Shadows and Diversions
Col 2:16 -19
16Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— 17things which are mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, uninflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
Sometimes, I look at a passage, am I’m not sure how to summarize it with just a brief phrase. The first part of this appears to be exactly what I used in my title, but the second part, I might have to revise that. Let’s have a look at what Paul refers to as shadows. The first thing we want to notice is that Paul is continuing to build on what was said previously. In the previous portion of this passage, you might remember he was writing about what Christ had done and how Christ had disarmed the rulers and authorities by forgiving us our certificate of debt. We were in debt because of our own sin. Not someone else’s sin, but our own sin.
Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. Now, the first part of this passage is meant to set the topic in place. Paul has grouped some things together, and unless we understand what that grouping is, we could miss the intent of the passage. I mean, what is the purpose of studying the Bible if we can’t seem to understand it as God intended us to do? What does it appear to you was going on around this church? What were other people – outsiders doing – to the members who attended Colossians Community Church? That’s correct, they were judging them. What is the purpose in this kind of behavior? Why would people be acting as a judge in regards to others? What are some of the reasons we see people judging others?
- To bring others down a notch. To put others in their place.
- To get others to join them in their convictions or behavior.
- To validate what they are doing and the values that they have.
People were standing up, pointing their bony religious fingers at the believers who were challenged to walk in a manner worthy of their calling in in Christ to let them know that the new found freedom from slavery to religious behavior was not right. Outsiders were upsetting the faith of the faithful. That is usually the case, it is people who are not in the mainstream, who drift from one philosophy to another that come into a church and attempt to lead others to follow their special truth. Something doesn’t feel right, but the longer they argue about it the weaker their conviction gets. Do you know why it is so hard to argue against some of these false teachers? Because they have been going from place to place and have heard most of the arguments that believers might use to resist their blabber.
What was the topic de jour? It was that they were telling people that they were not really of God if they didn’t do their new religion according to the old rules. The old rules had laws about food and holidays. They didn’t want to let go of their investment in the religion of yesterday. They believed they had earned a special place by all the obedience they believed they had shown, but obedience to a shadow was not the equivalent to following the real thing. But Paul had declared in the previous section of Colossians that Jesus had cancelled the certificate of debt to the old things. Colossians tells us that He took it away. It’s not just merely dead, it’s really most sincerely dead. ¯¯ Now there is a call to return to the shadows from the light. When you say it plainly, it sounds easy to resist. But know this that people who want to again enslave you to the things you have been freed from never speak plainly. They attempt to confuse us and confound us with subtle truths. Things that sound right but they are attempting to have us voluntarily place ourselves back under the rulers and principalities that Christ died to free us from. Even those things that were of the Law were good in that they gave Jews the understanding they would need in order to comprehend what Christ did on the cross, but they were never intended to be the reality. They were a shadow or the reality that disappears when the full light arrives. All these things were to point those and us to Christ. To show that this was God’s plan all along.
This in fact it the truth that Paul shares in the very next verse – things which are mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. The Passover, the Sabbath, all the feasts were to point the nation of Israel to Christ. And yet, when Jesus came not everyone was ready to accept the real thing over the shadows. They preferred the darkness to the light. They wanted to continue with what was familiar and what they had grown used to through the years. If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that Christ overturns anything religious that we thought we knew before we came to Christ. It’s all on its head. It is revolutionary. It changes things right down to the core. I don’t care if you are a PK like me (Pagan’s Kid) or a PK like Judi (Pastor’s Kid), when Christ gets a hold of your heart, your world changes radically. And the old shadows pass into the past because of the light in your life and heart. As a parent and grandparent, this is one of the things we can help our children and grandchildren to understand: That you can’t get into heaven by doing what your parents do because what they do is actually a little like the old shadows. Trying to get to heaven by following the behavior of someone you admire won’t work. And one other thing that I know is also true – sometimes we try to make the habits of our present life into the reality of the Christian life. We go to church not because we are acting out of love for Christ, but we go to church because it is expected of us, or even because we expect it of ourselves. We must resist the shadows, not matter how they are brought before us. We must have a real and active relationship with our Lord.
18Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, uninflated without cause by his fleshly mind, – in this passage, Paul is challenging them by letting them know that they have earned a “prize” and they are in danger of having it withheld if they cannot walk right. What is that prize? This can’t be our redemption or salvation because God holds that. Is it our liberty in Christ? I think it is. Maybe it’s one of the crowns of the Christian life, of which there are five different crowns if my memory is right. But since the topic is our liberty in Christ, that makes the most sense to me. Here is a short list of the kinds of things people used to take away the liberty of other believers. Self-abasement, worship of angels, visions and being pumped up in his own fleshly mind. I am not so sure we need to understand all the nuances in this list but we can look at their source.
19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
The people who were living like this were not hold fast to the head. They were in fact, breaking away from Christ’s leadership and starting out to make themselves their own little following. You see, we all function as we should when we are holding fast to Christ. IN fact, we are of course, less likely to go astray when we are holding fast to Christ. But the question comes up, what does that look like? What does it look like to hold fast to the head, which is Christ? Is going to point out some things, but if you want to keep this simple point in your head it will clear up a lot of things: True Christianity doesn’t come through legalism. Legalism is one of the elementary principles of the world. These people were taking legalism just a step further by saying that Christ was not enough.
20 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, such as, 21 “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” 22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
To hold fast:
- You cannot submit to such decrees in order to have your relationship with God.
- You cannot have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion in order to have a relationship with God.
- You don’t participate in self-abasement and severe treatment of the body
All these things are of no value against the fleshly indulgence. There is not a connection with true religion. They are no connection with the true spirit of the gospel by keeping man’s laws. Faith (and a relationship with God) isn’t achieved through this means.
Just as we are told that we can’t submit to such decrees, we should fight the tendency to evaluate others based on such external actions. Just like we shouldn’t let others evaluate our spiritual walk by what we do or don’t do, and what we eat or don’t eat. But let us remember this; God has called us out to be different. We don’t have a relationship with God because we are different; we are different because we have a relationship with God. The answer to legalism is in this chapter as Paul declares that we have everything we need in Christ. Legalism is the religious higharcy telling us that Christ is not sufficient. The truth is we have all, that Christ is sufficient.