Colossians 2:16-19
Well, as we come to our study of God’s Word this morning, like to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Colossians 2:16. Colossians 2:16. And this is where Paul gets direct and confronts the false teachers who have come to trouble the Colossian church. As we have been going through ever since chapter 1 all the way to this very moment, Paul has been preparing the Colossians for exactly this point in the epistle. He’s been showing them the security of their salvation in Christ and the superiority of Christ and his salvation.
And so now he writes to these Christians who are deeply rooted in Christ, who possess absolutely everything. They lack nothing whatsoever. And having secured them in a position of strength, he now turns to confront those troublers of the faith, confront the false teachers. He intends by this to expose their practical and their theological errors and he starts right here in Colossians 2:16 and continues through the end of the chapter.
You’ll see in your Bible, Colossians 2:16, starts with a therefore, therefore pointing back, building off of the platform that he has already set. That is to say, therefore, since you are circumcised, that is to say, regenerate by the Spirit; since you have been buried with Christ in baptism and raised up with him, since you are a participant in resurrection life, since you are completely forgiven, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And since God has done all of this and accomplished all of these great works through Christ, and he did so, by the way, when Christ seemed to be at his weakest point in his utter humiliation, God accomplished his greatest work. That is to say, that it was through death, not any death, but the shameful death of crucifixion on a cross, stripped before the entire watching world.
God through Christ, made a mockery of all of his enemies. He put sin to shame. He put to death, death in the death of Christ, thereby triumphing over all rulers and all authorities. “Therefore,” verse 16, “no one is to judge you in food or 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 the angels, going into detail about visions he has 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 if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees: ‘Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch?’ Which deal with everything destined to perish with use, which are in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men; which are matters having, to be sure, a word,” or another translation is, the appearance, “of wisdom in self-made religion, and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but of no value against fleshly indulgence.”
Paul is here, in this section, developing the warning that he has already laid down in chapter 2, verse 8, where he says, “See to it that no one takes you captive.” And here he is identifying these false teachers through the lens or through the optic of their errors, which are practical in nature and theological in nature. And they really kind of emerge from both Jewish and Pagan influences.
So there’s kind of this synchronistic blend of Jewish and Pagan influence, and what’s apparent in these commands, as he’s identifying these false teachers, he’s calling these Colossian Christians to take note and to exercise their discernment, to have their eyes open, to be watchful, and to stand firm.
In verse 16, as you saw when we read, and then again in verse 18, there are two imperatives there, and both of those imperatives are stated in the third person. “Let no one judge you” and “let no one keep on defrauding you.” He’s not in this section wagging his finger at the false teachers per se. He’s not scolding them.
False teachers are going to be there. Bad guys are going to exist. People who lead you astray are always going to be out there. So he’s not interested in speaking directly to them. No, he speaks to the Colossians and he doesn’t speak to them, notice as if they’re hapless victims, he speaks to them as if they have access to all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ, because they do.
He speaks to them as believers and he equips them with the resources that they need to be discerning and watchful and strong, which is why in verse 20 he comes across maybe a little bit as if he’s chiding them, just a little bit. Why are you submitting to the archaic, antiquated decrees of your former life? Come on folks, come on, get on with walking in Christ already. You have everything. You have your fullness in him. Get on with it.
So he chides them just a little bit in that second section, starting in verse 20 through verse 23, but at the same time, we have to see here that as a pastor, as a man who’s familiar with his own heart, his own flesh, he’s not entirely unsympathetic to the alluring nature of false teaching, because it is, as he’s been saying, it is enticing. It is persuasive on its face, anyway.
In verse 16, the heresy presents itself in the religious forms that these Colossian believers have been used to, coming from their religious backgrounds. It’s the culture, is speaking to the culture, and it taps into what they’re already familiar with and used to. So religious fasting and diet and food and drink and observances of holidays, these are Pagan rituals and observances. But then these also had a Jewish character.
So they seem to come now with that Jewish form, the stamp of divine authority, very powerful influences, speaking to them in the language that they know, appealing to practices that they have been practicing all of their lives and for generations past. In verse 18, the LSB translates the word, self-abasement, but it’s actually the word for humility and humility, it’s used again in verse 23, as well.
It’s humility. He’s pointing out the apparent superficial; what they can see, what appears before their eyes. He’s pointing out the humility of these false teachers and their followers. In spite of how they tend to draw attention to themselves and their religiosity, they also have the appearance of humility.
They walk around with a sanctified air, as if they float above everybody else. But they seem so humble and so sincere, and they speak in depth of spiritual experiences and communing with the divine and by the right understanding of ritual that prepares them to enter into an even deeper and an even more meaningful communion with God.
Very alluring, enticing, powerful stuff. What was perhaps most enticing of all, an ever-present means of persuading people to join, comes in verses 20 to 23, with the promise of overcoming sins, freedom from enslaving lusts, troublesome temptations, nagging habits, and there are people all over the Internet trying to teach you how to get rid of your habits, how to overcome your habits, how to live a better life, how to get stuff done. It’s the same stuff here.
