Colossians 2:16-23: The Sufficiency of Christ

Introduction

Good morning,

If you would open your Bibles to Colossians, we will be in chapter 2, starting in verse 16 this morning.

I am excited to open the word with you this morning and I feel blessed that we had a facility with the capabilities to gather still. While the government regulations did not shutdown religious services full stop, they did mandate that such groups meet outside for the benefit of public health. I know several churches and congregations that are unable to meet today as they lack the facilities to do so.

As such this was a relatively easy decision to make as we desire to both steward the your health when we gather and we desire to love our neighbors well in any health concerns they have. But I know for some brothers and sisters at other churches this is difficult. Even several of you have expressed what might be categorized as anticipating feelings of despair if we are unable to gather as a whole body or small groups.

I want you to feel assured that we are doing everything possible to continue gathering as long as it is safe and that we want to be available for you and to you. A few weeks ago, Drew, Ross, Dustin, and I walked through our ministry philosophy with a group of perspective members and we laid out that our church has been engineered from the beginning in order to place a high premium on our ability to shepherd you. The elders and I see this as our calling and our joy to serve God and serve you.

I should also say that I am a bit apprehensive in approaching this text.

In this text we meet a particularly interesting challenge for our present era were everything is politicized and everyone is judged.

It seems to me that this comes from some desire seated deep in the heart of humanity to establish laws and regulations, boundaries and guidelines. This whole passage is fundamentally about religious judgement.

Why We Need to Listen

I think we all need to hear the challenge of this text because my guess is that in our individualistic and often insecure society we all feel external pressured on some topic or another to conform to some extra-biblical standard.

To show yourself to be a true disciple of Jesus, a true follower of God, a true believer in Christianity.

And

My guess is that we all are tempted to add our own things to Christianity, to the scriptures, in order to separate out the true believers in our eyes from the half-hearted followers or fare weather fans of Jesus.

What that ultimately means is we need to hear Paul’s exhortations in this text to resist that external pressure and flee internal and preferential temptation to add to the gospel because the gospel—as we will see—is sufficient.

What that ultimately means is we need to hear Paul’s exhortations in this text to resist that external pressure and flee internal and preferential temptation to add to the gospel because the gospel—as we will see—is sufficient.

In what ways are you pressured to add something to Jesus in order to justify yourself or prove your faithfulness? (the perfect family, a specific voting pattern, etc.)

In What ways are you tempted to pressure others to conform to your preferences for the Christian faith?

So let’s dive in by going before God in prayer and asking him to supervene over this message and over our county.

Prayer

Father in Heaven,

We have come together today, Father, in order to be washed with your word. We have been called out of our homes and into this body by your Spirit in order to meet our risen savior, your only begotten Son in the written word of scripture. We ask that we might be challenged and exhorted this day, that this time together might build unity and love. We believe you are present amongst us through your Spirit this moment and that you desire to speak and to be heard. So I pray this morning that my voice might be lost so that yours might be heard. We thank you for your word which is our sufficient guide to you. We long to know you to a greater degree and to walk worthy of you—so we ask you to empower the words of my mouth, the meditations of our hearts to help us in our discipleship to your Son.

We ask these things in Jesus’ beloved name,

Amen.

Reading

English Standard Version Chapter 2

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.

Shadows and Substance

I want to begin with just a few observations:

Getting Practical

First, if we were to start reading in Colossians a bit further back than verse 16 we would see that Paul begins this text with a pivot. He begins “therefore” which shifts his direction away from the argument he has been making for the last chapter and a half into the applications of that argument. Paul wants to get practical with us here.

An Odd Exhortation

Second observation, the desire to be practical actually makes this a really odd thing to say:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

let no one pass judgment on you

A moments reflection reveals that such an exhortation is weird. Neither you nor I can keep people from passing judgment upon us. This is an imperative, a command, which is unable to be kept.

Why is the command to let no one pass judgement upon you odd?

You are not in control of the thoughts and inter-workings of anyone else. Nor should you want to be. Such things are the dark fantasies of dystopian fiction, not the desires of regenerate Christians.

Not Universal

Third, this is not Paul giving us a get out of judgement free card. I am sure you are aware that one of the most well-known sayings in scripture is Matthew 7:1-2:

English Standard Version Chapter 7

“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

Back to Colossians, it is rather limited to a certain set of practices. This judgement has to do with food and festival, drinks and significant calendar dates.

