Colossians 2:16-23 –
16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
Introduction
This is the second sermon on this passage. I think the heartbeat of this passage is a feeling common to every Christian: The feeling of missing something, of emptiness, of loneliness, of sadness, of confusion, of doubt. The Colossians were experiencing those things just as we all experience them to varying degrees at different times. And just like the Colossians, when we experience them, none of us wants to stay there for long. We all want them to lift asap.
If all of that wasn’t the case, if the Colossians weren’t experiencing those things and being tempted by those things, then the false teaching of the false teachers would have had no appeal and Paul would not have needed to write what he wrote.
Again, then, the heartbeat of this passage is the tension we all feel between the alure of accepting the immediate (albeit temporary and ultimately hollow) relief certain things can provide from the hardships of this life and our trust in the promises of God that in Christ our sufferings are a means by which God provides true relief.
The main question, then, is this: What will we do when those feelings come upon us? That’s what Paul was primarily addressing in these few verses.
The big idea of this passage is that if you try to add anything to Jesus, take away anything from Jesus, or look to anything but Jesus for salvation or satisfaction, you will not get Jesus, salvation, or satisfaction. The main takeaway is to do a careful inventory of what you are holding fast to and put off all that is not Jesus.
Review
In case you weren’t here last week (or if you just need a quick reminder), let me give a quick recap.
The Colossians were faced with the choice between two alternatives, the same two alternatives that you and I are continually faced with today: Would they respond to their hardships by holding fast to Christ alone (to Him, His work, and His promises) as Paul admonished or to something else (to anything else) as the false teachers enticed?
To see the alternatives offered by the false teachers in their proper context, we first reviewed what Paul had already written about holding fast to the justification, the sanctification, and the person of Jesus.
Of the justification of Jesus, Paul wrote, “you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death…” (1:21-22). Sinners justified by the grace of God, through faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus.
Of the sanctification of Jesus, Paul continued, he has now reconciled [you] in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith” (1:22-23). Sinners justified on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness, being given a full and certain righteousness of our own, by grace through faith.
And of Jesus Himself, Paul wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created… through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, …the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…” (1:15-19). Jesus Christ alone is all, and in all!
That’s all pretty remarkable, isn’t it?! The false teachers must have offered something pretty special if it was legitimately going to compete with that, right?!
The alternatives offered by the false teachers were legalism, asceticism, and mysticism.
Last week we considered legalism. Legalism is seeking to gain or keep favor with God by obeying certain rules or traditions. It is an attempt to escape our feelings of emptiness, loneliness, sadness, and doubt, by adding something to Jesus. But this, Paul argued, is a poor, impotent substitute for Jesus.
Therefore, in v.16 Paul warned them, “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.” That is, let no one tempt you with their offers of a sense of worthiness or clarity if only you will celebrate certain holidays or eat certain things or perform certain rituals. Let no one tempt you with the fake promises of legalism. Let no one tempt you with “Jesus and, Jesus plus” heresy. Let no one tempt you to try to hold onto the shadow, when you can have the substance, Christ Himself. At best, legalism will provide a temporary sense of relief, but will only leave you in a worse spot in the end.
That’s where we’ve been.
Holding Fast to the Head
Remember, Paul was urging his readers to hold fast to Jesus no matter what came their way, no matter what they experienced or felt. He reminded them that Jesus alone is sufficient for forgiveness, holiness, eternal life, and eternal satisfaction, even though there were some among the Colossians who were teaching a different message and offering a different hope. Their first alternative, legalism, as we saw, was empty and hollow.
That leaves two other possibilities: Asceticism and mysticism. Maybe they can provide what legalism can’t? Maybe they can compete with the preeminence of Jesus?
Legalism (16-17)
Asceticism (18a, 19-23)
The false teachers encouraged the Colossians to legalistically add certain rules and traditions to Jesus. And, ironically, they also encouraged the Colossians to seek spiritual growth by ascetically denying themselves certain things as well. Paul was just as emphatic in urging them to reject asceticism as he was legalism.
18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism …
Asceticism in this sense meant living a life of rigorous self-denial as a means of earning God’s favor. He unpacks that a bit in vs.21-23.
21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” … [which Paul refers to as] 23 asceticism and severity to the body”.
In v.16, the false teachers seemed to be encouraging the Colossians TO eat and drink certain things (probably in relation to the various Jewish feasts). Here, they’re arguing that spiritual life and growth are about NOT eating and drinking (and touching) certain things. But merely stopping doing something, merely exercising self-control to the point of discomfort, as righteous as it might even feel at times, cannot change our heart. It cannot earn or keep God’s favor. It cannot save.
That’s why Paul referred to them as “things that…perish as they are used,” because just as nothing that comes into the body can make a person unclean (Mark 7:15), there’s nothing we can keep out of our bodies to make us clean.
Paul had much to say about this in his other writing as well. Let me give you two quick examples.
