering, and death of the Son of God. God forgave all your sins in Christ. He forgave those sins eternally, never beholding iniquity in his Jacob; for he saw Christ eternally crucified, and he saw you in him. Yes, God loves the righteous and blesses the righteous. Thus, as the beginning of all God’s dealings with you, he forgave your sins in his counsel, not imputing your trespasses unto you. And at the cross he forgave. Oh, before you were, before you committed one sin, in order that you might be raised with Christ, God forgave all your sins. So the apostle says, “You…hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (v. 13). You are quickened with Christ because in Christ at his cross you were forgiven before you were, before you committed sin, and before you shed one tear for your sins.

And God forgave your sins because Christ blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against you, which handwriting was against you as a kind of record of all your guilt. That handwriting in the ordinances was, as it were, a debt sheet. God gave to Israel at Mount Sinai a list of ordinances. In those ordinances given to the Jews, the condition of the whole human race was illustrated and indeed written with crushing repetition. In those ordinances there was daily, moment by moment, a reminder of guilt, sin, pollution, and misery. In the ordinances was written that you are guilty in Adam; that, being guilty in Adam, you are subject to death; that as dead sinners you are full of pollution, sin, and misery in your very natures; and that death, corruption, and evil are in all your ways. The laws of Israel that came from God did not make Israel holy. But the laws by vivid pictures and shadows constantly reminded the Israelites, and thus all mankind, of their sinful condition in Adam. And the laws thus made plain that the way to God was shut unless Israel’s guilt was taken out of the way.

God quickened you because he forgave all your trespasses and sins. He took the handwriting of the ordinances that was against you and blotted it out and took it away, nailing it to Christ’s cross, so that Christ was obligated to pay those debts and was cursed for those sins. Thus as the debtor’s debt sheet is torn up and thrown away, so that he is no longer a debtor, so the handwriting of the ordinances was torn up, blotted out, and destroyed at the cross of Jesus Christ. In his wounds the guilt of all his people—the members of his body and branches of his tree—was taken away.

Then those ordinances too must go away. Christ is the body and substance of all of them. And he has come, and those ordinances must go away, so that the church is no longer subject to such ordinances and ceremonies. There is in Christ no sin and no guilt. There cannot be any longer a requirement, a deed, an activity, an act, or a work that is necessary in order to come to God, to live, or to enjoy God as your God, for you are perfect in Christ. All that is necessary for life and salvation is in him, and you are in him now and forever. You have passed from death to life, from this world to heaven, from guilt to righteousness, from polluted to holy; and being far from God in the enmity of your minds, you have been brought near to God, and you stand before him in peace and may live joyfully before him without fear in Jesus Christ.

And being dead with Christ, you are dead from the elements of the world. Oh yes, if your lives are in the world, you are subject to ordinances. By “ordinances” the apostle means all the vain and worthless religion of man with all its ceremonies and inventions—but that vain and worthless religion of man as it is a testimony that man hates God, that man is far from God, and that man knows God but refuses to worship him as God. Thus the apostle also means that vain and worthless religion of man as it is a testimony that man lives under guilt. All the ceremonies and ordinances of the Old Testament law simply revealed what man is by nature: that he is subject to sin, that he is guilty, that he is subject to the crushing condemnation of the law, and thus that he is worthy of eternal damnation. To be subject to ordinances is to have the testimony that you are guilty before God and that you do not have a way to him. Not having Christ and not having the testimony that you are complete in Christ and stand before God without sin, man must invent another way. Out of his own brain, he devises many ordinances, ceremonies, regulations, laws, commands, and liturgies so that by doing these things man comes to God; and thus these ordinances are the way in which he lives before God and through which then he will enter into heaven.

You are dead with Christ from the elements of the world. There is in Christ no testimony of condemnation but only the testimony of complete perfection, sinlessness, and worthiness of eternal life and fellowship with God. If you are dead with Christ, you are dead to the elements of the world too. Never can the law condemn you. Never is there any deed, work, activity, or ceremony that is necessary to come to God and to stand before him in peace and joy.

