SS07-24-05
“DISCERNING TRUTH.” COLOSSSIONS 2.
COLOSSIONS 2: 6-7, 8-10, 11-15, 16-19.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO COLOSSIONS 1.
Our lesson for today comes from the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Church at Colossi. Colossi was a city in Phrygia, in the Roman Province of Asia (Part of modern Turkey), about 100 miles East of Ephesus in the region of the seven churches of Revelation 1-3. It was never visited by Paul.
The church was founded by Pastor Epaphras who was probably converted during Paul’s three year ministry in Ephesus in AD 53-55. Luke said in Acts 19: 10 “from where all who dwelt in Asia heard the Word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.”
Some five to seven years later, the founder of the Colossian Church, Epaphras, joined Paul in prison at Rome to tell the Apostle of a strange teaching threatening the churches of the Lycus Valley.
Paul wrote the letter to the church at Colossi in either 62 or 63AD as Paul was martyred in Rome in AD 64 by Nero. Paul had warned the elders of Ephesus who met him at Miletus in Col. 20: 29 of the grievous wolves to come to the church. They had now come to Colossi. The letter was addressed to the Church at Colossi but in Col. 4: 16 it was also to be read in the church at Laodicea, another church that Paul had never visited.
Within a few years of the inception of Christianity among these Phrygians, Epaphras and Paul found that an appetite had emerged for something more than the crucified and risen Christ. The false teaching of the Gnostics appealed to many in the Colossian church. They were struggling with a Greek-influenced form of Jewish philosophy that viewed Christians as still vulnerable to spiritual forces.
Paul wrote this letter to warn the Colossians against the heresy they faced, and sent the letter to them by Tychicus, who was accompanying the runaway slave Onesimus back to his master, Philemon, a member of the church at Colossi. Epaphras remained behind, perhaps to receive further instruction from Paul.
In Colossians 1: 15-20 we find the greatest Christology in the entire Bible. You will want to read that. LET’S LOOK NOW AT COLOSSIANS Ch. 2.
PLEASE READ COLOSSIANS 2: 6-7.
We may say that each of Paul’s greater Epistles has in it one salient thought. In that to the book of Romans, it is JUSTIFICATION by faith. In Ephesians, it is the mystical union of Christ and His church. In Philippians it is the JOY of Christian prayers. In the letter to the Church at Colossi, it is the dignity and sole sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and Head of all creation and of the Church.
These two verses 6 & 7 conclude the argument begun in Col. 1: 15.
A significant problem in the church at Colossi---and a key reason for Paul’s writing this letter---was the introduction of false teaching. There were two main false teachings that continually plagued the early church. The first false teaching came from the Judaizers, Judaizers were Jews who accepted faith and belief in Jesus Christ, but they insisted that the O.T. laws and practices must also be kept. For example, they taught that a man must believe in Jesus and be circumcised in order to be saved.
The other prevalent false teaching in the early church was Gnosticism. Gnosticism was grounded in a philosophy of dualism. Every thing could be divided between the spiritual and physical. Spiritual things were good, but anything physical was bad. How this was lived out practically, could go in one of two ways.
If the body, (being physical) is evil, then one approach was to keep the body beaten down. Every physical impulse was to be stifled, and this led to a very rigid asceticism. The other approach was not to care anything about the body. If the spirit is good, and therefore, all that matters, then it doesn’t matter what you do with the body. This approach could lead to gross immorality.
Neither approach was true to the gospel. Paul challenged both teachings with this reminder that as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him. Walk is the familiar New Testament term denoting the believers’ daily conduct.
We receive Christ by faith (as opposed to the addition of works), and we are to live our daily lives by faith. We received Christ spiritually, and that spiritual encounter impacts and transforms our daily walk. The spiritual positively impacts the physical. Since their faith initially laid hold decisively on the apostolic gospel, Paul exhorted them not to forsake its divine authority for any human sophistry.
This is the only place in any of Paul’s writings where he attached a personal object to the verb received. To receive something is to appropriate it or take it to oneself, and this personal connection means to embrace Christ and to join Him to oneself. Paul was not merely referring to the doctrine about Christ; he was referring to the person of Christ: To receive Jesus Christ personally. The Christian life is to continue as it commenced.