Better rituals, they say, better preparation for a deeper communion with God, this is going to set you free. So ritual observance, accessible religion that I can do, which gives me the deepest connection with God and also sets me free from my sins. What’s not to like? Well, Paul says, first there are some very serious practical errors which he outlines in verses 16 to 17, and then theological errors which he gets into in verses 18 and 19.
So first, the practical errors and you can write down this for your point, number one: False teachers live in the shadows. False teachers live in the shadows. Looking at those verses again, “Therefore, no one is to judge you in food or 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.”
Obviously, you can see there, end of verse 17, you got a contrast between substance, with what he calls a mere shadow of what is to come. The shadow is the form, and he describes that form in concrete terms back in verse 16, of practices, observances, things that they can do. Those are shadows, those are rituals.
That’s the form, but the substance, end of verse 17, is Christ. Now, if this sounds to some of you, this whole form substance language, sounds kind of like Plato’s theory of forms and his famous cave analogy, contrasting material things on earth with true realities of heaven; the earthly being, the mere shadow of the heavenly reality, that is not what’s going on here.
When Paul speaks of shadows, even shadows at their biblical best, dietary laws, observing holy days, these all have outlines of a coming reality, and now that that reality has arrived, now that the body that’s casting the shadow has come on the scene, there is no need to practice any of those old forms any longer.
Literally, the end of verse 17, Paul doesn’t use the word substance, don’t find that term. He uses the word, body, soma. And then we supply for interpretive clarity the body which is clearly, of Christ, or as the LSB translators have very accurately put it, interpreting it for us, “the substance belongs to Christ.”
The substance is of Christ. The body is of Christ. The body casting the shadow, it’s Christ. Not his physical body per se, but it’s the reality about Christ. All that he is, his work, his person, everything. It’s Christ. He’s the one casting the long shadow across the landscape of redemptive history.
But now that he is here, the shadows that he cast are disappearing and they are being ignored and erased all together in the bright glory of his presence. Therefore, Paul says because of that no one is to judge you, or more literally, third person imperative, let no one judge you, as in, do not allow it Christian, don’t let it happen, resist it, refuse it, stand firm on the substance, on the reality in Christ.
Now, again, going back to the practical matters of verse 16, whether eating or drinking or of calendar observances and the annual festivals and the monthly new moons and the weekly Sabbaths, let’s kind of get a handle on what Paul is talking about here, what he’s referring to a little bit more precisely if we can, because there’s not a lot of detail given in here, but it’s enough for us to piece together kind of the essence of this error. He didn’t get too specific.
If he gets too specific, then it kind of relegates it to the dustbin of history, but when he principalizes it and talks about characteristics of this error, well, lo and behold, we can take those principles and apply them throughout history to our own time, to our own issues.
So on these matters of eating and drinking, he may be referring to Jewish practice since the Law of Moses did address the distinction between clean and unclean foods. But then when he adds, and he joins it to this issue, the reference to drinking, you know, there are very few restrictions in the Old Testament on drinking apart from just wisdom principles that would govern any kind of drinking of any fermented or alcoholic thing.
But that’s really not what he’s addressing here. Priests should not drink wine or strong drink, Leviticus 10:9 says. We see that that’s a specific prohibition limited to Tabernacle service. What happened right before Leviticus 10:9? Nadab and Abihu were consumed in the flame of God as he judged them for offering strange fire.
Some commentators, some interpreters, think that perhaps through a little bit of imbibing before they went into the Tabernacle, maybe they were a little careless in how they offered that fire and it made it a strange fire, something unfamiliar, something that was inappropriate and alien and not at all what God had commanded. Perhaps it’s the alcohol that addled their brain.
So as a specific prohibition on Tabernacle service, the priests were not to enter in, during their time of service, having had wine or strong drink. There’s also a Nazarite vow in Numbers chapter 6, but that applies to the duration of the vow, not to the entirety of one’s life.
So what is this first reference? It seems at first glance to refer to Jewish dietary laws. We kind of read that way because we see also the, the feasts and the new moons and the Sabbaths. So we kind of read backward and say, well, food and drink also must be talking about Jewish dietary laws, but really this is far more likely referring to provincial religious practices such as fasting, abstaining from certain foods especially, and you can find records of this, abstaining from animal foods and fermented drinks.
Because they were preparing to commune with the divine. So they want to purge themselves of any animal stuff inside them. Because remember they had views of deity or of life energy and life force in the animal. They, the Gentiles, used to drink blood to take in the animal’s spirit and its strength and its characteristics and its properties. So they would abstain, fast, purge before they entered into or sought the prophetic wisdom of the deity. We’re going to come back to that more in the next point because it’s really in the next set of practices that we see this influence.
He says, no one is to judge you, though he comes back and says, “no one is to judge you in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.” Now that is a Jewish pattern, those terms, festival, heortē, and new moon, neomēnia, and then the word Sabbath, sabaton, sabbatas.
