Colossians 2:19-23

Pelloshans chapter 2. I want you to read verses 18 to 23. Our focus is on 19 through 23 this morning. Let no man be gow you of your reward in a voluntary humility in worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which you have not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ, from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using, after the commandments and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom in that will worship and humility and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this morning. In our society, kidnapping has become very prevalent. It’s one of the common realities that we have in life. Sometimes people are kidnapped for profit. Terrorists kidnap people and demand a ransom for them in order to fund their terrorist operations. Others are kidnapped for using them in the sex trade or for, like, sexual predators for their own pleasure. Still others kidnapped children in order to sell them on the black market, and, to those who wish to adopt and on and on we could go about the kidnapping issues. All kidnapping is considered in God’s side a great evil, and according to God’s law, it was punishable by death. Paul speaks of a kind of kidnapping, spiritual kidnapping, if you would, which takes place in the religious realm. In verse 8 of this chapter, he said, Beware, lest any man spoil you or take you captive. after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Religious deceivers want to bring you under their power and dictate what you will believe and what you will do or how you behave. The seriousness of the matter, as Paul indicates, is that they could defraud you of your eternal reward, cheat you out of heaven, or at least that’s what they’re attempting to do. Verse 18. The last part of chapter 2 is really a summary and a conclusion to what Paul has already spoken about, so I’m looking at it as one section here this morning. A lot of this is sort of an overview of what he’s already talked about in this chapter. But let me begin by saying this. don’t let yourself be separated from the head, Jesus Christ. You’ll notice verse 19, and not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases with the increase of God. Now, all false teaching leads to your separation from Christ. That is what it does. Our text speaks about a head and a body. body. And if you hadn’t read the earlier part of the chapter, you might be confused or the early part of the epistle. But in chapter 1 in verse 18, we read, and he, Jesus Christ, is the head of the body, the church. So the head is Jesus Christ. The body that’s spoken of here, of course, is the church. And the danger of false teachers who may not openly reject or deny Christ is that they seek to lure you away from him as the soul means of salvation. They don’t want you rooted and grounded in Christ. They desire you to seek other helps, other means of salvation. So Christ jealously guards its position as the head and the Savior of the church. He’s not going to permit anyone to share in that office. And we must not allow either saints or angels or popes or anyone else to entreat. into this mediatorial office of Jesus Christ, because that puts us at a further distance from Christ. It puts us a step away from Christ by allowing someone else to be placed in that position. And we begin to separate from Christ, who is our true high priest. These interlopers would steal the glory due to the Lord. And so their teaching would lead you astray. So they ought to be shunned and avoided. by all those who have a regard for Christ as the head of the church. Now, your union with Christ is essential, he tells us in this verse, to your life, unity, and growth. Paul illustrates the effects of Christ ahead by comparing his relationship to the church as to that of a body. Now, each part of your body lives and functions only because of its connection with the head. If the body is separated from the head, it dies. If any part of the body is separated from the head, it ends up dying. The head is connected to the various parts of the body by arteries and nerves and veins and so forth. In the head, it seems, by electrical impulses, governs and controls, the organs and the glands and so forth of the body. The brain can tell you. your feet to run and your arms to reach and your eyes to open and so forth. The various muscles and ligaments band together the body parts so that the body is unified. If you’ve seen a skeleton, you know that you have all these bones, but connected to the bones is all these ligaments and things that allow for the movement and the function of the body. body. Now when he talks about all the body here, he means the whole universal body of Christ or the mystical church, if you would, the universal church. The joints and the bands are what connect you to Christ and to the other members of his body. Now, the joints he indicates to us involve nourishment, whereas the bands seem to involve being knit together. The one has to do with the nourishment we receive from the Lord. The other has to do with the knitting together we have with other believers in Christ, who are in the body of Christ. How are you connected to the head by these joints? Well, how are we connected so that we are nourished? Well, by the Holy Spirit. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And it’s through the spirit that we have the various graces given to us. Faith, we are connected. This is another band or joint that we have. I am the bread of life, Christ says. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. So that our hunger and thirst is provided by this connection we have with Christ by faith. Now the bonds here relate to being knit together with other members of the body of Christ. Again, one way that is done is by the Spirit. Or by one spirit, we are all baptized in the one body. And it’s also done by love, which is one of the graces of the Spirit. Notice chapter 2 of verse 2 of chapter 2 of Colossians, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love. And so how are, you know, one of the reasons. that were brought together is the love by the work of the Spirit of God. Now, while you are united to Christ ahead, nourished and knit together by love, the whole body of the church enjoys, he tells us here, the increase of God. The growth of the church universal is said to be of God. God is the one who adds to the church. He causes its growth and its development, first in reference. to size. The elect people are brought to salvation from all nations and added to the church. And second, in reference to spiritual progress. The spiritual growth of the Christian in faith and love and unity and so forth and holiness is also called the increase of God in 1 Corinthians 3.6. Now let me make this practical observation here. Growth and unity. increase spiritually is required of members of the Church of Christ. Because he talks here about the head and the body, and then he talks about the increase that is expected. If we’re connected to the head, if we’re connected to the body, then we should expect God to give increase. God expects you, as a believer, therefore, to increase and grow in spiritual knowledge, in faith, in patience, in love, and the other graces. This is the sure consequence of being united to the head, Jesus Christ, being knit together with other believers by love. We cannot be satisfied just with being saved, just as if we have some type of fire insurance from hell. You must progress and get beyond being a spiritual infant. You know, in a natural realm, if a baby fails to grow and develop, something’s drastically wrong. And, you know, you’re taking the child to the doctor early on for the checkups to make sure all the development of the child is correct. In the spiritual realm, if you’re not growing in grace, you need a spiritual checkup. And, of course, Christ, the great physician, is the one that we ought to go to. and to see what is wrong. So don’t let yourself be separated from the head. That’s a key factor he tells us here from this verse 19. The second point that he makes here, don’t let yourself be subjected to legal regulations. Now, notice verses 20 through 22 here. Wherefore, if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men. Now the first thing is that Christ has freed you from these legal regulations. Paul has already shown that Christ has freed us from all the ceremonial regulations as New Testament believers of the law. What he classified, here are the rudiments of the world. And remember we looked at that word rudiments of the world from verse 8. The rudiments are the elementary things, such as the ABCs, what you teach children. And that’s how God taught the Old Testament believers. It was like giving a picture book in all the different ceremonies and even in the dietary regulations and the holy days. All these were picture books. to teach, prepare them for the work of Christ. These are the rudiments of the world that have to do with material or earthly things. These earthly things were to illustrate spiritual realities, but they were carnal ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Paul has previously said that the ceremonial law ordinances were nailed to the cross of Christ in verse 14 of this chapter, blotting out the handwriting of the ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. You’ve been set free from the ceremonial regulations by the work of Christ, and particularly by his death. His death was foreshadowed and then fulfilled, you see, in these various things, when he came, he fulfilled what was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Now, if we’re freed from God-given ceremonies and ordinances, are you not even more liberated from any instituted by men? You notice the last part of verse 22. He talks about after the commandments and doctrines of men, any man-made doctrine, surely if we’re not having to observe those that were in the law any longer as far as those regulations, of course, they were fulfilled in Christ, surely, then we don’t have to obey any man-made regulations, he says. