Colossians 2:21

The “therefore” of verse 16 reaches back over everything Paul has just written in Colossians 2:8–15. He has warned the church against “philosophy and vain deceit”, which follows the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world (Colossians 2:8). He has said that in Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) and that believers “are complete in him” (Colossians 2:10). They have been spiritually circumcised, buried with him in baptism and raised with him through faith (Colossians 2:11–12). The handwriting of ordinances that was against us has been blotted out and nailed to the cross, and the spiritual powers have been disarmed (Colossians 2:13–15). Before all this Paul set out the supremacy of Christ as Creator and Sustainer of all things and Head of the church (Colossians 1:15–20), the one in whom “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Since Christ has done and fulfilled all of this, the verdicts of men about what a believer eats or which days he keeps have lost their authority.

The word for judge, krínō, means to distinguish or decide, and by implication to try or condemn. Here it is the condemning verdict of someone who makes himself a spiritual referee over other believers and finds fault with anyone who falls short of his rules.

Paul names two areas where this judging happened. The first is food and drink. “Meat” is brōsis, from a root meaning to eat, and it covers both the act of eating and the food itself. Under the law of Moses this touched the clean and unclean animals (Leviticus 11), and the false teachers may have added food rules of their own. “Drink” may refer to the drink offerings or simply to what people drank. The second area is the calendar. The “holyday” is the yearly feast, such as Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles (Leviticus 23). The “new moon” marked the start of each month with its own offerings (Numbers 28:11–15). The “sabbath days” are the weekly day of rest (Exodus 20:8–11). The Greek sábbaton comes from the Hebrew word for the Sabbath and means the day of rest, and by extension a week. Israel’s Sabbath recalled God’s rest after creation and the people’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt. Yearly, monthly and weekly, the list covers the whole round of Israel’s worship.

God himself gave these observances to Israel under the old covenant. The trouble at Colossae was that teachers were pressing them on Gentile believers as something needed for spiritual perfection, which made Christ’s work look incomplete. Colossae lay in Phrygia, a region where many religious ideas were mingled, and the false teaching there drew together Jewish observances, a harsh discipline of the body, the worship of angels and claims to special visions. Some of it may also have taught that matter itself is evil and must be beaten down. Paul answers every part of it with Christ.

Verse 17 gives the reason for verse 16. “Which” points back to the food, drink and days just listed. They are “a shadow”, skiá, an outline or faint likeness of something real. A shadow has a shape and tells you that something solid stands near, though it has no substance of its own. These observances are a shadow “of things to come”, and the verb méllō speaks of what is about to be, so from the start they looked forward. Then Paul says, “but the body is of Christ.” The little word dé, “but”, sets the two side by side. The body, sōma, is the substance that casts the shadow, the full and solid reality, and that reality is Christ himself.

So the food laws, feasts and sabbaths were God’s own pointers to his Son. Christ came to fulfil the law and bring it to its intended completion (Matthew 5:17). The letter to the Hebrews says that the law had “a shadow of good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1). Paul calls the law a schoolmaster that brought us to Christ, under which we stand no longer now that faith has come (Galatians 3:24–25). The new covenant that Christ has established has made the old system of shadows obsolete (Hebrews 8:6–13).

The New Testament shows how each shadow meets its substance. Christ is the true meat and drink of eternal life (John 6:53–58). He is our Passover, sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7), the Lamb of God whose blood redeems us (John 1:29). The Sabbath rest pointed to the rest he gives to all who come to him (Matthew 11:28–30). He is our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14), who offered himself once for all as the perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11–14). The temple with its holy of holies was a shadow of his own body, and through him we now draw near to God directly (Hebrews 10:19–22). He is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:4).

The “things to come” are the blessings of the new covenant that Christ has brought in: salvation through faith in him, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, direct access to God, and a new identity as people united to Christ.

“Beguile you of your reward” translates one Greek word, katabrabeúō, taken from athletic contests. It means to act as umpire against someone and declare him beaten, and so to cheat him of the prize. The picture is an unfair judge disqualifying a runner from the prize he has rightly won. The prize is the full inheritance and blessing of those who are united to Christ, who is our life (Colossians 3:4). The false teachers were drawing believers away from Christ’s sufficiency, and in doing so they were trying to rob them of what was theirs.

Paul names the marks of their teaching. The first is “a voluntary humility”. The Greek joins thélō, to will or wish, with tapeinophrosýnē, humility, so this is a humility of the worshipper’s own choosing and devising. It showed itself in self-abasement, fasting and severe discipline of the body, often on display, and it gave a sense of rising above other believers. It looked like a virtue and was really pride. Christ shows what true humility is: he “made himself of no reputation” and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7–8).

The second mark is the “worshipping of angels”. The idea behind it, found in some Jewish mystical traditions and in pagan religion, was that a high and distant God could only be reached through angels as go-betweens, who had to be honoured or appeased. That takes from Christ the place that is his alone, for “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). The letter to the Hebrews opens by setting the Son “so much better than the angels” (Hebrews 1:1–4). It then goes on to show from Scripture how far above them he stands (Hebrews 1:4–14). Through Christ we come to the Father, who is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). To worship angels dims his glory and implies that his work on the cross fell short of bringing us to God.

The third mark is “intruding into those things which he hath not seen”. The verb embateúō means to step in or on, to enter, or to come into possession of, and the KJV renders it “intruding into”. The false teacher takes his stand on unseen things, on visions and claims about the spiritual realm, and presses them on others as if they carried authority. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are already hidden in Christ, and the Scriptures are sufficient for faith and life. John tells us to try the spirits to see whether they are of God (1 John 4:1), and Paul warns the Galatians against turning to another gospel (Galatians 1:6–9).