We find those terms listed together in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament listed just like this and in the same order in Ezekiel 45:17 and Hosea 2:11. We see them again in reverse order inn 1 Chronicles 23:31, 2 Chronicles 2 verse 4 and 2 Chronicles 31 verse 3, these same terms used in order, the first two references in the same order, as we find here, the next three references, in reverse order. So what are they?
The word festival, heortē is also accurately translated as feast. So this refers to one of Israel’s three annual feasts, the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread in the spring, the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, which is 50 days after Passover, and then the Feast of Booths or called Tabernacles, which is observed in the fall. So this first term refers to things that govern the annual calendar of the people of God.
Second term, new moon, neomēnia refers to the monthly feasts that were prescribed in numbers 28:11 to 15; sacrifices, propitiatory, but also celebratory, offered on the first day of the new moon, the first day of the month. Third term Sabbaths in the plural here refers to the weekly pattern of rest that God had established in the world’s very first week.
So these two terms, new moon, Sabbaths, they govern monthly and weekly calendars. So that’s the pressure coming from these false teachers. It had to do with religious preparation required by following their prescribed religious calendar, which frankly controlled people, requiring their participation in weekly and monthly and yearly rituals and observances of religious feasts and festivals and high holy days.
For the deepest communion with the divine, which we’re going to come to in verse 18, and for actual power to mortify the sins of the flesh, which we’re going to come to in verses 20 to 23. They said fasting is required, forgoing food and drink in preparation for religious observances, in preparation to keep the calendar, this is required.
Now let’s back up, talk a little bit about what’s at stake in the observance of these feasts, these festivals, just to make sure we’re understanding this biblically, clearly. I mentioned earlier, only in passing, that God established the pattern of the seven day week in Genesis chapter 1. We know from Genesis 1 he created everything in six days. He rested on the seventh day. Genesis 2:3 says that, “He blessed the seventh day.”
Because of that, he sanctified it, because on that day he rested from all his work which God created and made. So he sets a pattern for us, six days for work, one day for rest. At the first giving of the law at Sinai, in Exodus chapter 20, verse 8. That’s the reason that is given for Sabbath observance is for the sake of human rest, verses 9 and 10, for which God set a pattern of rest in verse 11 by ceasing from his own work on the Sabbath.
Don’t let anyone take you to task for bucking the national idolatries to live for freedom in Jesus Christ. ” Travis Allen
In fact, not only were God’s people to rest, but anybody in the employ of God’s people were to rest, including animals, beasts of burden, they too, were to rest. Take the yoke off the oxen, let it graze on the Sabbath. Care for man, care for animals, cessation of labor, rest, focus on God. What God gave to mankind in the creation week, he gave not by way of ordinance, command; gave it by way of pattern, by his own example.
The principle of Sabbath rest, times for working, times for resting, was given for our blessing, and not just for the people of God, for the entirety of all people, the entire world. Not only that, but God gave the lights in the expanse of the sky, Genesis 1:14 says, to separate the day from the night, but also for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.
So God is bringing order and organizing the weekly, monthly, and annual calendar to mark time, which promotes work and provides for rest. At the second giving of the law, after Israel had come out of Egypt, wandered in the wilderness, there they are in the plains of Moab and it’s the second generation of Israel, because God killed off the first generation and raised those children up. And as that second generation, those children were about to enter into the promised land. Well, they, they needed a reiteration, a recapitulation of the law.
They were just little kids when they came out of Egypt and some of them not even born. They needed to hear it before they entered into the promised land and so when Moses reiterates the law in Deuteronomy 5:12, he cites a different reason for rest, he says, remember verse 15, “You were a slave in Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”
What God had given to his people to promote their work and to increase their productivity, their efficiency, and to provide for their rest ever since Creation week. He gave them a simple calendar to follow to guide their weeks and months and years, and provided all along the way every single week for their rest and their refreshment.
But then they enter into Egypt and it’s because of enslavement that came upon them, that good pattern of the calendar was abolished by the Egyptians. For the Israelites, the good order in the life that God had prescribed was interrupted by their slavery. Their Egyptian overlords controlled the calendar, dictated their weeks, months, years.
For 400 years, slavery disrupted their routines. Slavery robbed them of their rest. Slavery gave exhaustion, not refreshment, stole their peace, it buried them with painful labor, punishing toil. God ended that at the Exodus. He broke the chains of slavery and he set his people free.
He delivered Israel from slavery, and then when he gave the law, he restored the joy of that calendar. Holy feasts gave them meaningful festivals, weekly Sabbaths, monthly new moon feasts, the annual feasts, the monthly new moon sacrifices dedicated that whole month to God. His annual feasts commemorated events of the Exodus. Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread explicitly refers to their Exodus from Egypt. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost celebrates their first harvest.
The Feast of Booths or Tabernacles commemorated the time after the Exodus when they had to live in tents and booths and wandered in the wilderness, but God was there to protect them, even though they did not live in a city with walls. Where they were, a people nomadic, moving all the time and living in tents, he provided for all their needs and protected them from their enemies.