Is passing judgement always wrong?

Shadows

The rationale behind these specific issues is being hands off when it comes to judgement, Paul says, is that they are merely shadows.

What Paul is getting at here is that the Old Covenant carried regulations in which God declared loud and clear...

...what his people could and could not eat. (see Leviticus 11)

…what days they ought to hold religious festivals (see Leviticus 23)

…how they were to worship and sacrifice for each new month (which would be accompanied by a “new moon” see Numbers 28:10)

… how they were to keep the Sabbath day (See Leviticus 23 again).

Though while these might seem odd and arbitrary at first, this list of Paul’s is understandable in the first century context in which jewish communities would hear such texts taught at weekly gatherings at the Synagogue.

How does the line “you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” help us understand what Paul is thinking about in connection with judgement?

I want to be clear—many of the commands in the Old Testament are still relevant today. But the set of rules and regulations that are often called the “ceremonial law” were put in place for the duel purpose of setting the Israelites apart from their pagan neighbors (such that they had to live noticeably distinct lives) and for preparing the Israelites for the coming of the Messiah.

This is what Paul means by shadow. They were intended as an act of grace which were meant to draw the understanding of the Old Covenant saints into the hope of Christ in the same way that noticing a shadow ought to draw our attention to the reality from which the shadow is cast.

Listen to how Hebrews 8 describes the ceremonial fixtures of the Old Covenant:

English Standard Version Chapter 8

5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” 6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

So the author of Hebrews tells us of the incompleteness of the first covenant because the high priests and the tabernacle set up by Moses were replicas made after a pattern to prepare God’s people for the arrival of the one from whom the pattern was based. Once Jesus arrives he fulfills the ministry of atonement

Acting in the roles of mediating priest, pure-spotless sacrifice, and the embodiment of the temple as the active presence of God among his people

The author goes on further to quote from Jeremiah about how God is aware of the shortcomings of the Old Covenant.

He finally concludes,

English Standard Version Chapter 8

13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Getting back to Colossians again, Paul is saying do not let others waylay you with judgement concerning expired and out of date regulation of the Old Covenant. They were but shadows, or we might say signposts, intended to direct our eyes toward the reality of Christ.

How does this passage from Hebrews help us understand the role of Old Covenant ceremonies and traditions?

Sufficiency of the Gospel

So that is what Paul is getting at here, we are set free from ceremonial laws about avoiding shellfish and multi-fabric clothing. Before we move on to the next set of verses I want to return to the concept that such an exhortation is odd. I think we have gotten to the point where we can understand this application a bit better and we can make it applicable to us.

Now we have seen that the judgement is for not honoring the shadow after we have seen the shadow-caster, we realize a couple of things

we realize that...

(1) those casting such judgement would be people considering themselves to be Christians. Followers of Christ who are saying that true salvation and true spirituality is found in Christ + the Old Testament rituals and festivals.

Which is to say that such individuals are in their midst…

Probably in our midst...

Probably sitting in your and (when I am not standing) my chair each Sunday.

I don’t think Paul is speaking only or even primarily to people who feel judged, rather it seems to me that he is speaking through them to those in their midst casting judgement and saying to them, and to us, do not cast judgement on those who have seen the shadow-caster and are no longer concerned with the shadow.

And (2) there is only one way to actually keep people from passing this kind of judgement. And that is to track the “therefore” which begins our passage back into the previous paragraph in which Paul states:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

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.

The medicine for the legalism you and I are prone to is frequent infusions of the gospel. Frequent reminders that we were dead and we were made alive not by grace.

The medicine for the legalism you and I are prone to is frequent infusions of the gospel. Frequent reminders that we were dead and we were made alive not by grace.

One commentator writes:

The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon Beware the Claims that There Are More Important Practices and Experiences (2:16–19)

Clearly what is envisaged is a situation where the Colossian believers were being (or might be) criticized for their conduct in respect of dietary rules and festival days. Equally clearly the line of reply is that a proper understanding of the significance of Christ’s death would render such criticism unnecessary, irrelevant, or wrong. By implication those who made such criticism were themselves failing to grasp the significance of the cross.

