Colossians 2:8-10
Turn in your Bibles to Colossians 2:8. Colossians 2:8, here in this text, Paul is really kind of turning a corner as he issues a warning and he expresses a serious concern, but even after he issues this warning, expresses a serious concern, he goes right back to Christ, his glory, his greatest treasure and that is what we want to see in the text before us today.
Paul has reminded the Colossians of their confession, Christ Jesus the Lord, he is the substance of their confession. Their confession is not about a what per se, but about who, about Christ, as Colossians 2:6 says. Paul has then reminded the Colossians in verse 7 of their part and where they are, why they are where they are, because of God’s sovereign work, that he is rooted and built them up in Christ and he is showing to them how to be established in the faith. And it’s by the teaching of the Word that they’re established in the faith.
Paul is simplifying their expectations and so they know what they should look for coming out of their life. It’s simplified that the outcome of the rootedness in Christ and the being built up in Christ and the steadfastness in the faith in the truth, he simplifies their expectations, tells them what to look for, that true Christian maturity is expressed in abounding gratitude, ever flowing gratitude, coming out of the heart, through the lips, out of the mouth, so that others around you hear of your thankfulness in Christ.
But Paul wants them to know there’s a predator out there, always threatening, always prowling around, praying upon the weak and the vulnerable, always slithering through the grass to snatch the proud and the self-assured and the lazy and the unwatchful.
The predator seeks its prey like a snake praying upon its victim, devouring its victim bit by bit. The first bite injects the deadly poison, immediately affecting gratitude, seriously diminishing thankfulness in the life of the victim. Concerns are insinuated into the heart, which really, they take shape. They are complaints in disguise, a very clear sign that the poison has reached the heart.
Further evidence follows in grumbling and gossip and slander and divisiveness and fear and anger and anxiety and a host of other foul sins that come out of the heart and rise to the surface in one that is being preyed upon by this predator and if Christ, the antidote, is not applied very soon, in very short order, Colossians 2:7, kind of erodes, and in reverse order.
The victim is no longer established in the faith. The Word of God is no longer sufficient. The authority of the Word of God is no longer weighty. The building project comes to an abrupt halt. Activity at the construction site ceases all together. What seemed to be deeply rooted is being dug up, roots exposed, starved of nutrients and life-giving water. The plant is there, withering and drying and dying.
For the victim’s part, what does the victim think? In many cases, the victim feels just fine because the poison of the serpent is anesthetizing, and so this condition, at least for the victim, it seems to be imperceptible. In fact, it’s even a bit intoxicating. Instead of noticing danger, the victim feels emboldened, feels it brave, exhilarated in venturing out into a new direction.
The conscience calluses over, neck stiffens as a rigor mortis sets in, the heart hardens, and the roots sink deeply into death. What I’ve just described has been happening ever since Genesis chapter 3. It’s the same pattern ever since the very beginning. It takes maybe different shape and different form, but it is the same process of apostasy, the same process of falling, the same process of temptation and departure.
It’s been continuing for thousands of years of human history all the way up to the present day. And it’s what Paul warns the Colossians about in this section. In Colossians 2:8 through 23. Our study for today will be in just three of those verses, the first three, Colossians 2:8 through 10. But let’s start by reading the entire section so you can just get the scope of Paul’s critique of the false teaching that’s infecting and encroaching upon the Colossian church.
Paul writes in Colossians 2:8 and following, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily, and in Him you have been filled. Who is the head over all rule and authority. In whom you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism.
“In which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you being dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him. Having graciously forgiven us all our transgressions, having cancelled out the certificate of death consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us. He’s also taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them in Him.
“Therefore no one is to judge you in food and drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are only a shadow of what is to come. But the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels. Going into detail about visions, he’s seen being puffed up for nothing by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God.
“If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why as though you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which deal with everything designed to perish with use, which are in accordance with the commands and teachings of men, which are matters having to be sure, a word of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
He’s introduced the threat in verse 8, And after introducing the threat in verses 9 to 15, Paul goes on to show what’s at stake in a philosophy that is not according to Christ. He shows what we lose if we depart from Christ: Heart circumcision, union with Christ in baptism, immersion in his death and in his life. The certificate of debt of sins and offenses against God remains in place. It’s still in force and that puts us in subjection to the rulers and authorities hovering around invisibly.
But then in verse 16 to 23, Paul turns to critique, having shown us what we stand to lose if we depart from the philosophy that’s grounded in Christ and depart to another philosophy. Now in verses 16 to 23, Paul turns to this critique. He exposes the false and the fraudulent nature of false doctrine and false practice.
He shows its intimidation, its coercion in bad religion, but he starts here in verses 8 to 10, this is what we’re going to talk about today. He starts with the promotion of false doctrine, which comes packaged as a sophisticated and rather intriguing philosophy, one that captivates, and then, like a boa constrictor, it captures, squeezes, suffocates, and kills.
