As the Apostle Paul wrote the words of the Epistle to the Colossians, he was in Rome, under arrest, and in a Roman jail. As the Holy Spirit inspired each word, a Roman soldier who guarded Paul heard every one as it was written down. Paul had already identified the purpose or the theme of this letter, and that is, that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Divine Trinity, must come to have first place, or supremacy, or preeminence in all things. Whether those things have to do with the creation of the universe, the ongoing battle with Satan and the demonic realm, the church, or the salvation and forgiveness of sins, Jesus Christ must be given first place. True holiness, spiritual growth, and personal victory cannot come to the believer until he or she yields to the ultimate supremacy of Christ in all things. And “all things” includes the believer’s walk of faith in this present world.
Put another way, nearly all Christians want to grow in their faith, to understand the Word of God, and to live a Spirit-filled life. But to do that, each one must begin with the supremacy of Christ, end with the supremacy of Christ, and submit to Him as the One having first place in everything in between. Our relationship with Christ surpasses all other relationships and like all other Christians before us and after us, we are called to follow Him. The Scriptures simply put it this way, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
In the book of Colossians, Paul had been teaching about God’s truth in a very positive and straightforward manner, but in Colossians 2:11, he changed direction and for the remainder of chapter two compared present difficulties in the church with God’s truth and the text takes on a more negative tone. In verses eleven through fifteen, he showed how the Lord Jesus completely satisfied God’s requirements and gave those who would trust in Him complete salvation, forgiveness, and ultimate victory; all by His sovereign grace.
False teachers had come to the church and attempted to infiltrate the godly teaching and to corrupt God’s truth. Their teaching was a deceptive philosophy that was only human in origin with nothing supernatural about it. These elementary principles were limited only to the temporal world. What a tragedy for someone to be polluted by the intimidation of persuasive talkers and forget their true spiritual treasures which are found in Christ. These false teachers completely abandoned the Lord Jesus as they emphasized rituals and observances and the need to worship angels. They called for false and useless asceticism among Christians which included harsh treatment of the physical body, falsely claiming this would remove sin and bring them closer to God. Paul, the apostle, saw these as deadly errors, completely useless in saving souls or in producing strong Christians. Instead, these practices threatened to defraud believers, stealing from them the grace of God that would produce real spiritual progress which the Lord had planned for them.
These deadly errors have not disappeared and they still hunt for growing Christians to rob them of God’s grace. If corrupted by them, a true Christian can lose his or her quest for spiritual maturity and remain spiritually weak and powerless. We will look at these three issues that faced the Colossian Christians and which we still face today as Paul warns us against legalism, mysticism, and asceticism. While these words may not all be familiar to us, I will explain them as we explore this text together. We begin with the warning against legalism.
WARNING AGAINST LEGALISM. Colossians 2:16-17
Paul’s Command. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, commanded the people of the church not to allow anyone to act as their judge. This has the focus of forbidding the practice of passing judgment in matters of the believer’s life of faith. False teachers, claiming to live holy lives, intimidated Christians into bondage of legal regulations. Legalism is the religion of human achievement. It claims that spirituality and spiritual growth is based on Christ plus human works. With lists of rules, they make man-made regulations the measure of what they claim is spirituality and God’s favor. The Lord Jesus defined legalism, quoting Isaiah in Mark 7:6-9, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men. You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.” The Lord concluded His argument by declaring they invalidated “the word of God by your tradition” (Mark 7:13).
Fighting against legalism has always been a challenge in the church. In Romans 10:4, Paul wrote, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Consequently, for a Christian to become entangled again in a legalistic system is pointless, useless and harmful. The Christians in the Galatian church also struggled with corrupted Old Testament legalism, provoking Paul to write to them, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” Their struggle was with false teachers who told them they could not be saved unless they were circumcised, which was absolutely wrong, and the apostle continued, “Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you” (Galatians 5:1-2).
