John Calvin Commentary Colossians 2:13

"And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, [I say], did he make alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses;" — Colossians 2:13 (ASV)

And you, when you were dead. He admonishes the Colossians to recognize what he had addressed in a general way as applicable to themselves, which is by far the most effective way of teaching. Furthermore, as they were Gentiles when they were converted to Christ, he takes occasion from this to show them how absurd it is to pass over from Christ to the ceremonies of Moses.

You were, he says, dead in Uncircumcision. This term, however, may be understood either in its literal meaning or figuratively. If you understand it in its literal sense, the meaning will be, “Uncircumcision is the badge of alienation from God; for where the covenant of grace is not, there is pollution and, consequently, curse and ruin. But God has called you to Himself from uncircumcision and, therefore, from death.” In this way, he would not represent uncircumcision as the cause of death, but as a sign that they were estranged from God.

We know, however, that men cannot live otherwise than by clinging to their God, who alone is their life. Hence it follows that all wicked persons, however they may seem to themselves to be in the highest degree lively and flourishing, are, nevertheless, spiritually dead. In this manner, this passage will correspond with Ephesians 2:11, where it is said,

Remember that, in time past, when you were Gentiles, and called uncircumcision, by that circumcision which is made with hands in the flesh, you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the promises.

Taking it metaphorically, there would indeed be an allusion to natural uncircumcision, but at the same time Paul would here be speaking of the obstinacy of the human heart in opposition to God, and of a nature that is defiled by corrupt affections. I prefer the former interpretation because it corresponds better with the context; for Paul declares that uncircumcision was no hindrance in the way of their becoming sharers in Christ’s life. Hence it follows that circumcision detracted from the grace of God, which they had already obtained.

As to his ascribing death to uncircumcision, this is not as if it were the cause of it, but as being the sign of it, as also in that other passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, which we have quoted. It is also customary in Scripture to denote deprivation of the reality by deprivation of the sign, as in Genesis 3:22—

Lest perhaps Adam eat of the fruit of life, and live.

For the tree did not confer life, but its being taken away was a sign of death. Paul has in this place briefly expressed both. He says that these were dead in sins: this is the cause, for our sins alienate us from God. He adds, in the uncircumcision of your flesh. This was outward pollution, an evidence of spiritual death.

By forgiving you. God does not make us alive by the mere remission of sins, but He particularly mentions this here because that free reconciliation with God, which overthrows the righteousness of works, is especially connected with the point at issue, where he discusses abrogated ceremonies, as he discusses more extensively in the Epistle to the Galatians. For the false apostles, by establishing ceremonies, bound them with a halter, from which Christ has set them free.