Sometimes people can present themselves as spiritual, but the rules they place on themselves and others miss the key markers of a life centered on Jesus Christ. Join Dr. Marty Baker in Colossians 2:16-23 as he unpacks the words of the Apostle Paul and helps us recognize and stamp out legalism, mysticism, and asceticism.
I loved the 1965 sci-fi series Lost in Space. As far as the characters are concerned, I enjoyed the courage of Don West, a pilot, and John Robinson, the mission leader of Jupiter 2 and an astrophysics expert. Dr. Maureen Robinson, a great scientist and gardener, always brought balance to tough, trying situations. Judy and Penny Robinson always seemed to get into amazing predicaments. As for Dr. Smith, I couldn’t stand him. He was a coward, sneaky, and conniving. And who can forget the Robot and what he used to say to the Robinson’s little boy, Will. Do you remember? “Danger, Will Robinson!” He never failed to protect Will or the family from a threat.
Along these sci-fi lines, think of Paul like the Robot for the saints at the church in Colossae. Crafty false teachers and religious heretics had infiltrated their church with their own amalgamation of Greek philosophy, mysticism, and a sprinkling of the Mosaic Law. This is how our Adversary still attacks churches. He sends convincing people among the sheep whose goal is to subvert, shipwreck, or sideline their faith, and they do it by mixing false teaching with a dab of sound teaching. They might even employ the same terms the Bible uses, but they imbue them with contrary ideas. In other words, they might talk about salvation, but how they define the term doesn’t square with the grace of the gospel. They might talk about Jesus, but eventually you discover it is not the Jesus you know from the Word.
At that point, you should hear Paul saying, “Danger! (you fill in your name).” Like a good and wise shepherd, Paul does this to protect you from diminishing your vibrant and vital walk with Jesus. Do you need to move away from anyone who is seeking to pull you away from the faith and sound doctrine? If so, get moving.
Our world, like that of the church in Colossae, has its share of false ideologies, worldviews, and religions. And adherents of these bring them into churches and mix them with biblical doctrines (this is called syncretism) to form a following. To shield you from listening to the wrong people as a saint, Paul launches into a polemic in Colossians 2:8-23. What is he attempting to do in these verses? Here is the answer. He is counseling you to . . .
Safeguard Your Spiritual Walk By Focusing On The Work Of Jesus
You focus on Christ by talking with Him often, reading His Word, studying His life in the gospels, among other things. Paul’s method is something akin to how they used to train tellers to identify counterfeit money. They spent so much time with real money that when they touched fake money, they instantly knew it. Likewise, when Jesus is your life focus, it will be hard for the Devil to dupe you. So, how is your relationship with Jesus going?
To equip believers to walk wisely in a world full of misled people, Paul moves in three directions in this pericope. By way of review:
- The Rule: Safeguard Your Walk (Col. 2:8). The command is clear: Always be on your guard against embracing teaching that doesn’t square with Scripture.
- The Reasons: Consider His Person & Provisions (Col. 2:9-15). The emphasis here should not be missed. When you really know and understand who Jesus is as THE God-man, and you grasp the magnitude of the redemption He provides you, then spotting and moving away from erroneous teaching will come naturally.
The last step in this process is developed in verses 9 through 23. Here, Paul digs deep into the dangers that can waylay your faith. I label this section:
The Reality: Wake Up To Doctrinal Dangers (Col. 2:16-23)
To return to our robot illustration, think of Paul here like that Robot. Three times in this section, he lights up, moves his arms around frantically, and exclaims, “Danger! Danger!” What are the dangers we need to be wary of as we walk with Jesus?
The Danger of Legalism (Col. 2:16-17)
The opening conjunction “therefore,” oun (οὖν), pivots grammatically and rhetorically from what Paul just taught about the amazing redemptive work Jesus alone paid for and provides for sinners, who are now saints.
16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— (Col. 2)
16 Μὴ οὖν τις ὑμᾶς κρινέτω ἐν βρώσει καὶ ἐν πόσει ἢ ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς ἢ νεομηνίας ἢ σαββάτων·
In Greek, the first word of the sentence is the negative, me (Μὴ). When a negative particle is used with a present tense command like “judge,” krineto (κρινέτω), according to Dana and Mantey’s A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, it “demands the cessation of some act that is already in progress.”[1] What does this mean in lay terms? It means the saints in Colossae were being hammered by sly and slippery spiritual heretics who had successfully erected a legalistic spirituality in the church. Once in place, those who abided by the supposedly all-important new (and ever-changing, I’m sure) laws, rules, and regulations were ascending in their spiritual walks, and those who weren’t were descending and needed to repent.