So each annual feast, it says something, it promotes their reflection and their remembrance and provokes thanksgiving to God for their deliverance and for his bountiful provision, for his protecting them, because he kept them alive. And by these formal times of thanksgiving, God sanctified his people.
Each and every observance required propitiatory sacrifices to atone for their sins, to cover over their sins, that allowed them to draw near to God, to offer sacrifices of praise, and to worship him out of love from the heart. What Israel, what the Jews failed to realize is this, that that backward look was also meant to prompt a forward look.
The physical observance was intended to signify a spiritual need and a reality that they needed sacrifices to deal fully and finally with their sins, to provide a full salvation, to bring them into God’s pattern of work and rest, productivity and refreshment, and that, Paul says, that is what has come in Christ.
So if we have no further need to continue observances of any religious calendar, let alone the best observances, biblical observances of the Jewish calendar, since all rest and refreshment are met in Christ, then all of this preparatory fasting that the false teachers are promoting, all this religious calendar observance with the false teachers were demanding, that all goes out the window as well.
Listen, this is a problem in all the places that Paul visited, because it was by controlling the religious calendar that the Pagan priests and now these false teachers, it’s how they control the people as well. When you think about it, it’s a pretty powerful thing, isn’t it, to direct the times and the seasons for a people.
Pretty powerful thing to control the calendar and command people’s consciences by a calendar to govern their weeks, months, years, for individuals, for families, for entire nations. Daniel praised God in Daniel 2:21, because he recognized that God, and God alone has the sovereign prerogative and authority and power to set the times and the seasons.
He thinks of God as the creator who made all things for man’s good, in his own glory, and he set times in the calendar. But then in Daniel 7:25 we find that it is the Antichrist, who will intend, to make changes in seasons and in law.
The beast seeks to control the calendar, to govern weeks and months and years, to control nations, families, individuals. He wants total, complete control and that is exactly what Paul is confronting and exposing here as the nature of these false teachers, as a telltale sign of what animates their practices.
He talks about here, what’s at stake in dietary control, talks about what’s at stake truly in the religious pressure of fasting and the social pressure of controlling the religious calendar. Paul wants these Phrygian Gentiles, just like the Galatian Gentiles to their East, Paul wants these Colossians, the Phrygians in the Lycus Valley of Laodicea, Hierapolis, as well. He wants them to see that all these Judaizing tendencies and all these false converts to Christ and all these false teachers, listen, they’re living in the shadows.
They’re not living by the substance of Christ. They’re grabbing on and trying to hold on to something that is elusive and fading and passing. They’re trying to make much of that. He told the Galatians this, but now having known God, or rather “having been known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you want to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years.”
That’s a more abstract way of saying the same thing he said in Colossians 2:16, And he says, “I fear for you,” I fear for you. So why would any Christian give in to this pressure? What explains the attraction to return to this kind of slavery? Well, for one thing, these practices have the appearance of self-control and self-discipline, but because of the social and cultural pressures to conform to these dietary or preparatory or calendar observances, we have to understand that whatever is enforced upon you from the outside and created by social pressure, cultural pressure, it’s actually rooted in the flesh.
It’s rooted in the fear of man. And so you might find it hard to believe, but it is surprisingly easy to conform oneself to these social norms, to give oneself over to ritualistic observance, appearing religious on the outside where others can see, where you can virtue signal, where you can posture and present and front up. That is far easier than the practice of true religion, because true religion happens on the inside, comes out on the outside.
But it happens on the inside; it comes forth from the heart, a heart that only God can see and know. So yeah, you can make a good show in public by your ritualistic observance, by your fasting, by your preparatory things, by your calendar observances, but the realities in Christ and Christ goes to the heart and deals with the issues of the heart.
Practically, there was also a good for the Colossians and really for anybody who succumbs to these things in a society, in a culture, it’s practically to participate in the in-vogue religion in any given culture that allows you to do what everybody else does to make connections.
It provides opportunities, opens up business opportunities, allows for social advancement. Gets your family connected, get your kids known by the other parents in the neighborhood and all the coaches and everybody else, and you can then have opportunities to advance, to prosper. Get your kids into a good college, education, money; that’s going on in their day too. Same thing as ours.
Some of you may still be thinking though, good thing we don’t have this problem today. You might want to think again because this pertains to what we live with every single day. Consider who it is or what it is, that exercises the most influence and authority over the schedule and determines the calendar.
You know what religious practice dominates our country, don’t you? What determines times and seasons for Americans? A big mystery. What season are we in now? Wrapping up basketball season, or, if you prefer, hockey season. Now that the Avalanches aren’t there, you’re not paying any attention to it, I know. In the middle of baseball season right now, right? Some are salivating already over the start of football season.
These are determinative over how we think about the calendar and about the year. And you just assume it. You’re unaware. You’re like a fish swimming in water that doesn’t feel wet. So you too, swimming through this culture, don’t feel how American your religion is and how much it determines your thinking, how much it encroaches upon your thinking.