Beware lest any man plunder you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men and after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. Beware of men who parade as spiritual and godly but whose doctrines are out of their own brains and whose religion is self-devised and self-serving. Beware of them because they come with deceptive doctrines that snake their way into your hearts and will rob you of your simplicity in Christ, will rob you of your joy and happiness in Christ, and will rob you of your inheritance. They are thieves, these men, with their philosophy. They come with the appearance of wisdom. They have arguments and passages from scripture and appear even to have history on their sides. But when you examine their doctrines, they do not harmonize with Christ and the perfection that is yours in Christ. Their doctrines do not harmonize with the truth that you are dead with him and complete in him but by their teaching make Christ but half a savior, an imperfect savior, a savior to whom you must add.

Their doctrines the apostle calls the “rudiments [elements] of the world” and “ordinances.” These are the same. And again he calls their teachings the “commandments and doctrines of men.” These things are of the world, of this side of the grave, and belong to the state of corruption; and they perish. They have nothing to do with the kingdom of God and of Christ. They are base and useless things. In comparison to Christ they are nothing. The form that they take is ordinances, or a host of ceremonies, commandments, strictures, regulations, and rules. In short, they are all the things that man must do in addition to what Christ has done. Even more sinister, they are all those things that man must do in order to have what Christ has done. These false teachers withhold Christ and the loveliness, joy, comfort, and assurance of Christ from the believer until their commandments, strictures, regulations, and rules are performed. Thus also these deceivers come from the idea that holiness is found in an outward form, that righteousness is found in the outward deed, and that religion is a matter of do and do not do. Not satisfied with the earthly form in which Christ sanctifies his people and with his rule in their lives, so that their whole lives become holy and testimonies that they are of God, these religious philosophers and vain deceivers make holiness to consist in trifles and outward form. Then they also proceed from the viewpoint that Christ is not enough. Is that not why the apostle joins these two things—your being dead with Christ and your being dead from the elements of the world? If there is that which man must do to be saved, then Christ is an incomplete savior. Then you are not complete in him. Then he did not free you from guilt; and then, even though you possess Christ, you are yet far from God and from his fellowship and from eternal life with him until you do this and the other thing proposed by men. As with all the ordinances of the Old Testament that Christ abolished, so all the ordinances of men have in them only a reminder of guilt, of sin, and of pollution, and there is in them no peace but only a testimony of condemnation and damnation.

Why, if you are dead with Christ, would you be subject to ordinances? These false teachers come with their touch not, taste not, handle not; and you fall for their philosophy and vain deceit, their doctrines and commandments of men? You allow your peace, joy, and freedom in Christ to be disturbed by them? “Touch not,” they say, and you wonder in your minds if indeed you may not touch. “Taste not,” they thunder, and your consciences are disturbed whether indeed it is Christian and holy to taste. And because men know no end to their inventions of rules, regulations, commandments, and strictures, then after you have listened to and given place to these false teachers for a moment and they have beguiled you with their vain deceits, they also add rule upon rule and precept upon precept and command you, “Handle not!” And having given their doctrines a hearing and those doctrines having snaked their way into your minds, they plunder you of your joy, peace, comfort, hope, and freedom in Christ. And you too, like the false teachers, are subject to ordinances, and you live as those whose lives are in the world and who have not passed into heaven. Christ is erased from your very minds and thoughts, the perfection of Christ and your perfection in him fade from view, and all you can think about is men’s ordinances—what you must do and what you must not do.

But if you are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though you have your lives in this world, would you be subject to ordinances? If even the ordinances of divine origin have passed away, why would you be subject to the ordinances of men: touch not, taste not, handle not?

Do you not understand that all of these ordinances have men as their authors? Men—not being content with Christ, denying the fullness and perfection of Christ’s salvation, and denying the perfection of God’s church in Christ—invent these ordinances, rules, and regulations. They are the doctrines and commandments of men.

