Colossians 2:18-23 - Pursuing Holiness versus Freedom in Christ (Session 16)

This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of Colossians 2:18–237, exploring the historical context, theological meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith.

Have you ever found yourself caught in the struggle between worldly pleasures and the pursuit of holiness? Do you often wonder if denying yourself these pleasures equates to increased spirituality? Join us as we journey through God's guidance, exploring Apostle Paul's teachings and their relevance to these very questions. We tackle the myth that the denial of worldly joys equals increased holiness, asserting instead, the unity and equality we share in Jesus Christ.

In this session we venture beyond religious rules, exploring love and freedom that comes with a life in Christ. We strive to remind you that adherence to a list of rules doesn't define holiness. Instead, we encourage you to embrace the transformative power of Christ in your life, finding joy in love and peace, and breaking free from the chains of temptation and sin. Join us on this enlightening journey towards a balanced, fulfilling Christian life.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:15

Today on Reasoning Through the Bible, we'll learn God's guidance to the church on balancing between worldly pleasures and holiness, and we'll meet some people that do it well and we'll meet some people that have done it wrong. Because here in Colossians, chapter two, the Apostle Paul gives some great commands over people and these are people, Steve, that we meet still today that their intentions are good but the results are very, very bad.

Speaker 1 0:44

Yeah, even though this was written almost 2000 years ago from the time that we're talking about it today, those people at that time were human beings, and we're human beings. They had five senses. We have five senses. So that's one of the things I think that is present in Scripture and why it's so relevant to us today, because we're actually still the human beings and we still have people that come in trying to defraud us, trying to lead us off the wrong path. We have these feelings that we want to please God and we try to do it on our own. So that's why all of these things are still relevant to us today.

Speaker 2 1:23

So, if you have your copy of the Word of God, open it to the book of Colossians, chapter two, and we'll be starting in verse 18. And in these next few verses it's going to tell us basically three things To watch out for self abasement, or another word for that is asceticism or false humility, denying ourselves things. To also watch out for rules around don't touch, don't handle, don't taste. And then also to watch out for the commandments and teachings of men as opposed to the values of the Lord God. All of these things are legalism and we'll see this here, steve, if you could read, starting in Colossians two, 18, and going down to verse 23.

Speaker 1 2:08

Let 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 inflated without cause 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 a growth which 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 such as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with use, in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 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.

Speaker 2 3:04

Here the apostle Paul is giving us God's word on legalism. Legalism is the setting up of a set of rules in regard to trying to please God through keeping of rules, and he very strongly speaks against that. We cannot please God by keeping a list of rules. The false teachers were coming in saying that the more people would deny themselves, the more righteous they were, and this is an idea that there's permeated society, since there were people, I suppose because it's still around today and it was around in the Colossian church. A key concept that I think is really hard for people to realize is that denying ourselves worldly pleasures does not mean we increase our holiness. Let me say it again, just to make sure Denying ourselves worldly pleasures does not mean I increase my holiness, and I think we confuse that. People think, oh, the more I don't do, the more holy I am, and that's just a trap. It just doesn't work. Denying myself pleasure does not mean my holiness increases.

Speaker 1 4:19

And other people that do deny themselves. We are not to think of them as being more holy than we are. If we're in Christ and they're in Christ, we're all in the same level. We're all being presented, complete to God. You can do all these other things that you want to, but in the end we're all equal in Christ.

Understanding Living a Holy Life

Speaker 2 4:42

Here would be the way I would describe this Make a list, and the title of this list is going to be the list of sins that I don't do. So what's on my list? Well, I don't lie and I don't cheat and I don't steal and I don't murder, and I start listing off all the sins that I don't do, and I have a long list. I don't smoke, drink or chew or go with girls that do. If I have more things on my list, does that make me a holy person? If my list of things that I don't do is a longer list of things that that's on your list, does that mean I'm holier than you?

Speaker 2 5:21

Well, no, there's some flaws in that thinking. One of the reasons is I always seem to forget some sins that are convenient for me, that I'm especially weak on, and somehow they never make it on my list. Okay, I make a list of things that are my little pet peeve, sins that I want to go judge you on. That's what I've seen, and so I leave things off on my list. The other thing that I do and this is what the Apostles talking about here is I add things on my list that God never added, and I'll have some examples of that in just a minute.