Paul chose his words carefully. He referred to Christ Jesus the Lord. To refute the Gnostic heresy, Paul referred to both Jesus---the human, thus emphasizing His humanity---and Christ, God’s anointed, thus emphasizing His deity. A key feature in cults today is the denial of either Jesus’ humanity or His deity. Paul stressed that Jesus was both human and divine. In contrast to the false teachings, Jesus Christ is all-sufficient. We need no other divine powers in addition to Him. Therefore, Jesus Christ is to be acknowledged as the Lord.
We receive Christ personally and through the grace of God. That is also how we are to walk, to live on a daily basis. We can do this because we are rooted in Christ. We are anchored in Him. We also are being built up in Him. Rooted in Christ is a completed action, but being built up is a process we are in. We are constantly being built up.
Paul used an agricultural metaphor to show that the roots of our faith go deep into the soil of truth. Paul then switched to a construction metaphor to remind us that, that through Christ, we are now building on the foundation of faith. Two different metaphors, but together they paint a powerful picture of the Christian. Spiritual maturity develops upward from the foundation of biblical truth as taught and recorded by the apostles.
The continual walk also includes being established in the faith. Faith in this context is not personal faith or the experience of faith. The context of dealing with heresy points to the faith as the foundation of Christian truth. We are being established in the teachings and doctrines that define our faith. Just as you were taught.
What is the result of knowing, living, and walking in these truths? We will be overflowing with thankfulness. Our core beliefs may not always be evident, but the result of living according to them will be. Thanksgiving is a natural and visible response to God’s work in our lives.
This too would contrast with heretical teaching. Living according to a set of rules and laws does not lead to a thankful heart. Early in the letter, Paul prayed in Col. 1: 12 that they might be thankful, because he knew that ingratitude is the first step away from God. Even an orthodox faith becomes stale if the spirit of gratitude is absent.
We can’t help but overflow with thankfulness when we live in grace under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
PLEASE READ COLOSSIANS 2: 8-10.
In many ways vs. 8 is a key verse. Paul had given a slight warning in vs. 4, but vs. 8 focuses on the false teachings in Colossi. The word beware was Paul’s way of introducing the dangers they faced. While we are to grow in our relationship with God and in the truths of the faith, we are to be careful. This is a call to be constantly on the lookout. We are to keep a watchful eye continually open when we are exposed to a new teaching in the context of the Colossian church.
Paul was speaking against a particular heresy because he used the definite article (“the”) before the word philosophy.
This passage reveals that this philosophy contained elements of both the Judaizers and of Gnosticism. This philosophy struck at the heart of the Christian faith. It struck first at the doctrine of Christ, His person and work, and in particular His work on the cross. It also struck at the heart of sanctification and how we live the Christian life on a daily basis.
Paul was not opposed to philosophy in general, but he was opposed to this particular philosophy. Philosophy generically refers to the love of wisdom. Paul encouraged the seeking of knowledge, but according to vs. 2, knowledge is to be grounded in God.
This particular philosophy was grounded in deceit. It was deceptive, designed to pull people away from the truth in a subtle manner. Worse than that, this deceit was empty. It had absolutely nothing of value in it. This deceitful philosophy was futile, fruitless, and had no purpose.
The false teachers were attempting to take the Christians captive with this philosophy. Christians taken in by this false teaching were considered as booty in a battle and made slaves to the teaching. Because of this purposeful attempt to enslave the Colossians, Paul told them to be careful. It would help the Colossians to be careful if they would remember that right doctrine is grounded in Christ.
Paul already expressed in Col. 1: 15-20 the supremacy and centrality of Christ to ever thing, so he reminded the Colossians that the false teaching was false because it was not based on Christ. Instead it was based on human tradition. There is nothing necessarily wrong with tradition except in a case like this in which tradition and ceremonialism become requirements for right behavior. Because this human tradition was not grounded in God’s truth, it was destructive in nature.
Where did such human tradition originate? It was based on the elemental forces of the world. Elemental can refer to simple things set in a row (like the letters in the alphabet), or to elemental spirits of the world. The problem with basing one’s philosophy on simple, but rudimentary things is that it leaves Christ out of the picture. This leaves a philosophy that is human, elementary, and non-Christian.
How do you answer heresy? You focus on the person and work of Christ. Christ must be both present and central in one’s philosophy because everything of God is in Him: “For in Him the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily.” Jesus does not merely have divine qualities: He is fully God. God’s full nature dwells in Him. The fullness of God was in Christ even before He came to earth. This flies in the face of those cults that teach that Jesus was just a man or that He was a man who God endowed as His special envoy. Jesus was not partially God: Jesus is God—fully God.