The ordinances are all the doctrines that men invent that condition salvation on the deeds of man. That you must first repent before you are forgiven is a doctrine of man. It does not have its origin in the word of God but in the faithless minds of men who distrust, hate, doubt, or are terrified of the gospel of the free forgiveness and pardon of sins apart from man’s doings. They distrust the lordship of Christ and the power of his Spirit to sanctify his people to repentance without their doctrine of repentance first. They will not have God as their lawgiver, who commands all men everywhere to forsake their deeds and to believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation—stop doing for salvation and rest in Christ—and being disobedient to the gospel, they invent another gospel. And by their doctrines invented out of their own unbelieving brains, they rob you of your comfort and joy in Christ.

Or, hearing the gospel of your perfection in Christ without any of your deeds and noting your freedom in Christ from the elements of the world, these deceivers and false teachers immediately introduce their commandments. You cannot eat that food, you cannot smoke that cigarette, you cannot drink that wine, and you cannot engage in that activity. They lay hold on the peaceful worship of the church and disturb it with their rules. They say that you must have this regulation satisfied or that rule met before you can enjoy Christ in the gospel. These commandments of men are of the same species of ordinance as the false doctrines of men. These false teachers will not have God as their only lawgiver but add their commandments to his as the way of a holy life in the church. The origin of these commandments is not the word of God but the hearts of men who suppose that the gospel will make men careless and profane. They suppose that have no idols, do not make images, do not commit adultery, do not steal, and all of God’s other commandments are not enough in the church. They distrust the headship of Christ and suppose that Christ is not able to save and to sanctify his people to a godly use of things. They suppose that if the people of God are free from ordinances, they will rush to wickedness. Those commandments have unbelieving men as their authors.

Oh yes, whoever brings his ordinances into the church and comes with his touch not, taste not, handle not, in whatever form that may come, manifests his unbelief. He shows that the gospel of fellowship with God and assurance of eternal life for Christ’s sake alone have nothing to say to him, find no resonance in his heart, and leave him in his unbelief. And having no comfort in the gospel, no assurance of his salvation through Christ alone, and no hope of eternal life to the exclusion of all his works, deeds, and efforts, he must invent another way to God and into heaven by his doing something, something doable.

Why would you who are dead with Christ from the elements of the world become subject to men and their doctrines and commandments?

The doctrines and commandments of men they are. That is all that they are. That is all they ever will be. Some are impious. Others are tyrannical and terrifying. Still others are silly and trifling! But of men, only of men, and not of God or out of his word.

And if you who are dead with Christ from the elements of the world would again be subject to ordinances, do you not know that the commandments and doctrines of men—not of God—that forbid you to touch, to taste, and to handle perish with the using? To perish with the using means to tend to corruption. That which they corrupt is all of religion. They corrupt the believer. They corrupt the church. They corrupt the truth. They corrupt faith. They corrupt peace, hope, and joy. They corrupt the idea of God. They corrupt Christ and his salvation. They corrupt absolutely because they lead all who follow them down into hell. The teachers of these doctrines and commandments of men insist so eagerly and vehemently upon them as if they were essential to salvation. But they do not bring salvation but corruption.

And that is because the things that these false teachers and vain deceivers teach are necessary for salvation are weak and frail things with no power in themselves and no power especially in comparison to the riches and power of Jesus Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge and in whom is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

That you must repent first? You? You, a weak, feeble, and sinful human being whose very repentance is marred by sin? Christ is your salvation.

That you cannot receive the preaching on a screen? A screen? Your abstinence from a screen? That is what is necessary to receive Christ? Christ is your salvation, and he is powerful to communicate himself to his people by the preaching through many means.

That you cannot eat this food or drink that beverage? Food and drink and your abstinence from them are necessary for your salvation? You take in food and drink, and they go out into the dung hill.

All these things are weak.

Why would you who are dead with Christ from the elements of the world be subject to ordinances? Why would you let your consciences be troubled by the strictures, the rules, the laws, the carnal doctrines, the ceremonies, and the commandments of men? Why would you, who have passed already to the other side of death and whose life is now hid with Christ in heaven, be troubled by men’s philosophy and their vain deceits as though your lives were still in this world and you have not come to God and you do not stand already in his presence?