Speaker 2 5:55

So any list of things. I always leave some things off just because I'm blind to my own sin. I add to it, which means I'm adding rules onto the word of God and then measuring you by it. And, lastly, not doing things. What about all the things I'm supposed to do, like love my brother or take care of the poor and the needy, and worship the Lord, just because I make a list of things that I don't do? What about the things I'm supposed to do? And this is what he's talking about here. We can make a list Don't eat these things and don't touch that, don't go to that place, and some churches will make really long lists like that Doesn't make them holy.

Speaker 1 6:36

And the opposite of that would be the people that say, oh well, okay, I'm in Christ and therefore I can do anything that I want to, because I'm in Christ and I'm being presented to complete and blameless in front of God. So therefore it's open game and I can do anything I want to. No, that's not the right approach either. So it's not wrong in having lists of things that, hey, this is where I want to get better in, these are things that I don't want to do, these are ungodly things or these are sinful things that I don't want to do, because I do want to be pleasing to God. There's nothing wrong in that.

Speaker 1 7:16

It's when you cross the line in relation to salvation. That's what Paul is talking about, that's what we've been talking about. Being in Christ provide you with salvation, and I think that we should want to not do certain things. Paul is going to give us a list here, in a little bit, of things that we should not do. So it's good to have that feeling of I don't want to go out and do that. I think that we should do. The Holy Spirit probably gives us those things that we shouldn't do, but don't cross the line and say, if I don't do them, that's going to help me with my salvation. That's the difference between trying to do it for salvation versus trying to not do them just so that we can live a better life and have a good relationship with God.

Speaker 2 8:09

And I'm thinking of the Pharisees over in the Gospels. They were very motivated to try to live holy lives, but they added a lot of rules to it. I'm going to tithe that's a good thing. I'm going to tithe my mint a little tiny little pot of spices. I'm going to tithe 10% of that, but I'm going to miss the larger things, like should I go? Heal this man on a Sabbath day is more important than keeping the list of rules. The Lord had an especially anger for these people because they had so focused on their rules, more so than a common sense of love for their brother. We should indeed live holy lives, but we should do so out of love and not out of obligation. It's not much of a love relationship if I'm doing it because of obligations.

Speaker 1 9:01

Oh, you said we should live holy lives. I agree with that statement. I believe that maybe some people, when they hear that, they think that means that we should live a perfect life, and that's not what holy life means. A holy life means a separate life. We should live a life that is separate to the world. It's dedicated to God. That's the holy life. It's not a perfect life. So living a holy life is one that says, okay, I'm not going to be a part of this world and I'm going to be dedicated to God. That's what really living a holy life means.

Speaker 2 9:38

Through my efforts I will not please God. I do not increase my righteousness because of my efforts. That's idolatry. I'm worshiping myself and my own actions. My righteousness before God is credited to my account through the Lord Jesus Christ. It tells us that in the New Testament, our only source of holiness and righteousness is vicariously through Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 10:03

Soon as I'm out there trying to earn it, that's when all these problems come. That's exactly what he was talking against. Let's kind of go through this. Verse 18, quote let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self abasement. What prize is he talking about here? How is it that legalism and self abasement, all these rules, can defraud us of our prize In one of the ways?

Speaker 2 10:30

I think of Steve is okay, yeah, there's rewards in heaven, but I don't really think that's what it's talking about. I think here the prize is just the rest in Christ. We can rest in Christ. We don't have to work to try to earn my righteousness anymore. I can take a deep breath and realized that God has accepted me through no more nor less than faith in Jesus Christ. I'm in a good marriage relationship with the Lord. The Church is the bride of Christ out of love and love doesn't go around and say, oh well, you messed up a little here, messed up a little there, and then you have to go earn it to get back in fellowship with me. No, no, we're adopted into his kingdom, we're given a royal inheritance and we don't have to earn it anymore. If you have to make a list of rules now, you're trying to earn it again. That's defrauding of the prize.

Speaker 1 11:28

I think you're exactly right on that. It's people that worry. The worry is defrauding the prize of being resting in Christ and having that full assurance that, yes, I have salvation. The worry brings about, of the doubt that brings about, takes away from that prize of assurance of salvation. John said that he wrote his gospel so that we might know that we have eternal life and that we should live life more abundantly. It's exactly what he was talking about by knowing that we can have salvation and eternal life, we can live life more abundantly, not having to run around worrying about whether or not we're doing good enough to earn our salvation.