You know, what else determines our calendar. I’m not saying all these things are inherently evil, okay, but be on your guard, because they can be. They can lead to great compromise. Politics, also very religious in this country, every two years, every four years. Where’s all our attention devoted? Where’s all our angst developed from? Politics. Talking heads on TV, media, radio, whatever, it’s religion.
Every two years, every four years, we’re tempted to put all of our faith in man and vote in, the next Prince who’s going to provide for every man his vine and every man his fig tree. You know, it also determines the seasons, education, school years. We just submit, succumb to it.
Now, I’m not saying go rebel against everything in your culture. I’m not trying to tell you that. But listen, there is a lot of money wrapped up in our religious practices. There’s a lot of control that is exerted over families, a lot of intrusion into the hearts and minds of people over communities, and sadly I’ll say over many so-called churches as well. Even good churches, faithful churches, even our church.
We too can feel the same pressures and we don’t even know where it’s coming from. Listen, don’t let anyone judge you. Don’t let anyone take you to task for bucking the national idolatries to live for freedom in Jesus Christ, because it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
So therefore, keep standing firm and do not subject yourself again to a yoke of slavery. Do not let the world intrude and set the agenda for your calendar and determine your times and seasons and weeks and months and years. Live not in the shadows. Live instead in the reality of Christ.
Listen when outward observance is prominent, when religious observance, and ritual, and rite is at the forefront, and especially when it seems to have scriptural support, like Israel’s calendar or when people appear, even in our own time, not following Jewish calendar observance, when they appear to understand great depths of theology, which others do not seem to understand. The practical attraction of false teaching that enters into the Church is in feeding human pride. That’s what’s going on. The practice is its own reward.
That’s what Jesus said of the hypocrites in his own day. “Truly, they’ve received their reward in full.” So beware, beloved, do not cave in to these judgements and pressures. Command in verse 16, can be as mild as, let no one take you to task. Don’t let anybody wag their finger in your face. Don’t let anybody give you that look. You know what I’m talking about. That look of disapproval or scorn or condemnation or how dare you.
Anything that exerts pressure, anything that makes you feel inferior, out of touch, don’t let anyone condemn you, either. When false teachers emphasize form over substance, you can be sure pride is at work. And pride always has a blinding effect, which features in our second point, which talks about the theological errors that Paul points out in verses 18 and 19.
Number two: False teachers walk in the darkness. False teachers walk in the darkness. He says, “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize,” and the warning in verse 8, against those who want to take you captive, carry you off as spoil, that’s in verse 8.
But beyond the enslavement of captivity, beyond being taken as spoil in war, it means, “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize.” This indicates a very significant personal loss. To defraud you of your prize is built from root word, brabeuos, which means umpire.
Interestingly, Paul uses a shorter version of this same verb in Colossians 3:15. It’s brabeuo, where he says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Brabeuo, let the peace of Christ act as the umpire in your hearts. Don’t let these false teachers do it. Which master do you want? Which umpire? Which one you want calling balls and strikes?
On the one hand, don’t let the false teachers act as your umpire. Don’t let them call balls and strikes on your life. Don’t let them arbitrate, set the rules, tell you you’re disqualified, that you can’t advance as a Christian, that you’ll somehow miss out on something that is in the inner circle. You won’t.
On the other hand, you’re to let the peace of Christ have that role as a gracious umpire in your heart according to peace, a peace that is informed by truth and by righteousness. Let the peace of Christ call the balls and strikes. Let him arbitrate, assure you of what you’re qualified for, direct your advancement in the practice of your religion.
Continuing on, let no one keep defrauding you of your prize. Don’t let anybody try to disqualify you, tell you’re not qualified, tell you you can’t have everything, that you don’t have fullness in Christ. Don’t let that happen. “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement” or the word humility, “and the worship of the 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.” You can stop there.
And we have come in verse 18 to a notoriously contested verse in this letter, and probably the verse with the greatest divergent of opinion, as to the exact interpretation of it. That said, I’ll just say it is less consequential to figure out exactly what Paul is addressing in these teachers and where it is all coming from, what gave rise to it. It’s less consequential to figure all that out, then to gain discernment, and take his caution, because you can do that, with what’s written here.
And he identifies four features of the false teachers, four features of the false teachers by which he intends to disqualify them from disqualifying you. He wants to put these false teachers in the right light. He wants us to see what’s at the heart of their attempts to disqualify us. And when we do, we will never again pay them any mind.
So you want to be set free? Take notes. That’s not a command to rule your consciences, by the way, I’m not trying to enslave you, yet again, to taking notes. If it helps you to take notes, write it down. Let me just state the four features, and then I’ll circle back to organize them, and then we’ll kind of walk through them.
Feature number one, it’s the source of their delight. Feature number two, the ground of their confidence. Feature number three, the source of their boldness. And feature number four, the tragedy of their condition. The first of these four features, their delight, their confidence, their boldness. These have to do with what they pursue, what they love, what’s in it for them, what they’re really after. The final feature is about what they’re forfeiting in the process, what they’re giving up to gain, which you and I, along with the Colossians, want nothing to do with.