These false teachers, religious philosophers, and vain deceivers make so many disciples and plunder many because they themselves and the things that they teach have a show. They have an appearance. They have an appearance in contrast to a reality. They are not real. They are not the truth. They are a lie. They are a deception, a phantasm, a legerdemain, and a conjurer’s trick. They are not real but damnable, not good but tending to corruption.

Yet these false teachers always come with reasons, explanations, texts, logic, and arguments. Their show includes in it reasons and explanations, words about themselves. They come saying that their commandments are the truth and that they bring Christ, God, heaven, joy, assurance, and everything good. These false teachers have a show that they are wise and that thus only in the way of their doctrines and in the way of their commands are the knowledge of God and eternal life.

But their doctrines and commandments are nothing but will worship. They all come from men’s fevered brains, their unbelieving minds, and their wicked hearts. They come in men’s deliberate and conscious rebellion against the word and the will of God that Christ have the preeminence, that his people and all things be perfected in Christ. These deceivers have nothing in Christ, and so they seek to displace Christ with their doctrines, commandments, laws, rules, and regulations. But these have no basis in the word of God or in the will of God but in man’s will, his self-serving and self-pleasing will.

And all the deceivers’ show of humility is false. They do not wear certain clothes, and everyone accounts them such pious and humble persons. They abstain from some meat or drink, and many think them to be superior Christians. They come protesting that they are only interested in the Christian life and holiness in the church and that their great concern is for the glory of God. And they would foist on the church all their doctrines and commandments under the guise of admirable practices for the church, at the very least not objectionable, and even as better calculated to lead the church in the way of holiness and the antithetical life.

And especially do these pious puritans put out for the church’s consideration and as a great way to holiness the neglect of the body. Yes, it is a very great thing to them for the Christian not to eat, not to drink, and not to touch, taste, and handle many things. And once you listen to them and give in to them, their lists will grow; and there will be no end of outward things that you must do to show that you are a Christian, to have Jesus Christ, to be pleasing to God, and to enjoy the knowledge and assurance of your salvation.

But none of their doctrines and commandments are of any value to God. He says, “Not in any honour.” The false teachers tell the church how pleasing to God she will be if she follows their doctrines and commandments. But none of them are of any value to God. They have no value for righteousness. The only thing that avails for righteousness before God is Christ. These doctrines and commandments of men have no value for holiness, for it is very wicked for you to repent in order to be forgiven by God, and it is a great evil to abstain from this food or that activity in order to be pleasing to God and in deliberate and conscious rejection of Jesus Christ. The doctrines and commandments of men, no matter what the standing of the man who introduces them and no matter how wise, pious, and humble he may seem, are absolutely worthless and without spiritual value whatsoever.

They do please the flesh, however. How strange is man? He flagellates himself with his doctrine of repentance first in order to be forgiven and will never with that doctrine enter into the peace, joy, and comfort of Christ. And that pleases his flesh. His flesh delights in his repentance as that which he does to be saved, though his repentance is abominable before God. Man neglects his body and kills himself with worry, grief, and abstinence and makes himself a laughingstock by his dowdy behavior and pious pretensions, and that pleases his flesh. He prides himself that he does not do this and he does not do that, which things so many others enjoy. It is a great thing to him, and he supposes that it is a great thing to God, that he does not eat this food, smoke that cigarette, drink that beer, or wear that article of clothing. Pride! That is it. Pride! Such things please the flesh because the flesh is full of pride. If the flesh could do anything for its salvation, even something so silly and trifling as not eating a piece of food, then the flesh would do that for salvation. And in that the flesh would be damned.

As those who are dead with Christ from the elements of the world, do not be subject to ordinances. Reject all the doctrines and commandments of men. Resist men’s philosophy and expose their vain conceits. For being dead with Christ, you have been raised with him to immortality and life. You are not of the world, and your life is not in the world but is hid in heaven with Christ. And you are complete in him.