Speaker 2 12:15

Look at the middle of verse 18, defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement. Delighting in self-abasement Some Christians seem to enjoy being miserable. I think they really do. I think that there's people out there that if anybody else is having any fun, then they need to go stop it, because all they do is look for ways of oh, that's enjoyment. We need to not do that. I don't know what they'd eat lemons for breakfast or something but these people were in the Colossian church and they're in our churches today. We can have fun in Christ. It's not a sin to enjoy yourself, and this is what he's talking about. He take away your joy by making a list of do's and don'ts when we can rest in Christ. That's what he's talking about here. And verse 18 also talks about the other thing. If we look at verse 18, talks about worshiping angels and talking about visions, and he's saying stay away from these people.

Speaker 2 13:17

Christians should not major on the supernatural. We should not go out and seek visions or miracles or heavenly beings, and I don't have a lot of people that I've met, steve, that actually worshiped angels. I've met a fair number of people that look for a direct message from God. That's what I would call mysticism. Mysticism is God spoke to me directly, not through the scripture. I got this voice in my head or a voice in the room or whatever God told me, and I've met a lot of people that seek that out. I think gets on shaky ground here, simply because where has God spoken to us the loudest and the clearest is in the word of God. I've met people that stood up in front of gatherings of Christians saying God told me to do such and so, and it was directly against the scriptures.

Speaker 1 14:12

And I think that is exactly what Paul is talking about. One of the things that con men do and con means confidence A confidence man wants to do something, or a confidence person wants to do something to get you to gain your confidence so that they can then defraud you of money, defraud you of your prize, as the term is used here. And one of the ways, in a religious sense, that they do it is they say I've seen a vision. God has come to me in a dream, or an angel has come to me, and an angel came and told me to write this down or show me where some tablets were and here to write this down. And they interpreted these tablets for me. And when you actually go and read what the interpretation was, as you pointed out, it's exactly the opposite of what scripture says. And but the reason why they do it? It gives them credence, it gives them credibility by them saying oh, I've seen this vision.

Speaker 1 15:13

I've heard pastors say I was taken to heaven. Well, what do they do when they say I was taken to heaven? They equate themselves with Paul, they equate themselves with John, they equate themselves with Isaiah, ezekiel. Others who have seen said that they were taken up and they saw the throne room of God. Yet what they come back and relay is not what you see was relayed to all the other people that were taken up in scripture. But the reason why they do it is so that they can defraud the people that are in their presence, because they're looking for credibility by saying I've seen visions. And Paul here is saying at the end of verse 18, those, all of those things, are without cause because it comes from the fleshly mind, it comes from their own mind. They're a con man, they're a confidence man. They're wanting to gain your confidence so that they can lead you astray.

Speaker 2 16:08

Most of the people that I've ever seen or heard of that say God spoke to me or I saw an angel or I saw a vision or any of these, almost all of the ones I've seen. Who gets the glory is them. These things aren't lifting up the Lord, it's puffing up the person. That's why I think the apostle Paul here says avoid these people. Be very careful about people that are talking about oh, we're looking for a direct message from God. Now, the place we ought to look for God's guidance is in the scriptures. The same category here. These people that worship angels are the same ones that are out looking for direct messages from God. How can I check, steve, to see whether the I mean we are guided by the Holy Spirit? But how can I tell if what I think is the guidance of the Holy Spirit is true and not? I'm self-deceived because we can deceive ourselves. So how do I know whether I'm just deceived or whether it really is the Holy Spirit?

Speaker 1 17:16

It's by bouncing it against the word of God, bouncing it against scriptures. If, whatever it might be that we feel that we are being led to, we need to go and see does it hold true with scripture? And if it doesn't hold true with scripture, then you can be pretty sure that either we're deceiving ourselves or we've allowed for somebody else to deceive us or allowed for us to get into a position where we think that it's the right thing to do, but it's not. You know, we can convince ourselves that there are right things to do because we want to do them. What's the old saying? You can justify anything that you can think of. You can come up with some pretty good reasons to do all types of things, but it needs to be in parallel with what scripture says.

Speaker 2 18:02

And he gives us a direct way of telling in the very next verse. Look at the beginning of 19,. Not holding fast to the head from the entire body. Well, the head is who? Jesus Christ, jesus Christ, yeah, what he's saying here in Colossians 2.18 is the people that are have gotten their eye off of the Lord Jesus Christ onto. I'm looking for some direct message from God, or some vision or some angel. These are the ones that have gotten away from the word of God and they're open to deception. And he's saying watch out for that, be real careful.

Speaker 2 18:38

Now, steve, we said we don't see people worshipping angels here in our day, at least not very many, but there's a fair number of people that and it takes a theologian with a lot of six syllable words to split some theological hairs into oh well, we're not worshipping, we're giving honor or we're giving high honor. But what are they doing it to? Saints, icons, relics, mary long list of things that are not the Lord Jesus Christ. And the scriptures are entirely focused on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we take so much care. Here is it's exactly what he's saying. Watch out for these things that get truth in some other place other than directly from the head the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying here in Colossians, chapter two.

