• The New Ager   will tell us that we all have 'god' within us, or even that we are our own 'god'- so how can it matter?
• We're told that all religions are different roads leading to the same point. It doesn't matter whether your a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Sikh, a Christian- or whatever- so how can it matter?
• We're told that all that really counts is leading a good life; all that talk about the Lord Jesus Christ is irrelevant- a 'Christian' is someone who leads a good life- so how can it matter?

• We're told that material and scientific progress are what really matter. We're told that we are merely evolved apes, animals going the way of all animals- so how can it matter?

Be on your guard; do not let your minds be captured by hollow or delusive speculations, based on the traditions of man-made teachings and centred on the elemental spirits of the universe and not on Christ.

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life (1 John 5:12)

The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18)

His second concern is with the change that occurs when a person believes and becomes a Christian- and that is God's work. In Him (Christ) you have been brought to completion (v10)- or as the NIV has it 'you have been given'. These are things which God does for us, which God gives us. If you,ve ever listened to the teaching tapes of Roger Price then you'll know that 37 things happen the instant a person becomes a Christian. Here, I would say, Paul points out the salient ones, and I'd like to spend a little time with them. And let's note- if we've believed, then these things have happened to us and can never un-happen!

1. V11: you were divested of your lower nature.
Paul is at the point of making a contrast with Jewish rite of circumcision and the spiritual circumcision of those 'in Christ'. He was wanting them to see that there was nothing for them to put their trust in in a purely religious ritual. True that circumcision was God's ordinance, but God's real desire was that people would (Deut 10:16) circumcise (their) hearts and (not be) stiff-necked any longer.
  Paul is wanting us to see that everyone born has this 'lower nature', which is the root of all the sin and evil in the world. For we are all born with that tendency to rebel against God. Why do people made by God, and in his image, care so little for the things of God and his will and commands? Why do so many people use God's name only as an expletive- have you ever asked yourself why these things happen?
  There is that in our nature which is offensive to God, so that even our righteousness, even our 'good deeds' are to God but filthy rags (Isa 64:6) We don't like to think about this in-born corruption of our human nature. So Paul is that that nature which which we are born is like clothing that has to be stripped off, and we don't even see their need, still less have the ability. Only in and by Christ can it be done and it's just this which is the first thing God does. When anyone becomes a Christian, they are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), so that people ask: "What's happened to you?"
  Paul goes on to speak about baptism. I think Paul would want to say that any rite of baptism is of no value unless it signifies or is followed by that total change of heart which only comes about by belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.
  In verse12 we read:

In baptism you were buried with him, in baptism also you were raised to new life.

2. Verse 13. Although you were dead because of your sins...God made you alive with Christ. For he has forgiven all our sins
God is holy and sinless and sin and a holy God cannot exist together any more than oil and water. So many people see life full of its 'joys and pleasures'. They live for themselves without any reckoning of God and glibly think that when they die they will go to heaven. The truth is that if they got there they would find it such that they could not stand it for one instant. How could someone whose life had been full of possessions and pleasure and drink and sex find any pleasure in the presence of a holy God? Equally, people whose lives are bound by their own mean-ness and concerns; whose horizons are bounded by self?
  In short and in the language of Scripture, there are so many dead people all around us. They walk, they talk, they eat, they watch their TVs, but they're dead. They're dead in their sins, cut off from the very life of God. All these people can do, is wait for their bodies to die and face the second death which (Rev 20:11) is the lake of fire. If you will, there's a spiritual law which says, "At the end everyone is either once born and twice dead, or twice born and once dead."
There is but one hope. For such was our state once. God, such is his mercy, his grace and his love has made us alive with Christ. He has forgiven all our sins. All that stood between us and the Lord and blotted out his life has been put away. Forgiven, never to be remembered, never to be had in mind. If you take a computer-disk, full of information and, to use the technical term, re-format it you will wipe off every scrap of information; never to be recovered, gone for good.

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions... and remembers your sin no more (Isa 43:25)

O wonder of wonders
  that through thy death for me,
my open sin, my secret sin,
  can all forgotten be.

Help me to understand it
  help me to take it in:
what it meant to Thee, the Holy One
  to bear away my sin.

3.  Verse 14. He has cancelled the bond which pledged us to the decrees of the law. It stood against us, but he has set it aside, nailing it to the Cross.
Every human society has its laws. We speak of 'law and order'. Behind this fact is this, that God's laws are there to restrain that sinful lower nature that every man and woman is born with. One of the most worrying features of today's society is the growth of lawlessness. A while ago there was a news report about a 14-year-old girl 'joy rider'. She was careering round the streets of north London at 70mph. The police gave chase. Eventually the car went out of control and, tragically, the girl was killed. What stuck me about the news report was the thinly veiled criticism of the police for giving chase
  We are born under God's law, and that law, whether we regard it or not, condemns us- and we want to blame God for its enforcement! Part of the Gospel is that, on the Cross, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the just requirement of God's law. So the third thing that happens as we believe is that we are free of the demand and condemnation of the law. On the Cross, Paul is saying, the 'handwriting' of the law was rubbed out; not that the law was done away with. God, need I add, does require right and holy living of us. But we no longer live with the fear of the law and its consequences. Who will bring any charge against those God has chosen? asks Paul (Rom 8:33), and answers, It is God who justifies . We are delivered by the love of the Father. It was what John was on about when he spoke of love casting out fear; that fear has to do with punishment. But God's perfect law removes  that fear of punishment.

4 Verse 15. On the Cross he divested the cosmic powers and authorities and led them captive in his triumphal procession.

When a Roman general returned home after a victory he was given a victory procession. In triumph, he would lead the procession, followed by his soldiers, and, at the end of the procession as a public spectacle and object of scorn and ridicule, some of those he had taken captive. Such is the picture we are presented with here and elsewhere in the New Testament.
  The world, and those born into it, are under the control of the Evil One and his cosmic powers and authorities: in language redolent of Ephesians 6. In 1 John, in fact, we are told (3:10) that we were children of the devil. But again it's John who uses the language of contrast. Now we are children of God.
  On the Cross the Lord Jesus Christ was victor over the Devil: the Cross is the mark of his victory. The Devil must tag along at the back of the procession. He may try and tell us we are still under his control: we may, sadly, by sin give him a foothold (Eph 4:27). We are engaged in spiritual warfare.

Our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm. (Eph 6:12)

We can rejoice as we think of some of the wonderful things that our God has wrought in us:

• our lower nature cast off
• raised to new life; our sins forgiven
• freed from the letter and condemnation of the law
• victor with Christ over Satan

Praise to the holiest in the height
  and in the depth be praise;
In all his works most wonderful,
  most sure in all his ways