So feature number one, the source of their delight, self-abasement and the worship of the angels, that is to say they’re taking pleasure in these things, which is why they’re devoted to them, because they delight in them, because they’re carnal people. First, they delight in self-abasement and, as I said, it’s less of a translation of the word tapeinophrosynē, it literally means humility.
So it gives kind of, by self-abasement, this translator has given their interpretation of this word, but it literally refers to humility and it’s not entirely clear how Paul wants us to understand this word. Is he talking about an attitude of the heart or is he talking about a description of what they practice practically? This the Colossians certainly knew.
They understood exactly what Paul was talking about. They could look at the word on the page and see the false teacher out the window. And they said, yep, that’s exactly it. They saw it in living color. Watch these false teachers walking around in flesh and blood. They knew exactly what Paul is identifying, we’re at a little bit more of a distance.
So in their practice of their religion, they either, they’re delighted in some kind of a faux humility, kind of like this sanctimonious way of talking and how they would kind of lilt through life, carrying themselves with manners of Eastern monks.
Or maybe he’s referring back to the practices of verse 16 and then scrolling ahead, maybe he’s talking about the humiliation and how they treat their body, severe treatment of the body, strict asceticism, as they mortify natural desires like eating food and drinking wine and the like, as they prepare for their worship.
In either case, pride is driving them, but it’s covered over and cloaked in humility. The delight is in what they themselves accomplish by their own works. They also delight, Paul says, in the worship of the angels, which is clearly not a feature of Judaism and it’s hard to see how this form of idolatry, clarity about who the angels are as created beings, how it sprang up from any other source, because these Gentiles believed in the elementary principles of the world, and they believed there was a God, that was connected to everything.
Earth, wind, water, all those, fire, all those things had gods attached to them and so somehow they’ve learned, oh, the angels are important. Maybe we have got it wrong all these years and it’s really the angels who are governing all these things.
These Gentiles evidently had moved from worshipping Phrygian, Greco, Roman deities to worshipping angels. So is this an improvement? Yeah. They’ve moved from fiction to reality. Angels, yeah, they’re creatures; at the very least, they’re real beings. The entire Pagan pantheon is a mere myth. It’s total fiction, but it’s not any better because they’ve just simply shifted the focus of their idolatry.
They’re just worshipping something else. Paul uses the word thrēskeia referring to rituals, liturgy, ceremonies that are practice among aberrant cults. That’s the word he just translated, worship of the angels, thrēskeia. It’s how they showed their honor to the deity or to the angels. It’s how they showed honor to an emperor. It’s how they showed honor to a dead relative, an ancestor, or in this case, to angels.
Whatever the case, the false teachers just love what they do. They delight in it. They delight in what they practice. They enjoy the homage that they offer, as it engages their intellect, feeds their pride, serves the purpose of portraying them to everybody else, as holy, connected to the divine, appeasing subordinate deities of the great divine, these angels.
Years ago I read the biography of Thomas Oden. Thomas Oden for decades was a liberal theologian, but he was converted in his 40s to Christianity, to truth, and he described that time of reading, studying, promoting false doctrines. He described it as, and he used this word, “intoxicating,” he said, “I loved the fantasies. I love the revolutionary illusions. I truly love them. I loved heresy.” That’s the kind of passion that Paul describes here about the false teachers, the intoxicatingly addictive thrill of intellectualism.
Intellectual transgression is the very worst damning of all transgressions, because they delight in and take pleasure in what’s going on in their own minds. Hard to free them from it, because the the walls that create a barrier between you and their intellect is their pride. The likes of you, you’re not going to get through. You don’t have the intellectual firepower, the heft. You haven’t read what they’ve read, you haven’t heard what they’ve heard, you haven’t thought about what they’ve thought about. And so there is no undoing them.
Some people like to dredge up old feudal biblically basis speculation, taking new delight in what has been studied, critiqued, rightly discarded. New delight in it that happened during this time. There’s a whole system of angelic hierarchy that was developed among the Jews and really probably spread over here to Anatolia, the Asia Minor continent, now modern-day Turkey.
The false teachers just love what they do. They delight in it. They delight in what they practice.” Travis Allen
But that whole area was saturated with this kind of stuff. It’s pretty captivating. We have our own versions of it in our own time as people get deep, deep into theology, whether it’s the early Church fathers or whether it’s medieval scholasticism or whether it’s the Reformation or whether it’s the Puritan time. You know what? You can take pride and intellectualism in anything. You can turn what was meant for good, as God did with these sacrifices and these annual feasts; he gave it to Israel for their good, and they turned into a source of pride. Anybody can do that.
Feature number two of the false teachers has to do with the ground of their confidence. The ground of their confidence, it says, “going into great detail about the visions he has seen.” Literally, that which he has seen refers to actual visions, the claim of some kind of a spiritual experience, some kind of a sensational of the numinous, some kind of experiential personal encounter, that much we can discern.