Five Examples of Legalism. Paul takes us into the Colossian church, where we find they were being oppressed by false teachers telling them, that as Christians, they had to observe several aspects of Jewish law. The first two are identified as “food and drink” which were obviously restrictions based on dietary laws found in the Mosaic law. These had been dismissed by Peter in Acts 10 and by the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, but these false teachers insisted Christians had to conform to these restrictions. “Festival” is the third, and refers to the annual observances required by God for the Jewish people. The three principal ones were Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The Old Testament required that, “Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) and at the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles)” (Deuteronomy 16:16). The false teachers insisted Gentile Christians must observe these festivals every year.
The “new moon” was a day that celebrated the beginning of a new month. The day was marked by the blowing of trumpets, special sacrifice, suspended labor, feasting, and religious instruction. Nowhere does the New Testament call upon Christians to observe the new moon, yet these false teachers were intentionally robbing the believers of their freedom in Christ. Finally, they were trying to force Christians to observe the Sabbath. The believers in Colossae had been meeting on Sunday, the first day of the week, in celebration of the resurrection of Christ a pattern established by the apostles and observed by the churches. The false teachers tried to compel them to worship on Saturday instead. The apostles and the early church taught that the Old Testament Sabbath had been abolished in Christ and that Sunday, the first day of the week, was the day when Christians should meet for worship.
Mere Shadows and Real Substance. The laws about diet, new moons, Old Testament festivals, and Sabbaths were all only shadows. A shadow has no reality; it is the reality that makes the shadow. In all of these cases, it is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the reality who made the shadows or types that pointed to Him. Since the Reality has come, the shadows are unnecessary. Christians need no food regulations to prove their faith because Jesus is the bread that came down out of heaven. There is no need to celebrate the Passover because Jesus is our Passover who has been sacrificed. Any continuing preoccupation with the shadows now that the reality has come is pointless.
WARNING AGAINST MYSTICISM. Colossians 2:18-19
Defrauded from Spiritual Rewards. Mysticism claims to be the pursuit of a deeper or higher subjective religious experience. It is the belief that spiritual reality is perceived apart from the human mind and intellect and is instead gained through emotional experiences. It looks for truth internally without having the Bible as the authority and is based on feelings. Mysticism ultimately derives its authority from a self-authenticated emotion rising from within. This irrational and anti-intellectual approach is the opposite of Christian thinking based on biblical theology. Its source is human imagination.
The false teachers claimed to be spiritual referees and disqualified the Colossian Christians because they did not follow their false rules. Christians will be rewarded by the Lord for faithful, obedient living and given the prize of a crown. If they followed the false teachers, they would no longer be faithful to God’s Word and they would lose their reward. These false teachers “delighted in self-abasement.” That is, they displayed false humility. They lived arrogant lives never yielding to the Holy Spirit. They were like the man who wrote the book, “Humility and My Other Forty-Nine Great Qualities.”
Worship of Angels. As it turns out, as part of their mysticism, the false teachers demanded the worship of angels. God created multitudes of angels. When Satan rebelled against God, he convinced one third of all the angels to join him. Of all those good angels, the Bible gives us the names of only two: Michael and Gabriel. We assume the rest have names, but God chose not to reveal them in His Word. The false teaching included the idea that God was far too holy to deal directly with sinful humans, so people had to go through angelic mediators to get God’s attention. This is completely false. Paul wrote, “For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). With Jesus as the Christian’s mediator, none other is needed or acceptable. No angels or saint or any other creature is a mediator; only the Lord Jesus.
As the book of Revelation closes, there is an unusual incident between an angel and the Apostle John. John wrote, “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, “Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God”” (Revelation 22:8-9). This is very wise counsel. Any holy angel would tell you the same thing–worship God!
These false teachers had additional characteristics. A false teacher depends on so-called visions he or she alone have been given rather than God’s revealed Word. There is no need for extra-biblical revelation because God has given all we need in His Word. And, his or her false humility has inflated itself to self-worship because of his or her fleshly (not spiritual) mind. They were guilty of blatant spiritual pride.
