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Complete in Christ? Or Complete Only When Married?

By February 1, 2006November 9th, 2022No Comments

Q.

Does Colossians 2:10, which says that Christians are complete in Christ, contradict Genesis 2:18, which implies that being married completes a person?

A.
When a person is regenerated, made a new person in Christ, a number of fantastic things come into that life. Lewis Sperry Chafer, well-known theologian, tabulated thirty-three such blessings, and some Bible students have come up with even more. Colossians 2:10 reads, “You are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” One Bible teacher noted that the Christian life is like a voyage, and Christ is in the ship. He has whatever we need on that voyage, and He is all we need. One gospel song put it this way:

Jesus Christ is made to me,
All I need, all I need,
He alone is all my plea,
He is all I need.
Wisdom righteousness and pow’r,
Holiness forevermore,
My redemption full and sure,
He is all I need.

What a beautiful truth. It’s too bad we don’t draw from the resources Christ offers, as we could and should.

So Colossians 2:10 speaks of the spiritual completeness we have in Christ. The question you address about Genesis 2 deals with another realm: the physical. God instituted marriage. Many people, though not all, desire marriage. That desire is biological and placed within people to perpetuate the human race. Those who don’t have the gift of celibacy are physically “complete” only when as a man and a woman they find each other and have the intimacy of marriage that God intends for them.

This article appeared in the “Q & A” column of the Baptist Bulletin (February 2006) by Norman A. Olson. 

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