So Paul tells the Colossians in verse 8 what to watch out for, and in verses 9 to 10 what protects them. So what to watch out for and what protects them. First, number one: watch out for Christless philosophy. Watch out for Christless philosophy. “See to it, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception.”
The verb translated, see to it, blepo and it’s kind of a weak translation. See to it, but it is emphasizing the watchfulness. See to it, be watchful, but it does mean stronger in this context. It means to watch out for, be on guard against, be on the lookout for. And the present tense of the verb here is calling for a constant watchfulness, continual vigilance, kind of like walking through your life in this world.
Consider yourselves as special forces soldiers who are operating deep in enemy territory. Think of yourselves as patrolling through a thick jungle that is crawling with snakes, everything vile, poisonous and your eyes are open, watching every step, looking in every tree, wondering what is going to drop on you next.
The kind of watchfulness Paul is calling for here, it’s very interesting the way he’s constructed the warning. He says, maybe I can put this in a more literal expression to clarify it for you. He says, “See to it that someone will not be the one who takes you captive.” Interesting, isn’t it? “See to it that someone will not be the one who takes you captive.” In other words, there’s a someone out there who can easily become more proximate to you.
There’s a someone maybe in here who is very near, like Paul warned the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:29, “I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you.” And he’s referring to the eldership of the Ephesian church. He says that they’ll creep in among you and they’ll find their way into leadership, and they’re not going to spare the flock. He’s telling them to be on your guard.
So Paul is trying to make this warning not conceptual only, but personal. Realize this deception, this trickery, this philosophy, it comes in the form of a person, a face. There’s a familiarity, if I put it this way, there’s a relationship there. You know how many people are deceived by means of a close personal friendship and relationship?
We can’t see each other’s hearts, can we? We only see what the life produces. We only hear what comes out of the mouth. And so Paul is calling us to be vigilant, listening to words, watching lifestyle, seeing what is good and bad, and making judgments and discernments. That someone, his intent, her intent, as the case may be, the intent of that someone is to take you captive.
“To take you captive,” vivid term here. It’s a rare term as well, used only here in the New Testament, very rarely outside the New Testament. But it means to carry off as plunder, carry off as spoil, booty, plunder, spoils of war. What’s the prize? You are. False teachers, it’s true, okay, they can be motivated by money.
Many are, but there are also false teachers who are motivated by influence, attention, affirmation, some psychological benefit of having a lot of fans, or a lot of followers, or a lot of seats in pews. Whatever’s driving them, they intend to make merchandise of you, to get it or to keep it. Maybe for that false teacher or that hireling in a pulpit, he’s just there to keep his life comfortable. Maybe he’s there to make a big noise, build his brand, draw attention. Whatever the case, you’re the merchandise.
But Paul’s language here is more dire than making merchandise. The consequences he has in his mind are, are far graver, he he uses the verb that means to carry off as captive, to take in battle as plunder. So think in terms of a modern day, think of being taken prisoner by by a group like the Taliban or ISIS or Boko Haram or Al Shabaab. Some terrorist group that comes in and grabs you and takes you to their hide. Become a captive one of these groups and they are there to get your face on camera, to terrorize, to show videos to your loved ones, to extort money from friends and family, coerce outcomes. Whatever it is, you’re objectified in the process.
You just become a means to an end; as the spoils of war, you’re used to fund future causes, fight wars, plan and execute terror campaigns, whatever it is and there were plenty of people like this in Paul’s day, raiders, marauders, bandits, thugs, terrorist groups, very dangerous, very violent men who provided ample example to the imagination for the Colossian believers as they heard and read this warning, what it means to be taken captive.
The Colossians knew about the threat and how he was conveying the seriousness and the gravity of the threat. And I wonder, do we? Because sometimes we don’t act like it. We can live our lives blithely unaware, unafraid, unwatchful, just accepting all of our relations in our lives as, A-Okay, because they’re family, because they’re friends, because they’re neighbors. They’re not going to lead us astray. They wouldn’t do that.
We place upon others that we know an assumption of our own heart; our own heart would never lead anybody astray. In our own heart, our own mind, we love people, we care for them, we want their best. And so the people that seem to echo the same things, speak the same way, we make the same assumptions about them.
Now, I’m not calling for every single one of you to look to your right, look to your left and say what? What are you doing to me? I’m not trying to turn you against each other, but I am calling you to be fruit inspectors, to be watchful. It’s what Paul’s saying. It’s not me, it’s what Paul’s saying; be thoughtful Christians, be discerning Christians, because the error and the philosophy and the trickery comes by means of people. It’s not a concept. It comes to you in the mail. It’s not something you trip over in the park.