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Don’t be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. You know, in Pilgrance Progress, Christian and hopeful are fooled by a man named the flatterer, and they’re taken in by him that he’s going to take them to the celestial city, that he knows the way, and they start following him. but slowly by degrees they notice they’re getting turned around and they’re actually heading in the opposite direction from the celestial city. Before they knew it, he had led them into a place where they got entangled in a net and they couldn’t get away, and he abandoned them and laughed at them. Until a shining one came along, they were entrapped, and the shining one comes along and frees them. And he tells them, it’s the flatterer, a false praterer, prophet who had entrapped them. They failed to be on guard against him. They got entrapped. Don’t be entrapped here by all these regulations that men would put upon you. Christ has freed you from these legal regulations. Now, you should realize the tyranny of those who would subject you to legal regulations here. The saying of verse 21, does touch not, taste not, handle, not shows you what these false teachers do, how they regulate you with regard to meats or foods. The first of these free words are frequently used to signify touch, but the Greeks also use to signify eat. Since in order to distinguish this first word from the third word, handle, I think we’re better off to take the word as eat, the first. part here. This seems to be the best way to understand this whole section. In this way, you see the progress of the tyranny of these legalists. You’re forbidden to eat certain foods that may be in your common diet. He says, you can’t eat these things. Then you must not even taste them. Can’t even sample them. And then finally, you’re forbidden to even touch them. And so we see a progress aggression here in this. What starts out as a restriction on meat, eventually comes to be a great evil just to even touch it. There’s no end to the legal observances that men will put you onto and the restrictions that they will bring upon you. It never seems to be enough. Kelvin put it this way. They tie you up at the beginning that they may strangle you afterwards. So first they tie you up and then they actually up strangling you in the end. Ceremonial ordinances are like a labyrinth. And you become totally bewildered. You cannot escape them. You see how Satan uses such common everyday things to lay a snare before us. He uses food. Now think about this. First he tempt you to overeat, to become gluttonous, to give way to your appetite and not keep it in check to some extent. On the other hand, he tempts you to self-righteousness. Oh, you can be made holy by your diet. And so he undermines the work of Christ. So you see the screen, both ends here. He’s using something common to undermine us in one way or another. Just look at Lent as it’s promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, the chief example of food restrictions that we have today, probably, leading to a self-righteous attitude that we can gain the favor of God. Paul’s comment on this legal motto is which all are to perish with the using, he says here. Foods are perishable commodities. They perish in the eating of them. They’re only serviceable to your body. Even if you restricted yourself to only those foods permitted by the legalist, How can it actually benefit your soul in the long run? Foods relate to this present life. They cease with it. What influence can they have regarding your spiritual and eternal concerns? As Paul says elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 613, Meats for the belly and belly for the meats, but God shall destroy both it and them. Or as he says in 1 Corinthians 8A, Meek commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not, are we the worse? So, you know, whether you strain or whether you eat, those things are not really commending us to God. When a man goes forth and tries to say that you can be holy by doing this or that and the other with regard to food, we see the danger that is in it here. When is man going to learn? It’s foolish to seek righteousness or holiness and something frail. earthly and corruptible as food. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, Romans 1417. You should use all things for the appointed end for which God has set them. Food relates to your body. Ultimately, it cannot make your soul holy or righteous. Even when we come to the Lord’s Supper, The bread and the cup in and of themselves as food cannot benefit your soul. There’s nothing supernatural in the food or the drink that merely by eating it somehow or other you will become holy. No, your faith must look beyond the cup and the bread to what they symbolize regarding Christ’s death for your soul to be benefited. The bread remains bread, the grape juice remains grape juice. Don’t think otherwise. There’s nothing special about that. We’re looking beyond the material food here on the table to what is symbolized by. That’s how our faith is benefited in how we are nourished and strengthened spiritually. People sometimes think, well, I’ve got to have the Lord’s supper. If you’re a little bit of it, if you’re all, only coming to the Lord’s supper and you think just by eating it somehow it’s going to benefit you, then you’re missing the point of the Lord’s supper. You’re only benefited when you take it in faith and you’re looking to what it symbolizes and how Christ is spiritually present to fellowship with you at the table. That’s how we’re benefited. So you should realize that tear any of those who would subject you these legal regulations. Now only by the commandments and doctrines of men can you be put