Not Holding on to Christ. The “head” is Jesus Christ according to chapter one verse eighteen, and there are no others. Believers in Christ are to hold fast to Christ because spiritual growth and strength comes only from our relationship with Him. In His Upper Room Discourse in John fifteen, Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). There is a tendency in human nature to shift from the focus on Jesus Christ to experience. Without holding fast to Christ, believers are weakened and the church is threatened. We must hold on to Jesus.
WARNING AGAINST ASCETICISM. Colossians 2:20-23
Christians Have Died with Christ. Asceticism has to do with the rudiments of the world and not the riches of the kingdom. In this case, “the elementary principles of the world” refers to rules and regulations about foods. As Christians, we are dead to all of this because of our union with Jesus Christ in death, burial, and resurrection. The Christian’s mandate is found in First Corinthians 10:31, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Even the simple acts of eating and drinking can be done for God’s glory. Though we are in the world physically, we are not of the world spiritually. We have been transferred into God’s kingdom, and therefore we govern our lives by His laws and not the rules of men.
In addition to practicing legalism and mysticism, the Colossian false teachers were attempting to gain righteousness through a life of rigorous self-denial. Over the centuries the church has been intimidated by those who advocated poverty as a means to spirituality, as well as other means of depriving the body. But these activities are never a means of achieving greater holiness, gaining more of God’s grace, or more of God’s approval. All of God’s grace has been granted to the believer and nothing more can be added or achieved. This is the false-spiritual position that wallows in rules of physical self-denial. Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! These prohibitions increase from not handling to not even touching. These do nothing to develop spiritual maturity.
The Commandments of Men. To begin with, these rules did not come from God; they were the inventions of men. These “commandments and teachings” of the false teachers replaced the inspired Word of God. The teachings were what the false teachers believed; the commandments were the regulations they gave in applying their doctrines to practical daily life.
God gave foods to be used, and they “perish with use.” The Lord Jesus explained that food went into the stomach, not the heart. He said, “Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.) And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” (Mark 7:18-23).
Asceticism arises out of guilt. But Christ has taken away all human guilt by His death. So, since believers died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, they are no longer obligated (by fleshly inclinations) to obey them. Only those alive to sin need obey it as master. Worldliness is living by the world’s rules, including those that have a show of humility and some alleged “angelic” source. Spirituality is living by the power of the Spirit in union with Christ by whom the believer has died to sin.
The Appearance of Wisdom. Asceticism is a man-made system of rules based on human commands and teachings. Living by such regulations or self-made religion has a certain appearance of wisdom, but it has absolutely no value in restraining sensual indulgence. For denying the body and its desires merely arouses them, as is well known by many who have tried to lose weight by sticking to rigid diets. Neglecting the body, Paul argued, does not nourish the spirit.
There is certainly nothing wrong with going on a “diet” for medical purposes or for weight loss, but the ascetics were suggesting that they were deriving spiritual benefit from being on a diet. They suggested that God was granting them more grace and enhancing their spiritual maturity because they were limiting worldly pleasures. For them, the consequence was a puffed-up sense of pride and arrogance. They also managed to glorify their physical strength instead of God’s grace.
These warnings about false teachings are designed by the Holy Spirit “so that [we] may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. To those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” (Titus 1:13-16)
While the passage we have explored today was written to a church centuries ago, it is also a warning to us, the church of the twenty-first century. We are not to be intimidated or led astray by false human philosophy, legalism, mysticism, or asceticism. As Christians, we must hold fast to our Lord Jesus Christ in all things.
Jesus Christ is the One who alone provides salvation for the lost soul. The gospel message is that through Jesus Christ there is forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness He provides will last forever. Through Him everyone who believes is granted eternal life. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? If not, trust in Him right now!
