" 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him."
Colossians 2:9-15
The final 'picture' for Paul, as he expounds the objective character of redemption 'in Christ', is the victory and liberation from the powers of darkness, which Christ has won for mankind by his death and resurrection (v 15, cf 1:13-14). Paul now develops what he has said previously by specifically relating to the work of Christ on the Cross, this deliverance from the dark powers and authorities. Christ's death, Paul affirms, has, once and for all, utterly stripped the spiritual forces of evil of all their power. The principalities and powers, who have until then held mankind in their dread thrall, have been radically cut off, stripped of their authority. Christ's death has dealt them a fatal blow. The Cross has exposed, for everyone with eyes to see, the utter helplessness of the Satanic powers and authorities. The picture Paul uses here is that of a victory parade. The imagery comes from the triumphant processions of the Roman Emperors as, in jubilant celebration of victory, they paraded their beaten and bedraggled captives through the streets of Rome. So, says Paul, in the Cross, in Christ, God has paraded these powerless principalities and powers to make plain to all the magnitude of the victory which Christ has won for mankind and to affirm that their rule is over. It must be added, however, that these dark powers are not depicted as surrendering gladly, but as submitting against their wills to a power they cannot resist. They have been forcibly pacified and subdued, and they are not finally destroyed (cf. Romans 8:37-39 and 1 Corinthians 15:24-28). In a day and age when so many try to 'demythologise' this teaching of Paul's on the reality of spiritual powers of wickedness, it is perhaps worth saying that spiritual warfare is real, even when we fight on the winning side. This is no fictional myth: The 'superior enlightenment' of the modern world, and the ignorance of our adversary, even within the Church, which blandly dismisses the reality of evil spirits, indicates sadly, just how far we have slipped from apostolic Christianity. For Paul, spiritual warfare is real: For Paul, however, the final truth is that in Christ, Satan and his dark host have been stripped and exposed as ultimately powerless.