Santa Cruz Baptist Church, let us be a church that never tires of the gospel and therefore never falls into the legalistic error that salvation requires and true spirituality requires us to add something to the sinless life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Santa Cruz Baptist Church, let us be a church that never tires of the gospel and therefore never falls into the legalistic error that salvation requires and true spirituality requires us to add something to the sinless life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Tight Grips

Paul goes on and so should we.

He writes,

English Standard Version Chapter 2

18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions

This exhortation targets a slightly different error than the previous two verses. If Paul has just finished warning us about not mistaking shadow for substance, this concern is the mistake of thinking the substance is just a shadow.

Paul’s concern through out this letter has been the Gnosticism, this view that among other things believed Jesus was just a starting place and once one had gained Jesus he or she could move beyond Jesus into a higher mysticism and deeper connection with the divine.

So Paul’s warnings here have a distinctly mystical flavor to them:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions

Let’s define there terms a little bit:

What is Asceticism & the Worship of Angels?

What is Asceticism?

Fundamentally asceticism is the philosophy of mortifying—or punishing—oneself either physically or spiritually in order to humble one’s soul and disassociate it from the body.

A more basic translation of the greek word used for asceticism would be false humility and one commentator explains what Paul is getting at here writing:

The suggestion is that these people went through elaborate, self-denying processes (such as extending periods of fasting or extra-long prayer times perhaps) in order to enter into the “right space” for worship.

This would somehow give them access to the heavenly realms and participation in the kind of worship described in the Book of Revelation. This is a kind of mystical experience available only to those dedicated to going through all the right motions.

- Meynell, Colossians and Philemon for You, 108

This clarifies that “the worship of angels” does not mean “worshipping angels” but “the worship angels gave to God.”

What is referred to by “the Worship of Angels”?

In other words Paul is concerned that some individuals might think worship is not really true and meaningful unless it is some other worldly experience.

If this seems odd, allow me to descend into sarcasm for a moment, I hope you know I would never dream of doing this without your permission, but if I were to I might say something like:

You mean to tell me that there were people so easily deceived and superficial that they hinged something as important as the worship of our God, savior, and creator on merely the feeling of a mountain top experience or transcendent environment.

Praise God that we have advanced far enough in theology and practice so as not to be vulnerable to such silliness.

Sarcasm over. If you aren’t sure what I was being sarcastic about feel free to talk to Drew afterwards.

Doing what with visions?

Paul closes this list with the phrase:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

going on in detail about visions

This is a particularly interesting criticism coming from Paul as many believe Paul had a sort of heightened spiritual experience and vision of Heaven which he refers to in 2 Corinthians 12. What that tells us is we would be off base if we thought a vision itself was the problem. No, the real issue is “going on in detail”

This concept appears to allude to the supposed source of a false teacher’s authority. The image Paul seems to have in mind is someone who has had a unique spiritual experience and wields it like a resume for spiritual leadership.

Yet, the pattern of the New Testament is not whose spiritual experience tops everyone else’s.

Rather it is about who is seek God in his word by his Spirit.

Even when Paul discusses his own experience he hides that it was him who experienced it rather coyly saying:

English Standard Version Chapter 12

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

Notice Paul was concerned to remain grounded in the scriptures not unverifiable, subjective experience because he did not want to be, nor did he want the Colossians to be, led astray by someone who was:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head

Paul knew both salvation and unity in the church could only be found in a firm hold to Jesus—the head—alone. And Paul is humble enough, as we should be humble enough, to ground our faith outside of ourselves and in a faithful reading of God’s word.

Why is Paul critical of visions?

Human vs. Divine Law

As Paul brings this section to a conclusion he pulls this concept of legalism—in its Jewish and Gnostic streams—into a fascinating observation about fallen humanity. Look at verses 20-23:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

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.

Let’s take careful note of three things:

First, the goal is stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Second, the tendancy to self-made religion from that which seems wise.

Third, work of “the elemental spirits of the world”.

The Flesh

If you haven’t spent much time in the scriptures I can understand how this phrase “indulgence of the flesh” would be very odd. Here is what you need to know:

Paul’s most characteristic use of the word flesh is to mean “rebellious human nature.” In other words when you are born into the world, your default settings are to oppose God.