Some cults teach just the opposite. They teach that Christ only appeared to be a man. They deny the humanity of Jesus. Paul refuted such thinking by pointing out that the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells in Christ bodily.
Further, Jesus Christ, who is fully God, dwells in His followers—so we have been filled by Him. This filling took place at the moment of our salvation. Perhaps with a play on words, Paul referred to our fullness right after referring to Christ’s fullness. This does not mean though, that we are full of deity like Jesus is, nor does it mean that we can become deity. It means that we are fully complete in Jesus who is fully God. We lack nothing in our salvation. Our fullness comes from His fullness, Because Jesus fills us with Himself, we can now exhibit the qualities that can only come from God: holiness, righteousness, and the fruit of the Spirit. (Gal. 5: 22-23)
Remember that Paul was presenting these truths about Christ in response to false teachings. If all of the godhead dwells in Jesus, and Jesus lives in believers, what need is there for following angelic powers or any other spirits?
Jesus is the head over every ruler and authority, so why follow anyone else? Everything we need is already at our disposal, because Christ is in us and Christ is all we need!
PLEASE READ COLOSSIANS 2: 11-15.
These verses show how Christians are made complete in Christ. They focus on how what Jesus did during His incarnation work affects people who are in Him. Four areas are identified: Spiritual circumcision, baptism, deliverance from the law, and victory over evil spirits.
Judaism required circumcision. The false teaching at Colossi may have incorporated it, or Paul may have brought it up to make a point. He was not referring to physical circumcision but to spiritual circumcision. It was made without hands.
True circumcision is of Christ not of men. This spiritual circumcision put off the body of the sins of the flesh. Literally it says, “putting off the body of flesh.” Paul often used the word flesh to describe a life of sin. When we receive Christ, that old life is taken off. There is a sense in which this is done once for all: yet passages such as Col. 3: 5-10 shows this is also an ongoing process.
Paul mentioned baptism in vs. 12-13. Water Baptism pictures three resurrections: Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, believers’ spiritual resurrection from being dead in sins, and the future resurrection of believers from the dead.
Our spiritual resurrection is the subject here, although in the background is Christ’s death and resurrection. Believers were buried with Him in baptism. In which they were also risen with Him. This inner experience is “through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” This inner spiritual death and resurrection is signified by water baptism, but it is not identified with water baptism. “Paul was not …..addressing the event of water baptism: he was addressing the spiritual meaning that undergirds it.”
Vs. 13 describes the sinners’ plight as “being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh.” These were the plights from which we were delivered by spiritual baptism and spiritual resurrection. The deliverance is described in two ways. Because we were spiritually dead, He made us alive (quickened) together with Him. He forgave all trespasses.
Some groups justify infant baptism by saying that it is a kind of circumcision for Christians. In other words, just as a Jewish infant is included in the covenant with God by circumcision, so should infants in Christian families be brought into the church by baptism. This sounds logical, but Baptist don’t believe it is biblical.
Paul “developed the meaning of the Christian’s circumcision by appealing to baptism, rather than defining baptism in terms of the O.T. circumcision.
The reference to forgiveness of sins set the stage for vs. 14. The false teachers in Colossi were fascinated with aspects of Jewish law. Paul, however, had tried the way of law; and it condemned him. He pictured each person’s failures to keep the law as the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us. In other words, it was the list of our sins in failing to keep God’s law. Paul used two descriptions that signify forgiveness. Blotting out translates a word that was used for scraping or wiping off writing materials of that day. Today we might use the word “erased.” In the computer age we might use the word “deleted,” with the understanding that it would not be in some file or bin from which the list of sins could be retrieved. This is an excellent description of the biblical meaning of God’s forgiveness. He cancels all our sin debts.
On what basis does God do this? He does it through Christ’s death on the cross. This is the second description of forgiveness. Christ took the list of sin debts out of the way, nailing it to His cross. This is why we sing:
My sin---oh, the bliss of this glorious tho’t; My sin not in part, but the whole
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul!
Vs. 15 describes another benefit from the cross and resurrection. Christ defeated principalities and powers, the evil spirits. This defeat is described using words that described a Roman general’s victory. Spoiled means “disarmed.” “He made a show of them openly” means that He “disgraced them publicly.”