It’s something that comes in the form of a friend. The battle space is in the heart and the attack is an appeal to the flesh. It’s deceptive because it takes captive, starting at the intellect, as it says there in verse 8, “through philosophy and empty deception. It’s according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”
Now we’re going to analyze the threat that Paul gives us here by considering four things: Its nature, its source, its subject, and its radical deficiency. Its nature, its source, its subject, and its deficiency. First, its nature, it’s packaged as a philosophy and I want you to notice here that Paul is not condemning wholesale all philosophy here. He’s condemning all non-Christian philosophy.
He is calling us to look out for and listen for all that does not comport with or submit to or support true Christian philosophy. Yes, Christianity is a philosophy. It is the only true philosophy. Every other philosophy is false. Anything that submits to true Christianity and supports and feeds and helps us with Christian philosophy and articulation of the truth and articulation of theology, it’s supportive of and comports with and submissive too.
And so we can find in the world of mathematics and deductive logic, philosophical ideas and terms and abstractions that that help us to explain issues like the doctrine of the Trinity or the incarnation, talking about substance and essence and things like that, that you don’t find in terms, in the Bible. Even the word Trinity you don’t find in the Bible, and we borrow from the world of maybe some Aristotelian logic to help us to explain those terms.
So not all is suspect, but we have to be watchful, discerning. The word philosophy itself, it joins two words, as many of you know, philia, which is love, and sophia which is wisdom. So philosophy, literally the love of wisdom, it has to do with what is known, what’s learned, what’s understood by the mind, but then it goes deeper into the heart.
It’s not only what’s understood by the mind, but it’s what’s loved by the affections and then pursued, driving the will. This philosophy comes organized in a system of thought. It answers metaphysical questions, offers a cosmology to explain where we came from, how we got here, what happened to ruin everything, how it is that we rectify the problems that we face and where we are heading and where we’re going in the end.
So it has a cosmology, it has a beginning and an end. It has an explanation of sin and human suffering and has an explanation of how to rectify human sin and suffering. All that is packaged in philosophy and Christianity is that, at the very least. But there are also many non-Christian forms of philosophy. False wisdom, Paul identifies it in 1 Timothy 6:20, as “what is falsely called knowledge.”
King James Version, I like that translation: Science falsely so-called. What is known, what is discoverable by observation, what we call the scientific method. What that produces for us is a set of brute facts, but as with all facts, facts require interpretation, and interpretation requires the right presuppositions, the right spiritual lens, or another way to put it, right interpretation requires the right heart.
For example, how is it the two different journalists can listen to the same political speech and come away from that and sit in their office behind their computer and write diametrically opposed articles. One decries the speech as a harbinger of doom and the other describes as nothing short of messianic. How does that happen? Same speech given by the same guy, because brute facts don’t interpret themselves.
All facts require interpretation, a human interpreter. Each interpreter comes to the exact same set of facts, but with his own set of presuppositions. He or she sees the world through different lenses, makes judgments by different values. How can some analyze artificial intelligence in the prospect of tomorrow’s artificial intelligence and general intelligence and come away with a warning about human extinction? It’s dire. The world’s coming to an end. The sky is going to cloud over, and we’re all going to die.
Others look at artificial intelligence and they are intoxicated with this unlimited human potential. Everything that’s going to be fixed and solved, technology as our savior. It’ll eradicate poverty and disease. It’ll do away with all menial labor and provide an endless supply of food.
Imagine you and really your children, your grandchildren, they don’t go to work anymore. What do they do instead? Do they pursue their dreams? They want to do art, they do art. If they want to go sailing, they go sailing, because the world is working by robots and artificial intelligence, endless supply of food, endless supply of luxury.
Between those two things and both of those things may be having warning and promise, and artificial intelligence, by the way, probably somewhere in the middle of that is truth of what’s going to happen. We know that the world will not come to an end till God says, it’s time, he sends the Messiah back to judge the world. Technology itself promises to be the perfect savior. They can often turn into a nightmare of a Lord, can’t it?
God in his grace takes away our sins. He silences our accusing consciences not through works-based rituals and observances, but by forgiveness.” Travis Allen
All that to say, those without a right heart, those who have no spiritual sight, eyes to see, those who are unable to perceive spiritual truth, they have no ears to hear. Those who are unable to understand what they see and hear and discern, they have no heart to believe. They’re prone to error. They will be deluded by persuasive words, and they’ll be prone to empty deception.
By the construction of the Greek grammar here, Paul shows a very close connection between those two words, philosophy and deception, empty deception here, but the words interpret one another. This kind of philosophy is really nothing more than vanity, emptiness, leads to futility. This kind of philosophy is fruitless, since it’s nothing but an empty deception. And on the other hand, this kind of deception has the appearance of validity. It’s organized as a fully packaged philosophy, and then it’s peddled as a sophisticated system of of thought. And although the philosophy seems legitimate, although it convinces many, many people verse 4, by means of a persuasive argument in the end and amounts to nothing.