Speaker 2 19:27

The Bible doesn't make all these nuanced things that the theologians do to try to get past what's actually going on, which is getting our eye off of the ball, which is the word of God given to us through the Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ. We should not focus on men or any created thing. We should focus on the one, lord Jesus Christ. He alone is worthy. And then in verse 19, it gives some implications and consequences of the people in verse 18 who listen to these wrong things. He's saying that people who talk about direct messages from God or visions, they end up not holding fast to Jesus, and we've seen that in our day.

Speaker 2 20:11

So, moving on, in verses 20 to 23, they again talk about legalism and setting up rules for self denial. Legalists don't like having any fun and they want to make sure no one else has any fun either. Legalists, I think, have a good motivation, which is not to be worldly, but they tend to turn it into a self thing. It ends up being somewhat worldly, ironically, because now I've got a list of things that I have to do. It's sort of an idolatry, because now I'm earning my righteousness.

Speaker 1 20:47

And I think that when people go and follow these false teachers or these legalists, I think a main motivation that they get sucked in to follow them is because they want it to be true. They want whatever it is to be true that if this person says, if you do these three things, you will have great wealth, just as an example, so they want it to be true. Ok, I can do those three things, I can send money, or I can do this, or I can do that, whatever the three and they want it to be true. So what we should do is be in Christ, just like what Paul is talking about here, by being in the body of Christ, and Christ is the head. That's where the growth comes from, is from Christ, and we need to be aligned with Christ, not aligned with men that are leading us astray.

The Danger of Legalism in Christianity

Speaker 2 21:46

A little bit of context here Again, he's talking to these Christians at this church that had been drawn away by these false teachers, some of which were these Gnostics and the Gnostic heresy at least part of the Gnostic heresy was that physical things are evil and spiritual things are good. Therefore, if we focus on the non-physical, the spiritual things, that's really what's the good thing to do, and deny the physical things. And that idea crept into Christianity over the centuries, to where that some people now believe that our soul and our spirit are good and our bodies are evil, and the Bible really just doesn't teach this. The Bible teaches that our soul and our body are one. We are together. We are a soul-body unity. Yes, we have a soul and we can distinguish between it, but we are a soul-body unity. That's what the scripture teaches.

Speaker 2 22:45

And to give an idea of kind of how far people take this, steve, you and I have run into people that don't drink, smoke, play cards, dance, I mean things like that. Those are the mild things. Over the centuries there's been people that go to rather extreme physical self-denial. They'll sleep on hard beds for their whole life because OK, that's going to make me more holy They'll whip themselves, they'll eat bland food, they'll go off and recluse themselves away and where they're not talking to anybody for you know huge, long lengths of time, people will crawl in their knees, carry crosses. I mean all these things sort of abusing the bodies, thinking that OK, if I just deny my body things or if I make myself my body suffer, it's going to make me more holy.

Speaker 2 23:37

And Paul is saying no, no, no, may it never be. He says in Romans Denying my physical body of pleasure is not going to make me more holy. Where does my holiness come from? Comes from the Lord, jesus Christ and faith in Him and I can rest in Him. And having a body is good. I had a professor one time, steve, that said angels can't water ski.

Speaker 2 24:02

I mean it's a good thing to have a body and we don't need to punish our bodies. We're told our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We're told to you know, take care of our bodies so we don't go around abusing them just for some twisted sense of I'll be more righteous or holy.

Speaker 1 24:19

And in verse 20, paul makes a distinction here. He says if you've died to these elementary principles of the world, why do you submit yourself to their decree? So, submitting yourself, that's something to act that you have to do. These aren't things that are overwhelming somebody, that are drawn away because they can't help themselves. Oh, paul is making a clear distinction here. You're willingly submitting yourself to those things. Meaning the opposite of that is that we don't have to submit ourselves and we shouldn't submit ourselves to these false teachers and these false programs, all these things that want to take us away from our safety and our enjoyment and our pleasure of just being in Christ.

Speaker 2 25:05

Let me give just a quick story or two about how a good motivation to try to live a holy life turns into a bad legalism. In the United States in the 1800s was the Pioneer days Think of cowboy movies and in those days there were saloons. And what did they do at saloons? Well, they drank whiskey and got drunk, they gambled and played cards and they had prostitutes. The Christians said, well, we don't want to have any sense of, certainly don't go there and partake of those things. We don't even want to look like we do and we don't want to give any credence to that. So far, so good.