Let’s look at Romans chapter 8, which was read from earlier in the service, to unpack this:

English Standard Version Chapter 8

2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Notice all the times flesh is set at opposition to God, Jesus, or the Spirit.

In this passage Paul tells us that

the law cannot save you by itself because the law was weakened by your flesh—that is humanities default position of rebellion.

however, Jesus was sent in our likeness—looking like a normal sinner like the rest of us—but he condemned sin and the flesh fulfilling the law.

and now, if we are in the flesh—if we remain in arrogant rebellion, our minds and desires are directed and attracted to rebellion. This will lead to death. It does not please God.

but if the Spirit makes us alive and unites us to Christ, then we are empowered to set our minds and desires on the things of God. This is a state of peace with God and how we currently experience now the eternal life we are given.

In essence then pursuit of holiness is an act of war on this understanding of the flesh and the fleshly tendencies that dwell in us. The biblical/theological word for this is sanctification, which Paul writes is God’s will for us (1 Thessalonians 4:3),

English Standard Version Chapter 4

3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification

So God’s will and therefore our goal is to resist indulging the flesh,

But…Paul says...

The False Religion

We are prone to establish man-made religions which have the appearance of wisdom but don’t get the job done. In fact, they are much worse than simply ineffective.

Consider the Late David Foster Wallace

The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive The Maker Is Your Husband

before he committed suicide, was one of the leading literary lights in America. He was a very well known, post-modern author and critic. He wrote a very famous novel.

Just before he committed suicide, he gave this commencement speech at Kenyon College.

in which he said,

Here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism.

There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth.

Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you...

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear.

Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is… that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.

We are constantly manufacturing self-made religion, and Wallace saw that. In our fallen state we are under constant temptation reverse the roles of Genesis 1:26-27 and of Exodus 20. Which is to say we are in constant temptation to remake God in our image and rewire the rules to our liking.

These will not save us though. As Wallace said, they will consume us. Wallace was wrong that Jesus and Allah the god of Islam are on the same level, but he was right to note that human religion is destructive.

What is the danger of self-made religion?

The World

This religious tendency comes from something called the “elemental spirits of the world.”

According to scholars, this is a way for Paul to talk simultaneously about the philosophies and worldviews that reign in our various cultures as well as actual spiritual powers of darkness that operate within those intellectual systems.

In other words, it is a way to talk about what we think is wise and how the spiritual forces of darkness work with in that framework against God.

When we preached through Joshua almost a year ago now, we came across a story that illustrates this danger well.

Joshua and the Israelites are conquering their way into and through the land promised to them from God. In Joshua 9 we are told of a tribe that hears of the approaching army and the works of God and they devise a plot to trick them.

English Standard Version Chapter 9

3 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, 4 they on their part acted with cunning and went and made ready provisions and took worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wineskins, worn-out and torn and mended, 5 with worn-out, patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes. And all their provisions were dry and crumbly. 6 And they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us.” 7 But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live among us; then how can we make a covenant with you?”

Though the Israelites are skeptical at first, they end up giving into human wisdom and making a pact with them. And Joshua 9:14 carries an understated and devastating line

English Standard Version Chapter 9

14 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the LORD.

But how was Joshua to know, it was a well devised trick.

Here is how the book of Joshua begins, Joshua 1:7-8

English Standard Version Chapter 1

7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

The implication is that Joshua ought to have inquired of the Lord and sought wisdom from God’s word, not, as the proverbist says, relying on his own wisdom.

We too must rely on God’s word.

It is important to recognize that steadfastness to God’s word was not among the things which Paul chose to mention as a shadow.

Rather we are to hold fast to the Head as we find him in the true and good Word.

Reflection and Prayer

Father in Heaven, we ask that you help us put on—as your holy people—compassionate hearts filled with humility about ourselves and patience toward others. Give us such awareness of your love and kindness to us that we are compelled to forgive each other as we bear with each other in our slow progress of sanctification. Bind us together in Christ such that the unity of our church in the midst of the disunity of our world might be salt and light to those around us. Grant the peace of Christ and the word of Christ live in us in such a way as to touch all areas our lives. May we be grateful disciples, seeking to walk together toward our resurrected master. Amen.