And sadly, I found in the life, my short life of pastoral ministry, many who are quick to swallow some new faddish philosophy, it can take decades to realize that they’ve been chasing an empty delusion. It’s so sad to see. They find out way too late that they made shipwreck of their life and they’ve led their family through it. They come to a dead end. They find out that they’ve been chasing nothing but an empty futility and fruitlessness and they wake up one day to say what have I done?
Paul describes in verse 23, its matters having to be sure in LSB the word, but it’s an appearance of wisdom. These are matters that have an appearance of wisdom in this self-made religion, self-abasement, severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value of fleshly indulgence.
So much out there right now, all over the world is offering what is of no value. It seems valuable. It seems sophisticated. It seems to make sense on its face. There’s no value against fleshly indulgence. In the end, you’re left with your same heart, the same sin, the same trouble, and you’ve got no answers because you’ve chased a dead end. It’s utterly empty. That’s its nature.
It’s a philosophy, seems sophisticated, but it’s really empty deception. There’s nothing there and it’s deceptive. Second: Its source, it’s according to the tradition of men, opposite of the tradition that they had received. Verse 6, he says, “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord.” Remember we talked about that as receiving tradition.
They had received an oral tradition, according to Christian witness, according to Apostolic preaching, according to the spirits revelation of the historic person and work of Jesus Christ, they had received a tradition; the only true tradition. Here, though, is an alternative source of tradition, and Paul rightly criticizes and ultimately condemns this as arising from the tradition of men. The genitive there, of men, refers to that which is man made. It emanates from human beings, comes from the human mind and the heart handed down by men to men, generation after generation, until it runs its course and another one starts up.
Listen, every single one of these, every religion in the world, every philosophy in the world apart from biblical Christianity, which is revealed in scripture, every non-Christian religion philosophy in the world has several things in common. They’re man centered, not God centered. They’re gospels of human achievement, not of divine accomplishment.
They promise that merit will be found by human works and they have very little to do with divine grace. They promote man by minimizing man’s sin and then maximizing man’s righteousness, his potential. You hear it a lot in the phrase, be the best you, you can be. Fulfill your full potential and that kind of thinking ignores the sin and the original sin of which we’re guilty, and the sin resident within the flesh.
Its overly optimistic view of man and man’s potential, completely ignoring the vertical relationship we have with God. That’s true of every man centered religion. In the end they demote God by minimizing the holiness of God, the perfection of his righteousness, the inflexibility of his justice, the severity of breaking his law. They refuse his grace, deny his goodness, and on and on it goes.
Only a philosophy that is not according to the tradition of men will save us. If it is generated from the heart of man, from the mind of man, it’s earthbound, it’s dead-on arrival, it has nothing to offer. We want the philosophy of which no eye has seen, nor has ear heard, nor has ever entered into the heart of man, or the only philosophy that saves is the one revealed by God in Scripture in his son. That is true. It’s saving and it was not originating in the heart of man. It originates with God.
So that’s its source. We’ve seen its nature, its source and then third, its subject, its subject. Buckle up because this point is longer. Okay? Just wanting you to get comfortable. Its subject, it’s according to the elementary principles of the world.
According to the elementary principles of the world. Some translations say elementary spirits of the world, and there you see a difference of interpretation. This portion right here has a very long and complex history of interpretation. I’m going to spare you the full details, but I hope to give you enough to provide clarity of the meaning that I think is here in the text.
The elementary principles of the world. World, kosmos; we know the world, kosmos, cosmetic or cosmology, it refers to the orderly world that God created, formed, filled, in the beginning. He set the boundaries of things. He defined things, and then he filled what he set the boundaries for. That’s orderliness, that’s the kosmos.
Heaven and earth is ordered in such a way, visible and invisible. Ordered in such a way, that’s the kosmos and that is very clear to us and understandable. But the other term ta stoicheia, elementary, prita, is the definite article stoicheo or stoicheiron in the singular elementary principles. This requires a little bit of explanation.
You see in some translations, number of the English translations, modern English translations, the term stoicheia is elementary forces or even spirits. The New International Version has the elementary spiritual forces of this world and so they, they think there, in that translation, that Paul is talking about angelic beings. They can justify that view actually contextually by looking down at verse 10, where Paul says that Christ is the head over all rule and authority.
Those are certainly terms that refer to the unseen angelic spiritual forces, whether good or evil. We see that in Colossians 1:15 to 20, where says Paul says that Christ created all those. So this is the most popular view today, it’s reflected in many modern Bible translations, but lexical evidence doesn’t support that.
The earliest interpreters, who were much closer to the New Testament Greek than we are, they didn’t see stoicheia as referring to spiritual beings, angels, or demons. That view actually doesn’t arrive on the scene until the third century, and then it’s actually been passed over for a number of years and then picked up again.
But the most basic sense, going back to the kind of the rudimentary idea, the most basic sense of the Greek word stoicheion to a small upright post. You might think in terms of like a mile marker on the side of the road. The related term stoichos, shorter word stoichos refers to a series or a row. So this word stoicheion came to mean a part of a complex whole or a first beginning, first element, first principle.