Romans 14:17 the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
1 Timothy 4:1-4 in later times some will depart from the faith by … 3 [forbidding] marriage and requir[ing] abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving…
Therefore Paul cried out, lamenting, “20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations.” Which was an echo of what he wrote in Galatians 5:9, “How can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?”
I read a version of this earlier in the week in 1 Kings 18. In order to find favor with Baal, the prophets of Baal, “called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon… And they limped around the altar that they had made… 28 And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.”
They thought that, perhaps, through severity to their bodies, through an extreme version of asceticism, they might garner the favor of their false god.
Some people go even further still. Early in his life, Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation, might have been among the false teachers advocating the very asceticism Paul prohibited. Many have written of his severe, pre-conversion self-denial.
The fear of death prompted him to become a monk. And it was the fear of the wrath of God that consumed him for the next five years—so much so, in fact, that he did everything within his power to placate his guilty conscience and earn the favor of God.
Of all of the monks in the monastery, he became the most fastidious. He dedicated himself to … fasting, and penance. He even performed acts of self-punishment like surpassing sleep, enduring cold winter nights without a blanket, and, in an attempt to atone for his sins, even whipping himself.
There are whole groups today who are convinced that our standing with God is largely tied to what we don’t do; to our willingness to abide by certain prohibitions. Do not dance. Do not drink. Do not smoke. Do not play cards. Do not go to movies. Do not listen to certain kinds of music. Do not dress in certain ways. Do not hang out with certain people.
As Paul makes clear, there is an “appearance of wisdom” (23) and spiritual maturity in this line of thinking, in this kind of “severity to the body,” in this kind of asceticism (23). There’s a way in which voluntarily doing hard, painful things for God makes us feel good. We might think that abusing, punishing our flesh might help us get our flesh under control. But do so in the belief that they will get us or keep us in God’s favor is the essence of the kind of “human precepts and teachings… [and] self-made religion[s]… [that have] no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (23).
Our need is so great that no matter what or how much we deny ourselves, it will not come close to providing for us what Christ alone can. We will hold fast to Him or we will remain severed from God.
The false teachers of Paul’s letter insisted that spiritual life and growth came from severe self-denial. But Paul insisted that it comes only from holding fast to Christ. Paul said exactly that in v.19. Jesus Christ alone is…
19 … the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
Spiritual life, sustainment, and growth is in Christ alone.
We will seek to justify ourselves before God and fill in the emptiness we experience in this life through Jesus + things (various forms of legalism) or Jesus – things (various forms of asceticism), or we will acknowledge the absolute and utter futility of those things and instead hold fast to the only One who can.
Before moving on to the third and final alternative offered by the false teachers in Colossae, let me say two quick words of clarification concerning godly self-denial (as distinct from ungodly asceticism). The first (and main) clarification is one of motivation. Those practicing asceticism are doing so as a means of gaining (or keeping) right standing with God. The heart of the gospel is that right standing with God comes ONLY through Christ. Those practicing godly self-denial, in the way of fasting for instance, are doing so according to God’s explicit command (Matthew 6:16) and for the purpose (or with the motivation) of living more fully in line with the world as God has made it (allowing the hunger we experience to remind us of our ever-present, deeper spiritual dependence on God).
The second clarification is that there is growth from God that comes as we turn from sin. There is a critical difference between the self-denial of repentance (good) and the self-denial of asceticism (bad). Right repentance is in response to our right standing with God. Asceticism is an attempt to gain it.
Mysticism (18b)
Finally, then, the false teachers advocated legalism, asceticism, and, finally, mysticism.
Mysticism concerns the manner by which the Colossians could know God’s will for their lives, and especially for knowing what it meant to trust in Jesus through their trials and confusion.
Where did the false teachers get their false teaching? We’ve already seen that some of it came from traditions and some from self-made religion. But Paul wrote that some of it also came from a kind of mysticism.
Mysticism is the idea that God reveals Himself and His will to people through various subjective experiences, “often through extraordinary experiences and states of mind.”
Asceticism was one way that people sought mystical experiences with God. Things tend to look different when you haven’t eaten, drunk, or slept in days. We tend to experience things differently when we’re in severe pain or discomfort.
I still remember hearing of a tribe in Religion 101 that would dance around fire, chanting and taking mind-altering substances, hour after hour after hour, all in an attempt to experience a trans-like state, in order to gain some mystical experience. They were so desperate for any encounter with the transcendent, that they were willing to do almost anything to get it.
Mystical experiences, which the false teachers, apparently, took to be revelations from God, also come from interacting with spiritual beings. That’s likely why the false teachers made a big deal about their “worship of angels” and insisted that the Colossian church join them in it.
The parallels between 1 Timothy 4:1 and the asceticism addressed by Paul in our passage makes me at least wonder if the “angels” spoken of by the false teachers were actually demons. “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.”
Their dependence on mystical experiences is also why they went into great “detail about visions.” They were convinced that they had the inside track on God and His will. They were convinced that they knew what it meant to live godly lives in a way that no one else did. And in that, they’d become “puffed up without reason by [their] sensuous mind[s]…” and therefore determined to judge the Colossians in light of those things.