The real tricky part comes in the participle that follows, which comes from the verb, embateuō, basically meaning to step in, or to step on, or to set foot upon, or to stand on. What does he mean by that? It’s a bit harder to figure out the sense of it, to find out, that when you survey some of the translations that try to interpret this verse or try to render this verse.
The CSB translation says, “claiming access to a visionary realm,” it’s different. The ESV, LSB, which I’ve read, in the NIV, if I kind of combine all three of those, “going on in great detail about visions he has seen” or “take great delight in visions he has seen.” The NET, “he goes into great lengths about what he has supposedly seen,” which is casting doubt on the veracity of his visions. The NAS translation, “taking his stand on visions he has seen.” We can add complexity to these grammatical matters by going into the historical religious backdrop that may provide some context here.
The practices of Pagan worship that dominated the region for millennia, which may well be in the Colossian mind as they read this verb, embateuō, this verb in particular. It was West of Colossae, one hundred miles West of Colossae was Ephesus. And if you go up the coast a little bit, follow the coastline, you get to an ancient temple in a place called Klaros; ancient from the historical standpoint of the Colossians themselves, because this ancient temple had been there for 1000 years.
It’s a temple dedicated to Apollo, son of Zeus. Inscriptions are found at the temple site, three of them in particular, found today and they apply the same verb, embateuō, and it’s talking about those who enter into the oracular chamber. So its initiates, who get past the initiation and they are now able to enter into the Chamber of the Oracle, that is to receive a prophecy.
This word describes that. The prophet Apollo, he gave sought after prophecy to the worshipper and it was said, to enter into that chamber and it uses this verb, which is really not a common verb. So some people think that used those inscriptions and formed the historical religious background here very well could because this worship of Apollo, very widespread especially in this Anatolia region.
Those who came to petition Apollo at Klaros, they prepared themselves by fasting, abstaining from food and drink. The petitioners came, they waited at the temple entrance while the prophet, in this case a male prophet, which is not always common to the Pagan religions. Often times it was a female, like the Oracle at Delphi. But here it’s a man prophet.
He enters alone into one of the subterranean rooms that are located directly beneath the temple, and he enters into pitch black darkness. They could have brought light in there, but the darkness was important. There’s a source that sets the scene for us, says these prophecies were performed during the full moon, illuminated by torchlight, accompanied by seven young girls and boys swinging Laurel leaves and singing hymns and all that was going on around the temple, in the environment of the temple.
But the prophet, he entered into this dark subterranean chamber, drank water from the sacred well, believed to be the tears of Monto, causing his eyes not to function, becoming intentionally blind in the drinking of the water from the sacred well. And it was in a state of darkness and blindness that he posed the petitioner’s question.
Whatever question was given to him, he posed the question to Apollo and then waited on the vision to come. One source wrote, “Once his physical eyes closed, his soul opened to divine revelation. So puns receiving the vision, he then turned and whispered the answer to the attending priest, and the attending priest turned to the attending scribe and had him record the prophecy that came by the vision. And then the scribe delivered the recorded prophecy back to the petitioner who had paid his money and done his sacrifice and all the rest.”
Now that describes the temple of Apollo at Klaros in western Anatolia, active for about 1000 years prior to Paul, but still active during Paul’s lifetime. So it’s still setting a pattern and an influence for Pagan worship throughout Anatolia. And that included the Phrygian Gentiles in the Lycus Valley and people further east too, all the way into the Galatian regions.
There were temples serving the Apollo cult in Laodicea and in Hierapolis, but there were temples to other deities as well. There were lots of secretive mystery religions, rituals for trade guilds, military veterans, all sorts of strange practices in this region; mix in Judaism, you have quite a stew brewing there, don’t you?
So whether this term, embateuō means, to step into, as into, investigate the visions he’s seen, or whether refers to the initiatory right of the petitioner who himself then goes in and partakes of receiving this prophecy, stepping into that oracular chamber, if you will. Or maybe this verb means that he is taking such a deep ownership of his vision and is claiming spiritual superiority over others. Due to this vaunted religious experience.
Whatever the case, all of this bolsters a heart of pride and puffs him up and pushes him further and further away from Christ. This issue of puffing up, we see this in a feature number three. Feature number three, the source of their boldness. He’s being puffed up for nothing by his fleshly mind.
Puffed up for nothing. And what’s the source? Nothing. There’s nothing there. There’s no validity to the vision. Even if he had some experience, it’s nothing. It amounts to nothing. It proves nothing. All it does is fill him with a sense of self-importance. All it does is fill his lungs with hot air, which he breathes out through false lips and uses it to intimidate others by his supposed superiority.
Sadly, that hot air doesn’t pass out of his body without affecting and addling his brain, his mind. Paul refers to his fleshly mind literally, by the mind of his flesh, means although he’s deeply spiritual, he’s in actuality totally carnal. He’s entirely thoroughly fleshly. He may be very sincere about his doctrine, but he is utterly and completely self-deceived and blinded by his own pride.