One lexical source puts it this way, that’s ta stoicheia refers to the rudimentary elements of anything, what belongs to the basic series in any field of knowledge. So for example, in grammar it’s the ABCs, in speech, basic sounds, in physics, the four basic elements, earth, air, fire, water. In geometry, the axioms. In philosophy, the givens.
When you think about music, stoicheion would refer to the notes of the musical scale. In the physical world, it’s the material elements of the world or the elements that are on the periodic table. In religion, it’s the fundamental doctrines, it’s the basic precepts, the basic teachings. That is the basic meaning of the word and that is how Paul used this term, ta stoicheia, and it is how the Colossians would have understood this word. This is what they would have heard.
Paul means the basic stuff of the created world, the elements that make up the kosmos. So if that’s the case, the question then becomes for us, how did they design a persuasive philosophy using the elements of the periodic table? How does chemistry turn into life philosophy? Puzzling? If you’ve ever taken chemistry.
In the first century, in all the centuries before the first century and for many centuries afterward, the material elements of the physical world were associated with beings or gods in the spiritual world. The one in the physical world attached to the other in the nonphysical world. Ancient thinkers believed in the spiritual reality that was behind, above and beneath the physical world.
And we might pause for a minute and say, you know what, us departing from that has not been an improvement. To see that there is a spiritual reality behind, above, beneath, the physical world, it’s actually true, biblical. Now it’s the tendency of idolatry in the heart to pervert everything, right? So that’s what they did with it.
But at least that basic concept of immaterial and material reality, that there is a spirit and a body, there’s physical, nonphysical, metaphysical that they had, right? And in our time, we do not have that right. We’ve drifted far from it. Does that make us more sophisticated? I think not. It’s Philo of Alexandria, Jewish apologists, lived, right, during the same period as the time of Christ. But he was a Jew, not a Christian.
He wrote on the Decalogue seeking to show the superiority of the Law of Moses by critiquing Gentile superstition. He was an apologist to the Greeks and trying to persuade the Greeks of the, the reasonableness and the superiority really of the Law of Moses and its wisdom. He critiqued Gentile superstition which was rife in the ancient world.
And Philo writes this, he says, “Some nations have made divinities of the four elements, earth and water and air and fire, others of the sun and the moon and other planets and fixed stars, others again of the whole world. They call the earth Proserpine, Ceres and Pluto, the sea they call Neptune, inventing a number of marine deities as subservient to him; vast companies of attendance, both male and female. The air they called Juno, fire, Vulcan, the sun, Apollo, the moon, Diana, and the evening star, Venus. Lucifer they call Mercury.
Philo is there criticizing the common thinking of his day. Nearly universal tendency of all the Gentile nations to invent fables, weaving together, as he puts it in his words, “cleverly contrived imaginations to deceive the ear” and then he goes on to say, “they congratulate themselves for their ingenuity.” Look how smart we are.
Well, there’s a lot of that going on today. All these, Philo says, “are nothing but myths, a whole host of false gods invented by men,” that he says, “put out of sight that most supreme and most ancient of all, the Creator.” He’s not wrong. This was the thinking in the background of every single Gentile city that Paul visited. It’s the same thing for us today.
You got to think about it, in virtually every conversation that you have with an unbeliever, you have to assume the intellectual foundation for that conversation has been set and established by evolutionary ideology. Everything from nothing. All that exists is matter, all that exists is atoms, all that exists is stuff. Life comes from non-life, simple to complex. Man is nothing more than a complex animal. It’s survival of the fittest. And on and on it goes.
You know these little maxims of evolutionary ideology, but it’s not just in rudimentary biology, either. Evolutionary ideology has burst the bounds of its origination in biology to set presuppositions for every kind of science and philosophy and thought today, right? Hard sciences and soft sciences alike and we know it’s not based on evidence.
After all, who was there to see all this stuff come into being? Nobody, but God. They reject him, so they don’t build their ideology and set their presuppositions based on evidence, but on assumptions, or what Philo in his day quite accurately critiqued as inventions and as cleverly contrived imaginations to deceive the ear. We have ours just as they had theirs. And they present well, don’t they?
They present as a philosophy. They are nothing but empty deception. They are sourced in the imagination of men. They’re handed down generation to generation as a tradition, and they have a powerful shaping force on the mind, on the culture. They seem to be inviolable, but it’s all based on a false cosmology and a rejection of theology, a rejection of true biblical metaphysics. They deny God, in other words, and in so doing kill themselves.
In our day, modern cosmology is framed by the dominant myth of the modern age, which is evolutionary ideology. But in Paul’s day, ancient cosmology was framed by polytheism. Philo of Alexandria, as I said, was a Jewish apologist who critiqued Pagan polytheism. Paul provided the first of the Christian critiques over in Galatians chapter 4, verse 3. He provides this critique in our text in Colossians 2:8.