Paul lays bare the root of it all: “vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind”. The adverb eikē means idly, without cause, to no purpose, and “puffed up” (physióō) pictures something blown up with air. The “fleshly mind” (nous tēs sarkos) is a mind ruled by human reasoning and earthly desire. Underneath the talk of humility lies an empty pride. Believers have been given the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), a mind of humble dependence on God.

Verse 19 names the deepest fault of the false teacher: he is “not holding the Head”. The Head, kephalḗ, is Christ. In a body the head is the controlling centre from which direction, supply and coordination come, so the man who lets go of the head has cut himself off from the source of life and truth. God has made Christ head over all things to the church, which is his body (Ephesians 1:22–23).

From the Head the whole body is supplied and held together. The “joints” (haphḗ) are the points where the body’s parts meet, and the “bands” (sýndesmos) are the ligaments that bind them. Through these the body has “nourishment ministered”, which is the verb epichorēgéō, to supply or provide. The body is also “knit together”, symbibázō, to drive together, unite or compact. Every believer is joined both to Christ and to the other members, so that each receives from the Head and helps supply the rest. Paul describes the church’s many members in one body at length in 1 Corinthians 12:12–27, and in Ephesians he speaks of the whole body growing up into Christ, the Head, as every joint supplies its part (Ephesians 4:15–16).

The body that holds the Head “increaseth with the increase of God”. The growth (aúxēsis) is God’s own: it comes from him, he powers it and he directs it. It is real spiritual maturity in each believer and real growth of the church, and it stands against every effort to grow by rules and self-denial, which Paul will show in verse 23 to be powerless.

The rest of the New Testament gives the same picture in other ways. Christ is the vine, and his people are the branches that draw their life from him (John 15:5). He is the good shepherd who provides for his sheep (John 10:11), and in him all fulness dwells (Colossians 1:19). The nourishment he supplies comes to us by the Holy Spirit, whom he sends to guide his people into all truth (John 16:13). He is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), so the whole life of the believer and of the church depends on him from first to last.

Verse 20 opens with “Wherefore”, oûn, a particle that draws a consequence from what has been said. Paul writes, “if ye be dead with Christ”, and he states it as the settled ground of his argument. The verb apothnḗskō means to die, and sýn means with, so believers have died together with Christ. Paul says the same in Romans, where those baptized into Christ are baptized into his death and the old man is crucified with him (Romans 6:3–11). Colossians has already said that we were buried with him in baptism and raised with him (Colossians 2:12).

That death has cut believers off “from the rudiments of the world”. The word stoicheîon means something set in orderly arrangement, a basic or first element, and so the ABCs of a subject. “The rudiments of the world” (stoicheia tou kosmou) are the elementary principles of human religion and thought, which can include philosophy, tradition and even the ceremonies of the law. Some take the phrase as the elemental spiritual powers that rule the fallen world. On either reading Paul treats these things as weak and enslaving, and he says believers have been set free from them. He has used the same phrase in Colossians 2:8, where vain philosophy follows “the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ”.

Then comes his question: “why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances”. The verb for living, záō, means to live or be alive. Those who have died to the world’s system and been raised with Christ are acting as if they were still alive in the old order. “Are ye subject to ordinances” is the single verb dogmatízō, from the word for a decree, meaning to prescribe by rule and, in the form used here, to submit oneself to decrees. The letter to the Hebrews calls the rites of the old covenant “carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10). Believers have received Christ Jesus the Lord, and Paul’s call is to walk in him, rooted and built up in him (Colossians 2:6–7).

In verse 23 Paul grants that such rules “have indeed a shew of wisdom”. They look impressive, earnest and deeply spiritual, and they give the impression of a higher path to God. He names three things that give them this look. The first is “will worship”, ethelothrēskeía, a compound of thelo, to will, and thréskeia, worship or religion. It is worship of one’s own choosing, devised by human ideas about how to please God, and it tends to multiply rules and breed pride. The second is “humility”, the self-made humility of verse 18. The third is “neglecting of the body”, apheidía, unsparing severity, the harsh treatment of the body through extreme fasting, abstaining from certain foods or from marriage, and other self-inflicted hardship, undertaken in the hope of greater purity.

The last clause, “not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh”, is one of the harder phrases in the letter. The word for satisfying, plēsmonḗ, means a filling up or gratification. On one reading, these practices carry no real honour and do nothing to check the appetites of the flesh, the fallen human nature, which is why many later translations render the clause “of no value against the indulgence of the flesh”. On the other reading, they end up satisfying the flesh themselves, by feeding pride and a sense of achievement. Both readings agree that the rules leave the heart unchanged and give no victory over sin.

That victory comes from Christ. We overcome the flesh by walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16), by being crucified with Christ so that he lives in us (Galatians 2:20), and by putting to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit (Romans 8:13). Paul tells Timothy that bodily exercise profits little, while godliness is profitable for all things (1 Timothy 4:8), and he tells the Romans, “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17).

These verses give us a Saviour who leaves nothing undone. Every shadow of the law has its substance in him, and every growth that matters comes from him as the Head. Our standing before God rests on his finished work, which no diet, calendar or discipline of ours can add to. Paul calls the Galatians to stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has made us free (Galatians 5:1), and he says that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

The passage also shows us a God who gives himself to his people. Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30), and the righteousness of God comes by faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:22). Since we are complete in him, the verdicts of others on what we eat or which days we keep lose their weight, and our life and growth are found where Paul points the Colossians, in holding fast to Christ.