Speaker 2 25:45

The problem is they would then take the next step and they'd say okay, well, they play cards down there at the saloon, so we're not going to play cards at all, because then we'll look like we're giving blessing on to the people gambling down at the saloon and they dance down there with prostitutes. So we don't want to look like we're approving that, so we're not going to dance. That turns into now I'm going to go around and judge everybody else on dancing and card playing, to the point where, steve, I remember distinctly hearing preachers say oh, if you send your seven year old daughter to ballet class, it's immoral. Or if you're playing a child's card game with the five-year-old, that's immoral. And I say what in the world does that have anything to do with righteousness? They took what started out as something good and then made it into a lot of man-made rules that they're judging other people on things that have nothing to do with righteousness.

Speaker 1 26:45

And on the card game. I've heard the distinction of that. If the card game is being played with the normal deck of cards that you would play gambling games with, like poker, that game should not be played. But if it's played with cards that are not the poker cards they're like regular cards that are associated only with that game then, yeah, you can play that game. So their cards are cards Number one. Number two is like we mentioned in our last session. Here you go, you go to a person to ask them on a judgment. Well, what about this game, this child's game? And then that person gives a judgment yes, that game you can play. This game you can't because it's based upon the type of cards that you use. Then that person comes back with it. They start living their life based on what somebody else said and gave a judgment versus what the scripture says.

Speaker 2 27:42

It's exactly what Paul says Don't let people take you away from your prize by giving you these false judgments and the prize here would be just being able to rest and have a joyful life in Christ, knowing that righteousness is a sure thing. Here's another directly biblical example adultery is a sin made the top 10 list. So no good Jew or Christian would ever want to commit adultery. You want to stay away from that. So far, so good. But the legalists come in and say well, if we don't want to commit adultery, we don't want to be tempted to commit adultery, so we're not going to hang around with women. Men and women are not going to be able to associate with each other. To the point where in John, chapter four, the woman at the well remember he walked up and Jesus walked up and asked the lady for a drink of water. And what was her reply? How is it that you, being a Jew, are asking, talking to me? Well, they had made it where you couldn't even talk to somebody to ask for a drink of water.

Speaker 2 28:47

I remember hearing a story of a lady that had was in a Muslim country in the Middle East and she was at the grocery store with a shopping cart and the shopping cart accidentally bumped into another gentleman that had a shopping cart. The two shopping carts bumped and she says excuse me and moves on. And she said the man started following her because he thought she was a prostitute, for no more or less than saying excuse me, because the shopping carts touched. And so now you have rules, say, ok, that started out as good. Adultery is bad. Now we have he came and say anything to anybody can't touch him, can't. I mean? This is on and on. There's no end to this. That's where he says don't let people steal your prize. And, steve, we do see this fairly common. It seems to be a lot of men making rules about women Don't wear makeup, don't cut your hair, got to cover your head, don't eat. Park on and on about these rules. And Paul says no, don't let people steal your joy, and he mentions that in verse 21,.

Speaker 1 29:55

Everything you just that's the example Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch. And Paul says in 22, which? All of those things? They're going to perish. Guess what? That person that is giving you the judgment and giving you the rules, they're going to die at some point. After they die, what are you going to do? You no longer have your compass or your person that you can go to for judgment. That's why you have the word of God. Go to the word of God. The word of God is going to be there forever and that's always going to be a good compass on which you should go to. Don't let people take away your joy of being in Christ. Look at verse 20.

Love and Freedom in Life

Speaker 2 30:37

He says there 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 to all these decrees? So what he's saying there is we've died. If we're a Christian and you're in Christ, you're dead to those things. So he says consider yourself dead to them. They have no power over me. And if we then live our lives as if, okay, the sin and the temptation don't have any power over me.

Speaker 2 31:06

I am securing Christ, not because of my own hard work, no, but because he rescued me from the domain of darkness. He put me in Christ. Therefore I can rest in love and him and I live my life out of love for him. Then I won't want to go, do all those sins and I don't have to go around and live this list of rules. That's what he's talking about here. More rules put on us does not equal a holy person. All it equals is tiredness. So the Christian doesn't need more rules. So that gets us to the end of the chapter and we'll tie that up here. Next time we'll get into chapter three, which goes through a lot of the things where he says okay, now what do we do when we have things like lust and things like that. So he'll deal with that in chapter three and we trust that you'll be back here with us reasoning through the Bible.

Speaker 1 31:59

Thank you for watching and listening. May God bless you.