The second century Christian apologist took what Paul wrote in scripture and they continued their critique against polytheism and they exposed polytheism as nothing but pure myth. Often, they were killed for it. People hold on to their ideologies with great passion, don’t they? And now, today in our day, we see polytheism as nonsense, as kind of a relic of Pagan superstition, we’ve adopted, just as ridiculous of the one, in evolutionary ideology.
But Paul fired the first Christian shot, first at the Galatians in the corrective of Galatians 4 verse 3, we, “while we were children, we’re held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.” Notice that same word, ta stoicheia is used there. He uses it again, same word in verse 9 as he continues his critique.
Look down at Galatians 4, verse 8, “However, at that time when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now, having been known by God,” how is it, “how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things?” There it is again, “to which you want to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that perhaps I’ve labored over you for nothing.”
There in verse 8, Galatians 4, you can see the polytheistic connection between ta stoicheia, the basic stuff of the world, and those things which by nature are no gods. He uses the term theos there. It’s the same error in Galatians that he’s addressing in Colossae. This background of polytheism. False teachers are trying to tell Christian believers to add to Christ the religious observances and the practices are supposedly appease the pantheon that appease their polytheistic neighbors, that don’t trouble polytheistic neighbors.
Just as in our day, Christians are pressured into caving into the evolutionary worldview, to speak as if it’s true, not make a protest. Don’t trouble the waters, don’t stir things up, don’t rock the boat, just go with the flow. So its nature. You can go back to Colossians 2. Its nature comes as a philosophy, its source, it comes from the mind of man, it’s man centered.
Now we see its subject is a false cosmology and sets the foundation for a false worldview informed in their time by the ideology of polytheism and in our time by the ideology of evolution. Whether polytheism or evolution, in either case there’s a biblical word for it; it’s called idolatry. Lastly, we come to its fundamental flaw and it’s the fundamental flaw of every non-Christian ideology, every idolatry.
Fourth: its deficiency. This is Christless philosophy, as he says at the end of verse 8, boiling it all down, given one bottom line, it’s not according to Christ. It’s not according to Christ. Why is that a problem? It should be obvious by now, but in case we need reminding, look back at Colossians 1:15, he, Christ, “is the image of the invisible God.” He is making visible what is invisible. He’s the first born of all creation, preeminent above all creation, outside of all creation. And so he is in the distinctive category, a unique category of creator. And then there’s everything else.
In him, verse 16, “all things were created.” So when it says all things, that means he’s outside of that all things category. He is not a created being as he was purported to be in the first century by non-Christians, by apostates, by false teachers. “In Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions.” And there it is, “or rulers or authorities,” angels, demons. “All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
He sustains things, he holds them together. Every atom stays intact because he wills it to be so. The planets continue in their orbits, the solar system continue in their patterns, the galaxies in theirs, and the subatomic particles in their orbits, in their patterns. DNA strands hold together because he wills it.
He’s the head of the body, the Church. That is to say, you Colossians, that is to say, you Christians of Greeley, he’s your head, he is your authority. He’s the beginning, he’s the first born from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything.
The tradition that these Colossians had received, which is summarized in the confession that they made in verse 6, Christ, the Christ Jesus of the Lord. It creates an irreversible breach with the polytheism of the culture or with any iteration, that passes itself off as new. Such as what they’re seeing in the Lycus Valley and coming into the Colossian church. Some kind of synchronistic blend of proto-Gnosticism and Christless Judaism and a provincial Phrygian mystery religions, all mixed up and put into the blender and served in cups.
Whether it’s the polytheism of their day or the evolutionism of our day, the fundamental error about God, the most basic problem of bad theology is suppressing the truth of God as Paul says in Romans chapter 1. And when we do that, it means we’re relegated to worshipping and serving the creature. The creation results in the abasement of mankind and the debasing of the image of God in us and demeaning us and leading into all other manner of degradation.
So to break away from all that, for the Colossians to break away from polytheism, and for us to break away with the myths of the modern cosmology framed by evolutionary ideology, that’s freedom. It’s total freedom. It’s a liberation of the mind. It’s the ennoblement of humanity. It restores us to understand we’re the image of God and we have great things to do to glorify God that doesn’t degrade us, but actually uplifts us by addressing the matters of the heart and idolatrous worship, rejecting God our creator by exposing and confronting our idolatry, that’s been perpetuated by the traditions and the myths of our culture.
God in his grace takes away our sins. He silences our accusing consciences not through works-based rituals and observances, but by forgiveness. Forgiveness in the gospel, by the perfect work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Commentator Douglas Moos says, “In direct contrast, dance the gospel. Where the philosophy deceives people, the gospel is true, reliable. Where the philosophy is empty, devoid of spiritual value, the gospel based on Christ, the fullness is powerful and transforming.”