Based on what Paul just taught in verses 8 through 15, this emphasis upon law, as opposed to grace, as it relates to salvation and sanctification, is nothing short of a lie. If you add anything to Christ’s gracious work on Calvary to earn or gain God’s favor, it is heresy. As Swindoll concludes,
Grace says you have nothing to give, nothing to earn, nothing to pay. You couldn’t if you tried! . . . Salvation is a free gift. You simply lay hold of what Christ has provided. Period. And yet the heretical doctrine of works goes on all around the world and always will. It is effective because the pride of men and women is so strong. We simply have to do [emphases in original] something in order to feel right about it. It just doesn’t make good humanistic sense to get something valuable for nothing.[2]
After making this firm statement, in classic Robot fashion, Swindoll adds this:
Please allow me to be absolutely straight up with you: Stop tolerating the heretical gospel of works! It is legalism. Wake up to the fact that it will put you into a bondage syndrome that won’t end. The true gospel of grace, however, will set you free. Free forever.[3]
Are you free in Christ? Then enjoy it and don’t permit anyone, no matter how nice, endearing, or educated they are, who attempts to bind you with their legalistic approach to salvation and sanctification. What is legalism? Swindoll defines it well:
Legalism is an attitude, a mentality based on pride. It is an obsessive conformity to an artificial standard for the purpose of exalting oneself. A legalist assumes the place of authority and pushes it to unwarranted extremes . . . Legalism is rigid, grim, exacting, and lawlike in nature. Pride, which is the heart of legalism, works in sync with other motivating factors. Like guilt. And fear. And shame. It leads to an emphasis on what should not be, and what one should not do [emphases the original]. It flourishes in a drab context of negativism.[4]
Does a legalistic approach to Christ bind you? If so, then realize this is not of God, but of man. Do you live in fear that you are doing all the right things? Are you superstitious if you don’t say or do what you are told by so-called spiritual people you know? If so, it’s time to find new friends who really know what knowing and walking with Jesus is all about.
How did the legalists operate in Colossae Community Church? They built a contrived and controllable spirituality of works that focused on two areas: diet and days. Yes, God did restrict what His people could eat in the Old Testament times. Various foods were classified as either clean or unclean (Lev. 11:2-20; 17:10-15). True, some of this was good for hygiene and health; however, in its base form, the food laws communicated to Israel that there was a difference between that which is pure and impure and holy and unholy.
Now that Christ has come, a believer is not subject to these ancient food laws. He is free in Christ, as Peter learned (Acts 11:3-18) and as Paul taught to believers (Rom. 14:3-13; 1 Cor. 10:28-31), to eat and drink, in moderation, of course, what he freely chooses. After all, as Jesus taught, it is not what goes into a person that defiles them. It is what comes out of their mouths that reveals the condition of their hearts (Matt. 15:8-10). So, if you want a pulled pork sandwich and you are a Jewish saint, enjoy. If, as in Paul’s say, you show up to someone’s home for dinner, and the meat was dedicated to some Greek god, enjoy the steak without fear that you’ve thrown your faith away.
Further, remember Paul’s teaching in Romans and 1 Corinthians as listed above. If you (a stronger/more mature saint) are with a weak/immature brother who struggles with, say, you having a glass of wine because it is still an issue with him, then honor him by abstaining. But in the final analysis, don’t let anyone take control of your life by judging you for what you eat or don’t eat as it relates to their legalistic structures. Jesus has freed you, so live life to the fullest. While you live a full life, let Paul’s words in 1 Timothy guide you: “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude” (1 Tim. 4:4). For health purposes, of course, use your brain. You wouldn’t want to eat six or seven Twinkies three or four times a week at lunch (a high schooler might), and you should curb the desire to get seconds whenever you feel like it. But never forget, however, that no one should judge your food choices from a spiritual perspective.
The crafty legalists in Colossae also created laws, rules, and regulations around religious days. To be holy, therefore, you had to make sure you observed Passover, Feast of Firstfruits, Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, and so forth as they did. It’s jaw-dropping how these persuasive “preachers” motivated Gentiles, who weren’t schooled in the Mosaic code, to observe religious holidays for the sake of being holy. Don’t tell me that legalism is not powerful. If not checked, it will place you in its spiritual straitjacket and then suck the joy out of your life. They also persuaded Jews, who were free from festival and feast days because Christ had fulfilled them, to return to them to show they were holy and connected with God. How illogical. How insidious. Writing to the Galatian believers, who experienced the same legalistic intrusion, Paul gave this counsel:
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. (Gal. 4).
And then he adds this challenge in the next chapter:
1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5).
Christ has freed you from needing to observe dietary laws and special religious days, so go and enjoy your life. And don’t think this is still not an issue today. Some messianic Jewish churches place a heavy emphasis upon diet and days for you to know God and evidence your spirituality. If you don’t abide by their understanding of the laws, then you are judged and confronted to fall in line. Again, Paul couldn’t be clearer: Stop letting religious people push you into their legalistic view of spirituality.
Why are diet and days of no spiritual consequence now? Paul gives the answer in verse 17:
17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col. 2)
As a shadow is temporary, so are religious diets and days. Regarding this, John Eadie, the Greek grammarian from the 1800s, is most insightful:
But not only was there this close and preordained relation between the shadow and the substance, there was also a predictive correspondence. The sketch is taken from the reality, and implies the existence of it. In other words Christianity was not fashioned to resemble Judaism, but Judaism was fashioned to resemble Christianity. [The Mosaic economy] showed and it foreshadowed. The sacrifice not only showed that the offer was under sentence of death, and that only by the substitutionary shedding of blood the awful sentence could be repealed; but it also foreshadowed that the great and final oblation of infinite efficacy would assuredly be presented in ‘the fulness of time.’