under these legal ordinances. Verse 22, he says, which are all to perish with the using, after the commandments and doctrines of men. Since the Old Testament ceremonial laws and regulations have been fulfilled in Christ, no one can actually put you under them. If they try to put you under them, it’s by the doctrine of men. It’s not by the commandment of God any longer. And so any of these other food regulations that come up, that has to also be seen as the doctrines of men. God condemns Israel for this very thing. He says in Isaiah 2913, their fear toward me is taught by the precepts of men. As if this is, you know, my whole worship is going to depend on man coming up with these doctrines. God alone retains the right to determine what pertains to religion. religion and worship. I like what Deuteronomy 128 and 32 says. Ye shall not do every man whatever is right in his own eyes. Whatsoever thing I command you observe to do it, thou shalt not add to thereto nor diminish from it. Don’t listen to men. Listen to me. Listen to my commandments regarding these things. Think about it. If man could make a man. up commandments. The problem you’re going to have is that you have commandments that be contrary to one another because one man thinks one thing and one man thinks something else. Listen carefully of the Word of God. In vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men? Matthew 1519. In vain, they worship me if they use the commandments of men. Charles Head and Spurgeon’s once related that an old naturalist Ulysses and Rivaldis, reported a curious incident. He said that a dove is so afraid of a hawk that she will be frightened at the mere sight of a single hawk feather. In the same manner, you and I should always be frightened, alarmed at the first sight of the church imposing man-made commandments and doctrines. It’s a dangerous thing. Obey what God. God commands, but no, give no credence to the commandments of men. It’s often vain, and it often is in opposition to what God teaches in his word. So don’t let yourself be subjected to legal regulations. Here is a summary of what he’s already said. The third point he makes is this. Don’t be fooled by the mere appearance of spiritual wisdom. Verse 23, which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will worship and humility and neglecting of the Lord of wisdom. the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. They should realize this is all vain show is what Paul says here. All the legalists propose has a show of wisdom to it, an outward demonstration of it. It appears on the surface to be beneficial and useful to your soul. It appeals to your soul. the people as a way to gain God’s favor, as a way to make you holy. But there’s no reality to it. So you shouldn’t be deceived. He says by these outward appearances of so-called holiness when inward reality is absent. Now, you’ll hold your place here, but look at Matthew chapter 23 a minute. This perfectly, I think, captures the idea of Paul here. This is what? Jesus said to the scribes and the Pharisees, Matthew 23, verses 25 to 28. Woe and you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. This is what Paul is basically saying here. The people can make it look like. they’re righteous. They can appear to be righteous in what they’re doing. They put on this outward show. But he says the truth of the matter is inwardly they’re still corrupt and they’re still evil. They’re not dealing with what is really important to be holy before God. Paul sums this all up and he shows the area where there’s a veins shell. He says in will worship, this is self-invented worshiped, based on human ideas and traditions. He says in humility, and here he means a show of false humility, such as the worship of angels and making your countenance sad during fasting and so forth, a show of it. And he says the neglect of the body. Here there are people who excessively abstain from food or maybe sleep for days on end. or there’s the whipping and the flogging of the body, or maybe the cutting or the mutilation of the body of some sort that takes place. Friends, much of what passes for so-called godliness is a mere show is what is seen in scripture. As Jesus said, it is all to be seen of men that you might receive honor of men. He says, all you’re doing is just to be seen of men. that’s what Jesus told the Pharisees. The Roman Catholic Church puts on a pompous show in this regard. They seek to parade your humility for all to see. Ash Wednesday is a perfect example of this. We’ll put ashes on the forehead. You know, we went to the service and, you know, and it put on this outward show, but really the reality is, is there any change within the heart? No, sadly. People carrying cross. crosses in the streets and even being nailed the crosses. All this is no avail. God rejects all this outward show. This is what he said to Israel and Isaiah 58. Wherefore, or this is what Israel says first, and then we’ll see his response. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou see us not. Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou take us no knowledge. Here we are fasting days on end, and you’re not paying attention, God. And what does God say? Is it such a fast as I have chosen? Gigi at all fast unto me, even to me? You’re fasting for your own ends. You’re fasting for strife and debate and for putting on a show and everything else. You’re not really fasting to me, that’s what he says. When you do these things, as Jesus said, that you may have glory of men, then you have your reward. You got what you wanted. you have the applause of that. So you should realize this is all vain show. All these things are unnecessary. None of them can make you holy. And so it’s not something that’s going to really be beneficial. And then he says you should realize that this all promotes pride. The last part of verse 23 says here, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. Now, it’s acknowledged by many. verse 23, this last phrase, is a very difficult one to interpret and understand. Sadly, all modern translations, at least the ones I consulted, are really paraphrases, and do not give us the actual Greek meaning of the text. Several commentators acknowledge, and I think it’s true, that the King James Version sticks the closest to the Greek here. It doesn’t try to interpret. it, it just tells us what the Greek says. And this is best. For even though we would like to have a more, maybe a more clear statement, I would rather have it more difficult to understand so that we pay more attention to it and ponder it it than for someone to give me their interpretation only and leave us in the dark as to what it actually says in the text. Now, there are many interpretations only. interpretations of this text. There’s many ways of looking at this text. All of them perhaps have some merit. And I could spend a whole sermon just on all the different ways this phrase has been interpreted. But let me just focus when I believe the passage is teaching here. Not in any honor appears here to carry forward the thought of the previous verse with regard to the neglecting of the body. These false teachers do not allow you to give due honor or respect to the body. In other words, to provide for its proper care and nourishing. They cause you to so neglect the body as to actually abuse the body. We talk about the whippings and the flogging and the starving of the body. These were so severe that they actually caused harm to some of the bodies of people. History reports that the monks of Palestine sometimes fasted more than five days at a time and afflicted themselves with so much labors and watchings that they seem to be dead lying unburied upon the ground because of their thinness, their paleness, and they even passed out, and so forth. The Flagallentes, yes, they were Flagallentes back in those days, wondered about beating themselves almost to death and exercised these bloody rites for 33 days before returning home. Scripture teaches you to take the proper care for your body as the temple of the Holy Ghost, right? As something that has been redeemed by Christ, it will be resurrected in the final resurrection. The problem with all this neglect of the body was it was for the purpose of honoring, it was not really for the purpose of honoring God, but rather for the satisfying of the flesh. This refers to pride and conceit as verse 18 seems to indicate to us here, when it says, let no man be gow you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding those things which he have not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. So the sense is they have to do something with. The pride of man. So they’re not really honoring God. They’re not showing true humility. They want a reputation for a superior sanctification, and that’s really what they’re trying to gain. The Flagalentis believed that by bodily abuse, they expiated their sins and became reconciled to God. The Roman Catholic theologian Dominic Soto once stated that, way. To deny that fasting is a work by which we marry eternal life and make satisfaction for our sins is a most manifest error. So they’re thinking that somehow or other they’re earning, at least a part in their salvation by these abusing, this abuse and these various actions against their body. But religious pride spoils everything, and it’s of the devil. This detracts from Christ and from the salvation that he provides. What pride and arrogance is displayed in the idea that you can expiate your own sins by punishing your body in some fashion as though your suffering is equated with Christ’s suffering on the cross. So the real tendency of will worship, a show of humility, and the neglecting of the body is to promote a proud spirit, he says here. This seems to be this situation. So don’t let it. yourself be full by mere appearance of spiritual wisdom. In our society, kidnapping is very prevalent. Paul speaks here about spiritual kidnapping, which false teachers do. They would defraud you of your spiritual liberty in Christ as well as your eternal life if they could. In summarizing all this, Paul says this at the end of chapter 2, don’t let yourself be separated from Christ who is the head. of the church. That’s the key thing. Secondly, don’t let yourself be subjected to these legal regulations, either the Old Testament ceremonial law or man-made rules and regulations. And third, don’t let yourself be fooled by the mere appearance of spiritual wisdom and will worship, false humility, and neglect of the body. Let us close with a word of prayer.