You feel that, don’t you? You know that to be true. You see it in your own life. You’re a changed person ever since salvation. All this leads naturally to our second point number two: Protect from Christless philosophy. Protect from Christless philosophy. And how do we do that? Well, the protection is Christ himself, as we see in verses 9 and 10, “For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and in Him you have been filled. Who is the head over all rule and authority.”
The protection against all Christless philosophy, then and now, and our future protection as well, until Christ returns, is to know and live according to who he is, what he is, and why that matters for us. So if you’re jotting down notes in point two, you can put: The Who, the What, and the So What.
First, the Who, we need to know and live according to the truth that Jesus Christ is God and man, verse 9, “For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” It’s basic Christology, right? It’s Christology 101, doctrine of the incarnation, putting equal emphasis on his deity and his humanity as well. He’s in possession of a divine nature and a human nature. He is God and man, and he is the only one of his kind.
The God man, in him, in this verse is, in emphatic position, placed at the head of the sentence and then the statement, “All the fullness.” That’s what we would call pleonastic, which is to say redundant. The word, all, is implied, in full, isn’t it? Fullness is implied, in all. Paul could have written this more simply, saying for in him deity dwells bodily, and he would have made the same point.
But clearly, he’s being emphatic. “In him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” He’s being emphatic, and in view of the false teaching, he’s being polemical. He’s getting at something there, something the Colossians understand because of the false teaching that’s very apparent to them that they’re hearing on the streets. That is to say, this is not the gradual fullness that’s promoted by the false teachers in their day; Gnostic doctrine about Christ being the greatest and best human form of fullness.
But even he needed to elevate fully and finally into all fullness found in shedding his fleshly body to be assumed into pure spirit, so the teaching went. It’s nonsense. Paul says, “In Christ is all the fullness of deity,” by which, we understand that to be, a layered redundancy. Since deity by definition, clarified in the doctrine of divine simplicity, cannot be separated into component parts, it’s not divided; it’s an inseparable eternal essence.
So by definition, deity is all and deity is fullness. Further, by the incarnation, this deity dwells bodily in him. I’m going to pass over technical aspects of the Greek language, but just know that Paul’s language here is airtight, bomb proof. He leaves no room for error whatsoever, no room for mistaking. In fact, he’s loading up future pastors and teachers and apologists and theologians of the church. He’s given them ammunition in this section for all future heresy.
Apologists, teachers, theologians, Christian philosophers have used this language to fight off every form of heresy about Christ. One letter of difference in the abstract noun that he uses there. He uses theos rather than theios. There’s just an iota, a one letter, smallest letter in the Greek alphabet. But the difference is the difference between the word deity, which he uses here, and the word divine, the difference between an essence, deity and a quality, divine.
An Angel has the quality of divineness, doesn’t it? It’s spiritual like God is spiritual. It’s not what Paul’s saying. He’s saying he’s not just God-like, he’s saying he’s God. He also uses an adverb here, sōmatikōs, bodily, corporally instead of sōmati, ensomati, which he could have used, in a body. But that’s the difference between saying God confined himself in the space and limitations of a body, and the vastly different biblical truth that God made his invisible attributes manifest visibly in the incarnation, “for He is the image of the invisible God.”
It’s very precise in his language, in the present tense of the verb here about dwelling, indicates timelessness. There’s a permanent indwelling of deity bodily in Christ Jesus. God dwells, continues to dwell in him. Since the advent of the incarnation, something new has been revealed, something new has entered into time and space, from our perspective, that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself. So that’s, The Who.
Second, The What. We need to know and live according to the truth that Jesus Christ is our fullness. That’s the what? Jesus Christ is our fullness. So we need to know that and to live according to it. For in him you have been filled.
False teachers have tried to tell the Colossians they lacked something. They needed to find all fullness, and they could find all fullness if they only submitted to their doctrines, kind of adding their doctrines to what they already knew to be true, but just add a little more. Join our rituals, join our observances.
Again, Paul says nonsense. In him, you have been filled already, it’s perfect tense. Construction emphasizes the fact that God caused them to be filled in Christ and that has never waned, never abated, never changed one iota. In fact, they continue in that same state of fullness. What is the Christian life, except to expand and understand that fullness, to go deeper into it, to understand it with greater clarity, greater depth, greater breadth.
They don’t obey his word, but they do their own thing, but they call themselves Christians.” Travis Allen
That’s what teaching in the church is all about, is to help you to explore and understand that fullness in Christ. This is the same kind of temple language we find over in Ephesians, which is to say that now that God dwells in Christ and he unites us to Christ, he is joining us. This is kind of the project of the church. He’s joining us with mortar by the Holy Spirit as bricks, breaking us into the temple sanctuary that houses him, that puts his deity on display.
God is glorifying himself in Christ through us, his living temple. So that’s The Who, that’s The What, thirdly, the So What. We need to know and to live according to the truth, that Jesus Christ is the authority, He’s the authority, he is the head over all rule and authority. In other words, isn’t it a completely different class and category than all other rule and authority? Then all created rule and authority?
