figuratively · noun — genitive singular masculine, a title
raised
ἐγείραντοςegeirantos
G1453
to waken (transitively or intransitively) · verb — aorist active participle, genitive singular masculine
him
αὐτὸνauton
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — accusative singular masculine
from
ἐκek
G1537
literal or figurative · preposition
dead
νεκρῶν.¶nekrōn
G3498
dead (literally or figuratively · adjective — genitive plural masculine
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Romans 6:3-5 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Galatians 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
1 Peter 3:21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good consc…
Ephesians 2:4-6 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Colossians 3:1-2 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Acts 2:24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
Romans 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Colossians 2:4-12
The apostle cautions the Colossians against deceivers (Col 2:4): And this I say lest any man beguile you with enticing words; and Col 2:8, Lest any man spoil you. He insists so much upon the perfection of Christ and the gospel revelation, to preserve them from the ensnaring insinuations of those who would corrupt their principles. Note, 1. The way in which Satan spoils souls is by beguiling them. He deceives them, and by this means slays them. He is the old serpent who beguiled Eve through his subtlety, Co2 11:3. He could not ruin us if he did not cheat us; and he could not cheat us but by our own fault and folly. 2. Satan's agents, who aim to spoil them, beguile them with enticing words. Se…
Translate, "Having been buried with Him in your baptism." The past participle is here coincident in time with the preceding verb, "ye were (Greek) circumcised." Baptism is regarded as the burial of the old carnal life, to which the act of immersion symbolically corresponds; and in warm climates where immersion is safe, it is the mode most accordant with the significance of the ordinance; but the spirit of the ordinance is kept by affusion, where immersion would be inconvenient or dangerous; to insist on literal immersion in all cases would be mere legal ceremonialism (Rom 6:3-4).
are risen--rather as Greek, "were raised with Him."
through the faith, &c.--by means of your faith in the ope…
Buried with him in baptism - Alluding to the immersions practised in the case of adults, wherein the person appeared to be buried under the Water, as Christ was buried in the heart of the earth. His rising again the third any, and their emerging from the water, was an emblem of the resurrection of the body; and, in them, of a total change of life.
The faith of the operation of God - They were quickened, changed, and saved, by means of faith in Christ Jesus; which faith was produced by the operation or energy of God. Believing is the act of the soul; but the grace or power to believe comes from God himself.
The Church Fathers
" But some think as if God were under a necessity of bestowing even on the unworthy, what He has engaged (to give); and they turn His liberality into slavery. But if it is of necessity that God grants us the symbol of death, then He does so unwilling.
The apostle indeed teaches, in his Epistle to the Colossians, that we were once dead, alienated, and enemies to the Lord in our minds, whilst we were living in wicked works; that we were then buried with Christ in baptism, and also raised again with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. "And you, (adds he), when ye were dead in sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
But it is not burial only: for behold what he says, "Wherein ye were also raised with Him, through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." He hath well said, "of faith," for it is all of faith. Ye believed that God is able to raise, and so ye were raised. Then note also His worthiness of belief, "Who raised Him," he saith, "from the dead." He now shows the Resurrection. "And you who sometime were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did He quicken together with Him." For ye lay under judgment of death. But even though ye died, it was a profitable death. Observe how again he shows what they deserved in the words he subjoins.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Ephesians, Epistle to — Was written by Paul at Rome about the same time as that to the Colossians, which in many points it resembles. Contents of. The Epistle to the Colossians is mainly polemical, designed to refute…
Resurrection of Christ — One of the cardinal facts and doctrines of the gospel. If Christ be not risen, our faith is vain (1 Cor. 15:14). The whole of the New Testament revelation rests on this as an historical fact. On the…
Burial · Illustrative of regeneration — Illustrative of regeneration
Resurrection Of Christ, The · Effected by: The power of God — Effected by: The power of God
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Colossians 2:12
Buried with him in baptism,.... The apostle goes on to observe how complete and perfect the saints are in Christ; that they are not only circumcised in him in a spiritual sense, and the body of the sins of their flesh is put off, and removed from them, in allusion to the cutting off and casting away of the foreskin in circumcision; but that they and all their sins were buried with Christ, of which their baptism in water was a lively representation: Christ having died for their sins, was laid in the grave, where he continued for a while, and then rose again; and as they were crucified with him, they were also buried with him, as their head and representative; and all their sins too, which he…
Colossians 2:8-12
8. 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.
8. Videte ne quis vos praedetur per philosophiam et inanem deceptionem, secundum traditionem hominum secundum elementa mundi, [357] et non secundum Christum:
9. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
9. Quoniam in ipso habitat omnis plenitudo Deitatis corporaliter. [358]
10. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
10. Et estis in ipso completi, qui est caput omnis principatus et potestatis,
11. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without…
you were buried with Christ when you were baptized: As in a roughly parallel passage (Rom 6:3-6), Paul assumes a strong identity between believers and Christ. In God’s sight, we really were with Christ when he was buried and raised, so we experience the benefits of what Christ did for us. Paul can link that identification with Christ to baptism because water baptism was so closely related to conversion in the early church.