The word triumphing was a word used to describe the victory parade of a victorious general through the streets of Rome. The defeated enemy king and leaders, disarmed and stripped of their insignia of rank, walked behind the conqueror. The spiritual forces of darkness thought they had won a great victory, but the resurrection revealed the victory in the death of Jesus. Therefore, those who find their adequacy in Christ need not fear the evil powers or try to appease them. The cross and resurrection of Christ provide forgiveness of sins, a new life, and the assurance of victory over the forces of darkness.
PLEASE READ COLOSSIANS 2: 16-19.
Therefore, in vs. 16 refers to all Paul had just said. God has given us everything we need in Jesus Christ. Because of this truth we can draw certain conclusions concerning our lives.
First, we should not feel intimidated by the opinions of those who judge us concerning food or religious festivals---the Sabbath or new moon observance. A man asked the other day why we worship on Sunday rather than on the O.T. Sabbath, Saturday?
The Sabbath command is the only one of the 10 commandments not repeated in the N.T.
The early believers, following Christ’s resurrection and appearances on Sunday, met on Sundays in Acts 20: 7 and I Cor. 16: 2.
Part of the problem among believers at Colossi was ideas from unorthodox Judaism. These ideas had to do, no doubt with food laws and observance of Hebrew festivals and holy days. Orthodox Jewish food laws did not, however, cover beverages. This Colossian ideology must have included a stringent ascetic practice that went beyond normal Jewish food rules.
Asceticism refers to the practice of bodily self-denial, frequently for religious purposes. For some people asceticism is a means for controlling the physical appetites and bringing the body under one’s control. The Colossian asceticism could have come either from unorthodox Judaism or from pagan philosophy.
Followers of Christ are set free from these concerns and should not let anyone be intimidated about these matters. Christians do not observe Jewish or pagan food laws. We are under no obligation to celebrate religious festivals whether Hebrew or pagan. God’s salvation is not based on whether we worship on a particular day or participate in certain celebrations. All these ideas are a shadow of the reality of Jesus Christ. The solid substance of genuine faith is wrapped up completely in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.
The two main tests for deciding whether a teaching is true or false are these: (1) Does it magnify and exalt Jesus Christ as fully God, who died for our sins and was raised from the dead? (2) Does it show how Christ is fully adequate to forgive us and make us like Him?
Paul painted a picture showing the difference between a shadow and the solid reality that casts the shadow. The solid reality to which the O.T. Scriptures point is the Messiah.
The ritual laws concerning food and drink, festivals and the holy days, as well as sacrifices, clothing and beards are mere shadows cast by the Messiah. They have no reality or binding power in themselves. Christ has been crucified and has risen triumphantly. Now we can move beyond mere shadows and live our lives in the power of the ultimate reality: Christ.
Second, we should not let anyone judge us because we do not enter into occult practices.
The Colossian heresy apparently involved the worship of angels. Jews did not worship angels, so this idea must have come from pagan ideology. People at Colossi combined worship of angels with extreme asceticism. Also, this strange ideology involved something seen. The words translate a visionary realm could refer to receiving visions. On the other hand, these words could refer to special powers one claims to have because of visions. On either understanding of Paul’s words, the individual has become puffed up by his fleshly mind.
The third principle for discerning truth is this: Hold to Jesus Christ alone, disavowing any allegiance to or worship of any other spiritual power.
To take our stand on subjective experiences, whether on visions or on ritualistic observances, is to harbor an unspiritual mind. Such a person does not hold on to the head, that is, to Jesus Christ our Lord. The body of Christ is nourished and held together by various ligaments and tendons.
Probably ligaments and tendons refers to the interconnection of the various members of the body of Christ, Only as the members of the body hold together are they properly nourished.
Their growth however, is integrally related to their connection to the Head, Jesus Christ. This growth, furthermore, comes from God, not from angelic or other sources. Any philosophy or religious teaching that is not grounded in the person and work of Christ is false.
Without a vital connection to the Head, the body of Christ cannot grow. Using a parallel image, Jesus said in John 15: 5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit: apart from Me you can do nothing.” Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God, and any teaching that denies this truth is false.
Throughout the second chapter of Colossians Paul contended that everything we need for our faith is found in Jesus Christ. There is no work we can do to earn salvation or favor with God that Jesus Christ has not already done for us. We are, therefore, to worship and serve Him alone.
NEXT SUNDAY PAUL LEADS US THROUGH A STUDY OF “HOW MY FAITH SHOULD IMPACT MY WORK.” (2 THESS. 3: 3-15) A.V. DAUGHERTY altav@swbell.com