In one category, is Christ the image of the invisible God, Colossians 1:15. “The firstborn over all creation,” he is therefore the head of all things. Everything else that he created, including rulers and authorities, including invisible beings like angels, another category, created category. He’s the head of all things. The word, kephalē, it means one of superior rank. It means the chief authority above all, over all rule and authority. And those are the same terms that Paul uses in Colossians 1:16 to describe the angels.
So Christ created them, created all things both in the heavens and on earth, visible, invisible, whether thrones or dominions, here it is, or rulers or authorities, all things created by him. Therefore, contrary to what the false teachers were saying, therefore there are no mediating authorities between God and the Colossians, only Christ.
They’re complete in him, as are all Christians, as are we. That means no polytheistic system. There’s no ranking structure that they need to pass through and appease and please and propitiate in order to get to God, only Christ, and Christ has brought them directly into the throne room and set them on the father’s lap, calling him father.
There’s no evolutionary system either that has authority over us. Ultimately, it’s only Christ and Christ alone. Ultimately, there’s no collective authority and no individual authority either that has authority over us, Christ and Christ alone. Here’s the, So what, of this reality for us, the major conflict with our own culture, the many individual authorities of our time.
The Christ and Christ alone, he is the head and the supreme and the only authority over all and that means all the little gods that walk around you, that work with you, that are in your neighborhood, that are in your family, them vying for your attention, demanding your time, commanding your conscience, coercing you, manipulating you. They have no authority over you, Christ and Christ alone.
Let me ask you, dear Christian, is Christ the authority over you? Does he command your conscience? Does he govern your heart, your thinking, your feelings, your affections, your priorities, your will, your ambitions, your plans, your use of time, your use of resources? Does he command your heart? Is he your authority? Is he your head? If you’re in Christ, you have to say absolutely he is. My problem, Travis, is that I always live that way. Yeah. That’s why we start every service with confession of sin.
We’re all in the same boat. We need to be reminded he’s the head over all rule and authority, angelic and human, collective and individual, including you as an individual. Do you live as if his authority is your only authority, absolute, supreme, and you are obedient to him? In the words of 1 Peter 3:15, have you “sanctified Christ as Lord in your heart?” There’s always room for us to repent and renew our commitment to him as our authority. He’s so gracious to us.
If he is not only God, but he’s your God, and if it’s true not only that he’s the fullness for Christians, but he’s the fullness for you yourself. If he’s not merely the head over all rule and authority, as an abstract concept, but is personally actually the one who governs your heart, commanded by his Word, he commands you by his word. Well then Christ is truly your protection against all Christless philosophy. You don’t need to worry, you’re safe.
Every iteration we face today of personal Christless philosophies, where many call him Lord, Lord, but they actually live for themselves and they do not, what he says to do. They don’t obey his word, but they do their own thing, but they call themselves Christians. Christ protects you from that too, because there’s no salvation in that kind of a Christ, who affirms your autonomy.
As we’re going to see in the weeks to come, The Who and the What and the So What of Colossians 2:9 and 10, they become the basis and the foundation of all of Paul’s positive instruction that comes about Christ’s work, which comes in verses 9 through 15; shows us why it is that we’re complete in him, why it is we’re satisfied and contented in him, why it is that we’re safe in him.
But with that, we come to our time around the Lord’s table. Would you bow with me as we ask the Lord to bless the elements? Father, we do come before you in the name of Jesus Christ and in consideration of His passive and active obedience. His passive obedience by which He suffered and died, a substitutionary death. He being a substitute for us, an atoning death, a covering provided for sinners who take refuge in him. He representing us before you.
He came to die in our place, in our stead, to die on that cross, to be buried in a tomb. You demonstrated your approval of that sacrifice by raising him from the dead. So we come, acknowledging that the bread and the cup symbolize his perfect work. The cup ratifying the New Covenant. His blood poured out to ratify that new covenant, and that New Covenant is about living an obedient life unto him. That obedient life was perfected in his perfect, his act of obedience as he fulfilled all the law of God and he did it on our behalf.
So that whatever fault and whatever error we find in ourselves, we we look to him once again and see that he is the full satisfaction of obedience before you. He is the perfect righteousness, not a righteousness of our own, the one that’s found by faith in Christ. So as we partake of these elements, the bread and the cup, please minister your grace to us through these elements and the, are, partaking of them, our mindfulness of the truth symbolizing these elements.
Minister your grace in Christ by the Spirit to us. Let us reflect on his sacrifice on the cross, his body offered up for our sins. Let us consider the cost of ratifying the new covenants, his bloodshed for us. And let us thank you for including us in the New Covenant. By Your grace, let us thank you for regenerating us by the Holy Spirit, giving us eyes to see, ears to hear, heart to believe, and understand, and trust. We pray that you would satisfy us completely, make our hearts content and happy in him as we partake of this spiritual food. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.