Godliness is rooted in trust in the promises of God. Sensuous minds, the kind drawn to mysticism, must experience the thing themselves (with their senses, the meaning of sensuous).
But Paul warned them to “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on” (18) those things. They neither true nor the basis of truth. They were not from God and were not the will of God.
But that begs a certain question, doesn’t it? If we cannot know God or His will through mystical experience, how can we? Or, more specifically, if not through mysticism, how did Paul know God’s will?
Paul’s message, as an apostle, commissioned personally and explicitly by Jesus, came directly from God. The Colossians ought to have listened to Paul and not the false teachers because Paul and not the false teachers taught/wrote under the Spirit’s perfect and infallible inspiration.
Grace, the simple and critical truth is that we only know the aspects of God’s nature and will that He’s chosen to reveal to us. And He’s done so exclusively by His Spirit, through His chosen messengers (as was the case in Paul’s letter to the Colossian church).
It is a remarkable thing that we have not only Paul’s inspired letter to the Colossians, but also all of Paul’s inspired letters; and not only Paul’s inspired letters, but also all of the inspired letters of the apostles; and not only all of the inspired letters of the apostles, but also all the inspired letters of the prophets of old.
That is, as gracious and critical as it was for the Colossians to have God’s Words through Paul’s letter (they probably didn’t have much/any of the OT as gentiles), we have so much more. We have the whole counsel of God’s Word. We have the completed and sufficient cannon. We have the full measure of the revelation of God’s mystery that had been kept hidden for ages and generations.
Grace, God’s Word alone, given to us by God’s Spirit alone, through God’s chosen prophets and apostles alone, reveals to us what God requires of us.
We earnestly believe, as Paul encouraged the Colossians to earnestly believe, that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [and] 17 that [by it alone] the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Therefore, we reject mystical experiences as the source of God’s revelation and join with the Christian Church in affirming that…
We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.
That’s what Paul offered (in part) to the Colossian church. And in that, Paul offered Truth and Goodness and Beauty, sufficient to help the Colossians navigate their trials and difficulties and confusion, sufficient to honor God and grow spiritually and persevere unto eternal life and joy.
In contrast, that’s not what the false teachers offered. In their angels (demons?) and visions and traditions and self-made religions and legalism and asceticism and mysticism, the false teachers could only offer impotent, disqualifying, nonsense.
So where do you look? How do you determine how to respond to the trials that come? We’re kidding ourselves if we refuse to acknowledge that there’s a measure of legalism, of asceticism, and of mysticism among us. We’re foolish to miss the reality that there’s a more-than-insignificant amount of semi-sanctified common sense and altogether unsanctified worldly sense here.
Grace, it might not be legalism or asceticism that you are tempted toward when life is hard and the ordinary means of grace don’t seem to be working. And it might not be mysticism that you turn to, to find alternatives. It might be something else entirely. But the fact remains, everything Paul wrote about legalism, asceticism, and mysticism, equally applies to whatever your preferred alternative to Christ is…they are, at best, mere shadows and possess the mere appearance of wisdom. They are disqualifying, they will perish, they are mere human precepts, they are self-made, and are of no value.
But, thanks be to God, more than all of that is a shared belief in the unique authority and sufficiency of God’s Word to reveal God’s will. More than all of that is a shared conviction to help one another know and live out of God’s Word alone. I’m so grateful to be a member of a church that means to hold fast to Christ, together, through every trial and difficulty.
Conclusion
It seems fitting to conclude with the same basic question as last week…
With even the most surface-level, honest assessment of the person and work of Jesus compared to the legalism, asceticism, and mysticism of the false teachers, why was this even a matter of temptation for the Colossians?
It was a temptation for them for the same reason it is has been a temptation for every follower of Jesus since them, including everyone in this room: Because, at times, we value comfort over Christ, because we value quick fixes over God-honoring faithfulness, and because we trust in our own senses and sensibilities over God’s promises.
In the end, all of this comes down to two simple facts:
First, we will either hold fast to Jesus, unto eternal joy and life and in God’s pleasure or we will hold fast to anything else, unto temporary, hollow, emptiness and under God’s judgment.
And second, if we are to hold fast to Christ, as we sang last week, it will be because He is holding us fast. We would not choose to hold on to Jesus at all apart from Him first choosing us and we would not hold fast to him apart from His first holding fast to us. From beginning to end, our right standing with God is owning to the grace of God in Jesus.
While we were yet sinners, while we were yet dead in our trespasses and sins, while we were yet God’s enemies, in love, God determined to send His Son into the world to save the world. He came as an example to the world of perfect righteousness and obedience. And He came to give His life as a ransom for many, to die the death we deserve, and then to offer Himself to all who would trust in Him.
The big idea of this passage is that if you try to add anything to Jesus, take away anything from Jesus, or look to anything but Jesus for salvation or satisfaction, you will not get Jesus, salvation, or satisfaction. The main takeaway is to do a careful inventory of what you are holding fast to and put off all that is not Jesus.
Which leads us not to the meal given to us by Jesus as part of holding fast to Him.