Very fascinating expression here, that his mind, his thinking, his reasoning is affected by his sensuality, his feelings of pride, his self-importance. He delights in what he thinks he knows. He thinks he gets it, that he understands all, and nobody else gets it. So the more lost he becomes, as a blind man who gropes in the darkness, or like that blind prophet of Apollo, he doesn’t realize that his enlightenment is blindness.
The light that he thinks he has darkens his soul. Paul says in Romans 8 verse 6, “The mind set on the flesh is death”. That’s what these are, prophets of death, prophets of darkness, walking in the darkness, living in their blindness and their pride.
So it’s no wonder that they find comfort in rituals, things that they can touch and feel, observances, things they can see, signs they can see, rituals they can practice. This is not true of Christians, for, “the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” Colossians 3:15 says, the peace of Christ is the only arbiter of your hearts.
Feature number four, to the false teachers, final one very quickly, the tragedy of their true condition. The tragedy of their true condition. It’s that they don’t hold fast to the head. They’re not holding fast to the head. Then this in verse 19, “not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and the ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God.”
Remember how I said the first three features, what they delight in, what the confidence is in, where the boldness comes from; these are the things that they pursue. Those are the things that they love. That’s what they’re after. That’s what’s in it for them. But tragically, the more they pursue those things, the farther they move from Christ, the head, the vital connection to his body, which is the church.
We’re going to pick it up there next time. But let me leave you with this thought, dear Christian. Don’t let anyone intimidate you. Don’t let them judge you, defraud you, make you feel less than. Don’t let them coerce your conscience. Don’t be intimidated when they try to parade their spirituality before you or their knowledge. A lot of that going around or their theology, exposure to church history, the podcast that they listen to, the people that they’re tapped into, the circles that they’re a part of, the sub stack group that they’re listening to and getting their stuff from.
Don’t let anybody intimidate you, whatever their religious devotion is, whatever their practices are, whatever it is. If you’re in Christ and if his Spirit is in you, and if you’ve been circumcised by the circumcision of Christ, and if you’ve been baptized and buried with him in baptism and death and raised with him to new life.
If all your sins are forgiven, because God took that certificate, that handwriting of blame against you, and the empowered by the ordinances and the decrees of the law that condemned you as guilty. And he took that and he nailed it to the cross of wood, in Christ and he forgave you of all your transgressions. You are not on the outside of some supposed inner circle.
You couldn’t be more inside, because the third person of the Triune God lives in you. You couldn’t be more connected than you are right now. You couldn’t be any closer to Christ. He’s the substance, he’s the reality. He’s your future, your present. He is the one who dealt with your past and buried it.
In him is eternal life and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, so don’t you go anywhere, beloved. Don’t wander away from this to join the false teachers. You watch out for them because they’re here. They’re out there. You resist any attempt at spiritual intimidation or pressure or looking down on you. You know the looks I’m talking about. You know the attitudes I’m talking about. You could feel it in their presence.
You just keep holding fast to the head from whom that entire body being supplied and held together by the joints and the ligaments, that is receiving its form and its shape and its connection and its vitality. It grows with the growth that comes from God. You just be patient, because God is doing a good work and you, he will complete it in the day of Christ.
You’re full in Christ. You have all belonging, you have deep communion, you have full forgiveness of sins, you enjoy life giving power that transforms you day by day, week by week, month by month, all through the calendar year into the image of God in Christ. You have it all, so believe and never let it go. Let’s pray.
Our Father, what a great salvation you have given to us in Christ, and what a great savior, what great accomplishments are found in him, his work, what beauty in his person, what beauty in his holiness. And we know that even though we are not yet what we shall be, we know that “when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we will finally and in one glance see Him as He is.” Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he’s pure.
So let the knowledge of this truth, this eschatological future that you’ve set for us, let this encourage us every single day, as we think about how secure we are, how well protected we are, how provided for we are, all in Christ. Let us fix our hope completely on him and let that drive us to a day-by-day obedience as the peace of Christ rules in our hearts. And father, we look to you and by your Spirit, by your word, and by the leadership in the lordship of Jesus Christ, who is such a a good and kind master.
We pray that you would protect these people, that you would not let anyone judge them and not let anyone intimidate, defraud, disqualify them, not one bit. But we pray that you would do it, not by some exceptional act, not by some extraordinary means, but by the ordinary means of grace as they continue to attend to your Word, to pray, to read your word, to memorize the Scripture, to meditate on it, and reflect on it.
That you would strengthen them day by day, keep them deeply rooted, stable, steadfast in Christ, and always abounding in the work of the Lord. Let them see your good work in their lives by transforming them, setting them free every single day from sins, helping them to mortify, but also to vivify the graces and the virtues of the Spirit. I pray that you encourage our hearts that way. Never let us go. Help us to keep our eyes open, to be discerning Christians who protect one another. For your glory we pray in Christ’s name, Amen.