The Christian religion is very clear. It seems too easy for many Christians to sum up our faith by saying, "It is all in Christ." Therefore we will always explore and aspire to make it more dynamic. We must stand guard as Christians against the tendency to erase, nullify, or overshadow our faith's simplicity.
Paul warns the church of the Colossians along these lines. With what he terms "empty deceit," false teachers complicate the confidence (Col. 2:8). For a truer and higher spirituality in Christ, they promoted adherence to Old Testament ceremonial rules, circumcision, dietary laws, and more. Paul tells the Colossians, however, that they have communion with Christ, which means that in Christ they have already earned fullness. If there were a Christian salvation recipe, it would read, "No other ingredients are needed but Christ." We have the very substance of Christ.
As Paul says in verse 8, these additions are, "not according to Christ." These other voices are just that, other voices. They have no influence in the life of a Christian.
The words of Paul recall John 10, the beautiful chapter in which Jesus introduces himself as the Good Shepherd and us as his flock. He says that the sheep hear the voice of Him and obey Him. In fact, the sheep would not listen to any other voice that might want to take them off the voice of an outsider. There is no jurisdiction over us in other voices that do not serve Christ. With Christ is our communion, and He is our Shepherd who teaches and leads us. We don't dare wander from His reality, His Word.
If we wander away from Christ's reality, we wander away from Christ. If we think that anything else apart from Christ, is important for our salvation, for our life of faith, then we reject Christ. Since communion with Christ implies that in Christ we have fullness.
Here is the great mistake of trying to make our religion more difficult than Christ: if we are after anything more than Him then we accuse Christ of being deficient.
In Colossians 2:9, Paul tells us In Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." Fellowship with Christ implies that in Christ we have fullness. The absolute and final revelation of God is Christ. There's nothing missing. All of the sacred existence that is real belongs to Christ. All the fullness is in Him, He is completely God.
Think about what it implies. It implies that there is no beginning for the Son of God; He is infinite and eternal. It means the glory of the One that even angels do not dare to look at and whom they are compelled to cover their faces before. It means the ability to shape and manufacture whole galaxies out of nothing and to protect the universe. It means information which surpasses all the books in human history. Everything that's true of God's divine nature is true of Christ's divine nature.
And with reverence to His lord, all that was true of Christ, the Son of God, before time began, remains true of Him in His incarnation. In His incarnation, what was true of Him before the sun existed to shine rays of light, before the sea ever swelled with waves, even before a bird's sound was heard, remains true of Him. All the fullness of the God dwells in Him physically. And it's true of him right now. In the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the immortal, everlasting Son of God really became man. The Son of God joined Himself with a nature like ours without surrendering any of His deity, though without sin.
