Bob Allen

Captive in Christ, not to the Elementary Principles of the World

Captive in Christ,
not to the
Elementary Principles of the World

 

Col 2:8-15

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him.

You might remember that we ended with Paul building on the point the “just as you have received Christ, so walk in Him.”?  That is a phrase we are wise to remember as we look at this text since this is the practical sense of what it means to “walk in Christ”.  To walk in Christ means NOT to walk away from Christ for any lesser thing.  This was the danger with the Believers who lived in the city of Colossians and in fact is a danger in the world we live in as well.  Paul is concerned that something will take them captive.

We have come to what some have called the heart of this letter to the Colossians, as Paul begins to deal directly with the issues that Epaphras has brought to his attention.  Paul’s biggest concern for this church is that they might fall prey to the false teachers and Paul links these two tools together, philosophy and deception.  These two are of the tools the enemies of the church have used since the first century church and they can be counted among those things of great danger to church because they can and have sucked the life out of the church.  What are they and how can we identify them?

 

Watch what can take us captive

  1. Philosophy and – the love of wisdom. Everyone has their own explanation of the universe.  MacArthur calls it “an exercise in the frustration of a degenerate mind, trying to determine ultimate truth without the help of God”.  “Captured by philosophy” as opposed to “complete in Christ.” And it is said that every person will belong to something – either captured by human philosophy or he is complete in Christ ‑‑ that’s the only choices. It’s that simple.  A man either becomes a victim of human wisdom, human reason, human logic, or he becomes complete in Christ. That’s the choice of every human being. You will choose man’s wisdom or God’s.  There is a real danger that somebody’s going to carry you away, make you prey, make you a captive, lead you off like a war prisoner; that’s the thing Paul is warning them against.  What is the bait – what is the draw that would pull us from the God who we know loves us, and who we desire to love more?  We can put the love or worship of wisdom above our love for God.  There is no denying that there is a draw to be more open to things that either have the appearance of wisdom or of godliness.  The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time certain had the appearance of knowing how to live, with all their rules and guidelines, and yet there was no group that received greater condemnation than these Pharisees. Perhaps the danger is not in the thing itself, but in the attention that it draws from us when we are drawn towards it.  It is the pursuit of something that leaves God out of our lives and decisions?
    Some of the philosophies that we confront in our world –

    1. Nihilism – the rejection of all religion. The rejection of all meaning. We can present the meaning of life that this person can not actually imagine.
    2. Hedonism – the belief that pleasure is the only thing in life. If it feels good, do it.  We serve the God of pleasure, and the devil is the perverter of pleasure.
    3. Individualism – isolated and lonely. One of the advantages of the church is we have a community.
    4. Relativism – everything is relative. There are no absolutes and so each person does what is right in their own eyes.
    5. Queer Theory – the notion that sexuality doesn’t ultimately matter and gender doesn’t matter. The objective is to destroy humanity as God has made us.  We can show compassion but we won’t show compassion for those who declare they believe the Bible and yet make the same allowances for this trend of thinking.
  2. Empty deception, — the marks of this philosophy are both emptiness and deception.

    Then Paul gives you some of the possible sources of these two things:

    1. According to the tradition of men, Tradition often perpetuates inadequate, depraved human thinking patterns. Tradition doesn’t mean anything. Just because it’s handed down doesn’t mean it’s true. There are cases where it is good.  In the case of Timothy, Paul points out there are good traditions.  But don’t be fooled that just because it is a tradition, makes it a good thing.  Just because this is the way you’ve done it, doesn’t make it truth.
    2. According to the elementary principles of the world, The thought is that to return to philosophy is to cast away the mature teaching of the Bible for the infantile poverty‑stricken opinions of an immature religion drawing its truth not from God, but from this world. When you can boil this down, you will find man’s principles behind it all, not God’s truth.  The problem is sometimes it is so complicated that it gets hard to boil it down.

 

Which is in opposition to Christ – this is how we deal with false philosophy, we live is the fullness of the philosophy of Christ.

 

Who is this Christ:  What is it that any believer will be leaving when they abandon Christ.

  1. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, there isn’t any more of Christ to find. The people who come and tell you that there is more of Christ.  They attempt to find something greater that would take you away from God’s gift, Christ.  There was nothing lacking in Christ, so why would you leave a feast for famine?  Who would choose fools gold over real gold?  And yet, this is what people are doing when they permit their hearts to be engaged and captivated by empty deception.  Remember the story about the Turkish delight in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  It seemed delicious and yet it left young Edmund empty and longing for more.
  2. 10 and in Him you have been made complete, being complete means that you lack nothing that you need. Why would you need to look anywhere else to find what you are lacking because you have been made complete in Him?  What is it that you need that Christ does not have?
  3. He is the head over all rule and authority; everything that attempts to take that place is working against Him. There is nothing greater, no one higher, no one more powerful.  People sometimes like to be on the team with the best athlete, or the strongest and best leader – You are already in that family.
  4. 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, He has done all that is required to set you apart. He has done what it takes to make you God’s child.  Circumcision was God’s way of setting the nation of Israel apart from other nations, and this spiritual circumcision is God’s way of setting you apart from all the others of humanity.  You are different.  You feel this is your very bones, but don’t attempt to live like the others because you no longer belong to that nation, you are God’s people.  In fact, Peter tells us we are a nation of priests.   Among the Jews it was symbolic, it indicated that they needed to be cleansed. There was wickedness in their very nature.  If you really want to know how sinful we are as human beings, then you only have to see one thing and that is what kind of children do we produce?  When we come to Christ, we receive a real circumcision, the removal of the body of the flesh, the removal of that condemning power of the flesh.  And there is nothing any empty deception can add to this work of God.
    1. in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 
  5. 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, this is the picture of the fact that we have been buried with Christ in His death. We die with Him on the cross and we rise with Him.
    1. in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.